The Pioneers

The Pioneers. . The first settlers in the Salt Lake Valley were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes called Mormons because of their belief in the Book of Mormon. They had suffered persecution in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. After a mob killed their church founder, Joseph Smith, in 1844, most church members followed the leadership of Brigham Young and the Council of the Twelve Apostles. Beginning in February, 1846, many Latter-day Saints moved from Nauvoo, Illinois, to a temporary camp in eastern Nebraska, which was called Winter Quarters., Young led an advanced party of 143 men, three women, and two children, which set out for the Rocky Mountains in April 1847. Traveling parallel to the Oregon Trail along the Platte and North Platte Rivers to Fort Laramie, they proceeded on the Oregon Trail to Fort Bridger, and from there, followed the route taken by the ill-fated Donner-Reed pioneers in 1846., Brigham Young, sick with mountain fever, was among the last of this party to enter the Salt Lake Valley where he arrived on July 24, 1847. Many pioneer companies reached the valley over the next few years. Before the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, some eighty thousand emigrants traveled to Utah using various conveyances, including ox teams and handcarts., This is the Place, President Young, still feeble from the effect of his late illness, was riding under the cover of Elder Woodruff's carriage. As the teams halted, he came to the front, took a general view of the country before him, swinging his hate and shouted with all the energy his feeble condition permitted, "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurray!!!" Then turning to Heber C. Kimball, who was near, he exclaimed, "Brother Heber, this is the place." - Lorenzo Dow Young