PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING NAUVOO—LABORS IN THE TEMPLE—ELDER TAYLOR'S SACRIFICE—JOURNEY THROUGH THE WILDERNESS—ARRIVAL AT COUNCIL BLUFFS—HELPS TO RAISE THE MORMON BATTALION—"WHO CANNOT TRUST THE UNITED STATES?"—RUMORS OF TROUBLE IN ENGLAND—CALLED TO A MISSION IN ENGLAND—THE DEPARTURE.

All through the winter of 1845-6 the Saints in Nauvoo were busy making their preparations for the contemplated exodus. Early dawn and the latest twilight saw them hurrying to and fro gathering together provisions, cattle, carriages, wagons, seeds, farming implements—everything that was likely to be of service to them in the new homes they were going to make somewhere in the wilderness. Nor did their labors end with the light of day. Often it happened that the dingy smithies were illuminated through the night by the blazing forge, and the stillness of midnight was broken by the merry ring of anvils, while others sat in council devising the best methods of traveling and organizing into companies those whose arrangements were nearing completion.

Meantime the temple had been so far completed that endowments could be given to the faithful; and in this work Elder Taylor with others of his quorum was employed during that eventful winter. He also continued to publish the Times and Seasons up to the time of his departure for the wilderness. The Neighbor was discontinued shortly after the Quincy Committee requested the Saints to leave the state.

While making every effort to fill his part of the agreement with said committee to leave the state in the spring, he was continually harassed by his enemies seeking to arrest him on illegal writs. The whole community, in fact, was frequently threatened with mob violence. Their enemies were as impatient for Nauvoo to fall into their hands as hungry tigers are for their prey. The wheels of time moved altogether too slowly for them. They sought to make the people of other counties believe that the Mormons had no intention of leaving in the spring, and therefore to wait for spring to come before driving them out was only a waste of time, for to that issue it would come at last. Their ingenuity exhausted itself in concocting schemes to justify an invasion of Nauvoo. Finally, that all doubts as to the settled intention of the Saints to leave the United States might be put at rest, a large company, four hundred families all told, including nearly all the leaders of the Church and their families, left Nauvoo on the 11th of February, crossing the Mississippi on the ice. The exodus was not commenced so early, and at such an inclement season of the year because there was anything in the treaty the Saints had entered into that demanded it, but the movement was made to give proof that it was their intention to leave, and to take away from the mob all excuse for violence or bloodshed.

Elder Taylor and his family crossed the river on the 16th of February, and joined the Camp of Israel in the wilderness of the Territory of Iowa. For his own family and those who had lived with him in Nauvoo, he had eight wagons and a carriage, with the necessary force of teams. Snow was on the ground when he left Nauvoo, and shortly after crossing the river a thaw set in, which made travelling difficult. An encampment was made at a place where wood was plentiful, and there the exiles made themselves as comfortable as possible, until traveling should become less disagreeable.

There they lay, exposed to the inclement season, while only a short distance away—almost in view—were their comfortable houses, their beautiful city and magnificent temple! These homes which they had left, and that city were still theirs, for so hurried had been their departure that they had no time to dispose of property.

Elder Taylor had left a large, two-story brick house well furnished, with a brick store on one side and a new brick building that he had erected for a printing office on the other, and a large barn in the rear. This lot and the buildings were worth $10,000. In addition to this property, a short distance east of Nauvoo he had a farm of 106 acres of unimproved land, another of 80 acres, 40 of which was under cultivation and the remaining 40 timber. He also had a corner lot 101 x 85 feet on Main and Water street, opposite the Nauvoo Mansion. All this—to say nothing of breaking up his printing and book-binding establishment—he had been compelled to leave with but small hope of ever receiving anything for it; while he himself was driven forth an exile to wander, perhaps to perish, in the wilderness, a victim of religious intolerance.

This was in an age of boasted enlightenment—in the 19th century! In the great American Republic—the vaunted asylum of the oppressed!

To facilitate travel and for the better regulation of the people, the exiles were divided into companies of from seventy to a hundred wagons; but these companies followed each other so closely that they formed an almost unbroken procession across the Territory of Iowa.

To tell in detail the story of that journey from Nauvoo to Council Bluffs—how the Saints struggled on through trackless prairies converted into vast bogs by the spring thaws and rain and sleet which seemed to fall continuously; how the bleak winds from the pitiless northwest were more cruel than the sharpest frosts; how the young and strong left the main companies to go into Missouri and districts in Iowa remote from their line of march to exchange household furniture for corn or flour; how those who had merely enough provisions for themselves—no one had a surplus—divided with those who had none; how heroically they struggled against weakness and disease brought on through exposure; how they laid away their dead in nameless graves—to tell all this would fill a volume of itself, and belongs rather to a history of the whole people than to this biography.

RESIDENCE OF JOHN TAYLOR, NAUVOO, ILL., 1846

The 5th of June found Elder Taylor with his company at Mount Pisgah, in Iowa, about one hundred and sixty miles from Nauvoo, where the companies under Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball had encamped and were putting in crops for those who would come on later to harvest.

From Mount Pisgah to the "Bluffs" he met numerous squads of Pottawattomie Indians, all of whom he treated kindly, and generally distributed tobacco among them, a thing with which they were highly pleased. These Indians had been removed from their lands east of the Mississippi some years before, and were themselves exiles. Perhaps it was that fact which led them to treat kindly the exiled Saints. At any rate they gave them permission to pass through their reservation, and finally permitted them to settle for a time upon their lands and use what timber they needed to build temporary abodes.

Elder Taylor brought his company up to the main encampment^[1] at Council Bluffs on the 17th of June. Soon afterwards he was busily engaged with his brethren in raising a company of pioneers to go to the Rocky Mountains in advance of the main body of the people. He was going as one of this company and began putting his wagons in order.

It was in the midst of these preparations that Captain Allen of the United States army came to the encampment and called upon the Saints in the name of the United States for five hundred volunteers to march to California. The strained relations which for some time had existed between the United States and Mexico had resulted in a declaration of war, and an actual beginning of hostilities in May. It was part of General Scott's plan of campaign for the "Army of the West" to rendezvous at Fort Leavenworth, invade New Mexico and co-operate with a fleet which was to sweep around Cape Horn and attack the enemy on the Pacific coast of his territory. It was to assist in carrying out this part of the campaign that the exiled Saints were called upon to furnish five hundred men.

In that moment of supreme trial the leaders of the Church did not permit the memory of their wrongs to outweigh their patriotism. They resolved to raise the number of men required. For this purpose meetings were called and the proposition of enlistment made to the brethren. It was not at first received with much enthusiasm by the people. Perhaps they could not forget that the general government had witnessed without protest their expatriation and expulsion from the confines of the United States. They also remembered that their repeated appeals for justice had been met with repeated and increasing indifference, and it required no small amount of persuasion at the first to induce men to enlist.

In this work of arousing the people to trust the government of the United States to deal justly by them, no one was more earnest than Elder Taylor. In a speech he made at a meeting held in George A. Smith's camp, he said:

"Many have felt something like rebelling against the government of the United States. I have myself felt swearing mad at the government for the treatment we have received at the hands of those in authority, although I don't know that I ever swore much. We have had cause to feel as we have, and any man having a spark of the love of liberty in him would have felt likewise. We are now something like Abraham was, wandering about we know not whither, but fleeing from a land of tyranny and oppression."

He then explained that it was the present intention to settle in some part of California, which at that time belonged to Mexico; but to go there they must have a legal pretext else they would be regarded as interlopers. As the United States was at war with Mexico, they had a right, according to the law of nations, to invade her territory; and if they enlisted in the service of the United States they would have a right to go there; and as the stipulations offered by the government provided as the stipulations offered by the government provided for their being disbanded in California, they would be at or near the place of their proposed destination, with a right to remain. There they would be the "old settlers," and bringing in some thirty thousand people, there was a prospect of obtaining a state or territorial government, where they could live in peace. Their children could boast, too, that their fathers had fought and bled for their country. "Although," he remarked, "I do not think you will have much fighting to do. Still, I do not say this to encourage cowards to go on this expedition.

"A great many seem to distrust the government," he continued, "and are afraid they will not be carried to California, but be sent to Texas or somewhere else. They will not be—they need not fear. Who cannot trust the United States? Her flag floats over every ocean, and her ministry are in every nation. I know it is a great journey for a man to undertake and leave his family; but Captain Allen says he will give absolute permission for the families to remain here. He has also obtained a writing from the Pottawatamie sub-agency, signed by the chiefs and braves to that effect, so that everything is straightforward."

He concluded by making a motion that a body of five hundred men be raised, and make Captain Allen Lieutenant-Colonel, a promotion he had been promised providing he raised the battalion. That motion was carried.

It was the 30th of June that Captain Allen arrived at Council Bluffs and asked for the battalion, and by the 16th of July the men were organized and placed under his command, ready to start for Fort Leavenworth.

About the time the battalion was made up, the men Elder Taylor had sent out form his company to trade for corn and flour and to swap horses for cattle returned without having met with any success. "I now found myself in the wilderness without the means of procuring the necessary provisions for a year and a half;" and then he adds, half reflectively, "Twelve months prior to this time, I had ten thousand dollars' worth of property at my disposal!"

The day following the return of his men, however, a brother named Stewart called upon him for counsel; and before leaving loaned him a sum of money sufficient to relieve him of his embarrassments, and we have him saying joyfully, "I felt thankful to the Lord that He had opened my way, as He always does in time of need."

Meantime from England reports of transgression, wild financial schemes, chicanery and fraud reached the authorities—reports which were confirmed by manifestations of the Spirit to President Young.

After the Twelve took the direction of the affairs of the Church, in August, 1844, they sent Wilford Woodruff to preside over the British Mission, a post he filled until called away to join the Saints in their exodus from the United States. On his departure Reuben Hedlock was appointed to preside over the mission with Thomas Ward and John Banks for counselors. Soon after the departure of Apostle Woodruff an agitation was set on foot to found what was called "The British and American Joint Stock Company." The ostensible purposes for which this company was organized were to engage in commercial enterprises with a view of enriching the Church, emigrating the poor Saints to America, shipping machinery, etc., and founding manufactures in the new gathering place in the wilderness, and to operate in building up the kingdom of God generally.

Announcing these as the objects to be accomplished, it was not difficult to induce the Saints to take stock in the concern, and hundreds of pounds were subscribed and paid to Hedlock and his coadjutors. Much of this means was squandered by Hedlock and his associates instead of being used for the purposes for which the company had been organized.

Upon hearing these reports Elder Taylor, in connection with Orson Hyde and Parley P. Pratt, was sent to England to correct these abuses and set in order all the affairs of the Church in that land. He left his family in the wilderness with the other exiled Saints, and with his companions took passage in an open flat boat that was passing down the Missouri River about the time they were ready to start. This boat was owned by a party of Presbyterian missionaries who had been laboring among the Pawnee Indians, and were now returning, with their families, to St. Joseph, Missouri.

At St. Joseph the brethren purchased the boat and continued their journey, rowing all day and tying up the boat and sleeping on shore at night. They reached Fort Leavenworth before the departure of the Battalion for the west and from those brethren—just then drawing their bounty of forty dollars each from the government—received some assistance to help them on their journey. The brethren of the Battalion were also desirous of sending some means to their families in the wilderness, and Parley P. Pratt was chosen to carry it to them. While he returned to the encampment of the Saints, Elder Taylor and Orson Hyde continued their journey to England, arriving in Liverpool on the 3rd of October.

Footnotes

1. The encampment is thus described by Thomas L. Kane, who visited it shortly after the arrival of Elder Taylor: "They were collected a little distance above the Pottawatamie Agency. The hills of the high prairie crowding in upon the river at this point and overhanging it, appear of an unusual and commanding elevation. They are called the 'Council Bluffs.' * * * To the south of them, a rich alluvial flat of considerable width follows down the Missouri some eight miles, to where it is lost from view by a turn, which forms the site of an Indian town of Point aux Poules. Across the river from this spot the hills recur again, but are skirted at their base by as much low ground as suffices for a landing. This landing, and the large flat or bottom on the east side of the river, were covered with covered carts and wagons; and each one of the Council Bluff hills opposite was crowded with its own great camp, gay with bright white canvas, and alive with the busy stir of swarming occupants. In the clear blue morning air the smoke streamed up from more than a thousand cooking fires. Countless roads and by-paths checkered all manner of geometric figures on the hill-sides. Herd boys were dozing upon the slopes; sheep and horses, cows and oxen were feeding round them, and other herds in the luxuriant meadows of the then swollen river. From a single point I counted four thousand head of cattle in view at one time. As I approached, it seemed to me the children there were to prove still more numerous."—Historical Address.