Memoirs
of
John R. Young
Utah Pioneer
1847
_Written by Himself_
Salt Lake City Utah
The Deseret News
1920
"Words are the soul's ambassadors who go
Abroad, upon her errands to and fro,
They are the chief expounders of the mind,
And correspondence kept 'twixt all mankind."
They place in memory's clasp, truths we have read,
Beautiful words, of both living and dead,
Helping us cherish, and nurse as they grow,
Elysian plants, from thoughts that we sow.
Bringing to memory, and waking to life
The form, and face of a child, or wife,
The choicest treasures to mortals given,
The golden thread that leads to heaven.
O, may the thoughts in this book penned,
Prove sweet, and pure, to kindred and friend,
To a child, or grandchild, as the case may be.
Loyal scions, from the ancestral tree;
Whose pulse will quicken, and brain will throb,
As they view the path the grandsire trod."
_Appreciation_
_With pleasure I express thanks to Professor N. L. Nelson, Historian
Andrew Jenson, Elder Walter J. Lewis, Sister W. Lyle Allred, and to my
son, Newell K. Young, and to you, my many friends, who have given words
of encouragement to_
_THE AUTHOR_
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 1.
Birth.--Childhood Recollections.
CHAPTER 2.
Camp on Sugar Creek.--Brigham's Charge to the Exiles.--Death of a Noble
Woman.--Free from Mobs
CHAPTER 3.
Petition Governors.--William C. Staines.--Captain James Allen
CHAPTER 4.
Thomas L. Kane's Description of the City of Nauvoo, and the Exiled
Mormons
CHAPTER 5.
Daniel H. Wells.--Baptism for the Dead.--Lorenzo D. Young's
Mission.--Wilford Woodruff.--Saved by Prayer
CHAPTER 6.
Brigham's Wise Counsels.--Joseph Toronto.--Joseph Smith, Seer and
Organizer.--Prophecy of August 6, 1842
CHAPTER 7.
A Religious Commonwealth.--General Clark's Degree.--Brigham's Indian
Policy.--Its Peaceable Fruits.--The Glory of the Immigrant's First View
of the Valley
CHAPTER 8.
Mormon Stalwarts.--A War on the Plains.--Death of Celestia
Kimball.--Two Indian Girls Tortured.--Sally's Death.--Ira Eldredge's
Dog and the Wolf.--Delicious Rawhide Soup.--Eat Thistles.--The
Devastating Crickets.--Delivered Wrought by the Sea Gulls
CHAPTER 9.
My First Mission.--Uncle Brigham's Counsel.--Parley P. Pratt, Teacher
and Orator.--My First View of the Ocean.--San Francisco.--Tracting the
City.--Scrap With a Hotel Keeper.--Labor as a Cook in the Home of Mr.
McLean.--The Man who Murdered Parley P. Pratt
CHAPTER 10.
Sail for the Islands.--At Honolulu T Labor in Tin Shop.--My First
Kanaka Meal.--A Home with Kiama.--Attend Native Funeral.--Meet Mr.
Emerson.--Three Days Without Food.--Saved by a Donkey.--Lose my
Eyesight.--Receive a Glorious Vision
CHAPTER 11.
On Oahu Again.--John Hyde's Apostasy.--I Meet Him in the Presbyterian
Church.--At Waiahia
CHAPTER 12.
Hear of Parley P. Pratt's Death.--Buchanan Sends Harney to
Utah.--Letter From Brigham Young
CHAPTER 13.
Praise for the Elders.--Efforts to Bring Two Natives to Utah.--Sail for
Home.--Description of Steerage.--An Earnest Prayer.--Timidity of the
Saints.--Baptize a New Convert at Midnight
CHAPTER 14.
Visit My Cousin.--His Tempting Offer.--Meet the Agents of Mr. Walker,
the noted Filibusterer.--Baptize Mrs. Bradford
CHAPTER 15.
Start for a Thirteen-Hundred-Mile Walk.--Become Indian Scout.--Meet
Jacob Hamblin, the Indian Peacemaker.--Surrounded by Indians.--Shooting
a Dove, Saves our Scalps
CHAPTER 16.
Home Activities.--Counseled not to Study Law.--Called to Uintah and
Dixie
CHAPTER 17.
Miss Carmichael's Parting Words.--San Francisco.--Orson Pratt's
Prophecy.--Sail for Hawaii.--Delivered from the Hands of a Wicked
Man.--Visit Walter M. Gibson.--View Kawaimanu
CHAPTER 18.
Conference at Wailuku.--Return to Honolulu.--Sail for Home.--Man
Overboard
CHAPTER 19.
United Order.--Indian Troubles.--Mission to England
CHAPTER 20.
Transferred to the Bristol Conference.--A Remarkable Woman.--My Views
of Celestial Marriage
CHAPTER 21.
A Visit to Wales.--Mrs. Simon's Good Work.--A Tribute to Joseph
Fielding Smith.--A Letter from my Wife, Albina
CHAPTER 22.
Death of Jehiel McConnell.--A Letter to my Daughter.--Five Thousand
Dollar Reward.--Letter from Apostle Joseph F. Smith
CHAPTER 23.
A Letter to my Son.--An Enquirer Answered.--The Sinking of the
Euridice, Four Hundred Men Perish.--Letters from Home.--Two Splendid
Dreams
CHAPTER 24.
Death of a Lady Apostle Woodruff Baptized in 1840, At
Midnight.--Baptize an Aged Backslider.--A Letter from Apostle Wilford
Woodruff.--Transferred to the London Conference
CHAPTER 25.
Visit London, the Grandest City in the World.--Meet the Claridge
Family, and Leave My Testimony With Them.--Visit Portsmouth and the
Home of Nellie Grant Sardys.--Labor With Elder Connelly.--Rake Hay and
Receive a Gift from an English Lord
CHAPTER 26.
Conditions at Orderville.--Letter to E. M. Webb, on Politics.--Visit
Winchester Cathedral.--Pass Through the Town of London.--Letter from
President William Budge.--Mobbed at Albourne
CHAPTER 27.
Goodbye to England.--A Poem.--The Master's Question
CHAPTER 28.
In memory of My Wife, Albina.--"By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them"
CHAPTER 29.
In Memory of My Wife, Lydia
CHAPTER 30.
In Memory of My Wife, Tamar, and Sacred to My Wife Catherine
APPENDIX--STORIES AND RHYMES.
CHAPTER 31.
Twenty-fourth of July Musings Sent to President Joseph F.
Smith.--Twenty-fourth of July Toast.--Utah.--Thrilling Eruption of
Kilauea
CHAPTER 32.
A Thrilling Experience on the Plains.--The Stampede
CHAPTER 33.
A Squaw Fight
CHAPTER 34.
Crusade Against Plural Marriage
CHAPTER 35.
Salt Lake Valley in 1847.--Utah Pioneers.--A Peaceful Home
CHAPTER 36.
From the Cradle to the Grave.--Lines to Sister M. L.
CHAPTER 37.
The Young Men's Pledge.--Brigham Young's One Hundredth
Birthday.--Mary's Birthday.--Some Things that I Remember
Memoirs of John R. Young.
CHAPTER 1.
Birth.--Childhood Recollections.
I was born April 30, 1837, at Kirtland, Ohio. I am the third son of
Lorenzo Dow and Persis Goodell Young. My parents were early numbered
among the followers of the Prophet Joseph Smith; and my father, being
physically strong and restless, full of spirituality, and endowed
with deep human sympathy, was naturally among the foremost in all the
troubles the Church passed through during the first twenty years of its
existence. He suffered much in the Missouri persecutions, being one of
those who participated in the Crooked River Battle, and risking his
life to aid in delivering his brethren from the hands of kidnapers. His
heroic part in that fight led to a price being set upon his head; in
consequence, and following the counsel of his brother. Brigham Young,
he, with others, fled to the State of Illinois. Of those early troubles
I write what I have heard my parents and my brothers say; my own memory
reaching no farther back than Nauvoo.
My earliest recollection is of suffering with the chills. How cold I
would be! We must have been poor, for the food did not suit me. It
rained so much I had to stay indoors, although I cried to go out.
One day father took me for a walk, to give me air and sunshine. We met
Joseph and Hyrum Smith and Sidney Rigdon. Father shook hands warmly
with Joseph and Hyrum, but he merely bowed to Brother Rigdon. Joseph
asked if I was the child father had requested the elders to pray for.
Being answered in the affirmative, the prophet removed my hat, ran his
fingers through my curly locks, and said,
"Brother Lorenzo, this boy will live to aid in carrying the Gospel to
the nations of the earth."
His words thrilled me like fire; and from that hour I looked forward to
the day when I should be a missionary.
Not long after that, Joseph was martyred at Carthage. I remember how
my mother wept, and how shocked and prostrated everybody was, when the
bloodstained bodies of the Prophet and his brother were brought home.
Father was away doing missionary work when that fearful tragedy took
place. A little later, while attending meetings, I noticed that Uncle
Brigham sat in the place where Joseph was wont to sit, and one evening,
after father's return from Ohio, I heard him say, "They will now seek
for Brigham's life as they did for Joseph's, just so long as he proves
true to the trust God has placed upon him."
I wondered why that should be. If a man does good, and God loves
him, why should men hate him? Yet the angel Moroni understood that
principle, for he said to the boy Joseph, "Your name shall be had
for good and evil, among all the nations of the earth"--a wonderful
prophecy, and wonderfully fulfilled.
And right here we have a vivid illustration of the operation of
prejudice or jealousy, so called. In 1839, the Saints, under the
guidance of their Prophet leader, came to Commerce, Ill., and purchased
a tract of land, principally wild woods and swamps, and on that
account, very unhealthful. In five years' time, without capital, by
faith and intelligent labor, the swamps had been drained, much of the
forest removed, and a thousand comfortable homes had been erected. The
walls of a magnificent temple adorned the central part of the new-born
city; and the master spirits, who brought about the mighty change, were
loved, as men are seldom loved, by the builders of those happy homes.
But the dwellers round about were filled with jealousy and rage; and,
aided by a few apostate members of the Church, waged a cruel war, until
Joseph and Hyrum were slain, and the Saints were driven from the homes
their industry had created.
In 1904 my home was at Fruitland, New Mexico.
One day Mr. Butler, editor of the "Aztec Enterprise," invited me to
write for his paper my recollections of our people's leaving Nauvoo. I
complied, and from memory wrote the following narrative which I wish to
place on record as a gift to my children:
How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood;
How I love to cherish, and con them o'er,
The cottage, the Temple, the river and wildwood!
All sweetly remembered, though seen no more.
With malice to none,
With charity to all."
I turn the wheels of memory back to the home of my childhood. Of this
terrible episode in the history of our people, others have written
better than I can hope to write; nevertheless, through the eyes of a
boy of nine, let me look out once more upon the tragic fate of Nauvoo,
the city beautiful.
It is the month of February, 1846. The sun is shining brightly, yet the
air is keen and cutting. The wheels ring as we drive over the frozen
snow. In our home since early morning, all has been hurry and bustle;
two wagons stand in our front yard, and my father with two other men,
strangers to me, are carrying out our household goods. My mother looks
pale, and when I ask her, "What is the matter?" she takes me in her
arms, kisses me, and says, "We are going to leave our home, and will
never see it again!"
Just then some other teams come along, and one of the brethren calls
to my father to be sure to put out the fire, and to hurry up, for it
is getting late. In a few minutes mother and the children are lifted
tenderly into the wagon. Father next takes his place on the front seat,
turns his face to the west, and his back upon the home, which it had
taken seven years of sacrifice and toil to build.
At the river are three flat boats, or scows. Here and there on the
banks of the river stand pale-faced mothers cuddling their little ones,
while husbands and fathers quietly, yet resolutely, roll the wagons on
to the boats, then with long poles push from the shore out upon the
bosom of the mighty river. No farewells are uttered, no words spoken.
Each man knows his duty, and performs it energetically; for they are
not hirelings, these men of stout hearts and muscular arms. Nor is it a
light task to guide those unwieldly scows through drifting ice, across
that mile-wide river.
Today, as I recall the scene, and remember the names of some of
those heroic exiles: Edwin Little, Thomas Grover, Warren Snow,
William and Lige Potter, Charles Shumway, and many others whose lives
are interwoven with whatever is great and enduring in our beloved
commonwealth, I cannot but liken them to the brave men who faced ice
and cold on Christmas night when the invincible Washington led them
across the Delaware to do battle with their country's foes.
Like these, and also inspired with a new and higher ideal of liberty,
our fathers and mothers knew no fear, but trusting in God they crossed
the river to the dark beyond, knowing that a conflict awaited them,
yet feeling beforehand as only a virile faith can make man feel, that
theirs would be the victory, they left their homes in the dead of
winter, seeking a better home, but when or where, they knew not!