From Sunset Crossing Camp, G. C. Wood wrote, in April, 1876, "The
brethren built a long shanty, with a long table in it and all ate their
meals together, worked together and got along finely." In February, 1878,
President Lot Smith wrote the Deseret News in a strain that indicated
doubt concerning the efficiency of the United Order system. His letter
told:
"This mission has had a strange history so far, most who came having got
weak in the back or knees and gone home. Some, I believe, have felt
somewhat exercised about the way we are getting along, and the mode in
which we are conducting our culinary affairs. Now, I have always had a
preference for eating with my family and have striven to show that I was
willing to enlarge as often as circumstances require, and the same
feeling seemed to prevail in these settlements. We have enlarged
ourselves to the amount of forty in one day. We have noticed that most
people who pass the road are willing to stop and board with us a week or
two, notwithstanding our poor provisions and the queer style it was
served up."
In July of the same year, Lorenzo Hatch wrote from Woodruff, "At Sunset,
Brigham City and Woodruff, the settlements eat at one table, hence we
have no poor nor rich among us. The Obed camp also had gone into the
United Order in the fullest sense in May, 1876."