History of Salt Lake City, Part 6

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194

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HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

To this feeling they united the sympathy of fellow sufferers for those who could talk to them of their own Illinois, and tell the story how from it they also had been ruthlessly expelled.

"Their hospitality was sincere, almost delicate. Fanny Le Clerc, the spoiled child of the great brave, Pied Riche, interpreter of the nation, would have the pale face, Miss Divine, learn duets with her to the guitar; and the daughter of substantial Joseph La Framboise, the interpreter of the United States (she died of the fever that summer) welcomed all the nicest young Mor- mon Kitties and Lizzies and Jennies and Susans, to a coffee feast at her father's house, which was probably the best cabin in the river village. They made the Mormois at home there and elsewhere. Upon all they formally gave them leave to tarry just so long as it suited their own good pleasure.

" The affair, of course, furnished material for a solemn council. Under the auspices of an officer of the United States, their chiefs were summoned, in the form befitting great occasions, to meet in the dirty yard of one Mr. P. A. Sarpy's log trading house, at their village; they came in grand toilet, moving in their fantastic attire with so much aplomb and genteel measure, that the stranger found it difficult not to believe them high-born gentlemen attending a costumed ball.

When the red men had indulged to satiety in tobacco smoke from their peace pipes, and in what they love still better, their peculiar metaphoric rodo- montade, which, beginning with celestial bodies, and coursing downwards over the grandest sublunary objects, always managed to alight at last on their great Father Polk, and the tenderness of him for his affectionate colored children ; all the solemn funny fellows present, who played the part of chiefs, signed formal articles of convention with their unpronounceable names.

" The renowned chief, Pied Riche (he was surnamed Le Clerc on account of his remarkable scholarship) then rose and said :

"' My Mormon Brethren: The Pottowatomie came sad and tired into this unhealthy Missouri bottom, not many years back, when he was taken from his beautiful country beyond the Mississippi, which had abundant game and timber, and clear water everywhere. Now you are driven away the same from your lodges and your lands there, and the graves of your people. So we have both suffered. We must keep one another and the Great Spirit will keep us both. You are now free to cut and use all the wood you may wish. You can make your improvements and live on any part of our actual land not occupied by us. Be- cause one suffers and does not deserve it, it is no reason he should suffer always. I say, we may live to see all right yet. However, if we do not, our children will. Bon jour ! '"

And thus ended the pageant. But the Mormons had most to do with the Omaha Indians, for they located their camps on both the east and west sides of the Missouri River. Winter Quarters proper was on the west side, five miles above the Omaha of to-day. There, on a pretty plateau, overlooking the river, they built, in a few months, over seven hundred houses, neatly laid out with highways and by-ways, and fortified with breastwork, stockade, and block-houses. It had, too, its place of worship, "tabernacle of the congregation;" for in everythig they 5

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

did they kept up the character of the modern Israel. The industrial character of the people also typed itself on their city in the wilderness, which sprang up as by magic, for it could boast of large workshops, and mills and factories provided with water power. They styled it a "Stake of Zion." It was the principal stake, too ; several others, such as Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah having al- ready been established on the route.

The settlement of headquarters brought the Mormons into peculiar relation- ship with the Omahas. A grand council was also held between their chiefs and the Elders. Big Elk made a characteristic speech for the occasion, yet not so distinguished in its Indian eloquence as that of Le Clerc. Big Elk said, in re- sponse to President Young :

" My son, thou hast spoken well. I have all thou hast said in my heart. I have much I want to say. We are poor. When we go to hunt game in one place, we meet an enemy, and so in another place our enemies kill us. We do not kill them. I hope we will be friends. You may stay on these lands two years or more. Our young men may watch your cattle. We would be glad to have you trade with us. We will warn you of danger from other Indians."

The council closed with an excellent feeling ; the pauper Omahas were treated to a feast, very gracious even to the princely appetite of Big Elk ; and then they returned to their wigwams, satisfied for the time with the dispensation of the Great Spirit, who had sent their " Mormon brethren " into their country to care for and protect them from their enemies-the warlike Sioux.

The Omahas were ready to solicit as a favor the residence of white protec- tors among them. The Mormons harvested and stored away for them their crops of maize; with all their own poverty they spared them food enough be- sides, from time to time, to save them from absolutely starving ; and their en- trenched camp to the north of the Omaha villages, served as a sort of a break- water between them and the destroying rush of the Sioux.

But the Mormons were as careful in their settlement on the Indian lands as they had been in the Battalion case, to make their conduct irreproachable in the eyes of the General Government, and to do nothing, even in their direst necessi- ties, that would not force the sanction of the nation. They were, therefore, particular in obtaining covenants from the Indians and forwarding them to the President of the United States. Here is the covenant of the Omahas :

" West Side of the Missouri River, Near Council Bluffs, August 31, 1846.

" We, the undersigned chiefs and braves, representatives of the Omaha nation of Indians, do hereby grant to the Mormon people the privilege of tarry- ing upon our lands for two years or more, or as long as may suit their conven- ience for the purpose of making the necessary preparations to prosecute their journey west of the Rocky Mountains, provided that our great father, the Pres- ident of the United States, shall not counsel us to the contrary.

And we also do grant unto them the privilege of using all the wood and timber they shall require.

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

And furthermore agree that we will not molest or take from them their cattle, horses, sheep, or any other property.

1198570

BIG ELK, his x mark, STANDING ELK, his x mark, LITTLE CHIEF, his x mark."

On this matter Brigham Young wrote to the President in behalf of his people :

Near Council Bluffs, Butler's Park,

Omaha Nation, Sept. 7, 1846.

" Sir: Since our communication of the 9th ult. to Your Excellency, the Omaha Indians have returned from their Summer hunt. and we have had an in- terview in general council with their chiefs and braves, who expressed a willing- ness that we should tarry on their lands, and use what wood and timber would be necessary for our convenience, while we were preparing to prosecute our journey, as may be seen by a duplicate of theirs to us of the 21st of August, which will be presented by Col. Kane.

"In council they were much more specific than in their writings, and Big Elk, in behalf of his nation requested us to lend them teams to draw their corn at harvest, and help keep it after it was deposited, to assist them in building houses, making fields, doing some blacksmithing, etc., and to teach some of their young men to do the same, and also keep some goods, and trade with them while we tarried among them.

We responded to all their wishes in the same spirit of kindness manifested by them, and told them we would do them all the good we could, with the same proviso they made-if the President is willing ; and this is why we write.

Hitherto we have kept aloof from all intercourse except in councils, as re- ferred to, and giving them a few beeves when hungry, but we have the means of doing them a favor by instructing them in agricultural and mechanical arts, if it is desirable.

It might subject us to some inconvenience in our impoverished situation, to procure goods for their accommodation, and yet, if we can do it, we might re- ceive in return as many skins and furs as would prove a valuable tempo- rary substitute for worn-out clothing and tents in our camp, which would be no small blessing.

"A small division of our camp is some two or three hundred miles west of this, on the rush bottoms, among the Puncaws, where similar feelings are mani- fested towards our people.

" Should Your Excellency consider the requests of the Indians for instruc- tion, etc., reasonable, and signifying the same to us, we will give them all the information in mechanism and farming the nature of the case will admit, which will give us the opportunity of getting the assistance of their men to help us herd and labor, which we have much needed since the organization of the Battalion.

"A license, giving us permission to trade with the Indians while we are tar- rying on or passing through their lands, made out in the name of Newel K. Whitney, our agent in camp, would be a favor to our people and our red neigh-

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

bors. All of which is submitted to Your Excellency's consideration and the confidence of Colonel Kane.

"Done in behalf of the council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, at the time and place before mentioned, and Camp of Israel.

Most respectfully, BRIGHAM YOUNG, President, WILLARD RICHARDS, Clerk."

"To James K. Polk, President U. S."

Out of an absolute destitution, and in spite of their expulsion, the Mormons had flourished and increased in the wilderness. so that at the end of the year 1846, Winter Quarters had grown into twenty-two wards, with a bishop over each.

As the spring opened, they began to prepare for their journey to the moun - tains, which at that day was almost appalling to the imagination. They had still over a thousand miles to the valley of the Salt Lake, and so little was known of the country any more than its name implied-the Great American Desert -- that the Mormons could not look forward to much of a land of promise to repay them for all the past. Yet sang their poet, Eliza R. Snow, who has ever on their great occasions fired them with her Hebraic inspiration :

"The time of winter now is o'er, There's verdure on the plain ; We leave our shelt'ring roofs once more, And to our tents again. CHORUS :- O Camp of Israel, onward move, O, Jacob, rise and sing ; Ye Saints the world's salvation prove, All hail to Zion's King !"

The pioneer song (as it was called) was, like their journey, quite lengthy. But the pioneers sang it with a will. It told them of their past; told them in exultation, that they were leaving the "mobbing Gentile race, who thirsted for their blood, to rest in Jacob's hiding place," and it told of the future, in pro- phetic strains.

The word and will of the Lord concerning the Camp of Israel in its journey- ings to the West, was published from head-quarters, on the 14th of January, 1847. As it is the first written revelation ever sent out to the Church by President Young, the following passages from it will be read with interest :

" Let all the people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lattter-day Saints and those who journey with them, be organized into companies, with a covenant and promise to keep all the commandments and statutes of the Lord our God. Let the companies be organized with captains of hundreds, and captains of fifties, and captains of tens, with a president and councilor at their head, under the di- rection of the Twelve Apostles ; and this shall be our covenant, that we will walk in all the ordinances of the Lord.

" Let each company provide itself with all the teams, wagons, provisions and all other necessaries for the journey that they can. When the companies are organized, let them go to with all their might, to prepare for those who are to

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

tarry. Let each company, with their captains and presidents, decide how many can go next spring ; then choose out a sufficient number of able-bodied and ex- pert men to take teams, seed, and farming utensils to go as pioneers to prepare for putting in the spring crops. Let each company bear an equal proportion, according to the dividend of their property, in taking the poor, the widows, and the fatherless, and the families of those who have gone with the army, that the cries of the widow and the fatherless come not up into the ears of the Lord against his people.

" Let each company prepare houses, and fields for raising corn for those who are to remain behind this season ; and this is the will of the Lord concerning this people."

" Let every man use all his influence and property to remove this people to the place where the Lord shall locate a Stake of Zion; and if ye do this with a pure heart, with all faithfulness, ye shall be blessed in your flocks, and in your herds, and in your fields, and in your houses, and in your families." * *

On the 7th of April, 1847, the day after the general conference, the pion- eers started from Winter Quarters.

As soon as they got fairly on the journey, they were organized as a military body, into companies of hundreds, fifties and tens. The following order of the officers will illustrate :

Brigham Young, Lieutenant-General ; Stephen Markham, Colonel; John Pack, Ist Major ; Shadrach Roundy, 2d Major; Captains of hundreds, Stephen Markham and A. P. Rockwood.

Captain of Company I, Wilford Woodruff ; Company 2, Ezra T. Benson ; Company 3, Phineas H. Young ; Company 4, Luke Johnson; Company 5, Stephen H. Goddard ; Company 6, Charles Shumway ; Company 7, James Case : Company 8, Seth Taft ; Company 9, Howard Egan ; Company 10, Appleton M. Harmon ; Company 11, John Higbie ; Company 12, Norton Jacobs ; Company 13, John Brown ; Company 14, Joseph Mathews.

The camp consisted of 73 wagons ; 143 men, 3 women and 2 children- 148 souls.

Nothing could better illustrate the perfection of Mormon organization than this example of the pioneers, for they were apostles and picked elders of minute companies, and under strict discipline.

Lieutenant-General Young issued general orders to the regiment. The men were ordered to travel in a compact body, being in an Indian country ; every man to carry his gun loaded, the locks to be shut on a piece of buckskin, with caps ready in case of attack ; flint locks, with cotton and powder flask handy, and every man to walk by the side of his wagon, under orders not to leave it, unless sent by the officer in command, and the wagons to be formed two abreast, where practicable, on the march. At the call of the bugle in the morning, at five o'clock, the pioneers were to arise, assemble for prayers, get breakfast, and be ready to start at the second call of the bugle at seven. At night, at half-past eight, at the command from the bugle, each was to retire for prayer in his own wagon, and to bed at nine o'clock. Tents were to be pitched on Saturday nights and the Sabbath kept.

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

The course of the pioneers was up the north bank of the Platte, along which they traveled slowly. They crossed Elk Horn on a raft, forded the Loup Fork with considerable danger in consequence of the quicksands, and reached Grand Island about the Ist of May.

This was the day on which the pioneers had their first buffalo hunt. There was much exciting interest in the scene, for scarcely one of the hunters had chased a buffalo before. They killed four cows, three bulls, and five calves.

While on a hunt, several days after, the hunters were called in, a party of four hundred Indian warriors near by having shown signs of an attack. The Indians had previously been threatening, and were setting fire to the prairie on the north side of the Platte. The pioneers fired their cannon twice to warn the Indians that they were on the watch.

A council was now held to consider whether or not it were wise to cross the river and strike the old road to Laramie, there being good grass on that side, while the Indians were burning it on the north. In view, however, of the thou- sands who would follow in their track, it was concluded to continue as before, braving the Indians and the burning prairies ; for, said the pioneers :

" A new road will thus be made, which shall stand as a permament route for the Saints."

Thus the pioneers broke a new road across the plains, over which tens of thousands of their people have since traveled, and which was famous as the "old Mormon road," till the railway came to blot almost from memory the toils and dangers of a journey of more than a thousand miles, by ox teams, to the valleys of Utah. (It is a curious fact that for several hundred miles the grade of the great trans-continental railway is made exactly upon the old Mormon road).

The pioneers were wary. Colonel Markham drilled his men in good mili- tary style, and the cannon was put on wheels.

William Clayton, formerly the scribe of the Prophet, and, in the pioneer journey, scribe to President Young, and Willard Richards, the Church historian, invented a machine to measure the distance.

General Young himself marked the entire route, going in advance daily with his staff. This service was deemed most important, as their emigrations would follow almost in the very footprints of the pioneers.

Those were days for the buffalo hunt, scarcely to be imagined, when cross- ing the plains a quarter of a century later. Some days they saw as many as fifty thousand buffalo.

They came to the hunting ground of the Sioux, where, a few days before, five hundred lodges had stood. Nearly a thousand warriors had encamped there. They had been on a hunting expedition. Acres of ground were covered with buffalo wool and other remains of the slaughter. No wonder the Indian of the plains bemoans his hunting grounds, now lost to him forever.

Several days later there were again fears of an Indian attack, and the cannon was got ready.

The pioneers were within view of Chimney rock on Sunday, the 23d of May. Here they held their usual Sabbath service.

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

On the first of June. they were opposite Laramie. Here they were joined by a small company of Mormons from Mississippi, who had been at Pueblo during the winter. They reported news of a detachment of the battalion at Pueblo that expected to start for Laramie about the first of June, and follow the pioneer track. This addition to the camp consisted of a brother Crow and his family ( fourteen souls, with seven wagons).

The next day President Young and others visited Fort Laramie, then occu- pied by thirty-eight persons, mostly French, who had married the Sioux.

Mr. Burdow, the principal man at the Fort, was a Frenchman. He cor- dially received General Young and his staff, invited them into his sitting-room, gave them information of the route, and furnished them with a flat-bottom boat on reasonable terms, to assist them in ferrying the Platte. Ex-Governor Boggs, who had recently passed with his company, had said much against the Mor- mons, cautioning Mr. Burdow to take care of his horses and cattle. Boggs and his company were quarreling, many having deserted him; so Burdow told the ex-Governor that, let the Mormons be what they might, they could not be worse than himself and his men.

It is not a little singular that this exterminating Governor of Missouri should have been crossing the Plains at the same time with the Pioneers. They were going to carve out for their people a greater destiny than they could have reached either in Missouri or Illinois-he to pass away, leaving nothing but a transitory name.

It was decided to send Amasa Lyman, with several other brethren, to Pueblo, to meet the detachment of the Battalion, and hurry them on to Laramie to fol- low the track.

At the old Fort they set up blacksmith shops, and did some necessary work for the camp. Then commenced the ascent of the Black Hills, on the 4th of June.

Fifteen miles from Laramie, at the Springs, a company of Missouri emi- grants came up. The pioneers kept the Sabbath the next day ; the Missourians journeyed. Another company of Missourians appeared and passed on.

A party of traders, direct from Santa Fe, overtook the Pioneers, and gave information of the detachment of the battalion, at Santa Fe, under Captain Brown.

The two Missouri companies kept up a warfare between themselves on the route. They were a suggestive example to the Mormons. After they had traveled near each other for a week, on the Sunday following, President Young made this the subject of his discourse. He said of the two Missourian companies :

" They curse, swear, rip and tear, and are trying to swallow up the earth ; but though they do not wish us to have a place on it, the earth might as well open and swallow them up; for they will go to the land of forgetfulness, while the Saints; though they suffer some privations here, if faithful, will ultimately in- herit the earth, and increase in power, dominion and glory."

General Young called together the officers, to consult on a plan for crossing the river. He directed them to go immediately to the mountains with teams, to get poles. They were then to lash from two to four wagons abreast, to keep them

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

from turning over, and float them across the river with boats and ropes; so a company of horsemen started to the mountains with teams.

The " brethren " had previously ferried over the Missourians, who paid them $1.50 for each wagon and load, and paid it in flour at $2.50; yet flour was worth ten dollars per cwt., at least, at that point. They divided their earnings among the camp equally. It amounted to five and a half pounds of flour each, two pounds of meal, and a small piece of bacon.

" It looked," says Wilford Woodruff, " as much of a miracle to me to see our flour and meal bags replenished in the Black Hills as it did to have the Chil- dren of Israel fed with manna in the wilderness. But the Lord had been truly with us on our journey, and had wonderfully preserved and blessed us."

These little stores of flour were supposed to have saved the lives of some of the pioneers, for they were by this time entirely destitute of the " staff of life."

The pioneers were seven days crossing the river at this point. While here they established a ferry, and selected nine men to leave in charge of it, with in- structions to divide the means accumulated equally, to be careful of the lives and property of those they ferried, to " forget not their prayers," and "to come on with the next company of Saints."

They reached Independence Rock on the 21st of June, and the South Pass on the 26th.

Several days later they met Major Harris, who had traveled through Oregon and California for twenty-five years. He spoke unfavorably of the Salt Lake country for a settlement.

Next day Col. Bridger came up. He desired to go into council with the Mormon leaders. The apostles held the council with the colonel. He spoke more favorably of the great basin ; but thought it not prudent to continue emi- gration there until they ascertained whether grain would grow there or not. He said he would give a thousand dollars for the first bushel of wheat raised in the valley of the Salt Lake.

At Green River they were met by Elder Samuel Brannan from the Bay of San Francisco. He came to give an account of the Mormon company that sailed with him in the ship Brooklyn. They had established themselves two hundred miles up the river, were building up a city, and he had already started a news- paper.

They were several days fording Green River. Here the pioneers kept the 4th of July.

The Mormon battalion now began to reinforce the pioneers. Thirteen of these soldiers, returning from the service of their country, joined them at Green River, and reported that a whole detachment of 140 were within seven days' drive.

As the pioneers approached the valley of the Great Salt Lake, the interest became intense. The gold-finders of California, and the founders of the Pacific States and Territories generally, had but a fever for precious metals, or were im- pelled westward by the migrating spirit of the American people; but these Mor- mon pioneers were seeking the " Pearl of Great Price," and their thoughts and

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

emotions, as they drew near the Salt Lake Valley were akin to those of the Pil- grim Fathers as they came in sight of Plymouth Rock.

During the last days of the journey, President Young was laid up with the " mountain fever," from which he did not fully recover till on the return trip to Winter Quarters.

After passing Bear River, a council of the whole was called, and it was re- solved that Apostle Orson Pratt should take a company of about twenty wagons, with forty men, to go forward and make a road. Twenty-three wagons started the next morning. For awhile we will follow the journal of Orson Pratt :

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History of Salt Lake City, Part 6

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194