The Rise, Progress and Travels of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Front matter

RISE, PROGRESS AND TRAVELS

OF THE

CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS,

Answers to Questions

CONCERNING THE

RISE, PROGRESS AND TRAVELS

OF THE

CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

In the Spring of 1844, Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who was then living at Nauvoo, Hancock county, Illinois, selected a company of men to explore the Rocky Mountains, with a view to find a place where the Saints could locate and enjoy an immunity from that religious persecution which had followed the Church in the States of New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. President Smith at that time expressed his determination to explore the mountain valleys, and prophesied that within five years the Saints would be located in the Rocky Mountains beyond the influence of mobs, requesting it to be recorded, that when it came to pass it might be remembered.

While this company were making preparations for their journey a mob assembled at Carthage, the county seat of Hancock, to menace the Saints. Disappointed political demagogues, writhing under the sting of defeat, and apostates, who had been expelled the Church because of their iniquity, combined at this juncture to fan the flame of excitement and persecution, insomuch that the Governor of the State, Thomas Ford, deemed it advisable to visit Hancock county. When Joseph Smith, the Prophet, learned that the Governor had called out the militia at Carthage, who composed the mob previously collected there, and had made a requisition for additional forces from Warsaw, where resided many of the most bitter enemies of the Saints, he was apprehensive that it was their intention to murder instead of try him, (having already been about fifty times before judicial tribunals, and invariably acquitted) he hesitated to answer the process of law; until the Governor plighted the faith of the State that he should be protected and have a fair trial. When Governor Ford made the pledge, Joseph, with his brother Hyrum, proceeded to Carthage, where they surrendered themselves prisoners to the constable who held the writ for them. They voluntarily entered into recognizances before the Justice of the Peace for their appearance at court to answer the charge; whereupon, a new writ was issued against them on the affidavit of two dissolute men, charging them with treason, and they were immediately thrust into jail, Elders Willard Richards and John Taylor being permitted to accompany them.

Governor Ford then disbanded all his troops except the “Carthage Greys,” who were known to possess the most violent feelings of hatred against Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and after holding a private council on the subject, he left them to their fate.

On the 27th of June, 1844, about 150 men, with their faces blackened, surrounded the prison and deliberately murdered Joseph and Hyrum Smith, leaving Elder John Taylor severely wounded with four balls, Elder Willard Richards, who was in the same room, escaped unhurt.

At the fall term of court, bills of indictment for murder in the first degree, were found against the principal leaders in the massacre; but they were allowed to go at large on bail and to become each other’s security, the sum required being only one thousand dollars.

In May, 1845, they had a sham trial and were acquitted, although the most of the members of the court, bar, jury and witnesses knew them to be guilty of the murder.

The Twelve Apostles, being the first quorum remaining in the Church, immediately returned from their missions abroad, and by the unanimous voice of the Saints took their position at the head of affairs in Nauvoo, Brigham Young, President of the Twelve Apostles, presiding. A revelation had been given through Joseph Smith in 1841, commanding the Saints to build a Temple in which to administer the ordinances of the gospel; also to build a house to be called “The Nauvoo House,” for the entertainment of strangers, and a sufficient time was granted for the completion of this work which would be acceptable only in the day of their poverty, in order that they might prove themselves faithful in all things that they were commanded; nevertheless the Lord said:

“Verily, verily I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any of the sons of men to do a work unto my name, and those sons of men go with all their might and with all they have to perform that work, and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept of their offerings, and the iniquity and transgression of my holy laws and commandments I will visit upon the heads of those who hindered my work, unto the third and fourth generation, so long as they repent not, and hate me, saith the Lord God. Therefore, for this cause have I accepted the offerings of those whom I commanded to build up a city and a house unto my name, in Jackson County, Missouri, and were hindered by their enemies, saith the Lord your God; and I will answer judgment, wrath and indignation, wailing and anguish, and gnashing of teeth upon their heads unto the third and fourth generation, so long as they repent not and hate me, saith the Lord your God.

“And this I make an example unto you, for your consolation, concerning all those who have been commanded to do a work and have been hindered by the hands of their enemies and by oppression, saith the Lord your God; for I am the Lord your God, and will save all those of your brethren who have been pure in heart and have been slain in the land of Missouri, saith the Lord.”

In view of fulfilling this Revelation, the Twelve pushed forward the building of the Temple, which at the time of the Prophet’s death was about one half story above the basement. This magnificent work was vigorously prosecuted to its completion in the face of relentless persecution, and amid obstacles of the most difficult and trying kind. A Seventies’ Hall, a Music Hall and an Arsenal were also built, the Nauvoo House was recommenced and the brick work of the first story completed; when the mob, coming to the conclusion that the murder of the Prophets had not destroyed the progress of the work of the Lord, commenced, on the 13th of September, 1845, burning houses in the south-west portion of Hancock county, whereupon the sheriff issued the following

PROCLAMATION

To the Citizens of Hancock County:

Whereas, a mnob of from one to two hundred men, under arms, have gathered themselves together in the south-west part of Hancock county, and are at this time destroying the dwellings and other buildings, stacks of grain and other property, of a portion of our citizens, in the most inhuman manner, compelling defenceless children and women to leave their sick beds, and exposing them to the rays of the parching sun, there to lie and suffer without the aid or assistance of a friendly hand to minister to their wants, in their suffering condition.

The rioters spare not the widow nor orphan, and while I am writing this proclamation, the smoke is rising to the clouds and the flames are devouring four buildings which have just been set on fire by the rioters. Thousands of dollars’ worth of property has already been consumed, an entire settlement of about sixty or seventy families laid waste, the inhabitants thereof are fired upon, narrowly escaping with their lives, and forced to flee before the ravages of the mob.

By the revised laws of our State under the Criminal Code, sixth division, 58 section, page 181, the crime of Arson is defined as follows: “Every person who shall wilfully and maliciously burn, or cause to be burned, any dwelling house, kitchen, office, shop, barn, stable, store-house, etc., etc., shall be deemed guilty of arson, and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not less than one year, nor more than ten years, and should the life or lives of any person or persons be lost in consequence of any such offense aforesaid, such offender shall be guilty of murder, and shall be indicted and punished accordingly.”

And whereas, the laws of this State make it my duty, as a peace officer of this county, to suppress all riots, routs, etc., etc., and all other crimes,

Therefore, I, J. B. Backenstos, Sheriff of the County of Hancock, and State of Illinois, in the name of the People of said State, and by the authority vested in me by virtue of my office, hereby solemnly command the said rioters and other peace breakers to desist forthwith, disporse, and go to their homes, under penalty of the laws; And I hereby call upon the law-abiding citizens, as a posse comitatus of Hancock county, to give their united aid in suppressing the rioters and maintain the supremacy of the law.

J. B. BACKENSTOS, Sheriff of Hancock County, Illinois.

P. S.—It is a part of my policy, that the citizens of Nauvoo remain quiet and not a man from that city leave as a posse until it be made manifest that the law and order citizens without the city will not have force sufficient to suppress the rioters of this disgraceful outrage, but that 2,000 effective men hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment’s warning to any point in Hancock County.

J. B. B., Sheriff.

Green Plains, Hancock County, Ills., Sept. 13th, 1845.

To this proclamation no attention whatever was paid except by the mob, who used it as a justification for trying to kill the Sheriff, although he was not a “Mormon” and was only acting in the discharge of his official duty. In the attempt, however, to kill the Sheriff, one of the mob was killed.

Subsequently another proclamation was issued calling upon the “Mormon” people of the county as well as all other law-abiding citizens to arm themselves, and be in readiness to act at a moment’s notice in the defence of the lives and property of peaceful citizens and to suppress mob violence throughout the county. The leaders of the mob then fled the county to avoid being arrested, upon which Governor Thomas Ford sent Gen. John J. Harding, with 400 militia, to Nauvoo, who dismissed the Sheriff’s posse, but made no attempt to arrest the house burners. Gen. Harding informed the Latter-day Saints in Hancock county that “the State could not protect them, the mob were determined to drive them from the State, and they must therefore go.” Previous to this, a council of the authorities of the Church had passed a resolution which, as a matter of policy, was kept private, to send one thousand five hundred men as pioneers to make a settlement in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, being determined, in accordance with the design and policy of Joseph Smith the Prophet, to leave Illinois.

Meantime a proposition was made to the mob (the State authorities saying they were powerless) to cease vexatious law-suits, stop burning and plundering, and aid the “Mormon” people by purchasing their property on fair terms, allowing them a reasonable time, and they would remove from the State. This proposition was accepted, and in accordance therewith companies were immediately formed, the construction of several thousand wagons was commenced, and during the winter of 1845–46 and the ensuing spring they were built, principally of green timber, which was boiled in brine to facilitate its seasoning. All the iron that could be procured was used in their construction, and the deficiency was made up with raw-hides, hickory withes, &c. Nearly all the old wagons in the surrounding country were purchased, and all possible preparations were made by many for an early start in the spring; but the persecution being renewed, in violation of the before named pledge, one thousand families commenced their journey in the month of February, 1846, some crossing the Mississippi on the ice, thinking by so doing to allay the excitement against those who remained.

President Young, and the leaders of the Church, with a scanty outfit, pursued their journey westward, having to make the road for about three hundred miles through an unsettled country, bridging numerous streams and encountering nearly every vicissitude of weather, making a settlement called Garden Grove on the east fork, and one called Pisgah on the west fork, of Grand river, in the State of Iowa, breaking and planting a thousand acres of prairie land for the benefit of those who were not able to go farther, as well as those who were coming after.

The advanced companies arrived at Council Bluffs in July, where they were met by Capt. James Allen of the U. S. army, who called upon them, in behalf of the War Department, for five hundred men to assist in the war with Mexico. Prest. Young’s reply to this requisition was, “You shall have your battalion, if it has to be composed of our Elders.”

The required battalion was soon made up and on the way, leaving their families in the Omaha country on the west side of the Missouri river in wagons, without protectors or adequate means of subsistence. Thus was this body of volunteers enlisted from the camp of the Latter-day Saints just after their expulsion from Illinois.

There were about two thousand wagons encamped in Western Iowa, between the east fork of Grand river and the Missouri river, a distance of about one hundred and thirty miles; but the main body of the camp was in the Omaha country, on the west side of the Missouri.

The five companies of volunteers assembled at Council Bluffs and were mustered into service on the 16th of July, 1846; they numbered upwards of five hundred men. They marched to Fort Leavenworth, where they received their muskets and other accoutrements of United States infantry.

On the 13th of August they started for California, via Santa Fe, each soldier carrying his musket, his blanket, knapsack, ammunition and canteen.

Lieut. Col. Allen, who remained behind the battalion at Fort Leavenworth to complete his outfit, died suddenly; his loss was deeply mourned by the battalion, who were sincerely attached to him. On their march they suffered much for want of water and provisions; in one instance, they traveled sixty miles without water. They arrived at Santa Fe, Sept. 12th, where Lieut. Col. P. St. George Cooke, who had been appointed by Gen. Kearney, took command of the battalion in the place of Col. Allen, deceased, and who, before marching for California, selected out all the laundresses, and those who, on a rigid examination, were supposed to be unable to continue the march, and placed them under the command of Capt. James Brown, who started on the 18th, with orders to make a post at Pueblo on the Arkansas river, which was accordingly done. Col. Cooke, with the battalion, proceeded to California. To avoid the snows of the Rocky Mountains, the battalion followed the Rio Del Norte south for three hundred miles, then turning west, passed through the fortified town of Tucson; after which their guides were unacquainted with the route, and it had to be sought out like men traveling in the dark.

On leaving Santa Fe they were placed on three-quarter rations, and were soon after reduced to one-half and subsequently to one-quarter rations; their meat was composed of the remains of such draft animals as were unable to proceed further. On one occasion, however, they were relieved by a very romantic and providential encounter with a herd of wild bulls. They traveled one hundred miles without water; sank deep wells in the desert, and arrived on the Pacific coast with but little loss. The Colonel issued the following complimentary order on their arrival:

“Headquarters, Mission of San Diego, Jan. 30th, 1847.

Order No. 1.

The Lieut. Colonel commanding congratulates the Battalion on its safe arrival on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and the conclusion of its march of over two thousand miles. History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry; nine-tenths of it through a wilderness, where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found; or deserts where, for the want of water, there is no living creature. There, with almost hopeless labor, we have dug deep wells, which the future traveler will enjoy. Without a guide who had traversed them, we have ventured into trackless prairies, where water was not found for several marches. With crowbar and pick-axe in hand, we have worked our way over mountains, which seemed to defy aught save the wild goat, and hewed a passage through a chasm of living rock, more narrow than our wagons. To bring these first wagons to the Pacific, we have preserved the strength of the mules by herding them over large tracts, which you have laboriously guarded without loss.

The garrison of four Presidios of Sonora, concentrated within the walls of Tucson, gave us no pause; we drove them out with their artillery; but our intercourse with the citizens was unmarked by a single act of injustice. Thus marching, half naked and half fed, and living upon wild animals, we have discovered and made a road of great value to our country.

Arrived at the first settlement of California, after a single day’s rest, you cheerfully turned off from the route to this point of promised repose, to enter upon a campaign, and meet, as we believed, the approach of the enemy; and this, too, without even salt to season your sole subsistence of fresh meat.

Lieutenants A. J. Smith and George Stoneman, of the 1st Dragoons, have shared and given valuable aid in all these labors.

Thus, volunteers, you have exhibited some high and essential qualities of veterans. But much remains undone. Soon you will turn your strict attention to the drill, to system and order, to forms also, which are all necessary to the soldier.

By order of Lieut. Col. P. St. George Cooke,

(Signed) P. C. Merrill, Adjt.”

The distance from Council Bluffs, the place of enlistment, to Fort Leavenworth is about 180 miles; from Fort Leavenworth, by the Cimmeron route, to Santa Fe, 700 miles; from Santa Fe, by the route traveled to San Diego, 1150 miles, making a total of 2030 miles. Almost the entire march being over an uninhabited region, and much of the way a trackless, unexplored and forbidding desert, affording neither water nor grass sufficient for animals, and, when the teams failed, the battalion had to carry the extra amount of ammunition and, at the same time, push the wagons through the heavy sand and over the rugged mountains.

A fruitful source of annoyance to the battalion was the lack of confidence in the United States Surgeon, Dr. Sanderson, who was known formerly to have been a bitter persecutor of the Latter-day Saints, and whose expressions and actions confirmed the suspicions that it was his wish to destroy them; the refusal of many of them to take his prescriptions produced very unpleasant and angry feelings.

The battalion was discharged at Los Angeles, one year from the date of their enlistment, without means to enable them to return to their families. At the request of the military commander in California, who feared a Spanish revolt, one company re-enlisted for six months, which service was performed in a highly satisfactory manner, both to the officers and the people of San Diego where they were stationed.

After the departure of the battalion from Council Bluffs, Prest. Young gathered up the scattering companies and established a town called Winter Quarters, where 700 log cabins and 150 dug-outs (cabins half under ground) were built during the Fall and Winter, upon the site of what is now known as Florence, Nebraska. At this point the Saints suffered extremely from sickness, exposure and the want of the necessaries of life. Several thousand wagons were also encamped in various localities on the east side of the Missouri river, where the Saints began to build up a place, subsequently named Kanesville, in honor of Thomas L. Kane, of Philadelphia, whose kindness had endeared him to them.

When it became known in Illinois that the flower of the camp had enlisted into the service of the United States, the mob assembled with redoubled fury, formed a military encampment, provided with artillery, in the neighborhood of Nauvoo, which now contained the poor, the helpless, the sick and infirm, as all who were able to leave, on any terms, had done so during the Spring and Summer.

The mob, under command of Rev. Thomas S. Brockman, increased their force to about 1800, made several unsuccessful attacks upon the city, (which could barely muster 123 men) killing three men and wounding a number of others and battering down many buildings. They finally succeeded, on the 17th day of September, after several days’ siege and three days’ bombardment, in driving the people, helpless and destitute of everything that could make life desirable, across the river into Iowa. Here many must have perished from starvation had not the kind Creator fed them by sending upon their camps flocks of quails so tame that the women caught them with their hands. In this place they lay exposed to the storms of autumn right in view of a thousand empty houses belonging to themselves and friends, until teams were sent back from the camps to remove the survivors, many having died. To crown their victory, the mob subsequently set fire to the Temple of Nauvoo, which was the most beautiful building in the Western States. It was the first specimen of a new order of architecture, introduced by President Joseph Smith, and had cost a million dollars. The light of its fire was visible for thirty miles.

Very little real estate had been sold, though the improvements, property and buildings of the Saints in Illinois were among the best in the Western States. Such a vast amount of property exposed for sale in Hancock and the adjoining counties had a tendency to glut the market, which, together with the hostile influence of our enemies, prevented sales even at low rates. Fortunately oxen were cheap, and companies continued leaving till late in the summer, making the new route a grand encampment for 300 miles, as wagons were to be seen at every watering place.

For a more full description of these seenes, the following extract is copied from the historical address of Colonel (now General) Thomas L. Kane, who was an eye-witness:

“A few years ago,” said Colonel Kane, “ascending the Upper Mississippi in the autumn, when its waters were low, I was compelled to travel by land past the region of the Rapids. My road lay through the Half-Breed Tract, a fine section of Iowa, which the unsettled state of its land-titles had appropriated as a sanctuary for coiners, horse thieves, and other outlaws. I had left my steamer at Keokuk, at the foot of the Tower Fall, to hire a carriage, and to contend for some fragments of a dirty meal with the swarming flies, the only scavengers of the locality.

“From this place to where the deep water of the river returns, my eye wearied to see everywhere sordid, vagabond and idle settlers; and a country marred, without being improved, by their careless hands. I was descending the last hill-side upon my journey, when a landscape in delightful contrast broke upon my view. Half encircled by a bend of the river, a beautiful city lay glittering in the fresh morning sun; its bright new dwellings, set in cool green gardens, ranging up around a stately dome-shaped hill, which was crowned by a noble edifice, whose high tapering spire was radiant with white and gold. The city appeared to cover several miles; and beyond it, in the back ground, there rolled off a fair country, chequered by the careful lines of fruitful husbandry. The unmistakeable marks of industry, enterprise, and educated wealth everywhere, made the scene one of singular and most striking beauty. It was a natural impulse to visit this inviting region. I procured a skift, and rowing across the river, landed at the chief wharf of the city. No one met me there. I looked, and saw no one. I could hear no one move; though the quiet everywhere was such that I heard the flies buzz, and the water-ripples break against the shallow of the beach. I walked through the solitary streets. The town lay as in a dream, under some deadening spell of loneliness, from which I almost feared to wake it; for plainly it had not slept long. There was no grass growing up in the paved ways; rains had not entirely washed away the prints of dusty footsteps.

“Yet I went about unchecked. I went into empty workshops, rope-walks and smithies. The spinner’s wheel was idle; the carpenter had gone from his work-bench and shavings, his unfinished sash and casing. Fresh bark was in the tanner’s vat, and the fresh-chopped lightwood stood piled against the baker’s oven. The blacksmith’s shop was cold; but his coal heap, and ladling pool, and crooked water horn, were all there, as if he had just gone off for a holiday. No work-people anywhere looked to know my errand.

“If I went into the gardens, clinking the wicket-latch loudly after me, to pull the marygolds, heartsease, and lady-slippers, and draw a drink with the water-sodden well-bucket and its noisy chain; or, knocking off with my stick the tall, heavy-headed dahlias and sunflowers, hunted over the beds for cucumbers and love-apples—no one called out to me from any opened window, or dog sprang forward to bark an alarm.

“I could have supposed the people hidden in the houses, but the doors were unfastened; and when at last I timidly entered them, I found dead ashes white upon the hearths, and had to tread a-tiptoe, as if walking down the aisle of a country church, to avoid arousing irreverent echoes from the naked floors. On the outskirts of the town was the city graveyard; but there was no record of plague there, nor did it in anywise differ much from other Protestant American cemeteries. Some of the mounds were not long sodded; some of the stones were newly set, their dates recent, and their black inscriptions glossy in the mason’s hardly dried lettering ink. Beyond the graveyard, out in the fields, I saw, in one spot hard by where the fruited boughs of a young orchard had been roughly torn down, the still smouldering embers of a barbecue fire, that had been constructed of rails from the fencing around it. It was the latest sign of life there. Fields upon fields of heavy-headed yellow grain lay rotting ungathered upon the ground. No one was at hand to take in their rich harvest.

“As far as the eye could reach, they stretched away—they, sleeping too in the hazy air, of autumn. Only two portions of the city seemed to suggest the import of this mysterious solitude. On the southern suburb, the houses looking out upon the country showed, by their splintered woodwork and walls battered to the foundation, that they had lately been the mark of a destructive cannonade. And in and around the splendid Temple, which had been the chief object of my admiration, armed men were barracked, surrounded by their stacks of musketry and pieces of heavy ordnance. These challenged me to render an account of myself and why I had had the temerity to cross the water without a written permit from a leader of their band.

“Though these men were generally more or less under the influence of ardent spirits, after I had explained myself as a passing stranger, they seemed anxious to gain my good opinion. They told the story of the Dead City; that it had been a notable manufacturing and commercial mart, sheltering over 20,000 persons; that they had waged war with its inhabitants for several years, and had been finally successful only a few days before my visit, in an action fought in front of the ruined suburb; after which, they had driven them forth at the point of the sword. The defence, they said, had been obstinate, but gave way on the third day’s bombardment. They boasted greatly of their prowess, especially in this battle, as they called it; but I discovered they were not of one mind as to certain of the exploits that had distinguished it, one of which, as I remember, was, that they had slain a father and his son, a boy of fifteen, not long residents of the fated city, whom they admitted to have borne a character without reproach.

“They also conducted me inside the massive sculptured walls of the curious Temple, in which they said the banished inhabitants were accustomed to celebrate the mystic rites of an unhallowed worship. They particularly pointed out to me certain features of the building, which, having been the peculiar objects of a former superstitious regard, they had, as a matter of duty, sedulously defiled and defaced. The reputed sites of certain shrines they had thus particularly noticed; and various sheltered chambers, in one of which was a deep well, constructed, they believed, with a dreadful design. Beside these, they led me to see a large and deep-chiselled marble vase or basin, supported upon twelve oxen, also of marble, and of the size of life, of which they told some romantic stories. They said the deluded persons, most of whom were emigrants from a great distance, believed their Deity countenanced their reception here of a baptism of regeneration, as proxies for whomsoever they held in warm affection in the countries from which they had come. That here parents ‘went into the water’ for their lost children, children for their parents, widows for their spouses, and young persons for their lovers; that thus the Great Vase came to be for them associated with all dear and distant memories, and was therefore the object, of all others in the building, to which they attached the greatest degree of idolatrous affection. On this account, the victors had so diligently desecrated it, as to render the apartment in which it was contained too noisome to abide in.