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Location:
Mount Pisgah
Distance: 153 miles from Nauvoo
Garden Grove proved incapable of providing for all the needs of
the Saints still crossing Iowa. A second, more expansive and permanent
settlement was established at Mount Pisgah, named in honor of the
biblical mount from which Moses was permitted to see the promised
land. It was here that the U.S. Army first called on the Saints
to furnish volunteers for the Mormon Battalion.
Parley P. Pratt
 "Being
pleased and excited at the varied beauty before me, I cried out,
'this is Mount Pisgah.'
"It was now late in May, and we halted here to await the arrival
of the President and council. In a few days they arrived and formed
a general encampment here, and finally formed a settlement, and
surveyed and enclosed another farm of several thousand acres. This
became a town and resting place for the Saints for years" (Autobiography
of Parley P. Pratt [1985], 308).
Late from the Mormon Camp
July 23, 1846
"The Hancock Eagle, of Friday last, notices the arrival there of
Mr. S. Chamberlain, who left the most distant camp of the Mormons
at Council Bluffs on the 26th, and on his route passed
the whole line of Mormon emigrants. He says that the advance company
of the Mormons, with whom were the Twelve, had a train of one thousand
wagons, and were encamped on the east bank of the Missouri River,
in the neighborhood of the Council Bluffs. They were employed in
the construction of boats, for the purpose of crossing the river.
"The second company had encamped temporarily at station No. 2,
which has been christened Mount Pisgah. They mustered about three
thousand strong, and were recruiting [resting and feeding] their
cattle preparatory to a fresh start. A third company had halted
for a similar purpose at Garden Grove, on the head waters of Grand
River, where they have put in about 2000 acres of corn for the benefit
of the people in general. Between Garden Grove and the Mississippi
river, Mr. Chamberlain counted over one thousand wagons en route
to join the main bodies in advance.
"The whole number of teams attached to the Mormon expedition, is
about three thousand seven hundred, and it is estimated that each
team will average at least three persons, and perhaps four. The
whole number of souls now on the road may be set down in round numbers
at twelve thousand. From two to three thousand have disappeared
from Nauvoo in various directions. Many have left for Council Bluffs
by the way of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers—others have
dispersed to parts unknown; and about eight hundred or less still
remain in Illinois. This comprises the entire Mormon population
that once flourished in Hancock [County]. In their palmy days they
probably numbered between fifteen and sixteen thousand souls, most
of whom are now scattered upon the prairies, bound for the Pacific
slope of the American continent" ("Late from the Mormon Camp,"
Hancock Eagle, as reprinted in the Sangamo Journal,
23 July 1846, 3).
Journal photographs
courtesy of Infobases, Inc.
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