History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 773
oft- repeated accusations of those who regard the
Mormons merely as an ulcer in the body politic,
there are many points which to the impartial observer
would seem worthy of being noted in their favor.
Laying aside the questions of religion and polygamy,
we find recorded in their annals one of the greatest
achievements of modern times, and one that sheds a
lustre on the dark cloud which, to gentile gaze, hangs
like a funeral-pall over the genius of this singular and
long-suffering community. Driven from Far West,
from Kirtland, from Nauvoo, they found at length,
amid the farthest west, an abiding-place—one then as
remote from civilization as the wilds of Senegainbia.
There, within forty years, has been established a
thriving community; there has been built one of the
most sightly capitals west of the Mississippi, an oasis
amid the great American desert, and with hundreds
of settlements depending upon it. There farms and
orchards, flocks and herds, factories and warehouses,
cover the formerly unpeopled solitude, abandoned but
a few decades ago to the savage, the coyote, and the
wolf. The men and women who compose this community,
drawn for the most part from the lower strata
of European society, have not been slow to learn the
practical lessons which their church has taught them;
to learn how to exercise forethought, frugality, and
other qualities which lead to success in life. 57
57 1 give herewith some further biographical notices. Orsou Hyde, a
native of Oxford, Conn., was born in 1803, commenced life by working in
an iron-foundery for six dollars a month, afterward serving for a year or two
as clerk to the firm of Gilbert & Whitney of Kirtland. While at Kirtland,
Hyde, who was then a stanch methodist, and a classdeader in a campmeeting
at that point, heard that a golden bible had been dug out of a
rock in the state of New York. A few months later he was converted to
Mormonism, and set forth as a missionary, being a member of the English
mission of 1837, when he was accompanied by Heber C. Kimball, Willard
Richards, and others. In 1840 he went to Jerusalem, where he held service
at the mount of Olives, and consecrated the holy land, being appointed to
this duty by the prophet, who declared him to be of the house of Judah.
After the prophet's assassination, he again proceeded, in company with Parley
Pratt and John Taylor, to Great Britain, where he set the churches in order,
having now been chosen one of the twelve. He arrived at Winter Quarters a
few weeks after the departure of the pioneer band, and on their return labored
to reorganize the first presidency, Brigham Young being appointed Joseph's
6uccessor, partly by his efforts. After the saints were gathered in Utah, ho