LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 250 



Mormon cause declined ; but still thousands of prose- 

 lytes joined tliem annually, and at last the state took 

 measures to remove them altogether, as a body, from 

 the country. 



Once again they fled, as they themselves term it. 

 before the persecutions of the ungodly ! But this time 

 their migration was far beyond the reach of their ene- 

 mies, and their intention was to place between them the 

 impassable barrier of the Rocky Mountains, and to seek 

 a home and resting-place in the remote regions of the 

 Far West. 



This, the most extraordinary migration of modern 

 times, commenced in the year 1845 ; but it was not till 

 the following year that the great body of the Mormons 

 turned their backs upon the settlements of the United 

 States, and launched boldly out into the vast and barren 

 prairies, without any fixed destination as a goal to their 

 endless journey. For many months long strings of Pitts- 

 burg and Conostoga waggons, with herds of horses and 

 domestic cattle, wound their way towards the Indian 

 frontier, with the intention of rendezvousing at Council 

 Bluffs on the Upper Missoura. Here thousands of wag- 

 gons were congregated, with their tens of thousands of 

 men, women, and children, anxiously waiting the route 

 from the elders of the church, who on their parts scarcely 

 knew whither to direct the steps of the vast crowd they 

 had set in motion. At length the indefinite destina- 

 tion of Oregon and California was proclaimed, and 

 the long train of emigrants took up the line of march, 

 It was believed the Indian tribes would immediately 



