Chapter VI

Descriptive Geography, Ethnology, and Statistics of Utah Territory.

Utah Territory, so called from its Indian owners, the Yuta--“those that dwell in mountains”--is still, to a certain extent, terra incognita, not having yet been thoroughly explored, much less surveyed or settled.

The whole Utah country has been acquired, like Oregon, by conquest and diplomacy. By the partition of 1848, the parallel of N. lat. 42°, left unsettled, between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, by the treaties of the 22d of October, 1818, and the 12th of February, 1819, was prolonged northward to N. lat. 49°, thus adding to the United States California, Oregon, and Washington, while to Britain remained Vancouver’s Island and the joint navigation of the Columbia River. Under the Hispano-Americans the actual Utah Territory formed the northern portion of Alta California, and the peace of Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluded in 1848 between the United States and Mexico, transferred it from the latter to the former.

[GEOGRAPHY OF UTAH TERRITORY.]

The present boundaries of Utah Territory are, northward (42° N. lat.), the State of Oregon; and southward, a line pursuing the parallel of N. lat. 37°, separating it from New Mexico to the southeast and from California to the southwest. The eastern portion is included between 106° and 120° W. long. (G.); a line following the crest of the Green River, the Wasach, the Bear River, and other sections of the Rocky Mountains, whose southern extremities anastomose to form the Sierra Nevada, separate it from Nebraska and Kansas. On the west it is bounded, between 116° and 120° W. long., by the lofty crest of the Sierra Nevada; the organization, however, of a new territory, the “Nevada,” on the landward slope of the Snowy Range, has diminished its dimensions by about half. Utah had thus 5° of extreme breadth, and 14° of total length; it was usually reckoned 650 miles long from east to west, and 350 broad from north to south. The shape was an irregular parallelogram, of which the area was made to vary from 188,000 to 225,000 square miles, almost the superficies of France.

The surface configuration of Utah Territory is like Central Equatorial Africa, a great depression in a mountain land: a trough elevated 4000 to 5000 feet above sea level, subtended on all sides by mountains 8000 to 10,000 feet high, and subdivided by transverse ridges. The “Rim of the Basin” is an uncontinuous line formed by the broken chains of Oregon to the north, and to the south by the little-known sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains; the latter also form the eastern wall, while the Sierra Nevada hems in the west. Before the present upheaval of the country the Great Interior Basin was evidently a sweetwater inland sea; the bench formation, a system of water-marks, is found in every valley, while detached and parallel blocks of mountain, trending almost invariably north and south, were in geological ages rock-islands protruding from the lake surface like those that now break the continuity of that “vast and silent sea” the Great Salt Lake. Between these primitive and metamorphic ridges lie the secondary basins, whose average width may be 15-20 miles; they open into one another by kanyons and passes, and are often separated longitudinally, like “waffle-irons,” by smaller divides running east and west, thus converting one extended strip of secondary into a system of tertiary valleys. The Great Basin, which is not less than 500 miles long by 500 broad, is divided by two large chains, which run transversely from northeast to southwest. The northernmost is the range of the Humboldt River, rising 5000-6000 feet above the sea. The southern is the prolongation of the Wasach, whose southwestern extremity abuts upon the Pacific coast range; it attains a maximum elevation of nearly 12,000 feet. Without these mountains, whose gorges are fed during the spring, and even in the summer, by melted snow, there would be no water. The levels of the valleys are still unknown; it is yet a question how far they are irregular in elevation, whether they have formed detached lakes, or whether they slope uniformly and by steps toward the Great Salt Lake and the other reservoirs scattered at intervals over the country.

The water-shed of the Basin is toward the north, south, east, and west: the affluents of the Columbia and the Colorado rivers carry off the greatest amount of drainage. One of the geographical peculiarities of the Territory is the “sinking,” as it is technically called, of the rivers. The phenomenon is occasioned by the porous nature of the soil. The larger streams, like the Humboldt and the Carson rivers, form terminating lakes. The smaller are either absorbed by sand, or sink, like the South African fountains, in ponds and puddles of black mire, beneath which is peaty earth that burns as if by spontaneous combustion, and smoulders for a long time in dry weather: the waters either reappear, or, escaping under the surface--a notable instance of the “subterranean river”--feed the greater drains and the lakes. The potamology is more curious than useful; the streams, being unnavigable, play no important part in the scheme of economy.

Utah Territory is well provided with lakes; of these are two nearly parallel chains extending across the country. The easternmost begins at the north, with the Great Salt Lake, the small tarns of the Wasach, the Utah, or Sweetwater Reservoir, the Nicollet, and the Little Salt Lake, complete the line which is fed by the streams that flow from the western counterslope of the Wasach. The other chain is the drainage collected from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada; it consists of Mud, Pyramid, Carson, Mono, and Walker’s lakes. Of these, Pyramid Lake, so called by Colonel Frémont, its explorer, from a singular rock in the centre, is the most beautiful--a transparent water, 700 feet above the level of the Great Salt Lake, and walled in by precipices nearly 3000 feet high.

The principal thermal features of Utah Territory are the Bear Springs, near the Fort Hall Road. The Harrowgate Springs, near Great Salt Lake City, have already been alluded to. Between the city and Bear River there is a fountain of strong brine, described as discharging a large volume of water. There are sulphurous pools at the southern extremity of the Great Salt Lake Valley. Others are chalybeate, coating the earth and the rocks with oxide of iron. Almost every valley has some thermal spring, in which various confervæ flourish; the difficulty is to find good cold water.

Another curious geographical peculiarity of the Territory is the formation of the mountains. For the most part the ridges, instead of presenting regular slopes, more or less inclined, are formed of short but acute angular cappings superimposed upon flatter prisms. It often happens that after easily ascending two thirds from the base, the upper part suddenly becomes wall-like and insurmountable.

[CLIMATE OF UTAH TERRITORY.]

Utah Territory is situated in the parallel of the Mediterranean; the southern boundary corresponds with the provinces along the Amoor lately acquired by Russia, and with Tasmania in the southern hemisphere. But the elevation, that grand modifier of climate, renders it bleak and liable to great vicissitudes of temperature. The lowest valley rises 4000 feet above sea level; the mountains behind Great Salt Lake City are 6000 feet high; Mount Nebo is marked 8000, and the Twin Peaks, that look upon the “Happy Valley,” were ascertained barometrically by Messrs. O. Pratt and A. Carrington to be 11,660 feet in height: in the western part of the Territory the Sierra Nevada averages 2000 feet above the South Pass, and it has peaks that tower thousands of feet above that altitude. These snowy masses, in whose valleys thaw is seldom known, exercise a material effect upon the climate, and cause the cultivator to wage fierce war with the soil. The air is highly rarefied by its altitude. Captain Stansbury’s barometrical observations for May, June, July, and August, give as a maximum 27·80 at 9 A.M. on the 4th of August, and minimum 22·86 at sunrise on the 19th of June, with a general range between 25° and 26°. New-comers suffer from difficulty of breathing; often after sudden and severe exercise, climbing, or running, the effect is like the nausea, sickness, and fainting experienced upon Mont Blanc and in Tibet; even horses feel it, and must pass two or three months before they are acclimatized.[152]

[152] Subjoined is an abstract of meteorology kindly forwarded to me by Judge Phelps:

“Great Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 24th, 1860.

“DEAR SIR,--The following is an abstract of meteorological observations for the past year, from October, 1859, to October, 1860, inclusive:

Yearly mean of barometer 25·855 Highest range 26·550 Lowest range 25·205 Thermometer attached (mean) 60° Thermometer (open air) „ 71° Thermometer, dry bulb „ 64° Thermometer, wet bulb „ 58° (All Fahrenheit.)

“The amount of fair days, 244. The remaining 121 were 31 stormy and the residue cloudy and foggy.

“The course of the wind more than two thirds of the year goes round daily with the sun; strongest wind south; worst for stock, north.

“Highest range of the thermometer, 96° in July; lowest range in December--22° below 0.

“The amount of snow and rainwater was 12·257, which is somewhat over 1 foot.

“All the snow in the Valley was less than 3 feet, while perhaps in the mountains it was more than 10 feet, which gives ample water for irrigation.

“The weather during the year was steady, without extremes.

“Such was Utah in 1860.

“Respectfully, I have the honor to be, etc.,

W. W. PHELPS.”

The climate of the Basin has been compared with that of the Tartar plains of High Asia. Spring opens in the valleys with great suddenness; all is bloom and beauty below, while the snow-line creeps lingeringly up the mountain side, and does not disappear till the middle of June. Thus there are but three months of warmth in the high lands; the low lands have four, beginning with a May-day like that of England. At the equinoxes, both vernal and autumnal, there are rains in the bottoms, which in the upper levels become sleet or snow. Between April and October showers are rare; there are, however, exceptions, heavy downfalls, with thunder, lightning, and hail. “Clouds without water” is a proverbial expression; a dark, heavy pall, which in woodland countries would burst with its weight, here sails over the arid, sun-parched surface, and discharges its watery stores in the kanyons and upon the mountains. During the first few years after the arrival of the Saints there was little rain either in spring or autumn; in 1860 it extended to the middle of June. The change may be attributed to cultivation and plantation; thus also may be explained the North American Indian’s saying that the pale-face brings with him his rain. The same has been observed in Kansas and New Mexico, and is equally remarked by the natives of Cairo, the Aden Coal-hole, and Kurrachee. Seed-time lasts from April to the 10th of June.

The summer is hot, but the lightness and the aridity of the air prevent its being unwholesome. During my visit the thermometer (F.) placed in a room with open windows showed at dawn 63-66°; at noon, 75°; and at sunset, 70°: the greatest midday heat was 105°. The mornings and evenings, cooled by breezes from the mountains, were deliciously soft and pure. The abundant electricity was proved, as in Sindh and Arabia, by frequent devils or dust-pillars, like huge columns of volcanic smoke, that careered over the miraged plains, violently excited where they touched the negative earth, and calm in the positive strata of the upper air, whence their floating particles were precipitated. Dust-storms and thunder-storms are frequent and severe. Clouds often gather upon the peaks, and a heavy black nimbus rises behind the Wasach wall, setting off its brilliant sunlit side, but there is seldom rain. Showers are preceded, as in Eastern Africa, by puffs and gusts of cold air, and are expected in Great Salt Lake City when the clouds come from the west and southwest, opposite and over the “Black Rock;” otherwise they will cling to the hills. Even in the hottest weather, a cold continuous wind, as from the nozzle of a forge-bellows, pours down the deep damp kanyons, where the snow lingers, and travelers, especially at night, prepare to pass across the ravine mouths with blankets and warm clothing. Where the federal troops encamped on the stony bench opposite the Provo Kanyon, it was truly predicted that they would soon be blown out. When summer is protracted, severe droughts are the result. Harvest-time is in the beginning of July.

About early September the heat ends. In 1860, the first snow fell upon the Twin Peaks and their neighborhood on the 12th of September. Rains then usually set in for a fortnight or three weeks, and mild weather often lasts till the end of October. November is partially a fine month; after two or three snowy days, the Indian summer ushers in the most enjoyable weather of the year, which, when short, ends about the middle of November.

Winter has three very severe months, reckoned from December. Icy winds blow hard, and gales are sometimes so high that spray is carried from the Great Salt Lake to the City, a distance of 10-12 miles. In 1854-5 hundreds of cattle perished in the snow. Usually in mid-winter, snow falls every day with a high westerly wind, veering toward the north, and thick with poudré--dry icy spiculæ, hard as gravel. The thermometer is not often below zero in the bottoms; on the 13th of December, 1859, however, the thermometer at daylight, with the barometer at 26·250, showed -22° (F.); 5° or 6° lower than it had ever been before. The snow seldom lies in the valleys deeper than a man’s knee; it is dry, and readily thawed by the sun. A vast quantity is drifted into the kanyons and passes, where the people, as in Styria, often become prisoners at home. These crevasses, hundreds of feet deep, retain their icy stores throughout the year. It is asserted by those who believe in a Pacific Railway upon this line[153] that the Wasach can be traversed at all seasons; at present, however, sledge transit only is practicable, and at times even that is found impossible.

[153] The Pacific Railroad in 1852 was unknown to the political world: in 1856 it began to be necessary, and shortly afterward it appeared in both “platforms,” because without it no one could expect to carry the Mississippian and Pacific States, Texas, for instance, and California. The Diary will show the many difficulties which it must encounter after crossing the South Pass; as the West can afford no assistance, provisions and material must all come from the East--an additional element of expense and delay. The estimate is roughly laid down at $100,000,000: it may safely be doubled. The well-known contractor, Mr. Whitney, offered to build it for a reservation of thirty miles on both sides: the idea was rejected as that of a crazy man. It is promised in ten years, and will probably take thirty. England, then, had better look to her line through Canada and Columbia--it would be worth a hundred East Indian railroads.

It can not be doubted that this climate of arid heat and dry cold is eminently suited to most healthy and to many sickly constitutions: children and adults have come from England apparently in a dying state, and have lived to be strong and robust men. I have elsewhere alluded to the effect of rarefaction upon the English physique: another has been stated, namely, that the atmosphere is too fine and dry to require, or even to permit, the free use of spirituous liquors. Paralysis is rare; scrofula and phthisis are unknown, as in Nebraska--the climate wants that humidity which brings forward the predisposition. It is also remarkable that, though all drink snow-water, and though many live in valleys where there is no free circulation of air, goître and cretinism are not yet named. The City Council maintains an excellent sanitary supervision, which extends to the minutest objects that might endanger the general health. The stream of emigrants which formerly set copiously westward is now dribbling back toward its source, and a quarantine is established for those who arrive with contagious diseases. Great Salt Lake City is well provided with disciples of Æsculapius, against whom there is none of that prejudice founded upon superstition and fanaticism which anti-Mormon writers have detected. Dr. Francis, an English Mormon, lately died, leaving Dr. Anderson, a graduate of Maryland College, to take his place: Dr. Bernhisel prefers politics to physic, and Dr. Kay is the chief dentist.

[DISEASES.]

The normal complaints are easily explained by local peculiarities--cold, alkaline dust, and overindulgence in food.

Neuralgia is by no means uncommon. Many are compelled to wear kerchiefs under their hats; and if a head be not always uncovered, there is some reason for it. Rheumatism, as in England, affects the poorer classes, who are insufficiently fed and clothed. Pneumonia, in winter, follows exposure and hard work. The pleuro-pneumonia, which in 1860 did so much damage to stock in New England, did not extend to Utah Territory: the climate, however, is too like that of the Cape of Storms to promise lasting immunity. Catarrhs are severe and lasting; they are accompanied by bad toothaches and sore throats, which sometimes degenerate into bronchitis. Diphtheria is not yet known. The measles have proved especially fatal to the Indians: in 1850, “Old Elk,” the principal war-chief of the Timpanogos Yutas, died of it: erysipelas also kills many of the wild men.

For ophthalmic disease, the climate has all the efficients of the Valley of the Nile, and, unless suitable precautions are taken, the race will, after a few generations, become tender-eyed as Egyptians. The organ is weakened by the acrid irritating dust from the alkaline soil, which glistens in the sun like hoar-frost. Snow-blindness is common on the mountains and in the plains: the favorite preventive, when goggles are unprocurable, is to blacken the circumorbital region and the sides of the nose with soot--the kohl, surmah, or collyrium of the Far West: the cure is a drop of nitrate of silver or laudanum. The mucous membrane in horses, as among men, is glandered, as it were, by alkali, and the chronic inflammation causes frequent hemorrhage: the nitrous salts in earth and air exasperate to ulcers sunburns on the nose and mouth: it is not uncommon to see men riding or walking with a bit of paper instead of a straw between their lips. Wounds must be treated to great disadvantage where the climate, like that of Abyssinia, renders a mere scratch troublesome. The dryness of the air produces immunity from certain troublesome excrescences which cause shooting pains in humid regions, and the pedestrian requires no vinegar and water to harden his feet: on the other hand, horses’ hoofs, as in Sindh and Arabia, must be stuffed with tar, to prevent sun-crack.

Under the generic popular name “mountain fever” are included various species of febrile affections, intermittent, remittent, and typhoid: they are treated successfully with quinine.

Emigrants are advised to keep up hard work and scanty fare after arrival, otherwise the sudden change from semi-starvation and absence of fruit and vegetables upon the prairies to plenty in the settlements may cause dyspepsia, dysentery, and visceral inflammation. Some are attacked by “liver complaint,” the trivial term for the effects of malaria, which, when inhaled, affects successively the lungs, blood, liver, and other viscera. The favorite, and, indeed, the only known successful treatment is by mineral acids, nitric, muriatic, and others.[154] Scurvy is unknown to the settlers; when brought in after long desert marches, it yields readily to a more generous diet and vegetables, especially potatoes, which, even in the preserved form, act as a specific. The terrible scorbutic disease, called the “black canker of the plains,” has not extended so far west.

[154] The following is the favorite cure: it is upon the principle of the medicinal bath well known in Europe.

℞ Acid. Nit. ℥i. Acid. Mur. ʒii. Mis.

Of this fifteen drops are to be taken in a tumbler of water twice a day before meals. The local application to the hepatic region is one ounce of the nitro-muriatic acid in a quart of water, and applied upon a compress every night.

[ANIMALS OF UTAH TERRITORY.]

There is not much sport with fur, feather, and fin in this part of the Far West: the principal carnivors of the Great Basin are the cougar (F. unicolor) and the cat-o’-mountain, the large and small wolf, a variety of foxes, the red (V. fulvus), the great-tailed (V. macrourus) and the silver (V. argentatus), whose spoils were once worth their weight in silver. There are minks, ermines, skunks, American badgers, and wolverines or gluttons, which ferret out caches of peltries and provisions, and are said sometimes to attack man. Of rodents the principal are the beaver, a burrowing hare, the jackass-rabbit (L. callotis), porcupines, the geomys or gophar, a sand-rat peculiar to America, the woodchuck or ground-hog, many squirrels, especially the Spermophilus tredecim lineatus, which swarms in hilly ground, and muskrat (F. zibeticus), which, like other vermin, is eaten by Indians. The principal pachyderm is the hyrax, called by the settlers “cony.” Of the ruminants we find the antelope, deer, elk, and the noble bighorn, or Rocky Mountain sheep, the moufflon or argali of the New World.

Of the raptors the principal are the red-tailed hawk (B. borealis), the sharp-shinned hawk (A. fuscus), the sparrow-hawk, and the vulturine turkey-buzzard. Of game-birds there are several varieties of quail, called partridges, especially the beautiful blue species (O. Californica), and grouse, especially the sage-hen (T. urophasianus): the water-fowl are swans (C. Americanus), wild geese in vast numbers, the white pelican, here a migrating bird, the cormorant (Phalacrocorax), the mallard or greenhead (A. boschas), which loves the water of Jordan and the western Sea of Tiberias, the teal, red-breasted and green-winged, the brant (A. bernicla), the plover and curlew, the gull (a small Larus), a blue heron, and a brown crane (G. Canadensis), which are found in the marshes throughout the winter. The other members of the family are the bluebird (A. sialia), the humming-bird (Trochilus), finches, woodpeckers, the swamp blackbird, and the snowbird, small passerines: there is also a fine lark (Sturnella) with a harsh note, which is considered a delicacy in autumn.

Besides a variety of gray and green lizards, the principal Saurian is the Phrynosoma, a purely American type, popularly called the horned frog--or toad, although its tail, its scaly body, and its inability to jump disprove its title to rank as a batrachian--and by the Mexicans chameleon, because it is supposed to live on air. It is of many species, for which the naturalist is referred to the Appendix of Captain Stansbury’s Exploration. The serpents are chiefly rattlesnakes, swamp-adders, and water-snakes. The fishes are perch, pike, bass, chub, a mountain trout averaging three pounds, and salmon trout which has been known to weigh thirty pounds. There are but few mollusks, periwinkles, snails, and fresh-water clams.[155]

[155] Mr. W. Baird, in the absence of Mr. S. Woodward, of the British Museum, has kindly favored me with the following list of a little collection from the Great Basin which I placed in his hands.

“British Museum, August 3d, 1861.

“DEAR SIR,--The Helix (with open umbilicus) is, I think, H. solitaria; the large Physa is very near, if not identical with the P. elliptica of our collection; the next largest Physa comes very near P. gyrina; the larger Lymnœa is L. catascopium, the smaller ditto L. modicella. There are two species of the genus Lithoglyphus, the one resembling very much the L. naticoides of Europe, but most probably new; the other I should imagine to be undescribed. There is a small Paludina looking shell which comes very near the Paludina piscium of D’Orbigny. There is a species of Anodonta which corresponds with a shell we have from the Columbia River, but of which I do not know the name. There is also a species of Cyclas which may be new, as I do not know at present any species from North America exactly like it. Believe me, yours truly,

W. BAIRD.

“Capt. R. F. Burton.”

The botany of the Great Basin has been investigated by Messrs. Frémont and Stansbury, who forwarded their collections for description to Professor John Torrey, of New York: M. Remy has described his own herbarium. To these valuable works the reader may be referred for all now known upon the subject.

[GEOLOGY OF UTAH TERRITORY.]

The rocks in Utah Territory are mostly primitive--granite, brick-red jasper, syenite, hornblende, and porphyry, with various quartzes, of which the most curious is a white nodule surrounded by a crystalline layer of satin spar. The presence of obsidian, scoriæ, and lava--apparently a dark brown mud tinged with iron, and so vitrified by heat that it rings--evidences volcanic action. Many of the ridges are a carboniferous limestone threaded by calcareous spar, and in places rich with encrinites and fossil corallines; it rests upon or alternates with hard and compact grits and sandstone. The kanyons in the neighborhood of Great Salt Lake City supply boulders of serpentine, fine gray granite, coarse red ochrish pœcilated crystalline-white and metamorphic sandstones, a variety of conglomerates, especially granitic, with tufa in large masses, talcose and striated slates, some good for roofing, gypsum (plaster of Paris), pebbles of alabaster and various kinds of limestones, some dark and fetid, others oolitic, some compact and massive, black, blue, or ash-colored, seamed with small veins of white carbonate of lime, others light gray and friable, cased with tufa, or veneered with jade. The bottom-soil in most parts is fitted for the adobe, and the lower hills contain an abundance of fossilless chalky lime, which makes tolerable mortar: the best is that near Deep Creek, the worst is in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake City. Near Fort Hall, in the northeast corner of the basin, there is said to be a mountain of marble displaying every hue and texture: marble is also found in large crystalline nodules like arragonite.

Utah Territory will produce an ample supply of iron.[156] According to the Mormons, it resembles that of Missouri, and the gangue contains eighty per cent. of pure metal, which, to acquire the necessary toughness, must be alloyed with imported iron. Gold, according to Humboldt, is constant in meridional mountains, and we may expect to find it in a country abounding with crystalline rocks cut by dikes of black and gray basalt and porous trap, gneiss, micaceous schists, clayey and slaty shales, and other argillaceous formations. It is generally believed that gold exists upon the Wasach Mountains, within sight of Great Salt Lake City, and in 1861 a traveling party is reported to have found a fine digging in the north. Lumps of virgin silver are said to have been discovered upon the White Mountains, in the south of the Territory, and Judge Ralston, I am informed, has lately hit upon a mine near the western route. Copper, zinc, and lead have been brought from Little Salt Lake Valley and sixty miles east of the Vegas de Santa Clara. Coal, principally bituminous--like that nearer the Pacific--is found mostly in the softer limestones south of the city, in a country of various marls, indurated clays, and earthy sandstones. In 1855 a vein of five feet thick, in quality resembling that of Maryland, was discovered west of the San Pete Creek, on the road to Manti. In Iron County, 250 to 280 miles south of Great Salt Lake City, inexhaustible coal-beds as well as iron deposits are said to line the course of the Green River, and, that nothing may be wanting, considerable affluents supply abundant water-power. A new digging had been discovered shortly before my arrival on a tributary of the Weber River, east of the City of the Saints, and upon the western route many spots were pointed out to me as future coal-mines. Timber being principally required for building, fencing, and mechanical purposes, renders firewood expensive: in the city a cartage of fifteen miles is necessary, and the price is thereby raised from $7 in summer to a maximum of $20 in the hard season per cord of sixteen by four feet. Unless the Saints would presently be reduced to the necessity of “breakfasting with Ezekiel,” they must take heart and build a tramroad to the south.

[156] Magnetic iron ore is traced in the basaltic rock; cubes of bisulphuret of iron are found in the argillaceous schists, and cubic crystals of iron pyrites are seen in white ferruginous quartz.

Saltpetre is found--upon paper: here, as in other parts of America, it is deficient: a reward of $500 offered for a sample of gunpowder manufactured from Valley Tan materials produced no claimants. Sulphur is only too common. Saleratus or alkaline salts is the natural produce of the soil. Borax and petroleum or mineral tar have been discovered, and the native alum has been analyzed and pronounced good by Dr. Gale.[157] Rubies, emeralds, and other small but valuable stones are found in the chinks of the primitive rocks throughout the western parts of the Territory. I have also seen chalcedony, sardonyx, carnelian, and various agates.

[157] 100 grammes of the freshly crystallized salt gave,

Water 73·0 Protoxide of manganese 08·9 Alumina 04·0 Sulphuric acid 18·0

Utah Territory is pronounced by immigrants from the Old Country to be a “mean land,” hard, dry, and fit only for the steady, sober, and hard-working Mormon. Scarcely one fiftieth part is fit for tillage; farming must be confined to rare spots, in which, however, an exceptional fertility appears. Even in the arable lands there is a great variety: some do not exceed 8-10 bushels per acre, while Captain Stansbury mentions 180 bushels[158] of wheat being raised upon 3·50 acres of ground from one bushel of seed, and estimates the average yield of properly-cultivated land at 40 bushels, whereas rich Pennsylvania rarely gives 30 per acre.[159] I have heard of lands near the fresh-water lake which bear from 60 to 105 bushels per acre.

[158] In the United States the bushel of wheat or clover-seed is 60 lbs.; of corn, barley, and rye, 56 lbs.; of oats, 35-36 lbs.

[159] The yield in Egypt varies from 25 to 150 grains for one planted.

[SOIL.]

The cultivable tracts are of two kinds, bench-land and bottom-land.

[FRUITS.]

The soil of the bench-lands is fertile, a mixture of the highland feldspath with the débris of decomposed limestone. It is comparatively free from alkalines, the bane of the valleys; but as rain is wanting, it depends, like the Basses-Pyrénées, upon irrigation, and must be fertilized by the mountain torrents that issue from the kanyons. As a rule, the creeks dwindle to rivulets and sink in the porous alluvium before they have run a mile from the hill-foot, and reappear in the arid plains at a level too low for navigation: in such places artesian wells are wanted. The soil, though fertile, is thin, requiring compost: manure is here allowed to waste, the labor of the people sufficing barely for essentials. I am informed that two bushels of semence are required for each acre, and that the colonists sow too scantily: a judicious rotation of crops is also yet to come. The benches are sometimes extensive: a strip, for instance, runs along the western base of the Wasach Mountains, with a varying breadth of 1-3 miles, from 80 miles north of Great Salt Lake City to Utah Lake and Valley, the southern terminus of cultivation, a total length of 120 miles. These lands produce various cereals, especially wheat and buckwheat, oats, barley, and a little Indian corn, all the fruits and vegetables of a temperate zone, and flax, hemp, and linseed in abundance. The wild fruits are the service berry, choke-cherry, buffalo berry, gooseberry, an excellent strawberry, and black, white, red, and yellow mountain currants, some as large as ounce bullets.

[ALKALINE SALTS.]

The bottom-lands, where the creeks extend, are better watered than the uplands, but they are colder and salter. The refrigerated air seeks the lowest levels; hence in Utah Territory the benches are warmer than the valleys, and the spring vegetation is about a fortnight later on the banks of Jordan than above them. Another cause of cold is the presence of saleratus or alkaline salts, the natural effect of the rain being insufficient to wash them out. Experiment proved in Sindh that nothing is more difficult than to eradicate this evil from the soil: the sweetest earth brought from afar becomes tainted by it: sometimes the disease appears when the crop is half grown; at other times it attacks irregularly--one year, for instance, will see a fine field of wheat, and the next none. When inveterate, it breaks out in leprous eruptions, and pieces of efflorescence can be picked up for use: a milder form induces a baldness of growth, with an occasional birth of chenopodiaceæ. Many of the streams are dangerous to cattle, and often in the lower parts of the valleys there are ponds and pools of water colored and flavored like common ley. According to the people, a small admixture is beneficial to vegetation; the grass is rendered equal for pasturage to the far-famed salt-marshes of Essex and of the Atlantic coast; potatoes, squashes, and melons become sweeter, and the pie-plant loses its acidity. On the other hand, the beet has been found to deteriorate, no small misfortune at such a distance from the sugar-cane.

Besides salt-drought and frost, the land has to contend against an Asiatic scourge. The cricket (Anabrus simplex?) is compared by the Mormons to a “cross between the spider and the buffalo:” it is dark, ungainly, wingless, and exceedingly harmful. The five red-legged grasshopper (Œdipoda corallipes), about the size of the English migratory locust, assists these “black Philistines,” and, but for a curious provision of nature, would render the land well-nigh uninhabitable. A small species of gull flocks from its resting-place in the Great Salt Lake to feed upon the advancing host; the “glossy bird of the valley, with light red beak and feet, delicate in form and motion, with plumage of downy texture and softness,” stayed in 1848 the advance of the “frightful bug,” whose onward march nor fires, nor hot trenches, nor the cries of the frantic farmer could arrest. We can hardly wonder that the Mormons, whose minds, so soon after the exodus, were excited to the highest pitch, should have seen in this natural phenomenon a miracle, a special departure from the normal course of events, made by Providence in their favor, or accuse them, as anti-Mormons have done, of forging signs and portents.

But, while many evils beset agriculture in Utah Territory, grazing is comparatively safe, and may be extended almost ad libitum. The valleys of this land of Goshen supply plentiful pasturage in the winter; as spring advances cattle will find gamma and other grasses on the benches, and as, under the influence of the melting sun, the snow-line creeps up the hills, flocks and herds, like the wild graminivorants, will follow the bunch-grass, which, vivified by the autumnal rains, breeds under the snow, and bears its seed in summer. In the basin of the Green River, fifty miles south of Fillmore City, is a fine wool-producing country 7000 square miles in area. Even the ubiquitous sage will serve for camels. As has been mentioned, Durhams, Devons, and Merino tups have found their way to Great Salt Lake City, and the terrible milk-sickness[160] of the Western States has not.

[160] A fatal spasmodic disease produced in the Western States by astringent salts in the earth and water: it first attacks cattle, and then those who eat the infected meat or drink the milk. Travelers tell of whole villages being destroyed by it.

In 1860 the Valley of the Great Salt Lake alone produced 306,000 bushels of grain, of which about 17,000 were oats. Lieutenant Gunnison, estimating the average yield of each plowed acre at 2000 lbs. (33¹⁄₂ bushels), a fair estimate, and “drawing the meat part of the ration, or one half,” from the herds fed elsewhere, fixes the maximum of population in Utah Territory at 4000 souls to a square mile, and opines that it will maintain with ease one million of inhabitants.

Timber, I have said, is a growing want throughout the country; the “hair of the earth-animal” is by no means luxuriant. Great Cotton-wood Kanyon is supposed to contain supplies for twenty years, but it is chiefly used for building purposes. The Mormons, unlike the Hibernians, of whom it was said in the last century that no man ever planted an orchard, have applied themselves manfully to remedying the deficiency, and the next generation will probably be safe. At present, “hard woods,” elm, hackberry, pecan or button-wood, hickory, mulberry, basswood, locust, black and English walnut, are wanted, and must be imported from the Eastern States. The lower kanyons and bottoms are clothed with wild willow, scrub maple, both hard and soft, box elder, aspen, birch, cotton-wood, and other amentaciæ, and in the south with spruce and dwarf ash. The higher grounds bear stunted cedars white and red, balsam and other pines, the dwarf oak, which, like the maple, is a mere scrub, and the mountain mahogany, a tough, hard, and strong, but grainless wood, seldom exceeding eight inches in diameter. Hawthorn (a Cratægus) also exists, and in the southern and western latitudes the piñon (P. monophyllus), varying from the size of an umbrella to twenty feet in height, feeds the Indians with its oily nut, which not a little resembles the seed of the pinaster and the Mediterranean P. Pinea, and supplies a rich gum for strengthening plasters.

[ANNUAL EXHIBITION IN UTAH TERRITORY.]

The present state of agriculture in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake City will best be explained by the prospectus of the annual show for 1860.[161] Wheat thrives better than maize, which in the northern parts suffers from the late frosts, and requires a longer summer. Until oats and barley can be grown in sufficient quantities, horses are fed upon heating wheat, which only the hardest riding enables them to digest. Holcus saccharatum, or Chinese millet, succeeds where insufficient humidity is an obstacle to the sugar-cane. The fault of the vegetables here, as in California, is excessive size, which often renders them insipid; the Irish potato, however, is superior to that of Nova Scotia and Charleston; the onions are large and mild as those of Spain. The white carrot, the French bean, and the cucumber grow well, and the “multicaulis mania” has borne good fruit in the shape of cabbage. The size of the beets suggested in 1853 the project originated in France by Napoleon the Great: $100,000 were expended upon sugar-making machinery; the experiment, however, though directed by a Frenchman, failed, it is said, on account of the alkali contained in the root, and the Saints are accused of having distilled for sale bad spirit from the useless substance. The deserts skirting the Western Holy Land have also their manna; the leaves of poplars and other trees on the banks of streams distill, at divers seasons of the year, globules of honey-dew, resembling in color gum Arabic, but of softer consistence and less adhesiveness: the people collect it with spoons into saucers. Cotton thrives in the southern and southwestern part of Utah Territory when the winter is mild: at the meeting-place of waters near the Green and Grand Rivers that unite to form the Colorado, the shrub has been grown with great success.

[161] List of premiums to be awarded by the Deserét Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, at the Annual Exhibition, October 3d and 4th, 1860.

CLASS A.--CATTLE.

Awarding Committee--Hector C. Haight, Wm. Jennings, Wm. Miller, Alex. Baron.

Best Durham bull $10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. dip. Best Devon bull 10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. dip. Best bull under 1 year 5 00 2d do. do. dip. Best Durham cow and calf 5 00 2d do. do. 3 00 3d do. do. dip. Best Devon cow and calf 5 00 2d do. do. 3 00 3d do. do. dip. Best native or cross cow and calf. 5 00 2d do. do. 3 00 3d do. do. dip. Best 2 year old heifer 3 00 2d do. do. dip. Best 1 year old heifer 2 00 2d do. do. dip. Best matched native cattle 5 00 2d do. do. 3 00 3d do. do. dip. Best blooded & wooled buck 5 00 2d do. do. 3 00 3d do. do. dip. Best 2 ewes for blood and wool 4 00 2d do. do. 2 00 3d do. do. dip. Best boar 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best sow and pigs 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip.

CLASS B.--FIELD CROPS.

Awarding Committee--A. P. Rockwood, Joseph Holbrook, L. E. Harrington, John Rowberry.

Best fenced and cultivated farm not less than twenty acres $5 00 2d do. dip. Best fenced and cultivated garden 5 00 2d do. dip. Best 5 acres of sugar-cane 15 00 2d do. 10 00 3d do. 5 00 4th do. dip. Best 1 acre of sugar-cane 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 acres of wheat 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 acres of corn 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 acres of turnips 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 acres of beets 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 acres of carrots 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 1 acre of white beans 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 1 acre of peas 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 1 acre of flax 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 1 acre of hemp 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 1 acre of red clover 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 1 acre of potatoes 3 00 2d do. dip. Best 1 acre of Hungarian grass 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best acre of rye 3 00 2d do. dip. Best acre of turnips 3 00 2d do. dip. Best acre of beets 3 00 2d do. dip. Best acre of carrots 3 00 2d do. dip. Best 100 lbs. flax 5 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best 100 lbs. hemp 5 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best 10 lbs. manufactured tobacco 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best 6 canes of Chinese sugar-cane 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best 6 canes of field-corn 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip.

Awarding Committee on Cotton and Tobacco--William Crosby, Robert D. Covington, Joshua T. Willis, Jacob Hamblin, Jas. R. M‘Cullough.

Best 10 acres of cotton $30 00 2d do. 20 00 3d do. 15 00 4th do. 10 00 5th do. dip. Best 5 acres of cotton 25 00 2d do. 20 00 3d do. 15 00 4th do. 10 00 5th do. dip. Best 2 acres of cotton 20 00 2d do. 15 00 3d do. 10 00 4th do. 5 00 5th do. dip. Best 1 acre of cotton 15 00 2d do. 10 00 3d do. 8 00 4th do. 5 00 5th do. dip. Best ¹⁄₂ acre of cotton 10 00 2d do. 8 00 3d do. 6 00 4th do. 4 00 5th do. dip. Best 5 acres of tobacco 25 00 2d do. 20 00 3d do. 15 00 4th do. 10 00 5th do. dip. Best 1 acre of tobacco 15 00 2d do. 10 00 3d do. 5 00 4th do. dip.

CLASS C.--VEGETABLES.

Awarding Committee--Sidney A. Knowlton, Charles H. Oliphant, Thos. Woodbury.

Best brace cucumbers $3 00 2d do. dip. Best 3 squashes 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 3 pumpkins. 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 3 water melons 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 3 cantaloupes 2 00 2d do. dip. Best peck of tomatoes 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 3 early cabbages 1 50 2d do. dip. Best 3 late cabbages 1 50 2d do. dip. Best 3 red cabbages 1 50 2d do. dip. Best 3 Savoy cabbages 1 50 2d do. dip. Best 6 stalks of celery 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 6 blood beets 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 6 sugar beets 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 6 carrots 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 6 parsnips 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 6 turnips 2 00 2d do. dip. Best peck of silver onions 2 00 2d do. dip. Best peck of yellow onions 2 00 2d do. dip. Best peck of red onions 2 00 2d do. dip. Best peck of potatoes 2 00 2d do. dip. Best peck of sweet potatoes 5 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best quart of Lima beans 2 00 2d do. dip. Best quart of bush beans 2 00 2d do. dip. Best quart of peas 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 6 stalks of rhubarb 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 4 heads of cauliflower 1 00 2d do. dip. Best 4 heads of brocoli 1 00 2d do. dip. Best 4 heads of lettuce 1 00 2d do. dip. Best bunch of parsley 1 00 2d do. dip. Best collection of radishes 1 00 2d do. dip. Best collection of peppers 1 00 2d do. dip. Best egg-plant 1 00 2d do. dip.

CLASS D.--FRUITS AND FLOWERS.

Awarding Committee--Edward Sayres, George A. Niel, Daniel Graves.

Best 6 apples $3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. 1 00 4th do. dip. Best 6 peaches 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. 1 00 4th do. dip. Best 6 pears 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. 1 00 4th do. dip. Best 6 apricots 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. 1 00 4th do. dip. Best 6 quinces 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. 1 00 4th do. dip. Best 3 bunches of grapes 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. 1 00 4th do. dip. Best quart of native grafted plums 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best pint of currants 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of English cherries 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best bed or hills of strawberries 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. 1 00 4th do. dip. Best raspberries 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best gooseberries 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip.

FLOWERS.

Best collection of China asters $1 00 2d do. dip. Best collection of dahlias 2 00 2d do. dip. Best collection of roses 2 00 2d do. dip. Best collection of cut flowers 1 00 2d do. dip. Best collection of pot flowers 1 00 2d do. dip.

[THE PAST OF MORMONLAND.]

The principal value of Utah Territory is its position as a great half-way station--a Tadmor in the wilderness--between the Valley of the Mississippi and the Western States, California and Oregon; it has thus proved a benefit to humanity. The Mormons, “flying from civilization and Christianity,” attempted to isolate themselves from the world in a mountain fastness; they were foiled by an accident far beyond human foresight. They had retired to a complete oasis, defended by sterile volcanic passes, which in winter are blocked up with snow, girt by vast waterless and uninhabitable deserts, and unapproachable from any settled country save by a painful and dangerous march of 600-1000 miles. Presently, in 1850, the gold fever broke out on the Pacific sea-board; thousands of people not only passed through Utah Territory, but were also compelled to remain there and work for a livelihood. The transit received a fresh impulse in 1858 by the gold discovered at Pike’s Peak, and in 1859 by the rich silver mines found in the Carson and Washoe Valleys, on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Carson Valley, which was settled by Colonel Reece in 1852, and colonized in 1855 by 500 Mormons, was soon cleared of Saints by the influx of prospectors and diggers, and the other El Dorados drew off much Gentile population, which was an incalculable boon to the Mormons. They thus rid themselves of the “thriving lawyers, gamblers, prostitutes, criminals, and desperadoes, loafers, and drunkards,” who made New Jerusalem a carnival of horrors. The scene is now shifted to Denver and Carson cities, where rape and robbery, intoxication and shooting are attributed to their true causes, the gathering together of a lawless and excited crowd, not to the “baleful shade of that deadly Upas-tree, Mormonism.”

The Mormons, having lost all hopes of safety by isolation, now seek it in the reverse: mail communication with the Eastern and Western States is their present hobby: they look forward to markets for their produce, and to a greater facility and economy of importing. They have dreamed of a water-line to the East by means of the Missouri head-waters, which are said to be navigable for 350-400 miles, and to the West by the tributaries of the Snake River, that afford 400. Shortly after the foundation of Great Salt Lake City, they proceeded to establish, under the ecclesiastical title “Stakes of Zion in the Wilderness,” settlements and outposts, echelonned in skeleton, afterward to be filled in, from Temple Block along the southern line to San Diego. The importance of connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by a shorter route than the 24,000 miles of navigation round Cape Horn, has produced first a monthly, then a weekly, and lastly a daily mail, and has opened up a route from the Holy City to Carson Valley. So far from opposing the Pacific Railroad, the local Legislature petitioned for it in 1849, and believe that it would increase the value of their property tenfold. But as equal parts of Mormon and Gentile never could dwell together in amity, extensive communication would probably result in causing the Saints to sell out, and once more to betake themselves to their “wilderness work” in Sonora, or in other half-settled portions of Northern Mexico. This view of the question is taken by the federal authorities, who would willingly, if they could, confer upon the petitioners the fatal boon.

The Mormon pioneers, 143 in number, when sent westward under several of the apostles to seek for settlements, fixed upon the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. The advance colony of 4000 souls, expelled from Nauvoo on the Mississippi, and headed by “Brigham the Seer,” arrived there on the 24th of July, 1847, the anniversary of which is their 4th of July--Independence Day. Before the end of the first week a tract of land was ditched, plowed, and planted with potatoes. City-Creek Kanyon was dammed for irrigation; an area of forty acres was fortified after the old New England fashion by facing log houses inward, and by a palisade of timber hauled from the ravines; the city was laid out upon the spot where they first rested, the most eligible site in the Valley, and prayers, with solemn ceremonies, consecrated the land.

[CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF DESERÉT.]

Early in 1849, the Mormons, irritated by the contemptuous silence of the federal government, assembled themselves in Convention, and, with the boldness engendered by a perfect faith, duly erected themselves into a free, sovereign, and independent people, with a vast extent of country.[162] Disdaining to remain in statu pupillari, they dispensed with a long political minority, and rushed into the conclave of republics like California, whose sons are fond of comparing her to Minerva issuing full-grown from the cranium of Jupiter into the society of Olympus. Roused by this liberty, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, on the 9th of September, 1850, sheared the self-constituted republic of its fair proportions, and reduced it to the infant condition of New Mexico, with the usual proviso in the organic act that when qualified for admission as states they shall become slave or free, as their respective Constitutions may prescribe. At present one of the principal Mormon grievances is that, although their country can, by virtue of population, claim admission into the Union, which has lately been overrun with a mushroom growth, like Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon, their prayers are not only rejected, but even their petitions remain unnoticed. The cause is, I believe, polygamy, which, until the statute law is altered, would not and could not be tolerated, either in America or in England. To the admission of other Territories, Kansas, for instance, the slavery question was the obstacle. The pro party will admit none who will not support the South, and vice versâ. Perhaps it is well so, otherwise the old and civilized states would soon find themselves swamped by batches of peers in rapidly succeeding creations.

[162] The following is the preamble to the Constitution: it is a fair specimen of Mormon plain-dealing.

Provisional Government of the State of Deserét.--Abstract of Convention Minutes. On the 15th of March, 1849, the Convention appointed the following persons a Committee to draft a Constitution for the State of Deserét, viz.: Albert Carrington, Joseph L. Heywood, William W. Phelps, David Fullmer, John S. Fullmer, Charles C. Rich, John Taylor, Parley P. Pratt, John M. Bernhisel, Erastus Snow.

March 18th, 1849. Albert Carrington, chairman of the Committee, reported the following Constitution, which was read and unanimously adopted by the Convention:

CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF DESERÉT.

PREAMBLE.--Whereas a large number of the citizens of the United States, before and since the Treaty of Peace with the Republic of Mexico, emigrated to, and settled in that portion of the territory of the United States lying west of the Rocky Mountains, and in the great interior Basin of Upper California; and

Whereas, by reason of said treaty, all civil organization originating from the Republic of Mexico became abrogated; and

Whereas the Congress of the United States has failed to provide a form of civil government for the territory so acquired, or any portion thereof; and

Whereas civil government and laws are necessary for the security, peace, and prosperity of society; and

Whereas it is a fundamental principle in all republican governments that all political power is inherent in the people, and governments instituted for their protection, security, and benefit should emanate from the same:

Therefore your committee beg leave to recommend the adoption of the following CONSTITUTION until the Congress of the United States shall otherwise provide for the government of the Territory hereinafter named and described by admitting us into the Union. WE, THE PEOPLE, grateful to the SUPREME BEING for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of those blessings, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH A FREE AND INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENT, by the name of the STATE OF DESERÉT, including all the territory of the United States within the following boundaries, to wit: commencing at the 33° of north latitude, where it crosses the 108° of longitude, west of Greenwich; thence running south and west to the boundary of Mexico; thence west to and down the main channel of the Gila River (or the northern line of Mexico), and on the northern boundary of Lower California to the Pacific Ocean; thence along the coast northwesterly to the 118° 30′ of west longitude; thence north to where said line intersects the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada mountains; thence north along the summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains to the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters flowing into the Columbia River from the waters running into the Great Basin; thence easterly along the dividing range of mountains that separate said waters flowing into the Columbia River on the north, from the waters flowing into the Great Basin on the south, to the summit of the Wind River chain of mountains; thence southeast and south by the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the waters flowing into the Gulf of California, to the place of beginning, as set forth in a map drawn by Charles Preuss, and published by order of the Senate of the United States in 1848.

The Mormons have another complaint, touching the tenure of their land. The United States have determined that the Indian title has not been extinguished. The Saints declare that no tribe of aborigines could prove a claim to the country, otherwise they were ready to purchase it in perpetuity by pay, presents, and provisions, besides establishing the usual reservations. Moreover, the federal government has departed from the usual course. The law directs that the land, when set off into townships, six miles square with subdivisions,[163] must be sold at auction to the highest bidder. The Mormons represent that although a survey of considerable tracts has been completed by a federal official, they are left to be mere squatters that can be ejected like an Irish tenantry, because the government, knowing their ability and readiness to pay the recognized pre-emption price ($1 25 per acre), fear lest those now in possession should become lawful owners and permanent proprietors of the soil.[164] Polygamy is here again to blame.

[163] Viz., the section of one square mile, the half section =320 acres, and the quarter section of 160 acres: the latter is the legal grant to military settlers. The pre-emption laws in the United States are just and precise; but in the mountains it is about as easy to eject a squatter as to collect “rint” from Western Galway in the days of Mr. Martin.

[164] In England and Scotland the rent for use of land averages one quarter of the gross produce; in France, one third; unhappy India gives one half; and the Territories of the United States nearly nothing.

The Mormon settlements resemble those of the French in Canada and elsewhere rather than the English in Australia, the Dutch at the Cape, or the American squatters on the Western frontier. They eschew solitude, and cluster together round the Church and the succedaneum for the priest. In establishing these “stakes” they proceed methodically. A tentative expedition, sent out to select the point presenting the greatest facilities for settlements, is followed by a volunteer band of Saints, composed of farmers, mechanics, and artisans, headed by an apostle, president, elder, or some other dignitary. The foundations are laid with long ceremonies. The fort or block-house is first built, and when the people are lodged the work of agriculture begins. The cities of Utah Territory are somewhat like the “towns” of Cornwall. At present there are three long lines of these juvenile settlements established as caravanserais in the several oases. The first is along the Humboldt River to Carson Valley; the second is by the southern route, viâ Fillmore; and the third is betwixt the two, along “Egan’s Route,” the present mail line.

[COUNTIES IN UTAH TERRITORY.]

The counties, originally 5, increased in 1855 to 12, are now (1860) 19 in number, viz.:

1. Great Salt Lake County: the chief town is Great Salt Lake City; the sub-settlements are the Sugar-House, 4 miles S. of Temple Block--the invariable point de départ; Mill Creek, 7 miles; Great Cotton-wood, 8-9 miles; West Jordan, Jordan Mills, Herriman, and Union, or Little Cotton-wood Creek, 12 miles; Drapersville, 20-21 miles S.; all small villages, with good farming lands.

2. Utah County: the chief town is Provo or Provaux, on the Timpanogos River, 45 miles; David City, on Dry Creek, 28 miles; Lake City, on American Fork, 32 miles S.; Lehi City, 35 miles S.; Lone City, 37 miles S.; Pleasant Grove or Battle Creek, 41 miles S.; Springville or Hobble Creek, 53-54 miles; Palmyra, a small place east of the Lake, and north of Spanish Fork, 59-60 miles; Spanish-Fork City, 61 miles S.; Pondtown, 64 miles S.; Payson City, on both banks of the Peet-Neet Creek, 64-65 miles S.; and Santa Quin, 74 miles S.

3. Davis County: chief town Farmington; others, Stoker, Centreville, 12·50 miles N., and Kaysville, 22 miles N.

4. Weber County: chief town Ogden City, on both sides of Ogden River, 40 miles E.; also North Ogden.

5. Iron County: chief town Parovan, so called from the Pavant Indians; built on Centre Creek, 255 miles S. of Great Salt Lake City, and 96 miles from Fillmore, and incorporated in 1851. Also Cedar City, near Little Salt Lake, 275 miles S.; St. Joseph’s Springs and Vegas de Santa Clara, 200 miles from Cedar City. The Aztecs, as their rock inscriptions prove, once extended to Little Salt Lake Valley.

6. Tooele County: chief town Tooele City, 32 miles W.; also “Eastern Tooele City,” 26 miles W.; Grantsville, 27 miles W.; Richville and Cedar Valley, 40 miles W.

7. San Pete Valley County and City, 131 miles, laid out by the presidency in 1849, and incorporated in 1850; Fort Ephraim, 130 miles; Manti City, 140 miles, on the southern declivity of Mount Nebo. Aztecan pictographs have been found upon the cliffs in San Pete Valley.

8. Juab County: chief town Salt Creek, in a valley separated from Utah Valley by a ridge, on which runs Summit Creek.

9. Box-Elder County and City, 60 miles N.; also Willow Creek and Brigham’s City.

[COAL.]

10. Washington County: chief town Fort Harmony, on Ash Creek, 291 miles S., and 20 miles N. of Rio Virgen.[165]

[165] I annex a description of Washington County, which lately appeared in the “Deserét News:”

“Yesterday afternoon I met in the library of the University the Hon. Wm. Crosby, the representative from Washington County to our Legislature, who furnishes me with some items of information respecting the county he represents worthy a passing notice, especially as there is so little known of that county. The inhabitants are estimated at about 1500 persons, chiefly engaged in farming and grazing. The county of Washington in area is as large as the State of Connecticut, generally of a barren, desert character, broken and mountainous. On the borders of the Rio Virgen and the Santa Clara there are narrow strips of land exceedingly fertile, on which every thing grows with great richness, and at a cost of very little labor. During the present year only 50,000 pounds of cotton have been raised, but, properly cultivated and attended to, the inhabitants there could raise all the cotton ever required by the inhabitants of this Territory. At present its cultivation is almost neglected for the want of proper facilities for its manufacture. The entrance also of the army in 1857, followed by immense trains of goods--which, by-the-by, some of the merchants never paid a cent for, and it is very doubtful if they ever will--was also a crushing competition to the people of Washington County.

“Every kind of fruit that has been tried there grows with great luxuriance. The apple, pear, plum, apricot, peach, and fig trees do exceedingly well. The English walnut-tree grew this year nine feet, and the Catawba grape grew nineteen feet and a half before the 6th of September. The bunches of those grapes, many of them, measured nineteen inches in length. At Tocqueville, one of the small towns in that county, one man raised this year two water-melons from one vine that weighed, the one sixty, and the other fifty pounds.

“At the Agricultural Exhibition, held there last September, the fine grapes which I have mentioned were on exhibition. At the same time there was exhibited a stalk of cotton containing three hundred and seven forms; a radish measuring eighteen inches in circumference; a sunflower head thirty-six inches; and a monster castor-bean stalk; a sweet potato-vine five feet and a half long; and one Isabella grape-vine twenty-five feet long. One man had in his garden trees which in six months grew as follows:

ft. in. Washington Plum 8 6 Apple-trees 6 6 Apricots 7 0 Figs 7 0 Almond 7 2 Peach 8 6 Pears 6 0

“In climate, Washington embraces all the varieties from frigid to torrid, from regions of perpetual frost to an eternal spring. Every kind of out-door work, plowing, ditching, building, etc., can be pursued throughout winter in some parts of the county, while in others there are killing frosts throughout the whole year.

“I had almost forgotten to mention that the soil is excellent for the grape, and during the present year very fine tobacco has been grown there, as well as madder and indigo. The sorghum raised there has a magnificent flavor, and without the ‘patent fixings,’ with very little labor, and that of the simplest character, good sugar is made from it. At the late exhibition the sorghum took the two highest prizes. I believe the honorable member from Washington has brought with him a few gallons of this very fine molasses as a cadeau to the Prophet. To readers who have every luxury in abundance and at very moderate figures, these items may have little interest, but to those who watch the progress of the people here, and the reclaiming of the desert, this information has great significance. In a few years every thing that the people require will be raised from their own soil, and manufactured by their own hands.

“Mr. Crosby, from whom I elicited these facts, was born in Indiana, but ‘brought up’ in the Southern States. Mormonism got hold of him in 1843, in the State of Mississippi. Following the fortunes of Brigham, he brought some nine or ten slaves, ‘very select niggers.’ In 1851 he went over to San Bernardino, and was bishop over there. The state soon liberated the ebony folks, and Mr. Crosby, of course, lost his $9000 or $10,000 by the operation.

“The Superintendent of the Church Public Works and a few others went out exploring for coal about the Weber some time in August last, and found a splendid bed of mineral. It promises to be the greatest blessing that has yet fallen to the lot of the Saints. Of course I do not look at things with ‘an eye of faith;’ that is their business. But among people paying $10 per cord for wood, scarce at that, and sure to be scarcer, the discovery of coal is an important matter. The present coal-bed is about fifty miles distant; but, nevertheless, paying $3 per ton at the mouth of the pit, at which it is now sold, it can be brought into the city and sold for $20. Last year it was sold here to blacksmiths for $40. The Pacific Railroad folks should have an eye on this. The apprehension that the absence of coal and wood in the Territory would be a serious obstacle need not now exist. Though the wood is scarce and high priced as an article of daily household consumption, railroad companies can get all the lumber they require for money, though they may have to haul it far and pay a good price for it. I believe that the whole country is full of coal, and what is not coal is gold and silver; but I earnestly hope that the day is far distant before the Mormons or any body else discover the precious metals. The coal discovery, however, is very important. The bishops of the city have been instructed to urge upon their flocks the hauling of it, and it is hoped that by constant travel the snow will be kept down and the roads clear all the winter. A Scotch miner, who had just returned from the coal-bed, told me the other day that it far exceeded any thing that he had ever seen in his own country, or in the States, both in quality and abundance.”

11. Millard County: chief town, which is also the capital of Utah Territory, Fillmore, in N. lat. 38° 58′ 40″, in a central position, 152 miles S. of Great Salt Lake City, 600 miles E. of San Francisco, and 1200 miles W. of St. Louis. The sum of $20,000 was expended upon public buildings, but the barrenness of the soil has reduced the population from 100 to a dozen families.

12. Green River County: Fort Supply.

13. Cedar County: chief town Cedar City. It is built upon an old Aztecan foundation, rich in pottery and other remains.

14. Malad County: chief town Fort Malad, properly so called from its slow, brackish, and nauseous river.

15. Cache County, the granary of Mormonland, and the most fertile spot in the Great Basin; well settled and much valued: chief town Cache Valley, 80 miles N.

16. Beaver County: chief town Beaver Creek, 220 miles S.

17. Shambip County: Rich Valley and Deep Creek.

18. Salt Lake Islands.

19. St. Mary’s County: west of Shambip City, extending to the Humboldt River; chief settlement, Deep Creek.

I found it impossible to arrive at a true estimate of the population. Like the earlier English numberings of the people, which originated in bitter political controversies--the charge of unfairness was brought as late as 1831 against the enumerators in Ireland--the census is a purely party measure. The Mormons, desiring to show the 100,000 persons which entitle them to claim admission as a state into the Union, are naturally disposed to exaggerate their numbers; they are, of course, accused of “cooking up” schedules, of counting cattle as souls, and of making every woman a mother in esse as in posse. On the other hand, the anti-Mormons are as naturally inclined to underestimate: moreover, as the “census marshals” receive but three halfpence per head, they are by no means disposed to pay a shilling for the trouble of ransacking every ranch and kanyon where the people repair for grazing and other purposes. The nearest approach to truth will probably be met by assuming the two opposite extremes, and by “splitting the difference.”

[POPULATION OF UTAH TERRITORY.]

In 1849 Mr. Kelly estimated the Mormons to be “about 5000 inhabitants in the town, and 7000 more in the settlements.” In 1850 the seventh official census of the United States numbered the inhabitants of Utah Territory at 11,354 free + 26 slaves = 11,380 souls. In 1853 the Saints were reckoned at 25,000 by the Gentiles, and 30,000 to 35,000 by Mr. O. Pratt, in the “Seer.” In 1854 Dr. S. W. Richards estimated the number at “probably from 40,000 to 50,000” in the United States, and in Great Britain at 29,797. In 1856 the Mormon census gave 76,335 souls. I subjoin a synopsis of the official papers.[166] In 1858 the Peace Commissioners sent to Utah Territory reported that the Saints did not exceed 40,000 to 50,000 souls, half of them foreigners, and that they could bring 7000 men, of whom 1000 were valuable for cavalry, into the field. In 1859 M. Remy made the number of Saints in Utah Territory, not including Nevada, 80,000 souls, and the total in the world 186,000. The last official census, in 1860, was taken under peculiar disadvantages. General Burr, of the firm of Hockaday and Burr, was appointed to that duty by Mr. Dotson, the anti-Mormon federal marshal. But as the choice excited loud murmurs, the task was committed to a clerk in the general’s store, and deputies for the rest of the Territory were similarly chosen. The consequence is that the Gentile marshal’s census of 1860 offers a number of 40,266 free + 29 slaves = a total of 40,295 souls; while the Mormons assert their Territory to contain from 90,000 to 100,000, and the world to hold from 300,000 to 400,000 Saints. Their rise is remarkable, even if we take the statistics of the enemy, which show nearly a quadrupling of the population in ten years, while Great Britain creeps on at a rate of about ten per cent.: a similar increase will in the ninth census of 1870 give in round numbers 160,000 persons. Utah Territory now ranks second in the eight minor states: New Mexico (93,541) and District of Columbia (75,076) take precedence of it, and it is followed by Colorado (34,197), Nebraska (28,842), Washington (11,578), Nevada (6857), and Dakotah (4839).

[166] The following is a condensed Report of the enumeration of the inhabitants of Utah Territory, taken February, 1856:

+----------------------+------+--------+------+ | Counties. |Males.|Females.|Total.| +----------------------+------+--------+------+ |Great Salt Lake County|12,730| 13,074 |25,804| |Utah „ | 6,951| 7,614 |14,565| |Davis „ | 4,765| 4,575 | 9,340| |Weber „ | 3,486| 3,585 | 7,071| |Iron „ | 2,474| 2,943 | 5,417| |Tooele „ | 1,315| 1,673 | 2,988| |San Pete „ | 1,110| 1,133 | 2,243| |Juab „ | 807| 1,034 | 1,841| |Box-Elder „ | 822| 717 | 1,539| |Washington „ | 742| 778 | 1,520| |Millard „ | 544| 512 | 1,056| |Green River „ | 394| 345 | 739| |Cedar „ | 312| 369 | 681| |Malad „ | 259| 208 | 467| |Cache „ | 240| 223 | 463| |Beaver „ | 118| 126 | 244| |Shambip „ | 83| 64 | 147| |Salt Lake Islands | 125| 85 | 210| | +------+--------+------+ | |37,277| 39,058 |76,335| +----------------------+------+--------+------+

“Great Salt Lake City, March 1st, 1856.

“I do hereby certify that the above is a correct enumeration of the white inhabitants of Utah Territory, according to the reports furnished by my assistants, and which are now on file in my office.

LEONARD W. HARDY, Census Agent.”

“Great Salt Lake City, September 13th, 1860.

“The above is a correct transcript from the originals on file in the Historian’s Office.

THOMAS BULLOCK, Clerk.”

I have vainly attempted to discover the proportion of native Anglo-Americans to the foreign-born. The late Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, who was supposed to know and to befriend the Saints, asserted it to be one to ten. This will not hold good if applied to the authorities, and if it fails at the head it will be inapplicable to the baser part of the body politic, for the American in Mormondom is the prophet, president, apostle, bishop, or other high dignitary who leavens the lump of ignorance and superstition kneaded together in the old countries. Of the thirteen members of the Upper House, there were, in 1860, ten Americans, two English, and one Irishman: of the officers, viz., secretary and his assistant, sergeant-at-arms, messenger, fireman, and chaplain, four were Americans, one English, and one Irishman. The members of the Lower House, twenty-six in number, consisted of twenty-four Americans and two Englishmen, including the speaker, Mr. John Taylor: of its six officers, four were Americans, one English, and one Scotchman. Both houses were thus distributed:

New York 13 Massachusetts 6 Vermont 5 England 4 Ohio 4 Tennessee 3 Kentucky 2 Ireland 2 Scotland 1 New Hampshire 2 Isle of Man 1 Pennsylvania 2 Virginia 1 Indiana 2 Rhode Island 1 -- Grand Total 49

The Mormon emigration is without exception the most interesting feature in their scheme. There is an evident selection of species in the supply: a man must be superior to many in “grit” and energy who voluntarily leaves his native land. As regards the national classification of the converts, it may be observed that the supply depends upon the freedom of religious discussion at home. Great Britain supplies five times more than all the rest of the world, excepting Denmark. France must be proselytized through the Channel Islands, and there are few converts of the Latin race, which speaks a strange language, and is too much attached to the soil for extensive colonization. Sweden sends forth few (67)--a fine of twenty-six rix-dollars has there been imposed upon all who harbor, let rooms to, or hold to service a Mormon; Denmark supplies many (502), because the Constitution of 1849 guaranteed to her religious liberty; Switzerland is, after a fashion, Republican; Germany gives the fewest. Propagandism has not yet been thoroughly organized east of Father Rhine; moreover, the Teuton, whose faith is mostly subordinate to his fancy, finds superior inducements to settle while passing through the Eastern States. All the “diverts” long retain their motherlandish characteristics, and, associating together, are often unable to understand the English sermon at the Tabernacle. The work of proselytizing is slow in the United States; the analytic Anglo-American prefers the rôle of knave to that of fool, besides un saint n’est pas honoré dans son pays, upon the principle that no man is a hero to his valet. At Great Salt Lake City I saw neither Kanaka, Hindoo, nor Chinese; these “exotics” have probably withered out since the days of M. Remy; only one negro met my sight, and though a few Yutas, principally Weber River, were seen in the streets, none of them had Mormonized.

[MORMON EMIGRATION.]

Emigration in Mormondom, like El Hajj in El Islam, is the fulfillment of a divine command. As soon as the Saints could afford it, they established, under the direction of the First Presidency, a fund for importing poor converts, appointed a committee for purchasing transports, and established in Europe and elsewhere agents, who collected $5000 in the first, and $20,000 in the second year. In September, 1850, a committee of three officers was appointed to transact the business of the poor fund, and an ordinance was passed incorporating the “Perpetual Emigration Fund Company,” consisting of thirteen members, including the First President. The Saint whose passage is thus defrayed works out his debt in the public ateliers of the Tithing Office Department, under the superintendence of the Third President; he is supplied with food from the “Deserét Store,” and receives half the value of his labor, besides which a tithe of his time and toil is free. The anti-Mormons declare that by this means the faces of the poor are ground: I doubt that so far-seeing a people as the Mormons would attempt so suicidal a policy.

According to the late agent at Liverpool, and publisher of the “Millennial Star,” Dr. S. W. Richards (Select Committee on Emigrant Ships, 1854, No. 12, p. 8), the Mormon emigration, under its authorized agent and passenger-broker, is better regulated than under the provisions of the Passengers’ Act; the sexes are berthed apart, and many home comforts are provided for the emigrants. In 1854 it was estimated not to exceed 3000 souls per annum, and of 2600 the English were 1430, 250 Welsh, 200 Scotch, and about a score of Irish, making a total of 1900 Britons to 700 from the Continent. The classes preferred by the Fund are agriculturists and mechanics--the latter being at a premium--moral, industrious, and educated people, “qualified to increase and enhance the interest of the community they go among.” From Liverpool, whence all the emigration proceeds, to New Orleans, the passage-money varied from £3 12_s._ 6_d._ to £4, and from New Orleans to Great Salt Lake City £20 each. Of late years that line has been abandoned as unhealthy: the route now lies by rail through New York and Chicago to Florence, on the Missouri River. The emigration season is January, February, and March, and the passage can be made at the quickest in twenty-two days.

[MORMON EMIGRATION.]

I now proceed to figures, which are given in full detail, and can easily be verified by a reference to Liverpool. The official reports are subjoined, because they speak well for Mormon accuracy.[167] From 1840-54 they reckon 17,195 souls, and from 1854-55, 4716 souls; the total in fifteen years (1840-55) being 21,911. From 1855-56 they number 4395 souls, and from the 1st of July, 1857, to the 30th of June, 1860, they count 2433, making for the five subsequent years (1855-60) a total of 6828. Thus, in the twenty years between 1840-60, they show a grand total of 28,739 immigrants. They expect for the present year an emigration of 1500 to 2000 souls from the British Isles, independent of some hundreds from the Scandinavian, Swiss, and other missions. Already 200 teams have been dispatched from Great Salt Lake City to assist with transport and provisions the poor emigrants from Florence. The Holy Land of the West would soon be populous were it not for two obstacles: first, the expense and difficulty of the outward journey; secondly, the facility of emigration to the gold regions of Pike’s Peak and the silver mines of the Nevada.

[167]

No. I.--List of Latter-Day Saints’ Emigration, from January 6th, 1851, to May 15th, 1861.

“Latter-Day Saints’ European Publishing and Emigration Office, } “42 Islington, Liverpool. }

“The above are the numbers of the Latter-Day Saints who have taken passage on ships chartered at this port by the Church Emigration Agent. Besides these, there are many who engage passages at other offices--not being able to arrange their affairs to go when we have ships chartered--whose numbers we do not have. The bulk of our emigration, for the past few years, has left here in the spring. This is the only time we have ships chartered. The scattering few who go over in the summer and autumn, with the intention of remaining in the United States until another spring, we do not keep any account of.

GEO. Q. CANNON.”

No. II.--General Summary of Emigration, from Nov. 30th, 1855, to July 6th, 1856. (It was discontinued in 1858, owing to troubles with the U. S. Government.)

+--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+------------+ | | |President of | Date of |Port of Dis-| | Ship. | Captain. | Company. | Sailing. |embarkation.| +--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+------------+ |Emerald Isle |G. P. Cornish|P. C. Merrill|Nov. 30, 1855 |New York | |John J. Boyd |Austin |C. Peterson |Dec. 12, 1855 |New York | |Caravan |W. A. Sands |D. Tyler |Feb. 19, 1856 |New York | |Enoch Train |H. P. Rich |J. Ferguson |Mar. 23, 1856 |Boston | |S. Curling |S. Curling |D. Jones |April 19, 1856|Boston | |Thornton |Collins |J. G. Willie |May 14, 1856 |New York | |Horizon |Reed |E. Martin |May 25, 1856 |Boston | |Wellfleet |Westcott |J. Aubray |June 1, 1856 |Boston | |Miscellaneous}|.... |.... |.... |.... | |Ships (U. S.)}| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------------+-------------+-------------+--------------+------------+

+--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ | | | | | | Ship. |P. E. Fund.| Ordinary. | Totals. | +--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ |Emerald Isle | ... | 350 | 350 | |John J. Boyd | 34 | 478 | 512 | |Caravan | ... | 457 | 457 | |Enoch Train | 431 | 103 | 534 | |S. Curling | 428 | 279 | 707 | |Thornton | 484 | 280 | 764 | |Horizon | 635 | 221 | 856 | |Wellfleet | ... | 146 | 146 | |Miscellaneous}| ... | 69 | 69 | |Ships (U. S.)}| | | | | +-----------+-----------+-----------+ | Total | 2012 | 2383 | 4395 | +--------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+

Of this number, as the table shows, 2012 are P. E. Fund passengers, of whom 333 were ordered out by their friends in Utah; also 780 members of many years’ standing in the Church have been forwarded to Utah under the P. E. Fund Co.’s arrangements, and 28 are elders returning home from missions. We have not the means of ascertaining definitely, but the approximate numbers of those who started to go through to Utah on their own means is 385, making a total of those who started from here, with the intention of going through to the Valley this season, about 2397, which will leave 1998 who have located for the present in various parts of the United States, in order to obtain means to complete their journey whenever circumstances will permit.

Latter-Day Saints’ Emigration Report, from July 1st, 1857, to June 30, 1860.

+--------------+-------------+---------------+---------+-------------+ | | | | Port of | | | | | President of | Embarka-| Date of | | Ship. | Captain. | Company. | tion. | Sailing. | +--------------+-------------+---------------+---------+-------------+ |Wyoming |-- Brooks |Chas. Harman |Liverpool|July 18, 1857| |Wm. Tapscott |J. B. Bell |Robt. F. Neslen|Liverpool|Apr. 11, 1859| |Antarctic |.... |Jas. Chaplow |Liverpool|July 10, 1859| |Emerald Isle | -- Cornish |Henry Hugg |Liverpool|Aug. 20, 1859| |Underwriter |J. W. Roberts|Jas. D. Ross |Liverpool|Mar. 30, 1860| |Wm. Tapscott |J. B. Bell |Asa Calkin |Liverpool|May 11, 1860 | |Miscellaneous}|.... |.... |.... |.... | |Ships }| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------------+-------------+---------------+---------+-------------+

+--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----+-------+------+ | | | | | | | | | Ship. |Port of Dis-|P. E.|Hand-cart.|Team.|States.|Total.| | |embarkation.|Fund.| | | | | +--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----+-------+------+ |Wyoming |Philadel. | | | | 36 | 36 | |Wm. Tapscott |N. York | 54 | 196 | 149 | 326 | 725 | |Antarctic |N. York | | | | 30 | 30 | |Emerald Isle |N. York | | | | 54 | 54 | |Underwriter |N. York | 1 | 140 | 106 | 347 | 594 | |Wm. Tapscott |N. York | 17 | 128 | 246 | 340 | 731 | |Miscellaneous}|.... | | | 263 | 263 | | |Ships }| | | | | | | | | +-----+----------+-----+-------+------+ | | | 72 | 464 | 501 | 1396 | 2433 | +--------------+------------+-----+----------+-----+-------+------+

Of this number, as the table shows, 1037 purposed going through to Utah under P. E. Fund, hand-cart, and team arrangements. But we have good cause to presume that a large number of those who left here with the intention of settling for a short time in the States (and are included in the table under that head) have also gone through to Utah, without settling on the way.

The number of natives of the various countries may be classified as follows: From the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland--English, 1074; Scotch, 126; Welsh, 173; Irish, 12. The total number from the Scandinavian Mission is 762, of which there are 528 Danes, 193 Swedes, and 41 Norwegians. The total number from the Swiss and Italian Mission is 211, of which 209 are from the Swiss Cantons, and 2 from Italy. There are also 2 French, 3 Germans, and 70 elders returning home from missions, making a grand total, as per table, of 2433 souls.

Countries.--The number of natives of the various countries may be classified as follows:

England 2611 (Principal counties--Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Staffordshire.) Scotland 367 Wales 667 -----3645 Ireland 54 America 19 French Mission (Channel Islands) 9 Denmark } { 505 Sweden } Scandinavian { 67 Norway } { 46 Swiss Cantons 19 Piedmont, Italy 31 East India Mission 2 Germany 1 ----- 750 ---- Total 4395 souls.

The emigration in 1861 is progressing satisfactorily, as the following extract proves:

“A party of Mormonites, consisting of 17 men, 25 women, and 11 children, left London lately by the Northwestern Railway for Liverpool, en route for the Salt Lake settlement. The emigration of Mormonites from Great Britain, particularly from the southern district of Wales, has during the past ten weeks been on a large scale. Their number embraces all classes; one gentleman, an inhabitant of Merthyr, Glamorganshire, having contributed £1000, and joined the ‘brethren,’ 200 of whom, including an old woman upward of eighty years of age, have just left Wales.”

No. III.--Latter-Day Saints’ Emigration, Spring of 1861.

42 Islington, Liverpool, June 29th, 1861.

Per Ship Manchester, Captain Frask.

Males. Females. English 132 124 Scotch 3 2 Irish 2 0 Welsh 54 57 Danes 5 0 Americans 1 0 --- --- 197 183

Per Ship Underwriter, Captain Roberts.

Males. Females. English 234 278 Scotch 32 43 Irish 3 0 Welsh 16 14 Norwegian 1 0 Americans 3 0 --- --- 289 335

Per Ship Monarch of the Sea, Captain Gardner.

Males. Females. English 97 105 Scotch 25 27 Irish 2 1 Welsh 17 17 German 1 0 Swiss 40 48 Italian 1 3 French 1 2 Danish 175 210 Norwegian 24 43 Swedish 61 68 --- --- Total 444 524

Summary.

Males. Females. Total. English 463 507 970 Scotch 60 72 132 Irish 7 1 8 Welsh 87 88 175 ------1285 German 1 0 1 Swiss 40 48 88 Italian 1 3 4 French 1 2 3 Danes 180 210 390 Swedes 61 68 129 Norwegians 25 43 68 Americans 4 0 4 687 --- ---- ----------- 930 1042 1972 = 1972

[MEETING ROOMS.]

The London Conference has seventeen places of worship, and numbers a little over 2000 men, scattered throughout Great Britain. In these isles there is a general Presidency of the Church, assisted by a counselor: these preside over the pastors or presidents of districts, ten in number, who also, assisted by counselors in their turn, direct and counsel the presidents of the twenty-four Conferences, while these superintend the presidents of the 400 branches. The total of members in the whole European mission is not less than 40,000. I subjoin a list of the various places--kindly furnished to me by an influential Saint--which the Mormons have selected for worship in London.[168]

[168]

Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Rooms in London and vicinity:

Somers Town--Euston Hall, 8 George Street, Hampstead Road.

Holborn--148 Holborn, near Gray’s Inn Lane.

Goswell Hall--46 Goswell Street.

Holloway--1 Cornwall Place, Holloway Road.

Whitechapel--Pisgah Chapel, North Street, Sydney Street, Mile End.

Poplar--28 Penny Fields.

Barking--Latter-Day Saints’ Chapel, North Street.

Paddington--Hope Hall, Bell Street.

Chelsea--Lloyd’s Assembly Rooms, 1 George Street, Sloane Square.

Shepherd’s Bush--Latter-Day Saint’s Chapel, Shepherd’s Bush Green.

Camden Town--Beulah Cottage, King’s Road, Camden Town.

On the Surrey Side of the Thames.

Walworth Common--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, 2 King Street, Old Kent Road.

Lambeth--St. George’s Hall, St. George’s Road, near the Elephant and Castle.

Deptford--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, Tanner’s Hill.

Woolwich--Latter-Day Saints’ Chapel, Prospect Row.

Welling--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, Wickham Lane, near Welling.

Eltham--Latter-Day Saints’ Meeting Room, at Mr. J. Baily’s, Pound Place.

Two points in this subject are truly remarkable. The first is the difference between Utah Territory and all other Anglo-Scandinavian colonies, in which males are usually far more numerous than females. The latter, at Utah, by the census of 1856, are 1781 in excess of the former; almost as great a disproportion as the extra three quarters of a million in England. The second is the rapid growth of the New Faith, and the deep hold which it has taken upon Great Britain. Few Englishmen are aware that their metropolis contains seventeen places of Mormon worship, and their fatherland an army of 4000 volunteer missionaries. In the United States it is also the fashion to ignore the Mormons. The subject, however, will grow in importance, and it is easy to predict that before two decades shall have elapsed, Deserét, unless sent once more upon her travels, will have forced herself into the position of an independent state.

[MORMON POLITY.]

The Mormon polity is, in my humble opinion--based upon the fact that liberty is to mankind in mass a burden far heavier than slavery--the perfection of government. It is the universal suffrage of the American States, tempered by the despotism of France and Russia: in moderate England men have nothing of it but that Tory-Radicalism to which the few of extremest opinions belong. At the semi-annual Conferences, which take place on the 6th of April and the 6th of October, and last for four days, all officers, from the President to the constable, are voted in by direction and counsel--i. e., of the Lord through his Prophet; consequently, re-election is the rule, unless the chief dictator determine otherwise. Every adult male has a vote, and all live under an iron sway. His poor single vote--from which even the sting of ballot has been drawn--gratifies the dignity of the man, and satisfies him with the autocracy which directs him in the way he should go. He has thus all the harmless pleasure of voting, without the danger of injuring himself by his vote. The reverse, duly carried out, frees mankind from king and kaiser, and subjects them to snobs and mobs. Mormon society is modeled upon a civilized regiment: the Prophet is the colonel commanding, and the grades are nicely graduated down to the last neophyte or recruit. I know no form of rule superior to that of Great Salt Lake City; it might supply the author of “Happy Years at Hand” with new ideas for the “Outlines of the Coming Theocracy.” It exerts its beneficial effects equally upon the turbulent and independent American; the sensible and self-sufficient Englishman; the Frenchman, ever lusting after new things; the Switzer, with his rude love of a most problematic liberty; the outwardly cold, inwardly fiery Scandinavian; the Italian, ready to bow down before any practice, with the one proviso that it must be successful; and the German, who demands to be governed by theories and Utopianisms, “worked” by professors “out of the depths of their self-consciousness.”

The following description of a Conference is extracted at length from the “Daily Missouri Republican” of May 4, 1861:

Great Salt Lake City, April 12, 1861.

On the 6th of April, 1830, in a small room about fifteen feet square, in the town of Fayette, Seneca County, New York, a young country lad--Joseph Smith--and five other persons organized that movement now known throughout Christendom as “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” or Mormonism. How the units have each increased to tens of thousands, and where those disciples have been found, and how they have been converted, is not the task I assign myself. I assisted, as the Frenchmen say, at the thirty-first anniversary Conference of that obscure movement, and propose to give the readers of the “Republican” its picture, and “nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice.”

[THE MORMON CONFERENCE.]

Twice a year the Mormons assemble in Conference, on the 6th of April and on the 6th of October, for the purpose of re-electing their presiding authorities, or making such changes among them as are deemed “wisdom” or “necessary”--the chiefs, also, making these periods seasonable for general instruction to the “body”--and in April electing and sending out missionaries to the nations of the earth, where Mormonism is flourishing, or where the New Faith has yet to be introduced.

As the settlements in the Territory are widely scattered, and communication between them rare--except where business or family purposes invite--the Conferences are looked forward to with peculiar interest by the people generally as a time of renewing acquaintance and friendship with those they have known and been associated with in the Old World. To this add the curiosity to see and hear again the “Prophet” and his associates, and the influences that draw the multitude to Conference is comprehended.

Up to within a few years this country has, I am told,[169] been rarely visited by showers of rain, the husbandmen depending almost entirely upon the melting snows of the mountains for irrigating fields and gardens. Very recently the snow and rain had fallen in great abundance, and the muddy roads were rendered almost impassable. Notwithstanding this obstacle, the faithful screwed up courage and traveled in droves from every part of the Territory, and filled the streets of the city during Conference like a county fair.

[169] The article is probably written by a Mormon elder. It is the fashion, however, in newspaper correspondence--as the columns of the “New York Herald” prove--to assume Gentilism for the nonce.

Early on Saturday morning the carriages and wagons, equestrians and pedestrians, thronged into the city, and long before the opening of the Tabernacle doors the people were gathering in groups, eager for admission to obtain a good seat, fearing the general rush. On the Sunday preceding, Brigham had requested the citizens here to stay at home, and afford their country brethren and sisters an opportunity of getting within the Tabernacle; otherwise there would have been a poor show for the strangers, and as it was they were themselves vastly too many for the dimensions of the building.

THE CONFERENCE--FIRST DAY--MORNING SESSION.

At 10 o’clock there were on the stand, according to technical rank and authority:

Of the First Presidency--Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Daniel H. Wells.

Of the Twelve Apostles--Orson Hyde, Willford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, and Franklin D. Richards.

Of the First Presidency of the Seventies--Joseph Young, Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, and Horace S. Eldredge.

Of the Presidency of the High Priests--Edwin D. Woolley and Samuel W. Richards.

Of the Presidency of the Stake--Daniel Spencer, David Fullmer, and George B. Wallace.

Of the Presidency of the Bishopric--Edward Hunter, Leonard W. Hardy, and Jesse C. Little.

Of the Patriarchs--John Smith and Isaac Morley.

Apostle Hyde called the meeting to order, and in a moment all talking was hushed, and a choir of about a dozen persons, accompanied by a fine-toned organ in the centre of the building, sung:

The morning breaks, the shadows flee, Lo! Zion’s standard is unfurled! The dawning of a brighter day Majestic rises on the world.

The clouds of error disappear Before the rays of truth divine; The glory bursting from afar, Wide o’er the nations soon will shine.

The Gentile fullness now comes in, And Israel’s blessings are at hand; Lo! Judah’s remnant, cleansed from sin, Shall in their promised Canaan stand.

Jehovah speaks! let earth give ear, And Gentile nations turn and live; His mighty arm is making bare, His cov’nant people to receive.

Angels from heaven and truth from earth Have met, and both have record borne; Thus Zion’s light is bursting forth, To bring her ransomed children home.

Apostle Lorenzo Snow offered prayer, and the choir sung, “Praise ye the Lord; ’tis good to praise.”

Apostle Benson was first invited to address the Conference. “Brother Ezra” is generally called a son of thunder--great preacher, I suppose. On this occasion he aimed at being modest, and after expressing his gratitude for the privilege of being permitted to attend Conference, to come and see the Prophet, his counselors, and the twelve apostles, and the good brothers and sisters, he was prepared to bear his testimony.

He knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet; that his predictions had been fulfilled, and were daily fulfilling, to the joy of all the Saints. He would not stop there in his testimony; he would bear testimony to the teachings of President Brigham Young. His counselors--Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells--were also true as the revelations of Joseph, and he rejoiced in them. Oh, what a joy it was to know that they had such men to lead them! What would be the condemnation of those who rejected their testimony? Ezra was quite serious--yea, serious to shuddering.

The fearfulness of apostasy was eloquently portrayed. False spirits attending it, and false revelations bestowed on the backslider, and every other ugly, disagreeable business was the certain lot of the apostate, and from which the brethren were decently warned.

President Daniel H. Wells was much pleased with the Latter-Day work; it was a great blessing to live in the light of the Gospel. It had been but a few years proclaimed to the world. The channel of communication between heaven and earth was again open to the children of men. Brother Wells referred to the state of the nation. The present trouble was the result of bad treatment to the Saints. The people of God had been driven into the wilderness--thousands might have perished, and the government was indifferent. It was a political axiom, that when governments ceased to protect, the people were released from their obligations. The government had never protected the Saints as other citizens. They had been driven from place to place, and the murderers of Joseph Smith had gone unpunished. Fault had been found with the Mormons because they had asked the government to appoint good men as federal officers--men in whom they had confidence. They were for this called rebels; but they were probably the only people that would yet stand by the Constitution and uphold it.

The government had fallen in the eyes of the civilized world; it had become corrupt and debased. Nowadays nobody expected any thing from public servants but corruption. These things were well known to every body. The Saints had been molested and could get no redress. The Prophet Joseph, moved by the Spirit of the Most High, told their enemies there that they would see mobbing to their heart’s content, for the measure that they meted to the Saints should be meted to them back again.

The Saints could now see the distracted state of the nations, and the confusion of all governments. If they were wise men and women, they would appreciate the blessed inheritance that the Lord had brought them to. He had but one request to make, and that was, that the people should not only believe in the counselings of President Young, but be diligent, and see that his counseling prospered.

President Heber C. Kimball got up with the invocation of “God bless the Saints, and peace be multiplied unto them.” He respected and loved good men and women who were striving to do the will of Heaven. The Mormons were united, and he wanted them to continue so, and be of one heart and of one mind, and to do as they were told. The South had seceded from the North, but the Mormons would never secede from either. He had sometimes a kind of notion that North and South would secede from them, and if they did so the Mormons couldn’t help it, and the Lord would yet make a great people of them, just as fast as they were able to bear it.

Heber had a fling at “the miserable creatures who had been sent here one time and another to rule and judge them.” The yoke was off their neck; they were away out from the confusion, and the yoke was on the neck of their enemies, and the bow-key was in. Many were engaged in trying to have the Mormons associate with them in a national capacity; but they would have nothing to do with them. “No, gentlemen and ladies, we are free from them, and will keep free.” Heber was satisfied with their position in the mountains. Brigham was their governor; had always been so, and would always be so. He went around about with his hands in his pocket, and governed the people. They had the Lord for ruler, and the men whom he delegated could govern the people. He had no fear, for he lived above the law; he transgressed no law, and had nothing to apprehend. With an exhortation to go to and make themselves happy and independent by their own industry, Heber’s racy discourse terminated with a hearty amen from the congregation.

President Brigham Young was much pleased to meet with the Saints. The Church was that day thirty-one years old--it seemed but a short time, yet a great work had been done. He remembered when he had a great anxiety to see some person of foreign birth embrace the faith. For the first few years it was only Americans who received it, but he could now gaze upon tens of thousands from the nations of the Old World. He discarded miracles as being any evidence of the divinity of any man’s mission: men might be astonished by them, but the spirit only could convince and satisfy the mind. Referred to Aaron’s operations: turning his stick into a serpent, filling the air with life, and turning the rivers into blood, did not satisfy. He alluded to the troubles in the States, and warned the people against too great anxiety; thought the nation was breaking up quite fast enough. All he was anxious about was the Saints being prepared for every event in the providence of the Lord. He sometimes wondered if the great men of the nation ever asked themselves the question, “How can a republican government stand?” There was but one way in which it could endure--as the government of heaven endures upon the basis of eternal truth and virtue. Had Martin Van Buren redressed the wrongs committed against the Saints--had he ordered the State of Missouri to restore them to their property, the nation would be stronger to-day than it is. He mourned to see the corruption, and he sometimes felt a blush for being an American. He had been reared by the green mountains of Vermont, and could look down upon the nation and mourn that he had no power to save it. Although he had no reason to doubt that President Lincoln was as good a man as ever sat in the chair of state, he had little hope of his accomplishing much. He was powerless, because of the corruptions that had been introduced and fostered by the chief men of the nation. “Abraham’s” authority and power was like a rope of sand: he was weak as water. The governments that had been had put aside the innocent, justified thieving and every species of debauchery, and had fostered every one that plundered the coffers of the people, and said let it be so.

The choir sung, “Arise, oh glorious Zion,” and with a benediction from President Joseph Young we got home for dinner.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

At 2 P.M. the choir sung,

“Great God attend while Zion sings,”

and Bishop Lorenzo D. Young prayed.

The choir sung,

“All hail the glorious day, by prophets long foretold.”

Attention was requested from the congregation, and Apostle John Taylor was to put all the presiding authorities before the people for re-election. Twice a year, in April and October, all the presidents are presented and voted on separately, and such dismissals or changes made that are deemed proper. On this occasion there were some additions made, but not a dissentient voice heard. The present presiding authorities in Mormondom are:

Brigham Young as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Heber C. Kimball, his first, and Daniel H. Wells, his second counselors.

Orson Hyde as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; and Orson Pratt, sen., Willford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards, and George Q. Cannon, as members of the said Quorum.

John Smith, Patriarch of the whole Church.

Daniel Spencer as President of this Stake of Zion; and David Fullmer and George B. Wallace, his counselors.

William Eddington, James A. Little, John V. Long, John L. Blythe, George Nebeker, John T. Caine, Joseph W. Young, Gilbert Clements, Brigham Young, jun., Franklin B. Woolley, Orson Pratt, jun., and Howard Spencer, as members of the High Council.

John Young as President of the High Priests’ Quorum; Edwin D. Woolley and Samuel W. Richards, his counselors.

Joseph Young, President of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies; and Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge, and Jacob Gates, as members of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies.

John Nebeker as President of the Elders’ Quorum; and Elnathan Eldredge and Joseph Felt, his counselors.

Edward Hunter as Presiding Bishop; Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, his counselors.

Lewis Wight as President of the Priests’ Quorum; William Whiting and Samuel Moore, his counselors.

M‘Gee Harris as President of the Teachers’ Quorum; Adam Speirs and David Bowman, his counselors.

John S. Carpenter as President of the Deacon’s Quorum; William F. Cook and Warren Hardy, his counselors.

Brigham Young was presented as Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Daniel H. Wells as Superintendent of Public Works.

Truman O. Angell, Architect for the Church.

Brigham Young, President of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund to gather the poor.

Heber C. Kimball, Daniel H. Wells, and Edward Hunter, his assistants and agents for said fund.

George A. Smith, Historian and general Church Recorder; and Willford Woodruff, his assistant.

Besides the time consumed in putting every name separately for the action of the assembly, there was a good deal of instruction given about the severities, which is of no outside interest.

Apostles John Taylor and George A. Smith, and Patriarch Assac Morley, addressed the audience.

The apostle Taylor thought the Mormons the freest people on the earth. They could, if they would, reject their rulers twice a year: they had the opportunity. The unity of the Saints pleased them. He questioned Vox populi, vox Dei. He got facetious, and wondered how they would get along, both North and South, with that doctrine. If the voice of the people in the North was the voice of God, and the voice of the people in the South was the voice of God, he was a little interested to know with which of them he would really be. [A Voice in the stand: “Not either of them.”]

With the Saints it was Vox Dei, vox populi; the voice of God first, and the voice of the people afterward. The Spirit dictated and the Saints sustained it. But what were they after? Did they seek to subdue and put their feet on the necks of men? to rule and dictate nations? No. It was only the “little stone cut out of the mountains,” growing into the kingdom that the prophets foresaw that would be established in the last days. The Mormons had never troubled their neighbors, but their neighbors kept meddling with them. They had sent an army here, but the Mormons did not seek to harm them when they had the chance. They came here with the intention to kill the Mormons if they could; but they couldn’t, for the Lord wouldn’t let them. Their enemies had hunted them like wolves; but the Lord had said, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” They had kept the army out at Ham’s Fork shaking and shivering till they cooled down. “Brother Taylor” was real well pleased with things in general, and concluded with Hallelujah.

Apostle George A. Smith was exceedingly humorous over the democracy. There was no head to it; the centre of its intelligence was the belly, and the principal portion of the body was in the boots. Several plundering operations were alluded to, and Uncle Sam had been sadly victimized by his boys. The government had been a miserable goose for politicians to pluck. Abe Lincoln had now the honor of presiding over a portion of what was once the United States; he had been elected by the religious portion of the States. “George A.” remembered when the folks of New York sold her slaves to Virginia. Their conscience would not allow them to retain their fellow-beings in bondage--oh, they were mighty squeamish! They could take the money from Virginia, and as they got more religion and more conscience they were exceedingly anxious for Virginia to set them loose!

That religious fanaticism that had been mixed up with politics would lead to bloodshed. They were more to be dreaded than infidels. They were cruel in their fanaticism. The Republicans first whipped old Buck[170] into the Utah war, and they whipped him for getting into it, and whipped him awfully for getting out of it--he got out of it too soon. Politicians were in confusion, and the Lord would keep them there. He labored to show the folly of men worshiping a God without body, parts, or passions, for such being, if being he might be called, must be destitute of principles and power. He argued that the God worshiped by sectarians could not be the being that wrestled with Jacob, that conversed with Moses, and wrote with his finger upon tables of stone. He said that Joseph Smith had prophesied when the Saints were driven from Jackson County, Missouri, that if the government did not redress our wrongs, they should have mob upon mob until mob power, and that alone, should govern the whole land.

[170] Mr. Buchanan.

He bore testimony to the truth of the work in which he was engaged, and said if the Latter-Day Saints would listen to President Young’s instructions as they ought to do, they would soon be the wealthiest people upon the face of the earth.

The choir sung “The Standard of Zion.”

Air--“Star Spangled Banner.”

Oh see! on the tops of the mountains unfurled, The ensign of promise, of hope, and salvation, From their summits how nobly it waves to the world, And spreads its broad folds o’er the good of each nation; A signal of light for the lovers of right, To rally where truth will soon triumph in might. ’Tis the ensign of Israel streaming abroad, And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.

By an angel’s strong hand to the earth it was brought From the regions of glory, where long it lay folded; And holy ones here, for the arduous work taught By the priesthood unflinching and faithful uphold it; Its crown pierces heav’n, and ’twill never be riv’n, ’Till the rule of the earth will to Jesus be given. For the ensign of Israel’s streaming abroad, And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.

’Tis the emblem of peace and good-will to mankind, That prophets have sung of when freed by the spirit, And a token which God has for Israel designed, That their seed may the land of their fathers inherit; Many nations will say, when they see its bright ray, To the mountains of God let us hasten away; For the ensign of Israel’s streaming abroad, And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.

Its guardians are sending their ministers forth, To tell when the Latter-Day kingdom is founded, And invite all the lovers of truth on the earth, Jew, Christian, and Gentile, to gather around it; The cause will prevail, though all else may assail, For God has decreed that his works shall not fail; Oh! the ensign of Israel’s streaming abroad, And ever shall wave o’er the people of God.

Patriarch Morley pronounced the benediction, and the first day’s conference terminated.

SECOND DAY.

The crowd on the Sunday far exceeded that of the preceding day. The streets around the Temple Block were literally filled with people and carriages. The Tabernacle could not hold a third of those who were anxious to hear. Every seat and standing-place was occupied long before the opening of proceedings. As soon as Brigham reached the inside vestry, he sent out some of the apostles and elders to preach to the outsiders, sufficiently distant from the Tabernacle as not to disturb each other with their preaching.

I have already filled so much paper that I fear trespassing too much upon your columns with the details of the second day at the present time, as Brigham was very explicit on the subject of plurality of wives, and it was the only time I ever heard him on the “peculiar institution.”

Altogether it was a great conference, and, as the foregoing exhibits, the apostles enjoyed a particular free and easy time of it.

In its territorial status an anomaly has been forced upon the Mormon population. It must receive officers appointed and salaried by the federal government, viz.:

A governor, with a salary of $2500 (£500) per annum, payable quarterly.

A secretary to government, $1000.

A chief justice to the Supreme Court, $2500. An associate do. do. $1000. Do. do. do. $1000.

A district attorney, $400.

A marshal, $400 (not including perquisites).

A superintendent of Indian affairs, $2500.

A surveyor general, $2500.[171]

[171] The delegate to Washington receives “$8 per diem, not including ‘mileage.’”

The governor, who is also commander-in-chief of the militia, holds office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States, or until appointment of a successor. He has the usual right of pardoning territorial offenses, and of reprieving offenders against the federal government. He approves all laws passed by the Legislative Assembly before they can take effect; he commissions all officers appointed under the laws, and takes care that the laws are faithfully executed.

The secretary holds office for the same time: his duty is to record, preserve, and transmit copies of all laws and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, and all acts and proceedings of the governor in his executive department. In case of death, removal, resignation, or necessary absence of the governor from the Territory, he acts temporarily until the vacancy is filled up; and practically he looks forward to being a member of Congress in the House of Representatives of the United States.

The marshal holds office for a similar term: his duty is to execute all processes issued by the courts when exercising their functions as Circuit and District Courts of the United States. In disturbed countries, as California of the olden time, the marshal’s principal office seems to have been that of being shot at.

The executive arm would, in any other Territory, be found to work easily and well: it is, in fact, derived, with certain modifications, from that original Constitution which has ever remained to new states the great old model. Among the Mormons, however, there is necessarily a division and a clashing of the two principles: one, the federal, republican, and laical; the other, the theocratic, despotic, and spiritual. The former is the State, under which is the Church. The latter is the Church, under which is the State, and hence complications which call for a cutting solution. As long as the Prophet and President was also the temporal governor, so long the Mormons were contented: now they must look forward to a change.

The Legislative Assembly consists of an “Upper House,” a President and Council of thirteen, and a House of Representatives, or Lower House, of twenty-six members, whose term of office is one year. An appointment of the representation based upon a census is made in the ratio of population: the candidates, however, must be bonâ fide residents of the counties or districts for which they stand. No member of the Legislative Assembly is allowed to hold any appointment created while he was in office, “or for one year thereafter,” and the United States officials--post-masters alone excepted--can not become either senators or representatives. The legislative power extends to the usual rightful and constitutional limits. “No law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States, nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other property of residents. All the laws passed by the Legislative Assembly and government shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States, and, if disapproved, shall be null and of no effect.”

[VOTERS AND VOTING.--LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY.]

Every free male (white) inhabitant[172] above the age of twenty-one, who has resided in the county for sixty days before the election, is entitled to vote, and is eligible for office; the right is limited to citizens of the United States, including those recognized by treaty with the Mexican Republic (2d of Feb., 1848), and excluding, as usual, the military servants of the federal government. Great fault was found by anti-Mormons with the following permissions in the act regulating elections (Jan., 1853), because they artistically enough abolish the ballot while they retain the vote.[173]

[172] When the vexed passage, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” written in 1776, is interpreted in 1860, it must be read, “all (free white) men” to be consistent and intelligible. Similarly “persons bound to labor” must be considered a euphuism for slaves. The “American Mirabeau,” Jefferson, who framed the celebrated Declaration, certainly did not consider, as the context of his life proves, slaves to be his equals. What he intended the Mormons have expressed.

Again, what can be clearer than that the Constitution contemplated secession? If an adult citizen is allowed to throw off his allegiance, surely the body of citizens called a state have, à majori, a right to withdraw from a “federal union.”

[173] The first Legislative Assembly was elected in the summer of 1851, and held a session in the following autumn and winter. An historian’s office was established, courts were organized, cities incorporated, and a small body of Territorial laws were passed. The second Legislative Assembly met on the 15th of January, 1852, at the Council House, and after the organization of the two houses, they came together to receive the message of the governor, Mr. Brigham Young. The archon, when notified of the hour, entered, sat down in the speaker’s chair, and on being asked if he had any communication to make, handed his message to the President of the Council, who passed it for reading to the Clerk of the House. The message was a lengthy and creditable document; of course, it was severely criticised, but the gravamen of the charges was the invidious phrase used by the Prophet to his lieges, “for your guidance.”

Sec. 5. Each elector shall provide himself with a vote, containing the names of the persons he wishes elected, and the offices he would have them to fill, and present it neatly folded (!) to the judge of the elections, who shall number and deposit it in the ballot-box; the clerk shall then write the name of the elector, and opposite it the number of his vote.

Sec. 6. At the close of the election the judge shall seal up the ballot-box, and the list of the names of the electors, and transmit the same without delay to the county clerks.

“In a Territory so governed,” remarks Mr. Secretary Ferris, “it will not excite surprise that cases of extortion, robbery, murder, and other crimes should occur, and defy all legal redress, or that the law should be made the instrument of crime.”

The deduction is unfair. The real cause why crime goes unpunished must, as will presently appear, be sought in an unfriendly and conflicting judiciary. The act itself can produce nothing but good; it enables the wise few to superintend the actions of the unwise many, and it subjects the “tyrant majority,” as ever should be the case, to the will of the favored minority. As the Conqueror of Sindh often said, “When noses are counted, the many are those without brains.”

The bad working of a divided executive is as nothing compared with the troubles occasioned by the opposition judiciaries, federal and territorial.

An act (19th of Jan., 1855) provides that a Supreme Court of the United States be held annually on the first Monday in January, at Fillmore City; each session to be kept open at least one day, and no session to be legal except on adjournment in the regular term. Another act (4th of Feb., 1852) directed that the District Courts, now three in number, shall exercise original jurisdiction both in civil and criminal cases when not otherwise provided by law, and also have a general supervision over all inferior courts, to prevent and correct abuses where no other remedy is provided. The above are officered by the federal government.

Section 23d of the same act provides for a Judge of Probate--of course a Mormon--elected by the joint vote of the Legislative Assembly and commissioned by the governor. His tenure of office is four years, and he holds regular sessions on the second Mondays of March, June, September, and December of each year. The Probate Court, besides the duties which its name suggests, has the administration of estates, and the guardianship of minors, idiots, and insane persons; with these its proper offices, however, it combines power to exercise original jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, regulated only by appeal under certain conditions to the District Courts. Of late the anomaly has been acknowledged by the Supreme Court.[174] Inferior to the Probate Court, and subject to its revision, are the Justices of the Peace, the Municipal Court, and the three selectmen in each organized county. Besides the Probate Courts, the Mormons have instituted, as will presently appear, Ecclesiastical High Council under the Church authorities and the President, provided with ample powers of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and fully capable of judging between Saint and Saint.

[174] The Court held, First. That the 9th section of the Organic Act vested all judicial power in the Supreme, District, and Probate Courts, and in Justices of the Peace.

Second. That the only restriction placed upon these courts was as to Justices of the Peace, refusing them jurisdiction to try any case involving the title or boundary to land, or any suit where the claim or demand exceeded one hundred dollars.

Third. That by virtue of that clause of the Organic Act which provides that “the jurisdiction of the several courts therein provided for,” including the Probate Courts, “shall be as limited by law,” that the Legislature had the right to provide by law for the exercise by the Probate Courts of jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases.

Fourth. That as the Organic Act conferred common law and chancery jurisdiction upon the Supreme and District Courts respectively, that this jurisdiction belonged to these courts exclusively, and that the Probate Courts were confined to the jurisdiction conferred by statute, and such jurisdiction might be exercised concurrently with the District Courts to the extent provided by statute.

Fifth. That as the Legislature had passed a law conferring upon the Probate Courts concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts to hear and determine civil as well as criminal cases within their respective counties, and had provided the manner in which this jurisdiction should be exercised, that the trial, conviction, and sentence of the prisoner were valid and binding in law until reversed by an appellate court.

Although Judge Shaver, one of the best of jurists, tacitly acknowledged the jurisdiction of Probate Courts, Judge Kinney is the first who has dared assert his decision judicially.

[CONFLICTING JUDICIARIES.]

In describing the operations of the two conflicting judiciaries, I shall borrow the words of both parties.

According to the Mormons, the increased chicanery of the federal government has arrived at full development in their Territory.[175] The phrase has been, “Any thing is good enough for Utah.” The salary is too inconsiderable to satisfy any but the worst kind of jack-in-office, and the object of those appointed is to secure notoriety in the Eastern States by obstructing justice, and by fomenting disturbances in the West. The three judges first appointed from Washington in June, 1851, became so unpopular, that in the autumn of the same year they were obliged to leave Utah Territory--one of them with a “flea in his ear” duly inserted by Mr. Brigham Young. I shall not quote names, nor will the reader require them. Another attempted to break the amnesty in 1858, and when asked for suggestions by the Legislative Assembly, proposed an act for the prevention and punishment of polygamy, and urged the Senate to divide the land between the proposed Territories; finally, this excellent Christian hung a Gentile brother on the Lord’s day. Another killed himself with opium; another was a notorious drunkard; and another was addicted to gambling in his cellar. A judge disgraced himself with an Indian squaw, who entered his court, and, coram publico, demanded her honorarium, and another seated on the bench his mistress--la maîgre Ada, as she is termed by M. Remy, the Gentile traveler--and the Mormons have not yet learned to endure Alice Peirce, or to worship the Goddess of Reason in that shape. Another attempted to convict Mr. Brigham Young of forgery. The marshal was, in one case, a ci-devant teamster, who could hardly write his own name. Besides the vileness of their characters, their cliqueism and violent hostility have led to prostitution of justice; a Mormon accusé was invariably found guilty by them, a Gentile was invariably acquitted. Thus the Probate Courts, properly jurisdictors of the dead, were made judges of the living in all civil and criminal cases, because justice was not obtainable from the Supreme District and the Circuit judges appointed by the federal government. To the envenomed reports of these officials the Saints attribute all the disturbances in 1857-58, and sundry high-handed violations of the constitutional liberties and the dearest rights of American citizenship. For instance, the Indian war of 1852 cost them $200,000; they repeatedly memorialized Congress to defray, strictly according to precedent, these expenditures, and yet, from 1850 to 1855, they have received, in payment of expenses and treaties, grants and presents, only the sum of $95,940. Though Utah Territory has practiced far more economy than Oregon or California, the drafts forwarded by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to the Treasury at Washington are totally neglected, or are subjected to delays and frivolous annoyances. The usual treaties with the Indians have not been held by the federal government. The Mormons’ requisition for becoming a state is systematically ignored, and this ignoble minorhood is prolonged, although they can show five head of souls for three possessed by California at the time of her admittance--another instance of a “rancorous persecuting spirit, excited by false and malicious representations.” He who lifteth up an ensign on the mountains is now “about to destroy a certain nation under the name of the sour grape (Catawba?);” and the Mormons see in the present civil war at once retribution for their injuries, and the fulfillment of the denunciations of Joseph the Seer against the “Gentile land of strife and wickedness.” Assuredly Fate has played marvelously into their hands.

[175] The Utah correspondent of the “New York Herald,” writing from Salt Lake under date of April 26th, states that the fall of Fort Sumter and the secession of Virginia had created intense interest among the “Saints.” The news was read in the Tabernacle by Brigham Young, and the disciples were asked to believe that this was merely the prediction of Mr. Joseph Smith about the breaking up of the American Union.

The federal officials retort with a counter charge against the Saints of systematically obstructing the course of justice. A Mormon must be tried by his peers; however guilty, he will be surely acquitted, as a murdering fugitive slave in the North, or a thievish filibuster in the South; that it is vain to attempt jurisdiction over a people who have an ecclesiastical Star-Chamber and Vigilance Committee working out in darkness a sectarian law; that no civilized government could or would admit into a community of Christian states a power founded on prophethood and polygamy, a theodemocracy, with a Grand Lama presiding over universal suffragators; that all accusations of private immorality proceed from a systematic attack upon the federal Union through its officers; and, finally, that, so thin-skinned is Mormon sensibility, a torrent of vituperation follows the least delay made with respect to their “ridiculous pretensions.”

The author speaks. Of course there are faults on both sides, and each party has nothing better to do than to spy out the other’s sins of omission and commission. The Americans (i. e., anti-Mormons), never very genial or unprejudiced, are not conciliatory; they rage violently when called Gentiles, and their “respectability,” a master-passion in Columbian lands, is outraged, maiden-modesty-like, by the bare mention of polygamy. On the other hand, the Latter-Day Saints, who now flourish in the Mountain Territory, and who expect eventually to flourish over the whole earth, “are naturally prepared to hate and denigrate all beyond the pale of their own faith.” If the newly-arrived judge fails, within the first week, to wait upon Mr. President, he or his may expect to be the subject of an offensive newspaper article. If another live among his co-religionists at Camp Floyd, he is convicted of cliqueism, and is forthwith condemned as a foe. Whatever proceeds from the federal government is and must be distasteful to them; to every address they reply, “To your tents, O Israel!” “Their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them,” is the shaft which they level against the other party, and which recoils upon themselves. The result is that if the territorial judiciary sentences a criminal, he appeals to the federals, and at once obtains cassation--and vice versâ. The usual procedure in criminal cases is to make oath before a magistrate, who thereupon commands the marshal to take the accused into custody, and “them safely keep,” so that he may produce their bodies before the first sessions of the United States District Courts; if the magistrate be a Mormon, he naturally refuses to prosecute and persecute a brother Saint--and vice versâ. Thus many notorious offenders, whom the Mormons would, for their own sakes, willingly see cut off from the congregation--in simple words, hung--escape with impunity after the first excitement has settled down: the most terrible crimes are soon forgotten in the party fight, and in the race to “go ahead;” after five years they become pabulum for the local antiquary.

I have thus attempted, with feeble hand, to divide the blame between both the great contending parties, and may fairly, I hope, expect to be unanimously rejected by both.

[CORPORATION OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.]

The ordinance to incorporate Great Salt Lake City was approved by the General Assembly of the State of Deserét on the 19th of January, 1851, and the body municipal was constituted, like Fillmore, Ogden, and other cities in the Territory. The City Council consists of a mayor, four aldermen, and one common councilor per ward--formerly there were but nine; they are elected by votes, with the usual qualifications; are sworn or affianced to support the federal and territorial Constitution, and retain office for two years. They collect the taxes, which, however, must not exceed 1·50 per cent. per annum upon the assessed value of all taxable property, real and personal.[176] They appoint their recorder, treasurer, assessor, collector, marshal, and supervisor of streets, and have sole charge of the police. They establish and support schools and hospitals, regulate “hacking,” “tippling houses,” and gambling and billiard-tables; inspect lumber, hay, bread and provisions, and provide against fires--which here, contrary to the rule throughout England and the Eastern States, are rare and little to be feared; direct night-lighting and the storage of combustibles, and regulate streets, bridges, and fences. They have power to enforce their ordinances by fines and penalties. Appeals from the decisions of the mayor and aldermen are made to the Municipal Court, composed of the mayor as chief justice, and the aldermen as associate justices, and from the Municipal Court to the Probate Court of Great Salt Lake City.

[176] The property-tax, like tithes, forming the Church funds and the revenue of the civil government, are general; the octroi ($20 for 100 lbs. of every thing entering the Territory from the east, and $25 from the west) and water-tax are local, and confined to towns. I can not find any other recognized imposts. The anti-Mormons declare that the Saints are overburdened with taxation. The Saints assert that their burden is light, especially when compared with the Mormons’ taxation of the Atlantic cities, which averages from double to treble that of London and Paris--a little drawback to Liberty when she must be bought for her weight in gold.

In the Auditor’s report accompanying the Governor’s Message of 1860, there are some items of general interest to people outside, as well as to those in the Territory. The report states that “the total valuation of property assessed in the Territory for the year 1860 (Green River and Carson counties excepted) amounts to $4,673,900.” Assessors in Utah are, I presume, like assessors every where, not likely to obtain an exaggerated estimate of the value of property, as on that estimate assessments are made. Property, therefore, may be set down at a much larger figure than that given in the above extract. The Territorial tax at one half of one per cent. is .3,369 50. As an evidence of the increase of population and of improvement in property, the excess of Territorial tax is over that of last year $13,278 33--five sixths of which is collected in Great Salt Lake County, and that chiefly in this city. Of the other counties, the report states, “The counties of Weber, Box-Elder, and Juab each show a decrease in the valuation of property, compared with the assessment for 1859, of 16 per cent., and Iron County a decrease of 33 per cent., while the counties of Beaver, San Pete, and Cache show a more than corresponding increase in the following ratio, viz.: Beaver, 36; San Pete, 50; and Cache, 900 per cent. The increase in the three last-named counties, especially Cache, may account in some measure for the decrease in the other counties named, from the fact that, during the fall of 1859 and the spring of 1860, very many wealthy families moved with their stock and effects to form new settlements in Cache and San Pete counties, and probably the same may be said of Beaver.”

The tax of all the counties amounts to .3,369 50; the totals of auditor’s awards issued $19,184 88, which, together with $5450 95 payable on appropriations heretofore made, shows that the Mormons have the good sense to keep clear of a Territorial debt.

[INDUSTRY OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.]

In the young settlements of the Far West there is a regular self-enforced programme of manufacturing progress. The first step is to establish flouring or grist mills, and lumber or saw mills, to provide for food and shelter. After these sine quâ nons come the comforts of cotton-spinning, wool-carding, cloth-weaving, tailoring, and shoemaking. Lastly arise the luxuries of life, which penetrate slowly into this Territory on account of the delay and expense of transporting heavy machinery across the “wild desert plains.” The minor mechanical contrivances, the remarkable inventions of the Eastern States--results of a necessity which removes every limit to human ingenuity--such as sewing-machines, cataract washing-machines, stump-extracting machines, and others, which, but for want of hands, would never have been dreamed of, are not unknown at Great Salt Lake City.

The subjoined extract from the list of premiums of the Deserét Agricultural Society[177] will explain the industry at Great Salt Lake City in 1860--will prove that the infant colony has supplied all its actual wants, and will show what energy and perseverance can effect against time and all manner of obstructions. Besides the industries mentioned below, there are stores, cutlery shops, watch-makers and jewelers, painters and glaziers, brush-makers, cabinet-makers, and skillful turners--for the most part English. Iron and brass founderies are in contemplation, and a paper-mill is coming across the prairies. The cutlery is good, the swords, spears, and Congress knives, the pruning-hooks, saws, and locks are yearly improving, and the imitations of Colt’s revolvers can hardly be distinguished from the originals. The distilleries, of course, can not expect prizes. The whisky of Utah Territory, unlike the Monongahela or rye of Pennsylvania, and the Bourbon, or maize brandy of Kentucky, is distilled from wheat only; it is, in fact, the korn schnapps of the trans-Rhenine region. This “Valley Tan,” being generally pure, is better than the alcohol one part and water one part, colored with burnt sugar and flavored with green tea, which is sold under the name of Cognac. Ale and cakes are in higher flavor than the “villainous distillation:” there are two large and eight small breweries in which a palatable Lager-bier is made. The hop grows wild and luxuriant in every kanyon; and there is no reason why in time the John Barleycorn of the Saints should not rival that of the sinners in lands where no unfriendly legislation tries, or will, it is hoped, ever try,

“To rob a poor man of his beer.”

[177] The act incorporating the society, which was established “with a view of promoting the arts of domestic industry, and to encourage the production of articles from the native elements in this Territory,” was approved on January 17, 1856. The Board consists of a President, six Directors, a Treasurer, and a Secretary--the latter, my friend Mr. Thomas Bullock.

CLASS E.--FARMING IMPLEMENTS MADE IN THE TERRITORY.

Awarding Committee--Ira Eldredge, Daniel Carter, Levi E. Ritter.

Best plow $5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best subsoil plow 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best harrow 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best field-roller 5 00 2d do. dip. Best drill and irrigator 5 00 2d do. dip. Best corn-planter 5 00 2d do. dip. Best 1 horse corn cultivator 5 00 2d do. dip. Best grain-cradle 5 00 2d do. dip. Best horse-rake 5 00 2d do. dip. Best garden-rake 1 00 2d do. dip. Best hay-rake 1 00 2d do. dip. Best hay-fork 1 00 2d do. dip. Best manure-fork 1 00 2d do. dip. Best scythe-snath 2 00 2d do. dip. Best set of garden tools 3 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best shovel 2 00 2d do. dip. Best spade 2 00 2d do. dip. Best hoe 2 00 2d do. dip. Best wheel-barrow 2 00 2d do. dip. Best cheese-press 2 00 2d do. dip. Best churn 2 00 2d do. dip. Best butter tub and firkin 2 00 2d do. dip. Best washing machine 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best spinning-wheel 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 6 corn brooms 2 00 2d do. dip.

AGRICULTURAL MACHINES.

Best reaping machine $10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. dip. Best threshing machine 10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. dip. Best fanning-mill 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best corn-sheller 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best corn and cob mill 5 00 2d do. dip. Best hemp and flax dressing machine 5 00 2d do. dip. Best hay and straw cutter 5 00 2d do. dip. Best vegetable root-cutter 5 00 2d do. dip.

CLASS F.--MACHINERY.

Awarding Committee--Frederick Kesler, John Kay, William J. Silver.

Best steam-engine $10 00 2d do. dip. Best fire-engine 10 00 2d do. dip. Best garden-engine 5 00 2d do. dip. Best balance 5 00 2d do. dip. Best lath machine 5 00 2d do. dip. Best stave machine 5 00 2d do. dip. Best stone-dressing machine 5 00 2d do. dip. Best stone-sawing machine 5 00 2d do. dip. Best pump for a well 5 00 2d do. dip. Best water-wheel for raising water for irrigation 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip.

CLASS G.--LEATHER.

Awarding Committee--Seth Taft, John Lowe, Francis Platte.

Best side sole leather $3 00 2d do. dip. Best side upper cowhide 3 00 2d do. dip. Best kip-skin 3 00 2d do. dip. Best calf-skin 3 00 2d do. dip. Best Morocco-skin 3 00 2d do. dip. Best side harness 3 00 2d do. dip. Best side skirting 2 00 2d do. dip. Best saddle 5 00 2d do. dip. Best light harness 5 00 2d do. dip. Best heavy harness 5 00 2d do. dip. Best bridle 3 00 2d do. dip. Best pair gentlemen’s fine boots 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pair gentlemen’s stoga boots 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pair gentlemen’s fine shoes 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pair ladies’ bootees 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pair ladies’ shoes 1 00 2d do. dip. Best blacking or polish 1 00 2d do. dip.

CLASS H.--CLOTHES, DRY-GOODS, AND DYE-STUFFS.

Awarding Committee--E. R. Young, John Needham, N. H. Felt.

Best made suit of clothes $5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best made suit of buckskin 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of colored flannel 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of white flannel 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of white jeans 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of colored jeans 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of white Linsey 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of colored Linsey 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of kersey 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 yards of woolen cloth 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best pair of woolen blankets 3 00 2d do. dip. Best piece of woolen carpet 2 00 2d do. dip. Best piece of rag carpet 2 00 2d do. dip. Best coverlet 2 00 2d do. dip. Best hearth-rug 2 00 2d do. dip. Best woolen shawl 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 5 yards of linen 2 00 2d do. dip. Best 1 lb. of linen thread 1 00 2d do. dip. Best fur hat 2 00 2d do. dip. Best fur cap 2 00 2d do. dip. Best cloth cap 1 00 2d do. dip. Best fur muff 1 00 2d do. dip. Best fur cape 1 00 2d do. dip. Best 1 lb. indigo 10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. 3 00 4th do. dip. Best 1 lb. madder 10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. 3 00 4th do. dip. Best colored cloth from any materials produced in this Territory, aside from indigo or madder 10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. 3 00 4th do. dip.

CLASS I.--FURNITURE, COOPER-WARE, ETC.

Awarding Committee--Miles Romney, Archibald N. Hill, Thomas Allman.

Best bureau $3 00 2d do. dip. Best sofa 3 00 2d do. dip. Best bedstead 3 00 2d do. dip. Best six chairs 3 00 2d do. dip. Best centre-table 3 00 2d do. dip. Best dining-table 3 00 2d do. dip. Best ladies’ work-stand 2 00 2d do. dip. Best office-desk 3 00 2d do. dip. Best rocking-chair 2 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen of wood carving 2 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen French polish 2 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen cooper’s ware 2 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen of glue 1 00 2d do. dip. Best gallon of varnish 2 00 2d do. dip. Best gallon of castor-oil 2 00 2d do. dip. Best gallon of linseed-oil 2 00 2d do. dip. Best gallon of turpentine 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 lbs. of rosin 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 lbs. of lampblack 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip.

CLASS J.--PAINTING, ENGRAVING, ETC.

Awarding Committee--James M. Barlow, James Beck, John H. Rumell.

Best specimen of sign-painting $3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of graining 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of printing 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of book-binding 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of paper 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best landscape of Great Salt Lake Valley 3 00 2d do. dip. Best bird’s-eye view of Salt Lake City 3 00 2d do. dip. Best oil painting 2 00 2d do. dip. Best transparent window-blinds 2 00 2d do. dip. Best piece of sculpture 2 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen of turning 2 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen of engraving 2 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen of penmanship 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of penmanship in Deserét character 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip.

CLASS K.--CUTLERY, HARDWARE, ETC.

Awarding Committee--Levi Richards, Zechariah B. Derrick, Jonathan Pugmire.

Best specimen of cutlery on a card $3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best pruning shears 1 00 2d do. dip. Best rifle 5 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best revolving pistol 5 00 2d do. 3 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 lbs. gunpowder sil. med. 2d do. dip. Best axe 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best door-lock 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best shovel and tongs 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best andirons 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 lbs. of cut nails 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best 5 lbs. of wrought nails 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 50 yards of rope 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of twine and cord 1 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen of whips 1 00 2d do. dip. Best specimen of baskets 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of combs made of horn, bone, and mountain mahogany 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of glass sil. med. 2d do. dip. Best specimen of earthenware 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best sand-paper 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip.

CLASS L.--WOMEN’S WORK.

Awarding Committee--Mrs. Fanny Little, ---- Taft, Marion Beatie, Sarah Brown.

Best ornamental needlework $1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best specimen of Ayrshire needlework 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best ottoman cover 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best table cover 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best worked shawl 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best worked collar and handkerchief 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best worked cushion 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best lace cap 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best group of flowers 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best specimen of wax flowers 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best ornamental shell-work 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best pair worked slippers 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best pair woolen hose 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best pair cotton hose 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best embroidered shawl 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best variety of crochet-work 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best worked quilt 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best patch-work quilt 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best specimen of knitting 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip. Best straw hat 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best straw bonnet 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best specimen of braid straw or grass 1 00 2d do. 0 50 3d do. dip.

CLASS M.--PRODUCE.

Awarding Committee--Richard Golightly, George Goddard, Eli B. Kelsey.

Best 5 lbs. of butter $2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best cheese 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best ham 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best 10 lbs. of sugar 10 00 2d do. 5 00 3d do. dip. Best gallon of molasses 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip. Best home-made wine 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best preserves, pumpkins 1 00 2d do. dip. Best preserves, tomatoes 1 00 2d do. dip. Best preserves of any kind 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pickles, cucumbers 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pickles, tomatoes 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pickles, cabbages 1 00 2d do. dip. Best pickles, onions 1 00 2d do. dip. Best 5 lbs. of soap 3 00 2d do. 2 00 3d do. dip. Best 3 lbs. of starch 2 00 2d do. 1 00 3d do. dip.

CLASS N.--ESSAYS.

Awarding Committee--President and Board of Directors.

Best essay on agriculture $10 00 2d do. sil. med. Best essay on horticulture 10 00 2d do. sil. med. Best essay on home manufactures 10 00 2d do. sil. med.

By order of the Board of the Deserét Agricultural and Manufacturing Society.

EDWARD HUNTER, President.

THOMAS BULLOCK, Secretary. Great Salt Lake City, May 13, 1860.

Hand-labor obtains $2 per diem, consequently much work is done at home. The fair sex still cards, spins, and weaves, as in Cornwall and Wales, and the plurality system supplies them with leisure for the exercise of the needle. Excellent blankets, the finest linens, and embroidered buckskin garments, varying in prices from $75 to $500--a splendid specimen was, at the time of my stay, being worked for that “Champion of oppressed nationalities,” M. Louis Kossuth--are the results.

[PRICES AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.]

As in India, the mere necessaries of life at Great Salt Lake City are cheap: the foreign luxuries, and even comforts, are exorbitantly dear. A family may live almost for nothing upon vegetables grown in their own garden, milk from their own cows, wheaten bread, and butter which derives a peculiar sweetness from the bunch-grass. For some reason, which no one can explain, there is not, and there never has been, a market at Great Salt Lake City; consequently, even meat is expensive. Freight upon every article, from a bar of soap to a bar of iron, must be reckoned at 14 cents (7_d._) per lb. coming from the East, and 25-30 cents from the West. Groceries and clothing are inordinately high-priced. Sugar, worth 6 cents in the United States, here fetches from 37¹⁄₂ to 45 cents per lb. Tea is seldom drunk, and as coffee of 10 cents per lb. in the States here costs 40-50 cents, burnt beans or toasted corn, a caricature of chicory, is the usual succedaneum. Counterblasters will be pleased to hear that tobacco fetches $1 per lb., and cigars from 5 to 6 cents each--a London price. Servants’ wages vary from $30 to $40 per mensem--nearly £100 per annum; consequently, master has a strong inducement to marry the “missus’s” Abigail. Thus the expense of living in Utah Territory is higher than in the Eastern States, where again it exceeds that of England. In Great Salt Lake City $10,000 (= £2000) per annum would be equal to about £500 in London. Fortunately for the poor, the excessive purity of the air, as in the Arabian Desert, enables them to dispense with, and not to miss, many articles, such as stimulants, which are elsewhere considered necessaries. The subjoined “nerrick” of prices current at the General Tithing Office in Great Salt Lake City will best explain the state of things in 1860. A remarkable feature, it will be observed, is the price of wheat--$1 50 per bushel--more than double its current value in the Mississippian States.[178]

[178] General Tithing Office Prices Current, Great Salt Lake City:

Wheat, extra produce tithing $1 50 ⅌ bush. Wheat, labor and produce tithing 2 00 „ Barley 1 50 „ Corn 1 50 „ Rye 1 50 „ Oats 1 00 „ Buckwheat 1 25 „ Peas and beans 2 00 „ Potatoes 0 75 „ Beets 0 50 „ Carrots 0 50 „ Parsnips 0 50 „ Onions 2 00 „ Turnips 0 25 „ Tomatoes 1 00 „ Cabbages $0 02 @0 10 each. Pumpkins and squash 0 02 @0 08 „ Melons 0 02 @0 10 „ Cucumbers 0 01 „ Pigs, four weeks old 3 00 „ Chickens 0 10 @0 25 „ Ducks 0 15 @0 25 „ Beef, 6¹⁄₂ average. Hind quarter 0 07 ⅌ ℔ Fore quarter 0 06 „ Tallow 0 10 @0 20 „ Pork 0 12¹⁄₂ @0 20 „ Lard 0 15 @0 20 „ Mutton 0 08 @0 12¹⁄₂ ℔. Veal 0 03 @0 05 „ Bear 0 08 @0 12¹⁄₂ „ Tea 1 50 @3 50 „ Coffee 0 40 @0 60 „ Sugar 0 35 @0 60 „ Milk 0 10 ⅌ qt. Eggs 0 18 ⅌ doz. Butter 0 25 ⅌ ℔. Cheese 0 12¹⁄₂ @0 25 „ Salt, fine 0 04 „ Salt, coarse 0 10 „ Cast steel, warranted 0 37¹⁄₂ @0 50 „ Spring steel 0 37¹⁄₂ „ Blister steel 0 18 @0 30 „ Iron 0 10 „ Molasses, good 3 00 ⅌ gall. Vinegar 0 50 @0 75 „ Lumber, extra produce tithing 4 00 ⅌ 100. Lumber, labor tithing 5 00 „ Shingles, best 10 00 ⅌ 1000. Shingles, 2d quality 8 00 „ Shingles, cotton-wood 8 00 „ Shingles, 2d quality 6 00 „ Doves 0 12¹⁄₂ each. Turkeys 1 50 @2 50 „ Fox and wolf skins 0 75 „ Ox hair 0 50 ⅌ bush.

EDWARD HUNTER, Presiding Bishop.

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