The Pioneers

The Great Salt Lake Valley was ultimately fixed upon as their halting place and future home; and thither successive detachments of 'Mormons' directed their steps. Whilst one party went overland to Upper California, another party chartered the ship Brooklyn, at New York, and sailed around lo the Pacific by Cape Horn. This party was amongst the earliest of the arrivals in California and its members were exceptionally fortunate at the 'diggings' and massed large quantities of gold. "But the great bulk of 'the Mormons' proceeded overland to the valley of the Great Salt Lake; a remarkable pilgrimage which has not been paralleled in the history of mankind since Moses led the Israelites from — Egypt. The distance to be traversed was enormous the perils of the ways — were great the whole circumstances were highly interesting and peculiar and their zeal and courage were as remarkable as their faith." The engraving, which is entitled " 'Mormon' Caravan Crossing the Prairies," as well as the above quotation, was taken from the remarkable work The Mormons, printed in London, in 1852. The author is un- known, except that in the year, 1850, he was one of a committee of in- quiry on the subject of "Labor and the Poor." In this work his atten- tion was directed to the amount of emigration from the port of Liver- pool, among it, that of the "Mormons." In the preface of his book which is, according to his statement, non-partisan, he writes "It :

presents the history of Joseph Smith, a great imposter, or a great visionary, — — perhaps both but in either case, one of the most remarkable persons who has appeared on the stage of the world, in modern times." From Thomas L. Kane's famous speech before the Historical So- ciety of Pennsylvania, given in The Mormons in full, we read "The most striking feature, however, of the 'Mormon' emigration was undoubtedly their formation of the Tabernacle Camps, and TemporaryStakes, or Settlements, which renewed in the sleeping solitudes everywhere along the road, the cheering signs of intelligent and hopeful life. * * * "Their more interesting occupations, however, were those growing out of their peculiar circumstances and position. The chiefs were seldom with- out some curious affair on hand to settle with the restless Indians; while the immense labor and responsibility of the conduct of their unwieldy moving army and the commissariat of its hundreds of famishing poor also devolved upon them. They had good men they called bishops, whose special office it was to look up the cases of extreme suffering, and their relief parties were out, night and day, to scour over every trail."