Utah and the Mormons

Front matter

UTAH AND THE MORMONS.

THE

HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, DOCTRINES, CUSTOMS, AND PROSPECTS OF

Preface

In the early part of the summer of 1852 I was solicited to discharge the duties of Secretary of the Territory of Utah. A curiosity, long cherished, to visit a portion of the world about which many marvelous accounts had been given, induced me to accept the vacant post. The result has been a six months' residence in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, embracing the severe winter of 1852–3. Such a winter's residence excludes the sojourner from the rest of the world as effectually as is the luckless navigator hemmed in by Arctic ice, and leaves little else to engross the attention aside from the strange and eccentric community which has established itself in that isolated region. The practical workings of Mormon institutions, when freed from the outside pressure of "Gentile" prejudice and hostility, has excited much curiosity, and is becoming a question of some political importance; and from gleaning facts for the gratification of numerous correspondents, I have been induced to put them in a form for the public eye. In the course of doing this, it has been found difficult to illustrate the subject without giving a more detailed previous history of the Mormons than at first intended, and the result is the following work.

The aim has been to give a strictly impartial account of the Mormons as they have been and as they are, without abstaining, however, from a free expres- sion of opinion, whenever the facts seemed to warrant a fair conclusion. To insure correctness, they have been allowed to speak for themselves whenever it has been practicable, and consistent with the brevity of the work. Aside from publications professedly Mormon, much assistance has been derived from a book entitled "The Mormons," recently published in London. The recent and excellent work of Lieutenant Gunnison, entitled "The History of the Mormons," might seem to preclude the necessity of any further publication on the same subject, and it probably would have prevented the present, had it come into my hands at an earlier period. Yet I would fain believe that a more full development of some of the most distinctive features of Mormonism than fell under his observation, with the rare opportunity which my position gave me for obtaining facts, will make it acceptable to the public.

It may not be inappropriate in this place to say that I was received at Salt Lake City and uniformly treated with friendly courtesy. It was my good fortune, while there, to be domesticated as a boarder in the family of Mrs. Farnham, who, though a Mormon, took unwearied pains to promote the comforts of her "Gentile" guests. Among those with whom I was thrown into frequent communication, I hold in particular remembrance Judge Z. Snow, Mr. H. L. Heywood, the territorial marshal, Mr. William C. Staines, the librarian, Dr. Willard Richards, the postmaster, and his assistant, Mr. Kane, Mr. A. Carrington, of the Legislative Assembly, and Mr. J. Grimshaw, who seemed to take pleasure in rendering polite and kind attentions.

Ithaca, New York, April, 1854.

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.

FROM MISSOURI TO UTAH.

Our train started from Westport, Mo., on the 24th of August, and reached Great Salt Lake City on the 26th of October, 1852, a distance of over eleven hundred miles. A few incidents of the travel, though over so well-beaten a road, may not be uninteresting to the reader.

A person intending to cross the Plains must expect to suffer some inconveniences. In so long a journey, the traveler will encounter the usual variations of the weather: there will be sunshine and storms; he will be too hot, too cold, and too wet at times; he will sometimes be unable to quench his thirst, except from a stagnant pool; and every warm evening he must look for a fight with musquitoes, whose appetites are quite as keen as his own. At first he will feel some anxiety in regard to Indians, and keep his rifle and revolver in proper shooting condition; but this soon wears off, and before the journey is half ended he becomes altogether too careless in this respect. We had, one evening, an Indian alarm, after being four weeks upon the road, when one revolver proved to be the only fire-arm in order in the camp; the alarm, however, was occasioned by a gang of famished wolves, trying to form an acquaintance with our mules. With ordinary foresight in reference to the requisite supply of food, a proper selection of animals, and the time and mode of performing the journey, there need be but few hardships. It

is easy to fit up a carriage with conveniences for sleeping, which some do, but the majority prefer to sleep on the ground, even in stormy weather. An india-rubber cloth spread upon the thick grass makes a dry and soft bed; at any rate, this kind of dormitory, curtained with heaven's canopy, generally proves more friendly to sleep than many a bed of down. The fatigue of traveling wears off in a very short time, and there is usually less weariness at the close of the day than is felt in traveling the same number of hours by rail-road. In a well-regulated train, the pleasurable excitements of the journey far outbalance all the inconveniences. There is a kind of cutting loose from the business relations and customs of civilized life, which gives new freedom and elasticity to the mind. The traveler feels that he has sufficient elbow-room; he neither jostles nor is jostled by any one; he experiences all the buoyancy of the boy when liberated from the restraints of the school-room. His feelings and ideas expand in view of the boundless plains spread before and around him. There is a grandeur and sublimity in the vast expanse of plains, skirted and intersected by rivers and lofty mountains, which would kindle enthusiasm in the bosom of the merest business drudge of the countinghouse who dreams only of prices and profits.

The evening camp, too, has its peculiar pleasures: the rude preparation for, and exquisite relish of the evening meal—the boisterous good humor of the company, with the usual concomitants of song and anecdote—and the almost invariable, and, withal, plaintive serenade from a score or two of prairie wolves, produce a wild and pleasurable excitement, which the voyageur is ever fond of calling to remembrance.

There is an abundance of wild game along nearly the whole route: prairie chickens, ducks, hare, antelope, &c., afford rare sport in the hunting, and furnish food fit for an emperor. But the buffalo is the most noted, useful, and interesting of all the wild game to be found on the plains. We saw none until after we left Fort Kearney, after which we met vast numbers along the Valley of the Platte, and very few after leav- ing that river. At a distance they look like herds of common cattle; near at hand they are awkward, misshapen monsters enough—all head and shoulders, and very little of any thing else. They were very wild, and invariably ran off, as we approached, with a clumsy, lumbering gait. We saw them under a great variety of circumstances. On one occasion, a herd of them were crossing the Platte in single file (the way they usually travel), and appeared in the distance like abutments for a gigantic bridge or aqueduct about being built. At another time we approached nearer than usual to a drove of them before they perceived us, and, as they lumbered off, they produced a stampede of our whole train, and it was with much difficulty we stopped and quieted our mules. At another time a herd of some three thousand were feeding along the banks of the river, and never discovered us until we were passing nearly opposite, when the monsters, in their fright, scampered directly toward us, and actually ran between different portions of our train; two of the teams, less guarded than the rest, stampeded after them. These incidents always furnished subjects for mirth when we found no bones or wagons broken. Of course, the poor brutes are slaughtered without mercy by Indians and emigrants. We had a plentiful supply of buffalo beef during four weeks of our journey. The ravens and wolves that hover over and around every passing train, are the scavengers which clean up all that is left of the slain buffalo after man has helped himself to the choicest portions. The antelope is a very graceful animal, and bounds over the plains with the fleetness of deer, which it very much resembles. We saw many of them, but they do not collect in such herds as the buffalo.

The emigration over the Plains to Utah, California, and Oregon, for the last few years, has been immense, and, like the march of armies, each train has left sad memorials of its passage. The wayside in very many places is literally strewed with the bones of oxen and mules, the broken fragments of wagons, and the castoff implements of agriculture. Sadder still, the road is lined with graves—some small, showing that there the mother has been compelled to deposit the remains of her infant child, and others of sufficient length to show that the strength of manhood has been brought to the dust. Many of these graves had been rifled by the wolves, and the bones scattered around in confu- sion: these resurrectionists have no fear of penal enactments. Others were protected from these prairie surgeons by logs and rocks (every thing West, from a twenty ton boulder to a pebble, is a rock). In passing these evidences of mortality, one can form some faint conception of the utter feeling of desolation which must overwhelm the poor wife, thus compelled to deposit her husband in a lonely grave, far away from the assistance and sympathy of friends.

"The Plains," so called, commence at the western bounds of Missouri, and extend to the vicinity of the Black Hills, a distance of about seven hundred miles. These Plains consist mostly of rolling prairies, which are crossed by numerous streams. Some of these streams run through comparatively deep valleys, and have rocky and precipitous banks. Again, the Plains are intersected by numerous gulleys, or "pitch holes," as they are familiarly called, varying from ten to fifty feet, which contain small brooks in the spring and early part of summer, but the most of them become dry later in the season. These gulleys are troublesome to cross, in proportion to their depth and the steepness of their banks. On the other hand, many of them contain springs of excellent water, and a scanty growth of timber, furnishing to the traveler wood and water, without which he could not long prosecute his journey. At some points the Plains are almost a perfect level, without a tree or a shrub to relieve the eye—an ocean, in which one seems to be out of sight of land.

We reached the River Platte a few miles east of Fort Kearney. This fort is commanded by Captain Wharton, a gentlemanly and highly intelligent officer. We were received and entertained by him and his accomplished lady not merely with generous hospitality, but with as much warmth as though we had been near relatives. At this point, and for a considerable distance west, the Platte runs through a valley from five to eight miles, bounded by a low range of sand-hills. The country becomes more and more interesting from Fort Kearney westward. The sand-hills, as you progress up the stream, are more bold and irregular, until they run into rugged and rocky ranges, worn and washed into sharp peaks and every variety of outline. One of the most singular of these rocky elevations has been called the "Court-house," from its fancied resemblance

to a public building; but it is a misnomer to give it so common a name. It is a large mass of reddish sandstone, rising abruptly from the plain in solitary grandeur, and in the distance looks like an immense temple, or castle, reared to some heathen divinity, or by some feudal baron in ages gone by, but now in a state of decay.

Some fifteen miles from the Court-house you see the justly celebrated Chimney Rock, pointing its solitary column to the sky, and from which you every moment

expect to see issuing smoke or jets of steam from the fancied furnace beneath. Of all the fantastic freaks of Dame Nature in fashioning natural curiosities, this is certainly the strangest. The chimney rises some 150 to 200 feet from the apex of pyramidal-shaped rock, all reddish sandstone. But this curiosity has been well described in many published journals, and I will not, therefore, inflict another description upon the reader. After leaving Chimney Rock, we came very soon to Scott's Bluffs, which we left to the right, and

passed up a valley lined on each side with similar curiosities. Here was a castle with its turrets and battlements—there, an extensive fort, with parapets and bastions—and yonder, huge, misshapen, beetling crags. One formation excited especial interest. There was first a gigantic perpendicular rock in the form of a cylinder, which served as a foundation, on which arose a smaller rock of the same form, and on that a third, still smaller, but of the same form. It looked like the vast mausoleum of some hero of a past race. The lover of natural scenery feels amply paid for all the dangers, inconveniences, and petty annoyances of such a journey, while viewing these curiosities, scattered, as it were, broadcast, on a scale of such magnificent grandeur.

Near Fort Laramie the highlands commence; the country is broken up into hills and irregular promi- nences, and the traveling becomes more laborious. We left the Platte and reached the Sweetwater, a few miles east of Independence Rock. This is an immense, irregular pile of granite, about 120 feet high, and from one and a half to two miles in circuit, full of seams and fissures. I climbed to the top, and saw

a beautiful hare, which soon retreated into one of the numerous cavities. The rock is literally covered with the names of travelers; at a rough guess, there must be 35,000 to 40,000! This is an easy way of handing one's name down to posterity, and Thomas Noakes stands quite as good a chance in this respect as the celebrated John Doe. Let any one who is puzzled for a name visit this rock.

The Valley of the Sweetwater furnished us a smooth, level road until near the sources of the river. On the north side are the Rattlesnake Hills, a range of bare granite, varying from 500 to 1000 feet high, and of precisely the same character as Independence Rock. It is cracked and seamed at all points, and may well be the resort of the rattlesnake for a thousand years to come. For some days before we reached the South Pass, the Wind River Mountains, with their snowy peaks glittering in the sunshine, appeared in view. These constitute some of the loftiest portions of the Rocky Mountains. The celebrated South Pass proved to be somewhat different from my previous conceptions. The word pass induced the belief that it partook of the

character of a gorge between lofty mountains; but it is quite different from this. The country from the vicinity of Fort Laramie to the summit is made up of ascending highlands; the road is up and down, but there is more of up than down. Some fifteen to twenty miles from the summit, the highlands become more bold and difficult of ascent, and the rocks by the way side crop out in sharp, perpendicular points. As we approach the summit, the surface becomes more even and gently rolling, and the exact dividing point is passed before one is aware of it. The wind was high and cold. Some twenty miles to the right was a ridge of high hills, and further still, in the distance, were the Wind River Mountains. On the left were irregular highlands. There is something exciting in the idea that one is passing over the topmost point of travel in all North America, and near which, too, as from a radiating centre, waters arise which flow into three mighty rivers, the Mississippi, the Columbia, and the Colorado. Some ten to fifteen miles west of the summit the descent is very obvious, and the air becomes milder. On the Pacific side, the mountains above referred to are magnificent beyond description; they seemed, in the bright sunshine, like immense masses of thunderclouds gathering for a storm.

From the South Pass to the Wasatch Mountains, which bound the Great Basin on the east, the country consists mostly of rolling plains, quite similar to those over which we had passed. These mountains present the most fatiguing and difficult portions of the entire journey. It was, with few exceptions, a succession of steep ascents and descents, and narrow, rocky defiles; but the scenery was alternately beautiful and grand. The Spanish word cañon (pronounced canyon) is now the familiar designation of the narrow passes through

the mountains. One of these, called Echo Cañon, is twenty-five miles in length, terminates on the Weber River, and furnishes a nearly level road the whole distance. This cañon is half a mile wide, is walled in by precipitous ridges, and the rocks, in many places, are worn into the same castellated forms so common in the vicinity of Scott's Bluffs. In one place the rocks were of a bright straw color, and the reflection produced a soft, yellow light. We finally descended into the Valley of Salt Lake, through Parley's Cañon, a dangerous pass, in places but a few rods wide, and walled in by rocks more than two thousand feet high. In a military point of view, these passes might be defended by a handful of resolute men against a host.

The whole route presents but few difficulties on account of the Indians. They are all inveterate thieves,

from the Shawnees and Potawatomies, who are partially civilized, to the most degraded Diggers; and the traveler must use a reasonable degree of vigilance for the safety of his property. The Pawnees are the most dreaded of any on the route; they are fierce, active, and disposed to be mischievous when they encounter a small, unguarded party, and can safely gratify their thirst for plunder.

The Indians generally are the most troublesome beggars in the world, and will importune without ceasing, unless repulsed with some degree of sternness. While encamped one day near Fort Laramie, a large, well-formed Sioux, known by the name of "Old Smoke," stationed himself within a foot of me while eating dinner, and fixed his gaze upon the food with the eager expression of a hungry dog. At every mouthful he would say "goot," "goot." This was not very appetizing, so I gave the old rat a plateful on condition he would go away. He readily accepted the bribe, and went to another mess, where he played the same maneuver with success.

I must confess I have no very exalted opinion of the whole race. Their broad features, wide mouths, low foreheads, and black, snaky, venomous eyes, make up a collection of disagreeables which they manage to heighten by paint, filth, and outlandish ornaments. Their most stylish dandies might well be taken for escaped inmates of Bedlam. Our train passed two villages of Chyenes, in the vicinity of Fort Laramie—that is, two collections of lodges, made up of lodgepoles and buffalo robes or canvas. The whole concern poured out, men, women, children, cats, dogs, and horses, and surrounded us—some tricked out in all their scarecrow finery, and others ragged almost to nudity. They followed us, begging, hooting, screaming, howling, and barking, for a mile. It might remind one of Old Picket's denunciation, in which, among other choice things, he hoped the soul of his antagonist might be chased "by a tanner's dog around the ragged ramparts of damnation."

It is no doubt the duty of philanthropists to continue their efforts to elevate the condition of the children of the forest and the plains; yet the task looks well-nigh hopeless. But few have improved under these benevolent teachings, and the balance seem destined to melt away before the vigorous advances of civilized races.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

TERRITORY OF UTAH.

The Territory of Utah lies between latitude 37° and 42°, and is bounded on the west by the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, on the east by the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and contains about one hundred and eighty-eight thousand square miles. This area embraces within its limits not only the Great Basin, so called, but that portion of the valleys of

Green and Grand Rivers and their tributaries lying between the Wasatch and Rocky Mountains. The Great Basin constitutes a large, and decidedly the most interesting portion of this territory; and is, in more aspects than one, the greatest physical wonder of North America. Completely walled in by lofty mountains, some of which are perpetually robed in

snow, its streams and rivers flow into its own bosom, forming lakes of various dimensions, from which the confluent waters escape only by evaporation, or disappear in sandy deserts. That its entire surface has at some period been covered by a vast inland sea, there are many indications in the numerous water-marks which exhibit their traces in the mountain sides. The bench on the slope of which the Mormon capital is built, is a shore-mark which, in the clear atmosphere, may be traced by the eye south, along the base of the mountains, a distance of over twenty miles.

The Great Basin has as yet been but partially explored. The Mormon settlements extend along the base of the Wasatch Mountains, from the northern extremity of Great Salt Lake to near the southern boundary of the territory, a distance of some three hundred and fifty miles. The usual emigrant route to California from Great Salt Lake City is around the northern extremity of the lake, and thence in a southwesterly direction down the valley of the Humboldt, or Mary's River, to Carson's Valley. The residue remains mostly unexplored. The portions known present bold and striking features, and great natural curiosities. It has lofty mountain ranges, rising to the clouds, some of which are perpetually capped with snow. The northern rim of the basin lies much farther south than appears from Fremont's map, published in 1849. In passing around Salt Lake on the route to California, the traveler crosses streams which flow into the rivers of Oregon, and does not pass the dividing summit until he has journeyed some forty to fifty miles south of the northern end of the lake. While toiling over these rugged elevations, the lover of natural scenery enjoys the grandeur of the prospect—a panorama of lofty ranges and peaks, glittering in the light of the sun, and extending in all directions as far as the eye can reach. Often sharp pyramidal peaks, rising abruptly, exhibit different kinds of rock, water-worn into turreted, castellated, and fantastic forms. The rocks are generally primitive, and the abundance of scoria gives evidence of the fiery throes which the earth has undergone in heaving up these tremendous elevations.

There is probably no part of the earth where so rich a field is presented for the researches of the naturalist. The valley of the Great Salt Lake is particularly prolific in natural curiosities. Springs, from the one hot enough to boil an egg in a few minutes, to the one of a temperature for a pleasant warm bath, occur every few miles; and these are generally impregnated with sulphur in combination with alkaline salts. Some of

these springs, throwing out generous volumes of water, form ponds from one to three miles in circuit, in which may be found, attracted by the genial temperature, tens of thousands of water-fowl. Some of them are chalybeate, and coat the rocks and earth over which they flow with oxyd of iron.

Great Salt Lake is a very great curiosity. It is about one hundred and thirty miles long, and from seventy to eighty broad, and is, as near as may be, a vast collection of brine. The water seems to be saturated with salt to its utmost capacity of holding it in solution, indicating the neighborhood of great deposits of mineral salt. Between Great Salt Lake City and Bear River is a spring intensely salt, which pours out a volume of water equal to that at Spring Port, on the east side of Cayuga Lake, which it very much resembles. This is probably one of many others of a similar character which pour their contents into the lake. At particular points on the beach, where the regular course of the winds dashes up the waves, the salt collects in such quantities as to be conveniently shoveled into carts for domestic use. It is also procured by evaporation, three pails of the water producing one of salt. A person bathing may sit in the water, rising to his armpits, as in a chair; but let him beware of toppling over, unless he wishes to encounter the risk of drowning "heels over head." The water is perfectly limpid, and has no living thing beneath its saline waves. It has many islands with high mountain peaks, among the largest of which is Antelope Island, situated so near the eastern shore as to be accessible for grazing purposes, for which it is extensively used.

Utah Lake, about forty miles south of Salt Lake, with which it is connected by its outlet, the River Jordan, is a handsome sheet of fresh water, some fifteen miles long by ten broad, and abounds with the finest salmon trout. In approaching it from the north, the valley of the Jordan narrows, and in rounding a point about seven miles from the lake, a grand spectacle suddenly bursts upon the view of the traveler. The lake presents itself in placid beauty below him, surrounded, and seemingly completely walled in, by lofty mountains covered with snow; and it is not until he makes its circuit that he discovers a broad belt of level arable land between the lake and these mighty elevations; nor does he till then perceive the tremendous gorges through which flow the Provo River, the Spanish Fork, and other streams. The cañon of the Provo is so deep and extended that a strong wind often pours through as from the nozzle of a blacksmith's bellows, which is felt for a distance of over two miles in passing its mouth.

The Great Basin is rich in minerals, among which are iron and coal, found in Iron county, some two hundred and fifty miles south of Great Salt Lake City, in such abundance as to provide an adequate supply for the future wants of the population. Iron has hitherto been supplied from the thousands of wrecked and abandoned wagons which line the road nearly the whole distance from Missouri to Oregon and California. Gold has only been discovered in Carson Valley, near the line separating Utah from California, but there are strong indications that it abounds in other portions of the Territory.

In regard to agricultural capacity, waste undoubtedly predominates over fertility, except in river bottoms, or in localities favorable for artificial irrigation. The Wasatch range contains a vast number of deep and rugged gorges or cañons, through each of which tumbles a mountain stream, fed partly by springs, but mostly by melting snows. Wherever one of these streams rushes out upon the plains, the agriculturist can turn it to use in bringing forth the fertility of the land. Without this aid he would plow and plant in vain, owing to the sandy nature of the soil and the long summer droughts. All the products of the States in the same latitude can in this mode be raised in great perfection. The vegetables are large, and generally of superior quality. Those portions of the basin not in the immediate vicinity of rivers and streams will probably be found entirely unfit for cultivation.

The farmer in Utah is subject to some heavy drawbacks. The necessity of irrigation imposes no trifling addition to his labors; water-ditches are to be cut over and through his land, and great care is necessary in their proper management. In some places where water is not abundant, the neighbors use it alternately, and spend the night as well as the day in distributing the precious moisture over their fields.

Again, the temperature is subject to very sudden changes. The lowest valley in this elevated region is some four thousand feet above the level of the ocean, and the surrounding mountains run up four to six thousand feet higher, the tops of which are covered with snow during a large portion of the year. Of course, the shifting winds from these snowy points are not only violent, but of an icy temperature, and the consequences are early and late frosts, and often a chilly atmosphere in the very midst of summer. The winds blow frequently with great violence, bringing up now and then terrible storms, accompanied with thunder and lightning. It is said the wind is sometimes so high as to bring spray from the lake to the city, a distance of twenty-two miles!

Another serious drawback is the abundance of alkaline salts, or saleratus, in the soil. This is a marked peculiarity throughout the whole territory, as far as explored. Sometimes it shows itself in a white efflorescence on the surface of the ground, covering whole acres with the appearance of a heavy white frost or slight fall of snow, and lumps are frequently picked up for domestic use. Many of the streams are so strongly impregnated with it as to make it dangerous for cattle to drink from them. Between Salt Lake City and the lake, numerous pools and small ponds of water may be found of the color and nearly of the taste of common ley, from the same cause. This property in the soil is beneficial to the grasses, and makes the extensive pasture ranges equal to the salt marshes on the Atlantic coast for cattle. So abundant are these salts, that the whole vegetable kingdom is more or less affected by them; some, as potatoes, squashes, and melons, are rendered sweeter and more palatable. The common pie-plant loses almost entirely its acidity. Wherever it is sufficiently abundant to effloresce upon the surface, it totally destroys vegetation; and I heard of sundry fields of wheat being injured, and some totally ruined, by its sudden appearance after the crop was half grown. In some cases, a good crop will be raised one season on a piece of land, and the next be entirely destroyed from this cause; and many of the inhabitants believe that it can not be exhausted by repeated cultivation.