Ocean to Ocean on Horseback Part 32

Mormonism has lately spread into the State of Nevada, and into Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Arizona.

The sect was founded by Joseph Smith at Manchester, New York, in 1830.

Smith was born December 23, 1805, at Sharon, Vermont. When only fifteen years old he began to have alleged visions, in one of which, he a.s.serts, the angel Moroni appeared to him three times and told him that the Bible of the Western Continent--a supplement to the New Testament--was buried in a certain spot near Manchester. Four years after this event he visited the spot indicated by the angel, and a.s.serts that he had delivered into his charge by another angel a stone box, in which was a volume, six inches thick, made of thin gold plates, eight inches long by seven broad, and fastened together by three gold rings. The plates were said to be covered with small writing in the Egyptian character, and were accompanied by a pair of supernatural spectacles, consisting of two crystals set in a silver bow and called "Urim and Thummim." By aid of these the mystic characters could be read. Joseph Smith, being himself unable to read or write fluently, employed an amanuensis to whom he dictated a translation, which was afterward, in 1830, printed and published under the t.i.tle of the "Book of Mormon." The book professes to give the history of America from its first settlement by a colony of refugees from the crowd dispersed by the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. These settlers having in the course of time destroyed one another, nothing of importance occurred until 600 B. C., when Lehi, his wife and four sons, with ten friends, all from Jerusalem, landed on the coast of Chili, and from that period, according to the Mormon theory, America became gradually peopled.

OGDEN.

Having heard much of the city of Ogden in Northern Utah--of its peculiar origin and rapid progress--I resolved to rest there for a day or two before proceeding to Corinne and other points in my route toward the Sierras.

The pretty city of Ogden has had one of the wildest and most thrilling of birthplaces.

To-day it reminds the stranger of one of the peaceful little cities of old Ma.s.sachusetts, nestled among the Berkshire Hills, wide of street, stately of architecture, redolent of comfort and refinement.

But in reality Ogden is the child of Utah. Mines of precious metals are its neighbors. It has been the scene of daring explorations, of Indian raids, and of many murders and ma.s.sacres. Its original inhabitants were fanatics, so enthused with, so overwhelmed by their tenets, as to believe themselves of all the world the favorites of the Almighty, the only original handful of His saints, the small remnant of the human family to which constant revelations from Heaven were vouchsafed.

Upheld by this fanaticism, drawn with it as by a magnet from all over the United States, from Canada, from the countries of Europe, proselytes came to join the Mormons. They journeyed by mule trains over the Plains, or they walked perhaps, pushing their all in hand-carts before them.

They encountered persecution, suffering, and even death, undaunted. Some of them, on their perilous journey to the Promised Land, subsisted on roots. Some boiled the skins of their buffalo robes and ate them. Some pushed their little carts on the last day of their lives and then laid down to freeze before the land of their desire was in sight. Graves or skeletons frequently marked their route of march, but still they came, and having come they prospered.

Their farms throve; their boundaries increased; their settlements became many.

With foolhardiness, but also with desperation, with dauntless effrontery, with infinite pluck, they defied the United States and her army, using the tiny handful of Mormon soldiery in a way that makes one's mind run back to the story of Thermopylae.

Such was the blood that settled Ogden.

It was such inhabitants that Brigham Young, in 1850, advised to "put up good dwellings, open good schools, erect a meeting-house, cultivate gardens, and pay especial care to fruit raising," so that Ogden might become a permanent settlement and the headquarters for the Mormons in the northern portion of the Territory.

So well was his advice carried out that in 1851 the city was "made a stake of Zion," divided into wards, and incorporated by act of legislature.

From the very first, everything connected with the city seemed to have a spice and dash about it.

Away back in 1540, Father Juan de Padilla and his patron, Pedro de Tobar, went on an exploring expedition. On his return the priest spoke of a large and interesting river he had found in that "Great Unknown,"

the Northwest.

The account so fired the hearts of his brother Spaniards that Captain Garcia Lopaz de Cardenas was sent to explore further into that wonderland. He returned telling of immense gulches, of rocky battlements, and of mountains surrounding a great body of water. Many believe that in that far distant time, about the time that Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, before Raleigh had done himself the honor of his discoveries and settlements in Virginia, Signor Cardenas was simply taking a little vacation trip through Utah.

But however fabulous that may be, we know of a surety that on July 29, 1776, two Franciscan friars set out from Santa Fe to find a direct route to the Pacific Ocean. In their wanderings they strayed far to the north, where they came across many representatives of the Utes, who proved to be a loving, faithful, hospitable people. From their lips the Spaniards heard the first description ever listened to by white men of the region of country containing the present site of Ogden. "The lake," the Utes said, "occupies many leagues. Its waters are injurious and extremely salt. He that wets any part of his body in this water immediately feels an itching in the wet parts. In the circuit of this lake live a numerous and quiet nation called Puaguampe. They feed on herbs, and drink from various fountains or springs of good water which are about the lake, and they have their little houses of gra.s.s and earth, which latter forms the roof."

So the Great Salt Lake makes its entrance into comparatively modern American history.

In 1825, Peter Skeen Ogden, accompanied by his party of Hudson Bay Company trappers, pursued his brilliant adventures, and left behind a record which induced the naming of the city after him.

In 1841, the country around the spot where the city now lies was held, on a Spanish grant, by Miles M. Goodyear, who built a fort and a few log-houses near the confluence of the Weber and Ogden rivers.

On June 6, 1848, a man named James Brown came from California with his pockets stuffed with gold dust; nearly five thousand dollars' worth of the precious thing had he. With part of it he bought this tract of land from Goodyear. It proved to be a most fertile spot. Brethren came to it from Salt Lake City. Gentiles came from everywhere. The settlement grew and prospered.

In 1849, people began to talk of locating a city right there at the junction of the two rivers.

In 1850, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and others, laid out the settlement and called it Ogden, after Peter Skeen Ogden, the explorer, long since dead, but whose dashing, daring, brilliant adventures were still charming to the men of that wild land. Every time the city's name is mentioned it is another proof that although,

"The man might die, his memory lives."

Before a year was over a school house was built in the city.

Then came that un-American sight, a wall of protection built around a city. It cost $40,000, which amount was raised by taxation.

About this time several suburban settlements were formed, but bears, wolves, and Indians soon drove the venturesome suburbanites within city limits.

Just then a party of immigrants encamping on the Malade River shot two Indian women. By way of reprisal the savages killed a pioneer named Campbell who was building a saw-mill near Ogden, and threatened to ma.s.sacre the entire population of the town. Matters began to look serious, and the commander of the Nauvoo Legion gave the Indians chase, and so overwhelmed them that they at once retreated, taking with them no captives more important than many horses and cattle belonging to the white settlers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHEEP RANCHE IN WYOMING.]

October 23, 1851, the first munic.i.p.al election was held in Ogden.

1852 found one hundred families living within city boundaries.

In 1854, a memorial was addressed to Congress, by the territorial legislature, urging the construction of an overland railroad. But it was May, 1868, before a contract was made between Brigham Young and the superintendent of construction of the Union Pacific Railroad for grading between Echo Canyon and the terminus of the line. At Weber Canyon there was blasting, tunnelling, and heavy stone work for bridges to be done.

This work earned 1,000,000 or perhaps 1,250,000 dollars' worth of wages.

The labor was splendidly done, but the remuneration came slowly.

Finally, however, the Union Pacific Railroad turned over 600,000 dollars' worth of rolling stock, and other property to the Mormons. On May 17, 1869, ground was broken for a railroad between Salt Lake City and Ogden. So the city grew and flourished.

Ogden has an elevation of 4,340 feet. The ground plan of the city is s.p.a.cious, the drainage good, the climate exceedingly healthy.

About the time I rode through, the population numbered 6,000 souls. The city contained one of the finest schools in Utah, a hotel which ranked among the best in the Union, a daily paper, a theatre, three banks, numerous Gentile churches, a 16,000 dollar bridge across the Weber, a reservoir, and a Court House, which was such an architectural beauty that all Utah may well be proud of it.

So Ogden came through narrow ways to broad ways! So she

"Climbed the ladder, round by round!"

She has won the respect and admiration of all who have watched her. May her industry never fail, her enthusiasm never lessen, her pluck remain indomitable, and may good fortune perch forever on her banners!

CHAPTER XXVIII

OVER THE SIERRAS.

Sierra is the Spanish word for 'saw' and also for 'mountain,' referring to the notched outline of the mountains as seen against the sky.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MINING CAMP IN NEVADA.]

My main object now was to push on to Sacramento. At Kelton, in Utah, where I remained only a few hours, I was still seven hundred and ninety miles from my destination. Stock is extensively grazed here and cattle shipped to the Pacific coast in very large numbers. Leaving Kelton, I rode thirty-three miles to Terrace, a small settlement in the midst of a desert; thence to Wells in the adjoining State of Nevada.

Nevada belongs to the "Great Basin," a table-land elevated 4,500 feet above the sea. It is traversed, with great uniformity, by parallel mountain ranges, rising from 1,000 to 8,000 feet high, running north and south. Long, narrow valleys, or canyons, lie between them. The Sierra Nevada, in some places 13,000 feet in height, extends along the western boundary of the State. The only navigable river is the Colorado, but there are several other streams rising in the mountains and emptying into lakes which have no visible outlet. Lake Tahoe is twenty-one miles long, ten miles wide and fifteen hundred feet deep. Although it is elevated 6,000 feet above the sea level, the water of this lake never freezes and has a mean temperature of 57 for the year. Nevada has its hot springs, some of which have a temperature of two hundred degrees.

A heavy growth of timber, particularly of pine, fir, and spruce, covers the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, many of the trees attaining enormous size. There are numerous alkaline flats, and extensive sand plains, where nothing grows. The first discovery of silver ore was made on the Comstock lode in 1859, from which more than $100,000,000 have been taken. This has been the most valuable silver-bearing lode ever discovered in the world, exceeding in wealth the mines of Peru and Mexico. It is now exhausted and yields only low-grade ores.

Wells, my first resting-point in the Sierras, stands at an elevation of over 5,600 feet, and had a population of less than 300. Farming and stock raising are its princ.i.p.al industries. Formerly it was a watering and resting-place for old emigrant travel, where pure water was obtained--a luxury after crossing the Great Desert; and an abundance of gra.s.s for the weary animals. Some of the wells here are 1,700 feet deep.