This account sums up the feelings against the Mormons in Northern California. This will be added to as more articles like this come are found.
Sonoma Democrat > 29 October 1857
Mormonism—Where’s it to End?
Among the leading topics of the day at the present time, that is exciting the public mind from one end of the Union to the other, there is no one so fraught with interest, and so inexplicably problematical as that of Mormonism.
The great Sanhedrim at Salt Lake has swelled into gigantic proportions, since the prophet Brigham Young first set down there with his harem and his misguided followers, until it now presents the appearance of one enormous carbuncle upon the body politic, from which is oozing out corruption of the most revolting nature, besliming the name and fame of the United States with its pestiferous substance, distracting the country with their unparalleled outrages upon the lives and property of our citizens, and altogether presenting an anomaly in the history of the world.
Their long continued acts of villainy and defiance of the authority of the Government, has no sooner been promptly met by the decisive action of Mr. Buchanan, than the prophet’s edict goes forth, summoning the faithful from our own State and other places to Salt Lake, to gird on their armor in the defense of their so-called religion, which, in reality, is blasphemy in its most horrid form.
The summons is quickly answered, and the Mormon settlement at Carson Valley becomes at once depopulated;—so far, we may well rejoice at their exodus. But what does it denote except preparations for defying the military arm of the Government, which has been called into requisition as a last resort, to put a final stop to their unprovoked acts of murder, rapine and other crimes.
They thus occupy the stand point of being in open rebellion against the Government. We leave them there, to await the result which the future will soon bring forth, and pass on to other points of the subject.
It is not many months since Brigham Young made a westward tour on some secret mission, and rumor with her many tongues said that he had gone to this place, that and the other, and all for different purposes. His objects in that trip have never yet, however, been satisfactorily accounted for. But he returned, after some months’ absence, and scarcely has he resumed his seat at Salt Lake, when the whole Indian country is in arms, and Hostile bands are stationed upon nearly all the roads over which the immigration of the season is wending its way. and an indiscriminate slaughter of men and women is commenced, while the children are spared, and rescued by purchase, by the “Mormon interpreters.”
These massacres all take place within a convenient distance from Salt Lake, and as soon as the hellish work is done, the “ Mormon interpreters ” approach from behind the scenes, and buy up the children. If the Indian’s wrath is merely excited against the whites wherever they meet them, why should they spare these “ Mormon interpreters ?” Why do they go at once and freely recount the details of the tragedy to the Mormons in the vicinity of Salt Lake, as quietly as they would tell them of destroying a band of buffaloes? Why, even, are they not at once punished by the strong arm of the “ prophet,” except that, he countenances them in their outrages, and instigates them to a repetition ! Why, indeed, have these Indian massacres commenced at this late day, why was the immense immigration of former years suffered to pass unmolested and that of to-day cut off and destroyed? Does any man, in his senses, suppose that a train of immigrants, numbering 150 persons, would poison wells, kill beef and poison that, upon the road over which they knew, beyond question, hundreds of others were following close behind them ? And yet such is the clap-trap story promulgated by the Mormons, in extenuation of the barbarous butchery. And the children, too, what becomes of them when bought up by the “ interpreters ?’’ Fathers, mothers, all gone, all destroyed; no one left to query for their whereabouts, or their existence; they become at once a rich growing harvest for the pestilential granaries of the Mormon community.
These facts, which we have touched upon so lightly, taken in connection with others familiar to the memory of every one, are strong circumstantial proof, to say the least, that the passage across the continent is to be disputed by a cordon of barbarous tribes, which are acting under the express orders of Brigham Young. This presumption is, we maintain, the only one to he deduced from the premises, and we must, sooner or later, open our eyes to its horrid truth. When and where, then, is it to end ?
That question is to us an unanswerable one, and referring our readers to the weekly report of the new butcheries, which will he found in our news columns, there we must for the present take leave of the disgusting subject.
It is hardly necessary for us to say that the above article was written and in type before the news by the “ Senator,” which will be found in our columns, came to hand. We shall reserve comment upon these new atrocities until next week.
Perils of the Plains.
The Mormons and the late Massacre.-Three immigrant families arrived on Monday the 19th inst., in Sacramento, by the Carson Valley route. They report, says the Union , many sad evidences of outrage and murder at different points along the route, particularly in the vicinity of Goose Creek. Near this creek. their attention was attracted by the appearance of a human foot protruding from the ground, and on examining the spot, the remains of three murdered men were found buried only three or four inches below the surface. Upon another grave there lay two dogs, alive, but much emaciated, and so pertinacious in retaining their lonely resting place, that no effort could entice or drive them from the spot. Their master was, most probably, the occupant of that grave, and their presence there, under such circumstances, was a touching exhibition of canine instinct and devotion. A few miles further on, they came, upon another scene of murder, where, upon the ground., were strewn a few bones, and also knots of long glossy hair, torn from the head of some ill-fated woman. Near by were the remains of three head of cattle, with the arrows still sticking in them.
Reports brought by those families tend strongly to corroborate the suspicion already existing against the Mormons as the instigators, if not the perpetrators, of the recent wholesale massacre of immigrants at Santa Clara canon. Mr. Pierce, who came by way of Salt Lake, and joined the other two families at the Sink of the Humboldt, reports some five hundred Indians encamped near Salt Lake. who, as he learned from the Mormons, were retained as allies to operate against the troops sent out by the Government. He was also assured that those Indians had been instructed not to molest the immigration this year, as preparations were not sufficiently complete to enable the Mormons to make a stand against the United States. In the, city itself, large crowds of Mormons were nightly practicing military drill, and there was every evidence of energetic preparation for some great event. Before his family left Salt Lake, vague declarations of a threatening character were made, to the effect that, next year, “the overland immigrants must look out;” and it was even insinuated that the last train which recently left Carson Valley, and which those families met on the way, similar statements were vaguely communicated, one Mormon woman even going so far as to congratulate an old lady in one of these families upon her safe arrival so near her destination, and assuring her that “ the last trains of this year would not get through so well, for they were to be cut off.” We give these statements as we received them from members of these families, and, admitting their correctness, which we have no reason to doubt, they certainly go far to confirm a terrible suspicion.