The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 Part 46

"It is scattered over an area of eight or ten square miles, and contains from 1500 to 2000 houses, four-fifths of which, at least, are wretched cabins of no permanent value whatever. There are, however, 200 or 300 houses, large and small, built of brick and other desirable material.

Such will mostly sell, though many of them, owing to the distance from the river and other unfavorable circ.u.mstances, only at a very great sacrifice." *

* "A score or more of chimneys on the northern boundary of the city marked the site of houses deliberately burned for fuel during the winter of 1845-1846."--Hanc.o.c.k Eagle, May 29,1846.

A general epistle to the church from the Twelve, dated Winter Quarters, December 23, 1847, stated that the property of the Saints in Hanc.o.c.k County was "little or no better than confiscated." *

* See John Taylor's address, p. 411 post.

CHAPTER II. -- FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI

The first party to leave Nauvoo began crossing the Mississippi early in February, 1846, using flatboats propelled by oars for the wagons and animals, and small boats for persons and the lighter baggage. It soon became colder and snow fell, and after the 16th those who remained were able to cross on the ice.

Brigham Young, with a few attendants, had crossed on February 10, and selected a point on Sugar Creek as a gathering place.* He seems to have returned secretly to the city for a few days to arrange for the departure of his family, and Lee says that he did not have teams enough at that time for their conveyance, adding, "such as were in danger of being arrested were helped away first." John Taylor says that those who crossed the river in February included the Twelve, the High Council, and about four hundred families.**

* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 171.

** "February 14 I crossed the river with my family and teams, and encamped not far from the Sugar Creek encampment, taking possession of a vacant log house on account of the extreme cold."--P. P. Pratt, "Autobiography," p. 378.

"Camp of Israel" was the name adopted for the camp in which President Young and the Twelve might be, and this name moved westward with them.

The camp on Sugar Creek was the first of these, and there, on February 17, Young addressed the company from a wagon. He outlined the journey before them, declaring that order would be preserved, and that all who wished to live in peace when the actual march began "must toe the mark,"

ending with a call for a show of hands by those who wanted to make the move. The vote in favor of going West was unanimous.*

* "At a Council in Nauvoo of the men who were to act as the captains of the people in that famous exodus, one after the other brought up difficulties in their path, until the prospect was without one poor speck of daylight. The good nature of George A. Smith was provoked at last, when he sprang up and observed, with his quaint humor, that had now a touch of the grand in it, 'If there is no G.o.d in Israel we are a sucked-in set of fellows. But I am going to take my family and the Lord will open the way.'"--Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City,"

p.17.

The turning out of doors in midwinter of so many persons of all ages and both s.e.xes, accustomed to the shelter of comfortable homes, entailed much suffering. A covered wagon or a tent is a poor protection from wintry blasts, and a camp fire in the open air, even with a bright sky overhead, is a poor subst.i.tute for a stove. Their first move, therefore, gave the emigrants a taste of the trials they were to endure. While they were at Sugar Creek the thermometer dropped to 20 degrees below zero, and heavy falls of snow occurred. Several children were born at this point, before the actual Western journey began, and the sick and the feeble entered upon their sufferings at once. Before that camp broke up it was found necessary, too, to buy grain for the animals.

The camp was directly in charge of the Twelve until the Chariton River was reached. There, on March 27, it was divided into companies containing from 50 to 60 wagons, the companies being put in charge of captains of fifties and captains of tens--suggesting Smith's "Army of Zion." The captains of fifties were responsible directly to the High Council. There were also a commissary general, and, for each fifty, a contracting commissary "to make righteous distribution of grains and provisions." Strict order was maintained by day while the column was in motion, and, whenever there was a halt, special care was taken to secure the cattle and the horses, while at night watches were constantly maintained. The story of the march to the Missouri does not contain a mention of any hostile meeting with Indians.

The company remained on Sugar Creek for about a month, receiving constant accessions from across the river, and on the first of March the real westward movement began. The first objective point was Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the Missouri River, about 400 miles distant; but on the way several camps were established, at which some of the emigrants stopped to plant seeds and make other arrangements for the comfort of those who were to follow. The first of these camps was located at Richardson's Point in Lee County, Iowa, 55 miles from Nauvoo; the next on Chariton River; the next on Locust Creek; the next, named by them Garden Grove, on a branch of Grand River, some 150 miles from Nauvoo; and another, which P. P. Pratt named Mt. Pisgah, on Grand River, 138 miles east of Council Bluffs. The camp on the Missouri first made was called Winter Quarters, and was situated just north of the present site of Omaha, where the town now called Florence is located. It was not until July that the main body arrived at Council Bluffs.

The story of this march is a remarkable one in many ways. Begun in winter, with the ground soon covered with snow, the travellers encountered arctic weather, with the inconveniences of ice, rain, and mud, until May. After a snowfall they would have to sc.r.a.pe the ground when they had selected a place for pitching the tents. After a rain, or one of the occasional thaws, the country (there were no regular roads) would be practically impa.s.sable for teams, and they would have to remain in camp until the water disappeared, and the soil would bear the weight of the wagons after it was corduroyed with branches of trees. At one time bad roads caused a halt of two or three weeks. Fuel was not always abundant, and after a cold night it was no unusual thing to find wet garments and bedding frozen stiff in the morning. Here is an extract from Orson Pratt's diary:--"April 9. The rain poured down in torrents.

With great exertion a part of the camp were enabled to get about six miles, while others were stuck fast in the deep mud. We encamped at a point of timber about sunset, after being drenched several hours in rain. We were obliged to cut brush and limbs of trees, and throw them upon the ground in our tents, to keep our beds from sinking in the mud.

Our animals were turned loose to look out for themselves; the bark and limbs of trees were their princ.i.p.al food." **

* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 370.

Game was plenty,--deer, wild turkeys, and prairie hens,--but while the members of this party were better supplied with provisions than their followers, there was no surplus among them, and by April many families were really dest.i.tute of food. Eliza Snow mentions that her brother Lorenzo--one of the captains of tens--had two wagons, a small tent, a cow, and a scanty supply of provisions and clothing, and that "he was much better off than some of our neighbors." Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve, says of the situation of his family, that he had the ague, and his wife was in bed with it, with two children, one a few days old, lying by her, and the oldest child well enough to do any household work was a boy who could scarcely carry a two-quart pail of water. Mrs. F.

D. Richards, whose husband was ordered on a mission to England while the camp was at Sugar Creek, was prematurely confined in a wagon on the way to the Missouri. The babe died, as did an older daughter. "Our situation," she says, "was pitiable; I had not suitable food for myself or my child; the severe rain prevented our having any fire."

The adaptability of the American pioneer to his circ.u.mstances was shown during this march in many ways. When a halt occurred, a shoemaker might be seen looking for a stone to serve as a lap stone in his repair work, or a gunsmith mending a rifle, or a weaver at a wheel or loom. The women learned that the jolting wagons would churn their milk, and, when a halt occurred, it took them but a short time to heat an oven hollowed out of a hillside, in which to bake the bread already "raised." Colonel Kane says that he saw a piece of cloth, the wool for which was sheared, dyed, spun, and woven during this march.

The leaders of the company understood the people they had in charge, and they looked out for their good spirits. Captain Pitt's bra.s.s band was included in the equipment, and the camp was not thoroughly organized before, on a clear evening, a dance--the Mormons have always been great dancers--was announced, and the visiting Iowans looked on in amazement, to see these exiles from comfortable homes thus enjoying themselves on the open prairie, the highest dignitaries leading in Virginia reels and Copenhagen jigs.

John Taylor, whose pictures of this march, painted with a view to attract English emigrants, were always highly colored, estimated that, when he left Council Bluffs for England, in July, 1846, there were in camp and on the way 15,000 Mormons, with 3000 wagons, 30,000 head of cattle, a great many horses and mules, and a vast number of sheep.

Colonel Kane says that, besides the wagons, there was "a large number of nondescript turnouts, the motley makes.h.i.+fts of poverty; from the unsuitable heavy cart that lumbered on mysteriously, with its sick driver hidden under its counterpane cover, to the crazy two-wheeled trundle, such as our own poor employ in the conveyance of their slop barrels, this pulled along, it may be, by a little dry-dugged heifer, and rigged up only to drag some such light weight as a baby, a sack of meal or a pack of clothes and bedding." *

* "The Mormons," a lecture by Colonel T. L. Kane.

There was no large supply of cash to keep this army and its animals in provisions. Every member who could contribute to the commissary department by his labor was expected to do so. The settlers in the territory seem to have been in need of such a.s.sistance, and were very glad to pay for it in grain, hay, or provisions. A letter from one of the emigrants to a friend in England* said that, in every settlement they pa.s.sed through, they found plenty of work, digging wells and cellars, splitting rails, thres.h.i.+ng, ploughing, and clearing land. Some of the men in the spring were sent south into Missouri, not more than forty miles from Far West, in search of employment. This they readily secured, no one raising the least objection to a Mormon who was not to be a permanent settler. Others were sent into that state to exchange horses, feather beds, and other personal property for cows and provisions.

* Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 59.

A part of the plan of operations provided for sending out pioneers to select the route and camping sites, to make bridges where they were necessary, and to open roads. The party carried light boats, but a good many bridges seem to have been required because of the spring freshets.

It was while resting after a march through prolonged rain and mud, late in April, that it was decided to establish the permanent camp called Garden Grove. Hundreds of men were at once set to work, making log houses and fences, digging wells, and ploughing, and soon hundreds of acres were enclosed and planted.

The progress made during April was exasperatingly slow. There was soft mud during the day, and rough ruts in the early morning. Sometimes camp would be pitched after making only a mile; sometimes they would think they had done well if they had made six. The animals, in fact, were so thin from lack of food that they could not do a day's work even under favorable circ.u.mstances. The route, after the middle of April, was turned to the north, and they then travelled over a broken prairie country, where the game had been mostly killed off by the Pottawottomi Indians, whose trails and abandoned camps were encountered constantly.

On May 16, as the two Pratts and others were in advance, locating the route, P. P. Pratt discovered the site of what was called Mt. Pisgah (the post-office of Mt. Pisgah of to-day) which he thus describes: "Riding about three or four miles over beautiful prairies, I came suddenly to some round sloping hills, gra.s.sy, and crowned with beautiful groves of timber, while alternate open groves and forests seemed blended into all the beauty and harmony of an English park. Beneath and beyond, on the west, rolled a main branch of Grand River, with its rich bottoms of alternate forest and prairie."* As soon as Young and the other high dignitaries arrived, it was decided to form a settlement there, and several thousand acres were enclosed for cultivation, and many houses were built.

* Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 381.

Young and most of the first party continued their westward march through an uninhabited country, where they had to make their own roads. But they met with no opposition from Indians, and the head of the procession reached the banks of the Missouri near Council Bluffs in June, other companies following in quite rapid succession.

The company which was the last to leave Nauvoo (on September 17), driven out by the Hanc.o.c.k County forces, endured sufferings much greater than did the early companies who were conducted by Brigham Young. The latter comprised the well-to-do of the city and all the high officers of the church, while the remnant left behind was made up of the sick and those who had not succeeded in securing the necessary equipment for the journey. Brayman, in his second report to Governor Ford, said:--

"Those of the Mormons who were wealthy or possessed desirable real estate in the city had sold and departed last spring. I am inclined to the opinion that the leaders of the church took with them all the movable wealth of their people that they could control, without making proper provision for those who remained. Consequently there was much dest.i.tution among them; much sickness and distress. I traversed the city, and visited in company with a practising physician the sick, and almost invariably found them dest.i.tute, to a painful extent, of the comforts of life."*

* Warsaw Signal, October 20, 1846.

It was on the 18th of September that the last of these unfortunates crossed the river, making 640 who were then collected on the west bank.

Illness had not been accepted by the "posse" as an excuse for delay.

Thomas Bullock says that his family, consisting of a husband, wife, blind mother-in-law, four children, and an aunt, "all shaking with the ague," were given twenty minutes in which to get their goods into two wagons and start.* The west bank in Iowa, where the people landed, was marshy and unhealthy, and the suffering at what was called "Poor Camp," a short distance above Montrose, was intense. Severe storms were frequent, and the best cover that some of the people could obtain was a tent made of a blanket or a quilt, or even of brush, or the shelter to be had under the wagons of those who were fortunate enough to be thus equipped. Bullock thus describes one night's experience: "On Monday, September 23, while in my wagon on the slough opposite Nauvoo, a most tremendous thunderstorm pa.s.sed over, which drenched everything we had. Not a dry thing left us--the bed a pool of water, my wife and mother-in-law lading it out by basinfuls, and I in a burning fever and insensible, with all my hair shorn off to cure me of my disease. A poor woman stood among the bushes, wrapping her cloak around her three little orphan children, to s.h.i.+eld them from the storm as well as she could."

The supply of food, too, was limited, their flour being wheat ground in hand mills, and even this at times failing; then roasted corn was subst.i.tuted, the grain being mixed by some with slippery elm bark to eke it out.** The people of Hanc.o.c.k County contributed something in the way of clothing and provisions and a little money in aid of these sufferers, and the trustees of the church who were left in Nauvoo to sell property gave what help they could.

*Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 28.

** Bancrofts "History of Utah," p. 233,