After a day of rest (May 13) at the Meadows, Fremont pushed to the northeast across the south end of the Great Basin until he reached the Little Salt Lake near Paragonah. Here he left the Old Spanish Trail and cut off to the north along the edge of the desert at the western foot of the mountains. On May 20 he met a band of Ute Indians under the leadership of the well known chief, Walker (Wah-kerr), journeying southward to levy the annual toll upon the California caravan. Fremont says, “They were all mounted, armed with rifles, and use their rifles well.... They were robbers of a higher order than those of the desert. They conducted their depredations with form and under the color of trade and toll for passing through their country. Instead of attacking and killing, they affect to purchase, taking the horses they like and giving something nominal in return.”
Early Mormon Settlement
While trade between California and New Mexico was beating the path of the Old Spanish Trail into a road across southwestern Utah, events elsewhere were leading to the elimination of Spanish influence and the rise of Anglo-Saxon power. The Mexican War ended Spanish domination, but it was the Mormon migrations which were to fill the region with settlements.
In 1847, the Mormons began to move west from the Missouri River to the Great Salt Lake Valley. The precedent of Texas breaking away from Mexico was before them as they traveled across the plains to enter Mexican territory, where they would be free from those who had persecuted them, and where they would be practically isolated from Mexican authority by the barrier of the Grand Canyon. What dreams of empire held their thoughts as they trekked across the plains can only be conjectured.[17]
Outposts, forts, and settlements were scattered throughout the vast area they hoped to dominate. Western Colorado, southwestern Wyoming, southern Idaho, Utah, Nevada, northern Arizona and southern California were all included in their colonization plans. Strategic points throughout this whole vast empire were to be occupied and controlled. The intervening territory would be filled in later with the great number of converts to the faith pouring in from Europe. The transfer of this entire territory to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo exercised a restraining influence upon their ambitions and brought them once more under the hand of the Federal government.
During the first few years of settlement, there was little change in governmental organization and the people were for the most part guided and controlled by their religious leaders. In March, 1849, they set up a provisional government for their proposed State of Deseret.[18] In 1851, however, Congress carved this western empire into territories, paying no attention to the proposed State and designating its heart as the Territory of Utah (named for the dominant Indian nation of the region, the Utes or Utahs). The Mormon dreams were thus dimmed, but they did not finally die until 1858, when Albert Sydney Johnston’s army marched to Utah and completely ended all hopes of an independent political unit. Thereafter, the Mormon attitude gradually changed from one of open opposition to one of conditioned loyalty and the long struggle for statehood began.[19]
It was during the period of expansion and occupation that southwestern Utah was generally explored with a view toward settlement. Late in the fall of 1847, a small party under the leadership of Captain Jefferson Hunt pushed to the Pacific coast to secure provisions and livestock, carrying instructions to the Mormon Battalion members mustered out in California to remain there that winter and not to attempt to come to Salt Lake until Spring.[20] The party followed approximately the route of U. S. Highway 91 from Great Salt Lake to Little Salt Lake, Iron County, where it picked up the Old Spanish Trail and followed it to the coast. Hunt’s men were the first Mormons to travel the route later known as the Mormon Trail. Where they obtained information to guide them is a question, but it is known that the Mormons were acquainted with Fremont’s report of his trip along that route in 1844. There was an important deviation from Fremont’s path, however; they went through Scipio Valley and the pass to the east of the Canyon range of mountains, whereas Fremont had gone on the west side. Further details of this trip are lacking.[21]
The party wintered in California, where negotiations were entered into between Hunt and United States Army officers for raising another battalion of Mormons to garrison posts in California. When Hunt returned to Salt Lake in the spring of 1848, he carried the details with him, but no report of his trip is extant.
On September 17, 1848, while Brigham Young was visiting at Fort Provo, a group of leaders gathered at Hunt’s house in the evening to “converse about the southern country and the prospects of settling it.... Many questions were asked in regard to routes, traveling, locations, incidents, etc., and the prospects before the Saints caused quite a good feeling.”[22]
During the late summer and fall of 1849, hundreds of emigrants on their way to seek gold in California poured into the Salt Lake Valley too late to make the trip westward across the Sierra Nevada Mountains before snow blocked the way. There was little food and the Mormons were not eager to have these people winter with them. The difficulty was solved by the offer of Captain Hunt to pilot them across the southern route.