Museum Treasures: Exodus and Westward Migration

By the time London–trained artist Frederick Piercy traveled through Nauvoo in 1853, the crumbling facade was all that remained of the Nauvoo Temple.

A young English girl named Ann Eckford created this cross-stitch sampler of the Nauvoo Temple sometime between 1846 and 1849, probably as part of her formal education. The sampler represents some of the “growing pains” in Latter-day Saint history, when policy and procedure were still unestablished.

Brigham Young used this collapsible brass and leather spyglass on the first trip to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Members of the company used spyglasses like this to scout the trail, search for game, and watch for danger.

If you were forging a trail across unfamiliar territory in a covered wagon, what would you bring with you? How would you carry it?

When you’re traveling an unfamiliar road in the wilderness, how do you accurately measure the distance between landmarks? How do you record the route to help the people who follow?

When we speak of building the kingdom of God today, most of the time we mean it in a figurative sense: we serve in the Church, share the gospel with others, and follow the counsel of the living prophet. Heber C. Kimball did all of these things, but as a blacksmith and potter, he also built the kingdom in a literal sense.

This grooming kit, owned by Dr. Willard Richards, shows the refined side of a faithful and courageous man of God. Richards was trained as a doctor of herbal medicine and cultivated an air of respectability and refinement appropriate to his profession. He shaved his face clean until his death in 1854 and regularly had his hair cut, combed, and curled.

In their journals and reminiscences, many Mormon pioneers write of singing while crossing the plains, often ending the day with music. In the 19th century, most hymnals included only the words to the hymns, not the music. Hymns and other songs were sung to familiar tunes and could often be sung to more than one tune.

When George Wardle played music, people listened. Music was part of his very being. One of his granddaughters recalled, “He would play any and every musical instrument.”

In January 1847, the Mormon Battalion staggered into San Diego, California, having just completed a grueling march from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Imagine the faith and perseverance needed to pull a handcart more than 1,000 miles across the plains. Now imagine the faith and determination you’d need to pull a handcart while walking on a peg leg. Thomas David Evans had that kind of faith, wearing this leg as he crossed the plains from June 23 to October 2, 1856.

Maria Linford married her husband, John, in this dress in 1833. Twenty-three years later, she buried him on the plains of Wyoming en route to Utah.

Captain Daniel C. Davis of the Mormon Battalion carried this bullet pouch the entire way from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to California, but he never fired a shot in combat. None of the battalion members did. Although the battalion was formed in a time of war, its legacy is one of peace.

Have you ever wondered why Salt Lake City addresses sound like math coordinates? It’s because they are. Salt Lake City is laid out in a grid, with a center point at the intersection of a base line (running east-west) and a meridian (running north-south). But how did that center point get decided?