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Show From the Mississippi neering history, and the degree glory on all participants. of to the Missouri success attained reflects 109 lasting Thirty years after this original pioneering event, another pio neering venture took place also under very trying circumstances. Brigham Young sent two hundred families into Arizona to colonize on the Little Colorado River, and many became discouraged and returned to Utah. Others wrote letters to relatives and friends in Utah complaining of the hardships they were enduring, which prompted Brigham to write a stirring letter to those who remained. In his letter he compared their situation with the condition of the first settlers in the Salt Lake Valley. Here is a portion of the letter: sincerely trust that the brethren will not become discouraged slacken in their labors to honorably fulfill the mission of strength ening the Kingdom of God by building up the cities on the Little Colorado. It is obvious that you will have difficulties to encounter, what great enterprise has not? But when you compare your con dition with that of those who first set their hands to' establish Zion in these mountains, how insignificant are your burdens to what theirs were? You have friends, near at hand, who will help when you need aid. We were a thousand miles from all the world, and with that world at war with us. Naked, hungry, and barefoot we came to these mountains, with no base of supplies to fall back upon, whilst you have the necessities of life, and your brethren to call upon We or . when you run short." Brigham Young had not forgotten. He had come with the first company to Utah in 1847, then returned to Winter Quarters. He came again in 1848, and then witnessed thousands of Mormon con verts coming into the valley, naked, hungry, and barefoot for more than two decades. is information about the coming of the Tanner early years of the western movement. John family and most of his family came to the mountains in 1848, but not all. The following to Utah in those The Saints in Nauvoo had plenty of time to get ready to leave for the West; that is they were aware they were going to have to leave Illinois and travel to a new home. They had had comparative the peace for a number of years, until approximately the time of were But in 1844. leaders woefully they martyrdom of their two unprepared when the time of the enforced exodus came. |
