CHAPTER XIV.

EDUCATION, MANUFACTURES, COMMERCE, AGRICULTURE,

SOCIETY.

1850-1852.

BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT OF UTAH-CONFIGURATION AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY-ITS LANDS AND WATERS-FLORA AND FAUNA -STATE UNIVERSITY-CURRICULUM-EDUCATIONAL IDEAS-LIBRARY— PERIODICALS-TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE-NEW FORT-PROGRESS OF THE USEFUL ARTS-MILLS, FACTORIES, AND MANUFACTURES-FARM PRODUCTS -TRAFFIC-POPULATION-REVENUE-MORTALITY-HEALTHFUL AIRS

AND MEDICINAL SPRINGS.

In the year 1850 Utah, bounded on the south and east by New Mexico, Kansas, and Nebraska, on the west by California, on the north by Oregon, which then included Idaho, was one of the largest territories in the United States. Its length from east to west was 650 miles, its breadth 350 miles, and its area 145,000,000 acres. The portion known as the great basin, beyond which were no settlements in 1852, has an elevation of 4,000 to 5,000 feet, and is surrounded and intersected by mountain ranges, the highest peaks of the Humboldt Range near its centre being more than 5,000 feet, and of the Wasatch on the east about 7,000 feet, above the level of the basin.

For 300 miles along the western base of the Wasatch Range is a narrow strip of alluvial land.1 Elsewhere in the valley the soil is not for the most part fertile until water is conducted to it, and some of the alkali washed out. Rain seldom falls in spring

1 Gunnison's The Mormons, 15.

HIST. UTAH. 21

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or summer, and during winter the snow-fall is not enough to furnish irrigating streams in sufficient number and volume. Throughout the valley, vegetation is scant except in favored spots. With the exception of the Santa Clara River in the south-west, the Green River in the east, the Grand and other branches of the Colorado in the south and east, the streams all discharge into lakes or are lost in the alkali soil of the bottom-lands. On the hillsides bunch-grass is plentiful the year round, and in winter there is pasture in the cañons. Around Salt Lake the soil is poor; in the north and east are narrow tracts of fertile land; toward the valleys of the Jordan and Tooele, separated by the Oquirrh Range, and on the banks of the Timpanogos and San Pete, is soil of good quality, that yielded in places from sixty to a hundred bushels of grain to the acre.

The Jordan and Timpanogos furnished good waterpower, and on the banks of the latter stream was built a woollen-mill that ranked as the largest factory of the kind west of the Missouri River. In the Green River basin, immense deposits of coal were known to exist, and the Iron Mountains near Little Salt Lake were so called from the abundance of ore found in their midst. Other valuable minerals were afterward discovered, among them being gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, sulphur, alum, and borax; the waters of Great Salt Lake were so densely impregnated that one measure of salt was obtained from five of brine.2

In the streams were fish of several varieties; in

An analysis of the mineral matter forty years ago showed 97.8 per cent of chloride of sodium, 1.12 of sulphate of lime, .24 of magnesium, and .23 of sulphate of soda. Linforth's Route from Liverpool, 101. The specific gravity of the water is given by L. D. Gale, in Stansbury's Expedition to G. S. Lake, at 1.117. Out of 22.422 parts of solid matter Gale found 20.196 of common salt, 1.834 of soda, .252 of magnesium, and of chloride of calcium a trace. See also Sloan's Utah Gazetteer, 1884, 177-8; Hist. Nev., 11, this series. In chap. i. of that vol. is a further description of the great basin, its topography, climate, soil, springs and rivers, fauna and flora.

The angler can choose his fish either in the swift torrents of the cañons, where the trout delights to live, or in the calmer currents on the plains,

THE UNIVERSITY OF DESERET.

323

the mountains roamed the deer, elk, antelope, and bear, and on the marshy flats amid the plains were smaller game. Timber was scarce and of poor quality, except in places difficult of access; but with this exception there was no great lack of resources in the territory which the saints had made their abode.

During the first years that followed their migration, while yet engaged in building houses, fencing lands, planting crops, and tending herds, the Mormons provided liberally for the cause of education. In the third general epistle of the twelve, dated the 12th of April, 1850, it is stated that an appropriation of $5,000 per annum, for a period of twenty years, had been made for a state university in Salt Lake City, branches to be established elsewhere throughout the territory as they were needed. In the curriculum the Keltic and Teutonic languages were to rank side by side with the Romanic, and all living languages spoken by men were to be included. Astronomy, geology, chemistry, agriculture, engineering, and other branches of science were to be studied; for having sought first the kingdom of heaven, the saints were now assured that knowledge and all other things should be added unto them. The world of science was to be revolu

where he will find abundance of the pike, the perch, the bass, and the chub. Gunnison's The Mormons, 20.

Wild ducks and geese were abundant in 1852. Ibid. There were also quail and herons. In summer, boys filled their baskets with eggs found among the reeds on the banks of streams or on the islands in the Great Salt Lake.

5Hidden away in the profound chasms and along the streams, whose beds are deeply worn in the mountain-sides, are the cedar, pine, dwarf-maple, and occasionally oak, where the inhabitants of the vale seek their fuel and building timber, making journeys to obtain these necessaries twenty to forty miles from their abodes.' Id., 21.

"Under the supervision and control of a chancellor, twelve regents, a secretary, and a treasurer. Frontier Guardian, June 12, 1850.

But what,' says Phelps in an oration delivered July 24, 1851, 'will all the precious things of time, the inventions of men, the records, from Japheth in the ark to Jonathan in congress, embracing the wit and the gist, the fashions and the folly, which so methodically, grammatically, and transcendentally grace the libraries of the élite of nations, really be worth to a saint, when our father sends down his regents, the angels, from the grand library of Zion above, with a copy of the history of eternal lives, the records of worlds, the genealogy of the gods, the philosophy of truth, the names of our spirits from

tionized; the theories of gravitation, repulsion, and attraction overthrown, the motion of atoms, whether single or in mass, being ascribed to the all-pervading presence of the holy spirit. The planetary systems were to be rearranged, their number and relations modified, for in the book of Abraham it was revealed that in the centre of the universe was the great orb Kolob, the greatest of all the stars seen by that patriarch, revolving on its axis once in a thousand years, and around which all other suns and planets revolved in endless cycles.

At first, however, education among the settlers was mainly of an elementary nature. There were many, even among the adults, who could not write or spell, and not a few who could not read. A parents' school was therefore established at Salt Lake City, for the heads of families and for the training of teachers, among the pupils being Brigham Young." Primary and other schools were opened in all the principal settlements,10 and for those who were sufficiently advanced, classes were organized as early as the winter of 1848-9, for the study of ancient and modern languages."1

the Lamb's book of life, and the songs of the sanctified?' Deseret News, July 26, 1851.

I saw the stars that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones that were near it; and the Lord said unto me, These are the governing ones: and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God; I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order of that upon which thou standest. And the Lord said unto me, By the urim and thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolution thereof, that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest.' Reynolds' Book of Abraham, 29. See also Orson Pratt's lecture on astronomy in Deseret News, Dec. 27, 1851.

The parent school is in successful operation in the council-house, and schools have been built in most of the wards. Hist. B. Young, MS., 1851, 32; Gunnison's The Mormons, 80; Utah Early Records, MS., 115. Lyons Collins was appointed teacher by the chancellor and board of regents.

10 Jesse W. Fox taught the first school at Manti in 1850. Utah Sketches, MS., 172. The first school at Nephi was opened in 1851. Id., 111. The best school-house in Utah county was at Palmyra; at Provo, Evan M. Greene opened a select school in the second ward. Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1852.

11 There have been a large number of schools the past winter, in which the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, German, Tahitian, and English languages

In 1850, by vote of congress, twenty thousand dollars were appropriated for the building of a state-house, and the sum of five thousand dollars was appropriated for the foundation of a library in Salt Lake City. The delegate from Utah was authorized to make a selection of books, and several thousand volumes were forwarded from the east during this and the following year.12 Rooms were prepared in the council-house for their reception, and many periodicals, both Mormon and gentile, were added to the stock of reading matter. Among the former was the Millennial Star, already mentioned, and the Frontier Guardian, published bi-monthly at Kanesville, Iowa, between February 1849 and March 1852, and afterward as a weekly paper under the style of the Frontier Guardian and Iowa Sentinel.13

have been taught successfully. First General Epistle of the Twelve, in Utah Early Records, MS., 74, and Frontier Guardian, May 30, 1849. 'German books were bought in order that the elders might learn that language.' Hist. B. Young, MS., 1849, 3.

12 Dr Bernhisel was appointed by the president of the U. S. as special agent to expend the U. S. appropriation of $5,000. Hist. B. Young, MS., 80. Many valuable donations of maps, papers, etc., were received. Contributor, 270; Gunnison's The Mormons, 83; Utah Early Records, MS., 130; Millennial Star, xii. 330-1. William C. Staines was appointed librarian. Deseret News, Feb. 21, 1852.

13 Of the Frontier Guardian, brief mention has already been made. The first number, published Feb. 7, 1849, with Orson Hyde as editor and proprietor, will bear comparison with many of the leading newspapers in eastern or European cities. In the prospectus Mr Hyde states that it will be devoted to the news of the day, to the signs of the times, to religion and prophecy, both ancient and modern; to literature and poetry; to the arts and sciences, together with all and singular whatever the spirit of the times may dictate.' Published, as was the Guardian, on the extreme frontier of the states, Mr Hyde was enabled to furnish the latest news from Salt Lake City, and many valuable items have been gleaned from its pages. Glancing at them for the first time, one asks, How did he contrive to bring out his newspaper in such creditable shape, at a place which one year before was only an encampment of emigrants en route for the valley? During this year, however, Kanesville-later Florence—had made very rapid progress, due, in part, to the migration to California. Glancing over the first numbers of the Guardian, we find advertised for sale dry goods, groceries, provisions, hardware, clothing, and most of the commodities needed by emigrants. There was a hotel, a fashionable tailor, a lawyer, a doctor, and of course a tabernacle, which served for social parties and religious worship. Provisions rose to very high rates, though not to the prices demanded in Salt Lake City. On Feb. 7, 1849, flour, beef, and pork were selling at Kanesville for about $2 per 100 lbs. On May 1, 1850, flour was worth $6 to $6.50, beef $3.50 to $4.50, and pork $5 to $6. Potatoes had risen meanwhile from 25 cents to $1, corn from 20 cents to $2.25, and wheat from 50 cents to $1.75, per bushel. On March 4, 1852, appeared the first num.