Transcript
Transcript for "Affairs in Utah," New York Times, 24 May 1863, 2
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, Wednesday, April 29, 1863.
The city has been exceedingly lively the week past with ox teams from most of the settlements, being parts of the grand caravan of five hundred wagons destined for the Missouri River, for the express purpose of bringing the poor Mormon emigrants to "Zion." The wagons are all of the staunchest kind available in the Territory. Each team consists of from four to five yoke of chiefly young cattle, and carries not only its own provisions, but a stock of flour to be "cached" in various depots or stations this side of Laramie, for the sustenance of the aforesaid coming poor folk. This service appears to be rendered partly in commutation of the "tithing" paid by the faithful, and partly as a "free-will offering" to aid the cause.
The companies are sometimes organized into hundreds, but oftener into fifties; each fifty subdivided into tens; each fifty and each ten with its respective Captain," whose authority smacks much of the patriarchal. John W. Woolley, John Murdock, Horton D. Haight, Peter Nebeker, William B. Preston, Thomas Ricks, Rosel Hyde, John F. Sanders, S. D. White and D. D. McArthur are named as Captain of Fifties.
Some of the wagons are freighting cotton eastward, grown near the southern limits of this Territory. Several tons of this article are now on their way to be sold in the States, as anticipated in one of my letters several weeks ago. Some of the more conservative of the Utah politicians are grieving over the export of this raw material, as they ruminate on the present prices of factory in the stores, 50 to 70 cents per yard. But it must be considered that in Utah there is no way of turning cotton into calico, except by the homely hand-loom method. So successful is this policy considered of sending teams hence to the Missouri in the Spring, to return in the Fall, that some of the merchants, and others who go East to purchase on commission, are commencing to adopt the same-at least in part.
Mr. WILLIAM S. GODBE started yesterday morning, per mail on similar business, and Messrs.
NEEDHAM and BEST, with several others, left this city in their own conveyances a few days previously, also bound for the East. Wagons are a prominent article sent for the present Summer, indeed I have been assured that money for not less than one thousand of these useful vehicles, paid by sundry private persons, is now on its way East. This is, perhaps, an exaggeration, yet it must be remembered that suitable timber for making the running gear of wagons has not yet been discovered in Utah, and iron is not yet produced in quantity, consequently the people of the territory are wholly dependent upon external sources for wagons, which never were very plentiful in Utah, excepting in 1858-9, and then those most abundant were too heavy for common use—more "prairie-schooners." Perhaps they will be comparatively plentiful next Fall, owing to the above orders, and the vast number coming this way by the gold seeking emigration, some of which will doubtless be exchanged here for money or pack animals.
For the consolation of the emigration who will pass northward of this city to Idaho gold mines, or to Oregon or California, I may state that the prospects are that a military post will shortly be established by GEN. CONNOR on Bear River, at the Soda Springs, or somewhere in that quarter, in Idaho Territory, just outside of the northeast limits of Utah. This step is a sensible one. A post there, and another further north, with a few companies of troops at each, would be of more service to the emigration than several regiments cooped up within the corporate boundaries of Salt Lake City.
It is also stated that a number of disaffected Mormons, and other camp followers, anticipate settling in the vicinity of said new fort, where there will probably be greater chances of emigrant trade than in this city. Mr. DOTY, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, it is also rumored, will proceed to the new post and probably establish himself there.