1860-05-03-New York Herald-Arrival of Mormon Saints

Arrival of Mormon Saints

Their Departure for Utah—Interesting Scenes and Facts—Deaths on the Voyage, &c., &c., &c.

The arrival of five hundred or a thousand emigrants in a single ship has of late years become so common that a simple announcement of the fact, though an important on in itself, bearing as it does upon the prospective welfare of our country, excites little more attention than the thousand and one incidents which daily transpire in our city, and form a part of the newspaper history of the times.

On Tuesday last, however, an arrival of more than ordinary interest took place, in the shape of the ship Underwriter, Captain Roberts, with a living freight of five hundred and ninety-four Mormon emigrants, en route for Utah; and in view of the interest which necessarily attaches to the movements of such a body of people, united in a single object, who have left their homes across the water, sundered the associations which bound them there to relatives and friends; sacrificed the pleasures and privileges of the time honored customs of their own country, and undertaken a journey eight thousand miles in length to participate in a social, political and religious experiment unparalleled in the history of mankind, we give below an account of a visit paid to them yesterday, by one of our reporters, and some particulars of which will probably prove new to the majority of our readers.

Arriving at Castle Garden, about three o'clock in the afternoon, we found that the Underwriter had discharged her cargo, and that a majority of the emigrants had been transferred to the steamer New World, of the New York and Albany line, preparatory to leaving the city on their long Western tour. One or two hundred, however, remained for the moment in the rotunda, under the direction of Brother George I. Cannon, the President of the Church of the Eastern and Middle States, who was busy in perfecting the arrangements and providing for the thousand and one details incident to an occasion of the kind devolving upon him as superintendent of the arrival and departure of Mormon emigrants. From this gentleman we learned that the present shipload is the largest which has arrived at this port since last May, when the ship William Tapscott landed seven hundred and twenty-five passengers.

Small companies of ten, twenty and fifty, however, are frequently arriving, and quite a number of the emigrants who came last fall have spent the winter in this city and New Jersey, awaiting the pleasant weather of spring, in the meanwhile industriously pursuing their various occupations and adding to their limited stock of worldly goods.

As will be seen from the table below, most of the emigrants belong to the poorer classes; but it is a remarkable fact that by prudence and economy—two characters peculiar to Mormons everywhere—they save more than many who have greater facilities for making it and have more abundant means at their command.

The Underwriter left Liverpool on the 31st of March, and consequently the passage was made in just a month. The captain reports that the weather was exceedingly boisterous, but that in an experience of twenty years on the ocean, he has never brought to our shores a shipload of emigrants against whom he could utter less of complaint. They were quiet, orderly, tidy as circumstances permitted them to be, and, excepting among the crew, he has not heard an oath since he left England. In whatever the Mormons engage they are very systematic. They make laws for their regulation, and obey the authorities who administer them. During the voyage of the Underwriter the ship was divided into fourteen wards, besides that of the second cabin. Each one of these was presided over by a competent person, who was held responsible for every breach of neatness and decorum under his jurisdiction, and who conducted the religious exercises of the little group when it was impossible for them all to meet in a body. Whenever the weather permitted public services were held daily, consisting of prayer, speaking and singing, and occasionally these were varied by recitations, dancing and other innocent amusements of a healthful character. During the trip four deaths occurred, and afforded to the living the sad spectacle of a burial at sea—tow of these being children, one was a female of about sixty years of age, who was in delicate health when she left home, and the other an old may of eighty. There is another of these aged patriarchs in the company, and we were informed that it is not unfrequent for whole families, from the little nursling in the first stage of infant weakness to the eldest member of the generation, to embark on these pilgrimages to the Great Salt Lake region of our country.

The following is a statement showing the different occupations of the emigrants, and other interesting facts connected with them:—

The occupations are:— Farmers……4 Shoemakers……12 Grinder……1 Ore smelters……2 Miners……23 Cordwainer……1 Warehousemen……3 Ropemaker……2 Engraver……1 Millers……2 Laborers……49 Coach painters……2 Metal refiners……1 Ornament maker …… 1 Porters ……4 Bricklayer……1 Ironworkers……2 Gardeners……4 Carpenters……9 Lacemaker……1 Hoopmaker……1 Wire drawers……4 Stone masons……4 Engine fitter……1 Vulcanizer……1 Bakers……5 Zinc worker……1 Blacksmith……1 Tailors……9 Policeman……1 Colliers……12 Lawyer……1 Potter……1 Wheelwrights……2 Glass worker……1 Flax dresser……1 Tinsmith……1 Whitesmith……1 Teachers……2 Miller……2 Plate layer……1 Puddler……1 Vitriolmaker……1 Waterman……1 Seamen……2 Millwrights……2 Weavers……7 Printers……4 Stockingmaker……1 Engineer……1 Shepherd……1 Wood turner……1 Currier……1 Striker……1 Cutler……1 Cotton spinners……2 Turner……1

Of spinsters there are 92; wives, 96; widows, 16; children under 12 years, 148.

The principal portion of the emigrants are English, say about 390; of Swiss there are 154, of Welsh, 90; French, 1; Irish, 2.

Of the above 138 will travel with handcarts; the balance by teams, which will be provided on the frontier.

The officers of the company are as follows:—

James D. Ross, President.

James Taylor, John Croft, Councillors.

John Craeton, steward.

James E. Welland, Henry Jackson, cooks.

In England, Mr. Ross, from his great familiarity with the Scriptures, is familiarly known among the Mormons as "the walking Bible." He is a Scotchman by birth, a weaver by occupation originally, but since his eighteenth year he has been engaged in preaching Mormon doctrines, and is said to be a popular and forcible speaker. He is thirty-five years of age, and evidently wields strong influence among the class with which he is connected.

In addition to the large number who left for Albany and the West in the New World yesterday afternoon, delegations are about departing from Philadelphia, Boston and other places, a large portion of whom are Americans. Five hundred are expected to leave the State of Pennsylvania alone, and advices received from the West state that the emigration from that section will be greater than in any previous year. The Mormons are evidently much encouraged by these promising fruits of the dissemination of their doctrines, and the few with whom we conversed seemed to be perfectly overjoyed at the prospect of a future life among those with whom they could fully sympathise, and live in relations of harmony which had been denied them in their own country. And, on the other hand, Mr. Cannon states that the Saints in Utah are just as anxious for their acquisition. No man in Utah wants for employment; and especially are the services of those acquainted with the working of iron and coal mines, and manufactures generally, desired, to develop the resources of that country which are as yet unemployed.

Mr. Cannon further informs us that as the feeling between the Mormons and the general government is now regarded as subsiding, a number of missionaries will leave Utah this spring for the East and for Europe. Two of the Twelve Apostles are expected in this capacity, who were appointed before the war fever, but remained at home in consequence of it.

The present emigrants after travelling as far westward as rail and steam can carry them, will strike the Plains and take to their teams and handcarts at Florence, which is six miles above Omaha City, on the Missouri river, whence they will follow what is known as "the Old Mormon Trail." The town of Florence is somewhat celebrated in Mormon history as the winter quarters of Brigham Young, before he started with his followers for the Great Salt Lake Valley, and since then has been the route generally adopted.

The cost of transportation for a family of eight persons from Liverpool to Utah, including the expenses of teams, is about ₤67, or $335; but single persons are frequently carried at prices varying from ₤8 to ₤12, or from $40 to $60. After leaving Florence, the trip is usually made in from seventy to ninety days. This season, however, better facilities for travelling across the Plains will be provided than ever before. Providions have been scattered along the route at different stations; the loads ordinarily carried will consequently be much reduced, and the teams travel with greater speed.

Leaving Castle Garden, our reporter stopped long enough on the outside to draw a contrast between the clear, ruddy, honest and healthy faces of the emigrants he had just left, with the long row of uncouth, depraved, rum-blossomed, tobacco-stained, blear-eyed and bulldog looking individuals, yclept "runners," who, to the number of fifty or more, were watching the beasts of prey for a chance to pounce upon some one of the unoffending emigrants, and carry him off to be devoured at leisure, and we then proceeded to the Albany boat. The scene that met our eyes here was one for a picture. Occupying the whole forward end of the boat, and piled from floor to ceiling, was the baggage of near six hundred emigrants. And such baggage. There were boxes, bundles, big and little; bags, long, short, fat, lean, square, round, of all geometrical forms and dimensions; kettles, crockery, tin ware, cutlery, guns, cases—in fact, an assortment of household utensils varied enough to have tickled Mrs. Teasd??? with an orgasm of delight at the prospect of a speculation. Scattered around the foreward cabin were the emigrants—as fine, hardy and substantial a body of people as ever started on a pioneer tour into the wilderness; there were old men and young men; the spruce looking tradesman and the rougher mechanic; mothers with nursing children, whose eloquence, like that of most infant orators, was more easily heard than understood; old ladies, with faces full of wrinkles and benevolence, people out out in the most common place shapes of social automata; little children looking as happy as if the primeval curse had been relaxed in their favor, and buxom young girls, with faces full of sunshine, who, for all we know, may yet be connecting links between an untainted English ancestry and some weather browned old Mormon prophet. Every individual there was a worker, and no one could look upon the sturdy little throng without feeling that they would be an acquisition of which any locality might well be proud. All seemed to be in the best of humor, and from the time when they took their places in their respective family circles, settling themselves as quietly as if they had travelled all their lives, until the departure of the boat for Albany, they were cracking their jokes and good naturedly prospecting on the unknown future, upon which they have now fairly entered.