# The Rocky Mountain Saints

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THE
ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAINTS:
A FULL AND COMPLETE
HISTORY OF THE MORMONS,
FROM THE FIRST VISION OF JOSEPH SMITH TO THE LAST COURTSHIP OF BRIGHAM YOUNG;
INCLUDING
THE STORY OF THE HAND-CART EMIGRATION—THE MORMON WAR—THE MOUNTAIN-MEADOW MASSACRE—THE REIGN OF TERROR IN UTAH —THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN SACRIFICE—THE POLITICAL, DOMESTIC, SOCIAL, AND THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCES OF THE SAINTS—THE FACTS OF POLYGAMY —THE COLONIZATION OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS,
AND
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT MINERAL WEALTH OF THE TERRITORY OF UTAH.
BY T. B. H. STENHOUSE,
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A MORMON ELDER AND MISSIONARY, AND EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR SALT LAKE DAILY TELEGRAPH.
ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY-FOUR FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS, A STEEL PLATE FRONTISPIECE, AN AUTOGRAPHIC LETTER OF BRIGHAM YOUNG, AND NUMEROUS WOODCUTS.
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1873.
[All Rights of Translation Reserved.]
Books written by thinkers—men who thought and dared to express their thoughts—are always worth reading. I care not whether their authors were Atheists or Methodists, Heathen or Mohammedan; the life's blood of the author circulates through them, and in reading you feel its pulsations. But books written by men who never saw through their own eyes, who never putout their hands, and felt the world for themselves, nor took one manly step, are the faintest echoes from the distant hills compared with the heaven-shaking thunder that produced them.—Denton.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,
By D. APPLETON & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
Notwithstanding the frequency with which the American press has kept the name of the Mormons before the public, few persons have any definite idea of what Mormonism claims to be, and what it actually is.
Occupying, as the Saints do, the centre of the great highway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and demanding admission into the Union as a sovereign State, Congress cannot long refuse attention to their claim. The question, therefore, of engrafting upon the Republic a Theocracy which practices polygamy, teaches the barbarous doctrine of human sacrifice, and is in its sentiments inimical to the constitution of the nation, demands the careful consideration of all who are interested in the honour and good name of the United States.
In the pages of this work, the politician, the preacher, the littérateur, and the thoughtful reader, will find abundant matter for studious reflection.
It requires no prophetic inspiration to predicate that, in spite of all the crudity and ridiculous assumption of Mormonism, the highest wisdom of the national Government may yet be required to avert scenes of conflict which would be universally deplored.
Memorials demanding the admission of Utah into the Union, under the title of "The State of Deseret," have for twenty-three years engaged the attention of Congress. Last ​session the demand was again made, and met with a much more favourable reception than ever before. Next Session it will be repeated, and, if not then successful, it will be again and again urged, until finally Statehood is secured.
Emboldened by the encouragement of some prominent members of Congress, the Mormon Prophet has approved of the retirement of the monogamic Delegate who served the Territory for a dozen years, and, as a test of the disposition of the national mind, sends as his successor to Washington an apostle–the husband of four wives. Should the nation consent to this innovation, Statehood will soon be secured for Utah, and Brigham Young's Theocracy will be triumphant over the Republic and the National laws.
Mormonism is not dead nor dying.
Until this "Utah difficulty" is settled emphatically and finally by the voice of the people, declaring that no political or domestic institution opposed to the spirit and genius of republicanism can ever be allowed to exist within the domain of the United States, Mormonism is destined to be the disturbing dream of every occupant of the chair of Washington.
CONTENTS.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
* PAGE
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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