Unfortunately for the Mormons their leader was a man who made enemies as easily as he made friends. He had aroused much ill feeling when he lived in Missouri. As a result, when, one day in May, 1842, Governor Boggs of Missouri was shot and seriously wounded while sitting at the window of his home, many people laid the crime to Smith or his followers, and believed that the prophet himself, as Smith was called, had ordered the shooting. The officers of Missouri asked the governor of Illinois to hand Smith over to them. This was not done, and consequently ill feeling against the prophet grew stronger. In the meantime a man named John C. Bennett, who had joined the Mormons at Nauvoo, and had been the first mayor of the city, deserted the church, and turned into one of the most bitter of its enemies. He denounced the Mormons in letters he wrote to the newspapers, and exposed what he called their secrets. This led other people to attack the ideas of the Mormons, and it was not long before there was almost as much dislike of them in Illinois as there had been in Missouri.
Even in the Mormon church itself there were men who would not agree with all the prophet Joseph Smith said. A few of these men set up a printing-press and published a paper that they called the Nauvoo Expositor. Only one issue of this sheet appeared, dated June 7, 1844. That was enough, however, to raise the wrath of Joseph Smith and his elders, and they ordered the city marshal to destroy the press. The marshal broke the press and type in the main street of the city, and burned the contents of the newspaper office.
The editors hastily fled to the neighboring town of Carthage. The people there and in all the neighboring villages denounced the destruction of the press, and declared that the time had come to force the Mormons to obey the laws, and, if they would not do so, to drive them out of Illinois. Military companies were formed, cannon were sent for, and the governor of the state was asked to call out the militia.
The governor went to the scene of the trouble to investigate. He found all that part of the east shore of the Mississippi divided between the Mormons and their enemies. He ordered the mayor of Nauvoo to send Mormons to him to explain why they had destroyed the printing-press, and when he had heard their story the governor told them that Smith and his elders must surrender to him, or the whole military force of the state would be called out to capture them. But the prophet had not been idle. He had put his city under martial law, had formed what was called the Legion of the Mormons, and had called in his followers from the near-by villages. He had meant to defend his new city; but when he heard the governor's threat to arrest him, he left Nauvoo with a few comrades and started for the Rocky Mountains. Friends went after him, and begged him not to desert his people. He could not resist their appeal to him to return, and he went back, although he was afraid of the temper of his enemies. As soon as he returned to Illinois he was arrested on the charge of treason and of putting Nauvoo under martial law, and together with his brother Hyrum was sent to the jail at Carthage.
Some seventeen hundred men, members of the militia, had gathered at the towns of Carthage and Warsaw, and the enemies of the Mormons urged the governor to march at the head of these troops to Nauvoo. He knew that in the excited state of affairs there was danger that if these troops entered the city they might set it on fire and destroy much property. He therefore ordered all except three companies to disband; with one company he set out to visit the Mormon city, and the other two companies he left to guard the jail at Carthage.
The governor marched to Nauvoo, spoke to the citizens, and, having assured them that he meant no harm to their church, left about sundown on his road back to Carthage. In the meantime, however, events had been happening in the latter place that were to affect the whole history of the Mormons.
The two Smiths, Joseph and Hyrum, with two friends, Willard Richards and John Taylor, were sitting in a large room in the Carthage jail when a number of men, their faces blackened in disguise, came running up the stairway. The door of the room had no lock or bolt, and, as the men inside feared some attack, Hyrum Smith and Richards leaped to the door and shutting it stood with their shoulders against it. The men outside could not force the door open, and began to shoot through it. The two men at the door were driven back, and on the second volley of shot Hyrum Smith was killed. As his brother fell the prophet seized a six shooting revolver that one of their visitors had left on the table, and going to the door opened it a few inches. He snapped each barrel at the men on the stair; three barrels missed fire, but each of the three that exploded wounded a man. As the prophet fired Taylor and Richards stood close beside him, each armed with a hickory cane. When Joseph Smith stopped shooting the enemy fired another volley into the room. Taylor tried to strike down some of the guns that were leveled through the broken door.
"That's right, Brother Taylor, parry them off as well as you can!" cried Joseph Smith. He ran to the window, intending to leap out, but as he jumped two bullets fired through the doorway struck him, and also another aimed from outside the building. As soon as the mob saw that the prophet was killed they scattered, alarmed at what had been done.
The people of Carthage and the neighboring country expected that the Legion of the Mormons would immediately march on them and destroy them. Families fled in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. Most of the people of the near-by town of Warsaw crossed the Mississippi in order to put the river between them and their enemies. In this state of excitement the governor did not know which party to trust, so he rode to the town of Quincy, forty miles away, and at a safe distance from the scene of trouble. But the Mormons made no attempt to avenge the death of their leader; they intended to let the law look after that.
Week by week, however, it grew harder for them to live on friendly terms with the other people of Western Illinois, and more and more troubles arose to sow distrust. The Gentiles, as those who were not Mormons were called, began to charge the Mormons with stealing their horses and cattle, and the state repealed the charter that had been granted to the city of Nauvoo.
During that summer of 1845, the troubles of Nauvoo's people increased. One night in September a meeting of Gentiles at the town of Green Plains was fired on, and many laid the attack to the Mormons. Whether this was true or not, their enemies gathered in force and scoured the country, burning the houses, barns, and crops of the Latter-Day Saints, and driving them from the country behind the walls of Nauvoo. From their city streets the saints rode out to pay their enemies in kind, and so the warfare went on until the governor appointed officers to try to settle the feud. The people, however, wanted the matter settled in only one way. They insisted that the Mormons must leave Illinois. In reply word came from Nauvoo that the Saints would go in the spring, provided that they were not molested, and that the Gentiles would help them to sell or rent their houses and farms, and give them oxen, horses, wagons, dry-goods, and cash in exchange for their property. The Gentile neighbors would not promise to buy the goods the Mormons had for sale, but promised not to interfere with their selling whatever they could. At last the trouble seemed settled. Brigham Young, the new leader of the Mormons, said that the whole church would start for some place beyond the Rocky Mountains in the spring, if they could sell enough goods to make the journey there. So the people of Nauvoo prepared to abandon the buildings of their new flourishing city on the Mississippi, and spent the winter trading their houses for flour, sugar, seeds, tents, wagons, horses, cattle, and whatever else might be needed for the long trip across the plains.
The Mormons now looked forward eagerly to their march to a new home, and many of them traveled through the near-by states, buying horses and mules, and more went to the large towns in the neighborhood to work as laborers and so add to the funds for their journey. The leaders announced that a company of young men would start west in March, and choose a good situation for their new city. There they would build houses, and plant crops which should be ready when the rest of the Mormons arrived. But they knew there was always a chance that the people of the country would attack them, and therefore they sent messengers to the governors of the territories they would cross, asking for protection on the march. On February 10th Brigham Young and a few other men crossed the Mississippi and selected a spot on Sugar Creek as the first camp for the people who were to follow. Young and the twelve elders of the Mormons traveled together, and wherever their camp was pitched that place was given the name of "Camp of Israel."
The emigrants had a test of hardship even when they first moved across the Mississippi. The temperature dropped to twenty degrees below zero, and the canvas-covered wagons and tents were a poor shelter from the snow-storms for women and children who had been used to the comforts of a large town. Many crossed the Mississippi on ice. When they were gathered on Sugar Creek Brigham Young spoke to them from a wagon. He told them of the perils of the journey, and then called for a show of hands by those who were willing to start upon it; every hand was raised. On March 1st the camp was broken up, and the long western march began. The Mormons were divided into companies of fifty or sixty wagons, and every night the cattle were carefully rounded up and guards set to protect them from attack. From time to time they built more elaborate camps, and men were left in charge to plant grain, build log cabins, dig wells, and fence the farms, in order that they might give food and shelter to other Mormons who would be making the journey later. The weather was all against their progress. Until May it was bitter cold, and there were heavy snow-storms, constant rains, sleet, and thick mud to be fought with, but like many other bands of American pioneers the Mormons pushed resolutely on, some days marching one mile, some days six, until May 16th, when they reached a charming spot on a branch of the Grand River, and built a camp that they called "Mount Pisgah." Here they plowed and planted several acres of land. While this camp was being pitched, Brigham Young and some of the other leaders went on to Council Bluffs and at a place north of Omaha, now the town of Florence, located the last permanent camp of the expedition.
The trail of the Mormons now stretched across all the western country. At each of the camps men, women, and children were living, resting and preparing supplies to cover the next stage of their journey. But in spite of the care with which the march was planned those who left Nauvoo last suffered the most. There was a great deal of sickness among them, and owing to illness they were often forced to stop for several days at some unprotected point on the prairies. Twelve thousand people in all shared that Mormon march.
The Gentiles in Illinois did not think that the Mormons were leaving Nauvoo as rapidly as they should. Every week from two to five hundred Mormon teams crossed the ferry into Iowa, but the neighbors thought that many meant to stay. Ill feeling against them grew, and a meeting at Carthage called on people to arm and drive out all Mormons who remained by mid-June. Six hundred men armed, ready to march against Nauvoo.
When the Mormons first announced that they meant to leave their prosperous city in Illinois men came hurrying from other parts of the country to pick up bargains in houses and farms that they thought they would find there. Many of these new citizens were as much alarmed at the threats of the neighbors as were the Mormons themselves; some of them armed, and asked the governor to send them aid. The men at Carthage grew very much excited, and started to march on Nauvoo. Word came, however, that the sheriff, with five hundred men, had entered the city, prepared to defend it, and the Gentile army retreated. A few weeks afterward the hostilities broke out again, and seven hundred men with cannon took the road to the city.
Those of the Mormons who were left, a few hundreds in number, had built rude breastworks for protection; some of the Gentile army took these, and the rest marched through the corn fields, and entered the city on another side. A battle followed between the Gentiles in the streets and the Mormons in their houses, and lasted an hour before the Gentiles withdrew to their camp in the corn fields.
Peaceful citizens now tried to settle the matter. They arranged that all the Mormons should leave immediately, and promised to try to protect them from any further attacks. So matters stood until May 17th, when the sheriff and his men marched into the city, and found the last of the Mormons waiting to leave by the ferry. The next day they were told to go at once, and to make sure that they did bands of armed men went through the streets, broke into houses, threw what goods were left out of doors and windows, and actually threatened to shoot the people. The few remaining Saints, most of them those who had been too ill to take up the march earlier, were now thoroughly frightened, and before sundown the last one of them had fled across the Mississippi. A few days later this last party, six hundred and forty in number, began the long wearisome journey to the far west, and the empty city of Nauvoo was at last in the hands of the Gentiles.
The object of the Mormons was to find a place where they might be free to live according to their own beliefs. So far they had been continually hunting for what they called their own City of Zion. As they spent that winter of 1846-47 in their camp near Council Bluffs, they tried to decide where they would be safest from persecution. The far west had few settlements as yet, and they were free to take what land they would, but the Mormons wanted a site on which to lay the foundations of a city that should one day be rich and prosperous. They decided to send out a party of explorers, and in April, 1847, one hundred and forty-three men, under command of Brigham Young, with seventy-three wagons filled with food and farm tools, left the headquarters to go still farther west. They journeyed up the north fork of the Platte River, and in the valleys found great herds of buffaloes, so many in number that they had to drive them away before the wagons could pass. Each day the bugle woke the camp about five o'clock in the morning. At seven the journey began. The wagons were driven two abreast by men armed with muskets. They were always prepared for attacks from Indians, but in the whole of their long journey no red men ever disturbed them. Each night the wagons were drawn up in a half-circle on the river bank, and the cattle driven into this shelter. At nine the bugle sent them all to bed. So they made their way over the Uinta range to Emigration Canyon. Down this canyon they moved, and presently came to a terrace from which they saw wide plains, watered by broad rivers, and ahead a great lake filled with little islands. Three days later the company camped on the plain by the bank of one of the streams, and decided that this should be the site of their new city. They held a meeting at which they dedicated the land with religious ceremonies, and at once set to work to lay off fields and start plowing and planting. Some of them visited the lake, which they called the Great Salt Lake, and bathed in its buoyant waters. Day by day more of the pioneers arrived, and by the end of August they had chosen the site of their great temple, built log cabins and adobe huts, and christened the place the "City of the Great Salt Lake." This name was later changed to Salt Lake City.
It took some time for this large body of emigrants to build their homes. Wood was scarce and had to be hauled over bad roads by teams that were still worn out by the long march, therefore many built houses of adobe bricks, and as they did not know how to use this clay the rains and frost caused many of the walls to crumble, and when snow fell the people stretched cloths under their roofs to protect themselves from the dripping bricks. Many families lived for months in their wagons. They would take the top part from the wheels, and setting it on the ground, divide it into small bedrooms. The furniture was of the rudest sort; barrels or chests for tables and chairs, and bunks built into the side of the house for beds. But at last they were free from their enemies in this distant country. Men in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois had hounded them from their settlements, but in this far-off region they had no neighbors except a few pioneer settlers, and wandering bands of Indians, who were glad to trade with them. A steady stream of converts to the Mormon church followed that first trail across the plains. A missionary sent to England brought many men and women from that country to the city on the Great Salt Lake. Brigham Young and the other leaders encouraged their followers above all else to cultivate the land. Most of the Mormons were farmers, and what shops there were dealt only in the necessities of life. Food was a matter of the first importance, and they had to rely entirely upon their own efforts to provide it. Every one was given a piece of land for his house, and most of them had their own farms in the outlying country. When they were sure of their food they began to build their temple and other public buildings, and these, like their streets, were all planned on the lines of a great future city. They first called their territory Deseret, but later changed it to the Indian name of Utah.
Salt Lake City, and the territory of Utah, of which it was the chief settlement, might have remained for years almost unknown to the rest of the United States had not gold been discovered in California in the winter of 1849. The news of untold riches in the land that lay between Utah and the Pacific Ocean brought thousands of fortune hunters across the plains, and many of them traveled by way of Salt Lake City. That rush of men brought trade in its track and served to make the Mormons' capital well known. The quest for gold opened up the lands along the Pacific and helped to tie the far west to the rest of the nation. Soon railroads began to creep into the valleys beyond the Rocky Mountains, and wherever they have gone they have brought men closer together. But in Utah the Mormons were the first settlers, and no one could come and drive them out of their chosen land. At last they had found a city entirely of their own. They had not been allowed to live in Nauvoo, and so they built a new capital. Like all founders of new religions the Mormons had to weather many storms, but after they had passed through cold, hunger, and hardships of many kinds they came to their promised land.
Such is the story of the founding of Salt Lake City, the home of the Mormon people.
In 1848 California was largely an unexplored region, the home of certain old Spanish missions, with a few seaport towns scattered along the coast. Some pioneers from the East had settled inland after California had been separated from Mexico, and were ranching and farming. One of these pioneers, a well-to-do man named John A. Sutter, had staked out a considerable tract of land near the American River. He built a fort or stockade as headquarters, and made his plans to cultivate the tract. He had a number of men working for him, building a sawmill on the south branch of the American River, about forty miles from his main house. These workmen were in charge of James Wilson Marshall, who intended to have a dry channel serve as the tail-race for the mill, and was widening and deepening it by loosening the earth. At night the water of the stream was allowed to run through this channel, and wash out the gravel and sand. One day early in January, as Marshall was walking along the bank of the race, he noticed some shining yellow flakes in the soil. He thought these flakes might be gold, and gathering some of the earth carefully washed and screened it. In this way he obtained what looked like gold-dust. Early the next morning he went back to the race, and after some searching found a yellow scale larger than the others. He showed this, together with those he had obtained the day before, to some of the workmen, and they helped him to gather about three ounces. Later in the day Marshall went to his employer Sutter, who was at the fort, and there the two men tested the flakes as well as they were able, and reached the conclusion that they were really gold-dust.
It was important to keep the discovery as quiet as possible. Searching along the dry channel Sutter and Marshall found more of the gold flakes. In some places the yellow scales were very plentiful, and seemed to promise that large quantities of the valuable mineral could be found near at hand. It was impossible, however, to keep the news from the workmen who had helped in finding the flakes. Before long the news spread, and in March, 1848, two newspapers of California mentioned the discovery on the south fork of the American River.
The country was so sparsely settled, and life so primitive, that no great excitement was caused by this news for some months. But in May a Mormon, coming from the settlement of Coloma to San Francisco, walked down the main street waving a bottle filled with gold-dust and shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"
His words, and the sight of the glittering bottle, caused tremendous excitement in San Francisco, and in the twinkling of an eye men took possession of sailboats, sloops, launches, any kind of craft, and started up the Sacramento River. Those who could not get boats to take the quicker course hurried off on horses or mules, in wagons or on foot. It was like a fairy tale. The seaport town of San Francisco, which had been well filled, was practically deserted overnight. Shopkeepers closed their stores, families hurried from their houses, and every class of people pushed toward the American River. The roads that led thither, which had usually been almost as empty as the prairies, were now filled with a wildly rushing throng. A man who had crossed the Strait of Carquines in April was the only passenger on the ferry, but when he returned two weeks later he found two hundred wagons trying to drive on board the ferry-boat.
Business on the coast came to a standstill. The newspapers that had been started stopped publication. The churches closed, and all the town officers deserted their posts. As soon as a ship touched the coast and the crew heard of the finding of gold they deserted, and the captain and mates, seeing themselves without a crew, usually dashed after the others. Empty vessels lay at the docks. A large ship belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, which had put into San Francisco harbor, was in charge of the captain's wife, every one else having left for the gold fields. Prices in all the country from San Francisco to Los Angeles jumped prodigiously. If men were to stay at their work they demanded and received twice their former wages. Shovels and spades sold for ten dollars apiece. They, and a few other mining implements, were the only things still manufactured. The cry of gold had turned men's heads like the magic wand of some fairy.
Inland California presented a strange sight. The roads that ran from San Francisco to Sutter's Fort had formerly lain between prosperous farm lands, but now the crops were going to waste, the houses were empty, and the cattle free to wander through fields of grain. Along the American River, on the other hand, hills and valleys were filled with sheltering tents, and huts built of brush and rocks thrown together in a hurry. Men could not stop for comfort, but worked all day on the river bank. There were almost as many ways of searching for the gold as there were men. Some tried to wash the sand and gravel in pans; some used closely woven Indian baskets; some used what were called cradles. The cradle was a basket six or eight feet long, mounted on rockers, and open at one end; at the other end was a coarse screen sieve. Cleats were nailed across the bottom of the cradle. One workman would dig the gravel from the river bank, another carry it to the sieve, a third pour water over it, and a fourth rock the cradle The screen separated the stones from the gravel, the water washed away the earth and carried the heavier soil out of the cradle, thus leaving the black sand filled with the gold. This was later carried to a pan and dried in the sun. The sand could then be blown away, and the gold would be left.
Men knew that fortunes were to be found here. On a creek a few miles below Coloma, seventeen thousand dollars' worth of gold was taken from a ditch three hundred feet long, four wide, and two deep. Another small channel had yielded no less than twelve thousand dollars. Many men already had bags and bottles that held thousands of dollars' worth of the precious mineral. One man, who had been able to get fifty Indians to work for him as washers, obtained sixteen thousand dollars from a small creek in five weeks' time.
All this quickly changed the character of upper California. Every man wanted to be a miner, and no longer a cattleman or farmer, as before. It looked as though the towns would shrivel up, because of the tremendously high wages demanded by the men who were needed there. Cooks in San Francisco were paid three hundred dollars a month, and all kinds of mechanics secured wages of fifteen or twenty dollars a day. The forts found it impossible to keep soldiers on duty. As soon as men were paid off they rushed to the American River. Sailors deserted as fast as they could, and the American war-ships that came to anchor off Monterey did not dare to allow a single man to land. Threats of punishment or offers of reward had no influence over the sailors. They all felt certain they could make fortunes in a month at the gold fields.
Soon men began to wonder whether they could not duplicate in other places the discovery that Marshall had made on Sutter's land. Wherever there was a river or stream explorers began to dig. They were well rewarded. Rich placers of gold were found along the course of almost all the streams that flowed to the Feather and San Joaquin Rivers. Along the course of the Stanislaus and Toulumne Rivers was another field for mining. By midsummer of 1848 settlers in southern California were pouring north in thousands, and by October at least ten thousand men were washing and screening the soil of river banks.
The Pacific coast was very far away from the rest of the United States in that day. News usually traveled by ship, and sailors brought the report of the discovery of gold to Honolulu, to Oregon City, and to the ports at Victoria and Vancouver. Letters carried the first tidings to the people in the East, and by the middle of the summer Washington and New York had learned what was happening in California, and adventurers along the Atlantic coast were beginning to turn their faces westward. The letters often greatly exaggerated the truth. A New York paper printed reports which stated that men were picking gold out of the earth as easily as hogs could root up groundnuts in a forest. One man, who employed sixty Indians, was said to be making a dollar a minute. Small holes along the banks of streams were stated to yield many pounds of gold. But even allowing for much exaggeration it was evident that men were making fortunes in that country.
Colonel Mason, in charge at San Francisco, sent Lieutenant Loeser with his report to Washington. The lieutenant had to take a roundabout route. He went from Monterey to Peru, from there to Panama, across the Isthmus, took boat to Jamaica, and from there he sailed to New Orleans. When he reached the capital he delivered his message, and showed a small tea chest which held three thousand dollars' worth of gold in lumps and flakes. This chest was placed on exhibition, and served to convince those who saw it that California must possess more gold than any other country yet discovered. President Taylor announced the news in an official message. He said that the mineral had been found in such quantities as could hardly be believed, except on the word of government officers in the field. During the winter of 1848-49 thousands of men in the East planned to start for this El Dorado as soon as they could get their outfits together, and spring should open the roads.
The overland route to the West was long and very difficult. At that time, though the voyage by sea was longer, it was easier for men who lived on the Atlantic coast. They might sail around Cape Horn, or to the Isthmus of Panama, or to Vera Cruz, and in the two latter cases cross land, and hope to find some ship in the western ocean that would take them to San Francisco. Business men in the East seized the opportunity to advertise tents, beds, blankets, and all manner of camp equipment, as well as pans, rockers, and every kind of implement for washing gold from the gravel. The owners of ships of every description, many of them unseaworthy, fitted up their craft, and advertised them as ready to sail for San Francisco. The ports of Boston, Salem, Newburyport, New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans were crowded with brigs and schooners loading for the Pacific. A newspaper in New York stated that ten thousand people would leave for the gold country within a month.
All sorts of schemes were tried. Companies were formed, each member of which paid one hundred dollars or more to charter a ship to take them around the Horn. Almost every town in the East had its California Association, made up of adventurers who wanted to make their fortunes rapidly. By the end of January, 1849, eighty vessels had sailed by way of Cape Horn, and many others were heading for Vera Cruz, and for ports on the Isthmus of Panama. The newspapers went on printing fabulous stories of the discoveries. One had a letter stating that lumps of gold weighing a pound had been found in several places. Another printed a letter from a man who said he would return in a few months with a fortune of half a million dollars in gold. A miner was said to have arrived in Pittsburgh with eighty thousand dollars in gold-dust that he had gathered in a few weeks. Whenever men met they discussed eagerly the one absorbing topic of the fortunes waiting on the coast.
The adventurers who sailed around Cape Horn had in most cases the easiest voyages. There were plenty of veteran sea-captains ready to command the ships. A Boston merchant organized "The Mining and Trading Company," bought a full-rigged vessel, sold places in it to one hundred and fifty men, and sailed from Boston early in January, 1849. The first place at which she touched was Tierra del Fuego, and she reached Valparaiso late in April. There she found two ships from Baltimore, and in two days four more arrived from New York, and one from Boston. July 6th she entered the Golden Gate of San Francisco, and found it crowded with vessels from every port. The ships were all deserted, and within an hour all this ship's crew were on shore. The town itself was filled with bustle and noise. Gambling was practically the only business carried on, and the stores were jammed with men paying any price for outfits for the gold country. This company chose a place on the Mokelumne River, and hastened there, but they found it difficult to work on a company basis. The men soon scattered and drifted to other camps; some of them found gold, others in time made their way east poorer than when they came.
Those who went by the Isthmus had many adventures. Two hundred young men sailed to Vera Cruz, and landed at that quaint old Mexican city. There they were told that bands of robbers were prowling all through the country, that their horses would die of starvation in the mountains, and that they would probably be killed, or lose themselves on the wild trail. Fifty of them decided not to go farther, and sailed back in a homeward-bound ship to New York. Those who went on were attacked by a mob at the town of Jalapa, and had to fight their way through at the point of revolvers. In several wild passes bandits tried to hold them up, but the Easterners put them to flight and pushed on their way. All through the country they found relics and wreckage of the recent days when General Scott had marched an army into Mexico.
There was more trouble at Mexico City. A religious procession was passing along the plaza, and the Americans did not fall upon their knees. The crowd set upon them, and they had to form a square for their protection, and hold the mob at bay until Mexican officers came to their rescue. Only after fighting a path through other towns and a long march did they reach the seaport of San Blas. One hundred and twenty of them took ship from there to San Francisco. Thirty, however, had left the others at Mexico City, thinking they could reach the sea-coast more quickly by another route. The ship they caught could get no farther than San Diego. From there they had to march on foot across a blazing desert country. Their food gave out, and they lived on lizards, birds, rattlesnakes, and even buzzards, anything they could find. Worn and almost starving they reached San Francisco, ten months after they had left New York. Such adventures were common to the American Argonauts of 1849.
Those gold-seekers who went by the Isthmus of Panama had to stop at the little settlement of Chagres, where one hundred huts of bamboo stood on the ruins of the old Spanish fort of San Lorenzo. The natives, lazy and half-clad, gazed in astonishment at the scores of men from the eastern United States, who suddenly began to hurry through their town. Here the gold-hunters bargained for river boats, which were usually rude dugouts, with roofs made of palmetto branches and leaves, and rowed by natives. It was impossible with such rowers to make much speed against the strong current of the Chagres River. Three days were required to make the journey to Gorgona, where the travelers usually landed. At this place they had to bargain afresh for pack-mules to carry them the twenty-four miles that lay between Gorgona and Panama. Many men, who could not find any mules left in the town, deserted their baggage and started for the Pacific coast on foot. The chances were that no ship would be waiting for them there, and they would have to warm their heels in idleness for days.
General Persifor F. Smith, who had been ordered to take command of the United States troops at San Francisco, was one of those who had to wait for a ship at Panama. Here he heard reports that a good deal of the new-found gold was being sent to foreign countries. Some said that the British Consul had forwarded fifteen thousand ounces of California gold to England, and that more than nine million francs' worth of the mineral had been received in the South American ports of Lima and Valparaiso. As a result hundreds of men from those ports were taking ship to California. General Smith did not like the idea of foreigners profiting by the discovery of gold in California, and issued an order that only citizens of the United States should be allowed to enter the public lands where the diggings were located. When the California, a steamship from New York, reached Panama in January, 1849, with seventy-five Peruvians on board, General Smith warned them that they would not be allowed to go to the mines, and sent word of this order to consuls along the Pacific coast of South America. In spite of his efforts, however, foreigners would go to Upper California, and the American prospectors were too busy with their own searches to prevent the strangers from taking what gold they could find.
When the California arrived at Panama she was already well filled with passengers, but there were so many men waiting for her that the captain had to give in to their demands, and crowd his vessel with several hundred more gold-seekers. Loaded with impatient voyagers, the steamship sailed up the coast, and reached San Francisco about the end of February. Immediately every one on board, except the captain, the mate, and the purser, deserted the ship, and dashed for the gold fields. The next steamer to reach Panama, the Oregon, found an even larger crowd waiting at that port. She took more passengers on board than she was intended to carry, but fortune favored the gold-seekers, and the Oregon, like the California, discharged her adventurous cargo in safety at San Francisco. Hundreds of others who could not board either of these steamers ventured on the Pacific in small sailing vessels, or any manner of ship that would put out from Panama bound north.
It is interesting to know the story of some of these pilgrimages. One of the Argonauts has told how he organized, in a little New England town, a company of twenty men. Each man subscribed a certain sum of money in return for a share in any profits, and in this way ten thousand dollars was raised. The men who were to go on the expedition signed a paper agreeing to work at least two years in the gold fields for the company. The band went from the New England town to New York, where they found the harbor filled with ships that were advertised to sail for Nicaragua, Vera Cruz, or Chagres. The leader of the company chose a little brig bound for the latter port, and in this the party, with some twenty-five other passengers, set sail in March. They ran into a heavy storm, but in three weeks reached the port on the Isthmus. There they had to wait some days, as all the river boats had gone up to Gorgona. When the boats were ready, thirty natives poled ten dugouts up the river. When the men landed they were told that there was no ship at Panama; that half the gold-seekers in that town were ill, and that there was no use in pushing on. So the party built tents on the bank of the river, and stayed there until the rainy season drove them to the coast. There they camped again, and waited for a ship to arrive. There was one vessel anchored in the harbor, but the owner was under a bond to keep it there as a coal-ship. The leader of the company, however, persuaded the owner to forfeit this bond, and four hundred waiting passengers paid two hundred dollars apiece to be conveyed to California. The ship was hardly seaworthy, and took seven weeks of sailing and floating to reach the harbor of Acapulco. There the vessel was greeted by a band of twenty Americans, ragged and penniless, who had come on foot from the City of Mexico. They had waited so long for a ship that twenty of the passengers agreed to give them their tickets, and take their places to wait until the next vessel should arrive. It was almost seven months after that New England party had left New York before they arrived at the Golden Gate of San Francisco.
There was very little choice between the Panama and the Nicaragua routes to the West. Among those who tried the latter road were a number of young men who had just graduated from Yale College. They boarded a ship in New York that was advertised to sail during the first week in February, and expected to land in San Francisco in sixty days. It was March, however, before the ship, crowded with voyagers, set sail south from Sandy Hook. Three weeks brought her to the mouth of the San Juan River. The ship's company was landed at the little tropical town of San Juan de Nicaragua. A small steamboat had been brought along to take them up the river, but when the machinery was put together the boat was found to be worthless. Like the voyagers by Panama, these men then had to trust to native dugouts, and in this way they finally got up the river to San Carlos. Had it not been for their eagerness to reach California such a trip would have been a delight to men who had never seen the tropics before. The San Juan River flowed through forests of strange and beautiful trees. Tamarind and dyewood trees, tall palms, and giant cacti, festooned with bright-colored vines, made a background for the brilliant birds that flew through the woods. Fruit was to be had for the taking, and the weather at that time of the year was delightful. But the thought of the fortunes waiting to be picked up in California filled the minds of most of the travelers.
After leaving the boats this party traveled by mule to Leon. Nicaragua was in the midst of a revolution, and the Americans acted as a guard to the President on the road to Leon. Near the end of July the company separated. Some finally sailed from the port of Realejo, and after many dangers and a voyage of almost five months succeeded in reaching San Francisco. Others reached Panama, set sail in a small boat, and were never heard from again; while yet a third party boarded a vessel at a Nicaraguan port, and managed to reach California after almost perishing from hunger and thirst.
Such were the adventures of some of those who tried to reach the gold fields of the West by sea. Hundreds of men made the trip by one of these routes, and as soon as spring arrived thousands set out overland. It was understood that large parties would leave from western Missouri early in March, and as a result many men, some alone, some in bands of twenty or thirty, gathered there from all parts of the East. Sometimes they formed military companies, wore uniforms, and carried rifles. The main place of gathering was the town of Independence, which grew to the size of a large city in a few weeks. Men came on foot and on horseback; some with canvas-covered wagons, prairie schooners, and pack-mules; some with herds of cattle; some bringing with them all their household goods. All the Middle West seemed to be in motion. In a single week in March, 1849, hundreds of wagons drove through Burlington, Iowa. Two hundred from Memphis went along the Arkansas River, and hundreds more from Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Pennsylvania crossed the border of Iowa.
The spring was late, and as the overland trip could not be taken until the grass was high enough to feed the cattle, the great company had to wait along the frontiers from Independence to Council Bluffs. As men gathered at these towns they would form into companies, and then move on to a more distant point, in order to make room for later arrivals. Twenty thousand gathered along these frontiers before the signal was given to start westward. The march began about May 1st, and from then on, day and night, scores of wagons crossed the Missouri River, and the country looked like a field of tents.
From Independence most of the emigrants crossed rolling prairies for fifteen days to the Platte River at Grand Island. The route then wound up the valley of the Platte to the South Fork, and from there to the North Fork, where a rude post-office had been built, at which letters might be left to be carried back east by any travelers who were going in that direction. From here the emigrants journeyed to the mountain passes. They usually stopped at Laramie, which was the farthest western fort of the United States. By this time the long journey would be telling on many of the companies, and the road be strewn with all sorts of household goods, thrown away in order to lighten the burden on the horses.
At the South Pass, midway of the Rocky Mountains, two roads divided; those who took the southern road traveled by the Great Salt Lake to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and so into California. The northern road lay partly along the course of the Snake River to the headwaters of the Humboldt, and from there the emigrants might choose a path still farther to the north toward the Columbia River, or westward to the Sacramento. Many went by the trail along the Humboldt, although this route was one of the most difficult. "The river had no current," said one of the gold-hunters. "No fish could live in its waters, which wound through a desert, and there was not enough wood in the whole valley to make a snuff-box, nor vegetation enough on its banks to shelter a rabbit. The stream flowed through desert sands, which the summer heat made almost unbearable for men and horses." Following its course the travelers came to a lake of mud, surrounded for miles by a sandy plain. Across this they had to march for thirty-four hours to reach the Carson River. Along the trail lay the bodies of horses, mules, and oxen, and broken wagons parched and dried out in the blazing sun.
The first of the overland travelers who crossed the mountains late in the summer brought such reports to the officers at the Pacific posts that the latter decided that relief parties must be sent back to help those who were still toiling in the desert. It was known that some had been attacked by Indians, and obliged to leave their covered wagons; that some had lost all their cattle, and were almost without food. Therefore relief parties were hurried into the mountains from the western side. They found the overland trail crowded with men on foot and in wagons. Many were sick, and almost all were hungry. One man carried a child in his arms, while a little boy trudged by his side, and his invalid wife rode on a mule. The soldiers gave food to all who needed it, and urged them to push on to the army posts. Day after day they met the same stream of emigrants, all bent on reaching the golden fields of California.
Late in the autumn, with winter almost at hand, the voyagers were still crossing the deserts and mountains. The soldiers could not induce many of them to throw away any of their goods. They crept along slowly, their wagons loaded from baseboard to roof. The teams, gradually exhausted, began to fall, and progress was almost impossible. Then the rescuers hurried the women to near-by settlements, and forced the men to abandon some of their baggage in an effort to reach shelter before the winter storms should come. By the end of November almost all the overland emigrants had crossed the mountains.