Every man is known whether he works or
not. The idler shall not eat the bread of the industrious. I am sent with a
p[ar]cel of teams to remove the poor, and shall organize and start from here.
In regard to scattering in Missouri, Galena, Iowa &c., the President said
he would start horse teams and then ox teams until they had got every man West
of the U.S. The Council is to work West. Wagons will be coming and going
continually. How many made the Covenant to spend the last cent? I would rather
fare as to the brethren than be among the Gentiles, and I won’t be content will
I get on the big prairie again. I have no Council to give. I was sent to bring
as many as I can and I will do it, and get them to Council Bluffs—you uphold me
and I’ll uphold you. I’ll take some to Bonapart where they may get work. I know
some men have left that Camp and brought back evil reports, fearing to starve!—at
the same time having their Wagons so heavy laden with four that they could scarce
roll them. Has not the prophet Joseph prophesied of these things? They are now
fulfilling! I have heard him say that within 5 years the Mormons would be glad
to go West with a bundle under their arms. I want peace, union and friendship
on the Road, and for all to spend and be spent to remove the poor. I’ll get you
thro’ as quick as I can. (Thomas Bullock, Journal, October 7, 1846, in The
Pioneer Camp of the Saints: the 1846 and 1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas
Bullock, ed. Will Bagley [Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American
Frontier 1; Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997], 73)
Further Reading:
