The Mormon settlement of Mexico, as elsewhere told, was a cherished plan
of Brigham Young, who saw to the southward a land wherein his Church, its
doctrines and influence could find room for expansion. He died while
the southern migration started by him still was far short of a Mexican
destination, though that country had been explored to an extent by
several missionary parties.
The first Mormons to enter Mexico were the soldiers of the Mormon
Battalion who, in 1846, passed south of the Gila in Mexican territory,
and then entered the present Mexico by a swing of the column southward
from the San Bernardino ranch around to the valley of the San Pedro.
The D.W. Jones party was the first missionary expedition into Mexico,
crossing the Rio Grande at Paso del Norte, the present Juarez, January 7,
1876. The Pratt-Stewart party, including Meliton G. Trejo, was in
northern Mexico early in '77, and small missionary parties followed
thereafter from time to time.
November 15, 1879, Apostle Moses Thatcher was in Mexico City with J.Z.
Stewart and Trejo, there founding the first organization of the Church
within the Republic.
Decided impetus was given the southward movement when it became evident
that the national prosecution against plural marriage was to be pushed to
the extreme. January 4, 1883, with the idea of finding an asylum for the
Saints in Mexico, Apostle Thatcher traveled from St. David on the San
Pedro, to the southeast as far as Corralitos, where some arrangement was
made for lands. In the following September, another party from St. David
explored the country along the Babispe River. Still more important,
November 2, 1884, Apostles Brigham Young, Jr., and Heber J. Grant
investigated the Yaqui River section of Sonora, this with three companies
of prospective settlers from the Salt River, Gila and San Pedro Valleys,
together with some additions from Salt Lake.
In January, 1885, migration was under personal charge of President John
Taylor, who, after a notable conference at St. David, as noted in the
history of that section, led a party southward into Sonora and held a
satisfactory conference with Governor Torres, yet made no settlement. In
the same month, however, notation has been found that Alexander F.
Macdonald was at Corralitos, Chihuahua, from Mesa. A few parties were in
that locality in February, 1885, one expedition of seventy having come
from Arizona, under Captain Noble. Something of a setback was known when,
on April 9, 1885, the Governor of Chihuahua ordered departure of all
Mormon settlers within his State. Apostles Young and Thatcher, May 18,
visited the City of Mexico and secured from the federal government
permission for the immigrants to remain.