"The Gathering of Zion" by Wallace Stegner

Above: "The Gathering of Zion - The Story of the Mormon Trail. Wallace Stegner. 312 Pages.

And, so begins the story of the Trail.

I completed reading this book today.

Wallace Stegner is the best American author no one knows about. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1972 for my all time favorite novel, "Angle of Repose," a story about a strong woman and her milquetoast husband settling in late 19th Century, Grass Valley, California.

Stegner, a Presbyterian, spent his high school years in Salt Lake City, where he earned an Eagle Scout Award in an LDS Boy Scout troop. He ended his career at Stanford University where he started the creative writing program.

"The Gathering of Zion" was published in 1964. This is my second reading of the book. First time was over twenty years ago .

As Stegner mentions frequently in "The Gathering of Zion, "this book is about the Trail." "The Gathering of Zion" chronicles the migration of 50K to 80K members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, Mormons, Saints), between 1847 and 1869 from Nauvoo, IL, and, later, various points west of Nauvoo, to the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Stegner understands that he can't tell the story of the Trail without a little background. His first two chapters set the stage for the story.

Joseph Smith founded the LDS Church in 1830. The Church grew rapidly. Under Smith's direction LDS communities were formed throughout the United States from 1830 to 1844, most notably in Kirtland, Ohio, Independence, Missouri, and Nauvoo, Illinois. The Saints were driven out of each of these communities, in turn, due to conflicts with other settlers.

Smith was martyred in 1844 in Carthage, Illinois. The Church began to splinter after Smith's death, though most members aligned themselves with Brigham Young. It was under Young's leadership, starting in the early winter months of 1846, that fourteen thousand Nauvoo Mormons began a trek west to find, yet again, a new home.

And, so begins the story of the Trail.

Stegner tells the story of the Trail drawing from diaries of participants, including official Church accounts.

The Mormons are great diarists. For that reason, there are multiple accounts of life on the Trail. In the tradition of the Trail, I was taught from an early age to keep a journal. After my LDS mission, I dropped the practice for some years. I wish I had not. But, pressures of work and raising a family left, or so it seemed to me at the time, little time to record our family life.

We took a lot of pictures over the years... perhaps a poor, but certainly a useful, substitute for a journal. I started journal keeping again in my "golden years." I am sure that it is my deeply ingrained sense about the importance of diarizing that impels my current journal keeping passion.

Here's a summary of the Mormons' time on the Trail ... highlighting the the vanguard group.... Brother Brigham's group.

The Saints left Nauvoo in February of 1846... under pressure from agitated Gentiles (LDS argot for non Mormons), who thought the Mormons, post Joseph Smith's martyrdom, had outlasted their agreed upon Nauvoo stay. They began a trek west across the State of Iowa.

Young originally planned to continue west, taking a vanguard company the full 1300 miles to the Great Basin. However, the trip across Iowa was slowed by rain, mud, swollen rivers, and poor preparation. It was too late in the season to beat the winter weather in the Rocky Mountains.

Those in the lead of the Nauvoo migration had to "hole up" on the Missouri River, which cut through Indian lands on the west and Iowa on the east. The Saints camped on both sides of the river.

In April of 1847, a vanguard company of 143 men, including eight members of the Quorum of the Twelve, three women and two children left "Winter Quarters" on the west side of the Missouri River, to seek out their new home, likely to be found in the Great Basin, the large semi arid desert located between the Wasatch and Sierra mountain ranges... then part of Mexico. The train included 73 wagons, draft animals, and livestock, and carried enough supplies to provision the group for one year.

After trekking west for six weeks on the north side of the Platte river (staying away from those pesky, uncouth, unruly Oregon bound Missourians [:-)] traveling on the south side of the river) for most of the way, the party reached Fort Laramie, a fort/trading post in eastern Wyoming, still operative in the waning days of the fur trade.

On 28 June 1847, the party crossed paths with trapper/explorer Jim Bridger on the Big Sandy River near Farson, WY. Bridger gave Young et al more or less a thumbs down report on the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Still, Brigham Young had no choice but to persevere.

Young knew he had to find a place that would accommodate his people where they would not run into the same type of persecution experienced in former Mormon settlements. The Great Basin would meet this requirement... largely because, at the time, no one thought anyone, other than some beleaguered Indians, would want to live there.

The most difficult stage of the migration was, the last stage, the thirty six miles over the Wasatch Mountain. Young chose the route of the Donner Party who had passed through only a year previously.

At the eastern foot of the Wasatch range, at the mouth of Echo Canyon in the valley of the Weber River, Young was taken ill with "mountain fever." Young's vanguard party broke into three: an advance scout group, the main group, and a small detachment to remain with Young at Echo Canyon until his recovery.

The scout group reached the Salt Lake Valley on 21 July 1847. Young did not arrive until 24 July 1847 whereupon he certified the Salt Lake valley as "the place" where the Saints would settle.

Immediately on arrival in the Salt Lake valley, the new arrivals surveyed, planted crops and diverted stream water to the fields. A temple site was located. Interestingly, the first public building in the new Salt Lake City was a theater.

In late August 1847, Young, having stayed in the new Salt Lake City for only a month, led a group back to Winter Quarters on the Missouri, to assist other Mormon trains to prepare for the 1848 plains crossing. There remained much more work to be done to move all the Saints....fourteen thousand more of them, trundled out of Nauvoo, and now huddled on both sides of the Missouri... to the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

By the time of the Mormons' vanguard arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847, Utah Territory had become part of the United States... part of America's spoils of war coming from her victory in the Mexican War.

Brigham Young helped President James K. Polk win the Mexican War by providing the US Army with five hundred Mormon soldiers.

Stegner chronicles the story of the Mormon Battalion, a group of 500 Mormon soldiers, seconded by Young to the US Army, to fight in the Mexican War. The Mormon Battalion marched, in early 1847, as US Army soldiers, from Iowa to San Diego via Santa Fe.

Members of the Mormon Battalion, released in mid 1847 from army service, joined back up with the main body of the Church in Salt Lake City after trekking east, across the Sierra, Stegner cites how some of the ex Mormon Battalion members lingered at Donner Pass to help clean up the site of of the Donner Party, trapped by snowfall the year before.

Some of the Mormon Battalion members who were injured or who became sick during their march, were able to peel off even earlier from the main body of marchers and join up with Brigham's vanguard group at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

The salaries of the Mormon Battalion soldiers helped finance the vanguard wagon train on its journey west.

Overland migrations of Mormons to Salt Lake City would continue for the next twenty one years, until the transcontinental railway rendered overland trekking obsolete in 1869.

Once all the Nauvoo denizens had been moved from the Missouri to the Salt Lake Valley, by 1850, a new set of Mormon pioneer migrants came on the scene: Mormon converts from England and Scandinavia.

One of the genius moves of Joseph Smith in the early days of the Church, even when the Church was floundering amidst persecution and internal troubles, was to send out missionaries, domestic and abroad, to gain converts. In this proselytizing endeavor Smith was eminently successful.

This proselyting practice was carried forward by Young. One could say, for the larger, post Nauvoo wave of Mormon Trail migrants, that the Mormon Trail started in Liverpool, England.

From 1850 to 1869, shipload after shipload of aspirational, hopeful, LDS converts sailed from Liverpool, under LDS Church direction, to (mostly) New Orleans where they would be transferred to Mississippi River stern wheelers. The river boats, loaded with Mormon converts, would ply up river to staging points on the Missouri to launch their apprehensive, but eager passengers on their trek west. Seven of my eight great grand parents were children of English and Norwegian LDS converts who had, in the 1850's, made the passage from Liverpool to Salt Lake City.

Financing was critical. Most of the new migrants were more than dirt poor. The Church set up a fund, called the Perpetual Emigration Fund, to help finance the migration. Migrants would pay back their loans once they reached Salt Lake City and established themselves.

Stegner tells many stories of the Trail. One thing becomes clear: the Mormon pioneers' respect for Brigham Young's authority was unbounded. But, when Brigham wasn't around, there was a fair amount of squabbling, pushing and shoving. Though most of the Trail stories are uplifting (how could they not be), Stegner does not hold back from recounting some of the tensions between the Mormon travelers, particularly when Brother Brigham wasn't around.

It is to be expected that some along the Trail would grumble. Stegner writes about the diary of William Clayton, official Mormon record keeper of the Trail. Clayton's writings, though important to documenting the Mormon migration, contain a lot of whining and complaining about his efforts not being appreciated...about him being poorly recompensed for the time he spent keeping up his journal.

Clayton's journal would later be used by Mormons and Gentiles alike as the must have, seminal record of the Trail.

For all of Brigham Young's outstanding leadership leading the Mormon migration west, Stegner notes that Brigham made mistakes. The plight of two hand cart companies in 1856 is a case in point.

In 1856, the Church initiated a handcart option of migration for the poorest of the poor. Some three thousand handcart pioneers crossed from the Missouri River to Salt Lake City before the program was ended in the early 1860's.

Drawing from personal diaries, Stegner poignantly describes how two of the handcart companies, Willie and Martin companies, in 1856, departed late and ended up stymied in blizzards near South Pass Wyoming. Between the two companies, 250 of 1000 souls were lost to freezing or starvation. A massive rescue operation from Salt Lake City eventually saved the rest of the hand carters.

While motorcycling the Mormon Trail near South Pass, Wyoming in August 2012, I stopped at Rock Creek, the point reached by the Willie company in 1856 before they had to hunker down, sans food, in the blizzard.

While in Rock Creek, I reflected. I tried to visualize, in my mind's eye, the beleaguered pioneers, suffering...freezing in the frozen snow drifts. I thought of my English and Scandinavian ancestors, all of whom had passed by Rock Creek on better days, during the 1850's to ultimately make it to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. I felt gratitude for my ancestors' sacrifice and wondered what debt I owed them to be able to frivolously motorcycle on terrain where they had struggled.

Many historians blame Brigham Young for the hand cart disaster. When the beleaguered European Mormon converts arrived in Winter Quarters, after alighting from their New Orleans paddle wheeler, they found that the hand carts they thought would be ready were not available.

The inexperienced and gullible immigrants were forced to build their own handcarts. They could only find green wood. Still, they were encouraged to depart, with substandard equipment, for Salt Lake City in late June fully six weeks after the optimal departure date.

Apostle Franklin Richards, assigned to Winter Quarters, was the Church general authority in Far West who "authorized" the late starting trek. Surely, he felt, the Lord would provide for this beleaguered hand cart train, notwithstanding the increased risks of a late departure date and substandard equipment. Richards was unceremoniously was scapegoated by Brigham Young for being responsible for this disaster.

Hearing of the hand cart disaster 350 miles away from the comforts of Salt Lake City, the Mormons, under Young's forceful direction, rallied to mount an incredible rescue operation, bringing wagon loads of foodstudlffs and warm clothing to the beleaguered survivors.

Despite the hand cart disaster, the Church did not drop the hand cart scheme. It was successfully resumed in 1857 with the right carts, the right leadership, and starting at the right time, until the coming of the railway.

The hand cart company saga is now well ensconced in Mormon Trail myth. The hand cart pioneers are honored with a dedicated monument at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Stegner notes that the Mormon Trail is the seminal event in defining the culture and character of the Utah based church. Largely because of the Trail, Mormons inherited a tradition of being excellent organizers, planners, managers and executors.

The Trail migration effort was extremely well organized. From chartering steamers in Liverpool, to organizing transfers in New Orleans, to financing hand carts, wagons and stock, to setting up way stations along the way, to running ferries across critical water crossings, to setting up supply stations along the route, Brigham Young's leadership and organizational genius is seen every step of the way.

Unlike the quarreling "Gentile" pioneers on the other side of the Platte, the Mormons were disciplined. They followed orders. They respected authority. When they were dressed down by senior authorities in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, they were submissive. While these qualities may not be appropriate for all situations, they certainly were critical underpins for the Mormon migration's great success.

If you want understand Utah, a national leader among states in many metrics of economic performance, you need to know about the Trail, and how it forged Mormon character...character which has been effectively passed to today's descendants of the pioneers.

Think of Mormons today as being imbued with some mix of hard work, honor, sence of the importance of organization, and willingness to follow direction and respect for elders. These are the same qualities learned by their Mormon forebears on the Trail.

I was raised in Utah, a Mormon. I accepted the Mormon Trail inspired, cultural paradigm as default...normal. Wasn't this the way everyone lived?

I was to be rudely awakened... more than once. In a previous review, I wrote about a first hand encounter with Palestinian school mates during my first year of college at American University of Cairo, 1963. These young students, whom I befriended, railed nothing but hate and enmity towards the Jews, who they considered responsible for stealing their country, Palestine. The attributes of submission to authority, organizational acumen etc. were no where to be found.

I remember my first day in attendance at a Business Policy course at Harvard Business School (HBS) in late 1969. I was shocked when one of my fellow students chewed out the professor on a certain now forgotten point in a way which to me, at the time, seemed disrespectful. One did not publicly chew out a person in a position of authority when adhering to the Mormon way of the Trail.

I soon realized that my upbringing in the way of the Trail made me a bit different. I was like the disciplined, obedient, submissive Saints on the North side of the Platte. My "disrespectful" HBS student friend and angry Palestinian friends were like those unruly hooligans among the Oregon bound people traveling in the same direction on the other side of the river.

I knew that, on a certain level, non Mormon cohorts, with whom I would have to interrelate, valued respectfulness and good manners, but, amongst them there was a greater tolerance for chaos than there was in the well ordered world in which I grew up. To maneuver successfully in the professional life I chose, I would learn that I needed to find a middle ground between the order of my Trail roots and the dissonance of the world outside.

Mormon Mitt Romney, channeling "the way of the Trail," as head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, was to amass several thousand, eager, intelligent, organizationally savvy, and obedient volunteers to work, sans pay, to make the Olympics work. The Salt Lake Winter Olympics was one of the most financially successful Olympic efforts ever due in no small part to Mormons ongoing spirit of the Trail, spawned over 150 years ago. In a very real way, Mitt channeled Brigham Young and the Way of the Trail to make the Olympics successful.

The book is full of stories and a anecdotes about a passionate, hardy, aspirational people who, at great sacrifice, undertook a desperate trip into the unknown because they believed in Joseph Smith's message, the restoration of God's true church on earth.. They were faith driven. The sacrifices they made on the Trail underpin the vitality of the LDS Church today.

Read the book. You can learn a lot about how to get stuff done... if you have people who will cooperate with you!