UTAH

The settlement of the bleak region began instead with wagon trains of persecuted exiles who sought a place no one else wanted where they could worship in a nontraditional way.  Driven away from the Middle West, they migrated in wagons to the Great Salt Lake Valley .  The first band of Mormon pioneers 143 men, 3 women, and 2 children arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley on 21 Jul 1847.  Most of the original band arrived on July 23, and that same day the pioneers began to plow the desert and irrigate it with water from City Creek. On July 24 Brigham Young , who had been ill, arrived with the remaining members of the group. Choosing a spot at the foot of the Wasatch mountains as their promised land. Then, disciplined and self-sufficient, they created a theocracy (government by divine guidance) unique in the history of the American frontier.  Almost as soon as the spot in Great Salt Lake Valley had been chosen, skills were allocated, streets were laid, irrigated crops were planted, and schools were set up. Under the leadership of Brigham Young , the Mormons worked in cooperative groups to turn the desert valley into a garden spot of fertile cropland. They were anticipating a great Mormon migration, and in the next few years followers came there by the thousands some on wagons, some dragging handcarts.

The Treaty of Guadalupe - Hidalgo (1848) Mexico ceded the territory that includes the area that is now Utah to the United States . 

By the end of the year the Great Salt Lake colony had grown to about 1,700 people. The hardy Mormon colony spread north- and southward from the original site. In 1850 the population of Utah was about 11,000. By 1880 it had multiplied more than 12 times. Almost all of this development was directed by the Mormon church. During the next 50 years most of Utah 's settlers were Mormons from the Eastern states and from Europe .[i]  Despite their hard work the Mormons were threatened with disaster in 1848 when a swarm of crickets descended upon their crops. Then a huge flock of sea gulls appeared and ate the insects. The Mormons considered this an answer to their prayers and erected a monument to the gulls in thanks.  By feeding the Indians they had encountered in Utah , rather than fighting them, the Mormon colonists were able to maintain relative peace with the Native Americans.

[Deseret] [Utah History] [Immigrants] [Mormon Trail] [War with Mexico] [Mormon Battalion] [John Hess' Enlistment] [Polygamy] [Polygamy in Practice] [Polygamy Laws] [Meeting of the Railroads] [Dates to Remember]

[i]  Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved
[ii] " Deseret " from the Book of Mormon, Ether 2:3, meaning "honeybee."
[iii]  Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved
[iv] " Deseret " from the Book of Mormon, Ether 2:3, meaning "honeybee."
[v - vi]  Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved
[vii]   See:  William B. Smart , Old Utah Trails (1988); Stanley Kimball , Historic Sites and Markers Along the Mormon and Other Great Western Trails (1988); Stanley Kimball and Hall Knight, 111 Days to Zion (1978); and Stanley Kimball , ed., William Clayton 's The Latter-day Saints' Emigrants' Guide (1983).
[viii] Old Farmer's Almanac, © 1997, p. 98,99.  Original Map by Margo Letourneau , with alterations by Judy P. Smith  showing the locations mentioned in Cowne/Gough family memories.
[ix - xi]   Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved
[xii] See: John W. Hess ,  Journal of John W. Hess ; Sergeant Daniel Tyler , A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War 1846-1848 (1969); Philip St. George Cooke , et. Al., Exploring Southwestern Trails, 1846-1854 (1938); Frank Alfred Golder, Thomas A. Bailey, and Lyman J. Smith, eds., The March of the Mormon Battalion From Council Bluffs to California taken from the Journal of Henry Standage (1928).
[xiii - xv] Journal of John W. Hess
[xvi] See:  Daniel W. Bahman, "New Light on an Old Hypothesis:  The Ohio Origins of the Revelation on Eternal Marriage, "Journal of Mormon History 5" (1978); Lowell Bennion, "The Incidence of Mormon Polygamy in 1880: 'Dixie' versus Davis Stake," Journal of Mormon History 11 (1984); Jessie L. Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families:  Life in the Principle (1987); Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality:  Three American Communal Experiences of the Nineteenth Century (1981); B. Carmon Hardy and Victor Jorgenson, "The Taylor-Cowley Affair and the Watershed of Mormon History," Utah Historical Quarterly 48 (Winter 1980); B. Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant:  The Mormon Polygamous Passage (1991); Stanley S. Ivins, "Notes on Mormon Polygamy." Utah Historical Quarterly 35 (Fall 1967); Larry Logue , "A Time of Marriage:  Monogamy and Polygamy in a Utah Town ," Journal of Mormon History 11 (1984); D. Michael Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904, "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon thought 18 (Spring 1985); Richard S. Van Wagoner , Mormon Polygamy: A History (1986); Kimball Young , Isn't One Wife Enough? (1954); Jessie L. Embry , Polygamy.
[xvii] Excerpted from article written by CLARISSA H. CHIPMAN , May 31, 19 49
[xviii] Successor of Brigham Young
[xix] I believe that his may be the same Mathias Cowley , son of James  & Isabella (Cowley) Udy , b. 9 Jul 1854, Bountiful, Davis Co., Utah; d. 18 Jul 1943; m. 20 Jan 1875 to Emily Rebecca Hess , daughter of John Wilford Hess  & his 2nd wife, Emily Card  Hess , b. 26 Jun 1854; d. 20 Jul 1932.
[xx] Excerpted from My Father Edward Edmonds .
[xxi]  Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.