Cold Spring Camp |
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Cold Spring Camp – not to be confused with Cold Springs 50 miles further east – became a turning point in the Mormon (LDS) migration to the Great Salt Lake Valley. This five-week wonder started as a staging point for the well-supplied, planning to go on to Grand Island or to the Rocky Mountains in 1846. A somber meeting of the Twelve July 24 on Council Hill, little more than a mile to the west northwest, changed all that.
Even before recruitment of the Mormon Battalion to march to San Diego, California, LDS builders completed the Middle Mormon Ferry June 29 over the Missouri River. The ferry ran day and night, weather permitting, taking LDS refugees from west central Illinois and southeastern Iowa out of the United States and into what Congress had designated as Indian Country. In fact, one company of about 200 migrants under the direction of George Miller had gone on by special assignment to pick up at Loup Fork, Nebraska territory, for hire, a couple of wagon loads of buffalo hides and bring them back to the American Fur Company post where Bellevue, Nebraska is today. Philadelphia lawyer Thomas L. Kane, looking and listening wherever these Mormon refugees stopped, visited and later reported on Cold Spring Camp. Indeed, he himself was reported on by two women who happened to be washing themselves in their tent and complaining about having been forced by mobs to leave their comfortable homes in Nauvoo, Illinois. When one of them started to throw out a basin of rinse water she saw this young man with his head cocked near the tent in a listening attitude. Then she said she blushed but later she learned who he was and realized what a blessing Thomas L. Kane was to the refugees. Kane March 26, 1850 told the Historical Society of Pennsylvania about Cold Spring Camp: “…a large camp upon the delta between the Nebraska (Platte River) and the Missouri, in the territory disputed between the Omaha, and Otto and Missouria Indians…
“It was situated near the Petit Papillion (Papio Creek) or Little Butterfly River, and upon some finely rounded hills that encircle a favorite cool spring (now 60th Street north of L St). On each of these a square was marked out; and the wagons as they arrived took their positions along its four sides in double rows, so as to leave a roomy street or passageway between them. The tents were disposed also in rows, at intervals between the wagons. The cattle were folded in high-fenced yards outside. The quadrangle inside was left vacant for the sake of ventilation, and the streets, covered with leafy arbor work and kept scrupulously clean, formed a shaded cloister walk. This was the place of exercise for slowly recovering invalids, the day-home of the infants, and the evening promenade of all. “From the first formation of the camp, all its inhabitants were constantly and laboriously occupied. Many of them were highly educated mechanics, and seemed only to need a day’s anticipated rest to engage them at the forge, loom, or turning lathe, upon some needed chore of work. A Mormon gunsmith is the inventor of the excellent repeating rifle, that loads by slides instead of cylinders; and one of the neatest finished fire-arms I have ever seen was of this kind, wrought from scraps of old iron, and inlaid with the silver of a couple of half dollars, under a hot July sun, in a spot where the average height of the grass was above the workman’s shoulders. I have seen a cobbler, after the halt of his party on the march, hunting along the river bank for a lap-stone in the twilight, that he might finish a famous boot sole by the camp fire; and I have a piece of cloth, the wool of which was sheared, and dyed, and spun, and woven, during a progress of over three hundred miles. “Their more interesting occupations, however, were those growing out of their peculiar circumstances and position. The chiefs were seldom without some curious affair on hand to settle with the restless Indians; while the immense labor and responsibility of the conduct of their unwieldy moving army, and the commissariat of its hundreds of famishing poor, also devolved upon them. They had good Bishops, whose special office it was to look up the cases of extreme suffering: and their relief parties were out night and day to scour over every trail.” Brigham Young and other leaders of the church moved up to Cold Spring Camp. They were concerned not so much with camp conditions as with the thousands of migrating refugees and with branches of the church back east, in Canada, and in the British Isles. As senior member of the Twelve, Brigham Young called for a 2 p.m. meeting atop the tallest hill, a mile to the west northwest of Cold Spring Camp July 24. It had already been agreed that John Taylor, Parley P. Pratt, and Orson Hyde would go on mission forthwith. But a host of other matters needed to be discussed.
So was chosen Council Hill, the highest in the district, which was where today South 72d Street and Interstate 80 in Omaha intersect. Members of the Twelve and Bishop Newell K. Whitney arrived at the hill in carriages at 2 p.m. July 24. They carried buffalo robes and a tent to the top of the hill, set up the tent, and laid down the buffalo robes round about. They met for two hours discussing the progress of their exodus from Illinois and south-eastern Iowa; whether they should seek the permission of Queen Elizabeth for British saints to migrate to British Columbia in southwestern Canada; what to do about poverty-stricken members and stragglers not yet departed from Nauvoo, Illinois; or those who were bogged down at Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah in south central Iowa. After those discussions while lying on buffalo robes and looking at distant hills, clouds, and horizon, they went into the tent and dressed in temple clothing. Then they came out, prayed, laid hands on Taylor, Pratt, and Hyde to go on mission to England and Ezra T. Benson to go on mission to the Eastern States. At 6 p.m. they changed back into regular clothing, rolled up the robes, struck the tent, and descended to their carriages. Most returned to Cold Spring Camp. Taylor, Pratt, and Hyde went back to their families in Iowa, by way of the Middle Mormon Ferry, planning to go on mission in a week. On August 1 Brigham Young sent a letter to the George Miller camp on Loup Fork to return to the Missouri River or to winter where they were. He explained the church would wait at the Missouri River for stragglers to catch up, or be ready to go back and rescue them if such were needed. Shortly thereafter, scouting teams were sent out west and north to find a more suitable place to winter several thousand refugees. On August 6 and 7 the residents of Cold Spring Camp streamed north nine miles to a winter quarters which they called Cutler’s Park. By Gail Holmes September 2006
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Of Interest:
Recollections of Hosea Stout; Saturday, August 1, 1846: "On this pleasant and clear morning, Brigham Young and others met in council at Albert P. Rockwood's tent. They finally made a firm decision that an advance company would not be sent over the mountains this season. A letter was composed to Bishop George Miller who was more than one hundred miles to the west at the Pawnee Mission on the Platte River. They informed him that members of the Twelve and about three hundred wagons were at Cold Spring, about four miles west of the Missouri . Many wagons were crossing each day to join them. "The health of the camp on this side of the river is generally good, on the other side considerable sickness prevails." The Saints at the Missouri River would search for a winter settlement on the west side of the river, probably about forty miles to the north. There they would turn the cattle out on the range to fatten them up for beef. This would be a good location to spend the winter because they would still be near settlements to obtain provisions. They would be also sent to St. Louis to buy equipment needed for a mill, carding machine, and other necessities. Bishop Miller was told not to cross over the mountains but he was given an option to spent the winter at the Pawnee village or Grand Island. He could send a small company to Fort Laramie if he wished, but the preferred location seemed to be the Pawnee village which soon would be vacated. This might make another good location for a settlement. In the spring, Brigham Young would overtake them and they would all go over the mountains together. Saints in the Wilderness, A Day by Day Pioneer Experience by David R. Crockett, page 70 ~ ~ ~ Quote from Historic Marker at Cold Spring Camp
Cold Spring Camp
Driven from their Nauvoo, Illinois, homes, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints migrated west in 1846. The first companies stopped at a “Grand Encampment” on the east side of the Missouri and Began to ferry across the river on the first of July. They started another holding encampment here. The area has been greatly changed, but we can see what it was like from a description by Thomas L. Kane, a non- Mormon visitor. “On each of these [hills] a square was marked out; and the wagons as they arrived took their positions along its four sides in double rows, so as to leave a roomy street or passageway between them. The tents were disposed also in rows, at intervals between the wagons. The cattle were folded in high-fenced yards outside. The quadrangle inside was left vacant for the sake of ventilation, and te streets, covered in with leafy arbor work and kept scrupulously clean, formed a cloister walk. This was the place of exercise for the slowly recovering invalids, the day-home of the infants, and the evening promenade of all. “From the first formation of the camp, all its inhabitants were constantly and laboriously occupied. Many of them were highly educated mechanics … at the forge, loom, or turning lathe.” By the first week of August some 2,000 people were camped here. However, many more refugee groups were scattered along the way from Illinois. Clearly, they could not cross the plains that year. Church leaders decided to winter at the Missouri, but at a better location. In early August the camp moved nine miles north of here and planted a settlement called Cutler’s Park. They finally settled in at Winter Quarters, a town of several thousand souls on the river bottomland of north Omaha. Placed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1995 |
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