Those of the Mormons who were left, a few hundreds in number, had built rude breastworks for protection; some of the Gentile army took these, and the rest marched through the corn fields, and entered the city on another side. A battle followed between the Gentiles in the streets and the Mormons in their houses, and lasted an hour before the Gentiles withdrew to their camp in the corn fields.

Peaceful citizens now tried to settle the matter. They arranged that all the Mormons should leave immediately, and promised to try to protect them from any further attacks. So matters stood until May 17th, when the sheriff and his men marched into the city, and found the last of the Mormons waiting to leave by the ferry. The next day they were told to go at once, and to make sure that they did bands of armed men went through the streets, broke into houses, threw what goods were left out of doors and windows, and actually threatened to shoot the people. The few remaining Saints, most of them those who had been too ill to take up the march earlier, were now thoroughly frightened, and before sundown the last one of them had fled across the Mississippi. A few days later this last party, six hundred and forty in number, began the long wearisome journey to the far west, and the empty city of Nauvoo was at last in the hands of the Gentiles.

The object of the Mormons was to find a place where they might be free to live according to their own beliefs. So far they had been continually hunting for what they called their own City of Zion. As they spent that winter of 1846-47 in their camp near Council Bluffs, they tried to decide where they would be safest from persecution. The far west had few settlements as yet, and they were free to take what land they would, but the Mormons wanted a site on which to lay the foundations of a city that should one day be rich and prosperous. They decided to send out a party of explorers, and in April, 1847, one hundred and forty-three men, under command of Brigham Young, with seventy-three wagons filled with food and farm tools, left the headquarters to go still farther west. They journeyed up the north fork of the Platte River, and in the valleys found great herds of buffaloes, so many in number that they had to drive them away before the wagons could pass. Each day the bugle woke the camp about five o'clock in the morning. At seven the journey began. The wagons were driven two abreast by men armed with muskets. They were always prepared for attacks from Indians, but in the whole of their long journey no red men ever disturbed them. Each night the wagons were drawn up in a half-circle on the river bank, and the cattle driven into this shelter. At nine the bugle sent them all to bed. So they made their way over the Uinta range to Emigration Canyon. Down this canyon they moved, and presently came to a terrace from which they saw wide plains, watered by broad rivers, and ahead a great lake filled with little islands. Three days later the company camped on the plain by the bank of one of the streams, and decided that this should be the site of their new city. They held a meeting at which they dedicated the land with religious ceremonies, and at once set to work to lay off fields and start plowing and planting. Some of them visited the lake, which they called the Great Salt Lake, and bathed in its buoyant waters. Day by day more of the pioneers arrived, and by the end of August they had chosen the site of their great temple, built log cabins and adobe huts, and christened the place the "City of the Great Salt Lake." This name was later changed to Salt Lake City.

It took some time for this large body of emigrants to build their homes. Wood was scarce and had to be hauled over bad roads by teams that were still worn out by the long march, therefore many built houses of adobe bricks, and as they did not know how to use this clay the rains and frost caused many of the walls to crumble, and when snow fell the people stretched cloths under their roofs to protect themselves from the dripping bricks. Many families lived for months in their wagons. They would take the top part from the wheels, and setting it on the ground, divide it into small bedrooms. The furniture was of the rudest sort; barrels or chests for tables and chairs, and bunks built into the side of the house for beds. But at last they were free from their enemies in this distant country. Men in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois had hounded them from their settlements, but in this far-off region they had no neighbors except a few pioneer settlers, and wandering bands of Indians, who were glad to trade with them. A steady stream of converts to the Mormon church followed that first trail across the plains. A missionary sent to England brought many men and women from that country to the city on the Great Salt Lake. Brigham Young and the other leaders encouraged their followers above all else to cultivate the land. Most of the Mormons were farmers, and what shops there were dealt only in the necessities of life. Food was a matter of the first importance, and they had to rely entirely upon their own efforts to provide it. Every one was given a piece of land for his house, and most of them had their own farms in the outlying country. When they were sure of their food they began to build their temple and other public buildings, and these, like their streets, were all planned on the lines of a great future city. They first called their territory Deseret, but later changed it to the Indian name of Utah.

Salt Lake City, and the territory of Utah, of which it was the chief settlement, might have remained for years almost unknown to the rest of the United States had not gold been discovered in California in the winter of 1849. The news of untold riches in the land that lay between Utah and the Pacific Ocean brought thousands of fortune hunters across the plains, and many of them traveled by way of Salt Lake City. That rush of men brought trade in its track and served to make the Mormons' capital well known. The quest for gold opened up the lands along the Pacific and helped to tie the far west to the rest of the nation. Soon railroads began to creep into the valleys beyond the Rocky Mountains, and wherever they have gone they have brought men closer together. But in Utah the Mormons were the first settlers, and no one could come and drive them out of their chosen land. At last they had found a city entirely of their own. They had not been allowed to live in Nauvoo, and so they built a new capital. Like all founders of new religions the Mormons had to weather many storms, but after they had passed through cold, hunger, and hardships of many kinds they came to their promised land.

Such is the story of the founding of Salt Lake City, the home of the Mormon people.

[VIII]
THE GOLDEN DAYS OF 'FORTY-NINE

In 1848 California was largely an unexplored region, the home of certain old Spanish missions, with a few seaport towns scattered along the coast. Some pioneers from the East had settled inland after California had been separated from Mexico, and were ranching and farming. One of these pioneers, a well-to-do man named John A. Sutter, had staked out a considerable tract of land near the American River. He built a fort or stockade as headquarters, and made his plans to cultivate the tract. He had a number of men working for him, building a sawmill on the south branch of the American River, about forty miles from his main house. These workmen were in charge of James Wilson Marshall, who intended to have a dry channel serve as the tail-race for the mill, and was widening and deepening it by loosening the earth. At night the water of the stream was allowed to run through this channel, and wash out the gravel and sand. One day early in January, as Marshall was walking along the bank of the race, he noticed some shining yellow flakes in the soil. He thought these flakes might be gold, and gathering some of the earth carefully washed and screened it. In this way he obtained what looked like gold-dust. Early the next morning he went back to the race, and after some searching found a yellow scale larger than the others. He showed this, together with those he had obtained the day before, to some of the workmen, and they helped him to gather about three ounces. Later in the day Marshall went to his employer Sutter, who was at the fort, and there the two men tested the flakes as well as they were able, and reached the conclusion that they were really gold-dust.