Last spring we called upon some of the Bishops to furnish a few teams
to go to the Missouri River and back this season, to prove to the
people a fact that several of us were convinced did exist. We obtained
twenty teams from the Wards; I also sent a few, and they have
successfully performed the journey to Florence, N.T., and back, under
the charge of Elder Joseph W. Young. Bishop Woolley also went down
with some mule and ox teams, and returned with the ox train. I want to
hear them both speak this afternoon on the subject of freighting with
teams sent from here.
The handcart system has been pretty well tried; and if a handcart
company start in proper season, and manage properly, I will venture to
say the most of them can come in that way more pleasantly than they
generally come with wagons. But drawing their provisions, &c., is a
hard task, and it would be more satisfactory, if we could manage it,
to bring in wagons the freight and those who are unable to walk.
In 1834, a company of us were called upon to go to Missouri, and in
that trip the labor of walking, so far as we averaged in a day, was
very fatiguing. A great many of that company walked, and we cooked by
the way as much as do those who travel across the Plains, and we
carried a greater weight than is generally carried by those who walk
from the Missouri River to this city. This I know, for I was one of
those who walked the whole distance. In less than three months I
walked two thousand miles, as far as to Florence and back; and others
of the company did the same. And instead of having a healthy climate
to walk in, we passed through one of the most deathly and sickly
climates in the United States, which proved to me that most people can
walk, if they will try.
We now contemplate trying another plan. If we can go with our teams to
the Missouri River and back in one season, and bring the poor, their
provisions, &c., it will save about half of the cash we now expend in
bringing the Saints to this point from Europe. It now costs in cash
nearly as much for their teams, wagons, handcarts, cooking utensils,
provisions, &c, for their journey across the Plains, as it does to
transport them to the frontiers. We can raise cattle without an outlay
of money, and use them in transporting the Saints from the frontiers,
and such freight as we may require. Brethren and sisters, save your
fives, tens, fifties, a hundred dollars, or as much as you can, until
next spring (considering yourselves, as it were, a thousand miles
from a store), and send your money, your cattle, and wagons to the
States, and buy your goods and freight them. Twenty dollars expended
in this way will do you as much good as several times that amount paid
to the stores here.
If we can convince the brethren that it is a successful operation, we
shall endeavor to engage in it largely next year. We wish to send two
or three hundred wagons, with two or three yokes of cattle to a light
Chicago wagon. If you have not the wagons, you can send the money and
buy them. In this way, where we could emigrate a hundred from
Liverpool to this place by the old method, we can emigrate some two
hundred by going to the frontiers and bringing them. This will
facilitate, by almost half, the gathering of the Saints, and at the
same time enable us to procure, at cheap rates, such articles as we do
not produce. I wish the brethren to grasp in their faith the facts
that will be presented, and believe that we can do all that we can,
and then be ready to do it. We have plenty of cattle and can send
them, and they will perform the journey as well as horses or mules,
with far less risk of their being stolen on the Plains.
I wish the Bishops to improve upon the counsel I gave them this
morning, receiving it as kindly as it was given; for we only desire to
turn the current of our business transactions into the channel that
will most conduce to the welfare of the Saints. I also want them to
present to their Wards the plan of sending teams to the frontier; and
I want the men who think and write to send to the Editor of the
Deseret News articles about sending teams to the States to bring our
poor brethren and our freight, and to take out and bring back our
Missionaries.
Last spring our Elders went down with the trains at a saving of some
two thousands dollars in cash, and on reaching the frontier were
prepared to go on their way rejoicing. And when they return, I
anticipate the honor of our teams bringing them back as poor as they
went—that they will not return as merchants; for if they do, from this
time forth, the curse of God will rest upon them, and they will lose
the spirit of their religion and apostatize. I want them to respect
their missions, themselves, their brethren, their religion, and our
God, as to return poor in regard to gold, silver, &c., but rich in
gathering the souls of the children of men to this place, where we can
chasten them and prove whether they are Saints or not, and where the
Lord will have the privilege of proving them either to be Saints or
unworthy of the kingdom.
I will now call upon brother E. D. Woolley to preach a sermon about
ox-trains going to the States.
God bless you! Amen.