Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, etc., May 21-October 16, 1839, part 1. Farnham Thomas Jefferson

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      CHAPTER I

      The Rendezvous – The Destination – The Education of Mules – The Santa Fé Traders – The Mormons – The Holy War – Entrance upon the Indian Territory – A Scene – An Encampment – A Loss – A Hunt – The Osage River – A Meeting and Parting – Kauzaus Indians – An Indian Encampment – Council Grove – Ruins – An Indian and his Wants – Elk – A Tempest – Captain Kelly – A comfortless Night.

      On the 21st of May, 1839, the author and sixteen others arrived in the town of Independence, Missouri.23 Our destination was the Oregon Territory. Some of our number sought health in the wilderness – others sought the wilderness for its own sake – and others sought a residence among the ancient forests and lofty heights of the valley of the Columbia; and each actuated by his own peculiar reasons, or interest, began his preparations for leaving the frontier.24 Pack mules and horses and pack-saddles were purchased and prepared for service. Bacon and flour, salt and pepper, sufficient for four hundred miles, were secured in sacks; our powder-casks were wrapt in painted canvas, and large oil-cloths were purchased to protect these and our sacks of clothing from the rains; our arms were thoroughly repaired; bullets were moulded; powder-horns and cap-boxes filled; and all else done that was deemed needful, before we struck our tent for the Indian territory.

      But before leaving this little woodland town, it will be interesting to remember that it is the usual place of rendezvous and "outfit" for the overland traders to Santa Fé and other Mexican states. In the month of May of each year, these traders congregate here, and buy large Pennsylvania waggons, and teams of mules to convey their calicoes, cottons, cloths, boots, shoes, etc. over the plains to that distant and hazardous market. It is quite amusing to greenhorns, as those are called who have never been engaged in the trade, to see the mules make their first attempt at practical pulling. They are harnessed in a team, two upon the shaft, and the remainder two abreast in long swinging iron traces; and then, by way of initiatory intimation that they have passed from a life of monotonous contemplation, in the seclusion of their nursery pastures, to the bustling duties of the "Santa Fé trade," a hot iron is applied to the thigh or shoulder of each, with an embrace so cordially warm, as to leave there, in blistered perfection, the initials of their last owner's name. This done, a Mexican Spaniard, as chief muleteer, mounts the right-hand wheel mule, and another, the left hand one of the span next the leaders, while four or five others, as foot-guard, stand on either side, armed with whips and thongs. The team is straightened – and now comes the trial of passive obedience. The chief muleteer gives the shout of march, and drives his long spurs into the sides of the animal that bears him; his companion before follows his example; but there is no movement. A leer – an unearthly bray, is the only response of these martyrs to human supremacy. Again the team is straightened, again the rowel is applied, the body-guard on foot raise the shout, and all apply the lash at the same moment. The untutored animals kick and leap, rear and plunge, and fall in their harness. In fine, they act the mule, and generally succeed in breaking neck or limb of some one of their number, and in raising a tumult that would do credit to any order of animals accustomed to long ears.

      After a few trainings, however, of this description, they move off in fine style. And, although some luckless animal may at intervals brace himself up to an uncompromising resistance of such encroachment upon his freedom, still, the majority preferring passive obedience to active pelting, drag him onward, till, like themselves, he submits to the discipline of the traces.

      'Independence' was the first location of the Mormons west of the Mississippi. Here they laid out grounds for their temple, built the 'Lord's store,' and in other ways prepared the place for the permanent establishment of their community. But, becoming obnoxious to their neighbours, they crossed the Missouri, and founded the town of 'Far West.' In 1838 they recommenced certain practices of their faith in their new abode, and were ejected from the state by its military forces.25

      The misfortunes of these people seem to have arisen from proceeding upon certain rules of action peculiar to themselves. The basis of these rules is the assumption that they are the "Saints of the Most High," to whom the Lord promised of old the inheritance of the earth; and that as such they have the right to take possession of whatever they may be inspired to desire. Any means are justifiable, in their belief, to bring about the restoration to the "Children of God" of that which He has bequeathed to them. In obedience to these rules of action, any Mormon or "Latter-Day Saint" labouring for hire on a "worldly" man's plantation, claimed the right to direct what improvements should be made on the premises; what trees should be felled, and what grounds should, from time to time, be cultivated. If this prerogative of saintship were questioned by the warm-blooded Missourians, they were with great coolness and gravity informed that their godly servants expected in a short time to be in comfortable possession of their employers' premises; for that the Latter-Days had come, and with them the Saints; that wars and carnage were to be expected; and that the Latter-Day Prophet had learned, in his communications with the Court of Heaven, that the Missourians were to be exterminated on the first enlargement of the borders of "Zion;" and that over the graves of those "enemies of all righteousness" would spring that vast spiritual temple which was "to fill the earth."

      The prospect of being thus immolated upon the altar of Mormonism, did not produce so much humility and trembling among these hardy frontiersmen as the prophet Joe had benevolently desired. On the contrary, the pious intimation that their throats would be cut to glorify God, was resisted by some ruthless and sinful act of self-defence; and all the denunciations of the holy brotherhood were impiously scorned as idle words. However, in spite of the irreligious wrath of these deluded, benighted Missourians, the Saints cut timber wherever they listed on the domains which were claimed by the people of the world. And if the "Lord's hogs or horses" wanted corn, the farms in the hands of the wicked were resorted to at a convenient hour of the night for a supply. In all these cases, the "Saints" manifested a kind regard to the happiness even of the enemies of their faith. For whenever they took corn from fields in possession of the world's people, they not only avoided exciting unholy wrath by allowing themselves to be seen in the act, but, in order that peace might reign in the bosoms of the wicked, even, the longest possible time, they stripped that portion of the harvest field which would be last seen by the ungodly owner.

      The "Church militant," however, being inefficient and weak, the Prophet Joe declared that it was their duty to use whatever means the Lord might furnish to strengthen themselves. And as one powerful means would be the keeping of its doings as much as possible from the world, it was he said, the will of Heaven, revealed to him in proper form, that in no case, when called before the ungodly tribunals of this perverse and blind generation, should they reveal, for any cause, any matter or thing which might, in its consequences, bring upon the brotherhood the infliction of those pretended rules of Justice, by the world called Laws. Under the protection of this prophecy, a band of the brethren was organized, called the "Tribe of Dan," whose duty it was to take and bring to the "Lord's store," in the far West, any of the Lord's personal estate which they might find in the possession of the world, and which might be useful to the "Saints," in advancing their kingdom. Great good is said to have been done by this Tribe of Dan; for the Lord's store was soon filled, and the Saints praised the name of Joe. The Prophet's face shone with the light of an all-subduing delight at the increase of "Zion," and the efficiency of his administration.

      The Missourians, however, were destitute of the Latter-Day Faith, and of just views of the rights devised to those, who, in the Lord's name, should destroy his adversaries, and restore the earth to the dominion of millennial righteousness. Poor mortals and deluded sinners! They believed that the vain and worldly enactments of legislative bodies were to prevail against the inspirations of the Latter-Day Prophet Joe; and in their unsanctified zeal, declared the Saints to be thieves, and unjust, and murderous; and the Tribe of Dan to be a pest to the constitutional and acknowledged inherent and natural right to acquire, СКАЧАТЬ