THE YEARS 1864-65.

Some Enjoyments.—He Visits a Condemned Man in Prison.—Troubles Made by Gibson on Hawaiian Islands.—Lorenzo Snow's Escape from Watery Grave.—Visit to Bear Lake Valley.—Remark of President Young in Logan.—Ordination to Apostleship of Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, and Franklin D. Richards.—Hot Springs at Midway.—Second Inauguration of President Lincoln.—Treaty with Indians.—Colfax Visits Utah.—Jane Blackhurst.

The journal of Wilford Woodruff for the year 1864 opens with the following statement: "I have lived to see fifty-six new years, and I have kept a daily journal of my life for the last thirty-five years. In some measure it is also a life of others. I have written many sermons and teachings of the Prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and sermons of apostles and elders of the Church. I have watched the signs of the times for many years and noted the fulfillment of prophecy." The new year, as usual, awakened within him a prophetic spirit. The future was of great importance in his expectations of the fulfillment of God's purposes. The fulfillment of prophecy was so certain to his mind that he dwelt upon it as if he were discussing events of the past.

He celebrated his New Year's day by visiting his wives and children at their homes and by taking them for a sleigh ride. In those early days the snow lay longer upon the ground than in recent years. The jingle of the sleigh bell made the hearts of the people glad.

Elder Woodruff was a many-sided man. While he was possessed of the acutest spiritual nature, he assumed temporal responsibilities with peculiar satisfaction, and loved to work on the farm. He was, perhaps, the highest type of those requirements laid down by Alma and Amulek relative to the spiritual and temporal responsibilities of a servant of God. His writings show that he did not place the highest value upon the man who was fitted for only one class of labor, as preaching or professional work. Early in January he took up again his legislative work; and when not occupied there, officiated in his ministerial calling. On the 9th of the month he records the fact that he dedicated the new meeting-house in Farmington.

If he was interested in the welfare of the Saints, he was no less concerned about the condition of the sinner. He says that on the 11th and 12th he paid visits to Jason Luce, who was in prison sentenced to death for murder. Luce was one of the notorious gang in those days, led by Hickman, a man who preyed upon his fellow-man and who was guilty of some of the most atrocious crimes, which he undertook to lay at the feet of the leaders. Elder Woodruff recorded his conversation with Luce, who is quoted as saying that he had never killed any person or had a hand in the death of any one except Rhodes and Burting. He had killed them in self-defense. He said that William Hickman had advised him to do many things that made his flesh crawl, but that he had not followed Hickman's advice in these things. He felt that Hickman had betrayed him and done him a great injury. Luce said that Hickman had been his ruin and the ruin of others, and that in all these things Hickman had carried his point by declaring that President Young had given him counsel to do them. This statement Elder Woodruff characterized in his journal as "a cursed lie."

"Luce asked me to pray with him that he might have strength to go to his execution and pay the penalty of his crimes. I prayed with him according to his request, and then bade him good-bye as did others who were with him." There was no request in that prayer that Luce be taken to the bosom of Jesus. There was no promise of a glorious exaltation for him. He had committed a crime, he had to pay the penalty, and Elder Woodruff left him to God's mercy as he felt merciful toward him.

The interest of Apostle Woodruff in Jason Luce arose in part from the fact that he belonged to a family with whom Elder Woodruff had long been acquainted and with whom he had labored; but Jason had fallen into bad company and became one of a gang of thieves, and disregarding counsel, went finally the way of the wicked.

From the drift of affairs at home, the attention of the authorities was called to the condition of the Church in foreign lands, especially on the Hawaiian Islands. There, Walter M. Gibson, a missionary, had organized a church of his own and for some time had wielded a wonderful influence over the natives. Elders Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith were sent to the Islands to put in order the Church there and to restore the natives to their proper relation with the authorities in Salt Lake City. Gibson was promptly excommunicated and went the way of all adventurers and deceivers whose motives are the accumulation of wealth and the honors of men. It was on this visit to the Islands that Elder Lorenzo Snow was actually drowned. The boat in which he attempted to land was capsized. President Snow was rescued by a native, but to all appearances was dead. It was some time before he showed any signs of life.

On the 4th of April following, Elder Woodruff records the fact that he was chosen a member of the grand jury. The work was somewhat new to him, but he soon adjusted himself to his duties and gave it his special attention. From the grand jury room he went to the Historian's Office, then to his conferences, and mingled religious and secular duties in such a manner as to show the responsibility that he felt himself under to do the very best he could in every calling of life.

On the 16th of the following May, he joined President Young's party on a visit to the northern settlements, especially to those in Bear Lake Valley, whither Charles C. Rich had gone to preside. When the party arrived at Franklin, they had to cross the mountains. "We left Franklin at six o'clock and traveled the first twenty miles in a severe rain storm. The country was hilly and the road very crooked. On our arrival at the summit, the animals were nearly exhausted. We found the way wet and muddy. After proceeding about a mile we entered a mud hole six miles long, the worst I ever saw in my life. I could not compare it with anything better than by taking all the mud holes I ever saw in my life and place them in a line. What made it worse than Illinois or Indiana mud holes was that they were nothing but mud while this was full of tree stumps and brush. Both the horses and mules struggled fearfully, belly deep, in the mud to make headway. Occasionally a pair of horses or mules would fall and be buried all over except their heads. Men would go and pry out the animals and pull the vehicles out with ropes and then make another start. Some carriages were broken. In this way we wallowed through the mud until eight o'clock in the evening. We later continued our journey to Bear Lake and reached Paris at 3 o'clock in the morning of the 20th of May. The distance was about twenty miles."

Speaking of Bear Lake he says: "We found this to be a large valley. The soil is good and the water is sufficient to irrigate it all and there is abundant timber. It is a great stock range and the lake is the finest in Utah. It is about thirty miles long and ten miles wide through the middle. It is said that in many places a line two hundred feet long fails to reach the bottom."

Elder Woodruff was a fisher, and of course tells the story of the trout in that region: "Great numbers of trout ran in the streams from the lake. They ranged some of them from ten to twelve pounds in size. The boatmen sometimes killed them with clubs and sometimes caught them with nets."

On the return home, he said: "An accident occurred which came near costing Geo. A. Smith his life. A man by the name of Merrill put a loaded rifle in the carriage. The gun rested on the seat by Brother George A. While he was thus riding, the wheel struck a rock. Brother Smith threw his body on the upper side of the carriage to balance it, and at that instant the gun went off. The ball went through the buffalo-robe by him, passed by his side and went through the wagon behind him. It was a providential escape from death."

"On May the 24th we drove to Logan where President Young spoke on the doctrine of the plurality of wives. He said that there were but few elders in the Church that would receive the exaltation they were looking for in that order. It would be given to many more women than men. There are but few men that enter into that law that keep it."

On date of June 5th Elder Woodruff makes record in his journal of the drowning of Matthias Cowley. Elder Cowley was a nephew by marriage to Apostle Woodruff, and had come from the Isle of Man to Nauvoo when thirteen years of age. Later he emigrated with his parents to Salt Lake Valley. Elder Woodruff secured a number of men and a boat and went in search of the body, which, however, was not recovered until a week later.

Early in July Elder Woodruff accompanied President Young on a trip to Provo, where they preached under the bowery to a congregation of some three thousand persons. While there, Elder Woodruff records that a messenger came from Salt Lake stating that the Governor had placed a provost guard in the Church storehouse opposite the Temple Block. The Governor intended to put the city under martial law. A guard of one hundred men accompanied the President and party home. They found his home guarded by two hundred and fifty men.

This annoyance created a good deal of agitation among the Saints, and Elder Woodruff says that on the 12th of July he spent most of the day getting singers to the petition to remove the soldiers to the outside of the inhabited portions of the city. The leaders had learned during their early experience that one of the means that the enemy had used to drive out the Saints was to create some sort of a conflict by aggravating the leaders. It was hoped that some kind of retaliation would be resorted to that would bring them into conflict with the civil authorities. It was so easy to style such a conflict a rebellion. The next step, of course, would be martial law. The Saints and leaders, however, were on their guard constantly, and took every precaution to keep down disturbances.

It would not be possible in a biography of this character to follow Elder Woodruff in his travels to the various counties throughout the Church. Towns were multiplying rapidly. The Saints were coming into the Valleys by the thousands. The pioneer work of extending the borders of the Church was already beyond the personal supervision of the leaders. On his return from one of these visits he said that he had budded four hundred and nineteen peach trees in the old Fort block, where the pioneers had early located. On this block Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow and Franklin D. Richards were ordained apostles, on Feb. 12, 1849. The block is now owned by the city, and held as a park.

On the 18th of August a visit was made to Heber City. Elder Woodruff described the Hot Springs, located at Midway, and the peculiar formation around them. He said that about twenty of them were filled with water. In some instances the water was running over the top. Some were about fifteen feet in depth, and some apparently bottomless. On one they sank a weight one hundred and twenty-five feet and found no bottom. He spoke of the rattle-snake den, and the fact that between four and five hundred rattle-snakes had been killed in a single day. In the spring they appear on the outside and form into a bunch that would almost fill a bushel. They tie themselves together in knots with their heads sticking out in all directions for defense. The country around the craters is apparently hollow, as indicated by the sounds caused by the rumbling of wheels.

Soon after their return from Heber City, September the 1st, a tour of the southern part of the Territory was made, and extended as far as St. George and Santa Clara. These visits fired the hearts of the Saints and gave rise to an ambition to make the desert blossom as the rose. At Fillmore Elder Woodruff made a careful note of the splendid condition of the apple orchards. He also stated they held a party there that evening in the stake house, but President Young broke it up because of the confusion and disorder in the house.

On their return from the south, Elder Woodruff made record of the following: "While on the road from Washington to Harrisburg, we stopped on the edge of a high precipice which presents very interesting scenery of the valley below. While standing there, Brother Eddings wished me to help him lift up a flat stone that he wanted to throw off from the top to the depth below. As I took hold of it. I caught a scorpion between my fingers. The sting gave a shock to my whole system. It was a small scorpion and I mashed it to pieces in lifting the stone. This sting alarmed me somewhat, as the sting of the scorpion is considered very dangerous and some have even lost their lives by it. I soon got some tobacco and bound it on my finger. This seemed to take the poison out, and I received no material injury from the bite." Elder Woodruff, however, felt the blessings of the Lord in his escape from poison and found a parallel in the life of Paul, who, while on the island of Malta, shook from his hand a scorpion whose bite did him no harm.

The October Conference followed their return. It was largely attended and characterized by the interest the people had in those semi-annual gatherings. It is remarkable that so many came together when we note the difficulties under which Salt Lake City was reached in those days.

Immediately after the conference, on October 10th, the survivors of Zion's Camp held a meeting. It was the first gathering of that body since their expedition to Missouri. Elder Woodruff recorded the fact that there were over fifty of the survivors out of the two hundred and five that belonged originally to Zion's Camp. In the evening they enjoyed themselves in a dancing party in the Social Hall. "It was the most interesting party I had ever attended." Bishop Hunter and his counselors provided for those veterans a good dinner and supper, a precedent since observed by President Joseph F. Smith. At this date, 1909, there remains but one survivor of Zion's Camp,—Nathan Tanner.

The harvest season was practically closed, yet the molasses mill was an important adjunct to the farm. Sugar was scarce and the price high. Molasses was a necessity, and one of the common articles of diet of the people. Elder Woodruff had erected a molasses mill, which was kept running not only by the cane that he raised on his own farm, but by the patronage of his neighbors. Almost every fall and winter, therefore, he had large quantities of molasses to sell. Bread, molasses, fruit, milk, and butter were the products of his own farm, and were the chief supply of his table. He raised his own mutton and beef, and his family made clothing from the wool of his sheep. He took a special pride in the fact that he lived by the labors of his own hands and was self-sustaining.

Elder Woodruff's journal of November 9th, that year, contained mentioned of his visit to Kays Ward, where he met a Sister Mary Phillips, the oldest person in Utah. In three weeks she would reach her ninety-first year. She had been baptized by Elder Woodruff in Herefordshire in 1840.

On his return home he encountered one of the old-time east winds which swept down through the canyon and mountains east of Farmington. It was so severe that the party had great difficulty in keeping their carriages from being upset. That night Elder Woodruff enjoyed the hospitality of Ezra Clark, an old-time bosom friend of Elder Woodruff. Here the roof of the house of Ezra Clark was blown off, also that of the Bountiful meeting-house. Hay stacks were torn down and scattered over the country. These winds in early days were so frequent and severe as to give the people in Farmington and vicinity grave apprehension. They were so destructive and so dreaded that President Young rebuked them in the name of the Lord and they immediately became less frequent. In late years these winds have occurred in some of their old-time severity.

The year 1865 bore witness of stirring events that had much to do in shaping the sentiments of the Latter-day Saints in political matters. Petty annoyances and officiousness on the part of federal officers gave the Saints cause for complaint. Between religious and civil opinions there had always existed, and perhaps will always exist, more or less jealousy over the question of influence. In those days there was no real collision in the matter of authority. The influence of President Young and leading men of the Church was so incomparably much greater than that exercised by judges and governors that there would naturally arise feelings of suspicion as well as of jealousy.

The Saints were anxious to avoid disputations and collisions, and yet they felt at times resentful when subjected to what they felt unnecessary indignities. They were loyal to the government, honored the officers of the law in their place; but they were also religious. With them, God had a part in the affairs of this nation, and they foresaw a divine purpose in what was going on among the nations of the earth. Their interpretation of events, even though they were loyal, were often misunderstood and just as often wilfully misconstrued.

In February, 1865, Elder Woodruff records the purchase for the Church of a large tract of land in Oahu on the Sandwich Islands. This purchase was brought about through the instrumentality of Francis A. Hammond.

November, the preceding year, had witnessed the re-election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. On March 4th he was to be inaugurated. This gave the Saints an opportunity to meet the officers and soldiers of the Fort in a friendly celebration. There was fraternal good will and the celebration did much to mitigate suspicion and illiberal feelings. At the conclusion of the celebration George A. Smith arose, and waving the stars and stripes said: "One country, an undivided country, the old flag forever!" The toast awakened enthusiasm, and it truthfully expressed the unanimous sentiment of the Latter-day Saints.

At the close of the services, Elder Woodruff and several other leading men repaired to the City Hall, where they took dinner with Colonel George and staff, Colonel George having succeeded General Connor in the command of Fort Douglas. Conditions in Utah now seemed improved. The war was over, and peace was to be the watchword of the nation. Why should the people of Utah not also have their share of that sacred boon?

The country, however, was aroused almost to a state of frenzy by the assassination of President Lincoln. The Territory mourned with the other territories and states of the Union. On April 16th Elder Woodruff preached the funeral sermon in honor of the martyred President in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City. In the afternoon of that day Franklin D. Richards and Geo. Q. Cannon also spoke upon the same subject. April 19th, however, they set apart as a day of general mourning throughout the land, and in Salt Lake City thousands assembled in the Tabernacle to take part in the services. They consisted of Mormons, Jews and Gentiles, civil and military authorities. The audience was addressed by Amasa Lyman and the Rev. Norman McLeod.

Between June 1st and 15th of that year, Elder Woodruff joined President Young's company on a visit through the settlements as far south as Payson. Near that town they visited the Indian camp, where they found Colonel Irish, who was persuading the Indians to enter into a treaty by which they might thereafter occupy a reservation in Uintah. Of that event Elder Woodruff said: "President Young and company drove to the Indian farm and held a meeting with the Indians. Colonel Irish, the agent, had called upon President Young to assist him in making a treaty which he could not bring about because of the opposition of the Indians to it. Mr. Irish made a speech and the Indian chiefs made speeches. They did not want to sell their lands and go away. President Young then made a talk to them, explained that it would be best for them to sign the treaty, and the advantages that would come to them from it. They finally said they would do as he said; but they wanted to think it over until the next day. When they met again, the chiefs came forward and signed the treaty, except one by the name of Sanpitch, who claimed to be the main chief. He lay in his tent on his face for about two days. He was on his dignity. The other chiefs paid no attention to him. After all was over, Sanitch came forward and wanted his presents and wanted to sign the treaty. However, he got some presents, but had to come to Salt Lake City to sign the treaty. Colonel Johns of the United States Army was present and Colonel Irish informed him that he could do nothing with the Indians except through the influence of President Young."

About this time Schuyler Colfax, Governor Bowles and others paid the Territory a visit. "We spent about two hours with them and had a free, social interview. They talked about a variety of subjects, among the rest gold digging. President Young showed Mr. Colfax how much better off those were who had stayed at home, cultivated the earth and made improvements than those who had gone to dig gold. Mr. Colfax thought that if we did not open the mines ourselves that others would. President Young said that, 'if they open mines in this territory, it will be against all the faith that I can exercise with my God; for the people have spent twenty dollars for every one they have obtained from the mines.'"

President Young felt that it was not wisdom to encourage the mining industry at that time when so much depended upon the colonization of the Territory, in the construction of canals, and in bringing the land under cultivation. Mr. Colfax and party visited the Salt Lake Theater and pronounced it, according to Elder Woodruff's journal, the best, with the exception of two, west of New York City.

While Mr. Colfax and party were here, Gov. Doty died. Great respect was shown throughout the Territory for the occasion. The Latter-day Saints, wishing to secure the appointment of some one who understood conditions here, and who would not act in a spirit of antagonism towards them, sent a petition to Washington, asking for the appointment of Colonel Irish. Their petition, however, was not granted.

The October conference of that year was well attended. President Daniel H. Wells had just returned from England, and gave an interesting address to the Saints.

On December 22nd the President and Twelve gathered as usual at the home of Sister Jane Blackhurst, whose devotion to her faith and humble, God-fearing life endeared her to all with whom she came in contact. Of her Elder Woodruff said: "In the history of the whole world I do not know of a woman occupying a position like that of Sister Jane Blackhurst. A woman once fed the Prophet Elisha in time of famine, and the Lord increased her cruse of oil and measure of meal. One or two women were last at the cross and earliest at the grave of Jesus. Sister Blackhurst has made a feast for the Presidency and the Twelve, annually, for the last fifteen years, although she is a poor, crippled woman." He then proceeded to bless her in an inspired manner.

Elder Woodruff closed his journal for 1865 by recognizing the hand of God in all that had befallen the people. In the midst of political turmoils of those times, and the enmities that existed against the Saints, he found reason to praise God, the giver of all good.