For some settlers, the desire to escape religious persecution led them West. The most famous example is that of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormons. They moved a number of times because of persecution. Their final move took them all the way west to what is now Utah. Founded in upstate New York by Joseph Smith in 1830, the Mormons had moved several times to escape persecution. They had built the city of Nauvoo in Illinois, which they hoped would be their permanent home. In Nauvoo, the Mormons proposed and their city grew to 15,000. Unfortunately, persecutions began again. In 1844, Smith and his brother were killed in a mob. Nauvoo was in danger of being destroyed. Brigham Young became the new leader. Under him, the Mormons began to look to the Far West for Zion. This Zion would be a homeland where they would be isolated from the rest of the world and free from persecution. The spot that Young selected was the area beside the Great Salt Lake in what is today the state of Utah. The Mormons carefully planned a mass migration. The left Nauvoo and established a winter camp at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Finally they made their way west to the Salt Lake Basin.

Their leader assassinated and their homes under attack, the Mormons of Nauvoo, Illinois, begin a long westward migration that eventually brings them to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

The members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had been persecuted for their beliefs ever since Joseph Smith founded the church in New York in 1830. Smith’s claim to be a modern-day prophet of God and his acceptance of polygamy proved controversial wherever the Mormons attempted to settle. In 1838, Smith set up a new spiritual colony in Missouri, but by 1839, anti-Mormon prejudice there had proved too virulent. The Latter-day-Saints next set up camp in Nauvoo, Illinois but prejudice followed them there as well. Angry mobs murdered Smith and his brother in June 1844 and began burning homes and threatening members of the group.

Convinced that the Mormons would never find peace in the United States, Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, made a bold decision: the Mormons would move to the still wild territories of the Mexican-controlled Southwest. Young had little knowledge of the geography and environment of the West and no particular destination in mind, but trusting in God, he began to prepare the people of Nauvoo for a mass exodus.

On this day in 1846, Young abandoned Nauvoo and began leading 1,600 Mormons west across the frozen Mississippi in subzero temperatures to a temporary refuge at Sugar Grove, Iowa. Young planned to make the westward trek in stages, and he determined the first major stopping point would be along the Missouri River opposite Council Bluffs. He sent out a reconnaissance team to plan the route across Iowa, dig wells at camping spots, and in some cases, plant corn to provide food for the hungry emigrants. The mass of Mormons made the journey to the Missouri River, and by the fall of 1846, the Winter Quarters were home to 12,000 Mormons.

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