Copyright 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHAPTER 16

SIGNS AND MIRACLES

LESS than two hundred persons were left at the little fort in Salt Lake valley, among them the three women who had accompanied the pioneers on their outward march. The little garrison was not wholly dependent on immigration for reinforcements. One white child was born in the valley August 9, daughter of a member of the Mormon battalion and his devoted wife, who had accompanied him on his soldiering, wintered with him at Pueblo, made the long march from that camp to Salt Lake, and arrived in the valley only a few days before her confinement. For some unknown reason, this child's parents wished to honour the Virgin Queen of England as well as the polygamous emperor of the Mormon church; and the unlucky infant was christened "Young Elizabeth Steele." It survived, in spite of such a handicap. Harriet Young, wife of Brigham's brother Lorenzo, presented her husband with another heir shortly after he left the valley on his trip back to Winter Quarters. Other births were chronicled in the camp that winter.

Immigration, however, was the main source of increase; and a party nearly eight times as numerous as the little garrison was already nearing the valley from Winter Quarters. As soon as Brigham and the pioneer squadron had left in April, the remaining leader; began to organize a second and larger troop, which is known in Mormon records as the "first emigration." Like the pioneers, the first emigration formed a gathering camp on the Elkhorn. The leading company of this new emigration left this rendezvous June 18, 1847; the rearguard got away July 4. It was a rather odd coincidence that the death of an empire and the birth of a republic should be recalled in the dates of this one expedition, but no one seems to have noticed it. The rearguard doubtless thought it was setting out for a land of freedom; but assuredly the vanguard had no expectation of meeting a Waterloo.

John Young, brother of Brigham, was commander-in-chief of this expedition. There were five hundred and sixty-six wagons on the march and one thousand five hundred and fifty-three men, women, and children. They had three thousand one hundred oxen and other cattle, and a considerable band of horses, besides sheep, hogs, and chickens. The emigration was divided into four companies of "hundreds," each with a captain at its head. Under each captain of a hundred were two "captains over fifties," and ten or twelve "captains over tens." The naming might be antiquated and biblical; but the organization was practical to the last degree, and proved its value more than once.

There were no great obstacles to surmount in this emigration, though there was a long season of weary toil and considerable hardship. Their road lay plainly before them, with a guide-post planted every ten miles by the brethren who had gone before. The leading company was commanded by Daniel Spencer, a man whose fidelity had been tested in many ways during his membership in the Mormon community. His company, though more exposed than most of the others, had little trouble. Jedediah M. Grant, a comparative newcomer in the church, was in command of the third hundred. He had attained this elevation rather by his fiery zeal for the cause than through any respect for his judgment; and he showed at once the peculiar capacity to attract ill fortune that followed him through his short life. His child died early on the journey; his wife died somewhat later, and her body was carried into the Salt Lake valley for burial; Indians stole twenty or more of his company's horses, and a number of their oxen died on the Sweetwater, either from alkali or through eating the "loco" weed.

There was another cause of disturbance in camp. Parley P. Pratt, an Apostle just returned from a successful mission in England, was supposed to exercise a vague overlordship in the emigration. Pratt promptly got into disputes with the actual commanders, his advice was pretty thoroughly ignored, and matters were proceeding in a sort of armed neutrality when the advance party met Brigham and the Apostles on the Big Sandy, September 3. Brigham heard the story of the march, made up his mind on the matter, and the next day took Pratt in hand, and reduced him to proper submission in short order. There is a strong probability that Brigham's judgment was right and his reprimand fully deserved. But so absolute was his authority, so iron was his rule that not even Pratt has recorded the other side of the case. In his autobiography he tells us: "I was severely reproved and chastened. I no doubt deserved this chastisement; and I humbled myself; acknowledged my faults and errors and begged for forgiveness . . . This school of experience made me more humble and careful in the future, and I think it was the means of making me a wiser and better man ever after."

There can be no doubt as to Pratt's humbleness. As to his improvement in wisdom and other desirable qualities, he was murdered some ten years later as a result of inducing a woman to elope from her husband-by whom she had three children -- and to become Mrs. Pratt No. 9.

The leading company of the first emigration reached the pioneer fort late in September, 1847. The last company trailed in early the following month. October 16, most of the Mormon battalion which had been serving in California arrived in camp. Thirty-two of these, in spite of the late season, continued their march east to Winter Quarters to join their wives and children.

Before starting their return trip, Brigham had organized a "stake of Zion" in the Salt Lake valley, appointing "Father John Smith," uncle of the murdered prophet, as president of the stake. At a conference held October 3, the newcomers "sustained" this selection of the now absent prince, and chose Charles C. Rich and John Young as Father John's advisers. Of civil government, there was as yet no trace; but the ecclesiastical organization, for which Mormonism is now justly famous, was already well developed and rigorously applied.

The pioneers had planted eighty-three acres to divers kinds of fall crops. None of these had matured, though the potatoes thus raised were invaluable fur seed. The returning battalion members from California had brought with them considerable quantities of seed grain, and the first emigration now proceeded to break ground and put in winter crops. Part of the time, according to Pratt, they ploughed and seeded in the snow. This work finished, some of the party trade exploring trips. Captain Brown, coming back with the government pay for members of his battalion, bought an old land grant, forty miles north of Salt Lake City, and started a separate colony of his own. The entire party, except those who followed Captain Brown and another founder of outside settlements, were living in the fort which had been started by the pioneers. The houses now extended clear around the ten-acre block, and connecting stockades had been constructed. A census the next spring showed one thousand six hundred and seventy-one persons on the site of the fort, and four hundred and twenty-three cabins built.

It was a winter of much hardship and more discomfort. The settlers had enough provisions to keep them through the season -- and they had little more. Trade had been opened with Fort Hall; but the Mormons were too poor to be ready purchasers and Fort Hall prices were all but prohibitive. Sugar and coffee retailed at a dollar per pint; calico ran from fifty to seventy-five cents per yard. Unable to pay such prices, the Mormons parched barley to serve as coffee, and made their bread of home-ground, unbolted flour, containing all the bran of the grain. The health fads of a luxurious generation were anticipated by the makeshifts of poverty.

One little incident of the winter does more than pages of statistics to make the privations of these pioneers seem real. Grown people might be content to escape starvation; but even in the pioneer camp of the Salt Lake valley, children retained their just and proper appetite for "goodies." A little girl of eight years had crossed the plains with her parents as part of the first emigration; a little girl who could recall more prosperious times, and who mourned for the tasty sweetmeats that were gone. Out of some store which mothers always retain to the edge of utter starvation, this child's mother baked her a "sweet cake" -- the very name being significant of a cookery in which cakes were not always sweet. It was set in the window to cool, and the girl's mouth watered as she looked at it. But that window opened, not on the sheltered inner corral, but on the plains outside, and a thieving Indian annexed the precious "sweet cake." The little girl of 1848 is well passed her threescore years and ten; but the loss of that cake remains one of the tragedies of her lifetime.

By spring, grave and reverend elders were going barefooted to the fields and digging thistle roots to eke out the supply of provisions. Men, women, and children were toiling to get in a crop; and in the houses, warm weather had brought discomforts from which the mild winter had been free. Confident in the dryness of the climate, the settlers had built their houses with flat roofs, and spring rains and melting snows came through in torrents. Indeed, some adobe houses made by these inexperienced workmen dissolved in the short season of wet weather; and even in the best cabins many a woman held a home-made umbrella over the stove as she cooked, or over the bed as she put the baby to sleep.

Eight hundred and seventy-five acres of grain had been planted, partly in the fall, partly in early spring; and the Saints began to feel that their chief task was to endure till the reaping, when another trial menaced them with utter destruction. Crickets appeared in countless numbers, eating the grain fields bare. They advanced like a devouring army, crossing ditches filled with water, stopping for no obstacle that the pioneers could devise. And then, just when utter despair filled their hearts, the Lord sent another miracle to save the afflicted worshippers. Gulls by thousands came up from the great lake, and fell upon the devouring crickets. They gorged themselves with the insects till their stomachs could hold no more; then vomited the half-digested pests and returned for a fresh meal. To this day, the gull is a sacred bird in Utah, and the story of the foiling of the crickets is one of the most precious legends of the settling of Zion.

Trouble did not cease with the coming of the gulls, but such difficulties as followed were endurable. Grasshoppers devoured a portion of the crop, and Mormon inexperience with irrigation kept them from reaping as full a harvest from the rest of their ground as they would have gained a dozen years later. But on August 10, 1848, the people kept a harvest festival, and made merry in the knowledge that they had wrung a year's living from the desert.