FROM THE SALT LAKE. -- Messrs. J. H. Kincaid and J. H. Bayley arrived in this place yesterday morning direct from the Salt Lake. They left on the 8th of April and made the trip through in 28 traveling days. They crossed what is called the Second Mountain on the 10th of April, on snow about 20 feet deep. They bring no news of interest from the plains. The first train of emigrants was met about 30 miles beyond Fort Kearney. The grass was fine and the stock looked well... Mr. Kincaid, we learn, brought in near $80,000 in gold dust and coin.

There are but few emigrants on the road. They met about 300 wagons, three fourths of which were destined for Oregon. These gentlemen crossed the Missouri at Table Creek, and did not, we suppose, meet the largest number of emigrants. From the best information we can get, about 3000 persons will cross the plains for Oregon and California.


Notes: (forthcoming)

For the Gazette.

THE  INDIANS  AND  THE  MORMONS.

Copy of a letter recently addressed by Gen. Thos. Jefferson Sutherland to the Hon. Luke Lea, Commissioner of Indian affairs.

                                                                   Council Bluff, Nebraska Territory.
                                                                    May 22, 1851.
Hon. Luke Lea, Com'r of Indian Affairs.

Sir: Conceiving, as I do, that there are matters transpiring in this remote section of our country which are calculated to involve with opprobium the character of a considerable section of people, and to invalidate the principles of justice embraced in the administration of the laws of the United States as they relate to the remnants of Indian tribes located on this frontier, I beg leave communicate the facts stated in this manuscript for the information of the Government at Washington.

The lands on this (the westerly) shore of the Missouri river from the mouth of the Nebraska or Platte northerly for the distance of one hundred miles, as I suppose it to be known to you, sir, is claimed by a tribe of Indians called the Omaha, whose numbers are variously estimated from six hundred to one thousand. These are located in a village consisting of about sixty huts, (some constructed of poles stuck in the ground, lashed together at the top, and covered with buffalo hides -- others built of sod,) situated five or six miles westerly from this place, and ten or fifteen miles from the mouth of the Nebraska.

For agricultural purposes, the lands of the Omaha tribe of Indians are equal to any in the world; but the Indians are ignorant of the science of husbandry, and they are no ways inclined to be therein instructed; and their country is entirely ruined as a hunting ground. The females of the tribe annually plant from forty to sixty acres with corn, the produce of which is all they raise; and the tribe own[s] from 50 to 75 small inferior horses; and in addition to these they have no animals either of hair or feathers.

The westerly shores of the Missouri river, (below this place,) extending between the mouth of the Nebraska river and the upper Nemha, is claimed by the Otoe and Missouria Indians, whose numbers are variously estimated from 500 to 1000; and the condition of these, who have no village, and who are as wandering in their habits as Arabs, is even worse than that of the Omahas. The lands of the Otoe and Missouria Indians are equal to any for agriculture, but they make little or no use of them for such purposes.

Through the Territories of the Otoe and Missouria Indians the United States forces stationed at Fort Kearney are monthly and weekly passing their trains; and on the government trail leading through the country of those Indians there have been many and large companies of emigrants, bound for Utah, California and Oregon, annually travelling; and all these have been permitted peaceably and unmolested to pass through their country, though it was apparent to the Indians that the emigrants were depredating upon their rights and despoiling their country of its game.

On the North side of the Nebraska river through the territories of the Omahas leads the principal trail for emigrants to the plains, over which the emigration of this present season for Utah and the Pacific coast, has been variously estimated from 3,000 to 10,000 persons; and these emigrants pass through the Indian country at the breeding time for game, and destroy the last lone animals of foot and wing, and yet they have met with neither opposition nor molestation by these Indians.

In 1846, several thousand people calling themselves Latter-Day-Saints, or Mormons, entered the country of the Omahas and made a settlement on this shore of the Missouri river, distant about twenty-five miles above the place from which I date my present communication, and there continued for more than a year, committing depredations upon the property and possessions of the Indians, and despoiling their country of timber -- and destroying its game, which was the main reliance of the Indians for subsistence.

Thus have the Omaha, Otoe, and Missouria Indians, (tribes claiming lands on the west shore of the Missouri river and inhabiting this neighborhood,) had their country ruined as a hunting ground, and their principal means of support taken from them by a section of the people of the United States -- and the Otoes and the Missourias receiving only a small annuity from the Government at Washington, and the Omahas none at all, these remnants of tribes now exist in a condition of wretchedness and destitution close upon actual starvation; and then their traffics with the white population on the opposite shore, with whom they exchange their moccasins and beadwork, and a few skins, for food and other necessaries, is now important to their existence

But, sir, this privilege of intercourse and traffic with the people on the opposite shore of the Missouri, the right of which is so justly due the Omaha, Otoe and Missouria Indians, is now denied by the principal chief of a section of people, claiming to number several thousand souls, (comprised of American citizens with a very considerable portion of aliens,) calling themselves Latter-Day-Saints or Mormons, who have entered upon the unsurveyed public lands of the United States embraced in the western limits of the State of Iowa, known as the Pottawatamie purchase, and which chief is now engaged, with his principal sub-chiefs, in parcelling out the said tract of unsurveyed public lands. in large parcels, to their followers, native and alien, to the exclusion of the honest and industrious citizens of the United States, who are not members of their associations and clubs.

The Mormon principal chief to whom I refer is Orson Hyde, who claims to be an elder and a high-priest of the Church of Latter-Day-Saints, a secular judge among those professing the faith of Mormonism, (and now occupying the unsurveyed Government lands aforesaid,) and President of the Twelve Apostles, late satelites of Jo. Smith, (and now of Brigham Young, Governor of the Territory of Utah,) and who is in fact the Alpha of all the Mormons on this side of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. This man is also the proprietor and publisher of a newspaper, called the Frontier Guardian, printed at Kanesville, (within the said Pottawatamie purchase,) district, on the opposite shore of the Missouri river, about nine miles from the [crossing?] which newspaper is the only and exclusive newspaper publication printed within the western section of the State of Iowa, comprising forty or fifty counties.

The Frontier Guardian is an official gazette for the Mormon government existing on the opposite shore of the Missouri river, of which this Orson Hyde is the chief, and of which newspaper he is the controlling editor and principal writer; as well as proprietor and publisher, and in a number of the paper published under date of May 16, 1851, he put forth an article entitled "Indian Depredations Again," of which the following is a copy; and to the matters expressed therein I respectfully ask your attention, and beg you will lay the same before the Secretary of the Interior, to the end that the article may have, together with the facts I herewith suggest, due consideration by the Government at Washington.

"Indian Depredations Again. -- ... view original article

Within the three months last past I have travelled much within the territories of the Otoe and Missouria Indians, and I have visited the Omaha village twice, and I have recently travelled over their entire country, accompanied only by a single companion. At the Otoe's village the Indians were kind and respectful; and when I have met them, as I did many, in the remote sections of their country, kindness and courtesy on their part has never been wanting and the like was the deportment of the Otoes and Missourias; and in no instance have I, while within the Indian Territory, been subject to insult or injury by any member of the tribes; and, sir, on the very day of the publication of the preceding article by the Mormon chief, from whose pen it emanated, there were several thousand cattle belonging to emigrants bound for Oregon and California undisturbedly feeding upon the lands of the Omaha, Otoe and Missouria Indians; and large drives of cattle belonging to the Mormons under the government and immediate direction of this Orson Hyde, have since grazed on the lands of these Indians and driven through their territories.

Again, sir; persons wishing to trade with these Indians are subject to no restraint or hindrance from entering their territories, even for the purpose of selling to them intoxicating liquors; the provisions of the Indian Bill of 1846, being a dead law here; and, therefore, it is not for the restriction of any privilege of the white population that the poor Indians are to be Lynched and driven from the opposite side of the river, where they have been compelled to go for food, in consequence of the robbery of their resources to which they have been subjected by persons acting under the direction of these same Mormon leaders.

Having in mind the fact that this Orson Hyde, who commands the Lynching of the poor Indians, upon suspicion of commission of acts, of which white men, calling themselves Saints, are as likely to have been guilty, and who requires them to be beaten with rods, without distinguishing those who may have justly been subject to suspicion from those who can not, and merely because these persons are Indians, is an elder of the Saints and a high-priest of the Church of Mormon, the want of justice and Christian charity which pervades the entire of this sect of Latter-Day-Saints will be seen in full demonstration. As for the "poor widows," the slaughter of whose cows by the Indians is set up as a justification for the outrages commanded to be inflicted upon these poor Indians, there are comparatively none in the country, (if my information be sufficient, and I believe it is,) except that those women, whose libidinous habits carried on under the sanction and authority of the canons of the Church of Latter-Day-Saints have separated them from their husbands, may be regarded as such; and as for the charge that "several poor men" have had their "entire teams butchered by the red skins," I pronounce it false; and I aver that there has been no case of the butchering by Indians of any man's team, poor or rich, since the opening of the present season. But, sir, if these Mormon "depredations" upon the Indians be not restrained and prohibited for the future, they will stand before the civilized and christianized people of this continent, and the whole world, as justification for greater retaliatory "depredations" than those complained of by the Mormon chief -- and the "butchering" of peaceable and innocent men, may be apprehended, (instead of cows and oxen,) who shall be regarded as enemies by these Indians, because they have the like complexion and speak the same language that is used by these man-whipping, lynching Mormons.

Your predecessor, sir, in his annual report of 1849, included a paragraph as follows: "I would beg leave to say that there is encouraging grounds for the belief that a large share of success will, in the end, crown the philanthropic efforts of individuals to civilize and to christianize the Indian tribes." Then, I submit, sir, if this treatment of the Indians on this frontier, (alleged to have been recommended by the Government Agents,) resolved upon and commanded by the Mormon chief, who with his sub-chiefs and followers, have usurped the control of the entire Pottawatamie purchase, comprising land[s] which stretch along the shore on the opposite side, breasting the territories of several of the Indian tribes residing on this side of the river, is not calculated to remove the grounds of encouragement, heretofore entertained by your Department, that success would crown "the philanthropic efforts of the Government" to "civilize and christianize the Indians;" and to render the whole scheme of the Government one of impracticability, by planting in the minds of the savages a disgust for civilization and Christianity, which must be the result of the horrid practices of violence and injustice inflicted upon them by the resolve and command of the leaders of a sect of people who claim to be Christians and civilized?
                    I have the honor to be, sir,
                          Your very obedient servant,
                                Th. Jefferson Sutherland.

---

==> The reader will find on the first page of this sheet a copy of a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, by General Sutherland, to which we invite attention. The course adopted by the [leading] Mormons to be pursued towards the Indians is most unseemly for SAINTS, and satisfies us that these Latter-Day-Saints [are] but a degenerate race when compared to the saints of former days. The [exceptions] of Gen. S. to their course are well [-----], and the arguments which he has [s-------] against them will not be broken down [by] any explanations which can be made...

Notes: (forthcoming)

SALT LAKE MAIL. -- This mail under the charge of Mr. W. H. Arnall, reached here on the 20th inst., having left Salt Lake City on the 1st of April. Mr. A. left this place on the 1st of December in charge of the mail and until his return was generally supposed to have perished in the mountains during the winter. But he succeeded in getting through, performing one of the most perilous trips ever accomplished by a human being and reached Salt Lake City on the 7th of March. At one time he lay near the Pacific Spring for seven weeks where it snowed upon him for seventeen successive days and nights. Four of his mules froze to death, but by close attention he succeeded in keeping alive the remaining three he had with him. For long distances, he and the two men with him were compelled to open roads through snow five feet deep for the mules to travel in.

Groceries at Salt Lake were very scarce and commanding high prices. Sugar and coffee were selling at $1 per pound; whiskey at $8 per pint. The prospect for those traders who should get in first, was very flattering.   Independence Messenger.


Notes: (forthcoming)

FROM THE SALT LAKE. -- The mail from Salt Lake arrived at Independence on the 27th ult., having left on the 1st of June. Business in the Valley was remarkably dull on account of the great scarcity of money. It is thought that the merchants trading there will do a bad business this season, for although there is a great demand for goods, there are no funds with which to purchase.

The train of Phelps and Chiles was met twenty-five miles this side of Salt Lake, being a long way in advance of any other traders. Met Cogswell two hundred miles this side of Fort Bridger, getting on well; on the 8th and 9th met Holliday & Warner's train near Independence Rock; on the 11th, met Livingston & Kincaid's train on La Boute river; met two trains of Holliday & Co. at Kearney; met Waldo & McCoy's train under Charge of Cummings, at Little Blue, on the 22d.

From Green River on the, met large numbers of emigrants, almost daily, bound principally for Oregon, but some for California. The emigrants were getting on remarkably well -- health good and stock in fine order.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORE MORMON REVELATIONS. -- The Mormon bishop, Bladden [sic - Gladden Bishop?], of Ohio, say he has lately had a revelation, announcing his duty to form an alliance with Queen Victoria, -- whether matrimonial or not he does not say. The revelation too, he says, set him up above all other prophets. This causes Orson Hyde, of Iowa, to denounce the bishop's "unfounded pretensions," as Hyde says his chamber was lately illuminated at night, and a manuscript book presented to him warning him against false teachers, pseudo-prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing. These Mormons are certainly favored very highly with celestial communications beyond all others at this day. It isn't fair. -- Balt. Sun.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMON SAINTS ON THEIR TRAVELS. -- We see by the Deseret News, that a party of the saints of the nineteenth century, headed by Brigham Young, have lately been on a visit to the south settlements of Utah, with a view also to the exploration of the valley of the Severe... The journal of President Young, is rather graphic in style, and possesses much of that wild interest which attaches to the narratives of life in a new country. He thus describes the first day's journey:

"The camp took up the line of march in order, passed over a small valley without any water, but good feed, then over a rocky ridge into Jewab valley, which is regular in form; has several springs in it, amongst them one named by the Indians the 'Punjun spring,' which their traditions regard as bottomless, and in the evening they report the slight wailing of an infant is often heard to proceed from it. The west side of the valley is nearly destitute of timber; on the east, old Mount Nebo raises his hoary head, covered with snow; in the ravines of the mountain large timber is seen. Salt creek runs through pretty near the centre of the valley. We entered Salt creek kanyon at half past 4 p. m., which we crossed five times; its banks are steep; the stream is rapid and muddy; on its sides are willows and brush and many cedars interspersed to beautify the landscape, -- halting for the night, spent the evening in singing and prayer. -- Near this place on the west bank is a deep cave, exposing to view a mountain of salt, where samples were gathered. About four miles further up the creek, is a salt spring, where several of the brethren went to view, and returned with over half a bushel of pure salt."

No event of much account occurred during the two days following, but on the morning of the third the company came in sight of Manti city, where Presidents Young and Kimball made an address:

"In the afternoon the assembly was addressed by W. Woodruff, E. T. Benson, and J. M. Grant; and in the evening both places were occupied by the saints in singing, prayer, and dancing, until about ten o'clock, when all retired to their homes highly gratified with the manner in which the day had been spent."...

On the 24th, the party returned to the Salt Lake City. The brethren assembled in crowds and escorted President Young to his house, where he blest the people, a performance which was greeted with multitudinous applause.


Note: For the entire Thomas Bullock account of President Young's trip to the south of Utah Territory, see pages 282-84 of the first volume of the Deseret News, (issue of June 28, 1851).

CALUMNIES AGAINST THE SAINTS. -- The St. Louis Union says: We find in the Oregon Spectator of June 12th, the following statement from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Goodal, who has arrived in Oregon at the head of a party of emigrants from the States. They were forced to winter among the Mormons, whose morality and patriotism he pretendes with impious and sacrilegious presumption to impeach. We call attention of brother Hyde to this matter, and solicit from him a clearing up of the whole case.

We learn from the same source, that notwothstanding the prevalence of the alleged peccadilloes among the brethren, they continued animated with an all-conquering zeal for proslytism, and are about to send missionaries to South America, Oregon and California.

Mr. Goodal says:

"The number of our company is 150; of them 48 are men, 19 women and the rest children, included in ten families. Being compelled to winter among the Mormons, it gave us an opportunity of becoming acquainted with their manners and customs. Concubinage, polygamy, and incest are common among them. It is not at all uncommon for a man to take for his wives a mother and a daughter at the same time. Polygamy is publicly advocated by the leaders. Brigham Young, according to the testimony of the Mormons themselves, has over 80 wives.

Between 800 and 1000 persons, immigrants, wintered in the Salt Lake valley -- most of them were bound for California. They all suffered more or less of injustice and wrongs from the Mormons. The liberty of speech was denied them. Their lives were threatened by the heads of the church, if they said aught against the religion or practices of the Mormons. The most unjust measures were resorted to, to rob the immigrants of their money. One man ventured to say "that if a man in the States had as many wives as Young, he would be called a wicked man," was immediately arrested and fined $50 and the costs.

To cap the climax, an unjust and cruel tax was imposed upon them. After they had left their settlement, they were followed 60 miles from their city by the State Marshal, with power to assess their property and collect tax at the same time -- authorized to seize their teams if the tax was not promptly paid. This tax was 2 per cent. on every kind of property they possessed -- even to the beds -- valued at the prices put upon such property in Salt lake valley. The immigrants had to pay from $15, up to as high as $50 and $60 each. This, considering the circumstances in which they were placed, they felt severely.

The Mormons are opposed to the Government of the United States -- speak against it publicly and privately, and predict its overthrow.


Notes: (forthcoming)

ABOUT THE MORMONS. -- The following extract of a letter, which was handed to us by a friend, describes a most deplorable state of things at Salt Lake -- so much so, that it might be difficult to believe some portions of the account, were it not for the unimpeachable character of the gentleman who penned it. He is well known to nearly all of our citizens as the occupant of a respectable station in the United States Army. Considering the writer, and the circumstances under which the letter was written, we are not permitted even to suppose that its statements are exaggerated. We omit some passages which treat of domestic relations among the Mormons and the horrid licentiousness which prevails in them, not because we discreit them, but because [we] would not shock the sensibilities of our readers with the repulsive picture they present.

The portions which refer to the expressions and doings of Governor Young, are worthy of especial attention. We repeat that the letter is from a wholly reliable gentleman who resides in this city, and bears date: -- St. Louis Intelligencer.

                          Carson Valley, East Sierra de Nevada,
                          En Route for California, May 21, 1851.
Dear Sir -- My fine and favorite horse is gone -- and but two yoke and a half of cattle were all I had to leave Salt Lake with. When at that sink of perdition it was my expectation to write you and others of our friends, as we wished to write by the first safe private opportunity that would offer itself; but none such having been presented, our expectation of course was not gratified. It is true, I wrote to D. and M., but then I was constrained by the practice of the Mormons to destroy letters containing any thing against themselves, from communicating aught in relation to my own or the grievances of other [visitors]. Now that my family is out of their power, I may venture to speak of that [accursed] and pestilential people. And would to God that I could make myself be heard throughout my country and impress my countrymen the truth in relation to Mormonism, vile, criminal and treasonable as it insolently displays itself in the boasted security of its mountain-walled home. But no -- no one would be believed were he to communicate the truth concerning the Mormons. Truly, were an angel from heaven to tell you of the wicked practices and the base, unprovoked crimes of this people, you would discredit the report. Such is the enormity of their conduct, that in a series of resolutions drawn up by a Presbyterian clergyman, and signed by the emigrants, 'the truth, and the whole truth' was designedly avoided, lest it would be too shocking for belief.

It is hazarding nothing in saying that never, by savage horde or lawless banditti, was there exhibited such base turpitude of heart and such indiscriminate vindictiveness of purpose, as are to be seen in the conduct of the Mormons of Salt Lake Valley. With them. human feeling has been debased to worse than beastly passion and instinct, and then all sympathy is consumed by, or absorbed in lust, while sentiment there finds its lowest degree of degradation. There is no crime but has its full, free justification there, if perpetrated against a Gentile, as they term those who are not Mormons. No matter how good a man's character may be before he becomes a Mormon, and makes common fellowship with them, after he is fairly inducted he is soon made to yield the most guilty obedience to the decrees or orders of the Twelve. All are thus rendered ready and prompt instruments in the perpetration of crime. I had supposed that, like other religious societies, there were sincere persons among them, who, [believing] in justice and virtuous principles could not be made the guilty agents of crime, or commit such offenses as had frequently been charged against them; but from what I have seen and heard, I am firm in the belief that the best of them will not [hesitate] to perform the worst bidding of Brigham Young, their 'Man of God.' Yes, his voice is to them more omnipotent than the voice of God to the Christian. Let but a Gentile incur his displeasure, or that of the Twelve, and soon his bloodhounds, the Danites, are scouring the country in search of their prey; and wo to the Gentile who is known to give the doomed victim protection or assistance. Far different is it when emigrants first enter the valley -- then all is kindness and good feeling; but no sooner does winter lock them in, than the hitherto suppressed volcano of their hate and prejudice against American citizens burst forth. Then property is seized and confiscated, the owners thereof deprived of their liberty, loaded like the worst of felons with balls and chains, without the form of a trial, and in most cases without even any known accusation. Many emigrants beside myself heard Brigham Young from the stand declare the most treasonable hostilities against the U. States. He denied the right of jurisdiction on the part of our government, and pledged himself that if a Governor came there and attempted its extension, he would resist it to death! The right of Governorship undisturbed by the authority of the United States, he claimed as vested in himself for life. "Yes," to use his own words, "that was about the time I was elected for." To the citizens, he would say he was not amenable to their government and said, "now as when at Nauvoo, that he defied the combined powers of the United States and all hell." Those of us who were known to speak against Mormonism or abuse the Mormons, he ordered should have their throats cut. To employ his own phraseology, he said, "Yes, cut their damned throats; if you do not I'll send the boys that will; and if they don't, I'll come myself and I'll cut their damned throats; I will slay them, by the spirit of Almighty God!"

From that moment the emigrants became the predestined and proscribed objects of Mormon vengeance. A report was started that I was a reporter for government, and soon my property was seized and myself arrested, and subjected to the insults of one of their prostituted functionaries, without any cause for prosecution, or any charge to plead against. Shortly after five head of my cattle were shot, and I was selected a subject to be salted down in their lake. Five of their assassins took upon themselves the pleasing duty; but I entertained no fear of them; on the contrary, I came out and declared my defiance of them. My whole solicitude was for my family, and every exertion was directed toward getting it out of the valley. Being composed mostly of females, I had just cause to fear that if deprived of a protector, it would never be permitted to leave that sink of perdition -- for no intelligence against Mormonism is permitted to be mailed. Dissenting Mormons and emigrants have told me that they picked up before the post office parts of letters they had deposited to be mailed for the United States, but in which they had expressed themselves too freely for Mormons. In truth, the basest system of espionage prevails that ever was known to exist in the world.

So far as their religion is concerned, I never felt disposed to meddle with it. But it should be known that their teachings here, as they term making known their abominable practices here, are greatly at variance with the preaching of the principles of Mormonism by their missionary knaves throughout the rest of the world. *  *  *  *

In nothing do their teachings correspond with Christianity. They deny the omnipotence of God, but believe in a plurality of Gods as well as wives, and that old Brigham, part God now, will become a perfect and powerful God after his physical death.

---

MORMONISM. -- News from the Plains. By the emigrants who have just returned to this city across the plains, we have learned another fact which shows the disloyal and unfriendly feeling of the Mormon leaders toward the Government of the United States. Judge Brocchus, one of the Associate Justices for the territory of Utah, was accompanied on his way out by Elder Orson Hyde, who is the leader of the Mormons at Council Bluffs, and who had under his charge two pieces of cannon belonging to the Government. On the 4th of July, Judge Brocchus requested the use of the cannon, to fire a National salute near Independence Rock, in commemoration of our independence, which Orson Hyde denied him, saying that when they "reached Utah he might fire a salute." This is another of the shameful developments which are constantly being made, by the leaders of those deluded people, of hostility to the Government, the institutions, and people, of the United States, and may be set down with the constant system of oppression, robbery and outrage, to which the emigrants and other faithful people of the United States, are subjected to, by this freebooting population, which is assembling itself alarmingly upon many points along our western frontier. This same Orson Hyde is the editor of a Mormon paper published at Kanesville, and is an applicant for the office of Surveyor of public lands in the territory of Utah; before starting out he obtained a recommendation from Judge Brocchus to the General Government. We have not been in the habit of [petitioning] the present Administration, or of making any representations to it in regard to its officers, or its applicants for office, but we think the President should pause a long while before he will give countenance to this "band of moral outcasts," by placing so important a trust in the keeping of this profligate [-----er], who occupies among them the most dangerous triple position of Elder, spiritual teacher, and [editorial fugleman.]

---

The total number of Mormons at present in England, is over thirty thousand. In the last 14 years about 17,000 have emigrated to this country.


Note: An Intelligencer article reprintd in the Gazette of Nov. 12, 1851 identifies the writer of the May 21st letter as "Major Singer, of the U. S. Army."

POLYGAMY AMONG MORMONS. -- The practice of polygamy among the Mormons would seem to be a well established fact, notwithstanding the faint denials of the charge, which have been made by the champions of the sect. "The Mormons, amidst the Christianity of the Far West," says the London Quarterly Review, "are re-producing the polygamism of [the] east. Nay, worse -- far worse; for no man in the world surpasses the Mussulman in the jealousy with which he regards the honor of his women, [but little of] such a feeling is to be found among the promiscuous hive of the Mormonites. Their exhorters, professing the most pious adhesion to the doctrines of the Gospel, claim [liberties] which justified Luther in giving to kindred sinners of old their priestly name of father. Yet the sect is fast increasing; and it is mortifying to learn that most numerous accessions are daily made to it from this country. -- From Liverpool alone the known Mormon emigrants have amounted to 15,000; and the have, on the whole, been superior to, and better provided than the other class of emigrants."


Note: Martin Luther's theology allowed for polygamy in certain cases -- though practically none of his followers ever became the multiple-marriage fathers that the London Quarterly Review here alludes to.

MORMONISM. -- A correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger, writing from Nauvoo, states that Mormonism at this day is as different and distinct from anything which the Prophet Smith ever taught or ordained, as Mahometanism is different from Christianity. The sect is already split into seven different bodies, each repudiating the other. They are as follows: "Rigdonites, who are the simon-pure of the sect, are scattered throughout the land; Brighamites, usurpers, occupying the valley of Utah; Strangites, at Force [sic - St. James?] Beaver Island, Lake Michigan; Hydeites, squatters on the unsurveyed public lands in Western Iowa -- Kanesville, their headquarters; Cutlerites, settled on Silver Creek, Mills county, Iowa; Brewsterites, at Socorro, New Mexico; Bishopites, at Kirkland, Lake county, Ohio. The Strangites, Brewsterites, and Bishopites are new lights; the Cutlerites are reformers; and the Hydeites are the Whig branch of the usurpers of the government of the church after the assassination of Prophet Smith."


Note: The writer missed listing the followers of Apostle Lyman Wight, living in Texas, and the followers of Apostle William Smith, living primarily in Illinois and Wisconsin. These two groups attempted a union in 1850, but it never went beyond the planning stages. William Smith's church soon split into what became Reorganized Latter Day Saints (incorporating some dissident Strangites) and a few, diehard Smithites, (whose group disintegrated during the mid-1850s).

ORIGIN OF THE MORMON IMPOSTURE.. -- The Rochester American publishes the following from a forthcoming work by Mr. Turner, entitled History of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase. It is succinct, and communicates some facts coming within the author's personal knowledge.

view reprint of original article


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMON MORALS. -- A discussion is going on at St. Louis, between the Union and Intelligencer newspapers, in relation to the alleged immorality of the Mormons at Salt Lake City.

The Union contends that these people have been grossly libeled and defamed, while the Intelligencer asserts that they are guilty of the grossest licentiousness.

We notice this controversy, for the purpose of adding the testimony of an eye witness to sustain the charge of the Intelligencer. A gentleman who has returned from California by the overland route, is now sojourning in this city, who remained at Salt Lake City on his way hither. He says that polygamy is not only openly practiced at Salt Lake City, but it is taught to the "Saints" as an ordinance of God, not indeed in the sense in which civil law regards polygamy, because not more than one woman is legally married to one man, but in the sense more revolting to humanity, and more horrible to the contemplation of a Christian. Spiritual wifeism or spiritual polygamy is practiced at Salt Lake City, if the testimony of disinterested and honest men is evidence of the fact. Our informant adds that some, at least of the female portion of the Mormon community, regard their situation with loathing and detestation; they regard themselves as prostitutes in the garb and under the guise of religion, and they have the desire and will, but not the power, to escape.

Such, in substance, is the information furnished us by an eye and ear witness, and such we doubt not is the fact. -- Dubuque Herald.


Notes: (forthcoming)

DIFFICULTY AT SALT LAKE. -- The Western Reporter, says: "A telegraphic dispatch, from Independence on yesterday, announced that the Mormons, at Salt Lake City, had recently had a difficulty with the Government officers there, which had caused them to determine to leave the territory. What the circumstances are, under which they have come to this determination, we cannot divine, as a part of them are Mormons, and those who are not, have but little connection with any one connected with the Mormon Churches there. We will lay a full detail of facts before our readers as soon as they reach us."


Notes: (forthcoming)

On Monday last, several of our citizens waited on Judge Brocchus, and invited him to address the people of this place, upon the subject of the Mormon difficulties at the Salt Lake. As the Judge was on his way to Washington, he did not deem it expedient to address the citizens, and accordingly declined the invitation.

---

LATE  AND  IMPORTANT  FROM  SALT  LAKE.

EXCITEMENT  AMONG  THE  MORMONS.

An arrival from Salt Lake across the plains, reached this City on Sunday evening last, consisting of Chief Justice Brandebury, Judge Brocchus, Secretary Harris of the Territory of Utah, and Captain Day, Indian Agent, accompanied by David and Jessee Holladay, Esqrs. of this City, and O. H. Cogswell, of Indpendence, S. Woods of Weston, John Williams, Mr. Young and Mr. Gillan. They left Salt Lake on the 28th of September.

By this arrival we have received a letter from an intelligent and reliable gentleman in that territory, giving a full and detailed history of the treatment of the Government officiers while at the Salt Lake, which we copy below.

                                                        GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.
                                                        Utah Territory, Sept. 28th, 1851.

Troubles in the Territory of Utah, between the Governor and Mormon people on one side, and the GENTILE Officers of the U. States Government upon the other -- The Government and people of the U. States denounced in the presence of 3,000 people -- Two of the Judges and the Secretary of State and Indian Agent about to leave the Territory with indignation and disgust -- Great excitement among the community, &c., &c.

To the Editor of the St. Joseph Gazette:

I offer to the public, through the columns of your paper, a brief account of events which have transpired in this Territory within the last few days, and which, being of such a novel and extraordinary character cannot fail of exciting a feeling of interest in the public mind.

On Monday the 8th inst., the semi-annual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, assembled. The number present was from three to four thousand persons. A notice had been publicly given, in the Bowery, the day previous, by his Excellency Brigham Young, Governor of the Territory, that the Hon. Perry E. Brocchus, one of the United States Judges, would address the people the next day, when assembled in convention. Accordingly, at 11 o'clock on the appointed day, Judge Brocchus appeared upon the stand, so much enfeebled and emaciated by sickness that he could scarcely keep from falling -- having only arrived in this city a few weeks before, with a spell of illness upon him, and having just emerged from a sick chamber.

After a respectful introduction to the immense audience, by Gov. Young, Judge Brocchus proceeded to address the assemblage in a speech of two hours in length. He commenced by alluding in terms of gratitude to the kindness which had been extended to him since his arrival in this city, by certain individuals of the community; to their hospitable care of him, while lying prostrate upon the bed of illness, from which he had just arisen. His language upon this subject was so touching as to bring tears to the eyes of many of his audience. He next referred to the organization of the Government of Utah Territory, and more especially, the judicial branch thereof, of which he said he was an humble member. He alluded to the amicable manner in which the individual disputes and the rights of the community had hitherto uniformly, as he was informed, been adjudicated and settled by a tribunal possessing their supreme confidence, and declared that it was not his purpose or desire to make an innovation upon their favorite mode of settling their difficulties. That it was no part of his ambition to see litigation rife in the community. That he would be content and gratified to see his court, from year to year, without a single case upon its docket. -- That he hoped the custom of amicable adjudication might still exist, and that the law of moral susation might so extensively prevail as to suppress those feelings of discontent and bitterness which too often flow from litigious contests before tribunals of law, to the disruption of the ties of private friendship, and, not unfrequently to the disturbance of the public peace. -- He appealed to his brethren of the bench, the Hon. Lemuel G. Brandebury, Chief Justice, and the Hon. L. Snow, associate Justice, who sat near him upon the stand, for the correctness of his sentiments and for their concurrance in his opinions and feelings; in answer to which he received their cordial assent. He then invoked for the Judiciary, the confidence, the respect and the cordial support, of the community. -- This invocation was prompted by a conviction that the popular sentiment was inimical to the establishment of a Territorial Government, and the consequent extension of the jurisdiction of the U. S. Government over this people, and, more especially, by the apprehension that the general feeling of the inhabitants was particularly adverse to the Judicial branch of the Government, which was principally composed of citizens of the U. S., and members of the Mormon Church, -- the Governor of the Territory, who is the head of the Mormon Church, having, on several occasions, declared that he had governed this people for years, and could still govern them, without judges, and avowed that the Judges of the U. States courts might reside in the Territory, and draw their salaries, but they should never try a cause if he could prevent it -- that none but Mormons ought to have been appointed to any office in the Territory, and that none others, but damned rascals would come here. The remarks made by Judge Brocchus on this branch of his speech were calm, dignified and impressive, and well calculated to arouse the minds of an intelligent auditory to the great importance of the Judicial arm of the Government, and to command, on its behalf, the entire respect and confidence of the whole community; and, if the observation that came from the lips of the speaker produced upon their minds any other than that legtimate object, it resulted from the disloyal and seditious feelings of their hearts.

Judge Brocchus then asked the indulgeance of his audience while he should refer briefly to a matter entirely personal to himself. He said it had been rumored that he came here for the sole purpose of being returned to Congress as delegate from this Territory. The rumor he should not regard as by any means calumnious but for the spirit in which it was uttered -- being that of unfriendliness and malignity. Taking the rumor in connexion with that spirit, he regarded it as an aspersion and therefore repelled the charge as false and slanderous. He knew who was the author of the report and hoped the individual was present. He did not deny that he had aspired to the delegacy in Congress -- such was the right of any citizen of the U. S. -- but he did denounce the charge that he had come to the Territory solely for that purpose, as false, base and slanderous! The person alluded to by the speaker was a member of the Mormon Church.

Here Judge Brocchus reached the main object of his appearance before so large an assemblage of the inhabitants of the Territory. He had been authorized by the board of managers of the Washington National Monument Society to say to the people of the Territory of Utah, that they would be pleased to receive from them a block of marble, ofr other stone to be deposited in the magnificent structure now being errected in honor of the Father of this country, together with such contributions in money as they might be pleased to make, "as an offering at the shrine of patriotism." This subject was presented in a full, ample and faithful manner, in remarks of more than an hour's duration, during the whole of which time, the speaker held the most respectful, earnest and unremitting attention of his auditors. So profound was that attention, and so deep seemed to be the sympathy that pervaded the audience, that a disinterested spectator would have supposed the vast assemblage to have been composwed entirely of patriots, American patriots ready to make almost any "offering at the shrine of patriotism."

The speaker took occasion to express his deep regret that since his arrival in this valley, some things had come under his observation indicative of a defection of the feelings of the Mormon people from the Government of the United States. He then commented upon an oration delivered by a distinguished member of the community, on the recent festive occassion, the 24th of July, being the anniversary of the arrival of the Mormons in this valley, in the course of which the orator bitterly denounced the federal Government for "requiring a battalion of five hundred men" of them, for the mexican war, while they were in a destitute, or suffering condition at their winter quarters, on the Missouri River, during their flight from Illinois. He was pained to see that the orator on the occasion alluded to, had denounced the act as one of "Barbarity," [and] had declared that the "American Republic" had devised the most wanton, cruel and dastardly means for the accomplishment of the ruin, [overthrow] and utter extermination of the [Mormons]. -- He had learned with still more profound regret, that those sentiments had been hailed and echoed by the loud applause of the assemblage whom the orator addressed. -- He denied that the Government had ever felt a desire, or shown a disposition, to do injury or injustice to this people; much less, to ruin and exterminate them. He maintained that the Government of the United States was a humane Government, and would not have made an oppressive demand upon a people already immersed in deep tribulation. He knew the lamented statesman, now sleeping in his grave, who presided over the nation, at that time, and, from his knowledge of his character as a man, he could boldly assert that he was totally incapable of doing a wilfully inhumane act. Having here paid a just and handsome tribute to the memory of Ex-President Polk, he expressed his conviction that the Mormon battalion was not demanded by the authorities at Washington, and that, if the officer or person who applied for the five hundred men did more than ask them as volunteers, he either misunderstood, or wilfully transcended his authority, in so doing.

Judge Brocchus then adverted, in a mild and dignified manner, to an unpatriotic and offensive expression, which had fallen from the lips of one of the Mormon preachers on the preceeding Sunday, during the hour set apart for public worship, and in the presence of a large congregation, to the effect that the Government of the United States was a stink in the nostrils of Jehovah and that they (the Mormons) wished it down; and farther, that before they would use any other means to save it from destruction, than the means of theocracy, they "would see it damned first." -- He said the sentiment was the more offensive because uttered in the presence of his honor Judge Brandeberry and himself, who had visited the Bowery on that occasion with respectful feelings, and who, having been invited to take a seat on the stand, instead of hearing a religious sermon, as they expected, [had] been insulted by a tirade of abuse against the country which they loved, and the government of which they were, in part, the official representatives. Expressing surprise and indignation at those unpatriotic and seditious declarations, he dwelt in glowing terms upon the greatness, the virtue, the influence, the beauty and splendor of the political and domestic institutions of our country, and then, appealing to his auditors, asked if that country could be a stink in the nostrils of Jehovah. In answer to that appeal, looks of the audience were returned to the speaker, clearly showing a strong sympathy of patriotic feeling, to be swept away, alas! too soon, by the voice of their omnipotent head and master, Brigham Young, before whose sirrocco breath every sentiment of patriotism, in the bosom of a mormon, is doomed to perish.

Judge B. next commented upon an expression used by an elder in the mormon church with whom he had travelled from Iowa to this City, in the following words: "The Government of the United States is going to hell as fast as it can; and the sooner the better." To the recital of this declaration there came up into the face of the speaker an enthusiastic burst of applause, clapping of hands and of laughter, from many of the audience, together with a loud amen! from a man in the immediate vicinity of the stand. This rude manifestation of applause, to such an infamous expression from a man born on American soil, and owing his best affections to the Government of the United States, received the manly rebuke of Judge Brocchus: having administered which, he proceeded to notice a sacrilegious declaration made to Brigham Young, Governor of the Territory, in the presence, and within the attentive hearing of a vast concourse of persons, on the festive occasion alluded to in a former paragraph of this letter. He had head with feelings of mortification and amazement that a person standing high in the confidence and respect of the people of the community generally, had, upon the late anniversary of the arrival of the mormons in the valley, in the presence of a large public assembly, used the following language, "Zachary Taylor is dead and in Hell, and I am glad of it; and I prophecy, in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the priesthood that is upon me, that any President of the United States who shall lift his finger against this people, shall die an untimly death and go to Hell." And his mortification and surprise had been greatly aggravated, on learning, farther, that this unchristian and unpatriotic declaration had been rolled back from the vast audience in a tremendous volume of applause, mingled with loud shouts of amen! amen! good! good! Here the speaker said, that the subject of these sacrilegious remarks -- the illustrious Taylor -- had just gone down lamented to the grave, and that his honored tomb was still wet with a nation's tears; that he had served his country faithfully and gloriously in the field of battle; that his name was hollowed in the gratitude and sacred in the memory of the American people; that such an unfeeling and inhuman declaration in regard to the departed patriot, lamented and beloved, would commend the indignation and abhorrence of his surviving countrymen, and that, if the author of that insult and that outrage upon christian charity, did not earlier repent of that insult and that outrage, it would be his painful task to perform such a duty, with feelings of deep and keen remorse, upon a dying pillow.

Having spoken for almost two hours, and having become almost exhausted, Judge Brocchus fervently concluded his speech, amidst the most profound stillness of his audience, in the following language: "I cannot [forget] that I am an American citizen; that I was born of an American mother, that I have been reared beneath the genial influence of American institutions; that I have enjoyed the protection of an American constitution and American laws. To my Country I owe my allegiance and my love, and when the time shall come in which I shall be ready to remain silent, and hear her traduced by unjust and seditious aspersions, I hope that my tongue, now employed in her advocacy and her praise, may cling to the roof of my mouth; and that my arm, ever-ready to be lifted in her defence, may fall palsied at my side!

"I have performed my duty. It remains for you to discharge yours. If, in full communion and fraternity with your fellow citizens of the United States, you can appear at the base of that stupendous and beautiful structure which is towering to the skied, and there, in memory, in admiration, and in love, of the life, and virtues, and glory of the immortal Washington, tender your block of marble "as an offering at the shrine of patriotism," then come! and your tribute will be hailed with welcome, from every part of this vast confederacy. But if otherwise; if you cannot approach that sacred column with hearts warmed by emotions of the purest patriotism, then let your marble remain unsculptured! Yes, let it forever sleep, unquarried, in the bosom of its native mountain."

The speech, throughout, was marked by a degree of calmness, deliberation and discretion which did credit alike to the mind and the heart of the speaker, as a man, as a citizen of the United States, and as a member of a branch of a new government bearing so important and delicate a trust as that resting upon the Judiciary. It is due to the officers of the General Government for this Territory -- to all of such who were present at the time excepting those who were attached to the Mormon church -- to state that they fully concurred in everything that Judge Brocchus said upon this occasion, as far as his remarks had a public bearing. With his views of being a candidate for Congress, of course they had nothing to do, excepting a concurrence in the opinion that it was an ambition in which any American citizen had a right to indulge. It may be proper, also to state that, all the points presented in the speech, in reference to the defection of the feelings of the people here from the general Government, and the violent and unpatriotic denunciations upon the subject, from the lips of the Mormons, were discussed, and fully agreed upon, by the Gentile officers present at the time, including Judge Brandebury, Mr. Secretary Harris, and R. H. Day, Indian Agent, and that those gentlemen, without exception, have regarded, and still regard, the unfriendly sentiments of the Mormon people, and their wholesale and unscrupulous insults to the Government of the United States, with feelings of regret, indignation and disgust, as the sequel will prove.

At the close of the speech, the audience, astonished at the boldness of the speaker in daring to allude to the denunciations of the general Government by their leaders, remained silent, apparently awaiting their cue from His Excellency, [Brigham] Young, President of the Church. After a deep and ominous silence of a moment, he arose, and in substance spoke as follows:

He would have but little to say. He did not expect that Judge Brocchus would come there to teach them their duty. He would be instructed by no such boys. He could buy a thousand of them, and bring them there in [banboxes] and place them upon the stand. He could prove that Judge Brocchus came there to run for Congress, or to be elected Delegate to Congress for their Territory. He could have the papers in proof of this charge produced, but he would not. Judge Brocchus was ignorant of the facts in relation to the action or conduct of the United States Government, concerning the Mormon Battalion, or else he was willfully wicked -- "as corrupt as the Government officers at Washington, who sat and saw the Mormons murdered, plundered and driven into the desert and never opened their mouths; the damned scoundrels." General Taylor was dead and in hell, and who could help it. He knew as much about General Washington as Judge Brocchus did. He had more talent and wisdom than Washington ever had. He would protect this people from imposition. He was there. He was the boy that could use the sword.

The proceedings in the church during this outrageous harangue was singular and alarming. The utterances and jesticulations of Brigham Young became violent in the extreme. He strode madly upon the platform on which the U. S. Judges and the officials of the Church were seated. He gave notice that there should be no farther discussion upon the subject; that there was to be no reply to his speech; and that, if anything more were said, there would be a pulling of hair and a cutting of throats. Here the scene beggared description. The audience was thrilled with the power of Governor Young's vehement and invective oratory, and convulsed with feelings of indignation towards the officers of the Government, and especially the one who had just dared to comment upon, and censure the denunciations of the United States by their leaders. Of course, under the circumstances, Judge Brocchus made no reply. Such was the temper of the people before him -- such the rage that Governor Young had aroused in their bosoms that his appearance again, as a speaker upon the stand, would have been the signal for a personal assault and battery upon him, and perhaps for his assassination. The other officers of the Territory who were not Mormons, and who were present on the occasion, would probably, in that event, have shared his fate. The dense mass of people which crammed the building to suffocation, filled the doors and windows and hung in crowds around the vast church, were to all appearances, filled with the fierceness of demons, and seemed only to await the command of Brigham Young, in order to commence a general onslaught upon the Gentiles who were present. -- Fears were entertained that Judge Brocchus, in pursuance of the bold spirit which had characterized his speech, would arise to reply to Young's invectives. In that event personal violence -- "the pulling of hair and cutting of throats" -- would have been inevitable; and in that violence, any Gentile within the walls of the building at the time, would have been a sharer. But prudence prevailed and he held his peace; preferring to leave his speech unexplained rather than rush madly upon the fearful torrent of indignation which had been lashed into a tempestuous convulsion by the Governor's furious reply. After the congregation had been dismissed, and while the people were moving toward the doors of the Bowery, Brigham Young vociferated: "Yes, Zachary Taylor is in hell, and who can help it?" At this moment Heber C. Kimball, an elder in the Church, and second in standing and authority, touched Judge Brocchus on the shoulder, and said "and you will see him when you get there." -- Such impertinence is a very common thing amongst this people.

The excitement resulting from the Judge's speech has been deep and intense, and fears have been entertained of his personal safety, -- and so much reason has there been for such apprehension, that he has been waited upon by a number of persons and apprised of threats that had been made toward him, and advised to keep within doors at night, and to avoid being alone in retired places as much as possible. The people of the U. States can form nothing like an adequate conception of the bitterness of the feelings of this people against the general government. Their almost constant theme, in and out of church, is denunciation of the U. States and of all sects of christians whose faith and practice are different from theirs.

On Sunday last, an individual called Elder Snow, lately appointed Missionary of the Mormon Church, to England, arose in the Bowery to make his valedictory address to the congregation. After having adverted to his mission and its interests, and to the success which had attended the labors of the "Perpetual Emigration Society" -- to which he had the honor of belonging, he remarked that when he saw the report of the donations to the funds of the society, his surprise was unbounded; "for," said he, "what sum do you think the United States -- the whole United States -- the great United States donated to the relief of the poor Saints? Why, the enormous, the egregious sum of one hundred dollars." "damn them!" he shouted, in a great rage, "we don't want it, we won't have it." "But now they come to us, and want a million for their great Washington Monument." "Damn their nasty stinking souls. Brethren, if this be swearing I can't help it." Then in a low voice, and with a look of great cunning, he added, "But I won't talk this way when I get into the United States. Oh, no!" "What," said Governor Young, (laughing and by the tone of his voice evidently approving the contemplated deceit) "you will act hypocritically, will you!" "Well," answered Elder Snow, "I will not be so much of a hypocrite as you may suppose, unless (turning reverentially to that gentleman) brother Brigham tells me to." And this ci-devant disciple of the Saviour continued, "Brethren, I have two wives; and whose business is it?" And this man is now on his way to England as a messenger from the Church of Latter Day Saints. In his way to the place of his destination, he must pass through the United States, and, in as much as these missionaries travel "without purse or scrip," he must necessarily be the subject of the hospitalities of the people whom he so indecently abuses. His remarks were received with smiles by the women and loud applause from the men who composed the congregation. At the close of Elder Snow's remarks, Brigham Young arose, and said, "brethren, I will say but little, and that little is for the world. Now there is a rumor that the Judges and other U. S. officers are going to leave. I hope they won't go. I am not angry with any one but Judge Brocchus; and with him I will always be angry, for he came here upon this stand and degraded this people to the nethermost hell. But some of my people have said to me, Oh! we shall be ruined. Now, my friends, don't be scared. I am not scared. Let 'em come." This strain of remarks was continued for some time, when the congregation was dismissed to meet again on the coming Sabbath, for [their] usual purpose of hearing the United States, and the officers of the General Government abused in the most seditious and indecent manner.

I cannot commit to paper, nor would you publish if I were to write, the obscene and vulgar expressions that have been used and are commonly used, by the Mormon Preachers here -- especially Brigham Young -- in their denunciations of the United States. We never hear a syllable of pure evangelical preaching within the walls of their Bowery which is their place of worship. They never preach the cardinal christian virtues; never inculcate pious duties; never urge their congregations to repentance and humility, or to the practice of true christian principles. Their favorite theme is denunciation of the U. S., and, in the elegant language of Governor Young, of "the corrupt set of scoundrels at the head of the United States Government."

The plurality wife system is in full vogue here. Governor Young is said to have as many as ninety wives. He drove along the streets, a few days since, with sixteen of them in a long carriage -- fourteen of them having each an infant at their bosom's. It is said that Heber C. Kimball, one of the Triune Council, and the second person in the Trinity, has almost an equal number; amongst them, a mother and her two daughters. Each man can have as many wives as he can maintain, that is after the women have been picked and culled by the head men. The Judges and Secretary of State have had the honor of being introduced by His Excellency, the Governor, to several of his wives; and also by Heber C. Kimball to several of his. Will the American people, can they, tolerate such a blot upon the fair fame of their beloved country?

All the United States officers, who do not belong to the Mormon Church, have resolved to leave the Territory, being unable to reconcile it to their sense of patriotism and self respect to remain in the midst of the sedition and lawless vice that pervades this community. In view of their departure the people have become greatly alarmed -- fearing the adoption of some severe measures by the General Government. Governor Young, accompanied by a number of the elders of the Church, a few days since formally called on Judge Brandebury, Mr. Secretary Harris, and H. R. Day, Ind. Agent, and entreated them to remain. -- Finding entreaty in vain, a resort was had to threats and attempts at intimidation. -- The Legislature was accordingly convened in a hasty and informal manner, and a joint resolution adopted declaring that the Secretary of State was about to abscond with the money and other property belonging to the Government, and authorizing and requiring the Deputy Marshal to seize the said money and other property, and to take into his custody the person of Mr. Harris, unless he surrendered the funds in his possession as Secretary of State. The Deputy Marshal waited upon Mr. Harris and served him a copy of the joint resolution. Mr. H. thereupon applied to the Supreme Court, then in session, for a writ of injunction, which was promptly granted, forbidding the removal of the public money from the possession of the Secretary of State, by the Deputy Marshal, or any other person. Seeing the difficulties into which they would plunge themselves, by persisting in violent measures in spite of the judiciary, they paused in their mad career, and Brigham Young then, in writing asked the opinion of the Supreme Court as to the right of the Legislature to take the money from the possession of the Secretary. -- This was intended as a mere show of a law-abiding spirit: for the question had before been fully answered by the injunction which the Supreme Court had granted.

The entire pages of your paper might be filled with the surprising and disgusting details of the state of affairs here, but as the officers of the Government intend to make a full report upon the subject to the President of the United States, I will conclude by saying that these people have no idea of ever yielding a loyal obedience to the laws or jurisdiction of the general government, and that they must either be sternly forced into submission to the laws of decency and justice, or else abandoned to their vile and seditious practices and feelings. Which of the two things shall be done, is a question the answer to which in no small degree, involves the dignity and honor of the people and the government of the United States.
      Very respectfully,                 UTAH.

---

GOVERNOR BRIGHAM YOUNG. -- The Republican contains a dispatch from Independence, by which it appears that the Secretary of Utah Territory, the Chief and Associate Justices, the Indian Agent and other citizens, have felt themselves compelled to leave for the States in consequence of the seditious sentiment of Gov. Young. Charges are also reported against him of squandering the twenty thousand dollars appropriated by Congress for public buildings, and of making an attempt to take twenty-four thousand more from the Secretary, who was only empowered to withhold the sum by the interference of an injunction from the U. S. Court.

Our readers will remember that two or three months ago we published a letter from Major Singer, of the U. S. Army, who charged Gov. Young with habitually using expressions of a seditious or treasonable character, with reference to the U. S. Government. The publication of this letter drew down upon us the anathemas of sundry leaders in the Mormon Church, and even the sympathies of one or two editors who profess a different creed, were so aroused that we had to ward off a cudgel or so from them. We cannot say we are gratified that the information first published by us, and sought to be stigmatized by others, has received the confirmation alluded to. Although the character of the gentlemen who wrote the letter placed him above suspicion of willful misrepresentation, we nevertheless indulged a hope that some palliating circumstances might thereafter appear which would place the conduct, or., at least the motives of Gov. Young in a less reprehensible light than that in which the writer held them. In this, it seems, we were mistaken. The decided step, which according to the Republican's dispatch, the other territorial officers have taken, must have been induced by conduct on the part of the Governor at least equally flagrant with that which Major Singer charged upon him.

Should these events prove to be, as some may apprehend, the precursors of serious difficulties between the Federal Government and the Utah Territory, much will doubtless be said about the wisdom or propriety of the appointment of the Mormon leader to the office which he holds. With regard to this question, we can only say in advance, that should the worst come, it would prove nothing more than that disaster had been postponed -- not occasioned -- by the appointment. The legitimate causes of any difficulty must be found in an impatience of restraint among the Mormon people, by any one save their spiritual leaders, to which may be added an ambitious grasping at civil as well as ecclesiastical supremacy, on the part of those same leaders. Brigham Young has unbounded influence over his people. Had a different appointment been made, the tendency of the elements above alluded to would have been to incite an early resistance against the gubernatorial authority, and perhaps, other consequences of a more fatal character than would now be agreeable to speculate upon.

Of the real motives or purposes of the Mormon people -- their collective virtue or depravity as a sect -- we know nothing derived from personal familiarity with their habits and sentiments. We have never formed any estimate of them except from facts connected with their outward deportment, as they have come to us through various sources. Whenever any of these have been publicly used to their prejudice, Their defenders have invariably stepped forth with the cry of "misrepresentation! persecution!" &c. Thus, there appeared two sides of the subject matter. But if they were really a misrepresented and calumniated people, a better opportunity never could have been invented by human sagacity, for them to prove this to the world's satisfaction, than was afforded them in the elevation of the recognized head of the Church to the highest local authority under the United States. By accepting the appointment, Brigham Young acknowledged the supremacy of the Federal Government, and became bound by the most solemn obligations to maintain that supremacy among his followers. If there was any sincerity or good faith in him, his immense influence was thus secured for the preservation of a strict adherence to our laws throughout the territory. Under such circumstances it would seem that he, together with all Mormondom should have been zealous to vindicate their professed loyalty to our government, by furnishing an example of civil order and regularity.

We have no doubt that the whole matter will be speedily and thoroughly investigated and that such steps will be taken by the Executive -- if any should appear necessary -- as will completely maintain the dignity and authority of the Federal Government. -- Intelligencer.


Note 1: The above "Excitement Among the Mormons" text was reportedly reprinted in one or more New York City papers, as well as in the St. Louis Weekly Union, at the end of November or beginning of December, 1851. It was also reprinted in the Liberty Tribune on Nov. 21st. None of these prints include exact quotes of Associate Justice Brocchus' alleged remarks in regard to Mormon polygamy. It appears likely that Brocchus either avoided this subject altogether in his speech before the Salt Lake Saints, or, that his allusions to the extraordinary practice were brief ones that did not provoke a specific response from Brigham Young at the time. Later Mormon recollections of the speech and Brigham's indignant reply focus upon the topic of Brocchus' alleged insults to plural wives in the audience, almost to the total exclusion of his remarks on the state of American patriotism among the Latter Day Saints.

Note 2: T. B. H. Stenhouse relates the scene on the Conference platform in chapter 34 of his 1873 Rocky Mountain Saints thusly: "The Gentile Federal officers arrived in July of 1851, and very soon after their arrival concluded that Utah was not the most pleasant place in the world for unbelievers. They attended a special conference of the Church held in September, and were honoured with an invitation to sit on the platform with the prophets. On that occasion the proposition was made to send a block of Utah marble or granite as the Territorial contribution to the Washington monument at the seat of Government. Associate Justice Brocchus made a speech, and before closing it drifted on to polygamy. He spoke irreverently of that institution, going so far as to assure the ladies of its immorality, reproved the leaders for their disrespectful language concerning the Government and their consignment of President Zachary Taylor to the nether regions. This was something new in the Rocky Mountain Zion, and the 'Lion of the Lord' was in a moment aroused. The audience was indignant at Brocchus, and when Brigham let himself loose on to the unfortunate Judge, the people would have torn that Federal functionary into shreds if the Prophet had not restrained them. When Brigham reiterated the situation and locality of the then recently deceased President Taylor, the Judge put in a demurrer, on which 'brother Heber' kindly touched his Honour on the shoulder and assured him that he need not doubt the statement, for he would see him when he got there. Heber's witty endorsement of Brigham was anything but reassuring to the Judge."

ABOUT THE MORMONS. -- We take the liberty of making the following extract from a letter, written from the city of the Great Salt Lake, September 12th, 1851.

"Dear Ridenbaugh. -- The valley is reached but my journey is not ended. We arrived here on the 11th. Many emigrants for this place were quite destitute, but receiving aid from the Lake got in. Conference was in full blast when we arrived and by poking our heads into a hole in the "Bowery," we had "a sight of the animals," together with a glowing speech from the "Giraffe of the Valley." Brigham Young was giving the Mormons thunder. He said the Bishops were leading the Saints to hell -- that the High Priests, the Seventy and the Elders in Israel, had been taught by him to do right -- that he had plead with them but all in vain -- that if they did not alter their course he would cut them off from the church, and either here with a chosen few of true-hearted followers, or in some other land he would go to Heaven alone. In fact he effectually damned and cursed them in almost every way and shape. He said the Bishops would steal the silver off the eyes of Jesus Christ, and would even come to him with a [bee] in their mouths about their [tithes]. All this he termed an apology to the Bishops for something hard he had said on the day previous. His entire speech was but poor bar room slang. At the close he asked them if they would hear counsel, which they having agreed to do, he counseled them, and passed as a law, the total disuse of tea, coffee, tobacco, and all ardent spirits, without a dissenting voice."

---

The United States officers of Utah Territory left this city on Wednesday last, on the El Paso.

Elder Snow, accompanied by a Mormon delegation, will also be on the same boat, bound for Washington, to represent their side of the difficulty, which led the officers to leave Salt Lake.


Notes: (forthcoming)

(From the St. Joseph Gazette)

LATE  AND  IMPORTANT  FROM  SALT LAKE.

EXCITEMENT  AMONG  THE  MORMONS.

(see original article)

Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMONS AT SALT LAKE AND THE U. STATES GOVERNMENT OFFICERS. -- The recent publications in some of our western papers, respecting the troubles at Salt Lake between the Mormon population and the officers of the United States, particularly the Judges of the Courts, has given rise to a great deal of excitement here and elsewhere. Believing, for our own part, that the Mormons as a people had been heretofore very badly treated, -- more sinned against than sinning," -- we were slow to credit all the charges preferred against them in regard to their recent conduct at Salt Lake. However, we have diligently enquired out all the facts at all accessible, connected with these troubles, and must confess that we are utterly astonished at some of the developments of the doings of the Latter Day Saints in Utah. A train of events seem now to be in progress there which must inevitably bring into collision the General Government and the People of Utah Territory. Such a collision it is easy to forsee must be followed by the terrible consequences to the people of Salt Lake, and we trust that they will see the prudence of not provoking retributive vengeance on their heads by so powerful a foe as the Government of the U. States.

In regard to the condition of matters at Salt Lake, and the recent troubles between the Saints (the Mormons) and the Gentiles, (those who are not Mormons) we shall place before the public such additional facts, beyond those already published, as have reached us from what we consider good authority, within the past few days. Of one thing we now feel certain, -- that unless the utmost prudence and energy be exercised, the territory of Utah is bound to give much trouble in its management to the Government of the U. S. -- St. Louis Union.


Notes: (forthcoming)

ABOUT THE MORMONS. -- We make the following extracts from a letter written by an old citizen of this place -- Mr. William B. Yates -- to Mr. Rueben Campbell. Mr. Y. is well known in this place, and any statements he may make may be relied on:

"I reached Salt Lake City too late last fall to come on, and was compelled to winter there with many other emigrants in the same fix. The treatment we all received from these infernal scoundrels, is too bad almost to be believed. They shot men down in their tracks for nothing, and confined others with a ball and chain, & made them work hard in all weather and upon all days (for they know no sabbath,) and fed them only on bread and water; many poor fellows suffered and died. And what was all this for? I will tell you -- for simply asking for the payment of what was due you; they would say, after the work was done that they did not owe you any thing, that the people of the States treated them like dogs when they were there, and now it was their time. If the man said any thing in degence and happened to say they were dishonest, and acted rascally to get the labor of a man for months and then refused to pay, they would haul you up before a kind of court, and condemn you to from one to ten years, imprisonment with a ball and chain. I have seen a man shot down at the door of their temple as he was quietly coming out from church. The cause assigned was that one of the sealed wives of the murderer, had taken a fancy to the emigrant, probably not from any fault of his, for he was a married man from the eastern states.

It is a positive fact that a man can have as many sealed wives as he can support, and a woman can at any time be unsealed and sealed to another; in that way she may have 5 or 6 children with different fathers. When she is sealed to another, she does not take her children, but leaves them to their father; you will therefore see that in the course of 15 or 20 years, there will be hundreds of young men and girls that will not know their relationship towards each other, and intermarriages with brother and sister will be the result to an alarming extent.

I look upon them as the lowest people on the top of the ground, the City of Salt Lake a perfect Sodom and Gomorrow [sic], which some day if not visited by the wrath of the Almighty, I shall wonder."


Notes: (forthcoming)

TROUBLE AGAIN BREWING IN MORMONDOM. -- We have heretofore announced the return of Chief Justice Brandebury, Associate Justice Brocchus, Secretary Harris and Capt. Day, Indian Agent, from Utah Territory, and published some of the reasons assigned by these gentlemen for their apparent precipitate flight from their posts of duty. We have heretofore refrained from expressing an opinion as to the validity of their plea for taking this course, because not fully in possession of the facts in the premises. That Brigham Young (appointed Governor of the Territory by Mr. Filmore,) is a great blackguard and braggadocio, and still a greater scoundrel, we have long been aware, but we did not suppose, with all his native vanity, arrogance and wickedness, he would have had the audacity to utter such seditious sentiments and blasphemous anathemas against the Government and People of the United States as are attributed to him by the correspondent of the St. Joseph Gazette, until we saw the statement confirmed by Judge Brocchus, in a letter to the National Intelligencer. The resident white population of this territory, as our readers are aware, is composed almost wholly of "Mormons," or "Latter Day Saints," the general character of which people is too well known to need delineation here. Suffice it to say, their preachers use the most profane and obscene language, and that most of their principal men have a plurality of wives! Gov. Young is said to have ninety, and Heber C. Kimbal, the second in status, a like number! The state of morals in Mormondom may be gathered from these two circumstances alone.

After being driven from Nauvoo, some years ago, it will be recollected, the great body of Mormons removed to the Valley of the Salt Lake. They arrived there on the 24th day of July; and each year since their arrival, they have celebrated the anniversary of their entree. The 24th of last July, Brigham Young was their orator of the day, and announced to the vast audience the death of Gen. Taylor, in the following chaste language -- "Brethren, Zachary Taylor is dead and gone to hell, and I am glad of it!" The sentiment was received and echoed with great applause; and then, rising on tiptoe, in the furor of his passion, he exclaimed, "I prophesy, in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the priesthood that is now upon me that any other President of the U. States, who shall lift his finger against this people, will die an untimely death, and go to hell!" This is the feeling that pervades that seditious, wicked, and therefore dangerous population.

Judge Brocchus, who had been requested by the managers of the Washington National Monument Society to invite people of Utah to furnish a block of marble for the monument as "an offering at the shrine of patriotism," addressed a large concourse at their place of worship (?) called the "Bowery;" and in endeavoring to inspire a love of country and inculcate the duty of obedience to our laws, made an allusion to the above unchristian and seditious statements, and fearlessly expressed himself in regard to the existing defection of the Mormons towards the people and government. The speech was calm, dignified and to the purpose. Brigham, in a speech characterised by the coarsesr invective, replied to Judge Brocchus, and denounced the people and the government in the most menacing, vulgar and brutal manner; during which he intimated that if Judge B. should attempt a replication, there would be "pulling of hair and cutting of throats!" The audience was intensely excited, and had not Young and his confederates dreaded the ultimate vengeance of our people, there is no doubt that murder would have been instantly committed. The officers were subsequently denounced, in and out of "meetin."

That their disertion saved the lives of the "Fugitive U. S. Officers" -- (vide S. Louis Republican) -- we think highly probable; that they had very little inducement to remain, quite palpable; and yet it is almost equally plain that the editor of the Republican and ourself, had we been Justices Brandeberry and Brocchus, would have remained and run the risk! -- [at] least, we had [sic, had we] been abused as Judge Brocchus was, heard our Government slandered, and the memory of the lamented Taylor maligned by that scurvy scoundrel and bad-mouthed bigamist and debauchee, Brigham Young, we should have felt like leaving just about ninety distinguished widows before we left -- we should!

What is now to be done? Shall these seditious and traitorous villains be permitted to set at naught the authority of our Government? Will the President [merely] pocket the outrages of this people? Shall they be suffered longer to inhabit the fair valley which they now desecrate and contaminate by their pestiferous presence? Is it worthy the effort to send out a military force to awe them into obedience, with the view of making good citizens of them? Shall still other officers be sent to them to entreat them to yield homage and obedience to the Government, and simply tell them that uttering treason and threatening assassination are naughty practices, which Uncle Sam disapproves? Or shall they be officially notified to find and occupy some regions, without the jurisdiction of the U. States, so remote that the hand of annexation will not [be] likely to ever reach them? These are some of the considerations that will arise. Were we President Fillmore, the latter is the course we would recommend; and in the event of their refusal to comply, would send out a force of Missourians so to remove them, as to carry out the spirit of the order to the letter! This we would do -- "by the Eternal!" --- Kansas Ledger.


Notes: (forthcoming)

BEAUTIES OF MORMONISM. -- A correspondence of the Rochester Daily Advertiser has been going the rounds of the papers for some time, but, although rather old, it may contain matter new to some of our readers and worthy of a moment's condideration. It is dated Danville, Ill., and contains serious charges against Brigham Young, the Great High Priest of the Mormons and Governor of the Territory of Utah. The charges are as follows:

  1. That he has over twenty women in concubinage, called by him his wives.

  2. That he is a swindler.

  3. That he is a murderer.

  4. That he is a reviler of our people and government.

  5. That he abused, maltreated and took by force and tried, under the semblance of law, Mormon law, the property of our emigrants in 1849-'50.

  6. That he instigated the Indians to follow and attack the company from Schuyler Co., Illinois. They did attack them, and ran and killed their cattle and horses.

  7. That he caused our citizens to be taken up and tried for the pretended participancy in the death of Jo Smith and others -- to be threatened and harrassed for being engaged against the Mormons in Missouri.

  8. That he made speeches abusing our laws and government, and bidding defiance to the United States, and asserting that the Mormons were not under our laws.

  9. That he asserted jurisdiction to try causes between our citizens on [contracts] made in the United States, and one party protesting against his authority; yet he compelled them to give up their property, under the threat of imprisonment.

  10. That he levied taxes on our people for bringing goods into the Mormon settlement and exchanging them for others to aid them in reaching California.

  11. That he has passed an ordinance or decree, as they (these brutes) call it, "that all young women over 14 remaining unmarried, shall be spiritualized by the elders.

  12. That a Mormon can have as many concubines or wives, as they call them, as he can support.

These can be proved, and some more I do not wish to name now. But there is another which is made against them, I only report from current report. It is that Mr. B. Young is intimate with several thieving Indian chiefs that follow the trade of going every year to Lower California and stealing horses. At any rate, California horses were sold to emigrants in 1849 and 1850 by Mormons, and the people of South California can hardly keep their horses at all -- for this fact I appeal to Mr. Foster, Mr. Stearns, the last member of the legislature from Los Angeles, and to Colonel Williams, all living in South California. -- One thing is certain -- the horses are stolen in South California and California horses are sold at Salt Lake by the outlawed set to our emigrants at great prices. I was in South California, and heard from these men of many more of their horses being stolen by these Utah Indians. Put that and this together, and where and how did these Mormons come by these horses? Why is Young so intimate with these depredating chiefs?

The accounts from the Mormon district have been so contradictory that until quite recently we have found it difficult what to believe and what not to believe. We have read letters and lectures written by persons, some of whom traveled with the Mormons from Nauvoo to Deseret, while others have tarried with them at Salt Lake for months, and even years, and all these letters have spoken in the highest terms of the industry, sincerity and morality of this modern religious sect. We have also read others denouncing them in the strongest terms and accusing them of almost all sorts of vice and crime, as does the writer of the letter from which we extract the above. Almost all the arrivals from Utah bring something confirmatory of the charges here preferred. We have therefore come to the conclusion, as we do not wish to accuse any one of wilful mistatement, that the Mormons, when they first made their settlement on the Salt Lake, were inclined to be kind and humane to emigrants. They knew what it was to suffer, and therefore were ready to sympathize with the jaded wanderer; they still retained a fond remembrance of their former home and the friends they had left behind, and consequently received the stranger with open arms, in the hope that they might gain from him some information in regard to the scenes and loved ones that for them now exist only in memory.

But these remembrances have gradually worn away, prosperity unhoped for has smiled upon their efforts, and a spirit of insolence and revenge has dissipated the nobler feelings that filled their breasts in the hour of affliction. Isolated as they are, they feel independent and secure from all molestation. There is now method in their humanity. If they think more can be made by treating their guests kindly, then they effect the lamb; if the reverse, then they can play the wolf to perfection. Their leaders are keen observing men, and have neglected no means to secure the awe and reverence of their enthusiastic dupes. All their religious appliance are brought to bear upon their followers to stimulate them to unheard of and unparalleled exertions and sacrifice to build and strengthen the city, until leaders and followers have come to look upon it as impregnable -- a kind of Gibraltar. So it only needed a slight acknowledgement of their importance by our government to make them as overbearing and meddlesome as the Russian autocrat. -- This acknowledgement they fancied they had received in the appointment of Brigham Young as Governor of Utah. The rebellion is only in its infancy now; and unless instantly and thoroughly put down, we will not attempt to predict to what results it may lead. If the accounts can be relied on, we think the ounce of prevention is at this moment imminently necessary.


Notes: (forthcoming)

AFFAIRS IN UTAH. -- In the House of Representatives, on the 6th inst.:

Mr. Bernhisel rose and said: I rise for the purpose of protecting [sic - protesting?] against the publication, by the returning officers of the United States for the Territory of Utah, in Missouri papers, and now in the New York Herald, and before it is communicated to Congress, of a report, extraordinary in its details, of high crimes and misdemeanors committed in that Territory, and calculated, if not intended, to prejudice and render odious a distant and dependent people, and to involve them in inexplicable difficulties with the General Government. I ask for them a suspension of public opinion, of executive and legislative action, until the truth can be elicited touching the grave charges contained in an ex parte report.

Mr. Carter desired to enquire of the gentleman from Utah whether he himself did not procure the publication which appeared in the New York Herald of yesterday morning, and whether it was not a garbled report?

Mr. Bernhisel replied that he neither furnished the article referred to, nor caused it to be furnished.

Mr. Carter said that his information was from the Department -- not exactly from his Department; but his information was that the delegate from Utah was the only personage who had access to the report; and he therefore had reason to suppose that the gentleman had caused the communication which appeared in the "Herald" to be sent to that paper. If such was the case, he (Mr. C.) should like to have an investigation of the matter.


Notes: (forthcoming)

The Territory of Utah

Politics and Religion among the Mormons -- Report of the returned Functionaries.

We give below the report which some of the United States officials who lately returned from Utah have made to the President.

To His Excellency Millard Fillmore.
    President of the United States.

(see original in N. Y. Herald)

Notes: (forthcoming)

ASTOUNDING REVELATIONS MADE BY THE UTAH JUDGES. -- The Mormons in open Rebellion against the United States. -- Polygamy and Incest. -- The report of the Judges of Utah Territory, who were expelled thence by the Mormons, has been published, and it is certainly one of the most extraordinary public documents that has ever come under our observation. It is dated Dec. 19, 1851, and addressed to the President of the United States. Lemuel G. Brandenbury, Chief Justice of the Territory, Perry A. Brocchus, Associate Justice, and B. D. Harris, Secretary of the Territory, are the parties whose signatures are appended to the report, and their narrative bears upon its face the evidence of candor and truthfulness. We have not the slightest doubt that it is a correct picture of the state of law, society, and morals; among the latter day and latter end saints.

It appears that immediately on their arrival in the Territory, the Judges were marked out for insult. Brigham Young, the governor, refused to receive them officially, and publicly declared that they might draw their salaries but should never try causes in the Territory, if he could prevent it. They were informed that "if they paid their board and behaved themselves they might stay; but if not, the Mormons would kick them to h--ll, where they belonged." The Mormons were assembled en masse for the purpose of giving Young & his satellites an opportunity to publicly insult the Government of the United States and its representatives in the territory, and again and again every epithet that the most consummate blackguard could suggest was heaped upon the judges. It is clear from the report that Young rules the Mormons with absolute power. He professes to utter his decrees by the authority of Jesus Christ, and they are obeyed as if they were the mandates of God! Oaths and blasphemy, it would seem, are common in the temples of worship, while the most horrible and disgusting licentiousness defiles the domiciles both of priests and laymen. Mothers and daughters are included in the same harem, and the abominations of Gomorrah seem to have become a part of the religion of the new "Cities of the Plain." Brigham Young controls the action of juries, appoints executive officers, is the fountain-head of legislation, exercises a power temporal and spiritual, ten times more despotic than that of Pious the Ninth of Rome. The Church -- of which Young is the acknowledged head -- is supreme. Of the manner in which justice is administered in the territory some idea may be found by the following passage from the report.

A man was tried in an adjoining county for an alleged offence, by a member of the church, purporting to be a judge, without a jury, and convicted and punished. About the same time, a cool and deliberate murder was committed in the territory, upon the body of James Monroe, a citizen of the United States, from Utica, New York, on his way to Salt Lake City, by a member of the church, and the remains brought into the city and buried, without an inquest, the murderer walking about the streets afterwards, under the eye of the Governor, and in his society -- some of the relatives residing there, and members of the church, afraid or disinclined to act. It was reported, and believed by many that the murder was counselled by the church, or some of its leading members, and such impression would paralyze the hand of any one inclined to interfere. This rumor received much force from the intimacy between offender and the leading members of the church, before and after the commission of the offence. He was several weeks in the city, and unknown, as well as his location, to any of us; it was the common talk that he intended to kill Mr. Monroe; he was permitted to go out sixty or eighty miles to meet his victim, and none of those men who knew the fact, lifted an arm or a voice to prevent the deed. He met Monroe, who was unarmed, invited him out of his camp, took a seat and talked half an hour with him and then rose up and blew his brains out with a pistol. We have no doubt, however, that if he had been tried, an entire acquittal would have followed; as was the result in February last, in the case of Dr. J. R. Vaughn, a citizen of Indiana. then on his way to California, and the murderer suffered to go unpunished. How many other crimes and offences were punished or passed by, we know not. The Governor was thus true to his declaration, that "the United States Judges should never try a cause, if he could prevent it," for we had no officer to summon a jury, or execute a warrant, subpoena, or any kind of process, except in cases in which the United States was a party, where the Marshal would be bound to act.

The judges must have had a pleasant time of it in Brigham Young's dominions; for they lived in continual expectation of having their throats cut. We give below an extract from the report, by way of affording a sample of the treatment they received. The address referred to, was a harangue delivered by one of the judges on the character and service of Washington.

At the close of the address, the Governor arose and denounced the speaker with great violence, as "profoundly ignorant or wilfully wicked;" strode the stage madly, assuming various theatrical attitudes, declared "he was a greater man than even George Washington;" that "he knew more than ever George Washington did;" that "he was the man that could handle the sword;" and, that "if there was any more discussion, there would be a pulling of hair and cutting of throats." Referring to a remark of the speaker "that the United States government was humane, and kindly disposed towards them," he said, "I know the United States did not murder our wives and children; burn our houses and rob us of our property, but they stood by and saw it done, and never opened their mouths, the d___d scoundrel." By this time the passions of the people were lashed to a fury like his own. To every sentence he uttered, there was a prompt and determined response, showing beyond a doubt that all the hostile and seditious sentiments we had previously heard, were the sentiments of this people. Those of us present felt the personal danger that surrounded us. If the Governor had but pointed his finger at us as an indication of his wish, we have no doubt we would have been massacred before leaving the house. But he did not point his finger. Upon the next and succeeding days, these denunciations of the officers and the government were renewed, as we were informed by a number who continued in their meetings, by the Governor and others, with increased vehemence, and in language so vulgar and obscene, that decency would blush to hear it.

Here is another extract from the report referring to the contempt and insult with which the authority of the Government and the characters of our statesmen were uniformly treated:

The Governor rose to address the audience and profound silence ensued, as is always the case when he rises to speak. -- After reflecting in terms of condemnation upon the alleged gostility of General Taylor to the Mormons and to giving them a government, he exclaimed, in a loud and exulting tone, "but Zachary Taylor is dead and in hell, and I am glad of it." -- Then drawing himself up to his utmost height, and stretching out his hands towards heaven, he declared, in a still more violent voice, "And I prophecy in the name of Jesus Christ, and by the power of the priesthood that is upon me, that any President of the United States who lifts his finger against this people, shall die an untimely death, and go to hell!" To this sentiment there came up, and from those seated around us, and from all parts of the house, loud and mingled responses of "Amen!" "Good!" "Hear!" &c. -- With the invitation to be present on this occasion was included an invitation to dine with the Governor. Upon a subsequent occasion, in reply to the remarks made by one of the undersigned upon the subject, before a large audience, the Governor reiterated and declared, "I did say that General Taylor was dead, and in hell, and I know it!" A man in the crowd, seemingly to give the Governor an opportunity of fixing its truth, spoke out and said, "How do you know it?" -- to which the Governor promptly replied, "Because God told me so." An elder of the church, laying his hand upon the shoulder of one of the undersigned, added: "Yes, Judge, and you'll know it too, for you'll see him when you get there."

We close our quotations from this extraordinary document with a passage in relation to Mormon morals, which will make our readers open their eyes somewhat wider than usual. The naivete with which the judges complain of the wife monopoly "as peculiarly hard upon the officers" is not the least interesting portion of the extract.

We deem it our duty to state, in this official communication, that polygamy, or plurality of wives is openly allowed and practised in the territory, under the sanction and in obedience to the direct commands of the church. So universal is the practice, that very few, if any, leading men in the community can be found who have not more than one wife each, which was peculiarly hard upon the officers sent to reside there. The prominent men in the church, whose example in all things it is the ambition of the more humble to imitate have each many wives, some of them we are credibly informed and believe, as many as twenty or thirty and Brigham Young, the Governor, even a greater number. Only a few days before we left the territory, the Governor was seen riding through the streets of the city in an omnibus with a large company of wives, more than two thirds of whom had infants in their arms -- a sure sign that the evil is increasing. It is not uncommon to find two or more sisters married to the same man; and in one instance, at least, a mother and her two daughters are among the wives of a leading member of the church. This practice, regarded and punished as a high and revolting crime in all civilized countries, would, of course, never be made a statutory offence by a Mormon Legislature; and if a crime at common law, the court would be powerless to correct the evil, with Mormon juries.

The Mormons of the Salt Lake Valley are a formidable body. Their country is only approachable, on the eastern side, by a narrow pass and their position is one of great strength generally. The men are trained to arms, well furnished with muskets and rifles, and possess about 100 pieces of cannon. We presume they could muster in an emergency an army of from 15,000 to 20,000 able bodied men, and their numbers are rapidly increasing, in consequence of emigration from the Eastern States and from Europe. That they intend to establish if possible a government independent of the United States is beyond all question; and we have no doubt that it will eventually be found necessary to compel their obedience to our laws by extreme measures. Nullification -- dead in the South -- has broken out in an unexpected quarter, and must be put down with the strong hand. The existence of a community in this Republic practising such wholesale licentiousness as the Mormons are accused of tolerating and encouraging, is a disgrace to our Government. -- We shall look with no little interest for the action of Congress upon these astounding and we have no doubt authentic disclosures.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMONISM.

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMON IMMORALITY. -- We have already alluded to the report of the United States officers, who fled from Utah Territory, and who charge the Mormons there with the grossest immorality. We now learn that the President has determined, as soon as spring opens, to supercede Gov. Brigham Young, and to establish a military post at the Salt Lake City. The Judges, moreover, will go back, with instructions to enforce the common law against a plurality of wives.

This is the right course. Whatever the peculiar religious opinions of the Mormons may be, we have no right to interfere with their exercise so long as no law of the United States is violated; but when that occurs, then the federal government is bound to interfere. Nor is interference, under such circumstances, prosecution. No one can doubt that, if a religious sect were to arise, which should, like the old Pagans, seek to propitiate the Deity by human sacrifices, it would not be persecution to prevent the execution of such horrid rites. So, the Mormons, in allowing a plurality of wives, violate the decorum, the law, and the moral sense of the land, and it is but right to correct their licentiousness.

In other words, no man, nor set of men, should be permitted, under the pretence of religion, to commit acts which are crimes by the law of the land. Now, so long as Utah is a territory, its laws are those of the United States. The common law of England is the basis of that law, and by the common law polygamy is an indictable offence. Governor Brigham Young can, and we trust, will be tried for bigamy, if, as the United States Officers assert, he has been scandalizing this nineteenth century by a plurality of wives. Not until Utah becomes a State, can it alter this maxim of the old common law. It is very certain that Congress will never allow Utah to become a State, if a law allowing polygamy is to supplant there the old common law doctrine, that a man shall have but one wife.

We have heard from various travellers, so much of the industry, kindness, peaceful habits, and other virtue of the Utah settlers, that we trust some satisfactory explanation may yet be made of these apparent immoralities. Yet, if the charge of polygamy should prove true, the law of the United States must be enforced, at whatever cost. So says decency, morality and justice -- Phil. Bulletin.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMON AFFAIRS. -- A correspondent of the National Intelligencer, refers to the news lately published about Judge Snow's having entered upon the discharge of his duties, and the location and naming of the new Mormon capital, and says:

A few words in relation to Judge Z. Snow. Judge S. joined the Mormon Church about twenty years ago, but has not resided in the Mormon community, or been in full communion with the church since they left Kirtland, Ohio, some fifteen years ago. He doubtless went to the Territory with the determination to discharge his official duties faithfully, uninfluenced and uncontrolled by his religious associations. When the difficulties commenced which led to the withdrawal of a portion of the officers, Judge Snow sympathized entirely with his colleagues, and when finally, in consequence of accumulated insults, outrages, and lawless transactions, they deemed it their duty to withdraw from the Territory, Judge Snow concurred with them in this determination, and commenced preparations to return to the States with his family. When this came to the ears of Brigham Young he promptly brought the church influence and authority to bear, and in a few days after Judge Snow was taken down to the River Jordan and rebaptized into the Mormon church. From that moment his views and feelings experienced a complete revolution, as is evinced by the letter from which you have quoted. But enough of him.

The location of the seat of Government of the Territory, contrary to all previous arrangements, in Pauvan[t] Valley, one hundred and fifty miles from any white settlement, and inhabited solely by roving bands of hostile Indians, is a very significant fact, but susceptible of a simple explanation. -- When the returned United States officers left Salt Lake City, for the reasons set forth in their report to the President, Brigham Young and his Mormon associates were well satisfied that, upon a fair and just representation of the facts to the Government at Washington, the civil authority of the Territory would be promptly withdrawn from their hands and control. Under this conviction, and with their usual cunning, they have located the capital in one of the most out-of-the-way, inconvenient, and unsafe districts to be found within the limits of the Territory, with the view not only to expose the officers who might be sent there to Indian hostilities, but to remove them so far from Salt Lake City as to prevent their taking cognizance of crimes and offences there, over which the church claims to exercise exclusive jurisdiction.

Recent letters received from Salt Lake City announce these as the reasons for the act. The names assigned to the new city and [county] may be regarded as a characteristic of Mormon diplomacy.
                                                              TRUTH.
Washington, February 11th, 1852,


Note: The "names" alluded to by the unidentified correspondent, are "Millard" for the county and "Fillmore" for the temporary capital of Utah Territory. Millard Fillmore, the 13th President of the United States, served in office from 1850 to the end of 1853

==> A telegraphic dispatch, dated New York, Feb. 28, states that the Prometheus, from San Juan, arrived with San Francisco dates to Feb. 2.

The sloop of war Albany sailed from San Juan on the 9th, leaving no American vessel of war there.

A runner reached San Francisco on the 1st, who reported that a revolution had commenced among the Mormons at Salt Lake, and that they were fortifying themselves, and had published a declaration of Independence, in which they declare their determination to set up a Republic.

The miners at Sacramento were very successful, working day and night.


Notes: (forthcoming)

SALT LAKE VALLEY AND THE MORMONS. -- A gentleman of high respectability has furnished the editor of the Lexington Express with the following extracts from a letter lately received from one of the emigrants who left Lafayette county for Oregon in the spring of 1850, and who was induced to spend the winter in Salt Lake Valley. The writer was regarded as a man of truth in that community:

"When we arrived in the valley, the people seemed sympathetic with the emigrants, and we were treated kindly, and encouraged by every argument they could advance, to remain with them during the winter -- assuring us that we would find constant employment at high wages -- more than make our expenses, and leave in the spring and get through with our stock in good order. These things were set forth in their most glowing colors in order to induce us to remain' and being thus encouraged we concluded to stay. We went on the California road to Weber River, 40 miles from the city, where there is a settlement called Weber Co., six miles square, which is now incorporated as Ogden City, with 4 to 6000 inhabitants. The population of the valley is variously stated by the Mormons to be from 20 to 30 thousand. -- My opinion is that there in not fifteen thousand -- two-thirds of whom are women, children and old crippled men.

The Mormons are making a master effort for numbers sufficient to be admitted as a State. They followed the emigrants 100 miles to take the census. We contended that they had no right to our names, for we were not citizens of Utah Territory nor never would be. But our arguments availed nothing, and we will therefore be returned to the Government as Mormons, which will be a cheat.

About 900 emigrants wintered in the valley.

The first Sunday after stopping, I went to hear for the first time a Mormon preach. He was the president of this Division and a very ignorant man. He addressed the people with a great tirade of abuse of the different Christian denominations, calling them Gentiles. Then the Missourians and Illinoians were abused and denounced as mobocrats and persecutors of the Saints, having killed their Prophet Joseph and Patriarch Hiram; that the Government of the United States had winked at this persecution and refused them redress; and that they had been driven out, and had flown to the mountains for refuge, and here they were a blessed people, and could worship God and none could make them afraid. -- He then exhorted the saints to obey those whom God had placed over them; to obey counsel in everything -- that this was the will of God; and for his part he was willing to do whatever the first President directed him to do, even to the throwing away of his life, if it was necessary, for he knew that he would not tell him to do any thing which was not for the benefit of the Kingdom. He then said the professed Christians in the States worship for a God the very devil, a spirit without body or parts, which was the very kind of a thing that the saints feared as a devil. "Now, brethren I will tell you what God is like." "In the beginning God created man in his own image." "Now, what is God like? Why he is just like a man;" and went on to say that if they would live up to their privileges and obey those whom God has placed over them, that they would be equal to Jesus Christ, and they could do all that he had done while on earth and would attain to the same perfection; that God would soon redress them for all their wrongs by the people of the States, the measure of whose wickedness would soon be full, and that God would deliver them into the hands of the saints, &c., &c.

The second day after this, while at the house of a priest, at dinner, some distance off, there appeared a train of carriages. All were looking at the sight. When they came near, the old Priest dropped his knife and fork, and exclaimed it was the President, and ran out to meet them. It was Brigham Young and three or four of his wives in a carriage, drove [sic] by quite a well dressed man. In company there were three other carriages, two of them filled with ladies and gentlemen, and one of them carried a brass band and bass drum, playing after the King at every place they passed where there were listeners. I was told that in returning to the city, he would be met by an escort; cannons would be fired and a great ado made.

In the months of September and October they commenced employing the emigrants. Some were engaged to work for the winter, and others for a short time, being told that the brethren would soon be in, intimating that when they arrived the preference would be given to them, and by such hints we soon saw that no reliance could be placed upon their promises. In November many were thrown out of employment, others had to work for their board or just whatever the Mormons saw fit to give them. Mrs. T_____'s boys and I, did not make our support by about 400 dollars.

The news arrived in November that a Territorial Government had been established for Utah. This exasperated the Saints very much, and they forthwith began to abuse the Government of the United States, and make many threats against the Gentiles, (as they called us,) saying that if we did not walk straight we would be pickled down, &c.

Thus matters went on till February (only growing worse all the time -- several emigrants in the city having been condemned to carry the ball and chain,) when they became desperate against the emigrants, [induced?] the boldness to discuss the propriety of killing all the Gentiles in the valley and not leaving one to tell the tale. This was openly proposed by Ezra T. Benson, one of the 12 Apostles. I suppose their reasons for wanting us destroyed, so that we could tell no tales, were, that on the trial of one of the men who had to wear a ball and chain three months for fighting with a Mormon, (the Mormon struck the first lick,) the judge, on giving the sentence, addressed the people and told them that the time was not far distant when every emigrant's head, who came into the valley, would be severed from his body, and he would live to see it. Q. O. [sic - Orson?] Pratt in a public speech in the city, said that he was sorry for only one thing, and that was, that he had ever let a Mobocrat from Missouri or Illinois pass through the valley; and if God would forgive him for it, he would have them all killed hereafter. I was under the impression that the Mormons were religious fanatics, but I soon discovered my mistake. They are, almost all, profane swearers, men, women and children; and I believe that there is more vice and immorality, in Salt Lake valley, than in any other place in the world containing the same number of inhabitants. -- Every week they have their low frolics, which are opened by prayer, at which all classes attend, and which are accompanied by fiddling, card-playing, quarreling, and every thing that is immoral.

I heard a quarrel between an old Priest and one of his brethren, about the cattle of the brother destroying the wheat of the Priest. They swore as hard as I ever heard two men swear. Another priest, an old man, who was a Justice, came up and commanded the peace, and not being immediately obeyed, became exasperated and out swore his brethren. Next day their trial came on, before the Bishop, the old Magistrate being the accuser. They acknowledged their faults and were baptized for their sins [sic - re-baptized for the remission of their sins?]. The Sunday subsequent the Justice preached and appeared very holy. The priest who lost the wheat, in his own house, a few days after, abused the brethren very much. "Yes," says he, "we meet on Sunday and they come round me with brotherly love, but devil a bit they care for my wheat." His eldest wife (for he had 4, two of whom were a daughter and a mother,) said to him: "Ah! old man, you must pray for your enemies." "Yes," says he, "I do pray for them -- I pray that God may d___n them and send them to hell as soon as convenient; but they are too mean and trifling for him to notice one at a time. He will have to make a big box and put them all in and damn the box. In the Fort [where] I wintered, there was a man who had four wives -- a mother and her daughter, and two others; and I could name many cases of the kind which came under my observation.

I saw here a Mr. Richardson, who was shot in Missouri, by a Mr. Johnston, a Methodist preacher, for stealing his mare and colt. He was carried off by the Mormons and reported dead. He is here a high priest, and has three wives. All the leading men have a large number of wives.

In February the emigrants began to make preparations for starting, and of course wished to collect all which was due them for their labor. But every kind of device was suggested and practiced to cheat them. Brigham had said that the Gentiles should not take away any money, and the property which was offered them was valued 4 prices [sic -- 1/4 price?]. Vexatious trials were instituted merely for the purpose of absorbing what was due them in costs. Although acquitted, as they said, honorably, their property was taken to pay costs. About this time a law was passed, fining all persons from 5 to 20 dollars for swearing. -- This law was executed when an emigrant could be fleeced, but I never heard of but one saint being tried, although their swearing was proverbial. They lacked 75 dollars of paying a mill wright who had built a mill for them. He swore and blustered and abused them about their polygamy, which was a sufficient justification for bringing a suit for slandering the saints. -- He was fined 71 dollars, four dollars was paid by him and he was set at liberty.

About the 1st of February, I heard A. Lyman, one of the 12, (in the presence of Brig, Young,) preach. He advised the people to have nothing to do with the Gentiles, and abused them scandalously -- said they should not invite them to their parties, not sell them any breadstuffs, nor have any intercourse with them; that the saints would consume their breadstuffs and build up their public works. Brigham arose and approved every thing Lyman had said. He then explained the tithing law. He said this law was given by God to Joseph, and would exist as long as time existed. This is about the substance of the law as explained: Every person admitted into the Church to pay one-tenth of all he is worth and as long as he lived to pay one-tenth of his increase, including the vegetables of the garden, crops of all kinds, poultry, butter, cheese, &c. Five months allowed them in which time they are to make their crops; every 10th day of their time in the remainder of the year to be employed for the Lord, which could not be idled away.

George Grant was the next person I heard preach. The emigrants, the people and Government of the U. States were anathematized in saint-like style. He had understood that an act had been passed by Congress establishing a Territorial Government. They wanted none of their laws and if they sent them a Governor they would reject him. They didn't want the protection of the Gentiles. They come here to prostitute our women and curse our institutions. They intend to govern themselves. This is not a tenth part of the abuse that was heaped upon our citizens and Government, by Mr. Grant.

Brigham was present, and approved of every thing that had been said. He wanted mone of their laws, and we will have none of them. If they send a Governor here he will be glad to black my boots. I am Governor here -- I was elected for life, and I will be Governor here as long as I live in these mountains. This is the State of Deseret, and we won't accept the name of Utah. Hear! all ye Gentiles, (turning towards the emigrants) if you do not quit cursing the Mormons, I will cut off your heads and send you to hell by the eternal God -- and he uttered a great deal more of the same kind of trash.

They did every thing which wickedness could invent, to harrass and distress the emigrants and get their property and money. They stole from myself and those who were with me, and from others, and we dared not say a word. If we opened our lips to complain we were intimidated by threats.

Brother and myself were frequently asked if we were not afraid to own ourselves Missourians? The man whom they said had shot Gov. Boggs. was pointed out to us frequently. They told us, boldly, that there had been many Mobocrats killed in the valley; and that there were men set apart to dog them when they were known, and some of them had been followed as far as Mary's River before they were killed. A young man with us was told by the Mormons that the son of the man who acted as a Captain in the battle in Davis county, Mo., had been killed by them last summer. Marshal Comstock started to the gold mines last spring, and I should like to know whether he is missing or not. Dr. Vaughn, of Iowa, we were told was killed last winter. Frequently men were missing, and unjust trials were often instituted as a pretence for robbery.

I will now relate a few circumstances relative to my own difficulties with the Mormons. In February, a man stepped up and told me that I was suspected of being a Mobocrat, and if it was the case I was in great danger; and if you don't prove to the contrary, we shall take it for granted you are a Mobocrat. Assurances did no good. A few nights after this, my house was struck with a very heavy blow which awoke us all. The women were dreadfully alarmed, and were not satisfied until we moved out of the settlements. -- We went about 20 miles and camped. A man by the name of Turner, got into a difficulty with the Mormons, and apprehensive of danger ran off. He stopped at our camp and said that he was on his way to Fort Hall, and when he left we supposed that he had pursued that course. A few days subsequently, 30 or 40 men with two baggage wagons surrounded our camp, and guarded us day and night, without saying a word, or giving us any idea of their designs. But, I learned after they left, that they pretended to be searching for the property of Turner, and had inquired if I had not some of Turner's cattle. I was now satisfied that they wanted my cattle, and without them, knowing I could not leave the valley, I became very uneasy. Two days later this company left, a Mormon came to me inquiring about Turner, intimating that I knew of his whereabouts, and that Mrs. Turner had sent him to inquire. The same day O. P. Rockwell passed in search of Turner, and returned without him; and next evening a company of abiut 25 came riding up in great haste -- they accused us of secreting Turner. All the emigrants assured them that the truth had been told -- that Turner had passed there as they supposed for Fort Hall. They pretended they were not satisfied, asserted we had secreted rogues, and unless we gave them up, they would take us and our cattle. We protested, and spoke of the injustice of this course. Near night they left us and camped about half mile from us.

About 10 o'clock that night, a young man came into our camp from Turner, begging provisions. Turner had secreted himself in Bear River bottom, not being able to cross the river. I told the young man all that had passed, and had informed him of our danger on account of Turner, and told him by all means to send Turner in, so as to get us out of the difficulty. After the young man started, we went to the Mormon camp an informed them of what had happened, and told them where they could find Turner. Instead of hunting him, they stayed around our camp and finally produced a writ for my arrest. I was taken to the Fort for trial, for harbouring rogues. They took me down that evening, and kept me in custody till next morning, when I was brought before the Court for trial. By this time the news had spread, and the emigrants in that neighborhood were generally in attendance. They were surprised to hear that a man of my character should be arrested for crime. Are you ready for trial, was the first question propounded by the Judge. I told him that I claimed a change of venue. What are your reasons he demanded? I told him that a man in the States by making oath that he did not believe he could get justice, could get a change of venue without giving reasons. I took the oath, but all done and said was overuled, and the trial proceeded, after the Judge vented some of his indignation upon me. My objection to this man trying the case, were in consequence of his having already passed judgement upon me. A jury was granted.

The first witness knew nothing but had heard a great deal. I objected to such testimony, but my objections were overuled, and a great many hearsays went to the jury as evidence. The States Attorney desired to be sworn, and related a conversation in a garbled manner, which had taken place between us; all he said was a most shameful misrepresentation of facts.

After several had made long speeches against me, and I had made some remarks, the case went to the jury. My friends and I thought they would find me guilty, although not one particle of testimony had been produced to prove me so. While I was offering a mule to any one who would get me clear, the jury came in with a verdict of not guilty.

Going back to the camp that evening, I met Rockwell with Turner, who, some of the emigrants had induced to give himself up. Turner was turned loose and passed us subsequently on his way to California, never having been tried for any offence.

I will now relate what I supposed to be the cause of my acquittal: The night I was brought to the Fort as a prisoner, a Grand Council was held to decide my case. The President first spoke -- he was for killing off the Gentiles, and abused the company for not bringing down all of the emigrants. The next man up dissented -- he said such conduct had driven them from the States, and would bring the general Government down upon them if they persisted in this course. His advice was to treat every emigrant well, who had any influence in the States. It did not matter so much how the ignorant and uninfluential are treated. The advice of the last speaker was adopted...." [remaining column of article missing from clipping]

---

CARSON VALLEY. -- View of the country -- Mineral Resources -- Agriculture -- New Pass of the Sierra Nevada. --

(under construction)


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMON INDEPENCENCE. --The late mails bring us the astounding intelligence that a revolution had taken place amongst the Mormons on the Great Salt Lake, and that they are arming and fortifying themselves at every point, and that the had published a declaration of independence, in which they declare their full determination to set up a Republic. If this report be true, as we presume it is, it will become necessary for the General Government to order a strong body of troops to that region, without delay, and a desperate internal war may be apprehended.

Although in point of numbers, they are by no means formidable, yet they may cause the Government much trouble and loss, both in blood and in treasure. They are the worst sort of fanatics, and this description of men are generally the worst [enemies] we have to [encounter]. They should be met and put down at once, or the consequences may be [disastrous] to the prosperity of the new States and territories in that region of country; and we shall look with deep solicitude to the action of the Administration, in regard to their conduct.

---

LATER FROM OREGON AND UTAH - Rebellion in Utah - Dales to the 24th ult. -- We learn by the mail carried from the Dells, that news has reached that place from the great Salt Lake, of a revolution. It is said that the Mormons are arming and fortifying themselves, and had published a Declaration of Independence, in which they asserted their full determination to set up a republic for themselves.

The editor of the "Weekly Times," published at Portland, has conversed with a gentleman who had just arrived from Salt Lake. He says that affairs there present a threatening aspect.

The people are nearly in a state of outlawry, and freely declare their hatred of the general government. At the same time they are preparing to resist all authority from without by fortifying their settlement. The United States Territorial officers have all left....


Note: Reports of a Mormon rebellion in the west were much exaggerated -- they probably reflected the temporary fears of non-Mormons in the region much more than they did any overt acts of insurrection attempted by Brigham Young and his associates. Not until the year 1857 did relations between the Utahans and the Federal Government deteriorate to the point that actual armed conflict ensued.

The Mormons of Salt Lake.

To the Editor of the National Intelligencer.

Gentlemen: I read the other day a remark of yours that you supposed the late news by the way of Oregon, that the Mormons had declared themselves absolved from and independent of the United States, originated perhaps in the departure of the United States civil authorities from Salt Lake. In this supposition you are in error. I left California on the 16th of December last, and knew of the rupture of the civil authorities with the Mormons at least eight weeks before that. The trip between Salt Lake and Sacramento is often made in less than two weeks; -- there is a monthly mail between Portland Oregon, and Salt Lake; also between Sacramento and Los Angeles and Salt Lake. The communication between the Mormon settlement in Los Angeles and Salt Lake is kept open the whole year round.

Although the Delegate from the territory of Utah disbelieves that statement brought by the last steamer from California, yet I am satisfied that he is in error. I believe every word of it. In fact it does not surprise the people of Oregon and California. We had all been looking for news of open defiance on the part of the Mormons to the authority of the United States. The great body of these people are English chartists, and the rest are made up of fanatics and enthusiasts of our own country and other parts of the world. I have no hesitation in saying that the statement brought by the last mail will have to take some very decided means to subdue and restrain these people, or they will do immense damage to life and property. Besides their control over a large number of war-like tribes of Indians, their numbers will be greatly augmented by emigration during the ensuing year. Very respectfully     A CALIFORNIAN.


Note: The Saint Joseph Gazette ran this same reprint in its issue for April 7, 1852.

THE MORMONS. -- The Washington City Telegraph says: "Some one has marked and sent us a 'Defence of the Mormons,' being a letter from the Mayor of Great Salt Lake City, addressed to James Gordon Bennett, esq. We find it to consist chiefly of a very coarse tirade of abuse of the United States officers who have returned from the Mormon country. Those officers are here, and have been for months in suspense respecting the decision of our government in the [premiere?]. They or the Mormons are to be condemned, and energetic action is called for.

Were any people, not professing to be a religious people, to live and act as the Mormons have done and are doing, they would have been subdued or annihilated. But because they add hypocrisy, blasphemy, and the profanation of everything that is holy, to their wretched immorality and outlawry, their rank villainy and treason are indulgently regarded and their corruptions tolerated. How long such things are to be borne, we know not; but the longer, the more difficult will it be to correct them. -- We think that the United States civil officers should be again placed among them, and that, in the event of their disregarding or resisting the authority of those, the United States army should promptly bring them to terms....


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMONISM AND THE MORMONS. -- The last chapter in the history of Imposture remains to be written, and if we may judge of the future by the lights of experience, humanity and delusions are as inseparably connected as cause and effect. Perhaps the annals of mankind do not afford a more extraordinary instance of credulity, than is presented by the people whose name heads this article. When we consider the general diffusion of education and intelligence, the progress in all branches of science and the facility of inter-communication, it is more than remarkable that pretensions a thousand times exposed and refuted, should be adhered to with a tenacity which defies both fact and common sense.

That an illiterate pretender to supernatural authority should start up, in the nineteenth century, and proclaim a new revelation. creates no astonishment, for each year brings forth a new crop of speculators on public simplicity; but that a system so baseless as Mormonism should survive the test of twenty years' ridicule and denunciation, may well excite wonder. And when we find, moreover, that so far from exhibiting symptoms of internal decay, the new creed is gaining daily strength by accessions from all portions of the civilized world, wonder is ripened into a stronger sentiment.

The philanthropist, whose highest ambition is to improve the material and intellectual welfare of his race, sees with pain his cherished hopes of human perfectibility, scattered into the air by the wand of a vulgar enchanter, and almost fears the return of his kind, to more than mediaeval barbarism. Are there no limits to the credulousness of our species, or are the teachings of philosphers, moralists and divines, mere empty words, signifying nothing? Yet we must answer the latter question in the in the affirmative, or the assertions of Mormonism are the most stupendous fraud of the age. Let the followers of the modern Prophet ponder well on these propositions, and try them by the touch of reason and experience.

With the moral and religious dogmas of the Mormon creed, it is not our province as journalists to deal; at variance as we believe them to be with the recognized maxims of civilized communities and the best interests of society. It is the glorious distinction of our constitution that its toleration is unlimited to all whose doctrines and practices are inimical to the State, and the rights of others. But the framers of that instrument never devised it as a cover for treasonable designs to gather strength till they can put its provisions at defiance; and such are the intentions of Young and his followers, we firmly believe, when numerically strong enough to throw off the mask, which they have hitherto worn.

We give them credit for too much sagacity to proclaim their resolves from the house-top, in advance, whenever they are disposed to resist the authority of the Federal Government. They are well aware that this would be the signal for prompt and severe retribution. It will be observed that while Brigham Young in his message is silent on the subject of a Declaration of Independence, he now here attempts to clear himself from the charges advanced by the U. S. District Judge and Marshall, of using infamous language towards the memory of General Taylor, and traitorous threats against the present Executive.

For our part we regard the statements of those officers as entirely substantiated, especially as we have heard respectable men, who have left the Saints in disgust, corroborate the fact, that the head of the Mormon church is accustomed to denounce his opponents with the same coarse brutality.

In conclusion, we cannot help regarding the organization of the Utah Territory, controlled by such hands, as the greatest political error of the noble old man under whose administration it occurred, and fear it may be retrieved only by a serious expenditure of treasure and blood. -- St. Louis Union.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Important to Californians.
EMIGRANTS.

The undersigned merchants and traders at Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, would inform the overland emigration to California, that every necessary article for the comfortable prosecution of the journey, can be purchased in our city at fair rumunerating prices, very much less than the emigrant can afford to haul them at the expense of their wagons and teams. We hold ourselves ready at this time to contract any amount of prime super fine flour, in Salt Lake City, at ten dollars per hundred pounds. This will be the maximun price during the season, with a probability of its being less. The prices of cattle, horses, mules, vegetables, &c., will be little if any higher than the same articles can be procured in the "States."

The well-disposed emigrant will meet with none other than a cordial reception from the citizens of the Salt Lake Valley... [undersigned by various mercantile firms]

---

THE SALT LAKE MAIL. -- On yesterday the Salt Lake mail landed in our city. It brought no news of general interest. Everything is reported as being peaceable and quiet; the mail left Laramie on the 17th ult. The contractor of the mail. Mr. Caldwell, says that it has been remarkably dry and cool on the plains -- and that no grass is to be found beyond Fort Kearney; between Kearney and this point there is grass for mule trains, but not for horned cattle; and that emigrants need not make any miscalculations on getting food, either for man or beast, after they pass the Kaw river. Under these circumstances, emigrants will find it in their interest to remain where they can be well supplied for weeks yet; they will save time by it. -- Ind. Mess., 1st.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMON EDITORS IN LUCE. -- Orson Hyde. late editor of the Kanesville Guardian has been nominated by the President for the Utah Judgeship which Brocchus has resigned. Willard Richards, editor of the Deseret News has been nominated to the Secretaryship of the Territory in place of B. D. Harris, who has also resigned. -- It would seem from these indications, that President Fillmore intends to let the Mormons have their own way. How Mr. Fillmore, after having all the facts before him, could give office to such a man, is certainly a mystery to us. We can assure Mr. Fillmore, that there is not a decent Whig in this section of the State, but censures him for these appointments. We hope the Senate will not confirm them.


Notes: (forthcoming)

COWHIDED. -- We learn that our particular friend, Brother Orson Hyde, was publicly cowhyded in Weston on Friday last, by Robt. Wilson. We regret that this Mormon elder, and Judge of Utah, should have received at this late day, what he deserved several years since; but it has come at last, and we are glad to hear that Orson bore it like a christian. We understand that Brother Hyde regrets the indignity offered to the Government of the United States, in chastising one of its officers; but appears perfectly reconciled so far as his own personal feelings are concerned. We have no disposition to injure our friend, and publish his own version of the affair below:

                                                  Weston, Mo., June 4, 1852.
Mr. Editor: You are doubtless acquainted with some little sparring, in former times, between myself and Mr. Robert Wilson, of your town. I met him last year on the plains and explained to him all matters so far as I could, gave him my author of the report that I published, and said to him that I would inquire further into the matter, and if I found that I had done him injustice, I would correct the error. I supposed all was satisfactory at that time, having given him the author of my information.

Since that time I hardly thought of the subject until to-day, when I met Mr. Wilson in the streets of your city, who commenced, after a brief ceremony, an attack upon me with a cowhide. Hos extreme excitement would not allow him to do much. Some gentlemen immediately interfered and took him away. An Editor is of some consequence when he is cowhided -- or at least assailed and threatened and a slight application of the rod. I owe Mr. W. no particular ill-will, but did not deem the matter of sufficient importance to merit a cowhiding.
        Respectfully yours,         O. HYDE.


Notes: (forthcoming)

 

(Under construction)

 


Notes: (forthcoming)

Mr. James Bridger.

It will afford gratification to the numerous friends and acquaintances of Mr. James Bridger, the well known trader, to learn that the reports in circulation concerning his death, are without foundation, and that by this time he has doubtless, arrived with his family, safely at [W-----], Me. He had a narrow escape however, as the Mormons were greatly [------ed] at him, for furnishing (as they say) arms and ammunition to the Utah Indians, with whom they are at war. A party of some thirty or forty Mormons were sent by Governor Young, to his Fort to arrest him. Being apprised of their approach, he took to the mountains in the vicinity of Bridger's Fort, where he watched the movements of his pursuers. They took possession of the Fort and lived upon his [----s] and provisions several days, but, being unable to find him returned home. Immediately after their departure he collected his family together and started for the States. -- Sidney, Iowa Journal.


Note 1: Reports of "Mountain Man" Bridger's death began to circulate after some of his fleeing employees reached the settled portion of the western frontier without him. For one such news item, see the Nov 12, 1853 issue of the Illinois Dixon Telegraph.

Note 2: After Jim Bridger fled in 1853, The Mormons took control of the Green River Basin, establishing their Fort Supply in the area and leaving Fort Bridger vacant. Bridger returned to Utah Territory in 1855 and sold his fort and lands to his occasional enemies, the Mormons, for $8,000. They then occupied his fort and trading post, fortifying the outpost against the possibility of future attack by Indians or outsiders from the States. In 1857, the Mormons abandned the fort and destroyed much of its usefulness to the advancing United States Army. "Johnson's Army," guided by Bridger, occupied the area late in 1857 and the old fort was eventually rebuilt.

Salt Lake Mail.

This mail arrived on December 30th ult., from Salt Lake, leaving there December 1st., with two passengers.

Notwithstanding the fearful tragedy of last month, they got through without interruption. It left here for Salt lake on the 1st inst, with two passengers, as as experienced and grave a conductor and hands as ever crossed the plains...

We understand that a company of U. States troops are ordered to escort this mail out. This is right. If the power of the U. S. is too weak to protect its own mails, it ought to take a back seat, and the people will protect themselves. -- Independence Messenger.

---

==> The people of Carson's valley, numbering about eight hundred, have elected a delegate to come to the California Legislature, and apply for admission into that State, in case the permission of Congress can be obtained. They are now in the Territory of Utah, but are so far severed from the seat of government asd to render direct communication very difficult, besides which their habits and feelings are more intimately connected with the people of California than with those of Utah.

---

WELLS ON THE DESERT. -- A joint resolution has been passed by the California Legislature, instructing the representatives of that State in Congress, to exert themselves to obtain an appropriation for the sinking of wells in the Humboldt Desert, Utah Territory, for the relief of emigrants, cattle, and other trains, journeying overland by that route from California. -- Nothing but alkaline water is met with upon the surface in that vicinity, and as a consequence, it is very fatal to cattle and horses.


Notes: (forthcoming)

==> Bill Smith, brother of Joe, has written a letter, in which he says that the system of polygamy, got up by Brigham Young, and other evils which grew out of it, are a libel and a slander upon the character of the prophet whose bones lie mouldering in a prophet's grave; and were Joseph Smith to come forth from his lowly bed, and view the condition of things in Salt Lake country, he would sprun from his presence Brigham Young, and denounce his doctrine.


Note: The above item reads very much like a report published in the May 5, 1855 Decatur Illinois State Chronicle. That newspaper credits the quotation from William Smith, to a letter of his published in the Springfield Illinois Journal. The Smith letter was evidently printed in the latter paper about May 1st.

THE MORMONS IN THE GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. -- We have received files of the Deseret News, printed in the Great Salt lake City, for the month of may. They contain many items of the movements among the Mormons.

President Brigham Young, accompanied by Counsellors Kimball and others, left Salt Lake City on the 8th, on a tour to the southern settlements. They intend to be absent about four or five weeks, during which time all, or nearly all, of the settlements in that direction will be visited, and talks held with the Indians contiguous to the route.

The grasshopper were doing great damage to the crops. No rain had fallen, the earth was drying up, and many of the Mormons were fearful of a famine. In one part of the country the gulls were annihilating the grasshoppers.

A correspondent of the Deseret News, writing from Liverpool, says that eighteen hundred persons have left that port for the Salt lake this season. At the date of his letter, there were thirteen hundred more on the books for passage. the emigration from Europe to the Mormon settlements promises to be very large this year.

Complaints are made by the News of the detention and ransacking of the Utah mails by the postmasters at Laramie.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMONS IN THE SOUTH. -- From San Bernardino we glean np news of importance. Their crops being gathered in, our Mormon friends are now devoting themselves to the task of raising means to pay for their lands. They propose to sell lots and farms at fair prices to those who desire them, and for this purpose have sent out their members through every portion of the State to preach the faith and represent their present difficulties. As far as soil, climate and natural features are concerned, no point in the State furnishes more attractive inducements; and however much people may differ on the subject of Mormonism, no umbrage can be taken against the settlers at San Bernardino as citizens and neighbors. They pursue the even tenor of their way, minding their own business, pursuing quietly their vocations; and in many things furnishing an example worthy of imitation. They have few or no lawsuits; no drunkenness; no rioting; no murders; no thefts. -- They work together and assist one another, and are building up for themselves a city which will be an ornament to the country and a source of pride to themselves. -- Sout. Californian.


Notes: (forthcoming)

A HIT AT MORMONISM. -- A few days since Mr. Ball, of Ohio, introduced a resolution into the House at Washington, to instruct the Judiciary committee to examine and report upon the expediency of a law prohibiting persons already married, from marrying again, or cohabiting with any other person than their original lawful partner, in any of the territories of the United States. This raised a [muss]. The first part could be endured but the last clause was declared by some of the members to be a direct infringement upon their dearest personal rights. Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, objected to it, as he said, for the benefit of his neighbor, Mr. Bernhisel, delegate from Utah, who is said to have a harem full of wives at home. And so the resolution went over, which is equivalent to its indefinite postponement. Congress is a great institution. -- O. S. Journal.


Notes: (forthcoming)

SECFETARY BABBITT'S TRAIN MURDERED BY THE CHEYENNE INDIANS. -- We see by the Council Bluffs Bugle. of the 9th inst., that Secretary Babbitt;s train was, on the 25th of August, while encamped on Prairie Creek, 10 miles east from Wood river, suddenly attacked by a band of Cheyennes, who had, "for some cause, recently been attacked and driven by the soldiers at Fort Kearney." Three persons were murdered, and Mrs. Wilson taken captive, after murdering her infant, which was found horribly mutilated. A large amount of property was stolen, including oxen and mules.


Notes: (forthcoming)

SCHISM AMONG THE MORMONS. -- Elder John Hyde, hitherto one of the leading spirits among the Latter Day Saints, who was sent to the Sandwich Islands to convert the heathen to the many-wife system, has renounced the Mormon faith, and is engaged in exposing its fallacies. Among other charges, that of falsifying the census of the Territory is made. The ex-elder says that there are not much over half as many inhabitants in Utah as the census returns would indicate. Names of deceased persons, names of disciples who never came there, and those who have long since gone away, have been retained to swell the aggregate to the required seventy thousand.

---

A Salt Lake correspondent of the Baltimore Sun, under date of October 31, says:

"We have dreadful accounts of the sufferings among the Mormon emigrants by the hand-cart train, which is now in the mountains. The train contained 350 souls. One-seventh are already dead, and they are dying at the rate of fifteen per day. -- There are some 600 more behind, of which we have heard nothing. We hope that they stopped at Laramie. It is impossible for them to get through this fall. The Mormons estimated that there are not less than 1500 of their brethren yet to come in, and the snow is reported to be not less than 3 feet deep in the mountains."


Notes: (forthcoming)

The Murder of Capt. Gunnison;

Letter from Judge Drummond.

The mystery of the murder of poor Capt. Gunnison, whose sad and tragic fate in Utah in 1853, we all remember, is gradually clearing up, confirming the suspicion that he and his eight companions were not murdered by Indians, but by Mormons. -- In the Chicago press of yesterday, is a correspondence between Mrs. M. D. Gunnison, widow of the murdered officer, and Judge Drummond, late Judge of the Federal District Court for Utah.

In answer to Mrs. Gunnison's inquiries concerning the death of her husband, Judge Drummond mentions a chain of circumstances which prove conclusively that the murderers of Gunnison and his party were Mormons and Indians, and that the whole affair, to use Judge Drummond's own words, "was a deep and maturely laid plan by the Mormons to murder the whole party of engineers and surveyors, and charge the murder upon the Indians." The murderers were a company of Indians and Mormons, led by one Enies, a friend and favorite of Brigham Young. The names of the Mormons who participated in the affair, are William A. Hackman [sic]. Anson Call, Alexander McRay, Ephraim Hanks, James W. Cummings, Edwin D. Wooley, George Peacock, Levi Abrams, and Bronson -- all of them members in good standing of the Mormon church. The Indians were tried for the offence, but acquitted in obedience with an express order to that effect from Brigham Young to the jury.

These disclosures by Judge Drummond will produce a sensation in the country.   St. Louis News.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Later from Salt Lake City

By the arrival yesterday of a number of young gentlemen, who left their company at Little Sandy, K. T., 200 miles west of this city, we learn that a party of fifty persons, including some families, left Salt Lake on the 15th of April, among the number were U. S. Officers for the Territory of Utah, Surveyor General Burr, Judge Stiles, Mr. Dodson, the United States Marshal, and the lately appointed Post Master, Mr. Morrill. They report their trip as tedious, on account of the scarcity of grass on the route, and the cold weather. They saw no indications of hostility on the part of the Indians.

On the 14th inst., they met the U. S. Mail, at Ash Hollow, about 140 miles this side of Fort Laramie, and also Dr. Bernhisel the Delegate to Congress from Utah.

On the 22d inst., they met the first of the California emigrant trains near Fort Kearney. The emigrants are chiefly from Missouri; numbering 350 or 400 wagons, about 2,000 persons and probably 15,000 head of cattle all getting along well.

Affairs in Utah are represented as very unsettled. It appears the conduct of the Mormons has excited the apprehensions of the U. S. Officers, and they have abandoned the Territory, and are now on their way to Washington to report to the President the true state of things in Utah, and to ask for protection by the United States Troops. The statements of Judge Drummond seem to be confirmed, and that the Mormons are rebellious, cruel, and exceedingly insulting and tyrannical to all gentiles. We are satisfied, however, from our information of the internal affairs of Utah that Gov. Young will tamely submit to the official direction of President Buchanan, as we doubt not he will select such men as are suited to the occasion, [and] equip them to administer the laws effectually.

We have seen it stated that Governor Young had fled from Salt Lake. This is all a mistake, as the latest accounts represent him in bad health, and on the 20th April expected to start a tour to Salmon River, 300 miles North of Salt Lake, with an escort of 150 Danites. The Gov. doubtless, like other great officials finds it good to take a little recreation. Brigham is getting to an advanced age. His health is rapidly declining, and like Solomon finds that all things below are vanity, &c. It is our opinion that this deluded sect, completely fills up the description given in Newton's Explanations of the false Prophet spoken of in the Revelation of John, and a palpable demonstration to the world that the principle laid down in the Christian code, are the only bases, on which can be reared a permanent and lasting social compact. -- Platte Argus.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Later from Utah.

The Western mail of last evening, brought us the Deseret News, of the 20th and 27th May, from which we make up a summary of what is transpiring in that quarter.

The usual number of sermons, or "Remarks," as they are called, of the leading men of the Mormon faith, are contained in each of these papers, from which we may hereafter give some extracts.

A long article under the editorial head is devoted to the subject of the introduction of the Bible into Utah, for which purpose, it seems, a missionary by the name of Van Emmon had been specially sent into that Territory to distribute the word of God. The News expressed a great surprise at this, inasmuch as the Bible contained so many proofs in favor of "polygamy, to which the religious world, as a general thing, were so much opposed." The agent publishes a notice that he would leave on the 1st of June.

Under the head of "Impositions upon Utah" the News treats of the abuses which have been heaped upon the people of that territory, and refers to the appointment of officers for its government -- saying that some of them have been men of the most corrupt, wicked and abominable practices that could be found, or that ever disgraced the human race. Judge Drummond is particularly singled out.

Judge Phelps [W. W. Phelps] was engaged in making a settlement on the Weber river, above the crossing of the Emigration roads, in the eastern part of the county of Summitt. -- The altitude of the country is high, and the warm season shorter, but wheat and some other kinds of grain may mature there. -- "The Judge thinks those that go there will have to live by faith, which is undoubtedly correct." But the editor says, "if they do not have to mix works with it to no inconsiderable extent in order to live through the long cold winters and keep stock in that country, we shall be mistaken."

The News of the 27th announces the return of Brigham Young and his party, after an absence of sixteen days, all well -- his body invigorated by the journey, as also many others in the company." "His return, and that of the principal men who accompanied him will give new life and vigor to the city."

A great number of men were exployed on the Temple building.

---

HECTOR H. MCLEAN, THE MAN WHO KILLED THE SEDUCER OF HIS WIFE. -- This gentleman, whose heroic and persevering efforts to rescue his children from the loathsome embraces of Mormonism have made his name familiar to the public, yesterday paid us a visit. He showed us a number of letters written to his wife by P. P Pratt, in the characters which the Mormons have invented to carry on correspondence and conceal their meaning, should their letters ever happen to fall into the hands of "Gentiles." The letter thus written are as perfectly incomprehensible to us as they would be if written in Chinese. -- Strange as it may appear, Mr. McLean translated these letters correctly, as circumstances subsequently showed, without any previous knowledge of the characters used.

The only key he had was furnished in the first letter, wherein the writer informed his victim that certain alterations had been made to the Mormon alphabet, and explained what they were, so that she might understand them. The alterations were only two, and from this slight clue to the meaning of these hieroglyphics, Mr. M'Lean succeeded, after giving up in despair several times, in deciphering the whole, thus enabling him to thwart the efforts of the impostor to rob him of his children. -- It was extraordinary, and shows itself veritably that necessity is the mother of invention. Mr. M'Lean narrated to us a number of circumstances which almost seemed to indicate the direct interposition of Providence in his behalf in causing him to secure his children.

We advise Mormon spies here, as elsewhere, to give Mr. M'Lean as wide a berth as possible. His company to them will prove extremely disagreeable to say the least.

If Mr. Buchanan would confer upon him the Governorship of Utah, and he would accept it, we are inclined to think that the old Brigand would have a sudden weakness in his knees. -- New Orleans Bulletin.


Notes: (forthcoming)

The Mormon Chief Priest and the Sealed Wife Ceremony.

The following description of the great Brigham, and the "sealed" wife system, is from a French paper:

The prophet, Brigham Young, is a man of about forty-five years of age, or ordinary [stature], and of a fine corpulence, as becomes the husband of sixty wives. He enjoys influence without limit, and the Mormons believe in his infallibility, as they did in that of his predecessor, Joe Smith. He is a man of much intelligence. In the intercourse of ordinary life, he is sociable, conversable, jovial even, and loves fun; but when he assumes his pontifical function, he takes another character, becomes intolerant and fanatic, and sows in the hearts of those who are his instruments, the germs of hatred against the "Gentiles." These germs fructify too much, for nothing seems too bad to be permitted to believers against those who do not partake of their faith. -- In imitation of Mussulmans, the Latter Day Saints have no right to more than seven wives the prophet can have [no?] more of them.

We quote the following description of the multiplication of nupitals from the Seer. published by Apostle Pratt:

The man having already one wife, and desirous of taking another, has no right to ask any one in marriage until he has received a "revelation" from God on the subject. If this revelation interdicts the marriage it cannot take place. If it approves it., the man then addresses himself to the parents of the young girl, but never to the girl herself. Before all these events take place, it is the duty of the husband to consult his first wife, and obtain her consent to his second nupitals, in conformity with the twenty-fourth paragraph of the "Revelation." When the day chosen for the ceremony of the marriage has arrived, the husband and his wife, and also the new bride, with all their respective relations, assemble together in some place agreed upon. The president, who is prophet, pastor and revealer over all the church, and who alone holds the keys of authority in this solemn ordinance, (so it is written in the second and fifth paragraphs of the revelation upon marriage) requests the husband, wife, and bride to arise, which they do, facing the President, the wife standing to the left of her husband and the bride to his right. -- The President then addresses himself to the wife: "Do you consent to give this woman to your husband as his legitimate wife for time and eternity? Manifest your intention by placing her right hand in the right hand of your husband." The right hands of the bridegroom and bride being joined, the first wife draws his left arm under her right arm. The President then addresses himself to the husband: "My brother, will, or do you take sister _____ as your legitimate wife, promising to be faithful to all the laws, ordinances and practices of this holy marriage, in the presence of God and his angels?"

Upon the affirmative response of the bridegroom, the President puts the same question to the bride, after which he declares them united, and recommends them to be fruitful, to grow and multiply, and fill the earth with their posterity.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Carson Valley -- The Arrest of Brigham Young Contradicted.

There was a rumor in California that Brigham Young had been arrested on the charge of treason, and was on his way to Washington in charge of the United States Marshal. This turned out to be a fabrication. The Sacramento Union says:

"From Judge Crane we learn that the report respecting the seizure of Brigham Young, by Col. Sumner, is all a hoax. No such information could have been received at Oroville. He saw on the Humboldt several emigrant trains which had not yet reached Carson Valley when he left there, and which had left Salt Lake City more than a month after the reported seizure, and they knew nothing about it. On the contrary, Brigham was there, and was still the presiding genius. He said that if such an event had occurred, it would have been known in Carson Valley by the Mormons in less than fifteen days."


Later from Carson Valley and the Plains -- The Union has interesting telegraphic advices from Placerville, announcing the arrival of a large number of overland emigrants...

Mr. [Borson] brings the intelligence of the massacre of a whole train consisting of six men and three children. One woman was shot through and scalped, and left for dead, but was found still alive by those who came up first. She is not expected to live. She is being brought into Carson Valley by Roundtree's train.

The stock was also recovered from the Indians, in doing which only one Indian was killed. The stock is in charge of Roundtree's train -- 150 head.

Among the killed were Halloway and his brother-on-law. The three children were murdered before the faces of their parents, and horribly mutilated.

---

Proposed Territory of Carson.

The people of Carson Valley, and other valeys adjacent, held a public meeting at Genoa, on the 8th ult., to consider the propriety of petitioning Congress for a separate Territorial organization. So far as we can learn, the meeting was unanimous in favor of a new Territory of their own. The reasons for demanding a separation from the dominion of Utah, are, that they dislike the Mormons, and have now no political communication with the authorities of Salt Lake, and, during the winter, could have no communication if they wished it. A government is necessary to them; their population is large, and rapidly increasing; and they need protection against rascals within and Indians without. The majority of the inhabitants of Carson and the adjacent valleys are Gentiles, and do not wish to have Mormon officers over them...

---

DEMISE OF THE MORMON. -- The N. Y. organ of Brigham Young, has suspended publication. Hear it:

"The mantle of darkness is fast enshrouding the nation; wickedness is visibly on the increase -- in short, peace is taken from the earth, and the 'Prince, the power of the air,' rules triumphant among the children of men. What a melancholy spectacle -- the earth that rolled in purity from the hands of its creator is now covered with corruption, Man created in the image of God, is now emaciated, paralyzed, and diseased, 'from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet,' through transgression of the laws of heaven; woman the gift of the Lord to man as a 'help meet,' is degraded and debased -- his victim or his partner in crime. Every generation is worse than its predecessor, and the end must be wreck and ruin."


Notes: (forthcoming)

Russel's Train Destroyed.

By the kindness of Mr. Wm. McCoy, we were permitted to read a letter from R. H. Dyer, dated at Fort Kearney on the 29th ultimo, from which we make the following extract: "An express has just arrived from the headquarters of the Utah army, bringing the information that the Mormons have burnt seventy-five of Russel's wagons loaded with subsistence stores for the army, and are burning all the grass. Jesse Jones had been taken prisoner and carried into Salt lake, and fears are entertained for his safety. The Dragoons were at Laramie seven days ago, and were going on, but will most probably [loose] their horses, as they have no corn or grass.

The Mormons swear that the troops shall not enter the Valley, and Col. Johnston says that he will (if he lives) winter in Salt lake. So you need not be surprised to hear of some fighting ere a great while, and if they once commence, I think that Uncle Sam will have to send more troops before they get possession of the city.

The Indians seem to be quiet at present." -- Independence Dispatch.

---

Horrible Massacre of Emigrants
Over 100 Killed,.

Ward Christman [sic] writes to the Los Angeles Star as follows:

                                                  SAN BERNARDINO, Oct. 4, 1857.

I take this opportunity of informing you of the murder of an entire train of emigrants on their way from Missouri and Arkansas to this State, via Great Salt Lake City; which took place, according to the best information I can possibly acquire, (which is primarily through Indians,) at the Mountain Meadows, which are at or near the rim of Great Basin, and some distance south of the most southern Mormon settlements, between the 10th and 12th ult. It is absolutely one of the most horrible massacres I have ever had the painful necessity of relating. The company consisted of one hundred and thirty or one hundred and thirty-five men, women and children, and including some 40 or 45 men capable of bearing arms. They were in possession of quite an amount of stock, consisting of horses, mules and oxen. The encampment was attacked about daylight in the morning, so say the Indians, by the combined forces of all the various tribes immediately in that section of the country. It appears that a majority of them were slain at the first onset made by the Indians.

The remaining force formed themselves into the best position their circumstances would allow, but before they could make the necessary arrangement for protecting themselves from the arrows, there were but few left who were able to bear arms.

After having [corralled] their wagons, and dug a ditch for their protection, they continued to fire upon the Indians for one or two days, but the Indians had so secreted themselves that, according to their own statement, there was not one of them killed, and but few wounded. They (the emigrants) then sent out a flag of truce, borne by a little girl, and gave themselves up to the mercy of the savages, who immediately rushed in and slaughtered all of them, with the exception of 15 infant children, that have since been purchased with much difficulty by the Mormon interpreters.

I presume it would be unnecessary for all practical purposes, to relate the causes which gave rise to the above described catastrophe, from the simple fact that it will be attributed to the Mormon people, let the circumstances of the case be what they may.

But it seems, from a statement which I received from Elders Wm. Matthew and Wm. Hyde, who were in Great Salt Lake City at the time this train was there, recruiting their "fit out;" and were on the road to this place at the time when they were murdered, but several days' journey in the rear -- somewhere about the Beaver mountains, which is between Parawan and Fillmore cities, that the causes were something like these: The train camped at Corn Creek, near Fillmore City, where there is an Indian village, the inhabitants of which have raised a crop of wheat, and a few melons, &c. And in trading with the Indians they gave them cash for wheat, and they not knowing the value of coin were severely cheated. They wanted a blanket for a sack of wheat, but they gave them 50 cents, and told them that amount would buy a blanket.

They also had an ox with them which had died, and they put strychnine in him for the purpose of poisoning the Indians; also put poison of some description in the water which is standing in holes. This occasioned several deaths among them, within a few days after the departure of the train. And upon this, it seems, the Indians gathered themselves together, and had no doubt chosen the place of attack and arranged everything before the train arrived at the place where they were murdered.

It was ascertained by some of the interpreters, from a few of the Indians who were left at Corn Creek, that most of the Indians in the country had left, but they could not learn for what purpose, and before any steps could be taken to [ascertain for certain] what was the cause, the story was told they were all killed.       Yours truly,
                                          J. WARD CHRISTIAN.

---

==> ... An arrival from the plains states that between the 10th and 12th of September a train consisting of a hundred persons, were all slain by Indians except a few children, who were sold to the Mormons. It was generally believed that the Mormons were at the bottom of the affair.

---

News of the Morning.

... Gen. Denver, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, has written a reply to Brigham Young's late letter, suggesting a plan for dealing with the Indians, and complaining of the non-payment of his salary. Gen. Denver tells Brigham that the reason his salary has not been paid is he (Brigham) has sedulously endeavored to impress the Indians with the belief that the Mormons are their friends, and the Government and people of the United States their enemies. The Government will not pay annuities to hostile Indians. The troops, of which Brigham complains, the Commissioner says, are intended to preserve peace, crush hostilities and suppress insurrection...


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMON  WAR.
________

The Mormons Preparing for War -- Twenty Thousand
Savages to be brought into the Field.

The following interesting information in regard to the active preparations of the Mormons for war we find in the Sacramento (California) Age of the 16th ult. It looks serious.

(Under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

The Expedition against Utah.

The following is a letter from Baltimore, of the 12th, published in the New York Herald.

Your Washington correspondent, in his letter published in yesterday's Herald, states that in the event of an attack by Mormons upon the United States troops, composing the expedition to Utah, Col. Johnson will have two thousand men to fight his battles with, including "two complete battallions of light artillery."

Unless your correspondent has been furnished with information which has hereto been excluded from the public, he has exaggerated the number of that force by nearly one-half.

According to the latest reliable information, it appeared that the force under the command of Col. Johnson consisted of ten companies of the Tenth Infantry, and eight companies of the Fifth Infantry, numbering in the aggregate not over one thousand men, all told.

In addition to this was a light battery of the Fourth Artillery, which the General Orders of June 30, (No. 12) authorized Capt. Phelps to extend to the war complement, but which, owing to the manner in which the expedition was despatched, started with not over sixty men and six pieces. Lastly, is an irdnance train under command of Capt. Reno, which probably numbers fifty men.

Here we have a force of about eleven hundred men, and of these the artillery arm, both light and heavy, which your correspondent seems to rely upon so much for their efficiency, utterly unavailable amid the mountain defiles, or even, to a great extent, upon the plains, if deeply clogged with snow, which usually covers the Valley of the Great Salt Lake to the depth of several feet during the entire winter.

The number of teamsters and other outsiders would probably swell the aggregate nearly up to your correspondent's figures; but it is obvious that these cannot be reckoned as part of the available military strength of the expedition, as they would find work enough on their hands in taking care of their teams.

Add to this the want of forage for the animals, which is already beginning to be felt, and which may eventually leave both teams and artillery helpless in the snow, and the chances of desertion among the soldiers, pinched by the severities of a Moscow campaign, and allured by the temptations which will no doubt be attractively displayed by Brigham Young's spies and emissaries, and you may judge what are the chances of this much talked of Utah expedition for sustaining itself during the winter, much less for making a conquest of the Saints, or enforcing respect for the United States officials who go under its escort.

---

We make the following extracts from a letter of Maj. Ward, Sutler to the Army at Fort laramie, to his daughter attending school in this place. It is dated October 26th, 1857:

"The Army for Utah is now done passing, -- the 2d Dragoons left this evening. There is no doubt but that the Mormons will give them fight. The Governor, Brigham Young, has issued a proclamation forbidding their entrance any further into the Territory, and has destroyed three trains of wagons loaded with provisions, and I think that hostilities may now be considered as fairly commenced. The advanced portion of the Army is encamped on Bear River some hundred miles this side of Salt Lake, and we are expecting to hear of a battle daily, and it is hard to say which side will be victorious.

If our Army has to winter in the mountains, the poor fellows will suffer very much; we have already had six inches of snow at this place, and I learn the snow is quite deep a few miles west of this.

---

A Tale of Suffering.

A gentleman of this city has shown us a letter, which he received from an old acquaintance, who had been employed by the Mormon Aid Society, to go to Salt Lake. After he arrived at the city of the Saints, he endeavored to get his pay for labor [and] teams, used in conveying the Saints to their destination. He was refused and remuneration for his services. He then appealed to Brigham Young, who cited Mr. Snow, the agent who employed him, to appear at the "Council of Seventy." Mr. Snow contended [there] was only a question of dollers and [cents] and the Council refused to act in the matter. After six days further trial, our friend found he could do nothing towards getting his [just] dues and he departed for home, a distance of forty miles. Before he could get back to his home he was informed that his wife had taken sick, died and was buried. He remained in the city six weeks endeavoring to get something on which to subsist [his] family during the winter, but was unsuccessful. He writes: "By this time the snow was four feet deep, and remained on the ground till the middle of April. All [my?] oxen and cows died, and I was glad to live for the rest of the winter on the flesh [of] animals that had died a natural death." He built for himself a house in the spring, fenced in about twenty acres, planted it with wheat and corn, but the crops failed, [so] himself and children were, he says" "compelled to live on boiled greens and weeds, sometimes a little bran or shorts. His children were now all taken sick with the measles, and he himself prostrated by the typhoid fever. For two weeks there was little hopes of his recovery, and he was persuaded to give up his two oldest daughters [to a] neighbor, who promised to care for them. They would not receive the children, however, until deeds of gift were given to them. He was now left alone with one small sick child, and had it not been for the kindness of a poor neighbor, who had once seen better days, he would have perished from hunger and neglect, and as it was, this child, the last one of his family remaining to him, died. He was determined to escape from the Valley, but was yet unable on account of health and means to accomplish his purpose. He returned to his house but was too unwell to cook his own victuals and a Scotch woman came and mixed up a little shorts and water, and baked it, as he says, "as solid as ever you saw bricks, and I had to get a hatchet to cut it to pieces." On this and two quarts of butter-milk he lived two weeks. He now found that his wife was not dead, as was told him, but was a prisoner, closely guarded. He contrived means for her escape, and his her at the house of a friend until he could make arrangements for leaving. By trading his farm for a wagon and two mules, the means were procured for conveying his family out of the Territory. He first endeavored to escape by traveling North, but was intercepted by a band of Brigham's minions, who styled themselves "Destroying Angels," and had it not been for a band of passing Californians, he would have been robbed of everything he possessed. After many diffficulties and dangers, he escaped by the Southern road, to California, not until he had been despoiled by the Indians of nearly all his provisions. He and his family lived nearly all the way from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, from which point his letter was written, on bread and water alone. The night he got into the latter named place his mules were stolen, and he was left alone, in a strange place, with no money, and a wife and two children to provide for. His letter was one, asking for assistance to get back to Missouri. After writing to several of his acquaintances in Holt County, where he formerly resided, for sufficient money to enable him to get back, and being refused, he has applied to our friend in this city, to whom we are indebted for the above particulars of his hardships, and bad treatment at the hands of the Mormons. -- St. Joe Gazette.


Notes: (forthcoming)

The Mormon War.

Important Dispatches from the Army for Utah --
Brigham Young's Declaration of War and his Reasons Therefor.

Washington, November 17. 1857. -- Col. Alexander was within thirty miles of Fort Bridger, which place is occupied by Mormon troops, when he received the following letter from Brigham Young, through the commander of the "Nauvoo Legion":

                                                  Governor's Office, Utah Territory,
                                                  Salt Lake City, Sep. 29, '57.

To the Officer Commanding the Forces now Invading Utah Territory:

Sir: By reference to the act of Congress, passed September 9, 1850, organizing the Territory of Utah, you will find the following:

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, that the executive power and authority in and over said Territory of Utah shall be vested in a Governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed by the President of the United States. The Governor shall reside within said Territory, shall be Commander-in-Chief of the militia thereof, &c., &c.

I am still Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory, no successor having been appointed and qualified, as provided by law, nor have I been removed by the President of the United States. By virtue of the authority thus vested in me, I have issued and forwarded to you a copy of my proclamation forbidding the entrance of armed forces into the Territory. This you have disregarded. I now further direct that you retire forthwith from the Territory, by the same route you entered. Should you deem this impracticable and prefer to remain until spring in the vicinity of your present encampment -- Black Fork on Green river -- you can do so in peace and unmolested, on condition that you deposit your arms and ammunition with Lewis Robinson, Quartermaster-General of the Territory, and leave in the spring as soon as the condition of the roads will permit you to march; and should you fall short of provisions, they can be furnished you upon making the proper application therefor.

Gen. H. D. Wells will forward this and receive any communication you may have to make.   Very respectfully,
                                                BRIGHAM YOUNG.
        Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.


The following is the proclamation referred to by Brigham Young: --

PROCLAMATION  BY  THE  GOVERNOR.

Citizens of Utah. -- We are invaded by a bostile force, who are evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction. For the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the government, from constables and justices to Judges, Governors, and Presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted and betrayed. -- Our houses have been plundered and then burned, our fields laid waste, our principal men butchered while under the pledged faith of the government for their safety, and our families driven from their homes to find that shelter in the barren wilderness and that protection among hostile savages, which were denied them in the boasted abodes of Christianity and civilization.

The constitution of our common country guarantees unto us all that we do now or ever claimed. If the constitutional rights, which pertain unto us as American citizens, were extended to Utah, according to the spirit and meaning thereof, and fairly and impartially administered, it is all that we could ask -- all that we have ever asked.

Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudices existing against us, because of our religious faith, to send out a formidable host to accomplish our destruction. We have had no privilege, no opportunity of defending ourselves from the false, foul and unjust aspersions against us before the nation. The government has not condescended to cause an investigating committee or other person to be sent to inquire into and ascertain the truth, as is customary in such cases. We know those aspersions to be false, but that avails us nothing. We are condemned unheard, and forced to an issue with an armed mercenary mob, which has been sent against us at the instigation of anonymous letter writers, ashamed to father the base, slanderous falsehoods which they have given to the public; of corrupt officials who have brought false accusations against us to screen themselves in their own infamy, and of hireling priests and howling editors, who prostitute the truth for filthy lucres' sake.

The issue which has. been thus forced upon us compels us to resort to the great first law of self-preservation, and stand in our own defence; a right guaranteed unto us by the genius of the institutions of our country, and upon which the government is based. Our duty to our families requires us not to tamely submit to be driven and slain without an attempt to preserve ourselves. Our duty to our country, our holy religion, our God, to freedom and liberty, requires that we should not quietly stand and see these fetters, forging around us which are calculated to enslave and bring us into subjection to an unlawful military despotism, such as can only emanate in a country of constitutional law, from usurpation, tyranny and oppression.

Therefore, I, Brigham Young, Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory of Utah, in the name of the people of the United Siates, in the Territory of Utah, forbid,

First -- All armed forces of every description from coming into this Territory, under any pretence whatever.

Second -- That all the forces in said Territory hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice to repel any and all such invasion.

Third -- Martial law is hereby declared to exist in this Territory from and after the publication of this proclamation, and no person shall be allowed to pass or repass into or through or from this Territory without a permit from the proper officer.

Given under my hand and seal at Great Salt Lake City, Territory of Utah, this fifteenth day of September, A. D. eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the eighty-second.
                                                    BRIGHAM YOUNG.

---

Later.

Brigham Young's Declaration of Independence. -- On the 17th of Aug. Mr, Power, a reliable man (says the Alta Californian) passed through the City of Salt Lake. Remained only three or four hours. Had a conversation with a merchant -- a Gentile -- who stated that on the previous Sunday, Brigham Young had declared in the temple [sic], that henceforth Utah was a separate and independent Territory, and owed no allegiance to any form or laws but those of their own enactment, and called upon the people to stand together and support him in maintaining the cause of God and the Church. Was told that the house of Gilbert and Garrison had orders to pack up and leave before the 1st of November.

---

Latest from Utah.

Mormon News Confirmed -- Burning of Stores at Fort Bridger --
Snow in the Mountains, Etc., Etc., Etc.

Mr. Joseph Majoie, a French trader on Green River arrived in Kansas City Tuesday night, being the last arrival from Utah and the Mountains.

His accounts confirm our previous advices concerning the hostility and outrages of the Mormons. No Gentile is any longer safe in the valley.

He reports that nearly all emigrant trains are suffering from Mormon depredations; their wagons being burned and cattle stolen.

Brigham Young is exhorting his followers to resist to the last extremity, and if overpowered by the government troops to flee to the mountains, and defend themselves.

He reports that the army is buying up all the stores it can procure. he sdays the army have plenty of provisions for ther winter if they can only concentrate in sufficient force to protect them from the Mormons; but scattered as they are on the route he fears many will be cut off.

Mr. Majoue had made large contracts for flour at Salt Lake City for his winter trade, but on sending his train after it they refused to let him have it lest the army might be supplied by him, and sent him back with only 400 lbs. for his own use.

Large quantities of grain and forage were stored at Fort Bridger, which was burned by Mormons to prevent its purchase by the government.

They had also burned all the grass on the route beyond Bridger.

Snow was about three feet deep in the mountains, and the country was covered as far east as the Blue.

Buffalo were very abundant and as far down the little Blue river, quite near the settlements. -- Kansas City Enterprise.


Notes: (forthcoming)

From Utah.

                                                  Washington, December 28.

Col. Johnston's despatches also state that the communications of the Mormons, and the acts of the Legislative Assembly show a matured and settled plan to hold and occupy the Territory independent and irrespective of the authority of the United States. Occupying as they do, the attitude of rebellion and open defiance to the Government, connected with numerous overt acts of treason, Col. Johnston has ordered that wherever they are met with in arms they are to be treated as enemies, and he reiterates the necessity for prompt and vigorous action, or the United States must submit to usurpation of their territory. The conduct of the Mormons, he says, results from a settled determination on their part not to acknowledge the authority of the United States, nor any other outside of their own.

He adds, a supply of subsistence must reach the army by the first of June. The officers and men are reported in fine health and animated with an ardent desire to discharge their duties faithfully.

In a postscript, Col. Johnston says the army has made one day's march since the 5th, and that on the 7th they were waiting the arrival of the trains delayed by the snow the day before. Our trains, he adds, occupy in as close order as they can travel, therefore, the rear can not move till late in the day.

Brigham Young's letter of October 10th to Col. Alexander, after much defiant language, says" "By virtue of my office as Governor of the Territory of Utah, I command you to marshal your troops and leave the Territory, for it can be of no possible benefit to you to waste treasure and blood in prosecuting your course upon the side of a rebellion against the General Govenment by its administrators. You have had, and still have, plenty of time to retire within reach of supplies at the East, or go to Fort Hall. Were you and your fellow officers, as well acquainted with your men as I am with mine, and did you understand the work they are engaged in as well as you may understand it, you must know that many of them would immediately revolt from all connection with so ungodly, illegal, unconstitutional and hellish crusade against an innocent people, and if their blood is shed, it shall rest upon the heads of the Commanders. With us it is the Kingdom of God or nothing."

IN another letter to Col. Alexander, Young says: "The Presudent of the United States so far degrades his high position and prostitutes the highest gift of the people, as to make use of the military by sending troops, nit for the protection of a people's rights, but to crush people's liberties, and compel them to receive officials so lost to self-resoect as to accept appointment against the known and expressed will of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position. We feel that we would be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity and patriotism, to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny -- a parallel to which is only found in the attempts masde by the British government, in its most corrupt stages, against the rights, lives and liberties of our forefathers. If our real enemies, the monovrats, editors, priests and politicians, at whose instigation the present storm has been gathered, had come against us, instead of you and your command, I would not have addressed them thus!"

---

Washington News.

                                                  Washington, December 28.

... The dispatches from the Utah Expedition were received this morning from "Head Quarters," by Adjutant General Cooper, and at once referred to the Secretary of War. Nothing of special interest is contained in them outside of the fact that the army were in 'comfortable quarters, well, and in high spirits.' Lengthy details of operations communicated, which would be of little interest to the general reader.

The cost of this expedition has not yet been made known. The Secretary of War will next week ask for an appropriation of three millions seven hundred thousand dollars to supply the deficiency in the Quarter-Master's Department alone, which deficiency, I understand, is the result of the Utah Expedition. It is ascertained that the Mormons destroyed nearly fifty thousand dollars' worth at cash value, including one hundred thousand rations. Nevertheless, the army have an abundance of everything, and there is not the slightest danger of any suffering.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Late and Important from Utah.

The Council Bluffs Bugle, of March 3rd, says that a Mr. Wingate has just arrived in that city, en route for Chicago and the east, and only thirty-one days from Salt Lake City. He reports no snow in the Salt Lake Valley at the time he left, and but little snow in the mountains. He came by a route known only to the Mormons and mountaineers, by which horsemen in single file can pass the army without being discovered. -- This route passes between a range of perpendicular rocks for thirteen miles, and in many places is not over three feet wide, and completely covered with a rock roor [sic, roof?].

The Mormons are making great preparations for defending all the passes to the valley, and are manufacturing small cannon and percussion locks, and telescope sights. These cannons carry a two pound ball, and from their peculiar construction will do execution at a distance of a mile and a half, with as much certainty as our common rifles will at a hundred and twenty yards.

They also have a manufactory of revolvers where five hundred are turned out per week.

They also manufacture a coarse powder, which they calculated to use in the construction of mines, by which they expect to be able to blow up a train without running any risk themselves.

The Mormons and some of the picket guards of Col. Johnston's command have had a skirmish, in which the Mormons lost two killed and five wounded, and he says that it is reported that four of Col. Johnston's men were killed.

He also reports that Col. Johnston's mules and oxen are nearly all dead, and that it is believed by the Mormons that Johnston will nor have a "hoof" alive in the spring.

Brigham Young preaches upon the subject of the war every Sunday. He says that Brigham is willing for Gov. Cumming and the civil officers to come into the Territory and enter upon the duties of their offices; but if the army attempts to enter the valley they will every one be cut off.

On the 24th of January, the day before Mr. Wingate left the city, Brigham preached to over nine thousand people, and after the sermon he requested all who were in favor of giving the troops h--l in case they attempt to enter the Valley to rise up -- every man, woman and child rose up. "Now" said Brigham, "I am satisfied. The Lord is with us, and if we determine of one accord to give the troops h--l, the powers of the earth and hell cannot prevail over us, for I have it revealed to me that not a blade of grass, or other green thing will be left on the plains to support the beasts of our enemies. Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri will be made desolate, and a famine will prevail over the land of our enemies. Brethren be of good cheer, God is with us, and h--l cannot prevail against us."

We could not learn upon what business Mr. Wingate was dispatched from the city; but have no doubt, but he has important business with the Mormons in the States, "which will be made manifest in due time."


Notes: (forthcoming)

A Salt Lake Lady Saint.

The Providence Journal has seen a letter from one of the women at Salt Lake City, written to her daughter in that vicinity. She describes her situation there as very comfortable, and writes with full confidence of the security of the Saints under the protection of the prophet; she scouts [sic] the idea that they can be harmed by the U. S. Troops. She says:

"I expect you have heard the loud talk of Uncle Sam's great big army coming up to kill the Saints. Now, if you but knew how the Saints rejoice at the folly of the poor Gentiles. There are about four thousand on the border of our territory, with six hundred wagons, one naked mule to draw them, all the rest having died. The men are sitting in the snow about a hundred and fifty miles from us, living on 3 crackers a day, and three quarters of a pound of beef a week. Thus you see that the old prophet's words are fulfilled: "Whoever shall fight against Zion shall perish." The time is very near when one man shall chase a thousand, and ten shall put ten thousand to flight. Zion is free; she is hid in one of the chambers of the Lord. We are a free people; we do not fear Uncle Sam's soldiers, we only fear our father in Heaven. We are learning his commandments every day from his prophet, and I am determine to keep them. If you were here, and could hear the prophet's voice as I do, and hear the Lion of the Lord roar from the mountains, as I do, and know how near the scourge of the Lord is upon the Gentiles, you would flee to the mountains with haste. The time has come when the Lord has called all the elders home, and commanded them to bind up the law and seal the testimony. They are coming home as soon as possible. What comes next? -- The judgment, hail, storm, thunder, lightning, pestilence, war; and they that will not take up the sword against their neighbor must flee to Zion for safety. Will you come, oh! my dear children?"


Note 1: Compare the above sentiments with the words of another Salt Lake Sister, written a few months before: "All the men are preparing for war... Brother Brigham says that if the brethren will stand by him he will never let the gentiles come into the valleys... Brother Kimball says that all the women must have a dirk knife, so I wish you to bring me one. You must bring plenty of powder and lead."

Note 2: Massada; Far West; Io Jima; Jonestown; Waco -- the more it changes; the more it stays the same.

The Mormons -- What will Become of Them.
________

(Under construction)

 


Notes: (forthcoming)

Three Hundred Mormon Women
Renouncing the Faith.

By the arrival of a man named Herbert Brandon, we have been furnished with the following information from Salt Lake:

"I left (says our informant) Camp Scott on the 13th of June. The Mormon excitement had entirely abated. Several Mormon trains had passed Camp Scott on their way to the States.

They stated, while encamped at the above place, that they would not have been permitted to leave or they would have abandoned Salt Lake long ago.

On being questioned as to their determination to resist the entrance of the troops, they replied that the major part of the Mormons only awaited the entrance of the troops to effect their escape from Brigham Young.

On their arrival at Camp Scott, they were minus the common necessaries of life. On being asked the cause of their destitute condition, they stated that Brigham Young had relented from his determination to resist the troops, he had ordered them to deposit what provisions they had in the storehouse; but as soon as he made known his intention of going south, those Mormons who refused to go were deprived of all, and they could get nothing for their outght. They also stated that but for the interference of Governor Cummings, the destroying angel would have forced them away, and they did succeed in many instances in driving away several women. I came down with two Mormon trains from Camp Scott, numbering 300 persons, who were chiefly English and Scotch; and the principal topic of their conversation throughout was the absurdity of Mormonism and its principles. They were unanimous in their denunciation of Brigham Young and his apostates [sic apostles?], and talked of his assassination by the Mormons who remained at Fort Scott as a sure event. They have all (without exception become disgusted with Mormonism and renounce it, and expressed their determination from henceforth to use all their efforts for the total annihilation of Mormonism.

They expressed their desire to return to their native countries, and would if they had the means to do so, in order that they might be instrumental in saving others from the baneful influence of Mormonism. On their arrival at Plattsmouth, on the Missouri river they had calculated to cross over to Council Bluffs; but the bad condition of the roads in Iowa changed their resolve, and they are now dispersing themselves in Kansas and Nebraska Territories.

Mr. Brandon gave us many other interesting particulars, from which we conclude that a speedy dissolution awaits the community of Latter-Day Saints. Many of the women, although they went to Utah innocent and pure, we judge, are very unlikely to lead a pure and exemplary life in the future. They have been debased until they are likely to abandon themselves to the loathsome life of prostitution."


Note: The text for the above report was taken from a reprint, published in the Sept. 20, 1858 issue of the Saint Paul Daily Minnesotian. It is uncertain whether that paper took its reprint from the Jefferson City Enquirer or the Jefferson City Examiner. The title of the report obviously does not exactly summarize its contents, as the 300 fugitives from Utah were not all women.

The  Mormons.

The Salt Lake correspondent of the Missouri Republican, well known to be Kirk Anderson, who is personally cognizant of all he writes about, gives a doleful account of Mormonism, and says many leaders of the church have been so implicated in murders, robberies and other outrages, that they are fleeing to the mountains, and are pursued by the United States Marshal, accompanied by scouting parties of the army.

He says that "out of the late panel of Grand Jurors recently assembled at the session of the United States District Court at Provo, the United States Marshal has bench warrants for arresting nine of them for various crimes and felonies, including murder." He thus illustrates the utter futility of attempting to bring any criminal to justice, if he belong to the Mormon fraternity. The County Court selects both grand and petit jurors, and they, of course, are the sort to save their people from any responsibility to the laws of the United States. Thus the Courts held in Utah are mere farces, and when Judge Cradlebaugh found it so, he immediately adjourned, and in the capacity of Examining Justice, proceeded to ferret out the authors of the horrible crimes that have been so often and mysteriously and irresponsibly committed. He has been busily engaged in examining witnesses, some of them willing and some of them unwilling to testify, but he has learned enough to connect Bishops, Presidents, Elders and other functionaries of the church with the most criminal enormities. For all such warrants have been issued and as we said before they have fled to the mountains. The correspondence then continues... St. Jos. Gazette.

It is utterly impossible to convey to you through the medium of a letter, the true state of affairs in this territory, and the deep and damning mysteries that have been developed within the last six weeks, and which are now being developed; and I have no hesitation in saying that Mormonism, with all its craft and cunning, will itself be astounded, and a crisis will come, or a big stampede take place among the rulers of the church, from the highest to the lowest official. It may be that no convictions can be had, for you may set down as a fixed fact, that a Mormon jury will not either find bills or convict, but the policy now being pursued by Judge Cradlebaugh, sitting as a committing magistrate, and taking down the testimony of Mormon witnesses, some of whom have been caught, and others, volunteers, will have the effect of presenting a record of blood to the world, unequalled, save only by the dark and dreadful days that constitute the sanguinary portion of the history of France. The Administration and that which will succeed it, no matter what party triumphs, may atttempt it to stave off this Utah imbroglio as much as they please, but sooner or later it must be met. The intelligence of the nation will be aroused, its sensibilities startled, and its very passions called into active exercise. Heaven, I believe, is retributive, and justice will yet be done.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Late  From  Salt  Lake.

By the Salt Lake Mail in last night, we have dates from the "Sacred City" to the 3d inst. The powers had relapsed into a "masterly inactivity." No more assassinations had occurred, no more murders had been committed, no individuals had been tried and acquitted, in short, "nobody had done nothing."

The Valley Tan of the 3d says: Dr. Forney the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, arrived in this city from his late visit to the southern portion of the Territory. The Doctor looks well and is in good health, and reports the Indians in that vicinity as peaceable. He brought with him three children, the survivors of the Mountain Meadow massacre. The others, as will be seen by reference to another paragraph, are at the Indian farm at Spanish Fork. The children that he brought up are apparently very intelligent and have a lively recollection of the bloody deeds that consigned their parents and friends to death, if there were no other proof, know the difference between an Indian and a white man.

It is reported that several white men openly boast in the vicinity of Santa Clara that they were present and assisted at the Mountain Meadow massacre. This thing has got to come to an hheealdd and it rests with the Government officials who are presumed to exercise some power in this territory.   -- St. Jos. Gaz.


Notes: (forthcoming)

The  Mountain  Meadow  Massacre.

Tale of Horror. -- It will be remembered that some time ago company of one hundred emigrants, on their way from Arkansas to California, were massacred at Mountain Meadows by the Indians, as was reported; but various subsequent develpments have established the conviction that these were merely tools in the hands of the Mormons themselves.

An eye-witness of the transaction has been found at last, and the San Francisco Bulletin has received, from an official source at Salt Lake, a statement of his account off the affair. He says the massacre was designed and carried into execution to get possession of the thirty wagons and seven or eight hundred head of cattle belonging to the emigrants. His statement which is as follows, reveals a most shocking exhibition of cruelty and crime. That civilized beings could be guilty of such conduct seems hardly credible.

"While I was residing at Cedar City, I was called upon by Messrs. Isaac Hight [sic - Haight?], John D. Lee, and John Higbee -- all three Mormon military officers -- to go a few miles out South of the city, which I did. There I found thirty or forty others, selected from different settlements. We were addressed by the above officers, who told us that they had sent Canosh, the Paravant Chief, with his warriors to destroy the Arkansas company, and that if he had not done it we must; and that if any of us refused or betrayed them to the Americans, they would take good care of him hereafter. Here we were all ordered on the quick march to the Mountain Meadows, where we found the emigrants, with their wagons formed into two circles, with their families in the midst, trying to defend themselves against the merciless and blood-thirsty savages, who lay around in killing them as opportunity presented.

Hight and Lee formed their men into two companies, and made a precipitant rush at the poor defenseless victims. The men inside of the circles rose up, but instantly fell dead or mortally wounded, under the fire of the wretches who so cruelly sought their lives. Nothing remained to be done except to kill the frightened females and their innocent children clasped in their arms. Others clung with desperation to their bleeding, dying husbands, pleading in vain for mercy at the hands of the "Christians" who controlled the no more savage Indian assailants.

John D. Lee now sent to the Indian chief, and his men in ambush to come out and finish the survivors, directing him to spare only the little children, who could not talk. The savages came instantly, with knives drawn, and speedily finished the bloody work The scene beggars description, the demoniac yells of the savage monsters, mingled with the shrieks and prayers of helpless mothers and daughters, while the death-blows were dealt with unflinching hands, and scalps were torn from heads which bloomed with beauty and innocence but a few hours before. Now the work of butchery ended. The murderers threw the dead into two heaps, covered them slightly with earth, and left them, 'to feed the wolves and birds of prey;' and returned home with their booty of cattle, and wagons, and a great quantity, of goods, &c."


Notes: (forthcoming)

                              From the St. Joseph West.
From  Salt  Lake.

The Salt Lake mail came in yesterday, bringing papers of the 29th ult. From the Valley Tan we learn that the eighteen children, survivors of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, left on the 28th for the States. Gen. Johnston had furnished for their accomodation three spring ambulances, and one baggage wagon with teams of six mules to each. The Tan gives the names of the children so far as could be ascertained as follows:

John Calvin, Lewis, and Mary Sorel, (their father being held in remembrance as "Joe Sorel;") Ambrose Miram, and William Taggett; Frances Horn; Charles and Annie Francher; Betsey and Jane Baker; Rebecca, Louisa, and Sarah Dunlap; Sophronia or Mary and Ephraim W. Huff; Angeline and Annie, (surname unknown;) and a little boy of whom there is no account, the people with whom he was found called him William. The children are supposed to have resided in the same neighborhood, and in Johnston county, Arkansas."

It is stated also that "there was a large amount of property in the possession of the party massacred at the Mountain Meadows, and the children have now an agent here, who will undoubtedly use his best endeavors to recover the property of which they have been despoiled." ...


Notes: (forthcoming)

From  Salt  Lake.
                              Atchinson, K.T., Sept. 9.

The mail from Salt Lake City arrived at this place this morning bringing dates from the Territory to the 16th of last month. The news received is of an interesting character.

The election returns had not all been received when the mail left, but a sufficient number had been returned to show the election of W. H. Hooper as Delegate to Congress.

Lieutenant Gray, with a party of forty-two U. S. Dragoons, had surprised a force of Indians one hundred and fifty in number, who were concerned in the late massacre of emigrants on the California road. The combat lasted two hours. At the end of that lime the Indians were routed with a loss of twenty of their number killed and twenty horses captured.

General Johnston had sent reinforcements consisting of three companies of Dragoons and Infantry, as Lieutenant Gray expected the Indians to combine and give him battle again in greater force.

Sergeant Pike, of Company I, Tenth Infantry, was murdered by Howard Spencer a Mormon. The murderer succeeded in making his escape.

The U. S. District Court was still in session when the mail left.

The store of Miller, Russell & Co., at Camp Floyd had been burned to the ground. The loss was $15,000.

Advices from Fort Kearny to the 6th. inst., say Company H, Fourth Artillery, will leave here to-day for Fort Randall. -- The weather is unusually cold.

---

HEBER C. KIMBALL ON HORACE GREELY. -- In an abstract of a sermon delivered by Heber C. Kimball at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, we find the following, as reported in the Valley Tan of August 10th, in relation to Horace Greely. It will be observed that the great champion of abolitionism is not held in very high estimation by the Elder. Here is the extract:

Speaking of thistles, reminds me of a bright idea of Greeleys. He thought it would be a wise notion to sow Canada thistles along the plains between here and the States to feed stock upon. Why that would kill all the cattle with the bloody murrain and prick us to death. So much for Greeley's judgment. What a fruitful immagination he must have. He is the greatest liar on the face of the earth. -- Why bless your souls he is the father of all liars. He will go to hell and be the father of liars there. Amen. ("Amen" sounding throughout the congregation.)


Notes: (forthcoming)

Mormons at the Scene of Jo Smith's Inspiration. -- The Syracuse (N. Y.) Standard says that when the train carrying eight hundred Mormons arrived at Palmyra on Thursday morning, one of their elders was informed that they were then upon the spot where Joseph Smith, the first prophet of their faith was inspired, when he found by special direction the bible which they now receive as the word of God, and whence he took his departure to preach his newly found gospel to the world.

Their faithful elder was incredulous, but nevertheless conferred with others of his sort on the subject, and in the end they searched their scripture. There they found that Palmyra, Wayne county, New York was indeed the scene of their prophet's awakening. Thereupon the whole company was informed of the fact, and in a few moments all of them were out of the cars, gazing about in open-mouthed wonder and awe, the leaders increasing the effect by explanations and exhortations. -- They were with difficulty got again on board the cars, each one taking a stick, a leaf or a pebble as a momento.


Note: New converts, fresh off the boat from Denmark, no doubt.

There is a serious schism in the Mormon ranks. The secessionists declare against polygamy and content themselves with one wife, at least one at a time. -- An organization founded on this idea has been formed in Cincinnatti, under the leadership of Joseph Smith, Jr., and Israel L. Rogers. They say that they have missionaries operating in Brigham Young's dominions, who are very successful in making converts. Their present rendezvous is in the vicinity of Chicago, but they have purchased thirty thousand acres of land in Missouri, where they intend to settle when the war is over, and build up a city for the habitation of the faithful.


Note: The Liberty Tribune is a little late in its reporting -- but that is understandable, considering the disruption of normal communications between North and South during the Civil War. The "Reorganization" was actually formed during the late 1850s and then brought under the leadership of Joseph Smith, III in Illinois in 1860. The "Reorganized" LDS first published their official newspaper at Cincinnati, primarily due to the fact that Editor Isaac Sheene resided there and had under his control some of the printing facilities previously used by himself and William Smith, the notorious uncle of Joseph III.

EARLY  RECOLLECTIONS.
________

Of the Mormons in Jackson County -- Of their Settlement and Expulsion,
and of the War Waged Between the Saints and Sinners.
________

To the Editor of the Kansas City Bulletin.
   SIR: A good many persons who profess to be interested in the subject have asked to continue my historical jottings of events and incidents connected with the early settlement of Jackson and surrounding counties.

If I could take the time and trouble necessary to collect the facts and material to [--------] to write something worth publishing it would afford me more pleasure, I am sure, to write than others would receive in reading my disjointed contributions. It is no very difficult task to [----] out an article for publication, but it is quite a different affair to get people to read it, and still more to get them to remember ever having read it twenty-four hours afterwards. Taking it for granted, however, that these deluded individuals who have requested me to write are [-------- ------] trying to poke fun at me, I will try to...

The principal theme selected for this writing is that relating to the Mormons, their settlement, residence and expulsion from this county, etc. In the hands of a first-class novel writer the thrilling incidents of that early conflict in our county[------] the Saints and Gentiles might be worked up in a story that would go off like hot cakes. In my hands, alas, they need [our plot] nothing better than stale bread.

How it will astonish the Gentiles who are now swarming over this goodly land to learn that they have been unconsciously, for many years past, sleeping within the precincts of Zion! That the fact was revealed to the prophet Joseph, surnamed Smith, years ago. That this is the promised land [attached] to the "Latter Day Saints!" ....

(Under construction)

Note: The clipping of this lengthy article by John C. McCoy is mostly illegible. A proper text will be transcribed from the microfilmed issue and posted here later.

THE  MOUNTAIN  MEADOW  MASSACRE.

The arrest of John D. Lee, at one time an elder in the Mormon Church and the reputed leader of the Mountain Meadow massacre in September, 1857, for the perpetration of that horrible crime, recalls public interest to its details, which for a number of years were so successfully hidden from the world outside of the Mormon Church. In the fall of 1857, now more than seventeen years ago, a company of Missourians and Arkansans numbering one hundred and forty men, woemen and children, while crossing the plains on their way to California encamped one night at the spring at Mountain Meadows in the southern part of Utah. They had been traveling in company for several weeks to be better able to protect themselves from the tribes of Indians who occasionally made raids upon them and from the Mormons, who had issued a general order through Brigham Young banishing all Gentiles from the dominion claimed by them. On this particular night the emigrants were encamped in the usual manner, their wagons formed in a circle within which they and their animals were at rest, when the Indians made a fierce attack The men returned the fire, and during the night threw up a sort of earthwork outside of the wagons, behind which they screened themselves and their families. In the morning the Indians renewed the fire and kept it up not only all the next day but for three days ensuing. The spring at which they had encamped was outside of their line and during the four days' siege they suffered intensely for want of water. Two or three times small parties started out to get water, but in each case they were either shot down or captured by the Indians, who held possession of all outside of their lines.

Finally after the siege had been prolonged into the filth day, the emigrants saw a wagon filled with white men approaching, and over it floated a flag of truce borne by John D. Lee, the man who is now under arrest. Accompanying the wagon was also a company of Mormon militia. The Indians recognized the truce and ceased their hostilities at once, while the wagon-load of Mormons were received with every demonstration of joy as their deliverers by the beleaguered camp. After a short parley between them and their supposed deliverers it was agreed that the emigrants should give up their arms and proceed to the nearest settlement for safety, to await the dispersing of the Indians or the arrival of a better armed escort. The women and children marched out first without escort, while three men, who had given up their arms, followed, surrounded by the Mormons. When about a mile and a half from their camp a signal was given and the Indians fell upon the women and children and killed nearly all, leaving some twelve or fifteen children only, while at the same time the Mormons turned on the unarmed men and killed every one of them.

It was nearly three years before any of the horrible details of this massacre became known, and not until within a few years past, since the Mormon religion has begun to disintegrate because of the measure of its own barbarism, have the full particulars come to light. Now that Lee has been arrested and is likely to come to trial, the facts are coming out and it is to be hoped that full justice will be meted out to the guilty ones. Of one thing there can be no doubt -- whether it ends the Mormon reign in Utah or not, it will certainly destroy the Danites, the avengers-elect of the Saints.


Notes: (forthcoming)

"Far West"
______

The Old Mormon Settlement in Missouri.

How it Appeared Thirteen Years Ago and What It is To-day.

A Sketch of Its History.

Some twelve or thirteen years ago we had occasion to travel by private conveyance from Cameron in Clinton, to Mirable, a small village in Caldwell county.

Our journey was rather a monotonous one, unrelieved by any incident worthy of note, for the only persons we encountered were a small party of Federal soldiers and a solitary traveler wending his way northward, and who returned our greeting with the cold glance of suspicion peculiar to those perilous days, for we were in the midst of the rebellion.

After journeying some seven or eight miles through prairie and red brush, occasionally relieved by patches of scrub oak and graceful belts of young timber that fringed the winding course of a bold stream which we were sometimes, under the necessity of crossing, about seven or eight miles from Cameron, in a southeasterly direction, we suddenly emerged upon a plain which had the appearance of a long deserted settlement.

It was in the month of July, and the surface of the ground was literally matted with clusters of dewberry vines, laden with tempting fruit. But a single human habitation appeared to relieve the monotony of the landscape, and the utter solitude of the locality was only rendered the more pronounced by the presence of innumerable wells, whose boxes and windlasses had long since disappeared, leaving nothing but the gloomy pits to tell the tale of thronging life that once existed there, and afford us a theme for moralizing on the mutability of all human affairs.

As we gazed with surprise and wonder on the strange and melancholy scene, our taciturn guide, the driver of the vehicle, broke his long silence with the remark: "We are now in the Mormon city of 'Far West,' and just across the hollow is the foundation of the temple."

So, indeed, we were, and how many, like ourselves, had lived for years within forty miles of this interesting locality, scarcely conscious of its existence!

But the matter of surprise was, that with the solitary exception before referred to, and with the occasional debris of a long-fallen chimney, scarce a vestige of the several hundred habitations that, some thirty years before, clustered in compact mass upon this beautiful prairie, remained to tell the tale of sudden rise and correspondingly prompt disappearance of a community which once counted its numbers by thousands. It seemed as though the vengeance of heaven had employed in its wrath the most uncompromising of Vandal means to wipe from the fair face of nature and the memory of men a foul and disgusting blot upon the body politic.

Such was our impression of the place, twelve or thirteen years ago.

What is it to-day? The delightful air of our autumn months and the gorgeous variation of foliage presented in the appearance of our native woods at that season of the year, are characteristics of our clime that never fail to evoke the enthusiastic admiration of the intelligent and contemplative traveller who visits our land at that pleasant period. Familiar as the regular recurrence of seasons has rendered these natural attractions to our senses, we ourselves experience a new sentiment of delight as we gaze in each succeeding fall, at the glorious tintings of our native woods, and are less disposed to wonder at what we might otherwise be induced to regard as the unduly extravagant admiration of the stranger who looks upon them for the first time through the charming atmosphere of novelty.

It was in this glorious season of the year, on the third day of last October, that, in company with Major A. T. Baubie, one of the first founders, and today, a leading citizen of the enterprising and flourishing young city of Cameron, we started on a tour of exploration to the deserted town of Far West in Caldwell county. Directing our course southward over a fair prairie road, we were struck with the beauty and excellence of the improvements that had developed in the past few years: well appearing and substantial residences, long rows of well kept and squarely cut hedges; young orchards, with the unmistakable promise of abundant fruit, all attested the thrift, enterprise and good taste of the settlers that had thus improved a territory which but a few years ago, was prairie and red brush.

Progressing abut four miles in a southerly direction, we struck the hazel brush and timber in the vicinity of Shoal Creek, and bent our course to the southeast for about three or four miles, scarcely, however, being out of sight of a human habitation of some kind; for a large portion of this brush has been cleared, and well improved farms and excellent residences occasionally appear, even in the comparatively wild district. Crossing Shoal Creek, we ascended an eminence from which we enjoyed a magnificent prospect of diversified scenery for many miles in circuit; while far to the background of the October sky, appeared in bold relief, the lofty and spacious structure of Kidder College, on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, with the roofs of the village buildings reflecting the glorious sunlight, and calling to mind the well-known lines of Rogers:
"'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the cottage in a silver hue." Drawing up to the door of the first farm house, we inquired: "How far are we from Far West?" "You are right in the middle of the public square," was the reply that greeted our astonished ears, "And where is the Mormon Temple?" "About two hundred yards ahead in a corn-filed by the side of the road." So indeed we were. But what a change in the past twelve or thirteen years! Where all was solitude and melancholy evidence of complete and absolute desertion, were now well-improved farms, roads and fences. How many metamorphoses has the once stirring but now almost forgotten site of historic Far West undergone in the past thirty years!

Advancing about a quarter of a mile we arrived at the pleasant residence of J. W. Whitmer, the pioneer settler of the locality, on whose farm is located the foundation of the Temple before referred to. Mr. Whitmer, by whom we were hospitably entertained, is an old gentleman of fine intelligence and possessed of a fund of information in reference to Far West, for which we would vainly seek elsewhere; and we hold ourselves deeply indebted to his courteous communicativeness for a large proportion of whatever of interest we may offer our readers in this article.

Before entering upon the history of the settlement we would briefly refer to the few prominent landmarks which to-day recall the site of this interesting locality. The most prominent feature of the landscape is the spacious residence of this gentleman with its extensive yard shaded by a grove of lofty locust and other forest trees, beautiful and well kept blue grass lawn, and other surroundings, which bespeak the refined taste of the proprietor. A few hundred yards west of his residence is the foundation, or rather cellar, of the Temple which, in nine cases out of ten would escape the observation of the casual traveler who might happen to pass its site- for it is nothing more nor less than a more than a half filled rectangular excavation, 120 X 80 feet in extent, the corners of which are marked by four rude and ponderous corner stones which, though considerably sunk by the settling of the earth, are still distinctly and prominently visible.

The third feature of interest, perhaps the most attractive on the spot, is the former residence of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Above we present a faithful cut of its appearance to-day. This is a rude, old fashioned, one story, frame building, with two rooms, situated about a quarter of a mile southwest of the temple site, on the n e qr of sec. 15, T. 56, R. 29. A small ell room which was afterwards added, was subsequently moved away. An unusually large and clumsy stone chimney at the north end of the building is its distinguishing characteristic. Otherwise the structure is an exceedingly ordinary and common-place building, suggestive of anything rather than the residence of the founder of a mighty sect whose rise and progress constitute an ear in the history of our Republic.

The location of the house, however, is strikingly beautiful; a blue grass pasture of emerald green slopes on all sides from its site, and a towering grove of locust and cottonwood trees embower the interesting relic. The house is at present occupied as a residence by N. Howard. The farm on which it stands was once the property of J. Hughes, but now belongs to Col. Calvin F. Burnes, of Saint Joseph. It is a remarkable fact that many writers of respectable authority who have chronicled under various heads, the rise and progress of Mormonism in our land, have been content with the baldest and most cursory glance at the episode of Far West, which really constitutes one of the most important features of our State history; while others who have published abridgements of the same fail to refer in any way to the remarkable events which transpired in that locality, and speak of the Mormons as emigrating from Jackson county to Nauvoo, Ill., altogether ignoring the existence of such a place as Far West, which once boasted a Mormon population variously estimated from two to three thousand souls.

It is not our purpose to write a history of Mormonism, the outlines of which are sufficiently familiar to every general reader; but we propose in this brief sketch to fill a much neglected void in the history of our State, and preserve from utter oblivion one of the most stirring events in the story of its early settlement.

In the autumn of the year 1836, a band of Mormons from Clay county made their appearance in the neighborhood of the locality afterwards known as Far West, and requested of the few settlers who then inhabited that sparsely peopled district permission to settle among them.

Unsuspicious of any evil intent, the hospitable pioneers unhesitatingly consented, and the Mormon immigration immediately began.

This country, soon after erected into the county of Caldwell, then constituted a portion of Ray county. The Mormons, though openly expressing the dogma that "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and we are his servants," did not seem disposed to run any unwarrantable risks on the first advent; they entered a large tract of land, paying for the same according to law.

We are informed, on reliable authority, that the poorest Mormon who desired to enter land had no difficulty in procuring from his brethren the necessary means, so powerful and practical was the bond which united this peculiar people. Almost immediately on their arrival they laid out the site of their future city of Far West. The town site was one mile square, including the northeast quarter of section 14, the northeast quarter of section 15, the southwest quarter of section 10, and the northwest quarter of section 11, in township 56, range 29, of what is now Caldwell county, about eight miles southwest of Hamilton, and about the same distance southeast of Cameron.

Among those who came on an exploring tour and afterwards selected the above described locality was John Whitmer, before mentioned, who owns the beautiful farm on which the site of the Temple is located. Mr. Whitmer is regarded by all who know him as an estimable citizen, and a living evidence of the fact that among those who professed the strange faith were occasionally to be found men of sterling integrity and unblemished character.

In the spring of 1836 there were not more than fifteen or sixteen houses in the county, but before the leaves had fallen from the trees in the succeeding autumn, a wonderful change appeared, and a young city had sprung on the late uninhabited waste, as by the stroke of the enchanter's wand.

The first house within the limits of the town site was built in August 1836 by a man by the name of Dombsby [sic - Ormsby?], and a very short time after John Whitmer built the second. This building was long used as a hotel, and afterwards served the purpose of a stable. Four years ago it was a complete ruin.

The town was laid out in blocks twenty-four rods square, and the streets were on a grand scale. The four principal avenues were each eight rods wide, and all the others five rods wide. These diverged at right angles from a public square in the centre [sic], designed as the site of a grand Temple, which, however, was never built. In 1837 the cellar under the prospective building was dug. We are informed that the excavation, 120 X 80 feet in area, and 4 or 5 feed deep, was accomplished in about one-half of a day, more than 500 men being employed in the work, with no other means of removing the earth than hand barrows.

It is generally believed that on the 4th of July following, which was duly observed as a national holiday, the corner stone of the Temple was laid. This, however, is a mistake. In the fall of 1838 and spring of 1839, the Mormons were expelled the country.

But a short time after, in the same spring, a small band including some of the twelve Apostles, had the temerity to return, and at the dead hour of midnight, with no witnesses but the silent stars and the All-seeing Eye, amid hymns of solemn rejoicing and the exercise of such other rites as their peculiar faith demanded, deposited in the northeast corner of the Temple site a copy of the Bible and a copy of the Book of Mormon, which they claim to be a revealed interpretation of the mysteries of Holy Writ. They then lowered upon those evidences of their faith the rude and ponderous corner stone which, with the three others at their several corners, remain to this day, an unpretending but enduring monument of the bold and fearless zeal of these determined fanatics. The Temple was designed to be one of the most elegant and stately structures in the United States, and but for the extravagant assumption of despotic authority, and high-handed acts of lawlessness on the part of fanatical and unscrupulous leaders of these misguided people, which aroused the just indignation and determined resistance of the "Gentiles," as they designated all who were not Mormon, the fair proportions of a stately structure would soon have remained to this day, a monument of invincible enterprise, and a proud landmark on the beautiful plains of Caldwell county.

About half a mile west of town is the Old Burying Ground of the Mormons. It is now included within the limits of a farm owned by Mr. Boulton. Here are some two or three hundred graves, all more or less obliterated, with scarcely an occasional rude headstone to mark the presence of a once sacredly guarded, but long forsaken and forgotten village of the dead.

But to return to the early history of the colony.

By December of the year 1836, the Mormons in vast numbers had flocked from Clay and Jackson counties, from which latter place they had been driven for their acts of lawlessness by the incensed citizens, and taken up their abode in their new home of Far West.

In an incredibly short space of time, from two hundred and fifty to three hundred buildings were erected, with workshops, stores, school houses, etc., and Far West began to assume the air and proportions of a thriving and prosperous village. On the 26th of December, 1836, the limits of the county of Caldwell were defined, its territory including a portion of what had been Ray county, and in the spring of 1837, the same was established by the Legislature. About this time a printing press for the colony arrived at Liberty Landing. This, however, never reached Far West. An election of county officers was forthwith ordered, which resulted in the choice of Frank Maguire, W.W. Phelps and Ramsey, recommended by the Governor, as County Judges. With W. W. Phelps as President of the Board; John Cleminson, County and Circuit Clerk; John Skidmore, Sheriff; and Squires, County Surveyor. Austin A. King, afterwards Governor of the State, was elected Circuit Judge, and the first court was held in Far West, then the only town in the county, in 1837. The first building used for a courthouse here was originally built for a school house. It was also used as a town hall and served various public purposes.

During Mormon rule, it stood in the southeast part of the town, but was afterwards moved to the centre [sic] of the square. In the winter of 1836-7 a saw and grist mill was built on Shoal creek, about one mile north of the town. In after years it was known as Fugitt's Mill. The mill building has long since been swept away by spring freshets; and in common with most of the old land marks, all traces of the mill dam have disappeared. In 1837, before internal dissentions began seriously to disturb the peace of the community, Far West enjoyed its palmiest days. Some five or six large general stores existed in the place, among which was the large establishment known as the "Committee Store." This was during the early days of Far West, when its name was a watchword to thousands who embraced the new faith, on either side of the Atlantic, just as Great Salt Lake City is to day.

The bulk of the population of the county were Mormons. The leading spirits among the latter at this period were Joseph Smith, the Prophet, Hyrum Smith, John Carroll, Sidney Rigdon, Edward Partridge, W. W. Phelps, Philo Dibble, Elias Higbee, Oliver Cowdery, John Clemmison, John Daley, John and David Whitmer, and the Bozarths. Orson Hyde and Heber Kimball were in England, spreading through the length and breadth of the land the doctrines of their bold and unscrupulous sect. Brigham Young, in the land of steady habits, was bending every energy of his powerful intellect in the same cause, and astonishing the staid people of New England by the enthusiasm with which he defended its claims. Missionaries swarmed in every state of continental Europe, defying with a constancy worthy of a better cause the ridicule and contumely which they often encountered in the propagation of their strange doctrines, and meeting with the triumphant success rarely denied even though exercised in the wildest and most extravagant cause.

In the appeals of these bold fanatics the name of Far West was heralded as the central point of the Promised Land, from whose borders the "saints" were to go forth and possess the earth and the fullness thereof.

Far West continued to improve rapidly in growth and prosperity. This condition of things induced many good and industrious citizens to settle within the limits of the growing young city, and its rapidly developing neighborhood, while the same attractions drew thither many desperadoes and thieves, who soon succeeded in obtaining almost unbounded sway in the Mormon councils. They boldly declared that "the Lord had given the earth and the fullness thereof to his people," and that they consequently had the right to take whatever they pleased from the Gentiles.

In pursuance of this declaration of right, bands of the most desperate and lawless characters strolled openly about the country taking forcible possession of whatever they pleased. Those among the sect whose sense of honor and justice revolted at these acts of villainy, were soon compelled, at least, to preserve a discreet silence in regard to their unpopular views of such conduct.

We would observe here, parenthetically, that though many conflicting opinions have been uttered in reference to the matter, we are prepared to state, on reliable authority, that the difficulty in Caldwell county was originated by the Mormons carrying the election of Representative to the State Legislature in August, 1839 [sic], the Mormons being anti-slaveholders, or Free Soilers. The other version, (frequently stated and accepted by many), is that the first occasion of the difficulty was that, at a mass convention, the Mormons passed a resolution to the effect that the soil belonged to the "Lord's chosen people" and that they were the only ones entitled to this heritage.

A band of miscreants known as Destroying Angles, were ever on the alert to detect the slightest defection on the part of those who presumed to call in question any set of lawlessness authorized by their leaders, and visit summary vengeance on their heads.

In the dissentions that naturally resulted from this condition of affairs, several of their leading men apostatized and accused Smith of gross crimes and frauds. On the 25th of October, 1838, Thomas B. March, corroborated by Hyde, said: "They have among them a company, consisting of all that are considered true Mormons, called the Danites, who have taken an oath to support the heads of the church in all things that they say or do, whether right or wrong. The plan of said Smith is to take this State, and he professes to his people to intend taking the whole United States, and ultimately the whole world. This is the belief of the church, and my own opinion of the Prophet's plan and designs. The Prophet inculcates the idea, and it is believed by every true Mormon that the prophecies of Smith are superior to the law of the land. I have heard the Prophet say that he would yet tread down his enemies and walk over their dead bodies; that if he was not let alone he would be a second Mahomet to this generation, and that he would make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific ocean."

Peaceful and law abiding citizens who had sustained repeated wrongs and outraged at the hands of these people, were not disposed to accept quietly this defiant and menacing tone of the Mormon leaders, and these harangues contributed to no small degree to add fuel to the flame of excitement enkindled against these blatant outlaws. Rigdon, in a sermon preached at Far West July 4th, 1838, said: "We take God and all the holy angels to witness this day that we warn all men, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no more forever. The man, or set of men, who attempts it, do it at the expense of their lives; and that mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between them and us a war of extermination, for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us. For we will carry the seat of war to their own houses and to their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed."

As the followers of Smith largely out numbered the Gentiles, and as the county officers were mostly Mormons, they were enabled to act with impunity until their overbearing lawlessness excited the furious indignation of the other settlers, who not being able to obtain justice by lawful means, also resorted to mob violence and retaliation in kind, and many a deed of revolting atrocity was perpetrated on both sides, to the regret of all good men and the disgrace of civilization. In 1839 [sic] this discord had assumed such a fiendish character that Governor Boggs issued a proclamation ordering Major General David R. Atchison to call out the militia of his division to quell the insurgents and enforce the laws. He called out a part of the first brigade of the Missouri State militia, under command of General Alex. W. Doniphan, who proceeded at once to the scene of disturbance. The militia were place under the command of General John B. Clark. The Mormon forces, an undisciplined rabble, were led by G. W [M]. Hinkle. Far West, Haughn's Mills, and other points in the vicinity were fortified by the Mormons in a rude and unskillful manner that moved the derision and contempt of their comparatively well appointed and drilled adversaries. They intrenched themselves behind barricades of hastily collected logs, dilapidated wagons, old buggies, and literally anything and everything which presented itself in the terrible emergency which retributive justice had called down upon their heads.

The first skirmish took place at Crooked River, in the southwestern part of the county. It is a popularly accepted opinion that the principle engagement was fought at Haughn's Mill, about five miles south of the present site of the flourishing town of Breckenridge, on the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad. We learn, on reliable authority, however, that the latter was not worthy of being dignified by the name of a skirmish, for the insurgents fled on the first approach of the militia. In the first fight, one man was killed on each side. The Mormon, in this instance, whose name we fail to recall, was one of the twelve Apostles.

We learn from one who was present on the scene of conflict, shortly after the fight, that the shooting, in this engagement, to use his own expression, "was of the wildest character," more damage being done to the upper branches of the trees in the neighborhood, than to the enemy. There were present in what is known as the Haughn's Mill fight 125 militia, one of whom it is claimed by some was killed. Some sixteen or eighteen Mormons who had taken refuge in a blacksmith shop within their rude intrenchments, were ruthlessly shot down while in the act of surrender, and their bodies thrown into a neighboring well. That so revolting an atrocity should be perpetrated by men who claimed the character of enlightened and law-abiding citizens, is matter of astonishment to all unacquainted with the previous history of the insurrection; but when we call to mind the terrible threats and denunciations of Smith, Rigdon, and other Mormon leaders, and the deeds of high-handed robbery and cold-blooded assassination perpetrated by their minions, we are not disposed to be surprised that such outrages should have begotten a kindred spirit of retaliation.

The well into which the bodies of the slaughtered Mormons were thrown is on a farm owned at that time by Haughn. This land is now the property of James C. McCreary, Esq., of Kingston, to whom it was sold for a St. Louis party, by Nathan Cope, Esq., of Kingston. It is about fifteen and a half miles east of Far West on s.e. qr. of sec. 8, T. 56, R. 26. The bloody and sepulchral well was filled up by Charles Ross, Esq., now a resident of Kingston, who arrived on the spot just ten days after the tragic occurrence. Mr. Ross is one of the oldest settlers and most respected citizens of Caldwell county. His residence at that time, was but a short distance from the spot where the slaughtering occurred. We state, on his authority, that there were, in this affair, about forty Mormons under the command of one Capt. Evans; and that there were two companies of Missouri militia, of which Col. Jennings commanded one, and Capt. Comstock the other. Capt. C., who was a frequent guest at the house of Mr. Ross, admitted to the latter that he was the officer at whose command the Mormons were shot down and thrown into the well.

When the militia appeared at Far West, where the strength of the Mormon forces were concentrated, Joseph Smith surrendered to Gen. Doniphan, on the following terms, viz: That they should deliver up their arms, surrender their prominent leaders for trial, and that the remainder of the Mormons, should, with their families, leave the State. The leaders charged with murder, treason and felony, were taken before Austin A. King, presiding. He remanded them to Daviess county, to await the action of the grand jury, on the above charges.

The Daviess' county jail, however, being deemed insecure, they were confined at Liberty in Clay County.

Indictments were found against Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Col. Hinkle, Baldwin and Lyman. Rigdon was soon released on a writ of habeas corpus.

It has been asserted and is still believed, by some, that Smith and his fellow-prisoners made their escape from the Liberty jail. Such, however, was not the case. At their request, change of venue was granted, and Judge King sent their cases to Boone county for trial. On their way to Columbia under military guard, Joseph Smith and his fellow-prisoners succeeded in effecting their escape.

That eight or nine men should have accomplished this end without the connivance of the strong force by which they were escorted, is simply absurd; and the prevalent belief in that day, was that the guard was bribed.

Thus did the leaders in a desperate career of iniquity temporarily escape the penalty of enormities which cried loud against them for justice, while many of their misguided followers, unable to get away in the general exodus which, in obedience to the terms of the surrender immediately followed, suffered at the hands of miscreants to whom such convulsions are ever a godsend, outrages and enormities almost as cruel and disgraceful as those perpetrated at the instigation of Smith and Rigdon against the Gentiles.

Disposing of their property. Many of these Mormons who were poor, had invested all the little property they once possessed in these lands from which they were now driven. Valuable farms were, at this time traded for an old wagon, a horse, or a yoke of oxen- anything which afforded the means of transportation from the Promised Land where they once lived in the firm faith of establishing a last home and final resting place on earth. Conveyances of lands were not unfrequently demanded and enforced from these wretchedly deluded victims of a fierce fanaticism, at the muzzle of the pistol or point of the dagger.

At the period of the general exodus which occurred immediately on the surrender, there were in the county of Caldwell about 5,000 inhabitants, fully four thousand of whom were Mormons. Most of these, with a blind faith in the leaders whose acts had entailed such terrible calamities on their followers, emigrated to Navuoo, Ill., only to experience, at a future and not distant day, the same inevitable consequences of lawless and criminal assumption of despotic authority that has ever characterized the leaders of this strange fanaticism in Missouri.

The following extract from the message of the Governor of Missouri in 1840, giving a brief review of the character of the events to which we have just referred we deem not inappropriate to this article. In referring to the expulsion of the Mormons, he says: "These people had violated the laws of the land by open and avowed resistance to them; they had undertaken, without the aid of the civil authority, to redress their real or fancied grievances; they had instituted among themselves a government of their own, independent of and in opposition to the government of the State; they had, at an inclement season of the year, driven the inhabitants of an entire county from their homes, ravaged their crops, and destroyed their dwellings. Under these circumstances, it became the imperious duty of the Executive to interfere and exercise the powers with which he was invested, to protect the lives and property of our citizens, to restore order and tranquillity to the country, and maintain the supremacy of our laws."

About the period of the final expulsion of the Mormons an association was instituted which might be termed a Vigilance Committee. These made it their business to compel the removal of all persons who were suspected of being in sympathy with these obnoxious fanatics, and for many months during the winter of 1839-40, mob law was supreme in Caldwell county. Emigrants from all parts of the Union flocked into the county with bitter hatred in their hearts towards Mormonism and every thing pertaining to it. The very name of Far West was an abominable sound in the ears of settlers; and after holding courts for about two and a half years longer, in the place, the county seat was removed to a locality called in honor of Austin A. King, Kingston, and which remains to-day the capital of Caldwell county. In the same year, the Post Office, the first ever established in the limit of the county, which had been held by David Hughes for three years, was removed from Far West to the new county seat. Many who had obtained lawful possession of the buildings in the old town, moved them away, but a large portion of these deserted habitations were carried off piecemeal by parties who had no shadow of claim to their possession, or were wantonly destroyed by others with whom the vandal spirit of destruction was paramount to every just claim; and in a very few years from the period of the expulsion of the Mormons scarcely a vestige remained of the once populous and flourishing town of Far West.

It will doubtless be a matter of interest to many to know that among the Mormon residents at Far West was the widow of Morgan, the so-called exposer of the mysteries of masonry, whose sudden disappearance from his home in New York, in the year 1826 created the suspicion of his having been abducted and murdered by certain zealous members of the craft. The excitement in that day, in reference to this matter, was of sufficiently grave and extensive character to result in the inauguration of a short lived party in National politics, the leading characteristic of which was its opposition to Masonry. But for this identification of the circumstance with the political history of the country, the occurrence, like the episode of Far West, would probably long since have passed from the memory of men for we live in an age of stirring events and rushing progress. An occurrence which fixed the attention of a nation yesterday, is forgotten in the pressing interests of to-day, just as the great claims of to-day will yield to the crowding incidents of to-morrow. Every throb in the great heart of National existence is but another stride in this feverish rush of constant change and unceasing progress. Few, even among the prominent actors in this mighty and over-shifting drama, pause long enough to review their own personal parts, far less the great events of which they have merely been spectators.

How necessary and important then becomes the office of the biographer and the historian; and what a weight of responsibility rests upon him who assumes to chronicle events which are to live as monuments of warning or example to future generations!

The story of Far West, trivial and unimportant as it may sound, compared with the mighty events that have since transpired in this government, is not without its thrilling interest, its voice of warning, and deep philosophy. That the revolutionary schemes of Smith and his desperate and determined followers signally failed of accomplishment in Missouri, and afterwards in Illinois, as they had previously in Ohio, does not render the alarming boldness of these unprincipled fanatics the less worthy of being chronicled, especially when we reflect that, thrice and four times defeated and expelled, they ultimately succeeded in building up a hierarchy on the distant plains of a farther West, which lives and flourishes to-day, in defiance of the accepted principles of social and moral rectitude, the wonder and astonishment of the civilized world.

With these reflections we close our sketch of Far West. The various written authorities which we have consulted in reference tot he matter, all more or less meager in their details, often conflict in their several statements.

We have depended for our information more upon the statements of reliable parties who were eye-witnesses of the scenes and incidents we have attempted to describe. For assistance in securing information thus derived we hold ourself under special obligations to Nathan Cope, Esq., a prominent citizen of Caldwell county, and resident of the town of Kingston. It may not be improper here to add that, about the period of the first settlement of Far West, a band of Mormons numbering some three hundred, made their way to Daviess county, and built cabins in different parts of the county. On the east bluff of Grand river, about three miles above Gallatin, they build a small town which they called Adimondiamon, and which in the Mormon jargon, is said to mean "The Grave of Adam," they claiming to have found that interesting locality on the site of their future village.

The lawless element among these people soon gained for the entire settlement the ill-will of the Gentiles, who heartily co-operated in driving them from the county, in 1838-1839. They surrendered without resistance to the military, and made a partial restitution of the property they had stolen. Before this surrender, among other acts of lawlessness, they burned the town of Gallatin and many houses throughout the county. Adimondiamon, at the time of the expulsion, is said to have included a population of nearly five hundred Mormons, who nearly all emigrated to Nauvoo.   -- VIATOR.


Note 1: See also Missouri Mormon Frontier Newsletter, 28, (Oct. 2001-Mar. 2002), 12-19. Contemporary accounts of Far West were published in the Salt Lake Daily Tribune of Oct. 9, 1875 and the San Francisco Bulletin of Apr. 24, 1876.

Note 2: The correspondent "Viator" also furnished the Daily Morning Herald with an illustration of the Joseph Smith, jr. residence at Far West (which was still standing in 1875) -- see the the graphics provided in the notes appended to the Kansas City Star article transcript for Oct. 13, 1907.

Note 3: For some contemporary reporting on the Mormons in Missouri and old Mormon capital of Far West, see the Salt Lake Daily Tribune of Oct. 9, 1875 and especially the the Liberty Tribune of April 14, 1876 (reprinted in the San Francisco Bulletin of Apr. 24, 1876).

(William Smith letter -- under construction)

 


Notes: (under construction)

A  GATHERING  STORM.
______

The  Mountain  Meadow Massacre  Trial.

The San Francisco Call says that the trial of John D. Lee, under arrest for alleged participation in the Mountain Meadow massacre of some twenty years ago, is appointed to take place at Beaver, Utah, in April next. An effort will be made by the Mormons to get possession of the jury; in which event conviction will be out of the question, though the proofs of Lee's guilt were piled mountains high. The lectures of Mrs Stenhouse now being delivered in different parts of the territory, dwelling with thrilling interest, it is said, upon many of the incidents of the massacre, clearly implicate some of the head men of the Mormon church in the bloody transaction. The effect of these lectures is to strengthen the determination of the "Gentiles" to bring the murderers to justice, while they at the same time intensify Mormon hatred toward her, and cause a sharpening of Mormon wits to avert the danger which now threatens the prisoner. Any testimony that will establish his guilt must necessarily implicate his associates, who were a numerous band; and so many of these as still survive are nervous in apprehension of the revelations that are expected to be made.

It has been asserted that Lee will make a clean breast of the matter, unless the strain upon his mind should drive himm into insanity before the trial comes off, as he now exhibits strong symptoms of derangement. In his ravings he has already made several damaging disclosures. The Salt Lake Tribune says that he tells of fellow-conswpirators and assassins being hidden in a cave in Southern Utah, armed against the approach of officers and defying arrest who were the principal actors in the tragedy. He also declares that he is to be made the scapegoat of the church, and put forward to receive the punishment which should be shared by each and everyone of his confederates. The strong point upon which the Mormons rely for Lee's acquittal will be to prove an alibi. Excitement over the subject of the trial is at fever heat, and daily increasing. An honest jury is the one thing most desireable, and which it is anticipated it will be difficult to procure.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMON  FIENDS
______

John D. Lee who was shot yesterday for the part he acted in the atrocious Mormon massacre of emigrants at Mountain Meadows, in September, 1857, made a full confession which is referred to elsewhere in The Clipper. The confession and Lee's autobiography are entrusted to a friend, who says that "this weak and pliable tool, who lays down his pen to face the executioners guns. is not more guilty than others, who to-day are wearing garments of the priesthood. The autobiography, if published, will open the eyes of the world to the monstrous deeds of the leaders of the Mormon people, and give the particulars of some of the most blood-curdling crimes ever committed in Utah, which if followed up, will bring down many from their high place in church to fall before offended justice upon a gallows."

In 1860 the republican party declared polygamy to be one of the twin relics of barbarism which must be extinguished, and yet it remains with all the strength it ever had, although the republican party has held sway for 16 years. If the horrible story as told by Lee is true, and there appears no reason to doubt it, the last one of the Mormon fiends who were in any way concerned in the terrible butchery for which Lee died yesterday, should be summarily executed soon as the proof can be properly established against them, and all the power of the government necessary should instantly be used to wipe the foul blot of Mormonism forever from American civilization and from off the American continent

EXECUTION  OF  LEE.
______

The Mountain Meadow Murderer is
Shot For His Crime
______

He Makes a Confession Charging that Brigham Young
and Othes are More Guilty Than he.
______

In the month of September 1857 the terrible Mountain Meadow massacre in Utah took place. Nearly twenty years later John D. Lee one of the Mormon villains who was responsible for the wholesale and indiscriminate murder and robbery of a large band of emigrants, is executed. In all the history of the world but few crimes were ever recorded, more horrible in all of its details than the Mountain Meadow massacre. That Brigham Young and other leaders of the Mormon Church were more responsible for the massacre their other weak, misguideed and fanatical followers, the people of the United States ever believed. Lee leaves behind him a written confession of great length which will be published and in which he asserts that Brigham Young, Dame, Haight and other leaders of the church, were responsible for the wholesale murder and robbery of the men, woman and children at Mountain Meadow.

After the first attack on the emigrants according to the confession of Lee, a council meeting was called of Presidents, Bishops and other church officers and members of the High Council Societies, the High Priests, etc. Major John M. Higbee presided as chairman. Several of the dignitaries bowed in prayer and invoked the aid of the Holy Spirit to prepare their minds guide them to do right and carry out the counsels of their leaders. Higbee said President I. C. Haight had been to Parowan to confer with Col. Dame and their Council, and orders were that the emigrant camp must be used up. I inquired. "Men woman and children?" "All," said he, "except such as are too young to tell tales; and if the Indians cannot do it without help, we must help them." Lee says that he begged of the council that the emigrants might be permitted to go on their way, but he continues: Ira Allen, High Counsellor, Robert Wiley and others spoke, reproving me for trying to dictate to the priesthood; that it would set at naught all authority; that he would not give the life of one of our brethren for a thousand such persons. If we should let them go they will raise hell in California, and the result will be that our wives and children will have to be butchered, and ourselves too, and they are no better to die than ours.

THE  EXECUTION.

At 11 o'clock Friday, the 23rd day of March, 1877, twenty years after his terrible crime, Lee was brought upon the scene of the massacre at Mountain Meadows, before the firing party, and seated upon his coffin, about twenty feet from his ececutioners. After the order of the Court had been read to him by Marshal Nelson, Lee made a speech of probably five hundred words; bitterly denouncing Brigham Young, and declaring that he was but a scape-goat for the sins of others. He hoped God would be merciful to him. He denied to the last moment that he was guilty of bloodsehed, and that his mission to the Meadows was one of mercy. After his speech, Parson Stokes, of the Methodist Church, made a prayer, commending the soul of the condemned to his Maker. Immediately after this a handkerchief was placed over Lee's eyes, he raised his hands, placed them on top of his head, sitting firm, Nelson giving the word fire; and exactly at 11 o'clock five guns were fired, penetrating the body in the region of the heart. Lee fell square back upon the coffin, dead; death being instantaneous. The body was placed in the coffin and the crowd dispersed. There were about 75 persons, all told, on the ground. Not a child or relative there. The best order prevailed, and all pronounced the execution a success. Lee's last words to Nelson were, "Aim at my heart."

Lee just before he was shot, made a request of the photographer who was taking his likeness, to furnish a copy to each of his three wives, which the artist promised. He then spoke as follows:

I have but little to say this morning. Of course I feel that I am upon the brink of eternity, and the solemnity of eternity should rest upon my mind at the present time. I have made out or have endeavored to do so, a manuscript and an abridged history of my life; this will be published. Sir, I have given my views and feelings with regard to these things, I feel resigned to my fate. I feel as calm as a summer morning. I have done nothing designedly wrong; my conscience is clear before God and man, and I am ready to meet my Redeemer. This it is that pleases me upon this field. I am not an infidel. I have not denied God or his mercy. I am a strong believer in those things. The most I regret is parting with my family. Many of them are unprotected and will be left fatherless. When I speak of those little ones they touch a tender chord within me. (Here his voice faltered perceptably.) I have done nothing designedly wrong in this affair. I used my very utmost endeavors to save this people. I would have given worlds were it at my command to have avoided that calamity. But I could not! I am sacrificed to satisfy the feelings, and used to gratify parties, but I am ready to die. I have no fear of death! It has no terrors, and no particle of mercy have I asked from the court or officials to spare my life. I do not fear death. I shall never go to a worse place than the one I am now in. I have said it to my family and I will say it to-day, that the Government of the United States sacrifices its best friend, and that is saying a great deal, but it is true. I am a true believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I do not believe everthing that is now practiced and taught by Brigham Young. I do not agree with him. I believe he is leading the people astray. But I believe in the gospel as taught in its purity by Joseph Smith in former days. I have my reasons for saying this. I used to make this man's will my pleasure and did so for thirty years. See how and what I have come to. This day I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner. There are thousands of people in the church, honorable and good-hearted, that I cherish in my heart. I regret to leave my family; they are near and dear to me. These are things to rouse my sympathy. I declare I did nothing designedly wrong in this unfortunate affair. I did everything in my power to save all the emigrants, but I am the onue that must suffer. Having said this, I feell resigned. I ask the Lord my God, to extend His mercy to me, and receive my spirit. My labors are here done.

Notes: (forthcoming)

"OLD  FAR  WEST."

Mr. Miller: -- Having recently visited Caldwell county, I was at "Far West." memorable in Missouri history as the rendezvous of the Mormons, and at which place they surrendered to the State militia in November, 1838 and '39, and went to trouble our sister state.

The site is still owned by Mormons -- a few families of whom still live in its vicinity. The location is a good one, giving a view of Cameron, nine miles northwest; Kidder, six miles north; Hamilton, twelve miles north-east. A corn field occupies the principal portion of the former town -- many wells, cellars, &c., being filled up and plowed over. There are still standing two buildings which were used as hotels. In one of them, a square, barn looking building, a family resides. The other is used as a stable, the owner being a "Gentile." The Temple site is plainly visible. The stones having been placed in position for the foundation -- by careful stepping its dimensions were found to be, width 90 feet; length 120 feet. In full view of this temple site is the residence of J. Whitmen [sic - Whitmer], one of the witnesses to the plates from which Joe Smith published the "Book of Mormon," a copy of which under date of 1850 is in my possession. "Strange credulity" or something else. The veritable house in which the prophet, Smith, resided, is still standing. It is said that Mormon fanaticism has not relinquished the idea of building the temple whose foundation was laid forty years ago. On the premises of Mr. Chamberlain -- a boot and harness maker -- lies a stone, which, his family informed me, tradition said was dropped from heaven. -- Strange to say, it resembles other stones abundant in that vicinity. The Gentile profanity of Mr. Chamberlain, it seems, went so far as to break open the large stone lying quietly on the surface of the earth, -- as though gently lowered from a wagon drawn by oxen, for this, heaven's vengeance, it was threatened, would fall on him. But still as a man of sixty he pegs boots and shoes and sends forth harness equal to that manufactured by a "Latter-day Saint."

As we returned from this place we met three men -- one of them very old, and who seemed to pay but little attention to the questions and talked about "Far West" -- until we remarked that our father was deserving either praise or blame for aiding in the capture of the Mormons there -- then his eyes sought our face with a strange interest. Inquiry developed the fact that he, perhaps, was one who had performed the unpleasant duty of stacking his musket at the command of Gov. Boggs' militia.


Note: See also the St. Joseph Daily Morning Herald of Jan. 1, 1875.

THE  EXECUTION  OF  LEE.

THE  MOUNTAIN  MEADOW  MURDERER.

THE  MORMON  QUESTION.
________

WHERE  ARE  THE  ORPHANS?
________

Of all the many thousand readers of the Times is there no one in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas or Texas who can drop us a few lines throwing some light upon the subsequent history of the orphan survivors of the Mountain Meadows massacre? All that is known about them and the names of sixteen of the seventeen are given in the Herald's Salt Lake letter, which we publish this morning. They were brought to Leavenworth in 1859, where some of them were doubtless reclaimed by relations, while others were bound out or given away to charitably disposed persons. Some of these children were old enough to remember the incidents of the massacre, yet "Idaho Bill" now in the Utah Penitentiary for highway robbery, who claims to be Charles Thatcher, is the only one of the seventeen that has been heard from throughout all the excitement attending the trial and execution of John D. Lee. Some of them must still be living who from memory, and from what they have since learned from relatives, could contribute interesting chapters about the victims of that terrible tragedy. Old citizens who lived in the parts whence the unfortunates emigrated, and others who were brought back in 1859, are invited to tell what they know about the matter for the benefit of the readers of the Times. The mystery that long shrouded a hideous crime has been cleared away sufficiently to reveal the true character of the most heartrending butchery that ever stained our soil, and, though the little ones who were spared are objects of interest to 40.000.000 of people, an inpenetrable mystery seems to hang over their subsequent fate. Let us know what Providence has done to the little innocents that were spared even by the fiends who butchered their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers.


Note: Published on or about May 25, 1877 -- text is from a reprint in the New York Herald.

The New York Herald discloses the singular fact, if it be a fact, that among the accounts of Brigham Young as Indian agent, there appears a voucher for goods distributed to the Indians, September 30th, 1857, at Mountain Meadows. The massacre at the place where these goods were sworn to be delivered was only fourteen days before, and this place was three hundred and twenty miles from Salt Lake City. Among the articles are a remarkable number of coats, pantaloons, hats, shirts, leggings, blankets and tobacco, exactly the sort of goods which would form part of an emigrant's outfit. The total value represented by this voucher is $3,500, and it is the largest of all the 114 turned in by Brigham Young, the average of all the others being only $200. More than this, the certificate of witnesses to the delivery of goods is signed by John D. Lee. This is certainly strong circumstantial evidence that these are the goods taken from the murdered emigrants and important developments may be looked for if John D. Lee has told District Attorney Howard the truth about the affair.


Notes: (forthcoming)

...We were down to the Whitmer school-house to preaching on last Sabbath at eleven o'clock. Mr. John Whitmer delivered the discourse. It will be remembered by a great many readers, that Mr. Whitmer is one of only two now living that helped (were witnesses) to the translation of the Book of Mormon, or generally known as the Mormon Bible. Mr. Whitmer is considered a truthful, honest and law abiding citizen by this community, and consequently, his appointment drew out a large audience. Mr. Whitmer stated that he had often handled the identical golden plates which Mr. Smith received from the hand of the angel, he said it was of pure gold, part of the book was sealed up solid, the other part was open, and it was this part which was translated, and is termed to-day the Mormon Bible. This is the first time Mr. Whitmer has attempted to preach for a good many years; and time, who waits for no one, has written many a furrow upon his brow. He is upwards of sixty years old, and gave some good advice to both old and young. Before closing he asked the audience if they would take the Book of Mormon and the Bible and compare them, and to take Paul's rule, "To prove all things and hold fast to that which is good," in comparing them. -- I. C. FUNN.


Note 1: The "Whitmer school-house" mentioned above was probably one of the venues occupied by Elder William B. Smith, when he conducted his own preaching in the Far West area a year later. He also held services "on the old Mormon Temple ground" there.

Note 2: See also John Whitmer's obituary in the Richmond Conservator of July 26, 1878.

Mr. John Whitmer died at Far West on the 11th, aged 77 years. He came to Caldwell in 1836, to look out a home for the Mormons, who had been driven out of Jackson County. He selected Far West, which selection was confirmed by Joe Smith in a vision, and Far West soon became a flourishing town of over two thousand people.

When they were driven from Missouri by the state militia in 1838-9, Mr. Whitmer remained at Far West and has since been a highly respected and law abiding citizen. Mr. Whitmer was one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon or Mormon Bible, but like many other families of the sect, he "kicked" against polygamy. -- Kingston Sentinel.


Note: The death of Elder John Whitmer on July 11, 1878 seems to have touched off a sudden awakening of interest in the Whitmer family Book of Mormon witnesses and in their historic place of residence, near the old Mormon temple site at Far West, Missouri. See the Conservator of Sept. 13, 1878 for a report on the arrival there of "Elders Orson Pratt and J. F. Smith, two high dignitaries in the Mormon Church." Their presence in the area was followed by the visit of Joseph Smith's younger brother, William B. Smith, in February of 1879. See the Feb. 27th issue of the Jamesport Gazette for details.

BOOK  OF  MORMON.

Elders Orson Pratt and J. F. Smith, two high dignitaries in the Mormon Church, arrived in Richmond, on Saturday inquired for David Whitmer, the only living witness of the translation of the Book of Mormon, and the custodian of the original manuscript as taken down by Oliver Cowdry. The visitors were directed to Mr. Whitmer's residence, and on meeting him, announced the object of their visit, which was to secure the manuscript for keeping in the archives of the church at Salt Lake City. Mr. Whitmer declined to give up the book on any terms. He has had it for nearly half a century, and regarded himself as the proper custodian of it. He intended to hold it until the proper time shall arrive for its surrender to those entitled to receive it, while he will give it up. While refusing to give up the volume, he readily brought it forth and exhibited it to his visitors. They promptly pronounced it the original copy of the Book of Mormon. Elder Pratt being familiar with the handwriting of Oliver Cowdry, the writer. They offered Whitmer any price he might ask for the volume, but finding him resolute, left him after a pleasant visit of one hour with the request that he continue to take good care of it, so that the church might receive it at the proper time. The book is in a splendid state of preservation; the ink as bright as if written yesterday, and it is inscribed on large paper, unruled, in a small hand, clearly written close to the edges, top and bottom, making over 500 pages. It is the original Book of Mormon taken down from the lips of the Prophet.

It may be stated that the Mormons once had their central establishment at Far West, in Caldwell County, adjoining Ray, and laid there the foundation of a temple. Difficulties grew up, however, between them and the settlers around them, leading to frequent conflicts and bloodshed, and in the end the saints were forced to leave the State, going to Hancock County, Illinois, where they founded the city of Nauvoo and erected a temple. The foundation of the Far West temple is still to be seen, and Mr. Whitmer's Mormon visitors, on taking their departure from Richmond, made a trip to Caldwell County to take a look at it.


Note 1: The title and precise wording of the above article remain undetermined. The text was taken from various reprints, including excerpts published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer of Oct. 23, 1878 and the Kansas City Journal of Sept. 22 1878. See also the partly paraphrased account published in the Chicago Tribune of Sept. 29, 1878.

Note 2: The Conservator of Sept. 20th evidently also ran on article on this topic. Its contents have not yet been located.

BOOK  OF  MORMON.

The Richmond, Ray County, Missouri, Conservator has an account of an occurrence that has great interest to all who have any acquaintance with the Mormons. It is no less a fact than that the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon, or the Mormon bible, is now, and for these many years has been, in the possession of David Whitmer, one of the oldest and most respected citizens of that county.

The way the fact came out was that last week Orson Pratt and J. F. Smith, two of the leaders of the Mormon Church, visited Ray County to secure this original copy of their sacred book for deposit in the archives of the Church. Mr. Whitmer, however, refused to give it up. He has had it for nearly half a century and considers himself to be its proper custodian, and will retain it until the proper time shall arrive to surrender it, when he will do it. But it is not stated when he thinks that time will come, nor to whom it is to be delivered when the time does arrive.

But while refusing to give up the work, Mr. Whitmer cheerfully exhibited the manuscript to his visitors. They at once pronounced it the genuine original, in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdry, who wrote it down from the lips of the Prophet, Joseph Smith. The Conservator says the manuscript is in a splendid state of preservation, the ink being bright as if written yesterday, and is inscribed on large paper, unruled, in a small hand, clearly written, close to the edges, top and bottom, making over 500 pages.

The Mormon elders offered Mr. Whitmer almost any price for it, but in vain. This original manuscript ought to be deposited at Independence, as that is to be the future city of the faith. If this manuscript, just as it was written down from the lips of the Prophet, was where the final temple is to be, the fact would appeal with great force to the imaginations of the faithful, and Mr. Whitmer would become, in their estimation and traditions, the providential instrument in the preservation of the true word.

There is an important question also bound up in this manuscript -- as to whether some of the contents of the accepted Book of Mormon are genuine, or whether they have been interpolated. This fact may in part account for the visit of Orson Pratt and Smith, at this time, and their anxiety to get possession of the original. We regret that the Conservator had not been able to throw more light on this part of the subject, and it is to be hoped that it may yet be able to do so.


Notes: (forthcoming)

BOOK  OF  MORMON.

The articles that we published regarding the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon have been extensively published by the press, with the request that more light be thrown upon the subject, and the Kansas City Journal of Commerce thinks that the manuscript should be "deposited at Independence, as that is to be the future city of the faith," as it would "appeal with great force, to the imaginations of the faithful, that Mr. Whitmer would become, in their estimation and traditions, the providential instrument in the preservation of the true word," and it regrets, as well as the St. Louis Republican, that more light has not been thrown on this subject. From what we can learn, Mr. Whitmer, the custodian of the book, was one of the three living witnesses to the discovery of the gold plates from which it is asserted that the book was translated by Joseph Smith, through the medium of a pair of rock spectacles; that each inscription or cipher on the plates was a sentence, and that the plates were in the shape of a tablet, one half of which were sealed; that after the plates that were opened had been translated, an angel, guide to Joseph, Mr. Whitmer terms the spiritual visitant, came and took the tablet, and when he returns the sealed plates will be opened and the world will then learn the commands of the Son of Mary.

The work came into Mr. W.'s hands through Mr. Cowdery, who was the amanuensis of the prophet, and who supervised the printing of the Book of Mormon, reserving the manuscript, and it can be seen that several of the pages have been cut, so that the printers could set the copy, in what is known to the craft as "takes." Mr. Whitmer being one of the witnesses, Mr. Cowdery thought that he was the proper custodian, as did John Whitmer, brother of David, who was secretary of the church at Far West, and one of the twelve witnesses as to its validity. Feeling that doubts might arise as to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon or that interpolations might be made by the leaders of the church, at Salt Lake, the original manuscript has been securely guarded, so that no change could be made without its being refuted. While Mr. Whitmer is a strong believer in the doctrines that this book teaches, he is bitterly opposed to the assertions and teachings of the Utah branch, with their system of spiritual wives and Daniteism, believing that the pretended revelation of Joseph Smith, overturning the the [stronger] averment of the Book of Mormon, was an outcropping of the carnal man, and not of the spiritual kingdom, for the book of Jacob of the Mormon bible, after previous condemnation of David and Solomon, for "having many wives and concubines," says [explicitly]: "Wherefore, my brethren, hear me and hearken to the word of the Lord; for there there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none. For I, the Lord God, delighteth in the chastity of women." And in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, which is their creed, after declaring that the language of the marriage ceremony should require them to promise to keep themselves "wholly for each other, and from all others during your lives," it avers as follows: "Inasmuch as the Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again."

That is the belief that Mr. Whitmer still clings to, and it was doubtless for fear that some thing might be done to the original record, either to interpolate it or strike out such passages as the above, [that] has caused him to watch with a jealous eye every move made by the [elders of the] Utah church. As regards the custody of the book, he thinks it should be held by him and his descendants until the coming of the Savior, who has promised in due time, to be be again among his people and set up his tabernacle, so that all can worship in one common temple, and drink of the waters of life freely. So far there has been no interpolation of original book printed from these pages at Palmyra, New York, nor will there be while David Whitmer holds them in his possession.


Note 1: The title and precise wording of the above article remain undetermined. The text was taken from various reprints, including one published in the Warsaw Northern Indianian of Dec. 28, 1878.

Note 2: For the Mormon version of the visit, see the Deseret News of Nov. 27, 1878 and Dec. 4, 1878. The Utah visitors were surprised that members of the Whitmer family referred to the first Mormon president so informally, saying: "Joe Smith is the name he goes by here."

Note 3: P. W. Poulson interviewed David Whitmer a few weeks before Pratt and Smith arrived in Richmond. See the Deseret Evening News of Aug. 16, 1878

TALES  OF  AN  OLD  TIMER.
________

Interesting Reminiscences of the Early Settlers of
Independence and this City.
________

Valuable Historical Sketch of Mormonism in Jackson County --
Its Hard Lines.
________

To the Editor of the Journal:
In August 1830 when I first passed through the county, there was only one settler whose place joined upto the State line, that of Col. Patterson, now known as the Vogel place, near Westport. Adjoining him to the northeast, including the present site of Westport, was the tract of Robert Johnson, an uncle of William Mulkey.

Robert Johnson was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, possessing talents of no common order, was during one or two sessions a member of the legislature, but withal rather taciturn and eccentric. I saw him once while he was canvassing the county on foot and barefooted. Hon. Edward Bates, Attorney-General of the United States, with whom I once fell in company on my way to St. Louis in the stage, told me that Johnson delivered one of the best speeches of the session, replete with logical argument, good sense and vigor.

The next two settlers whose places joined the state line on the east were Dr. Lykins and William Gilliss, both of whom located here in 1831. To write about Dr. Johnston Lykins would require more space than the limits of these brief sketches will allow to do justice to his memory as one of the first, most useful and worthy pioneers of this country. In 1831 he entered and settled upon a tract of land on the state line, two miles southwest of Westport. At this old homestead during many subsequent years he gathered around him his home treasures, and in its quiet forest burial place half of them and many of mine repose in their last long sleep.

The first post office west of Independence was established there about the same year under his charge. More than half a century of his useful, active life was devoted to the promotion and advancement of the best interests of his fellow men, with his pen, his counsel and in labors abundant. He was often the originator of and always with the foremost in every scheme looking to advancement and prosperity of the city and surrounding country. He was the second mayor of the new city, and for a long series of years faithfully and efficiently discharged the many important official trusts committed to him.

Several years before Kansas City had an existence he bought from Louis Bertholet about sixteen acres of land bounded by the Missouri River, Broadway and Fifth streets, known as Lykins’ addition. Upon this tract he built, at an early day, a large brick warehouse, which was torn down to make way for the P.R.R. track.

The Rev. Thos. Johnson is another name that should be held in grateful remembrance as a benefactor and promoter of the best interests of this country and whose record of good deeds dates back to 1830, when he first commenced the organization of missionary schools in the Indian Territory. No history of Kansas or of this portion of the old Far West would be complete without prominent mention of his long and efficient labors in its development. He was open-handed and liberal toward every benevolent enterprise looking to the moral, educational and material advancement and growth of the country.

I have heretofore made mention of very few of the old settlers of Jackson county except such as were identified in some way with the building up of Kansas City. A correct history of the county would enroll the names of many others whose prominence deserves special record. I doubt whether any portion of the State except St. Louis and St. Charles presents such a prolific field for historic research, having so many stirring episodes and fierce struggles as the old city of Independence.

Being the outside post on the frontier of civilization, it was for 20 years the starting and outfitting point for all expeditions across the western plains. Traders to New Mexico, the Rocky Mountain trappers, government exploring parties, missionaries, contractors and traders among the Indian tribes to the west all made it their chief point of departure and supply.

For more than 20 years after the town was started, in 1827 it kept almost undisputed possession of all these advantages, before they were gradually drawn away to Westport and Kansas City.

The near proximity of open prairie for grazing the stock of caravans, etc., to the southwest of Kansas City was really the chief reason why these advantages were transferred from Independence. The opening of the Indian territory for settlement and the extension of lines of railroads westward soon, however, put an end to all of these sources of prosperity to either place.

It would be an interesting task to collect facts and write up many chapters of the early history of Independence and Jackson county, and of the men who built up and controlled her destinies - of Owens, Lucas, Agnew, Aull, McLelland, old Uncle Wood Noland, Courtney, Joe Walker, Weston, Franklin, Boggs, Staples, Hamilton, Hudspeth, Simpson, Waldo, of the Bents, St. Vrain, the Sublettes, Hicks, and many more whose names do not occur to me - and we could even mention old Uncle Billy Yates, who forgot the august dignity of his official position of justice of the peace, and danced around the outskirts of the ring formed around Lewis Jones and Bazil Robinson while they were putting in their best licks on each other in the most approved western style.

Jones was testifying in a case before him, and a voice remarked, "That’s a lie." "Who said that?" asked Jones. "I did," answered Robinson. Quick as lightning Jones’ retort landed on Robinson’s nose, coloring his photograph a bright crimson, and then the exercises formally and quickly opened. The bystanders formed a ring to see fair play. Squire Yates, as in duty bound, rose to his feet, holding the statues in one hand, crying, "I command the peace; I command the peace." Discovering, however, that no one heard or cared for his order, and that he was losing his share of the fun, he commenced hopping around the crowd, uttering with a quick, sententious jerk, "give him h-ll, my little Jones." One-half of the tail of his old frock coat having been accidentally burnt off, we can imagine the undignified appearance of the old man as he danced around the crowd, and why old Russel Hicks, attorney in the case, gave vent to his intense enjoyment in that deep, hearty growl of a laugh that shook his old sides.

This, however, was only one of the thousand comedies enacted on our primitive boards, before the introduction of the glaring adjuncts of gas, tinsel, catgut and wind. Tragedies, too, were enacted sometimes. In the earlier stages of the country’s history very rarely; but in the later periods her blood spots are thickly dotted about her precincts.

THE  MORMONS.

There is no use at this remote day in denying the fact that the Mormons received at the hands of their Gentile neighbors very harsh treatment. In many instances, indeed, this term is entirely too mild; it was cruel. That some of their leaders deserved summary measures was true, but in nearly every instance the overt acts of aggression were perpetrated by the party opposing them. The respectable, law-abiding portion of the old settlers had become convinced that the time was rapidly approaching when they would either be compelled to give way to that fanatical horde of new-comers, sell out their possessions at such prices as they might choose to offer and leave the field, or they would be overwhelmed and absorbed into the brotherhood. Neither of these contingencies could be contemplated without stirring up a feeling of animosity. Still very few of that class were willing to take any part in acts of unlawful violence. There existed, however, a class who were not restrained by any scruples of conscience. The larger number of the Mormons lived between Big Blue and the State line, in three settlements -- one in the valley of Brush creek near the State line, another south of the same creek two miles lower down, and another in the neighborhood of Linwood school-house, two or three miles southeast of the city. The balance lived in the vicinity of and in Independence, and a few were scattered about the county elsewhere.

With a very few exceptions the land was entered or bought in the name of their bishop (Partridge), and was parcelled out in very small tracts and their settlements resembled continuous villages.

THE  NEWSPAPER.

To the old settlers the most annoying and aggravating element in the controversy was the weekly newspaper, which did not hesitate to announce to the unbelieving Gentiles the unwelcome intelligence that the Lord's Zion would soon be purged of there presence or they would be compelled to bend their stiff necks to the gentle yoke of Mormonism, that this country had been set apart by Divine authority as the heritage of the Latter Day Saints, which they were bound to possess by purchase, by gift or by blood, and when the terrible fate of the wicked Canaanites them we can very well believe those backwoods chaps didn't feel very amiable.

In the last days of October, 1833, a public meeting was held at Independence at which it was resolved that something had to be done, and they immediately proceeded to do it. They laid

VIOLENT  HANDS  ON  THE  MORMON

bishop (Partridge) and one other of the saints, tarred and feathered them on the public square, [pounded?] several of the smaller luminaries, razed the small brick printing office to the ground, scattered the type and other fixtures to the four winds and threw the press into the Missouri river. A pretty lively day's work for a new county.

These summary proceedings so far from pouring oil on the troubled waters only intensified the bitterness of the [dispute] and from that time the ball went on with fresh vigor.

Gen. Moses G. Wilson, a big [land-owner?] and very prominent man in the county, lived at that time on the public road [--- ----- ----] Big Blue, where he had a store. Here [various] persons to the number of [twenty to fifty] were accustomed to meet almost [-----] from whence they sallied out, sometimes at night to the Mormon settlements, where they tore down their homes, caught some of the men and unmercifully whipped them and committed other acts of [vandalism]. As they were returning from one of these raids, the Mormons suddenly emerged from the woods on both sides of the party and [fired] into them, killing two and wounding a [great] many others. The two killed were [Brazeale], a lawyer, of Independence, and old man [Linville]. Most of the [raiders] took to their [feet], but a few stood their ground for awhile. [One] Mormon was [shot]. During the night the Mormons barricaded the public road and took two young men prisoners who were passing [-------].

On the morning of the 2d of November the...[several illegible paragraphs follow]

... As there was no boat or skiff within reach, and his strengtrh was exhausted, he quickly made up his mind that the time had come and to prepare for it immediately. The prayer he uttered while on that snag was heard, it is said, up at Wayne City, more than a mile distant. (Uncle Wood was an exemplary Methodist of the primitive type.) Having, as he [conceived], done all in his power in the way of preparation he carefully slipped down into the water, and as he did so his foot rested on something and that something was the [-----] sand of the bottom, about waist deep, and the old man waded out [onto the dry] sand bar on the Clay county side. He [ascertained] the next morning that he had swam a quarter of a mile where he could have easily touched bottom and walked ashore.

                                                      J. C. McCoy.


Note: The bottom half of the available clipping of this historical article by John C. McCoy is largely illegible. A proper text will be transcribed and posted here, when it becomes available.

MORMON  MEETING.

The Mormons, or Latter Day Saints are returning to their first love. On Sunday last, preaching was held on the old Mormon Temple ground, at Far West, where forty years ago the foundation was laid for the erection of a magnificent temple. Wm. Smith, who was present at the laying of the corner stone of the temple, and son [sic - brother?] of Joe Smith the prophet, preached a sermon, giving a history of their church from its inception. In the course of his remarks he declared that God had set apart this spot, for the erection of a temple, and in the dispensation of time, the work would be accomplished. It is a notable fact that the Mormons are growing in this country, and they are endeavoring to purchase all the land adjacent to the old temple site. -- Kingston Sentinel.

---

A  NEW  MORMON  SECT  IN  INDIANA.
New Albany Dispatch to the Cincinnati Gazette.

A somewhat singular religious revival has just closed near Scottsville, in the northern part of Floyd county, among a new sect of Latter Day Saints or Mormons. The meetings were conducted by two evangelists, who are traveling over the country preaching their doctrines to the people, and resulted in between thirty and forty accessions. The peculiar tenets of this new wing of Mormonism are anti-polygamy, healing by laying on the hands, baptism by immersion, second coming of Christ in the near future, intervention of God in both the temporal and spiritual affairs of believers, and miracles or special providences in the interests of the saints. The sect numbers about sixty members in Floyd, Washington and Clark counties, made up from the most respectable and substantial farmers. The church at Scottsville was organized several years ago, but until recently, made but little progress in accessions or influence. The members ignore the community of property doctrines of the Mormon Church and the Brigham Young faction, holding to Joseph Smith, Jr., as the true and legitimate head of the church and successor of his father, killed at Nauvoo, Ill.


Note: Elder Willam B. Smith was in Kingston, Caldwell County, Missouri at least as late as March 25th, 1879 -- see his letter published in the Saints Herald of Apr. 15, 1879. See also the Caldwell County Sentinel of Jan. 21, 1878.

OUR  OLD-TIMER.
________

Comes to the Front with a Half-Centennial Feature
________

To the Coming Quarter Century Celebration in Kansas.
________

(Under construction)

Note: The clipping of this lengthy article by John C. McCoy is mostly illegible. It appears to contain very little information relating to the Mormons. A proper text will be transcribed from the microfilmed issue and posted here later.

OLD  SETTLERS.
________

Interesting Meeting of the Pioneers of This and Adjacent Counties.
________

Organization of the "Historical Society of Old Settlers." -- List of Those Present.
________

Address by J. O. McCoy, Giving an Entertaining Fifty Years' View.
________

(under construction)

Note: The clipping of this lengthy article by John C. McCoy is mostly illegible. It appears to contain very little information relating to the Mormons. A proper text will be transcribed from the microfilmed issue and posted here later.