Mormon Literature Sampler:
The First Year in the Valley
Leonard J. Arrington
The manner in which the advance company was organized to prepare
the valley for occupation by the church is of special interest because
of the pattern set for future Mormon colonizing activity. That this
pattern of central planning and collective labor was ideally designed
for the geography and conditions of settlement in the Great Basin was
something which came to be appreciated later: It confirmed to the
Mormons that their way was God's way. But before this was
recognized--indeed, in the first camp meeting held in the Salt Lake
Valley--leaders and followers reached a consensus that they would not
"scatter" their labors--that they would combine and concentrate their
efforts and work cooperatively--that a Kingdom built in any other way
was a fraud--a "Kingdom of the world." As one of the pioneers
expressed it, they formally agreed to put their "'mites' together for
that which is the best for every man, woman and child." In line with
this decision, many of the early sermons were devoted to the theme of
working for the common good and rooting out selfishness.
Consciously, then, but effortlessly--as if by force of habit-the
advance company was divided into cadres or "committees" for work. One
group staked off, plowed, harrowed, and irrigated thirty-five acres of
land, which was planted in potatoes, corn, oats, buckwheat, beans,
turnips, and garden seeds. Another party located a site for a temple
and laid out a city of 135 ten-acre blocks, with the Temple Block in
the center. Each block was divided into eight home lots of an acre and
one-fourth each. The streets--uniformly eight rods wide--ran east-west
and north-south, and were named, starting from the Temple Block, First
East, Second East; First South, Second South; First West, Second West,
and so on. The city was named "Great Salt Lake City, Great Basin,
North America," and names were given to various creeks and streams in
the valley, and to some of the peaks surrounding it. Regulations were
adopted that the sidewalks be twenty feet wide, that the houses be
built twenty feet back from the sidewalks, and that the houses be
constructed of sun-dried, clay adobes, after the manner of the
Spanish. Lots around Temple Block were apportioned to members of the
Quorum of the Twelve (the First Presidency was not selected until
December 1847), and other lots were distributed by lot. One of the
blocks was selected for a fort or stockade of log cabins within which
the pioneers would live until permanent structures could be erected on
the city lots.
A large group was then assigned to build log cabins and a wall
around the fort: "Sixty to hoke, twelve to mould and twenty to put up
walls."25 Within a
month, twenty-nine log houses had been built in the fort, each eight
or nine feet high, sixteen feet long, and fourteen feet wide. A block
was set aside for a public adobe yard, and an adobe wall was
constructed around the three open sides of the fort.
Another committee of the advanced party located timber in a nearby
canyon, constructed a road, extracted logs for the cabins, and dug a
pit for a whipsaw. A boat was made for use in the creeks, a blacksmith
shop was set up, corrals were built, and a community storehouse was
erected. Others were assigned to hunt for wild game, try their luck at
fishing, and extract salt from Great Salt Lake. In eight days the
hunters had been able to bag only "one hare, one badger, one white
wolf, and three sage hens"; the fishing expedition had netted "only
four fish"; and the salt committee had made 125 bushels of "coarse
white salt," and one barrel of "fine white table salt."26
Other parties were sent on "missions": One group to California to
establish contact with members of the church there; another to Fort
Hall, Northwest Territory, to obtain pro-visions--at the rate of
$20.00 per hundred for flour, and ten cents per pound for beef. Still
another group went back on the trail to meet and assist the large
company which had followed the advance party from Winter Quarters.
Religious services were held each Sunday in a man-made shelter of
brush and boughs, called the "Bowery," built on Temple Block by
returning members of the Mormon Battalion. One of the creeks was
dammed to form a pool, and most of the camp members were rebaptized.
This was done, wrote Erastus Snow, "because we had, as it were,
entered a new world, and wished to renew our covenants and commence a
newness of life."27
It was in "free and open discussions" in these services that all
basic decisions were made. The earliest of these was that none should
hunt or fish or work on Sunday. Another placed the government of the
colony, for the next year at least, in the hands of a stake presidency
of three and a high council of twelve. These men were to be appointed
by the members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, with the approval of
the congregation. Other officials included a clerk, watermaster,
surveyor, and marshal. In another decision, the members of the camp
agreed to fence in the city as a guard against livestock, and to
establish a farming area south of the city, called the Big Field,
where common farming practices would be followed.
Finally, in these meetings the group expressed approval of Brigham
Young's proclamations with respect to land ownership and mercantile
policy:
No man will be suffered to cut up his lot and sell a part to
speculate out of his brethren. Each man must keep his lot whole, for
the Lord has given it to us without price....Every man should have his
land measured off to him for city and farming purposes, what he could
till. He might till as he pleased, but he should be industrious and
take care of it.28
We do not intend to have any trade or commerce with the gentile
[non-Mormon] world, for so long as we buy of them we are in a degree
dependent upon them. The Kingdom of God cannot rise independent of the
gentile nations until we produce, manufacture, and make every article
of use, convenience, or necessity among our own people. We shall have
Elders abroad among all nations, and until we can obtain and collect
the raw material for our manufactures it will be their business to
gather in such things as are, or may be, needed. So we shall need no
commerce with the nations. I am determined to cut every thread of this
kind and live free and independent, untrammeled by any of their
detestable customs and practices.29
These tasks being accomplished, and these policies being agreed
upon, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, who had more or less
directed the group during its first month in the valley, left on
August 26 with most of the men to return to Winter Quarters to report
their labors and to prepare the great bulk of the 16,000 persons
located there for migration to the valley in 1848 and succeeding
years. The major party was preceded by a group especially assigned to
hunt for game to sustain them on the return journey.
In September, the main body of emigrants, consisting of some 1540
persons, arrived in the valley to join the remnant of the advance
company. Counting the influx from California and other groups, there
were some 1681 persons who spent the winter of 1847-48 in the Salt
Lake Valley.30 This
large group was organized for public labor by the Salt Lake Stake
Presidency and High Council, a group which constituted what was
referred to as "the municipal council." They were obligated to respect
the authority of the members of the Twelve Apostles, as a kind of
Supreme Court, and they were expected to exercise the government of
the Mormon colony until after the return of Brigham Young and others
in the fall of 1848.
Under the leadership of this ecclesiastical municipal council, two
additional ten-acre blocks were added to the fort and some 450 log
cabins were constructed; the adobe wall around the fort was completed;
an eleven-mile pole and ditch fence was constructed around the city to
control the movement of livestock; and a number of roads and bridges
were built. A Big Field of some 5133 acres of farming land was "taken
up" and prepared for planting. Some 872 acres of the field were
planted in winter wheat. When Captain James Brown came from California
with $5000 in Mormon Battalion pay, the Council appointed a group of
persons to take some of the money to California to purchase "cows,
mules, mares, wheat, and seeds of different kinds."31
They returned in the spring with 200 cows (less forty lost in Nevada),
purchased at $6.00 per head, and with grain and fruit cuttings of
various kinds. The Council also appointed Captain Brown to use $1950
of the money in buying the Miles Goodyear ranch and trading post in
Weber Valley.32 This
purchase removed a possible obstacle to the settlement of that large
and productive area.
This "public labor" was largely accomplished through the tens,
fifties, and hundreds which had been organized for crossing the
Plains. The organization is illustrated by this notation in the
church's Journal History for November 28, 1847:
It was decided that Pres. John Smith and his Counselors should
locate a road east of the fort and also one south, and build a bridge
over the third creek from City Creek, and call on his hundred to do
the necessary labor. Pres. Roundy and his Counselors were appointed to
locate a road to the north canyon, and call on his hundred to work it.33
The High Council also allocated and regulated economic rights and
privileges. Charles Crismon was asked to build immediately a small
gristmill (with no bolt) on City Creek. He was to be "sustained" with
"labor, good pay and as much grain as the people could be persuaded to
spare."34 When the
mill began to operate in November, the stake presidency and High
Council took under advisement "the regulation of the price of grinding
and all things worthy of note," and on December 2 decided "that Bro.
Charles Crismon be allowed twenty cents per bushel for grinding and
that he keep an account of the number of bushels, who the grinding was
done for and the time occupied in grinding, and if the payment agreed
upon did not suffice, then the Council would reconsider the matter."35
Later, John Neff was authorized to erect "a good flouting mill" before
the next harvest.36
Four sawmills were built or authorized; a carding mill frame was
erected; and a water-powered threshing machine was placed in operation
that would thresh and clean 200 bushels per day. Regulations were
adopted with respect to the conservation of wood and timber: No person
was allowed to build with logs without permission; no person was
entitled to cut more than he could use quickly; and only dead timber
could be used as fuel.37
While the colony seems to have been admirably organized to
accomplish as much as possible with the limited supply of labor and
equipment, it would appear that, under the circumstances, too many
persons had been allowed to join the second contingent which left
Winter Quarters in 1847. A food problem emerged. In the fall, the
cattle and horses had gotten into the planted acreage and destroyed
everything but the potatoes. Later in the winter, the Indians, wolves,
and other "destroyers" and "wasters" made away with much of the
livestock. A special committee was appointed by the High Council "to
act in behalf of the destitute and to receive donations, buy, sell,
exchange and distribute, according to circumstances, for that
purpose."38 Controls
were placed on the prices of necessities,39
and a voluntary rationing system was instituted limiting each person
to about one-half pound of flour per day.40
The people tried eating crows, thistle tops, bark, roots, and Sego
Lily bulbs-anything that might offer nutriment or fill the empty
stomach. One or two persons were poisoned by eating wild parsnip
roots.41 A typical
experience was that of Priddy Meeks, who had been through many trials
in his life and found this to be one of the worst:
My family went several months without a satisfying meal of
victuals. I went sometimes a mile up Jordan to a patch of wild roses
to get the berries to eat which I would eat as rapidly as a hog, stems
and all. I shot hawks and crows and they ate well. I would go and
search the mire holes and find cattle dead and fleece off what meat I
could and eat it. We used wolf meat, which I thought was good. I made
some wooden spades to dig seagoes [Sego Lily] with, but we could not
supply our wants.
We had to exert ourselves to get something to eat. I would take
a grubbing-hoe and a sack and start by sunrise in the morning and go,
I thought six miles before coming to where the thistle roots grew, and
in time to get home I would have a bushel and sometimes more thistle
roots. And we would eat them raw. 1 would dig until I grew weak and
faint and sit down and eat a root, and then begin again. I continued
this until the roots began to fail.42
All looked forward to the spring harvest. But when the winter wheat
and garden vegetables began to show their heads, late frosts injured a
considerable proportion. And then, in May and June, hordes of hungry
crickets moved upon the land and seemed certain to rob the settlers of
the last vestige of food.
Wingless, dumpy, black, swollen-headed, with bulging eyes in
cases like goggles, mounted upon legs of steel wire and clock-spring,
and with a general personal appearance that justified the Mormons in
comparing him to a cross of the spider on the buffalo, the Deseret
cricket comes down from the mountains at a certain season of the year,
in voracious and desolating myriads. It was just at this season, that
the first crops of the new settlers were in the full glory of their
youthful green. The assailants could not be repulsed. The Mormons,
after their fashion, prayed and fought, and fought and prayed, but to
no purpose. The "Black Philistines" mowed their way even with the
ground, leaving it as if touched with an acid or burnt by fire.43
Men and women alike fought the crickets with sticks, shovels, and
brooms, with gunny sacks and trenches, but with little avail.
Finally, just before the entire crop had been eaten clean, came the
announcement from the president of the High Council: "Brethren, we do
not want you to part with your wagons and teams for we might need
them," intimating that they were considering moving on to California
or some other gathering place. But at the moment this announcement was
being delivered, seagulls providentially moved in and began to devour
the crickets, "sweeping them up as they went along." "I guess," wrote
Priddy Meeks, "this circumstance changed our feeling considerable for
the better."44
Nevertheless, the combination of disasters discouraged many. One of
the settlers, a brother of Brigham Young, wanted to send an express to
Brigham, telling him not to bring any more people to the valley, for
"they would all starve to death." John Neff, who was building a large
gristmill, "left off...for a while, as many expected there would be no
grain to grind."45 A
few of the colonists went on to California and others returned to the
Missouri Valley. Still others went to meet the incoming migration from
Winter Quarters. When a partial harvest was reaped in July and August,
the pioneers were so grateful for a substitute for green peas, roots,
and berries that they held a special Thanksgiving "feast," with
prayer, music, dancing, firing of cannon, and shouts of Hosannah.
*Since this excerpt begins on page 45 of Arrington's Great Basin
Kingdom, the first footnote shown here is number 25 in that
chapter; remaining footnotes follow those in the excerpt both
chronologically and verbatim.
**Leonard J. Arrington (1917- ), a prominent figure in scholarship
of the American West, is historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints and director of the Charles Redd Center for Western
Studies at Brigham Young University, where he holds the Redd Chair in
Western American history. He has published many articles in
professional magazines, has been editor of The Western Historical
Quarterly, has served on the board of editors of Pacific
Historical Review, has been advisory editor to Dialogue and
a contributing editor to the Improvement Era and the Ensign,
and is presently on the board of editors of Arizona and the West.
His books include Great Basin Kingdom, a portion of which is
represented here, Beet Sugar in the West, and Changing
Economic Structure of the West, 1850-1950. A native of Twin Falls,
Idaho, Dr. Arrington has been a professor of economics, a visiting
professor of history, and a Fulbright Scholar.
25. JH (Journal History of the Church), August 8, 1847.
26. HBY {History of Brigham Young), 1847, pp. 11-13.
27. Erastus Snow, "From Nauvoo to Salt Lake...,"Improvement Era,
XV (1912), 551, entry for August 8, 1847.
28. William Clayton's Journal, p. 326, entry for July 28,
1847; Journal of Wilford Woodruff, July 25, 1847, cited in Roberts,
Comprehensive History, III, 269; "Norton Jacob's Record," July 25,
1847. These words were similar to Brigham Young's instructions of
September 9, 1847: "We have no land to sell to the Saints in the Great
Basin, but you are entitled to as much as you can till, or as you need
for your support, providing you pay the surveyor for his services,
while he is laboring for you;...none of you have any land to buy or
sell more than ourselves; for the inheritance is of the Lord, and we
are his servants, to see that everyone has his portion in due season."
JH, September 9, 1847.
29. Remarks of July 28, 1847, as reported in "Norton Jacob's
Record," p. 74.
30. Fox, "The Mormon Land System," pp. 159-161; JH, March 6, 1848.
31. HBY, 1847, p. 17; JH, November 16, 1847. Actually, the
committee left before Captain Brown arrived with the money, but they
seem to have spent Mormon Battalion money.
32. JH, November 9, 20, 1847, March 6, 1848.
33. JH, November 28, 1847. On October 17, 1847, Albert Carrington
was appointed "to foot up papers of public work." JH, that date.
34. JH, October 13, 1847.
35. JH, November 28, December 1, 2, 1847. In September 1848
Crimson's toll was legally raised from one-sixteenth to one-tenth of
the grain. JH, September 30, 1848.
36. JH, March 6, May 15, 1848.
37. Roberts, Comprehensive History, III, 269.
38. HBY, 1848, p. 22; JH, March 27, 1848.
39. The genesis of price control in 1847-1848 is described by Levi
Jackman, a member of the High Council, in his journal at BYU, as
follows: "January 1848....It having cost the people so much to fetch
provisions so far, some appeared to be disposed to make the
necessities of the destitute their opportunity, and sold things I thot,
rather high. I feared that such a principle if not checked might prove
our destruction. I went to Father John Smith who was then the
President of the place and recommended that prices should be set by
the council for labor, provisions, etc. The proposition was opposed
but it was finally carried into effect and the results were good. Some
few were not pleased with the arrangement but it changed the drift of
things much for the better. The most of the people were desirous to do
right and were kind and did all they could to help the poor and needy
and to build up the Kingdom of God on the earth. I had expected that
we had left the thieves behind, but in this I was disappointed for we
found they were in this place. But as fast as they were detected they
were dealt with according to law."
40. "There was a little corn cracker mill on City Creek, built by
Charles Crismon; there was no smutter and no bolt to this mill; we
took some of our wheat, there was some smut in it, and some of the
leaves and seeds of sunflowers; the result was a little of the worst
flour I ever saw." Journal of Jesse N. Smith, p. 14.
41. George Q. Cannon, "History of the Church," Juvenile
Instructor, VIII (1873), 203.
42. "Journal of Priddy Meeks," p. 164.
43. Thomas L. Kane, The Mormons (Philadelphia, 1850), p. 66.
44. "Journal of Priddy Meeks," p. 164; HBY, 1848, p. 30. As a
result of this "miracle" the seagull came to be held in sacred
remembrance in Utah. Laws were enacted prohibiting anyone from killing
them. Later a statue was erected on Temple Block in their honor.
Finally, in this century, the state legislature officially named the
seagull to be the state bird of Utah.
45. HBY. 1848, p. 30.
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