Copyright 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHAPTER 15

FOUNDING OF ZION

"It was no Garden of the Hesperides upon which the Pioneers gazed upon that memorable July morning," remarks the church historian, Whitney, in a burst of pious rhapsody which Mark Twain would have hailed with delight. The remark contained rather more sound than sense, but such meaning as it does hold is true. Brigham might declare this the right place to stop -- for the obvious reason that he could lead his people no farther; Erastus Snow might indulge in wild hurrahs as he looked down from the hills. But the plain fact was that the Salt Lake Valley, viewed with eyes which had been accustomed to the verdure of Illinois, seemed a gray, desolate waste, parching under a midsummer sun. At the foothills was rich grass; on the banks of the few and slender streams was a promising growth of trees. The sky above was that deep, glorious, vital, shimmering blue which only the western mountain-lands can show; a blue varying from palest turquoise to deepest azure, and always with a warm, living quality which the skies of moister lands never possess. The mountains that rimmed this basin were as splendid then as now; and then as now the great lake lay like a changeful mirror in the sun. But instead of the fertile fields, prosperous farms, rich orchards, and avenues of trees that the valley holds to-day, the chief feature was the sombre sage growing out of an ashen soil.

"Weak and weary as I am, I would rather go a thousand miles farther than remain in such a forsaken place as this," declared Harriet Young, wife of Brigham's brother Lorenzo, and mother of his own present spouse. She saw the place as it was. Her brother-in-law-son-in-law-relationships are apt to be a bit complicated in Mormon households -- saw the place as he hoped to make it; and he knew, moreover, that Mormon resources were not equal to moving on to the next place where settlement was known to be possible.

Brigham arrived in the valley to find several acres already planted to crops. The pioneers began ploughing on City Creek July 23, the day after their arrival, but they found the work very different from what they had known it on the moist prairies of the Mississippi valley. Several ploughs were broken in the hard, sun-baked soil, and then some genius suggested flooding it with water from the creek. A rude dam, such as boys use to make a "swimming-hole," was thrown across City creek, and several acres of the low-lying bottoms were drenched. After that, ploughing went better.

Such were the humble beginnings of American irrigation. So far as known, the Mormons were the first men of English speech to carry water to the soil. They did it in a crude awkward way at first, for such is the manner of early greatness. But they started a system of agriculture which has grown until, today, fifteen million acres in the United States are under irrigation. Rivers have been turned from their courses, streams have been carried across the Continental Divide, artificial lakes have been created back of dams so gigantic as to seem rather like works of nature than upbuildings of man, to bring the life-giving waters to the thirsty earth. Cities are fed from lands whose natural rainfall would scarcely raise a fair crop of sage brush; and thousands of miles of railroads derive their revenue from the products of irrigated fields. When the Mormon of today boasts that his ancestors turned a desert into a garden, and pointed the way in which the aching desolation of the American Sahara might be made to yield sustenance for man, he is treading on safe ground. The boast is true.

The honour of having turned the first furrow in the Salt Lake valley is claimed by several. The honour of planting the first potatoes seems to belong to Wilford Woodruff, already one of the Twelve Apostles, and destined to become president of the church. He had some potatoes which he was saving for seed; and though hungry and thirsty when he reached the newly ploughed field, vowed that he would neither eat nor drink until he had started a crop. Wheat and buckwheat were planted that day, as well as potatoes.

The first company of pioneer Mormons, as already stated, reached the valley on Thursday, July 22, 1847. Brigham did not arrive until Saturday, but Pioneers' Day in Utah falls on the twenty-fourth of the month, rather than on the twenty-second. Not the arrival of the leading company, not even the planting of the first crop, is so significant in the eyes of the Mormon people as the arrival of the pioneer prince and priest, who ruled them with a rod of iron for their good and his own satisfaction.

At religious services next day, Orson Pratt was preacher. His text was from Isaiah "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that pulisheth peace; that bright good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reagents!

"Thy watchman shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion."

Difficult as it may be for the reader to-day to grasp the fact, this learned man and sunburned pioneer held that the words of his text were a prophecy, applying directly and exclusively to the company assembled before him, and their followers who should join in the building of the new City of God.

When Pratt had finished expounding his theme, Brigham addressed a few words to the congregation. He was too weak to stand, and spoke from his armchair, but his words were those of a master. Wilford Woodruff reports that speech as follows

"He told the brethren that they must not work on Sunday; that they would lose five times as much as they. would gain by doing it. None were to hunt or fish on that day, and there should not any man dwell among us who would not observe these rules. They might go and dwell where they please, but should not dwell with us. He also said that no man who came here should buy any land; that he had none to sell; but every man should have his land measured out to him for city and farming purposes. He might till it as he please, but he must be industrious and take care of it."

The confident, complacent despotism of those words has never been surpassed. Brigham's assurance is too great to be called impudence, too great even to be classified under the irregular but expressive title of "nerve." It approaches the sublime. This sick exile at the head of a band of expatriated ragamuffins proceeds to lay down a law for them and for all who should come after them. He does not ask their advice nor seek their consent. He tells them what the law is. He serves notice that he is the czar of the region in which their tents are pitched; and that any who question his authority or break his rules must leave. He assumes not merely rulership of the valley but ownership of its soil, declares himself ready to share that ownership on terms and conditions, but not for money; and announces that he will distribute acres as seemeth good in his sight, and that those who receive land of his favour must till it in such manner as to win his approval.

If anything is more amazing than the colossal assurance of this speech, it is the fact that to all intents and purposes Brigham made it good.

It is worth while, also, to notice Brigham's insistence on Sabbath observance and the utilitarian reason he gave for the same -- that Sunday work could not prosper. The essential Calvinism of the man's nature never showed more clearly than here. Brigham Young was a son of New England, albeit a son whom New England only mentions in a whisper when calling the roll of her great ones. He built an empire and sustained a faith on which New England looks with abhorrence; he extended and perpetuated, though he did not originate, a marriage system of which New England deems it almost a sin to speak. But deep down in his heart, Brigham Young remained a New England Puritan to the day of his death. His was the Puritan's domineering temper, the Puritan's self-righteousness, the Puritan's impatience with other people's sins; and his, likewise, the Puritan's abiding faith in the virtue of work, the advantage of thrift, and the necessity of keeping on the good side of a testy-tempered Providence.

On Monday, July 26, three exploring parties were organized to spy out the land. Brigham told them to search diligently, warning them that they would not find any place so good as the one where the camp was pitched. He was well enough to accompany one of these parties, resting in a carriage. His little prophecy proved correct. On July 28, this party returned, Brigham left his carriage, struck his cane on the ground, and said: "Here will be the temple of our God. Here are the forty acres for the temple. The city can be laid out perfectly square, north and south, east and west." This was not a prophecy, it was an order; and the order was obeyed. The forty acres originally spoken of for the temple block were cut down to ten; but the temple stands where Brigham struck with his cane; and north, south, east, and west, the regular squares of Salt Lake City offer perhaps the most perfect example of checkerboard city architecture in America.

Other parties came in later; but all agreed that the site selected by Brigham was the proper one for their city. They would have yielded to his will in any event; but, as was usually the case, Brigham had made the right decision. While exploring was going on, other pioneers were ploughing and planting, and all in all, eighty-three acres of grain and potatoes were planted within a few days. The season was too late, and the cultivators were too unskilled in the new science of irrigation, to allow any crops to be a success; but at least they raised potatoes that made splendid seed for the next season.

July 29, Captain James Brown came into camp, bringing with him that part of the Mormon battalion which had been left at Pueblo and the Mississippi Mormons who had camped there through the previous winter. Men, women, and children, the newcomers numbered two hundred and forty persons, and brought with them sixty wagons, a hundred horses and mules, and some three hundred head of cattle. The term for which the battalion had enlisted had now expired, and after a stay of some days in camp, Captain Brown went on to California with a small guard, to collect the pay due his soldiers. The men themselves remained in the valley, or took the backward trail to join their families on the road or in Winter Quarters.

Brigham had already decided that a fort was necessary for protection. Indians of the Ute and Shoshone tribes had come to the Mormon camp. Though they seemed good-natured enough, they showed the same thieving propensities as their brethren on the plains, and Brigham had all a New Englander's distrust of the red man. The fort, he decided, should be built in the form of a quadrangle -- in reality a succession of log or adobe cabins, joined end to end, and built around a square. Elder Brannan, who had been for a season in California, advocated adobe, or sun-dried bricks, for construction; but the men from the east preferred logs. Both materials were used. Several members of the company reported themselves as brickmakers; and every full-grown man those days could wing an axe and notch a log for building.

August 2. Orson Pratt began surveying the "city foursquare" while Heber Kimball's team were sent to the canyons to haul down logs for the "fort."

The same day, Ezra T. Benson and "Port " Rockwell, were sent east on horseback to meet the Saints who were following on the pioneer trail. They carried a letter, of which the following is part:

PIONEER CAMP, VALLEY OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE,

August 2, 1847.

To GEN. CHARLES C. RICH AND THE PRESIDENT AND
OFFICERS OF THE EMIGRATING COMPANY.

Dear Brethren:
We have delegated our beloved brother, Ezra T. Benson, and escort, to communicate to you by express the cheering intelligence that we have arrived in the most beautiful valley of the Great Salt Lake; that every soul who left Winter Quarters with us is alive, and almost every one in good health. That portion of the Battalion that was at Pueblo are here with us, together with the Mississippi company that accompanied them, and they are generally well. We number about four hundred souls, and we know of no one but is pleased with the situation. We have commenced the survey of a city this morning . . . Let all the brethren and sisters cheer up their hearts and know assuredly that God has heard and has answered their prayers and ours, and led us to a goodly land, and our souls are satisfied therewith . . .

In behalf of the council,

(Signed) BRIGHAM YOUNG, President.
WILLARD RICHARDS, Clerk.

Either Harriet Young and Ellen Kimball had been converted to a more joyful mood, or their forebodings were disregarded in this message of cheer.

On August 6, Brigham and all Apostles who were with him "renewed their covenants by baptism." Brigham baptised his brethren, confirming them and "resealing upon each his apostleship"; and Heber Kimball, second in authority to Brigham in the Quorum of the Twelve, performed the same office for his chief. Their persons, and therefore their deeds, being resanctified in this manner, they spent the next day in "selecting their inheritances"; or picking out their blocks in the newly surveyed "city." Brigham took two blocks east of the temple, Heber Kimball chose a block north of one of Brigham's, and the other Apostles present picked their locations or had such assigned to them at the will of their omnipotent chief. Further inheritances of farming lands were selected later.

For some days following, there was much earnest work, but little of a character to be noted by the historian. The fort was pushed as fast as the means at the disposal of the pioneers would permit. Men were sent to the lake to boil salt, and returned with a wagonload of the precious stuff which they had shovelled up as from a sand-beach. Orson Pratt took observations to determine the altitude, and computed the temple block to be 4,309 feet above sea-level.

August 16, forty-six members of the battalion and twenty-four pioneers set out on the return journey to Winter Quarters, to join their families. They remeasured the distance with an improved cyclometer, and reckoned it one thousand and thirty-two miles from Winter Quarters on the Missouri to the camp in the valley. The distance by the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha to Salt Lake City is one thousand and thirty-seven miles.

Finally, on August 26, Brigham himself with his Apostles and a company totalling one hundred and eight men, started on the return journey. He felt that he was more needed in Winter Quarters than in tile Salt Lake valley. He had seen the city "laid out," one hundred and thirty-five ten-acre blocks, with streets one hundred and thirty-two feet wide between. He had bestowed on this embryo metropolis the name of Great Salt Lake City, and only one of these many syllables has been dropped from the present title. He left the fort partly done, twenty-nine houses of the quadrangle being completed. Lastly he left advice, and one bit of that advice is worth quoting here: "Build your houses so that you will have plenty of fresh air in them, or some of you will get sick after sleeping in wagons so long."

Such parts of the homeward journey as deal with meetings with the emigrating brethren belong to another chapter. Brigham and his followers reached Winter Quarters October 31. There, five weeks later, December 5, 1847, the First Presidency of the church, discontinued since the murder of Joseph, was reestablished. Brigham Young was made president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards were "sustained" as his counsellors.