A Journey to the Great-Salt-Lake City, by J. Remy and J. Brenchley; with a sketch of the history, religion, and customs of the Mormons, and an introduction, on the religious movement in the United States

Front matter

JOURNEY TO GREAT-SALT-LAKE CITY. Ne en 1801, Daguerreotype en 1855. The Mormon Pope. With the title os i' hi os the Church os Latter-day Saints. Born in 1801 From a daœuerreoLype taken in 1855 , harden atsie. Paru A JOURNEY Til GREAT-SALT-LAKE CITY, l:v JULES REMY, AND JULIUS BRENCHLEY, M.A.; WITH A SKETCn OF THE HISTORY, RELIGION, AND CUSTOMS OE THE MORMONS, AND AN INTEODUCTION ON THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. By JULES REMY. IN TWO -VOLUMES. VOL. I. fMtttj 3Tm Steel Œngrabinljs ant a Jfiap. LONDON : W. JEFFS, 15, BURLINGTON ARCADE, JToTctjm Bookseller to Itjr Uogal jFamtljj. MDCCCLXI. Translation reserved. PKINTED ET JOHN EDWABD TATLOE, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN" FIELDS.

Preface

. After ten years spent in travelling for a purely scientific purpose, I returned for a short time to my native country, to take a little rest, and prepare for other enterprises which I had yet to accomplish. The time thus at my disposal •was too short to make it possible for me to publish a full and elaborate work. The arrangement of the materials I had collected .relating to Polynesia alone, to confine myself to one point only of my investigations, would have required more leisure than I could afford. I was unwilling, however, to leave Europe without rendering an account of at least one portion of my distant wanderings. I had abundance to choose from, and my choice was soon made. The works published on Mormonism and the Mormons are so overloaded with inaccuracies, or rather with misrepresentations, that I thought it a good subject to £

PREFACE.

. treat, especially as it was one I could approach with a con fidence all the greater from my having had the opportunity of studying, in their very homes, these new religionists, whose singular principles have attracted so much atten tion of late years, in spite of the important events which have occurred on this side of the Atlantic, and so much engrossed public attention. It is this portion I now propose to publish. Science, so justly fastidious, will perhaps find in it but little worthy of notice, and the moralist may regret that the history of this singular people should not have been written by a more experienced hand. It occurred to me, how ever, that the naturalist might not disdain to give a passing glance at a sketch, which is scrupulously correct, of places which were yet unexplored, or only imperfectly ex amined ; and that the man whose pleasure it is to look on the drama of human affairs, will not see without interest the scene of a political and religious society which, once Christian and free, has broken away from Christianity and liberty, to make the experiment of living under, new and radically different conditions of social existence.

The greater part of the matter contained in the following work, was written from day to day, often in the open air, upon the slopes or the crests of mountains, in the heart of

PREFACE.

. V deserts, amid the occupations and frequently the perils which are the necessary accompaniments of so long a journey, and must no doubt bear traces of the peculiar circumstances under which it was jotted down. It will therefore, I fear, be devoid of that literary finish on which so just a value is placed ; but it struck me that, however defective it may be in form, this will be fully compensated for by its accuracy. The truth, so often perverted, will be vindicated in this work. Of those who have written on the Mormons, by far the greater number have derived their information from sources little to be relied on. The historians and travellers who have been their guides, have either never inspected the facts on the spot, or have looked at them from the point of view of their own foregone opinions, and too often of their passions.

I have had the advantage of seeing with my own eyes, and my readers, I hope, will be sensible of it. Free, moreover, as far as I am aware, from all prejudice, I am able to affirm that I have contemplated the moral side of the picture with the same eye and the same impartiality as I have the physical side. The good and the bad have been exhibited ; but if I correct erroneous opinions, I am far from offering myself as an apologist. It is the consciousness of this sincerity and impartiality which has VI

PREFACE.

. inspired me with some confidence, and imparted to me the desire of presenting myself before the public. With serious and earnest men, truth is always the first of considerations, and it is for such I write. Paris, August, 1860. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PAGE Preface i Introduction. — On the Religious Movement in the United States ix BOOK THE FIRST. JOURNEY FROM CALIFORNIA TO UTAH. Chap. I. Route from Sacramento to Carson Valley ... 3 II. From Carson Valley to Haws's Ranch 39 III. From Haws's Ranch to the New Jerusalem . . . 152 IV. The New Jerusalem 189 BOOK THE SECOND. I. PONTIFICATE OF JOSEPH SMITH. Chap. I. Life of the Prophet up to the Period of the Establishment of his Religion, 1805-1830 .... CONTENTS. PAGE II. The Mormon Church until the Foundation of Nauvoo, 1830-1839 270 III.

From the Foundation of Nauvoo to the Death of the Prophet, 1839-1844 336 II. PONTIFICATE OF BRIGHAM YOUNG. Chap. IV. From the Accession of Brigham Young to the Organization of the Territorial Government of Utah, 1844-1851 407 V. From the Organization of the Territory of Utah to the present day, 1851-1859 453 A Chronological Summary of the History of the Mormons 497 PLATES IN THE FIRST VOLUME Portrait of Brigham Young Frontispiece. Portrait of Sokopitz 146 Temple of Great Salt Lake City 194 Characters on the Plates of the Book of Mormon .... 244 Bronze Plates of Illinois 268 M«".

Introduction

. ON THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT IN THE DNITED STATES. The course of my travels having led me, a few years since, into a sort of proximity to the Mormons, I could not resist the temptation of making a push for the country of this singular people, in which I expected to find myself face to face with a religion at the very moment of its birth, and to surprise one of the great secrets of Nature, as it were, on the spot. A religious creed suddenly jetting forth in the midst of a great society, and appearing above the horizon like a new isle on the bosom of the ocean, seemed to me to be a sufficient reason for giving oneself a little trouble, and deviating from the direct track of one's journey. To deny myself the pleasure of such a spectacle was more than I was capable of; or, to express myself more accurately, I should have thought it wrong to do so, the opportunity being present, and there being scarcely more than a thousand miles of desert to cross. Had I been called upon vol i. b X

INTRODUCTION.

. to justify to my own mind the interruption which such a journey must cause to my pursuits as a naturalist, — not much of an interruption, after all, — I should doubtless have pleaded that it could be hardly time lost to examine on the very spot of its appearance, a phenomenon rare in any age, and especially rare in our own. Certain is it that had I heard in California, where I then was, of the appearance of a new island in the Pacific Ocean, I should not have hesi tated to have altered my course for the purpose of seeing it. Why then should I do less with respect to Mormonism ? Why should the moral be less attractive than the geological phenomenon ? But what still more attracted me, independently of the spectacle itself, was, that the phenomenon in question seemed to me to have a character completely special, and to bear no resemblance to any other among the phenomena of the same class recorded in history.

It presented itself to me not as a variety merely, but as a curiosity of species, a rarity if not an anomaly ; like to certain plants I had met with at the Equator : as the Rhizophora, (for instance,) whose seeds germinate in its fruit, and exhibit complete indivi duals, perfectly formed, at the moment when they detach themselves from the parent plant and fall to the ground. Seen at a distance, it struck me, after what I had heard and known of Mormonism, that there might be some difficulty in classifying it ; and yet I felt a strong objection to regard it as an anomaly ; for if monstrosities displease us in the

INTRODUCTION.

. XI physical world, they are still more revolting in the moral world. I wished to put myself quite at ease with regard to this singular phenomenon, this moral Rhizophora, if I may so express myself, which, first brought into existence in those regions where the Niagara sends forth its eternal thun ders, ought, it appears to me, to have perished in its germ on the very spot of its birth ; but which, on the contrary, had, in the desert to which it was transplanted, grown, developed, and overspread with its branches an already power ful society. I desired to ascertain in a positive way, as an eye-witness, if the religion of Joseph Smith were really a novelty, or if ignorance or passion had deceived itself, or had deceived the public with respect to it. The founder of Mormonism, was he, as generally asserted, an impostor ?

This, when tested by the idea I had formed to myself of the genesis of religions, appeared to me to present a difficulty; and I felt anxious, were there really a divergence from what up to this moment I considered a general law, to verify the deviation. I All religions, whatever may be the opinion we entertain of their intrinsic truth, are the spontaneous products of the human soul. They respond to primitive instincts, to powerful wants impossible to ignore. There is not a hu man creature who does not carry their germs in the depths of his reason, his imagination, and his heart ; for there is b2

INTRODUCTION.

. no one who does not entertain, vaguely at first, more clearly in the end, a sense of the infinite ; who has not a glimpse, more or less luminous, of the divine ideal ; and who is not disquieted or tormented by the mystery which hovers over his destiny. I am far from wishing to cast a slur on the philosophy of the eighteenth century ; but it does surprise me that men of intelligence, some of them men of the highest intelligence, should have treated the loftiest aspirations of the soul as hallucinations and chimeras, and gravely asserted that religions are nothing more than human inventions, creations of policy and imposture. There is far higher philosophy in these lines of Milton, which exhibit Adam to us, on the very day of his birth, profoundly intent upon this great enigma, and addressing himself to the whole of nature for its solution : — " But who I was, or where, or from what cause, Knew not ; to speak I tried, and forthwith spake ; My tongue obeyed, and readily could name Whate'er I saw. ' Thou Sun,' said I, ' fair light, And thou enlightened Earth, so fresh and gay, Ye Hills and Dales, ye Rivers, Woods, and Plains, And ye that live and move, fair Creatures, tell, Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here ?

Not of myself: by some great Maker, then, In goodness and in power pre-eminent ; Tell me how may I know him, how adore, From whom I have that thus I move and live, And feel that I am happier than I know.' " * * Paradise Lost, viii. 270-282.

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII The study of the human mind justifies the poet as against the philosophers. Since the days of Descartes it has ceased to be warrantable, though, as we have just seen, it has been often done and perhaps may be occasionally done again, to affirm that it is possible to invent God. There is no escape from the fact : if God did not exist, he could not be in vented ; if the eternal axiom, as it has been called, were not in every man's thoughts, who would be able to group its characteristics, and to devise its formula ? No amount of goodwill whatever could effect it. God docs not proceed from the soul of man, as the fruit does from the flower; to suppose this would be merely to suggest the same im piety in a different form, and to truck atheism against pan theism ; but the idea of God, the sentiment of the ideal and of the divine, as well as of religion, which is nothing more than their external manifestation, their necessary form, do proceed from it as naturally as the flower from the bud, the fruit from the flower.

Man does not invent God : he finds him ; he grasps him by virtue of an internal revelation which it does not depend upon him either to listen to or to ignore. Religion, of whatever kind, is but the echo, more or less faithful, more or less responsive, of this deep-seated revelation. Buddhism, which M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire has, in some sort, lately revealed to us, is not an argument against the existence of the divine in the human soul. The word God does not exist in the languages of the people subject to

INTRODUCTION.

. this strange religion, which is the negation of the principle of all religion, and which consequently seems to be without any reason for existing ; but it does not necessarily follow from this, that the idea of the infinite does not exist in their minds. The consciousness of human imperfection and of the wretchedness of our condition, which forms the groundwork of Buddhism, comprises within itself the conception of perfection ; and whether God be named or not, the mere fact that man searches for the solution of the problem of his destiny, that he tries to shake off the yoke of his misery, and aspires to a better state, is evidence that in the depths of his soul there is a ray of divine light. The idea of God may be obscured in human consciousness by deep shadows ; it may for ages remain in a state of embryo among the inferior races of human society ; but this is not a sufficient reason for concluding against its universality.

Voltaire said, in opposition to Bayle, who insisted on the possibility of there being atheistical nations, " These nations neither deny nor affirm God, they have never heard him spoken of. To pretend that they are atheists is an imputation much like that of saying they are Anti-Cartesians. They are neither for nor against Descartes ; they are absolute children. But a child is neither atheist nor deist ; he is nothing." Voltaire has here seen, with a sagacity approaching to profundity, the truth ; and we may apply his argument to Buddhism. The nations which profess this religion are still in their infancy, and the idea of God in them is what it is in chil-

INTRODUCTION.

. XV dren, — in children without intelligence and imagination, — something confused, cloudy, dense, if I may say so, which has need of education to disentangle, to enlighten, and to develop itself. History and knowledge, unless I much mistake, tender on this point their support to philosophy. Criticism has been able to indicate what there is of human in religious forms ; but it has never pretended that the groundwork might not be divine ; it has not confounded the gold with the quartz in which it is imbedded ; and of these religious forms thesaselves, it has never said that they were not the spontaneous products of our nature. All that has been done by the new German school of Biblical criticism, and by that of French criticism, which, following in its path, has reflected back on its predecessor a purer and certainly more engaging light, has demonstrated the spontaneous ness of religions, and consequently their sincerity.

There is much intelligence, grace, joyousness, piquancy even, as well as many things singularly human, in the mythological fables of Greece : are we therefore to conclude that the gods we see there disporting and frolicking, have been developed from the poet's brain ? And, even were it so, what evidence would this be against the sincerity of those who invented them ? But, in point of fact, they really proceed from the national imagination ; they are the fruits of the commerce of the primitive men with the world around them, of their communion with Nature. They are dreams,

INTRODUCTION.

. if you will, they are impressions rather than creeds, fancies rather than truths, sensations rather than feelings. True ; but putting aside the question of determining whether at the bottom of these dreams, impressions, or fancies, the divine does not present itself, it is, at least, impossible to doubt their reality, or to refuse to acknowledge their spontaneousness. They are dreams which have been taken for realities : but these dreams have really had an existence ; they have, as it were, lived ; they have agitated, have made the heart of the child-man throb ; and so deep has been their impression, that he has retained far beyond the period of his infancy a long and profound recollection of them. M. Renan has taken cognizance of this early and powerful impression upon man, and has admirably depicted its in fluence in the formation of primitive religions.

" The primitive man," he says in his admirable work, " saw Nature with the eyes of a child. Now the child projects over everything around him the marvellousness which lies hidden within him. That first fresh consciousness of life which with its sweet intoxication makes his brain spin, causes him to see the world through a gently tinted vapour ; and casting a joyous and inquisitive look on all around him, he smiles on everything and everything smiles on him. We, disen chanted by long experience, cease to expect anything very astonishing from the infinite combination of things. But the child cannot conjecture what is to result from the next throw of the dice that are rattling around him ; he the

INTRODUCTION.

. XVII more believes in the possible, the less he is acquainted with the real. Hence his joys and his terrors. He constructs for himself a fantastic world, which enchants and appals him by turns. He realizes his dreams ; he has not yet that roughness of analysis which at an age of reflection places us as cold observers, face to face with reality. Such was the primitive man. Scarce separated from Nature, he con versed with her, addressed her, and listened to her voice. This great mother with whom he was still connected by his arteries, appeared to him alive and animated. At the sight of the phenomena of the physical world he experienced di vers impressions, which, receiving form and substance from his imagination, became gods ; he adored his sensations, or rather the vague and unknown object of his sensations, for not being able yet to separate the object from the sub ject, the world was himself and he himself the world."* Whoever has lived among savages, that is to say, with primitive men, with those who are still children-men, and especially with those races of Oceania, so simple, so natural, so credulous, so infantine, is compelled to acknowledge that this exquisite sketch is an exact expression of the truth.

To those beings who are still " sucklings at the breast of Nature," and in perpetual communion with her, there is life everywhere, a life analogous to human life on every side. All is personified and living ; physical forces are moral and divine powers. Does the volcano vomit forth * Etudes d'Histoirc religieuse, par E. Renan ; 3rd edit., pp. 15, 16.

INTRODUCTION.

. its torrents of fire ? It is the goddess Pele who is giving vent to her wrath, or chastising impiety. Does the thun der roar and the lightning flash ? It is the god Kahekili who grows wrathful in the sky. Is the sea tossed by the tempest ? It is the monster Uhumakaikai who lashes the waves. It must be remarked also, that this primitive re ligion is so natural, and in such perfect keeping with the childhood of humanity, for which it has so much which is charming and seductive, that the difficulty of completely superseding it is extreme. Hence the well-established fact, that the savages of the Pacific, even when they fancy they are converts, whether to Catholicism or Protestantism, continue, at the bottom of their hearts, idolaters. They are unable entirely to break the charm, and dissipate the fumes of their intoxication.

The worship of Nature maintains itself, whatever the outward appearances may be, and continues persistently to exist beneath the forms of a superior religion, which has done nothing more than skim over the surface. Nothing would be easier than to prove the want of stead fastness in the new man, and to lay bare the old man. I could cite numberless facts which would place this assertion beyond all doubt. I will confine myself to mention ing one or two, but which, unless I much mistake, are decidedly characteristic. One occurred in the Great Hawaii. I had taken up my quarters on the edge of the crater of Kilauea, whence it was easy for me to diverge in all directions for the pur-

INTRODUCTION.

. XIX pose of exploring the volcanoes of this region, which are the largest in the world. One day, on my descending from the crater nf Mokuaweoweo, situated about ten thousand feet above that of Kilauea, some native travellers, converts to Catholicism, came towards nightfall, and took up their quarters in my hut. The difficult feat I had just accomplished was the subject of our conversation throughout the evening. I related to the islanders the different incidents of my ascent, explained to them the phenomena I had ob served, and while trying to make them comprehend the theory of volcanoes, I told them that I foresaw an impend ing eruption. Judging by their expression, it seemed to me that they took little interest in what I had been saying, of which, indeed, I soon ascertained that they had compre hended absolutely nothing.

On my ceasing to speak, they inquired if I had never met the spirit of the volcanoes, the goddess Pele, under the form Of an old woman. The unexpected question suggested to me the idea of amusing them by telling them a story in accordance with their taste. I pretended I had seen the goddess Pele, in the midst of the sulphurous vapours, and I painted her in the most fantastic colours which my imagination could supply. It so happened that my description was accurate enough, save in one point : I had represented Pele as an old woman excessively emaciated and sickly, whereas, according to their traditions, she was a strapping virago. This, how ever, did not prevent my auditors from receiving my fable XX

INTRODUCTION.

. to the very letter, and they took upon themselves to put me in harmony with the Hawaiian mythology, by explain ing that the emaciation I had ascribed to the goddess, was the result of the long fast she had undergone since Chris tianity had overthrown her altars. " It is clear," they said, " that Pele is dying of hunger; so long is it since we carried her any food!" Then, recollecting that I had spoken to them of an eruption about to take place, they exclaimed, "Alas! where are you, people of Hawaii? The goddess has wasted away, in consequence of the distress in which we have suffered her to fall ; and behold ! in revenge for our ingratitude, she is preparing to overwhelm us with her wrath. Without loss of time we must atone our fault, and carry her offerings of food." The next morning, the islanders, after taking leave of me, went forth on their way.

I thought no more of them ; but towards evening, I saw a priest of the goddess Pele ascending to the crater, escorted by natives, both Catholic and Protestant, bearing all sorts of eatables. Though they had taken the most minute precautions to conceal the object of their pilgrimage from me, and had, in order the more completely to cover their purpose, offered me a part of the presents which they brought, I succeeded in eluding their vigilance, and assist ing, without being seen, at the expiatory ceremony. I saw the faithful cast down their offerings into the glowing lava of Kilauea, while the priest, accompanying his Avords with a thousand incomprehensible gestures, supplicated the god-

INTRODUCTION.

. XXI dess to forgive the Hawaiians the impiety they had com mitted in deserting her worship for that of the strange God. I had afterwards the opportunity of relating, amid the different tribes of the Archipelago, my adventures on Mokuaweoweo, and the meeting I had had with Pele; and never did I find any of them indisposed to believe, but always met with the same state of feeling, and a similar contrition. It even happened, on one of these occasions, that some Christians, without in the least heeding the missionary who overheard them, began at the end of my recital to cry out that Pele was about to avenge the native divinities by vomiting her fire upon the Hawaiians, who under the influence of an impious pride had turned aside to the God of the stranger. Alarmed at the consequences of my fiction, the poor missionary, whose naive simplicity I honestly admired, besought me to regard this apparition, which he himself accepted as a fact, as a contrivance of hell, an artifice of Satan, who, by appearing to me under the form of a pagan divinity, was endeavouring to rob him of his flock, and to lure me into idolatry.

But neither his reiterated injunctions, nor my retractations of my own story, could succeed in obliterating the remembrance of their ancient gods ; for more than once, while the minister of the Gospel was administering the last rites to a dying Christian, it has happened to me to surprise some of them in the act of sacrificing white hens to the god Milu, at the dying man's own request.

INTRODUCTION.

. I remember, also, a fact of a similar nature which oc curred in the Marquesas during my stay in these islands. A young girl of the country, converted to Christianity, had, while crossing a wood, been slightly grazed by a small stone, dislodged in all probability by some bird taking wing from a neighbouring height. Without endeavouring to account naturally for so simple a circumstance, the girl fancied that the god of the rock, irritated at her having abandoned her faith, had thrown the stone as a warning that he doomed her to death. In the simplicity of her faith, she believed herself condemned without appeal, fell sick, and soon after died, invoking at the same time the God of the Christians and her island deities. It is thus that these child -like races, whom the zeal of our pious missionaries deludes itself into supposing it has emancipated from the worship of their false gods, preserve the indelible imprint of their primitive creeds, and see even in the most familiar events the personification or inter vention of divine agents.

Be this as it may, the belief in a superior essence is neither less natural nor less spontaneous than that which confounds man with nature. On its first appearance, as well as at its ultimate point of development, it exhibits nothing that implies a foregone conclusion, nothing that is factitious. Monotheism, the belief in one God separated from the world, springs up as spontaneously in the deserts of Arabia, as does pantheism or polytheism on the banks of

INTRODUCTION.

XX ill the Ganges or the seaboard of Greece. It is an established fact in science, that certain races, like certain individuals, are less seduced by the splendour of the external world, less affected by that potency of life which circulates throughout all nature, than are some others ; and that such races and individuals are, on the other hand, attracted and profoundly acted on by the spectacle and the movement of internal life ; whence it naturally follows that in these races, — which may be styled privileged, and which in this respect are so, — the religious sentiment must assume a particular form, an original character, and engender a divine idea of an entirely different stamp. In this case, giving himself up to a continual contemplation of his own being, of his ego, man is strongly impressed with the conviction of his one ness ; and this oneness, which he finds only within himself, he instinctively, by a natural action of his thought, by a law of his reason, transfers beyond the bounds of nature to a power superior to nature and himself.

This is the source from which monotheism takes its rise. The soul, concen trated within itself, discovers the infinite in its depths, and marks it with characters that it has recognized in itself. What wonder that at a later period, even possibly at their outset, some man should arise from the midst of these races to formulate their creed, to become, not its discoverer, but its legislator and interpreter ? That he should find, whether in his own imagination or in the primitive habits of those about him, the means of manifesting his faith and that of