A Biography of Ezra Thompson Clark

Ezra Clark, page 014

I4 EZRA THOMPSON CLARK History tells us that the Saints had two thousand houses for sale in Nauvoo and the surrounding districts. Money was scarce and in a wide area of the country skins were the only portable currency. Property was bartered off for a half. or a fourth of its real value, and many of the people left without any compensation for their homes. Ezra Clark was in the first encampment which left the Mississippi River in February. Their first camp was made on Sugar Creek not far from the comfortable homes of the Saints. It was snowing and many of them crossed the river on ice. President Young and the Twelve Apostles joined the congregation at Sugar Creek on February 15. "On the morning of the 17th of February, President Young, stand- ing in his wagon, called with a loud voice, `Attention, the whole camp of Israel!' " With the assurance of one who knows the love of God for his children, he inspired confi- dence in the Saints and in himself as their leader. To this homeless band of people in midwinter he predicted that eventually a new home would be found where a civiliza- tion of their own could be established. With renewed courage they broke camp and "slowly wended their way Westward, journeying day after day farther into the wil- derness toward the setting sun." Bancroft, the historian, tells us that at one camp beyond Sugar Creek, following prayer, these travelers held a dance. "And as the men of Iowa looked on, they wondered how these homeless outcasts from Christian civilization could thus praise and make merry in view of their near abandoning themselves to the mercies of savages and wild beasts." He further records, "There is nothing tougher than fanaticism. What cared they for wind and rain, for comfortable couches or aching limbs. The Kingdom of the