Excursions continued.
[COTTON-WOOD KANYON.]
I had long been anxious to visit the little chain of lakes in the
Wasach Mountains, southeast of the city, and the spot where the
Saints celebrate their “Great Twenty-fourth of July.” At dinner the
subject had been often on the carpet, and anti-Mormons had informed
me, hinting at the presence of gold, that no Gentile was allowed to
enter Cotton-wood Kanyon without a written permit from the President
Prophet. Through my friend the elder I easily obtained the sign manual;
it was explained to me that the danger of fires in a place which will
supply the city with lumber for a generation, and the mischievousness
of enemies, were at the bottom of the precaution. Before starting,
however, two Saints were chosen to accompany me, Mr. S----, and Mr.,
or rather Colonel, Feramorz, popularly called Ferry, Little. This
gentleman, a partner, relative, and connection of Mr. Brigham Young, is
one of the “Seventies;” of small and spare person, he is remarkable for
pluck and hardihood, and in conjunction with Ephe Hanks, the Danite, he
has seen curious things on the Prairies.
A skittish, unbroken, stunted, weedy three-year-old for myself, and a
tall mule for my companion, were readily lent by Mr. Kennedy, an Irish
Gentile and stock-dealer, who, being bound on business to California,
was in treaty with us for reward in case of safe-conduct. We chose the
morning of the 14th of September, after the first snow had whitened
the peaks, and a glorious cool, clear day it was--a sky diaphanous, as
if earth had been roofed with rock crystal. While awaiting the hour to
depart under the veranda of the hotel, Governor Cumming pointed out to
me Bill Hickman, once the second of the great “Danite” triumvirate,
and now somewhat notorious for meddling with Church property. He is a
good-looking fellow, about forty-five, rather stout and square, with
high forehead, open countenance, and mild, light blue eye, and owns, I
believe, to only three deaths. On the last Christmas-day, upon occasion
of a difficulty with a youth named Lot Huntingdon, the head of the
youngster party, he had drawn his “bowie,” and a “shooting” took place,
both combatants exchanging contents of revolvers across the street,
both being well filled with slugs, and both living to tell the tale.
“Do you know what that fellow is saying to himself?” asked the
governor, reading the thoughts of a fiercely frowning youth who
swaggered past us.
I confessed to the negative.
“He is only thinking, ‘D--d gov’rnor, wonder if he’s a better man than
me,’” said my interlocutor.
About 4 P.M. we mounted and rode out of the city toward the mouth
of the kanyon, where we were to meet Mr. Little. Passing by the
sugar-mills and turning eastward, after five or six miles we saw at a
distance a block of buildings, which presently, as if by enchantment,
sank into the earth; an imperceptible wave of ground--a common
prairie formation--had intervened. From the summit of the land we
again sighted the establishment. It is situated in the broad bed of
a dry _fiumara_--which would, by-the-by, be a perilous place in the
tropics--issuing from Parley’s Kanyon. The ravine, which is sometimes
practiced by emigrant trains, is a dangerous pass, here and there but a
few rods wide, and hemmed in by rocks rising perpendicularly 2000 feet.
The principal house was built for defense, the garden was walled round,
and the inclosure had but two small doors.
We were met at the entrance by Mr. Little, who, while supper was being
prepared, led us to the tannery and the grist-mill, of which he is
part proprietor. The bark used for the process is the red fir, costing
$25 per cord, and the refuse is employed in composts. The hides are
received unsalted; to save labor, they are pegged to soak upon wheels
turned by water-power. The leather is good, and under experienced
European workmen will presently become cheaper than that imported from
England.
Beyond the tannery was an adobe manufacture. The brick in this part
splits while burning, consequently the sun-dried article is preferred;
when the wall is to be faced, pegs are driven into it to hold the
plaster. The material is clay or silt from the creek, puddled with
water, and if saltish it is better than sweet soil; unity of color
and formation are the tests of goodness. Each brick weighs, when dry,
16 lbs., and the mould is mostly double. On the day after making they
are stacked, and allowed to stand for two months; the season is June,
July, and August, after which it becomes too cold. The workman is paid
75 per cent.; 400 per diem would be tolerable, 700 good work; thus an
able-bodied bricklayer can make twenty-one shillings a day--rather a
contrast to the wages of an unfortunate laborer in England.
[EVERY CHILD A RELATIVE.]
Returning home, we walked through Mr. Little’s garden, and admired
its neatness. The fruit-trees were mostly barren; in this year the
city sets down a loss of $100,000 by frost. I tasted, for the first
time, the Californian grape, “uvas admodum maturas, ita voluit anni
intemperies;” they not a little resembled the northern French. A
single vine sometimes bears $100 worth. There was a little rhubarb,
but it is not much used where sugar costs forty-five cents per pound.
After supping with Mr. Little, his wife and family, we returned to the
_andronitis_, and prepared for the night with a chat. The principal
point illustrated was the curious amount of connection caused by
polygamy; all men, calling each other brothers, become cousins, and
it is hardly possible, among the old Mormons, to stop a child in the
street without finding that it is a relative. I was surprised at the
comfort, even the luxury, of a Mormon householder in these remote
wilds, and left it with a most favorable impression.
At the dawn of the next day we prepared to set out; from the city
to the mouth of the kanyon the distance is about thirteen, and to
the lakelets twenty-seven miles. Mr. Little now accompanied us on
horseback, and his son James, whom I may here safely call a boy, was
driving a buck-board. This article is a light gig-body mounted upon
a thin planking, to which luggage is strapped; it can go where a
horse can tread, and is easier to both animals than riding down steep
hills. The boy, like Mormon juveniles generally, had a great aptitude
at driving, riding, and using the axe; he attended a school, but
infinitely preferred that of Nature, and showed all the disposition
to become the father of a stout, brave Western man. As in the wilder
parts of Australia, where the pedagogue has less pay than the shepherd,
“keep a school” is here equivalent to semi-starvation; there is no
superstitious aversion, as the Gentiles have asserted, to a modicum of
education, but the state of life renders manual labor more honored and
profitable. While the schoolmaster gains $2 50 per mensem, a ditcher
would make the same sum per diem. Besides impatience of study, the boys
are ever anxious to become men--“bring up a child and away it goes,”
says the local proverb--and literature will not yet enable a youth to
marry and to set up housekeeping in the Rocky Mountains.
Our route lay over the bench; on our right was a square adobe fort,
that had been used during the Indian troubles, and fields and houses
were scattered about. Passing the mouth of Parley’s Kanyon, we
entered the rich bottom-land of the Great Cotton-wood, beautified
with groves of quaking asp, whose foliage was absolute green, set off
by paper-white stems. After passing through an avenue of hardheads,
_i.e._, erratic granite boulders, which are carted to the city for
building the Temple, we turned to the left and entered the mouth of the
kanyon, where its sides flare out into gentler slopes.
A clear mountain stream breaks down the middle. The bed is a mass of
pebbles and blocks: hornblende; a white limestone, almost marble, but
full of flaws; red sandstone, greenstone, and a conglomerate like
mosaic-work. The bank is thick with the poplar, from which it derives
its name; willow clumps; the alder, with its dry, mulberry-like fruit;
the hop vine, and a birch whose bark is red as the cherry-tree’s.
Above the stream the ravine sides are in places too steep for growth;
as a rule, the northern is never wooded save where the narrowness of
the gorge impedes the action of the violent south winds. On the lower
banks the timber is mostly cleared off. Upon the higher slopes grow
the mountain mahogany and the scrub maple wherever there is a foot of
soil. There is a fine, sturdy growth of abies. The spruce, or white
pine, rises in a beautifully regular cone often 100 feet high; there
are two principal varieties of fir, one with smooth light bark, and the
other, which loves a higher range, and looks black as it bristles out
of its snowy bed, is of a dun russet. Already appeared the splendid
tints which make the American autumn a fit subject “_pictoribus atque
poetis_.” An atmosphere of blue seemed to invest the pines; the maple
blushed bright red; and the willow clumps of the bed and the tapestry
of ferns had turned to vegetable gold, while snow, bleached to more
than usual whiteness by intervals of deep black soil, flecked the
various shade of the poison hemlocks and balsam firs, and the wild
strawberry, which the birds had stripped of fruit.
[GREAT COTTON-WOOD KANYON.]
Great Cotton-wood Kanyon, like the generality of these ravines in
the western wall of the Wasach, runs east and west till near the
head, when it gently curves toward the north, and is separated from
its neighbor by a narrow divide. On both sides the continuity of the
gap is cut by deep jagged gullies, rendering it impossible to crown
the heights. The road, which winds from side to side, was worked by
thirty-two men, directed by Mr. Little, in one season, at a total
expense of $16,000. After exhausting Red Buttes, Emigration, and other
kanyons, for timber and fuel, Great Cotton-wood was explored in 1854,
and in 1856 the ascent was made practicable. In places where the gorge
narrows to a gut there were great difficulties, but rocks were removed,
while tree-trunks and boughs were spread like a corduroy, and covered
over with earth brought from a distance: Mormon energy overcame every
obstacle. It is repaired every summer before the anniversary festival;
it suffers during the autumn, and is preserved from destruction by
the winter snows. In many places there are wooden bridges, one of
which pays toll, and at the end of the season they become not a little
rickety. As may be imagined, the water-power has been utilized. Lines
and courses carefully leveled, and in parts deeply excavated, lest the
precious fluid should spread out in basins, are brought from afar, and
provided with water-gates and coffer-dams. The mills are named after
the letters C, B, A, D, and lastly E. Already 700,000 square feet of
lumber have been cut during this summer, and a total of a million is
expected before the mills are snowed up; you come upon these ugly
useful erections suddenly, round a sharp turn in the bed; they have a
queer effect with their whirring saws and crash of timber, forming a
treble to the musical bass of the water-gods.
We halted at the several mills, when Mr. Little overlooked his
accounts, and distributed stores of coffee, sugar, and tobacco. After
the first five miles we passed flecks of snow; the thermometer,
however, in the shade never showed less than 60° F. In places the
hill sides were bald from the effect of avalanches, and we saw where
a house had lately been swept away. In others a fine white limestone
glistened its deception. After passing Mill D, we debouched upon the
basin also called the Big Prairie, a dwarf turfy savanna, about 100
yards in diameter, rock and tree girt, and separated from Parley’s
Kanyon on the north by a tall, narrow wall. We then ascended a slope
of black, viscid, slippery mud, in which our animals were nearly
mired, with deep slush-holes and cross-roots: as we progressed the
bridges did not improve. On our left, in a pretty grove of thin pines,
stood a bear-trap. It was a dwarf hut, with one or two doors, which
fall when Cuffy tugs the bait from the figure of 4 in the centre.
These mountaineers apparently ignore the simple plan of the Tchuvash,
who fill up with corn-brandy a hollow in some tree lying across
“old Ephraim’s” path, and catch him dead drunk. In many places the
quaking-asp trunks were deeply indented with claw-scars, showing that
the climbing species is here common. Shortly before, a bear had been
shot within a few miles of Great Salt Lake City, and its paws appeared
upon the hotel _table d’hôte_.
About mid afternoon we dismounted, and left our nags and traps at Mill
E, the highest point, where we were to pass the night. Mr. Little was
suffering from a severe neuralgia, yet he insisted upon accompanying
us. With visions of Albano, Killarney, and Windermere, I walked up the
half mile of hill separating us from Great Cotton-wood Lake. In front
rose tall pine-clad and snow-strewed peaks, a _cul de sac_ formed by
the summit of the Wasach. We could not see their feet, but instinct
told me that they dropped around the water. The creek narrowed to a
jump. Presently we arrived at a kind of punch-bowl, formed by an
amphitheatre of frowning broken mountains, highest and most snowy on
the southeast and west, and nearly clear of snow and trees on the east.
The level ground, perhaps one mile in diameter, was a green sward,
dotted with blocks and boulders, based on black humus and granite
detritus. Part of it was clear, the rest was ivy-grown, with pines,
clumps, and circlets of tall trees, surrounded by their young in
bunches and fringes, as if planted by the hand of man. There were signs
of the last season’s revelry--heaps of charcoal and charred trunks,
rough tables of two planks supported by trestles, chairs or rail-like
settles, and the brushy remnants of three “boweries.” Two skulls showed
that wolves had been busy with the cattle. Freshly-caught trout lay
upon the table, preserved in snow, and in the distance the woodman’s
axe awoke with artful sound the echoes of the rocks.
At last we came upon the little tarn which occupies the lowest angle,
the western ridge of the punch-bowl or prairie basin. Unknown to
Captain Stansbury, it had been visited of old by a few mountain-men,
and since 1854 by the mass of the Mormons. According to my informants
it is the largest of a chaplet of twelve pools, two to the S.W. and
ten to the S.E., which are probably independent bulges in the several
torrent beds. Some are described as having no outlet, yet all are
declared to be sweet water. The altitude has not been ascertained
scientifically. It is roughly set down between 9500 and 10,000 feet. It
was then at its smallest--about half a mile long by one quarter broad.
After the melting of the snow it spreads out over the little savanna.
The bottom is sandy and gravelly, sloping from ten to twenty feet deep.
It freezes over in winter, and about 25-30 May the ice breaks up and
sinks. The runnel which feeds it descends from the snow-capped peak to
the south, and copious supplies trickle through the soppy margin at the
base of the dripping hills around. The surplus escapes through a head
to the north, where a gated dam is thrown across to raise the level,
and to regulate the water-power. The color is a milky white; the water
is warm, and its earthy vegetable taste, the effect of the weeds that
margin it, contrasts with the purity of the creek which drains it. The
fish are principally mountain trout and the gymnotus eel. In search of
shells we walked round the margin, now sinking in the peaty ground,
then clambering over the boulders--white stones that, rolled down from
the perpendicular rocks above, simulated snow--then fighting our way
through the thick willow clumps. Our quest, however, was not rewarded.
After satisfying curiosity, we descended by a short cut of a quarter
of a mile under tall trees whose shade preserved the snow, and found
ourselves once more in Mill E.
[FELLING TREES.]
The log hut was of the usual make. A cold wind--the mercury had
fallen to 50° F.--rattled through the crannies, and we prepared for
a freezing night by a blazing fire. The furniture--two bunks, with
buffalo robes, tables and chairs, which were bits of plank mounted on
four legs--was of the rudest. I whiled away the last hours of light
by adding to my various accomplishments an elementary knowledge of
felling trees. Handling the timber-axe is by no means so simple a
process as it appears. The woodman does it by instinct; the tyro, who
is always warned that he may easily indent or slice off a bit of his
leg, progresses slowly and painfully. The principal art is to give the
proper angle to the blade, to whirl the implement loosely round the
head, and to let it fall by the force of its own weight, the guiding
hand gliding down the haft to the other, in order not to break the
blow. We ate copiously; appetite appeared to come by eating, though not
in the Parisian sense of the phrase--what a treasure would be such a
sanitarium in India! The society was increased by two sawyers, gruff
and rugged men, one of whom suffered from ophthalmia, and two boys, who
successfully imitated their elders.
[INDEPENDENCE DAY.]
Our fireside chat was sufficiently interesting. Mr. S---- described the
ceremonies of the last Mormon Independence Day. After the preliminaries
had been settled as below,[195] the caravans set out from the Holy
City. In 1860 there were 1122 souls, 56 carriages, 163 wagons, 235
horses, 159 mules, and 168 oxen. They bivouacked for the night upon
the road, and marched with a certain ceremony. The first President
issued an order allowing any one to press forward, though not at the
expense of others; still no one would precede him; nor would the second
advance before the third President--a good example to some who might
want teaching. Moreover, the bishops had the privilege of inviting, or,
rather, of permitting the people of their several wards, even Gentiles,
to attend. The “pioneers”--the survivors of the noble 143 who, guided
by their Joshua, Mr. Brigham Young, first attempted the Promised
Land--were distinguished by their names on banners, and the bands
played lustily “God save the King,” and the “Star-spangled Banner,”
“Happy Land,” and “Du-dah.” At six on the fine morning of the 24th,
which followed ugly weather, a salute of three guns, in honor of the
First Presidency, was fired, with music in the intervals, the stars and
the stripes floating on the top of the noblest staff, a tall fir-tree.
At 9 A.M. a salute of thirteen guns, denoting the age of New Zion, and
at 6 P.M. twelve guns, corresponding with the number of the apostles,
were discharged with similar ceremonies. The scene must have been
lively and picturesque around the bright little tarn, and under the
everlasting hills--a holiday crowd, with wagons and ambulances drawn
up, tents and marquees pitched under the groves, and horse-races, in
which the fair sex joined, over the soft green sward. At 10 P.M., after
the dancing in the boweries had flagged, the bands finished with “Home,
sweet Home,” and the Saints returned to their every-day occupations.
[195] Extract from the Great Salt Lake correspondent of that amiable
and conscientious periodical, the “New York Herald.”
“_The Great Twenty-fourth of July._
“In my last I gave your readers a full account of the Mormon
demonstrations on the anniversary of American independence. That
done, they have now before them the celebration of their own
independence. Adhesiveness is largely developed in the Mormon
cranium. They will hold on to their notions. On the 24th of July,
1847, Brigham, at the head of the pioneers, entered this now
beautiful valley--then a barren wilderness. Forgetful of the means
that forced them here, the day was set apart for rejoicing. They laid
aside the weeds of mourning, and consecrated the day to feasting
and dancing. The Twenty-fourth is the day of deliverance that will
be handed down to generations when the Fourth is immeasurably
forgotten. Three years ago, two thousand persons were congregated
at the head-waters of Big Cotton-wood, commemorating independence,
when messengers from the East arrived with the intelligence that
the troops were on the plains. I need not farther allude to what
was then said and done; suffice it, things have been so disjointed
since that Big Cotton-wood has been left alone in solitude. Setting
aside the restraint of years, it seems that the faithful are to again
enjoy themselves. The following card tells the marching orders; the
interstices will be filled up with orations, songs, prayers, dances,
and every kind of athletic game that the young may choose to indulge
in:
“_Twenty-fourth of July at the Head-quarters of Big
Cotton-wood._--President Brigham Young respectfully invites ---- to
attend a picnic excursion to the lake in Big Cotton-wood Kanyon, on
Tuesday, the 24th of July.
“_Regulations._--You will be required to start so as to pass the
first mill, about four miles up the kanyon, before twelve o’clock
on Monday, the 23d, as no person will be allowed to pass that point
after two o’clock P.M. of that day. All persons are forbidden to
smoke segars or pipes, or kindle fires at any place in the kanyon,
except on the camp-ground. The bishops are requested to accompany
those invited from their respective wards, and see that each person
is well fitted for the trip with good, substantial, steady teams,
wagons, harness, hold-backs and locks, capable of completing the
journey without repair, and a good driver, so as not to endanger the
life of any individual. Bishops, heads of families, and leaders of
small parties will, before passing the first mill, furnish a full and
complete list of all persons accompanying them, and hand the same to
the guard at the gate.
“_Committee of Arrangements._--A. O. Smoot, John Sharp, L. W. Hardy,
A. Cunningham, E. F. Sheets, F. Kesler, Thomas Callister, A. H.
Raleigh, Henry Moon. J. C. Little, Marshal of the Day; Colonel R. T.
Burton will arrange the Guard.
“Great Salt Lake City, July 10, 1860.”
[FREE-MASONRY.--MORALITY.--TOLERANCE.]
Mr. Little also recounted to us his experiences among the Indians, whom
he, like all the Mormons, firmly believed to be children of Israel
under a cloud. He compared the medicine lodge to a masonic hall, and
declared that the so-called Red Men had signs and grips like ourselves;
and he related how an old chief, when certain symbolic actions were
made to him, wept and wailed, thinking how he and his had neglected
their observances. The Saints were at one time good masons; unhappily
they wanted to be better. The angel of the Lord brought to Mr. Joseph
Smith the lost key-words of several degrees, which caused him, when he
appeared among the brotherhood of Illinois, to “work right ahead” of
the highest, and to show them their ignorance of the greatest truths
and benefits of masonry. The natural result was that their diploma
was taken from them by the Grand Lodge, and they are not admitted
to a Gentile gathering. Now heathens without the gate, they still
cling to their heresy, and declare that other masonry is, like the
Christian faith, founded upon truth, and originally of the eternal
Church, but fallen away and far gone in error. There is no race,
except perhaps antiquaries, more credulous than the brethren of the
mystic craft. I have been told by one who may have deceived himself,
but would not have deceived me, that the Royal Arch, notoriously a
corruption of the Royal Arras, is known to the Bedouins of Arabia;
while the dairy of the Neilgherry Todas, with its exclusion of women,
and its rude ornamentation of crescents, circles, and triangles, was
at once identified with the “old religion of the world whose vestiges
survive among all people.” But these are themes unfit for an “entered
apprentice.” Mr. Little corroborated concerning the Prairie Indians
and the Yutas what is said of the settled tribes, namely, that the
comforts of civilization tend to their destruction. The men, enervated
by indoor life for half the year, are compelled at times to endure
sudden privation, hardship, and fatigue, of which the results are
rheumatism, consumption, and fatal catarrhs. Yet he believed that the
“valleys of Ephraim” would yet be full of them. He spoke freely of the
actualities and prospects of Mormonism. My companions asserted with
truth that there is not among their number a single loafer, rich or
poor, an idle gentleman or a lazy vagabond, a drunkard or a gambler,
a beggar or a prostitute. Those honorable professions are membered by
the Gentiles. They boasted, indeed, of what is sometimes owned by their
enemies, that there are fewer robberies, murders, arsons, and rapes in
Utah than in any other place of equal population in the world. They
held that the laws of the United States are better adapted to secure
the happiness of a small community than to consolidate the provinces of
a continent into one huge empire, and they looked confidently forward
to the spread of Mormonism over the world. They claimed for themselves,
like other secessionists, “_le droit sacré d’insurrection_,” against
which in vain the Gentiles raged and the federal government devised
vain things. They declared themselves to be the salt of the Union,
and that in the fullness of time they shall break the republic in
pieces like a potter’s vessel. Of Washington, Jefferson, and the other
sages of the Revolution they speak with all respect, describing them
as instruments in the hand of the Almighty, and as Latter-Day Saints
in will if not in deed. I was much pleased by their tolerance; but
tolerance in the West is rather the effect of climate and occupation
than of the reasoning faculty. Gentiles have often said before me
that Mormonism is as good as any other religion, and that Mr. Joseph
Smith “had as good a right to establish a Church as Luther, Calvin,
Fox, Wesley, or even bluff King Hal.” The Mormons are certainly the
least fanatical of our faiths, owning, like Hindoos, that every man
should walk his own way, while claiming for themselves superiority in
belief and politics. At Nauvoo they are said to have been puffed up
by the rapid growth of their power, and to have been presumptuous,
haughty, insolent, and overbearing; to have assumed a jurisdiction
independent of, and sometimes hostile to, the nine counties around them
and to the States; to have attached penalties to speaking evil of the
Prophet; and to have denied the validity of legal documents, unless
countersigned by him who was also mayor and general. They are certainly
changed for the better in these days. With respect to their future
views, the anti-Mormons assert that Saints have now been driven to the
end of their tether, and must stand to fight or deliver; that the new
Territory of Nevada will presently be a fatal rival to them; that the
States will no longer tolerate this theocratic despotism in the bosom
of a democracy; and that presently they must be wiped out. The Mormons
already discern the dawning of a brighter day. In the reaction which
has taken place in their favor they fear no organized attack by the
United States on account of lobby influence at Washington, and the
_vis inertiæ_ inherent in so slow and unwieldy a body as the federal
government. They count upon secession, quoting a certain proverb
touching conjunctures when honest men come in. They believe that the
supernatural aid of God, plus their vote, will presently make them a
state. “Some time this side of the great millennium” they will realize
their favorite dream, restoration (which might indeed happen in ten
years) to their quondam Zion--Independence, Mo., the centre of the old
terrestrial Paradise. Of this promised land their President said, with
“something of prophetic strain,” “while water runs and grass grows,
while virtue is lovely and vice hateful, and while a stone points out
a sacred spot where a fragment of American liberty once was”--Lord
Macaulay’s well-known Zealander shall apparently take his passage by
Cunard’s--“I or my posterity will plead the cause of injured innocence,
until Missouri makes atonement for all her sins, or sinks disgraced,
degraded, and damned to hell, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is
not quenched.” Then shall the Jews of the Old World rebuild the Temple
of Solomon, and the Jews of the New World (the Mormons) recover their
own Zion. Gog and Magog--that is to say, the kings of the Gentiles--and
their hosts shall rise up against the Latter-Day Saints, who, guided
by a prophet that wields the sword of Laban, shall mightily overthrow
them at the battle of Armageddon. Then the spears, bows, and arrows
(probably an abstruse allusion to the descendants of our Miniés and
Armstrongs) shall be burned with fire seven years; the earth and its
fullness shall be theirs, and the long-looked-for millennium shall come
at last. And as prophecy without date is somewhat liable to be vague
and indefinite, these great events are fixed in Mr. Joseph Smith’s
Autobiography for the year of grace 1890. Meantime they can retire, if
forbidden the Saskatchewan River and Vancouver’s Island, to the rich
“minerales” in “Sonora of the Gold Mountains.”
[THE “GAUGE OF PHILOSOPHY.”--MISSIONARIES.]
On the morning of the next day, Sunday, the 16th of September, we
mounted and rode slowly on. I had neglected to take “leggins,” and
the loss of cuticle and cutis was deplorable. Once at the Tabernacle
was enough: on this occasion, however, non-attendance was a mistake.
There had been a little “miff” between Mr. President and the “Gauge
of Philosophy,” Mr. O. Pratt. The latter gentleman, who is also an
apostle, is a highly though probably a self-educated man, not, as is
stated in an English work, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. The
Usman of the New Faith, writer, preacher, theologian, missionary,
astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician--especially in the higher
branches--he has thrust thought into a faith of ceremony which is
supposed to dispense with the trouble of thinking, and has intruded
human learning into a scheme whose essence is the utter abrogation of
the individual will. He is consequently suspected of too much learning;
of relying, in fact, rather upon books and mortal paper than that royal
road to all knowledge, inspiration from on high, and his tendencies
to let loose these pernicious doctrines often bring him into trouble
and place him below his position. In his excellent discourse delivered
to-day he had declared the poverty of the Mormons, and was speedily put
down by Mr. Brigham Young, who boasted the Saints to be the wealthiest
(_i. e._, in good works and post-obit prospects) people in the world. I
had tried my best to have the pleasure of half an hour’s conversation
with the Gauge, who, however, for reasons unknown to me, declined. At
the same meeting Mr. Heber C. Kimball solemnly consigned to a hotter
place than the tropics Messrs. Bell and Livingston, the cause being
their supposed complicity in bringing in the federal troops. I write
it with regret, but both of these gentlemen, when the sad tidings were
communicated to them, showed a quasi-Pharaonic hardening of the carnal
heart. A measure, however, was on this occasion initiated, which more
than compensated for these small _ridicules_. To the present date
missionaries were sent forth, to Canton even, or Kurrachee, like the
apostles of Judea, working their passages and supporting themselves
by handiwork; being wholly without purse or scrip, baggage or salary,
they left their business to languish, and their families to want. When
man has no coin of his own, he is naturally disposed to put his hand
into his neighbor’s pocket, and the greediness of a few unprincipled
propagandists, despite the prohibitions of the Prophet, had caused
a scandal by the richness of their “plunder.” A new ordinance was
therefore issued to the thirty new nominees.[196] The missionaries
were forbidden to take from their converts, and in compensation they
would receive regular salaries, for which funds were to be collected
in the several wards. On the same evening I was informed a single
ward, the 13th, subscribed $3000. That Sunday was an important day to
myself also; I posted a “sick certificate,” advising extension of leave
for six months, signed by W. F. Anderson, M.D., of the University of
Maryland. It was not wholly _en règle_; it required two signatures
and the counter-signature of H. B. M.’s consul to affirm that the
signatures were _bonâ fide_, not “bogus.” But the signer was the
only M.D. in the place, H. B. M.’s nearest consul was distant about
600 miles, and to suggest that a gentleman may be quietly forging or
falsifying his signature is to incur an unjustifiable personal risk in
the Far West.
[196] The following is a copy of the elder’s certificate, officially
signed by the president and his two councilors, and supplied to the
departing missionary:
“_To all Persons to whom this Letter shall come_:
“This certifies that the bearer, Elder A. B., is in full faith and
fellowship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and
by the general authorities of said Church has been duly appointed a
mission to Liverpool to preach the Gospel, and administer in all the
ordinances thereof pertaining to his office.
“And we invite all men to give heed to his teachings and counsels as
a man of God, sent to open to them the door of life and salvation,
and assist him in his travels, in whatsoever things he may need.
“And we pray God, the Eternal Father, to bless Elder A. B., and all
who receive him and minister to his comfort, with the blessings of
heaven and earth, for time and for all eternity, in the name of Jesus
Christ: Amen.
“Signed at Great Salt Lake City, Territory of Utah, ----, 186-, in
behalf of said Church.”
Still bent upon collecting the shells of the Basin, I accepted Mr.
S----’s offer of being my guide to Ensign Peak, where they are said
to be found in the greatest number. Our route lay through the broken
wall which once guarded the land against Lemuel, and we passed close
by the large barn-like building called the Arsenal, where the military
school will also be. Motives of delicacy prevented my asking questions
concerning the furniture of the establishment. Anti-Mormons, however,
whisper that it contains cannon, mortars, and other large-scaled
implements of destruction, prepared, of course, for treasonable
purposes. The Arsenal naturally led us into conversation concerning the
Nauvoo Legion, the Mormon Battalion, the Danite band, and other things
military, of which the reader may not be undesirous of knowing “some.”
[THE NAUVOO LEGION.--GRANTS.]
The Nauvoo Legion was organized in 1840, and was made to include all
male Saints between the ages of sixteen and fifty. In 1842 it numbered
2000 men, well officered, uniformed, armed, and drilled. It now may
amount throughout the Territory to 6000-8000 men: the Utah militia,
however, is officially laid down in the latest returns at 2821. In case
of war, it would be assisted by 30,000 or 40,000 Indian warriors. The
Legion is commanded by a lieutenant general, at present Mr. Daniel C.
Wells, the Martin Hofer of this Western Tyrol; the major general is Mr.
C. D. Grant, who, in case of vacancy, takes command. The lieutenant
general is elected by a majority of the commissioned officers, and
is then commissioned by the governor: he organizes the Legion into
divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, companies, and districts:
his staff, besides heads of departments--adjutant, commissary
quarter-master, paymaster, and surgeon general--consists of three aids
and two topographical engineers with the rank of colonel, a military
secretary with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and two chaplains. The
present adjutant general is Mr. William Ferguson, one of the few Irish
Saints, originally sergeant-major in the Mormon battalion, who, after
the fashion of the Western world, combines with the soldier the lawyer
and the editor. The minutest directions are issued to the Legion in
“An Act to provide for the farther Organization of the Militia of the
Territory of Utah” (Territorial Laws, chap. 35), and it is divided into
military districts as below.[197] There is, moreover, an independent
battalion of Life Guards in Great Salt Lake County not attached to
any brigade or division, but subject at all times to the call of the
governor and lieutenant general. There are also minute-men, picked
fighters, ready to mount, at a few minutes’ notice, upon horses that
range near the Jordan, and to take the field in pursuit of Indians or
others, under their commandant Colonel Burton. These corps form the
nuclei of what will be, after two generations, formidable armies. The
increase of Saintly population is rapid, and from their childhood men
are trained to arms: each adult has a rifle and a sabre, a revolver and
a bowie-knife, and he wants only practice to become a good, efficient,
and well-disciplined soldier. Grants amounting to a total of $5000 have
at different times been apportioned to military purposes, buildings,
mounting ordnance, and schools: Gentiles declare that it was required
for education, but I presume that the Mormons, like most people, claim
to know their own affairs best. As in the land of Liberty generally,
there is a modified conscription; “all free male citizens”--with a
few dignified exceptions and exempts--are subject to soldier’s duty
within thirty days after their arrival at any military district in the
Territory.
[197] There are eleven originally established, viz.:
1st. The Great Salt Lake Military District shall include all the
militia within the boundaries of Great Salt Lake City.
2d. The Davis Military District shall include all the militia within
the limits of Davis County.
3d. The Weber Military District shall include all the militia within
the limits of Weber County.
4th. The Western Jordan Military District shall include all the
militia in Great Salt Lake County west of the Jordan River.
5th. The Tooele Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of Tooele County.
6th. The Cotton-wood Military District shall include all the militia
in Great Salt Lake County south of the south line of Great Salt Lake
City and east of the Jordan River.
7th. The Utah Military District shall include all the militia in Utah
County.
8th. The San Pete Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of San Pete County.
9th. The Parovan Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of Millard County.
10th. The Iron Military District shall include all the militia within
the limits of Iron County.
11th. The Green River Military District shall include all the militia
within the limits of Green River County.
That the Mormon battalion did good service in the Mexican War of 1847
is a matter of history. It was sent at a most critical conjuncture.
Application was made to the Saints, when upon the point of commencing
their exodus from Egypt, through the deserts of Paran and Sin, where
the red Amalekite and the Moabite lay in wait to attack them, and
when every male was wanted to defend the old and sick, the women and
children, and the valuables of which the Egyptian had not despoiled
them. Yet the present Prophet did not hesitate to obey the call: he
sent off 500 of his best men, who fought through the war and shared
in the triumph. Providence rewarded them. It was a Mormon--James
W. Marshall--who, when discharged from service, entered with some
comrades the service of a Swiss land-owner, Captain Suter--a remnant of
Charles X.’s guard--near Sacramento, on the American River, and who,
in January, 1848, when sinking a mill-run or water-run, discovered the
shining metal which first made California a household word. On the
return of the battalion to Great Salt Lake City, laden with nearly
half a million of gold, a mint was established, and a $5 piece was
added to the one million dollars which forms the annual circulation of
the United States. It bears on the reverse, “Holiness to the Lord,”
surmounting a three-cornered cap, placed over a single eye: the former
alludes, I was told, mystically to the first Presidency; the obverse
having two hands clasped over the date (1849), and the words “Five
Dollars, G. S. L. C. P. G.” The $5 appeared somewhat heavier, though
smaller than an English sovereign. Anti-Mormons adduce this coinage as
an additional proof of saintly presumption; but it was legally done:
a Territory may not stamp precious metal with the federal arms, but
it has a right to establish its own. They adduce, moreover, a severe
charge, namely, that the $5 piece was 15-20 per cent. under weight, and
yet was forcibly made current. One remarkable effect the gold certainly
had. When the Kirtland Safety Savings Bank, established by Mr. Joseph
Smith in February, 1831, broke, he stout-heartedly prophesied that
before twenty years should elapse the worthless paper should be again
at par. The financial vaticination was true to the letter.[198]
[198] The Mormons quote two other prophecies both equally offensive
to the United States, and both equally well known.
On the 26th of April, 1843, Mr. Joseph Smith distinctly declared, in
the name of the Lord, that before the arrival of the Son of Man the
“question of slavery would cause a rebellion in South Carolina,” and
effect a “division of the Southern against the Northern States.” It
was a calamity easy to be foreseen, but we look with anxiety to the
unfulfilled portion, the “terrible bloodshed” which will result.
In 1846, when, humanly speaking, want and destitution stared the
Saints in the face, Mr. Brigham Young predicted that within five
years they would be wealthier than before. This was palpably
fulfilled in 1849, when the passage of emigrants to California
enabled the Saints to exchange their supplies of food for goods and
valuables at enormous profits.
I commend these “uninspired prophecies” to the simple-minded
translator of “Forewarnings, Prophecies on the Church, Antichrist
(who was born, we are told, four years ago), and Revelations in
the Last Times.” Messrs. Smith and Young’s vaticinations will be
found quite as respectable as the “Visions of an Aged Nun” and the
“Predictions of Sister Rosa Columba.” Prophecy, being the highest aim
of human induction, is apparently universally and equally diffused.
[Illustration: ENSIGN PEAK. (North End of Great Salt Lake City.)]
[THE DANITE BAND.]
The “Danite band,” a name of fear in the Mississippi Valley, is said
by anti-Mormons to consist of men between the ages of seventeen and
forty-nine. They were originally termed Daughters of Gideon, Destroying
Angels--the Gentiles say Devils--and, finally, Sons of Dan, or Danites,
from one of whom it was prophesied that he should be a serpent in the
path. They were organized about 1837, under D. W. Patten, popularly
called Captain Fearnot, for the purpose of dealing as avengers of
blood with Gentiles; in fact, they formed a kind of “Death Society,”
Desperadoes, Thugs, Hashshashiyun--in plain English, assassins in
the name of the Lord. The Mormons declare categorically the whole
and every particular to be the calumnious invention of the impostor
and arch apostate Mr. John C. Bennett, whilom mayor of Nauvoo; that
the mystery and horror of the idea made it equally grateful to the
knave and fool who persecuted them, and that not a trader could be
scalped, nor a horse-stealer shot, nor a notorious villain of a Gentile
knived without the deed of blood being attributed to Danite hands
directed by prophetic heads. It was supposed that the Danites assume
savage disguises: “he has met the Indians” was a proverbial phrase,
meaning that a Gentile has fallen into the power of the destroying
angels. I but express the opinion of sensible and moderate neutrals
in disbelieving the existence of an organized band of “Fidawi;” where
every man is ready to be a Danite, Danites are not wanting. Certainly,
in the terrible times of Missouri and Illinois, destroying angels were
required to smite secretly, mysteriously, and terribly the first-born
of Egypt; now the necessity has vanished. This, however, the Mormons
deny, declaring the existence of the Danites, like that of spiritual
wives, to be, and ever to have been, literally and in substance totally
and entirely untrue.
[THE JEBEL NUR.]
Meanwhile we had nearly ascended the Jebel Nur of this new Meccah, the
big toe of the Wasach Mountains, and exchanged the sunny temperature
below for a cold westerly wind, that made us feel snow: the air
improved in purity, as we could judge by the effects of carcasses
lying at different heights. The bench up which we trod was gashed by
broad ravines, and bore upon its red soil a growth of thin sage and
sunflower. A single fossil and two varieties of shells were found: iron
and quartz were scattered over the surface, and there is a legend of
gold having been discovered here. Presently, standing upon the topmost
bluff, we sat down to enjoy a view which I have attempted to reproduce
in a sketch. Below the bench lay the dot-like houses of Zion. We could
see with bird’s-eye glance the city laid out like a chess-board, and
all the length and breadth of its bee-line streets and crow-flight
avenues, which, bordered by distance-dwarfed trees, narrowed to threads
as they drew toward a vanishing point. Beyond the suburbs stretched the
valley plain, sprinkled with little plantations clustering round the
smaller settlements, and streaked by the rivulets which, arising from
the frowning pine-clad heights on the left, flowed toward the little
Jordan of this young Judea on the right. The extreme south was bounded
by the denticulated bench which divided like a mole the valleys of the
Great Salt and Utah Lakes. Already autumn had begun: the purpling plain
and golden slopes shed a dying glory over the departing year, while the
mellowing light of evening, and aerial blue from above, toned down to
absolute beauty each harsher feature of the scene.
After lingering for a while over the fair _coup d’œil_, we descended,
holding firm the sage-bushes, the abrupt western slope, and we passed
by the warm Harrowgate spring, with its sulphury blue waters, white
lime-like bed, and rushy margins in dark earth, snow-capped with
salt efflorescence. As we entered the city we met a noted Gentile
innocently driving out a fair Saint: both averted their faces as they
passed us, but my companion’s color darkened. All races have their
pet prohibitions and aversions, their likes and dislikes in matters
of sin. Among the Mormons, a suspicion of immorality is more hateful
than the reputation of bloodshed. So horse-thieving in the Western
States is a higher crime than any other--in fact, the sin which is
never forgiven. An editor thus unconcernedly sums up the history of one
lately shot when plundering stock: “He was buried by those who meted
out to him summary justice, not exactly attending to law, but upon a
more speedy, economical, and salutary principle, and a stake was placed
at the head of his grave, on which was inscribed ‘A. B. B----, shot for
horse-stealing, July 1, 1860.’”
Entering the city by the northwest, we passed the Academy of the 7th
Ward. Standing in a 10-acre block, it is a large adobe building with
six windows, built for a hotel, and bought for educational purposes by
the Prophet. Forms and tables, scattered with the usual school-books,
were the sole furniture, and the doors were left open as if they had
nothing to defend. My companion had a truly brotherly way of treating
his co-religionists; he never met one, however surly-looking, without
a salute, and when a door was opened he usually walked in. Thus we
visited successively a water-power-mill, a tannery, and an English
coachmaker, painter, and varnisher. Some of the houses which we
passed were neat and cleanly curtained, especially that belonging to
an Englishwoman whose husband, Captain R----, had lately left her
in widowhood. We finished with the garden of Apostle Woodruff, who
introduced us to his wife, and showed us work of which he had reason
to be proud. Despite the hard, ungrateful soil which had required
irrigation for the last ten years, there were apricots from Malta,
the Hooker strawberries, here worth $5 the plant, plum-trees from
Kew Gardens, French and Californian grapes, wild plum and buffalo
berry, black currants, peaches, and apples--with which last we were
hospitably loaded--in numbers. The kitchen garden contained rhubarb,
peas, potatoes, Irish and sweet, asparagus, white and yellow carrots,
cabbages, and huge beets: the sugar-cane had been tried there, but it
was not, like the sweet holcus, a success.
[CEMETERY.]
The last time I walked out of Great Salt Lake City was to see the
cemetery, which lies on the bench to the northeast of the settlement.
There is but one cemetery for saint and sinner, and it has been
prudently removed about three miles from the abodes of the living.
The tombs, like the funeral ceremonies, are simple, lacking the
“monumental mockery” which renders the country church-yard in England a
fitter study for farce than for elegy. On occasions of death, prayers
are offered in the house, and the corpse is carried at once to its
last home. The grave-yard is walled round, and contains a number of
occupants, the tombs being denoted by a stone or board, with name and
date, and sometimes a religious sentence, at the head and foot.