Start for a Thirteen-Hundred-Mile Walk.--Become Indian Scout--Meet
Jacob Hamblin, the Indian Peacemaker.--Surrounded by Forty Indian
Warriors.--Shooting a Dove Saves our Scalps.
By the first of March forty persons had gathered at the Redwoods, 40
miles south of San Francisco, prepared to go to Utah. We organized a
company by appointing Eli Whipple, captain; Sextus E. Johnson, sergeant
of the guard; John R. Young, chaplain; and Elemuel Sawtell, clerk.
Brother Whipple furnished the provisions, and hauled the blankets
for the returning elders, thirteen in number; and with hearts full
of hope and joy we started out for a walk of thirteen hundred miles.
Before setting out, Joseph A. Kelting and I went to San Francisco and
purchased thirty-five rifles and one hundred pounds of powder.
At the start grass was short, and teams were heavily loaded, so we
traveled slowly. By the middle of April, it was evident that our
provisions would not last us through. Our meat was nearly gone, and I
began to urge the brethren to lie over a day and hunt. However, as we
saw but little game, and killed none, there was no spirit for hunting.
On the 20th of April we camped at Elizabeth's Lake. After evening camp
prayers, I talked and prophesied that if we would lie over, and go
out to hunt, we should kill all the meat we should want. The company
consented; and the next morning at daybreak thirteen of us started out.
I was the odd man, and went alone.
I had walked about a mile when I saw nine deer standing across a
hollow. I fired and killed a large buck. That commenced the ball.
William King killed three without moving out of his tracks. By noon we
had in all, twenty-two deer. We lay by and jerked the meat. Needless to
say, we had plenty to last us the rest of the journey.
At Stony Creek, Mr. Cooper and party from New York, overtook us. My
services were secured to pilot them to Salt Lake City. So bidding
goodbye to my fellow missionaries, who were very dear to me, and to the
Saints that composed our little company, I mounted a mule and struck
the trail for home.
On the Mohave, having struck the Mormon road leading from Salt Lake
to San Bernardino, we saw Indian signs. The redskins approached our
camp at night, but kept out of sight in the day time. That looked
unfriendly. At the lower crossing of the Mohave we picketed our animals
close around our wagon.
At three o'clock in the morning, they stampeded, and all got away but
one. I mounted bareback, without stopping to dress, and soon overtook
the frightened animals, and making a wide circuit, brought them safely
to camp.
At the Vegas Springs T met for the first time, that renowned Indian
peacemaker, Jacob Hamblin, and learned from him the history of the
Mountain Meadows Massacre. He said the Indians were still hostile, and
thirsting for more blood. On the Muddy, a small stream of that region,
we found living in a wagon-bed, turned bottom-side up for a shield
from heat and sand, Ira Hatch and Thales Haskell, strong men, giving
the better part of their lives to missionary work among the Indians--a
labor that brought them neither pleasure nor wealth.
Taking their advice, we rested a day, purposing to make rapid drives
from there to the settlements. On the 13th of May we nooned at the
Beaver Dams, rested until night, then drove to the Clara Mountains,
made a dry camp, kindling no fire. In the morning we drove to the Cane
Spring for breakfast.
Scarcely had we turned out our horses when we were surrounded by forty
Indian warriors, their faces all blackened. I soon became convinced
that they had been watching for us, and intended to rob, if not kill
us. Many of them had on good broadcloth clothes, which I suppose they
had taken from the people they had murdered at the Mountain Meadows.
Most of them had good guns, and they were very insolent, helping
themselves to whatever they wanted.
A few minutes after they came, a mourning dove alighted on a willow
at the head of the spring, about twelve rods from our camp. The wind
was blowing hard from the south, waving the willow on which the bird
rested. The Indians commenced shooting at it. With a sudden impulse, I
raised my rifle and fired. If I had had the dove in my hand, I could
not have cut its head off more nicely than I did.
The Indians seemed astonished, and for a short time were quiet. In
our small company--only five of us--was a mountaineer by the name of
Hardin. I felt that he was the only man that could be relied on in case
of trouble. He had loaded a double-barrelled shotgun with navy balls,
and stood leaning by the side of the carriage, the butt of his gun on
the ground, the muzzle resting in his right hand.
Three Indians crawled under the carriage and commenced scuffling.
Instantly one barrel of his gun went off, taking off the upper part of
Hardin's ear, and tearing away the rim of his hat. It knocked him down,
and I thought he was killed. The chief threw the back of his hand to
his mouth and gave the war whoop.
I cocked my gun and put the muzzle against his belly. He stopped
yelling, and Hardin sprang up and attempted to shoot him; but I
interfered, telling the men that our lives depended on our keeping the
chief.
I then spoke in Ute, and ordered the Indians to their camp, but kept
the chief a prisoner. We hitched up, and putting the chief into the
carriage, drove until three o'clock, then rested until dark, when we
hitched up and drove rapidly until midnight. We then camped, tied up,
and stood guard without a fire until morning. After breakfast, we gave
the Indian a shirt and plug of tobacco, and told him to "git."
Years after, I became intimately acquainted with this chief Jackson.
He was a bad man; and while he lived there was no peace with his band.
Without doubt, all that saved our scalps at that time was the fortunate
shot in killing the dove, and the course we pursued in keeping the
chief a prisoner.
After turning the Indian loose, we passed a painfully anxious day; our
animals were so exhausted that we had to take several rests, and were
fearful of being followed by the Indians. Just before night, however,
we had the good fortune to pull into the town of Pinto, the frontier
Mormon settlement.
We were kindly received by the good people of that ward, and after
resting a few days, continued our journey. The monotony of the desert
was now pleasingly changed by the many ranches and busy villages we
passed. At Parowan, two hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, we
encountered a scene that I shall never forget. I remember distinctly,
the "Exodus," as it was called, from Nauvoo, when sixteen thousand
souls left their homes and commenced that marvelous journey of fourteen
hundred miles to the unknown valley of the Salt Lake. But that exodus
was like a small rivulet by the side of a mighty river when compared
with the seventy-five thousand men, women, and children that we now met
in one continuous line of travel.
Horses, oxen, and cows were harnessed or yoked to wagons and carts;
and one family by the name of Syphus, was moving their effects on a
handcart drawn by a pair of yearling steers. Mothers and children
walked along as merrily as if going to a corn husking; each family
moving its little bunch of cows and flock of sheep, and all starting on
the journey (that was never completed) to Sonora, in Mexico, or some
other place.
At times we were compelled to drive our wagon for miles outside the
beaten road, everywhere hearing and seeing evidences that increased my
gentile companions' wonderment of the marvelous power held by Brigham
Young over his people; and added to my curiosity to see the outcome of
Mr. Cooper's colonizing scheme. Surely everything looked favorable for
the promoters of that idea.
At last we reached Provo, where the Church leaders had made their
temporary headquarters. In the evening I visited President Young, and
made known to him the object of Mr. Cooper's visit. Two days later he
gave audience to Messrs. Cooper, Mathewsen, and Hardin. They held a
lengthy conversation, in which Mr. Cooper, in glowing language, told
the Mormon leaders what a splendid opportunity it was for them to lead
their people to Central America, where, he said, they could found an
empire that would crown the stirring life of Brigham Young and his
associates with endless glory.
I can still hear the ringing words of Brigham Young's answer:
"Gentlemen," said he, "God Almighty made these everlasting hills to be
bulwarks of liberty for the oppressed and down-trodden of the earth.
We shall never leave here and go to a country where we should have six
hundred miles of sea coast to defend, and where any nation at their
pleasure could send war ships to bombard our cities. Furthermore,
gentlemen, should the desire ever come, we have hundreds of boys, just
as capable of going to Nicaragua, and of taking possession and holding
it, too, as General Walker of New York. Gentlemen, you have our answer."
On June 23, 1858, my cousin, Brigham Young, Jr., carried me in his
one-horse buggy to Salt Lake City. At Draper I received the kiss of
welcome from my dear sister, Harriet M. Brown, and from my dear aged
mother. At the city I met my father, who, like a lion in his lair, was
watching the coming fate of his deserted home. He and a few fearless,
trusted men had been left behind to see that Johnston's army kept its
pledges not to quarter in the city. Had they broken their pledge the
city would have been burned.
I sat with the guards in the upper room of the Lion House, and saw that
army in death-like silence march through the deserted streets of the
dead city, a few of the officers with uncovered heads, as if attending
a funeral. To us western mountain boys, the solemnity of the march was
oppressive; and glad relief came to our strained feelings, when we saw
the soldiers' camp fires kindled on the "other side of Jordan."