Page 235 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONTIER P L A C E : COLONIALISM TRI UMPHANT

reality, returning Mormons were not numerous. In addition, the reverse
trail included other disillusioned people, including Gentile farmers,
miners, and wives with children. e t Gentile women cast the story of
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returning Mormons in the worst light. A f e w claimed that Mormons
had confided in them their secret escape f r om Salt Lake City.73 Others
thought the Mormons pitiful. In 1 8 57, Helen Carpenter described a
contingent of returning Mormons as "in rags and tatters and, must I say
it, scabs," the "very worst lot" she had seen yet. Carpenter believed that
the travelers were only a few of the many who "would be glad to leave
Salt Lake if they could only get away."74
Predictably, the vitriolic Mary Fish despised returning Mormons.
In 1 8 60, she talked with two Mormon women headed f o r the "States."
According to Fish, the women had fled Salt Lake because they could
not tolerate being plural wives. One woman was returning to her par­
ents with "four little responsibilities." The other "consoled herself f o r
the loss of a small portion of a man by taking a whole one as she has
married a trader."75
Throughout the nineteenth century, Gentile women continued to
view homebound Mormons as a scourge. In 1884, f o r example, Mallie
Stafford recoiled against her party's occasional encampments with
returning Mormons. "They had escaped the terrors of the law and the
'Avenging Angels,'" Stafford proclaimed, "and after a residence of years
in Zion, at last were going home." Remarking that "they conversed but
little on the subject of Mormonism," she assumed that the slightest ref­
erence made to the subject "stirred up a flood of painful and unpleas­
ant recollections."7 6
By the time Gentile women neared the Mormon capital, Salt Lake
City, their prejudices had solidified. Although many had little desire to
stop, others were intently curious or had to go into the city to replen­
ish their supplies. Some would be glad, as Rachel Rose put it, "to see
where fo lks lived once more."77Women who watched Latter-day Saints
swarm into their camps to bargain f o r old clothes, dishes, and other items
in exchange fo r stock, f o und their interest f u rther aroused.78 Rumors
lured them on, especially those concerning Brigham o ung, his elabo­
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rate home, and his many wives, sometimes said to be only seventeen in
number and other times as many as sixty-one.79

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