In a discourse delivered on March 16, 1856, Brigham Young referred to Joseph Smith's prophecy of the Saints moving to the Rocky Mountains:
The Prophet Joseph has been
referred to, and his prophecy that this people would leave Nauvoo and be
planted in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. We see it fulfilled. This prophecy
is not a new thing, it has not been hid in the dark, nor locked up in a drawer,
but it was declared to the people long before we left Nauvoo. We see the
invisible hand of Providence in all this; we realize that His hand has wrought
out our salvation.
Through His control of
circumstances this people have been removed from civilization, and have been
brought to inhabit these vales among the Rocky Mountains, to dwell in these
desolate and barren plains where no ether people, that we have any knowledge
of, would live one year, if they could get away. The providence of God has
brought us here. (JOD 3:257-58)
Elsewhere, on March 3, 1861,
Brigham said that
I
am looking for the words of Joseph to be fulfilled. The time will come when men
and women will be glad to catch what they can, roll up in a small bundle, and
start for the mountains, without team or waggon. That day will shortly come.
Hundreds of people in this house are my witnesses, who heard Joseph say, when
asked whether we should ever have to leave Nauvoo, "The Saints will leave
Nauvoo. I do not say they will be driven, as they were from Jackson County,
Missouri, and from that State; but they will leave here and go to the
mountains. (JOD 8:356)
As Ronald K. Esplin noted,
Brigham
was
probably referring not only to the “Rocky Mountain prophecy” of 1842,
but to a settled belief repeated several times that apparently dated from at
least 1840. (Ronald K. Esplin, “’A Place Prepared’: Joseph, Brigham and the
Quest for Promised Refuge in the West,” Journal
of Mormon History 9 [1982]:92)
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