If the original State of Deseret, whose boundaries were drawn by Mormon pioneers in 1849, had lasted, the State of Utah might have comprised a sixth of the total land mass of the United States.
Its residents would have included people now living in virtually all of Nevada, California east of the Sierra Nevada range, most of Arizona, portions of eastern Colorado and New Mexico and bits of Idaho and Wyoming.Though the number of Latter-day Saints in the West was small at that point - only 1,650 spent the winter of 1847-48 in Salt Lake Valley - their visions of colonization were grandiose.
With the Great Basin inhabited mostly by the native population, the newcomers saw little to keep them from spreading into a significant part of the West. The possibilities were enhanced in 1848 when Mexico ceded lands west of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Rio Grande and Pecos rivers to the United States as a condition of the Treaty of Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War.
LDS leader Brigham Young, recognized by historians as one of the country's pre-eminent colonizers, proclaimed he intended "to make every hole and corner from the Bay of San Francisco known to the Mormons."
He lost no time in pursuing his intent. Exploration of valleys adjacent to Salt Lake began immediately, even though the advance companies were challenged simply to survive the coming winter. While some planted, hunted, fished and built shelters, others explored. Both the north and south routes to California were traversed during the fall of 1847, and as the LDS migration gathered momentum, the explorations - and settlements - moved farther and farther from the central gathering place.
The LDS Church members had come to the Great Basin to escape the organized governments under which they had suffered in the East and Midwest. They intended to create an ecclesiastical government - a "theodemocracy" - that would combine religious and secular law under one head. Priesthood leaders would rule with the consent of those who were governed.
At a meeting on Aug. 22, 1847 - less than a month after the first party of pioneers entered Salt Lake Valley - local church leaders were sustained. Also sustained were John Van Cott as marshal and Albert Carrington as clerk, historian, deputy postmaster and keeper of barometrical and thermometrical data, which he was charged to collect daily. Gen. Charles C. Rich was named chief military commander of the small community.
Central to this early government was the shadowy Council of 50, which had been organized before the Saints left the Midwest. The council's purpose was to direct the political affairs of the church. Its influence was felt over the initial period of gathering.
As one of its first orders of business, the church passed laws against vagrancy, disturbing the peace, adultery and fornication, drunkenness, robbery and destruction of property by fire.
Penalties were set, including 39 lashes on the back for serious offenses. One story tells of a kind-hearted marshal who asked that he be allowed to take the lashes himself instead of administering them to an offender, but his offer was refused. In reality, the punishment was rarely imposed.
On Dec. 9, 1848, the council met at the home of Heber C. Kimball to determine the course of secular government in the growing community. The group decided to apply for territorial status and Dr. John M. Bernhisel was chosen as emissary to Congress. In the spring of 1849 he headed to Washington, D.C., with a petition bearing the signatures of 2,270 people.
The Mormon petitioners argued that they were doing the federal government a favor by pursuing formal recognition in the bustling West. With thousands of gold-seekers headed for California, Oregon and other points west of the Mississippi, the only government available was the informal, unrecognized government established by the Mormons, they said.
While Bernhisel was headed East, the council again met and decided, instead, to create the State of Deseret. A constitution was drafted in three days and unanimously ratified. An election date to choose officials was set, but actual balloting took place several months ahead of the planned date. Such irregularities in procedure were not uncommon as government evolved.
The General Assembly convened under the statehood proposal sent Almon W. Babbitt to Washington on the heels of Bernhisel. On the advice of Thomas L. Kane, who had been a friend of the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois, Bernhisel had already been convinced that statehood would be the better alternative. Kane argued that under territorial status, government officials would be appointed by the president, rather than elected by residents - a possibility strongly opposed by the Mormon majority settling the land. So the two representatives did not present competing positions to Congress.
Any thought of Utah statehood, however, was lost in the national debate over the Compromise of 1850 - an attempt to resolve the growing differences among states over the slavery issue. Under terms of the compromise, California was admitted as a free state and the territories of New Mexico and Utah were created.
However, while Congress was embroiled in arguments over slavery, the State of Deseret continued to function. Seven counties were organized and a number of cities were incorporated. Civil courts replaced LDS High Councils as judiciary bodies, although stake presidents continued, in most cases, to be the judges, with bishops officiating in the lower courts.
One of the significant actions of State of Deseret officials was to charter the University of Deseret, precursor to the University of Utah, on Feb. 28, 1850. The temporary legislature also authorized the contribution of a block of Utah marble to be included in the Washington Monument then under construction in Washington, D.C.
Removed from the core of American government by thousands of miles, residents of the incipient territory learned through the New York Tribune, via Los Angeles, that President Millard Fillmore had signed the act creating the territory.
Brigham Young was on a preaching tour. Daniel H. Wells, the state's chief justice, headed up a delegation including a unit of cavalry and a brass band and traveled to Davis County with the news. Without waiting for official confirmation of the act's passage, Wells informed Brigham Young of the development. On Feb. 5, 1851, the church president took oath of office as chief executive of the new territory.
Growing friction between the territory's Mormon and non-Mormon populations, the growing stream of non-Mormons fanning out across the West, the inevitable slide toward civil war and other factors stymied progress toward full statehood. By the mid-1850s, American leaders, convinced that the LDS population was in a state of insurrection and that polygamy was a social blight that must be eliminated, sent Johnston's Army to the area.
The uncertainties of the Utah War lasted for almost two years, but the net result was to defuse many of the Eastern perceptions and pave the way for eventual statehood.
Even so, almost 40 more years passed, and bits of the Territory of Deseret were chipped away piecemeal to create the states of Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona and New Mexico.
By the time statehood was granted on Jan. 4, 1896, Utah had shrunk to its present size. It took its place in the Union as the 45th state.
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Additional Information
Movers and shakers in the push for statehood
John Milton Bernhisel: Born June 23, 1799, Sandy Hills, Pa. Early convert to Mormonism, close friend of Joseph Smith. Came to Utah Sept. 24, 1848, in Heber C. Kimball party.
Spokesman to Congress during statehood debate. Studied medicine, University of Pennsylvania, went to frontier to practice. Served five terms in Congress as territorial delegate, retired from public service in 1863. First vice president, ZCMI. Selected books for first Utah library, served on first Board of Regents, University of Deseret. Died Sept. 28, 1881.
Almon W. Babbitt: Born Oct. 9, 1813, Cheshire, Mass. Early LDS convert. Studied law at State University of Cincinnati, licensed to practice in six states. Newspaper publisher. Participated in Zion's Camp. Occasionally at odds with church leaders because of strong-willed personality. Chosen delegate to promote cause of state-hood with Congress. Named territorial secretary by President Franklin Pierce. Murdered by tomahawk-wielding Cheyenne Indians on return trip to Utah, Aug. 25, 1856 at age 43, though he "fought like a grizzly bear."
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Additional Information
On Jan. 4, 1996, Utah will be 100 years old.
Throughout the coming year, Utahns will recollect a colorful history that parallels the settlement of America's West and a century of events that shaped a new world. It's a world far different from that of the pioneers who saw Utah through her protracted territorial birth pains and launched her into full sisterhood with other states.
The Deseret News, established in 1850, has been a chronicler of Utah's history consistently from the turbulent pre-statehood era to today's high-tech Information Age.
Through the coming year, the newspaper will explore "A Hundred Years of Headlines," celebrating Utah, its people, its history and its promise. Weekly articles will be based on Deseret News articles that have been telling the Utah story since statehood-- and before. Additional research will supplement the news articles to flesh out stories if necessary.
Articles will appear each Tuesday.