History of Utah, Part 26

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026

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To establish beyond dispute the identity of the discoverer of the Great Salt Lake would prove a difficult if not an impossible task. The first to hear of it-if credence may be given to his very fanciful narrative-was Baron La Hontan, lord-lieutenant of the French colony at Placentia, Newfoundland. La Hontan, whose narrative was first published in English in 1735, tells how in 1689 he sailed for six weeks up a certain affluent of the Mississippi called Long River, passing through various savage tribes till he came near the nation of the Gnacsitares. There he met four Mozeemlek slaves, captives of the Gnacsitares, who gave him a description of the country from which they originally hailed. Their villages, they said, stood-upon a river springing out of a ridge of mountains, whence Long River likewise derived its source. The Mozeemleks were numerous and powerful. The slaves informed La Hontan that at a distance of a hundred and fifty leagues from where he then stood their principal river emptied itself into a salt lake, three hundred leagues in circumference by thirty in breadth, the mouth of the river being two leagues broad. The lower part of the stream was adorned with "six noble cities," and there were above a hundred towns, great and small, "round that sort of sea." The lake was navigated with boats. The government of the land was despotic, and was "lodged

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in the hands of one great head" to whom the rest paid "trembling submission," etc. So much for La Hontan and his hearsays.

Now, as to the actual discovery of the Great Salt Lake. Many are the rival claims and accounts concerning it. Some of these are easily disposed of in the negative. Others must stand for what they are worth until disproved or more thoroughly established. Col- onel John C. Fremont claimed the honor of discovery as late as 1843; he having that year passed the Rocky Mountains on his second exploring expedition to the West. The year before he had gone only as far as South Pass, that great gateway of overland travel, which he elaborately described in his report to Congress. He now penetrated to the Great Basin, accompanied by the noted scout Kit Carson and other daring spirits, and on the 6th of September, from the crest of an elevated peninsula* a little north of Weber River, caught his first glimpse of America's Dead Sea.

Launching his rubber boat upon the briny waters, he explored the island now known as Fremont Island-so named by Captain Stansbury in 1849-but which Fremont himself called Disappoint- ment Island, from failing to find there the fertile fields and abundant game he had anticipated. Fremont supposed himself to be the first white man, not only to embark upon, but to see the Great Salt Lake. In both conjectures he was in error. The lake had been discovered, and boats launched upon it by American trappers nearly twenty years before the advent of the "Pathfinder" into the Great Basin. As early as the "twenties," if not before, this whole region was overrun by American and British fur-hunters, trapping, explor- ing, building forts, trading and fighting with the Indians, from British America to Mexico. The celebrated Hudson's Bay Company and the scarcely less famous North American Fur Company, were among the earliest, if not the very earliest organizations to engage in these lucrative though perilous pursuits.

Bancroft, the Pacific States historian, is disposed to accord the

* This peninsula is known in Weber County as Little or Low Mountain.

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honor of discovering the Lake to Colonel James Bridger, founder of the once celebrated fort, bearing his name, situated on Black's Fork of Green River. Bridger, it is said, who in 1825 was trapping in the Bear River region, in Cache or Willow Valley, in order to decide a wager among his men as to the probable course of the Bear, followed that stream through the mountains till he stood upon the shores and tasted of the briny waters of the great inland sea. In the spring of 1826 four men, it is said, explored the lake in skin boats, and reported that it had no outlet. So little was known of the great West at that time, even by the adventurous spirits who traversed it, that they thought it quite probable this lake was an arm of the Pacific ocean.

Other claims, not so well authenticated as Bridger's, place the time of probable discovery at about 1820. A trapper named Provost- for whom Provo River presumably was named-is said to have been in this vicinity during that year. By some, William N. Ashley is thought to have preceded Bridger. Mr. Ashley, in 1825-6, led a large company from St Louis through South Pass and founded on Utah Lake, Fort Ashley *. He is said to have named the Sweetwater and Green rivers,-the latter after one of his party. His own name still clings to Ashley's Fork.

Among the notable characters traversing the Great Basin about this time was Peter Skeen Ogden, of the Hudson's Bay Company, who gave his name to the Ogden or Humboldt river.+ Another was Jedediah S. Smith, of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, who, in 1826-7 penetrated with a party from the shores of the Great Salt Lake to California; thence recrossing the Sierras and returning to this region. Smith and his associates, William L. Sublette and David E. Jackson, are reputed to have taken the first wagons from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains. Their wagons, however, were left at Wind River, and did not pass the Rockies.

In 1832-3, came the renowned Captain Bonneville, whose

* Utah Lake was formerly called Lake Ashley.

¡ Weber River was also named for a trapper in that region.

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adventures in this region were afterwards immortalized by Washing- ton Irving. His name has been given to the great fossil lake or prehistoric sea supposed to have once existed in the Great Basin. Bonneville was by birth a Frenchman, but at that time a United States army officer on leave .* His wagons, twenty in number, laden with Indian goods, provisions and ammunition, are believed to have been the first to roll down the western slope of the Rockies. He is thought to have been the first also to use ox-teams upon this line of travel.

From 1834 to 1839 parties of missionaries, men and women, crossed the Rocky Mountains to the shores of the Pacific. Mrs. Narcissa Whiteman and a Mrs. Spalding are reputed to have been the first white women to perform this long and perilous pilgrimage.

And all this and more before Colonel Fremont stood upon these desolate, brine-washed shores, and imagined himself a second Balboa discovering another Pacific, in this already many times dis- covered inland sea.

Overland emigration from the Missouri to the Pacific began about the year 1841. It was small at first, but increased yearly, until at the close of 1844 two or three thousand men, women and children had settled on the Pacific coast. Most of these were in Oregon, but California from the first had her share. Among those who reached "the land of gold" via the Utah region in 1841, were John Bidwell and Josiah Belden. Some of Mr. Bidwell's pioneer reminiscences have recently appeared in the Century Magazine.

The usual route of travel from the Missouri at that time was up the Platte River, along the Sweetwater and through South Pass. Beyond that point, those going to Oregon would bend their course northward to Soda Springs and Fort Hall, one of the Hudson Bay Company's stations; while those for California would follow Bear River to within a few miles of the Great Salt Lake, and then turn westward, crossing the country to the Sierras. Later, a new

* Bonneville, promoted to the rank of Colonel, was in 1849 the commanding officer at Fort Kearney.

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route to California, called the "Hastings Cut-Off," was planned. Of this, more anon.

Dr. Marcus Whitman, in 1842, made his celebrated ride from Oregon back to the States, passing through Utah by way of Uintah, and proceeding on to Santa Fe and St. Louis. He returned the fol- lowing summer to Oregon, with a large body of emigrants.

Among the companies for Oregon in 1844 was one led by Cornelius Gilliam, of Clay County, Missouri, prominently connected with the Mormon troubles of 1838. Ex-Governor Boggs, the "exterminator," crossed over to California some time later.

In 1845, Colonel Fremont again visited the shores of the Great Salt Lake, passing thence into California, to be next heard from in connection with the Mexican war. That year the emigration westward was heavier than that of any previous season; five companies with two hundred and fifty wagons going to Oregon alone. In 1846 the emigration was not quite so large, though it was estimated at two thousand five hundred souls, mostly men; one thousand and seven hundred of whom went to Oregon and the remainder to California. The last company of the season was the ill-starred Donner party, whose tragic story, being virtually a portion of Utah's early history, we will briefly relate.

The Donner party consisted of George Donner, James F. Reed, and about eighty-five others, men, women and children. In com- pany with others they left the frontier at Independence, Missouri, late in April or early in May, 1846. Separating west of South Pass, on the stream known as Little Sandy, from their friends who were going to Oregon, the Donner party, in the latter part of July set out for Fort Bridger .* There they tarried four days, prior to taking the "Hastings Cut-off" for California. This route, which was just beginning to be traveled, was by way of Bear River, Echo and Weber Canyons, around the south shore of Great Salt Lake, and across the

* Mr. Reed was the original leader of the party, but the day after separating from the Oregon emigrants George Donner was elected captain of the company, which was thence- forth known as the Donner party.

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desert to the Humboldt and the Sierras. Its projector was Lansford W. Hastings, a mountaineer and guide, who, with the proprietors of Fort Bridger, being interested in the new route, were doing all in their power to induce emigration that way. Mr. Reed states that some friends of his, who had preceded him to California with pack animals, had left letters for him with Mr. Vasquez, Bridger's part- ner, advising the company to go by way of Fort Hall, and by no means to take the Hastings Cut-off; but that Vasquez, as he learned later, had kept these letters, thus preventing the party from being warned.

Near the mouth of Echo Canyon they found a letter sticking in a sage-brush. It proved to be from Hastings, who was then piloting a company through Weber Canyon. It stated that if the Donner party would send a messenger after him, he would return and guide them along a better way than the Weber, which was represented as being very difficult. Accordingly, Mr. Reed and two others-Messrs. Mccutchen and Stanton-followed and overtook Hastings near Black Rock, at the south end of the Lake. He could not then return, but gave Mr. Reed some information concerning a "cut-off"-still another-from the mouth of Echo Canyon across the mountains into Salt Lake Valley. The latter then returned to camp.

The route now taken by his party was the one followed, next season, by the Mormon Pioneers,-up East Canyon, over the Big and Little Mountains and down Emigration Canyon into the Valley. The way was extremely difficult, and sixteen days were consumed by the Donner party in cutting a road through the canyons. Then came the crossing of the western desert, where many of their cattle gave out for want of grass and water, while others were lost or stolen by Indians, compelling them to abandon some of their wagons in the midst of the sandy waste. Delayed by these and other misfortunes, the ill-fated company did not strike the main trail on the Humboldt until late in September. By that time the last companies of the season had passed. Another month brought them to the foot of the Truckee Pass of the Sierras.

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Early snows now came, completely blocking up the way. Some of the company killed their cattle and went into winter quarters near Truckee Lake, but others, hoping still to thread the pass, delayed building their cabins until heavier snows fell, burying cattle, cabins and all. It was now December, their provisions were well-nigh exhausted, and starvation stared the hapless emigrants in the face. An advance party on snow-shoes pushed ahead over the mountains, braving snow and ice and wintry blasts, to obtain relief for their suffering companions. Before reaching New Helvetia-now Sacra- mento-several of the party died from cold, hunger and exhaustion, and the others, freezing and starving, were compelled to eat their flesh.

Captain Sutter, of Sutter's Fort, near Sacramento, and others nearer the coast, on learning of the terrible fate impending over the snow-bound travelers, fitted out relief parties and sent them to the rescue. This timely action saved most of the sufferers, but out of the original eighty-seven, persuaded into taking this death-trail across the Basin, thirty-nine perished from cold and starvation. The survivors, when found, had been subsisting for weeks-horrible extremity !- upon the bodies of their dead companions. Such was the sad fate of the Donner Party. The last one rescued, a German, who had become a ferocious cannibal, was picked up in April, 1847.

20-VOL. 1.

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CHAPTER XVII. 1847.

THE MORMON PIONEERS-THEIR JOURNEY ACROSS THE GREAT PLAINS-PAWNEES AND SIOUX- THE PIONEER BUFFALO HUNT-FORT LARAMIE-THE MISSISSIPPI MORMONS-SOUTH PASS --- MAJOR HARRIS -- COLONEL BRIDGER-"A THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR THE FIRST EAR OF CORN RAISED IN SALT LAKE VALLEY"-A DISCOURAGING PROSPECT-ELDER BRANNAN AGAIN-SOME OF THE BATTALION BOYS-FORT BRIDGER- MILES GOODYEAR-ECHO CANYON -THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE.

ET us now bring forward into the Great Basin the vanguard of the migrating Mormons encamped upon the Missouri. "The word and will of the Lord concerning the Camp of Israel in their journeyings to the West," was issued by President Young at Winter Quarters on the 14th of January, 1847. A few paragraphs of this manifesto-the first of its kind penned by the Prophet's successor- will convey some idea of the nature of the preparations for the con- tinued exodus :

Let all the people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-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, captains of fifties, and captains of tens, with a president and his two counselors at their head, under the direction 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 themselves with all the teams, wagons, provisions, cloth- ing. and other necessaries for the journey that they can.

When the companies are organized, let them go to with their might, to prepare for those who are to tarry.

Let each company with their captains and presidents decide how many can go next spring; and then choose out a sufficient number of able-bodied and expert men, to take teams, seeds, and farming utensils, to go as pioneers to prepare for putting in spring crops.

Let each company bear an equal proportion, according to the dividend of their prop- erty, in taking the poor, the widows, the fatherless, and the families of those who have

Milford Woodruff

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gone into the army, that the cries of the widow and the fatherless comc not up into the ears of the Lord against this people.

Let each company prepare houses, and fields for raising grain, for those who are to remain behind this season, and this is the will of the Lord concerning his 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, in all faithfulness, ye shall be blessed ; you shall be blessed in your flocks, and in your herds, and in your fields, and in your houses, and in your families.

* *

Seek ye and keep all your pledges one with another, and covet not that which is thy brother's.

Keep yourselves from evil to take the name of the Lord in vain, for I am the Lord your God, even the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.

I am he who led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and my arm is stretched out in the last days to save my people Israel.

Cease to contend one with another, cease to speak evil one of another.

Cease drunkenness, and let your words tend to edifying one another.

If thou borrowest of thy neighbor, thou shalt return that which thou hast borrowed ; and if thou canst not repay, then go straightway and tell thy neighbor, lest he condemn thee.

If thou shalt find that which thy neighbor has lost, thou shalt make diligent search till thou shalt deliver it to him again.

Thou shalt be diligent in preserving what thou hast, that thou mayest be a wise ste- ward ; for it is the free gift of the Lord thy God, and thou art his steward.

If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving.

If thou art sorrowful, call on the Lord thy God with supplication, that your souls may be joyful.

Fear not thine enemies, for they are in mine hands, and I will do my pleasure with them.

My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion, and he that will not bear chastisement, is not worthy of my kingdom.

Agreeable to these instructions the Saints went to work with a will, and as spring opened all was life, bustle and stir at their camps on the Missouri, and at their other settlements on the prairies of Iowa.

The personnel of the pioneer band, selected to precede the main body, was as follows. They are here given as divided into companies of "Tens :"

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FIRST TEN.

Wilford Woodruff, Captain,

John S. Fowler,

Jacob D. Burnham,

Ezra T. Benson, Captain,

Thomas B. Grover,

Barnabas L. Adams,

Roswell Stevens,

Thomas Bullock,

Marcus B. Thorpe, Geo. A. Smith, Geo. Wardle.

George Brown, Willard Richards,

Jesse C. Little.

THIRD TEN.

Phinehas H. Young, Captain, Addison Everett,

John Y. Green,

Truman O. Angell,

Thomas Tanner,

Lorenzo D. Young,

Brigham Young,

FOURTH TEN.

Luke S. Johnson, Captain,

John Holman,

Edmund Ellsworth,

Alvarus Hanks,

Tunis Rappleyee,

FIFTH TEN.

Stephen H. Goddard, Captain, Sylvester H. Earl,

Tarlton Lewis,

Henry G. Sherwood, Zebedee Coltrin,

SIXTH TEN.

Charles Shumway, Captain,

Andrew Shumway,

Thos. Woolsey, Chauncey Loveland,

James Case, Captain,

Wm. Carter,

Franklin G. Losee,

Burr Frost,

Datus Ensign,

Franklin B. Stewart, Monroe Frink, Eric Glines, Ozro Eastman.

EIGHTH TEN.

Alma M. Williams,

Rufus Allen,

Robert T. Thomas,

James W. Stewart,

Elijah Newman, Levi N. Kendall. Francis Boggs, David Grant.

Setlı Taft, Captain, Horace Thornton, Stephen Kelsey, John S. Eldredge, Charles D. Barnum,

Orson Pratt, Joseph Egbert, John M. Freeman,

SECOND TEN.

Amasa M. Lyman,

Starling Driggs,

Albert Carrington,

Bryant Stringham, Joseph S. Scofield,

Albert P. Rockwood.

Harry Pierce, Wm. Dykes, Jacob Weiler.

George Scholes, Wm. Henrie, Wm. A. Empey.

Wm. Vance, Simeon Howd, Seeley Owen.

SEVENTH TEN.

Artemas Johnson, Wm. C. A. Smoot, Franklin B. Dewey,

George R. Grant, Millen Atwood,

Samuel B. Fox,

John Dixon, Samuel H. Marble,

Erastus Snow, James Craig, Wm. Wordsworth,

Amasum. Lyman.

HISTORY OF UTAH.

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NINTH TEN.

Howard Egan, Captain, Heber C. Kimball, Wm. A. King, Thomas Cloward,

Hosea Cushing,

Robert Byard, George Billings,

Edson Whipple, Philo Johnson, Wm. Clayton.

TENTH TEN.

Appleton M. Harmon, Captain, Orrin P. Rockwell, Carlos Murray,

Nathaniel T. Brown,

Horace K. Whitney,

Orson K. Whitney,

R. Jackson Redding, John Pack,

Francis Pomeroy, Aaron Farr, Nathaniel Fairbanks.

ELEVENTH TEN.

John S. Higbee, Captain, John Wheeler,

Joseph Rooker, Perry Fitzgerald,

John H. Tippetts,

James Davenport, Henson Walker, Benjamin Rolfe.

TWELFTH TEN.

Stephen Markham,

Lewis Barney, George Mills,

Joseph Hancock, John W. Norton.

THIRTEENTH TEN.

John Brown, Captain, Shadrach Roundy, Levi Jackman,

Lyman Curtis,

Hans C. Hansen,

Matthew Ivory,

David Powers, Hark Lay (colored), Oscar Crosby (colored).

FOURTEENTH TEN.

Joseph Matthews, Captain,

Charles Burke,

Norman Taylor,

Gilbroid Summe, John Gleason,

Alexander P. Chessley, Rodney Badger,

Green Flake (colored), Ellis Eames.

A few of these were non-Mormons, who had cast in their lot with the Saints. As seen, twelve times twelve men had been chosen -whether designedly or otherwise we know not-but one of their number, Ellis Eames, falling sick after the company left Winter Quar- ters, returned, leaving the pioneer roll at one hundred and forty- three.

Besides the men, there were three women and two children in the camp. The women were Harriet Page Wheeler Youn,g wife of Lorenzo D. Young; Clara Decker Young, wife of Brigham Young,

Andrew Gibbons,

Solomon Chamberlain, Conrad Klineman,

Norton Jacobs, Captain, Charles A. Harper, George Woodard,

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and Ellen Sanders Kimball, wife of Heber C. Kimball. The children were Isaac Perry Decker, stepson, and Lorenzo Sobieski, own son of Lorenzo D. Young.

According to that veteran, it was no part of the original plan to include women and children in the pioneer company. The hardships and dangers in prospect were foreseen to be such as would test the strength and endurance of the hardiest and healthiest men, who had consequently been chosen. The idea of taking delicate women and helpless children along, to hinder-as it was naturally presumed they would-the march to the mountains, if thought of, was not for a moment entertained. "Uncle Lorenzo," still living to tell the story, claims to have made the suggestion which gave to the pioneer band its triad of heroines. His wife Harriet being in feeble health, which was further imperilled by the damp, malarial atmosphere of the Missouri bottoms, pleaded so earnestly for the privilege of accom- panying her husband, that the President, his brother, yielding to their entreaties, finally consented. The children of course were per- mitted to go with their parents. The other women were then included as well. Clara D. Young and Isaac Perry Decker were brother and sister, children of Harriet Young by a former marriage. More than once during that rugged journey to the mountains did these heroic women, in their capacity of "ministering angels"- nurses to the sick-prove that no mistake was made when they were permitted to accompany the pioneers on their long pilgrimage.

Heber C. Kimball was the first of the leaders to move toward the mountains. On the 5th of April, taking six of his teams, he left Winter Quarters and formed a camp about four miles westward, beside a spring, at or near a place called Cutler's Park. This camp was the nucleus of the pioneer company.

The general conference of the Church convened at Winter Quar- ters on April 6th. On the 8th, such of the Apostles as had joined the camp returned to meet their confrere, Parley P. Pratt, who had just arrived from Europe. At a council held that evening in the office of Dr. Willard Richards, Parley reported the condition of affairs

Clara D. Young

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abroad. Reuben Hedlock and others, promoters of the Joint Stock Company, had been severed from the Church and their speculative operations among the British Saints brought to an end. A final set- tlement had been made with the stock-holders. A general reform was in progress throughout the mission, and the spiritual was once more ascendant over the temporal. Such was the substance of Elder Pratt's report.

On the 9th another start was made for the mountains. The leaders, however, had no sooner rejoined the camp, now west of the Elk Horn, than they again started back to Winter Quarters, this time to greet Apostle John Taylor, who had also returned from Europe, bringing with him over two thousand dollars in gold, contributed to the Church by its British members. Apostles Pratt and Taylor had both come by way of New Orleans. Their associate, Orson Hyde, had landed at New York, and was on his way west. These three did not join the pioneer band, but remained to help organize some of the succeeding companies. Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor followed in the wake of the pioneers that season, but Orson Hyde tarried on the frontier.

Leaving general affairs on the Missouri in the hands of these Apostles, and having appointed a special committee, consisting of Isaac Morley and Newel K. Whitney, to superintend the emigration, President Young and the other leaders again joined their camp beyond the Elk Horn. They crossed that stream, one of the north tributaries of the Platte, on a raft constructed by some of their company who had gone before. It was now the 15th of April. They were twelve miles west of the Elk Horn, and forty-seven miles from Winter Quarters.

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History of Utah, Part 26

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon Number of Pages: 1026

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026