Settling in and about the obscure village of Commerce, the
"Mormon" refugees soon demonstrated anew the marvelous
recuperative power with which they were endowed, and a city
seemed to spring from the earth. Nauvoo--the City Beautiful--was
the name given to this new abiding place. It was situated but a
few miles from Quincy, in a bend of the majestic river, giving
the town three water fronts. It seemed to nestle there as if the
Father of Waters was encircling it with his mighty arm. Soon a
glorious temple crowned the hill up which the city had run in its
rapid growth. Their settlements extended into Iowa, then a
territory. The governors of both Iowa and Ohio testified to the
worthiness of the Latter-day Saints as citizens, and pledged them
the protection of the commonwealth. The city of Nauvoo was
chartered by the state of Illinois, and the rights of local
self-government were assured to its citizens.
A military organization, the "Nauvoo Legion," was authorized, and
the establishment of a university was provided for; both these
organizations were successfully effected. It was here that a
memorial was prepared and sent to the national government,
reciting the outrages of Missouri, and asking reparation. Joseph
Smith himself, the head of the delegation, had a personal
interview with President Van Buren, in which the grievances of
the Latter-day Saints were presented. Van Buren replied in words
that will not be forgotten, "Your cause is just, but I can do
nothing for you."
The peaceful conditions at first characteristic of their Illinois
settlement were not to continue. The element of political
influence asserted itself and the "Mormons" bade fair to soon
hold the balance of power in local affairs. The characteristic
unity, so marked in connection with every phase of the people's
existence, promised too much; immigration into Hancock county was
continuous, and the growing power of the Latter-day Saints was
viewed with apprehension. With this as the true motive, many
pretexts for annoyance were found; and arrests, trials, and
acquittals were common experiences of the Church officers.
A charge, which promised to prove as devoid of foundation as had
the excuses for the fifty arrests preceding it, led Joseph Smith,
president of the Church, and Hyrum Smith, the patriarch, to again
surrender themselves to the officers of the law. They were taken
to Carthage, Joseph having declared to friends his belief that he
was going to the slaughter. Governor Ford gave to the prisoners
his personal guarantee for their safety; but mob violence was
supreme, more mighty than the power of the state militia placed
there to guard the prison; and these men were shot to death, even
while under the governor's plighted pledge of protection. Hyrum
fell first; and Joseph, appearing at one of the windows in the
second story, received the leaden missiles of the besieging mob,
which was led by a recreant though professed minister of the
gospel. But the brutish passion of the mob was not yet sated;
propping the body against a well-curb in the jail-yard, the
murderers poured a volley of bullets into the corpse, and fled.
Thus was the unholy vow of the mob fulfilled, that as law could
not touch the "Mormon" leaders, powder and ball should. John
Taylor, who became years afterward president of the Church, was
in the jail at the same time; he received four bullets, and was
left supposedly dead.
Joseph Smith had been more than the ecclesiastical leader; his
presence and personality had been ever powerful as a stimulus to
the hearts of the people; none knew his personal power better
than the members of his own flock, unless indeed it were the
wolves who were ever seeking to harry the fold. It had been the
boast of anti-"Mormons" that with Joseph Smith removed, the
Church would crumble to pieces of itself. In the personality of
their leader, it was thought, lay the secret of the people's
strength; and like the Philistines, the enemy struck at the
supposed bond of power. Terrible as was the blow of the fearful
fatality, the Church soon emerged from its despairing state of
poignant grief, and rose mightier than before. It is the faith
of this people that while the work of God on earth is carried on
by men, yet mortals are but instruments in the Creator's hands
for the accomplishment of divine purposes. The death of the
president disorganized the First Presidency of the Church; but
the official body next in authority, the Council of the Twelve,
stepped to the front, and the progress of the Church was
unhindered. The work of the ministry was not arrested; the
people paused but long enough to bury their dead and clear their
eyes from the blinding tears that fell.
Let us take a retrospective glance at this unusual man. Though
his opponents deny him the divine commission with which his
friends believe he was charged, they all, friends and foes alike,
admit that he was a great man. Through the testimony of his
life's work and the sanctifying seal of his martyrdom, thousands
have come to acknowledge him all that he professed to be--a
messenger from God to the people. He is not without admirers
among men who deny the truth of his principles and the faith of
his people.
A historical writer of the time, Josiah Quincy, a few weeks after
the martyrdom, wrote:
It is by no means improbable that some future text book
for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a
question something like this: "What historical American
of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful
influence upon the destinies of his countrymen?" And it
is by no means impossible that the answer to that
interrogatory may be thus written--"Joseph Smith, the
Mormon Prophet." And the reply, absurd as it doubtless
seems to most men now living, may be an obvious
commonplace to their descendants. History deals in
surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. A
man who established a religion in this age of free
debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of
thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High--such
a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting
his memory with unsavory epithets. * * * The most
vital questions Americans are asking each other today,
have to deal with this man and what he has left us.
* * * Joseph Smith, claiming to be an inspired teacher,
faced adversity such as few men have been called to
meet, enjoyed a brief season of prosperity such as few
men have ever attained, and finally * * * went
cheerfully to a martyr's death. When he surrendered
his person to Governor Ford, in order to prevent the
shedding of blood, the Prophet had a presentiment of
what was before him. "I am going like a lamb to the
slaughter," he is reported to have said, "but I am as
calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of
offense, and shall die innocent."
The "Mormon" people regarded it as a duty to make every proper
effort to bring the perpetrators of the foul assassination of
their leaders to justice; sixty names were presented to the local
grand jury, and of the persons so designated, nine were indicted.
After a farcical semblance of a trial, these were acquitted, and
thus was notice, sanctioned by the constituted authority of the
law, served upon all anti-"Mormons" of Illinois, that they were
safe in any assault they might choose to make on the subjects of
their hate. The mob was composed of apt pupils in the learning
of this lesson. Personal outrages were of every-day occurrence;
husbandmen were captured in their fields, beaten, tortured, until
they barely had strength left to promise compliance with the
demands of their assailants,--that they would leave the state.
Houses were fired while the tenants were wrapped in uneasy
slumber within; indeed, one entire town, that of Morley, was by
such incendiarism reduced to ashes. Women and children were
aroused in the night, and compelled to flee unclad or perish in
their burning dwellings.
But what of the internal work of the Church during these trying
periods? As the winds of winter, the storms of the year's
deepest night, do but harden and strengthen the mountain pine,
whose roots strike the deeper, whose branches thicken, whose
twigs multiply by the inclemency that would be fatal to the
exotic palm, raised by man with hot-house nursing, so the new
sect continued its growth, partly in spite of, partly because of,
the storms to which it was subjected. It was no green-house
growth, struggling for existence in a foreign clime, but a fit
plant for the soil of a free land; and there existed in the minds
of unprejudiced observers not a doubt as to its vitality. The
Church soon found its equilibrium again after the shock of its
cruel experience. Brigham Young, who for a decade had been
identified with the cause, who had received his full share of
persecution at mobocratic hands, now stood at the head of the
presiding body in the priesthood of the Church. The effect of
this man's wonderful personality, his surprising natural ability,
and to the people, the proofs of his divine acceptance, were
apparent from the first.
Migration from other states and from foreign shores continued to
swell the "Mormon" band, and this but angered the oppressors the
more. The members of the Church, recognizing the inevitable long
before predicted by their murdered prophet, that the march of the
Church would be westward, redoubled their efforts to complete the
grand temple upon which they had not ceased to work through all
the storms of persecution. This structure, solemnly dedicated to
their God, they entered, and there received their anointings and
their blessings; then they abandoned it to the desecration and
self-condemning outrages of their foes. For the mob's decree had
gone forth, that the "Mormons" must leave Illinois. After a few
sanguinary encounters, the leaders of the people acceded to the
demands of their assailants, and agreed to leave early in the
following spring; but the departure was not speedy enough to
suit, and the lawless persecution was waged the more ruthlessly.
Soon the soil of Illinois was free from "Mormon" tread; Nauvoo
was deserted, her 20,000 inhabitants expatriated. Colonel Thomas
L. Kane, a conspicuous figure at this stage of our country's
history, was traveling eastward at the time, and reached Nauvoo
shortly after its evacuation. In a lecture before the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania, he related his experience in this
sometime abode of the Saints. I paraphrase a portion of his
eloquent address.
Sighting the city from the western shore of the mighty
Mississippi, as it nestled in the river's encircling embrace, he
crossed to its principal wharf, and, there to his surprise, found
no soul to meet him. The stillness that everywhere prevailed was
painful, broken only by an occasional faint echo of boisterous
shout or ribald song from a distance. The town was in a dream,
and the warrior trod lightly lest he wake it in affright, for he
plainly saw that it had not slumbered long. No grass grew in the
pavement joints; recent footprints were still distinct in the
dusty thoroughfares. The visitor made his way unmolested into
work-shops and smithies; tools lay as last used; on the
carpenter's bench was the unfinished frame, on the floor were the
shavings fresh and odorous; the wood was piled in readiness
before the baker's oven; the blacksmith's forge was cold, but the
shop looked as though the occupant had just gone off for a
holiday. The gallant soldier entered gardens unchallenged by
owner, human guard, or watchful dog; he might have supposed the
people hidden or dead in their houses; but the doors were not
fastened, and he entered to explore, there were fresh ashes on
the hearth; no great accumulation of the dust of time was on
floors or furniture; the awful quiet compelled him to tread
a-tip-toe as if threading the aisles of an unoccupied cathedral.
He hastened to the graveyard, though surely the city had not been
depopulated by pestilence. No; there were a few stones newly
set, some sods freshly turned in this sacred acre of God, but
where can you find a cemetery of a living town with no such
evidence of recent interment? There were fields of heavy grain,
the bounteous harvest rotting on the ground; there were orchards
dropping their rich and rosy fruit to spoil beneath; not a hand
to gather or save.
But in a suburban corner, he came across the smoldering embers of
a barbecue fire, with fragments of flesh and other remnants of a
feast. Hereabout houses had been demolished; and there beyond,
around the great temple that had first attracted his attention
from the Iowa shore, armed men were bivouacked. This worthy
representative of our country's service was challenged by the
drunken crowd, and made to give an account of himself, and to
answer for having crossed the river without a permit from the
head of the band. Finding that he was a stranger, they related
to him in fiendish glee their recent exploits of pillage, rapine,
and murder. They conducted him through the temple; everywhere
were marks of their brutish acts; its altars of prayer were
broken; the baptismal font had been so "diligently desecrated as
to render the apartment in which it was contained too noisome to
abide in." There in the steeple close by the "scar of divine
wrath" left by a recent thunderbolt, were broken covers of liquor
and drinking vessels.
Sickened with the sight, disgusted with this spectacle of
outrage, the colonel recrossed the river at nightfall, beating
upward, for the wind had freshened. Attracted by a faint light
near the bank, he approached the spot, there to find a few
haggard faces surrounding one who seemed to be in the last stages
of fever. The sufferer was partially protected by something like
a tent made from a couple of bed sheets; and amid such
environment, the spirit was pluming itself for flight. Making
his way through this camp of misery, he heard the sobbings of
children hungry and sick; there were men and women dying from
wounds or disease, without a semblance of shelter or other
physical comfort; wives in the pangs of maternity, ushering into
the world innocent babes doomed to be motherless from their
birth. And at intervals, to the ears of those outcasts, the sick
and the dying, the wind brought the soul-piercing sounds of the
reveling mob in the distant city, the scrap of vulgar song, the
shocking oath, shrieked from the temple tower in the madness of
drunken orgies.
This, however, was but the rear remnant of the' expatriated
Christian band. The van was already far on its way toward the
inviting wilderness of the all but unknown west. But the
wanderers were not wholly without friends; certain Indian tribes,
the Omahas and the Potawatomis, welcomed them to their lands,
inviting them to camp within their territory during the coming
winter. "Welcome," said these children of the forest, "we too
have been driven from our pleasant homes east of the great river,
to these damp and unhealthful bottoms; you now, white men, have
been driven forth to the prairies; we are fellow-sufferers.
Welcome, brothers."
In return much assistance was rendered by the white refugees to
their, shall I say savage friends? If it was civilization the
wanderers had left, then indeed might the red men of the forest
have felt proud of their distinction. But the Indian agent, a
Christian gentleman, ordered the "Mormons" to move on and leave
the reservation which a kind government had provided for its red
children. An order from President Polk, who had been appealed to
by Colonel Kane, gave the people permission to remain for a short
season. The government of Iowa had courteously assured them
protection while passing through that territory. As soon as the
people were well under way, a thorough organization was effected.
Remembering the toilsome desert march from Egypt to Canaan, the
people assumed the name, "Camp of Israel." The camp consisted of
two main divisions, and each was sub-divided into companies of
hundreds, fifties, and tens, with captains to direct. An officer
with one hundred volunteers went ahead of the main body to select
a route and prepare a road. At this time, there were over one
thousand wagons of the "Mormons" rolling westward, and the line
of march soon reached from the Mississippi to Council Bluffs.
There were in the company not half enough draft animals for the
arduous march, and but an insufficient number of able-bodied men
to tend the camps. The women had to assist in driving teams and
stock, and in other labors of the journey. Yet with their
characteristic cheerfulness the people made the best, and that
proved to be a great deal, out of their lot. When the camp
halted, a city seemed to spring as if by magic from the prairie
soil. Concerts and social gatherings were usual features of the
evening rests.
But another great event disturbed the equanimity of the camp.
War had broken out between Mexico and the United States. General
Taylor's victories in the early stages of the strife had been all
but decisive, but the Republic was on march to the western ocean
and the provinces of New Mexico and California were in her path.
These two provinces comprised in addition to the territory now
designated by those names, Utah, Nevada, portions of Wyoming and
Colorado, as also Arizona; while Oregon, then claimed by Great
Britain, included Washington, Idaho, and portions of Montana and
Wyoming. It was the plan of the national administration to
occupy these provinces at the earliest moment possible; and a
call was made upon the "Mormon" refugees to contribute to the
general force by furnishing a battalion of five hundred men to
take part in the war with Mexico. The surprise which the message
of the government officer produced in the camp amounted almost to
dismay. Five hundred men fit to bear arms to be drafted from
that camp! What would become of the rest? Already women and
boys had been pressed into service to do the work of men; already
the sick and the halt had been neglected; and many graves marked
the path they had traversed, whose tenants had passed to their
last sleep through lack of care.
But how long did they hesitate? Scarcely an hour; it was the
call of their country. True, they were even then leaving the
national soil, but not of their own will. To them their country
was and is the promised land, the Lord's chosen place, the land
of Zion. "You shall have your battalion," said Brigham Young to
Captain Allen, the muster officer, "and if there are not young
men enough, we will take the old men, and if they are not enough,
we will take the women." Within a week from the time President
Polk's message was received, the entire force, in all five
hundred and forty-nine souls, was on the march to Fort
Leavenworth. Their path from the Missouri to the Pacific led
them over two thousand miles, much of this distance being
measured through deserts, which prior to that time had not been
trodden by civilized foot.
Colonel Cooke, the commander of the "Mormon" Battalion, declared,
"History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry."
Many were disabled through the severity of the march, and
numerous cases of sickness and death were chronicled. General
Kearney and his successor, Governor R. B. Mason, as military
commandants of California, spoke in high praise of this
organization, and in their official reports declared that they
had made efforts to prolong the battalion's term of service; but
most of the men chose to rejoin their families as soon as they
could secure their honorable discharge.
But to return to the Camp of Israel: A pioneer party, consisting
of a hundred and forty and four, preceded the main body; and the
line of the migrating hosts soon stretched from the Missouri to
the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Wagons there were, as also
some horses and men, but all too few for the journey; and a great
part of the company walked the full thousand miles across the
great plains and the forbidding deserts of the west. In the
Black Hills region, the pioneers were delayed a week at the
Platte, a stream, which, though usually fordable at this point
was now so swollen as to make fording impossible. Here, too,
their provisions were well nigh exhausted. Game had not been
plentiful, and the "Mormon" pioneers were threatened with the
direst privations. In their slow march they had been passed by a
number of well-equipped parties, some of them from Missouri bound
for the Pacific; but most of these were overtaken on the easterly
side of the river. Amongst the effects of the "Mormon" party was
a leathern boat, which on water served the legitimate purpose of
its maker and on land was made to do service as a wagon box.
This, together with rafts specially constructed, was now put to
good use in ferrying across the river not alone themselves and
their little property, but the other companies and their loads.
For this service they were well paid in camp provisions.
Thus, the expatriated pioneers found themselves relieved from
want with their meal sacks replenished in the heart of the
wilderness. Many may call it superstition, but some will regard
it as did the thankful travelers--an interposition of Providence,
and an answer to their prayers--an event to be compared, they
said, to the feeding of Israel with manna in the wilderness of
old.
After over three months' journeying, the pioneer company reached
the valley of the Great Salt Lake; and at the first sight of it,
Brigham Young declared it to be the halting place--the gathering
center for the Saints. But what was there inviting in this
wilderness spread out like a scroll barren of inviting message,
and empty but for the picture it presented of wondrous scenic
grandeur? Looking from the Wasatch barrier, the colonists gazed
upon a scene of entrancing though forbidding beauty. A barren,
arid plain, rimmed by mountains like a literal basin, still
occupied in its lowest parts by the dregs of what had once filled
it to the brim; no green meadows, not a tree worthy the name,
scarce a patch of greensward to entice the adventurous wanderers
into the valley. The slopes were covered with sagebrush,
relieved by patches of chaparral oak and squaw-bush; the wild
sunflower lent its golden hue to intensify the sharp contrasts.
Off to the westward lay the lake, making an impressive,
uninviting picture in its severe, unliving beauty; from its blue
wastes somber peaks rose as precipitous islands, and about the
shores of this dead sea were saline flats that told of the
scorching heat and thirsty atmosphere of this parched region. A
turbid river ran from south to north athwart the valley,
"dividing it in twain," as a historian of the day has written,
"as if the vast bowl in the intense heat of the Master Potter's
fires, in process of formation had cracked asunder." Small
streams of water started in rippling haste from the snow-caps of
the mountains toward the lake, but most of them were devoured by
the thirsty sands of the valley before their journey was half
completed.
Such was the scene of desolation that greeted the pioneer band.
A more forsaken spot they had not passed in all their wanderings.
And is this the promised land? This is the very place of which
Bridger spake when he proffered a thousand dollars in gold for
the first bushel of grain that could be raised here. With such a
Canaan spread out before them, was it not wholly pardonable if
some did sigh with longing for the leeks and flesh-pots of the
Egypt they had left, or wished to pass by this land and seek a
fairer home? Two of the three women who belonged to the party
were utterly disappointed. "Weak, worn, and weary as I am," said
one of these heroines, "I would rather push on another thousand
miles than stay here."
But the voice of their leader was heard. "The very place," said
Brigham Young, and in his prophetic mind there rose a vision of
what was to come. Not for a moment did he doubt the future. He
saw a multitude of towns and cities, hamlets and villas filling
this and neighboring valleys, with the fairest of all, a city
whose beauty of situation, whose wealth of resource should become
known throughout the world, rising from the most arid site of the
burning desert before him, hard by the barren salt shores of the
watery waste. There in the very heart of the parched wilderness
should stand the House of the Lord, with other temples in valleys
beyond the horizon of his gaze.
Within a few hours after the arrival of the vanguard upon the
banks of what is now known as City Creek--the mountain stream
which today furnishes Salt Lake City part of her water
supply--plows were put to work; but the hard-baked soil, never
before disturbed by the efforts of man to till, refused to yield
to the share. A dam was thrown across the stream and the
softening liquid was spread upon the flat that had been chosen
for the first fields. The planting season had already well nigh
passed, and not a day could be lost. Potatoes and other seed
were put in, and the land was again flooded. Such was the
beginning of the irrigation system, which soon became
co-extensive with the area occupied by the "Mormon" settlers, a
system which under the blessing of Providence, has proved to be
the veritable magic touch by which the desert has been made a
field of richness and a garden of beauty; a system which now
after many decades of successful trial is held up by the nation's
wise and great ones to be the one practicable method of
reclaiming our country's vast domains of arid lands. It was on
the 24th of July, 1847, that the main part of the pioneer band
entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and that day of the
year is observed as a legal holiday in Utah. From that time to
the present, the stream of immigration to these valleys has never
ceased.