Part 10

When they came to cross the Snake River Whitman gave orders to fasten the wagons together in one long line, the strongest ones being placed in the lead. When the teams were in position Whitman tied a long rope about his waist and fastened the other end to the first team. Riding his horse into the current he swam across the river. He called to the other riders to follow him, and at the same time to pull on the rope that was tied to the first team. In this way the leaders were started into the water, and all were drawn over in safety. At times, however, it took a great deal of pulling on the ropes by many men to drag the weaker teams to a safe foothold on the farther bank. The Snake River at the place where Whitman forded it was divided into three separate rivers by islands, and as the last stream on the Oregon shore was a deep and rapid current fully a mile wide, it can be seen what a task it was to get so many wagons, tired ox-teams, and the great company of men, women and children across it. But Whitman had solved many such problems before. When he and his wife went to Oregon six years earlier she had said it was a shame that her husband should wear himself out in getting their wagon through. "Yesterday," she said, "it was overset in the river and he was wet from head to foot getting it out; to-day it was upset on the mountainside, and it was hard work to save it."

There were over a thousand people in this expedition that was going out to colonize Oregon for the United States. They had about one hundred and twenty wagons drawn by ox-teams, which averaged six yoke of oxen to a team, and, in addition, several thousand horses and cattle, led or driven by the emigrants. Although they started to travel in one body they soon found they could do better by dividing into two columns, marching within easy hailing distance of each other, so long as they were in danger of attack by the Indians, and later separating into small parties, better suited to the narrow mountain paths and the meagre pasture lands.

It is interesting to learn how such a company traveled. At four o'clock in the morning the sentinels who were on guard waked the camp by shots from their rifles, the emigrants crept from their canvas-covered wagons or tents built against the side of the wagons, and soon the smoke of camp-fires began to rise in the air. Sixty men, whose duty it was to look after the cattle, would start out from the corral, or enclosed space, spreading through the horses and cattle, who had found pasturage over night in a great semicircle about the camp. The most distant animals were sometimes two miles away. These sixty scouts looked for Indian trails beyond the herd and tried to discover whether any of the animals had been stolen or had strayed during the night. If none were lost the herders drove the animals close to the camp, and by five o'clock horses, oxen, and cattle were rounded up, and the separate emigrants chose their teams and drove them into the corral to be yoked. The corral was a circle about one hundred yards deep, formed by wagons fastened together by ox-chains, making a barrier that could not be broken by any vicious ox or horse, and a fortification in case of an attack by Indians.

The camp was very busy from six to seven o'clock; the women prepared breakfast; the tents were packed away, the wagons loaded and the oxen yoked and fastened to their owners' wagons. Each of the two divisions had about sixty wagons, and these were separated into sixteen platoons. Each platoon took its turn at leading, and in this way none of the wagons had to travel continually in the dust. By seven o'clock the corral was broken up; the women and children had found their places in the wagons, and the leader, or pilot as he was called, mounted his horse and was ready to lead the way for the day's journey. A band of young men who were not needed at the wagons, well mounted and armed, would start on a buffalo hunt, keeping within easy reach of the caravan and hoping to bring back food for the night's encampment.

At seven o'clock the trumpet sounded the advance, and the wagon that was to lead for that day slowly rolled out of the camp and headed the line of march. The other wagons fell in behind it, and guided by the horsemen, the long line commenced its winding route through the mountains.

The country through which Whitman had chosen to travel was beautiful in the extreme; at times the road lay through the great heights of the Rockies, with a panorama of wonderful charm stretched on the horizon; at times it lay beside broad rivers where the clearness of the air brought out all the colors of late summer foliage. The party of hunters were also scouts for the caravan, searching the rivers for the most promising fords. Having found one to their liking, they would signal with a flag to the pilot and his guides to show in which direction to lead the wagons. These guides kept constantly on the alert, for it would be hard if they had to march a mile or two out of their way or retrace their steps because of wrong advice. The rest of the emigrants trusted the route entirely to their leaders and rode or marched stolidly along, occasionally stopping to gather a few flowers for the women and children in the wagons. At noon the whole line stopped for dinner. The scouting party would carefully choose a good camping place, looking especially for the grass and water that were so much needed at the end of five hours of hard traveling. The teams were not unyoked, but only turned loose from their wagons, and the latter were drawn up in columns, four abreast. No corral was formed, as there was little danger from Indians or risk of animals straying in the daytime.

At this noon rest many matters were discussed by the caravan leaders. Whitman and one or two others had been chosen to decide disputes between the different members of the party. Orders for the good of the caravan would be given out at this time, and Dr. Whitman would visit any who were sick and advise with the various families as to new difficulties they had met with.

When dinner was eaten and the teams rested the march was resumed, and continued until sundown, when the scouts picked out the best camping place for the night. The wagons were driven into a great circle, fastened each to each, and the cattle freed to seek a pasture; tents were pitched, fires started, and all hands were busy. The scene was almost like a small frontier town.

The caravan was divided into three companies, and each of the companies subdivided into four watches. Each company had the duty of acting as sentries for the camp every third night, and each watch took its turn. The first watch was set at eight o'clock in the evening, just after the evening meal. For a short time there would be talking, perhaps singing, or the music of the violin or flute. Usually, however, the day's traveling had been hard and trying, and at an early hour the emigrants went to sleep.

Late in the summer of 1843 Whitman's pioneers left the mountains behind them, and came down into the valleys watered by the tributaries of the Columbia River. As they approached the missionary settlement at Wai-i-lat-pui a band of Cayuse and Nez Percés Indians came to meet them, bringing pack-mules loaded with supplies. Few messengers could have been more welcome. They told Whitman that his wife and friends were still at the little clearing where he had left them almost a year before, and were eagerly looking forward to the arrival of the new settlers. The leader thought that the caravan could finish its journey without him now, so he chose one of his most reliable Indian guides, Istikus, and placed him in charge of the company. Whitman himself hurried on to the mission. Back of him rolled the long train of canvas-covered wagons that had traveled so far over prairies, rivers, and mountains. Almost a thousand men, women, and children were coming into this far western section of the continent to settle and hold the country for the United States.

Whitman's ride changed the situation. No more statesmen could speak of the impassable mountains or the impossibility of taking settlers' wagons into Oregon. Before Whitman left Washington Daniel Webster sent a message to England stating that the United States would insist on holding all territory south of the forty-ninth degree of latitude. When President Tyler was told that a caravan of nearly a thousand people under Whitman's leadership had started for Oregon, a second and more positive message to the same effect was sent to England. All over the United States men were now demanding that their government should claim the country as far as the Pacific coast, and one great political party took as its watchword the motto, "Oregon, fifty-four, forty,--or fight," referring to the degree of latitude they wanted for the boundary line. The Hudson's Bay Company, finding so large a colony of pioneers settling among them, was forced to give over its efforts to hold the northwest entirely for itself. In time the English statesmen agreed to the claims of the United States, and on July 17, 1846, a treaty was signed, fixing the boundary between Canada and the United States at the forty-ninth degree, which gave Oregon to the Republic.

The settlers prospered, and the little missionary colony near the Walla Walla River grew in size. Whitman resumed his work among the Indians, and seemed to win their friendship. There seemed no reason why the native tribes and their white friends should not live in peace in such an undeveloped country. After a time, however, fear or greed or false leaders stirred up certain Indians and sent them on the war-path against their friends. No one knew the real cause for the outburst, but on November 29, 1847, a band of the Cayuse crept down on the little cluster of houses at Wai-i-lat-pui and killed fourteen of the white settlers. Marcus Whitman was one of the first to fall. He was in his house, with several Indians as usual in the room with him. One was sitting close to him, asking for some medicine, when another came up behind and struck him with a tomahawk. These two then gave the signal, and their allies in other houses fell upon the white men and women. After the massacre forty men, women, and children were carried away from the valley by the Indians, but most of them were later rescued by the Hudson's Bay Company and sent back to their homes. Other white settlers joined forces and marched against the treacherous Cayuse, but the latter fled through the country, scattering into different tribes, and the leaders of the attack were not captured until nearly two years later.

Daniel Webster had said in the Senate: "What do we want with the vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or these endless mountain ranges, impenetrable, and covered to their base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, and uninviting, and not a harbor on it? What use have we for such a country?" But though many great statesmen agreed with Webster a simple missionary who had been to Oregon looked into the future, saw the value of the vast expanse, and had the courage and determination to ride across the continent for aid, and then bring back a thousand settlers to help him realize his dream. Marcus Whitman is one of the noblest examples of that great type of pioneers who won the western country for the United States.

VII

HOW THE MORMONS CAME TO SETTLE UTAH

In the winter of 1838-39 a large number of people moved into the country on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the state of Illinois. They had taken the name of "Latter-Day Saints," but were generally called Mormons, and were followers of a new religion that had been founded by a man named Joseph Smith a few years earlier. This strange new religion had attracted many people to it, and the greater number of them had first moved to Ohio, and then into the new state of Missouri, but they were not well received by the people of either of those states, and had finally been driven from Missouri at the point of the sword. Fortunately for them there was plenty of unoccupied land in the West, and their leader decided to take refuge near the town of Quincy in Illinois. At that time a man had only to reside in the state for six months in order to cast a vote for president, and as an election was near at hand the politicians of Illinois were glad to welcome the Mormons. Looking about, the newcomers found two "paper" cities, or places that had been mapped out on paper with streets and houses, but had never actually been built. The Mormon leaders bought two large farms in the "paper" town of Commerce, and many thousand acres in the country adjoining, and there they laid out their new city, to which they gave the strange name of Nauvoo.

The Mormon city lay along the Mississippi River, and its streets and public buildings were planned on a large scale. People flocked to the place, and as the Mormon missionaries were eager workers the number of converts grew rapidly. A temple was built, which a stranger who saw it in 1843 said was the wonder of the world. Many Mormon emigrants came from England, usually by ship to New Orleans, and thence by river steamboat up the Mississippi to Nauvoo. By the end of 1844 at least fifteen thousand people had settled there, and as many more were scattered through the country in the immediate neighborhood. Nauvoo was the largest city in Illinois, and its only rival in that part of the West was St. Louis. Joseph Smith had obtained a charter, and both the political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats, were doing their best to make friends of his people. Nauvoo had little of the rough look of most newly-settled frontier towns, and handsome houses and public buildings sprang up rapidly along its fine wide streets.

Unfortunately for the Mormons their leader was a man who made enemies as easily as he made friends. He had aroused much ill feeling when he lived in Missouri. As a result, when, one day in May, 1842, Governor Boggs of Missouri was shot and seriously wounded while sitting at the window of his home, many people laid the crime to Smith or his followers, and believed that the prophet himself, as Smith was called, had ordered the shooting. The officers of Missouri asked the governor of Illinois to hand Smith over to them. This was not done, and consequently ill feeling against the prophet grew stronger. In the meantime a man named John C. Bennett, who had joined the Mormons at Nauvoo, and had been the first mayor of the city, deserted the church, and turned into one of the most bitter of its enemies. He denounced the Mormons in letters he wrote to the newspapers, and exposed what he called their secrets. This led other people to attack the ideas of the Mormons, and it was not long before there was almost as much dislike of them in Illinois as there had been in Missouri.

Even in the Mormon church itself there were men who would not agree with all the prophet Joseph Smith said. A few of these men set up a printing-press and published a paper that they called the _Nauvoo Expositor_. Only one issue of this sheet appeared, dated June 7, 1844. That was enough, however, to raise the wrath of Joseph Smith and his elders, and they ordered the city marshal to destroy the press. The marshal broke the press and type in the main street of the city, and burned the contents of the newspaper office.

The editors hastily fled to the neighboring town of Carthage. The people there and in all the neighboring villages denounced the destruction of the press, and declared that the time had come to force the Mormons to obey the laws, and, if they would not do so, to drive them out of Illinois. Military companies were formed, cannon were sent for, and the governor of the state was asked to call out the militia.

The governor went to the scene of the trouble to investigate. He found all that part of the east shore of the Mississippi divided between the Mormons and their enemies. He ordered the mayor of Nauvoo to send Mormons to him to explain why they had destroyed the printing-press, and when he had heard their story the governor told them that Smith and his elders must surrender to him, or the whole military force of the state would be called out to capture them. But the prophet had not been idle. He had put his city under martial law, had formed what was called the Legion of the Mormons, and had called in his followers from the near-by villages. He had meant to defend his new city; but when he heard the governor's threat to arrest him, he left Nauvoo with a few comrades and started for the Rocky Mountains. Friends went after him, and begged him not to desert his people. He could not resist their appeal to him to return, and he went back, although he was afraid of the temper of his enemies. As soon as he returned to Illinois he was arrested on the charge of treason and of putting Nauvoo under martial law, and together with his brother Hyrum was sent to the jail at Carthage.

Some seventeen hundred men, members of the militia, had gathered at the towns of Carthage and Warsaw, and the enemies of the Mormons urged the governor to march at the head of these troops to Nauvoo. He knew that in the excited state of affairs there was danger that if these troops entered the city they might set it on fire and destroy much property. He therefore ordered all except three companies to disband; with one company he set out to visit the Mormon city, and the other two companies he left to guard the jail at Carthage.

The governor marched to Nauvoo, spoke to the citizens, and, having assured them that he meant no harm to their church, left about sundown on his road back to Carthage. In the meantime, however, events had been happening in the latter place that were to affect the whole history of the Mormons.

The two Smiths, Joseph and Hyrum, with two friends, Willard Richards and John Taylor, were sitting in a large room in the Carthage jail when a number of men, their faces blackened in disguise, came running up the stairway. The door of the room had no lock or bolt, and, as the men inside feared some attack, Hyrum Smith and Richards leaped to the door and shutting it stood with their shoulders against it. The men outside could not force the door open, and began to shoot through it. The two men at the door were driven back, and on the second volley of shot Hyrum Smith was killed. As his brother fell the prophet seized a six shooting revolver that one of their visitors had left on the table, and going to the door opened it a few inches. He snapped each barrel at the men on the stair; three barrels missed fire, but each of the three that exploded wounded a man. As the prophet fired Taylor and Richards stood close beside him, each armed with a hickory cane. When Joseph Smith stopped shooting the enemy fired another volley into the room. Taylor tried to strike down some of the guns that were leveled through the broken door.

"That's right, Brother Taylor, parry them off as well as you can!" cried Joseph Smith. He ran to the window, intending to leap out, but as he jumped two bullets fired through the doorway struck him, and also another aimed from outside the building. As soon as the mob saw that the prophet was killed they scattered, alarmed at what had been done.

The people of Carthage and the neighboring country expected that the Legion of the Mormons would immediately march on them and destroy them. Families fled in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. Most of the people of the near-by town of Warsaw crossed the Mississippi in order to put the river between them and their enemies. In this state of excitement the governor did not know which party to trust, so he rode to the town of Quincy, forty miles away, and at a safe distance from the scene of trouble. But the Mormons made no attempt to avenge the death of their leader; they intended to let the law look after that.

Week by week, however, it grew harder for them to live on friendly terms with the other people of Western Illinois, and more and more troubles arose to sow distrust. The Gentiles, as those who were not Mormons were called, began to charge the Mormons with stealing their horses and cattle, and the state repealed the charter that had been granted to the city of Nauvoo.

During that summer of 1845, the troubles of Nauvoo's people increased. One night in September a meeting of Gentiles at the town of Green Plains was fired on, and many laid the attack to the Mormons. Whether this was true or not, their enemies gathered in force and scoured the country, burning the houses, barns, and crops of the Latter-Day Saints, and driving them from the country behind the walls of Nauvoo. From their city streets the saints rode out to pay their enemies in kind, and so the warfare went on until the governor appointed officers to try to settle the feud. The people, however, wanted the matter settled in only one way. They insisted that the Mormons must leave Illinois. In reply word came from Nauvoo that the Saints would go in the spring, provided that they were not molested, and that the Gentiles would help them to sell or rent their houses and farms, and give them oxen, horses, wagons, dry-goods, and cash in exchange for their property. The Gentile neighbors would not promise to buy the goods the Mormons had for sale, but promised not to interfere with their selling whatever they could. At last the trouble seemed settled. Brigham Young, the new leader of the Mormons, said that the whole church would start for some place beyond the Rocky Mountains in the spring, if they could sell enough goods to make the journey there. So the people of Nauvoo prepared to abandon the buildings of their new flourishing city on the Mississippi, and spent the winter trading their houses for flour, sugar, seeds, tents, wagons, horses, cattle, and whatever else might be needed for the long trip across the plains.

The Mormons now looked forward eagerly to their march to a new home, and many of them traveled through the near-by states, buying horses and mules, and more went to the large towns in the neighborhood to work as laborers and so add to the funds for their journey. The leaders announced that a company of young men would start west in March, and choose a good situation for their new city. There they would build houses, and plant crops which should be ready when the rest of the Mormons arrived. But they knew there was always a chance that the people of the country would attack them, and therefore they sent messengers to the governors of the territories they would cross, asking for protection on the march. On February 10th Brigham Young and a few other men crossed the Mississippi and selected a spot on Sugar Creek as the first camp for the people who were to follow. Young and the twelve elders of the Mormons traveled together, and wherever their camp was pitched that place was given the name of "Camp of Israel."