318 MORMONS OUSTED AGAIN. 



mons might not be in the right ; and whether 

 this was not a sign sent from heaven as a re- 

 monstrance for the injustice they had been 

 guilty of towards that chosen sect* Some- 

 time afterward, a terrible misfortune occurred 

 which was in no way calculated to allay the 

 superstitious fears of the ignorant. As some 

 eight or ten citizens were returning with the 

 ferry-boat which had crossed the last Mormons 

 over the Missouri river, into Clay county^ the 

 district selected for their new home, the craft 

 filled with water and sunk in the middle of 

 the current ; by which accident three or four 

 men were drowned ! It was owing perhaps 

 to the craziness of the boat, yet some persons 

 suspected the Mormons of having scuttled it 

 by secretly boring auger-holes in the bottom 

 just before they had left it. 



After sojourning a few months in Clay coun- 



the serious annoyance of the inhabit- 

 ants (though, in fact, they had been kindly 

 received at first), the persecuted ' Latter day 

 Saints' were again compelled to shift their 

 quarters further off They now sought to 

 estabhsh themselves in the new county of 

 Caldwell, and founded their town of Far 

 West, where they lingered in 



for a few years. As the county bega 



com 



to fill up with settlers, however, quarrels 



• In Northern Mexico, as I learned afterwards, tte credulity of 

 the superstitious was still more severely tried by this celestial phe- 

 nomenon. Their church had been deprived of some important 

 privileges by the Congress but a short time before, and the people 

 could not be persuaded but that the meteoric shower was intended 

 as a curse upon the nation in consequence of that sacrilegions act 



