FAR WEST.
At the time the saints were requested to leave their homes in Clay
County, the whole northern part of Missouri was very sparsely settled;
and but few counties were organized. As it was desirable on the part
of the saints to obtain a location where they would be the principal
settlers and occupants of the lands, where they would be free from
injustice and violence of mobs, where they might quietly gather
together and be taught to observe the principles of truth in the Gospel
of Christ, that they might be prepared in all things for the redemption
of Zion--upper Missouri, with its boundless prairies, wooded streams,
and sparse population, seemed admirably adapted for their home until
Zion could be redeemed.
W. W. Phelps and others had traveled through it, and had described
it to the saints some two years before. It was recommended to the
attention of the brethren by their influential friends in Clay County,
and so the month of October, 1836, found a number of them settling on
Shoal Creek. They soon petitioned for an enactment organizing a new
county, which was granted. The new county was organized on the 26th of
December, 1836, and was named Caldwell, with the county seat at Far
West.
The town plat of Far West as first laid off embraced a square mile,
but afterwards additions were made as the population increased. In the
center of the town a large public square was laid off, approached by
four main roads running east and west, north and south, each a hundred
feet wide. Eventually the blocks were so laid off that each block
contained four acres, divided into four lots. Far West was located in
the western part of Caldwell County, about eight miles west of the
present county seat--Kingston. The town site is the highest swell in
that high rolling prairie country, and is visible from a long distance.
Standing on what used to be the public square of Far West, on the
occasion of my visit there in 1884, I obtained an excellent view of all
the surrounding country. Vast fields of waving corn and meadow land
were stretched out on all sides, as far as the eye could see. Several
towns and villages, with their white church spires gleaming in the
sun-light, were in plain view, though from five to ten miles distant.
Away to the east is Kingston, the present county seat of Caldwell;
further to the northeast is Breckenridge, Hamilton and Kidder; to the
west is Plattsburg, and south is the quaint village of Polo. All these
places are within easy vision from the site of Far West, and increase
the grandeur of the scene.
The site chosen for Far West is the finest location for a city in the
county, but notwithstanding all the advantages of the location, Far
West has been abandoned. In the fall of 1838 it was a thriving town
of some three thousand inhabitants, but today nothing remains except
the house of the Prophet Joseph, now owned by D. F. Kerr,[A] and one
portion of the Whitmer Hotel, now used as a stable. This is all that
remains of the buildings, at Far West, erected by the hands of the
saints. A few farm houses have been built in the vicinity since their
expulsion from Missouri, and a quarter of a mile from the public square
stands a neat white Methodist church.
[Footnote A: At least it was owned by him in 1884.]
Nothing but an excavation one hundred and ten feet by eighty, enclosed
in an old field, with a large rough, unhewn stone in each corner, now
marks the spot that was once the pretentious public square of Far West.
This excavation was made on the 3rd of July, 1837, and was intended for
the basement of the temple the saints expected to erect there. There
are several very interesting circumstances connected with this old
excavation and the rough corner stones, that will be related as the
circumstances of which I am writing, shall bring them due.
Standing on this consecrated ground and viewing the few relics that
are left to remind us that the saints once lived here, one naturally
falls into a sad reverie. It is true we are not surrounded by the
fallen columns of ruined temples; or the ruins of splendid palaces, or
massive walls, such as one would meet with at Babylon, Jerusalem, Rome
or Athens. It is not the ruins of an antique or celebrated civilization
that inspires one's sadness over Far West. But there one sits in the
midst of the ruined prospects and blighted hopes of the saints of
God, instead of in the midst of broken columns, ponderous arches, and
crumbling walls.
The chief interest about Far West, of course, is the fact that it was
the theatre where was enacted those stirring scenes which add another
black page to the history of Missouri.
"If that strange people," says Crosby Jackson in his history of
Caldwell County, "who built Nauvoo and Salt Lake, who uncomplainingly
toiled across the American desert, and made the wilderness of Utah to
bloom like a garden, had been permitted to remain and perfect the work
which they had begun here, how different would have been the history
of Far West! Instead of being a farm with scarcely sufficient ruins
to mark the spot where once it stood, there would have been a rich,
populous city, along the streets of which would be pouring the wealth
of the world; and instead of an old dilapidated farmhouse, there would
have been magnificent temples to which the devout saints from the
further corners of the world would have made their yearly pilgrimage.
But the bigotry and intolerance of the saints towards the gentiles, and
especially toward dissenters from the new revelations of Joe Smith,
rendered such a consummation impossible!"
It now becomes my duty to relate those circumstances which prevented
the saints from building up Far West, and which at last drove them
as exiles from the State of Missouri; and we shall, in the course
of our narrative, see whether it was the "bigotry and intolerance
of the saints towards the gentiles and dissenters," that brought
about the fate of Far West, or whether it was the brutal savagery of
pretended "Christians" incited to deeds of cruelty by jealous sectarian
ministers, and unscrupulous demagogues fearful of the growing political
power of the "Mormons."
The first settlement in the vicinity of Far West was made in October,
1836; by July following, about one hundred buildings had been erected,
eight of which were stores. This same month the school section of land
was sold at auction, and although entirely a prairie it sold, on a
year's credit, for seven dollars and ninety cents per acre, making the
settlers' school fund about five thousand dollars. Some non-members
of The Church expressed a desire to establish saloons in the growing
town, and endeavored to induce some of the brethren to sell intoxicants
on commission for them, but the High Council resolved not to sustain
any persons as members of The Church, who would become retailers of
spirituous liquors, and the liquor business was dropped.
In September, 1837, The Church at Kirtland appointed Joseph Smith and
Sidney Rigdon to seek out new places for the gathering of the saints
and lay off other stakes of Zion, than those of Far West and Kirtland.
On this mission Joseph and Sidney arrived at Far West in the latter
part of October. A council of the Priesthood was called at which it was
decided that there was sufficient room in the vicinity of Far West for
the gathering of the saints from abroad; and hence it was decided that
it was not necessary for the present to select other places.
At a general conference convened in October, 1837, the several quorums
of the Priesthood were set in order. Men and measures were thoroughly
discussed. Difficulties were adjusted and covenants of brotherly love
renewed. Twenty-three Elders were started out to preach the gospel. It
was voted to enlarge the town plat of Far West so that it would contain
four sections--two miles square. The conference also voted not to
support any stores or shops selling spirituous liquors, tea, coffee or
tobacco.