The Battalion's Muster-Out
Heading Eastward Toward "Home"
Muster-out of the Battalion was at Los Angeles, July 16, 1847, just a year after enlistment, eight days before Brigham Young reached Great Salt Lake. The joyous ceremonial was rather marred by the fact that the muster-out officer was none other than Lieutenant Smith. There was an attempt to keep the entire Battalion in the service, both Kearny and Colonel Mason urging reenlistment. At the same time was an impolitic speech by Colonel Stevenson of the New York Volunteers. He said: "Your patriotism and obedience to your officers have done much toward removing the prejudices of the Government and the community at large, and I am satisfied that another year's service would place you on a level with other communities." This speech hardly helped in inclining the men toward extension of a service in which it was felt all that had been required had been delivered. Stevenson, a politician rather than a soldier, seemed to have a theory that the Mormons were seeking reenlistment of a second battalion or regiment, that California might be peopled by themselves. There was opposition to reenlistment among the elders, especially voiced by "Father" Pettegrew and by members Hyde and Tyler. Even promise that independent command would be given to Captain Hunt did not prove effective. Only one company was formed of men who were willing to remain in California for a while longer. In this new company were Henry G. Boyle, Henry Brizzee, Lot Smith and George Steele, all later residents of Arizona.
Most of the soldiers of the Battalion made haste in preparation to rejoin the main body of the people of their faith. Assuredly they had little knowledge of what was happening in the Rocky Mountains. On the 20th of July, four days before the Mormon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, most of the men had been organized to travel "home" after what Tyler called "both the ancient and the modern Israelitish custom, in companies of hundreds, fifties and tens." The leaders were Andrew Lytle and James Pace, with Sergeants Hyde, Tyler and Reddick N. Allred as captains of fifties.
The first intention to travel via Cajon Pass was abandoned, and the companies took the northern route, via Sutter's Fort on the Sacramento River, to follow Fremont's trail across the Sierras. On the Sacramento they received the first news of their brethren since leaving Fort Leavenworth, a year before. They learned that the Saints were settling the Great Salt Lake Valley, and there also was news of the Brannan party at San Francisco.
With full assent from the leaders, some of the brethren remained in the vicinity of Sutter's Fort, where work was plenty, and probably half of those who went on across the mountains returned on receipt of advices that came to them at Donner Lake, at the hands of Capt. James Brown, of the Pueblo detachment. The Church authorities instructed all who had insufficient means to remain in California and labor and to bring their earnings with them in the spring. Tyler, with his party, arrived in Salt Lake Valley October 16, to find his relatives living in a fort, which had all rooms opening into an enclosure, with port-holes for defense cut in the outer walls.
The new company, with additional enlistment of six months, was placed under Capt. Daniel C. Davis, who had been in command of Company E. The company was marched to San Diego, arriving August 2. A detachment under Lieut. Ruel Barrus garrisoned San Luis Rey. In San Diego the men appeared to have had little military duty. They were allowed to work as mechanics, repaired wagons, did blacksmithing and erected a bakery. They became very popular with the townspeople, who wanted to retain them as permanent residents. It was noted that the Mormons had conquered prejudice and had effected a kind of industrial revolution in languid Alta California.
[Illustration: BATTALION MEMBERS WHO RETURNED TO ARIZONA
1—Samuel H. Rogers 6—Hyrum Judd 2—Henry Standage 7—Samuel Thompson 3—Edward Bunker 8—Wm. A. Follett 4—Henry W. Brizzee 9—Schuyler Hulett 5—George Steele 10—David Pulsipher]
[Illustration: BATTALION MEMBERS WHO RETURNED TO ARIZONA
1—Rufus C. Allen 2—John Steele 3—Reuben Allred 4—Elzada Ford Allred 5—Wm. B. Maxwell 6—Henry G. Boyle 7—Zadok K. Judd]
The enlistment term expired in January, but it was March, 1848, before the men were paid off and discharged. Most of the 78 members of the company went northward, but one party of 22, led by Henry G. Boyle, taking a wagon and 135 mules, started to Salt Lake by way of the Mojave desert, reaching its destination June 5. This would appear to have been a very important journey, the party probably being first with wagons to travel what later became known as the Mormon road.
Following the very practical customs of their people, the members of the Battalion picked up in California a large quantity of seeds and grains for replanting in Utah, welcomed in establishing the marvelous agricultural community there developed. Lieut. James Pace brought in the club-head wheat, which proved especially suited to inter-mountain climatic conditions. From Pueblo other members brought the Taos wheat, which also proved valuable. Daniel Tyler brought the California pea.
Although the Author has seen little mention of it, the Battalion membership took to Utah much valuable information concerning methods of irrigation, gained at Pueblo, in the Rio Grande Valley and in California. While most of the emigrants were of the farming class, their experience had been wholly in the Mississippi Valley or farther east, where the rains alone were depended upon to furnish the moisture necessary for crops.
With the Pueblo Detachment
Capt. James Brown would have led his band from Pueblo as soon as the snows had melted in the passes, but held back on receipt of information that the main body of Saints still was on the plains. As it was, he and his charge arrived at Salt Lake, July 29, 1847, five days after the advent of Brigham Young. Brown remained only a few days, setting out early in August for California, there to receive the pay of his command. The main body had been paid off at Los Angeles, July 15. On his westward way, Brown led a small company over the Carson route. In the Sierras, September 6, he met the first returning detachment of Battalion soldiers. To them he delivered letters from the First Presidency telling of the scarcity of food in the Salt Lake Valley. Sam Brannan, leader at San Francisco, had passed, going westward, only the day before, giving a gloomy account of the new home of the Saints. So about half the Battalion men turned back to Sutter's Fort, presumably with Brown. Brown returned from Los Angeles with the pay of his men, money sorely needed.
The Pueblo detachment arrived in Salt Lake with about fifty individuals from Mississippi added to the 150 men and women who had been separated from the main body of the Battalion in New Mexico. Forty-six of the Battalion men accompanied President Young when he started back, August 8, for Winter Quarters, on the west side of the Missouri, five miles above Omaha, to help in piloting over the plains the main body of Saints.
Captain Brown, according to a Brigham Young manuscript, was absent in California three months and seven days, returning late in November, 1847, bringing back with him the pay due the Pueblo contingent. Several stories were given concerning the amount. One was that it was about $5000, mainly in gold, and another that the amount was $10,000 in Mexican doubloons.
The Pueblo detachment had been paid last in Santa Fe in May, 1846. The muster-out rolls were taken by Brown to Paymaster Rich of Colonel Mason's command in California. Pay included July 29, 1847, thirteen days after expiration of the term of enlistment.
A part of the money, apparently considered as community property, was used early in 1848 in the purchase of a tract of land, about twenty miles square, at the mouth of Weber Canyon. The sum of $1950, cash, was paid to one Goodyear, who claimed to own a Mexican grant, but who afterward proved to have only a squatter right. The present city of Ogden is on this same tract.
California Comments on the Battalion
Very generally there has come down evidence that the men of the Battalion were of very decent sort. Colonel Mason, commanding the California military department, in June, 1847, made report to the Adjutant General of the Army:
"Of the service of this Battalion, of their patience, subordination and general good conduct you have already heard; and I take great pleasure in adding that as a body of men they have religiously respected the rights and feelings of these conquered people, and not a syllable of complaint has reached my ears of a single insult offered or outrage done by a Mormon volunteer. So high an opinion did I entertain of the Battalion and of their especial fitness for the duties now performed by the garrisons in this country that I made strenuous efforts to engage their services for another year."
With reference to the Mormon Battalion, Father Engelhardt, in his"Missions and Missionaries of California," wrote:
"It is not likely that these Mormons, independent of United States and military regulations, would have wantonly destroyed any part of the church property or church fixtures during their several months' stay at San Luis Rey. Whatever some of the moral tenets held by them in those days, the Mormons, to all appearances, were a God-fearing body, who … manifested some respect for the religious convictions and feelings of other men, notably of the Catholics. It is, therefore, highly improbable that they … raved against … religious emblems found in the missions of California. On the contrary, they appear to have let everything alone, even made repairs, and minded their own duties to their Creator, in that they practiced their religion openly whithersoever they went…."
Leaders of the Battalion
Colonel Cooke for a while was in command of the southern half of Alta California, incidentally coming into a part of the row created when Fremont laid claim upon the governorship of the Territory. In this his men were affected to a degree, for Fremont's father-in-law and patron, Senator Benton, was believed one of the bitterest foes of the Mormon people.
Cooke resigned as lieutenant-colonel of volunteers, effective May 13, 1847, he thus leaving the Battalion before the date of its discharge. He accompanied General Kearny on an 83-day ride eastward, returning to Fort Leaven worth August 22. With them was Fremont, arrested, charged with mutiny in refusing to acknowledge the authority of Kearny in California. He was found guilty, but a sentence of dismissal from the army was remitted by President Polk. Fremont immediately resigned from the service.
Cooke, in 1857-8, led the cavalry of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's expedition to Utah and there is a memorandum that, when his regiment marched through the streets of Salt Lake City, the Colonel rode with uncovered head, "out of respect to the brave men of the Mormon Battalion he had commanded in their march to the Pacific." In the Civil War he was a brigadier-general, with brevet of major-general in 1865.
Lieut. A. J. Smith, whose disciplinary ideas may have been too severe for a command that started with such small idea of discipline, nevertheless proved a brave and skillful officer. He rose in 1864 to be major-general of volunteers and was brevetted major-general of regulars for distinguished service in command of the Sixteenth army corps, under General Thomas, at the battle of Nashville.
Lieut. George Stoneman in 1854 commanded a dragoon escort for Lieut. J. G. Parke, who laid out a railroad route across Arizona, from the Pima villages through Tucson, much on the line of the present Southern Pacific. He was a captain, commanding Fort Brown, Texas, at the outbreak of the Civil War, in which he rose to the rank of major-general of volunteers, with fame in the Virginia campaign as chief of cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, in which he later was a division and corps commander. In 1870 and 1871 he commanded the military department of Arizona, during the time of the Old Fort Grant massacre, and his name is still borne by the Stoneman Grade, above Silver King, a trail built by him to better command the Indian-infested mountains beyond. He was Democratic Governor of California from 1883 to 1887. A son, Geo. J. Stoneman, for years resided in Phoenix.
Lieut. Edw. F. Beale, who helped save the Kearny expedition near San Diego was a member of a party that had been sent from San Diego to meet the dragoons. The following March, he and Carson carried dispatches east, taking the Gila route. In August, 1848, again in California, he was made the naval messenger to advise Washington of the discovery of gold in California. In 1857 he made a remarkable survey of the 35th parallel across Arizona, using camels, and he repeated the trip in 1859.
The camels had been brought from Syria. They carried three times a mule load and were declared ideal for pioneer transportation uses. But Beale was alone in their praise and the camels eventually were turned loose on the plains. He was minister to Austria in 1878.
Both adjutants of the Mormon Battalion later became permanent residents of Arizona. Geo. P. Dykes for years was a resident of Mesa, where he died in 1888, at the age of 83. Philemon C. Merrill, in 1881, was one of the custodians of the Utah stone, sent from Salt Lake, for insertion in the Washington Monument, in Washington. He and his family constituted the larger part of the D.W. Jones party that founded Lehi in March, 1877, and it was he, who, soon thereafter, led in the settlement of St. David in the San Pedro Valley, on the route of the Mormon Battalion march. He died at San Jose, in the Gila Valley, September 15, 1904.
Pauline Weaver, the principal guide, was a Frenchman, who had been in the Southwest at least since 1832, when he visited the Pima villages and Casa Grande. In 1862, while trapping, he was one of the discoverers of the La Paz gold diggings. The following year he was with the Peeples party that found gold on Rich Hill, in central Arizona. Thereafter he was an army scout. He died at Camp Verde in 1866.
Antoine LeRoux, the other guide named, was with the Whipple expedition across northern Arizona in 1853. His name is borne by LeRoux Springs, northwest of Flagstaff, and by LeRoux Wash, near Holbrook.
Passing of the Battalion Membership
No member of the Mormon Battalion now is living. The last to pass was Harley Mowrey, private Co. C, who died in his home in Vernal, Utah, October 21, 1920, at the age of 98. He was one of the men sent from New Mexico to Pueblo and who arrived at Salt Lake a few days after the Pioneers. On the way to Salt Lake he married the widow of another Battalion member, Martha Jane Sharp, who survives, as well as seven children, 41 grandchildren, 94 great-grandchildren and thirty of the latest generation. Mowrey and wife were members of the San Bernardino colony.
A Memorial of Noble Conception
On the Capitol grounds at Salt Lake soon is to arise a noble memorial of the service of the Mormon Battalion. The legislature of Utah has voted toward the purpose $100,000, contingent upon the contribution of a similar sum at large. A State Monument Commission has been created, headed by B.H. Roberts, and this organization has been extended to all parts of Utah, Idaho and Arizona.
In the 1921 session of the Arizona Legislature was voted a contribution to the Battalion Monument Fund of $2500 this with expression of State pride in the achievement that meant so much to the Southwest and Pacific Coast.
From nineteen designs submitted have been selected the plans of G. P. Riswold. A condensed description of the monument is contained in a report of the Commission:
"The base is in triangular form, with concave sides and rounded corners. A bronze figure of a Battalion man is mounted upon the front corner. Flanking him on two sides of the triangle are: cut in high relief, on the left, the scene of the enlistment of the Battalion under the flag of the United States of America; on the right a scene of the march, where the men are assisting in pulling the wagons of their train up and over a precipitous ascent, while still others are ahead, widening a cut to permit the passage of the wagons between the out-jutting rocks. The background is a representation of mountains of the character through which the Battalion and its train passed on its journey to the Pacific.
"Just below the peak, in the center and in front of it, is chiseled a beautiful head and upper part of a woman, symbolizing the 'Spirit of the West.' She personifies the impulsive power and motive force that sustained these Battalion men, and led them, as a vanguard of civilization, across the trackless plains and through the difficult defiles and passes of the mountains. The idea of the sculptor in the 'Spirit of the West' is a magnificent conception and should dominate the whole monument.
"The bronze figure of the Battalion man is dignified, strong and reverential. He excellently typifies that band of pioneer soldiers which broke a way through the rugged mountains and over trackless wastes.
"Hovering over and above him, the beautiful female figure, with an air of solicitous care, guards him in his reverie. Her face stands out in full relief, the hair and diaphanous drapery waft back, mingling with the clouds, while the figure fades into dim outline in the massive peaks and mountains, seeming to pervade the air and the soil with her very soul."
Battalion Men Who Became Arizonans
Of the Battalion members, 33 are known to have become later residents of Arizona, with addition of one of the women who had accompanied the Battalion to Santa Fe and who had wintered at Pueblo. There is gratification over the fact that it has been found possible to secure photographs of nearly all the 33. Reproduction of these photographs accompanies this chapter. When this work was begun, only about ten Battalion members could be located as having been resident in this State. Some of those who came back to Arizona were notable in their day, for all of them now have made the last march of humanity.
Jas. S. Brown, who helped find gold in California, was an early Indian missionary on the Muddy and in northeastern Arizona. Edward Bunker founded Bunkerville, a Virgin River settlement, and later died on the San Pedro, at St. David. Geo. P. Dykes, who was the first adjutant of the Battalion, did service for his Church in 1849 and 1850 in Great Britain and Denmark. Philemon C. Merrill, who succeeded Dykes as adjutant, was one of the most prominent of the pioneers of the San Pedro and Gila valleys. There is special mention, elsewhere, of Christopher Layton. In the same district, at Thatcher, lived and died Lieut. James Pace. Henry Standage was one of the first settlers of Alma Ward, near Mesa. Lot Smith, one of the vanguard in missionary work in northeastern Arizona and a leader in the settlement of the Little Colorado Valley, was slain by one of the Indians to whose service he had dedicated himself. Henry W. Brizzee was a leading pioneer of Mesa. Henry G. Boyle became the first president of the Southern States mission of his church, and was so impressed with the view he had of Arizona, in Battalion days, that, early in 1877, he sent into eastern Arizona a party of Arkansas immigrants. Adair, in southern Navajo County, was named after a Battalion member.
A complete list of Arizona Battalion members follows:
Wesley Adair, Co. C.—Showlow.Rufus C. Allen, Co. A.—Las Vegas.Reuben W. Allred, Co. A.—Pima.Mrs. Elzada Ford Allred—Accompanied husband.Henry G. Boyle, Co. C.—Pima.Henry W. Brizzee, Co. D.—Mesa.James S. Brown, Co. D.—Moen Copie.Edward Bunker, Co. E.—St. David.George P. Dykes, Co. D.—Mesa.Wm. A. Follett, Co. E.—Near Showlow.Schuyler Hulett, Co. A.—Phoenix.John Hunt—Snowflake—Accompanied his father, Capt. Jefferson Hunt.Marshall (Martial) Hunt, Co. A.—Snowflake.Wm. J. Johnston, Co. C.—Mesa..Nathaniel V. Jones, Co. D.—Las Vegas.Hyrum Judd, Co. E.—Sunset and Pima.Zadok Judd, Co. E.—Fredonia.Christopher Layton, Co. C.—Thatcher.Samuel Lewis, Co. C.—Thatcher.Wm. B. Maxwell, Co. D.—Springerville.Wm. C. McClellan, Co. E.—Sunset.Philemon C. Merrill, Co. B.—Pima.James Pace, Co. E.—Thatcher.Wilson D. Pace, Co. E.—Thatcher.Sanford Porter, Co. E.—Sunset.Wm. C. Prous (Prows), Co. B.—Mesa.David Pulsipher, Co. C.—Concho.Samuel H. Rogers, Co. B.—Snowflake.Henry Standage, Co. E.—Mesa.George E. Steele, Co. A.—Mesa.John Steele, Co. D.—Moen Copie.Lot Smith, Co. E.—Sunset and Tuba.Samuel Thompson, Co. C.—Mesa.
[Illustration: THE MORMON BATTALION MONUMENT Proposed to be erected at a cost of $200,000 on the Utah State Capitol Grounds.]
[Illustration: OLD SPANISH TOWN OF TUBAC. Map made 1754. Where a MormonColony located in the fall of 1851; 42 miles south of Tucson.]
California's Mormon Pilgrims
The Brooklyn Party at San Francisco
The members of the Mormon Battalion were far from being the first of their faith to tread the golden sands of California. Somehow, in the divine ordering of things mundane, the Mormons generally were very near the van of Anglo-Saxon settlement of the States west of the Rockies. Thus it happened that on July 29, 1846, only three weeks after the American naval occupation of the harbor, there anchored inside the Golden Gate the good ship Brooklyn, that had brought from New York 238 passengers, mainly Saints, the first American contribution of material size to the population of the embarcadero of Yerba Buena, where now is the lower business section of the stately city of San Francisco.
The Brooklyn, of 450 tons burden, had sailed from New York February 4, 1846, the date happening to be the same as that on which began the exodus from Nauvoo westward. The voyage was an authorized expedition, counseled by President Brigham Young and his advisers in the early winter. At one time it was expected that thousands would take the water route to the west shore, on their way to the Promised Land. Elder Samuel Brannan was in charge of the first company, which mainly consisted of American farmer folk from the eastern and middle-western States. The ship had been chartered for $1200 a month and port charges. Fare had been set at $50 for all above fourteen years and half-fare for children above five. Addition was made of $25 for provisions. The passengers embraced seventy men, 68 women and about 100 children. There was a freight of farming implements and tools, seeds, a printing press, many school books, etc.
The voyage appears to have been even a pleasant one, though with a few notations of sickness, deaths and births and of trials that set a small number of the passengers aside from the Church. Around Cape Horn and as far as the Robinson Crusoe island of Juan Fernandez, off the Chilian coast, the seas were calm. Thereafter were two storms of serious sort, but without phase of disaster to the pilgrims. The next stop was at Honolulu, on the Hawaiian Islands, thence the course being fair for the Golden Gate.
When Captain Richardson dropped his anchors in the cove of Yerba Buena it appears to have been the first time that the emigrants appreciated they had arrived at anything save a colony of old Mexico. But when a naval officer boarded the ship and advised the passengers they were in the United States, "there arose a hearty cheer," though Brannan has been quoted as hardly pleased over the sight of the Stars and Stripes.
Beginnings of a Great City
As written by Augusta Joyce Cocheron, one of the emigrants:
"They crowded upon the deck, women and children, questioning husbands and fathers, and studied the picture before them—they would never see it just the same again—as the foggy curtains furled towards the azure ceiling. How it imprinted itself upon their minds! A long sandy beach strewn with hides and skeletons of slaughtered cattle, a few scrubby oaks, farther back low sand hills rising behind each other as a background to a few old shanties that leaned away from the wind, an old adobe barracks, a few donkeys plodding dejectedly along beneath towering bundles of wood, a few loungers stretched lazily upon the beach as though nothing could astonish them; and between the picture and the emigrants still loomed up here and there, at the first sight more distinctly, the black vessels—whaling ships and sloops of war—that was all, and that was Yerba Buena, now San Francisco, the landing place for the pilgrims of faith."
In John P. Young's "Journalism in California" is recited:
"It is not without significance that the awakening of Yerba Buena did not occur till the advent of the printing press. From the day when Leese built his store in 1836 till the arrival of the Mormon colony on July 31, 1846, the village retained all the peculiarities of a poverty-stricken settlement of the Spanish-American type. From that time forward changes began to occur indicative of advancement and it is impossible to disassociate them from the fact that a part of the Brooklyn's cargo was a press and a font of type, and that the 238 colonists aboard that vessel and others who found their way to the little town, brought with them books—more, one careful writer tells us, than could be found at the time in all the rest of the Territory put together."
Brannan and his California Star had a part in the very naming of San Francisco. This occurred January 30, 1847, rather hurried by discovery of the fact that a rival settlement on the upper bay proposed to take the name. So there was formal announcement in the Star that, from that date forward, there would be abandonment of the name Yerba Buena, as local and appertaining only to the cove, and adoption of the name of San Francisco. This announcement was signed by the Alcalde, Lieut. Washington A. Bartlett, who had been detached by Capt. J. B. Montgomery from the man-of-war Portsmouth on September 15, 1846, and who rejoined his ship the following February.
One of the Brooklyn's passengers in later years became a leader in the settlement of Mesa, Arizona. He was Geo. W. Sirrine, a millwright, whose history has been preserved by a son, Warren L. Sirrine of Mesa. The elder Sirrine was married on the ship, of which and its voyage he left many interesting tales, one being of a drift to the southward on beating around Cape Horn, till icebergs loomed and the men had to be detailed to the task of beating the rigging with clubs to rid it of ice. When danger threatened there was resort to prayer, but work soon followed as the passengers bore a hand with the crew.
Sirrine, who had had police experience in the East, was of large assistance to Brannan in San Francisco, where the rougher element for a time seized control, taking property at will and shooting down all who might disagree with their sway. It was he who arrested Jack Powers, leader of the outlaws, in a meeting that was being addressed by Brannan, and who helped in the provision of evidence under which the naval authorities eliminated over fifty of the desperados, some of them shipping on the war vessels in port. Some of the Mormons still had a part of their passage money unpaid and these promptly proceeded to find employment to satisfy their debt. The pilgrims' loyalty appears to have been of the highest. They had purchased arms in Honolulu and had had some drill on the passage thence. At least on one occasion, they rallied in San Francisco when alarm sounded that hostile Mexicans might attack.
According to Eldridge, historian of San Francisco:
"The landing of the Mormons more than doubled the population of Yerba Buena. They camped for a time on the beach and the vacant lots, then some went to the Marin forests to work as lumbermen, some were housed in the old Mission buildings and others in Richardson's Casa Grande (big house) on Dupont Street. They were honest and industrious people and all sought work wherever they could find it."
Brannan's Hope of Pacific Empire
A party of twenty pioneers was sent over to the San Joaquin Valley, to found the settlement of New Hope, or Stanislaus City, on the lower Stanislaus River, but the greater number for a while remained on the bay, making San Francisco, according to Bancroft, "for a time very largely a Mormon town. All bear witness to the orderly and moral conduct of the Saints, both on land and sea. They were honest and industrious citizens, even if clannish and peculiar." There was some complaint against Brannan, charged with working the Church membership for his own personal benefit.
New Hope had development that comprised a log house, a sawmill and the cultivation of eighty acres of land. It was abandoned in the fall, after word had been received that the main body of the Saints, traveling overland, would settle in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Brannan pushed with vigor his idea that the proper location would be in California. He started eastward to present this argument and met the western migration at Green River in July, and unsuccessfully argued with Brigham Young, returning with the vanguard as far as Salt Lake. His return to San Francisco was in September, on his way there being encounter with several parties from the Mormon Battalion, to them Brannan communicating rather gloomy ideas concerning the new site of Zion.
It is one of the many remarkable evidences of the strength of the Mormon religious spirit that only 45 adults of the Brooklyn party, with their children, remained in California, even after the discovery of gold. The others made their way across the Sierra Nevadas and the deserts, to join their people in the intermountain valley. A few were cut off from the Church. These included Brannan, who gathered large wealth, but who died, poor, in Mexico, in 1889.
There might be speculation over what would have been the fate of the Mormon Church had Brannan's idea prevailed and the tide of the Nauvoo exodus continued to California. Probably the individual pilgrims thereby might have amassed worldly wealth. Possibly there might have been established in the California valleys even richer Mormon settlements than those that now dot the map of the intermountain region. But that such a course would have been relatively disruptive of the basic plans of the leaders there can be no doubt, and it is also without doubt that under a condition of greater material wealth there would have been diminished spiritual interest.
Possibly even better was the grasp upon the people shown in Utah at the time of the passage of the California emigrants, in trains of hypnotized groups all crazed by lust for the gold assumed to be in California for the gathering. The Mormons sold them provisions and helped them on their way, yet added few to their numbers.
In after years, President Lorenzo Snow, referring to the Brannan effort, stated his belief that it would have been nothing short of disastrous to the Church had the people gone to California before they had become grounded in the faith. They needed just the experiences they had had in the valley of Salt Lake, where home-making was the predominant thought and where wealth later came on a more permanent basis.
Present at the Discovery of Gold
By a remarkable freak of fortune, about forty of the members of the Mormon Battalion discharged at Los Angeles, were on hand at the time of the discovery of gold in California. Divided into companies, they had made their way northward, expecting to pass the Sierras before the coming of snow. They found work at Sutter's Fort and nearby in the building of a sawmill and a grist-mill and six of them (out of nine employees) actually participated in the historic picking up of chunks of gold from the tailrace they had dug under the direction of J. W. Marshall. Sutter in after years wrote: "The Mormons did not leave my mill unfinished, but they got the gold fever like everybody else." They mined especially on what, to this day, is known as Mormon Island, on the American River, and undoubtedly the wealth they later took across the mountains did much toward laying a substantial foundation for the Zion established in the wilderness.
Henry W. Bigler, of the gold discovery party, kept a careful journal of his California experiences, a journal from which Bancroft makes many excerpts. An odd error is in the indexing of the Bancroft volumes on California, Henry W. Bigler being confused with John Bigler. The latter was governor of California in 1852-55. A truckling California legislature unsuccessfully tried to fasten his name upon Lake Tahoe. But the Mormon pioneer turned his back upon the golden sands after only a few months of digging, and later, for years, was connected with the Mormon temple at St. George, Utah.
January 24, 1898, four of the six returned to San Francisco, guests of the State of California in its celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of gold. They were Henry W. Bigler, Jas. S. Brown, Wm. J. Johnston and Azariah Smith. A group photograph, then taken, is reproduced in this volume. The others of the Mormon gold discoverers, Alexander Stephens and James Barger, had died before that date.
Looking Toward Southern California
All through the Church administration led by Brigham Young there was evidence of well-defined intention to spread the Church influence southward into Mexico and, possibly tracking back the steps of the Nephites and Lamanites, to work even into South America. There seemed an attraction in the enormous agricultural possibilities of Southern California. The long-headed Church President, figuring the commercial and agricultural advantages that lay in the Southwest, practically paved the way for the connection that since has come by rail with Los Angeles. It naturally resulted that the old Spanish trail that had been traversed by Dominguez and Escalante in 1776 was extended on down the Virgin River toward the southwest and soon became known as the Mormon Road. Over this road there was much travel. It was taken by emigrants bound from the East for California and proved the safest at all seasons of the year. It was used by the Mormons in restocking their herds and in securing supplies and for a while there was belief that the Colorado River could be utilized as a means of connecting steamboat transportation with the wagons that should haul from Callville, 350 miles from Salt Lake.
In 1851, nearly four years after the settlement at Salt Lake, President Young made suggestion that a company be organized, of possibly a score of families, to settle below Cajon Pass and cultivate the grape, olive, sugar cane and cotton and to found a station on a proposed Pacific mail route. There was expectation that the settlement later would be a gathering place for the Saints who might come from the islands of the Pacific, and even from Europe. The idea proved immensely popular, the suggestion having come after a typical Salt Lake winter, and the pilgrimage embraced about 500 individuals. President Young, at the time of their leaving, March 24, said he "was sick at the sight of so many Saints running to California, chiefly after the gods of this earth" and he expressed himself unable to address them. Arrival at San Bernardino was in June.
The Author has been fortunate in securing personal testimony from a member of this migration, Collins R. Hakes, who later was President of the Maricopa Stake at Mesa, and, later, head of the Bluewater settlement in New Mexico. The hegira was led by Amasa M. Lyman and Chas. C. Rich, prominent Mormon pioneers.
A short distance below Cajon Pass, Lyman and Rich in September purchased the Lugo ranch of nine square leagues, including an abandoned mission. They agreed to pay $77,500 in deferred payments, though the total sum rose eventually to $140,000. Even at that, this must be accounted a very reasonable price for nearly thirty square miles of land in the present wonderful valley of San Bernardino.
Forced From the Southland
With those of the Carson Valley, the California brethren mainly returned to Utah, late in 1857, or early in 1858, at the time of the Johnston invasion. Mr. Hakes gave additional details. On September 11, 1857, occurred the Mountain Meadows massacre in the southwest corner of Utah. This outrage, by a band of outlaws, emphatically discountenanced by the Church authorities and repugnant to Church doctrines, which denounce useless shedding of blood, was promptly charged, on the Pacific and, indeed, all over the Union, as something for which the Mormon organization itself was responsible. So it happened that, in December, 1857, J. Riley Morse, of the colony, rode southward post haste from Sacramento with the news that 200 mountain vigilantes were on their way to run the Mormons out of California. Not wishing to fight and not wishing to subject their families to abuse, about 400 of the San Bernardino settlers, within a few weeks, started for southern Utah, leaving only about twenty families. The news of this departure went to the Californians and they returned to their homes without completing their projected purpose. Many Church and coast references tell of the "recall" of the San Bernardino settlers, but Hakes' story appears ample in furnishing a reason for the departure. Many of these San Bernardino pioneers later came into Arizona. Those who remained prospered, and many of the families still are represented by descendants now in the Californian city. The settlement is believed to have been the first agricultural colony founded by persons of Anglo-Saxon descent in Southern California.
How Sirrine Saved the Gold
Geo. W. Sirrine, later of Mesa, had an important part in the details of the San Bernardino ranch purchase. Amasa M. Lyman and Chas. C. Rich went to San Francisco for the money needed for the first payment. They selected Sirrine to be their money carrier, entrusting him with $16,000, much of it in gold, the money presumably secured through Brannan. Sirrine took ship southward for San Pedro or Wilmington, carrying a carpenter chest in which the money was concealed in a pair of rubber boots, which he threw on the deck, with apparent carelessness, while his effects were searched by a couple of very rough characters. Delivery of the money was made without further incident of note. Sirrine helped survey the San Bernardino townsite, built a grist mill and operated it, logged at Bear Lake and freighted on the Mormon road. Charles Crismon, a skillful miller, also a central Arizona pioneer, for a while was associated with him. Crismon also built a sawmill in nearby mountains. Sirrine spent his San Bernardino earnings, about $10,000, in attempted development of a seam of coal on Point Loma, near San Diego, sinking a shaft 183 feet deep. He left California in 1858, taking with him to Salt Lake a wagonload of honey. In a biography of Charles Crismon, Jr., is found a claim that the elder Crismon took the first bees to Utah, from San Bernardino, in 1863. This may have added importance in view of the fact that Utah now is known as the Beehive State.
The State of Deseret
A Vast Intermountain Commonwealth
Probably unknown to a majority of Arizonans is the fact that the area of this State once was included within the State of Deseret, the domain the early Mormons laid out for themselves in the western wilds. The State of Deseret was a natural sort of entity, with a governor, with courts, peace officers and a militia. It was a great dream, yet a dream that had being and substance for a material stretch of time. Undoubtedly its conception was with Brigham Young, whose prophetic vision pictured the day when, under Mormon auspices, there would be development of the entire enormous basin of the Colorado River, with seaports on the Pacific. The name was not based upon the word "desert." It is a Book of Mormon designation for "honey bee."
This State of Deseret was a strictly Mormon institution, headed by the Church authorities and with the bishops of all the wards ex-officio magistrates. At the same time, there should be understanding that in nowise was it antagonistic to the government of the United States. It was a grand plan, under which there was hope that, with a population at the time of about 15,000, there might be admission of the intermountain region into the union of States.
The movement for the new State started with a call issued in 1849, addressed to all citizens of that portion of California lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There was a convention in March, probably attended by very few outside the Church, despite the broadness of the plan. In the preamble of the constitution adopted there was recitation that Congress had failed to provide any civil government, so necessary for the peace, security and prosperity of society, that "all political power is inherent in the people, and governments instituted for their protection, security and benefit should emanate from the same." Therefore, there was recommendation of a constitution until the Congress should provide other government and admit the new State into the Union. There was expression of gratitude to the Supreme Being for blessings enjoyed and submission to the national government freely was acknowledged.
Boundary Lines Established
Deseret was to have boundaries as follows:
Commencing at the 33d parallel of north latitude, where it crosses the 108th deg. of longitude west of Greenwich; thence running south and west to the boundary of Mexico; thence west to and down the main channel of the Gila River (or the northern line of Mexico), and on the northern boundary of Lower California to the Pacific Ocean; thence along the coast northwesterly to 118 degrees, 30 minutes of west longitude; thence north to where said line intersects the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains; thence north along the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters flowing into the Columbia from the waters running into the Great Basin; thence easterly along the dividing range of mountains that separate said waters flowing into the Columbia River on the north, from the waters flowing into the Great Basin on the south, to the summit of the Wind River chain of mountains; thence southeast and south by the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the waters flowing into the Gulf of California, to the place of beginning, as set forth in a map drawn by Charles Preuss, and published by order of the Senate of the United States in 1848.
This description needs some explanation. The point of beginning, as set forth, was at the headwaters of the Gila River near the Mexican line, which then, and until the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, followed down the Gila River to the Colorado. At that time the boundary between Upper and Lower California had been established to the point below San Diego, which thus became included within the territory claimed. Here, naturally, there was inclusion of practically all Southern California to a point near Santa Barbara. Thence the line ran northward and inland to the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, not far from Mt. Whitney. It followed the Sierra Nevadas to the northwestward, well within the present California line, up into northwestern Nevada, thence eastward through southern Idaho and Wyoming to about South Pass, where the eastern line was taken up southward, along the summit of the Rockies to the point of beginning. So, there was general inclusion of that part of California lying east of the Sierras, of all southern California, all Nevada and Utah, the southern portions of Oregon and Idaho, southwestern Wyoming, western Colorado, not reaching as far as Denver, western New Mexico and all Arizona north of the Gila.
There can be no doubt that the region embraced, probably too large for a State under modern conditions, at that time was as logical a division as could have been made, considering the semi-arid climatic conditions, natural boundaries, generally by great mountain ranges, a single watershed, that of the Colorado River, and, in addition to all these, the highway outlet to the Pacific Ocean, to the southwest, through a country where the mountains broke away, along the course of the Colorado, even then demonstrated the most feasible route from Great Salt Lake City to the ocean.
Segregation of the Western Territories
At no time was there more than assumption by this central Salt Lake government of authority over any part of the area of the State of Deseret, save within the central Utah district, where the settlers, less than two years established, were striving to carve out homes in what was to be the nucleus of this commonwealth of wondrous proportions.
There was nothing very unusual about the constitution. It was along the ordinary line of such documents, though the justices of the Supreme Court at first were chosen by the Legislature. Brigham Young was the first Governor, Willard Richards was Secretary and Heber C. Kimball Chief Justice.
[Illustration: OUTLINE OF THE STATE OF DESERET]
The first Legislature met July 2, 1849, at Great Salt Lake City and supported an application to Congress for the organization of a territorial government. The boundaries of the Territory of Deseret were somewhat changed from the original. The northern line was to be the southern line of Oregon and to the east there was to be inclusion of most of the present State of Colorado. Another memorial, soon thereafter, asked admission as a full State and still another plan, later proposed, was that Deseret and California be admitted as a single State, with power to separate thereafter. This suggestion was not well received in California and had short life.
September 9, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed a bill creating the Territory of Utah, to be bounded on the west by California, on the north by Oregon, on the east by the summit of the Rocky Mountains and on the south by the 37th parallel of north latitude. South of this parallel there had been recognition of New Mexico, which included the present Arizona. Thus was denial of the dream of an empire state that should embrace the entire inter-mountain region.
Early Roads and Travelers
Old Spanish Trail Through Utah
There can be little more than speculation concerning the extent of the use of the old Spanish Trail, through southern Utah, by the Spaniards. It is known, however, that considerable travel passed over it between Santa Fe and the California missions and settlements. In winter there was the disadvantage of snow in the Rockies and in summer were the aridity and heat of the Mohave desert. In Utah was danger from the Utes and farther westward from the Paiutes, but expeditions went well armed and exercised incessant watchfulness.
The much more direct route across Arizona on the 35th parallel was used by few Spaniards, though assuredly easier than that northward around the Canyon of the Colorado River. This direct route was traversed in 1598 by Juan de Onate, New Mexico's first Spanish governor, and, in 1776, Father Garces went from the Colorado eastward to the Hopi villages. There was travel over what became known as the "Road of the Bishop" from Santa Fe to the Zuni and Hopi towns, but not beyond. Possibly the preference for the San Juan-Virgin route lay in the fact that it had practicable river fords.
This old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to Los Angeles, undoubtedly was over a succession of aboriginal highways. The first Europeans to follow it were the Franciscan friars Escalante and Dominguez, in 1776. They took a route running northwest from Taos, New Mexico, through the San Juan country into Utah as far as Utah Lake, not reaching Great Salt Lake, and thence to the southwest through the Sevier Valley to the upper waters of the Virgin hoping to work through to California. They had an intelligent idea concerning the extent of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and knew there could be no crossing for several hundred miles. After traveling down the Santa Clara and Virgin to about where the Arizona line now is, they turned eastward again, probably because of lack of supplies and fear of the desert. Their travel eastward was not far from the 37th parallel on either side and their Indian guides finally led them, by way of the mouth of the Paria, to the Ute ford of the Colorado, now known as the Crossing of the Fathers. Thence, crossing the river November 8, 1776, they made their way to the Hopi villages and back to the Rio Grande, finishing one of the most notable exploring trips ever known in the west. It is interesting to consider how, nearly a century later, the "Pathfinder," John C. Fremont, thought himself on a new line of discovery when he took much the same road westward through the passes of the Rockies.
This Spanish Trail is outlined on a fur-trade map in the Bancroft Library, covering the period from 1807 to 1843. No road is marked across the present area of Arizona. The Spanish Trail seems to have been considered as the western extension of the Santa Fe Trail.
The famous old traveler, Jedediah Smith, in 1826 and 1827, journeyed by the Sevier and Virgin River route to the Colorado River, though he appears to have made his own way, paralleling the aboriginal highway. In August of 1827, a number of his party were killed by Mohave Indians on the Colorado River.
Creation of the Mormon Road
The discovery of gold in California gave very great added importance to this southern Utah route. When the Washoe passes were closed by snow, California travel by the plains route necessarily was diverted, either around by Oregon or southward through the Virgin River section. The latter route appears to have been safe enough in winter, save for occasional attacks by Indians, who were bent more upon plunder than upon murder. Occasionally, parties sought a shorter cut to the westward and suffered disaster in the sands of the Amargosa desert or of Death Valley. Sometimes such men as Jacob Hamblin were detailed to act as guides, but this seemed to be more needed with respect to dealings with the Indians than to show the road, as the highway was a plain one through to San Bernardino and San Gabriel. Of summers, undoubtedly the travel was much lessened, as the goldseekers chose the much more direct and better-watered routes passing either north or south of Lake Tahoe, by Donner Lake and Emigrant Gap or by the Placerville grade.
The western end of the southern Utah-Nevada trail, after the establishment of the San Bernardino colony, soon became known as the Mormon road, a name preserved.
Mail service was known over the old Spanish or Mormon Trail, down the Virgin and to Los Angeles, at different times between 1850 and 1861. This service seems to have been as an alternative when the passes of the Sierra Nevadas were closed. The best evidence at hand concerning this route is contained within a claim made by one Chorpending, for compensation from the United States for mules and equipment stolen by Indians in 1854-1856. John Hunt, later of Snowflake, carried mail on the route in 1856 and 1857. There must be assumption that stage stations were maintained on the Muddy and at Vegas.
With the Lyman and Rich expedition, in 1851, one of the wagons bore Apostle Parley P. Pratt who, accompanied by Rufus C. Allen, was starting upon a mission to the southwest coast of South America. On May 13, there was note of encampment at "a large spring, usually called Las Vegas," after having traveled 200 miles through worthless desert and between mountains of naked rock.
Mormon Settlement at Tubac
To Commissioner John R. Bartlett, of the International Boundary Survey, the Author is indebted for a memorandum covering what clearly was the first Mormon settlement within the present confines of Arizona. It was at the old Spanish pueblo of Tubac, in the Santa Cruz valley, about forty miles south of Tucson. Both places then (in July, 1852), still were in Mexico, the time being two years before perfecting the Gadsden Purchase.
Tubac, according to the Commissioner, was "a collection of dilapidated buildings and huts, about half tenantless, and an equally ruinous church." He called it "a God-forsaken place," but gave some interesting history. After a century and a half of occupation, usually with a population of about 400, it had been abandoned a year before the Commissioner's arrival, but had been repopulated by possibly 100 individuals. There was irrigation from the Santa Cruz, but of uncertain sort, and it was this very uncertainty that lost to Arizona a community of settlers of industry surely rare in that locality. Bartlett's narrative recites:
The preceding fall (of 1851), after the place has been again occupied, a party of Mormons, in passing through on their way to California, was induced to stop there by the representations of the Mexican comandante. He offered them lands in the rich valley, where acequias (irrigation ditches) were already dug, if they would remain and cultivate it; assuring them that they would find a ready market for all the corn, wheat and vegetables they could raise, from the troops and from passing emigrants. The offer was so good and the prospects were so flattering that they consented to remain. They, therefore, set to work, plowed and sowed their lands, in which they expended all their means, anticipating an abundant harvest. But the spring and summer came without rain: the river dried up; their fields could not be irrigated; and their labor, time and money was lost. They abandoned the place, and, though reduced to the greatest extremities, succeeded in reaching Santa Isabel in California, where we fell in with them.
The Santa Isabel meeting referred to had taken place in the previous May, 1852. Santa Isabel was an old vista of San Diego Mission, about forty miles northeast of San Diego and on the road from that port to Fort Yuma. In the Commissioner's party, eastbound, was the noted scout, Antoine LeRoux, who had been one of the guides of the Mormon Battalion westward, in 1846. Bartlett wrote:
"LeRoux had been sent to the settlement at San Bernardino, to purchase a vehicle from newly-arrived Mormon immigrants and to return with it to Santa Isabel. When the wagon came … it was driven by its owner, named Smithson. After paying him, I invited him to remain with us over night, as he had had a fatiguing day's journey. We were very much amused during the evening in listening to the history of our Mormon friend, who also enlightened us with a lecture on the peculiar doctrines of his sect. He seemed a harmless, though zealous man, ardent in his religious belief and was, I should think, a fair specimen of his fraternity. His people had lately purchased the extensive haciendas and buildings at San Bernardino, covering several miles square, for $70,000, one-half of which amount they had paid in cash. This is one of the richest agricultural districts in the State and is said to have been a great bargain."
Bartlett's narrative, while interesting, does not inform concerning the identity of the Mormons at Tubac. Including Smithson, doubtless they were swallowed within the San Bernardino settlement. Just where the Tubac settlers came from is not clear. There seems probability that they were from one of the southern States, started directly for San Bernardino, instead of via Salt Lake, in the same manner that an Arkansas expedition went directly to the Little Colorado settlements in later years.
Tubac dates back to about 1752. Possibly not pertinent to the subject of this work, yet valuable, is a map of Tubac, herewith reproduced, drawn about 1760 by Jose de Urrutia. This map lately was found in the British Museum at London by Godfrey Sykes, of the Desert Laboratory at Tucson. From him receipt of a copy is acknowledged, with appreciation. The plat includes the irrigated area below the presidio.
A Texan Settlement of the Faith
The Commissioner traveled broadly and chronicled much and the Author is indebted to his memoirs for several items of early Mormon settlement in the Southwest.
One of the earliest details given by Bartlett concerns his arrival, October 14, 1850, at the village of Zodiac, in the valley of the Piedernales River, near Fredericksburg, about seventy miles northwest of San Antonio, Texas. Zodiac he found a village of 150 souls, headed by Elder Wight, locally known as "Colonel," who acted as host. That the settlement, even in such early times, was typically Mormon, is shown by the following extract from Bartlett's diary:
"Everywhere around us in this Zodiacal settlement we saw abundant signs of prosperity. Whatever may be their theological errors, in secular matters they present an example of industry and thrift which the people of the State might advantageously imitate. They have a tract of land which they have cultivated for about three years and which has yielded profitable crops. The well-built houses, perfect fences and tidy dooryards give the place a homelike air such as we had not seen before in Texas. The dinner was a regular old-fashioned New England farmer's meal, comprising an abundance of everything, served with faultless neatness. The entire charge for the dinner for twelve persons and corn for as many animals was $3…. The colonel said he was the first settler in the valley of the Piedernales and for many miles around. In his colony were people of all trades. He told me his crop of corn this year would amount to 7000 bushels, for which he expected to realize $1.25 a bushel."
Hamblin, "Leatherstocking of the Southwest"
In Southern Arizona the first pioneering was done by devoted Franciscans and Jesuits, their chiefest concern the souls of the gentile Indians. In similar wise, the pioneering of northern Arizona had its initiation in a hope of the Mormon Church for conversion of the Indians of the canyons and plains. In neither case was there the desired degree of success, but each period has brought to us many stories of heroism and self-sacrifice on the part of the missionaries. In the days when the American colonists were shaking off the English yoke, our Southwest was having exploration by the martyred Friar Garces. Three-quarters of a century later, the trail that had been taken by the priest to the Hopi villages was used by a Mormon missionary, Jacob Hamblin, sometimes called the "Leatherstocking of the Southwest," more of a trail-blazer than a preacher, a scout of the frontier directly commissioned under authority of his Church, serene in his faith and confident that his footsteps were being guided from on high.
The Author has found himself unable to write the history of northernmost Arizona without continual mingling of the name and the personal deeds of Jacob Hamblin. Apparently Hamblin had had no special training for the work he was to do so well. It seemed to "merely happen" that he was in southwestern Utah, as early as 1854, when his Church was looking toward expansion to the southward.
Hamblin's first essay into the Arizona country was in the troublous fall and winter of 1857, a year when he and his family were living in the south end of Mountain Meadows, Utah. He happened to be in Salt Lake when the famous Arkansas emigrant train passed through his district. Brigham Young sent a messenger southward with instructions to let the wagon train (an especially troublesome one) pass as quietly as possible, but these instructions were not received and Hamblin learned on the way home, of the massacre. The information came personally from John D. Lee, the assassin-in-chief. In Hamblin's autobiography is written, "The deplorable affair caused a sensation of horror and deep regret throughout the entire community, by whom it was unqualifiedly condemned."
Thereafter, Hamblin and his associates rode hard after other emigrants who were to be attacked by Indians, and found a company on the Muddy, surrounded by Paiutes preparing to attack and destroy them. As a compromise, the Indians were given the loose horses and cattle, which later were recovered, and the Mormons remained with the company to assist in its defense.
Aboriginal Diversions
Late in the autumn of 1857, a company came through on the way to California, bringing a letter from President Young, directing Hamblin to act as guide to California. On his way to join the train, Hamblin found a naked man in the hands of the Paiutes, who were preparing "to have a good time with him," that is, "they intended to take him to their camp and torture him." He saved the man's life and secured the return of his clothing. As the caravan neared the Muddy, news came of another Indian attack. Hamblin rode ahead and joined the Indians. He later wrote, "I called them together and sat down and smoked a little tobacco with them, which I had brought along for that purpose." Apparently there was a good deal of native diplomacy in the negotiations. There were some promises of blankets and shirts and finally there was agreement to let the travelers proceed.
[Illustration: JACOB HAMBLIN "Apostle to the Lamanites"]
[Illustration: CHURCH PRESIDENTSBrigham Young—above; Lorenzo Snow—above; John Taylor—aboveWilford Woodruff—below; Joseph Smith, the Prophet—centerHeber J. Grant—below; Joseph F. Smith—below]
Incidentally, they were met by Ira Hatch and Dudley Leavitt, on their return from a mission to the Mohave Indians. The Mohaves, careless of the Gospel privileges afforded, held a council over the Mormon missionaries and decided that they should die. Hatch thereupon knelt down among the savages and "asked the Lord to soften their hearts, that they might not shed further blood." The prayer was repeated to the Mohaves by a Paiute interpreter. "The heart of the chief was softened" and before dawn the next morning he set the two men afoot on the desert and directed them to Las Vegas Springs, eighty miles distant. Their food on the journey was mesquite bread, "made by pounding the seeds of the mesquite fruits in the valley."
Hamblin at all times was very careful in his dealings with the Indians. At an early date he might have killed one of them, but his gun missed fire, a circumstance for which he later repeatedly praised the Lord. Probably his greatest influence came through his absolute fearlessness. He was firmly convinced that he was in the Lord's keeping and that his time would not come till his mission had been accomplished.
Without doubt, Hamblin's course was largely sustained by a letter received by him March 5, 1858, from President Brigham Young, in which he prophesied that "the day of Indian redemption draws nigh," and continued, "you should always be careful to impress upon them that they should not infringe upon the rights of others; and our brethren should be very careful not to infringe upon their rights, thus cultivating honor and good principles in their midst by example, as well as precept."
In the spring of 1857, Hamblin and Dudley Leavitt, at a point 35 miles west of Las Vegas, smelted some lead ore, Hamblin having some knowledge of the proper processes. The lead later was left on the desert. The wagons were needed to haul iron, remnants of old emigrant wagons that had been abandoned on the San Bernardino road.
Encounter with Federal Explorers
In the course of his missionary endeavor, in the spring of 1858, Hamblin took five men and went by way of Las Vegas Springs to the Colorado River, at the foot of the Cottonwood Hills, 170 miles from the Santa Clara, Utah, settlement. Upon this trip he had remarkable experiences. On the river he saw a small steamer. Men with animals were making their way upstream on the opposite side. Thales Haskell, sent to investigate, returned next morning with information that the steamer company was of military character and very hostile to the Mormons, that the expedition had been sent out by the Government to examine the river and learn if a force could not be taken through southern Utah in that direction, should it be needed, to subjugate the Mormons. Hamblin returned to Las Vegas Springs and thought the situation so grave that he counseled abandonment of the Mormon settlement then being made at that point.
This record is very interesting in view of contemporary history. Without doubt, the steamboat he saw was the little "Explorer," of the topographical exploration of the Colorado River in the winter of 1857-8. Commanding was Lieut. J.C. Ives of the army Topographical Corps, the same officer who had been in the engineering section of Whipple's railway survey along the 35th parallel. The craft was built in the east and put together at the mouth of the river. The journey upstream was at a low stage of water and there was continual trouble with snags and sandy bars. Finally, when Black Canyon had been reached, the "Explorer" ran upon a sunken rock, the boiler was torn loose, as well as the wheelhouse, and the river voyage had to be abandoned, though Ives and two men rowed up the stream as far as Vegas Wash.
The steamboat was floated back to Yuma, but Ives started eastward with a pack train, guided by the Mohave chief, Iritaba, taking the same route that had been pursued many years before by Friar Garces through the Hava Supai and Hopi country.
It is to be regretted that Hamblin did not go on board the "Explorer," where no doubt he would have received cordial welcome. Even at that time, Brigham Young undoubtedly would have been pleased to have helped in forwarding the opening of a route to the southwestern coast by way of the Colorado River.
Incidentally, the steamer had a trip that was valuable mainly in the excellent mapping that was done by Ives and his engineers. Captain Johnston and the steamer "Colorado" had been over the same stretch of river before the "Explorer" came and had served to ferry across the stream, about where Fort Mohave later stood, the famous camel party of Lieutenant Beale.
The Hopi and the Welsh Legend
There was serious consideration by the Church authorities of a declaration that the Moqui (Hopi) Indians of northern Arizona had a dialect that at least embraced many Welsh words. President Young had heard that a group of Welshmen, several hundred years before, had disappeared into the western wilds, so, with his usual quick inquiry into matters that interested him, he sent southward, led by Hamblin, in the autumn of 1858, a linguistic expedition, also including Durias Davis and Ammon M. Tenney. Davis was a Welshman, familiar with the language of his native land. Tenney, then only 15, knew a number of Indian dialects, as well as Spanish, the last learned in San Bernardino. They made diligent investigation and found nothing whatever to sustain the assertion. Not a word could they find that was similar in anywise to any European language.
It happens that the Hopi tongue is a composite, mainly a Shoshonean dialect, probably accumulated as the various clans of the present tribe gathered in northeastern Arizona, from the cactus country to the south, the San Juan country to the northward and the Rio Grande valley to the eastward. But the Welsh legend was slow in dying.
This expedition of 1858, besides the two individuals noted, included Frederick and William Hamblin, Dudley and Thomas Leavitt, Samuel Knight, Ira Hatch, Andrew S. Gibbons (later an Arizona legislator), Benjamin Knell and a Paiute guide, Naraguts. The journey started at Hamblin's home in the Santa Clara settlement and was by way of the mouth of the Paria, where a good ferry point was found, but not used, and the Crossing of the Fathers on the Colorado, probably crossed by white men for the first time since Spanish days. The Hopi villages were found none too soon, for the men were very hungry. They had lost the mules that carried the provisions. The Hopi were found hospitable and furnished food until the runaway mules were brought in. There was some communication through the Ute language, after failure with the language of Wales. William Hamblin, Thomas Leavitt, Gibbons and Knell were left as missionaries and the rest of the dozen made a difficult return journey to their homes, a part of the way through snow.
The missionaries left with the Hopi returned the same winter. They had not been treated quite as badly as Father Garces, but there had been a division among the tribes, started by the priesthood. There was very good prophecy, however, by the Indians, to the effect that the Mormons would settle in the country to the southward and that their route of travel would be by way of the Little Colorado.
It might be well to insert, at this point, a condensation of the Welsh legend, though affecting, especially, the Zuni, a pueblo-dwelling tribe, living to the eastward of the Hopi and with little ethnologic connection. The following was written by Llewellyn Harris (himself of Welsh extraction), who was a Mormon missionary visitor to the Zuni in January, 1878, and is reprinted without endorsement:
"They say that, before the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, the Zuni Indians lived in Mexico. Some of them still claim to be the descendants of Montezuma. At the time of the conquest they fled to Arizona and settled there. They were at one time a very powerful tribe, as the ruins all over that part of the country testify. They have always been considered a very industrious people. The fact that they have, at one time, been in a state of civilization far in advance of what they are at present, is established beyond a doubt. Before the Catholic religion was introduced to them, they worshipped the sun. At present they are nearly all Catholics. A few of them have been baptized into our Church by Brothers Ammon M. Tenney and R.H. Smith, and nearly all the tribe say they are going to be baptized.
"They have a great many words in the language like the Welsh, and with the same meaning. Their tradition says that over 300 years before the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, some white men landed in Mexico and told the Indians that they had come from the regions beyond the sea to the east. They say that from these white men came the ancient kings of Mexico, from whom Montezuma descended.
"These white men were known to the Indians of Mexico by the name of Cambaraga; and are still remembered so in the traditions of Zuni Indians. In time those white people became mixed with Indians, until scarcely a relic of them remained. A few traditions of the Mexican Indians and a few Welsh words among the Zunis, Navajos and Moquis are all that can be found of that people now.
"I have the history of the ancient Britons, which speaks of Prince Madoc, who was the son of Owen Guynedd, King of Wales, having sailed from Wales in the year 1160, with three ships. He returned in the year 1163, saying he had found a beautiful country, across the western sea. He left Wales again in the year 1164, with fifteen ships and 3000 men. He was never again heard of."
Indians Await Their Prophets
President Young kept the Hopi in mind, for the following year (1859) he sent Hamblin on a second trip to the Indians, with a company that consisted of Marion J. Shelton, Thales Haskell, Taylor Crosby, Benjamin Knell, Ira Hatch and John Wm. Young. They reached the Hopi villages November 6, talked with the Indians three days and then left the work of possible conversion on the shoulders of Shelton and Haskell, who returned to the Santa Clara the next spring. The Indians were kind, but unbelieving, and "could make no move until the reappearance of the three prophets who led their fathers to that land and told them to remain on those rocks until they should come again and tell them what to do." Both ways of the journey were by the Ute ford.