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The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail
Excellent Book
331 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1964
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About the author
Wallace Stegner
188 books2,110 followersWallace Earle Stegner was an American historian, novelist, short story writer, and environmentalist. Some call him "The Dean of Western Writers." He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977.
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December 21, 2024
Mormons’ faith, much like Judaism, has a strong attachment to geography. The notion of American exceptionalism, that Americans are mystically endowed with gifts and a profound destiny others lack, is a mostly unspoken, but essential feature of their religion. Having grown up as a Gentile among Mormons in Salt Lake City, Stegner long had an interest in the history of his neighbors’ religion. His book is based mostly on contemporary writings of those who walked the Mormon Trail because, “What we get out of the journals is people.” And what an interesting people we get! Stegner intentionally veers away from theology. For him, that’s a story for another day and for others to tell. He was a writer, not theologian. As he tells the tale of the Mormons’ search for a collective home, his views are not condescending or judgmental; he likes his neighbors and his many humorous observations are buttressed by an undeniable admiration of a closely knit, self-confident people. In the telling of this tale, Stegner, the writer, shines through as he conveys a story worth remembering.
American expansion toward the Pacific is a history of trails, of people in search of a better life for themselves and their progeny. Better, that is, if you weren’t Native American. Two of the most well-known, the Oregon and California Trails, shared the same general path of the Mormon Trail up to what is today the border between Utah and Wyoming. Rather than moving ever westward, the Mormon Trail turned south at the southwest corner of Wyoming, ending in what was to become Salt Lake City.
The facts of the Mormon Trail are straightforward. Followers of the religion’s founder, Joseph Smith, were consistently treated with a suspicion by the people who lived near them despite their peaceful ways. More often than not it became outright hate. Violence and persecution were constant companions as they searched for a safe, secure place for their flock. They were driven from New York to Ohio and through the Midwest to the eastern bank of the Mississippi River at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they built a temple which “impresses us as no other picture does with the opulence of the imagination that conceived the building and the ant-like Mormon industry that could erect it on a new frontier.” While they thought they have found their destination there, it turned out to be merely a temporary respite. Smith was murdered in the city jail cell, the new temple ransacked and destroyed, and his people lived in fear for their lives. His successors, Brigham Young and the Twelve—the Mormon leaders—decided to abandon Nauvoo and move West, although they did not have a specific place in mind. In early 1846, small groups began to cross the Mississippi River into the Iowa territory. Although there was no clear destination, over the next year and a half, a caravan of intermittent groups moved ever westward, through innumerable tragedies and obstacles until they decided to settle a dry, difficult to settle flatland east of the Great Salt Lake to establish a new haven they would make into their Promised Land.
Unlike the other trails, theirs was not made up of individualistic journeys to reinvent themselves. It was much more of an organically interconnected community seeking a place to practice their religion and live in peace. Along the way Mormons built and populated outposts to assist those who followed. “Like Caesar’s armies”, writes Stegner, “fortifying themselves in enemy country, they could build towns overnight.” Many who completed the trail went back and forth, guiding and helping those who followed, their faith always putting their personal travails into perspective for them. “Whatever the variants of the myth may say,” writes Stegner, “their story…is [one] of organization, foresight, and discipline.” Another difference was that most of those on the trail did not do so in the stereotypical wagon trains, pulled by horses and supplemented by a chuck wagon. Most had push carts made of wood, made with their own hands, and filled with what little earthly possessions they had as their faith in God and their companions propelled them forward, step by step. “Forms of trouble that afflicted some wagontrains [sic] even onto death—Indians, weather, poison water, dry jornadas, lack of feed—were to them no worse than annoyances. The Mormon pioneers lost more days to the Sabbath than to any hazards of the trail.”
Stegner’s account peripherally touches on other events including the tension between the United States government and Mormon leadership. There is, for example, the Mormon battalion, 500 men who volunteered, served in the U.S. military, and literally walked most of the West during the years that their brothers and sisters endured on the Trail. The salaries they sent back helped finance the Trail. Stegner's vivid portrayal of the survival, death, hope and despair, and the devout ambition of those navigation of the Trail was sustained by a deep faith in the community on the Trail is inspiring. “Run-down as they were,” many had stories like the woman whose family died but she continued on because she was, like many of her fellow pioneers, “exceedingly pious, enjoy[ed] the gifts of the Holy Ghost, [and] love[d] a good session of tongues.” He cites how motivation could be found in the oddest places as with Brigham Young’s reproach of the flock, which provided strange comfort because with Mormons “[t]here has never been a people that so dearly loved a scolding, and Brigham understood them down to the ground.” Overcoming hardship and their adversaries was as much a religious as a physical or emotional challenge. After all, “[t]he scapegoat was as authentic a part of their Old Testament society as the patriarch or the high priest.”
When they arrived at a parched mountain pass that revealed little promise, it turned out to be “what lay at the end of the Mormon Trail, the Kingdom that arrived there as Idea, ready to be built.” The barrenness was also protection from those who would persecute them. There were practical considerations that became part of their social fabric, such as the roles of men and women.
American expansion toward the Pacific is a history of trails, of people in search of a better life for themselves and their progeny. Better, that is, if you weren’t Native American. Two of the most well-known, the Oregon and California Trails, shared the same general path of the Mormon Trail up to what is today the border between Utah and Wyoming. Rather than moving ever westward, the Mormon Trail turned south at the southwest corner of Wyoming, ending in what was to become Salt Lake City.
The facts of the Mormon Trail are straightforward. Followers of the religion’s founder, Joseph Smith, were consistently treated with a suspicion by the people who lived near them despite their peaceful ways. More often than not it became outright hate. Violence and persecution were constant companions as they searched for a safe, secure place for their flock. They were driven from New York to Ohio and through the Midwest to the eastern bank of the Mississippi River at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they built a temple which “impresses us as no other picture does with the opulence of the imagination that conceived the building and the ant-like Mormon industry that could erect it on a new frontier.” While they thought they have found their destination there, it turned out to be merely a temporary respite. Smith was murdered in the city jail cell, the new temple ransacked and destroyed, and his people lived in fear for their lives. His successors, Brigham Young and the Twelve—the Mormon leaders—decided to abandon Nauvoo and move West, although they did not have a specific place in mind. In early 1846, small groups began to cross the Mississippi River into the Iowa territory. Although there was no clear destination, over the next year and a half, a caravan of intermittent groups moved ever westward, through innumerable tragedies and obstacles until they decided to settle a dry, difficult to settle flatland east of the Great Salt Lake to establish a new haven they would make into their Promised Land.
Unlike the other trails, theirs was not made up of individualistic journeys to reinvent themselves. It was much more of an organically interconnected community seeking a place to practice their religion and live in peace. Along the way Mormons built and populated outposts to assist those who followed. “Like Caesar’s armies”, writes Stegner, “fortifying themselves in enemy country, they could build towns overnight.” Many who completed the trail went back and forth, guiding and helping those who followed, their faith always putting their personal travails into perspective for them. “Whatever the variants of the myth may say,” writes Stegner, “their story…is [one] of organization, foresight, and discipline.” Another difference was that most of those on the trail did not do so in the stereotypical wagon trains, pulled by horses and supplemented by a chuck wagon. Most had push carts made of wood, made with their own hands, and filled with what little earthly possessions they had as their faith in God and their companions propelled them forward, step by step. “Forms of trouble that afflicted some wagontrains [sic] even onto death—Indians, weather, poison water, dry jornadas, lack of feed—were to them no worse than annoyances. The Mormon pioneers lost more days to the Sabbath than to any hazards of the trail.”
Stegner’s account peripherally touches on other events including the tension between the United States government and Mormon leadership. There is, for example, the Mormon battalion, 500 men who volunteered, served in the U.S. military, and literally walked most of the West during the years that their brothers and sisters endured on the Trail. The salaries they sent back helped finance the Trail. Stegner's vivid portrayal of the survival, death, hope and despair, and the devout ambition of those navigation of the Trail was sustained by a deep faith in the community on the Trail is inspiring. “Run-down as they were,” many had stories like the woman whose family died but she continued on because she was, like many of her fellow pioneers, “exceedingly pious, enjoy[ed] the gifts of the Holy Ghost, [and] love[d] a good session of tongues.” He cites how motivation could be found in the oddest places as with Brigham Young’s reproach of the flock, which provided strange comfort because with Mormons “[t]here has never been a people that so dearly loved a scolding, and Brigham understood them down to the ground.” Overcoming hardship and their adversaries was as much a religious as a physical or emotional challenge. After all, “[t]he scapegoat was as authentic a part of their Old Testament society as the patriarch or the high priest.”
When they arrived at a parched mountain pass that revealed little promise, it turned out to be “what lay at the end of the Mormon Trail, the Kingdom that arrived there as Idea, ready to be built.” The barrenness was also protection from those who would persecute them. There were practical considerations that became part of their social fabric, such as the roles of men and women.
One of the reasons for Brigham’s laying it out, complete with word on the status and duties of women, was surely that when the main migration arrived, with its heavy disproportion of women, there must be no questioning of the authority of husbands or, what was essentially the same thing, of the priesthood. This was one revolution which was not going to be betrayed at the cookstove.And despite the harshness of the elements and the emergence of certain naysayers, “The Lord, the others thought, would temper the wind to His lambs.” Destiny would be the answer to their travails. And destiny would be propelled by resolve:
Mormon legend has it that Bridger [one of the Twelve] so scorned the Great Salt Lake country that he offered to give a thousand dollars for the first bushel of corn they raised there. It would have been a rash statement, for when a Mormon community wants to prove something to the Gentiles it can grow corn on a cement sidewalk.Once the settlement was established, it began the second vital mission of the Trail, to bring converts and believers to Utah to grow the flock, which became known as The Gathering. Ships, a great many from Iceland (Halldor Laxness’s book Paradise Reclaimed featured one such convert), Scandinavia and Great Britain, arrived in New York, where many made their way to outskirts of St. Louis to build their own handcarts and walk the Trail that was made by their predecessors. Their joyful devoutness sometimes converted others along the way:
More than once, shipfuls [sic] of clean, pious, and well-behaved Mormons so worked on crews and officers that they converted them wholesale. From the very beginning of the operation, Mormon charter ships were show windows open to the world, effective advertising for the faith. Skeptics came to jeer and stayed to praise…But as interesting as their story is, Stegner’s ability to find anecdotes and frame them with his wry wit should attract any reader.
From Albert Carrington, eventually to become one of the Twelve but in 1847 a young clerk, we are certain to learn the color, friability, and mineral composition of every rock and ledge between the Missouri and the Wasatch. Someone at Dartmouth had inoculated him with geology, and the trail brought it out of him as a poultice draws the infection.And his description of the travails one of the faithful who starved while being stuck in a cabin at a pass in Wyoming underscores how many of them dealt with unimaginable hardship. John Franklin had similar experiences in the early 1800s when, leading an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage, he survived and became known as the man who ate his shoes. Franklin certainly must have had a different view than Dan Jones did in Wyoming.
It still had a lot of unpleasant glue in it, but they got it down in time; it stuck to them, Dan Jones said, somewhat longer than they desired. So Jones asked the Lord for further directions, and the Lord passed on His favorite recipe for boiled hide. Scalding seemed to give his a bad taste. Scorch and scrape it, therefore, to get the hair off. Then parboil for one hour in plenty of water, throwing away the water and glue. Then wash and scrape again, rinsing in cold water. Then boil to a jelly and allow to cool. Serve with a sprinkling of sugar.It cannot, however, ever be forgotten that the overlap of certain parts of the Trail proved to be not “only a set of tracks”. To Stegner, “a road is a human institution. And it is a fact at first a little disconcerting to realize that what made the Mormon Trail into a human institution was actually as much the work of Gentiles as of the Mormons themselves.” This perhaps helps to explain why Mormons have endured and thrived. The Mormon Trail not only preserved their religion and social bonds, it was essential in making a marginalized people fully American. Stegner concludes that “[t]he closest thing to [Utah] in modern history is Israel, and Mormons are not blind to the parallels. But this is Israel after more than a century, finally at peace with its ancient enemies.” More to the point, Mormons have integrated with the world at large, but in doing so, they have not lost their belief in their specialness. As Stegner notes in one of the essays in On Teaching and Writing Fiction , the Mormon may be “obligated to be to some degree a lover of his fellowmen, though he may, like the Mormon preacher, love some of them a damn sight better than others.” After reading about the Mormon Trail, who can blame them?
June 24, 2012
Though I loved the book "Angle of Repose", I have to say that this book was a harder read. It is the story of the Mormon Trail, from it's beginning in Illinois, and through the long and hard travels all the way to Salt Lake City.
I was very interested in reading about the trail and the Mormon mentality of helping others and working together for the common good. For a long time I have been interested in Utopian societies and reading about the Mormons was great.
Mr. Stegner made the choice to speak about this group of people from a sociological point of view and never once went into speaking about any religious views. At times, the story lacked part of the backbone to the reasons and choices made by the Mormons, and though there was a little allusion to violent acts done by the Mormons, too little information was given to understand fully what happened historically.
Perhaps this book was written more as an academia book and not meant to the general public, since many things were barely touched upon that would be valuable in understanding the Mormon history and world in general. It is the story of the Mormon trail and the Mormon trail alone, with all the different people that went through it at different times and that emigrated into "Zion".
Since I began crossing over to Southern California and to Oregon on my trusty mini-van over the past ten years, I have been more and more interested in the pioneers who did this same voyage, though the old fashion way: with schooners and wagons and cattle and on foot, through miles and miles of "Indian Territories" and unoccupied lands. Each year I try to read more about these trails and the people who dared go on from this part of the world and to venture forward into the unknown with little to bring along.
The Mormon Trail is similar at point to the California and Oregon Trails, though at times it diverges and goes on a more northerly route. It seems that since Mormons cared about the people who would follow, they took more time and more pains to help level and fix the path, and in time, their trail became a better trail to follow.
I learned several things that I had not known before. The first being that Joseph Smith was massacred in Carthage, Illinois and that he never made the voyage to Salt Lake City, Utah. All that came later with the second leader Brigham Young. That though Mormons accepted bigamy as part of their religion, Emma Smith, Joseph's Smith's first wife, never did and in fact, remained in Illinois and began her own separate church, even though it is recorded that Joseph Smith had 29 wives. That a Mormon man by the name of Piercy sketched a large number of places and people during this period of time, including several of the places the Mormons wintered and rested along the way, like Council Bluffs in Nebraska. I smiled to think of it because some years ago I also painted a water color of Council Bluffs when we camped overnight on our way to visit their famous Zoo. Mostly though, what I learned was the story of the Mormon migration, their hardships and troubles, and their will and resolution to make it come about, their sacrifice and their humanity. Theirs was not an easy journey, and it took all their faith and all their will to endure, and even those that died, they died doing what they passionately believed in, and that I respect truly.
My favorite quote: "The Kingdom is a more cohesive society even yet than most Americans know. The Mormon zeal for genealogy, the temple rituals in which the living are baptized for the dead, the family reunions that may involve five hundred intricately related people, the persistence of undercover Fundamentalist Polygamy, may be subjects of occasional joking, defensiveness, or embarrassment, but the Mormon family and the beliefs that sanctify it are nevertheless sources of a profound sense of community, an almost smug satisfaction. These people belong to one another, to a place, to a faith. History, common effort, a quite remarkable social stability, and a notable cultural adaptation have made it so. The closest thing to it in modern history is Israel, and Mormons are not blind to the parallels. But this Israel is more than a century, finally at peace with its ancient enemies." (pg. 300)
I was very interested in reading about the trail and the Mormon mentality of helping others and working together for the common good. For a long time I have been interested in Utopian societies and reading about the Mormons was great.
Mr. Stegner made the choice to speak about this group of people from a sociological point of view and never once went into speaking about any religious views. At times, the story lacked part of the backbone to the reasons and choices made by the Mormons, and though there was a little allusion to violent acts done by the Mormons, too little information was given to understand fully what happened historically.
Perhaps this book was written more as an academia book and not meant to the general public, since many things were barely touched upon that would be valuable in understanding the Mormon history and world in general. It is the story of the Mormon trail and the Mormon trail alone, with all the different people that went through it at different times and that emigrated into "Zion".
Since I began crossing over to Southern California and to Oregon on my trusty mini-van over the past ten years, I have been more and more interested in the pioneers who did this same voyage, though the old fashion way: with schooners and wagons and cattle and on foot, through miles and miles of "Indian Territories" and unoccupied lands. Each year I try to read more about these trails and the people who dared go on from this part of the world and to venture forward into the unknown with little to bring along.
The Mormon Trail is similar at point to the California and Oregon Trails, though at times it diverges and goes on a more northerly route. It seems that since Mormons cared about the people who would follow, they took more time and more pains to help level and fix the path, and in time, their trail became a better trail to follow.
I learned several things that I had not known before. The first being that Joseph Smith was massacred in Carthage, Illinois and that he never made the voyage to Salt Lake City, Utah. All that came later with the second leader Brigham Young. That though Mormons accepted bigamy as part of their religion, Emma Smith, Joseph's Smith's first wife, never did and in fact, remained in Illinois and began her own separate church, even though it is recorded that Joseph Smith had 29 wives. That a Mormon man by the name of Piercy sketched a large number of places and people during this period of time, including several of the places the Mormons wintered and rested along the way, like Council Bluffs in Nebraska. I smiled to think of it because some years ago I also painted a water color of Council Bluffs when we camped overnight on our way to visit their famous Zoo. Mostly though, what I learned was the story of the Mormon migration, their hardships and troubles, and their will and resolution to make it come about, their sacrifice and their humanity. Theirs was not an easy journey, and it took all their faith and all their will to endure, and even those that died, they died doing what they passionately believed in, and that I respect truly.
My favorite quote: "The Kingdom is a more cohesive society even yet than most Americans know. The Mormon zeal for genealogy, the temple rituals in which the living are baptized for the dead, the family reunions that may involve five hundred intricately related people, the persistence of undercover Fundamentalist Polygamy, may be subjects of occasional joking, defensiveness, or embarrassment, but the Mormon family and the beliefs that sanctify it are nevertheless sources of a profound sense of community, an almost smug satisfaction. These people belong to one another, to a place, to a faith. History, common effort, a quite remarkable social stability, and a notable cultural adaptation have made it so. The closest thing to it in modern history is Israel, and Mormons are not blind to the parallels. But this Israel is more than a century, finally at peace with its ancient enemies." (pg. 300)
February 23, 2009
I'm about 2/3 through this book and have really enjoyed it. It's as if he said, "What if the Mormon pioneers were real people with the normal range of human strengths & frailities?" I've usually read histories written by historians; I much prefer histories written by writers. And Stegner is definitely a writer.
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I've finished the book now & highly recommend it—especially the chapter on the handcart companies. I was moved to tears reading it. This was recommended to me by Gloy Wride, a woman I highly respect, and I'm glad she told me about it. A few (long) thoughts, in no particular order:
Stegner has a great talent for recognizing and validating individual humanity. He's a great folklorist (and I mean that as a high compliment). When he talks about a part of Mormon history that is probably more myth than fact, he still acknowledges the role the myth has played in Mormon culture and doesn't belittle those who believe it. Examples: after discussing the evidence that Brigham Young probably never said “This is the right place, drive on,” he writes, “Nevertheless one is glad that Woodruff either resurrected or happily misremembered Brigham’s words. If Brother Brigham didn’t make that reverberating phrase, he should have.”
Another example: After reporting Richard Burton's less-than-favorable description of a "dirty Scotch Mormon with two slattern Irish sisters for wives," he writes that the Saints "will probably, in angry repudiation of what Richard Burton said of their grandfathers and great grandfathers, insist upon the right of those ancestors to respect--for their faith, their endurance, their discipline. And they will be at least as right as Burton....From this distance, and with the whole history of the Mormon Migration before my eyes, I am glad to take off my hat and salute even these with a degree of respect....The story of the Mormon Trail is a story of people, no better and no worse than other people, probably, but certainly as sternly tested as any, and with a right to their pride in the way they have borne the testing."
I was intrigued by Stegner’s idea that the Saints were almost eager to suffer as a way of proving their righteousness. I think there’s something to that in the Missouri & Nauvoo era, but I didn’t buy it at the end when he discusses the Utah War. I would think that a people who had just walked thousands of miles across the plains to escape a hostile nation had already proved themselves to themselves. I think they wanted to be left alone, and I highly doubt any of them welcomed the news of Johnston’s Army marching towards them in 1857.
The book mentions lots and lots of people—I think it would be confusing to someone with no prior knowledge of Mormon history. Additionally, this book deals solely with the migration from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah and says very little about the era from 1814 – 1846 or after 1858. I would recommend that someone just beginning to study the LDS church read a broader overview of church history first.
The book ends by discussing Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church. Stegner writes that after walking through the streets of Nauvoo, Illinois, “even an unbeliever is brought to the perception that man who started all this was no mere charlatan…this was a mighty imagination, a man with an extraordinary capacity to move men.” He also describes him as “ambiguous, unreliable, incautious, vain, charming…a man with a vision.” The last line of the book is, “Ultimately he is the object of every pilgrimage; for if we understand him we can understand it all.” Ironically, I felt like Stegner never knew quite what to make of Joseph Smith. I don’t think I could articulate what his views are—they’re as varied as his list of adjectives.
Of course the writing is delightful. One of my favorite passages was, “She had a knack for making the best of things. If it had hailed stones as big as baseballs she would have come out from shelter wondering if it wasn’t a good time to make up a nice freezer of ice cream.”
And, as an added bonus, I was surprised to find a letter from Franklin Richards describing in detail his experience of being driven from Nauvoo with his brother-in-law, George Wardle and his family. George Wardle is my 3rd-great grandfather—I was thrilled to find this first-hand report (pg 93 in my book).
In sum, I thought it was a wonderful, warm book that made the pioneers all the more endearing by discussing them as real human beings with real problems and personalities.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I've finished the book now & highly recommend it—especially the chapter on the handcart companies. I was moved to tears reading it. This was recommended to me by Gloy Wride, a woman I highly respect, and I'm glad she told me about it. A few (long) thoughts, in no particular order:
Stegner has a great talent for recognizing and validating individual humanity. He's a great folklorist (and I mean that as a high compliment). When he talks about a part of Mormon history that is probably more myth than fact, he still acknowledges the role the myth has played in Mormon culture and doesn't belittle those who believe it. Examples: after discussing the evidence that Brigham Young probably never said “This is the right place, drive on,” he writes, “Nevertheless one is glad that Woodruff either resurrected or happily misremembered Brigham’s words. If Brother Brigham didn’t make that reverberating phrase, he should have.”
Another example: After reporting Richard Burton's less-than-favorable description of a "dirty Scotch Mormon with two slattern Irish sisters for wives," he writes that the Saints "will probably, in angry repudiation of what Richard Burton said of their grandfathers and great grandfathers, insist upon the right of those ancestors to respect--for their faith, their endurance, their discipline. And they will be at least as right as Burton....From this distance, and with the whole history of the Mormon Migration before my eyes, I am glad to take off my hat and salute even these with a degree of respect....The story of the Mormon Trail is a story of people, no better and no worse than other people, probably, but certainly as sternly tested as any, and with a right to their pride in the way they have borne the testing."
I was intrigued by Stegner’s idea that the Saints were almost eager to suffer as a way of proving their righteousness. I think there’s something to that in the Missouri & Nauvoo era, but I didn’t buy it at the end when he discusses the Utah War. I would think that a people who had just walked thousands of miles across the plains to escape a hostile nation had already proved themselves to themselves. I think they wanted to be left alone, and I highly doubt any of them welcomed the news of Johnston’s Army marching towards them in 1857.
The book mentions lots and lots of people—I think it would be confusing to someone with no prior knowledge of Mormon history. Additionally, this book deals solely with the migration from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah and says very little about the era from 1814 – 1846 or after 1858. I would recommend that someone just beginning to study the LDS church read a broader overview of church history first.
The book ends by discussing Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church. Stegner writes that after walking through the streets of Nauvoo, Illinois, “even an unbeliever is brought to the perception that man who started all this was no mere charlatan…this was a mighty imagination, a man with an extraordinary capacity to move men.” He also describes him as “ambiguous, unreliable, incautious, vain, charming…a man with a vision.” The last line of the book is, “Ultimately he is the object of every pilgrimage; for if we understand him we can understand it all.” Ironically, I felt like Stegner never knew quite what to make of Joseph Smith. I don’t think I could articulate what his views are—they’re as varied as his list of adjectives.
Of course the writing is delightful. One of my favorite passages was, “She had a knack for making the best of things. If it had hailed stones as big as baseballs she would have come out from shelter wondering if it wasn’t a good time to make up a nice freezer of ice cream.”
And, as an added bonus, I was surprised to find a letter from Franklin Richards describing in detail his experience of being driven from Nauvoo with his brother-in-law, George Wardle and his family. George Wardle is my 3rd-great grandfather—I was thrilled to find this first-hand report (pg 93 in my book).
In sum, I thought it was a wonderful, warm book that made the pioneers all the more endearing by discussing them as real human beings with real problems and personalities.
July 30, 2018
Written in 1964, I think this was a much more impressive feat of fact-finding in its own day. Stegner would have researched the stories, timelines and information on the Mormon migration without the help of the internet, of course. But also without any cooperation from the historians of the church or the church itself.
In our (more accessible, if not enlightened) time though, the stories are all available and have been counted and re-counted over and over again. I found nothing new here. I still love and admire Stegner as I always have and I enjoyed the last chapter as a sort of summary of the rest of the book quite a bit.
There is a long paragraph in the forward that I love that ends with this; "...That I do not accept the faith that possessed them does not mean I doubt their frequent devotion and heroism in its service. Especially their women. Their women were incredible."
In our (more accessible, if not enlightened) time though, the stories are all available and have been counted and re-counted over and over again. I found nothing new here. I still love and admire Stegner as I always have and I enjoyed the last chapter as a sort of summary of the rest of the book quite a bit.
There is a long paragraph in the forward that I love that ends with this; "...That I do not accept the faith that possessed them does not mean I doubt their frequent devotion and heroism in its service. Especially their women. Their women were incredible."
July 11, 2014
Wallace Stegner provides an excellent history of the formative period of Mormon history - from leaving Nauvoo (shortly after Joseph Smith's legendary demise (angry mob, jumping out of high windows, bloody scalps, pistols, jail cells, locks of hair)) to the coming of the railroad through their promised land (and marking the end of the arduous treks by wagon or cart).
Wallace Stegner would be an absolutely stellar blogger if he lived today. He's got the thoughtfulness, critical thinking, historian's integrity, and work ethic for it. He really exemplifies the "present them in their terms, judge them in your own" mantra heralded by the discipline. He manages to balance the truly astounding dedication of Mormons - as evidenced by what they were willing to go through - which he admires and the fanatical absurdity of their pilgrimage - also evidenced by what they were willing to go through.
Writing about Mormons is something I find extra fascinating because it is so American. They began not two hundred years ago on our own soil and are still a prominent theology today. They also personify many of the qualities we associate with Americans - a group persecuted, highly dedicated, hard working, drenched in manifest destiny, borderline fanatical/insane, adventurous, uncompromising.
Two things stick in my mind most about the Mormon's twenty-or-so-year period of non-rail exodus to Salt Lake Valley. The first is the story of the group at Devil's Gate who were just scrimping by like crazy in the winter eating through boiled hide. The extreme of it was when they were "forced" to eat a horse harness. I say forced because they presumably could have ditched the fort and gone to Salt Lake Valley. The second is the handcarts. Handcarts. Many years in a row thousands of Mormon's left from the Missouri watershed on foot, pulling handcarts the thousand or so miles to Salt Lake. Heaps died, and others were permanently weakened by it and yet year after year more choose to do it.
The other thing it is impossible to forgot is the number of times Stegner speaks about the Mormon's digging tiny graves for their children who couldn't survive the trek (the family was being "tested" by their deity; I'm not sure what the child was experiencing. I'd sure want to be the tested one and not the test.)But it is essential to retell the story. The only way for the readers to internalize the hardship is through repetition.
To conclude, allow me to share one of my favorite passages where Stegner, in spite of his deep admiration and fascination and historian's integrity simply cannot keep from trolling the self-imposed condition of those at Devil's Gate: "The hide still had a lot of unpleasant glue in it, but they got it down this time; it stuck to them, Dan Jones said, somewhat longer than they desired. So Jones asked the Lord for further directions, and the Lord passed on His favorite recipe for boiled hide."
Wallace Stegner would be an absolutely stellar blogger if he lived today. He's got the thoughtfulness, critical thinking, historian's integrity, and work ethic for it. He really exemplifies the "present them in their terms, judge them in your own" mantra heralded by the discipline. He manages to balance the truly astounding dedication of Mormons - as evidenced by what they were willing to go through - which he admires and the fanatical absurdity of their pilgrimage - also evidenced by what they were willing to go through.
Writing about Mormons is something I find extra fascinating because it is so American. They began not two hundred years ago on our own soil and are still a prominent theology today. They also personify many of the qualities we associate with Americans - a group persecuted, highly dedicated, hard working, drenched in manifest destiny, borderline fanatical/insane, adventurous, uncompromising.
Two things stick in my mind most about the Mormon's twenty-or-so-year period of non-rail exodus to Salt Lake Valley. The first is the story of the group at Devil's Gate who were just scrimping by like crazy in the winter eating through boiled hide. The extreme of it was when they were "forced" to eat a horse harness. I say forced because they presumably could have ditched the fort and gone to Salt Lake Valley. The second is the handcarts. Handcarts. Many years in a row thousands of Mormon's left from the Missouri watershed on foot, pulling handcarts the thousand or so miles to Salt Lake. Heaps died, and others were permanently weakened by it and yet year after year more choose to do it.
The other thing it is impossible to forgot is the number of times Stegner speaks about the Mormon's digging tiny graves for their children who couldn't survive the trek (the family was being "tested" by their deity; I'm not sure what the child was experiencing. I'd sure want to be the tested one and not the test.)But it is essential to retell the story. The only way for the readers to internalize the hardship is through repetition.
To conclude, allow me to share one of my favorite passages where Stegner, in spite of his deep admiration and fascination and historian's integrity simply cannot keep from trolling the self-imposed condition of those at Devil's Gate: "The hide still had a lot of unpleasant glue in it, but they got it down this time; it stuck to them, Dan Jones said, somewhat longer than they desired. So Jones asked the Lord for further directions, and the Lord passed on His favorite recipe for boiled hide."
June 21, 2013
“The story of the Mormon Trail is a story of people, no better and no worse than other people, probably, but certainly as sternly tested as any, and with a right to their pride in the way they have borne the testing.”
General authorities and auxiliary presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Sr. Bonnie D. Parkin, Elder Quentin L. Cook, and President Gordon B. Hinckley, have all quoted from Wallace Stegner’s The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail. I figured if our leaders found this narrative of the Mormon westward migration worth using in their General Conference talks, it was probably a valuable book to read. And I wasn’t wrong.
President Hinckley described Mr. Stegner as “not a member of the Church but a contemporary at the University of Utah who later became professor of creative writing at Stanford and a Pulitzer Prize winner. He was a close observer and a careful student.” From his perspective as an appreciative outsider, Mr. Stegner compiles this story of our forebears’ journey from Nauvoo to the Great Salt Lake Valley. It spans the years from Joseph’s martyrdom in 1844 to the early 1860s, when the coming of the Transcontinental Railroad changed the face of westward travel and rendered wagon trains and handcart companies all but obsolete.
Stringing together what had been, for me, disparate stories of the pioneers, Mr. Stegner’s narrative explains the necessity of the Mormon Battalion – and most significantly, the money they were paid by the United States government for their service – to the survival of the Saints over the winter of 1846/1847 and to their travel to the Salt Lake Valley. He points out the “recklessly optimistic” attitude of some leaders and Saints that encouraged handcart companies to start on the Trail too late in the season, with carts made of green wood and lacking vital durable metal parts. But then he tempers that criticism with a recognition that “whatever may be said of their excessive zeal in the first place, they were neither indifferent not cowardly once they knew the handcart companies might be in distress.”
For the rest of this review (and many others) visit my blog Build Enough Bookshelves.
General authorities and auxiliary presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Sr. Bonnie D. Parkin, Elder Quentin L. Cook, and President Gordon B. Hinckley, have all quoted from Wallace Stegner’s The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail. I figured if our leaders found this narrative of the Mormon westward migration worth using in their General Conference talks, it was probably a valuable book to read. And I wasn’t wrong.
President Hinckley described Mr. Stegner as “not a member of the Church but a contemporary at the University of Utah who later became professor of creative writing at Stanford and a Pulitzer Prize winner. He was a close observer and a careful student.” From his perspective as an appreciative outsider, Mr. Stegner compiles this story of our forebears’ journey from Nauvoo to the Great Salt Lake Valley. It spans the years from Joseph’s martyrdom in 1844 to the early 1860s, when the coming of the Transcontinental Railroad changed the face of westward travel and rendered wagon trains and handcart companies all but obsolete.
Stringing together what had been, for me, disparate stories of the pioneers, Mr. Stegner’s narrative explains the necessity of the Mormon Battalion – and most significantly, the money they were paid by the United States government for their service – to the survival of the Saints over the winter of 1846/1847 and to their travel to the Salt Lake Valley. He points out the “recklessly optimistic” attitude of some leaders and Saints that encouraged handcart companies to start on the Trail too late in the season, with carts made of green wood and lacking vital durable metal parts. But then he tempers that criticism with a recognition that “whatever may be said of their excessive zeal in the first place, they were neither indifferent not cowardly once they knew the handcart companies might be in distress.”
For the rest of this review (and many others) visit my blog Build Enough Bookshelves.
August 13, 2009
Wow, what can I say? This book was a big disappointment for me. I think Wallace Stegner's writing is amazing, so I was really excited to see he had written a non-fiction account about the Mormon Trail. Maybe I should have known better. The writing was good, but I read Part One and had to quit (and I am not one to stop in the middle of a book). Although he had definitely done his research on the West in general and the Mormon Trail specifically, I felt there was still a big bias behind the writing. He obviously read many, many primary accounts, but there was a general dismissal of these accounts as not portraying the true picture. Stegner implies that the Saints enjoyed persecution to enough extent that their accounts couldn't be totally trusted. Granted, we're all human and prone to error, but shouldn't the reader be given the chance to judge?
The biggest downer for me, though, was the constant references to polygamy and "scandal." I came into this knowing that I'd be seeing an outsider's point of view. I guess I expected Stegner to be more objective. It just seemed to me that the references were constant, distracting from the ACTUAL story of the gathering, and just plain overdone. I'm not wishing that he left out polygamy all together. Obviously it was an important part of early church history. He just couldn't seem to focus on much else. Bummer. If anyone else has read this I'd love to hear your point of view - am I way off here?
The biggest downer for me, though, was the constant references to polygamy and "scandal." I came into this knowing that I'd be seeing an outsider's point of view. I guess I expected Stegner to be more objective. It just seemed to me that the references were constant, distracting from the ACTUAL story of the gathering, and just plain overdone. I'm not wishing that he left out polygamy all together. Obviously it was an important part of early church history. He just couldn't seem to focus on much else. Bummer. If anyone else has read this I'd love to hear your point of view - am I way off here?
June 7, 2023
I have loved everything I've ever read by Wallace Stegner. Haven't read his fiction yet, but his nonfiction is just terrific. He is of course not Mormon, but just intrigued with the West. He sums up his goal in this book as follows:
"The most detailed histories of the trail itself have been written in the spirit of celebration and faith promotion, and though most of them make extensive use of journals, they end by dehumanizing the emigrants almost as much as they do the debunkers who see the migration as a movement of dupes led by blackguards. For the celebrators characteristically enlarge and mythify, and hence falsify, people who in their lives were painfully and complicatedly human. They leave out matters that they or the Church authorities feel to be embarrassing, they wash out of the mouths of Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, and others the strong language that stress and humor sometimes put there, they minimize frictions and gloss over personal animosities.
"I should prefer to deal with the Mormon pioneers, if I can, as human beings of their time and place, the earlier ones westward-moving Americans, the later ones European converts gripped by the double promise of economic betterment and eternal life. Suffering, endurance, discipline, faith, brotherly and sisterly charity, the qualities so thoroughly celebrated by Mormon writers, were surely well distributed among them, but theirs also was a normal amount of human cussedness, vengefulness, masochism, backbiting, violence, ignorance, selfishness, and gullibility. So far as it is possible, I shall take them from their own journals and reminiscences and letters, and I shall try to follow George Bancroft's rule for historians: I shall try to present them in their terms and judge them in mine. That I do not accept the faith that possessed them does not mean I doubt their frequent devotion and heroism in its service. Especially their women. Their women were incredible."
"The most detailed histories of the trail itself have been written in the spirit of celebration and faith promotion, and though most of them make extensive use of journals, they end by dehumanizing the emigrants almost as much as they do the debunkers who see the migration as a movement of dupes led by blackguards. For the celebrators characteristically enlarge and mythify, and hence falsify, people who in their lives were painfully and complicatedly human. They leave out matters that they or the Church authorities feel to be embarrassing, they wash out of the mouths of Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, and others the strong language that stress and humor sometimes put there, they minimize frictions and gloss over personal animosities.
"I should prefer to deal with the Mormon pioneers, if I can, as human beings of their time and place, the earlier ones westward-moving Americans, the later ones European converts gripped by the double promise of economic betterment and eternal life. Suffering, endurance, discipline, faith, brotherly and sisterly charity, the qualities so thoroughly celebrated by Mormon writers, were surely well distributed among them, but theirs also was a normal amount of human cussedness, vengefulness, masochism, backbiting, violence, ignorance, selfishness, and gullibility. So far as it is possible, I shall take them from their own journals and reminiscences and letters, and I shall try to follow George Bancroft's rule for historians: I shall try to present them in their terms and judge them in mine. That I do not accept the faith that possessed them does not mean I doubt their frequent devotion and heroism in its service. Especially their women. Their women were incredible."
July 7, 2020
I love reading Wallace Stegner. This is a very enjoyable book.
November 8, 2023
Good account of the Mormon Trail from out of Nauvoo in 1846 through the Handcart painfulness of 1857 and almost to the Railroad era. He does use some questionable sources but mostly it is well written and tries to be somewhat unbiased.
August 4, 2011
This 1 volume history of the Mormon trail was informative, entertaining, thoughtful, insightful, and told from a perspective that is neither anti-Mormon or purposefully faith promoting like so many other treatments of this subject seem to be. From the initial Nauvoo "refugees" in 1846 to the final "church trains" before the transcontinental railroad was completed, this is the story of the Mormon migration over the trail by wagon and handcart. Stegner does a masterful job of telling this story through the eyes of the men and women who made that journey and changed the west forever. This telling is refreshing because of Stegner's fair treatment of the subject. Not a Mormon himself but obviously respectful and even admiring of the organization, sacrifice, and tenacity of those early settlers who turned a primitive trail into a highway of migration west, Stegner shoot's straight with the facts making this an amazing narrative. I learned soo much reading this book, including the extreme hardship suffered by those early refugees fleeing Nauvoo in February 1846. Most of the deaths suffered in this entire migration was suffered by those early pioneers as they struggled across Iowa in early spring under horrible conditions. I learned more of the heroics and mistakes and everyday experiences of those whose faith and perseverance and usually experienced leadership brought them through the wilderness to their kingdom in the Salt Lake Valley so long ago. Stegner tells a brilliant tale in an even-handed way without skimping on the hard, unpleasant facts or engaging in the " faith in every footstep" motif I was exposed to throughout my youth. My respect for my Mormon Pioneer ancestors as well as my historical understanding of this pivotal event in the modern history of the west have been enhanced by Stegner's book. It was also very entertaining and a quick, accessible read.
October 22, 2014
Curse you, Stegner. I either love or hate him. The first third of the book, I wanted to throw it against a wall. The last third of the book, I didn't want it to end. Thank you to Goodreads reviewers who talked me into staying with it. Stegner is at his worst here when he tries to analyze the foundations of Mormonism and Joseph Smith. He's at his best when he keeps his moralizing out of it and just tells the story of the pioneers with that "golden voice" of his. I agree with reviewers who recommend skipping the first chapter (or first few). It's not accurate or really relevant to the story.
This book was a perspective changer for me since I know stories of Mormon pioneers that have been passed down through the lens of faith, and Stegner is an outsider who gave a whole different view on how things might have been. His research is impressive and meticulous. I was able to imagine these stories in a new way. I learned things I never knew about the pioneers, which really surprised me. I just didn't appreciate his editorializing.
I think this book is a valuable addition to the canon of information on the pioneers. Just know going in that Stegner has his biases, as we all do, and try to not let your feathers get too ruffled, whatever your particular biases happen to be.
This book was a perspective changer for me since I know stories of Mormon pioneers that have been passed down through the lens of faith, and Stegner is an outsider who gave a whole different view on how things might have been. His research is impressive and meticulous. I was able to imagine these stories in a new way. I learned things I never knew about the pioneers, which really surprised me. I just didn't appreciate his editorializing.
I think this book is a valuable addition to the canon of information on the pioneers. Just know going in that Stegner has his biases, as we all do, and try to not let your feathers get too ruffled, whatever your particular biases happen to be.
April 26, 2010
Stegner takes an outsider's role in describing the great western exodus of the Mormon people from Missouri to Utah. He uses the storiesof a few to narrate the experience of the first pioneers, those who came later from Europe, as well as a few heroes and villains along the way. I found it helpful, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, to hear the story in an unglorified and factual manner. What's amazing is how heroic and difficult it still is in the telling.
October 1, 2011
This was the story of the Mormon pioneer migration from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley, by Wallace Stegner. This is written from a non-Mormon perspective, which I found interesting. I learned many things about the various trips people did from the Mormon Battalion, to Brigham Young's first trip to SLC, to the many hand cart company adventures. It is an amazing story that I recommend reading.
February 18, 2013
Another great Stegner book. While most of us have read or heard about the Mormon's search for their promised land, Stegner takes us a step further and writes about the personal stories of some of those people who took the original trail. There's a lot of Mormon history here that I'd never known, making it even more fascinating.
September 28, 2022
Very informative and helped me understand and imagine the journey the Mormons took from Illinois to Salt Lake. I was impressed by the handcart companies... basically carrying all their possessions and food in wheelbarrows across rough trail, more than a thousand miles! That's like half the Pacific Crest Trail. And whole families did it!
Recommended by Jenny Sonntag
Recommended by Jenny Sonntag
April 17, 2008
I admittedly skimmed several parts of this book, so can't say that I read the entire thing (I stole it from your bookshelf, Dad). It was informative; very detailed, but not so dynamic. I do maintain that Wallace Stegner is a fantastic writer.
Read
May 9, 2009did not finish. kinda felt like i got the jist of it, though. there is a way to be objective about LDS history without demeaning women. thanks for nothing, wallace stegner. I can happily say now that no, wallace is NOT named after you.
August 7, 2018
Disappointing. After reading a couple of Stegner's novels and being impressed, I stumbled across his 1956 Collier's article on the Mormon handcart companies while preparing a Sunday School lesson. The Collier's piece was touching and strong; when I found Stegner's 1964 history The Gathering of Zion, which includes a chapter by the same name as the Collier's piece, I thought I'd be getting more of the same.
No. Stegner begins well enough, taking a more or less objective perspective, but gradually adopts an unduly critical stance on Mormon leadership and a somewhat condescending take on the Mormon rank and file (often admiring, but often referring to them as "sheep"). His assertion that the Mormon pioneers were "no better and no worse than other people" is a statement that I personally disagree with and is, in any case, a sloppy comment for a historian to make.
In closing, Stegner chides the descendants of the pioneers, "[P]iety and ancestor worship are not the best foundation for the study of history—that the pioneer Mormons were no more seven feet tall and of a heroic gentleness and a saintly purity than their Gentile enemies were." You know what else is not the best foundation for a study of history? Putting your "complete trust" in Bernard DeVoto, Fawn M. Brodie, Dale L. Morgan, and Juanita Brooks. I understand Stegner's frustration at the lack of access to the Church archives. And perhaps the policy was partly to blame for Stegner's reliance on these four: it created a vacuum that anti-Mormon historians were more than happy to fill. But their bias should have been apparent to Stegner.
It'll be a while before I return to any of Stegner's histories.
No. Stegner begins well enough, taking a more or less objective perspective, but gradually adopts an unduly critical stance on Mormon leadership and a somewhat condescending take on the Mormon rank and file (often admiring, but often referring to them as "sheep"). His assertion that the Mormon pioneers were "no better and no worse than other people" is a statement that I personally disagree with and is, in any case, a sloppy comment for a historian to make.
In closing, Stegner chides the descendants of the pioneers, "[P]iety and ancestor worship are not the best foundation for the study of history—that the pioneer Mormons were no more seven feet tall and of a heroic gentleness and a saintly purity than their Gentile enemies were." You know what else is not the best foundation for a study of history? Putting your "complete trust" in Bernard DeVoto, Fawn M. Brodie, Dale L. Morgan, and Juanita Brooks. I understand Stegner's frustration at the lack of access to the Church archives. And perhaps the policy was partly to blame for Stegner's reliance on these four: it created a vacuum that anti-Mormon historians were more than happy to fill. But their bias should have been apparent to Stegner.
It'll be a while before I return to any of Stegner's histories.
January 7, 2018
I definitely have a crush on Wallace Stegner. I adore both Crossing to Safety and Angle of Repose and have long wanted to read one of his non-fiction works. When I saw that he had written one on Mormons.. (I'm a Mormon!!!) I knew it was fate.
And, I am happy to say after reading this that I am pretty sure Stegner had a crush on Mormon women! Definitely not Mormon men and definitely not William Clayton (haha! I seriously enjoyed some of Stegner's snark re: Clayton. Obviously combing through some old these diaries was tedious and I didn't mind some of the jabs. Don't we all have foibles and idiosyncrasies? In my mind, this was part of the delight of this book, the human telling of the individuals behind this amazing undertaking).
Anyway, Stegner, of course, is not without his own biases, but Mormon history is notoriously difficult to sift through, and he has plenty of documentation to support his take on some of the more controversial aspects of its early roots, so I didn't have any trouble with that, even though I don't think he had it all right. (Mormon apologists, prepare to be up in arms with some of the historical sketches.)
I think I'm going to immerse myself in the American West now. Stegner always does a great job of bringing in the epic grandeur and the human details and I feel caught up in the romance of it all.
As for this book, there were times I laughed aloud and times my eyes were wet. Stegner is a masterful storyteller and this is a story worthy of the telling.
Recommended to anyone with interest in the Oregon and/or Mormon trails, in American West history, or general Mormon history.
And, I am happy to say after reading this that I am pretty sure Stegner had a crush on Mormon women! Definitely not Mormon men and definitely not William Clayton (haha! I seriously enjoyed some of Stegner's snark re: Clayton. Obviously combing through some old these diaries was tedious and I didn't mind some of the jabs. Don't we all have foibles and idiosyncrasies? In my mind, this was part of the delight of this book, the human telling of the individuals behind this amazing undertaking).
Anyway, Stegner, of course, is not without his own biases, but Mormon history is notoriously difficult to sift through, and he has plenty of documentation to support his take on some of the more controversial aspects of its early roots, so I didn't have any trouble with that, even though I don't think he had it all right. (Mormon apologists, prepare to be up in arms with some of the historical sketches.)
I think I'm going to immerse myself in the American West now. Stegner always does a great job of bringing in the epic grandeur and the human details and I feel caught up in the romance of it all.
As for this book, there were times I laughed aloud and times my eyes were wet. Stegner is a masterful storyteller and this is a story worthy of the telling.
Recommended to anyone with interest in the Oregon and/or Mormon trails, in American West history, or general Mormon history.
September 5, 2021
Having read "A Crossing to Safety," "Angle of Rep[ose," and "The Spectator Bird," I was looking forward to reading Stegner's take on the story of the Mormon Trail. Unfortunately, for me this book, non-fiction this time, ended up being rather disappointing. Stegner obviously admired much about the Mormon church, and had a lot of factual information about the trek to the Salt Lake Valley, but although at the beginning he said he wouldn’t go into the practices or beliefs of the Mormon Church, just the trek, he didn’t do it, and presented a definite bias against Joseph Smith and other Church leaders, the rank and file converts, and though he admired his organizational and leadership skills, showed a particular dislike of Brigham Young. In his defense Stegner was writing in the 1950’s when there was a lot of misinformation out there, and many of the details and particulars of the church's history hadn’t yet been published, like it has been today. He said that he didn’t use much of anything written by the pioneers themselves, their journals, letters, etc. because having been a persecuted people, they couldn’t be counted on to be accurate or impartial. What, I say? Who better than those who were actually there, suffered said persecution, knew Joseph Smith personally and were a part of the conversations and planning for the trek and experienced crossing the plains ? Stegner instead put his "complete trust" on the writings of four historians, all four having anti-Mormon partiality. He heavily referenced Fawn Brodie, a writer historian who was excommunicated and wrote a scathing psychobiography of Joseph Smith. Anyway, to make a long story short, although I learned quite a bit about some aspects, the exodus from Nauvoo, the trek plans, the wagon trains, the way stations, and especially the handcart companies, I ended the book with a less than favorable taste in my mouth. Maybe Stegner should have stayed with fiction.
December 26, 2018
The Mormons represent a peculiarly American phenomenon. Their history, dating back to Joseph Smith's revelations, his westward migration to the Midwest, and onto Brigham Young's leadership and the further move westward to Zion / Salt Lake City, is immensely fascinating to me as an American and as someone who loves the American West and its settlers and tamers.
Stenger takes an explicitly neutral stance on Mormonism as a religion and worldview, and limits his focus to the trips from Nauvoo, Illinois of the advance party under Young and others up until the advent of the transcontinental railroad (which made the horse and wagon / handcart migration obsolete).
The trip was harrowing for those brave enough to take it. And Stenger (whose fiction I have not yet read) writes like he is writing a fictional narrative vs. a transcription of diaries, which renders the story that much more engaging. Stenger brings us along with the many Mormons who took detailed records of their trips across what are now the states of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah on the 1,400 mile trek of a lifetime. He is clearly an admirer of many of the leaders such as Brigham Young, while unsparing in his revelations of those leaders flaws. But in the end, he is fair, and the story is so remarkable for its combination of missionary zealousness and epic strength of will of the settlers.
Reading the book spurred a lot of further research on the Mormon people and on the belief system generally. I went down a number of Wikipedia rat-holes, and to various pro-, less-pro-, and supposedly neutral (www.mormonthink.com) websites dealing with it.
As I often try to do, I made a map with a number of the places mentioned in the book. It's available here: https://goo.gl/maps/zjyDCtLRNsH2
Stenger takes an explicitly neutral stance on Mormonism as a religion and worldview, and limits his focus to the trips from Nauvoo, Illinois of the advance party under Young and others up until the advent of the transcontinental railroad (which made the horse and wagon / handcart migration obsolete).
The trip was harrowing for those brave enough to take it. And Stenger (whose fiction I have not yet read) writes like he is writing a fictional narrative vs. a transcription of diaries, which renders the story that much more engaging. Stenger brings us along with the many Mormons who took detailed records of their trips across what are now the states of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah on the 1,400 mile trek of a lifetime. He is clearly an admirer of many of the leaders such as Brigham Young, while unsparing in his revelations of those leaders flaws. But in the end, he is fair, and the story is so remarkable for its combination of missionary zealousness and epic strength of will of the settlers.
Reading the book spurred a lot of further research on the Mormon people and on the belief system generally. I went down a number of Wikipedia rat-holes, and to various pro-, less-pro-, and supposedly neutral (www.mormonthink.com) websites dealing with it.
As I often try to do, I made a map with a number of the places mentioned in the book. It's available here: https://goo.gl/maps/zjyDCtLRNsH2
September 3, 2017
As a devout Mormon with pioneer ancestors I came to this book with respect and honor for those who braved the wilderness in search of the religious freedom their own country had denied them. At the beginning I found Stegner, obviously not a believer (as he himself points out), a little flip or sarcastic about the people and their devotion and beliefs. But as I continued to read this bothered me less and less, and I found myself in awe of what I already knew they had accomplished. In addition I developed greater respect for them as I accepted their foibles and humanness and began to see them as real people with faults and strengths. An amazing read, very worth my time. It actually strengthened my belief in my faith, to see what can be accomplished by those who are not perfect. As Stegner says in his final chapter "...the pioneer Mormons were no more seven feet tall and of a heroic gentleness and a saintly purity than their Gentile enemies were." But I can look back on the legacy they left me and be grateful for their faith and courage in blazing the trail for me to follow.
August 9, 2020
Read by the pool a good paperback for such. Slow and plodding until you reach the Mormon trails to Zion. Know little about the background; the Mormon movement provided inspiration and method for the poor and workers of London & Liverpool, then later German and Norse people to find a life with possibility. Poor but skilled as "bookbinders, bakers, butchers, bobbin reelers, dollmakers, butchers, dressers, swordmakers, wheelrights....." not equipped well for the trip, but surely could contribute to the Zion civilization. These people had NO hope of ever getting ahead in their European homes; also of interest were the "handcart immigrants who over a period of summers push a cart with their families and associates to get to Utah faster, lighter. Unlike Gentile groups who headed West on the various trails, the was a spirit of help. The settlers already in Utah traveled back toward the settlers to assist, to set up way-stations. Each year was easier until the Railroads reduced the difficulty. Mormons have much to be admired, then and now. Stegman captures the period well.
February 29, 2020
I am a Wallace Stegner fan. I think I’ve given every one of his books that I have read 5 stars. But this one was different. It was non-fiction based on research he did on the exodus of the Mormons to Utah. His research was impeccable (especially considering it was pre-computer,) but some of his conclusions, erroneous.
I have to say it is a treasure to have a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints writing about the church’s history in, what I’m sure he felt was an unbiased way. Doing a little research of my own, I found that this book has been quoted in the church’s general conference at least four times. It is a new perspective on an important part of the church’s history. But I felt it was a bit offensive in places and, much like the pioneers trek, a bit difficult to trudge through.
I have to say it is a treasure to have a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints writing about the church’s history in, what I’m sure he felt was an unbiased way. Doing a little research of my own, I found that this book has been quoted in the church’s general conference at least four times. It is a new perspective on an important part of the church’s history. But I felt it was a bit offensive in places and, much like the pioneers trek, a bit difficult to trudge through.
January 18, 2024
Wallace Stegner has quickly become a new favorite for me. I adore his wit and eloquence. And I love how he treated this topic. As a skeptic of the Mormon faith and yet an admirer of its people, Stegner presented the story of the Mormon Trail with both clear-eyed rigor and compassionate respect. He insisted on viewing his subjects as the human beings they were, imperfect and striving, rather than glorifying or demonizing (respectively), as past writers of either side have often done.
The story itself, of the people and events that shaped a unique (and yet essentially American) mass migration, was familiar to me, but Stegner pulled it all together in a digestible and enjoyable narrative. I loved this book.
The story itself, of the people and events that shaped a unique (and yet essentially American) mass migration, was familiar to me, but Stegner pulled it all together in a digestible and enjoyable narrative. I loved this book.
March 26, 2020
Over the past several years I have been reading more about western history. This time I decided to try something more close to home, a story from my family history. Several relatives have encouraged me to read Wallace Stegner, so I started with his book on the Mormon Trail. I have heard the story of how my great great grandmother pushed a handcart across the west to get to Salt Lake, but I didn’t know the facts. Stegner’s book is a well-written, fairly neutral history. One relative told me it was fluff, but for a beginner like me, I thought it was a good introduction. I will certainly read more about the pioneers and more by Stegner.
June 20, 2017
Written by a famous non-Mormon historian. Enjoyed reading a perspective on saints and their pioneers as seen by an outsider, it was kind of funny to read it and see the truth in what he said. Was very dry, as he didn't put much stock in the religious faith, although he respected it. Pioneers are no better and no worse than anyone else, he said. He definitely pulled the romance out of the pioneer stories but I learned a lot about the big picture of lds pioneers moving west and their contributions to the trails out west.
October 4, 2020
I picked up this book at a gift shop along the Oregon/Mormon Trail in Nebraska. Stegner's prose is straightforward but vividly descriptive of the beauty of the land and the hardships the early pioneers endured. His goal was a description of the trail so he does not sermonize on the Mormon hierarchy, nor does he whitewash some of their abuses. An excellent book for anyone interested in the story of the western pioneers.
January 17, 2022
Reading about the early pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a subject I’ve read a few books about, but this is the first time reading it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t share the same religious beliefs. It was very interesting and entertaining to see that perspective; especially because the author is overall respectful. I was impressed by how often the author was generous enough to point out the positive aspects and outcomes of a group of people that I admire, but many outside of these religious beliefs often mock or find fault with.
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