The City of the Saints/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
Excursions continued.
I had long been anxious to visit the little chain of lakes in the Wasach Mountains, southeast of the city, and the spot where the Saints celebrate their "Great Twenty-fourth of July." At dinner the subject had been often on the carpet, and anti-Mormons had informed me, hinting at the presence of gold, that no Gentile was allowed to enter Cotton-wood Kanyon without a written permit from the President Prophet. Through my friend the elder I easily obtained the sign manual; it was explained to me that the danger of fires in a place which will supply the city with lumber for a generation, and the mischievousness of enemies, were at the bottom of the precaution. Before starting, however, two Saints were chosen to accompany me, Mr. S———, and Mr., or rather Colonel, Feramorz, popularly called Ferry, Little. This gentleman, a partner, relative, and connection of Mr. Brigham Young, is one of the "Seventies;" of small and spare person, he is remarkable for pluck and hardihood, and in conjunction with Ephe Hanks, the Danite, he has seen curious things on the Prairies.
A skittish, unbroken, stunted, weedy three-year-old for myself, and a tall mule for my companion, were readily lent by Mr. Kennedy, an Irish Gentile and stock-dealer, who, being bound on business to California, was in treaty with us for reward in case of safe-conduct. We chose the morning of the 14th of September, after the first snow had whitened the peaks, and a glorious cool, clear day it was—a sky diaphanous, as if earth had been roofed with rock crystal. While awaiting the hour to depart under the veranda of the hotel, Governor Cumming pointed out to me Bill Hickman, once the second of the great "Danite" triumvirate, and now somewhat notorious for meddling with Church property. He is a good-looking fellow, about forty-five, rather stout and square, with high forehead, open countenance, and mild, light blue eye, and owns, I believe, to only three deaths. On the last Christmas-day, upon occasion of a difficulty with a youth named Lot Huntingdon, the head of the youngster party, he had drawn his "bowie," and a "shooting" took place, both combatants exchanging contents of revolvers across the street, both being well filled with slugs, and both living to tell the tale.
"Do you know what that fellow is saying to himself?" asked the governor, reading the thoughts of a fiercely frowning youth who swaggered past us.
I confessed to the negative.
"He is only thinking, 'D—d gov'rnor, wonder if he's a better man than me," said my interlocutor.
About 4 P.M. we mounted and rode out of the city toward the mouth of the kanyon, where we were to meet Mr. Little. Passing by the sugar-mills and turning eastward, after five or six miles we saw at a distance a block of buildings, which presently, as if by enchantment, sank into the earth; an imperceptible wave of ground—a common prairie formation—had intervened. From the summit of the land we again sighted the establishment. It is situated in the broad bed of a dry fiumara—which would, by-the-by, be a perilous place in the tropics—issuing from Parley's Kanyon. The ravine, which is sometimes practiced by emigrant trains, is a dangerous pass, here and there but a few rods wide, and hemmed in by rocks rising perpendicularly 2000 feet. The principal house was built for defense, the garden was walled round, and the inclosure had but two small doors.
We were met at the entrance by Mr. Little, who, while supper was being prepared, led us to the tannery and the grist-mill, of which he is part proprietor. The bark used for the process is the red fir, costing $25 per cord, and the refuse is employed in composts. The hides are received unsalted; to save labor, they are pegged to soak upon wheels turned by water-power. The leather is good, and under experienced European workmen will presently become cheaper than that imported from England.
Beyond the tannery was an adobe manufacture. The brick in this part splits while burning, consequently the sun-dried article is preferred; when the wall is to be faced, pegs are driven into it to hold the plaster. The material is clay or silt from the creek, puddled with water, and if saltish it is better than sweet soil; unity of color and formation are the tests of goodness. Each brick weighs, when dry, 16 lbs., and the mould is mostly double. On the day after making they are stacked, and allowed to stand for two months; the season is June, July, and August, after which it becomes too cold. The workman is paid 75 per cent.; 400 per diem would be tolerable, 700 good work; thus an able-bodied bricklayer can make twenty-one shillings a day—rather a contrast to the wages of an unfortunate laborer in England.
Returning home, we walked through Mr. Little's garden, and admired its neatness. The fruit-trees were mostly barren; in this year the city sets down a loss of $100,000 by frost. I tasted, for the first time, the Californian grape, uvas admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies;" they not a little resembled the northern French. A single vine sometimes bears $100 worth. There was a little rhubarb, but it is not much used where sugar costs forty-five cents per pound. After supping with Mr. Little, his wife and family, we returned to the andronitis, and prepared for the night with a chat. The principal point illustrated was the curious amount of connection caused by polygamy; all men, calling each other brothers, become cousins, and it is hardly possible, among the old Mormons, to stop a child in the street without finding that it is a relative. I was surprised at the comfort, even the luxury, of a Mormon householder in these remote wilds, and left it with a most favorable impression.
At the dawn of the next day we prepared to set out; from the city to the mouth of the kanyon the distance is about thirteen, and to the lakelets twenty-seven miles. Mr. Little now accompanied us on horseback, and his son James, whom I may here safely call a boy, was driving a buck-board. This article is a light gig-body mounted upon a thin planking, to which luggage is strapped; it can go where a horse can tread, and is easier to both animals than riding down steep hills. The boy, like Mormon juveniles generally, had a great aptitude at driving, riding, and using the axe; he attended a school, but infinitely preferred that of Nature, and showed all the disposition to become the father of a stout, brave Western man. As in the wilder parts of Australia, where the pedagogue has less pay than the shepherd, "keep a school" is here equivalent to semi-starvation; there is no superstitious aversion, as the Gentiles have asserted, to a modicum of education, but the state of life renders manual labor more honored and profitable. While the schoolmaster gains $2 50 per mensem, a ditcher would make the same sum per diem. Besides impatience of study, the boys are ever anxious to become men—"bring up a child and away it goes," says the local proverb—and literature will not yet enable a youth to marry and to set up house-keeping in the Rocky Mountains.
Our route lay over the bench; on our right was a square adobe fort, that had been used during the Indian troubles, and fields and houses were scattered about. Passing the mouth of Parley's Kanyon, we entered the rich bottom-land of the Great Cotton-wood, beautified with groves of quaking asp, whose foliage was absolute green, set off by paper-white stems. After passing through an avenue of hardheads, i. e., erratic granite boulders, which are carted to the city for building the Temple, we turned to the left and entered the mouth of the kanyon, where its sides flare out into gentler slopes.
A clear mountain stream breaks down the middle. The bed is a mass of pebbles and blocks: hornblende; a white limestone, almost marble, but full of flaws; red sandstone, greenstone, and a conglomerate like mosaic-work. The bank is thick with the poplar, from which it derives its name; willow clumps; the alder, with its dry, mulberry-like fruit; the hop vine, and a birch whose bark is red as the cherry-tree's. Above the stream the ravine sides are in places too steep for growth; as a rule, the northern is never wooded save where the narrowness of the gorge impedes the action of the violent south winds. On the lower banks the timber is mostly cleared off. Upon the higher slopes grow the mountain mahogany and the scrub maple wherever there is a foot of soil. There is a fine, sturdy growth of abies. The spruce, or white pine, rises in a beautifully regular cone often 100 feet high; there are two principal varieties of fir, one with smooth light bark, and the other, which loves a higher range, and looks black as it bristles out of its snowy bed, is of a dun russet. Already appeared the splendid tints which make the American autumn a fit subject "pictoribus atque poetis." An atmosphere of blue seemed to invest the pines; the maple blushed bright red; and the willow clumps of the bed and the tapestry of ferns had turned to vegetable gold, while snow, bleached to more than usual whiteness by intervals of deep black soil, flecked the various shade of the poison hemlocks and balsam firs, and the wild strawberry, which the birds had stripped of fruit.
Great Cotton-wood Kanyon, like the generality of these ravines in the western wall of the Wasach, runs east and west till near the head, when it gently curves toward the north, and is separated from its neighbor by a narrow divide. On both sides the continuity of the gap is cut by deep jagged gullies, rendering it impossible to crown the heights. The road, which winds from side to side, was worked by thirty-two men, directed by Mr. Little, in one season, at a total expense of $16,000. After exhausting Red Buttes, Emigration, and other kanyons, for timber and fuel, Great Cotton-wood was explored in 1854, and in 1856 the ascent was made practicable. In places where the gorge narrows to a gut there were great difficulties, but rocks were removed, while tree-trunks and boughs were spread like a corduroy, and covered over with earth brought from a distance: Mormon energy overcame every obstacle. It is repaired every summer before the anniversary festival; it suffers during the autumn, and is preserved from destruction by the winter snows. In many places there are wooden bridges, one of which pays toll, and at the end of the season they become not a little rickety. As may be imagined, the water-power has been utilized. Lines and courses carefully leveled, and in parts deeply excavated, lest the precious fluid should spread out in basins, are brought from afar, and provided with water-gates and coffer-dams. The mills are named after the letters C, B, A, D, and lastly E. Already 700,000 square feet of lumber have been cut during this summer, and a total of a million is expected before the mills are snowed up; you come upon these ugly useful erections suddenly, round a sharp turn in the bed; they have a queer effect with their whirring saws and crash of timber, forming a treble to the musical bass of the water-gods.
We halted at the several mills, when Mr. Little overlooked his accounts, and distributed stores of coffee, sugar, and tobacco. After the first five miles we passed flecks of snow; the thermometer, however, in the shade never showed less than 60° F. In places the hill sides were bald from the effect of avalanches, and we saw where a house had lately been swept away. In others a fine white limestone glistened its deception. After passing Mill D, we debouched upon the basin also called the Big Prairie, a dwarf turfy savanna, about 100 yards in diameter, rock and tree girt, and separated from Parley's Kanyon on the north by a tall, narrow wall. We then ascended a slope of black, viscid, slippery mud, in which our animals were nearly mired, with deep slush-holes and cross-roots: as we progressed the bridges did not improve. On our left, in a pretty grove of thin pines, stood a bear-trap. It was a dwarf hut, with one or two doors, which fall when Cuffy tugs the bait from the figure of 4 in the centre. These mountaineers apparently ignore the simple plan of the Tchuvash, who fill up with corn-brandy a hollow in some tree lying across "old Ephraim's" path, and catch him dead drunk. In many places the quaking-asp trunks were deeply indented with claw-scars, showing that the climbing species is here common. Shortly before, a bear had been shot within a few miles of Great Salt Lake City, and its paws appeared upon the hotel table d'hôte.
About mid afternoon we dismounted, and left our nags and traps at Mill E, the highest point, where we were to pass the night. Mr. Little was suffering from a severe neuralgia, yet he insisted upon accompanying us. With visions of Albano, Killarney, and Windermere, I walked up the half mile of hill separating us from Great Cotton-wood Lake. In front rose tall pine-clad and snow-strewed peaks, a cul de sac formed by the summit of the Wasach. We could not see their feet, but instinct told me that they dropped around the water. The creek narrowed to a jump. Presently we arrived at a kind of punch-bowl, formed by an amphitheatre of frowning broken mountains, highest and most snowy on the southeast and west, and nearly clear of snow and trees on the east. The level ground, perhaps one mile in diameter, was a green sward, dotted with blocks and boulders, based on black humus and granite detritus. Part of it was clear, the rest was ivy-grown, with pines, clumps, and circlets of tall trees, surrounded by their young in bunches and fringes, as if planted by the hand of man. There were signs of the last season’s revelry—heaps of charcoal and charred trunks, rough tables of two planks supported by trestles, chairs or rail-like settles, and the brushy remnants of three "boweries." Two skulls showed that wolves had been busy with the cattle. Freshly-caught trout lay upon the table, preserved in snow, and in the distance the woodman's axe awoke with artful sound the echoes of the rocks.
At last we came upon the little tarn which occupies the lowest angle, the western ridge of the punch-bowl or prairie basin. Unknown to Captain Stansbury, it had been visited of old by a few mountain-men, and since 1854 by the mass of the Mormons. According to my informants it is the largest of a chaplet of twelve pools, two to the S.W. and ten to the S.E., which are probably independent bulges in the several torrent beds. Some are described as having no outlet, yet all are declared to be sweet water. The altitude has not been ascertained scientifically. It is roughly set down between 9500 and 10,000 feet. It was then at its smallest—about half a mile long by one quarter broad. After the melting of the snow it spreads out over the little savanna. The bottom is sandy and gravelly, sloping from ten to twenty feet deep. It freezes over in winter, and about 25–30 May the ice breaks up and sinks. The runnel which feeds it descends from the snow-capped peak to the south, and copious supplies trickle through the soppy margin at the base of the dripping hills around. The surplus escapes through a head to the north, where a gated dam is thrown across to raise the level, and to regulate the water-power. The color is a milky white; the water is warm, and its earthy vegetable taste, the effect of the weeds that margin it, contrasts with the purity of the creek which drains it. The fish are principally mountain trout and the gymnotus eel. In search of shells we walked round the margin, now sinking in the peaty ground, then clambering over the boulders—white stones that, rolled down from the perpendicular rocks above, simulated snow—then fighting our way through the thick willow clumps. Our quest, however, was not rewarded. After satisfying curiosity, we descended by a short cut of a quarter of a mile under tall trees whose shade preserved the snow, and found ourselves once more in Mill E.
The log hut was of the usual make. A cold wind—the mercury had fallen to 50° F.—rattled through the crannies, and we prepared for a freezing night by a blazing fire. The furniture—two bunks, with buffalo robes, tables and chairs, which were bits of plank mounted on four legs—was of the rudest. I whiled away the last hours of light by adding to my various accomplishments an elementary knowledge of felling trees. Handling the timber-axe is by no means so simple a process as it appears. The woodman does it by instinct; the tyro, who is always warned that he may easily indent or slice off a bit of his leg, progresses slowly and painfully. The principal art is to give the proper angle to the blade, to whirl the implement loosely round the head, and to let it fall by the force of its own weight, the guiding hand gliding down the haft to the other, in order not to break the blow. We ate copiously; appetite appeared to come by eating, though not in the Parisian sense of the phrase—what a treasure would be such a sanitarium in India! The society was increased by two sawyers, gruff and rugged men, one of whom suffered from ophthalmia, and two boys, who successfully imitated their elders.
Our fireside chat was sufficiently interesting. Mr.S——— described the ceremonies of the last Mormon Independence Day. After the preliminaries had been settled as below,[1] the caravans set out from the Holy City. In 1860 there were 1122 souls, 56 carriages, 163 wagons, 285 horses, 159 mules, and 168 oxen. They bivouacked for the night upon the road, and marched with a certain ceremony. The first President issued an order allowing any one to press forward, though not at the expense of others; still no one would precede him; nor would the second advance before the third President—a good example to some who might want teaching. Moreover, the bishops had the privilege of inviting, or, rather, of permitting the people of their several wards, even Gentiles, to attend. The "pioneers"—the survivors of the noble 148 who, guided by their Joshua, Mr. Brigham Young, first attempted the Promised Land—were distinguished by their names on banners, and the bands played lustily "God save the King," and the "Star-spangled Banner," "Happy Land," and "Du-dah." At six on the fine morning of the 24th, which followed ugly weather, a salute of three guns, in honor of the First Presidency, was fired, with music in the intervals, the stars and the stripes floating on the top of the noblest staff, a tall fir-tree. At 9 A.M. a salute of thirteen guns, denoting the age of New Zion, and at 6 P.M. twelve guns, corresponding with the number of the apostles, were discharged with similar ceremonies. The scene must have been lively and picturesque around the bright little tarn, and under the everlasting hills—a holiday crowd, with wagons and ambulances drawn up, tents and marquees pitched under the groves, and horse-races, in which the fair sex joined, over the soft green sward. At 10 P.M., after the dancing in the boweries had flagged, the bands finished with "Home, sweet Home," and the Saints returned to their every-day occupations.
Mr. Little also recounted to us his experiences among the Indians, whom he, like all the Mormons, firmly believed to be children of Israel under a cloud. He compared the medicine lodge to a masonic hall, and declared that the so-called Red Men had signs and grips like ourselves; and he related how an old chief, when certain symbolic actions were made to him, wept and wailed, thinking how he and his had neglected their observances. The Saints were at one time good masons; unhappily they wanted to be better. The angel of the Lord brought to Mr. Joseph Smith the lost key-words of several degrees, which caused him, when he appeared among the brotherhood of Illinois, to "work right ahead" of the highest, and to show them their ignorance of the greatest truths and benefits of masonry. The natural result was that their diploma was taken from them by the Grand Lodge, and they are not admitted to a Gentile gathering. Now heathens without the gate, they still cling to their heresy, and declare that other masonry is, like the Christian faith, founded upon truth, and originally of the eternal Church, but fallen away and far gone in error. There is no race, except perhaps antiquaries, more credulous than the brethren of the mystic craft. I have been told by one who may have deceived himself, but would not have deceived me, that the Royal Arch, notoriously a corruption of the Royal Arras, is known to the Bedouins of Arabia; while the dairy of the Neilgherry Todas, with its exclusion of women, and its rude ornamentation of crescents, circles, and triangles, was at once identified with the "old religion of the world whose vestiges survive among all people." But these are themes unfit for an "entered apprentice." Mr. Little corroborated concerning the Prairie Indians and the Yutas what is said of the settled tribes, namely, that the comforts of civilization tend to their destruction. The men, enervated by indoor life for half the year, are compelled at times to endure sudden privation, hardship, and fatigue, of which the results are rheumatism, consumption, and fatal catarrhs. Yet he believed that the “valleys of Ephraim” would yet be full of them. He spoke freely of the actualities and prospects of Mormonism. My companions asserted with truth that there is not among their number a single loafer, rich or poor, an idle gentleman or a lazy vagabond, a drunkard or a gambler, a beggar or a prostitute. Those honorable professions are membered by the Gentiles. They boasted, indeed, of what is sometimes owned by their enemies, that there are fewer robberies, murders, arsons, and rapes in Utah than in any other place of equal population in the world. They held that the laws of the United States are better adapted to secure the happiness of a small community than to consolidate the provinces of a continent into one huge empire, and they looked confidently forward to the spread of Mormonism over the world. They claimed for themselves, like other secessionists, "le droit sacré d'insurrection," against which in vain the Gentiles raged and the federal government devised vain things. They declared themselves to be the salt of the Union, and that in the fullness of time they shall break the republic in pieces like a potter's vessel. Of Washington, Jefferson, and the other sages of the Revolution they speak with all respect, describing them as instruments in the hand of the Almighty, and as Latter-Day Saints in will if not in deed. I was much pleased by their tolerance; but tolerance in the West is rather the effect of climate and occupation than of the reasoning faculty. Gentiles have often said before me that Mormonism is as good as any other religion, and that Mr. Joseph Smith "had as good a right to establish a Church as Luther, Calvin, Fox, Wesley, or even bluff King Hal." The Mormons are certainly the least fanatical of our faiths, owning, like Hindoos, that every man should walk his own way, while claiming for themselves superiority in belief and politics. At Nauvoo they are said to have been puffed up by the rapid growth of their power, and to have been presumptuous, haughty, insolent, and overbearing; to have assumed a jurisdiction independent of, and sometimes hostile to, the nine counties around them and to the States; to have attached penalties to speaking evil of the Prophet; and to have denied the validity of legal documents, unless countersigned by him who was also mayor and general. They are certainly changed for the better in these days. With respect to their future views, the anti-Mormons assert that Saints have now been driven to the end of their tether, and must stand to fight or deliver; that the new Territory of Nevada will presently be a fatal rival to them; that the States will no longer tolerate this theocratic despotism in the bosom of a democracy; and that presently they must be wiped out. The Mormons already discern the dawning of a brighter day. In the reaction which has taken place in their favor they fear no organized attack by the United States on account of lobby influence at Washington, and the vis inertiæ inherent in so slow and unwieldy a body as the federal government. They count upon secession, quoting a certain proverb touching conjunctures when honest men come in. They believe that the supernatural aid of God, plus their vote, will presently make them a state. "Some time this side of the great millennium" they will realize their favorite dream, restoration (which might indeed happen in ten years) to their quondam Zion—Independence, Mo., the centre of the old terrestrial Paradise. Of this promised land their President said, with "something of prophetic strain," "while water runs and grass grows, while virtue is lovely and vice hateful, and while a stone points out a sacred spot where a fragment of American liberty once was"—Lord Macaulay's well-known Zealander shall apparently take his passage by Cunard's—"I or my posterity will plead the cause of injured innocence, until Missouri makes atonement for all her sins, or sinks disgraced, degraded, and damned to hell, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Then shall the Jews of the Old World rebuild the Temple of Solomon, and the Jews of the New World (the Mormons) recover their own Zion. Gog and Magog—that is to say, the kings of the Gentiles—and their hosts shall rise up against the Latter-Day Saints, who, guided by a prophet that wields the sword of Laban, shall mightily overthrow them at the battle of Armageddon. Then the spears, bows, and arrows (probably an abstruse allusion to the descendants of our Miniés and Armstrongs) shall be burned with fire seven years; the earth and its fullness shall be theirs, and the long-looked-for millennium shall come at last. And as prophecy without date is somewhat liable to be vague and indefinite, these great events are fixed in Mr. Joseph Smith's Autobiography for the year of grace 1890. Meantime they can retire, if forbidden the Saskatchewan River and Vancouver's Island, to the rich "minerales" in "Sonora of the Gold Mountains."
On the morning of the next day, Sunday, the 16th of September, we mounted and rode slowly on. I had neglected to take "leggins," and the loss of cuticle and cutis was deplorable. Once at the Tabernacle was enough: on this occasion, however, non-attendance was a mistake. There had been a little "miff" between Mr. President and the "Gauge of Philosophy," Mr. O. Pratt. The latter gentleman, who is also an apostle, is a highly though probably a self-educated man, not, as is stated in an English work, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. The Usman of the New Faith, writer, preacher, theologian, missionary, astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician—especially in the higher branches—he has thrust thought into a faith of ceremony which is supposed to dispense with the trouble of thinking, and has intruded human learning into a scheme whose essence is the utter abrogation of the individual will. He is consequently suspected of too much learning; of relying, in fact, rather upon books and mortal paper than that royal road to all knowledge, inspiration from on high, and his tendencies to let loose these pernicious doctrines often bring him into trouble and place him below his position. In his excellent discourse delivered to-day he had declared the poverty of the Mormons, and was speedily put down by Mr. Brigham Young, who boasted the Saints to be the wealthiest (i. e., in good works and post-obit prospects) people in the world. I had tried my best to have the pleasure of half an hour's conversation with the Gauge, who, however, for reasons unknown to me, declined. At the same meeting Mr. Heber C. Kimball solemnly consigned to a hotter place than the tropics Messrs. Bell and Livingston, the cause being their supposed complicity in bringing in the federal troops. I write it with regret, but both of these gentlemen, when the sad tidings were communicated to them, showed a quasi-Pharaonic hardening of the carnal heart. A measure, however, was on this occasion initiated, which more than compensated for these small ridicules. To the present date missionaries were sent forth, to Canton even, or Kurrachee, like the apostles of Judea, working their passages and supporting themselves by handiwork; being wholly without purse or scrip, baggage or salary, they left their business to languish, and their families to want. When man has no coin of his own, he is naturally disposed to put his hand into his neighbor's pocket, and the greediness of a few unprincipled propagandists, despite the prohibitions of the Prophet, had caused a scandal by the richness of their "plunder." A new ordinance was therefore issued to the thirty new nominees.[2] The missionaries were forbidden to take from their converts, and in compensation they would receive regular salaries, for which funds were to be collected in the several wards. On the same evening I was informed a single ward, the 13th, subscribed $3000. That Sunday was an important day to myself also; I posted a "sick certificate," advising extension of leave for six months, signed by W. F. Anderson, M.D., of the University of Maryland. It was not wholly en règle; it required two signatures and the counter-signature of H. B. M.'s consul to affirm that the signatures were bonâ fide, not "bogus." But the signer was the only M.D. in the place, H. B. M.'s nearest consul was distant about 600 miles, and to suggest that a gentleman may be quietly forging or falsifying his signature is to incur an unjustifiable personal risk in the Far West.
Still bent upon collecting the shells of the Basin, I accepted Mr. S———'s offer of being my guide to Ensign Peak, where they are said to be found in the greatest number. Our route lay through the broken wall which once guarded the land against Lemuel, and we passed close by the large barn-like building called the Arsenal, where the military school will also be. Motives of delicacy prevented my asking questions concerning the furniture of the establishment. Anti-Mormons, however, whisper that it contains cannon, mortars, and other large-scaled implements of destruction, prepared, of course, for treasonable purposes. The Arsenal naturally led us into conversation concerning the Nauvoo Legion, the Mormon Battalion, the Danite band, and other things military, of which the reader may not be undesirous of knowing "some."
The Nauvoo Legion was organized in 1840, and was made to include all male Saints between the ages of sixteen and fifty. In 1842 it numbered 2000 men, well officered, uniformed, armed, and drilled. It now may amount throughout the Territory to 6000—8000 men: the Utah militia, however, is officially laid down in the latest returns at 2821. In case of war, it would be assisted by 30,000 or 40,000 Indian warriors. The Legion is commanded by a lieutenant general, at present Mr. Daniel C. Wells, the Martin Hofer of this Western Tyrol; the major general is Mr. C. D. Grant, who, in case of vacancy, takes command. The lieutenant general is elected by a majority of the commissioned officers, and is then commissioned by the governor: he organizes the Legion into divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, companies, and districts: his staff, besides heads of departments—adjutant, commissary quarter-master, paymaster, and surgeon general—consist of three aids and two topographical engineers with the rank of colonel, a military secretary with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and two chaplains. The present adjutant general is Mr. William Ferguson, one of the few Irish Saints, originally sergeant-major in the Mormon battalion, who, after the fashion of the Western world, combines with the soldier the lawyer and the editor. The minutest directions are issued to the Legion in "An Act to provide for the farther Organization of the Militia of the Territory of Utah (Territorial Laws, chap. 35), and it is divided into military districts as below.[3] There is, moreover, an independent battalion of Life Guards in Great Salt Lake County not attached to any brigade or division, but subject at all times to the call of the governor and lieutenant general. There are also minute-men, picked fighters, ready to mount, at a few minutes' notice, upon horses that range near the Jordan, and to take the field in pursuit of Indians or others, under their commandant Colonel Burton. These corps form the nuclei of what will be, after two generations, formidable armies. The increase of Saintly population is rapid, and from their childhood men are trained to arms: each adult has a rifle and a sabre, a revolver and a bowie-knife, and he wants only practice to become a good, efficient, and well-disciplined soldier. Grants amounting to a total of $5000 have at different times been apportioned to military purposes, buildings, mounting ordnance, and schools: Gentiles declare that it was required for education, but I presume that the Mormons, like most people, claim to know their own affairs best. As in the land of Liberty generally, there is a modified conscription; "all free male citizens"—with a few dignified exceptions and exempts—are subject to soldier's duty within thirty days after their arrival at any military district in the Territory.
That the Mormon battalion did good service in the Mexican War of 1847 is a matter of history. It was sent at a most critical conjuncture. Application was made to the Saints, when upon the point of commencing their exodus from Egypt, through the deserts of Paran and Sin, where the red Amalekite and the Moabite lay in wait to attack them, and when every male was wanted to defend the old and sick, the women and children, and the valuables of which the Egyptian had not despoiled them. Yet the present Prophet did not hesitate to obey the call: he sent off 500 of his best men, who fought through the war and shared in the triumph. Providence rewarded them. It was a Mormon—James W. Marshall—who, when discharged from service, entered with some comrades the service of a Swiss land-owner, Captain Suter—a remnant of Charles X.'s guard—near Sacramento, on the American River, and who, in January, 1848, when sinking a mill-run or water-run, discovered the shining metal which first made California a household word. On the return of the battalion to Great Salt Lake City, laden with nearly half a million of gold, a mint was established, and a $5 piece was added to the one million dollars which forms the annual circulation of the United States. It bears on the reverse, "Holiness to the Lord," surmounting a three-cornered cap, placed over a single eye: the former alludes, I was told, mystically to the first Presidency; the obverse having two hands clasped over the date (1849), and the words "Five Dollars, G.S.L.C.P.G." The $5 appeared somewhat heavier, though smaller than an English sovereign. Anti-Mormons adduce this coinage as an additional proof of saintly presumption; but it was legally done: a Territory may not stamp precious metal with the federal arms, but it has a right to establish its own. They adduce, moreover, a severe charge, namely, that the $5 piece was 15–20 per cent. under weight, and yet was forcibly made current. One remarkable effect the gold certainly had. When the Kirtland Safety Savings Bank, established by Mr. Joseph Smith in February, 1831, broke, he stout-heartedly prophesied that before twenty years should elapse the worthless paper should be again at par. The financial vaticination was true to the letter.[4]
Ensign Peak. (North End of Great Salt Lake City.) The "Danite band," a name of fear in the Mississippi Valley, is said by anti-Mormons to consist of men between the ages of seventeen and forty-nine. They were originally termed Daughters of Gideon, Destroying Angels—the Gentiles say Devils—and, finally, Sons of Dan, or Danites, from one of whom it was prophesied that he should be a serpent in the path. They were organized about 1837, under D. W. Patten, popularly called Captain Fearnot, for the purpose of dealing as avengers of blood with Gentiles; in fact, they formed a kind of "Death Society," Desperadoes, Thugs, Hashshashiyun—in plain English, assassins in the name of the Lord. The Mormons declare categorically the whole and every particular to be the calumnious invention of the impostor and arch apostate Mr. John C. Bennett, whilom mayor of Nauvoo; that the mystery and horror of the idea made it equally grateful to the knave and fool who persecuted them, and that not a trader could be scalped, nor a horse-stealer shot, nor a notorious villain of a Gentile knived without the deed of blood being attributed to Danite hands directed by prophetic heads. It was supposed that the Danites assume savage disguises: "he has met the Indians" was a proverbial phrase, meaning that a Gentile has fallen into the power of the destroying angels. I but express the opinion of sensible and moderate neutrals in disbelieving the existence of an organized band of "Fidawi;" where every man is ready to be a Danite, Danites are not wanting. Certainly, in the terrible times of Missouri and Illinois, destroying angels were required to smite secretly, mysteriously, and terribly the first-born of Egypt; now the necessity has vanished. This, however, the Mormons deny, declaring the existence of the Danites, like that of spiritual wives, to be, and ever to have been, literally and in substance totally and entirely untrue.
Meanwhile we had nearly ascended the Jebel Nur of this new Meccah, the big toe of the Wasach Mountains, and exchanged the sunny temperature below for a cold westerly wind, that made us feel snow: the air improved in purity, as we could judge by the effects of carcasses lying at different heights. The bench up which we trod was gashed by broad ravines, and bore upon its red soil a growth of thin sage and sunflower. A single fossil and two varieties of shells were found: iron and quartz were scattered over the surface, and there is a legend of gold having been discovered here. Presently, standing upon the topmost bluff, we sat down to enjoy a view which I have attempted to reproduce in a sketch. Below the bench lay the dot-like houses of Zion. We could see with bird's-eye glance the city laid out like a chessboard, and all the length and breadth of its bee-line streets and crow-flight avenues, which, bordered by distance-dwarfed trees, narrowed to threads as they drew toward a vanishing point. Beyond the suburbs stretched the valley plain, sprinkled with little plantations clustering round the smaller settlements, and streaked by the rivulets which, arising from the frowning pine-clad heights on the left, flowed toward the little Jordan of this young Judea on the right. The extreme south was bounded by the denticulated bench which divided like a mole the valleys of the Great Salt and Utah Lakes. Already autumn had begun: the purpling plain and golden slopes shed a dying glory over the departing year, while the mellowing light of evening, and aerial blue from above, toned down to absolute beauty each harsher feature of the scene.
After lingering for a while over the fair coup d'œil, we descended, holding firm the sage-bushes, the abrupt western slope, and we passed by the warm Harrowgate spring, with its sulphury blue waters, white lime-like bed, and rushy margins in dark earth, snow-capped with salt efflorescence. As we entered the city we met a noted Gentile innocently driving out a fair Saint: both averted their faces as they passed us, but my companion's color darkened. All races have their pet prohibitions and aversions, their likes and dislikes in matters of sin. Among the Mormons, a suspicion of immorality is more hateful than the reputation of bloodshed. So horse-thieving in the Western States is a higher crime than any other—in fact, the sin which is never forgiven. An editor thus unconcernedly sums up the history of one lately shot when plundering stock: "He was buried by those who meted out to him summary justice, not exactly attending to law, but upon a more speedy, economical, and salutary principle, and a stake was placed at the head of his grave, on which was inscribed 'A. B. B———; shot for horse-stealing, July 1, 1860.'"
Entering the city by the northwest, we passed the Academy of the 7th Ward. Standing in a 10-acre block, it is a large adobe building with six windows, built for a hotel, and bought for educational purposes by the Prophet. Forms and tables, scattered with the usual school-books, were the sole furniture, and the doors were left open as if they had nothing to defend. My companion had a truly brotherly way of treating his co-religionists; he never met one, however surly-looking, without a salute, and when a door was opened he usually walked in. Thus we visited successively a water-power-mill, a tannery, and an English coachmaker, painter, and varnisher. Some of the houses which we passed were neat and cleanly curtained, especially that belonging to an Englishwoman whose husband, Captain R———, had lately left her in widowhood. We finished with the garden of Apostle Woodruff, who introduced us to his wife, and showed us work of which he had reason to be proud. Despite the hard, ungrateful soil which had required irrigation for the last ten years, there were apricots from Malta, the Hooker strawberries, here worth $5 the plant, plum-trees from Kew Gardens, French and Californian grapes, wild plum and buffalo berry, black currants, peaches, and apples—with which last we were hospitably loaded—in numbers. The kitchen garden contained rhubarb, peas, potatoes, Irish and sweet, asparagus, white and yellow carrots, cabbages, and huge beets: the sugar-cane had been tried there, but it was not, like the sweet holcus, a success.
The last time I walked out of Great Salt Lake City was to see the cemetery, which lies on the bench to the northeast of the settlement. There is but one cemetery for saint and sinner, and it has been prudently removed about three miles from the abodes of the living. The tombs, like the funeral ceremonies, are simple, lacking the "monumental mockery" which renders the country church-yard in England a fitter study for farce than for elegy. On occasions of death, prayers are offered in the house, and the corpse is carried at once to its last home. The grave-yard is walled round, and contains a number of occupants, the tombs being denoted by a stone or board, with name and date, and sometimes a religious sentence, at the head and foot.
- ↑ Extract from the Great Salt Lake correspondent of that amiable and conscientious periodical, the "New York Herald."
The Great Twenty-fourth of July.
"In my last I gave your readers a full account of the Mormon demonstrations on the anniversary of American independence. That done, they have now before them the celebration of their own independence. Adhesiveness is largely developed in the Mormon cranium. They will hold on to their notions. On the 24th of July, 1847, Brigham, at the head of the pioneers, entered this now beautiful valley—then a barren wilderness. Forgetful of the means that forced them here, the day was set apart for rejoicing. They laid aside the weeds of mourning, and consecrated the day to feasting and dancing. The Twenty-fourth is the day of deliverance that will be handed down to generations when the Fourth is immeasurably forgotten. Three years ago, two thousand persons were congregated at the head-waters of Big Cotton-wood, commemorating independence, when messengers from the East arrived with the intelligence that the troops were on the plains. I need not farther allude to what was then said and done; suffice it, things have been so disjointed since that Big Cotton-wood has been left alone in solitude. Setting aside the restraint of years, it seems that the faithful are to again enjoy themselves. The following card tells the marching orders; the interstices will be filled up with orations, songs, prayers, dances, and every kind of athletic game that the young may choose to indulge in:
"Twenty-fourth of July at the Head-quarters of Big Cotton-wood.—President Brigham Young respectfully invites to attend a picnic excursion to the lake in Big Cotton-wood Kanyon, on Tuesday, the 24th of July.
"Regulations.—You will be required to start so as to pass the first mill, about four miles up the kanyon, before twelve o'clock on Monday, the 23d, as no person will be allowed to pass that point after two o'clock P.M. of that day. All persons are forbidden to smoke segars or pipes, or kindle fires at any place in the kanyon, except on the camp-ground. The bishops are requested to accompany those invited from their respective wards, and see that each person is well fitted for the trip with good, substantial, steady teams, wagons, harness, hold-backs and locks, capable of completing the journey without repair, and a good driver, so as not to endanger the life of any individual. Bishops, heads of families, and leaders of small parties will, before passing the first mill, furnish a full and complete list of all persons accompanying them, and hand the same to the guard at the gate.
"Committee of Arrangements.—A. O. Smoot, John Sharp, L. W. Hardy, A. Cunningham, E. F. Sheets, F. Kesler, Thomas Callister, A. H. Raleigh, Henry Moon. J. C. Little, Marshal of the Day; Colonel R. T. Burton will arrange the Guard.
"Great Salt Lake City, July 10, 1860." - ↑ The following is a copy of the elder’s certificate, officially signed by the president and his two councilors, and supplied to the departing missionary:
"To all Persons to whom this Letter shall come:
"This certifies that the bearer, Elder A. B., is in full faith and fellowship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and by the general authorities of said Church has been duly appointed a mission to Liverpool to preach the Gospel, and administer in all the ordinances thereof pertaining to his office.
"And we invite all men to give heed to his teachings and counsels as a man of God, sent to open to them the door of life and salvation, and assist him in his travels, in whatsoever things he may need.
"And we pray God, the Eternal Father, to bless Elder A. B., and all who receive him and minister to his comfort, with the blessings of heaven and earth, for time and for all eternity, in the name of Jesus Christ: Amen.
"Signed at Great Salt Lake City, Territory of Utah, ———, 186-, in behalf of said Church."
- ↑ There are eleven originally established, viz.:
1st. The Great Salt Lake Military District shall include all the militia within the boundaries of Great Salt Lake City.
2d. The Davis Military District shall include all the militia within the limits of Davis County.
3d. The Weber Military District shall include all the militia within the limits of Weber County.
4th. The Western Jordan Military District shall include all the militia in Great Salt Lake County west of the Jordan River.
5th. The Tooele Military District shall include all the militia within the limits of Tooele County.
6th. The Cotton-wood Military District shall include all the militia in Great Salt Lake County south of the south line of Great Salt Lake City and east of the Jordan River.
7th. The Utah Military District shall include all the militia in Utah County.
8th. The San Pete Military District shall include all the militia within the limits of San Pete County.
9th. The Parovan Military District shall include all the militia within the limits of Millard County.
10th. The Iron Military District shall include all the militia within the limits of Iron County.
11th. The Green River Military District shall include all the militia within the limits of Green River County. - ↑ The Mormons quote two other prophecies both equally offensive to the United States, and both equally well known.
On the 26th of April, 1843, Mr. Joseph Smith distinctly declared, in the name of the Lord, that before the arrival of the Son of Man the "question of slavery would cause a rebellion in South Carolina," and effect a "division of the Southern against the Northern States." It was a calamity easy to be foreseen, but we look with anxiety to the unfulfilled portion, the "terrible bloodshed" which will result.
In 1846, when, humanly speaking, want and destitution stared the Saints in the face, Mr. Brigham Young predicted that within five years they would be wealthier than before. This was palpably fulfilled in 1849, when the passage of emigrants to California enabled the Saints to exchange their supplies of food for goods and valuables at enormous profits.
I commend these "uninspired prophecies" to the simple-minded translator of "Forewarnings, Prophecies on the Church, Antichrist (who was born, we are told, four years ago), and Revelations in the Last Times." Messrs. Smith and Young's vaticinations will be found quite as respectable as the "Visions of an Aged Nun" and the "Predictions of Sister Rosa Columba." Prophecy, being the highest aim of human induction, is apparently universally and equally diffused.