Mormon Pioneers
1849
Fort Irwin Museum
Mormon pioneers and settlers were poised to be at the forefront of the gold rush and initial development of the Southern California region. They crossed the Mojave Desert using the Old Spanish Trail as a winter route to avoid the snowy and deadly Sierra Nevada. They first settled in San Bernardino, California, building a colony and growing it into a thriving, but wild community.
The Swarthout Family
The man who sold the present day Clyde Ranch to Almon Clyde was named George Swarthout, and he was more than ...
Mormon Battalion
The Mormon Battalion left Council Bluffs, Iowa to fight in the Mexican War. Their first stop was Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to be outfitted with some military ...
Shoshone Indians
There were three major bands of Northwestern Shoshoni at the time the first Mormon pioneers began settling northern Utah. Chief Little Soldier headed the ...
The Southern Paiute of Las Vegas Valley
The Mormons who settled along Las Vegas Creek did not record any ... The Paiute camps were not sufficiently identified by Mormon diarists to enable anyone ...
Pauline Weaver
Oct 1846 - Captain Philip St. George Cooke, who led a caravan composed of twenty-four wagons, 397 Mormon men, and five women west from Santa Fe late in ...
The Welch and Harris Trial
He believed it was impossible for justice to be served in predominantly Mormon San Bernardino, complaining that "the county judge is a Mormon, ...
Pioneer of the Mojave
Added to this turmoil was the anti-U.S. climate in San Bernardino, which had been a Mormon colony up until the time of the Mormon rebellion against the ...
Paiute Indians
Although the Euro-American travelers posed a threat to the Paiutes, it was the arrival of the Mormons in the 1850s that destroyed their sovereignty and ...
MORMON EXODUS STALLS ON THE MOJAVE
Amasa Lyman, previously a co-leader of the Mormon Colony, was at the river encampment buying supplies, through intermediaries, from his former townsmen. ...
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
In the early morning hours of September 7th, a party of local Mormon settlers and Indians attacked and laid seige to the encampment. ...
Bitter Springs
Mormon Battalion. The Mormon Battalion left Council Bluffs, Iowa to fight in the Mexican War. ... Camel Expedition. The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, ...
San Bernardino County Mining History
Salt Spring, along the Mormon Trail that connected Salt Lake City and San Bernardino, became the first confirmed gold discovery in the county in 1849. ...
Mojave Desert Shrubs - Desert Plants
Mormon Tea - Ephedra, Ephedra sp. Joint Fir. Yerba Santa, Eriodictyon angustifolia, Water Leaf. California Buckwheat, Eriogonum fasciculata, Buckwheat ...
Camp Resting Springs
A Mormon mail train was attacked here in 1854. There are still evidences of a stone redoubt and a corral at the site. ...
JOSHUA TREE
The Joshua Tree was named after the biblical leader, Joshua, as it reminded the Mormon pioneers of the hero raising out-stretched arms toward the heavens. ...
Captain Jefferson Hunt
... their way and became the Lost Death Valley '49ers. He was called by his church in 1851 to help create a Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California. ...
Cronology/timeline, Cahuilla Indians
In addition to the influx of Anglo-American miners, ranchers and outlaws, and groups of Mormon colonists, the Cahuilla came into conflict with the ...
Special Report on the Mountain Meadows Massacre
This carriage, he says, is now in the possession of the Mormons. ... Down on the Santa Clara is a Mormon settlement called "The Fort": here some 30 families ...
1st Dragoons, Co. K
On 18 March 1860, Thomas S. Williams and his brother-in-law, Jehu Jackman, who were scouting for a Mormon wagon train from Salt Lake City, were killed in an ...
A Hotbed of Lawlessness and Disorder
We have a singular population, composed of Mormons, Mormon apostates, who are even worse, gamblers, English Jews, and the devil's own population to boot, ...
Carleton Denounces General Populace
The Major was decidedly anti-Mormon, as were most military men following the Mormon War, but Carleton had a particular reason for disliking them. ...
Reports of Criminal and Secessionist Activity
Abel Stearns wrote of troublemakers among the Californios and Mexicans in Los Angeles, and said he was also worried about the Mormons, "whose hostility to ...
Some Gang Members Elude Capture
This had to have been an embarrassment for the respectable Mormon community. Al Williams was the brother of Thomas Williams, the merchant killed by Indians ...
Gang has Ties to the Blackburn Brothers
There is a family tradition that he stole six mules from Mormon leader Brigham Young himself, and the men sent out to recover them never returned. ...
Salt Spring
In December, 1849, a Mr. Rowan and other members of a party of Mormons led ... A Mormon party headed to San Bernardino in December, 1850 met William T. B. ...
Outlawry Increases
The Los Angeles Star was convinced that Mormons were mostly behind the crime ... Though anti-Mormon and pro-Southern, the newspaper -- at least as far as ...
Local Men Captured with Stolen Horses
The thieves were all well known, being San Bernardino "Mormons," a term which during these years had become a catch-all that referred to anyone who had ever ...
The Motivation for the Horse Thefts
The San Bernardino Mormons had grown accustomed to the liberal regime of Amasa ... It is also possible the Mormon horse thieves did not see their actions as ...
Old Skeletons and New Trails
Mormons in a State of Rebelion. In late 1857, the year Aaron Lane came to San ... Mormon Exodus Stalls on the Mojave. By the middle of January there was a ...
MORMONS IN A STATE OF REBELLION
Non-Mormon federal appointees in Utah had reported to Washington that their orders were being ignored and that the Mormons were in a state of rebellion ...
MORMONS RECALLED TO UTAH
Late in November of 1857 it was reported that there was a "general movement" of Mormons out of San Bernardino, departing for Salt Lake City. ...
Clyde Ranch - Lone Pine Canyon
Mormon Battalion
Swarthout Valley (Wrightwood)
