. Utah. 18
of them were farmers, and they had three or four
grist-mills and two or three saw-mills.
The first emigrants did not stop on the east side of the river, but passed over at once on arrival, making their first settlement, as before mentioned, at Winter Quarters, situated six miles from the present city of Omaha, at the north end of the plateau, nearly all of which they ploughed up in the spring of 1847, and planted seed corn brought by those who the pre- vious winter had returned to the Mississippi to work for wages. Hereabout they built many log houses, Brigham having a httle cluster of them for his wives in a cosey nook apart from the others.
On their final departure for the west, the Mormons left a few of their number under A. J. Mitchell, who was assisted by A. J. Smith. They lived on the east side of the Missouri at first, and had a ferry across the river as early as 1851, with other ferries west, one at Loup Fork, and one on the Elkhorn. A large emigration up the river from New Orleans set in about this time. In the spring of 1852 the steamboat Sa- luda, having six hundred souls on board, was blown up at the mouth of the Platte.
In 1854 the lands of the Omahas, on the west side of the river, came into market, through a treaty made during the summer of that year with the natives, who ceded that section to the United States. Mitchell and Smith then moved to the western side, and changed the name of Winter Quarters to that of Florence, at the same time selling their interests on the eastern side to the gentiles, who changed the name of Kanesville to that of Council Blufis.
