Here is the final day of our trip! We spent the day on the Nebraska/Iowa border in Council Bluffs and Winter Quarters. We learned a lot about the Mormon Battalion and the trek west.
Winter Quarters
I actually really loved this visitor's center! They were so helpful and seemed very knowledgeable. After the saint fled Nauvoo and crossed the river, they needed a place to get prepared and provisions ready for the trip out west. The Pottawattamie Tribe owned the land and lent the land out to the Saints for 3 years. During this three years they gathered and different wagon trains left each year. The saints built dugouts and log cabins, squished multiple families in a home, prepared for the trip, and then left when the season was right. They left the homes empty for the next batch of saints that came in to get ready for the following year. The saints even planted crops, knowing the next group of saints would need food to harvest and eat. After the treaty was up, the deal was that they left the land as they found it. They took down all the cabins, and the only thing that remained was the cemetery on the hill. This cemetery is where the church built the Winter Quarters Temple and Visitor's Center.
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| The visitor's center had a big museum about life in Winter Quarters and the provisions they needed for the trip west. They showed us this wagon wheel and we were amazed how big it was. In the beginning, when they were mapping out the trip for more saints to come west, they used a scarf tied to the wheel to measure the distance. A person would walk beside the wheel and count how many times the scarf hit the ground. They had a certain number that meant it had reached a mile. However, later, someone invented a time piece that the wagon wheel clicked and it kept track of the miles ridden. |
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| The graves from the time in Winter Quarters were not physically marked and a lot reside under this memorial that was built there. However, records were kept and the missionaries had tools to measure and show us an approximate place where our ancestor was buried. |
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| The Winter Quarters Temple |
Council Bluffs, Iowa
After the treaty with the Native Americans ended the saints moved their gathering place to Council Bluffs. (Just across the river) For a while, this was actually where the headquarters of the church was. ( I think it was called Cainsville at the time). A tabernacle was built and this is where Brigham Young was officially ratified as the President of the Church. They have a replica tabernacle built on this land as well as a visitor's center where we learned a lot about the Mormon Battalion.
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| My brother Meltiar MCKAY Manner. One of his namesakes is an ancestor that served in the Mormon Battalion. When the members of the battalion were discharged in California, we learned that a lot of those members that stayed in California for a bit to get on their feet helped shaped the gold rushes and a lot of the major cities in California. I had no idea that the saints played such a big role in the growing of the state. |
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| Learning about the Mormon Battalion was very interesting. The film that they showed us gave us many details that I had not heard or remembered hearing when I learned about this time. For one, the leadership of the church actually asked the U.S. government for a way to help finance this trip west and this is the way that the government came up with. While it was a surprise to the members of the church and kind of insulting to be asked to serve a government that would not protect them, the leadership of the Church was not surprised and of course counseled the Saints to volunteer in order to finance their families. |
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| Cainsville Tabernacle |
Well this concludes our trip. At least the site seeing part. We still had 15 hours to drive to Idaho to see my brother Hunter off to his mission. He is going to Finland! This trip was an amazing opportunity and I loved having my family there to liven things up a bit and of course distract babies. Maybe someday I can make it out east to see the sites even earlier in the Church's history!! So many sacrifices were made, and amongst it all, almost everywhere we went they emphasized the music, dance, and entertainment that the saints enjoyed during those hard times. "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured" -President Hinckley
The church is true! Hurrah for Israel!
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