This is the Place II: Brigham, Boston, and the Black-Robed Jesuit

 Previously: Brigham Young and the Holy Grail

In our modern academic milieu, veneration of famous historical figures seems to trump the vigilant approach to history. We are far more prone to the idolization of historical "heroes" than we are to question, scrutinize, or even criticize the narratives we are spoon-fed from our youth. 

The his-stories our feeble, yet all-absorbing minds devour as children have been carefully packaged in all their establishment grandeur, polished with "fact-checked" proof and sanitized by the siren song of peer-reviewing "professionals."  

The uncomfortable truth remains safely hidden within myriad layers of embellished lore, imprisoned just beneath the veneer of institutional pride, a hubris bolstered by the emotional ambiance of the blissful nostalgia of youth. 

It is in such myopia that all myth develops and begins to cement itself into the collective psyche of society, lurking just below the conscious level, waiting patiently to excoriate the brazen heretic who dares to postulate an alternative view. 

This is the very environment that we defenders of Joseph Smith find ourselves in when endeavoring to get to the bottom of Church history, battling against the professional apologizers who are paid to lie and the laypersons who take no thought except to study only what the institution feeds them. 

Yet here we are, spread out across the margins of the Restoration, honestly seeking only for the truth, the raw and unfiltered version of our-story. 

A story without a narrator, bereft of agendas, fitting into no "official" history. A story that just was, and is. A story as it really happened, unkempt, unpolished, and unvarnished, standing awkwardly before us like a naked emperor basking in the sunlight, exposing the secret parts that obliterate our cherished narratives.

And with that, I thank you for being here, for joining me in my quest for truth, and helping me unpack what really went down with Brigham Young and the founding of Salt Lake City. 

The anomalies are coming out of the woodwork, and the narrative is beginning to fall apart. 

I believe that Brigham was led to Salt Lake Valley by the man pictured in the thumbnail image above, Father Pierre de Smet, but before we dive down that rabbit hole, we have to make a pit stop at Boston. 

Let's begin. 

Brigham Goes To Boston

Boston, Massachusetts was founded in 1630, and was named after St. Botolph from Lincolnshire, who lived during the 600s. Many churches were dedicated to Botolph, foremost among them is the largest and oldest church building in England, St. Botolph's Church. As legend has it, it was built in the 1300s, and this amazing structure is still standing today. 

Are we really to believe that a bunch of medieval peasants with hand chisels built this architectural prodigy? 

I mean, this thing is 266 feet tall, how in the world were they able to hoist such heavy blocks of stone to those heights without a modern crane? 

Let's be honest, we don't build structures like this today. Sure, our buildings are tall, but they are painfully plain and square, and they still take years to build with our modern technology. 

According to the official narrative, this was built in 81 years, from 1309 to 1390, and that was just the main building. Construction on the tower didn’t begin until 1450, and was not completed until around 1520. That makes no sense at all. What religious institution or family dynasty would span the building of a single church throughout a 200 year period, allocating financial resources that they will never see a return on in their lifetime? 

No one. (And was this building even a church?) 

The truth is that this building was built by an entirely different civilization, along with many other old-world-style buildings that we see all around the world. Just have a look at the curious workmanship of the interior, it truly evokes wonder and awe in the mind:

That wonder and awe is your mind trying to tell you that the narrative of how this building came about is a bunch of BS. 

The reason I bring this up now is to prepare you for future posts. Architecture will play an enormous role in the historical narrative of Utah. 

But let’s get back to Boston. 

The name Boston means, "Botolph's Stone," which is an interesting name for a city with boat loads of old world buildings, and million upon millions of tons of red brick. City block upon city block is made of this stuff, including the old roads now covered by asphalt, along with a host of historical buildings. It's literally everywhere. 

Has anyone ever asked where all the red brick came from? As the official story goes, until the colonists figured out how to manufacture their own bricks from iron and clay deposits, red bricks were imported by ship from England. When they began producing their own, they say it typically took a crew of six to eight men an entire summer to produce a million bricks... but that was enough for about one large building. 

Sounds plausible enough right?

But what if there is something more to the story? For instance, did you know that red brick is magnetically charged and involves a chemical reaction that mimics human blood? 

This is known as ferric oxidation. It's the process of how iron is oxidated to produce red blood cells. 

One of the functions of red blood cells is to deliver richly oxygenated blood to hungry body tissues. Red blood cells are also magnetically charged, and produce their own energy. We call it prana, or life-force, and it is literally what gets us out of bed in the morning.

 

Blood is also spiritual currency which literally powers the demonic realm. I wrote about that here, which begs the question: is red brick a substitute energy source for red blood? Can it sufficiently charge an area with enough spiritual prana to stir the demonic realm to action? 

Food for thought. But buildings with red brick is a subject for another post. 

Boston was one of the first American cities, so we're told anyway, and home to the very first lodge of English Freemasonry built in the colonies. A man by the name of Henry Price petitioned his English superiors and was granted a charter for the lodge. The fateful year was 1733, an esoteric number indeed (Skull and Bones was established in 1833). The name of the lodge was St. John's, and it was the place where a myriad of famous Masons met, including George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Marquis de Lafayette.

English Freemasonry is the proprietor of the York Rite and its first three degrees. It is also the originator of the advanced degree of the Royal Arch, held by Heber C. Kimball, as I explained in the last post. Kimball worked with Abraham Jonas, the Grand Master over the Illinois area. And where did Jonas get his marching orders from?

I believe they came from Boston, home to "The Mother Lodge of America," where Masonic superiors were directing the antics of the brotherhood all over the nascent nation.

This begs the question: why did Brigham and gang keep going to Boston between 1843 and 1844? What were they up to? Is the official story of establishing branches, doing missionary work, and campaigning for Joseph Smith's presidential candidacy just a cover for something more nefarious?

According to the Joseph Smith Papers, the first missionaries to go to Boston were Samuel Smith and Orson Hyde in 1832. That same year Joseph Smith and Newel K. Whitney also came to the city. Brigham and Joseph Young went in 1836 and baptized 17 people. In 1841, a conference was held there by 8 of the Twelve, then another in 1843, and several more in the summer of 1844 around the time of Joseph's death. 

Needless to say, Joseph and Hyrum were not present at any of the conferences held in Boston by the traveling Twelve, and the minutes don't tell us much, besides a few mundane details. But when you look at the entire timeline, things get a little weird.

The conference of 1843 was held on September 9th at Boylston Hall. Present were Brigham, Heber, George Albert Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and John E. Page. You can read all the boring details in History of the Church: Volume 6, starting on page 11. One thing to keep in mind when were talking about Boston is that Brigham and Heber always seemed to spend considerable time alone together in this red-bricked city. 

This is well documented in the official History of the Church. 

Boylston Hall was built in 1810, in only one year (you'll find when you study elaborate buildings built in the 1800s that many of them were constructed in only a year or two, a stunning feat indeed without power tools, and relying upon horse and buggy to transport building materials. Not to mention the water-powered hydraulic crane wasn't invented until 1838). 

Here is a picture of the now-demolished structure below:

One has to wonder how Brigham and gang could have afforded to rent this 120 ft. long venue for their meetings? Were Church funds allocated? Was Joseph aware? 

One has to wonder, because Joseph seemed to be fine with holding meetings in free venues like the woods. 

The history reads like a travel log, with members of the Twelve splitting up and going to other Eastern cities, but always seeming to reconvene in Boston. What was it about this city that kept bringing them back? 

This pattern is more apparent in 1844, or at least the History of the Church (re-written by Brigham and crew) gives us more details about that fateful year, specifically June to August.

The travel log, recorded in Volume 7 of the History of the Church, and The Joseph Smith Papers, begins on June 22nd of 1844. On this day we are informed that Brigham attended a meeting in Lowell, Massachusetts, but with no other details. No other apostles are named, and many of them were in other cities at the time. What kind of meeting was this? We are not told.

Lowell is a suburb located 23 miles northeast of Boston. I wonder what Brigham was up to that day? Meeting with a secret wife, or perhaps with some Masonic brothers? There was a lodge established in Lowell in 1807 known as the Pentucket Lodge. Eventually, members petitioned for a new name and became the "Ancient York Lodge" in 1852. Today they meet in the building below:

It was supposedly built in 1928, but the only "construction" photos we have show the building already completed with some scaffolding around it.

When you research old buildings you find this pattern repeated often. Strange indeed when the camera was invented by 1816. 

I mean, if you're putting the money and energy into building such an edifice wouldn't you want to document with photographs each of the building phases?

Here is a "construction" photo taken in 1928:

Move along folks. Nothing to see here, just some primitive scaffolding most likely used to paint a building that already existed.

We are never told where the original Pentucket Lodge members met. In my opinion, this building had been there the entire time. 

Have a look at the city hall building that is close by:

This thing is a real beauty, featuring a 180 foot clock tower. Construction on this stunning edifice began in 1890 and was completed in 1893. 

Only 3 years? Are you kidding me?

The first power tools weren't invented until 1895, and the document describing the construction of this building leaves out some very important details... like how many men it took, where the stone came from, how it was hauled to the job site, and other pertinent logistics.

I'm digressing from the topic, but trust me these buildings are a very important part of Brigham Young's history. He is heralded as being the master mind behind organizing the building of a great city in the middle of a desert. In this series I'm going to dismantle that myth piece by piece. 

I'm using Lowell as an example because these buildings are in almost every single city in America. In my opinion, Brigham was attending a Masonic meeting that day in Lowell, making plans with his superiors for how to run the Church after getting rid of Joseph. I can't prove this, it's only a hunch, but because our history has been so whitewashed, hunches become our best guesses.

June 23rd of 1844 found Brigham and Heber preaching in Wilmington, Delaware, but by June 27th, that ominous day of martyrdom, Brigham was back in Boston with his good buddy Wilford Woodruff. 

On this day nearly all of the Twelve, spread out over the East, simultaneously felt a mysterious sadness, but didn't know why. 

Cool story guys, but I'm not buying it.

Here's the breakdown found on pages 132-33 of History of the Church, Volume 7:

Brigham and Wilford, at the time of the martyrdom, "felt depressed in spirits, without knowing the cause."

Heber, traveling by railway from Philadelphia to New York, "felt very mournful as though he had lost some friend, without knowing the cause."

Orson Hyde, with Brigham in the hall at Boston examining maps, "felt very heavy and sorrowful in spirit, and knew not the cause... He retired to the further end of the hall alone, and walked the floor; tears ran down his face." 

Crocodile tears? What’s going on here?

George A. Smith, in Jackson County at the time, "felt unusually cast down and depressed in sprits... repaired [sic] to an oak grove, and called upon the Lord, endeavoring to break the spell of horror which had dominion over his mind... without finding any relief." George's torment lasted throughout the night, and "once it seemed to him that some fiend whispered in his ear, 'Joseph and Hryum are dead; ain't you glad of it?'"

Ok, hold the phone...

I'll tell you what I think... they weren't having melancholic premonitions, they were experiencing the guilt that first-time murderers typically have. They had planned the whole thing in their Secret Chamber meetings, and now that John Taylor and Willard Richards had actually carried it out, they were feeling the shock of knowing that sh*! actually went down that day, and that if they renege now they too could face a similar fate. 

The next one from Parley Pratt is, in my opinion, a smoking gun. Pratt was aboard a canal boat between Utica and Buffalo, on his way to Nauvoo. He too was "much depressed in spirit," and made a very strange statement to his brother who was accompanying him: 

Parley asked him if he had any books or pamphlets containing the gospel of Christ, or the words of life; if so, to put them under lock and key, for the people are not worthy of them for, said Parley, "I feel that the spirit of murder is in the hearts of the people through the land."

Folks, Parley is speaking Masonic language here. The use of "lock and key," and people not being "worthy" of the gospel... the Masonic gospel? Locking up "sacred" truths and hiding them from the profane is Masonic doctrine. And then the strange comment about the spirit of murder, projecting the martyrdom onto an abstraction (the people of the land) and off of the real perpetrators. This is coded language. In my opinion, he is confessing his inside knowledge of the murder to his fellow initiates. 

The spirit of murder indeed.

Let's find out how the Twelve delt with this intense melancholy throughout the remainder of the week. 

Oh, they returned to business as usual? Actually the business ramped up... 

On Saturday June 29th, a conference was held at Franklin Hall in Boston, Brigham Young presided. I wonder what they talked about? The conference resumed Sunday the 30th. 

On July 2nd, a council of the Twelve was held in Franklin Hall. Heber records that he spoke in the morning... "the conference went off well, the brethren realizing they had a good time." 

Good times with the bro's...  

On July 3rd, Brigham and Heber enjoyed some sight-seeing at the Boston museum in the evening after spending the day together. On July 4th, these BFFs, with other friends, enjoyed the fireworks display at Boston commons.

What happened to all the sadness? 

On July 7th, another conference was held in Salem (14 miles northeast of Boston). What was discussed?

On July 8th, not one but three meetings were held at the concert hall in Salem. "The house was full and the brethren felt well."

Man, these guys are having more meetings in a week than a Relief Society presidency...

July 9th. On this day news finally reached the Twelve of the martyrdom. How did they react?

Brigham and Orson Pratt, "did not believe the accounts were correct."

Heber "was unwilling to believe it, though it struck him to the heart."

Wilford was on his way to Maine, but upon hearing immediately came back to Boston.

The next day, July 10th, Brigham and Orson Pratt head up to Lowell. No reason given, just a relaxing 23-mile stroll to Lowell, where as you recall, Brigham was found on June 22nd. 

On July 11th Brigham and Orson head up to Petersboro, New Hampshire, for yet another conference. Brigham records in his journal, "had a good time at the conference all day." 

July 14th. Wilford Woodruff, the only member of the Twelve in Boston that day, attempts to console the saints at Franklin Hall. 

Meanwhile, Heber is in Philadelphia uttering prayers such as, "O Lord, save they servants the Twelve." 

Now suddenly they are fearing for their lives? 

In Petersboro Brigham had preached a sermon about how "the death of one or a dozen could not destroy the priesthood," alluding that he and the others had legitimately succeeded priesthood authority from Joseph. 

Here is something to keep in mind. The saints in these Eastern areas had really only been taught by the Twelve, and they could've been preaching whatever gospel they wanted to these people, prepping and grooming them to accept Brigham and the others as leaders after Joseph was out of the way.

July 16th. Wouldn't you know it Brigham and Orson head back to Boston. On the 18th another apostolic council was held. On the 20th, Heber and Brigham spend yet another day in the bustling city of Boston. On the 23rd, Brigham and Heber are together again (what are Brigham and Heber doing when they are hanging out alone in Boston? We are just not told).

Finally, on July 24, the Twelve head back to Nauvoo, and hardly a day after they arrive, Samuel Smith dies of a mystery disease. 

All I can say are the words of Chris Farley in the movie Black Sheep when he was looking up at the steep mountain slope he just rolled down: 

"What in the hell was that all about?"

Let's move on to De Smet. 

A Robe, a Priest, and a Travel Plan

Pierre De Smet was born in Belgium on January 30th of 1801, and died in St. Louis in 1873. After turning twenty-one he decided to enter the Jesuit Order. The Jesuit's are a deep rabbit hole that I could devote an entire series to, but I have already written two posts that will provide a background if you're interested: this one and that one.

I'll just give you the quick version:

The Jesuit Order was established by the mystic Ignatius of Loyola in the year 1540. He was a Catholic zealot who wanted to create a covert military arm for the Papacy. He masterminded an intense initiation program for would-be adepts, and made them swear blood-curdling oaths of secrecy and fealty. In other words, they were a secret combination bound by blood oaths, which if violated resulted in gruesome execution. 

Their purpose was to destroy all Protestant heretics (stemming from the Council of Trent) and enslave the entire world under the dictatorship of the Pope, who was just a public figurehead controlled by the Order running things behind the scenes. The man who initiates swear allegiance and obedience to is known as the Black Pope, or the Jesuit Superior General. 

The Jesuits were actually disbanded by a papal bull declared by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, which forced them to go underground in Europe and splinter off into different groups. One of the groups was led by Adam Weishaupt and established in Bavaria as the Illuminati. This wing eventually came to America and created the order of Skull and Bones in 1833; around the same time they also infiltrated American Freemasonry.

So yes, Skull and Bones is a Jesuit-created secret society, which means that somewhere way up the line from Russel Nelson is the Jesuit Superior General calling the shots. What is interesting here is that Brigham Young may have also received his marching orders from the Jesuit Order, a theory that I can't prove, but I will present you with the facts and you can decide for yourself.

Let's get back to De Smet.

In 1814, Pope Pius VII officially reinstated the Jesuits, which was perfect timing for Pierre to come to America and enter the Jesuit Novitiate in Whitemarsh, Maryland in 1821 (novitiate is another word for apprenticeship). Before we get any farther into this history, I'm going to include a snippet of the Jesuit oath so you know what kind of people we are dealing with. This is not for the faint of heart:

I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion, or will of my own, or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver, but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the Pope. I further promise and declare that I will make and wage relentless war, as I am directed to do to extirpate and exterminate Protestants and Liberals from the face of the whole earth. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poison cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poignard, or the leaden bullet. 

I will neither spare age, sex, or condition. I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their woman, and crush their infant's head against the wall, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race.

So now you know, when we're talking about Jesuit missionaries sent by the Pope to convert people to Catholicism, they are men who have taken this very oath. Keep that in mind as we proceed.

After spending six years in training in Missouri, De Smet made plans to begin his mission among the American Indians. But because of ill health he returned to Europe in 1833 (also the year he became a naturalized American citizen) and didn't resurface in Missouri until 1838.

He remained there until 1840, when he embarked on his crusade to proselyte to the Indians in the Rocky Mountains, specifically the Northwest. While in Europe he traveled around collecting means and funds for the Jesuit missions which were under the direction of the Superior General, Father Johannes Roothaan. It was Roothaan's aim to establish "Reductions" with the American natives that had been done in Paraguay two centuries earlier.

Under the cloak of religion, the Jesuits used the reduction program to infiltrate nations and subdue natives. In South America it was essentially a communist program (two hundred years before Marx) to solicit native labor and enrich the coffers of the Jesuits. Some have called it "social theocracy," and others "benign colonialism." 

Some have even opined that the Reduction Program was based on Plato's Republic, which is really nothing but philosophical communism. Regardless, the Reductions were just that, reductions of the rights of natives. They were treated harshly, basically enslaved, and subject to all kinds of abuses. Here is how Pope Benedict XIV described the program in 1741:

They [the Jesuits] dare before us, to enslave the Indians of Paraguay, to sell them, or buy them... separating mothers from their children, and to despoil them of their goods and property. (Quoted in Vatican Assassins, by Eric Jon Phelps, p. 296)

Bishop Juan de Palafox, writing to the Pope from Los Angeles, Mexico in 1647, described it this way:

I find almost the whole of Central America is in the hands of the Jesuits, and the property they hold in the heads of cattle and sheep is something truly enormous... and they have succeeded in a word to bring to such a height their power and riches that the secular clergy will soon be compelled to beg their bread from the Jesuits. (Quoted in Ibid, p. 296) 

De Smet's first reduction was set up among the Flathead Indians in what is now Montana. However, the reduction program was not successful in America, and De Smet ended up taking a lot of heat from Roothaan for his failures, but for three years he had traveled around what is now Idaho, Montana, and Utah, and gained an intimate knowledge of the landscape, including the Great Basin, the Bear River, and the Great Salt Lake (this will be important in a moment).

As the legend goes, De Smet became famous among Indian tribes, including Chief Sitting Bull and the Sioux, becoming affectionately known to them as "Blackrobe." They trusted him, which resulted in his being a very successful negotiator between the U.S. government and tribal leaders. But, as we all know, the promises to the natives were broken by the government, and the result was a 30-year war of Indian extermination, lasting from 1860 to 1890.

De Smet had connections with many influential political figures, including both northern and southern generals. He was an advisor to Senator Thomas Benton, President Andrew Johnson, generals Sherman and Sheridan (the butchers of the American Indians), and wait for it, an associate of general Albert Pike.

Albert Pike, for those of you who don't know, was a Scottish Rite Freemason who wrote Morals and Dogma, in which he specified that the god of Freemasonry was Lucifer. Many occult writings from people like Aleister Crowley, Madame Helena Blavatsky, and Manly P. Hall use Pike as a major reference to their craft. Morals and Dogma is also the handbook for modern Freemasonry.  

I believe De Smet was Pike's superior. Just think about the implications of that for a moment... 

Benton, Johnson, Sherman, and Sheridan were all Freemasons, just like Heber Kimball and Brigham Young were, which means they had all made oaths to the same superiors (even if they didn't know who they were). 

De Smet wore a black robe, a symbol of Saturn, the regalia of a Satanic priest or wizard. He was silently involved in some major watershed moments in America history, yet all we are told about him is how the Native Americans loved him; just a harmless priest going about teaching the gospel to the Indians. 

The worst people in the world operate under the cloak of religious piety. 

According to Eric Jon Phelps, author of Vatican Assassins, De Smet was a co-conspirator in the assassination of Lincoln with Jesuit Bernadin F. Wiget, as well as the architect of the 14th Amendment. You know, the law that made all American residents U.S. citizens, as in the U.S. corporation, not the country. 

Remember, all that maritime law nonsense originated with Rome and the Pope, whom they dubbed Pontifex Maximus (chief high priest) and Rex Mundi (king of the world). The mission of the Jesuits was to infiltrate America and hand it back to the Vatican and its priest-king.

(Check out this podcast on Albert Pike… Apparently De Smet was even involved with the establishment of the Skull and Bones… this guy had his hands in everything… start at the 1 hour 8 minute mark, but the whole podcast is good, just ignore the derogatory commentary on Joseph Smith.)

De Smet was also involved with Giuseppe Mazzini, the nationalist revolutionary who started the Italian Mafia. De Smet is the missing link connecting so many 19th century pieces of the burgeoning New World Order.  

Now, another reason De Smet was interested in befriending the Indians was to further the goals of the Jesuits with yet another scheme of controlled opposition. They used the conflict between the Indians and the whites to kill Protestant (as per their oath) immigrants. In fact they fomented this conflict. Here is what Eric Jon Phelps wrote about it:

...Pierre De Smet, one of the most powerful American Jesuits of the Nineteenth Century... the foremost Jesuit of influence among the Indian Nations... using Confederate General and 33rd Degree Freemason Albert Pike, incited his Sioux Indians to mass-murder eight hundred White Lutherans of Minnesota (Northerners) while having procured the exemption of Jesuits from the draft during America's bloodbath, erroneously called "the Civil War." (Vatican Assassins, p. 344) 

Phelps was referring to the Dakota War of 1862, read about it here. He also believes that the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 was used to slaughter Protestants in the form of 120 Methodist immigrants.

Methodism is a derivative of Protestantism, originating with Jon Wesley. The Jesuits considered any breakoff group from Catholicism as a protesting movement, and therefore subject to their oath of revenge. 

The official story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre is that John D. Lee was an insane zealot who was taking revenge on these immigrants for the death of Joseph Smith. 

That doesn't add up. Joseph had been dead for 13 years, and these immigrants clearly had nothing to do with his death. That was a cover. Was Brigham acting under the direction of a Jesuit superior when he allowed this genocide to take place? 

What was really going on in Utah? (I promise I'm getting to that soon). 

You know, it's funny, growing up in the 80s and 90s, with all the best western movies at my disposal, it was ingrained into my mind that the natural state of cowboys and Indians was one of warfare. On top of that I loved reading Louis L'amour novels, but I noticed a pattern in his writing: all the bad guys were white cowboys manipulating other white cowboys. Indians had nothing to do with it. 

I now believe that the war between white immigrants and plains Indians was concocted by the Jesuits. After all, If you want to take over an entire nation the best way to do so is to foment conflict. Ah, the oldest trick in the book, order out of chaos. 

The same pattern is being repeated in Israel at this very moment, but I’m getting off track again. 

The Meeting

Alright, I've stalled long enough. Let's get on with the meeting between Brigham and De Smet (now that you have a little background on that rascal). 

This happened at Winter Quarters in the Fall of 1846. 

Over the last year I have seen a few Facebook memes about this alleged meeting between De Smet and Young, but never any sources cited. Needless to say, my curiosity was piqued, and about a month ago I finally freed up the time to dive into this rabbit hole.  

After a few weeks of searching I found my source in the most unlikely of places, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by B.H. Roberts. I was blown away, and couldn't believe what I was reading. This had been there all along, but apparently no one ever bothered to read or talk about it.

On pages 84-85 of Volume 3, Roberts quotes an obscure book entitled, The Catholic Church In Utah, published by the Knights of Columbus in 1909. The latter is a Catholic fraternity founded in 1882 (go figure, another secret society).

After quoting the book Roberts endeavors to rebut its claims, without a shred of evidence, and quite laughably I might add. What did the authors of the book purport? 

That the entire migration of the Mormons to Utah was "probably" influenced by De Smet, that he personally directed them to the Salt Lake Valley. In Roberts' rebuttal, he claims that Brigham was already contemplating the Great Basin area when the saints were camped in Missouri. But he does this without citing a single source. 

Who are we to believe?

As usual, I'll just present the material and let you decide for yourself. I can't prove this either way, but I must say that the research has been fascinating, and when we get into the next post about what I believe Brigham found already existing in Utah, it may become apparent to you that he was indeed led there by superiors who were "in the know." 

I'll end with the quote from the book. Enjoy, and I'll see you next time.

The following excerpt is taken from a letter De Smet wrote to his nephew in March of 1851:

The Great Salt Lake, which is about 300 miles in circumference, lies in the Northern part of the Great Basin. It is rather shallow in the portions thus far explored; but it is supposed to be deep in the central parts. The water of the lake is more salty than sea-water. Three gallons of it yield a gallon of salt of the greatest purity, whiteness and fineness. On the northeast of the lake is the termination of the valley of Bear River. This valley is thirty miles long by twenty-two wide, and communicates with another valley, which is fifty miles by eight (now Cache Valley). It is in the first valley, enclosed by picturesque mountains, which has taken the name of the Valley of the Mormons, that their capital stands, called by some Great Salt Lake City, and by others Mormonville.

Here the authors inject some commentary:

That De Smet visited Salt Lake during his trip to the northwest in 1841 does not seem to have been generally known. This visit, in association with the fact that he was the first Catholic priest to enter Utah subsequent to the explorations of Fathers Escalante and Dominguez in 1776, gives this part of his journey great interest in connection with the history of the Church in our State.

Continuing with the letter:

In the Fall of 1846, as I drew near to the frontiers of the state of Missouri, I found the advance guard of the Mormons, numbering about 10,000, camped on the Territory of the Omaha, not far from old Council Bluffs. They had just been driven out for the second time from a State of the Union (Illinois had received them after their war with the people of Missouri). They had resolved to winter on the threshold of the great desert, and then to move onward into it, to put distance between themselves and their persecutors, without even knowing at the time the end of their long wanderings, nor the place where they should once more erect for themselves permanent dwellings. 

They asked me a thousand questions about the regions I had explored, and the valley which I have just described to you pleased them greatly with the account I gave them of it. Was that what determined them? I would not dare to assert it. They are there. In the last three years Utah has changed its aspect, and from a desert has become a flourishing territory, which will soon become one of the States of the Union. [Italics original]

And here is the final commentary from the authors that led to Roberts' attempted rebuttal:

To the Mormons living in a temporary camp on the edge of a desert, unable, or at least unwilling, to retrace the road leading back to the land of their persecutors, ignorant of the region which lay before them, De Smet's glowing description of the beautiful and fertile valley which lay beyond the mountains, brought the solution of their most perplexing problem, for it indicated a place wherein they could establish their homes and their religion, free from the troubles and persecutions which had so far beset them. 

His close acquaintance with Brigham Young, and his many conversations with him on the Rocky Mountain regions and on Salt Lake Valley, probably determined the choice of the Mormon prophet, and led to the decision which ultimately settled the Latter Day Saints in the fertile lands they now occupy in Utah. (The Catholic Church in Utah, pp. 269-71)

Other Books on De Smet

"Come, Blackrobe," De Smet and the Indian Tragedy, by John J. Killoren, S.J., 1994.

Father Peter John De Smet, by Robert C. Carriker, 1995.