When the Mormons began their departure westward from Nauvoo, the
immigration of converts from Europe was suspended because of the
uncertainty about the location of the next settlement, and the
difficulty of transporting the existing population. But the necessity of
constant additions to the community of new-comers, and especially those
bringing some capital, was never lost sight of by the heads of the
church. An evidence of this was given even before the first company
reached the Missouri River.
While the Saints were marching through Iowa they received intelligence
of a big scandal in connection with the emigration business in England,
and P. P. Pratt, Orson Hyde, and John Taylor were hurriedly sent to that
country to straighten the matter out. The Millennial Star in the early
part of 1846 had frequent articles about the British and American
Commercial Joint Stock Company, an organization incorporated to assist
poor Saints in emigrating. The principal emigration agent in Great
Britain at that time was R. Hedlock. He was the originator of the
Joint Stock Company, and Thomas Ward was its president. The Mormon
investigators found that more than 1644 pounds of the contributions of
the stockholders had been squandered, and that Ward had been lending
Hedlock money with which to pay his personal debts. Ward and Hedlock
were at once disfellowshipped, and contributions to the treasury of
the company were stopped. Pratt says that Hedlock fled when the
investigators arrived, leaving many debts, "and finally lived incog.
in London with a vile woman." Thus it seems that Mormon business
enterprises in England were no freer from scandals than those in
America.
The efforts of the leaders of the church were now exerted to make the
prospects of the Saints in Utah attractive to the converts in England
whom they wished to add to the population of their valley. Young and his
associates seem to have entertained the idea, without reckoning on the
rapid settlement of California, the migration of the "Forty-niners," and
the connection of the two coasts by rail, that they could constitute a
little empire all by itself in Utah, which would be self-supporting as
well as independent, the farmer raising food for the mechanic, and the
mechanic doing the needed work for the farmer. Accordingly, the church
did not stop short of every kind of misrepresentation and deception in
belittling to the foreigners the misfortunes of the past, and picturing
to them the fruitfulness of their new country, and the ease with which
they could become landowners there.
Naturally, after the expulsion from Illinois, in which so many foreign
converts shared, an explanation and palliation of the emigration thence
were necessary. In the United States, then and ever since, the
Mormons pictured themselves as the victims of an almost unprecedented
persecution. But as soon as John Taylor reached England, in 1846, he
issued an address to the Saints in Great Britain* in which he presented
a very different picture. Granting that, on an average, they had not
obtained more than one-third the value of their real and personal
property when they left Illinois, he explained that, when they settled
there, land in Nauvoo was worth only from $3 to $20 per acre, while,
when they left, it was worth from $50 to $1500 per acre; in the same
period the adjoining farm lands had risen in value from $1.25 and $5
to from $5 to $50 per acre. He assured his hearers, therefore, that the
one-third value which they had obtained had paid them well for their
labor. Nor was this all. When they left, they had exchanged their
property for horses, cattle, provisions, clothing, etc., which was
exactly what was needed by settlers in a new country. As a further bait
he went on to explain: "When we arrive in California, according to the
provisions of the Mexican government, each family will be entitled to a
large tract of land, amounting to several hundred acres," and, if that
country passed into American control, he looked for the passage of a law
giving 640 acres to each male settler. "Thus," he summed up, "it will
be easy to see that we are in a better condition than when we were in
Nauvoo!"
* Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 115.
The misrepresentation did not cease here, however. After announcing the
departure of Brigham Young's pioneer company, Taylor* wound up with
this tissue of false statements: "The way is now prepared; the roads,
bridges, and ferry-boats made; there are stopping places also on the way
where they can rest, obtain vegetables and corn, and, when they arrive
at the far end, instead of finding a wild waste, they will meet with
friends, provisions and a home, so that all that will be requisite for
them to do will be to find sufficient teams to draw their families, and
to take along with them a few woollen or cotton goods, or other articles
of merchandise which will be light, and which the brethren will require
until they can manufacture for themselves." How many a poor Englishman,
toiling over the plains in the next succeeding years, and, arriving in
arid Utah to find himself in the clutches of an organization from which
he could not escape, had reason to curse the man who drew this picture!
* John Taylor was born in England in 1808, and emigrated to
Canada in 1829, where, after joining the Methodists, he, like Joseph
Smith, found existing churches unsatisfactory, and was easily secured as
a convert by P. P. Pratt. He was elected to the Quorum, and was sent to
Great Britain as a missionary in 1840, writing several pamphlets while
there. He arrived in Nauvoo with Brigham Young in 1841, and there edited
the Times and Seasons, was a member of the City Council, a regent of the
university, and judge advocate of the Legion, and was in the room with
the prophet when the latter was shot. He was the Mormon representative
in France in 1849, publishing a monthly paper there, translating the
Mormon Bible into the French language, and preaching later at Hamburg,
Germany. He was superintendent of the Mormon church in the Eastern
states in 1857, when Young declared war against the United States, and
he succeeded Young as head of the church.
In 1847, at the suggestion of Taylor, Hyde, and Pratt, who were still in
England, a petition bearing nearly 13,000 names was addressed to Queen
Victoria, setting forth the misery existing among the working classes
in Great Britain, suggesting, as the best means of relief, royal aid to
those who wished to emigrate to "the island of Vancouver or to the
great territory of Oregon," and asking her "to give them employment
in improving the harbors of those countries, or in erecting forts of
defence; or, if this be inexpedient, to furnish them provisions and
means of subsistence until they can produce them from the soil." These
American citizens did not hesitate to point out that the United States
government was favoring the settlement of its territory on the Pacific
coast, and to add: "While the United States do manifest such a strong
inclination, not only to extend and enlarge their possessions in the
West, but also to people them, will not your Majesty look well to
British interests in those regions, and adopt timely precautionary
measures to maintain a balance of power in that quarter which, in the
opinion of your memorialists, is destined at no very distant period to
participate largely in the China trade?" *
* See Linforth's "Route," pp. 2-5.
The Oregon boundary treaty was less than a year old when this petition
was presented. It was characteristic of Mormon duplicity to find their
representatives in Great Britain appealing to Queen Victoria on the
ground of self-interest, while their chiefs in the United States were
pointing to the organization of the Battalion as a proof of their
fidelity to the home government. Practically no notice was taken of this
petition. Vancouver Island, was, however, held out to the converts in
Great Britain as the one "gathering point of the Saints from the islands
and distant portions of the earth," until the selection of Salt Lake
Valley as the Saints' abiding place.
On December 23, 1847, Young, in behalf of the Twelve, issued from Winter
Quarters a General Epistle to the church a which gave an account of his
trip to the Salt Lake Valley, directed all to gather themselves speedily
near Winter Quarters in readiness for the march to Salt Lake Valley, and
said to the Saints in Europe:--
"Emigrate as speedily as possible to this vicinity. Those who have but
little means, and little or no labor, will soon exhaust that means if
they remain where they are. Therefore, it is wisdom that they remove
without delay; for here is land on which, by their labor, they can
speedily better their condition for their further journey." The list of
things which Young advised the emigrants to bring with them embraced
a wide assortment: grains, trees, and vines; live stock and fowls;
agricultural implements and mills; firearms and ammunition; gold
and silver and zinc and tin and brass and ivory and precious stones;
curiosities, "sweet instruments of music, sweet odors, and beautiful
colors." The care of the head of the church, that the immigrants should
not neglect to provide themselves with cologne and rouge for use in
crossing the prairies, was most thoughtful.
* Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 81.
The Millennial Star of February 1, 1848, made this announcement to the
faithful in the British Isles:--
"The channel of Saints' emigration to the land of Zion is now opened.
The resting place of Israel for the last days has been discovered. In
the elevated valley of the Salt and Utah Lakes, with the beautiful river
Jordan running through it, is the newly established Stake of Zion. There
vegetation flourishes with magic rapidity. And the food of man, or
staff of life, leaps into maturity from the bowels of Mother Earth with
astonishing celerity. Within one month from planting, potatoes grew from
six to eight inches, and corn from two to four feet. There the frequent
clouds introduce their fertilizing contents at a modest distance from
the fat valley, and send their humid influences from the mountain tops.
There the saline atmosphere of Salt Lake mingles in wedlock with the
fresh humidity of the same vegetable element which comes over the
mountain top, as if the nuptial bonds of rare elements were introduced
to exhibit a novel specimen of a perfect vegetable progeny in the
shortest possible time," etc.
Contrast this with Brigham Young's letter to Colonel Alexander in
October, 1857,--"We had hoped that in this barren, desolate country we
could have remained unmolested."
On the 20th of February, 1848, the shipment of Mormon emigrants began
again with the sailing of the Cornatic, with 120 passengers, for New
Orleans.
In the following April, Orson Pratt was sent to England to take charge
of the affairs of the church there. On his arrival, in August, he issued
an "Epistle" which was influential in augmenting the movement. He said
that "in the solitary valleys of the great interior" they hoped to hide
"while the indignation of the Almighty is poured upon the nations"; and
urged the rich to dispose of their property in order to help the poor,
commanding all who could do so to pay their tithing. "O ye saints of
the Most High," he said, "linger not! Make good your retreat before the
avenues are closed up!"
Many other letters were published in the Millennial Star in 1848-1849,
giving glowing accounts of the fertility of Salt Lake Valley. One from
the clerk of the camp observed: "Many cases of twins. In a row of seven
houses joining each other eight births in one week."
In order to assist the poor converts in Europe, the General Conference
held in Salt Lake City in October, 1849, voted to raise a fund, to be
called "The Perpetual Emigrating Fund," and soon $5000 had been secured
for this purpose. In September, 1850, the General Assembly of the
Provisional State of Deseret incorporated the Perpetual Emigration Fund
Company, and Brigham Young was elected its first president. Collections
for this fund in Great Britain amounted to 1410 pounds by January, 1852,
and the emigrants sent out in that year were assisted from this fund.
These expenditures required an additional $5000, which was supplied
from Salt Lake City. A letter issued by the First Presidency in October,
1849, urged the utmost economy in the expenditure of this money, and
explained that, when the assisted emigrants arrived in Salt Lake City,
they would give their obligations to the church to refund as soon as
possible what had been expended on them.* In this way, any who were
dissatisfied on their arrival in Utah found themselves in the church
clutches, from which they could not escape.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 124.
There were outbreaks of cholera among the emigrant parties crossing the
plains in 1849, and many deaths.
In October, 1849, an important company left Salt Lake City to augment
the list of missionaries in Europe. It included John Taylor and two
others, assigned to France; Lorenzo Snow and one other, to Italy;
Erastus Snow and one other, to Denmark;* F. D. Richards and eight
others, to England; and J. Fosgreene, to Sweden.
* Elder Dykes reported in October, 1851, that, on his arrival in
Aalborg, Denmark, he found that a mob had broken in the windows of the
Saints' meeting-house and destroyed the furniture, and had also broken
the windows of the Saints' houses, and, by the mayor's advice, he left
the city by the first steamer. Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, p. 346.
The system of Mormon emigration from Great Britain at that time seems to
have been in the main a good one. The rule of the agent in Liverpool was
not to charter a vessel until enough passengers had made their deposits
to warrant him in doing so. The rate of fare depended on the price paid
for the charter.* As soon as the passengers arrived in Liverpool they
could go on board ship, and, when enough came from one district,
all sailed on one vessel. Once on board, they were organized with
a president and two counsellors,--men who had crossed the ocean, if
possible,--who allotted the staterooms, appointed watchmen to serve in
turn, and looked after the sanitary arrangements. When the first through
passengers for Salt Lake City left Liverpool, in 1852, an experienced
elder was sent in advance to have teams and supplies in readiness at the
point where the land journey would begin, and other men of experience
accompanied them to engage river portation when they reached New
Orleans. The statistics of the emigration thus called out were as
follows:--
* See Linforth's "Route," pp. to, 17-22; Mackay's "History of the
Mormons," pp. 298-302; Pratt's letter to the Millennial Star, Vol. XI,
p. 277.
YEAR VESSELS EMIGRANTS 1848 5 754 1849 9 2078 1850 6 1612 1851 4 1869
The Frontier Guardian at Kanesville estimated the Mormon movement across
the plains in 1850 at about 700 wagons, taking 5000 horses and cattle
and 4000 sheep.
Of the class of emigrants then going out, the manager of the leading
shipping agents at Liverpool who furnished the ships said, "They are
principally farmers and mechanics, with some few clerks, surgeons,
and so forth." He found on the company's books, for the period between
October, 1849, and March, 1850, the names of 16 miners, 20 engineers, 19
farmers, 108 laborers, 10 joiners, 25 weavers, 15 shoemakers, 12 smiths,
19 tailors, 8 watchmakers, 25 stone masons, 5 butchers, 4 bakers, 4
potters, 10 painters, 7 shipwrights, and 5 dyers.
The statistics of the Mormon emigration given by the British agency for
the years named were as follows:--
YEAR
VESSELS
EMIGRANTS
1852
3
732
1853
7
2312
1854
9
2456
1855
13
4425
In 1853 the experiment was made of engaging to send adults from
Liverpool to Utah for 10 pounds each and children for half price; but
this did not succeed, and those who embraced the offer had to borrow
money or teams to complete the journey.
In 1853, owing to extortions practised on the emigrants by the merchants
and traders at Kanesville, as well as the unhealthfulness of the
Missouri bottoms, the principal point of departure from the river was
changed to Keokuk, Iowa. The authorities and people there showed the
new-comers every kindness, and set apart a plot of ground for their
camp. In this camp each company on its arrival was organized and
provided with the necessary teams, etc. In 1854 the point of departure
was again changed to Kansas, in western Missouri, fourteen miles west of
Independence, the route then running to the Big Blue River, and through
what are now the states of Kansas and Nebraska.