--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Lund, A. William collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 31 number: 9 published: 1928-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "A. William Lund, “Founders of Western Civilization,” *Improvement Era* 31, no. 9 (July 1928): 723–730." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3109unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera3109unse start_page: 723 end_page: 730 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1928-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3109unse publication_year: 1928 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1928, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Founders of Western Civilization Improvement Era •+'jnrAr+'Ar+*J£.-*rAm. Vol. XXXI JULY, 1928 No. 9 Founders of Western Civilization By Andrew Jenson, Assistant Church Historian AS YEARS roll on, and the west half of the United States of America becomes more thickly settled, the achievements of the early pioneers of the great West become matters of interesting study. No one who visits Salt Lake City at the present time can afford to ignore the fact that the Latter-day Saints were the first to raise the standard of Anglo-Saxon civilization in the great intermountain region and elsewhere. Nobody dares dispute the historical fact that they were also eminently successful as pio- neers, for the many flourishing cities, towns and villages with which that part of our country once known as the Great American Desert is now dotted testifies abundantly of the energy, the union, the determination and success of the "Mormon" pioneers. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized as a religious body in 1830, in the western part of the state oi New York. Said Church was only about a year old when some of its members became pioneers of the West. In the month of June, ] 83 1, Joseph Smith with a small body of men left the little village of Kirtland, Ohio, as missionaries, for the western boundary of the United States, four men of the community having preceded them there in the beginning of the same year. Arriving in Jackson county, Mo., in July, 183 1, Joseph Smith and his companions, together with a number of families known in Church history as the Colesville branch, commenced operations as a colonizing community im- mediately east of where Kansas City now stands. There those eastern people experienced most trying difficulties in establishing what we may term a Yankee colony in a slave-holding state. They practically became the first farmers without slave labor in that part of the country, and in a remarkably short time they had a prosperous colony numbering about twelve hundred people in Jackson county. In this colony was established a printing office, which at the time was 120 miles farther west than any other printing office in the United States. The "Mormons" also opened a successful store, built one or more mills, commenced schools and developed a number of 724 IMPROVEMENT ERA flourishing farms on lands bought from the United States Govern- ment for $1.25 an acre. But this colony of Latter-day Saints existed only a couple of years as difficulties arose between the Saints (who were mostly abolitionists) and the older settlers (who were nearly all slave- holders), and so the year 1833 witnessed the exodus of the Saints from Jackson county. Their next experience as colonizers was on the flat lands lying adjacent to the Missouri river and some of its tributaries on the opposite side of the Missouri, mainly in Clay county, Mo. There they were again successful in turning the flat, low lands into fruitful fields. Much of the success there, as well as in Jackson county, and also their future homes elsewhere, must be ascribed to their unity and that cooperation which is based upon brotherly love and mu- tual helpfulness. The experience of the Latter-day Saints in Clay county lasted only about three years, when it became necessary, in order to avoid trouble with their less industrious neighbors, to move out into an open prairie country, lying about sixty miles in a north- easterly direction from Liberty, Clay county. Those who were anx- ious to have them move promised that if they would locate in that prairie country, where very few people had settled up to that time, they could have a county organization of their own. This was consequently done, and the "Mormon" community, as soon as they had located in what soon afterwards became Caldwell county, Mis- souri, proved to the rest of the inhabitants that the prairies were not useless for agricultural purposes, but that with careful cultivation good crops could be raised. The consequence was that the "Mor- mon" community was more successful in Caldwell county, and also in some of the adjacent counties, than they had hitherto been else- where, for soon the community grew from 1200 souls to as many thousands, and a promising town called Far West, which reached a population of 2000, was founded on the prairies of Caldwell, and the community found itself gaining rapidly in wealth and comforts. In the meantime, another branch of the Church had experiences as pioneers in Ohio, not far from where the city of Cleveland now stands. Early in 1831, a number of the Saints located in an in- significant hamlet containing only a mill, a store and a few farm houses, but soon they built a city containing about 2000 inhabitants with a beautiful temple in the midst of it. In this connection it may, therefore, be said that the "Mormons" became the pioneer temple builders in North America, aside from masonic temples, so called, and other houses of worship. This settlement, known as Kirtland, FOUNDERS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 725 Ohio, did not continue in their hands more than about seven years, as complications arose, and it became necessary in 1838 for the bulk of the people to vacate, leaving their temple and improvements be- hind, and migrate to Missouri, about nine hundred miles farther west. In the meantime, trouble also arose between the "Mormons" and the other settlers in Missouri. I am not here dealing with the causes of this trouble, but venture to say that jealousy, based upon the fact that the "Mormons" seemed to be more prosperous than their neighbors, was at the bottom of it. Suffice it to say that the early part of 1839 found the Saints to the number of about 12,000 souls driven into exile, after a number of their people had been mur- dered, much of their property destroyed and nearly all the remainder confiscated. On this occasion, the Saints, instead of turning their faces westward, traveled about two hundred miles eastward, in order to get out of the state of Missouri, the so-called exterminating order of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs having been issued, recommending either extermination or expulsion. In the little town of Quincy, Illinois, the exiles found temporary shelter, the people of Quincy treating them most kindly and taking immediate steps to relieve them of temporary wants. But as the "Mormons" could never consent to live on charity, or to receive aid when there was a possibility of being self-sustaining, they immediately fell back upon their former tactics as colonizers. About fifty miles from Quincy, up the Mississippi river, a little village known as Commerce had been founded some years before by eastern people who came there well supplied with money and property to found a settlement in the West, but the place being very unhealth- ful these people, instead of building a town on the banks of the Mississippi river, built a good-sized graveyard on the slope of a hill. The facts were that the place was so marshy and swampy that the inhabitants were nearly all taken with malaria, mostly fever and ague, and the mortality in consequence was very great. Hence, when the Saints, through a committee appointed for the purpose, in- vestigated conditions for buying land upon which to locate another settlement, they found the few people left at Commerce willing to sell on easy terms, and the consequence was the Saints located in that beautiful bend of the Mississippi river in Hancock county, Illinois, where they, in the course of six years, built Nauvoo, the beautiful, and that too in the days of their poverty, plucked and peeled as they were through their losses in Missouri. Where the comparatively wealthy people from the east could not build the village of Commerce, these persecuted "Mormons,"' by labor, built 726 IMPROVEMENT ERA a city which, at its zenith, had about 20,000 inhabitants. The city contained a beautiful temple, a number of manufacturing estab- lishments, public buildings, a printing office and many substantial private residences. Here the Saints, again pioneers, drained swamps and turned them into fruitful fields, and took other steps toward improving conditions until, according to the statement of the late George A. Smith, Nauvoo became as healthful as any other place in Illinois. Joseph the Prophet took a most active part in the build- ing of Nauvoo, which, as years rolled on, became a most endearing spot to him. This is exemplified by a remark he made when he left Nauvoo, for the last time, to go to Carthage. Reaching the temple, he turned around and looked with admiration upon that building and then upon the city at large, remarking: "This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens; little do they know the trials that await them." His bosom friend, John Taylor, in his beautiful composition known as "The Seer," in referring to Joseph Smith and Nauvoo, says: "The Saints, the Saints, his only pride, For them he lived, for them he died. Their joys were his, their sorrows too: He loved the Saints, he loved Nauvoo." Not only did Joseph Smith love Nauvoo and its people, but that beautiful place became the pride of all its inhabitants. Years ago, when I first became acquainted with this intermountain country, and when many early Church veterans were yet alive, I often, in my endeavors to elicit from them historical information concerning pioneer days, listened for hours to incidents connected with that city; and while they were telling of their thrilling experiences and their associations with the Prophet Joseph, I would in many instances notice the tears coursing down their weather-beaten cheeks, as the pleasant or sad memories of the past touched their hearts. It will readily be seen that the Latter-day Saints had much ex- perience as pioneers, founders of settlements and city builders before they came to the far West, and these experiences stood them well in hand when it fell to their lot to found settlements in these Rocky Mountains. If our socialistic friends want an illustration of what true So- cialism, based on brotherly love, can accomplish, let them study the history of the "Mormons" after their expulsion from the State of Illinois, and also their movements after their arrival in the Rocky Mountains. Let them post themselves as to how the advance com- panies of what was termed the "Camps of Israel" planted and sowed grain and vegetables at Garden Grove, Mt. Pisgah, etc., for the FOUNDERS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 727 later companies of their co-religionists to reap the harvest. Let them read also of the covenant entered into by the "Mormons" in Missouri in 1839, when the better-to-do members of the community pledged themselves to spend their last dollar in assisting their fellow-suf- ferers to leave the state of Missouri. From the story of "Mormon- ism," it will be seen that the Saints were practically the pioneer settlers in certain parts of Iowa, this being particularly the case in Pottawattamie county in that state. They also became the first actual white settlers in what is now the state of Nebraska, for up to that time that part of our country now included in said state had been in the hands of the Omahas, Pawnees, Sioux and other Indian tribes, and not only were the Saints the founders of the first settlement in Nebraska, (Winter Quarters), where the little city of Florence, now a part of Omaha, stands, but they also took an active part a few years later in founding the city of Omaha, and a "Mormon" elder (Joseph E. Johnson) published the first news- paper (The Omaha Arrow) ever published in that city. I now revert to the Mormon Battalion which left the Pottawat- tamie country in Iowa in July, 1846, and marched to Fort Leaven- worth. From there the real journey to California was commenced. Upon reaching Santa Fe, New Mexico, it was discovered that a number of families who had accompanied the Battalion were not able to pursue the journey to California, which led through dry and trackless deserts; hence, it was decided that those families, together with a number of the soldiers who during the first half of the journey had shown signs of weakness, should change their course of travel, and, instead of continuing to California, go north and winter on the Arkansas river. This meant that the "Mormons" also became the first Anglo-Saxon settlers in what is now the enterprising state of Colorado. In addition to the Battalion people, a number of Saints who had left the states in 1846 with the intention of joining the pioneers on their journey to the Rocky Mountains that year were compelled to winter with the detachment of the Battalion at Pueblo. On the very day in February, 1846, that the actual exodus of the "Mormons" from Nauvoo, Illinois, began, the ship Brooklyn sailed from New York with a company of 230 Saints on board, mainly farmers from the New England states and citizens of some of the eastern cities. This ship had a wonderful voyage, doubling Cape Horn, touching at the island of San Fernandez (the base of the Robinson Crusoe story) , visiting later the Hawaiian Islands and finally landing at San Francisco, July 31, 1846, nearly one year before President Brigham Young and his pioneers entered the valley 728 IMPROVEMENT ERA of the Great Salt Lake. On the arrival of the Brooklyn in Cali- fornia the Saints who had made the voyage in that ship found a small village called Yerba Buena, standing near the Golden Gate. The Brooklyn passengers outnumbered the native Californians, and the little Spanish village was changed to San Francisco, there being already a Catholic mission of that name in the vicinity. This change was brought about partly through the influence exercised by the California Star, which was practically the first newspaper published in California in the English language. It was edited by Samuel Brannan, the "Mormon" elder who had led the Brooklyn company from New York to California. Thus it can be claimed consistently that the "Mormons" were the actual founders of San Francisco as well as of Salt Lake City and many other places in the "Great West." A number of the Brooklyn company who were farmers naturally desired to carry on agriculture in California, and, in look- ing around for a suitable place to locate, they selected a spot in the San Joaquin valley, near the junction of the Stanislaus river with th? San Joaquin river, and here the "Mormons" founded the first farm- ing settlement in that great valley which now contains seven of the most flourishing counties in California. In 1851, the same people that founded Salt Lake City located the flourishing settlement of San Bernardino in southern California. We will now return to the main camps of the exiled Saints. As soon as possible the following spring (1847) a selection of men and teams was made to push ahead to the Rocky Mountains, and President Brigham Young, together with 142 other pioneers, three women and two children, left the Missouri river in April, 1847. At Laramie, the pioneers were joined by a small advance company of Mississippi Saints. On Green River a small company of the Battalion overtook the pioneers, who, when they arrived in the valley on July 22 and 24, numbered 156 persons. Five days after the arrival of President Young and his company, the detachment of the Mormon Battalion which had wintered at Pueblo entered the valley under the leadership of Captain James Brown. Immediately the pioneers commenced to lay the foundation of our beautiful city which now can boast of 130,000 inhabitants. About 1800 Latter-day Saints who crossed the plains and moun- tains in nine well organized companies reached the valley the same years as the original pioneers, besides a number of the Mormon Battalion who, after serving their term of enlistment, made their way from Southern California northward, then across the Sierra Nevada Mountains and what is now the Nevada desert to this valley. Thus FOUNDERS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION 729 nearly 1800 people spent the winter of 1847-1848 on what we now call Pioneer Square, but which was originally known as the Old Fort, the beginning of Great Salt Lake City, which in 1868 changed its name to Salt Lake City. From this beginning, Utah's several valleys were subsequently settled. The year 1848 witnessed the arrival of thousands of Lat- ter-day Saints who had spent about two years on the frontiers, and soon Ogden, Provo, Manti, and many other cities came into existence. Carson valley, Nevada, which once constituted a part of Utah, became known to the "Mormon" people as early as 1847, when the discharged soldiers of the Mormon Battalion passed through on their way from California to Great Salt Lake valley; and as early as 185 1 the first "Mormon" settlement, which was also the first Anglo- Saxon settlement of any description in what is now the state of Nevada, was founded in Carson valley, at a place known as Genoa. Thus the same class of people who were the pioneers of Utah also became the pioneers of Nevada. In 1855, President Young sent out a colony about 400 miles north into what was then Oregon and founded a settlement among the Indians on a branch of the Salmon river, and the "Mormons" therefore, became the first settlers of Idaho; and though this settle- ment (Fort Limhi) was broken up in 1858, the honor of founding the first permanent settlement in Idaho was still retained by the "Mormons," for the year 1860 witnessed the founding of Franklin in Cache valley, now in Idaho. In 1854 a farming settlement known as Fort Supply was lo- cated by the "Mormons" on Black's fork of Green river, 12 miles south of the original Fort Bridger. This was the first farming settlement in what is now the state of Wyoming. Since the founding of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 and the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock in 1620, America has produced pioneers by the tens of thousands. History proves that these pioneers showed great bravery in venturing farther and farther west among the Indians or into unexplored or unclaimed countries, until the vanguard of Anglo-Saxon civilization stood about half way across the continent, looking westward toward the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains and the Great American Desert, which save for a few forts and a few settlements founded in what was then Oregon were inhabited only by nomadic Indians. But Brigham Young and his pioneers with one grand leap, so to speak, cut the great desert or uninhabited waste in half by planting Salt Lake City in the heart of the Great American Desert, and thus it was 730 IMPROVEMENT ERA that Great Salt Lake City became the half-way house between the Missouri river in the east and the Pacific coast in the west, just as literally and effectually as Palestine in the Orient is the half-way house, so to speak, between the great river Euphrates on the east and the beautiful Nile on the west. By the founding of the American half-way house the emi- grants from the east bound for California found it possible to make the long journey across the continent with comparative ease, for if they, on their arrival in Salt Lake, found themselves short of pro- visions, or delayed by worn-out animals, they were able to replenish their provisions and obtain fresh horses, mules and oxen to continue on to the coast. Not only were these overland travelers able to obtain supplies, but they found the "Mormons" an honest and up- right people who were not inclined to take advantage of the situation. This meant much to the Saints by way of contradicting the numer- ous falsehoods which had been circulated by the enemies of the "Mor- mon" people at an early day. It must be remembered that the pioneers of Utah lived in these valleys about four years before even a territorial form of government was granted by the Federal Govern- ment, and during these years the "Mormons" lived under laws en- acted by themselves and were ruled most justly and successfully ""by officers of their own selection. They could have built a regular robbers' roost in these mountains had they been so disposed, but, instead, they built a prosperous, Christian community. In August, 1842, Joseph Smith the Prophet predicted that the Saints should be driven to the Rocky Mountains and there become a mighty people. How literally and completely this prophecy has been fulfilled! Salt Lake City Today "I like Utah. Its surrounding hills give one the feeling of security. It's> different. I like Salt Lake City. Its wide streets give one a feeling of freedom; its running waters that of cleanliness; its bubbling fountains of pure mountain water entice one to drink more and more. Its restaurants are filled with the best of food and all served in the most courteous manner. "Its people extend to the stranger a cordial hand of welcome and good fellowship. We have all heard the song 'Out Where the West Begins' — but that does not apply to Salt Lake for there is where the West is, was and, I hope, ever shall be. Salt Lake's streets are blessed with the absence of childless women leading pug dogs, but there are ever present the most beautiful children in the land. "Utah, where the pink and golden rays of a wonderful sunrise kiss the snowcapped peaks that dimple the sky, crowning them with all the glory of a new-born day and where, at evening, the crimson light of the setting sun baptizes the whole with a benediction of peace — the holiness of celestial harmony." — Chas. H. Fitz, Traveling Salesmanager, Woodrow Manufacturing Co., Chicago.