Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: History of His Life and Labors, as Recorded in His Daily JournalsWoodruff, Wilford
Religion
Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: History of His Life and Labors, as Recorded in His Daily Journals
Woodruff, Wilford
Woodruff, Wilford, 1807-1898
Early in February of that year, the legislature granted a charter to
the community that was to be known as a municipal organization under
the name of Salt Lake City. Concerning the charter President Woodruff
writes that President Young said: "We do not want the Church to pass
laws to punish crime, but {345} to try members only on questions of
Church fellowship. If the members transgress the laws of the land, turn
them over to the authorities of the land. We want to protect the Church
also in its rites of worship and protect every other sect that comes
here. When the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdoms of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, will their people all be members of the Church
of Jesus Christ by obeying the Gospel? No, not one-eighth part of them.
No more than a telestial kingdom is a celestial one, and they stand in
about the same relation to each other."
Elder Woodruff, on the 23rd of April, in company with a party of
about forty men with twenty wagons entered Utah Valley. This was his
first visit to the settlements there. He met the Indian chief Walker.
He thought him rather an ugly looking specimen for an Indian chief.
Later on the company reached Sanpete valley. Here there were about one
hundred families located. These families were engaged in farming. They
had erected a schoolhouse and had commenced a council house.
Passing on from Sanpete, the company went through Sevier Valley to
Marysvale and on to Cedar City. "We passed over the worst road the last
few days that I ever knew. We had to draw our wagons up and let them
down with ropes in places where the roads were so bad, and at places
the slant was so great that we had to hold our wagons up to keep them
from turning over." In the valley near Cedar City the company was
met by President George A. Smith who at that time had charge of the
southern settlements. The settlers had been there only three months.
They had enclosed a fort of 19 acres, plowed and sown 1,000 acres with
wheat, had fenced 600 acres, built a sawmill, and erected the first
story of their council house. The little community welcomed President
Young and party by the firing of a cannon and by waving the stars and
stripes. This small settlement of pioneers had about one hundred men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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