History of Salt Lake City, Part 86

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.

" All being ready, the first group are handed on. That member of the party who is entrusted with the passenger ticket for the whole, has been warned by one of the agents to have it ready, and here it is his hand. In every instance through the whole eight hundred, without an exception, this paper is always ready.

" Inspector (reading the ticket). Jessie Jobson, Sophronia Jobson, Jessie Jobson again, Matilda Jobson, William Jobson, Jane Jobson, Matilda Jobson again, Brigham Jobson, Leonardo Jobson and Orson Jobson. Are you all here ? (glancing at the party, over his spectacles).

'. Jessie Jobson Number Two. All here, sir.

" This group is composed of an old grandfather and grandmother, their married son and his wife, and their family of children. Orson Jobson is a little child asleep in his mother's arms. The doctor, with a kind word or so, lifts up the corner of the mother's shawl, looks at the child's face, and touches the little clenched hand. If we were all as well as Orson Jobson, doctoring would be a poor profession.

" Inspector. Quite right, Jessie Jobson. Take your ticket, Jessie, and pass on.

" And away they go. Mormon agent, skillful and quiet, hands them on. Mormon agent, skillful and quiet, hands next party up.

" Inspector (reading ticket again). Susannah Cleverly and William Cleverly. Brother and sister, eh ?

" Sister (young woman of business, hustling slow brother). Yes, sir.

" Inspector. Very good, Susannah Cleverly. Take your ticket, Susannah, and take care of it.

" And away they go.

" Inspector (taking ticket again). Sampson Dibble and Dorothy Dibble (surveying a very old couple over his spectacles, with some surprise). Your hus- band quite blind, Mrs. Dibble ?

" Mrs. Dibble. Yes, sir, he be stone blind.

" Mr. Dibble (addressing the mast). Yes, sir, I be stone blind.

" Inspector. That's a bad job. Take your ticket, Mrs. Dibble, and don't lose it, and pass on.

" Doctor taps Mr. 'Dibble on the eyebrow with his forefinger, and away they go.

" Inspector (taking ticket again). Anastatia Weedle.

" Anastatia (a pretty girl in a bright garibaldi, this morning elected by uni- versal suffrage the beauty of the ship). That is me, sir.

" Inspector. Going alone, Anastatia ?

" Anastatia (shaking her curls). I am with Mrs. Jobson, sir, but I've got separated for the moment.

" Inspector. Oh! you are with the Jobsons? Quite right. 'That'll do, Miss Weedle. Don't lose your ticket.

" Away she goes, and joins the Jobsons who are waiting for her, and stoops and kisses Brigham Jobson-who appears to be considered too young for the pur- pose, by severil Mormons rising twenty, who are looking on. Before her cxten -

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sive skirts have departed from the casks a decent widow stands there with four children, and so the roll goes.

" The faces of some of the Welsh people, among whom there were many old persons, were certainly the least intelligent. Some of these emigrants would have bungled sorely, but for the directing hand that was always ready. The intelligence here was unquestionably of a low order, and the heads were of a poor type. Generally the case was the reverse. There were many worn faces bearing traces of patient poverty and hard work, and there was great steadiness of purpose and much undemonstrative self-respect among this class. A few young men were go- ing singly. Several girls were going two or three together. These latter I found it very difficult to refer back, in my mind, to their relinquished homes and pursuits. Perhaps they were more like country milliners, and pupil teachers rather tawdrily dressed, than any other classes of young women, I noticed, among many little orna- ments worn, more than one photograph-broach of the Princess of Wales, and also of the late Prince Consort. Some single women of from thirty to forty, whom one might suppose to be embroiderers, or straw-bonnet-makers, were obviously going out in quest of husbands, as finer ladies go to India. That they had any distinct notions of a plurality of husbands or wives, I do not believe. To suppose the family groups of whom the majority of emigrants were composed, polygamically possessed, would be to suppose an absurdity, manifest to any one who saw the fathers and mothers.

" I should say (I had no means of ascertaining the fact) that most familiar kinds of handicraft trades were represented here. Farm-laborers, shepherds, and the like, had their full share of representation, but I doubt if they preponderated. It was interesting to see how the leading spirit in the family circle never failed to show itself, even in the simple process of answering to the names as they were called, and checking off the owners of the names. Sometimes it was the father, much oftener the mother, sometimes a quick little girl second or third in order of seniority. It seemed to occur for the first time to some heavy fathers, what large families they had ; and their eyes rolled about, during the calling of the list, as if they half-misdoubted some other family to have been smuggled into their own. Among all the fine handsome children, I observed but two with marks upon their necks that were probably scrofulous. Out of the whole number of emigrants, but one old woman was temporarily set aside by the doctor, on suspicion of fever ; but even she afterwards obtained a clean bill of health.

" When all had " passed," and the afternoon began to wear on, a black box became visible on deck, which box was in charge of certain personages also in black of whom only one had the conventional air of an itinerant preacher. This box contained a supply of hymn books, neatly printed and got up, published at Liverpool, and also in London at the " Latter-day Saints' book depot, 30 Flor- ence street." Some copies were handsomely bound ; the plainer were more in request, and many were bought. The title ran : "Sacred hymns and spiritual songs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.' The preface, dated Manchester, 1840, ran thus :- ' 'The Saints in this country have been very desirous for a Hymn Book adapted to their faith and worship, that they might sing the truth with an understanding heart, and express their praise, joy and gratitude in

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songs adapted to the New and Everlasting Covenant. In accordance with their wishes, we have selected the following volume, which we hope will prove accep- table until a greater variety can be added. With sentiments of high consideration and esteem, we subscribe ourselves your brethren in the New and Everlasting Cov- enant. Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, John Taylor." From this book-by no means explanatory to myself of the New and Everlasting Covenant, and not at all making my heart an understanding one on the subject of that mystery -- a hymn was sung, which did not attract any great amount of attention, and was supported by a rather select circle. But the choir in the boat was very popular and pleasant; and there was to have been a band, only the cornet was late in coming on board. In the course of the afternoon, a mother appeared from shore, in search of her daughter, ' who had run away with the Mormons.' She received every assistance from the inspector, but her daughter was not found to be on board. The Saints did not seem to me, particularly interested in finding her.

" Towards five o'clock, the galley became full of tea-kettles, and an agree- able fragrance of tea pervaded the ship. There was no scrambling or jostling for the hot water, no ill humor, no quarrelling. As the Amazon was to sail with the next tide, and as it would not be high water before two o'clock in the morn- ing, I left her with her tea in full action, and her idle steam tug lying by, deput- ing steam and smoke for the time being to the tea-kettles.

" I afterwards learned that a despatch was sent home by the captain before he struck out into the wide Atlantic, highly extolling the behavior of these emi- grants, and the perfect order and propriety of all their social arrangements. What is in store for the poor people on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, what happy delusions they are laboring under now, on what miserable blindness their eyes may be opened then, I do not pretend to say. But I went on board their ship to bear testimony against them if they deserved it, as I fully believed they would ; to my great astonishment they did not deserve it ; and my predispositions and ten - dencies must not affect me as an honest witness. I went over the Amazon's side, feeling it impossible to deny that, so far, some remarkable influence had produced a remarkable result, which better known influences have often missed."*

Dickens was right when he exclaimed, " I should have said they were in their degree the pick and flower of England." The founders of the commerce of Salt Lake City, its business men and clerks, its master mechanics and manufacturers, its authors, editors and publishers, its artists, musicians, and their kindred classes, were nearly all from the European mission, and sailed in these emigrant ships such as Dickens describes.

It may be here noted as a valuable item of emigrational history that the largest emigration of the Mormon Church from Europe within a limited period

" After this Uncommercial Journey was printed, I happened to mention the experience it describes to Lord Houghton. That gentleman then showed me an article of his writing, in The Edinburgh Re- Crew for January, 1862, which is highly remarkable for its philosophical and literary research concerning these Latter-day Saints. I find in it the following sentences :- ' The Select Committee of the House of Common on emigrant ships for 1854, summoned the Mormon agent and passenger broker before it, and came to the conclusion that no ships under the provisions of the 'passenger act' could be depended upon for comfort and security in the same degree as those under his administration. The Mormon ship is a family under strong and accepted discipline, with every provision for comfort, decorum, and internal peace.'

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occurred in 1863, when six vessels left in five weeks, with 3,574 souls of the Saints on board, as follows :

April 30-John J. Boyd,

May 8-B. S. Kimball, 654 May 22-Antarctic, 483 J. Needham. May 31-Cynosure, 754 June 4-Amazon, 882 $ 4 W. Bramall. TOTAL, 3574 763 souls. Prest. of Co., W. W. Cluff. H. P. Lund. May 8-Consignment, 38

A. Christensen.

D. M. Stuart.

All the above sailed from Liverpool except the Amazon (the one visited by Charles Dickens), which went from London.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

EARLY RESOURCES OF OUR TERRITORY. EMIGRANT TRAINS LADEN WITH BRITISH HOMES. THE CHURCH AGENT MAKING PURCHASES ON THE FRONTIERS. RACE MIXTURE OF THE POPULATION.

The destitute condition of the people in the Valley, in the second year of settling, has been mentioned in the opening chapters. They were reduced almost to the condition of the native Indians. Their clothing, their shoes, their hats and everything most needed by a community, in absolute isolation, were worn out. There were manufacturers and mechanics, but no manufactories or means within themselves to replenish their exhausted resources ; nor had an eastern merchant yet arrived with a train of goods. Even had the people possessed gold to invite a merchant train to such a distant point, the supplies would have been swallowed up in a day, scarcely benefitting the community while exhausting their money : but there was not a dollar in the country. All the monetary resources of the Mor- mons, numbered in the exodus, had been spent in purchasing outfits to remove themselves to the Rocky Mountains, (where money was absolutely valueless at the onset) and in providing themselves with the simplest implements of husbandry, and builders', manufacturers' and mechanics' tools.

The emigration from Europe and the eastern States were the natural sources of supplies for colonization, to which these Mormon pioneers looked, when they set out from the " borders of civilization," to build their cities in the heart of the " Great American Desert ;" and only these emigrations could have preserved the community in isolation from utter destitution. There were no anticipations of the discovery of gold in the unpeopled West when the Mormons set out from Nauvoo ; and it is not strange that the Gentile world said Brigham Young and his companion apostles had led the Mormons into the wilderness to perish, and that none of them would ever be seen within the borders of civilization again. But

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those pioneer apostles knew that they had a British mission to draw population from, and that their emigrations from Europe, and the branches of the Church in the United States, would enable them, in the natural course of their affairs, to ac- complish their work of colonizing these valleys. The community, possessing no gold, could not at the onset have sent their merchants down to the States to pur- chase supplies ; but their emigration agents would have been their merchants . their vast trains of emigrants with outfits and merchandise would in time have aup- plied the people with goods and implements, which could not be produced at home : considerable money would have been brought into the country by the well- to-do emigrants for the purchase of machinery, while the community would have built themselves up by a system of trade and barter, much of the business of the country being done through the agencies of the Church at home and abroad. This indeed very nearly accords with the actual history of our city and Territory down to the completion of the railroads across the continent, and the opening of the Utah mines ; and had not gold been discovered in California, in 1849, and the mining Territories of Nevada, Idaho and Montana sprung up around us, it would have been the exact history of Utah to this day, with all the original prospects. These valleys would have been peopled with a family of colonies ; and the community would have preserved their original forms and social types. These virgin valleys would have given to the farmers land sufficient for a million hands to cultivate, boundless opportunities for stockraisers, wool growers, and the raisers of fruit, sugar cane, cotton, etc .; while there would have developed equal oppor- tunities for home manufacturers, without being brought into competition with the eastern manufacturer and merchant. This view sustains the carly policies of Brigham Young, especially in his efforts to make the community self-dependent and self-supportive; to place home manufactures above " States goods," and the farmer and the home producer above the States' merchant ; hence the conflict which grew up in the early commerce of our city.

A passage from an autobiographical sketch of the Salt Lake merchant and banker, Horace S. Eldredge, who, in the early days, was the emigration agent of the Church, will further illustrate what the emigrations did for Salt Lake City, and also did in establishing the credit of the community in the Eastern cities, es- pecially St. Louis and Chicago. He says :

" In the fall of 1852, I was called upon and appointed by the General Confer- ence of the Church to take a mission to St. Louis, Mo., to preside over the St. Louis Conference, to act as general Church agent for the emigration and as pur- chasing agent for the Church.

" In the spring of 1853, our emigration from Europe amounted to about three thousand souls and required over three hundred wagons and a thousand head of oxen to transport them. These, with what was termed the American emigration swelled the number to over four hundred wagons and nearly two thousand head of cattle. It required an immense labor to deliver these at the overland starting point, besides purchasing the provisions, outfits and all the necessaries for a three or more months' camp life.

" On my return to St. Louis, I had to look to some Church matters, and, after visiting several branches and giving them the necessary counsel, I began, by con-

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tracting for wagons, etc , to lay my plans and arrange for the coming season's immigration. Having formed many agreeable acquaintances, I spent the winter much pleasanter than I had the previous one. The following spring brought its cares and responsibilities, as a large emigration from Europe as well as many from St. Louis and vicinity and different parts of the States were preparing to migrate to our mountain home, and all were more or less looking to me as agent to pro- vide for them their outfit by the way of teams, provisions, and the various necessities for a trip across the plains. I also received orders from Salt Lake City to purchase a large quantity of merchandise, machinery, agricultural imple- ments, and to provide wagons, teams, teamsters, etc., for their transportation."

In this extract from Mr. Eldredge's emigrational notes, we have not only a view of the vast business done on the frontiers by the Church agents, in outfitting companies bound for the Valleys, but the commencement of the mercantile basis and credit upon which years afterwards Z. C. M. I. was founded, and which will itself be suggestive of the colossal commercial commonwealth which Brigham Young had designed to establish throughout the community when the pioneers first entered these valleys.

In 1852-3-4, of which Mr. Eldredge notes, the original plan was fairly work- ing, both on the emigrational and mercantile lines; and Salt Lake Mormon mer- chants began to be favorably known in the Eastern States as well as the emigra- tion agents. The "over four hundred wagons, and nearly two thousand head of cattle," with yokes, etc., which Mr. Eldredge purchased for the emigrants and delivered on the frontiers represented a prime cost of $120,000. It must be borne in mind also that these four hundred wagons came into the Valley, in the fall of 1853, laden with almost everything to be mentioned that the settlers most needed, excepting a competent supply of merchandise and machinery ; and even of the latter the affluent emigrant brought a goodly share ; while, in the year following, as it is seen, the emigration agent received " orders from Salt Lake City to pur- chase a large quantity of merchandise, machinery and agricultural implements."

First the emigrants from Great Britain came across the sea to New Orleans, with the best outfits that they could bring to a new country : the choicest tools of the mechanic and manufacturer ; the most useful and endurable clothing, enough to last the family for several years ; milliners, dressmakers, etc., came with their stock in trade, and all their household utilities-indeed, excepting furniture and cumbersome articles, it may be said that from the opening of the general emigra- tion to Utah in 1849-50, a thousand English, Scotch and Welsh homes were yearly transposed to Utah from the mother country. It was with these homes and their hordings of years that those 400 wagons, with their 2,000 head of cattle, came laden into the Valley. They were as merchant trains of matchless worth to fur- nish supplies to the young colonies ; in fine it was those trains of the European and American emigrants, which yearly poured across the Plains from 1849 ; that started and sustained the commerce and business, not only of Salt Lake City, but of every settlement of Utah, while the agricultural interests of the country were equally as well sustained.

The farmers themselves came in those emigrant trains, with their wagons, oxen, seed, and implements of husbandry ; the mechanic and manufacturer with

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their tools and experienced skill. The agriculturists went into the fresh valleys north and south where they could obtain farms and lots " without money and without price," except for the survey, the labor on canals for irrigation, and the fencing of their lands ; while those who chose to settle in Salt Lake City, purchased lots, or portions of lots, with the supplies which they had brought, and which the pri- mal settlers of this valley needed more than gold. A pound of tea, of sugar, of tobacco, a dress, a suit of clothes or a set of mechanic's tools, a paper of needles or pins, a supply of silk, thread or tape, or a thousand other seemingly trifling ar- ticles, which had been brought to the valley in those emigrant outfits, afforded means of purchase and trade ; while the emigrant of the " independent com- panies," who arrived with several wagons and yokes of oxen and a small stock of merchandise possessed abundance, not only to purchase a lot and build himself a log or adobe house, retaining one wagon and one yoke of oxen for farm or can- yon work, but enough to give him a fair start in business life.

The early merchants of Salt Lake did next to nothing for the country, ex- cepting periodically to bring in a few trains of States goods and to swallow up the money of the country, which the emigrants had brought in, and which they had put into circulation in the purchase of their lots and the building and furnishing of their houses. The Church, the emigrations and the Mormon peo- ple did almost everything for the country during the first decade. It was not until after the " Utah war," (1857) the establishment of Camp Floyd with its final aban - donment, leaving vast supplies in the country, at little money cost, that the Mormon community realized any real benefit outside the operations of their Church tem- poral government, their emigrations and their exchange of property and labor with each other.

In the beginning of the second decade, after Camp Floyd had given oppor- tunities to a fresh class of enterprising men, the commercial status was changed and the community began to feel the pulsation of vitalizing blood of a healthy vigorous home trade and commerce. A new class of Salt Lake merchants had risen. They were not merely resident merchants, but truly our home merchants, whose every interest was identified with Utah in their own life enterprises and in the generations of their children. They were Hooper, Nixon, the Walker Brothers, Jennings, Eldredge, Clawson, Kimball & Lawrence, Staines & Needham, Godbe & Mitchell, and their compeers, both in and outside the community, in a special sense, but every man of them a part of the community in a general sense. These made our commerce reciprocal. If they imported " States' goods " and drained the city of money for awhile to supply fresh stocks of merchandise from the Eastern States ann California, they also exported the produce of the country to the mining Territories, purchased grain for the Overland Mail Company, sent herds of fat cattle into the neighboring markets, and at a later period, with such men as John Sharp and Feramorz Little, they have built the railroads and opened the mines of Utah.

Disposing here of the subject of the emigrations, which have so largely con- tributed to the population of this Territory, it may be observed that in 1856, nearly five thousand Mormon emigrants sailed from Liverpool to America. In consequence of the " Utah war," the emigration was then closed until 1860, when

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it was again opened. From that date to the completion of the U. P. railroad, the Perpetual Emigration Company adopted the policy of sending from 500 to 1,000 teams every year to the frontiers, and later to the railroad points to " gather up the poor." These trains also brought large stocks of merchandise, ma- chinery and agricultural implements for their settlements prior to the establish. ment of Z. C. M. I .; and in 1861 they brought the telegraph wires for our local telegraph lines. Thus it will be seen much of the mercantile activities went hand- in-hand with the emigration until the completion of the railroads, since which time the emigrants to Utah have come direct from New York to Ogden by rail. Up to present date it is estimated that about 100,000 Mormon emigrants have landed in America, the majority of whom have come to Utah. The Scandinavians claim one-fifth of the Mormon population ; the remainder are Americans, English, Scotch, Welsh, Irish, French, Italians, Swiss and Germans. It has been often affirmed that there are no Irish among the Mormons. This is not correct. Some of the most talented men of the community have been Irishmen ; for instance, General James Ferguson and Edward L. Sloan ; and the author has discovered, in writing their biographies, that there is a copious infusion of Irish blood in the veins of the American Mormons. In defining the strong veins of our population, however, they would have to be classed, American, English, Scandinavian, Scotch, Welsh, German a few of the other races named, and a mixture of the whole in their offspring, which are American born, giving a vast preponderance to the Amer- ican element in our composite population.

CHAPTER LXXX.

SOCIAL GRADING OF UTAH. A COMMUNITY OF MANUFACTURERS. THE PUB- LIC WORKS. OUR INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL MEN. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Z. C. M. I. BOOT AND SHOE FACTORY. PROSPECTS OF HOME MANUFACTURES.

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History of Salt Lake City, Part 86

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