With the arrival of the later companies from Winter Quarters the
population of the city was increased by the winter of 1848 to about five
thousand, or more than one-quarter of those who went out from Nauvoo.
The settlers then had three sawmills, one flouring mill, and a threshing
machine run by water, another sawmill and flour mill nearly completed,
and several mills under way for the manufacture of sugar from corn
stalks.
Brigham Young, again on the ground, took the lead at once in pushing
on the work. To save fencing, material for which was hard to obtain, a
tract of eight thousand acres was set apart and fenced for the common
use, within which farmhouses could be built. The plan adopted for
fencing in the city itself was to enclose each ward separately, every
lot owner building his share. A stone council house, forty-five
feet square, was begun, the labor counting as a part of the tithe;
unappropriated city lots were distributed among the new-comers by a
system of drawing, and the building of houses went briskly on, the
officers of the church sharing in the labor. A number of bridges were
also provided, a tax of one per cent being levied to pay for them.
Among the incidents of the winter mentioned in an epistle of the First
Presidency was the establishment of schools in the different wards,
in which, it was stated, "the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, German,
Tahitian and English languages have been taught successfully"; and the
organization of a temporary local government, and of a Stake of Zion,
with Daniel Spencer as president. It was early the policy of the church
to carry on an extended system of public works, including manufacturing
enterprises. The assisted immigrants were expected to repay by work
on these buildings the advance made to them to cover their travelling
expenses. Young saw at once the advantage of starting branches of
manufacture, both to make his people independent of a distant supply and
to give employment to the population. Writing to Orson Pratt on October
14, 1849, when Pratt was in England, he said that they would have the
material for cotton and woollen factories ready by the time men and
machinery were prepared to handle it, and urged him to send on cotton
operatives and "all the necessary fixtures." The third General Epistle
spoke of the need of furnaces and forges, and Orson Pratt, in an address
to the Saints in Great Britain, dated July 2, 1850, urged the officers
of companies "to seek diligently in every branch for wise, skilful and
ingenious mechanics, manufacturers, potters, etc."*
* The General Epistle of April, 1852, announced two potteries in
operation, a small woollen factory begun, a nail factory, wooden bowl
factory, and many grist and saw mills. The General Epistle of October,
1855, enumerated, as among the established industries, a foundery, a
cutlery shop, and manufactories of locks, cloth, leather, hats, cordage,
brushes, soap, paper, combs, and cutlery.
The General Conference of October, 1849, ordered one man to build
a glass factory in the valley, and voted to organize a company to
transport passengers and freight between the Missouri River and
California, directing that settlements be established along the route.
This company was called the Great Salt Lake Valley Carrying Company. Its
prospectus in the Frontier Guardian in December, 1849, stated that the
fare from Kanesville to Sutter's Fort, California, would be $300, and
the freight rate to Great Salt Lake City $12.50 per hundredweight, the
passenger wagons to be drawn by four horses or mules, and the freight
wagons by oxen.
But the work of making the new Mormon home a business and manufacturing
success did not meet with rapid encouragement. Where settlements
were made outside of Salt Lake City, the people were not scattered in
farmhouses over the country, but lived in what they called "forts,"
squalid looking settlements, laid out in a square and defended by a dirt
or adobe wall. The inhabitants of these settlements had to depend on the
soil for their subsistence, and such necessary workmen as carpenters and
shoemakers plied their trade as they could find leisure after working in
the fields. When Johnston's army entered the valley in 1858, the largest
attempt at manufacturing that had been undertaken there--a beet sugar
factory, toward which English capitalists had contributed more
than $100,000--had already proved a failure. There were tanneries,
distilleries, and breweries in operation, a few rifles and revolvers
were made from iron supplied by wagon tires, and in the larger
settlements a few good mechanics were kept busy. But if no outside
influences had contributed to the prosperity of the valley, and hastened
the day when it secured railroad communication, the future of the people
whom Young gathered in Utah would have been very different.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune, on his way to California,
writing on July 8, 1849, thus described Salt Lake City as it presented
itself to him at that time:--"There are no hotels, because there had
been no travel; no barber shops, because every one chose to shave
himself and no one had time to shave his neighbor; no stores, because
they had no goods to sell nor time to traffic; no center of business,
because all were too busy to make a center. There was abundance of
mechanics' shops, of dressmakers, milliners and tailors, etc., but they
needed no sign, nor had they any time to paint or erect one, for they
were crowded with business. Besides their several trades, all must
cultivate the land or die; for the country was new, and no cultivation
but their own within 1000 miles. Everyone had his lot and built on it;
every one cultivated it, and perhaps a small farm in the distance. And
the strangest of all was that this great city, extending over several
square miles, had been erected, and every house and fence made, within
nine or ten months of our arrival; while at the same time good bridges
were erected over the principal streams, and the country settlements
extended nearly 100 miles up and down the valley."*
* New York Tribune, October 9, 1849.
The winter of 1848 set in early and severe, with frequent snowstorms
from December 1 until late in February, and the temperature dropping one
degree below zero as late as February 5. The deep snow in the canyons,
the only outlets through the mountains, rendered it difficult to bring
in fuel, and the suffering from the cold was terrible, as many families
had arrived too late to provide themselves with any shelter but their
prairie wagons. The apprehended scarcity of food, too, was realized.
Early in February an inventory of the breadstuffs in the valley, taken
by the Bishops, showed only three-quarters of a pound a day per head
until July 5, although it was believed that many had concealed stores
on hand. When the first General Epistle of the First Presidency was sent
out from Salt Lake City in the spring of 1849,* corn, which had sold for
$2 and $3 a bushel, was not to be had, wheat had ranged from $4 to $5 a
bushel, and potatoes from $6 to $20, with none then in market.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227.
The people generally exerted themselves to obtain food for those whose
supplies had been exhausted, but the situation became desperate before
the snow melted. Three attempts to reach Fort Bridger failed because of
the depth of snow in the canyons. There is a record of a winter hunt of
two rival parties of 100 men each, but they killed "varmints" rather
than game, the list including 700 wolves and foxes, 20 minks and skunks,
500 hawks, owls and magpies, and 1000 ravens.* Some of the Mormons, with
the aid of Indian guides, dug roots that the savages had learned to eat,
and some removed the hide roofs from their cabins and stewed them for
food. The lack of breadstuffs continued until well into the summer, and
the celebration of the anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers in the
valley, which had been planned for July 4, was postponed until the 24th,
as Young explained in his address, "that we might have a little bread to
set on our tables."
* General Epistle, Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227.
Word was now sent to the states and to Europe that no more of the
brethren should make the trip to the valley at that time unless they had
means to get through without assistance, and could bring breadstuffs to
last them several months after their arrival.
But something now occurred which turned the eyes of a large part of the
world to that new acquisition of the United States on the Pacific coast
which was called California, which made the Mormon settlement in Utah
a way station for thousands of travellers where a dozen would not have
passed it without the new incentive, and which brought to the Mormon
settlers, almost at their own prices, supplies of which they were
desperately in need, and which they could not otherwise have obtained.
This something was the discovery of gold in California.
When the news of this discovery reached the Atlantic states and those
farther west, men simply calculated by what route they could most
quickly reach the new El Dorado, and the first companies of miners who
travelled across the plains sacrificed everything for speed. The first
rush passed through Salt Lake Valley in August, 1849. Some of the
Mormons who had reached California with Brannan's company had by that
time arrived in the valley, bringing with them a few bags of gold dust.
When the would-be miners from the East saw this proof of the existence
of gold in the country ahead of them, their enthusiasm knew no limits,
and their one wish was to lighten themselves so that they could reach
the gold-fields in the shortest time possible. Then the harvest of the
Mormons began. Pack mules and horses that had been worth only $25 or $30
would now bring $200 in exchange for other articles at a low price, and
the travellers were auctioning off their surplus supplies every day. For
a light wagon they did not hesitate to offer three or four heavy
ones, with a yoke of oxen sometimes thrown in. Such needed supplies as
domestic sheetings could be had at from five to ten cents a yard, spades
and shovels, with which the miners were overstocked, at fifty cents
each, and nearly everything in their outfit, except sugar and coffee, at
half the price that would have been charged at wholesale in the Eastern
states.*
* Salt Lake City letter to the Frontier Guardian.
The commercial profit to the Mormons from this emigration was greater
still in 1850, when the rush had increased. Before the grain of that
summer was cut, the gold seekers paid $1 a pound for flour in Salt Lake
City. After the new grain was harvested they eagerly bought the flour
as fast as five mills could grind it, at $25 per hundredweight. Unground
wheat sold for $8 a bushel, wood for $10 a cord, adobe bricks for more
than seven shillings a hundred, and skilled mechanics were getting
twelve shillings and sixpence a day.* At the same time that the
emigrants were paying so well for what they absolutely required, they
were sacrificing large supplies of what they did not need on almost any
terms. Some of them had started across the plains with heavy loads of
machinery and miscellaneous goods, on which they expected to reap a big
profit in California. Learning, however, when they reached Salt Lake
City, that ship-loads of such merchandise were on their way around the
Horn, the owners sacrificed their stock where it was, and hurried on to
get their share of the gold.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 350.
This is not the place in which to tell the story of that rush of the
gold seekers. The clerk at Fort Laramie reported, "The total number of
emigrants who passed this post up to June 10, 1850, included 16,915 men,
235 women, 242 children, 4672 wagons, 14,974 horses, 4641 mules, 7475
oxen, and 1653 cows." A letter from Sacramento dated September 10, 1850,
gave this picture of the trail left by these travellers: "Many believed
there are dead animals enough on the desert (of 45 miles) between
Humboldt Lake and Carson River to pave a road the whole distance. We
will make a moderate estimate and say there is a dead animal to every
five feet, left on the desert this season. I counted 153 wagons within
a mile and a half. Not half of those left were to be seen, many having
been burned to make lights in the night. The desert is strewn with all
kinds of property--tools, clothes, crockery, harnesses, etc."
Naturally, in this rush for sudden riches, many a Mormon had a desire
to join. A dozen families left Utah for California early in 1849, and
in March, 1851, a company of more than five hundred assembled in Payson,
preparatory to making the trip. Here was an unexpected danger to the
growth of the Mormon population, and one which the head of the church
did not delay in checking. The second General Epistle, dated October 12,
1849,* stated that the valley of the Sacramento was unhealthy, and that
the Saints could do better raising grain in Utah, adding, "The true
use of gold is for paving streets, covering houses, and making culinary
dishes, and when the Saints shall have preached the Gospel, raised
grain, and built up cities enough, the Lord will open up the way for a
supply of gold, to the perfect satisfaction of his people."
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 119.
Notwithstanding this advice, a good many Mormons acted on the idea that
the Lord would help those who helped themselves, and that if they
were to have golden culinary dishes they must go and dig the gold.
Accordingly, we find the third General Epistle, dated April 12, 1850,
acknowledging that many brethren had gone to the gold mines, but
declaring that they were counselled only "by their own wills and
covetous feelings," and that they would have done more good by staying
in the valley. Young did not, however, stop with a mere rebuke. He
proposed to check the exodus. "Let such men," the Epistle added,
"remember that they are not wanted in our midst. Let such leave their
carcasses where they do their work; we want not our burial grounds
polluted with such hypocrites." Young was quite as plain spoken in his
remarks to the General Conference that spring, naming as those who "will
go down to hell, poverty-stricken and naked," the Mormons who felt that
they were so poor that they would have to go to the gold mines.*
Such talk had its effect, and Salt Lake Valley retained most of its
population.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 274,
The progress of the settlement received a serious check some years later
in the failure of the crops in 1855, followed by a near approach to a
famine in the ensuing winter. Very little reference to this was made in
the official church correspondence, but a picture of the situation
in Salt Lake City that winter was drawn in two letters from Heber C.
Kimball to his sons in England.* In the first, written in February, he
said that his family and Brigham Young's were then on a ration of half
a pound of bread each per day, and that thousands had scarcely any
breadstuff at all. Kimball's family of one hundred persons then had on
hand about seventy bushels of potatoes and a few beets and carrots,
"so you can judge," he says, "whether we can get through until harvest
without digging roots." There were then not more than five hundred
bushels of grain in the tithing office, and all public work was stopped
until the next harvest, and all mechanics were advised to drop their
tools and to set about raising grain. "There is not a settlement in the
territory," said the writer, "but is also in the same fix as we are.
Dollars and cents do not count in these times, for they are the tightest
I have ever seen in the territory of Utah." In April he wrote: "I
suppose one-half the church stock is dead. There are not more than
one-half the people that have bread, and they have not more than
one-half or one quarter of a pound a day to a person. A great portion
of the people are digging roots, and hundreds and thousands, their teams
being dead, are under the necessity of spading their ground to put
in their grain." The harvest of 1856 also suffered from drought and
insects, and the Deseret News that summer declared that "the most rigid
economy and untiring, well-directed industry may enable us to escape
starvation until a harvest in 1857, and until the lapse of another year
emigrants and others will run great risks of starving unless they bring
their supplies with them." The first load of barley brought into Salt
Lake City that summer sold for $2 a bushel.
* Ibid., Vol. XVIII, pp. 395-476.
The first building erected in Salt Lake City in which to hold church
services was called a tabernacle. It was begun in 1851, and was
consecrated on April 6, 1852. It stood in Temple block, where the
Assembly Hall now stands, measuring about 60 by 120 feet, and providing
accommodation for 2500 people. The present Tabernacle, in which the
public church services are held, was completed in 1870. It stands just
west of the Temple, is elliptical in shape, and, with its broad gallery
running around the entire interior, except the end occupied by the organ
loft and pulpit, it can seat about 9000 persons. Its acoustic properties
are remarkable, and one of the duties of any guide who exhibits the
auditorium to visitors is to station them at the end of the gallery
opposite the pulpit, and to drop a pin on the floor to show them how
distinctly that sound can be heard.
The Temple in Salt Lake City was begun in April, 1853, and was not
dedicated until April, 1893. This building is devoted to the secret
ceremonies of the church, and no Gentile is ever admitted to it.
The building, of granite taken from the near-by mountains, is
architecturally imposing, measuring 200 by 100 feet. Its cost is
admitted to have been about $4,000,000. The building could probably
be duplicated to-day for one-half that sum. The excuse given by church
authorities for the excessive cost is that, during the early years of
the work upon it, the granite had to be hauled from the mountains by ox
teams, and that everything in the way of building material was expensive
in Utah when the church there was young. The interior is divided into
different rooms, in which such ceremonies as the baptism for the dead
are performed; the baptismal font is copied after the one that was in
the Temple at Nauvoo.
There are three other temples in Utah, all of which were completed
before the one in Salt Lake City, namely, at St. George, at Logan, and
at Manti.