By Jason Swensen
Church News staff writer
Published: Saturday, June 3, 2006
Photo by Jason Swensen
Chilean fishing boats deliver their catch to Valparaiso pier.
Chile's second-largest city, Valparaiso is rich in early
Church history; its sister city, Vina del Mar, can be seen
in the distance.
Adventuresome LDS travelers shouldn't forget to look south in their history hunts.
More than a century before it recorded its first baptism, Chile forever etched its place in early Church history. The Chilean port city of Valparaiso was the intended rest spot for the weary LDS passengers and crew of the ship Brooklyn in May of 1848. The Brooklynhad left New York City three months earlier "determined to flee Babylon, either by land or by sea." It was bound for California in a desperate, dangerous voyage that took the seafaring pioneers below Cape Horn, then along Chile's massive stretch of Pacific coastline.