A Different Star
Chapter One: Winter Quarters
Winter Quarters, modern Nebraska, 1846
“The winter of 1846-1847 was undoubtedly the low-point of Brigham Young’s life. The Latter Day Saint exodus, following the conflict in Illinois and Missouri, had halted for the winter, had stalled for the season at the camp that became known as Winter Quarters. Here approximately 2500 men, women, and children shivered in small wooden huts and tents, wagons drawn in close, and waited for spring thaw. Tuberculosis, malaria, fevers, and chills were rife. It seemed to Young, sick himself, to be the end of the world”.
Jennifer Ross, American Moses: The Life of Brigham Young, University of Ontario, 2012
Historical turning points are rarely able to be tacked on to particular moments. Beyond the back-and-forth of battles or revolutions, it is hard to point to a moment and say ‘this was key’. Yet the tantalising entry in Brigham Young’s diary for December 3rd 1846 hints at just such an elusive connection.[1]
“December 3rd
By the Lord’s Grace we survive another day here. Not only thrive, I think, but flourish. Perhaps. If providence wills it. Today I was visited by a French Papist, the US envoy not appearing from the East. Father Jean-Baptiste, although a servant of a false religion as Smith himself attested from his visions of Moroni, speaks as a decent man. He tells of the open lands to the North that, although claimed by another nation, are more open than much of the West. Ripe for a chosen people. I have much to pray upon tonight”.
Those early sentiments, which could so easily have been but a flicker in his diary, were the embers of a flame fanned into life by the arrival, in April 1847, of the manpower and money of the returned British Mission. The Saints who had been involved in that long missionary work attested to the sympathy of ordinary Britons, of their desire for spiritual salvation, and of the grand technical achievements of, at the time, the most industrialised country in the world. With new converts in Britain eagerly awaiting a message that a new land for the Church had been found, it seemed to provide the impetus for a newly invigorated Young.
Claiming to be led by his visions of fervent belief, when the Mormon Pioneers broke camp, leaving Winter Quarters behind, their journey was not their original path West, but North instead.
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[1] This is the POD. Historically the presence of Thomas Kane, US Govt, and Father de Smet (missionary to the Great Plains), helped convince Young that journeying West would be both fruitful and not antagonistic to the United States. Here, without those meetings, he meets another missionary Jean-Baptiste Thibault and, still suspicious of hostility from Washington, takes a different route.
N.B.
1. Spectre of Europe is not dead. This is just an idea I can't get out of my head.
2. Whilst I know quite a bit about the LDS, my general US history knowledge can be uneven. I hope kind readers will understand and make suggestions when mistakes appear!
Chapter One: Winter Quarters
Winter Quarters, modern Nebraska, 1846
“The winter of 1846-1847 was undoubtedly the low-point of Brigham Young’s life. The Latter Day Saint exodus, following the conflict in Illinois and Missouri, had halted for the winter, had stalled for the season at the camp that became known as Winter Quarters. Here approximately 2500 men, women, and children shivered in small wooden huts and tents, wagons drawn in close, and waited for spring thaw. Tuberculosis, malaria, fevers, and chills were rife. It seemed to Young, sick himself, to be the end of the world”.
Jennifer Ross, American Moses: The Life of Brigham Young, University of Ontario, 2012
Historical turning points are rarely able to be tacked on to particular moments. Beyond the back-and-forth of battles or revolutions, it is hard to point to a moment and say ‘this was key’. Yet the tantalising entry in Brigham Young’s diary for December 3rd 1846 hints at just such an elusive connection.[1]
“December 3rd
By the Lord’s Grace we survive another day here. Not only thrive, I think, but flourish. Perhaps. If providence wills it. Today I was visited by a French Papist, the US envoy not appearing from the East. Father Jean-Baptiste, although a servant of a false religion as Smith himself attested from his visions of Moroni, speaks as a decent man. He tells of the open lands to the North that, although claimed by another nation, are more open than much of the West. Ripe for a chosen people. I have much to pray upon tonight”.
Those early sentiments, which could so easily have been but a flicker in his diary, were the embers of a flame fanned into life by the arrival, in April 1847, of the manpower and money of the returned British Mission. The Saints who had been involved in that long missionary work attested to the sympathy of ordinary Britons, of their desire for spiritual salvation, and of the grand technical achievements of, at the time, the most industrialised country in the world. With new converts in Britain eagerly awaiting a message that a new land for the Church had been found, it seemed to provide the impetus for a newly invigorated Young.
Claiming to be led by his visions of fervent belief, when the Mormon Pioneers broke camp, leaving Winter Quarters behind, their journey was not their original path West, but North instead.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This is the POD. Historically the presence of Thomas Kane, US Govt, and Father de Smet (missionary to the Great Plains), helped convince Young that journeying West would be both fruitful and not antagonistic to the United States. Here, without those meetings, he meets another missionary Jean-Baptiste Thibault and, still suspicious of hostility from Washington, takes a different route.
N.B.
1. Spectre of Europe is not dead. This is just an idea I can't get out of my head.
2. Whilst I know quite a bit about the LDS, my general US history knowledge can be uneven. I hope kind readers will understand and make suggestions when mistakes appear!
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