Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/349



sufferings were fearful. Sickness from exposure prevailed to an alarming extent, and death by the wayside ended the misery of hundreds.

Their trail could be followed for years by the graves that marked the pathway of their journey through Van Buren, Davis, Appanoose, Decatur and Union counties. No such scenes have ever been witnessed in Iowa as marked the winter march of the Mormon refugees over its unsettled prairies. When Mount Pisgah was reached they found rest and shelter and kind hands to minister to their wants. More than four hundred men, women and children who died from the effects of exposure and hardships of the exodus of 1846-7 were buried in the Mormon cemetery at this place.

In 1888 the Mormon authorities at Salt Lake caused a monument to be erected here to the memory of the dead, who for the most part sleep in unmarked graves in this inclosure. On the monument are inscribed the names of William Huntington, the First Presiding Elder of Mount Pisgah and sixty-seven others. C. A. White, a pioneer settler here, has long had charge of this Mormon cemetery, which is often visited by high officials of the Latter Day Saints and surviving friends of those who perished during the exodus of 1846-7. A number of the Mormon families remained at Garden Grove, Mount Pisgah, Lost Grove, Sargent’s Grove and Indiantown. Others made claims, built cabins and opened farms along the line of march. But the main body pushed on to the Missouri River, where a village was built in the southwest corner of Mills County. The greater number, however, went northward and located on Indian Creek and built a town near where Council Bluffs now stands, which they named Kanesville.

In the persecution which the Mormons endured in the early years of their residence in the western States and Territories, Iowa never joined. Our people and State officials have respected the right of American citizens to