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Title: The City of the Saints
and across the Rocky Mountains to California
Author: Richard Francis Burton
Release Date: November 22, 2021 [eBook #66791]
Language: English
Produced by: Tim Lindell, Harry Lamé and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF THE SAINTS ***
Transcriber’s Notes
Texts printed in italics, bold face and small capitals have been
transcribed _between underscores_, =between equal signs= and as ALL
CAPITALS respectively. Superscript texts have been transcribed as
^{text}.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.
[Illustration: GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. (From the North.)]
THE CITY OF THE SAINTS,
AND
ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO CALIFORNIA.
BY
RICHARD F. BURTON,
AUTHOR OF
“THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA,” ETC.
With Illustrations.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1862.
“Clear your mind of cant.”--JOHNSON.
“MONTESINOS.--America is in more danger from religious fanaticism.
The government there not thinking it necessary to provide religious
instruction for the people in any of the new states, the prevalence
of superstition, and that, perhaps, in some wild and terrible shape,
may be looked for as one likely consequence of this great and
portentous omission. An Old Man of the Mountain might find dupes and
followers as readily as the All-friend Jemima; and the next Aaron
Burr who seeks to carve a kingdom for himself out of the overgrown
territories of the Union, may discern that fanaticism is the most
effective weapon with which ambition can arm itself; that the way
for both is prepared by that immorality which the want of religion
naturally and necessarily induces, and that camp-meetings may be
very well directed to forward the designs of military prophets. Were
there another Mohammed to arise, there is no part of the world where
he would find more scope or fairer opportunity than in that part of
the Anglo-American Union into which the older states continually
discharge the restless part of their population, leaving laws and
Gospel to overtake it if they can, for in the march of modern
colonization both are left behind.”
_This remarkable prophecy appeared from the pen of Robert Southey,
the Poet-Laureate, in March, 1829_ (“_Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies
on the Progress and Prospects of Society_,” vol. i., Part II., “_The
Reformation--Dissenters--Methodists_.”)
Dedication.
TO
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.
I HAVE PREFIXED YOUR NAME, DEAR MILNES, TO “THE CITY OF THE SAINTS:”
THE NAME OF A LINGUIST, TRAVELER, POET, AND, ABOVE ALL, A MAN OF
INTELLIGENT INSIGHT INTO THE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS OF HIS BROTHER MEN.
PREFACE.
Unaccustomed, of late years at least, to deal with tales of twice-told
travel, I can not but feel, especially when, as in the present case,
so much detail has been expended upon the trivialities of a Diary,
the want of that freshness and originality which would have helped
the reader over a little lengthiness. My best excuse is the following
extract from the lexicographer’s “Journey to the Western Islands,” made
in company with Mr. Boswell during the year of grace 1773, and upheld
even at that late hour as somewhat a feat in the locomotive line.
“These diminutive observations seem to take away something from the
dignity of writing, and therefore are never communicated but with
hesitation, and a little fear of abasement and contempt. But it must be
remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or
elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance
with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of
small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures, and we are
well or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or
is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruptions.”
True! and as the novelist claims his right to elaborate, in the
“domestic epic,” the most trivial scenes of household routine, so the
traveler may be allowed to enlarge, when copying nature in his humbler
way, upon the subject of his little drama, and, not confining himself
to the great, the good, and the beautiful, nor suffering himself
to be wholly engrossed by the claims of cotton, civilization, and
Christianity, useful knowledge and missionary enterprise, to _desipere
in loco_ by expatiating upon his bed, his meat, and his drink.
The notes forming the ground-work of this volume were written on patent
improved metallic pocket-books in sight of the objects which attracted
my attention. The old traveler is again right when he remarks: “There
is yet another cause of error not always easily surmounted, though
more dangerous to the veracity of itinerary narratives than imperfect
mensuration. An observer deeply impressed by any remarkable spectacle
does not suppose that the traces will soon vanish from his mind,
and, having commonly no great convenience for writing”--Penny and
Letts are of a later date--“defers the description to a time of more
leisure and better accommodation. He who has not made the experiment,
or is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself,
will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of
knowledge and distinctness of imagery; how the succession of objects
will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many
particular features and discriminations will be found compressed and
conglobated with one gross and general idea.” Brave words, somewhat
pompous and diffused, yet worthy to be written in letters of gold. But,
though of the same opinion with M. Charles Didier, the Miso-Albion
(Séjour chez le Grand-Chérif de la Mekkeh, Preface, p. vi.), when
he characterizes “un voyage de fantaisie” as “le pire de tous les
romans,” and with Admiral Fitzroy (Hints to Travelers, p. 3), that
the descriptions should be written with the objects in view, I would
avoid the other extreme, viz., that of publishing, as our realistic
age is apt to do, mere photographic representations. Byron could not
write verse when on Lake Leman, and the traveler who puts forth his
narrative without after-study and thought will produce a kind of
Persian picture, pre-Raphaelitic enough, no doubt, but lacking distance
and perspective--in artists’ phrase, depth and breadth--in fact, a
narrative about as pleasing to the reader’s mind as the sage and
saleratus prairies of the Far West would be to his ken.
In working up this book I have freely used authorities well known
across the water, but more or less rare in England. The books
principally borrowed from are “The Prairie Traveler,” by Captain
Marcy; “Explorations of Nebraska,” by Lieutenant G. A. Warren; and
Mr. Bartlett’s “Dictionary of Americanisms.” To describe these
regions without the aid of their first explorers, Messrs. Frémont and
Stansbury, would of course have been impossible. If I have not always
specified the authority for a statement, it has been rather for the
purpose of not wearying the reader by repetitions than with the view of
enriching my pages at the expense of others.
In commenting upon what was seen and heard, I have endeavored to
assume--whether successfully or not the public will decide--the
cosmopolitan character, and to avoid the capital error, especially
in treating of things American, of looking at them from the
fancied vantage-ground of an English point of view. I hold the
Anglo-Scandinavian[1] of the New World to be in most things equal,
in many inferior, and in many superior, to his cousin in the Old;
and that a gentleman, that is to say, a man of education, probity,
and honor--not, as I was once told, one who must get _on onner_
and _onnest_--is every where the same, though living in separate
hemispheres. If, in the present transition state of the Far West, the
broad lands lying between the Missouri River and the Sierra Nevada have
occasionally been handled somewhat roughly, I have done no more than
I should have permitted myself to do while treating of rambles beyond
railways through the semi-civilized parts of Great Britain, with their
“pleasant primitive populations”--Wales, for instance, or Cornwall.
[1] The word is proposed by Dr. Norton Shaw, Secretary to the Royal
Geographical Society, and should be generally adopted. Anglo-Saxon is
to Anglo-Scandinavian what Indo-Germanic is to Indo-European; both
serve to humor the absurd pretensions of claimants whose principal
claim to distinction is pretentiousness. The coupling England with
Saxony suggests to my memory a toast once proposed after a patriotic
and fusional political feed in the Isle of the Knights--“Malta and
England united can conquer the world.”
I need hardly say that this elaborate account of the Holy City of the
West and its denizens would not have seen the light so soon after the
appearance of a “Journey to Great Salt Lake City,” by M. Jules Remy,
had there not been much left to say. The French naturalist passed
through the Mormon Settlements in 1855, and five years in the Far West
are equal to fifty in less conservative lands; the results of which
are, that the relation of my experiences will in no way clash with his,
or prove a tiresome repetition to the reader of both.
If in parts of this volume there appear a tendency to look upon
things generally in their ludicrous or absurd aspects--from which
nothing sublunary is wholly exempt--my excuse must be _sic me natura
fecit_. Democritus was not, I believe, a whit the worse philosopher
than Heraclitus. The Procreation of Mirth should be a theme far more
sympathetic than the Anatomy of Melancholy, and the old Roman gentleman
had a perfect right to challenge all objectors with
ridentem dicere verum
Quid vetat?
Finally, I would again solicit forbearance touching certain errors of
omission and commission which are to be found in these pages. Her most
gracious majesty has been pleased to honor me with an appointment as
Consul at Fernando Po, in the Bight of Biafra, and the necessity of an
early departure has limited me to a single revise.
14 ST. JAMES’ SQUARE, 1st July, 1861.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. WHY I WENT TO GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. -- THE VARIOUS ROUTES.
-- THE LINE OF COUNTRY TRAVERSED. -- DIARIES AND
DISQUISITIONS. 1
II. THE SIOUX OR DAKOTAHS. 93
III. CONCLUDING THE ROUTE TO THE GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. 131
IV. FIRST WEEK AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. -- PRELIMINARIES. 203
V. SECOND WEEK AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. -- VISIT TO THE
PROPHET. 237
VI. DESCRIPTIVE GEOGRAPHY, ETHNOLOGY, AND STATISTICS OF UTAH
TERRITORY. 272
VII. THIRD WEEK AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. -- EXCURSIONS. 322
VIII. EXCURSIONS CONTINUED. 343
IX. LATTER-DAY SAINTS. -- OF THE MORMON RELIGION. 361
X. FARTHER OBSERVATIONS AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. 417
XI. LAST DAYS AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. 441
XII. TO RUBY VALLEY. 443
XIII. TO CARSON VALLEY. 473
CONCLUSION. 499
APPENDICES. 503
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
1. GREAT SALT LAKE CITY FROM THE NORTH _Frontispiece._
2. ROUTE FROM THE MISSOURI RIVER TO THE PACIFIC _to face_ 1
3. MAP OF THE WASACH MOUNTAINS AND GREAT SALT LAKE „ 1
4. GENERAL MAP OF NORTH AMERICA „ 1
5. THE WESTERN YOKE 23
6.CHIMNEY ROCK 74
7. SCOTT’S BLUFFS 77
8. INDIANS 94
9. PLAN OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY _to face_ 193
10. STORES IN MAIN STREET 199
11. ENDOWMENT HOUSE AND TABERNACLE 221
12. THE PROPHET’S BLOCK 247
13. THE TABERNACLE 259
14. ANCIENT LAKE BENCH-LAND 272
15. THE DEAD SEA 322
16. ENSIGN PEAK 358
17. DESERÉT ALPHABET 420
18. MOUNT NEBO 443
19. FIRST VIEW OF CARSON LAKE 490
20. VIRGINIA CITY 498
21. IN THE SIERRA NEVADA 502
[Illustration:
Route from the
MISSOURI RIVER
to the
PACIFIC.
_Route of Capt^{n.} Burton_]
[Illustration:
The
Wahsatch Mountains
&
GREAT SALT LAKE
(_from Capt^{n.} Stansbury_)]
[Illustration:
NORTH
AMERICA
_Engraved by_ E. Weller _34. Red Lion Square._
_London, Longman & Co._]
THE CITY OF THE SAINTS.
CHAPTER I.
Why I went to Great Salt Lake City.--The various Routes.--The Line of
Country traversed.--Diaries and Disquisitions.
A tour through the domains of Uncle Samuel without visiting the
wide regions of the Far West would be, to use a novel simile, like
seeing Hamlet with the part of Prince of Denmark, by desire, omitted.
Moreover, I had long determined to add the last new name to the list
of “Holy Cities;” to visit the young rival, _soi-disant_, of Memphis,
Benares, Jerusalem, Rome, Meccah; and after having studied the
beginnings of a mighty empire “in that New World which is the Old,” to
observe the origin and the working of a regular go-ahead Western and
Columbian revelation. Mingled with the wish of prospecting the City of
the Great Salt Lake in a spiritual point of view, of seeing Utah as
it is, not as it is said to be, was the mundane desire of enjoying a
little skirmishing with the savages, who in the days of Harrison and
Jackson had given the pale faces tough work to do, and that failing,
of inspecting the line of route which Nature, according to the general
consensus of guide-books, has pointed out as the proper, indeed the
only practical direction for a railway between the Atlantic and the
Pacific. The commerce of the world, the Occidental Press had assured
me, is undergoing its grand climacteric: the resources of India and the
nearer orient are now well-nigh cleared of “loot,” and our sons, if
they would walk in the paths of their papas, must look to Cipangri and
the parts about Cathay for _their_ annexations.
The Man was ready, the Hour hardly appeared propitious for other than
belligerent purposes. Throughout the summer of 1860 an Indian war was
raging in Nebraska; the Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes were “out;”
the Federal government had dispatched three columns to the centres
of confusion; intestine feuds among the aborigines were talked of;
the Dakotah or Sioux had threatened to “wipe out” their old foe the
Pawnee, both tribes being possessors of the soil over which the road
ran. Horrible accounts of murdered post-boys and cannibal emigrants,
greatly exaggerated, as usual, for private and public purposes,
filled the papers, and that nothing might be wanting, the following
positive assertion (I afterward found it to be, as Sir Charles Napier
characterized one of a Bombay editor’s saying, “a marked and emphatic
lie”) was copied by full half the press:
“Utah has a population of some fifty-two or fifty-three thousand--more
or less--rascals. Governor Cumming has informed the President exactly
how matters stand in respect to them. Neither life nor property is
safe, he says, and bands of depredators roam unpunished through the
territory. The United States judges have abandoned their offices, and
the law is boldly defied every where. He requests that 500 soldiers
may be retained at Utah to afford some kind of protection to American
citizens who are obliged to remain here.”
“Mormon” had in fact become a word of fear; the Gentiles looked upon
the Latter-Day Saints much as our crusading ancestors regarded the
“Hashshashiyun,” whose name, indeed, was almost enough to frighten
them. Mr. Brigham Young was the Shaykh-el-Jebel, the Old Man of
the Hill redivivus, Messrs. Kimball and Wells were the chief of
his Fidawin, and “Zion on the tops of the mountains” formed a fair
representation of Alamut.
“Going among the Mormons!” said Mr. M---- to me at New Orleans; “they
are shooting and cutting one another in all directions; how can _you_
expect to escape?”
Another general assertion was that “White Indians”--those Mormons
again!--had assisted the “Washoes,” “Pah Utes,” and “Bannacks” in the
fatal affair near Honey Lake, where Major Ormsby, of the militia, a
military frontier-lawyer, and his forty men, lost the numbers of their
mess.
But sagely thus reflecting that “dangers which loom large from afar
generally lose size as one draws near;” that rumors of wars might
have arisen, as they are wont to do, from the political necessity
for another “Indian botheration,” as editors call it; that Governor
Cumming’s name might have been used in vain; that even the President
might not have been a Pope, infallible; and that the Mormons might
turn out somewhat less black than they were painted; moreover, having
so frequently and willfully risked the chances of an “I told you so”
from the lips of friends, those “prophets of the past;” and, finally,
having been so much struck with the discovery by some Western man
of an enlarged truth, viz., that the bugbear approached has more
affinity to the bug than to the bear, I resolved to risk the chance
of the “red nightcap” from the bloodthirsty Indian and the poisoned
bowie-dagger--without my Eleonora or Berengaria--from the jealous
Latter-Day Saints. I forthwith applied myself to the audacious task
with all the recklessness of a “party” from town precipitating himself
for the first time into “foreign parts” about Calais.
And, first, a few words touching routes.
[THE PACIFIC RAILROAD]
As all the world knows, there are three main lines proposed for a
“Pacific Railroad” between the Mississippi and the Western Ocean, the
Northern, Central, and Southern.[2]
[2] The following table shows the lengths, comparative costs, etc.,
of the several routes explored for a railroad from the Mississippi
to the Pacific, as extracted from the Speech of the Hon. Jefferson
Davis, of Mississippi, on the Pacific Railway Bill in the United
States Senate, January, 1859, and quoted by the Hon. Sylvester Maury
in the “Geography and Resources of Arizona and Sonora.”
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
| | | | | | No. of | |
| | | | | | miles | |
| | | | | |of route| |
| | | | | |through | |
| | | | | | land | |
| | | | | | gener- | |
| | | | | | ally | |
| | | | | | uncul- | Alti- |
| | Dis- | | | |tivable,| tude |
| | tance| | | No. of| arable | above |
| | by | Sum of| | miles | soil |the sea|
| | pro- | as- | Compar- | of | being | of the|
| | posed| cents | ative | route | found |highest|
| | rail-| and | cost of |through| in | point |
| | road | de- | different | arable| small | on the|
| ROUTES. |route.|scents.| routes. | lands.| areas. | route.|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
| |Miles.| Feet. | Dollars. | | | Feet. |
|Route near forty-| | | | | | |
|seventh and | | | | | | |
|forty-ninth par- | | | | | | |
|allels, from St. | | | | | | |
|Paul to Seattle | 1955 | 18,654|135,871,000| 535 | 1490 | 6,044|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near forty-| | | | | | |
|seventh and | | | | | | |
|forty-ninth par- | | | | | | |
|allels, from St. | | | | | | |
|Paul to Vancouver| 1800 | 17,645|425,781,000| 374 | 1490 | 6,044|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near forty-| | | | | | |
|first and forty- | | | | | | |
|second parallels,| | | | | | |
|from Rock Island,| | | | | | |
|viâ South Pass, | | 29,120| | | | |
|to Benicia | 2299 | [3] |122,770,000| 899 | 1400 | 8,373|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near | | | | | | |
|thirty-eighth and| | | | | | |
|thirty-ninth par-| | | | | | |
|allels, from St. | | | | | | |
|Louis, viâ Coo- | | | | | | |
|che-to-pa and | | | | | | |
|Tah-ee-chay-pah | | | | | | |
|passes to San | | 49,985| Imprac- | | | |
|Francisco | 2325 | [4] | ticable. | 865 | 1460 | 10,032|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near | | | | | | |
|thirty-eighth and| | | | | | |
|thirty-ninth par-| | | | | | |
|allels, from St. | | | | | | |
|Louis, viâ Coo- | | | | | | |
|chee-to-pa and | | | | | | |
|Madeline Passes, | | 56,514| Imprac- | | | |
|to Benicia | 2535 | [5] | ticable. | 915 | 1620 | 10,032|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near | | | | | | |
|thirty-fifth par-| | | | | | |
|allel, from Mem- | | | | | | |
|phis to San Fran-| | 48,521| | | | |
|cisco | 2366 | [4] |113,000,000| 916 | 1450 | 7,550|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near | | | | | | |
|thirty-second | | | | | | |
|parallel, from | | | | | | |
|Memphis to San | | 48,862| | | | |
|Pedro | 2090 | [4] | 99,000,000| 690 | 1400 | 7,550|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near | | | | | | |
|thirty-second | | | | | | |
|parallel, near | | | | | | |
|Gaines’ Landing, | | | | | | |
|to San Francisco | | 38,200| | | | |
|by coast route | 2174 | [6] | 94,000,000| 984 | 1190 | 5,717|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near | | | | | | |
|thirty-second | | | | | | |
|parallel, from | | | | | | |
|Gaines’ Landing | | 30,181| | | | |
|to San Pedro | 1748 | [6] | 72,000,000| 558 | 1190 | 5,717|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
|Route near | | | | | | |
|thirty-second | | | | | | |
|parallel, from | | | | | | |
|Gaines’ Landing | | 33,454| | | | |
|to San Diego | 1683 | [6] | 72,000,000| 524 | 1159 | 5,717|
+-----------------+------+-------+-----------+-------+--------+-------+
[3] The ascents and descents between Rock Island and Council Bluffs
are not known, and therefore not included in this sum.
[4] The ascents and descents between St. Louis and Westport are not
known, and therefore not included in this sum.
[5] The ascents and descents between Memphis and Fort Smith are not
known, and therefore not included in this sum.
[6] The ascents and descents between Gaines’ Landing and Fulton are
not known, and therefore not included in this sum.
The first, or British, was in my case not to be thought of; it involves
semi-starvation, possibly a thorough plundering by the Bedouins, and,
what was far worse, five or six months of slow travel. The third,
or Southern, known as the Butterfield or American Express, offered
to start me in an ambulance from St. Louis, and to pass me through
Arkansas, El Paso, Fort Yuma on the Gila River, in fact through the
vilest and most desolate portion of the West. Twenty-four mortal days
and nights--twenty-five being schedule time--must be spent in that
ambulance; passengers becoming crazy by whisky, mixed with want of
sleep, are often obliged to be strapped to their seats; their meals,
dispatched during the ten-minute halts, are simply abominable, the
heats are excessive, the climate malarious; lamps may not be used at
night for fear of unexisting Indians: briefly, there is no end to
this Via Mala’s miseries. The line received from the United States
government upward of half a million of dollars per annum for carrying
the mails, and its contract had still nearly two years to run.
There remained, therefore, the central route, which has two branches.
You may start by stage to the gold regions about Denver City or Pike’s
Peak, and thence, if not accidentally or purposely shot, you may
proceed by an uncertain ox-train to Great Salt Lake City, which latter
part can not take less than thirty-five days. On the other hand, there
is “the great emigration route” from Missouri to California and Oregon,
over which so many thousands have traveled within the past few years.
I quote from a useful little volume, “The Prairie Traveler,”[7] by
Randolph B. Marcy, Captain U. S. Army. “The track is broad, well worn,
and can not be mistaken. It has received the major part of the Mormon
emigration, and was traversed by the army in its march to Utah in 1857.”
[7] Printed by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1859, and Messrs.
Sampson Low, Son, and Co., Ludgate Hill, and amply meriting the
honors of a second edition.
The mail-coach on this line was established in 1850, by Colonel Samuel
H. Woodson, an eminent lawyer, afterward an M. C., and right unpopular
with Mormondom, because he sacrilegiously owned part of Temple Block,
in Independence, Mo., which is the old original New Zion. The following
are the rates of contract and the phases through which the line has
passed.
1. Colonel Woodson received for carrying a monthly mail $19,500 (or
$23,000?): length of contract 4 years.
2. Mr. F. McGraw, $13,500, besides certain considerable extras.
3. Messrs. Heber Kimball & Co. (Mormons), $23,000.
4. Messrs. Jones & Co., $30,000.
5. Mr. J. M. Hockaday, weekly mail, $190,000.
6. Messrs. Russell, Majors, & Waddell, army contractors; weekly mail,
$190,000.[8]
[8] In the American Almanac for 1861 (p. 196), the length of routes
in Utah Territory is 1450 miles, 533 of which have no specified mode
of transportation, and the remainder, 977, in coaches; the total
transportation is thus 170,872 miles, and the total cost $144,638.
[THE UTAH LINE.]
Thus it will be seen that in 1856 the transit was in the hands of the
Latter-Day Saints: they managed it well, but they lost the contracts
during their troubles with the federal government in 1857, when it
again fell into Gentile possession. In those early days it had but
three changes of mules, at Forts Bridger, Laramie, and Kearney.
In May, 1859, it was taken up by the present firm, which expects,
by securing the monopoly of the whole line between the Missouri
River and San Francisco, and by canvassing at head-quarters for a
bi-weekly--which they have now obtained--and even a daily transit,
which shall constitutionally extinguish the Mormon community, to insert
the fine edge of that wedge which is to open an aperture for the
Pacific Railroad about to be. At Saint Joseph (Mo.), better known by
the somewhat irreverent abbreviation of St. Jo, I was introduced to
Mr. Alexander Majors, formerly one of the contractors for supplying
the army in Utah--a veteran mountaineer, familiar with life on the
prairies. His meritorious efforts to reform the morals of the land
have not yet put forth even the bud of promise. He forbade his drivers
and employés to drink, gamble, curse, and travel on Sundays; he
desired them to peruse Bibles distributed to them gratis; and though
he refrained from a lengthy proclamation commanding his lieges to be
good boys and girls, he did not the less expect it of them. Results:
I scarcely ever saw a sober driver; as for profanity--the Western
equivalent for hard swearing--they would make the blush of shame
crimson the cheek of the old Isis bargee; and, rare exceptions to
the rule of the United States, they are not to be deterred from evil
talking even by the dread presence of a “lady.” The conductors and
road-agents are of a class superior to the drivers; they do their
harm by an inordinate ambition to distinguish themselves. I met one
gentleman who owned to three murders, and another individual who
lately attempted to ration the mules with wild sage. The company was
by no means rich; already the papers had prognosticated a failure, in
consequence of the government withdrawing its supplies, and it seemed
to have hit upon the happy expedient of badly entreating travelers
that good may come to it of our evils. The hours and halting-places
were equally vilely selected; for instance, at Forts Kearney, Laramie,
and Bridger, the only points where supplies, comfort, society, are
procurable, a few minutes of grumbling delay were granted as a favor,
and the passengers were hurried on to some distant wretched ranch,[9]
apparently for the sole purpose of putting a few dollars into the
station-master’s pockets. The travel was unjustifiably slow, even in
this land, where progress is mostly on paper. From St. Jo to Great Salt
Lake City, the mails might easily be landed during the fine weather,
without inconvenience to man or beast, in ten days; indeed, the agents
have offered to place them at Placerville in fifteen. Yet the schedule
time being twenty-one days, passengers seldom reached their destination
before the nineteenth; the sole reason given was, that snow makes the
road difficult in its season, and that if people were accustomed to
fast travel, and if letters were received under schedule time, they
would look upon the boon as a right.
[9] “Rancho” in Mexico means primarily a rude thatched hut where
herdsmen pass the night; the “rancharia” is a sheep-walk or
cattle-run, distinguished from a “hacienda,” which must contain
cultivation. In California it is a large farm with grounds often
measured by leagues, and it applies to any dirty hovel in the
Mississippian Valley.
Before proceeding to our preparations for travel, it may be as well to
cast a glance at the land to be traveled over.
The United States territory lying in direct line between the
Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean is now about 1200 miles long
from north to south, by 1500 of breadth, in 49° and 32° N. lat.,
about equal to Equatorial Africa, and 1800 in N. lat. 38°. The great
uncultivable belt of plain and mountain region through which the
Pacific Railroad must run has a width of 1100 statute miles near the
northern boundary; in the central line, 1200; and through the southern,
1000. Humboldt justly ridiculed the “maddest natural philosopher”
who compared the American continent to a female figure--long, thin,
watery, and freezing at the 58th°, the degrees being symbolic of the
year at which woman grows old. Such description manifestly will not
apply to the 2,000,000 of square miles in this section of the Great
Republic--she is every where broader than she is long.
The meridian of 105° north longitude (G.)--Fort Laramie lies in 104°
31′ 26″--divides this vast expanse into two nearly equal parts. The
eastern half is a basin or river valley rising gradually from the
Mississippi to the Black Hills, and the other outlying ranges of the
Rocky Mountains. The average elevation near the northern boundary
(49°) is 2500 feet, in the middle latitude (38°) 6000 feet, and near
the southern extremity (32°), about 4000 feet above sea level. These
figures explain the complicated features of its water-shed. The western
half is a mountain region whose chains extend, as far as they are
known, in a general N. and S. direction.
The 99th meridian (G.)--Fort Kearney lies in 98° 58′ 11″--divides the
western half of the Mississippian Valley into two unequal parts.
The eastern portion, from the Missouri to Fort Kearney--400 to 500
miles in breadth--may be called the “Prairie land.” It is true that
passing westward of the 97° meridian, the _mauvaises terres_, or Bad
Grounds, are here and there met with, especially near the 42d parallel,
in which latitude they extend farther to the east, and that upward to
99° the land is rarely fit for cultivation, though fair for grazing.
Yet along the course of the frequent streams there is valuable soil,
and often sufficient wood to support settlements. This territory is
still possessed by settled Indians, by semi-nomads, and by powerful
tribes of equestrian and wandering savages, mixed with a few white men,
who, as might be expected, excel them in cunning and ferocity.
[THE WESTERN GRAZING-GROUNDS.]
The western portion of the valley, from Fort Kearney to the base of
the Rocky Mountains--a breadth of 300 to 400 miles--is emphatically
“the desert,” sterile and uncultivable, a dreary expanse of wild sage
(artemisia) and saleratus. The surface is sandy, gravelly, and pebbly;
cactus carduus and aloes abound; grass is found only in the rare river
bottoms where the soils of the different strata are mixed, and the
few trees along the borders of streams--fertile lines of wadis, which
laborious irrigation and coal mining might convert into oases--are
the cotton-wood and willow, to which the mezquite[10] may be added in
the southern latitudes. The desert is mostly uninhabited, unendurable
even to the wildest Indian. But the people on its eastern and western
frontiers, namely, those holding the extreme limits of the fertile
prairie, and those occupying the desirable regions of the western
mountains, are, to quote the words of Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren,
U. S. Topographical Engineers, whose valuable reconnaissances and
explanations of Nebraska in 1855, ’56, and ’57 were published in the
Reports of the Secretary of War, “on the shore of a sea, up to which
population and agriculture may advance and no farther. But this gives
these outposts much of the value of places along the Atlantic frontier,
in view of the future settlements to be formed in the mountains,
between which and the present frontier a most valuable trade would
exist. The western frontier has always been looking to the east for
a market; but as soon as the wave of emigration has passed over the
desert portion of the plains, to which the discoveries of gold have
already given an impetus that will propel it to the fertile valleys
of the Rocky Mountains, then will the present frontier of Kansas
and Nebraska become the starting-point for all the products of the
Mississippi Valley which the population of the mountains will require.
We see the effects of it in the benefits which the western frontier of
Missouri has received from the Santa Fé tract, and still more plainly
in the impetus given to Leavenworth by the operations of the army of
Utah in the interior region. This flow of products has, in the last
instance, been only in one direction; but when those mountains become
settled, as they eventually must, then there will be a reciprocal trade
materially beneficial to both.”
[10] Often corrupted from the Spanish to muskeet (_Algarobia
glandulosa_), a locust inhabiting Texas, New Mexico, California,
etc., bearing, like the carob generally, a long pod full of sweet
beans, which, pounded and mixed with flour, are a favorite food with
the Southwestern Indians.
The mountain region westward of the sage and saleratus desert,
extending between the 105th and 111th meridian (G.)--a little more
than 400 miles--will in time become sparsely peopled. Though in many
parts arid and sterile, dreary and desolate, the long bunch grass
(_Festuca_), the short curly buffalo grass (_Sisleria dactyloides_),
the mesquit grass (_Stipa spata_), and the Gramma, or rather, as it
should be called, “Gamma” grass (_Chondrosium fœnum_),[11] which clothe
the slopes west of Fort Laramie, will enable it to rear an abundance of
stock. The fertile valleys, according to Lieutenant Warren, “furnish
the means of raising sufficient quantities of grain and vegetables
for the use of the inhabitants, and beautiful healthy and desirable
locations for their homes. The remarkable freedom here from sickness is
one of the attractive features of the region, and will in this respect
go far to compensate the settler from the Mississippi Valley for his
loss in the smaller amount of products that can be taken from the soil.
The great want of suitable building material, which now so seriously
retards the growth of the West, will not be felt there.” The heights
of the Rocky Mountains rise abruptly from 1000 to 6000 feet over the
lowest known passes, computed by the Pacific Railroad surveyors to vary
from 4000 to 10,000 feet above sea-level. The two chains forming the
eastern and western rims of the Rocky Mountain basin have the greatest
elevation, walling in, as it were, the other sub-ranges.
[11] Some of my informants derived the word from the Greek letter;
others make it Hispano-Mexican.
There is a popular idea that the western slope of the Rocky Mountains
is smooth and regular; on the contrary, the land is rougher, and the
ground is more complicated than on the eastern declivities. From the
summit of the Wasach range to the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada,
the whole region, with exceptions, is a howling wilderness, the sole
or bed of an inland sweetwater sea, now shrunk into its remnants--the
Great Salt and the Utah Lakes. Nothing can be more monotonous than its
regular succession of high grisly hills, cut perpendicularly by rough
and rocky ravines, and separating bare and barren plains. From the
seaward base of the Sierra Nevada to the Pacific--California--the slope
is easy, and the land is pleasant, fertile, and populous.
After this _aperçu_ of the motives which sent me forth, once more a
pilgrim, to young Meccah in the West, of the various routes, and of
the style of country wandered over, I plunge at once into personal
narrative.
[KIT.]
Lieutenant Dana (U. S. Artillery), my future _compagnon de voyage_,
left St. Louis,[12] “the turning-back place of English sportsmen,” for
St. Jo on the 2d of August, preceding me by two days. Being accompanied
by his wife and child, and bound on a weary voyage to Camp Floyd, Utah
Territory, he naturally wanted a certain amount of precise information
concerning the route, and one of the peculiarities of this line is that
no one knows any thing about it. In the same railway car which carried
me from St. Louis were five passengers, all bent upon making Utah with
the least delay--an unexpected cargo of officials: Mr. F********,
a federal judge with two sons; Mr. W*****, a state secretary; and
Mr. G****, a state marshal. As the sequel may show, Dana was doubly
fortunate in securing places before the list could be filled up by the
unusual throng: all we thought of at the time was our good luck in
escaping a septidium at St. Jo, whence the stage started on Tuesdays
only. We hurried, therefore, to pay for our tickets--$175 each being
the moderate sum--to reduce our luggage to its minimum approach toward
25 lbs., the price of transport for excess being exorbitantly fixed at
$1 per lb., and to lay in a few necessaries for the way, tea and sugar,
tobacco and cognac. I will not take liberties with my company’s “kit;”
my own, however, was represented as follows:
[12] St. Louis (Mo.) lies in N. lat. 28° 37′ and W. long. (G.) 90°
16′: its elevation above tide water is 461 feet: the latest frost
is in the first week of March, the earliest is in the middle of
November, giving some 115 days of cold. St. Joseph (Mo.) lies about
N. lat. 39° 40′, and W. long. (G.) 34° 54′.
One India-rubber blanket, pierced in the centre for a poncho, and
garnished along the longer side with buttons, and corresponding elastic
loops with a strap at the short end, converting it into a carpet-bag--a
“sine quâ non” from the equator to the pole. A buffalo robe ought to
have been added as a bed: ignorance, however, prevented, and borrowing
did the rest. With one’s coat as a pillow, a robe, and a blanket, one
may defy the dangerous “bunks” of the stations.
For weapons I carried two revolvers: from the moment of leaving St. Jo
to the time of reaching Placerville or Sacramento the pistol should
never be absent from a man’s right side--remember, it is handier there
than on the other--nor the bowie-knife from his left. Contingencies
with Indians and others may happen, when the difference of a second
saves life: the revolver should therefore be carried with its butt
to the fore, and when drawn it should not be leveled as in target
practice, but directed toward the object by means of the right fore
finger laid flat along the cylinder while the medius draws the trigger.
The instinctive consent between eye and hand, combined with a little
practice, will soon enable the beginner to shoot correctly from the
hip; all he has to do is to think that he is pointing at the mark, and
pull. As a precaution, especially when mounted upon a kicking horse,
it is wise to place the cock upon a capless nipple, rather than trust
to the intermediate pins. In dangerous places the revolver should be
discharged and reloaded every morning, both for the purpose of keeping
the hand in, and to do the weapon justice. A revolver is an admirable
tool when properly used; those, however, who are too idle or careless
to attend to it, had better carry a pair of “Derringers.” For the
benefit of buffalo and antelope, I had invested $25 at St. Louis in a
“shooting-iron” of the “Hawkins” style--that enterprising individual
now dwells in Denver City--it was a long, top-heavy rifle; it weighed
12 lbs., and it carried the smallest ball--75 to the pound--a
combination highly conducive to good practice. Those, however, who can
use light weapons, should prefer the Maynard breech-loader, with an
extra barrel for small shot; and if Indian fighting is in prospect,
the best tool, without any exception, is a ponderous double-barrel, 12
to the pound, and loaded as fully as it can bear with slugs. The last
of the battery was an air-gun to astonish the natives, and a bag of
various ammunition.
Captain Marcy outfits his prairie traveler with a “little blue mass,
quinine, opium, and some cathartic medicine put up in doses for
adults.” I limited myself to the opium, which is invaluable when one
expects five consecutive days and nights in a prairie wagon, quinine,
and Warburg’s drops, without which no traveler should ever face fever,
and a little citric acid, which, with green tea drawn off the moment
the leaf has sunk, is perhaps the best substitute for milk and cream.
The “holy weed Nicotian” was not forgotten; cigars must be bought in
extraordinary quantities, as the driver either receives or takes the
lion’s share: the most satisfactory outfit is a _quantum sufficit_
of Louisiana Pirique and Lynchburg gold-leaf--cavendish without its
abominations of rum and honey or molasses--and two pipes, a meerschaum
for luxury, and a brier-root to fall back upon when the meerschaum
shall have been stolen. The Indians will certainly pester for matches;
the best lighting apparatus, therefore, is the Spanish mechero, the
Oriental sukhtah--agate and cotton match--besides which, it offers a
pleasing exercise, like billiards, and one at which the British soldier
greatly excels, surpassed only by his exquisite skill in stuffing the
pipe.
For literary purposes, I had, besides the two books above quoted,
a few of the great guns of exploration, Frémont, Stansbury, and
Gunnison, with a selection of the most violent Mormon and Anti-Mormon
polemicals, sketching materials--I prefer the “improved metallics”
five inches long, and serving for both diary and drawing-book--and a
tourist’s writing-case of those sold by Mr. Field (Bible Warehouse,
The Quadrant), with but one alteration, a snap lock, to obviate the
use of that barbarous invention called a key. For instruments I
carried a pocket sextant with a double face, invented by Mr. George,
of the Royal Geographical Society, and beautifully made by Messrs.
Cary, an artificial horizon of black glass, and bubble tubes to
level it, night and day compasses, with a portable affair attached
to a watch-chain--a traveler feels nervous till he can “orienter”
himself--a pocket thermometer, and a B. P. ditto. The only safe form
for the latter would be a strong neckless tube, the heavy pyriform
bulbs in general use never failing to break at the first opportunity.
A Stanhope lens, a railway whistle, and instead of the binocular,
useful things of earth, a very valueless telescope--(warranted by the
maker to show Jupiter’s satellites, and by utterly declining so to
do, reading a lesson touching the non-advisability of believing an
instrument-maker)--completed the outfit.
[TOILET.]
The prairie traveler is not particular about toilet: the easiest dress
is a dark flannel shirt, worn over the normal article; no braces--I say
it, despite Mr. Galton--but broad leather belt for “six-shooter” and
for “Arkansas tooth-pick,” a long clasp-knife, or for the rapier of the
Western world, called after the hero who perished in the “red butchery
of the Alamo.” The nether garments should be forked with good buckskin,
or they will infallibly give out, and the lower end should be tucked
into the boots, after the sensible fashion of our grandfathers, before
those ridiculous Wellingtons were dreamed of by our sires. In warm
weather, a pair of moccasins will be found easy as slippers, but they
are bad for wet places; they make the feet tender, they strain the back
sinews, and they form the first symptom of the savage mania. Socks keep
the feet cold; there are, however, those who should take six pair. The
use of the pocket-handkerchief is unknown in the plains; some people,
however, are uncomfortable without it, not liking “se emungere” after
the fashion of Horace’s father.
In cold weather--and rarely are the nights warm--there is nothing
better than the old English tweed shooting-jacket, made with pockets
like a poacher’s, and its similar waistcoat, a “stomach warmer” without
a roll collar, which prevents comfortable sleep, and with flaps as in
the Year of Grace 1760, when men were too wise to wear our senseless
vests, whose only property seems to be that of disclosing after
exertions a lucid interval of linen or longcloth. For driving and
riding, a large pair of buckskin gloves, or rather gauntlets, without
which even the teamster will not travel, and leggins--the best are
made in the country, only the straps should be passed through and sewn
on to the leathers--are advisable, if at least the man at all regards
his epidermis: it is almost unnecessary to bid you remember spurs,
but it may be useful to warn you that they will, like riches, make to
themselves wings. The head-covering by excellence is a brown felt,
which, by a little ingenuity, boring, for instance, holes round the
brim to admit a ribbon, you may convert into a riding-hat or night-cap,
and wear alternately after the manly slouch of Cromwell and his Martyr,
the funny three-cornered spittoon-like “shovel” of the Dutch Georges,
and the ignoble cocked-hat, which completes the hideous metamorphosis.
And, above all things, as you value your nationality--this is written
for the benefit of the home reader--let no false shame cause you
to forget your hat-box and your umbrella. I purpose, when a moment
of inspiration waits upon leisure and a mind at ease, to invent an
elongated portmanteau, which shall be perfection--portable--solid
leather of two colors, for easy distinguishment--snap lock--in length
about three feet; in fact, long enough to contain without creasing
“small clothes,” a lateral compartment destined for a hat, and a
longitudinal space where the umbrella can repose: its depth--but I must
reserve that part of the secret until this benefit to British humanity
shall have been duly made by Messrs. Bengough Brothers, and patented by
myself.
The dignitaries of the mail-coach, acting upon the principle “first
come first served,” at first decided, maugre all our attempts at “moral
suasion,” to divide the party by the interval of a week. Presently
reflecting, I presume, upon the unadvisability of leaving at large five
gentlemen, who, being really in no particular hurry, might purchase
a private conveyance and start leisurely westward, they were favored
with a revelation of “’cuteness.” On the day before departure, as,
congregated in the Planter’s House Hotel, we were lamenting over our
“morning glory,” the necessity of parting--in the prairie the more
the merrier, and the fewer the worse cheer--a youth from the office
was introduced to tell, Hope-like, a flattering tale and a tremendous
falsehood. This juvenile delinquent stated with unblushing front,
over the hospitable cocktail, that three coaches instead of one had
been newly and urgently applied for by the road-agent at Great Salt
Lake City, and therefore that we could not only all travel together,
but also all travel with the greatest comfort. We exulted. But on the
morrow only two conveyances appeared, and not long afterward the two
dwindled off to one. “The Prairie Traveler” doles out wisdom in these
words: “Information concerning the route coming from strangers living
or owning property near them, from agents of steam-boats and railways,
or from other persons connected with transportation companies”--how
carefully he piles up the heap of sorites--“should be received
with great caution, and never without corroboratory evidence from
disinterested sources.” The main difficulty is to find the latter--to
catch your hare--to know whom to believe.
I now proceed to my Diary.
THE START.
_Tuesday, 7th August, 1860._
Precisely at 8 A.M. appeared in front of the Patee House--the Fifth
Avenue Hotel of St. Jo--the vehicle destined to be our home for the
next three weeks. We scrutinized it curiously.
[MAIL-COACH.--MULES.]
The mail is carried by a “Concord coach,” a spring wagon, comparing
advantageously with the horrible vans which once dislocated the joints
of men on the Suez route. The body is shaped somewhat like an English
tax-cart considerably magnified. It is built to combine safety,
strength, and lightness, without the slightest regard to appearances.
The material is well-seasoned white oak--the Western regions, and
especially Utah, are notoriously deficient in hard woods--and the
manufacturers are the well-known coachwrights, Messrs. Abbott, of
Concord, New Hampshire; the color is sometimes green, more usually red,
causing the antelopes to stand and stretch their large eyes whenever
the vehicle comes in sight. The wheels are five to six feet apart,
affording security against capsising, with little “gather” and less
“dish;” the larger have fourteen spokes and seven fellies; the smaller
twelve and six. The tires are of unusual thickness, and polished like
steel by the hard dry ground; and the hubs or naves and the metal
nave-bands are in massive proportions. The latter not unfrequently
fall off as the wood shrinks, unless the wheel is allowed to stand in
water; attention must be paid to resetting them, or in the frequent
and heavy “sidlins” the spokes may snap off all round like pipe-stems.
The wagon-bed is supported by iron bands or perpendiculars abutting
upon wooden rockers, which rest on strong leather thoroughbraces:
these are found to break the jolt better than the best steel springs,
which, moreover, when injured, can not readily be repaired. The whole
bed is covered with stout osnaburg supported by stiff bars of white
oak; there is a sun-shade or hood in front, where the driver sits, a
curtain behind which can be raised or lowered at discretion, and four
flaps on each side, either folded up or fastened down with hooks and
eyes. In heavy frost the passengers must be half dead with cold, but
they care little for that if they can go fast. The accommodations
are as follows: In front sits the driver, with usually a conductor
or passenger by his side; a variety of packages, large and small, is
stowed away under his leather cushion; when the brake must be put on,
an operation often involving the safety of the vehicle, his right foot
is planted upon an iron bar which presses by a leverage upon the rear
wheels; and in hot weather a bucket for watering the animals hangs
over one of the lamps, whose companion is usually found wanting. The
inside has either two or three benches fronting to the fore or placed
_vis-à-vis_; they are movable and reversible, with leather cushions
and hinged padded backs; unstrapped and turned down, they convert
the vehicle into a tolerable bed for two persons or two and a half.
According to Cocker, the mail-bags should be safely stowed away under
these seats, or if there be not room enough, the passengers should
perch themselves upon the correspondence; the jolly driver, however, is
usually induced to cram the light literature between the wagon-bed and
the platform, or running-gear beneath, and thus, when ford-waters wash
the hubs, the letters are pretty certain to endure ablution. Behind,
instead of dicky, is a kind of boot where passengers’ boxes are stored
beneath a stout canvas curtain with leather sides. The comfort of
travel depends upon packing the wagon; if heavy in front or rear, or if
the thoroughbraces be not properly “fixed,” the bumping will be likely
to cause nasal hemorrhage. The description will apply to the private
ambulance, or, as it is called in the West, “avalanche,” only the
latter, as might be expected, is more convenient; it is the drosky in
which the vast steppes of Central America are crossed by the government
employés.
On this line mules are preferred to horses as being more enduring.
They are all of legitimate race; the breed between the horse and the
she-ass is never heard of, and the mysterious jumard is not believed
to exist. In dry lands, where winter is not severe--they inherit the
sire’s impatience of cold--they are invaluable animals; in swampy
ground this American dromedary is the meanest of beasts, requiring,
when stalled, to be hauled out of the mire before it will recover
spirit to use its legs. For sureness of foot (during a journey of more
than 1000 miles, I saw but one fall and two severe stumbles), sagacity
in finding the road, apprehension of danger, and general cleverness,
mules are superior to their mothers: their main defect is an unhappy
obstinacy derived from the other side of the house. They are great in
hardihood, never sick nor sorry, never groomed nor shod, even where ice
is on the ground; they have no grain, except five quarts per diem when
snow conceals the grass; and they have no stable save the open corral.
Moreover, a horse once broken down requires a long rest; the mule, if
hitched up or ridden for short distances, with frequent intervals to
roll and repose, may still, though “_resté_,” get over 300 miles in
tolerable time. The rate of travel on an average is five miles an hour;
six is good; between seven and eight is the maximum, which sinks in
hilly countries to three or four. I have made behind a good pair, in
a light wagon, forty consecutive miles at the rate of nine per hour,
and in California a mule is little thought of if it can not accomplish
250 miles in forty-eight hours. The price varies from $100 to $130 per
head when cheap, rising to $150 or $200, and for fancy animals from
$250 to $400. The value, as in the case of the Arab, depends upon size;
“rats,” or small mules, especially in California, are not esteemed.
The “span”--the word used in America for beasts well matched--is of
course much more expensive. At each station on this road, averaging
twenty-five miles apart--beyond the forks of the Platte they lengthen
out by one third--are three teams of four animals, with two extra,
making a total of fourteen, besides two ponies for the express riders.
In the East they work beautifully together, and are rarely mulish
beyond a certain ticklishness of temper, which warns you not to meddle
with their ears when in harness, or to attempt encouraging them by
preceding them upon the road. In the West, where they run half wild
and are lassoed for use once a week, they are fearfully handy with
their heels; they flirt out with the hind legs, they rear like goats,
breaking the harness and casting every strap and buckle clean off
the body, and they bite their replies to the chorus of curses and
blows: the wonder is that more men are not killed. Each fresh team
must be ringed half a dozen times before it will start fairly; there
is always some excitement in change; some George or Harry, some Julia
or Sally disposed to shirk work or to play tricks, some Brigham Young
or General Harney--the Trans-Vaal Republican calls his worst animal
“England”--whose stubbornness is to be corrected by stone-throwing or
the lash.
But the wagon still stands at the door. We ought to start at 8 30
A.M.; we are detained an hour while last words are said, and adieu--a
long adieu--is bidden to joke and julep, to ice and idleness. Our
“plunder”[13] is clapped on with little ceremony; a hat-case falls
open--it was not mine, gentle reader--collars and other small gear
cumber the ground, and the owner addresses to the clumsy-handed driver
the universal G-- d--, which in these lands changes from its expletive
or chrysalis form to an adjectival development. We try to stow away as
much as possible; the minor officials, with all their little faults,
are good fellows, civil and obliging; they wink at non-payment for
bedding, stores, weapons, and they rather encourage than otherwise the
multiplication of whisky-kegs and cigar-boxes. We now drive through the
dusty roads of St. Jo, the observed of all observers, and presently
find ourselves in the steam ferry which is to convey us from the right
to the left bank of the Missouri River. The “Big Muddy,” as it is now
called--the Yellow River of old writers--venerable sire of snag and
sawyer, displays at this point the source whence it has drawn for ages
the dirty brown silt which pollutes below their junction the pellucid
waters of the “Big Drink.”[14] It runs, like the lower Indus, through
deep walls of stiff clayey earth, and, like that river, its supplies,
when filtered (they have been calculated to contain one eighth of solid
matter), are sweet and wholesome as its brother streams. The Plata of
this region, it is the great sewer of the prairies, the main channel
and common issue of the water-courses and ravines which have carried
on the work of denudation and degradation for days dating beyond the
existence of Egypt.
[13] In Canada they call personal luggage _butin_.
[14] A “Drink” is any river: the Big Drink is the Mississippi.
[THE MISSOURI RIVER]
According to Lieutenant Warren, who endorses the careful examinations
of the parties under Governor Stevens in 1853, the Missouri is a
superior river for navigation to any in the country, except the
Mississippi below their junction. It has, however, serious obstacles
in wind and frost. From the Yellow Stone to its mouth, the breadth,
when full, varies from one third to half a mile; in low water the
width shrinks, and bars appear. Where timber does not break the force
of the winds, which are most violent in October, clouds of sand are
seen for miles, forming banks, which, generally situated at the edges
of trees on the islands and points, often so much resemble the Indian
mounds in the Mississippi Valley, that some of them--for instance,
those described by Lewis and Clarke at Bonhomme Island--have been
figured as the works of the ancient Toltecs. It would hardly be
feasible to correct the windage by foresting the land. The bluffs
of the Missouri are often clothed with vegetation as far as the
debouchure of the Platte River. Above that point the timber, which is
chiefly cotton-wood, is confined to ravines and bottom lands, varying
in width from ten to fifteen miles above Council Bluffs, which is
almost continuous to the mouth of the James River. Every where, except
between the mouth of the Little Cheyenne and the Cannon Ball rivers,
there is a sufficiency of fuel for navigation; but, ascending above
Council Bluffs, the protection afforded by forest growth on the banks
is constantly diminishing. The trees also are injurious; imbedded in
the channel by the “caving-in” of the banks, they form the well-known
sawyers, or floating timbers, and snags, trunks standing like _chevaux
de frise_ at various inclinations, pointing down the stream. From the
mouth of the James River down to the Mississippi, it is a wonder how a
steamer can run: she must lose half her time by laying to at night, and
is often delayed for days, as the wind prevents her passing by bends
filled with obstructions. The navigation is generally closed by ice
at Sioux City on the 10th of November, and at Fort Leavenworth by the
1st of December. The rainy season of the spring and summer commences
in the latitude of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Southern Nebraska,
between the 15th of May and the 30th of June, and continues about two
months. The floods produced by the melting snows in the mountains come
from the Platte, the Big Cheyenne, the Yellow Stone, and the Upper
Missouri, reaching the lower river about the 1st of July, and lasting
a month. Rivers like this, whose navigation depends upon temporary
floods, are greatly inferior for ascent than for descent. The length of
the inundation much depends upon the snow on the mountains: a steamer
starting from St.Louis on the first indication of the rise would not
generally reach the Yellow Stone before low water at the latter point,
and if a miscalculation is made by taking the temporary rise for the
real inundation, the boat must lay by in the middle of the river till
the water deepens.
Some geographers have proposed to transfer to the Missouri, on
account of its superior length, the honor of being the real head of
the Mississippi; they neglect, however, to consider the direction
and the course of the stream, an element which must enter largely in
determining the channels of great rivers. It will, I hope, be long
before this great ditch wins the day from the glorious Father of Waters.
The reader will find in Appendix No. I. a detailed itinerary, showing
him the distances between camping-places, the several mail stations
where mules are changed, the hours of travel, and the facilities for
obtaining wood and water--in fact, all things required for the novice,
hunter, or emigrant. In these pages I shall consider the route rather
in its pictorial than in its geographical aspects, and give less of
diary than of dissertation upon the subjects which each day’s route
suggested.
[THE PRAIRIE.]
Landing in Bleeding Kansas--she still bleeds[15]--we fell at once
into “Emigration Road,” a great thoroughfare, broad and well worn as
a European turnpike or a Roman military route, and undoubtedly the
best and the longest natural highway in the world. For five miles the
line bisected a bottom formed by a bend in the river, with about a
mile’s diameter at the neck. The scene was of a luxuriant vegetation.
A deep tangled wood--rather a thicket or a jungle than a forest--of
oaks and elms, hickory, basswood[16] and black walnut, poplar and
hackberry (_Celtis crassifolia_), box elder, and the common willow
(_Salix longifolia_), clad and festooned, bound and anchored by wild
vines, creepers, and huge llianas, and sheltering an undergrowth of
white alder and red sumach, whose pyramidal flowers were about to
fall, rested upon a basis of deep black mire, strongly suggestive
of chills--fever and ague. After an hour of burning sun and sickly
damp, the effects of the late storms, we emerged from the waste of
vegetation, passed through a straggling “neck o’ the woods,” whose
yellow inmates reminded me of Mississippian descriptions in the days
gone by, and after spanning some very rough ground we bade adieu to
the valley of the Missouri, and emerged upon the region of the Grand
Prairie,[17] which we will pronounce “perrairey.”
[15] And no wonder!
“I advise you, one and all, to enter every election district in
Kansas and vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver. Neither
give nor take quarter, as our case demands it.”
“I tell you, mark every scoundrel among you that is the least tainted
with Free-soilism or Abolitionism, and exterminate him. Neither give
nor take quarter from them.”
(Extracts from Speeches of General Stringfellow--happy name!--in the
Kansas Legislature.)
[16] The basswood (_Tilia Americana_) resembles our linden: the
trivial name is derived from “bast,” its inner bark being used for
mats and cordage. From the pliability of the bark and wood, the name
of the tree is made synonymous with “doughface” in the following
extract from one of Mr. Brigham Young’s sermons: “I say, as the Lord
lives, we are bound to become a sovereign state in the Union, or an
independent nation by ourselves; and let them drive us from this
place if they can--they can not do it. I do not throw this out as a
banter. You Gentiles, and hickory and _basswood_ Mormons, can write
it down, if you please; but write it as I speak it.” The above has
been extracted from a “Dictionary of Americanisms,” by John Russell
Bartlett (London, Trübner and Co., 1859), a glossary which the
author’s art has made amusing as a novel.
[17] The word is somewhat indefinite. Hunters apply it generally
to the bare lands lying westward of the timbered course of the
Mississippi; in fact, to the whole region from the southern Rio
Grande to the Great Slave Lake.
Differing from the card-table surfaces of the formation in Illinois and
the lands east of the Mississippi, the Western prairies are rarely flat
ground. Their elevation above sea-level varies from 1000 to 2500 feet,
and the plateau’s aspect impresses the eye with an exaggerated idea
of elevation, there being no object of comparison--mountain, hill, or
sometimes even a tree--to give a juster measure. Another peculiarity
of the prairie is, in places, its seeming horizontality, whereas it is
never level: on an open plain, apparently flat as a man’s palm, you
cross a long groundswell which was not perceptible before, and on its
farther incline you come upon a chasm wide and deep enough to contain
a settlement. The aspect was by no means unprepossessing. Over the
rolling surface, which, however, rarely breaks into hill and dale,
lay a tapestry of thick grass already turning to a ruddy yellow under
the influence of approaching autumn. The uniformity was relieved by
streaks of livelier green in the rich soils of the slopes, hollows, and
ravines, where the water gravitates, and, in the deeper “intervales”
and bottom lands on the banks of streams and courses, by the graceful
undulations and the waving lines of mottes or prairie islands, thick
clumps and patches simulating orchards by the side of cultivated
fields. The silvery cirri and cumuli of the upper air flecked the
surface of earth with spots of dark cool shade, surrounded by a blaze
of sunshine, and by their motion, as they trooped and chased one
another, gave a peculiar liveliness to the scene; while here and there
a bit of hazy blue distance, a swell of the sea-like land upon the far
horizon, gladdened the sight--every view is fair from afar. Nothing, I
may remark, is more monotonous, except perhaps the African and Indian
jungle, than those prairie tracts, where the circle of which you are
the centre has but about a mile of radius; it is an ocean in which one
loses sight of land. You see, as it were, the ends of the earth, and
look around in vain for some object upon which the eye may rest: it
wants the sublimity of repose so suggestive in the sandy deserts, and
the perpetual motion so pleasing in the aspect of the sea. No animals
appeared in sight where, thirty years ago, a band of countless bisons
dotted the plains; they will, however, like the wild aborigines, their
congeners, soon be followed by beings higher in the scale of creation.
These prairies are preparing to become the great grazing-grounds which
shall supply the unpopulated East with herds of civilized kine, and
perhaps with the yak of Tibet, the llama of South America, and the
koodoo and other African antelopes.
As we sped onward we soon made acquaintance with a traditionally
familiar feature, the “pitch-holes,” or “chuck-holes”--the ugly word is
not inappropriate--which render traveling over the prairies at times
a sore task. They are gullies and gutters, not unlike the Canadian
“cahues” of snow formation: varying from 10 to 50 feet in breadth,
they are rivulets in spring and early summer, and--few of them remain
perennial--they lie dry during the rest of the year. Their banks are
slightly raised, upon the principle, _in parvo_, that causes mighty
rivers, like the Po and the Indus, to run along the crests of ridges,
and usually there is in the sole a dry or wet cunette, steep as a
step, and not unfrequently stony; unless the break be attended to, it
threatens destruction to wheel and axle-tree, to hound and tongue. The
pitch-hole is more frequent where the prairies break into low hills;
the inclines along which the roads run then become a net-work of these
American nullahs.
[SQUALOR.]
Passing through a few wretched shanties[18] called Troy--last insult
to the memory of hapless Pergamus--and Syracuse (here we are in the
third, or classic stage of United States nomenclature), we made, at 3
P.M., Cold Springs, the junction of the Leavenworth route. Having taken
the northern road to avoid rough ground and bad bridges, we arrived
about two hours behind time. The aspect of things at Cold Springs,
where we were allowed an hour’s halt to dine and to change mules,
somewhat dismayed our fine-weather prairie travelers. The scene was
the _rale_ “Far West.” The widow body to whom the shanty belonged lay
sick with fever. The aspect of her family was a “caution to snakes:”
the ill-conditioned sons dawdled about, listless as Indians, in skin
tunics and pantaloons fringed with lengthy tags such as the redoubtable
“Billy Bowlegs” wears on tobacco labels; and the daughters, tall young
women, whose sole attire was apparently a calico morning-wrapper, color
invisible, waited upon us in a protesting way. Squalor and misery were
imprinted upon the wretched log hut, which ignored the duster and the
broom, and myriads of flies disputed with us a dinner consisting of
dough-nuts, green and poisonous with saleratus, suspicious eggs in a
massive greasy fritter, and rusty bacon, intolerably fat. It was our
first sight of squatter life, and, except in two cases, it was our
worst. We could not grudge 50 cents a head to these unhappies; at the
same time, we thought it a dear price to pay--the sequel disabused
us--for flies and bad bread, worse eggs and bacon.
[18] American authors derive the word from the Canadian _chienté_, a
dog-kennel. It is, however, I believe, originally Irish.
The next settlement, Valley Home, was reached at 6 P.M. Here the long
wave of the ocean land broke into shorter seas, and for the first time
that day we saw stones, locally called rocks (a Western term embracing
every thing between a pebble and a boulder), the produce of nullahs
and ravines. A well 10 to 12 feet deep supplied excellent water. The
ground was in places so far reclaimed as to be divided off by posts and
rails; the scanty crops of corn (Indian corn), however, were wilted
and withered by the drought, which this year had been unusually long.
Without changing mules we advanced to Kennekuk, where we halted for an
hour’s supper under the auspices of Major Baldwin, whilom Indian agent;
the place was clean, and contained at least one charming face.
Kennekuk derives its name from a chief of the Kickapoos, in whose
reservation we now are. This tribe, in the days of the Baron la Hontan
(1689), a great traveler, but “aiblins,” as Sir Walter Scott said
of his grandmither, “a prodigious story-teller,” then lived on the
Rivière des Puants, or Fox River, upon the brink of a little lake
supposed to be the Winnebago, near the Sakis (Osaki, Sawkis, Sauks,
or Sacs),[19] and the Pouteoustamies (Potawotomies). They are still
in the neighborhood of their dreaded foes, the Sacs and Foxes,[20]
who are described as stalwart and handsome bands, and they have been
accompanied in their southern migration from the waters westward of
the Mississippi, through Illinois, to their present southern seats by
other allies of the Winnebagoes,[21] the Iowas, Nez Percés, Ottoes,
Omahas, Kansas, and Osages. Like the great nations of the Indian
Territory, the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, they form
intermediate social links in the chain of civilization between the
outer white settlements and the wild nomadic tribes to the west, the
Dakotahs and Arapahoes, the Snakes and Cheyennes. They cultivate the
soil, and rarely spend the winter in hunting buffalo upon the plains.
Their reservation is twelve miles by twenty-four; as usual with land
set apart for the savages, it is well watered and timbered, rich and
fertile; it lies across the path and in the vicinity of civilization;
consequently, the people are greatly demoralized. The men are addicted
to intoxication, and the women to unchastity; both sexes and all ages
are inveterate beggars, whose principal industry is horse-stealing.
Those Scottish clans were the most savage that vexed the Lowlands; it
is the case here: the tribes nearest the settlers are best described
by Colonel B----’s phrase, “great liars and dirty dogs.” They have
well-nigh cast off the Indian attire, and rejoice in the splendors of
boiled and ruffled shirts, after the fashion of the whites. According
to our host, a stalwart son of that soil which for generations has
sent out her best blood westward, Kain-tuk-ee, the Land of the Cane,
the Kickapoos number about 300 souls, of whom one fifth are braves.
He quoted a specimen of their facetiousness: when they first saw
a crinoline, they pointed to the wearer and cried, “There walks a
wigwam.” Our “vertugardin” of the 19th century has run the gauntlet of
the world’s jests, from the refined impertinence of Mr. Punch to the
rude grumble of the American Indian and the Kaffir of the Cape.
[19] In the days of Major Pike, who, in 1805-6-7, explored, by order
of the government of the United States, the western territories of
North America, the Sacs numbered 700 warriors and 750 women; they
had four villages, and hunted on the Mississippi and its confluents
from the Illinois to the Iowa River, and on the western plains
that bordered on the Missouri. They were at peace with the Sioux,
Osages, Potawotomies, Menomenes or Folles Avoines, Iowas, and other
Missourian tribes, and were almost consolidated with the Foxes,
with whose aid they nearly exterminated the Illinois, Cahokias,
Kaskaskias, and Peorians. Their principal enemies were the Ojibwas.
They raised a considerable quantity of maize, beans, and melons, and
were celebrated for cunning in war rather than for courage.
[20] From the same source we learn that the Ottagamies, called by
the French Les Renards, numbered 400 warriors and 500 women: they
had three villages near the confluence of the Turkey River with the
Mississippi, hunted on both sides of the Mississippi from the Iowa
stream below the Prairie du Chien to a river of that name above
the same village, and annually sold many hundred bushels of maize.
Conjointly with the Sacs, the Foxes protected the Iowas, and the
three people, since the first treaty of the two former with the
United States, claimed the land from the entrance of the Jauflione
on the western side of the Mississippi, up the latter river to the
Iowa above the Prairie du Chien, and westward to the Missouri. In
1807 they had ceded their lands lying south of the Mississippi to the
United States, reserving to themselves, however, the privileges of
hunting and residing on them.
[21] The Winnebagoes, Winnipegs (turbid water), or Ochangras
numbered, in 1807, 450 warriors and 500 women, and had seven
villages on the Wisconsin, Rock, and Fox Rivers, and Green Bay:
their proximity enabled the tribe to muster in force within four
days. They then hunted on the Rock River, and the eastern side
of the Mississippi, from Rock River to the Prairie du Chien, on
Lake Michigan, on Black River, and in the countries between Lakes
Michigan, Huron, and Superior. Lieutenant Pike is convinced, “from a
tradition among themselves, and their speaking the same language as
the Ottoes of the Platte River,” that they are a tribe who about 150
years before his time had fled from the oppression of the Mexican
Spaniards, and had become clients of the Sioux. They have ever been
distinguished for ferocity and treachery.
[“CRIK.”]
Beyond Kennekuk we crossed the first Grasshopper Creek. Creek, I must
warn the English reader, is pronounced “crik,” and in these lands, as
in the jargon of Australia, means not “an arm of the sea,” but a small
stream of sweet water, a rivulet; the rivers of Europe, according
to the Anglo-American of the West, are “criks.” On our line there
are many grasshopper creeks; they anastomose with, or debouch into,
the Kansas River, and they reach the sea _viâ_ the Missouri and the
Mississippi. This particular Grasshopper was dry and dusty up to the
ankles; timber clothed the banks, and slabs of sandstone cumbered the
sole. Our next obstacle was the Walnut Creek, which we found, however,
provided with a corduroy bridge; formerly it was a dangerous ford,
rolling down heavy streams of melted snow, and then crossed by means
of the “bouco” or coracle, two hides sewed together, distended like a
leather tub with willow rods, and poled or paddled. At this point the
country is unusually well populated; a house appears after every mile.
Beyond Walnut Creek a dense nimbus, rising ghost-like from the northern
horizon, furnished us with a spectacle of those perilous prairie storms
which make the prudent lay aside their revolvers and disembarrass
themselves of their cartridges. Gusts of raw, cold, and violent wind
from the west whizzed overhead, thunder crashed and rattled closer and
closer, and vivid lightning, flashing out of the murky depths around,
made earth and air one blaze of living fire. Then the rain began to
patter ominously upon the carriages; the canvas, however, by swelling,
did its duty in becoming water-tight, and we rode out the storm dry.
Those learned in the weather predicted a succession of such outbursts,
but the prophecy was not fulfilled. The thermometer fell about 6° (F.),
and a strong north wind set in, blowing dust or gravel, a fair specimen
of “Kansas gales,” which are equally common in Nebraska, especially
during the month of October. It subsided on the 9th of August.
Arriving about 1 A.M. at Locknan’s Station, a few log and timber huts
near a creek well feathered with white oak and American elm, hickory
and black walnut, we found beds and snatched an hourful of sleep.
_8th August, to Rock Creek._
Resuming, through air refrigerated by rain, our now weary way, we
reached at 6 A.M. a favorite camping-ground, the “Big Nemehaw” Creek,
which, like its lesser neighbor, flows after rain into the Missouri
River, _viâ_ Turkey Creek, the Big Blue, and the Kansas. It is a fine
bottom of rich black soil, whose green woods at that early hour were
wet with heavy dew, and scattered over the surface lay pebbles and
blocks of quartz and porphyritic granites. “Richland,” a town mentioned
in guide-books, having disappeared, we drove for breakfast to Seneca, a
city consisting of a few shanties, mostly garnished with tall square
lumber fronts, ineffectually, especially when the houses stand one by
one, masking the diminutiveness of the buildings behind them. The land,
probably in prospect of a Pacific Railroad, fetched the exaggerated
price of $20 an acre, and already a lawyer has “hung out his shingle”
there.
Refreshed by breakfast and the intoxicating air, brisk as a bottle of
_veuve Clicquot_--it is this that gives one the “prairie fever”--we
bade glad adieu to Seneca, and prepared for another long stretch of
twenty-four hours. That day’s chief study was of wagons, those ships
of the great American Sahara which, gathering in fleets at certain
seasons, conduct the traffic between the eastern and the western
shores of a waste which is every where like a sea, and which presently
will become salt. The white-topped wain--banished by railways from
Pennsylvania, where, drawn by the “Conestoga horse,” it once formed a
marked feature in the landscape--has found a home in the Far West. They
are not unpicturesque from afar, these long-winding trains, in early
morning like lines of white cranes trooping slowly over the prairie, or
in more mysterious evening resembling dim sails crossing a rolling sea.
The vehicles are more simple than our Cape wagons--huge beds like punts
mounted on solid wheels, with logs for brakes, and contrasting strongly
with the emerald plain, white tilts of twilled cotton or osnaburg,
supported by substantial oaken or hickory bows. The wain is literally
a “prairie ship:” its body is often used as a ferry, and when hides
are unprocurable the covering is thus converted into a “bull boat.”
Two stakes driven into the ground, to mark the length, are connected
by a longitudinal keel and ribs of willow rods; cross-sticks are tied
with thongs to prevent “caving in,” and the canvas is strained over
the frame-work. In this part of the country the wagon is unnecessarily
heavy; made to carry 4000 lbs., it rarely carries 3000: westward I have
seen many a load of 3¹⁄₂ tons of 2000 lbs. each, and have heard of even
6 tons. The wheels are of northern white oak, well seasoned under pain
of perpetual repairs, the best material, “bow-dark” Osage orange-wood
(_bois d’arc_ or _Maclura aurantiaca_), which shrinks but little, being
rarely procurable about Concord and Troy, the great centres of wagon
manufacture. The neap or tongue (pole) is jointed where it enters the
hounds, or these will be broken by the heavy jolts; and the perch is
often made movable, so that after accidents a temporary conveyance
can be made out of the débris. A long covered wooden box hangs
behind: on the road it carries fuel; at the halt it becomes a trough,
being preferred to nose-bags, which prevent the animals breathing
comfortably; and in the hut, where every part of the wagon is utilized,
it acts as a chest for valuables. A bucket swings beneath the vehicle,
and it is generally provided with an extra chain for “coraling.” The
teams vary in number from six to thirteen yoke; they are usually oxen,
an “Old Country” prejudice operating against the use of cows.[22] The
yoke, of pine or other light wood, is, as every where in the States,
simple and effective, presenting a curious contrast to the uneasy
and uncertain contrivances which still prevail in the antiquated
Campagna and other classic parts of Europe. A heavy cross-piece, oak
or cotton-wood, is beveled out in two places, and sometimes lined with
sheet-lead, to fit the animals’ necks, which are held firm in bows of
bent hickory passing through the yoke and pinned above. The several
pairs of cattle are connected by strong chains and rings projecting
from the under part of the wood-work.
[22] According to Mormon rule, however, the full team consists of
one wagon (12 ft. long, 3 ft. 4 in. wide, and 18 in. deep), two
yoke of oxen, and two milch cows. The Saints have ever excelled in
arrangements for travel by land and sea.
[Illustration: THE WESTERN YOKE.]
[THE “RIPPER.”]
The “ripper,” or driver, who is bound to the gold regions of Pike’s
Peak, is a queer specimen of humanity. He usually hails from one of
the old Atlantic cities--in fact, from settled America--and, like
the civilized man generally, he betrays a remarkable aptitude for
facile descent into savagery. His dress is a harlequinade, typical
of his disposition. Eschewing the chimney-pot or stove-pipe tile of
the bourgeois, he affects the “Kossuth,” an Anglo-American version
of the sombrero, which converts felt into every shape and form, from
the jaunty little head-covering of the modern sailor to the tall
steeple-crown of the old Puritan. He disregards the trichotomy of St.
Paul, and emulates St. Anthony and the American aborigines in the
length of his locks, whose ends are curled inward, with a fascinating
sausage-like roll not unlike the Cockney “aggrawator.” If a young hand,
he is probably in the buckskin mania, which may pass into the squaw
mania, a disease which knows no cure: the symptoms are, a leather coat
and overalls to match, embroidered if possible, and finished along the
arms and legs with fringes cut as long as possible, while a pair of
gaudy moccasins, resplendent with red and blue porcelain beads, fits
his feet tightly as silken hose. I have heard of coats worth $250,
vests $100, and pants $150: indeed, the poorest of buckskin suits will
cost $75, and if hard-worked it must be renewed every six months. The
successful miner or the gambler--in these lands the word is confined
to the profession--will add $10 gold buttons to the attractions of his
attire. The older hand prefers to buckskin a “wamba” or round-about, a
red or rainbow-colored flannel over a check cotton shirt; his lower
garments, garnished _a tergo_ with leather, are turned into Hessians
by being thrust inside his cow-hide Wellingtons; and, when in riding
gear, he wraps below each knee a fold of deer, antelope, or cow skin,
with edges scalloped where they fall over the feet, and gartered
tightly against thorns and stirrup thongs, thus effecting that graceful
elephantine bulge of the lower leg for which “Jack ashore” is justly
celebrated. Those who suffer from sore eyes wear huge green goggles,
which give a crab-like air to the physiognomy, and those who can not
procure them line the circumorbital region with lampblack, which is
supposed to act like the surma or kohl of the Orient. A broad leather
belt supports on the right a revolver, generally Colt’s Navy or medium
size (when Indian fighting is expected, the large dragoon pistol is
universally preferred); and on the left, in a plain black sheath, or
sometimes in the more ornamental Spanish scabbard, is a buck-horn or
ivory-handled bowie-knife. In the East the driver partially conceals
his tools; he has no such affectation in the Far West: moreover, a
glance through the wagon-awning shows guns and rifles stowed along
the side. When driving he is armed with a mammoth fustigator, a
system of plaited cow-hides cased with smooth leather; it is a knout
or an Australian stock-whip, which, managed with both hands, makes
the sturdiest ox curve and curl its back. If he trudges along an
ox-team, he is a grim and grimy man, who delights to startle your
animals with a whip-crack, and disdains to return a salutation: if
his charge be a muleteer’s, you may expect more urbanity; he is then
in the “upper-crust” of teamsters; he knows it, and demeans himself
accordingly. He can do nothing without whisky, which he loves to call
tarantula juice, strychnine, red-eye, corn juice, Jersey lightning,
leg-stretcher, “tangle-leg,”[23] and many other hard and grotesque
names; he chews tobacco like a horse; he becomes heavier “_on_ the
shoulder” or “_on_ the shyoot,” as, with the course of empire, he
makes his way westward; and he frequently indulges in a “spree,” which
in these lands means four acts of drinking-bout, with a fifth of
rough-and-tumble. Briefly, he is a post-wagon driver exaggerated.
[23] For instance, “whisky is now tested by the distance a man can
walk after tasting it. The new liquor called ‘Tangle-leg’ is said to
be made of diluted alcohol, nitric acid, pepper, and tobacco, and
will upset a man at a distance of 400 yards from the demijohn.”
[THE PRAIRIE SADDLE.]
Each train is accompanied by men on horse or mule back--oxen are not
ridden after Cape fashion in these lands.[24] The equipment of the
cavalier excited my curiosity, especially the saddle, which has been
recommended by good authorities for military use. The coming days of
fast warfare, when “heavies,” if not wholly banished to the limbo of
things that were, will be used as mounted “beef-eaters,” only for show,
demand a saddle with as little weight as is consistent with strength,
and one equally easy to the horse and the rider. In no branch of
improvement, except in hat-making for the army, has so little been done
as in saddles. The English military or hunting implement still endures
without other merit than facility to the beast, and, in the man’s
case, faculty of falling uninjured with his horse. Unless the rider be
copper-lined and iron-limbed, it is little better in long marches than
a rail for riding. As far as convenience is concerned, an Arab pad is
preferable to Peat’s best. But the Californian saddle can not supply
the deficiency, as will, I think, appear in the course of description.
[24] Captain Marcy, in quoting Mr. Andersson’s remarks on ox-riding
in Southwestern Africa, remarks that “a ring instead of a stick
put through the cartilage of the animal’s nose would obviate the
difficulty of managing it.” As in the case of the camel, a ring would
soon be torn out by an obstinate beast: a stick resists.
The native Indian saddle is probably the degenerate offspring of the
European pack-saddle: two short forks, composing the pommel and cantle,
are nailed or lashed to a pair of narrow sideboards, and the rude
tree is kept in shape by a green skin or hide allowed to shrink on.
It remarkably resembles the Abyssinian, the Somal, and the Circassian
saddle, which, like the “dug-out” canoe, is probably the primitive form
instinctively invented by mankind. It is the sire of the civilized
saddle, which in these lands varies with every region. The Texan is
known by its circular seat; a string passed round the tree forms a
ring: provided with flaps after the European style, it is considered
easy and comfortable. The Californian is rather oval than circular;
borrowed and improved from the Mexican, it has spread from the Pacific
to the Atlantic slope of the Rocky Mountains, and the hardy and
experienced mountaineer prefers it to all others: it much resembles the
Hungarian, and in some points recalls to mind the old French cavalry
demipique. It is composed of a single tree of light strong wood,
admitting a freer circulation of air to the horse’s spine--an immense
advantage--and, being without iron, it can readily be taken to pieces,
cleaned or mended, and refitted. The tree is strengthened by a covering
of raw-hide carefully sewed on; it rests upon a “sweat-leather,” a
padded sheet covering the back, and it is finished off behind with an
“anchero” of the same material protecting the loins. The pommel is
high, like the crutch of a woman’s saddle, rendering impossible, under
pain of barking the knuckles, that rule of good riding which directs
the cavalier to keep his hands low. It prevents the inexperienced
horseman being thrown forward, and enables him to “hold on” when
likely to be dismounted; in the case of a good rider, its only use
is to attach the lariat, riata, or lasso. The great merit of this
“unicorn” saddle is its girthing: with the English system, the strain
of a wild bull or of a mustang “bucker” would soon dislodge the riding
gear. The “sincho” is an elastic horsehair cingle, five to six inches
wide, connected with “lariat straps,” strong thongs passing round the
pommel and cantle; it is girthed well back from the horse’s shoulder,
and can be drawn till the animal suffers pain: instead of buckle,
the long terminating strap is hitched two or three times through an
iron ring. The whole saddle is covered with a machila, here usually
pronounced _macheer_, two pieces of thick leather handsomely and
fancifully worked or stamped, joined by a running thong in the centre,
and open to admit the pommel and cantle. If too long, it draws in the
stirrup-leathers, and cramps the ankles of any but a bowlegged man.
The machila is sometimes garnished with pockets, always with straps
behind to secure a valise, and a cloak can be fastened over the pommel,
giving purchase and protection to the knees. The rider sits erect, with
the legs in a continuation of the body line, and the security of the
balance-seat enables him to use his arms freely: the _pose_ is that of
the French schools in the last century, heels up and toes down. The
advantages of this equipment are obvious; it is easier to horse and
man probably than any yet invented. On the other hand, the quantity
of leather renders it expensive: without silver or other ornaments,
the price would vary from $25 at San Francisco to $50 at Great Salt
Lake City, and the highly got-up rise to $250 = £50 for a saddle! If
the saddle-cloth slips out, and this is an accident which frequently
occurs, the animal’s back will be galled. The stirrup-leathers can not
be shortened or lengthened without dismounting, and without leggins the
board-like leather _macheer_ soon makes the _mollets_ innocent of skin.
The pommel is absolutely dangerous: during my short stay in the country
I heard of two accidents, one fatal, caused by the rider being thrown
forward on his fork. Finally, the long seat, which is obligatory,
answers admirably with the Californian pacer or canterer, but with the
high-trotting military horse it would inevitably lead--as has been
proved before the European stirrup-leather was shortened--to hernias
and other accidents.
To the stirrups I have but one serious objection--they can not be made
to open in case of the horse falling; when inside the stiff leather
_macheer_, they cramp the legs by bowing them inward, but habit soon
cures this. Instead of the light iron contrivances which before
recovered play against the horse’s side, which freeze the feet in cold,
and which toast them in hot weather, this stirrup is sensibly made of
wood. In the Eastern States it is a lath bent somewhat in the shape of
the dragoon form, and has too little weight; the Californian article
is cut out of a solid block of wood, mountain mahogany being the best,
then maple, and lastly the softer pine and cotton-wood. In some parts
of the country it is made so narrow that only the toe fits in, and then
the instep is liable to be bruised. For riding through bush and thorns,
it is provided in front with zapateros or leathern curtains, secured
to the straps above, and to the wood on both sides: they are curiously
made, and the size, like that of the Turk’s lantern, denotes the
owner’s fashionableness; dandies may be seen with the pointed angles
of their stirrup-guards dangling almost to the ground. The article
was borrowed from Mexico--the land of character dresses. When riding
through prickly chapparal, the leathers begin higher up, and protect
the leg from the knee downward. I would not recommend this stirrup for
Hyde Park, or even Brighton; but in India and other barbarous parts of
the British empire, where, on a cold morning’s march, men and officers
may be seen with wisps of straw defending their feet from the iron,
and on African journeys, where the bush is more than a match for any
texture yet woven, it might, methinks, be advantageously used.
[THE PRAIRIE SPUR.]
The same may be said of the spurs, which, though cruel in appearance,
are really more merciful than ours. The rowels have spikes about two
inches long; in fact, are the shape and size of a small starfish; but
they are never sharpened, and the tinkle near the animal’s sides serves
to urge it on without a real application. The two little bell-like
pendants of metal on each side of the rowel-hinge serve to increase
the rattling, and when a poor rider is mounted upon a tricksy horse,
they lock the rowels, which are driven into the sincho, and thus afford
another _point d’appui_. If the rider’s legs be long enough, the spurs
can be clinched under the pony’s belly. Like the Mexican, they can be
made expensive: $25 a pair would be a common price.
[BRIDLE.]
The bridle is undoubtedly the worst part of the horse’s furniture. The
bit is long, clumsy, and not less cruel than a Chifney. I have seen
the Arab ring, which, with sufficient leverage, will break a horse’s
jaw, and another, not unlike an East Indian invention, with a sharp
triangle to press upon the animal’s palate, apparently for the purpose
of causing it to rear and fall backward. It is the offspring of the
Mexican manége, which was derived, through Spain, from the Moors.
Passing through Ash Point at 9 30 A.M., and halting for water at Uncle
John’s Grocery, where hang-dog Indians, squatting, standing, and
stalking about, showed that the forbidden luxury--essence of corn--was,
despite regulations, not unprocurable there, we spanned the prairie to
Guittard’s Station. This is a clump of board houses on the far side of
a shady, well-wooded creek--the Vermilion, a tributary of the Big Blue
River, so called from its red sandstone bottom, dotted with granitic
and porphyritic boulders.
Our conductor had sprained his ankle, and the driver, being in plain
English drunk, had dashed like a Phaeton over the “chuck-holes;” we
willingly, therefore, halted at 11 30 A.M. for dinner. The host was a
young Alsatian, who, with his mother and sister, had emigrated under
the excitement of Californian fever, and had been stopped, by want of
means, half way. The improvement upon the native was palpable: the
house and kitchen were clean, the fences neat; the ham and eggs, the
hot rolls and coffee, were fresh and good, and, although drought had
killed the salad, we had abundance of peaches and cream, an offering of
French to American taste which, in its simplicity, luxuriates in the
curious mixture of lacteal with hydrocyanic acid.
At Guittard’s I saw, for the first time, the Pony Express rider arrive.
In March, 1860, “the great dream of news transmitted from New York to
San Francisco (more strictly speaking from St. Joseph to Placerville,
California) in eight days was tested.” It appeared, in fact, under the
form of an advertisement in the St. Louis “Republican,”[25] and threw
at once into the shade the great Butterfield Mail, whose expedition
had been the theme of universal praise. Very meritoriously has the
contract been fulfilled. At the moment of writing (Nov., 1860), the
distance between New York and San Francisco has been farther reduced by
the advance of the electric telegraph--it proceeds at the rate of six
miles a day--to Fort Kearney from the Mississippi and to Fort Churchill
from the Pacific side. The merchant thus receives his advices in six
days. The contract of the government with Messrs. Russell, Majors, and
Co., to run the mail from St. Joseph to Great Salt Lake City, expired
the 30th of November, and it was proposed to, continue it only from
Julesburg on the crossing of the South Platte, 480 miles west of St.
Joseph. Mr. Russell, however, objected, and so did the Western States
generally, to abbreviating the mail-service as contemplated by the
Post-office Department. His spirit and energy met with supporters whose
interest it was not to fall back on the times when a communication
between New York and California could not be secured short of
twenty-five or thirty days; and, aided by the newspapers, he obtained
a renewal of his contract. The riders are mostly youths, mounted upon
active and lithe Indian nags. They ride 100 miles at a time--about
eight per hour--with four changes of horses, and return to their
stations the next day: of their hardships and perils we shall hear more
anon. The letters are carried in leathern bags, which are thrown about
carelessly enough when the saddle is changed, and the average postage
is $5 = £1 per sheet.
[25] The following is the first advertisement:
“_To San Francisco in eight days, by the Central Overland California
and Pike’s Peak Express Company._
“The first courier of the ‘Pony Express’ will leave the Missouri
River on Tuesday, April the 3d, at -- o’clock P.M., and will run
regularly weekly hereafter, carrying a letter mail only. The point
on the Missouri River will be in telegraphic communication with the
East, and will be announced in due time.
“Telegraphic messages from all parts of the United States and
Canada, in connection with the point of departure, will be received
up to 5 o’clock P.M. of the day of leaving, and transmitted over
the Placerville and St. Joseph Telegraph-wire to San Francisco and
intermediate points by the connecting Express in eight days. The
letter mail will be delivered in San Francisco in ten days from the
departure of the Express. The Express passes through Forts Kearney,
Laramie, and Bridger, Great Salt Lake City, Camp Floyd, Carson City,
the Washoe Silver Mines, Placerville, and Sacramento. And letters for
Oregon, Washington Territory, British Columbia, the Pacific Mexican
Ports, Russian Possessions, Sandwich Islands, China, Japan, and
India, will be mailed in San Francisco.
“Special messengers, bearers of letters, to connect with the Express
of the 3d April, will receive communications for the Courier of that
day at No. 481 Tenth Street, Washington City, up to 2 45 P.M. on
Friday, March 30th; and in New York, at the office of J.B. Simpson,
Room No. 8 Continental Bank Building, Nassau Street, up to 6 50 A.M.
of 31st March.
“Full particulars can be obtained on application at the above places,
and from the Agents of the Company.
W. H. RUSSELL, President.
“Leavenworth City, Kansas, March, 1860.
“_Office, New York._--J. B. Simpson, Vice-President; Samuel and Allen,
Agents, St. Louis, Mo.; H. J. Spaulding, Agent, Chicago.”
[THE PRAIRIE FIRES.]
Beyond Guittard’s the prairies bore a burnt-up aspect. Far as the eye
could see the tintage was that of the Arabian Desert, sere and tawny
as a jackal’s back. It was still, however, too early; October is the
month for those prairie fires which have so frequently exercised the
Western author’s pen. Here, however, the grass is too short for the
full development of the phenomenon, and beyond the Little Blue River
there is hardly any risk. The fire can easily be stopped, _ab initio_,
by blankets, or by simply rolling a barrel; the African plan of beating
down with boughs might also be used in certain places; and when the
conflagration has extended, travelers can take refuge in a little Zoar
by burning the vegetation to windward. In Texas and Illinois, however,
where the grass is tall and rank, and the roaring flames leap before
the wind with the stride of maddened horses, the danger is imminent,
and the spectacle must be one of awful sublimity.
In places where the land seems broken with bluffs, like an iron-bound
coast, the skeleton of the earth becomes visible; the formation is a
friable sandstone, overlying fossiliferous lime, which is based upon
beds of shale. These undergrowths show themselves at the edges of the
ground-waves and in the dwarf precipices, where the soil has been
degraded by the action of water. The yellow-brown humus varies from
forty to sixty feet deep in the most favored places, and erratic blocks
of porphyry and various granites encumber the dry water-courses and
surface drains. In the rare spots where water then lay, the herbage was
still green, forming oases in the withering waste, and showing that
irrigation is its principal, if not its only want.
Passing by Marysville, in old maps Palmetto City, a county town which
thrives by selling whisky to ruffians of all descriptions, we forded
before sunset the “Big Blue,” a well-known tributary of the Kansas
River. It is a pretty little stream, brisk and clear as crystal, about
forty or fifty yards wide by 2·50 feet deep at the ford. The soil is
sandy and solid, but the banks are too precipitous to be pleasant when
a very drunken driver hangs on by the lines of four very weary mules.
We then stretched once more over the “divide”--the ground, generally
rough or rolling, between the fork or junction of two streams, in
fact, the Indian Doab--separating the Big Blue from its tributary
the Little Blue. At 6 P.M. we changed our fagged animals for fresh,
and the land of Kansas for Nebraska, at Cotton-wood Creek, a bottom
where trees flourished, where the ground had been cleared for corn,
and where we detected the prairie wolf watching for the poultry. The
fur of our first coyote was light yellow-brown, with a tinge of red,
the snout long and sharp, the tail bushy and hanging, the gait like a
dog’s, and the manner expressive of extreme timidity; it is a far more
cowardly animal than the larger white buffalo-wolf and the black wolf
of the woods, which are also far from fierce. At Cotton-wood Station we
took “on board” two way-passengers, “lady” and “gentleman,” who were
drafted into the wagon containing the Judiciary. A weary drive over a
rough and dusty road, through chill night air and clouds of musquetoes,
which we were warned would accompany us to the Pacific slope of the
Rocky Mountains, placed us about 10 P.M. at Rock, also called Turkey
Creek--surely a misnomer; no turkey ever haunted so villainous a
spot! Several passengers began to suffer from fever and nausea; in
such travel the second night is usually the crisis, after which a man
can endure for an indefinite time. The “ranch” was a nice place for
invalids, especially for those of the softer sex. Upon the bedded floor
of the foul “doggery” lay, in a seemingly promiscuous heap, men, women,
children, lambs, and puppies, all fast in the arms of Morpheus, and
many under the influence of a much jollier god. The _employés_, when
aroused pretty roughly, blinked their eyes in the atmosphere of smoke
and musquetoes, and declared that it had been “merry in hall” that
night--the effects of which merriment had not passed off. After half an
hour’s dispute about who should do the work, they produced cold scraps
of mutton and a kind of bread which deserves a totally distinct generic
name. The strongest stomachs of the party made tea, and found some milk
which was not more than one quarter flies. This succulent meal was
followed by the usual douceur. On this road, however mean or wretched
the fare, the station-keeper, who is established by the proprietor of
the line, never derogates by lowering his price.
[LITTLE BLUE RIVER VALLEY.]
_The Valley of the Little Blue, 9th August._
A little after midnight we resumed our way, and in the state
which Mohammed described when he made his famous night journey to
heaven--_bayni ’l naumi wa ’l yakzán_--we crossed the deep shingles,
the shallow streams, and the heavy vegetation of the Little Sandy, and
five miles beyond it we forded the Big Sandy. About early dawn we found
ourselves at another station, better than the last only as the hour was
more propitious. The colony of Patlanders rose from their beds without
a dream of ablution, and clearing the while their lungs of Cork brogue,
prepared a neat _déjeûner à la fourchette_ by hacking “fids” off half
a sheep suspended from the ceiling, and frying them in melted tallow.
Had the action occurred in Central Africa, among the Esquimaux, or the
Araucanians, it would not have excited my attention: mere barbarism
rarely disgusts; it is the unnatural cohabitation of civilization with
savagery that makes the traveler’s gorge rise.
Issuing from Big Sandy Station at 6 30 A.M., and resuming our route
over the divide that still separated the valleys of the Big Blue and
the Little Blue, we presently fell into the line of the latter, and
were called upon by the conductor to admire it. It is pretty, but
its beauties require the cosmetic which is said to act unfailingly
in the case of fairer things--the viewer should have lately spent
three months at sea, out of sight of rivers and women. Averaging
two miles in width, which shrinks to one quarter as you ascend, the
valley is hedged on both sides by low rolling bluffs or terraces,
the boundaries of its ancient bed and modern debordements. As the
hills break off near the river, they show a diluvial formation; in
places they are washed into a variety of forms, and being white, they
stand out in bold relief. In other parts they are sand mixed with
soil enough to support a last-year’s growth of wheat-like grass,
weed-stubble, and dead trees, that look like old corn-fields in new
clearings. One could not have recognized at this season Colonel
Frémont’s description written in the month of June--the “hills with
graceful slopes looking uncommonly green and beautiful.” Along the
bluffs the road winds, crossing at times a rough projecting spur,
or dipping into some gully washed out by the rains of ages. All is
barren beyond the garden-reach which runs along the stream; there is
not a tree to a square mile--in these regions the tree, like the bird
in Arabia and the monkey in Africa, signifies water--and animal life
seems well-nigh extinct. As the land sinks toward the river bottom,
it becomes less barren. The wild sunflower (_Helianthus_)--it seldom,
however, turns toward the sun--now becomes abundant; it was sparse
near the Missouri; it will wax even more plentiful around Great Salt
Lake City, till walking through the beds becomes difficult. In size
it greatly varies according to the quality of the soil; six feet is
perhaps the maximum. It is a growth of some value. The oleaginous seeds
form the principal food of half-starved Indians, while the stalks
supply them with a scanty fuel: being of rapid growth, it has been used
in the States to arrest the flow of malaria, and it serves as house
and home to the rattlesnake. Conspicuous by its side is the sumach,
whose leaf, mixed with kinnikinik, the peel of the red willow, forms
the immemorial smoking material of the Wild Man of the North. Equally
remarkable for their strong odor are large beds of wild onions; they
are superlatively wholesome, but they effect the eater like those of
Tibet. The predominant colors are pink and yellow, the former a lupine,
the latter a shrub, locally called the rabbit-bush. The blue lupine
also appears with the white mallow, the eccentric putoria, and the
taraxacum (dandelion), so much used as salad in France and in the
Eastern States. This land appears excellently adapted for the growth
of manioc or cassava. In the centre of the bottom flows the brownish
stream, about twenty yards wide, between two dense lines of tall sweet
cotton-wood. The tree which was fated to become familiar to us during
our wanderings is a species of poplar (_P. monilifera_), called by the
Americo-Spaniards, and by the people of Texas and New Mexico, “Alamo:”
resembling the European aspen, without its silver lining, the color of
the leaf, in places, appears of a dull burnished hue, in others bright
and refreshingly green. Its trivial name is derived, according to some,
from the fibrous quality of the bark, which, as in Norway, is converted
into food for cattle and even man; according to others, from the
cotton-like substance surrounding the seeds. It is termed “sweet” to
distinguish it from a different tree with a bitter bark, also called a
cotton-wood or narrow-leaved cotton-wood (_Populus angustifolia_), and
by the Canadians _liard amère_. The timber is soft and easily cut; it
is in many places the only material for building and burning, and the
recklessness of the squatters has already shortened the supply.
This valley is the Belgium of the adjoining tribes, the once terrible
Pawnees, who here met their enemies, the Dakotahs and the Delawares: it
was then a great buffalo ground; and even twenty years ago it was well
stocked with droves of wild horses, turkeys, and herds of antelope,
deer, and elk. The animals have of late migrated westward, carrying
off with them the “bones of contention.” Some details concerning
the present condition of these bands and their neighbors may not be
uninteresting--these poor remnants of nations which once kept the
power of North America at bay, and are now barely able to struggle for
existence.
In 1853, the government of the United States, which has ever acted
paternally toward the Indians, treating with them--Great Britain
did the same with the East Indians--as though they were a civilized
people, availed itself of the savages’ desire to sell lands encroached
upon by the whites, and set apart for a general reservation 181,171
square miles. Here, in the Far West, were collected into what was then
believed to be a permanent habitation, the indigenes of the land, and
the various bands once lying east of the Mississippi. This “Indian’s
home” was bounded, in 1853, on the north by the Northwestern Territory
and Minnesota; on the south by Texas and New Mexico; to the east lay
Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas; and to the west, Oregon, Utah, and New
Mexico.
The savages’ reservation was then thus distributed. The eastern
portion nearest the river was stocked with tribes removed to it from
the Eastern States, namely, the Iowas, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos,
Delawares, Potawotomies, Wyandottes, Quapaws, Senecas, Cherokees,
Seminoles, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Miamis, and Ottawas. The
west and part of the northeast--poor and barren lands--were retained
by the aboriginal tribes, Ponkahs, Omahas or Mahas, Pawnees, Ottoes,
Kansas or Konzas, and Osages. The central and the remainder of the
western portion--wild countries abounding in buffalo--were granted to
the Western Pawnees, the Arickarees, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Kiowas,
Comanches, Utahs, Grosventres, and other nomads.
It was somewhat a confusion of races. For instance, the Pawnees form
an independent family, to which some authors join the Arickaree; the
Sacs (Sauk) and Foxes, Winnebagoes, Ottoes, Kaws, Omahas, Cheyennes,
Mississippi Dakotahs, and Missouri Dakotahs, belong to the Dakotan
family; the Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles are Appalachians; the
Wyandottes, like the Iroquois, are Hodesaunians; and the Ottawas,
Delawares, Shawnees, Potawotomies, Peorians, Mohekuneuks, Kaskaskias,
Piankeshaws, Weaws, Miamis, Kickapoos, and the Menomenes, are, like the
Ojibwas, Algonquins.
The total number of Indians on the prairies and the Rocky Mountains was
estimated roughly at 63,000.
[THE INDIAN TERRITORY.]
Still the resistless tide of emigration swept westward: the federal
government was as powerless to stem it as was General Fitzroy of New
South Wales to prevent, in 1852, his subjects flocking to the “gold
diggings.” Despite all orders, reckless whites would squat upon, and
thoughtless reds, bribed by whisky, tobacco, and gunpowder, would sell
off the lands. On the 20th of May, 1854, was passed the celebrated
“Kansas-Nebraska Bill,” an act converting the greater portion of the
“Indian Territory,” and all the “Northwestern Territory,” into two new
territories--Kansas, north of the 37th parallel, and Nebraska, north
of the 40th. In the passage of this bill, the celebrated “Missouri
Compromise” of 1828, prohibiting negro slavery north of 36° 30′, was
repealed, under the presidency of General Pierce.[26] It provided
that the rights and properties of the Indians, within their shrunken
possessions, should be respected. By degrees the Indians sold their
lands for whisky, as of old, and retired to smaller reservations.
Of course, they suffered in the bargain; the savage ever parts with
his birthright for the well-known mess of pottage. The Osages, for
instance, canceled $4000, claimed by unscrupulous traders, by a
cession of two million acres of arable land. The Potawotomies fared
even worse; under the influence of liquor, ὡς λεγουσι, their chiefs
sold 100,000 acres of the best soil on the banks of the Missouri for
a mere song. The tribe was removed to a bald smooth prairie, sans
timber and consequently sans game; many fled to the extreme wilds,
and the others, like the Acadians of yore, were marched about till
they found homes--many of them six feet by two--in Fever Patch, on the
Kaw or Kansas River. Others were more fortunate. The Ottoes, Omahas,
and Kansas had permanent villages near the Missouri and its two
tributaries, the Platte and the Kansas. The Osages, formerly a large
nation in Arkansas, after ceding 10,000,000 of acres for a stipend of
$52,000 for thirty years, were settled in a district on the west bank
of the Neosho or Whitewater--the Grand River. They are described as
the finest and largest men of the semi-nomad races, with well-formed
heads and symmetrical figures, brave, warlike, and well disposed to
the whites. Early in June, after planting their maize, they move in
mounted bands to the prairies, feast upon the buffalo for months, and
bring home stores of smoked and jerked meat. When the corn is in milk
they husk and sundry it; it is then boiled, and is said to be better
flavored and more nutritious than the East Indian “butah” or the
American hominy. After the harvest in October they return to the game
country, and then pass the winter under huts or skin lodges. Their
chief scourge is small-pox: apparently, all the tribes carry some
cross. Of the settled races the best types are the Choctaws and the
Cherokees; the latter have shown a degree of improvability, which may
still preserve them from destruction; they have a form of government,
churches, theatres, and schools; they read and write English; and
George Guess, a well-known chief, like the negro inventor of the
Vai syllabarium in West Africa, produced an alphabet of sixty-eight
characters, which, improved and simplified by the missionaries, is
found useful in teaching the vernacular.
[26] The “Missouri Compromise” is an important event in
Anglo-American history; it must be regarded as the great parent
of the jangles and heart-burnings which have disunited the United
States. The great Jefferson prophesied in these words: “the Missouri
question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by
revolt, and what more God only knows. From the battle of Bunker’s
Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so ominous a question.”
The origin of the trouble was this. In 1817 the eastern half of
the Mississippi Territory became the Territory of Alabama, and--in
those days events had wings--the 14th of Dec., 1819, witnessed the
birth of Alabama as a free sovereign and independent slave state.
The South, strong in wealth and numbers, thereupon moved toward
legalizing slavery in the newly-acquired Territory of Missouri, and
when Missouri claimed to be admitted as a state, demanded that it
should be admitted as a slave state. The Free-soilers, or opposite
party, urged two reasons why Missouri should be a free state.
Firstly, since the date of the union eight new states had been
admitted, four slave and four free. Alabama, the last, was a slave
state, therefore it was the turn for a free state. Secondly--and here
was the rub--that “slavery ought not to be permitted in any state or
territory where it could be prohibited.” This very broad principle
involved, it is manifest, the ruin of the slave-ocracy. From the days
of Mr. Washington to those of Mr. Lincoln, the northern or labor
states have ever aimed at the ultimate abolition of servitude by
means of non-extension. The contest about Missouri began in 1818, and
raged for three years, complicated by a new feature, namely, Maine
separating herself from Massachusetts, and balancing the admission
of Alabama by becoming a free state. The Lower House several times
voted to exclude the “peculiar institution” from the new state, and
the conservative Senate--in which the Southern element was ever
predominant--as often restored it. Great was the war of words among
the rival legislators; at length, after repeated conferences, both
Senate and House agreed upon a bill admitting Missouri, after her
Constitution should be formed, free of restriction, but prohibiting
slavery north of 36° 30′. Missouri acknowledged the boon by adopting
a Constitution which denied the rights of citizens even to free
negroes. She was not finally admitted until the 10th of August, 1821,
when her Legislature had solemnly covenanted to guarantee the rights
of citizenship to “the citizens of either of the states.” Such is an
outline of the far-famed “Missouri Compromise.” The influence of the
Southern slaveholders caused it to be repealed, as a slip of Texas
happened to lie north of the prohibitative latitude, and the late Mr.
S. A. Douglas did it to death in 1854. The Free-soilers, of course,
fought hard against the “sad repeal,” and what they now fight about,
forty years afterward, is to run still farther south the original
line of limitation. _Hinc illæ lachrymæ!_
[MISSIONARIES.]
Upon the whole, however, the philanthropic schemes of the government
have not met with brilliant success. The chiefs are still bribed,
and the people cheated by white traders, and poverty, disease, and
debauchery rapidly thin the tribesmen. Sensible heads have proposed
many schemes for preserving the race. Apparently the best of these
projects is to introduce the Moravian discipline. Of all missionary
systems, I may observe, none have hitherto been crowned with important
results, despite the blood and gold so profusely expended upon
them, except two--those of the Jesuits and the United Brethren. The
fraternity of Jesus spread the Gospel by assimilating themselves to the
heathen; the Unitas Fratrum by assimilating the heathen to themselves.
The day of Jesuitism, like that of protection, is going by. The
advance of Moravianism, it may safely be prophesied, is to come. These
civilization societies have as yet been little appreciated, because
they will not minister to that ignorant enthusiasm which extracts
money from the pockets of the many. Their necessarily slow progress is
irksome to ardent propagandists. We naturally wish to reap as well as
to sow; and man rarely invests capital in schemes of which only his
grandson will see the results.
The American philanthropist proposes to wean the Indian savage
from his nomad life by turning his lodge into a log tent, and by
providing him with cattle instead of buffalo, and the domestic fowl
instead of grasshoppers. The hunter become a herdsman would thus be
strengthened for another step--the agricultural life, which necessarily
follows the pastoral. Factors would be appointed instead of vicious
traders--_coureurs des bois_, as the Canadians call them; titles to
land would be granted in fee-simple, practically teaching the value of
property in severalty, alienation into white hands would be forbidden,
and, if possible, a cordon militaire would be stretched between the
races. The agricultural would lead to the mechanical stage of society.
Agents and assistant craftsmen would teach the tribes to raise mills
and smithies (at present there are mills without millers, stock without
breeders, and similar attempts to make civilization run before she can
walk), and a growing appreciation for the peace, the comfort, and the
luxuries of settled life would lay the nomad instinct forever.
The project labors only under one difficulty--the one common
to philanthropic schemes. In many details it is somewhat
visionary--utopian. It is, like peace on earth, a “dream of the wise.”
Under the present system of Indian agencies, as will in a future page
appear, it is simply impossible. It has terrible obstacles in the
westward gravitation of the white race, which, after sweeping away the
aborigines--as the gray rat in Europe expelled the black rat--from the
east of the Mississippi in two centuries and a half, threatens, before
a quarter of that time shall have elapsed, to drive in its advance
toward the Pacific the few survivors of now populous tribes, either
into the inhospitable regions north of the 49th parallel, or into the
anarchical countries south of the 32d. And where, I may ask, in the
history of the world do we read of a people learning civilization from
strangers instead of working it out for themselves, through its several
degrees of barbarism, feudalism, monarchy, republicanism, despotism?
Still it is a noble project; mankind would not willingly see it die.
[THE PAWNEES.]
The Pawnees were called by the French and Canadian traders Les Loups,
that animal being their totem, and the sign of the tribe being an
imitation of the wolf’s ears, the two fore fingers of the right
hand being stuck up on the side of the head. They were in the last
generation a large nation, containing many clans--Minnikajus, the Sans
Arc, the Loup Fork, and others. Their territory embraced both sides
of the Platte River, especially the northern lands; and they rendered
these grounds terrible to the trapper, trader, and traveler. They were
always well mounted. Old Mexico was then, and partially is still,
their stable, and a small band has driven off horses by hundreds.
Of late years they have become powerless. The influenza acts as a
plague among them, killing off 400 or 500 in a single season, and the
nation now numbers little more than 300 braves, or rather warriors,
the latter, in correct parlance, being inferior to the former, as the
former are subservient to the chief. A treaty concluded between them
and the United States in the winter of 1857 sent them to a reserve on
the Loup Fork, where their villages were destroyed by the Sioux. They
are Ishmaelites, whose hand is against every man. They have attempted,
after the fashion of declining tribes, to strengthen themselves by
alliances with their neighbors, but have always failed in consequence
of their propensity to plunder developing itself even before the powwow
was concluded. They and the northern Dakotahs can never be trusted.
Most Indian races, like the Bedouin Arabs, will show hospitality to the
stranger who rides into their villages, though no point of honor deters
them from robbing him after he has left the lodge-shade. The Pawnees,
African-like, will cut the throat of a sleeping guest. They are easily
distinguished from their neighbors by the scalp-lock protruding from
a shaven head. After killing white men, they have insulted the corpse
in a manner familiar to those who served in the Affghan war. They
have given up the practice of torturing prisoners, saying that the
“Great Spirit,” or rather, as the expression should be translated,
the “Great Father” no longer wills it. The tradition is, that a few
years ago a squaw of a hostile tribe was snatched from the stake by
a white trader, and the action was interpreted as a decree of heaven.
It is probably a corruption of the well-known story of the rescue of
the Itean woman by Petalesharoo, the son of the “Knife Chief.” Like
the Southern and Western Indians generally, as is truly remarked by
Captain Mayne Reid,[27] “They possess more of that cold continence
and chivalrous delicacy than characterize the Red Men of the forest.”
They are too treacherous to be used as soldiers. Like most pedestrian
Indians, their arms and bodies are light and thin, and their legs are
muscular and well developed. They are great in endurance. I have heard
of a Pawnee, who, when thoroughly “stampeded” by his enemies, “loped”
from Fort Laramie to Kearney--300 miles--making the distance as fast as
the mail. This bad tribe is ever at war with their hereditary enemies
the Sioux. They do not extend westward of Fort Kearney. The principal
sub-tribe is the Arickaree, or Ree, called Pedani by the Dakotah, who
attacked and conquered them. Their large villages, near the mouth of
the Grand River, were destroyed by the expedition sent in 1825-26,
under Colonel Leavenworth, to chastise the attack upon the trading
party of General Ashley.
[27] The Scalp-hunters, chap. xlii.
[THE DELAWARES.]
A more interesting people than the Pawnee is the Delaware, whose oldest
tradition derives him from the region west of the Mississippi. Thence
the tribe migrated to the Atlantic shores, where they took the title
of Lenne Lenape, or men, and the neighboring races in respect called
them “uncle.” William Penn and his followers found this remnant of the
great Algonquin confederacy in a depressed state: subjugated by the
Five Nations, they had been compelled to take the name of “Iroquois
Squaws.” In those days they felt an awe of the white man, and looked
upon him as a something godlike. Since their return to the West their
spirit has revived, their war-path has reached through Utah to the
Pacific Ocean, to Hudson’s Bay on the north, and southward to the heart
of Mexico. Their present abodes are principally near Fort Leavenworth
upon the Missouri, and in the Choctaw territory near Fort Arbuckle,
upon the eastern Colorado or Canadian River. They are familiar with the
languages, manners, and customs of their pale-faced neighbors; they are
so feared as rifle shots that a host of enemies will fly from a few of
their warriors, and they mostly lead a vagrant life, the wandering Jews
of the West, as traders, hunters, and trappers, among the other Indian
tribes. For 185 years the Shawnees have been associated with them in
intermarriage, yet they are declining in numbers; here and there some
are lost, one by one, in travel or battle; they have now dwindled to
about a hundred warriors, and the extinction of the tribe appears
imminent. As hunters and guides, they are preferred to all others by
the whites, and it is believed that they would make as formidable
partisan soldiers as any on this continent. When the government of the
United States, after the fashion of France and England, begins to raise
“Irregular Native Corps,” the loss of the Delawares will be regretted.
Changing mules at Kiowa about 10 A.M., we pushed forward through the
sun, which presently was mitigated by heavy nimbi, to Liberty Farm,
where a station supplied us with the eternal eggs and bacon of these
_mangeurs de lard_. It is a dish constant in the great West, as the
omelet and pigeon in the vetturini days of Italy, when, prompted by the
instincts of self-preservation, the inmates of the dove-cot, unless
prevented in time, are said to have fled their homes at the sight of
Milordo’s traveling carriage, not to return until the portent had
disappeared. The Little Blue ran hard by, about fifty feet wide by
three or four deep, fringed with emerald-green oak groves, cotton-wood,
and long-leaved willow: its waters supply catfish, suckers, and a
soft-shelled turtle, but the fish are full of bones, and taste, as
might be imagined, much like mud. The country showed vestiges of
animal life, the prairie bore signs of hare and antelope; in the
valley, coyotes, wolves, and foxes, attracted by the carcasses of
cattle, stared us in the face, and near the stream, plovers, jays,
the bluebird (sialia), and a kind of starling, called the swamp or
redwinged blackbird, twittered a song of satisfaction. We then resumed
our journey over a desert, waterless save after rain, for twenty-three
miles; it is the divide between the Little Blue and the Platte rivers,
a broken table-land rising gradually toward the west, with, at this
season, a barren soil of sand and clay. As the evening approached, a
smile from above lit up into absolute beauty the homely features of
the world below. The sweet commune with nature in her fairest hours
denied to the sons of cities--who must contemplate her charms through
a vista of brick wall, or over a foreground of chimney-pots--consoled
us amply for all the little hardships of travel. Strata upon strata of
cloud-banks, burnished to golden red in the vicinity of the setting
sun, and polished to dazzling silvery white above, lay piled half
way from the horizon to the zenith, with a distinct strike toward a
vanishing point in the west, and dipping into a gateway through which
the orb of day slowly retired. Overhead floated in a sea of amber and
yellow, pink and green, heavy purple nimbi, apparently turned upside
down--their convex bulges below, and their horizontal lines high in the
air--while in the east black and blue were so curiously blended that
the eye could not distinguish whether it rested upon darkening air or
upon a lowering thunder-cloud. We enjoyed these beauties in silence;
not a soul said, “Look there!” or “How pretty!”
At 9 P.M., reaching “Thirty-two-mile Creek,” we were pleasantly
surprised to find an utter absence of the Irishry. The station-master
was the head of a neat-handed and thrifty family from Vermont; the
rooms, such as they were, looked cosy and clean--and the chickens
and peaches were plump and well “fixed.” Soldiers from Fort Kearney
loitered about the adjoining store, and from them we heard past
fights and rumors of future wars which were confirmed on the morrow.
Remounting at 10 30 P.M., and before moonrise, we threaded the gloom
without other accident than the loss of a mule that was being led to
the next station. The amiable animal, after breaking loose, coquetted
with its pursuers for a while, according to the fashion of its kind,
and when the cerne or surround was judged complete, it dashed through
the circle and gave leg-bail, its hoofs ringing over the stones till
the sound died away in the distant shades.
_The Platte River and Fort Kearney, August 10._
[LA GRANDE PLATTE.]
After a long and chilly night--extensive evaporation making 40° F. feel
excessively cold--lengthened by the atrocity of the musquetoes, which
sting even when the thermometer stands below 45°, we awoke upon the
hill sands divided by two miles of level green savanna, and at 4 A.M.
reached Kearney Station, in the valley of La Grande Platte, seven miles
from the fort of that name. The first aspect of the stream was one of
calm and quiet beauty, which, however, it owed much to its accessories:
some travelers have not hesitated to characterize it as “the dreariest
of rivers.” On the south is a rolling range of red sandy and clayey
hillocks, sharp toward the river--the “coasts of the Nebraska.” The
valley, here two miles broad, resembles the ocean deltas of great
streams; it is level as a carpet, all short green grass without sage
or bush. It can hardly be called a bottom, the rise from the water’s
edge being, it is calculated, about 4 feet per 1000. Under a bank, from
half a yard to a yard high, through its two lawns of verdure, flowed
the stream straight toward the slanting rays of the rising sun, which
glittered upon its broad bosom, and shed rosy light over half the
heavens. In places it shows a sea horizon, but here it was narrowed by
Grand Island, which is fifty-two miles long, with an average breadth of
one mile and three quarters, and sufficiently elevated above the annual
flood to be well timbered.
Without excepting even the Missouri, the Platte is doubtless the most
important western influent of the Mississippi. Its valley offers
a route scarcely to be surpassed for natural gradients, requiring
little beyond the superstructure for light trains; and by following
up its tributary--the Sweetwater--the engineer finds a line laid down
by nature to the foot of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, the
dividing ridge between the Atlantic and the Pacific water-beds. At
present the traveler can cross the 300 or 400 miles of desert between
the settlements in the east and the populated parts of the western
mountains by its broad highway, with never-failing supplies of water,
and, in places, fuel. Its banks will shortly supply coal to take the
place of the timber that has thinned out.
The Canadian voyageurs first named it La Platte, the Flat River,
discarding, or rather translating after their fashion, the musical
and picturesque aboriginal term, “Nebraska,” the “shallow stream:”
the word has happily been retained for the Territory. Springing
from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, it has, like all the
valley streams westward of the Mississippi, the Niobrara, or Eau qui
court,[28] the Arkansas, and the Canadian River, a declination to
the southeast. From its mouth to the junction of its northern and
southern forks, the river valley is mostly level, and the scenery is
of remarkable sameness: its singularity in this point affects the
memory. There is not a tributary, not a ravine, in places not a tree to
distract attention from the grassy intermediate bottom, which, plain as
a prairie, extends from four to five and even twelve miles in width,
bounded on both sides by low, rolling, sandy hills, thinly vegetated,
and in few places showing dwarf bluffs. Between the forks and Fort
Laramie the ground is more accented, the land near its banks often
becomes precipitous, the road must sometimes traverse the tongues and
ridges which project into the valley, and in parts the path is deep
with sand. The stream averages about a mile in breadth, and sometimes
widens out into the semblance of an estuary, flowing in eddies where
holes are, and broken by far-reaching sand-bars and curlew shallows.
In places it is a labyrinth of islets, variously shaped and of all
sizes, from the long tongue which forms a vista to the little bouquet
of cool verdure, grass, young willows, and rose-bushes. The shallowness
of the bed causes the water to be warm in summer; a great contrast
to the clear, cool springs on its banks. The sole is treacherous in
the extreme, full of quicksands and gravel shoals, channels and cuts,
which shift, like those of the Indus, with each year’s flood; the site
being nearly level, the river easily swells, and the banks, here of
light, there of dark colored silt, based, like the floor, on sand,
are, though vertical, rarely more than two feet high. It is a river
willfully wasted by nature. The inundation raises it to about six feet
throughout: this freshet, however, is of short duration, and the great
breadth of the river causes a want of depth which renders it unfit
for the navigation of a craft more civilized than the Indian’s birch
or the Canadian fur-boat. Colonel Frémont failed to descend it in
September with a boat drawing only four inches. The water, like that of
the Missouri, and for the same reason, is surcharged with mud drained
from the prairies; carried from afar, it has usually a dark tinge;
it is remarkably opaque after floods; if a few inches deep, it looks
bottomless, and, finally, it contains little worth fishing for. From
the mouth to Fort Kearney, beyond which point timber is rare, one bank,
and one only, is fringed with narrow lines of well-grown cotton-wood,
red willows, and cedars, which are disappearing before the emigrant’s
axe. The cedar now becomes an important tree. It will not grow on the
plains, owing to the dryness of the climate and the excessive cold;
even in the sheltered ravines the wintry winds have power to blight
all the tops that rise above prairie level, and where the locality is
better adapted for plantations, firs prevail. An interesting effect of
climate upon the cedar is quoted by travelers on the Missouri River. At
the first Cedar Island (43° N. lat.) large and straight trees appear in
the bottom lands, those on the bluffs being of inferior growth; higher
up the stream they diminish, seldom being seen in any number together
above the mouth of the Little Cheyenne (45° N. lat.), and there they
are exceedingly crooked and twisted. In the lignite formations above
the Missouri and the Yellow Stone, the cedar, unable to support itself
above ground, spreads over the hill-sides and presents the appearance
of grass or moss.
[28] For an accurate geographical description of this little-known
river, the reader is referred to Lieutenant Warren’s report,
published by the Secretary of War, United States.
[THE WILD GARDEN.]
Beyond the immediate banks of the Platte the soil is either sandy,
quickly absorbing water, or it is a hard, cold, unwholesome clay,
which long retains muddy pools, black with decayed vegetation, and
which often, in the lowest levels, becomes a mere marsh. The wells
deriving infiltration from the higher lands beyond are rarely more than
three feet deep; the produce is somewhat saline, and here and there
salt may be seen efflorescing from the soil around them. In the large
beds of prêle (an equisetum), scouring rush, and other aquatic plants
which garnish the banks, myriads of musquetoes find a home. Flowers
of rich, warm color appear, we remark, in the sandy parts: the common
wild helianthus and a miniature sunflower like chamomile, a thistle
(_Carduus leucographus_), the cactus, a peculiar milk-plant (_Asclepias
syrivea_), a spurgewort (_Asclepias tuberosa_), the amorpha, the
tradescantia, the putoria, and the artemisia, or prairie sage. The
richer soils and ravines produce in abundance the purple aster--violet
of these regions--a green plant, locally known as “Lamb’s Quarters,” a
purple flower with bulbous root, wild flax with pretty blue blossoms,
besides mallow, digitalis, anemone, streptanthis, and a honeysuckle. In
parts the valley of the Platte is a perfect parterre of wild flowers.
After satisfying hunger with vile bread and viler coffee--how far from
the little forty-berry cup of Egypt!--for which we paid 75 cents, we
left Kearney Station without delay. Hugging the right bank of our
strange river, at 8 A.M. we found ourselves at Fort Kearney, so called,
as is the custom, after the gallant officer, now deceased, of that name.
Every square box or block-house in these regions is a fort; no
misnomer, however, can be more complete than the word applied to the
military cantonments on the frontier. In former times the traders to
whom these places mostly belonged erected quadrangles of sun-dried
brick with towers at the angles; their forts still appear in old books
of travels: the War Department, however, has been sensible enough to
remove them. The position usually chosen is a river bottom, where
fuel, grass, and water are readily procurable. The quarters are of
various styles; some, with their low verandas, resemble Anglo-Indian
bungalows or comfortable farm-houses; others are the storied houses,
with the “stoop” or porch of the Eastern States in front; and low,
long, peat-roofed tenements are used for magazines and out-houses. The
best material is brown adobe or unburnt brick; others are of timber,
whitewashed and clean-looking, with shingle roofs, glass windows, and
gay green frames--that contrast of colors which the New Englander
loves. The habitations surround a cleared central space for parade and
drill; the ground is denoted by the tall flag-staff, which does not, as
in English camps, distinguish the quarters of the commanding officer.
One side is occupied by the officers’ bungalows, the other, generally
that opposite, by the adjutant’s and quartermaster’s offices, and the
square is completed by low ranges of barrack and commissariat stores,
while various little shops, stables, corrals for cattle, a chapel,
perhaps an artillery park, and surely an ice-house--in this point India
is far behind the wilds of America--complete the settlement. Had these
cantonments a few more trees and a far more brilliant verdure, they
would suggest the idea of an out-station in Guzerat, the Deccan, or
some similar Botany Bay for decayed gentlemen who transport themselves.
[INDIAN FIGHTING.]
While at Washington I had resolved--as has already been
intimated--when the reports of war in the West were waxing loud,
to enjoy a little Indian fighting. The meritorious intention--for
which the severest “wig,” concluding with something personally
offensive about volunteering in general, would have been its sole
result in the “fast-anchored isle”--was most courteously received
by the Hon. John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, who provided me with
introductory letters addressed to the officers commanding various
“departments”[29]--“divisions,” as they would be called by
Englishmen--in the West. The first tidings that saluted my ears on
arrival at Fort Kearney acted as a quietus: an Indian action had been
fought, which signified that there would be no more fighting for some
time. Captain Sturgis, of the 1st Cavalry, U. S., had just attacked,
near the Republican Fork of Kansas River, a little south of the fort,
with six companies (about 350 men) and a few Delawares, a considerable
body of the enemy, Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes, who apparently
had forgotten the severe lesson administered to them by Colonel--now
Brigadier General--Edwin V. Sumner, 1st Cavalry, in 1857, and killed
twenty-five with only two or three of his own men wounded. According
to details gathered at Fort Kearney, the Indians had advanced under
a black flag, lost courage, as wild men mostly will, when they heard
the _pas de charge_, and, after making a running fight, being well
mounted as well as armed, had carried off their “cripples” lashed to
their horses. I had no time to call upon Captain Sully, who remained in
command at Kearney with two troops (here called companies) of dragoons,
or heavy cavalry, and one of infantry; the mail-wagon would halt there
but a few minutes. I therefore hurriedly chose the alternative of
advancing, with the hope of seeing “independent service” on the road.
Intelligence of the fight had made even the conductor look grave; fifty
or sixty miles is a flea-bite to a mounted war-party, and disappointed
Indians upon the war-path are especially dangerous--even the most
friendly can not be trusted when they have lost, or have not succeeded
in taking, a few scalps. We subsequently heard that they had crossed
our path, but whether the tale was true or not is an essentially
doubtful matter. If this chance failed, remained the excitement of the
buffalo and the Mormon; both were likely to show better sport than
could be found in riding wildly about the country after runaway braves.
[29] The following is a list of the military departments into which
the United States are divided:
MILITARY COMMANDS.
_Department of the East._--The country east of the Mississippi River;
head-quarters at Troy, N. Y.
_Department of the West._--The country west of the Mississippi River,
and east of the Rocky Mountains, except that portion included within
the limits of the departments of Texas and New Mexico; head-quarters
at St. Louis, Mo.
_Department of Texas._--The State of Texas, and the territory north
of it to the boundaries of New Mexico, Kansas, and Arkansas, and
the Arkansas River, including Fort Smith. Fort Bliss, in Texas, is
temporarily attached to the department of New Mexico; head-quarters
at San Antonio, Texas.
_Department of New Mexico._--The Territory of New Mexico;
head-quarters at Santa Fé, New Mexico.
_Department of Utah._--The Territory of Utah, except that portion of
it lying west of the 117th degree of west longitude; head-quarters,
Camp Floyd, U. T.
_Department of the Pacific._--The country west of the Rocky
Mountains, except those portions of it included within the limits of
the departments of Utah and New Mexico, and the district of Oregon;
head-quarters at San Francisco, California.
_District of Oregon._--The Territory of Washington and the State of
Oregon, excepting the Rogue River and Umpqua districts in Oregon;
head-quarters at Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory.
[OUTPOST SYSTEMS.]
We all prepared for the “gravity of the situation” by discharging
and reloading our weapons, and bade adieu, about 9 30 A.M., to Fort
Kearney. Before dismissing the subject of forts, I am disposed to make
some invidious remarks upon the army system of outposts in America.
The War Department of the United States has maintained the same
system which the British, much to their loss--I need scarcely trouble
the reader with a list of evils done to the soldier by outpost
duty--adopted and pertinaciously kept up for so long a time in India;
nay, even maintain to the present day, despite the imminent danger of
mutiny. With the Anglo-Scandinavian race, the hate of centralization
in civil policy extends to military organization, of which it should
be the vital principle. The French, gifted with instinct for war,
and being troubled with scant prejudice against concentration, civil
as well as military, soon abandoned, when they found its futility,
the idea of defending their Algerian frontier by extended lines,
block-houses, and feeble intrenched posts. They wisely established, at
the centres of action, depôts, magazines, and all the requisites for
supporting large bodies of men, making them pivots for expeditionary
columns, which by good military roads could be thrown in overwhelming
numbers, in the best health and in the highest discipline, wherever an
attack or an insurrectionary movement required crushing.
The necessity of so doing has long occurred to the American government,
in whose service at present “a regiment is stationed to-day on the
borders of tropical Mexico; to-morrow, the war-whoop, borne on a gale
from the northwest, compels its presence to the frozen latitudes
of Puget’s Sound.” The objections to altering their present highly
objectionable system are two: the first is a civil consideration, the
second a military one.
As I have remarked about the centralization of troops, so it is with
their relation to civilians; the Anglo-Scandinavian blood shows
similar manifestations in the Old and in the New Country. The French,
a purely military nation, pet their army, raise it to the highest
pitch, send it in for glory, and when it fails are to its faults a
little blind. The English and Anglo-Americans, essentially a commercial
and naval people, dislike the red coat; they look upon, and from the
first they looked upon, a standing army as a necessary nuisance; they
ever listen open-eared to projects for cutting and curtailing army
expenditure; and when they have weakened their forces by a manner of
atrophy, they expect them to do more than their duty, and if they can
not command success, abuse them. With a commissariat, transport, and
hospitals--delicate pieces of machinery, which can not run smoothly
when roughly and hurriedly put together--unaccustomed to and unprepared
for service, they land an army 3000 miles from home, and then make
the world ring with their disappointment, and their complainings
anent fearful losses in men and money. The fact is that, though no
soldiers in the world fight with more bravery and determination, the
Anglo-Scandinavian race, with their present institutions, are inferior
to their inferiors in other points, as regards the art of military
organization. Their fatal wants are order and economy, combined with
the will and the means of selecting the best men--these belong to the
emperor, not to the constitutional king or the president--and most of
all, the habit of implicit subjection to the commands of an absolute
dictator. The end of this long preamble is that the American government
apparently thinks less of the efficiency of its troops than of using
them as escorts to squatters, as police of the highway. Withal they
fail; emigrants will not be escorted; women and children will struggle
when they please, even, in an Indian country, and every season has its
dreadful tales of violence and starvation, massacre and cannibalism.
In France the emigrants would be ordered to collect in bodies at
certain seasons, to report their readiness for the road to the officers
commanding stations, to receive an escort, as he should deem proper,
and to disobey at their peril.
The other motive of the American outpost system is military, but also
of civilian origin. Concentration would necessarily be unpalatable
to a number of senior officers, who now draw what in England would
be called command allowances at the several stations.[30] One of
the principles of a republic is to pay a man only while he works;
pensions, like sinecures, are left to governments less disinterested.
The American army--it would hardly be believed--has no pensions, sale
of commissions, off-reckonings, nor retiring list. A man hopelessly
invalided, or in his second childhood, must hang on by means of
furloughs and medical certificates to the end. The colonels are
mostly upon the sick-list--one died lately aged ninety-three, and
dating from the days of Louis XVI.--and I heard of an officer who,
though practicing medicine for years, was still retained upon the
cadre of his regiment. Of course, the necessity of changing such an
anomaly has frequently been mooted by the Legislature; the scandalous
failure, however, of an attempt at introducing a pension-list into the
United States Navy so shocked the public that no one will hear of the
experiment being renewed, even _in corpore vili_, the army.
[30] The aggregate of the little regular army of the United States in
1860 amounted to 18,093. It was dispersed into eighty military posts,
viz., thirteen in the Department of the East, nine in the West,
twenty in Texas, twelve in the Department of New Mexico, two in Utah
(Fort Bridger and Camp Floyd), eleven in Oregon, and thirteen in the
Department of California. They each would have an average of about
225 men.
To conclude the subject of outpost system. If the change be advisable
in the United States, it is positively necessary to the British in
India. The peninsula presents three main points, not to mention the
detached heights that are found in every province, as the great
pivots of action, the Himalayas, the Deccan, and the Nilgherry Hills,
where, until wanted, the Sepoy and his officer, as well as the white
soldier--the latter worth £100 a head--can be kept in health, drilled,
disciplined, and taught the hundred arts which render an “old salt”
the most handy of men. A few years ago the English soldier was fond
of Indian service; hardly a regiment returned home without leaving
hundreds behind it. Now, long, fatiguing marches, scant fare, the worst
accommodation, and the various results of similar hardships, make him
look upon the land as a Golgotha; it is with difficulty that he can be
prevented from showing his disgust. Both in India and America, this
will be the great benefit of extensive railroads: they will do away
with single stations, and enable the authorities to carry out a system
of concentration most beneficial to the country and to the service,
which, after many years of sore drudgery, may at last discern the good
time coming.
In the United States, two other measures appear called for by
circumstances. The Indian race is becoming desperate, wild-beast like,
hemmed in by its enemies that have flanked it on the east and west, and
are gradually closing in upon it. The tribes can no longer shift ground
without inroads into territories already occupied by neighbors, who
are, of course, hostile; they are, therefore, being brought to final
bay.
[THE CAMEL CORPS.]
The first is a camel corps. At present, when disturbances on a
large scale occur in the Far West--the spring of 1862 will probably
see them--a force of cavalry must be sent from the East, perhaps
also infantry. “The horses, after a march of 500 or 600 miles, are
expected to act with success”--I quote the sensible remarks of a
“late captain of infantry” (Captain Patterson, U. S. Army)--“against
scattered bands of mounted hunters, with the speed of a horse and the
watchfulness of a wolf or antelope, whose faculties are sharpened by
their necessities; who, when they get short of provisions, separate and
look for something to eat, and find it in the water, in the ground,
or on the surface; whose bill of fare ranges from grass-seed, nuts,
roots, grasshoppers, lizards, and rattlesnakes, up to the antelope,
deer, elk, bear, and buffalo, and who, having a continent to roam over,
will neither be surprised, caught, conquered, overawed, or reduced
to famine by a rumbling, bugle-blowing, drum-beating town passing
through their country on wheels, at the speed of a loaded wagon.” But
the camel would in these latitudes easily march sixty miles per diem
for a week or ten days, amply sufficient to tire out the sturdiest
Indian pony; it requires water only after every fifty hours, and the
worst soil would supply it with ample forage in the shape of wild
sage, rabbit-bush, and thorns. Each animal would carry two men, with
their arms and ammunition, rations for the time required, bedding and
regimental necessaries, with material to make up a _tente d’abri_ if
judged necessary. The organization should be that of the Sindh Camel
Corps, which, under Sir Charles Napier, was found so efficient against
the frontier Beloch. The best men for this kind of fighting would
be the Mountaineers, or Western Men, of the caste called “Pikes;”
properly speaking, Missourians, but popularly any “rough” between
St. Louis and California. After a sound flogging, for the purpose of
preparing their minds to admit the fact that all men are _not_ equal,
they might be used by sea or land, whenever hard, downright fighting
is required. It is understood that hitherto the camel, despite the
careful selection by Mr. De Leon, the excellent Consul General of the
United States in Egypt, and the valuable instructions of Hekekyan Bey,
has proved a failure in the Western world. If so, want of patience has
been the sole cause; the animal must be acclimatized by slow degrees
before heavy loading to test its powers of strength and speed. Some
may deem this amount of delay impossible. I confess my belief that the
Anglo-Americans can, within any but the extremest limits, accomplish
any thing they please--except unity.
The other necessity will be the raising of native regiments. The French
in Africa have their Spahis, the Russians their Cossacks, and the
English their Sepoys. The American government has often been compelled,
as in the case of the Creek battalion, which did good service during
the Seminole campaign, indirectly to use their wild aborigines; but
the public sentiment, or rather prejudice, which fathers upon the
modern Pawnee the burning and torturing tastes of the ancient Mohawk,
is strongly opposed to pitting Indian against Indian in battle. Surely
this is a false as well as a mistaken philanthropy. If war must be,
it is better that Indian instead of white blood should be shed. And
invariably the effect of enlisting savages and barbarians, subjecting
them to discipline, and placing them directly under the eye of the
civilized man, has been found to diminish their ferocity. The Bashi
Buzuk, left to himself, roasted the unhappy Russian; in the British
service he brought his prisoner alive into camp with a view to a
present or promotion. When talking over the subject with the officers
of the United States regular army, they have invariably concurred with
me in the possibility of the scheme, provided that the public animus
could be turned pro instead of con; and I have no doubt but that they
will prove as leaders of Irregulars--it would be invidious to quote
names--equal to the best of the Anglo-Indians, Skinner, Beatson, and
Jacob. The men would receive about ten dollars per man, and each corps
number 300. They would be better mounted and better armed than their
wild brethren, and they might be kept, when not required for active
service, in a buffalo country, their favorite quarters, and their
finest field for soldierlike exercises. The main point to be avoided is
the mistake committed by the British in India, that of appointing too
many officers to their Sepoy corps.
We left Kearney at 9 30 A.M., following the road which runs forty
miles up the valley of the Platte. It is a broad prairie, plentifully
supplied with water in wells two to four feet deep; the fluid is cool
and clear, but it is said not to be wholesome. Where the soil is clayey
pools abound; the sandy portions are of course dry. Along the southern
bank near Kearney are few elevations; on the opposite or northern side
appear high and wooded bluffs. The road was rough with pitch-holes, and
for the first time I remarked a peculiar gap in the ground like an East
Indian sun-crack--in these latitudes you see none of the deep fissures
which scar the face of mother earth in tropical lands--the effect of
rain-streams and snow-water acting upon the clay. Each succeeding
winter lengthens the head and deepens the sole of this deeply-gashed
water-cut till it destroys the road. A curious mirage appeared,
doubling to four the strata of river and vegetation on the banks. The
sight and song of birds once more charmed us after a desert where
animal life is as rare as upon the plains of Brazil. After fifteen
miles of tossing and tumbling, we made “Seventeen-mile Station,” and
halted there to change mules. About twenty miles above the fort the
southern bank began to rise into mounds of tenacious clay, which, worn
away into perpendicular and precipitous sections, composes the columnar
formation called O’Fallon’s Bluffs. At 1 15 P.M. we reached Plum Creek,
after being obliged to leave behind one of the conductors, who had
become delirious with the “shakes.” The establishment, though new, was
already divided into three; the little landlady, though she worked so
manfully, was, as she expressed it, “enjoying bad health;” in other
words, suffering from a “dumb chill.” I may observe that the Prairie
Traveler’s opinions concerning the power of encamping with impunity
upon the banks of the streams in this country must not be applied
to the Platte. The whole line becomes with early autumn a hotbed of
febrile disease. And generally throughout this season the stranger
should not consider himself safe on any grounds save those defended
from the southern trade-wind, which, sweeping directly from the Gulf of
Mexico, bears with it noxious exhalations.
About Plum Ranch the soil is rich, clayey, and dotted with swamps and
“slews,” by which the English traveler will understand sloughs. The
dryer portions were a Gulistan of bright red, blue, and white flowers,
the purple aster, and the mallow, with its parsnip-like root, eaten by
the Indians, the gaudy yellow helianthus--we remarked at least three
varieties--the snowy mimulus, the graceful flax, sometimes four feet
high, and a delicate little euphorbia, while in the damper ground
appeared the polar plant, that prairie compass, the plane of whose leaf
ever turns toward the magnetic meridian. This is the “weed-prairie,”
one of the many divisions of the great natural meadows; grass prairie,
rolling prairie, motte prairie, salt prairie, and soda prairie. It
deserves a more poetical name, for
“These are the gardens of the desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name.”
Buffalo herds were behind the hills, but we were too full of sleep to
follow them. The plain was dotted with blanched skulls and bones, which
would have made a splendid bonfire. Apparently the expert voyageur has
not learned that they form good fuel; at any rate, he has preferred
to them the “chips” of which it is said that a steak cooked with them
requires no pepper.[31]
[31] The chip corresponds with the bois de vache of Switzerland, the
tezek of Armenia, the arghol of Thibet, and the gobar of India. With
all its faults, it is at least superior to that used in Sindh.
[BUFFALO-BEEF.]
We dined at Plum Creek on buffalo, probably bull beef, the worst and
dryest meat, save elk, that I have ever tasted; indeed, without the
assistance of pork fat, we found it hard to swallow. As every one
knows, however, the two-year old cow is the best eating, and at this
season the herds are ever in the worst condition. The animals calve in
May and June, consequently they are in August completely out of flesh.
They are fattest about Christmas, when they find it difficult to run.
All agree in declaring that there is no better meat than that of the
young buffalo: the assertion, however, must be taken _cum grano salis_.
Wild flesh was never known to be equal to tame, and that monarch did at
least one wise thing who made the loin of beef Sir Loin. The voyageurs
and travelers who cry up the buffalo as so delicious, have been living
for weeks on rusty bacon and lean antelope; a rich hump with its proper
menstruum, a cup of _café noir_ as strong as possible, must truly be a
“tit-bit.” They boast that the fat does not disagree with the eater;
neither do three pounds of heavy pork with the English plow-boy, who
has probably taken less exercise than the Canadian hunter. Before long,
buffalo flesh will reach New York, where I predict it will be held as
inferior to butcher’s meat as is the antelope to park-fed venison.
While hunting, Indians cut off the tail to test the quality of the
game, and they have acquired by habit a power of judging on the run
between fat and lean.
Resuming our weary ride, we watered at “Willow Island Ranch,” and then
at “Cold Water Ranch”--drinking-shops all--five miles from Midway
Station, which we reached at 8 P.M. Here, while changing mules, we
attempted with sweet speech and smiles to persuade the landlady, who
showed symptoms of approaching maternity, into giving us supper. This
she sturdily refused to do, for the reason that she had not received
due warning. We had, however, the satisfaction of seeing the _employés_
of the line making themselves thoroughly comfortable with bread and
buttermilk. Into the horrid wagon again, and “a rollin:” lazily enough
the cold and hungry night passed on.[32]
[32] According to Colonel Frémont, the total amount of buffalo robes
purchased by the several companies, American, Hudson’s Bay, and
others, was an annual total of 90,000 from the eight or ten years
preceding 1843. This is repeated by the Abbé Domenech, who adds
that the number does not include those slaughtered in the southern
regions by the Comanches and other tribes of the Texan frontier, nor
those killed between March and November, when the skins are unfit
for tanning. In 1847, the town of St. Louis received 110,000 buffalo
robes, stags’, deer, and other skins, and twenty-five salted tongues.
_To the Forks of the Platte. 11th August._
Precisely at 1 35 in the morning we awoke, as we came to a halt at
Cotton-wood Station. Cramped with a four days’ and four nights’ ride
in the narrow van, we entered the foul tenement, threw ourselves upon
the mattresses, averaging three to each, and ten in a small room,
every door, window, and cranny being shut--after the fashion of these
Western folks, who make up for a day in the open air by perspiring
through the night in unventilated log huts--and, despite musquetoes,
slept.
The morning brought with it no joy. We had arrived at the westernmost
limit of the “gigantic Leicestershire” to which buffalo at this season
extend, and could hope to see no trace of them between Cotton-wood
Station and the Pacific. I can not, therefore, speak _ex cathedrâ_
concerning this, the noblest “venerie” of the West: almost every one
who has crossed the prairies, except myself, can. Captain Stansbury[33]
will enlighten the sportsman upon the approved method of bryttling the
beasts, and elucidate the mysteries of the “game-beef,” marrow-bone
and depuis, tongue and tender-loin, bass and hump, hump-rib and
liver, which latter, by-the-by, is not unfrequently eaten raw, with a
sprinkling of gall,[34] by the white hunter emulating his wild rival,
as does the European in Abyssinia. The Prairie Traveler has given,
from experience, the latest observations concerning the best modes of
hunting the animal. All that remains to me, therefore, is to offer to
the reader a few details collected from reliable sources, and which are
not to be found in the two works above alluded to.
[33] Exploration and Survey, etc., chap. ix.
[34] “Prairie bitters”--made of a pint of water and a quarter of
a gill of buffalo gall--are considered an _elixir vitæ_ by old
voyageurs.
The bison (_Bison Americanus_) is trivially known as the Prairie
Buffalo, to distinguish it from a different and a larger animal, the
Buffalo of the Woods, which haunts the Rocky Mountains. The “Monarch
of the Prairies,” the “most gigantic of the indigenous mammalia of
America,” has, it is calculated, receded westward ten miles annually
for the last 150 years. When America was discovered, the buffalo
extended down to the Atlantic shore. Thirty years ago, bands grazed
upon the banks of the Missouri River. The annual destruction is
variously computed at from 200,000 to 300,000 head: the American Fur
Company receive per annum about 70,000 robes, which are all cows;
and of these not more than 5000 fall by the hands of white men. At
present there are three well-known bands, which split up, at certain
seasons, into herds of 2000 and 3000 each. The first family is on
the head-waters of the Mississippi; the second haunts the vast
crescent-shaped valley of the Yellow Stone; while the third occupies
the prairie country between the Platte and the Arkansas. A fourth
band, westward of the Rocky Mountains, is quite extinct. Fourteen to
fifteen years ago, buffalo was found in Utah Valley, and later still
upon the Humboldt River: according to some, they emigrated northward,
through Oregon and the lands of the Blackfeet. It is more probable,
however, that they were killed off by the severe winter of 1845, their
skulls being still found scattered in heaps, as if a sudden and general
destruction had come upon the doomed tribe.
[THE BUFFALO.]
The buffalo is partially migratory in its habits: it appears to follow
the snow, which preserves its food from destruction. Like the antelope
of the Cape, when on the “trek,” the band may be reckoned by thousands.
The grass, which takes its name from the animal, is plentiful in the
valley of the Big Blue; it loves the streams of little creeks that have
no bottom-land, and shelters itself under the sage. It is a small,
moss-like gramen, with dark seed, and, when dry, it has been compared
by travelers to twisted gray horsehair. Smaller herds travel in Indian
file; their huge bodies, weighing 1500 lbs., appear, from afar, like
piles erected to bridge the plain. After calving, the cows, like the
African koodoo and other antelopes, herd separately from the males,
and for the same reason, timidity and the cares of maternity. As in
the case of the elephant and the hippopotamus, the oldsters are driven
by the young ones, _en charivari_, from the band, and a compulsory
bachelorhood souring their temper, causes them to become “rogues.” The
albino, or white buffalo, is exceedingly rare; even veteran hunters
will confess never to have seen one. The same may be said of the glossy
black accident called the “silk robe,” supposed by Western men to be a
cross between the parent and the offspring. The buffalo calf has been
tamed by the Flatheads and others: I have never, however, heard of its
being utilized.
The Dakotahs and other Prairie tribes will degenerate, if not
disappear, when the buffalo is “rubbed out.” There is a sympathy
between them, and the beast flies not from the barbarian and his
bow as it does before the face of the white man and his hot-mouthed
weapon. The aborigines are unwilling to allow travelers, sportsmen,
or explorers to pass through the country while they are hunting the
buffalo; that is to say, preserving the game till their furs are
ready for robes. At these times no one is permitted to kill any but
stragglers, for fear of stampeding the band; the animal not only
being timid, but also in the habit of hurrying away cattle and stock,
which often are thus irretrievably lost. In due season the savages
surround one section, and destroy it, the others remaining unalarmedly
grazing within a few miles of the scene of slaughter. If another tribe
interferes, it is a _casus belli_, death being the punishment for
poaching. The white man, whose careless style of _battue_ is notorious,
will be liable to the same penalty, or, that failing, to be plundered
by even “good Indians;” and I have heard of an English gentleman who,
for persisting in the obnoxious practice, was very properly threatened
with prosecution by the government agent.
What the cocoanut is to the East Indian, and the plantain and the
calabash to various tribes of Africans, such is the “bos” to the
carnivorous son of America. No part of it is allowed to waste. The
horns and hoofs make glue for various purposes, especially for
feathering arrows; the brains and part of the bowels are used for
curing skins; the hide clothes the tribes from head to foot; the
calf-skins form their apishamores, or saddle-blankets; the sinews
make their bow-strings, thread, and finer cord; every part of the
flesh, including the fœtus and placenta, is used for food. The surplus
hides are reserved for market. They are prepared by the squaws, who,
curious to say, will not touch a bear-skin till the age of maternity
has passed; and they prefer the spoils of the cow, as being softer
than those of the bull. The skin, after being trimmed with an iron
or bone scraper--this is not done in the case of the “parflèche,”
or thick sole-leather--and softened with brain or marrow, is worked
till thoroughly pliable with the hands. The fumigation, which gives
the finishing touch, is confined to buckskins intended for garments.
When the hair is removed, the hides supply the place of canvas, which
they resemble in whiteness and facility of folding. Dressed with the
hair, they are used, as their name denotes, for clothing; they serve
also for rugs and bedding. In the prairies, the price ranges from $1
to $1 50 in kind; in the Eastern States, from $5 to $10. The fancy
specimens, painted inside, decorated with eyes, and otherwise adorned
with split porcupine quills dyed a gamboge-yellow, fetch from $8
to $35. A “buffalo” (_subaudi_ robe) was shown to me, painted with
curious figures, which, according to my Canadian informant, were a
kind of hieroglyph or _aide-mémoire_, even ruder than the Mexican
picture-writing.
The Indians generally hunt the buffalo with arrows. They are so expert
in riding that they will, at full speed, draw the missile from the
victim’s flank before it falls. I have met but one officer, Captain
Heth, of the 10th Regiment, who ever acquired the art. The Indian
hog-spear has been used to advantage. Our predecessors in Eastern
conquest have killed with it the tiger and nylgau; there is, therefore,
no reason why it might not be efficiently applied to the buffalo. Like
the Bos Caffre, the bison is dull, surly, and stupid, as well as timid
and wary; it requires hard riding, with the chance of a collar-bone
broken by the horse falling into a prairie-dog’s home; and when headed
or tired an old male rarely fails to charge.
[THE MODEL VERANDA.]
The flies chasing away the musquetoes--even as Aurora routs the
lingering shades of night--having sounded our _reveillée_ at
Cotton-wood Station, we proceeded by means of an “eye-opener,” which
even the abstemious judge could not decline, and the use of the
“skillet,” to prepare for a breakfast composed of various abominations,
especially cakes of flour and grease, molasses and dirt, disposed in
pretty equal parts. After paying the usual 50 cents, we started in the
high wind and dust, with a heavy storm brewing in the north, along the
desert valley of the dark, silent Platte, which here spread out in
broad basins and lagoons, picturesquely garnished with broad-leafed
dock and beds of _prêle_, flags and water-rushes, in which, however, we
saw nothing but traces of Monsieur Maringouin. On our left was a line
of sub-conical buttes, red, sandy-clay pyramids, semi-detached from
the wall of the rock behind them, with smooth flat faces fronting the
river, toward which they slope at the natural angle of 45°. The land
around, dry and sandy, bore no traces of rain; a high wind blew, and
the thermometer stood at 78° (F.), which was by no means uncomfortably
warm. Passing Junction-House Ranch and Frémont Slough--whisky-shops
both--we halted for “dinner,” about 11 A.M., at Frémont Springs, so
called from an excellent little water behind the station. The building
is of a style peculiar to the South, especially Florida--two huts
connected by a roofwork of thatched timber, which acts as the best
and coolest of verandas. The station-keeper, who receives from the
proprietors of the line $30 per month, had been there only three weeks;
and his wife, a comely young person, uncommonly civil and smiling for
a “lady,” supplied us with the luxuries of pigeons, onions, and light
bread, and declared her intention of establishing a poultry-yard.
[HALF-WAY HOUSE.]
An excellent train of mules carried us along a smooth road at a
slapping pace, over another natural garden even more flowery than that
passed on the last day’s march. There were beds of lupins, a brilliant
pink and blue predominating, the green plant locally known as “Lamb’s
Quarters” (_Chenopodium album_); the streptanthis; the milk-weed, with
its small white blossoms; the anemone; the wild flax, with its pretty
blue flowers, and growths which appeared to be clematis, chamomile,
and digitalis. Distant black dots--dwarf cedars, which are yearly
diminishing--lined the bank of the Platte and the long line of River
Island; they elicited invidious comparisons from the Pennsylvanians of
the party. We halted at Half-way House, near O’Fallon’s Bluffs, at the
quarters of Mr. M----, a _compagnon de voyage_, who had now reached his
home of twenty years, and therefore insisted upon “standing drinks.”
The business is worth $16,000 per annum; the contents of the store
somewhat like a Parsee’s shop in Western India--every thing from a
needle to a bottle of Champagne. A sign-board informed us that we were
now distant 400 miles from St. Jo, 120 from Fort Kearney, 68 from the
upper, and 40 from the lower crossing of the Platte. As we advanced the
valley narrowed, the stream shrank, the vegetation dwindled, the river
islands were bared of timber, and the only fuel became buffalo chip
and last year’s artemisia. This hideous growth, which is to weary our
eyes as far as central valleys of the Sierra Nevada, will require a few
words of notice.
The artemisia, absinthe, or wild sage differs much from the panacea
concerning which the Salernitan school rhymed:
“Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto.”
Yet it fills the air with a smell that caricatures the odor of the
garden-plant, causing the traveler to look round in astonishment; and
when used for cooking it taints the food with a taste between camphor
and turpentine. It is of two kinds. The smaller or white species (_A.
filifolia_) rarely grows higher than a foot. Its fetor is less rank,
and at times of scarcity it forms tolerable fodder for animals. The
Western men have made of it, as of the “red root,” a tea, which must
be pronounced decidedly inferior to corn coffee. The Indians smoke it,
but they are not particular about what they inhale: like that perverse
p----n of Ludlow, who smoked the bell-ropes rather than not smoke at
all, or like school-boys who break themselves in upon ratan, they use
even the larger sage as well as a variety of other graveolent growths.
The second kind (_A. tridentata_) is to the family of shrubs what
the prairie cedar is to the trees--a gnarled, crooked, rough-barked
deformity. It has no pretensions to beauty except in earliest youth,
and in the dewy hours when the breeze turns up its leaves that glitter
like silver in the sun; and its constant presence in the worst and most
desert tracts teaches one to regard it, like the mangrove in Asia and
Africa, with aversion. In size it greatly varies; in some places it
is but little larger than the white species; near the Red Buttes its
woody stem often attains the height of a man and the thickness of his
waist. As many as fifty rings have been counted in one wood, which,
according to the normal calculation, would bring its age up to half a
century. After its first year, stock will eat it only when threatened
with starvation. It has, however, its use; the traveler, despite its
ugliness, hails the appearance of its stiff, wiry clumps at the evening
halt: it is easily uprooted, and by virtue of its essential oil it
makes a hot and lasting fire, and ashes over. According to Colonel
Frémont, “it has a small fly accompanying it through every change of
elevation and latitude.” The same eminent authority also suggests that
the respiration of air so highly impregnated with aromatic plants may
partly account for the favorable effect of the climate upon consumption.
At 5 P.M., as the heat began to mitigate, we arrived at Alkali Lake
Station, and discovered some “exiles from Erin,” who supplied us with
antelope meat and the unusual luxury of ice taken from the Platte. We
attempted to bathe in the river, but found it flowing liquid mire. The
Alkali Lake was out of sight; the driver, however, consoled me with the
reflection that I should “glimpse” alkali lakes till I was sick of them.
Yesterday and to-day we have been in a line of Indian “removes.” The
wild people were shifting their quarters for grass; when it becomes a
little colder they will seek some winter abode on the banks of a stream
which supplies fuel and where they can find meat, so that with warmth
and food, song and chat--they are fond of talking nonsense as African
negroes--and smoke and sleep, they can while away the dull and dreary
winter. Before describing the scene, which might almost serve for a
picture of Bedouin or gipsy life--so similar are the customs of all
savages--I have something to say about the Red Man.
[THE RED MEN.]
This is a country of misnomers. America should not, according to the
school-books, have been named America, consequently the Americans
should not be called Americans. A geographical error, pardonable in the
fifteenth century, dubbed the old tenants of these lands Indians,[35]
but why we should still call them the Red Men can not be conceived. I
have now seen them in the north, south, east, and west of the United
States, yet never, except under the influence of ochre or vermilion,
have I seen the Red Man red. The real color of the skin, as may be seen
under the leggins, varies from a dead pale olive to a dark dingy brown.
The parts exposed to the sun are slightly burnished, as in a Tartar
or an Affghan after a summer march. Between the two extremes above
indicated there are, however, a thousand shades of color, and often the
skin has been so long grimed in with pigment, grease, and dirt that it
suggests a brick-dust tinge which a little soap or soda would readily
remove. Indeed, the color and the complexion, combined with the lank
hair, scant beard, and similar peculiarities, renders it impossible to
see this people for the first time without the strongest impression
that they are of that Turanian breed which in prehistoric ages passed
down from above the Himalayas as far south as Cape Comorin.
[35] Columbus and Vespucius both died in the conviction that they
had only discovered portions of Asia. Indeed, as late as 1533, the
astronomer Schöner maintained that Mexico was the Quinsai of Marco
Polo. The early navigators called the aborigines of the New World
“Indians,” believing that they inhabited the eastern portion of
“India,” a term then applied to the extremity of Oriental Asia. Until
the present century the Spaniards applied the names India and Indies
to their possessions in America.
Another mistake touching the Indian is the present opinion concerning
him and his ancestors. He now suffers in public esteem from the
reaction following the high-flown descriptions of Cooper and the
herd of minor romancers who could not but make their heroes heroes.
Moreover, men acquainted only with the degenerate Pawnees or Diggers
extend their evil opinions to the noble tribes now extinct--the
Iroquois and Algonquins, for instance, whose remnants, the Delawares
and Ojibwas, justify the high opinion of the first settlers. The
exploits of King Philip, Pontiac, Gurister Sego, Tecumseh, Keokuk,
Iatan, Captain J. Brant, Black Hawk, Red Jacket, Osceola, and Billy
Bowlegs, are rapidly fading away from memory, while the failures of
such men as Little Thunder, and those like him, stand prominently forth
in modern days. Besides the injustice to the manes and memories of
the dead, this depreciation of the Indians tends to serious practical
evils. Those who see the savage lying drunk about stations, or eaten
up with disease, expect to beat him out of the field by merely showing
their faces; they fail, and pay the penalty with their lives--an event
which occurs every year in some parts of America.
[PRAIRIE-INDIAN DRESS.]
The remove of the village presented an interesting sight--an animated
shifting scene of bucks and braves, squaws and pappooses, ponies
dwarfed by bad breeding and hard living, dogs and puppies struggling
over the plains westward. In front, singly or in pairs, rode the men,
not gracefully, not according to the rules of Mexican _manège_, but
like the Abyssinian eunuch, as if born upon and bred to become part of
the animal. Some went barebacked; others rode, like the ancient chiefs
of the Western Islands, upon a saddle-tree, stirrupless, or provided
with hollow blocks of wood: in some cases the saddle was adorned with
bead hangings, and in all a piece of buffalo hide with the hair on was
attached beneath to prevent chafing. The cruel ring-bit of the Arabs
is not unknown. A few had iron curbs, probably stolen. For the most
part they managed their nags with a hide thong lashed round the lower
jaw and attached to the neck. A whip, of various sizes and shapes,
sometimes a round and tattooed ferule, more often a handle like a
butcher’s tally-stick, flat, notched, one foot long, and provided with
two or three thongs, hung at the wrist. Their nags were not shod with
parflèche, as among the horse-Indians of the South. Their long, lank,
thick, brownish-black hair, ruddy from the effects of weather, was
worn parted in the middle, and depended from the temples confined with
a long twist of otter or beaver’s skin in two queues, or pig-tails,
reaching to the breast: from the poll, and distinct from the remainder
of the hair, streamed the scalp-lock. This style of hair-dressing,
doubtless, aids in giving to the coronal region that appearance of
depression which characterizes the North American Indians as a race
of “Flatheads,” and which, probably being considered a beauty, led to
the artificial deformities of the Peruvian and the Aztec. The parting
in men, as well as in women, was generally colored with vermilion,
and plates of brass or tin, with beveled edges, varying in size from
a shilling to half a crown, were inserted into the front hair. The
scalp-lock--in fops the side-locks also--was decorated with tin or
silver plates, often twelve in number, beginning from the head and
gradually diminishing in size as they approached the heels; a few had
eagle’s, hawk’s, and crow’s feathers stuck in the hair, and sometimes,
grotesquely enough, crownless Kossuth hats, felt broadbrims, or old
military casquettes, surmounted all this finery. Their scanty beard
was removed; they compare the bushy-faced European to a dog running
away with a squirrel in its mouth. In their ears were rings of beads,
with pendants of tin plates or mother of pearl, or huge circles of
brass wire not unlike a Hindoo tailor’s; and their fore-arms, wrists,
and fingers were, after an African fashion, adorned with the same
metals, which the savage ever prefers to gold or silver. Their other
decorations were cravats of white or white and blue, oval beads, and
necklaces of plates like those worn in the hair. The body dress was
a tight-sleeved waistcoat of dark drugget, over an American cotton
shirt; others wore tattered flannels, and the middle was wrapped round
with a common blanket, presented by the government agent--scarlet
and blue being the colors preferred, white rare: a better stuff is
the coarse broadcloth manufactured for the Indian market in the
United States. The leggins were a pair of pantaloons without the body
part--in their palmy days the Indians laughed to scorn their future
conquerors for tightening the hips so as to impede activity--looped
up at both haunches with straps to a leathern girdle, and all wore
the breech-cloth, which is the common Hindoo languti or T-bandage.
The cut of the leggins is a parallelogram, a little too short and
much too broad for the limb; it is sewn so as to fit tight, and the
projecting edges, for which the light-colored list or bordering is
usually preserved, answers the effect of a military stripe. When
buckskin leggins are made the outside edges are fringed, producing
that feathered appearance which distinguishes in our pictures the
nether limbs of the Indian brave. The garb ends with moccasins,[36] the
American brogues, which are made in two ways. The simplest are of one
piece, a cylinder of skin cut from above and below the hock of some
large animal--moose, elk, or buffalo--and drawn on before shrinking,
the joint forming the heel, while the smaller end is sewn together for
a toe. This rough contrivance is little used but as a _pis aller_. The
other kind is made of tanned hide in two pieces--a sole and an upper
leather, sewn together at the junction; the last is a bit of board
rounded off at the end. They are open over the instep, where also
they can be laced or tied, and they fit as closely as the Egyptian
mizz or under-slipper, which they greatly resemble. They are worn by
officers in the Far West as the expatriated Anglo-Indian adopts the
“Juti.” The greatest inconvenience to the novice is the want of heel;
moreover, they render the feet uncomfortably tender, and, unless soled
with parflèche or thick leather, they are scant defense against stony
ground; during dry weather they will last fairly, but they become,
after a single wetting, even worse than Bombay-made Wellingtons. A
common pair will cost $2; when handsomely embroidered with bead-work by
the squaws they rise to $15.
[36] This Algonquin word is written _moccasson_ or _mocasin_, and is
pronounced _moksin_.
The braves were armed with small tomahawks or iron hatchets, which
they carried with the powder-horn, in the belt, on the right side,
while the long tobacco-pouch of antelope skin hung by the left. Over
their shoulders were leather targes, bows and arrows, and some few had
rifles; both weapons were defended from damp in deer-skin cases, and
quivers with the inevitable bead-work, and the fringes which every
savage seems to love. These articles reminded me of those in use
among the Bedouins of El Hejaz. Their nags were lean and ungroomed;
they treat them as cruelly as do the Somal; yet nothing--short of
whisky--can persuade the Indian warrior, like the man of Nejd, to part
with a favorite steed. It is his all in all, his means of livelihood,
his profession, his pride; he is an excellent judge of horse-flesh,
though ignoring the mule and ass; and if he offers an animal for
which he has once refused to trade, it is for the reason that an
Oriental takes to market an adult slave--it has become useless. Like
the Arab, he considers it dishonorable to sell a horse; he gives it
to you, expecting a large present, and if disappointed he goes away
grumbling that you have “swallowed” his property. He is fond of short
races--spurts they are called--as we had occasion to see; there is
nothing novel nor interesting in the American as there is in the
Arabian hippology; the former learned all its arts from Europeans, the
latter taught them.
Behind the warriors and braves followed the baggage of the village.
The lodge poles, in bundles of four and five, had been lashed to pads
or pack-saddles, girthed tight to the ponies’ backs, the other ends
being allowed to trail along the ground like the shafts of a truck;
the sign easily denotes the course of travel. The wolf-like dogs were
also harnessed in the same way; more lupine than canine, they are ready
when hungry to attack man or mule; and, sharp-nosed and prick-eared,
they not a little resemble the Indian pariah dog. Their equipments,
however, were of course on a diminutive scale; a little pad girthed
round the barrel, with a breastplate to keep it in place, enabled
them to drag two short light lodge poles tied together at the smaller
extremity. One carried only a hawk on its back--yet falconry has
never, I believe, been practiced by the Indian. Behind the ponies the
poles were connected by cross-sticks, upon which were lashed the lodge
covers, the buffalo robes, and other bulkier articles. Some had strong
frames of withes or willow basket-work, two branches being bent into
an oval, garnished below with a net-work of hide thongs for a seat,
covered with a light wicker canopy, and opening, like a cage, only on
one side; a blanket or a buffalo robe defends the inmate from sun and
rain. These are the litters for the squaws when weary, the children,
and the puppies, which are part of the family till used for feasts.
It might be supposed to be a rough conveyance; the elasticity of the
poles, however, alleviates much of that inconvenience. A very ancient
man, wrinkled as a last year’s walnut, and apparently crippled by old
wounds, was carried, probably by his great-grandsons, in a rude sedan.
The vehicle was composed of two pliable poles, about ten feet long,
separated by three cross-bars twenty inches or so apart; a blanket had
been secured to the foremost and hindermost, and under the centre-bit
lay Senex secured against falling out. In this way the Indians often
bear the wounded back to their villages; apparently they have never
thought of a horse-litter, which might be made with equal facility, and
would certainly save work.
[THE SQUAWS.]
While the rich squaws rode, the poorer followed their pack-horses on
foot, eying the more fortunate as the mercer’s wife regards what she
terms the “carriage lady.” The women’s dress not a little resembles
their lords’; the unaccustomed eye often hesitates between the sexes.
In the fair, however, the waistcoat is absent, the wide-sleeved shift
extends below the knees, and the leggins are of somewhat different cut.
All wore coarse shawls, or white, blue, and scarlet cloth-blankets
round their bodies. Upon the Upper Platte we afterward saw them dressed
in cotton gowns, after a semi-civilized fashion, and with bowie-knives
by their sides. The grandmothers were fearful to look upon--horrid
excrescences of nature, teaching proud man a lesson of humility, and
a memento of his neighbor in creation, the “humble ape”--it is only
civilization that can save the aged woman from resembling the gorilla.
The middle-aged matrons were homely bodies, broad and squat like the
African dame after she has become _mère de famille_; their hands and
feet were notably larger from work than those of the men, and the
burdens upon their backs caused them to stoop painfully. The young
squaws--pity it is that all our household Indian words, pappoose, for
instance, tomahawk, wigwam, and powwow, should have been naturalized
out of the Abenaki and other harsh dialects of New England--deserved
a more euphonious appellation. The belle savage of the party had
large and languishing eyes and dentists’ teeth that glittered, with
sleek, long black hair like the ears of a Blenheim spaniel, justifying
a natural instinct to stroke or pat it, drawn straight over a low,
broad, Quadroon-like brow. Her figure had none of the fragility which
distinguishes the higher race, who are apparently too delicate for
human nature’s daily food--porcelain, in fact, when pottery is wanted;
nor had she the square corpulency which appears in the negro woman
after marriage. Her ears and neck were laden with tinsel ornaments,
brass-wire rings adorned her wrists and fine arms, a bead-work sash
encircled her waist, and scarlet leggins, fringed and tasseled, ended
in equally costly moccasins. When addressed by the driver in some
terms to me unintelligible, she replied with a soft clear laugh--the
principal charm of the Indian, as of the smooth-throated African
woman--at the same time showing him the palm of her right hand as
though it had been a looking-glass. The gesture would have had a
peculiar significance in Sindh; here, however, I afterward learned,
it simply conveys a refusal. The maidens of the tribe, or those under
six, were charming little creatures, with the wildest and most piquant
expression, and the prettiest doll-like features imaginable; the young
coquettes already conferred their smiles as if they had been of any
earthly value. The boys once more reminded me of the East; they had
black beady eyes, like snakes, and the wide mouths of young caymans.
Their only dress, when they were not in “birth-day suit,” was the
Indian languti. None of the braves carried scalps, finger-bones, or
notches on the lance, which serve like certain marks on saw-handled
pistols farther east, nor had any man lost a limb. They followed us for
many a mile, peering into the hinder part of our traveling wigwam, and
ejaculating “How! How!” the normal salutation. It is supposed to mean
“good,” and the Western man, when he drinks to your health, says “Here,
how!” and expects a return in kind. The politeness of the savages
did not throw us off our guard; the Dakotah of these regions are
expert and daring kleptomaniacs; they only laughed, however, a little
knowingly as we raised the rear curtain, and they left us after begging
pertinaciously--bakhshish is an institution here as on the banks of the
Nile--for tobacco, gunpowder, ball, copper caps, lucifers, and what
not. The women, except the pretty party, looked, methought, somewhat
scowlingly, but one can hardly expect a smiling countenance from the
human biped trudging ten or twenty miles under a load fit for a mule.
A great contrast with these Indians was a train of “Pike’s Peakers,”
who, to judge from their grim looks, were returning disappointed from
the new gold diggings. I think that if obliged to meet one of the two
troops by moonlight alone, my choice would have fallen upon “messieurs
les sauvages.”
At 6 P.M. we resumed our route, with a good but fidgety train, up the
Dark Valley, where musquetoes and sultry heat combined to worry us.
Slowly traveling and dozing the while, we arrived about 9 15 P.M.
at Diamond Springs, a bright little water much frequented by the
“lightning-bug” and the big-eyed “Devil’s darning-needle,”[37] where we
found whisky and its usual accompaniment, soldiers. The host related
an event which he said had taken place but a few days before. An old
mountaineer, who had married two squaws, was drinking with certain
Cheyennes, a tribe famous for ferocity and hostility to the whites. The
discourse turning upon topics stoical, he was asked by his wild boon
companions if he feared death. The answer was characteristic: “You may
kill me if you like!” Equally characteristic was their acknowledgment;
they hacked him to pieces, and threw the corpse under a bank. In these
regions the opposite races regard each other as wild beasts; the white
will shoot an Indian as he would a coyote. He expects to go under
whenever the “all-fired, red-bellied varmints”--I speak, oh reader,
Occidentally--get the upper hand, and _vice versâ_.
[37] The first is the firefly, the second is the dragon-fly, called
in country parts of England “the Devil’s needle.”
[THE PLATTE RIVER.]
The Platte River divides at N. lat. 40° 05′ 05″, and W. long. (G.)
101° 21′ 24″. The northern, by virtue of dimensions, claims to be
the main stream. The southern, which is also called in obsolete maps
Padouca, from the Pawnee name for the Iatans, whom the Spaniards
term Comanches,[38] averages 600 yards, about 100 less than its
rival in breadth, and, according to the prairie people, affords the
best drinking. Hunters often ford the river by the Lower Crossing,
twenty-eight miles above the bifurcation. Those with heavily-loaded
wagons prefer this route, as by it they avoid the deep loose sands on
the way to the Upper Crossing. The mail-coach must endure the four
miles of difficulty, as the road to Denver City branches off from the
western ford.
[38] The Kaumainsh (Comanche), a warlike and independent race, who,
with the Apaches, have long been the bane of New Spain, were in the
beginning of this century entirely erratic, without any kind of
cultivation, subsisting, in fact, wholly by the chase and plunder.
They were then bounded westward by New Mexico, where they have laid
waste many a thriving settlement; eastward by the Pawnees and Osages;
northward by the Utahs, Kiowas, and Shoshonees; and southward by the
nations on the Lower Red River.
At 10 P.M., having “caught up” the mules, we left Diamond Springs, and
ran along the shallow river which lay like a thin sheet of shimmer
broken by clumps and islets that simulated, under the imperfect
light of the stars, houses and towns, hulks and ships, wharves and
esplanades. On the banks large bare spots, white with salt, glistened
through the glooms; the land became so heavy that our fagged beasts
groaned; and the descents, water-cuts, and angles were so abrupt that
holding on constituted a fair gymnastic exercise. The air was clear
and fine. My companions snored while I remained awake enjoying a
lovely aurora, and, Epicurean-like, reserving sleep for the Sybaritic
apparatus, which, according to report, awaited us at the grand
_établissement_ of the Upper Crossing of La Grande Platte.
This was our fifth night in the mail-wagon. I could not but meditate
upon the difference between travel in the pure prairie air, despite an
occasional “chill,” and the perspiring miseries of an East Indian dawk,
or of a trudge in the miasmatic and pestilential regions of Central
Africa. Much may be endured when, as was ever the case, the highest
temperature in the shade does not exceed 98° F.
_12th August. We cross the Platte._
[AURORA.]
Boreal aurora glared brighter than a sunset in Syria. The long
streamers were intercepted and mysteriously confused by a massive
stratum of dark cloud, through whose narrow rifts and jagged chinks the
splendors poured in floods of magic fire. Near the horizon the tint
was an opaline white--a broad band of calm, steady light, supporting
a tender rose-color, which flushed to crimson as it scaled the upper
firmament. The mobility of the spectacle was its chiefest charm. The
streamers either shot out or shrank from full to half length; now they
flared up, widening till they filled the space between Lucifer rising
in the east and Aries setting in the west; then they narrowed to the
size of a span; now they stood like a red arch with steadfast legs and
oscillating summit; then, broadening at the apex, they apparently
revolved with immense rapidity; at times the stars shone undimmed
through the veil of light, then they were immersed in its exceeding
brilliancy. After a full hour of changeful beauty, paling in one place
and blushing in another, the northern lights slowly faded away with a
blush which made the sunrise look colder than its wont. It is no wonder
that the imaginative Indian, looking with love upon these beauties,
connects them with the ghosts of his ancestors.
Cramped with cold and inaction--at 6 A.M. the thermometer showed only
56° F. in the sun--hungry, thirsty, and by no means in the mildest of
humors, we hear with a gush of joy, at 3 15 A.M., the savage Yep! yep!
yep! with which the driver announces our approach. The plank lodgings
soon appear; we spring out of the ambulance; a qualm comes over us;
all is dark and silent as the grave; nothing is prepared for us; the
wretches are all asleep. A heavy kick opens the door of the soon-found
restaurant, when a pheesy, drowsy voice from an inner room asks us, in
German-English--so strong is the causality, the crapulousness of why
and wherefore in this “divided, erudite race”--“And how ze komen in?”
Without attempting to gratify his intellectual cravings, we ordered him
out of bed, and began to talk of supper, refreshment, and repose. But
the “critter” had waxed surly after securing for himself a compound
epithet, of which “hunds--” is the first syllable, and his every
negative answer concluded with a faint murmur of “petampt.” I tried to
get his bed for Mrs. Dana, who was suffering severely from fatigue. He
grumbled out that his “lady and bebbé” were occupying it. At length I
hit upon the plan of placing the cushions and cloaks upon the table,
when the door opened for a second dog-Teuton, who objected to that
article of furniture being used otherwise than for his morning meal.
_Excédés_, and mastering with pain our desire to give these villain
“sausage-eaters” “particular fits,” we sat down, stared at the fire,
and awaited the vile food. For a breakfast cooked in the usual manner,
coffee boiled down to tannin (ever the first operation), meat subjected
to half sod, half stew, and, lastly, bread raised with sour milk
corrected with soda, and so baked that the taste of the flour is ever
prominent, we paid these German rascals 75 cents, a little dearer than
at the Trois Frères.
At the Upper Crossing of the South Fork there are usually tender
adieux, the wenders toward Mormonland bidding farewell to those bound
for the perilous gold regions of Denver City and Pike’s Peak. If
“fresh,” they take leave of one another with sincere commiseration for
one another’s dooms, each deeming, of course, his own the brighter.
The wagons were unloaded, thus giving us the opportunity of procuring
changes of raiment and fresh caps--our felts had long disappeared under
the influence of sleeping on the perch. By some means we retained our
old ambulance, which, after five days and nights, we had learned to
look upon as a home; the Judiciary, however, had to exchange theirs
for one much lighter and far less comfortable. Presently those bound
to Denver City set out upon their journey. Conspicuous among them
was a fair woman who had made her first appearance at Cotton-wood
Creek--fit place for the _lune de mélasse_--with an individual,
apparently a well-to-do drover, whom she called “Tom” and “husband.”
She had forgotten her “fixins,” which, according to a mischievous and
scandalous driver, consisted of a reticule containing a “bishop,” a
comb, and a pomatum-pot, a pinchbeck watch, and a flask of “Bawme”--not
of Meccah. Being a fine young person of Scotch descent, she had, till
dire suspicions presented themselves, attracted the attentions of her
fellow-travelers, who pronounced her to be “all sorts of a gal.” But
virtue is rabid in these lands, and the purity of the ermine must not
be soiled. It was fortunate for Mr. and Mrs. Mann--the names were _noms
de voyage_--that they left us so soon. In a certain Southern city I
heard of a high official who, during a trip upon one of the floating
palaces of the Mississippi, had to repeat “deprendi miserum est;” the
fond, frail pair was summarily ejected with bag and baggage to furnish
itself with a down-stream passage on board a lumber raft.
[THE “PADOUCA.”]
We crossed the “Padouca” at 6 30 A.M., having placed our luggage and
the mails for security in an ox cart. The South Fork is here 600 to 700
yards broad; the current is swift, but the deepest water not exceeding
250 feet, the teams are not compelled to cross diagonally. The channel
was broken with sand-banks and islets; the bed was dark and gravelly;
the water, though dark as hotel coffee, was clear, not, as described
by Captain Stansbury, “perfectly opaque with thick yellow mud,” and
the earth-banks, which rise to five feet, are never inundated. The
half-broken mules often halted, and seemed inclined to lie down; a
youth waded on the lower side of the team, shouting and swinging his
arms to keep them from turning their heads down stream; the instinct
of animals to find an easy ford ended with a few desperate struggles
up the black oozy mire. Having reloaded on the left bank, and cast one
last look of hatred upon the scene of our late disappointment, we set
out at 7 A.M. to cross the divide separating the Northern and Southern
Forks of the Platte.
We had now entered upon the outskirts of the American wilderness,
which has not one feature in common with the deserts of the Old World.
In Arabia and Africa there is majesty in its monotony: those awful
wastes so brightly sunburnished that the air above them appears by
contrast black; one vast and burning floor, variegated only by the
mirage-reek, with nothing below the firmament to relieve or correct
the eye. Here it is a brown smooth space, insensibly curving out of
sight, wholly wanting “second distance,” and scarcely suggesting the
idea of immensity; we seem, in fact, to be traveling for twenty miles
over a convex, treeless hill-top. The air became sultry, white clouds
shut in the sky, and presently arose the high south wind, which at this
season blows a gale between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. The ground, bleached
where sandy, was thinly scattered here and there with wiry grass, dun
and withered, and with coarse and sunburnt shrubs, among which the
“leadplant” (_Amorphe canescens_) was the characteristic. A dwarf
aloetic vegetation became abundant; vegetation was fast going the way
of all grass; after rain, however, it is doubtless fresh and copious.
The buffalo grass sought the shade of the wild sage. A small euphorbia,
the cotton-weed, a thistle haunted by the Cynthia cardua, that
butterfly common to the eastern and western hemispheres, and a bright
putoria, mingled with mushrooms like huge bulbs. The cactus was of two
kinds: the flat-leaved species is used by white men to filter water,
and by the savages, who peel and toast it, as provaunt:[39] there is
another globular variety (an _echinocactus_) lying stalkless, like a
half melon, with its brilliant flowers guarded by a panoply of spines.
We pursued a sandy tract, broken by beds of nullahs and fiumaras,
between two ridges of hillocks, draining to the right into a low bottom
denoted by a lively green, with bays and bends of lush, reed-like
grass. This is the well-known Lodge-Pole Creek or Fork, a mere ditch,
the longest and narrowest of its kind, rising from a mountain lakelet
near the “New Bayou” or “Park,” in the Black Hills, and falling
into the South Fork of the Platte, about seventy miles west of the
bifurcation. By following up this water along the Cherokee trail to its
head in the Cheyenne Pass of the Rocky Mountains, instead of describing
the arc _viâ_ Fort Laramie, the mail would gain 61 miles; emigrants,
indeed, often prefer the short cut. Moreover, from the Cheyenne Pass to
Great Salt Lake City, there is, according to accounts, a practicable
road south of the present line, which, as it would also save time and
labor, has been preferred for the mail line.
[39] There is another kind of cactus called by the whites
“whisky-root,” and by the Indian “peioke,” used like the intoxicating
mushroom of Siberia. “It grows in Southern Texas, in the range of
sand-hills bordering on the Rio Grande, and in gravelly, sandy
soil. The Indians eat it for its exhilarating effect on the system,
producing precisely the same excitement as alcoholic drinks. It
is sliced as you would a cucumber; the small piece is chewed and
swallowed, and in about the same time as comfortably tight cocktails
would ‘stir the divinity within’ you, this indicates itself; only
its effects are what I might term a little _k-a-v-o-r-t-i-n-g_,
giving rather a wilder scope to the imagination and actions.”--(A
Correspondent of the _New Orleans Picayune_, quoted by Mr. Bartlett.)
In the American Sahara animal life began to appear. The coyote turned
and stared at us as though we were trespassing upon his property.
This is the jackal of the Western world, the small prairie-wolf, the
_Canis latrans_, and the old Mexican coyotl, best depicted by the
old traveler, Abbé Clavigero, in these words: “It is a wild beast,
voracious like the wolf, cunning like the fox, in form like the dog,
and in some qualities like the jackal.” The animal has so often been
described that there is little new to say about it. The mountain men
are all agreed upon one thing, namely, that the meat is by no means
bad; most of them have tried “wolf-mutton” in hard times, and may
expect to do so again. The civilizee shudders at the idea of eating
wolf from a food-prejudice, whose consideration forms a curious
chapter in human history. It is not very easy, says Dr. Johnson, to
fix the principles upon which mankind have agreed to eat some animals
and reject others; and as the principle is not evident, so it is not
uniform. Originally invented for hygienic purposes, dietetic laws
soon became tenets of religion, and passed far beyond their original
intention: thus pork, for instance, injurious in Syria, would not be
eaten by a Jew in Russia. An extreme arbitrariness marks the modern
systems of civilized people: the Englishman, for instance, eats
oysters, periwinkles, shrimps, and frogs, while he is nauseated by the
snails, robins, and crows which the Frenchman uses; the Italian will
devour a hawk, while he considers a rabbit impure, and has refused to
touch potatoes even in a famine; and all delight in that foul feeder,
the duck, while they reject the meat of the cleanly ass. The Mosaic law
seems still to influence the European world, causing men to throw away
much valuable provision because unaccustomed to eat it or to hear of
its being eaten. The systems of China and Japan are far more sensible
for densely populated countries, and the hippophagists have shown, at
least, that one animal has been greatly wasted. The terrible famines,
followed by the equally fearful pestilences, which have scourged
mankind, are mainly owing to the prevalence of these food-prejudices,
which, as might be expected, are the most deeply rooted in the poorer
classes, who can least afford them.
[THE PRAIRIE-DOG VILLAGE.]
I saw to-day, for the first time, a prairie-dog village. The little
beast, hardly as large as a Guinea-pig, belongs to the family of
squirrels and the group of marmots--in point of manner it somewhat
resembles the monkey. “Wish-ton-Wish”[40]--an Indian onomatoplasm--was
at home, sitting posted like a sentinel upon the roof, and sunning
himself in the midday glow. It is not easy to shoot him; he is out of
doors all day; but, timid and alert, at the least suspicion of danger
he plunges with a jerking of the tail, and a somersault, quicker than
a shy young rabbit’s, into the nearest hole, peeping from the ground,
and keeping up a feeble little cry (wish! ton! wish!), more like the
note of a bird than a bark. If not killed outright, he will manage
to wriggle into his home. The villages are generally on the brow of
a hill, near a creek or pond, thus securing water without danger of
drowning. The earth burrowed out while making the habitations is
thrown up in heaps, which serve as sitting-places in the wet season,
and give a look-out upon the adjacent country; it is more dangerous
to ride over them than to charge a field of East Indian “T’hur,” and
many a broken leg and collar-bone have been the result. The holes,
which descend in a spiral form, must be deep, and they are connected
by long galleries, with sharp angles, ascents and descents, to puzzle
the pursuer. Lieutenant Pike had 140 kettles of water poured into one
without dislodging the occupant. The village is always cleared of
grass, probably by the necessities of the tenants, who, though they
enjoy insects, are mainly graminivorous, and rarely venture half a
mile from home. The limits are sometimes three miles square, and the
population must be dense, as a burrow will occur every few paces. The
_Cynomys Ludovicianus_ prepares for winter by stopping the mouth of
its burrow, and constructing a deeper cell, in which it hibernates
till spring appears. It is a graceful little animal, dark brown above
and white below, with teeth and nails, head and tail somewhat like
the gray sciurus of the States. The Indians and trappers eat this
American marmot, declaring its flesh to be fatter and better than
that of the squirrel. Some travelers advise exposing the meat for a
night or two to the frost, by which means the rankness of subterranean
flavor is corrected. It is undoubted that the rattlesnake--both of the
yellow and black species--and the small white burrowing-owl (_Strix
cunicularia_) are often found in the same warren with this rodent, a
curious happy family of reptile, bird, and beast, and in some places
he has been seen to associate with tortoises, rattlesnakes, and horned
frogs (_Phrynosoma_). According to some naturalists, however, the
fraternal harmony is not so perfect as it might be: the owl is accused
of occasionally gratifying his carnivorous lusts by laying open the
skull of Wish-ton-Wish with a smart stroke of the beak. We sighted,
not far from the prairie-dog village, an animal which I took to be a
lynx; but the driver, who had often seen the beast in Minnesota and Old
“Ouisconsinc,” declared that they are not to be found here.
[40] The name will recall to mind one of Mr. Fennimore Cooper’s
admirable fictions, the “Wept of Wish-ton-Wish,” which was, however,
a bird, the “Whip-poor-will,” or American night-hawk.
At 12 45 P.M., traveling over the uneven barren, and in a burning
sirocco, we reached Lodge-Pole Station, where we made our “noonin.” The
hovel fronting the creek was built like an Irish shanty, or a Beloch
hut, against a hill side, to save one wall, and it presented a fresh
phase of squalor and wretchedness. The mud walls were partly papered
with “Harper’s Magazine,” “Frank Leslie,” and the “New York Illustrated
News;” the ceiling was a fine festoon-work of soot, and the floor was
much like the ground outside, only not nearly so clean. In a corner
stood the usual “bunk,”[41] a mass of mingled rags and buffalo robes;
the centre of the room was occupied by a rickety table, and boxes,
turned up on their long sides, acted as chairs. The unescapable stove
was there, filling the interior with the aroma of meat. As usual, the
materials for ablution, a “dipper” or cup, a dingy tin skillet of
scanty size, a bit of coarse gritty soap, and a public towel, like a
rag of gunny bag, were deposited upon a rickety settle outside.
[41] American writers derive this word from the Anglo-Saxon _benc_,
whence the modern English “bench.” It means a wooden case used in
country taverns and in offices, and serving alike for a seat during
the day and a bed at night. In towns it is applied to the tiers of
standing bed peculiar to the lowest class of lodging-houses. In the
West, it is a frame-work, in size and shape like a berth on board
ship, sometimes single, sometimes double or treble.
[THE ANTELOPE.]
There being no “lady” at the station on Lodge-Pole Creek, milk was
unprocurable. Here, however, began a course of antelope venison, which
soon told upon us with damaging effect. I well knew the consequences
of this heating and bilious diet in Asia and Africa; but thinking it
safe to do at Rome as the Romans do, I followed in the wake of my
companions, and suffered with them. Like other wild meats, bear, deer,
elk, and even buffalo, antelope will disagree with a stranger; it is,
however, juicy, fat, and well-flavored, especially when compared with
the hard, dry, stringy stuff which the East affords; and the hunter and
trapper, like the Indian, are loud in its praise.
The habitat of the prong-horn antelope (_Antelocapra Americana_, called
“le cabris” by the Canadian, and “the goat” by the unpoetic mountain
man) extends from the plains west of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean;
it is also abundant on Minnesota and on the banks of the Red River;
its southern limit is Northern Mexico, whence it ranges to 53° N. lat.
on the Saskatchewan. It is about the size of a small deer, the male
weighing 65 lbs. in good condition. The coat is coarse and wiry, yellow
dun on the back, with dull white under the belly, and the tanned skin
is worth three dollars. It is at once the fleetest and the wariest
animal on the prairies, and its sense of hearing as acute as its power
of smell. The best time for “still hunting” (_i.e._, stalking) is at
early dawn, when the little herds of four or five are busy grazing.
They disappear during the midday heats of summer, and in the evening,
as in India and Arabia, they are wild and wary. They assemble in
larger bodies near the Rocky Mountains, where pasturage--not sage,
which taints the meat--abounds, and the Indian savages kill them by
surrounds, especially in winter, when the flesh is fattest. White men
usually stalk them. During the migration season few are seen near the
road; at other times they are often sighted. They are gifted, like
the hippopotamus, with a truly feminine curiosity; they will stand
for minutes to stare at a red wagon-bed, and, despite their extreme
wariness, they will often approach, within shot, a scarlet kerchief
tied to a stick, or any similar decoy. In manner they much resemble
the Eastern gazelle. When the herd is disturbed, the most timid moves
off first, followed by the rest; the walk gradually increases from a
slow trot to a bounding gallop. At times they halt, one by one, and
turn to gaze, but they presently resume flight, till they reach some
prominent place where their keen vision can command the surrounding
country. When well roused, they are thoroughly on the alert; the hunter
will often find that, though he has moved toward them silently, up the
wind and under cover, they have suspected sinister intentions and have
shifted ground.
Besides the antelope, there are three species of deer in the regions
east of the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps the most common is the red
deer of the Eastern States (_Cervus Virginianus_; _le chevreuil_):
it extends almost throughout the length of the continent, and is
seemingly independent of altitude as of latitude. The venison is not
considered equal to that of the antelope; travelers, however, kill off
the deer to save butchers’ bills, so that it is now seldom “glimpsed”
from the line of route. The black-tailed or long-eared deer (_Cervus
macrotis_) is confined to the higher ground; it has similar habits
to the red variety, and is hunted in the same way. The long-tailed,
or jumping deer (_Cervus leucrurus_, vulgarly called the roebuck),
affects, like the black-tailed, the Rocky Mountains. The elk (_Cervus
Canadensis_) is found in parts of Utah Territory and forty miles north
of the mail-road, near the Wind-River Mountains--a perfect paradise
for sportsmen. It is noble shooting, but poor eating as the Indian
sambar.[42] The moose (_Cervus Alces_), the giant of the deer kind,
sometimes rising seventeen hands high, and weighing 1200 lbs., is an
inhabitant of higher latitudes--Nova Scotia, Canada, Maine, and other
parts of New England.
[42] The elk is being domesticated in the State of New York; it is
still, however, doubtful whether the animals will fatten well or
supply milk, or serve for other than ornamental purposes.
At Lodge-Pole Station, the mules, as might be expected from animals
allowed to run wild every day in the week except one, were like
newly-caught mustangs.[43] The herdsman--each station boasts of this
official--mounted a nag barebacked, and, jingling a bell, drove the
cattle into the corral, a square of twenty yards, formed by a wall
of loose stones, four to five feet high. He wasted three quarters of
an hour in this operation, which a well-trained shepherd’s dog would
have performed in a few minutes. Then two men entering with lassos
or lariats, thongs of flexible plaited or twisted hide, and provided
with an iron ring at one end to form the noose--the best are made of
hemp, Russian, not Manilla--proceeded, in a great “muss” on a small
scale, to secure their victims. The lasso[44] in their hands was by no
means the “unerring necklace” which the Mexican _vaquéro_ has taught
it to be: they often missed their aim, or caught the wrong animal.
The effect, however, was magical: a single haul at the noose made the
most stiff-necked mule tame as a costermonger’s ass. The team took,
as usual, a good hour to trap and hitch up: the latter was a delicate
operation, for the beasts were comically clever with their hoofs.
[43] The mustang is the Spanish mesteño. The animal was introduced
by the first colonists, and allowed to run at large. Its great
variety of coat proves the mustang’s degeneracy from the tame horse;
according to travelers, cream-color, skewbald, and piebald being not
uncommon. “Sparing in diet, a stranger to grain, easily satisfied
whether on growing or dead grass, inured to all weathers, and capable
of great labor,” the mustang-pony is a treasure to the prairie-man.
[44] According to Mr. Bartlett, the lasso (Span., “lazo”) is
synonymous with “lariat” (Span. “lariata”). In common use, however,
the first word is confined to the rope with which buffaloes,
mustangs, or mules are caught; the second, which in the West is
popularly pronounced “lariet,” or “lariette,” more generally means
the article with which animals are picketed. Many authors, however,
have made “lariat” the equivalent of “lasso.” The Texans use, instead
of the hide lasso, a hair rope called “caberes,” from the Spanish
“cabestro,” a halter.
[CLOUDS OF GRASSHOPPERS.]
At 3 P.M., after a preliminary ringing, intended to soothe the fears of
Madame, we set out _au grand galop_, with a team that had never worked
together before. They dashed down the cahues with a violence that
tossed us as in a blanket, and nothing could induce them, while fresh,
to keep the path. The yawing of the vehicle was ominous: fortunately,
however, the road, though self-made, was excellent; the sides were
smooth, and the whole country fit to be driven over. At first the view
was sadly monotonous. It was a fair specimen of the rolling prairie,
in nowise differing from any other land except in the absence of
trees. According to some travelers, there is in several places an
apparently progressive decay of the timber, showing that formerly it
was more extensive than it is now. Others attribute the phenomenon
to the destruction of forests in a former era by fires or by the
aborigines. It is more satisfactory to account for it by a complication
of causes--a want of proper constituents, an insufficiency of rain,
the depth of the water below the surface, the severity of the eight
months of winter snow, the fierce winds--the hardiest growths that
present their heads above the level of the prairies have dead tops--the
shortness of the summers, and last, but not least, the clouds of
grasshoppers. According to Lieutenant Warren, whose graphic description
is here borrowed, these insects are “nearly the same as the locusts of
Egypt; and no one who has not traveled on the prairie, and seen for
himself, can appreciate the magnitude of the swarms. Often they fill
the air for many miles of extent, so that an inexperienced eye can
scarcely distinguish their appearance from that of a shower of rain or
the smoke of a prairie fire. The height of their flight may be somewhat
appreciated, as Mr. E. James saw them above his head, as far as their
size would render them visible, while standing on the top of a peak of
the Rocky Mountains, 8500 feet above the plain, and an elevation of
14,500 above that of the sea, in the region where the snow lies all the
year. To a person standing in one of these swarms as they pass over and
around him, the air becomes sensibly darkened, and the sound produced
by their wings resembles that of the passage of a train of cars on a
railroad when standing two or three hundred yards from the track. The
Mormon settlements have suffered more from the ravages of these insects
than probably all other causes combined. They destroyed nearly all the
vegetables cultivated last year at Fort Randall, and extended their
ravages east as far as Iowa.”
As we advanced, the horizon, every where within musket-shot--a
wearying sight!--widened out, and the face of the country notably
changed. A scrap of blue distance and high hills--the “Court-house”
and others--appeared to the northwest. The long, curved lines, the
gentle slopes, and the broad hollows of the divide facing the South
Fork changed into an abrupt and precipitous descent, “gullied” like the
broken ground of sub-ranges attached to a mountain chain. Deep ravines
were parted by long narrow ridges, sharp-crested and water-washed,
exposing ribs and backbones of sandstone and silicious lime, like the
vertebræ of some huge saurian: scatters of kunker, with a detritus of
quartz and granite, clothed the ground, and, after passing Lodge-Pole
Creek, which bears away to the west, the rocky steps required the
perpetual application of the brake. Presently we saw a dwarf cliff
inclosing in an elliptical sweep a green amphitheatre, the valley of
our old friend the Platte. On the far bank of its northern fork lay a
forty-mile stretch of sandy, barren, glaring, heat-reeking ground, not
unlike that which the overland traveler looking southward from Suez
sees.[45] We left far to the right a noted spot, Ash Hollow, situated
at the mouth of the creek of the same prenomen. It is described as a
pretty bit in a barren land, about twenty acres, surrounded by high
bluffs, well timbered with ash and cedar, and rich in clematis and
other wild flowers. Here, in 1855, the doughty General Harney, with
700 to 800 men, “gave Jessie” to a large war-party of Brûlé Sioux
under their chief Little Thunder, of whom more anon, killing 150, and
capturing 60 squaws and children, with but seven or eight casualties in
his own force.
[45] According to Lieutenant Warren, the tract called the Sand-hills
occupies an area, north of the Platte, not less than 20,000 square
miles: from between the Niobrara and White Rivers to the north,
probably beyond the Arkansas in the south.
[AN IMPROMPTU BEDROOM.]
Descending into the bed of a broad “arroyo,”[46] at this season bone
dry, we reached, at 5 45 P.M., Mud-Spring Station, which takes its
name from a little run of clear water in a black miry hollow. A kind
of cress grows in it abundantly, and the banks are bright with the
“morning-glory” or convolvulus. The station-house was not unlike an
Egyptian fellah’s hut. The material was sod, half peat with vegetable
matter; it is taken up in large flakes after being furrowed with the
plow, and is cut to proper lengths with a short-handled spade. Cedar
timber,[47] brought from the neighboring hills, formed the roof. The
only accommodation was an open shed, with a sort of doorless dormitory
by its side. We dined in the shed, and amused ourselves with feeding
the little brown-speckled swamp-blackbirds that hopped about us tame
and “peert” as wrens, and when night drew near we sought shelter
from the furious southern gale, and heard tales of Mormon suffering
which made us think lightly of our little hardships.[48] Dreading
the dormitory--if it be true that the sultan of fleas inhabits Jaffa
and his vizier Grand Cairo, it is certain that his vermin officials
have settled _pro tem._ on Emigration Road--I cast about for a
quieter retreat. Fortune favored me by pointing out the body of a
dismantled wagon, an article--like the Tyrian keels which suggested
the magalia--often used as a habitation in the Far West, and not
unfrequently honored by being converted into a bridal-chamber after the
short and sharp courtship of the “Perraries.” The host, who was a kind,
intelligent, and civil man, lent me a “buffalo” by way of bedding; the
water-proof completed my outfit, provided with which I bade adieu for
a while to this weary world. The thermometer sank before dawn to 62°
(F.). After five nights more or less in the cramping wagon, it might be
supposed that we should have enjoyed the unusual rest; on the contrary,
we had become inured to the exercise; we could have kept it up for a
month, and we now grumbled only at the loss of time.
[46] The Arabo-Spanish “arroyo,” a word almost naturalized by the
Anglo-Americans, exactly corresponds with the Italian “fiumara” and
the Indian nullah.
[47] The word “cedar,” in the United States, is applied to various
genera of the pine family. The red cedar (_J. Virginiana_) is a
juniper. The “white cedar” of the Southern swamps is a cypress.
[48] The Mormon emigrants usually start from Council Bluffs, on
the left bank of the Missouri River, in N. lat, 41° 18′ 50″,
opposite Kanesville, otherwise called Winter Quarters. According
to the “Overland Guide,” Council Bluffs is the natural crossing of
the Missouri River, on the route destined by Nature for the great
thoroughfare to the Pacific. This was the road selected by “Nature’s
civil engineers,” the buffalo and the elk, for their western travel.
The Indians followed them in the same trail; then the travelers; next
the settlers came. After ninety-four miles’ marching, the Mormons
are ferried across Loup Fork, a stream thirteen rods wide, full of
bars, with banks and a bottom all quicksand. Another 150 miles takes
them to the Platte River, where they find good camping-places, with
plenty of water, buffalo-chips, and grass. Eighty-two miles beyond
that point (a total of 306), they arrive at “Last Timber,” a station
so called because, for the next 300 miles on the north side of the
Platte, the only sign of vegetation is “Lone Tree.” Many emigrants
avoid this dreary “spell” by crossing the Platte opposite Ash Hollow.
Others pass it at Platte-River Ferry, a short distance below the
mouth of Laramie River, while others keep the old road to the north.
_Past the Court-house and Scott’s Bluffs. August 13th._
At 8 A.M., after breaking our fast upon a tough antelope steak, and
dawdling while the herdsman was riding wildly about in search of his
runaway mules--an operation now to become of daily occurrence--we
dashed over the Sandy Creek with an _élan_ calculated to make timid
passengers look “skeery,” and began to finish the rolling divide
between the two forks. We crossed several arroyos and “criks” heading
in the line of clay highlands to our left, a dwarf sierra which
stretches from the northern to the southern branch of the Platte. The
principal are Omaha Creek, more generally known as “Little Punkin,”[49]
and Lawrence Fork.[50] The latter is a pretty bubbling stream,
running over sand and stones washed down from the Court-house Ridge;
it bifurcates above the ford, runs to the northeast through a prairie
four to five miles broad, and swells the waters of old Father Platte:
it derives its name from a Frenchman slaughtered by the Indians,
murder being here, as in Central Africa, ever the principal source of
nomenclature. The heads of both streams afford quantities of currants,
red, black, and yellow, and cherry-sticks which are used for spears and
pipe-stems.
[49] Punkin (_i.e._, pumpkin) and corn (_i.e._, zea maize) are, and
were from time immemorial, the great staples of native American
agriculture.
[50] According to Webster, “forks” (in the plural)--the point where
a river divides, or rather where two rivers meet and unite in one
stream. Each branch is called a “fork.” The word might be useful to
English travelers.
After twelve miles’ drive we fronted the Court-house, the remarkable
portal of a new region, and this new region teeming with wonders
will now extend about 100 miles. It is the _mauvaises terres_, or
Bad lands, a tract about 60 miles wide and 150 long, stretching in a
direction from the northeast to the southwest, or from the Mankizitah
(White-Earth) River, over the Niobrara (_Eau qui court_) and Loup
Fork to the south banks of the Platte: its eastern limit is the mouth
of the Keya Paha. The term is generally applied by the trader to any
section of the prairie country where the roads are difficult, and
by dint of an ill name the Bad lands have come to be spoken of as a
Golgotha, white with the bones of man and beast. American travelers,
on the contrary, declare that near parts of the White River “some as
beautiful valleys are to be found as any where in the Far West,” and
that many places “abound in the most lovely and varied forms in endless
variety, giving the most striking and pleasing effects of light and
shade.” The formation is the pliocene and miocene tertiary, uncommonly
rich in vertebrate remains: the _mauvaises terres_ are composed of
nearly horizontal strata, and “though diversified by the effects of
denuding agencies, and presenting in different portions striking
characteristics, yet they are, as a whole, a great uniform surface,
gradually rising toward the mountains, at the base of which they attain
an elevation varying between 3000 and 5500 feet above the level of the
sea.”
The Court-house, which had lately suffered from heavy rain, resembled
any thing more than a court-house; that it did so in former days we
may gather from the tales of many travelers, old Canadian voyageurs,
who unanimously accounted it a fit place for Indian spooks, ghosts,
and hobgoblins to meet in powwow, and to “count their coups” delivered
in the flesh. The Court-house lies about eight miles from the river,
and three from the road; in circumference it may be half a mile, and
in height 300 feet; it is, however, gradually degrading, and the rains
and snows of not many years will lay it level with the ground. The
material is a rough conglomerate of hard marl; the mass is apparently
the flank or shoulder of a range forming the southern buttress of the
Platte, and which, being composed of softer stuff, has gradually
melted away, leaving this remnant to rise in solitary grandeur above
the plain. In books it is described as resembling a gigantic ruin, with
a huge rotunda in front, windows in the sides, and remains of roofs
and stages in its flanks: verily potent is the eye of imagination! To
me it appeared in the shape of an irregular pyramid, whose courses
were inclined at an ascendable angle of 35°, with a detached outwork
composed of a perpendicular mass based upon a slope of 45°; in fact,
it resembled the rugged earthworks of Sakkara, only it was far more
rugged. According to the driver, the summit is a plane upon which a
wagon can turn. My military companion remarked that it would make a
fine natural fortress against Indians, and perhaps, in the old days
of romance and Colonel Bonneville, it has served as a refuge for the
harried fur-hunter. I saw it when set off by weather to advantage. A
blazing sun rained fire upon its cream-colored surface--at 11 A.M.
the glass showed 95° in the wagon--and it stood boldly out against
a purple-black nimbus which overspread the southern skies, growling
distant thunders, and flashing red threads of “chained lightning.”
[THE COMPATRIOT.]
I had finished a hasty sketch, when suddenly appeared to us a most
interesting sight--a neat ambulance,[51] followed by a fourgon and
mounted soldiers, from which issued an officer in uniform, who
advanced to greet Lieutenant Dana. The traveler was Captain, or rather
Major Marcy, who was proceeding westward on leave of absence. After
introduction, he remembered that his vehicle contained a compatriot
of mine. The compatriot, whose length of facial hair at once told his
race--for
“The larger the whisker, the greater the Tory”--
was a Mr. A----, British vice-consul at * * *’s, Minnesota. Having
lately tried his maiden hand upon buffalo, he naturally concluded that
I could have no other but the same object. Pleasant estimate, forsooth,
of a man’s brain, that it can find nothing in America worthy of its
notice but bison-shooting! However, the supposition had a _couleur
locale_. Every week the New York papers convey to the New World the
interesting information that some distinguished Britisher has crossed
the Atlantic and half crossed the States to enjoy the society of the
“monarch of our prairies.” Americans consequently have learned to look
upon this Albionic eccentricity as “the thing.” That unruly member the
tongue was upon the point of putting in a something about the earnest,
settled purpose of shooting a prairie-dog, when the reflection that it
was hardly fair so far from home to “chaff” a compatriot evidently big
with the paternity of a great exploit, with bit and bridle curbed it
fast.
[51] The price of the strong light traveling wagon called an
ambulance in the West is about $250; in the East it is much cheaper.
With four mules it will vary from $750 to $900; when resold,
however, it rarely fetches half that sum. A journey between St.
Joseph and Great Salt Lake City can easily be accomplished in an
ambulance within forty days. Officers and sportsmen prefer it,
because they have their time to themselves, and they can carry stores
and necessaries. On the other hand, “strikers”--soldier-helps--or
Canadian _engagés_ are necessary; and the pleasure of traveling is by
no means enhanced by the nightly fear that the stock will “bolt,” not
to be recovered for a week, if then.
[Illustration: CHIMNEY ROCK.]
Shortly after “liquoring up” and shaking hands, we found ourselves once
more in the valley of the Platte, where a lively green relieved eyes
which still retained retina-pictures of the barren, Sindh-like divide.
The road, as usual along the river-side, was rough and broken, and
puffs of simoom raised the sand and dust in ponderous clouds. At 12
30 P.M. we nooned for an hour at a little hovel called a ranch, with
the normal corral; and I took occasion to sketch the far-famed Chimney
Rock. The name is not, as is that of the Court-house, a misnomer: one
might almost expect to see smoke or steam jetting from the summit. Like
most of these queer malformations, it was once the knuckle-end of the
main chain which bounded the Platte Valley; the softer adjacent strata
of marl and earthy limestone were disintegrated by wind and weather,
and the harder material, better resisting the action of air and water,
has gradually assumed its present form. Chimney Rock lies two and a
half miles from the south bank of the Platte. It is composed of a
friable yellowish marl, yielding readily to the knife. The shape is a
thin shaft, perpendicular and quasi conical. Viewed from the southeast
it is not unlike a giant jack-boot based upon a high pyramidal mound,
which, disposed in the natural slope, rests upon the plain. The neck of
sandstone connecting it with the adjacent hills has been distributed
by the floods around the base, leaving an ever-widening gap between.
This “Pharos of the prairie sea” towered in former days 150 to 200
feet above the apex of its foundation,[52] and was a landmark visible
for 40 to 50 miles: it is now barely 35 feet in height. It has often
been struck by lightning; _imber edax_ has gnawed much away, and the
beginning of the end is already at hand. It is easy to ascend the
pyramid; but, while Pompey’s Pillar, Peter Botte, and Ararat have all
felt the Anglo-Scandinavian foot, no venturous scion of the race has
yet trampled upon the top of Chimney Rock. Around the waist of the base
runs a white band which sets off its height and relieves the uniform
tint. The old sketches of this curious needle now necessarily appear
exaggerated; moreover, those best known represent it as a column rising
from a confused heap of boulders, thus conveying a completely false
idea. Again the weather served us: nothing could be more picturesque
than this lone pillar of pale rock lying against a huge black cloud,
with the forked lightning playing over its devoted head.
[52] According to M. Preuss, who accompanied Colonel Frémont’s
expedition, “travelers who visited it some years since placed its
height at upward of 500 feet,” though in his day (1842) it had
diminished to 200 feet above the river.
[ROBIDOUX’ FORT.]
After a frugal dinner of biscuit and cheese we remounted and pursued
our way through airy fire, which presently changed from our usual
pest--a light dust-laden breeze--into a Punjaubian dust-storm, up the
valley of the Platte. We passed a ranch called “Robidoux’ Fort,” from
the well-known Indian trader of that name;[53] it is now occupied by
a Canadian or a French Creole, who, as usual with his race in these
regions, has taken to himself a wife in the shape of a Sioux squaw,
and has garnished his quiver with a multitude of whitey-reds. The
driver pointed out the grave of a New Yorker who had vainly visited
the prairies in search of a cure for consumption. As we advanced the
storm increased to a tornado of north wind, blinding our cattle till
it drove them off the road. The gale howled through the pass with all
the violence of a khamsin, and it was followed by lightning and a few
heavy drops of rain. The threatening weather caused a large party of
emigrants to “fort themselves” in a corral near the base of Scott’s
Bluffs.
The corral, a Spanish and Portuguese word, which, corrupted to “kraal,”
has found its way through Southern Africa, signifies primarily a square
or circular pen for cattle, which may be made of tree-trunks, stones,
or any other convenient material. The corral of wagons is thus formed.
The two foremost are brought near and parallel to each other, and are
followed by the rest, disposed aslant, so that the near fore wheel of
the hinder touches the off hind wheel of that preceding it, and _vice
versâ_ on the other side. The “tongues,” or poles, are turned outward,
for convenience of yoking, when an attack is not expected, otherwise
they are made to point inward, and the gaps are closed by ropes and
yoke and spare chains. Thus a large oval is formed with a single
opening fifteen to twenty yards across; some find it more convenient
to leave an exit at both ends. In dangerous places the passages are
secured at night either by cords or by wheeling round the near wagons;
the cattle are driven in before sundown, especially when the area of
the oval is large enough to enable them to graze, and the men sleep
under their vehicles. In safer travel the tents are pitched outside the
corral with their doors outward, and in front of these the camp-fires
are lighted. The favorite spots with teamsters for corraling are the
re-entering angles of deep streams, especially where these have high
and precipitous banks, or the crests of abrupt hills and bluffs--the
position for nighting usually chosen by the Australian traveler--where
one or more sides of the encampment is safe from attack, and the others
can be protected by a cross fire. As a rule Indians avoid attacking
strong places; this, however, must not always be relied upon; in 1844
the Utah Indians attacked Uintah Fort, a trading-post belonging to
M. A. Robidoux, then at St. Louis, slaughtered the men, and carried
off the women. The corral is especially useful for two purposes: it
enables the wagoners to yoke up with ease, and it secures them from the
prairie traveler’s prime dread--the stampede. The Western savages are
perfectly acquainted with the habits of animals, and in their marauding
expeditions they instinctively adopt the system of the Bedouins, the
Gallas, and the Somal. Providing themselves with rattles and other
implements for making startling noises, they ride stealthily up close
to the cattle, and then rush by like the whirlwind with a volley of
horrid whoops and screams. When the “cavallard” flies in panic fear,
the plunderers divide their party; some drive on the plunder, while the
others form a rear-guard to keep off pursuers. The prairie-men provide
for the danger by keeping their fleetest horses saddled, bridled,
and ready to be mounted at a moment’s notice. When the animals have
stampeded, the owners follow them, scatter the Indians, and drive,
if possible, the madriña, or bell-mare, to the front of the herd,
gradually turning her toward the camp, and slacking speed as the
familiar objects come in sight. Horses and mules appear peculiarly
timorous upon the prairies. A band of buffalo, a wolf, or even a deer,
will sometimes stampede them; they run to great distances, and not
unfrequently their owners fail to recover them.
[53] From the _St. Joseph_ (Mo.) _Gazette_: “Obituary.--Departed
this life, at his residence in this city, on Wednesday, the 29th
day of August, 1860, after a long illness, Antoine Robidoux, in
the sixty-sixth year of his age. Mr. Robidoux was born in the city
of St. Louis, in the year 1794. He was one of the brothers of Mr.
Joseph Robidoux, founder of the city of St. Joseph. He was possessed
of a sprightly intellect and a spirit of adventure. When not more
than twenty-two years of age he accompanied Gen. Atkinson to the
then very wild and distant region of the Yellow Stone. At the age of
twenty-eight he went to Mexico, and lived there fifteen years. He
then married a very interesting Mexican lady, who returned with him
to the States. For many years he traded extensively with the Navajoes
and Apaches. In 1840 he came to this city with his family, and has
resided here ever since. In 1845 he went out to the mountains on a
trading expedition, and was caught by the most terrible storms, which
caused the death of one or two hundred of his horses, and stopped his
progress. His brother Joseph, the respectable founder of this city,
sent to his relief and had him brought in, or he would have perished.
He was found in a most deplorable condition, and saved. In 1846 he
accompanied Gen. Kearney, as interpreter and guide, to Mexico. In
a battle with the Mexicans he was lanced severely in three places,
but he survived his wounds, and returned to St. Joseph in 1849. Soon
after that he went to California, and remained until 1854. In 1855
he removed to New Mexico with his family, and in 1856 he went to
Washington, and remained there a year, arranging some business with
the government. He then returned to St. Joseph, and has remained here
ever since. Mr. Robidoux was a very remarkable man. Tall, slender,
athletic, and agile, he possessed the most graceful and pleasing
manners, and an intellect of a superior order. In every company he
was affable, graceful, and highly pleasing. His conversation was
always interesting and instructive, and he possessed many of those
qualities which, if he remained in the States, would have raised him
to positions of distinction. He suffered for several years before
his death with a terrible soreness of the eyes, which defied the
curative skill of the doctors; and for the past ten years he has been
afflicted with dropsy. A week or two ago he was taken with a violent
hemorrhage of the lungs, which completely prostrated him, and from
the effects of which he never recovered. He was attended by the best
medical skill, and his wife and many friends were with him to the
hour of his dissolution, which occurred on Monday morning, at four
o’clock, at his residence in this city. He will be long remembered as
a courteous, cultivated, agreeable gentleman, whose life was one of
great activity and public usefulness, and whose death will be long
lamented.”
[Illustration: SCOTT’S BLUFFS.]
[SCOTT’S BLUFFS.]
“Scott’s Bluffs,” situated 285 miles from Fort Kearney and 51 from Fort
Laramie, was the last of the great marl formations which we saw on this
line, and was of all by far the most curious. In the dull uniformity
of the prairies, it is a striking and attractive object, far excelling
the castled crag of Drachenfels or any of the beauties of romantic
Rhine. From a distance of a day’s march it appears in the shape of
a large blue mound, distinguished only by its dimensions from the
detached fragments of hill around. As you approach within four or five
miles, a massive medieval city gradually defines itself, clustering,
with a wonderful fullness of detail, round a colossal fortress, and
crowned with a royal castle. Buttress and barbican, bastion, demilune,
and guard-house, tower, turret, and donjon-keep, all are there: in
one place parapets and battlements still stand upon the crumbling
wall of a fortalice like the giant ruins of Château Gaillard, the
“Beautiful Castle on the Rock;” and, that nothing may be wanting to the
resemblance, the dashing rains and angry winds have cut the old line of
road at its base into a regular moat with a semicircular sweep, which
the mirage fills with a mimic river. Quaint figures develop themselves;
guards and sentinels in dark armor keep watch and ward upon the slopes,
the lion of Bastia crouches unmistakably overlooking the road; and as
the shades of an artificial evening, caused by the dust-storm, close
in, so weird is its aspect that one might almost expect to see some
spectral horseman, with lance and pennant, go his rounds about the
deserted streets, ruined buildings, and broken walls. At a nearer
aspect again, the quaint illusion vanishes; the lines of masonry become
yellow layers of boulder and pebble imbedded in a mass of stiff,
tamped, bald marly clay; the curtains and angles change to the gashings
of the rains of ages, and the warriors are metamorphosed into dwarf
cedars and dense shrubs, scattered singly over the surface. Travelers
have compared this glory of the _mauvaises terres_ to Gibraltar, to the
Capitol at Washington, to Stirling Castle. I could think of nothing in
its presence but the Arabs’ “City of Brass,” that mysterious abode of
bewitched infidels, which often appears at a distance to the wayfarer
toiling under the burning sun, but ever eludes his nearer search.
Scott’s Bluffs derive their name from an unfortunate fur-trader there
put on shore in the olden time by his boat’s crew, who had a grudge
against him: the wretch, in mortal sickness, crawled up the mound to
die. The politer guide-books call them “Capitol Hills:” methinks the
first name, with its dark associations, must be better pleasing to
the _genius loci_. They are divided into three distinct masses. The
largest, which may be 800 feet high, is on the right, or nearest the
river. To its left lies an outwork, a huge, detached cylinder whose
capping changes aspect from every direction; and still farther to the
left is a second castle, now divided from, but once connected with the
others. The whole affair is a spur springing from the main range, and
closing upon the Platte so as to leave no room for a road.
[METEOROLOGICAL PHENONMENON.]
After gratifying our curiosity we resumed our way. The route lay
between the right-hand fortress and the outwork, through a degraded
bed of softer marl, once doubtless part of the range. The sharp,
sudden torrents which pour from the heights on both sides, and the
draughty winds--Scott’s Bluffs are the permanent head-quarters of
hurricanes--have cut up the ground into a labyrinth of jagged gulches
steeply walled in. We dashed down the drains and pitch-holes with
a violence which shook the nave-bands from our sturdy wheels.[54]
Ascending, the driver showed a place where the skeleton of an
“elephant” had been lately discovered. On the summit he pointed out,
far over many a treeless hill and barren plain, the famous Black Hills
and Laramie Peak, which has been compared to Ben Lomond, towering at
a distance of eighty miles. The descent was abrupt, with sudden turns
round the head of earth-cracks deepened to ravines by snow and rain;
and one place showed the remains of a wagon and team which had lately
come to grief. After galloping down a long slope of twelve miles, with
ridgelets of sand and gravel somewhat raised above the bottom, which
they cross on their way to the river, we found ourselves, at 5 30 P.M.,
once more in the valley of the Platte. I had intended to sketch the
Bluffs more carefully from the station, but the western view proved
to be disappointingly inferior to the eastern. After the usual hour’s
delay we resumed our drive through alternate puffs of hot and cold
wind, the contrast of which was not easy to explain. The sensation was
as if Indians had been firing the prairies--an impossibility at this
season, when whatever herbage there is is still green. It may here be
mentioned that, although the meteorology of the earlier savans, namely,
that the peculiar condition of the atmosphere known as the Indian
summer[55] might be produced by the burning of the plain-vegetation,
was not thought worthy of comment, their hypothesis is no longer
considered trivial. The smoky canopy must produce a sensible effect
upon the temperature of the season. “During a still night, when a
cloud of this kind is overhead, no dew is produced; the heat which is
radiated from the earth is reflected or absorbed, and radiated back
again by the particles of soot, and the coating of the earth necessary
to prevent the deposition of water in the form of dew or hoar-frost is
prevented.” According to Professor Henry, of Washington, “it is highly
probable that a portion of the smoke or fog-cloud produced by the
burning of one of the Western prairies is carried entirely across the
eastern portion of the continent to the ocean.”
[54] The dry heat of the prairies in summer causes the wood to warp
by the percolation of water, which the driver restores by placing the
wheels for a night to stand in some stream. Paint or varnish is of
little use. Moisture may be drawn out even through a nail-hole, and
exhaust the whole interior of the wood-work.
[55] These remarks are borrowed from a paper by Professor Joseph
Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, entitled
“Meteorology in its Connection with Agriculture.”
The Indian summer is synonymous with our St. Martin’s or Allhallows
summer, so called from the festival held on the 11th of November.
“The Indians avail themselves of this delightful time for harvesting
their corn; and the tradition is that they were accustomed to say they
always had a second summer of nine days before the winter set in. It
is a bland and genial time, in which the birds, insects, and plants
feel a new creation, and enjoy a short-lived summer ere they shrink
finally from the rigor of the winter’s blast. The sky, in the mean
time, is generally filled with a haze of orange and gold, intercepting
the direct rays of the sun, yet possessing enough of light and heat to
prevent sensations of gloom or chill, while the nights grow sharp and
frosty, and the necessary fires give cheerful forecast of the social
winter evenings near at hand.”--The _National Intelligencer_, Nov.
26th, 1857, quoted by Mr. Bartlett.
Presently we dashed over the Little Kiowa Creek, forded the Horse
Creek, and, enveloped in a cloud of villainous musquetoes, entered
at 8 30 P.M. the station in which we were to pass the night. It was
tenanted by one Reynal, a French Creole--the son of an old soldier of
the Grand Armée, who had settled at St. Louis--a companionable man,
but an extortionate: he charged us a florin for every “drink” of his
well-watered whisky. The house boasted of the usual squaw, a wrinkled
old dame, who at once began to prepare supper, when we discreetly
left the room. These hard-working but sorely ill-favored beings are
accused of various horrors in cookery, such as grinding their pinole,
or parched corn, in the impurest manner, kneading dough upon the
floor, using their knives for any purpose whatever, and employing
the same pot, unwashed, for boiling tea and tripe. In fact, they are
about as clean as those Eastern pariah servants who make the knowing
Anglo-Indian hold it an abomination to sit at meat with a new arrival
or with an officer of a “home regiment.” The daughter was an unusually
fascinating half-breed, with a pale face and Franco-American features.
How comes it that here, as in Hindostan, the French half-caste is
pretty, graceful, amiable, coquettish, while the Anglo-Saxon is
plain, coarse, gauche, and ill-tempered? The beauty was married to
a long, lean down-Easter, who appeared most jealously attentive to
her, occasionally hinting at a return to the curtained bed, where she
could escape the admiring glances of strangers. Like her mother, she
was able to speak English, but she could not be persuaded to open her
mouth. This is a truly Indian prejudice, probably arising from the
savage, childish sensitiveness which dreads to excite a laugh; even a
squaw married to a white man, after uttering a few words in a moment of
_épanchement_, will hide her face under the blanket.
The half-breed has a bad name in the land. Like the negro, the Indian
belongs to a species, sub-species, or variety--whichever the reader
pleases--that has diverged widely enough from the Indo-European
type to cause degeneracy, physical as well as moral, and often,
too, sterility in the offspring. These half-breeds are, therefore,
like the mulatto, quasi-mules. The men combine the features of both
races; the skin soon becomes coarse and wrinkled, and the eye is
black, snaky, and glittering like the Indian’s. The mongrels are
short-lived, peculiarly subject to infectious diseases, untrustworthy,
and disposed to every villainy. The half-breed women, in early youth,
are sometimes attractive enough, uniting the figure of the mother
to the more delicate American face; a few years, however, deprive
them of all litheness, grace, and agility. They are often married by
whites, who hold them to be more modest and humble, less capricious
and less exacting, than those of the higher type: they make good wives
and affectionate mothers, and, like the Quadroons, they are more
“ambitious”--that is to say, of warmer temperaments--than either of the
races from which they are derived. The so-called red is a higher ethnic
type than the black man; so, in the United States, where all admixture
of African blood is deemed impure, the aboriginal American entails no
disgrace--some of the noblest of the land are descended from “Indian
princesses.” The half-breed girls resemble their mothers in point of
industry, and they barter their embroidered robes and moccasins, and
mats and baskets, made of bark and bulrush, in exchange for blankets,
calicoes, glass beads--an indispensable article of dress--mirrors,
needles, rings, vermilion, and other luxuries. The children, with their
large black eyes, wide mouths, and glittering teeth, flattened heads,
and remarkable agility of motion, suggest the idea of little serpents.
The day had been fatiguing, and our eyes ached with the wind and dust.
We lost no time in spreading on the floor the buffalo robes borrowed
from the house, and in defying the smaller tenants of the ranch. Our
host, M. Reynal, was a study, but we deferred the lesson till the next
morning.
_To Fort Laramie. 14th August._
[M. REYNAL.]
M. Reynal had been an Indian trader in his youth. Of this race there
were in his day two varieties: the regular trader and the _coureur
des bois_, or unlicensed peddler, who was subject to certain pains
and penalties. The former had some regard for his future; he had a
permanent interest in the Indians, and looked to the horses, arms, and
accoutrements of his _protégés_, so that hunting might not flag. The
_bois brûlé_ peddler, having--like an English advertising firm--no hope
of dealing twice with the same person, got all he could for what he
could. These men soon sapped the foundation of the Indian’s discipline.
One of them, for instance, would take protection with the chief, pay
presents, and by increasing the wealth, enhance the importance of
his protector. Another would place himself under the charge of some
ambitious aspirant to power, who was thus raised to a position of
direct rivalry. A split would ensue; the weaker would secede with his
family and friends, and declare independence; a murder or two would
be the result, and a blood-feud would be bequeathed from generation
to generation. The licensed traders have ever strenuously opposed the
introduction of alcohol, a keg of which will purchase from the Indian
every thing that is his, his arms, lodge, horses, children, and wives.
In olden times, however, the Maine Liquor Law was not, as now, in force
through the territories. The _coureur des bois_, therefore, entered
the country through various avenues, from the United States and from
Mexico, without other stock in trade but some kegs of whisky, which he
retailed at the modest price of $36 per gallon. He usually mixed one
part of fire with five of pure water, and then sold a pint-canful for
a buffalo robe. “Indian liquor” became a proverbial term. According
to some travelers, a barrel of “pure Cincinnati,” even after running
the gauntlet of railroad and lake travel, has afforded a hundred
barrels of “good Indian liquor.” A small bucketful is poured into
a wash-tub of water; a large quantity of “dog-leg” tobacco and red
pepper is then added, next a bitter root common in the country is cut
up into it, and finally it is colored with burnt sugar--a nice recipe
for a morning’s headache! The only drawback to this traffic is its
danger. The Indian, when intoxicated, is ready for any outrageous act
of violence or cruelty; vinosity brings out the destructiveness and
the utter barbarity of his character; it makes him thirst tiger-like
for blood. The _coureur des bois_, therefore, who in those days was
highly respected, was placed in the Trader’s Lodge, a kind of public
house, like the Iwanza of Central Africa, and the village chief took
care to station at the door a guard of sober youths, sometimes habited
like Europeans, ready to check the unauthorized attempts of ambitious
clansmen upon the whisky-vendor’s scalp. The Western men, who will
frequently be alluded to in these pages, may be divided, like the
traders, into two classes. The first is the true mountaineer, whom the
platitude and tame monotony of civilized republican life has in early
youth driven, often from an honored and wealthy family, to the wilds
and wolds, to become the forlorn hope in the march of civilization. The
second is the offscouring and refuse of the Eastern cities, compelled
by want, fatuity, or crime to exile himself from all he most loves. The
former, after passing through the preliminary stage greenhorn, is a man
in every sense of the term: to more than Indian bravery and fortitude,
he unites the softness of woman, and a child-like simplicity, which is
the very essence of a chivalrous character; you can read his nature in
his clear blue eyes, his sun-tanned countenance, his merry smile, and
his frank, fearless manner. The latter is a knave or a fool; it would
make “bad blood,” as the Frenchman says, to describe him.
M. Reynal’s history had to be received with many grains of salt. The
Western man has been worked by climate and its consequences, by the
huge magnificence of nature and the violent contrasts of scenery, into
a remarkable resemblance to the wild Indian. He hates labor--which poet
and divine combine to deify in the settled states--as the dire effect
of a primeval curse; “loaf” he must and will; to him one hour out of
the twenty-four spent in honest industry is _satis superque_. His
imagination is inflamed by scenery and climate, difficulty and danger;
he is as superstitious as an old man-o’-war’s-man of the olden school;
and he is a transcendental liar, like his prototype the aborigine, who
in this point yields nothing to the African negro. I have heard of a
man riding eighty miles--forty into camp and forty out--in order to
enjoy the sweet delights of a lie. His yarns and stories about the land
he lives in have become a proverbial ridicule; he will tell you that
the sun rises north of what it did _se puero_; he has seen mountains
of diamonds and gold nuggets scattered like rocks over the surface of
our general mother. I have been gravely told of a herd of bison which
arrested the course of the Platte River, causing its waters, like those
of the Red Sea, to stand up, wall fashion, while the animals were
crossing. Of this Western order is the well-known account of a ride on
a buffalo’s horns, delivered for the benefit of a gaping world by a
popular author of the yellow-binding category. In this age, however,
the Western man has become sensitive to the operation of “smoking.”
A popular Joe Miller anent him is this: A traveler, informed of what
he might educe by “querying,” asked an old mountaineer, who shall be
nameless, what difference he observed in the country since he had first
settled in it.
“Wal, stranger, not much!” was the reply; “only when I fust come here,
that ’ere mountain,” pointing to the tall Uinta range, “was a hole!”
Disembarrassing M. Reynal’s recital of its mask of improbabilities and
impossibilities, remained obvious the naked fact that he had led the
life of a confirmed _coureur des bois_. The French Canadian and Creole
both, like the true Français de France, is loth to stir beyond the
devil-dispelling sound of his chapel-bell; once torn from his _chez
lui_, he apparently cares little to return, and, like the Englishman,
to die at home in his own land. The adventurous Canadians--in whom
extremes meet--have wandered through the length and breadth of the
continent; they have left their mark even upon the rocks in Utah
Territory. M. Reynal had quitted St. Louis at an early age as trader,
trapper, every thing in short, provided with a little outfit of powder,
ball, and whisky. At first he was unfortunate. In a war between the
Sioux and the Pawnees, he was taken prisoner by the latter, and with
much ado preserved, by the good aid of his squaw, that useful article
his scalp. Then fickle fortune turned in his favor. He married several
wives, identified himself with the braves, and became a little brother
of the tribe, while his whisky brought him in an abundance of furs
and peltries. After many years, waxing weary of a wandering life, he
settled down into the somewhat prosaic position in which we had the
pleasure of finding him. He was garrulous as a veteran soldier upon the
subject of his old friends the trappers, that gallant advance guard
who, sixty years ago, unconsciously fought the fight of civilization
for the pure love of fighting; who battled with the Indian in his own
way, surpassing him in tracking, surprising, ambuscading, and shooting,
and never failing to raise the enemy’s hair. They are well-nigh
extinct, those old pioneers, wild, reckless, and brave as the British
tar of a century past; they live but in story; their place knows them
no longer; it is now filled by the “prospector.” Civilization and the
silk hat have exterminated them. How many deeds of stern fight and
heroic endurance have been ignored by this world, which knows nothing
of its greatest men, _carent quia vale sacro_! We talk of Thermopylæ
and ignore Texas; we have all thrilled at the account of the Mameluke
Bey’s leap; but how many of us have heard of Major Macculloch’s spring
from the cliff?
Our breakfast was prepared in the usual prairie style. First the
coffee--three parts burnt beans, which had been duly ground to a
fine powder and exposed to the air, lest the aroma should prove too
strong for us--was placed on the stove to simmer till every noxious
principle was duly extracted from it. Then the rusty bacon, cut into
thick slices, was thrown into the fry-pan: here the gridiron is
unknown, and if known would be little appreciated, because it wastes
the “drippings,” which form with the staff of life a luxurious sop.
Thirdly, antelope steak, cut off a corpse suspended for the benefit
of flies outside, was placed to stew within influence of the bacon’s
aroma. Lastly came the bread, which of course should have been “cooked”
first. The meal is kneaded with water and a pinch of salt; the raising
is done by means of a little sour milk, or more generally by the
deleterious yeast-powders of the trade. The carbonic acid gas evolved
by the addition of water must be corrected, and the dough must be
expanded by saleratus or prepared carbonate of soda or alkali, and
other vile stuff, which communicates to the food the green-yellow
tinge, and suggests many of the properties of poison. A hundred-fold
better, the unpretending chapati, flapjack, scone, or, as the Mexicans
prettily called it, “tortilla!” The dough, after being sufficiently
manipulated upon a long, narrow, smooth board, is divided into
“biscuits” and “dough-nuts,”[56] and finally it is placed to be half
cooked under the immediate influence of the rusty bacon and graveolent
antelope. “Uncle Sam’s stove,” be it said with every reverence for
the honored name it bears, is a triumph of convenience, cheapness,
unwholesomeness, and nastiness--excuse the word, nice reader. This
travelers’ bane has exterminated the spit and gridiron, and makes
every thing taste like its neighbor: by virtue of it, mutton borrows
the flavor of salmon trout, tomatoes resolve themselves into greens. I
shall lose my temper if the subject is not dropped.
[56] The Western “biscuit” is English roll; “cracker” is English
biscuit. The “dough-nut” is, properly speaking, a “small roundish
cake, made of flour, eggs, and sugar, moistened with milk and
boiled in lard” (Webster). On the prairies, where so many different
materials are unprocurable, it is simply a diminutive loaf, like the
hot roll of the English passenger steamer.
[LARAMIE PEAK.]
We set out at 6 A.M. over a sandy bottom, from which the musquetoes
rose in swarms. After a twelve-mile stretch the driver pointed out
on the right of the road, which here runs between high earth-banks,
a spot still infamous in local story. At this place, in 1854, five
Indians, concealing themselves in the bed of a dwarf arroyo, fired
upon the mail-wagon, killing two drivers and one passenger, and then
plundered it of 20,000 dollars. “Long-chin,” the leader, and the other
murderers, when given up by the tribe, were carried to Washington,
D. C., where--with the ultra-philanthropy which has of modern days
distinguished the “Great Father’s” government of his “Poor Children
of the Plains”--the villains were liberally rewarded and restored to
their homes.[57] To cut off a bend of the Platte we once more left
the valley, ascended sundry slopes of sand and clay deeply cut by dry
creeks, and from the summit enjoyed a pretty view. A little to the left
rose the aerial blue cone of that noble landmark, Laramie Peak, based
like a mass of solidified air upon a dark wall, the Black Hills, and
lit up with the roseate hues of the morning. The distance was about
sixty miles; you would have guessed twenty. On the right lay a broad
valley, bounded by brown rocks and a plain-colored distance, with the
stream winding through it like a thread of quicksilver; in places it
was hidden from sight by thickets of red willow, cypress clumps, and
dense cool cotton-woods. All was not still life; close below us rose
the white lodges of the Ogalala tribe.
[57] A United States official, fresh from Columbia, informed me that
the Indians there think twice before they murder a King George’s
man (Briton), while they hardly hesitate to kill a Boston man or
American citizen. He attributed this peculiarity principally to the
over lenity of his own government, and its want of persistency in
ferreting out and punishing the criminal. Under these circumstances,
it is hardly to be wondered at if the trader and traveler in Indian
countries take the law in their own hands. This excessive clemency
has acted evilly in “either Ind.” We may hope that its day is now
gone by.
[INDIAN VILLAGES.]
These Indian villages are very picturesque from afar when dimly seen
dotting the verdure of the valleys, and when their tall white cones,
half hidden by willow clumps, lie against a blue background. The river
side is the savages’ favorite site; next to it the hill foot, where
little groups of three or four tents are often seen from the road,
clustering mysteriously near a spring. Almost every prairie-band has
its own way of constructing lodges, encamping and building fires, and
the experienced mountaineer easily distinguishes them.
The Osages make their lodges in the shape of a wagon-tilt, somewhat
like our gipsies’ tents, with a frame-work of bent willow rods planted
in the ground, and supporting their blankets, skins, or tree-basts.
The Kickapoos build dwarf hay-stack huts, like some tribes of Africans,
setting poles in the earth, binding them over and lashing them together
at the top; they are generally covered with clothes or bark.
The Witchetaws, Wakoes, Towakamis, and Tonkowas are described by the
“Prairie Traveler” as erecting their hunting lodges of sticks put up in
the form of the frustrum of a cone, and bushed over like “boweries.”
All these tribes leave the frame-work of their lodges standing when
they shift ground, and thus the particular band is readily recognized.
The Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, and Menomenes build lodges in the form
of an ellipse, some of them 30-40 feet long, by 14-15 wide, and large
enough to shelter twenty people permanently, and sixty temporarily.[58]
The covering is of plaited rush-mats bound to the poles, and a small
aperture in the lodge acts as chimney.
[58] The wigwams, huts, or cabins of the Eastern American tribes
were like these, large, solid, and well roofed with skins. The word
“lodge” is usually applied to the smaller and less comfortable
habitations of the Prairie Indians.
The Delawares and Shawnees, Cherokees and Choctaws, prefer the Indian
pal, a canvas covering thrown like a _tente d’abri_ over a stick
supported by two forked poles.
The Sioux, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Utahs, Snakes, Blackfeet, and Kiowas
use the Comanche lodge covered with bison skins, which by dressing
become flexible as canvas. They are usually of a shining white, save
where smoke-stained near the top; the lodges of great chiefs are
sometimes decorated with horizontal stripes of alternate black and
white, and ornamented with figures human and bestial, crosses, circles,
and arabesques. The lodge is made of eight to twenty-four straight
peeled poles or saplings of ash, pine, cedar, or other wood, hard and
elastic if possible, about 20 feet long; the largest marquees are 30
feet in diameter by 35 feet high, and are comprised of 26-30 buffalo
skins; and they are sometimes planted round a “basement” or circular
excavation two or three feet deep. When pitching, three poles lashed
to one another with a long line, somewhat below the thinner points,
are raised perpendicularly, and the thicker ends are spread out in
a tripod to the perimeter of the circle which is to form the lodge
floor; the rest of the poles are then propped against the three first,
and disposed regularly and equidistantly to make a steady and secure
conical frame-work. The long line attached to the tripod is then
wound several times round the point where the poles touch, and the
lower end is made fast to the base of the lodge, thus securing the
props in position. The covering of dressed, hairless, and water-proof
cow-buffalo hide--traders prefer osnaburg--cut and sewn to fit the
frame like an envelope, and sometimes pinned together with skewers,
is either raised at first with the tripod, or afterward hoisted with
a perch and spread round the complete structure. It is pinned to the
ground with wooden pegs, and a narrow space forms a doorway, which
may be closed with a blanket suspended from above and spread out
with two small sticks. The apex is left open with a triangular wing
or flap, like a lateen sail, and is prevented from closing by a pole
inserted into a pocket at the end. The aperture points to windward
when ventilation is required, and, drawing like a wind-sail, it keeps
the interior cool and comfortable; when smoke is to be carried off,
it is turned to leeward, thus giving draught to the fire, and making
the abode warm in the severest weather; while in lodges of other
forms, you must lie down on the ground to prevent being asphyxiated.
By raising the lower part so as freely to admit the breeze, it is
kept perfectly free from musquetoes, which are unable to resist the
strong draught. The squaws are always the tent-pitchers, and they equal
Orientals in dexterity and judgment. Before the lodge of each warrior
stands his light spear, planted Bedouin-fashion in the ground, near
or upon a tripod of thin, cleanly-scraped, wands, seven to eight feet
long, which support his spotless white buffalo-skin targe, sometimes
decorated with his “totem”--we translate the word “crest”--and guarded
by the usual prophylactic, a buckskin sack containing medicine.
Readers of “Ivanhoe”--they are now more numerous in the New than in
the Old Country--ever feel “a passing impulse to touch one of these
spotless shields with the muzzle of the gun, expecting a grim warrior
to start from the lodge and resent the challenge.” The fire, as in the
old Hebridean huts, is built in the centre of the hard dirt floor; a
strong stick planted at the requisite angle supports the kettle, and
around the walls are berths divided by matted screens; the extremest
uncleanliness, however, is a feature never absent. In a quiet country
these villages have a simple and patriarchal appearance. The tents,
which number from fifteen to fifty, are disposed round a circular
central space, where animals can be tethered. Some have attached to
them corrals of wattled canes, and a few boast of fields where corn and
pumpkins are raised.
[THE “SIBLEY TENT.”]
The Comanche lodge is the favorite tenement of the Canadian and
Creole voyageurs, on account of its coolness or warmth when wanted,
its security against violent winds, and its freedom from musquetoes.
While traveling in an Indian country they will use no other. It has
been simplified by Major H. H. Sibley, of the United States Army, who
has changed the pole frame-work for a single central upright, resting
upon an iron tripod, with hooks for suspending cooking utensils over
the fire; when folded up, the tripod admits the upright between its
legs, thereby reducing the length to one half--a portable size. The
“Sibley tent” was the only shelter of the United States Army at Fort
Scott, in Utah Territory, during the hard winter of 1857-8, and gave
universal satisfaction. The officers still keep to the old wall-tent.
This will, however, eventually be superseded by the new form, which can
accommodate comfortably twelve, but not seventeen, the usual number
allotted to it. Captain Marcy is of opinion that of the tents used in
the different armies of Europe, “none in point of convenience, comfort,
and economy will compare with the ‘Sibley tent’ for campaigning in cold
weather.” In summer, however, it has, like all conical tents, many
disadvantages: there is always a loss of room; and for comfortably
disposing kit--chair, table, and camp couch--there is nothing equal to
the wall-tent. The price of a “Sibley,” when made of good material,
is from $40 to $50 (£8-£10), and it can be procured from Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and New York.
At 10 20 A.M. we halted to change mules at Badeau’s Ranch, or, as it is
more grandiloquently called, “Laramie City.” The “city,” like many a
Western “town,” still appertains to the category of things about to be;
it is at present represented by a single large “store,” with out-houses
full of small half-breeds. The principal articles of traffic are
liquors and groceries for the whites, and ornaments for the Indians,
which are bartered for stock (i. e., animals) and peltries. The prices
asked for the skips were from $1-$1 30 for a fox or a coyote, $3 for
wolf, bear, or deer, $6-$7 for an elk, $5 for a common buffalo, and
from $8 to $35 for the same painted, pictographed, and embroidered.
Some of the party purchased moccasins, for which they paid $1-$2; the
best articles are made by the Snakes, and when embroidered by white
women rise as high as $25. I bought, for an old friend who is insane
upon the subject of pipes, one of the fine marble-like sandstone bowls
brought from the celebrated Côteau (slope) des Prairies, at the head of
Sioux River--
“On the mountains of the Prairie,
On the Great Red Pipe-stone Quarry.”
This instrument is originally the gift of Gitchie Manitou, who,
standing on the precipice of the Red Pipe-stone Rock, broke off a
fragment and moulded it into a pipe, which, finished with a reed, he
smoked over his children to the north, south, east, and west. It is
of queer shape, not unlike the clay and steatite articles used by the
Abyssinians and the Turi or Sinaitic Bedouins. The length of the stick
is 23 inches, of the stem 9·50, and of the bowl 5 inches; the latter
stands at a right angle upon the former; both are circular; but the
2·75 inches of stem, which project beyond the bowl, are beveled off so
as to form an edge at the end. The peculiarity of the form is in the
part where the tobacco is inserted; the hole is not more than half an
inch broad, and descends straight without a bulge, while the aperture
in the stem is exactly similar. The red color soon mottles and the bowl
clogs if smoked with tobacco; in fact, it is fit for nothing but the
“kinnikinik” of the Indians. To prepare this hard material with the
rude tools of a savage must be a work of time and difficulty; also the
bowls are expensive and highly valued: for mine I paid $5, and farther
West I could have exchanged it for an Indian pony.
[THE BRULÉS AND GENERAL HARNEY.]
Having finished our _emplettes_ at M. Badeau’s, we set out at 11
30 P.M. over a barren and reeking bit of sandy soil. Close to the
station, and a little to the right of the road, we passed the barrow
which contains the remains of Lieutenant Grattan and his thirty men.
A young second lieutenant of Irish origin and fiery temper, he was
marching westward with an interpreter, a small body of men, and two
howitzers, when a dispute arose, it is said, about a cow, between his
party and the Brûlés or Burnt-Thigh Indians. The latter were encamped
in a village of 450 to 500 lodges, which, reckoning five to each,
gives a total of 2200 to 2500 souls. A fight took place; the whites
imprudently discharged both their cannon, overshooting the tents of the
enemy; their muskets, however, did more execution, killing Matriya,
“the Scattering Bear,” who had been made chief of all the Sioux by
Colonel Mitchell of the Indian Bureau. The savages, seeing the fall of
Ursa Major, set to in real earnest; about 1200 charged the soldiers
before they could reload; the little detachment broke, and not a man
survived to tell the tale. The whites in the neighborhood narrowly
preserved their scalps--M. Badeau owned that he owed his to his Sioux
squaw--and among other acts of violence was the murder and highway
robbery which has already been recounted. Both these events occurred in
1854. As has been said, in 1855, General W. S. Harney, who, whatever
may be his faults as a diplomatist, is the most dreaded “Minahaska”[59]
in the Indian country, punished the Brûlés severely at Ash Hollow. They
were led by their chosen chief Little Thunder, who, not liking the
prospect, wanted to palaver; the general replied by a charge, which,
as usual, scattered the “chivalry of the prairies” to the four winds.
“Little Thunder” was solemnly deposed, and Mato Chigukesa, “Bear’s
Rib,” was ordered to reign in his stead; moreover, in 1856, a treaty
was concluded, giving to whites, among other things, the privilege
of making roads along the Platte and White-Earth Rivers (Mankisita
Wakpa--Smoking-earth Water) to Forts Pierre and Laramie, and to pass up
and down the Missouri in boats. Since that time, with the exception of
plundering an English sportsman, Sir G---- G----, opposing Lieutenant
Warren’s expedition to the Black Hills, and slaughtering a few traders
and obscure travelers, the Brûlés have behaved tolerably to their
pale-face rivals.
[59] “Longknife.” The whites have enjoyed this title since 1758, when
Captain Gibson cut off with his sabre the head of Little Eagle, the
great Mingo or Chief, and won the title of Big-Knife Warrior. Savages
in America as well as Africa who ignore the sword always look upon
that weapon with horror. The Sioux call the Americans Wasichi, or bad
men.
As we advanced the land became more barren; it sadly wanted rain: it
suffers from drought almost every year, and what vegetable matter the
soil will produce the grasshopper will devour. Dead cattle cumbered
the way-side; the flesh had disappeared; the bones were scattered over
the ground; but the skins, mummified, as it were, by the dry heat, lay
life-like and shapeless, as in the Libyan Desert, upon the ground. This
phenomenon will last till we enter the humid regions between the Sierra
Nevada and the Pacific Ocean, and men tell wonderful tales of the time
during which meat can be kept. The road was a succession of steep
ascents and jumps down sandy ground. A Sioux “buck,” mounted upon a
neat nag, and wrapped up, despite sun and glare, as if it had been the
depth of winter, passed us, sedulously averting his eyes. The driver
declared that he recognized the horse, and grumbled certain Western
facetiæ concerning “hearty-chokes and caper sauce.”
In these lands the horse-thief is the great enemy of mankind; for him
there is no pity, no mercy; Lynch-law is held almost too good for him;
to shoot him _in flagrante delicto_ is like slaying a man-eating Bengal
royal tiger--it entitles you to the respect and gratitude of your
species. I asked our conductor whether dandiness was at the bottom of
the “buck’s” heavy dress. “’Guess,” was the reply, “what keeps cold
out, keeps heat out tew!”
At 12 15 P.M., crossing Laramie’s Fork, a fine clear stream about forty
yards broad, we reached Fort Laramie--another “fort” by courtesy, or
rather by order--where we hoped to recruit our exhausted stores.
The straggling cantonment requires no description: it has the usual
big flag, barracks, store-houses, officers’ quarters, guard-houses,
sutlers’ stores, and groceries, which doubtless make a good thing by
selling deleterious “strychnine” to passing trains who can afford to
pay $6 per gallon.
Fort Laramie, called Fort John in the days of the American Fur Company,
was used by them as a store-house for the bear and buffalo skins,
which they collected in thousands. The old adobe _enceinte_, sketched
and described by Frémont and Stansbury, soon disappeared after the
place was sold to the United States government. Its former rival was
Fort Platte, belonging in 1842--when the pale face first opened this
road--to Messrs. Sybille, Adams, and Co., and situated immediately on
the point of land at the junction of Laramie Fort with the Platte. The
climate here is arid and parching in summer, but in winter tolerably
mild, considering the altitude--4470 feet--and the proximity of the
Black Hills; yet it has seen hard frost in September. It is also well
defended from the warm, moist, and light winds, which, coming from the
Mexican Gulf, cause “calentures” on the lower course of the river. The
soil around the settlement is gravelly and sterile, the rocks are sand,
lime, and clay, and there is a solitary, desolate look upon every thing
but the bright little stream that bubbles from the dark heights. The
course is from S.W. to N.E.: about half way it bifurcates, with a right
fork to the west and main fork east, and near Laramie it receives its
main affluent, the Chugwater.
My companion kindly introduced me to the officer commanding the fort,
Colonel B. Alexander, 10th Infantry, and we were at once made at home.
The amiable mistress of the house must find charitable work enough to
do in providing for the wants of way-worn friends who pass through
Laramie from east to west. We rested and dined in the cool comfortable
quarters, with only one qualm at heart--we were so soon to leave them.
On these occasions the driver seems to know by instinct that you are
enjoying yourself, while he, as an outsider, is not. He becomes,
therefore, unusually impatient to start; perhaps, also, time runs more
rapidly than it is wont. At any rate, after a short two hours, we were
compelled to shake hands with our kind and considerate hosts, and to
return to limbo--the mail-wagon.
From Fort Laramie westward the geological formation changes; the great
limestone deposits disappear, and are succeeded by a great variety of
sandstones, some red, argillaceous, and compact; others gray or yellow,
ferruginous, and coarse. Pudding-stones or conglomerates also abound,
and the main chain of the Laramie Mountains is supposed to be chiefly
composed of this rock.
Beyond the fort there are two roads. The longer leads to the right,
near the Platte River. It was formerly, and perhaps is still, a
favorite with emigrants. We preferred the left, which, crossing the
edges of the Black Hills, is rough and uneven, but is “some shorter,”
as the guide-book says, than the other. The weather began to be
unusually disagreeable with heat and rain-drops from a heavy nimbus,
that forced us to curtain up the rattling vehicle; perhaps, too, we
were a little cross, contrasting the present with the past--civilized
society, a shady bungalow, and wonderfully good butter. At 4 P.M.,
following the Platte Valley, after two hours’ drive we halted to change
mules at Ward’s Station, _alias_ the “Central Star,” where several
whites were killed by the Sioux in 1855, among them M. Montalan, a
Parisian.
[HORSESHOE STATION.]
Again we started for another twenty-five miles at 4 P.M. The road was
rough, and the driver had a curious proclivity for losing the way. I
have often found this to be the case after passing through a station.
There was little to remark, except that the country was poor and bad,
that there was clear water in a ravine to the right, and that we were
very tired and surly. But as sorrow comes to an end as well as joy, so,
at 9 30 P.M., we drove in, somewhat consoled, to Horseshoe Station--the
old _Fer à Cheval_--where one of the road agents, Mr. Slade, lived, and
where we anticipated superior comfort.
We were _entichés_ by the aspect of the buildings, which were on an
extensive scale--in fact, got up regardless of expense. An ominous
silence, however, reigned around. At last, by hard knocking, we were
admitted into a house with the Floridian style of veranda previously
described, and by the pretensions of the room we at once divined our
misfortune--we were threatened with a “lady.” The “lady” will, alas!
follow us to the Pacific; even in hymns we read,
“Now let the Prophet’s heart rejoice,
His noble lady’s too.”
[“LADIES.”]
Our mishap was really worse than we expected--we were exposed to two
“ladies,” and of these one was a Bloomer. It is only fair to state that
it was the only hermaphrodite of the kind that ever met my eyes in the
United States; the great founder of the order has long since subsided
into her original obscurity, and her acolytes have relapsed into the
weakness of petticoats. The Bloomer was an uncouth being; her hair, cut
level with her eyes, depended with the graceful curl of a drake’s tail
around a flat Turanian countenance, whose only expression was sullen
insolence. The body-dress, glazed brown calico, fitted her somewhat
like a soldier’s tunic, developing haunches which would be admired only
in venison; and--curious _inconséquence_ of woman’s nature!--all this
sacrifice of appearance upon the shrine of comfort did not prevent her
wearing that kind of crinoline depicted by Mr. _Punch_ upon “our Mary
Hanne.” The pantalettes of glazed brown calico, like the vest, tunic,
blouse, shirt, or whatever they may call it, were in peg-top style,
admirably setting off a pair of thin-soled Frenchified patent-leather
bottines, with elastic sides, which contained feet large, broad, and
flat as a negro’s in Unyamwezi. The dear creature had a husband: it was
hardly safe to look at her, and as for sketching her, I avoided it, as
men are bidden by the poet to avoid the way of Slick of Tennessee. The
other “lady,” though more decently attired, was like women in this wild
part of the world generally--cold and disagreeable in manner, full of
“proper pride,” with a touch-me-not air, which reminded me of a certain
“Miss Baxter,
Who refused a man before he axed her.”
Her husband was the renowned Slade:
“Of gougers fierce, the eyes that pierce, the fiercest gouger he.”
His was a noted name for “deadly strife;” he had the reputation of
having killed his three men; and a few days afterward the grave that
concealed one of his murders was pointed out to me. This pleasant
individual “for an evening party” wore the revolver and bowie-knife
here, there, and every where. He had lately, indeed, had a strong
hint not to forget his weapon. One M. Jules, a French trader, after
a quarrel which took place at dinner, walked up to him and fired a
pistol, wounding him in the breast. As he rose to run away Jules
discharged a second, which took effect upon his back, and then, without
giving him time to arm, fetched a gun and favored him with a dose
of slugs somewhat larger than revolver bullets. The fiery Frenchman
had two narrow escapes from Lynch-lawyers: twice he was hung between
wagons, and as often he was cut down. At last he disappeared in the
farther West, and took to lodge and squaw. The avenger of blood
threatens to follow him up, but as yet he has taken no steps.
[Illustration: INDIANS.
The Western Swell.
The Sioux.
The old Shoshonee.
The Arapaho.
Jake the Shoshonee.
The Crow.]
It at once became evident that the station was conducted upon the
principle of the Western hotel-keeper of the last generation, and
of Continental Europe about A.D. 1500--the innkeeper of “Anne of
Geierstein”--that is to say, for his own convenience; the public there
was the last thing thought of. One of our party who had ventured
into the kitchen was fiercely ejected by the “ladies.” In asking about
dormitories we were informed that “lady travelers” were admitted into
the house, but that the ruder sex must sleep where it could--or not
sleep at all if it preferred. We found a barn outside: it was hardly
fit for a decently brought-up pig; the floor was damp and knotty; there
was not even a door to keep out the night breeze, now becoming raw, and
several drunken fellows lay in different parts of it. Two were in one
bunk, embracing maudlingly, and freely calling for drinks of water.
Into this disreputable hole we were all thrust for the night: among
us, it must be remembered, was a federal judge, who had officiated for
years as minister at a European court. His position, poor man! procured
him nothing but a broken-down pallet. It was his first trip to the Far
West, and yet, so easily are Americans satisfied, and so accustomed are
they to obey the ridiculous jack-in-office who claims to be one of the
powers that be, he scarcely uttered a complaint. I, for one, grumbled
myself to sleep. May gracious Heaven keep us safe from all “ladies” in
future! better a hundred times the squaw, with her uncleanliness and
civility.
We are now about to leave the land of that great and dangerous people,
the Sioux, and before bidding adieu to them it will be advisable to
devote a few pages to their ethnology.
CHAPTER II.
The Sioux or Dakotahs.
[THE SIOUX.]
The Sioux belong essentially to the savage, in opposition to
the Aztecan peoples of the New World. In the days of Major Pike
(1805-1807), they were the dread of all the neighboring tribes, from
the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri to the Raven River
on the latter. According to Lieutenant Warren, they are still scattered
over an immense territory extending from the Mississippi on the east
to the Black Hills on the west, and from the forks of the Platte on
the south to Minsi Wakan, or the Devil’s Lake, on the north. Early in
the winter of 1837 they ceded to the United States all their lands
lying east of the Mississippi, which became the Territory of Minnesota.
They are to the North American tribes what the great Anizeh race is
among the Bedouins of Arabia. Their vernacular name, Dakotah, which
some pronounce Lakotah, and others Nakotah, is translated “leagued” or
“allied,” and they sometimes speak of themselves as Osheti Shakowin, or
the “Seven Council Fires.” The French call them “les Coupes-gorges,”
from their sign or symbol, and the whites generally know them as the
Sues or Sioux, from the plural form of Nadonaisi, which in Ojibwa
means an enemy. The race is divided into seven principal bands, viz.:
1. Mdewakantonwan (Minowa Kantongs[60] or Gens du Lac), meaning
“Village of the Mdewakan”--Mille Lacs or Spirit Lake. They formerly
extended from Prairie du Chien to Prairie des Français, thirty-five
miles up the St. Peter’s River. They have now moved farther west.
This tribe, which includes seven bands, is considered the bravest
of the Sioux, and has even waged an internecine war with the Folles
Avoines[61] or Menomenes, who are reputed the most gallant of the
Ojibwas (Chippewas), and who, inhabiting a country intersected by
lakes, swamps, water-courses, and impenetrable morasses, long bade
defiance to all their neighbors. They have received annuities since
1838, and their number enrolled in 1850 was 2000 souls.
[60] The first is the correct, the second is the old and incorrect
form of writing the name.
[61] The Folles Avoines are a small tribe esteemed by the whites
and respected by their own race; their hunting-grounds are the
same as those of the Winnebagoes. They speak a peculiar dialect.
But all understand the copious and sonorous, but difficult and
complicated Algonquin or Ojibwa--the language of some of the old New
England races, Pequots, Delawares, Mohicans, Abenaki, Narragansets,
Penobscots, and the tribes about the Lake regions and the head-waters
of the Mississippi, viz., Ottawa, Potawotomies, Menomene, Knisteneaux
or Cree, Sac, Kickapoo, Maskigo, Shawnee, Miami, Kaskaskia, etc.
The other great northeastern language is that of the Mohawk, spoken
by the Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Wyandotte, and
Cherokee.
“Folles Avoines” is the Canadian French for the wild rice (_Zizania
aquatica_), a tall, tubular, reedy water-plant, plentiful on the
marshy margins of the northern lakes and in the plashy waters of
the Upper Mississippi. Its leaves and spikes, though much larger,
resemble those of oats. Millions of migrating water-fowl fatten on
it before their autumnal flights to the south, while in autumn it
furnishes the Northern savages and the Canadian traders and hunters
with their annual supply of grain. It is used for bread by most of
the tribes to the northwest.
2. Wahpekute (Washpeconte, translated Gens de Feuillestirées, and by
others the “Leaf Shooters”). Their habitation lies westward of the Des
Moines, Cannon, and Blue-Earth Rivers. According to Major Pike, they
were like the Bedouin Ghuzw, a band of vagabonds formed of refugees,
who for some bad deed had been expelled their tribes. The meaning of
their name is unknown; in 1850 they numbered 500 or 600 souls.
3. Sisitonwan (Sussitongs, or the Village of the Marsh). This band
used to hunt over the vast prairies lying eastward of the Mississippi,
and up that stream as high as Raven River. They now plant their corn
about Lake Traverse (Lac Travers) and on the Côteau des Prairies, and
numbered in 1850 about 2500 souls.
4. Wahpetonwans (Washpetongs, Gens des Feuilles, because they lived in
woods), the “Village in the Leaves.” They have moved from their old
home about the Little Rapids of the Minnesota River to Lac qui Parle
and Big Stone Lake. In 1850 they numbered 1000 to 1200 souls. They
plant corn, have substituted the plow for the hoe, and, according to
the missionaries, have made some progress in reading and writing their
own language.
The above four constitute the Mississippi and Minnesota Sioux, and are
called by those on the Missouri “Isánti,” from Isanati or Isanyati,
because they once lived near Isantamde, one of the Mille Lacs. They
number, according to Major Pike, 5775 souls; according to Lieutenant
Warren, about 6200; and many of those on the Mississippi have long
since become semi-civilized by contact with the white settlements, and
have learned to cultivate the soil. Others, again, follow the buffalo
in their primitive wildness, and have of late years given much trouble
to the settlers of Northern Iowa.
5. Ihanktonwans (Yanctongs, meaning “Village at the End”), also
sometimes called Wichiyela, or First Nation. They are found at the
mouth of the Big Sioux, between it and the Missouri River, as high
up as Fort Look-out, and on the opposite bank of the Missouri. In
1851 they were set down at 240 lodges = 2400 souls; they have since
increased to 360 lodges and 2880 souls, of whom 576 are warriors.
Distance from the buffalo country has rendered them poor; the proximity
of the pale face has degenerated them, and the United States have
purchased most of their lands.
6. Ihanktonwannas (Yanctannas), one of the “End Village” bands. They
range between the James and the Missouri Rivers, as far north as
Devil’s Lake. The Dakotah Mission numbered them at 400 lodges = 4000
souls; subsequent observers at 800 lodges = 6400 souls, and 1280
warriors; and, being spirited and warlike, they give much trouble to
settlers in the Dakotah Territory. A small portion live in dirt lodges
during the summer. This band suffered severely from small-pox in the
winter of 1856-7. They are divided into the Hunkpatidans (of unknown
signification), Pabakse or Cut-heads, and Kiyuksa, deriders or breakers
of law. From their sub-tribe the Wazikute, or Pine Shooters, sprang, it
is said, the Assiniboin tribe of the Dakotahs. Major Pike divides the
“Yanctongs” into two grand divisions, the Yanctongs of the North and
the Yanctongs of the South.
7. Titonwan (Teton, “Village of the Prairies”), inhabiting the
trans-Missourian prairies, and extending westward to the dividing ridge
between the Little Missouri and Powder River, and thence south on a
line near the 106° meridian. They constitute more than one half of
the whole Dakotah nation. In 1850 they were numbered at 1250 lodges =
12,500 souls, but that number was supposed to be overestimated. They
are allied by marriage with the Cheyennes and Arickarees, but are
enemies of the Pawnees and Crows. The Titonwan, according to Major
Pike, are, like the Yanctongs, the most erratic and independent not
only of the Sioux, but “of all the Indians in the world.” They follow
the buffalo as chance directs, clothing themselves with the robes, and
making their lodges, saddles, and bridles of the same material, the
flesh of the animal furnishing their food. None but the few families
connected with the whites have planted corn. Possessing an innumerable
stock of horses, they are here this day and five hundreds of miles
off in a week, moving with a rapidity scarcely to be imagined by the
inhabitants of the civilized world: they find themselves equally at
home in all places. The Titonwan are divided into seven principal
bands, viz.:
The Hunkpapa, “they who camp by themselves” (?). They roam from the
Big Cheyenne up to the Yellow Stone, and west to the Black Hills, and
number 365 lodges, 2920 souls, and 584 warriors.
The Sisahapa or Blackfeet live with the Hunkpapa, and, like them, have
little reverence for the whites: they number 165 lodges, 1321 souls,
and 264 warriors.
The Itazipko, Sans Arc, or “No Bows;” a curious name--like the Sans
Arc Pawnees, they are good archers--perhaps given to them in olden
times, when, like certain tribes of negroes, they used the spear to
the exclusion of other weapons: others, however, translate the word
“Bow-pith.” They roam over nearly the same lands as the Hunkpapa,
number about 170 lodges, 1360 souls, and 272 warriors.
The Minnikanye-wozhipu, “those who plant by the water,” dwell between
the Black Hills and the Platte. They number about 200 lodges, 1600
inmates, and 320 warriors: they are favorably disposed toward the
whites.
The Ogalala or Okandanda are generally to be found on or about the
Platte, near Fort Laramie, and are the most friendly of all the
Titonwan toward the whites. They number about 460 lodges, 3680 souls,
and 736 warriors.
The Sichangu, Brûlés or Burnt-Thighs, living on the Niobrara and
White-Earth Rivers, and ranging from the Platte to the Cheyenne, number
about 380 lodges, containing 3680 inmates.
The Oohenonpa, “Two Boilings” or “Two Kettle-band,” are much scattered
among other tribes, but are generally to be found in the vicinity
of Fort Pierre. They number about 100 lodges, 800 inmates, and 160
warriors.
The author of the above estimate, allotting eight to ten inmates to
a lodge, of whom between one fifth and one sixth are warriors, makes
an ample allowance. It is usual to reckon in a population between one
fourth, one fifth, and one sixth--according to the work--as capable
of bearing arms, but the civilized rule will not apply to the North
American Indian. The grand total of the number of the Sioux nations,
including the Isánti, would amount to 30,200 souls. Half a century
ago it was estimated by Major Pike at 21,675, and in 1850 the Dakotah
Mission set them down at 25,000. It is the opinion of many that,
notwithstanding the ravages of cholera and small-pox, the Dakotah
nation, except when mingled with the frontier settlements, rather
increases than diminishes. It has been observed by missionaries that
whenever an account of births and deaths has been kept in a village the
former usually exceed the latter. The original numbers of the Prairie
Indians have been greatly overestimated both by themselves and by
strangers; the only practicable form of census is the rude proceeding
of counting their “tipi,” or skin tents. It is still a moot question
how far the Prairie Indians have diminished in numbers, which can not
be decided for some years.[62]
[62] At the time of the first settlement of the country by the
English no certain estimate was made; at the birth of the thirteen
original states, the Indians, according to Dr. Trumbull, did not
exceed 150,000. In 1860, the number of Indians within the limits of
the United States was estimated by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
at 350,000.
The Dakotahs are mostly a purely hunting tribe in the lowest condition
of human society: they have yet to take the first step, and to become a
pastoral people. The most civilized are the Mdewakantonwans, who, even
at the beginning of the present century, built log huts and “stocked”
land with corn, beans, and pumpkins. The majority of the bands hunt
the buffalo within their own limits throughout the summer, and in
the winter pitch their lodges in the clumps or fringes of tree and
underwood along the banks of the lakes and streams. The bark of the
cotton-wood furnishes fodder for their horses during the snowy season,
and to obtain it the creeks and branches have been thinned or entirely
denuded of their beautiful groves. They buy many animals from the
Southern Indians, who have stolen them from New Mexico, or trapped them
on the plains below the Rocky Mountains. Considerable numbers are also
bred by themselves. The Dakotah nation is one of the most warlike and
numerous in the United States territory. In single combat on horseback
they are described as having no superiors; a skill acquired by constant
practice enables them to spear their game at full speed, and the
rapidity with which they discharge their arrows, and the accuracy
of their aim, rival the shooting which may be made with a revolver.
They are not, however, formidable warriors; want of discipline and
of confidence in one another render them below their mark. Like the
Moroccans in their last war with Spain, they never attack when they
should, and they never fail to attack when they should not.
[THE OJIBWA.]
The Dakotahs, when first visited by the whites, lived around the
head-waters of the Mississippi and the Red River of the north. They
have gradually migrated toward the west and southwest, guarded by
their allies the Cheyennes, who have given names successively to the
Cheyenne of Red River, to the Big Cheyenne of the Missouri, and to the
section of the country between the Platte and the Arkansas which they
now occupy. The Dakotah first moved to the land now occupied by the
Ojibwa (anciently known as Chippewas, Orechipewa, or Sauteurs[63]),
which tribe inhabited the land between Sault[64] St. Marie and Lake
Winnipeg, while their allies the Crees occupied the country from Lake
Winnipeg to the Kisiskadjiwan and Assiniboin Rivers. The plains lying
southward of the latter river were the fields of many a fierce and
bloody fight between the Dakotahs and the other allied two tribes,
until a feud caused by jealousy of the women arose among the former,
and made a division which ended in their becoming irreconcilable
enemies, as they are indeed to the present day. The defeated party fled
to the craggy precipices of the Lake of the Woods, and received from
the Ojibwa the name of Assiniboin or Dakotah of the Rocks, by which
they are now universally known to the whites. They retain, however,
among themselves the term Dakotah, although their kinsmen universally,
when speaking of them, called them “hohe” or enemies, and they still
speak the Sioux language. After this feud the Assiniboins strengthened
themselves by alliance with the Ojibwa and Cree tribes, and drove the
Dakotah from all the country north of the Cheyenne River, which is now
regarded as the boundary-line. The three races are still friendly, and
so hostile to the Dakotah that no lasting peace can be made between
them; in case of troubles with either party, the government of the
United States might economically and effectually employ one against the
other. The common war-ground is the region about Lake Minsiwakan, where
they all meet when hunting buffalo. The Assiniboin tribe now extends
from the Red River westward along the Missouri as far as the mouth of
Milk River: a large portion of their lands, like those of the Cree, is
British territory. They suffered severely from small-pox in 1856-7,
losing about 1500 of their tribe, and now number about 450 lodges, or
3600 souls. Having comparatively few horses, they rely mainly upon the
dog for transportation, and they use its flesh as food.
[63] The Rev. Peter Jones (Kahkewagquody), in his history of the
Ojibwa Indians, makes “Chippewa” a corrupted word, signifying
the “Puckered-Moccasin People;” the Abbé Domenech (“Seven Years’
Residence in the Great Deserts of North America”--a mere compilation)
draws an unauthorized distinction between Chippewas and Ojibwas, but
can not say what it is. He explains Ojibwa, the form of Ojidwa, to
mean “a singularity in the voice or pronunciation.”
[64] Pronounced “Soo:” the word is old French, still commonly used in
Canada and the North, and means rapids.
[THE INDIAN’S FUTURE.]
The Dakotah, according to Lieutenant Warren, are still numerous,
independent, warlike, and powerful, and have the means of prolonging
an able resistance to the advance of the Western settlers. Under
the present policy of the United States government--this is written
by an American--which there is no reason to believe likely to be
changed, encroachments will continue, and battle and murder will be
the result. There are many inevitable causes at work to produce war
with the Dakotah before many years.[65] The conflict will end in the
discomfiture of the natives, who will then fast fall away. Those
dispossessed of their lands can not, as many suppose, retire farther
west; the regions lying beyond one tribe are generally occupied by
another, with whom deadly animosity exists. Even when the white
settlers advance their frontier, the natives linger about till their
own poverty and vice consign them to oblivion, and the present policy
adopted by the government is the best that could be devised for their
extermination. It is needless to say that many of the Sioux look
forward to the destruction of their race with all the feelings of
despair with which the civilized man would contemplate the extinction
of his nationality. How indeed, poor devils, are they to live when the
pale face comes with his pestilent fire-water and small-pox, followed
up with paper and pen work, to be interpreted under the gentle auspices
of fire and steel?
[65] Lieutenant Warren considered the greatest point of his
explorations to be the knowledge of the proper routes by which to
invade their country and to conquer them. The project may be found
in the Report of the Secretary of War. I quote Mr. Warren’s opinion
concerning the future of the Dakotahs as a contrast to that of the
Dakotah Mission. My own view will conclude the case in p. 102.
The advance of the settlements is universally acknowledged by the
people of the United States to be a political necessity in the
national development, and on that ground only is the displacement
of the rightful owners of the soil justifiable. But the government,
instead of preparing the way for settlements by wise and just purchases
from those in possession, and proper support and protection for the
indigent and improvident race thus dispossessed, is sometimes behind
its obligations. There are instances of Congress refusing or delaying
to ratify the treaties made by its duly authorized agents. The settler
and pioneer are thus precipitated into the Indian country, without the
savage having received the promised consideration, and he often, in a
manner that enlists the sympathies of mankind, takes up the tomahawk
and perishes in the attempt. It frequently happens that the Western
settlers are charged with bringing about these wars; they are now,
however, fighting the battles of civilization exactly as they were
fought three centuries ago upon the Atlantic shore, under circumstances
that command equal admiration and approval. While, therefore, we
sympathize with the savage, we can not but feel for the unhappy
squatter, whose life is sacrificed to the Indian’s vengeance by the
errors or dilatoriness of those whose duty it is to protect him.
The people of the United States, of course, know themselves to be
invincible by the hands of these half-naked savages. But the Indians,
who on their own ground still outnumber the whites, are by no means
so convinced of the fact. Until the army of Utah moved westward, many
of them had never seen a soldier. At a grand council of the Dakotah,
in the summer of 1857, on the North Fork of the Platte River, they
solemnly pledged themselves to resist the encroachments of the whites,
and, if necessary, to “whip” them out of the country. The appearance of
the troops has undoubtedly produced a highly beneficial effect; still,
something more is wanted. Similarly in Hindostan, though the natives
knew that the British army numbered hundreds of thousands, every petty
independent prince thought himself fit to take the field against the
intruder, till the failure of the attempt suggested to him some respect
for _les gros bataillons_.
The Sioux differ greatly in their habits from the Atlantic tribes of
times gone by. The latter lived in wigwams or villages of more stable
construction than the lodge; they cultivated the soil, never wandered
far from home, made their expeditions on foot, having no horses, and
rarely came into action unless they could “tree” themselves. They
inflicted horrid tortures on their prisoners, as every English child
has read; but, Arab-like, they respected the honor of their female
captives. The Prairie tribes are untamed and untamable savages,
superior only to the “Arab” hordes of great cities, who appear
destined to play in the history of future ages the part of Goth and
Vandal, Scythian, Bedouin, and Turk. Hitherto the _rôle_ which these
hunters have sustained in the economy of nature has been to prepare,
by thinning off its wild animals, a noble portion of the world for
the higher race about to succeed them. Captain Mayne Reid somewhere
derides the idea of the Indian’s progress toward extinction. A cloud
of authorities bear witness against him. East of the Mississippi the
savage has virtually died out, and few men allow him two prospective
centuries of existence in the West, unless he be left, which he will
not be, to himself.
“Wolves of women born,” the Prairie Indians despise agriculture as the
Bedouin does. Merciless freebooters, they delight in roaming; like
all equestrian and uncivilized people, they are perfect horsemen, but
poor fighters when dismounted, and they are nothing without their
weapons. As a rule they rarely torture their prisoners, except when
an old man or woman is handed over to the squaws and pappooses “pour
les amuser,” as a Canadian expressed it. Near and west of the Rocky
Mountains, however, the Shoshonees and the Yutas (Utahs) are as cruel
as their limited intellects allow them to be. Moreover, all the Prairie
tribes never fail to subject women to an ordeal worse than death. The
best character given of late years to the Sioux was by a traveler in
1845, who writes that “their freedom and power have imparted to their
warriors some gentlemanly qualities; they are cleanly, dignified and
graceful in manners, brave, proud, and independent in bearing and deed.”
[THE SIOUX CHARACTER.]
The qualities of the Sioux, and of the Prairie tribes generally, are
little prized by those who have seen much of them. They ignore the
very existence of gratitude; the benefits of years can not win their
affections. After boarding and lodging with a white for any length of
time, they will steal his clothes; and, after receiving any number of
gifts, they will haggle for the value of the merest trifle. They are
inveterate thieves and beggars; the Western settlers often pretend
not to understand their tongue for fear of exposing themselves to
perpetual pilfering and persecution; and even the squaws, who live with
the pale faces, annoy their husbands by daily applications for beads
and other coveted objects; they are cruel to one another as children.
The obstinate revengefulness of their vendetta is proverbial; they
hate with the “hate of Hell;” and, like the Highlanders of old, if
the author of an injury escape them, they vent their rage upon the
innocent, because he is of the same clan or color. If struck by a white
man, they must either kill him or receive damages in the shape of a
horse; and after the most trivial injury they can never be trusted.
Their punishments are Draconic; for all things death, either by
shooting or burning. Their religion is a low form of fetichism. They
place their women in the most degraded position. The squaw is a mere
slave, living a life of utter drudgery; and when the poor creature
wishes, according to the fashion of her sex, to relieve her feelings
by a domestic “scene,” followed by a “good cry,” or to use her knife
upon a sister squaw, as the Trasteverina mother uses her bodkin, the
husband, after squatting muffled up, in hope that the breeze will
blow over, enforces silence with a cudgel. The warrior, considering
the chase an ample share of the labor-curse, is so lazy that he will
not rise to saddle or unsaddle his pony; he will sit down and ask
a white man to fetch him water, and only laugh if reproved. Like a
wild beast, he can not be broken to work; he would rather die than
employ himself in honest industry--a mighty contrast to the negro,
whose only happiness is in serving. He invariably attributes an act
of kindness, charity, or forbearance to fear. Ungenerous, he extols,
like the Bedouin, generosity to the skies. He never makes a present
except for the purpose of receiving more than its equivalent; and an
“Indian gift” has come to be a proverb, meaning any thing reclaimed
after being given away. Impulsive as the African, his mind is blown
about by storms of unaccountable contradictions. Many a white has
suddenly seen the scalping-knife restored to its sheath instead of
being buried in his flesh, while others have been as unexpectedly
assaulted and slain by those from whom they expected kindness and
hospitality. The women are mostly cold and chaste. The men have vices
which can not be named: their redeeming points are fortitude and
endurance of hardship; moreover, though they care little for their
wives, they are inordinately fond of their children. Of their bravery
Indian fighters do not speak highly: they are notoriously deficient
in the civilized quality called moral courage, and, though a brave
will fight single-handed stoutly enough, they rarely stand up long in
action. They are great at surprises, ambuscades, and night attacks: as
with the Arabs and Africans, their favorite hour for onslaught is that
before dawn, when the enemy is most easily terrified--they know that
there is nothing which tries man’s nerve so much, as an unexpected
night attack--and when the cattle can be driven off to advantage. In
some points their characters have been, it is now granted, greatly
misunderstood. Their forced gravity and calmness--purely “company
manners”--were not suspected to cloak merriment, sociability, and a
general fondness of feasts and fun. Their apathy and sternness, which
were meant for reserve and dignity among strangers, gave them an air of
ungeniality which does not belong to their mental constitutions. Their
fortitude and endurance of pain is the result, as in the prize-fighter,
of undeveloped brain.
The Sioux are tall men, straight, and well made: they are never
deformed, and are rarely crippled, simply because none but the
able-bodied can live. The shoulders are high and somewhat straight; the
figure is the reverse of the sailor’s, that is to say, while the arms
are smooth, feeble, and etiolated, the legs are tolerably muscular; the
bones are often crooked or bowed in the equestrian tribes; they walk
as if they wanted the ligamentum teres; there is a general looseness
of limb, which promises, however, lightness, endurance, and agility,
and which, contrasted with the Caucasian race, suggests the gait of a
wild compared with that of a tame animal. Like all savages, they are
deficient in corporeal strength: a civilized man finds no difficulty in
handling them: on this road there is only one Indian (a Shoshonee) who
can whip a white in a “rough and tumble.” The temperament is usually
bilious-nervous; the sanguine is rare, the lymphatic rarer, and I never
knew or heard of an albino. The hands, especially in the higher tribes,
are decidedly delicate, but this is more observable in the male than in
the female; the type is rather that of the Hindoo than of the African
or the European. The feet, being more used than the other extremities,
and unconfined by boot or shoe, are somewhat splay, spreading out
immediately behind the toes, while the heel is remarkably narrow.
In consequence of being carried straight to the fore--the only easy
position for walking through grass--they tread, like the ant-eater,
more heavily on the outer than on the inner edge. The sign of the
Indian is readily recognized by the least experienced tracker.
It is erroneously said that he who has seen a single Indian has seen
them all. Of course there is a great similarity among savages and
barbarians of the same race and climate. The same pursuits, habits,
and customs naturally produce an identity of expression which, as in
the case of husband and wife, parent and child, moulds the features
into more or less of likeness. On the other hand, a practiced eye
will distinguish the Indian individually or by bands as easily as the
shepherd, by marks invisible to others, can swear to his sheep. I have
little doubt that to the savages all white men look alike.
[THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION.]
The Prairie Indian’s hair and complexion have already been described.
According to some savages the build of the former differs materially
from that of the European and the Asiatic. The animal development
varies in the several races: the Pawnee’s and Yuta’s scalp-lock
rarely exceeds eighteen inches in length, while that of the Crow,
like the East Indian Jatawala’s, often sweeps the ground. There are
salient characteristics in the cranium which bear testimony to many
phrenological theories. The transverse diameter of the rounded skull
between the parietal bones, where destructiveness and secretiveness
are placed, is enormous, sometimes exceeding the longitudinal line
from sinciput to occiput, the direct opposite of the African negro’s
organization. The region of the cerebellum is deficient and shrunken,
as with the European in his second childhood: it sensibly denotes that
the subject wants “vim.” The coronal region, where the sentiments are
supposed to lie, is rather flat than arched; in extreme cases the
face seems to occupy two thirds instead of half the space between
poll and chin. The low conical forehead recedes, as in Robespierre’s
head, from the region of benevolence, and rises high at the apex,
where firmness and self-esteem reside: a common formation among
wild tribes, as every traveler in Asia and Africa has remarked. The
facial angle of Camper varies, according to phrenologists, between
70° and 80°. The projecting lower brow is strong, broad, and massive,
showing that development of the perceptions which is produced by the
constant and minute observation of a limited number of objects. The
well-known Indian art of following the trail is one result of this
property. The nose is at once salient and dilated--in fact, partaking
of the Caucasian and African types. The nostrils are broad and deeply
whorled; the nasal orifice is wide, and, according to osteologists,
the bones that protect it are arched and expanded; the eyebrows are
removed, like the beard and mustache, by vellication, giving a dull
and bald look to the face; the lashes, however, grow so thickly that
they often show a sooty black line, suggesting the presence of the
Oriental kohl or surma. The orbits are large and square: largeness and
squareness are, in fact, the general character of the features: it
doubtless produces that peculiar besotted look which belongs to the
Indian as to the Mongolian family. The conjunctival membrane has the
whiteness and clearness of the European and the Asiatic; it is not, as
in the African, brown, yellow, or red. The pupil, like the hair, is of
different shades between black and brown: when the organ is blue--an
accident which leads to a suspicion of mixed blood--the owner generally
receives a name from the peculiarity. Travelers, for the most part,
describe the organ as “black and piercing, snaky and venomous;” others
as “dull and sleepy;” while some detect in its color a mingling of
black and gray. The only peculiarity which I observed in the pupil
was its similarity to that of the gipsy. The Indian first fixes upon
you a piercing glance, which seems to look below the surface. After a
few seconds, however, the eye glazes as though a film passed over it,
and gazes, as it were, on vacancy. The look would at once convict
him of Jattatura and Molocchio in Italy, and of El Ayn, or the Evil
Eye, in the East. The mouth is at once full and compressed; it opens
widely; the lips are generally _bordés_ or everted--decidedly the most
unpleasant fault which that feature can have--the corners are drawn
down as if by ill temper, and the two seams which spring from the alæ
of the nostrils are deeply traced. This formation of the oral, combined
with the fullness of the circumoral regions, and the length and
fleshiness of the naked upper lip, communicates a peculiar animality
to the countenance. The cheek-bones are high and bony; they are not,
however, expanded or spread backward, nor do they, as in the Chinese,
alter the appearance of the eyes by making them oblique. The cheeks
are rather lank and falling in than full or oval. The whole maxillary
organ is projecting and ponderous. The wide condyles of the lower jaw
give a remarkable massiveness to the jowl, while the chin--perhaps the
most characteristic feature--is long, bony, large, and often parted in
the centre. The teeth are faultless, full-sized and white, even and
regular, strong and lasting; and they are vertical, not sloping forward
like the African’s. To sum up, the evanishing of the forehead, the
compression of the lips, the breadth and squareness of the jaw, and
the massiveness of the chin, combine to produce a normal expression of
harshness and cruelty, which, heightened by red and black war-paint,
locks like horsehair, plumes, and other savage decorations, form a
“rouge dragon” whose _tout ensemble_ is truly revolting.
The women when in their teens have often that _beauté du diable_, which
may be found even among the African negresses; nothing, however, can be
more evanescent. When full grown the figure becomes dumpy and _trapu_;
and the face, though sometimes not without a certain comeliness,
has a Turanian breadth and flatness. The best portrait of a sightly
Indian woman is that of Pocahontas, the Princess, published by Mr.
Schoolcraft. The drudgery of the tent and field renders the squaw cold
and unimpassioned; and, like the coarsest-minded women in civilized
races, her eye and her heart mean one and the same thing. She will
administer “squaw medicine,” a love philter, to her husband, but rather
for the purpose of retaining his protection than his love. She has all
the modesty of a savage, and is not deficient in sense of honor. She
has no objection to a white man, but, Affghan-like, she usually changes
her name to “John” or some other alias. Her demerits are a habit of
dunning for presents, and a dislike to the virtue that ranks next to
godliness, which nothing but the fear of the rod will subdue. She has
literally no belief, not even in the rude fetichism of her husband, and
consequently she has no religious exercises. As she advances in years
she rapidly descends in _physique_ and _morale_: there is nothing on
earth more fiendlike than the vengeance of a cretin-like old squaw.
The ancient Persians taught their progeny archery, riding, and
truth-telling; the Prairie Indian’s curriculum is much the same, only
the last of the trio is carefully omitted. The Indian, like other
savages, never tells the truth; verity is indeed rather an intellectual
than an instinctive virtue, which, as children prove, must be taught
and made intelligible; except when “counting his coups,” in other
words, recounting his triumphs, his life is therefore one system of
deceit, the strength of the weak. Another essential part of education
is to close the mouth during sleep: the Indian has a superstition
that all disease is produced by inhalation. The children, “born like
the wild ass’s colts,” are systematically spoiled with the view of
fostering their audacity; the celebrated apophthegm of the Wise
King--to judge from his notable failure at home, he probably did not
practice what he preached--which has caused such an expenditure of
birch and cane in higher races, would be treated with contempt by the
Indians. The fond mother, when chastening her child, never goes beyond
dashing a little cold water in its face--for which reason to besprinkle
a man is a mortal insult--a system which, perhaps, might be naturalized
with advantage in some parts of Europe. The son is taught to make his
mother toil for him, and openly to disobey his sire; at seven years
of age he has thrown off all parental restraint; nothing keeps him in
order but the fear of the young warriors. At ten or twelve he openly
rebels against all domestic rule, and does not hesitate to strike his
father; the parent then goes off rubbing his hurt, and boasting to his
neighbors of the brave boy whom he has begotten.
[THE INDIAN’S RELIGION.]
The religion of the North American Indians has long been a subject of
debate. Some see in it traces of Judaism, others of Sabæanism; Mr.
Schoolcraft detects a degradation of Guebrism. His faith has, it is
true, a suspicion of duality; Hormuzd and Ahriman are recognizable
in Gitche Manitou and Mujhe Manitou, and the latter, the Bad god, is
naturally more worshiped, because more feared, than the Good god.
Moreover, some tribes show respect for and swear by the sun, and
others for fire: there is a north god and a south god, a wood god, a
prairie god, an air god, and a water god; but--they have not risen
to monotheism--there is not one God. None, however, appear to have
that reverence for the elements which is the first article of the
Zoroastrian creed; the points of difference are many, while those
of resemblance are few and feeble, and it is hard to doubt that the
instincts of mankind have been pressed by controversialists into the
service of argument as traditional tenets.
To judge from books and the conversation of those who best know the
Indians, he is distinctly a Fetichist like the African negro, and,
indeed, like all the child-like races of mankind.[66] The medicine-man
is his mganga, angekok, sorcerer, prophet, physician, exorciser,
priest, and rain-doctor; only, as he is rarely a cultivator of the
soil, instead of heavy showers and copious crops, he is promised
scalps, salmon trout, and buffalo beef in plenty. He has the true
Fetichist’s belief--invariably found in tribes who live dependent
upon the powers of Nature--in the younger brothers of the human
family, the bestial creation: he holds to a metamorphosis like that
of Abyssinia, and to speaking animals. Every warrior chooses a totem,
some quadruped, bird, or fish, to which he prays, and which he will
on no account kill or eat. Dr. Livingstone shows (chap. i.) that the
same custom prevails in its entirety among the Kaffir Bakwaina, and
opines that it shows traces of addiction to animal worship, like the
ancient Egyptians; in the prophecies of Israel the tribes are compared
with animals, a true totemic practice. The word totem also signifies a
sub-clan or sub-tribe; and some nations, like the African Somal, will
not allow marriage in the same totem. The medicine-men give away young
children as an atonement when calamities impend: they go clothed, not
in sackcloth and ashes, but in coats of mire, and their macerations
and self-inflicted tortures rival those of the Hindoos: a fanatic has
been known to drag about a buffalo skull with a string cut from his own
skin till it is torn away. In spring-time, the braves, and even the
boys, repairing to lonely places and hill-tops, their faces and bodies
being masked, as if in mourning, with mud, fast and pray, and sing rude
chants to propitiate the ghosts for days consecutively. The Fetichist
is ever grossly superstitious; and the Indians, as might be expected,
abound in local rites. Some tribes, as the Cheyennes, will not go
to war without a medicine-man, others without sacred war-gourds[67]
containing the tooth of the drum-head fish. Children born with teeth
are looked upon as portents, and when gray at birth the phenomenon is
attributed to evil ghosts.
[66] The reader who cares to consult my studies upon the subject
of Fetichism in Africa, where it is and ever has been the national
creed, is referred to “The Lake Regions of Central Africa,” chap.
xix. The modes of belief, and the manners and customs of savage and
barbarous races are so similar, that a knowledge of the African is an
excellent introduction to that of the American.
[67] This gourd or calabash is the produce of the _Cucurbita
lagenaria_, or calabash vine. In Spanish, Central, and Southern
America, Cuba and the West Indies, they use the large round fruit of
the _Crescentia cujete_.
I can not but think that the two main articles of belief which have
been set down to the credit of the Indian, namely, the Great Spirit
or Creator, and the Happy Hunting-grounds in a future world, are
the results of missionary teaching, the work of Fathers Hennepin,
Marquette, and their noble army of martyred Jesuit followers. In later
days they served chiefly to inspire the Anglo-American muse, _e. g._:
“By midnight moons o’er moistening dews,
In vestments for the chase arrayed,
The hunter still the deer pursues--
The hunter and the deer, a shade!
And long shall timorous fancy see
The painted chief and pointed spear,
And Reason’s self shall bow the knee
To shadows and delusions here.”
My conviction is, that the English and American’s popular ideas upon
the subject are unreliable, and that their embodiment, beautiful
poetry, “Lo the poor Indian,” down to “his faithful dog shall bear
him company,” are but a splendid myth. The North American aborigine
believed, it is true, in an unseen power, the Manitou, or, as we are
obliged to translate it, “Spirit,” residing in every heavenly body,
animal, plant, or other natural object. This is the very essence of
that form of Fetichism which leads to Pantheism and Polytheism. There
was a Manitou, as he conceived, which gave the spark from the flint,
lived in every blade of grass, flowed in the streams, shone in the
stars, and thundered in the waterfall; but in each example--a notable
instance of the want of abstractive and generalizing power--the idea
of the Deity was particular and concrete. When the Jesuit fathers
suggested the unity of the Great Spirit pervading all beings, it was
very readily recognized; but the generalization was not worked out by
the Indian mind. He was, therefore, like all savages, atheistic in
the literal sense of the word. He had not arrived at the first step,
Pantheism, which is so far an improvement that it opens out a grand
idea, the omnipresence, and consequently the omnipotence, of the
Deity. In most North American languages the Theos is known, not as the
“Great Spirit,” but as the “Great Father,” a title also applied to the
President of the United States, who is, I believe, though sometimes a
step-father, rather the more reverenced of the twain. With respect to
the happy hunting-grounds, it is a mere corollary of the monotheistic
theorem above proved. It is doubtful whether these savages ever grasped
the idea of a human soul. The Chicury of New England, indeed, and other
native words so anglicized, appear distinctly to mean the African
Pepo--ghost or larva.
Certain missionaries have left us grotesque accounts of the simple
good sense with which the Indians of old received the Glad Tidings.
The strangers were courteously received, the calumet was passed round,
and they were invited to make known their wants in a “big talk.” They
did so by producing a synopsis of their faith, beginning at Adam’s
apple and ending at the Savior’s cross. The patience of the Indian in
enduring long speeches, sermons, and harangues has ever been exemplary
and peculiar, as his fortitude in suffering lingering physical
tortures. The audience listened with a solemn demeanor, not once
interrupting what must have appeared to them a very wild and curious
story. Called upon to make some remark, these antipomologists simply
ejaculated,
“Apples are not wholesome, and those who crucified Christ were bad
men!”
In their turn, some display of oratory was required. They avoided the
tedious, long-drawn style of argument, and spoke, as was their wont,
briefly to the point. “It is good of you,” said they, “to cross the
big water, and to follow the Indian’s trail, that ye may relate to us
what ye have related. Now listen to what our mothers told us. Our first
father, after killing a beast, was roasting a rib before the fire, when
a spirit, descending from the skies, sat upon a neighboring bluff. She
was asked to eat. She ate fat meat. Then she arose and silently went
her way. From the place where she rested her two hands grew corn and
pumpkin; and from the place where she sat sprang tobacco!”
The missionaries listened to the savage tradition with an excusable
disrespect, and, not unnaturally, often interrupted it. This want of
patience and dignity, however, drew upon them severe remarks. “Pooh!”
observed the Indians. “When you told us what your mothers told you, we
gave ear in silence like men. When we tell you what our mothers told
us, ye give tongue like squaws. Go to! Ye are no medicine-men, but
silly fellows!”
Besides their superstitious belief in ghosts, spirits, or familiars,
and the practice of spells and charms, love-philters, dreams
and visions, war-medicine, hunting-medicine, self-torture, and
incantations, the Indians had, it appears to me, but three religious
observances, viz., dancing, smoking, and scalping.
The war-dances, the corn-dances, the buffalo-dances, the scalp-dances,
and the other multiform and solemn saltations of these savages, have
been minutely depicted and described by many competent observers. The
theme also is beyond the limits of an essay like this.
Smoking is a boon which the Old owes to the New World. It is a heavy
call upon our gratitude, for which we have naturally been very
ungrateful.
“Non epulis tantum, non Bacchi pascimur usu,
Pascimur et fumis, ingeniosa gula est.”
[THE SMOKING RITE.]
We began by calling our new gift the “holy herb;” it is now, like the
Balm of Gilead, entitled, I believe, a weed. Among the North American
Indians even the spirits smoke; the “Indian summer” is supposed to
arise from the puffs that proceed from the pipe of Nanabozhoo, the
Ojibwa Noah. The pipe may have been used in the East before the days
of tobacco, but if so it was probably applied to the inhalation of
cannabis and other intoxicants.[68] On the other hand, the Indian had
no stimulants. He never invented the beer of Osiris, though maize
grew abundantly around him;[69] the koumiss of the Tartar was beyond
his mental reach; and though “Jimsen weed”[70] overruns the land,
he neglected its valuable intoxicating properties. His is almost the
only race that has ever existed wholly without a stimulant; the fact
is a strong proof of its autochthonic origin. It is indeed incredible
that man, having once learned, should ever forget the means of getting
drunk. Instead of the social cup the Indian smoked. As tobacco does
not grow throughout the continent, he invented kinnikinik. This Indian
word has many meanings. By the hunters and settlers it is applied to a
mixture of half and half, or two thirds tobacco and one of red willow
bark; others use it for a mixture of tobacco, sumach leaves, and willow
rind; others, like Ruxton (“Life in the Far West,” p. 116), for the
cortex of the willow only. This tree grows abundantly in copses near
the streams and water-courses. For smoking, the twigs are cut when the
leaves begin to redden. Some tribes, like the Sioux, remove the outer
and use only the highly-colored inner bark; others again, like the
Shoshonees, employ the external as well as the internal cuticle. It is
scraped down the twig in curling ringlets, without, however, stripping
it off; the stick is then planted in the ground before the fire,
and, when sufficiently parched, the material is bruised, comminuted,
and made ready for use. The taste is pleasant and aromatic, but the
effect is that of the puerile ratan rather than the manly tobacco. The
Indian, be it observed, smokes like all savages by inhaling the fumes
into the lungs, and returning them through the nostrils; he finds pure
tobacco, therefore, too strong and pungent. As has been said, he is
catholic in his habits of smoking; he employs indifferently rose-bark
(_Rosa blanda?_)[71] and the cuticle of a cornus, the lobelia,[72] the
larb, a vaccinium, a Daphne-like plant, and many others. The Indian
smokes incessantly, and the “calumet”[73] is an important part of his
household goods. He has many superstitions about the practice. It is
a sacred instrument, and its red color typifies the smoker’s flesh.
The Western travelers mention offerings of tobacco to, and smoking of
pipes in honor of, the Great Spirit. Some men will vow never to use the
pipe in public, others to abstain on particular days. Some will not
smoke with their moccasins on, others with steel about their persons;
some are pledged to abstain inside, others outside the wigwam, and
many scatter buffalo chip over their tobacco. When beginning to smoke
there are certain observances; some, _exempli gratiâ_, direct, after
the fashion of Gitche Manitou, the first puff upward or heavenward,
the second earthward, and the third and fourth over the right and left
shoulders, probably in propitiation of the ghosts, who are being smoked
for in proxy; others, before the process of inhaling, touch the ground
with the heel of the pipe-bowl, and turn the stem upward and averted.
[68] The word tobacco (West Indian, tobago or tobacco, a peculiar
pipe), which has spread through Europe, Asia, and Africa, seems to
prove the origin of the nicotiana, and the non-mention of smoking
in the “Arabian Nights” disproves the habit of inhaling any other
succedaneum.
[69] It has long been disputed whether maize was indigenous to
America or to Asia; learned names are found on both sides of the
question. In Central Africa the cereal is now called as in English,
“Indian corn,” proving that in that continent it first was introduced
from Hindostan. The Italians have named it Gran’ Turco, showing
whence it was imported by them. The word maiz, mays, maize, or
mahiz, is a Carib word introduced by the Spaniards into Europe;
in the United States, where “corn” is universally used, maize is
intelligible only to the educated.
[70] Properly Jamestown weed, the _Datura stramonium_, the English
thorn-apple, unprettily called in the Northern States of America
“stinkweed.” It found its way into the higher latitudes from
Jamestown (Virginia), where it was first observed springing on heaps
of ballast and other rubbish discharged from vessels. According to
Beverly (“History of Virginia,” book ii., quoted by Mr. Bartlett),
it is “one of the greatest coolers in the world;” and in some young
soldiers who ate plentifully of it as a salad, to pacify the troubles
of bacon, the effect was “a very pleasant remedy, for they turned
natural fools upon it for several days.”
[71] The wild rose is every where met with growing in bouquets on the
prairies.
[72] The _Lobelia inflata_, or Indian tobacco, is corrupted by the
ignorant Western man to low belia in contradistinction to high belia,
better varieties of the plant.
[73] The calumet, a word introduced by the old French, is the red
sandstone pipe, described in a previous page, with a long tube,
generally a reed, adorned with feathers. It is the Indian symbol of
hatred or amity; there is a calumet of war as well as a calumet of
peace. To accept the calumet is to come to terms; to refuse it is
to reject them. The same is expressed by burying and digging up the
tomahawk or hatchet. The tomahawk and calumet are sometimes made of
one piece of stone; specimens, however, have become very rare since
the introduction of the iron axe. The “Song of Hiawatha” (Canto
I., The Peace Pipe) and the interesting “Letters and Notes on the
Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians” (vol.
ii., p. 160), have made the Red Pipe-stone Quarry familiar to the
Englishman.
[THE SCALPING RITE.]
According to those who, like Pennant, derive the North American from
the Scythians, scalping is a practice that originated in High and
Northeastern Asia. The words of the Father of History are as follows:
“Of the first enemy a Scythian sends down, he quaffs the blood; he
carries the heads of all that he has slain in battle to the king;
for when he has brought a head, he is entitled to a share of the
booty that may be taken--not otherwise; to skin the head, he makes
a circular incision from ear to ear, and then, laying hold of the
crown, shakes out the skull; after scraping off the flesh with an
ox’s rib, he rumples it between his hands, and having thus softened
the skin, makes use of it as a napkin; he appends it to the bridle
of the horse he rides, and prides himself on this, for the Scythian
that has most of these skin napkins is adjudged the best man, etc.,
etc. They also use the entire skins as horse-cloths, also the skulls
for drinking-cups.”--(“Melpomene,” iv., 64, Laurent’s trans.) The
underlying idea is doubtless the natural wish to preserve a memorial of
a foeman done to death, and at the same time to dishonor his hateful
corpse by mutilation. Fashion and tradition regulate the portions of
the human frame preferred.
Scalping is generally, but falsely, supposed to be a peculiarly
American practice. The Abbé Em. Domenech (“Seven Years’ Residence
in the Great Deserts of North America,” chap. xxxix.) quotes the
_decalvare_ of the ancient Germans, the _capillos et cutem detrahere_
of the code of the Visigoths, and the annals of Flude, which prove that
the “Anglo-Saxons” and the Franks still scalped about A.D. 879. And as
the modern American practice is traceable to Europe and Asia, so it
may be found in Africa, where aught of ferocity is rarely wanting. “In
a short time after our return,” says Mr. Duncan (“Travels in Western
Africa in 1845 and 1846”), “the Apadomey regiment passed, on their
return, in single file, each leading in a string a young male or female
slave, carrying also the dried scalp of one man supposed to have been
killed in the attack. On all such occasions, when a person is killed in
battle, the skin is taken from the head and kept as a trophy of valor.
It must not be supposed that these female warriors kill according to
the number of scalps presented; the scalps are the accumulation of
many years. If six or seven men are killed during one year’s war it is
deemed a great thing; one party always run away in these slave-hunts;
but where armies meet the slaughter is great. I counted 700 scalps
pass in this manner.” But mutilation, like cannibalism, tattooing, and
burying in barrows, is so natural under certain circumstances to man’s
mind that we distinctly require no traditional derivation.
Scalp-taking is a solemn rite. In the good old times braves
scrupulously awaited the wounded man’s death before they “raised his
hair;” in the laxity of modern days, however, this humane custom is too
often disregarded. Properly speaking, the trophy should be taken after
fair fight with a hostile warrior; this also is now neglected. When
the Indian sees his enemy fall he draws his scalp-knife--the modern is
of iron, formerly it was of flint, obsidian, or other hard stone--and
twisting the scalp-lock, which is left long for that purpose, and
boastfully braided or decorated with some gaudy ribbon or with the
war-eagle’s plume, round his left hand, makes with the right two
semicircular incisions, with and against the sun, about the part to be
removed. The skin is next loosened with the knife-point, if there be
time to spare and if there be much scalp to be taken. The operator then
sits on the ground, places his feet against the subject’s shoulders
by way of leverage, and, holding the scalp-lock with both hands, he
applies a strain which soon brings off the spoils with a sound which,
I am told, is not unlike “flop.” Without the long lock it would be
difficult to remove the scalp; prudent white travelers, therefore, are
careful, before setting out through an Indian country, to “shingle
off” their hair as closely as possible; the Indian, moreover, hardly
cares for a half-fledged scalp. To judge from the long love-locks
affected by the hunter and mountaineer, he seems to think lightly of
this precaution; to hold it, in fact, a point of honor that the savage
should have a fair chance. A few cunning men have surprised their
adversaries with wigs. The operation of scalping must be exceedingly
painful; the sufferer turns, wriggles, and “squirms” upon the ground
like a scotched snake. It is supposed to induce brain fever; many
instances, however, are known of men and even women recovering from
it, as the former do from a more dreadful infliction in Abyssinia and
Galla-land; cases are of course rare, as a disabling wound is generally
inflicted before the bloodier work is done.
After taking the scalp, the Indian warrior--proud as if he had won
a _médaille de sauvetage_--prepares for return to his village. He
lingers outside for a few days, and then, after painting his hands and
face with lampblack, appears slowly and silently before his lodge.
There he squats for a while; his relatives and friends, accompanied by
the elders of the tribe, sit with him dumb as himself. Presently the
question is put; it is answered with truth, although these warriors at
other times will lie like Cretans. The “coup” is recounted, however,
with abundant glorification; the Indians, like the Greek and Arab of
their classical ages, are allowed to vent their self-esteem on such
occasions without blame, and to enjoy a treat for which the civilized
modern hero longs ardently, but in vain. Finally the “green scalp,”
after being dried and mounted, is consecrated by the solemn dance, and
becomes then fit for public exhibition. Some tribes attach it to a long
pole used as a standard, and others to their horses’ bridles, others
to their targes, while others ornament with its fringes the outer
seams of their leggins; in fact, its uses are many. The more scalps
the more honor; the young man who can not boast of a single murder or
show the coveted trophy is held in such scant esteem as the English
gentleman who contents himself with being passing rich on a hundred
pounds a year. Some great war-chiefs have collected a heap of these
honorable spoils. It must be remembered by “curio” hunters that only
one scalp can come off one head; namely, the centre lock or long tuft
growing upon the coronal apex, with about three inches in diameter of
skin. This knowledge is the more needful, as the Western men are in the
habit of manufacturing half a dozen cut from different parts of the
same head; they sell readily for $50 each, but the transaction is not
considered reputable. The connoisseur, however, readily distinguishes
the real article from “false scalping” by the unusual thickness of
the cutis, which is more like that of a donkey than of a man. Set in
a plain gold circlet it makes a very pretty brooch. Moreover, each
tribe has its own fashion of scalping derived from its forefathers. The
Sioux, for instance, when they have leisure to perform the operation,
remove the whole headskin, including a portion of the ears; they then
sit down and dispose the ears upon the horns of a buffalo skull, and
a bit of the flesh upon little heaps of earth or clay, disposed in
quincunx, apparently as an offering to the manes of their ancestors,
and they smoke ceremoniously, begging the manitou to send them plenty
more. The trophy is then stretched upon a willow twig bent into an
oval shape, and lined with two semi-ovals of black or blue and scarlet
cloth. The Yutas and the Prairie tribes generally, when pressed for
time, merely take off the poll skin that grows the long tuft of hair,
while the Chyuagara or Nez Percés prefer a long strip about two inches
wide, extending from the nape to the commissure of the hair and
forehead. The fingers of the slain are often reserved for sévignés
and necklaces. Indians are aware of the aversion with which the pale
faces regard this barbarity. Near Alkali Lake, where there was a large
Dakotah “tipi” or encampment of Sioux, I tried to induce a tribesman to
go through the imitative process before me; he refused with a gesture
indignantly repudiating the practice. A glass of whisky would doubtless
have changed his mind, but I was unwilling to break through the
wholesome law that prohibits it.
It is not wonderful that the modern missionary should be unable to
influence such a brain as the Prairie Indian’s. The old propagandists,
Jesuits and Franciscans, became medicine-men: like the great fraternity
in India, they succeeded by the points of resemblance which the savages
remarked in their observances, such as their images and rosaries, which
would be regarded as totems, and their fastings and prayers, which
were of course supposed to be spells and charms. Their successors
have succeeded about as well with the Indian as with the African; the
settled tribes have given ear to them, the Prairie wanderers have not;
and the Europeanization of the Indian generally is hopeless as the
Christianization of the Hindoo. The missionaries usually live under the
shadow of the different agencies, and even they own that nothing can be
done with the children unless removed from the parental influence. I do
not believe that an Indian of the plains ever became a Christian. He
must first be humanized, then civilized, and lastly Christianized; and,
as has been said before, I doubt his surviving the operation.
[INDIAN NAMES.]
As might be expected of the Indian’s creed, it has few rites and
ceremonies; circumcision is unknown, and it ignores the complicated
observances which, in the case of the Hindoo Pantheist, and in many
African tribes, wait upon gestation, parturition, and allactation. The
child is seldom named.[74] There are but five words given in regular
order to distinguish one from another. There are no family names. The
men, after notable exploits, are entitled by their tribes to assume
the titles of the distinguished dead, and each fresh deed brings a
new distinction. Some of the names are poetical enough: the “Black
Night,” for instance, the “Breaker of Arrows,” or the “War Eagle’s
Wing;” others are coarse and ridiculous, such as “Squash-head,”
“Bull’s-tail,” “Dirty Saddle,” and “Steam from a Cow’s Belly;” not a
few bear a whimsical likeness to those of the African negroes, as “His
Great Fire,” “The Water goes in the Path,” and “Buffalo Chips”--the
“Mavi yá Gnombe” of Unyamwezi. The son of a chief succeeding his
father usually assumes his name, so that the little dynasty, like that
of the Pharaohs, the Romuli, or the Numas, is perpetuated. The women
are not unfrequently called after the parts and properties of some
admired or valued animal, as the White Martin, the Young Mink,[75] or
the Muskrat’s Paw. In the north there have been men with as many as
seven wives, all “Martins.” The Prairie Indians form the names of the
women like those of men, adding the feminine suffix, as Cloud-woman,
Red-earth-woman, Black-day-woman. The white stranger is ever offending
Indian etiquette by asking the savage “What’s your name?” The person
asked looks aside for a friend to assist him; he has learned in boyhood
that some misfortune will happen to him if he discloses his name. Even
husbands and wives never mention each other’s names. The same practice
prevails in many parts of Asia.
[74] The Ojibwa and other races have the ceremony of a burnt-offering
when the name is given.
[75] Putorius vison, a pretty dark-chestnut-colored animal of the
weasel kind, which burrows in the banks of streams near mills and
farm-houses, where it preys upon the poultry like the rest of the
family. It swims well, and can dive for a long time. Its food is
small fish, mussels, and insects, but it will also devour rats and
mice.
[FEMALE CONDUCT.]
Marriage is a simple affair with them. In some tribes the bride, as
among the Australians, is carried off by force. In others the man
who wants a wife courts her with a little present, and pickets near
the father’s lodge the number of horses which he supposes to be her
equivalent. As among all savage tribes, the daughter is a chattel, an
item of her father’s goods, and he will not part with her except for a
consideration. The men are of course polygamists; they prefer to marry
sisters, because the tent is more quiet, and much upon the principle
with which marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is advocated in
England. The women, like the Africans, are not a little addicted to
suicide. Before espousal the conduct of the weaker sex in many tribes
is far from irreproachable. The “bundling” of Wales and of New England
in a former day[76] is not unknown to them, and many think little of
that _prœgustatio matrimonii_ which, in the eastern parts of the New
World, goes by the name of Fanny Wrightism and Free-loveism. Several
tribes make trial, like the Highlanders before the reign of James the
Fifth, of their wives for a certain time--a kind of “hand-fasting,”
which is to morality what fetichism is to faith. There are few nations
in the world among whom this practice, originating in a natural desire
not to “make a leap in the dark,” can not be traced. Yet after marriage
they will live, like the Spartan matrons, a life of austerity in
relation to the other sex. In cases of divorce, the children, being
property, are divided, and in most tribes the wife claims the odd one.
If the mother takes any care to preserve her daughter’s virtue, it is
only out of regard to its market value. In some tribes the injured
husband displays all the philosophy of Cato and Socrates. In others
the wife is punished, like the native of Hindostan, by cutting, or,
more generally, by biting off the nose-tip. Some slay the wife’s lover;
others accept a pecuniary compensation for their dishonor, and take
as damages skins or horses. Elopement, as among the Arabs, prevails
in places. The difference of conduct on the part of the women of
course depends upon the bearing of the men. “There is no adulteress
without an adulterer”--meaning that the husband is ever the first to
be unfaithful--is a saying as old as the days of Mohammed. Among the
Arapahoes, for instance, there is great looseness; the Cheyennes,
on the contrary, are notably correct. Truth demands one unpleasant
confession, viz., on the whole, chastity is little esteemed among those
Indians who have been corrupted by intercourse with whites.
[76] Traces of this ancient practice may be found in the four
quarters of the globe. Mr.Bartlett, in his instructive volume, quotes
the Rev. Samuel Pike (“General History of Connecticut,” London,
1781), who quaintly remarks: “Notwithstanding the great modesty of
the females is such that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness
for a gentleman to speak before a lady of a garter or a leg, yet
it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to _bundle_.” The
learned and pious historian endeavored to prove that bundling was
not only a Christian, but a very polite and prudent practice. So the
Rev. Andrew Barnaby, who traveled in New England in 1759-60, thinks
that though bundling may “at first appear the effect of grossness of
character, it will, upon deeper research, be found to proceed from
simplicity and innocence.”
[CHIEFS.]
The dignity of chief denotes in the Indian language a royal title.
It is hereditary as a rule, but men of low birth sometimes attain
it by winning a name as warriors or medicine-men. When there are
many sons it often happens that each takes command of a small clan.
Personal prowess is a necessity in sagamore and sachem: an old man,
therefore, often abdicates in favor of his more vigorous son, to whom
he acts as guide and counselor. There is one chief to every band,
with several sub-chiefs. The power possessed by the ruler depends
upon his individual character, and the greater or lesser capacity for
discipline in his subjects. Some are obeyed grudgingly, as the Sheikh
of a Bedouin tribe. Others are absolute monarchs, who dispose of the
lives and properties of their followers without exciting a murmur. The
counteracting element to despotism resides in the sub-chief and in the
council of warriors, who obstinately insist upon having a voice in
making laws, raising subsidies, declaring wars, and ratifying peace.
[MODE OF LIFE.]
Their life is of course simple; they have no regular hours for meals
or sleep. Before eating they sometimes make a heave-offering of a
bit of food toward the heavens, where their forefathers are, and a
second toward the earth, the mother of all things: the pieces are then
burned. They are not cannibals, except when a warrior, after slaying
a foe, eats, porcupine-like, the heart or liver, with the idea of
increasing his own courage. The women rarely sit at meals with the
men. In savage and semi-barbarous societies the separation of the
sexes is the general rule, because, as they have no ideas in common,
each prefers the society of its own. They are fond of adoption and
of making brotherhoods, like the Africans; and so strong is the tie,
that marriage with the sister of an adopted brother is within the
prohibited degrees. Gambling is a passion with them: they play at
cards, an art probably learned from the Canadians, and the game is
that called in the States “matching,” on the principle of dominoes or
beggar-my-neighbor. When excited they ejaculate Will! Will!--sharp and
staccato--it is possibly a conception of the English well. But it often
comes out in the place of bad, as the Sepoy orderly in India reports
to his captain, “Ramnak Jamnak dead, Joti Prasad very sick--all vell!”
The savages win and lose with the stoicism habitual to them, rarely
drawing the “navajon,” like the Mexican “lepero,” over a disputed
point; and when a man has lost his last rag, he rises in nude dignity
and goes home. Their language ignores the violent and offensive abuse
of parents and female relatives, which distinguishes the Asiatic and
the African from the European Billingsgate: the worst epithets that
can be applied to a man are miser, coward, dog, woman. With them good
temper is good breeding--a mark of gentle blood. A brave will stand
up and harangue his enemies, exulting how he scalped their sires, and
squaws, and sons, without calling forth a grunt of irritation. Ceremony
and manners, in our sense of the word, they have none, and they lack
the profusion of salutations which usually distinguishes barbarians.
An Indian appearing at your door rarely has the civility to wait till
beckoned in; he enters the house, with his quiet catlike gait and his
imperturbable countenance, saying, if a Sioux, “How!” or “How! How!”
meaning Well? shakes hands, to which he expects the same reply, if he
has learned “paddling with the palms” from the whites--this, however,
is only expected by the chiefs and braves--and squats upon his hams in
the Eastern way, I had almost said the natural way, but to man, unlike
all other animals, every way is equally natural, the chair or the seat
upon the ground. He accepts a pipe if offered to him, devours what you
set before him--those best acquainted with the savage, however, avoid
all unnecessary civility or generosity: Milesian-like, he considers a
benefit his due, and if withheld, he looks upon his benefactor as a
“mean man”--talks or smokes as long as he pleases, and then rising,
stalks off without a word. His ideas of time are primitive. The hour is
denoted by pointing out the position of the sun; the days, or rather
the nights, are reckoned by sleeps; there are no weeks; the moons,
which are literally new, the old being nibbled away by mice, form the
months, and suns do duty for years. He has, like the Bedouin and the
Esquimaux, sufficient knowledge of the heavenly bodies to steer his
course over the pathless sage-sea. Night-work, however, is no favorite
with him except in cases of absolute necessity. Counting is done upon
man’s first abacus, the fingers, and it rarely extends beyond ten. The
value of an article was formerly determined by beads and buffaloes;
dollars, however, are now beginning to be generally known.
The only arts of the Indians are medicine and the use of arms. They are
great in the knowledge of simples and tisanes. The leaves of the white
willow are the favorite emetic; wounds are dressed with astringent
herbs, and inflammations are reduced by scarification and the actual
cautery. Among some tribes, the hammam, or Turkish bath, is invariably
the appendage to a village. It is an oven sunk in the earth, with
room for about a score of persons, and a domed roof of tamped and
timber-propped earth--often mistaken for a bulge in the ground--pierced
with a little square window for ventilation when not in use. A fire is
kindled in the centre, and the patient, after excluding the air, sits
quietly in this rude calidarium till half roasted and stifled by the
heat and smoke. Finally, like the Russian peasant, he plunges into the
burn that runs hard by, and feels his ailments dropping off him with
the dead cuticle. The Indians associating with the horse have learned a
rude farriery which often succeeds where politer practice would fail.
I heard of one who cured the bites of rattlesnakes and copperheads by
scarifying the wounded beast’s face, plastering the place with damped
gunpowder paste and setting it on fire.
[FIRE-ARMS.--BOWS AND ARROWS.]
Among the Prairie tribes are now to be found individuals provided
not only with the old muskets formerly supplied to them, but with
yägers,[77] Sharp’s breech-loaders, alias “Beecher’s Bibles,” Colt’s
revolvers, and other really good fire-arms. Their shooting has improved
with their tools: many of them are now able to “draw a bead” with
coolness and certainty. Those who can not afford shooting-irons content
themselves with their ancient weapons, the lance and bow. The former
is a poor affair, a mere iron spike from two to three inches long,
inserted into the end of a staff about as thick as a Hindostanee’s
bamboo lance; it is whipped round with sinew for strength, decorated
with a few bunches of gaudy feathers, and defended with the usual
medicine-bag. The bow varies in dimensions with the different tribes.
On the prairies, for convenient use on horseback, it seldom exceeds
three feet in length; among the Southern Indians its size doubles, and
in parts of South America it is like that of the Andamans, a gigantic
weapon with an arrow six feet long, and drawn by bringing the aid of
the feet to the hands. The best bows among the Sioux and Yutas are of
horn, hickory being unprocurable; an inferior sort is made of a reddish
wood, in hue and grain not unlike that called “mountain mahogany.” A
strip of raw-hide is fitted to the back for increase of elasticity,
and the string is a line of twisted sinew. When not wanted for use
the weapon is carried in a skin case slung over the shoulder. It is
drawn with the two forefingers--not with the forefinger and thumb,
as in the East--and generally the third or ring-finger is extended
along the string to give additional purchase. Savage tribes do little
in the way of handicraft, but that little they do patiently, slowly,
and therefore well. The bow and arrow are admirably adapted to their
purpose. The latter is either a reed or a bit of arrow-wood (_Viburnum
dentatum_), whose long, straight, and tough stems are used by the
fletcher from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The piles are triangles
of iron, agate, flint, chalcedony, opal, or other hard stone: for war
purposes they are barbed, and bird-bolts tipped with hard wood are used
for killing small game. Some tribes poison their shafts: the material
is the juice of a buffalo’s or an antelope’s liver when it has become
green and decomposed after the bite of a rattlesnake; at least this
is the account which all the hunters and mountaineers give of it.
They have also, I believe, vegetable poisons. The feathers are three
in number; those preferred are the hawk’s and the raven’s; and some
tribes glue, while others whip them on with tendon-thread. The stele is
invariably indented from the feathers to the tip with a shallow spiral
furrow: this vermiculation is intended, according to the traders, to
hasten death by letting air into or letting blood out of the wound. It
is probably the remnant of some superstition now obsolete, for every
man does it, while no man explains why or wherefore. If the Indian
works well, he does not work quickly; he will expend upon half a dozen
arrows as many months. Each tribe has its own mark; the Pawnees, for
instance, make a bulge below the notch. Individuals also have private
signs which enable them to claim a disputed scalp or buffalo robe. In
battle or chase the arrows are held in the left hand, and are served
out to the right with such rapidity that one long string of them seems
to be cleaving the air. A good Sioux archer will, it is said, discharge
nine arrows upward before the first has fallen to the ground. He will
transfix a bison and find his shaft upon the earth on the other side;
and he shows his dexterity by discharging the arrow up to its middle
in the quarry and by withdrawing it before the animal falls. Tales are
told of a single warrior killing several soldiers; and as a rule, at
short distances, the bow is considered by the whites a more effectual
weapon than the gun. It is related that when the Sioux first felt the
effects of Colt’s revolver, the weapon, after two shots, happened to
slip from the owner’s grasp; when he recovered it and fired a third
time all fled, declaring that a white was shooting them with buffalo
chips. Wonderful tales are told of the Indians’ accuracy with the
bow: they hold it no great feat to put the arrow into a keyhole at
the distance of forty paces. It is true that I never saw any thing
surprising in their performances, but the savage will not take the
trouble to waste his skill without an object.
[77] An antiquated sort of German rifle, formerly used by the federal
troops.
[THE SIOUX LANGUAGE.]
The Sioux tongue, like the Pawnee, is easily learned; government
officials and settlers acquire it as the Anglo-Indian does Hindostanee.
They are assisted by the excellent grammar and dictionary of the
Dakotah language, collated by the members of the Dakotah Mission,
edited by the Rev. S. R. Riggs, M.A., and accepted for publication by
the Smithsonian Institution, December, 1851. The Dakotah-English part
contains about 16,000 words, and the bibliography (spelling-books,
tracts, and translations) numbered ten years ago eighteen small
volumes. The work is compiled in a scholar-like manner. The
orthography, though rather complicated, is intelligible, and is a
great improvement upon the old and unartistic way of writing the
polysynthetic Indian tongues, syllable by syllable, as though they were
monosyllabic Chinese; the superfluous _h_ (as Dakota_h_ for Dakota), by
which the broad sound of the terminal _a_ is denoted, has been justly
cast out. The peculiar letters _ch_, _p_, and _t_, are denoted by a dot
beneath the simple sound; similarly the _k_ (or Arabic _kaf_), the _gh_
(the Semitic _ghain_) and the _kh_ (_khá_), which, as has happened in
Franco-Arabic grammars, was usually expressed by an _R_. An apostrophe
(_s’a_) denotes the hiatus, which is similar to the Arab’s hamzah.
Vater long ago remarked that the only languages which had a character,
if not similar, at any rate analogous to the American, are the
Basque and the Congo, that is, the South African or Kaffir family.
This is the case in many points: in Dakotah, for instance, as in
Kisawahili, almost every word ends in a pure or a nasalized vowel.
But the striking novelty of the African tongues, the inflexion of
words by an initial, not, as with us, by a terminal change and the
complex system of euphony, does not appear in the American, which in
its turn possesses a dual unknown to the African. The Dakotah, like
the Kaffir, has no gender; it uses the personal and impersonal, which
is an older distinction in language. It follows the primitive and
natural arrangement of speech: it says, for instance, “aguyapi maku
ye,” bread to me give; as in Hindostanee, to quote no other, “roti
hamko do.” So in logical argument it begins with the conclusion and
proceeds to the premisses, which renders it difficult for a European
to think in Dakotah. Like other American tongues, it is polysynthetic,
which appears to be the effect of arrested development. Human speech
begins with inorganic sounds, which represent symbolism by means of
arrows pointed in a certain direction, bent trees, crossed rods, and
other similar contrivances. Its first step is monosyllabic, which
corresponds with the pictograph, the earliest attempt at writing among
the uncivilized.[78] The next advance is polysynthesis, which is
apparently built upon monosyllabism, as the idiograph of the Chinese
upon a picture or glyph. The last step is the syllabic and inflected,
corresponding with the Phœnico-Arabian alphabet, which gave rise to
the Greek, the Latin, and their descendants. The complexity of Dakotah
grammar is another illustration of the phenomenon that man in most
things, in language especially, begins with the most difficult and
works on toward the facile. Savages, who have no mental exercise but
the cultivation of speech, and semi-barbarous people, who still retain
the habit, employ complicated and highly elaborate tongues, _e. g._,
Arabic, Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, Kaffir, and Anglo-Saxon. With time
these become more simple; the _modus operandi_ appears to be admixture
of race.
[78] A Kaffir girl wishing to give a hint to a friend of mine drew a
setting sun, a tree, and two figures standing under it; intelligible
enough, yet the Kaffirs ignore a syllabarium.
The Dakotahs have a sacred language, used by medicine-men, and rendered
unintelligible to the vulgar by words borrowed from other Indian
dialects, and by synonyms, _e. g._, biped for man, quadruped for
wolf. A chief, asking for an ox or cow, calls it a dog, and a horse,
moccasins: possibly, like Orientals, he superstitiously avoids direct
mention, and speaks of the object wanted by a humbler name. Poetry is
hardly required in a language so highly figurative: a hi-hi-hi-hi-hi,
occasionally interrupted by a few words, composes their songs. The Rev.
Mr. Pond gives the following specimen of “Blackboy’s” Mourning Song for
his Grandson, addressed to those of Ghostland:
Friend, pause, and look this way;
Friend, pause, and look this way;
Friend, pause, and look this way;
Say ye,
A Grandson of Blackboy is coming.
Their speech is sometimes metaphorical to an extent which conveys an
opposite meaning: “Friend, thou art a fool; thou hast let the Ojibwa
strike thee,” is the highest form of eulogy to a brave who has killed
and scalped a foe; possibly a Malocchio-like fear, the dread of praise,
which, according to Pliny, kills in India, underlies the habit.
The funerals differ in every tribe; the Sioux expose their dead,
wrapped in blankets or buffalo robes, upon tall poles--a custom that
reminds us of the Parsee’s “Tower of Silence.” The Yutas make their
graves high up the kanyons, usually in clefts of rock. Some bury the
dead at full length; others sitting or doubled up; others on horseback,
with a barrow or tumulus of earth heaped up over their remains. The
absence of grave-yards in an Indian country is as remarkable as in the
African interior; thinness of population and the savage’s instinctive
dislike to any _memento mori_ are the causes. After deaths the
“keening” is long, loud, and lasting: the women, and often the men, cut
their hair close, not allowing it to fall below the shoulders, and not
unfrequently gash themselves, and amputate one or more fingers. The
dead man, especiallly a chief, is in almost all tribes provided with a
viaticum, dead or alive, of squaws and boys--generally those taken from
another tribe--horses and dogs; his lodge is burned, his arms, cooking
utensils, saddles, and other accoutrements are buried with him, and a
goodly store of buffalo meat or other provision is placed by his side,
that his ghost may want nothing which it enjoyed in the flesh. Like all
savages, the Indian is unable to separate the idea of man’s immaterial
spirit from man’s material wants: an impalpable and invisible form of
matter--called “spirit” because it is not cognizable to the senses,
which are the only avenues of all knowledge--is as unintelligible
to them as to a Latter-Day Saint, or, indeed, as to the mind of man
generally. Hence the Indian’s smoking and offerings over the graves of
friends. Some tribes mourn on the same day of each moon till grief is
satisfied; others for a week after the death.
[THE INDIAN PANTOMIME.]
A remarkable characteristic of the Prairie Indian is his habit of
speaking, like the deaf and dumb, with his fingers. The pantomime is a
system of signs, some conventional, others instinctive or imitative,
which enables tribes who have no acquaintance with each other’s
customs and tongues to hold limited but sufficient communication.
An interpreter who knows all the signs, which, however, are so
numerous and complicated that to acquire them is the labor of years,
is preferred by the whites even to a good speaker. Some writers, as
Captain H. Stansbury, consider the system purely arbitrary; others,
Captain Marcy, for instance, hold it to be a natural language similar
to the gestures which surd-mutes use spontaneously. Both views are
true, but not wholly true; as the following pages will, I believe,
prove, the pantomimic vocabulary is neither quite conventional nor the
reverse.
The sign-system doubtless arose from the necessity of a communicating
medium between races speaking many different dialects, and debarred
by circumstances from social intercourse. Its area is extensive: it
prevails among many of the Prairie tribes, as the Hapsaroke, or Crows,
the Dakotah, the Cheyenne, and the Shoshonee; the Pawnees, Yutas, and
Shoshoko, or Diggers, being vagrants and outcasts, have lost or never
had the habit. Those natives who, like the Arapahoes, possess a very
scanty vocabulary, pronounced in a quasi-unintelligible way, can hardly
converse with one another in the dark: to make a stranger understand
them they must always repair to the camp fire for “powwow.” A story is
told of a man who, being sent among the Cheyennes to qualify himself
for interpreting, returned in a week, and proved his competence: all
that he did, however, was to go through the usual pantomime with a
running accompaniment of grunts. I have attempted to describe a few
of the simpler signs: the reader, however, will readily perceive that
without diagrams the explanation is very imperfect, and that in half an
hour, with an Indian or an interpreter, he would learn more than by a
hundred pages of print.
The first lesson is to distinguish the signs of the different tribes,
and it will be observed that the French voyageurs and traders have
often named the Indian nations from their totemic or masonic gestures.
The Pawnees (Les Loups) imitate a wolf’s ears with the two
forefingers--the right hand is always understood unless otherwise
specified[79]--extended together, upright, on the left side of the head.
[79] The left, as a rule, denotes inversion or contradiction.
The Arapahoes, or Dirty Noses, rub the right side of that organ with
the forefinger: some call this bad tribe the Smellers, and make their
sign to consist of seizing the nose with the thumb and forefinger.
The Comanches (Les Serpents) imitate, by the waving of the hand or
forefinger, the forward crawling motion of a snake.
The Cheyennes, Paikanavos, or Cut-Wrists, draw the lower edge of the
hand across the left arm as if gashing it with a knife.
The Sioux (Les Coupe-gorges), by drawing the lower edge of the hand
across the throat: it is a gesture not unknown to us, but forms a truly
ominous salutation considering those by whom it is practiced; hence the
Sioux are called by the Yutas Pámpe Chyimina, or Hand-cutters.
The Hapsaroke (Les Corbeaux), by imitating the flapping of the birds’
wings with the two hands--palms downward--brought close to the
shoulders.
The Kiowas, or Prairie-men, make the signs of the prairie and of
drinking water. These will presently be described.
The Yutas, “they who live on mountains,” have a complicated sign which
denotes “living in mountains;” these will be explained under “sit” and
“mountains.”
The Blackfeet, called by the Yutas Paike or Goers, pass the right hand,
bent spoon-fashion, from the heel to the little toe of the right foot.
The following are a few preliminaries indispensable to the prairie
traveler:
_Halt!_--Raise the hand, with the palm in front, and push it backward
and forward several times--a gesture well known in the East.
_I don’t know you!_--Move the raised hand, with the palm in front,
slowly to the right and left.
_I am angry!_--Close the fist, place it against the forehead, and
turn it to and fro in that position.
_Are you friendly?_--Raise both hands, grasped, as if in the act of
shaking hands, or lock the two forefingers together while the hands
are raised.
These signs will be found useful upon the prairie in case of meeting a
suspected band. The Indians, like the Bedouin and N. African Moslem,
do honor to strangers and guests by putting their horses to speed,
couching their lances, and other peculiarities which would readily be
dispensed with by gentlemen of peaceful pursuits and shaky nerves. If
friendly, the band will halt when the hint is given and return the
salute; if surly, they will disregard the command to stop, and probably
will make the sign of anger. Then--ware scalp!
_Come!_--Beckon with the forefinger, as in Europe, not as is done in
the East.
_Come back!_--Beckon in the European way, and draw the forefinger
toward yourself.
_Go!_--Move both hands edgeways (the palms fronting the breast)
toward the left with a rocking-horse motion.
_Sit!_--Make a motion toward the ground, as if to pound it with the
ferient of the closed hand.
_Lie down!_--Point to the ground, and make a motion as if of lying
down.
_Sleep!_--Ditto, closing the eyes.
_Look!_--Touch the right eye with the index and point it outward.
_Hear!_--Tap the right ear with the index tip.
Colors are expressed by a comparison with some object in sight. Many
things, as the blowing of wind, the cries of beasts and birds, and the
roaring of the sea, are imitated by sound.
_See!_--Strike out the two forefingers forward from the eyes.
_Smell!_--Touch the nose-tip. A bad smell is expressed by the same
sign, ejaculating at the same time “Pooh!” and making the sign of bad.
_Taste!_--Touch the tongue-tip.
_Eat!_--Imitate the action of conveying food with the fingers to the
mouth.
_Drink!_--Scoop up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth.
_Smoke!_--With the crooked index describe a pipe in the air,
beginning at the lips; then wave the open hand from the mouth to
imitate curls of smoke.
_Speak!_--Extend the open hand from the chin.
_Fight!_--Make a motion with both fists to and fro, like a pugilist
of the eighteenth century who preferred a high guard.
_Kill!_--Smite the sinister palm earthward with the dexter fist
sharply, in sign of “going down;” or strike out with the dexter fist
toward the ground, meaning to “shut down;” or pass the dexter index
under the left forefinger, meaning to “go under.”
To show that fighting is actually taking place, make the gestures as
above described; tap the lips with the palm like an Oriental woman when
“keening,” screaming the while O-a! O-a! to imitate the war-song.
_Wash!_--Rub the hand as with invisible soap in imperceptible water.
_Think!_--Pass the forefinger sharply across the breast from right to
left.
_Hide!_--Place the hand inside the clothing of the left breast. This
means also to put away or to keep secret. To express “I won’t say,”
make the signs of “I” and “no” (which see), and hide the hand as
above directed.
_Love!_--Fold the hands crosswise over the breast, as if embracing
the object, assuming at the same time a look expressing the desire
to carry out the operation. This gesture will be understood by the
dullest squaw.
_Tell truth!_--Extend the forefinger from the mouth (“one word”).
_Tell lie!_--Extend the two first fingers from the mouth (“double
tongue,” a significant gesture).
_Steal!_--Seize an imaginary object with the right hand from under
the left fist. To express horse-stealing they saw with the right
hand down upon the extended fingers of the left, thereby denoting
rope-cutting.
_Trade or exchange!_--Cross the forefingers of both hands before the
breast--“diamond cut diamond.”
This sign also denotes the Americans, and, indeed, any white men, who
are generically called by the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains
“Shwop,” from our swap or swop, an English Romany word for barter or
exchange.
The pronouns are expressed by pointing to the person designated. For
“I,” touch the nose-tip, or otherwise indicate self with the index. The
second and third persons are similarly made known.
Every animal has its precise sign, and the choice of gesture is
sometimes very ingenious. If the symbol be not known, the form may
be drawn on the ground, and the strong perceptive faculties of the
savage enable him easily to recognize even rough draughts. A cow or a
sheep denotes white men, as if they were their totems. The Indian’s
high development of locality also enables him to map the features of
a country readily and correctly upon the sand. Moreover, almost every
grand feature has a highly significant name, Flintwater, for instance,
and nothing is easier than to combine the signs.
The _bear_ is expressed by passing the hand before the face to mean
ugliness, at the same time grinning and extending the fingers like
claws.
The _buffalo_ is known by raising the forefingers crooked inward, in
the semblance of horns on both sides of the head.
The _elk_ is signified by simultaneously raising both hands with the
fingers extended on both sides of the head to imitate palmated horns.
For the _deer_, extend the thumbs and the two forefingers of each hand
on each side of the head.
For the _antelope_, extend the thumbs and forefingers along the sides
of the head, to simulate ears and horns.
_Mountain sheep_ are denoted by placing the hands on a level with the
ears, the palms facing backward and the fingers slightly reversed, to
imitate the ammonite-shaped horns.
For the _beaver_, describe a parenthesis, _e. g._ ( ), with the thumb
and index of both hands, and then with the dexter index imitate the
wagging of the tail.
The _dog_ is shown by drawing the two forefingers slightly opened
horizontally across the breast from right to left. This is a highly,
appropriate and traditional gesture: before the introduction of horses,
the dog was taught to carry the tent poles, and the motion expressed
the lodge trail.
To denote the _mule_ or _ass_, the long ears are imitated by the
indices on both sides and above the head.
For the _crow_, and, indeed, any bird, the hands are flapped near
the shoulders. If specification be required, the cry is imitated or
some peculiarity is introduced. The following will show the ingenuity
with which the Indian can convey his meaning under difficulties. A
Yuta wishing to explain that the torpedo or gymnotus eel is found in
Cotton-wood Kanyon Lake, took to it thus: he made the body by extending
his sinister index to the fore, touched it with the dexter index at two
points on both sides to show legs, and finally sharply withdrew his
right forefinger to convey the idea of an electric shock.
Some of the symbols of relationship are highly appropriate, and not
ungraceful or unpicturesque. Man is denoted by a sign which will not
admit of description; woman, by passing the hand down both sides of
the head as if smoothing or stroking the long hair. A son or daughter
is expressed by making with the hand a movement denoting issue from
the loins: if the child be small, a bit of the index held between the
antagonized thumb and medius is shown. The same sign of issue expresses
both parents, with additional explanations: To say, for instance,
“_my mother_,” you would first pantomime “_I_,” or, which is the same
thing, “_my_;” then “_woman_;” and, finally, the symbol of parentage.
“_My grandmother_” would be conveyed in the same way, adding to the
end clasped hands, closed eyes, and like an old woman’s bent back. The
sign for brother and sister is perhaps the prettiest: the two first
finger-tips are put into the mouth, denoting that they fed from the
same breast. For the wife--squaw is now becoming a word of reproach
among the Indians--the dexter forefinger is passed between the extended
thumb and index of the left.
Of course there is a sign for every weapon. The _knife_--scalp or
other--is shown by cutting the sinister palm with the dexter ferient
downward and toward one’s self: if the cuts be made upward with the
palm downward, meat is understood. The _tomahawk_, hatchet, or axe is
denoted by chopping the left hand with the right; the _sword_ by the
motion of drawing it; the _bow_ by the movement of bending it; and a
_spear_ or _lance_ by an imitation of darting it. For the _gun_, the
dexter thumb and fingers are flashed or scattered, _i. e._, thrown
outward or upward to denote fire. The same movement made lower down
expresses a _pistol_. The _arrow_ is expressed by nocking it upon
an imaginary bow, and by “snapping” with the index and medius. The
_shield_ is shown by pointing with the index over the left shoulder,
where it is slung ready to be brought over the breast when required.
The following are the most useful words:
_Yes._--Wave the hands straight forward from the face.
_No._--Wave the hand from right to left, as if motioning away. This
sign also means “I’ll have nothing to do with you.” Done slowly and
insinuatingly, it informs a woman that she is _charmante_--“not to be
touched” being the idea.
_Good._--Wave the hand from the mouth, extending the thumb from the
index and closing the other three fingers. This sign means also “I
know.” “I don’t know” is expressed by waving the right hand with the
palm outward before the right breast, or by moving about the two
forefingers before the breast, meaning “two hearts.”
_Bad._--Scatter the dexter fingers outward, as if spirting away water
from them.
_Now_ (_at once_).--Clap both palms together sharply and repeatedly,
or make the sign of “to-day.”
_Day._--Make a circle with the thumb and forefinger of both, in sign
of the sun. The _hour_ is pointed out by showing the luminary’s place
in the heavens. The _moon_ is expressed by a crescent with the thumb
and forefinger: this also denotes a month. For a _year_ give the sign
of rain or snow.
Many Indians ignore the quadripartite division of the seasons,
which seems to be an invention of European latitudes; the Persians,
for instance, know it, but the Hindoos do not. They have, however,
distinct terms for the month, all of which are pretty and descriptive,
appropriate and poetical; _e. g._, the moon of light nights, the moon
of leaves, the moon of strawberries, for April, May, and June. The
Ojibwa have a queer quaternal division, called Of sap, Of abundance, Of
fading, and Of freezing. The Dakotah reckon five moons to winter and
five to summer, leaving one to spring and one to autumn; the year is
lunar, and as the change of season is denoted by the appearance of sore
eyes and of raccoons, any irregularity throws the people out.
_Night._--Make a closing movement as if of the darkness by bringing
together both hands with the dorsa upward and the fingers to the
fore: the motion is from right to left, and at the end the two
indices are alongside and close to each other. This movement must be
accompanied by bending forward with bowed head, otherwise it may be
misunderstood for the freezing over of a lake or river.
_To-day._--Touch the nose with the index tip, and motion with the
fist toward the ground.
_Yesterday._--Make with the left hand the circle which the sun
describes from sunrise to sunset, or invert the direction from sunset
to sunrise with the right hand.
_To-morrow._--Describe the motion of the sun from east to west. Any
number of days may be counted upon the fingers. The latter, I need
hardly say, are the only numerals in the pantomimic vocabulary.
Among the Dakotahs, when they have gone over the fingers and thumbs
of both hands, one is temporarily turned down for one ten; at the end
of another ten a second finger is turned down, and so on, as among
children who are learning to count. “Opawinge,” one hundred, is derived
from “pawinga,” to go round in circles, as the fingers have all been
gone over again for their respective tens; “kektopawinge” is from “ake”
and “opawinge”--“hundred again”--being about to recommence the circle
of their fingers already completed in hundreds. For numerals above a
thousand there is no method of computing. There is a sign and word for
one half of a thing, but none to denote any smaller aliquot part.
_Peace._--Intertwine the fingers of both hands.
_Friendship._--Clasp the left with the right hand.
_Glad_ (_pleased_).--Wave the open hand outward from the breast, to
express “good heart.”
_A Cup._--Imitate its form with both hands, and make the sign of
drinking from it. In this way any utensil can be intelligibly
described--of course, provided that the interlocutor has seen it.
_Paint._--Daub both the cheeks downward with the index.
_Looking-glass._--Place both palms before the face, and admire your
countenance in them.
_Bead._--Point to a bead, or make the sign of a necklace.
_Wire._--Show it, or where it ought to be, in the ear-lobe.
_Whisky._--Make the sign of “bad” and “drink” for “bad water.”
_Blanket or Clothes._--Put them on in pantomime.
_A Lodge._--Place the fingers of both hands ridge-fashion before the
breast.
_Fire._--Blow it, and warm the hands before it. To express the
boiling of a kettle, the sign of fire is made low down, and an
imaginary pot is eaten from.
_It is cold._--Wrap up, shudder, and look disagreeable.
_Rain._--Scatter the fingers downward. The same sign denotes snow.
_Wind._--Stretch the fingers of both hands outward, puffing violently
the while.
_A Storm._--Make the rain sign; then, if thunder and lightning are to
be expressed, move, as if in anger, the body to and fro, to show the
wrath of the elements.
_A Stone._--If light, act as if picking it up; if heavy, as if
dropping it.
_A Hill._--Close the finger-tips over the head: if a mountain is to
be expressed, raise them high. To denote an ascent on rising ground,
pass the right palm over the left hand, half doubling up the latter,
so that it looks like a ridge.
_A Plain._--Wave both the palms outward and low down.
_A River._--Make the sign of drinking, and then wave both the palms
outward. A rivulet, creek, or stream is shown by the drinking sign,
and by holding the index tip between the thumb and medius; an arroyo
(dry water-course), by covering up the tip with the thumb and middle
finger.
_A Lake._--Make the sign of drinking, and form a basin with both
hands. If a large body of water is in question, wave both palms
outward as in denoting a plain. The Prairie savages have never seen
the sea, so it would be vain to attempt explanation.
_A Book._--Place the right palm on the left palm, and then open both
before the face.
_A Letter._--Write with the thumb and dexter index on the sinister
palm.
_A Wagon._--Roll hand over hand, imitating a wheel.
_A Wagon-road._--Make the wagon sign, and then wave the hand along
the ground.
_Grass._--Point to the ground with the index, and then turn the
fingers upward to denote growth. If the grass be long, raise the hand
high; and if yellow, point out that color.
The pantomime, as may be seen, is capable of expressing detailed
narratives. For instance, supposing an Indian would tell the following
tale--“Early this morning I mounted my horse, rode off at a gallop,
traversed a kanyon or ravine, then over a mountain to a plain where
there was no water, sighted bison, followed them, killed three of them,
skinned them, packed the flesh upon my pony, remounted, and returned
home”--he would symbolize it thus:
Touches nose--“_I_.”
Opens out the palms of his hand--“_this morning_.”
Points to east--“_early_.”
Places two dexter forefingers astraddle over sinister
index--“_mounted my horse_.”
Moves both hands upward and rocking-horse fashion toward the
left--“_galloped_.”
Passes the dexter hand right through thumb and forefinger of the
sinister, which are widely extended--“_traversed a kanyon_.”
Closes the finger-tips high over the head, and waves both palms
outward--“_over a mountain to a plain_.”
Scoops up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth, and then
waves the hand from the face to denote “no”--“_where there was no
water_.”
Touches eye--“_sighted_.”
Raises the forefingers crooked inward on both sides of the
head--“_bison_.”
Smites the sinister palm downward with the dexter fist--“_killed_.”
Shows three fingers--“_three of them_.”
Scrapes the left palm with the edge of the right hand--“_skinned
them_.”
Places the dexter on the sinister palm, and then the dexter palm on
the sinister dorsum--“_packed the flesh upon my pony_.”
Straddles the two forefingers on the index of the
left--“_remounted_;” and, finally,
Beckons toward self--“_returned home_.”
To conclude, I can hardly flatter myself that these descriptions have
been made quite intelligible to the reader. They may, however, serve
to prepare his mind for a _vivâ voce_ lesson upon the prairies, should
fate have such thing in store for him.
After this digression I return to my prosaic Diary.
CHAPTER III.
Concluding the Route to the Great Salt Lake City.
[SUNRISE.]
_Along the Black Hills to Box-Elder. 15th August._
I arose “between two days,” a little before 4 A.M., and watched the
dawn, and found in its beauties a soothing influence, which acted upon
stiff limbs and discontented spirit as if it had been a spell.
The stars of the Great Bear--the prairie night-clock--first began
to pale without any seeming cause, till presently a faint streak of
pale light--_dum i gurg_, or the wolf’s tail, as it is called by the
Persian--began to shimmer upon the eastern verge of heaven. It grew
and grew through the dark blue air: one unaccustomed to the study
of the “gray-eyed morn” would have expected it to usher in the day,
when, gradually as it had struggled into existence, it faded, and a
deeper darkness than before once more invaded the infinitude above.
But now the unrisen sun is more rapidly climbing the gloomy walls of
Koh i Kaf--the mountain rim which encircles the world, and through
whose lower gap the false dawn had found its way--preceded by a warm
flush of light, which chases the shades till, though loth to depart,
they find neither on earth nor in the firmament a place where they
can linger. Warmer and warmer waxes the heavenly radiance, gliding
up to the keystone of the vault above; fainter and fainter grows
the darkness, till the last stain disappears behind the Black Hills
to the west, and the stars one by one, like glow-worms, “pale their
ineffectual fires”--the “Pointers” are the longest to resist--retreat
backward, as it were, and fade away into endless space. Slowly, almost
imperceptibly, the marvelous hues of “glorious morn,” here truly a
fresh “birth of heaven and earth,” all gold and sapphire, acquire depth
and distinctness, till at last a fiery flush ushers from beneath the
horizon the source of all these splendors,
“Robed in flames and amber light;”
and another day, with its little life of joys and sorrows, of hopes and
fears, is born to the world.
Though we all rose up early, packed, and were ready to proceed, there
was an unusual _vis inertiæ_ on the part of the driver: Indians were
about; the mules, of course, had bolted; but that did not suffice as
explanation. Presently the “wonder leaked out:” our companions were
transferred from their comfortable vehicle to a real “shandridan,” a
Rocky-Mountain bone-setter. They were civil enough to the exceedingly
drunken youth--a runaway New Yorker--who did us the honor of driving
us; for _quand on a besoin du diable on lui dit, “Monsieur.”_ One
can not expect, however, the _diable_ to be equally civil: when we
asked him to tidy our vehicle a little, he simply replied that he’d
be darned if he did. Long may be the darning-needle and sharp to him!
But tempers seriously soured must blow up or burst, and a very pretty
little quarrel was the result: it was settled bloodlessly, because one
gentleman, who, to do him justice, showed every disposition to convert
himself into a target, displayed such perfect unacquaintance with the
weapons--revolvers--usually used on similar occasions, that it would
have been mere murder to have taken pistol in hand against him.
As we sat very disconsolate in the open veranda, five Indians stalked
in, and the biggest and burliest of the party, a middle-aged man, with
the long, straight Indian hair, high, harsh features, and face bald
of eyebrows and beard, after offering his paw to Mrs. Dana and the
rest of the party, sat down with a manner of natural dignity somewhat
trenching upon the impertinent. Presently, diving his hand into his
breast, the old rat pulled out a thick fold of leather, and, after much
manipulation, disclosed a dirty brown, ragged-edged sheet of paper,
certifying him to be “Little Thunder,” and signed by “General Harney.”
This, then, was the chief who showed the white feather at Ash Hollow,
and of whom some military poet sang:
“We didn’t make a blunder,
We rubbed out Little Thunder,
And we sent him to the other side of Jordan.”
Little Thunder did not look quite rubbed out; but for poesy fiction
is, of course, an element far more appropriate than fact. I remember a
similar effusion of the Anglo-Indian muse, which consigned “Akbar Khan
the Yaghi” to the tune and fate of the King of the Cannibal Isles, with
a contempt of actualities quite as refreshing. The Western Indians are
as fond of these testimonials as the East Indians: they preserve them
with care as guarantees of their good conduct, and sometimes, as may
be expected, carry about certificates in the style of Bellerophons’
letters. Little Thunder was _en route_ to Fort Laramie, where he
intended to lay a complaint against the Indian agent, who embezzled, he
said, half the rations and presents intended for his tribe. Even the
whites owned that the “Maje’s” bear got more sugar than all the Indians
put together.
[THE INDIAN DEPARTMENT.]
Nothing can be worse, if the _vox populi occidentalis_ be taken as
the _vox Dei_, than the modern management of the Indian Bureau at
Washington. In former times the agencies were in the hands of the
military authorities, and the officer commanding the department
was responsible for malversation of office. This was found to work
well; the papers signed were signed on honor. But in the United
States, the federal army, though well paid, is never allowed to keep
any appointment that can safely be taken away from it. The Indian
Department is now divided into six superintendencies, viz., Northern,
Central, Southern, Utah, New Mexico, Washington and Oregon Territories,
who report to the Indian Office or Bureau of the Commissioners of
Indian Affairs at Washington, under the charge of the Department of the
Interior. The bond varies from $50,000 to $75,000, and the salary from
$2000 to $2500 per annum. The northern superintendency contains four
agencies, the central fourteen, the southern five, the Utah three, New
Mexico six, and the miscellaneous, including Washington, eight. The
grand total of agents, including two specials for Indians in Texas,
is forty-two. Their bond is between $5000 and $75,000, and the salary
between $1000 and $1550. There are also various sub-agencies, with
pay of $1000 each, and giving in bonds $2000. There ought to be no
perquisites; an unscrupulous man, however, finds many opportunities
of making free with the presents; and the reflection that his office
tenure shall expire after the fourth year must make him but the more
reckless. As fifty or sixty appointments = 50 or 60 votes, × 20 in
President electioneering, fitness for the task often becomes quite
a subordinate consideration; the result is, necessarily, peculation
producing discontent among the Indians, and the finale, death to the
whites. To become a good Indian agent, a man requires the variety of
qualifications which would fit him for the guardianship of children,
experience and ability, benevolence and philanthropy: it would be
difficult to secure such phœnix for $200 per annum, and it is found
easier not to look for it. The remedy of these evils is not far from
the surface--the restoration of the office into the hands of the
responsible military servant of the state, who would keep it _quamdiu
se benè gesserit_, and become better capable of serving his masters,
the American people, by the importance which the office would give him
in the eyes of his _protégés_. This is the system of the French Bureau
Arabe, which, with its faults, I love still. But the political mind
would doubtless determine the cure to be worse than the disease. After
venting his grievances, Little Thunder arose, and, accompanied by his
braves, remounted and rode off toward the east.
While delayed by the mules and their masters, we may amuse ourselves
and divert our thoughts from the battle, and, perhaps, murder and
sudden death, which may happen this evening, by studying the geography
of the Black Hills. The range forms nearly a right angle, the larger
limb--ninety miles--running east to west with a little southing along
the Platte, the shorter leg--sixty miles--trending from north to south
with a few degrees of easting and westing. Forming the easternmost
part of the great trans-Mississippian mountain region, in the 44th
parallel and between the 103d and 105th meridians, these masses cover
an area of 6000 square miles. They are supposed to have received their
last violent upheaval at the close of the cretaceous period; their
bases are elevated from 2500 to 3500 feet--the highest peaks attaining
6700 feet--above river level, while their eastern is from 2000 to 3000
feet below the western foundation. Their materials, as determined
by Lieutenant Warren’s exploration, are successively metamorphosed
azoic rock, including granite, lower Silurian (Potsdam sandstone),
Devonian (?), carboniferous, Permian, Jurassic, and cretaceous. Like
Ida, they are abundant in springs and flowing streams, which shed
mainly to the northeast and the southeast, supplying the Indians with
trout and salmon trout, catfish (_Prinelodus_), and pickerel. They
abound in small rich valleys, well grown with grass, and wild fruits,
choke-cherries (_P. Virginiana_), currants, sand-buttes fruit (_C.
pumila?_), and buffalo berries (_Shepherdia argentea_, or grains de
bœuf). When irrigated, the bottoms are capable of high cultivation.
They excel in fine timber for fuel and lumber, covering an area of
1500 square miles; in carboniferous rock of the true coal measures;
and in other good building material. As in most of the hill ranges
which are offsets from the Rocky Mountains, they contain gold in
valuable quantities, and doubtless a minute examination will lead
to the discovery of many other useful minerals. The Black Hills are
appropriately named: a cloak of gloomy forest, pine and juniper,
apparently springing from a rock denuded of less hardy vegetation,
seems to invest them from head to foot. The Laramie Hills are
sub-ranges of the higher ridge, and the well-known peak, the Pharos of
the prairie mariner, rises about 1° due west of Fort Laramie to the
height of 6500 feet above sea level. Beyond the meridian of Laramie
the country totally changes. The broad prairie lands, unencumbered by
timber, and covered with a rich pasturage, which highly adapts them
for grazing, are now left behind. We are about to enter a dry, sandy,
and sterile waste of sage, and presently of salt, where rare spots are
fitted for rearing stock, and this formation will continue till we
reach the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.
[LA BONTÉ.]
At length, the mules coming about 10 45 A.M., we hitched up, and,
nothing loth, bade adieu to Horseshoe Creek and the “ladies.” The
driver sentimentally informed us that we were to see no more specimens
of ladyhood for many days--gladdest tidings to one of the party, at
least. The road, which ran out of sight of the river, was broken and
jagged; a little labor would have made it tolerable, but what could the
good pastor of Oberlin do with a folk whose only thought in life is
dram-drinking, tobacco-chewing, trading, and swapping?[80] The country
was cut with creeks and arroyos, which separated the several bulges of
ground, and the earth’s surface was of a dull brick-dust red, thinly
scrubbed over with coarse grass, ragged sage, and shrublets fit only
for the fire. After a desolate drive, we sighted below us the creek
La Bonté--so called from a French _voyageur_--green and bisected by a
clear mountain stream whose banks were thick with self-planted trees.
In the labyrinth of paths we chose the wrong one: presently we came
to a sheer descent of four or five feet, and after deliberation as to
whether the vehicle would “take it” or not, we came to the conclusion
that we had better turn the restive mules to the right-about. Then,
cheered by the sight of our consort, the other wagon, which stood
temptingly shaded by the grove of cotton-wood, willows, box elder
(_Negundo aceroides_), and wild cherry, at the distance of about half
a mile, we sought manfully the right track, and the way in which the
driver charged the minor obstacles was “a caution to mules.” We ought
to have arrived at 2 45 P.M.; we were about an hour later. The station
had yet to be built; the whole road was in a transition state at the
time of our travel; there was, however, a new corral for “forting”
against Indians, and a kind of leafy arbor, which the officials had
converted into a “cottage near a wood.”
[80] The civilized Anglo-Americans are far more severe upon their
half-barbarous brethren than any stranger; to witness, the following:
A Hoosier (native of Indiana) was called upon the stand, away out
West, to testify to the character of a brother Hoosier. It was as
follows:
“How long have you known Bill Bushwhack?”
“Ever since he war born.”
“What is his general character?”
“Letter A, No. 1--’bove par a very great way.”
“Would you believe him on oath?”
“Yes, Sir-ee, on or off, or any other way.”
“What is your opinion on his qualifications to good conduct?”
“He’s the best shot on the prairies or in the woods; he can shave the
eye-bristles off a wolf as far as a shootin’-iron’ll carry a ball;
he can drink a quart of grog any day, and he chaws tobacker like a
horse.”
So Bill Bushwhack passed muster.--_N. Y. Spirit of the Times._
[THE RED REGION.]
A little after 4 P.M. we forded the creek painfully with our new
cattle--three rats and a slug. The latter was pronounced by our driver,
when he condescended to use other language than anathemata, “the
meanest cuss he ever seed.” We were careful, however, to supply him at
the shortest intervals with whisky-drams, which stimulated him, after
breaking his whip, to perform a tattoo with clods and stones, kicks and
stamps, upon the recreant animals’ haunches, and by virtue of these
we accomplished our twenty-five miles in tolerable time. For want of
other pleasantries to contemplate, we busied ourselves in admiring
the regularity and accuracy with which our consort wagon secured for
herself all the best teams. The land was a red waste, such as travelers
find in Eastern Africa, which after rains sheds streams like blood.
The soil was a decomposition of ferruginous rock, here broken with
rugged hills, precipices of ruddy sandstone 200 feet high, shaded or
dotted with black-green cedars, there cumbered by huge boulders; the
ravine-like water-courses which cut the road showed that after heavy
rains a net-work of torrents must add to the pleasures of traveling,
and the vegetation was reduced to the dull green artemisia, the azalia,
and the jaundiced potentilla. After six miles we saw on the left of
the path a huge natural pile or burrow of primitive boulders, about 200
feet high, and called “Brigham’s Peak,” because, according to Jehu’s
whiskyfied story, the prophet, revelator, and seer of the Latter-Day
Saints had there, in 1857 (!), pronounced a 4th of July oration in the
presence of 200 or 300 fair devotees.
Presently we emerged from the red region into the normal brown clay,
garnished with sage as moors are with heather, over a road which might
have suggested the nursery rhyme,
“Here we go up, up, up,
There we go down, down, down.”
At last it improved, and once more, as if we never were to leave it,
we fell into the Valley of the Platte. About eight miles from our
destination we crossed the sandy bed of the La Prêle River, an arroyo
of twenty feet wide, which, like its brethren, brims in spring with
its freight of melted snow. In the clear shade of evening we traversed
the “timber,” or well-wooded lands lying upon Box-Elder Creek--a
beautiful little stream some eight feet broad, and at 9 P.M. arrived
at the station. The master, Mr. Wheeler, was exceptionably civil and
communicative; he lent us buffalo robes for the night, and sent us to
bed after the best supper the house could afford. We were not, however,
to be balked of our proper pleasure, a “good grumble,” so we hooked it
on to another peg. One of the road-agents had just arrived from Great
Salt Lake City in a neat private ambulance after a journey of three
days, while we could hardly expect to make it under treble that time.
It was agreed on all sides that such conduct was outrageous; that
Messrs. Russell and Co. amply deserved to have their contract taken
from them, and--on these occasions your citizen looks portentous, and
deals darkly in threatenings, as if his single vote could shake the
spheres--we came to a mutual understanding that _that_ firm should
never enjoy our countenance or support. We were unanimous; all, even
the mortal quarrel, was “made up” in the presence of the general foe,
the Mail Company. Briefly we retired to rest, a miserable Public, and,
soothed by the rough lullaby of the coyote, whose shrieks and screams
perfectly reproduced the Indian jackal, we passed into the world of
dreams.
_To Platte Bridge. August 16th._
[CLIMATE.]
At 8 30 A.M. we were once more under way along the valley of Father
Platte, whose physiognomy had now notably changed for the better.
Instead of the dull, dark, silent stream of the lower course, whose
muddy monotonous aspect made it a grievance to behold, we descried with
astonishment a bright little river, hardly a hundred yards wide--one’s
ideas of potamology are enlarged with a witness by American travel! a
mirrory surface, and waters clear and limpid as the ether above them.
The limestones and marls which destroy the beauty of the Lower Platte
do not extend to the upper course. The climate now became truly
delicious. The height above sea-level--5000 feet--subjects the land to
the wholesome action of gentle winds, which, about 10-11 A.M., when
the earth has had time to air, set in regularly as the sea-breezes
of tropical climes, and temper the keen shine of day. These higher
grounds, where the soil is barren rather for want of water than from
the character of its constituents, are undoubtedly the healthiest part
of the plains: no noxious malaria is evolved from the sparse growth of
tree and shrub upon the banks of the river; and beyond them the plague
of brûlés (sand-flies) and musquetoes is unknown; the narrowness of
the bed also prevents the shrinking of the stream in autumn, at which
season the Lower Platte exposes two broad margins of black infected
mire. The three great elements of unhealthiness, heavy and clammy
dews, moisture exhaled from the earth’s surface, and the overcrowding
of population--which appears to generate as many artificial diseases
as artificial wants--are here unknown: the soil is never turned up,
and even if it were, it probably would not have the deleterious effect
which climatologists have remarked in the damp hot regions near the
equator. The formation of the land begins to change from the tertiary
and cretaceous to the primary--granites and porphyries--warning us that
we are approaching the Rocky Mountains.
[THE FIRST MORMONS.]
On the road we saw for the first time a train of Mormon wagons,
twenty-four in number, slowly wending their way toward the Promised
Land. The “Captain”--those who fill the dignified office of guides are
so designated, and once a captain always a captain is the Far Western
rule--was young Brigham Young, a nephew of the Prophet; a _blondin_,
with yellow hair and beard, an intelligent countenance, a six-shooter
by his right, and a bowie-knife by his left side. It was impossible
to mistake, even through the veil of freckles and sun-burn with which
a two months’ journey had invested them, the nationality of the
emigrants; “British-English” was written in capital letters upon the
white eyelashes and tow-colored curls of the children, and upon the
sandy brown hair and staring eyes, heavy bodies, and ample extremities
of the adults. One young person concealed her facial attractions under
a manner of mask. I thought that perhaps she might be a sultana,
reserved for the establishment of some very magnificent Mormon bashaw;
but the driver, when appealed to, responded with contempt, “’Guess old
Briggy wont stampede many o’ that ’ere lot!” Though thus homely in
appearance, few showed any symptoms of sickness or starvation; in fact,
their condition first impressed us most favorably with the excellence
of the Perpetual Emigration Funds’ traveling arrangements.
The Mormons who can afford such luxury generally purchase for the
transit of the plains an emigrant’s wagon, which in the West seldom
costs more than $185. They take a full week before well _en route_,
and endeavor to leave the Mississippi in early May, when “long forage”
is plentiful upon the prairies. Those prospecting parties who are bound
for California set out in March or April, feeding their animals with
grain till the new grass appears; after November the road over the
Sierra Nevada being almost impassable to way-worn oxen. The ground in
the low parts of the Mississippi Valley becomes heavy and muddy after
the first spring rains, and by starting in good time the worst parts of
the country will be passed before the travel becomes very laborious.
Moreover, grass soon disappears from the higher and less productive
tracts; between Scott’s Bluffs and Great Salt Lake City we were seldom
out of sight of starved cattle, and on one spot I counted fifteen
skeletons. Travelers, however, should not push forward early, unless
their animals are in good condition and are well supplied with grain;
the last year’s grass is not quite useless, but cattle can not thrive
upon it as they will upon the grammas, festucas, and buffalo clover
(_Trifolium reflexum_) of Utah and New Mexico. The journey between St.
Jo and the Mormon capital usually occupies from two to three months.
The Latter-Day Saints march with a quasi-military organization. Other
emigrants form companies of fifty to seventy armed men--a single
wagon would be in imminent danger from rascals like the Pawnees,
who, though fonder of bullying than of fighting, are ever ready to
cut off a straggler--elect their “Cap.,” who holds the office only
during good conduct, sign and seal themselves to certain obligations,
and bind themselves to stated penalties in case of disobedience or
defection. The “Prairie Traveler” strongly recommends this systematic
organization, without which, indeed, no expedition, whether emigrant,
commercial, or exploratory, ought ever or in any part of the world
to begin its labors; justly observing that, without it, discords and
dissensions sooner or later arise which invariably result in breaking
up the company.
[MORMON OUTFIT.]
In this train I looked to no purpose for the hand-carts with which the
poorer Saints add to the toils of earthly travel a semi-devotional work
of supererogation expected to win a proportionate reward in heaven.[81]
[81] The following estimate of outfit was given to me by a Mormon
elder, who has frequently traveled over the Utah route. He was
accompanied by his wife, and family, and help--six persons in total;
and having money to spare, he invested it in a speculation which
could hardly fail at least to quadruple his outlay at the end of
the march: the stove, for instance, bought at $28, would sell for
$80 to $120. The experienced emigrant, it may be observed, carries
with him a little of every thing that may or might be wanted, such
as provisions, clothing, furniture, drugs, lint, stationery, spices,
ammunition, and so forth; above all things, he looks to his weapons
as likely to be, at a pinch, his best friends:
2 yokes oxen at $180 to $200 00
1 cow (milch) 25 00
1 wagon 87 30
1 double cover 8 50
2 ox yokes 8 00
1 ox chain 1 50
1 tar-bucket 1 00
1 large tent ($9 for smaller sizes) 15 00
Camp equipment, axes, spades, shovels, triangles for fires, etc. 10 00
600 lbs. flour 25 50
100 lbs. ham and bacon 14 00
150 lbs. crackers (sea biscuits) 13 13
100 lbs. sugar 9 50
25 lbs. crystallized ditto 3 00
24 lbs. raisins 4 00
20 lbs. currants 3 00
25 lbs. rice 2 25
1 bushel dried apples 6 00
1 „ „ peaches 4 30
1 „ beans 2 00
1 stove 28 00
-------
Grand total $490 98
After ten miles of the usual number of creeks, “Deep,” “Small,” “Snow,”
“Muddy,” etc., and heavy descents, we reached at 10 A.M. Deer Creek,
a stream about thirty feet wide, said to abound in fish. The station
boasts of an Indian agent, Major Twiss, a post-office, a store, and of
course a grog-shop. M. Bissonette, the owner of the two latter and an
old Indian trader, was the usual Creole, speaking a French not unlike
that of the Channel Islands, and wide awake to the advantages derivable
from travelers: the large straggling establishment seemed to produce in
abundance large squaws and little half-breeds. Fortunately stimulants
are not much required on the plains: I wish my enemy no more terrible
fate than to drink excessively with M. Bissonette of M. Bissonette’s
liquor. The good Creole, when asked to join us, naïvely refused: he
reminded me of certain wine-merchants in more civilized lands, who,
when dining with their pratique, sensibly prefer small-beer to their
own concoctions.
[BUNCH-GRASS.]
A delay of fifteen minutes, and then we were hurried forward. The
ravines deepened; we were about entering the region of kanyons.[82]
Already we began to descry bunch-grass clothing the hills. This
invaluable and anomalous provision of nature is first found, I believe,
about fifty miles westward of the meridian of Fort Laramie, and it
extends to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. On the Pacific
water-shed it gives way to the wild oats (_Avena fatua_), which are
supposed to have been introduced into California by the Spaniards. The
festuca is a real boon to the land, which, without it, could hardly be
traversed by cattle. It grows by clumps, as its name denotes, upon the
most unlikely ground, the thirsty sand, and the stony hills; in fact,
it thrives best upon the poorest soil. In autumn, about September, when
all other grasses turn to hay, and their nutriment is washed out by the
autumnal rains, the bunch-grass, after shedding its seed, begins to put
forth a green shoot within the apparently withered sheath. It remains
juicy and nutritious, like winter wheat in April, under the snows, and,
contrary to the rule of the _gramineæ_, it pays the debt of nature,
drying and dying about May; yet, even when in its corpse-like state, a
light yellow straw, it contains abundant and highly-flavored nutriment;
it lasts through the summer, retiring up the mountains, again becomes
grass in January, thus feeding cattle all the year round. The small
dark pyriform seed, about half the size of an oat, is greedily devoured
by stock, and has been found to give an excellent flavor to beef and
mutton. It is curious how little food will fatten animals upon the
elevated portions of the prairies and in the valleys of the Rocky
Mountains. I remarked the same thing in Somaliland, where, while far as
the eye could see the country wore the semblance of one vast limestone
ledge, white with desolation, the sheep and bullocks were round and
plump as stall-fed animals. The idea forces itself upon one’s mind
that the exceeding purity and limpidity of the air, by perfecting
the processes of digestion and assimilation, must stand in lieu of
quantity. I brought back with me a small packet of the bunch-grass
seed, in the hope that it may be acclimatized: the sandy lands about
Aldershott, for instance, would be admirably fitted for the growth.
[82] The Spanish cañon--Americanized to kanyon--signifies, primarily,
a cannon or gun-barrel; secondarily, a tube, shaft of a mine, or a
ravine of peculiar form, common in this part of America. The word
is loosely applied by the Western men, but properly it means those
gorges through a line of mountains whose walls are high and steep,
even to a tunnel-like overhanging, while their soles, which afford
passages to streams, are almost flat. In Northern Mexico the kanyon
becomes of stupendous dimensions; it is sometimes a crack in the
plains 2000 feet deep, exposing all the layers that clothe earth’s
core, with a stream at the bottom, in sight, but impossible for the
traveler dying of thirst to drink at.
We arrived at a station, called the “Little Muddy Creek,” after a hot
drive of twenty miles. It was a wretched place, built of “dry stones,”
viz., slabs without mortar, and the interior was garnished with certain
efforts of pictorial art, which were rather _lestes_ than otherwise.
The furniture was composed of a box and a trunk, and the negative
catalogue of its supplies was extensive--whisky forming the only
positive item.
We were not sorry to resume our journey at 1 15 P.M. After eight miles
we crossed the vile bridge which spans “Snow Creek,” a deep water, and
hardly six feet wide. According to the station-men, water here was once
perennial, though now reduced to an occasional freshet after rain: this
phenomenon, they say, is common in the country, and they attribute it
to the sinking of the stream in the upper parts of the bed, which have
become porous, or have given way. It is certain that in the Sinaitic
regions many springs, which within a comparatively few years supplied
whole families of Bedouins, have unaccountably dried up; perhaps the
same thing happens in the Rocky Mountains.
After about two hours of hot sun, we debouched upon the bank of the
Platte at a spot where once was the Lower Ferry.[83] The river bed is
here so full of holes and quicksands, and the stream is so cold and
swift, that many have been drowned when bathing, more when attempting
to save time by fording it. A wooden bridge was built at this point
some years ago, at an expense of $26,000, by one Regshaw, who, if
report does not belie him, has gained and lost more fortunes than a
Wall Street professional “lame duck.” We halted for a few minutes at
the indispensable store--the _tête de pont_--and drank our whisky with
ice, which, after so long a disuse, felt unenjoyably cold. Remounting,
we passed a deserted camp, where in times gone by two companies of
infantry had been stationed: a few stumps of crumbling wall, broken
floorings, and depressions in the ground, were the only remnants which
the winds and rains had left. The banks of the Platte were stained with
coal: it has been known to exist for some years, but has only lately
been worked. Should the supply prove sufficient for the wants of the
settlers, it will do more toward the civilization of these regions than
the discovery of gold.
[83] The first ferry, according to the old guide-books, was at Deer
Creek; the second was at this place, thirty-one miles above the
former; and the third was four miles still farther on.
[COAL-BEDS.]
The lignite tertiary of Nebraska extends north and west to the British
line; the beds are found throughout this formation sometimes six and
seven feet thick, and the article would make good fuel. The true
coal-measures have been discovered in the southeastern portion of the
Nebraska prairies, and several small seams at different points of the
Platte Valley. Dr. F. V. Hayden, who accompanied Lieutenant Warren
as geologist, appears to think that the limestones which contain the
supplies, though belonging to the true coal-measures, hold a position
above the workable beds of coal, and deems it improbable that mines of
any importance will be found north of the southern line of Nebraska.
But, as his examination of the ground was somewhat hurried, there is
room to hope that this unfavorable verdict will be canceled. The coal
as yet discovered is all, I believe, bituminous. That dug out of the
Platte bank runs in a vein about six feet thick, and is as hard as
cannel coal: the texture of the rock is a white limestone. The banks
of the Deer and other neighboring creeks are said also to contain the
requisites for fuel.
[TOLL-BRIDGE.]
Our station lay near the upper crossing or second bridge, a short
distance from the town. It was also built of timber at an expense
of $40,000, about a year ago, by Louis Guenot, a Quebecquois, who
has passed the last twelve years upon the plains. He appeared very
downcast about his temporal prospects, and handed us over, with the
_insouciance_ of his race, to the tender mercies of his venerable
squaw. The usual toll is 50 cents, but from trains, especially of
Mormons, the owner will claim $5; in fact, as much as he can get
without driving them to the opposition lower bridge, or to the
ferry-boat. It was impossible to touch the squaw’s supper; the tin cans
that contained the coffee were slippery with grease, and the bacon
looked as if it had been dressed side by side with “boyaux.” I lighted
my pipe, and, air-cane in hand, sallied forth to look at the country.
The heights behind the station were our old friends the Black Hills,
which, according to the Canadian, extend with few breaks as far as
Denver City. They are covered with dark green pine; at a distance it
looks black, and the woods shelter a variety of wild beasts, the
grizzly bear among the number. In the more grassy spaces mustangs,
sure-footed as mountain goats, roam uncaught; and at the foot of the
hills the slopes are well stocked with antelope, deer, and hares,
here called rabbits. The principal birds are the sage-hen (_Tetrao
urophasianus_) and the prairie-hen (_T. pratensis_). The former,
also called the cock of the plains, is a fine, strong-flying grouse,
about the size of a full-grown barn-door fowl, or, when younger, of
a European pheasant, which, indeed, the form of the tail, as the
name denotes, greatly resembles, and the neck is smooth like the
partridge of the Old World.[84] Birds of the year are considered good
eating: after their first winter the flesh is so impregnated with the
intolerable odor of wild sage that none but a starving man can touch
it. The prairie-hen, also called the “heath-hen” and the “pinnated
grouse,” affects the plains of Illinois and Missouri, and is rarely
found so far west as the Black Hills: it is not a migratory bird. The
pinnæ from which it derives its name are little wing-like tufts on both
sides of the neck, small in the female, large in the male. The cock,
moreover, has a stripe of skin running down the neck, which changes its
natural color toward pairing-time, and becomes of a reddish yellow: it
swells like a turkey-cock’s wattles, till the head seems buried between
two monstrous protuberances, the owner spreading out its tail, sweeping
the ground with its wings, and booming somewhat like a bittern. Both of
these birds, which are strong on the wing, and give good sport, might
probably be naturalized in Europe, and the “Société d’Acclimatisation”
would do well to think of it.
[84] The trivial names for organic nature are as confused and
confusing in America as in India, in consequence of the Old Country
terms applied, _per fas et nefas_, to New Country growths: for
instance, the spruce grouse is the Canadian partridge; the ruffled
grouse is the partridge of New England and New York, and the pheasant
of New Jersey and the Southern States; while in the latter the common
quail (_O. Virginiana_) is called “partridge.”
[THE WAR-PARTY.]
Returning to the station, I found that a war-party of Arapahoes had
just alighted in a thin copse hard by. They looked less like warriors
than like a band of horse-stealers; and, though they had set out with
the determination of bringing back some Yuta scalps and fingers,[85]
they had not succeeded. On these occasions the young braves are
generally very sulky--a fact which they take care to show by short
speech and rude gestures, throwing about and roughly handling, like
spoiled children, whatever comes in their way. At such times one must
always be prepared for a word and a blow; and, indeed, most Indian
fighters justify themselves in taking the initiative, as, of course, it
is a great thing to secure first chance. However we may yearn toward
our “poor black brother,” it is hard not to sympathize with the white
in many aggressions against the ferocious and capricious so-called
Red Man. The war-party consisted of about a dozen warriors, with a
few limber, lither-looking lads. They had sundry lean, sore-backed
nags, which were presently turned out to graze. Dirty rags formed the
dress of the band; their arms were the usual light lances, garnished
with leather at the handles, with two cropped tufts and a long loose
feather dangling from them. They had bows shaped like the Grecian
Cupid’s, strengthened with sinews and tipped with wire, and arrows of
light wood, with three feathers--Captain Marcy says, two intersecting
at right angles; but I have never seen this arrangement--and small
triangular iron piles. Their shields were plain targes--double folds
of raw buffalo hide, apparently unstuffed, and quite unadorned. They
carried mangy buffalo robes; and scattered upon the ground was a
variety of belts, baldricks, and pouches, with split porcupine quills
dyed a saffron yellow.
[85] The enemy’s fore or other finger, crooked and tied with two
bits of the skin which are attached to the wrist or the forehead,
is a favorite and picturesque ornament. That failing, the bear’s
(especially the grizzly’s) talons, bored at the base, and strung upon
their sinews, are considered highly honorable.
The Arapahoes, generally pronounced ’Rapahoes--called by their
Shoshonee neighbors Sháretikeh, or Dog-eaters, and by the French
Gros Ventres--are a tribe of thieves living between the South Fork
of the Platte and the Arkansas Rivers. They are bounded north by the
Sioux, and hunt in the same grounds with the Cheyennes. This breed is
considered fierce, treacherous, and unfriendly to the whites, who have
debauched and diseased them, while the Cheyennes are comparatively
chaste and uninfected. The Arapaho is distinguished from the Dakotah
by the superior gauntness of his person, and the boldness of his
look; there are also minor points of difference in the moccasins,
arrow-marks, and weapons. His language, like that of the Cheyennes,
has never, I am told, been thoroughly learned by a stranger: it is
said to contain but a few hundred words, and these, being almost all
explosive growls or guttural grants, are with difficulty acquired by
the civilized ear. Like the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes have been somewhat
tamed of late by the transit of the United States army in 1857.
Among the Prairie Indians, when a war-chief has matured the plans
for an expedition, he habits himself in the garb of battle. Then,
mounting his steed, and carrying a lance adorned with a flag and
eagle’s feathers, he rides about the camp chanting his war-song. Those
disposed to volunteer join the parade, also on horseback, and, after
sufficiently exhibiting themselves to the admiration of the village,
return home. This ceremony continues till the requisite number is
collected. The war-dance, and the rites of the medicine-man, together
with perhaps private penances and propitiations, are the next step.
There are also copious powwows, in which, as in the African parlance,
the chiefs, elders, and warriors sit for hours in grim debate, solemn
as if the fate of empires hung upon their words, to decide the
momentous question whether Jack shall have half a pound more meat than
Jim. Neither the chief nor the warriors are finally committed by the
procession to the expedition; they are all volunteers, at liberty to
retire; and jealousy, disappointment, and superstition often interpose
between themselves and glory.
The war-party, when gone, is thoroughly gone; once absent, they love to
work in mystery, and look forward mainly to the pleasure of surprising
their friends. After an absence which may extend for months, a loud,
piercing, peculiar cry suddenly announces the vanguard courier of the
returning braves. The camp is thrown at once from the depths of apathy
to the height of excitement, which is also the acmé of enjoyment for
those whose lives must be spent in forced inaction. The warriors enter
with their faces painted black, and their steeds decorated in the
most fantastic style; the women scream and howl their exultation, and
feasting and merriment follow with the ceremonious scalp-dance. The
braves are received with various degrees of honor according to their
deeds. The highest merit is to ride single-handed into the enemy’s
camp, and to smite a lodge with lance or bow. The second is to take
a warrior prisoner. The third is to strike a dead or fallen man--an
idea somewhat contrary to the Englishman’s fancies of fair play,
but intelligible enough where it is the custom, as in Hindostan, to
lie upon the ground “playing ’possum,” and waiting the opportunity
to hamstring or otherwise disable the opponent. The least of great
achievements is to slay an enemy in hand-to-hand fight. A Pyrrhic
victory, won even at an inconsiderable loss, is treated as a defeat;
the object of the Indian guerrilla chief is to destroy the foe with as
little risk to himself and his men as possible; this is his highest
boast, and in this are all his hopes of fame. Should any of the party
fall in battle, the relatives mourn by cutting off their hair and the
manes and tails of their horses, and the lugubrious lamentations of the
women introduce an ugly element into the triumphal procession.
In the evening, as Mrs. Dana, her husband, and I were sitting outside
the station, two of the warriors came and placed themselves without
ceremony upon the nearest stones. They were exceedingly unprepossessing
with their small gipsy eyes, high, rugged cheek-bones, broad flat
faces, coarse sensual mouths everted as to the lips, and long heavy
chins; they had removed every sign of manhood from their faces, and
their complexions were a dull oily red, the result of vermilion, ochre,
or some such pigment, of which they are as fond as Hindoos, grimed in
for years. They watched every gesture, and at times communicated their
opinions to each other in undistinguishable gruntings, with curious
attempts at cachinnation. It is said that the wild dog is unable to
bark, and that the tame variety has acquired the faculty by attempting
to imitate the human voice; it is certain that, as a rule, only the
civilized man can laugh loudly and heartily. I happened to mention to
my fellow-travelers the universal dislike of savages to any thing
like a sketch of their physiognomies; they expressed a doubt that the
Indians were subject to the rule. Pencil and paper were at hand, so
we proceeded to proof. The savage at first seemed uneasy under the
operation, as the Asiatic or African will do, averting his face at
times, and shifting position to defeat my purpose. When I passed the
caricature round it excited some merriment; the subject, forthwith
rising from his seat, made a sign that he also wished to see it. At
the sight, however, he screwed up his features with an expression of
intense disgust, and managing to “smudge” over the sketch with his
dirty thumb, he left us with a “pooh!” that told all his outraged
feelings.
[SMOKING.]
Presently the warriors entered the station to smoke and tacitly beg for
broken victuals. They squatted in a circle, and passed round the red
sandstone calumet with great gravity, puffing like steam-tugs, inhaling
slowly and lingeringly, swallowing the fumes, and with upturned faces
exhaling them through the nostrils. They made no objection to being
joined by us, and always before handing the pipe to a neighbor, they
wiped the reed mouth-piece with the cushion of the thumb. The contents
of their calumet were kinnikinik, and, though they accepted tobacco,
they preferred replenishing with their own mixture. They received a
small present of provisions, and when the station-people went to supper
they were shut out.
[MORMONLAND NEAR.]
We are now slipping into Mormonland; one of the station-keepers
belonged to the new religion. The “madam,” on entering the room, had
requested him to depose a cigar which tainted the air with a perfume
like that of greens’-water; he took the matter so coolly that I
determined he was not an American, and, true enough, he proved to be
a cabinet-maker from Birmingham. I spent the evening reading poor
Albert Smith’s “Story of Mont Blanc”--Mont Blanc in sight of the
Rocky Mountains!--and admiring how the prince of entertainers led
up the reader to what he called the crowning glory of his life, the
unperilous ascent of that monarch of the Alps, much in the spirit with
which one would have addressed the free and independent voters of some
well-bribed English borough.
We are now about to quit the region which Nature has prepared, by
ready-made roads and embankments, for a railway; all beyond this
point difficulties are so heaped upon difficulties--as the sequel
will prove--that we must hope against hope to see the “iron horse” (I
believe he is so called) holding his way over the mountains.
_17th August. To the Valley of the Sweetwater._
The morning was bright and clear, cool and pleasant. The last night’s
abstinence had told upon our squeamishness: we managed to secure a
fowl, and with its aid we overcame our repugnance to the massive slices
of eggless bacon. At 6 30 A.M. we hitched up, crossed the rickety
bridge at a slow pace, and proceeded for the first time to ascend
the left bank of the Platte. The valley was grassy; the eternal sage,
however, haunted us; the grouse ran before us, and the prairie-dogs
squatted upon their house-tops, enjoying the genial morning rays. After
ten miles of severe ups and downs, which, by-the-by, nearly brought our
consort, the official’s wagon, to grief, we halted for a few minutes at
an old-established trading-post called “Red Buttes.”[86] The feature
from which it derives its name lies on the right bank of, and about
five miles distant from the river, which here cuts its way through a
ridge. These bluffs are a fine bold formation, escarpments of ruddy
argillaceous sandstones and shells, which dip toward the west: they are
the eastern wall of the mass that hems in the stream, and rear high
above it their conical heads and fantastic figures. The ranch was on
the margin of a cold, clear spring, of which we vainly attempted to
drink. The banks were white, as though by hoar-frost, with nitrate and
carbonate of soda efflorescing from the dark mould. Near Red Buttes the
water is said to have a chalybeate flavor, but of that we were unable
to judge.
[86] The French word is extensively used in the Rocky Mountains and
Oregon, “where,” says Colonel Frémont (“Expedition to the Rocky
Mountains,” p. 145), “it is naturalized, and which, if desirable to
render into English, there is no word which would be its precise
equivalent. It is applied to the detached hills and ridges which rise
abruptly and reach too high to be called hills or ridges, and are not
high enough”--he might have added, are not massive enough--“to be
called mountains. _Knob_, as applied in the Western States, is their
most descriptive term in English; but no translation or periphrasis
would preserve the identity of these picturesque landmarks.”
Having allowed the squaws and half-breeds a few minutes to gaze, we
resumed our way, taking off our caps in token of adieu to old Father
Platte, our companion for many a weary mile. We had traced his course
upward, through its various phases and vicissitudes, from the dignity
and portliness of his later career as a full-grown river to his small
and humble youth as a mountain rivulet, and--interest, either in man
or stream, often results from the trouble we take about them--I looked
upon him for the last time with a feeling akin to regret. Moreover,
we had been warned that from the crossing of the North Platte to the
Sweetwater all is a dry, and dreary, and desolate waste.
On the way we met a mounted Indian, armed with a rifle, and habited
in the most grotesque costume. “Jack”--he was recognized by the
driver--wore a suit of buckskin, and a fool’s cap made out of an old
blanket, with a pair of ass-ear appendages that hung backward viciously
like a mule’s; his mouth grinned from ear to ear, and his eyes were
protected by glass and wire goggles, which gave them the appearance
of being mounted on stalks like a crustacean’s. He followed us for
some distance, honoring us by riding close to the carriage, in hopes
of a little black-mail; but we were not generous, and we afterward
heard something which made us glad that we had not been tempted to
liberality. He was followed by an ill-favored squaw, dressed in a kind
of cotton gown, remarkable only for the shoulders being considerably
narrower than the waist. She sat her bare nag cavalierly, and eyed us
as we passed with that peculiarly unpleasant glance which plain women
are so fond of bestowing.
[THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE.]
After eighteen miles’ drive we descended a steep hill, and were shown
the Devil’s Backbone. It is a jagged, broken ridge of huge sandstone
boulders, tilted up edgeways, and running in a line over the crest of
a long roll of land: the _tout ensemble_ looks like the vertebræ of
some great sea-serpent or other long crawling animal; and, on a nearer
view, the several pieces resolve themselves into sphinxes, veiled
nuns, Lot’s pillars, and other freakish objects. I may here remark
that the _aut Cæsar aut diabolus_ of the medieval European antiquary,
when accounting for the architecture of strange places, is in the Far
West consigned without partnership to the genius loci, the fiend who,
here as in Europe, has monopolized all the finest features of scenery.
We shall pass successively the Devil’s Gate, the Devil’s Post-office,
and the Devil’s Hole--in fact, we shall not be thoroughly rid of his
Satanic majesty’s appurtenances till Monte Diablo, the highest of
the Californian coast-range, dips slowly and unwillingly behind the
Pacific’s tepid wave.
[WILLOW SPRINGS.]
We nooned at Willow Springs, a little doggery boasting of a shed and a
bunk, but no corral; and we soothed, with a drink of our whisky, the
excited feelings of the rancheros. The poor fellows had been plundered
of their bread and dried meat by some petty thief, who had burrowed
under the wall, and they sorely suspected our goggled friend, Jack the
Arapaho. Master Jack’s hair might have found itself suspended near
the fireplace if he had then been within rifle-shot; as it was, the
two victims could only indulge in consolatory threats about wreaking
their vengeance upon the first “doggond red-bellied crittur” whom good
fortune might send in their way. The water was unusually good at Willow
Springs; unfortunately, however, there was nothing else.
At 2 30 P.M. we resumed our way through the yellow-flowered
rabbit-bush--it not a little resembled wild mustard--and a thick
sage-heath, which was here and there spangled with the bright blossoms
of the wilderness. After about twenty miles we passed, to the west of
the road, a curious feature, to which the Mormon exodists first, _on
dit_, gave the name of Saleratus Lake.[87] It lies to the west of
the road, and is only one of a chain of alkaline waters and springs
whose fetor, without exaggeration, taints the land. Cattle drinking of
the fluid are nearly sure to die; even those that eat of the _herbe
salée_, or salt grass growing upon its borders, and known by its
reddish-yellow and sometimes bluish tinge, will suffer from a disease
called the “Alkali,” which not unfrequently kills them. The appearance
of the Saleratus Lake startles the traveler who, in the full blaze of
midday upon this arid waste, where mirage mocks him at every turn,
suddenly sees outstretched before his eyes a kind of Wenham Lake
solidly overfrozen. The illusion is so perfect that I was completely
deceived, nor could the loud guffaws of the driver bring me at once to
the conclusion that seeing in this case is not believing. On a near
inspection, the icy surface turns out to be a dust of carbonate of
soda, concealing beneath it masses of the same material, washed out
of the adjacent soil, and solidified by evaporation. The Latter-Day
Saints were charmed with their _trouvaille_, and laid in stores of the
fetid alkaline matter, as though it had been manna, for their bread and
pastry. It is still transported westward, and declared to be purer than
the saleratus of the shops. Near the lake is a deserted ranch, which
once enjoyed the title of “Sweetwater Station.”
[87] According to Dr. L. D. Gale (Appendix F. to Captain Stansbury’s
“Expedition to the Great Salt Lake”), who tested specimens of this
saleratus, “it is composed of the sesquicarbonate of soda, mixed
with the sulphate of soda and chloride of soda, and is one of the
native salts called _Trona_, found in the Northern Lakes, in Hungary,
Africa, and other countries.”
“Three grammes of this salt in dry powder, cleared of its earthy
impurities, gave carbonic acid 0·9030 of a gramme, which would
indicate 1·73239 grammes of the sesquicarbonate. The other salts were
found to be the muriate and sulphate of soda: the proportions were
not determined.”
[ROCK INDEPENDENCE.]
Four miles beyond this “Waterless Lake”--Bahr bila Ma as the Bedouin
would call it--we arrived at Rock Independence, and felt ourselves
in a new region, totally distinct from the clay formation of the
mauvaises terres over which we have traveled for the last five days.
Again I was startled by its surprising likeness to the scenery of
Eastern Africa: a sketch of Jiwe la Mkoa, the Round Rock in eastern
Unyamwezi,[88] would be mistaken, even by those who had seen both,
for this grand _échantillon_ of the Rocky Mountains. It crops out
of an open plain, not far from the river bed, in dome shape wholly
isolated, about 1000 feet in length by 400-500 in breadth; it is 60 to
100 feet in height,[89] and in circumference 1¹⁄₂ to 2 miles. Except
upon the summit, where it has been weathered into a feldspathic soil,
it is bare and bald; a scanty growth of shrubs protrudes, however,
from its poll. The material of the stern-looking dome is granite, in
enormous slabs and boulders, cracked, flaked, seared, and cloven, as
if by igneous pressure from below. The prevailing tradition in the
West is, that the mass derived its name from the fact that Colonel
Frémont there delivered an Independence-day oration; but read a
little farther. It is easily ascended at the northern side and the
southeastern corner, and many climb its rugged flanks for a peculiarly
Anglo-American purpose--Smith and Brown have held high jinks here.
In Colonel Frémont’s time (1842), every where within six or eight
feet of the ground, where the surface is sufficiently smooth, and in
some places sixty or eighty feet above, the rock was inscribed with
the names of travelers. Hence the Indians have named it Timpe Nabor,
or the Painted Rock, corresponding with the Sinaitic “Wady Mukattab.”
In the present day, though much of the writing has been washed away
by rain, 40,000-50,000 souls are calculated to have left their dates
and marks from the coping of the wall to the loose stones below this
huge sign-post. There is, however, some reason in the proceeding; it
does not in these lands begin and end with the silly purpose, as among
climbers of the Pyramids, and _fouilleurs_ of the sarcophagi of Apis,
to bequeath one’s few poor letters to a little athanasia. Prairie
travelers and emigrants expect to be followed by their friends, and
leave, in their vermilion outfit, or their white house-paint, or their
brownish-black tar--a useful article for wagons--a homely but hearty
word of love or direction upon any conspicuous object. Even a bull or a
buffalo’s skull, which, lying upon the road, will attract attention, is
made to do duty at this _Poste Restante_.
[88] I crave the reader’s pardon for referring him to my own
publications; but the only account of this Round Rock which has
hitherto been published is to be found in the “Lake Regions of
Central Africa,” chap. viii.
[89] Colonel Frémont gives its dimensions as 650 yards long and 40
feet high.
I will here take the liberty of digressing a little, with the
charitable purpose of admiring the serious turn with which the United
States explorers perform their explorations.
Colonel Frémont[90] thus calls to mind the earnest deeds of a bygone
day. “One George Weymouth was sent out to Maine by the Earl of
Southampton, Lord Arundel, and others, and in the narrative of their
discoveries he says, ‘The next day we ascended in our pinnace that
part of the river which lies more to the westward, carrying with us
a cross--a thing never omitted by any Christian traveler--which we
erected at the ultimate end of our route.’ This was in the year 1605,
and in 1842 I obeyed the feeling of early travelers, and left the
impressions of the cross deeply engraved on the vast rock, one thousand
miles beyond the Mississippi, to which discoverers have given the
national name of Rock Independence.”
[90] Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, p. 72.
Captain Stansbury[91] is not less scrupulous upon the subject of
traveling proprieties. One of his entries is couched as follows:
“Sunday, June 10, barometer 28·82, thermometer 70°. The camp rested:
it had been determined, from the commencement of the expedition, to
devote this day, whenever practicable, to its legitimate purpose, as
an interval of rest for man and beast. I here beg to record, as the
result of my experience, derived not only from the present journey, but
from the observations of many years spent in the performance of similar
duties, that, as a mere matter of pecuniary consideration, apart from
all higher obligations, it is wise to keep the Sabbath.”
[91] Stansbury’s Expedition, ch. i., p. 22.
Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, United States Navy, who in 1857 commanded the
United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea,[92] and
published a narrative not deficient in interest, thus describes his
proceedings at El Meshra, the bathing-place of the Christian pilgrims:
[92] Chap. iii. Authorized Edition. Sampson Low, Son, and Co., 47
Ludgate Hill, 1859.
“This ground is consecrated by tradition as the place where the
Israelites passed over with the ark of the covenant, and where
the blessed Savior was baptized by John. Feeling that it would be
desecration to moor the boats at a place so sacred, we passed it, and
with some difficulty found a landing below.
“My first act was to bathe in the consecrated stream, thanking God,
first, for the precious favor of being permitted to visit such a spot;
and, secondly, for his protecting care throughout our perilous passage.
For a long time after I sat upon the bank, my mind oppressed with awe,
as I mused upon the great and wondrous events which had here occurred.”
In strange contrast with these passages stands the characteristic
prophecy, “The time is coming--the beginning is come now--when the
whole worthless list of kings, with all their myrmidons, will be swept
from their places, and made to bear a part in the toils and sufferings
of the great human family,” etc., etc.
I would not willingly make light in others of certain finer
sentiments--veneration, for instance, and conscientiousness--which
Nature has perhaps debarred me from overenjoying; nor is it in my mind
to console myself for the privation by debasing the gift in those
gifted with it. But--the but, I fear, will, unlike “if,” be any thing
rather than a great peacemaker in this case--there are feelings which,
when strongly felt, when they well from the bottom of the heart, man
conceals in the privacy of his own bosom; and which, if published to
the world, are apt to remind the world that it has heard of a form
of speech, as well as of argument, ranking under the category of _ad
captandum vulgus_.
About a mile beyond Independence Rock we forded the Sweetwater. We had
crossed the divide between this stream and the Platte, and were now to
ascend our fourth river valley, the three others being the Missouri,
the Big Blue, and the Nebraska. The Canadian voyageurs have translated
the name Sweetwater from the Indian Pina Pa; but the term is here more
applicable in a metaphorical than in a literal point of view. The water
of the lower bed is rather hard than otherwise, and some travelers
have detected brackishness in it, yet the banks are free from the
saline hoar, which deters the thirstiest from touching many streams on
this line. The Sweetwater, in its calmer course, is a perfect Naiad
of the mountains; presently it will be an Undine hurried by that
terrible Anagké, to which Jove himself must bend his omniscient head,
into the grisly marital embrace of the gloomy old Platte. Passing
pleasant, after the surly ungenial silence of the Shallow River, is the
merry prattle with which she answers the whisperings of those fickle
flatterers, the winds, before that wedding-day when silence shall
become her doom. There is a something in the Sweetwater which appeals
to the feelings of rugged men: even the drivers and the station-keepers
speak of “her” with a bearish affection.
[THE DEVIL’S GATE.--RATTLESNAKE HILLS.]
After fording the swift Pina Pa, at that point about seventy feet wide
and deep to the axles, we ran along its valley about six miles, and
reached at 9 15 P.M. the muddy station kept by M. Planté, the usual
Canadian. En route we had passed by the Devil’s Gate, one of the great
curiosities of this line of travel. It is the beau ideal of a kanyon,
our portal opening upon the threshold of the Rocky Mountains: I can
compare its form from afar only with the Brêche de Roland in the
Pyrenees. The main pass of Aden magnified twenty fold is something
of the same kind, but the simile is too unsavory. The height of the
gorge is from 300 to 400 feet perpendicular, and on the south side
threatening to fall: it has already done so in parts, as the masses
which cumber the stream-bed show. The breadth varies from a minimum
of 40 to a maximum of 105 feet, where the fissure yawns out, and the
total length of the cleft is about 250 yards. The material of the
walls is a gray granite, traversed by dikes of trap; and the rock in
which the deep narrow crevasse has been made runs right through the
extreme southern shoulder of a ridge, which bears appropriately enough
the name of “Rattlesnake Hills.” Through this wild gorge the bright
stream frets and forces her way, singing, unlike Liris, with a feminine
untaciturnity, that awakes the echoes of the pent-up channel--tumbling
and gurgling, dashing and foaming over the snags, blocks, and boulders,
which, fallen from the cliffs above, obstruct the way, and bedewing
the cedars and bright shrubs which fringe the ragged staples of the
gate. Why she should not have promenaded gently and quietly round,
instead of through, this grisly barrier of rock, goodness only knows:
however, willful and womanlike, she has set her heart upon an apparent
impossibility, and, as usual with her sex under the circumstances, she
has had her way. Sermons in stones--I would humbly suggest to my gender.
Procrastination once more stole my chance; I had reserved myself for
sketching the Devil’s Gate from the southwest, but the station proved
too distant to convey a just idea of it. For the truest representation
of the gate, the curious reader will refer to the artistic work of
Mr. Frederick Piercy;[93] that published in Captain Marcy’s “List of
Itineraries” is like any thing but the Devil’s Gate; even the rough
lithograph in Colonel Frémont’s report is more truthful.
[93] Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake City.
We supped badly as mankind well could at the _cabaret_, where a very
plain young person, and no neat-handed Phyllis withal, supplied us with
a cock whose toughness claimed for it the honors of grandpaternity.
Chickens and eggs there were none; butcher’s meat, of course, was
unknown, and our hosts ignored the name of tea; their salt was a
kind of saleratus, and their sugar at least half Indian-meal. When
asked about fish, they said that the Sweetwater contained nothing but
suckers,[94] and that these, though good eating, can not be caught
with a hook. They are a queer lot, these French Canadians, who have
“located” themselves in the Far West. Travelers who have hunted with
them speak highly of them as a patient, submissive, and obedient race,
inured to privations, and gifted with the reckless _abandon_--no
despicable quality in prairie traveling--of the old Gascon adventurer;
armed and ever vigilant, hardy, handy, and hearty children of Nature,
combining with the sagacity and the instinctive qualities all the
superstitions of the Indians; enduring as mountain goats; satisfied
with a diet of wild meat, happiest when it could be followed by a
cup of strong milkless coffee, a “chasse café” and a “brule-gueule;”
invariably and contagiously merry; generous as courageous; handsome,
active, and athletic; sashed, knived, and dressed in buckskin, to the
envy of every Indian “brave,” and the admiration of every Indian belle,
upon whom, if the adventurer’s heart had not fallen into the snares of
the more attractive half-breed, he would spend what remained of his
$10 a month, after coffee, alcohol, and tobacco had been extravagantly
paid for, in presents of the gaudiest trash. Such is the voyageur of
books: I can only speak of him as I found him, a lazy dog, somewhat shy
and proud, much addicted to loafing and to keeping cabarets, because,
as the old phrase is, the cabarets keep him--in idleness too. Probably
his good qualities lie below the surface: those who hide a farthing
rush-light under a bushel can hardly expect us, in this railway age, to
take the trouble of finding it. I will answer, however, for the fact,
that the bad points are painfully prominent. By virtue of speaking
French and knowing something of Canada, I obtained some buffalo robes,
and after a look at the supper, which had all the effect of a copious
feed, I found a kind of out-house, and smoked till sleep weighed down
my eyelids.
[94] A common fish of the genus Labio, of which there are many
species--chub, mullet, barbel, horned dace, etc.: they are found in
almost all the lakes and rivers of North America.
_Up the Sweetwater. 19th August._
We arose at 6 A.M., before the rest of the household, who, when
aroused, “hifered” and sauntered about all _desœuvrés_ till their
wool-gathering wits had returned. The breakfast was a little picture
of the supper; for watered milk, half-baked bread, and unrecognizable
butter, we paid the somewhat “steep” sum of 75 cents; we privily
had our grumble, and set out at 7 A.M. to ascend the Valley of the
Sweetwater. The river-plain is bounded by two parallel lines of
hills, or rather rocks, running nearly due east and west. Those to
the north are about a hundred miles in extreme length, and, rising
from a great plateau, lie perpendicular to the direction of the real
Rocky Mountains toward which they lead: half the course of the Pina
Pa subtends their southern base. The Western men know them as the
Rattlesnake Hills, while the southern are called after the river. The
former--a continuation of the ridge in which the Sweetwater has burst
a gap--is one of those long lines of lumpy, misshapen, barren rock,
that suggested to the Canadians for the whole region the name of Les
Montagnes Rocheuses. In parts they are primary, principally syenite and
granite, with a little gneiss, but they have often so regular a line of
cleavage, perpendicular as well as horizontal, that they may readily be
mistaken for stratifications. The stratified are slaty micaceous shale
and red sandstone, dipping northward, and cut by quartz veins and trap
dikes. The remarkable feature in both formations is the rounding of the
ridges or blocks of smooth naked granite: hardly any angles appeared;
the general effect was, that they had been water-washed immediately
after birth. The upper portions of this range shelter the bighorn, or
American moufflon, and the cougar,[95] the grizzly bear, and the wolf.
The southern or Sweetwater range is vulgarly known as the Green-River
Mountains: seen from the road, their naked, barren, and sandy flanks
appear within cannon shot, but they are distant seven miles.
[95] Locally called the mountain lion. This animal (_F. unicolor_)
is the largest and fiercest feline of the New World: it is a beast
of many names--puma, cougar, American lion, panther or painter, etc.
Its habit of springing upon its prey from trees makes it feared by
hunters. It was once in the Kaatskills.
[“ALKALI LAKE.”]
After a four-miles’ drive up the pleasant valley of the little
river-nymph, to whom the grisly hills formed an effective foil, we saw
on the south of the road “Alkali Lake,” another of the Trona formations
with which we were about to become familiar; in the full glare of
burning day it was undistinguishable as to the surface from the round
pond in Hyde Park. Presently ascending a little rise, we were shown for
the first time a real bit of the far-famed Rocky Mountains, which was
hardly to be distinguished from, except by a shade of solidity, the
fleecy sunlit clouds resting upon the horizon: it was Frémont’s Peak,
the sharp, snow-clad apex of the Wind River range. Behind us and afar
rose the distant heads of black hills. The valley was charming with its
bright glad green, a tapestry of flowery grass, willow copses where the
grouse ran in and out, and long lines of aspen, beech, and cotton-wood,
while pine and cedar, cypress and scattered evergreens, crept up the
cranks and crannies of the rocks. In the midst of this Firdaus--so
it appeared to us after the horrid unwithering artemisia Jehennum of
last week--flowed the lovely little stream, transparent as crystal,
and coquettishly changing from side to side in her bed of golden sand.
To see her tamely submit to being confined within those dwarf earthen
cliffs, you would not have known her to be the same that had made that
terrible breach in the rock-wall below. “Varium et mutabile semper,”
etc.: I will not conclude the quotation, but simply remark that the
voyageurs have called her “She.” And every where, in contrast with the
deep verdure and the bright flowers of the valley, rose the stern forms
of the frowning rocks, some apparently hanging as though threatening a
fall, others balanced upon the slenderest foundations, all split and
broken as though earthquake-riven, loosely piled into strange figures,
the lion couchant, sugar-loaf, tortoise, and armadillo--not a mile, in
fact, was without its totem.
The road was good, especially when hardened by frost. We are now in
altitudes where, as in Tibet, parts of the country for long centuries
never thaw. After passing a singular stone bluff on the left of the
road, we met a party of discharged soldiers, who were traveling
eastward comfortably enough in government wagons drawn by six mules.
Not a man saluted Lieutenant Dana, though he was in uniform, and all
looked surly as Indians after a scalpless raid. Speeding merrily along,
we were shown on the right of the road a ranch belonging to a Canadian,
a “mighty mean man,” said the driver, “who onst gin me ole mare’s meat
for b’ar.” We were much shocked by this instance of the awful depravity
of the unregenerate human heart, but our melancholy musings were
presently interrupted by the same youth, who pointed out on the other
side of the path a mass of clay (conglomerate, I presume), called the
Devil’s Post-office. It has been lately washed with rains so copious
that half the edifice lies at the base of that which is standing. The
structure is not large: it is highly satisfactory--especially to a man
who in this life has suffered severely, as the Anglo-Indian ever must
from endless official and semi-official correspondence--to remark that
the London Post-office is about double its size.
[MISS MOORE AND HER HUSBAND.]
Beyond the Post-office was another ranch belonging to a Portuguese
named Luis Silva, married to an Englishwoman who had deserted the Salt
Lake Saints. We “staid a piece” there, but found few inducements to
waste our time. Moreover, we had heard from afar of an “ole ’ooman,”
an Englishwoman, a Miss Moore--Miss is still used for Mrs. by Western
men and negroes--celebrated for cleanliness, tidiness, civility, and
housewifery in general, and we were anxious to get rid of the evil
flavor of Canadians, squaws, and “ladies.”
At 11 A.M. we reached “Three Crossings,” when we found the “miss”
a stout, active, middle-aged matron, deserving of all the praises
that had so liberally been bestowed upon her. The little ranch was
neatly swept and garnished, papered and ornamented. The skull of a
full-grown bighorn hanging over the doorway represented the spoils of
a stag of twelve. The table-cloth was clean, so was the cooking, so
were the children; and I was reminded of Europe by the way in which
she insisted upon washing my shirt, an operation which, after leaving
the Missouri, _ça va sans dire_, had fallen to my own lot. In fact,
this day introduced me to the third novel sensation experienced on the
western side of the Atlantic. The first is to feel (practically) that
all men are equal; that you are no man’s superior, and that no man is
yours. The second--this is spoken as an African wanderer--to see one’s
quondam acquaintance, the Kaffir, laying by his grass kilt and coat of
grease, invest himself in broadcloth, part his wool on one side, shave
what pile nature has scattered upon his upper lip, chin, and cheeks
below a line drawn from the ear to the mouth-corner after the fashion
of the times when George the Third was king, and call himself, not
Sambo, but Mr. Scott. The third was my meeting in the Rocky Mountains
with this refreshing specimen of that far Old World, where, on the
whole, society still lies in strata, as originally deposited, distinct,
sharply defined, and rarely displaced, except by some violent upheaval
from below, which, however, never succeeds long in producing total
inversion. Miss Moore’s husband, a decent appendage, had transferred
his belief from the Church of England to the Church of Utah, and the
good wife, as in duty bound, had followed in his wake whom she was
bound to love, honor, and obey. But when the serpent came and whispered
in Miss Moore’s modest, respectable, one-idea’d ear that the Abrahams
of Great Salt Lake City are mere “sham Abrams”--that, not content with
Sarahs, they add to them an unlimited supply of Hagars, then did our
stout Englishwoman’s power of endurance break down never to rise again.
“Not an inch would she budge;” not a step toward Utah Territory would
she take. She fought pluckily against the impending misfortune, and--_à
quelque chose malheur est bon!_--she succeeded in reducing her husband
to that state which is typified by the wife using certain portions of
the opposite sex’s wardrobe, and in making him make a good livelihood
as station-master on the wagon-line.
After a copious breakfast, which broke the fast of the four days that
had dragged on since our civilized refection at Fort Laramie, we spread
our buffalos and water-proofs under the ample eaves of the ranch,
and spent the day in taking time with the sextant--every watch being
wrong--in snoozing, dozing, chatting, smoking, and contemplating the
novel view. Straight before us rose the Rattlesnake Hills, a nude and
grim horizon, frowning over the soft and placid scene below, while at
their feet flowed the little river--_splendidior vitro_--purling over
its pebbly bed with graceful meanderings through clover prairillons
and garden-spots full of wild currants, strawberries, gooseberries,
and rattlesnakes; while, contrasting with the green River Valley and
the scorched and tawny rock-wall, patches of sand-hill, raised by the
winds, here and there cumbered the ground. The variety of the scene was
much enhanced by the changeful skies. The fine breeze which had set
in at 8 A.M. had died in the attempt to thread these heat-refracting
ridges, and vapory clouds, sublimated by the burning sun, floated
lazily in the empyrean, casting fitful shadows that now intercepted,
then admitted, a blinding glare upon the mazy stream and its rough
cradle.
In the evening we bathed in the shallow bed of the Sweetwater. It is
vain to caution travelers against this imprudence. _Video meliora
proboque_--it is doubtless unwise--but it is also _mera stultitia_
to say to men who have not enjoyed ablutions for a week or ten days,
“If you do take that delicious dip you may possibly catch fever.”
_Deteriora sequor_--bathed. Miss Moore warned us strongly against the
rattlesnakes, and during our walk we carefully observed the Indian
rule, to tread upon the log and not to overstep it. The crotalus, I
need hardly say, like other snakes, is fond of lurking under the shade
of fallen or felled trunks, and when a heel or a leg is temptingly
set before it, it is not the beast to refuse a bite. Accidents are
very common, despite all precautions, upon this line, but they seldom,
I believe, prove fatal. The remedies are almost endless: _e. g._,
hartshorn, used externally and drunk in dilution; scarification and
irrumation of the part, preceded, of course, by a ligature between the
limb and the heart; application of the incised breast of a live fowl or
frog to the wound; the dried and powdered blood of turtle, of this two
pinches to be swallowed and a little dropped upon the place bitten; a
plaster of chewed or washed plantain-leaves--it is cooling enough, but
can do little more--bound upon the puncture, peppered with a little
finely-powdered tobacco; pulverized indigo made into a poultice with
water; cauterization by gunpowder, hot iron, or lunar caustic; cedron,
a nut growing on the Isthmus of Panama--of this remedy I heard, _in
loco_, the most wonderful accounts, dying men being restored, as if
by magic, after a bit about the size of a bean had been placed in
their mouths. As will be seen below, the land is rich in snakeroots,
but the superstitious snakestone of Hindostan--which acts, if it
does act, as an absorbent of the virus by capillary attraction--is
apparently unknown. The favorite remedy now in the United States is
the “whisky cure,” which, under the form of arrack, combined in the
case of a scorpion-sting with a poultice of chewed tobacco, was known
for the last fifty years to the British soldier in India. It has the
advantage of being a palatable medicine; it must also be taken in large
quantities, a couple of bottles sometimes producing little effect. With
the lighted end of a cigar applied as moxa to the wound, a _quantum
sufficit_ of ardent spirits, a couple of men to make me walk about
when drowsy by the application of a stick, and, above all, with the
serious resolution not to do any thing so mean as to “leap the twig,” I
should not be afraid of any snake yet created. The only proviso is that
our old enemy must not touch an artery, and that the remedies must be
at hand. Fifteen minutes lost, you are “down among the dead men.” The
history of fatal cases always shows some delay.[96]
[96] The author of “The Quadroon” (chap. xxxii., etc.) adduces a
happy instance of a “hero” who, after a delay and an amount of
exertion which certainly would have cost him his life, was relieved
by tobacco and cured by the snakeroot (_Polygala Senega_). The
popular snakeroots quoted by Mr. Bartlett are the Seneca snakeroot
above alluded to, the black snakeroot (_Cimicifuga racemosa_), and
the Virginia snakeroot (_Aristolochia serpentaria_).
[A HUBBUB.--“YES, SURR!”]
We supped in the evening merrily. It was the best coffee we had tasted
since leaving New Orleans; the cream was excellent, so was the cheese.
But an antelope had unfortunately been brought in; we had insisted upon
a fry of newly-killed flesh, which was repeated in the morning, and we
had bitterly to regret it. While I was amusing myself by attempting to
observe an immersion of Jupiter’s satellites with a notable failure in
the shape of that snare and delusion, a portable telescope, suddenly
there arose a terrible hubbub. For a moment it was believed that
the crotalus horridus had been taking liberties with one of Miss
Moore’s progeny. The seat of pain, however, soon removed the alarming
suspicion, and--the rattlesnake seldom does damage at night--we soon
came to the conclusion that the dear little fellow who boo-hoo’d for
forty had been bitten by a musqueto somewhat bigger than its fellows.
The poor mother soon was restored to her habits of happiness and hard
labor. Not contented with supporting her own family, she was doing
supererogation by feeding a little rat-eyed, snub-nosed, shark-mouthed
half-breed girl, who was, I believe, in the market as a “chattel.” Mrs.
Dana pointed out to me one sign of demoralization on the part of Miss
Moore. It was so microscopic that only a woman’s acute eye could detect
it. Miss Moore was teaching her children to say “Yes, surr!” to every
driver.
_To the Foot of South Pass. 19th August._
With renewed spirit, despite a somewhat hard struggle with the
musquetoes, we set out at the respectable hour of 5 45 A.M. We had
breakfasted comfortably, and an interesting country lay before us.
The mules seemed to share in our gayety. Despite a long ringing,
the amiable animals kicked and bit, bucked and backed, till their
recalcitrances had almost deposited us in the first ford of the
Sweetwater. For this, however, we were amply consoled by the greater
misfortunes of our consort, the official wagon. After long luxuriating
in the pick of the teams, they were to-day so thoroughly badly “muled”
that they were compelled to apply for our assistance.
We forded the river twice within fifty yards, and we recognized with
sensible pleasure a homely-looking magpie (_Pica Hudsonica_), and a
rattlesnake, not inappropriately, considering where we were, crossed
the road. Our path lay between two rocky ridges, which gradually closed
inward, forming a regular kanyon, quite shutting out the view. On both
sides white and micaceous granite towered to the height of 300 or 400
feet, terminating in jagged and pointed peaks, whose partial disruption
covered the angle at their base. Arrived at Ford No. 5, we began an
ascent, and reaching the summit, halted to enjoy the fine back view of
the split and crevassed mountains.
A waterless and grassless track of fifteen to sixteen miles led us to
a well-known place--the Ice Springs--of which, somewhat unnecessarily,
a marvel is made. The ground, which lies on the right of the road, is
a long and swampy trough between two waves of land which permit the
humidity to drain down, and the grass is discolored, suggesting the
presence of alkali. After digging about two feet, ice is found in small
fragments. Its presence, even in the hottest seasons, may be readily
accounted for by the fact that hereabouts water will freeze in a tent
during July, and by the depth to which the wintry frost extends. Upon
the same principle, snow gathering in mountain ravines and hollows long
outlasts the shallower deposits. A little beyond Ice Springs, on the
opposite side of, and about a quarter of a mile distant from the road,
lie the Warm Springs, one of the many alkaline pans which lie scattered
over the face of the country. From the road nothing is to be seen but a
deep cunette full of percolated water.
Beyond the Warm Springs lay a hopeless-looking land, a vast slope,
barren and desolate as Nature could well make it. The loose sands and
the granite masses of the valley had disappeared; the surface was a
thin coat of hard gravelly soil. Some mosses, a scanty yellow grass,
and the dark gray artemisia, now stunted and shrunk, were sparsely
scattered about. It had already begun to give way before an even
hardier creation, the rabbit-bush and the greasewood. The former,
which seems to thrive under the wintry snow, is a favorite food with
hares, which abound in this region; the latter (_Obione_, or _Atriplex
canescens_, the chamizo of the Mexicans) derives its name from the
oleaginous matter abundant in its wood, and is always a sign of a
poor and sterile soil. Avoiding a steep descent by a shorter road,
called “Landers’ Cut-off,” we again came upon the Sweetwater, which
was here somewhat broader than below, and lighted upon good grass
and underbrush, willow copses, and a fair halting-place. At Ford No.
6--three followed one another in rapid succession--we found the cattle
of a traveling trader scattered over the pasture-grounds, He proved to
be an Italian driven from the low country by a band of Sioux, who had
slain his Shoshonee wife, and at one time had thought of adding his
scalp to his squaw’s. After Ford No. 8, we came upon a camping-ground,
usually called in guide-books “River Bank and Stream.” The Sweetwater
is here twenty-five feet wide. About three miles beyond it lay
the “Foot of Ridge Station,” near a willowy creek, called from its
principal inhabitants the Muskrat.[97] The ridge from which it derives
its name is a band of stone that will cross the road during to-morrow’s
ascent. Being a frontier place, it is a favorite camping-ground with
Indians. To-day a war party of Sioux rode in, _en route_ to provide
themselves with a few Shoshonee scalps.
[97] _Fiber zibeticus_, a beaver-like animal that inhabits the banks
of ponds and streams: it has a strong musky odor in summer only, and
is greedily eaten by the Indians.
[TEMPERATURE.]
We made a decided rise to-day, and stood at least 6000 feet above the
level of the sea. The altitude of St. Louis being in round numbers
500 feet, and reckoning the diminution of temperature at 1° F. = 100
yards, we are already 19° to 20° F. colder than before. The severity
of the atmosphere and the rapid evaporation from the earth cause an
increase of frigidity, to which the salts and nitrates upon the surface
of the soil, by absorbing the hydrogen of the atmosphere--as is shown
by the dampness of the ground and the absence of dust around the
Saleratus Lakes--greatly add. Another remark made by every traveler
in these regions is the marked influence upon the temperature caused
by the presence and the absence of the sun. The day will be sultry
and oppressive, and a fire will be required at night. In the morning,
about 11 A.M., the thermometer showed 80° Fahrenheit; at 4 P.M., the
sky being clouded over, it fell 25°; before dawn, affected by the cold
north wind from the snows about the Pass, it stood at 40°.
[FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.]
The lowering firmament threatened rain, of which, however, the thirsty
land was disappointed. Moreover, all were agreed that snow was to
be expected in another fortnight, if not sooner. Glacial storms
occasionally occur in July and August, so that in some years the
land may be said to have no summer. In winter the sharpness of the
cold is such that it can be kept out only by clothes of the closest
texture; the mountain-men, like the Esquimaux, prefer to clothe
themselves cap-a-piè in the prepared skins of animals. We were all
animated with a nervous desire for travel, but there was the rub. The
station-master declared that he had no driver, no authority to forward
two wagonsful, and no cattle; consequently, that the last comers must
be last served, and wait patiently at Rocky Ridge till they could be
sent on. They would find antelopes in plenty, perhaps a grizzly, and
plenty of plover, crows, and delicate little ground-squirrels[98] by
the burrowful, to “keep their hands in.” We being the first comers,
a title to preference rarely disputed in this law-and-rule-abiding
land, prudently held ourselves aloof. The Judiciary, however, was
sorely “exercised.” Being a “professor,” that is, a serious person, he
could not relieve his mind by certain little _moyens_ which naturally
occurred to the rest of the party. Many and protracted were the powwows
that took place on this momentous occasion. Sometimes our quondam
companions--we now looked upon them as friends lost to us--would
mysteriously disappear as though the earth had opened and swallowed
them, and presently they would return with woe-begone step and the
wrinkled brow of care, simulating an ease which they were far from
feeling.
[98] I had no opportunity of observing this clean, pretty, and
vivacious little animal, whose chirruping resembles that of
a bird; but it appeared to be quite a different species from
the common striped and spotted prairie-squirrel (_Spermophilus
tredecimlineatus_), or the chipmonk or chipmuk (_S. striatus_).
The station rather added to than took from our discomfort: it was a
terrible unclean hole; milk was not procurable within thirty-five
miles; one of the officials was suffering sorely from a stomach-ache;
there was no sugar, and the cooking was atrocious. With a stray
title-pageless volume of some natural history of America, and another
of agricultural reports--in those days, before reform came, these
scientific and highly elaborate compositions, neatly printed and
expensively got up at the public expense, were apparently distributed
to every ranch and station in the line of road--I worked through the
long and tedious afternoon. We were not sorry when the night came,
but then the floor was knobby, the musquetoes seemed rather to enjoy
the cold, and the banks swarmed with “chinches.”[99] The coyotes and
wolves made night vocal with their choruses, and had nearly caused an
accident. One of the station-men arose, and, having a bone to pick with
the animals for having robbed his beef-barrel, cocked his revolver, and
was upon the point of firing, when the object aimed at started up and
cried out in the nick of time that he was a federal marshal, not a wolf.
[99] The chinch or chints is the Spanish _chinche_--the popular word
for the _Cimex lectularius_ in the Southern States. In other parts of
the United States the English bug is called a bed-bug: without the
prefix it is applied to beetles and a variety of Coleopters, as the
May-bug, June-bug, golden-bug, etc.
_To the South Pass. August 20th._
We rose with the daybreak; we did not start till nearly 8 A.M., the
interim having been consumed by the tenants of our late consort in a
vain palaver. We bade adieu to them and mounted at last, loudly pitying
their miseries as they disappeared from our ken. But the driver bade
us reserve our sympathy and humane expressions for a more fitting
occasion, and declared--it was probably a little effort of his own
imagination--that those faithless friends had spent all their spare
time in persuading him to take them on and to leave us behind. I, for
one, will never believe that any thing of the kind had been attempted;
a man must be created with a total absence of the bowels of compassion
who would leave a woman and a young child for days together at the foot
of Ridge Station.
[WILLOW CREEK.--SOUTH-PASS CITY.]
The road at once struck away from the Sweetwater, winding up and
down rugged hills and broken hollows. From Fort Laramie the land is
all a sandy and hilly desert where one can easily starve, but here
it shows its worst features. During a steep descent a mule fell,
and was not made to regain its footing without difficulty. Signs of
wolves, coyotes, and badgers were abundant, and the _coqs de prairie_
(sage-chickens), still young and toothsome at this season, were at
no pains to get out of shot. After about five miles we passed by
“Three Lakes,” dirty little ponds north of the road, two near it and
one distant, all about a quarter of a mile apart, and said by those
fond of tasting strange things to have somewhat the flavor, as they
certainly have the semblance, of soapsuds. Beyond this point we crossed
a number of influents of the pretty Sweetwater, some dry, others full:
the most interesting was Strawberry Creek: it supplies plenty of the
fragrant wild fruit, and white and red willows fringe the bed as long
as it retains its individuality. To the north a mass of purple nimbus
obscured the mountains--on Frémont’s Peak it is said always to rain
or snow--and left no visible line between earth and sky. Quaking-Asp
Creek was bone dry. At MacAchran’s Branch of the Sweetwater we found,
pitched upon a sward near a willow copse, a Provençal Frenchman--by
what “hasard que les sceptiques appellent l’homme d’affaires du bon
Dieu” did he come here?--who begged us to stop and give him the news,
especially about the Indians: we could say little that was reassuring.
Another spell of rough, steep ground placed us at Willow Creek, a
pretty little prairillon, with verdure, water, and an abundance of the
larger vegetation, upon which our eyes, long accustomed to artemisia
and rabbit-bush, dwelt with a compound sense of surprise and pleasure.
In a well-built ranch at this place of plenty were two Canadian
traders, apparently settled for life; they supplied us, as we found it
necessary to “liquor up,” with a whisky which did not poison us, and
that is about all that I can say for it. At Ford No. 9, we bade adieu
to the Sweetwater with that natural regret which one feels when losing
sight of the only pretty face and pleasant person in the neighborhood;
and we heard with a melancholy satisfaction the driver’s tribute to
departing worth, viz., that its upper course is the “healthiest water
in the world.” Near this spot, since my departure, has been founded
“South-Pass City,” one of the many mushroom growths which the presence
of gold in the Rocky Mountains has caused to spring up.
Ten miles beyond Ford No. 9, hilly miles, ending in a long champaign
having some of the characteristics of a rolling prairie, with scatters
of white, rose, and smoky quartz, granite, hornblende, porphyry,
marble-like lime, sandstone, and mica slate--the two latter cropping
out of the ground and forming rocky ridges--led us to the South Pass,
the great _Wassersheide_ between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and the
frontier points between the territory of Nebraska and the State of
Oregon. From the mouth of the Sweetwater, about 120 miles, we have been
rising so gradually, almost imperceptibly, that now we unexpectedly
find ourselves upon the summit. The distance from Fort Laramie is 320
miles, from St. Louis 1580, and from the mouth of the Oregon about
1400: it is therefore nearly midway between the Mississippi and the
Pacific. The dimensions of this memorial spot are 7490 feet above
sea-level, and 20 miles in breadth. The last part of the ascent is
so gentle that it is difficult to distinguish the exact point where
the versant lies: a stony band crossing the road on the ridge of the
table-land is pointed out as the place, and the position has been fixed
at N. lat. 48° 19′, and W. long. 108° 40′.[100] The northern limit is
the noble chain of Les Montagnes Rocheuses, which goes by the name of
the Wind River; the southern is called Table Mountain, an insignificant
mass of low hills.
[100] Some guide-books place the water-shed between two small hills,
the “Twin Peaks,” about fifty or sixty feet high; the road, however,
no longer passes between them.
A pass it is not: it has some of the features of Thermopylæ or the
Gorge of Killiecrankie; of the European St. Bernard or Simplon; of
the Alleghany Passes or of the Mexican _Barrancas_. It is not, as
it sounds, a ghaut between lofty mountains, or, as the traveler may
expect, a giant gateway, opening through Cyclopean walls of beetling
rocks that rise in forbidding grandeur as he passes onward to the
Western continent. And yet the word “Pass” has its significancy. In
that New World where Nature has worked upon the largest scale, where
every feature of scenery, river and lake, swamp and forest, prairie and
mountain, dwarf their congeners in the old hemisphere, this majestic
level-topped bluff, the highest steppe of the continent, upon whose
iron surface there is space enough for the armies of the globe to march
over, is the grandest and the most appropriate of avenues.
A water-shed is always exciting to the traveler. What shall I say
of this, where, on the topmost point of American travel, you drink
within a hundred yards of the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans--that divides the “doorways of the west wind” from the “portals
of the sunrise?” On the other side of yon throne of storms, within
sight, did not the Sierra interpose, lie separated by a trivial space
the fountain-heads that give birth to the noblest rivers of the
continent, the Columbia, the Colorado, and the Yellow Stone, which
is to the Missouri what the Missouri is to the Mississippi, whence
the waters trend to four opposite directions: the Wind River to the
northeast; to the southeast the Sweetwater and the Platte; the various
branches of the Snake River to the northeast; and to the southwest the
Green River, that finds its way into the Californian Gulf.[101] It
is a suggestive spot, this “divortia aquarum:” it compels Memory to
revive past scenes before plunging into the mysterious “Lands of the
Hereafter,” which lie before and beneath the feet. The Great Ferry,
which steam has now bridged, the palisaded banks of the Hudson, the
soft and sunny scenery of the Ohio, and the kingly course of the
Upper Mississippi, the terrible beauty of Niagara, and the marvels of
that chain of inland seas which winds its watery way from Ontario to
Superior; the rich pasture-lands of the North, the plantations of the
semi-tropical South, and the broad corn-fields of the West; finally,
the vast meadow-land and the gloomy desert-waste of sage and saleratus,
of clay and _mauvaise terre_, of red _butte_ and tawny rock, all pass
before the mind in rapid array ere they are thrust into oblivion by the
excitement of a new departure.
[101] As early as A.D. 1772 (Description of the Province of Carolana,
etc., etc., by Daniel Cox) it was suggested that there was a line of
water communication by means of the “northern branch of the Great
Yellow River, by the natives called the River of the Massorites”
(Missouri River), and a branch of the Columbia River, which, however,
was erroneously supposed to disembogue through the Great Salt Lake
into the Pacific. The idea has been revived in the present day. Some
assert that the upper waters of the Yellow Stone, which approach
within three hundred miles of Great Salt Lake City, are three
feet deep, and therefore navigable for flat-bottomed boats during
the annual inundation. Others believe that, as in the case of the
Platte, shallowness would be an insuperable obstacle, except for
one or two months. This point will doubtless be settled by Captain
W. F. Raynolds, of the United States Topographical Engineers, who,
accompanied by Colonel J. Bridger, was, at the time of my visit to
Great Salt Lake City, exploring the Valley of the Yellow Stone.
[THE SOUTH PASS.]
But we have not yet reached our destination, which is two miles below
the South Pass. Pacific Springs is our station; it lies a little down
the hill, and we can sight it from the road. The springs are a pond of
pure, hard, and very cold water, surrounded by a strip of shaking bog,
which must be boarded over before it will bear a man. The hut would be
a right melancholy abode were it not for the wooded ground on one hand,
and the glorious snow-peaks on the other side of the “Pass.” We reached
Pacific Springs at 3 P.M., and dined without delay, the material being
bouilli and potatoes--unusual luxuries. About an hour afterward the
west wind, here almost invariable, brought up a shower of rain, and
swept a vast veil over the forms of the Wind-River Mountains. Toward
sunset it cleared away, and the departing luminary poured a flood of
gold upon the majestic pile--I have seldom seen a view more beautiful.
From the south, the barren rolling table-land that forms the Pass
trends northward till it sinks apparently below a ridge of offsets from
the main body, black with timber--cedar, cypress, fir, and balsam pine.
The hand of Nature has marked, as though by line and level, the place
where vegetation shall go and no farther. Below the waist the mountains
are robed in evergreens; above it, to the shoulders, they would be
entirely bare but for the atmosphere, which has thrown a thin veil
of light blue over their tawny gray, while their majestic heads are
covered with ice and snow, or are hidden from sight by thunder-cloud
or the morning mist. From the south, on clear days, the cold and
glittering radiance may be seen at a distance of a hundred miles. The
monarch of these mountains is “Frémont’s Peak;” its height is laid down
at 13,570 feet above sea level; and second to it is a hoary cone called
by the station-people Snowy Peak.
That evening the Wind-River Mountains appeared in marvelous majesty.
The huge purple hangings of rain-cloud in the northern sky set off
their huge proportions, and gave prominence, as in a stereoscope, to
their gigantic forms, and their upper heights, hoar with the frosts
of ages. The mellow radiance of the setting sun diffused a charming
softness over their more rugged features, defining the folds and
ravines with a distinctness which deceived every idea of distance. And
as the light sank behind the far western horizon, it traveled slowly up
the mountain side, till, reaching the summit, it mingled its splendors
with the snow--flashing and flickering for a few brief moments, then
wasting them in the dark depths of the upper air. Nor was the scene
less lovely in the morning hour, as the first effulgence of day fell
upon the masses of dew-cloud--at this time mist always settles upon
their brows--lit up the peaks, which gleamed like silver, and poured
its streams of light and warmth over the broad skirts reposing upon the
plain.
This unknown region was explored in August, 1842, by Colonel, then
Brevet Captain, J. C. Frémont, of the United States Topographical
Engineers; and his eloquent descriptions of the magnificent scenery
that rewarded his energy and enterprise prove how easily men write
well when they have a great subject to write upon. The concourse
of small green tarns, rushing waters, and lofty cascades, with the
gigantic disorder of enormous masses, the savage sublimity of the naked
rock, broken, jagged cones, slender minarets, needles, and columns,
and serrated walls, 2000 to 3000 feet high, all naked and destitute
of vegetable earth; the vertical precipices, chasms, and fissures,
insecure icy passages, long moraines, and sloping glaciers--which had
nearly proved fatal to some of the party; the stern recesses, shutting
out from the world dells and ravines of exquisite beauty, smoothly
carpeted with soft grass, kept green and fresh by the moisture of the
atmosphere, and sown with gay groups of brilliant flowers, of which
yellow was the predominant color: all this glory and grandeur seems
to be placed like a picture before our eyes. The reader enjoys, like
the explorer, the fragrant odor of the pines, and the pleasure of
breathing, in the bright, clear morning, that “mountain air which
makes a constant theme of the hunter’s praise,” and which causes
man to feel as if he had been inhaling some exhilarating gas. We
sympathize with his joy in having hit upon “such a beautiful entrance
to the mountains,” in his sorrow, caused by accidents to barometer
and thermometer, and in the honest pride with which, fixing a ramrod
in the crevice of “an unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a
breath would hurl into the abyss below,” he unfurled the Stars and the
Stripes, to wave in the breeze where flag never waved before--over the
topmost crest of the Rocky Mountains. And every driver upon the road
now can tell how, in the profound silence and terrible stillness and
solitude that affect the mind as the great features of the scene, while
sitting on a rock at the very summit, where the silence was absolute,
unbroken by any sound, and the stillness and solitude were completest,
a solitary “humble-bee”[102] winging through the black-blue air his
flight from the eastern valley, alit upon the knee of one of the men,
and, helas! “found a grave in the leaves of the large book, among the
flowers collected on the way.”
[102] A species of _bromus_ or _bombus_. In the United States, as
in England, the word is often pronounced bumble-bee. Johnson says
we call a bee an humble bee that wants a sting; so the States call
black cattle without horns “humble cows.” It is the general belief of
the mountaineers that the bee, the partridge, the plantain, and the
“Jamestown weed” follow the footsteps of the white pioneers westward.
[GOLD.--GAME.--MUSQUETOES.--A “SMUDGE.”]
The Wind-River Range has other qualities than mere formal beauty to
recommend it. At Horseshoe Creek I was shown a quill full of large
gold-grains from a new digging. Probably all the primitive masses of
the Rocky Mountains will be found to contain the precious metal. The
wooded heights are said to be a very paradise of sport, full of elk and
every kind of deer; pumas; bears, brown[103] as well as grizzly; the
wolverine;[104] in parts the mountain buffalo--briefly, all the noble
game of the Continent. The Indian tribes, Shoshonees and Blackfeet, are
not deadly to whites. Washiki, the chief of the former, had, during the
time of our visit, retired to hilly ground, about forty miles north of
the Foot of Ridge Station. This chief--a fine, manly fellow, equal in
point of physical strength to the higher race--had been a firm friend,
from the beginning, to emigrant and settler; but he was complaining,
according to the road officials, that the small amount of inducement
prevented his affording good conduct any longer--that he must rob, like
the rest of the tribe. Game, indeed, is not unfrequently found near
the Pacific Springs; they are visited, later in the year, by swans,
geese, and flights of ducks. At this season they seem principally to
attract coyotes--five mules have lately been worried by the little
villains--huge cranes, chicken-hawks, a large species of trochilus, and
clouds of musquetoes, which neither the altitude, the cold, nor the
eternal wind-storm that howls through the Pass can drive from their
favorite breeding-bed. Near nightfall a flock of wild geese passed
over us, audibly threatening an early winter. We were obliged, before
resting, to insist upon a smudge,[105] without which fumigation sleep
would have been impossible.
[103] Some authorities doubt that the European brown bear is found in
America.
[104] The wolverine (_Gulo luscus_), carcajou, or glutton, extends
throughout Utah Territory: its carnivorous propensities render it an
object of peculiar hatred to fur-hunters. The first name is loosely
used in the States: the people of Michigan are called Wolverines,
from the large number of _mischievous prairie wolves_ found there
(Bartlett).
[105] This old North of England word is used in the West for a
heap of green bush or other damp combustibles, placed inside or to
windward of a house or tent, and partially lighted, so as to produce
a thick, pungent steam.
The shanty was perhaps a trifle more uncomfortable than the average;
our only seat was a kind of trestled plank, which suggested a
certain obsolete military punishment called riding on a rail. The
station-master was a _bon enfant_; but his help, a Mormon lad, still
in his teens, had been trained to go in a “sorter” jibbing and
somewhat uncomfortable “argufying,” “highfalutin’” way. He had the
furor for fire-arms that characterizes the ingenuous youth of Great
Salt Lake City, and his old rattletrap of a revolver, which always
reposed by his side at night, was as dangerous to his friends as to
himself. His vernacular was peculiar; like Mr. Boatswain Chucks (Mr.
D----s), he could begin a sentence with polished and elaborate diction,
but it always ended, like the wicked, badly. He described himself,
for instance, as having lately been “slightly inebriated;” but the
euphuistic periphrasis concluded with an asseveration that he would be
“Gord domned” if he did it again.
The night was, like the day, loud and windy, the log hut being somewhat
crannied and creviced, and the door had a porcelain handle, and a
shocking bad fit--a characteristic combination. We had some trouble to
keep ourselves warm. At sunrise the thermometer showed 35° Fahrenheit.
_To Green River. August 21st._
We rose early, despite the cold, to enjoy once more the lovely aspect
of the Wind-River Mountains, upon whose walls of snow the rays of
the unrisen sun broke with a splendid effect; breakfasted, and found
ourselves _en route_ at 8 A.M. The day did not begin well: Mrs. Dana
was suffering severely from fatigue, and the rapid transitions from
heat to cold; Miss May, poor child! was but little better, and the team
was re-enforced by an extra mule returning to its proper station: this
four-footed Xantippe caused us, without speaking of the dust from her
hoofs, an immensity of trouble.
At the Pacific Creek, two miles below the springs, we began the
descent of the Western water-shed, and the increase of temperature
soon suggested a lower level. We were at once convinced that those who
expect any change for the better on the counterslope of the mountains
labor under a vulgar error. The land was desolate, a red waste, dotted
with sage and greasebush, and in places pitted with large rain-drops.
But, looking backward, we could admire the Sweetwater’s Gap heading far
away, and the glorious pile of mountains which, disposed in crescent
shape, curtained the horizon; their southern and western bases wanted,
however, one of the principal charms of the upper view: the snow
had well-nigh been melted off. Yet, according to the explorer, they
supply within the space of a few miles the Green River with a number
of tributaries, which are all called the New Forks. We kept them in
sight till they mingled with the upper air like immense masses of
thunder-cloud gathering for a storm.
[THE GLISTENING GRAVEL WATER.]
From Pacific Creek the road is not bad, but at this season the emigrant
parties are sorely tried by drought, and when water is found it is
often fetid or brackish. After seventeen miles we passed the junction
of the Great Salt Lake and Fort Hall roads. Near Little Sandy Creek--a
feeder of its larger namesake--which after rains is about 2·5 feet
deep, we found nothing but sand, caked clay, sage, thistles, and the
scattered fragments of camp-fires, with large ravens picking at the
bleaching skeletons, and other indications of a halting-ground, an eddy
in the great current of mankind, which, ceaseless as the Gulf Stream,
ever courses from east to west. After a long stage of twenty-nine miles
we made Big Sandy Creek, an important influent of the Green River; the
stream, then shrunken, was in breadth not less than five rods, each =
16·5 feet, running with a clear, swift current through a pretty little
prairillon, bright with the blue lupine, the delicate pink malvacea,
the golden helianthus, purple aster acting daisy, the white mountain
heath, and the green Asclepias tuberosa,[106] a weed common throughout
Utah Territory. The Indians, in their picturesque way, term this stream
Wágáhongopá, or the Glistening Gravel Water.[107] We halted for an hour
to rest and dine; the people of the station, man and wife, the latter
very young, were both English, and of course Mormons; they had but
lately become tenants of the ranch, but already they were thinking, as
the Old Country people will, of making their surroundings “nice and
tidy.”
[106] Locally called milkweed. The whites use the silky cotton of
the pods, as in Arabia, for bed-stuffings, and the Sioux Indians
of the Upper Platte boil and eat the young pods with their buffalo
flesh. Colonel Frémont asserts that he never saw this plant without
remarking “on the flower a large butterfly, so nearly resembling it
in color as to be distinguishable at a little distance only by the
motion of its wings.”
[107] Similarly the Snake River, an eastern influent of the Colorado,
is called Yampa Pa, or Sweet Root (_Anethum graveolens_) Water.
Beyond the Glistening Gravel Water lies a _mauvaise terre_, sometimes
called the First Desert, and upon the old road water is not found in
the dry season within forty-nine miles--a terrible _jornada_[108] for
laden wagons with tired cattle. We prepared for drought by replenishing
all our canteens--one of them especially, a tin flask, covered outside
with thick cloth, kept the fluid deliciously cold--and we amused
ourselves by the pleasant prospect of seeing wild mules taught to bear
harness. The tricks of equine viciousness and asinine obstinacy played
by the mongrels were so distinct, that we had no pains in determining
what was inherited from the father and what from the other side of the
house. Before they could be hitched up they were severally hustled into
something like a parallel line with the pole, and were then forced
into their places by a rope attached to the fore wheel, and hauled at
the other end by two or three men. Each of these pleasant animals had a
bell: it is sure, unless corraled, to run away, and at night sound is
necessary to guide the pursuer. At last, being “all aboord,” we made
a start, dashed over the Big Sandy, charged the high stiff bank with
an impetus that might have carried us up an otter-slide or a Montagne
Russe, and took the right side of the valley, leaving the stream at
some distance.
[108] The Spanish-Mexican term for a day’s march. It is generally
applied to a waterless march, _e. g._, “Jornada del Muerto” in New
Mexico, which, like some in the Sahara, measures ninety miles across.
Rain-clouds appeared from the direction of the hills: apparently they
had many centres, as the distant sheet was rent into a succession of
distinct streamers. A few drops fell upon us as we advanced. Then
the fiery sun “ate up” the clouds, or raised them so high that they
became playthings in the hands of the strong and steady western gale.
The thermometer showed 95° in the carriage, and 111° exposed to the
reflected heat upon the black leather cushions. It was observable,
however, that the sensation was not what might have been expected from
the height of the mercury, and perspiration was unknown except during
severe exercise; this proves the purity and salubrity of the air.
In St. Jo and New Orleans the effect would have been that of India
or of a Turkish steam-bath. The heat, however, brought with it one
evil--a green-headed horsefly, that stung like a wasp, and from which
cattle must be protected with a coating of grease and tar. Whenever
wind blew, tourbillons of dust coursed over the different parts of
the plain, showing a highly electrical state of the atmosphere. When
the air was unmoved the mirage was perfect as the sarab in Sindh or
Southern Persia; earth and air were both so dry that the refraction
of the sunbeams elevated the objects acted upon more than I had ever
seen before. A sea lay constantly before our eyes, receding of course
as we advanced, but in all other points a complete _lusus naturæ_.
The color of the water was a dull cool sky-blue, not white, as the
“looming” generally is; the broad expanse had none of that tremulous
upward motion which is its general concomitant; it lay placid, still,
and perfectly reflecting in its azure depths--here and there broken by
projecting capes and bluff headlands--the forms of the higher grounds
bordering the horizon.
After twelve miles’ driving we passed through a depression called
Simpson’s Hollow, and somewhat celebrated in local story. Two
semicircles of black still charred the ground; on a cursory view they
might have been mistaken for burnt-out lignite. Here, in 1857, the
Mormons fell upon a corraled train of twenty-three wagons, laden with
provisions and other necessaries for the federal troops, then halted
at Camp Scott awaiting orders to advance. The wagoners, suddenly
attacked, and, as usual, unarmed--their weapons being fastened inside
their awnings--could offer no resistance, and the whole convoy was
set on fire except two conveyances, which were left to carry back
supplies for the drivers till they could reach their homes. On this
occasion the _dux facti_ was Lot Smith, a man of reputation for hard
riding and general gallantry. The old Saint is always spoken of as a
good man who lives by “Mormon rule of wisdom.” As at Fort Sumter, no
blood was spilled. So far the Mormons behaved with temper and prudence;
but this their first open act of rebellion against, or secession from,
the federal authority nearly proved fatal to them; had the helm of
government been held by a firmer hand than poor Mr. Buchanan’s, the
scenes of Nauvoo would have been acted again at Great Salt Lake City.
As it was, all turned out _à merveille_ for the saints militant. They
still boast loudly of the achievement, and on the marked spot where it
was performed the juvenile emigrants of the creed erect dwarf graves
and nameless “wooden” tomb-“stones” in derision of their enemies.
[VALLEY OF THE GREEN RIVER.]
As sunset drew near we approached the banks of the Big Sandy River.
The bottom through which it flowed was several yards in breadth,
bright green with grass, and thickly feathered with willows and
cotton-wood. It showed no sign of cultivation; the absence of cereals
may be accounted for by its extreme cold; it freezes there every
night, and none but the hardiest grains, oats and rye, which here are
little appreciated, could be made to grow. We are now approaching
the valley of the Green River, which, like many of the rivers in the
Eastern States, appears formerly to have filled a far larger channel.
Flat tables and elevated terraces of horizontal strata--showing that
the deposit was made in still waters--with layers varying from a few
lines to a foot in thickness, composed of hard clay, green and other
sandstones, and agglutinated conglomerates, rise like islands from
barren plains, or form escarpments that buttress alternately either
bank of the winding stream. Such, according to Captain Stansbury, is
the general formation of the land between the South Pass and the “Rim”
of the Utah Basin.
Advancing over a soil alternately sandy and rocky--an iron flat that
could not boast of a spear of grass--we sighted a number of coyotes,
fittest inhabitants of such a waste, and a long, distant line of dust,
like the smoke of a locomotive, raised by a herd of mules which were
being driven to the corral. We were presently met by the Pony Express
rider; he reined in to exchange news, which _de part et d’autre_ were
simply _nil_. As he pricked onward over the plain, the driver informed
us, with a portentous rolling of the head, that Ichabod was an a’mighty
fine “shyoot.” Within five or six miles of Green River we passed the
boundary stone which bears Oregon on one side and Utah on the other. We
had now traversed the southeastern corner of the country of Long-eared
men,[109] and were entering Deserét, the Land of the Honey-bee.
[109] Oregon is supposed by Mr. Edward to have been named by the
Spaniards from the immensely lengthened ears (_orejones_) of the
Indians who inhabited it.
At 6 30 P.M. we debouched upon the bank of the Green River. The station
was the home of Mr. Macarthy, our driver. The son of a Scotchman
who had settled in the United States, he retained many signs of his
origin, especially freckles, and hair which one might almost venture
to describe as sandy; perhaps also, at times, he was rather o’er fond
of draining “a cup o’ kindness yet.” He had lately taken to himself
an English wife, the daughter of a Birmingham mechanic, who, before
the end of her pilgrimage to “Zion on the tops of the mountains,” had
fallen considerably away from grace, and had incurred the risk of being
buffeted by Satan for a thousand years--a common form of commination
in the New Faith--by marrying a Gentile husband.[110] The station had
the indescribable scent of a Hindoo village, which appears to result
from the burning of _bois de vache_ and the presence of cattle: there
were sheep, horses, mules, and a few cows, the latter so lively that
it was impossible to milk them. The ground about had the effect of an
oasis in the sterile waste, with grass and shrubs, willows and flowers,
wild geraniums, asters, and various _cruciferæ_. A few trees, chiefly
quaking asp, lingered near the station, but dead stumps were far more
numerous than live trunks. In any other country their rare and precious
shade would have endeared them to the whole settlement; here they were
never safe when a log was wanted. The Western man is bred and perhaps
born--I believe devoutly in transmitted and hereditary qualities--with
an instinctive dislike to timber in general. He fells a tree naturally
as a bull-terrier worries a cat, and the admirable woodsman’s axe which
he has invented only serves to whet his desire to try conclusions with
every more venerable patriarch of the forest.[111] Civilized Americans,
of course, lament the destructive mania, and the Latter-Day Saints
have learned by hard experience the inveterate evils that may arise in
such a country from disforesting the ground. We supped comfortably at
Green-River Station, the stream supplying excellent salmon trout. The
kichimichi, or buffalo berry,[112] makes tolerable jelly, and alongside
of the station is a store where Mr. Burton (of Maine) sells “Valley
Tan” whisky.[113]
[110] Mr. Brigham Young, one of the most tolerant of a people whose
motto is toleration, would not, I believe, offer any but an official
objection to a Mormon member marrying a worthy Gentile; but even
he--and it could hardly be expected that he should--can not overlook
the sin of apostasy. The order of the faith runs thus: “We believe
that it is not right to prohibit members of the Church from marrying
out of the Church, if it be their determination so to do, but such
persons will be considered weak in the faith of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.” The same view of the subject is taken, I need hardly
say, by the more rigid kind of Roman Catholic.
[111] Many of the blades, being made by convicts at the state
prisons, are sold cheap. The extent of the timber regions
necessitated this excellent implement, and the saving of labor on the
European article is enormous.
[112] A shrub 10-15 feet high, with a fruit about the size of a pea,
red like a wild rose-hip, and with a pleasant sub-acid flavor: the
Indians eat it with avidity, and it is cultivated in the gardens at
Great Salt Lake City.
[113] Tannery was the first technological process introduced into the
Mormon Valley; hence all home industry has obtained the sobriquet of
“Valley Tan.”
[EXPLORATION YET TO BE DONE.]
The Green River is the Rio Verde of the Spaniards, who named it from
its timbered shores and grassy islets: it is called by the Yuta Indians
Piya Ogwe, or the Great Water; by the other tribes Sitskidiágí, or
“Prairie-grouse River.” It was nearly at its lowest when we saw it; the
breadth was not more than 330 feet. In the flood-time it widens to 800
feet, and the depth increases from three to six. During the inundation
season a ferry is necessary, and when transit is certain the owner
sometimes nets $500 a week, which is not unfrequently squandered in
a day. The banks are in places thirty feet high, and the bottom may
average three miles from side to side. It is a swift-flowing stream,
running as if it had no time to lose, and truly it has a long way to
go. Its length, volume, and direction entitle it to the honor of being
called the head water of the great Rio Colorado, or Colored River, a
larger and more important stream than even the Columbia. There is some
grand exploration still to be done upon the line of the Upper Colorado,
especially the divides which lie between it and its various influents,
the Grand River and the Yaquisilla, of which the wild trapper brings
home many a marvelous tale of beauty and grandeur. Captain T. A. Gove,
of the 10th Regiment of Infantry, then stationed at Camp Floyd, told
me that an expedition had often been projected: a party of twenty-five
to thirty men, well armed and provided with inflatable boats, might
pass without unwarrantable risk through the sparsely populated Indian
country: a true report concerning regions of which there are so many
false reports, all wearing more or less the garb of fable--beautiful
valleys inclosed in inaccessible rocks, Indian cities and golden
treasures--would be equally interesting and important. I can not
recommend the undertaking to the European adventurer: the United States
have long since organized and perfected what was proposed in England
during the Crimean war, and which fell, as other projects then did,
to the ground, namely, a corps of Topographical Engineers, a body of
well-trained and scientific explorers, to whose hands the task may
safely be committed.[114]
[114] The principal explorers under the United States government of
the regions lying west of the Mississippi, and who have published
works upon the subject, are the following:
1. Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804-6, first explored the Rocky
Mountains to the Columbia River.
2. Major Z. M. Pike, in 1805-7, visited the upper waters of the
Mississippi and the western regions of Louisiana.
3. Major, afterward Colonel S. H. Long, of the United States
Topographical Engineers, made two expeditions, one in 1819-20 to the
Rocky Mountains, another in 1823 to the Sources of the St. Peter and
the Lake of the Woods, whereby four volumes octavo were filled.
4. Governor Cass and Mr. Schoolcraft in 1820 explored the Sources of
the Mississippi and the regions west and south of Lake Superior.
5. Colonel H. Dodge, U. S. Army, in 1835 traveled 1600 miles from
Fort Leavenworth, and visited the regions between the Arkansas and
the Platte Rivers.
6. Captain Canfield, United States Topographical Engineers, in 1838
explored the country between Forts Leavenworth and Snelling.
7. Mr. M‘Cox, of Missouri, surveyed the boundaries of the Indian
reservations: his work was in part revised by the late Captain Hood,
United States Topographical Engineers.
8. Mr. Nicollet (French) in 1833-38 mapped the country west of the
Upper Mississippi: he was employed in 1838-9 to make a similar
scientific reconnoissance between the Mississippi and the Missouri,
on which occasion he was accompanied by Mr. Frémont. He died in 1842.
The explorations of Colonel Frémont, Captain Howard Stansbury,
Lieutenant Gunnison, and Lieutenant Warren have been frequently
alluded to in these pages.
9. Lieutenant, afterward Captain Charles Wilkes, U. S. Navy, set out
in 1838, and, after a long voyage of discovery in South America,
Oceanica, and the Antarctic continent, made San Francisco on August
11, 1841. It is remarkable that this officer’s party were actually
pitched upon the spot (New Helvetia, afterward called Sacramento
City) where Californian gold was dug by the Mormons.
10. Captain R. B. Marcy, U. S. Army, “discovered and explored,
located and marked out the wagon-road from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to
Santa Fé, New Mexico.” The road explorers, however, are too numerous
to specify.
11. Governor I. I. Stevens, of Washington Territory, surveyed in 1853
the northern land proposed for a Pacific railway near the 47°-49°
parallels, from St. Paul to Puget Sound. No portion of that line
had been visited since the days of Lewis and Clarke, except a small
portion toward the Pacific Ocean.
12. Captain Raynolds, United States Topographical Engineers,
accompanied by Colonel Bridger as guide and interpreter, is still
(1860) exploring the head-waters of the Yellow Stone River.
We passed a social evening at Green-River Station. It boasted of no
less than three Englishwomen, two married, and one, the help, still
single. Not having the Mormonite _retenue_, the dames were by no means
sorry to talk about Birmingham and Yorkshire, their birthplaces. At 9
P.M. arrived one of the road-agents, Mr. Cloete, from whom I gathered
that the mail-wagon which once ran from Great Salt Lake City had lately
been taken off the road. The intelligence was by no means consolatory,
but a course of meditation upon the saying of the sage, “in for a
penny, in for a pound,” followed by another visit to my namesake’s
grog-shop, induced a highly philosophical turn, which enabled me--with
the aid of a buffalo--to pass a comfortable night in the store.
_22d August. To Ham’s Fork and Millersville._
We were not under way before 8 A.M. Macarthy was again to take the
lines, and a _Giovinetto_ returning after a temporary absence to a
young wife is not usually rejoiced to run his course. Indeed, he felt
the inconveniences of a semi-bachelor life so severely, that he often
threatened in my private ear, _chemin faisant_, to throw up the whole
concern.
[MICHAEL MARTIN’S STORE.--AN ORIGINAL.]
After the preliminary squabble with the mules, we forded the pebbly
and gravelly bed of the river--in parts it looks like a lake exhausted
by drainage--whose swift surging waters wetted the upper spokes of the
wheels, and gurgled pleasantly around the bags which contained the mail
for Great Salt Lake City.[115] We then ran down the river valley,
which was here about one mile in breadth, in a smooth flooring of clay,
sprinkled with water-rolled pebbles, overgrown in parts with willow,
wild cherry, buffalo berries, and quaking asp. Macarthy pointed out in
the road-side a rough grave, furnished with the normal tomb-stone, two
pieces of wagon-board: it was occupied by one Farren, who had fallen by
the revolver of the redoubtable Slade. Presently we came to the store
of Michael Martin, an honest Creole, who vended the staple of prairie
goods, Champagne, bottled cocktail, “eye-opener,” and other liquors,
dry goods--linen drapery--a few fancy goods, ribbons, and finery;
brandied fruits, jams and jellies, potted provisions, buckskins,
moccasins, and so forth. Hearing that Lieutenant Dana was _en route_
for Camp Floyd, he requested him to take charge of $500, to be paid to
Mr. Livingston, the sutler, and my companion, with the obligingness
that marked his every action, agreed to deliver the dollars, _sauve_
the judgment of God in the shape of Indians, or “White Indians.”[116]
At the store we noticed a paralytic man. This original lived under the
delusion that it was impossible to pass the Devil’s Gate: his sister
had sent for him to St. Louis, and his friends tried to transport
him eastward in chairs; the only result was that he ran away before
reaching the Gate, and after some time was brought back by Indians.
[115] Sticklers for strict democracy in the United States maintain,
on the principle that the least possible power should be delegated
to the federal government, that the transmission of correspondence
is no more a national concern than the construction of railways and
telegraphs, or the transit of passengers and goods. The present
system was borrowed from the monopolies of Europe, and was introduced
into America at a time when individual enterprise was inadequate
to the task; in the year one of the Republic it became, under the
direction of Benjamin Franklin, a state department, and, though men
argue in the abstract, few care to propose a private mail system,
which would undertake the management of some 27,000 scattered offices
and 40,000 poorly paid clerks.
On this line we saw all the evils of the contract system. The
requisite regularity and quickness was neglected, letters and papers
were often lost, the mail-bags were wetted or thrown carelessly
upon the ground, and those intrusted to the conductors were perhaps
destroyed. Both parties complain--the postmaster that the contractors
seek to drive too hard a bargain with the department, and the
contractors that they are carrying the mails at a loss. Since the
restoration (in 1858) of the postal communication with the United
States which was interrupted in 1857, the Mormons attempt to secure
good service by advertising their grievances, and with tolerable
success. Postmaster Morrill--a Gentile--complained energetically of
the mail service during the last year, that letters were wetted and
jumbled together, two of one month perhaps and one of another; that
magazines often arrived four months after date, and that thirty sacks
left at Rocky Ridge were lost. The consequence was that during my
stay at Great Salt Lake City the contractors did their duty.
When salaries are small and families large, post-office robberies
must at times be expected. The postal department have long adopted
the system of registered letters: upon payment of five cents instead
of three, the letter is placed in a separate bag, entered separately
in the office books, forwarded with certain precautions, and
delivered to the address only after a receipt from the recipient.
But the department disclaims all responsibility in case of loss or
theft, and the only value of the higher stamp is a somewhat superior
facility of tracking the document that bears it.
[116] A cant term for white thieves disguised as savages, which has a
terrible significancy a little farther West.
Resuming our journey, we passed two places where trains of fifty-one
wagons were burned in 1857 by the Mormon Rangers: the black stains
had bitten into the ground like the blood-marks in the palace of
Holyrood--a neat foundation for a structure of superstition. Not far
from it was a deep hole, in which the plunderers had “cached” the
iron-work which they were unable to carry away. Emerging from the
river plain we entered upon another _mauvaise terre_, with knobs and
elevations of clay and green gault, striped and banded with lines of
stone and pebbles: it was a barren, desolate spot, the divide between
the Green River and its western influent, the shallow and somewhat
sluggish Black’s Fork. The name is derived from an old trader: it is
called by the Snakes Ongo Ogwe Pa, or “Pine-tree Stream;” it rises in
the Bear-River Mountains, drains the swamps and lakelets on the way,
and bifurcates in its upper bed, forming two principal branches, Ham’s
Fork and Muddy Fork.
Near the Pine-tree Stream we met a horse-thief driving four bullocks:
he was known to Macarthy, and did not look over comfortable. We had
now fallen into the regular track of Mormon emigration, and saw the
wayfarers in their worst plight, near the end of the journey. We passed
several families, and parties of women and children trudging wearily
along: most of the children were in rags or half nude, and all showed
gratitude when we threw them provisions. The greater part of the men
were armed, but their weapons were far more dangerous to themselves
and their fellows than to the enemy. There is not on earth a race of
men more ignorant of arms as a rule than the lower grades of English;
becoming an emigrant, the mechanic hears that it may be necessary
to beat off Indians, so he buys the first old fire-arm he sees, and
probably does damage with it. Only last night a father crossed Green
River to beg for a piece of cloth; it was intended to shroud the body
of his child, which during the evening had been accidentally shot, and
the station people seemed to think nothing of the accident, as if it
were of daily recurrence. I was told of three, more or less severe,
that happened in the course of a month. The Western Americans, who are
mostly accustomed to the use of weapons, look upon these awkwardnesses
with a profound contempt. We were now in a region of graves, and their
presence in this wild was not a little suggestive.
Presently we entered a valley in which green grass, low and dense
willows, and small but shady trees, an unusually vigorous vegetation,
refreshed, as though with living water, our eyes, parched and dazed by
the burning glare. Stock strayed over the pasture, and a few Indian
tents rose at the farther side; the view was probably _pas grand’
chose_, but we thought it splendidly beautiful. At midday we reached
Ham’s Fork, the northwestern influent of Green River, and there we
found a station. The pleasant little stream is called by the Indians
Turugempa, the “Blackfoot Water.”
[THE DIRTY HOUSE.]
The station was kept by an Irishman and a Scotchman--“Dawvid Lewis:”
it was a disgrace; the squalor and filth were worse almost than
the two--Cold Springs and Rock Creek--which we called our horrors,
and which had always seemed to be the _ne plus ultra_ of Western
discomfort. The shanty was made of dry stone piled up against a
dwarf cliff to save back wall, and ignored doors and windows. The
flies--unequivocal sign of unclean living!--darkened the table and
covered every thing put upon it; the furniture, which mainly consisted
of the different parts of wagons, was broken, and all in disorder; the
walls were impure, the floor filthy. The reason was at once apparent.
Two Irishwomen, sisters,[117] were married to Mr. Dawvid, and the house
was full of “childer,” the noisiest and most rampageous of their kind.
I could hardly look upon the scene without disgust. The fair ones had
the porcine Irish face--I need hardly tell the reader that there are
three orders of physiognomy in that branch of the Keltic family, viz.,
porcine, equine, and simian--the pig-faced, the horse-faced, and the
monkey-faced. Describing one I describe both sisters; her nose was
“pugged,” apparently by gnawing hard potatoes before that member had
acquired firmness and consistency; her face was powdered with freckles;
her hair, and, indeed, her general costume, looked, to quote Mr. Dow’s
sermon, as though she had been rammed through a bush fence into a world
of wretchedness and woe. Her dress was unwashed and in tatters, and her
feet were bare; she would not even take the trouble to make for herself
moccasins. Moreover, I could not but notice that, though the house
contained two wives, it boasted only of one cubile, and had only one
cubiculum. Such things would excite no surprise in London or Naples, or
even in many of the country parts of Europe; but here, where ground is
worthless, where building material is abundant, and where a few hours
of daily labor would have made the house look at least respectable,
I could not but wonder at it. My first impulse was to attribute the
evil, uncharitably enough, to Mormonism; to renew, in fact, the
stock-complaint of nineteen centuries’ standing--
“Fœcunda culpæ secula nuptias
Primùm inquinavere, et genus et domus.”
[117] A man (Mormon) may even marry a mother and her daughters:
usually the relationship with the former is Platonic; the tie,
however, is irregular, and has been contracted in ignorance of the
prohibited degrees.
[A SCOTCH IDLER.]
A more extended acquaintance with the regions west of the Wasach taught
me that the dirt and discomfort were the growth of the land. To give
the poor devils their due, Dawvid was civil and intelligent, though a
noted dawdler, as that rare phenomenon, a Scotch idler, generally is.
Moreover, his wives were not deficient in charity; several Indians came
to the door, and none went away without a “bit” and a “sup.” During
the process of sketching one of these men, a Snake, distinguished
by his vermilion’d hair-parting, eyes blackened, as if by lines of
soot or surma, and delicate Hindoo-like hands, my eye fell upon the
German-silver handle of a Colt’s revolver, which had been stowed away
under the blankets, and a revolver in the Lamanite’s hands breeds evil
suspicions.
Again we advanced. The air was like the breath of a furnace; the sun
was a blaze of fire--accounting, by-the-by, for the fact that the human
nose in these parts seems invariably to become cherry-red--all the
nullahs were dried up, and the dust-pillars and mirage were the only
moving objects on the plain. Three times we forded Black’s Fork, and
then debouched once more upon a long flat. The ground was scattered
over with pebbles of granite, obsidian, flint, and white, yellow, and
smoky quartz, all water-rolled. After twelve miles we passed Church
Butte, one of many curious formations lying to the left hand or south
of the road. This isolated mass of stiff clay has been cut and ground
by wind and rain into folds and hollow channels which from a distance
perfectly simulate the pillars, groins, and massive buttresses of a
ruinous Gothic cathedral. The foundation is level, except where masses
have been swept down by the rain, and not a blade of grass grows upon
any part. An architect of genius might profitably study this work of
Nature: upon that subject, however, I shall presently have more to say.
The Butte is highly interesting in a geological point of view; it shows
the elevation of the adjoining plains in past ages, before partial
deluges and the rains of centuries had effected the great work of
degradation.
Again we sighted the pretty valley of Black’s Fork, whose cool clear
stream flowed merrily over its pebbly bed. The road was now populous
with Mormon emigrants; some had good teams, others hand-carts, which
looked like a cross between a wheel-barrow and a tax-cart. There was
nothing repugnant in the demeanor of the party; they had been civilized
by traveling, and the younger women, who walked together and apart
from the men, were not too surly to exchange a greeting. The excessive
barrenness of the land presently diminished; gentian and other
odoriferous herbs appeared, and the greasewood, which somewhat reminded
me of the Sindhian camel-thorn, was of a lighter green than elsewhere,
and presented a favorable contrast with the dull glaucous hues of the
eternal prairie sage. We passed a dwarf copse so strewed with the bones
of cattle as to excite our astonishment: Macarthy told us that it was
the place where the 2d Dragoons encamped in 1857, and lost a number of
their horses by cold and starvation. The wolves and coyotes seemed to
have retained a predilection for the spot; we saw troops of them in
their favorite “location”--the crest of some little rise, whence they
could keep a sharp look-out upon any likely addition to their scanty
larder.
[THE UNGENIAL MAN.]
After sundry steep inclines we forded another little stream, with a
muddy bed, shallow, and about thirty feet wide: it is called Smith’s
Fork, rises in the “Bridger Range” of the Uinta Hills, and sheds into
Black’s Fork, the main drain of these parts. On the other side stood
Millersville, a large ranch with a whole row of unused and condemned
wagons drawn up on one side. We arrived at 5 15 P.M., having taken
three hours and fifteen minutes to get over twenty miles. The tenement
was made of the component parts of vehicles, the chairs had backs of
yoke-bows, and the fences which surrounded the corral were of the same
material. The station was kept by one Holmes, an American Mormon, and
an individual completely the reverse of genial; he dispensed his words
as if shelling out coin, and he was never--by us at least--seen to
smile. His wife was a pretty young Englishwoman, who had spent the best
part of her life between London and Portsmouth; when alone with me she
took the opportunity of asking some few questions about old places,
but this most innocent _tête-à-tête_ was presently interrupted by the
protrusion through the open door of a _tête de mari au naturel_, with
a truly _renfrogné_ and vinegarish aspect, which made him look like a
calamity. After supplying us with a supper which was clean and neatly
served, the pair set out for an evening ride, and toward night we heard
the scraping of a violin, which reminded me of Tommaso Scarafaggio:
“Detto il sega del villagio
Perché suona il violino.”
The “fiddle” was a favorite instrument with Mr. Joseph Smith, as the
harp with David; the Mormons, therefore, at the instance of their
prophet, are not a little addicted to the use of the bow. We spent a
comfortable night at Millersville. After watching the young moon as she
sailed through the depths of a firmament unstained by the least fleck
of mist, we found some scattered volumes which rendered us independent
of our unsocial Yankee host.
_23d August. Fort Bridger._
[“UNCLE JACK.”]
We breakfasted early the next morning, and gladly settled accounts with
the surly Holmes, who had infected--probably by following the example
of Mr. Caudle in later life--his pretty wife with his own surliness.
Shortly after starting--at 8 30 A.M.--we saw a little clump of seven
Indian lodges, which our experience soon taught us were the property
of a white; the proprietor met us on the road, and was introduced with
due ceremony by Mr. Macarthy. “Uncle Jack” (Robinson, really) is a
well-known name between South Pass and Great Salt Lake City; he has
spent thirty-four years in the mountains, and has saved some $75,000,
which have been properly invested at St. Louis; as might be expected,
he prefers the home of his adoption and his Indian spouse, who has made
him the happy father of I know not how many children, to good society
and bad air farther east.
Our road lay along the valley of Black’s Fork, which here flows
from the southwest to the northeast; the bottom produced in plenty
luxuriant grass, the dandelion, and the purple aster, thickets of a
shrub-like hawthorn (_cratægus_), black and white currants, the willow
and the cotton-wood. When almost in sight of the military post we were
addressed by two young officers, one of them an assistant surgeon, who
had been engaged in the healthful and exciting pursuit of a badger,
whose markings, by-the-by, greatly differ from the European; they
recognized the uniform, and accompanied us to the station.
Fort Bridger lies 124 miles from Great Salt Lake City; according to
the drivers, however, the road might be considerably shortened. The
position is a fertile basin cut into a number of bits by Black’s
Fork, which disperses itself into four channels about 1·5 mile above
the station, and forms again a single bed about two miles below. The
fort is situated upon the westernmost islet. It is, as usual, a mere
cantonment, without any attempt at fortification, and at the time of
my visit was garrisoned by two companies of foot, under the command of
Captain F. Gardner, of the 10th Regiment. The material of the houses
is pine and cedar brought from the Uinta Hills, whose black flanks
supporting snowy cones rise at the distance of about thirty-five miles.
They are a sanitarium, except in winter, when under their influence the
mercury sinks to -20° F., not much less rigorous than Minnesota, and
they are said to shelter grizzly bears and an abundance of smaller game.
The fort was built by Colonel James Bridger, now the oldest trapper on
the Rocky Mountains, of whom Messrs. Frémont and Stansbury have both
spoken in the highest terms. He divides with Christopher Carson, the
Kit Carson of the Wind River and the Sierra Nevada explorations, the
honor of being the best guide and interpreter in the Indian country:
the palm for prudence is generally given to the former; for dash and
hard fighting to the latter, although, it is said, the mildest mannered
of men. Colonel Bridger, when an Indian trader, placed this post upon
a kind of neutral ground between the Snakes and Crows (Hapsaroke) on
the north, the Ogalalas and other Sioux to the east, the Arapahoes and
Cheyennes on the south, and the various tribes of Yutas (Utahs) on the
southwest. He had some difficulties with the Mormons, and Mrs. Mary
Ettie Smith, in a volume concerning which something will be said at
a future opportunity, veraciously reports his barbarous murder, some
years ago, by the Danite band. He was at the time of my visit absent on
an exploratory expedition with Captain Raynolds.
[A SORE SUBJECT.]
Arrived at Fort Bridger, our first thought was to replenish our
whisky-keg: its emptiness was probably due to the “rapid evaporation in
such an elevated region imperfectly protected by timber;” but, however
that may be, I never saw liquor disappear at such a rate before. _Par
parenthèse_, our late friends the officials had scarcely been more
fortunate: they had watched their whisky with the eyes of Argus,
yet, as the driver facetiously remarked, though the quantity did not
diminish too rapidly, the quality lost strength every day. We were
conducted by Judge Carter to a building which combined the function
of post-office and sutler’s store, the judge being also sutler, and
performing both parts, I believe, to the satisfaction of every one.
After laying in an ample provision of biscuits for Miss May and
korn-schnapps for ourselves, we called upon the commanding officer, who
introduced us to his officers, and were led by Captain Cumming to his
quarters, where, by means of chat, “solace-tobacco,” and toddy--which
in these regions signifies “cold with”--we soon worked our way
through the short three quarters of an hour allowed us. The officers
complained very naturally of their isolation and unpleasant duty, which
principally consists in keeping the roads open for, and the Indians
from cutting off, parties of unmanageable emigrants, who look upon the
federal army as their humblest servants. At Camp Scott, near Bridger,
the army of the federal government halted under canvas during the
severe winter of 1857-1858, and the subject is still sore to military
ears.
[BEER SPRINGS.]
We left Bridger at 10 A.M. Macarthy explained away the disregard for
the comfort of the public on the part of the contractors in not having
a station at the fort by declaring that they could obtain no land in
a government reservation; moreover, that forage there would be scarce
and dear, while the continual influx of Indians would occasion heavy
losses in cattle. At Bridger the road forks: the northern line leads
to Soda or Beer Springs,[118] the southern to Great Salt Lake City.
Following the latter, we crossed the rough timber bridges that spanned
the net-work of streams, and entered upon another expanse of degraded
ground, covered as usual with water-rolled pebbles of granite and
porphyry, flint and greenstone. On the left was a butte with steep
bluff sides, called the Race-course: the summit, a perfect _mesa_, is
said to be quite level, and to measure exactly a mile round--the rule
of the American hippodrome. Like these earth formations generally, it
points out the ancient level of the land before water had washed away
the outer film of earth’s crust. The climate in this part, as indeed
every where between the South Pass and the Great Salt Lake Valley,
was an exaggeration of the Italian, with hot days, cool nights, and an
incomparable purity and tenuity of atmosphere. We passed on the way a
party of emigrants, numbering 359 souls and driving 39 wagons. They
were commanded by the patriarch of Mormondom, otherwise Captain John
Smith, the eldest son of Hyrum Smith, a brother of Mr. Joseph Smith the
Prophet, and who, being a child at the time of the murderous affair at
Carthage, escaped being coiffe’d with the crown of martyrdom. He rose
to the patriarchate on the 18th of February, 1855; his predecessor
was “old John Smith”--uncle to Mr. Joseph, and successor to Mr. Hyrum
Smith--who died the 23d of May, 1854. He was a fair-complexioned man,
with light hair. His followers accepted gratefully some provisions with
which we could afford to part.
[118] These springs of sadly prosaic name are the greatest curiosity
to be seen on the earth. They lie but a short distance east of the
junction of the Fort Hall and the California roads, and are scattered
over, perhaps, 40 acres of volcanic ground. They do not, like most
springs, run out of the sides of hills, but boil up directly from a
level plain. The water contains a gas, and has quite an acid taste:
when exposed to the sun or air, it passes but a short distance before
it takes the formation of a crust or solid coat of scarlet hue, so
that the continued boiling of any of these fountains will “create a
stone to the height of its source (15 or twenty feet) some 10 to 20
feet in diameter at the bottom, and from 2 to 3 feet at the top.”
After arriving at a uniform height, the water has ceased to run from
several of the “eyes” to burst out in some other place. The water
spurts from some of these very beautifully.--Horn’s “Overland Guide
to California,” p. 38. They are also described by Colonel Frémont:
“Expedition to Oregon and North California (1843-44),” p. 136.
After passing the Mormons we came upon a descent which appeared little
removed from an angle of 35°, and suggested the propriety of walking
down. There was an attempt at a zigzag, and, for the benefit of wagons,
a rough wall of stones had been run along the sharper corners. At the
foot of the hill we remounted, and, passing through a wooded bottom,
reached at 12 15 P.M.--after fording the Big Muddy--Little Muddy Creek,
upon whose banks stood the station. Both these streams are branches of
the Ham’s Fork of Green River; and, according to the well-known “rule
of contrairy,” their waters are clear as crystal, showing every pebble
in their beds.
Little Muddy was kept by a Canadian, a chatty, lively, good-humored
fellow blessed with a sour English wife. Possibly the heat--the
thermometer showed 95° F. in the shade--had turned her temper;
fortunately, it had not similarly affected the milk and cream, which
were both unusually good. Jean-Baptiste, having mistaken me for a
_Française de France_, a being which he seemed to regard as little
lower than the angels--I was at no pains to disabuse him--was profuse
in his questionings concerning his imperial majesty, the emperor,
carefully confounding him with the first of the family; and so pleased
was he with my responses, that for the first time on that route I found
a man ready to spurn _cet animal féroce qu’on appelle la pièce de cinq
francs_--in other words, the “almighty dollar.”
We bade adieu to Little Muddy at noon, and entered a new country, a
broken land of spurs and hollows, in parts absolutely bare, in others
clothed with a thick vegetation. Curiously shaped hills, and bluffs of
red earth capped with a clay which much resembled snow, bore a thick
growth of tall firs and pines whose sombre uniform contrasted strangely
with the brilliant leek-like, excessive green foliage, and the tall,
note-paper-colored trunks of the ravine-loving quaking asp (_Populus
tremuloides_). The mixture of colors was bizarre in the extreme, and
the lay of the land, an uncouth system of converging, diverging, and
parallel ridges, with deep divisions--in one of these ravines, which is
unusually broad and grassy, rise the so-called Copperas Springs--was
hardly less striking. We ran winding along a crest of rising ground,
passing rapidly, by way of farther comparison, two wretched Mormons,
man and woman, who were driving, at a snail’s pace, a permanently lamed
ox, and after a long ascent stood upon the summit of Quaking-Asp Hill.
[QUAKING-ASP HILL.]
Quaking-Asp Hill, according to the drivers, is 1000 feet higher than
the South Pass, which would exalt its station to 8400 feet; other
authorities, however, reduce it to 7900. The descent was long and
rapid--so rapid, indeed, that oftentimes when the block of wood which
formed our brake dropped a bit of the old shoe-sole nailed upon it
to prevent ignition, I felt, as man may be excused for feeling, that
catching of the breath that precedes the first five-barred gate after
a night of “heavy wet.” The sides of the road were rich in vegetation,
stunted oak, black-jack, and box elder of the stateliest stature; above
rose the wild cherry, and the service-tree formed the bushes below.
The descent, besides being decidedly sharp, was exceedingly devious,
and our frequent “shaves”--a train of Mormon wagons was crawling down
at the same time--made us feel somewhat thankful that we reached the
bottom without broken bones.
The train was commanded by a Captain Murphy, who, as one might expect
from the name, had hoisted the Stars and Stripes--it was the only
instance of such loyalty seen by us on the Plains. The emigrants had
left Council Bluffs on the 20th of June, an unusually late date, and,
though weather-beaten, all looked well. Inspirited by our success in
surmounting the various difficulties of the way, we “poked fun” at an
old Yorkshireman, who was assumed, by way of mirth, to be a Cœlebs in
search of polygamy at an epoch of life when perhaps the blessing might
come too late; and at an exceedingly plain middle-aged and full-blooded
negro woman, who was fairly warned--the children of Ham are not
admitted to the communion of the Saints, and consequently to the
forgiveness of sins and a free seat in Paradise--that she was “carrying
coals to Newcastle.”
[SULPHUR CREEK.]
As the rays of the sun began to slant we made Sulphur Creek; it lies at
the foot of a mountain called Rim Base, because it is the eastern wall
of the great inland basin; westward of this point the waters can no
longer reach the Atlantic or the Pacific; each is destined to feed the
lakes,
“Nec Oceani pervenit ad undas.”
Beyond Sulphur Creek, too, the face of the country changes; the
sedimentary deposits are no longer seen; the land is broken and
confused, upheaved into huge masses of rock and mountains broken by
deep kanyons, ravines, and water-gaps, and drained by innumerable
streamlets. The exceedingly irregular lay of the land makes the road
devious, and the want of level ground, which is found only in dwarf
parks and prairillons, would greatly add to the expense of a railway.
We crossed the creek, a fetid stagnant water, about ten feet wide,
lying in a bed of black infected mud: during the spring rains, when
flowing, it is said to be wholesome enough. On the southern side of the
valley there are some fine fountains, and on the eastern are others
strongly redolent of sulphur; broad seams of coal crop out from the
northern bluffs, and about a mile distant in the opposite direction
are the Tar Springs, useful for greasing wagon-wheels and curing
galled-backed horses.
Following the valley, which was rough and broken as it well could be,
we crossed a small divide, and came upon the plain of the Bear River,
a translation of the Indian Kuiyápá. It is one of the most important
tributaries of the Great Salt Lake. Heading in the Uinta Range to
the east of Kamas Prairie,[119] it flows with a tortuous course to
the northwest, till, reaching Beer Springs, it turns sharply round
with a horseshoe bend, and sets to the southwest, falling into the
general reservoir at a bight called Bear-River Bay. According to the
mountaineers, it springs not far from the sources of the Weber River
and of the Timpanogos Water. Coal was found some years ago upon the
banks of the Bear River, and more lately near Weber River and Silver
Creek. It is the easternmost point to which Mormonism can extend
_main forte_; for fugitives from justice “over Bear River” is like
“over Jordan.” The aspect of the valley, here half a mile broad, was
prepossessing. Beyond a steep terrace, or step which compelled us all
to dismount, the clear stream, about 400 feet in width, flowed through
narrow lines of willows, cotton-wood, and large trees, which waved in
the cool refreshing western wind; grass carpeted the middle levels, and
above all rose red cliffs and buttresses of frowning rock.
[119] So called from the _Camassia esculenta_, the Pomme des
Prairies or Pomme Blanche of the Canadians, and the prairie turnip
and breadroot of the Western hunters. The Kamas Prairie is a pretty
little bit of clear and level ground near the head of the Timpanogos
River.
[ROUGH-AND-TUMBLE.--MR. MACARTHY.]
We reached the station at 5 30 P.M. The valley was dotted with the
tents of the Mormon emigrants, and we received sundry visits of
curiosity; the visitors, mostly of the sex conventionally termed
the fair, contented themselves with entering, sitting down, looking
hard, tittering to one another, and departing with Parthian glances
that had little power to hurt. From the men we heard tidings of “a
massacree” of emigrants in the north, and a defeat of Indians in the
west. Mr. Myers, the station-master, was an English Saint, who had
lately taken to himself a fifth wife, after severally divorcing the
others; his last choice was not without comeliness, but her reserve
was extreme; she could hardly be coaxed out of a “Yes, sir.” I found
Mr. Myers diligently perusing a translation of “Volney’s Ruins of
Empire;” we had a chat about the Old and the New Country, which led us
to sleeping-teme. I had here a curious instance of the effect of the
association of words, in hearing a by-stander apply to the Founder
of Christianity the “Mr.” which is the “_Kyrios_” of the West, and
is always prefixed to “Joseph Smith:” he stated that the mission of
the latter was “far ahead of” that of the former prophet, which,
by-the-by, is not the strict Mormon doctrine. My companion and his
family preferred as usual the interior of the mail-wagon, and it was
well that they did so; after a couple of hours entered Mr. Macarthy,
very drunk and “fighting mad.” He called for supper, but supper was
past and gone, so he supped upon “fids” of raw meat. Excited by this
lively food, he began a series of caprioles, which ended, as might
be expected, in a rough-and-tumble with the other three youths who
occupied the hard floor of the ranch. To Mr. Macarthy’s language on
that occasion _horresco referens_; every word was apparently English,
but so perverted, misused, and mangled, that the home reader would
hardly have distinguished it from High-Dutch: _e. g._, “I’m intire
mad as a meat-axe; now du don’t, I tell ye; say, _you_, shut up in a
winkin’, or I’ll be chawed up if I don’t run over _you_; ’can’t come
that ’ere tarnal carryin’ on over _me_,” and--_O si sic omnia!_ As no
weapons, revolvers, or bowie-knives were to the fore, I thought the
best thing was to lie still and let the storm blow over, which it did
in a quarter of an hour. Then, all serene, Mr. Macarthy called for a
pipe, excused himself ceremoniously to himself for taking the liberty
with the “Cap’s.” meerschaum solely upon the grounds that it was the
only article of the kind to be found at so late an hour, and presently
fell into a deep slumber upon a sleeping contrivance composed of a
table for the upper and a chair for the lower portion of his person.
I envied him the favors of Morpheus: the fire soon died out, the cold
wind whistled through the crannies, and the floor was knotty and uneven.
_Echo Kanyon. August 24th._
At 8 15 A.M. we were once more _en voyage_. Mr. Macarthy was very
red-eyed as he sat on the stool of penitence: what seemed to vex
him most was having lost certain newspapers directed to a friend
and committed to his private trust, a mode of insuring their safe
arrival concerning which he had the day before expressed the highest
opinion. After fording Bear River--this part of the land was quite
a grave-yard--we passed over rough ground, and, descending into a
bush, were shown on a ridge to the right a huge Stonehenge, a crown
of broken and somewhat lanceolate perpendicular conglomerates or
cemented pudding-stones called not inappropriately Needle Rocks. At
Egan’s Creek, a tributary of the Yellow Creek, the wild geraniums and
the willows flourished despite the six feet of snow which sometimes
lies in these bottoms. We then crossed Yellow Creek, a water trending
northeastward, and feeding, like those hitherto forded, Bear River: the
bottom, a fine broad meadow, was a favorite camping-ground, as the
many fire-places proved. Beyond the stream we ascended Yellow-Creek
Hill, a steep chain which divides the versant of the Bear River
eastward from that of Weber River to the west. The ascent might be
avoided, but the view from the summit is a fine panorama. The horizon
behind us is girt by a mob of hills, Bridger’s Range, silver-veined
upon a dark blue ground; nearer, mountains and rocks, cones and
hog-backs, are scattered about in admirable confusion, divided by
shaggy rollers and dark ravines, each with its own little water-course.
In front the eye runs down the long bright red line of Echo Kanyon,
and rests with astonishment upon its novel and curious features, the
sublimity of its broken and jagged peaks, divided by dark abysses, and
based upon huge piles of disjointed and scattered rock. On the right,
about half a mile north of the road, and near the head of the kanyon,
is a place that adds human interest to the scene. Cache Cave is a dark,
deep, natural tunnel in the rock, which has sheltered many a hunter
and trader from wild weather and wilder men: the wall is probably of
marl and earthy limestone, whose whiteness is set off by the ochrish
brick-red of the ravine below.
[ECHO KANYON.]
Echo Kanyon has a total length of twenty-five to thirty miles, and
runs in a southeasterly direction to the Weber River. Near the head it
is from half to three quarters of a mile wide, but its irregularity
is such that no average breadth can be assigned to it. The height of
the buttresses on the right or northern side varies from 300 to 500
feet; they are denuded and water-washed by the storms that break upon
them under the influence of southerly gales; their strata here are
almost horizontal; they are inclined at an angle of 45°, and the strike
is northeast and southwest. The opposite or southern flank, being
protected from the dashing and weathering of rain and wind, is a mass
of rounded soil-clad hills, or sloping slabs of rock, earth-veiled,
and growing tussocks of grass. Between them runs the clear, swift,
bubbling stream, in a pebbly bed now hugging one, then the other side
of the chasm: it has cut its way deeply below the surface; the banks
or benches of stiff alluvium are not unfrequently twenty feet high; in
places it is partially dammed by the hand of Nature, and every where
the watery margin is of the brightest green, and overgrown with grass,
nettles, willow thickets, in which the hop is conspicuous, quaking asp,
and other taller trees. Echo Kanyon has but one fault: its sublimity
will make all similar features look tame.
We entered the kanyon in somewhat a serious frame of mind; our team
was headed by a pair of exceedingly restive mules; we had remonstrated
against the experimental driving being done upon our vile bodies,
but the reply was that the animals must be harnessed at some time.
We could not, however, but remark the wonderful picturesqueness of a
scene--of a nature which in parts seemed lately to have undergone some
grand catastrophe. The gigantic red wall on our right was divided into
distinct blocks or quarries by a multitude of minor lateral kanyons,
which, after rains, add their tribute to the main artery, and each
block was subdivided by the crumbling of the softer and the resistance
of the harder material--a clay conglomerate. The color varied in
places from white and green to yellow, but for the most part it was a
dull ochrish red, that brightened up almost to a straw tint where the
sunbeams fell slantingly upon it from the strip of blue above. All
served to set off the curious architecture of the smaller masses. A
whole Petra was there, a system of projecting prisms, pyramids, and
pagoda towers, a variety of form that enabled you to see whatever your
peculiar vanity might be--columns, porticoes, façades, and pedestals.
Twin lines of bluffs, a succession of buttresses all fretted and
honeycombed, a double row of steeples slipped from perpendicularity,
frowned at each other across the gorge. And the wondrous variety was
yet more varied by the kaleidoscopic transformation caused by change
of position: at every different point the same object bore a different
aspect.
And now, while we are dashing over the bouldered crossings; while
our naughty mules, as they tear down the short steep pitches, swing
the wheels of the mail-wagon within half a foot of the high bank’s
crumbling edge; while poor Mrs. Dana closes her eyes and clasps her
husband’s hand, and Miss May, happily unconscious of all peril, amuses
herself by perseveringly perching upon the last toe that I should have
been inclined to offer, the monotony of the risk may be relieved by
diverting our thoughts to the lessons taught by the scenery around.
[ART IN AMERICA.]
An American artist might extract from such scenery as Church Butte
and Echo Kanyon a system of architecture as original and national
as Egypt ever borrowed from her sandstone ledges, or the North of
Europe from the solemn depths of her fir forests. But Art does not at
present exist in America; as among their forefathers farther east, of
artists they have plenty, of Art nothing. We can explain the presence
of the phenomenon in England, where that grotesqueness and bizarrerie
of taste which is observable in the uneducated, and which, despite
collections and art-missions, hardly disappears in those who have
studied the purest models, is the natural growth of man’s senses and
perceptions exposed for generation after generation to the unseen,
unceasing, ever-active effect of homely objects, the desolate aspects
of the long and dreary winters, and the humidity which shrouds the
visible world with its dull gray coloring. Should any one question the
fact that Art is not yet English, let him but place himself in the
centre of the noblest site in Europe, Trafalgar Square, and own that
no city in the civilized world ever presented such a perfect sample of
barbarous incongruity, from mast-headed Nelson with his coil behind
him, the work of the Satirist’s “one man and small boy,” to the two
contemptible squirting things that throw water upon the pavement at
his feet. Mildly has the “Thunderer” described it as the “chosen home
of exquisite dullness and stilted mediocrity.” The cause above assigned
to the fact is at least reasonable. Every traveler, who, after passing
through the fruitful but unpicturesque orchard grounds lying between
La Manche and Paris, and the dull flats, with their melancholy poplar
lines, between Paris and Lyons, arrives at Avignon, and observes the
picturesqueness which every object, natural or artificial, begins to
assume, the grace and beauty which appear even in the humblest details
of scenery, must instinctively feel that he is entering the land of
Art. Not of that Art which depends for development upon the efforts of
a few exceptional individuals, but the living Art which the constant
contemplation of a glorious nature,
“That holy Virgin of the sage’s creed,”
makes part of a people’s organization and development. Art, heavenly
maid, is not easily seduced to wander far from her place of birth.
Born and cradled upon the all-lovely shores of that inland sea, so
choicely formed by Nature’s hand to become the source and centre of
mankind’s civilization, she loses health and spirits in the frigid
snowy north, while in the tropical regions--Nubia and India--her mind
is vitiated by the rank and luxuriant scenery around her. A “pretty bit
of home scenery,” with dumpy church tower--battlemented as the house of
worship ought _not_ to be--on the humble hill, red brick cottages, with
straight tiled roofs and parallelogramic casements, and dwelling-houses
all stiff-ruled lines and hard sharp angles, the straight road and the
trimmed hedgerow--such scenery, I assert, never can make an artistic
people; it can only lead, in fact, to a nation’s last phase of artistic
bathos--a Trafalgar Square.
The Anglo-Americans have other excuses, but not this. Their broad
lands teem with varied beauties of the highest order, which it would
be tedious to enumerate. They have used, for instance, the Indian corn
for the acanthus in their details of architecture--why can not they
try a higher flight? Man may not, we readily grant, expect to be a
great poet because Niagara is a great cataract; yet the presence of
such objects must quicken the imagination of the civilized as of the
savage race that preceded him. It is true that in America the class
that can devote itself exclusively to the cultivation and the study of
refinement and art is still, comparatively speaking, small; that the
care of politics, the culture of science, mechanical and theoretic,
and the pursuit of cash, have at present more hold upon the national
mind than what it is disposed to consider the effeminating influences
of the humanizing studies; that, moreover, the efforts of youthful
genius in the body corporate, as in the individual, are invariably
imitative, leading through the progressive degrees of reflection and
reproduction to originality. But, valid as they are, these reasons
will not long justify such freaks as the Americo-Grecian capitol at
Richmond, a barn with the tritest of all exordiums, a portico which
is original in one point only, viz., that it wants the portico’s only
justification--steps; or the various domes originally borrowed from
that bulb which has been demolished at Washington, scattered over the
country, and suggesting the idea that the shape has been borrowed from
the butt end of a sliced cucumber. Better far the warehouses of Boston,
with their monoliths and frontages of rough Quincy granite; they, at
least, are unpretending, and of native growth: no bad test of the
native mind.
[ECHO STATION.--AN EXPERIMENT.]
After a total of eighteen miles we passed Echo Station, a half-built
ranch, flanked by well-piled haystacks for future mules. The ravine
narrowed as we advanced to a mere gorge, and the meanderings of the
stream contracted the road and raised the banks to a more perilous
height. A thicker vegetation occupied the bottom, wild roses and
dwarfish oaks contending for the mastery of the ground. About four
miles from the station we were shown a defile where the Latter-Day
Saints, in 1857, headed by General D. H. Wells, now the third member
of the Presidency, had prepared modern Caudine Forks for the attacking
army of the United States. Little breastworks of loose stones, very
like the “sangahs” of the Affghan Ghauts, had been thrown up where the
precipices commanded the road, and there were four or five remains of
dams intended to raise the water above the height of the soldiers’
ammunition pouches. The situation did not appear to me well chosen.
Although the fortified side of the bluff could not be crowned on
account of deep chasms that separated the various blocks, the southern
acclivities might have been occupied by sharpshooters so effectually
that the fire from the breastworks would soon have been silenced;
moreover, the defenders would have risked being taken in rear by a
party creeping through the chapparal[120] in the sole of the kanyon.
Mr. Macarthy related a characteristic trait concerning two warriors of
the Nauvoo Legion. Unaccustomed to perpendicular fire, one proposed
that his comrade should stand upon the crest of the precipice and see
if the bullet reached him or not; the comrade, thinking the request
highly reasonable, complied with it, and received a yäger-ball through
his forehead.
[120] The Spanish “chapparal” means a low oak copse. The word has
been naturalized in Texas and New Mexico, and applied to the dense
and bushy undergrowth, chiefly of briers and thorns, disposed in
patches from a thicket of a hundred yards to the whole flank of a
mountain range (especially in the Mexican Tierra Caliente), and so
closely entwined that nothing larger than a wolf can force a way
through it.
Traces of beaver were frequent in the torrent-bed; the “broad-tailed
animal” is now molested by the Indians rather than by the whites. On
this stage magpies and ravens were unusually numerous; foxes slunk
away from us, and on one of the highest bluffs a coyote stood as on
a pedestal; as near Baffin Sea, these craggy peaks are their favorite
howling-places during the severe snowy winters. We longed for a
thunder-storm: flashing lightnings, roaring thunders, stormy winds,
and dashing rains--in fact, a tornado--would be the fittest setting
for such a picture, so wild, so sublime as Echo Kanyon. But we longed
in vain. The day was persistently beautiful, calm and mild as a May
forenoon in the Grecian Archipelago. We were also disappointed in
our natural desire to hold some converse with the nymph who had lent
her name to the ravine--the reverberation is said to be remarkably
fine--but the temper of our animals would not have endured it, and the
place was not one that admitted experiments. Rain had lately fallen,
as we saw from the mud-puddles in the upper course of the kanyon, and
the road was in places pitted with drops which were not frequent enough
to allay the choking dust. A fresh yet familiar feature now appeared.
The dews, whose existence we had forgotten on the prairies, were cold
and clammy in the early mornings; the moist air, condensed by contact
with the cooler substances on the surface of the ground, stood in
large drops upon the leaves and grasses. As we advanced the bed of the
ravine began to open out, the angle of descent became more obtuse; a
stretch of level ground appeared in front, where for some hours the
windings of the kanyon had walled us in, and at 2 30 P.M. we debouched
upon the Weber-River Station. It lies at the very mouth of the ravine,
almost under the shadow of lofty red bluffs, called “The Obelisks;” and
the green and sunny landscape, contrasting with the sterile grandeur
behind, is exceedingly pleasing.
After the emotions of the drive, a little rest was by no means
unpleasant. The station was tolerably comfortable, and the welcome
addition of potatoes and onions to our usual fare was not to
be despised. The tenants of the ranch were Mormons, civil and
communicative. They complained sadly of the furious rain-storms, which
the funnel-like gorge brings down upon them, and the cold draughts from
five feet deep of snow which pour down upon the milder valley.
[BAUCHMIN’S CREEK.--CARSON-HOUSE STATION.]
At 4 30 we resumed our journey along the plain of the Weber or Webber
River. It is second in importance only to the Bear River: it heads near
the latter, and, flowing in a devious course toward the northwest,
falls into the Great Salt Lake a few miles south of its sister stream,
and nearly opposite Frémont’s Island. The valley resembles that
described in yesterday’s diary; it is, however, narrower, and the steep
borders, which, if water-washed, would be red like the kanyon rocks,
are well clothed with grass and herbages. In some places the land is
defended by snake-fences in zigzags,[121] to oppose the depredations of
emigrants’ cattle upon the wheat, barley, and stunted straggling corn
within. After fording the river and crossing the bottom, we ascended
steep banks, passed over a spring of salt water five miles from the
station, and halted for a few minutes to exchange news with the
mail-wagon that had left Great Salt Lake City this (Friday) morning.
Followed a rough and rugged tract of land apparently very trying to the
way-worn cattle; many deaths had taken place at this point, and the
dead lay well preserved as the monks of St. Bernard. After a succession
of chuck-holes, rises, and falls, we fell into the valley of Bauchmin’s
Creek. It is a picturesque hollow; at the head is a gateway of red
clay, through which the stream passes; the sides also are red, and as
the glow and glory of the departing day lingered upon the heights, even
artemisia put on airs of bloom and beauty, blushing in contrast with
the sharp metallic green of the quaking asp and the duller verdure of
the elder (_Alnus viridis_). As the evening closed in, the bottom-land
became more broken, the path less certain, and the vegetation thicker:
the light of the moon, already diminished by the narrowness of the
valley, seemed almost to be absorbed by the dark masses of copse and
bush. We were not sorry to make, at 7 45 P.M., the “Carson-House
Station” at Bauchmin’s Fork--the traveling had been fast, seven miles
an hour--where we found a log hut, a roaring fire, two civil Mormon
lads, and some few “fixins” in the way of food. We sat for a time
talking about matters of local importance, the number of emigrants,
and horse-thieves, the prospects of the road, and the lay of the land.
Bauchmin’s Fork, we learned, is a branch of East Kanyon Creek, itself
a tributary of the Weber River;[122] from the station an Indian trail
leads over the mountains to Provo City. I slept comfortably enough upon
the boards of an inner room, not, however, without some apprehensions
of accidentally offending a certain skunk (_Mephitis mephitica_),
which was in the habit of making regular nocturnal visits. I heard its
puppy-like bark during the night, but escaped what otherwise might have
happened.
[121] This is the simplest of all fences, and therefore much used
in the West. Tree-trunks are felled, and either used whole or split
into rails; they are then disposed in a long serrated line, each
resting upon another at both ends, like the fingers of a man’s right
hand extended and inserted between the corresponding fingers of the
left. The zigzag is not a picturesque object: in absolute beauty it
is inferior even to our English trimmed hedgerow; but it is very
economical, it saves space, it is easily and readily made, it can
always serve for fuel, and, therefore, is to be respected, despite
the homeliness of its appearance.
[122] In Captain Stansbury’s map, Bauchmin’s Fork is a direct
influent, and one of the largest, too, of the Weber River.
And why, naturally asks the reader, did you not shut the door? Because
there was none.
_The End--Hurrah! August 25th._
To-day we are to pass over the Wasach,[123] the last and highest chain
of the mountain mass between Fort Bridger and the Great Salt Lake
Valley, and--by the aid of St. James of Compostella, who is, I believe,
bound over to be the patron of pilgrims in general--to arrive at our
destination, New Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem, alias Zion on the tops of
the mountains, the future city of Christ, where the Lord is to reign
over the Saints, as a temporal king, in power and great glory.
[123] The word is generally written _Wasatch_ or _Wahsatch_. In the
latter the _h_ is, as usual, _de trop_; and in both the _t_, though
necessary in French, is totally uncalled for in English.
So we girt our loins, and started, after a cup of tea and a biscuit,
at 7 A.M., under the good guidance of Mr. Macarthy, who, after a
whiskyless night, looked forward not less than ourselves to the run
in. Following the course of Bauchmin’s Creek, we completed the total
number of fordings to thirteen in eight miles. The next two miles were
along the bed of a water-course, a complete fiumara, through a bush
full of tribulus, which accompanied us to the end of the journey.
Presently the ground became rougher and steeper: we alighted, and set
our beasts manfully against “Big Mountain,” which lies about four miles
from the station. The road bordered upon the wide arroyo, a tumbled
bed of block and boulder, with water in places oozing and trickling
from the clay walls, from the sandy soil, and from beneath the heaps of
rock--living fountains these, most grateful to the parched traveler.
The synclinal slopes of the chasm were grandly wooded with hemlocks,
firs, balsam-pines, and other varieties of abies, some tapering up to
the height of ninety feet, with an admirable regularity of form, color,
and foliage. The varied hues of the quaking asp were there; the beech,
the dwarf oak, and a thicket of elders and wild roses; while over
all the warm autumnal tints already mingled with the bright green of
summer. The ascent became more and more rugged: this steep pitch, at
the end of a thousand miles of hard work and semi-starvation, causes
the death of many a wretched animal, and we remarked that the bodies
are not inodorous among the mountains as on the prairies. In the most
fatiguing part we saw a hand-cart halted, while the owners, a man, a
woman, and a boy, took breath. We exchanged a few consolatory words
with them and hurried on. The only animal seen on the line, except the
grasshopper, whose creaking wings gave forth an ominous note, was the
pretty little chirping squirrel. The trees, however, in places bore the
marks of huge talons, which were easily distinguished as the sign of
bears. The grizzly does not climb except when young: this was probably
the common brown variety. At half way the gorge opened out, assuming
more the appearance of a valley; and in places, for a few rods, were
dwarf stretches of almost level ground. Toward the Pass-summit the rise
is sharpest: here we again descended from the wagon, which the four
mules had work enough to draw, and the total length of its eastern rise
was five miles. Big Mountain lies eighteen miles from the city. The top
is a narrow crest, suddenly forming an acute based upon an obtuse angle.
From that eyrie, 8000 feet above sea level, the weary pilgrim first
sights his shrine, the object of his long wanderings, hardships, and
perils, the Happy Valley of the Great Salt Lake. The western horizon,
when visible, is bounded by a broken wall of light blue mountain, the
Oquirrh, whose northernmost bluff buttresses the southern end of the
lake, and whose eastern flank sinks in steps and terraces into a river
basin, yellow with the sunlit golden corn, and somewhat pink with its
carpeting of heath-like moss. In the foreground a semicircular sweep
of hill-top and an inverted arch of rocky wall shuts out all but a few
spans of the valley. These heights are rough with a shaggy forest, in
some places black-green, in others of brownish-red, in others of the
lightest ash-color, based upon a ruddy soil; while a few silvery veins
of snow still streak the bare gray rocky flanks of the loftiest peak.
[BIG KANYON CREEK.--THE DANITE.]
After a few minutes’ delay to stand and gaze, we resumed the footpath
way, while the mail-wagon, with wheels rough-locked, descended what
appeared to be an impracticable slope. The summit of the Pass was
well-nigh cleared of timber; the woodman’s song informed us that the
evil work was still going on, and that we are nearly approaching a
large settlement. Thus stripped of their protecting fringes, the
mountains are exposed to the heat of summer, that sends forth countless
swarms of devastating crickets, grasshoppers, and blue-worms; and to
the wintry cold, that piles up, four to six feet high--the mountain-men
speak of thirty and forty--the snows drifted by the unbroken force
of the winds. The Pass from November to February can be traversed by
nothing heavier than “sleighs,” and during the snow-storms even these
are stopped. Falling into the gorge of Big Kanyon Creek, after a total
of twelve hard miles from Bauchmin’s Fork, we reached at 11 30 the
station that bears the name of the water near which it is built. We
were received by the wife of the proprietor, who was absent at the time
of our arrival; and half stifled by the thick dust and the sun, which
had raised the glass to 103°, we enjoyed copious draughts--_tant soit
peu_ qualified--of the cool but rather hard water that trickled down
the hill into a trough by the house side. Presently the station-master,
springing from his light “sulky,” entered, and was formally introduced
to us by Mr. Macarthy as Mr. Ephe Hanks. I had often heard of this
individual as one of the old triumvirate of Mormon desperadoes, the
other two being Orrin Porter Rockwell and Bill Hickman--as the leader
of the dreaded Danite band, and, in short, as a model ruffian. The ear
often teaches the eye to form its pictures: I had eliminated a kind of
mental sketch of those assassin faces which one sees on the Apennines
and Pyrenees, and was struck by what met the eye of sense. The “vile
villain,” as he has been called by anti-Mormon writers, who verily do
not try to _ménager_ their epithets, was a middle-sized, light-haired,
good-looking man, with regular features, a pleasant and humorous
countenance, and the manly manner of his early sailor life, touched
with the rough cordiality of the mountaineer. “Frank as a bear-hunter”
is a proverb in these lands. He had, like the rest of the triumvirate,
and like most men (Anglo-Americans) of desperate courage and fiery,
excitable temper, a clear, pale blue eye, verging upon gray, and
looking as if it wanted nothing better than to light up, together with
a cool and quiet glance that seemed to shun neither friend nor foe.
The terrible Ephe began with a facetious allusion to all our new
dangers under the roof of a Danite, to which, in similar strain, I
made answer that Danite or Damnite was pretty much the same to me.
After dining, we proceeded to make trial of the air-cane, to which he
took, as I could see by the way he handled it, and by the nod with
which he acknowledged the observation, “almighty convenient sometimes
not to make a noise, Mister,” a great fancy. He asked me whether I
had a mind to “have a slap” at his namesake,[124] an offer which was
gratefully accepted, under the promise that “cuffy” should previously
be marked down so as to save a long ride and a troublesome trudge over
the mountains. His battery of “killb’ars” was heavy and in good order,
so that on this score there would have been no trouble, and the only
tool he bade me bring was a Colt’s revolver, dragoon size. He told me
that he was likely to be in England next year, when he had set the “ole
woman” to her work. I suppose my look was somewhat puzzled, for Mrs.
Dana graciously explained that every Western wife, even when still, as
Mrs. Ephe was, in her teens, commands that venerable title, venerable,
though somehow not generally coveted.
[124] “Ole Ephraim” is the mountain-man’s _sobriquet_ for the grizzly
bear.
From Big Kanyon Creek Station to the city, the driver “reckoned,” was
a distance of seventeen miles. We waited till the bright and glaring
day had somewhat burned itself out; at noon heavy clouds came up from
the south and southwest, casting a grateful shade and shedding a few
drops of rain. After taking friendly leave of the “Danite” chief--whose
cordiality of manner had prepossessed me strongly in his favor--we
entered the mail-wagon, and prepared ourselves for the finale over the
westernmost ridge of the stern Wasach.
[Illustration:
H. Adlard, sc.
London, Longman & C^{o}.
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY SURVEYS.
_All the blocks contain 8 lots of 1¹⁄₄ acre each = 10 acres._
_All the streets are 8 rods wide, including side walks. 20 feet each._
_The lots number from the South East corner N^{o}. 1._
_Plot A was laid off in 1847 contains 135 blocks.
B „ ------ „ 48 „ 63 „
C „ ------ „ 49 „ 24 „ occupied.
D the lots have 4 blocks and contain 2¹⁄₂ acres._
_South of this plot are the five acre lots._
_The West boundry is the River Jordan._
_North of this plot are the Warm Springs._
_North East of plot B is the Cemetery._
_The City is divided into 20 Wards under 20 Bishops._
_PLATTED FOR CAP. RICHARD F. BURTON.
BY
THOMAS BULLOCK.
G. S. L. CITY _UTAH_
SEPT. 20. 1860._]
[A TICKLISH ROAD.]
After two miles of comparatively level ground we came to the foot of
“Little Mountain,” and descended from the wagon to relieve the poor
devils of mules. The near slope was much shorter, but also it was
steeper far than “Big Mountain.” The counterslope was easier, though by
no means pleasant to contemplate with the chance of an accident to the
brake, which in all inconvenient places would part with the protecting
shoe-sole. Beyond the eastern foot, which was ten miles distant from
our destination, we were miserably bumped and jolted over the broken
ground at the head of Big Kanyon. Down this pass, whose name is a
translation of the Yuta name Obitkokichi, a turbulent little mountain
stream tumbles over its boulder-bed, girt with the usual sunflower,
vines of wild hops, red and white willows, cotton-wood, quaking asp,
and various bushes near its cool watery margin, and upon the easier
slopes of the ravine, with the shin or dwarf oak (_Quercus nana_),
mountain mahogany, balsam, and other firs, pines, and cedars. The road
was a narrow shelf along the broader of the two spaces between the
stream and the rock, and frequent fordings were rendered necessary by
the capricious wanderings of the torrent. I could not but think how
horrid must have been its appearance when the stout-hearted Mormon
pioneers first ventured to thread the defile, breaking their way
through the dense bush, creeping and clinging like flies to the sides
of the hills. Even now accidents often occur; here, as in Echo Kanyon,
we saw in more than one place unmistakable signs of upsets in the shape
of broken spokes and yoke-bows. At one of the most ticklish turns
Macarthy kindly pointed out a little precipice where four of the mail
passengers fell and broke their necks, a pure invention on his part, I
believe, which fortunately, at that moment, did not reach Mrs. Dana’s
ears. He also entertained us with many a tale, of which the hero was
the redoubtable Hanks: how he had slain a buffalo bull single-handed
with a bowie-knife; and how, on one occasion, when refused hospitality
by his Lamanite brethren, he had sworn to have the whole village to
himself, and had redeemed his vow by reappearing _in cuerpo_, with
gestures so maniacal that the sulky Indians all fled, declaring him to
be “bad medicine.” The stories had at least local coloring.
[EMIGRATION KANYON.]
In due time, emerging from the gates, and portals, and deep serrations
of the upper course, we descended into a lower level: here Big, now
called Emigration Kanyon, gradually bulges out, and its steep slopes of
grass and fern, shrubbery and stunted brush, fall imperceptibly into
the plain. The valley presently lay full before our sight. At this
place the pilgrim emigrants, like the hajjis of Mecca and Jerusalem,
give vent to the emotions long pent up within their bosoms by sobs
and tears, laughter and congratulations, psalms and hysterics. It is
indeed no wonder that the children dance, that strong men cheer and
shout, and that nervous women, broken with fatigue and hope deferred,
scream and faint; that the ignorant should fondly believe that the
“Spirit of God pervades the very atmosphere,” and that Zion on the tops
of the mountains is nearer heaven than other parts of earth. In good
sooth, though uninfluenced by religious fervor--beyond the natural
satisfaction of seeing a bran-new Holy City--even I could not, after
nineteen days in a mail-wagon, gaze upon the scene without emotion.
The sublime and the beautiful were in present contrast. Switzerland and
Italy lay side by side. The magnificent scenery of the past mountains
and ravines still floated before the retina, as emerging from the
gloomy depths of the Golden Pass--the mouth of Emigration Kanyon is
more poetically so called--we came suddenly in view of the Holy Valley
of the West.
The hour was about 6 P.M.; the atmosphere was touched with a dreamy
haze, as it generally is in the vicinity of the lake; a little bank of
rose-colored clouds, edged with flames of purple and gold, floated in
the upper air, while the mellow radiance of an American autumn, that
bright interlude between the extremes of heat and cold, diffused its
mild soft lustre over the face of earth.
The sun, whose slanting rays shone full in our eyes, was setting in a
flood of heavenly light behind the bold, jagged outline of “Antelope
Island,” which, though distant twenty miles to the northwest, hardly
appeared to be ten. At its feet, and then bounding the far horizon,
lay, like a band of burnished silver, the Great Salt Lake, that still
innocent Dead Sea. Southwestward also, and equally deceptive as regards
distance, rose the boundary of the valley plain, the Oquirrh Range,
sharply silhouetted by a sweep of sunshine over its summits, against
the depths of an evening sky, in that direction so pure, so clear,
that vision, one might fancy, could penetrate behind the curtain into
regions beyond the confines of man’s ken. In the brilliant reflected
light, which softened off into a glow of delicate pink, we could
distinguish the lines of Brigham’s, Coon’s, and other kanyons, which
water has traced through the wooded flanks of the Oquirrh down to
the shadows already purpling the misty benches at their base. Three
distinct and several shades, light azure, blue, and brown-blue,
graduated the distances, which extended at least thirty miles.
The undulating valley-plain between us and the Oquirrh Range is 12·15
miles broad, and markedly concave, dipping in the centre like the
section of a tunnel, and swelling at both edges into bench-lands, which
mark the ancient bed of the lake. In some parts the valley was green;
in others, where the sun shot its oblique beams, it was of a tawny
yellowish-red, like the sands of the Arabian desert, with scatters of
trees, where the Jordan of the West rolls its opaline wave through
pasture-lands of dried grass dotted with flocks and herds, and fields
of ripening yellow corn. Every thing bears the impress of handiwork,
from the bleak benches behind to what was once a barren valley in
front. Truly the Mormon prophecy had been fulfilled: already the
howling wilderness--in which twelve years ago a few miserable savages,
the half-naked Digger Indians, gathered their grass-seed, grasshoppers,
and black crickets to keep life and soul together, and awoke with their
war-cries the echo of the mountains, and the bear, the wolf, and the
fox prowled over the site of a now populous city--“has blossomed like
the rose.”
This valley--this lovely panorama of green, and azure, and gold--this
land, fresh, as it were, from the hands of God, is apparently girt on
all sides by hills: the highest peaks, raised 7000 to 8000 feet above
the plain of their bases, show by gulches veined with lines of snow
that even in this season winter frowns upon the last smile of summer.
Advancing, we exchanged the rough cahues and the frequent fords of
the ravine for a broad smooth highway, spanning the easternmost
valley-bench--a terrace that drops like a Titanic step from the midst
of the surrounding mountains to the level of the present valley-plain.
From a distance--the mouth of Emigration Kanyon is about 4·30 miles
from the city--Zion, which is not on a hill, but, on the contrary,
lies almost in the lowest part of the river-plain, is completely hid
from sight, as if no such thing existed. Mr. Macarthy, on application,
pointed out the notabilia of the scene.
[MOUNTAIN POINT.]
Northward, curls of vapor ascending from a gleaming sheet--the Lake
of the Hot Springs--set in a bezel of emerald green, and bordered
by another lake-bench upon which the glooms of evening were rapidly
gathering, hung like a veil of gauze around the waist of the mountains.
Southward for twenty-five miles stretched the length of the valley,
with the little river winding its way like a silver thread in a brocade
of green and gold. The view in this direction was closed by “Mountain
Point,” another formation of terraced range, which forms the water-gate
of Jordan, and which conceals and separates the fresh water that feeds
the Salt Lake--the Sea of Tiberias from the Dead Sea.
[THE HAPPY VALLEY.]
As we descend the Wasach Mountains, we could look back and enjoy the
view of the eastern wall of the Happy Valley. A little to the north
of Emigration Kanyon, and about one mile nearer the settlement, is
the Red Butte, a deep ravine, whose quarried sides show mottlings of
the light ferruginous sandstone which was chosen for building the
Temple wall.[125] A little beyond it lies the single City of the Dead,
decently removed three miles from the habitations of the living, and
farther to the north is City-Creek Kanyon, which supplies the Saints
with water for drinking and for irrigation. Southeast of Emigration
Kanyon are other ravines, Parley’s, Mill Creek, Great Cotton-wood, and
Little Cotton-wood, deep lines winding down the timbered flanks of the
mountains, and thrown into relief by the darker and more misty shading
of the farther flank-wall.
[125] At first a canal was dug through the bench to bring this
material: the gray granite now used for the Temple is transported in
carts from the southern part of the valley.
The “Twin Peaks,” the highest points of the Wasach Mountains, are the
first to be powdered over with the autumnal snow. When a black nimbus
throws out these piles, with their tilted-up rock strata, jagged edges,
black flanks, rugged brows, and bald heads gilt by a gleam of sunset,
the whole stands boldly out with that phase of sublimity of which the
sense of immensity is the principal element. Even in the clearest of
weather they are rarely free from a fleecy cloud, the condensation of
cold and humid air rolling up the heights and vanishing only to be
renewed.
The bench-land then attracted our attention. The soil is poor,
sprinkled with thin grass, in places showing a suspicious whiteness,
with few flowers, and chiefly producing a salsolaceous plant like the
English samphire. In many places lay long rows of bare circlets, like
deserted tent-floors; they proved to be ant-hills, on which light
ginger-colored swarms were working hard to throw up the sand and gravel
that every where in this valley underlie the surface. The eastern
valley-bench, upon whose western declivity the city lies, may be traced
on a clear day along the base of the mountains for a distance of twenty
miles: its average breadth is about eight miles.
After advancing about 1·50 mile over the bench ground, the city by
slow degrees broke upon our sight. It showed, one may readily believe,
to special advantage after the succession of Indian lodges, Canadian
ranchos, and log-hut mail-stations of the prairies and the mountains.
The site has been admirably chosen for drainage and irrigation--so
well, indeed, that a “Deus ex machinâ” must be brought to account for
it.[126] About two miles north, and overlooking the settlements from
a height of 400 feet, a detached cone, called Ensign Peak or Ensign
Mount, rises at the end of a chain which, projected westward from the
main range of the heights, overhangs and shelters the northeastern
corner of the valley. Upon this “big toe of the Wasach range,” as
it is called by a local writer, the spirit of the martyred prophet,
Mr. Joseph Smith, appeared to his successor, Mr. Brigham Young, and
pointed out to him the position of the New Temple, which, after Zion
had “got up into the high mountain,” was to console the Saints for
the loss of Nauvoo the Beautiful. The city--it is about two miles
broad--runs parallel with the right bank of the Jordan, which forms its
western limit. It is twelve to fifteen miles distant from the western
range, ten from the debouchure of the river, and eight to nine from
the nearest point of the lake--a respectful distance, which is not
the least of the position’s merits. It occupies the rolling brow of a
slight decline at the western base of the Wasach--in fact, the lower,
but not the lowest level of the eastern valley-bench; it has thus a
compound slope from north to south, on the line of its water supplies,
and from east to west, thus enabling it to drain off into the river.
[126] I have frequently heard this legend from Gentiles, never from
Mormons; yet even the Saints own that as early as 1842 visions of the
mountains and kanyons, the valley and the lake, were revealed to Mr.
Joseph Smith, jun., who declared it privily to the disciples whom
he loved. Thus Messrs. O. Pratt and E. Snow, apostles, were enabled
to recognize the Promised Land, as, the first of the pioneers, they
issued from the ravines of the Wasach. Of course the Gentiles declare
that the exodists hit upon the valley by the purest chance. The
spot is becoming classical: here Judge and Apostle Phelps preached
his “Sermon on the Mount,” which, anti-Mormons say, was a curious
contrast to the first discourse so named.
The city revealed itself, as we approached, from behind its screen, the
inclined terraces of the upper table-land, and at last it lay stretched
before us as upon a map. At a little distance the aspect was somewhat
Oriental, and in some points it reminded me of modern Athens without
the Acropolis. None of the buildings, except the Prophet’s house,
were whitewashed. The material--the thick, sun-dried adobe, common
to all parts of the Eastern world[127]--was of a dull leaden blue,
deepened by the atmosphere to a gray, like the shingles of the roofs.
The number of gardens and compounds--each tenement within the walls
originally received 1·50 square acre, and those outside from five to
ten acres, according to their distance--the dark clumps and lines of
bitter cotton-wood, locust, or acacia, poplars and fruit-trees, apples,
peaches, and vines--how lovely they appeared, after the baldness of
the prairies!--and, finally, the fields of long-eared maize and sweet
sorghum strengthened the similarity to an Asiatic rather than to an
American settlement. The differences presently became as salient. The
farm-houses, with their stacks and stock, strongly suggested the Old
Country. Moreover, domes and minarets--even churches and steeples--were
wholly wanting, an omission that somewhat surprised me. The only
building conspicuous from afar was the block occupied by the present
Head of the Church. The court-house, with its tinned Muscovian dome,
at the west end of the city; the arsenal, a barn-like structure, on a
bench below the Jebel Nur of the valley--Ensign Peak; and a saw-mill,
built beyond the southern boundary, were the next in importance.
[127] The very word is Spanish, derived from the Arabic ألطوب
meaning “the brick;” it is known throughout the West, and is written
_adobies_, and pronounced _dobies_.
[BULWARKS OF ZION.]
On our way we passed the vestiges of an old moat, from which was taken
the earth for the bulwarks of Zion. A Romulian wall, of puddle, mud,
clay, and pebbles, six miles--others say 2600 acres--in length, twelve
feet high, six feet broad at the base, and two and three quarters
at the top, with embrasures five to six feet above the ground, and
semi-bastions at half musket range, was decided, in 1853-54, to be
necessary, as a defense against the Lamanites, whose name in the vulgar
is Yuta Indians. Gentiles declare that the bulwarks were erected
because the people wanting work were likely to “strike” faith, and
that the amount of labor expended upon this folly would have irrigated
as many thousand acres. Anti-Mormons have, of course, detected in the
proceeding treacherous and treasonable intentions. Parenthetically,
I must here warn the reader that in Great Salt Lake City there are
three distinct opinions concerning, three several reasons for, and
three diametrically different accounts of, every thing that happens,
viz., that of the Mormons, which is invariably one-sided; that of
the Gentiles, which is sometimes fair and just; and that of the
anti-Mormons, which is always prejudiced and violent. A glance will
show that this much-talked-of fortification is utterly harmless; it is
commanded in half a dozen places; it could not keep out half a dozen
sappers for a quarter of an hour; and now, as it has done its work, its
foundations are allowed to become salt, and to crumble away.
The road ran through the Big Field, southeast of the city, six miles
square, and laid off in five-acre lots. Presently, passing the
precincts of habitation, we entered, at a slapping pace, the second
ward, called Denmark, from its tenants, who mostly herd together. The
disposition of the settlement is like that of the nineteenth century
New-World cities--from Washington to the future metropolis of the
great Terra Australis--a system of right angles, the roads, streets,
and lanes, if they can be called so, intersecting one another. The
advantages or disadvantages of the rectangular plan have been exhausted
in argument; the new style is best suited, I believe, for the New, as
the old must, perforce, remain in the Old World. The suburbs are thinly
settled; the mass of habitations lie around and south of Temple Block.
The streets of the suburbs are mere roads, cut by deep ups and downs,
and by gutters on both sides, which, though full of pure water, have no
bridge save a plank at the _trottoirs_. In summer the thoroughfares are
dusty, in wet weather deep with viscid mud.
The houses are almost all of one pattern--a barn shape, with wings and
lean-tos, generally facing, sometimes turned endways to the street,
which gives a suburban look to the settlement; and the diminutive
casements show that window-glass is not yet made in the Valley. In the
best abodes the adobe rests upon a few courses of sandstone, which
prevent undermining by water or ground-damp, and it must always be
protected by a coping from the rain and snow. The poorer are small,
low, and hut-like; others are long single-storied buildings, somewhat
like stables, with many entrances. The best houses resemble East Indian
bungalows, with flat roofs, and low, shady verandas, well trellised,
and supported by posts or pillars. All are provided with chimneys,
and substantial doors to keep out the piercing cold. The offices are
always placed, for hygienic reasons, outside; and some have a story and
a half--the latter intended for lumber and other stores. I looked in
vain for the out-house harems, in which certain romancers concerning
things Mormon had informed me that wives are kept, like any other
stock. I presently found this but one of a multitude of delusions.
Upon the whole, the Mormon settlement was a vast improvement upon its
contemporaries in the valleys of the Mississippi and the Missouri.
[Illustration: STORES IN MAIN STREET.]
[GARDENS.]
The road through the faubourg was marked by posts and rails, which,
as we advanced toward the heart of the city, were replaced by neat
palings. The garden-plots were small, as sweet earth must be brought
down from the mountains; and the flowers were principally those of
the Old Country--the red French bean, the rose, the geranium, and
the single pink; the ground or winter cherry was common; so were
nasturtiums; and we saw tansy, but not that plant for which our
souls, well-nigh weary of hopes of juleps long deferred, chiefly
lusted--mint. The fields were large and numerous, but the Saints have
too many and various occupations to keep them, Moravian-like, neat
and trim; weeds overspread the ground; often the wild sunflower-tops
outnumbered the heads of maize. The fruit had suffered from an
unusually nipping frost in May; the peach-trees were barren; the vines
bore no produce; only a few good apples were in Mr. Brigham Young’s
garden, and the watermelons were poor, yellow, and tasteless, like the
African. On the other hand, potatoes, onions, cabbages, and cucumbers
were good and plentiful, the tomato was ripening every where, fat
full-eared wheat rose in stacks, and crops of excellent hay were
scattered about near the houses. The people came to their doors to see
the mail-coach, as if it were the “Derby dilly” of old, go by. I could
not but be struck by the modified English appearance of the colony, and
by the prodigious numbers of the white-headed children.
[THE HOTEL IN NEW ZION.]
Presently we debouched upon the main thoroughfare, the centre of
population and business, where the houses of the principal Mormon
dignitaries and the stores of the Gentile merchants combine to form the
city’s only street which can be properly so called. It is, indeed, both
street and market, for, curious to say, New Zion has not yet built for
herself a bazar or market-place. Nearly opposite the Post-office, in a
block on the eastern side, with a long veranda, supported by trimmed
and painted posts, was a two-storied, pent-roofed building, whose
sign-board, swinging to a tall, gibbet-like flag-staff, dressed for the
occasion, announced it to be the Salt Lake House, the principal, if not
the only establishment of the kind in New Zion. In the Far West, one
learns not to expect much of the hostelry;[128] I had not seen aught
so grand for many a day. Its depth is greater than its frontage, and
behind it, secured by a _porte cochère_, is a large yard for corraling
cattle. A rough-looking crowd of drivers, drivers’ friends, and idlers,
almost every man openly armed with revolver and bowie-knife, gathered
round the doorway to greet Jim, and “prospect” the “new lot;” and the
host came out to assist us in transporting our scattered effects. We
looked vainly for a bar on the ground floor; a bureau for registering
names was there, but (temperance, in public at least, being the order
of the day) the usual tempting array of bottles and decanters was
not forthcoming; up stairs we found a Gentile ballroom, a tolerably
furnished sitting-room, and bedchambers, apparently made out of a
single apartment by partitions too thin to be strictly agreeable. The
household had its deficiencies; blacking, for instance, had run out,
and servants could not be engaged till the expected arrival of the
hand-cart train. However, the proprietor, Mr. Townsend, a Mormon, from
the State of Maine--when expelled from Nauvoo, he had parted with land,
house, and furniture for $50--who had married an Englishwoman, was
in the highest degree civil and obliging, and he attended personally
to our wants, offered his wife’s services to Mrs. Dana, and put us
all in the best of humors, despite the closeness of the atmosphere,
the sadness ever attending one’s first entrance into a new place,
the swarms of “emigration flies”--so called because they appear in
September with the emigrants, and, after living for a month, die off
with the first snow--and a certain populousness of bedstead, concerning
which the less said the better. Such, gentle reader, are the results of
my first glance at Zion on the tops of the mountains, in the Holy City
of the Far West.
[128] I subjoin one of the promising sort of advertisements:
“Tom Mitchell!!! dispenses comfort to the weary (!), feeds the hungry
(!!), and cheers the gloomy (!!!), at his old, well-known stand,
thirteen miles east of Fort Des Moines. _Don’t pass by me._”
Our journey had occupied nineteen days, from the 7th to the 25th of
August, both included; and in that time we had accomplished not less
than 1136 statute miles.
CHAPTER IV.
First Week at Great Salt Lake City.--Preliminaries.
Before entering upon the subject of the Mormons I would fain offer
to the reader a few words of warning. During my twenty-four days at
head-quarters, ample opportunities of surface observation were afforded
me. I saw, as will presently appear, specimens of every class, from the
Head of the Church down to the field-hand, and, being a stranger in
the land, could ask questions and receive replies upon subjects which
would have been forbidden to an American of the States, more especially
to an official. But there is in Mormondom, as in all other exclusive
faiths, whether Jewish, Hindoo, or other, an inner life into which I
can not flatter myself or deceive the reader with the idea of my having
penetrated. At the same time, it is only fair to state that no Gentile,
even the unprejudiced, who are _raræ aves_, however long he may live
or intimately he may be connected with Mormons, can expect to see any
thing but the superficies. The writings of the Faithful are necessarily
wholly presumed. And, finally, the accounts of Life in the City of
the Saints published by anti-Mormons and apostates are venomous, and,
as their serious discrepancies prove, thoroughly untrustworthy. I may
therefore still hope, by recounting honestly and truthfully as lies in
my power what I heard, and felt, and saw, and by allowing readers to
draw their own conclusions, to take new ground.
[BIBLIOLOGY.]
The Mormons have been represented, and are generally believed to be,
an intolerant race; I found the reverse far nearer the fact. The best
proof of this is that there is hardly one anti-Mormon publication,
however untruthful, violent, or scandalous, which I did not find in
Great Salt Lake City.[129] The extent of the subjoined bibliographical
list would deter me from a theme so used up by friend and foe, were
it not for these considerations. In the first place, I have found,
since my return to England, a prodigious general ignorance of the
“Mormon rule;” the mass of the public has heard of the Saints, but
even well-educated men hold theirs to be a kind of socialistic or
communist concern, where, as in the world to come, there is no marrying
nor giving in marriage. Even where this is not the case, the reader
of travels will not dislike to peruse something more of a theme with
which he is already perhaps familiar; for in this department of
literature, as in history and biography, the more we know of a subject,
the more we want to know. Moreover, since 1857, no book of general
interest has appeared, and the Mormons are a progressive people,
whose “go-a-headitiveness” in social growth is only to be compared
with their obstinate conservatism in adhering to institutions that
date from the days of Abraham. Secondly, the natural history of the
New Faith--for such it is--through the several periods of conception,
birth, and growth to vigorous youth, with fair promise of stalwart
manhood, is a subject of general and no small importance. It interests
the religionist, who looks upon it as the “scourge of corrupted
Christianity,” as much as the skeptic, that admires how, in these
days of steam-traveling, printing, and telegramming, when “many run to
and fro,” and when “knowledge” has been “increased,” human credulity
will display itself in the same glaring colors which it wore ere the
diffusion of knowledge became a part of social labor. The philosophic
observer will detect in it a notable example of how _mens agitat
molem_, the “powerful personal influence of personal character,” and
the “effect that may be produced by a single mind inflexibly applied
to the pursuit of a single object;” and another proof that “it is
easier to extend the belief of the multitude than to contract it--a
circumstance which proceeds from the false but prevalent notion that
too much belief is at least an error on the right side.” The statist
will consider it in its aspect as a new system of colonization.
In America the politician will look with curiosity at a despotism
thriving in the centre of a democracy, and perhaps with apprehension
at its future efforts, in case of war or other troubles, upon the
destinies of the whilom Great Republic. In England, which principally
supplies this number of souls, men, instead of regarding it as one of
many safety-valves, will be reminded of their obligations toward the
classes by which Mormonism is fed, and urged to the improvement of
education, religion, and justice. And I hope to make it appear that
the highly-colored social peculiarities of the New Faith have been
used as a tool by designing men to raise up enmity against a peaceful,
industrious, and law-abiding people, whose whole history has been a
course of cruel persecution, which, if man really believed in his own
improvement, would be a disgrace to a self-styled enlightened age.
The prejudice has naturally enough extended from America to England.
In 1845, when the Mormons petitioned for permission to retire to
Vancouver’s Island, they met with nothing but discouragement. And even
in 1860, I am told, when a report was raised that Mr. Brigham Young
would willingly have taken refuge with his adherents in the valley of
the Saskatchawan, the British minister was instructed to oppose the
useful emigration to the utmost of his power.
[129] A list of works published upon the subject of Mormonism may not
be uninteresting. They admit of a triple division--the Gentile, the
anti-Mormon, and the Mormon.
Of the Gentiles, by which I understand the comparatively unprejudiced
observer, the principal are,
1. The Exploration and Survey of the Great Salt Lake by Captain
Stansbury, who followed up Colonel Frémont’s flying survey in 1849,
or two years before the Mormons had settled in the basin, and found
the young colony about 2-3 years old. Anti-Mormons find fault with
Captain Stansbury for expending upon their adversaries too much of
the milk of human kindness.
2. The Mormons or Latter-Day Saints, by Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison,
of the U. S. Topographical Engineers. This officer was second in
command of the exploration under Captain Stansbury, and has recorded,
in unpretending style and with great impartiality, his opinions
concerning the “rise and progress, peculiar doctrines, personal
conditions and prospects” of the Mormons, “derived from personal
observation.” Like his commanding officer, Lieutenant Gunnison is
accused of having favored the New Faith, and yet, with all the
inconsistency of the odium theologicum, the Faithful are charged with
his subsequent murder; the only motive of the foul deed being that
the Saints dreaded future disclosures, and were determined, though
one of their number had been sent to accompany Captain Stansbury as
assistant, to prevent other expeditions. Upon Lieutenant Gunnison’s
volume is founded “Les Mormons” of M. Étourneau, first printed in the
“Presse,” and afterward republished, Paris, 1856.
3. The Mormons; a Discourse delivered before the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, March 26th, 1850, by Colonel T. L. Kane (U. S.
Militia): this gentleman, an eye-witness, who has touchingly, and,
I believe, truthfully related the details of the Nauvoo Exodus, is
called by anti-Mormons an “apologist,” and is suspected of being
a Latter-Day Saint--baptized under the name of Dr. Osborne--in
Christian disguise. Arrived at Fort Bridger in 1857, he found
assembled there the three heads of departments, Governor Cumming,
Chief Justice Eccles, and General Johnston. According to the Saints,
he was watched, spied, treated as a Mormon emissary, and nearly shot
by a mistake made on purpose; he was, however, supported by the
governor against the general, and the result was a coolness most
favorable to the New Faith. Colonel Kane is said to have preserved an
affectionate and respectful remembrance of his friends the Mormons.
4. History of the Mormons, by Messrs. Chambers, Edinburgh.
5. An Excursion to California, over the Prairies, Rocky Mountains,
and Great Sierra Nevada, by W. Kelly, Esq., J.P. Mr. Kelly, whose
work shared at the time of its appearance the interest and admiration
of the public with Messrs. Hue and Gabet’s Travels in Tartary, Tibet,
and the Chinese Empire, visited Great Salt Lake City in 1849, an
important epoch in the annals of the infant colony, and leaves the
reader only to regret that he devoted so little of his time and of
his two volumes to the history of the Saints.
6. The Mormons or Latter-Day Saints, with Memoirs of the Life
of Joseph Smith, the American Mahomet. Office of the National
Illustrated Library, 198 Strand, London. This little compilation,
dealing with facts rather than theories, borrows from the polemics
of both parties, and displays the calmness of judgment which results
from studying the subject at a distance; though Gentile, it is
somewhat in favor with Mormons because it shows some desire to speak
the truth. This solid merit has won it the honor of an abridged
translation with the title “Les Mormons” (292 pages in 12mo, Messrs.
Hachette, Paris, 1854), by M. Amédée Pichot, and a brilliant review
by M. Prosper Mérimée in the “Moniteur,” and reprinted in “Les
Mélanges Historiques et Littéraires” (p. 1-58, Michel Levy, 1855).
7. A Visit to Salt Lake, and a Residence in the Mormon Settlements
at Utah, by William Chandless. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1857.
Mr. Chandless, about the middle of July, 1855, crossed the prairies
in the character of a “teamster for pay,” spent the end of the
year at Great Salt Lake City, and thence traveled _viâ_ Fillmore
and San Bernardino to California. The book is exceedingly lively
and picturesque, combining pleasant reading with just observation,
impartiality, and good sense.
8. Voyage au Pays des Mormons, par Jules Remy (2 vols., E. Dentu,
Paris, 1860). The author, accompanied by Mr. Brenchley, M.A.,
traveled in July and the autumn of 1855 from San Francisco along the
line of the Carson and Humboldt Rivers to Great Salt Lake City, and
returned, like Mr. Chandless, by the southern road. The two volumes
are more valuable for the observations on the natural history of the
little-known basin, than for the generalisms, more or less sound,
with which the subject of the New Faith is discussed.
Not a few anomalies appear in the judgments passed by M. Remy upon
the Saints: while in some places they are represented as fervent
and full of faith, we also read: “Le Mormonisme n’a pas caractère
de spontanéité des religions primitives, ce qui va, du reste, de
soi, ni la naïveté des religions qui suivirent, ni la sincérité des
révélations ou des réformes religieuses qui, durant les siècles
derniers, out pris place dans l’histoire;” and while Mr. Joseph Smith
is in parts tenderly treated, he is ruthlessly characterized in p. 24
as _un fourbe et un imposteur_, a “savage and gigantic Tartuffe.” An
excellent English translation of this work has lately appeared, under
the auspices of Mr. Jeffs, Burlington Arcade, but an account of Great
Salt Lake City in 1855 is as archæological as a study of London life
in A.D. 1800.
9. Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West, by M. Carvalho,
who accompanied Colonel Frémont in his last exploration. According to
anti-Mormons, the account of the Saints is far too favorable (1856).
10. Geological Survey of the Territory of Utah, by H. Englemann.
Washington, 1860.
The principal anti-Mormon works are the following, ranged in the
order of their respective dates. The _Cons_, it will be observed,
more than treble the _Pros_.
1. A brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter-Day Saints
(commonly called Mormons), including an Account of their Doctrine
and Discipline, with the reason of the Author for leaving the said
Church, by John Corrill, a member of the Legislature of Missouri (50
pages, 8vo, St. Louis, 1839). I know nothing beyond the name of this
little work, or of the nine following.
2. Addresses on Mormonism, by the Rev. Hays Douglas (Isle of Man,
1839).
3. Mormonism weighed in the Balances of the Sanctuary and found
Wanting, by Samuel Haining (66 pages, Douglas, Isle of Man, 1839).
4. The Latter-Day Saints and Book of Mormon. By W. J. Morrish,
Ledbury.
5. An Exposure of the Errors and Fallacies of the Self-named
Latter-Day Saints. By W. Hewitt, Staffordshire.
6. Tract on Mormonism. By Capt. D. L. St. Clair. (1840.)
7. Mormonism Unveiled. By E. D. Howe. (1841.)
8. Mormonism Exposed. By the Rev. L. Sunderland. (1841.)
9. Mormonism Portrayed; its Errors and Absurdities Exposed, and the
Spirit and Designs of its Author made Manifest. By W. Harris (64
pages, Warsaw, Illinois, 1841).
10. Mormonism in all Ages; or, the Rise, Progress, and Causes of
Mormonism; with the Biography of its Author and Founder, Joseph
Smith, junior. By Professor J. B. Turner, Illinois College,
Jacksonville. (304 pages, 12mo, New York, 1842.)
11. Gleanings by the Way. By the Rev. John A. Clark, D.D. (352 pages
in 12mo, Philadelphia, 1842), Minister at Palmyra in New York at the
time when the New Faith arose.
12. The History of the Saints, or an Exposé of Joe Smith and
Mormonism. By John C. Bennett (344 pages, 12mo, Boston, 1842).
This is the work of a celebrated apostate, who for a season took a
prominent propagandist part in the political history of Mormondom.
Defeated in his hopes of dominion, he has revenged himself by
a volume whose title declares the character of its contents,
and which wants nothing but the confidence of the reader to be
highly interesting. The Mormons speak of him as the Musaylimat el
Kazzáb--Musaylimat the Liar, who tried, and failed to enter into
partnership with Mohammed--of their religion.
The four following works were written by the Rev. Henry Caswall, a
violent anti-Mormon, who solemnly and apparently honestly believes
all the calumnies against the “worthless family” of the Prophet;
unhesitatingly adopts the Solomon Spaulding story, discovers
in Mormon Scripture as many “anachronisms, contradictions, and
grammatical errors” as ever Celsus and Porphyry detected in the
writings of the early Christians, and designates the faith in which
hundreds of thousands live and die as a “delusion in some respects
worse than paganism, and a system destined perhaps to act like
Mohammedanism (!) as a scourge upon corrupted Christianity” (sub. the
American?). The Mormons speak of this gentleman as of a 19th century
Torquemada: he appears by his own evidence to have combined with
the heart of the great inquisitor some of the head qualities of Mr.
Coroner W---- when insisting upon the unhappy Fire-king’s swallowing
his (Mr. W.’s) prussic acid instead of the pseudo-poison provided for
the edification of the public. Mr. Caswall went to Nauvoo holding
in his hand an ancient MS. of the Greek Psalter, and completely,
according to his account, puzzled the Prophet, who decided it to
be “reformed Egyptian.” Moreover, he convicted of falsehood the
“wretched old creature,” viz., the maternal parent of Mr. Joseph
Smith, called a mother in Israel, looked upon as one of the holiest
of women, and who, at any rate, was a good and kind-hearted mother,
that could not be reproached, like Luther’s, with “chastising her son
so severely about a nut that the blood came.” It is no light proof of
Mormon tolerance that so truculent a divine and opponent _par voie de
fait_ should have been allowed to depart from among a people whom he
had offended and insulted without loss of liberty or life.
13. The City of the Mormons, or three Days in Nauvoo in 1842 (87
pages, Messrs. Rivingtons, London, 1843).
14. The Prophet of the 19th Century; or, the Rise, Progress, and
Present State of the Mormons (277 pages, 8vo, published by the same,
London, 1843).
15. Joseph Smith and the Mormons. Chapter xiii. of America and the
American Church (John and Charles Mozley, Paternoster Row, London,
1851).
16. Mormonism and its Author; or, a Statement of the Doctrines of the
Latter-Day Saints. London: Tract Society, No. 866 (16 pages, 1858).
17. Narrative of some of the Proceedings of the Mormons, giving an
Account of their Iniquities, with Particulars concerning the Training
of the Indians by them; Descriptions of their Mode of Endowment,
Plurality of Wives, &c. By Catharine Lewis Lynn (24 pages, 8vo,
1848). As will presently appear, when the fair sex enters upon the
subject of polygamy, it apparently loses all self-control, not to say
its senses.
18. Friendly Warnings on the Subject of Mormonism. By a Country
Clergyman (London, 1850).
19. The Mormon Imposture: an Exposure of the Fraudulent Origin of the
Book of Mormon (8vo, Newbury, London, 1851).
20. Mormonism Exposed. By Mr. Bowes. (1851.)
21. Mormonism or the Bible; a Question for the Times. By a Cambridge
Clergyman (12mo, Cambridge and London, 1852). According to Mormon
view, the title should have been Mormonism _and_ the Bible.
22. History of Illinois. By Governor Ford (Chicago, 1854). The author
was a determined opponent of the New Faith, and gives his own version
of the massacres at Carthage and Nauvoo: it is valuable only on the
venerable principle “audi alteram partem.”
23. Mormonism. By J. W. Conybeare, first printed in the “Edinburgh
Review” (No. ccii., April, 1854, and reprinted in 112 pages, 12mo, by
Messrs. Longman, London, 1854).
24. Utah and the Mormons; the History, Government, Doctrines,
Customs, and Prospects of the Latter-Day Saints, from Personal
Observations during a Six-months’ Residence at Great Salt Lake
City. By Benjamin G. Ferris, late Secretary of Utah Territory (347
pages, 12mo, Messrs. Harper, New York, 1854). The author being
married, appears to have lived among them to as little purpose--for
observation--as possible. Every thing is considered from an
anti-Mormon point of view, and some of the accusations against the
Saints, as in the case of the Eldridges and the Howards, I know to be
not founded on fact. The calmness of the work, upon a highly exciting
subject, contrasts curiously with the feminine violence--the natural
result of contemplating polygamy--of another that issued under the
same name.
25. Mormonism Unveiled; or, a History of Mormonism to the Present
Time (235 pages, 8vo, London, 1855).
26. Mormonism Examined: a few Kind Words to a Mormon (8vo,
Birmingham, 1855).
27. Female Life among the Mormons, published anonymously for the
demand of the New York market, and especially intended for the
followers of Miss Lucy Stone and of the Rev. Miss Antoinette Brown,
but known to be by Mrs. Maria Ward, who subsequently edited another
work. The authoress, who professes to have escaped from the Mormons,
was manifestly never among them. This “tissu de mensonges et de
calomnies,” as M. Remy somewhat ungallantly, but very truthfully
styles it, has had extensive currency. M. Révoil has given a free
translation of it, under the name of “Les Harems du Nouveau Monde”
(308 pages, Paris, 1856). Its success was such that its writeress was
in 1858 induced to repeat the experiment.
28. The Mormons at Home; in a Series of Letters, by Mrs. Ferris,
wife of the late United States Secretary for Utah Territory (Dix
and Edwards, Broadway, New York, 1856). The reasons for this lady’s
rabid hate may be found in polygamy, which is calculated to astound,
perplex, and enrage fair woman in America even more than her
strong-opinioned English sister, and in the somewhat contemptuous
estimation of a sex--which is early taught and soon learns to
consider itself creation’s cream--conveyed in these words of Mr.
Brigham Young: “If I did not consider myself competent to transact
business without asking my wife, or any other woman’s counsel, I
think I ought to let _that_ business alone.”
Accordingly, Mrs. Ferris finds herself in the hands and of a “society
of fanatics,” controlled by a “gang of licentious villains”--an
unpleasant predicament _pour cette vertu_--in fact, for virtue at any
time of life--characterizes the land as a “Botany Bay” for society in
general, and a “region of moral pestilence;” and while she lavishes
the treasures of her pity upon the “poor, poor wife,” holds her
spiritual rival to be _tout bonnement_ a “concubine,” and consigns
the wretches assembled here (_scil._ in Zion on the tops of the
Mountains) to the “very hottest part of the infernal torrid zone.”
Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?
The Mormons declare that they incurred this funny amount of feminine
wrath and suffered from its consequent pin-pricks by their not taking
sufficient interest in, or notice of the writer, especially by the
fact that on one occasion--it is made much of in the book--some
rude men actually did walk over a bridge before her. But coming
direct from the land of woman’s rights’ associations, lecturesses
on propagandism and voluntary celibatarians, whose “mission” it is
to reform, purify, and exalt the age, especially our wicked selves,
what else could be expected of outraged delicacy and self-esteem? Not
being “vivisectors,” we can not, however, quite join with Mrs. Ferris
in the complacency with which she relates her “probing the hearts” of
her Mormon guests and visitors “with ruthless questions” about their
domestic affairs; and we remark with pleasure that in more than one
place she has most unwillingly confessed the kindness and civility of
the Latter-Day Saints.
29. Adventures among the Mormons, by Elder Hawthornthwaite, an
Apostate Missionary. (1857.)
30. The Mormons, the Dream and the Reality; or, Leaves from the
Sketchbook of Experience. Edited by a Clergyman. W. B. F. (8vo,
London, 1857).
31. The Husband in Utah; or, Sights and Scenes among the Mormons. By
Austin N. Ward. Edited by Mrs. Maria Ward, Author of “Female Life
among the Mormons” (212 pages, 8vo, Derby and Jackson, Nassau Street,
New York, 1857). It is regretable that a respectable publisher should
lend his name to a volume like this. The authoress professes to
edit the MS. left by a nephew of her husband, who lived among the
Mormons en route to California, went on to the gold regions and died.
I can not but characterize it as a pure invention. The writer who
describes markets where not one ever existed, and “the tall spires
of the Mormon temples glittering in the rich sunlight” (p. 15),
there being no spires and no temples at Utah, can hardly expect to
be believed, even when, with all the eloquence of Mr. Potts, of the
“Eatanswill Gazette,” she dwells upon the “fanaticism and diabolism
that ever attends (?) the hideous and slimy course of Mormonism in
its progress over the world.” The imposture, too, is not “white;” it
is premeditatedly mischievous. Although Brother Underwood is a fancy
personage, Miss Eliza R. Snow, with whose name improper liberties are
taken, is no myth, but a well educated and highly respectable reality.
32. Fifteen Years among the Mormons, being the Narrative of Mrs. Mary
Ettie V. Smith, late of the Great Salt Lake City, a Sister of one
of the Mormon High-Priests, she having been personally acquainted
with most of the Mormon leaders, and long in the confidence of the
Prophet Brigham Young. By Nelson Winch Green. (Charles Scribner,
Broadway, New York, 1858, and unhappily republished by Messrs.
Routledge, London.) This work, whose exceedingly clap-trap title is
a key to the “popular” nature of the contents, is, _par excellence_,
_the_ most offensive publication of the kind, and bears within it
marks of an exceeding untruthfulness. The human sacrifices and the
abominable rites performed in the Endowment House are reproductions
of the accounts of hidden orgies in the Nauvoo Temple, invented
and promulgated by Mr. Bowes. The last words placed in the mouth
of Mr. Joseph Smith, “My God! my God! have mercy upon us, if there
is a God!”--a palpable plagiarism from Lord P----’s will--may be a
pious fraud to warn stray lambs from the fold of Mormonism, but as
a history shows, it is wholly destitute of fact. The murder in Mr.
Jones’, the butcher’s house, so circumstantially related, never took
place. Colonel Bridger, who is killed off by the Danites at the end
of the book, still lives; and a dream (ch. xxxviii.) seems to be the
only proof of Lieutenant Gunnison having been slaughtered by the
Latter-Day Saints, not, as is generally supposed, by the Indians.
“Milking the Gentiles,” coining “Bogus-money,” “whistling and
whittling” anti-Mormons out of the town, the dangers of competition
in love-matters with an apostle, and the imminent peril of being
scalped by white Indians, are stock accusations copied from book to
book, and rendered somewhat harmless by want of novelty. But nothing
will excuse the reckless accusations with which Mrs. Smith takes away
the characters of her Mormon sisters, and the abominations with which
she charges the wives of the highest dignitaries. Among those thus
foully defamed is Miss Snow, who also appears as a leading actress in
Mrs. Ward’s fiction. The “poetess of the Mormons,” now married to the
Prophet, has ever led a life of exceptional asceticism--cold in fact
as her name. The Latter-Day Saints retort upon Mrs. Smith, of course,
in kind, quoting Chaucer (but whether truthfully or not I can not
say):
“A woman she was the most discrete alive,
Husbandes at chirche-dore had she had five.”
33. Mormonism; its Leaders and Designs, by John Hyde, Jun.,
formerly a Mormon Elder, and resident of Great Salt Lake City.
(385 pages, 8vo, W. P. Fetridge & Co., Broadway, New York, 1857.)
This is the work of an apostate Mormon, now preaching, I believe,
Swedenborgianism in England: it has some pretensions to learning,
and it attacks the Mormons upon all their strongest grounds. It is
also satisfactory to see that in the circumstantial description of
the mysteries of the Endowment House, Mrs. Smith and Mr. Hyde, whose
account has apparently been borrowed by M. Remy, disagree, thus
justifying us in doubting both; and it is curious to remark, that
while the lady leans to the erotic, the gentleman dwells upon the
treasonous and mutinous tendency of the ceremony. According to Mr.
Hyde, he left the Mormons from conscientious motives. The Mormons,
who, however, never fail thoroughly to denigrate the character of
an enemy, especially of an apostate, declare that the author, when
a missionary at Havre de Grâce, proved useless, always shirking his
duty; and that, since dismissal from the ministry, he has left a wife
unprovided for at Great Salt Lake City.
The now almost forgotten polemical and anti-Mormon works are,
M. Favez. Fragments sur J. Smith et les Mormons. A methodistical
brochure.
Mr. Gray. Principles and Practices of Mormons.
M. Guers. L’Irvingisme et le Mormonisme jugés par la parole de Dieu.
Dr. Hurlburt’s Mormonism Unveiled. This work first set on foot the
story of “Solomon Spaulding” having composed the Book of Mormon,
concerning which more anon.
Mormonism a Delusion. By the Rev. E. B. Chalmers.
Mormonism Unmasked. By R. Clarke.
Mormonism, its History, Doctrine, etc. By the Rev. S. Simpson.
Mormonism an Imposture. By P. Drummond.
The Latter-Day Saints and their Spiritual Views. By H. S. J.
Tracts on Mormonism. A brochure by the Rev. Edmund Clay.
A Country Clergyman’s Warning to his Parishioners. (Wertheim &
M‘Intosh, London.)
The Materialism of the Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, Examined and
Exposed. By S. W. P. Taylder.
The Book of Mormon Examined, and its Claims to be a Revelation from
God proved to be False. (12mo, Anonymous.)
The principal notices of Mormonism in periodical literature are,
Archives du Christianisme: articles de MM. Agénor de Gasparin et
Monod sur le Mormonisme. Nos. of the 11th of December, 1852, and
14th of May, 1853, quoted in the “Bibliographie Universelle” of MM.
Ferdinand Denis, Pinçon et De Narbonne, under the article “Utah.”
Sectes religieuses au xix^{me} siècle; Les Irvingiens et les Saints
du Dernier Jour, par M. Alfred Maury. Revue des Deux-Mondes. Vol.
iii. of the 23d year (A.D. 1853), 1st of September, pages 961-995.
History and Ideas of the Mormons. “Westminster Review,” vol. iii.,
pages 196-230. (1853.)
Le Mormonisme et sa valeur morale--La Société et la Vie des Mormons,
by M. Émile Montégut, “Revue des Deux-Mondes,” vol. i. of the 26th
year, pages 689-725, 15th of February, 1856.
Visite aux Mormons du Lac Salé par Jules Remy. Articles in the “Echo
du Pacifique,” San Francisco, January and February, 1856.
L’Illustration, Journal Universel. Vols. xv. and xxi. Articles by M.
Depping, “Sur les Mormons” (1858).
Biographie Genérale du Dr. Hæfer, publiée chez MM. Didot frères: a
long article upon Mr. Brigham Young, by M. Isambert (1858).
Une Campagne des Américains contre les Mormons. By M. Auguste Laugel.
“Revue des Deux-Mondes,” 1er Septembre, 1859, pages 194-211.
Magasin Pittoresque. Several articles upon the Great Salt Lake, by M.
Ferdinand Denis. Vol. xxvii., pages 172-239. Vol. xxviii., page 207.
(1859-1860.)
Le Mormonisme et les Etats-Unis. “Revue des Deux-Mondes,” 15th April,
1861, signed by M. Elisée Reclus; an article formed chiefly upon
the work of M. Remy. It is an able article, but written by one who,
unfortunately, was never in the country--a _sine quâ non_ for correct
description. The “Revue” had already undertaken the subject in the
number of the 1st of September, 1853, the 15th of February, 1856, and
the 1st of September, 1859.
The foreign works omitted in the catalogue at the end of this note
are,
Mormonismen och Swedenborgianismen. Upsala (8vo, 1854).
Geschichte der Mormonen, oder Jüngsten-Tages-Heiligen in
Nord-Amerika, von Theodor Olshausen. (Göttingen, 244 pages, 8vo,
1856.)
Geographische Wanderungen. Die Mormonen und ihr Land, von Karl
Andree. Dresden, 1859.
The Mormons have published at their General Repository only one
purely laical book, “The Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake
Valley,” illustrated with steel engravings and wood-cuts, from
sketches made by Frederick Piercy. Edited by James Linworth. It is a
highly creditable volume, especially in the artistic department, but
the letter-press is uninteresting, and appears a mere peg upon which
to hang copious notes and official returns. The price varies from
£1 to £1 3_s._, and the three first parts, containing an accurate
history of the Latter-Day Saints’ emigration from Europe up to 1854,
may be had separately, 1_s._ each.
So good a theme for romance could not fail to fall into the hands
of Captain Mayne Reid, who is to Mormonism what Alexander Dumas
was to Mesmerism. In his pages the exaggerated anti-Mormon feeling
attains its acme; the explorer Stansbury, who spoke fairly of the
Saints, is thus qualified: “the captain is at best but a superficial
observer”--quite a glass-house stone-throwing critique. Mr. Brigham
Young is a “vulgar Alcibiades;” the City of the Saints is a “modern
Gomorrah,” and the Saints themselves are “sanctified _forbans_;” the
plurality wife is a “_femme entretenue_.” In the tale of the “Wild
Huntress,” a young person married by foul means to Josh. Stebbing,
the Mormon, and rescued mainly by a young hero--of course a Mexican
volunteer--we have a sound abuse of the many-wife-system, despotism,
theocracy, Danites, tithes, “plebbishness,” and the “vulgar ring
which smacks (!) of ignoble origin.” On the other hand, the rascal
Wakara, an ignoble sub-chief of the Yutas, known mainly as a
horse-thief, contrasts splendidly by his valor, by his “delicate
attentions” to the pretty half-caste, and by his chivalry and
hospitality, which make him a very “Rolla of the North!” And this is
“fact taught through fiction!”
The Mormon Scriptures, corresponding with the Old Testament, the
Evangels, and the epistles of Christianity, consist of the following
works: purely bibliographical notices are here given; the contents
will be the subject of a future page.
1. The Book of Mormon, an Account written by the hand of Mormon, upon
plates taken from the Plates of Mormon. Translated by Joseph Smith,
Jun. The first edition was printed in 1830, at Palmyra, New York,
and consisted of 5000 copies. Since that time it has frequently been
republished in England and America: it was translated into French in
1852 (Marc Ducloux, Rue Saint Benoît 7, Paris, 1852), and versions
have appeared in the German, Italian, Danish, Welsh, and Hawaïan
tongues.
2. The Book of Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus of
Latter-Day Saints, selected (!) from the Revelations of God. By
Joseph Smith, President (336 pages, 12mo). The first American edition
was printed in 1832, or ten years after the Book of Mormon, and was
published at Mr. Joseph Smith’s expense. Many translations of this
important work have appeared.
3. The Pearl of Great Price; being a Choice Selection from the
Revelations, Translations, and Narratives of Joseph Smith (56
pages, 8vo, Liverpool, first published in 1851). This little volume
contains the Book of Abraham, “translated from some records that have
fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt, purporting to be
the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of
Abraham, written by his own hand on papyrus. With a fac-simile of
three papyri.”
4. The Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, begun in 1839, Manchester,
United States, and now published 42 Islington, Liverpool, every
Saturday. It has reached its 21st volume. The periodical is a single
sheet (16 pages), and the price is one penny. It is an important
publication, embracing the whole history of Mormonism; the hebdomadal
issue now contains polemical papers, vindications of the Faith, with
a kind of appendix, such as emigration reports, quarterly lists of
marriages and deaths, varieties, and money lists.
5. Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young and others. First published
in 1854 (8vo, Liverpool). It now appears in semi-monthly numbers,
1st and 15th, costing 2_d._, making up one volume per annum. The
above-mentioned and the writings of “Joseph the Seer and Parley P.
Pratt, wherever found,” are considered by the authorities of the
Church as direct revelations.
The Mormons do not hold the “Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith
the Prophet and his Progenitors, for many Generations, by Lucy Smith,
mother of the Prophet,” to be entirely trustworthy. Beyond its two
pages of preface by Orson Pratt, it is deep below criticism. This
work, 18mo, of 297 pages (including “Elegies” by Miss E. R. Snow),
was first printed in 1853.
The Controversialist works, not usually included in the London
catalogue, are the following. They are characterized by abundant
earnestness and enthusiasm, and are purposely written in a style
intelligible to the classes addressed:
The Word of our Lord to the Citizens of London, by H. C. Kimball and
W. Woodruff (1839).
The Millennium, and other Poems; to which is annexed a Treatise on
the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter, by Parley P. Pratt,
New York, 1840.
A Cry out of the Wilderness, by Elder Hyde. This hook was first
published in Germany and in German (120 pages, in 1842).
Three Nights’ Public Discourse at Boulogne-sur-Mer, by Elder John
Taylor (46 pages in 8vo, Liverpool, 1850).
Three Letters to the “New York Herald,” of James Gordon Bennett,
Esq., from J. M. Grant (Mayor and President of the Quorum of
Seventies), of Utah, March, 1852. These epistles have been reprinted
in pamphlet form; they chiefly set forth Mormon grievances,
especially the injury done by the federal officials.
History of the Persecutions endured by the Church of Jesus of
Latter-Day Saints in America, compiled from Public Documents and
drawn from Authentic Sources, by C. W. Wandell, Minister of the
Gospel (without date, but subsequent to the 64 pp. 8vo edition,
printed at Sydney).
Journal of the House of Representatives, Council and Joint Sessions
of the First Annual Special Sessions of the Legislative Assembly
of the Territory of Utah, held at Great Salt Lake City, 1851-1852.
(Printed by Brigham Young, 175 pages 12mo, 1852.)
Defense of Polygamy, by a Lady of Utah (Mrs. Belinda Marden Pratt)
to her Sister in New Hampshire (11 pages, 8vo, first printed at
Great Salt Lake City in 1854, and subsequently republished in the
“Millennial Star” of the 29th of July in the same year). I shall
presently quote this curious work.
Acts and Resolutions of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of
Utah, Great Salt Lake City, 40 pages, 12mo. First printed in 1854,
and now published for every Annual Session (that of ’60-’61 being the
10th) at Great Salt Lake City. Printed at the “Mountaineer” Office,
by John S. Davis, Public Printer.
Acts, Resolutions, and Memorials passed at the several Annual
Sessions (the 9th in 1859-60) of the Legislative Assembly of the
Territory of Utah. Published by virtue of an Act approved January
19th, 1855, Great Salt Lake City, Joseph Cain, afterward J. S.
Davis, Public Printer, 1855-1860. 460 pages, 12mo. It contains the
Territorial Code of Deserét, and is purely secular.
Report of the First General Festival of the Renowned Mormon
Battalion, Great Salt Lake City. 39 pages in 8vo.
Discourses delivered by Joseph Smith (30th of June, 1843) and Brigham
Young (18th of February, 1855) on the Relations of the Mormons to the
Government of the United States. Great Salt Lake City, 16 pages.
Marriage and Morals in Utah, by Parley P. Pratt. 8 pages, 8vo,
Liverpool, 1856.
Twenty-four Miracles, by O. Pratt. Liverpool, 16 pages, 8vo, 1857.
Latter-Day Kingdom; or, the Preparation for the Second Advent, by O.
Pratt. Liverpool, 16 pages, 8vo, 1857.
Spiritual Gifts, by Orson Pratt. Liverpool and London, 80 pages, 8vo,
1857.
Universal Apostasy; or, the Seventeen Centuries of Darkness, by O.
Pratt, Liverpool, 16 pages in 8vo, 1857.
Compendium of the Faith and Doctrines of the Church of Jesus of
Latter-Day Saints, compiled from the Bible, and also from the Book
of Mormon, Doctrines and Covenants, and other publications of the
Church; with an Appendix, by Franklin D. Richards, one of the Twelve
Apostles of said Church. 42 Islington, Liverpool, 243 pages, long
18mo. (1857.) A concordance and compilation of the chief doctrinal
works and seven sermons.
The following is the Catalogue of English Works published by the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and for sale by Orson
Pratt, at their General Repository and “Millennial Star” Office, 42
Islington, Liverpool, and removed from 35 Jewin Street, City, to 30
Florence Street, Islington, London.
Hymn-Book, first edition in 1851. Morocco extra, 4_s._; calf, gilt
edges, 2_s._ 6_d._; calf grained, 2_s._; roan embossed, 1_s._ 6_d._
The Harp of Zion. Poems by John Lyon. Published for the benefit of
the Perpetual Emigrating Fund. First printed in 1853. Morocco extra,
6_s._ 6_d._; cloth, gilt extra, 3_s._ 6_d._; cloth embossed, 2_s._
6_d._
Poems, Religious, Historical, and Political. By Eliza R. Snow. Vol.
I. Morocco extra, 6_s._ 6_d._; calf gilt, 5_s._; cloth gilt, 3_s._
6_d._; cloth embossed, 2_s._ 6_d._
The Government of God, by John Taylor, one of the Twelve Apostles.
First printed in 1852. Stiff covers, 1_s._ 9_d._
Latter-Day Saints in Utah. Opinion of Judge Snow upon the Official
Course of His Excellency Gov. B. Young--Trial of Howard Egan on
Indictment, for the Murder of James Monroe, verdict--A Bill to
Establish a Territorial Government for Utah. The Territorial
Officers, etc. 9_d._
One Year in Scandinavia. Results of the Gospel in Denmark and Sweden,
by Erastus Snow, one of the Twelve Apostles. 3_d._
Reports of Three Nights’ Public Discussion in Bolton, between William
Gibson, H. P., Presiding Elder of the Manchester Conference of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Rev. Woodville
Woodman, Minister of the New Jerusalem Church. First published in
1851. 6_d._
Assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith; also a condensed History of
the Expulsion of the Saints from Nauvoo, by Elder John S. Fullmer,
Pastor of the Manchester, Liverpool, and Preston Conferences. First
printed in 1856. 5_d._
Testimonies for the Truth; a Record of Manifestations of the Power
of God--miraculous and providential--witnessed in the travels and
experience of Benjamin Brown, H. P., Pastor of the London, Reading,
Kent, and Essex Conferences. It is a list of the Miracles performed
by the first Mormons. Printed in Liverpool, 1853. 4_d._
_Works by Parley P. Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles._
Key to the Science of Theology; designed as an Introduction to
the First Principles of Spiritual Philosophy, Religion, Law, and
Government, as delivered by the Ancients, and as restored in this
Age, for the Final Development of Universal Peace, Truth, and
Knowledge. First published in 1855. It is a volume far superior in
matter and manner to the average run of Mormon composition. Morocco
extra, 5_s._ 6_d._; calf grained, 3_s._ 6_d._; cloth embossed, 2_s._
The Voice of Warning; or, an Introduction to the Faith and Doctrine
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This work has
been translated into French. Morocco extra, 4_s._; calf, gilt edges,
3_s._; calf grained, 2_s._ 6_d._; cloth embossed, 1_s._ 6_d._
_Works by Orson Pratt, A.M., one of the Twelve Apostles._
Absurdities of Immaterialism; or, a Reply to T. W. P. Taylder’s
Pamphlet, entitled “The Materialism of the Mormons, or Latter-Day
Saints, Examined and Exposed.” First edition in 1849. 4_d._
Great First Cause; or, the Self-moving Forces of the Universe. 2_d._
Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, in 6 parts. Each part 2_d._
Divine Authority, or the Question, was Joseph Smith sent of God?
First published in 1848. 2_d._
Remarkable Visions. First published in 1849. 2_d._
The Kingdom of God, in 4 parts. First edition in 1849. Parts 1, 2, 3,
each 1_d._ Part 4, 2_d._
Reply to a Pamphlet printed at Glasgow, with the approbation
of Clergymen of different denominations, entitled, “Remarks on
Mormonism.” First edition in 1849. 2_d._
New Jerusalem; or, the Fulfillment of Modern Prophecy. First
published in 1849. 3_d._
Title and Index to the above Works, ¹⁄₂_d._
The Seer. Vol. I., 12 numbers; II., 8 numbers. Each number 2_d._ The
two volumes bound in one, in half calf, 5_s._
A Series of Pamphlets, now being published on the first Principles of
the Gospel.
The following numbers are already out: Chap. 1, The True Faith. Chap.
2, True Repentance. Chap. 3, Water Baptism. Chap. 4, The Holy Spirit.
Chap. 5, Spiritual Gifts. First printed in 1857. Each number, 2_d._
_Works by Lorenzo Snow, one of the Twelve Apostles._
The Voice of Joseph. A brief Account of the Rise, Progress, and
Persecutions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, with
their present Position and Prospects in Utah Territory; together with
American Exiles’ Memorial to Congress. First published in 1852. 3_d._
The Only Way to be Saved. An Explanation of the First Principles of
the Doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 1_d._
The Italian Mission, 4_d._
_Works by Elder Orson Spencer, A.B._
Letters exhibiting the most prominent Doctrines of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in reply to the Rev. William
Crowel, A.M., Boston, Mass., U. S. A. First printed in 1852. Morocco
extra, 4_s._; calf grained, 2_s._ 6_d._; cloth embossed, 1_s._ 6_d._
Patriarchal Order, or Plurality of Wives. (Being the Fifteenth Letter
in Correspondence with the Rev. William Crowel, A.M.) 2_d._
The Prussian Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints. Report of Elder Orson Spencer, A.B., to President Brigham
Young. 2_d._
_Works by Elder John Jacques._
Catechism for Children. Cloth, gilt edges, 10_d._; stiff covers, 6_d._
Exclusive Salvation, 1_d._
Salvation. A Dialogue in two parts. Each part 1_d._
I will conclude this long enumeration with Catalogue of the principal
Works in foreign languages.
_Works in French._
Le Livre de Mormon (Book of Mormon), 3_s._ 6_d._
Une Voix d’Avertissement (Voice of Warning). Par Parley P. Pratt.
Morocco, gilt edges, 4_s._; roan, 1_s._ 9_d._; cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._;
paper covers, 1_s._ 3_d._
Les Mormons et leurs Enemis (The Latter-Day Saints and their
Enemies). Par T. B. H. Stenhouse, President des Missions Suisse et
Italienne. 1_s._ 6_d._
Autorité Divine (Divine Authority). Par L. A. Bertrand, Elder. 4_d._
De la Nécessité de Nouvelles Révélations prouvée par la Bible. Par
John Taylor, un des Douze Apôtres. 4_d._
Aux Amis de la Vérité Religieuse. Par John Taylor, Elder. 2_d._
Epitre du President de la Mission Française à l’Eglise des Saints des
Derniers-jours en France et dans les Iles de la Manche (Epistle of
the President of the French Mission, etc.), 1¹⁄₂_d._
Traité sur le Baptême. Par John Taylor, un des Douze Apôtres. 2_d._
_Works in German._
Das Buch Mormon (The Book of Mormon), 3_s._ 6_d._
Eine Gottliche Offenbarung; und Belehrung uber den Ehestand
(Revelation on Marriage; and Patriarchal order or Plurality of
Wives). Stiff covers, 6_d._
Zion’s Panier (Zion’s Pioneer). No. 1, 3_d._
_Works in Italian._
Il Libro di Mormon (The Book of Mormon). Morocco extra, 6_s._ 6_d._;
grained roan, 4_s._ 6_d._
_Works in Danish._
Mormons Bog (The Book of Mormon). Grained roan, 4_s._
_Works in Welsh._
Llyfr Mormon (Book of Mormon). Grained roan, 4_s._; roan, gilt edges,
4_s._ 6_d._
Athrawiaeth a Chyfammodau (Doctrine and Covenants). Grained roan,
3_s._ 6_d._; roan, gilt edges, 3_s._ 6_d._
Llfyr Hymnau (Hymn Book). Marble calf, 2_s._; grained roan, 2_s._
3_d._; calf, gilt edges, 2_s._ 6_d._
Y Perl o Fawr Bris (Pearl of Great Price), 1_s._ 2_d._
Priodas a Moesau yn Utah, gan Parley P. Pratt (Marriage and Morals in
Utah, by Parley P. Pratt), 1_d._
Prophwyd y Jubili (The Millennial Prophet), Vol. III. unbound, 2_s._
0¹⁄₂_d._
_By Elder Dan Jones._
Yr Eurgrawn Ysgrythyrol (Casket, or Treatises on upward of 100
subjects). Half calf, 3_s._ 3_d._; unbound, 2_s._ 6_d._
Pwy yw Duw y Saint? (Who is the God of the Saints?), 2¹⁄₂_d._
Yr Hen Grefydd Newydd (The old Religion anew), 6_d._
Annerchiad i’r Peirch, etc. (Proclamation to the Reverends, etc.),
1¹⁄₂_d._
Gwrthbrofion i’r Spaulding Story am Lyfr Mormon (Spaulding Story,
etc., refuted), 2_d._
Anmhoblogrwydd Mormoniaeth (Unpopularity of Mormonism), 1_d._
Arweinydd i Seion (Guide to Zion), 1¹⁄₂_d._
Pa beth yw Mormoniaeth? (What is Mormonism?), ¹⁄₂_d._
Pa beth yw gras Cadwedigol? (What is saving Grace?), ¹⁄₂_d._
Dadi ar Mormoniaeth? (Discussion on Mormonism), 2_d._
Anffyddiaeth Sectyddiaeth (Skepticism of Sectarianism), 1_d._
Amddiffyniad rhag Cam-gyhuddiadau (Replies to False Charges), 1_d._
Y Lleidr ar y Groes (The Thief on the Cross), ¹⁄₂_d._
“Peidiwch a’u Gwrando” (“Don’t go to hear them”), ¹⁄₂_d._
Egwyddorion Cyntaf a Gwahoddiadau (First Principles and Invitations),
¹⁄₄_d._
Ai duw a Ddanfonodd Joseph Smith (Divinity of Joseph’s Mission), 1_d._
Llofruddiad Joseph a Hyrum Smith (Assassination of Joseph and Hyrum
Smith), 1_d._
Tarddiad Llfyr Mormon (Origin of the Book of Mormon), 1_d._
Dammeg y Pren Ffrwythlawn (Parable of the Fruitful Tree), ¹⁄₂_d._
Darlun o’r Byd Crefyddol (The Religious World Illustrated), ¹⁄₂_d._
Traethodau D. Jones, yn rhwyn mewn hanner croen llo (D. Jones’ Works
bound in half calf), 6_s._ 4_d._
_By Elder John Davies._
Yr hyn sydd o ran, etc. (That which is in part, etc.), 1_d._
Epistol Cyffredinol Cyntaf (First General Epistle of the first
Presidency), 1_d._
Traethawd ar Wyrthiau (Treatise on Miracles), 1_d._
Etto Adolygiad, etc., Chwech Rhifyn (Do. in reply to Anti-Mormon
Lectures). Six Nos. (Each No. 1_d._)
Pregethu i’r Ysbrydion yn Ngharchar, etc. (Preaching to the Spirits
in Prison, etc.), 1_d._
Ewch a Dysgwch (Go and Teach), ¹⁄₄_d._
Darlithiau ar Ffydd, gan Joseph Smith (Joseph Smith’s Lectures on
Faith), 4_d._
Y Doniau Ysbrydol yn Mrawdlys y Gelyn (The Spiritual Gifts before
their Enemies’ Tribunal), 2_d._
Traethawd ar Fedydd (Treatise on Baptism), 1_d._
Corff Crist, neu yr Eglwys (The Body or Church of Christ), 1_d._
Ffordd y Bywyd Tragywyddol (The Way of Eternal Life), 1_d._
Yr Achos Mawr Cyntaf, gan O. Pratt (Great First Cause, by O. Pratt),
2_d._
Profwch Bob Peth, etc. (Prove all things, etc.), ¹⁄₂_d._
Athrawiaeth Iachus (Sound Doctrine), ¹⁄₂_d._
Ymddyddanion yn Gymraeg a Saesonaeg (Dialogues in Welsh and English),
¹⁄₂_d._
Llythyron Capt. Jones o Ddyffryn y li. H. Mawr, yn desgrifio
arderchawgrwydd Seion (Beauties of Zion described by Captain Jones,
in a Series of Letters from Great Salt Lake Valley), 2_d._
[SAN FRANCISCO ROAD.]
On the evening of our arrival Lieutenant Dana and I proceeded to
the store of Messrs. Livingston, Bell, and Co.--formerly Livingston
and Kinkhead--the sutlers of Camp Floyd, and the most considerable
Gentile merchants in Great Salt Lake City; he to learn the readiest
way of reaching head-quarters, I to make inquiries about the San
Francisco road. We were cordially received by both these gentlemen,
who, during the whole period of my stay, did all in their power to
make the place pleasant. Governor Bell, as he is generally called,
presently introduced me to his wife, a very charming person, of English
descent, whose lively manners contrasted strongly and agreeably with
the almost monastic gloom which the _régime_ of the “lady-saints” casts
over society. Lieutenant Dana was offered seats in Mr. Livingston’s
trotting-wagon on the ensuing Monday. I was less fortunate. Captain
Miller, of Millersville, the principal agent and director at this end
of the road, informed me that he had lately ceased to run the wagon,
which had cost the company $15,000 a month, returning but $30,000 per
annum, and was sending the mails on mule-back. However, my informants
agreed that a party would probably be starting soon, and that, all
things failing, I could ride the road, though with some little risk of
scalp. We ended with a bottle of Heidseck, and with cigars which were
not unpleasant even after the excellent “gold-leaf tobacco” of the
States.
[GOVERNOR CUMMING.]
On the next day, Sunday, we walked up the main street northward, and
doubling three corners of Temple Block, reached the large adobe house,
with its neat garden, the abode of the then governor, Hon. Alfred
Cumming. This gentleman, a Georgian by birth, after a long public
service as Indian agent in the northern country, was, after several
refusals, persuaded by the then president, who knew his high honor
and tried intrepidity, to assume the supreme executive authority at
Great Salt Lake City. The conditions were that polygamy should not be
interfered with, nor forcible measures resorted to except in extremest
need. Governor Cumming, accompanied by his wife, and an escort of 600
dragoons, left the Mississippi in the autumn of 1857, at a time when
the Mormons were in arms against the federal authority, and ended his
journey only in April of the ensuing year. By firmness, prudence, and
conciliation, he not only prevented any collision between the local
militia and the United States army, which was burning to revenge
itself for the terrible hardships of the campaign, but succeeded in
restoring order and obedience throughout the Territory. He had been
told before entering that his life was in danger; he was not, however,
a man to be deterred from a settled purpose, and experiment showed
that, so far from being molested, he was received with a salute and
all the honors. Having been warned that he might share the fate of
Governor Boggs, who in 1843 was shot through the mouth when standing
at the window, he enlarged the casements of his house in order to give
the shooter a fair chance. His determination enabled him to issue, a
few days after his arrival, a proclamation offering protection to all
persons illegally restrained of their liberty in Utah. The scrupulous
and conscientious impartiality which he has brought to the discharge of
his difficult and delicate duties, and, more still, his resolution to
treat the Saints like Gentiles and citizens, not as Digger Indians or
felons, have won him scant favor from either party. The anti-Mormons
use very hard language, and declare him to be a Mormon in Christian
disguise. The Mormons, though more moderate, can never, by their very
organization, rest contented without the combination of the temporal
with the spiritual power. The governor does not meet his predecessor,
the ex-governor, Mr. Brigham Young, from prudential motives, except
on public duty. Mrs. Cumming visits Mrs. Young, and at the houses of
the principal dignitaries, this being nearly the only society in the
place. As, among Moslems, a Lady M. W. Montague can learn more of
domestic life in a week than a man can in a year, so it is among the
Mormons. I can not but express a hope that the amiable Mrs. Cumming
will favor us with the results of her observation and experience, and
that she will be as disinterested and unprejudiced as she is talented
and accomplished. The kindness and hospitality which I found at the
governor’s, and, indeed, at every place in New Zion, is “ungrateful to
omit,” and would be “tedious to repeat.”
We dined with his excellency at the usual hour, 2 P.M. On the way I
could dwell more observantly upon the main features of the city, which,
after the free use of the pocket-compass, were becoming familiar to me.
The first remark was, that every meridional street is traversed on both
sides by a streamlet of limpid water, verdure-fringed, and gurgling
with a murmur which would make a Persian Moollah long for improper
drinks. The supplies are brought in raised and hollowed water-courses
from City Creek, Red Buttes, and other kanyons lying north and east
of the settlement. The few wells are never less than forty-five feet
deep; artesians have been proposed for the benches, but the expense
has hitherto proved an obstacle. Citizens can now draw with scanty
trouble their drinking water in the morning, when it is purest, from
the clear and sparkling streams that flow over the pebbly beds before
their doors. The surplus is reserved for the purposes of irrigation,
without which, as the “distillation from above” will not suffice,
Deserét would still be a desert, and what is not wanted swells the City
Creek, and eventually the waves of the Jordan. The element, which flows
at about the rate of four miles an hour, is under a chief water-master
or commissioner, assisted by a water-master in each ward, and by a
deputy in each block, all sworn to see the fertilizing fluid fairly
distributed. At the corners of every ward there is a water-gate which
controls the supplies that branch off to the several blocks, and each
lot of one and a quarter acres is allowed about three hours’ irrigation
during the week. For repairs and other expenses a property tax of one
mill per dollar is raised, and the total of the impost in 1860 was
$1163 25. The system works like clock-work. “The Act to Incorporate the
Great Salt Lake City Water-works” was approved January 21, 1853.
[THE HOLY CITY.]
Walking in a northward direction up Main, otherwise called Whisky
Street, we could not but observe the “magnificent distances” of the
settlement, which, containing 9000-12,000 souls, covers an area of
three miles. This broadway is 132 feet wide, including the side-walks,
which are each twenty, and, like the rest of the principal avenues, is
planted with locust and other trees. There are twenty or twenty-one
wards or cantons, numbered from the S.E. “boustrophedon” to the N.W.
corner. They have a common fence and a bishop apiece. They are called
after the creeks, trees, people, or positions, as Mill-Creek Ward,
Little Cotton-wood, Denmark, and South Ward. Every ward contains about
nine blocks, each of which is forty rods square. The area of ten acres
is divided into four to eight lots, of two and a half to one and a
quarter acres each, 264 feet by 132. A city ordinance places the houses
twenty feet behind the front line of the lot, leaving an intermediate
place for shrubbery or trees. This rule, however, is not observed in
Main Street.
The streets are named from their direction to the Temple Block. Thus
Main Street is East Temple Street No. 1; that behind it is State Road,
or East Temple Street 2, and so forth, the ward being also generally
specified. Temple Block is also the point to which latitude and
longitude are referred. It lies in N. lat. 40° 45′ 44″, W. long. (G.)
112° 6′ 8″, and 4300 feet above sea level.
Main Street is rapidly becoming crowded. The western block, opposite
the hotel, contains about twenty houses of irregular shape and
size. The buildings are intended to supply the principal wants of
a far-Western settlement, as bakery, butchery, and blacksmithery,
hardware and crockery, paint and whip warehouse, a “fashionable
tailor”--and “fashionable” in one point, that his works are more
expensive than Poole’s--shoe-stores, tannery and curriery; the
Pantechnicon, on a more pretentious style than its neighbors, kept
by Mr. Gilbert Clements, Irishman and orator; dry-goods, groceries,
liquors, and furniture shops, Walker’s agency, and a kind of restaurant
for ice-cream, a luxury which costs 25 cents a glass; saddlers, dealers
in “food, flour, and provisions,” hats, shoes, clothing, sash laths,
shingles, timber, copper, tin, crockery-ware, carpenters’ tools, and
mouse-traps; a watch-maker and repairer, a gunsmith, locksmith, and
armorer, soap and candle maker, nail-maker, and venders of “Yankee
notions.” On the eastern side, where the same articles are sold on a
larger scale, live the principal Gentile merchants, Mr. Gilbert and
Mr. Nixon, an English Saint; Mr. R. Gill, a “physiological barber;”
Mr. Godbe’s “apothecary and drug stores;” Goddard’s confectionery;
Messrs. Hockaday and Burr, general dealers, who sell every thing, from
a bag of potatoes to a yard of gold lace; and various establishments,
Mormon and others. Crossing the street that runs east and west, we pass
on the right hand a small block, occupied by Messrs. Dyer and Co.,
sutlers to a regiment in Arizona, and next to it the stores of Messrs.
Hooper and Cronyn, with an ambrotype and daguerrean room behind. The
stores, I may remark, are far superior, in all points, to the shops in
an English country town that is not a regular watering-place. Beyond
this lies the adobe house, with its wooden Ionic stoop or piazza
(the portico is a favorite here), and well-timbered garden, occupied
by Bishop Hunter; and adjoining it the long tenement inhabited by
the several relicts of Mayor Jedediah M. Grant. Farther still, and
facing the Prophet’s Block, is the larger adobe house belonging to
General Wells and his family. Opposite, or on the western side, is
the well-known store of Livingston, Bell, and Co., and beyond it the
establishment now belonging to the nine widows and the son of the
murdered apostle, Parley P. Pratt. Still looking westward, the Globe
bakery and restaurant, and a shaving saloon, lead to the “Mountaineer
Office,” a conspicuous building, forty-five feet square, two storied,
on a foundation of cut stone stuccoed red to resemble sandstone, and
provided with a small green-balconied belvidere. The cost was $20,000.
It was formerly the Council House, and was used for church purposes.
When purchased by the Territory the Public Library was established in
the northern part; the office of the “Deserét News” on the first story,
and that of the “Mountaineer” on the ground floor. This brings us to
the 1st South Temple Street, which divides the “Mountaineer” office
from the consecrated ground. In this vicinity are the houses of most of
the apostles, Messrs. Taylor, Cannon, Woodruff, and O. Pratt.
Crowds were flocking into Temple Block for afternoon service; yet
I felt disappointed by the scene. I had expected to see traces of
“workmen in abundance, hewers and workers of stone and timber, and all
manner of cunning men for every manner of work,” reposing from their
labors on the Sabbath. I thought, at any rate, to find
“pars ducere muros
Molirique arcem, et manibus subvolvere saxa.”
It seemed hardly in accordance with the energy and devotedness of a new
faith that a hole in the ground should represent the House of the Lord,
while Mr. Brigham Young, the Prophet, thinking of his own comfort
before the glory of God, is lodged, like Solomon of old, in what here
appears a palace. Nor, reflecting that without a Temple the dead can
not be baptized out of Purgatory, was I quite satisfied when reminded
of the fate of Nauvoo (according to Gentiles the Mormons believe that
they must build nine temples before they will be suffered to worship
in peace), and informed that the purely provisional works, which had
been interrupted by the arrival of the army in 1858, would shortly be
improved.
[THE TEMPLE BLOCK.]
The lines of Temple Block--which, as usual, is ten acres square =
forty rods each way--run toward the cardinal points. It stands clear
of all other buildings, and the locust-trees, especially those on
the sunny south side, which have now been planted seven years, will
greatly add to its beauties. It is surrounded with a foundation wall
of handsomely dressed red sandstone, raised to the height of ten feet
by adobe stuccoed over to resemble a richer material. Each facing has
thirty flat pilastres, without pedestal or entablature, but protected,
as the adobe always should be, by a sandstone coping. When finished,
the whole will be surmounted by an ornamental iron fence. There are
four gates, one to each side--of these, two, the northern and western,
are temporarily blocked up with dry stone walls, while the others are
left open--which in time will become carriage entrances, with two side
ways for foot passengers. According to accounts, the wall and the
foundations have already cost one million of dollars, or a larger sum
than that spent upon the entire Nauvoo Temple.
Temple Block--the only place of public and general worship in the
city--was consecrated and a Tabernacle was erected in September,
1847, immediately after the celebrated exodus from “Egypt on the
banks of the Mississippi,” on a spot revealed by the past to the
present Prophet and his adherents. Two sides of the wall having been
completed, ground was broken on the 14th of February, 1853, for the
foundation of the building. One part of the ceremony consisted of
planting a post at the central point, the main “stake for the curtains
of Zion:” every successive step in advance was commemorated by imposing
ceremonies, salvos of guns, bands playing, crowds attending, addresses
by the governor, Mr. Brigham Young, prayers and pious exercises. The
foundations of the Temple, which are sixteen feet deep, and composed of
hard gray granite, in color like that of Aberdeen or Quincy, are now
concealed from view; and the lumber huts erected for the workmen were,
when the Mormons made their minor Hegira to Provo City, removed to the
Sugar-house Ward, three miles southeast of the city.
The Temple Block is at present a mere waste. A central excavation,
which resembles a large oblong grave, is said by Gentiles to be the
beginning of a baptismal font twenty feet deep. The southwestern corner
is occupied by the Tabernacle, an adobe building 126 feet long from
N. to S., and 64 wide from E. to W.: its interior, ceilinged with an
elliptical arch--the width being its span--can accommodate 2000-3000
souls. It urgently requires enlarging. Over the entrances at the gable
ends, which open to the N. and S., is a wood-work representing the
sun, with his usual coiffure of yellow beams, like a Somali’s wig, or
the symbol of the Persian empire. The roof is of shingles: it shelters
under its projecting eaves a whole colony of swallows, and there are
four chimneys--a number insufficient for warmth at one season, or
for ventilation at the other. The speaker or preacher stands on the
west side of the building, which is reserved for the three highest
dignities, viz., the First Presidency, the “Twelve” (Apostles), and
the President of the State of Zion: distinguished strangers are also
admitted. Of late, as in the old Quaker meeting-houses at Philadelphia,
the brethren in the Tabernacle have been separated from the “sistern,”
who sit on the side opposite the preacher’s left; and, according to
Gentiles, it is proposed to separate the Christians from the Faithful,
that the “goats” may no longer mingle with the sheep.
Immediately north of the Tabernacle is the Bowery--in early spring
a canopy of green leafy branches, which are left to wither with the
year, supported on wooden posts. The interior will be described when we
attend the house of worship next Sunday.
In the extreme northwest angle of the block is the Endowment, here
pronounced _On-dewment House_, separated from the Tabernacle by a high
wooden paling. The building, of which I made a pen and ink sketch
from the west, is of adobe, with a pent roof and four windows, one
blocked up: the central and higher portion is flanked by two wings,
smaller erections of the same shape. The Endowment House is the place
of great medicine, and all appertaining to it is carefully concealed
from Gentile eyes and ears: the result is that human sacrifices are
said to be performed within its walls. Mrs. Smith and Mr. Hyde have
described the mysterious rites performed within these humble walls,
but, for reasons given before, there is reason to doubt the truth of
their descriptions; such orgies as they describe could not coexist with
the respectability which is the law of the land. M. Remy has detailed
the programme with all the exactitude of an eye-witness, which he was
not. The public declare that the ceremonies consist of some show,
which in the Middle Ages would be called a comedy or mystery--possibly
Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained--and connect it with the working
of a mason’s lodge. The respectable Judge Phelps, because supposed to
take the place of the Father of Sin when tempting Adam and Eve, is
popularly known as “the Devil.” The two small wings are said to contain
fonts for the two sexes, where baptism by total immersion is performed.
According to Gentiles, the ceremony occupies eleven or twelve hours.
The neophyte, after bathing, is anointed with oil, and dressed in
clean white cotton garments, cap and shirt, of which the latter is
rarely removed--Dr. Richards saved his life at the Carthage massacre by
wearing it--and a small square masonic apron, with worked or painted
fig-leaves: he receives a new name and a distinguishing grip, and
is bound to secrecy by dreadful oaths. Moreover, it is said that,
as in all such societies, there are several successive degrees, all
of which are not laid open to initiation till the Temple shall be
finished. But--as every mason knows--the “red-hot poker” and other
ideas concerning masonic institutions have prevailed when juster
disclosures have been rejected. Similarly in the Mormonic mystery, it
is highly probable that, in consequence of the conscientious reserve of
the people upon a subject which it would be indelicate to broach, the
veriest fancies have taken the deepest root.
[Illustration: ENDOWMENT HOUSE AND TABERNACLE. (From the West.)]
[THE FUTURE TEMPLE.]
The other features of the inclosure are a well near the Tabernacle,
an arched sewer in the western wall for drainage, and at the eastern
entrance a small habitation for concierge and guards. The future Temple
was designed by an Anglo-Mormon architect, Mr. Truman O. Angell. The
plan is described at full length in the Latter-Day Saints’ “Millennial
Star,” December 2, 1854, and drawings, apparently copied from the
original in the historian’s office, have been published at Liverpool,
besides the small sketches in the works of Mr. Hyde and M. Remy. It is
hardly worth while here to trouble the general reader with a lengthy
description of a huge and complicated pile, a syncretism of Greek
and Roman, Gothic and Moorish, not revealed like that of Nauvoo, but
planned by man, which will probably never be completed. It has been
transferred to the Appendix (No. II.), for the benefit of students:
after briefly saying that the whole is symbolical, and that it is
intended to dazzle, by its ineffable majesty, the beholder’s sight, I
will repeat the architect’s concluding words, which are somewhat in the
style of Parr’s Life Pills advertisements: “For other particulars, wait
till the house is done, then come and see it.”
[MR. STENHOUSE.]
After dining with the governor, we sat under the stoop enjoying, as we
might in India, the cool of the evening. Several visitors dropped in,
among them Mr. and Mrs. Stenhouse. He--Elder T. B. H. Stenhouse--is
a Scotchman by birth, and has passed through the usual stages of
neophyte (larva), missionary (pupa), and elder or fully-developed
Saint (imago). Madame was from Jersey, spoke excellent French, talked
English without nasalization or cantalenation, and showed a highly
cultivated mind. She had traveled with her husband on a propagandist
tour to Switzerland and Italy, where, as president of the missions
for three years, he was a “diligent and faithful laborer in the great
work of the last dispensation.” He became a Saint in 1846, at the
age of 21; lived the usual life of poverty and privation, founded
the Southampton Conference, converted a lawyer among other great
achievements, and propagated the Faith successfully in Scotland as in
England. The conversation turned--somehow in Great Salt Lake City it
generally does--upon polygamy, or rather plurality, which here is the
polite word, and for the first time I heard that phase of the family
tie sensibly, nay, learnedly advocated on religious grounds by fair
lips. Mr. Stenhouse kindly offered to accompany me on the morrow, as
the first hand-cart train was expected to enter, and to point out what
might be interesting. I saw Elder and High-Priest Stenhouse almost
every day during my stay at Great Salt Lake City, and found in his
society both pleasure and profit. We of course avoided those mysterious
points, into which, as an outsider, I had no right to enter; the
elder was communicative enough upon all others, and freely gave me
leave to use his information. The reader, however, will kindly bear
in mind that, being a strict Mormon, Mr. Stenhouse could enlighten
me only upon one side of the subject; his statements were therefore
carefully referred to the “other part;” moreover, as he could never
see any but the perfections of his system, the blame of having pointed
out what I deem its imperfections is not to be charged upon him. His
power of faith struck me much. I had once asked him what became of the
Mormon Tables of the Law, the Golden Plates which, according to the
Gentiles, were removed by an angel after they had done their work. He
replied that he knew not; that his belief was independent of all such
accidents; that Mormonism is and must be true to the exclusion of all
other systems. I saw before me an instance how the brain or mind of man
can, by mere force of habit and application, imbue itself with any idea.
Long after dark I walked home alone. There were no lamps in any but
Main Street, yet the city is as safe as at St. James’s Square, London.
There are perhaps not more than twenty-five or thirty constables or
policemen in the whole place, under their captain, a Scotchman, Mr.
Sharp, “by name as well as nature so;” and the guard on public works
is merely nominal. Its excellent order must be referred to the perfect
system of private police, resulting from the constitution of Mormon
society, which in this point resembles the caste system of Hindooism.
There is no secret from the head of the Church and State; every
thing, from the highest to the lowest detail of private and public
life, must be brought to the ear and submitted to the judgment of the
father-confessor-in-chief. Gentiles often declare that the Prophet is
acquainted with their every word half an hour after it is spoken; and
from certain indices, into which I hardly need enter, my opinion is
that, allowing something for exaggeration, they are not very far wrong.
In London and Paris the foreigner is subjected, though perhaps he may
not know it, to the same surveillance, and till lately his letters were
liable to be opened at the Post-office. We can not, then, wonder that
at Great Salt Lake City, a stranger, before proving himself at the
least to be harmless, should begin by being an object of suspicion.
[A MURDER.--SAFETY OF THE CITY.]
On Monday, as the sun was sloping toward the east, Mr. Stenhouse called
to let me know that the train had already issued from Emigration
Kanyon; no time to spare. We set out together “down town” at once.
Near the angle of Main Street I was shown the place where a short
time before my arrival a curious murder was committed. Two men, named
Johnston and Brown, _mauvais sujets_, who had notoriously been guilty
of forgery and horse-stealing, were sauntering home one fine evening,
when both fell with a bullet to each, accurately placed under the
heart-arm. The bodies were carried to the court-house, which is here
the morgue or dead-house, to be exposed, as is the custom, for a time:
the citizens, when asked if they suspected who did the deed, invariably
replied, with a philosophical _sangfroid_, that, in the first place,
they didn’t know, and, secondly, that they didn’t care. Of course the
Gentiles hinted that life had been taken by “counsel”--that is to say,
by the secret orders of Mr. Brigham Young and his Vehm. But, even
had such been the case--of course it was the merest suspicion--such
a process would not have been very repugnant to that wild huntress,
the Themis of the Rocky Mountains. In a place where, among much that
is honest and respectable, there are notable exceptions, this wild,
unflinching, and unerring justice, secret and sudden, is the rod of
iron which protects the good. During my residence at the Mormon City
not a single murder was, to the best of my belief, committed: the three
days which I spent at Christian Carson City witnessed three. Moreover,
from the Mississippi to Great Salt Lake City, I noticed that the crimes
were for the most part of violence, openly and unskillfully committed;
the arsenic, strychnine, and other dastardly poisonings of Europe are
apparently unknown, although they might be used easily and efficiently
with scant chance of detection. That white emigrants have sometimes
wiped off the Indian, as the English settler settled with corrosive
sublimate the hapless denizen of the great Southern Continent, is
scarcely to be doubted; at the same time, it must be owned that they
have rarely tried that form of assassination upon one another.
As we issued from the city, we saw the smoke-like column which
announced that the emigrants were crossing the bench-land; and people
were hurrying from all sides to greet and to get news of friends.
Presently the carts came. All the new arrivals were in clean clothes,
the men washed and shaved, and the girls, who were singing hymns,
habited in Sunday dresses. The company was sunburned, but looked
well and thoroughly happy, and few, except the very young and the
very old, who suffer most on such journeys, troubled the wains. They
marched through clouds of dust over the sandy road leading up the
eastern portion of the town, accompanied by crowds, some on foot,
others on horseback, and a few in traps and other “locomotive doin’s,”
sulkies, and buckboards. A few youths of rather a rowdyish appearance
were mounted in all the tawdriness of Western trappings--Rocky
Mountain hats, tall and broad, or steeple-crowned felts, covering
their scalp-locks, embroidered buckskin garments, huge leggins, with
caterpillar or millepede fringes, red or rainbow-colored flannel
shirts, gigantic spurs, bright-hilted pistols, and queer-sheathed
knives stuck in red sashes with gracefully depending ends. The
_jeunesse dorée_ of the Valley Tan was easily distinguished from
imported goods by the perfect ease with which they sat and managed
their animals. Around me were all manner of familiar faces--heavy
English mechanics, discharged soldiers, clerks, and agricultural
laborers, a few German students, farmers, husbandmen, and peasants from
Scandinavia and Switzerland, and correspondents and editors, bishops,
apostles, and other dignitaries from the Eastern States. When the train
reached the public square--at Great Salt Lake City the “squares” are
hollow as in England, not solid as in the States--of the 8th ward, the
wagons were ranged in line for the final ceremony. Before the invasion
of the army the First President made a point of honoring the entrance
of hand-cart trains (but these only) by a greeting in person. Of late
he seldom leaves his house except for the Tabernacle: when inclined
for a picnic, the day and the hour are kept secret. It is said that
Mr. Brigham Young, despite his powerful will and high moral courage,
does not show the remarkable personal intrepidity of Mr. Joseph Smith:
his followers deny this, but it rests on the best and fairest Gentile
evidence. He has guards at his gates, and he never appears in public
unattended by friends and followers, who are of course armed. That such
a mental anomaly often exists, those familiar with the biographies
of the Brahmin officials at the courts of Poonah, Sattara, and other
places in India, well know: many a “Pant,” whose reckless audacity in
intrigue conducted under imminent danger of life argued the courage of
a Cœur de Lion, was personally fearful as Hobbes, and displayed at the
death the terrors of Robespierre. A moment of fear is recounted of St.
Peter; Erasmus was not the stuff of which martyrs are made, and even
the _beau sabreur_ once ran. However, in the case of the Prophet there
is an absolute necessity for precautions: as Gentiles have themselves
owned to me, many a ruffian, if he found an opportunity, would, from
pure love of notoriety, even without stronger incentive, try his
revolver or his bowie-knife upon the “Big Mormon.”
On this occasion the place of Mr. Brigham Young was taken by President
Bishop Hunter, a Pennsylvanian, whom even the most fanatic and
intentionally evil-speaking anti-Mormon must regard with respect.
Preceded by a brass band--“this people” delight in
“Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds”--
and accompanied by the City Marshal, he stood up in his conveyance,
and, calling up the Captains of Companies, shook hands with them and
proceeded forthwith to business. In a short time arrangements were
made to house and employ all who required work, whether men or women.
Having read certain offensive accounts about “girl-hunting elders,”
“gray-headed gallants,” and “ogling apostles,” I was somewhat surprised
to see that every thing was conducted with the greatest decorum.
The Gentiles, however, declare that Mr. Brigham Young and the high
dignitaries have issued an order against “pre-emption” on the part of
their followers, who escort and accompany the emigrant trains across
the prairies.
[SAINTS’ NAMES.]
Mr. Stenhouse circulated freely among the crowd, and introduced me
to many whose names I do not remember; in almost every case the
introduction was followed by some invitation. He now exchanged a word
with this “brother,” then a few sentences with that “sister,” carefully
suppressing the Mr. and Madam of the Eastern States. The fraternal
address gives a patriarchal and somewhat Oriental flavor to Mormon
converse; like other things, however, it is apt to run into extremes.
If a boy in the streets be asked, “What’s your name?” he will reply--if
he condescends to do so--“I’m brother such-and-such’s son.” In order
to distinguish children of different mothers, it is usual to prefix
the maternal to the paternal parent’s name, suppressing the given or
Christian name of monogamic lands. Thus, for instance, my sons by Miss
Brown, Miss Jones, and Miss Robinson, would call themselves Brother
Brown Burton, Brother Jones Burton, and so on. The Saints--even the
highest dignitaries--wave the Reverend and the ridiculous Esquire;
that “title much in use among vulgar people,” which in Old and New
England applies to every body, gentle or simple, has not yet extended
to Great Salt Lake City. The Mormon pontiff and the eminences around
him are simply Brother or Mister--they have the substance, and they
disdain the shadow of power. _En revanche_, among the crowd there
are as many colonels and majors--about ten being the proportion to
one captain--as in the days when Mrs. Trollope set the Mississippi
on fire. Sister is applied to women of all ages, thus avoiding the
difficulty of addressing a dowager, as in the Eastern States, Madam, in
contradistinction to Mrs., her daughter-in-law, or, what is worse, of
calling her after the English way, old Mrs. A., or, _Scotticè_, Mrs. A.
senior.
[A “GOWK.”]
The dress of the fair sex has, I observed, already become peculiar.
The article called in Cornwall a “gowk,” in other parts of England a
“cottage bonnet,” and in the United States a “sun-bonnet,” is here
universally used, with the difference, however, that the Mormons
provide it with a long thick veil behind, which acts like a cape or
shawl. A loose jacket and a petticoat, mostly of calico or of some
inexpensive stuff, compose the _tout visible_. The wealthier affect
silks, especially black. The merchants are careful to keep on hand a
large stock of fancy goods, millinery, and other feminine adornments.
Love of dress is no accident in the mental organization of that sex
which some one called ζωον φιλοκοσμον; the essential is a pleasing
foible, in which the semi-nude savage and the crinolined “civilizee,”
the nun and Quakeress, the sinner and the saint, the _biche_, the
_petite maîtresse_, and the _grande dame_, all meet for once in
their lives pretty much on a par, and on the same ground. Great Salt
Lake City contains three “millinery stores,” besides thirteen of dry
goods and two of fancy goods, or varieties; and some exchange their
merchandise for grain.
The contrast of _physique_ between the new arrivals and the older
colonists, especially those born in the vicinity of the prairies, was
salient. While the fresh importations were of that solid and sometimes
clumsy form and dimensions that characterize the English at home--where
“beauty is seldom found in cottages or workshops, even when no real
hardships are suffered”--the others had much of the delicacy of figure
and complexion which distinguishes the American women of the United
States. Physiologists may perhaps doubt so rapid and perceptible an
operation of climate, but India proves clearly enough that a very few
years suffice to deteriorate form and color, especially in the weaker
half of humanity; why, then, should we think it impossible that a
climate of extremes, an air of exceeding purity and tenuity, and an
arid position 4000 feet above sea level, can produce the opposite
results in as short a space of time? But, whether my theory stand or
fall, the fact remains the same. I remarked to my companion the change
from the lymphatic and the sanguine to the bilious-nervous and the
purely nervous temperament, and admired its results, the fining down
of redundancy in wrist, ankle, and waist, the superior placidness and
thoughtfulness of expression, and the general appearance of higher
caste blood. I could not but observe in those born hereabouts the noble
regular features, the lofty, thoughtful brow, the clear, transparent
complexion, the long silky hair, and, greatest charm of all, the soft
smile of the American woman when she does smile. He appeared surprised,
and said that most other Gentiles had explained the thinness of form
and reflective look by the perpetual fretting of the fair under the
starveling _régime_ of polygamy. The belle of the crowd was Miss Sally
A----, the daughter of a lawyer, and of course a _ci devant_ judge.
Strict Mormons, however, rather wag the head at this pretty person;
she is supposed to prefer Gentile and heathenish society, and it is
whispered against her that she has actually vowed never to marry a
Saint.
[AN ILLUSTRATION.]
I “queried” of my companion how the new arrivals usually behave at
Great Salt Lake City, when the civilization, or rather the humanization
of a voyage, a long journey, and the sense of helplessness caused
by new position, have somewhat mitigated their British bounce and
self-esteem. “Pretty well,” he replied; “all expect to be at the
top of the tree at once, and they find themselves in the wrong box;
no man gets on here by pushing; he begins at the lowest seat; a new
hand is not trusted; he is first sent on mission, then married, and
then allowed to rise higher if he shows himself useful.” This bore a
_cachet_ of truth:
Les sots sont un peuple nombreux,
Trouvant toutes choses faciles;
Il faut le leur passer; souvent ils sont heureux,
Grand motif de se croire habiles.
(_L’Ane et la Flûte._)
Many of these English emigrants have passed over the plains without
knowing that they are in the United States, and look upon Mr. Brigham
Young much as Roman Catholics of the last generation regarded the Pope.
The Welsh, Danes, and Swedes have been seen on the transit to throw
away their blankets and warm clothing, from a conviction that a gay
summer reigns throughout the year in Zion. The mismanagement of the
inexperienced travelers has become a matter of Joe Miller. An old but
favorite illustration, told from the Mississippi to California, is
this: A man rides up to a standing wagon, and seeing a wretched-looking
lad nursing a starving baby, asks him what the matter may be: “Wal,
now,” responds the youth, “guess I’m kinder streakt--ole dad’s
drunk, ole marm’s in hy-sterics, brother Jim be playing poker with
two gamblers, sister Sal’s down yonder a’ courtin’ with an in-tire
stranger, this ’ere baby’s got the diaree, the team’s clean guv out,
the wagon’s broke down, it’s twenty miles to the next water, I don’t
care a ---- if I never see Californy.”
[THEATRICALS.]
We returned homeward by the States Road, in which are two of the
principal buildings. On the left is the Council Hall of the Seventies,
an adobe tenement of the usual barn shape, fifty feet long by thirty
internally, used for the various purposes of deliberation, preaching,
and dancing; I looked through the windows, and saw that it was hung
with red. It is a provisional building, used until a larger can be
erected. A little beyond the Seventies’ Hall, and on the other side of
the road, was the Social Hall, the usual scene of Mormon festivities;
it resembled the former, but it was larger--73 × 33 feet--and better
furnished. The gay season had not arrived; I lost, therefore, an
opportunity of seeing the beauty and fashion of Great Salt Lake City
in ballroom toilette, but I heard enough to convince me that the
Saints, though grave and unjovial, are a highly sociable people. They
delight in sleighing and in private theatricals, and boast of some good
amateur actors, among whom Messrs. B. Snow, H. B. Clawson, and W. C.
Dunbar are particularly mentioned. Sir E. L. Bulwer will perhaps be
pleased to hear that the “Lady of Lyons” excited more furore here than
even in Europe. It is intended, as soon as funds can be collected,
to build a theatre which will vie with those of the Old Country.
Dancing seems to be considered an edifying exercise. The Prophet
dances, the Apostles dance, the Bishops dance. A professor of this
branch of the fine arts would thrive in Zion, where the most learned of
pedagogues would require to eke out a living after the fashion of one
Aristocles, surnamed the “broad-shouldered.” The saltation is not in
the languid, done-up style that polite Europe affects; as in the days
of our grandparents, “positions” are maintained, steps are elaborately
executed, and a somewhat severe muscular exercise is the result. I
confess to a prejudice against dancing after the certain, which we are
told is the uncertain, epoch of life, and have often joined in the
merriment excited among French folks by the aspect of some bald-headed
and stiff-jointed “Anglais” mingling crabbed age with joyful youth in
a public ball. Yet there is high authority for perseverance in the
practice: David danced, we are told, with all his might, and Scipio,
according to Seneca, was wont thus to exercise his heroic limbs.
Besides the grand fêtes at the Social Hall and other subscription
establishments, there are “Ward Parties,” and “Elders’ Weekly Cotillon
Parties,” where possibly the seniors dance together, as the Oxford
dons did drill--in private. Polkas, as at the court of St. James’s,
are disapproved of. It is generally asserted that to the New Faith
Terpsichore owes a fresh form of worship, the Mormon cotillon--alias
quadrille--in which the cavalier leads out, characteristically, two
dames. May I not be allowed to recommend the importation of this
decided improvement into Leamington and other watering-places, where
the proportion of the sexes at “hops” rarely exceeds one to seven?
The balls at the Social Hall are highly select, and are conducted on
an expensive scale; invitations are issued on embossed bordered and
gilt-edged white paper, say to 75-80 of the _élite_, including a few of
the chief Gentiles. The ticket is in this form and style:
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| PARTY AT SOCIAL HALL. |
| |
| Mr. ---- and Ladies are respectfully invited to attend a |
| Party at the SOCIAL HALL, |
| |
| ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1860. |
| |
| _Tickets_, $10 (£2) _per Couple_. |
| |
| Mayor A. O. SMOOT, } Managers. |
| Marshal J. C. LITTLE, } |
| |
| Committee of Arrangements. |
| |
| WILLIAM C. STAINES, | WILLIAM EDDINGTON, | JOHN T. CAINE, |
| H. B. CLAWSON, | ROBERT T. BURTON, | DAVID CANDLAND. |
| |
| _Great Salt Lake City_, |
| Feb. 1, 1860. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
The $10 tickets will admit only one lady with the gentleman; for all
extra $2 each must be paid. In the less splendid fêtes $2 50 would be
the total price. Premiums are offered when the time draws nigh, but
space is limited, and many a Jacob is shorn of his glory by appearing
with only Rachel for a follower, and without his train of Leahs,
Zilpahs, and Billahs.
[THE SUPPER.]
An account of the last ball may be abridged. The hall was tastefully
and elegantly decorated; the affecting motto, “Our Mountain Home,”
conspicuously placed among hangings and evergreens, was highly
effective. At 4 P.M. the Prophet and ex-President entered, and “order
was called.” (N.B.--Might not this be tried to a purpose in a London
ball-room?) Ascending a kind of platform, with uplifted hands he
blessed those present. Farther East I have heard of the reverse being
done, especially by the _maître du logis_. He then descended to the
boards and led off the first cotillon. At 8 P.M. supper was announced;
covers for 250 persons had been laid by Mr. Candland, “mine host”
of “The Globe.” On the following page will be found the list of the
somewhat substantial goodies that formed the _carte_.
It will be observed that the _cuisine_ in Utah Territory has some
novelties, such as bear and beaver. The former meat is a favorite
throughout the West, especially when the animal is fresh from feeding;
after hibernation it is hard and lean. In the Himalayas many a
sportsman, after mastering an artificial aversion to eat bear’s grease,
has enjoyed a grill of “cuffy.” The paws, which not a little resemble
the human hand, are excellent--_experto crede_. I can not pronounce _ex
cathedrâ_ upon beavers’ tails; there is no reason, however, why they
should be inferior to the appendage of a Cape sheep. “Slaw”--according
to my informants--is synonymous with sauer-kraut. Mountain, Pioneer,
and Snowballs are unknown to me, except by their names, which are
certainly patriotic, if not descriptive.
[DANCING.]
After supper dancing was resumed with spirit, and in its intervals
popular songs and duets were performed by the best musicians. The
“finest party of the season” ended as it began, with prayer and
benediction, at 5 A.M.--thirteen successive mortal hours--it shows a
solid power of enduring enjoyments! And, probably, the revelers wended
their way home chanting some kind of national hymn like this, to the
tune of the “Ole Kentucky shore:”
“Let the chorus still be sung,
Long live Brother Brigham Young.
And blessed be the Vale of Deserét--rét--rét!
And blessed be the Vale of Deserét.”
+--------------------------------------------------+
| |
| TERRITORIAL AND CIVIL BALL, |
| |
| SOCIAL HALL, FEBRUARY 7, 1860. |
| ---- |
| BILL OF FARE. |
| ---- |
| |
| First Course. |
| |
| SOUPS. |
| |
| Oyster, Vermicelli, |
| Ox-tail, Vegetable. |
| |
| Second Course. |
| |
| MEATS. |
| |
| _Roast._ _Boiled._ |
| |
| Beef, Sugar-corned beef, |
| Mutton, Mutton, |
| Mountain Mutton, Chickens, |
| Bear, Ducks, |
| Elk, Tripe, |
| Deer, Turkey, |
| Chickens, Ham, |
| Ducks, Trout, |
| Turkeys. Salmon. |
| |
| STEWS AND FRICASSEES. |
| |
| Oysters and Ox Tongues, Chickens, |
| Beaver Tails, Ducks, |
| Collard Head, Turkeys. |
| |
| VEGETABLES. |
| |
| _Boiled._ _Baked._ |
| |
| Potatoes, Potatoes, |
| Cabbage (_i. e._, greens), Parsnips, |
| Parsnips, Beans. |
| Cauliflower, |
| Slaw. |
| Hominy. |
| |
| Third Course. |
| |
| _Pastry._ _Puddings._ |
| |
| Mince Pies, Custards, |
| Green Apple Pie, Rice, |
| Pineapple Pie, English Plum, |
| Quince Jelly Pie, Apple Soufflé, |
| Peach Jelly Pie, Mountain, |
| Currant Jelly Pie. Pioneer. |
| Blancmange. Jellies. |
| |
| Fourth Course. |
| |
| _Cakes._ _Fruits._ |
| |
| Pound, Raisins, |
| Sponge, Grapes, |
| Gipsy, Apples, |
| Varieties. Snowballs. |
| Candies. Nuts. |
| Tea. Coffee. |
+--------------------------------------------------+
[RELIGIOUS ACRIMONY.]
Returning to the hotel, we found the justiciary and the official party
safely arrived; they had been delayed three days at Foot of Ridge
Station, but they could not complain of the pace at which they came
in. The judge was already in confab with a Pennsylvanian compatriot,
Colonel S. C. Stambaugh, of the Militia, Surveyor General of Utah
Territory. This gentleman is no great favorite with the Saints: they
accuse him of a too great skillfulness in “mixing”--cocktails, for
instance--and a degree of general joviality that swears (_qui jure_)
with the grave and reverend seigniory around him. His crime, it
appears to me, chiefly consists in holding a fat appointment. I need
hardly say that at Great Salt Lake City party feeling rises higher,
perhaps, than in any other small place, because religious acrimony is
superadded to the many conflicting interests. Every man’s concerns
are his neighbor’s; no one, apparently, ever heard of that person who
“became immensely rich”--to quote an Americanism--by “minding his
own business.” As often happens, religion is made, like slavery in
the Eastern States and opium in China, the _cheval de bataille_; the
root of the quarrel must be sought deeper; in other words, interest,
and interest only, is the Tisiphone that shakes the brand of war. As
Mormonism grows, its frame becomes more strongly knit. Thus the Gentile
merchants, who have made from 120 to 600 per cent. on capital, were,
at the time of my visit, preparing to sell off, because they found the
combination against them overpowering. For the most part they vowed
that there is no people with whom they would rather do business than
with the Mormons; praised their honesty and punctuality in payments,
and compared them advantageously in such matters with those of the
older faith. Yet they had resolved to remove. The total number of
Gentiles in the city is probably not more than 300, a small proportion
to a body of at least 9000.
[CLIQUISM.]
A stranger, especially an official, is kindly warned, on his first
arrival at Great Salt Lake City, of its inveterate cliquism, and is
amicably advised to steer a middle course, without turning to the right
or to the left, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Christianity and
Mormonism. This mezzo-termine may be possible in official matters;
in society it is not. I soon saw that, though a traveler on the wing
might sit alternately in the tents of Shem and Japhet, a resident
would soon be obliged to dwell exclusively in either one or the
other. When Gentile and Mormon meet, they either maintain a studied
or surly silence, or they enter into a dialogue which, on a closer
acquaintance with its formation, proves to be a conglomerate of “rile”
and “knagg”--an unpleasant predicament for those _en tiers_. Such, at
least, was my short experience, and I believe that of my companions.
Colonel Stambaugh, a day or two after the introduction, offered to
act cicerone through the settlement, and I was happy to accept his
kindness. One fine evening we drove along the Tooele Road westward,
and drank of the waters of the New Jordan, which, to the unregenerate
palate, tasted, I must say, somewhat brackish and ill-flavored. The
river is at this season about one hundred feet broad, and not too
deep below its banks to be useless for irrigation, which, as the
city increases, will doubtless be extended. It is spanned by a wooden
bridge so rickety that it shakes with a child’s tread--the governor has
urgently but unavailingly represented the necessity of reconstruction.
But, although the true Western, or rather Keltic recklessness of
human life--which contrasts so strongly with the sanctity attached
to it by the old Roman and the modern Anglo-Scandinavian--here still
displays itself, in some points there is no disregard for improvement.
Mr. Brigham Young has seen the evils of disforesting the land, and
the want of plantations; he has lately contracted for planting, near
Jordan and elsewhere, a million of young trees at the rate of one
cent each. On the way we saw several fine Durhams and Devons, which
are driven out every morning and back every evening under the charge
of a boy, who receives one and a half cent _per mensem_ a head. The
animals have been brought across the prairies at great trouble and
expense: stock-breeding is one of the Prophet’s useful hobbies, and the
difference between the cattle in Utah Territory and the old Spanish
herds still seen in the country parts of California is remarkable. The
land, as will presently appear, is better calculated for grazing than
for agriculture, and a settlement of 500 souls rarely has less than 500
head of cattle.
Returning from Jordan, we re-entered the city by the western road, and
drove through Mr. Brigham Young’s block toward the Northern Kanyon.
The gateway was surmounted by a plaster group, consisting of a huge
vulturine eagle, perched, with wings outspread, neck bended as if
snuffing the breeze of carrion from afar, and talons clinging upon a
yellow bee-hive--a most uncomfortable and unnatural position for the
poor animal. The device is doubtless highly symbolical, emblematical,
typical--in fact, every thing but appropriate and commonsensical. The
same, however, may be said of one of the most picturesque ensigns in
the civilized world--what have stars to do with stripes or stripes with
stars? It might be the device of the British or Austrian soldier--only
in their case, unlike the flag of the United States, the stripes
should be many and the stars few. _En passant_ we remarked a kind of
guard-room at the eastern doorway of the White House--a presidential
title which the house of prophecy in New Zion shares with the house of
politication[130] at Washington: my informants hinted that, in case of
an assault upon head-quarters by roughs, marshals, or other officials,
fifty rifles could at once be brought to bear upon the spot, and 1000
after the first hour. On the eastern side of the compound were the
stables; a lamb in effigy surmounted the entrance, and meekly reposed
under the humane injunction, “Take care of your flocks.” Beyond this
point lay a number of decrepit emigrant wagons, drawn up to form a
fence, a young plantation of fruitless peaches, and the remnants of the
falling wall.
[130] The Western press uses to “politicate,” _v. n._ to make a
trade of politics, and the participle politicating--why not, then,
politication?
[BRIGHAM’S KANYON.]
We then struck into “City,” usually known as “Brigham’s” Kanyon, the
Prophet having a saw-mill upon the upper course. It is the normal deep
narrow gorge, with a beautiful little stream, which is drawn off by
raised water-courses at different altitudes to supply the settlement.
The banks are margined with dwarf oaks and willows; limestone,
sandstone, and granite, all of fine building quality, lie scattered
about in profusion, while high above rise the acclivities of the gash,
thinly sprinkled with sage and sunflower. Artemisia in this part
improves like the population in appearance, nor is it always a sign of
sterility; in parts wheat grows well where the shrub has been uprooted.
The road along the little torrent was excellent; it would have cost
$100,000 in Pennsylvania, but here much is done by tithe-work;
moreover, the respect for the Prophet is such that men would rather
work for him on credit than take pay from others.
[UTAH LIBRARY.]
Being in want of local literature, after vainly ransacking the few
book-stalls which the city contains, I went to the Public Library,
and, by sending in a card, at once obtained admission. As usual in
the Territories of the United States, this institution is supported
by the federal government, which, besides $1500 for books, gave $5000
for the establishment, and $400 from the treasury of Utah is paid to
the Territorial librarian, Mr. John Lyon, who is also a poet. The
management is under the Secretary of the Territory, and the public
desire to see an extra grant of $500 per annum.[131] The volumes, about
1000 in number, are placed in a large room on the north side of the
“Mountaineer” office, and the librarian attends every Thursday, when
books are “loaned” to numerous applicants. The works are principally
those of reference, elementary, and intended for the general reader,
such as travels, popular histories, and novels. The “Woman in White”
had already found her way across the prairies, and she received the
honors and admiration which she deserved.
[131] An Act in relation to Utah Library:
Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Legislative Assembly of
the Territory of Utah, That a librarian shall be elected by a joint
vote of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, whose duty
it shall be to take charge of the library (known in law as the Utah
Library), as hereinafter prescribed.
Sec. 2. Said librarian shall hold his office during the term of two
years, or until his successor is appointed, and shall give bonds for
the faithful discharge of his duties in the sum of $6000, and file
the same in the office of Secretary of the Territory before entering
upon his duties, who may also appoint a deputy, as occasion requires,
to act in his stead, under the same restrictions as the principal
librarian.
Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the librarian to cause to be printed,
at as early a date as practicable, a full and accurate catalogue of
all books, maps, globes, charts, papers, apparatus, and valuable
specimens in any way belonging to said library; also to use diligent
efforts to preserve from waste, loss, or damage, any portion of said
library.
Sec. 4. It shall be the duty of the librarian, for and in behalf of
the Territory of Utah, to plant suits, collect fines, prosecute,
or defend the interests of said library, or otherwise act as a
legal plaintiff or defendant in behalf of the Territory, where the
interests of the library are concerned.
Sec. 5. The location of the library shall be at the seat of
government of the Territory of Utah, and it shall be the duty of the
librarian to have all the books of the library orderly and properly
arranged within the library-room, for the use of such officers and
persons as are named in the fourteenth section of the Organic Act
for Utah Territory, during each session of the Legislative Assembly
of Utah; provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall
debar the librarian, in vacation of the Legislative Assembly, from
permitting books, maps, and papers being drawn from said library,
for professional and scientific purposes, by officers of the United
States and of Utah Territory, and other citizens of Utah, where the
librarian shall judge the public good may justify.
Sec. 6. It shall be the duty of the librarian to let out books for
a specified time, and call in the same when due, inflict fines for
damage or loss of books, and collect the same, and keep an accurate
account of all his official doings in a book kept for that purpose,
and make an annual report of the same to the Legislative Assembly of
Utah; provided that no fine shall be excessive, or more than four
times the purchase price of the book or books for the loss or damage
of which the fine may be inflicted.
Sec. 7. The librarian is hereby entitled to draw from the treasury of
Utah for the current year as compensation for his services the sum of
$400, not otherwise appropriated; also the sum of $200 to defray the
expenses of stationery, printing catalogue, and other contingencies.
Approved March 6, 1852.
[HARROWGATE WATERS.]
On the evening of the 30th of August, after dining with the governor,
I accompanied him to the Thermal Springs, one of the lions of the
place. We struck into the north road, and soon issued from the town. On
the right hand we passed a large tumble-down tenement which has seen
many vicissitudes. It began life as a bath-house and bathing-place,
to which the white sulphury waters of the Warm Springs,[132] issuing
from below Ensign Peak, were brought in pine-log pipes. It contained
also a ballroom, two parlors for clubs and supper-parties, and a double
kitchen. It afterward became a hotel and public house for emigrants
to California and Oregon. These, however, soon learned to prefer more
central quarters, and now it has subsided into a tannery of low degree.
About two and a half miles beyond the northern suburb are the Hot
Springs,[133] which issue from the western slope of the hills lying
behind Ensign Peak. A generous supply of water, gushing from the rock
into a basin below, drains off and forms a lakelet, varying according
to season from one to three miles in circumference. Where the water
first issues it will boil an egg; a little below it raises the mercury
to 128° F. Even at a distance from the source it preserves some heat,
and, accordingly, it is frequented throughout the winter by flights of
water-fowl and camping Indians, whose children sit in it to thaw their
half-frozen limbs. These springs, together with the fresh-water lake
and the Jordan, are held to be more purifying than Abana and Pharphar,
rivers of Damascus; and, being of the Harrowgate species, they will
doubtless be useful to the Valley people as soon as increased luxury
requires such appliances. When the wind sets in from the north, the
decided perfume of sulphureted hydrogen and saleratus is any thing but
eau de Cologne. An anti-Mormon writer, describing these springs and
other evidences of igneous and volcanic action, dwells with complacency
upon the probability that at some no distant time New Zion may find
herself in a quandary, and--like the Cities of the Plain, to which
she is thus insinuatingly compared--fuel for the flames. On our way
home the governor pointed out the remains of building and other works
upon a model farm, which had scarcely fared better than that of Niger
celebrity. The land around is hoar with salt, and bears nothing but
salsolæ and similar hopeless vegetation.
[132] The following is the analysis of the warm spring by Dr. L.
D. Gale, printed by Captain Stansbury in Appendix F. It dates from
1851, but apparently more detailed trials have not yet been made. One
hundred parts of the water (whose specific gravity was 1·0112) give
the following results:
Sulphureted hydrogen absorbed in the water 0·037454
„ „ combined with bases 0·000728
Carbonate of lime precipitated by boiling 0·075000
„ „ magnesia 0·022770
Chloride of calcium 0·005700
Sulphate of soda 0·064835
Chloride of sodium 0·861600
--------
1·023087
The usual temperature is laid down at 102° F.
[133] The water of the Hot Springs was found to have the specific
gravity of 1·0130, and 100 parts yielded solid contents 1·1454.
Chloride of sodium 0·8052
„ magnesia 0·0288
„ calcium 0·1096
Sulphate of lime 0·0806
Carbonate of lime 0·0180
Silica 0·0180
------
1·0602
The usual temperature is laid down at 128° F.
CHAPTER V.
Second Week at Great Salt Lake City.--Visit to the Prophet.
[BRIGHAM YOUNG.]
Shortly after arriving, I had mentioned to Governor Cumming my desire
to call upon Mr., or rather, as his official title is, President
Brigham Young, and he honored me by inquiring what time would be most
convenient to him. The following was the answer: the body was in the
handwriting of an amanuensis--similarly Mr. Joseph Smith was in the
habit of dictation--and the signature, which would form a fair subject
for a Warrenologist, was the Prophet’s autograph.
“GOVERNOR A. CUMMING.
“Great Salt Lake City, Aug. 30, 1860.
“SIR,--In reply to your note of the 29th inst., I embrace the
earliest opportunity since my return to inform you that it will be
agreeable to me to meet the gentleman you mention in my office at 11
A.M. to-morrow, the 31st.
BRIGHAM YOUNG.”
The “President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints all
over the World” is obliged to use caution in admitting strangers,
not only for personal safety, but also to defend his dignity from the
rude and unfeeling remarks of visitors, who seem to think themselves
entitled, in the case of a Mormon, to transgress every rule of civility.
About noon, after a preliminary visit to Mr. Gilbert--and a visit
in these lands always entails a certain amount of “smiling”--I met
Governor Cumming in Main Street, and we proceeded together to our
visit. After a slight scrutiny we passed the guard--which is dressed in
plain clothes, and to the eye unarmed--and walking down the veranda,
entered the Prophet’s private office. Several people who were sitting
there rose at Mr. Cumming’s entrance. At a few words of introduction,
Mr. Brigham Young advanced, shook hands with complete simplicity of
manner, asked me to be seated on a sofa at one side of the room, and
presented me to those present.
Under ordinary circumstances it would be unfair in a visitor to draw
the portrait of one visited. But this is no common case. I have
violated no rites of hospitality. Mr. Brigham Young is a “seer,
revelator, and prophet, having all the gifts of God which he bestows
upon the Head of the Church:” his memoirs, lithographs, photographs,
and portraits have been published again and again; I add but one more
likeness; and, finally, I have nothing to say except in his favor.
The Prophet was born at Whittingham, Vermont, on the 1st of June,
1801; he was consequently, in 1860, fifty-nine years of age; he looks
about forty-five. _La célébrité vieillit_--I had expected to see a
venerable-looking old man. Scarcely a gray thread appears in his hair,
which is parted on the side, light colored, rather thick, and reaches
below the ears with a half curl. He formerly wore it long, after the
Western style; now it is cut level with the ear-lobes. The forehead is
somewhat narrow, the eyebrows are thin, the eyes between gray and blue,
with a calm, composed, and somewhat reserved expression: a slight droop
in the left lid made me think that he had suffered from paralysis; I
afterward heard that the ptosis is the result of a neuralgia which has
long tormented him. For this reason he usually covers his head, except
in his own house or in the Tabernacle. Mrs. Ward, who is followed by
the “Revue des Deux-Mondes,” therefore errs again in asserting that
“his Mormon majesty never removes his hat in public.” The nose, which
is fine and somewhat sharp-pointed, is bent a little to the left. The
lips are close like the New Englander’s, and the teeth, especially
those of the under jaw, are imperfect. The cheeks are rather fleshy,
and the line between the alæ of the nose and the mouth is broken;
the chin is somewhat peaked, and the face clean shaven, except under
the jaws, where the beard is allowed to grow. The hands are well
made, and not disfigured by rings. The figure is somewhat large,
broad-shouldered, and stooping a little when standing.
The Prophet’s dress was neat and plain as a Quaker’s, all gray homespun
except the cravat and waistcoat. His coat was of antique cut, and,
like the pantaloons, baggy, and the buttons were black. A neck-tie of
dark silk, with a large bow, was loosely passed round a starchless
collar, which turned down of its own accord. The waistcoat was of black
satin--once an article of almost national dress--single-breasted, and
buttoned nearly to the neck, and a plain gold chain was passed into the
pocket. The boots were Wellingtons, apparently of American make.
[“BRIGHAM.”]
Altogether the Prophet’s appearance was that of a gentleman
farmer in New England--in fact, such as he is: his father was an
agriculturist and revolutionary soldier, who settled “down East.” He
is a well-preserved man; a fact which some attribute to his habit of
sleeping, as the Citizen Proudhon so strongly advises, in solitude. His
manner is at once affable and impressive, simple and courteous: his
want of pretension contrasts favorably with certain pseudo-prophets
that I have seen, each and every of whom holds himself to be a “Logos”
without other claim save a semi-maniacal self-esteem. He shows no signs
of dogmatism, bigotry, or fanaticism, and never once entered--with
me at least--upon the subject of religion. He impresses a stranger
with a certain sense of power; his followers are, of course, wholly
fascinated by his superior strength of brain. It is commonly said there
is only one chief in Great Salt Lake City, and that is “Brigham.”
His temper is even and placid; his manner is cold--in fact, like his
face, somewhat bloodless; but he is neither morose nor methodistic,
and, where occasion requires, he can use all the weapons of ridicule
to direful effect, and “speak a bit of his mind” in a style which
no one forgets. He often reproves his erring followers in purposely
violent language, making the terrors of a scolding the punishment in
lieu of hanging for a stolen horse or cow. His powers of observation
are intuitively strong, and his friends declare him to be gifted
with an excellent memory and a perfect judgment of character. If he
dislikes a stranger at the first interview, he never sees him again.
Of his temperance and sobriety there is but one opinion. His life is
ascetic: his favorite food is baked potatoes with a little buttermilk,
and his drink water: he disapproves, as do all strict Mormons, of
spirituous liquors, and never touches any thing stronger than a glass
of thin Lager-bier; moreover, he abstains from tobacco. Mr. Hyde has
accused him of habitual intemperance: he is, as his appearance shows,
rather disposed to abstinence than to the reverse. Of his education
I can not speak: “men, not books--deeds, not words,” has ever been
his motto; he probably has, as Mr. Randolph said of Mr. Johnston, “a
mind uncorrupted by books.” In the only discourse which I heard him
deliver, he pronounced impětus, impētus. Yet he converses with ease
and correctness, has neither snuffle nor pompousness, and speaks
as an authority upon certain subjects, such as agriculture and
stock-breeding. He assumes no airs of extra sanctimoniousness, and has
the plain, simple manners of honesty. His followers deem him an angel
of light, his foes a goblin damned: he is, I presume, neither one nor
the other. I can not pronounce about his scrupulousness: all the world
over, the sincerest religious belief and the practice of devotion are
sometimes compatible not only with the most disorderly life, but with
the most terrible crimes; for mankind mostly believes that
“Il est avec le ciel des accommodements.”
He has been called hypocrite, swindler, forger, murderer. No one looks
it less. The best authorities--from those who accuse Mr. Joseph Smith
of the most heartless deception, to those who believe that he began
as an impostor and ended as a prophet--find in Mr. Brigham Young “an
earnest, obstinate egotistic enthusiasm, fanned by persecution and
inflamed by bloodshed.” He is the St. Paul of the New Dispensation:
true and sincere, he gave point, and energy, and consistency to the
somewhat disjointed, turbulent, and unforeseeing fanaticism of Mr.
Joseph Smith; and if he has not been able to create, he has shown
himself great in controlling circumstances. Finally, there is a total
absence of pretension in his manner, and he has been so long used to
power that he cares nothing for its display. The arts by which he rules
the heterogeneous mass of conflicting elements are indomitable will,
profound secrecy, and uncommon astuteness.
Such is His Excellency President Brigham Young, “painter and
glazier”--his earliest craft--prophet, revelator, translator, and seer;
the man who is revered as king or kaiser, pope or pontiff never was;
who, like the Old Man of the Mountain, by holding up his hand could
cause the death of any one within his reach; who, governing as well as
reigning, long stood up to fight with the sword of the Lord, and with
his few hundred guerrillas, against the then mighty power of the United
States; who has outwitted all diplomacy opposed to him; and, finally,
who made a treaty of peace with the President of the Great Republic as
though he had wielded the combined power of France, Russia, and England.
Remembering the frequent query, “What shall be done with the Mormons?”
I often asked the Saints, Who will or can succeed Mr. Brigham Young? No
one knows, and no one cares. They reply, with a singular disdain for
the usual course of history, with a perfect faith that their Cromwell
will know no Richard as his successor, that, as when the crisis came
the Lord raised up in him, then unknown and little valued, a fitting
successor to Mr. Joseph Smith--of whom, by-the-by, they now speak
with a respectful reverential _sotto voce_, as Christians name the
Founder of their faith--so, when the time for deciding the succession
shall arrive, the chosen Saints will not be left without a suitable
theocrat to exalt the people Israel. The Prophet professes, I believe,
to hold office in a kind of spiritual allegiance to the Smith family,
of which the eldest son, Mr. Joseph Smith, the third of that dynasty,
has of late years, though blessed by his father, created a schism in
the religion. By the persuasions of his mother, who, after the first
Prophet’s death, gave him a Gentile stepfather, he has abjured polygamy
and settled in the Mansion House at Nauvoo. The Mormons, though ready
to receive back the family at Great Salt Lake City when manifested by
the Lord, hardly look to him as their future chief. They all, however,
and none more than Mr. Brigham Young, show the best of feeling toward
the descendants of their founder, and expect much from David Smith,
the second and posthumous son of him martyred at Carthage. He was
called David, and choicely blessed before his birth by his father, who
prophesied that the Lord will see to his children. Moreover, all speak
in the highest terms of Mr. Joseph A. Young, the dweller at the White
House, the eldest son of the ex-governor, who traveled in Europe and
England, and distinguished himself in opposition to the federal troops.
[“SQUIRE WELLS.”--HEBER C. KIMBALL.]
After finishing with the “Lion of the Lord,” I proceeded to observe his
companions. By my side was seated Daniel H., whose title is “General,”
Wells, the Superintendent of Public Works, and the commander of the
Nauvoo Legion. He is the third President of the Mormon triumvirate, and
having been a justice of the peace and an alderman in Illinois, when
the Mormons dwelt there in 1839, he is usually known as Squire Wells:
he became a Saint when the Mormons were driven from Nauvoo in 1846, and
took their part in battles against the mob. In appearance he is a tall,
large, bony, rufous man, and his conduct of the affair in 1857-’8 is
spoken of with admiration by Mormons. The second of the Presidency, Mr.
Heber C. Kimball, was not present at that time, but on another occasion
he was: Mr. Brigham Young introduced me to him, remarking, with a quiet
and peculiar smile, that during his friend’s last visit to England, at
a meeting of the Methodists, one of the reverends attempted to pull
his chair from under him; at which reminiscence the person alluded to
looked uncommonly grim. Mr. Kimball was born in the same year as Mr.
Brigham Young, and was first baptized in 1832: he is a devoted follower
of the Prophet, a very Jonathan to this David, a Umar to the New Islam.
He is a large and powerful man, not unlike a blacksmith, which I
believe he was, and is now the owner of a fine block, with houses and
barns, garden and orchard, north of and adjoining that of Mr. Brigham
Young. The third person present was the apostle Mr. George A. Smith,
the historian and recorder of the Territory, and a cousin of the first
Prophet: he is a walking almanac of Mormon events, and is still full
of fight, strongly in favor of rubbing out the “wretched Irishmen and
Dutchmen sent from the East to try whether the Mormons would receive
federal officers.” Mr. Willford Woodruff, like Mr. Smith, one of
the original apostles, has visited England as a missionary, appeared
before the public as polemic and controversialist, and has now settled
down as an apostle at Great Salt Lake City. Mr. Albert O. Carrington,
a graduate of Dartmouth College, had acted as second assistant on
the topographical survey to Captain Stansbury, who speaks of him as
follows: “Being a gentleman of liberal education, he soon acquired,
under instruction, the requisite skill, and by his zeal, industry, and
practical good sense materially aided us in our subsequent operations.
He continued with the party till the termination of the survey,
accompanied it to the city (Washington), and has since returned to
his mountain home, carrying with him the respect and good wishes of
all with whom he was associated.” Of Mr. F. Little, who completed the
_septem contra Christianitatem_ then present, I shall have more to say
in a future chapter.
The Prophet received us in his private office, where he transacts the
greater part of his business, corrects his sermons, and conducts his
correspondence. It is a plain, neat room, with the usual conveniences,
a large writing-desk and money-safe, table, sofas, and chairs, all made
by the able mechanics of the settlement. I remarked a pistol and a
rifle hung within ready reach on the right-hand wall; one of these is,
I was told, a newly-invented twelve-shooter. There was a look of order,
which suited the character of the man: it is said that a door badly
hinged, or a curtain hung awry, “puts his eye out.” His style of doing
business at the desk or in the field--for the Prophet does not disdain
handiwork--is to issue distinct, copious, and intelligible directions
to his _employés_, after which he dislikes referring to the subject. It
is typical of his mode of acting, slow, deliberate, and conclusive. He
has the reputation of being wealthy. He rose to power a poor man. The
Gentiles naturally declare that he enriched himself by the tithes and
plunder of his followers, and especially by preying upon and robbing
the Gentiles. I believe, however, that no one pays Church-dues and alms
with more punctuality than the Prophet, and that he has far too many
opportunities of coining money, safely and honestly, to be guilty, like
some desperate destitute, of the short-sighted folly of fraud. In 1859
he owned, it is said, to being possessed of $250,000, equal to £50,000,
which makes a millionaire in these mountains--it is too large a sum
to jeopardize. His fortunes were principally made in business: like
the late Imaum of Muscat, he is the chief merchant as well as the high
priest. He sends long trains of wagons freighted with various goods to
the Eastern States, and supplies caravans and settlements with grain
and provisions. From the lumber which he sold to the federal troops for
hutting themselves at Camp Floyd, he is supposed to have netted not
less than $200,000. This is one of the sorest points with the army:
all declare that the Mormons would have been in rags or sackcloth if
soldiers had not been sent; and they naturally grudge discomfort,
hardship, and expatriation, whose only effect has been to benefit their
enemies.
[“LEMUEL.”--SLAVERY.]
After the few first words of greeting, I interpreted the Prophet’s look
to mean that he would not dislike to know my object in the City of
the Saints. I told him that, having read and heard much about Utah as
it is said to be, I was anxious to see Utah as it is. He then entered
briefly upon the subjects of stock and agriculture, and described the
several varieties of soil. One delicate topic was touched upon: he
alluded to the “Indian wars,” as they are here called: he declared that
when twenty are reported killed and wounded, that two or three would be
nearer the truth, and that he could do more with a few pounds of flour
and yards of cloth than all the sabres of the camp could effect. The
sentiment was cordially seconded by all present. The Israelitic origin
of “Lemuel,” and perhaps the prophecy that “many generations shall
not pass away among them save they shall be a white and delightsome
people,”[134] though untenable as an ethnologic theory, has in practice
worked at least this much of good, that the Mormons treat their
step-brethren with far more humanity than other Western men: they
feed, clothe, and lodge them, and attach them by good works to their
interests. Slavery has been legalized in Utah, but solely for the
purpose of inducing the Saints to buy children, who otherwise would be
abandoned or destroyed by their starving parents.[135] During my stay
in the city I did not see more than half a dozen negroes; and climate,
which, disdaining man’s interference, draws with unerring hand the true
and only compromise line between white and black labor, has irrevocably
decided that the African in these latitudes is valueless as a chattel,
because his keep costs more than his work returns. The negro, however,
is not admitted to the communion of Saints--rather a hard case for the
Hamite, if it be true that salvation is nowhere to be found beyond the
pale of the Mormon Church--and there are severe penalties for mixing
the blood of Shem and Japhet with the accursed race of Cain and Canaan.
The humanity of the Prophet’s followers to the Lamanite has been
distorted by Gentiles into a deep and dangerous project for “training
the Indians” to assassinate individual enemies, and, if necessary, to
act as guerrillas against the Eastern invaders. That the Yutas--they
divide the white world into two great classes, Mormon and Shwop, or
American generally--would, in case of war, “stand by” their patrons, I
do not doubt; but this would only be the effect of kindness, which it
is unfair to attribute to no worthier cause.
[134] Second Book of Nephi, chap. xii., par. 12. Lemuel was the
brother of Nephi; and the word is used by autonomasia for the
Lamanites or Indians.
[135] The wording of the following act shows the spirit in which
slavery was proposed:
A PREAMBLE AND AN ACT FOR THE FARTHER RELIEF OF INDIAN SLAVES AND
PRISONERS.
“Whereas, by reason of the acquisition of Upper California and
New Mexico, and the subsequent organization of the Territorial
Governments of New Mexico and Utah by the acts of the Congress of
the United States, these territories have organized governments
within and upon what would otherwise be considered Indian territory,
and which really is Indian territory so far as the right of soil is
involved, thereby presenting the novel feature of a white legalized
government on Indian lands; and
“Whereas the laws of the United States in relation to intercourse
with Indians are designed for, and only applicable to, territories
and countries under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United
States; and
“Whereas, from time immemorial, the practice of purchasing Indian
women and children of the Utah tribe of Indians by Mexican traders
has been indulged in and carried on by those respective people until
the Indians consider it an allowable traffic, and frequently offer
their prisoners or children for sale; and
“Whereas it is a common practice among these Indians to gamble away
their own children and women; and it is a well-established fact that
women and children thus obtained, or obtained by war, or theft, or
in any other manner, are by them frequently carried from place to
place, packed upon horses or mules, larieted out to subsist upon
grass, roots, or starve, and are frequently bound with thongs made
of raw-hide until their hands and feet become swollen, mutilated,
inflamed with pain, and wounded; and when with suffering, cold,
hunger, and abuse they fall sick, so as to become troublesome, are
frequently slain by their masters to get rid of them; and
“Whereas they do frequently kill their women and children taken
prisoners, either in revenge, or for amusement, or through the
influence of tradition, unless they are tempted to exchange them for
trade, which they usually do if they have an opportunity; and
“Whereas one family frequently steals the children and women of
another family, and such robberies and murders are continually
committed, in times of their greatest peace and amity, thus dragging
free Indian women and children into Mexican servitude and slavery, or
death, to the almost entire extirpation of the whole Indian race; and
“Whereas these inhuman practices are being daily enacted before our
eyes in the midst of the white settlements, and within the organized
counties of the Territory; and when the inhabitants do not purchase
or trade for those so offered for sale, they are generally doomed to
the most miserable existence, suffering the tortures of every species
of cruelty, until death kindly relieves them and closes the revolting
scenery:
“Wherefore, when all these facts are taken into consideration, it
becomes the duty of all humane and Christian people to extend unto
this degraded and downtrodden race such relief as can be awarded to
them, according to their situation and circumstances; it therefore
becomes necessary to consider,
“First, the circumstances of our location among these savage tribes
under the authority of Congress, while yet the Indian title to the
soil is left unextinguished; not even a treaty having been held, by
which a partition of territory or country has been made, thereby
bringing them into our door-yards, our houses, and in contact with
our every avocation.
“Second, their situation, and our duty toward them, upon the common
principles of humanity.
“Third, the remedy, or what will be the most conducive to ameliorate
their condition, preserve their lives and their liberties, and redeem
them from a worse than African bondage; it suggests itself to your
committee that to memorialize Congress to provide by some act of
national legislation for the new and unparalleled situation of the
inhabitants of this Territory, in relation to their intercourse with
these Indians, would be one resource, prolific in its results for our
mutual benefit; and, farther, that we ask their concurrence in the
following enactment, passed by the Legislature of the Territory of
Utah, January 31, A.D. 1852, entitled,
“‘_An Act for the Relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners_.
“‘Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Legislative Assembly of
the Territory of Utah, That whenever any white person within any
organized county of this Territory shall have any Indian prisoner,
child, or woman, in his possession, whether by purchase or otherwise,
such person shall immediately go, together with such Indian prisoner,
child, or woman, before the selectmen or probate judge of the county.
If, in the opinion of the selectmen or probate judge, the person
having such Indian prisoner, child, or woman, is a suitable person,
and properly qualified to raise or retain and educate said Indian
prisoner, child, or woman, it shall be his or their duty to bind out
the same, by indenture, for the term of not exceeding twenty years,
at the discretion of the judge or selectmen.
“‘Sec. 2. The probate judge or selectmen shall cause to be written in
the indenture the name and age, place where born, name of parents if
known, tribe to which said Indian person belonged, name of the person
having him in possession, name of Indian from whom said person was
obtained, date of the indenture--a copy of which shall be filed in
the probate clerk’s office.
“‘Sec. 3. The selectmen in their respective counties are hereby
authorized to obtain such Indian prisoners, children, or women, and
bind them to some useful avocation.
“‘Sec. 4. The master to whom the indenture is made is hereby required
to send said apprentice to school, if there be a school in the
district or vicinity, for the term of three months in each year, at a
time when said Indian child shall be between the ages of seven years
and sixteen. The master shall clothe his apprentice in a comfortable
and becoming manner, according to his said master’s condition in life.
“‘Approved March 7, 1852.’”
The conversation, which lasted about an hour, ended by the Prophet
asking me the line of my last African exploration, and whether it was
the same country traversed by Dr. Livingstone. I replied that it was
about ten degrees north of the Zambezi. Mr. A. Carrington rose to point
out the place upon a map which hung against the wall, and placed his
finger too near the equator, when Mr. Brigham Young said, “A little
lower down.” There are many educated men in England who could not
have corrected the mistake as well: witness the “London Review,” in
which the gentleman who “does the geography”--not having the fear of a
certain society in Whitehall Place before his eyes--confounds, in all
the pomp of criticism upon the said exploration, lakes which are not
less than 200 miles apart.
[THE PROPHET NO COMMON MAN.]
When conversation began to flag, we rose up, shook hands, as is the
custom here, all round, and took leave. The first impression left upon
my mind by this short _séance_, and it was subsequently confirmed,
was, that the Prophet is no common man, and that he has none of the
weakness and vanity which characterize the common uncommon man. A
desultory conversation can not be expected to draw out a master
spirit, but a truly distinguished character exercises most often an
instinctive--some would call it a mesmeric--effect upon those who come
in contact with it; and as we hate or despise at first sight, and
love or like at first sight, so Nature teaches us at first sight what
to respect. It is observable that, although every Gentile writer has
represented Mr. Joseph Smith as a heartless impostor, few have ventured
to apply the term to Mr. Brigham Young. I also remarked an instance
of the veneration shown by his followers, whose affection for him is
equaled only by the confidence with which they intrust to him their
dearest interests in this world and in the next. After my visit many
congratulated me, as would the followers of the Tien Wong, or heavenly
King, upon having at last seen what they consider “a per se” the most
remarkable man in the world.
Before leaving the Prophet’s Block I will describe the rest of
the building. The grounds are surrounded by a high wall of large
pebble-like stones and mortar--the lime now used is very bad--and
strengthened with semicircular buttresses. The main entrance faces
south, with posts and chains before it for tethering horses. The “Lion
House,” occupied by Mrs. Young and her family, is in the eastern
part of the square: it is so called from a stone lion placed over
the large pillared portico, the work of a Mr. William Ward, who also
cut the block of white limestone, with “Deserét” beneath a bee-hive,
and other symbols, forwarded for the Washington Monument in 1853.
It is lamentable to state that the sculptor is now an apostate. The
house resembles a two-storied East Indian tenement, with balcony and
balustrade, here called an observatory, and is remarkable by its
chunamed coat; it cost $65,000--being the best in the city, and was
finished in one year. Before building it the Prophet lived in the White
House, a humbler bungalow farther to the east; he has now given it up
to his son, Joseph A. Young.
On the west of the Lion House lies the private office in which we
were received, and farther westward, but adjoining and connected by a
passage, is the public office, where the Church and other business is
transacted. This room, which is larger than the former, has three desks
on each side, the left on entering being those of the public, and the
right those of the private clerks. The chief accountant is Mr. Daniel
O’Calder, a Scotchman, whose sagacity in business makes him an _alter
ego_ of the President. At the end opposite the door there is a larger
_pupitre_ railed off, and a gallery runs round the upper wall. The
bookcases are of the yellow box-elder wood, which takes a fine polish;
and all is neat, clean, and business-like.
Westward of the public office is the Bee House, so named from the
sculptured bee-hive in front of it. The Hymenopter is the Mormon
symbol of industry; moreover, Deserét (pronounced Des-erétt) is, in
“reformed Egyptian,” the honey-bee; the term is applied with a certain
violence to Utah, where, as yet, that industrious insect is an utter
stranger.[136] The Bee House is a large building, with the long walls
facing east and west. It is double storied, with the lower windows,
which are barred, oblong: the upper, ten in number, are narrow, and
shaded by a small acute ogive or gable over each. The color of the
building is a yellowish-white, which contrasts well with the green
blinds, and the roof, which is acute, is tiled with shingles. It was
finished in 1845, and is tenanted by the “plurality wives” and their
families, who each have a bedroom, sitting-room, and closet simply and
similarly furnished. There is a Moslem air of retirement about the
Bee House; the face of woman is rarely seen at the window, and her
voice is never heard from without. Anti-Mormons declare it to be, like
the state-prison at Auburn, a self-supporting establishment, for not
even the wives of the Prophet are allowed to live in idleness.
[136] “And they (_scil._ Jared and his brother) did also carry with
them Deserét, which by interpretation is a honey-bee; and they did
carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon
the face of the land, seeds of every kind.”--_Book of Ether_, chap.
i., par. 3.
[Illustration: THE PROPHET’S BLOCK.]
[THE PROPHET’S PROGENY.]
I was unwilling to add to the number of those who had annoyed the
Prophet by domestic allusions, and therefore have no direct knowledge
of the extent to which he carries polygamy; some Gentiles allow him
seventeen, others thirty-six, out of a household of seventy members;
others an indefinite number of wives scattered through the different
settlements. Of these, doubtless, many are but wives by name, such,
for instance, as the widows of the late Prophet; and others are
married more for the purpose of building up for themselves spiritual
kingdoms than for the normal purpose of matrimony. When treating of
Mormon polygamy I shall attempt to show that the relation between the
sexes as lately regulated by the Mormon faith necessitates polygamy. I
should judge the Prophet’s progeny to be numerous from the following
circumstance: On one occasion, when standing with him on the belvidere,
my eye fell upon a new erection: it could be compared externally to
nothing but an English gentleman’s hunting stables, with their little
clock-tower, and I asked him what it was intended for. “A private
school for my children,” he replied, “directed by Brother E. B.
Kelsey.” The harem is said to have cost $30,000.
[TITHES.]
On the extreme west of this block, backed by a pound for estrays,
which is no longer used, lies the Tithing House and Deserét Store,
a long, narrow, upper-storied building, with cellars, store-rooms,
receiving-rooms, pay-rooms, and writing offices. At this time of the
year it chiefly contains linseed, and rags for paper-making; after
the harvest it is well stuffed with grains and cereals, which are
taken instead of money payment. There is nothing more unpopular among
the American Gentiles, or, indeed, more unintelligible to them, than
these Mosaic tithes, which the English converts pay, from habit,
without a murmur. They serve for scandalous insinuations, viz., that
the chiefs are leeches that draw the people’s golden blood; that the
imposts are compulsory, and that they are embezzled and peculated by
the principal dignitaries. I have reason to believe that the contrary
is the case. The tithes which are paid into the “Treasury of the Lord”
upon the property of a Saint on profession, and afterward upon his
annual income, or his time, or by substitute, are wholly voluntary.
It sometimes happens that a man casts his all into the bosom of the
Church; in this case the all is not refused, but--may I ask--by what
Church body, Islamitic, Christian, or pagan, would it be? If the
Prophet takes any thing from the Tithing House, he pays for it like
other men. The writers receive stipends like other writers, and no
more; of course, if any one--clerk or lawyer--wishes to do the business
of the Church gratis, he is graciously permitted; and where, I repeat,
would he not be? The Latter-Day Saints declare that if their first
Presidency and Twelve Apostles--of whom some, by-the-by, are poor--grow
rich, it is by due benevolence, not by force or fraud. Much like the
primitive college, and most unlike their successors in this modern
day, each apostle must have some craft, and all live by handiwork,
either in house, shop, or field, no drones being allowed in the social
hive. The tithes are devoted in part to Church works, especially to
“building up temples or otherwise beautifying and adorning Zion, as
they may be directed from on high,” and in part to the prosperity of
the body politic, temporal, and spiritual; by aiding faithful and needy
emigrants, and by supporting old and needy Saints. Perhaps the only
true charge brought by the Gentiles against this, and, indeed, against
all the public funds in the Mormon City, is, that a large portion
finds its way eastward, and is expended in “outside influence,” or,
to speak plain English, bribes. It is believed by Mormons as well as
Gentiles that Mr. Brigham Young has in the States newspaper spies and
influential political friends, who are attached to him not only by the
ties of business and the natural respect felt for a wealthy man, but
by the strong bond of a regular stipend. And such is their reliance
upon this political dodgery--which, if it really exists, is by no means
honorable to the public morality of the Gentiles--that they deride the
idea of a combined movement from Washington ever being made against
them. In 1860 Governor Cumming proposed to tax the tithing fund; but
the Saints replied that, as property is first taxed and then tithed, by
such proceeding it would be twice taxed.
“This people”--a term reiterated at Great Salt Lake City _usque ad
nauseam_--declares its belief “in being subject to kings, queen,
presidents, rulers, and magistrates; in obeying, honoring, and
sustaining the law.” They are not backward in open acts of loyalty--I
beg America’s pardon--of adhesion to the Union, such as supplying
stones for the Washington Monument and soldiers for the Mexican
War. But they make scant pretension of patriotism. They regard the
States pretty much as the States regarded England after the War
of Independence, and hate them as the Mexican Criollo does the
Gachupin--very much also for the same reason. Theirs is a deep and
abiding resentment, which time will strengthen, not efface: the
deeds of Missouri and Illinois will bear fruit for many and many
a generation. The federal government, they say, has, so far from
protecting their lives and property, left them to be burned out and
driven away by the hands of a mob, far more cruel than the “red-coated
minions” of poor King George; that Generals Harney and Johnston were
only seeking the opportunity to act Burgoyne and Cornwallis. But,
more galling still to human nature, whether of saint or sinner, they
are despised, “treated, in fact, as nobodies”--and that last of
insults who can bear? Their petitions to become a sovereign state have
been unanswered and ignored. They have been served with “small-fry”
politicians and “one-horse” officials: hitherto the phrase has been,
“Any thing is good enough for Utah!” They return the treatment in kind.
[NEW INDEPENDENCE DAY.]
“The Old Independence,” the “glorious” 4th of July, ’76, is treated
with silent contempt: its honors are transferred to the 24th of July,
the local Independence Day of their _annus mirabilis_ 1847, when the
weary pioneers, preceding a multitude, which, like the Pilgrim fathers
of New England, left country and home for conscience’ sake, and, led
by Captain John Brown, whose unerring rifle saved them from starvation
when the Indians had stampeded their horses, arrived in the wild waste
of valley. Their form of government, which I can describe only as
a democratic despotism with a leaven of the true Mosaic theocracy,
enables them to despise a political system in which they say--quoting
Hamilton--that “every vital interest of the state is merged in the
all-absorbing question of ‘who shall be the next president.’” There is
only one “Yankee gridiron” in the town, and that is a private concern.
I do not remember ever seeing a liberty-pole, that emblem of a tyrant
majority, which has been bowed to from New York to the Rhine.[137]
A favorite toast on public occasions is, “We can rock the cradle of
Liberty without Uncle Sam to help us,” and so forth. These sentiments
show how the wind sets. In two generations hence--perhaps New Zion has
a prophet-making air--the Mormons in their present position will, on
their own ground, be more than a match for the Atlantic, and, combined
with the Chinese, will be dangerous to the Pacific States.
[137] The first liberty-pole was erected on the open space between
the Court-house and Broadway, New York. It is a long flag-staff,
often of several pieces, like the “mast of some tall ammiral,”
surmounted by a liberty-cap, that Phrygian or Mithridatic coiffure
with which the Goddess of Liberty is supposed to disfigure herself.
With a peculiar inconsequence, “the whole is” said to be “an allusion
to Gesler’s cap which Tell refused to do homage to, leading to the
freedom of Switzerland.”--_Bartlett._ The French soon made of their
_peuplier_ a _peuple lié_. The Americans, curious to say, still
believe in it.
The Mormons, if they are any thing in secular politics, are Democrats.
It has not been judged advisable to cast off the last rags of popular
government, but, as will presently appear, theocracy is not much
disguised by them. Although not of the black or extreme category, they
instinctively feel that polygamy and slavery are sister institutions,
claiming that sort of kindness which arises from fellow-feeling, and
that Congress can not attack one without infringing upon the other.
Here, perhaps, they may be mistaken, for nations, like individuals,
however warmly and affectionately they love their own peculiar follies
and prejudices, sins and crimes, are not the less, indeed perhaps they
are rather more, disposed to abominate the follies and prejudices,
the sins and crimes of others. The establishment of slavery, however,
though here it serves a humanitarian rather than a private end,
necessarily draws the Mormons and the Southern States together. Yet the
Saints preferred as President the late Mr. Senator Douglas, a Northern
Democrat, to his Southern rival, Mr. Breckinridge. They looked with
apprehension of the rise to power of the Republican party, which, had
not a weightier matter fallen into their hands, was pledged to do them
a harm. I can not but think that absolute independence is and will be,
until attained, the principal end and aim of Mormon _haute politique_,
and when the disruption of the Great Republic shall have become a _fait
accompli_, that Deserét will arise a free, sovereign, and independent
state.
[MORALS.--ARDENT SPIRITS.]
Should this event ever happen, it will make the regions about Great
Salt Lake as exclusive as Northern China or Eastern Tibet. The obsolete
rigors of the sanguinary Mosaic code will be renewed in the middle
of the nineteenth century, while the statute-crime “bigamy” and
unlimited polygamy will be legalized. Stripes, or, at best, fine and
imprisonment, will punish fornication, and the penalty of adultery will
be death by lapidation or beheading. As it is, even under the shadow of
the federal laws, the self-convicted breaker of the seventh commandment
will, it is said, offer up his life in expiation of his crime to the
Prophet, who, under present circumstances, dismisses him with a penance
that may end in the death which he has legally incurred. The offenses
against chastity, morality, and decency are exceptionally severe.[138]
The penalty attached to betting of any kind is a fine not exceeding
$300, or imprisonment not exceeding six months. The importation of
spirituous liquors is already burdened with an octroi of half its
price, raising cognac and whisky to $12 and $8 per gallon. If the state
could make her own laws, she would banish “poteen,” hunt down the
stills, and impose a prohibitory duty upon every thing stronger than
Lager-bier.[139]
[138] Sec. 32 (of an “Act in relation to Crimes and Punishment”).
Every person who commits the crime of adultery shall be punished by
imprisonment not exceeding twenty years, and not less than three
years; or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and not less
than three hundred dollars; or by both fine and imprisonment, at the
discretion of the court. And when the crime is committed between
parties any one of whom is married, both are guilty of adultery, and
shall be punished accordingly. No prosecution for adultery can be
commenced but on the complaint of the husband or wife.
Sec. 33. If any man or woman, not being married to each other, lewdly
and lasciviously associate and cohabit together; or if any man or
woman, married or unmarried, is guilty of open and gross lewdness,
and designedly make any open and indecent, or obscene exposure of
his or her person, or of the person of another, every such person so
offending shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding ten years,
and not less than six months, and fine not more than one thousand
dollars, and not less than one hundred dollars, or both, at the
discretion of the court.
Sec. 34. If any person keep a house of ill-fame, resorted to for
the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, he shall be punished by
imprisonment not exceeding ten years, and not less than one year,
or by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or both fine and
imprisonment. And any person who, after being once convicted of such
offense, is again convicted of the like offense, shall be punished
not more than double the above specified penalties.
Sec. 35. If any person inveigle or entice any female, before reputed
virtuous, to a house of ill-fame, or knowingly conceal, aid, or abet
in concealing such female so deluded or enticed, for the purpose of
prostitution or lewdness, he shall be punished by imprisonment not
more than fifteen years, nor less than five years.
Sec. 36. If any person without lawful authority willfully dig up,
disinter, remove, or carry any human body, or the remains thereof,
from its place of interment, or aid or assist in so doing, or
willfully receive, conceal, or dispose of any such human body, or the
remains thereof; or if any person willfully or unnecessarily, and in
an improper manner, indecently exposes those remains, or abandons
any human body, or the remains thereof, in any public place, or in
any river, stream, pond, or other place, every such offender shall
be punished by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by fine not
exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both fine and imprisonment, at
the discretion of the court.
Sec. 37. If any person torture or cruelly beat any horse, ox, or
other beast, whether belonging to himself or another, he shall be
punished by fine not more than one hundred dollars.
Sec. 38. If any person import, print, publish, sell, or distribute
any book, pamphlet, ballad, or any printed paper containing obscene
language, or obscene prints, pictures, or descriptions manifestly
tending to corrupt the morals of youth, or introduce into any family,
school, or place of education, or buy, procure, receive, or have
in his possession any such book, pamphlet, ballad, printed paper,
picture, or description, either for the purpose of loan, sale,
exhibition, or circulation, or with intent to introduce the same into
any family, school, or place of education, he shall be punished by
fine not exceeding four hundred dollars.
Sec. 39. If any person keep a house, shop, or place resorted to for
the purpose of gambling, or permit or suffer any person in any house,
shop, or other place under his control or care to play at cards,
dice, faro, roulette, or other game for money or other things, such
offender shall be fined not more than eight hundred dollars, or
imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of
the court. In a prosecution under this section, any person who has
the charge of, or attends to any such house, shop, or place, may be
deemed the keeper thereof.
[139] I quote as an authority,
_An Ordinance regulating the Manufacturing and Vending of Ardent
Spirits_.
Sec. 1. Be it ordained by the General Assembly of the State of
Deserét, That it shall not be lawful for any person or persons in
this state to establish any distillery or distilleries for the
manufacture of ardent spirits except as hereafter provided for;
and any person or persons who shall violate this ordinance, on
conviction thereof, shall forfeit all property thus invested to the
state, and be liable to a fine at the discretion of the court having
jurisdiction.
Sec. 2. Be it farther ordained, That when the governor shall deem it
expedient to have ardent spirits manufactured within this state, he
may grant a license to some person or persons to make and vend the
same, and impose such restrictions thereon as he may deem requisite.
Approved Feb. 12, 1851.
[JUDGE PHELPS.]
On the saddest day of the year for the bird which has lost so much good
fame by condescending to appear at table _aux choux_, I proceeded with
my _fidus Achates_--save the self-comparison to pious Æneas--on a visit
to Mr. W. W., alias Judge Phelps, alias “the Devil.” He received me
with great civility, and entered without reserve upon his hobbies. His
house, which lies west of Temple Block, bears on the weathercock הננו
(Job, xxxviii., 35, “Adsumus:” “Here we are”). Besides Hebrew and other
linguistic studies, the judge is a meteorologist, and has been engaged
for some years in observations upon the climate of the Territory. An
old editor at Independence, he now superintends the Utah Almanac, and
gave me a copy for the year 1860, “being the 31st year of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.” It is a small duodecimo, creditably
printed by Mr. J. M‘Knight, Utah, and contains thirty-two pages. The
contents are the usual tables of days, sunrises, sunsets, eclipses,
etc., with advertisements on the alternate pages; and it ends with the
denominations and value of gold and silver coins, original poetry,
“scientific” notes concerning the morning and evening stars, a list
of the United States officers at Utah, the number of the planets and
asteroids, diarrhœa, and “moral poetry,” and an explanation of the word
“almanac,” concluding with the following observation:
“A person, without an almanac is somewhat like a ship at sea without
a compass; he never knows what to do nor when to do it.”
“So Mormon, other sects, and Quaker,
Buy Almanacs, and pay the maker.--K. J.”
The only signs of sanctity are in the events appended to the days of
the week; they naturally record the dates of local interest, and the
births and deaths of prophets and patriarchs, presidents and apostles.
Under the head of “Time,” however, some novel information is provided
for the benefit of the benighted chronologist.
“TIME.--There is a great mystery about time as recorded in the Bible.
Authors differ as to what length of time this world has occupied
since it came into being. Add 4004 to 1860, and we have 5864 years.
“Again, some authors allow, before the birth of the Savior, 5509
years, which, added to 1860, gives 7369 years since the beginning.
“The book of Abraham, as translated by Joseph Smith, gives 7000 years
for the creation by the gods, one day of the Lord being a thousand
years of man’s time, or a day in Kolob. This important revelation of
7000 years at first shows 5960 years since the transgression of Adam
and Eve, and 40 years to the next ‘day of rest,’ if the year 1900
commences the return of the ‘ten tribes,’ and the first resurrection;
or 13,000 years since the gods said, ‘Let there be light, and there
was light,’ so that the fourteen thousandth year will be the second
Sabbath since creation.
“A day of the Moon is nearly thirty of our days, or more than ten
thousand of earth’s time. Verily, verily,
“Man knows but little,
Nor knows that little right.”
The judge then showed me an instrument upon which he had expended the
thought and labor of years: it was that grand desideratum, a magnetic
compass, which, pointing with a second needle to the true north, would
indicate variation so correctly as to show longitude by inspection. The
article, which was as rough-looking as it could be, was placed upon
the table; but it would not, as the inventor explained, point to the
true north unless in a particular position. I refrain from recording
my hundred doubts as to the feasibility of the operation, and my own
suspicions concerning the composition of the instrument. I presently
took leave of Judge Phelps, pleased with his quaint kindness, but
somehow suspecting him of being a little _tête-montée_ on certain
subjects.
[THE “DESERÉT NEWS.”--NEWSPAPERS.]
As it was newspaper day, we passed by the “Mountaineer” office and
bought a copy. The press is ably and extensively represented in
Great Salt Lake City, as in any other of its Western coevals.[140]
Mormonism, so far from despising the powers of pica, has a more than
ordinary respect for them.[141] Until lately there were three weekly
newspapers. The “Valley Tan,” however, during the last winter expired,
after a slow and lingering dysthesis, induced by overindulgence in
Gentile tendencies. It was established in 1858; the proprietor was
Mr. J. Hartnett, the late federal secretary; the editor was Mr. Kirk
Anderson, followed by Mr. De Wolf and others; the issue hebdomadal, and
the subscription high = $10 per annum. The recognized official organ
of the religion, which first appeared on the 15th of June, 1850, is
the “Deserét News,” whose motto is “Truth and Liberty” under a hive,
over which is a single circumradiated eye in disagreeable proximity to
the little busy bee. It has often changed its size, and is now printed
in small folio, of eight pages, each containing four columns of close
type: sometimes articles are clothed in the Mormon alphabet. It had
reached in 1860 its tenth volume; it appears every Wednesday; costs at
Utah $6 per annum, in England £1 13_s._ 8_d._ per annum, in advance;
single number 9_d._; and is superintended by Mr. Brigham Young. It is
edited by Mr. Elias Smith, also a Probate judge; he is assisted by Mr.
M‘Knight, formerly the editor of a paper in the United States, and now
the author of the important horticultural, agricultural, and other
georgic articles in the “Deserét News.” This “Moniteur” also contains
corrected reports of the sermons spoken at the Tabernacle. An account
of a number may not be uninteresting.
[140] According to the “Elgin Courant,” there are between 700 and 800
of a fishing population in Hopeness who never see a newspaper.
[141] The first Mormon newspaper was the “Latter-Day Saints’
Messenger and Advocate,” published at Kirtland, Ohio, in the time of
Mr. Joseph Smith.
The “Evening and Morning Star,” published at Independence, Mo., and
edited by W. W. Phelps.
“Elders’ Journal,” published in 1838, in the time of Mr. Joseph Smith.
“The Upper Missouri Advertiser,” published about the same time; it
did not last long.
“The Nauvoo Neighbor” disappeared in the days of the Exodus.
“The Times and Seasons,” containing a compendium of intelligence
pertaining to the upbuilding of the kingdom of God, and the signs of
the Times, together with a great variety of information in regard
to the history, principles, persecutions, deliverances, and onward
progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Nauvoo
1839-1843. It was edited by Elder John Taylor (now one of the
“Twelve”) under the direction of Mr. Joseph Smith, and arrived at the
fourth volume (octavo): this journal is full of interesting matter to
Mormons.
“The Wasp,” begun at Nauvoo in 1842.
“The Frontier Garden,” published at Council Bluffs during the Exodus
from Nauvoo.
“The Seer,” edited at Washington, by Elder Orson Pratt, reached the
second volume.
“The Gospel Reflector,” published at Philadelphia, lasted for a short
time.
“The Prophet,” published at New York.
“Le Reflecteur,” in French, published at Geneva.
“Etoile du Deserét, Organe de l’Eglise de Jésus-Christ des Saints des
Derniers Jours,” par John Taylor, Paris. It lasted from May, 1851, to
April, 1852, and forms 1 vol. large 8vo, containing 192 pages.
“The Western Standard,” edited and published weekly at San Francisco,
California, United States of America, by Elder George Q. Cannon, now
an Apostle and President of the Church in Great Britain. This paper,
which was distinguished by the beauty of its type and the character
of its composition, lasted through 1856 and 1857; in 1858 it ceased
for want of funds.
“Zion’s Watchman,” published in Australia.
“Udgorn Seion” (the Trump of Zion), published in Wales, a bi-monthly
print, which has reached the ninth volume.
“The Luminary,” St. Louis, Mo.
“The Mormon,” published in New York, a hebdomadal print.
No. 28, vol. x., begins with a hymn of seven stanzas, by C. W. Bryant.
Follow remarks by President Brigham Young, at Provo and in the Bowery,
Great Salt Lake City; the three sermons, which occupy four columns and
a half, are separated by “Modern Germany, II.,” by Alexander Ott. There
is an article from the “New York Sun,” entitled the “Great Eastern in
Court.” It is followed by nearly half a page of “Clippings,” those
little recognized piracies which make the American papers as amusing
as magazines. Then come advertisements, estray notices, and others,
which nearly fill the third and sixth pages, and the column at the
eighth, which is the conclusion. I subjoin terms for advertising.[142]
The fourth page contains “News by Eastern Mail”--Doings of the
Probate Court--Special term of the Probate Court--Another excusable
homicide--The season--Imprisoning convicts without labor--Discharge of
the city police--Swiss Saints (lately arrived)--Arrival of missionaries
at Liverpool--Drowned, Joseph Vest, etc.--Deserét Agriculturing and
Manufacturing Society--Information wanted -- and Humboldt’s opinion
of the United States (comparing it to a Cartesian vortex, liberty a
dead machinery in the hands of Utilitarianism, etc.). The fifth and
sixth pages detail news from Europe, the Sicilies, Damascus, and India,
proceedings of a missionary meeting in the Bowery, and tidings from
Juab and Iron County, with a few stopgaps, such as an explanation of
the word Zouave, and the part conversion of the fallen Boston elm
into a “Mayor’s seat.” The seventh page is agricultural, and opens
with the “American Autumn,” by Fanny Kemble, four stanzas. Then comes
Sheep-husbandry No. iii., treating of change of pasture, separation of
the flock, and fall management. The other _morceaux_ are “Training
the peach-tree,” “Stick to the Farm,” an article concluding with “We
shall always sign ‘speed the plow;’ we shall always regard the American
farmer, dressed for his employment (!) and tilling his grounds, as
belonging to the order of real noblemen”--the less aristocratic
Englander would limit himself to “Nature’s gentleman;” “Why pork
shrinks in the pot,” and “Wheat-straw, its value as fodder.” The eighth
and last page opens with “Correspondence,” and a letter signed Joseph
Hall, headed “More results of ‘civilization,’” and dated Ogden City,
Sept. 8, 1860. It contains an account of occurrences resulting in the
“death of one John Cornwell, a discharged government teamster, and,
as is often the case with those Christians who are sent to civilize
the ‘Mormons’ of these mountains, a corrupt, profane, and quarrelsome
individual, who doted on belonging to the ‘bully tribe.’” Then
follows more news from San Pete County. A test of love (that capital
story out of C. R. Leslie’s autobiography). Siege of Magdeburg. A
hard-shell sermon (preached at Oxford, England), a scrap illustrating
the marvelous growth of Quincy, Illinois, and the Legend of the origin
of the Piano-forte. The latter is followed by a valuable abstract
containing a summary of meteorological observations, barometric and
thermometric, for the month of August, 1860, at Great Salt Lake City,
Utah, by W. W. Phelps, and concluding with a monthly journal.[143]
Then follow the deaths, six in number, and after one of them is
inserted [Millennial Star, copy]. There are no marriages, and the
Western papers, like those of the East, are still _bégueules_ enough
to consider advertising the birth of a child indelicate; at least that
was the reason given to me. The last column contains the terms for
advertising and the “fill-up” advertisements.
[142] ADVERTISING.--Ten lines or less constitute one square.
_Regular Advertisements._
One quarter column (four squares or less), for each insertion $1 50
Half column (seven squares or less), each insertion 3 00
One column (fourteen squares or less) 6 00
_Sundry Advertisements._
One square, each insertion $1 00
Two „ „ 1 50
Three „ „ 2 00
Thus upward, with half a dollar to the additional square for each
insertion.
[143]
The maximum of the barometer during the month is 26·100; min. 25·400
„ „ „ thermometer „ „ 95° F.; „ 60° F.
There fell of rain water 0·670 inches during five days marked
showery. Fifteen days are marked clear and pleasant, or hot and dry,
or hot and very dry, the 22d being the hottest; and the others are
partially clear, or clear and cloudy, or hazy and cloudy.
[THE “MOUNTAINEER.”]
The “Mountaineer,” whose motto is “Do what is right, let the
consequence follow,” is considered rather a secular paper. It appears
on Saturdays, and the terms of subscription are $6 per annum; the
occasional supplement is issued gratis. It formerly belonged to three
lawyers, Messrs. Stout, Blair, and Ferguson; it has now passed into
the hands of the two latter. Mr. Hosea Stout distinguished himself
during the Nauvoo troubles; he was the captain of forty policemen who
watched over the safety of Mr. Joseph Smith, and afterward went on
missions to India and China. Major S. M. Blair served under General
Sam. Houston in the Texan war of independence, and was a distinguished
lawyer in the Southern States. A description of the “Deserét News”
will apply to the “Mountaineer.” I notice in the issue of September
15, 1860, that a correspondent, quoting an extract from the “New York
Tribune”--the great Republican organ, and therefore no favorite with
the Mormons--says, outspokenly enough to please any amount of John
Bull, “The author of the above is a most consummate liar”--so far, so
good--“and a contemptible dastardly poltroon”--which is invidious.
I passed the morning of the ensuing Sunday in a painful but appropriate
exercise, reading the Books of Mormon and of Moroni the Prophet.
Some writers tell me that it is the best extant imitation of the Old
Testament; to me it seems composed only to emulate the sprightliness
of some parts of Leviticus. Others declare that it is founded upon a
romance composed by a Rev. Mr. Spaulding; if so, Mr. Spaulding must
have been like Prince Puckler-Muskau of traveling notoriety, a romancer
utterly without romance. Surely there never was a book so thoroughly
dull and heavy: it is monotonous as a sage-prairie. Though not liable
to be terrified by dry or hard reading, I was, it is only fair to
own, unable to turn over more than a few chapters at a time, and my
conviction is that very few are so highly gifted that they have been
able to read it through at a heat. In Mormonism it now holds the same
locus as the Bible in the more ignorant Roman Catholic countries, where
religious reading is chiefly restricted to the Breviary, to tales of
miracles, and to legends of Saints Ursula and Bridget. It is strictly
proper, does not contain a word about materialism and polygamy[144]--in
fact, more than one wife is strictly forbidden even in the Book
of Doctrines and Covenants.[145] The Mormon Bible, therefore, is
laid aside for later and lighter reading. In one point it has done
something. America, like Africa, is a continent of the future; the Book
of Mormon has created for it an historical and miraculous past.
[144] Behold the Lamanites (North American Indians), your brethren,
whom ye hate because of their filthiness, and the cursings which hath
come upon their skins, are more righteous than you, for they have
not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our
fathers, that they should have, save it were one wife; and concubines
they should have none; and there should not be whoredoms committed
among them.--_Book of Jacob_, chap. ii., par. 9.
[145] See Chap. IX.
[THE BOWERY.--MUSIC.]
At 9 45 A.M. we entered the Bowery; it is advisable to go early if
seats within hearing are required. The place was a kind of “hangar,”
about a hundred feet long by the same breadth, with a roofing of
bushes and boughs supported by rough posts, and open for ventilation
on the sides; it can contain about 3000 souls. The congregation is
accommodated upon long rows of benches, opposite the dais, rostrum,
platform, or tribune, which looked like a long lane of boarding open
to the north, where it faced the audience, and entered by steps from
the east. Between the people and the platform was a place not unlike a
Methodist “pen” at a camp-meeting: this was allotted to the orchestra,
a violin, a bass, two women and four men performers, who sang the
sweet songs of Zion tolerably well--decidedly well, after a moment’s
reflection as to latitude and longitude, and after reminiscences
of country and town chapels in that land where it is said, had the
Psalmist heard his own psalms,
“In furious mood he would have tore ’em.”
I was told that “profane”--_i. e._, operatic and other--music is
performed at worship, as in the Italian cathedrals, where they are
unwilling that Sathanas should monopolize the prettiest airs; on this
occasion, however, only hymns were sung.
[Illustration: SOUTH END OF THE TABERNACLE.]
[DRESS.]
We--the judge’s son and I--took our seats on the benches of the eighth
ward, where we could see the congregation flocking in, a proceeding
which was not over--some coming from considerable distances--till
10 15 A.M. The people were all _endimanchés_; many a pretty face
peeped from the usual sun-bonnet with its long curtain, though the
“mushroom” and the “pork-pie” had found their way over the plains,
and trim figures were clad in neat stuff dresses, sometimes silk: in
very few cases there was a little faded finery--gauze, feathers, and
gaudy colors--such as one may see on great festivals in an Old-Country
village. The men were as decently attired: the weather, being hot, had
caused many of them to leave their coats at home, and to open their
vests; the costume, however, looked natural to working-men, and there
was no want of cleanliness, such as sometimes lurks behind a bulwark
of buttons. The elders and dignitaries on the platform affected coats
of black broadcloth, and were otherwise respectably dressed. All
wore their hats till the address began, and then all uncovered. By my
side was the face of a blear-eyed English servant-girl; _en revanche_
in front was a charming American mother and child: she had, what I
have remarked in Mormon meetings at Saville House and other places in
Europe, an unusual development of the organ which phrenologists call
veneration. I did not see any Bloomers “displaying a serviceable pair
of brogues,” or “pictures of Grant Thorburn in petticoats.” There were
a few specimens of the “Yankee woman,” formerly wondrous grim, with a
shrewd, thrifty gray eye, at once cold and eager, angular in body and
mind, tall, bony, and square-shouldered, now softened and humanized by
transplantation and transposition to her proper place. The number of
old people astonished me; half a dozen were sitting on the same bench;
these broken-down men and decrepit crones had come to lay their bones
in the Holy City; their presence speaks equally well for their faith
and for the kind-heartedness of those who had brought the encumbrance.
I remarked some Gentiles in the Bowery; many, however, do not care to
risk what they may hear there touching themselves.
At 10 A.M. the meeting opened with a spiritual song. Then Mr.
Wallace--a civilized-looking man lately returned from foreign
travel--being called upon by the presiding elder for the day, opened
the meeting with prayer, of which the two short-hand writers in the
tribune proceeded to take notes. The matter, as is generally the case
with returned missionaries delivering their budget, was good; the
manner was somewhat Hibernian; the “valleys of the mountains”--a stock
phrase, appeared and reappeared like the speechifying Patlander’s
eternal “emerald green hills and beautiful pretty valleys.” He ended
by imploring a blessing upon the (Mormon) President, and all those
in authority; Gentiles of course were included. The conclusion was
an amen, in which all hands joined: it reminded me of the historical
practice of “humming” in the seventeenth century, which caused the
universities to be called “_Hum et Hissimi auditores_.”
[THE SERMON.]
Next arose Bishop Abraham O. Smoot, second mayor of Zion, and successor
to the late Jedediah M. Grant, who began with “Brethering,” and
proceeded at first in a low and methody tone of voice, “hardly audible
in the gallery,” to praise the Saints, and to pitch into the apostates.
His delivery was by no means fluent, even when he warmed. He made undue
use of the regular Wesleyan organ--the nose; but he appeared to speak
excellent sense in execrable English. He recalled past persecutions
without over-asperity, and promised future prosperity without
over-prophecy. As he was in the midst of an allusion to the President,
entered Mr. Brigham Young, and all turned their faces, even the old
lady--
“Peut-on si bien prêcher qu’elle ne dorme au sermon?”--
who, dear soul! from Hanover Square to far San Francisco, placidly
reposes through the discourse.
The Prophet was dressed, as usual, in gray homespun and homewoven:
he wore, like most of the elders, a tall, steeple-crowned straw hat,
with a broad black ribbon, and he had the rare refinement of black
kid gloves. He entered the tribune covered and sat down, apparently
greeting those near him. A man in a fit was carried out pumpward.
Bishop Smoot concluded with informing us that we should live for
God. Another hymn was sung. Then a great silence, which told us that
something was about to happen: _that_ old man held his cough; _that_
old lady awoke with a start; _that_ child ceased to squall. Mr. Brigham
Young removed his hat, advanced to the end of the tribune, expectorated
stooping over the spittoon, which was concealed from sight by the
boarding, restored the balance of fluid by a glass of water from a
well-filled decanter on the stand, and, leaning slightly forward upon
both hands propped on the green baize of the tribune, addressed his
followers.
The discourse began slowly; word crept titubantly after word, and the
opening phrases were hardly audible; but as the orator warmed, his
voice rose high and sonorous, and a fluency so remarkable succeeded
falter and hesitation, that--although the phenomenon is not rare in
strong speakers--the latter seemed almost to have been a work of art.
The manner was pleasing and animated, and the matter fluent, impromptu,
and well turned, spoken rather than preached: if it had a fault it was
rather rambling and unconnected. Of course, colloquialisms of all kinds
were introduced, such as “he become,” “for you and I,” and so forth.
The gestures were easy and rounded, not without a certain grace, though
evidently untaught; one, however, must be excepted, namely, that of
raising and shaking the forefinger; this is often done in the Eastern
States, but the rest of the world over it is considered threatening and
bullying. The address was long. God is a mechanic. Mormonism is a great
fact. Religion had made him (the speaker) the happiest of men. He was
ready to dance like a Shaker. At this sentence the Prophet, who is a
good mimic, and has much of the old New English quaint humor, raised
his right arm, and gave, to the amusement of the congregation, a droll
imitation of Anne Lee’s followers. The Gentiles had sent an army to lay
waste Zion, and what had they done? Why, hung one of their own tribe!
and that, too, on the Lord’s day![146] The Saints have a glorious
destiny before them, and their morality is remarkable as the beauty of
the Promised Land: the soft breeze blowing over the Bowery, and the
glorious sunshine outside, made the allusion highly appropriate. The
Lamanites, or Indians, are a religious people. All races know a God and
may be saved. After a somewhat lengthy string of sentences concerning
the great tribulation coming on earth--it has been coming for the last
1800 years--he concluded with good wishes to visitors and Gentiles
generally, with a solemn blessing upon the President of the United
States, the territorial governor, and all such as be in authority over
us, and, with an amen which was loudly re-echoed by all around, he
restored his hat and resumed his seat.
[146] Alluding to one Thos. H. Ferguson, a Gentile; he killed, on
Sept. 17th, 1859, in a drunken moment, A. Carpenter, who kept a
boot and shoe store. Judge Sinclair, according to the Mormons, was
exceedingly anxious that somebody should be _sus. per coll._, and,
although intoxication is usually admitted as a plea in the Western
States, he ignored it, and hanged the man on Sunday. Mr. Ferguson was
executed in a place behind the city; he appeared costumed in a Robin
Hood style, and complained bitterly to the Mormon troops, who were
drawn out, that his request to be shot had not been granted.
Having heard much of the practical good sense which characterizes the
Prophet’s discourse, I was somewhat disappointed: probably the occasion
had not been propitious. As regards the concluding benedictions, they
are profanely compared by the Gentiles to those of the slave, who,
while being branded on the hand, was ordered to say thrice, “God
bless the State.” The first was a blessing. So was the second. But at
the third, natural indignation having mastered Sambo’s philosophy,
forth came a certain naughty word not softened to “darn.” During the
discourse, a Saint, in whose family some accident had occurred, was
called out, but the accident failed to affect the riveted attention of
the audience.
Then arose Mr. Heber C. Kimball, the second President. He is the model
of a Methodist, a tall and powerful man, a “gentleman in black,” with
small, dark, piercing eyes, and clean-shaven blue face. He affects the
Boanerges style, and does not at times disdain the part of Thersites:
from a certain dislike to the Nonconformist rant and whine, he prefers
an every-day manner of speech, which savors rather of familiarity than
of reverence. The people look more amused when he speaks than when
others harangue them, and they laugh readily, as almost all crowds
will, at the thinnest phantom of a joke. Mr. Kimball’s movements
contrasted strongly with those of his predecessor; they consisted now
of a stone-throwing gesture delivered on tiptoe, then of a descending
movement, as
“When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist and not with stick.”
He began with generalisms about humility, faithfulness, obeying
counsel, and not beggaring one’s neighbor. Addressing the hand-cart
emigrants, newly arrived from the “sectarian world,” he warned them to
be on the look-out, or that every soul of them would be taken in and
shaved (a laugh). Agreeing with the Prophet--Mr. Kimball is said to be
his echo--in a promiscuous way concerning the morality of the Saints,
he felt it notwithstanding his duty to say that among them were “some
of the greatest rascals in the world” (a louder laugh, and N.B., the
Mormons are never spared by their own preachers). After a long suit of
advice, _à propos de rien_, to missionaries, he blessed, amen’d, and
sat down.
[MR. KIMBALL’S STYLE.]
I confess that the second President’s style startled me. But presently
I called to mind Luther’s description[147] of Tetzel’s sermon, in which
he used to shout the words Bring! bring! bring! with such a horrible
bellowing, that one would have said it was a mad bull rushing on the
people and goring them with his horns; and D’Aubigné’s neat apology
for Luther,[148] who, “in one of those homely and quaint, yet not
undignified similitudes which he was fond of using, that he might be
understood by the people,” illustrated the idea of God in history by
a game of cards! “... Then came our Lord God. He dealt the cards:...
This is the Ace of God....” Mormons also think it a merit to speak
openly of “those things we know naturally:” they affect what to others
appears coarseness and indelicacy. The same is the case with Oriental
nations, even among the most modest and moral. After all, taste is in
its general development a mere affair of time and place; what is apt
to _froisser_ us in the nineteenth may have been highly refined in the
sixteenth century, and what may be exceedingly unfit for Westminster
Abbey and Notre Dame is often perfectly suited to the predilections
and intelligence of Wales or the Tessin. It is only fair to both
sides to state that Mr. Kimball is accused by Gentiles of calling
his young wives, from the pulpit, “little heifers;” of entering into
physiological details belonging to the Dorcas Society, or the clinical
lecture-room, rather than the house of worship; and of transgressing
the bounds of all decorum when reproving the sex for its _penchants_
and _ridicules_. At the same time, I never heard, nor heard of, any
such indelicacy during my stay at Great Salt Lake City. The Saints
abjured all knowledge of the “fact,” and--in this case, _nefas ab hoste
doceri_--so gross a scandal should not be adopted from Gentile mouths.
[147] History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century. Book iii.,
chap. i.
[148] Ditto, Preface.
After Mr. Kimball’s address, a list of names for whom letters were
lying unclaimed was called from the platform. Mr. Eldridge, a
missionary lately returned from foreign travel, adjourned the meeting
till 2 P.M., delivered the prayer of dismissal, during which all
stood up, and ended with the benediction and amen. The Sacrament was
not administered on this occasion. It is often given, and reduced to
the very elements of a ceremony; even water is used instead of wine,
because the latter is of Gentile manufacture. Two elders walk up and
down the rows, one carrying a pitcher, the other a plate of broken
bread, and each Saint partakes of both.
Directly the ceremony was over, I passed through the thirty carriages
and wagons that awaited at the door the issuing of the congregation,
and returned home to write my notes. Before appearing in the “Deserét
News” the discourses are always recomposed; the reader, therefore, is
warned against the following report, which appeared in the “News” of
Wednesday, the 5th of September.
“BOWERY.--_Sunday, Sept. 2_, 10 A.M., Bishop Abraham O. Smoot
addressed the congregation. He said he rejoiced in the opportunity
he had been favored with of testing both principles and men in the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; he was fully satisfied
that those who do right are constantly filled with joy and gladness
by the influence of the Holy Ghost. Every man must know God for
himself, and practice the principles of righteousness for himself;
learn the truth and the light, and walk therein. Men are too much in
the habit of patterning after their neighbors’ actions instead of
following the dictates of the Spirit of God; if the Saints do right
they are filled with light, truth, and the power of God. It has been
a matter of astonishment to many how we could so much rejoice in the
things of God, but the reason is our religion is true, and we know
it, for God has revealed it unto us, and hence we can rejoice in
the midst of calamities that would make our enemies very cross, and
cause them to swear about their troubles. Nine tenths of those who
have apostatized have done it on account of prosperity, like Israel
of old, but the Lord desires to use us for the advancement of his
kingdom, and the spreading abroad of light and truth. We should live
for God, and prepare ourselves for all the temporal and spiritual
blessings of his kingdom.
“President Brigham Young said if our heavenly Father could reveal all
he wishes to his Saints, it would greatly hasten their perfection,
and asked the question, Are the people prepared to receive those
communications and profit by them, that would bring about their
speedy perfection? He discovered a very great variety of degrees of
intelligence in the people; he also observed a manifest stupidity
in the people attempting to learn the principles of natural life.
Observed that God is just and equal in his ways, and that no man will
dare to dispute; also that there is no man in our government who
will speak truthfully, and according to his honest convictions, but
who will admit that we are the most law-abiding people within its
jurisdiction. Remarked that all the heathen nations have devotional
instincts, and none more than the natives of this vast continent;
and they all worship according to the best of their knowledge. The
whole human family can be saved in the kingdom of God if they are
disposed to receive and obey the Gospel. Reasoned on the subject of
fore-ordination, and said the religion of Jesus Christ is designed to
make the bad good and the good better. Argued that there is a feeling
in every human breast to acknowledge the supremacy of the Almighty
Creator. God is just, he is true, and if this were not the case no
mortal could be exalted in his presence; advised all to improve
upon the knowledge they had received of the things of God. Referred
briefly to the birth of Christ, and the attendant opposition and
threatening of the governments of the nations of the earth.
“President Heber C. Kimball followed with appropriate remarks on the
practical duties of life, the necessity of humility and faithfulness
among the Saints, and admonished all to be obedient to the mandates
of heaven, and to the counsels of the living oracles. In giving
advice to the elders who are expected to go on missions to preach the
Gospel, he said: ‘The commandment of Jesus to his apostles anciently
has been renewed unto us, viz., Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end
of the world.’”
[MR. BRIGHAM YOUNG’S SERMON.]
The student of the subject may desire to see how one of these sermons
reads; I therefore extract from the “Deserét News” one spoken by Mr.
Brigham Young during my stay in the city; it is chosen impartially,
neither because it is better nor because it is worse than its fellows.
The subject, it will be observed, is uninteresting; in fact, what
negroes call “talkee-talkee”--_pour passer le temps_. But Mr. Brigham
Young can, all admit, when occasion serves ability, “bring the house
down,” and elicit thundering amens.
REMARKS by President BRIGHAM YOUNG, _Bowery_, A.M., _August 12,
1860_. (_Reported by G. D. Watt._)--“I fully understand that all
Saints constantly, so to speak, pray for each other. And when I find
a person who does not pray for the welfare of the kingdom of God on
the earth, and for the honest in heart, I am skeptical in regard
to believing that person’s religion to be genuine, and his faith
I should consider not the faith of Jesus. Those who have the mind
of Christ are anxious that it should spread extensively among the
people, to bring them to a correct understanding of things as they
are, that they may be able to prepare themselves to dwell eternally
in the heavens. This is your desire, and is what we continually pray
for.
“Brother J. V. Long’s discourse this morning was sweet to my taste;
and the remarks of Brother T. B. H. Stenhouse were very congenial
to my feelings and understanding. Brother Long has good command of
language, and can readily choose such words as best suit him to
convey his ideas.
“Brother Stenhouse remarked that the Gospel of salvation is the great
foundation of this kingdom; that we have not built up this kingdom,
nor established this organization, we have merely embraced it in
our faith; that God has established this kingdom, and has bestowed
the priesthood upon the children of men, and has called upon the
inhabitants of the earth to receive it, to repent of their sins, and
return to him with all their hearts. This portion of his remarks I
wish you particularly to treasure up.
“If the Angel Gabriel were to descend and stand before you, though
he said not a word, the influence and power that would proceed from
him, were he to look upon you in the power he possesses, would melt
this congregation. His eyes would be like flaming fire, and his
countenance would be like the sun at midday. The countenance of an
holy angel would tell more than all the language in the world. If
men who are called to speak before a congregation rise full of the
Holy Spirit and power of God, their countenances are sermons to the
people. But if their affections, feelings, and desires are like the
fool’s eye to the ends of the earth, looking for this, that, and the
other, and the kingdom of God is far from them and not in all their
affections, they may rise here and talk what they please, and it is
but like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal--mere empty, unmeaning
sounds to the ears of the people. I can not say this of what I have
heard to-day.
“Those faithful elders who have testified of this work to thousands
of people on the continents and islands of the sea will see the
fruits of their labors, whether they have said five words or
thousands. They may not see these fruits immediately, and perhaps in
many cases not until the millennium, but the savor of their testimony
will pass down from father to son. Children will say, ‘The words of
life were spoken to my grandfather and grandmother; they told me of
them, and I wish to become a member of the Church; I also wish to
be baptized for my father, and mother, and grandparents;’ and they
will come and keep coming, the living and the dead, and you will be
satisfied with your labors, whether they have been much or little, if
you continue faithful.
“Brother Long remarked that before he gathered to Zion he had imbibed
an idea that the people were all pure here. This is a day of trial
for you. If there is any thing that should give us sorrow and pain,
it is that any of the brethren and sisters come here and neglect
to live their religion. Some are greedy, covetous, and selfish,
and give way to temptation; they are wicked and dishonest in their
dealings with one another, and look at and magnify the faults of
every body, on the right and on the left. ‘Such a sister is guilty of
pilfering; such a brother is guilty of swearing,’ etc., ‘and we have
come a long distance to be joined with such a set; we do not care a
dime for “Mormonism,” nor for any thing else.’ The enemy takes the
advantage of such persons, and leads them to do that for which they
are afterward sorry. This is a matter of great regret to those who
wish to be faithful. But no matter how many give themselves up to
merchandising and love it better than their God, how many go to the
gold mines, how many go back on the road to trade with the wicked,
nor how many take their neighbors’ wood after it is cut and piled up
in the kanyons, or steal their neighbors’ axes, or any thing that is
their neighbors’, you live your religion, and we shall see the day
when we shall tread iniquity under foot. But if you listen to those
who practice iniquity, you will be carried away by it, as it has
carried away thousands. Let every one get a knowledge for himself
that this work is true. We do not want you to say that it is true
until you know that it is; and if you know it, that knowledge is as
good to you as though the Lord came down and told you. Then let every
person say, ‘I will live my religion, though every other person goes
to hell; I will walk humbly before God, and deal honestly with my
fellow-beings.’ There are now scores of thousands in this Territory
who will do this, and who feel as I do on this subject, and we will
overcome the wicked. Ten filthy, dirty sheep in a thousand cause
the whole flock to appear defiled, and a stranger would pronounce
them all filthy; but wash them, and you will find nine hundred and
ninety pure and clean. It is so with this people; half a dozen
horse-thieves tend to cause the whole community to appear corrupt in
the eyes of a casual observer.
“Brother Long said that the Lord will deal out correction to the
evil-doer, but that he would have nothing to do with it. I do not
know whether I shall or not, but I shall not ask the Lord to do what
I am not willing to do; and I do not think that Brother Long is any
more or less ready to do so than I am. Ask any earthly king to do a
work that you would not do, and he would be insulted. Were I to ask
the Lord to free us from ungodly wretches, and not lend my influence
and assistance, he would look upon me differently to what he now does.
“You have read that I had an agent in China to mix poison with the
tea to kill all the nations; that I was at the head of the Vigilance
Committee in California; that I managed the troubles in Kansas,
from the beginning to the end; that there is not a liquor-shop
or distillery but what Brigham Young dictates it: so state the
newspapers. In these and all other accusations of evil-doing I defy
them to produce the first show of evidence against me. It is also
asserted that President Buchanan and myself concocted the plan for
the army to come here, with a view to make money. By-and-by the poor
wretches will come bending and say, ‘I wish I was a “Mormon.”’ All
the army, with its teamsters, hangers-on, and followers, with the
judges, and nearly all the rest of the civil officers, amounting
to some seventeen thousand men, have been searching diligently for
three years to bring one act to light that would criminate me; but
they have not been able to trace out one thread or one particle of
evidence that would criminate me; do you know why? Because I walk
humbly with my God, and do right so far as I know how. I do no evil
to any one; and as long as I can have faith in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ to hinder the wolves from tearing the sheep and
devouring them, without putting forth my hand, I shall do so.
“I can say honestly and truly before God, and the holy angels and
all men, that not one act of murder or disorder has occurred in this
city or Territory that I had any knowledge of, any more than a babe
a week old, until after the event has transpired; that is the reason
they can not trace any crime to me. If I have faith enough to cause
the devils to eat up the devils, like the Kilkenny cats, I shall
certainly exercise it. Joseph Smith said that they would eat each
other up as did those cats. They will do so here, and throughout the
world. The nations will consume each other, and the Lord will suffer
them to bring it about. It does not require much talent or tact to
get up opposition in these days; you see it rife in communities, in
meetings, in neighborhoods, and in cities; that is the knife that
will cut down this government. The axe is laid at the root of the
tree, and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit will be hewn
down.
“Out of this Church will grow the kingdom which Daniel saw. This
is the very people that Daniel saw would continue to grow, and
spread, and prosper; and if we are not faithful, others will take
our places, for this is the Church and people that will possess the
kingdom forever and ever. Will we do this in our present condition
as a people? No; for we must be pure and holy, and be prepared for
the presence of our Savior and God, in order to possess the kingdom.
Selfishness, wickedness, bickering, tattling, lying, and dishonesty
must depart from the people before they are prepared for the Savior;
we must sanctify ourselves before our God.
“I wanted to ask Brother Long a question this morning--what he had
learned in regard to the original sin. Let the elders, who like
speculation, find out what it is, if they can, and inform us next
Sabbath; or, if you have any thing else that is good, bring it along.
I wish to impress upon your minds to live your religion, and, when
you come to this stand to speak, not to care whether you say five
words or five thousand, but to come with the power of God upon you,
and you will comfort the hearts of the Saints. All the sophistry in
the world will do no good. If you live your religion, you will live
with the Spirit of Zion within you, and will try, by every lawful
means, to induce your neighbors to live their religion. In this way
we will redeem Zion, and cleanse it from sin.
“God bless you. Amen.”
The gift of unknown tongues--which is made by some physiologists the
result of an affection of the epigastric region, and by others an
abnormal action of the organ of language--is now apparently rarer than
before. Anti-Mormon writers thus imitate the “blatant gibberish” which
they derive directly from Irvingism: “Eli, ele, elo, ela--come, coma,
como--reli, rele, rela, relo--sela, selo, sele, selum--vavo, vava,
vavum--sero, seri, sera, serum.” Lieutenant Gunnison relates[149] a
facetious story concerning a waggish youth, who, after that a woman
had sprung up and spoken “in tongues” as follows, “Mela, meli, melee,”
sorely pressed by the “gift of interpretation of tongues,” translated
the sentence into the vernacular, “My leg, my thigh, my knee.” For
this he was called before the Council, but he stoutly persisted in his
“interpretation” being “by the Spirit,” and they dismissed him with
admonition. Gentiles have observed that whatever may be uttered “in
tongues,” it is always translated into very intelligible English.
[149] The Mormons. Chap. vi. Social Condition.
That evening, when dining out, I took a lesson in Mormon modesty. The
mistress of the house, a Gentile, but not an anti-Mormon, was requested
by a saintly visitor, who was also a widow, to instruct me that on no
account must I propose to see her home. “Mormon ladies,” said my kind
informant, “are very strict;” unnecessarily so on this occasion, I
could not but think. Something similar occurred on another occasion: a
very old lady, wishing to return home, surreptitiously left the room
and sidled out of the garden gate, and my companion, an officer from
Camp Floyd, at once recognized the object of the retreat. I afterward
learned at dinner and elsewhere among the Mormons to abjure the Gentile
practice of giving precedence to that sex than which, according to
Latin grammar, the masculine is nobler. The lesson, however, was not
new; I had been taught the same, in times past, among certain German
missionaries who assumed precedence over their wives upon a principle
borrowed from St. Paul.
[MR. STAINES.--ADOPTION.]
I took the earliest opportunity of visiting, at his invitation, the
Prophet’s gardens. The grounds were laid out by Mr. W. C. Staines, now
on Church business in London.[150] Mr. Staines arrived at Great Salt
Lake City an exceptionally poor emigrant, and is now a rich man, with
house and farm, all the proceeds of his own industry. This and many
other instances which I could quote prove that although, as a rule, the
highest dignitaries are the wealthiest, and although the polygamist
can not expect to keep a large family and fill at the same time a long
purse, the Gentiles somewhat exaggerate when they represent that Church
discipline keeps the lower orders in a state of pauperdom. Mr. Staines
is also the “son of ‘Brigham’ by adoption.” This custom is prevalent
among the Mormons as among the Hindoos, but with this difference, that
while the latter use it when childless, the former employ it as the
means of increasing their glory in the next world. The relationship is
truly one of parent and child, by choice, not only by the mere accident
of birth, and the “son,” if necessary, lives with and receives the
necessaries of life from his “father.” Before entering the garden we
were joined by Mr. Mercer, who, long after my departure from India, had
missionarized at Kurrachee in “Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley.”
[150] I have to thank Mr. Staines for kind assistance in supplying me
with necessary items of information.
[FRUIT.]
The May frost had injured the fruit. Grapes were but quarter-grown,
while winter was fast approaching. I suggested to the civil and
obliging English gardener that it would be well to garnish the
trellised walls, as is done in Tuscany, with mats which roll up and can
be let down at night. Bacchus appeared in three forms: the California
grape, which is supposed to be the Madeira introduced into the New
World by the Franciscan Missions; the Catawba--so called from an Indian
people on a river of the same name--a cultivated variety of the _Vitis
labrusca_, and still the wine-grape in the States. The third is the
inferior Isabella, named after his wife by “ole man Gibbs,”[151] who
first attempted to civilize the fox-grape (_Vitis vulpina_), growing
on banks of streams in most of the temperate states. A vineyard is now
being planted on the hill-side near Mr. Brigham Young’s block, and
home-made wine will soon become an item of produce in Utah. Pomology is
carefully cultivated; about one hundred varieties of apples have been
imported, and of these ninety-one are found to thrive as seedlings:
in good seasons their branches are bowed down by fruit, and must be
propped up, or they will break under their load. The peaches were in
all cases unpruned: upon this important point opinions are greatly
divided. The people generally believe that the foliage is a protection
to the fruit during the spring frosts. The horticulturists declare that
the “extremes of temperature render proper pruning even more necessary
than in France, and that the fervid summers often induce a growth of
wood which must suffer severely during the inclement months, unless
checked and hardened by cutting back.” Besides grapes and apples, there
were walnuts, apricots and quinces, cherries and plums, currants,
raspberries, and gooseberries. The principal vegetables were the Irish
and the sweet potato, squashes, peas--excellent--cabbages, beets,
cauliflowers, lettuce, and broccoli; a little rhubarb is cultivated,
but it requires too much expensive sugar for general use, and white
celery has lately been introduced. Leaving the garden, we walked
through the various offices, oil-mill, timber-mill, and smithy: in the
latter oxen are shod, according to the custom of the country, with half
shoes. The animal is raised from the ground by a broad leather band
under the belly, and is liable to be lamed by any but a practiced hand.
[151] Similarly, the Constantia of the Cape was named after Madam Van
Stell, the wife of the governor.
[THE PENITENTIARY.]
On the evening of the 3d of September, while sauntering about the
square in which a train of twenty-three wagons had just bivouacked,
among the many others to whom Mr. Staines introduced me was the Apostle
John Taylor, the “Champion of Rights,” Speaker in the House, and
whilom editor. I had heard of him from the best authorities as a man
so morose and averse to Gentiles, “who made the healing virtue depart
out of him,” that it would be advisable to avoid his “fierceness.” The
_véridique_ Mr. Austin Ward describes him as “an old man deformed and
crippled,” and Mrs. Ferris as a “heavy, dark-colored, beetle-browed
man.” Of course, I could not recognize him from these descriptions--a
stout, good-looking, somewhat elderly personage, with a kindly gray
eye, pleasant expression, and a forehead of the superior order; he
talked of Westmoreland his birthplace, and of his European travels
for a time, till the subject of Carthage coming upon the _tapis_, I
suspected who my interlocutor was. Mr. Staines burst out laughing
when he heard my mistake, and I explained the reason to the apostle,
who laughed as heartily. Wishing to see more of him, I accompanied
him in the carriage to the Sugar-house Ward, where he was bound on
business, and _chemin faisant_ we had a long talk. He pointed out
to me on the left the mouths of the several kanyons, and informed
me that the City Creek and the Red Buttes on the northeast, and
the Emigration, Parley’s, Mill Creek, Great Cotton-wood and Little
Cotton-wood Kanyons to the east and southeast, all head together in
two points, thus enabling troops and provisions to be easily and
readily concentrated for the defense of the eastern approaches. When
talking about the probability of gold digging being developed near
Great Salt Lake City, he said that the Mormons are aware of that, but
that they look upon agriculture as their real wealth. The Gentiles,
however--it is curious that they do not form a company among themselves
for prospecting--assert that the Church has very rich mines, which are
guarded by those dragons of Danites more fiercely than the Hesperidian
Gardens, and which will never be known till Miss Utah becomes Mistress
Deserét. Arriving at the tall, gaunt Sugar-house--its occupation is
gone, while the name remains--we examined the machinery employed
in making threshing and wool-carding machines, flanges, wheels,
cranks, and similar necessaries. After a visit to a nail manufactory
belonging to Squire Wells, and calling upon Mrs. Harris, we entered
the Penitentiary. It is a somewhat Oriental-looking building, with a
large quadrangle behind the house, guarded by a wall with a walk on
the summit, and pepper-caster sentry-boxes at each angle. There are
cells in which the convicts are shut up at night, but one of these
had lately been broken by an Indian, who had cut his way through the
wall; a Hindoo “gonnoff” would soon “pike” out of a “premonitory” like
this. We found in it besides the guardians only six persons, of whom
two were Yutas. When I remarked to Gentiles how few were the evidences
of crime, they invariably replied that, instead of half a dozen souls,
half the population ought to be in the place. On our return we resumed
the subject of the massacre at Carthage, in which it will be remembered
that Mr. John Taylor was severely wounded, and escaped by a miracle,
as it were. I told him openly that there must have been some cause for
the furious proceedings of the people in Illinois, Missouri, and other
places against the Latter-Day Saints; that even those who had extended
hospitality to them ended by hating and expelling them, and accusing
them of all possible iniquities, especially of horse-thieving, forgery,
larceny, and offenses against property, which on the borders are never
pardoned--was this smoke quite without fire? He heard me courteously
and in perfect temper; replied that no one claimed immaculateness
for the Mormons; that the net cast into the sea brought forth evil
as well as good fish, and that the Prophet was one of the laborers
sent into the vineyard at the eleventh hour. At the same time, that
when the New Faith was stoutly struggling into existence, it was the
object of detraction, odium, persecution--so, said Mr. Taylor, were
the Christians in the days of Nero--that the border ruffians, forgers,
horse-thieves, and other vile fellows followed the Mormons wherever
they went; and, finally, that every fraud and crime was charged upon
those whom the populace were disposed, by desire for confiscation’s
sake, to believe guilty. Besides the theologic odium there was also
the political: the Saints would vote for their favorite candidates,
consequently they were never without enemies. He quoted the Mormon
rules: 1. Worship what you like. 2. Leave your neighbor alone. 3.
Vote for whom you please; and compared their troubles to the Western,
or, as it is popularly called, the Whisky insurrection in 1794, whose
“dreadful night” is still remembered in Pennsylvania. Mr. Taylor
remarked that the Saints had been treated by the United States as the
colonies had been treated by the crown: that the persecuted naturally
became persecutors, as the Pilgrim fathers, after flying for their
faith, hung the Quakers on Bloody Hill at Boston; and that even the
Gentiles can not defend their own actions. I heard for the first time
this view of the question, and subsequently obtained from the apostle
a manuscript account, written _in extenso_, of his experience and
his sufferings. It has been transferred in its integrity to Appendix
No. III., the length forbidding its insertion in the text: a tone of
candor, simplicity, and honesty renders it highly attractive.
[Illustration: ANCIENT LAKE BENCH-LAND.]
CHAPTER VI.
Descriptive Geography, Ethnology, and Statistics of Utah Territory.
Utah Territory, so called from its Indian owners, the Yuta--“those that
dwell in mountains”--is still, to a certain extent, _terra incognita_,
not having yet been thoroughly explored, much less surveyed or settled.
The whole Utah country has been acquired, like Oregon, by conquest
and diplomacy. By the partition of 1848, the parallel of N. lat.
42°, left unsettled, between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, by
the treaties of the 22d of October, 1818, and the 12th of February,
1819, was prolonged northward to N. lat. 49°, thus adding to the
United States California, Oregon, and Washington, while to Britain
remained Vancouver’s Island and the joint navigation of the Columbia
River. Under the Hispano-Americans the actual Utah Territory formed
the northern portion of Alta California, and the peace of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, concluded in 1848 between the United States and Mexico,
transferred it from the latter to the former.
[GEOGRAPHY OF UTAH TERRITORY.]
The present boundaries of Utah Territory are, northward (42° N. lat.),
the State of Oregon; and southward, a line pursuing the parallel
of N. lat. 37°, separating it from New Mexico to the southeast and
from California to the southwest. The eastern portion is included
between 106° and 120° W. long. (G.); a line following the crest of
the Green River, the Wasach, the Bear River, and other sections of
the Rocky Mountains, whose southern extremities anastomose to form
the Sierra Nevada, separate it from Nebraska and Kansas. On the west
it is bounded, between 116° and 120° W. long., by the lofty crest of
the Sierra Nevada; the organization, however, of a new territory, the
“Nevada,” on the landward slope of the Snowy Range, has diminished its
dimensions by about half. Utah had thus 5° of extreme breadth, and 14°
of total length; it was usually reckoned 650 miles long from east to
west, and 350 broad from north to south. The shape was an irregular
parallelogram, of which the area was made to vary from 188,000 to
225,000 square miles, almost the superficies of France.
The surface configuration of Utah Territory is like Central Equatorial
Africa, a great depression in a mountain land: a trough elevated 4000
to 5000 feet above sea level, subtended on all sides by mountains 8000
to 10,000 feet high, and subdivided by transverse ridges. The “Rim
of the Basin” is an uncontinuous line formed by the broken chains of
Oregon to the north, and to the south by the little-known sub-ranges
of the Rocky Mountains; the latter also form the eastern wall, while
the Sierra Nevada hems in the west. Before the present upheaval of
the country the Great Interior Basin was evidently a sweetwater
inland sea; the bench formation, a system of water-marks, is found
in every valley, while detached and parallel blocks of mountain,
trending almost invariably north and south, were in geological ages
rock-islands protruding from the lake surface like those that now
break the continuity of that “vast and silent sea” the Great Salt
Lake. Between these primitive and metamorphic ridges lie the secondary
basins, whose average width may be 15-20 miles; they open into one
another by kanyons and passes, and are often separated longitudinally,
like “waffle-irons,” by smaller divides running east and west, thus
converting one extended strip of secondary into a system of tertiary
valleys. The Great Basin, which is not less than 500 miles long by 500
broad, is divided by two large chains, which run transversely from
northeast to southwest. The northernmost is the range of the Humboldt
River, rising 5000-6000 feet above the sea. The southern is the
prolongation of the Wasach, whose southwestern extremity abuts upon the
Pacific coast range; it attains a maximum elevation of nearly 12,000
feet. Without these mountains, whose gorges are fed during the spring,
and even in the summer, by melted snow, there would be no water. The
levels of the valleys are still unknown; it is yet a question how far
they are irregular in elevation, whether they have formed detached
lakes, or whether they slope uniformly and by steps toward the Great
Salt Lake and the other reservoirs scattered at intervals over the
country.
The water-shed of the Basin is toward the north, south, east, and west:
the affluents of the Columbia and the Colorado rivers carry off the
greatest amount of drainage. One of the geographical peculiarities
of the Territory is the “sinking,” as it is technically called, of
the rivers. The phenomenon is occasioned by the porous nature of the
soil. The larger streams, like the Humboldt and the Carson rivers,
form terminating lakes. The smaller are either absorbed by sand, or
sink, like the South African fountains, in ponds and puddles of black
mire, beneath which is peaty earth that burns as if by spontaneous
combustion, and smoulders for a long time in dry weather: the waters
either reappear, or, escaping under the surface--a notable instance of
the “subterranean river”--feed the greater drains and the lakes. The
potamology is more curious than useful; the streams, being unnavigable,
play no important part in the scheme of economy.
Utah Territory is well provided with lakes; of these are two nearly
parallel chains extending across the country. The easternmost begins
at the north, with the Great Salt Lake, the small tarns of the Wasach,
the Utah, or Sweetwater Reservoir, the Nicollet, and the Little Salt
Lake, complete the line which is fed by the streams that flow from the
western counterslope of the Wasach. The other chain is the drainage
collected from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada; it consists of
Mud, Pyramid, Carson, Mono, and Walker’s lakes. Of these, Pyramid Lake,
so called by Colonel Frémont, its explorer, from a singular rock in the
centre, is the most beautiful--a transparent water, 700 feet above the
level of the Great Salt Lake, and walled in by precipices nearly 3000
feet high.
The principal thermal features of Utah Territory are the Bear Springs,
near the Fort Hall Road. The Harrowgate Springs, near Great Salt Lake
City, have already been alluded to. Between the city and Bear River
there is a fountain of strong brine, described as discharging a large
volume of water. There are sulphurous pools at the southern extremity
of the Great Salt Lake Valley. Others are chalybeate, coating the earth
and the rocks with oxide of iron. Almost every valley has some thermal
spring, in which various confervæ flourish; the difficulty is to find
good cold water.
Another curious geographical peculiarity of the Territory is the
formation of the mountains. For the most part the ridges, instead of
presenting regular slopes, more or less inclined, are formed of short
but acute angular cappings superimposed upon flatter prisms. It often
happens that after easily ascending two thirds from the base, the upper
part suddenly becomes wall-like and insurmountable.
[CLIMATE OF UTAH TERRITORY.]
Utah Territory is situated in the parallel of the Mediterranean; the
southern boundary corresponds with the provinces along the Amoor lately
acquired by Russia, and with Tasmania in the southern hemisphere. But
the elevation, that grand modifier of climate, renders it bleak and
liable to great vicissitudes of temperature. The lowest valley rises
4000 feet above sea level; the mountains behind Great Salt Lake City
are 6000 feet high; Mount Nebo is marked 8000, and the Twin Peaks,
that look upon the “Happy Valley,” were ascertained barometrically
by Messrs. O. Pratt and A. Carrington to be 11,660 feet in height:
in the western part of the Territory the Sierra Nevada averages 2000
feet above the South Pass, and it has peaks that tower thousands of
feet above that altitude. These snowy masses, in whose valleys thaw is
seldom known, exercise a material effect upon the climate, and cause
the cultivator to wage fierce war with the soil. The air is highly
rarefied by its altitude. Captain Stansbury’s barometrical observations
for May, June, July, and August, give as a maximum 27·80 at 9 A.M.
on the 4th of August, and minimum 22·86 at sunrise on the 19th of
June, with a general range between 25° and 26°. New-comers suffer
from difficulty of breathing; often after sudden and severe exercise,
climbing, or running, the effect is like the nausea, sickness, and
fainting experienced upon Mont Blanc and in Tibet; even horses feel it,
and must pass two or three months before they are acclimatized.[152]
[152] Subjoined is an abstract of meteorology kindly forwarded to me
by Judge Phelps:
“Great Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 24th, 1860.
“DEAR SIR,--The following is an abstract of meteorological
observations for the past year, from October, 1859, to October, 1860,
inclusive:
Yearly mean of barometer 25·855
Highest range 26·550
Lowest range 25·205
Thermometer attached (mean) 60°
Thermometer (open air) „ 71°
Thermometer, dry bulb „ 64°
Thermometer, wet bulb „ 58°
(All Fahrenheit.)
“The amount of fair days, 244. The remaining 121 were 31 stormy and
the residue cloudy and foggy.
“The course of the wind more than two thirds of the year goes round
daily with the sun; strongest wind south; worst for stock, north.
“Highest range of the thermometer, 96° in July; lowest range in
December--22° below 0.
“The amount of snow and rainwater was 12·257, which is somewhat over
1 foot.
“All the snow in the Valley was less than 3 feet, while perhaps in
the mountains it was more than 10 feet, which gives ample water for
irrigation.
“The weather during the year was steady, without extremes.
“Such was Utah in 1860.
“Respectfully, I have the honor to be, etc.,
W. W. PHELPS.”
The climate of the Basin has been compared with that of the Tartar
plains of High Asia. Spring opens in the valleys with great suddenness;
all is bloom and beauty below, while the snow-line creeps lingeringly
up the mountain side, and does not disappear till the middle of June.
Thus there are but three months of warmth in the high lands; the
low lands have four, beginning with a May-day like that of England.
At the equinoxes, both vernal and autumnal, there are rains in the
bottoms, which in the upper levels become sleet or snow. Between April
and October showers are rare; there are, however, exceptions, heavy
downfalls, with thunder, lightning, and hail. “Clouds without water”
is a proverbial expression; a dark, heavy pall, which in woodland
countries would burst with its weight, here sails over the arid,
sun-parched surface, and discharges its watery stores in the kanyons
and upon the mountains. During the first few years after the arrival
of the Saints there was little rain either in spring or autumn; in
1860 it extended to the middle of June. The change may be attributed
to cultivation and plantation; thus also may be explained the North
American Indian’s saying that the pale-face brings with him his rain.
The same has been observed in Kansas and New Mexico, and is equally
remarked by the natives of Cairo, the Aden Coal-hole, and Kurrachee.
Seed-time lasts from April to the 10th of June.
The summer is hot, but the lightness and the aridity of the air prevent
its being unwholesome. During my visit the thermometer (F.) placed
in a room with open windows showed at dawn 63-66°; at noon, 75°; and
at sunset, 70°: the greatest midday heat was 105°. The mornings and
evenings, cooled by breezes from the mountains, were deliciously soft
and pure. The abundant electricity was proved, as in Sindh and Arabia,
by frequent devils or dust-pillars, like huge columns of volcanic
smoke, that careered over the miraged plains, violently excited where
they touched the negative earth, and calm in the positive strata of
the upper air, whence their floating particles were precipitated.
Dust-storms and thunder-storms are frequent and severe. Clouds often
gather upon the peaks, and a heavy black nimbus rises behind the Wasach
wall, setting off its brilliant sunlit side, but there is seldom rain.
Showers are preceded, as in Eastern Africa, by puffs and gusts of cold
air, and are expected in Great Salt Lake City when the clouds come from
the west and southwest, opposite and over the “Black Rock;” otherwise
they will cling to the hills. Even in the hottest weather, a cold
continuous wind, as from the nozzle of a forge-bellows, pours down the
deep damp kanyons, where the snow lingers, and travelers, especially
at night, prepare to pass across the ravine mouths with blankets and
warm clothing. Where the federal troops encamped on the stony bench
opposite the Provo Kanyon, it was truly predicted that they would
soon be blown out. When summer is protracted, severe droughts are the
result. Harvest-time is in the beginning of July.
About early September the heat ends. In 1860, the first snow fell upon
the Twin Peaks and their neighborhood on the 12th of September. Rains
then usually set in for a fortnight or three weeks, and mild weather
often lasts till the end of October. November is partially a fine
month; after two or three snowy days, the Indian summer ushers in the
most enjoyable weather of the year, which, when short, ends about the
middle of November.
Winter has three very severe months, reckoned from December. Icy winds
blow hard, and gales are sometimes so high that spray is carried from
the Great Salt Lake to the City, a distance of 10-12 miles. In 1854-5
hundreds of cattle perished in the snow. Usually in mid-winter, snow
falls every day with a high westerly wind, veering toward the north,
and thick with poudré--dry icy spiculæ, hard as gravel. The thermometer
is not often below zero in the bottoms; on the 13th of December, 1859,
however, the thermometer at daylight, with the barometer at 26·250,
showed -22° (F.); 5° or 6° lower than it had ever been before. The snow
seldom lies in the valleys deeper than a man’s knee; it is dry, and
readily thawed by the sun. A vast quantity is drifted into the kanyons
and passes, where the people, as in Styria, often become prisoners at
home. These crevasses, hundreds of feet deep, retain their icy stores
throughout the year. It is asserted by those who believe in a Pacific
Railway upon this line[153] that the Wasach can be traversed at all
seasons; at present, however, sledge transit only is practicable, and
at times even that is found impossible.
[153] The Pacific Railroad in 1852 was unknown to the political
world: in 1856 it began to be necessary, and shortly afterward it
appeared in both “platforms,” because without it no one could expect
to carry the Mississippian and Pacific States, Texas, for instance,
and California. The Diary will show the many difficulties which
it must encounter after crossing the South Pass; as the West can
afford no assistance, provisions and material must all come from
the East--an additional element of expense and delay. The estimate
is roughly laid down at $100,000,000: it may safely be doubled.
The well-known contractor, Mr. Whitney, offered to build it for a
reservation of thirty miles on both sides: the idea was rejected
as that of a crazy man. It is promised in ten years, and will
probably take thirty. England, then, had better look to _her_ line
through Canada and Columbia--it would be worth a hundred East Indian
railroads.
It can not be doubted that this climate of arid heat and dry cold is
eminently suited to most healthy and to many sickly constitutions:
children and adults have come from England apparently in a dying
state, and have lived to be strong and robust men. I have elsewhere
alluded to the effect of rarefaction upon the English _physique_:
another has been stated, namely, that the atmosphere is too fine
and dry to require, or even to permit, the free use of spirituous
liquors. Paralysis is rare; scrofula and phthisis are unknown, as
in Nebraska--the climate wants that humidity which brings forward
the predisposition. It is also remarkable that, though all drink
snow-water, and though many live in valleys where there is no free
circulation of air, goître and cretinism are not yet named. The City
Council maintains an excellent sanitary supervision, which extends to
the minutest objects that might endanger the general health. The stream
of emigrants which formerly set copiously westward is now dribbling
back toward its source, and a quarantine is established for those who
arrive with contagious diseases. Great Salt Lake City is well provided
with disciples of Æsculapius, against whom there is none of that
prejudice founded upon superstition and fanaticism which anti-Mormon
writers have detected. Dr. Francis, an English Mormon, lately died,
leaving Dr. Anderson, a graduate of Maryland College, to take his
place: Dr. Bernhisel prefers politics to physic, and Dr. Kay is the
chief dentist.
[DISEASES.]
The normal complaints are easily explained by local
peculiarities--cold, alkaline dust, and overindulgence in food.
Neuralgia is by no means uncommon. Many are compelled to wear kerchiefs
under their hats; and if a head be not always uncovered, there is some
reason for it. Rheumatism, as in England, affects the poorer classes,
who are insufficiently fed and clothed. Pneumonia, in winter, follows
exposure and hard work. The pleuro-pneumonia, which in 1860 did so much
damage to stock in New England, did not extend to Utah Territory: the
climate, however, is too like that of the Cape of Storms to promise
lasting immunity. Catarrhs are severe and lasting; they are accompanied
by bad toothaches and sore throats, which sometimes degenerate into
bronchitis. Diphtheria is not yet known. The measles have proved
especially fatal to the Indians: in 1850, “Old Elk,” the principal
war-chief of the Timpanogos Yutas, died of it: erysipelas also kills
many of the wild men.
For ophthalmic disease, the climate has all the efficients of the
Valley of the Nile, and, unless suitable precautions are taken, the
race will, after a few generations, become tender-eyed as Egyptians.
The organ is weakened by the acrid irritating dust from the alkaline
soil, which glistens in the sun like hoar-frost. Snow-blindness is
common on the mountains and in the plains: the favorite preventive,
when goggles are unprocurable, is to blacken the circumorbital region
and the sides of the nose with soot--the kohl, surmah, or collyrium
of the Far West: the cure is a drop of nitrate of silver or laudanum.
The mucous membrane in horses, as among men, is glandered, as it were,
by alkali, and the chronic inflammation causes frequent hemorrhage:
the nitrous salts in earth and air exasperate to ulcers sunburns on
the nose and mouth: it is not uncommon to see men riding or walking
with a bit of paper instead of a straw between their lips. Wounds
must be treated to great disadvantage where the climate, like that of
Abyssinia, renders a mere scratch troublesome. The dryness of the air
produces immunity from certain troublesome excrescences which cause
shooting pains in humid regions, and the pedestrian requires no vinegar
and water to harden his feet: on the other hand, horses’ hoofs, as in
Sindh and Arabia, must be stuffed with tar, to prevent sun-crack.
Under the generic popular name “mountain fever” are included various
species of febrile affections, intermittent, remittent, and typhoid:
they are treated successfully with quinine.
Emigrants are advised to keep up hard work and scanty fare after
arrival, otherwise the sudden change from semi-starvation and absence
of fruit and vegetables upon the prairies to plenty in the settlements
may cause dyspepsia, dysentery, and visceral inflammation. Some are
attacked by “liver complaint,” the trivial term for the effects of
malaria, which, when inhaled, affects successively the lungs, blood,
liver, and other viscera. The favorite, and, indeed, the only known
successful treatment is by mineral acids, nitric, muriatic, and
others.[154] Scurvy is unknown to the settlers; when brought in after
long desert marches, it yields readily to a more generous diet and
vegetables, especially potatoes, which, even in the preserved form, act
as a specific. The terrible scorbutic disease, called the “black canker
of the plains,” has not extended so far west.
[154] The following is the favorite cure: it is upon the principle of
the medicinal bath well known in Europe.
℞ Acid. Nit. ℥i.
Acid. Mur. ʒii. Mis.
Of this fifteen drops are to be taken in a tumbler of water twice a
day before meals. The local application to the hepatic region is one
ounce of the nitro-muriatic acid in a quart of water, and applied
upon a compress every night.
[ANIMALS OF UTAH TERRITORY.]
There is not much sport with fur, feather, and fin in this part of
the Far West: the principal carnivors of the Great Basin are the
cougar (_F. unicolor_) and the cat-o’-mountain, the large and small
wolf, a variety of foxes, the red (_V. fulvus_), the great-tailed
(_V. macrourus_) and the silver (_V. argentatus_), whose spoils were
once worth their weight in silver. There are minks, ermines, skunks,
American badgers, and wolverines or gluttons, which ferret out
caches of peltries and provisions, and are said sometimes to attack
man. Of rodents the principal are the beaver, a burrowing hare, the
jackass-rabbit (_L. callotis_), porcupines, the geomys or gophar,
a sand-rat peculiar to America, the woodchuck or ground-hog, many
squirrels, especially the Spermophilus tredecim lineatus, which swarms
in hilly ground, and muskrat (_F. zibeticus_), which, like other
vermin, is eaten by Indians. The principal pachyderm is the hyrax,
called by the settlers “cony.” Of the ruminants we find the antelope,
deer, elk, and the noble bighorn, or Rocky Mountain sheep, the
moufflon or argali of the New World.
Of the raptors the principal are the red-tailed hawk (_B. borealis_),
the sharp-shinned hawk (_A. fuscus_), the sparrow-hawk, and the
vulturine turkey-buzzard. Of game-birds there are several varieties of
quail, called partridges, especially the beautiful blue species (_O.
Californica_), and grouse, especially the sage-hen (_T. urophasianus_):
the water-fowl are swans (_C. Americanus_), wild geese in vast
numbers, the white pelican, here a migrating bird, the cormorant
(_Phalacrocorax_), the mallard or greenhead (_A. boschas_), which
loves the water of Jordan and the western Sea of Tiberias, the teal,
red-breasted and green-winged, the brant (_A. bernicla_), the plover
and curlew, the gull (a small _Larus_), a blue heron, and a brown
crane (_G. Canadensis_), which are found in the marshes throughout the
winter. The other members of the family are the bluebird (_A. sialia_),
the humming-bird (_Trochilus_), finches, woodpeckers, the swamp
blackbird, and the snowbird, small passerines: there is also a fine
lark (_Sturnella_) with a harsh note, which is considered a delicacy in
autumn.
Besides a variety of gray and green lizards, the principal Saurian is
the Phrynosoma, a purely American type, popularly called the horned
frog--or toad, although its tail, its scaly body, and its inability
to jump disprove its title to rank as a batrachian--and by the
Mexicans chameleon, because it is supposed to live on air. It is of
many species, for which the naturalist is referred to the Appendix of
Captain Stansbury’s Exploration. The serpents are chiefly rattlesnakes,
swamp-adders, and water-snakes. The fishes are perch, pike, bass,
chub, a mountain trout averaging three pounds, and salmon trout which
has been known to weigh thirty pounds. There are but few mollusks,
periwinkles, snails, and fresh-water clams.[155]
[155] Mr. W. Baird, in the absence of Mr. S. Woodward, of the British
Museum, has kindly favored me with the following list of a little
collection from the Great Basin which I placed in his hands.
“British Museum, August 3d, 1861.
“DEAR SIR,--The Helix (with open umbilicus) is, I think, _H.
solitaria_; the large Physa is very near, if not identical with
the _P. elliptica_ of our collection; the next largest Physa comes
very near _P. gyrina_; the larger Lymnœa is _L. catascopium_, the
smaller ditto _L. modicella_. There are two species of the genus
_Lithoglyphus_, the one resembling very much the _L. naticoides_
of Europe, but most probably new; the other I should imagine to be
undescribed. There is a small _Paludina_ looking shell which comes
very near the _Paludina piscium_ of D’Orbigny. There is a species of
_Anodonta_ which corresponds with a shell we have from the Columbia
River, but of which I do not know the name. There is also a species
of _Cyclas_ which may be new, as I do not know at present any species
from North America exactly like it. Believe me, yours truly,
W. BAIRD.
“Capt. R. F. Burton.”
The botany of the Great Basin has been investigated by Messrs. Frémont
and Stansbury, who forwarded their collections for description to
Professor John Torrey, of New York: M. Remy has described his own
herbarium. To these valuable works the reader may be referred for all
now known upon the subject.
[GEOLOGY OF UTAH TERRITORY.]
The rocks in Utah Territory are mostly primitive--granite, brick-red
jasper, syenite, hornblende, and porphyry, with various quartzes,
of which the most curious is a white nodule surrounded by a
crystalline layer of satin spar. The presence of obsidian, scoriæ, and
lava--apparently a dark brown mud tinged with iron, and so vitrified by
heat that it rings--evidences volcanic action. Many of the ridges are a
carboniferous limestone threaded by calcareous spar, and in places rich
with encrinites and fossil corallines; it rests upon or alternates with
hard and compact grits and sandstone. The kanyons in the neighborhood
of Great Salt Lake City supply boulders of serpentine, fine gray
granite, coarse red ochrish pœcilated crystalline-white and metamorphic
sandstones, a variety of conglomerates, especially granitic, with tufa
in large masses, talcose and striated slates, some good for roofing,
gypsum (plaster of Paris), pebbles of alabaster and various kinds of
limestones, some dark and fetid, others oolitic, some compact and
massive, black, blue, or ash-colored, seamed with small veins of white
carbonate of lime, others light gray and friable, cased with tufa, or
veneered with jade. The bottom-soil in most parts is fitted for the
adobe, and the lower hills contain an abundance of fossilless chalky
lime, which makes tolerable mortar: the best is that near Deep Creek,
the worst is in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake City. Near Fort Hall,
in the northeast corner of the basin, there is said to be a mountain of
marble displaying every hue and texture: marble is also found in large
crystalline nodules like arragonite.
Utah Territory will produce an ample supply of iron.[156] According to
the Mormons, it resembles that of Missouri, and the gangue contains
eighty per cent. of pure metal, which, to acquire the necessary
toughness, must be alloyed with imported iron. Gold, according to
Humboldt, is constant in meridional mountains, and we may expect to
find it in a country abounding with crystalline rocks cut by dikes
of black and gray basalt and porous trap, gneiss, micaceous schists,
clayey and slaty shales, and other argillaceous formations. It is
generally believed that gold exists upon the Wasach Mountains, within
sight of Great Salt Lake City, and in 1861 a traveling party is
reported to have found a fine digging in the north. Lumps of virgin
silver are said to have been discovered upon the White Mountains, in
the south of the Territory, and Judge Ralston, I am informed, has
lately hit upon a mine near the western route. Copper, zinc, and lead
have been brought from Little Salt Lake Valley and sixty miles east
of the Vegas de Santa Clara. Coal, principally bituminous--like that
nearer the Pacific--is found mostly in the softer limestones south of
the city, in a country of various marls, indurated clays, and earthy
sandstones. In 1855 a vein of five feet thick, in quality resembling
that of Maryland, was discovered west of the San Pete Creek, on the
road to Manti. In Iron County, 250 to 280 miles south of Great Salt
Lake City, inexhaustible coal-beds as well as iron deposits are said to
line the course of the Green River, and, that nothing may be wanting,
considerable affluents supply abundant water-power. A new digging had
been discovered shortly before my arrival on a tributary of the Weber
River, east of the City of the Saints, and upon the western route
many spots were pointed out to me as future coal-mines. Timber being
principally required for building, fencing, and mechanical purposes,
renders firewood expensive: in the city a cartage of fifteen miles
is necessary, and the price is thereby raised from $7 in summer to a
maximum of $20 in the hard season per cord of sixteen by four feet.
Unless the Saints would presently be reduced to the necessity of
“breakfasting with Ezekiel,” they must take heart and build a tramroad
to the south.
[156] Magnetic iron ore is traced in the basaltic rock; cubes of
bisulphuret of iron are found in the argillaceous schists, and cubic
crystals of iron pyrites are seen in white ferruginous quartz.
Saltpetre is found--upon paper: here, as in other parts of America,
it is deficient: a reward of $500 offered for a sample of gunpowder
manufactured from Valley Tan materials produced no claimants. Sulphur
is only too common. Saleratus or alkaline salts is the natural produce
of the soil. Borax and petroleum or mineral tar have been discovered,
and the native alum has been analyzed and pronounced good by Dr.
Gale.[157] Rubies, emeralds, and other small but valuable stones are
found in the chinks of the primitive rocks throughout the western parts
of the Territory. I have also seen chalcedony, sardonyx, carnelian, and
various agates.
[157] 100 grammes of the freshly crystallized salt gave,
Water 73·0
Protoxide of manganese 08·9
Alumina 04·0
Sulphuric acid 18·0
Utah Territory is pronounced by immigrants from the Old Country to
be a “mean land,” hard, dry, and fit only for the steady, sober,
and hard-working Mormon. Scarcely one fiftieth part is fit for
tillage; farming must be confined to rare spots, in which, however,
an exceptional fertility appears. Even in the arable lands there is
a great variety: some do not exceed 8-10 bushels per acre, while
Captain Stansbury mentions 180 bushels[158] of wheat being raised
upon 3·50 acres of ground from one bushel of seed, and estimates the
average yield of properly-cultivated land at 40 bushels, whereas rich
Pennsylvania rarely gives 30 per acre.[159] I have heard of lands near
the fresh-water lake which bear from 60 to 105 bushels per acre.
[158] In the United States the bushel of wheat or clover-seed is 60
lbs.; of corn, barley, and rye, 56 lbs.; of oats, 35-36 lbs.
[159] The yield in Egypt varies from 25 to 150 grains for one planted.
[SOIL.]
The cultivable tracts are of two kinds, bench-land and bottom-land.
[FRUITS.]
The soil of the bench-lands is fertile, a mixture of the highland
feldspath with the débris of decomposed limestone. It is comparatively
free from alkalines, the bane of the valleys; but as rain is wanting,
it depends, like the Basses-Pyrénées, upon irrigation, and must be
fertilized by the mountain torrents that issue from the kanyons. As a
rule, the creeks dwindle to rivulets and sink in the porous alluvium
before they have run a mile from the hill-foot, and reappear in the
arid plains at a level too low for navigation: in such places artesian
wells are wanted. The soil, though fertile, is thin, requiring compost:
manure is here allowed to waste, the labor of the people sufficing
barely for essentials. I am informed that two bushels of semence are
required for each acre, and that the colonists sow too scantily: a
judicious rotation of crops is also yet to come. The benches are
sometimes extensive: a strip, for instance, runs along the western base
of the Wasach Mountains, with a varying breadth of 1-3 miles, from
80 miles north of Great Salt Lake City to Utah Lake and Valley, the
southern terminus of cultivation, a total length of 120 miles. These
lands produce various cereals, especially wheat and buckwheat, oats,
barley, and a little Indian corn, all the fruits and vegetables of a
temperate zone, and flax, hemp, and linseed in abundance. The wild
fruits are the service berry, choke-cherry, buffalo berry, gooseberry,
an excellent strawberry, and black, white, red, and yellow mountain
currants, some as large as ounce bullets.
[ALKALINE SALTS.]
The bottom-lands, where the creeks extend, are better watered than the
uplands, but they are colder and salter. The refrigerated air seeks
the lowest levels; hence in Utah Territory the benches are warmer than
the valleys, and the spring vegetation is about a fortnight later on
the banks of Jordan than above them. Another cause of cold is the
presence of saleratus or alkaline salts, the natural effect of the rain
being insufficient to wash them out. Experiment proved in Sindh that
nothing is more difficult than to eradicate this evil from the soil:
the sweetest earth brought from afar becomes tainted by it: sometimes
the disease appears when the crop is half grown; at other times it
attacks irregularly--one year, for instance, will see a fine field of
wheat, and the next none. When inveterate, it breaks out in leprous
eruptions, and pieces of efflorescence can be picked up for use: a
milder form induces a baldness of growth, with an occasional birth
of chenopodiaceæ. Many of the streams are dangerous to cattle, and
often in the lower parts of the valleys there are ponds and pools of
water colored and flavored like common ley. According to the people,
a small admixture is beneficial to vegetation; the grass is rendered
equal for pasturage to the far-famed salt-marshes of Essex and of the
Atlantic coast; potatoes, squashes, and melons become sweeter, and
the pie-plant loses its acidity. On the other hand, the beet has been
found to deteriorate, no small misfortune at such a distance from the
sugar-cane.
Besides salt-drought and frost, the land has to contend against an
Asiatic scourge. The cricket (_Anabrus simplex_?) is compared by the
Mormons to a “cross between the spider and the buffalo:” it is dark,
ungainly, wingless, and exceedingly harmful. The five red-legged
grasshopper (_Œdipoda corallipes_), about the size of the English
migratory locust, assists these “black Philistines,” and, but for
a curious provision of nature, would render the land well-nigh
uninhabitable. A small species of gull flocks from its resting-place
in the Great Salt Lake to feed upon the advancing host; the “glossy
bird of the valley, with light red beak and feet, delicate in form and
motion, with plumage of downy texture and softness,” stayed in 1848
the advance of the “frightful bug,” whose onward march nor fires, nor
hot trenches, nor the cries of the frantic farmer could arrest. We
can hardly wonder that the Mormons, whose minds, so soon after the
exodus, were excited to the highest pitch, should have seen in this
natural phenomenon a miracle, a special departure from the normal
course of events, made by Providence in their favor, or accuse them, as
anti-Mormons have done, of forging signs and portents.
But, while many evils beset agriculture in Utah Territory, grazing
is comparatively safe, and may be extended almost _ad libitum_. The
valleys of this land of Goshen supply plentiful pasturage in the
winter; as spring advances cattle will find gamma and other grasses
on the benches, and as, under the influence of the melting sun,
the snow-line creeps up the hills, flocks and herds, like the wild
graminivorants, will follow the bunch-grass, which, vivified by the
autumnal rains, breeds under the snow, and bears its seed in summer.
In the basin of the Green River, fifty miles south of Fillmore City,
is a fine wool-producing country 7000 square miles in area. Even the
ubiquitous sage will serve for camels. As has been mentioned, Durhams,
Devons, and Merino tups have found their way to Great Salt Lake City,
and the terrible milk-sickness[160] of the Western States has not.
[160] A fatal spasmodic disease produced in the Western States by
astringent salts in the earth and water: it first attacks cattle, and
then those who eat the infected meat or drink the milk. Travelers
tell of whole villages being destroyed by it.
In 1860 the Valley of the Great Salt Lake alone produced 306,000
bushels of grain, of which about 17,000 were oats. Lieutenant Gunnison,
estimating the average yield of each plowed acre at 2000 lbs. (33¹⁄₂
bushels), a fair estimate, and “drawing the meat part of the ration,
or one half,” from the herds fed elsewhere, fixes the maximum of
population in Utah Territory at 4000 souls to a square mile, and opines
that it will maintain with ease one million of inhabitants.
Timber, I have said, is a growing want throughout the country; the
“hair of the earth-animal” is by no means luxuriant. Great Cotton-wood
Kanyon is supposed to contain supplies for twenty years, but it
is chiefly used for building purposes. The Mormons, unlike the
Hibernians, of whom it was said in the last century that no man ever
planted an orchard, have applied themselves manfully to remedying the
deficiency, and the next generation will probably be safe. At present,
“hard woods,” elm, hackberry, pecan or button-wood, hickory, mulberry,
basswood, locust, black and English walnut, are wanted, and must be
imported from the Eastern States. The lower kanyons and bottoms are
clothed with wild willow, scrub maple, both hard and soft, box elder,
aspen, birch, cotton-wood, and other amentaciæ, and in the south with
spruce and dwarf ash. The higher grounds bear stunted cedars white and
red, balsam and other pines, the dwarf oak, which, like the maple, is a
mere scrub, and the mountain mahogany, a tough, hard, and strong, but
grainless wood, seldom exceeding eight inches in diameter. Hawthorn
(a _Cratægus_) also exists, and in the southern and western latitudes
the piñon (_P. monophyllus_), varying from the size of an umbrella to
twenty feet in height, feeds the Indians with its oily nut, which not
a little resembles the seed of the pinaster and the Mediterranean _P.
Pinea_, and supplies a rich gum for strengthening plasters.
[ANNUAL EXHIBITION IN UTAH TERRITORY.]
The present state of agriculture in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake
City will best be explained by the prospectus of the annual show for
1860.[161] Wheat thrives better than maize, which in the northern
parts suffers from the late frosts, and requires a longer summer. Until
oats and barley can be grown in sufficient quantities, horses are
fed upon heating wheat, which only the hardest riding enables them
to digest. _Holcus saccharatum_, or Chinese millet, succeeds where
insufficient humidity is an obstacle to the sugar-cane. The fault
of the vegetables here, as in California, is excessive size, which
often renders them insipid; the Irish potato, however, is superior to
that of Nova Scotia and Charleston; the onions are large and mild as
those of Spain. The white carrot, the French bean, and the cucumber
grow well, and the “multicaulis mania” has borne good fruit in the
shape of cabbage. The size of the beets suggested in 1853 the project
originated in France by Napoleon the Great: $100,000 were expended upon
sugar-making machinery; the experiment, however, though directed by a
Frenchman, failed, it is said, on account of the alkali contained in
the root, and the Saints are accused of having distilled for sale bad
spirit from the useless substance. The deserts skirting the Western
Holy Land have also their manna; the leaves of poplars and other
trees on the banks of streams distill, at divers seasons of the year,
globules of honey-dew, resembling in color gum Arabic, but of softer
consistence and less adhesiveness: the people collect it with spoons
into saucers. Cotton thrives in the southern and southwestern part of
Utah Territory when the winter is mild: at the meeting-place of waters
near the Green and Grand Rivers that unite to form the Colorado, the
shrub has been grown with great success.
[161] List of premiums to be awarded by the Deserét Agricultural and
Manufacturing Society, at the Annual Exhibition, October 3d and 4th,
1860.
CLASS A.--CATTLE.
Awarding Committee--Hector C. Haight, Wm. Jennings, Wm. Miller, Alex.
Baron.
Best Durham bull $10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. dip.
Best Devon bull 10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. dip.
Best bull under 1 year 5 00
2d do. do. dip.
Best Durham cow and calf 5 00
2d do. do. 3 00
3d do. do. dip.
Best Devon cow and calf 5 00
2d do. do. 3 00
3d do. do. dip.
Best native or cross cow and calf. 5 00
2d do. do. 3 00
3d do. do. dip.
Best 2 year old heifer 3 00
2d do. do. dip.
Best 1 year old heifer 2 00
2d do. do. dip.
Best matched native cattle 5 00
2d do. do. 3 00
3d do. do. dip.
Best blooded & wooled buck 5 00
2d do. do. 3 00
3d do. do. dip.
Best 2 ewes for blood and wool 4 00
2d do. do. 2 00
3d do. do. dip.
Best boar 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best sow and pigs 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
CLASS B.--FIELD CROPS.
Awarding Committee--A. P. Rockwood, Joseph Holbrook, L. E.
Harrington, John Rowberry.
Best fenced and cultivated farm not
less than twenty acres $5 00
2d do. dip.
Best fenced and cultivated garden 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best 5 acres of sugar-cane 15 00
2d do. 10 00
3d do. 5 00
4th do. dip.
Best 1 acre of sugar-cane 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 acres of wheat 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 acres of corn 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 acres of turnips 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 acres of beets 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 acres of carrots 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 1 acre of white beans 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 1 acre of peas 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 1 acre of flax 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 1 acre of hemp 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 1 acre of red clover 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 1 acre of potatoes 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best 1 acre of Hungarian grass 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best acre of rye 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best acre of turnips 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best acre of beets 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best acre of carrots 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best 100 lbs. flax 5 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best 100 lbs. hemp 5 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best 10 lbs. manufactured tobacco 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best 6 canes of Chinese sugar-cane 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best 6 canes of field-corn 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Awarding Committee on Cotton and Tobacco--William Crosby, Robert D.
Covington, Joshua T. Willis, Jacob Hamblin, Jas. R. M‘Cullough.
Best 10 acres of cotton $30 00
2d do. 20 00
3d do. 15 00
4th do. 10 00
5th do. dip.
Best 5 acres of cotton 25 00
2d do. 20 00
3d do. 15 00
4th do. 10 00
5th do. dip.
Best 2 acres of cotton 20 00
2d do. 15 00
3d do. 10 00
4th do. 5 00
5th do. dip.
Best 1 acre of cotton 15 00
2d do. 10 00
3d do. 8 00
4th do. 5 00
5th do. dip.
Best ¹⁄₂ acre of cotton 10 00
2d do. 8 00
3d do. 6 00
4th do. 4 00
5th do. dip.
Best 5 acres of tobacco 25 00
2d do. 20 00
3d do. 15 00
4th do. 10 00
5th do. dip.
Best 1 acre of tobacco 15 00
2d do. 10 00
3d do. 5 00
4th do. dip.
CLASS C.--VEGETABLES.
Awarding Committee--Sidney A. Knowlton, Charles H. Oliphant, Thos.
Woodbury.
Best brace cucumbers $3 00
2d do. dip.
Best 3 squashes 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 3 pumpkins. 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 3 water melons 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 3 cantaloupes 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best peck of tomatoes 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 3 early cabbages 1 50
2d do. dip.
Best 3 late cabbages 1 50
2d do. dip.
Best 3 red cabbages 1 50
2d do. dip.
Best 3 Savoy cabbages 1 50
2d do. dip.
Best 6 stalks of celery 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 6 blood beets 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 6 sugar beets 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 6 carrots 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 6 parsnips 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 6 turnips 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best peck of silver onions 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best peck of yellow onions 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best peck of red onions 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best peck of potatoes 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best peck of sweet potatoes 5 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best quart of Lima beans 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best quart of bush beans 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best quart of peas 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 6 stalks of rhubarb 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 4 heads of cauliflower 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best 4 heads of brocoli 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best 4 heads of lettuce 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best bunch of parsley 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best collection of radishes 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best collection of peppers 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best egg-plant 1 00
2d do. dip.
CLASS D.--FRUITS AND FLOWERS.
Awarding Committee--Edward Sayres, George A. Niel, Daniel Graves.
Best 6 apples $3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. 1 00
4th do. dip.
Best 6 peaches 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. 1 00
4th do. dip.
Best 6 pears 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. 1 00
4th do. dip.
Best 6 apricots 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. 1 00
4th do. dip.
Best 6 quinces 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. 1 00
4th do. dip.
Best 3 bunches of grapes 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. 1 00
4th do. dip.
Best quart of native grafted plums 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best pint of currants 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of English cherries 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best bed or hills of strawberries 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. 1 00
4th do. dip.
Best raspberries 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best gooseberries 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
FLOWERS.
Best collection of China asters $1 00
2d do. dip.
Best collection of dahlias 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best collection of roses 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best collection of cut flowers 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best collection of pot flowers 1 00
2d do. dip.
[THE PAST OF MORMONLAND.]
The principal value of Utah Territory is its position as a great
half-way station--a Tadmor in the wilderness--between the Valley of the
Mississippi and the Western States, California and Oregon; it has thus
proved a benefit to humanity. The Mormons, “flying from civilization
and Christianity,” attempted to isolate themselves from the world in
a mountain fastness; they were foiled by an accident far beyond human
foresight. They had retired to a complete oasis, defended by sterile
volcanic passes, which in winter are blocked up with snow, girt by
vast waterless and uninhabitable deserts, and unapproachable from any
settled country save by a painful and dangerous march of 600-1000
miles. Presently, in 1850, the gold fever broke out on the Pacific
sea-board; thousands of people not only passed through Utah Territory,
but were also compelled to remain there and work for a livelihood. The
transit received a fresh impulse in 1858 by the gold discovered at
Pike’s Peak, and in 1859 by the rich silver mines found in the Carson
and Washoe Valleys, on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Carson
Valley, which was settled by Colonel Reece in 1852, and colonized
in 1855 by 500 Mormons, was soon cleared of Saints by the influx of
prospectors and diggers, and the other El Dorados drew off much
Gentile population, which was an incalculable boon to the Mormons. They
thus rid themselves of the “thriving lawyers, gamblers, prostitutes,
criminals, and desperadoes, loafers, and drunkards,” who made New
Jerusalem a carnival of horrors. The scene is now shifted to Denver and
Carson cities, where rape and robbery, intoxication and shooting are
attributed to their true causes, the gathering together of a lawless
and excited crowd, not to the “baleful shade of that deadly Upas-tree,
Mormonism.”
The Mormons, having lost all hopes of safety by isolation, now seek it
in the reverse: mail communication with the Eastern and Western States
is their present hobby: they look forward to markets for their produce,
and to a greater facility and economy of importing. They have dreamed
of a water-line to the East by means of the Missouri head-waters,
which are said to be navigable for 350-400 miles, and to the West by
the tributaries of the Snake River, that afford 400. Shortly after
the foundation of Great Salt Lake City, they proceeded to establish,
under the ecclesiastical title “Stakes of Zion in the Wilderness,”
settlements and outposts, echelonned in skeleton, afterward to be
filled in, from Temple Block along the southern line to San Diego. The
importance of connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by a shorter
route than the 24,000 miles of navigation round Cape Horn, has produced
first a monthly, then a weekly, and lastly a daily mail, and has opened
up a route from the Holy City to Carson Valley. So far from opposing
the Pacific Railroad, the local Legislature petitioned for it in
1849, and believe that it would increase the value of their property
tenfold. But as equal parts of Mormon and Gentile never could dwell
together in amity, extensive communication would probably result in
causing the Saints to sell out, and once more to betake themselves to
their “wilderness work” in Sonora, or in other half-settled portions
of Northern Mexico. This view of the question is taken by the federal
authorities, who would willingly, if they could, confer upon the
petitioners the fatal boon.
The Mormon pioneers, 143 in number, when sent westward under several
of the apostles to seek for settlements, fixed upon the Valley of the
Great Salt Lake. The advance colony of 4000 souls, expelled from Nauvoo
on the Mississippi, and headed by “Brigham the Seer,” arrived there
on the 24th of July, 1847, the anniversary of which is their 4th of
July--Independence Day. Before the end of the first week a tract of
land was ditched, plowed, and planted with potatoes. City-Creek Kanyon
was dammed for irrigation; an area of forty acres was fortified after
the old New England fashion by facing log houses inward, and by a
palisade of timber hauled from the ravines; the city was laid out upon
the spot where they first rested, the most eligible site in the Valley,
and prayers, with solemn ceremonies, consecrated the land.
[CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF DESERÉT.]
Early in 1849, the Mormons, irritated by the contemptuous silence of
the federal government, assembled themselves in Convention, and, with
the boldness engendered by a perfect faith, duly erected themselves
into a free, sovereign, and independent people, with a vast extent
of country.[162] Disdaining to remain in _statu pupillari_, they
dispensed with a long political minority, and rushed into the conclave
of republics like California, whose sons are fond of comparing her
to Minerva issuing full-grown from the cranium of Jupiter into the
society of Olympus. Roused by this liberty, the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled,
on the 9th of September, 1850, sheared the self-constituted republic
of its fair proportions, and reduced it to the infant condition of New
Mexico, with the usual proviso in the organic act that when qualified
for admission as states they shall become slave or free, as their
respective Constitutions may prescribe. At present one of the principal
Mormon grievances is that, although their country can, by virtue of
population, claim admission into the Union, which has lately been
overrun with a mushroom growth, like Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon,
their prayers are not only rejected, but even their petitions remain
unnoticed. The cause is, I believe, polygamy, which, until the statute
law is altered, would not and could not be tolerated, either in America
or in England. To the admission of other Territories, Kansas, for
instance, the slavery question was the obstacle. The pro party will
admit none who will not support the South, and _vice versâ_. Perhaps
it is well so, otherwise the old and civilized states would soon find
themselves swamped by batches of peers in rapidly succeeding creations.
[162] The following is the preamble to the Constitution: it is a fair
specimen of Mormon plain-dealing.
Provisional Government of the State of Deserét.--Abstract of
Convention Minutes. On the 15th of March, 1849, the Convention
appointed the following persons a Committee to draft a Constitution
for the State of Deserét, viz.: Albert Carrington, Joseph L. Heywood,
William W. Phelps, David Fullmer, John S. Fullmer, Charles C. Rich,
John Taylor, Parley P. Pratt, John M. Bernhisel, Erastus Snow.
March 18th, 1849. Albert Carrington, chairman of the Committee,
reported the following Constitution, which was read and unanimously
adopted by the Convention:
CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF DESERÉT.
PREAMBLE.--Whereas a large number of the citizens of the United
States, before and since the Treaty of Peace with the Republic of
Mexico, emigrated to, and settled in that portion of the territory of
the United States lying west of the Rocky Mountains, and in the great
interior Basin of Upper California; and
Whereas, by reason of said treaty, all civil organization originating
from the Republic of Mexico became abrogated; and
Whereas the Congress of the United States has failed to provide
a form of civil government for the territory so acquired, or any
portion thereof; and
Whereas civil government and laws are necessary for the security,
peace, and prosperity of society; and
Whereas it is a fundamental principle in all republican governments
that all political power is inherent in the people, and governments
instituted for their protection, security, and benefit should emanate
from the same:
Therefore your committee beg leave to recommend the adoption of the
following CONSTITUTION until the Congress of the United States shall
otherwise provide for the government of the Territory hereinafter
named and described by admitting us into the Union. WE, THE PEOPLE,
grateful to the SUPREME BEING for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and
feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of those blessings,
DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH A FREE AND INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENT, by the
name of the STATE OF DESERÉT, including all the territory of the
United States within the following boundaries, to wit: commencing at
the 33° of north latitude, where it crosses the 108° of longitude,
west of Greenwich; thence running south and west to the boundary of
Mexico; thence west to and down the main channel of the Gila River
(or the northern line of Mexico), and on the northern boundary
of Lower California to the Pacific Ocean; thence along the coast
northwesterly to the 118° 30′ of west longitude; thence north to
where said line intersects the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada
mountains; thence north along the summit of the Sierra Nevada
mountains to the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters
flowing into the Columbia River from the waters running into the
Great Basin; thence easterly along the dividing range of mountains
that separate said waters flowing into the Columbia River on the
north, from the waters flowing into the Great Basin on the south, to
the summit of the Wind River chain of mountains; thence southeast and
south by the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters
flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the waters flowing into the Gulf
of California, to the place of beginning, as set forth in a map drawn
by Charles Preuss, and published by order of the Senate of the United
States in 1848.
The Mormons have another complaint, touching the tenure of their land.
The United States have determined that the Indian title has not been
extinguished. The Saints declare that no tribe of aborigines could
prove a claim to the country, otherwise they were ready to purchase it
in perpetuity by pay, presents, and provisions, besides establishing
the usual reservations. Moreover, the federal government has departed
from the usual course. The law directs that the land, when set off into
townships, six miles square with subdivisions,[163] must be sold at
auction to the highest bidder. The Mormons represent that although a
survey of considerable tracts has been completed by a federal official,
they are left to be mere squatters that can be ejected like an Irish
tenantry, because the government, knowing their ability and readiness
to pay the recognized pre-emption price ($1 25 per acre), fear lest
those now in possession should become lawful owners and permanent
proprietors of the soil.[164] Polygamy is here again to blame.
[163] Viz., the section of one square mile, the half section =320
acres, and the quarter section of 160 acres: the latter is the legal
grant to military settlers. The pre-emption laws in the United States
are just and precise; but in the mountains it is about as easy to
eject a squatter as to collect “rint” from Western Galway in the days
of Mr. Martin.
[164] In England and Scotland the rent for use of land averages one
quarter of the gross produce; in France, one third; unhappy India
gives one half; and the Territories of the United States nearly
nothing.
The Mormon settlements resemble those of the French in Canada and
elsewhere rather than the English in Australia, the Dutch at the
Cape, or the American squatters on the Western frontier. They eschew
solitude, and cluster together round the Church and the succedaneum for
the priest. In establishing these “stakes” they proceed methodically.
A tentative expedition, sent out to select the point presenting the
greatest facilities for settlements, is followed by a volunteer band
of Saints, composed of farmers, mechanics, and artisans, headed by an
apostle, president, elder, or some other dignitary. The foundations are
laid with long ceremonies. The fort or block-house is first built, and
when the people are lodged the work of agriculture begins. The cities
of Utah Territory are somewhat like the “towns” of Cornwall. At present
there are three long lines of these juvenile settlements established
as caravanserais in the several oases. The first is along the Humboldt
River to Carson Valley; the second is by the southern route, _viâ_
Fillmore; and the third is betwixt the two, along “Egan’s Route,” the
present mail line.
[COUNTIES IN UTAH TERRITORY.]
The counties, originally 5, increased in 1855 to 12, are now (1860) 19
in number, viz.:
1. Great Salt Lake County: the chief town is Great Salt Lake City; the
sub-settlements are the Sugar-House, 4 miles S. of Temple Block--the
invariable _point de départ_; Mill Creek, 7 miles; Great Cotton-wood,
8-9 miles; West Jordan, Jordan Mills, Herriman, and Union, or Little
Cotton-wood Creek, 12 miles; Drapersville, 20-21 miles S.; all small
villages, with good farming lands.
2. Utah County: the chief town is Provo or Provaux, on the Timpanogos
River, 45 miles; David City, on Dry Creek, 28 miles; Lake City, on
American Fork, 32 miles S.; Lehi City, 35 miles S.; Lone City, 37 miles
S.; Pleasant Grove or Battle Creek, 41 miles S.; Springville or Hobble
Creek, 53-54 miles; Palmyra, a small place east of the Lake, and north
of Spanish Fork, 59-60 miles; Spanish-Fork City, 61 miles S.; Pondtown,
64 miles S.; Payson City, on both banks of the Peet-Neet Creek, 64-65
miles S.; and Santa Quin, 74 miles S.
3. Davis County: chief town Farmington; others, Stoker, Centreville,
12·50 miles N., and Kaysville, 22 miles N.
4. Weber County: chief town Ogden City, on both sides of Ogden River,
40 miles E.; also North Ogden.
5. Iron County: chief town Parovan, so called from the Pavant Indians;
built on Centre Creek, 255 miles S. of Great Salt Lake City, and 96
miles from Fillmore, and incorporated in 1851. Also Cedar City, near
Little Salt Lake, 275 miles S.; St. Joseph’s Springs and Vegas de
Santa Clara, 200 miles from Cedar City. The Aztecs, as their rock
inscriptions prove, once extended to Little Salt Lake Valley.
6. Tooele County: chief town Tooele City, 32 miles W.; also “Eastern
Tooele City,” 26 miles W.; Grantsville, 27 miles W.; Richville and
Cedar Valley, 40 miles W.
7. San Pete Valley County and City, 131 miles, laid out by the
presidency in 1849, and incorporated in 1850; Fort Ephraim, 130 miles;
Manti City, 140 miles, on the southern declivity of Mount Nebo. Aztecan
pictographs have been found upon the cliffs in San Pete Valley.
8. Juab County: chief town Salt Creek, in a valley separated from Utah
Valley by a ridge, on which runs Summit Creek.
9. Box-Elder County and City, 60 miles N.; also Willow Creek and
Brigham’s City.
[COAL.]
10. Washington County: chief town Fort Harmony, on Ash Creek, 291 miles
S., and 20 miles N. of Rio Virgen.[165]
[165] I annex a description of Washington County, which lately
appeared in the “Deserét News:”
“Yesterday afternoon I met in the library of the University the
Hon. Wm. Crosby, the representative from Washington County to
our Legislature, who furnishes me with some items of information
respecting the county he represents worthy a passing notice,
especially as there is so little known of that county. The
inhabitants are estimated at about 1500 persons, chiefly engaged in
farming and grazing. The county of Washington in area is as large as
the State of Connecticut, generally of a barren, desert character,
broken and mountainous. On the borders of the Rio Virgen and the
Santa Clara there are narrow strips of land exceedingly fertile, on
which every thing grows with great richness, and at a cost of very
little labor. During the present year only 50,000 pounds of cotton
have been raised, but, properly cultivated and attended to, the
inhabitants there could raise all the cotton ever required by the
inhabitants of this Territory. At present its cultivation is almost
neglected for the want of proper facilities for its manufacture.
The entrance also of the army in 1857, followed by immense trains
of goods--which, by-the-by, some of the merchants never paid a cent
for, and it is very doubtful if they ever will--was also a crushing
competition to the people of Washington County.
“Every kind of fruit that has been tried there grows with great
luxuriance. The apple, pear, plum, apricot, peach, and fig trees do
exceedingly well. The English walnut-tree grew this year nine feet,
and the Catawba grape grew nineteen feet and a half before the 6th
of September. The bunches of those grapes, many of them, measured
nineteen inches in length. At Tocqueville, one of the small towns in
that county, one man raised this year two water-melons from one vine
that weighed, the one sixty, and the other fifty pounds.
“At the Agricultural Exhibition, held there last September, the fine
grapes which I have mentioned were on exhibition. At the same time
there was exhibited a stalk of cotton containing three hundred and
seven forms; a radish measuring eighteen inches in circumference; a
sunflower head thirty-six inches; and a monster castor-bean stalk;
a sweet potato-vine five feet and a half long; and one Isabella
grape-vine twenty-five feet long. One man had in his garden trees
which in six months grew as follows:
ft. in.
Washington Plum 8 6
Apple-trees 6 6
Apricots 7 0
Figs 7 0
Almond 7 2
Peach 8 6
Pears 6 0
“In climate, Washington embraces all the varieties from frigid to
torrid, from regions of perpetual frost to an eternal spring. Every
kind of out-door work, plowing, ditching, building, etc., can be
pursued throughout winter in some parts of the county, while in
others there are killing frosts throughout the whole year.
“I had almost forgotten to mention that the soil is excellent for the
grape, and during the present year very fine tobacco has been grown
there, as well as madder and indigo. The sorghum raised there has
a magnificent flavor, and without the ‘patent fixings,’ with very
little labor, and that of the simplest character, good sugar is made
from it. At the late exhibition the sorghum took the two highest
prizes. I believe the honorable member from Washington has brought
with him a few gallons of this very fine molasses as a _cadeau_ to
the Prophet. To readers who have every luxury in abundance and at
very moderate figures, these items may have little interest, but to
those who watch the progress of the people here, and the reclaiming
of the desert, this information has great significance. In a few
years every thing that the people require will be raised from their
own soil, and manufactured by their own hands.
“Mr. Crosby, from whom I elicited these facts, was born in Indiana,
but ‘brought up’ in the Southern States. Mormonism got hold of him in
1843, in the State of Mississippi. Following the fortunes of Brigham,
he brought some nine or ten slaves, ‘very select niggers.’ In 1851
he went over to San Bernardino, and was bishop over there. The state
soon liberated the ebony folks, and Mr. Crosby, of course, lost his
$9000 or $10,000 by the operation.
“The Superintendent of the Church Public Works and a few others went
out exploring for coal about the Weber some time in August last,
and found a splendid bed of mineral. It promises to be the greatest
blessing that has yet fallen to the lot of the Saints. Of course I do
not look at things with ‘an eye of faith;’ that is their business.
But among people paying $10 per cord for wood, scarce at that, and
sure to be scarcer, the discovery of coal is an important matter. The
present coal-bed is about fifty miles distant; but, nevertheless,
paying $3 per ton at the mouth of the pit, at which it is now sold,
it can be brought into the city and sold for $20. Last year it was
sold here to blacksmiths for $40. The Pacific Railroad folks should
have an eye on this. The apprehension that the absence of coal and
wood in the Territory would be a serious obstacle need not now exist.
Though the wood is scarce and high priced as an article of daily
household consumption, railroad companies can get all the lumber they
require for money, though they may have to haul it far and pay a good
price for it. I believe that the whole country is full of coal, and
what is not coal is gold and silver; but I earnestly hope that the
day is far distant before the Mormons or any body else discover the
precious metals. The coal discovery, however, is very important. The
bishops of the city have been instructed to urge upon their flocks
the hauling of it, and it is hoped that by constant travel the snow
will be kept down and the roads clear all the winter. A Scotch miner,
who had just returned from the coal-bed, told me the other day that
it far exceeded any thing that he had ever seen in his own country,
or in the States, both in quality and abundance.”
11. Millard County: chief town, which is also the capital of Utah
Territory, Fillmore, in N. lat. 38° 58′ 40″, in a central position, 152
miles S. of Great Salt Lake City, 600 miles E. of San Francisco, and
1200 miles W. of St. Louis. The sum of $20,000 was expended upon public
buildings, but the barrenness of the soil has reduced the population
from 100 to a dozen families.
12. Green River County: Fort Supply.
13. Cedar County: chief town Cedar City. It is built upon an old
Aztecan foundation, rich in pottery and other remains.
14. Malad County: chief town Fort Malad, properly so called from its
slow, brackish, and nauseous river.
15. Cache County, the granary of Mormonland, and the most fertile spot
in the Great Basin; well settled and much valued: chief town Cache
Valley, 80 miles N.
16. Beaver County: chief town Beaver Creek, 220 miles S.
17. Shambip County: Rich Valley and Deep Creek.
18. Salt Lake Islands.
19. St. Mary’s County: west of Shambip City, extending to the Humboldt
River; chief settlement, Deep Creek.
I found it impossible to arrive at a true estimate of the population.
Like the earlier English numberings of the people, which originated in
bitter political controversies--the charge of unfairness was brought
as late as 1831 against the enumerators in Ireland--the census is a
purely party measure. The Mormons, desiring to show the 100,000 persons
which entitle them to claim admission as a state into the Union, are
naturally disposed to exaggerate their numbers; they are, of course,
accused of “cooking up” schedules, of counting cattle as souls, and of
making every woman a mother in _esse_ as in _posse_. On the other hand,
the anti-Mormons are as naturally inclined to underestimate: moreover,
as the “census marshals” receive but three halfpence per head, they are
by no means disposed to pay a shilling for the trouble of ransacking
every ranch and kanyon where the people repair for grazing and other
purposes. The nearest approach to truth will probably be met by
assuming the two opposite extremes, and by “splitting the difference.”
[POPULATION OF UTAH TERRITORY.]
In 1849 Mr. Kelly estimated the Mormons to be “about 5000 inhabitants
in the town, and 7000 more in the settlements.” In 1850 the seventh
official census of the United States numbered the inhabitants of Utah
Territory at 11,354 free + 26 slaves = 11,380 souls. In 1853 the Saints
were reckoned at 25,000 by the Gentiles, and 30,000 to 35,000 by Mr.
O. Pratt, in the “Seer.” In 1854 Dr. S. W. Richards estimated the
number at “probably from 40,000 to 50,000” in the United States, and in
Great Britain at 29,797. In 1856 the Mormon census gave 76,335 souls.
I subjoin a synopsis of the official papers.[166] In 1858 the Peace
Commissioners sent to Utah Territory reported that the Saints did not
exceed 40,000 to 50,000 souls, half of them foreigners, and that they
could bring 7000 men, of whom 1000 were valuable for cavalry, into the
field. In 1859 M. Remy made the number of Saints in Utah Territory, not
including Nevada, 80,000 souls, and the total in the world 186,000. The
last official census, in 1860, was taken under peculiar disadvantages.
General Burr, of the firm of Hockaday and Burr, was appointed to
that duty by Mr. Dotson, the anti-Mormon federal marshal. But as the
choice excited loud murmurs, the task was committed to a clerk in
the general’s store, and deputies for the rest of the Territory were
similarly chosen. The consequence is that the Gentile marshal’s census
of 1860 offers a number of 40,266 free + 29 slaves = a total of 40,295
souls; while the Mormons assert their Territory to contain from 90,000
to 100,000, and the world to hold from 300,000 to 400,000 Saints. Their
rise is remarkable, even if we take the statistics of the enemy, which
show nearly a quadrupling of the population in ten years, while Great
Britain creeps on at a rate of about ten per cent.: a similar increase
will in the ninth census of 1870 give in round numbers 160,000 persons.
Utah Territory now ranks second in the eight minor states: New Mexico
(93,541) and District of Columbia (75,076) take precedence of it, and
it is followed by Colorado (34,197), Nebraska (28,842), Washington
(11,578), Nevada (6857), and Dakotah (4839).
[166] The following is a condensed Report of the enumeration of the
inhabitants of Utah Territory, taken February, 1856:
+----------------------+------+--------+------+
| Counties. |Males.|Females.|Total.|
+----------------------+------+--------+------+
|Great Salt Lake County|12,730| 13,074 |25,804|
|Utah „ | 6,951| 7,614 |14,565|
|Davis „ | 4,765| 4,575 | 9,340|
|Weber „ | 3,486| 3,585 | 7,071|
|Iron „ | 2,474| 2,943 | 5,417|
|Tooele „ | 1,315| 1,673 | 2,988|
|San Pete „ | 1,110| 1,133 | 2,243|
|Juab „ | 807| 1,034 | 1,841|
|Box-Elder „ | 822| 717 | 1,539|
|Washington „ | 742| 778 | 1,520|
|Millard „ | 544| 512 | 1,056|
|Green River „ | 394| 345 | 739|
|Cedar „ | 312| 369 | 681|
|Malad „ | 259| 208 | 467|
|Cache „ | 240| 223 | 463|
|Beaver „ | 118| 126 | 244|
|Shambip „ | 83| 64 | 147|
|Salt Lake Islands | 125| 85 | 210|
| +------+--------+------+
| |37,277| 39,058 |76,335|
+----------------------+------+--------+------+
“Great Salt Lake City, March 1st, 1856.
“I do hereby certify that the above is a correct enumeration of
the white inhabitants of Utah Territory, according to the reports
furnished by my assistants, and which are now on file in my office.
LEONARD W. HARDY, Census Agent.”
“Great Salt Lake City, September 13th, 1860.
“The above is a correct transcript from the originals on file in the
Historian’s Office.
THOMAS BULLOCK, Clerk.”
I have vainly attempted to discover the proportion of native
Anglo-Americans to the foreign-born. The late Mr. Stephen A. Douglas,
who was supposed to know and to befriend the Saints, asserted it to
be one to ten. This will not hold good if applied to the authorities,
and if it fails at the head it will be inapplicable to the baser part
of the body politic, for the American in Mormondom is the prophet,
president, apostle, bishop, or other high dignitary who leavens
the lump of ignorance and superstition kneaded together in the old
countries. Of the thirteen members of the Upper House, there were, in
1860, ten Americans, two English, and one Irishman: of the officers,
viz., secretary and his assistant, sergeant-at-arms, messenger,
fireman, and chaplain, four were Americans, one English, and one
Irishman. The members of the Lower House, twenty-six in number,
consisted of twenty-four Americans and two Englishmen, including the
speaker, Mr. John Taylor: of its six officers, four were Americans, one
English, and one Scotchman. Both houses were thus distributed:
New York 13
Massachusetts 6
Vermont 5
England 4
Ohio 4
Tennessee 3
Kentucky 2
Ireland 2
Scotland 1
New Hampshire 2
Isle of Man 1
Pennsylvania 2
Virginia 1
Indiana 2
Rhode Island 1
--
Grand Total 49
The Mormon emigration is without exception the most interesting
feature in their scheme. There is an evident selection of species
in the supply: a man must be superior to many in “grit” and energy
who voluntarily leaves his native land. As regards the national
classification of the converts, it may be observed that the supply
depends upon the freedom of religious discussion at home. Great
Britain supplies five times more than all the rest of the world,
excepting Denmark. France must be proselytized through the Channel
Islands, and there are few converts of the Latin race, which
speaks a strange language, and is too much attached to the soil
for extensive colonization. Sweden sends forth few (67)--a fine of
twenty-six rix-dollars has there been imposed upon all who harbor,
let rooms to, or hold to service a Mormon; Denmark supplies many
(502), because the Constitution of 1849 guaranteed to her religious
liberty; Switzerland is, after a fashion, Republican; Germany gives
the fewest. Propagandism has not yet been thoroughly organized east of
Father Rhine; moreover, the Teuton, whose faith is mostly subordinate
to his fancy, finds superior inducements to settle while passing
through the Eastern States. All the “diverts” long retain their
motherlandish characteristics, and, associating together, are often
unable to understand the English sermon at the Tabernacle. The work of
proselytizing is slow in the United States; the analytic Anglo-American
prefers the _rôle_ of knave to that of fool, besides _un saint n’est
pas honoré dans son pays_, upon the principle that no man is a hero
to his valet. At Great Salt Lake City I saw neither Kanaka, Hindoo,
nor Chinese; these “exotics” have probably withered out since the
days of M. Remy; only one negro met my sight, and though a few Yutas,
principally Weber River, were seen in the streets, none of them had
Mormonized.
[MORMON EMIGRATION.]
Emigration in Mormondom, like El Hajj in El Islam, is the fulfillment
of a divine command. As soon as the Saints could afford it, they
established, under the direction of the First Presidency, a fund
for importing poor converts, appointed a committee for purchasing
transports, and established in Europe and elsewhere agents, who
collected $5000 in the first, and $20,000 in the second year. In
September, 1850, a committee of three officers was appointed to
transact the business of the poor fund, and an ordinance was passed
incorporating the “Perpetual Emigration Fund Company,” consisting
of thirteen members, including the First President. The Saint whose
passage is thus defrayed works out his debt in the public _ateliers_
of the Tithing Office Department, under the superintendence of the
Third President; he is supplied with food from the “Deserét Store,” and
receives half the value of his labor, besides which a tithe of his time
and toil is free. The anti-Mormons declare that by this means the faces
of the poor are ground: I doubt that so far-seeing a people as the
Mormons would attempt so suicidal a policy.
According to the late agent at Liverpool, and publisher of the
“Millennial Star,” Dr. S. W. Richards (Select Committee on Emigrant
Ships, 1854, No. 12, p. 8), the Mormon emigration, under its authorized
agent and passenger-broker, is better regulated than under the
provisions of the Passengers’ Act; the sexes are berthed apart, and
many home comforts are provided for the emigrants. In 1854 it was
estimated not to exceed 3000 souls per annum, and of 2600 the English
were 1430, 250 Welsh, 200 Scotch, and about a score of Irish, making a
total of 1900 Britons to 700 from the Continent. The classes preferred
by the Fund are agriculturists and mechanics--the latter being at
a premium--moral, industrious, and educated people, “qualified to
increase and enhance the interest of the community they go among.” From
Liverpool, whence all the emigration proceeds, to New Orleans, the
passage-money varied from £3 12_s._ 6_d._ to £4, and from New Orleans
to Great Salt Lake City £20 each. Of late years that line has been
abandoned as unhealthy: the route now lies by rail through New York
and Chicago to Florence, on the Missouri River. The emigration season
is January, February, and March, and the passage can be made at the
quickest in twenty-two days.
[MORMON EMIGRATION.]
I now proceed to figures, which are given in full detail, and can
easily be verified by a reference to Liverpool. The official reports
are subjoined, because they speak well for Mormon accuracy.[167] From
1840-54 they reckon 17,195 souls, and from 1854-55, 4716 souls; the
total in fifteen years (1840-55) being 21,911. From 1855-56 they number
4395 souls, and from the 1st of July, 1857, to the 30th of June, 1860,
they count 2433, making for the five subsequent years (1855-60) a
total of 6828. Thus, in the twenty years between 1840-60, they show a
grand total of 28,739 immigrants. They expect for the present year an
emigration of 1500 to 2000 souls from the British Isles, independent of
some hundreds from the Scandinavian, Swiss, and other missions. Already
200 teams have been dispatched from Great Salt Lake City to assist with
transport and provisions the poor emigrants from Florence. The Holy
Land of the West would soon be populous were it not for two obstacles:
first, the expense and difficulty of the outward journey; secondly,
the facility of emigration to the gold regions of Pike’s Peak and the
silver mines of the Nevada.
[167]
No. I.--_List of Latter-Day Saints’ Emigration, from January 6th,
1851, to May 15th, 1861._
+-----------------+---------------------+-------------+-------------+
|Date of Sailing. | Vessel. | Captain. |No. of Souls.|
+-----------------+---------------------+-------------+-------------+
|1851, January 6 |Ellen |Phillips | 466 |
| „ 22 |G. W. Bourne |Williams | 281 |
| February 2 |Ellen Maria |Whitmore | 378 |
| March 4 |Olympus |Wilson | 245 |
|1852, January 10 |Kennebec |Smith | 333 |
| February 10|Ellen Maria |Whitmore | 369 |
| March 6 |Rockaway | | 30 |
|1853, January 17 |Ellen Maria |Whitmore | 332 |
| „ 23 |Golconda |Kerr | 321 |
| February 5 |Jersey |Day | 314 |
| „ 15|Elvira Owen |Owen | 345 |
| „ 28|International |Brown | 425 |
| March 26 |Falcon |Wade | 324 |
| April 6 |Camillus |Day | 228 |
| |(Miscellaneous) | | 23 |
|1854, January 22 |Benjamin Adams |Drummond | 6 |
| February 4 |Golconda |Kerr | 464 |
| „ 22|Windermere |Fairfield | 477 |
| March 5 |Old England |Barstow | 45 |
| „ 12 |John M. Wood |Hartley | 393 |
| April 4 |Germanicus |Fales | 220 |
| „ 8 |Marshfield |Torrey | 366 |
| „ 24 |Clara Wheeler |Nelson | 29 |
| |(Miscellaneous) | | 34 |
| November 27|Clara Wheeler |Nelson | 422 |
|1855, January 6 |Rockaway |Mills | 440 |
| „ 7 |James Nesmith |Goodwin | 24 |
| „ 9 |Neva |Brown | 13 |
| „ 17 |Charles Buck |Smalley | 403 |
| February 3 |Isaac Jeans |Chipman | 16 |
| „ 27|Siddons |Taylor | 430 |
| March 31 |Jurenta |Watts | 573 |
| April 17 |Chimborazo |Vesper | 431 |
| „ 22 |Samuel Curling |Curling | 581 |
| „ 26 |William Stetson |Jordan | 293 |
| June 29 |Cynosure |Pray | 159 |
| November 30|Emerald Isle |Cornish | 350 |
| December 12|John J. Boyd |Austin | 512 |
|1856, February 19|Caravan |W. A. Sands | 457 |
| March 23 |Enoch Train |H. P. Rich | 534 |
| April 19 |S. Curling |S. Curling | 707 |
| May 4 |Thornton |Collins | 764 |
| May 25 |Horizon |Reed | 856 |
| June 1 |Wellfleet |Westcott | 146 |
| |(Miscellaneous Ships)| | 69 |
| November 17|Columbia |Hutchinson | 223 |
|1857, March 28 |George Washington |J. S. Comings| 817 |
| April 25 |Westmoreland |R. R. Decan | 544 |
| May 30 |Tuscarora |Dunlery | 547 |
| |(Miscellaneous) | | 50 |
| July 18 |Wyoming |Brooks | 36 |
|1859, April 11 |William Tapscott |J. B. Bell | 725 |
| July 10 |Antarctic | | 30 |
| August 20 |Emerald Isle |Cornish | 54 |
|1860, March 30 |Underwriter |J. W. Roberts| 594 |
| May 11 |William Tapscott |J. B. Bell | 731 |
| |(Miscellaneous) | | 263 |
|1861, April 15 |Manchester |Trask | 379 |
| „ 22 |Underwriter |J. W. Roberts| 624 |
| May 15 |Monarch of the Sea |Gardner | 950 |
| | | +-------------+
| | | Total | 21,195 |
+-----------------+---------------------+-------------+-------------+
“Latter-Day Saints’ European Publishing and Emigration Office, }
“42 Islington, Liverpool. }
“The above are the numbers of the Latter-Day Saints who have taken
passage on ships chartered at this port by the Church Emigration
Agent. Besides these, there are many who engage passages at other
offices--not being able to arrange their affairs to go when we have
ships chartered--whose numbers we do not have. The bulk of our
emigration, for the past few years, has left here in the spring. This
is the only time we have ships chartered. The scattering few who go
over in the summer and autumn, with the intention of remaining in the
United States until another spring, we do not keep any account of.
GEO. Q. CANNON.”
No. II.--_General Summary of Emigration, from Nov. 30th, 1855, to
July 6th, 1856._ (_It was discontinued in 1858, owing to troubles
with the U. S. Government._)
+--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+------------+
| | |President of | Date of |Port of Dis-|
| Ship. | Captain. | Company. | Sailing. |embarkation.|
+--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+------------+
|Emerald Isle |G. P. Cornish|P. C. Merrill|Nov. 30, 1855 |New York |
|John J. Boyd |Austin |C. Peterson |Dec. 12, 1855 |New York |
|Caravan |W. A. Sands |D. Tyler |Feb. 19, 1856 |New York |
|Enoch Train |H. P. Rich |J. Ferguson |Mar. 23, 1856 |Boston |
|S. Curling |S. Curling |D. Jones |April 19, 1856|Boston |
|Thornton |Collins |J. G. Willie |May 14, 1856 |New York |
|Horizon |Reed |E. Martin |May 25, 1856 |Boston |
|Wellfleet |Westcott |J. Aubray |June 1, 1856 |Boston |
|Miscellaneous}|.... |.... |.... |.... |
|Ships (U. S.)}| | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
+--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+------------+
+--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| | | | |
| Ship. |P. E. Fund.| Ordinary. | Totals. |
+--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
|Emerald Isle | ... | 350 | 350 |
|John J. Boyd | 34 | 478 | 512 |
|Caravan | ... | 457 | 457 |
|Enoch Train | 431 | 103 | 534 |
|S. Curling | 428 | 279 | 707 |
|Thornton | 484 | 280 | 764 |
|Horizon | 635 | 221 | 856 |
|Wellfleet | ... | 146 | 146 |
|Miscellaneous}| ... | 69 | 69 |
|Ships (U. S.)}| | | |
| +-----------+-----------+-----------+
| Total | 2012 | 2383 | 4395 |
+--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
Of this number, as the table shows, 2012 are P. E. Fund passengers,
of whom 333 were ordered out by their friends in Utah; also 780
members of many years’ standing in the Church have been forwarded
to Utah under the P. E. Fund Co.’s arrangements, and 28 are elders
returning home from missions. We have not the means of ascertaining
definitely, but the approximate numbers of those who started to
go through to Utah on their own means is 385, making a total of
those who started from here, with the intention of going through
to the Valley this season, about 2397, which will leave 1998
who have located for the present in various parts of the United
States, in order to obtain means to complete their journey whenever
circumstances will permit.
_Latter-Day Saints’ Emigration Report, from July 1st, 1857, to June
30, 1860._
+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------+-------------+
| | | | Port of | |
| | | President of | Embarka-| Date of |
| Ship. | Captain. | Company. | tion. | Sailing. |
+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------+-------------+
|Wyoming |-- Brooks |Chas. Harman |Liverpool|July 18, 1857|
|Wm. Tapscott |J. B. Bell |Robt. F. Neslen|Liverpool|Apr. 11, 1859|
|Antarctic |.... |Jas. Chaplow |Liverpool|July 10, 1859|
|Emerald Isle | -- Cornish |Henry Hugg |Liverpool|Aug. 20, 1859|
|Underwriter |J. W. Roberts|Jas. D. Ross |Liverpool|Mar. 30, 1860|
|Wm. Tapscott |J. B. Bell |Asa Calkin |Liverpool|May 11, 1860 |
|Miscellaneous}|.... |.... |.... |.... |
|Ships }| | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------+-------------+
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----+-------+------+
| | | | | | | |
| Ship. |Port of Dis-|P. E.|Hand-cart.|Team.|States.|Total.|
| |embarkation.|Fund.| | | | |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----+-------+------+
|Wyoming |Philadel. | | | | 36 | 36 |
|Wm. Tapscott |N. York | 54 | 196 | 149 | 326 | 725 |
|Antarctic |N. York | | | | 30 | 30 |
|Emerald Isle |N. York | | | | 54 | 54 |
|Underwriter |N. York | 1 | 140 | 106 | 347 | 594 |
|Wm. Tapscott |N. York | 17 | 128 | 246 | 340 | 731 |
|Miscellaneous}|.... | | | 263 | 263 | |
|Ships }| | | | | | |
| | +-----+----------+-----+-------+------+
| | | 72 | 464 | 501 | 1396 | 2433 |
+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----+-------+------+
Of this number, as the table shows, 1037 purposed going through to
Utah under P. E. Fund, hand-cart, and team arrangements. But we have
good cause to presume that a large number of those who left here
with the intention of settling for a short time in the States (and
are included in the table under that head) have also gone through to
Utah, without settling on the way.
The number of natives of the various countries may be classified
as follows: From the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland--English, 1074; Scotch, 126; Welsh, 173; Irish, 12. The total
number from the Scandinavian Mission is 762, of which there are 528
Danes, 193 Swedes, and 41 Norwegians. The total number from the Swiss
and Italian Mission is 211, of which 209 are from the Swiss Cantons,
and 2 from Italy. There are also 2 French, 3 Germans, and 70 elders
returning home from missions, making a grand total, as per table, of
2433 souls.
_Countries._--The number of natives of the various countries may be
classified as follows:
England 2611
(Principal counties--Lancashire,
Yorkshire, and Staffordshire.)
Scotland 367
Wales 667
-----3645
Ireland 54
America 19
French Mission (Channel Islands) 9
Denmark } { 505
Sweden } Scandinavian { 67
Norway } { 46
Swiss Cantons 19
Piedmont, Italy 31
East India Mission 2
Germany 1
----- 750
----
Total 4395 souls.
The emigration in 1861 is progressing satisfactorily, as the
following extract proves:
“A party of Mormonites, consisting of 17 men, 25 women, and 11
children, left London lately by the Northwestern Railway for
Liverpool, _en route_ for the Salt Lake settlement. The emigration
of Mormonites from Great Britain, particularly from the southern
district of Wales, has during the past ten weeks been on a large
scale. Their number embraces all classes; one gentleman, an
inhabitant of Merthyr, Glamorganshire, having contributed £1000, and
joined the ‘brethren,’ 200 of whom, including an old woman upward of
eighty years of age, have just left Wales.”
No. III.--_Latter-Day Saints’ Emigration, Spring of 1861._
42 Islington, Liverpool, June 29th, 1861.
Per Ship Manchester, Captain Frask.
Males. Females.
English 132 124
Scotch 3 2
Irish 2 0
Welsh 54 57
Danes 5 0
Americans 1 0
--- ---
197 183
Per Ship Underwriter, Captain Roberts.
Males. Females.
English 234 278
Scotch 32 43
Irish 3 0
Welsh 16 14
Norwegian 1 0
Americans 3 0
--- ---
289 335
Per Ship Monarch of the Sea, Captain Gardner.
Males. Females.
English 97 105
Scotch 25 27
Irish 2 1
Welsh 17 17
German 1 0
Swiss 40 48
Italian 1 3
French 1 2
Danish 175 210
Norwegian 24 43
Swedish 61 68
--- ---
Total 444 524
_Summary._
Males. Females. Total.
English 463 507 970
Scotch 60 72 132
Irish 7 1 8
Welsh 87 88 175
------1285
German 1 0 1
Swiss 40 48 88
Italian 1 3 4
French 1 2 3
Danes 180 210 390
Swedes 61 68 129
Norwegians 25 43 68
Americans 4 0 4 687
--- ---- -----------
930 1042 1972 = 1972
[MEETING ROOMS.]
The London Conference has seventeen places of worship, and numbers a
little over 2000 men, scattered throughout Great Britain. In these
isles there is a general Presidency of the Church, assisted by a
counselor: these preside over the pastors or presidents of districts,
ten in number, who also, assisted by counselors in their turn, direct
and counsel the presidents of the twenty-four Conferences, while these
superintend the presidents of the 400 branches. The total of members
in the whole European mission is not less than 40,000. I subjoin a
list of the various places--kindly furnished to me by an influential
Saint--which the Mormons have selected for worship in London.[168]
[168]
_Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Rooms in London and vicinity_:
_Somers Town_--Euston Hall, 8 George Street, Hampstead Road.
_Holborn_--148 Holborn, near Gray’s Inn Lane.
_Goswell Hall_--46 Goswell Street.
_Holloway_--1 Cornwall Place, Holloway Road.
_Whitechapel_--Pisgah Chapel, North Street, Sydney Street, Mile End.
_Poplar_--28 Penny Fields.
_Barking_--Latter-Day Saints’ Chapel, North Street.
_Paddington_--Hope Hall, Bell Street.
_Chelsea_--Lloyd’s Assembly Rooms, 1 George Street, Sloane Square.
_Shepherd’s Bush_--Latter-Day Saint’s Chapel, Shepherd’s Bush Green.
_Camden Town_--Beulah Cottage, King’s Road, Camden Town.
_On the Surrey Side of the Thames._
_Walworth Common_--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, 2 King Street,
Old Kent Road.
_Lambeth_--St. George’s Hall, St. George’s Road, near the Elephant
and Castle.
_Deptford_--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, Tanner’s Hill.
_Woolwich_--Latter-Day Saints’ Chapel, Prospect Row.
_Welling_--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, Wickham Lane, near
Welling.
_Eltham_--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, at Mr. J. Baily’s, Pound
Place.
Two points in this subject are truly remarkable. The first is the
difference between Utah Territory and all other Anglo-Scandinavian
colonies, in which males are usually far more numerous than females.
The latter, at Utah, by the census of 1856, are 1781 in excess of the
former; almost as great a disproportion as the extra three quarters of
a million in England. The second is the rapid growth of the New Faith,
and the deep hold which it has taken upon Great Britain. Few Englishmen
are aware that their metropolis contains seventeen places of Mormon
worship, and their fatherland an army of 4000 volunteer missionaries.
In the United States it is also the fashion to ignore the Mormons. The
subject, however, will grow in importance, and it is easy to predict
that before two decades shall have elapsed, Deserét, unless sent once
more upon her travels, will have forced herself into the position of an
independent state.
[MORMON POLITY.]
The Mormon polity is, in my humble opinion--based upon the fact that
liberty is to mankind in mass a burden far heavier than slavery--the
perfection of government. It is the universal suffrage of the American
States, tempered by the despotism of France and Russia: in moderate
England men have nothing of it but that Tory-Radicalism to which the
few of extremest opinions belong. At the semi-annual Conferences,
which take place on the 6th of April and the 6th of October, and last
for four days, all officers, from the President to the constable,
are voted in by direction and counsel--_i. e._, of the Lord through
his Prophet; consequently, re-election is the rule, unless the chief
dictator determine otherwise. Every adult male has a vote, and all
live under an iron sway. His poor single vote--from which even the
sting of ballot has been drawn--gratifies the dignity of the man, and
satisfies him with the autocracy which directs him in the way he should
go. He has thus all the harmless pleasure of voting, without the danger
of injuring himself by his vote. The reverse, duly carried out, frees
mankind from king and kaiser, and subjects them to snobs and mobs.
Mormon society is modeled upon a civilized regiment: the Prophet is
the colonel commanding, and the grades are nicely graduated down to
the last neophyte or recruit. I know no form of rule superior to that
of Great Salt Lake City; it might supply the author of “Happy Years
at Hand” with new ideas for the “Outlines of the Coming Theocracy.”
It exerts its beneficial effects equally upon the turbulent and
independent American; the sensible and self-sufficient Englishman; the
Frenchman, ever lusting after new things; the Switzer, with his rude
love of a most problematic liberty; the outwardly cold, inwardly fiery
Scandinavian; the Italian, ready to bow down before any practice, with
the one proviso that it must be successful; and the German, who demands
to be governed by theories and Utopianisms, “worked” by professors “out
of the depths of their self-consciousness.”
The following description of a Conference is extracted at length from
the “Daily Missouri Republican” of May 4, 1861:
_Great Salt Lake City, April 12, 1861._
On the 6th of April, 1830, in a small room about fifteen feet square,
in the town of Fayette, Seneca County, New York, a young country
lad--Joseph Smith--and five other persons organized that movement
now known throughout Christendom as “The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints,” or Mormonism. How the units have each increased
to tens of thousands, and where those disciples have been found,
and how they have been converted, is not the task I assign myself.
I _assisted_, as the Frenchmen say, at the thirty-first anniversary
Conference of that obscure movement, and propose to give the readers
of the “Republican” its picture, and “nothing extenuate nor set down
aught in malice.”
[THE MORMON CONFERENCE.]
Twice a year the Mormons assemble in Conference, on the 6th of
April and on the 6th of October, for the purpose of re-electing
their presiding authorities, or making such changes among them as
are deemed “wisdom” or “necessary”--the chiefs, also, making these
periods seasonable for general instruction to the “body”--and in
April electing and sending out missionaries to the nations of the
earth, where Mormonism is flourishing, or where the New Faith has yet
to be introduced.
As the settlements in the Territory are widely scattered, and
communication between them rare--except where business or family
purposes invite--the Conferences are looked forward to with peculiar
interest by the people generally as a time of renewing acquaintance
and friendship with those they have known and been associated with
in the Old World. To this add the curiosity to see and hear again
the “Prophet” and his associates, and the influences that draw the
multitude to Conference is comprehended.
Up to within a few years this country has, I am told,[169] been
rarely visited by showers of rain, the husbandmen depending almost
entirely upon the melting snows of the mountains for irrigating
fields and gardens. Very recently the snow and rain had fallen in
great abundance, and the muddy roads were rendered almost impassable.
Notwithstanding this obstacle, the faithful screwed up courage and
traveled in droves from every part of the Territory, and filled the
streets of the city during Conference like a county fair.
[169] The article is probably written by a Mormon elder. It is the
fashion, however, in newspaper correspondence--as the columns of the
“New York Herald” prove--to assume Gentilism for the nonce.
Early on Saturday morning the carriages and wagons, equestrians and
pedestrians, thronged into the city, and long before the opening of
the Tabernacle doors the people were gathering in groups, eager for
admission to obtain a good seat, fearing the general rush. On the
Sunday preceding, Brigham had requested the citizens here to stay at
home, and afford their country brethren and sisters an opportunity of
getting within the Tabernacle; otherwise there would have been a poor
show for the strangers, and as it was they were themselves vastly too
many for the dimensions of the building.
THE CONFERENCE--FIRST DAY--MORNING SESSION.
At 10 o’clock there were on the stand, according to technical rank and
authority:
Of the First Presidency--Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball,
and Daniel H. Wells.
Of the Twelve Apostles--Orson Hyde, Willford Woodruff, John Taylor,
George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, and Franklin D. Richards.
Of the First Presidency of the Seventies--Joseph Young, Levi W.
Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, and Horace
S. Eldredge.
Of the Presidency of the High Priests--Edwin D. Woolley and Samuel W.
Richards.
Of the Presidency of the Stake--Daniel Spencer, David Fullmer, and
George B. Wallace.
Of the Presidency of the Bishopric--Edward Hunter, Leonard W. Hardy,
and Jesse C. Little.
Of the Patriarchs--John Smith and Isaac Morley.
Apostle Hyde called the meeting to order, and in a moment all talking
was hushed, and a choir of about a dozen persons, accompanied by a
fine-toned organ in the centre of the building, sung:
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Lo! Zion’s standard is unfurled!
The dawning of a brighter day
Majestic rises on the world.
The clouds of error disappear
Before the rays of truth divine;
The glory bursting from afar,
Wide o’er the nations soon will shine.
The Gentile fullness now comes in,
And Israel’s blessings are at hand;
Lo! Judah’s remnant, cleansed from sin,
Shall in their promised Canaan stand.
Jehovah speaks! let earth give ear,
And Gentile nations turn and live;
His mighty arm is making bare,
His cov’nant people to receive.
Angels from heaven and truth from earth
Have met, and both have record borne;
Thus Zion’s light is bursting forth,
To bring her ransomed children home.
Apostle Lorenzo Snow offered prayer, and the choir sung, “Praise ye the
Lord; ’tis good to praise.”
Apostle Benson was first invited to address the Conference. “Brother
Ezra” is generally called a son of thunder--great preacher, I suppose.
On this occasion he aimed at being modest, and after expressing his
gratitude for the privilege of being permitted to attend Conference, to
come and see the Prophet, his counselors, and the twelve apostles, and
the good brothers and sisters, he was prepared to bear his testimony.
He knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet; that his predictions had been
fulfilled, and were daily fulfilling, to the joy of all the Saints. He
would not stop there in his testimony; he would bear testimony to the
teachings of President Brigham Young. His counselors--Heber C. Kimball
and Daniel H. Wells--were also true as the revelations of Joseph, and
he rejoiced in them. Oh, what a joy it was to know that they had such
men to lead them! What would be the condemnation of those who rejected
their testimony? Ezra was quite serious--yea, serious to shuddering.
The fearfulness of apostasy was eloquently portrayed. False spirits
attending it, and false revelations bestowed on the backslider, and
every other ugly, disagreeable business was the certain lot of the
apostate, and from which the brethren were decently warned.
President Daniel H. Wells was much pleased with the Latter-Day work; it
was a great blessing to live in the light of the Gospel. It had been
but a few years proclaimed to the world. The channel of communication
between heaven and earth was again open to the children of men. Brother
Wells referred to the state of the nation. The present trouble was
the result of bad treatment to the Saints. The people of God had
been driven into the wilderness--thousands might have perished, and
the government was indifferent. It was a political axiom, that when
governments ceased to protect, the people were released from their
obligations. The government had never protected the Saints as other
citizens. They had been driven from place to place, and the murderers
of Joseph Smith had gone unpunished. Fault had been found with the
Mormons because they had asked the government to appoint good men as
federal officers--men in whom they had confidence. They were for this
called rebels; but they were probably the only people that would yet
stand by the Constitution and uphold it.
The government had fallen in the eyes of the civilized world; it
had become corrupt and debased. Nowadays nobody expected any thing
from public servants but corruption. These things were well known to
every body. The Saints had been molested and could get no redress.
The Prophet Joseph, moved by the Spirit of the Most High, told their
enemies there that they would see mobbing to their heart’s content, for
the measure that they meted to the Saints should be meted to them back
again.
The Saints could now see the distracted state of the nations, and the
confusion of all governments. If they were wise men and women, they
would appreciate the blessed inheritance that the Lord had brought
them to. He had but one request to make, and that was, that the people
should not only believe in the counselings of President Young, but be
diligent, and see that his counseling prospered.
President Heber C. Kimball got up with the invocation of “God bless the
Saints, and peace be multiplied unto them.” He respected and loved good
men and women who were striving to do the will of Heaven. The Mormons
were united, and he wanted them to continue so, and be of one heart
and of one mind, and to do as they were told. The South had seceded
from the North, but the Mormons would never secede from either. He had
sometimes a kind of notion that North and South would secede from them,
and if they did so the Mormons couldn’t help it, and the Lord would yet
make a great people of them, just as fast as they were able to bear it.
Heber had a fling at “the miserable creatures who had been sent here
one time and another to rule and judge them.” The yoke was off their
neck; they were away out from the confusion, and the yoke was on the
neck of their enemies, and the bow-key was in. Many were engaged in
trying to have the Mormons associate with them in a national capacity;
but they would have nothing to do with them. “No, gentlemen and ladies,
we are free from them, and will keep free.” Heber was satisfied with
their position in the mountains. Brigham was their governor; had always
been so, and would always be so. He went around about with his hands
in his pocket, and governed the people. They had the Lord for ruler,
and the men whom he delegated could govern the people. He had no fear,
for he lived above the law; he transgressed no law, and had nothing to
apprehend. With an exhortation to go to and make themselves happy and
independent by their own industry, Heber’s racy discourse terminated
with a hearty _amen_ from the congregation.
President Brigham Young was much pleased to meet with the Saints. The
Church was that day thirty-one years old--it seemed but a short time,
yet a great work had been done. He remembered when he had a great
anxiety to see some person of foreign birth embrace the faith. For the
first few years it was only Americans who received it, but he could
now gaze upon tens of thousands from the nations of the Old World. He
discarded miracles as being any evidence of the divinity of any man’s
mission: men might be astonished by them, but the spirit only could
convince and satisfy the mind. Referred to Aaron’s operations: turning
his stick into a serpent, filling the air with life, and turning the
rivers into blood, did not satisfy. He alluded to the troubles in the
States, and warned the people against too great anxiety; thought the
nation was breaking up quite fast enough. All he was anxious about was
the Saints being prepared for every event in the providence of the
Lord. He sometimes wondered if the great men of the nation ever asked
themselves the question, “How can a republican government stand?” There
was but one way in which it could endure--as the government of heaven
endures upon the basis of eternal truth and virtue. Had Martin Van
Buren redressed the wrongs committed against the Saints--had he ordered
the State of Missouri to restore them to their property, the nation
would be stronger to-day than it is. He mourned to see the corruption,
and he sometimes felt a blush for being an American. He had been reared
by the green mountains of Vermont, and could look down upon the nation
and mourn that he had no power to save it. Although he had no reason
to doubt that President Lincoln was as good a man as ever sat in the
chair of state, he had little hope of his accomplishing much. He was
powerless, because of the corruptions that had been introduced and
fostered by the chief men of the nation. “Abraham’s” authority and
power was like a rope of sand: he was weak as water. The governments
that had been had put aside the innocent, justified thieving and every
species of debauchery, and had fostered every one that plundered the
coffers of the people, and said let it be so.
The choir sung, “Arise, oh glorious Zion,” and with a benediction from
President Joseph Young we got home for dinner.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
At 2 P.M. the choir sung,
“Great God attend while Zion sings,”
and Bishop Lorenzo D. Young prayed.
The choir sung,
“All hail the glorious day, by prophets long foretold.”
Attention was requested from the congregation, and Apostle John
Taylor was to put all the presiding authorities before the people for
re-election. Twice a year, in April and October, all the presidents
are presented and voted on separately, and such dismissals or changes
made that are deemed proper. On this occasion there were some additions
made, but not a dissentient voice heard. The present presiding
authorities in Mormondom are:
Brigham Young as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints; Heber C. Kimball, his first, and Daniel H. Wells, his second
counselors.
Orson Hyde as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; and Orson
Pratt, sen., Willford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Amasa
Lyman, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow,
Franklin D. Richards, and George Q. Cannon, as members of the said
Quorum.
John Smith, Patriarch of the whole Church.
Daniel Spencer as President of this Stake of Zion; and David Fullmer
and George B. Wallace, his counselors.
William Eddington, James A. Little, John V. Long, John L. Blythe,
George Nebeker, John T. Caine, Joseph W. Young, Gilbert Clements,
Brigham Young, jun., Franklin B. Woolley, Orson Pratt, jun., and Howard
Spencer, as members of the High Council.
John Young as President of the High Priests’ Quorum; Edwin D. Woolley
and Samuel W. Richards, his counselors.
Joseph Young, President of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies;
and Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P.
Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge, and Jacob Gates, as members of the first
seven Presidents of the Seventies.
John Nebeker as President of the Elders’ Quorum; and Elnathan Eldredge
and Joseph Felt, his counselors.
Edward Hunter as Presiding Bishop; Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C.
Little, his counselors.
Lewis Wight as President of the Priests’ Quorum; William Whiting and
Samuel Moore, his counselors.
M‘Gee Harris as President of the Teachers’ Quorum; Adam Speirs and
David Bowman, his counselors.
John S. Carpenter as President of the Deacon’s Quorum; William F. Cook
and Warren Hardy, his counselors.
Brigham Young was presented as Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Daniel H. Wells as Superintendent of Public Works.
Truman O. Angell, Architect for the Church.
Brigham Young, President of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund to gather the
poor.
Heber C. Kimball, Daniel H. Wells, and Edward Hunter, his assistants
and agents for said fund.
George A. Smith, Historian and general Church Recorder; and Willford
Woodruff, his assistant.
Besides the time consumed in putting every name separately for the
action of the assembly, there was a good deal of instruction given
about the severities, which is of no outside interest.
Apostles John Taylor and George A. Smith, and Patriarch Assac Morley,
addressed the audience.
The apostle Taylor thought the Mormons the freest people on the earth.
They could, if they would, reject their rulers twice a year: they had
the opportunity. The unity of the Saints pleased them. He questioned
_Vox populi, vox Dei_. He got facetious, and wondered how they would
get along, both North and South, with that doctrine. If the voice of
the people in the North was the voice of God, and the voice of the
people in the South was the voice of God, he was a little interested to
know with which of them he would really be. [_A Voice in the stand_:
“Not either of them.”]
With the Saints it was _Vox Dei, vox populi_; the voice of God first,
and the voice of the people afterward. The Spirit dictated and the
Saints sustained it. But what were they after? Did they seek to subdue
and put their feet on the necks of men? to rule and dictate nations?
No. It was only the “little stone cut out of the mountains,” growing
into the kingdom that the prophets foresaw that would be established
in the last days. The Mormons had never troubled their neighbors, but
their neighbors kept meddling with them. They had sent an army here,
but the Mormons did not seek to harm them when they had the chance.
They came here with the intention to kill the Mormons if they could;
but they couldn’t, for the Lord wouldn’t let them. Their enemies
had hunted them like wolves; but the Lord had said, “Touch not mine
anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” They had kept the army out
at Ham’s Fork shaking and shivering till they cooled down. “Brother
Taylor” was real well pleased with things in general, and concluded
with Hallelujah.
Apostle George A. Smith was exceedingly humorous over the democracy.
There was no head to it; the centre of its intelligence was the belly,
and the principal portion of the body was in the boots. Several
plundering operations were alluded to, and Uncle Sam had been sadly
victimized by his boys. The government had been a miserable goose for
politicians to pluck. Abe Lincoln had now the honor of presiding over
a portion of what was once the United States; he had been elected by
the religious portion of the States. “George A.” remembered when the
folks of New York sold her slaves to Virginia. Their conscience would
not allow them to retain their fellow-beings in bondage--oh, they were
mighty squeamish! They could take the money from Virginia, and as they
got more religion and more conscience they were exceedingly anxious for
Virginia to set them loose!
That religious fanaticism that had been mixed up with politics would
lead to bloodshed. They were more to be dreaded than infidels. They
were cruel in their fanaticism. The Republicans first whipped old
Buck[170] into the Utah war, and they whipped him for getting into
it, and whipped him awfully for getting out of it--he got out of it
too soon. Politicians were in confusion, and the Lord would keep them
there. He labored to show the folly of men worshiping a God without
body, parts, or passions, for such being, if being he might be called,
must be destitute of principles and power. He argued that the God
worshiped by sectarians could not be the being that wrestled with
Jacob, that conversed with Moses, and wrote with his finger upon tables
of stone. He said that Joseph Smith had prophesied when the Saints were
driven from Jackson County, Missouri, that if the government did not
redress our wrongs, they should have mob upon mob until mob power, and
that alone, should govern the whole land.
[170] Mr. Buchanan.
He bore testimony to the truth of the work in which he was engaged,
and said if the Latter-Day Saints would listen to President Young’s
instructions as they ought to do, they would soon be the wealthiest
people upon the face of the earth.
The choir sung “The Standard of Zion.”
Air--“_Star Spangled Banner._”
Oh see! on the tops of the mountains unfurled,
The ensign of promise, of hope, and salvation,
From their summits how nobly it waves to the world,
And spreads its broad folds o’er the good of each nation;
A signal of light for the lovers of right,
To rally where truth will soon triumph in might.
’Tis the ensign of Israel streaming abroad,
And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.
By an angel’s strong hand to the earth it was brought
From the regions of glory, where long it lay folded;
And holy ones here, for the arduous work taught
By the priesthood unflinching and faithful uphold it;
Its crown pierces heav’n, and ’twill never be riv’n,
’Till the rule of the earth will to Jesus be given.
For the ensign of Israel’s streaming abroad,
And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.
’Tis the emblem of peace and good-will to mankind,
That prophets have sung of when freed by the spirit,
And a token which God has for Israel designed,
That their seed may the land of their fathers inherit;
Many nations will say, when they see its bright ray,
To the mountains of God let us hasten away;
For the ensign of Israel’s streaming abroad,
And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.
Its guardians are sending their ministers forth,
To tell when the Latter-Day kingdom is founded,
And invite all the lovers of truth on the earth,
Jew, Christian, and Gentile, to gather around it;
The cause will prevail, though all else may assail,
For God has decreed that his works shall not fail;
Oh! the ensign of Israel’s streaming abroad,
And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.
Patriarch Morley pronounced the benediction, and the first day’s
conference terminated.
SECOND DAY.
The crowd on the Sunday far exceeded that of the preceding day. The
streets around the Temple Block were literally filled with people and
carriages. The Tabernacle could not hold a third of those who were
anxious to hear. Every seat and standing-place was occupied long before
the opening of proceedings. As soon as Brigham reached the inside
vestry, he sent out some of the apostles and elders to preach to the
outsiders, sufficiently distant from the Tabernacle as not to disturb
each other with their preaching.
I have already filled so much paper that I fear trespassing too much
upon your columns with the details of the second day at the present
time, as Brigham was very explicit on the subject of plurality of
wives, and it was the only time I ever heard him on the “peculiar
institution.”
Altogether it was a great conference, and, as the foregoing exhibits,
the apostles enjoyed a particular free and easy time of it.
In its territorial status an anomaly has been forced upon the Mormon
population. It must receive officers appointed and salaried by the
federal government, viz.:
A governor, with a salary of $2500 (£500) per annum, payable
quarterly.
A secretary to government, $1000.
A chief justice to the Supreme Court, $2500.
An associate do. do. $1000.
Do. do. do. $1000.
A district attorney, $400.
A marshal, $400 (not including perquisites).
A superintendent of Indian affairs, $2500.
A surveyor general, $2500.[171]
[171] The delegate to Washington receives “$8 per diem, not including
‘mileage.’”
The governor, who is also commander-in-chief of the militia, holds
office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President of the
United States, or until appointment of a successor. He has the usual
right of pardoning territorial offenses, and of reprieving offenders
against the federal government. He approves all laws passed by the
Legislative Assembly before they can take effect; he commissions all
officers appointed under the laws, and takes care that the laws are
faithfully executed.
The secretary holds office for the same time: his duty is to record,
preserve, and transmit copies of all laws and proceedings of the
Legislative Assembly, and all acts and proceedings of the governor
in his executive department. In case of death, removal, resignation,
or necessary absence of the governor from the Territory, he acts
temporarily until the vacancy is filled up; and practically he looks
forward to being a member of Congress in the House of Representatives
of the United States.
The marshal holds office for a similar term: his duty is to execute
all processes issued by the courts when exercising their functions
as Circuit and District Courts of the United States. In disturbed
countries, as California of the olden time, the marshal’s principal
office seems to have been that of being shot at.
The executive arm would, in any other Territory, be found to work
easily and well: it is, in fact, derived, with certain modifications,
from that original Constitution which has ever remained to new states
the great old model. Among the Mormons, however, there is necessarily
a division and a clashing of the two principles: one, the federal,
republican, and laical; the other, the theocratic, despotic, and
spiritual. The former is the State, under which is the Church. The
latter is the Church, under which is the State, and hence complications
which call for a cutting solution. As long as the Prophet and President
was also the temporal governor, so long the Mormons were contented: now
they must look forward to a change.
The Legislative Assembly consists of an “Upper House,” a President
and Council of thirteen, and a House of Representatives, or Lower
House, of twenty-six members, whose term of office is one year. An
appointment of the representation based upon a census is made in the
ratio of population: the candidates, however, must be _bonâ fide_
residents of the counties or districts for which they stand. No member
of the Legislative Assembly is allowed to hold any appointment created
while he was in office, “or for one year thereafter,” and the United
States officials--post-masters alone excepted--can not become either
senators or representatives. The legislative power extends to the
usual rightful and constitutional limits. “No law shall be passed
interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be
imposed upon the property of the United States, nor shall the lands or
other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other
property of residents. All the laws passed by the Legislative Assembly
and government shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States,
and, if disapproved, shall be null and of no effect.”
[VOTERS AND VOTING.--LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY.]
Every free male (white) inhabitant[172] above the age of twenty-one,
who has resided in the county for sixty days before the election, is
entitled to vote, and is eligible for office; the right is limited to
citizens of the United States, including those recognized by treaty
with the Mexican Republic (2d of Feb., 1848), and excluding, as usual,
the military servants of the federal government. Great fault was found
by anti-Mormons with the following permissions in the act regulating
elections (Jan., 1853), because they artistically enough abolish the
ballot while they retain the vote.[173]
[172] When the vexed passage, “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal,” written in 1776, is
interpreted in 1860, it must be read, “all (free white) men” to be
consistent and intelligible. Similarly “persons bound to labor”
must be considered a euphuism for slaves. The “American Mirabeau,”
Jefferson, who framed the celebrated Declaration, certainly did not
consider, as the context of his life proves, slaves to be his equals.
What he intended the Mormons have expressed.
Again, what can be clearer than that the Constitution contemplated
secession? If an adult citizen is allowed to throw off his
allegiance, surely the body of citizens called a state have, _à
majori_, a right to withdraw from a “federal union.”
[173] The first Legislative Assembly was elected in the summer of
1851, and held a session in the following autumn and winter. An
historian’s office was established, courts were organized, cities
incorporated, and a small body of Territorial laws were passed. The
second Legislative Assembly met on the 15th of January, 1852, at the
Council House, and after the organization of the two houses, they
came together to receive the message of the governor, Mr. Brigham
Young. The archon, when notified of the hour, entered, sat down in
the speaker’s chair, and on being asked if he had any communication
to make, handed his message to the President of the Council, who
passed it for reading to the Clerk of the House. The message was
a lengthy and creditable document; of course, it was severely
criticised, but the gravamen of the charges was the invidious phrase
used by the Prophet to his lieges, “for your guidance.”
Sec. 5. Each elector shall provide himself with a vote, containing
the names of the persons he wishes elected, and the offices he would
have them to fill, and present it neatly folded (!) to the judge of
the elections, who shall number and deposit it in the ballot-box; the
clerk shall then write the name of the elector, and opposite it the
number of his vote.
Sec. 6. At the close of the election the judge shall seal up the
ballot-box, and the list of the names of the electors, and transmit
the same without delay to the county clerks.
“In a Territory so governed,” remarks Mr. Secretary Ferris, “it will
not excite surprise that cases of extortion, robbery, murder, and other
crimes should occur, and defy all legal redress, or that the law should
be made the instrument of crime.”
The deduction is unfair. The real cause why crime goes unpunished must,
as will presently appear, be sought in an unfriendly and conflicting
judiciary. The act itself can produce nothing but good; it enables the
wise few to superintend the actions of the unwise many, and it subjects
the “tyrant majority,” as ever should be the case, to the will of the
favored minority. As the Conqueror of Sindh often said, “When noses are
counted, the many are those without brains.”
The bad working of a divided executive is as nothing compared with
the troubles occasioned by the opposition judiciaries, federal and
territorial.
An act (19th of Jan., 1855) provides that a Supreme Court of the United
States be held annually on the first Monday in January, at Fillmore
City; each session to be kept open at least one day, and no session to
be legal except on adjournment in the regular term. Another act (4th
of Feb., 1852) directed that the District Courts, now three in number,
shall exercise original jurisdiction both in civil and criminal cases
when not otherwise provided by law, and also have a general supervision
over all inferior courts, to prevent and correct abuses where no other
remedy is provided. The above are officered by the federal government.
Section 23d of the same act provides for a Judge of Probate--of course
a Mormon--_elected by the joint vote of the Legislative Assembly and
commissioned by the governor_. His tenure of office is four years,
and he holds regular sessions on the second Mondays of March, June,
September, and December of each year. The Probate Court, besides the
duties which its name suggests, has the administration of estates, and
the guardianship of minors, idiots, and insane persons; with these
its proper offices, however, it combines power to _exercise original
jurisdiction, both civil and criminal_, regulated only by appeal under
certain conditions to the District Courts. Of late the anomaly has
been acknowledged by the Supreme Court.[174] Inferior to the Probate
Court, and subject to its revision, are the Justices of the Peace,
the Municipal Court, and the three selectmen in each organized
county. Besides the Probate Courts, the Mormons have instituted, as
will presently appear, Ecclesiastical High Council under the Church
authorities and the President, provided with ample powers of civil and
criminal jurisdiction, and fully capable of judging between Saint and
Saint.
[174] The Court held, First. That the 9th section of the Organic
Act vested all judicial power in the Supreme, District, and Probate
Courts, and in Justices of the Peace.
Second. That the only restriction placed upon these courts was as to
Justices of the Peace, refusing them jurisdiction to try any case
involving the title or boundary to land, or any suit where the claim
or demand exceeded one hundred dollars.
Third. That by virtue of that clause of the Organic Act which
provides that “the jurisdiction of the several courts therein
provided for,” including the Probate Courts, “_shall be as limited by
law_,” that the Legislature had the right to provide by law for the
exercise by the Probate Courts of jurisdiction in civil and criminal
cases.
Fourth. That as the Organic Act conferred common law and chancery
jurisdiction upon the Supreme and District Courts respectively, that
this jurisdiction belonged to these courts exclusively, and that
the Probate Courts were confined to the jurisdiction conferred by
statute, and such jurisdiction might be exercised concurrently with
the District Courts to the extent provided by statute.
Fifth. That as the Legislature had passed a law conferring upon the
Probate Courts concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts to
hear and determine civil as well as criminal cases within their
respective counties, and had provided the manner in which this
jurisdiction should be exercised, that the trial, conviction, and
sentence of the prisoner were valid and binding in law until reversed
by an appellate court.
Although Judge Shaver, one of the best of jurists, tacitly
acknowledged the jurisdiction of Probate Courts, Judge Kinney is the
first who has dared assert his decision judicially.
[CONFLICTING JUDICIARIES.]
In describing the operations of the two conflicting judiciaries, I
shall borrow the words of both parties.
According to the Mormons, the increased chicanery of the federal
government has arrived at full development in their Territory.[175] The
phrase has been, “Any thing is good enough for Utah.” The salary is too
inconsiderable to satisfy any but the worst kind of jack-in-office, and
the object of those appointed is to secure notoriety in the Eastern
States by obstructing justice, and by fomenting disturbances in the
West. The three judges first appointed from Washington in June, 1851,
became so unpopular, that in the autumn of the same year they were
obliged to leave Utah Territory--one of them with a “flea in his ear”
duly inserted by Mr. Brigham Young. I shall not quote names, nor will
the reader require them. Another attempted to break the amnesty in
1858, and when asked for suggestions by the Legislative Assembly,
proposed an act for the prevention and punishment of polygamy, and
urged the Senate to divide the land between the proposed Territories;
finally, this excellent Christian hung a Gentile brother on the Lord’s
day. Another killed himself with opium; another was a notorious
drunkard; and another was addicted to gambling in his cellar. A judge
disgraced himself with an Indian squaw, who entered his court, and,
_coram publico_, demanded her honorarium, and another seated on the
bench his mistress--_la maîgre Ada_, as she is termed by M. Remy, the
Gentile traveler--and the Mormons have not yet learned to endure Alice
Peirce, or to worship the Goddess of Reason in that shape. Another
attempted to convict Mr. Brigham Young of forgery. The marshal was, in
one case, a _ci-devant_ teamster, who could hardly write his own name.
Besides the vileness of their characters, their cliqueism and violent
hostility have led to prostitution of justice; a Mormon _accusé_ was
invariably found guilty by them, a Gentile was invariably acquitted.
Thus the Probate Courts, properly jurisdictors of the dead, were made
judges of the living in all civil and criminal cases, because justice
was not obtainable from the Supreme District and the Circuit judges
appointed by the federal government. To the envenomed reports of these
officials the Saints attribute all the disturbances in 1857-58, and
sundry high-handed violations of the constitutional liberties and
the dearest rights of American citizenship. For instance, the Indian
war of 1852 cost them $200,000; they repeatedly memorialized Congress
to defray, strictly according to precedent, these expenditures, and
yet, from 1850 to 1855, they have received, in payment of expenses and
treaties, grants and presents, only the sum of $95,940. Though Utah
Territory has practiced far more economy than Oregon or California,
the drafts forwarded by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to the
Treasury at Washington are totally neglected, or are subjected to
delays and frivolous annoyances. The usual treaties with the Indians
have not been held by the federal government. The Mormons’ requisition
for becoming a state is systematically ignored, and this ignoble
minorhood is prolonged, although they can show five head of souls for
three possessed by California at the time of her admittance--another
instance of a “rancorous persecuting spirit, excited by false and
malicious representations.” He who lifteth up an ensign on the
mountains is now “about to destroy a certain nation under the name of
the sour grape (Catawba?);” and the Mormons see in the present civil
war at once retribution for their injuries, and the fulfillment of the
denunciations of Joseph the Seer against the “Gentile land of strife
and wickedness.” Assuredly Fate has played marvelously into their hands.
[175] The Utah correspondent of the “New York Herald,” writing from
Salt Lake under date of April 26th, states that the fall of Fort
Sumter and the secession of Virginia had created intense interest
among the “Saints.” The news was read in the Tabernacle by Brigham
Young, and the disciples were asked to believe that this was merely
the prediction of Mr. Joseph Smith about the breaking up of the
American Union.
The federal officials retort with a counter charge against the Saints
of systematically obstructing the course of justice. A Mormon must be
tried by his peers; however guilty, he will be surely acquitted, as
a murdering fugitive slave in the North, or a thievish filibuster in
the South; that it is vain to attempt jurisdiction over a people who
have an ecclesiastical Star-Chamber and Vigilance Committee working
out in darkness a sectarian law; that no civilized government could or
would admit into a community of Christian states a power founded on
prophethood and polygamy, a theodemocracy, with a Grand Lama presiding
over universal suffragators; that all accusations of private immorality
proceed from a systematic attack upon the federal Union through its
officers; and, finally, that, so thin-skinned is Mormon sensibility, a
torrent of vituperation follows the least delay made with respect to
their “ridiculous pretensions.”
The author speaks. Of course there are faults on both sides, and each
party has nothing better to do than to spy out the other’s sins of
omission and commission. The Americans (_i. e._, anti-Mormons), never
very genial or unprejudiced, are not conciliatory; they rage violently
when called Gentiles, and their “respectability,” a master-passion in
Columbian lands, is outraged, maiden-modesty-like, by the bare mention
of polygamy. On the other hand, the Latter-Day Saints, who now flourish
in the Mountain Territory, and who expect eventually to flourish over
the whole earth, “are naturally prepared to hate and denigrate all
beyond the pale of their own faith.” If the newly-arrived judge fails,
within the first week, to wait upon Mr. President, he or his may expect
to be the subject of an offensive newspaper article. If another live
among his co-religionists at Camp Floyd, he is convicted of cliqueism,
and is forthwith condemned as a foe. Whatever proceeds from the federal
government is and must be distasteful to them; to every address they
reply, “To your tents, O Israel!” “Their nobles shall be of themselves,
and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them,” is the
shaft which they level against the other party, and which recoils
upon themselves. The result is that if the territorial judiciary
sentences a criminal, he appeals to the federals, and at once obtains
cassation--and _vice versâ_. The usual procedure in criminal cases is
to make oath before a magistrate, who thereupon commands the marshal
to take the accused into custody, and “them safely keep,” so that
he may produce their bodies before the first sessions of the United
States District Courts; if the magistrate be a Mormon, he naturally
refuses to prosecute and persecute a brother Saint--and _vice versâ_.
Thus many notorious offenders, whom the Mormons would, for their own
sakes, willingly see cut off from the congregation--in simple words,
hung--escape with impunity after the first excitement has settled down:
the most terrible crimes are soon forgotten in the party fight, and in
the race to “go ahead;” after five years they become pabulum for the
local antiquary.
I have thus attempted, with feeble hand, to divide the blame between
both the great contending parties, and may fairly, I hope, expect to be
unanimously rejected by both.
[CORPORATION OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.]
The ordinance to incorporate Great Salt Lake City was approved by the
General Assembly of the State of Deserét on the 19th of January, 1851,
and the body municipal was constituted, like Fillmore, Ogden, and other
cities in the Territory. The City Council consists of a mayor, four
aldermen, and one common councilor per ward--formerly there were but
nine; they are elected by votes, with the usual qualifications; are
sworn or affianced to support the federal and territorial Constitution,
and retain office for two years. They collect the taxes, which,
however, must not exceed 1·50 per cent. per annum upon the assessed
value of all taxable property, real and personal.[176] They appoint
their recorder, treasurer, assessor, collector, marshal, and supervisor
of streets, and have sole charge of the police. They establish and
support schools and hospitals, regulate “hacking,” “tippling houses,”
and gambling and billiard-tables; inspect lumber, hay, bread and
provisions, and provide against fires--which here, contrary to the
rule throughout England and the Eastern States, are rare and little to
be feared; direct night-lighting and the storage of combustibles, and
regulate streets, bridges, and fences. They have power to enforce their
ordinances by fines and penalties. Appeals from the decisions of the
mayor and aldermen are made to the Municipal Court, composed of the
mayor as chief justice, and the aldermen as associate justices, and
from the Municipal Court to the Probate Court of Great Salt Lake City.
[176] The property-tax, like tithes, forming the Church funds and the
revenue of the civil government, are general; the octroi ($20 for 100
lbs. of every thing entering the Territory from the east, and $25
from the west) and water-tax are local, and confined to towns. I can
not find any other recognized imposts. The anti-Mormons declare that
the Saints are overburdened with taxation. The Saints assert that
their burden is light, especially when compared with the Mormons’
taxation of the Atlantic cities, which averages from double to treble
that of London and Paris--a little drawback to Liberty when she must
be bought for her weight in gold.
In the Auditor’s report accompanying the Governor’s Message of 1860,
there are some items of general interest to people outside, as well
as to those in the Territory. The report states that “the total
valuation of property assessed in the Territory for the year 1860
(Green River and Carson counties excepted) amounts to $4,673,900.”
Assessors in Utah are, I presume, like assessors every where, not
likely to obtain an exaggerated estimate of the value of property,
as on that estimate assessments are made. Property, therefore, may
be set down at a much larger figure than that given in the above
extract. The Territorial tax at one half of one per cent. is .3,369
50. As an evidence of the increase of population and of improvement
in property, the excess of Territorial tax is over that of last year
$13,278 33--five sixths of which is collected in Great Salt Lake
County, and that chiefly in this city. Of the other counties, the
report states, “The counties of Weber, Box-Elder, and Juab each show
a decrease in the valuation of property, compared with the assessment
for 1859, of 16 per cent., and Iron County a decrease of 33 per
cent., while the counties of Beaver, San Pete, and Cache show a more
than corresponding increase in the following ratio, viz.: Beaver,
36; San Pete, 50; and Cache, 900 per cent. The increase in the three
last-named counties, especially Cache, may account in some measure
for the decrease in the other counties named, from the fact that,
during the fall of 1859 and the spring of 1860, very many wealthy
families moved with their stock and effects to form new settlements
in Cache and San Pete counties, and probably the same may be said of
Beaver.”
The tax of all the counties amounts to .3,369 50; the totals of
auditor’s awards issued $19,184 88, which, together with $5450 95
payable on appropriations heretofore made, shows that the Mormons
have the good sense to keep clear of a Territorial debt.
[INDUSTRY OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.]
In the young settlements of the Far West there is a regular
self-enforced programme of manufacturing progress. The first step is to
establish flouring or grist mills, and lumber or saw mills, to provide
for food and shelter. After these _sine quâ nons_ come the comforts
of cotton-spinning, wool-carding, cloth-weaving, tailoring, and
shoemaking. Lastly arise the luxuries of life, which penetrate slowly
into this Territory on account of the delay and expense of transporting
heavy machinery across the “wild desert plains.” The minor mechanical
contrivances, the remarkable inventions of the Eastern States--results
of a necessity which removes every limit to human ingenuity--such as
sewing-machines, cataract washing-machines, stump-extracting machines,
and others, which, but for want of hands, would never have been dreamed
of, are not unknown at Great Salt Lake City.
The subjoined extract from the list of premiums of the Deserét
Agricultural Society[177] will explain the industry at Great Salt Lake
City in 1860--will prove that the infant colony has supplied all its
actual wants, and will show what energy and perseverance can effect
against time and all manner of obstructions. Besides the industries
mentioned below, there are stores, cutlery shops, watch-makers and
jewelers, painters and glaziers, brush-makers, cabinet-makers, and
skillful turners--for the most part English. Iron and brass founderies
are in contemplation, and a paper-mill is coming across the prairies.
The cutlery is good, the swords, spears, and Congress knives, the
pruning-hooks, saws, and locks are yearly improving, and the imitations
of Colt’s revolvers can hardly be distinguished from the originals.
The distilleries, of course, can not expect prizes. The whisky of Utah
Territory, unlike the Monongahela or rye of Pennsylvania, and the
Bourbon, or maize brandy of Kentucky, is distilled from wheat only;
it is, in fact, the korn schnapps of the trans-Rhenine region. This
“Valley Tan,” being generally pure, is better than the alcohol one
part and water one part, colored with burnt sugar and flavored with
green tea, which is sold under the name of Cognac. Ale and cakes are in
higher flavor than the “villainous distillation:” there are two large
and eight small breweries in which a palatable Lager-bier is made. The
hop grows wild and luxuriant in every kanyon; and there is no reason
why in time the John Barleycorn of the Saints should not rival that of
the sinners in lands where no unfriendly legislation tries, or will, it
is hoped, ever try,
“To rob a poor man of his beer.”
[177] The act incorporating the society, which was established
“with a view of promoting the arts of domestic industry, and to
encourage the production of articles from the native elements in this
Territory,” was approved on January 17, 1856. The Board consists of a
President, six Directors, a Treasurer, and a Secretary--the latter,
my friend Mr. Thomas Bullock.
CLASS E.--FARMING IMPLEMENTS MADE IN THE TERRITORY.
Awarding Committee--Ira Eldredge, Daniel Carter, Levi E. Ritter.
Best plow $5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best subsoil plow 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best harrow 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best field-roller 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best drill and irrigator 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best corn-planter 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best 1 horse corn cultivator 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best grain-cradle 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best horse-rake 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best garden-rake 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best hay-rake 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best hay-fork 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best manure-fork 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best scythe-snath 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best set of garden tools 3 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best shovel 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best spade 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best hoe 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best wheel-barrow 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best cheese-press 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best churn 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best butter tub and firkin 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best washing machine 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best spinning-wheel 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 6 corn brooms 2 00
2d do. dip.
AGRICULTURAL MACHINES.
Best reaping machine $10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. dip.
Best threshing machine 10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. dip.
Best fanning-mill 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best corn-sheller 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best corn and cob mill 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best hemp and flax dressing machine 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best hay and straw cutter 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best vegetable root-cutter 5 00
2d do. dip.
CLASS F.--MACHINERY.
Awarding Committee--Frederick Kesler, John Kay, William J. Silver.
Best steam-engine $10 00
2d do. dip.
Best fire-engine 10 00
2d do. dip.
Best garden-engine 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best balance 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best lath machine 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best stave machine 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best stone-dressing machine 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best stone-sawing machine 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best pump for a well 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best water-wheel for raising
water for irrigation 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
CLASS G.--LEATHER.
Awarding Committee--Seth Taft, John Lowe, Francis Platte.
Best side sole leather $3 00
2d do. dip.
Best side upper cowhide 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best kip-skin 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best calf-skin 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best Morocco-skin 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best side harness 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best side skirting 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best saddle 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best light harness 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best heavy harness 5 00
2d do. dip.
Best bridle 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best pair gentlemen’s fine boots 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pair gentlemen’s stoga boots 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pair gentlemen’s fine shoes 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pair ladies’ bootees 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pair ladies’ shoes 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best blacking or polish 1 00
2d do. dip.
CLASS H.--CLOTHES, DRY-GOODS, AND DYE-STUFFS.
Awarding Committee--E. R. Young, John Needham, N. H. Felt.
Best made suit of clothes $5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best made suit of buckskin 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of colored flannel 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of white flannel 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of white jeans 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of colored jeans 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of white Linsey 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of colored Linsey 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of kersey 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of woolen cloth 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best pair of woolen blankets 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best piece of woolen carpet 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best piece of rag carpet 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best coverlet 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best hearth-rug 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best woolen shawl 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 5 yards of linen 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best 1 lb. of linen thread 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best fur hat 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best fur cap 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best cloth cap 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best fur muff 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best fur cape 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best 1 lb. indigo 10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. 3 00
4th do. dip.
Best 1 lb. madder 10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. 3 00
4th do. dip.
Best colored cloth from any
materials produced in this
Territory, aside from indigo
or madder 10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. 3 00
4th do. dip.
CLASS I.--FURNITURE, COOPER-WARE, ETC.
Awarding Committee--Miles Romney, Archibald N. Hill, Thomas Allman.
Best bureau $3 00
2d do. dip.
Best sofa 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best bedstead 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best six chairs 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best centre-table 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best dining-table 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best ladies’ work-stand 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best office-desk 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best rocking-chair 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of wood carving 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen French polish 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen cooper’s ware 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of glue 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best gallon of varnish 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best gallon of castor-oil 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best gallon of linseed-oil 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best gallon of turpentine 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 lbs. of rosin 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 lbs. of lampblack 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
CLASS J.--PAINTING, ENGRAVING, ETC.
Awarding Committee--James M. Barlow, James Beck, John H. Rumell.
Best specimen of sign-painting $3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of graining 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of printing 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of book-binding 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of paper 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best landscape of Great Salt Lake
Valley 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best bird’s-eye view of Salt Lake
City 3 00
2d do. dip.
Best oil painting 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best transparent window-blinds 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best piece of sculpture 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of turning 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of engraving 2 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of penmanship 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of penmanship in
Deserét character 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
CLASS K.--CUTLERY, HARDWARE, ETC.
Awarding Committee--Levi Richards, Zechariah B. Derrick, Jonathan
Pugmire.
Best specimen of cutlery on a card $3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best pruning shears 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best rifle 5 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best revolving pistol 5 00
2d do. 3 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 lbs. gunpowder sil. med.
2d do. dip.
Best axe 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best door-lock 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best shovel and tongs 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best andirons 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 lbs. of cut nails 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best 5 lbs. of wrought nails 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 50 yards of rope 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of twine and cord 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of whips 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of baskets 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of combs made of horn,
bone, and mountain mahogany 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of glass sil. med.
2d do. dip.
Best specimen of earthenware 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best sand-paper 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
CLASS L.--WOMEN’S WORK.
Awarding Committee--Mrs. Fanny Little, ---- Taft, Marion Beatie,
Sarah Brown.
Best ornamental needlework $1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of Ayrshire needlework 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best ottoman cover 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best table cover 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best worked shawl 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best worked collar and handkerchief 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best worked cushion 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best lace cap 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best group of flowers 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of wax flowers 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best ornamental shell-work 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best pair worked slippers 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best pair woolen hose 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best pair cotton hose 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best embroidered shawl 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best variety of crochet-work 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best worked quilt 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best patch-work quilt 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of knitting 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
Best straw hat 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best straw bonnet 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best specimen of braid straw or grass 1 00
2d do. 0 50
3d do. dip.
CLASS M.--PRODUCE.
Awarding Committee--Richard Golightly, George Goddard, Eli B. Kelsey.
Best 5 lbs. of butter $2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best cheese 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best ham 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best 10 lbs. of sugar 10 00
2d do. 5 00
3d do. dip.
Best gallon of molasses 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
Best home-made wine 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best preserves, pumpkins 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best preserves, tomatoes 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best preserves of any kind 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pickles, cucumbers 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pickles, tomatoes 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pickles, cabbages 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best pickles, onions 1 00
2d do. dip.
Best 5 lbs. of soap 3 00
2d do. 2 00
3d do. dip.
Best 3 lbs. of starch 2 00
2d do. 1 00
3d do. dip.
CLASS N.--ESSAYS.
Awarding Committee--President and Board of Directors.
Best essay on agriculture $10 00
2d do. sil. med.
Best essay on horticulture 10 00
2d do. sil. med.
Best essay on home manufactures 10 00
2d do. sil. med.
By order of the Board of the Deserét Agricultural and Manufacturing
Society.
EDWARD HUNTER, President.
THOMAS BULLOCK, Secretary.
Great Salt Lake City, May 13, 1860.
Hand-labor obtains $2 per diem, consequently much work is done at home.
The fair sex still cards, spins, and weaves, as in Cornwall and Wales,
and the plurality system supplies them with leisure for the exercise
of the needle. Excellent blankets, the finest linens, and embroidered
buckskin garments, varying in prices from $75 to $500--a splendid
specimen was, at the time of my stay, being worked for that “Champion
of oppressed nationalities,” M. Louis Kossuth--are the results.
[PRICES AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.]
As in India, the mere necessaries of life at Great Salt Lake City are
cheap: the foreign luxuries, and even comforts, are exorbitantly dear.
A family may live almost for nothing upon vegetables grown in their
own garden, milk from their own cows, wheaten bread, and butter which
derives a peculiar sweetness from the bunch-grass. For some reason,
which no one can explain, there is not, and there never has been, a
market at Great Salt Lake City; consequently, even meat is expensive.
Freight upon every article, from a bar of soap to a bar of iron, must
be reckoned at 14 cents (7_d._) per lb. coming from the East, and
25-30 cents from the West. Groceries and clothing are inordinately
high-priced. Sugar, worth 6 cents in the United States, here fetches
from 37¹⁄₂ to 45 cents per lb. Tea is seldom drunk, and as coffee of
10 cents per lb. in the States here costs 40-50 cents, burnt beans
or toasted corn, a caricature of chicory, is the usual succedaneum.
Counterblasters will be pleased to hear that tobacco fetches $1 per
lb., and cigars from 5 to 6 cents each--a London price. Servants’ wages
vary from $30 to $40 per mensem--nearly £100 per annum; consequently,
master has a strong inducement to marry the “missus’s” Abigail. Thus
the expense of living in Utah Territory is higher than in the Eastern
States, where again it exceeds that of England. In Great Salt Lake
City $10,000 (= £2000) per annum would be equal to about £500 in
London. Fortunately for the poor, the excessive purity of the air, as
in the Arabian Desert, enables them to dispense with, and not to miss,
many articles, such as stimulants, which are elsewhere considered
necessaries. The subjoined “nerrick” of prices current at the General
Tithing Office in Great Salt Lake City will best explain the state of
things in 1860. A remarkable feature, it will be observed, is the price
of wheat--$1 50 per bushel--more than double its current value in the
Mississippian States.[178]
[178] General Tithing Office Prices Current, Great Salt Lake City:
Wheat, extra produce tithing $1 50 ⅌ bush.
Wheat, labor and produce tithing 2 00 „
Barley 1 50 „
Corn 1 50 „
Rye 1 50 „
Oats 1 00 „
Buckwheat 1 25 „
Peas and beans 2 00 „
Potatoes 0 75 „
Beets 0 50 „
Carrots 0 50 „
Parsnips 0 50 „
Onions 2 00 „
Turnips 0 25 „
Tomatoes 1 00 „
Cabbages $0 02 @0 10 each.
Pumpkins and squash 0 02 @0 08 „
Melons 0 02 @0 10 „
Cucumbers 0 01 „
Pigs, four weeks old 3 00 „
Chickens 0 10 @0 25 „
Ducks 0 15 @0 25 „
Beef, 6¹⁄₂ average.
Hind quarter 0 07 ⅌ ℔
Fore quarter 0 06 „
Tallow 0 10 @0 20 „
Pork 0 12¹⁄₂ @0 20 „
Lard 0 15 @0 20 „
Mutton 0 08 @0 12¹⁄₂ ℔.
Veal 0 03 @0 05 „
Bear 0 08 @0 12¹⁄₂ „
Tea 1 50 @3 50 „
Coffee 0 40 @0 60 „
Sugar 0 35 @0 60 „
Milk 0 10 ⅌ qt.
Eggs 0 18 ⅌ doz.
Butter 0 25 ⅌ ℔.
Cheese 0 12¹⁄₂ @0 25 „
Salt, fine 0 04 „
Salt, coarse 0 10 „
Cast steel, warranted 0 37¹⁄₂ @0 50 „
Spring steel 0 37¹⁄₂ „
Blister steel 0 18 @0 30 „
Iron 0 10 „
Molasses, good 3 00 ⅌ gall.
Vinegar 0 50 @0 75 „
Lumber, extra produce tithing 4 00 ⅌ 100.
Lumber, labor tithing 5 00 „
Shingles, best 10 00 ⅌ 1000.
Shingles, 2d quality 8 00 „
Shingles, cotton-wood 8 00 „
Shingles, 2d quality 6 00 „
Doves 0 12¹⁄₂ each.
Turkeys 1 50 @2 50 „
Fox and wolf skins 0 75 „
Ox hair 0 50 ⅌ bush.
EDWARD HUNTER, Presiding Bishop.
[Illustration: THE DEAD SEA.]
CHAPTER VII.
Third Week at Great Salt Lake City.--Excursions.
Governor Cumming had asked me to accompany Madam and himself to the
shores of the lake, with an ulterior view to bathing and picnicking.
One fine morning, at 10 A.M., duly provided with the _nécessaire_
and a thermometer--which duly snapped in two before immersion--we
set out down the west road, crossed the rickety two-laned bridge
that spans the holy stream, and debouched upon a mirage-haunted and
singularly ugly plain. Wherever below the line of debordement of the
lake’s spring freshet, it is a mere desert; where raised, however,
the land is cultivable, from the Wasach Mountains to Spring Point, at
the north of the Oquirrh, giving about eighty square miles of fertile
land. The soil, as near the lake generally, is a thin layer of saline
humus, overspreading gravel and pebbles. The vegetation is scattered
artemisia, rose-bushes, the _Euphorbia tuberosa_ and other varieties of
milk-weed, the greasewood, salicornias, and several salsolaceæ. There
are numerous salt deposits, all wet and miry in the rainy season; and
the animals that meet the sight are the coyote, the badger, and the
hideous Phrynosoma. A few blue cranes and sage-chickens, which are
eatable till October, were seen; and during winter the wild-fowl are
found in large flocks, and the sweet-water streams are stocked with
diminutive fish. In contrast with the bald and shaven aspect of the
plain, rose behind us the massive forms of the Wasach Mountains, robed
in forests, mist-crowned, and showing a single streak of white, which
entitles them to the poetical boast of eternal snow--snow apparently
never being respectable without eternity.
After fifteen miles of good road we came to the Point o’ the
Mountain--the head of the Oquirrh, also called West Mountain--where
pyramidal buttes bound the southern extremity of the lake. Their
horizontal lines are cleanly cut by the action of water, and fall in
steps toward the plain. Any appearance of regularity in the works of
Nature is always pleasing--firstly, because it contrasts with her
infinite diversity; and, secondly, because it displays her grandeur
by suggesting comparison with the minor works of mankind. Ranches
and corrals, grass and cattle, now began to appear, and the entrance
of a large cave was pointed out to me in the base of the buttes. We
drove on, and presently emerged upon the shores of this “dead and
desert”--this “still and solitary” sea. It has not antiquity enough
to have become the scene of fabulous history; the early Canadian
_voyageurs_, however, did their best to ennoble it, and recounted to
wondering strangers its fearful submarine noises, its dark and sudden
storms, and the terrible maelstrom in its centre, which, funnel-like,
descended into the bowels of the earth. I believe that age is its
only want; with _quasi_-lifeless waters, a balance of evaporation and
supply--ever a mystery to the ignorant--and a horned frog, the Dead Sea
of the New World has claims to preternaturalism at least equal to those
of its sister feature, the volcano of depression, in the Old Hemisphere.
[MARE MORTUUM.]
The first aspect of Mare Mortuum was by no means unprepossessing. As we
stood upon the ledge, at whose foot lies the selvage of sand and salt
that bounds the wave, we seemed to look upon the sea of the Cyclades.
The sky was light and clear, the water of a deep lapis-lazuli blue,
flecked here and there with the smallest of white horses--tiny billows,
urged by the warm soft wind; and the feeble tumble of the surf upon
the miniature sands reminded me, with the first surveyor, “of scenes
far, far away, where mightier billows pay their ceaseless tribute
to the strand.” In front of us, and bounding the extreme northwest,
lay Antelope or Church Island, rising in a bold central ridge. This
rock forms the western horizon to those looking from the city, and
its delicate pink--the effect of a ruddy carpet woven with myriads of
small flowers--blushing in the light of the setting sun, is ever an
interesting and beautiful object. Nearer, it has a brown garb, almost
without a tinge of green, except in rare, scattered spots; its benches,
broken by gashes and gullies, rocks and ravines, are counterparts to
those on the main land; and its form and tintage, softened by the
damp overhanging air, and contrasting with the light blue sky and
the dark ultramarine streak of sea at its base, add greatly to the
picturesqueness of the view. The foreground is a strip of sand, yellow
where it can be seen, incrusted with flakes of salt like the icing of a
plum-cake, and bearing marks of submergence in the season of the spring
freshets. At the water’s edge is a broken black line of a peculiar
drift, which stands boldly out from the snowy whiteness around. Where
my sketch was taken I looked as through a doorway, whose staples were
two detached masses of stone. On the right rose an irregular heap of
conglomerate and sandstone, attached to the ledge behind, and leaning
forward as if about to fall. On the left, the “Black Rock,” which can
be seen as a dot from the city, a heap of flint conglomerate, imbedded
in slaty, burnt, and altered clay, formed the terminating bluff to a
neck of light sand and dark stone.
Before proceeding to our picnic, I will briefly resume the history and
geography of this Mare Mortuum. The Baron de la Hontan, the French
governor of Placentia, in Newfoundland, about 1690, heard from Indians
of a Great Salt Water, which he caused to disembogue through a huge
river into the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. Like the Lake Tanganyika,
in Central Africa, it was arrayed in the garb of fable, 300 leagues of
length, 30 of breadth, with “100 towns about it,” like Mr. Cooley’s
highly imaginative “Zanganica,” and navigated in large boats by the
savage Mozeemleks, who much remind one of the old semi-mythical
“Mono-moezi.” Doubtless many a trapper and obscure trader has since
that time visited it; a name or two has been found upon the adjacent
rocks, but those were braves who, to speak metaphorically, lived before
the age of Agamemnon. In 1845, Colonel Frémont, then engaged with his
second expedition, made a partial flying survey, which, in 1849-50, was
scientifically completed by Captain Howard Stansbury.
In geologic ages the lake occupied the space between the Sierra Madre
on the east, and the ranges of Goose Creek and Humboldt River on the
west. The length is roughly computed at 500 miles from north to south,
the breadth from 350 to 500, and the area at 175,000 square miles. The
waters have declined into the lowest part of the basin by the gradual
upheaval of the land, in places showing thirteen successive steps or
benches. A freshet of a few yards would submerge many miles of flat
shore, and a rise of 650 feet would in these days convert all but the
highest peaks of the surrounding eminences into islands and islets,
the kanyons into straits, creeks, and sea-arms, and the bluffs into
slightly elevated shores. Popular opinion asserts that the process of
desiccation is going on at the rate of about half a mile in ten years.
But the limits of beach and drift line laid down by Captain Stansbury
are still well defined, and the shrinking of the volume may be ranked
with its “sinking”--like the sink of the Humboldt and other rivers--an
empirical explanation, by which the mountaineer removes the difficulty
of believing that evaporation can drain off the supplies of so many
rivers.
[THE GREAT SALT LAKE.]
The lake, which is about the size of the African Chad, occupies the
northeastern corner of Utah Territory, and lies to the northwest of
the Great Salt Lake Valley, which is forty miles long by about twelve
in breadth. The major axis of the irregular parallelogram is sixty to
seventy miles in length from north to south, by thirty to thirty-five
from east to west. Its altitude has been laid down at 4200 feet above,
while the Dead Sea of Palestine is 1300 feet below sea level. The
principal influents, beginning from the north, are the Bear River, the
Weber River, and the Jordan. They supply the balance of evaporation,
which from water is greater, and from high lands is usually less, than
the rain. The western side is a perfect desert--a salt and arid waste
of clay and sand, with the consistence of mortar when wet, which can
not boast of a single stream; even the springs are sometimes separated
by “jornadas” of seventy miles. When the rivers are in flood, the
lake, it is said, rises to a maximum of four feet, overflowing large
tracts of level saline plain, winding between the broken walls of
rock which surround it on all sides. Near its shores the atmosphere
is reeking, bluish, and hazy, from the effects of active evaporation,
and forms a decided change from the purity and transparency of the air
elsewhere. Surveyors have observed that it is a labor to use telescopes
for geoditic purposes, and that astronomical observations are very
imperfect. The quantity of vapor is less, and evaporation has less
tension and density from the surface of salt than of fresh water; here,
however, the operation is assisted by sunheat sufficient to produce
an aeriform state, and by a wind brisk enough to prevent the vapor
accumulating over the surface.
The water of this remarkable feature, which so curiously reproduces
the marvels of Judea, contains nearly one quarter of solid matter, or
about six times and a half more than the average solid constituents of
sea-water, which may be laid down roughly at three and a half per cent.
of its weight, or about half an ounce to the pound.[179] The Dead Sea
is its sole known superior. The specific gravity is 1·170, distilled
water being 1·000; the North Atlantic, between latitude 25° N. and
longitude 52° W. (G.), 1·020; and the Dead Sea, at 60° Fahrenheit, from
1·22742 to 1·130. The vulgar estimate of its saltness is exaggerated.
I have heard at Salt Lake City of one bucket of saline matter being
produced by the evaporation of three; and that meat can be salted,
and corned beef converted into junk, after twelve or fourteen hours
in the natural unevaporated brine. It is used without preparation
by the citizens, who have not adopted the precautions recommended
by Dr. Gale.[180] It is collected by boys, shoveled into carts at
the points of the beach where the winds dash up the waves--forming a
regular wind-tide--and is sold in retail at half a cent per pound, or
two shillings per hundred pounds. The original basin of geological
ages was, doubtless, as the shells have proved, fresh water. The
saline substances are brought down by rain, which washes the soil and
percolates through the rocky ledges, and by the rivers, which are
generally estimated to contain from ten to one hundred grains of salt
per gallon,[181] and here probably more, owing to the abundance of
soda. The evaporation is, of course, nearly pure, containing but very
minute traces of salts.
[179] “One hundred parts by weight were,” says Dr. Gale, “evaporated
to dryness in a water-bath below the boiling-point, and then heated
to about 300° of the thermometer, and retained at that heat till the
mass ceased to lose any weight. It gave solid contents 22·422 (?),
and consisted of
Chloride of sodium }In the {Chloride of sodium 97·80
(common salt) 20·196 }Abbé { „ „ calcium 0·61
Sulphate of soda 1·834 }Domenech’s { „ „ magnesium 0·24
Chloride of }work the {Sulphate of soda 0·23
magnesium 0·252 }analysis is{ „ „ lime 1·12
Chloride of }taken from { ------
calcium a trace }Col. { Total 100·00
------ }Frémont: {
Total 22·282(?)”}thus-- {
The waters of the Dead Sea give solid contents 24·580, and consist of
Chloride of sodium 10·360
„ „ calcium 3·920
„ „ magnesium 10·246
Sulphate of soda ·054
------
Total 24·580
The strongest natural brine in the United States, according to
Professor Beck, is that of the Syracuse Saline, New York, which
contains 17·35 per cent. of chloride of sodium.
[180] “The salt water” (it is elsewhere called “one of the purest and
most concentrated brines known in the world”) “yields about 20 per
cent. of pure common salt, and about 2 per cent. of foreign salts;
most of the objectionable parts of which are the chloride of lime and
the chloride of magnesia, both of which, being very deliquescent,
attract moisture from the damp atmosphere, which has the effect to
moisten and partially dissolve the common salt, and then, when the
mass is exposed to dry air or heat, or both, a hard crust is formed.
I believe I have found a remedy for the caking, which is cheap and
easily used. It consists in sprinkling over the salt obtained by the
evaporation of the water, and heaped up in a bin or box containing
a porous bottom of blankets or other like material, a cold solution
of the salt as it is concentrated from the lake till crystals begin
to be deposited. This concentrated brine, while it will dissolve
none of the common salt, will dissolve all the chlorides of calcium
and magnesium, and carry them down through the porous bottom, and
thus leave the salt purer and better than any now found in our
markets. For persons who are obliged to prepare temporarily the salt,
as travelers passing through the country, the water of the lake,
without concentration, may be used for washing out the deliquescent
chlorides, sprinkling the heap of salt by a watering-pot at intervals
of two or three hours during a single day, and allowing it to drain
and dry at night, and be spread to the sun an hour or two the
following morning.”
[181] “The Physical Geography of the Sea” (by Captain Maury), chap.
ix., § 502, quoted from “Youmans’ Chemistry.”
It has been generally stated that the water is fatal to organic life.
The fish brought down the rivers perish at once in the concentrated
brine; but, according to the people, there is a univalve, like a
periwinkle, found at certain seasons within the influence of its saline
waves; and I observed, floating near the margin, delicate moss-like
algæ. Governor Cumming mentioned his having seen a leaf, of a few
inches in length, lined with a web, which shelters a vermicular animal,
of reddish color, and about the length of the last joint of the little
finger. Near the shore, also, mucilaginous matter, white, pink, and
rusty, like macerated moss, adheres to the rocky bed, and lies in
coagulated spots upon the sand. We may fairly doubt the travelers’
assertion that this Dead Sea contains no living thing; whereas neither
animalculæ nor vestige of animal matter were, according to Lieutenant
Lynch, detected by a powerful microscope in the waters of the
Asphaltite Lake.
[ISLANDS IN GREAT SALT LAKE.]
The Great Salt Lake is studded with an archipelago of islands, which
would greatly add to its charms were their size commensurate with its
diminutive limits. These, beginning from the north, are,
1. Dolphin Island, so called from its shape, a knoll of rock and shoal
near the northwestern end, surrounded by about three feet of water.
2. Gunnison’s Island, a large rock and small outlier, southeast of the
former, and surrounded with water from nine to twelve feet deep.
3. Hat Island, southeast of Gunnison’s, the smallest of the isles, with
a reef sunk about seven feet: it was probably part of the following,
and is separated from it by a narrow channel nowhere more than six feet
in depth.
4. Carrington Island, so named from the Mormon surveyor, a circular
mass with a central peak: the water is from three to six feet deep on
every side except the western and southwestern, which are shoals and
shallows. It contains no springs, but is rich in plants and flowers, as
the sego, also spelled sigo, seacoe, and segose (_Calochortus luteus_,
an onion-like bulb or tuber about the size of a walnut, more nutritious
than palatable, much eaten as a table vegetable by the early Mormons
and the root-digging Indians, and even now by white men when half
starved), a _cleome_, a _malvastrum_, a new species of _malacothrix_,
and several others.
5. Stansbury Island, the second largest in the lake, an ovate mass,
with a high central ridge, dome-shaped above, and rising 3000 feet,
twenty-seven miles in circumference, and about twelve in length. During
the dry season it is formed into a peninsula by a sand-bank connecting
it with the lake’s western shore. Thus antelopes, deer, and coyotes
pass over to browse upon the plants and to attack the young of the
ducks, geese, plover, gulls, and pelicans, that make their homes upon
the cliffs: it is also used for grazing purposes. The principal plants
are a _comandra_, and sundry new species of _heuchera_, _perityle_, and
_stenactis_. Fossils and shells are found in scatters.
6. Antelope, also called Church Island, because the stock of the
Saints is generally kept there. Lying to the east and northeast of
the preceding, and in shape an irregular and protracted conoid, it
is the largest of the islands, sixteen miles long by six of extreme
width, with a western ridge and an eastern line of broken peaks, which
attain a maximum of 3000 feet above the lake and 7200 above sea level.
It lies twenty miles to the northwest of the city, and the narrow
passage between it and the opposite plain is fordable. This island is
surrounded on the north by a tufa bed twelve feet deep; eastward by six
feet of water; southeast and south by shoals; and westward by a deposit
of black mud: the deepest sounding in the lake, thirty-five feet, is
found between it and Stansbury Island. Off the northwestern coast is
a rock, called, after its principal peculiarity, Egg Island: in the
eastern cliff there is said to be a cave, described to resemble the
Blue Grotto at Capri, which has been partially explored. Formerly there
was a small pinnace on the “Big Shallow;” it has either been wrecked or
broken up for fuel.[182] Antelope Island contains arid ravines and a
few green valleys, besides a spring of pure water, and, being safe from
Indians, it is much esteemed as a grazing-place.
[182] In the “Revue des Deux-Mondes” (April, 1861) we are told that,
“Pendant l’été un petit bateau à vapeur fait un service régulier
sur le Lac Salé.” Fresh proof, if it be required, how difficult, or
rather how impossible, it is for any amount of talent or ingenuity in
a reviewer to supply the want of actual eye-seeing information. The
“Lac Salé” is not yet come.
7. Frémont Island, so named by Captain Stansbury from the first
explorer, who called it, after the rude dissipation of a dream of
“tangled wilderness of trees and shrubbery, teeming with game of every
description that the neighboring region afforded,” “Disappointment
Island.” The Mormons have preferred “Castle Island,” suggested by its
mural and turreted peak, that rises above the higher levels. It lies
north and northeast from Antelope Island, parallel with the mouth of
the Weber River, and south of Promontory Point, the bluff termination
of a rocky tongue which separates Bear-River Bay from the body of
the lake. Its shape is a semilune, fifteen miles in circumference,
abounding in plants, especially the Indian onion, but destitute of wood
and water. Here, on the summit, Captain Frémont lost the “brass cover
to the object-end of his spy-glass”--disdain not, gentle reader, these
little reminiscences!--and Captain Stansbury failed to find the relic.
I was surprised by the want of freshness and atmospheric elasticity
in the neighborhood of the lake: the lips were salted as by sea air,
but there the similarity ended. We prepared for bathing by unhitching
the mules upon the usual picnicking place, a patch of soft white
sand between the raised shore of the lake and the water brink. The
bank supplies a plentiful stream of water, potable, though somewhat
brackish, bitter, and sulphurous: it shows its effects, however,
in a clump of plants, wild roses, and the euphorbia of many names,
silk-plant, _vache à lait_, _capote de sacarte_, and milk-plant.
The familiar magpie prevented the solitude of the scene being too
impressive. Here was also a vestige of humanity, a kind of “lean-to” of
dry stone wall, with the bank for a back-bone: you might have ridden
over it without knowing that it belonged to Mrs. Smith of Vermont, now
departed, unless warned off by the sudden appearance of what your
superior sagacity would have discovered to be a chimney.
[THE BATH IN THE GREAT SALT LAKE.]
The bathing-place is behind the Black Rock. The approach is first over
the fine soft white sand, like that of the sea-shore, but shell-less,
soppy where it receives the spring-water, and almost a quicksand near
the lake. The foot crunches through caked and crusty salt-flakes,
here white, there dark green, there dun-colored like _bois de vache_,
and every where the reverse of aromatic, and sinks deep into the
everlastingly wet sand below. This leads to the neck of broken, riven
stone pavement, whose head is the Black Rock. As the lake is neared,
the basalt-like surface becomes red and rusty, the points are diamonded
by sparkling spiculæ, and in the hollows and crevices where the waters
have dried to salt it gathers in the form of icy lumps. A dreadful
shock then awaits the olfactory nerves. The black mud of peculiar
drift before alluded to proves to be an aceldama of insects: banks a
full foot high, composed of the _larvæ_, _exuviæ_, and mortal coils of
myriads of worms, musquetoes, gnats, and gallinippers, cast up by the
waves, and lining the little bay, as they ferment and fester in the
burning sun, or pickle and preserve in the thick brine.[183] Escaping
from this mass of fetor, I reached the farther end of the promontory
where the Black Rock stood decorously between the bathing-place and the
picnic ground, and in a pleasant frame of curiosity descended into the
new Dead Sea.
[183] According to Mr. T. R. Peale (quoted by Captain Stansbury,
Appendix C), “More than ⁹⁄₁₀ths of the mass is composed of the larvæ
and exuviæ of the _Chironomus_, or some species of musqueto, probably
undescribed.”
I had heard strange accounts of its buoyancy. It was said to support a
bather as if he were sitting in an arm-chair, and to float him like an
unfresh egg. My experience differs in this point from that of others.
There was no difficulty in swimming, nor indeed in sinking. After
sundry immersions of the head, in order to feel if it really stang and
removed the skin, like a mustard plaster--as described--emboldened by
the detection of so much hyperbole, I proceeded to duck under with
open eyes, and smarted “for my pains.” The sensation did not come on
suddenly; at first there was a sneaking twinge, then a bold succession
of twinges, and lastly a steady, honest burning like what follows a
pinch of snuff in the eyes. There was no fresh water at hand; so,
scrambling upon the rock, I sat there for half an hour, presenting
to Nature the ludicrous spectacle of a man weeping flowing tears. A
second experiment upon its taste was equally satisfactory; I can easily
believe, with Captain Stansbury, that a man overboard has little chance
against asphyxiation; _vox faucibus hœsit_ was the least that could be
said concerning its effects upon my masticators. Those who try such
experiments may be warned that a jug filled at the fresh spring is
necessary in more ways than one. The hair on emersion is powdered like
the plastered locks of the knights of flamingo-plush and bell-hanging
shoulder-knots, and there is a clammy stickiness, which is exceedingly
unpleasant. Salt, moreover, may be scraped from the skin--imaginative
bathers have compared themselves to Lot’s wife--and the Ethiop,
now prosaically termed “nigger,” comes out after a bath bleached,
whitewashed, and with changed epidermis.
Notwithstanding the _fumet_ from the kitchen of that _genius loci_
whom I daurna name, we dined with excellent appetite. While the mules
were being hitched to, I found an opportunity of another survey from
below the Black Rock: this look-out station is sometimes ascended by
those gifted with less than the normal modicum of common sense. The
lands immediately about the lake are flat, rising almost imperceptibly
to the base of abrupt hills, which are broken in places by soft and
sandy barriers, irreclaimable for agriculture, but here and there fit
for grazing; where springs exist, they burst out at too low a level
for irrigation. The meridional range of the Oquirrh, at whose northern
point we were standing, divides the Great Salt Lake Valley from its
western neighbor Tooele or Tuilla, which in sound curiously resembles
the Arabic Tawíleh--the Long Valley. It runs like most of these
formations from north to south: it is divided by a transverse ridge
declining westward, and not unaptly called Traverse Mountain, from Rush
Valley, which again is similarly separated from Cedar Valley. From the
point where we stood, the only way to Tooele settlement is round the
north point of West Mountain, a bold headland, rugged with rocks and
trees. Westward of Tooele Valley, and separated by a sister range to
the Oquirrh, lies Spring Valley, so called because it boasts a sweet
fountain, and south of this “Skull Valley”--an ominous name, but the
evil omen was to the bison.
Bidding a long farewell to that inland briny sea, which apparently
has no business there, we turned our faces eastward as the sun was
declining. The view had memorable beauties. From the blue and purple
clouds, gorgeously edged with celestial fire, shot up a fan of penciled
and colored light, extending half way to the zenith, while in the south
and southeast lightnings played among the darker mist-masses, which
backed the golden and emerald bench-lands of the farther valley. The
splendid sunset gave a reflex of its loveliness to the alkaline and
artemisia barrens before us. Opposite, the Wasach, vast and voluminous,
the store-house of storms, and of the hundred streams that cool the
thirsty earth, rose in stern and gloomy grandeur, which even the last
smile of day failed to soften, over the subject plain. Northward, to
a considerable distance, the lake-lands lay uninterrupted save by an
occasional bench and a distant swell, resembling the upper convexity
of a thunder-cloud. As we advanced, the city became dimly discernible
beyond Jordan, built on ground gently rising away from the lake, and
strongly nestling under its protecting mountains. A little to its
northeast, a thin white vapor, like the spray of a spouting whale,
showed the direction of the Hot Springs: as time wore on it rolled
away, condensed by the cooling air, like the smoke of a locomotive
before the evening breeze. Then the prominent features of the city came
into view, the buildings separated themselves from their neighbors
by patches and shades of several green, the streets opened out their
regular rows and formal lines; once more we rolled over Jordan’s
rickety bridge, and found ourselves again in the Holy City of the Far
West.
[TRIP TO CAMP FLOYD.]
The ultimate destination of the Judiciary whom I had accompanied was
Carson Valley, in the Sierra Nevada, a distance of some hundreds of
miles through a wild country where “lifting of hair” is by no means
uncommon. The judge, though not a sucking diplomat, had greenly relied
upon _bona verba_ at Washington for transportation, escort, and other
necessaries which would be easily procurable at Camp Floyd. It was
soon found advisable to apply to the military authorities at the
cantonment. The coach, as I have said, had ceased to run beyond Great
Salt Lake City. In May, 1858, a contract had been made with Major
George Chorpenning to transport mails and passengers--the fare being
$120--from Utah to California, he receiving $130,000. This lasted till
September, 1859, when the drivers, complaining that the road-agents
charged with paying them for eighteen months had expended the “rocks”
in the hells of San Francisco, notably evinced their race’s power
of self-government by seizing and selling off by auction wagons and
similar movable property. On the 20th of March, 1860, it came into
the hands of the proprietors of the Eastern line, Messrs. Russell and
Co., who ran a mail-wagon first to California, then to Camp Floyd, and
lastly, on the 1st of June, finding their expenditure excessive, packed
the mails on mules.[184] Single travelers were sometimes thus pushed
through, starting on the Wednesdays, once a fortnight; for a party like
ours such a proceeding would have been impossible. Consequently, the
judge and I set out for Camp Floyd to see what could be done by “Uncle
Sam” and his “eagles.”
[184] They carry 50 to 60 lbs.; and the schedule time to Placerville
is sixteen days.
Mr. Gilbert--of the firm of Gilbert, Gerrish, and Co., general
(Gentile) merchants--offered us seats in his trotting wagon, drawn by a
fine tall pair of iron-gray mules, that cost $500 the twain, and were
christened Julia and Sally, after, I believe, the fair daughters of
the officer who had lately commanded the district. With a fine clear
day and a breeze which veiled us with dust-hangings--the highway must
be a sea of mud in wet weather--we set out along the county road,
leading from the southeastern angle of the Holy City. Our route lay
over the strip of alluvium that separates the Wasach Mountains from
the waters of Jordan: it is cut by a multitude of streamlets rising
from the kanyons; the principal are Mill Creek, Big Cotton-wood,
Little Cotton-wood, Dry Cotton-wood, and Willow Creek. The names are
translated from the Indians, and we saw from the road traces of the
aborigines, who were sweeping crickets and grass-seed into their large
conical baskets--among these ragged gleaners we looked in vain for
a Ruth. Near Big Cotton-wood, where there is a settlement distant
seven miles from the city, an English woman came across the fields
and complained that she had been frightened by four Indian braves
who had been riding by to bring in a stolen horse. The waters of the
kanyons are exceedingly cool, sweet, and clear, and suggested frequent
reference to a superior kind of tap which had been stored away within
the trap. In proportion as we left the city, the sterility of the River
Valley increased; cultivation was unseen except upon the margins of the
streams, and the look of the land was “real mean.” In front of us lay
the denticulated bench bounding the southern end of the valley.
After twenty miles from the city we reached a ranch on rising ground,
near the water-gate of the Jordan. It was built at an expense of
$17,000, and was called the Utah Brewery. Despite, however, the plenty
of hop and barley, the speculation proved a failure, and the house had
become a kind of mail-station. Between it and the river were a number
of little rush-girt “eyes”--round pools, some hot, others cold--and
said to be unfathomable; that is to say, from twenty to thirty fathoms
deep. They related that a dragoon, slipping with his charger into
one of them, found a watery grave, where a drier death might have
been expected. At the ranch we rested for an hour, but called in vain
for food. From the Utah Brewery, which is about half way, drivers
reckon twenty-two miles to Camp Floyd, making a total of forty-two
to forty-three miles between the head-quarters of the saint and the
sinner, and we therefore looked forward to a “banian day.”
About noon we hitched to and proceeded to ascend Traverse Mountain,
a ridge-like spur of the Wasach, running east and west. It separates
the Valley of the Northern or Great Salt Lake from the basin of the
Utah, or Sweetwater Lake, to the southward, and is broken through by
the waters of Jordan. The young river--called Piya Ogwap, or the Big
Water, by the Shoshonees--here rushes in a foaming shallow stream, that
can barely float a dug-out, over a rocky, pebbly bed, in the sole of
a deep but short kanyon, which winds its way through the cross range.
The descent is about 100 feet in two miles, after which the course
serpentines, the banks fall, and the current becomes gentle.
As we toiled up the Dug-way, the graded incline that runs along the
shoulder of the mountain, we saw a fine back view of the Happy Valley
through an atmosphere clear as that of the English littoral before
rain. Advancing higher, we met, face to face, an ambulance full of
uniform _en route_ to the Holy City, drawn by four neat mules, and
accompanied by strikers--military servants. We drew up, the judge was
readily recognized, and I was introduced to Captains Heth, Clarke, and
Gibson, and to Lieutenant Robinson. They began with an act of charity,
supplying ham sandwiches to half-starved men, and I afterward spent
pleasant evenings with them at Great Salt Lake City, and became Captain
Heth’s guest at Camp Floyd. Their kindness and hospitality lasted to
the end of my stay. After the usual “liquoring up,” they pointed to
Ash Hollow, the depths below, where the Mormons had intended to make a
new Thermopylæ. Promising to meet them again, we then shook hands and
resumed our road.
The steep descent on the counterslope of Traverse Mountain disclosed to
us the first sight of Utah Lake, which is to its sister what Carmel is
to Lebanon. It was a soft and sunny, a placid and beautiful landscape,
highly refreshing after the arid lands on the other side. A panorama
of lake, plain, and river lay before us. On the east, south, and west
were rugged walls and peaks of mountain and hill; and northward a broad
grassy slope rose to the divide between the valleys of the Fresh and of
the Salt Lake. From afar the binding of plain round the basin appeared
so narrow that the mountains seemed to dip their feet into the quiet
reservoir; and beyond the southern point the lone peak of lofty Nebo
stood, to adopt the Koranic comparison, like one of the pins which
fasten down the plains of earth. A nearer approach discovers a broad
belt of meadow, rich alluvial soil, in parts marshy, and in others
arable, wheat and root-crop flourishing in the bottom, and bunch-grass
upon the acclivities. The breadth is greater to the west and south of
the lake than in other parts. It is cut by many a poplar-fringed stream
that issues from the tremendous gorges around--the American Fork, the
Timpanogos[185] or Provo River, and the Spanish Fork. On the near side,
beyond the winding Jordan, lay little Lehi, whose houses were half hid
by black trees; and eastward of the Utah Water, dimly visible, was
Provo City, on a plain watered by four creeks. Such were the environs
of the Sea of Tiberias.
[185] From _Timpa_, a rock, and _ogwabe_, contracted to _oge_, a
river, in the Yuta dialect. In English maps published as late as
seven years ago, “Timpanogos” is applied to the Great Salt Lake!
_Provo_ or _Provaux_ is the name of a Canadian trapper and trader,
who in past times defeated with eighty men a thousand Indians, and
was killed at the moment of victory. The Mormons call the City
_Provo_, and Gentiles prefer as a “rile” _Timpanogos_.
[UTAH LAKE.]
The Utah Lake, another Judean analogue, derives its supplies from the
western versant of the Wasach. It is in shape an irregular triangle,
the southern arm forming a very acute angle. The extreme length
is thirty miles, and the greatest breadth is fifteen. It owes its
sweetness, which, however, is by no means remarkable, to its northern
drainage, the Piya Ogwap, _alias_ Utah Outlet, _alias_ Jordan River.
Near the shores the water soon deepens to fifteen feet; the bottom is
said to be smooth, uniform, and very profound in places; but probably
it has never been sounded. The bed, where it shows, is pebbly; a
white, chalky incrustation covers the shallower bottom; shells,
especially the fresh-water clam, are numerous upon the watery margin;
the flaggy “Deserét weed” in the tulares is ten feet high,[186] and
thicket is dense in places where rock does not occupy the soil. The
western side is arid for want of influents; there is a “lone tree,”
a solitary cotton-wood, conspicuous amid the grazing-ground of
bunch-grass, sage, and greasewood, and the only inhabitants, excepting
a single ranch--Evan’s--are, apparently, the Phrynosoma and the lizard,
the raven and the jackass-rabbit. The Utah Lake freezes in December,
January, and February. At these months the Jordan rolls down floes of
ice, but it is seldom to be traversed on foot. In the flood season it
rises two, and the wind tide extends to about three feet. It is still
full of fish, which in former times were carried off in barrels. The
white trout weigh thirty pounds. There are many kinds of mountain trout
averaging three pounds, while salmon trout, suckers, and mudfish are
uncommonly large and plentiful; water-snakes and “horsehair fish” are
also found.
[186] Tulare is a marsh of bulrush (_Scirpus lacustris_), which
is found extending over immense tracts of river valley in Western
America. “Tooly” water, as it is pronounced, is that which is
flavored or tainted by it.
After descending the steep incline we forded the Jordan, at that point
100 feet broad, and deep to the wagon-hubs. The current was not too
swift to prevent the growth of weeds. The water was of sulphury color,
the effect of chalk, and the taste was brackish, but not unpleasant;
cattle are said to like it. The fording was followed by a long ascent,
the divide between Utah Valley and its western neighbor Cedar Valley.
About half way between the Brewery and the Camp is a station, held by
a Shropshire Mormon, whose only name, as far as I could discover, was
Joe Dug-out, so called, like the Watertons de Waterton, from the style
of his habitation. He had married a young woman, who deterred him from
giving her a sister--every Oriental language has a word to express
what in English, which lacks the thing, is rudely translated “a rival
wife”--by threatening to have his ears cut off by the “horfficers.”
Joe, however, seemed quite resigned to the pains and penalties of
monogamy, and, what was more to our purpose, had a good brew of porter
and Lager-bier.
Having passed on the way a road that branches off to the old camp,
which was deserted for want of water, we sighted from afar the new
cantonment. It lies in a circular basin, surrounded by irregular hills
of various height, still wooded with black cedar, where not easily
felled, and clustering upon the banks of Cedar Creek, a rivulet which
presently sinks in a black puddly mud. For a more thoroughly detestable
spot one must repair to Gharra, or some similar purgatorial place
in Lower Sindh. The winter is long and rigorous, the summer hot and
uncomfortable, the alkaline water curdles soap, and the dust-storms
remind one of the Punjaub. I lost no time in suggesting to my
_compagnon de voyage_, Lieutenant Dana, as a return for his kindness
in supplying me with a “Bayonet Exercise,” and other papers, our old
campaigning habit of hanging wet canvas before every adit, and received
the well-merited thanks of Madam. The hardest part of these hardships
is that they are wholly purposeless. Every adobe brick in the place
has been estimated to have cost a cent, as at Aden each cut stone was
counted a rupee; and the purchase of lumber has enriched the enemy. In
1858 the Peace Commissioners sent by the supreme government conceded
to the Mormons a point which saved the Saints. The army was not to be
“located” within forty miles of Great Salt Lake City; thus the pretty
sites about Utah Lake were banned to them, and the Mormons, it is said,
“jockeyed” them out of the rich and fertile Cache Valley, eighty miles
north of the head-quarters.
[CAMP FLOYD.]
A broken wall surrounds this horrid hole. Julia and Sally carried us in
with unflagging vigor. We passed through Fairfield, less euphoniously
termed Frogtown, the bazar of the cantonment on the other side of the
creek. During the days when Camp Floyd contained its full complement
of camp followers--5000 souls--now reduced to 100 or 200 men, it must
have been a delectable spot, teeming with gamblers and blacklegs,
grog-house-keepers and prostitutes: the revolver and the bowie-knife
had nightly work to do there, and the moral Saints were fond of
likening Frogtown to certain Cities of the Plains. Of late years it has
become more respectable, and now it contains some good stores.
We removed from the wagon the mail-bags containing letters for the
camp, and made ourselves at home with the hospitable Gilbert. On the
next day, after “morning glory” and breakfast, we called upon the
officer commanding the department, Colonel P. St. G. Cooke, of the
2d Dragoons, and upon the commandant of the cantonment, Lieutenant
Colonel C. F. Smith. They introduced us to the greater part of the
officers, and, though living in camp fashion, did not fail to take
in the strangers after the ancient, not the modern, acceptation of
the term. It is a sensible pleasure, which every military man has
remarked, to exchange the common run of civilian for soldier society in
the United States. The reveillé in the morning speaks of discipline;
the guard-mounting has a wholesome military sound; there is a habit
of ’tention and of saluting which suggests some subordination; the
orderlies say “Sir,” not Sirree nor Sirree-bob. The stiffness and
ungeniality of professionals, who are all running a race for wealth
or fame, give way in a service of seniority, and where men become
brothers, to the frankness which belongs to the trade of arms. The
Kshatriya, or fighting caste, in the States is distinctly marked.
The officers, both of the navy and the army, are, for the most part,
Southerners, and are separated by their position from general society.
The civilian, as was the case in England twenty years ago, dislikes
the uniform. His principal boasts are, that he pays his fighting
servants well, and that he--a militia-man--is far superior to the
regular. A company of Cadets, called the Chicago Zouaves, during the
summer of 1860, made a sensation throughout the land. The newspaper
writers spoke of them in terms far higher than have been lavished upon
the flower of the French army; even the military professionals were
obliged to join in the cry. As a republican, the citizen looks upon a
soldier as a drone. “I hate those cormorants,” said to me an American
diplomat, who, _par parenthèse_, had made a fortune by the law, as he
entered a Viennese café. _L’arte della guerra presto s’ impara_ is his
motto, and he evinces his love of the civilian element by giving away
a considerable percentage of commissions in the army to those whose
political influence enables them to dispense with the preparation of
West Point.
[UNITED STATES MILITIA.]
I am here tempted to a few words concerning the cheap defense and
the chief pride of the United States, viz., her irregular army. The
opposite table shows the forces of the militia to be three millions,
while the regular army does not number 19,000. The institution is,
therefore, a kind of public, a writing, speaking, voting body, which
makes itself heard and felt, while the existence of the regulars is
almost ignored. To hint aught against the militia in the United States
is sure seriously to “rile up” your civil audience, and Elijah Pogram
will perhaps let you know that you can not know what you are talking
about. The outspoken Britisher, despite his title and his rank as
a general officer, had a “squeak” for his commission when, in the
beginning of the volunteer mania, he spoke of the new levies as a
useless body of men: it is on the same principle in the United States.
Thus also the liberal candidate declares to his electors his “firm
belief that, with all our enormous expenditure, the country had not
felt itself secure, and straightway a noble arm of defense, springing
unbought from the patriotism of the people, had crept into existence,
forming a better shield for our national liberties than all that we had
been able to buy with our mounds of gold.” (Cheers.) The civilian in
the United States boasts of his military institutions, his West Point
and his regular army, and never fails to inform a stranger that it is
better paid than any force in Europe. On the other hand, he prides
himself upon, as he is probably identified with, the militia.
MILITIA FORCE OF THE UNITED STATES.
_General Abstract of the Militia Force of the United States, according
to the latest Returns received at the Office of the Adjutant General._
+-----------------------+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| | For| | General | Field | |
| | the| General | Staff |Officers,| Company |
|States and Territories.|Year|Officers.|Officers.| etc. |Officers.|
+-----------------------+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
|Maine |1856| 13 | 52 | 36 | 230 |
|New Hampshire |1854| 11 | 202 | 119 | 895 |
|Massachusetts |1859| 10 | 47 | 111 | 353 |
|Vermont |1843| 12 | 51 | 224 | 801 |
|Rhode Island |1858| 2 | 22 | 106 | 26 |
|Connecticut |1858| 3 | 9 | 82 | 199 |
|New York |1856| 93 | 299 | 1,531 | 5,495 |
|New Jersey |1852| | | | |
|Pennsylvania |1858| | | | |
|Delaware |1827| 4 | 8 | 71 | 364 |
|Maryland |1838| 22 | 68 | 544 | 1,763 |
|Virginia |1858| | | | |
|North Carolina |1845| 28 | 133 | 657 | 3,449 |
|South Carolina |1856| 20 | 135 | 535 | 1,909 |
|Georgia |1850| 39 | 91 | 624 | 4,296 |
|Florida |1845| 3 | 14 | 95 | 508 |
|Alabama |1851| 32 | 142 | 775 | 1,883 |
|Louisiana |1859| 16 | 129 | 542 | 2,105 |
|Mississippi |1838| 15 | 70 | 856 | 348 |
|Tennessee |1840| 25 | 79 | 392 | 2,644 |
|Kentucky |1852| 43 | 145 | 1,165 | 3,517 |
|Ohio |1858| | | | |
|Michigan |1854| 30 | 123 | 147 | 2,358 |
|Indiana |1832| 31 | 110 | 566 | 2,154 |
|Illinois |1855| | | | |
|Wisconsin |1855| 15 | 8 | 215 | 904 |
|Iowa | | | | | |
|Missouri |1853| | 17 | 4 | 67 |
|Arkansas |1859| 10 | 39 | 179 | 911 |
|Texas |1847| 15 | 45 | 248 | 940 |
|California |1857| 18 | 126 | 11 | 175 |
|Minnesota |1859| | | | |
|Oregon | | | | | |
|Washington Territory | | | | | |
|Nebraska Territory | | | | | |
|Kansas Territory | | | | | |
|Territory of Utah |1853| 2 | | 48 | 235 |
|Territory of N. Mexico | | | | | |
|District of Columbia |1852| 3 | 10 | 28 | 185 |
| +----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Grand aggregate | | 515 | 2,374 | 9,884 | 38,687 |
+-----------------------+----+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+-----------------------+------------+----------------+----------+
| | |Non-commissioned| |
| | | Officers, | |
| | Total | Musicians, | |
| |commissioned|Artificers, and | |
|States and Territories.| Officers. | Privates. |Aggregate.|
+-----------------------+------------+----------------+----------+
|Maine | 340 | 73,248 | 73,552|
|New Hampshire | 1,227 | 32,311 | 33,538|
|Massachusetts | 521 | 157,347 | 157,868|
|Vermont | 1,088 | 22,827 | 23,915|
|Rhode Island | 156 | 16,555 | 16,711|
|Connecticut | 293 | 51,312 | 51,605|
|New York | 7,388 | 329,847 | 337,235|
|New Jersey | | | 81,984|
|Pennsylvania | | | 350,000|
|Delaware | 447 | 8,782 | 9,229|
|Maryland | 2,397 | 44,467 | 46,864|
|Virginia | | | 150,000|
|North Carolina | 4,267 | 75,181 | 79,448|
|South Carolina | 2,599 | 33,473 | 36,072|
|Georgia | 5,050 | 73,649 | 78,699|
|Florida | 620 | 11,502 | 12,122|
|Alabama | 2,832 | 73,830 | 76,662|
|Louisiana | 2,792 | 88,532 | 91,324|
|Mississippi | 825 | 35,259 | 36,084|
|Tennessee | 3,607 | 67,645 | 71,252|
|Kentucky | 4,870 | 84,109 | 88,979|
|Ohio | | | 279,809|
|Michigan | 2,858 | 94,236 | 97,094|
|Indiana | 2,861 | 51,052 | 53,913|
|Illinois | | | 257,420|
|Wisconsin | 1,142 | 50,179 | 51,321|
|Iowa | | | |
|Missouri | 88 | 117,959 | 118,047|
|Arkansas | 1,139 | 46,611 | 47,750|
|Texas | 1,248 | 18,518 | 19,766|
|California | 330 | 207,400 | 207,730|
|Minnesota | | | 23,972|
|Oregon | | | |
|Washington Territory | | | |
|Nebraska Territory | | | |
|Kansas Territory | | | |
|Territory of Utah | 285 | 2,536 | 2,821|
|Territory of N. Mexico | | | |
|District of Columbia | 226 | 7,975 | 8,201|
| +------------+----------------+----------+
| Grand aggregate | 51,460 | 1,876,342 | 3,070,987|
+-----------------------+------------+----------------+----------+
That writing, speaking, and voting have borne fruit in favor of the
militia, may be read in the history of the Americo-Mexican War. The
fame of the irregulars penetrated to Calcutta and China: it was
stopped only by the Orient sun. But who ever heard of the regulars?
The “newspaper heroes” were almost all militiamen, rangers, and other
guerrillas: “keeping an editor in pay” is now a standing sarcasm. The
sages of the Revolution initiated a yeomanry second to none in the
world: they had, however, among them crowds of frontiersmen accustomed
to deal with the bear and the Indian, not with the antelope and the
deer. The Texan Rangers in later times were a first-rate body of
men for irregular purposes, not to be confounded with the militia,
yet always put forward as a proof how superior to the “sweepings
of cities,” as the regular army was once called in the Senate, are
the irregulars, who “never fire a random shot, never draw trigger
till their aim is sure,” and are “here to-night and to-morrow are
fifty miles off.” But the true modern militia is pronounced by the
best authorities--indeed, by all who hold it no economy to be ill
served, for any but purely defensive purposes, a humbug, which costs
in campaigns more blood and gold--neglect of business is perhaps the
chief item of the expenditure--than a standing army would. As a “Garde
Nationale” it is quite efficient. When called out for distant service,
as in the Mexican War, every _pekin_ fault becomes apparent. Personally
the men suffer severely from unaccustomed hardship and exposure; in
dangerous climates they die like sheep; half are in hospital, and the
other half must nurse them: Nature soon becomes stronger than martial
law; under the fatigue of the march they will throw away their rations
and military necessaries rather than take the trouble to carry them:
improvident and wasteful, their convoys are timid and unmanageable.
Mentally they are in many cases men ignoring the common restraints of
society, profoundly impressed with insubordination, which displays
equality, which has to learn all the wholesome duty of obedience, and
which begins with as much respect for discipline as for the campaigns
of Frederick the Great. If inclined to retire, they can stay at
home and obtain double or treble the wages: not a few are driven to
service by that enthusiasm which, as Sir Charles Napier well remarked,
readily makes men run away. Their various defects make organization
painfully slow. In camp they amuse themselves with drawing rations,
target practice, asking silly questions, electing officers, holding
meetings, issuing orders, disobeying orders, “’cussing and discussing:”
the sentinels will sit down to a quiet _euchre_ after planting their
bayonets in the ground, and to all attempts at dislodging them the
reply will be, “You go to ----, Cap.! I’m as good a man as you.” In the
field, like all raw levies, they are apt to be alarmed by any thing
unaccustomed, as the sound of musketry from the rear, or a threatened
flank attack: they can not reserve their fire; they aim wildly, to
the peril of friend and foe, and they have been accused of unmilitary
cruelties, such as scalping and flaying men, shooting and killing
squaws and children. And they never fail, after the fashion of such
men, to claim that they have done all the fighting.[187]
[187] These remarks were penned in 1860; I see no reason to alter
them in 1861.
Such is, I believe, the United States militia at the beginning of a
campaign. After a reasonable time, say a year, which kills off the weak
and sickly, and rubs out the brawler and the mutineer; when men have
learned to distinguish the difference between the often Dutch courage
of a bowie-knife squabble and the moral fortitude that stands firm
in presence of famine or a night attack, then they become regulars.
The American--by which I understand a man whose father is born in the
United States--is a first-rate soldier, distinguished by his superior
intelligence from his compeers in other lands; but he rarely takes to
soldiering. There are not more than five of these men per company, the
rest being all Germans and Irishmen. The percentage in the navy is
greater, yet it is still inconsiderable. The Mexican War, as History
writes it, is the triumph of the militia, whom old “Rough and Ready”
led to conquest as to a “manifest destiny.”[188] On the other hand,
the old and distinguished officer who succeeded General Taylor has
occasionally, it is said, given utterance to opinions concerning the
irregulars which contrast strongly with those generally attributed to
him.
[188] And it will be remembered, the Mexicans were not Austrians or
Russians.
[HATRED AND MURDER.--SERGEANT PIKE.--MR. HENNEFER.]
At Camp Floyd I found feeling running high against the Mormons. “They
hate us, and we hate them,” said an intelligent officer; consequently,
every statement here, as in the city, must be received with many
grains of salt. At Camp Floyd one hears the worst version of every
fact, which, as usual hereabouts, has its many distinct facets. These
anti-Mormons declare that ten murders per annum during the last twelve
years have been committed without punishment in New Zion, whereas New
York averages 18-33. They attribute the phenomenon to the impossibility
of obtaining testimony, and the undue whitewashing action of juries,
which the Mormons declare to be “punctual and hard-working in
sustaining the dignity of the law,” and praise for their “unparalleled
habits of industry and sobriety, order, and respect to just rights.”
Whatever objection I made was always answered by the deception of
appearances, and the assertion that whenever a stranger enters Great
Salt Lake City, one or two plausible Mormons are told off to amuse
and hoodwink him. Similarly the Mormons charge the Christians with
violent injustice. On a late occasion, the mayor of Springville, Mr.
H. F. Macdonald, and the bishop were seized simply because they were
Church dignitaries, on the occasion of a murder, and the former, after
durance vile of months at Camp Floyd, made his escape and walks about
a free man, swearing that he will not again be taken alive. In 1853,
Captain J. W. Gunnison and seven of his party were murdered near
Nicollet on Sevier River, twenty-five miles south of Nephi City. The
anti-Mormons declare that the deed was done under high counsel, by
“white Indians,” to prevent the exploration of a route to California,
and the disclosures which were likely to be made. The Mormons point
to their kind treatment of the previous expedition upon which the
lamented officer was engaged, to the friendliness of his book, to the
circumstance that an Indian war was then raging, and that during the
attack an equal number of Yuta Indians were killed. M. Remy distinctly
refers the murder to the Pahvant Indians, some of whom had been
recently shot by emigrants to California.[189] The horrible “Mountain
Meadow Massacre”[190] was, according to the anti-Mormons, committed
by the Saints to revenge the death of an esteemed apostle--Parley P.
Pratt--who, in the spring of 1857, when traveling through Arkansas,
was knived by one Hector M‘Lean, whose wife he had converted and
taken unto himself. The Mormons deny that the massacre was committed
by their number, and ask the Gentiles why, if such be the case, the
murderers are not brought to justice? They look upon Mr. P. P. Pratt’s
proceeding--even in El Islam, the women of the infidels are, like
their property, _halal_, or lawful to those who win them--as perfectly
justifiable.[191] In February, 1859, occurred sundry disturbances
between the soldiers and citizens at Rush Valley, thirty-five miles
west of Great Salt Lake City, in which Mr. Howard Spencer, nephew to
Mr. Daniel Spencer, a squatter, while being removed from a government
reservation by First Sergeant Ralph Pike of the 10th Infantry, raised
a pitchfork, and received in return a broken head. Shortly afterward
the sergeant, having been summoned to Great Salt Lake City, was met
in Main Street and shot down before all present. The anti-Mormons, of
course, declare the deed to have been done by Mr. Spencer, and hold it,
under the circumstances--execution of duty and summons of justice--an
unpardonable outrage; and the officers assert that they could hardly
prevent their men arming and personally revenging the foul murder of a
comrade, who was loved as an excellent soldier and an honest man.[192]
The Mormons assert that the “shooting” was done by an unknown hand;
that the sergeant had used unnecessary violence against a youth, who,
single-handed and surrounded by soldiers, had raised a pitchfork to
defend his head, and that the provocation thus received converted the
case from murder to one of justifiable homicide. In the month of June
before my arrival, a Lieutenant Saunders and Assistant Surgeon Covey
had tied to a cart’s tail and severely flogged Mr. Hennefer, a Mormon.
The opposition party assert that they recognized in him the man who
two years before had acted as a spy upon them when sitting in Messrs.
Livingston’s store, and, when ordered to “make tracks,” had returned
with half a dozen others, and had shot Dr. Covey in the breast. The
Mormons represent Mr. Hennefer to be a peaceful citizen, and quiet,
unoffending man, thus brutally outraged by tyrannical servants of
government, and, moreover, prove for him an _alibi_ from the original
cause of quarrel. I have given but a few instances: all are equally
contradictory, and _tantas componere lites quis audet_?
[189] See Translation, vol. i., p. 463.
[190] The following is the account of that affair, officially given,
of course, by anti-Mormons: On the 4th or 5th of September, 1857,
a large emigrant train from Arkansas, proceeding to California
with horses, mules, and ox-wagons, conveying stores of clothing
and valuables, was suddenly attacked near a spring at the west end
of Mountain Meadow Valley. The Indians, directed by white men, cut
off from water the travelers, who had fortified themselves behind
the vehicles, which they filled with earth, and killed and wounded
several. When the attacked party, distressed by thirst and a galling
fire, showed symptoms of surrender, several Mormons, among whom the
leaders, John D. Lee and Elder Isaac C. Haight, are particularly
mentioned, approached them with a white flag, and by soft words
persuaded them that if they would give up their weapons they should
be safely forwarded to Panther Creek and Cedar City. The emigrants
unwisely disarmed themselves, and flocked toward the spring. The
work of murder and robbery began near a patch of scrub-oak brush,
about one mile and a half from water. Between 115 and 120 adults
were slain. Three emerged from the valley; of these, two were soon
overtaken and killed, and the third was slaughtered at Muddy Creek,
distant about fifty miles. One of the Mormons--the name has been
variously given--is accused of a truly detestable deed; a girl,
sixteen years old, knelt to him, imploring mercy; he led her away
into the thicket--and then cut her throat. Seventeen children, aged
from two months to seven years, were taken from the Indians by the
whites, and were distributed among the several Mormon families in
Cedar City, Fort Harmony, Santa Clara, etc. Of these, sixteen were
recovered, and the seventeenth was found in the April of 1858. Mr.
Jacob Forney, the late Superintendent of Indian Affairs, conducted
the investigation on the part of the federal government; he reported
that white men joined in the murder and the robbery. The Mormons
of course deny, _in toto_, complicity with the Indians, and remark
that many trains--for instance, to quote no others, the emigrants at
Sublette’s Cut-off, Oregon, in August, 1858--have similarly suffered,
and that they can not be responsible for the misfortunes which men
who insult and ill-treat the natives bring upon themselves.
[191] The following is an extract from the “Millennial Star,” July
25th, 1857. The article is headed “More of the Assassination:”
“We publish the following extract from a letter written by two
gentlemen to the editor of a New York paper. The letter was dated
Flint-Cherokee Nation, Arkansas, May 17th, 1857, and says that after
Elder Pratt was arrested in the Indian country, he was ‘placed
under a strong guard, and by a military escort conveyed in chains
to the Supreme Court, Van Buren, Arkansas. The case being promptly
investigated, and there being no evidence upon which a bill of
indictment could be found, he was liberated on the 13th instant.
Brother Pratt, being without arms, and without friends to protect
him, and knowing that M‘Lean was thirsting for his blood, and that
he had the aid of a mass of the corrupt, money-bought citizens of
Van Buren, endeavored to make his escape on horseback, unmolested;
but every road and passway being under strict watch, he did not
succeed in getting far till his path was discovered. M‘Lean and half
a dozen other armed fiends pursued him; and Brother Pratt being
totally unarmed, they succeeded in killing him without being hurt.
Two of the party in advance intercepted his road, and brought him
to a halt, while M‘Lean and the others came up in the rear. M‘Lean
discharged a six-shooter at him, but the balls took no effect: some
passed through his clothes, others lodged in his saddle. The parties
now being in immediate contact, M‘Lean stabbed him (both being on
horseback) with a heavy bowie-knife twice under the left arm. Brother
Pratt dropped from his horse, and M‘Lean dismounted, and probed the
fatal wounds still deeper; he then got a Derringer from one of his
aids, and, as Brother Pratt lay dying upon his back, shot him in the
upper part of the breast, dropping the pistol by the side of the
victim. The assassin then mounted his horse and fled. This occurred
within a few steps of the residence of a farmer by the name of Wire.
Two gentlemen, being at the house at the time, saw the whole affair,
and have made oath to what they witnessed before a coroner’s jury.
Brother Pratt survived the work of this assassin two hours and a
half, and was enabled to tell those who came to his assistance who
he was, that he had been murdered by a fiend for doing his duty,
and gave full instructions as to what course should be pursued in
interring his body, and the disposition of the means and property
connected with his person. His instructions were fully attended to
by Elder Higginson and Mrs. M‘Lean, who reached the place of his
assassination the same evening. Those who saw his last moments state
that Brother Pratt died without a murmur or a groan, and apparently
without a pain, perfectly resigned to the will of Heaven. Brother
Pratt told Elder Higginson, the morning after his arrest, that his
enemies would kill him, and requested Elder Higginson to go through
with this spring’s emigration to Utah, and carry the news of his
death to the Church and his family. This Elder Higginson will do,
the Lord helping. After perpetrating this heaven-daring deed, M‘Lean
returned to Van Buren and made it known. After remaining in town
several hours, and walking the streets with impunity, he was escorted
by a number of citizens of Van Buren to the boat, and took his leave
of the place. Verily we had long thought that the bloodthirsty
mobocrats of Missouri and Illinois were without a parallel in the
world, but we now yield the palm to the Church-going citizens of
Van Buren, for they have proven to the world that they are a den of
murderers and assassins.
GEORGE HIGGINSON.
GEORGE CROUCH.’”
[192] On this occasion, Cedar Fort, a neighboring settlement, with
cultivation, and a few huts, near Camp Floyd, was attacked at night
by camp-followers (soldiers); a single calf was killed (the whole
place was burned to the ground), and the damages speedily rose from a
dozen to $10,000, claimed from Congress (which did not half repay the
injury done).
Strongly disclaiming the idea that the officers who discussed with me
the subject at Camp Floyd had any tendency to exaggeration or to set
down aught in malice, and quite conscious, as they never failed to
remark, that a stranger is allowed to see only the _beau côté_ of the
New Faith, I can not but think that their views are greatly warped by
causes external to it. This is to be expected. Who, after the massacre
of Cawnpore, would have admitted into his mind a shadow of excuse for
Nana Sahib? Among so many, however blinded and fanatic, and however
fond of polygamy--this is ever the first reproach--there must be some
good men. Yet from the “chief impostor” to the last “acolyte,” all
are represented to be a gang of miscreants. The Mormons are far more
tolerant; they have praise for those Gentiles, even federal officers,
who have abstained from injuring them. They speak well of Lieutenant
Colonel E. J. Steptoe, 9th Regiment of Infantry, and the officers of
his force;[193] of General Wilson, afterward the Navy Agent at San
Francisco; and of the present commandant, Colonel Cooke. They have
nothing to say against Judge Reed, or Mr. John J. Kinney, the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court; and when Judge Leonidas Shaver died
in 1855, they put the papers in mourning, and buried the Gentile in
their cemetery. They do not abuse even their merchant rivals. Mr. J.
B. Kimball, to mention no other, is generally praised and trusted.
But when they find it necessary or advisable to take away a man’s
character, they can do it, “and no mistake.” At the same time, their
tolerance and discipline are, to say the least, remarkable. Judge
Brocchus,[194] to quote but one, would run the risk of being torn to
pieces in almost any fanatical meeting in Europe.
[193] Mr. Hyde (chap. vi.) gives the official document in which these
officers petitioned President Pierce to reappoint Mr. Brigham Young
as Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Utah Territory,
and it speaks volumes in praise of the much-abused Saints.
[194] Chap. vi.
[“BOSTON.”]
At Camp Floyd I was introduced to Colonel G. H. Crossman, Department
Quarter-master General, and Major Montgomery of the same department; to
Dr. Porter, who was uncommonly and unnecessarily shy upon the subject
of a “sick certificate;” and to Lieutenant N. A. M. Dudley, when we
passed many a merry time over “simpkin.” It is hardly necessary to say
that the judge, having no authority to demand, did not obtain either
escort or carriage. Colonel Cooke frankly told him that he had neither
men nor conveyance at liberty, and even if they were that he could not
exceed orders. The Secretary of War is ready to “be down” upon such
offenses, and in the United States Army probably more officers throw
up the service from distress for leave than in the English army. It was
clear that we must travel without the dignities, so we inspected an
ambulance and a four-mule team, for which the Hungarian refugee, its
owner, asked $1000--but little beyond its worth. After an exceedingly
satisfactory day in a private sense, I passed the evening at Captain
Gove’s, and watched with astonishment the game of Boston. Invented by
the French prisoners in the islands of the American Liverpool, and
abounding in “grand misery,” “little misery,” and other appropriate
terms, it combines all the difficulties of whist, écarté, piquet, brag,
and cribbage, and seems to possess the same attractions which beam
upon the mind of the advanced algebraic scholar. Fortunately there was
an abundance of good commissariat whisky and excellent tobacco, whose
attractions were greater than that of Boston. On the morrow, a gloomy
morning, with cold blasts and spatters of rain from the southwest, and
the tameness of the snow-birds--which here represent
“Cock Robin and Jenny Wren,
God Almighty’s cock and hen”--
warned us that the fine season was breaking up, and that we had no time
to lose. So, inspanning Julia and Sally, we set out, and after six
hours reached once more the City of the Saints.
CHAPTER VIII.
Excursions continued.
[COTTON-WOOD KANYON.]
I had long been anxious to visit the little chain of lakes in the
Wasach Mountains, southeast of the city, and the spot where the
Saints celebrate their “Great Twenty-fourth of July.” At dinner the
subject had been often on the carpet, and anti-Mormons had informed
me, hinting at the presence of gold, that no Gentile was allowed to
enter Cotton-wood Kanyon without a written permit from the President
Prophet. Through my friend the elder I easily obtained the sign manual;
it was explained to me that the danger of fires in a place which will
supply the city with lumber for a generation, and the mischievousness
of enemies, were at the bottom of the precaution. Before starting,
however, two Saints were chosen to accompany me, Mr. S----, and Mr.,
or rather Colonel, Feramorz, popularly called Ferry, Little. This
gentleman, a partner, relative, and connection of Mr. Brigham Young, is
one of the “Seventies;” of small and spare person, he is remarkable for
pluck and hardihood, and in conjunction with Ephe Hanks, the Danite, he
has seen curious things on the Prairies.
A skittish, unbroken, stunted, weedy three-year-old for myself, and a
tall mule for my companion, were readily lent by Mr. Kennedy, an Irish
Gentile and stock-dealer, who, being bound on business to California,
was in treaty with us for reward in case of safe-conduct. We chose the
morning of the 14th of September, after the first snow had whitened
the peaks, and a glorious cool, clear day it was--a sky diaphanous, as
if earth had been roofed with rock crystal. While awaiting the hour to
depart under the veranda of the hotel, Governor Cumming pointed out to
me Bill Hickman, once the second of the great “Danite” triumvirate,
and now somewhat notorious for meddling with Church property. He is a
good-looking fellow, about forty-five, rather stout and square, with
high forehead, open countenance, and mild, light blue eye, and owns, I
believe, to only three deaths. On the last Christmas-day, upon occasion
of a difficulty with a youth named Lot Huntingdon, the head of the
youngster party, he had drawn his “bowie,” and a “shooting” took place,
both combatants exchanging contents of revolvers across the street,
both being well filled with slugs, and both living to tell the tale.
“Do you know what that fellow is saying to himself?” asked the
governor, reading the thoughts of a fiercely frowning youth who
swaggered past us.
I confessed to the negative.
“He is only thinking, ‘D--d gov’rnor, wonder if he’s a better man than
me,’” said my interlocutor.
About 4 P.M. we mounted and rode out of the city toward the mouth
of the kanyon, where we were to meet Mr. Little. Passing by the
sugar-mills and turning eastward, after five or six miles we saw at a
distance a block of buildings, which presently, as if by enchantment,
sank into the earth; an imperceptible wave of ground--a common
prairie formation--had intervened. From the summit of the land we
again sighted the establishment. It is situated in the broad bed of
a dry _fiumara_--which would, by-the-by, be a perilous place in the
tropics--issuing from Parley’s Kanyon. The ravine, which is sometimes
practiced by emigrant trains, is a dangerous pass, here and there but a
few rods wide, and hemmed in by rocks rising perpendicularly 2000 feet.
The principal house was built for defense, the garden was walled round,
and the inclosure had but two small doors.
We were met at the entrance by Mr. Little, who, while supper was being
prepared, led us to the tannery and the grist-mill, of which he is
part proprietor. The bark used for the process is the red fir, costing
$25 per cord, and the refuse is employed in composts. The hides are
received unsalted; to save labor, they are pegged to soak upon wheels
turned by water-power. The leather is good, and under experienced
European workmen will presently become cheaper than that imported from
England.
Beyond the tannery was an adobe manufacture. The brick in this part
splits while burning, consequently the sun-dried article is preferred;
when the wall is to be faced, pegs are driven into it to hold the
plaster. The material is clay or silt from the creek, puddled with
water, and if saltish it is better than sweet soil; unity of color
and formation are the tests of goodness. Each brick weighs, when dry,
16 lbs., and the mould is mostly double. On the day after making they
are stacked, and allowed to stand for two months; the season is June,
July, and August, after which it becomes too cold. The workman is paid
75 per cent.; 400 per diem would be tolerable, 700 good work; thus an
able-bodied bricklayer can make twenty-one shillings a day--rather a
contrast to the wages of an unfortunate laborer in England.
[EVERY CHILD A RELATIVE.]
Returning home, we walked through Mr. Little’s garden, and admired
its neatness. The fruit-trees were mostly barren; in this year the
city sets down a loss of $100,000 by frost. I tasted, for the first
time, the Californian grape, “uvas admodum maturas, ita voluit anni
intemperies;” they not a little resembled the northern French. A
single vine sometimes bears $100 worth. There was a little rhubarb,
but it is not much used where sugar costs forty-five cents per pound.
After supping with Mr. Little, his wife and family, we returned to the
_andronitis_, and prepared for the night with a chat. The principal
point illustrated was the curious amount of connection caused by
polygamy; all men, calling each other brothers, become cousins, and
it is hardly possible, among the old Mormons, to stop a child in the
street without finding that it is a relative. I was surprised at the
comfort, even the luxury, of a Mormon householder in these remote
wilds, and left it with a most favorable impression.
At the dawn of the next day we prepared to set out; from the city
to the mouth of the kanyon the distance is about thirteen, and to
the lakelets twenty-seven miles. Mr. Little now accompanied us on
horseback, and his son James, whom I may here safely call a boy, was
driving a buck-board. This article is a light gig-body mounted upon
a thin planking, to which luggage is strapped; it can go where a
horse can tread, and is easier to both animals than riding down steep
hills. The boy, like Mormon juveniles generally, had a great aptitude
at driving, riding, and using the axe; he attended a school, but
infinitely preferred that of Nature, and showed all the disposition
to become the father of a stout, brave Western man. As in the wilder
parts of Australia, where the pedagogue has less pay than the shepherd,
“keep a school” is here equivalent to semi-starvation; there is no
superstitious aversion, as the Gentiles have asserted, to a modicum of
education, but the state of life renders manual labor more honored and
profitable. While the schoolmaster gains $2 50 per mensem, a ditcher
would make the same sum per diem. Besides impatience of study, the boys
are ever anxious to become men--“bring up a child and away it goes,”
says the local proverb--and literature will not yet enable a youth to
marry and to set up housekeeping in the Rocky Mountains.
Our route lay over the bench; on our right was a square adobe fort,
that had been used during the Indian troubles, and fields and houses
were scattered about. Passing the mouth of Parley’s Kanyon, we
entered the rich bottom-land of the Great Cotton-wood, beautified
with groves of quaking asp, whose foliage was absolute green, set off
by paper-white stems. After passing through an avenue of hardheads,
_i.e._, erratic granite boulders, which are carted to the city for
building the Temple, we turned to the left and entered the mouth of the
kanyon, where its sides flare out into gentler slopes.
A clear mountain stream breaks down the middle. The bed is a mass of
pebbles and blocks: hornblende; a white limestone, almost marble, but
full of flaws; red sandstone, greenstone, and a conglomerate like
mosaic-work. The bank is thick with the poplar, from which it derives
its name; willow clumps; the alder, with its dry, mulberry-like fruit;
the hop vine, and a birch whose bark is red as the cherry-tree’s.
Above the stream the ravine sides are in places too steep for growth;
as a rule, the northern is never wooded save where the narrowness of
the gorge impedes the action of the violent south winds. On the lower
banks the timber is mostly cleared off. Upon the higher slopes grow
the mountain mahogany and the scrub maple wherever there is a foot of
soil. There is a fine, sturdy growth of abies. The spruce, or white
pine, rises in a beautifully regular cone often 100 feet high; there
are two principal varieties of fir, one with smooth light bark, and the
other, which loves a higher range, and looks black as it bristles out
of its snowy bed, is of a dun russet. Already appeared the splendid
tints which make the American autumn a fit subject “_pictoribus atque
poetis_.” An atmosphere of blue seemed to invest the pines; the maple
blushed bright red; and the willow clumps of the bed and the tapestry
of ferns had turned to vegetable gold, while snow, bleached to more
than usual whiteness by intervals of deep black soil, flecked the
various shade of the poison hemlocks and balsam firs, and the wild
strawberry, which the birds had stripped of fruit.
[GREAT COTTON-WOOD KANYON.]
Great Cotton-wood Kanyon, like the generality of these ravines in
the western wall of the Wasach, runs east and west till near the
head, when it gently curves toward the north, and is separated from
its neighbor by a narrow divide. On both sides the continuity of the
gap is cut by deep jagged gullies, rendering it impossible to crown
the heights. The road, which winds from side to side, was worked by
thirty-two men, directed by Mr. Little, in one season, at a total
expense of $16,000. After exhausting Red Buttes, Emigration, and other
kanyons, for timber and fuel, Great Cotton-wood was explored in 1854,
and in 1856 the ascent was made practicable. In places where the gorge
narrows to a gut there were great difficulties, but rocks were removed,
while tree-trunks and boughs were spread like a corduroy, and covered
over with earth brought from a distance: Mormon energy overcame every
obstacle. It is repaired every summer before the anniversary festival;
it suffers during the autumn, and is preserved from destruction by
the winter snows. In many places there are wooden bridges, one of
which pays toll, and at the end of the season they become not a little
rickety. As may be imagined, the water-power has been utilized. Lines
and courses carefully leveled, and in parts deeply excavated, lest the
precious fluid should spread out in basins, are brought from afar, and
provided with water-gates and coffer-dams. The mills are named after
the letters C, B, A, D, and lastly E. Already 700,000 square feet of
lumber have been cut during this summer, and a total of a million is
expected before the mills are snowed up; you come upon these ugly
useful erections suddenly, round a sharp turn in the bed; they have a
queer effect with their whirring saws and crash of timber, forming a
treble to the musical bass of the water-gods.
We halted at the several mills, when Mr. Little overlooked his
accounts, and distributed stores of coffee, sugar, and tobacco. After
the first five miles we passed flecks of snow; the thermometer,
however, in the shade never showed less than 60° F. In places the
hill sides were bald from the effect of avalanches, and we saw where
a house had lately been swept away. In others a fine white limestone
glistened its deception. After passing Mill D, we debouched upon the
basin also called the Big Prairie, a dwarf turfy savanna, about 100
yards in diameter, rock and tree girt, and separated from Parley’s
Kanyon on the north by a tall, narrow wall. We then ascended a slope
of black, viscid, slippery mud, in which our animals were nearly
mired, with deep slush-holes and cross-roots: as we progressed the
bridges did not improve. On our left, in a pretty grove of thin pines,
stood a bear-trap. It was a dwarf hut, with one or two doors, which
fall when Cuffy tugs the bait from the figure of 4 in the centre.
These mountaineers apparently ignore the simple plan of the Tchuvash,
who fill up with corn-brandy a hollow in some tree lying across
“old Ephraim’s” path, and catch him dead drunk. In many places the
quaking-asp trunks were deeply indented with claw-scars, showing that
the climbing species is here common. Shortly before, a bear had been
shot within a few miles of Great Salt Lake City, and its paws appeared
upon the hotel _table d’hôte_.
About mid afternoon we dismounted, and left our nags and traps at Mill
E, the highest point, where we were to pass the night. Mr. Little was
suffering from a severe neuralgia, yet he insisted upon accompanying
us. With visions of Albano, Killarney, and Windermere, I walked up the
half mile of hill separating us from Great Cotton-wood Lake. In front
rose tall pine-clad and snow-strewed peaks, a _cul de sac_ formed by
the summit of the Wasach. We could not see their feet, but instinct
told me that they dropped around the water. The creek narrowed to a
jump. Presently we arrived at a kind of punch-bowl, formed by an
amphitheatre of frowning broken mountains, highest and most snowy on
the southeast and west, and nearly clear of snow and trees on the east.
The level ground, perhaps one mile in diameter, was a green sward,
dotted with blocks and boulders, based on black humus and granite
detritus. Part of it was clear, the rest was ivy-grown, with pines,
clumps, and circlets of tall trees, surrounded by their young in
bunches and fringes, as if planted by the hand of man. There were signs
of the last season’s revelry--heaps of charcoal and charred trunks,
rough tables of two planks supported by trestles, chairs or rail-like
settles, and the brushy remnants of three “boweries.” Two skulls showed
that wolves had been busy with the cattle. Freshly-caught trout lay
upon the table, preserved in snow, and in the distance the woodman’s
axe awoke with artful sound the echoes of the rocks.
At last we came upon the little tarn which occupies the lowest angle,
the western ridge of the punch-bowl or prairie basin. Unknown to
Captain Stansbury, it had been visited of old by a few mountain-men,
and since 1854 by the mass of the Mormons. According to my informants
it is the largest of a chaplet of twelve pools, two to the S.W. and
ten to the S.E., which are probably independent bulges in the several
torrent beds. Some are described as having no outlet, yet all are
declared to be sweet water. The altitude has not been ascertained
scientifically. It is roughly set down between 9500 and 10,000 feet. It
was then at its smallest--about half a mile long by one quarter broad.
After the melting of the snow it spreads out over the little savanna.
The bottom is sandy and gravelly, sloping from ten to twenty feet deep.
It freezes over in winter, and about 25-30 May the ice breaks up and
sinks. The runnel which feeds it descends from the snow-capped peak to
the south, and copious supplies trickle through the soppy margin at the
base of the dripping hills around. The surplus escapes through a head
to the north, where a gated dam is thrown across to raise the level,
and to regulate the water-power. The color is a milky white; the water
is warm, and its earthy vegetable taste, the effect of the weeds that
margin it, contrasts with the purity of the creek which drains it. The
fish are principally mountain trout and the gymnotus eel. In search of
shells we walked round the margin, now sinking in the peaty ground,
then clambering over the boulders--white stones that, rolled down from
the perpendicular rocks above, simulated snow--then fighting our way
through the thick willow clumps. Our quest, however, was not rewarded.
After satisfying curiosity, we descended by a short cut of a quarter
of a mile under tall trees whose shade preserved the snow, and found
ourselves once more in Mill E.
[FELLING TREES.]
The log hut was of the usual make. A cold wind--the mercury had
fallen to 50° F.--rattled through the crannies, and we prepared for
a freezing night by a blazing fire. The furniture--two bunks, with
buffalo robes, tables and chairs, which were bits of plank mounted on
four legs--was of the rudest. I whiled away the last hours of light
by adding to my various accomplishments an elementary knowledge of
felling trees. Handling the timber-axe is by no means so simple a
process as it appears. The woodman does it by instinct; the tyro, who
is always warned that he may easily indent or slice off a bit of his
leg, progresses slowly and painfully. The principal art is to give the
proper angle to the blade, to whirl the implement loosely round the
head, and to let it fall by the force of its own weight, the guiding
hand gliding down the haft to the other, in order not to break the
blow. We ate copiously; appetite appeared to come by eating, though not
in the Parisian sense of the phrase--what a treasure would be such a
sanitarium in India! The society was increased by two sawyers, gruff
and rugged men, one of whom suffered from ophthalmia, and two boys, who
successfully imitated their elders.
[INDEPENDENCE DAY.]
Our fireside chat was sufficiently interesting. Mr. S---- described the
ceremonies of the last Mormon Independence Day. After the preliminaries
had been settled as below,[195] the caravans set out from the Holy
City. In 1860 there were 1122 souls, 56 carriages, 163 wagons, 235
horses, 159 mules, and 168 oxen. They bivouacked for the night upon
the road, and marched with a certain ceremony. The first President
issued an order allowing any one to press forward, though not at the
expense of others; still no one would precede him; nor would the second
advance before the third President--a good example to some who might
want teaching. Moreover, the bishops had the privilege of inviting, or,
rather, of permitting the people of their several wards, even Gentiles,
to attend. The “pioneers”--the survivors of the noble 143 who, guided
by their Joshua, Mr. Brigham Young, first attempted the Promised
Land--were distinguished by their names on banners, and the bands
played lustily “God save the King,” and the “Star-spangled Banner,”
“Happy Land,” and “Du-dah.” At six on the fine morning of the 24th,
which followed ugly weather, a salute of three guns, in honor of the
First Presidency, was fired, with music in the intervals, the stars and
the stripes floating on the top of the noblest staff, a tall fir-tree.
At 9 A.M. a salute of thirteen guns, denoting the age of New Zion, and
at 6 P.M. twelve guns, corresponding with the number of the apostles,
were discharged with similar ceremonies. The scene must have been
lively and picturesque around the bright little tarn, and under the
everlasting hills--a holiday crowd, with wagons and ambulances drawn
up, tents and marquees pitched under the groves, and horse-races, in
which the fair sex joined, over the soft green sward. At 10 P.M., after
the dancing in the boweries had flagged, the bands finished with “Home,
sweet Home,” and the Saints returned to their every-day occupations.
[195] Extract from the Great Salt Lake correspondent of that amiable
and conscientious periodical, the “New York Herald.”
“_The Great Twenty-fourth of July._
“In my last I gave your readers a full account of the Mormon
demonstrations on the anniversary of American independence. That
done, they have now before them the celebration of their own
independence. Adhesiveness is largely developed in the Mormon
cranium. They will hold on to their notions. On the 24th of July,
1847, Brigham, at the head of the pioneers, entered this now
beautiful valley--then a barren wilderness. Forgetful of the means
that forced them here, the day was set apart for rejoicing. They laid
aside the weeds of mourning, and consecrated the day to feasting
and dancing. The Twenty-fourth is the day of deliverance that will
be handed down to generations when the Fourth is immeasurably
forgotten. Three years ago, two thousand persons were congregated
at the head-waters of Big Cotton-wood, commemorating independence,
when messengers from the East arrived with the intelligence that
the troops were on the plains. I need not farther allude to what
was then said and done; suffice it, things have been so disjointed
since that Big Cotton-wood has been left alone in solitude. Setting
aside the restraint of years, it seems that the faithful are to again
enjoy themselves. The following card tells the marching orders; the
interstices will be filled up with orations, songs, prayers, dances,
and every kind of athletic game that the young may choose to indulge
in:
“_Twenty-fourth of July at the Head-quarters of Big
Cotton-wood._--President Brigham Young respectfully invites ---- to
attend a picnic excursion to the lake in Big Cotton-wood Kanyon, on
Tuesday, the 24th of July.
“_Regulations._--You will be required to start so as to pass the
first mill, about four miles up the kanyon, before twelve o’clock
on Monday, the 23d, as no person will be allowed to pass that point
after two o’clock P.M. of that day. All persons are forbidden to
smoke segars or pipes, or kindle fires at any place in the kanyon,
except on the camp-ground. The bishops are requested to accompany
those invited from their respective wards, and see that each person
is well fitted for the trip with good, substantial, steady teams,
wagons, harness, hold-backs and locks, capable of completing the
journey without repair, and a good driver, so as not to endanger the
life of any individual. Bishops, heads of families, and leaders of
small parties will, before passing the first mill, furnish a full and
complete list of all persons accompanying them, and hand the same to
the guard at the gate.
“_Committee of Arrangements._--A. O. Smoot, John Sharp, L. W. Hardy,
A. Cunningham, E. F. Sheets, F. Kesler, Thomas Callister, A. H.
Raleigh, Henry Moon. J. C. Little, Marshal of the Day; Colonel R. T.
Burton will arrange the Guard.
“Great Salt Lake City, July 10, 1860.”
[FREE-MASONRY.--MORALITY.--TOLERANCE.]
Mr. Little also recounted to us his experiences among the Indians, whom
he, like all the Mormons, firmly believed to be children of Israel
under a cloud. He compared the medicine lodge to a masonic hall, and
declared that the so-called Red Men had signs and grips like ourselves;
and he related how an old chief, when certain symbolic actions were
made to him, wept and wailed, thinking how he and his had neglected
their observances. The Saints were at one time good masons; unhappily
they wanted to be better. The angel of the Lord brought to Mr. Joseph
Smith the lost key-words of several degrees, which caused him, when he
appeared among the brotherhood of Illinois, to “work right ahead” of
the highest, and to show them their ignorance of the greatest truths
and benefits of masonry. The natural result was that their diploma
was taken from them by the Grand Lodge, and they are not admitted
to a Gentile gathering. Now heathens without the gate, they still
cling to their heresy, and declare that other masonry is, like the
Christian faith, founded upon truth, and originally of the eternal
Church, but fallen away and far gone in error. There is no race,
except perhaps antiquaries, more credulous than the brethren of the
mystic craft. I have been told by one who may have deceived himself,
but would not have deceived me, that the Royal Arch, notoriously a
corruption of the Royal Arras, is known to the Bedouins of Arabia;
while the dairy of the Neilgherry Todas, with its exclusion of women,
and its rude ornamentation of crescents, circles, and triangles, was
at once identified with the “old religion of the world whose vestiges
survive among all people.” But these are themes unfit for an “entered
apprentice.” Mr. Little corroborated concerning the Prairie Indians
and the Yutas what is said of the settled tribes, namely, that the
comforts of civilization tend to their destruction. The men, enervated
by indoor life for half the year, are compelled at times to endure
sudden privation, hardship, and fatigue, of which the results are
rheumatism, consumption, and fatal catarrhs. Yet he believed that the
“valleys of Ephraim” would yet be full of them. He spoke freely of the
actualities and prospects of Mormonism. My companions asserted with
truth that there is not among their number a single loafer, rich or
poor, an idle gentleman or a lazy vagabond, a drunkard or a gambler,
a beggar or a prostitute. Those honorable professions are membered by
the Gentiles. They boasted, indeed, of what is sometimes owned by their
enemies, that there are fewer robberies, murders, arsons, and rapes in
Utah than in any other place of equal population in the world. They
held that the laws of the United States are better adapted to secure
the happiness of a small community than to consolidate the provinces of
a continent into one huge empire, and they looked confidently forward
to the spread of Mormonism over the world. They claimed for themselves,
like other secessionists, “_le droit sacré d’insurrection_,” against
which in vain the Gentiles raged and the federal government devised
vain things. They declared themselves to be the salt of the Union,
and that in the fullness of time they shall break the republic in
pieces like a potter’s vessel. Of Washington, Jefferson, and the other
sages of the Revolution they speak with all respect, describing them
as instruments in the hand of the Almighty, and as Latter-Day Saints
in will if not in deed. I was much pleased by their tolerance; but
tolerance in the West is rather the effect of climate and occupation
than of the reasoning faculty. Gentiles have often said before me
that Mormonism is as good as any other religion, and that Mr. Joseph
Smith “had as good a right to establish a Church as Luther, Calvin,
Fox, Wesley, or even bluff King Hal.” The Mormons are certainly the
least fanatical of our faiths, owning, like Hindoos, that every man
should walk his own way, while claiming for themselves superiority in
belief and politics. At Nauvoo they are said to have been puffed up
by the rapid growth of their power, and to have been presumptuous,
haughty, insolent, and overbearing; to have assumed a jurisdiction
independent of, and sometimes hostile to, the nine counties around them
and to the States; to have attached penalties to speaking evil of the
Prophet; and to have denied the validity of legal documents, unless
countersigned by him who was also mayor and general. They are certainly
changed for the better in these days. With respect to their future
views, the anti-Mormons assert that Saints have now been driven to the
end of their tether, and must stand to fight or deliver; that the new
Territory of Nevada will presently be a fatal rival to them; that the
States will no longer tolerate this theocratic despotism in the bosom
of a democracy; and that presently they must be wiped out. The Mormons
already discern the dawning of a brighter day. In the reaction which
has taken place in their favor they fear no organized attack by the
United States on account of lobby influence at Washington, and the
_vis inertiæ_ inherent in so slow and unwieldy a body as the federal
government. They count upon secession, quoting a certain proverb
touching conjunctures when honest men come in. They believe that the
supernatural aid of God, plus their vote, will presently make them a
state. “Some time this side of the great millennium” they will realize
their favorite dream, restoration (which might indeed happen in ten
years) to their quondam Zion--Independence, Mo., the centre of the old
terrestrial Paradise. Of this promised land their President said, with
“something of prophetic strain,” “while water runs and grass grows,
while virtue is lovely and vice hateful, and while a stone points out
a sacred spot where a fragment of American liberty once was”--Lord
Macaulay’s well-known Zealander shall apparently take his passage by
Cunard’s--“I or my posterity will plead the cause of injured innocence,
until Missouri makes atonement for all her sins, or sinks disgraced,
degraded, and damned to hell, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is
not quenched.” Then shall the Jews of the Old World rebuild the Temple
of Solomon, and the Jews of the New World (the Mormons) recover their
own Zion. Gog and Magog--that is to say, the kings of the Gentiles--and
their hosts shall rise up against the Latter-Day Saints, who, guided
by a prophet that wields the sword of Laban, shall mightily overthrow
them at the battle of Armageddon. Then the spears, bows, and arrows
(probably an abstruse allusion to the descendants of our Miniés and
Armstrongs) shall be burned with fire seven years; the earth and its
fullness shall be theirs, and the long-looked-for millennium shall come
at last. And as prophecy without date is somewhat liable to be vague
and indefinite, these great events are fixed in Mr. Joseph Smith’s
Autobiography for the year of grace 1890. Meantime they can retire, if
forbidden the Saskatchewan River and Vancouver’s Island, to the rich
“minerales” in “Sonora of the Gold Mountains.”
[THE “GAUGE OF PHILOSOPHY.”--MISSIONARIES.]
On the morning of the next day, Sunday, the 16th of September, we
mounted and rode slowly on. I had neglected to take “leggins,” and
the loss of cuticle and cutis was deplorable. Once at the Tabernacle
was enough: on this occasion, however, non-attendance was a mistake.
There had been a little “miff” between Mr. President and the “Gauge
of Philosophy,” Mr. O. Pratt. The latter gentleman, who is also an
apostle, is a highly though probably a self-educated man, not, as is
stated in an English work, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. The
Usman of the New Faith, writer, preacher, theologian, missionary,
astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician--especially in the higher
branches--he has thrust thought into a faith of ceremony which is
supposed to dispense with the trouble of thinking, and has intruded
human learning into a scheme whose essence is the utter abrogation of
the individual will. He is consequently suspected of too much learning;
of relying, in fact, rather upon books and mortal paper than that royal
road to all knowledge, inspiration from on high, and his tendencies
to let loose these pernicious doctrines often bring him into trouble
and place him below his position. In his excellent discourse delivered
to-day he had declared the poverty of the Mormons, and was speedily put
down by Mr. Brigham Young, who boasted the Saints to be the wealthiest
(_i. e._, in good works and post-obit prospects) people in the world. I
had tried my best to have the pleasure of half an hour’s conversation
with the Gauge, who, however, for reasons unknown to me, declined. At
the same meeting Mr. Heber C. Kimball solemnly consigned to a hotter
place than the tropics Messrs. Bell and Livingston, the cause being
their supposed complicity in bringing in the federal troops. I write
it with regret, but both of these gentlemen, when the sad tidings were
communicated to them, showed a quasi-Pharaonic hardening of the carnal
heart. A measure, however, was on this occasion initiated, which more
than compensated for these small _ridicules_. To the present date
missionaries were sent forth, to Canton even, or Kurrachee, like the
apostles of Judea, working their passages and supporting themselves
by handiwork; being wholly without purse or scrip, baggage or salary,
they left their business to languish, and their families to want. When
man has no coin of his own, he is naturally disposed to put his hand
into his neighbor’s pocket, and the greediness of a few unprincipled
propagandists, despite the prohibitions of the Prophet, had caused
a scandal by the richness of their “plunder.” A new ordinance was
therefore issued to the thirty new nominees.[196] The missionaries
were forbidden to take from their converts, and in compensation they
would receive regular salaries, for which funds were to be collected
in the several wards. On the same evening I was informed a single
ward, the 13th, subscribed $3000. That Sunday was an important day to
myself also; I posted a “sick certificate,” advising extension of leave
for six months, signed by W. F. Anderson, M.D., of the University of
Maryland. It was not wholly _en règle_; it required two signatures
and the counter-signature of H. B. M.’s consul to affirm that the
signatures were _bonâ fide_, not “bogus.” But the signer was the
only M.D. in the place, H. B. M.’s nearest consul was distant about
600 miles, and to suggest that a gentleman may be quietly forging or
falsifying his signature is to incur an unjustifiable personal risk in
the Far West.
[196] The following is a copy of the elder’s certificate, officially
signed by the president and his two councilors, and supplied to the
departing missionary:
“_To all Persons to whom this Letter shall come_:
“This certifies that the bearer, Elder A. B., is in full faith and
fellowship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and
by the general authorities of said Church has been duly appointed a
mission to Liverpool to preach the Gospel, and administer in all the
ordinances thereof pertaining to his office.
“And we invite all men to give heed to his teachings and counsels as
a man of God, sent to open to them the door of life and salvation,
and assist him in his travels, in whatsoever things he may need.
“And we pray God, the Eternal Father, to bless Elder A. B., and all
who receive him and minister to his comfort, with the blessings of
heaven and earth, for time and for all eternity, in the name of Jesus
Christ: Amen.
“Signed at Great Salt Lake City, Territory of Utah, ----, 186-, in
behalf of said Church.”
Still bent upon collecting the shells of the Basin, I accepted Mr.
S----’s offer of being my guide to Ensign Peak, where they are said
to be found in the greatest number. Our route lay through the broken
wall which once guarded the land against Lemuel, and we passed close
by the large barn-like building called the Arsenal, where the military
school will also be. Motives of delicacy prevented my asking questions
concerning the furniture of the establishment. Anti-Mormons, however,
whisper that it contains cannon, mortars, and other large-scaled
implements of destruction, prepared, of course, for treasonable
purposes. The Arsenal naturally led us into conversation concerning the
Nauvoo Legion, the Mormon Battalion, the Danite band, and other things
military, of which the reader may not be undesirous of knowing “some.”
[THE NAUVOO LEGION.--GRANTS.]
The Nauvoo Legion was organized in 1840, and was made to include all
male Saints between the ages of sixteen and fifty. In 1842 it numbered
2000 men, well officered, uniformed, armed, and drilled. It now may
amount throughout the Territory to 6000-8000 men: the Utah militia,
however, is officially laid down in the latest returns at 2821. In case
of war, it would be assisted by 30,000 or 40,000 Indian warriors. The
Legion is commanded by a lieutenant general, at present Mr. Daniel C.
Wells, the Martin Hofer of this Western Tyrol; the major general is Mr.
C. D. Grant, who, in case of vacancy, takes command. The lieutenant
general is elected by a majority of the commissioned officers, and
is then commissioned by the governor: he organizes the Legion into
divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, companies, and districts:
his staff, besides heads of departments--adjutant, commissary
quarter-master, paymaster, and surgeon general--consists of three aids
and two topographical engineers with the rank of colonel, a military
secretary with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and two chaplains. The
present adjutant general is Mr. William Ferguson, one of the few Irish
Saints, originally sergeant-major in the Mormon battalion, who, after
the fashion of the Western world, combines with the soldier the lawyer
and the editor. The minutest directions are issued to the Legion in
“An Act to provide for the farther Organization of the Militia of the
Territory of Utah” (Territorial Laws, chap. 35), and it is divided into
military districts as below.[197] There is, moreover, an independent
battalion of Life Guards in Great Salt Lake County not attached to
any brigade or division, but subject at all times to the call of the
governor and lieutenant general. There are also minute-men, picked
fighters, ready to mount, at a few minutes’ notice, upon horses that
range near the Jordan, and to take the field in pursuit of Indians or
others, under their commandant Colonel Burton. These corps form the
nuclei of what will be, after two generations, formidable armies. The
increase of Saintly population is rapid, and from their childhood men
are trained to arms: each adult has a rifle and a sabre, a revolver and
a bowie-knife, and he wants only practice to become a good, efficient,
and well-disciplined soldier. Grants amounting to a total of $5000 have
at different times been apportioned to military purposes, buildings,
mounting ordnance, and schools: Gentiles declare that it was required
for education, but I presume that the Mormons, like most people, claim
to know their own affairs best. As in the land of Liberty generally,
there is a modified conscription; “all free male citizens”--with a
few dignified exceptions and exempts--are subject to soldier’s duty
within thirty days after their arrival at any military district in the
Territory.
[197] There are eleven originally established, viz.:
1st. The Great Salt Lake Military District shall include all the
militia within the boundaries of Great Salt Lake City.
2d. The Davis Military District shall include all the militia within
the limits of Davis County.
3d. The Weber Military District shall include all the militia within
the limits of Weber County.
4th. The Western Jordan Military District shall include all the
militia in Great Salt Lake County west of the Jordan River.
5th. The Tooele Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of Tooele County.
6th. The Cotton-wood Military District shall include all the militia
in Great Salt Lake County south of the south line of Great Salt Lake
City and east of the Jordan River.
7th. The Utah Military District shall include all the militia in Utah
County.
8th. The San Pete Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of San Pete County.
9th. The Parovan Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of Millard County.
10th. The Iron Military District shall include all the militia within
the limits of Iron County.
11th. The Green River Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of Green River County.
That the Mormon battalion did good service in the Mexican War of 1847
is a matter of history. It was sent at a most critical conjuncture.
Application was made to the Saints, when upon the point of commencing
their exodus from Egypt, through the deserts of Paran and Sin, where
the red Amalekite and the Moabite lay in wait to attack them, and
when every male was wanted to defend the old and sick, the women and
children, and the valuables of which the Egyptian had not despoiled
them. Yet the present Prophet did not hesitate to obey the call: he
sent off 500 of his best men, who fought through the war and shared
in the triumph. Providence rewarded them. It was a Mormon--James
W. Marshall--who, when discharged from service, entered with some
comrades the service of a Swiss land-owner, Captain Suter--a remnant of
Charles X.’s guard--near Sacramento, on the American River, and who,
in January, 1848, when sinking a mill-run or water-run, discovered the
shining metal which first made California a household word. On the
return of the battalion to Great Salt Lake City, laden with nearly
half a million of gold, a mint was established, and a $5 piece was
added to the one million dollars which forms the annual circulation of
the United States. It bears on the reverse, “Holiness to the Lord,”
surmounting a three-cornered cap, placed over a single eye: the former
alludes, I was told, mystically to the first Presidency; the obverse
having two hands clasped over the date (1849), and the words “Five
Dollars, G. S. L. C. P. G.” The $5 appeared somewhat heavier, though
smaller than an English sovereign. Anti-Mormons adduce this coinage as
an additional proof of saintly presumption; but it was legally done:
a Territory may not stamp precious metal with the federal arms, but
it has a right to establish its own. They adduce, moreover, a severe
charge, namely, that the $5 piece was 15-20 per cent. under weight, and
yet was forcibly made current. One remarkable effect the gold certainly
had. When the Kirtland Safety Savings Bank, established by Mr. Joseph
Smith in February, 1831, broke, he stout-heartedly prophesied that
before twenty years should elapse the worthless paper should be again
at par. The financial vaticination was true to the letter.[198]
[198] The Mormons quote two other prophecies both equally offensive
to the United States, and both equally well known.
On the 26th of April, 1843, Mr. Joseph Smith distinctly declared, in
the name of the Lord, that before the arrival of the Son of Man the
“question of slavery would cause a rebellion in South Carolina,” and
effect a “division of the Southern against the Northern States.” It
was a calamity easy to be foreseen, but we look with anxiety to the
unfulfilled portion, the “terrible bloodshed” which will result.
In 1846, when, humanly speaking, want and destitution stared the
Saints in the face, Mr. Brigham Young predicted that within five
years they would be wealthier than before. This was palpably
fulfilled in 1849, when the passage of emigrants to California
enabled the Saints to exchange their supplies of food for goods and
valuables at enormous profits.
I commend these “uninspired prophecies” to the simple-minded
translator of “Forewarnings, Prophecies on the Church, Antichrist
(who was born, we are told, four years ago), and Revelations in
the Last Times.” Messrs. Smith and Young’s vaticinations will be
found quite as respectable as the “Visions of an Aged Nun” and the
“Predictions of Sister Rosa Columba.” Prophecy, being the highest aim
of human induction, is apparently universally and equally diffused.
[Illustration: ENSIGN PEAK. (North End of Great Salt Lake City.)]
[THE DANITE BAND.]
The “Danite band,” a name of fear in the Mississippi Valley, is said
by anti-Mormons to consist of men between the ages of seventeen and
forty-nine. They were originally termed Daughters of Gideon, Destroying
Angels--the Gentiles say Devils--and, finally, Sons of Dan, or Danites,
from one of whom it was prophesied that he should be a serpent in the
path. They were organized about 1837, under D. W. Patten, popularly
called Captain Fearnot, for the purpose of dealing as avengers of
blood with Gentiles; in fact, they formed a kind of “Death Society,”
Desperadoes, Thugs, Hashshashiyun--in plain English, assassins in
the name of the Lord. The Mormons declare categorically the whole
and every particular to be the calumnious invention of the impostor
and arch apostate Mr. John C. Bennett, whilom mayor of Nauvoo; that
the mystery and horror of the idea made it equally grateful to the
knave and fool who persecuted them, and that not a trader could be
scalped, nor a horse-stealer shot, nor a notorious villain of a Gentile
knived without the deed of blood being attributed to Danite hands
directed by prophetic heads. It was supposed that the Danites assume
savage disguises: “he has met the Indians” was a proverbial phrase,
meaning that a Gentile has fallen into the power of the destroying
angels. I but express the opinion of sensible and moderate neutrals
in disbelieving the existence of an organized band of “Fidawi;” where
every man is ready to be a Danite, Danites are not wanting. Certainly,
in the terrible times of Missouri and Illinois, destroying angels were
required to smite secretly, mysteriously, and terribly the first-born
of Egypt; now the necessity has vanished. This, however, the Mormons
deny, declaring the existence of the Danites, like that of spiritual
wives, to be, and ever to have been, literally and in substance totally
and entirely untrue.
[THE JEBEL NUR.]
Meanwhile we had nearly ascended the Jebel Nur of this new Meccah, the
big toe of the Wasach Mountains, and exchanged the sunny temperature
below for a cold westerly wind, that made us feel snow: the air
improved in purity, as we could judge by the effects of carcasses
lying at different heights. The bench up which we trod was gashed by
broad ravines, and bore upon its red soil a growth of thin sage and
sunflower. A single fossil and two varieties of shells were found: iron
and quartz were scattered over the surface, and there is a legend of
gold having been discovered here. Presently, standing upon the topmost
bluff, we sat down to enjoy a view which I have attempted to reproduce
in a sketch. Below the bench lay the dot-like houses of Zion. We could
see with bird’s-eye glance the city laid out like a chess-board, and
all the length and breadth of its bee-line streets and crow-flight
avenues, which, bordered by distance-dwarfed trees, narrowed to threads
as they drew toward a vanishing point. Beyond the suburbs stretched the
valley plain, sprinkled with little plantations clustering round the
smaller settlements, and streaked by the rivulets which, arising from
the frowning pine-clad heights on the left, flowed toward the little
Jordan of this young Judea on the right. The extreme south was bounded
by the denticulated bench which divided like a mole the valleys of the
Great Salt and Utah Lakes. Already autumn had begun: the purpling plain
and golden slopes shed a dying glory over the departing year, while the
mellowing light of evening, and aerial blue from above, toned down to
absolute beauty each harsher feature of the scene.
After lingering for a while over the fair _coup d’œil_, we descended,
holding firm the sage-bushes, the abrupt western slope, and we passed
by the warm Harrowgate spring, with its sulphury blue waters, white
lime-like bed, and rushy margins in dark earth, snow-capped with
salt efflorescence. As we entered the city we met a noted Gentile
innocently driving out a fair Saint: both averted their faces as they
passed us, but my companion’s color darkened. All races have their
pet prohibitions and aversions, their likes and dislikes in matters
of sin. Among the Mormons, a suspicion of immorality is more hateful
than the reputation of bloodshed. So horse-thieving in the Western
States is a higher crime than any other--in fact, the sin which is
never forgiven. An editor thus unconcernedly sums up the history of one
lately shot when plundering stock: “He was buried by those who meted
out to him summary justice, not exactly attending to law, but upon a
more speedy, economical, and salutary principle, and a stake was placed
at the head of his grave, on which was inscribed ‘A. B. B----, shot for
horse-stealing, July 1, 1860.’”
Entering the city by the northwest, we passed the Academy of the 7th
Ward. Standing in a 10-acre block, it is a large adobe building with
six windows, built for a hotel, and bought for educational purposes by
the Prophet. Forms and tables, scattered with the usual school-books,
were the sole furniture, and the doors were left open as if they had
nothing to defend. My companion had a truly brotherly way of treating
his co-religionists; he never met one, however surly-looking, without
a salute, and when a door was opened he usually walked in. Thus we
visited successively a water-power-mill, a tannery, and an English
coachmaker, painter, and varnisher. Some of the houses which we
passed were neat and cleanly curtained, especially that belonging to
an Englishwoman whose husband, Captain R----, had lately left her
in widowhood. We finished with the garden of Apostle Woodruff, who
introduced us to his wife, and showed us work of which he had reason
to be proud. Despite the hard, ungrateful soil which had required
irrigation for the last ten years, there were apricots from Malta,
the Hooker strawberries, here worth $5 the plant, plum-trees from
Kew Gardens, French and Californian grapes, wild plum and buffalo
berry, black currants, peaches, and apples--with which last we were
hospitably loaded--in numbers. The kitchen garden contained rhubarb,
peas, potatoes, Irish and sweet, asparagus, white and yellow carrots,
cabbages, and huge beets: the sugar-cane had been tried there, but it
was not, like the sweet holcus, a success.
[CEMETERY.]
The last time I walked out of Great Salt Lake City was to see the
cemetery, which lies on the bench to the northeast of the settlement.
There is but one cemetery for saint and sinner, and it has been
prudently removed about three miles from the abodes of the living.
The tombs, like the funeral ceremonies, are simple, lacking the
“monumental mockery” which renders the country church-yard in England a
fitter study for farce than for elegy. On occasions of death, prayers
are offered in the house, and the corpse is carried at once to its
last home. The grave-yard is walled round, and contains a number of
occupants, the tombs being denoted by a stone or board, with name and
date, and sometimes a religious sentence, at the head and foot.
CHAPTER IX.
Latter-Day Saints.--Of the Mormon Religion.
No less an authority than Alexander von Humboldt has characterized
positive religions in general as consisting of an historical novelette
more or less interesting, a system of cosmogony more or less
improbable, and a code of morals mostly pure.[199] Two thirds of this
description apply to the faith of the Latter-Day Saints: they have,
however, escaped palæological criticism by adopting Genesitic history,
and by “swallowing Eve’s apple” in the infancy of their spiritual life.
[199] A somewhat free version of “toutes les réligions positives
offrent trois parties distinctes; un traité de mœurs partout le
même et très pur, un rêve géologique, et un mythe ou petit roman
historique: le dernier élément obtient le plus d’importance.”--LX.
Letter, Dec. 3d, 1841.
[THE WORD “MORMON.”]
Before proceeding to comment upon the New Dispensation--for such,
though not claiming or owning to be, it _is_--I may compare the two
leading interpretations of the word “Mormon,” which, as has been
well remarked,[200] truly convey the widely diverging opinions of
the opposers and supporters of Mormonism. Mormon (μορμων) signifies
literally a lamia, a maniola, a female spectre; the mandrill, for its
ugliness, was called Cynocephalus mormon. “Mormon,” according to Mr.
Joseph Smith’s Mormonic, or rather Pantagruelic interpretation, is the
best--_scil._, of mankind. “We say from the Saxon _good_, the Dane
_god_, the Goth _goder_, the German _gut_, the Dutch _goed_, the Latin
_bonus_, the Greek _kalos_, the Hebrew _tob_, and the Egyptian _mon_.
Hence, with the addition of More, or the contraction Mor, we have the
word Mormon, which means literally “more good.” By faith it is said man
can remove mountains: perhaps it will also enable him to believe in
the spirit of that philology that revealed unto Mr. Joseph Smith his
derivation, and rendered it a shibboleth to his followers. This is not
the place to discuss a subject so broad and so long, but perhaps--the
idea will suggest itself--the mind of man most loves those errors and
delusions into which it has become self-persuaded, and is most fanatic
concerning the irrationalities and the supernaturalities to which it
has bowed its own reason.
[200] The Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, by Lieutenant J. W.
Gunnison, of the United States Topographical Engineers. Philadelphia,
1852.
Unaccountably enough, seeing that it means “more good,” _scil._, the
best of mankind, the word Mormon is distasteful to its disciples, who
look upon it as Jew by a Hebrew, Mohammedan by a Moslem, and Romanist
or Puseyite by the sectarian Christian. They prefer to be called
Latter-Day Saints, or, to give them their title in full, the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in contradistinction to the
Former-Day Saints. Latter Day alludes to the long-looked-for convulsion
that will end the present quiescent geologic epoch. Its near approach
has ever been a favorite dogma and improvement subject of the Christian
Church, from the time of St. Paul to that of Mr. Joseph Smith, and Drs.
Wolff and Cumming;[201] for who, inquires Panurge, “is able to tell if
the world shall last yet three years?” Others read it as a prophecy
that “Gentilism,” alias “the corrupted Christianity of the age,” is
“on its last legs.” Even as “Saints” is a term which has been applied
from time immemorial in the Apocalypse and elsewhere to the orthodox,
_i.e._, those of one’s own doxy, and as Enoch speaks of “saints”
before the Flood or Noachian cataclysm, so the honorable title has in
these days been appropriated by seers, revelators, and prophets, and
conferred upon the Lord’s chosen people, _i.e._, themselves and their
followers. According to anti-Mormons, the name Latter-Day Saints was
assumed in 1835 by the Mormons at the suggestion of Sidney Rigdon.
[201] The Mormon Prophet fixed “the end of the world” for A.D. 1890;
Dr. Cumming, I believe, in 1870.
[THE MORMON ELEMENT.]
Before beginning a description of what Mormonism really is, I would
succinctly lay down a few positions illustrating its genesis.
1. The religious as well as the social history of the progressive
Anglo-Saxon race is a succession of contrasts, a system of reactions;
at times retrogressive, it has a general onward tendency toward an
unknown development. The Unitarians of New England, for instance, arose
out of Calvinism. The Puritanism of the present generation is the
natural consequence of the Rationalism which preceded it.
[STATISTICS.]
2. In what a French author terms “le triste état de dissolution dans
lequel gît le Chrétienté de nos jours”--the splitting of the Church
into three grand divisions, Roman, Greek, and Eastern, the convulsion
of the Northern mind, which created Protestantism, and the minute
subdivision of the latter into Episcopalians and Presbyterians,
Lutherans and Calvinists, Quakers and Shakers, the multiform Methodists
and various Baptists, and, to quote no farther _variétés des églises_,
the Congregationalists, Unitarians, and Universalists--a rationalistic
race finds reason to inquire, “What is Christianity?” and holds itself
prepared for a new faith, a regeneration of human thought--in fact, a
religious and social change, such as the Reformation of the sixteenth
century represented and fondly believed itself to be.[202]
[202]
_Religious Denominations in the United States, according to the
Census of 1861._
(From the “American Almanac” of 1861.)
+---------------+-------+----------+--------+-----------+--------+
| | | Aggre- | | Total | Average|
|Denominations. | No. of| gate | Average| Value | Value |
| |Church-| Accommo- |Accommo-| of Church |of Prop-|
| | es. | dation. | dation.| Property. | erty. |
+---------------+-------+----------+--------+-----------+--------+
|Baptist | 8,791| 3,130,878| 356 |$10,931,382| $1,244 |
|Christian | 812| 296,050| 365 | 845,810| 1,041 |
|Congregational | 1,674| 795,177| 475 | 7,973,962| 4,763 |
|Dutch Reformed | 324| 181,986| 561 | 4,096,730| 12,644 |
|Episcopal | 1,422| 625,213| 440 | 11,261,970| 7,919 |
|Free | 361| 108,605| 300 | 251,255| 698 |
|Friends | 714| 282,823| 396 | 1,709,867| 2,395 |
|German Reformed| 327| 156,932| 479 | 965,880| 2,953 |
|Jewish | 31| 16,575| 534 | 371,600| 11,987 |
|Lutheran | 1,203| 531,100| 441 | 2,867,886| 2,383 |
|Mennonite | 110| 29,900| 272 | 94,245| 856 |
|Methodist | 12,487| 4,209,333| 337 | 14,636,671| 1,174 |
|Moravian | 331| 112,185| 338 | 443,347| 1,339 |
|Presbyterian | 4,584| 2,040,316| 445 | 14,369,889| 3,135 |
|Roman Catholic | 1,112| 620,950| 558 | 8,973,838| 8,069 |
|Swedenborgian | 15| 5,070| 338 | 108,100| 7,206 |
|Tunker | 52| 35,075| 674 | 46,025| 885 |
|Union | 619| 213,552| 345 | 690,065| 1,114 |
|Unitarian | 243| 137,367| 565 | 3,268,122| 13,449 |
|Universalist | 494| 205,462| 415 | 1,766,015| 3,576 |
|Minor sects | 325| 115,347| 354 | 741,980| 2,283 |
| +-------+----------+--------+-----------+--------+
| Total | 36,011|13,849,896| 384 |$86,416,639| $2,400 |
+---------------+-------+----------+--------+-----------+--------+
3. Mormonism boasts of few Roman Catholic or Greek converts; the French
and Italians are rare, and there is a remarkable deficiency of Germans
and Irish--those wretched races without nationality or loyalty--which
have overrun the Eastern American States. It is, then, to Protestantism
that we must look for the origin of the New Faith.
4. In 1800-1804, and in 1820, a mighty Wesleyan “revival,” which
in Methodism represents the missions and retreats of Catholicism,
had disturbed and excited the public mind in America, especially in
Kentucky and Tennessee. The founder of Mormonism, Mr. Joseph Smith,
his present successor, and his principal disciples and followers,
were Campbellites, Millerites, Ranters, or other Methodists. Wesleyan
sectarianism, like the old Arab paganism in El Islam, still shows
its traces in the worship and various observances of a doxology which
by literalism and exaggeration has wholly separated itself from the
older creeds of the world. Thus we find Mormonism to be in its origin
English, Protestant, anti-Catholic, Methodistic.
[HISTORY OF MORMONISM.]
It may be advisable briefly to trace the steps by which we arrive
at this undesirable end. The birth of Romanism, according to the
Reformed writers, dates from certain edicts issued by Theodosius II.
and by Valentinian III., and constituting the Bishop of Rome “Rector
of the whole Church.” The newly-born hierarchy found tender nurses in
Justinian, Pepin, and Charlemagne, and in the beginning of the eleventh
century St. Gregory VII. (Hildebrand the Great) supplied the prime
want of the age by establishing a visible theocracy, with a vicar of
Jesus Christ at its head. To the existence of a mediatorial priestly
caste, the officials of a spiritual despotism, claiming power of
censure and excommunication, and the gift of the crown terrestrial as
well as celestial, anti-papistical writers trace the various vices and
corruptions inherent in a semi-barbarous age, the “melancholy duality”
of faith and works of religion and morality which seems to belong to
the Southern mind, and the Oriental semi-Pelagianism which taught that
man might be self-sanctified or vicariously saved, with its logical
deductions, penance, benefices, indulgences. An excessive superstition
endured for a season. Then set in the inevitable reaction: the extreme
religiousness, that characteristic of the earnest quasi-pagan age of
the Christian Church, in the fullness of time fell into the opposite
excess, Rationalism and its natural consequences, infidelity and
irreligion.
Reformers were not wanting before the Reformation. As early as 1170,
Pierre Vaud, or Valdo, of Lyons, sold off his merchandise, and
appealing from popery to Scripture and to primitive Christianity,
as, in a later day did Jeremy Bentham from St. Paul to his Master,
attacked the Roman hierarchy. John Wicliffe (1310-1385) is claimed by
his countrymen to have originated the “liberal ideas” by which British
Protestantism was matured; it is owned even by foreigners that he
influenced opinion from Oxford to far Bohemia. He died peaceably, but
the Wicliffites, who presently were called Lollards--“tares” sown by
the fiend--though supported by the Commons against Henry IV. and his
party, the dignified clergy, suffered, until the repeal of the Act “de
hæreticis comburendis,” the fiercest persecution. During the reign of
Henry V. they gained strength, as the pronunciamento of 20,000 men in
St. Giles’s Fields under Sir John Oldcastle proves: the cruel death of
their leader only served to strengthen them, supported as they were
by the lower branch of the Legislature in their opposition to the
crown. On the Continent of Europe the great follower of Wicliffe was
John Huss, who preached in Bohemia about a century before the days of
Luther, and who, condemned by the Councils of Constance and Basle,
perished at the stake in 1432. Jerome Savonarola, tortured and burnt
in 1498, and other minor names, urged forward the fatal movement until
the Northern element once more prevailed, in things spiritual as in
things temporal, over the Southern; the rude and violent German again
attacked the soft, sensuous Italian, and Martin Luther hatched the
egg which the schools of Rabelais and Erasmus had laid. It was the
work of rough-handed men; the reformer Zuingle emerged from an Alpine
shepherd’s hut; Melancthon, the theologian, from an armorer’s shop,
as Augustine, the monk, from the cottage of a poor miner. Such, in
the 16th century, on the Continent of Europe, were the prototypes and
predecessors of Messrs. Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon,
and Brigham Young, who arose nearly three centuries afterward in the
New World.
In England, when the unprincipled tyranny of Henry VIII. had
established, by robbing and confiscating, hanging and quartering, that
“reformed new-cast religion,” of which Sir Thomas Brown “disliked
nothing but the name,” the bigotry of the ultra-reformatory school lost
no time in proceeding to extremes. William Chillingworth, born A.D.
1602, and alternately Protestant, Catholic, Socinian, and Protestant,
put forth in his “Religion of Protestants a safe Way of Salvation,”
that Chillingworthi Novissima, “the Bible and nothing but the Bible.”
This dogma swept away ruthlessly all the cherished traditions of a past
age--the ancient observed customs of the Church--all, in fact, that
can beautify and render venerable a faith, and substituted in their
stead a bald Bibliolatry which at once justifies credulity and forbids
it; which tantalizes man with the signs and wonders of antiquity, and
yet which, with an unwise contradictoriness, forbids him to revise
or restore them. And as each man became, by Bible-reading, his own
interpreter, with fullest right of private judgment, and without any
infallible guide--the inherent weakness of reformation--to direct him,
the broad and beaten highway of belief was at once cut up into a parcel
of little footpaths which presently attained the extreme of divergence.
[METHODISM.]
One of the earliest products of such “religious freedom” in England
was Methodism, so called from the Methodistic physicians at Rome. The
founder and arch-priest of the schism, the Rev. John Wesley, son of the
Rector of Epworth in Lincolnshire, and born in 1703, followed Luther,
Calvin, and other creedmongers in acting upon his own speculation
and peculiar opinions. One of his earliest disciples--only eleven
years younger than his master--was the equally celebrated George
Whitfield, of Gloucester. Suffice it to remark, without dwelling
upon their history, that both these religionists, and mostly the
latter, who died in 1770 at Newberry, New England, converted and
preached to thousands in America, there establishing field-services
and camp-meetings, revivals and conferences, which, like those of the
French Convulsionists in the last century, galvanized Christianity
with a wild and feverish life. Falling among uneducated men, the
doctrine, both in England and the colonies, was received with a
bewilderment of enthusiasm, and it soon produced the usual fruits of
such phrensy--prophecies that fixed the end of the world for the 28th
of February, 1763, miraculous discernment of angels and devils, mighty
comings of the power of God and outpourings of the Spirit, rhapsodies
and prophecies, dreams and visions, accompanied by rollings, jerks,
and barks, roarings and convulsions, syncope, catalepsy, and the other
hysterical affections and obscure disorders of the brain, forming the
characteristic symptoms of religious mania.
[TRUE PROTESTANTS.]
Thus, out of the semi-barbarous superstitions of the Middle Ages,
succeeded by the revival of learning, which in the 15th century
followed the dispersion of the wise men of the East from captured
Byzantium, proceeded “Protestant Rationalism,” a system which,
admitting the right of private judgment, protested against the
religion of Southern Europe becoming that of the whole world. From
Protestantism sprung Methodism, which restored to man the grateful
exercise of his credulity--a leading organ in the human brain--his
belief in preternatural and supernatural agencies and appearances,
and his faith in miraculous communication between God and man; in
fact, in that mysticism and marvel-love, which are the columns and
corner-stones of religion. Mormonism thus easily arose. It will be
found to contain little beyond a literal and verbal interpretation
of the only book which Chillingworth recognizes as the rule for
Christians, and a pointed condemnation of those who make the contents
of the Bible typical, metaphysical, or symbolical, “as if God were
not honest when he speaks with man, or uses words in other than their
true acceptation,” or could “palter in a double sense.” It proposed
as its three general principles, firstly, total immersion in the
waters of baptism in the name of the three sacred names; secondly,
the commissioning of prophets, apostles, and elders to administer in
things holy the revelation and authority of heaven; and, thirdly, the
ministering of angels. New Tables of the Law appeared in the Golden
Plates. Another Urim and Thummim revealed to Mr. Joseph Smith that he
was of the house of Israel and the tribe of Joseph, the inheritor of
all things promised to that favored seed. It tempered the superstitions
of popery with the rationalism of the Protestant; it supplied mankind
with another sacred book and with an infallible interpreter. Human
belief had now its weight to carry: those pining for the excitement
of thaumaturgy felt satisfied. The Mormons were no longer compelled
to ask “what made miracles cease,” and “why and in which A.D. was the
power taken from the Church.” It relieved them from holding an apparent
absurdity, viz., that the voices and visitations, the signs, miracles,
and interventions--in fact, all that the Bible submitted to human faith
had ended without reason about the time when one Constantine became
king, and do not recommence now when they are most wanted. The Mormons
are not forced to think that God is virtually dead in the world; the
eminently practical tendencies of the New-World race cause them to
develop into practice their contradiction of an inference from which
human nature revolts. They claim to be the true Protestants, _i. e._,
those who protest against the doctrines of a ceased fellowship between
the Creator and the creature made in his image; they gratify their
self-esteem by sneering at those who confine themselves to the old
and obsolete revelation, and by pitying the blindness and ignorance
that can not or will not open its eyes to the new light. Hence it
follows that few Catholics become Mormons, and that those few become
bad Mormons. Man’s powers of faith grow, like his physical force,
with exercise. He considers over-belief a venial error compared with
under-belief, and he progresses more easily in belief than he can
retrograde into disbelief. Thus Catholicism has spread more widely
over the world than the less credulous Protestantism, and the more
thaumaturgic Mormonism is better adapted to some minds--the Hindoo’s,
for instance--than Catholicism.
In Mormonism, or, rather, in Mormon sacred literature, there are
three epochs which bring us down to the present day. The first is
the monogamic age, that of the books of Mormon, and of Doctrines and
Covenants--1830-1843. The second is the polygamic, from the first
revelation of “celestial marriage” to Mr. Joseph Smith in 1843, and by
him communicated to three followers only, until its final establishment
by Mr. Brigham Young in 1852, when secrecy was no longer deemed
necessary. The third is the materialistic period; the doctrine, “not
founded on modern supernatural revelation, but on reason and common
sense,” was the work of 1848-1849.
[THE BOOK OF MORMON.]
The first epoch laid the foundations of the Faith. It produced the Book
of Mormon, “an abridgment written by the hand of Mormon upon plates
taken from the plates of Nephi. Wherefore it is an abridgment of the
record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to
the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel, and also to
Jew and Gentile: written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit
of prophecy and of revelation. Written and sealed up, and hid up unto
the Lord, that they might not be destroyed: to come forth by the gift
and power of God unto the interpretation thereof: sealed by the hand of
Mormon, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way
of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of God!”
“An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a record of
the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded
the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get (!)
to heaven; which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel
what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that
they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off
forever; and also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that JESUS
is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting himself to all nations;
and now, if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men; therefore
condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the
judgment-seat of Christ. Moroni.”
“Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun.”
This extract is followed by the testimony of three witnesses, Oliver
Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, who declare to have seen
the Golden Plates with their engravings, which were shown to them by
the power of God, not of man; and that they knew by the voice of God
that the records had been translated by the gift and power of God.
Furthermore they “declare with words of solemnness that an angel of God
came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we
beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon.” They conclude
with these solemn words: “And the honor be to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God, Amen.” Then comes “also
the testimony of eight witnesses”--four Whitmers, three Smiths, and one
Page[203]--who make it “known unto all nations, kindred, tongues, and
people, unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jun., the
translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath
been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the
leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands;
and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance
of ancient work and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record
with words of soberness that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we
have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got
the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our hands unto the
world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie
not, God bearing witness of it.”
[203] The total witnesses are thus eleven, exactly the number that
bore evidence to the original Christian miracles.
The nature of the Latter-Day Saints’ Biblion will best be understood
from the subjoined list of contents.[204]
[204] At the end of this chapter I have inserted a synopsis of Mormon
chronology.
FIRST BOOK OF NEPHI.
Language of the Record.
Nephi’s Abridgment.
Lehi’s Dream.
Lehi departs into the Wilderness.
Nephi slayeth Laban.
Sariah complains of Lehi’s Vision.
Contents of the brass Plates.
Ishmael goes with Nephi.
Nephi’s Brethren rebel, and bind him.
Lehi’s Dream of the Tree, Rod, etc.
Messiah and John prophesied of.
Olive-branches broken off.
Nephi’s Vision of Mary.
Do. the Crucifixion of Christ.
Do. Darkness and Earthquake.
Great abominable Church.
Discovery of the Promised Land.
Bible spoken of.
Book of Mormon and Holy Ghost promised.
Other Books come forth.
Bible and Book of Mormon one.
Promises to the Gentiles.
Two Churches.
The Work of the Father to commence.
A Man in white Robes (John).
Nephites come to Knowledge.
Rod of Iron.
The Sons of Lehi take Wives.
Director found (Ball).
Nephi broke his Bow.
Directors work by Faith.
Ishmael died.
Lehi and Nephi threatened.
Nephi commanded to build a Ship.
Nephi about to be worshiped by
his Brethren.
Dancing in the Ship.
Nephi bound; Ship driven back.
Arrived on the Promised Land.
Plates of Ore made.
Zenos, Neum, and Zenock.
Isaiah’s Writings.
Holy One of Israel.
* * * * *
SECOND BOOK OF NEPHI.
Lehi to his Sons.
Opposition in all Things.
Adam fell that Men might be.
Joseph saw our Day.
A choice Seer.
Writings grow together.
Prophet promised to the Lamanites.
Joseph’s Prophecy on brass Plates.
Lehi buried.
Nephi’s Life sought.
Nephi separated from Laman.
Temple built.
Skin of Blackness.
Priests, etc., consecrated.
Make other Plates.
Isaiah’s Words (by Jacob).
Angels to a Devil.
Spirits and Bodies reunited.
Baptism.
No Kings upon this Land.
Isaiah prophesieth.
Rod of the Stem of Jesse.
Seed of Joseph perish not.
Law of Moses kept.
Christ shall show himself.
Signs of Christ, Birth and Death.
Whisper from the Dust; Book sealed up.
Priestcraft forbidden.
Sealed Book to be brought forth.
Three Witnesses behold the Book.
The Words [read this, I pray thee].
Seal up the Book again.
Their Priests shall contend.
Teach with their Learning, and
deny the Holy Ghost.
Rob the Poor.
A Bible, a Bible.
Men judged of the Books.
White and a delightsome People.
Work commence among all People.
Lamb of God baptized.
Baptism by water and Holy Ghost.
* * * * *
BOOK OF JACOB.
Nephi anointed a King.
Nephi died.
Nephites and Lamanites.
A righteous Branch from Joseph.
Lamanites shall scourge you.
More than one Wife forbidden.
Trees, Waves, and Mountains obey us.
Jews looked beyond the Mark.
Tame Olive-tree.
Nethermost Part of the Vineyard.
Fruit laid up against the Season.
Another Branch.
Wild Fruit had overcome.
Lord of the Vineyard wept.
Branches overcome the Roots.
Wild Branches plucked off.
Sherem the Anti-Christ.
A Sign; Sherem smitten.
Enos takes the Plates from his Father.
* * * * *
THE BOOK OF ENOS.
Enos, thy Sins are forgiven.
Records threatened by Lamanites.
Lamanites eat raw Meat.
* * * * *
THE BOOK OF JAROM.
Nephites waxed strong.
Lamanites drink Blood.
Fortify Cities.
Plates delivered to Omni.
* * * * *
THE BOOK OF OMNI.
Plates given to Amaron.
Plates given to Chemish.
Mosiah warned to flee.
Zarahemla discovered.
Engravings on a Stone.
Coriantumr discovered.
His Parents came from the Tower.
Plates delivered to King Benjamin.
* * * * *
THE WORDS OF MORMON.
False Christs and Prophets.
* * * * *
BOOK OF MOSIAH.
Mosiah made King, and received.
The Plates of Brass, Sword, and
Director.
King Benjamin teacheth the People.
Their Tent Doors toward the Temple.
Coming of Christ foretold.
Beggars not denied.
Sons and Daughters.
Mosiah began to reign.
Ammon, etc., bounded and imprisoned.
Limhi’s Proclamation.
Twenty-four Plates of Gold.
Seer and Translator.
* * * * *
RECORD OF ZENIFF.
A Battle fought.
King Laman died.
Noah made King.
Abinadi the Prophet.
Resurrection.
Alma believed Abinadi.
Abinadi cast into Prison and scourged with fagots.
Waters of Mormon.
The Daughters of the Lamanites stolen by King Noah’s Priests.
Records on Plates of Ore.
Last Tribute of Wine.
Lamanites’ deep Sleep.
King Limhi baptized.
Priest and Teachers labor.
Alma saw an Angel.
Alma fell (dumb).
King Mosiah’s Sons preach to the Lamanites.
Translation of Records.
Plates delivered by Limhi.
Translated by two Stones.
People back to the Tower.
Records given to Alma.
Judges appointed.
King Mosiah died.
Alma died.
Kings of Nephi ended.
* * * * *
THE BOOK OF ALMA.
Nehor slew Gideon.
Amlici made King.
Amlici slain in Battle.
Amlicites painted red.
Alma baptized in Sidon.
Alma’s Preaching.
Alma ordained Elders.
Commanded to meet often.
Alma saw an Angel.
Amulek saw an Angel.
Lawyers questioning Amulek.
Coins named.
Zeezrom the Lawyer.
Zeezrom trembles.
Election spoken of.
Melchizedek Priesthood.
Alma and Amulek stoned.
Records burned.
Prison rent.
Zeezrom healed and baptized.
Nehor’s Desolation.
Lamanites converted.
Flocks scattered at Sebus.
Ammon smote off Arms.
Ammon and King Lamoni.
King Lamoni fell.
Ammon and the Queen.
King and Queen prostrate.
Aaron, etc., delivered.
Jerusalem built.
Preaching in Jerusalem.
Lamoni’s Father converted.
Land Desolation and Bountiful.
Anti-Nephi-Lehies.
General Council.
Swords buried.
1005 massacred.
Lamanites perish by Fire.
Slavery forbidden.
Anti-Nephi-Lehies removed to Jershon, called Ammonites.
Tremendous Battle.
Anti-Christ, Korihor.
Korihor struck dumb.
The Devil in the Form of an Angel.
Korihor trodden down.
Alma’s Mission to Zorämites.
Rameumptom (holy Stand).
Alma on Hill Onidah.
Alma on Faith.
Prophecy of Zenos.
Prophecy of Zenock.
Amulek’s Knowledge of Christ.
Charity recommended.
Same Spirit possess your Body.
Believers cast out.
Alma to Helaman.
Plates given to Helaman.
24 Plates and Directors.
Gazelem, a Stone (secret).
Liahona, or Compass.
Alma to Shiblon.
Alma to Corianton.
Unpardonable Sin.
Resurrection.
Restoration.
Justice in Punishment.
If, Adam, took, Tree, Life.
Mercy rob Justice.
Moroni’s Stratagem.
Slaughter of Lamanites.
Moroni’s Speech to Zerahemnah.
Prophecy of a Soldier.
Lamanites’ Covenant of Peace.
Alma’s Prophecy 400 years after Christ.
Dwindle in Unbelief.
Alma’s strange Departure.
Amalickiah leadeth away the People; destroyeth the Church.
Standard of Moroni.
Joseph’s Coat rent.
Jacob’s Prophecy of Joseph’s Seed.
Fevers in the Land; Plants and
Roots for Diseases.
Amalickiah’s Plot.
The King stabbed.
Amalickiah marries the Queen, and is acknowledged King.
Fortifications by Moroni.
Ditches filled with dead Bodies.
Amalickiah’s Oath.
Pahoran appointed Judge.
Army against King-men.
Amalickiah slain.
Ammoron made King.
Bountiful fortified.
Dissensions.
2000 young Men.
Moroni’s Epistle to Ammoron.
Ammoron’s Answer.
Lamanites made drunk.
Moroni’s Stratagem.
Helaman’s Epistle to Moroni, Helaman’s Stratagem.
Mothers taught Faith.
Lamanites surrendered.
City of Antiparah taken.
City of Cumeni taken.
200 of the 2000 fainted.
Prisoners rebel; slain.
Manti taken by Stratagem.
Moroni to the Governor.
Governor’s Answer.
King Pachus slain.
Cords and Ladders prepared.
Nephihah taken.
Teancum’s Stratagem; slain.
Peace established.
Moronihah made Commander.
Helaman dies.
Sacred Things; Shiblon.
Moroni died.
5400 emigrated North.
Ships built by Hagoth.
Sacred Things committed to Helaman; Shiblon died.
* * * * *
THE BOOK OF HELAMAN.
Pahoran died.
Pahoran appointed Judge.
Kishkumen slew Pahoran.
Pacumeni appointed Judge.
Zarahemla taken.
Pacumeni killed.
Coriantumr slain.
Lamanites surrendered.
Helaman appointed Judge.
Secret Signs discovered, and Kishkumen stabbed.
Gadianton fled.
Emigration Northward.
Cement Houses.
Many Books and Records.
Helaman died.
Nephi made Judge.
Nephites become wicked.
Nephi gave the Judgment Seat to Cezoram.
Nephi and Lehi preached to the Lamanites.
8000 baptized.
Alma and Nephi surrounded with Fire.
Angels administer.
Cezoram and Son murdered.
Gadianton’s Robbers.
Gadianton’s Robbers destroyed.
Nephi’s Prophecy.
Gadianton’s Robbers are Judges.
Chief Judge slain.
Seantum detected.
Keys of the Kingdom.
Nephi taken away by the Spirit.
Famine in the Land.
Gadianton’s Band destroyed.
Famine removed.
Samuel’s Prophecy.
Tools lost.
Two Days and a Night; Light.
Sign of the Crucifixion.
Samuel stoned, etc.
Angels appeared.
* * * * *
BOOK OF NEPHI.
Lachoneus chief Judge.
Nephi receives the Records.
Nephi’s strange Departure.
No Darkness at Night.
Lamanites became white.
Giddianhi to Lachoneus.
Gidgiddoni chief Judge.
Giddianhi slain.
Zemnarihah hanged.
Robbers surrendered.
Mormon abridges the Records.
Church began to be broken up.
Government of the Land destroyed.
Chief Judge murdered.
Divided into Tribes.
Nephi raised the Dead.
Sign of the Crucifixion.
Cities destroyed, Earthquakes, Darkness, etc.
Law of Moses fulfilled.
Christ appeared to Nephites.
Print of the Nails.
Nephi and others called.
Baptism commanded.
Doctrine of Christ.
Christ the End of the Law.
Other Sheep spoken of.
Blessed are the Gentile.
Gentile Wickedness on the Land of Joseph.
Isaiah’s Words fulfilled.
Jesus healed the Sick.
Christ blessed Children.
Little Ones encircled with Fire.
Christ administered the Sacrament.
Christ taught his Disciples.
Names of the Twelve.
The Twelve taught the Multitude.
Baptism, Holy Ghost, and Fire.
Disciples made white.
Jesus came, second Time.
Faith, great.
Christ breaks Bread again.
Miracle; Bread and Wine.
Gentiles destroyed (Isaiah).
Zion established.
From Gentiles to your Seed.
Sign; Father’s Work commenced.
He shall be marred.
Gentiles destroyed (Isaiah).
New Jerusalem built.
Work commenced among all the Tribes.
Isaiah’s Words.
Saints did arise.
Malachi’s Prophecy.
Faith tried by the Book of Mormon.
Children’s Tongues loosed.
The Dead raised.
Baptism and Holy Ghost.
All Things common.
Christ appeared third Time.
Moses’s Church.
Three Nephites tarry.
The Twelve caught up.
Change upon their Bodies.
Disciples raise the Dead.
Zarahemla rebuilt.
Other Disciples ordained in their stead.
Nephi died; Amos kept the Records in his stead.
Amos died, and his Son Amos kept the Records.
Prisons rent by the Three.
Secret Combinations.
Amaron hid Records.
* * * * *
BOOK OF MORMON.
Three Disciples taken away.
Mormon forbidden to preach.
Mormon appointed Leader.
Samuel’s Prophecy fulfilled.
Mormon makes a Record.
Lands divided.
The Twelve shall judge.
Desolation taken.
Women and Children sacrificed.
Mormon took the Records hid in Shim.
Mormon repented of his Oath and took Command.
Coming forth of Records.
Records hid in Cumorah.
230,000 Nephites slain.
Shall not get Gain by the Plates.
These Things shall come forth out of the Earth.
The State of the World.
Miracles cease; Unbelief.
Disciples go into all the World
and preach.
Language of the Book.
* * * * *
BOOK OF ETHER.
Twenty-four Plates found.
Jared cried unto the Lord.
Jared went down to the Valley of Nimrod.
Deserét Honey-bee.
Barges built.
Decree of God; choice Land.
Free from Bondage.
Four Years in Tents at Moriancumer.
Lord talked three Hours.
Barges like a Dish.
Eight Vessels; sixteen Stones.
Lord touched the Stones.
Finger of the Lord seen.
Jared’s Brother saw the Lord.
Two Stones given.
Stones sealed up.
Went aboard of Vessels.
Furious Wind blew.
344 Days’ Passage.
Orihah anointed King.
King Shule taken captive.
Shule’s Son slew Noah.
Jared carries his Father away captive.
The Daughter of Jared danced.
Jared anointed King by the Hand of Wickedness.
Jared murdered, and Akish reigned in his Stead.
Names of Animals.
Poisonous Serpents.
Riplakish’s cruel Reign.
Morianton anointed King.
Poisonous Serpents destroyed.
Many wicked Kings.
Moroni on Faith.
Miracles by Faith.
Moroni saw Jesus.
New Jerusalem spoken of.
Ether cast out.
Records finished in the Cavity of a Rock.
Secret Combinations.
War in all the Land.
King Shared murdered by his High-priest; the High-priest was murdered
by Lib.
Lib slain by Coriantumr.
Dead Bodies cover the Land, and none to bury them.
2,000,000 of Men slain.
Hill Ramah.
Cries rend the Air.
Slept on their Swords.
Coriantumr slew Shiz.
Do. fell to the Earth.
Records hid by Ether.
* * * * *
BOOK OF MORONI.
Christ’s Words to the Twelve.
Manner of Ordination.
Order of Sacrament.
Order of Baptism.
Faith, Hope, Charity.
Baptism of little Children.
Women fed on their Husbands’ Flesh.
Daughters murdered and eaten.
Sufferings of Women and Children.
Can not recommend them to God.
Moroni to the Lamanites.
420 Years since the Sign.
Records sealed up (Moroni).
Gifts of the Spirit.
God’s Word shall hiss forth.
[THE MORMON BIBLE.]
The Book of Covenants and Doctrines is what the Vedanta is to the
Vedas, the Talmud to the Old Testament, the Traditions to the Gospel,
and the Ahadis to the Koran--a necessary supplement of amplifications
and explanations. It contains two parts. The first, of sixty-four
pages, is entitled “Lectures on Faith;” although published in the name
of the Prophet Joseph, it was written, men say, by Sidney Rigdon.
The second, which, with the Appendix, concludes the book, is called
Covenants and Commandments (_scil._, of the Lord to his servants of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).
[DOCTRINES AND COVENANTS.]
Of the Lectures, the first is upon “Faith itself--what it is.” It
treats the subject in the normal way, showing how much faith is
unconsciously exercised by man in his every-day life, and making it
“the principle by which Jehovah acts.” The second is concerning “the
subject on which Faith rests,” and contains an ancient chronology from
Adam to Abraham, showing how the knowledge of God was preserved. The
third, on the attributes of God, enlarges upon the dogma that “correct
ideas of the character of God are necessary in order to the exercise of
faith in him for life and salvation.” The fourth shows the “connection
there is between correct ideas of the attributes of God, and the
exercise of faith in him unto eternal life.” The fifth, following those
that treat of the being, character, perfection, and attributes of God,
“speaks of the Godhead”--meaning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--and
explains the peculiarities of the “personage of tabernacle.” The sixth
“treats of the knowledge which persons must have, that the tenor of
life which they preserve is according to the will of God, in order that
they may be enabled to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation.”
The seventh and last discusses the effects of faith. Each lecture is
followed by “questions and answers on the foregoing principles,” after
the fashion of school catechisms, and to asterisk’d sentences a note is
appended: “Let the student commit the paragraph to memory.” There is
one merit in the lectures: like Wesley’s Hymns, they are written for
the poor and simple; consequently, they are read where a higher tone of
thought and style would remain unheeded.
[POLYGAMY.]
The “Index in order of date to Part Second” will explain its
contents.[205] The Appendix contains twelve pages of revelation on
marriage, government, and laws in general, and finally the “martyrdom
of Joseph Smith” (no longer junior) “and his brother Hyrum.”
Respecting the connubial state, the Gentile and exoteric reads with
astonishment the following sentence (no date, but between 1842 and
1843): “Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the
crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one
man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case
of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.”
[205] Index in the order of date to Part Second:
Sec.
30. Revelation to J. Smith, jun. July, 1828.
31. Revelation to J. Smith, sen. Feb., 1829.
32. Revelation to J. Smith, jun., and M. Harris March, 1829.
8. Revelation to O. Cowdery and J. Smith, jun. April, 1829.
33. Revelation whether John tarried on earth April, 1829.
34. Revelation to O. Cowdery April, 1829.
35. Revelation on translation, to O. Cowdery April, 1829.
36. Revelation on losing some of the Book of Mormon May, 1829.
37. Revelation to H. Smith May, 1829.
38. Revelation to J. Knight, sen. May, 1829.
39. Revelation to D. Whitmer June, 1829.
40. Revelation to J. Whitmer June, 1829.
41. Revelation to P. Whitmer, jun. June, 1829.
42. Revelation to O. Cowdery, D. Whitmer, and M.
Harris June, 1829.
43. Revelation to choose Twelve June, 1829.
44. Revelation to M. Harris March, 1830.
2. Revelation on Church government April 6, 1830.
46. Revelation to J. Smith, jun. April 6, 1830.
47. Revelation on re-baptism April, 1830.
45. Revelation to O. Cowdery, H. Smith, and S. H.
Smith, etc. April, 1830.
9. Revelation to J. Smith, jun., and O. Cowdery July, 1830.
48. Revelation to Emma Smith July, 1830.
49. Revelation to J. Smith, jun., O. Cowdery, and
J. Whitmer July, 1830.
50. Revelation on Sacrament, first paragraph August, 1830.
50. Revelation on ditto, second and third paragraphs Sept., 1830.
51. Revelation to O. Cowdery and the Church Sept., 1830.
10. Revelation to six elders Sept., 1830.
52. Revelation to D. Whitmer, P. Whitmer, jun., and
J. Whitmer Sept., 1830.
53. Revelation to T. B. Marsh Sept., 1830.
54. Revelation to P. P. Pratt and Z. Peterson October, 1830.
55. Revelation to E. Thayre and N. Sweet October, 1830.
56. Revelation to O. Pratt Nov., 1830.
11. Revelation to J. Smith, jun., and S. Rigdon Dec., 1830.
57. Revelation to E. Partridge Dec., 1830.
58. Revelation to J. Smith, jun., and S. Rigdon Dec., 1830.
12. Revelation to the Church Jan. 2, 1831.
39. Revelation to J. Covill Jan. 5, 1831.
60. Revelation concerning J. Covill Jan., 1831.
61. Revelation appointing E. Partridge bishop Feb. 4, 1831.
13. Revelation on Laws of the Church Feb. 9, 1831.
14. Revelation to the Church Feb., 1831.
62. Revelation calling the elders together Feb., 1831.
15. Revelation on Prophecy Mar. 7, 1831.
16. Revelation on the Gifts Mar. 8, 1831.
63. Revelation to J. Smith, jun., and J. Whitmer Mar. 8, 1831.
64. Revelation to settle certain families for the
present March, 1831.
65. Revelation concerning the Shakers March, 1831.
17. Revelation on the Spirit May, 1831.
23. Revelation to E. Partridge, concerning the
Colesville branch, in Thompson May, 1831.
66. Revelation on sending elders to Missouri June 7, 1831.
67. Revelation to S. Gilbert June, 1831.
68. Revelation to Newel Knight June, 1831.
69. Revelation to W. W. Phelps June, 1831.
70. Revelation to T. B. Marsh and E. Thayre June, 1831.
27. Revelation on the location of Zion July, 1831.
18. Revelation on the tribulations of Zion Aug. 1, 1831.
19. Revelation on the Sabbath Aug. 7, 1831.
71. Revelation to certain men to return from
Missouri Aug. 8, 1831.
72. Revelation of Destructions upon the Waters Aug. 12, 1831.
73. Revelation to certain elders on the Bank of
Missouri Aug. 13, 1831.
20. Revelation to the Church in Kirtland August, 1831.
21. Revelation given in Kirtland Sept. 11, 1831.
24. Revelation on Prayer October, 1831.
75. Revelation to W. E. M‘Lellin October, 1831.
1. Revelation, or the Lord’s preface to this book Nov. 1, 1831.
25. Revelation on the testimony of the Commandments Nov., 1831.
22. Revelation to O. Hyde, L. and L. Johnson,
W. E. M‘Lellin, and Items of Law Nov., 1831.
108. Revelation, or Appendix Nov. 3, 1831.
28. Revelation to O. Cowdery and J. Whitmer Nov., 1831.
26. Revelation on Stewardships Nov., 1831.
91. Revelation to J. Smith, jun., and S. Rigdon Nov., 1831.
90. Revelation appointing a bishop in Kirtland Dec. 4, 1831.
29. Revelation, elders’ duty till Conference Jan. 10, 1832.
74. Revelation, explanation on Corinthians Jan., 1832.
88. Revelation to several elders in Amherst Jan. 25, 1832.
92. Revelation, a Vision Feb. 16, 1832.
76. Revelation on the order of Enoch March, 1832.
77. Revelation to Jared Carter March, 1832.
78. Revelation to S. Burnett March, 1832.
80. Revelation to F. G. Williams March, 1832.
87. Revelation on the order of Enoch April 26, 1832.
89. Revelation in addition to the law April 30, 1832.
4. Revelation on Priesthood Sept. 22-3, do.
6. Revelation, Parable of the Wheat, etc. Dec. 6, 1832.
7. Revelation called the olive leaf Dec. 27, 1832.
81. Revelation, a Word of Wisdom Feb. 27, 1833.
85. Revelation concerning the keys of the kingdom Mar. 8, 1833.
93. Revelation concerning the Apocrypha Mar. 9, 1833.
94. Revelation on the order of Enoch, etc. Mar. 15, 1833.
83. Revelation, John’s record of Christ May 6, 1833.
84. Revelation on the building of the Lord’s houses May 6, 1833.
96. Revelation on Chastening June, 1833.
97. Revelation showing the order of Enoch’s stake June 4, 1833.
82. Revelation for a school in Zion Aug. 2, 1833.
86. Revelation, Laws of the Ancients Aug. 6, 1833.
79. Revelation to J. Murdock August, 1833.
95. Revelation to J. Smith and S. Rigdon in
Perrysburg Oct. 12, 1833.
98. Revelation, Parable on Zion Dec. 16, 1833.
5. Organization of the High Council Feb. 17, 1834.
101. Revelation, Redemption of Zion by power Feb. 24, 1834.
99. Revelation on Enoch’s order for the poor April 23, 1834.
102. Revelation given on Fishing River, Missouri June 22, 1834.
100. Revelation to Warren A. Cowdery Nov., 1834.
3. Quorums of Priesthood.
104. Revelations to T. B. Marsh concerning the Twelve July 23, 1837.
107. Revelations, Tithing July 8, 1838.
103. Revelations on the Temple and Nauvoo house Jan. 19, 1841.
105. J. Smith’s address Sept. 1, 1842.
106. J. Smith’s address Sept. 6, 1842.
109. Marriage.
110. Governments and laws in general.
111. Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
[POLYGAMY REVEALED.]
The polygamic era directly followed the monogamic: it became the custom
of the Church when, on their toil-conquered oasis in the Great Desert,
the Mormons found themselves in comparative security. I give _in
extenso_ the sole command of heaven upon the subject of
CELESTIAL MARRIAGE:
A REVELATION ON THE PATRIARCHAL ORDER OF MATRIMONY, OR PLURALITY OF
WIVES.
_Given to Joseph Smith, the Seer, in Nauvoo, July 12th, 1843._
1. Verily, then saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that
inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand
wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
as also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the
principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines:
Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as
touching this matter: therefore prepare thy heart to receive and obey
the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who
have this law revealed unto them must obey the same; for behold, I
reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide
not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this
covenant, and be permitted to enter into my glory; for all who will
have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed
for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as was instituted from
before the foundations of the world; and as pertaining to the new and
everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fullness of my glory;
and he that receiveth a fullness thereof must and shall abide the
law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.
2. And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are
these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows,
performances, connections, associations, or expectations that are
not made and entered into, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise,
of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity,
and that, too, most holy, by revelation and commandment, through
the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to
hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold
this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth
at a time on whom this power and the keys of the priesthood are
conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the
resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto
this end have an end when men are dead.
3. Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and
not a house of confusion. Will I accept of an offering, saith the
Lord, that is not made in my name? Or will I receive at your hands
that which I have not appointed? And will I appoint unto you, saith
the Lord, except it be by law, even as I and my Father ordained unto
you before the world was? I am the Lord thy God, and I give unto
you this commandment, that no man shall come unto the Father but by
me, or by my word which is my law, saith the Lord; and every thing
that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or
principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be,
that are not by me, or by my word, saith the Lord, shall be thrown
down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after
the resurrection, saith the Lord your God; for whatsoever things
remaineth are by me, and whatsoever things are not by me shall be
shaken and destroyed.
4. Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry
her not by me, nor by my word, and he covenant with her so long as
he is in the world, and she with him, their covenant and marriage
is not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the
world; therefore they are not bound by any law when they are out of
the world; therefore, when they are out of the world, they neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but are appointed angels in heaven,
which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are
worthy of a far more and an exceeding and an eternal weight of glory;
for these angels did not abide my law, therefore they can not be
enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in
their saved condition, to all eternity, and from henceforth are not
gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.
5. And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife, and make
a covenant with her for time and for all eternity, if that covenant
is not by me or by my word, which is my law, and is not sealed by
the Holy Spirit of promise, through him whom I have anointed and
appointed unto this power, then it is not valid, neither of force,
when they are out of the world, because they are not joined by me,
saith the Lord, neither by my word; when they are out of the world,
it can not be received there, because the angels and the gods are
appointed there, by whom they can not pass: they can not, therefore,
inherit my glory, for my house is a house of order, saith the Lord
God.
6. And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my
word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and
it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is
anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power, and the keys of this
priesthood, and it shall be said unto them, ye shall come forth in
the first resurrection; and if it be after the first resurrection,
in the next resurrection; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms,
principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths, then
shall it be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life that he shall commit
no murder whereby to shed innocent blood; and if ye abide in my
covenant, and commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood, it
shall be done unto them in all things whatsoever my servant hath put
upon them, in time and through all eternity, and shall be of full
force when they are out of the world; and they shall pass by the
angels, and the gods which are set there, to their exaltation and
glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which
glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds forever and
ever.
7. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall
they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then
shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them.
Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels
are subject unto them.
8. Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye abide my law, ye can not
attain to this glory; for straight is the gate and narrow the way
that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and
few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world,
neither do ye know me. But if ye receive me in the world, then shall
ye know me, and shall receive your exaltation, that where I am ye
shall be also. This is eternal life, to know the only wise and
true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. I am he. Receive ye,
therefore, my law. Broad is the gate and wide the way that leadeth to
death, and many there are that go in thereat, because they receive me
not, neither do they abide in my law.
9. Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife according
to my word, and they are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise
according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or
transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all
manner of blasphemies, and if they commit no murder wherein they shed
innocent blood, yet they shall come forth in the first resurrection,
and enter into their exaltation, but they shall be destroyed in the
flesh, and shall be delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the
day of redemption, saith the Lord God.
10. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be forgiven
in the world nor out of the world, is in that ye commit murder
wherein ye shed innocent blood, and assent unto my death after ye
have received my new and everlasting covenant, saith the Lord God;
and he that abideth not this law can in nowise enter into my glory,
but shall be damned, saith the Lord.
11. I am the Lord thy God, and will give unto thee the law of my
holy priesthood, as was ordained by me, and my Father before the
world was. Abraham received all things, whatsoever he received, by
revelation and commandment, by my word, saith the Lord, and hath
entered into his exaltation, and sitteth upon his throne.
12. Abraham received promises concerning his seed and of the fruit of
his loins--from whose loins ye are, viz., my servant Joseph--which
were to continue so long as they were in the world; and as touching
Abraham and his seed out of the world, they should continue; both in
the world and out of the world should they continue as innumerable
as the stars; or, if ye were to count the sand upon the sea-shore,
ye could not number them. This promise is yours also, because ye are
of Abraham, and the promise was made unto Abraham; and by this law
are the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth
himself. Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham; enter ye into
my law, and ye shall be saved. But if ye enter not into my law ye can
not receive the promises of my Father which he made unto Abraham.
13. God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife.
And why did she do it? Because this was the law, and from Hagar
sprang many people. This, therefore, was fulfilling, among other
things, the promises. Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation?
Verily, I say unto you, _Nay_; for I, the Lord, commanded it. Abraham
was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written,
Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was
accounted unto him for righteousness.
14. Abraham received concubines, and they bare him children, and it
was accounted unto him for righteousness, because they were given
unto him for righteousness, because they were given unto him, and
he abode in my law; as Isaac also, and Jacob did none other things
than that which they were commanded, and because they did none other
things than that which they were commanded, they have entered into
their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones;
and are not angels, but are gods. David also received many wives and
concubines, as also Solomon, and Moses my servant; and also many
others of my servants, from the beginning of creation until this
time; and in nothing did they sin save in those things which they
received not of me.
15. David’s wives and concubines were given unto him, of me, by the
hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the
keys of this power; and in none of these things did he sin against
me, save in the case of Uriah and his wife; and therefore he hath
fallen from his exaltation, and received his portion; and he shall
not inherit them out of the world; for I gave them unto another,
saith the Lord.
16. I am the Lord thy God, and I gave unto thee, my servant Joseph,
an appointment, and to restore all things; ask what ye will, and
it shall be given unto you, according to my word; and as ye have
asked concerning adultery, verily, verily I say unto you, if a man
receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she
be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy
anointing, she hath committed adultery, and shall be destroyed. If
she be not in the new and everlasting covenant, and she be with
another man, she has committed adultery; and if her husband be with
another woman, and he was under a vow, he hath broken his vow, and
hath committed adultery; and if she hath not committed adultery, but
is innocent, and hath not broken her vow, and she knoweth it, and I
reveal it unto you, my servant Joseph, then shall you have power,
by the power of my holy priesthood, to take her and give her unto
him that hath not committed adultery, but hath been faithful, for he
shall be made ruler over many; for I have conferred upon you the keys
and power of the priesthood, wherein I restore all things, and make
known unto you all things in due time.
17. And verily, verily I say unto you, that whatsoever you seal on
earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in
my name and by my word, saith the Lord, it shall be eternally bound
in the heavens; and whosesoever sins you remit on earth, shall be
remitted eternally in the heavens; and whosesoever sins ye retain on
earth, shall be retained in heaven.
18. And again, verily I say, whomsoever you bless I will bless, and
whomsoever you curse I will curse, saith the Lord; for I, the Lord,
am thy God.
19. And again, verily I say unto you, my servant Joseph, that
whatsoever you give on earth, and to whomsoever you give any one on
earth, by my word, and according to my law, it shall be visited with
blessings, and not cursings, and with my power, saith the Lord, and
shall be without condemnation on earth and in heaven; for I am the
Lord thy God, and will be with thee even unto the end of the world,
and through all eternity; for verily I seal upon you your exaltation,
and prepare a throne for you in the kingdom of my Father with Abraham
your father. Behold, I have seen your sacrifices, and will forgive
all your sins; I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which
I have told you: go, therefore, and I make a way for your escape, as
I accepted the offering of Abraham of his son Isaac.
20. Verily I say unto you, a commandment I give unto mine handmaid,
Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay
herself, and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer
unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I
did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand by
covenant and sacrifice; and let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive
all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are
virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have
said they are pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God; for I
am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice: and I give unto my
servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things, for he
hath been faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will
strengthen him.
21. And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto
my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this
commandment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the
Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law; but
if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph
do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him,
and multiply him, and give unto him an hundred-fold in this world, of
fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives
and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds. And
again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his
trespasses, and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses wherein she
has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her
and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice.
22. And again I say, let not my servant Joseph put his property out
of his hands, lest an enemy come and destroy him, for Satan seeketh
to destroy; for I am the Lord thy God, and he is my servant; and
behold, and lo, I am with him, as I was with Abraham thy father, even
unto his exaltation and glory.
23. Now, as touching the law of the priesthood, there are many things
pertaining thereunto. Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was
Aaron, by mine own voice, and by the voice of him that sent me, and I
have endowed him with the keys of the power of this priesthood, if he
do any thing in my name, and according to my law, and by my word, he
will not commit sin, and I will justify him. Let no one, therefore,
set on my servant Joseph; for I will justify him; for he shall do the
sacrifice which I require at his hands, for his transgressions, saith
the Lord your God.
24. And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood: If any man
espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give
her consent; and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and
have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he can not commit
adultery, for they are given unto him; for he can not commit adultery
with that that belongeth unto them, and to none else: and if he have
ten virgins given unto him by this law, he can not commit adultery,
for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is
he justified. But if one, or either of the ten virgins, after she
is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery,
and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and
replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfill the
promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the
world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may
bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued,
that he may be glorified.
25. And again, verily, verily I say unto you, if any man have a wife
who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of
my priesthood as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe,
and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord
your God; for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon
all those who receive and abide in my law. Therefore it shall be
lawful in me, if she receive not this law, for him to receive all
things whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will give unto him, because
she did not believe and administer unto him, according to my word;
and she then becomes the transgressor, and he is exempt from the law
of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law, when I
commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife. And now, as pertaining to
this law: Verily, verily I say unto you, I will reveal more unto you
hereafter; therefore let this suffice for the present. Behold, I am
Alpha and Omega. Amen.
Following the revelation is this explanation:
[POLYGAMY EXPLAINED.]
PLURALITY OF WIVES is a doctrine very popular among most of mankind
at the present day. It is practiced by the most powerful nations
of Asia and Africa, and by numerous nations inhabiting the islands
of the sea, and by the aboriginal nations of the great western
hemisphere. The one-wife system is confined principally to a few
small nations inhabiting Europe, and to those who are of European
origin inhabiting America. It is estimated by the most able
historians of our day that about four fifths of the population of the
globe believe and practice, according to their respective laws, the
doctrine of a plurality of wives. If the popularity of a doctrine
is in proportion to the numbers who believe in it, then it follows
that the _plurality system_ is four times more popular among the
inhabitants of the earth than the _one-wife system_.
Those nations who practice the plurality doctrine consider it as
virtuous and as right for one man to have many wives as to have one
only. Therefore they have enacted laws not only giving this right to
their citizens, but also protecting them in it, and punishing all
those who infringe upon the chastity of the marriage covenant by
committing adultery with any one of the wives of his neighbor. Those
nations do not consider it possible for a man to commit adultery
with any one of those women to whom he has been legally married
according to their laws. The posterity raised up unto the husband
through each of his wives are all considered to be legitimate, and
provisions are made in their laws for those children the same as if
they were the children of one wife. Adulteries, fornications, and
all unvirtuous conduct between the sexes are severely punished by
them. Indeed, plurality among them is considered not only virtuous
and right, but a great check or preventive against adulteries and
unlawful connections, which are among the greatest evils with which
nations are cursed, producing a vast amount of suffering and misery,
devastation and death; undermining the very foundations of happiness,
and destroying the frame-work of society and the peace of the
domestic circle.
Some of the nations of Europe who believe in the one-wife system
have actually forbidden a plurality of wives by their laws, and the
consequences are that the whole country among them is overrun with
the most abominable practices; adulteries and unlawful connections
prevail through all their villages, towns, cities, and country places
to a most fearful extent. And among some of these nations these sinks
of wickedness, wretchedness, and misery are licensed by law, while
their piety would be wonderfully shocked to authorize by law the
plurality system, as adopted by many neighboring nations.
The Constitution and laws of the United States, being founded upon
the principles of freedom, do not interfere with marriage relations,
but leave the nation free to believe in and practice the doctrine
of a plurality of wives, or to confine themselves to the one-wife
system, just as they choose. This is as it should be: it leaves the
conscience of man untrammeled, and, so long as he injures no person,
and does not infringe upon the rights of others, he is free by the
Constitution to marry one wife, or many, or none at all, and becomes
accountable to God for the righteousness or unrighteousness of his
domestic relations.
The Constitution leaves the several States and Territories to enact
such laws as they see proper in regard to marriages, provided that
they do not infringe upon the rights of conscience and the liberties
guaranteed in that sacred document. Therefore, if any State or
Territory feels disposed to enact laws guaranteeing to each of its
citizens the right to marry many wives, such laws would be perfectly
constitutional; hence the several States and Territories practice the
one-wife system out of choice, and not because they are under any
obligations so to do by the national Constitution. Indeed, we doubt
very much whether any State or Territory has the constitutional right
to make laws prohibiting the plurality doctrine in cases where it
is practiced by religious societies as a matter of conscience or
as a doctrine of their religious faith. The first Article of the
Amendments to the Constitution says expressly that “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or _prohibiting
the free exercise thereof_.” Now, if even Congress itself has no
power to pass a law “prohibiting the free exercise of religion,” much
less has any State or Territory power to pass such an act.
The doctrine of a plurality of wives was believed and practiced by
Abraham, the father of the faithful; and we find that, while in this
practice, the angels of God frequently ministered to him, and at one
time dined with him; and God manifested himself to him, and entered
into familiar conversation with him. Neither God nor his angels
reproved Abraham for being a polygamist, but, on the contrary, the
Almighty greatly blessed him, and made promises unto him, concerning
both Isaac and Ishmael, clearly showing that Abraham practiced
what is called polygamy under the sanction of the Almighty. Now if
the father of the faithful was thus blessed, certainly it should
not be considered irreligious for the faithful, who are called his
children, to walk in the steps of their father Abraham. Indeed,
if the Lord himself, through his holy prophets, should give more
wives unto his servants, as he gave them unto the prophet David,
it would be a great sin for them to refuse that which he gives. In
such a case, it would become a matter of conscience with them, and
a part of their religion, and they would be bound to exercise their
faith in this doctrine, and practice it, or be condemned; therefore
Congress would have no power to prohibit the free exercise of this
part of their religion, neither would the States or Territories have
power constitutionally to pass a law “prohibiting the free exercise
thereof.” Now a certain religious society, called Shakers, believe
it to be wrong for them to marry even one wife; it certainly would
be unconstitutional for either the Congress or the States to pass a
law compelling all people to marry at a certain age, because it would
infringe upon the rights of conscience among the Shakers, and they
would be prohibited the free exercise of their religion.
From the foregoing revelation, given through Joseph the Seer, it
will be seen that God has actually commanded some of his servants to
take more wives, and has pointed out certain duties in regard to the
marriage ceremony, showing that they must be married for time and for
all eternity, and showing the advantages to be derived in a future
state by this eternal union; and showing still farther that, if they
refused to obey this command, after having the law revealed to them,
they should be damned. This revelation, then, makes it a matter of
conscience among all the Latter-Day Saints; and they embrace it as
a part and portion of their religion, and verily believe that they
can not be saved and reject it. Has Congress power, then, to pass
laws “prohibiting” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
“_the free exercise_” of this article of their religion? Have any
of the States or Territories a constitutional right to pass laws
“prohibiting the free exercise of the religion” which the Church of
the Saints conscientiously and sincerely believe to be essential to
their salvation? No, they have no such right.
The Latter-Day Saints have the most implicit confidence in all
the revelations given through Joseph the Prophet, and they would
much sooner lay down their lives and suffer martyrdom than to
deny the least revelation that was ever given to him. In one of
the revelations through him, we read that God raised up wise men
and inspired them to write the Constitution of our country, that
the freedom of the people might be maintained, according to the
free agency which he had given to them; that every man might be
accountable to God and not to man, so far as religious doctrines
and conscience are concerned. And the more we examine that sacred
instrument, framed by the wisdom of our illustrious fathers, the
more we are compelled to believe that an invisible power controlled,
dictated, and guided them in laying the foundation of liberty
and freedom upon this great western hemisphere. To this land the
Mohammedan--the Hindoo--the Chinese can emigrate, and each bring
with him his score of wives and his hundred children, and the
glorious Constitution of our country will not interfere with his
domestic relations. Under the broad banner of the Constitution, he
is protected in all his family associations; none have a right to
tear any of his wives or his children from him. So, likewise, under
the broad folds of the Constitution, the Legislative Assembly of
the Territory of Utah have the right to pass laws regulating their
matrimonial relations, and protecting each of their citizens in the
right of marrying one or many wives, as the case may be. If Congress
should repeal those laws, they could not do so on the ground of their
being unconstitutional. And even if Congress should repeal them,
there still would be no law in Utah prohibiting the free exercise of
that religious right; neither do the citizens of Utah feel disposed
to pass such an unconstitutional act which would infringe upon the
most sacred rights of conscience.
Tradition and custom have great influence over nations.
Long-established customs, whether right or wrong, become sacred in
the estimation of mankind. Those nations who have been accustomed
from time immemorial to the practice of what is called polygamy would
consider a law abolishing it as the very height of injustice and
oppression; the very idea of being limited to the one-wife system
would be considered not only oppressive and unjust, but absolutely
absurd and ridiculous; it would be considered an innovation upon
the long-established usages, customs, and laws of numerous and
powerful nations; an innovation of the most dangerous character,
calculated to destroy the most sacred rights and privileges of family
associations--to upset the very foundations of individual rights,
rendered dear and sacred by being handed down to them from the most
remote ages of antiquity.
On the other hand, the European nations who have been for centuries
restricted by law to the one-wife theory would consider it a shocking
innovation upon the customs of their fathers to abolish their
restrictive laws, and to give freedom and liberty according to the
plurality system. It is custom, then, in a great degree, that forms
the conscience of nations and individuals in regard to the marriage
relationships. Custom causes four fifths of the population of the
globe to decide that polygamy, as it is called, is a good, and not an
evil practice; custom causes the balance, or the remaining fifth, to
decide in opposition to the great majority.
Those individuals who have strength of mind sufficient to divest
themselves entirely from the influence of custom, and examine the
doctrine of a plurality of wives under the light of reason and
revelation, will be forced to the conclusion that it is a doctrine of
divine origin; that it was embraced and practiced under the divine
sanction by the most righteous men who ever lived on the earth: holy
prophets and patriarchs, who were inspired by the Holy Ghost--who
were enrapt in the visions of the Almighty--who conversed with holy
angels--who saw God face to face, and talked with him as a man
talks with his friend--were “polygamists,” that is, they had many
wives--raised up many children by them--and were never reproved by
the Holy Ghost, nor by angels, nor by the Almighty, for believing in
and practicing such a doctrine; on the contrary, each one of these
“polygamists” received by revelation promises and blessings for
himself, for his wives, and for his numerous children born unto him
by his numerous wives. Moreover, the Lord himself gave revelation
to different wives belonging to the same man, revealing to them
the great blessings which should rest upon their posterity; angels
also were sent to comfort and bless them; and in no instance do we
find them reproved for having joined themselves in marriage to a
“polygamist.” Indeed, the Lord himself gave laws not to prohibit
“polygamy,” but showing his will in relation to the children raised
up by the different wives of the same man; and, furthermore, the
Lord himself actually officiated in giving David all the wives of
Saul; this occurred, too, when David already had several wives which
he had previously taken: therefore, as the Lord did actually give
into David’s own bosom all the wives of Saul, he must not only have
sanctioned “polygamy,” but established and instituted it upon a sure
foundation, by giving the wives himself, the same as he gave Eve to
Adam. Therefore those who are completely divested from the influence
of national customs, and who judge concerning this matter by the
Word of God, are compelled to believe that the plurality of wives
was once sanctioned for many ages by the Almighty; and by a still
farther research of the divine oracles they find no intimations that
this divine institution was ever repealed. It was an institution, not
originated under the law of Moses, but of a far more ancient date;
and instead of being abolished by that law, it was sanctioned and
perpetuated; and when Christ came to fulfill that law, and to do it
away by the introduction of a better covenant, he did not abolish the
plurality system: not being originated under that law, it was not
made null and void when that law was done away. Indeed, there were
many things in connection with the law that were not abolished when
the law was fulfilled; as, for instance, the Ten Commandments, which
the people under the Gospel covenant were still obliged to obey;
and until we can find some law of God abolishing and prohibiting
a plurality of wives, we are compelled to believe it a divine
institution; and we are furthermore compelled to believe, that if
this institution be entered into now, under the same principles which
governed the holy prophets and patriarchs, that God will approbate it
now as much as he did then; and that the persons who do thus practice
it conscientiously and sincerely are just as honorable in the sight
of God as those who have but one wife. And that which is honorable
before God should be honorable before men; and no one should be
despised when he acts in all good conscience upon any principle of
doctrine; neither should there be laws in any of these States or
Territories to compel any individual to act in violation to the
dictates of his own conscience; but every one should be left in all
matters of religion to his own choice, and thus become accountable to
God, and not to his fellow-man.
If the people of this country have generally formed different
conclusions from us upon this subject, and if they have embraced
religions which are more congenial to their minds than the religion
of the Saints, we say to them that they are welcome to their own
religious views; the laws should not interfere with the exercise
of their religious rights. If we can not convince you by reason
nor by the Word of God that your religion is wrong, we will not
persecute you, but will sustain you in the privileges guaranteed
in the great Charter of American Liberty: we ask from you the
same generosity--protect us in the exercise of our religious
rights--convince us of our errors of doctrine, if we have any, by
reason, by logical arguments, or by the Word of God, and we will
be ever grateful for the information, and you will ever have the
pleasing reflection that you have been the instruments in the hands
of God of redeeming your fellow-beings from the darkness which you
may see enveloping their minds. Come, then, let us reason together,
and try to discover the true light upon all subjects connected
with our temporal or eternal happiness; and if we disagree in our
judgments, let us impute it to the weakness and imperfections of
our fallen natures, and let us pity each other, and endeavor with
patience and meekness to reclaim from error, and save the immortal
soul from an endless death.
Mormonism, it will be observed, claims at once to be, like
Christianity, a progressive faith, with that development of
spiritualism which the “Tracts for the Times” exemplified, and, like
El Islam, to be a restoration by revelation of the pure and primeval
religion of the world. Convinced that plurality was unforbidden by the
founders of the former faiths, the Mormons, as well as the followers of
the Arabian Prophet, have obeyed the command of their God to restore
it, and that, too, although the Anglo-Scandinavian race every where
agrees, after the fashion of pagan and monogamic Rome, to make it a
common-law crime. Politically considered, the Mormons deem it necessary
to their existence as a people. Contrary to the scientific modern
economist, from Mr. Malthus to Mr. Mill, they hold population, not
wealth, learning, civilization, nor virtue, to be the strength of a
nation; they believe that numbers decide the rise and fall of empires,
and that, as Nature works the extinction of her doomed races by
infecundity, and as the decline of a people’s destiny is first detected
in the diminution of its census, so they look upon the celestial
promises of prolificity made to the patriarchs of old as the highest
temporal blessing. They admit in the lawgiver only a right to legislate
for the good of those who are to obey his laws, not to gratify his
“whimsy whamsies,” and that the liberty which man claims by the dignity
of his nature permits him to choose the tie, whether polyandric,
monogamic, or polygamic, that connects him with the opposite sex. Mr.
Parley P. Pratt (“Marriage and Morals in Utah,” p. 3) is explicit upon
this subject:
“If we find laws, statutes, covenants, and precedents emanating from
God; sworn to by himself to be everlasting; as a blessing to all
nations--if we find these have to do with exceeding multiplicity of
race, and with family and national organization and increase--if such
institutions are older than Moses, and are found perpetuated and
unimpaired by Moses and the prophets, Jesus and the apostles, then it
will appear evident that no merely human legislation or authority,
whether proceeding from emperor, king, or people, has a right to
change, alter, or pervert them.”
[MORMON MATERIALISM.]
The third epoch is that of Materialism. In this the Mormons are
preceded, to quote but a few schools, by the classic Academics--by
the Jews, who believed in a material and personal Demiurgus, and by
many fathers of the Christian Church, who held the soul of man, while
immortal, to be material. Matter with them, as with Newton, is an
aggregate of “solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, and movable particles.”
Respecting the intelligence of its units and molecules--the test of
true materialism--they are somewhat hazy; they deride the peripatetic
dogma of perception by species or phantasms, and at the same time
ignore the doctrine of Hobbes, Spinoza, Priestley, and others, who
recognize no separate existence for the mind or spirit[206] except
as a union of atoms or particles, which, unorganized, have neither
feeling nor thought. They define matter as a something that exists in
and occupies space between any two instants, and is susceptible of
division, and of being removed from one portion of space to another.
Unlike other metaphysicians, who confess ignorance as to the substratum
of mind and matter, they boast acquaintance with the essence of all
substances, solidity, which with them is not a mere property. Although
the ultimate atoms of matter can not come under the cognizance of
the senses, they are none the less assured of their solidity, viz.,
that they fill a certain amount of space, and are unable ever to
fill a greater or a lesser--in fact, to believe otherwise would be
impossible. They hold to different kinds of matter, for instance, the
fleshly body and the spiritual body, which differ in quality as iron
and oxygen. Mind and spirit, therefore, are real, objective, positive
substances, which, like the astral spirit of the old alchymists, exists
in close connection with the component parts of the porous, material
body. Immaterialism is, with them, simply absurd; it is a belief which
requires a man to put faith in a negation of time, space, and matter;
in fact, in the zero of existence, in an entity whose ens admits no
proof, and which can be described only by negative conditions and
qualities, by saying what it is not. They contend that the materiality
of spirit once taken away would negative its existence; that an
“immaterial being” is a contradiction in terms; and that immateriality
is another name for nothing; therefore, that the spirituality of spirit
“is an unphilosophical, unscriptural, and atheistical doctrine.” The
theses supported by Mr. Orson Pratt, the apostle of materialism, are
the following:
[206] “If man,” says Dr. Priestley, “be a material being, and the
power of thinking the result of a certain organization of the brain,
does it not follow that all his functions must be regulated by the
laws of mechanism, and that, of consequence, all his actions proceed
from an irresistible necessity?” It is the glory of the present
age, the highest result of our nineteenth century physiological and
statistic studies, brought to bear by a master-mind of the age upon
the History of Civilization--to establish the fact that mankind
progresses by investigating the laws of phenomena; in fact, to prove,
not to conjecture, that such mechanism really exists. I need hardly
name Mr. Buckle.
I. That Immaterialism is irrational opposed to true philosophy.
II. That an Immaterial substance (_i.e._, a something existing which
is not matter and is distinct from matter, which is not dependent upon
matter for its existence, which possesses no properties nor qualities
in common with matter, and which possesses properties and qualities all
entirely different from those of matter) can not exist.
III. That a real material unchangeable spirit, possessing parts and
extension, inhabits the body.
Immaterialists who believe in “an inexplicable, incomprehensible,
imaginary something without extension or parts, as taught in the first
of the Thirty-nine Articles,” are therefore the worshipers of an
immortal Nihil--of a Nothing clothed with almighty powers.
It is abundantly evident that the partition between the spiritualist
and the materialist is mainly philological, a dispute of words, a
variation of terms, spirit and matter differing about as much as azote
and nitrogen. The deductions, however, from the Mormon’s premises lead
him, as the following extracts prove, far.[207]
[207] From Mr. Apostle Orson Pratt’s “Absurdities of Immaterialism,”
and his treatise on the “Kingdom of God.” It is hardly possible not
to believe that the author has borrowed most of his theories from Mr.
Carlyle’s “Republican.”
“The Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The
Father is a material being. The substance of which he is composed is
wholly material. It is a substance widely different in some respects
from the various substances with which we are more immediately
acquainted. In other respects, it is precisely like all other
materials. The substance of his person occupies space the same as other
matter. It has solidity, length, breadth, and thickness, like other
matter. The elementary materials of his body are not susceptible of
occupying at the same time the same identical space with other matter.
The substance of his person, like other matter, can not be in two
places at the same instant. It requires _time_ for him to transport
himself from place to place. It matters not how great the velocity of
his movement, _time_ is an essential ingredient to all motion, whether
rapid or slow. It differs from other matter in the superiority of
its powers, being intelligent, all-wise, and possessing the property
of self-motion to a far greater extent than the coarser materials of
nature. ‘God is a spirit;’ but that does not make him an immaterial
being, a being that has no properties in common with matter.”...
“All the foregoing statements in relation to the person of the Father
are equally applicable to the person of the Son.
“The Holy Spirit, being one part of the Godhead, is also a material
substance, of the same nature and properties in many respects as
the Spirits of the Father and Son. It exists in vast, immeasurable
quantities, in connection with all material worlds. This is called
God in the Scriptures, as well as the Father and Son. God the Father
and God the Son can not be every where present; indeed, they can not
be even in two places at the same instant; but God the Holy Spirit is
omnipresent: it extends through all space, intermingling with all other
matter, yet no one atom of the Holy Spirit can be in two places at
the same instant, which in all cases is an absolute impossibility. It
must exist in inexhaustible quantities, which is the only possible way
for any substance to be omnipresent. All the innumerable phenomena of
universal nature are produced in their origin by the actual presence
of this intelligent, all-wise, and all-powerful material substance
called the Holy Spirit. It is the most active matter in the universe,
producing all its operations according to fixed and definite laws
enacted by itself, in conjunction with the Father and the Son. What
are called the laws of nature are nothing more nor less than the fixed
method by which this spiritual matter operates. Each atom of the Holy
Spirit is intelligent, and, like other matter, has solidity, form, and
size, and occupies space. Two atoms of this Spirit can not occupy the
same space at the same time, neither can one atom, as before stated,
occupy two separate spaces at the same time. In all these respects it
does not differ in the least from all other matter. Its distinguishing
characteristics from other matter are its almighty powers and infinite
wisdom, and many other glorious attributes which other materials do not
possess. If several of the atoms of this Spirit should exist united
together in the form of a person, then this person of the Holy Spirit
would be subject to the same necessity” (N.B., this out-anagkes anagke)
“as the other two persons of the Godhead--that is, it could not be
every where present. No finite number of atoms can be omnipresent. An
infinite number of atoms is requisite to be _every where_ in infinite
space. Two persons receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit do not
receive at the same time the same identical particles, though they each
receive a substance exactly similar in kind. It would be as impossible
for them to receive the same identical atoms at the same instant as it
would be for two men at the same time to drink the same identical pint
of water.”
[MIND AND MATTER.]
I will offer another instance of the danger of meddling with such edged
tools as mind and matter--concerning which mankind knows nothing beyond
certain properties--in the following answer addressed by Mr. Pratt
to the many who have been “traditionated in the absurd doctrines of
immaterialism.” “The resemblance between man and God has reference, as
we have already observed, to the shape or figure: other qualities may
or may not resemble each other. Man has legs, so has God, as is evident
from his appearance to Abraham. Man walks with his legs; so does God
sometimes, as is evident from his going with Abraham toward Sodom. God
can not only walk, but he can move up or down through the air without
using his legs as in the process of walking (Gen., xvii., 22, and xi.,
5, and xxxv., 13)--‘a man wrestled with Jacob until the breaking of
day;’ after which Jacob says, ‘I have seen God face to face, and my
life is preserved’ (Gen., xxxii., 24-30). That this person had legs is
evident from his wrestling with Jacob. His image and likeness was so
much like man’s, that Jacob at first supposed him to be a man. God,
though in the figure of a man, has many powers that man has not got. He
can go upward through the air. He can waft himself from world to world
by his own self-moving powers. These are powers not possessed by man,
only through faith, as in the instances of Enoch and Elijah. Therefore,
though in the figure of a man, he has powers far superior to man.”
This part of the subject may profitably be concluded by quoting the
venerable adage, “_Qui nescit ignorare nescit sciri_.”
[MORMON DOXOLOGY.]
I now offer to the reader a few remarks upon the fourteen articles
of the Mormon doxology,[208] leaving him to settle whether it be a
kakodoxy or a kakistodoxy.
[208] From an article published in the “Frontier Guardian,” then
edited by the Apostle Orson Hyde.
I. “WE BELIEVE IN GOD, THE ETERNAL FATHER, AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST,
AND IN THE HOLY GHOST.”--Of the thousand sects and systems that have
used this venerable Kalmah or formula of Christian faith, none have
interpreted it more peculiarly than the Mormons.
The First Person is a perfected man, once a dweller upon earth:
advancing in intelligence and power, he became such that in
comparison with man he may be called the Infinite. Mr. Joseph Smith,
in his last sermon preached at Nauvoo, thus develops his remarkable
anthropomorphosis: “First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder
heavens, is a man like one of yourselves; that is the great secret.
If the veil was rent to-day, and the great God who holds this world
in its orbit, and upholds all things by his power, if you were to see
him to-day, you would see him in all the person, image, and very form
as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion and image of God;
Adam received instruction, walked, talked, and conversed with Him, as
one man talks and communes with another.”
The Second Person is the “Son Jesus Christ,” the material offspring
of the First by the Virgin Mary, who was duly married, after
betrothal by the angel Gabriel, to the Eternal Father, on the
plains of Palestine: the Holy Babe was the “tabernacle” prepared
for and assumed by the Spirit Son. The Son is the Creator: when in
the material spirit still, he took of the “unformed chaotic matter
element which had an existence from the time God had, and in which
dwells all the glory,” and formed and peopled this planetary world,
which he afterward redeemed. He is to be worshiped as Lord of all,
heir of the Father in power, creation, and dominion. “What did Jesus
do?” “Why, I do the things that I saw my Father do when worlds came
rolling into existence. I saw my Father work out his kingdom with
fear and trembling, and I must do the same.” (“Last Sermon,” p. 61.)
The Paraclete has already been described: it differs from the other
two Persons in being a merely spirit-material soul or existence
without a “tabernacle.” Thus the Mormons mingle with a Trinity a very
distinct, though not a conflicting Duality.
The Mormon Godhead may be illustrated by a council composed of
three men, possessing equal wisdom, knowledge, and truth, together
with equal qualifications in every other respect: each would be a
separate person or a substance distinct from the other two, and
yet the three would compose but one body. This body consists of
three, viz., Eloheim, Jehovah, and Michael, which is Adam. From the
Christian apostles and the Apocalypse, the Mormons deduce the dogma
of gods in an _ad infinitum_ ascending series: man, however, must
limit his obedience to the last heavenly Father and Son revealed by
the Holy Spirit. And as God is perfect man, so is perfect man God:
any individual, by faith and obedience, can, as the Brahminical
faith asserts, rise to the position of a deity, until, attaining
the power of forming a planet, peopling, redeeming it, and sitting
there enthroned in everlasting power. The Mormons, like the Moslems,
believe that--“things of earth, customs, and ceremonies, being
patterned after things in the Spirit world and future abodes of the
gods”--there are inferior glories and pleasures for “hewers of wood
and drawers of water.” In the eternal heavens there are three great
mansions, the celestial of the sun, the celestial of the stars, and
the terrestrial: the other state is called the Lake of Fire, or the
Burning Caldron.
II. “WE BELIEVE THAT MEN WILL BE PUNISHED FOR THEIR OWN SINS, AND
NOT FOR ADAM’S TRANSGRESSIONS.”--Yet the Mormons hold the Son to
be necessary to reconcile fallen man to the Father and the Holy
Spirit, to sanctify and purify the affections of men, and also to
dwell in them as a teacher of truth. “The spiritual substance of man
was formed in the beginning after the same image as the spiritual
substance of the persons of the Father and the Son. Previously to
the fall, these spirits were all moral in their nature; by the fall
the spirits of men lost their morality and virtue, but not their
essence--that continued the same: by the new birth man regains
his morality and virtue, while the essence remains the same; it
now becomes a moral, virtuous image, whereas the same substance
was before immoral. Paul (1 Cor., xv., 49), in speaking of the
resurrection, says, ‘As we have borne the image of the earthly, let
us bear also the image of the heavenly!’” Unlike the more advanced
faiths--El Islam and Unitarianism--the Mormons retain the doctrine
of a “fall.” It contrasts strangely with their dogma of man’s
perfectibility. They have not attempted to steer clear between the
Scylla and Charybdis of predestination and free will.
III. “WE BELIEVE THAT THROUGH THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST ALL MANKIND
MAY BE SAVED BY OBEDIENCE TO THE LAWS AND ORDINANCES OF THE
GOSPEL.”--After Adam had fallen from his primal purity, a council was
held in heaven to debate how man should be saved or redeemed from the
state of evil. The elder brother Lucifer, son of the morning, the
bright star in glory, and the leader of heavenly hosts, declared,
when appealed to, that he would save man in his sins. But he who is
emphatically called “the Son”--Christ--answered, I will save him
_from_ his sins. Lucifer, the “archangel ruined,” rebelled, was cast
out from the planetary abode of the Father, and became, under the
name of Satan, the great ruler and “head devil” of evil spirits, and
of the baser sort of imps and _succubi_. I can not say whether in
their mysteries the Mormons represent Sathanas as the handsome man
of El Islam, or the horned, tailed, and cloven-footed monster which
monkish Europe fashioned probably after pagan Pan.
IV. “WE BELIEVE THESE ORDINANCES ARE, 1ST. FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS;
2D. REPENTANCE; 3D. BAPTISM BY IMMERSION FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS;
4TH. LAYING ON OF HANDS BY THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT; 5TH. THE
LORD’S SUPPER.”--Faith is not only the “evidence of things that
appear not, the substance of things to be hoped for,” the first
principle of action, and an exercise of the will in intelligent
beings toward accomplishing holy works and purposes, with a view to
celestial glory; it is also the source of power both on earth and
in heaven. We find that by faith God created the world (Heb., xi.,
3); and, “take this principle or attribute away from the Deity, he
would cease to exist.” (“Lectures on Faith,” sec. 1.) “Faith, then,
is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion,
and authority over all things.” (Ibid.) Of the second ordinance,
it was revealed, “Say nothing but repentance unto this generation”
(“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 37); a very comprehensive and
valuable rule to those under whom their brethren must sit. As regards
the third, the child succeeds its parent in moral responsibility
at eight years of age, when it must be baptized “in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen,” into the
Church. Infant baptism is regarded as a Bida’at or innovation--a
sin. Baptism by immersion--any other method being considered a
vain ceremony--remits our peccata, but it must be repeated after
each mortal act. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 2, par. 21.)
Vicarious baptism for the dead is founded upon St. Paul’s saying
concerning the fathers, that they can not without us be made perfect,
and “otherwise what shall they do that are baptized for the dead,
if the dead rise not again at all? Why are they then baptized for
them?” (1 Cor., xv., 29.) Immersion in water is the symbol of death,
emersion of the resurrection, and the baptismal font is a simile
of the grave; but baptism for the dead is acceptable only in the
Temple. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 103.) There being a
probationary state while the earth endures in the Spirit world--the
purgatorial doctrine of Virgil and others--the dead can by proxy
“fulfill all righteousness;” and the Saints are enjoined that “the
greatest responsibility that God has laid upon us is to look after
our dead;” so Mr. Joseph Smith, in his “Last Sermon,” says, “Every
man who has got a friend in the eternal world can save him, unless he
has committed the unpardonable sin; so you can see how you can be a
Savior.” A man baptized for deceased relations traces back the line
to one that held the priesthood among his progenitors, who, being a
saint, will take the place of sponsor, and relieve him of farther
responsibility. All thus admitted to salvation will be added at the
resurrection to the household of the baptized person, who will reign
as a patriarch forever, his rank and power among kingly spirits being
proportioned to his wives and his children--adopted or begotten--and
his baptizées. The fourth ordinance, or laying on of hands by the
water’s side, is a perfection of the regeneration begun in baptism,
and whereby the recipient is promoted to the Melchisedek priesthood;
the order was revealed, or rather renewed, in 1831. (“Covenants and
Commandments,” sec. 66.) The fifth ordinance, touching the Eucharist,
is instituted “in remembrance of the Lord Jesus:” the elder or priest
administers it kneeling with the Church, praying and blessing first
the bread and then the wine. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec.
2.) The second element was changed by a direct revelation (Sept.,
1830), saying, “You shall not purchase wine nor strong drink of your
enemies,” since which time water has been substituted. Mormons, young
and old, equally take the sacrament every Sabbath.
V. “WE BELIEVE THAT MAN MUST BE CALLED OF GOD BY INSPIRATION, AND BY
LAYING ON OF HANDS FROM THOSE WHO ARE DULY COMMISSIONED TO PREACH THE
GOSPEL AND ADMINISTER IN THE ORDINANCES THEREOF.”--The Mormons hold
to a regular apostolic succession. “Every elder” (which includes the
apostles), “priest, teacher, or deacon, is to be ordained according
to the gifts and callings of God unto him; and he is to be ordained
by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the one who ordains him.”
VI. “WE BELIEVE IN THE SAME ORGANIZATION THAT EXISTED IN THE
PRIMITIVE CHURCH, VIZ., APOSTLES, PROPHETS, PASTORS, EVANGELISTS,
ETC.”--The proper signification of these words will be explained when
treating of the Mormon hierarchy.
VII. “WE BELIEVE IN THE POWERS AND GIFTS OF THE EVERLASTING
GOSPEL, VIZ., THE GIFT OF FAITH, DISCERNING OF SPIRITS, PROPHECY,
REVELATIONS, VISIONS, HEALING, TONGUES, AND THE INTERPRETATION OF
TONGUES, WISDOM, CHARITY, BROTHERLY LOVE, ETC.”--The everlasting
Gospel means the universal order and arrangement of things springing
from the “two self-existing principles of intelligence and element,
or matter,” and forming the law under which the primordial gods
came into being. According to Mr. Joseph Smith, “God himself could
not create himself,” and “Intelligence exists upon a self-existent
principle: it is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation
about it.” In the far eternity two of the elementary material æons
met, compared intelligence, and calling in a third to council, united
in what became the first power, superior because prior to all others,
and ever-enduring by the union of other æons. Under this union arose
a “law governing itself and all things”--the everlasting Gospel.
The seer has not left on record the manner in which the head god
originated: the other gods, however, sprung from him as children.
Heaven has not only kings, but queens--the Sakti of Hindooism, and
the various Ario-pagan faiths--who are the mothers of gods, of men’s
souls, and of all spiritual existences. St. John saw a portion of
the everlasting Gospel in the “little book” in the hand of the angel
“coming down from heaven” to proclaim again on earth the Church of
Christ, a type of Moroni, who taught the fullness of knowledge to
Joseph the Seer, that the gladder tidings might be preached to men
with the “signs following” which were promised to the primitive
apostles.
As regards the discerning of spirits, the human soul is not visible
to mortal eyes without a miracle, nor is it ponderable: it passes
through the body as the electric fluid through the earth. Yet, in
reality, it is more substantial than the body, for it can not be
changed nor destroyed; it “coexisted equal with God,” and had no
beginning, which would argue the possibility of an end, and “it is
immortal as God himself.” It is uncreate: “God never did have power
to create the spirit of man at all--the very idea lessens man in
my estimation--I know better.” (“Last Sermon,” p. 62.) Spiritual
existences have a choice of two paths. Either they must remain
cribbed, cabined, and confined in their own ethereal order and proper
sphere, to be called and sent as angels, heralds, or ministers from
one planet or planetary system to another; and thus the Mormon, as
the Moslem, places angelic nature below human, saying with St. Paul
(1 Cor., vi., 3), “Know you not that we shall judge angels?” or they
may choose, like the precreated spirits of El Islam in the Yaum i
Alast--the Day of Am-I-Not (thy God)?--the probation of an earthly
tabernacle; and, ignoring their past existence, descend below all
things to attain a higher than celestial glory, and perfection in
the attributes of power and happiness. As with the metempsychosist,
there are grades of tabernacles. The lowest of humans is the African,
who, being a “servant of servants unto his brethren,” is “cursed as
to the priesthood,” and therefore can not “attain to any thing above
a dim-shining glory.” Above him is the Indian, for the Red Men,
through repentance, obedience, and acceptance of the new Evangelism,
can rebecome a “fair and delightsome people,” worthy of their Hebrew
sires. Below the negro is the brute tabernacle, into which the still
rebellious spirit descends, until, yielding to Gospel law, it is
permitted to retrace its course through the successive changes to
splendor and perfection. So, “when we are tormented by a refractory
horse or an obstinate ass, it may not be amiss to reflect that they
were actuated by an apostate soul, and exemplifying a few of the
human infirmities.” The same words might be spoken orthodoxically by
a Jain or a Banyan.
The soul is supposed to take possession of the tabernacle at the
quickening of the embryon. At baptism the Saint may ask in faith for
some particular spirit or genius--an idea familiar to the adepts and
spiritualists of this generation. Every one also has evil, false,
and seducing spirits at variance with the good, a fancy reminding
us of the poetical Moslem picture of the good guardian sitting upon
man’s right shoulder, and whispering into his ear suggestions against
which the bad spirit on the left contends. Revelations are received
by prayer and mighty faith, but only when diligence and sagacity fail
to secure the desired information--where God has appointed means he
will not work by miracles, nor will a “_de profundis_” act without a
more concrete action. Heavenly communications vouchsafed to the seer
must be registered, and kept for promulgation when the Saints can
bear them; for many “would be offended and turn back if the whole
truth”--polygamy, for instance--“were dashed down in a mass before
them.” Of prophetic times it may be observed that the habitat of
God the Father is the planet Kolob, whose revolutions--one of which
is the beginning and the end of a day equal to 1000 terrestrial
years--are the measure of heavenly time. The Deity, being finite,
employs agents and auxiliaries, _e. g._, light, sound, electricity,
inspiration, to communicate knowledge to his world of worlds. An
angel commissioned as a messenger to earth is taken either from the
chief or from a minor planet, and it naturally measures time by the
days and weeks, the months and years, of its own home--a style of
computation which must not a little confuse our poor human chronology.
“Tongues” does not signify, as at the date of the first Pentecost,
an ability to address heteroglottists in their several languages,
which would render the gift somewhat too precise and Mezzofantian
for these days. It means that man moved by the Spirit shall utter
any set of sounds unintelligible even to himself, but which, being
known to the Lord, may, by special permission to exercise the “gift
of interpretation of tongues,” be explained by another to those
addressed. The man gravid with “tongues” must “rise on his feet,
lean in faith on Christ, and open his lips, utter a song in such
cadence as he chooses, and the Spirit of the Lord will give an
interpreter, and make it a language.” The linguistic feat has of late
years been well known in England, where it was, of course, set down
to imposture. It may more charitably be explained by an abnormal
affection of the organ of language on the part of the speaker of
“tongues,” and in the interpreter by the effect of a fervent and
fooling faith.
[INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.]
VIII. “WE BELIEVE THE WORD OF GOD RECORDED IN THE BIBLE; WE ALSO
BELIEVE THE WORD OF GOD RECORDED IN THE BOOK OF MORMON, AND IN ALL
OTHER GOOD BOOKS.”--Some Christians have contended that the Biblia
of the Jews have been altered; that the last chapter (verse 5) of
Deuteronomy, for instance, recording the death and burial of Moses,
was not written by Moses. The Moslems assert that the Scripture of
both Hebrew and Christian has not only been misunderstood, but has
designedly been corrupted by Baulús (St. Paul) and other Greekish
Jews; that the Gospel of Infancy, and the similar compositions now
banished into the apocryphal New Testament, are mere excrescences
upon the pure commands of Jesus. The Mormons hold with the latter.
They believe, however, that the infinite errors and interpretations
have been removed by “Joseph the Seer,” to whom was given the “key
of all languages”--he has quoted in his writings only 15 out of
3500--and the following specimen of his ultra-Bentleian emendations,
borrowed from the “Last Sermon,” may suffice:
“I will make a comment on the very first sentence of the history of
the creation in the Bible” (_i.e._, “in King James’s version;” he
had probably never seen even the Douay translation). “It first read,
‘The head one of the gods brought forth the gods.’[209] If you do
not believe it, you do not believe _the learned_ man of God. And,
in farther explanation, it means, ‘The head god called together the
gods, and sat in grand council. The grand councilors sat in yonder
heavens, and contemplated the worlds that were created at that time.’
The Bible is, therefore, held to be the foundation book.” Mr. Joseph
Smith’s inspired translation or impudent _rifacciamento_ is believed
to exist in MS.: in due time it will probably be promulgated. But
the Word of God is not confined to the Bible; the Book of Mormon and
the Doctrines and Covenants are of equal authority, strands of the
“three-fold cord,” connecting by the Church God and man. If these
revelations contradict one another, the stumbling-block to the weak
in faith is easily removed by considering the “situations” under
which they were vouchsafed: “heaven’s government is conducted on
the principle of adapting revelation to the varied circumstances of
the children of the kingdom”--a dogma common to all revelationists.
Additional items may be supplied to the Mormons from day to day, a
process by which a “flood of light has poured into their souls, and
raised them to a view of the glorious things above.” The present
seer, revelator, translator, and prophet, however, shows his high
wisdom by seeing, revealing, translating, and prophesying as little
as possible. Yet he even repeats, and probably believes, that
revelation is the rock upon which the Church is founded.
[209] I need hardly say that in the original the words are “at its
head (beginning) the gods (he) created the earth and the heaven.”
IX. “WE BELIEVE ALL THAT GOD HAS REVEALED, ALL THAT HE DOES NOW REVEAL,
AND WE BELIEVE THAT HE WILL REVEAL MANY MORE GREAT AND IMPORTANT THINGS
PERTAINING TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND MESSIAH’S SECOND COMING.”--Much of
this has been explained above. The second coming of Christ is for the
restoration or restitution of all things, as foretold by the prophet
Isaiah. When the living earth was created, the dry land emerged from
the waters, which gathered by command into one place. The “Voice of
Warning” draws an interesting picture of a state of things hitherto
unknown to geologist and palæogeographer. “There was one vast ocean
rolling around a single immense body of land, unbroken as to continents
and islands; it was a beautiful plain, interspersed with gently rising
hills and sloping vales; its climate delightfully varied with heat and
cold, wet and dry; crowning the year with productions grateful to men
and animals, while from the flowery plain or spicy grove sweet odors
were wafted on every breeze, and all the vast creation of animated
beings breathed naught but health, peace, and joy.” Over this paradise,
this general garden, “man reigned, and talked face to face with the
Supreme, with only a dimming veil between.” After the diffusion of
sin, which followed the fall, came the purification of the Noachian
cataclysm, and in the days of Peleg “the earth was divided,” _i.e._,
the Homeric circumambient sea was interposed between portions of land
rent asunder, which earthquakes and upheavals subsequently broke into
fragments and islands. We learn from the whole and varied Scriptures
that before the second coming of Christ the several pieces shall be
dovetailed into one, as they were in the morn of creation, and the
retiring sea shall reassume its pristine place, when Samudra Devta
was enthroned by the Rishis. The earth is thus restored for a people
purified to innocence, and is fitted for the first resurrection of the
body to reign with the Savior for a thousand years.
[RESTORATION OF THE TEN TRIBES.]
X. “WE BELIEVE IN THE LITERAL GATHERING OF ISRAEL, AND IN THE
RESTORATION OF THE TEN TRIBES; THAT ZION WILL BE ESTABLISHED UPON THE
WESTERN CONTINENT; THAT CHRIST WILL REIGN PERSONALLY UPON THE EARTH
A THOUSAND YEARS; AND THAT THE EARTH WILL BE RENEWED AND RECEIVE
ITS PARADISIACAL GLORY.”--The only novelty in this article is the
“location” of Zion, which has already been transferred from Palestine
to the celestial regions in the Valley of the Mississippi; this, in
the present era, when the old cradles of civilization upon the Ganges
and Indus, the Euphrates and the Nile, have been well-nigh depopulated
or exhausted, promises to become one of the vast hives from which
the human swarm shall issue. The American continent, as the Book of
Mormon informs us, was, at the time of the Crucifixion, shaken to its
foundation: towns and cities, lakes and mountains, were buried and
formed when “the earth writhed in the convulsive throes of agonizing
nature.” After all the seed of Israel shall have been raised from the
dead, they shall flock to Zion in Judea, and the saints of other races
shall be gathered to New Jerusalem in America: both these cities shall
be “built with fine stones, and the beauty of all precious things.”
At the end of the millennium comes the great sabbath of rest and
enjoyment; the earth shall become celestial through the baptism of
fire, while the two holy cities shall be caught up (literally) into
heaven, to descend with the Lord God for their light and their temple,
and shall remain forever on the new earth “under the bright canopy of
the new heavens.”
XI. “WE BELIEVE IN THE LITERAL RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, AND THAT
THE REST OF THE DEAD LIVE NOT AGAIN UNTIL THE THOUSAND YEARS ARE
EXPIRED.”--Man, it has been shown, is a duality of elements. The body
is gross, the spirit--under which the intellect or mind is included--is
refined matter, permeating, vivifying, and controlling the former:
the union or fusion of the two constitutes the “living soul” alluded
to by Moses (Gen., ii., 7) in the Adamical creation. Death followed
the fall of the great patriarch, who, we are told, is called in
Scripture Michael, the Ancient of Days, with hair like wool, etc. But
in technical Mormon phrase, “Adam fell that man might be,” and ate the
forbidden fruit with a full foreknowledge of the consequences--a Shiah
belief. The “fall,” therefore, was a matter of previous arrangement,
in order that spirits choosing to undertake their probations might be
fitted with “tabernacles,” and be born of women. Death separates the
flesh and the spirit for a useful purpose, but the latter keeps guard
over every particle of the former, until, at the fiat of resurrection,
the body is again “clothed upon,” and perfect man is the result--a
doctrine familiar to the mediums. Such is also the orthodox Sunnite
faith. The heretical peculiarity of the Mormon resurrection is this:
the body will be the same as before, “except the blood,” which is
the natural life, and, consequently, the principle of mortality. A
man restored to flesh and blood would be subject to death; “flesh
and bones,” therefore, will be the constitution of the “resurrected”
body. This idea clearly derives from the Genesitic physiology, which
teaches that “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Levit., xvii.,
14); life being, according to the moderns, not an absolute existence
nor objective entity, but a property or condition of the corporeal
mechanism--the working, as it were, of the engine until arrested by
material lesion. It is confirmed in the Mormon mind by the Savior
bidding his disciples to handle his limbs, and to know that he had
flesh and bones, not blood.
XII. “WE CLAIM THE PRIVILEGE OF WORSHIPING ALMIGHTY GOD ACCORDING TO
THE DICTATES OF CONSCIENCE UNMOLESTED, AND ALLOW ALL MEN THE SAME
PRIVILEGE, LET THEM WORSHIP HOW OR WHERE THEY MAY.”--This article
embodies the tenets of Roger Williams, who, in establishing his simple
democracy, provided that the will of the majority should rule, but
“only in civil things.” The charter of Rhode Island (1644) contains the
memorable words: “No person within the said colony shall be molested,
punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differences of
opinion in matters of religion who does not actually disturb the public
peace.” But how often has this been mouthed--how little it has affected
mankind! Would London--boasting in the nineteenth century to be the
most tolerant of cities--allow the Cardinal of Westminster to walk in
procession through her streets?
XIII. “WE BELIEVE IN BEING SUBJECT TO KINGS, QUEENS, PRESIDENTS,
RULERS, AND MAGISTRATES, IN OBEYING, HONORING, AND SUSTAINING THE
LAW.”--When treating of the hierarchy, it will be made apparent that
subjection to temporals and Gentiles must be purely nominal. At the
same time, it must be owned that, throughout North America, I may
say throughout the New World, the Mormon polity is the only fixed
and reasonable form of government. The “turnpike-road of history,”
which Fisher Ames, nearly a century ago, described as “white with the
tombstones of republics,” is in a fair way to receive fresh accessions,
while the land of the Saints promises continuance and progress.
XIV. “WE BELIEVE IN BEING HONEST, TRUE, CHASTE, TEMPERATE, BENEVOLENT,
VIRTUOUS, AND UPRIGHT, AND IN DOING GOOD TO ALL MEN; INDEED, WE MAY
SAY THAT WE FOLLOW THE ADMONITION OF PAUL; WE ‘BELIEVE ALL THINGS,’
WE ‘HOPE ALL THINGS,’ WE HAVE ENDURED VERY MANY THINGS, AND HOPE
TO BE ABLE TO ‘ENDURE ALL THINGS.’ EVERY THING LOVELY, VIRTUOUS,
PRAISEWORTHY, AND OF GOOD REPORT, WE SEEK AFTER, LOOKING FORWARD TO
THE ‘RECOMPENSE OF REWARD.’ BUT AN IDLE OR LAZY PERSON CAN NOT BE A
CHRISTIAN, NEITHER HAVE SALVATION. HE IS A DRONE, AND DESTINED TO BE
STUNG TO DEATH, AND TUMBLED OUT OF THE HIVE.”--All over the American
Union there is an apotheosis of labor; the Latter-Day Saints add to it
the damnation of osiosity.
[MORMON “AGGLOMERATION.”]
This brief outline of Mormon faith will show its strange, but, I
believe, spontaneous agglomeration of tenets which, were its disciples
of a more learned and philosophical body, would suggest extensive
eclecticism. But, as I have already remarked, there is a remarkably
narrow limit to religious ideas: the moderns vainly attempt invention
when combination is now the only possible process. In the Tessarakai
Decalogue above quoted, we find syncretized the Semitic Monotheism,
the Persian Dualism, and the Triads and Trinities of the Egyptians and
the Hindoos. The Hebrews also have a personal Theos, the Buddhists
avataras and incarnations, the Brahmans self-apotheosis of man by
prayer and penance, and the East generally holds to quietism, a belief
that repose is the only happiness, and to a vast complication of
states in the world to be. The Mormons are like the Pythagoreans in
their precreation, transmigration, and exaltation of souls; like the
followers of Leucippus and Democritus in their atomic materialism; like
the Epicureans in their pure atomic theories, their _summum bonum_, and
their sensuous speculations; and like the Platonists and Gnostics in
their belief of the Æon, of ideas, and of moving principles in element.
They are fetichists in their ghostly fancies, their evestra, which
became souls and spirits. They are Jews in their theocracy, their ideas
of angels, their hatred of Gentiles, and their utter segregation from
the great brotherhood of mankind. They are Christians inasmuch as they
base their faith upon the Bible, and hold to the divinity of Christ,
the fall of man, the atonement, and the regeneration. They are Arians
inasmuch as they hold Christ to be “the first of God’s creatures,” a
“perfect creature, but still a creature.” They are Moslems in their
views of the inferior status of womankind, in their polygamy, and in
their resurrection of the material body: like the followers of the
Arabian Prophet, they hardly fear death, because they have elaborated
“continuation.” They take no leap in the dark; they spring from this
sublunary stage into a known, not into an unknown world: hence also
their worship is eminently secular, their sermons are political or
commercial, and--religion being with them not a thing apart, but a
portion and parcel of every-day life--the intervention of the Lord
in their material affairs becomes natural and only to be expected.
Their visions, prophecies, and miracles are those of the Illuminati,
their mysticism that of the Druses, and their belief in the Millennium
is a completion of the dreams of the Apocalyptic sects. Masonry has
evidently entered into their scheme; the Demiurgus whom they worship is
“as good at mechanical inventions as at any other business.” With their
later theories, Methodism, Swedenborgianism--especially in its view of
the future state--and Transcendentalism are curiously intermingled.
And, finally, we can easily discern in their doctrine of affinity of
minds and sympathy of souls the leaven of that faith which, beginning
with the Mesmer, and progressing through the Rochester Rappers and the
Poughkeepsie Seer, threatens to extend wherever the susceptible nervous
temperament becomes the characteristic of the race.
The Latter-Day Saints do not deny this agglomeration.[210] They
maintain that, being guided by the Spirit unto all truth, they have
sifted it out from the gross mass of error that obscures it, and
that whatever knowledge has been vouchsafed to man may be found in
their possession. They assert that other sects were to them what the
Platonists and the Essenes were to Christianity. Moreover, as has been
seen, they declare their faith to be still in its infancy, and that
many dark and doubtful subjects are still to be decided by better
experience or revelation.
[210] “One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism” (says
Mr. Joseph Smith in his sermon preached on the 9th of July, 1843) “is
to receive truth, come whence it may.”... “Presbyterians, Baptists,
Methodists, Catholics, Mohammedans, etc., are they in possession of
any truth? Yes, they have all a little truth mixed with error. We
ought to gather together all the good and true principles which are
in the world, and keep them, otherwise we shall never become pure
Mormons.”
I borrow the following _résumé_ of Mormonism from Lieutenant
Gunnison--a Christian writer--of course, without endorsing any one of
his opinions.
“In Mormonism we recognize an intuition of Transcendentalism--intuition,
we say, for its founder was no scholar in the idealistic philosophy. He
trampled under foot creeds and formulas, and soared away for perpetual
inspiration from the God; and by the will, which he calls faith, he won
the realms of truth, beauty, and happiness. Such things can only be
safely confided to the strong and pure-minded, and even they must
isolate themselves in self-idolatry, and be ‘alone with the alone,’ and
seek converse with the spirit of man’s spirit.
“But this prophet was educated by passion, and sought to be social
with the weak; he therefore baptized spiritually in the waters of
materialism. Instead of evolving the godlike nature of the human
spirit, he endeavored to prove that humanity was already divinity by
investing Deity with what is manlike--men were to be like gods by
making gods men.”
[MELCHISEDEK PRIESTHOOD.]
The form of Mormon government is not new: it is the theocracy of the
Jews, of the Jesuit missions in Brazil, Paraguay, and elsewhere, and
briefly of all communities in which, contrary to the fitness of things,
Church is made to include, or, rather, exclude State. In opposition to
El Islam, they maintain that a hieratic priesthood is necessary to the
well-being of a religion. They divide it into two grand heads, of which
all other officers and authorities are appendages. The first is called
the Melchisedek priesthood, “because Melchisedek was such a great
high priest.”[211] The second, which is a supplement to the former,
and administers outward ordinances, is the Aaronic or Levitical,
“because it was conferred upon Aaron and his seed throughout all their
generations.” To the Melchisedek belong the high priest, priests, and
elders; to the Aaronic the bishops, the teachers or catechists, and the
deacons.
[211] These and the following quotations are borrowed from sections 2
and 3 of “Covenants and Commandments.”
“The power and authority of the higher, or Melchisedek priesthood, is
to hold the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the Church, to have
the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to
have the heavens opened unto them, to commune with the general assembly
and Church of the first-born, and to enjoy the communion and presence
of God the Father, and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant.
“The power and authority of the lesser, or Aaronic priesthood, is
to hold the keys of the ministering of angels, and to administer in
outward ordinances the letter of the Gospel--the baptism of repentance
for the remission of sins--agreeable to the covenants and commandments.”
The apex of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidency, now Messrs.
Young, Kimball, and Wells, who have succeeded to Peter, James, and
John in the Gospel Church, and who correspond on earth to the Trinity
in heaven--_numero Deus impare gaudet_. The presiding high priest over
the high priesthood of the Church--_par excellence_, “_the_” President,
also _ex-officio_ seer, revelator, translator, and prophet, is supreme.
The two sub-chiefs or counselors are _quasi_-equal: the first, however,
takes social precedence of the second. This quorum of the presidency
of the Church, elected by the whole body, is the centre of temporal as
of ecclesiastical power. It claims, under God, the right of life and
death; it holds the keys of heaven and hell, and from its decrees there
is no appeal except to the general assembly of all the quorums which
constitute the spiritual authorities of the Church.
The second in rank is the Patriarch. The present incumbent is a nephew
of the first seer, who succeeded Mr. Joseph Smith, sen., the father of
Mr. Joseph Smith, jun.[212] As the sire of the Church, his chief duty
is to administer blessings: it is an office of dignity held for life,
whereas all others expire after the semestre.
[212] So called in revelation until the death of Mr. Joseph Smith,
sen.
Follows the “Second Presidency,” the twelve traveling counselors,
“called to be the twelve apostles or special witnesses of the name of
Christ in all the world,” modeled with certain political modifications
after the primitive Christian Church, and abbreviatively termed “The
Twelve.” The President of the High Apostolic College, or, in his
default, one of the members, acts as coadjutor, in the absence of a
member of the First Presidency. The Twelve come nearer the masses, and,
acting under direction of the highest authority, build up the Church,
ordain and set in order all other officers, elders, priests, teachers,
and deacons: they are empowered to baptize, and to administer bread and
wine--the emblems of the flesh and blood of Christ; to confirm those
who are baptized into the Church by the laying on of hands for the
baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost; to teach, expound, exhort, baptize,
and watch over the Church, and to take the lead in all meetings. They
preside over the several “Stakes of Zion;” there is one, for instance,
to direct, under the title of president, the European, and another the
Liverpool mission. If there be several together, the eldest is the
standing president of the quorum, and they act as councilors to one
another.
The fourth body in rank is the Seventies. The “Seventy” act in the
name of the Lord, under direction of the “Twelve,” in building up
the Church, and, like them, are traveling ministers, sent first to
the Gentiles, and then to the Jews. Out of the “Seventy” are chosen
seven presidents, of whom one presides over the other six councilors:
these seven choose other seventy besides the first seventy, “and
also other seventy, until seven times seventy, if the labor in the
vineyard of necessity requires it.” In 1853 the minutes of the Mormon
General Conference enumerated the “Seventies” at 1572. Practically
the seventy members are seldom complete. The chief of these traveling
propagandists, the working bees of the community, is the “President of
all the Seventies.”
The fifth body is composed of “high priests after the order of the
Melchisedek priesthood, who have a right to officiate in their own
standing, under the direction of the Presidency, in administering
spiritual things,” and to “officiate in all the offices of the Church
when there are no higher authorities present.” Thus charged with the
execution of spiritual affairs, they are usually aged and fatherly
men. Among the high priests are included, _ex-officio_, the bishops and
the high council.
[THE MORMON BISHOP.]
The Mormon επισκοπος is a steward, who renders an account of his
stewardship both in time and eternity, and who superintends the
elders, keeps the Lord’s store-house, receives the funds of the
Church, administers to the wants of those beneath him, and supplies
assistance to those who manage the “literary concerns,” probably
editors and magazine publishers. The bishopric is the presidency of
the Aaronic priesthood, and has authority over it. No man has a legal
right to the office except a literal descendant of Aaron. As these,
however, are _non inventi_, and as a high priest of the Melchisedek
order may officiate in all lesser offices, the bishop, who never
affects a _nolo episcopari_, can be ordained by the First Presidency,
or Mr. Brigham Young. Thus the episcopate is a local authority in
stakes, settlements, and wards, with the directorship of affairs
temporal as well as spiritual. This “overseer” receives the tithes on
the commutation-labor, which he forwards to the public store-house;
superintends the registration of births, marriages, and deaths, makes
domiciliary visits, and hears and determines complaints either laical
or ecclesiastic.
[THE HIGH COUNCIL.]
The High Council was organized by revelation in Kirtland (Feb. 17,
1834) for the purpose of settling, when the Church or the “Bishop’s”
council might fail, important difficulties that might arise between two
believers. Revelation directed it to consist of twelve high priests,
ascertained by lots or ballot, and one or three presidents, as the case
might require. The first councilors, when named, were asked if they
would act in that office according to the law of heaven: they accepted,
and at once, _more Americano_--“voted.” After deciding that the
President of the Church should also be President of the Council, it was
laid down that the duty of the twelve councilors should be to cast lots
by numbers, and thereby ascertain who of the twelve shall speak first,
commencing with number one, and so in succession to number twelve. In
an easy case only two speak; in a difficult one, six. The defendant has
a right to one half of the council, and “those who draw even numbers,
that is, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12, are the individuals who are to stand
up in behalf of the accused, and to prevent insult or injustice.” After
the evidence is heard, and the councilors, as well as the accuser
and the accused, have “said their say,” the president decides, and
calls upon the “twelve” to sanction his decision by their vote. When
error is suspected, the case is subject to a “careful rehearing;” and
in peculiar difficulties the appeal is to revelation. I venture to
recommend this form of special jury to those who have lost faith in a
certain effete and obsolete “palladium of British liberty” that dates
from the days of Ethelbert. After all, it is sometimes better, _jurare
in verba magistri_, especially of an inspired master.
The High Council is a standing council. It bears the same relationship
to the federal power as the university Sex viri to a court of civil law
in England, and it saves the saints the expense of Gentile proceedings,
which may roughly be set down at fifty per cent. The sessions take
place in the Social Hall. Such an institution, which transfers to St.
Peter all the duties, salaries, and honors which Justinianus gives,
is, of course, most unpopular among the anti-Mormons, who call it
Star-Chamber, and other ugly names. I look upon it rather as the
Punchayat (_quinque viri_) Court of East India, a rough but ready
instrument of justice, which, like spontaneous growths generally, have
been found far superior to the exotic institutions forced upon the
popular mind by professional improvers.
The Latter-Day Saint, when in a foreign land, can be punished for
transgression by his own people. The presiding authority calls a
council to examine the evidence for and against the offense; and if
guilt be proven, the offender, after being officially suspended from
his missionary functions and the fellowship of the Church, is sent,
with a special report, to be tried by his own presidency at Great Salt
Lake City.
The elders are those from whom the apostles are taken; they are, in
fact, promoted priests charged with all the duties of that order, and
with the conduct of meetings, “as they are led by the Holy Ghost,
according to the commandments and revelations of God.” They hold
Conferences once in every three months, receive their licenses from the
elders or from the Conferences; they are liable to be sent on missions,
and are solemnly enjoined, by a revelation of January, 1832, to “gird
up their loins and be sober.”
The priest is the master mason of the order. It is his duty to preach,
teach, expound, exhort, baptize, administer the sacrament, visit
domiciliarily, exhort the saints to pray “vocally and in secret,”
ordain other priests, teachers, and deacons, take the lead of meetings
when there is no elder present, and assist the elder when occasion
requires.
Of the Aaronic order, the head are the bishops; under them are two
ranks, who form the entered apprentices of the Mormon lodge.
1st. The teachers, who have no authority to baptize, to administer the
sacrament, or to lay on hands, but who “warn, expound, exhort, teach,
and invite all to come unto Christ, watch over the Church, and take
the lead of meetings in the absence of the elder or priest.” Of these
catechists one or two is usually attached to each bishop.
2d. The deacon, or διακονος, an assistant teacher. He also acts as
treasurer to the missions in the several branches of the Church,
collects money for the poor, and attends to the temporal wants of
converts.
The rise of the “Church of Christ in these last days dates from 1830,
since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:” thus, A.D.
1861 is Annus Josephi Smithii 31. In that year Mirabilis the book
of Mormon appeared, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
was organized, and the Body Ecclesiastic, after the fashion of those
preceding it, was exodus’d or hegira’d to Kirtland, Ohio.
[“UPPER CRUST.”]
The actual composition of the Mormon hierarchy is that of a cadre
of officers to a skeleton army of saints and martyrs, which may be
filled up _ad infinitum_. It is inferior in simplicity, and therefore
in power, to that which the Jesuit organization is usually supposed
to be, yet it is not deficient in the wherewithal of a higher grasp.
It makes state government, especially that of Gentile communities,
an excrescence upon the clerical body. The first president is the
governor; the second is the lieutenant governor; the third is the
secretary of state; the High Council is the Supreme Court; the
bishops are justices of peace: briefly, the Church is legislative,
judiciary, and executive--what more can be required? It has evidently
not neglected the masonic, monotheistic, and monocratic element, as
opposed to, and likely to temper the tripartite rule of Anglo-American
civil government. The first president is the worshipful master of the
lodge, the second and third are the senior and junior wardens, while
the inferior ranks represent the several degrees of the master and
apprentice. It symbolizes the leveling tendencies of Christianity
and progressiveism, while its civil and ecclesiastical despotism and
its sharp definition of rank are those of a disciplined army--the
model upon which socialism has loved to form itself. In society,
while all are brothers, there is a distinct aristocracy, called west
of the Atlantic “upper crust;” not of titles and lands, nor of bales
and boxes, but of hierarchical position; and, contrary to what might
be expected, there is as little real social fusion among Mormons as
between the “sixties,” the “forties,” and the “twenties” of silly
Guernsey.
Having now attempted, after the measure of my humble capacity, to
show what Mormonism is, I will try to explain what Mormonism is not.
The sage of Norwich (“Rel. Med.,” sect. vi.) well remarked that
“every man is not a proper champion of truth, nor fit to take up the
gauntlet in the cause of verity;” and that “many, from the ignorance
of these maxims, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and
remain as trophies to the enemies of truth.” The doctrine may fitly be
illustrated by pointing out the prodigious aid lent to Mormonism by the
self-inflicted defeats of anti-Mormonism.
[THE JAREDITE EXODUS.]
The Jaredite exodus to America in dish-like “barges, whose length was
the length of a tree,” and whose voyage lasted 344 days, is certainly a
trial of faith. The authority of Mormonic inspiration is supposed to be
weakened by its anachronisms and other errors: the mariner’s compass,
for instance, is alluded to long before the fourteenth century. The
Mormons, however, reply that the “Liahona” of their Holy Book is not
a compass, and that if it were, nothing could be said against it: the
Chinese claim the invention long before the days of Flavio, and the
Moslems attribute it to one of their own saints.[213] The “reformed
Egyptian” of the Golden Bible is ridiculed on the supposition that
the Hebrew authors would write either in their own tongue, in the
Syrian, or in the Chaldaic, at any rate in a Semitic, not in a Coptic
language. But the first disciples of the Gospel Church were Jews,
and yet the Evangel is now Greek. As regards the Golden Plates, it
is contended that the Jews of old were in the habit of writing upon
papyrus, parchment, and so on, not upon metal, and that such plates
have never been found in America. But of late years Himyaritic
inscriptions upon brass tablets have been forwarded from Yemen to
the British Museum. Moreover, in 1843, six brass plates of a bell
shape, covered with ancient glyphs, were discovered by a “respectable
merchant” near Kinderhook, United States, proving that such material
was not unknown to the ancient Semites and to the American aborigines.
The word “Christ” often occurs (“Book of Mormon,” p. 8, etc.) long
before the coming of the Savior. But the Book of Mormon was written in
the “reformed Egyptian:” the proper noun in question was translated
“Christ” in English by the prophet, an “unlearned young man,” according
to his own understanding, and for the better comprehension of his
readers. The same argument applies to such words as “synagogues,”
“alpha and omega,” “steel,” “S.S.E.,” etc.; also to “elephant,” “cow,”
“horse,” “ass,” “swine,” and other pachyderms and solidunguls, which
were transported to America after the Columbian discovery: they are
mere translations, like the fabulous unicorn of the Old Testament and
the phœnix of the apocryphal New Testament (Clement I., xii., 2):
elephant, for instance, manifestly means mastodon, and swine, peccary.
Ptolemy’s theory of a moving earth is found anticipated. But who shall
limit revelation? and has not the Mosaic Genesis, according to a
multitude of modern divines, anticipated all the latest discoveries?
The Lord describes America to Jared (“Book of Mormon,” p. 78) as an
“isle of the sea,” and the accuracy of the geography is called in
question. But in the Semitic and other Eastern tongues, insula and
peninsula are synonymous. Moreover, if Dr. Kane’s open circumpolar
ocean prove aught but a myth, the New World is wholly insulated even by
ice from the Old. Other little contradictions and inaccuracies, which
abound in the inspired books, are as easily pooh-pooh’d as objections
to the conflicting genealogies, and the contradictory accounts of the
Crucifixion by the professors of the elder faith.
[213] First Footsteps in East Africa, chap. i.
[OBJECTIONS TO MORMONISM.]
The “vulgarity” of Mormonism is a favorite theme with the anti-Mormon.
The low origin and “plebbishness” of the apostles’ names and of their
institutions (_e. g._, the “Twelve,” the “Seventies”), the snuffling
Puritanic style which the learned Gibbon hated, and execrable grammar
(_e. g._, in the first page, “Nephi’s brethren rebelleth against him”),
and the various Yankeeisms of the New Scriptures, are cited as palpable
proofs of fraud. But the primitive apostles of Christianity were of
inferior social rank and attainments to the first Mormon converts,
and of the reformers of Luther’s age it may be asked, “Where was
then the gentleman?” The Syriac-Greek of the New Testament, with its
manifold flaws of idiom and diction, must have produced upon the polite
philosophers and grammarians of Greece and Rome an effect even more
painful than that which the Americanisms of the Book of Mormon exercise
upon English nerves. These things are palpably stumbling-blocks
disposed sleeper-wise upon the railroad of faith, lest Mr. Christian’s
progress should become a mere excursion. Gentiles naturally feel
disposed to smile when they find in the nineteenth century prophets,
apostles, saints; but the Church only gains by the restoration and
reformation of her primitive discipline. The supernatural action of the
Holy Spirit believed in by the Mormons as by the Seekers (1645), the
Camisards (1688), the Leeites and Wilkinsonians (1776), is the best
answer to that atheistic school which holds that God who once lived is
now dead to man. As of the Ayat of El Islam, so of the revelations with
which Mr. Joseph Smith was favored, it is remarked that their exceeding
opportuneness excites suspicion. But of what use are such messages
from Heaven unless they arrive _à propos_? Mr. O. Hyde contends, after
the fashion of wiser men, that ambiguity, and, if I may use the word,
a certain achronology, characterize inspired prophecy: it is evident
that only a little more inspiration is wanted to render it entirely
unambiguous.
The other sentimental objections to Mormonism may briefly be answered
as follows:
“_That the holiest of words is profanely applied to man._” But as
Moses (Ex., iv., 16) was “instead of God to Aaron” (Ex., vii., 1),
and was “made a god” to Pharaoh, and as the Savior declared that “he
called them gods unto whom the word of God came” (John, xi., 35), the
Mormons evidently use the word in its old and scriptural sense. Thus
they assert that Mr. Joseph Smith is the god of this generation, Jesus
is his god, Michael or Adam is the god of Jesus, Jehovah is the god of
Adam, and Eloheim is the god of Jehovah.
“_That credible persons have testified to the bad character of Mr.
Joseph Smith, junior, as a money-digger, a cheat, a liar, a vulgar
impostor, or, at best, a sincere and ignorant fanatic._” The Mormons
reply that such has been the history of every prophet. They point
with triumph and yearning love to the story of their martyr’s life,
to his intense affection for his family, and to their devotion to
him. They boast of his invincible boldness, energy, enthusiasm, and
moral courage; that he never flinched from his allotted tasks, from
the duties which he was commissioned to perform; that he was fifty
times dragged by his enemies before the tribunals, and was as often
acquitted; that he never hesitated for a moment, when such act was
necessary, to cut off from the Church those who, like Oliver Cowdery,
had been the depositaries of his intimate secrets; that his career
was one long Bartholomew’s Day, and that his end was as glorious
as his life was beautiful. In America Mr. Joseph Smith has by the
general suffrage of anti-Mormons been pronounced to be a knave, while
his successor, Mr. Brigham Young, has been declared by the same high
authority--_vox diaboli_, the Mormons term it--to be a self-deluded
but true man. I can scarcely persuade myself that great events are
brought about by mere imposture, whose very nature is feebleness:
zeal, enthusiasm, fanaticism, which are of their nature strong and
aggressive, better explain the abnormal action of man on man. On the
other hand, it is impossible to ignore the dear delights of fraud and
deception, the hourly pleasure taken by some minds in finessing through
life, in concealing their real selves from the eyes of others, and in
playing a part till by habit it becomes a nature. In the estimation of
unprejudiced persons Mr. Joseph Smith is a man of rude genius, of high
courage, of invincible perseverance, fired by zeal, of great tact, of
religious fervor, of extraordinary firmness, and of remarkable talent
in governing men. It is conceded that, had he not possessed “strong
and invincible faith in his own high pretensions and divine mission,”
he would probably have renounced the unprofitable task of prophet, and
sought refuge from persecution and misery in private life and honorable
industry. Be that as it may, he has certainly taken a place among the
notabilities of the world--he has left a footprint upon the sands of
time.
“_That Mr. Joseph Smith prophesied lies_,” and that “_through greed of
gain he robbed the public by appropriating the moneys of the Kirtland
Bank_.” The Mormons reply that many predictions of undoubted truth
undeniably passed their prophet’s lips, and that some--_e. g._, those
referring to the Mormon Zion and to the end of the world--may still
prove true. With reference to the fact that Martin Harris was induced
by the seer to pay for the publication of the Book of Mormon, it is
pleaded that the Christian apostles (Acts, iv., 35) also received
money from their disciples. The failure of the Kirtland Bank (A.D.
1837) is thus explained: During the Prophet’s absence upon a visit
to the Saints at Toronto, the cashier, Warren Parrish, flooded the
district with worthless paper, and, fearing discovery on his master’s
return, decamped with $25,000, thereby causing a suspension of payment.
Regarding other peccadilloes, the Mormons remark that no prophet was
ever perfect or infallible. Moses, for instance, was not suffered for
his sins to enter the Promised Land, and Saul lost by his misconduct
the lasting reign over Israel.
“_That the three original witnesses to the ‘Book of Mormon’ apostatized
and denied its truth._” To this the Mormons add, that after a season
those apostates duly repented and were rebaptized; one has died; the
second, Martin Harris, is now a Saint in Kirtland, Ohio; and the third,
Sidney Rigdon, to whom the faith owed so much, left the community after
the Prophet’s martyrdom, saying that it had chosen the wrong path,
but never rejecting Mormonism nor accusing it of fraud. The witnesses
to those modern tables of the law (the Golden Plates) were but eleven
_in toto_, and formed only three families interested in the success
of the scheme. The same paucity, or rather absence of any testimony
which would be valid in a modern court of justice, marks the birth of
every new faith, not excluding the Christian. And, finally, wickedness
proved against the witnesses does not invalidate the value of their
depositions. The disorders in the conduct of David and Solomon, for
instance, do not affect the inspiration of the Psalms and Canticles.
“_That Mormon apostles and elders, as Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor,
denied the existence of polygamy, even after it was known and practiced
by their community._” The Mormons reply that they never attempted to
evade the imputation of the true patriarchal marriage: they merely
asserted their innocence of the “spiritual wifedom,” the Free Loveism
and the Fanny Wrightism of the Eastern States--charges brought against
them by the anti-Mormons.
Having thus disposed of the principal allegations, I will more briefly
allude to the minor.
“_That the Mormons do not allow monogamy._” This I know not to be the
fact, as several of my acquaintances had and have but one wife. “_That
a multitude of saints, prophets, and apostles are in full chase after
a woman, whom the absence of her husband releases from her vows; that
the missionary on duty appoints a proxy or vicarious head to his house,
and that his spouses are married_ pro tempore _to elders and apostles
at home_.” Mrs. Ferris has dreamed out this “abyss of abomination,”
and then uses it to declaim against. But is it at all credible? Would
not such conduct speedily demoralize and demolish a society which
even its enemies own to be peculiarly pure? “_That the Mormons are
‘jealous fellows’_”--a curious contradiction of the preceding charges.
The Saints hold to the semi-seclusion of Athens, Rome, and Syria,
where “she was the best of women of whom least is said, either of
good or harm,” believing with the world generally that opportunity
often makes the thief. “_That the Mormons ‘swap,’ sell, exchange, and
transfer their wives to Indians._” Mrs. Ferris started the story,
which carries its own refutation, by chronicling a report of the kind;
and Mr. Ward improves upon it by supplying false instances and names.
“_That the utmost latitude of manners is allowed in the ballroom
and the theatre_,” which are compared to the private _réunions_ of
Rosanna Townsend and other Aspasias. The contrary is notoriously the
case. “_That the young Mormons are frequently guilty of the crimes of
Absalom and other horrible offenses._” Unprejudiced Gentiles always
deny the truth of such accusations. “_That the Mormon has no home, and
that Mormon houses are dirty, slovenly, and uncomfortable._” The Far
West is not remarkable for neatness: the only exceptions to the rule
of filth which I have seen are in the abodes of the Mormons. “_That
‘plurality-families’ are in a state of perpetual storm._” I believe
that many a “happy English home” is far stormier, despite the holy
presence of monogamy. Even Mrs. Ferris tells of two wives, one young,
the other old, “who treated each other with that degree of affectionate
cordiality which properly belongs to the intercourse between mother
and daughter,” and--naïvely wonder-struck by what she could not
understand--exclaims, “What a strange spectacle!” “_That women must
be married to be saved._” The orthodox Mormon belief is that human
beings are sent into the world to sow seed for heaven; that a woman
who wittingly, and for stupid social Belgravian-mother motives, fails
in so doing, neglects a vital duty, and that whoso gives not children
to the republic has lived in vain--an opinion which the Saints are
contented to share with Moses and Mohammed, Augustus Cæsar and Napoleon
Bonaparte. “_That the Mormons marry for eternity._” They believe that
Adam and Eve, when wholly pure, were so married, and that redemption
signifies a complete restoration to all the privileges lost by the
fall. “_That Mormons are ‘sealed’ to rich old women._” The _vetula
beata_ exists, I believe, almost universally. “_That Mormons marry and
seal for the dead._” As has been seen, it is a principle of faith that
all ordinances for the living may vicariously be performed for those
departed. “_That Mormon women are pale, thin, badly and carelessly
dressed, and poorly fed--that they exhibit a sense of depression
and degradation._” I found them exceedingly pretty and attractive,
especially Miss ----. “_That it is dangerous to be the rival of a
Mormon elder in love and business._” This is true only so far that the
Saint is probably a better man than the Gentile. I have been assured by
Gentiles that they would rather trust the followers of Mr. Joseph Smith
than their own people, and that, under Mormon rule, there never has
been, and never can be, a case of bankruptcy. The hunters and Indian
traders dislike the Saints for two chief reasons: in the first place,
the hunting-grounds have been narrowed; and, secondly, industry and
sobriety have taken the place of rollicking and dare-devilism. “_That
the Mormons are bigoted and intolerant._” The Mormon’s golden rule is,
“Mind your own business, and let your neighbor mind his.” At Great Salt
Lake City I found all the most violent anti-Mormon books, and have
often heard Gentiles talk in a manner which would not be tolerated in
Paris, London, and Rome. “_That the Church claims possession of, and
authority over, a dead disciple’s goods and chattels._” This is done
only in cases when heirs fail. “_That it is the Mormon’s duty to lay
all his possessions at the apostles’ feet._” The Mormons believe that
the Lord has ordered his Church to be established on earth; that its
success involves man’s salvation; that the apostles are the pillars
of the sacred edifice, and that the disciple is bound, like Barnabas,
when called upon, to lay his all at the apostles’ feet; practically,
however, the measure never takes place. “_That the high dignitaries
are enriched by tithes and by plundering the people._” I believe, for
reasons before given, this assertion to be as wholly destitute of fact
as of probability. “_That the elders borrow money from their Gentile
disciples, and that the Saints ‘milk the Gentiles.’_” The Mormons, like
sensible men, do not deny that their net has drawn up bad fish as well
as good; they assert, however, and I believe with truth, that their
community will bear comparison in point of honesty with any other.
[POLITICAL OBJECTIONS.]
I have already remarked how thoroughly hateful to the petulant
fanatical republican of the New World is the Mormon state within state,
their absolute aristocracy clothed in the wolf-skin of democracy; and I
have also shown how little of that “largest liberty,” concerning which
the traveler in the United States hears so often and sees so seldom,
has been extended to them or to their institutions. Let us now consider
a few of the political objections to Mormonism.
“_That the Mormon Church overshadows and controverts the actions
and opinions, the property, and even the lives of its members._”
The Mormons boast that their Church, which is their state, does so
legitimately, and deny any abuse of its power. “_That the Church
usurps and exercises the legislative and political business of
the Territory._” The foregoing pages disprove this. “_That the
Church organizes and commands a military force._” True, for her own
protection. “_That the Church disposes of public lands on her own
terms._” The Mormons reply that, as squatters, they have earned by
their improvements the right of pre-emption, and as the federal
government delays to recognize their title, they approve of the
Church so doing. “_That the Church has coined money and forced its
circulation._” The former clause is admitted, and the excellence of
the Californian gold is warranted; the latter is justly treated with
ridicule. “_That the Church levies the tenth part of every thing from
its members under the charge of tithing._” The Mormons derive this
practice from the laws of Moses, and assert that the gift is purely a
free-will offering estimated by the donor, and never taken except from
those who are in full communion. “_That the Church imposes enormous
taxes upon Gentile citizens._” The Mormons own that they levy a large
octroi, in the form of a regulated license system, upon ardent spirits,
but they deny that more is taken from the Gentile than from the Saint.
“_That the Church supervises and penetrates into the domestic circle,
and enjoins and inculcates obedience to her own counsels, as articles
of faith paramount to all the obligations of society and morality,
allegiance and law._” The Mormons reply that the counsel and the
obligations run in the same grooves.
Mormonism in England would soon have fallen to the level of Leeism
or Irvingism; its teachers to the rank of the Southcoteans and
Muggletonians. Its unparalleled rise and onward march could have
taken place only in a new hemisphere, in another world. Its genius is
essentially Anglo-American, without one taint of Gallic, Teutonic, or
Keltic. It is Rationalistic: the analytic powers, sharpened by mundane
practice, and wholly unencumbered by religious formal discipline,
are allowed, in things ultra mundane, a scope, a perfect freedom,
that savors of irreverence: thus the Deity is somewhere spoken of
as a “right-hand man.” It is Exaggerative in matter as in manner:
the Pentateuch, for instance, was contented with one ark, Mormonism
required eight. It is Simplificative: its fondness for facilitation
has led it through literalism into that complete materialism which,
to choose one point only, makes the Creator of the same species as
his creature. It is Imitative to an extent that not a vestige of
originality appears: the Scripture names are carefully moulded in
Hebrew shape; and, to quote one of many instances, the death-bed of
the first patriarch (“Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet,” chap. xlii.)
is a travestie of that of Israel, with his prayers, prophecies, and
blessings; while the titles of the apostles, _e. g._, Lion of the Lord,
are literally borrowed from El Islam. It has a mystic element the other
side of its severe rationalism, even as the American character mixes
transcendentalism with the purest literalism, as Mr. Emerson, the Sufi,
contrasts with the Pilgrim fathers and Sam Slick. It is essentially
Practical, though commonplaces and generalisms are no part of its
composition. Finally, it is admirably puffed, as the note upon Mormon
bibliography proves--better advertised than Colonel Colt’s excellent
revolvers.
I had proposed to write a chapter similar to this upon the Mormon
annals. After sundry attempts, the idea was abandoned in despair.
It would be necessary to give two distinct or rather opposite
versions--according to the Mormons and the anti-Mormons--of every
motive and action which have engendered and produced history. Such a
style would not be lively. Moreover, the excessive positivism with
which each side maintains its facts, and the palpable sacrifice of
truth to party feeling, would make it impossible for any but an
eye-witness, who had lived through the scenes, and had preserved his
impartiality, to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Mormons declare
that if they knew their prophet to be an impostor, they could still
love, respect, and follow him in this life to the next. The Gentiles,
I can see, would not accept him, even if he were proposed to them by a
spirit from the other world. There is little inducement in this case to
break the scriptural injunction, “Judge not.”
Under these considerations, I have added to the Appendix (No. V.) a
detailed chronological table of Mormon events: it is compiled from both
parties, and has at least one merit--impartiality.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS RECORDED IN THE BOOK OF MORMON.
[MORMON CHRONOLOGY.]
(_By Elder James Marsden, and printed in the Compendium of Faith and
Doctrines._)
B.C.
600. Lehi, Sariah, and their four sons, Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and
Nephi, left Jerusalem by the commandment of God, and journeyed into
the wilderness of Arabia (p. 17, 44, 97, pars. 3, 47, 4).
592. Lehi and his family arrived at the land Bountiful, so called
because of its much fruit. Its modern name is Arabia Felix, or Arabia
the Happy (p. 36, par. 17).
570. Jacob and Joseph were consecrated priests and teachers over the
people of Nephi (p. 66, par. 5).
560. Nephi was commanded to make a second volume of plates (p. 67,
par. 6).
545. Nephi commanded Jacob to write on the small plates such things
as he considered most precious (p. 114, par. 1).
421. Jacob having committed the records into the hands of his son
Enos, and Enos being old, he gave the records into the hands of his
son Jarom (p. 133, 136, pars. 9, 7).
400. The people of Nephi kept the law of Moses, and they rapidly
increased in numbers, and were greatly prospered (p. 137, par. 3).
362. Jarom being old, delivered the records into the hands of his son
Omni (p. 138, par. 6).
324. Omni was a wicked man, but he defended the Nephites from their
enemies (p. 138, par. 2).
280. Amaron delivered the plates to his brother Chemish (p. 139, par.
3).
124. After Abinadom, the son of Chemish, Amaleki,[214] the son
of Abinadom, King Benjamin, and Mosiah had successively kept the
records, Mosiah, the son of King Benjamin, was consecrated king (p.
157, par. 2).
121. Mosiah sent sixteen men to the land of Lehi-Nephi to inquire
concerning their brethren (p. 158, par. 2).
91. Mosiah died, having conferred the records upon Alma, who was the
son of Alma. Mosiah also established a republican form of government,
and appointed Alma the first and chief judge of the land (p. 205, 209,
pars. 1, 7).
90. Nehor suffered an ignominious death for apostasy and for killing
Gideon (p. 210, pars. 3, 4).
86. The usurper Amlici was slain by Alma. In this year many battles
were fought between the Nephites on the one hand, and the Amlicites,
who were Nephite revolutionists, and the Lamanites on the other. The
Nephites were mostly victorious (p. 215, 217, pars. 14, 18).
85. Peace was restored and many were baptized in the waters of Sidon,
and became members of the Church (p. 218, par. 1).
84. Peace continued, and three thousand five hundred became members of
the Church of God (p. 218, par. 2).
83. The members of the Church became proud because of their great
riches (p. 218, par. 3).
82. Alma delivered up the office of chief judge to Nephilah, and
confined himself wholly to the high priesthood, after the holy order of
God (p. 219, par. 5).
81. Alma performed a mission to the land of Melek, and to the City
Ammonihah (p. 230, pars. 2, 3).
80. Alma and Amulek were delivered from prison by the mighty power of
God (p. 251, par. 11).
79. The Lamanites destroyed the people of Ammonihah (p. 253, par. 2).
76. There was peace during three years, and the Church was greatly
prospered (p. 254, par. 8).
75. Ammon performed a successful mission among the Lamanites (p. 288,
par. 10).
73. Korihor, the great anti-Christ, made his appearance (p. 290, par.
2).
72. Alma committed the record to the keeping of his son Helaman, and
commanded him to continue the history of his people (p. 310, par. 5).
71. The Nephites obtained a complete victory over the Lamanites in the
borders of Manti (p. 331, par. 16).
71. Helaman performed a successful mission among the Nephites (p. 333,
par. 4).
69. Moroni commanded that the Nephites should fortify all their cities.
They also built many cities (p. 346, par. 1).
68. This was the most comfortable, prosperous, and happy year that the
Nephites had ever seen (p. 348, par. 3).
65. The people of Morianton prevented from escaping to the North or
Lake Country. Also Nephilah died, and his son Pahoran succeeded him as
chief judge of the land (p. 348, pars. 5, 8).
64. A contention between the advocates of monarchy on the one hand,
and of republicanism on the other, was peaceably settled by the voice
of the people. But 4000 of the monarchy men were slain for refusing to
take up arms in defense of their country against the Lamanites (p. 350,
par. 3).
63. Preparations for war between the Nephites and the Lamanites were
made (p. 354, par. 4).
62. The same continued (p. 355, par. 4).
61. Moroni retook the city of Melek, and obtained a complete victory
over the Lamanites (p. 356, par. 12).
60. Moroni, by stratagem, overcame the Lamanites, and liberated his
people from prison (p. 363, par. 7).
59. Moroni received an epistle from Helaman, of the city of Judea, in
which is set forth the wonderful victories obtained in that part of the
land over the Lamanites (p. 364, par. 1).
58. Moroni obtained possession of the city of Nephilah (p. 386, par.
18).
54. Peace having been restored, the Church became very prosperous, and
Helaman died (p. 387, par. 3).
53. Shiblon took possession of the sacred records, and Moroni died (p.
387, pars. 1, 2).
52. 5400 men, with their wives and children, left Zarahemla for the
North country (p. 388, par. 3).
50. Shiblon conferred the sacred records upon Helaman, the son of
Helaman, and then died (p. 388, par. 5).
49. Pahoran, the chief judge, having died, his son Pahoran was
appointed to succeed him. This Pahoran was murdered by Kishkumen, and
his brother Pacumeni was appointed by his successor (p. 389, par. 3).
48. Coriantumr led a numerous host against Zarahemla, took the city,
and killed Pacumeni; but Moronihah retook the city, slew Coriantumr,
and obtained a complete victory over the Lamanites (p. 390, par. 5).
47. Helaman was appointed chief judge, and the band of Gadianton
robbers was organized (p. 392, par. 8).
46. Peace reigned among the Nephites (p. 393, par. 1).
45. Peace continued (p. 393, par. 1).
44. Peace continued (p. 393, par. 1).
43. Great contention among the Nephites; many of them traveled
northward (p. 394, par. 2).
36. Helaman died, and his son Nephi was appointed chief judge.
31. The Nephites, because of their wickedness, lost many of their
cities, and many of them were slain by the Lamanites (p. 397, par. 8).
28. The Nephites repented at the preaching of Moronihah (p. 397, par.
10).
27. Moronihah could obtain no more possessions from the Lamanites.
Nephi vacated the office of chief judge in favor of Cezoram (p.
398, 399, pars. 11, 13). The greater part of the Lamanites became a
righteous people (p. 403, par. 25).
26. Nephi and Lehi went northward to preach unto the people (p. 404,
par. 26).
23. Cezoram was murdered by an unknown hand as he sat on the
judgment-seat. His son, who was appointed to succeed him, was also
murdered (p. 404, par. 28).
22. The Nephites became very wicked (p. 406, par. 31).
21. The Lamanites observed the laws of righteousness, and utterly
destroyed the Gadianton robbers from among them (p. 406, par. 32).
20. Men belonging to the Gadianton band usurped the judgment-seat (p.
407, par. 1).
18. Nephi prophesied many important things against his people (p. 416,
par. 15).
14. Three years’ famine brought the people to repentance, and caused
them to destroy the Gadianton robbers (p. 417, pars. 2,3).
13. Peace being restored, the people spread themselves abroad, to
repair their waste places (p. 418, par. 4).
12. The majority of the people, both Nephites and Lamanites, became
members of the Church (p. 418, par. 4).
9. Certain dissenters among the Nephites stirred up the Lamanites
against their brethren, and they revived the secrets of Gadianton (p.
419, par. 5).
5. The Lamanites prevailed against the Nephites, because of their great
wickedness (p. 420, par. 7).
4. Samuel the Lamanite performed a mission among the Nephites (p. 422,
par. 1).
1. Great signs and wonders were given unto the people, and the words of
the Prophets began to be fulfilled (p. 431, par. 10).
Lachoneus was the chief judge and governor of the land. Nephi gave the
records into the hands of his son Nephi (p. 432, par. 1).
The Lord revealed to Nephi that he would come into the world the next
day, and many signs of his coming were given (p. 433, par. 3).
A.C.
3. The Gadianton robbers committed many depredations (p. 434, par. 6).
4. The Gadianton robbers greatly increased (p. 434, par. 6).
9. The Nephites began to reckon their time from the coming of Christ
(p. 435, par. 8).
13. The Nephites were joined by many of the Lamanites in defense
against the robbers, who had now become very numerous and formidable
(p. 436, par. 9).
15. The Nephites were worsted in several engagements (p. 436, par. 10).
16. Gidgidoni, who was a chief judge and a great prophet, was appointed
commander-in-chief (p. 438, par. 3).
17. The Nephites gathered themselves together for the purpose of mutual
defense, and provided themselves with seven years’ provisions (p. 439,
par. 4).
19. A great battle was fought between the Nephites and the Gadianton
robbers, in which the latter were defeated, and their leader,
Giddianhi, was slain (p. 440, pars. 6, 8).
21. The Nephites slew tens of thousands of the robbers, and took all
that were alive prisoners, and hanged their leader, Zemnarihah (p. 441,
442, pars. 9, 10).
25. Mormon made new plates, upon which he made a record of what took
place from the time Lehi left Jerusalem until his own day, and also a
history of his own times (p. 443, par. 11).
26. The Nephites spread themselves abroad on their former possessions
(p. 445, par. 1).
30. Lachoneus, the son of Lachoneus, was appointed governor of the
land. He was murdered, and the people became divided into numerous
tribes (p. 446, 447, pars. 3, 4).
31. Nephi having great faith in God, angels did minister to him daily
(p. 449, par. 8).
32. The few who were converted through the preaching of Nephi were
greatly blessed of God (p. 449, par. 10).
33. Many were baptized into the Church (p. 449, par. 10).
34. A terrible tempest took place, which changed and deformed the whole
face of the land. Three days elapsed during which no light was seen.
The voice of Jesus Christ was heard by all the people of the land,
declaring that he had caused this destruction, and commanding them to
cease to offer burnt-offerings and sacrifices (p. 453, pars. 7, 8).
35. In this year Jesus Christ appeared among the Nephites, and unfolded
to them at large the principles of the Gospel (p. 455, pars. 11, 1).
The apostles of Christ formed a Church of Christ (p. 492, par. 1).
36. Both the Nephites and the Lamanites were all converted, and had all
things in common (p. 492, par. 2).
37. Many miracles were wrought by the disciples of Jesus (p. 492, par.
3).
59. The people rebuilt the city of Zarahemla, and were very prosperous
(p. 493, par. 3).
100. The disciples of Jesus, whom he had chosen, had all gone to
Paradise except the three who obtained the promise that they should not
taste of death (p. 493, par. 5).
110. Nephi died, and his son Amos kept the record (p. 493, par. 6).
194. Amos died, and his son Amos kept the record (p. 494, par. 7).
201. The people ceased to have all things in common; they became proud,
and were divided into classes (p. 494, par. 7).
210. There were many churches who were opposed to the true Church of
Christ (p. 494, par. 8).
230. The people dwindled in unbelief and wickedness from year to year
(p. 494, par. 8).
231. A great division took place among the people (p. 495, par. 8).
244. The wicked part of the people became stronger and more numerous
than the righteous (p. 495, par. 9).
260. The people began to build up the secret oaths and combinations of
Gadianton (p. 495, par. 9).
300. The Gadianton robbers spread themselves all over the face of the
land (p. 496, par. 10).
305. Amos died, and his brother Ammaron kept the record in his stead
(p. 496, par. 11).
320. Ammaron hid up all the sacred records unto the Lord, and gave
commandment unto Mormon concerning them (p. 496, pars. 11, 1).
321. A war commenced between the Nephites and Lamanites, in which the
former were victorious (p. 497, par. 2).
325. Mormon was restrained from preaching to the people, and because
of their wickedness, and the prevalence of sorceries, witchcrafts, and
magic, their treasures slipped away from them (p. 497, par. 2).
326. Mormon was appointed leader of the Nephite armies (p. 498, par. 3).
330. A great battle took place in the land of Joshua, in which the
Nephites were victorious (p. 498, par. 3).
344. Thousands of the Nephites were hewn down in their open rebellion
against God (p. 499, par. 4).
345. Mormon had obtained the plates according to commandment of
Ammaron, and he made an account of the wickedness and abominations of
his people (p. 499, par. 5).
346. The Nephites were driven northward to the land of Shem, and there
fought and beat a powerful army of the Lamanites (p. 500, par. 6).
349. The Nephites obtained by treaty all the land of their inheritance,
and a ten years’ peace ensued (p. 500, par. 6).
360. The king of the Lamanites sent an epistle to Mormon indicating
that they were again preparing for war (p. 501, par. 7).
361. A battle took place near the City of Desolation. The Nephites were
victorious (p. 501, par. 8).
362. A second battle ensued with the like result (p. 501, par. 8).
Mormon now gave up the command of the Nephite army (p. 501, par. 9).
363. The Lamanites obtained a signal victory over the Nephites, and
took possession of the City of Desolation (p. 502, par. 1).
364. The Nephites retook the City of Desolation (p. 503, par. 2).
366. The Lamanites again took possession of the City of Desolation, and
also succeeded in taking the City of Teancum (p. 503, par. 3).
367. The Nephites avenged the murder of their wives and children, and
drove the Lamanites out of their land; and ten years’ peace ensued (p.
503, par. 3).
375. The Lamanites came again to battle with the Nephites, and beat
them (p. 504, par. 3).
The Nephites from this time forth were prevailed against by the
Lamanites; Mormon therefore took all the records which Ammaron had hid
up unto the Lord (p. 504, par. 3).
379. Mormon resumed the command of the Nephite armies (p. 504, par. 4).
380. Mormon wrote an abridged account of the events which he had seen
(p. 505, par. 5).
384. The Nephites encamped around the hill Cumorah. Mormon hid up in
the hill Cumorah all the plates that were committed to his trust,
except a few which he gave to his son Moroni (p. 507, pars. 1, 2).
The battle of Cumorah was fought, in which two hundred and thirty
thousand of the Nephites were slain (p. 507, pars. 2, 3).
400. All the Nephites, as a distinct people, except Moroni, were
destroyed (p. 509, par. 1).
421. Moroni finished and sealed up all the records, according to the
commandment of God (p. 561, par. 1).
[214] While Amaleki was keeping the records, Mosiah, the father of
King Benjamin, and as many as would hearken to the voice of God, were
commanded to go into the wilderness, and were led by the power of the
Almighty to the Land of Zarahemla, where they discovered a people who
left Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah was carried away captive
into Babylon. They were led by Mulek, the only surviving son of
Zedekiah; and on their arrival in America, met with Coriantumr, the
late king of the Jaredites, who were slain a little previous to the
immigration of Mulek and his people (p. 139, 40, 411, 549, pars. 6,
9).
CHAPTER X.
Farther Observations at Great Salt Lake City.
[THE COURT-HOUSE.--P. K. DOTSON.]
One of my last visits was to the court-house on an interesting
occasion. The _Palais de Justice_ is near where the old fort once was,
in the western part of the settlement. It is an unfinished building of
adobe, based on red sandstone, with a flag-staff and a tinned roof,
which gives it a somewhat Muscovite appearance, and it cost $20,000.
The courts and Legislature sit in a neat room, with curtains and
chandeliers, and polished pine-wood furniture, all as yet unfaded.
The occasion which had gathered together the notabilities of the
place was this: Mr. Peter Dotson, the United States Marshal of the
Territory, living at Camp Floyd, and being on the opposition side,
had made himself--the Mormons say--an unscrupulous partisan. In July,
1859, he came from the cantonment armed with a writ issued by Mr.
Delana R. Eckels, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and accompanied
by two officers of the United States Army, to the Holy City for the
purpose of arresting a Mr. Mackenzie--now in the Penitentiary for
counterfeiting “quarter-masters’ drafts”--an engraver by profession,
and then working in the Deserét store of Mr. Brigham Young. Forgery
and false coining are associated in the Gentile mind with Mormonism,
and inveterately so; whether truly or not, I can not say: it is highly
probable that Mr. Bogus’s[215] habitat is not limited by latitude,
altitude, or longitude; at the same time, the Saints are too much _en
évidence_ to entertain him publicly. The marshal, probably not aware
that the Territory had passed no law enabling the myrmidons of justice
to seize suspicious implements and apparatus made _main forte_, levied,
despite due notice, upon what he found appertaining to Mr. Mackenzie,
a Bible, a Book of Mormon, and--here was the rub--the copper plates of
the Deserét Currency Association. This plunder was deposited for the
night with the governor, and was carried in a sack on the next day
to Camp Floyd. Then the anti-Mormons sang Io pæans; they had--to use
a Western phrase--“got the dead wood on Brigham;” letters traced back
to officials appeared in the Eastern and other papers, announcing to
the public that the Prophet was a detected forger. Presently, the true
character of the copper plates appearing, they were generously offered
back; but, as trespass had been committed, to say nothing of libel, and
as all concerned in the affair were obnoxious men, it was resolved to
try law. A civil suit was instituted, and a sum of $1600 was claimed
for damage done to the plates by scratching, and for loss of service,
which hindered business in the city. The unfortunate marshal, who was
probably a “cat’s-paw,” had “caught a Tartar;” he possessed a house and
furniture, a carriage and horses, all of which were attached, and the
case of “Brigham Young, sen., _vs._ P. K. Dotson,” ended in a verdict
for the plaintiff, viz., value of plates destroyed, $1668; damages,
$648 66. The anti-Mormons declared him a martyr; the Mormons, a vicious
fool; and sensible Gentiles asserted that he was rightly served for
showing evil animus. The case might have ended badly but for the
prudence of the governor. Had a descent been made for the purpose of
arrest upon the Prophet’s house, the consequences would certainly have
been serious to the last degree.
[215] Bogus, according to Mr. Bartlett, who quotes the “Boston
Courier” of June 12, 1857, is a Western corruption of Borghese,
“a very corrupt individual, who, twenty years ago or more, did a
tremendous business in the way of supplying the great West and
portions of the Southwest with counterfeit bills and drafts on
fictitious banks.” The word is now applied in the sense of sham,
forged, counterfeit, and so on; there are bogus laws and bogus
members; in fact, bogus enters every where.
The cause was tried in the Probate Court, which I have explained to be
a Territorial, not a federal court. The Honorable Elias Smith presided,
and the arguments for the prosecution and the defense were conducted by
the ablest Mormon and anti-Mormon lawyers. I attended the house, and
carefully watched the proceedings, to detect, if possible, intimidation
or misdirection; every thing was done with even-handed justice. The
physical aspect of the court was that which foreign travelers in the
Far West delight to describe and ridicule, wholly forgetting that they
have seen the same scene much nearer home. His honor sat with his chair
tilted back and his boots on the table, exactly as if he had been an
Anglo-Indian collector and magistrate, while by a certain contraction
and expansion of the dexter corner of his well-closed mouth I suspected
the existence of the quid. The position is queer, but not more so than
that of a judge at Westminster sleeping soundly, in the attitude of
Pisa’s leaning monster, upon the bench. By the justice’s side sat the
portly figure of Dr. Kay, opposite him the reporters, at other tables
the attorneys; the witnesses stood up between the tables, the jury were
on the left, and the public, including the governor, was distributed
like wall-flowers on benches around the room.
There is a certain monotony of life in Great Salt Lake City which does
not render the subject favorable for description. Moreover, a Moslem
gloom, the result of austere morals and manners, of the semi-seclusion
of the sex, and, in my case, of a reserve arising toward a stranger who
appeared in the train of federal officials, hangs over society. There
is none of that class which, according to the French author, _repose
des femmes du monde_. We rose early--in America the climate seems to
militate against slugabedism--and breakfasted at any hour between 6
and 9 A.M. Ensued “business,” which seemed to consist principally of
correcting one’s teeth, and walking about the town, with occasional
“liquoring up.” Dinner was at 1 P.M., announced, not by the normal
gong of the Eastern States, which lately so direfully offended a pair
of Anglo-Hibernian ears, but by a hand-bell which sounded the _pas
de charge_. Jostling into the long room of the ordinary, we took our
seats, and, seizing our forks, proceeded at once to action, after the
fashion of Puddingburn House, where
“They who came not the first call,
Got no meat till the next meal.”
Nothing but water was drunk at dinner, except when a gentleman
preferred to wash down roast pork with a tumbler of milk; wine in this
part of the world is of course dear and bad, and even should the Saints
make their own, it can scarcely be cheap on account of the price of
labor. Feeding ended with a glass of liquor, not at the bar, because
there was none, but in the privacy of one’s chamber, which takes from
drinking half its charm. Most well-to-do men found time for a siesta in
the early afternoon. There was supper, which in modern English parlance
would be called dinner, at 6 P.M., and the evening was easily spent
with a friend.
[HISTORIAN AND RECORDER’S OFFICE.]
One of my favorite places of visiting was the Historian and Recorder’s
Office, opposite Mr. Brigham Young’s block. It contained a small
collection of volumes, together with papers, official and private,
plans, designs, and other requisites, many of them written in the
Deserét alphabet, of which I subjoin a copy.[216] It is, as will
readily be seen, a stereographic modification of Pitman’s and other
systems. Types have been cast for it, and articles are printed in the
newspapers at times; as man, however, prefers two alphabets to one,
it will probably share the fate of the “Fonetik Nuz.” Sir A. Alison
somewhere delivers it as his opinion that the future historian of
America will be forced to Europe, where alone his material can be
found; so far from this being the case, the reverse is emphatically
true: every where in the States, even in the newest, the Historical
Society is an institution, and men pride themselves upon laboring for
it. At the office I used to meet Mr. George A. Smith, the armor-bearer
to the Prophet in the camp of Zion, who boasts of having sown the first
seed, built the first saw-mill, and ground the first flour in Southern
Utah, whence the nearest settlements, separated by terrible deserts,
were distant 200 miles. His companions were Messrs. W. Woodruff, Bishop
Bentley, who was preparing for a missionary visit to England, and
Wm. Thomas Bullock, an intelligent Mormon, who has had the honor to
be soundly abused in Mrs. Ferris’s 11th letter. The lady’s “wicked
Welshman”--I suppose she remembered the well-known line anent the sons
of the Cymri--
“Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief”--
is no Cambrian, but an aborigine of Leek, Staffordshire, England,
and was from 1838 to 1843 an excise officer in her majesty’s Inland
Revenue; he kindly supplied me with a plan of the city, and other
information, for which he has my grateful thanks.
[216] See next page.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| THE DESERÉT ALPHABET. |
+---------------------+-------++------------------------------------+
| =VOCAL SOUNDS.= | 𐐘 Ga ||The sounds of the letters 𐐆, 𐐇, 𐐈, |
+---------+-----------+ ||𐐉, 𐐊, 𐐋 are heard in the words fit, |
|=Long.= | =Double.= | 𐐙 F ||net, fat, cot, nut, foot. |
| | | || |
| 𐐀 E | 𐐌 I | 𐐚 V ||𐐕, 𐐘, 𐐛, 𐐜, 𐐟 are heard in the words|
| | | ||_chee_-se, _ga_-te, s-_eth_, _the_, |
| 𐐁 A | 𐐍 Ow | 𐐛 Eth ||fl-_esh_. |
| | | || |
| 𐐂 Ah | 𐐎 Woo | 𐐜 The ||𐐡 is like _ir_ in st-_ir_; _are_ is |
| | | ||made by the combination of 𐐈 𐐡; 𐐥 is|
| 𐐃 Aw | 𐐏 Ye | 𐐝 S ||heard in l-_eng_-th. |
| | | || |
| 𐐄 O |=Aspirate.=| 𐐞 Z ||=Learn this Alphabet and appreciate |
| | 𐐐 H | || its advantages.= |
| 𐐅 Oo +===========+ 𐐟 Esh || |
| |=Articulate| || |
| | Sounds.= | 𐐠 Zhe || |
|=Short.= | 𐐑 P | || |
|𐐆} | | 𐐡 Ur || |
| }(This | 𐐒 B | || |
|𐐇}column | | 𐐢 L || |
| } of | 𐐓 T | || |
|𐐈}letters| | 𐐣 M || |
| }are the| 𐐔 D | || |
|𐐉} short | | 𐐤 N || |
| }sounds | 𐐕 Che | || |
|𐐊}of the | | 𐐥 Eng || |
| }above).| 𐐖 G | || |
|𐐋} | | || |
| | 𐐗 K | || |
+---------+-----------+-------++------------------------------------+
[FEDERAL OFFICIALS.]
At the office, the undying hatred of all things Gentile-federal had
reached its climax; every slight offered to the faith by anti-Mormons
is there laid up in lavender, every grievance is carefully recorded.
There I heard how, at a general conference of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in September, 1851, Perry E. Brocchus, a
judge of the Supreme Court, having the design of becoming Territorial
delegate to Congress, ascended the rostrum and foully abused their most
cherished institution, polygamy.[217] He was answered with sternness
by Mr. Brigham Young, and really, under the circumstances, the Saints
behaved very well in not proceeding to _voies de faits_. Mr. Brocchus,
seeing personal danger, left the city in company with Chief Justice
L. C. Brandenburg and Mr. Secretary Harris, whom the Mormons very
naturally accused of carrying away $24,000, the sum appropriated by
Congress for the salary and the mileage of the local Legislature,
thus putting a clog upon the wheels of government. I also heard how
Judge Drummond, in 1856, began the troubles by falsely reporting to
the federal authority that the Mormons were in a state of revolt;
that they had burned the public library, and were, in fact, defying
the Union--how, bigotry doing its work, the officials at Washington
believed the tale without investigation, and sent an army which was
ready to renew the scenes of St. Bartholomew and Nauvoo. The federal
troops were rather pitied than hated; had they been militia they
would have been wiped out; but “wretched Dutchmen, and poor devils
of Irishmen,” acting under orders, were simply despised. Their
_fainéantise_ was contrasted most unfavorably with the fiery Mormon
youth that was spoiling for a fight; that could ride, like part of
the horse, down places where no trooper dared venture; that picked
up a dollar at full gallop, drove off the invaders’ cattle, burned
wagons, grass, and provisions, offered to lasso the guns, and, when
they had taken a prisoner, drank with him and let him go--how Governor
Cumming, after his entry, at once certified the untruthfulness of
the scandal spread by Judge Drummond, especially that touching the
library and archives, and reported that no federal officer had ever
been killed or even assaulted by the Saints--how the effects of these
misrepresentations have been and still are serious. In 1857, for
instance, the mail was cut off, and a large commercial community was
left without postal communication for a whole year: the ostensible
reason was the troubled state of the Territory; the real cause was the
desire of the Post-office Department to keep the advance of the troops
dark. The Mormons complain that they have ever been made a subject
of political capital. President Van Buren openly confessed to them,
“Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you; if I
took your part I should lose the vote of Missouri.” Every grievance
against them, they say, is listened to and readily believed: as an
example, a Mr. John Robinson, of Liverpool, had lately represented to
her Britannic majesty’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs that his mother
and sister were detained in Utah Territory against their will; the
usual steps were taken; the British minister applied to the United
States Secretary of State, who referred the affair to the governor of
the Territory; after which process the tale turned out a mere _canard_.
This sister had been married to Mr. Ferguson, adjutant general of the
Nauvoo Legion; the mother had left the City of the Saints for Illinois,
and had just written to her son-in-law for means by which she could
return to a place whence she was to be rescued by British interference.
To a false prejudice against themselves the Mormons attribute the
neglect with which their project of colonizing Vancouver’s Island
was treated by the British government, and the active opposition to
be expected should they ever attempt to settle in the Valley of the
Saskatchewan. And they think it poor policy on the part of England to
“bluff off” 100,000 moral, industrious, and obedient subjects, who
would be a bulwark against aggression on the part of the States, and
tend materially to prepare the thousand miles of valley between the
Mississippi and the Pacific for the coming railway.
[217] On the 5th of April, 1860, the Chamber of Representatives at
Washington passed a projected law to repress polygamy by a majority
of 149 to 60. Fortunately, the Committee of the Senate had no time
to report upon it, and the slave discussion assumed dimensions which
buried Mormonism in complete oblivion.
[CHILDREN OF THE SAINTS.]
At the office I also obtained details concerning education in Great
Salt Lake City. Before commencing the subject it will be necessary
to notice certain statements relating to the ingenuous youth of Utah
Territory. It is generally asserted that juvenile mortality here ranks
second only to Louisiana, and the fault is, of course, charged upon
polygamy. A French author talks of the _mortalité effrayante_ among
the newly-born, while owning, anomalously, that the survivors _sont
braves et robustes_. I “doubt the fact.” Mr. Ferris, moreover, declares
that there is “nowhere out of the Five Points of New York City a more
filthy, miserable, and disorderly rabble of children than can be found
in the streets of Great Salt Lake City.” As far as my experience goes,
it is the reverse. I was surprised by their numbers, cleanliness, and
health, their hardihood and general good looks. They are bold and
spirited. The Mormon father, like the Indian brave, will not allow
the barbarous use of the stick; but this is perhaps a general feeling
throughout the States, where the English traveler first observes the
docility of the horses and the indocility of the children. But, as
regards rudeness, let a man “with whiskers under his snout,” _i. e._,
mustaches, ride through a village in Essex or Warwickshire, and he
will suffer more contumely at the hands of the infant population in
half an hour than in half a year in the United States or in Utah. M.
Remy, despite a “_vif désir_” to judge favorably of the Saints, could
not help owning that the children are mostly _grossiers_, _menteurs_,
_libertins avant l’âge_; that they use _un langage honteux, comme
si les mystères de la polygamie leur avaient été révélés dès l’âge
de raison_. Apparently since 1855 _cette corruption précoce_ has
disappeared. I found less premature depravity than in the children of
European cities generally. Mr. J. Hyde also brings against the juvenile
Saints severe charges, too general, however, not to be applicable to
other lands. “Cheating the confiding is called smart trading;” the
same has been said of New England. “Mischievous cruelty, evidences of
spirit;” the attribute of Plato’s boys and of the Western frontiers
generally. “Pompous bravado, manly talk;” not unusual in New York,
London, and Paris. “Reckless riding, fearless courage;” so apparently
thinks the author of “Guy Livingstone.” “And if they outtalk their
fathers, outwit their companions, whip their schoolteacher, outcurse a
Gentile, they are thought to be promising greatness, and are praised
accordingly. Every visitor to Salt Lake will recognize the portrait,
for every visitor proclaims them to be the most whisky-loving,
tobacco-chewing, saucy, and precocious children he ever saw.” This is
the glance of the anti-Mormon eye pure and simple. Tobacco and whisky
are too dear for childhood at the City of the Saints; moreover, twenty
years ago, before Tom Brown taught boys not to be ashamed of being
called good, a youth at many an English public school would have been
“cock of the walk” if gifted with the rare merits described above. I
remarked that the juveniles had all the promptness of reply and the
peremptoriness of information which characterizes the Scotch and the
people of the Eastern States. A half-educated man can not afford to own
ignorance. He must answer categorically every question, however beyond
his reach; and the result is fatal to the diaries of those travelers
who can not diagnostize the disease.
[MORMON EDUCATION.]
Mormon education is of course peculiar. The climate predisposes to
indolence. While the emigrants from the Old Country are the most
energetic and hard-working of men, their children, like the race of
backwoodsmen in mass, are averse to any but pleasurable physical
exertion. The object of the young colony is to rear a swarm of
healthy working bees. The social hive has as yet no room for drones,
book-worms, and gentlemen. The work is proportioned to their powers and
inclinations. At fifteen a boy can use a whip, an axe, or a hoe--he
does not like the plow--to perfection. He sits a bare-backed horse
like a Centaur, handles his bowie-knife skillfully, never misses a
mark with his revolver, and can probably dispose of half a bottle of
whisky. It is not an education which I would commend to the generous
youth of Paris and London, but it is admirably fitted to the exigencies
of the situation. With regard to book-work, there is no difficulty to
obtain in Great Salt Lake City that “mediocrity of knowledge between
learning and ignorance” which distinguished the grammar-schools of the
Western Islands in the days of Samuel Johnson. Amid such a concourse
of European converts, any language, from Hebrew to Portuguese, can be
learned. Mathematics and the exact sciences have their votaries. There
are graduates of Harvard, Dartmouth, and other colleges. I saw one
gentleman who had kept a school in Portsmouth, and another, who had had
a large academy in Shropshire, taught in the school of the 14th ward.
Music, dancing, drawing, and other artlets, which go by the name of
accomplishments, have many votaries. Indefatigable travelers there are
in abundance. Almost every Mormon is a missionary, and every missionary
is a voyager. Captain Gibson, a well-known name for “personal
initiative” in the Eastern Main, where he was seized by the Dutch of
Java, lately became a convert to Mormonism, married his daughter to
Mr. Brigham Young, and in sundry lectures delivered in the Tabernacle,
advised the establishment of a stake of Zion in the “Islands of the
Seas,” which signified, I suppose, his intention that the Netherlands
should “smell H--ll.” Law is commonly studied, and the practice, as I
have shown, is much simplified by the absence of justice. A solicitor
from London is also established here. Theology is the growth of the
soil. Medicine is represented by two graduates--one of Maryland; the
other, who prefers politics to practice, of New York. I am at pains
to discover what gave rise to the Gentile reports that the Mormons,
having a veritable horror of medicine, leave curing to the priests, and
dare not arrogate the art of healing. Masterships and apprenticeships
are carefully regulated by Territorial law. Every one learns to read
and write; probably the only destitutes are the old European pariahs,
and the gleanings from the five or six millions of English illiterati.
The Mormons have discovered, or, rather, have been taught, by their
necessities as a working population in a state barely twelve years old,
that the time of school drudgery may profitably be abridged. A boy,
they say, will learn all that his memory can carry during three hours
of book-work, and the rest had far better be spent in air, exercise,
and handicraft. To their eminently practical views I would offer one
suggestion, the advisability of making military drill and extension
movements, with and without weapons, a part of scholarhood. For
“setting up” the figure, forming the gait, and exercising the muscles,
it is the best of gymnastic systems, and the early habit of acting in
concert with others is a long stride in the path of soldiership.
While it is the fashion with some to deride the attempts of this
painstaking and industrious community of hard-handed men to improve
their minds, other anti-Mormons have taken the popular ground of
representing the Saints as averse to intellectual activity, despisers
of science, respecters only of manual labor, and “_singulièrement
épris de la force brutale_.” It is as ungenerous as to ridicule the
proceedings of an English Mechanics’ Institute, or the compositions of
an “Ed. Mechanics’ Magazine.” The names of their literary institutions
are, it is true, somewhat pretentious and grandiloquent; but in these
lands there is every where a leaning toward the grandiose. Humility
does not pay. Modesty _laudatur et alget_.
As early as December, 1854, an act was approved enabling the Chancellor
and Board of Regents of the University of the State of Deserét to
appoint a superintendent of common schools for the Territory of Utah,
and duly qualified trustees were elected to assess and collect for
educational purposes a tax upon all taxable property. In the same
year a pathetic memorial was dispatched to Congress, requesting
that honorable body to appropriate the sum of $5000 to advance the
interests of the University established by law in the City of Great
Salt Lake. I know not whether it was granted. As yet there is no
educational tax leviable throughout the Territory. Each district makes
its own regulations. A city rate supports a school in each ward. The
buildings are of plain adobe, thirty feet by twenty. They also serve as
meeting-places on Sabbath evenings. There are tutoresses in three or
four of the school-houses, who teach all the year round, whereas male
education is usually limited by necessity to the three winter months.
A certain difficulty exists in finding instructors. As in Australia,
the pedagogue is cheaper than a porter, and “turning schoolmaster” is a
proverbial phrase about equivalent to coming upon the parish.
The principal educational institutions in Great Salt Lake City have
been the following:
1. The Deserét Universal Scientific.
2. The “Polysophical Society,” a name given by Judge Phelps.
3. The Seventies’ Variety Club.
4. The Council of Health, a medico-physiologio-clinical and matronly
establishment, like the Dorcas Societies of the Eastern States.
5. The Deserét Theological Institution, whose President was Mr. Brigham
Young.
6. The Deserét Library and Musical Society.
7. The Phrenological and Horticultural Society.
8. The Deserét Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, which has
already been alluded to. It has many branch societies, whose members
pay an annual subscription of $1.
9. The Academy founded in April, 1860, with an appropriation by the
local Legislature of Church money to the extent of $2500. Science
and art are to be taught gratis to all who will pledge themselves to
learn thoroughly and to benefit the Territory by their exertions. The
superintendent is Mr. Orson Pratt; and his son, Mr. O. Pratt, junior,
together with Mr. Cobb, a Gentile, acts as teacher. At present those
educated are males; in course of time a girl class will be established
for accomplishments and practical education.
The Historian’s Office was ever to me a place of pleasant resort;
I take my leave of it with many expressions of gratitude for the
instructive hours passed there.
It will, I suppose, be necessary to supply a popular view of
the “peculiar institution,” at once the bane and blessing of
Mormonism--plurality. I approach the subject with a feeling of despair,
so conflicting are opinions concerning it, and so difficult is it to
naturalize in Europe the customs of Asia, Africa, and America, or to
reconcile the habits of the 19th century A.D. with those of 1900 B.C. A
return to the patriarchal ages, we have seen, has its disadvantages.
There is a prevailing idea, especially in England, and even the
educated are laboring under it, that the Mormons are Communists or
Socialists of Plato’s, Cicero’s, Mr. Owen’s, and M. Cabet’s school;
that wives are in public, and that a woman can have as many husbands
as the husband can have wives--in fact, to speak colloquially, that
they “all pig together.” The contrary is notably the case. The man
who, like Messrs. Hamilton and Howard Egan, murders, in cold blood,
his wife’s lover, is invariably acquitted, the jury declaring that
civil damages mark the rottenness of other governments, and that “the
principle, the only one that beats and throbs through the heart of the
_entire inhabitants_ (!) of this Territory, is simply this: _The man
who seduces his neighbor’s wife must die, and her nearest relation
must kill him_.” Men, like Dr. Vaughan and Mr. Monroe, slain for the
mortal sin, perish for their salvation; the Prophet, were they to lay
their lives at his feet, would, because unable to hang or behead them,
counsel them to seek certain death in a righteous cause as an expiatory
sacrifice,[218] which may save their souls alive. Their two mortal sins
are: 1. Adultery; 2. Shedding innocent blood.
[218] The form of death has yet to be decided. They call this a
scriptural practice, viz., “to deliver such a one unto Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of
the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor., v., 5).
This severity of punishing an offense which modern and civilized
society looks upon rather in the light of a sin than of a crime, is
clearly based upon the Mosaic code. It is also, _lex loci_, the “common
mountain law,” a “religious and social custom,” and a point of personal
honor. Another idea underlies it: the Mormons hold, like the Hebrews of
old, “children of shame” in extreme dishonor. They quote the command of
God, Deuteronomy (xxiii., 2), “a mamzer shall not enter into the Church
of the Lord till the tenth generation,” and ask when the order was
repealed. They would expel all impurity from the Camp of Zion, and they
adopt every method of preventing what they consider a tremendous evil,
viz., the violation of God’s temple in their own bodies.
The marriage ceremony is performed in the temple, or, that being
impossible, in Mr. Brigham Young’s office, properly speaking by the
Prophet, who can, however, depute any follower, as Mr. Heber C.
Kimball, a simple apostle, or even an elder, to act for him. When
mutual consent is given, the parties are pronounced man and wife in the
name of Jesus Christ, prayers follow, and there is a patriarchal feast
of joy in the evening.
[_THE_ WIFE.]
The first wife, as among polygamists generally, is _the_ wife, and
assumes the husband’s name and title. Her “plurality”-partners are
called sisters--such as Sister Anne or Sister Blanche--and are the
aunts of her children. The first wife is married for time, the others
are sealed for eternity. Hence, according to the Mormons, arose the
Gentile calumny concerning spiritual wifedom, which they distinctly
deny. Girls rarely remain single past sixteen--in England the average
marrying age is thirty--and they would be the pity of the community if
they were doomed to a waste of youth so unnatural.
[DIVORCE.]
Divorce is rarely obtained by the man who is ashamed to own that he can
not keep his house in order; some, such as the President, would grant
it only in case of adultery: wives, however, are allowed to claim it
for cruelty, desertion, or neglect. Of late years, Mormon women married
to Gentiles are cut off from the society of the Saints, and, without
uncharitableness, men suspect a sound previous reason. The widows of
the Prophet are married to his successor, as David took unto himself
the wives of Saul; being generally aged, they occupy the position of
matron rather than wife, and the same is the case when a man espouses a
mother and her daughter.
[THE VIRGIN’S END.]
It is needless to remark how important a part matrimony plays in the
history of an individual, and of that aggregate of individuals, a
people; or how various and conflicting has been Christian practice
concerning it, from the double marriage, civil and religious, the
former temporary, the latter permanent, of the Coptic or Abyssinian
Church, to the exaggerated purity of Mistress Anna Lee, the mother of
the Shakers, who exacted complete continence in a state established
according to the first commandment, _crescite et multiplicamini_.
The literalism with which the Mormons have interpreted Scripture
has led them directly to polygamy. The texts promising to Abraham
a progeny numerous as the stars above or the sands below, and that
“in his seed (a polygamist) all the families of the earth shall be
blessed,” induce them, his descendants, to seek a similar blessing.
The theory announcing that “the man is not without the woman, nor
the woman without the man,” is by them interpreted into an absolute
command that both sexes should marry, and that a woman can not enter
the heavenly kingdom without a husband to introduce her. A virgin’s
end is annihilation or absorption, _nox est perpetua una dormienda_;
and as baptism for the dead--an old rite, revived and founded upon
the writings of St. Paul quoted in the last chapter--has been made
a part of practice, vicarious marriage for the departed also enters
into the Mormon scheme. Like certain British Dissenters of the royal
burgh of Dundee, who in our day petitioned Parliament for permission
to bigamize, the Mormons, with Bossuet and others, see in the New
Testament no order against plurality,[219] and in the Old dispensation
they find the practice sanctioned in a family, ever the friends of God,
and out of which the Redeemer sprang. Finally, they find throughout the
nations of the earth three polygamists in theory to one monogame.
[219] Histoire des Variations, liv. iv. “L’Evangile n’a ni révoqué
ni défendu ce qui avait été permis dans la loi de Moïse à l’égard du
mariage: Jesus Christ n’a pas changé la police extérieure, mais il
a ajouté seulement la justice et la vie éternelle pour récompense.”
So, in 1539, the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, wishing to marry a second
wife while the first was alive, was permitted to “commit bigamy” by
the eminent reformers, M. Luther, Kuhorn (M. Bucer), Melancthon,
and others, with the sole condition of secrecy. In the present age,
the Right Rev. J. W. Colenso, D.D. and Bishop of Natal, “not only
tolerates polygamy in converts, but defends it on the ground of
religion and humanity.”
[POLYGAMY.]
The “chaste and plural marriage,” being once legalized, finds a
multitude of supporters. The anti-Mormons declare that it is at once
fornication and adultery--a sin which absorbs all others. The Mormons
point triumphantly to the austere morals of their community, their
superior freedom from maladive influences, and the absence of that
uncleanness and licentiousness which distinguish the cities of the
civilized world. They boast that, if it be an evil, they have at
least chosen the lesser evil; that they practice openly as a virtue
what others do secretly as a sin--how full is society of these
latent Mormons!--that their plurality has abolished the necessity of
concubinage, cryptogamy, contubernium, celibacy, _mariages du treizième
arrondissement_, with their terrible consequences, infanticide, and
so forth; that they have removed their ways from those “whose end is
bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword.” Like its sister
institution Slavery, the birth and growth of a similar age, Polygamy
acquires _vim_ by abuse and detraction: the more turpitude is heaped
upon it, the brighter and more glorious it appears to its votaries.
There are rules and regulations of Mormonism--I can not say whether
they date before or after the heavenly command to pluralize--which
disprove the popular statement that such marriages are made to gratify
licentiousness, and which render polygamy a positive necessity. All
sensuality in the married state is strictly forbidden beyond the
requisite for insuring progeny--the practice, in fact, of Adam and
Abraham. During the gestation and nursing of children, the strictest
continence on the part of the mother is required--rather for a hygienic
than for a religious reason. The same custom is practiced in part by
the Jews, and in whole by some of the noblest tribes of savages; the
splendid physical development of the Kaffir race in South Africa is
attributed by some authors to a rule of continence like that of the
Mormons, and to a lactation prolonged for two years. The anomaly of
such a practice in the midst of civilization is worthy of a place in De
Balzac’s great repertory of morbid anatomy: it is only to be equaled by
the exceptional nature of the Mormon’s position, his past fate and his
future prospects. Spartan-like, the Faith wants a race of warriors, and
it adopts the best means to obtain them.
Besides religious and physiological, there are social motives for the
plurality. As in the days of Abraham, the lands about New Jordan are
broad and the people few. Of the three forms that unite the sexes,
polygamy increases, while monogamy balances, and polyandry diminishes
progeny. The former, as Montesquieu acutely suggested, acts inversely
to the latter by causing a preponderance of female over male births:
“Un fait important à noter,” says M. Remy, “c’est qu’il y a en Utah
beaucoup plus de naissances de filles que de garçons, resultat opposé
à ce qu’on observe dans tous les pays où la monogamie est pratiquée,
et parfaitement conforme à ce qu’on a remarqué chez les polygames
Mussulmans.” M. Remy’s statement is as distinctly affirmed by Mr. Hyde,
the Mormon apostate. In the East, where the census is unknown, we can
judge of the relative proportions of the sexes only by the families
of the great and wealthy, who invariably practice polygamy, and we
find the number of daughters mostly superior to that of sons, except
where female infanticide deludes the public into judging otherwise.
In lands where polyandry is the rule, for instance, in the Junsar and
Bawur pergunnahs of the Dhun, there is a striking discrepancy in the
proportions of the sexes among young children as well as adults: thus,
in a village where 400 boys are found, there will be 120 girls; and,
on the other hand, in the Gurhwal Hills, where polygamy is prevalent,
there is a surplus of female children. The experienced East Indian
official who has published this statement[220] is “inclined to give
more weight to nature’s adaptability to national habit than to the
possibility of infanticide,” for which there are no reasons. If these
be facts, Nature then has made provision for polygamy and polyandry:
our plastic mother has prepared her children to practice them all. Even
in Scotland modern statists have observed that the proportion of boys
born to girls is greater in the rural districts; and, attributing the
phenomenon to the physical weakening of the parents, have considered it
a rule so established as to “afford a valuable hint to those who desire
male progeny.” The anti-Mormons are fond of quoting Paley: “It is not
the question whether one man will have more children by five wives, but
whether these five women would not have had more children if they had
each a husband.” The Mormons reply that--setting aside the altered rule
of production--their colony, unlike all others, numbers more female
than male immigrants; consequently that, without polygamy, part of the
social field would remain untilled.[221]
[220] Hunting in the Himalaya, by R. H. W. Dunlop, C.B., B.C.S.,
F.R.G.S., London, Richard Bentley, 1860.
[221] I am sure of the correctness of this assertion, which is thus
denied in general terms by M. Reclus, of the Revue des Deux-Mondes.
“A la fin de 1858, on comptaît sur le Territoire 3617 maris
polygames, dont 1117 ayant cinque femmes ou d’avantage: mais un grand
nombre de Mormons n’avaient encore pu trouver d’épouses; il est
probable même que le chiffre des hommes depasse celui des femmes,
comme dans tous les pays peuplés d’emigrans. L’équilibre entre les
sexes n’est pas encore établi.”
To the unprejudiced traveler it appears that polygamy is the rule where
population is required, and where the great social evil has not had
time to develop itself. In Paris or London the institution would, like
slavery, die a natural death; in Arabia and in the wilds of the Rocky
Mountains it maintains a strong hold upon the affections of mankind.
Monogamy is best fitted for the large, wealthy, and flourishing
communities in which man is rarely the happier because his quiver is
full of children, and where the Hetæra becomes the succedaneum of
the “plurality-wife.” Polyandry has been practiced principally by
priestly and barbarous tribes,[222] who fear most for the increase of
their numbers, which would end by driving them to honest industry.
It reappears in a remarkable manner in the highest state of social
civilization, where excessive expenditure is an obstacle to freehold
property, and the practice is probably on the increase.
[222] The Mahabharata thus relates the origin of the practice in
India. The five princely Pandava brothers, when contending for a
prize offered by the King of Drona to the most successful archer,
agreed to divide it if any of them should prove the winner. Arjun,
the eldest, was declared victor, and received in gift Draupadi, the
king’s daughter, who thus became the joint-stock property of the
whole fraternity. They lived _en famille_ for some years at the foot
of Bairath, the remains of which, or rather a Ghoorka structure on
the same site, are still visible on a hill near the N.W. corner of
the Dhun. (Hunting in the Himalaya, chap. vii.)
The other motive for polygamy in Utah is economy. Servants are rare and
costly; it is cheaper and more comfortable to marry them. Many converts
are attracted by the prospect of becoming wives, especially from places
where, like Clifton, there are sixty-four females to thirty-six males.
The old maid is, as she ought to be, an unknown entity. Life in the
wilds of Western America is a course of severe toil: a single woman can
not perform the manifold duties of housekeeping, cooking, scrubbing,
washing, darning, child-bearing, and nursing a family. A division
of labor is necessary, and she finds it by acquiring a sisterhood.
Throughout the States, whenever a woman is seen at manual or outdoor
work, one is certain that she is Irish, German, or Scandinavian. The
delicacy and fragility of the Anglo-American female nature is at once
the cause and the effect of this exemption from toil.
[MORMON WOMEN.--POLYGAMY.]
The moral influence diffused over social relations by the presence
of polygyny will be intelligible only to those who have studied the
workings of the system in lands where seclusion is practiced in its
modified form, as among the Syrian Christians. In America society
splits into two parts--man and woman--even more readily than in
England; each sex is freer and happier in the company of its congeners.
At Great Salt Lake City there is a gloom like that which the late
Professor H. H. Wilson described as being cast by the invading Moslem
over the innocent gayety of the primitive Hindoo. The choice egotism
of the heart called Love--that is to say, the propensity elevated
by sentiment, and not undirected by reason, subsides into a calm
and unimpassioned domestic attachment: romance and reverence are
transferred, with the true Mormon concentration, from love and liberty
to religion and the Church. The consent of the first wife to a rival
is seldom refused, and a _ménage à trois_, in the Mormon sense of the
phrase, is fatal to the development of that tender tie which must be
confined to two. In its stead there is household comfort, affection,
circumspect friendship, and domestic discipline. Womanhood is not
petted and spoiled as in the Eastern States; the inevitable cyclical
revolution, indeed, has rather placed her below par, where, however,
I believe her to be happier than when set upon an uncomfortable and
unnatural eminence.
It will be asked, What view does the softer sex take of polygyny?
A few, mostly from the Old Country, lament that Mr. Joseph Smith
ever asked of the Creator that question which was answered in the
affirmative. A very few, like the Curia Electa, Emma, the first wife
of Mr. Joseph Smith--who said of her, by-the-by, that she could not
be contented in heaven without rule--apostatize, and become Mrs.
Bridemann. The many are, as might be expected of the easily-moulded
weaker vessel, which proves its inferior position by the delicate
flattery of imitation, more in favor of polygyny than the stronger.
For the attachment of the women of the Saints to the doctrine of
plurality there are many reasons. The Mormon prophets have expended
all their arts upon this end, well knowing that without the hearty
co-operation of mothers and wives, sisters and daughters, no
institution can live long. They have bribed them with promises of
Paradise--they have subjugated them with threats of annihilation.
With them, once a Mormon always a Mormon. I have said that a modified
reaction respecting the community of Saints has set in throughout
the States; people no longer wonder that their missionaries do not
show horns and cloven feet, and the federal officer, the itinerant
politician, the platform orator, and the place-seeking demagogue, can
no longer make political capital by bullying, oppressing, and abusing
them. The tide has turned, and will turn yet more. But the individual
still suffers: the apostate Mormon is looked upon by other people as a
scamp or a knave, and the woman worse than a prostitute. Again, all the
fervor of a new faith burns in their bosoms with a heat which we can
little appreciate, and the revelation of Mr. Joseph Smith is considered
on this point as superior to the Christian as the latter is in others
to the Mosaic Dispensation. Polygamy is a positive command from heaven:
if the flesh is mortified by it, _tant mieux_--“no cross, no crown;”
“blessed are they that mourn.” I have heard these words from the lips
of a well-educated Mormon woman, who, in the presence of a Gentile
sister, urged her husband to take unto himself a second wife. The
Mormon household has been described by its enemies as a hell of envy,
hatred, and malice--a den of murder and suicide. The same has been
said of the Moslem harem. Both, I believe, suffer from the assertions
of prejudice or ignorance. The temper of the New is so far superior to
that of the Old Country, that, incredible as the statement may appear,
rival wives do dwell together in amity, and do quote the proverb “the
more the merrier.” Moreover, they look with horror at the position of
the “slavey” of a pauper mechanic at being required to “nigger it”
upon love and starvation, and at the necessity of a numerous family.
They know that nine tenths of the miseries of the poor in large cities
arise from early and imprudent marriages, and they would rather be the
fiftieth “sealing” of Dives than the toilsome single wife of Lazarus.
The French saying concerning motherhood--“_le premier embellit, le
second détruit, le troisième gâte tout_,” is true in the Western world.
The first child is welcomed, the second is tolerated, the third is
the cause of tears and reproaches, and the fourth, if not prevented
by gold pills or some similar monstrosity, causes temper, spleen, and
melancholy, with disgust and hatred of the cause. What the Napoleonic
abolition of the law of primogeniture, combined with centralization of
the peasant class in towns and cities, has effected on this side of
the Channel, the terrors of maternity, aggravated by a highly nervous
temperament, small cerebellum, constitutional frigidity, and extreme
delicacy of fibre, have brought to pass in the older parts of the Union.
Another curious effect of fervent belief may be noticed in the married
state. When a man has four or five wives, with reasonable families by
each, he is fixed for life: his interests, if not his affections, bind
him irrevocably to his new faith. But the bachelor, as well as the
monogamic youth, is prone to backsliding. Apostasy is apparently so
common that many of the new Saints form a mere floating population. He
is proved by a mission before being permitted to marry, and even then
women, dreading a possible renegade, with the terrible consequences
of a heavenless future to themselves, are shy of saying yes. Thus it
happens that male celibacy is mixed up in a curious way with polygamy,
and that also in a faith whose interpreter advises youth not to remain
single after sixteen, nor girls after fourteen. The celibacy also is
absolute; any infraction of it would be dangerous to life. Either,
then, the first propensity of the phrenologist is poorly developed
in these lands--this has been positively stated of the ruder sex in
California--or its action is to be regulated by habit to a greater
degree than is usually believed.
[MRS. PRATT’S OPINION.]
I am conscious that my narrative savors of incredibility; the fault is
in the subject, not in the narrator. _Exoneravi animan meam._ The best
proof that my opinions are correct will be the following quotation. It
is a letter addressed to a sister in New Hampshire by a Mrs. Belinda
M. Pratt, the wife of the celebrated apostle. M. Remy has apparently
dramatized it (vol. ii., chap. ii.) by casting it into dialogue form,
and placing it in the mouth of _une femme distinguée_. Most readers,
feminine and monogamic, will remark that the lady shows little heart
or natural affection; the severe calm of her judgment and reasoning
faculties, and the soundness of her physiology, can not be doubted.
“Great Salt Lake City, Jan. 12, 1854.
“DEAR SISTER,--Your letter of October 2 was received on yesterday.
My joy on its reception was more than I can express. I had waited
so long for your answer to our last, that I had almost concluded my
friends were offended, and would write to me no more. Judge, then,
of my joy when I read the sentiments of friendship and of sisterly
affection expressed in your letter.
“We are all well here, and are prosperous and happy in our family
circle. My children, four in number, are healthy and cheerful, and
fast expanding their physical and intellectual faculties. Health,
peace, and prosperity have attended us all the day long.
“It seems, my dear sister, that we are no nearer together in our
religious views than formerly. Why is this? Are we not all bound to
leave this world, with all we possess therein, and reap the reward
of our doings _here_ in a never-ending hereafter? If so, do we not
desire to be undeceived, and to _know and to do the truth_? Do we not
all wish in our very hearts to be sincere with ourselves, and to be
honest and frank with each other?
“If so, you will bear with me patiently while I give a few of my
reasons for embracing and holding sacred that particular point in the
doctrine of the Church of the Saints to which you, my dear sister,
together with a large majority of Christendom, so decidedly object. I
mean, a ‘_plurality of wives_.’
“I have a Bible which I have been taught from my infancy to hold
sacred. In this Bible I read of a holy man named Abraham, who is
represented as the friend of God, a faithful man in all things, a
man who kept the commandments of God, and who is called in the New
Testament ‘the father of the faithful.’ See James, ii., 23; Rom.,
iv., 16; Gal., iii., 8, 9, 16, 29.
“I find this man had a plurality of wives, some of which were called
concubines. See Book of Genesis; and for his concubines, see xxv., 6.
“I also find his grandson Jacob possessed of four wives, twelve
sons, and a daughter. These wives are spoken very highly of by the
sacred writers as honorable and virtuous women. ‘_These_,’ say the
Scriptures, ‘_did build the house of Israel_.’
“Jacob himself was also a man of God, and the Lord blessed him and
his house, and commanded him to be fruitful and multiply. See Gen.,
xxx. to xxxv., and particularly xxxv., 10,11.
“I find also that the twelve sons of Jacob by these four wives
became princes, heads of tribes, patriarchs, whose names are had in
everlasting remembrance to all generations.
“Now God talked with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob frequently, and his
angels also visited and talked with them, and blessed them and their
wives and children. He also reproved the sins of some of the sons
of Jacob for hating and selling their brother, and for adultery.
But in all his communications with them he never condemned their
family organization, but, on the contrary, always approved of it,
and blessed them in this respect. He even told Abraham that he would
make him the father of many nations, and that in him and his seed all
the nations and kindreds of the earth should be blessed. See Gen.,
xviii., 17-19; also xii., 1-3. In later years I find the plurality of
wives perpetuated, sanctioned, and provided for in the law of Moses.
“David the Psalmist not only had a plurality of wives, but the Lord
himself spoke by the mouth of Nathan the prophet, and told David that
_he_ (the Lord) had given his master’s wives into his bosom; but
because he had committed adultery with the wife of Uriah, and had
caused his murder, _he_ would take _his_ wives and give them to a
neighbor of his, etc. See 2 Sam., xii., 7-11.
“Here, then, we have the Word of the Lord not only sanctioning
polygamy, but actually giving to King David the wives of his master
(Saul), and afterward taking the wives of David from him, and giving
them to another man. Here we have a sample of severe reproof and
punishment for adultery and murder, while polygamy is authorized and
approved by the Word of God.
“But to come to the New Testament. I find Jesus Christ speaks very
highly of Abraham and his family. He says, ‘_Many shall come from
the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south,
and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of
God_.’ Luke, xiii., 28, 29.
“Again he said, ‘_If ye were Abraham’s seed ye would do the works of
Abraham_.’
“Paul the apostle wrote to the saints of his day, and informed them
as follows: ‘As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have
put on Christ; and if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed,
and heirs according to the promise.’
“He also sets forth Abraham and Sarah as patterns of faith and good
works, and as the father and mother of faithful Christians, who
should, by faith and good works, aspire to be counted the sons of
Abraham and daughters of Sarah.
“Now let us look at some of the works of Sarah, for which she is so
highly commended by the apostles, and by them held up as a pattern
for Christian ladies to imitate. ‘_Now Sarah, Abram’s wife, bare
him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name
was Hagar. And Sarah said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath
restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid: it may
be that I may obtain children of her. And Abram hearkened unto the
voice of Sarah. And Sarah, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the
Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and
gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife._’ See Gen., xvi., 1-3.
“According to Jesus Christ and the apostles, then, the only way to be
saved is to be adopted into the great family of polygamists by the
Gospel, and then strictly follow their examples.
“Again, John the Revelator describes the Holy City of the heavenly
Jerusalem, with the names of the twelve sons of Jacob inscribed on
the gates. Rev., xxi., 12.
“To sum up the whole, then, I find that polygamists were the friends
of God; that the family and lineage of a polygamist were selected
in which all nations should be blessed; that a polygamist is named
in the New Testament as the father of the faithful Christians of
after ages, and cited as a pattern for all generations; that the
wife of a polygamist, who encouraged her husband in the practice of
the same, and even urged him into it, and officiated in giving him
another wife, is named as an honorable and virtuous woman, a pattern
for Christian ladies, and the very mother of all holy women in the
Christian Church, whose aspiration it should be to be called her
daughters; that Jesus Christ has declared that the great fathers of
the polygamic family stand at the head in the kingdom of good; in
short, that all the saved of after generations should be saved by
becoming members of a polygamic family; that all those who do not
become members of it are strangers and aliens to the covenant of
promise, the commonwealth of Israel, and not heirs according to the
promise made to Abraham; that all people from the east, west, north,
or south, who enter into the kingdom, enter into the society of
polygamists, and under their patriarchal rule and government; indeed,
no one can even approach the gates of heaven without beholding the
names of twelve polygamists (the sons of four different women by one
man) engraven in everlasting glory upon the pearly gates.
“My dear sister, with the Scriptures before me, I could never find it
in my heart to reject the heavenly vision which has restored to man
the fullness of the Gospel, or the Latter-Day prophets and apostles,
merely because in this restoration is included the ancient law of
family organization and government preparatory to the restoration of
all Israel.
“But, leaving all Scripture, history, or precedent out of the
question, let us come to Nature’s law. What, then, appears to be the
great object of the marriage relations? I answer, the multiplying of
our species, the rearing and training of children.
“To accomplish this object, natural law would dictate that a husband
should remain apart from his wife at certain seasons, which, in the
very constitution of the female, are untimely; or, in other words,
indulgence should be not merely for pleasure or wanton desires, but
mainly for the purpose of procreation.
“The mortality of nature would teach a mother that, during Nature’s
process in the formation and growth of embryo man, her heart should
be pure, her thoughts and affections chaste, her mind calm, her
passions without excitement, while her body should be invigorated
with every exercise conducive to health and vigor, but by no means
subjected to any thing calculated to disturb, irritate, weary, or
exhaust any of its functions.
“And while a kind husband should nourish, sustain, and comfort the
wife of his bosom by every kindness and attention consistent with her
situation and with his most tender affection, still he should refrain
from all those untimely associations which are forbidden in the great
constitutional laws of female nature, which laws we see carried out
in almost the entire animal economy, human animals excepted.
“Polygamy, then, as practiced under the patriarchal law of God, tends
directly to the chastity of women, and to sound health and morals in
the constitutions of their offspring.
“You can read in the law of God, in your Bible, the times and
circumstances under which a woman should remain apart from her
husband, during which times she is considered unclean; and should her
husband come to her bed under such circumstances, he would commit a
gross sin both against the laws of nature and the wise provisions
of God’s law, as revealed in his word; in short, he would commit an
abomination; he would sin both against his own body, against the body
of his wife, and against the laws of procreation, in which the health
and morals of his offspring are directly concerned.
“The polygamic law of God opens to all vigorous, healthy, and
virtuous females a door by which they may become honorable wives
of virtuous men, and mothers of faithful, virtuous, healthy, and
vigorous children.
“And here let me ask you, my dear sister, what female in all New
Hampshire would marry a drunkard, a man of hereditary disease, a
debauchee, an idler, or a spendthrift; or what woman would become a
prostitute, or, on the other hand, live and die single, or without
forming those inexpressibly dear relationships of wife and mother,
if the Abrahamic covenant, or patriarchal laws of God, were extended
over your State, and held sacred and honorable by all?
“Dear sister, in your thoughtlessness you inquire, ‘Why not a
plurality of husbands as well as a plurality of wives?’ To which I
reply, 1st. God has never commanded or sanctioned a plurality of
husbands; 2d. ‘_Man is the head of the woman_,’ and no woman can
serve two lords; 3d. Such an order of things would work death and
not life, or, in plain language, it would multiply disease instead
of children. In fact, the experiment of a plurality of husbands,
or rather of one woman for many men, is in active operation, and
has been for centuries, in all the principal towns and cities of
‘_Christendom!_’ It is the genius of ‘_Christian institutions_,’
falsely so called. It is the result of ‘_Mystery Babylon, the great
whore of all the earth_.’ Or, in other words, it is the result of
making void the holy ordinances of God in relation to matrimony,
and introducing the laws of Rome, in which the clergy and nuns
are forbidden to marry, and other members only permitted to have
one wife. This law leaves females exposed to a life of single
‘_blessedness_,’ without husband, child, or friend to provide for
or comfort them; or to a life of poverty and loneliness, exposed to
temptation, to perverted affections, to unlawful means to gratify
them, or to the necessity of selling themselves for lucre. While the
man who has abundance of means is tempted to spend it on a mistress
in secret, and in a lawless way, the law of God would have given her
to him as an honorable wife. These circumstances give rise to murder,
infanticide, suicide, disease, remorse, despair, wretchedness,
poverty, untimely death, with all the attendant train of jealousies,
heartrending miseries, want of confidence in families, contaminating
disease, etc.; and, finally, to the horrible license system, in which
governments called Christian license their fair daughters, I will
not say to play the beast, but to a degradation far beneath them;
for every species of the animal creation, except man, refrain from
such abominable excesses, and observe in a great measure the laws of
nature in procreation.
“I again repeat that Nature has constituted the female differently
from the male, and for a different purpose. The strength of the
female constitution is designed to flow in a stream of _life_, to
nourish and sustain the embryo, to bring it forth, and to nurse it
on her bosom. When Nature is not in operation within her in these
particulars and for these heavenly ends, it has wisely provided
relief at regular periods, in order that her system may be kept pure
and healthy, without exhausting the fountain of life on the one hand,
or drying up its river of life on the other, till mature age and an
approaching change of worlds render it necessary for her to cease
to be fruitful, and give her to rest a while, and enjoy a tranquil
life in the midst of that family circle, endeared to her by so many
ties, and which may be supposed, at this period of her life, to be
approaching the vigor of manhood, and therefore able to comfort and
sustain her.
“Not so with man. He has no such drawback upon his strength. It is
his to move in a wider sphere. If God shall count him worthy of a
hundred fold in this life of wives and children, and houses, and
lands, and kindreds, he may even aspire to patriarchal sovereignty,
to empire; to be the prince or head of a tribe or tribes; and,
like Abraham of old, be able to send forth, for the defense of his
country, hundreds and thousands of his own warriors, born in his own
house.
“A noble man of God, who is full of the Spirit of the Most High,
and is counted worthy to converse with Jehovah or with the Son of
God, and to associate with angels and the spirits of just men made
perfect--one who will teach his children, and bring them up in the
light of unadulterated and eternal truth--is more worthy of a hundred
wives and children than the ignorant slave of passion, or of vice and
folly, is to have one wife and one child. Indeed, the God of Abraham
is so much better pleased with one than with the other, that he would
even take away the one talent, which is habitually abused, neglected,
or put to an improper use, and give it to him who has ten talents.
“In the patriarchal order of family government the wife is bound
to the law of her husband. She honors, ‘_calls him lord_,’ even as
Sarah obeyed and honored Abraham. She lives for him, and to increase
his glory, his greatness, his kingdom, or family. Her affections are
centred in her God, her husband, and her children.
“The children are also under his government worlds without end.
‘_While life, or thought, or being lasts, or immortality endures_,’
they are bound to obey him as their father and king.
“He also has a head to whom he is responsible. He must keep the
commandments of God and observe his laws. He must not take a wife
unless she is given to him by the law and authority of God. He must
not commit adultery, nor take liberties with any woman except his
own, who are secured to him by the holy ordinances of matrimony.
“Hence a nation organized under the law of the Gospel, or, in
other words, the law of Abraham and the patriarchs, would have no
institutions tending to licentiousness; no adulteries, fornications,
etc., would be tolerated. No houses or institutions would exist
for traffic in shame, or in the life-blood of our fair daughters.
Wealthy men would have no inducement to keep a mistress in secret,
or unlawfully. Females would have no grounds for temptation in any
such lawless life. Neither money nor pleasure could tempt them, nor
poverty drive them to any such excess, because the door would be
open for every virtuous female to form the honorable and endearing
relationships of wife and mother in some virtuous family, where
love, and peace, and plenty would crown her days, and truth and the
practice of virtue qualify her to be transplanted with her family
circle in that eternal soil where they might multiply their children
without pain, or sorrow, or death, and go on increasing in numbers,
in wealth, in greatness, in glory, might, majesty, power, and
dominion, in worlds without end.
“Oh my dear sister, could the dark veil of tradition be rent from
your mind--could you gaze for a moment on the resurrection of the
just--could you behold Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their wives
and children, clad in the bloom, freshness, and beauty of immortal
_flesh and bones_--clothed in robes of fine white linen, bedecked
with precious stones and gold, and surrounded with an offspring
of immortals as countless as the stars of the firmament or as the
grains of sand upon the sea-shore, over which they reign as kings and
queens forever and ever, you would then know something of the weight
of those words of the sacred writer which are recorded in relation
to the four wives of Jacob, the mothers of the twelve patriarchs,
namely, ‘_These did build the house of Israel_.’
“Oh that my dear kindred could but realize that they have need
to repent of the sins, ignorance, and traditions of those
perverted systems which are misnamed ‘_Christianity_,’ and be
baptized--_buried_ in the water, in the likeness of the death and
burial of Jesus Christ, and rise to newness of life in the likeness
of his resurrection; receive his Spirit by the laying on of the
hands of an apostle, according to promise, and forsake the world and
the pride thereof. Thus they would be adopted into the family of
Abraham, become his sons and daughters, see and enjoy for themselves
the visions of the Spirit of eternal truth, which bear witness of
the family order of heaven, and the beauties and glories of eternal
kindred ties, for my pen can never describe them.
“Dear, _dear_ kindred: remember, according to the New Testament,
and the testimony of an ancient apostle, if you are ever saved in
the kingdom of God, it must be by being adopted into the family of
polygamists--the family of the great patriarch Abraham; for in his
seed, or family, and not out of it, ‘_shall all the nations and
kindreds of the earth be blessed_.’
“You say you believe polygamy is ‘_licentious_;’ that it is
‘_abominable_,’ ‘_beastly_,’ etc.; ‘the practice only of the most
barbarous nations, or of the Dark Ages, or of some great or good men
who were left to commit gross sins.’ Yet you say you are anxious for
me to be converted to your faith; and that we may see each other in
this life, and be associated in one great family in that life which
has no end.
“Now, in order to comply with your wishes, I must renounce the Old
and New Testaments; must count Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their
families, as licentious, wicked, beastly, abominable characters;
Moses, Nathan, David, and the prophets, no better. I must look upon
the God of Israel as partaker in all these abominations, by holding
them in fellowship; and even as a minister of such iniquity, by
giving King Saul’s wives into King David’s bosom, and afterward by
taking David’s wives from him, and giving them to his neighbor. I
must consider Jesus Christ, and Paul, and John, as either living in a
dark age, as full of the darkness and ignorance of barbarous climes,
or else willfully abominable and wicked in fellowshiping polygamists,
and representing them as fathers of the faithful and rulers in
heaven. I must doom them all to hell, with adulterers, fornicators,
etc., or else, at least, assign to them some nook or corner in
heaven, as ignorant persons, who, knowing but little, were beaten
with few stripes; while, by analogy, I must learn to consider the
Roman popes, clergy, and nuns, who do not marry at all, as foremost
in the ranks of glory, and those Catholics and Protestants who have
but one wife as next in order of salvation, glory, immortality, and
eternal life.
“Now, dear friends, much as I long to see you, and dear as you are
to me, I can never come to these terms. I feel as though the Gospel
had introduced me into the right family, into the right lineage, and
into good company. And, besides all these considerations, should
I ever become so beclouded with unbelief of the Scriptures and
heavenly institutions as to agree with my kindred in New Hampshire in
_theory_, still my practical circumstances are different, and would,
I fear, continue to separate us by a wide and almost impassable gulf.
“For instance, I have (as you see, in all good conscience, founded
on the Word of God) formed family and kindred ties which are
inexpressibly dear to me, and which I can never bring my feelings to
consent to dissolve. I have a good and virtuous husband whom I love.
We have four little children which are mutually and inexpressibly
dear to us. And, besides this, my husband has seven other living
wives, and one who has departed to a better world. He has in all
upward of twenty-five children. All these mothers and children are
endeared to me by kindred ties, by mutual affection, by acquaintance
and association; and the mothers in particular, by mutual and
long-continued exercises of toil, patience, long-suffering, and
sisterly kindness. We all have our imperfections in this life; but
I know that these are good and worthy women, and that my husband
is a good and worthy man; one who keeps the commandments of Jesus
Christ, and presides in his family like an Abraham. He seeks to
provide for them with all diligence; he loves them all, and seeks to
comfort them and make them happy. He teaches them the commandments
of Jesus Christ, and gathers them about him in the family circle to
call upon his God, both morning and evening. He and his family have
the confidence, esteem, good-will, and fellowship of this entire
Territory, and of a wide circle of acquaintances in Europe and
America. He is a practical teacher of morals and religion, a promoter
of general education, and at present occupies an honorable seat in
the Legislative Council of this Territory.
“Now, as to visiting my kindred in New Hampshire, I would be pleased
to do so were it the will of God. But, first, the laws of that State
must be so modified by enlightened legislation, and the customs and
consciences of its inhabitants, and of my kindred, so altered, that
my husband can accompany me with all his wives and children, and be
as much respected and honored in his family organization and in his
holy calling as he is at home, or in the same manner as the patriarch
Jacob would have been respected had he, with his wives and children,
paid a visit to his kindred. As my husband is yet in his youth, as
well as myself, I fondly hope we shall live to see that day; for
already the star of Jacob is in the ascendency; the house of Israel
is about to be restored; while ‘_Mystery Babylon_,’ with all her
institutions, awaits her own overthrow. Till this is the case in New
Hampshire, my kindred will be under the necessity of coming here
to see us, or, on the other hand, we will be mutually compelled to
forego the pleasure of each other’s company.
“You mention in your letter that Paul the apostle recommended that
bishops be the husband of one wife. Why this was the case I do not
know, unless it was, as he says, that while he was among Romans he
did as Romans did. Rome at that time governed the world, as it were;
and, although gross idolaters, they held to the one-wife system.
Under these circumstances, no doubt, the apostle Paul, seeing a great
many polygamists in the Church, recommended that they had better
choose for this particular temporal office men of small families, who
would not be in disrepute with the government. This is precisely our
course in those countries where Roman institutions still bear sway.
Our elders there have but one wife, in order to conform to the laws
of men.
“You inquire why Elder W., when at your house, denied that the Church
of this age held to the doctrine of plurality. I answer that he might
have been ignorant of the fact, as our belief on this point was not
published till 1852. And had he known it, he had no right to reveal
the same until the full time had arrived. God kindly withheld this
doctrine for a time, because of the ignorance and prejudice of the
nations of mystic Babylon, that peradventure he might save some of
them.
“Now, dear sister, I must close. I wish all my kindred and old
acquaintances to see this letter, or a copy thereof, and that they
will consider it as if written to themselves. I love them dearly, and
greatly desire and pray for their salvation, and that we may all meet
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.
“Dear sister, do not let your prejudices and traditions keep you from
believing the Bible, nor the pride, shame, or love of the world keep
you from your seat in the kingdom of heaven, among the royal family
of polygamists. Write often and freely.
“With sentiments of the deepest affection and kindred feeling, I
remain, dear sister, your affectionate sister,
“BELINDA MARDEN PRATT.”
CHAPTER XI.
Last Days at Great Salt Lake City.
I now terminate my observations upon the subject of Mormonism. It will
be remarked that the opinions of others--not my own--have been recorded
as carefully as my means of study have permitted, and that facts, not
theories, have been the object of this dissertation.
[MORMONISM THE FAITH OF THE POOR.]
It will, I think, be abundantly evident that Utah Territory has been
successful in its colonization. Every where, indeed, in the New World,
the stranger wonders that a poor man should tarry in Europe, or that
a rich man should remain in America; nothing but the strongest chains
of habit and _vis inertiæ_ can reconcile both to their miserable lots.
I can not help thinking that, morally and spiritually, as well as
physically, the _protégés_ of the Perpetual Emigration Fund gain by
being transferred to the Far West. Mormonism is emphatically the faith
of the poor, and those acquainted with the wretched condition of the
English mechanic, collier, and agricultural laborer--it is calculated
that a million of them exist on £25 per annum--who, after a life of
ignoble drudgery, of toiling through the year from morning till night,
are ever threatened with the work-house, must be of the same opinion.
Physically speaking, there is no comparison between the conditions of
the Saints and the class from which they are mostly taken. In point of
mere morality, the Mormon community is perhaps purer than any other
of equal numbers.[223] I have no wish to commend their spiritual, or,
rather, their materialistic vagaries--a materialism so leveling in its
unauthorized deductions that even the materialist must reject it; but
with the mind as with the body, bad food is better than none. When
wealth shall be less unequally distributed in England, thus doing away
with the contrast of excessive splendor and utter destitution, and when
Home Missions shall have done their duty in educating and evangelizing
the unhappy pariahs of town and country, the sons of the land which
boasts herself to be the foremost among the nations will blush no more
to hear that the Mormons or Latter-Day Saints are mostly English.
[223] I refer the reader to Appendix IV.
About the middle of September the time of my departure drew nigh. Judge
Flennikin found a change of _venue_ to Carson Valley necessary; Thomas,
his son, was to accompany him, and the Territorial marshal, Mr.
Grice--a quondam volunteer in the Mexican War--was part of the cortége.
Escort and ambulance had been refused; it was imperative to find both.
Several proposals were made and rejected. At last an eligible presented
himself. Mr. Kennedy, an Irishman from the neighborhood of Dublin, and
an _incola_ of California, where evil fate had made him a widower, had
“swapped” stock, and was about to drive thirty-three horses and mules
to the “El Dorado of the West.” For the sum of $150 each he agreed
to convey us, to provide an ambulance which cost him $300, and three
wagons which varied in price from $25 to $75. We had reason to think
well of his probity, concerning which we had taken counsel; and as he
had lost a horse or two, and had received a bullet through the right
arm in an encounter with the Yuta Indians near Deep Creek on the 3d
of July of the same year, we had little doubt of his behaving with
due prudence. He promised also to collect a sufficient armed party;
and as the road had lately seen troubles--three drivers had been
shot and seventeen Indians had been reported slain in action by the
federal troops--we were certain that he would keep his word. It was the
beginning of the hungry season, when the Indians would be collecting
their pine nuts and be plotting onslaughts upon the spring emigrants.
I prepared for difficulties by having my hair “shingled off” till
my head somewhat resembled a pointer’s dorsum, and deeply regretted
having left all my wigs behind me. The marshal undertook to lay in our
provisions: we bought flour, hard bread or biscuit, eggs and bacon,
butter, a few potted luxuries, not forgetting a goodly allowance of
whisky and korn schnapps, whose only demerit was that it gave a taste
to the next morning. The traveling canteen consisted of a little china,
tin cups and plates, a coffee-pot, frying-pan, and large ditto for
bread-baking, with spoons, knives, and forks.
[ADIEUX.]
The last preparations were soon made. I wrote to my friends, among
others to Dr. Norton Shaw, who read out the missive _magno cum risu
audientium_, bought a pair of leather leggins for $5, settled with M.
Gebow, a Gamaliel at whose feet I had sat as a student of the Yuta
dialect, and defrayed the expenses of living, which, though the bill
was curiously worded,[224] were exemplarily inexpensive. Colonel
Stambaugh favored me with a parting gift, the “Manual of Surveying
Instructions,” which I preserve as a reminiscence, and a cocktail whose
aroma still lingers in my olfactories. My last evening was spent with
Mr. Stambaugh, when Mr. John Taylor was present, and where, with the
kindly aid of Madam, we drank a _café au lait_ as good as the _Café
de Paris_ affords. I thanked the governor for his frank and generous
hospitality, and made my acknowledgments to his amiable wife. All
my adieux were upon an extensive scale, the immediate future being
somewhat dark and menacing.
[224] The bill in question:
Gt. S. L. City, September 18th, 1860.
Captain Burten to James Townsend, Dr.
Aug. 27. 14 Bottle Beer 600
Belt & Scabbard 500
Cleaning Vest and Coat 250
2 Bottles Branday 450
Washing 525
to Cash, five dollars 500
to 3 weaks 3 days Bord 3425
-----
62·50
Cash, five dollars 500
-----
67·50
[“ALL ABOORD.”]
The start in these regions is coquettish as in Eastern Africa. We were
to depart on Wednesday, the 19th of September, at 8 A.M.--then 10
A.M.--then 12 A.M.--then, after a deprecatory visit, on the morrow.
On the morning of the eventful next day, after the usual amount of
“smiling,” and a repetition of adieux, I found myself “all aboord,”
wending southward, and mentally ejaculating _Hierosolymam quando
revisam?_
[MOUNT NEBO.]
[Illustration: MOUNT NEBO.]
CHAPTER XII.
To Ruby Valley.
Mounted upon a fine mule, here worth $240, and “bound” to fetch in
California $400, and accompanying a Gentile youth who answered to the
name of Joe, I proceeded to take my first lesson in stock-driving.
We were convoying ten horses, which, not being wild, declined to
herd together, and, by their straggling, made the task not a little
difficult to a tyro. The road was that leading to Camp Floyd before
described. At the Brewery near Mountain Point we found some attempts at
a station, and were charged $1 50 for frijoles, potatoes, and bread:
among other decorations on the wall was a sheet of prize-fighters, in
which appeared the portraiture of an old man, once the champion of the
light weights in the English ring, now a Saint in Great Salt Lake City.
The day was fine and wondrous clear, affording us a splendid back view
of the Happy Valley before it was finally shut out from sight, and
the Utah Lake looked a very gem of beauty, a diamond in its setting
of steely blue mountains. After fording the Jordan we were overtaken
by Mr. Kennedy, who had been delayed by more last words, and at the
dug-out we drank beer with Shropshire Joe the Mormon, who had been
vainly attempting to dig water by a divining rod of peach-tree. When
moonlight began to appear, Joe the Gentile was ordered by the “boss”
to camp out with the horses, where fodder could be found gratis, a
commandment which he obeyed with no end of grumbling. It was deep in
the night before we entered Frogtown, where a creaking little Osteria
supplied us with supper, and I found a bed at the quarters of my friend
Captain Heth, who obligingly insisted upon my becoming his guest.
The five days between the 20th and the 26th of September sped merrily
at my new home, Camp Floyd; not pressed for time, I embraced with
pleasure the opportunity of seeing the most of my American brothers
in arms. My host was a son of that Old Dominion of Queen Elizabeth,
where still linger traces of the glorious Cavalier and the noble feudal
spirit, which (alas!) have almost disappeared from the mother country;
where the genealogical tree still hangs against the wall; where the
principal families, the Nelsons, Harrisons, Pages, Seldens, and Allens,
intermarry and bravely attempt to entail; and where the houses,
built of brick brought out from England, still retain traces of the
seventeenth century. A winter indeed might be passed most pleasantly
on the banks of James River and in the west of Virginia--a refreshing
winter to those who love, as I do, the traditions of our ancestors.
[SPREES.]
From Captain Heth I gathered that in former times, in Western America
as in British India, a fair aborigine was not unfrequently the
copartner of an officer’s hut or tent. The improved communication,
however, and the frequency of marriage, have abolished the custom by
rendering it unfashionable. The Indian squaw, like the Beebee, seldom
looked upon her “mari” in any other light but her banker. An inveterate
beggar, she would beg for all her relations, for all her friends, and
all her tribe, rather than not beg at all, and the lavatory process
required always to be prefaced with the bribe. Officers who were long
thrown among the Prairie Indians joined, as did the Anglo-Indian, in
their nautches and other amusements, where, if whisky was present, a
cut or stab might momentarily be expected. The skin was painted white,
black, and red, the hair was dressed and decorated, and the shirt
was tied round the waist, while broadcloth and blanket, leggins and
moccasins completed the costume. The “crack thing to do” when drinking
with Indians, and listening to their monotonous songs and tales, was
to imitate Indian customs; to become, under the influence of the jolly
god, a Hatim Tai; exceedingly generous; to throw shirt to one man,
blanket to another, leggins to a third--in fact, to return home in
breech-cloth. Such sprees would have been severely treated by a highly
respectable government; they have now, however, like many a pleasant
hour in British India, had their day, and are sunk, many a fathom deep,
in the genuine Anglo-Scandinavian gloom.
[ARMY GRIEVANCES.]
I heard more of army grievances during my second stay at Camp Floyd.
The term of a soldier’s enlistment, five years, is too short,
especially for the cavalry branch, and the facilities for desertion
are enormous. Between the two, one third of the army disappears every
year. The company which should number 84 has often only 50 men. The
soldier has no time to learn his work; he must drive wagons, clear
bush, make roads, and build huts and stables. When thoroughly drilled
he can take his discharge, and having filled a purse out of his very
liberal pay ($11 per mensem), he generally buys ground and becomes
a landed proprietor. The officers are equally well salaried; but
marching, countermarching, and contingent expenses are heavy enough to
make the profession little better than it is in France. The Secretary
of War being a civilian, with naturally the highest theoretical idea of
discipline and command combined with economy, is always a martinet; no
one can exceed the minutest order, and leave is always obtained under
difficulties. As the larger proportion of the officers are Southern
men, especially Virginians, and as the soldiers are almost entirely
Germans and Irish--the Egyptians of modern times--the federal army will
take little part in the ensuing contest. It is more than probable that
the force will disband, break in two like the nationalities from which
it is drawn. As far as I could judge of American officers, they are
about as republican in mind and tone of thought as those of the British
army. They are aware of the fact that the bundle of sticks requires a
tie, but they prefer, as we all do, King Stork to King Log, and King
Log to King Mob.
I took sundry opportunities of attending company inspections, and found
the men well dressed and tolerably set up, while the bands, being
German, were of course excellent. Mr. Chandless and others talk of
the United States army discipline as something Draconian; severity is
doubtless necessary in a force so constituted, but--a proof of their
clemency--desertion is the only crime punishable by flogging. The
uniform is a study. The States have attempted in the dress of their
army, as in the forms of their government, a moral impossibility. It is
expected to be at once cheap and soldier-like, useful and ornamental,
light and heavy, pleasantly hot in the arctic regions, and agreeably
cool under the tropics. The “military tailors” of the English army
similarly forget the number of changes required in civilian raiment,
and, looking to the lightness of the soldier’s kit, wholly neglect
its efficiency, its capability of preserving the soldier’s life. The
federal uniform consists of a brigand-like and bizarre sombrero, with
Mephistophelian cock-plume, and of a blue broadcloth tunic, imitated
from the old Kentuckian hunter’s surtout or wrapper, with terminations
sometimes made to match, at other times too dark and dingy to please
the eye. Its principal merit is a severe republican plainness, very
consistent with the prepossessions of the people, highly inconsistent
with the customs of military nations. Soldiers love to dress up Mars,
not to clothe him like a butcher’s boy.
The position of Camp Floyd is a mere brick-yard, a basin surrounded
by low hills, which an Indian pony would have little difficulty in
traversing; sometimes, however, after the fashion of the land, though
apparently easy from afar, the summits assume a mural shape, which
would stop any thing but a mountain sheep. The rim shows anticlinal
strata, evidencing upheavals, disruption, and, lastly, drainage
through the kanyons which break the wall. The principal vegetation is
the dwarf cedar above, the sage greenwood and rabbit-bush below. The
only animals seen upon the plain are jackass-rabbits, which in places
afford excellent sport. There are but few Mormons in the valley; they
supply the camp with hay and vegetables, and are said to act as spies.
The officers can not but remark the coarse features and the animal
expression of their countenances. On the outskirts of camp are a few
women that have taken sanctuary among the Gentiles, who here muster
too strong for the Saints. The principal amusement seemed to be that
of walking into and out of the sutlers’ stores, the hospitable Messrs.
Gilbert’s and Livingston’s--a _passe temps_ which I have seen at
“Sukkur Bukkur Rohri”--and in an evening ride, dull, monotonous, and
melancholy, as if we were in the vicinity of Hyderabad, Sindh.
I had often heard of a local lion, the Timpanogos Kanyon, and my
friends Captains Heth and Gove had obligingly offered to show me its
curiosities. After breakfast on the 23d of September--a bright warm
day--we set out in a good ambulance, well provided with the materials
of a two days’ picnic, behind a fine team of four mules, on the road
leading to the Utah Lake. After passing Simple Joe’s dug-out we sighted
the water once more; it was of a whitish-blue, like the milky waves of
Jordan, embosomed in the embrace of tall and bald-headed hills and
mountains, whose monarch was Nebo of the jagged cone. Where the wind
current sets there are patches of white sand strewn with broken shells
and dried water-weed. Near Pelican Point, a long, projecting rocky
spit, there is a fine feeding-ground for geese and ducks, and swimmers
and divers may always be seen dotting the surface. On the south rises a
conspicuous buttress of black rock, and thirty miles off we could see
enormous dust columns careering over the plain. The western part of
the valley, cut with suncracks and nullahs, and dotted with boulders,
shelves gradually upward from the selvage of the lake to small divides
and dwarf-hill ranges, black with cedar-bush, and traversed only by
wood roads. On the east is the best wheat country in this part of the
Territory; it is said to produce 106 bushels per acre.
[JORDAN BRIDGE.]
After seventeen miles we crossed Jordan Bridge, another rickety affair,
for which, being Mormon property, we paid 50 cents; had we been Saints
the expense would have been one half. Two more miles led us to Lehi, a
rough miniature of Great Salt Lake City, in which the only decent house
was the bishop’s; in British India it would have been the collector
and magistrate’s. My companions pointed out to me a hut in which
an apostate Mormon’s throat had been cut by blackened faces. It is
gratifying to observe that throughout the United States, as in the Old
Country, all historical interest pales before a barbarous murder. As we
advanced a wall of rock lay before us; the strata were in confusion as
if a convulsion had lately shuddered through their frame, and tumbled
fragments cumbered the base, running up by precipitous ascents to the
middle heights. The colors were as grotesque: the foreground was a mass
of emerald cane, high and bushy; beyond it, the near distance was pink
with the beautiful bloom most unpoetically termed “hogweed,” and azure
with a growth like the celebrated blue-grass of Kentucky; while the
wall itself was a bloodstone dark green with cedar--which, 100 feet
tall, was dwarfed to an inch--and red stained with autumnal maple, and
below and around the brightest yellow of the faded willow formed the
bezel, a golden rim.
[AMERICAN FORK.]
Two miles and a half from Lehi led us to American Fork, a soft sweet
spring of snow-water, with dark shells adhering to white stones, and
a quantity of trout swimming the limpid wave. The bridge was rickety
and loose planked--in fact, the worst I ever saw in the United States,
where, as a rule, the country bridges can never be crossed without
fear and trembling; the moderate toll was $1 both ways. Three miles
and a half more placed us at Battle Creek, where in 1853 the Yuta
Indians fled precipitately from a Mormon charge. Six miles over a
dusty beach conducted us to the mouth of the kanyon, a brown tract
crossed by a dusty road and many a spring, and showing the base of
the opposite wall encumbered with degraded masses, superimposed upon
which were miniature castles. The mouth of the ravine was a romantic
spot: the staples were sister giants of brown rock--here sheer, their
sloping--where pines and firs found a precarious root-hold, and ranged
in long perspective lines, while between them, through its channel,
verdant with willow, and over a clear pebbly bed, under the screes and
scaurs, coursed a mountain torrent more splendid than Ruknabad.
We forded the torrent and pursued the road, now hugging the right, then
the left side of the chasm. The latter was exceedingly beautiful, misty
with the blue of heaven, and rising till its solidity was blent with
the tenuity of ether. The rest of the scenery was that of the great
Cotton-wood Kanyon; painting might express the difference, language can
not. After six miles of a narrow winding road, we reached the place of
Cataracts, the principal lion of the place, and found that the season
had reduced them to two thin milky lines coursing down bitumen-colored
slopes of bare rock, bordered by shaggy forests of firs and cedars. The
shrinking of the water’s volume lay bare the formation of the cascades,
two steps and a slope, which at a happier time would have been veiled
by a continuous sheet of foam.
After finding a suitable spot we outspanned, and, while recruiting
exhausted nature, allowed our mules to roll and rest. After dining
and collecting a few shells, we remounted and drove back through a
magnificent sunset to American Fork, where the bishop, Mr. Lysander
Dayton, of Ohio, had offered us bed and board. The good episkopos
was of course a Mormon, as we could see by his two pretty wives; he
supplied us with an excellent supper as a host, not as an innkeeper.
The little settlement was Great Salt Lake City on a small scale--full
of the fair sex; every one, by-the-by, appeared to be, or about to be,
a mother. Fair, but, alas! not fair to us; it was verily
“Water, water every where,
And not a drop to drink!”
[THE OLD “DANITE.”]
Before setting out homeward on the next day we met O. Porter Rockwell,
and took him to the house with us. This old Mormon, in days gone by,
suffered or did not suffer imprisonment for shooting or not shooting
Governor Boggs, of Missouri: he now herds cattle for Messrs. Russell
and Co. His tastes are apparently rural; his enemies declare that
his life would not be safe in the City of the Saints. An attempt had
lately been made to assassinate him in one of the kanyons, and the
first report that reached my ears when _en route_ to California was
the murder of the old Danite by a certain Mr. Marony. He is one of
the triumvirate, the First Presidency of “executives,” the two others
being Ephe Hanks and Bill Hickman--whose names were loud in the land;
they are now, however, going down; middle age has rendered them
comparatively inactive, and the rising generation, Lot Huntington,
Ike Clawson, and other desperadoes, whose teeth and claws are full
grown, are able and willing to stand in their stead. Peter Rockwell
was a man about fifty, tall and strong, with ample leather leggins
overhanging his huge spurs, and the saw-handles of two revolvers
peeping from his blouse. His forehead was already a little bald, and
he wore his long grizzly locks after the ancient fashion of the United
States, plaited and gathered up at the nape of the neck; his brow,
puckered with frowning wrinkles, contrasted curiously with his cool,
determined gray eye, jolly red face, well touched up with “paint,”
and his laughing, good-humored mouth. He had the manner of a jovial,
reckless, devil-may-care English ruffian. The officers called him
Porter, and preferred him to the “slimy villains” who will drink with
a man and then murder him. After a little preliminary business about
a stolen horse, all conducted on the amiable, he pulled out a dollar,
and sent to the neighboring distillery for a bottle of Valley Tan. The
_aguardiente_ was smuggled in under a cloth, as though we had been
respectables in a Moslem country, and we were asked to join him in a
“squar’ drink,” which means spirits without water. The mode of drinking
was peculiar. Porter, after the preliminary sputation, raised the
glass with cocked little finger to his lips, with a twinkle of the eye
ejaculated “Wheat!” that is to say, “good,” and drained the tumbler
to the bottom: we acknowledged his civility with a “here’s how,” and
drank Kentucky-fashion, which in English is midshipman’s grog. Of these
“squar’ drinks” we had at least four, which, however, did not shake
Mr. Rockwell’s nerve, and then he sent out for more. Meanwhile he told
us his last adventure--how, when ascending the kanyon, he suddenly
found himself covered by two long rifles; how he had thrown himself
from his horse, drawn his revolver, and crept behind a bush, and how
he had dared the enemy to come out and fight like men. He spoke of
one Obry, a Frenchman, lately killed in a street-quarrel, who rode on
business from Santa Fé to Independence, about 600 miles, in 110 hours.
Porter offered, for the fun of the thing, to excel him by getting over
900 in 144. When he heard that I was preparing for California, he
gave me abundant good advice--to carry a double-barreled gun loaded
with buck-shot; to “keep my eyes skinned,” especially in kanyons and
ravines; to make at times a dark camp--that is to say, unhitching for
supper, and then hitching up and turning a few miles off the road;
ever to be ready for attack when the animals were being inspanned and
outspanned, and never to trust to appearances in an Indian country,
where the red varmint will follow a man for weeks, perhaps peering
through a wisp of grass on a hill-top till the time arrives for
striking the blow. I observed that, when thus speaking, Porter’s eyes
assumed the expression of an old mountaineer’s, ever rolling as if
set in quicksilver. For the purpose of avoiding “White Indians,” the
worst of their kind, he advised me to shun the direct route, which he
represented to be about as fit for traveling as is h--ll for a powder
magazine, and to journey _viâ_ Fillmore and the wonder-bearing White
Mountains;[225] finally, he comforted me with an assurance that either
the Indians would not attempt to attack us and our stock--ever a sore
temptation to them--or that they would assault us in force and “wipe us
out.”
[225] An emigrant company lately followed this road, and when obliged
by the death of their cattle to abandon their kit, they found on the
tramp a lump of virgin silver, which was carried to California: an
exploring party afterward dispatched failed, however, to make the
lead. At the western extremity of the White Mountains there is a
mammoth cave, of which one mile has been explored: it is said to end
in a precipice, and the enterprising Major Egan is eager to trace its
course.
When the drinking was finished we exchanged a cordial _poignée de main_
with Porter and our hospitable host, who appeared to be the _crême de
la crême_ of Utah County, and soon found ourselves again without the
limits of Camp Floyd.
On the evening of the 25th of September, the judge, accompanied by his
son and the Marshal of the Territory, entered the cantonment, and our
departure was fixed for the next day. The morning of the start was
spent in exchanging adieux and little gifts with men who had now become
friends, and in stirrup-cups which succeeded one another at no longer
intervals than quarter hours. Judge Crosby, who had arrived by the last
mail, kindly provided me with fishing-tackle which could relieve a diet
of eggs and bacon, and made me regret that I had not added to my outfit
a Maynard. This, the best of breech-loading guns, can also be loaded at
the muzzle; a mere carbine in size, it kills at 1300 yards, and in the
United States costs only $40 = £8. The judge, a remarkable contrast to
the usual Elijah Pogram style that still affects bird’s-eye or speckled
white tie, black satin waistcoat, and swallow-tailed coat of rusty
broadcloth, with terminations to match, had been employed for some time
in Oregon and at St. Juan: he knew one of my expatriated friends--poor
J. de C., whose exile we all lament--and he gave me introductions which
I found most useful in Carson Valley. Like the best Americans, he spoke
of the English as brothers, and freely owned the deficiencies of his
government, especially in dealing with the frontier Indians.
We started from Lieutenant Dudley’s hospitable quarters, where a crowd
had collected to bid us farewell. The ambulance, with four mules
driven by Mr. Kennedy in person, stood at the door, and the parting
stirrup-cup was exhibited with a will. I bade farewell with a true
regret to my kind and gallant hosts, whose brotherly attentions had
made even wretched Camp Floyd a pleasant _séjour_ to me. At the moment
I write it is probably desolate, the “Secession” disturbances having
necessitated the withdrawal of the unhappies from Utah Territory.
[JOHNSTON’S SETTLEMENT.]
About 4 P.M., as we mounted, a furious dust-storm broke over the plain;
perhaps it may account for our night’s _méprise_, which a censorious
reader might attribute to our copious libations of whisky. The road
to the first mail station, “Meadow Creek,” lay over a sage barren; we
lost no time in missing it by forging to the west. After hopelessly
driving about the country till 10 P.M. in the fine cool night, we
knocked at a hut, and induced the owner to appear. He was a Dane who
spoke but little English, and his son, “skeert” by our fierceness,
began at once to boo-hoo. At last, however, we were guided by our
“foreloper” to “Johnston’s settlement,” in Rock Valley, and we entered
by the unceremonious process of pulling down the zigzag fences. After
some trouble we persuaded a Mormon to quit the bed in which his wife
and children lay, to shake down for us sleeping-places among the cats
and hens on the floor, and to provide our animals with oats and hay.
Mr. Grice, the marshal, one of the handiest of men, who during his
volunteer service in Mexico had learned most things from carrying a
musket to cooking a steak, was kind enough to prepare our supper, after
which, still sorely laden with whisky dying within us, we turned in.
[A MEAN PLACE.]
_To Meadow Creek. 27th September._
We rose with the dawn, the cats, and the hens, sleep being impossible
after the first blush of light, and I proceeded to inspect the
settlement. It is built upon the crest of an earth-wave rising from
grassy hollows; the haystacks told of stock, and the bunch-grass on the
borders of the ravines and nullahs rendered the place particularly fit
for pasturage. The land is too cold for cereals: in its bleak bottoms
frost reigns throughout the year; and there is little bench-ground.
The settlement consisted of half a dozen huts, which swarmed, however,
with women and children. Mr. Kennedy introduced us to a Scotch widow
of mature years, who gave us any amount of butter and buttermilk in
exchange for a little tea. She was but a lukewarm Mormon, declaring
polygamy to be an abomination, complaining that she had been inveigled
to a mean place, and that the poor in Mormondom were exceedingly poor.
Yet the canny body was stout and fresh, her house was clean and neat,
and she washed her children and her potatoes.
We had wandered twenty-five miles out of the right road, and were
still distant fifteen to sixteen from the first mail station. For the
use of the floor, flies, and permission to boil water, we paid our
taciturn Mormon $2, and at noon, a little before the bursting of the
dusty storm-gusts, which reproduced the horrors of Sindh, we found
ourselves once more in the saddle and the ambulance. We passed by a
cattle track on rolling ground dotted with sage and greasewood, which
sheltered hosts of jackass-rabbits, and the sego with its beautiful
lily-like flowers. After crossing sundry nullahs and pitch-holes with
deep and rugged sides, we made the mail station at the west end of
Rush Valley, which is about twenty miles distant from Camp Floyd. The
little green bottom, with its rush-bordered sinking spring, is called
by Captain Simpson “Meadow Creek.” We passed a pleasant day in revolver
practice with Al. Huntington, the renowned brother of Lot, who had
lately bolted to South California, in attempts at rabbit-shooting--the
beasts became very wild in the evening--and in dining on an antelope
which a youth had ridden down and pistoled. With the assistance of the
station-master, Mr. Faust, a civil and communicative man, who added
a knowledge of books and drugs to the local history, I compiled an
account of the several lines of communication between Great Salt Lake
City and California.
Three main roads connect the land of the Saints with the El Dorado of
the West--the northern, the central, and the southern.
The northern road rounds the upper end of the Great Salt Lake, and
falls into the valleys of the Humboldt and Carson Rivers. It was
explored in 1845 by Colonel Frémont,[226] who, when passing over the
seventy waterless miles of the western, a continuation of the eastern
desert, lost ten mules and several horses. The “first overland trip”
was followed in 1846 by a party of emigrants under a Mr. Hastings,
who gave his name to the “cut-off” which has materially shortened the
distance. The road has been carefully described in Kelly’s California,
in Horn’s “Overland Guide,” and by M. Remy. It is still, despite its
length, preferred by travelers, on account of the abundance of grass
and water: moreover, there are now but two short stretches of desert.
[226] Explored is used in a modified sense. Every foot of ground
passed over by Colonel Frémont was perfectly well known to the old
trappers and traders, as the interior of Africa to the Arab and
Portuguese pombeiros. But this fact takes nothing away from the
honors of the man who first surveyed and scientifically observed
the country. Among those who preceded Colonel Frémont, the most
remarkable, perhaps, was Sylvester Pattie, a Virginian, who, having
lost his wife in his adopted home on the Missouri, resolved to trap
upon and to trace out the head-waters of the Yellow River. The little
company of five persons, among whom were Pattie and his son, set out
on the 20th of June, 1824, and on the 22d of August arrived at the
head-waters of the Platte, where they found General Pratt proceeding
toward Santa Fé. Pattie, in command of 116 men, crossed the dividing
ridge, descended into the valley of the Rio Grand del Norto, entered
Santa Fé, and trapped on the Gila River. The party broke up on the
27th of November, 1826, when Pattie, accompanied by his son and six
others, descended the Colorado, and, after incredible hardships,
reached the Hispano-American missions, where they were received
with the customary inhumanity. The father died in durance vile; the
son, after being released and vaccinated at San Diego, reached San
Francisco, whence he returned home _viâ_ Vera Cruz and New Orleans,
after an absence of six years. The whole tale is well told in
“Harper’s Magazine.”
[PIONEER EXPLORERS.]
The southern road, _viâ_ Fillmore and San Bernardino, to San Pedro,
where the traveler can embark for San Francisco, is long and tedious;
water is found at thirty-mile distances; there are three deserts; and
bunch and other grasses are not plentiful. It has one great merit,
namely, that of being rarely snowed up, except between the Rio Virgen
and Great Salt Lake City: the best traveling is in Spring, when the
melting snows from the eastern hills fill the rivulets. This route
has been traveled over by Messrs. Chandless and Remy, who have well
described it in their picturesque pages. I add a few notes, collected
from men who have ridden over the ground for several years, concerning
the stations: the information, however, it will be observed, is merely
hearsay.[227]
[227] The distance from Great Salt Lake City to San Bernardino is,
according to my informant, about 750 miles, and has been accomplished
in fourteen days. The road runs through Provo to Salt Cruz, formed by
a desert of 50-60 miles, and making Sevier River the half-way point
to the capital. At Corn Creek is an Indian farm, and Weaver is 64
miles from Fillmore. Cedar Spring is the entrance to Paravan Valley,
where as early as 1806 there was a fort and a settlement. Then comes
Fillmore, the territorial capital, and 96 miles afterward it passes
through Paravan City in Little Salt Lake Valley. At Cold Creek it
forks, the central road being that mostly preferred. The next station
is Mountain Meadows, the Southern Rim of the Basin, celebrated for
its massacre; ensues the Santa Clara River, and thence a total of 70
miles, divided into several stages, lead to the Rio Virgen. After
following the latter for 20-30 miles, the path crosses the divide
of Muddy River, and enters a desert 55-67 miles in breadth leading
to Las Vegas. Thirty miles beyond that point lies a pretty water
called “Mountain Springs,” a preliminary to “Dry Lake,” a second
desert 40-45 miles broad, and ending at an alkaline water called
Kingston Springs. The third desert, 40 miles broad, leads to a post
established for the protection of emigrants, and called Bitter or
Bidder’s Springs, 115 miles from Las Vegas. The next stage of 35 is
to the Indian River, a tributary of the Colorado, whence there is
another military establishment: the land is now Californian. Thence
following and crossing the course of the stream, the traveler sights
the Sierra Nevada. After 50 miles down the Mohave Kanyon is San
Bernardino, once a thriving Mormon settlement, 90 miles from San
Pedro and 120 from San Diego, where water conveyance is found to San
Francisco.
The central route is called Egan’s by the Mormons, Simpson’s by the
Gentiles. Mr. or Major Howard Egan is a Saint and well-known guide, an
indefatigable mountaineer, who for some time drove stock to California
in the employ of Messrs. Livingston, and who afterward became
mail-agent under Messrs. Chorpenning and Russell. On one occasion he
made the distance in twelve days, and he claims to have explored the
present post-office route between 1850 and the winter of 1857-1858.
Captain J. H. Simpson, of the federal army, whose itinerary is given
in Appendix I., followed between May and June, 1859. He traveled along
Egan’s path, with a few unimportant deviations, for 300 miles, and
left it ten miles west of Ruby Valley, trending southward to the suite
of the Carson River. On his return he pursued a more southerly line,
and fell into Egan’s route about thirty miles west of Camp Floyd. The
_employés_ of the route prefer Egan’s line, declaring that on Simpson’s
there is little grass, that the springs are mere fiumaras of melted
snow, and that the wells are waterless. Bad, however, is the best, as
the following pages will, I think, prove.
_To Tophet. 28th September._
On a cool and cloudy morning, which at 10 A.M. changed into a clear
sunny day, we set out, after paying $3 for three feeds, to make the
second station. Our road lay over the seven miles of plain that
ended Rush Valley: we saw few rabbits, and the sole vegetation was
stunted sage. Ensued a rough divide, stony and dusty, with cahues
and pitch-holes: it is known by the name of General Johnston’s
Pass. The hills above it are gray and bald-headed, a few bristles
of black cedar protruding from their breasts, and the land wears an
uninhabitable look. After two miles of toil we halted near the ruins
of an old station. On the right side of the road was a spring half way
up the hill: three holes lay full of slightly alkaline water, and the
surplus flowed off in a black bed of vegetable mud, which is often
dry in spring and summer. At “Point Look-out,” near the counterslope
of the divide, we left on the south Simpson’s route, and learned by a
sign-post that the distance to Carson is 533 miles. The pass led to
Skull Valley, of ominous sound. According to some, the name is derived
from the remains of Indians which are found scattered about a fine
spring in the southern parts. Others declare that the mortal remains
of bison here lie like pavement-stones or cannon balls in the Crimean
Valley of Death. Skull Valley stretches nearly southwest of the Great
Salt Lake plain, with which it communicates, and its drainage, as in
these parts generally, feeds the lake. Passing out of Skull Valley, we
crossed the cahues and pitch-holes of a broad bench which rose above
the edge of the desert, and after seventeen miles beyond the Pass
reached the station which Mormons call Egan’s Springs, anti-Mormons
Simpson’s Springs, and Gentiles Lost Springs.
Standing upon the edge of the bench, I could see the Tophet in prospect
for us till Carson Valley: a road narrowing in perspective to a point
spanned its grisly length, awfully long, and the next mail station
had shrunk to a little black knob. All was desert: the bottom could
no longer be called basin or valley: it was a thin fine silt, thirsty
dust in the dry season, and putty-like mud in the spring and autumnal
rains. The hair of this unlovely skin was sage and greasewood: it was
warted with sand-heaps; in places mottled with bald and horrid patches
of salt soil, while in others minute crystals of salt, glistening
like diamond-dust in the sunlight, covered tracts of moist and oozy
mud. Before us, but a little to the right or north, and nearly due
west of Camp Floyd, rose Granite Mountain, a rough and jagged spine
or hog’s-back, inhabited only by wolves and antelopes, hares and
squirrels, grasshoppers, and occasionally an Indian family. Small sweet
springs are found near its northern and southern points. The tradition
of the country declares it to be rich in gold, which, however, no
one dares to dig. Our road is about to round the southern extremity,
wheeling successively S. and S.E., then W. and N.W., then S.W. and
S.E., and S.W. and N.W.--in fact, round three quarters of the compass;
and for three mortal days we shall sight its ugly frowning form. A
direct passage leads between it and the corresponding point of the
southern hill: we contemplate, through the gap, a blue ridge where lies
Willow-Spring Station, the destination of our party after to-morrow;
but the straight line which saves so much distance is closed by bogs
for the greater part of the year, and the size of the wild sage would
impede our wagon-wheels.
[THE GREAT DESERT.]
The great desert of Utah Territory extends in length about 300 miles
along the western side of the Great Salt Lake. Its breadth varies: a
little farther south it can not be crossed, the water, even where not
poisonous, being insufficient. The formation is of bottoms like that
described above, bench-lands, with the usual parallel and perfectly
horizontal water-lines, leaving regular steps, as the sea settled down,
by the gradual upheaval of the land. They mark its former elevation
upon the sides of the many detached ridges trending mostly N. and S.
Like the rim of the Basin, these hills are not a single continuous
mountain range which might be flanked, but a series of disconnected
protrusions above the general level of the land. A paying railway
through this country is as likely as a profitable canal through the
Isthmus of Suez: the obstacles must be struck at right angles, with
such assistance as the rough kanyons and the ravines of various levels
afford.
We are now in a country dangerous to stock. It is a kind of central
point, where Pávant, Gosh Yuta (popularly called Gosh Ute), and Panak
(Bannacks) meet. Watches, therefore, were told off for the night.
Next morning, however, it was found that all had stood on guard with
unloaded guns.
_To Fish Springs. 29th September._
[OUR PARTY.]
At Lost Springs the party was mustered. The following was found to
be the material. The Ras Kafilah was one Kennedy, an Irishman, whose
brogue, doubly Dublin, sounded startlingly in the Great American
Desert. On a late trip he had been victimized by Indians. The savages
had driven off two of his horses into a kanyon within sight of the
Deep-Creek Station. In the hurry of pursuit he spurred up the ravine,
followed by a friend, when, sighting jerked meat, his own property,
upon the trees, he gave the word _sauve qui peut_. As they whirled
their horses the Yutas rushed down the hill to intercept them at the
mouth of the gorge, calling them in a loud voice dogs and squaws, and
firing sundry shots, which killed Kennedy’s horse and pierced his right
arm. Most men, though they jest at scars before feeling a wound, are
temporarily cowed by an infliction of the kind, and of that order was
the good Kennedy.
The next was an excellent traveler, by name Howard. On the road between
Great Salt Lake City and Camp Floyd I saw two men, who addressed me as
Mr. Kennedy the boss, and, finding out their mistake, followed us to
the place of rendezvous. The party, with one eye gray and the other
black, mounted upon a miserable pony, was an American. After a spell at
the gold diggings of California he had revisited the States, and he now
wished to return to his adopted country without loss of time. He was a
hardy, fine-tempered fellow, exceedingly skilled in driving stock. His
companion was a Frenchman and ex-Zouave, who, for reasons best known
to himself, declared that he came from Cuba, and that he had forgotten
every word of Spanish. Like foreigners among Anglo-Scandinavians
generally, the poor devil fared badly. He could not hold his own. With
the most labor, he had the worst of every thing. He felt himself _mal
placé_, and before the end of the journey he slunk away.
At Lost Springs we were joined by two Mormon fugitives, “pilgrims of
love,” who had, it was said, secretly left the city at night, fearing
the consequences of having “loved not wisely, but too well.” The first
of the Lotharios was a Mr. R----, an English farrier-blacksmith,
mounted upon an excellent horse and leading another. He soon took
offense at our slow rate of progress, and, afflicted by the thought
that the avenger was behind him, left us at Deep Creek, and “made
tracks” to Carson City in ten days, with two horses and a total
traveling kit of two blankets. We traced him to California by the
trail of falsehoods which he left on the road. His comrade, Mr. A----,
a New Englander, was also an apostate Mormon, a youth of good family
and liberal education, who, after ruining himself by city sites and
copper mines on Lake Superior, had permanently compromised himself
with society by becoming a Saint. Also a Lothario, he had made his
escape, and he proved himself a good and useful member of society. I
could not but admire the acuteness of both these youths, who, flying
from justice, had placed themselves under the protection of a judge.
They reminded me of a debtor friend who found himself secure from the
bailiff only within the walls of Spike Island or Belvidere Place,
Southwark.
Another notable of the party was an apostate Jew and _soi disant_
apostate Mormon who answered to the name of Rose. He had served as
missionary in the Sandwich Islands, and he spoke Kanaka like English.
His features were those which Mr. Thackeray loves to delineate;
his accents those which Robson delights to imitate. He denied his
connection with the Hebrews. He proved it by eating more, by driving
a better bargain, by doing less work than any of the party. It was
truly refreshing to meet this son of old Houndsditch in the land of
the Saints, under the shadow of New Zion, and the only drawback to our
enjoyment was the general suspicion that the honorable name of apostate
covered the less respectable calling of spy. He contrasted strongly
with Jim Gilston of Illinois, a lath-like specimen of humanity,
some six feet four in length--a perfect specimen of the Indianized
white, long hair, sun-tanned, and hatchet-faced; running like an
ostrich, yelping like a savage, and ready to take scalp at the first
provocation. He could not refrain, as the end of the journey drew
nigh, from deserting without paying his passage. Mr. Colville, a most
determined Yankee, far advanced in years, was equally remarkable.
He had $90 in his pocket. He shivered for want of a blanket, and he
lived on hard bread, bacon, and tea, of which no man was ever seen to
partake. Such were the seven “free men,” the independent traders of the
company. There were also six “broths of boys,” who paid small sums up
to $40 for the benefit of our escort, and who were expected to drive
and to do general work. Traveling soon makes friends. No illusions of
_amicitia_, however, could blind my eyes to the danger of entering an
Indian country with such an escort. Untried men for the most part, they
would have discharged their weapons in the air and fled at the whoop
of an Indian, all of them, including Jake the Shoshonee, who had been
permitted to accompany us as guide, and excepting our stanch ones,
Howard, “Billy” the colt, and “Brandy” the dog.
[“GENTLE ANNIE.”--“YOU _BET_.”]
The station was thrown somewhat into confusion by the presence of a
petticoat, an article which in these regions never fails to attract
presents of revolvers and sides of bacon. “Gentle Annie,” attended by
three followers, was passing in an ambulance from California to Denver
City, where her “friend” was. To most of my companions’ inquiries about
old acquaintances in California, she replied, in Western phrase, that
the individual subject of their solicitude had “got to git up and git,”
which means that he had found change of air and scene advisable. Most
of her sentences ended with a “you _bet_,” even under circumstances
where such operation would have been quite uncalled for. So it is
related that when Dr. P----, of Camp Floyd, was attending Mrs. A. B. C.
at a most critical time, he asked her tenderly, “Do you suffer much,
Mrs. C.?” to which the new matron replied, “You _bet_!”
We set out about noon, on a day hot as midsummer by contrast with the
preceding nights, for a long spell of nearly fifty miles. Shortly
after leaving the station the road forks. The left-hand path leads to
a grassy spring in a dwarf kanyon near the southern or upper part of a
river bottom, where emigrants are fond of camping. The hills scattered
around the basin were of a dark metallic stone, sunburnt to chocolate.
The strata were highly tilted up and the water-lines distinctly drawn.
After eight miles we descended into the yellow silty bed of a bald
and barren fiumara, which was not less than a mile broad. The good
judge sighed when he contrasted it with Monongahela, the “river of the
falling banks.” It flows northward, and sinks near the western edge of
the lake. At times it runs three feet of water. The hills around are
white-capped throughout the winter, but snow seldom lies more than a
week in the bottoms.
After twenty miles over the barren plain we reached, about sunset,
the station at the foot of the Dugway. It was a mere “dug-out”--a
hole four feet deep, roofed over with split cedar trunks, and
provided with a rude adobe chimney. The tenants were two rough young
fellows--station-master and express rider--with their friend, an
English bull-dog. One of them had amused himself by decorating the
sides of the habitation with niches and Egyptian heads. Rude art seems
instinctively to take that form which it wears on the banks of Nilus,
and should some Professor Rafinesque discover these traces of the
aborigines after a sepulture of a century, they will furnish materials
for a rich chapter on ante-Columbian immigration. Water is brought to
the station in casks. The youths believe that some seven miles north of
the “Dugway” there is a spring, which the Indians, after the fashion of
that folk, sensibly conceal from the whites. Three wells have been sunk
near the station. Two soon led to rock; the third has descended 120
feet, but is still bone dry. It passes first through a layer of surface
silt, then through three or four feet of loose, friable, fossilless,
chalky lime, which, when slaked, softened, and, mixed with sand, is
used as mortar. The lowest strata are of quartz gravel, forming in the
deeper parts a hard conglomerate. The workmen complained greatly of the
increasing heat as they descend. Gold now becomes uppermost in man’s
mind. The youths, seeing me handle the rubbish, at once asked me if I
was prospecting for gold.
After roughly supping we set out, with a fine round moon high in the
skies, to ascend the “Dugway Pass” by a rough dusty road winding
round the shoulder of a hill, through which a fiumara has burst its
way. Like other Utah mountains, the highest third rises suddenly
from a comparatively gradual incline, a sore formation for cattle,
requiring draught to be at least doubled. Arriving on the summit, we
sat down, while our mules returned to help the baggage-wagons, and
amused ourselves with the strange aspect of the scene. To the north, or
before us, and far below, lay a long broad stretch, white as snow--the
Saleratus Desert, west of the Great Salt Lake. It wore a grisly aspect
in the silvery light of the moon. Behind us was the brown plain,
sparsely dotted with shadows, and dewless in the evening as in the
morning. As the party ascended the summit with much noisy shouting,
they formed a picturesque group--the well-bred horses wandering to
graze, the white-tilted wagons with their panting mules, and the men
in felt capotes and huge leather leggins. In honor of our good star
which had preserved every hoof from accident, we “liquored up” on that
summit, and then began the descent.
[THE DEVIL’S HOLE.]
Having reached the plain, the road ran for eight miles over a broken
surface, with severe pitch-holes and wagon-tracks which have lasted
many a month; it then forked. The left, which is about six miles the
longer of the two, must be taken after rains, and leads to the Devil’s
Hole, a curious formation in a bench under “High Mountain,” about
ninety miles from Camp Floyd, and south, with a little westing, of the
Great Salt Lake. The Hole is described as shaped like the frustrum of
an inverted cone, forty feet in diameter above, twelve to fifteen
below. As regards the depth, four lariats of forty feet each, and a
line at the end, did not, it is said, reach the bottom. Captain Simpson
describes the water as brackish. The drivers declare it to be half
salt. The Devil’s Hole is popularly supposed to be an air-vent or
shaft communicating with the waters of the Great Salt Lake in their
subterraneous journey to the sea (Pacific Ocean). An object cast into
it, they say, is sucked down and disappears; hence, if true, probably
the theory.
[SLOUGHS.]
We chose the shorter cut, and, after eight miles, rounded Mountain
Point, the end of a dark brown butte falling into the plain. Opposite
us and under the western hills, which were distant about two miles,
lay the station, but we were compelled to double, for twelve miles,
the intervening slough, which no horse can cross without being mired.
The road hugged the foot of the hills at the edge of the saleratus
basin, which looked like a furrowed field in which snow still lingers.
In places, warts of earth tufted with greasewood emerged from hard,
flaky, curling silt-cakes; in others, the salt frosted out of the damp
black earth like the miniature sugar-plums upon chocolate bonbons. We
then fell into a saline resembling freshly-fallen snow. The whiteness
changes to a slaty blue, like a frozen pond when the water still
underlies it; and, to make the delusion perfect, the black rutted path
looked as if lately cut out after a snow-storm. Weird forms appeared in
the moonlight. A line of sand-heaps became a row of railroad cars; a
raised bench was mistaken for a paling; and the bushes were any thing
between a cow and an Indian. This part of the road must be terrible in
winter; even in the fine season men are often compelled to unpack half
a dozen times.
After ascending some sand-hills we halted for the party to form up
in case of accident, and Mr. Kennedy proceeded to inspect while we
prepared for the worst part of the stage--the sloughs. These are three
in number, one of twenty and the two others of 100 yards in length.
The tule, the bayonet-grass, and the tall rushes enable animals to
pass safely over the deep slushy mud, but when the vegetation is well
trodden down, horses are in danger of being permanently mired. The
principal inconvenience to man is the infectious odor of the foul
swamps. Our cattle were mad with thirst; however, they crossed the
three sloughs successfully, although some had nearly made Dixie’s Land,
in the second.
Beyond the sloughs we ascended a bench, and traveled on an improved
road. We passed sundry circular ponds garnished with rush; the water
is sulphury, and, according to the season, is warm, hot, or cold. Some
of these debord, and send forth what the Somal would call Biya Gora,
“night-flowing streams.” About 3 A.M., cramped with cold, we sighted
the station, and gave the usual “Yep! yep!” A roaring fire soon revived
us; the strong ate supper and the weak went to bed, thus ending a
somewhat fatiguing day.
_To Willow Creek. 30th September._
On this line there are two kinds of stations--the mail station, where
there is an agent in charge of five or six “boys,” and the express
station--every second--where there is only a master and an express
rider. The boss receives $50-$75 per mensem, the boy $35. It is a
hard life, setting aside the chance of death--no less than three
murders have been committed by the Indians during this year--the work
is severe; the diet is sometimes reduced to wolf-mutton, or a little
boiled wheat and rye, and the drink to brackish water; a pound of
tea comes occasionally, but the droughty souls are always “out” of
whisky and tobacco. At “Fish Springs,” where there is little danger of
savages, two men had charge of the ten horses and mules; one of these
was a German Swiss from near Schaffhausen, who had been digging for
gold to little purpose in California.
A clear cool morning succeeding the cold night aroused us betimes.
Nature had provided an ample supply of warm water, though slightly
sulphury, in the neighboring pot-holes, and at a little distance
from the station was one conveniently cool. The fish from which the
formation derives its name is a perch-like species, easily caught on a
cloudy day. The men, like the citizens of Suez, accustom themselves to
the “rotten water,” as strangers call it, and hardly relish the purer
supplies of Simpson’s Springs or Willow Springs: they might have built
the station about one mile north, near a natural well of good cool
water, but apparently they prefer the warm bad.
The saleratus valley looked more curious in daylight than in moonlight.
The vegetation was in regular scale; smallest, the rich bunch-grass
on the benches; then the greasewood and the artemisia, where the
latter can grow; and largest of all, the dwarf cedar. All was of
lively hue, the herbage bright red, yellow, and sometimes green, the
shrubs were gray and glaucous, the cedars almost black, and the rim
of hills blue-brown and blue. We had ample time to contemplate these
curiosities, for Kennedy, whose wits, like those of Hiranyaka, the
mouse, were mightily sharpened by the possession of wealth, had sat up
all night, and wanted a longer sleep in the morning. After a breakfast
which the water rendered truly detestable, we hitched up about 10 A.M.,
and set out _en route_ for Willow Springs.
[THE DESERT VIEW.]
About an hour after our departure we met the party commanded by
Lieutenant Weed, two subaltern officers, ninety dragoons, and ten
wagons; they had been in the field since May, and had done good service
against the Gosh Yutas. We halted and “liquored up,” and, after
American fashion, talked politics in the wilderness. Half an hour then
led us to what we christened “Kennedy’s Hole,” another circular bowl,
girt with grass and rush, in the plain under a dark brown rock, with
black bands and scatters of stone. A short distance beyond, and also on
the right of the road, lay the “Poison Springs,” in a rushy bed: the
water was temptingly clear, but the bleached bones of many a quadruped
skeleton bade us beware of it. After turning a point we saw in front a
swamp, the counterpart of what met our eyes last night; it renewed also
the necessity of rounding it by a long southerly sweep. The scenery was
that of the Takhashshua near Zayla, or the delicious land behind Aden,
the Arabian sea-board. Sand-heaps--the only dry spots after rain--fixed
by tufts of metallic green salsolæ, and guarded from the desert wind
by rusty cane-grass, emerged from the wet and oozy plain, in which
the mules often sank to the fetlock. The unique and snowy floor of
thin nitre, bluish where deliquescent, was here solid as a sheet of
ice; there a net-work of little ridges, as if the salt had expanded
by crystallization, with regular furrows worked by rain. After heavy
showers it becomes a soft, slippery, tenacious, and slushy mud, that
renders traveling exceeding laborious; the glare is blinding by day,
and at night the refrigerating properties of the salt render the wind
bitterly cold, even when the mercury stands at 50° F.
[SPORTING.]
We halted to bait at the half-way house, the fork of the road leading
to Pleasant Valley, an unpleasant place, so called because discovered
on a pleasant evening. As we advanced the land improved, the salt
disappeared, the grass was splendidly green, and, approaching the
station, we passed Willow Creek, where gophar-holes and snipes, willows
and wild roses, told of life and gladdened the eye. The station lay
on a bench beyond the slope. The express rider was a handsome young
Mormon, who wore in his felt hat the effigy of a sword; his wife was
an Englishwoman, who, as usual under the circumstances, had completely
thrown off the Englishwoman. The station-keeper was an Irishman, one
of the few met among the Saints. Nothing could be fouler than the log
hut; the flies soon drove us out of doors; hospitality, however, was
not wanting, and we sat down to salt beef and bacon, for which we were
not allowed to pay. The evening was spent in setting a wolf-trap,
which consisted of a springy pole and a noose: we strolled about after
sunset with a gun, but failed to bag snipe, wild-fowl, or hare, and
sighted only a few cunning old crows, and black swamp-birds with yellow
throats. As the hut contained but one room, we slept outside. The Gosh
Yuta are apparently not a venturesome people; still, it is considered
advisable at times to shift one’s sleeping quarters, and to acquire the
habit of easily awaking.
_To Deep Creek and halt. 1st and 2d of October, 1860._
A “little war” had been waging near Willow Springs. In June the station
was attacked by a small band of Gosh Yuta, of whom three were shot
and summarily scalped; an energetic proceeding, which had prevented
a repetition of the affair. The savages, who are gathering their
pine-nut harvest, and are driven by destitution to beg at the stations,
to which one meal a week will attach them, are now comparatively
peaceful: when the emigration season recommences they are expected
to be troublesome, and their numbers--the Pa Yutas can bring 12,000
warriors into the field--render them formidable. “Jake,” the Shoshonee,
who had followed us from Lost Springs, still considered his life in
danger; he was as unwilling to wend his way alone as an Arab Bedouin
or an African negro in their respective interiors. With regard to
ourselves, Lieutenant Weed had declared that there was no danger; the
station people thought, on the contrary, that the snake, which had
been scotched, not killed, would recover after the departure of the
soldiers, and that the work of destruction had not been carried on with
sufficient vigor.
At 6 A.M. the thermometer showed 45° F.; we waited two hours, till the
world had time to warm. After six miles we reached “Mountain Springs,”
a water-sink below the bench-land, tufted round with cotton-wood,
willow, rose, cane, and grass. On our right, or eastward, lay Granite
Rock, which we had well-nigh rounded, and through a gap we saw
Lost-Springs Station, distant apparently but a few hours’ canter.
Between us, however, lay the horrible salt plain--a continuation of the
low lands bounding the western edge of the Great Salt Lake--which the
drainage of the hills over which we were traveling inundates till June.
After twelve miles over the bench we passed a dark rock, which protects
a water called Reading’s Springs, and we halted to form up at the mouth
of Deep-Creek Kanyon. This is a dangerous gorge, some nine miles long,
formed by a water-course which sheds into the valley of the Great Salt
Lake. Here I rode forward with “Jim,” a young express rider from the
last station, who volunteered much information upon the subject of
Indians. He carried two Colt’s revolvers, of the dragoon or largest
size, considering all others too small. I asked him what he would do if
a Gosh Yuta appeared. He replied that if the fellow were civil he might
shake hands with him, if surly he would shoot him; and, at all events,
when riding away, that he would keep a “stirrup eye” upon him: that he
was in the habit of looking round corners to see if any one was taking
aim, in which case he would throw himself from the saddle, or rush
on, so as to spoil the shooting--the Indians, when charged, becoming
excited, fire without effect. He mentioned four Red Men who could “draw
a bead” against any white; usually, however, they take a minute to
load; they require a long aim, and they stint their powder. He pointed
out a place where Miller, one of the express riders, had lately been
badly wounded, and lost his horse. Nothing, certainly, could be better
fitted for an ambuscade than this gorge, with its caves and holes in
snow-cuts, earth-drops, and lines of strata, like walls of rudely-piled
stone; in one place we saw the ashes of an Indian encampment; in
another, a whirlwind, curling, as smoke would rise, from behind a
projecting spur, made us advance with the greatest caution.
As we progressed the valley opened out, and became too broad to be
dangerous. Near the summit of the pass the land is well lined with
white sage, which may be used as fodder, and a dwarf cedar adorns the
hills. The ground gives out a hollow sound, and the existence of a
spring in the vicinity is suspected. Descending the western water-shed,
we sighted, in Deep-Creek Valley, St. Mary’s County, the first patch of
cultivation since leaving Great Salt Lake. The Indian name is Aybá-pá,
or the Clay-colored Water; pity that America and Australia have not
always preserved the native local terms. It is bisected by a rivulet
in which three streamlets from the southern hills unite; like these
features generally, its course is northward till it sinks: fields
extend about one mile from each bank, and the rest of the yellow bottom
is a tapestry of wire grass and wheat grass. An Indian model farm
had been established here; the war, however, prevented cultivation;
the savages had burned down the house, and several of them had been
killed by the soldiers. On the west of the valley were white rocks of
the lime used for mortar: the hills also showed lias and marble-like
limestones. The eastern wall was a grim line of jagged peaks, here
bare with granite, there black with cedar; they are crossed by a short
cut leading to the last station, which, however, generally proves the
longest way, and in a dark ravine Kennedy pointed out the spot where he
had of late nearly left his scalp. Coal is said to be found there in
chunks, and gold is supposed to abound; the people, however, believing
that the valley can not yet support extensive immigration, conceal it
probably by “counsel.”
[DEEP-CREEK STATION.--MR. WADDINGTON.]
At 4 P.M. we reached the settlement, consisting of two huts and a
station-house, a large and respectable-looking building of unburnt
brick, surrounded by fenced fields, water-courses, and stacks of good
adobe. We were introduced to the Mormon station-master, Mr. Sevier,
and others. They are mostly farm-laborers, who spend the summer here
and supply the road with provisions: in the winter they return to
Grantsville, where their families are settled. Among them was a Mr.
Waddington, an old Pennsylvanian and a bigoted Mormon. It is related
of him that he had treasonably saved 300 Indians by warning them of
an intended attack by the federal troops. He spoke strongly in favor
of the despised Yutas, declared that they are ready to work, and can
be led to any thing by civility. The anti-Mormons declared that his
praise was for interested motives, wishing the savages to labor for him
gratis; and I observed that when Mr. Waddington started to cut wood in
the kanyon, he set out at night, lest his dust should be seen by his
red friends.
The Mormons were not wanting in kindness; they supplied us with
excellent potatoes, and told us to make their house our home. We
preferred, however, living and cooking afield. The station was dirty to
the last degree: the flies suggested the Egyptian plague; they could
be brushed from the walls in thousands; but, though sage makes good
brooms, no one cares to sweep clean. This, I repeat, is not Mormon,
but Western: the people, like the Spaniards, apparently disdain any
occupation save that of herding cattle, and will do so till the land is
settled. In the evening Jake the Shoshonee came in, grumbling loudly
because he had not been allowed to ride; he stood cross-legged like an
African, ate a large supper at the station, and a second with us. No
wonder that the savage in civilization suffers, like the lady’s lapdog,
from “liver.” He was, however, a first-rate hand in shirking any work
except that of peering and peeping into every thing; neither Gospel
nor gunpowder can reform this race. Mr.R----, the English farrier and
Lothario, left us on this day, after a little quarrel with Kennedy. We
were glad to receive permission to sleep upon the loose wheat in an
inner room: at 8 A.M. the thermometer had shown 59° F., but on this
night ice appeared in the pails.
The next day was a halt; the stock wanted rest and the men provisions.
A “beef”--the Westerns still retain the singular of “beeves”--was
killed, and we obtained a store of potatoes and wheat. Default of oats,
which are not common, this heating food is given to horses--12 lbs.
of grain to 14 of long forage--and the furious riding of the Mormons
is the only preventive of its evil effects. The people believe that
it causes stumbling by the swelling of the fetlock and knee joint;
similarly every East Indian ghorewalla will declare that wheaten bread
makes a horse tokkar khana--“eat trips.” The _employés_ of the station
were quiet and respectable, a fact attributed by some of our party to
the want of liquor, which is said to cause frequent fights. Our party
was less peaceable; there had been an extensive prigging of blankets;
the cold now made them valuable, and this drove the losers “fighting
mad.”
_En route again. 3d October._
The severity of the last night made us active; the appearance of deep
snow upon the mountains and of ice in the valleys was an intelligible
hint that the Sierra Nevada which lay before us would be by no means
an easy task. Despite, therefore, the idleness always engendered by a
halt, and the frigid blasts which poured down from the eastern hills,
where rain was falling in torrents, we hitched up, bade adieu to our
Mormon host, and set out about 4 P.M. Antelope Springs, the next
station, was 30 miles distant; we resolved, therefore, to divide it,
after the fashion of Asia and Africa, by a short forenoon march.
The road runs to the southwest down the Deep-Creek Valley, and along
the left bank of the western rivulet. Near the divide we found a
good bottom, with plenty of water and grass; the only fuel was the
sage-bush, which crackled merrily, like thorns, under the pot, but
tainted the contents with its medicinal odor. The wagons were drawn
up in a half circle to aid us in catching the mules; the animals were
turned out to graze, the men were divided into watches, and the masters
took up their quarters in the wagons. Age gave the judge a claim to the
ambulance, which was admitted by all hands; I slept with “Scotch Joe,”
an exceedingly surly youth, who apparently preferred any thing to work.
At 8 P.M. a storm of wind and rain burst upon us from the S.W.: it was
so violent that the wagons rocked before the blast, and at times the
chance of a capsize suggested itself. The weather was highly favorable
for Indian plundering, who on such nights expect to make a successful
attack.
_To the Wilderness. 4th October._
[EIGHT-MILE SPRINGS.]
We awoke early in the frigid S.W. wind, the thermometer showing 39° F.
After a few hundred yards we reached “Eight-mile Springs,” so called
from the distance to Deep Creek. The road, which yesterday would have
been dusty to the hub, was now heavy and viscid; the rain had washed
out the saleratus, and the sight and scent, and the country generally,
were those of the environs of a horse-pond. An ugly stretch of two
miles, perfectly desert, led to Eight-mile-Spring Kanyon, a jagged
little ravine about 500 yards long, with a portaled entrance of tall
rock. It is not, however, considered dangerous.
Beyond the kanyon lay another grisly land, if possible more deplorable
than before; its only crops were dust and mud. On the right hand were
turreted rocks, around whose base ran Indian trails, and a violent
west wind howled over their summits. About 1 30 P.M. we came upon the
station at Antelope Springs: it had been burned by the Gosh Yutas in
the last June, and had never been rebuilt. “George,” our cook, who had
been one of the inmates at the time, told us how he and his _confrères_
had escaped. Fortunately, the corral still stood: we found wood in
plenty, water was lying in an adjoining bottom, and we used the two to
brew our tea.
[SHELL CREEK.]
Beyond Antelope Springs was Shell Creek, distant thirty miles by
long road and eighteen by the short cut. We had some difficulty in
persuading Kennedy to take the latter; property not only sharpens the
intellect, it also generates prudence, and the ravine is a well-known
place for ambush. Fortunately two express riders came in and offered
to precede us, which encouraged us. About 3 P.M. we left the springs
and struck for the mouth of the kanyon, which has not been named;
Sevier and Farish are the rival claimants. Entering the jagged fir
and pine-clad breach, we found the necessity of dismounting. The bed
was dry--it floods in spring and autumn--but very steep, and in a
hole on the right stood water, which we did not touch for fear of
poison. Reaching the summit in about an hour we saw below the shaggy
foreground of evergreens, or rather ever-blacks, which cast grotesque
and exaggerated shadows in the last rays of day, the snowy-white
mountains, gloriously sunlit, on the far side of Shell Creek. Here for
the first time appeared the piñon pine (_P. Monophyllus_), which forms
the principal part of the Indian’s diet; it was no beauty to look upon,
a dwarfish tree, rendered shrub-like by being feathered down to the
ground. The nut is ripe in early autumn, at which time the savages stow
away their winter provision in dry ravines and pits. The fruit is about
the size of a pistachio, with a decided flavor of turpentine, tolerably
palatable, and at first laxative. The cones are thrown upon the fire,
and when slightly burnt the nuts are easily extracted; these are eaten
raw, or like the Hindoo’s toasted grains. The harvest is said to fail
every second year. Last season produced a fine crop, while in this
autumn many of the trees were found, without apparent reason but frost,
dead.
We resumed the descent along a fiumara, which presently “sank,” and at
5 P.M. halted in a prairillon somewhat beyond. Bunch-grass, sage-fuel,
and water were abundant, but the place was favorable for an attack.
It is a golden rule in an Indian country never to pitch near trees or
rocks that can mask an approach, and we were breaking it in a place of
danger. However, the fire was extinguished early, so as to prevent its
becoming a mark for Indians, and the pickets, placed on both sides of
the ravine, were directed to lie motionless a little below the crest,
and to fire at the first comer. I need hardly say we were not murdered;
the cold, however, was uncommonly piercing.
_To “Robber’s Roost.” 5th October._
We set out at 6 A.M. the next morning, through a mixture of snow and
hail and howling wind, to finish the ravine, which was _in toto_
eight miles long. The descent led us to Spring Valley, a bulge in the
mountains about eight miles broad, which a sharp divide separates from
Shell Valley, its neighbor. On the summit we fell into the line of
rivulet which gives the low lands a name. At the foot of the descent
we saw a woodman, and presently the station. Nothing could more want
tidying than this log hut, which showed the bullet-marks of a recent
Indian attack. The master was a Français de France, Constant Dubail,
and an ex-Lancier: his mother’s gossip had received a remittance of
2000 francs from a son in California, consequently he had torn himself
from the _sein_ of _sa pauvre mère_, and with three others had started
in search of fortune, and had nearly starved. The express riders were
three roughs, of whom one was a Mormon. We passed our time while the
mules were at bait in visiting the springs. There is a cold creek 200
yards below the station, and close by the hut a warm rivulet, said to
contain leeches. The American hirudo, however, has a serious defect
in a leech--it will not bite; the faculty, therefore, are little
addicted to hirudination; country doctors rarely keep the villainous
bloodsuckers, and only the wealthy can afford the pernicious luxury,
which, imported from Spain, costs $12 per dozen, somewhat the same
price as oysters at Nijni Novgorod.
The weather, which was vile till 10 A.M., when the glass showed 40°
(F.), promised to amend, and as the filthy hole--still full of flies,
despite the cold--offered no attraction, we set out at 2 P.M. for
Egan’s Station, beyond an ill-omened kanyon of the same name. We
descended into a valley by a regular slope--in proportion as we leave
distance between us and the Great Salt Lake the bench formation on this
line becomes less distinct--and traversed a barren plain by a heavy
road. Hares and prairie-hens seemed, however, to like it, and a frieze
of willow thicket at the western end showed the presence of water. We
in the ambulance halted at the mouth of the kanyon; the stock and the
boys had fallen far behind, and the place had an exceedingly bad name.
But the cold was intense, the shades of evening were closing in, so we
made ready for action, looked to the priming of gun and revolver, and
then _en avant_! After passing that kanyon we should exchange the land
of the Gosh Yuta for those of the more friendly Shoshonee.
[AN UGLY PLACE.]
An uglier place for sharp-shooting can hardly be imagined. The floor
of the kanyon is almost flush with the bases of the hills, and in such
formations, the bed of the creek which occupies the sole is rough
and winding. The road was vile--now winding along, then crossing the
stream--hedged in with thicket and dotted with boulders. Ahead of us
was a rocky projection which appeared to cross our path, and upon this
Point Dangerous every eye was fixed.
[COLD COMFORT.]
Suddenly my eye caught sight of one fire--two fires under the black
bunch of firs half way up the hill-side on our left, and as suddenly
they were quenched, probably with snow. Nothing remained but to hear
the war-whoop, and to see a line of savages rushing down the rocks.
We loosed the doors of the ambulance, that we might jump out, if
necessary, and tree ourselves behind it; and knowing that it would be
useless to return, drove on at our fastest speed, with sleet, snow,
and wind in our faces. Under the circumstances, it was cold comfort
to find, when we had cleared the kanyon, that Egan’s Station at the
farther mouth had been reduced to a chimney-stack and a few charred
posts. The Gosh Yutas had set fire to it two or three days before
our arrival, in revenge for the death of seventeen of their men by
Lieutenant Weed’s party. We could distinguish the pits from which the
wolves had torn up the corpses, and one fellow’s arm projected from
the snow. After a hurried deliberation, in which Kennedy swore, with
that musical voice in which the Dublin swains delight, that “shure
we were all kilt”--the possession of property not only actuates the
mind, and adds industry to its qualities, it also produces a peculiar
development of cautiousness--we unhitched the mules, tethered them to
the ambulance, and planted ourselves behind the palisade, awaiting all
comers, till the boys could bring re-enforcement. The elements fought
for us: although two tongues of high land directly in front of us would
have formed a fine mask for approach, the snow lay in so even a sheet
that a prowling coyote was detected, and the hail-like sleet which beat
fiercely on our backs would have been a sore inconvenience to a party
attacking in face. Our greatest disadvantage was the extreme cold; it
was difficult to keep a finger warm enough to draw a trigger. Thomas,
the judgeling, so he was called, was cool as a cucumber, mentally and
bodily: youths generally are. Firstly, they have their “_preuves_” to
make; secondly, they know not what they do.
After an hour’s freezing, which seemed a day’s, we heard with quickened
ears the shouts and tramp of the boys and the stock, which took a
terrible load off the exile of Erin’s heart. We threw ourselves into
the wagons, numbed with cold, and forgot, on the soft piles of saddles,
bridles, and baggage, and under heaps of blankets and buffalos, the
pains of Barahut. About 3 A.M. this enjoyment was brought to a close
by arriving at the end of the stage, Butte Station. The road was six
inches deep with snow, and the final ascent was accomplished with
difficulty. The good station-master, Mr. Thomas, a Cambrian Mormon, who
had, he informed me, three brothers in the British army, bade us kindly
welcome, built a roaring fire, added meat to our supper of coffee and
doughboy, and cleared by a summary process among the snorers places
for us on the floor of “Robber’s Roost,” or “Thieves’ Delight,” as the
place is facetiously known throughout the country-side.
_Halt at “Robber’s Roost.” 6th October._
[THE WESTERN MAN’S HOME.]
The last night’s sound sleep was allowed to last through the morning.
This day was perforce a halt: the old white mare and her colt had
been left at the mouth of the kanyon, and one of the Shoshonee Indian
servants of the station had been persuaded by a bribe of a blanket and
some gunpowder to return for them. About noon we arose, expecting a
black fog, and looked down upon Butte Valley, whose northern edge we
had traversed last night. Snow still lay there--that bottom is rarely
without frost--but in the fine clear sunny day, with the mercury at 43°
F. in the shade, the lowest levels re-became green, the hill cedars
turned once more black, earth steamed like a garment hung out to dry,
and dark spots here and there mottled the hills, which were capped with
huge turbans of muslin-like mist. While the Shoshonee is tracking and
driving the old mare, we will glance around the “Robber’s Roost,” which
will answer for a study of the Western man’s home.
It is about as civilized as the Galway shanty, or the normal
dwelling-place in Central Equatorial Africa. A cabin fronting east and
west, long walls thirty feet, with port-holes for windows, short ditto
fifteen; material, sandstone and bog ironstone slabs compacted with
mud, the whole roofed with split cedar trunks, reposing on horizontals
which rested on perpendiculars. Behind the house a corral of rails
planted in the ground; the inclosed space a mass of earth, and a mere
shed in one corner the only shelter. Outside the door--the hingeless
and lockless backboard of a wagon, bearing the wounds of bullets--and
resting on lintels and staples, which also had formed parts of
locomotives, a slab acting stepping-stone over a mass of soppy black
soil strewed with ashes, gobs of meat offals, and other delicacies. On
the right hand a load of wood; on the left a tank formed by damming a
dirty pool which had flowed through a corral behind the “Roost.” There
was a regular line of drip distilling from the caked and hollowed snow
which toppled from the thick thatch above the cedar braces.
The inside reflected the outside. The length was divided by two
perpendiculars, the southernmost of which, assisted by a half-way
canvas partition, cut the hut into unequal parts. Behind it were two
bunks for four men: standing bedsteads of poles planted in the ground,
as in Australia and Unyamwezi, and covered with piles of ragged
blankets. Beneath the frame-work were heaps of rubbish, saddles,
cloths, harness, and straps, sacks of wheat, oats, meal, and potatoes,
defended from the ground by underlying logs, and dogs nestled where
they found room. The floor, which also frequently represented bedstead,
was rough, uneven earth, neither tamped nor swept, and the fine end of
a spring oozing through the western wall kept part of it in a state of
eternal mud. A redeeming point was the fireplace, which occupied half
of the northern short wall: it might have belonged to Guy of Warwick’s
great hall; its ingle nooks boasted dimensions which one connects with
an idea of hospitality and jollity; while a long hook hanging down it
spoke of the bouillon-pot, and the iron oven of hot rolls. Nothing
could be more simple than the furniture. The chairs were either posts
mounted on four legs spread out for a base, or three-legged stools with
reniform seats. The tables were rough-dressed planks, two feet by two,
on rickety trestles. One stood in the centre for feeding purposes; the
other was placed as buffet in the corner near the fire, with eating
apparatus--tin coffee-pot and gamelles, rough knives, “pitchforks,”
and pewter spoons. The walls were pegged to support spurs and pistols,
whips, gloves, and leggins. Over the door, in a niche, stood a broken
coffee-mill, for which a flat stone did duty. Near the entrance, on a
broad shelf raised about a foot from the ground, lay a tin skillet and
its “dipper.” Soap was supplied by a handful of gravel, and evaporation
was expected to act towel. Under the board was a pail of water with
a floating can, which enabled the inmates to supply the drainage of
everlasting chaws. There was no sign of Bible, Shakspeare, or Milton;
a Holywell-Street romance or two was the only attempt at literature.
_En revanche_, weapons of the flesh, rifles, guns, and pistols, lay and
hung all about the house, carelessly stowed as usual, and tools were
not wanting--hammers, large borers, axe, saw, and chisel. An almost
invariable figure in these huts is an Indian standing cross-legged at
the door, or squatting uncomfortably close to the fire. He derides
the whites for their wastefulness, preferring to crouch in parties of
three or four over a little bit of fuel than to sit before a blazing
log. These savages act, among other things, as hunters, bringing home
rabbits and birds. We tried our revolvers against one of them, and beat
him easily; yet they are said to put, three times out of four, an arrow
through a keyhole forty paces off. In shooting they place the thumb and
forefinger of the right hand upon the notch, and strengthen the pull by
means of the second finger stretched along the bowstring. The left hand
holds the whipped handle, and the shaft rests upon the knuckle of the
index.
From Mr. Thomas we heard an account of the affair which took place near
Egan’s Kanyon. In the last August, Lieutenant Weed happened to be “on
a scout,” with seventeen mounted riflemen, after Indians. An express
rider from the West had ridden up to the station, which, being in a
hollow, can not be seen from afar, and found it surrounded by Gosh
Yuta Indians. The fellows had tied up the master and the boy, and were
preparing with civilized provisions a good dinner for themselves, to be
followed by a little treat in the form of burning down the house and
roasting their captives. The Indians allowed the soldiers brought up
by the express rider to draw near, thinking that the dust was raised
by fresh arrivals of their own people; and when charged, at once fled.
The mounted riflemen were armed with revolvers, not with sabres, or
they would have done considerable execution; as it was, seventeen of
the enemy remained upon the field, besides those who were carried off
by their friends. The Indian will always leave a scalped and wounded
fellow-tribesman in favor of an unscalped corpse.
In the evening the Shoshonee returned, bringing with him the white mare
and her colt, which he had recovered _selon lui_ from the hands of two
Gosh Yutas. The weather still held up; we had expected to be snowed up
in five days or so; our departure, therefore, was joyfully fixed for
the morrow.
_To Ruby Valley. 7th October._
A frosty night was followed by a Tuscan day: a cold tramontana from the
south, and a clear hot sun, which expanded the mercury at 10 A.M. to
70° F. After taking leave of the hospitable station-master, we resumed
the road which ran up the short and heavy ascent, through a country
here and there eighteen inches deep in snow, and abounding in large
sage and little rabbits. A descent led into Long Valley, whose northern
end we crossed, and then we came upon a third ascent, where, finding a
sinking creek, a halt was called for lunch. The formation of the whole
country is a succession of basins and divides. Ensued another twelve
miles’ descent, which placed us in sight of Ruby Valley, and a mile
beyond carried us to the station.
[RUBY VALLEY.]
Ruby Valley is a half-way house, about 300 miles from Great Salt Lake
City, and at the same distance from Carson Valley. It derives its
name from the small precious stones which are found like nuggets of
gold in the crevices of primitive rock. The length of the valley is
about 100 miles, by three or four broad, and springs are scattered
in numbers along the base of the western mountains. The cold is said
to be here more severe than in any place on the line of road, Spring
Valley excepted. There is, however, excellent bench-land for grazing.
In this season the scenery is really pretty. The white peaks tower over
hill-land black with cedar, and this looks down upon the green bottom
scattered over with white sage--winter above lying by the side of
summer below.
[“UNCLE BILLY.”]
We were received at the Ruby-Valley Station by Colonel Rogers, better
known as “Uncle Billy.” He had served in the troublous days of
California as marshal, and has many a hairbreadth escape to relate.
He is now assistant Indian agent, the superintendent of a government
model farm, and he lives _en garçon_, having left his wife and children
at Frogtown. We were soon introduced to the chief of the country,
Chy̆ŭkŭpĭchyă (the “old man”), a word of unpronounceable slur, changed
by whites into Chokop (“earth”). His lands are long to the north and
south, though of little breadth. He commands about 500 warriors, and,
as Uncle Billy is returning to Frogtown, he is collecting a large
hunting-party for the autumnal battue. In 1849 his sister was wantonly
shot by emigrants to California. He attacked the train, and slew
in revenge five men, a fact with which we were not made acquainted
till after our departure. His father and grandfather are both alive,
but they have abdicated under the weight of years and infirmities,
reserving their voices for the powwow.
We dined in the colonel’s stone hut, and then saw the lions feed;
after us, Chokop and five followers sat down with knife and fork
before a huge tureen full of soft pie, among which they did terrible
execution, champing and chewing with the noisiness of wild beasts, and
eating each enough for three able-bodied sailors. The chief, a young
man twenty-five years old, had little to denote the Indian except
vermilion where soap should have been; one of his companions, however,
crowned with eagle’s feathers disposed in tulip shape, while the claws
depended gracefully down his back, was an object worthy of Guinea. All
were, however, to appearance, happy, and for the first time I heard
an Indian really laugh outright. Outside squatted the common herd in a
costume which explains the prevalence of rheumatism. The men were in
rags, yet they had their coquetry, vermilion streaked down their cheeks
and across their foreheads--the Indian fashion of the omnilocal rouge.
The women, especially the elders, were horrid objects, shivering and
half dressed in breech-cloths and scanty capes or tippets of wolf and
rabbit skin: the existence of old age, however, speaks well for the
race. Both are unclean; they use no water where Asiatics would; they
ignore soap, and rarely repair to the stream, except, like animals, in
hot weather.
We then strolled about the camp and called upon the two Mistresses
Chokop. One was a buxom dame, broad and strong, with hair redolent of
antelope marrow, who boasted of a “wikeap” or wigwam in the shape of
a conical tent. The other, much her junior, and rather pretty, was
sitting apart in a bower of bushes, with a newly-born pappoose in a
willow cage to account for her isolation: the poor thing would have
been driven out even in the depth of winter, and were she to starve,
she must do without meat. As among the Jews, whenever the Great Father
is angry with the daughters of Red Men, they sit apart; they never
touch a cooking utensil, although it is not held impure to address
them, and they return only when the signs of wrath have passed away.
The abodes of the poorer clansmen were three-quarter circles of earth,
sticks, and sage-bush to keep off the southerly wind. A dog is usually
one of the occupants. Like the African, the Indian is cruel to his
brute, starves it and kicks it for attempting to steal a mouthful:
“Love me, love my dog,” however, is his motto, and he quarrels with
the stranger that follows his example. The furniture was primitive.
Upon a branch hung a dried antelope head used in stalking: concerning
this sport Uncle Billy had a story of his nearly being shot by being
mistaken for the real animal; and tripods of timber supporting cloths
and moccasins, pans, camp-kettles, stones for grinding grass-seed, and
a variety of baskets. The material was mostly willow twig, with a layer
of gum, probably from the pine-tree. Some were water-tight like the
“Hán” of Somaliland; others, formed like the Roman amphora, were for
storing grain; while others, in giant cocked-hat shape, were intended
for sweeping in crickets and the grass-seeds upon which these Indians
feed. The chief gramineæ are the atriplex and chenopodaceous plants.
After inspecting the camp we retired precipitately: its condition was
that of an Egyptian army’s last nighting-place.
[PRICE OF A GOVERNMENT FARM.]
About two miles from the station there is a lake covered with
water-fowl, from the wild swan to the rail. I preferred, however, to
correct my Shoshonee vocabulary under the inspection of Mose Wright,
an express rider from a neighboring station. None of your “one-horse”
interpreters, he had learned the difficult dialect in his youth, and
he had acquired all the intonation of an Indian. Educated beyond the
reach of civilization, he was in these days an oddity; he was convicted
of having mistaken a billiard cue for a whip handle, and was accused
of having mounted the post supporting the electric telegraph wire in
order to hear what it was saying. The evening was spent in listening to
Uncle Billy’s adventures among the whites and reds. He spoke highly of
his _protégés_, especially of their affection and fidelity in married
life: they certainly appeared to look upon him as a father. He owed
something to legerdemain; here, as in Algeria, a Houdin or a Love would
be great medicine-men with whom nobody would dare to meddle. Uncle
Billy managed to make the post pay by peltries of the mink, wolf,
woodchuck or ground-hog, fox, badger, antelope, black-tailed deer, and
others. He illustrated the peculiarities of the federal government by a
curious anecdote. The indirect or federal duties are in round numbers
$100,000,000, of which $60,000,000 are spent, leaving a surplus of
forty for the purpose of general corruption: the system seems to date
from the days of the “ultimus Romanorum,” President Jackson. None but
the largest claimants can expect to be recognized. A few years ago one
of the Indian agents in ---- was asked by a high official what might be
about the cost of purchasing a few hundred acres for a government farm.
After reckoning up the amount of beads, wire, blankets, and gunpowder,
the total was found to be $240. The high official requested his friend
to place the statement on paper, and was somewhat surprised the next
morning to see the $240 swollen to $40,000. The reason given was
characteristic: “What great government would condescend to pay out of
£8,000,000 a paltry £48, or would refuse to give £8000?”
CHAPTER XIII.
To Carson Valley.
Before resuming the Itinerary, it may be advisable briefly to describe
the various tribes tenanting this Territory.
We have now emerged from the Prairie Indians, the Dakotah, Crow, Kiowa,
Comanche, Osage, Apache, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Arapaho. Utah Territory
contains a total of about 19,000 souls of two great kindred races,
the Shoshonee or Snake, and the Yuta, called Uche by the Spaniards
and Ute by the Anglo-American trappers. Like the Comanche and Apache,
the Pimas, the Lipans, and the people of the Pueblos, they are of the
Hispano-American division, once subject to the Conquistadores, and
are bounded north by the Pánák[228] (Bannack) and the once formidable
Blackfeet. The Shoshonee own about one third of the Territory; their
principal settlements lie north of the Great Salt Lake, and on the line
of the Humboldt or Mary River, some 400 miles west, and 100 to 125
south of the Oregon line. They number about 4500 souls, and are wildest
in the southeast parts of their motherland. The Yuta claim the rest of
the Territory between Kansas, the Sierra Nevada, New Mexico, and the
Oregon frontier. Of course the two peoples are mortal foes, and might
be well pitted against each other. The Snakes would form excellent
partisan warriors.
[228] The Panak is a small tribe of 500 souls, now considered
dangerous: the greater part resides in Oregon, the smaller about
ninety miles in the N.E. of the Territory, where they hunt the bison
and the elk. For thirty years they have traded with Fort Bridger, and
when first known they numbered 1200 lodges. “Horn,” their principal
chief, visited the place in April, 1858. Mr. Forney, the late
Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Utah Territory, granted them a
home in the lands of Washaki, and they have intermarried and lived
peaceably with the Shoshonee.
The Shoshonee number fourteen tribes regularly organized; the
principal, which contains about 12,000 souls, is commanded by Washaki,
assisted, as usual, by sub-chiefs, four to six in number. Five bands,
numbering near 1000 each, roam about the mountains and kanyons of Great
Salt Lake County, Weber, Bear, Cache, and Malad Valleys, extending
eighty miles north from the Holy City. These have suffered the most
from proximity with the whites, and no longer disdain agriculture. One
band, 150 to 180 in number, confines itself to the North Californian
Route from Bear and Malad Valleys to the Goose-Creek Mountains. Seven
bands roam over the country from the Humboldt River to 100 miles south
of it, and extend about 200 miles from east to west: the principal
chief, Wanamuka, or “the Giver,” had a band of 155 souls, and lived
near the Honey Lake.
The Yuta claim, like the Shoshonee, descent from an ancient people
that immigrated into their present seats from the northwest. During
the last thirty years they have considerably decreased according to
the mountaineers, and have been demoralized mentally and physically by
the emigrants: formerly they were friendly, now they are often at war
with the intruders. As in Australia, arsenic and corrosive sublimate in
springs and provisions have diminished their number. The nation is said
to contain a total of 14,000 to 15,000 souls, divided into twenty-seven
bands, of which the following are the principal:
The Pá Yuta (Pey Utes) are the most docile, interesting, and powerful,
containing twelve bands;[229] those in the west of the Territory,
on the Humboldt River, number 6000, and in the south 2200 souls;
they extend from forty miles west of Stony Point to the Californian
line, and northwest to the Oregon line, and inhabit the valley of the
Fenelon River, which, rising from Lake Bigler, empties itself into
Pyramid Lake. The term means Water Yuta, that is to say, those who live
upon fish which they take from lakes and rivers in wiers and traps
of willow, preferring that diet to roots, grass-seed, lizards, and
crickets, the food of the other so-called Digger tribes.
[229] These are, 1. Wanamuka’s; 2. San Joaquim, near the forks
of that river in Carson Valley, numbering 170; 3. Hadsapoke, or
Horse-stopper band, of 110, in Gold Kanyon, on Carson River; 4. Wahi
or Fox band, on Big Bend of Carson River, 130 in number; 5. and 6.
Odakeo, “Tall-man band,” and Petodseka, “White-Spot band,” round the
lakes and sinks of the Carson and Walker Rivers, numbering 484 men,
372 women, and 405 children; 7. Tosarke, “Gray-head band,” their
neighbors; 8. Tonoziet, “Woman-helper band,” on the Truckee River,
below Big Meadows, numbering 280 souls; 9. Torape, or “Lean-man
band,” on the Truckee River, near Lone Crossing, 360 souls; 10.
Gonega, the “Dancer band,” 290 souls, near the mouth of the Truckee
River; 11. Watsequendo, the “Four Crows,” along the shores of Pyramid
Lake, 320 souls; 12. The second Wanamuka’s band, 500 in number, along
the shores of the Northern Mud Lake.
[THE GOSH YUTA, ETC.]
Gosh Yuta, or Gosha Ute, is a small band, once _protégés_ of the
Shoshonee, who have the same language and limits. Their principal chief
died about five years ago, when the tribe was broken up. A body of
sixty, under a peaceful leader, were settled permanently on the Indian
farm at Deep Creek, and the remainder wandered 40 to 200 miles west of
Great Salt Lake City. Through this tribe our road lay; during the late
tumults they have lost fifty warriors, and are now reduced to about 200
men. Like the Ghuzw of Arabia, they strengthen themselves by admitting
the outcasts of other tribes, and will presently become a mere banditti.
Pavant, or Parovan Yuta, are a distinct and self-organized tribe, under
one principal and several sub-chiefs, whose total is set down at 700
souls. Half of them are settled on the Indian farm at Corn Creek; the
other wing of the tribe lives along Sevier Lake, and the surrounding
country in the northeast extremity of Fillmore Valley, fifty miles from
the city, where they join the Gosh Yuta. The Pavants breed horses, wear
clothes of various patterns, grow grain, which the Gosh Yutas will not,
and are as brave and improvable as their neighbors are mean and vile.
Timpenaguchyă,[230] or Timpana Yuta, corrupted into Tenpenny Utes, who
dwell about the kanyon of that name, and on the east of the Sweetwater
Lake. Of this tribe was the chief Wakara, who so called himself after
Walker, the celebrated trapper; the notorious horse-stealer proved
himself a friend to the Latter-Day Saints. He died at Meadow Creek,
six miles from Fillmore City, on the 29th of January, 1855, and at his
obsequies two squaws, two Pa Yuta children, and fifteen of his best
horses composed the “customs.”
[230] In the Yuta language meaning “water among the stones.”
Uinta Yuta, in the mountains south of Fort Bridger, and in the country
along the Green River. Of this tribe, which contains a total of
1000, a band of 500, under four chiefs, lately settled on the Indian
reservations at Spanish Fork.
Sampichyă, corrupted, to San Pete Utas; about eighty warriors, settled
on the Indian farm at San Pete. This and the Spanish-Fork Farm number
900 inhabitants.
Elk-Mountain Yutas, who are set down at 2000 souls, by some even 3000;
they wander over the southeast portion of the Territory, and, like the
Uinta Yutas, are the most independent of white settlers.
Weber-River Yutas are those principally seen in Great Salt Lake City;
they are a poor and degraded tribe. Their chief settlement is forty
miles to the north, and, like the Gosh Yutas, they understand Shoshonee.
Among the Yutas are reckoned the Washoe, from 500 to 700 souls. They
inhabit the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, from Honey Lake to
the West Fork of Walker’s River in the south. Of this troublesome
tribe there are three bands: Captain Jim’s, near Lake Bigler, and
Carson, Washoe, and Eagle Valleys, a total of 342 souls; Pasuka’s band,
340 souls, in Little Valley; and Deer Dick’s band, in Long Valley,
southeast of Honey Lake. They are usually called Shoshoko,[231] or
“Digger Indians”--a term as insulting to a Shoshonee as nigger to an
African.
[231] It is said to mean “one who goes on foot.”
Besides the Parawat Yutas, the Yampas, 200-300 miles south, on the
White River; the Tabechyă, or Sun-hunters, about Tête de Biche, near
Spanish lands; and the Tash Yuta, near the Navajoes: there are scatters
of the nation along the Californian road from Beaver Valley, along the
Santa Clara, Virgen, Las Vegas, and Muddy Rivers to New Mexico.
The Indian Bureau of Utah Territory numbers one superintendent, six
agents, and three to six farm-agents. The annual expenditure is set
down at $40,000; the Mormons declare that it is iniquitously embezzled,
and that the total spent upon the Indians hardly exceeds $1000 per
annum. The savages expect blankets and clothing, flour and provisions,
arms and ammunition: they receive only a little tobacco, become surly,
and slay the settlers. It is understood that the surveyor general has
recommended to the federal government the extinction of the Indian
title--somewhat upon the principle of the English in Tasmania[232] and
New Zealand--to grounds in the Utah Territory, and the establishment
of a land-office for the sale of the two millions of acres already
surveyed. Until the citizens can own their farms and fields under the
existing pre-emption laws, and until the troublesome Indians can be
removed by treaty to reservations remote from white settlements, the
onward march of progress will be arrested. The savage and the civilized
man, like crabbed age and youth, like the black and gray rat, can not
live together: the former starves unless placed in the most fertile
spots, which the latter of course covets; the Mormons attempt a peace
policy, but the hunting-grounds are encroached upon, and terrible
massacres are the result. Here, as elsewhere, the battle of life is
fiercely fought. It has been said,
“Man differs more from man
Than beast from beast.”
Yet every where we trace the mighty resemblance.
[232] Van Diemen’s Land, in the days of Captain Flinders (A.D.
1800, two generations ago), had a population of 100,000 souls, now
well-nigh annihilated by strong waters and corrosive sublimate.
Neither man nor woman was safe in the vicinity of a native tribe;
the Anglo-Scandinavian race thus found it necessary to wipe out a
people that could not be civilized--a fair instance of the natural
selection of species. And New Zealand now threatens to walk the path
of Tasmania.
[THE INDIAN FARMS.]
The three principal farms which now form the nuclei of future
reservations are those at Spanish Fork, San Pete, and Corn Creek. The
two latter have often been denuded by the grasshopper; the former has
fared better. Situated in Utah Valley, under the shelter of lofty
Nebo, it extends northward within four miles of the Sweetwater Lake,
and on the northeast is bounded by the Spanish-Fork Creek, rich in
trout and other fish. It was begun five years ago for the Yutas, who
claim the land, and contains a total of 13,000 acres, of which 500
have been cultivated; 900 have been ditched to protect the crop,
and 1000 have been walled round with a fence six feet high. Besides
other improvements, they have built a large adobe house and two rail
corrals, and dug dams and channels for irrigation, together with a
good stone-curbed well. Under civilized superintendence the savages
begin to labor, and the chiefs aspire to erect houses. Yet the crops
have been light, rarely exceeding 2500 bushels. San Pete Farm, in the
valley and on the creek of the same name, lies 150 miles south of Great
Salt Lake City; it supports, besides those who come for temporary
assistance, a band of thirty souls; 200 acres have been planted with
wheat and potatoes, two adobe houses and a corral have been made, and
irrigating trenches have been dug. Corn-Creek Farm, in Fillmore Valley,
was begun about four years ago; 300 acres have been broken up, several
adobe houses have been built for the Indians and the farm agent, with
the usual adjuncts, corral and fences. The crickets and grasshoppers
have committed sad havoc among the wheat, corn, and potatoes. It is
now tenanted by a Pahvant chief. The Uinta Farm is near Fort Bridger.
Those lately opened in Deep Creek and Ruby Valleys have this year lain
fallow in consequence of Indian troubles; the soil, however, is rich,
and will produce beets, potatoes, onions, turnips, and melons. It is
proposed to place the Pa Yutas and Washoes in the Truckee Meadows, on
the lands “watered by the majestic Kuyuehup, or Salmon-Trout River,”
where, besides fish and piñon forests, there are 15,000 acres fit for
cultivation and herding. The Indian agents report that the cost will be
$150,000, from which the Mormons deduct at least two 0’s.
[THE YUTAS.]
The Yuta, though divided into many tribes and bands, is a distinct
race from its prairie neighbors, speaking a single _langue mère_ much
diversified by dialect. They are a superstitious brood, and have many
cruel practices--human sacrifices and vivisepulture--like those of
Dahomey and Ashantee. Their religion is the usual African and Indian
fetichism, that germal faith which, under favorable influences and
among higher races, developed itself by natural means--or as explained
by a mythical, distinct, and independent revelation--into the higher
forms of Judaism, Christianity, and El Islam. In the vicinity of the
Mormons many savages have been baptized, and have become nominal
Saints. They divide white men into Shwop or Americans and Mormons.
Their learned men have heard of Washington, but, like the French
peasant’s superstition concerning Napoleon, they believe him to be
still alive. They have a name for the Book of Mormon, and have not
learned, like their more civilized Eastern neighbors, to look upon
it as the work of Mujhe Manitou, the bad god, who, like Wiswakarma
of the Hindoos, amuses himself by caricaturing and parodying the
creatures of the good god. They are not cannibals--the Wendigo is a
giant man-eater of a mythologic type, not an actual anthropophage--but,
like all Indians, especially those of New England, they “feel good”
after eating a bit of the enemy, a natural display of destructiveness:
they will devour the heart of a brave man to increase their courage,
or chop it up, boil it in soup, engorge a ladleful, and boast they
have drunk the enemy’s blood. They are as liable to caprice as their
Eastern neighbors. A prisoner who has distinguished himself in battle
is as often dismissed unhurt as porcupined with arrows and killed
with cruel tortures; if they yield in ingenuity of inflicting pain
to the Algonquins and Iroquois, it is not for want of inclination,
but by reason of their stupidity. Female captives who fall into their
hands are horribly treated; I was told of one who, after all manner of
atrocities, scalping included, escaped with life. They have all the
savage’s improvidence; utility is not their decalogue. Both sexes,
except when clothed by a charitable Mormon, are nearly naked, even
in the severest weather; they sleep in sleet and snow unclothed,
except with a cape of twisted rabbits’ furs and a miserable attempt
at moccasins, lined with plaited cedar bark: leggins are unknown,
even to the women. Their ornaments are vermilion, a few beads, and
shell necklaces. They rarely suffer from any disease but rheumatism,
brought on by living in the warm houses of the whites, and various
consequences of liver complaint, produced by overgorging: as with
strong constitutions generally, they either die at once or readily
recover. They dress wounds with pine gum after squeezing out the blood,
and their medicine-men have the usual variety of savage nostrums. In
the more desert parts of the Territory they are exceedingly destitute.
South of Cedar City, even ten years ago they had fields of wheat
and corn of six acres each, and supported emigrants; some of them
cultivate yearly along the stream-banks peas, beans, sweet potatoes,
and squashes. They live upon the flesh of the bear, elk, antelope, dog,
wolf, hare, snake, and lizard, besides crickets, grasshoppers, ants,
and other vermin. The cactus leaf, piñon nut, and various barks; the
seed of the bunch-grass and of the wheat or yellow grass, somewhat
resembling rye; the rabbit-bush twigs, which are chewed, and various
roots and tubers; the soft sego bulb, the rootlet of the cat-tail flag,
and of the tule, which, when sun-dried and powdered to flour, keeps
through the winter, and is palatable even to white men, conclude the
list of their dainties. When these fail they must steal or starve, and
the dilemma is easily solved, to the settler’s cost.
The Yutas in the vicinity of the larger white settlements continually
diminish; bands of 150 warriors are now reduced to 35. Some of the
minor tribes in the southern part of the Territory, near New Mexico,
can scarcely show a single squaw, having traded them off for horses and
arms; they go about killing one another, and on kidnapping expeditions,
which farther diminish the breed. The complaint which has devastated
the South Sea Islands rages around the City of the Saints, and extends
to the Rio Virgen. In six months six squaws were shot by red Othellos
for yielding their virtue to the fascinations of tobacco, whisky, and
blankets; the Lotharios were savage as well as civilized. The operation
of courting is performed by wrapping a blanket round one’s beloved; if
she reciprocates, it is a sign of consent. A refusal in these lands is
often a serious business; the warrior collects his friends, carries
off the recusant fair, and, after subjecting her to the insults of all
his companions, espouses her. There is little of the shame which Pliny
attributes to the “Barrus.” When a death takes place they wrap the body
in a skin or hide, and drag it by the leg to a grave, which is heaped
up with stones as a protection against wild beasts. They mourn till
the end of that moon, allow a month to elapse, and then resume their
lamentations for another moon: the interval is gradually increased till
the grief ends. It is usual to make the dead man’s lodge appear as
desolate as possible.
The Yuta is less servile, and, consequently, has a higher ethnic status
than the African negro; he will not toil, and he turns at a kick or
a blow. The emigrant who addresses him in the usual phrase, “D--
your eyes, git out of the road or I’ll shoot you!” is pretty sure to
come to grief. Lately the Yutas demanded compensation for the use of
their grass upon the Truckee River, when the emigrants fired, killing
Wanamuka the chief. After the death of two or three whites, Mayor
Ormsby, of the militia at Carson Valley, took the field, was decoyed
into a kanyon by Indian cunning, and perished with all his men.
_To “Chokop’s” Pass. 8th October, 1860._
The morning was wasted in binding two loose tires upon their respective
wheels; it was past noon before we were _en route_. We shook hands
cordially with Uncle Billy, whose generosity--a virtue highly prized by
those who, rarely practicing, expect it to be practiced upon them--has
won for him the sobriquet of the “Big-hearted Father.” He had vainly,
however, attempted to rescue my silver pen-holder, whose glitter was
too much for Indian virtue. Our route lay over a long divide, cold but
not unpicturesque, a scene of light-tinted mountain mahogany, black
cedar, pure snowy hill, and pink sky. After ten miles we reached the
place where the road forks; that to the right, passing through Pine
Valley, falls into the gravelly ford of the Humboldt River, distant
from this point eighty to eighty-five miles. After surmounting the
water-shed we descended over bench-land into a raw and dreary plain, in
which greasewood was more plentiful than sage-bush. “Huntingdon Valley”
is traversed by Smith’s Fork, which flows northward to the Humboldt
River; when we crossed it it was a mere rivulet. Our camping-ground
was at the farther end of the plain, under a Pass called after the
chief Chokop; the kanyon emitted a cold draught like the breathing
caves of Kentucky. We alighted at a water near the entrance, and found
bunch-grass, besides a little fuel. After two hours the wagon came up
with the stock, which was now becoming weary, and we had the usual
supper of dough, butter, and coffee. I should have slept comfortably
enough upon a shovel and a layer of carpet-bags had not the furious
south wind howled like the distant whooping of Indians.
_To the Wilderness again. 9th October._
The frosty night was followed by a thaw in the morning. We hastened
to ascend Chokop’s Pass by a bad, steep dugway: it lies south of
“Railroad Kanyon,” which is said to be nearly flat-soled. A descent
led into “Moonshine,” called by the Yutas Pahannap Valley, and we saw
with pleasure the bench rising at the foot of the pass. The station is
named Diamond Springs, from an eye of warm, but sweet and beautifully
clear water bubbling up from the earth. A little below it drains
off in a deep rushy ditch, with a gravel bottom, containing equal
parts of comminuted shells: we found it an agreeable and opportune
bath. Hard work had begun to tell upon the temper of the party.
The judge, who ever preferred monologue to dialogue, aweary of the
rolling prairies and barren plains, the bald and rocky ridges, the
muddy flats, saleratus ponds, and sandy wastes, sighed monotonously
for the woodland shades and the rustling of living leaves near his
Pennsylvanian home. The marshal, with true Anglo-American impetuosity,
could not endure Paddy Kennedy’s “slow and shyure” style of travel;
and after a colloquy, in which the holiest of words were freely used
as adjectives, participles, and exclamations, offered to fight him
by way of quickening his pace. The boys--four or five in number--ate
for breakfast a quarter of beef, as though they had been Kaffirs or
Esquimaux, and were threatened with ration-cutting. The station folks
were Mormons, but not particularly civil: they afterward had to fly
before the savages, which, perhaps, they will be pleased to consider a
“judgment” upon them.
Shortly after noon we left Diamond Springs, and carried on for a
stretch of seven miles to our lunching-ground, a rushy water, black
where it overlies mud, and bluish-green where light gravel and shells
form the bottom: the taste is sulphury, and it abounds in confervæ
and animalculæ like leeches and little tadpoles. After playing a tidy
bowie-knife, we remounted, and passed over to the rough divide lying
westward of Moonshine Valley. As night had closed in, we found some
difficulty in choosing a camping-place: at length we pitched upon a
prairillon under the lee of a hill, where we had bunch-grass and fuel,
but no water. The wind blew sternly through the livelong night, and
those who suffered from cramps in cold feet had little to do with the
“sweet restorer, balmy sleep.”
_To Sheawit Creek. 10th October._
[SHEAWIT CREEK.]
At 6 A.M. the mercury was sunk only to 29° F., but the elevation and
rapid evaporation, with the fierce gusty wind coursing through the
kanyon, rendered the sensation of cold painful. As usual on these
occasions, “George,” our chef, sensibly preferred standing over the
fire, and enwrapping himself with smoke, to the inevitable exposure
incurred while fetching a coffee-pot or a tea-kettle. A long divide,
with many ascents and descents, at length placed in front of us a view
of the normal “distance”--heaps of hills, white as bridal cakes, and,
nearer, a sand-like plain, somewhat more yellow than the average of
those salt-bottoms: instinct told us that there lay the station-house.
From the hills rose the smokes of Indian fires: the lands belong to
the Tusawichya, or White-Knives, a band of the Shoshonees under an
independent chief. This depression is known to the Yutas as Sheawit, or
Willow Creek: the whites call it, from Mr. Bolivar Roberts, the Western
agent, “Roberts’ Springs Valley.” It lies 286 miles from Camp Floyd:
from this point “Simpson’s Road” strikes off to the S.E., and as Mr.
Howard Egan’s rule here terminates, it is considered the latter end of
Mormondom. Like all the stations to the westward, that is to say, those
now before us, it was burned down in the late Indian troubles, and has
only been partially rebuilt. One of the _employés_ was Mr. Mose Wright,
of Illinois, who again kindly assisted me with correcting my vocabulary.
[THE WHITE-KNIVES.]
About the station loitered several Indians of the White-Knife tribe,
which boasts, like the old Sioux and the modern Flatheads, never to
have stained its weapons with the blood of a white man. They may be
a respectable race, but they are an ugly: they resemble the Diggers,
and the children are not a little like juvenile baboons. The dress
was the usual medley of rags and rabbit furs: they were streaked with
vermilion; and their hair--contrary to, and more sensibly than the
practice of our grandfathers--was fastened into a frontal pigtail, to
prevent it falling into the eyes. These men attend upon the station
and herd the stock for an occasional meal, their sole payment. They
will trade their skins and peltries for arms and gunpowder, but,
African-like, they are apt to look upon provisions, beads, and tobacco
in the light of presents.
A long march of thirty-five miles lay before us. Kennedy resolved to
pass the night at Sheawit Creek, and, despite their grumbling, sent on
the boys, the stock, and the wagons, when rested from their labor, in
the early afternoon. We spent a cosy, pleasant evening--such as I have
enjoyed in the old Italian days before railroads--of travelers’ tittle
and Munchausen tattle, in the ingle corner and round the huge hearth
of the half-finished station, with its holey walls. At intervals, the
roarings of the wind, the ticking of the death-watch (a well-known
xylophagus), boring a home in the soft cotton-wood rafters, and the
howlings of the Indians, who were keening at a neighboring grave,
formed a rude and appropriate chorus. Mose Wright recounted his early
adventures in Oregon; how, when he was a greenhorn, the Indians had
danced the war-dance under his nose, had then set upon his companions,
and, after slaying them, had displayed their scalps. He favored us
with a representation of the ceremony, an ursine performance--the bear
seems every where to have been the sire of Terpsichore--while the right
hand repeatedly clapped to his lips quavered the long loud howl into
broken sounds: “Howh! howh! howh! ow! ow! ough! ough! aloo! aloo! loo!
loo! oo!” We talked of a curious animal, a breed between the dog and
the bear, which represents the semi-fabulous jumard in these regions:
it is said to be a cross far more savage than that between the dog
and the wolf. The young grizzly is a favorite pet in the Western hut,
and a canine graft is hardly more monstrous than the progeny of the
horse and the deer lately exhibited in London. I still believe that in
Africa, and indeed in India, there are accidentally mules bimanous and
quadrumanous, and would suggest that such specimens should be sought
as the means of settling on a rational basis the genus and species of
“homo sapiens.”
Mose Wright described the Indian arrow-poison. The rattlesnake--the
copperhead and the moccasin he ignored--is caught with a forked stick
planted over its neck, and is allowed to fix its fangs in an antelope’s
liver. The meat, which turns green, is carried upon a skewer when
wanted for use: the flint-head of an arrow, made purposely to break in
the wound, is thrust into the poison, and when withdrawn is covered
with a thin coat of glue. Ammonia is considered a cure for it, and the
Indians treat snake-bites with the actual cautery. The rattlesnake
here attains a length of eight to nine feet, and is described as
having reached the number of seventy-three rattles, which, supposing
(as the theory is) that after the third year it puts forth one per
annum, would raise its age to that of man: it is much feared in Utah
Territory. We were also cautioned against the poison oak, which is
worse than the poison vine east of the Mississippi. It is a dwarf bush
with quercine leaves, dark colored and prickly like those of the holly:
the effect of a sting, of a touch, or, it is said, in sensitives of its
proximity, is a painful itching, followed by a rash that lasts three
weeks, and other highly inconvenient consequences. Strong brine was
recommended to us by our prairie doctor.
Among the _employés_ of the station was an intelligent young mechanic
from Pennsylvania, who, threatened with consumption, had sought and
soon found health in the pure regions of the Rocky Mountains. He looked
forward to revisiting civilization, where comforts were attainable. In
these wilds little luxuries like tea and coffee are often unprocurable;
a dudeen or a cutty pipe sells for a dollar, consequently a hollowed
potato or corn-cob with a reed tube is often rendered necessary; and
tobacco must be mixed with a myrtaceous leaf called by the natives
“timaya,” and by the mountaineers “larb”--possibly a corruption of
“l’herbe” or “la yerba.” Newspapers and magazines arrive sometimes
twice a year, when they have weathered the dangers of the way. Economy
has deprived the stations of their gardens, and the shrinking of
emigration, which now dribbles eastward, instead of flowing in full
stream westward, leaves the exiles to amuse themselves.
_To Dry Creek. 11th October._
[ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER.--“DRY CREEK.”]
We arose early, and found that it had not “frosted;” that flies
were busy in the station-house; and that the snow, though thick on
the northern faces, had melted from the southern shoulders of the
hills--these were so many indices of the St. Martin’s, or Indian
summer, the last warm glow of life before the cold and pallid death
of the year. At 6 A.M. we entered the ambulance, and followed a good
road across the remains of the long, broad Sheawit Valley. After twelve
miles we came upon a water surrounded by willows, with dwarf artemisia
beyond--it grows better on the benches, where the subsoil is damper,
than in the bottoms--and there we found our lazy boys, who, as Jim
Gilston said, had been last night “on a drunk.” Resuming our way, after
three miles we reached some wells whose alkaline waters chap the skin.
Twenty miles farther led to the west end of the Sheawit Valley, where
we found the station on a grassy bench at the foot of low rolling
hills. It was a mere shell, with a substantial stone corral behind, and
the inmates were speculating upon the possibility of roofing themselves
in before the winter. Water is found in tolerable quantities below the
station, but the place deserved its name, “Dry Creek.”
A fraternal recognition took place between Long Jim and his brother,
who discovered each other by the merest accident. Gilston, the
_employé_, was an intelligent man: at San Francisco he had learned a
little Chinese, and at Deep Creek he was studying the Indian dialects.
He had missed making a fortune at Carson Valley, where, in June or
July, 1859, the rich and now celebrated silver mines were discovered;
and he warned us against the danger of tarrying in Carson City, where
revolvers are fired even into houses known to contain “ladies.” Colonel
Totten, the station-master, explained the formation of the gold
diggings as beds of gravel, from one to 120 feet, overlying slate rock.
Dry-Creek Station is on the eastern frontier of the western agency; as
at Roberts’ Creek, supplies and literature from Great Salt City east
and Carson City west are usually exhausted before they reach these
final points. After a frugal feed, we inspected a grave for two, which
bore the names of Loscier and Applegate, and the date 21st of May.
These men, _employés_ of the station, were attacked by Indians--Panaks
or Shoshonees, or possibly both: the former was killed by the first
fire; the latter, when shot in the groin, and unable to proceed,
borrowed, under pretext of defense, a revolver, bade good-by to his
companions, and put a bullet through his own head: the remainder then
escaped. Both these poor fellows remain unavenged. The Anglo-American,
who is admirably protected by the officials of his government in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, is systematically neglected--_teste_
Mexico--in America. The double grave, piled up with stones, showed gaps
where the wolves had attempted to tunnel, and blue-bottle flies were
buzzing over it in expectation. Colonel Totten, at our insistence,
promised that it should be looked to.
The night was comfortably passed at Dry Creek, under the leeward side
of a large haystack. The weather was cold, but clear and bright. We
slept the sleep of the just.
_To Simpson’s Park. 12th October._
[SIMPSON’S PARK.]
At the time of the cold clear dawn, whose gray contrasted strongly
with the blush of the most lovely evening that preceded it, the
mercury stood at 45° F. Shortly after 8 A.M. we were afield, hastening
to finish the long divide that separates Roberts’ Creek Valley from
its western neighbor, which, as yet unchristened, is known to the
b’hoys as Smoky Valley. The road wound in the shape of the letter U
round the impassable part of the ridge. Crossing the north end of
Smoky Valley, we came upon rolling ground, with water-willows and
cedars “blazed”--barked with a gash--for sign-posts. Ensued a long
kanyon, with a flat sole, not unlike Egan’s, a gate by which the swift
shallow stream had broken through the mountains: in places it was
apparently a _cul de sac_; in others, shoulder after shoulder rose in
long perspective, with points and projections behind, which an enemy
might easily turn. The granite walls were of Cyclopean form, with
regular lines of cleavage, as in the Rattlesnake Hills, which gave
a false air of stratification. The road was a mere path along and
across the rivulet bed, and the lower slopes were garnished with the
pepper-grass and the everlasting bunch-grass, so truly characteristic
of the “Basin State.” Above us, in the pellucid sky, towered the eagle
in his pride of place; the rabbit ran before us from the thicket; the
ground-squirrel cached himself in the sage-bush; and where distance
appeared, smokes upcurling in slow, heavy masses told us that man was
not far distant. A second divide, more abrupt than the former, placed
us in sight of Simpson’s Park--and such a park! a circlet of tawny
stubble, embosomed in sage-grown hills, the “Hiré” or “Look-out,” and
others, without other tree but the deformed cedars. The bottom is
notorious for cold; it freezes even in June and July; and our night
was, as may be imagined, none of the pleasantest.
The station-house in Simpson’s Park was being rebuilt. As we issued
from Mormondom into Christendom, the civility of our hosts perceptibly
diminished; the judge, like the generality of Anglo-Americans, did
unnecessary kow-tow to those whom republicanism made his equals, and
the “gentlemen,” when asked to do any thing, became exceedingly surly.
Among them was one Giovanni Brutisch, a Venetian, who, flying from
conscription, had found a home in Halifax: an unfortunate fire, which
burned down his house, drove him to the Far West. He talked copiously
of the Old Country, breathed the usual aspirations of _Italia una_,
and thought that Garibaldi would do well “_se non lo molestano_”--a
euphuism accompanied by a look more expressive than any nod. The
station was well provided with good miniés, and the men apparently
expected to use them; it was, however, commanded by the neighboring
heights, and the haystacks were exposed to fire at a time of the year
when no more forage could be collected. The Venetian made for us some
good light bread of wheaten flour, started or leavened with hop-water,
and corn-bread “shortened” with butter, and enriched with two or three
eggs. A hideous Pa Yuta and surly Shoshonee, whom I sketched, loitered
about the station: they were dressed in the usual rabbit-skin cape, and
carried little horn bows, with which they missed small marks at fifteen
paces. The boys, who were now aweary of watching, hired one of these
men for a shirt--tobacco was not to be had, and a blanket was too high
pay--to mount guard through the night. Like the Paggi or Ramoosee of
Western India, one thief is paid to keep off many: the Indian is the
best of wardens, it being with him a principle not to attack what the
presence of a fellow-tribesman defends.
_To Reese’s River. 13th October._
Simpson’s Park lies 195 miles from Carson City, where we might consider
the journey at an end; yet the cold of night did not allow us to set
out before 10 A.M. Our route lay across the park, which was dotted
with wheat-grass and broom-like reeds rising from a ground saupoudré
like salt. Presently we began to ascend Simpson’s Pass, a long kanyon
whose sloping sides and benches were dotted with the green bunch-grass.
At the divide we found the “Sage Springs,” whose position is too
elevated for the infiltration of salt: they are consequently sweet
and wholesome. Descending by a rugged road, we sighted every where on
the heights the fires of the natives. They were not symbols of war,
but signals--for which smokes are eminently adapted--made by tribes
telegraphing to one another their being _en route_ for their winter
quarters. Below us, “Reese’s River” Valley might have served for a
sketch in the African desert: a plain of saleratus, here yellow with
sand or hay, there black with fire, there brown where the skin of earth
showed through her garb of rags, and beyond it were chocolate-colored
hills, from whose heads curled blue smokes of volcanic appearance.
Bisecting the barren plain ran a bright little stream, whose banks,
however, had been stripped of their “salt grass:” pure and clear it
flows over a bed of gravel, sheds in a northerly direction, and sinks
at a distance of about twenty miles. From afar we all mistook the
course, deceived, as travelers often are, by the horizontality of the
lines. Leaving on the right the road which forks to the lower ford, we
followed that on the left hand leading to the station. There can not be
much traveling upon these lines: the tracks last for years, unaffected
by snow: the carcasses of animals, however, no longer mummified as in
the Eastern prairies, are readily reduced to skeletons.
The station-house in the Reese-River Valley had lately been evacuated
by its proprietors and burnt down by the Indians: a new building of
adobe was already assuming a comfortable shape. The food around it
being poor and thin, our cattle were driven to the mountains. At night,
probably by contrast with the torrid sun, the frost appeared colder
than ever: we provided against it, however, by burrowing into the
haystack, and, despite the jackal-like cry of the coyote and the near
tramping of the old white mare, we slept like tops.
_To Smith’s Creek. 14th October._
Before 8 A.M. we were under way, bound for Smith’s Creek. Our path
stretched over the remainder of Reese’s River Valley, an expanse of
white sage and large rabbit-bush which affords fuel even when green.
After a long and peculiarly rough divide, we sighted the place of our
destination. It lay beyond a broad plain or valley, like a huge white
“splotch” in the centre, set in dirty brown vegetation, backed by bare
and rugged hills, which are snow-topped only on the north; presently
we reached the “splotch,” which changed its aspect from that of a
muddy pool to a yellow floor of earth so hard that the wheels scarcely
made a dent, except where a later inundation had caused the mud to
cake, flake, and curl--smooth as ice without being slippery. Beyond
that point, guided by streams meandering through willow-thickets, we
entered a kanyon--all are now wearying of the name--and presently
sighted the station deep in a hollow. It had a good stone corral and
the usual haystack, which fires on the hill-tops seemed to menace.
Among the station-folks we found two New Yorkers, a Belfast man, and
a tawny Mexican named Anton, who had passed his life riding the San
Bernardino road. The house was unusually neat, and displayed even signs
of decoration in the adornment of the bunks with osier-work taken from
the neighboring creek. We are now in the lands of the Pa Yuta, and
rarely fail to meet a party on the road: they at once propose “shwop,”
and readily exchange pine nuts for “white grub,” _i. e._, biscuits. I
observed, however, that none of the natives were allowed to enter the
station-house, whereas in other places, especially among the Mormons,
the savages squeezed themselves into the room, took the best seats near
the fire, and never showed a symptom of moving.
_To Cold Springs. 15th October._
[“OLE HELLION.”--COLD-SPRINGS STATION.]
After a warmer night than usual--thanks to fire and lodging--we awoke,
and found a genial south wind blowing. Our road lay through the kanyon,
whose floor was flush with the plain; the bed of the mountain stream
was the initiative of vile traveling, which, without our suspecting it,
was to last till the end of the journey. The strain upon the vehicle
came near to smashing it, and the prudent Kennedy, with the view of
sparing his best animals, gave us his worst--two aged brutes, one of
which, in consequence of her squealing habits, had won for herself the
title of “ole Hellion.” The divortia aquarum was a fine water-shed
to the westward, and the road was in V shape, whereas before it had
oscillated between U and WW. As we progressed, however, the valleys
became more and more desert, the sage more stunted, and the hills more
brown and barren. After a midday halt, rendered compulsory by the
old white mare, we resumed our way along the valley southward, over
a mixture of pitch-hole and boulder, which forbids me to forget that
day’s journey. At last, after much sticking and kicking on the part
of the cattle, and the mental refreshment of abundant bad language,
self-adhibited by the men, we made Cold-Springs Station, which, by
means of a cut across the hills, could be brought within eight miles of
Smith’s Creek.
The station was a wretched place, half built and wholly unroofed; the
four boys, an exceedingly rough set, ate standing, and neither paper
nor pencil was known among them. Our animals, however, found good water
in a rivulet from the neighboring hills, and the promise of a plentiful
feed on the morrow, while the humans, observing that a “beef” had been
freshly killed, supped upon an excellent steak. The warm wind was a
pleasant contrast to the usual frost, but, as it came from the south,
all the weather-wise predicted that rain would result. We slept,
however, without such accident, under the haystack, and heard the loud
howling of the wolves, which are said to be larger on these hills than
elsewhere.
_To Sand Springs. 16th October._
In the morning the wind had shifted from the south to a more pluvial
quarter, the southeast--in these regions the westerly wind promises
the fairest--and stormy cirri mottled the sky. We had a long stage of
thirty-five miles before us, and required an early start, yet the lazy
b’hoys and the weary cattle saw 10 A.M. before we were _en route_.
Simpson’s road lay to our south; we could, however, sight, about two
miles distant from the station, the easternmost formation, which he
calls Gibraltar Gate. For the first three miles our way was exceedingly
rough; it gradually improved into a plain cut with nullahs, and
overgrown with a chapparal, which concealed a few “burrowing hares.”
The animals are rare; during the snow they are said to tread in one
another’s trails after Indian fashion, yet the huntsman easily follows
them. After eight miles we passed a spring, and two miles beyond it
came to the Middle Gate, where we halted from noon till 5 15 P.M. Water
was found in the bed of a river which fills like a mill-dam after
rain, and a plentiful supply of bunch-grass, whose dark seeds it was
difficult to husk out of the oat-like capsules. We spent our halt in
practicing what Sorrentines call _la caccia degl’ uccelluzzi_, and
in vain attempts to walk round the uncommonly wary hawks, crows, and
wolves.
Hitching to as the sun neared the western horizon, we passed through
the Gate, narrowly escaping a “spill” down a dwarf precipice. A plain
bounded on our left by cretaceous bluffs, white as snow, led to the
West Gate, two symmetrical projections like those farther eastward.
After that began a long divide broken by frequent chuck-holes, which,
however, had no cunette at the bottom. An ascent of five miles led
to a second broad basin, whose white and sounding ground, now stony,
then sandy, scattered over with carcass and skeleton, was bounded in
front by low dark ranges of hill. Then crossing a long rocky divide, so
winding that the mules’ heads pointed within a few miles to N., S., E.,
and W., we descended by narrow passes into a plain. The eye could not
distinguish it from a lake, so misty and vague were its outlines: other
senses corrected vision, when we sank up to the hub in the loose sand.
As we progressed painfully, broken clay and dwarf vegetation assumed in
the dim shades fantastic and mysterious forms. I thought myself once
more among the ruins of that Arab village concerning which Lebid sang,
“Ay me! ay me! all lone and drear the dwelling-place, the home--
On Mina, o’er Rijam and Ghool, wild beasts unheeded roam.”
[Illustration: FIRST VIEW OF CARSON LAKE.]
Tired out and cramped with cold, we were torpid with what the Bedouin
calls El Rakl--la Ragle du Désert, when part of the brain sleeps while
the rest is wide awake. At last, about 2 30 A.M., thoroughly “knocked
up”--a phrase which I should advise the Englishman to eschew in the
society of the fair Columbian--we sighted a roofless shed, found a
haystack, and, reckless of supper or of stamping horses, fell asleep
upon the sand.
_To Carson Lake. 17th October._
[SAND-SPRINGS STATION.]
Sand-Springs Station deserved its name. Like the Brazas de San Diego
and other _mauvaises terres_ near the Rio Grande, the land is cumbered
here and there with drifted ridges of the finest sand, sometimes 200
feet high, and shifting before every gale. Behind the house stood a
mound shaped like the contents of an hour-glass, drifted up by the
stormy S.E. gale in esplanade shape, and falling steep to northward or
against the wind. The water near this vile hole was thick and stale
with sulphury salts: it blistered even the hands. The station-house was
no unfit object in such a scene, roofless and chairless, filthy and
squalid, with a smoky fire in one corner, and a table in the centre of
an impure floor, the walls open to every wind, and the interior full of
dust. Hibernia herself never produced aught more characteristic. Of the
_employés_, all loitered and sauntered about _désœuvrés_ as cretins,
except one, who lay on the ground crippled and apparently dying by the
fall of a horse upon his breast-bone.
[CARSON LAKE.]
About 11 A.M. we set off to cross the ten miles of valley that
stretched between us and the summit of the western divide still
separating us from Carson Lake. The land was a smooth saleratus plain,
with curious masses of porous red and black basalt protruding from
a ghastly white. The water-shed was apparently to the north, the
benches were distinctly marked, and the bottom looked as if it were
inundated every year. It was smooth except where broken up by tracks,
but all off the road was dangerous ground: in one place the horses
sank to their hocks, and were not extricated without difficulty. After
a hot drive--the glass at 9 A.M. showed 74° F.--we began to toil up
the divide, a sand formation mixed with bits of granite, red seeds,
and dwarf shells, whose lips were for the most part broken off. Over
the fine loose surface was a floating haze of the smaller particles,
like the film that veils the Arabian desert. Arrived at the summit,
we sighted for the first time Carson Lake, or rather the sink of the
Carson River. It derives its name from the well-known mountaineer
whose adventurous roamings long anticipated scientific exploration.
Supplied by the stream from the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, it
is just such a lake as might be formed in any of the basins which we
had traversed--a shallow sheet of water, which, in the cloudy sky and
mitigated glare of the sun, looked pale and muddy. Apparently it was
divided by a long, narrow ruddy line, like ochre-colored sand; a near
approach showed that water on the right was separated from a saleratus
bed on the left by a thick bed of tule rush. Stones imitated the sweep
of the tide, and white particles the color of a wash.
Our conscientious informant at Sand-Springs Station had warned us that
upon the summit of the divide we should find a perpendicular drop, down
which the wagons could be lowered only by means of lariats affixed
to the axle-trees and lashed round strong “stubbing-posts.” We were
not, however, surprised to find a mild descent of about 30°. From the
summit of the divide five miles led us over a plain too barren for
sage, and a stretch of stone and saleratus to the watery margin, which
was troublesome with sloughs and mud. The cattle relished the water,
although tainted by the rush; we failed, however, to find any of the
fresh-water clams, whose shells were scattered along the shore.
Remounting at 5 15 P.M. we proceeded to finish the ten miles which
still separated us from the station, by a rough and stony road,
perilous to wheel conveyances, which rounded the southern extremity of
the lake. After passing a promontory whose bold projection had been
conspicuous from afar, and threading a steep kanyon leading toward
the lake, we fell into its selvage, which averaged about one mile in
breadth. The small crescent of the moon soon ceased to befriend us, and
we sat in the sadness of the shade, till presently a light glimmered
under Arcturus, the road bent toward it, and all felt “jolly.” But,
“Heu, heu! nos miseros, quam totus homuncio nil est!”
A long dull hour still lay before us, and we were approaching civilized
lands. “Sink Station” looked well from without; there was a frame house
inside an adobe inclosure, and a pile of wood and a stout haystack
promised fuel and fodder. The inmates, however, were asleep, and it
was ominously long before a door was opened. At last appeared a surly
cripple, who presently disappeared to arm himself with his revolver.
The judge asked civilly for a cup of water; he was told to fetch it
from the lake, which was not more than a mile off, though, as the
road was full of quagmires, it would be hard to travel at night. Wood
the churl would not part with: we offered to buy it, to borrow it,
to replace it in the morning; he told us to go for it ourselves, and
that after about two miles and a half we might chance to gather some.
Certainly our party was a law-abiding and a self-governing one; never
did I see men so tamely bullied; they threw back the fellow’s sticks,
and cold, hungry, and thirsty, simply began to sulk. An Indian standing
by asked $20 to herd the stock for a single night. At last, George
the Cordon Blue took courage; some went for water, others broke up a
wagon-plank, and supper after a fashion was concocted.
I preferred passing the night on a side of bacon in the wagon to
using the cripple’s haystack, and allowed sleep to steep my senses in
forgetfulness, after deeply regretting that the Mormons do not extend
somewhat farther westward.
_To Fort Churchill. 18th October._
[FORT CHURCHILL.]
The b’hoys and the stock were doomed to remain near the Carson Lake,
where forage was abundant, while we made our way to Carson Valley--an
arrangement not effected without excessive grumbling. At last the
deserted ones were satisfied with the promise that they should exchange
their desert quarters for civilization on Tuesday, and we were
permitted to start. Crossing a long plain bordering on the Sink, we
“snaked up” painfully a high divide which a little engineering skill
would have avoided. From the summit, bleak with west wind, we could
descry, at a distance of fifty miles, a snowy saddle-back--the Sierra
Nevada. When the deep sand had fatigued our cattle, we halted for an
hour to bait in a patch of land rich with bunch-grass. Descending from
the eminence, we saw a gladdening sight: the Carson River, winding
through its avenue of dark cotton-woods, and afar off the quarters and
barracks of Fort Churchill. The nearer view was a hard-tamped plain,
besprinkled with black and red porous stones and a sparse vegetation,
with the ruddy and yellow autumnal hues; a miserable range of low,
brown, sunburnt rocks and hills, whose ravines were choked with white
sand-drifts, bounded the basin. The farther distance used it as a foil;
the Sierra developed itself into four distinct magnificent tiers of
snow-capped and cloud-veiled mountain, whose dissolving views faded
into thin darkness as the sun disappeared behind their gigantic heads.
[FIGHTING LAWYERS.]
While we admired these beauties night came on; the paths intersected
one another, and, despite the glow and gleam of a camp-fire in the
distance, we lost our way among the tall cotton-woods. Dispersing in
search of information, the marshal accidentally stumbled upon his
predecessor in office, Mr. Smith, who hospitably insisted upon our
becoming his guests. He led us to a farm-house already half roofed
in against the cold, fetched the whisky for which our souls craved,
gave to each a peach that we might be good boys, and finally set
before us a prime beefsteak. Before sleeping we heard a number of
“shooting stories.” Where the corpse is, says the Persian, there will
be the kites. A mining discovery never fails to attract from afar a
flock of legal vultures--attorneys, lawyers, and judges. As the most
valuable claims are mostly parted with by the ignorant fortunate for a
song, it is usual to seek some flaw in the deed of sale, and a large
proportion of the property finds its way into the pockets of the acute
professional, who works on half profits. Consequently, in these parts
there is generally a large amount of unscrupulous talent. One gentleman
judge had knived a waiter and shot a senator; another, almost as “heavy
_on_ the shyoot,” had in a single season killed one man and wounded
another. My informants declared that in and about Carson a dead man
for breakfast was the rule; besides accidents perpetually occurring to
indifferent or to peace-making parties, they reckoned per annum fifty
murders. In a peculiar fit of liveliness, an intoxicated gentleman
will discharge his revolver in a ballroom, and when a “shyooting”
begins in the thin-walled frame houses, those not concerned avoid
bullets and splinters by jumping into their beds. During my three
days’ stay at Carson City I heard of three murders. A man “heavy _on_
the shoulder,” who can “hit out straight from the hip,” is a valuable
acquisition. The gambler or professional player, who in the Eastern
States is exceptionably peaceful, because he fears the publicity of a
quarrel, here must distinguish himself as a fighting-man. A curious
story was told to illustrate how the ends of justice might, at a pinch,
in the case of a popular character, be defeated. A man was convicted
of killing his adversary after saying to the by-standers, “Stoop down
while I shoot the son of a dog (female).” Counsel for the people showed
_malice prepense_; counsel for defense pleaded that his client was
_rectus in curia_, and manifestly couldn’t mean a man, but a dog. The
judge ratified the verdict of acquittal.
Such was the state of things, realizing the old days of the Californian
gold-diggings, when I visited in 1860 Carson City. Its misrule, or
rather want of rule, has probably long since passed away, leaving
no more traces than a dream. California has been transformed by her
Vigilance Committee, so ignorantly and unjustly declaimed against
in Europe and in the Eastern States of the Union, from a savage
autonomy to one of the most orderly of the American republics, and San
Francisco, her capital, from a den of thieves and prostitutes, gamblers
and miners, the offscourings of nations, to a social status not
inferior to any of the most favored cities.
_Hurrah again--in! 19th October._
This day will be the last of my diary. We have now emerged from the
deserts of the Basin State, and are debouching upon lands where coaches
and the electric telegraph ply.
After a cold night at the hospitable Smith’s, and losing the cattle,
we managed to hitch to, and crossed, not without difficulty, the deep
bed of the Carson River, which runs over sands glittering with mica.
A little beyond it we found the station-house, and congratulated
ourselves that we had escaped a twelve hours’ durance vile in its
atmosphere of rum, korn schnapps, stale tobacco, flies, and profane
oaths, not to mention the chance of being “wiped out” in a “difference”
between a soldier and a gambler, or a miner and a rider.
[FORT CHURCHILL.]
From the station-house we walked, accompanied by a Mr. O.--who,
after being an editor in Texas, had become a mail-rider in Utah
Territory--to the fort. It was, upon the principle of its eastern
neighbors, a well-disposed cantonment, containing quarters for the
officers and barracks for the men. Fort Churchill had been built
during the last few months: it lodged about two companies of infantry,
and required at least 2000 men. Captain F. F. Flint (6th Regiment)
was then commanding, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Swords, a deputy
quarter-master general, was on a tour of inspection. We went straight
to the quarter-master’s office, and there found Lieutenant Moore, who
introduced us to all present, and supplied us with the last newspapers
and news. The camp was Teetotalist, and avoided cards like good
Moslems: we were not, however, expected to drink water except in the
form of strong waters, and the desert had disinclined us to abstain
from whisky. Finally, Mr. Byrne, the sutler, put into our ambulance a
substantial lunch, with a bottle of cocktail, and another of cognac,
especially intended to keep the cold out.
The dull morning had threatened snow, and shortly after noon the west
wind brought up cold heavy showers, which continued with intervals to
the end of the stage. Our next station was Miller’s, distant 15 to 16
miles. The road ran along the valley of Carson River, whose trees were
a repose to our eyes, and we congratulated ourselves when we looked
down the stiff clay banks, 30 feet high, and wholly unfenced, that
our journey was by day. The desert was now “done.” At every few miles
was a drinking “calaboose:”[233] where sheds were not a kettle hung
under a tree, and women peeped out of the log huts. They were probably
not charming, but, next to a sea voyage, a desert march is the finest
cosmetic ever invented. We looked upon each as if
“Her face was like the Milky Way i’ the sky,
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.”
[233] The Spanish is calabozo, the French calabouse. In the
Hispano-American countries it is used as a “common jail” or a
“dog-hole,” and, as usual, is converted into a verb.
At Miller’s Station, which we reached at 2 30 P.M., there really was
one pretty girl--which, according to the author of the Art of Pluck,
induces proclivity to temulency. While the rain was heavy we sat
round the hot stove, eating bread and cheese, sausages and anchovies,
which Rabelais, not to speak of other honest drinkers, enumerates
among provocatives to thirst. When we started at 4 P.M. through the
cold rain, along the bad road up the river bed, to “liquor up” was
manifestly a duty we owed to ourselves. And, finally, when my impatient
companions betted a supper that we should reach Carson City before 9
P.M., and sealed it with a “smile,” I knew that the only way to win was
to ply Mr. Kennedy, the driver, with as many _pocula_ as possible.
Colder waxed the weather and heavier the rain as, diverging from the
river, we ascended the little bench upon which China-town lies. The
line of ranches and frame houses, a kind of length-without-breadth
place, once celebrated in the gold-digging days, looked dreary and grim
in the evening gloom. At 5 30 P.M. we were still fourteen miles distant
from our destination. The benches and the country round about had been
turned topsy-turvy in the search for precious metal, and the soil was
still burrowed with shaft and tunnel, and crossed at every possible
spot by flumes, at which the natives of the Flowery Land still found
it worth their while to work. Beyond China-town we quitted the river,
and in the cold darkness of night we slowly began to breast the steep
ascent of a long divide.
We had been preceded on the way by a young man, driving in a light
cart a pair of horses, which looked remarkable by the side of the
usual Californian teams, three pair with the near wheeler ridden.
Arriving at a bad place, he kindly called out to us, but before his
warning could be taken a soft and yielding sensation, succeeded by a
decided leaning to the right, and ending with a loud crash, announced
an overturn. In due time we were extricated, the pieces were picked
up, and, though the gun was broken, the bottle of cocktail fortunately
remained whole. The judge, probably and justly offended by my evil
habit of laughing out of season, informed us that he had never been
thrown before, an announcement which made us expect more “spills.” The
unhappy Kennedy had jumped off before the wheels pointed up hill; he
had not lost a hoof, it is true, on the long march, but he wept spirits
and water at the disappointing thought that the ambulance, this time
drawn by his best team, and laden with all the dignities, had come to
grief, and would not be fit to be seen. After 100 yards more another
similar series of sensations announced a repetition of the scene, which
deserved the epitaph,
“Hic jacet amphora vini.”
This time, however, falling down a bank, we “came to smash;” the
bottle (eheu!) was broken, so was the judge’s head, while the ear of
the judgeling--serve him right for chaffing!--was cut, the pistols and
powder-flasks were half buried in the sand, a variety of small objects
were lost, and the flying gear of the ambulance was a perfect wreck.
Unwilling to risk our necks by another trial, we walked over the rest
of the rough ground, and, conducted by the good Croly, found our way
to “Dutch Nick’s,” a ranch and tavern apparently much frequented by
the teamsters and other roughs, who seemed, honest fellows! deeply to
regret that the accident had not been much more serious.
Remounting after a time, we sped forward, and sighted in front a
dark line, but partially lit up about the flanks, with a brilliant
illumination in the centre, the Kursaal of Mr. Hopkins, the local
Crockford. Our entrance to Penrod House, the Fifth Avenue of Carson
City, was by no means of a triumphal order; Nature herself seemed
to sympathize with us, besplashing us with tears heavier than Mr.
Kennedy’s. But after a good supper and change of raiment, a cigar,
“something warm,” and the certainty of a bed, combined to diffuse over
our minds the calm satisfaction of having surmounted our difficulties
_tant bien que mal_.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA CITY. (From the Northeast.)]
CONCLUSION.
[CONCLUSION.]
The traveler and the lecturer have apparently laid down a law that,
whether the journey does or does not begin at home, it should always
end at that “hallowed spot.” Unwilling to break through what is now
becoming a time-honored custom, I trespass upon the reader’s patience
for a few pages more, and make my final _salaam_ in the muddy-puddly
streets, under the gusty, misty sky of the “Liverpool of the South.”
After a day’s rest at Carson City, employed in collecting certain
necessaries of tobacco and raiment, which, intrinsically vile, were
about treble the price of the best articles of their kind in the
Burlington Arcade, I fell in with Captain Dall, superintendent of the
Ophir mines, for whom I bore a recommendation from Judge Crosby, of
Utah Territory. The valuable silver leads of Virginia City occupied
me, under the guidance of that hospitable gentleman, two days, and on
the third we returned to Carson City, _viâ_ the Steam-boat Springs,
Washoe Valley, and other local lions. On the 24th appeared the boys
driving in the stock from Carson Lake: certain of these youths had
disappeared; Jim Gilston, who had found his brother at Dry-Creek
Station, had bolted, of course forgetting to pay his passage. A
stage-coach, most creditably horsed, places the traveler from Carson
City at San Francisco in two days; as Mr. Kennedy, however, wished to
see me safely to the end, and the judge, esteeming me a fit Mentor
for youth, had intrusted to me Telemachus, alias Thomas, his son, I
resolved to cross the Sierra by easy stages. After taking kindly leave
of and a last “liquor up” with my old _compagnons de voyage_, the judge
and the marshal, we broke ground once more on the 25th of October. At
Genoa, pronounced Ge-nóa, the county town, built in a valley thirteen
miles south of Carson, I met Judge Cradlebaugh, who set me right on
grounds where the Mormons had sown some prejudices. Five days of a very
dilatory travel placed us on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada;
the dugways and zigzags reminded me of the descriptions of travelers
over the Andes; the snow threatened to block up the roads, and our
days and nights were passed among teamsters _en route_ and in the
frame-house inn. On the 30th of November, reaching Diamond Springs, I
was advised by a Londoner, Mr. George Fryer, of the “Boomerang Saloon,”
to visit the gold diggings at Placerville, whither a coach was about to
start. At “Hangtown,” as the place was less euphoniously termed, Mr.
Collum, of the Cary House, kindly put me through the gold washing and
“hydraulicking,” and Dr. Smith, an old East Indian practitioner, and
Mr. White, who had collected some fine specimens of minerals, made
the evenings pleasant. I started on the 1st of November by coach to
Folsom, and there found the railroad, which in two hours conducts to
Sacramento: the negro coachmen driving hacks and wagons to the station,
the whistling of the steam, and the hurry of the train, struck me by
the contrast with the calm travel of the desert.
At Sacramento, the newer name for New Helvetia--a capital mass of
shops and stores, groggeries and hotels--I cashed a draught, settled
old scores with Kennedy, who almost carried me off by force to his
location, shook hands with Thomas, and transferred myself from the
Golden Eagle on board the steamer Queen City. Eight hours down the
Sacramento River, past Benicia--the birthplace of the Boy--in the dark
to the head-waters of the glorious bay, placed me at the “El Dorada of
the West,” where a tolerable opera, a superior supper, and the society
of friends made the arrival exceptionably comfortable.
I spent ten pleasant days at San Francisco. There remained some
traveler’s work to be done: the giant trees, the Yosemite or Yohamite
Falls--the highest cataracts yet known in the world--and the Almaden
cinnabar mines, with British Columbia, Vancouver’s Island, and Los
Angelos temptingly near. But, in sooth, I was aweary of the way; for
eight months I had lived on board steamers and railroad cars, coaches
and mules; my eyes were full of sight-seeing, my pockets empty, and
my brain stuffed with all manner of useful knowledge. It was far more
grateful to _flaner_ about the stirring streets, to admire the charming
faces, to enjoy the delicious climate, and to pay quiet visits like a
“ladies’ man,” than to front wind and rain, muddy roads, _arrieros_,
and rough teamsters, fit only for Rembrandt, and the solitude of
out-stations. The presidential election was also in progress, and I
wished to see with my eyes the working of a system which has been
facetiously called “universal suffering and vote by bullet.” Mr. Consul
Booker placed my name on the lists of the Union Club, which was a
superior institution to that of Leamington; Colonel Hooker, of Oregon,
and Mr. Tooney, showed me life in San Francisco; Mr. Gregory Yale,
whom I had met at Carson City, introduced me to a quiet picture of old
Spanish happiness, fast fading from California; Mr. Donald Davidson, an
old East Indian, talked East Indian with me; and Lieutenants Macpherson
and Brewer accompanied me over the forts and batteries which are
intended to make of San Francisco a New-World Cronstadt. Mr. Polonius
sensibly refused to cash for me a draught not authorized by my circular
letter from the Union Bank. Mr. Booker took a less prudential and
mercantile view of the question, and kindly helped me through with the
_necessaire_--£100. My return for all this kindness was, I regret to
say, a temperate but firm refusal to lecture upon the subject of Meccah
and El Medinah, Central Africa, Indian cotton, American politics, or
every thing in general. I nevertheless bade my adieux to San Francisco
and the hospitable San Franciscans with regret.
On the 15th of November, the Golden Age, Commodore Watkins, steamed out
of the Golden Gates, bearing on board, among some 520 souls, the body
that now addresses the public. She was a model steamer, with engines
and engine-rooms clean as a club kitchen, and a cuisine whose terrapin
soup and deviled crabs à la Baltimore will long maintain their position
in my memory--not so long, however, as the kindness and courtesy of
the ancient mariner who commanded the Golden Age. On the 28th we spent
the best part of a night at Acapulco, the city of Cortez and of Doña
Marina, where any lurking project of passing through ill-conditioned
Mexico was finally dispelled. The route from Acapulco to Vera Cruz,
over a once well-worn highway, was simply and absolutely impassable.
Each sovereign and independent state in that miserable caricature of
the Anglo-American federal Union was at daggers drawn with all and
every of its next-door neighbors; the battles were paper battles,
but the plundering and the barbarities--cosas de Mejico!--were stern
realities. A rich man could not travel because of the banditti; a poor
man would have been enlisted almost outside the city gates; a man
with many servants would have seen half of them converted to soldiers
under his eyes, and have lost the other half by desertion, while a
man without servants would have been himself press-gang’d; a Liberal
would have been murdered by the Church, and a Churchman--even the frock
is no protection--would have been martyred by the Liberal party. For
this disappointment I found a philosophical consolation in various
experiments touching the influence of Mezcal brandy, the Mexican
national drink, upon the human mind and body.
On the 15th of December we debarked at Panama; horridly wet, dull,
and dirty was the “place of fish,” and the “Aspinwall House” and
its Mivart reminded me of a Parsee hotel in the fort, Bombay. Yet I
managed to spend there three pleasant circlings of the sun. A visit
to the acting consul introduced me to M. Hurtado, the Intendente or
military governor, and to a charming countrywoman, whose fascinating
society made me regret that my stay there could not be protracted.
Though politics were running high, I became acquainted with most of the
officers of the United States squadron, and only saw the last of them
at Colon, alias Aspinwall. Messrs. Boyd and Power, of the “Weekly Star
and Herald,” introduced me to the officials of the Panama Railroad,
Messrs. Nelson, Center, and others, who, had I not expressed an
aversion to “dead-headism,” or gratis traveling, would have offered me
a free passage. Last, but not least, I must mention the venerable name
of Mrs. Seacole, of Jamaica and Balaklava.
On the 8th of December I passed over the celebrated Panama Railway to
Aspinwall, where Mr. Center, the superintendent of the line, made
the evening highly agreeable with conversation aided by “Italia,” a
certain muscatel cognac that has yet to reach Great Britain. We steamed
the next morning, under charge of Captain Leeds, over the Caribbean
Sea or Spanish Main, bound for St. Thomas. A hard-hearted E.N.E. wind
protracted the voyage of the Solent for six days, and we reached the
Danish settlement in time, and only just in time, to save a week’s
delay upon that offensive scrap of negro liberty-land. On the 9th of
December we bade adieu with pleasure to the little dungeon-rock, and
turned the head of the good ship Seine, Captain Rivett, toward the
Western Islands. She played a pretty wheel till almost within sight
of Land’s End, where Britannia received us with her characteristic
welcome, a gale and a pea-soup fog, which kept us cruising about for
three days in the unpleasant Solent and the Southampton Water.
[Illustration: IN THE SIERRA NEVADA.]
APPENDICES.
I. EMIGRANT’S ITINERARY,
Showing the distances between camping-places, the several
mail-stations where mules are changed, the hours of travel, the
character of the roads, and the facilities for obtaining water, wood,
and grass on the route along the southern bank of the Platte River,
from St. Joseph, Mo., _viâ_ Great Salt Lake City, to Carson Valley.
From a Diary kept between the 7th of August and the 19th of October,
1860.
+-----+-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+
| No. | | | | | |
| of | | | | Ar- | |
|Mail.| |Miles.|Start.|rival.|Date.|
+-----+-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+
| 1. |Leave St. Joseph, Missouri, in N. | | | | |
| |lat. 39° 40′, and W. long. 94° 50′.| | | | |
| |Cross Missouri River by steam | | | | |
| |ferry. Five miles of bottom land, | | | | |
| |bend in river and settlements. Over| | | | |
| |rolling prairie 2000 feet above sea| | | | |
| |level. After 6 miles, Troy, capital| | | | |
| |of Doniphan Co., Kansas Territory, | | | | |
| |about a dozen shanties. Dine and | | | | |
| |change mules at Cold Spring--good | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |water and grass. |20-24 | 9 30 | 3 | 7 |
| |Road from Fort Leavenworth (N. lat.| | | | |
| |39° 21′ 14″, and W. long. 94° 44′) | | | | |
| |falls in at Cold Spring, distant 15| | | | |
| |miles. | | | | |
| |From St. Jo to Cold Spring there | | | | |
| |are two routes, one lying north of | | | | |
| |the other, the former 20, the | | | | |
| |latter 24 miles in length. | | | | |
| 2. |After 10 miles, Valley Home, a | | | | |
| |whitewashed shanty. At Small Branch| | | | |
| |on Wolf River, 12 miles from Cold | | | | |
| |Spring, is a fiumara on the north | | | | |
| |of the road, with water, wood, and | | | | |
| |grass. Here the road from Fort | | | | |
| |Atchinson falls in. Kennekuk | | | | |
| |Station, 44 miles from St. Joseph. | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |Sup and change mules. |22-23 | 4 | 8 | 7 |
| 3. |Two miles beyond Kennekuk is the | | | | |
| |first of the three Grasshopper | | | | |
| |Creeks, flowing after rain to the | | | | |
| |Kansas River. Road rough and stony;| | | | |
| |water, wood, and grass. Four miles | | | | |
| |beyond the First Grasshopper is | | | | |
| |Whitehead, a young settlement on | | | | |
| |Big Grasshopper; water in pools, | | | | |
| |wood, and grass. Five and a half | | | | |
| |miles beyond is Walnut Creek, in | | | | |
| |Kickapoo Co.: pass over corduroy | | | | |
| |bridge; roadside dotted with | | | | |
| |shanties. Thence to Locknan’s, or | | P.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |Big Muddy Station. | 25 | 9 | 1 | 7, 8|
| 4. |Seventeen miles beyond Walnut | | | | |
| |Creek, the Third Grasshopper, also | | | | |
| |falling into the Kansas River. Good| | | | |
| |camping-ground. Ten miles beyond | | | | |
| |lies Richland, deserted site. | | | | |
| |Thence to Seneca, capital of | | | | |
| |Nemehaw Co. A few shanties on the | | | | |
| |N. bank of Big Nemehaw Creek, a | | | | |
| |tributary of the Missouri River, | | | | |
| |which affords water, wood, and | | A.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |grass. | 18 | 3 | 6 | 8 |
| 5. |Cross Wildcat Creek and other | | | | |
| |nullahs. Seven miles beyond Seneca | | | | |
| |lies Ash Point, a few wooden huts, | | | | |
| |thence to “Uncle John’s Grocery,” | | | | |
| |where liquor and stores are | | | | |
| |procurable. Eleven miles from Big | | | | |
| |Nemehaw, water, wood, and grass are| | | | |
| |found at certain seasons near the | | | | |
| |head of a ravine. Thence to | | | | |
| |Vermilion Creek, which heads to the| | | | |
| |N.E., and enters the Big Blue 20 | | | | |
| |miles above its mouth. The ford is | | | | |
| |miry after rain, and the banks are | | | | |
| |thickly wooded. Water is found in | | | | |
| |wells 40-43 feet deep. Guittard’s | | A.M. | NOON.| Aug.|
| |Station. | 20 | 8 | 12 | 8 |
| 6. |Fourteen miles from Guittard’s, | | | | |
| |Marysville, capital of Washington | | | | |
| |Co., affords supplies and a | | | | |
| |blacksmith. Then ford the Big Blue,| | | | |
| |tributary to Kansas River, clear | | | | |
| |and swift stream. Twelve miles W. | | | | |
| |of Marysville is the frontier line | | | | |
| |between Kansas and Nebraska. Thence| | | | |
| |to Cotton-wood Creek, fields in | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |hollow near the stream. | 25 | 1 | 6 | 8 |
| 7. |Store at the crossing very dirty | | | | |
| |and disorderly. Good water in | | | | |
| |spring 400 yards N. of the road; | | | | |
| |wood and grass abundant. Seventeen | | | | |
| |and a half miles from the Big Blue | | | | |
| |is Walnut Creek, where emigrants | | | | |
| |encamp. Thence to West Turkey or | | | | |
| |Rock Creek in Nebraska Territory, a| | | | |
| |branch of the Big Blue: its | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |approximate altitude is 1485 feet. | 26 | 6 | 11 | 8 |
| 8. |After 19 miles of rough road and | | | | |
| |musquetoes, cross Little Sandy, 5 | | | | |
| |miles E. of Big Sandy; water and | | | | |
| |trees plentiful. There Big Sandy | | | | |
| |deep and heavy bed. Big Sandy | | P.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |Station. | 23 | 12 | 4 | 9 |
| 9. |Cross hills forming divide of | | | | |
| |Little Blue River, ascending valley| | | | |
| |60 miles long. Little Blue fine | | | | |
| |stream of clear water falling into | | | | |
| |Kansas River; every where good | | | | |
| |supplies and good camping-ground. | | A.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |Along the left bank to Kiowa. | 19 | 6 | 10 | 9 |
| 10. |Rough road of spurs and gullies | | | | |
| |runs up a valley 2 miles wide. Well| | | | |
| |wooded chiefly with cotton-wood, | | | | |
| |and grass abundant. Ranch at | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |Liberty Farm, on the Little Blue. | 25 | 11 | 3 | 9 |
| 11. |Cross divide between Little Blue | | | | |
| |and Platte River; rough road, | | | | |
| |musquetoes troublesome. Approximate| | | | |
| |altitude of dividing ridge 2025 | | | | |
| |feet. Station at Thirty-two-Mile | | | | |
| |Creek, a small wooded and winding | | | | |
| |stream flowing into the Little | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |Blue. | 24 | 4 | 9 | 9 |
| 12. |After 27 miles strike the Valley of| | | | |
| |the Platte, along the southern bank| | | | |
| |of the river, over level ground, | | | | |
| |good for camping, fodder abundant. | | | | |
| |After 7 miles Fort Kearney in N. | | | | |
| |lat. 40° 38′ 45″, and W. long. 98° | | | | |
| |58′ 11″: approximate altitude 2500 | | | | |
| |feet above sea level. Groceries, | | | | |
| |cloths, provisions, and supplies of| | | | |
| |all kinds are to be procured from | | | | |
| |the sutler’s store. Beyond Kearney | | | | |
| |a rough and bad road leads to | | P.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |“Seventeen-Mile Station”. | 34 |10 30 | 8 | 10 |
| 13. |Along the south bank of the Platte.| | | | |
| |Buffalo chips used for fuel. Sign | | | | |
| |of buffalo appears. Plum-Creek | | | | |
| |Station on a stream where there is | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |a bad crossing in wet weather. | 21 | 9 30 | 1 15 | 10 |
| 14. |Beyond Plum Creek, Willow-Island | | | | |
| |Ranch, where supplies are | | | | |
| |procurable. Road along the Platte, | | | | |
| |wood scarce, grass plentiful, | | | | |
| |buffalo abounds; after 20 miles | | | | |
| |“Cold-Water Ranch.” Halt and change| | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |at Midway Station. | 25 | 2 30 | 8 | 10 |
| 15. |Along the Valley of the Platte, | | | | |
| |road muddy after rain, fuel scarce,| | | | |
| |grass abundant, camp traces every | | | | |
| |where. Ranch at Cotton-wood | | | | |
| |Station, at this season the western| | P.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |limit of buffalo. | 27 | 9 | 1 45 | 11 |
| 16. |Up the Valley of the Platte. No | | | | |
| |wood; buffalo chips for fuel. Good | | | | |
| |camping-ground; grass on small | | | | |
| |branch of the Platte. To Junction- | | | | |
| |House Ranch, and thence to station | | A.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |at Frémont Springs. | 30 | 6 15 | 11 | 11 |
| 17. |Road passes O’Fallon’s Bluffs. | | | | |
| |“Half-way House,” a store and | | | | |
| |ranch, distant 120 miles from Fort | | | | |
| |Kearney, 400 from St. Joseph, 40 | | | | |
| |from the Lower Crossing, and 68 | | | | |
| |from the Upper Crossing of the | | | | |
| |South Fork (Platte River). The | | NOON.| P.M. | Aug.|
| |station is called Alkali Lake. | 25 | 12 | 5 | 11 |
| 18. |Road along river; no timber; grass,| | | | |
| |buffalo chips, and musquetoes. | | | | |
| |Station at Diamond Springs near | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |Lower Crossing. | 25 | 6 |10 15 | 11 |
| 19. |Road along river. Last 4 miles very| | | | |
| |heavy sand, avoided by Lower | | | | |
| |Crossing. Poor accommodation at | | | | |
| |Upper Ford or Crossing on the | | | | |
| |eastern bank, where the mail passes| | | | |
| |the stream en route to Great Salt | | | | |
| |Lake City, and the road branches to| | P.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |Denver City and Pike’s Peak. | 25 | 11 | 3 15 | 12 |
| 20. |Ford Platte 600 yards wide, 2·50 | | | | |
| |feet deep, bed gravelly and solid, | | | | |
| |easy ford in dry season. Cross | | | | |
| |divide between North and South | | | | |
| |Forks, along the bank of Lodge-Pole| | | | |
| |Creek. Land arid; wild sage for | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |fuel. Lodge-Pole Station. | 35 | 6 30 |12 45 | 12 |
| 21. |Up Lodge-Pole Creek over a spur of | | | | |
| |table-land; then, striking over the| | | | |
| |prairie, finishes the high divide | | | | |
| |between the Forks. Approximate | | | | |
| |altitude 3500 feet. On the right is| | | | |
| |Ash Hollow, where there is plenty | | | | |
| |of wood and a small spring. The | | | | |
| |station is Mud Springs, a poor | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |ranch. | 25 | 3 | 5 45 | 12 |
| 22. |Route lies over a rolling divide | | | | |
| |between the Forks, crossing Omaha, | | | | |
| |Lawrence, and other creeks, where | | | | |
| |water and grass are procurable. | | | | |
| |Cedar is still found in hill- | | | | |
| |gullies. About half a mile north of| | | | |
| |Chimney Rock is a ranch where the | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |cattle are changed. | 25 | 8 |12 30 | 13 |
| 23. | Road along the south bank of North| | | | |
| |Ford of Platte River. Wild sage the| | | | |
| |only fuel in the valley: small | | | | |
| |spring on top of first hill. Rugged| | | | |
| |labyrinth of paths abreast of | | | | |
| |Scott’s Bluffs, which lie 5 miles | | | | |
| |S. of river, in N. lat. 41° 48′ | | | | |
| |26″, and W. long. 103° 45′ 02″. | | | | |
| |Water found in first ravine of | | | | |
| |Scott’s Bluffs 200 yards below the | | | | |
| |road, cedars on heights. To | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |station. | 24 | 1 30 | 5 30 | 13 |
| 24. |Road along the river; crosses | | | | |
| |Little Kiowa Creek, a tributary to | | | | |
| |Horse Creek, which flows into the | | | | |
| |Platte. Ford Horse Creek, a clear | | | | |
| |shallow stream with a sandy bottom.| | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |No wood below the hills. | 16 | 6 30 | 8 30 | 13 |
| 25. |Route over sandy, and heavy river | | | | |
| |bottom and rolling ground, leaving | | | | |
| |the Platte on the right: cotton- | | | | |
| |wood and willows on the banks. | | | | |
| |Ranch at Laramie City kept by M. | | | | |
| |Badeau, a Canadian, who sells | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |spirits, Indian goods, and outfit. | 26 | 6 |10 20 | 14 |
| 26. |After 9 miles of rough road cross | | | | |
| |Laramie Fork and enter Fort | | | | |
| |Laramie, N. lat. 42° 12′ 38″, and | | | | |
| |W. long. 104° 31′ 26″. Altitude | | | | |
| |4519 feet. Military post, with | | | | |
| |post-office, sutler’s stores, and | | | | |
| |other conveniences. Thence To | | | | |
| |Ward’s Station on the Central Star,| | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |small ranch and store. | 18 |12 15 | 4 | 14 |
| 27. |Rough and bad road. After 14 miles | | | | |
| |cross Bitter Cotton-wood Creek; | | | | |
| |water rarely flows; after rain 10 | | | | |
| |feet wide and 6 inches deep; grass | | | | |
| |and fuel abundant. Pass Indian shop| | | | |
| |and store. At Bitter Creek branch | | | | |
| |of Cotton-wood the road to Salt | | | | |
| |Lake City forks. Emigrants follow | | | | |
| |the Upper or South road over spurs | | | | |
| |of the Black Hills, some way south | | | | |
| |of the river, to avoid kanyons and | | | | |
| |to find grass. The station is | | | | |
| |called Horseshoe Creek. Residence | | | | |
| |of road-agent, Mr. Slade, and one | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |of the worst places on the line. | 25 | 5 | 9 30 | 14 |
| 28. |Road forks; one line follows the | | | | |
| |Platte, the other turns to the | | | | |
| |left, over “cut-off;” highly | | | | |
| |undulating ridges, crooked and | | | | |
| |deeply dented with dry beds of | | | | |
| |rivers; land desolate and desert. | | | | |
| |No wood nor water till end of | | | | |
| |stage. La Bonté River and Station; | | | | |
| |unfinished ranch in valley; water | | A.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |and grass. | 25 |10 45 | 2 45 | 15 |
| 29. |Road runs 6 miles (wheels often | | | | |
| |locked) on rugged red land, crosses| | | | |
| |several dry beds of creeks, and | | | | |
| |springs with water after melting of| | | | |
| |snow and frosts in dry season, | | | | |
| |thence into the Valley of the | | | | |
| |Platte. After 17 miles it crosses | | | | |
| |the La Prêle (Rush River), a stream| | | | |
| |16 feet wide, where water and wood | | | | |
| |abound. At Box-Elder Creek Station | | | | |
| |good ranch and comfortable camping-| | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |ground. | 25 | 4 | 9 | 15 |
| 30. |Along the Platte River, now shrunk | | | | |
| |to 100 yards. After 10 miles, M. | | | | |
| |Bissonette; at Deer Creek, a post- | | | | |
| |office, blacksmith’s shop, and | | | | |
| |store near Indian Agency. Thence a | | | | |
| |waste of wild sage to Little Muddy,| | | | |
| |a creek with water. No | | | | |
| |accommodation nor provisions at | | A.M. | NOON.| Aug.|
| |station. | 20 | 8 30 | 12 | 16 |
| 31. |After 8 miles cross vile bridge | | | | |
| |over Snow Creek. Thence up the | | | | |
| |river valley along the S. bank of | | | | |
| |the Platte to the lower ferry. To | | | | |
| |Lower Bridge, old station of | | | | |
| |troops. To Upper Bridge, where the | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |ferry has now been done away with. | 18 | 1 15 | 4 15 | 16 |
| 32. |Road ascends a hill 7 miles long; | | | | |
| |land rough, barren, and sandy in | | | | |
| |dry season. After 10 miles, red | | | | |
| |spring near the Red Buttes, an old | | | | |
| |trading-place and post-office. Road| | | | |
| |then leaves the Platte River and | | | | |
| |strikes over high, rolling, and | | | | |
| |barren prairie. After 18 miles, | | | | |
| |“Devil’s Backbone” Station at | | | | |
| |Willow Springs; wood, water, and | | | | |
| |grass; good place for encampment, | | | | |
| |but no accommodation nor | | | | |
| |provisions. On this stage mineral | | | | |
| |and alkaline waters dangerous to | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |cattle abound. | 28 | 6 30 |12 50 | 17 |
| 33. |After 3 miles, Green Creek, not to | | | | |
| |be depended upon, and Prospect | | | | |
| |Hill, a good look-out. Then, at | | | | |
| |intervals of 3 miles, Harper’s, | | | | |
| |Woodworth’s, and Greasewood Creeks,| | | | |
| |followed by heavy sand. At 17 | | | | |
| |miles, “Saleratus Lake,” on the | | | | |
| |west of the road. Four miles beyond| | | | |
| |is “Independence Rock,” Ford | | | | |
| |Sweetwater, leaving the “Devil’s | | | | |
| |Gate” on the right. Pass a | | | | |
| |blacksmith’s shop. Sage the only | | | | |
| |fuel. Plante or Muddy Station; | | | | |
| |family of Canadians; no | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |conveniences. | 33 | 2 30 | 9 15 | 17 |
| 34. |Along the winding banks of the | | | | |
| |Sweetwater. After 4 miles, “Alkali | | | | |
| |Lake” S. of the road. Land dry and | | | | |
| |stony; stunted cedars in hills. | | | | |
| |After 12 miles, the “Devil’s Post- | | | | |
| |office,” a singular bluff on the | | | | |
| |left of the road, and opposite a | | | | |
| |ranch kept by a Canadian. Mail | | | | |
| |station “Three Crossings,” at Ford | | | | |
| |No. 3; excellent water, wood, | | A.M. | A.M. | Aug.|
| |grass, game, and wild currants. | 25 | 7 | 11 | 18 |
| 35. |Up a kanyon of the Sweetwater. Ford| | | | |
| |the river 5 times, making a total | | | | |
| |of 8. After 16 miles, “Ice Springs”| | | | |
| |in a swampy valley, and one quarter| | | | |
| |of a mile beyond “Warm Springs.” | | | | |
| |Then rough descent and waterless | | | | |
| |stretch. Descend by “Lander’s Cut- | | | | |
| |off” into fertile bottom. “Rocky | | | | |
| |Ridge Station;” at Muskrat Creek | | | | |
| |good cold spring, grass, and sage | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |fuel. | 35 | 5 45 |12 45 | 19 |
| 36. |Up the bed of the creek, and, | | | | |
| |ascending long hills, leave the | | | | |
| |Sweetwater. After 4 miles, 3 | | | | |
| |alkaline ponds S. of the road. | | | | |
| |Rough path. After 7 miles, | | | | |
| |“Strawberry Creek,” 6 feet wide; | | | | |
| |good camping-ground; willows and | | | | |
| |poplars. One mile beyond is | | | | |
| |Quaking-Asp Creek, often dry. Three| | | | |
| |miles beyond lies M‘Achran’s | | | | |
| |Branch, 33 × 2. Then “Willow | | | | |
| |Creek,” 10 × 2; good camping- | | | | |
| |ground. At Ford No. 9 is a Canadian| | | | |
| |ranch and store. A long table-land | | | | |
| |leads to “South Pass,” dividing | | | | |
| |trip between the Atlantic and | | | | |
| |Pacific, and thence 2 miles to the | | | | |
| |station at “Pacific Springs;” | | | | |
| |water, tolerable grass, sage fuel, | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |and musquetoes. | 35 | 7 45 | 3 | 20 |
| 37. |Cross Miry Creek. Road down Pacific| | | | |
| |Creek; water scarce for 20 miles. | | | | |
| |After 11 miles, “Dry Sandy Creek;” | | | | |
| |water scarce and too brackish to | | | | |
| |drink; grass little; sage and | | | | |
| |greasewood plentiful. After 16 | | | | |
| |miles, “Sublette’s Cut-off,” or the| | | | |
| |“Dry Drive,” turns N.W. to Soda | | | | |
| |Springs and Fort Hall: the left | | | | |
| |fork leads to Fort Bridger and | | | | |
| |Great Salt Lake City. Four miles | | | | |
| |beyond the junction is “Little | | | | |
| |Sandy Creek,” 20-25 × 2; grass, | | | | |
| |timber, and good camping-ground. | | | | |
| |Eight miles beyond is “Big Sandy | | | | |
| |Creek,” clear, swift, and with good| | | | |
| |crossing, 110 × 2. The southern | | | | |
| |route is the best; along the old | | | | |
| |road, no water for 49 miles. Big | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |Sandy Creek Station. | 33 | 8 |12 50 | 21 |
| 38. |Desolate road cuts off the bend of | | | | |
| |the river; no grass nor water. | | | | |
| |After 12 miles, “Simpson’s Hollow.”| | | | |
| |Fall into the Valley of Green | | | | |
| |River, half a mile wide, water 110 | | | | |
| |yards broad. After 20¹⁄₂ miles, | | | | |
| |Upper Ford; Lower Ford 7 miles | | | | |
| |below Upper. Good camping-ground on| | | | |
| |bottom; at the station in Green | | | | |
| |River, grocery, stores, and ferry- | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |boat when there is high water. | 32 | 1 45 | 6 30 | 21 |
| 39. |Diagonal ford over Green River; a | | | | |
| |good camping-ground in bottom. | | | | |
| |Follow the valley for 4 miles; | | | | |
| |grass and fuel. Michel Martin’s | | | | |
| |store and grocery. The road leaves | | | | |
| |the river and crosses a waterless | | | | |
| |divide to Black’s Fork, 100 × 2; | | | | |
| |grass and fuel. Wretched station at| | A.M. | NOON.| Aug.|
| |Ham’s Fork. | 24 | 8 | 12 | 22 |
| 40. |Ford Ham’s Fork. After 12 miles the| | | | |
| |road forks at the 2d striking of | | | | |
| |Ham’s Fork, both branches leading | | | | |
| |to Fort Bridger. Mail takes the | | | | |
| |left-hand path. Then Black’s Fork, | | | | |
| |20 × 2, clear and pretty valley, | | | | |
| |with grass and fuel, cotton-wood | | | | |
| |and yellow currants. Cross the | | | | |
| |stream 3 times. After 12 miles, | | | | |
| |“Church Butte.” Ford Smith’s Fork, | | | | |
| |30 feet wide and shallow, a | | | | |
| |tributary of Black’s Fork. Station | | | | |
| |at Millersville on Smith’s Fork; | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |large store and good accommodation.| 20 | 2 | 5 15 | 22 |
| 41. |Road runs up the valley of Black’s | | | | |
| |Fork. After 12 miles, Fort Bridger,| | | | |
| |in N. lat. 41° 18′ 12″, and W. | | | | |
| |long. 110° 32′ 23″, on Black’s Fork| | | | |
| |of Green River. Commands Indian | | | | |
| |trade, fuel, corn; little grass. | | | | |
| |Post-office, sutler’s store, | | | | |
| |grocery, and other conveniences. | | | | |
| |Thence rough and rolling ground to | | | | |
| |Muddy Creek Hill; steep and stony | | | | |
| |descent. Over a fertile bottom to | | | | |
| |Big Muddy and Little Muddy Creek, | | | | |
| |which empties into Black’s Fork | | | | |
| |below Fort Bridger. At Muddy Creek | | | | |
| |Station there is a Canadian, | | | | |
| |provisions, excellent milk; no | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |stores. | 25 | 8 30 |12 15 | 23 |
| 42. |Rough country. The road winds along| | | | |
| |the ridge to Quaking-Asp Hill, 7900| | | | |
| |(8400?) feet above sea level. Steep| | | | |
| |descent; rough and broken ground. | | | | |
| |After 18 miles, Sulphur Creek | | | | |
| |Valley; stagnant stream, flowing | | | | |
| |after rain; ford bad and muddy. | | | | |
| |Station in the fertile valley of | | | | |
| |Bear River, which turns northward | | | | |
| |and flows into the east side of the| | | | |
| |lake; wood, grass, and water. Poor | | | | |
| |accommodations at Bear River | | NOON.| P.M. | Aug.|
| |Station. | 20 | 12 | 5 30 | 23 |
| 43. |Road runs by Needle Rocks; falls | | | | |
| |into the Valley of Egan’s Creek. | | | | |
| |“Cache Cave” on the right hand. | | | | |
| |Three miles below the Cave is Red | | | | |
| |Fork in Echo Kanyon; unfinished | | | | |
| |station at the entrance. Rough | | | | |
| |road; steep ascents and descents | | | | |
| |along Red Creek Station on Weber | | | | |
| |River, which falls into Salt Lake | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |south of Bear River. | 36 | 8 15 | 2 30 | 24 |
| 44. |Road runs down the Valley of the | | | | |
| |Weber. Ford the river. After 5¹⁄₄ | | | | |
| |miles is a salt spring, where the | | | | |
| |road leaves the river to avoid a | | | | |
| |deep kanyon, and turns to the left | | | | |
| |into a valley with rough paths, | | | | |
| |trying to wheels. Then crosses a | | | | |
| |mountain, and, ascending a long | | | | |
| |hill, descends to Bauchmin’s Creek,| | | | |
| |tributary to Weber River. Creek 18 | | | | |
| |feet wide, swift, pebbly bed, good | | | | |
| |ford; grass and fuel abundant. The | | | | |
| |station is called Carson’s House; | | P.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |accommodations of the worst. | 22 | 4 30 | 7 45 | 24 |
| 45. |Ford Bauchmin’s Creek 13 times in 8| | | | |
| |miles. After 2 miles along a small | | | | |
| |water-course ascend Big Mountain, | | | | |
| |whence first view of Great Salt | | | | |
| |Lake City, 12 miles distant. After | | | | |
| |14 miles, Big Kanyon Creek. Six | | | | |
| |miles farther the road leaves Big | | | | |
| |Kanyon Creek, and after a steep | | | | |
| |ascent and descent makes Emigration| | | | |
| |Creek. Cross Little Mountain, 2 | | | | |
| |miles beyond Big Mountain; road | | | | |
| |rough and dangerous. Five miles | | | | |
| |from Emigration Kanyon to Great | | | | |
| |Salt Lake City. Road through “Big | | A.M. | P.M. | Aug.|
| |Field” 6 miles square. | 29 | 7 | 7 15 | 28 |
+-----+-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, N. lat. 40° 46′ 08″
W. long. 112° 06′ 08″ (G.)
Altitude 4300 feet.
The variation of compass at Temple Block in 1849 was 15° 47′ 23″,
and in 1860 it was 15° 54′, a slow progress toward the east. (In the
Wind-River Mountains, as laid down by Colonel Frémont in 1842, it was
E. 18°.) In Fillmore Valley it is now 18° 15′, and three years ago
was about 17° east; the rapid progression to the east is accompanied
with extreme irregularity, which the people attribute to the metallic
constituents of the soil.
Total of days between St. Jo and Great Salt Lake City. 19
Total stages. 45
Distance in statute miles. 1136
From Fort Leavenworth to Great Salt Lake City. 1168
ITINERARY OF THE MAIL-ROUTE FROM GREAT SALT LAKE CITY TO SAN FRANCISCO.
+-----+-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+
| No. | | | | | |
| of | | | | Ar- | |
|Mail.| |Miles.|Start.|rival.|Date.|
+-----+-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+
| 1 |Road through the south of the city,| | | | |
| and |due south along the right bank of | | | | |
| 2. |the Jordan. Cross many creeks, | | | | |
| |viz., Kanyon Creek, 4¹⁄₄ miles; | | | | |
| |Mill Creek, 2¹⁄₂; First or Great | | | | |
| |Cotton-wood Creek, 2; Second | | | | |
| |ditto, 4; Fork of road, 1¹⁄₄; Dry | | | | |
| |Creek, 3¹⁄₂; Willow Creek, 2³⁄₄. | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| |After 22-23 miles, hot and cold | | | | |
| |springs, and half-way house, the | | | | |
| |brewery under the point of the | | | | |
| |mountain. Road across Ash-Hollow or| | | | |
| |Jordan Kanyon, 2 miles. Fords | | | | |
| |river, knee deep; ascends a rough | | | | |
| |divide between Utah Valley and | | | | |
| |Cedar Valley, 10 miles from camp, | | | | |
| |and finally reaches Cedar Creek and| | | |Sept.|
| |Camp Floyd. | 44 | 10 30| 9 30 | 20 |
| 3. |Leaves Camp Floyd; 7 miles to the | | | | |
| |divide of Cedar Valley. Crosses the| | | | |
| |divide into Rush Valley; after a | | | | |
| |total of 18·2 miles reaches Meadow | | | | |
| |Creek; good grass and water. Rush | | | | |
| |Valley mail station 1 mile beyond; | | | |Sept.|
| |food and accommodation. | 20 | 10 30| 9 30 | 27 |
| 4. |Crosses remains of Rush Valley 7 | | | | |
| |miles. Up a rough divide called | | | | |
| |General Johnston’s Pass. Spring, | | | | |
| |often dry, 200 yards on the right | | | | |
| |of the road. At Point Look-out | | | | |
| |leaves Simpson’s Road, which runs | | | | |
| |south. Cross Skull Valley; bad | | | | |
| |road. To the bench on the eastern | | | | |
| |flank of the desert. Station called| | | | |
| |Egan’s Springs, Simpson’s Springs, | | | | |
| |or Lost Springs, grass plentiful, | | A.M. | |Sept.|
| |water good. | 27 | 9 30 | 4 30 | 28 |
| 5. |New station; road forks to S.E., | | | | |
| |and leads, after 5 miles, to grass | | | | |
| |and water. After 8 miles, river | | | | |
| |bottom, 1 mile broad. Long line | | | | |
| |over desert to express station, | | | | |
| |called Dugway; no grass, and no | | | P.M. |Sept.|
| |water. | 20 | 12 | 5 30 | 29 |
| 6. |Steep road 2¹⁄₂ miles to the summit| | | | |
| |of Dugway Pass. Descend by a rough | | | | |
| |incline; 8 miles beyond the road | | | | |
| |forks to Devil’s Hole, 90 miles | | | | |
| |from Camp Floyd on Simpson’s route,| | | | |
| |and 6 miles S. of Fish Springs. | | | | |
| |Eight miles beyond the fork is | | | | |
| |Mountain Point; road winds S. and | | | | |
| |W., and then N. to avoid swamp, and| | | | |
| |crosses 3 sloughs. Beyond the last | | | | |
| |is Fish-Spring Station, on the | | | | |
| |bench--a poor place; water | | | | |
| |plentiful, but bad. Cattle here | | | | |
| |drink for the first time after Lost| | P.M. | A.M. |Sept.|
| |Springs, distant 48 miles. | 28 | 6 30 | 3 30 | 29 |
| 7. |Road passes many pools. Half way | | | | |
| |forks S. to Pleasant Valley | | | | |
| |(Simpson’s line). Road again rounds| | | | |
| |the swamp, crossing S. end of Salt | | | | |
| |Plain. After 21 miles, “Willow | | | | |
| |Creek;” water rather brackish. | | | | |
| |Station “Willow Springs” on the | | | | |
| |bench below the hills, at W. end of| | A.M. | |Sept.|
| |desert; grass and hay plentiful. | 22 | 10 | 3 30 | 30 |
| 8. |Road ascending the bench, turns N. | | | | |
| |to find the pass. After 6 miles, | | | | |
| |Mountain Springs; good water, | | | | |
| |grass, and fuel. Six miles beyond | | | | |
| |is Deep-Creek Kanyon, a dangerous | | | | |
| |ravine 9 miles long. Then descends | | | | |
| |into a fertile and well-watered | | | | |
| |valley, and after 7 miles enters | | | | |
| |Deep-Creek mail station. Indian | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |farm. | 28 | 8 | 4 | 1 |
| 9. |Along Willow Creek. After 8 miles, | | | | |
| |“Eight-Miles Springs;” water, | | | | |
| |grass, and sage fuel. Kanyon after | | | | |
| |2¹⁄₂ miles, 500 yards long and | | | | |
| |easy. Then 19 miles through | | | | |
| |Antelope Valley to the station of | | | | |
| |the same name, burnt in June, 1860,| | | | |
| |by Indians. Simpson’s route from | | | | |
| |Pleasant Valley, distant 12·5 | | | | |
| |miles, falls into the E. end of | | | | |
| |Antelope Valley, from Camp Floyd | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |151 miles. | 30 | 8 | 4 | 3, 4|
| 10. |Road over the valley for 2 miles to| | | | |
| |the mouth of Shell-Creek Kanyon, 6 | | | | |
| |miles long. Rough road; fuel | | | | |
| |plentiful. Descends into Spring | | | | |
| |Valley, and then passes over other | | | | |
| |divides into Shell Creek, where | | | | |
| |there is a mail station; water, | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |grass, and fuel abundant. | 18 | 6 | 11 | 5 |
| 11. |Descends a rough road. Crosses | | | | |
| |Steptoe Valley and bridged creek. | | | | |
| |Road heavy, sand or mud. After 16 | | | | |
| |miles, Egan’s Kanyon, dangerous for| | | | |
| |Indians. Station at the W. mouth | | P.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |burned by Indians in October, 1860.| 18 | 2 | 6 | 5 |
| 12. |Pass the divide, fall into Butte | | | | |
| |Valley, and cross its N. end. | | | | |
| |Bottom very cold. Mail station half| | | | |
| |way up a hill; a very small spring;| | | | |
| |grass on the N. side of the hill. | | P.M. | A.M. | Oct.|
| |Butte Station. | 18 | 8 | 3 | 6 |
| 13. |Ascend the long divide; 2 steep | | | | |
| |hills and falls. Cross the N. end | | | | |
| |of Long Valley, all barren. Ascend | | | | |
| |the divide, and descend into Ruby | | | | |
| |Valley; road excellent; water, | | | | |
| |grass, and bottom; fuel distant. | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |Good mail station. | 22 | 8 | 1 45 | 7 |
| 14. |Long divide; fuel plenty; no grass | | | | |
| |nor water. After 10 miles the road | | | | |
| |branches to the right hand to | | | | |
| |Gravelly Ford of Humboldt River. | | | | |
| |Cross a dry bottom. Cross Smith’s | | | | |
| |Fork of Humboldt River in | | | | |
| |Huntingdon Valley; a little stream;| | | | |
| |bunch-grass and sage fuel on the W.| | | | |
| |end. Ascend Chokop’s Pass, Dugway, | | | | |
| |and hard hill; descend into | | | | |
| |Moonshine Valley. Station at | | | | |
| |Diamond Springs; warm water, but | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |good. | 23 | 8 | 1 45 | 8, 9|
| 15. |Cross Moonshine Valley. After 7 | | | | |
| |miles a sulphurous spring and | | | | |
| |grass. Twelve miles beyond ascend | | | | |
| |the divide; no water; fuel and | | | | |
| |bunch-grass plentiful. Then a long | | | | |
| |divide. After 9 miles, the station | | | | |
| |on Roberts’ Creek, at the E. end of| | | | |
| |Sheawit, or Roberts’ Springs | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |Valley. | 28 | 8 | 1 45 | 10 |
| 16. |Down the valley to the west; good | | | | |
| |road; sage small; no fuel. After 12| | | | |
| |miles, willows and water-holes; 3 | | | | |
| |miles beyond there are alkaline | | | | |
| |wells. Station on the bench; water | | | | |
| |below in a dry creek; grass must be| | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |brought from 15 miles. | 35 | 6 30 |12 30 | 11 |
| 17. |Cross a long rough divide to Smoky | | | | |
| |Valley. At the northern end is a | | | | |
| |creek called “Wanahonop,” or | | | | |
| |“Netwood,” _i. e._, trap. Thence a | | | | |
| |long rough kanyon to Simpson’s | | | | |
| |Park; grass plentiful; water in | | | | |
| |wells 10 feet deep. Simpson’s Park | | | | |
| |in Shoshonee country, and, | | | | |
| |according to Simpson’s Itinerary, | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |348 miles from Camp Floyd. | 25 | 8 15 | 2 25 | 12 |
| 18. |Cross Simpson’s Park. Ascend | | | | |
| |Simpson’s Pass, a long kanyon, with| | | | |
| |sweet “Sage Springs” on the summit;| | | | |
| |bunch-grass plentiful. Descend to | | | | |
| |the fork of the road; right hand to| | | | |
| |the lower, left hand to the upper | | | | |
| |ford of Reese’s River. Water | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |perennial and good; food poor. | 15 | 10 | 2 | 13 |
| 19. |Through the remainder of Reese’s | | | | |
| |River Valley. After a long divide, | | | | |
| |the Valley of Smith’s Creek; | | | | |
| |saleratus; no water nor grass. At | | | | |
| |last, the station, near a kanyon, | | | | |
| |and hidden from view. The land | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |belongs to the Pa Yutas. | 28 | 7 20 | 2 45 | 14 |
| 20. |Ascend a rough kanyon, and descend | | | | |
| |to a barren and saleratus plain. | | | | |
| |Toward the south of the valley over| | | | |
| |bench-land, rough with rock and | | | | |
| |pitch-hole. “Cold Springs Station” | | | | |
| |half built, near stream; fuel | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |scarce. | 25 | 8 15 | 4 15 | 15 |
| 21. |At the west gate, 2 miles from the | | | | |
| |station, good grass. After 8 miles,| | | | |
| |water. Two miles beyond is the | | | | |
| |middle gate; water in fiumara, and | | | | |
| |grass near. Beyond the gate are 2 | | | | |
| |basins, long divides, winding road | | | | |
| |to “Sand Springs Valley;” bad | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |water; little grass. | 35 | 9 50 | 2 30 | 16 |
| 22. |Cross the valley, 10 miles to the | | | | |
| |summit, over slough inundations and| | | | |
| |bad road. Summit shifting sand. | | | | |
| |Descend 5 miles to Carson Lake; | | | | |
| |water tolerable; tule abundant. | | | | |
| |Round the S. side of the lake to | | | | |
| |the sink of Carson River Station; | | | | |
| |no provisions; pasture good; fuel | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |scarce. | 25 | 11 | 9 | 17 |
| 23. |Cross a long plain. Ascend a very | | | | |
| |steep divide, and sight Sierra 50 | | | | |
| |miles distant. Descend to Carson | | | | |
| |River. Fort Churchill newly built. | | A.M. | P.M. | Oct.|
| |Sutler’s stores, etc. | 25 | 9 30 | 7 15 | 18 |
| | | | | | Oct.|
| 24. | Carson City | 35 | 11 |10 30 | 19 |
| | | | | | |
| |Carson City lies on the eastern | | | | |
| |foot of the Sierra Nevada, distant | | | | |
| |552 statute miles, according to | | | | |
| |Captain Simpson, from Camp Floyd. | | | | |
| |The present itinerary reduces it to| | | | |
| |544, and, adding 44 miles, to a | | | | |
| |total of 588 from Great Salt Lake | | | | |
| |City. | | | | |
+-----+-----------------------------------+------+------+------+-----+
ITINERARY of Captain J. H. SIMPSON’S Wagon-road from Camp Floyd
to Genoa, Carson Valley, Utah Territory. Explored by direction of
General A. G. JOHNSTON, commanding the Department of Utah, between
the 2d of May and the 12th of June, 1859.
+----------------------------------------+-------+------+------+-----+
| | Inter-| From | Total| |
| |mediate| Camp | from | |
| | Dis- | to | Camp | No. |
| |tances.| Camp.|Floyd.| of |
| Places. | Miles.|Miles.|Miles.|Camp.|
+----------------------------------------+-------+------+------+-----+
|Camp Floyd, wood and grass in vicinity. | | | | |
|Meadow Creek. | 18·2 | 18·2 | 18·2| 1 |
| | | | | |
|Cross Meadow Creek (Rush Valley), mail | | | | |
|station ¹⁄₄ mile. | 1 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Spring ¹⁄₄ mile to the right of General | | | | |
|Johnston’s Pass, just after passing the | | | | |
|summit. This spring furnishes but little| | | | |
|water, even in the spring, and in the | | | | |
|summer would be most probably dry. | 8·9 | 9·9 | 28·1| 2 |
| | | | | |
|Simpson’s Springs, mail station. | 16·2 | 16·2 | 44·3| 3 |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Summit, Short-cut Pass. | 21·6 | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|1·6 miles below summit. | 1·6 | 23·2 | 67·5| 4 |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Tolerable grass skirting a low range of | | | | |
|rocks on the right of the road. | 7·8 | | | |
| | | | | |
|A little grass; sage in valley. | 4·8 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Devil’s Hole; water slightly brackish. | 6·7 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Fish Springs, mail station. | 5·4 | 24·7 | 92·2| 5 |
| | | | | |
|Warm Springs. | 3·4 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Grass in considerable quantity of good | | | | |
|character. | 26·4 | 29·7 | 121·9| 6 |
| | | | | |
|Alkaline spring to the right of the | | | | |
|road; water not drinkable. | 1· | | | |
| | | | | |
|Sulphur springs; water abundant and | | | | |
|palatable. | 1·5 | 2·5 | 125· | 7 |
| | | | | |
|Spring, Pleasant Valley, mail station. | 13·4 | 13·4 | 138·4| 8 |
| | | | | |
|East side of Antelope Valley. | | 12·5 | 150·9| 9 |
| | | | | |
|Spring Valley; good grass on the west | | | | |
|bench and slopes. | | 19· | 169·9| 10 |
| | | | | |
|Cross a marsh; road takes up a fine | | | | |
|stream; grass all along. | 3·5 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Leave Creek. | 3·5 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Spring, copious; grass fine. | 2·8 | | | |
| | | | | |
|East side of Steptoe Valley, mail | | | | |
|station. | 1·3 | 11·1 | 181·0| 11 |
| | | | | |
|Steptoe Creek; dry in summer. | 6·5 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Mouth of Egan Kanyon. | 6·8 | 13·3 | 194·3| 12 |
| | | | | |
|Spring; source of Egan Creek. | 1·8 | | | |
| | | | | |
|West side of Butte Valley. Mail station;| | | | |
|a very small spring, barely sufficient | | | | |
|for cooking purposes, near the top of | | | | |
|the hill; grass on the N. side of same | | | | |
|hill. | 16·2 | 18·1 | 212·4| 13 |
| | | | | |
|Spring 1 mile west side of summit of | | | | |
|range. | 12· | 12· | 224·4| 14 |
| | | | | |
|Ruby Valley, mail station. | 9·2 | 9·2 | 233·6| 15 |
| | | | | |
|Smith’s Fork, Humboldt River, | | | | |
|Huntingdon’s Creek. | 14·4 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Small mountain stream. | 3·3 | 17·6 | 251·2| 16 |
| | | | | |
|Spring left of the road. | 1·2 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Near west foot of Cho-kupe Pass. | 5·8 | 7·1 | 258·3| 17 |
| | | | | |
|Spring in Pah-hun-nupe Valley. | 7·8 | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Do. west side of Pah-hun-nupe Valley. | 5·6 | 13·3 | 271·6| 18 |
| | | | | |
|She-a-wi-te (Willow) Creek. | 14·9 | 14·9 | 286·5| 19 |
| | | | | |
|Bed of Nash River; water in pools, | | | | |
|probably not constant. | 11·6 | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Small spring; grass on mountain side, 2 | | | | |
|miles off. | 5·9 | 17·5 | 304· | 20 |
| | | | | |
|Wons-in-dam-me, or Antelope Creek. | 7· | 7· | 311· | 21 |
| | | | | |
|Creek. | 4·3 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Creek west side of valley. | 9·5 | 13·7 | 324·7| 22 |
| | | | | |
|Wan-a-ho-no-pe (Netwood trap) Creek. | 13·6 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Wan-a-ho-no-pe (Netwood trap) Creek. | 4·6 | 18·2 | 342·9| 23 |
| | | | | |
|Simpson’s Park, according to | | | | |
|topographer, Lieutenant Putnam, and | | | | |
|guide, Colonel Reese. | 4·9 | 4·9 | 347·8| 24 |
| | | | | |
|Small spring in Simpson’s Pass (same | | | | |
|authority). | 3· | | | |
| | | | | |
|Ford of Reese’s River. | 8·2 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Reese’s River. | 2·6 | 13·8 | 361·6| 25 |
| | | | | |
|Leave Reese’s River. | 3·4 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Small spring to the left of the road, | | | | |
|just before reaching the summit of the | | | | |
|Pass. | 10· | | | |
| | | | | |
|Lieutenant J. L. Kirby Smith’s Creek. | 7·8 | 21·2 | 382·8| 26 |
| | | | | |
|Engleman’s Creek. | 1·6 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Lieutenant Putnam’s Creek. | 8·6 | 10·2 | 393· | 27 |
| | | | | |
|Lieutenant Putnam’s South Fork. | 2·7 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Rock Creek. | 3· | | | |
| | | | | |
|Rock Creek. | 3·1 | 8·7 | 401·7| 28 |
| | | | | |
|Rock Creek Sinks. | 1·7 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Spring-water kegs should be filled for 2| | | | |
|days. Camp from this in alkaline flat. | 5·4 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Gibraltar Gate. | 0·6 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Creek joins Gibraltar Creek. | 4·2 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Middle-Gate Spring. | 3·2 | 14·7 | 416·4| 29 |
| | | | | |
|West Gate. | 3·5 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Dry wells; alkaline valley; very poor | | | | |
|camp; water and grass alkaline, and | | | | |
|little of either. Rabbit-bush fuel. | 21·0 | 24·5 | 440·9| 30 |
| | | | | |
|Creek connecting the two lakes of | | | | |
|Carson. Road can be shortened some eight| | | | |
|or ten miles by striking across the head| | | | |
|of Alkaline Valley after getting about | | | | |
|nine miles from Camp 30, and then | | | | |
|proceeding directly to the shore of | | | | |
|Carson Lake. It is not necessary to go | | | | |
|so far north as the connecting creek | | | | |
|referred to. | | 16·6 | 457·5| 31 |
| | | | | |
|Leave Carson Lake. | 9·7 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Walker’s River. | 21·5 | 31·2 | 488·7| 32 |
| | | | | |
|Walker’s River. | | 10· | 498·7| 33 |
| | | | | |
|Walker’s North Bend. | | 6·3 | 505· | 34 |
| | | | | |
|Small spring, not sufficient for a large| | | | |
|command; grass ¹⁄₂ mile south. | 14·1| | | |
| | | | | |
|Carson River. | 1·9 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Carson River. | 3·0 | 19·0 | 524· | 35 |
| | | | | |
|Pleasant Grove; cross Carson River and | | | | |
|get into Old Emigrant Road. Mail | | | | |
|station. | 9·0 | 9·0 | 533· | 36 |
| | | | | |
|China Town. Gold diggings. | 7·4 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Carson City. East foot of Sierra Nevada.| 11·6 | 19·0 | 552· | 37 |
| | | | | |
|Genoa. East foot of Sierra Nevada. | 12·9 | 12·9 | 564·9| 38 |
+----------------------------------------+-------+------+------+-----+
+----------------------------------------+-----+-----+------+------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | No. | | | |
| | of | | | |
| Places. |Camp.|Wood.|Water.|Grass.|
+----------------------------------------+-----+-----+------+------+
|Camp Floyd, wood and grass in vicinity. | | | W | |
|Meadow Creek. | 1 | | | |
| | | | | |
|Cross Meadow Creek (Rush Valley), mail | | | | |
|station ¹⁄₄ mile. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Spring ¹⁄₄ mile to the right of General | | | | |
|Johnston’s Pass, just after passing the | | | | |
|summit. This spring furnishes but little| | | | |
|water, even in the spring, and in the | | | | |
|summer would be most probably dry. | 2 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Simpson’s Springs, mail station. | 3 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
| | | Wil-| | |
|Summit, Short-cut Pass. | | low | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | very |
|1·6 miles below summit. | 4 | Sage| |little|
| | | | | grass|
| | | | | |
|Tolerable grass skirting a low range of | | | | |
|rocks on the right of the road. | | | | G |
| | | | | |
|A little grass; sage in valley. | | S | | G |
| | | | | |
|Devil’s Hole; water slightly brackish. | | | W | |
| | | | | |
|Fish Springs, mail station. | 5 | Ctw | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Warm Springs. | | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Grass in considerable quantity of good | | | | |
|character. | 6 | | | G |
| | | | | |
|Alkaline spring to the right of the | | | | |
|road; water not drinkable. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Sulphur springs; water abundant and | | | | |
|palatable. | 7 | W,S | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Spring, Pleasant Valley, mail station. | 8 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|East side of Antelope Valley. | 9 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Spring Valley; good grass on the west | | | | |
|bench and slopes. | 10 | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Cross a marsh; road takes up a fine | | | | |
|stream; grass all along. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Leave Creek. | | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Spring, copious; grass fine. | | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|East side of Steptoe Valley, mail | | | | |
|station. | 11 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Steptoe Creek; dry in summer. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Mouth of Egan Kanyon. | 12 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Spring; source of Egan Creek. | | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|West side of Butte Valley. Mail station;| | | | |
|a very small spring, barely sufficient | | | | |
|for cooking purposes, near the top of | | | | |
|the hill; grass on the N. side of same | | | | |
|hill. | 13 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Spring 1 mile west side of summit of | | | | |
|range. | 14 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Ruby Valley, mail station. | 15 | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Smith’s Fork, Humboldt River, | | | | |
|Huntingdon’s Creek. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Small mountain stream. | 16 | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Spring left of the road. | | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Near west foot of Cho-kupe Pass. | 17 | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Spring in Pah-hun-nupe Valley. | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | S,W | | |
|Do. west side of Pah-hun-nupe Valley. | 18 | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|She-a-wi-te (Willow) Creek. | 19 | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Bed of Nash River; water in pools, | | | | |
|probably not constant. | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Small spring; grass on mountain side, 2 | | | | |
|miles off. | 20 | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Wons-in-dam-me, or Antelope Creek. | 21 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Creek. | | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Creek west side of valley. | 22 | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Wan-a-ho-no-pe (Netwood trap) Creek. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Wan-a-ho-no-pe (Netwood trap) Creek. | 23 | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Simpson’s Park, according to | | | | |
|topographer, Lieutenant Putnam, and | | | | |
|guide, Colonel Reese. | 24 | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Small spring in Simpson’s Pass (same | | | | |
|authority). | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Ford of Reese’s River. | | | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Reese’s River. | 25 | | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Leave Reese’s River. | | | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Small spring to the left of the road, | | | | |
|just before reaching the summit of the | | | | |
|Pass. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Lieutenant J. L. Kirby Smith’s Creek. | 26 | GW | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Engleman’s Creek. | | | W | |
| | | | | |
|Lieutenant Putnam’s Creek. | 27 | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Lieutenant Putnam’s South Fork. | | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Rock Creek. | | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Rock Creek. | 28 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Rock Creek Sinks. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Spring-water kegs should be filled for 2| | | | |
|days. Camp from this in alkaline flat. | | | W | |
| | | | | |
|Gibraltar Gate. | | | W | |
| | | | | |
|Creek joins Gibraltar Creek. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Middle-Gate Spring. | 29 | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|West Gate. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Dry wells; alkaline valley; very poor | | | | |
|camp; water and grass alkaline, and | | Rab.| | |
|little of either. Rabbit-bush fuel. | 30 | bush| W | G |
| | | | | |
|Creek connecting the two lakes of | | | | |
|Carson. Road can be shortened some eight| | | | |
|or ten miles by striking across the head| | | | |
|of Alkaline Valley after getting about | | | | |
|nine miles from Camp 30, and then | | | | |
|proceeding directly to the shore of | | | | |
|Carson Lake. It is not necessary to go | | | | |
|so far north as the connecting creek | | Dry | | |
|referred to. | 31 | rush| W | R,G |
| | | | | |
|Leave Carson Lake. | | | W | R,G |
| | | | | |
|Walker’s River. | 32 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Walker’s River. | 33 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Walker’s North Bend. | 34 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Small spring, not sufficient for a large| | | | |
|command; grass ¹⁄₂ mile south. | | S,W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Carson River. | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Carson River. | 35 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Pleasant Grove; cross Carson River and | | | | |
|get into Old Emigrant Road. Mail | | | | |
|station. | 36 | W | W | G |
| | | | | |
|China Town. Gold diggings. | | | W | |
| | | | | |
|Carson City. East foot of Sierra Nevada.| 37 | | W | G |
| | | | | |
|Genoa. East foot of Sierra Nevada. | 38 | W | W | G |
+----------------------------------------+-----+-----+------+------+
(Signed), J. H. SIMPSON, Capt. Top. Engineers.
To Brevet Major F. J. Porter, Assist. Adj. Gen., Dept. Utah, Camp
Floyd.
II. DESCRIPTION OF THE MORMON TEMPLE.
[_Extracted from the Deserét News._]
The following is a brief detail of the temple, taken from drawings in
my office in Great Salt Lake City.
The Temple Block is 40 rods square, the lines running north and south,
east and west, and contains 10 acres. The centre of the temple is 156
feet 6 inches due west from the centre of the east line of the block.
The length of said house east and west is 186¹⁄₂ feet, including
towers, and the width 99 feet. On the east end there are three towers,
as also on the west. Draw a line north and south 118¹⁄₂ feet through
the centre of the tower, and you have the north and south extent of
ground-plan, including pedestal.
We depress into the earth at the east end to the depth of 16 feet, and
enlarge all around beyond the lines of wall 3 feet for a footing. The
north and south walls are 8 feet thick clear of pedestal; they stand
upon a footing of 16 feet wall on its bearing, which slopes 3 feet on
each side to the height of 7¹⁄₂ feet. The footing of the towers rise to
the same height as the side, and is one solid piece of masonry of rough
ashlars, laid in good lime mortar.
The basement of the main building is divided into many rooms by walls,
all having footings. The line of the basement floor is 6 inches above
the top of the footing. From the towers on the east to the towers on
the west, the face of the earth slopes 6 feet; 4 inches above the
earth on the east line begins a promenade walk from 11 to 22 feet wide
around the entire building, and approached by stone steps as the earth
slopes and requires them. There are four towers on the four corners
of the building, each starting from their footing of 26 feet square;
these continue 16¹⁄₂ feet high, and come to the line of the base string
course, which is 8 feet above the promenade walk. At this point the
towers are reduced to 25 feet square; they then continue to the height
of 38 feet, or the height of the second string course. At this point
they are reduced to 23 feet square; they then continue 38 feet high to
the third string course. The string courses continue all around the
building, except when separated by buttresses. These string courses are
massive mouldings from solid blocks of stone.
The two east towers then rise 25 feet to a string course or cornice.
The two west towers rise 19 feet, and come to their string course or
cornice. The four towers then rise 9 feet to the top of battlements.
These towers are cylindrical, having 17 feet diameter inside, within
which stairs ascend around a solid column 4 feet in diameter, allowing
landings at the various sections of the building. These towers have
each five ornamental windows on two sides above the basement. The
two centre towers occupy the centre of the east and west ends of the
building, starting from their footings 31 feet square, and break off
in sections in line with corner towers, to the height of the third
string course. The east centre tower then rises 40 feet to the top
of battlements; the west centre tower rises 34 feet to the top of
battlements. All these towers have spires; the east centre tower rises
200 feet, while the west centre tower rises 190 feet. All these towers
at their corners have octagon turrets, terminated by octagon pinnacles
5 feet diameter at base, 4 feet at first story, and three feet from
there up. There are also on each side of these towers two buttresses,
except where they come in contact with the body of the main building.
The top of these buttresses show forty-eight in number, and stand upon
pedestals. The space between the buttresses and turrets is 2 feet at
the first story. On the front of the two centre towers are two large
windows, each 32 feet high, one above the other, neatly prepared for
that place.
On the two west corner towers, and on the west end a few feet below the
top of battlements, may be seen in alto-relievo and bold relief the
great dipper, or Ursa Major, with the pointers ranging nearly toward
the north star. (Moral: the lost may find themselves by the priesthood.)
I will now glance at the main body of the house. I have before stated
that the basement was divided into many rooms. The central one is
arranged for a baptismal font, and is 59 feet long by 35 feet wide,
separated from the main wall by four rooms, two on each side, 19 feet
long by 12 feet wide. On the east and west sides of these rooms are
four passages 12 feet wide; these lead to and from by outside doors,
two on the north and two on the south. Farther east and west from these
passages are four more rooms, two at each end, 28 feet wide by 38¹⁄₂
long. These two thin walls occupy the basement. All the walls start off
their footings, and rise 16¹⁄₂ feet, and there stop with groin ceiling.
We are now up to the line of the base string course, 8 feet above the
promenade or steps rising to the temple, which terminates at the cope
of the pedestal, and to the first floor of said house. This room is
joined to the outer courts, these courts being the width between towers
16 feet by 9 in the clear. We ascend to the floors of these courts
(they being on a line with the first floor of the main house) by four
flights of stone steps 9¹⁄₂ feet wide, arranged in the basement work,
the first step ranging to the outer line of towers. From these courts
doors admit to any part of the building.
The size of the first large room is 120 feet long by 80 feet wide;
the height reaches nearly to the second string course. The room is
arched over in the centre with an elliptical arch, which drops at its
flank 10 feet, and has 38 feet span. The side ceilings have one fourth
elliptical arches, which start from the side walls of the main building
16 feet high, and terminate at the capitals of the columns, or foot
of centre arch, at the height of 24 feet. The columns obtain their
bearings direct from the footings of the said house; these columns
extend up to support the floor above. The outside walls of this story
are 7 feet thick. The space, from the termination of the foot of the
centre arch to the outer wall, is divided into sixteen compartments,
eight in each side, making rooms 14 feet by 14, clear of partitions,
and 10 feet high, leaving a passage of 6 feet wide next to each flank
of the centre arch, which is approached from the ends. These rooms
are each lighted by an elliptical or oval window, whose major axis is
vertical.
The second large room is one foot wider than the room below; this is in
consequence of the wall being but 6 feet thick, falling off 6 inches on
the inner and 6 on the outer side. The second string course provides
for this on the outer side. The rooms of this story are similar to
those below. The side walls have nine buttresses on a side, and have
eight tiers of windows, five in each tier.
The foot of the basement windows are 8 inches above the promenade,
rise 3 feet perpendicular, and terminate in a semicircular head.
The first-story windows have 12 feet long of sash to the top of the
semicircular head. The oval windows have 6¹⁄₂ feet length of sash. The
windows of the second story are the same as those below. All these
frames have 4¹⁄₂ feet width of sash. The pedestals under all the
buttresses project at their base 2 feet; above their base, which is 15
inches by 4¹⁄₂ feet wide, on each front is a figure of a globe 3 feet
11 inches across, whose axis corresponds with the axis of the earth.
The base string course forms a cope for those pedestals. Above this
cope the buttresses are 3¹⁄₂ feet, and continue to the height of 100
feet. Above the promenade, close under the second string course on each
of the buttresses, is the moon, represented in its different phases.
Close under the third string course or cornice is the face of the sun.
Immediately above is Saturn with his rings. The buttresses terminate
with a projected cope.
The only difference between the tower buttresses and the one just
described is, instead of Saturn being on them, we have clouds and rays
of light descending.
All of these symbols are to be chiseled in bas-relief on solid stone.
The side walls continue above the string course or cornice 8¹⁄₂
feet, making the walls 96 feet high, and are formed in battlements
interspersed with stars.
This roof is quite flat, rising only 8 feet, and is to be covered with
galvanized iron or some other metal. The building is to be otherwise
ornamented in many places. The whole structure is designed to symbolize
some of the great architectural work above. The basement windows recede
in from the face of the outer wall to the sash frame 23 inches, and are
relieved by a large cavetto, while on the inside they are approached by
stone steps.
Those windows above the base recede from the face of the wall to
the sash frame 3 feet, and are surrounded by stone jambs formed in
mouldings, and surmounted by labels over each, which terminate at their
horizon, excepting the oval windows, whose labels terminate as columns,
which extend from an enriched string course at the foot of each window
to the centre of the major axis. My chief object in the last paragraph
is to show to the judgment of any who may be baffled how those windows
can be come at, etc., etc. All the windows in the towers are moulded,
and have stone jambs, each being crowned with label mouldings. The
whole house covers an area of 21,850 feet.
For farther particulars, wait till the house is done, then come and see
it.
(Signed), TRUMAN O. ANGELL, _Architect_.
III. THE MARTYRDOM OF JOSEPH SMITH.
BY APOSTLE JOHN TAYLOR.
Being requested by George A. Smith and Willford Woodruff, Church
historians, to write an account of events that transpired before and
took place at the time of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, in Carthage
jail, in Hancock County, State of Illinois, I write the following
principally from memory, not having access to any public documents
relative thereto farther than a few desultory items contained in Ford’s
“History of Illinois.” I must also acknowledge myself considerably
indebted to George A. Smith, who was with me when I wrote it, and
who, although not there at the time of the bloody transaction, yet
from conversing with several persons who were in the capacity of
Church historians, and aided by an excellent memory, has rendered me a
considerable service. These and the few items contained in the notes
at the end of this account is all the aid I have had. I would farther
add that the items contained in the letter, in relation to dates
especially, may be considered strictly correct.
After having written the whole, I read it over to the Hon. J. M.
Bernhisel, who, with one or two slight alterations, pronounced it
strictly correct. Brother Bernhisel was present most of the time. I
am afraid that, from the length of time that has transpired since the
occurrence, and having to rely almost exclusively on my memory, there
may be some slight inaccuracies, but I believe that in the general
it is strictly correct; as I figured in those transactions from the
commencement to the end, they left no slight impression on my mind.
In the year 1844, a very great excitement prevailed in some parts
of the counties of Hancock, Brown, and other neighboring counties,
in relation to the “Mormons,” and a spirit of vindictive hatred and
persecution was exhibited among the people, which was manifested in the
most bitter and acrimonious language, as well as by acts of hostility
and violence, frequently threatening the destruction of the citizens
of Nauvoo and vicinity, and utter annihilation of the “Mormons” and
“Mormonism,” and in some instances breaking out in the most violent
acts of ruffianly barbarity; persons were kidnapped, whipped,
prosecuted, and falsely accused of various crimes; their cattle and
houses injured, destroyed, or stolen; vexatious prosecutions were
instituted to vex, harass, and annoy. In some remote neighborhoods they
were expelled from their homes without redress, and in others violence
was threatened to their persons and property, while in others every
kind of insult and indignity was heaped upon them, to induce them to
abandon their homes, the county, or the state.
These annoyances, prosecutions, and persecutions were instigated
through different agencies and by various classes of men, actuated by
different motives, but all uniting in the one object, prosecution,
persecution, and extermination of the Saints.
There were a number of wicked and corrupt men living in Nauvoo and
its vicinity who had belonged to the Church, but whose conduct was
incompatible with the Gospel; they were accordingly dealt with by the
Church and severed from its communion; some of these had been prominent
members, and held official stations either in the city or Church. Among
these was John C. Bennett, formerly Mayor; William Law, Councilor to
Joseph Smith; Wilson Law, his natural brother, and general in the
Nauvoo Legion; Dr. R. D. Foster, a man of some property, but with a
very bad reputation; Francis and Chauncey Higbee, the latter a young
lawyer, and both sons of a respectable and honored man in the Church,
known as Judge Elias Higbee, who died about twelve months before.
Besides these, there were a great many apostates, both in the city and
country, of less notoriety, who, for their delinquencies, had been
expelled from the Church. John C. Bennett and Francis and Chauncey
Higbee were cut off from the Church; the former was also cashiered from
his generalship for the most flagrant acts of seduction and adultery;
and such was the scandalous nature of the developments in their cases,
that the high council before whom they were tried had to sit with
closed doors.
William Law, although councilor to Joseph, was found to be his most
bitter foe and maligner, and to hold intercourse, contrary to all
law, in his own house, with a young lady resident with him, and it
was afterward proved that he had conspired with some Missourians to
take Joseph Smith’s life, and was only saved by Josiah Arnold, who,
being on guard at his house, prevented the assassins from seeing him.
Yet, although having murder in his heart, his manners were generally
courteous and mild, and he was well calculated to deceive.
General Wilson Law was cut off from the Church for seduction,
falsehood, and defamation; both the above were also court-martialed by
the Nauvoo Legion and expelled. Foster was also cut off, I believe, for
dishonesty, fraud, and falsehood. I know he was eminently guilty of
the whole, but whether these were the specific charges or not, I don’t
know, but I do know that he was a notoriously wicked and corrupt man.
Besides the above characters and “Mormonic” apostates, there were
other three parties. The first of these may be called religionists,
the second politicians, and the third counterfeiters, blacklegs,
horse-thieves, and cut-throats.
The religious party were chagrined and maddened because “Mormonism”
came in contact with their religion, and they could not oppose it
from the Scriptures; and thus, like the ancient Jews, when enraged
at the exhibition of their follies and hypocrisies by Jesus and his
apostles, so these were infuriated against the Mormons because of their
discomfiture by them; and instead of owning the truth and rejoicing
in it, they were ready to gnash upon them with their teeth, and to
persecute the believers in principles which they could not disprove.
The political party were those who were of opposite politics to us.
There were always two parties, the Whigs and Democrats, and we could
not vote for one without offending the other; and it not unfrequently
happened that candidates for office would place the issue of their
election upon opposition to the “Mormons,” in order to gain political
influence from religious prejudice, in which case the “Mormons” were
compelled, in self-defense, to vote against them, which resulted almost
invariably against our opponents. This made them angry; and, although
it was of their own making, and the “Mormons” could not be expected
to do otherwise, yet they raged on account of their discomfiture, and
sought to wreak their fury on the “Mormons.” As an instance of the
above, when Joseph Duncan was candidate for the office of Governor of
Illinois, he pledged himself to his party that, if he could be elected,
he would exterminate or drive the “Mormons” from the state.[234] The
consequence was that Governor Ford was elected. The Whigs, seeing that
they had been outgeneraled by the Democrats in securing the “Mormon”
vote, became seriously alarmed, and sought to repair their disaster
by raising a kind of crusade against that people. The Whig newspapers
teemed with accounts of the wonders and enormities of Nauvoo, and of
the awful wickedness of a party which could consent to receive the
support of such miscreants. Governor Duncan, who was really a brave,
honest man, and who had nothing to do with getting the “Mormon”
charters passed through the Legislature, took the stump on this subject
in good earnest, and expected to be elected governor almost on this
question alone. The third party, composed of counterfeiters, blacklegs,
horse-thieves, and cut-throats, were a pack of scoundrels that infested
the whole of the Western country at that time. In some districts
their influence was so great as to control important state and county
offices. On this subject Governor Ford says the following:
[234] See his remarks as contained in his History of Illinois, p. 269.
“Then, again, the northern part of the state was not destitute
of its organized bands of rogues, engaged in murders, robberies,
horse-stealing, and in making and passing counterfeit money. These
rogues were scattered all over the north, but the most of them were
located in the counties of Ogle, Winnebago, Lee, and De Kalb.
“In the county of Ogle they were so numerous, strong, and well
organized that they could not be convicted for their crimes. By getting
some of their numbers on the juries, by producing a host of witnesses
to sustain their defense by perjured evidence, and by changing the
venue of one county to another, by continuances from term to term, and
by the inability of witnesses to attend from time to time at distant
and foreign counties, they most generally managed to be acquitted.”[235]
[235] Ford’s History of Illinois, p. 246.
There was a combination of horse-thieves extending from Galena to
Alton. There were counterfeiters engaged in merchandising, trading,
and store-keeping in most of the cities and villages, and in some
districts, I have been credibly informed by men to whom they have
disclosed their secrets, the judges, sheriffs, constables, and jailers,
as well as professional men, were more or less associated with them.
These had in their employ the most reckless, abandoned wretches, who
stood ready to carry into effect the most desperate enterprises,
and were careless alike of human life and property. Their object in
persecuting the “Mormons” was in part to cover their own rascality, and
in part to prevent them from exposing and prosecuting them; but the
principal reason was plunder, believing that if they could be removed
or driven they would be made fat on Mormon spoils, besides having in
the deserted city a good asylum for the prosecution of their diabolical
pursuits.
This conglomeration of apostate Mormons, religious bigots, political
fanatics, and combination of blacklegs, all united their forces against
the “Mormons,” and organized themselves into a party, denominated
“anti-Mormons.” Some of them, we have reason to believe, joined the
Church in order to cover their nefarious practices, and when they were
expelled for their unrighteousness only raged with greater violence.
They circulated every kind of falsehood that they could collect or
manufacture against the Mormons. They also had a paper to assist them
in their propagations called the “Warsaw Signal,” edited by a Mr.
Thomas Sharp, a violent and unprincipled man, who shrunk not from
any enormity. The anti-Mormons had public meetings, which were very
numerously attended, where they passed resolutions of the most violent
and inflammatory kind, threatening to drive, expel, and exterminate the
“Mormons” from the state, at the same time accusing them of all the
vocabulary of crime.
They appointed their meetings in various parts of Hancock, M‘Donough,
and other counties, which soon resulted in the organization of
armed mobs, under the direction of officers who reported to their
head-quarters, and the reports of which were published in the
anti-Mormon paper, and circulated through the adjoining counties. We
also published in the “Times and Seasons” and the “Nauvoo Neighbor”
(two papers published and edited by me at that time) an account, not
only of their proceedings, but our own. But such was the hostile
feeling, so well arranged their plans, and so desperate and lawless
their measures, that it was with the greatest difficulty that we could
get our papers circulated; they were destroyed by postmasters and
others, and scarcely ever arrived at the place of their destination,
so that a great many of the people, who would have been otherwise
peaceable, were excited by their misrepresentations, and instigated to
join their hostile or predatory bands.
Emboldened by the acts of those outside, the apostate “Mormons,”
associated with others, commenced the publication of a libelous paper
in Nauvoo, called the “Nauvoo Expositor.” This paper not only reprinted
from the others, but put in circulation the most libelous, false, and
infamous reports concerning the citizens of Nauvoo, and especially
the ladies. It was, however, no sooner put in circulation than the
indignation of the whole community was aroused; so much so, that they
threatened its annihilation; and I do not believe that in any other
city in the United States, if the same charge had been made against the
citizens, it would have been permitted to remain one day. As it was
among us, under these circumstances, it was thought best to convene the
City Council to take into consideration the adoption of some measures
for its removal, as it was deemed better that this should be done
legally than illegally. Joseph Smith, therefore, who was then mayor,
convened the City Council for that purpose; the paper was introduced
and read, and the subject examined. All, or nearly all present,
expressed their indignation at the course taken by the “Expositor,”
which was owned by some of the aforesaid apostates, associated with one
or two others: Wilson Law, Dr. Foster, Charles Ivins, and the Higbees
before referred to, some lawyers, store-keepers, and others in Nauvoo
who were not “Mormons,” together with the “anti-Mormons” outside of
the city, sustained it. The calculation was, by false statements, to
unsettle the minds of many in the city, and to form combinations there
similar to the anti-Mormon associations outside of the city. Various
attempts had therefore been made by the party to annoy and irritate
the citizens of Nauvoo; false accusations had been made, vexatious
lawsuits instituted, threats made, and various devices resorted to
to influence the public mind, and, if possible, to induce us to the
commission of some overt act that might make us amenable to the law.
With a perfect knowledge, therefore, of the designs of these infernal
scoundrels who were in our midst, as well as of those who surrounded
us, the City Council entered upon an investigation of the matter.
They felt that they were in a critical position, and that any move
made for the abating of that press would be looked upon, or at least
represented, as a direct attack upon the liberty of speech, and that,
so far from displeasing our enemies, it would be looked upon by them as
one of the best circumstances that could transpire to assist them in
their nefarious and bloody designs. Being a member of the City Council,
I well remember the feeling of responsibility that seemed to rest upon
all present; nor shall I soon forget the bold, manly, independent
expressions of Joseph Smith on that occasion in relation to this
matter. He exhibited in glowing colors the meanness, corruption, and
ultimate designs of the “anti-Mormons;” their despicable characters and
ungodly influences, especially of those who were in our midst; he told
of the responsibility that rested upon us, as guardians of the public
interest, to stand up in the defense of the injured and oppressed, to
stem the current of corruption, and, as men and saints, to put a stop
to this flagrant outrage upon this people’s rights. He stated that no
man was a stronger advocate for the liberty of speech and of the press
than himself; yet, when this noble gift is utterly prostituted and
abused, as in the present instance, it loses all claim to our respect,
and becomes as great an agent for evil as it can possibly be for good;
and notwithstanding the apparent advantage we should give our enemies
by this act, yet it behooved us, as men, to act independent of all
secondary influences, to perform the part of men of enlarged minds,
and boldly and fearlessly to discharge the duties devolving upon us
by declaring as a nuisance, and removing this filthy, libelous, and
seditious sheet from our midst.
The subject was discussed in various forms, and after the remarks made
by the mayor, every one seemed to be waiting for some one else to
speak. After a considerable pause, I arose and expressed my feelings
frankly, as Joseph had done, and numbers of others followed in the same
strain; and I think, but am not certain, that I made a motion for the
removal of that press as a nuisance. This motion was finally put, and
carried by all but one; and he conceded that the measure was just, but
abstained through fear.
Several members of the City Council were not in the Church. The
following is the bill referred to:
_Bill for Removing of the Press of the “Nauvoo Expositor.”_[236]
“Resolved by the City Council of the City of Nauvoo, that the
printing-office from whence issues the ‘Nauvoo Expositor’ is a public
nuisance; and also all of said ‘Nauvoo Expositors’ which may be or
exist in said establishment; and the mayor is instructed to cause
said establishment and papers to be removed without delay, in such
manner as he shall direct.
“Passed June 10th, 1844.
GEO. W. HARRIS, President _pro tem._
“W. RICHARDS, Recorder.”
[236] Des. News, No. 29, Sept. 23, 1857, p. 226.
After the passage of the bill, the marshal, John P. Green, was ordered
to abate or remove, which he forthwith proceeded to do by summoning a
posse of men for that purpose. The press was removed or broken, I don’t
remember which, by the marshal, and the types scattered in the street.
This seemed to be one of those extreme cases that require extreme
measures, as the press was still proceeding in its inflammatory course.
It was feared that, as it was almost universally execrated, should it
continue longer, an indignant people might commit some overt act which
might lead to serious consequences, and that it was better to use legal
than illegal means.
This, as was foreseen, was the very course our enemies wished us to
pursue, as it afforded them an opportunity of circulating a very
plausible story about the “Mormons” being opposed to the liberty of the
press and of free speech, which they were not slow to avail themselves
of. Stories were fabricated, and facts perverted; false statements
were made, and this act brought in as an example to sustain the whole
of their fabrications; and, as if inspired by Satan, they labored
with an energy and zeal worthy of a better cause. They had runners
to circulate their reports, not only through Hancock Co., but in all
the surrounding counties; these reports were communicated to their
“anti-Mormon” societies, and these societies circulated them in their
several districts. The “anti-Mormon” paper, the “Warsaw Signal,” was
filled with inflammatory articles and misrepresentations in relation
to us, and especially to this act of destroying the press. We were
represented as a horde of lawless ruffians and brigands, anti-American
and anti-republican, steeped in crime and iniquity, opposed to freedom
of speech and of the press, and all the rights and immunities of a free
and enlightened people; that neither persons nor property were secure;
that we had designs upon the citizens of Illinois and of the United
States, and the people were called upon to rise _en masse_, and put us
down, drive us away, or exterminate us as a pest to society, and alike
dangerous to our neighbors, the state, and commonwealth.
These statements were extensively copied and circulated throughout the
United States. A true statement of the facts in question was published
by us both in the “Times and Seasons” and the “Nauvoo Neighbor,” but it
was found impossible to circulate them in the immediate counties, as
they were destroyed at the post-offices or otherwise by the agents of
the anti-Mormons, and, in order to get the mail to go abroad, I had to
send the papers a distance of thirty or forty miles from Nauvoo, and
sometimes to St. Louis (upward of two hundred miles), to insure its
proceeding on its route, and then one half or two thirds of the papers
never reached the place of destination, being intercepted or destroyed
by our enemies.
These false reports stirred up the community around, of whom many, on
account of religious prejudice, were easily instigated to join the
“anti-Mormons,” and embark in any crusade that might be undertaken
against the “Mormons;” hence their ranks swelled in numbers, and new
organizations were formed, meetings were held, resolutions passed, and
men and means volunteered for the extirpation of the “Mormons.”
These also were the active men in blowing up the fury of the people,
in hopes that a popular movement might be set on foot, which would
result in the expulsion or extermination of the “Mormon” voters. For
this purpose public meetings had been called, inflammatory speeches
had been made, exaggerated reports had been extensively circulated,
committees had been appointed, who rode night and day to spread the
reports and solicit the aid of neighboring counties, and at a public
meeting at Warsaw resolutions were passed to expel or exterminate
the “Mormon” population. This was not, however, a movement which was
unanimously concurred in. The county contained a goodly number of
inhabitants in favor of peace, or who at least desired to be neutral in
such a contest. These were stigmatized by the name of “Jack Mormons,”
and there were not a few of the more furious exciters of the people
who openly expressed their intention to involve them in the common
expulsion or extermination.
A system of excitement and agitation was artfully planned and executed
with tact. It consisted in spreading reports and rumors of the most
fearful character. As examples: On the morning before my arrival at
Carthage I was awakened at an early hour by the frightful report, which
was asserted with confidence and apparent consternation, that the
“Mormons” had already commenced the work of burning, destruction, and
murder, and that every man capable of bearing arms was instantly wanted
at Carthage for the protection of the county.
We lost no time in starting; but when we arrived at Carthage we could
hear no more concerning this story. Again, during the few days that
the militia were encamped at Carthage, frequent applications were made
to me to send a force here, and a force there, and a force all about
the country, to prevent murders, robberies, and larcenies which, it
was said, were threatened by the “Mormons.” No such forces were sent,
nor were any such offenses committed at that time, except the stealing
of some provisions, and there was never the least proof that this was
done by a “Mormon.” Again, on my late visit to Hancock County, I was
informed by some of their violent enemies that the larcenies of the
“Mormons” had become unusually numerous and insufferable. They admitted
that but little had been done in this way in their immediate vicinity,
but they insisted that sixteen horses had been stolen by the “Mormons”
in one night near Lima, and, upon inquiry, was told that no horses
had been stolen in that neighborhood, but that sixteen horses had
been stolen in one night in Hancock County. This last informant being
told of the Hancock story, again changed the venue to another distant
settlement in the northern edge of Adams.[237]
[237] Ford’s History of Illinois, p. 330, 331.
In the mean time legal proceedings were instituted against the members
of the City Council of Nauvoo. A writ, here subjoined, was issued upon
the affidavit of the Laws, Foster, Higbees, and Ivins, by Mr. Morrison,
a justice of the peace in Carthage, the county seat of Hancock, and put
into the hands of one David Bettesworth, a constable of the same place.
_Writ issued upon affidavit by Thomas Morrison, J. P., State of
Illinois, Hancock County, ss._
“The people of the State of Illinois, to all constables, sheriffs,
and coroners of said state, greeting:
“Whereas complaint hath been made before me, one of the justices
of the peace in and for the County of Hancock aforesaid, upon the
oath of Francis M. Higbee, of said county, that Joseph Smith, Samuel
Bennett, John Taylor, William W. Phelps, Hyrum Smith, John P. Green,
Stephen Perry, Dimick B. Huntington, Jonathan Dunham, Stephen
Markham, William Edwards, Jonathan Holmes, Jesse P. Harmon, John
Lytle, Joseph W. Coolidge, Harvey D. Redfield, Porter Rockwell, and
Levi Richards, of said county, did, on the 10th day of June instant,
commit a riot at and within the county aforesaid, wherein they with
force and violence broke into the printing-office of the ‘Nauvoo
Expositor,’ and unlawfully and with force burned and destroyed the
printing-press, type, and fixtures of the same, being the property of
William Law, Wilson Law, Charles Ivins, Francis M. Higbee, Chauncey
L. Higbee, Robert D. Foster, and Charles A. Foster.
“These are therefore to command you forthwith to apprehend the said
Joseph Smith, Samuel Bennett, John Taylor, William W. Phelps, Hyrum
Smith, John P. Green, Stephen Perry, Dimick B. Huntington, Jonathan
Dunham, Stephen Markham, William Edwards, Jonathan Holmes, Jesse P.
Harmon, John Lytle, Joseph W. Coolidge, Harvey D. Redfield, Porter
Rockwell, and Levi Richards, and bring them before me, or some other
justice of the peace, to answer the premises, and farther to be dealt
with according to law.
“Given under my hand and seal at Carthage, in the county aforesaid,
this 11th day of June, A.D. 1844.
THOMAS MORRISON, J. P.” (Seal.)[238]
[238] Des. News, No. 30, Sept. 30, 1857, p. 233.
The council refused not to attend to the legal proceedings in the
case, but, as the law of Illinois made it the privilege of the persons
accused to go “or appear before the issuer of the writ, or any
other justice of peace,” they requested to be taken before another
magistrate, either in the city of Nauvoo or at any reasonable distance
out of it.
This the constable, who was a mobocrat, refused to do; and as this
was our legal privilege, we refused to be dragged, contrary to law,
a distance of eighteen miles, when at the same time we had reason to
believe that an organized band of mobocrats were assembled for the
purpose of extermination or murder, and among whom it would not be safe
to go without a superior force of armed men. A writ of habeas corpus
was called for, and issued by the municipal court of Nauvoo, taking us
out of the hands of Bettesworth, and placing us in the charge of the
city marshal. We went before the municipal court, and were dismissed.
Our refusal to obey this illegal proceeding was by them construed into
a refusal to submit to law, and circulated as such, and the people
either did believe, or professed to believe, that we were in open
rebellion against the laws and the authorities of the state. Hence mobs
began to assemble, among which all through the country inflammatory
speeches were made, exciting them to mobocracy and violence. Soon they
commenced their prosecutions of our outside settlements, kidnapping
some, and whipping and otherwise abusing others.
The persons thus abused fled to Nauvoo as soon as practicable, and
related their injuries to Joseph Smith, then mayor of the city,
and lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion; they also went before
magistrates, and made affidavits of what they had suffered, seen,
and heard. These affidavits, in connection with a copy of all our
proceedings, were forwarded by Joseph Smith to Mr. Ford, then Governor
of Illinois, with an expression of our desire to abide law, and a
request that the governor would instruct him how to proceed in the case
of the arrival of an armed mob against the city. The governor sent back
instructions to Joseph Smith that, as he was lieutenant general of the
Nauvoo Legion, it was his duty to protect the city and surrounding
country, and issued orders to that effect. Upon the reception of these
orders Joseph Smith assembled the people of the city, and laid before
them the governor’s instructions; he also convened the officers of the
Nauvoo Legion for the purpose of conferring in relation to the best
mode of defense. He also issued orders to the men to hold themselves in
readiness in case of being called upon. On the following day General
Joseph Smith, with his staff, the leading officers of the Legion, and
some prominent strangers who were in our midst, made a survey of the
outside boundaries of the city, which was very extensive, being about
five miles up and down the river, and about two and a half back in the
centre, for the purpose of ascertaining the position of the ground, and
the feasibility of defense, and to make all necessary arrangements in
case of an attack.
It may be well here to remark that numbers of gentlemen, who were to
us strangers, either came on purpose or were passing through Nauvoo,
who, upon learning the position of things, expressed their indignation
against our enemies, and avowed their readiness to assist us by
their council or otherwise; it was some of these who assisted us in
reconnoitering the city, and finding out its adaptability for defense,
and the best mode of protection against an armed force. The Legion was
called together and drilled, and every means made use of for defense;
at the call of the officers both old and young men came forward, both
denizens from the city and from the outside regions, and I believe at
one time they mustered to the number of about five thousand.
In the mean time our enemies were not idle in mustering their forces
and committing depredations, nor had they been; it was, in fact, their
gathering that called ours into existence; their forces continued to
accumulate; they assumed a threatening attitude, and assembled in large
bodies, armed and equipped for war, and threatened the destruction
and extermination of the “Mormons.” An account of their outrages and
assemblages was forwarded to Governor Ford almost daily, accompanied
by affidavits furnished by eyewitnesses of their proceedings. Persons
were also sent out to the counties around with pacific intentions, to
give them an account of the true state of affairs, and to notify them
of the feelings and dispositions of the people of Nauvoo, and thus, if
possible, quell the excitement. In some of the more distant counties
these men were very successful, and produced a salutary influence upon
the minds of many intelligent and well-disposed men. In neighboring
counties, however, where “anti-Mormon” influence prevailed, they
produced little effect. At the same time, guards were stationed around
Nauvoo, and picket-guards in the distance. At length opposing forces
gathered so near that more active measures were taken; reconnoitering
parties were sent out, and the city proclaimed under martial law.
Things now assumed a belligerent attitude, and persons passing through
the city were questioned as to what they knew of the enemy, while
passes were in some instances given to avoid difficulty with the
guards. Joseph Smith continued to send on messengers to the governor
(Philip B. Lewis and other messengers were sent). Samuel James, then
residing at La Harpe, carried a message and dispatches to him, and in
a day or two after Bishop Edward Hunter and others went again with
fresh dispatches, representations, affidavits, and instructions;
but as the weather was excessively wet, the rivers swollen, and the
bridges washed away in many places, it was with great difficulty
that they proceeded on their journeys. As the mobocracy had at last
attracted the governor’s attention, he started in company with some
others from Springfield to the scene of trouble, and missed, I believe,
both Brothers James and Hunter on the road, and of course did not see
their documents. He came to Carthage, and made that place, which was a
regular mobocratic den, his head-quarters; as it was the county-seat,
however, of Hancock County, that circumstance might, in a measure,
justify his staying there.
To avoid the appearance of all hostility on our part, and to fulfill
the law in every particular, at the suggestion of Judge Thomas, judge
of that judicial district, who had come to Nauvoo at the time, and who
stated that we had fulfilled the law, but, in order to satisfy all, he
would counsel us to go before Esquire Wells,[239] who was not in our
Church, and have a hearing. We did so, and after a full hearing we were
again dismissed.
[239] Now a member of the First Presidency.--Ed.
The governor on the road collected forces, some of whom were
respectable; but on his arrival in the neighborhood of the difficulties
he received as militia all the companies of the mob forces who united
with him. After his arrival at Carthage he sent two gentlemen from
there to Nauvoo as a committee to wait upon General Joseph Smith,
informing him of the arrival of his excellency, with a request that
General Smith would send out a committee to wait upon the governor and
represent to him the state of affairs in relation to the difficulties
that then existed in the county. We met this committee while we were
reconnoitering the city, to find out the best mode of defense as
aforesaid. Dr. J. M. Bernhisel and myself were appointed as a committee
by General Smith to wait upon the governor. Previous to going, however,
we were furnished with affidavits and documents in relation both to our
proceedings and those of the mob; in addition to the general history of
the transaction, we took with us a duplicate of those documents which
had been forwarded by Bishop Hunter, Brother James, and others. We
started from Carthage in company with the aforesaid gentleman at about
7 o’clock on the evening of the 21st of June, and arrived at Carthage
at about 11 P.M. We put up at the same hotel with the governor, kept by
a Mr. Hamilton; on our arrival we found the governor in bed, but not so
with the other inhabitants. The town was filled with a perfect set of
rabble and rowdies, who, under the influence of Bacchus, seemed to be
holding a grand saturnalia, whooping, yelling, and vociferating as if
Bedlam had broken loose.
On our arrival at the hotel, and while supper was preparing, a man came
to me, dressed as a soldier, and told me that a man named David Carn
had just been taken prisoner, and was about to be committed to jail,
and wanted me to go bail for him. Believing this to be a ruse to get me
out alone, and that some violence was intended, after consulting with
Dr. Bernhisel, I told the men that I was well acquainted with Mr. Carn,
that I knew him to be a gentleman, and did not believe that he had
transgressed law, and, moreover, that I considered it a very singular
time to be holding courts and calling for security, particularly as the
town was full of rowdyism.
I informed him that both Dr. Bernhisel and myself would, if necessary,
go bail for him in the morning, but that we did not feel ourselves safe
among such a set at that late hour of the night.
After supper, on retiring to our room, we had to pass through another,
which was separated from ours only by a board partition, the beds in
each room being placed side by side, with the exception of this fragile
partition. On the bed that was in the room which we passed through I
discovered a man by the name of Jackson, a desperate character, and
a reputed, notorious cut-throat and murderer. I hinted to the doctor
that things looked rather suspicious, and looked to see that my arms
were in order. The doctor and I both occupied one bed. We had scarcely
laid down when a knock at the door, accompanied by a voice, announced
the approach of Chauncey Higbee, the young lawyer and apostate before
referred to.
He addressed himself to the doctor, and stated that the object of
his visit was to obtain the release of Daniel Carn; that Carn he
believed to be an honest man; that if he had done any thing wrong, it
was through improper counsel, and that it was a pity that he should
be incarcerated, particularly when he could be so easily released;
he urged the doctor, as a friend, not to leave so good a man in such
an unpleasant situation; he finally prevailed upon the doctor to go
and give bail, assuring him that on his giving bail Carn would be
immediately dismissed.
During this conversation I did not say a word. Higbee left the doctor
to dress, with the intention of returning and taking him to the court.
As soon as Higbee had left, I told the doctor that he had better not
go; that I believed this affair was all a ruse to get us separated;
that they knew we had documents with us from General Smith to show
to the governor; that I believed their object was to get possession
of those papers, and, perhaps, when they had separated us, to murder
one or both. The doctor, who was actuated by the best of motives in
yielding to the assumed solicitude of Higbee, coincided with my views;
he then went to Higbee, and told him that he had concluded not to go
that night, but that he and I would both wait upon the justice and Mr.
Carn in the morning.
That night I lay awake with my pistols under my pillow, waiting for any
emergency. Nothing more occurred during the night. In the morning we
arose early, and after breakfast sought an interview with the governor,
and were told that we could have an audience, I think, at 10 o’clock.
In the mean time we called upon Mr. Smith, a Justice of the Peace, who
had Mr. Carn in charge. We represented that we had been called upon
the night before by two different parties to go bail for a Mr. Daniel
Carn, whom we were informed he had in custody, and that, believing Mr.
Carn to be an honest man, we had come now for that purpose, and were
prepared to enter into recognizances for his appearance, whereupon Mr.
Smith, the magistrate, remarked “that, under the present excited state
of affairs, he did not think he would be justified in receiving bail
from Nauvoo, as it was a matter of doubt whether property would not be
rendered valueless there in a few days.”
Knowing the party we had to deal with, we were not much surprised at
this singular proceeding; we then remarked that both of us possessed
property in farms out of Nauvoo in the country, and referred him to
the county records. He then stated that such was the nature of the
charge against Mr. Carn that he believed he would not be justified in
receiving any bail. We were thus confirmed in our opinion that the
night’s proceedings before, in relation to their desire to have us give
bail, was a mere ruse to separate us. We were not permitted to speak
with Carn, the real charge against whom was that he was traveling in
Carthage or its neighborhood; what the fictitious one was, if I then
knew, I have since forgotten, as things of this kind were of daily
occurrence.
After waiting the governor’s pleasure for some time we had an audience;
but such an audience! He was surrounded by some of the vilest and
most unprincipled men in creation; some of them had an appearance of
respectability, and many of them lacked even that. Wilson, and, I
believe, William Law, were there, Foster, Frank and Chauncey Higbee,
Mr. Mar, a lawyer from Nauvoo, a mobocratic merchant from Warsaw, the
aforesaid Jackson, a number of his associates, among whom was the
governor’s secretary, in all some fifteen or twenty persons, most of
whom were recreant to virtue, honor, integrity, and every thing that
is considered honorable among men. I can well remember the feelings
of disgust that I had in seeing the governor surrounded by such an
infamous group, and on being introduced to men of so questionable a
character; and had I been on private business, I should have turned to
depart, and told the governor that if he thought proper to associate
with such questionable characters, I should beg leave to be excused;
but coming as we did on public business, we could not, of course,
consult our private feelings.
We then stated to the governor that, in accordance with his request,
General Smith had, in response to his call, sent us to him as a
committee of conference; that we were acquainted with most of the
circumstances that had transpired in and about Nauvoo lately, and were
prepared to give him all information; that, moreover, we had in our
possession testimony and affidavits confirmatory of what we should
say, which had been forwarded to him by General Joseph Smith; that
communications had been forwarded to his excellency by Mr. Hunter,
James, and others, some of which had not reached their destination,
but of which we had duplicates with us. We then, in brief, related an
outline of the difficulties, and the course we had pursued from the
commencement of the troubles up to the present, and handing him the
documents, respectfully submitted the whole. During our conversation
and explanations with the governor we were frequently rudely and
impudently contradicted by the fellows he had around him, and of whom
he seemed to take no notice.
He opened and read a number of the documents himself, and as he
proceeded he was frequently interrupted by “that’s a lie,” “that’s a
God damned lie,” “that’s an infernal falsehood,” “that’s a blasted
lie,” etc.
These men evidently winced at an exposure of their acts, and thus
vulgarly, impudently, and falsely repudiated them. One of their
number, Mr. Mar, addressed himself several times to me while in
conversation with the governor. I did not notice him until after a
frequent repetition of his insolence, when I informed him “that my
business at that time was with Governor Ford,” whereupon I continued my
conversation with his excellency. During the conversation the governor
expressed a desire that Joseph Smith, and all parties concerned in
passing or executing the city law in relation to the press, had better
come to Carthage; that, however repugnant it might be to our feelings,
he thought it would have a tendency to allay public excitement, and
prove to the people what we professed, that we wished to be governed
by law. We represented to him the course he had taken in relation to
this matter, and our willingness to go before another magistrate other
than the Municipal Court; the illegal refusal of our request by the
constable; our dismissal by the Municipal Court, a legally constituted
tribunal; our subsequent trial before Squire Wells at the instance of
Judge Thomas (the circuit judge), and our dismissal by him; that we had
fulfilled the law in every particular; that it was our enemies who were
breaking the law, and, having murderous designs, were only making use
of this as a pretext to get us into their power. The governor stated
that the people viewed it differently, and that, notwithstanding our
opinions, he would recommend that the people should be satisfied. We
then remarked to him that, should Joseph Smith comply with his request,
it would be extremely unsafe, in the present excited state of the
country, to come without an armed force; that we had a sufficiency
of men, and were competent to defend ourselves, but that there might
be danger of collision should our forces and that of our enemies be
brought into such close proximity. He strenuously advised us not to
bring any arms, and _pledged his faith as governor, and the faith of
the state, that we should be protected, and that he would guarantee our
perfect safety_.
We had at that time about five thousand men under arms, one thousand of
which would have been amply sufficient for our protection.
At the termination of our interview, and previous to our withdrawal,
after a long conversation and the perusal of the documents which we
had brought, the governor informed us that he would prepare a written
communication for General Joseph Smith, which he desired us to wait
for. We were kept waiting for this instrument some five or six hours.
About 5 o’clock in the afternoon we took our departure with not the
most pleasant feelings. The associations of the governor, the spirit
that he manifested to compromise with these scoundrels, the length of
time that he had kept us waiting, and his general deportment, together
with the infernal spirit that we saw exhibited by those whom he had
admitted to his councils, made the prospect any thing but promising.
We returned on horseback, and arrived at Nauvoo, I think, at about 8
or 9 o’clock at night, accompanied by Captain Yates in command of a
company of mounted men, who came for the purpose of escorting Joseph
Smith and the accused in case of their complying with the governor’s
request, and going to Carthage. We went directly to Brother Joseph’s,
when Captain Yates delivered to him the governor’s communication. A
council was called consisting of Joseph’s brother Hyrum, Dr. Richards,
Dr. Bernhisel, myself, and one or two others, when the following letter
was read from the governor:
_Governor Ford’s Letter to the Mayor and Common Council of Nauvoo._
“Head Quarters, Carthage, June 21st, 1844.
“To the Hon. the Mayor and Common Council of the City of Nauvoo:
“GENTLEMEN,--Having heard of the excitement in this part of the
country, and judging that my presence here might be necessary to
preserve the peace and enforce the laws, I arrived at this place
this morning. Both before and since my arrival, complaints of a
grave character have been made to me of certain proceedings of your
honorable body. As chief magistrate, it is my duty to see that
impartial justice shall be done, uninfluenced by the excitement here
or in your city.
“I think, before any decisive measure shall be adopted, that I ought
to hear the allegations and defenses of all parties. By adopting this
course I have some hope that the evils of war may be averted; and, at
any rate, I will be enabled by it to understand the true merits of
the present difficulties, and shape my course with reference to law
and justice.
“For these reasons, I have to request that you will send out to me,
at this place, one or more well-informed and discreet persons, who
will be capable of laying before me your version of the matter, and
of receiving from me such explanations and resolutions as may be
determined on.
“Colonel Elam S. Freeman will present you this note in the character
of a herald from the governor. You will respect his character as
such, and permit him to pass and repass free from molestation.
“Your messengers are assured of protection in person and property,
and will be returned to you in safety.
“I am, gentlemen, with high considerations, most respectfully your
obedient servant,
THOMAS FORD, Governor and Commander-in-Chief.”[240]
[240] Des. News, No. 33, Oct. 21, 1857, p. 257.
We then gave a detail of our interview with the governor. Brother
Joseph was very much dissatisfied with the governor’s letter and with
his general deportment, and so were the council, and it became a
serious question as to the course we should pursue. Various projects
were discussed, but nothing definitely decided upon for some time. In
the interim two gentlemen arrived; one of them, if not both, sons of
John C. Calhoun. They had come to Nauvoo, and were very anxious for
an interview with Brother Joseph. These gentlemen detained him for
some time; and as our council was held in Dr. Bernhisel’s room in the
Mansion House, the doctor lay down; and as it was now between 2 and 3
o’clock in the morning, and I had had no rest on the previous night, I
was fatigued, and thinking that Brother Joseph might not return, I left
for home and rest.
Being very much fatigued, I slept soundly, and was somewhat surprised
in the morning by Mrs. Thompson entering my room about 7 o’clock, and
exclaiming in surprise, “What, you here! the brethren have crossed the
river some time since.” “What brethren?” I asked. “Brother Joseph, and
Hyrum, and Brother Richards.” I immediately arose upon learning that
they had crossed the river, and did not intend to go to Carthage. I
called together a number of persons in whom I had confidence, and had
the type, stereotype plates, and most of the valuable things removed
from the printing-office, believing that, should the governor and his
force come to Nauvoo, the first thing they would do would be to burn
the printing-office, for I knew that they would be exasperated if
Brother Joseph went away. We had talked over these matters the night
before, but nothing was decided upon. It was Brother Joseph’s opinion
that, should we leave for a time, public excitement, which was then
so intense, would be allayed; that it would throw on the governor
the responsibility of keeping the peace; that, in the event of any
outrage, the onus would rest upon the governor, who was amply prepared
with troops, and could command all the forces of the state to preserve
order; and that the acts of his own men would be an overwhelming proof
of their seditious designs, not only to the governor, but to the
world. He moreover thought that, in the East, where he intended to go,
public opinion would be set right in relation to these matters, and
its expression would partially influence the West, and that, after the
first ebullition, things would assume a shape that would justify his
return. I made arrangements for crossing the river, and Brother Elias
Smith and Joseph Cain, who were both employed in the printing-office
with me, assisted all that lay in their power, together with Brother
Brower and several hands in the printing-office. As we could not find
out the exact whereabouts of Joseph and the brethren, I crossed the
river in a boat furnished by Brothers Cyrus H. Wheelock and Alfred
Bell; and after the removal of the things of the printing-office,
Joseph Cain brought the account-books to me, that we might make
arrangements for their adjustment; and Brother Elias Smith, cousin
to Brother Joseph, went to obtain money for the journey, and also to
find out and report to me the location of the brethren. As Cyrus H.
Wheelock was an active, enterprising man, and in the event of not
finding Brother Joseph I calculated to go to Upper Canada for the time
being, and should need a companion, I said to Brother Wheelock, “Can
you go with me ten or fifteen hundred miles?” He answered “Yes.” “Can
you start in half an hour?” “Yes.” However, I told him that he had
better see his family, who lived over the river, and prepare a couple
of horses and the necessary equipage for the journey, and that, if we
did not find Brother Joseph before, we would start at nightfall. A
laughable incident occurred on the eve of my departure. After making
all the preparations I could previous to leaving Nauvoo, and having
bid adieu to my family, I went to a house adjoining the river owned by
Brother Eddy. There I disguised myself so as not to be known, and so
effectually was the transformation that those who had come after me
with a boat did not know me. I went down to the boat and sat in it.
Brother Bell, thinking it was a stranger, watched my moves for some
time very impatiently, and then said to Brother Wheelock, “I wish that
old gentleman would go away; he has been pottering around the boat
for some time, and I am afraid Elder Taylor will be coming.” When he
discovered his mistake, he was not a little amused. I was conducted by
Brother Bell to a house that was surrounded by timber on the opposite
side of the river. There I spent several hours in a chamber with
Brother Joseph Cain, adjusting my accounts; and I made arrangements
for the stereotype plates of the “Book of Mormon,” and “Doctrine and
Covenants,” to be forwarded East, thinking to supply the company with
subsistence money through the sale of these books in the East.
My horses were reported ready by Brother Wheelock, and funds on hand
by Brother Elias Smith. In about half an hour I should have started,
when Brother Elias Smith came to me with word that he had found the
brethren; that they had concluded to go to Carthage, and wished me to
return to Nauvoo and accompany them. I must confess that I felt a good
deal disappointed at this news, but I immediately made preparations
to go. Escorted by Brother Elias Smith, I and my party went to the
neighborhood of Montrose, where we met Brother Joseph, Hyrum, Brother
Richards, and others. Dr. Bernhisel thinks that W. W. Phelps was not
with Joseph and Hyrum in the morning, but that he met him, myself,
Joseph, and Hyrum, W. Richards, and Brother Calhoun, in the afternoon,
near Montrose, returning to Nauvoo. On meeting the brethren I learned
that it was not Brother Joseph’s desire to return, but that he came
back by request of some of the brethren, and that it coincided more
with Brother Hyrum’s feelings than with those of Brother Joseph. In
fact, after his return, Brother Hyrum expressed himself as perfectly
satisfied with the course taken, and said that he felt much more at
ease in his mind than he did before. On our return the calculation was
to throw ourselves under the immediate protection of the governor, and
to trust to his word and faith for our preservation.
A message was, I believe, sent to the governor that night, stating that
we should come to Carthage in the morning, the party that came along
with us to escort us back, in case we returned to Carthage, having
returned. It would seem from the following remarks of General Ford that
there was a design on foot, which was, that if we refused to go to
Carthage at the governor’s request, there should be an increased force
called for by the governor, and that we should be destroyed by them. In
accordance with this project, Captain Yates returned with his posse,
accompanied by the constable who held the writ. The following is the
governor’s remark in relation to this affair: “The constable and his
escort returned. The constable made no effort to arrest any of them,
nor would he or the guard delay their departure one minute beyond the
time, to see whether an arrest could be made. Upon their return they
reported that they had been informed that the accused had fled, and
could not be found. I immediately proposed to a council of officers
to march into Nauvoo with the small force then under my command, but
the officers were of opinion that it was too small, and many of them
insisted upon a farther call of the militia. Upon reflection I was of
opinion that the officers were right in the estimate of our force, and
the project for immediate action was abandoned. I was soon informed,
however, of the conduct of constable and guard, and then I was
perfectly satisfied that a most base fraud had been attempted; that,
in fact, it was feared that the ‘Mormons’ would submit, and thereby
entitle themselves to the protection of the law. It was very apparent
that many of the bustling, active spirits were afraid that there would
be no occasion for calling out an overwhelming militia force, for
marching it into Nauvoo, for probable mutiny when there, and for the
extermination of the ‘Mormon’ race. It appeared that the constable
and the escort were fully in the secret, and acted well their part to
promote the conspiracy.”[241]
[241] Ford’s History of Illinois, page 333.
In the morning Brother Joseph had an interview with the officers of
the Legion, with the leading members of the City Council, and with
the principal men of the city. The officers were instructed to dismiss
their men, but to have them in a state of readiness to be called upon
in any emergency that might occur.
About half past 6 o’clock the members of the City Council, the
marshal, Brothers Joseph and Hyrum, and a number of others, started
for Carthage, all on horseback. We were instructed by Brother Joseph
Smith not to take any arms, and we consequently left them behind.
We called at the house of Brother Fellows on our way out. Brother
Fellows lived about four miles from Carthage. While at Brother Fellows’
house, Captain Dunn, accompanied by Mr. Coolie, one of the governor’s
aid-de-camps, came up from Carthage _en route_ for Nauvoo with a
requisition from the governor for the state arms. We all returned to
Nauvoo with them; the governor’s request was complied with, and, after
taking some refreshments, we all returned to proceed to Carthage. We
arrived there late in the night. A great deal of excitement prevailed
on and after our arrival. The governor had received into his company
all of the companies that had been in the mob; these fellows were
riotous and disorderly, hallooing, yelling, and whooping about the
streets like Indians, many of them intoxicated; the whole presented a
scene of rowdyism and low-bred ruffianism only found among mobocrats
and desperadoes, and entirely revolting to the best feelings of
humanity. The governor made a speech to them to the effect that he
would show Joseph and Hyrum Smith to them in the morning. About here
the companies with the governor were drawn up into line, and General
Demming, I think, took Joseph by the arm and Hyrum (Arnold says that
Joseph took the governor’s arm), and as he passed through between the
ranks, the governor leading in front, very politely introduced them as
General Joseph Smith and General Hyrum Smith.[242] All were orderly
and courteous except one company of mobocrats--the Carthage Grays--who
seemed to find fault on account of too much honor being paid to the
Mormons. There was afterward a row between the companies, and they came
pretty near having a fight; the more orderly not feeling disposed to
endorse or submit to the rowdyism of the mobocrats. The result was that
General Demming, who was very much of a gentleman, ordered the Carthage
Grays, a company under the command of Captain Smith, a magistrate in
Carthage, and a most violent mobocrat, under arrest. This matter,
however, was shortly afterward adjusted, and the difficulty settled
between them. The mayor, aldermen, councilors, as well as the marshal
of the city of Nauvoo, together with some persons who had assisted
the marshal in removing the press in Nauvoo, appeared before Justice
Smith, the aforesaid captain and mobocrat, to again answer the charge
of destroying the press; but as there was so much excitement, and as
the man was an unprincipled villain before whom we were to have our
hearing, we thought it most prudent to give bail, and consequently
became security for each other in $500 bonds each, to appear before the
County Court at its next session. We had engaged as counsel a lawyer by
the name of Wood, of Burlington, Iowa; and Reed, I think, of Madison,
Iowa. After some little discussion the bonds were signed, and we were
all dismissed.
[242] The “Deserét News” gives the following account of Joseph and
Hyrum Smith’s passing through the troops in Carthage:
“Carthage, June 25th, 1844.
“Quarter past 9. The governor came and invited Joseph to walk with
him through the troops. Joseph solicited a few moment’s private
conversation with him, which the governor refused.
“While refusing, the governor looked down at his shoes, as though
he was ashamed. They then walked through the crowd, with Brigadier
General Miner, R. Demming, and Dr. Richards, to General Demming’s
quarters. The people appeared quiet until a company of Carthage
Grays flocked round the doors of General Demming in an uproarious
manner, of which notice was sent to the governor. In the mean time
the governor had ordered the M‘Donough troops to be drawn up in line,
for Joseph and Hyrum to pass in front of them, they having requested
that they might have a clear view of the General Smiths. _Joseph had
a conversation with the governor for about ten minutes, when he again
pledged the faith of the state that he and his friends should be
protected from violence._
“Robinson, the post-master, said, on report of martial law being
proclaimed in Nauvoo, he had stopped the mail, and notified the
post-master general of the state of things in Hancock County.
“From the general’s quarters Joseph and Hyrum went in front of the
lines, in a hollow square of a company of Carthage Grays; at seven
minutes before 10 they arrived in front of the lines, and passed
before the whole, Joseph being on the right of General Demming and
Hyrum on his left, Elders Richards, Taylor, and Phelps following.
Joseph and Hyrum were introduced by Governor Ford about twenty times
along the line as General Joseph Smith and General Hyrum Smith, the
governor walking in front on the left. The Carthage Grays refused to
receive them by that introduction, and some of the officers threw
up their hats, drew their swords, and said they would introduce
themselves to the damned Mormons in a different style. The governor
mildly entreated them not to act so rudely, but their excitement
increased; the governor, however, succeeded in pacifying them by
making a speech, and promising them that they should have ‘full
satisfaction.’ General Smith and party returned to their lodgings at
five minutes past 10.”--_Des. News_, No. 35, Nov. 4, 1857, page 274.
Almost immediately after our dismissal, two men--Augustine Spencer and
Norton--two worthless fellows, whose words would not have been taken
for five cents, and the first of whom had a short time previously
been before the mayor in Nauvoo for maltreating a lame brother, made
affidavits that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were guilty of treason; and
a writ was accordingly issued for their arrest, and the constable
Bettesworth, a rough, unprincipled man, wished immediately to hurry
them away to prison without any hearing. His rude, uncouth manner in
the administration of what he considered the duties of his office made
him exceedingly repulsive to us all. But, independent of these acts,
the proceedings in this case were altogether illegal. Providing the
court was sincere, which it was not, and providing these men’s oaths
were true, and that Joseph and Hyrum were guilty of treason, still the
whole course was illegal.
The magistrate made out a mittimus, and committed them to prison
without a hearing, which he had no right legally to do. The statute of
Illinois expressly provides that “all men shall have a hearing before
a magistrate before they shall be committed to prison;” and Mr. Robert
H. Smith, the magistrate, had made out a mittimus committing them to
prison contrary to law without such hearing. As I was informed of this
illegal proceeding, I went immediately to the governor and informed him
of it. Whether he was apprised of it before or not, I do not know; but
my opinion is that he was.
I represented to him the characters of the parties who had made oath,
the outrageous nature of the charge, the indignity offered to men
in the position which they occupied, and declared to him that he
knew very well it was a vexatious proceeding, and that the accused
were not guilty of any such crime. The governor replied, “He was
very sorry that the thing had occurred; that he did not believe the
charges, but that he thought the best thing to be done was to let the
law take its course.” I then reminded him that we had come out there
at his instance, not to satisfy the law, which we had done before,
but the prejudices of the people, in relation to the affair of the
press; that at his instance we had given bonds, which we could not by
law be required to do to satisfy the people, and that it was asking
too much to require gentlemen in their position in life to suffer
the degradation of being immured in a jail at the instance of such
worthless scoundrels as those who had made this affidavit. The governor
replied “that it was an unpleasant affair, and looked hard; but that
it was a matter over which he had no control, as it belonged to the
judiciary; that he, as the executive, could not interfere with their
proceedings, and that he had no doubt but that they would immediately
be dismissed.” I told him “that we had looked to him for protection
from such insults, and that I thought we had a right to do so from
the solemn promises which he had made to me and to Dr. Bernhisel in
relation to our coming without guard or arms; that we had relied upon
his faith, and had a right to expect him to fulfill his engagements
after we had placed ourselves implicitly under his care, and complied
with all his requests, although extra-judicial.”
He replied “that he would detail a guard, if we required it, and see
us protected, but that he could not interfere with the judiciary.” I
expressed my dissatisfaction at the course taken, and told him “that,
if we were to be subject to mob rule, and to be dragged, contrary to
law, into prison at the instance of every infernal scoundrel whose
oaths could be bought for a dram of whisky, his protection availed very
little, and we had miscalculated his promises.”
Seeing there was no prospect of redress from the governor, I returned
to the room, and found the constable Bettesworth very urgent to
hurry Brothers Joseph and Hyrum to prison, while the brethren were
remonstrating with him. At the same time a great rabble was gathered in
the streets and around the door, and from the rowdyism manifested I was
afraid there was a design to murder the prisoners on the way to jail.
Without conferring with any person, my next feeling was to procure a
guard, and, seeing a man habited as a soldier in the room, I went to
him and said, “I am afraid there is a design against the lives of the
Messrs. Smith; will you go immediately and bring your captain; and, if
not convenient, any other captain of a company, and I will pay you well
for your trouble?” He said he would, and departed forthwith, and soon
returned with his captain, whose name I have forgotten, and introduced
him to me. I told him of my fears, and requested him immediately to
fetch his company; he departed forthwith, and arrived at the door with
them just at the time when the constable was hurrying the brethren
down stairs. A number of the brethren went along, together with one or
two strangers; and all of us, safely lodged in prison, remained there
during the night.
At the request of Joseph Smith for an interview with the governor, he
came the next morning, Thursday, June 26th, at half past 9 o’clock,
accompanied by Colonel Geddes, when a lengthy conversation was
entered into in relation to the existing difficulties; and after
some preliminary remarks, at the governor’s request, Brother Joseph
gave him a general outline of the state of affairs in relation to
our difficulties, the excited state of the country, the tumultuous
mobocratic movements of our enemies, the precautionary measures used by
himself (Joseph Smith), the acts of the city council, the destruction
of the press, and the moves of the mob and ourselves up to that time.
The following report is, I believe, substantially correct:
_Governor._ “General Smith, I believe you have given me a general
outline of the difficulties that have existed in the country in
the documents forwarded to me by Dr. Bernhisel and Mr. Taylor;
but, unfortunately, there seems to be a great discrepancy between
your statements and those of your enemies. It is true that you are
substantiated by evidence and affidavit, but for such an extraordinary
excitement as that which is now in the country there must be some
cause, and I attribute the last outbreak to the destruction of the
‘Expositor,’ and to your refusal to comply with the writ issued by
Esquire Morrison. The press in the United States is looked upon as the
great bulwark of American freedom, and its destruction in Nauvoo was
represented and looked upon as a high-handed measure, and manifests
to the people a disposition on your part to suppress the liberty of
speech and of the press. This, with your refusal to comply with the
requisitions of a writ, I conceive to be the principal cause of this
difficulty; and you are moreover represented to me as turbulent, and
defiant of the laws and institutions of your country.”
_General Smith._ “Governor Ford, you, sir, as governor of this state,
are aware of the persecutions that I have endured. You know well that
our course has been peaceable and law-abiding, for I have furnished
this state ever since our settlement here with sufficient evidence
of my pacific intentions, and those of the people with whom I am
associated, by the endurance of every conceivable indignity and lawless
outrage perpetrated upon me and upon this people since our settlement
here; and you yourself know that I have kept you well posted in
relation to all matters associated with the late difficulties. If you
have not got some of my communications, it has not been my fault.
“Agreeably to your orders, I assembled the Nauvoo Legion for the
protection of Nauvoo and the surrounding country against an armed band
of marauders; and ever since they have been mustered I have almost
daily communicated with you in regard to all the leading events that
have transpired; and whether in the capacity of mayor of the city, or
lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, I have striven, according
to the best of my judgment, to preserve the peace and to administer
even-handed justice; but my motives are impugned, my acts are
misconstrued, and I am grossly and wickedly misrepresented. I suppose
I am indebted for my incarceration to the oath of a worthless man,
who was arraigned before me and fined for abusing and maltreating his
lame, helpless brother. That I should be charged by you, sir, who know
better, of acting contrary to law, is to me a matter of surprise. Was
it the Mormons or our enemies who first commenced these difficulties?
You know well it was not us; and when this turbulent, outrageous people
commenced their insurrectionary movements, I made you acquainted with
them officially, and asked your advice, and have followed strictly your
counsel in every particular. Who ordered out the Nauvoo Legion? I did,
under your direction. For what purpose? To suppress the insurrectionary
movements. It was at your instance, sir, that I issued a proclamation
calling upon the Nauvoo Legion to be in readiness at a moment’s warning
to guard against the incursions of mobs, and gave an order to Jonathan
Dunham, acting major general, to that effect.
“Am I, then, to be charged for the acts of others? and because
lawlessness and mobocracy abound, am I, when carrying out your
instructions, to be charged with not abiding law? Why is it that I
must be made accountable for other men’s acts? If there is trouble in
the country, neither I nor my people made it; and all that we have
ever done, after much endurance on our part, is to maintain and uphold
the Constitution and institutions of our country, and to protect an
injured, innocent, and persecuted people against misrule and mob
violence.
“Concerning the destruction of the press to which you refer, men may
differ somewhat in their opinions about it; but can it be supposed that
after all the indignities to which they have been subjected outside,
that people could suffer a set of worthless vagabonds to come into
their city, and, right under their own eyes and protection, vilify and
calumniate not only themselves, but the character of their wives and
daughters, as was impudently and unblushingly done in that infamous and
filthy sheet?
“There is not a city in the United States that would have suffered such
an indignity for twenty-four hours. Our whole people were indignant,
and loudly called upon our city authorities for a redress of their
grievances, which, if not attended to, they themselves would have
taken into their own hands, and have summarily punished the audacious
wretches as they deserved. The principles of equal rights that have
been instilled into our bosoms from our cradles as American citizens
forbid us submitting to every foul indignity, and succumbing and
pandering to wretches so infamous as these. But, independent of this,
the course that we pursued we considered to be strictly legal; for,
notwithstanding the result, we were anxious to be governed strictly by
law, and therefore we convened the city council; and being desirous
in our deliberations to abide by law, we summoned legal counsel to be
present on the occasion. Upon investigating the matter, we found that
our city charter gave us power to remove all nuisances. Furthermore,
after consulting Blackstone upon what might be considered a nuisance,
it appeared that that distinguished lawyer, who is considered
authority, I believe, in all our courts, states among other things that
‘a libelous and filthy press may be considered a nuisance, and abated
as such.’ Here, then, one of the most eminent English barristers, whose
works are considered standard with us, declares that a libelous and
filthy press may be considered a nuisance; and our own charter, given
us by the Legislature of this state, gives us the power to remove
nuisances; and by ordering that press to be abated as a nuisance, we
conceived that we were acting strictly in accordance with law. We made
that order in our corporate capacity, and the city marshal carried it
out. It is possible there may have been some better way, but I must
confess that I could not see it.
“In relation to the writ served upon us, we were willing to abide
the consequences of our own acts, but were unwilling, in answering
a writ of that kind, to submit to illegal exactions, sought to be
imposed upon us under the pretense of law, when we knew they were in
open violation of it. When that document was presented to me by Mr.
Bettesworth, I offered, in the presence of more than twenty persons,
to go to any other magistrate, either in our city, in Appanoose, or
in any other place where we should be safe, but we all refused to
put ourselves into the power of a mob. What right had that constable
to refuse our request? He had none according to law; for you know,
Governor Ford, that the statute law in Illinois is, that the parties
served with the writ ‘shall go before him who issued it, or some other
justice of the peace.’ Why, then, should we be dragged to Carthage,
where the law does not compel us to go? Does not this look like many
others of our persecutions with which you are acquainted? and have we
not a right to expect foul play? This very act was a breach of law
on his part, an assumption of power that did not belong to him, and
an attempt, at least, to deprive us of our legal and constitutional
rights and privileges. What could we do, under the circumstances,
different from what we did do? We sued for, and obtained a writ of
habeas corpus from the Municipal Court, by which we were delivered from
the hands of Constable Bettesworth, and brought before and acquitted
by the Municipal Court. After our acquittal, in a conversation with
Judge Thomas, although he considered the acts of the party illegal, he
advised that, to satisfy the people, we had better go before another
magistrate who was not in our Church. In accordance with his advice,
we went before Esquire Wells, with whom you are well acquainted; both
parties were present, witnesses were called on both sides, the case
was fully investigated, and we were again dismissed. And what is this
pretended desire to enforce law, and wherefore are these lying, base
rumors put into circulation but to seek through mob influence, under
pretense of law, to make us submit to requisitions which are contrary
to law and subversive of every principle of justice? And when you, sir,
required us to come out here, we came, not because it was legal, but
because you required it of us, and we were desirous of showing to you,
and to all men, that we shrunk not from the most rigid investigation of
our acts. We certainly did expect other treatment than to be immured in
a jail at the instance of these men, and I think, from your plighted
faith, we had a right so to expect, after disbanding our own forces,
and putting ourselves entirely in your hands. And now, after having
fulfilled my part, sir, as a man and an American citizen, I call upon
you, Governor Ford, to deliver us from this place, and rescue us
from this outrage that is sought to be practiced upon us by a set of
infamous scoundrels.”
_Governor Ford._ “But you have placed men under arrest, detained men as
prisoners, and given passes to others, some of which I have seen.”
_John P. Green, City Marshal._ “Perhaps I can explain. Since these
difficulties have commenced, you are aware that we have been placed
under very peculiar circumstances; our city has been placed under a
very rigid police guard; in addition to this, frequent guards have
been placed outside the city to prevent any sudden surprise, and those
guards have questioned suspected or suspicious persons as to their
business. To strangers, in some instances, passes have been given to
prevent difficulty in passing those guards; it is some of these passes
that you have seen. No person, sir, has been imprisoned without a legal
cause in our city.”
_Governor._ “Why did you not give a more speedy answer to the posse
that I sent out?”
_General Smith._ “We had matters of importance to consult upon; your
letter showed any thing but an amiable spirit. We have suffered
immensely in Missouri from mobs, in loss of property, imprisonment,
and otherwise. It took some time for us to weigh duly these matters;
we could not decide upon matters of such importance immediately, and
your posse were too hasty in returning; we were consulting for a large
people, and vast interests were at stake. We had been outrageously
imposed upon, and knew not how far we could trust any one; besides, a
question necessarily arose, How shall we come? Your request was that we
should come unarmed. It became a matter of serious importance to decide
how far promises could be trusted, and how far we were safe from mob
violence.”
_Colonel Geddes._ “It certainly did look, from all I have heard, from
the general spirit of violence and mobocracy that here prevails, that
it was not safe for you to come unprotected.”
_Governor Ford._ “I think that sufficient time was not allowed by the
posse for you to consult and get ready. They were too hasty; but I
suppose they found themselves bound by their orders. I think, too,
there is a great deal of truth in what you say, and your reasoning
is plausible, but I must beg leave to differ from you in relation to
the acts of the city council. That council, in my opinion, had no
right to act in a legislative capacity and in that of the judiciary.
They should have passed a law in relation to the matter, and then the
Municipal Court, upon complaint, could have removed it; but for the
city council to take upon themselves the law-making and the execution
of the law is in my opinion wrong; besides, these men ought to have had
a hearing before their property was destroyed; to destroy it without
was an infringement on their rights; besides, it is so contrary to
the feelings of American people to interfere with the press. And,
furthermore, I can not but think that it would have been more judicious
for you to have gone with Mr. Bettesworth to Carthage, notwithstanding
the law did not require it. Concerning your being in jail, I am sorry
for that; I wish it had been otherwise. I hope you will soon be
released, but I can not interfere.”
_Joseph Smith._ “Governor Ford, allow me, sir, to bring one thing to
your mind that you seem to have overlooked. You state that you think it
would have been better for us to have submitted to the requisition of
Constable Bettesworth, and to have gone to Carthage. Do you not know,
sir, that that writ was served at the instance of an ‘anti-Mormon’ mob,
who had passed resolutions, and published them, to the effect that they
would exterminate the ‘Mormon’ leaders? and are you not informed that
Captain Anderson was not only threatened when coming to Nauvoo, but
had a gun fired at his boat by this said mob in Warsaw when coming up
to Nauvoo, and that this very thing was made use of as a means to get
us into their hands; and we could not, without taking an armed force
with us, go there without, according to their published declarations,
going into the jaws of death? To have taken a force would only have
fanned the excitement, and they would have stated that we wanted to
use intimidation; therefore we thought it the most judicious to avail
ourselves of the protection of law.”
_Governor Ford._ “I see, I see.”
_Joseph Smith._ “Furthermore, in relation to the press, you say that
you differ from me in opinion. Be it so; the thing, after all, is only
a legal difficulty, and the courts, I should judge, are competent to
decide on that matter. If our act was illegal, we are willing to meet
it; and although I can not see the distinction that you draw about
the acts of the city council, and what difference it could have made
in point of fact, law, or justice between the city councils acting
together or separate, or how much more legal it would have been for the
Municipal Court, who were a part of the city council, to act separate
instead of with the councilors, yet, if it is deemed that we did a
wrong in destroying that press, we refuse not to pay for it; we are
desirous to fulfill the law in every particular, and are responsible
for our acts. You say that the parties ought to have had a hearing.
Had it been a civil suit, this, of course, would have been proper; but
there was a flagrant violation of every principle of right--a nuisance;
and it was abated on the same principle that any nuisance, stench, or
putrefied carcass would have been removed. Our first step, therefore,
was to stop the foul, noisome, filthy sheet, and then the next in our
opinion would have been to have prosecuted the man for a breach of
public decency. And furthermore, again let me say, Governor Ford, I
shall look to you for our protection. I believe you are talking of
going to Nauvoo; if you go, sir, I wish to go along. I refuse not to
answer any law, but I do not consider myself safe here.”
_Governor._ “I am in hopes that you will be acquitted, and if I go I
will certainly take you along. I do not, however, apprehend danger. I
think you are perfectly safe either here or any where else. I can not,
however, interfere with the law. I am placed in peculiar circumstances,
and seem to be blamed by all parties.”
_Joseph Smith._ “Governor Ford, I ask nothing but what is legal; I
have a right to expect protection, at least from you; for, independent
of law, you have pledged your faith and that of the state for my
protection, and I wish to go to Nauvoo.”
Governor. “And you shall have protection, General Smith. I did not make
this promise without consulting my officers, who all pledged their
honor to its fulfillment. I do not know that I shall go to-morrow to
Nauvoo, but if I do I will take you along.”
At a quarter past ten o’clock the governor left.
At about half past twelve o’clock, Mr. Reed, one of Joseph’s counsel,
came in, apparently much elated; he stated that, “upon an examination
of the law, he found that the magistrate had transcended his
jurisdiction, and that, having committed them without an examination,
his jurisdiction ended; that he had him upon a pin-hook; that he ought
to have examined them before he committed them, and that, having
violated the law in this particular, he had no farther power over them;
for, once committed, they were out of his jurisdiction, as the power
of the magistrate extended no farther than their committal, and that
now they could not be brought out except at the regular session of the
Circuit Court, or by a writ of habeas corpus; but that if Justice Smith
would consent to go to Nauvoo for trial, he would compromise matters
with him, and overlook this matter.”
Mr. Reed farther stated that “the ‘anti-Mormons,’ or mob, had concocted
a scheme to get out a writ from Missouri, with a demand upon Governor
Ford for the arrest of Joseph Smith and his conveyance to Missouri, and
that a man by the name of Wilson had returned from Missouri the night
before the burning of the press for this purpose.”
At half past two o’clock Constable Bettesworth came to the jail with
a man named Simpson, professing to have some order, but he would not
send up his name, and the guard would not let him pass. Dr. Bernhisel
and Brother Wasson went to inform the governor and council of this. At
about twenty minutes to three Dr. Bernhisel returned, and stated that
he thought the governor was doing all he could. At about ten minutes to
three Hyrum Kimball appeared with news from Nauvoo.
Soon after Constable Bettesworth came with an order from Esquire Smith
to convey the prisoners to the court-house for trial. He was informed
that the process was illegal, that they had been placed there contrary
to law, and that they refused to come unless by legal process. I was
informed that Justice Smith (who was also Captain of the Carthage
Grays) went to the governor and informed him of the matter, and that
the governor replied, “You have your forces, and of course can use
them.” The constable certainly did return, accompanied by a guard of
armed men, and by force, and under protest, hurried the prisoners to
the court.
About four o’clock the case was called by Captain Robert F. Smith, J.
P. The counsel of the prisoners called for subpœnas to bring witnesses.
At twenty-five minutes past four he took a copy of the order to bring
the prisoners from jail to trial, and afterward he took names of
witnesses.
Counsel present for the state: Higbee, Skinner, Sharpe, Emmons, and
Morrison. Twenty-five minutes to five the writ was returned as served,
June 25th.
Many remarks were made at the court that I paid but little attention
to, as I considered the whole thing illegal and a complete burlesque.
Wood objected to the proceedings in toto, in consequence of its
illegality, showing that the prisoners were not only illegally
committed, but that, being once committed, the magistrate had no
farther power over them; but as it was the same magistrate before whom
he was pleading who imprisoned them contrary to law, and the same who,
as captain, forced them from jail, his arguments availed but little.
He then urged that the prisoners be remanded until witnesses could be
had, and applied for a continuance for that purpose. Skinner suggested
until twelve o’clock next day. Wood again demanded until witnesses
could be obtained; that the court meet at a specified time, and that,
if witnesses were not present, again adjourn, without calling the
prisoners. After various remarks from Reed, Skinner, and others, the
court stated that the writ was served yesterday, and that it will give
until to-morrow at twelve M. to get witnesses.
We then returned to jail. Immediately after our return Dr. Bernhisel
went to the governor, and obtained from him an order for us to occupy
a large open room containing a bedstead. I rather think that the same
room had been appropriated to the use of debtors; at any rate, there
was free access to the jailer’s house, and no bars or locks except
such as might be on the outside door of the jail. The jailer, Mr.
George W. Steghall, and his wife, manifested a disposition to make us
as comfortable as they could; we ate at their table, which was well
provided, and of course paid for it.
I do not remember the names of all who were with us that night and the
next morning in jail, for several went and came; among those that we
considered stationary were Stephen Markham, John S. Fulmer, Captain
Dan Jones, Dr. Williard Richards, and myself. Dr. Bernhisel says that
he was there from Wednesday in the afternoon until eleven o’clock next
day. We were, however, visited by numerous friends, among whom were
Uncle John Smith, Hyrum Kimball, Cyrus H. Wheelock, besides lawyers,
as counsel. There was also a great variety of conversation, which was
rather desultory than otherwise, and referred to circumstances that had
transpired; our former and present grievances; the spirit of the troops
around us, and the disposition of the governor; the devising for legal
and other plans for deliverance; the nature of testimony required; the
gathering of proper witnesses; and a variety of other topics, including
our religious hopes, etc.
During one of these conversations Dr. Richards remarked: “Brother
Joseph, it is necessary that you die in this matter, and if they will
take me in your stead, I will suffer for you.” At another time, when
conversing about deliverance, I said, “Brother Joseph, if you will
permit it, and say the word, I will have you out of this prison in
five hours, if the jail has to come down to do it.” My idea was to go
to Nauvoo, and collect a force sufficient, as I considered the whole
affair a legal farce, and a flagrant outrage upon our liberty and
rights. Brother Joseph refused.
Elder Cyrus Wheelock came in to see us, and when he was about leaving
drew a small pistol, a six-shooter, from his pocket, remarking
at the same time, “Would any of you like to have this?” Brother
Joseph immediately replied, “Yes, give it to me;” whereupon he took
the pistol, and put it in his pantaloons pocket. The pistol was a
six-shooting revolver, of Allen’s patent; it belonged to me, and was
one that I furnished to Brother Wheelock when he talked of going with
me to the East, previous to our coming to Carthage. I have it now in
my possession. Brother Wheelock went out on some errand, and was not
suffered to return. The report of the governor having gone to Nauvoo
without taking the prisoners along with him caused very unpleasant
feelings, as we were apprised that we were left to the tender mercies
of the Carthage Grays, a company strictly mobocratic, and whom we knew
to be our most deadly enemies, and their captain, Esquire Smith, was a
most unprincipled villain. Besides this, all the mob forces, comprising
the governor’s troops, were dismissed, with the exception of one or two
companies, which the governor took with him to Nauvoo. The great part
of the mob was liberated, the remainder was our guard.
We looked upon it not only as a breach of faith on the part of
the governor, but also as an indication of a desire to insult us,
if nothing more, by leaving us in the proximity of such men. The
prevention of Wheelock’s return was among the first of their hostile
movements.
Colonel Markham then went out, and he was also prevented from
returning. He was very angry at this, but the mob paid no attention
to him; they drove him out of town at the point of the bayonet, and
threatened to shoot him if he returned; he went, I am informed, to
Nauvoo for the purpose of raising a company of men for our protection.
Brother Fulmer went to Nauvoo after witnesses: it is my opinion that
Brother Wheelock did also.
Some time after dinner we sent for some wine. It has been reported by
some that this was taken as a sacrament. It was no such thing; our
spirits were generally dull and heavy, and it was sent for to revive
us. I think it was Captain Jones who went after it, but they would not
suffer him to return. I believe we all drank of the wine, and gave some
to one or two of the prison guards. We all of us felt unusually dull
and languid, with a remarkable depression of spirits. In consonance
with those feelings I sang the following song, that had lately been
introduced into Nauvoo, entitled, “A poor wayfaring man of grief,” etc.
1. A poor wayfaring man of grief
Hath often cross’d me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer Nay.
2. I had not power to ask his name,
Whither he went, or whence he came;
Yet there was something in his eye
That won my love, I know not why.
3. Once, when my scanty meal was spread,
He enter’d--not a word he spake!
Just perishing for want of bread;
I gave him all: he bless’d it, brake,
4. And ate, but gave me part again;
Mine was an angel’s portion then,
For while I fed with eager haste,
The crust was manna to my taste.
5. I spied him where a fountain burst
Clear from the rock--his strength was gone--
The heedless water mock’d his thirst;
He heard it, saw it hurrying on.
6. I ran and raised the suff’rer up;
Thrice from the stream he drain’d my cup,
Dipp’d, and return’d it running o’er;
I drank, and never thirsted more.
7. ’Twas night; the floods were out; it blew
A winter hurricane aloof;
I heard his voice abroad, and flew
To bid him welcome to my roof.
8. I warm’d, I clothed, I cheer’d my guest,
I laid him on my couch to rest;
Then made the earth my bed, and seem’d
In Eden’s garden while I dream’d.
9. Stripp’d, wounded, beaten nigh to death,
I found him by the highway side;
I roused his pulse, brought back his breath,
Revived his spirit, and supplied
10. Wine, oil, refreshment: he was heal’d;
I had myself a wound conceal’d,
But from that hour forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.
11. In prison I saw him next, condemn’d
To meet a traitor’s doom at morn;
The tide of lying tongues I stemm’d,
And honor’d him ’mid shame and scorn.
12. My friendship’s utmost zeal to try,
He asked if I for him would die;
The flesh was weak; my blood ran chill;
But the free spirit cried “I will.”
13. Then in a moment to my view
The stranger started from disguise;
The tokens in his hands I knew;
The Savior stood before mine eyes.
14. He spake--and my poor name he named--
“Of me thou hast not been ashamed;
These deeds shall thy memorial be;
Fear not; thou didst them unto me.”
The song is pathetic, and the tune quite plaintive, and was very much
in accordance with our feelings at the time, for our spirits were all
depressed, dull, and gloomy, and surcharged with indefinite ominous
forebodings. After a lapse of some time, Brother Hyrum requested me
again to sing that song. I replied, “Brother Hyrum, I do not feel like
singing;” when he remarked, “Oh! never mind; commence singing, and you
will get the spirit of it.” At his request I did so. Soon afterward
I was sitting at one of the front windows of the jail, when I saw a
number of men, with painted faces, coming round the corner of the
jail, and aiming toward the stairs. The other brethren had seen the
same, for, as I went to the door, I found Brother Hyrum Smith and Dr.
Richards already leaning against it; they both pressed against the door
with their shoulders to prevent its being opened, as the lock and latch
were comparatively useless. While in this position, the mob, who had
come up stairs, and strove to open the door, probably thought it was
locked, and fired a ball through the keyhole; at this Dr. Richards and
Brother Hyrum leaped back from the door, with their faces toward it;
almost instantly another ball passed through the panel of the door, and
struck Brother Hyrum on the left side of the nose, entering his face
and head; simultaneously, at the same instant, another ball from the
outside entered his back, passing through his body and striking his
watch. The ball came from the back, through the jail window, opposite
the door, and must, from its range, have been fired from the Carthage
Grays, as the balls of fire-arms, shot close by the jail, would have
entered the ceiling, we being in the second story, and there never
was a time after that Hyrum could have received the latter wound.
Immediately, when the balls struck him, he fell flat on his back,
crying as he fell, “I am a dead man!” He never moved afterward.
I shall never forget the feeling of deep sympathy and regard manifested
in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum, and,
leaning over him, exclaimed, “Oh! my poor, dear brother Hyrum.” He,
however, instantly arose, and with a firm, quick step, and a determined
expression of countenance, approached the door, and pulling the
six-shooter left by Brother Wheelock from his pocket, opened the door
slightly, and snapped the pistol six successive times; only three of
the barrels, however, were discharged. I afterward understood that two
or three were wounded by these discharges, two of whom, I am informed,
died. I had in my hands a large, strong hickory stick, brought there
by Brother Markham, and left by him, which I had seized as soon as I
saw the mob approach; and while Brother Joseph was firing the pistol,
I stood close behind him. As soon as he had discharged it he stepped
back, and I immediately took his place next the door, while he occupied
the one I had done while he was shooting. Brother Richards, at this
time, had a knotty walking-stick in his hands belonging to me, and
stood next to Brother Joseph, a little farther from the door, in an
oblique direction, apparently to avoid the rake of the fire from the
door. The firing of Brother Joseph made our assailants pause for a
moment; very soon after, however, they pushed the door some distance
open, and protruded and discharged their guns into the room, when I
parried them off with my stick, giving another direction to the balls.
It certainly was a terrible scene: streams of fire as thick as my arm
passed by me as these men fired, and, unarmed as we were, it looked
like certain death. I remember feeling as though my time had come,
but I do not know when, in any critical position, I was more calm,
unruffled, and energetic, and acted with more promptness and decision.
It certainly was far from pleasant to be so near the muzzles of those
fire-arms as they belched forth their liquid flame and deadly balls.
While I was engaged in parrying the guns, Brother Joseph said, “That’s
right, Brother Taylor; parry them off as well as you can.” These were
the last words I ever heard him speak on earth.
Every moment the crowd at the door became more dense, as they were
unquestionably pressed on by those in the rear ascending the stairs,
until the whole entrance at the door was literally crowded with
muskets and rifles, which, with the swearing, shouting, and demoniacal
expressions of those outside the door and on the stairs, and the firing
of guns, mingled with their horrid oaths and execrations, made it look
like Pandemonium let loose, and was, indeed, a fit representation of
the horrid deed in which they were engaged.
After parrying the guns for some time, which now protruded thicker
and farther into the room, and seeing no hope of escape or protection
there, as we were now unarmed, it occurred to me that we might have
some friends outside, and that there might there be some chance of
escape, but here there seemed to be none. As I expected them every
moment to rush into the room--nothing but extreme cowardice having thus
far kept them out--as the tumult and pressure increased, without any
other hope, I made a spring for the window, which was right in front
of the jail door, where the mob was standing, and also exposed to the
fire of the Carthage Grays, who were stationed some ten or twelve rods
off. The weather was hot, we all of us had our coats off, and the
window was raised to admit air; as I reached the window, and was on
the point of leaping out, I was struck by a ball from the door about
midway of my thigh, which struck the bone, and flattened out almost
to the size of a quarter of a dollar, and then passed on through the
fleshy part to within about half an inch of the outside. I think some
prominent nerve must have been severed or injured, for as soon as the
ball struck me I fell like a bird when shot, or an ox struck by a
butcher, and lost entirely and instantaneously all power of action or
locomotion. I fell on to the window-sill, and cried out, “I am shot!”
Not possessing any power to move, I felt myself falling outside of the
window, but immediately I fell inside, from some, at that time, unknown
cause; when I struck the floor my animation seemed restored, as I have
seen sometimes squirrels and birds after being shot. As soon as I felt
the power of motion I crawled under the bed, which was in a corner of
the room, not far from the window where I received my wound. While on
my way and under the bed I was wounded in three other places; one ball
entered a little below the left knee, and never was extracted; another
entered the forepart of my left arm, a little above the wrist, and,
passing down by the joint, lodged in the fleshy part of my hand, about
midway, a little above the upper joint of my little finger; another
struck me on the fleshy part of my left hip, and tore away the flesh
as large as my hand, dashing the mangled fragments of flesh and blood
against the wall.
My wounds were painful, and the sensation produced was as though a ball
had passed through and down the whole length of my leg. I very well
remember my reflections at the time. I had a very painful idea of
becoming lame and decrepit, and being an object of pity, and I felt as
though I had rather die than be placed in such circumstances.
It would seem that immediately after my attempt to leap out of the
window, Joseph also did the same thing, of which circumstance I have
no knowledge only from information. The first thing that I noticed
was a cry that he had leaped out of the window. A cessation of firing
followed, the mob rushed down stairs, and Dr. Richards went to the
window. Immediately afterward I saw the doctor going toward the jail
door, and as there was an iron door at the head of the stairs adjoining
our door which led into the cells for criminals, it struck me that the
doctor was going in there, and I said to him, “Stop, doctor, and take
me along.” He proceeded to the door and opened it, and then returned
and dragged me along to a small cell prepared for criminals.
Brother Richards was very much troubled, and exclaimed, “Oh! Brother
Taylor, is it possible that they have killed both Brother Hyrum and
Joseph? it can not surely be, and yet I saw them shoot him;” and,
elevating his hands two or three times, he exclaimed, “Oh Lord, my God,
spare thy servants!” He then said, “Brother Taylor, this is a terrible
event;” and he dragged me farther into the cell, saying, “I am sorry
I can not do better for you;” and, taking an old, filthy mattress, he
covered me with it, and said, “That may hide you, and you may yet live
to tell the tale, but I expect they will kill me in a few moments.”
While lying in this position I suffered the most excruciating pain.
Soon afterward Dr. Richards came to me, informing me that the mob had
precipitately fled, and at the same time confirming my worst fears that
Joseph was assuredly dead. I felt a dull, lonely, sickening sensation
at the news. When I reflected that our noble chieftain, the prophet of
the living God, had fallen, and that I had seen his brother in the cold
embrace of death, it seemed as though there was an open void or vacuum
in the great field of human existence to me, and a dark, gloomy chasm
in the kingdom, and that we were left alone. Oh, how lonely was that
feeling! how cold, barren, and desolate! In the midst of difficulties
he was always the first in motion; in critical position his counsel
was always sought. As our prophet he approached our God, and obtained
for us his will; but now our prophet, our counselor, our general, our
leader was gone, and, amid the fiery ordeal that we then had to pass
through, we were left alone without his aid, and as our future guide
for things spiritual or temporal, and for all things pertaining to this
world or the next, he had spoken for the last time on earth.
These reflections and a thousand others flashed upon my mind. I
thought, Why must the good perish, and the virtuous be destroyed?
Why must God’s nobility, the salt of the earth, the most exalted of
the human family, and the most perfect types of all excellence, fall
victims to the cruel, fiendish hate of incarnate devils?
The poignancy of my grief, I presume, however, was somewhat allayed by
the extreme suffering that I endured from my wounds.
Soon afterward I was taken to the head of the stairs and laid there,
where I had a full view of our beloved and now murdered brother Hyrum.
There he lay as I had left him; he had not moved a limb; he lay placid
and calm, a monument of greatness even in death; but his noble spirit
had left its tenement, and was gone to dwell in regions more congenial
to its exalted nature. Poor Hyrum! he was a great and a good man, and
my soul was cemented to his. If ever there was an exemplary, honest,
and virtuous man, an embodiment of all that is noble in the human form,
Hyrum Smith was its representative.
While I lay there a number of persons came around, among whom was a
physician. The doctor, on seeing a ball lodged in my left hand, took
a penknife from his pocket and made an incision in it for the purpose
of extracting the ball therefrom, and having obtained a pair of
carpenter’s compasses, made use of them to draw or pry out the ball,
alternately using the penknife and compasses. After sawing for some
time with a dull penknife, and prying and pulling with the compasses,
he ultimately succeeded in extracting the ball, which was about a half
ounce one. Some time afterward he remarked to a friend of mine that “I
had nerves like the devil to stand what I did in its extraction.” I
really thought I had need of nerves to stand such surgical butchery,
and that, whatever my nerves may be, his practice was devilish.
This company wished to remove me to Mr. Hamilton’s hotel, the place
where we had staid previous to our incarceration in jail. I told them,
however, that I did not wish to go; I did not consider it safe. They
protested that it was, and that I was safe with them; that it was a
perfect outrage for men to be used as we had been; that they were my
friends; that it was for my good they were counseling me, and that I
could be better taken care of there than here.
I replied, “I don’t know you. Who am I among? I am surrounded by
assassins and murderers; witness your deeds! Don’t talk to me of
kindness or comfort; look at your murdered victims. Look at me! I want
none of your counsel nor comfort. There may be some safety here; I can
be assured of none any where,” etc.
They “God damned their souls to hell,” made the most solemn
asseverations, and swore by God and the devil, and every thing else
that they could think of, that they would stand by me to death and
protect me. In half an hour every one of them had fled to the town.
Soon after a coroner’s jury were assembled in the room over the body
of Hyrum. Among the jurors was Captain Smith, of the “Carthage Grays,”
who had assisted in the murder, and the same justice before whom we
had been tried. I heard the name of Francis Higbee as being in the
neighborhood; on hearing his name mentioned, I immediately rose and
said, “Captain Smith, you are a justice of the peace; I have heard his
name mentioned; I want to swear my life against him.” I was informed
that word was immediately sent to him to leave the place, which he did.
Brother Richards was busy during this time attending to the coroner’s
inquest, and to the removal of the bodies, and making arrangements for
their removal from Carthage to Nauvoo.
When we had a little leisure, he again came to me, and at his
suggestion I was removed to Hamilton’s tavern; I felt that he was the
only friend, the only person, that I could rely upon in that town. It
was with difficulty that sufficient persons could be found to carry
me to the tavern; for immediately after the murder a great fear fell
upon all the people, and men, women, and children fled with great
precipitation, leaving nothing nor any body in the town but two or
three women and children, and one or two sick persons.
It was with great difficulty that Brother Richards prevailed upon
Mr. Hamilton, hotel-keeper, and his family, to stay; they would not
until Brother Richards had given a solemn promise that he would see
them protected, and hence I was looked upon as a hostage. Under these
circumstances, notwithstanding, I believe they were hostile to the
“Mormons,” and were glad that the murder had taken place, yet they
did not actually participate in it; and, feeling that I should be a
protection to them, they staid.
The whole community knew that a dreadful outrage had been perpetrated
by those villains, and fearing lest the citizens of Nauvoo, as they
possessed the power, might have a disposition to visit them with a
terrible vengeance, they fled in the wildest confusion. And, indeed,
it was with very great difficulty that the citizens of Nauvoo could
be restrained; a horrid, barbarous murder had been committed, the
most solemn pledge violated, and that, too, while the victims were,
contrary to the requirements of the law, putting themselves into the
hands of the governor to pacify a popular excitement. This outrage
was enhanced by the reflection that we were able to protect ourselves
against not only all the mob, but against three times their number and
that of the governor’s troops put together. These were exasperated
by the speech of the governor in town. The whole events were so
faithless, so dastardly, so mean, cowardly, and contemptible, without
one extenuating circumstance, that it would not have been surprising
if the citizens of Nauvoo had arisen _en masse_, and blotted the
wretches out of existence. The citizens of Carthage knew they would
have done so under such circumstances, and, judging us by themselves,
they were all panic-stricken and fled. Colonel Markham, too, after his
expulsion from Carthage, had gone home, related the circumstances of
his ejectment, and was using his influence to get a company to go out.
Fearing that when the people heard that their prophet and patriarch
had been murdered under the above circumstances they might act rashly,
and knowing that, if they once got roused, like a mighty avalanche
they would lay the country waste before them and take a terrible
vengeance--as none of the twelve were in Nauvoo, and no one, perhaps,
with sufficient influence to control the people, Dr. Richards, after
consulting me, wrote the following note, fearing that my family might
be seriously affected by the news. I told him to insert that I was
slightly wounded.
_William Richards’s Note from Carthage Jail to Nauvoo._[243]
“Carthage Jail, 8 o’clock 5 min. P.M., June 27th, 1844.
“Joseph and Hyrum are dead. Taylor wounded, not very badly. I am
well. Our guard was forced, as we believe, by a band of Missourians
from 100 to 200. The job was done in an instant, and the party fled
toward Nauvoo instantly. This is as I believe it. The citizens here
are afraid of the Mormons attacking them; I promise them no.
W. RICHARDS.
“N.B.--The citizens promise us protection; alarm guns have been fired.
“JOHN TAYLOR.”
[243] “Des. News,” No. 38, Nov. 25, 1857, p. 297.
I remember signing my name as quickly as possible, lest the tremor of
my hand should be noticed, and their fears too excited.
A messenger was dispatched immediately with that note, but he was
intercepted by the governor, who, on hearing a cannon fired at
Carthage, which was to be the signal for the murder, immediately
fled with his company, and fearing that the citizens of Nauvoo, when
apprised of the horrible outrage, would immediately rise and pursue, he
turned back the messenger, who was George D. Grant. A second one was
sent, who was treated similarly; and not until a third attempt could
news be got to Nauvoo.
Samuel H. Smith, brother to Joseph and Hyrum, was the first brother
that I saw after the outrage; I am not sure whether he took the news
or not; he lived at the time at Plymouth, Hancock County, and was on
his way to Carthage to see his brothers, when he was met by some of the
troops, or rather mob, that had been dismissed by the governor, and who
were on their way home. On learning that he was Joseph Smith’s brother
they sought to kill him, but he escaped, and fled into the woods, where
he was chased for a length of time by them; but, after severe fatigue,
and much danger and excitement, he succeeded in escaping, and came
to Carthage. He was on horseback when he arrived, and was not only
very much tired with the fatigue and excitement of the chase, but was
also very much distressed in feelings on account of the death of his
brother. These things produced a fever, which laid the foundation for
his death, which took place on the 30th of July. Thus another of the
brothers fell a victim, although not directly, but indirectly to this
infernal mob.
I lay from about five o’clock until two next morning without having my
wounds dressed, as there was scarcely any help of any kind in Carthage,
and Brother Richards was busy with the dead bodies, preparing them for
removal. My wife Leonora started early the next day, having had some
little trouble in getting a company or a physician to come with her;
after considerable difficulty she succeeded in getting an escort, and
Dr. Samuel Bennet came along with her. Soon after my father and mother
arrived from Quakie, near which place they had a farm at that time, and
hearing of the trouble, hastened along.
General Demming, Brigadier General of the Hancock County Militia, was
very much of a gentleman, and showed me every courtesy, and Colonel
Jones also was very solicitous about my welfare.
I was called upon by several gentlemen of Quincy and other places,
among whom was Judge Ralston, as well as by our own people, and a
medical man extracted a ball from my left thigh that was giving me much
pain: it lay about half an inch deep, and my thigh was considerably
swollen. The doctor asked me if I would be tied during the operation;
I told him no; that I could endure the cutting associated with the
operation as well without, and I did so; indeed, so great was the pain
I endured that the cutting was rather a relief than otherwise.
A very laughable incident occurred at the time: my wife Leonora went
into an adjoining room to pray for me, that I might be sustained during
the operation. While on her knees at prayer, a Mrs. Bedell, an old lady
of the Methodist association, entered, and, patting Mrs. Taylor on her
back with her hand, said, “There’s a good lady, pray for God to forgive
your sins; pray that you may be converted, and the Lord may have mercy
on your soul.”
The scene was so ludicrous that Mrs. Taylor knew not whether to laugh
or be angry. Mrs. Taylor informed me that Mr. Hamilton, the father of
the Hamilton who kept the house, rejoiced at the murder, and said in
company “that it was done up in the best possible style, and showed
good generalship;” and she farther believed that the other branches of
the family sanctioned it. These were the associates of the old lady
referred to, and yet she could talk of conversion and saving souls in
the midst of blood and murder: such is man and such consistency.
The ball being extracted was the one that first struck me, which I
before referred to; it entered on the outside of my left thigh, about
five inches from my knee, and, passing rather obliquely toward my body,
had, it would seem, struck the bone, for it was flattened out nearly as
thin and large as a quarter of a dollar.
The governor passed on, staying at Carthage only a few minutes, and
he did not stop until he got fifty miles from Nauvoo. There had been
various opinions about the complicity of the governor in the murder,
some supposing that he knew all about it, and assisted or winked at its
execution. It is somewhat difficult to form a correct opinion; from
the facts presented it is very certain that things looked more than
suspicious against him.
In the first place, he positively knew that we had broken no law.
Secondly. He knew that the mob had not only passed inflammatory
resolutions, threatening extermination to the “Mormons,” but that they
had actually assembled armed mobs and commenced hostilities against us.
Thirdly. He took those very mobs that had been arrayed against us, and
enrolled them as his troops, thus legalizing their acts.
Fourthly. He disbanded the Nauvoo Legion, which had never violated law,
and disarmed them, and had about his person in the shape of militia
known mobocrats and violators of the law.
Fifthly. He requested us to come to Carthage without arms, promising
protection, and then refused to interfere in delivering us from prison,
although Joseph and Hyrum were put there contrary to law.
Sixthly. Although he refused to interfere in our behalf, yet, when
Captain Smith went to him and informed him that the persons refused to
come out, he told him that “he had a command and knew what to do,” thus
sanctioning the use of force in the violation of law when opposed to
us, whereas he would not for us interpose his executive authority to
free us from being incarcerated contrary to law, although he was fully
informed of all the facts of the case, as we kept him posted in the
affairs all the time.
Seventhly. He left the prisoners in Carthage jail contrary to his
plighted faith.
Eighthly. Before he went he dismissed all the troops that could be
relied upon, as well as many of the mob, and left us in charge of the
“Carthage Grays,” a company that he knew were mobocratic, our most
bitter enemies, and who had passed resolutions to exterminate us, and
who had been placed under guard by General Demming only the day before.
Ninthly. He was informed of the intended murder, both before he left
and while on the road, by several different parties.
Tenthly. When the cannon was fired in Carthage, signifying that the
deed was done, he immediately took up his line of march and fled. How
did he know that this signal portended their death if he was not in the
secret? It may be said some of the party told him. How could he believe
what the party said about the gun-signal if he could not believe the
testimony of several individuals who told him in positive terms about
the contemplated murder?
He has, I believe, stated that he left the “Carthage Grays” there
because he considered that, as their town was contiguous to ours, and
as the responsibility of our safety rested solely upon them, they would
not dare suffer any indignity to befall us. This very admission shows
that he did really expect danger; and then he knew that these people
had published to the world that they would exterminate us, and his
leaving us in their hands and talking of their responsibilities was
like leaving a lamb in charge of a wolf, and trusting to its humanity
and honor for its safe-keeping.
It is said, again, that he would not have gone to Nauvoo, and thus
placed himself in the hands of the “Mormons,” if he had anticipated any
such event, as he would be exposed to their wrath. To this it may be
answered that the “Mormons” did not know their signals, while he did;
and they were also known in Warsaw, as well as in other places; and as
soon as the gun was fired, a merchant of Warsaw jumped upon his horse
and rode directly to Quincy, and reported “Joseph and Hyrum killed, and
those who were with them in jail.” He reported farther “that they were
attempting to break jail, and were all killed by the guard.” This was
their story; it was anticipated to kill all, and the gun was to be the
signal that the deed was accomplished. This was known in Warsaw. The
governor also knew it and fled; and he could really be in no danger in
Nauvoo, for the Mormons did not know it, and he had plenty of time to
escape, which he did.
It is said that he made all his officers promise solemnly that they
would help him to protect the Smiths; this may or may not be. At any
rate, some of these same officers helped to murder them.
The strongest argument in the governor’s favor, and one that would bear
more weight with us than all the rest put together, would be that he
could not believe them capable of such atrocity; and, thinking that
their talk and threatenings were a mere ebullition of feeling, a kind
of braggadocio, and that there was enough of good moral feeling to
control the more violent passions, he trusted to their faith. There
is, indeed, a degree of plausibility about this, but when we put it in
juxtaposition to the amount of evidence that he was in possession of
it weighs very little. He had nothing to inspire confidence in them,
and every thing to make him mistrust them. Besides, why his broken
faith? why his disregard of what was told him by several parties?
Again, if he knew not the plan, how did he understand the signal? Why
so oblivious to every thing pertaining to the “Mormon” interest, and so
alive and interested about the mobocrats? At any rate, be this as it
may, he stands responsible for their blood, and it is dripping on his
garments. If it had not been for his promises of protection, they would
have protected themselves; it was plighted faith that led them to the
slaughter; and, to make the best of it, it was a breach of that faith
and a non-fulfillment of that promise, after repeated warnings, that
led to their death.
Having said so much, I must leave the governor with my readers and
with his God. Justice, I conceive, demanded this much, and truth could
not be told with less; as I have said before, my opinion is that the
governor would not have planned this murder, but he had not sufficient
energy to resist popular opinion, even if that opinion led to blood and
death.
It was rumored that a strong political party, numbering in its ranks
many of the prominent men of the nation, were engaged in a plot for the
overthrow of Joseph Smith, and that the governor was of this party,
and Sharp, Williams, Captain Smith, and others, were his accomplices,
but whether this was the case or not I don’t know. It is very certain
that a strong political feeling existed against Joseph Smith, and I
have reason to believe that his letters to Henry Clay were made use of
by political parties opposed to Mr. Clay, and were the means of that
statesman’s defeat. Yet, if such a combination as the one referred to
existed, I am not apprised of it.
While I lay at Carthage, previous to Mrs. Taylor’s arrival, a pretty
good sort of a man, who was lame of a leg, waited upon me, and sat up
at night with me; after Mrs. Taylor, my mother and others waited upon
me.
Many friends called upon me, among whom were Richard Ballantyne,
Elizabeth Taylor, several of the Perkins family, and a number of the
brethren from Macedonia and La Harpe. Besides these, many strangers
from Quincy, some of whom expressed indignant feelings against the
mob and sympathy for myself. Brother Alexander Williams called upon
me, who suspected that they had some designs in keeping me there, and
stated “that he had at a given point in some woods fifty men, and that
if I would say the word he would raise other fifty, and fetch me out
of there.” I thanked him, but told him I thought there was no need.
However, it would seem that I was in some danger; for Colonel Jones,
before referred to, when absent from me, left two loaded pistols on
the table in case of an attack, and some time afterward, when I had
recovered and was publishing the affair, a lawyer, Mr. Backman, stated
that he had prevented a man by the name of Jackson, before referred to,
from ascending the stairs, who was coming with a design to murder me,
and that now he was sorry he had not let him do the deed.
There were others, also, of whom I heard that said I ought to be
killed, and they would do it, but that it was too damned cowardly to
shoot a wounded man; and thus, by the chivalry of murderers, I was
prevented from being a second time mutilated or killed. Many of the
mob, too, came around and treated me with apparent respect, and the
officers and people generally looked upon me as a hostage, and feared
that my removal would be the signal for the rising of the Mormons.
I do not remember the time that I staid there, but I think three
or four days after the murder, when Brother Marks with a carriage,
Brother James Aldred with a wagon, Dr. Ells, and a number of others on
horseback, came for the purpose of taking me to Nauvoo. I was very weak
at the time, occasioned by the loss of blood and the great discharge
of my wounds, so that when Mrs. Taylor asked me if I could talk I
could barely whisper no. Quite a discussion arose as to the propriety
of my removal, the physicians and people of Carthage protesting that
it would be my death, while my friends were anxious for my removal if
possible.
I suppose the former were actuated by the above-named desire to keep
me. Colonel Jones was, I believe, sincere; he has acted as a friend
all the time, and he told Mrs. Taylor she ought to persuade me not to
go, for he did not believe I had strength enough to reach Nauvoo. It
was finally agreed, however, that I should go; but as it was thought
that I could not stand riding in a wagon or carriage, they prepared a
litter for me; I was carried down stairs and put upon it. A number of
men assisted to carry me, some of whom had been engaged in the mob. As
soon as I got down stairs, I felt much better and strengthened, so that
I could talk; I suppose the effect of the fresh air.
When we had got near the outside of the town I remembered some woods
that we had to go through, and telling a person near to call for Dr.
Ells, who was riding a very good horse, I said, “Doctor, I perceive
that the people are getting fatigued with carrying me; a number of
Mormons live about two or three miles from here, near our route; will
you ride to their settlement as quietly as possible, and have them come
and meet us?” He started off on a gallop immediately. My object in this
was to obtain protection in case of an attack, rather than to obtain
help to carry me.
Very soon after the men from Carthage made one excuse after another,
until they had all left, and I felt glad to get rid of them. I found
that the tramping of those carrying me produced violent pain, and a
sleigh was produced and attached to the hind end of Brother James
Aldred’s wagon, a bed placed upon it, and I propped up on the bed. Mrs.
Taylor rode with me, applying ice and ice-water to my wounds. As the
sleigh was dragged over the grass on the prairie, which was quite tall,
it moved very easily and gave me very little pain.
When I got within five or six miles of Nauvoo the brethren commenced to
meet me from the city, and they increased in number as we drew nearer,
until there was a very large company of people of all ages and both
sexes, principally, however, men.
For some time there had been almost incessant rain, so that in many
low places in the prairie it was from one to three feet deep in water,
and at such places the brethren whom we met took hold of the sleigh,
lifted it, and carried it over the water; and when we arrived in the
neighborhood of the city, where the roads were excessively muddy and
bad, the brethren tore down the fences, and we passed through the
fields.
Never shall I forget the difference of feeling that I experienced
between the place that I had left and the one that I had now arrived
at. I had left a lot of reckless, bloodthirsty murderers, and had
come to the City of the Saints, the people of the living God; friends
of truth and righteousness, thousands of whom stood there with warm,
true hearts to offer their friendship and services, and to welcome
my return. It is true it was a painful scene, and brought sorrowful
remembrances to mind, but to me it caused a thrill of joy to find
myself once more in the bosom of my friends, and to meet with the
cordial welcome of true, honest hearts. What was very remarkable, I
found myself very much better after my arrival at Nauvoo than I was
when I started on my journey, although I had traveled eighteen miles.
The next day, as some change was wanting, I told Mrs. Taylor that if
she could send to Dr. Richards, he had my purse and watch, and they
would find money in my purse.
Previous to the doctor leaving Carthage, I told him that he had better
take my purse and watch, for I was afraid the people would steal them.
The doctor had taken my pantaloons’ pocket, and put the watch in it
with the purse, cut off the pocket, and tied a string round the top; it
was in this position when brought home. My family, however, were not a
little startled to find that my watch had been struck with a ball. I
sent for my vest, and, upon examination, it was found that there was
a cut, as if with a knife, in the vest pocket which had contained my
watch. In the pocket the fragments of the glass were found literally
ground to powder. It then occurred to me that a ball had struck me at
the time I felt myself falling out of the window, and that it was this
force that threw me inside. I had often remarked to Mrs. Taylor the
singular fact of finding myself inside the room, when I felt a moment
before, after being shot, that I was falling out, and I never could
account for it until then; but here the thing was fully elucidated,
and was rendered plain to my mind. I was indeed falling out, when some
villain aimed at my heart. The ball struck my watch, and forced me
back; if I had fallen out I should assuredly have been killed, if not
by the fall, by those around, and this ball, intended to dispatch me,
was turned by an overruling Providence into a messenger of mercy, and
saved my life. I shall never forget the feelings of gratitude that I
then experienced toward my heavenly Father; the whole scene was vividly
portrayed before me, and my heart melted before the Lord. I felt that
the Lord had preserved me by a special act of mercy; that my time had
not yet come, and that I had still a work to perform upon the earth.
(Signed), JOHN TAYLOR.
NOTES.
In addition to the above I give the following:
Dr. Bernhisel informed me that Joseph, looking him full in the
face, and as solemn as eternity, said, “I am going as a lamb to the
slaughter, but I am as calm as a summer’s morning. I have a conscience
void of offense toward God and man.” I heard him state, in reply to
an interrogatory, made either by myself or some one in my hearing, in
relation to the best course to pursue, “I am not now acting according
to my judgment; others must counsel, and not me, for the present,” or
in words to the same effect.
The governor’s remarks about the press may be partially correct, so far
as the legal technicality was concerned, and the order of administering
law. The proper way would perhaps have been for the City Council to
have passed a law in regard to the removal of nuisances, and then for
the Municipal Court to have ordered it to be abated on complaint. Be
this as it may, it was only a variation in form, not in fact, for the
Municipal Court formed part of the City Council, and all voted; and,
furthermore, some time after the murder, Governor Ford told me that the
press ought to have been removed, but that it was bad policy to remove
it as we did; that if we had only let a mob do it, instead of using
the law, we could have done it without difficulty, and no one would
have been implicated. Thus the governor, who would have winked at the
proceedings of a mob, lent his aid to, or winked at, the proceedings
of mob violence in the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, for
removing a nuisance according to law, because of an alleged informality
in the legal proceedings or a legal technicality.
I must here state that I do not believe Governor Ford would have
planned the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith; but, being a man that
courted popular opinion, he had not the firmness to withstand the mob,
even when that mob were seeking to imbrue their hands in the blood of
innocence; he lent himself to their designs, and thus became a partaker
of their evil deeds.
I will illustrate this vexed question with the following official
paper, which appeared in the “Deserét News,” No. 30:
“Two of the brethren arrived this evening (June 13th, 1844), from
Carthage, and said that about 300 mobbers were assembled there, with
the avowed intention of coming against Nauvoo. Also that Hamilton was
paying a dollar per bushel for corn to feed their animals.”
The following was published in the Warsaw Signal Office; I insert it as
a specimen of the unparalleled corruption and diabolical falsehood of
which the human race has become capable in this generation:
“At a mass meeting of the citizens of Hancock County, convened at
Carthage on the 11th day of June, 1844, Mr. Knox was appointed
President, John Doty and Lewis F. Evans, Vice-Presidents, and William
Y. Head, Secretary.
“Henry Stephens, Esq., presented the following resolutions, passed at
a meeting of the citizens of Warsaw, and urged the adoption of them as
the sense of this meeting:
“PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTIONS.
“Whereas information has reached us, about which there can be no
question, that the authorities of Nauvoo did recently pass an ordinance
declaring a printing-press and newspaper published by the opponents
of the Prophet a nuisance, and in pursuance thereof did direct the
marshal of the city and his adherents to enter by force the building
from whence the paper was issued, and violently (if necessary) to take
possession of the press and printing materials, and thereafter to burn
and destroy the same; and whereas, in pursuance of said ordinance, the
marshal and his adherents, together with a mob of Mormons, did, after
sunset on the evening of the 10th inst., violently enter said building
in a tumultuous manner, burn and destroy the press and other materials
found on the premises;
“And whereas Hyrum Smith did, in presence of the City Council and
the citizens of Nauvoo, offer a reward for the destruction of the
printing-press and materials of the ‘Warsaw Signal,’ a newspaper also
opposed to his interest;
“And whereas the liberty of the press is one of the cardinal principles
of our government, firmly guaranteed by the several Constitutions of
the states as well as the United States;
“And whereas Hyrum Smith has within the last week publicly threatened
the life of one of our valued citizens, Thos. C. Sharp, the editor of
the ‘Signal:’
“Therefore be it solemnly _Resolved_ by the citizens of Warsaw in
public meeting assembled,
“That we view the recent ordinance of the city of Nauvoo, and the
proceedings thereunder, as an outrage of an alarming character,
revolutionary and tyrannical in its tendency, and, being under color of
law, as calculated to subvert and destroy in the minds of the community
all reliance on the law.
“_Resolved_, That as a community we feel anxious, when possible, to
redress our grievances by legal remedies; but the time has now arrived
when the law has ceased to be a protection to our lives and property;
a mob at Nauvoo, under a city ordinance, has violated the highest
privilege in our government, and to seek redress in the ordinary mode
would be utterly ineffectual.
“_Resolved_, That the public threat made in the council of the city not
only to destroy our printing-press, but to take the life of its editor,
is sufficient, in connection with the recent outrage, to command the
efforts and the services of every good citizen to put an immediate stop
to the career of the mad Prophet and his demoniac coadjutors. We must
not only defend ourselves from danger, but we must resolutely carry
the war into the enemy’s camp. We do therefore declare that we will
sustain our press and the editor at all hazards. That we will take full
vengeance--terrible vengeance, should the lives of any of our citizens
be lost in the effort. That we hold ourselves at all times in readiness
to co-operate with our fellow-citizens in this state, Missouri, and
Iowa, _to exterminate_--UTTERLY EXTERMINATE, the wicked and abominable
Mormon leaders, the authors of our troubles.
“_Resolved_, That a committee of five be appointed forthwith to notify
all persons in our township _suspected_ of being the tools of the
Prophet to leave immediately on pain of INSTANT VENGEANCE. And we do
recommend the inhabitants of the adjacent townships to do the same,
hereby pledging ourselves to render all the assistance they may require.
“_Resolved_, That the time, in our opinion, has arrived when the
adherents of Smith, as a body, should be driven from the surrounding
settlements into Nauvoo; that the Prophet and his miscreant adherents
should then be demanded at their hands, and if not surrendered, A
WAR OF EXTERMINATION SHOULD BE WAGED, to the entire destruction, if
necessary for our protection, of his adherents. And we do hereby
recommend this resolution to the consideration of the several
townships, to the Mass Convention to be held at Carthage, hereby
pledging ourselves to aid to the utmost the complete consummation of
the object in view, that we may thereby be utterly relieved of the
alarm, anxiety, and trouble to which we are now subjected.
“_Resolved_, That every citizen arm himself, to be prepared to sustain
the resolutions herein contained.
“Mr. Roosevelt rose and made a brief but eloquent speech, and called
upon the citizens throughout the country to render efficient aid
in carrying out the spirit of the resolutions. Mr. Roosevelt then
moved that a committee of seven be appointed by the chair to draft
resolutions expressive of our action in future.
“Mr. Catlin moved to amend the motion of Mr. Roosevelt so that the
committee should consist of one from each precinct; which motion, as
amended, was adopted.
“The chair then appointed the following as said committee: Colonel Levi
Williams, Rocky Run Precinct; Joel Catlin, Augusta; Samuel Williams,
Carthage; Elisha Worrell, Chili; Captain Maddison, St. Mary’s; John
M. Ferris, Fountain Green; James Rice, Pilot Grove; John Carns, Bear
Creek; C. L. Higbee, Nauvoo; George Robinson, La Harpe; and George
Rockwell, Warsaw.
“On motion of Mr. Sympson, Walter Bagby, Esq., was requested to
address the meeting during the absence of the committee. He spoke long
and eloquently upon the cause of our grievances, and expressed his
belief that the time was now at hand when we were individually and
collectively called upon to repel the innovations upon our liberties,
and suggested that points be designated as places of encampment at
which to rendezvous our forces, that we may be ready, when called upon,
for efficient action.
“Dr. Barns, one of the persons who went with the officers to Nauvoo
for the purpose of arresting the rioters, having just arrived, came
into the meeting, and reported the result of their proceedings, which
was, that the persons charged in the writs were duly arrested, but
taken from the officer’s hands on a writ of _habeas corpus_ from the
Municipal Court, and discharged, and the following potent words entered
upon the records--HONORABLY DISCHARGED.
“On motion of O. C. Skinner, Esq., a vote of thanks was tendered to Dr.
Barns for volunteering his services in executing said writs.
“Francis M. Higbee was now loudly called for. He stated his personal
knowledge of the Mormons from their earliest history, throughout their
hellish career in Missouri and this state, which had been characterized
by the darkest and most diabolical deeds which had ever disgraced
humanity.
“The committee appointed to draft resolutions brought in the following
report, which, after some considerable discussion, was unanimously
adopted:
“‘Whereas the officer charged with the execution of a writ against
Joseph Smith and others, for riot in the County of Hancock, which said
writ said officer has served upon said Smith and others; and whereas
said Smith and others refuse to obey the mandate of said writ; and
whereas, in the opinion of this meeting, it is impossible for the said
officer to raise a posse of sufficient strength to execute said writ;
and whereas it is the opinion of this meeting that the riot is still
progressing, and that violence is meditated and determined on, it is
the opinion of this meeting that the circumstances of the case require
the interposition of executive power: Therefore,
“‘_Resolved_, That a deputation of two discreet men be sent to
Springfield to solicit such interposition.
“‘2d. _Resolved_, That said deputation be furnished with a certified
copy of the resolution, and be authorized to obtain evidence by
affidavit and otherwise in regard to the violence which has already
been committed and is still farther meditated.’
“Dr. Evans here rose and expressed his wish that the above resolutions
would not retard our operations, but that we would each one arm and
equip ourselves forthwith.
“The resolutions passed at Warsaw were again read by Dr. Barns, and
passed by acclamation.
“On motion of A. Sympson, Esq., the suggestion of Mr. Bagby, appointing
places of encampment, was adopted, to wit: Warsaw, Carthage, Green
Plains, Spilman’s Landing, Chili, and La Harpe.
“On motion, O. C. Skinner and Walter Bagby, Esqrs., were appointed
a committee to bear the resolutions adopted by this meeting to his
excellency the governor, requiring his executive interposition.
“On motion of J. H. Sherman, a Central Corresponding Committee was
appointed.
“Ordered, That J. H. Sherman, H. T. Wilson, Chauncy Robinson, Wm. S.
Freeman, Thomas Morrison, F. M. Higbee, Lyman Prentiss, and Stephen H.
Tyler be said committee.
“On motion of George Rockwell,
“_Resolved_, That constables in the different precincts hold themselves
in readiness to obey the officer in possession of the writs, whenever
called upon, in summoning the posse.
“On motion, the meeting adjourned.
“JOHN KNOX, President.
“JOHN DOTY, } Vice-Presidents.
“LEWIS F. EVANS, }
“W. Y. HEAD, Secretary.”
The following will conclude the “Expositor Question:”
“Nauvoo, June 14th, 1844.
“SIR,--I write you this morning briefly to inform you of the facts
relative to the removal of the press and fixtures of the ‘Nauvoo
Expositor’ as a nuisance.
“The 8th and 10th instant were spent by the City Council of Nauvoo in
receiving testimony concerning the character of the ‘Expositor,’ and
the character and designs of the proprietors.
“In the investigation it appeared evident to the Council that
the proprietors were a set of unprincipled, lawless debauchees,
counterfeiters, bogus-makers, gamblers, peace-disturbers, and
that the grand object of said proprietors was to destroy our
constitutional rights and chartered privileges; to overthrow all
good and wholesome regulations in society; to strengthen themselves
against the municipality; to fortify themselves against the Church
of which I am a member, and destroy all our religious rights and
privileges by libels, slanders, falsehoods, perjury, etc., and
sticking at no corruption to accomplish their hellish purposes; and
that said paper of itself was libelous of the deepest dye, and very
injurious as a vehicle of defamation, tending to corrupt the morals,
and disturb the peace, tranquillity, and happiness of the whole
community, and especially that of Nauvoo.
“After a long and patient investigation of the character of the
‘Expositor,’ and the characters and designs of its proprietors, the
Constitution, the Charter (see Addenda to Nauvoo Charter from the
Springfield Charter, sec. 7), and all the best authorities on the
subject (see Blackstone, iii., 5, and n., etc., etc.), the City
Council decided that it was necessary for the ‘peace, benefit, good
order, and regulations’ of said city, ‘and for the protection of
property,’ and for ‘the happiness and prosperity of the citizens
of Nauvoo,’ that said ‘Expositor’ should be removed; and declaring
said ‘Expositor’ a nuisance, ordered the mayor to cause them to be
removed without delay, which order was committed to the marshal by
due process, and by him executed the same day, by removing the paper,
press, and fixtures into the streets, and burning the same; all which
was done without riot, noise, tumult, or confusion, as has already
been proved before the municipality of the city; and the particulars
of the whole transaction may be expected in our next ‘Nauvoo
Neighbor.’
“I send you this hasty sketch that your excellency may be aware of
the lying reports that are now being circulated by our enemies, that
there has been a ‘_mob_ at _Nauvoo_,’ and ‘_blood and thunder_,’
and ‘_swearing that two men were killed_,’ etc., etc., as we hear
from abroad, are false--false as Satan himself could invent, and
that nothing has been transacted here but what has been in perfect
accordance with the strictest principles of law and good order on
the part of the authorities of this city; and if your excellency is
not satisfied, and shall not be satisfied, after reading the whole
proceedings, which will be forthcoming soon, and shall demand an
investigation of our municipality before Judge Pope, or any legal
tribunal at the Capitol, you have only to write your wishes, and we
will be forthcoming; we will not trouble you to file a writ or send
an officer for us.
“I remain, as ever, a friend to truth, good order, and your
excellency’s humble servant,
(Signed), JOSEPH SMITH.
“His Excellency Thomas Ford.”
IV.
I think that the unpalatable assertion in the text will be proved by
the following contrasted extracts from the London “Times” and the
“Deserét News.”
THE BLACK COUNTRY.--The reports of the assistant commissioners
engaged in the recent education inquiry contain some very painful
notices of the state of morals in some parts of the kingdom. In
collier villages in Durham, where the men earn high wages, which
they know no way of spending but in the gratification of animal
appetites, the condition of the people in respect to morals and
manners, it is said, may not be described. Adultery is made a matter
of mere jest, and incest also is frightfully common, and seems to
excite no disgust. In some of those parts girls mingle with boys
at school till 13, 14, or 15 years of age, and that in schools not
superintended by women; it is impossible to state the coarseness
of manners that prevails in these schools. Coming south, into
Staffordshire, we are told that in the union of Dudley, where boys
and girls can earn high wages, their independence of their parents’
aid to maintain them leads to a remarkable independence of conduct,
and, in fact, no restraint is put upon their inclinations either
by their parents or the opinion of the neighborhood. It is held
rather a shame to an unmarried woman not to have had a child; and
the assistant commissioner, Mr. Coode, says that the details given
to him by the most respectable and trustworthy witnesses would, if
they could be reported, be discredited by most men of the world only
acquainted with the ordinary profligacy of the poor; but he adds
that, notwithstanding all this, the behavior and manners in other
respects of girls and women is not in public less decent than that
in places of better repute, and it is generally asserted that this
early corruption of females does not hinder them from being very
good neighbors, and excellent, hard-working, and affectionate wives
and mothers. Education in this district is not much prized; it is
a common saying, “The father went to the pit and he made a fortune,
the son went to school and he lost it.” But so much has been done by
the upper classes in providing schools for the lower that education
is gradually making its way, and many who can not read are ashamed of
their deficiency, and desirous to have their children taught. In a
village where an energetic clergyman, who has adopted a rough, strong
style of preaching, has succeeded in filling his church, Mr. Coode
noticed during the service that all the people affected to find the
place in the books furnished to them, but full half the books were
held upside down, and within his observation not one was open at the
right place, except where some young person taught to read in the
school was by to find it.
_An Ordinance relating to Houses of Ill-fame and Prostitution._
Sec. 1. Be it ordained by the City Council of Great Salt Lake City,
that any person or persons who shall be found guilty of keeping,
or shall be an inmate of any house of ill-fame, or place for
the practice of fornication or adultery, or knowingly own or be
interested as proprietor or landlord of any such house, or any person
or persons harboring or keeping about his, her, or their private
premises any whore-master, strumpet, or whore, knowing them to be
guilty of following a lewd course of life, shall be liable to a fine
for each offense not exceeding one hundred dollars, or imprisonment
not exceeding six months, or both fine and imprisonment, at the
discretion of the court having jurisdiction. In a prosecution under
this section, the person having charge of any house or place shall be
deemed the keeper thereof.
Sec. 2. It shall be lawful, on the trial of any person before said
court charged with either of the offenses named in the preceding
section, for the city to introduce in support of such charge
testimony of the general character and reputation of the person or
place touching the offense or charge set forth in the complaint, and
the defendant may likewise resort to testimony of a like nature for
the purpose of disproving such charge.
Sec. 3. No person shall be incapacitated or excused from testifying
touching any offense committed by another against any of the
provisions set forth in the first section of this ordinance by reason
of his or her having participated in such crime, but the evidence
which may be given by such person shall in no case be used against
the person so testifying.
Sec. 4. The word adultery, as made use of in this ordinance, shall be
construed to mean the unlawfully cohabiting together of two persons
when either one or both of such persons are married; and the word
fornication shall be construed to mean the cohabiting together of two
unmarried persons.
Passed December 30th, 1860.
A. O. SMOOT, Mayor.
ROBERT CAMPBELL, City Recorder.
V. CHRONOLOGICAL ABSTRACT OF MORMON HISTORY.
1801. June 1. Birth of Mr. Brigham Young, at Wittingham, Vermont, U.
S. In this year Mr. Heber C. Kimball also was born (June 14th).
1805. Dec. 23. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., son of Mr. Joseph Smith, sen.,
generally called “Old Father Smith,” and Lucy Mack, known as “Mother
Smith,” born at Sharon, Windsor Co., Vermont.
1812. A book called the “Manuscript Found” was presented to Mr.
Patterson, a bookseller at Pittsburgh, Penn., by Mr. Solomon Spalding
or Spaulding, of Crawford, Penn.; born in Ashford Co., and a graduate
of Dartmouth College. The author died, the bookseller followed him
in 1826, and the book fell into the hands of a printer’s compositor,
Sidney Rigdon, one of the earliest Mormon converts. Anti-Mormons
identify parts of the “Book of Mormon” with the “Manuscript Found.”
The Saints deny the existence of a Patterson, and assert that Mr.
Spaulding’s book was a mere historical and idolatrous romance
concerning the Ten Lost Tribes, altogether different from their
Biblion. They trace the calumny to a certain Doctor (so called
because a seventh son) Philastus Hurlbert or Hurlbut, an apostate
excommunicated for gross immorality, and bound over in $500 to keep
the peace, after threatening to murder Mr. Joseph Smith, jun.; and
they observe that in those early days their Prophet was too unlearned
a man to adapt or to alter a manuscript.
1814. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., powerfully awakened by the preaching of
Mr. Lane, an earnest Methodist minister.
1815. Mr. and Mrs. Smith removed with their family--Alvin, Hyrum,
Sophronia, Joseph, Samuel, Ephraim, William, and Catharine, from
Vermont to New York. They first lived at Palmyra, Wayne Co., for ten
years, and then passed on to Manchester, Ontario Co., the site of the
Hill Cumorah, where they tarried eleven or twelve years.
1820. Many religious revivals in Western New York. Mr. Joseph Smith
becomes partial to Methodism (J. Hyde, chap. viii.). Early in the
spring of the year occurred Mr. Joseph Smith, jun.’s first or
preparatory vision announcing his ministry.
1823. Sept. 20. Second vision; the Angel of the Lord revealed in
rather a solemn way to Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., the existence of the
Gold Plates, which, according to anti-Mormons, he and his brother
Hyrum had been employed in forging and fabricating for some years. On
the next day (22d) Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., opened the place where the
Plates were deposited and saw them.
1825. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., was employed by a person called Stroude
to dig for him, near Hartwich, Oswego City, N. Y. Money-diggers were
then common in that part of the state, seeking the buried treasures
of Captain Kidd, the buccaneer. Near Hartwich, between the years
1818-1832, lived Mrs. Spaulding, and Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., stole
the “Manuscript Found” from a trunk full of papers (J. H).
1827. Jan. 18. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., married Miss Emma Hale,
daughter of Isaac Hale, of South Bainbridge, Chenango Co., N. Y. This
person afterward became the Cyria Electa, or Elect Lady, and ended by
apostatizing and marrying a Gentile.
Sept. 22. The Golden Plates which the angel announced were taken up
from the Hill Cumorah with a mighty display of celestial machinery,
and the Breastplate and the Urim and Thummim were found. According to
Gentiles, the latter was a “peep-stone stolen from Willard Chase.”
1828. February. Martin Harris, a farmer from whom Mr. Joseph Smith,
jun., had borrowed $50 to defray expenses of printing the “Book of
Mormon,” submitted a transcript of the characters to Professor Anthon
and Dr. Mitchell of New York. The former pronounced them to be a
“singular scroll,” and “evidently copied after the Mexican Calendar
given by Humboldt.”
July. Translation of the “Book of Mormon” suspended in consequence
of Martin Harris stealing (116-118?) pages of the manuscript, which
were never replaced. For this reason he was not enrolled among the
glorious first six converts to Mormonism.
1829. April 16. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., saw O. Cowdery the first
time. Translation of the “Book of Mormon” resumed, O. Cowdery acting
as secretary.
May 15. John the Baptist ordained into the Aaronic priesthood Mr.
Joseph Smith, jun., and O. Cowdery, his amanuensis, who forthwith
baptized each other.
June or July. The Plates of the “Book of Mormon” were shown by the
Angel of God to the three earthly witnesses--Oliver Cowdery, David
Whitmer, and Martin Harris.
1830. The “Book of Mormon” was translated and published, and this
year is No. 1 of the Mormon Æra.
April 6. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was
organized at Manchester, N. Y. It began with six members or elders
being ordained, viz., Mr. Joseph Smith, sen., Mr. Hyrum Smith, Mr.
Joseph Smith, jun., Mr. Samuel Smith, Mr. Oliver Cowdery, and Mr.
Joseph Knight. The Sacrament was administered, and hands were laid on
for the gift of the Holy Ghost on this first occasion in the Church.
April 11. Oliver Cowdery preached the first public discourse on this
dispensation, and the principles of the Gospel as revealed to Mr.
Joseph Smith, jun. During this month the first miracle was performed
by the power of God in Colesville, Broome Co., N. Y.
June 1. First Conference of the Church at Fayette, Seneca Co., N.
Y. During this month Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., was twice arrested on
false pretenses, tried, and acquitted; while his wife, by special
revelation, was entitled “Elect Lady” and “Daughter of God.”
August. Parley P. Pratt and Sidney Rigdon were converted.
Sept. 19. O. Pratt baptized.
October. The first missionaries to the Lamanites were appointed.
December. Sidney Rigdon visited the Prophet.
1831. January. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., set out for Kirtland, the
birthplace of Sidney Rigdon.
Feb. 1. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., arrived at Kirtland, Ohio, the first
of his many Hegiras.
Feb. 9. God commanded the elders to go forth in pairs and preach.
March 8. John Whitmer was appointed Church recorder and historian by
revelation.
June 6. The Melchizedek, or Superior Priesthood, was first conferred
upon the elders.
June 10-19. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and sundry Saints transferred
themselves from Kirtland, Ohio, to Jackson County, Missouri, where
they arrived in the middle of July. The Land of Zion was dedicated
and consecrated for the gathering of the Saints, and the first log
was laid in Kaw township, twelve miles west of Independence, Missouri.
Aug. 2-3. Site for the temple of New Zion dedicated, a little west of
Independence.
Aug. 4. First Conference of the Church in the land of Zion held.
Aug. 9. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., returned from Independence to
Kirtland, and, arriving about the end of the month (27th?),
established the fatal “Kirtland Safety Society Bank.”
1832. March 25. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and Sidney Rigdon were tarred
and feathered by a mob for attempting to establish communism and
dishonorable dealing, forgery, and swindling (J. H.).
March 26. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., acknowledged the President of the
High Priesthood at a General Council of the Church; visited his flock
in Missouri.
April 2. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., left Ohio for Missouri, and arrived
at Independence on the 24th.
April 14. Mr. Brigham Young, converted by Elder Samuel Smith, and
baptized by Eleazar Millard, in this year went to Kirtland, Ohio, and
became a devoted follower of the Prophet.
May 1. At an Œcumenical Council held at Independence, Mo., it was
decided to print the “Book of Doctrines and Covenants.”
May 6. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., left Missouri for Kirtland, where he
arrived in June.
June. The first Mormon periodical, the “Evening and Morning Star,”
was published by the Church, under the superintendence of Mr. W. W.
Phelps, at Independence, Mo., where the Saints numbered 1200 souls.
Nov. 6. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun.’s, son Joseph born at Kirtland, Ohio.
In this year Mr. Heber C. Kimball was baptized.
1833. Jan. 22. Gift of tongues conferred.
Feb. 2. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., finished his inspired retranslation
of the New Testament.
March 18. The Quorum of Three High Priests, viz., Mr. Joseph Smith,
jun., Sidney Rigdon, a Campbellite or reformed Baptist preacher,
and Frederick G. Williams, an early convert, was organized as a
Presidency of the Church in Kirtland, and forthwith proceeded to have
visions of the Savior, of concourses of angels, etc., etc.
July 2. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., finished the translation of the Bible.
July 20. A mob of Missourians in Jackson City tore down the new
newspaper office, tarred, feathered, and whipped the Saints.
Thereupon, three days afterward, the Saints agreed with their
persecutors to leave Jackson Co., and laid the corner-stone of the
Lord’s House in Kirtland.
Sept. 11. A printing-press was established at Kirtland for the
publication of the “Latter-Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate,”
Bishop Partridge being at the head of the Church in Zion.
Oct. 8. Elders W. W. Phelps and O. Hyde presented to the governors
of Missouri a petition from the Saints of Jackson City praying for
redress.
Oct. 31. Ten Mormon houses destroyed by the populace in Jackson Co.
Two of a mob were killed by the Saints. “This was the first
blood shed, and the Mormons shed it” (J. H.). Until Nov. 4, the
persecutions continued till the Saints evacuated Jackson Co., and
fled to Clay Co.
December. Persecutions raged against the Saints in Van Buren Co., Mo.
Dec. 18. Mr. Joseph Smith, sen., was ordained Patriarch.
Dec. 27. The mob permitted Messrs. Davis and Kelley to carry the
establishment of the “Evening and Morning Star” to Liberty, Clay Co.,
Mo., where they began to publish the “Missouri Enquirer.”
1834. Feb. 17. A First Presidency of Three and a High Council of
Twelve were first organized.
Feb. 20. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., began to raise a small army for
carrying out his dreams of physical conquest and temporal sovereignty
(J. H.); also to defend himself against the Missourian mob.
May 3. At a Conference of Elders in Kirtland, the body ecclesiastic
was first named “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
The body of Zelph, the Lamanite, was dug up by Mr. Joseph Smith,
jun., in Illinois.
May 5. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., marched on Missouri with 150
Mormons(?). In other words, left Kirtland for Missouri with a company
for the redemption of Zion.
June 19. The cholera broke out in “Zion’s camp” soon after its
arrival in Missouri, and a terrible storm scattered the mob.
June 23. The camp, after suffering from cholera, arrived at Liberty,
Clay Co., Missouri.
June 29 (or Nov. 29?). Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and Oliver Cowdery
first make a “Conditional Covenant with the Lord” that they would pay
tithing. This was its first introduction among the Latter-Day Saints.
July 9. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., left Clay Co. and returned to
Kirtland, where he arrived about the end of the month.
1835. Feb. 14. A Quorum of Twelve Apostles was organized, among
whom were Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. The former, being
then thirty-four years old, was appointed the head of the Apostolic
College, and, receiving the gift of tongues, was sent on a missionary
tour toward the east.
Feb. 21. First meeting of the Twelve Apostles.
Feb. 28. The organization of the Quorum of Seventies began.
May 3. The Twelve left Kirtland on their first mission.
July. The rolls of Egyptian papyrus, which contained the writings of
Abraham and Joseph in Egypt,[244] were obtained in the early part of
this month.
[244] “Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit” is well proved by the
Mormon attempts to decipher hieroglyphics. M. Remy has given, with
the assistance of M. Théodule Devéria, a terrible blow to the Book of
Abraham in the seventeenth note at the end of his second volume.
Aug. 17. At a General Assembly at Kirtland, the “Book of Doctrines and
Covenants” was accepted as a rule of faith and practice, including the
“Lectures on Faith” delivered by Sidney Rigdon.
1836. Jan. 4. A Hebrew professorship established at Kirtland.
Jan. 21. The authorities of the Church in Kirtland met in the Temple
school-room, and anointed and blessed one another, when visions of
heaven were opened to many.
March 24-27. The House of the Lord in Kirtland, costing $40,000, was
dedicated.
April 3. In the House of the Lord, the Savior, Moses, Elias, and Elijah
appeared to Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and O. Cowdery, and delivered the
keys of the several priesthoods, and unlimited power in things temporal
and spiritual.
May. The Mormons were requested by the citizens to remove from Clay
Co., Mo., to Carroll, Davies, and Caldwell Counties, and founded the
city of “Far West” in Caldwell Co.
1837. June 12. Messrs. H. C. Kimball and O. Hyde, and on the 13th W.
Richards, set out to convert England (returned in July, 1838). This was
the first organized foreign mission.
July 20. Elders H. C. Kimball, O. Hyde, W. Richards, J. Goodson, T.
Russell, and Priest J. Fielding, leaving Kirtland on June 13, sailed
from New York in the ship “Garrick” (July 1), and landed at Liverpool.
Three days afterward Preston had the honor of first hearing the
preaching of the Gospel as revealed to Mr. Joseph Smith, jun. The first
baptism by divine authority was performed by immersion in the River
Ribble (July 30), and the first confirmation of members took place at
Walkerford Chaidgey (Aug. 4).
July 27. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., was prosecuted with a vexatious
lawsuit at Painesville, Ohio.
Sept. 27. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., left Kirtland to establish
gathering-places and visit the Saints in Missouri, and arrived in Far
West about the last of October or the first of November.
Dec. 10. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., arrived in Kirtland from Missouri.
Dec. 25. The first Conference of Mormons in England was held in the
Cock-pit, Preston. An extensive apostasy befell during this month in
Kirtland, Ohio; and the “Safety Society Bank” failed, to the great
scandal of Mormondom.
1838. Jan. 12. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and Sidney Rigdon fled from
Kirtland to escape mob violence, and arrived at Far West on March 14.
April 12 and 13. Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, the
three witnesses to the “Book of Mormon” (others say O. Cowdery, D.
Whitmer, and L. E. Johnson), charged with lying, theft, counterfeiting,
and defaming the Prophet’s character, were cut off from the Church (J.
H.). Orson Hyde, Thos. B. Marsh, W. W. Phelps, and others apostatized,
accused the Prophet of being accessory to several thefts and murders,
and of meditating a tyranny over that part of Missouri, and eventually
over the whole republic (J. H.).
April 20. Elders H. C. Kimball and O. Hyde sailed from Liverpool on
their return home.
July 4. Sidney Rigdon, in an anniversary discourse called “Sidney’s
Last Sermon,” threatened Gentiles and apostates with violence; the
“Danite Band,” according to anti-Mormons, was at once organized.
July 6. The Saints were again persecuted; 565 Saints left Kirtland for
Missouri, and Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., was carried before Judge King.
Aug. 6. Troubles in Gallatin Co. occasioned by elections. The Mormons
say that persecutions of the Saints commenced in Davies Co., Mo.
Aug. and Sept. Emeutes between the mob and the Mormons: the latter
seized sixty to eighty stand of arms at Richmond, and fired on the
militia, mistaking them for the mob. The militia, after losing several
of their number, returned the fire, killing Mr. D. W. Patten (J. H.).
Sept. 7. Mr. Joseph Smith, jr., was tried before Judge King, of Davies
Co.
Sept. 25. The Saints, attempting political rule in Davies Co., were
attacked by the citizen mob, who murmured at being placed under Mormon
rule (J. H.), and forced the intruders to vacate. Mr. Brigham Young
fled for his life to Quincy, Ill.
Oct. 1. After a battle in Carroll Co., Mo., the Saints agreed to
evacuate the town of De Witt, Carroll Co. (Oct. 11).
Oct. 25. At the battle of Crooked River, D. W. Patten, alias Captain
Fearnot, the head of the Danites, was killed (Mormon Calendar).
Oct. 27. General Lilburn W. Boggs, of Missouri, issued his
“extermination order” to General J. B. Clark.
Oct. 30. The militia (mob), to revenge the death of their comrades,
slaughtered sixteen Mormons and two boys at Haun’s Mills.
Oct. 31. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and others, were betrayed by J. M.
Hinckle.
Nov. 1. General J. B. Clark, with a military force, surrounded Far
West, and took prisoners (by stratagem) Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., Mr.
Hyrum Smith, and forty others, who were placed in jail, tried by
court-martial, and sentenced to be shot--a catastrophe prevented by
General Doniphan. The Saints gave up their arms, and Far West was
plundered by the mob.
Nov. 2. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and his fellow-prisoners left Far West
for Independence.
Nov. 4. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and his fellow-prisoners were kindly
received at Independence.
Nov. 12. Mr. Joseph Smith and 52 others were tried at Richmond, Ray
Co., Mo., and, after a narrow escape from being shot by the militia,
were handed to the civil authorities, placed in close confinement in
Liberty jail, and released.
December. The Saints withdrew into Illinois.
1839. Feb. 14 and March 26. Mr. Brigham Young and others fled from Far
West to Illinois, and attempted to relay the foundations of the Temple
at the New Jerusalem, twelve miles west of Independence, Jackson Co.,
Missouri.
April 6. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and his fellow-prisoners were removed
for trial from Richmond to Gallatin, Davies Co.
April 9. The trial of the prisoners commenced before Judge King.
April 15. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., and his companions left Davies for
Boone Co., and on the way escaped from their jailor-guards.
April 18-22. The Saints evacuated Far West, and arrived with Mr. Joseph
Smith, jun., at Quincy, Illinois.
April 26. Mr. Brigham Young privily laid the foundation of a Temple at
Independence (M. Remy). A Conference was held at the Temple Lot, in Far
West, in fulfillment of a revelation given July 8th, 1838. (Appendix to
“Compendium of Faith and Doctrines,” etc.)
May 9. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., visited Commerce, Hancock Co., Illinois,
at the invitation of Dr. Isaac Galland, of whom he obtained, gratis, a
large tract of land to induce the Mormons to immigrate, and upon the
receipt of revelation called his people around him, and sold them the
town lots (J. H.).
June 11. The first house was built by the Saints at Commerce, a new
“State of Zion,” afterward called Nauvoo--the beautiful site--which
presently contained 15,000 souls.
June 27. Orson Hyde, the Apostle, returned to the Church.
July 4. P. P. Pratt and Morris Phelps escaped from the jail in
Columbia, Boone Co., Missouri.
Aug. 29. Elders P. P. Pratt and O. Pratt set out on their first mission
to England, followed on Sept. 18 by Elders Brigham Young and H. C.
Kimball, and on Sept. 20, 21, by Elders G. A. Smith, R. Hedlock, and
T. Turley: O. Hyde, though previously appointed by revelation, did not
accompany them (J. H.). The result was a body of 769 converts.
Oct. 29. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., S. Rigdon, E. Higbee, and O. P.
Rockwell, the chief of the Danites, set out from Nauvoo as delegates
from the Church to the general government, and arrived on. the 28th of
November at Washington, D. C., seeking to obtain redress from Congress
for their losses in Missouri.
1840. March 4. Mr. Joseph Smith, jun., returned from Washington to
Nauvoo.
March 9. Elders Young, Kimball, P. P. Pratt, O. Pratt, Smith, and
Hedlock sailed from New York for England.
April 6. The English mission from New York landed at Liverpool.
April 15. Elder O. Hyde set out from Nauvoo on a mission to Jerusalem.
April 21. Commerce was finally named Nauvoo.
May 27. The first number of the “Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star”
was published at Manchester.
June 6. The first company of emigrating Saints sailed from Liverpool,
and reached New York in July 20. About the 1st of June appeared the
first English edition of the “Latter-Day Saints’ Hymn Book.”
Aug. 7. The first regular company of 200 emigrants, conducted by Elders
Theodore Turley, a returning missionary, and William Clayton, an early
English convert, sailed from Liverpool to New York.
Sept. 14. Mr. Joseph Smith, sen., died at Nauvoo.
Oct. 3. The Mormons began to build their Temple, and petitioned the
Legislature of Illinois for the incorporation of Nauvoo.
Dec. 16. The municipal charter of the city of Nauvoo became law.
1841. January. The first English edition of the “Book of Mormon” was
published.
Feb. 4. The Nauvoo Corporation Act, passed in the preceding winter,
began to be in force. The Nauvoo Legion was organized by Mr. Joseph
Smith, who made himself its lieutenant general.
April 6. The corner-stone of the House of the Lord in Nauvoo was laid.
A second mission, composed of Elders B. Young, H. C. Kimball, O.
Pratt, W. Woodruff, J. Taylor, G. A. Smith, and W. Richards left New
York on April 2d, and landed at Liverpool on May 20.
June 5. Mr. Joseph Smith was arrested under a requisition from the
Governor of the State of Missouri, was tried at Monmouth, Illinois, on
the 9th, and was acquitted on the next day.
July 1. Messrs. Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball returned from
England.
Nov. 8. The baptismal font in Nauvoo Temple was dedicated.
1842. March 1. “Book of Abraham” translated and published in “Times and
Seasons.”
May 6. Attempt to assassinate Lieutenant Governor Boggs, attributed to
O. P. Rockwell.
May 19. Mr. Joseph Smith made Mayor of Nauvoo.
Aug. 6. Mr. Joseph Smith prophesied that the Saints would be driven to
the Rocky Mountains.
Aug. 8. Mr. Joseph Smith arrested a second time under circumstances
similar to those of the first.
Dec. 7. Mr. O. Hyde returned from his mission to Palestine.
Dec. 26. Mr. Joseph Smith, charged with assassination, was arrested
a third time under a requisition from the Governor of the State of
Missouri.
In this year polygamy began to be whispered about Nauvoo (J. H.).
1843. Jan. 5. Mr. Joseph Smith acquitted at Springville.
Jan. 20. Mr. O. Pratt received back into the Church.
May 6. Lieutenant Governor L. W. Boggs (under Governor D. Dunklin),
of Missouri (who had offended the Mormons by driving them from the
state in 1838), was shot in the mouth through an open window--an act
generally attributed to O. P. Rockwell, Chief of the Danites, “with the
connivance and under the instructions of Joseph Smith” (J. H.). In this
year Mr. Joseph Smith became Mayor of Nauvoo, _vice_ J. C. Bennett,
“cut off for imitating Smith in his spiritual wifedom” (J. H.).
Anti-Mormons declare that in 1843 polygamy was enjoined a second time,
but not practiced till 1852.
June 23. Mr. Joseph Smith again arrested, and released on July 2.
July 12. Revelation enjoining polygamy received.
Aug. 30. General J. A. Bennett baptized.
Nov. 4. Mr. Joseph Smith sent his letters to the candidates for the
Presidency of the United States.
Nov. 28. Mr. Joseph Smith addresses a memorial to Congress respecting
the transactions at Missouri.
1844. Feb. 7. Mr. Joseph Smith issued his address as candidate for the
Presidency of the United States.
May 17. Mr. Joseph Smith was carried in triumph through the streets of
Nauvoo.
May 4. Francis M. Higbee, expelled for disobedience from the Church,
prosecuted Mr. Joseph Smith for slander, and arrested him under
a capias: the defendant then sued out a habeas corpus before the
Municipal Court of Nauvoo, of which he was mayor.
May 6. Dr. R. D. Foster and Mr. William Law, having libeled, in the
“Expositor” paper, Mr. Joseph Smith, accusing him of having taken to
spiritual wife Mrs. Foster, were punished by the marshal and municipal
officers, who, with a posse, broke the press as a nuisance, and burned
the types. The libelers fled, and took out a warrant against Mr. Joseph
Smith and others, who resisted and repelled the officer in charge,
whereupon the militia was ordered out.
June 13. The Gentiles armed against the Mormons.
June 17. Mr. Joseph Smith arrested and released.
June 24. Governor Ford, of Illinois, persuaded the Smiths, under the
pledge of his word, and the faith and honor of the state, to yield
up their arms, and sent them prisoners under the charge of sixty
militia-men, the Carthage Grays, a highly hostile body, commanded by
Captain Smith, to Carthage, the capital of Hancock Co., eighteen to
twenty miles from Nauvoo, where 5000 Mormons were in arms.
June 25. The prisoners were arrested by the constable on a charge of
treason.
June 26. The governor again pledged himself for the personal safety of
his prisoners.
June 27 (Thursday). A body of 200 armed Missourians, with their
faces painted and blackened, broke into Carthage jail, and at 5 P.M.
murdered, in a most cowardly and brutal manner, Mr. Joseph Smith and
his brother Hyrum, and desperately wounded Mr. John Taylor; Dr. Willard
Richards alone escaping.
Aug. 15. The Twelve Apostles, with Mr. Brigham Young at the head,
assumed the Presidency of the Church, and addressed an Encyclical to
“all the Saints in the world.”
Oct. 7. Mr. Brigham Young, the President of the Twelve Apostles, came
from Boston, and succeeded to the Presidency of the Church, defeating
Sidney Rigdon, who was forthwith cut off, and delivered over to the
buffetings of Satan.
Nov. 17. Mr. David Smith, son of the Prophet, born at the Nauvoo
Mansion.
1845. The Mormon leaders determined to abandon Nauvoo.
May. The capstone of the Mormon Temple was laid, and endowments began.
Sept. 11. Twenty-nine Mormon houses burnt by the Gentiles.
Sept. 24. The charter of Nauvoo was repealed by the State Legislature.
The authorities of the Church made a treaty with the mob to evacuate
the “Beautiful City” on the following spring. Several places were
proposed: Vancouver’s Island by Mr. John Taylor, Texas by Mr. Lyman
Wight, California by others; at last they chose some valley in the
Rocky Mountains (J. H.).
1846. January. Baptism for the dead was administered in the Mississippi
River; on the 20th a band of Mormon pioneers left Nauvoo, and “located”
at Council Bluffs, Iowa.
February. The first Mormon exodus began with this month; 2000 souls
crossed the frozen Mississippi _en route_ for Council Bluffs.
April 24. The exiled Saints arrived at Garden Grove, Iowa Territory.
May 1. Dedication of the Temple at Nauvoo.
May 16. The pioneer camp of the Saints arrived at Mount Pisgah, Iowa
Territory.
June-July. The Mormon battalion (500 men), on being called for by the
general government, set out for the Mexican campaign. “Mr. Brigham
Young sells a company of his brethren for $20,000” (J. H.). “You shall
have your battalion at once, if it has to be a class of our elders,”
said Mr. Brigham Young (Captain H. Stansbury).
Sept. 10-13. After three days of fighting the few surviving Saints were
expelled from Nauvoo in a “cruel, cowardly, and brutal manner.”
Sept. 16. The trustees of the Church in Nauvoo made a treaty with the
mob for the surrender of their city, and its immediate evacuation
by the remnant of the Saints. Toward the end of this year and the
beginning of the next, the Quorum of Three was reorganized at a special
conference, held at Council Bluffs, Iowa, Mr. Brigham Young nominating
his coadjutors. The “Twelve” delivered themselves of an epistle to the
Saints, urging them to recommence the gathering.
1847. April 14. The pioneer band, 143 men, headed by Mr. Brigham Young,
and driving seventy wagons, left winter quarters, Omaha Nation, on the
west bank of the Missouri River, and followed Colonel Frémont’s trail
over the Rocky Mountains.
July 23. Messrs. O. Pratt, W. Woodruff, and a few others arrived at the
valley of the Great Salt Lake.
July 24. Mr. Brigham Young and the main body entered the valley on
this day, which became a solemn anniversary in the Church. The Mormons
proceeded to lay the foundations of the city.
Oct. 31. Mr. Brigham Young returned to Council Bluffs.
1848. Feb. 20. The emigration from England reopened after a suspension
of two years.
May. Mr. Brigham Young (whose appointment had been confirmed by a
General Conference held at Kanesville, Iowa) left winter quarters the
second time, and, followed by Mr. H. C. Kimball and the mass of the
Saints, reached the Promised Land in September.
September. Some Mormons who had started from New York for San
Francisco, expecting to find the Church in California or Vancouver’s
Island, arrived in Great Salt Lake City from the West.
Nov. 10. The Temple in Nauvoo burnt.
1849. March 5. At a convention held in Great Salt Lake City the
Constitution of the State of Deserét was drafted, and the Legislature
was elected under its provisions.
July 2. Delegates sent to Washington petitioned for admission into the
Union as a free, sovereign, and independent state.
August. Captain Stansbury and Lieutenant Gunnison, Topographical
Engineers, by order of the federal government, surveyed Great Salt Lake
Valley.
Sept. 9. A bill organizing Utah Territory was signed by President
Fillmore. The Perpetual Emigration Fund was organized. Five Yutas were
killed in battle by Captain John Scott and his Mormons.
1850. April 5. The Assembly met, and Utah Territory was duly organized.
May 27. The walls of the Temple at Nauvoo were blown down by a
hurricane.
June 14. The first missionaries to Scandinavia landed in Copenhagen,
Denmark.
June 15. The first number of the “Deserét News” appeared under the
editorship of Dr. Willard Richards.
Aug. 12. The first baptisms in Denmark by legal authority in this
Dispensation took place.
Sept. 9. The “Act” for organizing the Territory of Utah became a law.
Mr. Brigham Young was appointed Governor and Superintendent of Indian
Affairs in Utah Territory by President Fillmore, who signed the act.
The judges, Brocchus, Day, and Brandeburg, and Mr. Secretary Harris,
arrived at Great Salt Lake City.
Sept. 22. Judge Brocchus insulted the people, and, accompanied by the
other federal officers, fled from the Territory.
Oct. 13. The first company of Perpetual Emigration Fund emigrants
arrived in Great Salt Lake City from the United States.
Dec. 7. The first branch of the Church in France was organized at Paris.
In 1850 was the Indian War. Mr. Higbee was the first white settler
slain, and many of the Yutas were killed.
1851. Jan. 9. Great Salt Lake City was incorporated.
Feb. 3. Mr. Brigham Young sworn in as Governor of Utah.
April 5. Legislature of Provisional State of Deserét dissolved. The
Legislative Assembly was elected under the Territorial Bill. A memorial
signed by 13,000 names was forwarded to her Britannic majesty’s
government, proposing for a relief by emigration of a portion of the
poorer subjects to colonize Oregon or Vancouver’s Island, the latter
being about the dimensions of England.
April 7. The Tabernacle was built, and at a General Conference in Great
Salt Lake City it was voted to build a Temple.
Sept. 22. Opening of the Legislature of Utah Territory. Great trouble
with the government of the United States fomented by the federal
officials’ march. The Legislature forbade by ordinances the sale of
arms, ammunition, and spirituous liquors to the Indians.
Dec. 13. Parovan City, on Centre Creek, Iron Co., Utah Territory,
founded.
1852. June. Fifteen Frenchmen baptized in Paris.
Aug. 29. The revelation on the celestial law of marriage, alias
polygamy (bearing date 1843), was published by Mr. Brigham Young.
Sept. 3. The first company of Perpetual Emigration Fund converts from
Europe reached Great Salt Lake City.
Dec. 13. The Legislative Assembly of Utah Territory met for the first
time. The judges and the Secretary of State appointed by President
Pierce came to hand.
1853. Jan. 17. The Deserét Iron Company was chartered by the
Legislature of Utah Territory.
Jan. 25. The missionary elders O. Spencer and J. Houtz arrived in
Berlin, Prussia, and were banished on the 2d of February.
Feb. 14. Temple Block was consecrated, ground was broken for the
foundation of the Temple, and the excavations began.
March 7. The first missionaries to Gibraltar arrived there.
April 6. Corner-stone of the new Temple laid with religious rites.
In the summer (July) and autumn of this year were serious Indian
troubles. At 6 A.M., Oct. 26th, Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison and eight men
of his party, including the botanist, M. Creutzfeldt, were massacred on
the border of Sevier River, twenty miles north of Lake Sevier.
Nov. 1. The first number of the “Journal of Discourses” was published
in England. This year Keokuk was made the outfitting place for
emigrants.
1854. January. New alphabet adopted by the University of Deserét.
April 7. Mr. J. M. Grant was appointed to the First Presidency, _vice_
W. Richards, deceased on March 11th.
May 23. The patriarch John Smith died, and was succeeded by another
John Smith, son of Hyrum Smith, and nephew of the Prophet.
June 28. John Smith, son of Hyrum Smith, was appointed Patriarch over
the Church.
August. Colonel Steptoe, commanding about 1000 federal troops, arrived
at Great Salt Lake City.
Sept. 9. At the instance of Colonel Steptoe, who refused to resign his
military commission, Mr. Brigham Young was reappointed governor, and
held the office until 1857. Even the Gentiles memorialized in his favor.
1855. Jan. 29. Walchor, alias Wakara, alias Walker, chief of the Yuta
Indians, died (was secretly put to death and buried by Jordan, Mr.
Chandless).
May 5. Endowment House in Great Salt Lake City consecrated.
May 11. Treaty of peace concluded with the Yuta Indians.
May. Colonel Steptoe, after a stay of six months, marched with the
United States cavalry to California.
August (July?). Judge Drummond, Surveyor General Burr, and other United
States officials, arrived at Great Salt Lake City.
In the fall of this year one third of the crops was destroyed by
drought and grasshoppers.
October. A branch of the Church was organized in Dresden (15th);
Elder O. Spencer died on the 29th. The First Presidency of the Church
proposed in a general epistle that Saints emigrating by the Perpetual
Emigration Fund should cross the Prairies and Rocky Mountains with
hand-carts.
Dec. 10. The local Legislature met for the first time at Fillmore,
the Territorial capital, and passed a bill authorizing an election of
delegates to a Territorial Convention for the purpose of forming a
State Constitution, and to petition Congress for the admission of Utah
into the Union. They also passed a bill authorizing a census.
Most of the Mormons became polygamists (J. H.).
1856. March 17. A convention of delegates met in Great Salt Lake
City, and adopted a State Constitution, sending Messrs. John Taylor
and George A. Smith, apostles, both as delegates to Washington, with
a view to obtaining admission into the Union as a state. No answer
was returned. During the very severe winter and spring half the stock
perished by frost, and grain became very scarce.
May. Judge W. W. Drummond left Great Salt Lake City, after having
forwarded false charges of rebellion, burning the library, and
destroying the archives: these reports caused all the troubles with the
United States.
The practice of tithe-paying was introduced among the Saints in Europe.
Iowa City was made the outfit point for the Plains.
June. Lucy Mack, the Prophet’s mother, died.
Sept. 26. The first hand-cart train crossed the Plains, and arrived at
Great Salt Lake City.
1857. (The winter of Mormon discontent.) March. Judge Drummond reported
calumnies against the Mormons.
April. Surveyor General Burr and other United States officials left
Utah Territory and returned to the United States.
The Territorial Legislature petitioned Congress to send better
officers, or to permit the Mormons to appoint _bonâ fide_ citizens and
residents.
Mail communication with the States--the “Y Express” established by Mr.
Brigham Young--was cut off, to keep the Mormons ignorant of the steps
taken against them, and this continued for nearly a year. The Press in
the United States generally opined that the Mormons were to be “wiped
out.”
May 14. Apostle Parley P. Pratt killed by Hector M‘Lean in Kansas.
June 29. Brigadier General W. S. Harney, commanding Fort Leavenworth,
was ordered to take charge of the army of Utah. He was removed after
declaring that he would “hang Brigham first and try him afterward,”
and was succeeded first by Colonel Alexander, and afterward by General
Johnston.
Sept. 3, 4. Indians aided by white men massacred 115 to 120 emigrants
at Mountain Meadow.
In this month 1400 men, artillery and liners of the 5th and 10th
regiments, appeared upon the Sweetwater, followed by 1000 more, making
the whole force amount to 2400 men, a kind of _posse comitatus_ to
enforce obedience to the federal laws.
Sept. 15. Mr. Brigham Young issued the remarkable document
subjoined.[245] General Wells was ordered to occupy the passes in the
Wasach Mountains, and 2016 Mormons prepared to defend their hearths
and homes against the violence of the United States. Captain Van Vliet
arrived at Great Salt Lake City.
[245] _Proclamation by the Governor, proclaiming Martial Law in the
Territory of Utah._
“CITIZENS OF UTAH,--We are invaded by a hostile force, who are
evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction.
“For the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the
government, from constables and justices to judges, governors, and
presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted, and
betrayed. Our houses have been plundered and then burned, our fields
laid waste, our principal men butchered while under the pledged
faith of the government for their safety, and our families driven
from their homes to find that shelter in the barren wilderness, and
that protection among hostile savages, which were denied them in the
boasted abodes of Christianity and civilization.
“The Constitution of our common country guarantees unto us all that
we do now or have ever claimed.
“If the constitutional rights which pertain unto us as American
citizens were extended to Utah, according to the spirit and meaning
thereof, and fairly and impartially administered, it is all that we
could ask--all that we have ever asked.
“Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudice existing against
us because of our religious faith to send out a formidable host to
accomplish our destruction. We have had no privilege, no opportunity
of defending ourselves from the false, foul, and unjust aspersions
against us before the nation. The government has not condescended
to cause an investigating committee or other person to be sent to
inquire into and ascertain the truth, as is customary in such cases.
“We know those aspersions to be false, but that avails us nothing.
We are condemned unheard, and forced to an issue with an armed
mercenary mob, which has been sent against us at the instigation
of anonymous letter-writers ashamed to father the base, slanderous
falsehoods which they have given to the public; of corrupt officials,
who have brought false accusations against us to screen themselves in
their own infamy; and of hireling priests and howling editors, who
prostitute the truth for filthy lucre’s sake.
“The issue which has been thus forced upon us compels us to resort
to the great first law of self-preservation, and stand in our own
defense--a right guaranteed unto us by the genius of the institutions
of our country, and upon which the government is based.
“Our duty to ourselves, to our families, requires us not to tamely
submit to be driven and slain without an attempt to preserve
ourselves. Our duty to our country, our holy religion, our God,
to freedom and liberty, requires that we should not quietly stand
still and see those fetters forging around which are calculated to
enslave and bring us in subjection to an unlawful military despotism,
such as can only emanate [in a country of constitutional law] from
usurpation, tyranny, and oppression.
“Therefore I, Brigham Young, Governor and Superintendent of Indian
Affairs for the Territory of Utah, in the name of the people of the
United States in the Territory of Utah,
“1st. Forbid all armed forces, of every description, from coming into
this Territory under any pretense whatever.
“2d. That all the forces in said Territory hold themselves in
readiness to march at a moment’s notice, to repel any and all such
invasion.
“3d. Martial law is hereby declared to exist in this Territory from
and after the publication of this proclamation; and no person shall
be allowed to pass or repass into, or through, or from this Territory
without a permit from the proper officer.
(L.S.)
“Given under my hand and seal at Great Salt Lake City, Territory of
Utah, this fifteenth day of September, A.D. eighteen hundred and
fifty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-second.
BRIGHAM YOUNG.”
Oct. 5-6. The Mormons, who were “spoiling for a fight,” burned, without
the orders of their governor, two provision trains, one of fifty-one
and the other of twenty-three wagons, causing great want and violent
exasperation in the army of Utah.
November. Army of Utah encamped near Green River.
Nov. 21. Proclamation of Mr. Cumming, the new governor.
Dec. 15. Mr. Brigham Young’s message to the Legislature of Utah.
1858. Jan. 16. Address of citizens of Great Salt Lake City sent to
President Buchanan.
February. Colonel Kane reached Great Salt Lake City.
April 5. Governor A. Cumming appointed to Utah Territory after the
thankless offer had been refused by sixteen or seventeen political
persons; left Camp Scott, near Fort Bridger, and on the 12th of April
entered Great Salt Lake City. The “rebellion in Utah” found to be a
pure invention.
Mr. Brigham Young, followed by 25,000 souls, marched to Provo, with
their stock, flocks, and chattels, even their furniture.
April 15. Governor Cumming officially reported a respectful reception,
and the illumination of Echo Kanyon; also that the records of the
United States Courts, then in charge of a Mormon, Mr. W. H. Hooper,
Secretary _pro tem._, the Territorial Library, in charge of Mr. W. C.
Staines, and other public property, were all unimpaired, the contrary
report having constituted the _causa belli_.
April 24. Governor Cumming issued a proclamation that he would assume
effective protection of all persons illegally restrained of their
liberty in Utah. Few availed themselves of his offer. The Indian agent,
Dr. T. Garland Hurt, was accused of having incited the Uinta Indians to
acts of hostility against the Mormons--a standing charge and counter
charge in the United States.
May 21. The governor made a requisition that “no hinderance may be
hereafter presented to the commercial, postal, or social communications
throughout the Territory.”
May 29. The “Peace Commissioners” from Washington, ex-Governor
Lazarus W. Powell, of Kentucky, and Major Ben M‘Culloch, of Texas,
the celebrated Indian fighter, arrived at Great Salt Lake City (where
they staid till June 2), and after proclaiming a general amnesty and
free pardon, obtained permission for the army of Utah to enter the
Territory, and to encamp at a place not nearer than forty miles from
New Zion.
June 12. Mr. Brigham Young treated with the Peace Commissioners.
June 14. The President’s pardon “for all treasons and seditions” was
proclaimed by the governor, and accepted by the citizens.
June 26. The federal troops, having left Camp Scott, passed through the
deserted City of the Saints, led by Lieutenant Colonel Cooke, who rode,
according to Mormon report, with head uncovered; they remained for two
days encamped on the Jordan, outside the settlement, and then moved
twelve to fifteen miles westward for wood and grass.
1859. The Legislature sat at Great Salt Lake City.
Judge Charles S. Sinclair attempted to break faith by misinterpreting
the amnesty, and nearly caused collision between the federal troops and
the Mormons.
The Hon. John Cradlebaugh, ex-officio judge of the Second Judicial
District Court, Utah Territory, quartered a company of 110 men in
the court-house and public buildings of Provo, thereby causing
disturbances; Governor Cumming protested against the proceeding.
The Deserét currency plates were seized at Mr. Brigham Young’s house.
Jan. 2. Religious service, interrupted by the war, again performed in
the Tabernacle.
Feb. 28. Troubles between the citizens at Rush Valley and the federal
troops under General A. J. Johnston, commanding the Department of Utah.
March 25. Mr. Howard Spencer, nephew of Mr. Daniel Spencer, was
severely wounded by First Sergeant Ralph Pike, Company I of the 10th
Regiment.
Aug. 10. Sergeant Pike, summoned for trial to Great Salt Lake City, was
shot in the street, it is supposed by Mr. H. Spencer.
In this month the citizens of Carson Valley declared themselves
independent of Utah Territory.
1860. Mr. Forney, Indian Superintendent, Utah Territory, and highly
hostile to the Mormons, was removed.
Troubles with the troops. Mr. Heneage, a Mormon citizen, was flogged at
a cart’s tail by two federal officers under a little mistake.
June 20. Major Ormsby (militia) and his force destroyed by the Indians
near Honey Lake.
1861. The federal troops evacuated the Land of the Saints.
INDEX.
Aborigines, American. _See_ Indians.
Absinthe. _See_ Sage, wild.
Academy of the 7th Ward of Great Salt Lake City, 360.
Adobe manufactory near Great Salt Lake City, 344-5.
Adobe of the Western World, 197.
Adobe, origin of the name, 197, _note_.
Adoption among the North American Indians, 117.
Adoption, Mormon principle of, 269.
Adultery, Mormon punishment for, 426.
Agricultural Society of Deserét, 316.
Agriculture, list of premiums awarded at the annual show, 285-287,
_note_.
Agriculture, present state of, in Great Salt Lake Valley, 285.
Alamo. _See_ Cotton-wood-tree.
Albino, rarity of an, among the Indians, 104.
Albinos among buffaloes, 51.
Alcohol distilled in Great Salt Lake City, 320.
Alexander, Colonel B., his hospitality, 90.
Algæ in Great Salt Lake, 326.
Algarobia grandulosa, or mezquite-tree, 7.
Alkali Lake, 153.
Alkali Lake Station on the Platte River, 54.
Almanac, the, published in Utah, 253.
America, shape of the continent of, 6.
American Fork, 447.
“Americanisms, Dictionary of,” Bartlett’s, quoted, 17, _note_.
Animal life, absence of, on the Grand Prairie, 18.
Animal life, in the American Sahara, 64.
Animal worship of the American Indians, 108.
Animals and vegetables, confusing trivial names for, in America, 142,
_note_.
Animals, Indian signs for, 126.
Animals of the Uinta Hills, 178.
Animals, small quantity of food required to fatten, in the Rocky
Mountains and in Somaliland, 140.
Animals, wild, at Rocky Bridge, 159.
Animals, wild, in the wooded heights of the Wind-River Mountains, 165.
Animals, wild, of the Black Hills, 142.
Animals, wild, of the Rattlesnake Hills, 153.
Animals, wild, of Utah Territory, 279.
Antelope at Rocky Ridge, 159.
Antelope, its habitat, 67.
Antelope, its meat, 67.
Antelope or Church Island, 194, 323, 327.
Antelope Springs, 464, 465.
Antelope, the (Antelocapra Americana), 67.
Ant-hills, 196.
Apadomey female warriors, 113.
Arapaho, or Dirty-Nose Indians, 142, 143.
Arapaho, loose conduct of, 117.
Arapaho, sign of the tribe of, 123, 124.
Arapaho, their lodges, 86.
Arapaho, their personal appearance, 143, 144.
Arapaho, visit of some, from a neighboring camp, 142.
Archery, Sioux skill in, 120.
Arickaree, or Ree Indians, 37.
Arms of the North American Indians, 57, 119.
Arms, ignorance of the lower grades of English of the use of, 174.
Army of the United States, remarks on the, 336.
Army, grievances of the, 445.
Arroyo, fiumara or nullah, an, 70.
Arrow-poison of the Indians, 482.
Arrows of the North American Indian, 119, 120.
Arrow-wood (Viburnum dentatum), 119.
Art in America, remarks on, 186, 187.
Artemisia. _See_ Sage, wild.
Asclepias tuberosa, common in Utah Territory, 167.
Ash Hollow, 70.
Ash Hollow, General Harney’s defeat of the Brûlé Sioux at, 70, 89.
Ash-Hollow Creek, 70.
Assiniboin Indians, 97.
Assiniboin Indians, their present habitat, 100.
Assiniboin River, 100.
Aurora borealis, a splendid, in the prairies, 61.
Avena fatua of the Pacific Water-shed, 139.
Badeau’s Ranch, or Laramie City, 88.
Badgers at Rocky-Bridge Station, 161.
Bartlett’s “Dictionary of Americanisms” quoted, 17, _note_.
Basswood, 17.
“Basswood Mormons,” 17, _note_.
Bath, the hot air and water, of the North American Indian, 119.
Bathing and its dangers, 156.
Battle Creek, 447.
Bauchmin’s Creek, 189, 190.
Bauchmin’s Creek, valley of, 189.
Bauchmin’s Fork, 189.
Bauchmin’s Fork, station at, 189.
“Bear’s Rib,” Mato Chigukesa, made chief of the Brûlé Sioux, 89.
Bear Bay, 182.
Bear, flesh of the, as food, 231.
Bear, in Cotton-wood Kanyon, 347.
Bear, of the Black Hills, 142.
Bear River, 182, 183, 325.
Bear River, coal found on the banks of, 182.
Bear River Mountains, 174.
Bear Springs, in Utah Territory, 274.
Bear, the grizzly, 192.
Bear traps, 347.
Beavers in the torrent-bed of Echo Kanyon, 187.
Beavers, tails of, as food, 231.
Bedstead, populousness of, 202.
Bee, a, on the topmost summit of the Rocky Mountains, 165.
Bee House in Great Salt Lake City, 246.
Beer, or Soda Springs, 179.
Beer of Great Salt Lake City, 320.
Beet-root grown in Great Salt Lake Valley, 287.
Bell, Governor, of Great Salt Lake City, 215.
Bench-land of the Great Salt Lake Valley, 195.
Bennett, J. C., his work on the Mormons, 205, _note_.
Big Field, near Great Salt Lake City, 198.
Bighorn, or American moufflon, 153, 155.
Big Kanyon, 192.
Big Mountain, 190.
Big Mountain, pass of the, 190, 191.
Bill of fare at a supper in Great Salt lake City, 232.
Birds near Fort Kearney, 48.
Birds of Utah Territory, 280.
Birds, wild, of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, 165.
Bishops, the Mormon, 400.
Bison Americanus. _See_ Buffalo.
Bissonette, M., the Creole, 139.
Blackfeet, or Sisahapa Indians, 98.
Blackfeet, sign of the tribe of, 124.
Blackfeet, their friendliness to whites, 165.
Blackfeet, their lodges, 86.
Black Hills, the, 91.
Black Hills, the, animals to which they afford shelter, 142.
Black Hills, geography of the, 134.
Black Rock, near Great Salt Lake, 324.
Black Rock, view from the, 330.
Black’s Fork River, 174, 176.
Black’s Fork, vegetation of, 177, 178.
Bloomer dress, 91, 92.
Blue River, Big, 29.
Blue River, Little, 38.
Blue River, Little, fish of the, 38.
Blue-Earth River, Indians west of, 96.
Bluffs on the prairies, 29.
Bogus, origin of the term, 417, _note_.
Bonhomme Island, sand-banks at, 15.
“Book of Mormon,” the. _See_ “Mormon, Book of.”
Books necessary to the Western traveler, 10.
Books on Mormonism, list of, 203, _note_.
Botany of Utah Territory, 280.
Boulders, huge natural pile of, Brigham’s Peak, 136.
Boulders, in Great Cotton-wood Kanyon, 346.
Bow and arrow of the North American Indian, 119.
Bowery, the, in Great Salt Lake City, 220.
Bowery, visit to the, 258.
Box-Elder Creek, 136.
Boys, Indian, 59.
“Brass, City of,” of the Arabs, 78.
Braves, Indian, 57.
Bread made in the prairies, 84.
Bread-root of the Western hunters, 182, _note_.
Breakfast in the prairies, 84.
Brewery, Utah, 332.
Brick-making at Great Salt Lake City, 344, 345.
Bridger, Colonel James, the celebrated trapper, 178.
Bridger, Fort, 178.
Bridger, Range of the Uinta Hills, 176.
Bridle and bit used on the prairies, 27.
Brigham’s Kanyon, 194, 235.
Brigham’s Peak, 136.
Brigham’s Peak, the driver’s story of, 136.
“British-English” Mormons on the road to Great Salt Lake City, 137.
Brûlé Sioux Indians, their habitat, 98. _See_ Sioux.
Brutisch, Giovanni, the Venetian, 485.
Bugs, bed, 160, _note_.
Bugs, other, 160, _note_.
Buffalo, absence of the, on the Grand Prairie, 18.
Buffalo, annual destruction of, 50.
Buffalo, berry, the, cultivated in Great Salt Lake City, 170, _note_.
Buffalo, Britishers and buffalo shooting, 73.
Buffalo, extinct westward of the Rocky Mountains, 50.
Buffalo, former and present number of, 50.
Buffalo, grass, 51.
Buffalo, herds of, 48.
Buffalo, Indian mode of hunting it, 51, 52.
Buffalo, Indian mode of preparing the skins of, 52.
Buffalo, its habits, 51.
Buffalo, number of robes purchased by the several companies, 49,
_note_.
Buffalo, three great families of, 50.
Buffalo, uses to which it is put, 51, 52.
Buffalo, wild, as compared with tame meat, 49.
Bullock, W. T., the Mormon, 419.
Bunch-grass, 139.
Bunch-grass, its geographical limits, 139.
Bunch-grass, proposed acclimatization of, 140.
Bundling among the North American Indians, 116.
Bundling, antiquity of the practice, 116, _note_.
“Bunk,” the, at Lodge-Pole Station, 66.
Burnt-Thigh Indians, their habitat, 98.
Butte Station, 468.
Buttes, Red, trading-post of, 146.
Buttes, meaning of the word, 146, _note_.
Butterfield, or American Express, route of the, 3.
Butterfield, or American Express, its receipts from government, 4.
Cache Cave, 184.
Cache Valley, 335.
Cacti of the American wilderness, 64.
Cactus, intoxicating, 64, _note_.
Calidarium, the Indian, 119.
California, establishment of the mail-coach route from Missouri to, 4.
California, roads from Great Salt Lake City to, 452.
California, slope and surface of the land of, 8.
California, time for setting out for, 138.
Calumet, the, regarded as a sacred instrument, 112.
Camel corps, proposal for establishing a, for American outpost duty,
46.
Camp Floyd, description of, 334.
Camp Floyd, hatred of the Mormons expressed at, 339.
Camp Floyd, position of the camp, 446.
Camp Floyd, second visit to, 444.
Camp Floyd, the sick certificate, 342.
Camp Floyd, trip to, 331.
Camp Scott, near Fort Bridger, 179.
Canadians, French, settled in the Far West, 152.
Canis latrans, the, 64.
Cannibals, how far the North American Indians are, 117.
Cannon River, Indians west of, 96.
Card-playing among the North American Indians, 117.
Carrington, Albert O., the Mormon, 242.
Carrington Island, 327.
Carson City, 494, 496.
Carson City, lawless violence of, 288.
Carson House Station, 189.
Carson Kit, the celebrated guide and Indian interpreter, 178.
Carson Lake, 274, 491.
Carson River, 493.
Carter, Judge, and his store, 179.
Caswall, Rev. Henry, his works on Mormonism, 205, _note_.
Cattle starved in some regions, 138.
Cattle, numbers of skeletons seen, 138.
Cedar Creek, 334.
Cedar, effect of climate upon the growth of the, 41.
Cedar, gradually diminishing, 53.
Cedar Island, the first, in the Missouri, 41.
Cedar, the name, as used in the United States, 70, _note_.
Ceremony and manners, Indian want of, 118.
Chamizo, or greasewood, 158.
Chandless, William, his work on Mormonism, 204, _note_.
Cherokees, their present condition, 35.
Cherokees, their lodges, 86.
Cheyenne Indians, the, 99.
Cheyenne Indians, sign of their tribe, 124.
Cheyenne Indians, their chastity, 117.
Cheyenne Indians, their lodges, 86.
Chieftainship among the Indians, 117.
Children, Indian fondness for, 103.
Children, Indian, 59.
Children, of the Mormons, 422-3.
Children, of the Prophet, 249.
Chimney Rock, the, 74.
China-town, Carson River, 496.
Chinche, or bug, the, 160, _note_.
“Chip” fires in the prairies, 48.
Chipmonk, or Chipmuk, the, 159, _note_.
Chippewas. _See_ Ojibwa Indians.
Choctaw Indians, their lodges, 86.
Chokop’s Pass, 480.
Chronology of the most important events recorded in the Book of
Mormon, 411.
Chugwater, the, 90.
Church Butte, geological formation of, 176.
Churchill, Fort, 493.
Cities, formation of, in Utah Territory, 291.
City-Creek Kanyon, 195.
Climate of Platte Bridge, 137.
Climate of the country near Fort Bridger, 179, 180.
Climate of Utah Territory, 275.
Clothing necessary to the Prairie traveler, 10.
Coaches, mail, from Missouri to California and Oregon, 4.
Coaches, materials of which they are made, 12.
Coaches, slow rate of traveling, 5.
Coaches, the “Concord coach,” 12.
Coal found on the banks of the Bear and Weber Rivers, and at Silver
Creek, 182.
Coal in Nebraska, 141.
Coal in Utah Territory, 281.
Coal near Sulphur Creek, 182.
Coal on the banks of the Platte River, 141.
Cold Springs, in Kansas, 18.
Cold Springs, squatter life at, 19.
Cold Springs Station, 487.
Cold-Water Ranch, 49.
Colorado, Rio, fountain-head of the, 162.
Columbia River, fountain-head of the, 162.
Comanche Indians, the, 60, _note_.
Comanche Indians, their lodges, 86.
Compass, the prairie, 48.
“Concord coach,” description of the, 12.
Conference, description of a Mormon, 302-9.
Constitution of the State of Deserét, 289, _note_.
Cookery, dirty, of Indian squaws, 80.
Cookery bill, in the prairies, 84.
Coon’s Kanyon, 194
Copperas Springs, 181.
Corporation of Great Salt Lake City, 315.
Corrals, mode of forming, 76.
Corrill, John, his work on Mormonism, 205, _note_.
Cotton grown in Great Salt Lake Valley, 287.
Cotton-weed, the, 64.
Cotton-wood Creek, 30.
Cotton-wood Kanyon, Great, 343.
Cotton-wood Kanyon, Great, celebration of Mormon Independence Day at,
349, _note_.
Cotton-wood Kanyon, Great, timber of, 284, 285.
Cotton-wood Kanyon, Great, visit to, 346.
Cotton-wood Lake, Great, 347.
Cotton-wood Station, in Nebraska, 30, 49.
Cotton-wood tree, the, or Alamo, 32.
Cotton-wood tree, its uses, 32.
Cougar, the, or mountain lion, 153, and _note_.
Council Bluffs, the natural crossing of the Missouri, 71, _note_.
Council Hall of the Seventies in Great Salt Lake City, 229.
Council, the High, of the Mormons, 401.
Counties, list of, of Utah Territory, 291-3.
Coureurs des bois, or unlicensed peddlers, 81.
Court-house Ridge, the, 72.
Court-house, description of it, 72.
Court-house, in Great Salt Lake City, 417.
Court-house, interesting case tried in the, 417.
Cox, Daniel, his idea of a water communication between the Missouri
and the Columbia Rivers, 162, 163, _note_.
Coyotes, or jackals of the Western World, 64.
Coyotes, at Rocky-Bridge Station, 160, 161.
Coyotes, in Echo Kanyon, 188.
Coyotes, near Black’s Fork, 176.
Cree Indians, their habitat, 100.
Creek, Ash-Hollow, 70.
Creek, Battle, 447.
Creek, Bauchmin’s, 189, 190.
Creek, Box-Elder, 136.
Creek, Cedar, 334.
Creek, Cotton-wood, 30.
Creek, Deer, 138.
Creek, Dry, 483.
Creek, Egan’s, 183.
Creek, Grasshopper, 21.
Creek, Horse, 79.
Creek, Horseshoe, 165.
Creek, Kanyon, Big, 191.
Creek, Kanyon, East, 189.
Creek, Kiowa, Little, 79.
Creek, La Bonté, 135.
Creek, Meadow, 451.
Creek, Mill, 195.
Creek, Muddy, Little, 140.
Creek, Nemehaw, Big, 21.
Creek, Omaha, or Little Punkin, 71.
Creek, Pacific, 166.
Creek, Plum, 48.
Creek, Quaking Asp, 161.
Creek, Sandy, 71.
Creek, Sandy, Big, 167.
Creek, Sandy, Little, 167.
Creek, Sheawit, 482.
Creek, Shell, 465, 466.
Creek, Silver, 182.
Creek, Smith’s, 486.
Creek, Snow, 140.
Creek, Strawberry, 161.
Creek, Sulphur, 181.
Creek, Thirty-two-mile, 38.
Creek, Turkey, 30.
Creek, Vermilion, 27.
Creek, Walnut, 21.
Creek, Willow, 161, 461.
Creek, Yellow, 183.
Creeks, or “criks” in America, 21.
Crickets (Anabrus simplex?), scourge of, in Utah Territory, 284.
Crops in Great Salt Lake Valley, 201.
Crosby, Judge, 450.
Cumming, Hon. A., governor of Great Salt Lake City, 215.
Cumming, Hon. A., his impartial discharge of his duties, 216.
Curriculum of the Prairie Indians, 107.
Cursing and swearing in America, 14.
Cynomys Ludovicianus, or prairie-dog, 66.
Davies, Elder John, his Mormon works, 214, _note_.
Dakotahs. _See_ Sioux.
Dakotahs, meaning of the name, 95.
Dana, Lieutenant, _compagnon de voyage_, 8.
Dancing, Mormon fondness for, 230.
Danite band, account of the, 359.
Dark Valley, 60.
Davis, Hon. Jefferson, his estimate of the cost of a railway from the
Mississippi to the Pacific, 3, _note_.
Dayton, Lysander, the Mormon Bishop, and his wives, 448.
Dead, Indian mode of burial of the, 122.
Deep-Creek Kanyon, 462.
Deep-Creek Station, 463.
Deep-Creek Valley, 463.
Deer Creek, 138.
Deer Creek, establishment at, 139.
Deer, kinds of, found in the regions east of the Rocky Mountains, 68.
Delaware Indians, account of the, 37.
Delaware Indians, their lodges, 86.
Denmark Ward in Great Salt Lake City, 198.
Denver City, lawless violence of, 288.
Deserét, agricultural society of, 285.
Deserét, alphabet, the, 420.
Deserét Store, in Great Salt Lake City, 249.
Deserét, the land of the honey-bee, 169.
“Deserét News,” account of the, 255.
Desert, fertility of its eastern and western frontiers, 7.
Desert, from Fort Kearney to the base of the Rocky Mountains, 6.
Desert mostly uninhabited, 7.
Desert, the First, 167.
Desert, the Great, of Utah Territory, 455, 458.
Des Moines River, Indians west of the, 96.
Devil’s Backbone, the, 147.
Devil’s darning-needle, or dragon fly, 60.
Devil’s Gate, the celebrated kanyon of the, 151.
Devil’s Hole, the, 458, 459.
Devil’s Lake, Indians of, 97.
Devil’s Post-office, the, 154.
Diamond Springs, 60, 480.
Diamond Springs, tragedy at, 60.
Diseases of Utah Territory, 278.
Diseases to which the Indians are liable, 278.
“Divide,” the, between the Green River and Black’s Fork, 174.
“Divide,” the, between the Little Blue and Platte Rivers, 38.
“Divide,” the, between the Platte and Sweet-water Rivers, its
sterility, 146.
Divorce among the Mormons, 427.
Dogs, Indian, 58, 472.
Dog-Teutons in the prairies, 62.
Dolphin Island, 327.
Doxology, Mormon, remarks on the fourteen articles of, 387, _et seq._
Dragon-fly, or devil’s darning-needle, 60.
Dress, Indian, 57, 59.
Dress, of the Mormon fair sex, 227.
Drivers of mail-coaches, their immorality, 5.
Drivers or “rippers,” the, of the wagon-train, 23.
Drought, trials of, on the counterslope of the Rocky Mountains, 167.
Dry Creek, 483.
Dubail, Constant, the woodman, 466.
Dug-out, Joe, and his station, 334, 444.
Dust-storms in the Valley of the Platte, 75.
Dust-storms of Utah, 276, 450, 451.
Dust-storms on the counterslope of the Rocky Mountains, 168.
East Kanyon Creek, 189.
Eau qui court, or Niobrara River, 40, 72.
Echo Kanyon, 184.
Echo Kanyon, beavers in the torrent-bed of, 187.
Echo Kanyon Station, 187.
Echo Kanyon, the Mormons’ breastworks in, 187.
Echo Kanyon, vegetation of, 187.
Education in Deserét and England compared, 545.
Education in Great Salt Lake City, 422, 423, 425.
Egan, Major Howard, 453.
Egan’s Creek, 183.
Egan’s Springs, 454, 455.
Egan’s Station, 467.
Eggs and bacon, a constant dish in the West, 38.
Eight-mile-Spring Kanyon, 465.
Eight-mile Springs, 465.
Elder, rank of, in the Mormon hierarchy, 402.
Elk, the (Cervus Canadensis), habitat of, 68.
Emigrants, diseases to which they are liable, 279.
Emigrants, Mormon, arrival of, at Great Salt Lake City, 225-6.
“Emigration Road” in Kansas, 16.
Emigration Kanyon, 193.
Emigration, Mormon system of, 295.
Emigration, statistics of, 297.
Endowment House in Great Salt Lake City, 220.
Endowment House, mysteries of the, 220.
Ensign Peak, spirit of Joseph Smith on, 196.
Evening in the prairies, 38.
Explorers, list of the principal, of the United States, who have
published works on the subject, 171, 172, _note_.
Eye of the Indian, 105.
“Eye-opener,” an, 52.
Faces, Indian, 105, 106.
Faith, articles of the Mormon, 387, _et seq._
Farms, Indian, 477.
Farriery of the Indians, 119.
Febrile affections in Great Salt Lake City, 279.
Feet of the Indians, 104.
Fences, “snake,” of the West, 188.
Feramorz, Colonel, 343.
Ferris, B. J., his work on Mormonism, 206, _note_.
Ferris, Mrs., her work on “The Mormons at Home,” 206, 207, _note_.
Ferry, the Lower, over the Platte, 140.
Fête at Great Salt Lake City, account of a, 230-2.
Fetichism of the North American Indians, 107.
“Fever, the Prairie,” 22.
Fingers considered as a trophy by the Indians, 142, _note_.
Fireflies, or lightning-bugs, 60.
Fires, prairie, 29.
Fires, prairie, mode of stopping, 29.
Fir-trees of Great Cotton-wood Kanyon, 346.
Fish of the streams flowing from the Black Hills, 134.
Fish of the Sweetwater, 152.
Fish of the Wasach Lakes, 348.
Fish of Utah Lake, 334.
Fish Springs, 460.
Fish, water of Great Salt Lake fatal to, 326.
Fiumara. _See_ Arroyo.
Floods of the Missouri, 16.
Flowers on the banks of La Grande Platte River, 41, 48, 53.
Folles Avoines Indians, 96, _note_.
Food prejudices, 65.
Foot of Ridge Station, near the Sweetwater, 159.
Fort Bridger, 178.
Fort Churchill, 493, 494.
Forts, frontier, a camel corps proposed for, 46.
Forts, frontier, of the United States described, 41, 42.
Forts, frontier, remarks on the army system of outposts in the United
States, 43, 44.
Fox-River Indians, their tents, 86.
Fox-River, the, or Rivière des Puantes, 19.
Foxes in Echo Kanyon, 187.
Frémont, Colonel, his exploration of the Rocky Mountains, 164.
Frémont, Colonel, his traveling proprieties, 149.
FrémontIsland, 328.
Frémont Peak, in the Rocky Mountains, 153, 161.
Frémont Peak, its height above sea-level, 164.
Frémont Slough, 53.
Frémont Springs, station at, 53.
Frémont Springs, the model veranda at, 53.
Frogtown, or Fairfield, 335.
Fruit in the gardens of the Prophet, 269.
Fruit, wild, of Utah Territory, 283.
Funeral ceremonies of the Sioux Indians, 122.
Fustigator, the mammoth, of the American wagoners, 24.
Gambling, fondness of the North American Indian for, 117.
Game, abundance of, in the Wind-River Mountains, 68, 165.
Gamma, or gramma, grass of the slopes west of Fort Laramie, 7.
Gardens of the Prophet, in Great Salt Lake City, 269.
General Johnston’s Pass, 454.
Geological formation at Fort Laramie, 90.
Geological formation of Church Butte, 176.
Geological formation of Echo Kanyon, 184.
Geological formation of the banks of the Platte at Snow Creek, 141.
Geological formation of the Black Hills, 134.
Geological formation of the gold diggings, 484.
Geological formation of the Mauvaises Terres, or Bad Lands, 72.
Geological formation of the Rattlesnake Hills, 153.
Geological formation of the valley of the Green River, 169.
Geological formation of Utah Territory, 194.
Geological formation westward of the fort, 91.
Germans in the prairies, their behavior, 62.
Gibraltar Gate, 488.
“Gift, an Indian,” the proverb, 103.
Gilston, Jim, of Illinois, 456.
Girls, Indian, 59.
Gold found in the Wind-River Mountains, 165.
Gold found in Utah Territory, 281.
Gold mines near the Great Salt Lake City, 270, 271.
Golden Pass of Emigration Kanyon, 193.
Gospel, grotesque accounts of the manner in which the Indians of old
received the, 109.
Government of the Mormons, 301.
Grain, quantity produced in the Valley of Great Salt Lake, 284.
Grand Island, in the Platte River, 39.
Grand River, Neosho, or White Water, the Osages settled on the, 34.
Granite Mountain, 454.
Granite Rock, 462.
Grape, the Californian, 345.
Grass, bunch, 7.
Grass, salt, 148.
Grasses of the slopes west of Fort Laramie, 7.
Grasshopper Creek, 21.
Grasshoppers (Œdipoda corallipes), clouds of, in the prairies, 69.
Grasshoppers, ravages of, 69, 70.
Grasshoppers, scourge of, in Utah Territory, 284.
Grattan, Lieutenant, his fatal fight with the Sioux, 88.
Graves of the Mormon emigration route, 174.
Grazing-grounds in Utah Territory, 284.
Grazing-grounds of the West, their fertility and freedom from
sickness, 7.
Greasewood at Black’s Fork, 176.
Greasewood the (Obione or Atriplex canescens), 158.
Great Salt Lake, account of an excursion to, 322.
Great Salt Lake, air on the shores of, 328.
Great Salt Lake bathing-place on, 329.
Great Salt Lake, buoyancy of, 329.
Great Salt Lake, history and geography of, 324.
Great Salt Lake, islands of, 327-8.
Great Salt Lake, lands immediately about, 330.
Great Salt Lake, quantity of salt in, 325.
Great Salt Lake City, Academy of the 7th Ward in, 360.
Great Salt Lake City, admirable site of, 196.
Great Salt Lake City, Agricultural Society of Deserét, 316.
Great Salt Lake City, arrival of caravan of emigrants at, 225-6.
Great Salt Lake City, cheapness of the necessaries of life at, 320.
Great Salt Lake City, coinage of, 356.
Great Salt Lake City, conduct of federal officials at, 421.
Great Salt Lake City, corporation of, 315.
Great Salt Lake City, Council Hall of the Seventies at, 229.
Great Salt Lake City, course of life in, 418-19.
Great Salt Lake City, Court-house of, 417.
Great Salt Lake City, crops in the valley of, 201.
Great Salt Lake City, Denmark Ward in, 198.
Great Salt Lake City, departure from, 441-3.
Great Salt Lake City, eastern wall of Great Salt Lake Valley, 195.
Great Salt Lake City, education in, 422, 423, 425.
Great Salt Lake City, Endowment House at, 220.
Great Salt Lake City, excursions in, 322.
Great Salt Lake City, first view of, 193.
Great Salt Lake City, foundation of the, 288.
Great Salt Lake City, gold mines in Utah, 271.
Great Salt Lake City, Governor Cumming, 215.
Great Salt Lake City, hand-labor, articles of, in, 320.
Great Salt Lake City, Historian and Recorder’s Office in, 419, 426.
Great Salt Lake City, houses of, 197, 198.
Great Salt Lake City, industry in, 316.
Great Salt Lake City, Lion House at, 246.
Great Salt Lake City, list of articles of industry at, 317-20, _note_.
Great Salt Lake City, militia of, 354-5.
Great Salt Lake City, murders committed in and near, 339.
Great Salt Lake City, newspapers published in, 255.
Great Salt Lake City, no market-place in, 201.
Great Salt Lake City, prices, 320-1.
Great Salt Lake City, principal schools in, 425.
Great Salt Lake City, promulgation of the Constitution at, 289,
_note_.
Great Salt Lake City, public opinion in, 197.
Great Salt Lake City, roads from, to California, 452.
Great Salt Lake City, safety of, 224.
Great Salt Lake City, Salt Lake House Hotel, 201.
Great Salt Lake City, schools in, 345.
Great Salt Lake City, shops in, 217.
Great Salt Lake City, Social Hall and fêtes at, 230.
Great Salt Lake City, streets of, 216, 217.
Great Salt Lake City, supply of water in, 216, 217.
Great Salt Lake City, the Tabernacle at, 219, 220.
Great Salt Lake City, taxes of, 315.
Great Salt Lake City, Temple Block at, 217-23.
Great Salt Lake City, the Bee House at, 246.
Great Salt Lake City, the Bowery at, 220, 258.
Great Salt Lake City, the bulwarks of Zion at, 197.
Great Salt Lake City, the Penitentiary at, 271.
Great Salt Lake City, the Prophet’s house at, 234, 245-6.
Great Salt Lake City, the public and private offices of the Prophet
at, 246.
Great Salt Lake City, the public library at, 235.
Great Salt Lake City, the River New Jordan, 233.
Great Salt Lake City, view of, from the Wasach Mountains, 359.
Great Salt Lake City, visit to the Prophet at, 237-8.
Green River, formation of the valley of the, 169.
Green River, fountain-head of the, 162.
Green River, its breadth and depth, 171.
Green River, its length, volume, and direction, 171.
Green River, its tributaries, 167.
Green River, Macarthy’s station on the, 170.
Green River, Mountains, the, 153.
Green River, salmon trout of the, 170.
Green River, Spanish and Indian names of the, 171.
Green-River Station, 170, 172.
Green-River, wool-producing country in the basin of the, 284.
Grounds, Bad, or _mauvaises terres_ of the United States, 6.
Grouse, pinnated, 142.
Guenot, Louis, his bridge over the Platte, 141.
Guess, George, the Cherokee chief, 35.
Guittard’s Station, 27.
Guittard’s Station, the host at, 27.
Gunnison, Lieutenant, his work on Mormonism, 203, 204, _note_.
Gunnison, Lieutenant, his _resumé_ of Mormonism, 398.
Gunnison, Lieutenant, murder of, 339.
Gunnison’s Island, 327.
Hair, Indian mode of dressing the, 56.
Half-breeds, English and French, compared, 80.
Half-breeds, women, 80.
Half-way House, halt at the, 53.
Half-way House, the store at the, 53.
Ham’s Fork, 174.
Ham’s Fork, the wretched station at, 174, 175.
Hand-labor, articles of, in Great Salt Lake City, 320.
Hands of the Indians, 104.
Hanks, the redoubtable Mr. Ephe, the Danite, 191.
Hanks, stories of, 193.
Hapsaroke Indians, or Les Corbeaux, 124.
Hapsaroke Indians, sign of the tribe, 124.
Harney, General, his defeat of the Brûlé Sioux at Ash Hollow, 70, 89.
Harrowgate Springs in the Wasach Mountains, 360.
Hat Island, 327.
Hawkins’s rifles, 9.
Hayden, Dr. F. V., his opinion on coal in Nebraska, 141.
Heat of the sun beyond Ham’s Fork, 176.
Heath-hen, the, 142.
Hickman, Bill, the Danite, 191, 344.
Hierarchy of the Mormons, 399, 403.
High Mountain, 458.
Historian and Recorder’s Office in Great Salt Lake City, 419, 426.
Holmes, the ungenial man, 177.
Horse Creek, 79.
Horse Creek, breakfast at, 84.
Horse Creek, inmates of the station at, 80, 81.
Horse-fly, a green-headed, 168.
Horseshoe Creek, gold found at, 165.
Horseshoe Station, 91.
Horses, Indian, 56, 57-8.
Horses, of the Dakotah Indians, 99.
Horse-stealing, punishment for, in the Western States, 90, 360.
Hotels in Great Salt Lake City, 201.
Hotels in the Far West, 201, _note_.
Hot springs near Great Salt Lake City, 236.
Hot springs, analysis of the water of, 236, _note_.
Houses, materials of, in Great Salt Lake City, 197, 198.
Howard, Mr., 457.
Humboldt River, 480.
Hunkpapa Indians, 98.
Hunkpatidan Indians, 97.
Hunter, President Bishop, 226.
Huntingdon Valley, 480.
Hurricanes of Scott’s Bluffs, 78.
Hyde, John, his work on Mormonism, 208, _note_.
Ice springs, 158.
Ihanktonwan Indians, their habitat and present condition, 97.
Immorality of the mail-coach drivers, 5.
Independence Day, New, of the Mormons, 251, 349.
Independence Day, New, celebration of, 349, _note_.
India, remarks on the army system of outposts in, 43, 45.
Indian arms, 57, 119.
Indian arts, 118-19.
Indian boys and girls, 59, 107.
Indian camp, an, 472.
Indian character, 102-3.
Indian creed, few rites and ceremonies of the, 115.
Indian curriculum of the Prairie, 107.
Indian dancing, 110.
Indian departments of the United States, management of the, 132.
Indian dress, 57, 59.
Indian farms, 477.
Indian fighting, 43.
Indian half-breeds, 80.
Indian “home,” the, 32.
Indian horses, 56, 57-8.
Indian kleptomania, 60, 102, 103.
Indian marriages, 116.
Indian mode of hunting the buffalo and preparing the skins, 51, 52.
Indian mode of stampeding animals, 76-7.
Indian mode of wearing the hair, 56.
Indian names, 115.
Indian population in the middle of the last and present centuries, 99,
_note_.
Indian prejudice against speaking, 80.
Indian religion of the, 107.
Indian reservation, distribution of the, 32.
Indian scalping, 112.
Indian skull, form and dimensions of the, 105.
Indian smoking, 110, 111-12.
Indian summer, the, 79, 483.
Indian, the name, a misnomer for American aborigines, 55.
Indian village, description of the remove of an, 56.
Indian villages and tents, 85.
Indian women, 106.
Indians, account of the Pawnees, 36.
Indians, best scheme for preserving the race of, 35.
Indians, causes which rapidly thin the tribesmen, 34.
Indians, difficulties attending the scheme of civilization of the, 36.
Indians, effects of alcohol among the various tribes of, 82.
Indians, ferocity of, and whites, 60.
Indians, grotesque accounts of the manner in which they formerly
received the Gospel, 109.
Indians, how treated by the United States, 32.
Indians, kindness of the Mormons to the, 245.
Indians, languages of the northeastern tribes of, 96, _note_.
Indians, Lieutenant Weed’s defeat of the Gosh Yutas, 467, 470.
Indians, mistaken public opinion of the, and of their ancestors, 55.
Indians, proposals for raising native regiments of, 47.
Indians, the American philanthropist’s mode of civilizing the, 35.
Indians, the Comanches, 61, _note_.
Indians, the dignity of chief, 117.
Indians, their arrow-poison, 482.
Indians, their course of life, 117.
Indians, their future considered, 101.
Indians, their “home,” 32.
Indians, their murder of Loscier and Applegate, 484.
Indians, their opinion of their own strength, 101.
Indians, their progress toward extinction, 102.
Indians, their Turanian origin, 55.
Indians, the, of Utah Territory, 473.
Indians, the squaws, 59.
Indians, the Yutas, 474-6.
Indians, total number of, on the prairies and the Rocky Mountains, 33.
Indians, tribes and sub-tribes of the Sioux, 96.
Industry in Great Salt Lake City, 316.
Industry, list of articles of, 317-320, _note_.
Intoxicating drink, a new, 24, _note_.
Intoxicating drink, mode of manufacturing “Indian liquor,” 81-2.
Intoxicating drink, one made from a cactus, 64, _note_.
Irish women in the West, 175.
Iron County, coal and iron found in, 282.
Iron found in Utah Territory, 281.
Island, Antelope, or Church, 194, 323, 327.
Island, Bonhomme, 15.
Island, Carrington, 327.
Island, Cedar, the first, in the Missouri, 41.
Island, Dolphin, 327.
Island, Frémont, 328.
Island, Grande, in the Platte River, 39.
Island, Gunnison’s, 327.
Island, Hat, 327.
Island, Stansbury, 327.
Islets of La Grande Platte River, 40.
Itazipko, Sans Arc, or No-Bow Indians, their habitat, 98.
Itinerary, the emigrant’s, 505.
Itinerary of the mail route from Great Salt Lake City to San
Francisco, 511.
Jack, the Arapaho Indian, and his squaw, 146, 147.
Jackal, the, of the Western world, 64. _See_ Coyote.
Jacques, Elder John, his Mormon works, 212, _note_.
James River, Indians of, 97.
Jesuitism as a means of civilization of the Indians, 35.
Jimsen weed, 111.
Jo, St., city of, 12, 15.
Johnston’s Settlement, 451.
Jones, Elder Dan, his Mormon works, 213, _note_.
Jordan, New, its course in the Wasach Mountains, 332.
Jordan, New, the river in Great Salt Lake City, 233, 325.
“Jornada,” or day’s march, 167.
Junction-House Ranch, 53.
Kamas Prairie, 182, and _note_.
Kane, Colonel T. L., account of him, 204, _note_.
Kane, Colonel T. L., his work on the Mormons, 204, _note_.
Kansas, a specimen of squatter life in, 19.
Kansas, “bleeding,” 16.
Kansas, “gales,” 21.
Kansas, prairies of, 17.
Kansas, rainy season in, 16.
Kansas, shanties in, 18.
“Kansas-Nebraska Act,” passing of the, 33.
Kanyon Creek, Big, 191.
Kanyon Creek, Big, station at, 191.
Kanyon near Great Salt Lake City, purity of the water of the, 332.
Kanyon, the Devil’s Gate, 151.
Kanyons, stupendous, of Northern Mexico, 139, _note_.
Kanyons, the, of America, 139, _note_.
Kearney, Fort, 41.
Kearney, Fort, longitude of, 6.
Kelly, W., Esq., J. P., his chapters on Mormonism, 204, _note_.
“Keening” the dead practiced among the Indians, 122.
Kennedy, the Ras Kafilah, 455.
Kennedy’s Hole, 460.
Kennekuk, in Kansas, halt at, 19.
Kickapoo Indians, description of the, 20.
Kickapoo Indians, mode of building the tents of the, 85.
Kickapoo Indians, strength of the tribe of, 20.
Kickapoo Indians, the, 19.
Kimball, Heber C., his address in the Bowery, 262.
Kimball, Heber C., the president, account of, 241.
Kinnikinik smoked by the American Indian, 111.
Kinnikinik, the, 31.
Kiowa Creek, Little, 79.
Kiowa Indians, lodges of the, 86.
Kiowa Indians, or Prairie-men, sign of the tribe of the, 124.
Kisiskadjiwan River, Indians on the, 100.
Kit, the traveler’s, 9.
Kiyuksa, or breakers of law, Indians, 97.
Kleptomania of the Indians, 60.
Kleptomania of the Sioux, 102, 103.
La Bonté Creek, 135.
“Ladies” in the Prairies, 91, 92.
Lake Alkali, 153.
Lake Carson, 274, 491.
Lake Cotton-wood, Great, 347.
Lake Devil’s, 97.
Lake Great Salt, 194, 322, 323.
Lake Little Salt, 274.
Lake Miniswakan, 100.
Lake Mono, 274.
Lake Mud, 274.
Lake Nicollet, 274.
Lake of the Hot Springs, 195.
Lake of the Wasach Mountains, 347.
Lake of the Woods, 100.
Lake Pyramid, 274.
Lake qui Parle, 96.
Lake Saleratus, 147.
Lake Stone, 96.
Lake Traverse, 96.
Lake Utah, or Sweet-water Reservoir, 274, 332, 446.
Lake, Walker’s, 274.
Lake Winnipeg, 100.
Lakes, Three, 161.
Lance, the, of the North American Indian, 119.
Land-tenure of the Mormons, 290.
Lander’s Cut-off, 158.
Language, its peculiarities, 121.
Language, men’s first and progressive steps in, 121.
Language, the, of the Sioux, 120.
Language, the pantomime of the Indians, or sign-system of, 123.
Languages of the Northeastern Indians, 96, _note_.
Laramie City, 88.
Laramie City, prices of skins at, 88.
Laramie, Fort, climate and soil at, 90.
Laramie, Fort, formerly Fort John, 90.
Laramie, Fort, longitude of, 6.
Laramie, Fort, vegetation of the slopes west of, 7.
Laramie Hills, geography of the, 134.
Laramie Peak, 79.
Laramie’s Fork, 90.
Lasso, the, 68.
Last-Timber Station, 71, _note_.
Lawrence Fork, 71.
Lawrence Fork, origin of the name, 72.
Leadplant (Amorphe canescens), the, of the American wilderness, 64.
Leaf-shooter Indians, 96.
Leather manufactured at Great Salt Lake City, 344.
Leeches, American, 466-7.
Legislative Assembly of Utah Territory, 310.
Lehi City, 447.
Liberty-poles in the United States, 251.
Library, public, of Great Salt Lake City, 235.
Lightning-bug, or fire-fly, 60.
Lignite in Nebraska, 141.
Lion House in Great Salt Lake City, 246.
Lion, the mountain, or cougar, 153, and _note_.
Litters, Indian, 58.
Little Mountain, 192.
Little Mr., his tannery, 344.
Locknan’s Station, 21.
Locknan’s Station, vegetation of, 21.
Lodge-Pole Creek, or Fork, 64.
Lodge-Pole Station, 66.
Lodge-Pole Station, squalor and wretchedness of, 66.
London, Mormon meeting-houses in and about, 301, _note_.
Long-chin, the Indian murderer, 85.
Long Valley, 471.
Look-out Fort, 97.
Louis, St., altitude and temperature of, 159.
Loup Fork, ferry across, 71, _note_.
Lynch, Lieutenant W. F., his proprieties of travel, 150.
Lynn, Catharine Lewis, her work on Mormonism, 206, _note_.
Macarthy, Mr., his establishment, 170, 172.
Macarthy, Mr., his rough-and-tumble, 183.
Macarthy, Mr., of Green-River Station, 170.
Mail-coach route from Missouri to California and Oregon, 4.
Mail-coach, slow rate of traveling, 5.
Main, or Whisky Street, in Great Salt Lake City, 217.
Maize, question as to its being indigenous to America, 110, _note_.
Majors, Mr. Alexander, his efforts to reform the morals of his mail
drivers, 5.
Mankizitah, or White-Earth River, 72.
Manna in Great Salt Lake Valley, 287.
Manufacturers in Utah Territory, 317-20.
Marcy, Major, 73.
Marcy, Major, his “Prairie Traveler” quoted, 4.
Market-place, absence of a, in Great Salt Lake City, 201.
Marriage among the Mormons, 427, 432.
Marriage among the North American Indians, 116.
Marshall, James W., his discovery of Californian gold, 356.
Martin, Michael, his store, 173.
Marysville, or old Palmetto City, trade of, 29.
Materialism, Mormon, 384.
Matriya, the “Scattering Bear,” death of, 89.
Mauvaises Terres, or Bad Lands, extent of the, 72.
Mdewakantonwan Indians, civilization of the, 100.
Mdewakantonwan Indians, habitat of the, 96.
Meadow Creek, 451, 452.
Medical men in Great Salt Lake City, 278.
Medicine-man of the Indians, 108.
Medicine, the Indians’ knowledge of, 118, 119.
Medicines necessary to the Western traveler, 9, 10.
Menomene Indians, habitat of the, 96.
Menomene Indians, tents of the, 86.
Meteorology of Utah Territory, 275.
Methodism, foundation of, 365.
Mexico, Northern, stupendous kanyons of, 139, _note_.
Mezquite, or muskeet-tree (Algarobia glandulosa), 7.
Midway Station, 49.
Military departments into which the United States are divided, 42, 43,
_note_.
Militia force of Great Salt Lake City, 354-5.
Militia force of the United States, general abstract of the, 336, 337.
Milk River, Indians of, 100.
Milk weed (Asclepias tuberosa) common in Utah Territory, 167.
Milk-sickness of the Western States, 284.
Mill Creek, 195.
Miller, Captain, of Millersville, 215.
Miller’s Station, 495.
Millersville, on Smith’s Fork, 177.
Mills, saw, a night passed in one of the, 348.
Mills, saw, in the kanyons, 347.
Miniswakan Lake, 100.
Minnesota Indians, 96, 97.
Minnikanye-wozhipu Indians, habitat of the, 98.
Mirage, a curious, 47, 48.
Mirage, on the counterslope of the Rocky Mountains, 164.
Missionaries, certificates supplied to, 353, 354, _note_.
Missionaries, from Great Salt Lake City, 353, 354.
Missionaries, number of, in Great Britain, 301.
Mississippi, the, 15.
Mississippi, Indians of the, 96.
“Missouri Compromise,” the, 33.
“Missouri Compromise,” the, origin of the trouble which gave rise to
the, 33, 34, _note_.
Missouri, establishment of the mail-coach route from, to California
and Oregon, 4.
Missouri, rainy season in, 16.
Missouri River, navigation of the, 15.
Missouri River, sand-banks of the, 15.
Missouri River, sawyers and snags of the, 15.
Missouri River, the Great, 15.
Missouri River, the Little, Indians of the, 15.
Missouri River, winter season on the, 16.
Moccasins, Indian mode of making, 57.
Moccasins, use of, to the prairie traveler, 11.
Modesty, Mormon, instance of, 268.
Mollusks of Utah Territory, 280.
Mono Lake, 274.
Montagnes Rocheuses, Les, 153, 162.
Moonshine Valley, 480.
Moore, “Miss,” and her ranche, 154.
Moore, “Miss,” her history, 155.
Moose deer (Cervus Alces), habitat of the, 68.
Moravianism regarded as a means of civilization of the Indians, 35.
Mormon agglomeration of all that is good in all sects, 397, 398.
Mormon balls and suppers at Social Hall, 230-2.
Mormon Bible, 367.
Mormon Bible, contents of the, 368, _note_.
“Mormon, Book of,” 367, _note_.
“Mormon, Book of,” chronology of the most important events recorded in
the, 411.
Mormon Conference, description of a, 302-309.
Mormon dispensation of Mr. Joseph Smith, 183.
Mormon doctrines and covenants, 371.
Mormon doxology, remarks on the fourteen articles of the, 387, _et
seq._
Mormon emigrants, 137, 176, 180, 181, 182, 225.
Mormon emigrants, miseries of one of the, 174, 175.
Mormon emigration, system of, 295.
Mormon emigration, the regular track of, 174.
Mormon estimate of outfit for the Utah route, 138, _note_.
Mormon feat at Simpson’s Hollow, 168.
Mormon feat near Green River, 173.
Mormon fugitives on the road, 456.
Mormon gift of tongues, 268.
Mormon government, upon what it is based, 301.
Mormon hierarchy, the, 399.
Mormon History, chronological abstract of, 548.
Mormon lad, a, in the South Pass, 166.
Mormon lectures on faith, 371.
Mormon materialism, 384.
Mormon meaning of the word, 361-2.
Mormon meeting-rooms in London and its vicinity, list of, 301, _note_.
Mormon modesty, 268.
Mormon names, 227.
Mormon neophytes, behavior of the, 228-9.
Mormon polygamy, 373, 426, 428, 431, 432.
Mormon Prophet, visit to the, 237, _et seq._
Mormon Saints, dress of the fair, 227.
Mormon Scriptures, list of the, 209, _note_.
Mormon shanty, Dawvid Lewis and his dirty, 174, 175.
Mormon tolerance, 351.
Mormon wagons, trains of, on the road, 137, 176, 180, 181.
Mormonism, deep root which it has taken in Great Britain, 301.
Mormonism, final remarks on, 441.
Mormonism, Lieutenant Gunnison’s _resumé_ of, 398.
Mormonism, list of works published upon the subject of, 203, _note_.
Mormonism, objections to, 404.
Mormonism, sketch of, 361, _et seq._
Mormonism, what it is not, 403.
Mormonland, account of, 272.
Mormons, children of the, 423.
Mormons, description of their Temple, 514.
Mormons, fondness of the, for sleighing, private theatricals, and
dancing, 229-31.
Mormons, foundation of their city, 288.
Mormons, how they regard the United States, 250.
Mormons, kindness of the, to the Indians, 245.
Mormons, period for, leaving the Mississippi, 138.
Mormons, political prospects of the, 352.
Mormons, promulgation of their Constitution, 289, _note_.
Mormons, remarks upon the articles of their doxology, 387, _et seq._
Mormons, sketch of the religion of the, 361.
Mormons, tenure by which they hold their lands, 290.
Mormons, their belief as to marriages between a Saint and a Gentile,
170, _note_.
Mormons, their complaints against Congress, 289, 290.
Mormons, their Emigration Road, 71.
Mormons, their hierarchy, 399.
Mormons, their materialism, 384.
Mormons, their Nauvoo Legion, 354-5.
Mormons, their new Independence-day, 251.
Mormons, their newspapers, 255.
Mormons, their politics, 251.
Mormons, their polygamy, 373.
Mormons, their punishment for adultery, 252.
Mormons, their quasi-military organization on the march, 138.
Mormons, their sermons in the Bowery, 260, 264.
Mormons, their tithes, 249-50.
Morning on the prairies, 131.
Motherhood, how regarded in the Western States, 432.
Moufflon, the American, 153, 155.
Mountain, Big, 190.
Mountain, Ensign, 196.
Mountain, Little, 192.
Mountain Meadow Massacre, 339.
Mountain Point, 195, 459.
Mountain, Quaking-Asp, 181.
Mountain, Rim-Base, 181.
Mountain Springs, 462.
“Mountaineer,” Mormon newspaper, 257.
Mountaineers of the West, 81.
Mountains, Bear-River, 174.
Mountains, Black, 133, 142.
Mountains, Granite, 454.
Mountains, Green-River, or Sweet-water Hills, 153.
Mountains, High, 458.
Mountains, Laramie, 91, 134.
Mountains, Laramie Peak, 79, 85.
Mountains of Utah Territory, singular formation of the, 275.
Mountains, Oquirrh, 191, 194, 322.
Mountains, Rocky, 153, _et seq._
Mountains, Traverse, 332.
Mountains, Uinta, 176, 178.
Mountains, Wasach, 189, 195, 322, 330.
Mountains, White, 450.
Mountains, Wind-River, 68, 162, 163, 164, 166.
Mud Lake, 274.
Mud Spring station, 71.
Muddy Creek, Big, 180.
Muddy Creek, Little, 140, 180.
Muddy Creek, Little, the Canadian station-master at, 180.
Muddy Creek, Little, wretched station at, 140.
Muddy Fork, 174.
Mules in the West, 135.
Mules, obstinacy of, 14.
Mules, of Central America, 13, 14.
Mules, rate of progress of, 14.
Mules, recalcitrancies of, 157, 167.
Murder, Mormon punishment for, 426.
Murders in and near Great Salt Lake City, 225, 339.
Murders in Carson City, 225.
Murphy, Captain, his loyalty, 181.
Muskrat Station, 159.
Muskrat the, 159, _note_.
Mustang of the Black Hills, 142.
Mustang the, or prairie pony, 68, _note_.
Myers, Mr., the Mormon of Bear-River Valley, 182.
Mysteries of Endowment House in Great Salt Lake City, 220.
Names, Indian, 115.
Names, of the Mormons, 227.
Nauvoo Legion, account of the, 354-5.
Nauvoo Legion, story of two warriors of the, 187.
Nebraska, meaning of the word, 40.
Nebraska River. _See_ Platte, La Grande.
Nebraska, Southern, rainy season in, 16.
Needle Rocks, 183.
Nemehaw Creek, Big, 21.
Neophytes, Mormon, behavior of the, 228-9.
Newspapers in Great Salt Lake City, 255.
Nicollet Lake, 274.
Niobrara, or Eau qui court River, 40, 72.
Nullah. _See_ Arroyo.
Oats, wild (Avena fatua), of the Pacific water-shed, 139.
“Obelisks, the,” 188.
O’Fallon’s Bluffs, 48, 53.
Officials, federal, behavior in Great Salt Lake City of the, 421.
Ojibwa Indians, habitat of the, 100, 101.
Ojibwa, the name, 100, _note_.
Ogalala, or Okandanda Indians, habitat of the, 98.
Ogalala, village of the, 85.
Omaha Creek, or Little Punkin, 71.
Onions, wild, of the valley of the Little Blue River, 31.
Oohenonpa Indians, habitat and numbers of the, 98.
Ophthalmia in Utah Territory, 278.
Opinion, public, in Great Salt Lake City, 197.
Oquirrh Mountains, 191, 194, 322.
Oregon, boundary-stone between it and Utah, 169.
Oregon, establishment of the mail-coach route from Missouri to, 4.
Oregon, origin of the name, 169, _note_.
Ormsby, Mayor, his death, 479.
Osages, account of the tribe of the, 34.
Osages, cession of the territory of the, 34.
Osages, mode of building the lodges of the, 85.
Ottagamies, the Indian tribe of, 20, _note_.
Outfit, the traveler’s, 9.
Outposts, remarks on the United States army system of, 43, 44.
Owl, the burrowing (Strix cunicularia), 66.
Oxen shod at Great Salt Lake City, 270.
Ox-riding, 24, _note_.
Pabakse, or Cut-Head Indians, 97.
Pacific Creek, 167.
Pacific Railroad, difficulties of a, 277.
Pacific Railroad, routes proposed for a, 3.
Pacific Springs, 163.
Pacific Springs, station at, 163, 166.
Padouca River, 60, 63.
Pantomime, Indian, or speaking with the fingers, 123.
Pantomime, preliminary signs for the traveler, 124.
Pantomime, signs of some of the Indian tribes, 123.
Pantomime, various other signs, 124-30.
Panama, 501.
Parley’s Kanyon, 195, 344.
Patriarch, rank of, in the Mormon hierarchy, 400.
Pawnee Indians, account of the, 36.
Pawnee Indians, principal sub-tribes of the, 37.
Pawnee Indians, readiness of the, to cut off a single traveler, 138.
Pawnee Indians, sign of the tribe of the, 123.
Peddlers, licensed and unlicensed, 81.
Penitentiary, the, of Great Salt Lake City, 271.
Phelps, Judge and Apostle, his “Sermon on the Mount,” 196, _note_.
Phelps, Judge and Apostle, visit to, 253.
Pigeons a constant dish in Italy, 38.
“Pike’s Peakers” on the road, 60.
Pine-tree Stream, 174.
Pine Valley, 480.
Piñon-tree, fruit of the, 466.
Piñon-tree (P. monophyllus) of the West, 285.
Pipes of the Côteau des Prairies, 88.
“Pitch-holes or chuck-holes” of the prairies, 18.
Placerville City, 499.
Platte Bridge, delicious climate of, 137.
Platte, Fort, 90.
Platte River, a dust storm in the valley of the, 75.
Platte River, appearance of the, at Platte Bridge, 136.
Platte River, beauty of the banks of the, 39.
Platte River, character of the soil beyond the immediate banks of the,
41.
Platte River, coal found on the banks of the, 141.
Platte River, division of the, into the northern and southern streams,
60.
Platte River, farewell to the, 146.
Platte River, fording the, 63.
Platte River, La Grande, or Nebraska, 39.
Platte River, Lower Ferry over the, 140.
Platte River, noxious exhalations from the, 48.
Platte River, shallowness of the, 40.
Platte River, tender adieux at the upper crossing of the, 62.
Platte River, timber on the banks of the, 40, 41.
Platte River, wild garden on the shores of the, 41.
Pleasant Valley, 461.
Plum Creek, 48.
Plum Creek Ranche, soil about, 48.
Poetry of the Sioux Indians, 122.
Point Look-out, 454.
Poison Springs, 461.
Poisons, animal and vegetable, of the Prairie Indians, 120.
Polar plant, the, 48.
Police, private, of Mormon life, 224.
Police, public, of Great Salt Lake City, 224.
Polygamy among the Mormons, 373, 426.
Polygamy, justification of, 384.
Polygamy, Mrs. Pratt’s letter on, 433, _et seq._
Polygamy, results of, 428.
Polygamy, revelation to Joseph Smith on, 373.
Polygamy, views of women respecting, 431.
Pony Express, the, 28, _note_.
Pony Express, the, on the road, 169.
Pony Express, postage by the, 29.
Pony Express, riders of the, 29.
Population of Utah Territory, 294.
Population of Utah Territory, excess of females, 301.
Populus tremuloides, the, 180.
Postal system of the United States, evils of the contract system, 172,
173, _note_.
Powder River, Indians of the, 97.
Prairie, absence of animal life on the, 18.
Prairie, an evening in the, 38.
Prairie compass, the, 48.
Prairie dog, the (Cynomys Ludovicianus), 66.
Prairie dog, his associates, reptiles, birds, and beasts, 66.
Prairie-dog village, 65.
Prairie fever, cause of the, 22.
Prairie, fires, the, 29.
Prairie, fires, effects of, on the temperature of the air, 79.
Prairie hen, heath hen, or pinnated grouse, 142.
Prairie, land of the United States, 6.
Prairie, monotony of the, 18.
Prairie, monotony of the rolling, 69.
Prairie, or “perrairey,” the Western, peculiarities of the, 17.
Prairie, pitch-holes or “chuck-holes” of the, 18.
Prairie pony, or mustang, 68, _note_.
Prairie saddle, the, 24, 25.
Prairie, skeleton of the earth at the bluffs, 29.
Prairie squirrel, the (Spermophilus tredecimlineatus), 159, _note_.
Prairie storm, a, 21.
Prairie the grand, 17.
“Prairie Traveler,” the, of Captain R. B. Marcy, quoted, 4.
Prairie trees, progressive decay of the, 69.
Prairie turnip, the, 182, _note_.
Prairie “weed,” 48.
Prairie wolf, or coyote, 64.
Prairie, wolf, the, 30.
Prairies, alternate puffs of hot and cold winds in the, 79.
Prairies, blanched bones on the, 48.
Prairies, clouds of grasshoppers in the, 69.
Prairies, names of different kinds of, 48.
Prairies, the buffalo the “monarch of the,” 50.
Pratt, Mrs. Belinda M., letter of, on polygamy, 433, _et seq._
Pratt, Orson, account of, 353.
Pratt, Orson, “the Gauge of Philosophy,” Mormon works of, 212, _note_.
Pratt, Parley P., Mormon works of, 211, 212, _note_.
Pratt, Parley P., murder of, 340, and _note_.
Prêle River, the, 136.
President, rank of, in the Mormon hierarchy, 399.
Prices in Great Salt Lake City, 321.
Priests, high, rank of, in the Mormon hierarchy, 399.
Prophecies of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, 356, _note_.
Protestantism, origin of, 364.
Provo City, 189, 219, 333, _note_.
Provo River, 333.
Puma, the, 153, _note_.
Punishments, Indian, 103.
Punkin Creek, Little, 71.
Pyramid Lake, 274.
Quaking-Asp Creek, 161.
Quaking-Asp Hill, 181.
Quaking-Asp (Populus tremuloides), 180.
Rabbit-bush, the, 158.
Race-course Bluff, 179.
Railroad Kanyon, 480.
Railroad, Pacific, Mr. Jefferson Davis’s estimate of the cost of the,
3, _note_.
Rain-storms at Weber-River Station, 188.
Rainy season in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Southern Nebraska, 16.
“Ranch,” the, at Turkey Creek, 30.
Rancho, the, in Mexico and California, 5, _note_.
Rattlesnake bites and their remedies, 156.
Rattlesnake Hills, the, 151, 153.
Rattlesnakes, 156.
Red Butte, 195.
Red region, the, 136.
Reese’s River, 486.
Regshaw, Mr., his bridge over the Platte, 140.
Reid, Captain Mayne, remarks on his “Wild Huntress,” 209, _note_.
Religion of the Indians generally, 107.
Religion of the Mormons, sketch of the, 361, _et seq._
Religion of the Sioux, 103.
Religions of the United States, list of, 363, _note_.
Remy, Jules, and Mr. Brenchley, their work on the Mormons, 204,
_note_.
Revenge, Indian, 103.
Revolvers, value of, 9.
Reynal, M., of Horse-Creek Station, 80.
Reynal, M., sketch of, and his career, 81.
Rice, the wild (Zizania aquatica), 96, _note_.
Richland town extinct, 21.
Rifles, Hawkins’s, 9.
Riggs’s, Rev. S. R., dictionary of the Sioux language, 120, 121.
River, Assiniboin, 100.
River Bank and Stream camping-ground on the Sweetwater, 158.
River, Bear, 182, 325.
River, Black’s Fork, 174, 176, 177.
River, Blue, Big, 29.
River, Blue Earth, 96.
River, Blue, Little, 31, 38.
River, Cannon, 96.
River, Carson, 493.
River, Colorado, 162.
River, Columbia, 162.
River, Des Moines, 96.
River, Fox, 19.
River, Frémont’s Peak, 153, 161, 164.
River, Grand, Neosho, or White-Water, 34.
River, Green, 162, 166, 170, 284.
River, Ham’s Fork, 174.
River, Humboldt, 480.
River, James, 97.
River, Kisiskadjiwan, 100.
River, Milk, 100.
River, Mississippi, 15, 97.
River, Missouri, 15, 97.
River, Missouri, Little, 97.
River, Muddy Fork, 174.
River, New Jordan, 233, 325.
River, Niobrara, or Eau qui court, 40, 72.
River, Padouca, 60, 63.
River, Platte, La Grande, or Nebraska, 39, 60.
River, Platte, 162.
River, Powder, 97.
River, Prêle, 136.
River, Reese’s, 485, 486.
River, Sandy, Big, 30, 169.
River, Sandy, Little, 30.
River, Sioux, Big, 97.
River, Smith’s Fork, 176.
River, Snake, 162.
River, Snowy-Peak, 164.
River, Sweetwater, or Pina Pa, 150, 158, 161, 162.
River, Timpanogos, 182, 333.
River, Weber, 182, 188, 189, 325.
River, White-Earth, or Mankizitah, 72.
River, Wind, 162.
River, Yellow-Stone, 162.
Road from Fort Kearney, 47.
Road from the Black Hills, 134.
Roads from Great Salt Lake City to California, 452.
Roads, junction of the Great Salt Lake City and Fort Hall, 167.
Robber’s Roost Station, 468.
Robidoux, Antoine, notice of, 75, _note_.
Robidoux, Fort, 75.
Robinson (“Uncle Jack”), 177.
Rock, Independence, 148.
Rock, Independence, names inscribed on, 149.
Rock or Turkey Creek, 30.
Rock or Turkey Creek, the “ranch” at, 30.
“Rocks” of the West, 19.
Rockwell, Orrin Porter, account of, 448-9.
Rockwell, Orrin Porter, excellent advice of, 449.
Rockwell, Orrin Porter, the Danite, 191.
Rocky Mountains, a humble-bee on the topmost summit of the, 165.
Rocky Mountains, first view of the, 153.
Rocky Mountains, heights of the, 7, 153, _et seq._
Rocky Mountains, surface of the land on the western slopes of the, 8.
Rocky Mountains, temperature on the counterslope of the South Pass of
the, 168.
Rogers, Colonel, or “Uncle Billy,” 471.
Rose, the apostate Jew and Mormon, 456.
Routes proposed for a Pacific Railroad, 3.
Routes proposed for a Pacific Railroad, difficulties of, 277.
Ruby Valley, 471.
Russell, Mr. W. H., and the Pony Express, 28, and _note_.
Russell, Mr. W. H., and the Pony Express, slowness of the transport
by, 136.
Rush Valley, 451, 453.
Sac Indians, tents of the, 86.
Sac Indians, the, 19.
Saddle, the native Indian, 25.
Saddle, the prairie, 24, 25.
Sage at Rocky-Bridge Station, 161.
Sage hen or prairie-hen, 142.
Sage Springs, 486.
Sage, wild (artemisia or absinthe), description of, 53, 54.
Saleratus Lake, 147, 148.
Saleratus Lake, startling appearance of, 148.
Salmon trout of the Green River, 170.
Salt grass, 148.
Salt Lake City, Great. _See_ Great Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake, Great. _See_ Great Salt Lake.
Salt Lake House Hotel, 201.
Salt Lake, Little, 274.
Salt, quantity of, in the water of Great Salt Lake, 325-6.
Saltpetre not found in Utah Territory, 282.
San Francisco, 500.
Sand-banks of the Missouri, 15.
Sand hills, the tract called the, 70, _note_.
Sand Springs Station, 491.
Sandstone at Grasshopper Creek, 21.
Sandy Creek, 71.
Sandy Creek, Big, or Wágáhongopá, 167.
Sandy Creek, Little, 167.
Sandy River, Big, 30, 169.
Sandy River, Little, 30, 169.
Sans Arc Sioux Indians, habitat of the, 98.
Sault Ste. Marie, Indians at, 100.
Saurians of Utah Territory, 280.
Sawyers and snags of the Missouri, 15.
Scalping, origin of the custom of, 112.
Scalping, considered as a religious rite, 113.
Schools in Great Salt Lake City, 345.
Schools, principal, 425.
Scott’s Bluffs, 77.
Scott’s Bluffs, hurricanes of, 78.
Scott’s Bluffs, origin of the name, 78.
Scythians, scalping rites of the, 112.
Seasons, the, in Utah Territory, 277.
Seneca City, in Kansas, 21.
Seventeen-mile Station, 48.
Seventies, the, in the Mormon hierarchy, 400.
Sevier, Mr., the Mormon, 463.
Shanties, 18.
Shanties, of Seneca City, 21, 22.
Shanties, origin of the word, 18, _note_.
Shanty, a, in Kansas, 19.
Shanty, the, at Pacific Springs, 166.
Shanty, the dirty, of Ham’s Fork, 174, 175.
Shawnees, their lodges, 86.
Sheawit Creek, 482.
Shell Creek, 465, 466.
Shops in Great Salt Lake City, 217.
Shoshonee Indians, 473-4.
Shoshonee Indians, their friendliness to whites, 165.
Sibley, Major, his improved tent, 87.
Sichangu, Brûlé, or Burnt-Thigh Indians, habitat of the, 98.
Sierra Nevada, the, 493.
Sign-system of language among the Indians, 123.
Silva, Luis, and his wife, 154.
Silver found in Utah Territory, 281.
Silver, virgin, found in the White Mountains, 450, _note_.
Simpson’s Hollow, 168.
Simpson’s Hollow, feat of the Mormons at, 168.
Simpson’s Park, 485.
Simpson’s Pass, 486.
Simpson’s Road, 481.
Sioux Indian, a “buck,” 89.
Sioux Indian, meaning of the name “Sioux,” 95, 96.
Sioux Indians, books printed in their tongue, 120, 121.
Sioux Indians, character of the, 102.
Sioux Indians, constitution of the, 104.
Sioux Indians, dependence of the, on the buffalo for subsistence, 51.
Sioux Indians, destruction of Lieutenant Grattan and his party by the,
88.
Sioux Indians, funeral ceremonies of the, 122.
Sioux Indians, future of the, 100, 101.
Sioux Indians, habits of the, in former times and at present, 102.
Sioux Indians, language of the, 120.
Sioux Indians, lodges of the, 86.
Sioux Indians, manners and customs of the, 99.
Sioux Indians, murder of M. Montalan by the, 91.
Sioux Indians, poetry and songs of the, 122.
Sioux Indians, present habitat of the, 95.
Sioux Indians, principal bands into which the race is divided, 95-98.
Sioux Indians, religion of the, 103.
Sioux Indians, revenge of the, 103.
Sioux Indians, sacred language of the, 122.
Sioux Indians, sign of the tribe of, 124.
Sioux Indians, skill in archery of the, 120.
Sioux Indians, the Brûlé, their defeat at Ash Hollow, 70.
Sioux Indians, women of the, 103.
Sioux River, Big, 97.
Sisahapa, or Blackfeet Indians, 98.
Sisitonwan Indians, habitat of the, 96.
Skins, prices of, at Laramie City, 88.
Skull of the Indian, its form and dimensions, 105.
Skull Valley, 454.
Skunk, the, 189.
Slade, the redoubtable, 92, 173.
Slavery legalized in Utah, 243.
Sleighing in Great Salt Lake City, 229.
Smith, Captain John, the Mormon patriarch, 180.
Smith, George A., the Mormon apostle, account of, 241.
Smith, Joseph, account of the martyrdom of, 517.
Smith, Joseph, his works, 209, 210, _note_.
Smith, Joseph, his second son David, 241.
Smith, Joseph, his son Joseph, of Nauvoo, 240.
Smith, Joseph, vindicated, 405-6.
Smith, Mrs. M. E. V., her works on Mormonism, 207, 208, _note_.
Smith’s Creek, 486.
Smith’s Fork, 176.
Smoking among the American Indians, 110.
Smoking material of the Wild Man of the North, 31.
Smoky Valley, 484.
Smoot, Bishop Abraham O., his address in the Bowery, 260.
“Smudge,” a, before sleep, 165.
Snags and sawyers of the Missouri, 15.
Snake Indians at Ham’s Fork, 174.
Snake Indians, lodges of the, 86.
Snake River, fountain-head of the, 162.
Snake River, Indian name for, 167, _note_.
Snakeroots, 156, 157, _note_.
Snow Creek, 140.
Snow Creek, country about, 141, 142.
Snow, Lorenzo, his Mormon works, 212, _note_.
Snowy Peak, 164.
Social Hall in Great Salt Lake City, 229.
Social Hall, fêtes at, 230, 231.
Soda, carbonate of, in Saleratus Lake, 147, and _note_.
Soda, or Beer Springs, 179.
Soil at Fort Laramie, 90.
Soil beyond the immediate banks of La Grande Platte River, 41.
Soil near Plum Ranche, on the Platte River, 48.
Soil of Big Sandy River, 169.
Soil of the bench-land of Great Salt Lake Valley, 195.
Soil of the country beyond the Warm Springs, 158.
Soil of the Valley of the Black Hills, 134.
Soil of Utah Territory, 283.
Soldiers, army grievances of, 445.
Soldiers, at Camp Floyd, 444.
Soldiers, discharged, on the road home, 154.
Soldiers, disliked in the United States, 336.
Soldiers manners and customs of the, of former times, 444-5.
Soldiers, United States, dress of, 446.
Songs of the Sioux Indians, 122.
South-Pass City, in the Rocky Mountains, 161.
South-Pass of the Rocky Mountains, 161.
South-Pass its extent and height above sea level, 162.
South Pass the fountain-head of some of the great rivers of America,
161.
Spencer, Elder Orson, his works on Mormonism, 212, _note_.
Spring Valley, 466.
Spur, the prairie, 27.
Squatter life in Kansas, a specimen of, 19.
Squatter life, difficulties and dangers of, 101.
Squaws, Indian, 59.
Squaws, Indian, dirty cookery of the, 80.
Squaws, of the Sioux Indians, 103.
Squirrel, the chipmonk or chipmuk, 159, _note_.
Squirrel, the ground, 159.
Squirrel, the spotted prairie, 159, _note_.
Staines, Mr. W. C., the Mormon, 269.
Stalking the antelope on the prairies, 67.
Stambaugh, Colonel, 233.
Stampede, the great dread of the prairie traveler, 76.
Stansbury, Captain, his scruples as to the observance of Sunday on the
march, 149.
Stansbury, Captain, his work on Mormonism, 203, _note_.
Stansbury Island, 327.
Stenhouse, Elder T. B. H., and his wife, 223.
Stirrup, the prairie, 26.
Store, a, in the Valley of the Platte, 53.
Storm, prairie, at Walnut Creek, 21.
Storm of dust in the Valley of the Platte, 75.
Stone Lake, Big, Indian tribes at, 96.
Stone used for the Mormon temple, 195.
Strawberries, wild, 161.
Strawberry Creek, 161.
Streets of Great Salt Lake City, 216, 217.
Sturgis, Captain, his chastisement of the Indians, 43.
Suckers, the fish so called, 152.
Sugar House in Great Salt Lake City, 271.
Sulphur Creek, 181.
Sulphurous pools in Great Salt Lake Valley, 274.
Sumach, the, 31.
Summer, the Indian, 79, 483.
Sumner, Brigadier General, his chastisement of the Indians, 43.
Sunflower, the, in the Valley of the Little Blue River, 31.
Sunflower, value of its seeds, 31.
Superstition of the Indian, 107, 108.
Sweetwater Hills, or Green-River Mountains, the, 153.
Sweetwater River, influents of the, 161.
Sweetwater River, its beauty, 153, 154.
Sweetwater River, its water, 150.
Sweetwater River, M‘Achran’s Branch of, 161.
Sweetwater River, or Pina Pa, 150, 158.
Syracuse, in Kansas, 18.
Tabernacle, the, of Great Salt Lake City, 219, 220.
Table Mountain, 162.
Tangle-leg, a new intoxicating liquor, 24, _note_.
Tannery of Mr. Little at Great Salt Lake City, 344.
Tar Springs, 182.
Taxes of Great Salt Lake City, 315.
Taylor, John, the Mormon apostle, 270.
Teachers and deacons in the Mormon hierarchy, 403.
Teeth of the Indian, 106.
Temperature at Fort Laramie, 90.
Temperature at the Foot of Ridge Station, 159.
Temperature of St. Louis, 159.
Temperature on the counterslope of the Rocky Mountains, 168.
Temple Block in Great Salt Lake City, 217.
Temple description of the, 515.
Tent, Major Sibley’s, 87.
Tents of the Prairie Indians, 85, 86.
Tetrao pratensis, 142.
Tetrao urophasianus, 142.
Thermal Springs near Great Salt Lake City, 236.
Thermal Springs near Great Salt Lake City, analysis of the waters of,
236, _note_.
Thirty-two-mile Creek, 38.
Thirty-two-mile Creek, the station at, 38.
Three Lakes, 161.
“Thunder, Little,” chief of the Brûlé Sioux, defeated and deposed, 89.
“Thunder, Little,” description of, 132.
“Thunder, Little,” visit from, 132.
Thunder-storms in Utah, 276.
Timber of Grasshopper Creek, 21.
Timber of Great Cotton-wood Kanyon, 346.
Timber of La Grande Platte River, 40, 41, 53.
Timber of Locknan’s Station, 21.
Timber of the Black Hills, 134.
Timber of the Mississippi, 15.
Timber progressive decay of prairie, 69.
Timber the Western man’s instinctive dislike of, 170.
Timber, want of, in Utah Territory, 284.
Time, the Indian’s notion of, 118.
Timpanogos Kanyon, visit to, 446.
Timpanogos or Provo River, 333.
Timpanogos Water, 182.
Tithes paid by the Mormons, 249.
Tithing House in Great Salt Lake City, 249.
Titonwan Indians, habitat and present condition of the, 97.
Titonwan Indians, sub-tribes of the, 98.
Tobacco, the traveler’s outfit of, 10.
Tobacco, use of, among the American Indians, 110.
Toilet of the prairie traveler, 10.
Tolerance of the Mormons, 351.
Tongues, gift of, 268.
Tonkowas, tents of the, 85.
Tophet, 454.
Totem, the, of the Indian, 108.
Towakamies, tents of the, 85.
Townsend, Mr., the Mormon hotel-keeper, 202.
Traders, licensed and unlicensed, 81.
Trafalgar Square, barbarous incongruity of, 185.
Trapper, the, of sixty years ago, 83.
Travel, proprieties of, 149.
Travelers, mismanagement of inexperienced, 229.
Traveling, slow rate of, of the mail-coaches from Missouri to
California and Oregon, 5.
Traverse, Lake, Indians at, 96.
Traverse Mountain, 332.
Trona formation of Alkali Lake, 153.
Trona formation of Saleratus Lake, 147, _note_.
Troy, in Kansas, 18.
Turkey Creek, or Rock, 30.
Turkey Creek, the “ranch” at, 30.
Turnip, the prairie, 182, _note_.
“Twelve, the,” in the Mormon hierarchy, 400.
“Twin Peaks” of the Wasach Mountains, 195.
Twiss, Major, 138.
Uinta Hills, 176, 178.
Uncle John’s Grocery, 27.
Uncle John’s Grocery, Indians at, 27.
United States, eastern and western divisions of the, 6.
United States, extent of the, 6.
United States, military departments into which they are divided, 42,
43, _note_.
United States, “Prairie land” of the, 6.
United States, present policy of the, toward the Indian, 101.
United States, proposal for establishing a camel corps in the, 46.
United States, remarks on the army system of outposts in the, 43, 44.
Utah Indians, lodges of the, 86.
Utah Lake, or Sweetwater Reservoir, 274, 332, 444, 446.
Utah Territory, bad effects of conflicting judiciaries in, 312.
Utah Territory, boundaries of, 273.
Utah Territory, cities and counties of, 291-3.
Utah Territory, climate of, 275.
Utah Territory, configuration of the country, 273.
Utah Territory, diseases in, 278.
Utah Territory, geography of, 273.
Utah Territory, geology of, 281.
Utah Territory, grazing in, 284.
Utah Territory, Indians of, 473.
Utah Territory, lakes of, 274.
Utah Territory, Legislative Assembly of, 310.
Utah Territory, minerals of, 281.
Utah Territory, Mormon government in, 301.
Utah Territory, origin of the name, 272.
Utah Territory, population of, 294.
Utah Territory, present state of agriculture in, 285.
Utah Territory, principal value of, 287.
Utah Territory, proposed route to, 3.
Utah Territory, rights of the citizens of, 311.
Utah Territory, scourges of crickets and grasshoppers in, 284.
Utah Territory, singular formation of the mountains of, 275.
Utah Territory, soil of, 283.
Utah Territory, springs of, 274.
Utah Territory, the Great Desert of, 455.
Utah Territory, the Indian bureau of, 476.
Utah Territory, the past of Mormonland, 288.
Utah Territory, United States officials in, 309-10.
Utah Territory, want of timber in, 284-5.
Utah Territory, wild animals of, 279.
Valley Home, in Kansas, 19.
“Valley Tan,” origin of the name, 170, and _note_.
Vegetables grown in Great Salt Lake Valley, 287.
Vegetation at Black Fork, 176, 177-8.
Vegetation at Quaking-Asp Hill, 181.
Vegetation of Big Kanyon, 192, 193.
Vegetation of Big Mountain, 190.
Vegetation of Big Sandy Creek, 167, 169.
Vegetation of Great Cotton-wood Kanyon, 346.
Vegetation of Kansas, 17.
Vegetation of Little Blue River, 31.
Vegetation of the banks of La Grande Platte River, 41, 48, 52, 53.
Vegetation of the valleys of the Black Hills, 134.
Vegetation of the Wind-River Mountains, 163.
Veranda, a model, 53.
Vermilion Creek, 27.
Viburnum dentatum, 119.
Villages, Indian, 86.
Violin, Mormon fondness for the, 177.
Waddington, Mr., the Mormon, 463.
Wágáhongopá, or Glistening Gravel Water, 167.
Wagon trains of the Great American Sahara, 22.
Wagons, various uses of the, of the prairies, 71.
Wagons, price of the, called ambulances, 73 _note_.
Wahpekute Indians, habitat of the, 96.
Wahpetonwan Indians, habitat of the, 96.
Wakoes, tents of the, 85.
Walker’s Lake, 274.
Wallace, Mr., at the Bowery, 260.
Walls, the great, of Great Salt Lake City, 197.
Walnut Creek, 21.
Walnut Creek, prairie storm at, 21.
War-parties among the Indians, 143.
War-party, return home of a, 144.
Ward, Mrs. Maria, her work on Mormonism, 206, _note_.
Ward, W.,the Mormon sculptor and apostate, 246.
Wards into which Great Salt Lake City is divided, 217.
Ward’s Station, or the “Central Star,” 91.
Warm Springs, 158.
Warm Springs, barren country beyond, 158.
Warren, Lieutenant Gouverneur K., report of, on Nebraska quoted, 7.
Warriors, Indian, 57.
Wasach Mountains, 189, 195.
Wasach Mountains, eternal snow of the, 323.
Washiki, the Shoshonee chief, 165.
Washington County, Utah Territory, description of, 292, _note_.
Water communication, idea of, between the Missouri and the Columbia
Rivers, 162, 163, _note_.
Water, none in the First Desert, 167.
Water, scarcity of, on the counterslope of the Rocky Mountains, 166.
Water, supply of, in Great Salt Lake City, 216.
Wazikute Indians, 97.
Weapons necessary to the Western traveler, 9.
Weapons of the North American Indians, 57, 119, 120.
Weber River, 182.
Weber River, head and course of the, 188, 325.
Weber River, rain-storms and cold winds of, 188.
Weber River, Station, 188.
Weber River, tributaries of the, 189.
Weber River, valley of the, 188.
Weed-prairie, the, 48.
Wells, General, the Mormon president, account of, 241, 354.
Western man’s home, description of a, 468-9.
Whisky a favorite with the wagon drivers, 24.
Whisky “Valley Tan,” 170.
White-Earth River, or Mankizitah, 72.
White Knife Indians, 481-2.
White Mountains, 450.
“White Savages” of the West, 173, and _note_.
Wichiyela, or First-Nation Indians, 97.
Wigwams, huts, or cabins of the Eastern American Indians, 86, _note_.
Wilderness, the American, 63.
Wilderness, the American, animal life in, 64.
Willow Creek, 161.
Willow Creek, a little war at, 461.
Willow Creek, Canadian settlers at, 161.
Willow Creek, station at, 461.
Willow Island Ranch, 49.
Willow Springs Station, 147.
Willow, the red, the bark of, smoked, 111.
Wind, alternate hot and cold puffs of, in the prairies, 79.
Wind River, fountain-head of the, 162.
Wind River, Mountains, 162, 163, 164.
Wind River, Mountains, evening view of the, 164.
Wind River, Mountains, game in the, 68.
Wind River, Mountains, gold found in the, 165.
Wind River, Mountains, morning in the, 166.
Wind River, Mountains, wild animals of the wooded heights, 165.
Winds, cold, of Weber-River Station, 188.
Wind-storms of the South Pass, 165.
Wind, west, almost invariable at the South Pass, 163.
Winnebagoes, Winnipegs, or Ochangras, Indian tribe of the, 20, _note_.
Winnebagoes, their tents, 86.
Winnipeg Lake, Indians on, 100.
Witchetaws, tents of the, 85.
Wright, Mose, 472-3, 481-2.
Wolves at Rocky Bridge Station, 160, 161.
Wolves, near Black’s Fork, 176.
Wolves, the prairie, 30.
Women, excess of the female over the male population in Utah
Territory, 301.
Women, house of the wives of the Prophet in Great Salt Lake City, 246.
Women, Indian, 59, 106.
Women, Indian names of, 115.
Women, marriage among the North American Indians, 116.
Women, Mormon marriage, 427, 432.
Women, Mormon, their polygamy, 431.
Women, motherhood, how regarded in the Western States, 432.
Women of the Mormons, 228, 430.
Women of the Sioux Indians, 103.
Women, the half-breed, 80.
Women, their separation from the men at meals, 117.
Woodruff, Willford, the Mormon apostle, 242.
Woodruff, Willford, his garden, 360.
Woods, Lake of the, Indians of the, 100.
Woodson, Colonel S. H., his establishment of the mail-coach route
from Missouri to California and Oregon, 4.
Wool-producing country in the basin of the Green River, 284.
Yellow Creek, 183.
Yellow Creek, Hill, 184.
Yellow Stone River, fountain-head of the, 162.
Yoke, the, of the great American Sahara, 23.
Yosemite, or Yohamite Falls, 500.
Young, Brigham, President, extract from one of his sermons, 17,
_note_.
Young, Brigham, address of, at the Conference, 305-6.
Young, Brigham, address of, in the Bowery, 261.
Young, Brigham, alleged personal fear of, 226.
Young, Brigham, character of, 239-245.
Young, Brigham, gardens of, 269.
Young, Brigham, his opinion of woman’s counsel, 207, _note_.
Young, Brigham, house of, 234.
Young, Brigham, mode of life of, 240, 242.
Young, Brigham, nephew of the Prophet, 137.
Young, Brigham, personal appearance of, 238-9.
Young, Brigham, remarks of, on the “Indian Wars,” 243.
Young, Brigham, visit to, 237-8.
Young, Brigham, wealth of, 242.
Young, Brigham, wives and children of, 249.
Yuta Indians, “they who live on mountains,” sign of their tribe, 124,
477.
Yuta Indians, a little war with the, 461.
Yuta Indians, kindness of the Mormons to the, 245.
Yuta Indians, graves of the, 122.
Zizania aquatica, 96, _note_.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Notes
The spelling of the source document (including inconsistent and
unusual spelling, capitalisation, hyphenation, (deliberate)
misspellings, phonetically written speech, etc.) have been retained,
also in proper and geographical names and in literature references,
except as mentioned below. The spelling (including the use of accents
and other diacriticals) of non-English words has not been corrected,
and missing words have not been inserted, except as mentioned below.
Tabulated data and the results of calculations (even when they
obviously contain errors) have been transcribed as printed, except as
listed under Changes.
Depending on the hard- and software used to read this text, and
their settings, not all elements may display as intended; due to
very limited font support the deserét alphabet in particular may
not render properly. Some of the larger elements (such as tables
and illustrations) may be best viewed in a wide window or on a wide
screen.
Page 356, Captain Suter: probably John Augustus Sutter Sr.
Page 362, “We say from the Saxon ...: there is no closing quote mark
in the source document.
Page 413, “his brother Pacumeni was appointed by his successor”:
probably an error for “... as his successor”.
Page 525: Closing quote mark inserted after ... rendered valueless
there in a few days.
Page 561 ff. (Index): some entries are not in alphabetical order;
this has not been corrected.
Page 568, “Mormon, Book of,” 367, _note_: the book has no footnote on
page 367.
Changes:
Footnotes, illustrations, tables, etc. have been moved out of text
paragraphs. Some of the larger tables have been split or otherwise
re-arranged.
Some minor obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected silently. Some minor inconsistencies in the lay-out of the
tables have been standardised silently.
Where relevant, page headers in the source document have been moved to
the start of the paragraph to which they belong, and are given there
[between square brackets]. Where they announce or refer to separate
subjects, such headers have been split.
Some ditto marks („) and abbreviations (do.) have been replaced with
the dittoed text.
Deseret and Deserét have been standardised to Deserét.
Page xv: Illustration numbers have been added to the List of
Illustrations.
Page 215, Footnote 219: “Chestand” changed to “Ehestand”.
Page 228: “ζψον φιλοκοσμον” changed to “ζωον φιλοκοσμον”.
Page 253: הכבז changed to הננו.
Page 368, Footnote 204: “Kisheumen” changed to “Kishkumen”;
“Femnarihah” changed to “Zemnarihah”.
Page 391: “VI.” (second occurrence) changed to “VII.”.
Page 430, Footnote 221: “cinque femmes où d’avantage” changed to
“cinque femmes ou d’avantage”.
Page 458: “anti-Columbian immigration” changed to “ante-Columbian
immigration”.
Page 484: “at our instance” changed to “at our insistence”
Page 486: “mummified us as in the Eastern prairies” changed to
“mummified as in the Eastern prairies”.
Page 514, table row Grass in considerable quantity of good character:
“12·19” changed to “121·9”.
Index: some spelling and hyphenation have been adjusted to conform to
those used in the text.
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