Hon. W. W. Riter's Witness of the Miracle of the Seagulls

“I was only a boy of 10 years when the event occurred, which we now have met to commemorate. I well remember the gloom, almost despair, that fell upon us when the crickets came down from the hills in such myriads that the ground was nearly covered with them, and attacked with voracious appetites the then too scanty fields of grain, which had been planted with toilsome hands. We had arrived in the valley in the fall of 1847, and had planted what we could, and the next spring we planted more. My father had planted eight acres of wheat. It grew fairly well until the crickets came, and then our glowing hope of a crop was almost turned into despair. The insects were so numerous that they would strip a stalk of wheat in a few minutes. The people fought them with fire, with water, and with clubs, but all to no purpose. The extremity was so great he offered Robert Pierce the contents of his whole field for three barrels of flour, reckoning that these three barrels of flour would feed his family six months, and then we could die. The gulls came and gorged themselves on the crickets; once filled, they could have given but little relief, for the number of crickets was so great; but the gulls disgorged the masses they had eaten and then continued the process until the situation was saved. Brethren and friends, I witnessed this, and relate it to you in all truth and soberness.”

— W. W. Riter, The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 24 no. 11