Rigdon, who had been formerly a Baptist preacher, was well educated, and was generally employed in obtaining converts and explaining to them the meaning of Smith’s visions and the doctrines of the new religion.
He described Brigham Young, with whom he was also acquainted, as being a person of determined character, with a domineering manner.
When I was at Salt Lake City, in the following December, I had a long interview with that able and astute leader of men.
Within twenty years from the time when he conducted the flight of the Mormons across the deserts from Nauvoo to Utah, he had succeeded in establishing a highly satisfactory condition of good order and prosperity throughout the territories under his government; and controlled, with unquestioned authority, a community consisting of one hundred and forty thousand people.
As I looked at the cliff and the reflection of its shadow in the calm smooth waters of the lake, I recalled to mind a similar scene viewed from the deck of H.M.S. Racer when passing at sunset the promontory of Cape Leucate, in Santa Maura, the classical site of Sappho’s leap. There is a special interest attached to the fate of Winona, for it proves that Indian girls of Dakota birth are capable of higher degrees of sentiment with regard to their marriage, than those believed to exist among other tribes. She was not permitted for some tribal reason to marry the man she had chosen, and preferred death to marriage with the warrior to whom she was assigned by the command of her parents.
The accompanying illustration is drawn from a pencil sketch made by the author near this spot.
“I was greatly surprised,” states Captain Carver, “at beholding an instance of such elevated devotion in so young an Indian, and instead of ridiculing the ceremonies attending it, as I observed my Catholic servant tacitly did, I looked on the prince with a greater degree of respect for these sincere proofs he gave of his piety; and I doubt not, but that his offerings and prayers, were as acceptable to the universal Parent of mankind, as if they had been made with greater pomp, or in a consecrated place.” Travels in North America, pp. 62.