History of Utah E-Book

Hubert Bancroft

• Herausgeber: Ozymandias Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 794

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

As Francisco Vazquez de Coronado was journeying from Culiacan to the north and east in 1540, he rested at Cibola, that is to say Zuni, and while waiting for the main army to come forward, expeditions were sent out in various directions. One of these, consisting of twenty men under Pedro de Tobar, and attended by Father Juan de Padilla, proceeded north-westward and after five days reached Tusayan, or the Moqui villages, which were quickly captured. Among other matters of interest, information was here given of a large river yet farther north, the people who lived upon its banks being likewise very large.

Leseprobe

History of Utah

Hubert Bancroft

OZYMANDIAS PRESS

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

Copyright © 2016 by Hubert Bancroft

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DISCOVERIES OF THE SPANIARDS

ADVENT OF TRAPPERS AND TRAVELERS

.THE STORY OF MORMONISM

THE STORY OF MORMONISM

THE STORY OF MORMONISM

THE STORY OF MORMONISM

BRIGHAM YOUNG SUCCEEDS JOSEPH

EXPULSION FROM NAUVOO

AT THE MISSOURI

MIGRATION TO UTAH

.IN THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE

IN THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE

SETTLEMENT AND OCCUPATION OF THE COUNTRY

EDUCATION, MANUFACTURES, COMMERCE, AGRICULTURE, SOCIETY

MORMONISM AND POLYGAMY

MISSIONS AND IMMIGRATIN

UTAH AS A TERRITORY

THE GOVERNMENT IN ARMS

THE UTAH WAR

THE MOUNTAIN MEADOW’S MASSACRE

POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL

PROGRESS OF EVETNS

SCHISMS AND APOSTASIES

THE LAST DAYS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG

CHURCH AND STATE

SETTLEMENTS, SOCIETY AND EDUCATION

AGRICULTURE, STOCK-RAISING, MANUFACTURES, AND MINING

COMMERCE AND COMMUNICATION

DISCOVERIES OF THE SPANIARDS

1540-1777

As Francisco Vazquez de Coronado was journeying from Culiacan to the north and east in 1540, he rested at Cibola, that is to say Zuni, and while waiting for the main army to come forward, expeditions were sent out in various directions. One of these, consisting of twenty men under Pedro de Tobar, and attended by Father Juan de Padilla, proceeded north-westward and after five days reached Tusayan, or the Moqui villages, which were quickly captured. Among other matters of interest, information was here given of a large river yet farther north, the people who lived upon its banks being likewise very large.

Returning to Cibola, Tobar reported what had been said concerning this river; whereupon Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas was sent with twelve men to explore it, Pedro de Sotomayor accompanying to chronicle the expedition. Obtaining at Tusayan, where he was well received, guides and carriers, with an ample supply of provisions, Cardenas marched for twenty days, probably in a north-westerly direction through a desert country until he discovered the river but from such high banks that he could not reach it. It was the river called the Tizon and it flowed from the north-east toward the south-west. It seemed to the Spaniards when they first descried it that they were on mountains through which the river had cut a chasm only a few feet wide, but which if they might believe the natives was half a league across. In vain for several days, with their faces toward the south and west, they sought to escape from the mountains that environed them, and descend to the river, for they were suffering from thirst. At length one morning three of the lightest and most active of the party crept over the brink and descended until they were out of sight. They did not return till toward evening, when they reported their failure to reach the bottom, saying that the river, and distances and objects, were all much larger than they seemed to the beholder above, rocks apparently no higher than a man being in fact larger than the cathedral at Seville. Compelled by thirst they retired from the inhospitable stream, and finally returned to Tusayan and Cibola.

It was not necessary in those days that a country should be discovered in order to be mapped; even now we dogmatize most about what we know least. It is a lonely sea indeed that cannot sport mermaids and monsters; it were a pity to have so broad an extent of land without a good wide sheet of water in it; so the Conibas Regio cum Vicinis Gentibus shows a large lake, called Conibas, connecting by a very wide river apparently with a northern sea. I give herewith another map showing a lake large enough to swallow Utah and Idaho combined, and discharging its waters by two great rivers into the Pacific. This species of geography was doubtless entirely satisfactory to the wise men of this world until they came to know better about it. If the reader will look over the chapters on the Northern Mystery in my History of the Northwest Coast he may learn further of absurdities, in map-making.

A more extended and pronounced exploration was that of two Franciscan friars, one the visitador comisario of New Mexico, Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and the other ministro doctrinero of Zuii, Silvestre Velez de Escalante, who set out from Santa Fe July 29, 1776, for the purpose of discovering a direct route to Monterey, on the seaboard of Alta California. New Mexico had now been known nearly two and a half centuries; the city of Santa Fe had been founded over a century and a half, Monterey had been occupied since 1770, and yet there had been opened no direct route westward with the sea, communication between Mexico and Santa Fe being by land, the road following the Rio Grande. In his memorial of March 1773, while in Mexico, Father Junipero Serra had urged that two expeditions be made, one from Sonora to California, which was carried out the following year by Captain Anza, and one from New Mexico to the sea, which Dominguez and Escalante now proposed to undertake. Again in 1775 Anza made a similar journey, this time leaving at the junction of the Colorado and Gila Father Garces who ascended the former stream to the Mojave country whence crossing to Mission San Gabriel he proceeded to the Tulare Valley. There he heard from the natives of a great river coming in from the east or northeast. Indeed it was long the prevailing opinion that there existed such a stream in that vicinity. From the Tulare country Garces returned to San Gabriel and Mojave, and thence proceeded to the villages of the Moquis. From this place he probably wrote to Santa Fe concerning the rumor of this river; for all through the journey of Dominguez and Escalante they were in search of it.

The party consisted in all of nine persons. Besides the two priests there were Juan Pedro Cisneros, alcalde mayor of Zuiji, Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, capital miliciano of Santa Fe, and five soldiers. Having implored divine protection, on the day before named they took the road to Abiquiu, passed on to the Rio Chama, and on the 5th of August reached a point called Nieves, on the San Juan River, three leagues below the junction of the Navajo. Thence they passed down the north bank of the San Juan, crossing the several branches, until on the 10th they found themselves on a branch of the Mancos, some distance from the San Juan, and beyond the line of the present state of Colorado. The 12th they camped on the north bank of the Bio Dolores, in latitude 38°13′6 and were there joined by two natives from Abiquiu, who had deserted their homes to follow the expedition.

They now followed the general course of the Dolores until the 23rd, when they left the San Pedro, which flows into the Dolores near La Sal, and crossed over northeast to Rio San Francisco, and again to the Rio San Javier on the 28th, their course being for some distance east of north.

Not far from their path was a rancheria of Yutas, which the Spaniards visited, endeavoring to obtain guides to the land of the Timpanogos, Timpangotzis, or Lagunas, where they had been told to look for Pueblo towns. A Laguna guide was there, but the Yutas did all in their power to dissuade the explorers from proceeding, pretending ignorance of the country and danger from the Comanches. But the 3rd of September saw them again on their way. Pursuing a north-west course, the second day they crossed and camped on the north bank of the Rio San Rafael, or Colorado, in latitude 41°4′. Their course thence was north-westerly, and on the 9th they crossed a river called San Clemente, flowing west. Signs of buffaloes were abundant, and on the 11th they killed one. Two days afterward they crossed the Rio de San Buenaventura, the boundary between the Yutas and the Comanches, in latitude 41°19′, at a place which the priests call Santa Cruz. Here were six large black poplars, on one of which they left an inscription. After resting two days they took the course of the San Buenaventura south-west ten leagues, and from a hill saw the junction of the San Clemente. Descending a little farther they found a river flowing in from the west, following which they reached a branch the 17th, naming it the San Cosme.

From this point they proceeded westward, following up the Uintah, across the Duchesne, and over the mountains, with no small difficulty, to a river which they called Purisima and which they followed till on the 23rd they came in sight of the lake which the natives called Timpanogos, but which is known now as Utah Lake.

Several reasons combined to bring the Spaniards so far to the north of what would be a direct road from Santa Fe to Monterey. First, Escalante entertained a theory that a better route to the Pacific could be found northward than toward the south. Then there was always a fascination attending this region, with its great and perpetual Northern Mystery; perhaps the Arctic Ocean came down hereabout, or at least an arm of the Anian Strait might be found nor were forgotten the rivers spoken of by different persons on different occasions as flowing hence into the Pacific. And last of all it may be that the rumor of Pueblo villages in this quarter carried the explorers further north than otherwise they would have gone.

However this may have been, they were now of opinion that they had penetrated far enough in a northerly direction, and from this point must take a southerly course. There were here no town-builders like the Moquis and Zunis, as the priests had been led to suppose, but there were wild Indians, and the first they had seen in this vicinity. At first these savages manifested fear, but when assured that the strangers had not come to harm them, and were in no way leagued with the dreaded Comanches, they welcomed them kindly and gave them food. They were simple-minded and inoffensive, these native Yutas, very ready to guide the travelers whithersoever they would go but they begged them to return and establish a mission in their midst; in token of which, and of their desire to adopt the Christian faith, they gave the priests a kind of hieroglyphic painting on deer skin.

Then the Spaniards talk of the country and of the people about them. They are in the valley and by the lake of Nuestra Senora de la Merced de los Timpanogos and north of the river San Buenaventura are the mountains which they have just crossed, extending northeast and southwest some seventy leagues, and having a width of forty leagues. From the surrounding heights flow four rivers of medium size, discharging their waters into the lake, where thrive fish and wild fowl. The valley which surrounds this lake extends from south-east to north-west sixteen Spanish leagues; it is quite level, and has a width of ten or twelve leagues. Except the marshes on the lake borders the land is good for agriculture. Of the four rivers which water the valley the southernmost, which they call Aguas Calientes, passes through rich meadows capable of supporting two large towns. The second, three leagues from the first, flowing northerly, and which they call the San Nicolas, fertilizes enough good land to support one large town or two smaller ones. Before reaching the lake it divides into two branches, on the banks of which grow tall poplars and alders. The third river, which is three and a half leagues to the northeast, and which they call the San Antonio de Padua, carries more water than the others, and from its rich banks, which would easily support three large towns, spring groves of larger trees. Santa Ana, they call the fourth river, which is north-west of the San Antonio, and not inferior to the others—so they are told, for they do not visit it. Besides these rivers, there are good springs of water both on plain and mountain-side; pasture lands are abundant, and in parts the fertile soil yields such quantities of flax and hemp that it seems they must have been planted there by man. On the San Buenaventura the Spaniards had been troubled by the cold; but here the climate is so delightful, the air so balmy, that it is a pleasure to breathe it, by day and by night. In the vicinity are other valleys equally delightful. Besides the products of the lake the Yutas hunt hares, and gather seeds from which they make stole. They might capture some buffaloes in the north-north-west but for the troublesome Comanches. They dwell in huts of osier, of which, likewise, many of their utensils are made some of them wear clothes, the best of which are of the skins of rabbits and antelopes. There are in this region many people, of whom he who would know more may consult the Native Races. The Spaniards are further told by the Yutas of a large and wonderful body of water toward the northwest and this is what Father Escalante reports of it.

“The other lake, with which this communicates,” he says, “occupies, as they told us, many leagues, and its waters are injurious and extremely salt; because the Timpanois assure us that he who wets any part of his body with this water, immediately feels an itching in the wet part. We were told that in the circuit of this lake there live a numerous and quiet nation, called Puaguampe, which means in our language Sorcerers; they speak the Comanche language, feed on herbs, and drink from various fountains or springs of good water which are about the lake; and they have their little houses of grass and earth, which latter forms the roof. They are not, so they intimated, enemies of those living on this lake, but since a certain time when the people there approached and killed a man, they do not consider them as neutral as before. On this occasion they entered by the last pass of the Sierra Blanca de los Timpanogos, which is the same in which they are, by a route north one fourth north-west, and by that same way they say the Comanches make their raids, which do not seem to be very frequent.”

Continuing their journey the 26th of September with two guides, the Spaniards bend their course south-westwardly in the direction of Monterey, through the Sevier lake and river region, which stream they call Santa Isabel. The 8th of October they are in latitude 38°3′ with Beaver River behind them. Passing on into what is now Escalante Valley they question the natives regarding a route to the sea, and as to their knowledge of Spaniards in that direction. The savages know nothing of either. Meanwhile winter is approaching, provisions are becoming low, the way to the sea must be long and difficult; therefore the friars resolve to abandon the attempt; they will continue south, turning perhaps to the east until they come to the Colorado, when they will return to Santa Fe by way of the Moqui and Zuni villages.

Some of the party object to this abandonment of purpose. They have come far; they can surely find a way: why turn back? To determine the matter prayers are made and lots cast, the decision being against Monterey. As they turn eastward, the 11th, in latitude 36° 52′, they are obliged to make bread of seeds purchased from the natives, for their supplies are wholly exhausted. Reaching the Colorado the 26th, twelve days are passed in searching for a ford, which they find at last in latitude 37°, the line dividing Utah from Arizona. Their course is now southeast, and the 16th of November they reach Oraybi, as they call the residence of the Moquis. There they are kindly received; but when for food and shelter they offer presents and religious instruction the natives refuse. Next day the Spaniards visit Xongopabi, and the day after Gualpi, at which latter place they call a meeting and propose to the natives temporal and spiritual submission. The Moquis will be friendly they say, but the further proposals they promptly decline. Thereupon the friars continue their way, reaching Zuni November 24th and Santa Fe the 2nd of January 1777.

ADVENT OF TRAPPERS AND TRAVELERS

1778-1846

Half a century passes, and we find United States fur hunters standing on the border of the Great Salt Lake, tasting its brackish waters, and wondering if it is an arm of the sea.

First among these, confining ourselves to authentic records, was James Bridger, to whom belongs the honor of discovery. It happened in this wise. During the winter of 1824-5 a party of trappers, who had ascended the Missouri with Henry and Ashley, found themselves on Bear River, in Cache, or Willow Valley. A discussion arose as to the probable course of Bear River, which flowed on both sides of them. A wager was made, and Bridger sent to ascertain the truth. Following the river through the mountains the first view of the great lake fell upon him, and when he went to the margin and tasted the water he found that it was salt. Then he returned and reported to his companions. All were interested to know if there emptied into this sheet other streams on which they might find beavers, and if there was an outlet; hence in the spring of 1826 four men explored the lake in skin boats.

During this memorable year of 1825, when Peter Skeen Ogden with his party of Hudson’s Bay Company trappers was on Humboldt River, and James P. Beckwourth was pursuing his daring adventures, and the region round the great lakes of Utah first became familiar to American trappers, William H. Ashley, of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, at the head of one hundred and twenty men and a train of well packed horses, came out from St Louis, through the South Pass and down by Great Salt Lake to Lake Utah. There he built a fort, and two years later brought from St Louis a six-pounder which thereafter graced its court. Ashley was a brave man, shrewd and honest; he was prosperous and commanded the respect of his men. Nor may we impute to him lack of intelligence, or of common geographical knowledge, when we find him seriously considering the project of descending the Colorado in boats, by means of which he would eventually reach St Louis. Mr. Green, who gave his name to Green River, had been with Ashley the previous year; and now for three years after the establishing of Fort Ashley at Utah Lake, Green with his trappers occupied the country to the west and north.

From Great Salt Lake in August, 1826, Jedediah S. Smith sets out on a trapping and exploring tour with fifteen men. Proceeding southward he traverses Utah Lake, called for a time Ashley Lake, and after ascending Ashley River, which, as he remarks, flows into the lake through the country of the Sampatches, he bends his course to the west of south, passes over some mountains running south-east and northwest and crosses a river which he calls Adams, in honor of the president. After ten days’ march, still in a south-westerly direction, through the country of the Pah Utes, he recrosses the same stream, and after two days comes to the junction of the Adams with what he calls the Seedskeeder, or Siskadee, river, a stream full of shallows and rapids and flowing through a sterile country. Then he reaches a fertile wooded valley which belongs to the Amajabes, or Mojaves, where the party rests fifteen days, meeting with the kindest treatment from the natives, who provide food and horses. Thence they are guided by two neophytes westward through a desert country, and reach the mission of San Gabriel in December, their appearance causing no small commotion in California. After many strange adventures, fully narrated in my History of California, Smith works his way northward up the San Joaquin Valley, and in May 1827 crosses the Sierra Nevada and returns eastward to Great Salt Lake. With Jedediah Smith, during some part of his stay in Utah, was Thomas L. Smith, whom we must immortalize in history as Pegleg Smith. He did not possess a very estimable character, as, I am sorry to say, few of his class did in those clays. The leaders of American fur companies, however, were exceptions, and in points of intelligence, integrity, and daring were in no wise behind their British brethren.

From southeast to north-west a portion of Utah was traversed in the autumn of 1830 by a trapping party under William Wolfskill. The company was fitted out in New Mexico, and the great valley of California was their objective point. Wolfskill had been a partner of Ewing Young, who was then in California. Leaving Taos in September they struck northwesterly, crossing the Colorado, Grande, Green, and Sevier rivers, and then turned south to the Rio Virgen, all the time trapping on the way. Then passing down by the Mojaves they reached Los Angeles in February 1831. George C. Count and Louis Bur ton were of the party.

During the winter of 1832-3 B. L. E. Bonneville made his camp on Salmon River, and in July following was at the Green River rendezvous. Among the several trapping parties sent by him in various directions was one under Joseph Walker, who with some thirty-six men, among them Joe Meek, went to trap on the streams falling into the Great Salt Lake.

Bonneville affirms that Walker’s intention was to pass round the Great Salt Lake and explore its borders but George Nidever who was of Walker’s company, and at the rendezvous while preparations were made, says nothing of such purpose, and it was probably not thought of by Bonneville until afterward. Nidever had suffered severely from the cold during the previous winter, and had come to the Green River rendezvous that season for the express purpose of joining some party for California or of forming such a party himself, having been informed that the climate there was milder than in the mountains where he had been.

If the intention was, as Bonneville asserts, that this party should pass round the great lake, in their endeavor they presently found themselves in the midst of desolation, between wide sandy wastes and broad brackish waters; and to quench their thirst they hastened westward where bright snowy mountains promised cooling streams. The Ogden River region being to them so new, and the thought of California so fascinating, they permitted themselves to stray from original intentions, and cross the Sierra Nevada to Monterey. All that is known of their doings before reaching the Snowy Range is given in my History of Nevada, and their exploits after reaching California are fully narrated in that part of this series devoted to the history of the latter country.

In Winterbotham’s history published in New York in 1795 is given a map of North America showing an enormous nameless inland sea above latitude 42° with small streams running into it, and south of said parallel and east of the meridian of the inland sea is a smaller body of water with quite a large stream flowing in from the west, besides three smaller ones from the south and north. As both of these bodies of water were laid down from the imaginations of white men, or from vague and traditionary reports of the natives, it may be that only the one Great Salt Lake was originally referred to, or it may be that the original description was applied to two lakes or inland seas. The native village on one of the southern tributaries, Taguayo, refers to the habitations of the Timpanogos, and may have been derived from the Spaniards but more probably the information was obtained through natives who themselves had received it from other natives.

In the map of William Rector, a surveyor in the service of the general government, Utah has open and easy communication with the sea by way of the valley of the Willamette River, whose tributaries drain the whole of Nevada and Utah.

Mr. Finley in his map of North America claimed to have included all the late geographical discoveries, which claim we may readily allow, and also accredit him with much not yet and never to be discovered. The mountains are artistically placed, the streams made to run with remarkable regularity and directness and they are placed in positions affording the best facilities for commerce. The lakes and rivers Timpanogos, Salado and Buenaventura, by their position, not to say existence, show the hopeless confusion of the author’s mind.

A brief glance at the later visits of white men to Utah is all that is necessary in this place. The early emigrants to Oregon did not touch this territory and those to California via Fort Bridger for the most part merely passed through leaving no mark. The emigrants to Oregon and California in 1841 came together by the usual route up the Platte, along the Sweetwater, and through the South Pass to Bear River Valley. When near Soda Springs those for Oregon went north to Fort Hall, while those for California followed Bear River southward until within ten miles of Great Salt Lake, when they turned westward to find Ogden River. Of the latter party were J. Bartleson, C. M. Weber, Talbot H. Green, John Bidwell, Josiah Belden, and twenty-seven others. Their adventures while in Utah were not startling. Little was known of the Salt Lake region particularly of the country to the west of it.

Mr. Belden in his Historical Statement, which I number among my most valuable manuscripts, says: “We struck Bear River some distance below where the town of Evanston now is, where the coal mines are, and the railroad passes, and followed the river down. It makes a long bend to the north there, and comes down to Salt Lake. We arrived at Soda Springs, on Bear River, and there we separated from the company of missionaries, who were going off towards Snake River or Columbia. There we lost the services of the guide Fitzpatrick. Several of our party who had started to go with us to California also left us there, having decided to go with the missionaries. Fitzpatrick advised us to give up our expedition and go with them to Fort Hall, one of the Hudson’s Bay stations, as there was no road for us to follow, nothing was known of the country, and we had nothing to guide us, and so he advised us to give up the California project. He thought it was doubtful if we ever got there, we might get caught in the snow of the mountains and perish there, and he considered it very hazardous to attempt it. Some four or five of our party withdrew and went with the missionaries. About thirty-one of us adhered to our original intention and declined to give up our expedition.”

While the party was slowly descending Bear River four of them rode over to Fort Hall to obtain if possible a “pilot to conduct us to the gap in the California Mountains, or at least to the head of Mary’s River,” and to make inquiries of Mr. Grant, then in charge. No guide could be found, and Grant was not able greatly to enlighten them. The fur-trader could have told them much concerning the route to Oregon, but this way to California as an emigrant road had hardly yet been thought of.

“As we approached Salt Lake,” writes Bidwell, “we were misled quite often by the mirage. The country too was obscured by smoke. The water in Bear River became too salt for use. The sage brush on the small hillocks of the almost level plain became so magnified as to look like trees. Hoping to find water, and supposing these imaginary trees to be growing on some stream, and knowing nothing about the distance to Salt Lake, we kept pushing ahead mile after mile. Our animals almost perished for want of water while we were traveling over this salt plain, which grew softer and softer till our wagons cut into the ground five or six inches, and it became impossible to haul them. We still thought we saw timber but a short distance ahead, when the fact really was there was no timber, and we were driving straight for the Great Salt Lake.”

The truth is they had wandered from their course; they had passed Cache Valley where they intended to rest and hunt; they were frequently obliged to leave the river, turned aside by the hills. It was past mid-summer, and the sun’s rays beat heavily on the white salted plain. The signal fires of the Shoshones illuminated the hills at night. “In our desperation we turned north of east a little and struck Bear River again a few miles from its mouth. The water here was too salt to quench thirst; our animals would scarcely taste it, yet we had no other.” The green fresh-looking grass was stiffened with salt. Mr. Belden says: “After separating from the missionaries we followed Bear River down nearly to where it enters Salt Lake, about where Corinne is now. We had some knowledge of the lake from some of the trappers who had been there. We turned off more to the west and went round the northerly end of Salt Lake. There we found a great difficulty in getting water for several days, all the water near the lake being very brackish. We had to make it into strong coffee to drink it.”

On the 20th of August the company rested while two of their number went out to explore. They found themselves encamped ten miles from the mouth of the river. Thence next day, Sunday, they took a north-west course, crossing their track of the Thursday previous; on the 23rd they were in full view of Salt Lake. Men and animals were almost dying of thirst, and “in our trouble,” says Bidwell, “we turned directly north toward some high mountains, and in the afternoon of the next day found springs of good water and plenty of grass.” This was the 27th and here the company remained while two of their number again advanced and discovered a route to Ogden River. What befell them further on their way across to the mountains the reader will find in my History of Nevada.

In 1842 Marcus Whitman and A. L. Lovejoy, on their way from Oregon to the United States, passed through Utah from Fort Hall, by way of Uintah, Taos, and Santa Fe. For further information concerning them, and the object of their journey, I would refer the reader to my History of Oregon.

In 1843 John C. Fremont followed the emigrant trail through the south pass, and on the 6th of September stood upon an elevated peninsula on the east side of Great Salt Lake, a little north of Weber River, beside which stream his party had encamped the previous night. Fremont likens himself to Balboa discovering the Pacific; but no one else would think of doing so. He was in no sense a discoverer and though he says he was the first to embark on that inland sea, he is again in error, trappers in skin boats having performed that feat while the pathfinder was still studying his arithmetic, as I have before mentioned. It is certainly a pleasing sight to any one, coming upon it from either side, from the cover of rolling mountains or the sands of desert plains, and under almost any circumstance the heart of the beholder is stirred within him. A number of large islands raised their rocky front out of dense sullen waters whose limit the eye could not reach, while myriads of wild fowl beat the air, making a noise “like distant thunder.”

Black clouds gathered in the west, and soon were pouring their floods upon the explorers. Camping some distance above the mouth on Weber River, they made a corral for the animals, and threw up a small fort for their own protection. Provisions being scarce, seven of the party under Francois Lajeunesse was sent to Fort Hall, which place they reached with difficulty, after separation from each other and several days’ wanderings.

Leaving three men in camp, with four others, including Kit Carson who was present, Fremont on the 8th embarked in a rubber boat and dropped down to the mouth of the stream, which the party found shallow and unnavigable. Next morning they were out on the lake, fearful every moment lest their air-blown boat should collapse and let them into the saline but beautiful transparent liquid. At noon they reached one of the low near islands and landed. They found there, washed up by the waves, a dark brown bank, ten or twenty feet in breadth, composed of the skins of worms, about the size of oats, while the rocky cliffs were whitened by incrustations of salt. Ascending to the highest point attainable they took a surrounding view, and called the place Disappointment Island because they had failed to find the fertile lands and game hoped for. Then they descended to the edge of the water, constructed lodges of drift-wood, built fires, and spent the night there, returning next day in a rough sea to their mainland camp. Thence they proceeded north to Bear River, and Fort Hall, and on to Oregon. On his return by way of Klamath and Pyramid lakes, Fremont crossed the Sierra to Sutter Fort, proceeded up the San Joaquin into Southern California, and taking the old Spanish trail to the Rio Virgen followed the Wahsatch Mountains to Utah Lake.

There was a party under Fremont in Utah also in 1845. Leaving Bent Fort in August they ascended the Arkansas, passed on to Green River, followed its left bank to the Duchesne branch, and thence crossed to the head-waters of the Timpanogos, down which stream they went to Utah Lake. Thence they passed on to Great Salt Lake, made camp near where Great Salt Lake City is situated, crossed to Antelope Island, and examined the southern portion of the lake. After this they passed by way of Pilot Peak into Nevada.

Of the six companies comprising the California immigration of 1845, numbering in all about one hundred and fifty, five touched either Utah or Nevada, the other being from Oregon. But even these it is not necessary to follow in this connection, Utah along the emigrant road being by this time well known to travelers and others. With some it was a question while on the way whether they should go to Oregon or California. Tustin, who came from Illinois in 1845, with his wife and child and an ox team, says in his manuscript Recollections: “My intention all the way across the plains was to go on to Oregon; but when I reached the summit of the Rocky Mountains where the trail divides, I threw my lash across the near ox and struck off on the road to California.

For the Oregon and California emigrations of 1846, except when they exercised some influence on Utah, or Utah affairs, I would refer the reader to the volumes of this series treating on those states. An account of the exploration for a route from southern Oregon, over the Cascade Mountains, and by way of Klamath and Goose lakes to the Humboldt River and thence on to the region of the Great Salt Lake by Scott and the Applegates in 1846, is given in both the History of Oregon, and the History of Nevada, to which volumes of this series the reader is referred.

.THE STORY OF MORMONISM

1820-1830

Let us turn now to the east, where have been evolving these several years a new phase of society and a new religion, destined presently to enter in and take possession of this far-away primeval wilderness. For it is not alone by the power of things material that the land of the Yutas is to be subdued; that mysterious agency, working under pressure of high enthusiasm in the souls of men, defying exposure, cold, and hunger, defying ignominy, death, and the destruction of all corporeal things in the hope of heaven’s favors and a happy immortality, a puissance whose very breath of life is persecution, and whose highest glory is martyrdom—it is through this subtitle and incomprehensible spiritual instrumentality, rather than from a desire for riches or any tangible advantage that the new Israel is to arise, the new exodus to be conducted, the new Canaan to be attained.

Sixty years ago western New York was essentially a new country, Ohio and Illinois were for the most part a wilderness, and Missouri was the United States limit, the lands beyond being held by the aborigines. There were some settlements between Lake Erie and the Mississippi River, but they were recent and rude and the region was less civilized than savage. The people, though practically shrewd and of bright intellect, were ignorant; though having within them the elements of wealth, they were poor. There was among them much true religion, whatever that may be, yet they were all superstitious—Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians; there was little to choose between them. Each sect was an abomination to the others; the others were of the devil, doomed to eternal torments and deservedly so. The bible was accepted literally by all, every word of it, prophecies, miracles, and revelations; the same God and the same Christ satisfied all; an infidel was a thing woeful and unclean. All the people reasoned. How they racked their brains in secret and poured forth loud logic in public, not over problems involving intellectual liberty, human rights and reason, and other like insignificant matters appertaining to this world, but concerning the world to come, and more particularly such momentous questions as election, justification, baptism, and infant damnation. Then of signs and seasons, God’s ways and Satan’s ways; likewise concerning promises and prayer, and all the rest, there was a credulity most refreshing. In the old time there were prophets and apostles, there were visions and miracles; why should it not be so during these latter days? It was time for Christ to come again, time for the millennial season, and should the power of the almighty be limited? There was the arch-fanatic Miller, and his followers, predicting the end and planning accordingly. “The idea that revelation from God was unattainable in this age, or that the ancient gifts of the gospel had ceased forever, never entered my head,” writes a young quaker and a Methodist of that epoch says: “We believed in the gathering of Israel, and in the restoration of the ten tribes; we believed that Jesus would come to reign personally on the earth; we believed that there ought to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, as in former days, and that the gifts of healing and the power of God ought to be associated with the church.” These ideas, of course, were not held by all; in many respects the strictly orthodox evangelical churches taught the contrary but there was enough of this literal interpretation and license of thought among the people to enable them to accept in all honesty and sincerity any doctrine in harmony with these views.

Such were the people and the place, such the atmosphere and conditions under which was to spring up the germ of a new theocracy, destined in its development to accomplish the first settlement of Utah—a people and an atmosphere already sufficiently charged, one would think, with doctrines and dogmas, with vulgar folly and stupid fanaticism, with unchristian hate and disputation over the commands of God and the charity of Christ. All this must be taken into account in estimating character, and in passing judgment on credulity; men of one time and place cannot with justice be measured by the standard of other times and places.

Before entering upon the history of Mormonism, I would here remark, as I have before said in the preface to this volume, that it is my purpose to treat the subject historically, not as a social, political, or religious partisan, but historically to deal with the sect organized under the name of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as I would deal with any other body of people, thus carrying over Utah the same quality of work which I have applied to my entire field, whether in Alaska, California, or Central America. Whatever they may be, howsoever righteous or wicked, they are entitled at the hand of those desirous of knowing the truth to a dispassionate and respectful hearing, which they have never had. As a matter of course, where there is such warmth of feeling, such bitterness and animosity as is here displayed on both sides, we must expect to encounter in our evidence much exaggeration, and many untruthful statements. Most that has been written on either side is partisan—bitterly so; many of the books that have been published are full of vile and licentious abuse—disgustingly so. Some of the more palpable lies, some of the grosser scurrility and more blasphemous vulgarity, I shall omit altogether.

Again, the history of the Mormons, which is the early history of Utah, is entitled in its treatment to this consideration, as differing from that of other sections of my work, and to this only—that whereas in speaking of other and older sects, as of the Catholics in Mexico and California, and of the Methodists and Presbyterians in Oregon, whose tenets having long been established, are well known, and have no immediate bearing aside from the general influence of religion upon the subjugation of the country, any analysis of doctrines would be out of place, such analysis in the present instance is of primary importance. Ordinarily, I say, as I have said before, that with the religious beliefs of the settlers on new lands, or of the builders of empire in any of its several phases, social and political, the historian has nothing to do, except in so far as belief influences actions and events. As to attempting to determine the truth or falsity of any creed, it is wholly outside of his province.

Since the settlement of Utah grew immediately out of the persecution of the Mormons, and since their persecutions grew out of the doctrines which they promulgated, it seems to me essential that the orion and nature of their religion should be given. And as they are supposed to know better than others what they believe and how they came so to believe, I shall let them tell their own story of the rise and progress of their religion, carrying along with it the commentaries of their opponents that is, giving in the text the narrative proper, and in the notes further information, elucidation, and counterstatements, according to my custom. All this by no means implies, here or elsewhere in my work, that when a Mormon elder, a catholic priest, or a Baptist preacher says he had a vision, felt within him some supernatural influence, or said a prayer which produced a certain result, it is proper or relevant for me to stop and dispute with him whether he really did see, feel, or experience as alleged.

As to the material facts connected with the story of Mormonism, there is but little difference between the Mormons and their opposers but in the reception and interpretation of acts and incidents, particularly in the acceptation of miraculous assertions and spiritual manifestations, they are as widely apart as the two poles, as my text and notes clearly demonstrate. And finally, I would have it clearly understood that it is my purpose, here as elsewhere in all my historical efforts, to impart information rather than attempt to solve problems. In Sharon, Windsor county, Vermont, on the 23rd of December, 1805, was born Joseph Smith junior, presently to be called translator, revelator, seer, prophet, and founder of a latter-day dispensation.

When the boy was ten years old, his father, who was a farmer, moved with his family to Palmyra, Wayne county, New York, and four years afterward took up his abode some six miles south, at Manchester, Ontario county. Six sons and three daughters comprised the family of Joseph and Lucy Smith, namely, Alvin, Hyrum, Joseph junior, Samuel Harrison, William, Don Carlos, Sophronia, Catharine, and Lucy. There was much excitement over the subject of religion in this section at the time, with no small discussion of doctrines, Methodist, Baptist, and the rest and about a year later, the mother and four of the children joined the Presbyterians.

But young Joseph was not satisfied with any of the current theologies, and he was greatly troubled what to do. Reading his bible one day, he came upon the passage, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” He retired to the woods and threw himself upon his knees. It was his first attempt at prayer.

While thus engaged a vision fell upon him. Suddenly he was seized by some supernatural power of evil import, which bound him body and soul. He could not think; he could not speak; thick darkness gathered round. Presently there appeared above his head a pillar of light, which slowly descended and enveloped him. Immediately he was delivered from the enemy and in the sky he saw two bright personages, one of whom said, pointing to the other, “This is my beloved son; hear him.” Then he asked what he should do; to which sect he should unite himself. And he was told to join none of them, that all were corrupt, all were abomination in the eyes of the Lord. When he came to himself he was still gazing earnestly up into heaven. This was in the spring of 1820, and Joseph was yet scarcely fifteen.

When the young prophet began to proclaim his vision, the wise men and preachers of the several sects laughed at him called him a silly boy, and told him that if his mind had really been disturbed, it was the devil’s doing. “Signs and revelations,” said they, “are of by gone times; .it ill befits one so young to lie before God and in the presence of his people.” “Nevertheless,” replied Joseph, “I have had a vision.” Then they reviled him, and the boy became disheartened and was entangled again in the vanities of the world, under the heavy hand of their oppression.

But the spirit of the Lord could not thus be quenched. The young man repented, and sought and found forgiveness. Retiring to his bed, midst prayer and supplication, on the night of September 21, 1823, presently the room grew light, and a figure robed in exceeding whiteness stood by the bedside, the feet not touching the floor. And a voice was heard, saying, “I am Moroni, and am come to you, Joseph, as a messenger from God.” Then the angel told the youth that the Lord had for him a great work to do, that his name should be known to all people, and of him should be spoken both good and evil. He told him of a book written on plates of gold, and containing an account of the early inhabitants of this continent, and the gospel as delivered to them by Christ. He said that deposited with those plates were two stones in silver bows, which, fastened to a breastplate, constituted the Urim and Thummim and that now as in ancient times the possession and use of the stones constituted a seer, and that through them the book might be translated. After offering many scriptural quotations from both the old and the new testament and charging the young man that when the book and the breastplate were delivered to him he should show them to no one, under pain of death and destruction—the place where the plates were deposited meanwhile being clearly revealed to his mental vision—the light in the room grew dim, as Moroni ascended along a pathway of glory into heaven, and finally darkness was there as before. The visit was made three times, the last ending with the dawn, when Joseph arose greatly exhausted and went into the field to work.

His father, observing his condition, sent him home but on the way Joseph fell in a state of unconsciousness to the ground. Soon, however, the voice of Moroni was heard, commanding him to return to his father, and tell him all that he had seen and heard. The young man obeyed. The father answered that it was of God; the son should do as the messenger had said. Then Joseph, knowing from the vision where the plates were hidden, went to the west side of a hill, called the hill Cumorah, near the town of Manchester, and beneath a large stone, part of whose top appeared above the ground, in a stone box, he found the plates, the urim and thummim, and the breastplate. But when he was about to take them out Moroni stood beside him and said, “Not yet; meet me here at this time each year for four years, and I will tell you what to do.” Joseph obeyed.

The elder Smith was poor, and the boys were sometimes obliged to hire themselves out as laborers. It was on the 22nd of September, 1823, that the plates were found. The following year Alvin died, and in October 1825 Joseph went to work for Josiah Stoal, in Chenango county. This man had what he supposed to be a silver mine at Harmony, Pennsylvania, said to have been once worked by Spaniards. Thither Joseph went with the other men to dig for silver, boarding at the house of Isaac Hale. After a month’s fruitless effort Stoal was induced by Joseph to abandon the undertaking; but meanwhile the youth had fallen in love with Hale’s pretty daughter, Emma, and wished to marry her. Hale objected, owing to his continued assertions that he had seen visions, and the resulting persecutions; so Joseph took Emma to the house of Squire Tarbill, at South Bainbridge, where they were married the 18th of January, 1827, and thence returned to his father’s farm, where he worked during the following season.

Every year went Joseph to the hill Cumorah to hold communion with the heavenly messenger, and on the 22nd of September, 1827, Moroni delivered to him the plates and the urim and thummim with which to translate them, charging him on pain of dire disaster to guard them well until he should call for them. Persecutions increased when it was known that Joseph had in his possession the plates of gold and every art that Satan could devise or put in force through the agency of wicked men was employed to wrest them from him. But almighty power and wisdom prevailed, and the sacred relics were safely kept till the day the messenger called for them, when they were delivered into his hands, Joseph meanwhile having accomplished by them all that was required of him.

And now so fierce becomes the fiery malevolence of the enemy that Joseph is obliged to fly. He is very poor, having absolutely nothing, until a farmer named Martin Harris has pity on him and gives him fifty dollars with which he is enabled to go with his wife to her old home in Pennsylvania. Immediately after his arrival there in December, he begins copying the characters on the plates, Martin Harris coming to his assistance, and by means of the urim and thummim manages to translate some of them, which work is continued till February 1828. Harris’ wife is exceedingly curious about the matter, and finally obtains possession through her husband of a portion of the manuscript. About this time Harris takes a copy of some of the characters to New York city, where he submits them to the examination of Professor Anthon and Dr Mitchell, who pronounce them to be Egyptian, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Arabic. Then Joseph buys of his wife’s father a small farm and goes to work on it. In February 1829 he receives a visit from his own father, at which time a revelation comes to Joseph Smith senior, through the son, calling him to faith and good works. The month following Martin Harris asks for and receives a revelation, by the mouth of the latter, regarding the plates, wherein the said Harris is told that Joseph has in his possession the plates which he claims to have, that they were delivered to him by the Lord God, who likewise gave him power to translate them, and that he, Harris, should bear witness of the same. Three months later, Harris having meanwhile acted as his scribe, Joseph is commanded to rest for a season in his work of translating until directed to take it up again.

The tenor of the book of Mormon is in this wise: Following the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel, the peoples of the earth were scattered abroad, one colony being led by the Lord across the ocean to America. Fifteen hundred years after, or six hundred years before Christ, they were destroyed for their wickedness. Of the original number was Jared, among whose descendants was the prophet Ether, who was their historian. Ether lived to witness the extinction of his nation, and under divine direction he deposited his history in a locality where it was found by a second colony, Israelites of the tribe of Joseph, who came from Jerusalem about the time of the destruction of the first colony, namely, six hundred years before Christ. Thus was America repeopled; the second colony occupied the site of the first, multiplied and became rich, and in time divided into two nations, the Nephites and the Lamanites, so called from their respective founders, Nephi and Laman. The former advanced in civilization, but the Lamanites lapsed into barbarism, and were the immediate progenitors of the American aboriginals.

The Nephites were the beloved of the Lord. To them were given visions and angels’ visits; to them the Christ appeared with gifts of gospel and prophecy. It was, indeed, the golden age of a favored people; but in a time of temptation, some three or four centuries after Christ, they fell, and were destroyed by the wicked Lamanites. The greatest prophet of the Nephites, in the period of their declension, was Mormon, their historian, who after having completed his abridgment of the records of his nation, committed it to his son Moroni, and he, that they might not fall into the hands of the Lamanites, deposited them in the hill of Cumorah, where they were found by Joseph Smith.

On the 5th of April, 1829, there comes to Joseph Smith a school-teacher, Oliver Cowdery by name, to whom the Lord had revealed himself at the house of the elder Smith, where the teacher had been boarding. Inquiring of the Lord, Joseph is told that to Oliver shall be given the same power to translate the book of Mormon by which term the writing on the golden plates is hereafter known, and that he also shall bear witness to the truth.

Two days after the arrival of Oliver, Joseph and he begin the work systematically, the former translating while the latter writes for Oliver has a vision, meanwhile, telling him not to exercise his gift of translating at present, but simply to write at Joseph’s dictation. Continuing thus, on the 15th of May the two men go into the woods to ask God concerning baptism, found mentioned in the plates. Presently a messenger descends from heaven in a cloud of light. It is John the Baptist. And he ordains them, saying, “Upon you, my fellow-servants, in the name of messiah, I confer the priesthood of Aaron.” Baptism by immersion is directed the power of laying-on of hands for the gift of the holy ghost is promised, but not now bestowed; then they are commanded to be baptized, each one baptizing the other, which is done, each in turn laying his hands upon the head of the other, and ordaining him to the Aaronic priesthood. As they come up out of the water the holy ghost, falls upon them, and they prophesy.

Persecutions continue brethren of Christ threaten to mob them, but Joseph’s wife’s father promises protection. Samuel Smith comes, and is converted, receiving baptism and obtaining revelations and later Joseph’s father and mother, Martin Harris, and others. Food is several times charitably brought to the translators by Joseph Knight, senior, of Colesville, New York, concerning whom is given a revelation. In June comes David Whitmer with a request from his father, Peter Whitmer, of Fayette, New York, that the translators should occupy his house thenceforth until the completion of their work, and brings with him a two-horse wagon to carry them and their effects. Not only is their board to be free, but one of the brothers Whitmer, of whom there are David, John, and Peter junior, will assist in the writing. Thither they go, and find all as promised; David and Peter Whitmer and Hyrum Smith are baptized and receive revelations through Joseph, who inquires of the Lord for them by means of the urim and thummim. The people thereabout being friendly, meetings are held, and the new revelation taught, many believing, certain priests and others disputing. Three special witnesses are provided by Christ, namely, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, to whom the plates are shown by an angel after much prayer and meditation in the woods. These are the three witnesses. And there are further eight witnesses, namely, Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer junior, John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith senior, Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith, who testify that the plates were shown to them by Joseph Smith junior, that they handled them with their hands, and saw the characters engraven thereon.

The translation of the book of Mormon being finished, Smith and Cowdery go to Palmyra, secure the copyright, and agree with Egbert B. Grandin to print five thousand copies for three thousand dollars. Meanwhile, a revelation comes to Martin Harris, at Manchester, in March, commanding him to pay for the printing of the book of Mormon, under penalty of destruction of himself and property. The title page is not a modern production, but a literal translation from the last leaf of the plates, on the left-hand side, and running like all Hebrew writing.