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Show CHAPTER VI TO THE WHITE MOUNTAINS There was only one preparation that had not been made. The Saints who were rapidly emptying Salt Lake City had no place to settle! The desert oases had not yet been discovered. Brigham Young was painfully aware of the problem, and on the day of his famous "Sebastopol" speech, he fired off a letter to George W. Bean whose party had just begun to march south from Provo. Bean's previous instructions had been to find suitable places for settlement "in case of necessity," but the tenor of this latest communication was decidedly more urgent, (italics mine.) In this letter, Young told Bean: As soon as you get on to the Desert, to a place suitable to stop for for a season, I want you to send word immediately to the [Cedar] springs or to Fillmore [illegible] how many more can go besides those who have already started. We are about starting onto five hundred families from this city who will leave in a few days also bound for the Deserts as soon as the present storm is over. (Italics mine.) From this time forward, George W. Bean and the White Mountain Expedition were the hope of the new gathering of Israel. Brigham Young seemed to think that the desert sanctuary could be found very quickly. This thought was also reflected in Heber C. Kimball's March 21 speech in which he stated, "in ten days or two weeks he...would start a company for the desert." In this, the church leaders were greatly disappointed, for they had considerably underestimated the time necessary to locate the place of refuge. The Saints were crowding into the settlements of Utah County and 119 |
