he breadth and
depth of Mormon farming and community development in southwest Iowa,
1846 - 1853, created a watershed in the history of the Middle
Missouri Valley. From the early 1700's the region had
sustained little except Indian fur trade with the French, then with
the Spanish, and finally with Americans.
Delays that hampered the
1846 Mormon exodus from western Illinois and southeast Iowa to Salt
Lake Valley proved a blessing to southwest Iowa. Mormons cut
roads through its beautiful loess hills and built bridges and
ferries over streams in Iowa and Nebraska. Thousands of acres
of sod were broken. The Saints developed productive farms and
established schools, churches, mills, black-smith shops, large
supply houses, hotels, newspapers, and related businesses.
Latter-day Saints
organized town and county governments for the 16,000 to 18,000
original refugees. Several thousand more immigrants arrived
from other parts of the United States and Canada. Additionally, more
than 8,000 came from Europe. Mormons held elections, organized
courts, and kept careful property records long before a federal land
office was opened in Council Bluffs in 1853. In 1848 all
southwest Iowa became Pottawattamie County. Soon, other
counties were carved out of the Pottawattamie.
In 1849, 10,000
California Gold Rushers opened a huge market for the more than 80
southwest Iowa communities. In succeeding years, steamboats
brought merchandise to Emigrant Landing at Council Point to supply
mercantile houses booming in Kanesville and other towns.
Dozens of LDS communities traded grain, wood, and leather products
besides engaging in milling, blacksmithing, tinsmithing, and wagon
making.
Three Indian
tribes occupied the Middle Missouri Valley when the first LDS wagon
trains arrived at the Missouri River on June 14, 1846.
Chiefs of about 2,250 Pottawatomie-Ottawa-Chippewa, in five
scattered villages of southwest Iowa, had agreed just weeks before
in Washington, D.C., to sell their lands and to move to the
northeastern part of Kansas territory. About 1,300 Omaha and
930 Ot-Missouri Indians lived west of the Missouri river in five or
six villages clustered near the confluence of the Platte and
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Click on map for
a larger scale version.
The large version will
contain links to the settlement pages.
At present the links for:
Cold Spring Camp
Coonville
Council Point
Cutler's Park
Grand Encampment
Winters Quarters
Printable
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river. U.S. Indian agents at Bellevue and Point aux poules did not object
to the amicable LDS presence, nor did the Indians themselves.
LDS
officials, before continuing west, seem to have left city and county
records in Iowa. A few of these carefully handwritten records
are still available in Pottawattamie County. Significant gaps
exist, however, in city and county records throughout southwest
Iowa. When the Mormons left, town and even street names were
changed by new owners, new squatters, claim jumpers, and, in most
instances, new officials. there followed even periods of no
government at all. Asa
result, city and county governments today cannot find consistent
records from before 1853.
A few
communities such as Honey Creek, Macedonia, Magnolia, and Pisgah
retain their original LDS names. Still waiting to be plotted
on maps are such staging communities as Bertrand, Brownell's Grove,
Davis Camp, Highland Grove, Kidd's Grove, McClellin's Camp, Nishnabotna, Perkins' Camp, Pleasant Valley, Shirt' Branch,
Springville, Unionville, and West Boyer.
Communities that may have been known by two names include Allred's
Camp/South Pigeon, Big Bend/Browning's Camp, North KegCreek/Upper
Crossing Keg Creek, Potter's Camp/Cutler's Camp, Dutch Hollow/Studyville,
and Trading or Traders Point/Point aux poules. There may have
been other LDS communities with more than one name. Occupied
by Latter-day Saints but not established by them were Point aux
poules, Old Agency, and probably Whipple. String Town
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many have been only a four-mile straggle of buildings south along
the road from Kanesville to Council Point.
Some
LDS settlements must have been very small, such as Plum Hollow,
Green Hollow, Dutch Hollow/Studyville, and Dawsonburg, a cluster of
communities within a radius of about six miles, 35 miles south of
Kanesville. Unlike most LDS town, Big Grove was not renamed
(Oakland) until 1881 and Plum Hollow (Thurman) until 1890.
It is
unlikely that the 98 presently known names of LDS Communities
constitute a complete list. Pioneer letters and journals
indicate substantial movement away from wagon train organization,
beginning in 1846. Families and individuals easily moved from
community to community while pursuing free enterprise.
Of
the several hundred Mormons who remained in or returned to Iowa,
some objected to the collection of taxes or to punishments for
immorality. Others disagreed over who should direct missionary
work among Indians. Some left their LDS Communities in order
to live in Point aux poules or Old Agency. Others broke with
the Church and built their own settlements, such as Manti and
Preparation Canyon. Others waited for Mormon Battalion
husbands or sweethearts. A few induced returning veterans to
remain rather than move to Utah. Some went west to Utah and
then returned. Migrating east or west, these pioneers wrote
new pages of trans-Mississippi history."
Source: Gail Geo. Holmes, The Missouri River Valley,
Historical Atlas of Mormonism, edited by S. Kent Brown, Donald Q.
Cannon, Richard H. Jackson, p 74.
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