The History of Salt Lake City and its Founders, Volume 1 - Edward William Tullidge

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of the popular Father Taylor's precinct, was gathered now the mirth and beauty of the Mormon Israel.

      "If anything told that the Mormons had been bred to other lives, it was the appearance of the women as they assembled here. Before their flight they had sold their watches and trinkets as the most available recourse for raising ready money; and hence like their partners, who wore waistcoats cut with useless watch pockets, they, although their ears were pierced and bore the marks of rejected pendants, were without earrings, chains or broaches. Except such ornaments, however, they lacked nothing most becoming the attire of decorous maidens. The neatly-darned white stockings, and clean white petticoat, the clear-starched collar and chemisette, the something faded, only because too-well washed lawn or gingham gown, that fitted modishly to the waist of its pretty wearer—these, if any of them spoke of poverty, spoke of a poverty that had known better days.

      "With the rest attended the elders of the Church within call, including nearly all the chiefs of the High Council, with their wives and children. They, the bravest and most trouble-worn, seemed the most anxious of any to throw off the burden of heavy thoughts. Their leading off the dance in a double cotillion was the signal which bade the festivity to commence. To the canto of debonair violins, the cheer of horns, the jingle of sleigh bells and the jovial snoring of the tambourines, they did dance! None of your minuets or other mortuary possessions of gentles in etiquette, tight shoes and pinching gloves, but the spirited and scientific displays of our venerated and merry grandparents, who were not above following the fiddle to the lively fox-chase, French fours, Copenhagen jigs, Virginia reels, and the like forgotten figures, executed with the spirit of people too happy to be slow, or bashful, or constrained. Light hearts, lithe figures, and light feet had it their own way from an early hour till after the sun had dipped behind the sharp sky-line of the Omaha hills. Silence was then called, and a well-cultivated mezzo-soprano voice, belonging to a young lady with fair face and dark eyes, gave with quartette accompaniment, a little song, the notes of which I have been unsuccessful in repeated efforts to obtain since—a version of the text touching to all earthly wanderers: "By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept; We wept when we remembered Zion.

      "There was danger of some expression of feeling when the song was over, for it had begun to draw tears, but, breaking the quiet with his hard voice, an elder asked the blessing of heaven on all who, with purity of heart and brotherhood of spirit, had mingled in that society, and then all dispersed, hastening to cover from the falling dews."

      CHAPTER IV.

       THE MORMONS SETTLE ON INDIAN LANDS. A GRAND COUNCIL HELD BETWEEN THE ELDERS AND INDIAN CHIEFS. A COVENANT IS MADE BETWEEN THEM, AND LAND GRANTED BY THE INDIANS TO THEIR MORMON BROTHERS. CHARACTERISTIC SPEECHES OF FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS. WINTER QUARTERS ORGANIZED. THE JOURNEY OF THE PIONEERS TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

      

      With the departure of the Battalion, the flower of their strength, vanished all expectation of going to the Rocky Mountains that year, and the elders immediately set to work to locate and build their winter quarters. Ever exact to the organic genius of their community, their first business was to organize the High Council of a "Traveling Stake of Zion." This was done at Council Bluffs, July 21st, with Father Morley at the head of an incorporated council of twelve high priests.

      The Indians welcomed their " Mormon brothers" with a touch of dramatic pathos. "They would have been pleased," said Colonel Kane, "with any whites who would not cheat them, nor sell them whiskey, nor whip them for their poor gipsy habits, nor bear themselves indecently toward their women, many of whom among the Pottawatomies, especially those of nearly unmixed French descent, are singularly comely, and some of them educated. But all Indians have something like a sentiment of reverence for the insane, and admire those who sacrifice, without apparent motive, their worldly welfare to the triumph of an idea. They understand the meaning of what they call a great vow, and think it is the duty of the right-minded to lighten the votary's penance under it.

      To this feeling they united the sympathy of fellow sufferers for those who could talk to them of their own Illinois and tell the story how from it they also had been ruthlessly expelled.

      "Their hospitality was sincere, almost delicate. Fanny Le Clerc, the spoiled child of the great brave, Pied Riche, interpreter of the nation, would have the pale face, Miss Divine, learn duets with her to the guitar; and the daughter of substantial Joseph La Framboise, the interpreter of the United States (she died of the fever that summer) welcomed all the nicest young Mormon Kitties and Lizzies and Jennies and Susans, to a coffee feast at her father's house, which was probably the best cabin in the river village. They made the Mormons at home there and elsewhere. Upon all they formally gave them leave to tarry just so long as it suited their own good pleasure.

      "The affair, of course, furnished material for a solemn council. Under the auspices of an officer of the United States, their chiefs were summoned, in the form befitting great occasions, to meet in the dirty yard of one Mr. P. A. Sarpy's log trading house, at their village; they came in grand toilet, moving in their fantastic attire with so much aplomb and genteel measure, that the stranger found it difficult not to believe them high-born gentlemen attending a costumed ball.

      When the red men had indulged to satiety in tobacco smoke from their peace pipes, and in what they love still better, their peculiar metaphoric rodomontade, which, beginning with celestial bodies, and coursing downwards over the grandest sublunary objects, always managed to alight at last on their great Father Polk, and the tenderness of him for his affectionate colored children; all the solemn funny fellows present, who played the part of chiefs, signed formal articles of convention with their unpronounceable names.

      "The renowned chief, Pied Riche (he was surnamed Le Clerc on account of his remarkable scholarship) then rose and said: "' My Mormon Brethren: The Pottawatomie came sad and tired into this unhealthy Missouri bottom, not many years back, when he was taken from his beautiful country beyond the Mississippi, which had abundant game and timber, and clear water everywhere. Now you are driven away the same from your lodges and your lands there, and the graves of your people. So we have both suffered. We must keep one another and the Great Spirit will keep us both.

      You are now free to cut and use all the wood you may wish. You can make your improvements and live on any part of our actual land not occupied by us. Because one suffers and does not deserve it, it is no reason he should suffer always.

      I say, we may live to see all right yet. However, if we do not, our children will.

      Bonjour!'"

      And thus ended the pageant. But the Mormons had most to do with the Omaha Indians, for they located their camps on both the east and west sides of the Missouri River. Winter Quarters proper was on the west side, five miles above the Omaha of to-day. There, on a pretty plateau, overlooking the river, they built, in a few months, over seven hundred houses, neatly laid out with highways and by-ways, and fortified with breastwork, stockade, and block-houses. It had, too, its place of worship, "tabernacle of the congregation;" for in everything they did they kept up the character of the modern Israel. The industrial character of the people also typed itself on their city in the wilderness, which sprang up as by magic, for it could boast of large workshops, and mills and factories provided with water power. They styled it a "Stake of Zion." It was the principal stake, too; several others, such as Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah having already been established on the route.

      The settlement of headquarters brought the Mormons into peculiar relationship with the Omahas. A grand council was also held between their chiefs and the Elders. Big Elk made a characteristic speech for the occasion, yet not so distinguished in its Indian eloquence as that of Le Clerc. Big Elk said, in response to President Young: "My son, thou hast spoken well. I have all thou hast said in my heart. I have much I want to say. We are poor. When we go to hunt game in one place, we meet an enemy, and so in another place our enemies kill us. We do not kill them. I hope we will be friends. You may stay on these lands two years or more. Our young men may watch your cattle. We would be glad to have you trade with us. We will warn you of danger from other Indians."

      The council closed with an excellent

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