Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/273

 CHAPTER XV.

TWO GREAT EMIGRATIONS.

Shortly after the discovery of the Great Salt Lake by Fremont, took place that remarkable event in Illinois which led to the peopling of the Great Basin with the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, followers of the so-called martyr, Joe Smith, who, thrown into prison for the crimes he had committed in the name of religion, was murdered by a band of roughs on the 29th June, 1844. The State of Illinois had granted the Mormons lands, and they had lived long enough on them to found the city of Nauvoo, in which they had built a huge and imposing temple of polished marble.

After the murder of Smith, the original inhabitants of Illinois, disgusted at the immoral practices of the Mormons, compelled them to sell their property and leave the state. The Saints now resolved to emigrate far away from all civilized communities, and to found a new republic among the vast solitudes of the Rocky Mountains. Explorers were sent out in different directions to choose the best locality for the purpose, and their reports led to the selection of the Great Salt Lake Valley. Westward then the emigrants, headed by their new prophet Brigham Young, began to move, their exodus resembling that of the Israelites from Egypt more than any of modern times.

In February, 1846, the Mississippi, then frozen over, was crossed, and a journey of fifteen hundred miles, through a country without roads, bridges, rivers, or wells, and peopled by wild bands of Pawnee and Shoshone Indians, was commenced. Bravely, however, the multitudes pushed on, and however we may condemn their peculiar tenets, we can not withhold from them our admiration for the faith which braced them up in what they looked upon as suffering for righteousness' sake. Still more must we honor the moral courage which, when the war broke out between the United States and Mexico, led Young to send five hundred of his sturdiest men to help their country in her hour of need, the ranks of his followers closing up, when they were gone, to face the now double dangers of the way, with no perceptible weakening of resolution.