104 Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 
Thompson had blank bills of sale printed with blank 
spaces for the enumeration of horses, cattle, sheep, 
swine, grain, tools, vehicles, furniture, clothing and 
credits, and he had each one of the colony make one or 
more bills of sale to him personally enumerating the 
specific property, which included the houses in which 
they lived, and their wearing apparel, and from 
the price the houses were very simple affairs, as for in- 
stance one enumerates a “cave” of the value of ten dol- 
lars. 
For the Sacred Treasury he had formerly taken a 
tything of one-tenth, but the change to one-fifth at this 
time was, as he told them, that in order to make it equal 
to cash, he took another tenth. The remaining four-fifths 
of their property was conveyed to him for stock in the 
House of Ephriam. He also had title before this to much 
of the common property, as the mills, printing press, and 
the gifts and their proceeds. So now Thompson had title 
to everything they had, even to the clothes on their backs. 
For some balances of property Thompson gave them a. 
due bill or certificate for a small specified amount in 
goods or grain out of the House of Ephriam and took 
from each a receipt in full for the certificates. 
In the spring of 1856 Thompson proposed to buy 
their stock in the House of Ephriam and pay for it in 
script to be given by him in the House of Ephriam, which 
script they should exchange in turn for such property as 
he might sell them from that owned by this corporation, 
which proposition, being compulsory, was accepted, and 
they all assigned their stock to Thompson and took his 
script for it and gave a receipt for the script, and pub- 
lished notice that they had all sold out, but the business 
of the corporation would be carried on as usual by 
Thompson. These corporations were a sort of legal myth 
to cover the personal transactions of Thompson, as under 
these forms he got all the stock in both corporations. 
Their land had not come into the market in the fall 
of 1854 as expected, but did so come in the spring of 
1856, and they would be compelled to enter it from the 
United States, or take pre-emptions upon it which would 
need to be proved up on and paid for within a year, and a 
great strain was put upon the financial resources of the 
colony, for if they did not get the land, the object of al! 
