Page:History of Utah.djvu/290

, 441-52.

saints reached the Mormon encampments, forbade further progress, and all prepared to spend the winter on the prairie. To the Mormon encampment on the site of the present town of Council Bluffs was after- ward given the name of Kanesville.*

While the saints were undergoing their infelicities at Nauvoo, war had broken out between the United States and Mexico. At that time New Mexico and California were a part of Mexico, and Utah and Ne- vada were a part of California.^ Journeying west from Nauvoo, California or Oregon would be reached. The latter territory was already secured to the United States; people were there from the United States, composing religious sects and political parties as jeal- ous of their holdings as any in Missouri or Illinois. Vancouver Island" was practically unoccupied, but the Hudson's Bay Company would scarcely regard with favor its occupation by a large body of American citizens whose government was at that moment crowd- ing them out of the Oregon territory and across the Columbia River.

But had the Mormons known their destination, had they known what point among the mountains or

the Frontier Guardian, and its publicatiou was continued till March 22, 1852, Richards' Narr., MS., 65; Richards' Bibliog. of Utah, MS., 13. The paper was edited by Orson Hyde, and makes a very creditable appearance. The subscription was $2 per year. In the second number we read: ' Flour nicely put up in sacks of from 50 to 100 lbs each will be received in exchange for the Guardian at the rate of $2 per hundred pounds, if good.' The last num- ber of the Times and Seasons bears date Fob. 15, 1846.
 * So called after Thomas L. Kane. Here was first issued on Feb. 7, 1849,

^ I frequently find California and Utah confounded by writers of this early period. The limits of California on the east were not then defined, and it was not uncommon, nor indeed incorrect, to apply that term to territory east of the sierra. I find this written in Snow^s Voice of the Prophet, 15: 'The pioneers discovered a beautiful valley beyond the pass of the great Rocky Mts, being a portion of the great basin of Upper California.' As we shall see later, the Mormons knew even less about Utah than they did about California.

^Brigham Young at first suggested Vancouver Island. 'There are said to be many good locations for settlements on the Pacific, especially .at Van- couver Island.' Circular to the brethren, in Times and Seasons, vi. 1019. In 1845 the report was current that the IMormona of Illinois had chosen V. I. as their future home, the metropolis to be situated at Nootka. Niles' Register, Ixix. 134. The Qiiiney Whig thinks the Mormons intend to settle at Nootka Sound. Polynesian, ii. 1846.