History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

576 POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL.
merchants of Salt Lake City laid the basis of their
fortunes; to the rest of the community its main bene-
fit was that it gave them a good supply of warm clothing
at cheap rates. For years afterward the members
of the Nauvoo legion were attired in military
uniforms, which now took the place of the sombre
gray clothing that the saints were accustomed to
wear. The ammunition and spare arms were destroyed,
some of the cannon being exploded and
others thrown into wells, though the latter were recovered
by the Mormons, and are still used on the 4th
and 24th of July, and other of their festivities. 10
We have now arrived at a period in the history of
Utah when it may be of interest to give a brief
description of the industrial and social condition of the
Mormons. Between the years 1850 and 1862 they
had increased in number from 11,380 to about 65,000, a
gain that has seldom been equalled in any of the states
or territories of the republic. 11 They were a very
healthy community, the number of deaths recorded in
the census report for the year ending June 1860 being
little more than nine per thousand, 12 though this is
doubtless a mistake, the actual death rate being probably
at least twelve per thousand. 13 Of the mortality,
10 For descriptions of public festivities, between 1S55 and 1S65, see Deseret
News, Jan. 4, July 18, 1855; July 9, 30, Aug. 6, 1S56; July 8. 15, 22, 1857;
July 11, Aug. 1, 1860; July 10, 1861; July 9, 30, 1862; July S, 1S63; July 6,
20, 27, 1864; July 5, Aug. 5, 1865; Tullidge's Life of Younq; 247-9, Burton's
City of the Saints, 424-5; S. F. Alia, Sept. 10, 1856; S. F. Bulletin, Dec. 2,
1S5S; Sac. Union, July 11, 1861. A thanksgiving proclamation issued by Gov.
Harding in 1S62 was ignored throughout the territory. 'The non-observance of
this thanksgiving day,' remarks Tullidge, 'brought Stephen S. Harding to the
full realization of the fact that, though he was governor of Utah, Brigham
Young was governor of the Mormon people.'
11 1 have already mentioned that the census report for I860 gives the population
at only a little over 40,000, and stated my reasons for supposing this
to be an error. Beadle says that a judge who travelled extensively throughout
the territory about 1S64-5 estimated it at 85,000, and thinks the judge's
estimate too low. He himself places it, in 1S67, at 100.000. Life in Utah,
4S3. Bowles, Our New West, about the same date, at 100,000 to 125,000. See
also S. F. Herald, Jan. 30, 1861; Sac. Union, Feb. 11, I860. In the census
of 1S70 the population is given at 86,786.
u U. S. Census Kept, for 1860, li. 43. The total number of deaths re-
ported is 374.
13 For the vear ending June 1, 1S50, it was about 22 per 1,000, the rate