scouts told him, as well as freshwater streams and a plentiful supply of salt and minerals. Young had procured rare maps of the area and a copy of Lansford W. Hastings’s
The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California.
He had become attracted to the region near the Great Salt Lake, the site of the vast prehistoric Lake Bonneville. “In the cove of mountains along its eastern shore, the lake is bordered by a plain where the soil is generally good, and a greater part fertile, watered by a delta of prettily timbered streams,” Frémont had written. Young had been drawn to its natural isolation, surrounded as it was by snowcapped peaks, salt flats, and high-altitude desert. He saw it as a perfect haven for his persecuted followers.
Even more appealing to Young was the fact that the several thousand square miles of land he intended to claim for his planned nation-state belonged to Mexico, and were therefore outside the dominion of what one of the apostles had called “the bloodthirsty Christians of these United States.”
On January 14, 1847, Young had revealed his first, and only recorded, supposed divine revelation, which concerned the thousand-mile pilgrimage to the Great Basin. Called the “Word and Will of the Lord,” the prophesy elaborated in specific detail how the emigration should proceed. The emigrants would move not as a whole but as a procession of companies—organized with military precision into hundreds, fifties, and tens—advancing at three-hundred-mile intervals along a chain of far-flung way stations called the “Camp of Israel.” Likening his flock to the children of Israel and himself to Moses leading the exodus from Egypt, Young had assured his followers that the angels of God would protect them. Early companies had built roads and bridges along the way for the Saints to follow, and had sown crops to be harvested by later parties.
The first group of 148 Saints, including Brigham Young, had left Winter Quarters in what is now Omaha in the spring of 1847. By July 24 of that year the hardy band had reached their new Jerusalem in the Great Salt Lake Valley. “Zion shall be established in the tops of the mountains and exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it,” one of the first emigrants proclaimed upon arriving in the valley, quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.
Now, exactly four years later, Jean Rio Baker joined with dozens of fellow converts for the final trek to the Promised Land. What had been a relatively lonely and improvised journey thus far now became more methodical and disciplined, an almost military advance. Jean Rio welcomed the extra security as well as the knowledge and experience of the leaders, versed as they were in the location of troublesome Indians, the severity of upcoming obstacles, and other details of the route. Captain Brown had at his disposal rudimentary devices such as sextants and telescopes with which he guided the group by planets identified in the Bible—Orion, Arcturus, and the Pleiades. Primitive barometers and thermometers helped him anticipate weather conditions, and a device that measured the number of revolutions of the front wagon wheel—an inventive Mormon had recently calculated, with amazing accuracy, that 360 revolutions represented one mile—helped him establish his position.
Their first day on the trail took them through country inhabited by Omaha Indians and was marred by a dangerous gorge crossing at the notoriously unsound “Pappea Bridge” nine miles from the Elkhorn River, where several wagons belonging to one of the families were severely damaged. Now reduced to a total of fifty-one wagons—ten were left behind for repairs—they followed what was being called the Mormon Trail, 1,032 rugged miles from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake City, blazed by early trappers and traders. On July 8 they ferried over the Elkhorn, a tributary described by one traveler as “9 rods wide and 3 feet deep.” One of the men caught his
The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California.
He had become attracted to the region near the Great Salt Lake, the site of the vast prehistoric Lake Bonneville. “In the cove of mountains along its eastern shore, the lake is bordered by a plain where the soil is generally good, and a greater part fertile, watered by a delta of prettily timbered streams,” Frémont had written. Young had been drawn to its natural isolation, surrounded as it was by snowcapped peaks, salt flats, and high-altitude desert. He saw it as a perfect haven for his persecuted followers.
Even more appealing to Young was the fact that the several thousand square miles of land he intended to claim for his planned nation-state belonged to Mexico, and were therefore outside the dominion of what one of the apostles had called “the bloodthirsty Christians of these United States.”
On January 14, 1847, Young had revealed his first, and only recorded, supposed divine revelation, which concerned the thousand-mile pilgrimage to the Great Basin. Called the “Word and Will of the Lord,” the prophesy elaborated in specific detail how the emigration should proceed. The emigrants would move not as a whole but as a procession of companies—organized with military precision into hundreds, fifties, and tens—advancing at three-hundred-mile intervals along a chain of far-flung way stations called the “Camp of Israel.” Likening his flock to the children of Israel and himself to Moses leading the exodus from Egypt, Young had assured his followers that the angels of God would protect them. Early companies had built roads and bridges along the way for the Saints to follow, and had sown crops to be harvested by later parties.
The first group of 148 Saints, including Brigham Young, had left Winter Quarters in what is now Omaha in the spring of 1847. By July 24 of that year the hardy band had reached their new Jerusalem in the Great Salt Lake Valley. “Zion shall be established in the tops of the mountains and exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it,” one of the first emigrants proclaimed upon arriving in the valley, quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.
Now, exactly four years later, Jean Rio Baker joined with dozens of fellow converts for the final trek to the Promised Land. What had been a relatively lonely and improvised journey thus far now became more methodical and disciplined, an almost military advance. Jean Rio welcomed the extra security as well as the knowledge and experience of the leaders, versed as they were in the location of troublesome Indians, the severity of upcoming obstacles, and other details of the route. Captain Brown had at his disposal rudimentary devices such as sextants and telescopes with which he guided the group by planets identified in the Bible—Orion, Arcturus, and the Pleiades. Primitive barometers and thermometers helped him anticipate weather conditions, and a device that measured the number of revolutions of the front wagon wheel—an inventive Mormon had recently calculated, with amazing accuracy, that 360 revolutions represented one mile—helped him establish his position.
Their first day on the trail took them through country inhabited by Omaha Indians and was marred by a dangerous gorge crossing at the notoriously unsound “Pappea Bridge” nine miles from the Elkhorn River, where several wagons belonging to one of the families were severely damaged. Now reduced to a total of fifty-one wagons—ten were left behind for repairs—they followed what was being called the Mormon Trail, 1,032 rugged miles from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake City, blazed by early trappers and traders. On July 8 they ferried over the Elkhorn, a tributary described by one traveler as “9 rods wide and 3 feet deep.” One of the men caught his
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