CHAPTER XVI
Free Distribution of Frémont's Reports—Latter Day Saints—Murder of a Prophet—Brigham Young Guides Saints to the Wilderness—The State of Deseret—California the Golden—Massacre at Mountain Meadows—Old Jacob, the Mormon Leatherstocking—Steam on the Lower Colorado—Old Jacob Finds the Crossing of the Fathers—Circumtouring the Grand Canyon—Solitudes of the Colorado—Last of the Wilderness Problems—Powell Solves it by Masterful Courage—The Iron Trail—The End and the Beginning.
The reports Frémont made of his several expeditions were so striking and so important that Congress ordered thousands of copies to be printed for free distribution. They formed the beginning of the long series of invaluable volumes the Government since that day has so wisely and so lavishly published. First to present drawings of new plants and fossils as well as to give accurate details of geography, they serve to mark Frémont as the scientific Pathfinder. Botanical specimens were classified by Torrey; paleontological by Hall, and comment on the excellence of their work is unnecessary. Altogether these expeditions of Frémont began a new period in Wilderness exploration—the period of scientific examination. He has been much criticised, but it was he who broke the way for the numerous Government expeditions which followed and which reflect much credit on the intelligence and generosity of Congress. Few governments have ever fostered the scientific spirit with a better grace or to so full an extent, and Frémont was partly responsible for this commendable attitude. Through his enthusiastic labours the Far West began to be more clearly understood than ever before. He took no pessimistic view of the resources of the Wilderness as Pike and Long had done, but was rather inclined to the other side. It seems notable that he should so commandingly have stepped into the vast field at a moment coincident with the collapse of beaver trapping as a business; an industry which, as we have seen, was responsible for the breaking of all the main trails of the Wilderness, and for searching out every important secret save that of the hidden fury of the Colorado. Not only had the beaver been practically exterminated, but the bison was on the decline.[105] Those beyond the mountains suffered nearly to the point of annihilation in the exceptionally heavy snows of the winter of 1842-43.
The Great Salt Lake, enshrined in the snowy mountains and resembling the Dead Sea of Palestine, strongly appealed to the imagination of a new sect which was to have a great effect on the Wilderness, a sect which in 1830 began its development, and notwithstanding vigorous and often bloody opposition or possibly because of it, augmented steadily its power. Those who adopted this new creed were commonly called Mormons though they designated themselves as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." The cult, like others which have prospered, was originated by a very poor and rather despised individual, Joseph Smith, near Palmyra, New York. By his followers, Smith was believed to possess supernatural powers as a seer and prophet. He had political ambition also, for in 1844, he "published an address to the people of the United States on the powers and policy of the general government and offered himself as a candidate for the office of President." Out of his visions and inspirations grew the now famous Book of Mormon, purporting to relate the history of the original people of the Western World, the Amerinds, or "Indians," descendants by its authority of some of those who were dispersed and lost to history by the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. In Mormon belief it supplements the Holy Bible, which they hold to be the history of the Eastern World as well as the Divinely inspired Word. Thus they have the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Doctrine and Covenants and a book of guidance called Pearl of Great Price. First success was due to Sidney Rigdon.
After a number of migrations in search of the proper spot whereon to found the New Jerusalem, the Mormons were attracted by reports of the Great Salt Lake, lying in Mexican territory, and in some degree duplicating the topography of the Holy Land. Having much difficulty with their neighbours, they were desirous of isolating themselves, and to them the region of the Salt Sea of the Wilderness seemed the promised land. Their Prophet Joseph had been murdered in cold blood, June 27, 1844, in Carthage jail, whither he had been taken from his Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois, having there, on the advice of the Governor, surrendered himself for trial on charges preferred by his opponents. The Mormons resolved then to move bodily to the valley of the American Dead Sea, wild and forbidding though it seemed. A thousand miles of separation from their antagonists, by what was then believed to be irreclaimable desert, was a condition they desired and doubtless they believed that once established on that foreign soil behind a barrier of mountain ranges, they would there be able to develop their institutions unmolested. No mind then foresaw the rapid exploration and settlement of the Wilderness which has taken place.
Brigham Young, the new leader who succeeded Smith, was possessed of unusual executive ability and clear judgment, though with a limited school education. But no amount of book knowledge could have replaced the qualities with which he was born. Possessing such a commander; with a martyred prophet in the background; with "persecution" unlimited; the Mormons were equipped for sectarian as well as for civil progress. Add to all this the suggestion of the Holy Land found in the country of their choice, and the State of Deseret, as they wished to call it, was in a position to appeal strongly to those who were looking for salvation in some new form.[106]
