camp at Cutler Park, a few miles northwest of the ferry, where they built a mill.

Here the chiefs of the Omaha tribe held a grand council with the Mormon leaders, and Big Elk, the principal chief of the tribe, gave permission to remain two years, invited reciprocal trade, and promised warning of danger from other Indians.1

The Mexican War was now in progress. About the time the exodus began, the Mormons applied to Washington for some form of work to assist them in getting further west. Their tender of military services was accepted, and under orders from General Kearney, Capt. James Allen raised a battalion of five companies in the Missouri camps in two weeks, himself assuming command. After a farewell ball, the recruits marched away, accompanied as far as Ft. Leavenworth by eighty women and children. There a bounty of $40 was given each man, most of which was taken back to the families left behind at the Missouri river camps. While the enlistment of 500 able-bodied men left few but the sick in the camps, the bounty received was considerable and greatly needed, and the formation of the battalion induced Captain Allen to promise, for the government, to allow the Mormons to pass through the Pottawattomi and Omaha lands, and to remain there while necessary. Subsequent letters from Washington showed the Mormons were expected to leave the Indian lands in the spring of 1847.

Some 650 Saints had been left in Nauvoo after the emigration ceased in June, the remnant consisting of the sick, the poor, and those unable to sell their property. The gentile whigs renewed the old quarrel, fearing the vote of the Mormon element would control the August congressional election. The Saints finally agreed not to attempt to vote, but in fact, says Governor Ford,2 all voted the democratic ticket, being induced by the considerations of the President allow

The speech is set out in full in Sorenson's "History of Omaha," p. 24. "History of Illinois" (Ford), pp. 413-14.

ing their settlement on the Indian reservations on the Missouri, and the enlistment of the Mormon battalion. Nauvoo fell, and the last of the Mormons fled from the city in fear · and extreme distress.

By the close of the summer of 1846 some 12,000 or 13,000 Mormons were encamped in the Missouri valley, at Rushville, Council Point, Traders Point, Mynster Springs, Indian Town, in the groves along the creeks, and in the glens in the hills and on the west side of the Missouri river, at Cutler Park, on the Elkhorn and Papillion crossings, and as far as the Pawnee villages.

During the summer and autumn of 1846, particularly in August and September, the various camps were seized with a plague of scrofulous nature, which the Mormons called the black canker. The Indians had lost one-ninth of their number from this strange disease the year before, and the mortality was fully as great among both Mormons and Indians. in 1846. In one camp 37 per cent were down with the fever. The pestilence was attributed to the rank vegetation and decaying organic matter on the bottoms of the Missouri and its sluggish tributaries, to the foul slime left by the rapid subsidence of a flood, and to the turning of the virgin soil by the settlers. There were often not enough well persons to attend to the sick or bury the dead. Six hundred deaths occurred on the site of the present town of Florence. Hundreds were buried on the slopes of the Iowa bluffs.1 The plague

raged each successive year for several years, and from 1848 to 1851 hundreds of Mormons died of it on the Iowa side of the river.

During the autumn months preparations were made to winter on the site of the present town of Florence until the spring of 1847. They enclosed several miles of land, and planted all obtainable seed and erected farm cabins and cattle shelters. They built a town on a plateau overlooking the

'Kane's lecture, "The Mormons," p. 51, reprinted in Frontier Guardian, September 4, 1850; also numerous conversations of the writer with pioneers.

river, their "Winter Quarters," and 3,500 Saints lived there during the hard winter of 1846-47.

"Winter Quarters" was a town of mushroom growth, consisting, in December, 1846, of 538 log houses and 83 sod houses, laid out in symmetrical blocks, separated by regular streets. The numerous and skilful craftsmen of the emigrants had worked all the summer and fall under the incessant and energetic direction of Brigham Young. The houses they built afforded shelter and were comfortable, but were not calculated to stand the first sudden thaw or drenching rain.

"The buildings were generally of logs," says the manuscript history of Young, "from twelve to eighteen feet long; a few were split and made from linn and cottonwood timber; many roofs were made by splitting oak timber into boards, called shakes, about three feet long and six inches wide, and kept‍ in place by weights and poles; others were made of willows, straw and earth, about a foot thick; some of puncheon. Many cabins had no floors; there were a few dugouts on the side hills-the fireplace was cut out at the upper end. The ridge pole was supported by two uprights in the center and roofed with straw and earth, with chimneys of prairie sod. The doors were made of shakes, with wooden hinges and a string latch; the inside of the log houses was daubed with clay; a few had stoves."

In October, the camp at Cutler Park was moved to Winter Quarters.1 Schools were instituted, churches established, and the whole ecclesiastical and civic mechanism so rudely shattered at Nauvoo was once more running as smoothly and powerfully as ever. Eight thousand dollars was spent for machinery and stones for the water flouring mill Young was constructing. Several loads of willow baskets were made by the women. The winter was passed in endeavoring to keep alive and in preparation for resuming the march in the spring by those who were strong and had provisions for a year and a

1 Cutler Park, on the west side of the Missouri, is not to be confused with Cutler's Camp, on Silver creek, in Iowa. Compare John D. Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 180, with Andreas' Illustrated Historical Atlas of Iowa, p. 409.

half. Others made ready to plant and gather the crops of the coming summer. Several thousand cattle were driven across the Missouri and up into Harrison and Monona counties, in Iowa, to winter on the "rush bottoms," where a now extinct species of rush formerly grew in profusion, and remained green all winter, though covered by snow and ice.

Polygamy was practiced to a limited extent. Young, for instance, confesses to meeting, one afternoon, sixty-six of his family, including his adopted children.

In the octagon council house, "resembling a New England potato heap in time of frost," and which called for a load of fuel a day, the scheme of organization and exploration was perfected, and Young published most minute directions as to the manner of march, pursuant to a revelation made January 14, 1847. In response to a call for volunteers, what was called "the pioneer company" moved out from Winter Quarters to the rendezvous on the Elkhorn, April 14, 1847, and organized the 16th, with Brigham Young lieutenant general. The pioneer company numbered 143 men and three women. Seventy-three wagons were taken, loaded with provisions and farm machinery. About this time the camp on the Niobrara returned to the Missouri river settlements.

The pioneers followed the north side of the Platte to Ft. Laramie, crossing the Loup, April 24, in a leather boat, the Revenue Cutter, made for this purpose. They reached the Ancient Bluff ruins May 22 and Ft. Laramie June 1, halting while the animals rested and ferryboats were built. Captain Grover was left behind to ferry other companies arriving from Winter Quarters, but his services were not needed. After the pioneers had crossed to the south bank of the North Platte, they recrossed 124 miles further on, and subsequent emigration seems to have kept to the north bank of the river.1

"The Latter Day Saints' Emigrants' Guide," by W. Clayten, originally. published in 1848, and reprinted in the Salt Lake Herald, April 25, 1897, traces the customary route of the Mormon emigrants so that it is comparatively easy to retrace their road. Some suspicion may be cast on the accuracy of the latitude and longitude given in the Guide, by the fact that the first figures Clayton gave, the latitude of Winter Quarters, were erroneous,

The pioneers traveled more than a thousand miles, and laid out roads suitable for artillery. The valley of the Great Salt Lake was reached the 23d and 24th of July, and the city of Salt Lake was laid out in a month. Brigham Young and 107 persons started back to Winter Quarters August 26, a small party having preceded them eastward. October 31 the pioneers arrived at the Missouri.

After the pioneers left Winter Quarters in April all others who were able to go organized another company, known as the First Immigration, with Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor in command. The First Immigration consisted of 1,553 persons in about 560 wagons, with cattle, horses, swine, and poultry. It reached the Salt Lake valley in detachments in the autumn of 1847.

This and the strong expeditions later on were divided into companies of 100, subdivided into companies of fifty and squads of ten, each under a captain, and all under a member of the High Council of the church. Videttes selected the next day's camp and acted as skirmishers. Wherever possible the wagons traveled in a double column. Upon halting they were arranged in the form of two convex arcs, with openings at the points of intersection, the tongues of the wagons outward, one front wheel lapping the hind wheel of the wagon in front. The cattle corralled inside were watched by guards stationed at the openings at the ends and were safe from stampede or depredations. The tents were pitched outside. When practicable, the Mormons arranged the wagons in a single curve, with the river forming a natural defense on one side.1

Their wagons were widened to six feet by extensions on the sides. Each was loaded to the canvas with farm implements, grains, machinery of all sorts, and a coop of chickens lashed on behind. All the wagons were not of this size or description. They ranged from the heavy prairie schooner drawn by

1See "History of Utah," H. H. Bancroft, p. 267, for the revelation to Brigham Young as to the method of travel.

2 Popular tradition makes the Mormons' chickens responsible for scattering the sunflower seed which have grown into the prairie nuisance.

1