Walla River grew in size. Whitman resumed his work among the Indians,
and seemed to win their friendship. There seemed no reason why the
native tribes and their white friends should not live in peace in such
an undeveloped country. After a time, however, fear or greed or false
leaders stirred up certain Indians and sent them on the war-path against
their friends. No one knew the real cause for the outburst, but on
November 29, 1847, a band of the Cayuse crept down on the little cluster
of houses at Wai-i-lat-pui and killed fourteen of the white settlers.
Marcus Whitman was one of the first to fall. He was in his house, with
several Indians as usual in the room with him. One was sitting close to
him, asking for some medicine, when another came up behind and struck
him with a tomahawk. These two then gave the signal, and their allies
in other houses fell upon the white men and women. After the massacre
forty men, women, and children were carried away from the valley by the
Indians, but most of them were later rescued by the Hudson's Bay Company
and sent back to their homes. Other white settlers joined forces and
marched against the treacherous Cayuse, but the latter fled through the
country, scattering into different tribes, and the leaders of the attack
were not captured until nearly two years later.
Daniel Webster had said in the Senate: "What do we want with the vast,
worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of
shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To
what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or these endless
mountain ranges, impenetrable, and covered to their base with eternal
snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of
three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, and uninviting, and not
a harbor on it? What use have we for such a country?" But though many
great statesmen agreed with Webster a simple missionary who had been to
Oregon looked into the future, saw the value of the vast expanse, and
had the courage and determination to ride across the continent for aid,
and then bring back a thousand settlers to help him realize his dream.
Marcus Whitman is one of the noblest examples of that great type of
pioneers who won the western country for the United States.
VII
HOW THE MORMONS CAME TO SETTLE UTAH
In the winter of 1838-39 a large number of people moved into the country
on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the state of Illinois. They
had taken the name of "Latter-Day Saints," but were generally called
Mormons, and were followers of a new religion that had been founded by
a man named Joseph Smith a few years earlier. This strange new religion
had attracted many people to it, and the greater number of them had
first moved to Ohio, and then into the new state of Missouri, but they
were not well received by the people of either of those states, and had
finally been driven from Missouri at the point of the sword. Fortunately
for them there was plenty of unoccupied land in the West, and their
leader decided to take refuge near the town of Quincy in Illinois. At
that time a man had only to reside in the state for six months in order
to cast a vote for president, and as an election was near at hand the
politicians of Illinois were glad to welcome the Mormons. Looking about,
the newcomers found two "paper" cities, or places that had been mapped
out on paper with streets and houses, but had never actually been
built. The Mormon leaders bought two large farms in the "paper" town of
Commerce, and many thousand acres in the country adjoining, and there
they laid out their new city, to which they gave the strange name of
Nauvoo.
The Mormon city lay along the Mississippi River, and its streets and
public buildings were planned on a large scale. People flocked to the
place, and as the Mormon missionaries were eager workers the number of
converts grew rapidly. A temple was built, which a stranger who saw
it in 1843 said was the wonder of the world. Many Mormon emigrants
came from England, usually by ship to New Orleans, and thence by river
steamboat up the Mississippi to Nauvoo. By the end of 1844 at least
fifteen thousand people had settled there, and as many more were
scattered through the country in the immediate neighborhood. Nauvoo was
the largest city in Illinois, and its only rival in that part of the
West was St. Louis. Joseph Smith had obtained a charter, and both the
political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats, were doing their best to
make friends of his people. Nauvoo had little of the rough look of most
newly-settled frontier towns, and handsome houses and public buildings
sprang up rapidly along its fine wide streets.
[Illustration: NAUVOO HAD HANDSOME HOUSES AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS]
Unfortunately for the Mormons their leader was a man who made enemies as
easily as he made friends. He had aroused much ill feeling when he lived
in Missouri. As a result, when, one day in May, 1842, Governor Boggs
of Missouri was shot and seriously wounded while sitting at the window
of his home, many people laid the crime to Smith or his followers, and
believed that the prophet himself, as Smith was called, had ordered the
shooting. The officers of Missouri asked the governor of Illinois to
hand Smith over to them. This was not done, and consequently ill feeling
against the prophet grew stronger. In the meantime a man named John C.
Bennett, who had joined the Mormons at Nauvoo, and had been the first
mayor of the city, deserted the church, and turned into one of the most
bitter of its enemies. He denounced the Mormons in letters he wrote to
the newspapers, and exposed what he called their secrets. This led other
people to attack the ideas of the Mormons, and it was not long before
there was almost as much dislike of them in Illinois as there had been
in Missouri.
Even in the Mormon church itself there were men who would not agree
with all the prophet Joseph Smith said. A few of these men set up a
printing-press and published a paper that they called the _Nauvoo
Expositor_. Only one issue of this sheet appeared, dated June 7, 1844.
That was enough, however, to raise the wrath of Joseph Smith and his
elders, and they ordered the city marshal to destroy the press. The
marshal broke the press and type in the main street of the city, and
burned the contents of the newspaper office.
The editors hastily fled to the neighboring town of Carthage. The
people there and in all the neighboring villages denounced the
destruction of the press, and declared that the time had come to force
the Mormons to obey the laws, and, if they would not do so, to drive
them out of Illinois. Military companies were formed, cannon were sent
for, and the governor of the state was asked to call out the militia.
The governor went to the scene of the trouble to investigate. He found
all that part of the east shore of the Mississippi divided between
the Mormons and their enemies. He ordered the mayor of Nauvoo to send
Mormons to him to explain why they had destroyed the printing-press, and
when he had heard their story the governor told them that Smith and his
elders must surrender to him, or the whole military force of the state
would be called out to capture them. But the prophet had not been idle.
He had put his city under martial law, had formed what was called the
Legion of the Mormons, and had called in his followers from the near-by
villages. He had meant to defend his new city; but when he heard the
governor's threat to arrest him, he left Nauvoo with a few comrades and
started for the Rocky Mountains. Friends went after him, and begged
him not to desert his people. He could not resist their appeal to him
to return, and he went back, although he was afraid of the temper of
his enemies. As soon as he returned to Illinois he was arrested on the
charge of treason and of putting Nauvoo under martial law, and together
with his brother Hyrum was sent to the jail at Carthage.
Some seventeen hundred men, members of the militia, had gathered at the
towns of Carthage and Warsaw, and the enemies of the Mormons urged the
governor to march at the head of these troops to Nauvoo. He knew that
in the excited state of affairs there was danger that if these troops
entered the city they might set it on fire and destroy much property.
He therefore ordered all except three companies to disband; with one
company he set out to visit the Mormon city, and the other two companies
he left to guard the jail at Carthage.
The governor marched to Nauvoo, spoke to the citizens, and, having
assured them that he meant no harm to their church, left about sundown
on his road back to Carthage. In the meantime, however, events had been
happening in the latter place that were to affect the whole history of
the Mormons.
The two Smiths, Joseph and Hyrum, with two friends, Willard Richards and
John Taylor, were sitting in a large room in the Carthage jail when a
number of men, their faces blackened in disguise, came running up the
stairway. The door of the room had no lock or bolt, and, as the men
inside feared some attack, Hyrum Smith and Richards leaped to the door
and shutting it stood with their shoulders against it. The men outside
could not force the door open, and began to shoot through it. The two
men at the door were driven back, and on the second volley of shot
Hyrum Smith was killed. As his brother fell the prophet seized a six
shooting revolver that one of their visitors had left on the table, and
going to the door opened it a few inches. He snapped each barrel at the
men on the stair; three barrels missed fire, but each of the three that
exploded wounded a man. As the prophet fired Taylor and Richards stood
close beside him, each armed with a hickory cane. When Joseph Smith
stopped shooting the enemy fired another volley into the room. Taylor
tried to strike down some of the guns that were leveled through the
broken door.
"That's right, Brother Taylor, parry them off as well as you can!"
cried Joseph Smith. He ran to the window, intending to leap out, but as
he jumped two bullets fired through the doorway struck him, and also
another aimed from outside the building. As soon as the mob saw that the
prophet was killed they scattered, alarmed at what had been done.
The people of Carthage and the neighboring country expected that the
Legion of the Mormons would immediately march on them and destroy them.
Families fled in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. Most of the people
of the near-by town of Warsaw crossed the Mississippi in order to put
the river between them and their enemies. In this state of excitement
the governor did not know which party to trust, so he rode to the town
of Quincy, forty miles away, and at a safe distance from the scene of
trouble. But the Mormons made no attempt to avenge the death of their
leader; they intended to let the law look after that.
Week by week, however, it grew harder for them to live on friendly terms
with the other people of Western Illinois, and more and more troubles
arose to sow distrust. The Gentiles, as those who were not Mormons were
called, began to charge the Mormons with stealing their horses and
cattle, and the state repealed the charter that had been granted to the
city of Nauvoo.
During that summer of 1845, the troubles of Nauvoo's people increased.
One night in September a meeting of Gentiles at the town of Green Plains
was fired on, and many laid the attack to the Mormons. Whether this was
true or not, their enemies gathered in force and scoured the country,
burning the houses, barns, and crops of the Latter-Day Saints, and
driving them from the country behind the walls of Nauvoo. From their
city streets the saints rode out to pay their enemies in kind, and so
the warfare went on until the governor appointed officers to try to
settle the feud. The people, however, wanted the matter settled in only
one way. They insisted that the Mormons must leave Illinois. In reply
word came from Nauvoo that the Saints would go in the spring, provided
that they were not molested, and that the Gentiles would help them
to sell or rent their houses and farms, and give them oxen, horses,
wagons, dry-goods, and cash in exchange for their property. The Gentile
neighbors would not promise to buy the goods the Mormons had for sale,
but promised not to interfere with their selling whatever they could. At
last the trouble seemed settled. Brigham Young, the new leader of the
Mormons, said that the whole church would start for some place beyond
the Rocky Mountains in the spring, if they could sell enough goods to
make the journey there. So the people of Nauvoo prepared to abandon the
buildings of their new flourishing city on the Mississippi, and spent
the winter trading their houses for flour, sugar, seeds, tents, wagons,
horses, cattle, and whatever else might be needed for the long trip
across the plains.
The Mormons now looked forward eagerly to their march to a new home,
and many of them traveled through the near-by states, buying horses and
mules, and more went to the large towns in the neighborhood to work
as laborers and so add to the funds for their journey. The leaders
announced that a company of young men would start west in March, and
choose a good situation for their new city. There they would build
houses, and plant crops which should be ready when the rest of the
Mormons arrived. But they knew there was always a chance that the people
of the country would attack them, and therefore they sent messengers to
the governors of the territories they would cross, asking for protection
on the march. On February 10th Brigham Young and a few other men crossed
the Mississippi and selected a spot on Sugar Creek as the first camp
for the people who were to follow. Young and the twelve elders of the
Mormons traveled together, and wherever their camp was pitched that
place was given the name of "Camp of Israel."
The emigrants had a test of hardship even when they first moved across
the Mississippi. The temperature dropped to twenty degrees below zero,
and the canvas-covered wagons and tents were a poor shelter from the
snow-storms for women and children who had been used to the comforts
of a large town. Many crossed the Mississippi on ice. When they were
gathered on Sugar Creek Brigham Young spoke to them from a wagon. He
told them of the perils of the journey, and then called for a show of
hands by those who were willing to start upon it; every hand was raised.
On March 1st the camp was broken up, and the long western march began.
The Mormons were divided into companies of fifty or sixty wagons, and
every night the cattle were carefully rounded up and guards set to
protect them from attack. From time to time they built more elaborate
camps, and men were left in charge to plant grain, build log cabins,
dig wells, and fence the farms, in order that they might give food and
shelter to other Mormons who would be making the journey later. The
weather was all against their progress. Until May it was bitter cold,
and there were heavy snow-storms, constant rains, sleet, and thick mud
to be fought with, but like many other bands of American pioneers the
Mormons pushed resolutely on, some days marching one mile, some days
six, until May 16th, when they reached a charming spot on a branch of
the Grand River, and built a camp that they called "Mount Pisgah." Here
they plowed and planted several acres of land. While this camp was being
pitched, Brigham Young and some of the other leaders went on to Council
Bluffs and at a place north of Omaha, now the town of Florence, located
the last permanent camp of the expedition.
The trail of the Mormons now stretched across all the western country.
At each of the camps men, women, and children were living, resting and
preparing supplies to cover the next stage of their journey. But in
spite of the care with which the march was planned those who left Nauvoo
last suffered the most. There was a great deal of sickness among them,
and owing to illness they were often forced to stop for several days at
some unprotected point on the prairies. Twelve thousand people in all
shared that Mormon march.
The Gentiles in Illinois did not think that the Mormons were leaving
Nauvoo as rapidly as they should. Every week from two to five hundred
Mormon teams crossed the ferry into Iowa, but the neighbors thought that
many meant to stay. Ill feeling against them grew, and a meeting at
Carthage called on people to arm and drive out all Mormons who remained
by mid-June. Six hundred men armed, ready to march against Nauvoo.
When the Mormons first announced that they meant to leave their
prosperous city in Illinois men came hurrying from other parts of the
country to pick up bargains in houses and farms that they thought they
would find there. Many of these new citizens were as much alarmed at the
threats of the neighbors as were the Mormons themselves; some of them
armed, and asked the governor to send them aid. The men at Carthage grew
very much excited, and started to march on Nauvoo. Word came, however,
that the sheriff, with five hundred men, had entered the city, prepared
to defend it, and the Gentile army retreated. A few weeks afterward the
hostilities broke out again, and seven hundred men with cannon took the
road to the city.
Those of the Mormons who were left, a few hundreds in number, had built
rude breastworks for protection; some of the Gentile army took these,
and the rest marched through the corn fields, and entered the city on
another side. A battle followed between the Gentiles in the streets and
the Mormons in their houses, and lasted an hour before the Gentiles
withdrew to their camp in the corn fields.
Peaceful citizens now tried to settle the matter. They arranged that all
the Mormons should leave immediately, and promised to try to protect
them from any further attacks. So matters stood until May 17th, when
the sheriff and his men marched into the city, and found the last of
the Mormons waiting to leave by the ferry. The next day they were told
to go at once, and to make sure that they did bands of armed men went
through the streets, broke into houses, threw what goods were left out
of doors and windows, and actually threatened to shoot the people.
The few remaining Saints, most of them those who had been too ill to
take up the march earlier, were now thoroughly frightened, and before
sundown the last one of them had fled across the Mississippi. A few days
later this last party, six hundred and forty in number, began the long
wearisome journey to the far west, and the empty city of Nauvoo was at
last in the hands of the Gentiles.
The object of the Mormons was to find a place where they might be free
to live according to their own beliefs. So far they had been continually
hunting for what they called their own City of Zion. As they spent that
winter of 1846-47 in their camp near Council Bluffs, they tried to
decide where they would be safest from persecution. The far west had few
settlements as yet, and they were free to take what land they would,
but the Mormons wanted a site on which to lay the foundations of a city
that should one day be rich and prosperous. They decided to send out a
party of explorers, and in April, 1847, one hundred and forty-three men,
under command of Brigham Young, with seventy-three wagons filled with
food and farm tools, left the headquarters to go still farther west.
They journeyed up the north fork of the Platte River, and in the valleys
found great herds of buffaloes, so many in number that they had to
drive them away before the wagons could pass. Each day the bugle woke
the camp about five o'clock in the morning. At seven the journey began.
The wagons were driven two abreast by men armed with muskets. They were
always prepared for attacks from Indians, but in the whole of their long
journey no red men ever disturbed them. Each night the wagons were drawn
up in a half-circle on the river bank, and the cattle driven into this
shelter. At nine the bugle sent them all to bed. So they made their way
over the Uinta range to Emigration Canyon. Down this canyon they moved,
and presently came to a terrace from which they saw wide plains, watered
by broad rivers, and ahead a great lake filled with little islands.
Three days later the company camped on the plain by the bank of one of
the streams, and decided that this should be the site of their new city.
They held a meeting at which they dedicated the land with religious
ceremonies, and at once set to work to lay off fields and start plowing
and planting. Some of them visited the lake, which they called the Great
Salt Lake, and bathed in its buoyant waters. Day by day more of the
pioneers arrived, and by the end of August they had chosen the site of
their great temple, built log cabins and adobe huts, and christened the
place the "City of the Great Salt Lake." This name was later changed to
Salt Lake City.
It took some time for this large body of emigrants to build their
homes. Wood was scarce and had to be hauled over bad roads by teams that
were still worn out by the long march, therefore many built houses of
adobe bricks, and as they did not know how to use this clay the rains
and frost caused many of the walls to crumble, and when snow fell the
people stretched cloths under their roofs to protect themselves from
the dripping bricks. Many families lived for months in their wagons.
They would take the top part from the wheels, and setting it on the
ground, divide it into small bedrooms. The furniture was of the rudest
sort; barrels or chests for tables and chairs, and bunks built into
the side of the house for beds. But at last they were free from their
enemies in this distant country. Men in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois had
hounded them from their settlements, but in this far-off region they
had no neighbors except a few pioneer settlers, and wandering bands of
Indians, who were glad to trade with them. A steady stream of converts
to the Mormon church followed that first trail across the plains. A
missionary sent to England brought many men and women from that country
to the city on the Great Salt Lake. Brigham Young and the other leaders
encouraged their followers above all else to cultivate the land. Most of
the Mormons were farmers, and what shops there were dealt only in the
necessities of life. Food was a matter of the first importance, and they
had to rely entirely upon their own efforts to provide it. Every one was
given a piece of land for his house, and most of them had their own
farms in the outlying country. When they were sure of their food they
began to build their temple and other public buildings, and these, like
their streets, were all planned on the lines of a great future city.
They first called their territory Deseret, but later changed it to the
Indian name of Utah.
Salt Lake City, and the territory of Utah, of which it was the chief
settlement, might have remained for years almost unknown to the rest
of the United States had not gold been discovered in California in the
winter of 1849. The news of untold riches in the land that lay between
Utah and the Pacific Ocean brought thousands of fortune hunters across
the plains, and many of them traveled by way of Salt Lake City. That
rush of men brought trade in its track and served to make the Mormons'
capital well known. The quest for gold opened up the lands along the
Pacific and helped to tie the far west to the rest of the nation. Soon
railroads began to creep into the valleys beyond the Rocky Mountains,
and wherever they have gone they have brought men closer together. But
in Utah the Mormons were the first settlers, and no one could come and
drive them out of their chosen land. At last they had found a city
entirely of their own. They had not been allowed to live in Nauvoo, and
so they built a new capital. Like all founders of new religions the
Mormons had to weather many storms, but after they had passed through
cold, hunger, and hardships of many kinds they came to their promised
land.
Such is the story of the founding of Salt Lake City, the home of the
Mormon people.
VIII
THE GOLDEN DAYS OF 'FORTY-NINE