United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Van Buren replied in words that will not be forgotten, "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you." The peaceful conditions at first characteristic of their Illinois settlement were not to continue. The element of political influence asserted itself and the "Mormons" bade fair to soon hold the balance of power in local affairs.
They look for safety to their armed horsemen; the four and six horse stages look to the armed guard, the wayfarer must look to his horse and it should be a good one; the mountain rancher to his rifle, the cattle thief to the moonless night, the bandit to his wits, the gunman to his holster: these include practically all of the people that travel the Spanish Sinks, except the Morgans and the Mormons.
"Mormons" were not allowed to sit on juries or have anything to do with the courts, so it was an easy matter to convict all "Mormons" who came to trial. Arrests now followed fast, and it was indeed a sad time for many of the Saints. Officers, called deputy marshals, were sent into all the settlements of the Saints to spy out and arrest those supposed to be guilty.
A posse of cowboys trailed him. But he slipped them. He's a fox. You know he was trailing us here. He left the trail, Nas Ta Bega said. I learned at Stonebridge that Shadd is well disposed toward Mormons. It takes the Mormons to handle Indians. Shadd knows of this village and that's why he shunted off our trail. But he might hang down in the pass and wait for us.
Nay, is not the history of your own Mormons, and their exodus into the far West, one of the most startling instances which the world has seen for several centuries, of the unexpected and incalculable forces which lie hid in man? Believe me, man's passions, heated to igniting point, rather than his prudence cooled down to freezing point, are the normal causes of all great human movement.
By their strict subordination they entitled themselves to the respect of the country as well as to the gratitude of the Mormons. I don't know whether our literary or professional people are more amiable than they are in other places, but certainly quarrelling is out of fashion among them. This could never be, if they were in the habit of secret anonymous puffing of each other.
Before the Mormons gathered there, the place was named Commerce, as I have already said, and was but a small and obscure village of some twenty houses; so rapidly, however, have they accumulated, that there are now, within four years of their first settlement, upwards of fifteen thousand inhabitants in the city, and as many more in its immediate vicinity.
The hegira of the Mormons to the sequestered basin of the Great Salt Lake also swelled the stream, and was followed soon after by the establishment of the overland stage, the pony express, and the building of the Union Pacific Railroad.
An' not a dog. Ain't that funny!" "And that explains it," Smoke whispered back excitedly. "It's the Laura Sibley outfit. Don't you remember? Came up the Yukon last fall on the Port Townsend Number Six. Went right by Dawson without stopping. The steamer must have landed them at the mouth of the creek." "Sure. I remember. They was Mormons." "No vegetarians." Smoke grinned in the darkness.
By this he required all the forces in the Territory to "hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice to repel any and all such invasion," and established martial law from its date throughout the Territory. These proved to be no idle threats. Forts Bridger and Supply were vacated and burnt down by the Mormons to deprive our troops of a shelter after their long and fatiguing march.
Word Of The Day