Part 51 (1/2)
The General Conference of October, 1849, ordered one man to build a gla.s.s factory in the valley, and voted to organize a company to transport pa.s.sengers and freight between the Missouri River and California, directing that settlements be established along the route.
This company was called the Great Salt Lake Valley Carrying Company. Its prospectus in the Frontier Guardian in December, 1849, stated that the fare from Kanesville to Sutter's Fort, California, would be $300, and the freight rate to Great Salt Lake City $12.50 per hundredweight, the pa.s.senger wagons to be drawn by four horses or mules, and the freight wagons by oxen.
But the work of making the new Mormon home a business and manufacturing success did not meet with rapid encouragement. Where settlements were made outside of Salt Lake City, the people were not scattered in farmhouses over the country, but lived in what they called ”forts,”
squalid looking settlements, laid out in a square and defended by a dirt or adobe wall. The inhabitants of these settlements had to depend on the soil for their subsistence, and such necessary workmen as carpenters and shoemakers plied their trade as they could find leisure after working in the fields. When Johnston's army entered the valley in 1858, the largest attempt at manufacturing that had been undertaken there--a beet sugar factory, toward which English capitalists had contributed more than $100,000--had already proved a failure. There were tanneries, distilleries, and breweries in operation, a few rifles and revolvers were made from iron supplied by wagon tires, and in the larger settlements a few good mechanics were kept busy. But if no outside influences had contributed to the prosperity of the valley, and hastened the day when it secured railroad communication, the future of the people whom Young gathered in Utah would have been very different.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune, on his way to California, writing on July 8, 1849, thus described Salt Lake City as it presented itself to him at that time:--”There are no hotels, because there had been no travel; no barber shops, because every one chose to shave himself and no one had time to shave his neighbor; no stores, because they had no goods to sell nor time to traffic; no center of business, because all were too busy to make a center. There was abundance of mechanics' shops, of dressmakers, milliners and tailors, etc., but they needed no sign, nor had they any time to paint or erect one, for they were crowded with business. Besides their several trades, all must cultivate the land or die; for the country was new, and no cultivation but their own within 1000 miles. Everyone had his lot and built on it; every one cultivated it, and perhaps a small farm in the distance. And the strangest of all was that this great city, extending over several square miles, had been erected, and every house and fence made, within nine or ten months of our arrival; while at the same time good bridges were erected over the princ.i.p.al streams, and the country settlements extended nearly 100 miles up and down the valley.”*
* New York Tribune, October 9, 1849.
The winter of 1848 set in early and severe, with frequent snowstorms from December 1 until late in February, and the temperature dropping one degree below zero as late as February 5. The deep snow in the canyons, the only outlets through the mountains, rendered it difficult to bring in fuel, and the suffering from the cold was terrible, as many families had arrived too late to provide themselves with any shelter but their prairie wagons. The apprehended scarcity of food, too, was realized.
Early in February an inventory of the breadstuffs in the valley, taken by the Bishops, showed only three-quarters of a pound a day per head until July 5, although it was believed that many had concealed stores on hand. When the first General Epistle of the First Presidency was sent out from Salt Lake City in the spring of 1849,* corn, which had sold for $2 and $3 a bushel, was not to be had, wheat had ranged from $4 to $5 a bushel, and potatoes from $6 to $20, with none then in market.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227.
The people generally exerted themselves to obtain food for those whose supplies had been exhausted, but the situation became desperate before the snow melted. Three attempts to reach Fort Bridger failed because of the depth of snow in the canyons. There is a record of a winter hunt of two rival parties of 100 men each, but they killed ”varmints” rather than game, the list including 700 wolves and foxes, 20 minks and skunks, 500 hawks, owls and magpies, and 1000 ravens.* Some of the Mormons, with the aid of Indian guides, dug roots that the savages had learned to eat, and some removed the hide roofs from their cabins and stewed them for food. The lack of breadstuffs continued until well into the summer, and the celebration of the anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers in the valley, which had been planned for July 4, was postponed until the 24th, as Young explained in his address, ”that we might have a little bread to set on our tables.”
* General Epistle, Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227.
Word was now sent to the states and to Europe that no more of the brethren should make the trip to the valley at that time unless they had means to get through without a.s.sistance, and could bring breadstuffs to last them several months after their arrival.
But something now occurred which turned the eyes of a large part of the world to that new acquisition of the United States on the Pacific coast which was called California, which made the Mormon settlement in Utah a way station for thousands of travellers where a dozen would not have pa.s.sed it without the new incentive, and which brought to the Mormon settlers, almost at their own prices, supplies of which they were desperately in need, and which they could not otherwise have obtained.
This something was the discovery of gold in California.
When the news of this discovery reached the Atlantic states and those farther west, men simply calculated by what route they could most quickly reach the new El Dorado, and the first companies of miners who travelled across the plains sacrificed everything for speed. The first rush pa.s.sed through Salt Lake Valley in August, 1849. Some of the Mormons who had reached California with Brannan's company had by that time arrived in the valley, bringing with them a few bags of gold dust.
When the would-be miners from the East saw this proof of the existence of gold in the country ahead of them, their enthusiasm knew no limits, and their one wish was to lighten themselves so that they could reach the gold-fields in the shortest time possible. Then the harvest of the Mormons began. Pack mules and horses that had been worth only $25 or $30 would now bring $200 in exchange for other articles at a low price, and the travellers were auctioning off their surplus supplies every day. For a light wagon they did not hesitate to offer three or four heavy ones, with a yoke of oxen sometimes thrown in. Such needed supplies as domestic sheetings could be had at from five to ten cents a yard, spades and shovels, with which the miners were overstocked, at fifty cents each, and nearly everything in their outfit, except sugar and coffee, at half the price that would have been charged at wholesale in the Eastern states.*
* Salt Lake City letter to the Frontier Guardian.
The commercial profit to the Mormons from this emigration was greater still in 1850, when the rush had increased. Before the grain of that summer was cut, the gold seekers paid $1 a pound for flour in Salt Lake City. After the new grain was harvested they eagerly bought the flour as fast as five mills could grind it, at $25 per hundredweight. Unground wheat sold for $8 a bushel, wood for $10 a cord, adobe bricks for more than seven s.h.i.+llings a hundred, and skilled mechanics were getting twelve s.h.i.+llings and sixpence a day.* At the same time that the emigrants were paying so well for what they absolutely required, they were sacrificing large supplies of what they did not need on almost any terms. Some of them had started across the plains with heavy loads of machinery and miscellaneous goods, on which they expected to reap a big profit in California. Learning, however, when they reached Salt Lake City, that s.h.i.+p-loads of such merchandise were on their way around the Horn, the owners sacrificed their stock where it was, and hurried on to get their share of the gold.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 350.
This is not the place in which to tell the story of that rush of the gold seekers. The clerk at Fort Laramie reported, ”The total number of emigrants who pa.s.sed this post up to June 10, 1850, included 16,915 men, 235 women, 242 children, 4672 wagons, 14,974 horses, 4641 mules, 7475 oxen, and 1653 cows.” A letter from Sacramento dated September 10, 1850, gave this picture of the trail left by these travellers: ”Many believed there are dead animals enough on the desert (of 45 miles) between Humboldt Lake and Carson River to pave a road the whole distance. We will make a moderate estimate and say there is a dead animal to every five feet, left on the desert this season. I counted 153 wagons within a mile and a half. Not half of those left were to be seen, many having been burned to make lights in the night. The desert is strewn with all kinds of property--tools, clothes, crockery, harnesses, etc.”
Naturally, in this rush for sudden riches, many a Mormon had a desire to join. A dozen families left Utah for California early in 1849, and in March, 1851, a company of more than five hundred a.s.sembled in Payson, preparatory to making the trip. Here was an unexpected danger to the growth of the Mormon population, and one which the head of the church did not delay in checking. The second General Epistle, dated October 12, 1849,* stated that the valley of the Sacramento was unhealthy, and that the Saints could do better raising grain in Utah, adding, ”The true use of gold is for paving streets, covering houses, and making culinary dishes, and when the Saints shall have preached the Gospel, raised grain, and built up cities enough, the Lord will open up the way for a supply of gold, to the perfect satisfaction of his people.”
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 119.
Notwithstanding this advice, a good many Mormons acted on the idea that the Lord would help those who helped themselves, and that if they were to have golden culinary dishes they must go and dig the gold.