A fascinating eyewitness history of the Mormon movement—from its beginnings as a curious, controversial sect to its present-day prosperity. Told through contemporary accounts, letters, newspaper columns, documents, and memoirs by the Saints themselves and by the travelers, journalists, soldiers, officials (and their wives), humorists, and sensation-seekers who followed and observed the Mormons in their great trek westward and in the later struggles and adventures in Zion.

Map: Movements and Settlements of the Mormons
Prologue: "The Mormons," Robert P. Tristram Coffin

I. GENESIS. The Times of Joseph Smith

An American Prophet's Own Story | Joseph Smith
A Yankee Household | Lucy Mack Smith, O. Turner
Dreams and Visions, Signs and Wonders | Solomon Mack
Grace Abounding and Religious Revival | Asael Smith, William Smith
"Something Is a Going to Take Place" | Lucius Fenn
A Farmer's Excitement | Martin Harris
Village Seer | W.D. Purple
"We Hear You Have a Gold Bible" | Lucy Mack Smith
Governor Harding's Recollections | Parley P. Pratt
Pedlar's Progress | Lucy Mack Smith
Parley Parker Pratt Seeks Salvation | Parley P. Pratt
Away to the Ohio | Nancy Towle
"I Certainly Should Have Gone Into the Water" | Frederic G. Mather
Tar and Feathers | Joseph Smith
Land and Promise | Joseph Smith, Contemporary Newspapers
New Jerusalem: Letter from Independence | B. Pixley
Trouble in Jackson County | Missouri Intelligencer
"Excitement, Anxiety and Alarm" | B. Pixley
Zion's Camp | Contemporary Newspapers
"By No Means Men of Weak Minds" | James H. Eells
Pride and Apostasy in Ohio | John Corrill
Far West, Missouri | Brigham H. Roberts
Sidney Rigdon's Ultimatum | Sidney Ridgon
"A True Narrative of Causes" | Missouri Argus
Civil War in Missouri | W. F. Dunnica, Austin A. King
"Exterminate or Expel Them" | Governor L. W. Boggs
Massacre at Haun's Mill | Joseph Young
The Mormons Surrender | John Corrill
Flight from Missouri | Daily Missouri Republican, Cleveland Herald
Beginnings in Illinois | Alexandria Gazette
Charlotte Haven Writes Home from Nauvoo | Charlotte Haven
"Great Events Have Transpired": Politics and Polygamy | Charlotte Haven
"If We Are Not Molested" | Martha Haven, Sarah Scott
Two Boston Brahmins Call on the Prophet | Josiah Quincy
"A Portentous Aspect": The Nauvoo Expositor is Destroyed | Sarah and Isaac Scott
Martyrdom at Carthage | Dr. Thomas L. Barnes
Aftermath: "The Church Is Now Divided" | Sarah and Isaac Scott
Whittier Attends a Mormon Conventicle | John Greenleaf Whittier

II. EXODUS. The Flight into the Wilderness

"As Soon As Grass Grows and Water Runs" | Daily Missouri Republican
"So On Our Way to California" | Missouri Whig
A City for Sale | Daily Missouri Republican
"We Have Sold Our Place for a Trifle" | Martha S. Haven
The Camp of Israel | Hancock Eagle
The Mormon Battalion | Thomas L. Kane
The Voyage of the Brooklyn | Edward C. Kemble
Communique on Displaced Persons | Burlington Hawkeye
Epitaph for Nauvoo | Thomas L. Kane
The Mormon Encampments | Thomas L. Kane
Winter Quarters Among the Indians | Thomas L. Kane
"These Western Moves Are Hard on Cattle" | Martha S. Haven

III. CHRONICLES AND JUDGES. The Times of Brigham Young

The Spanish Padre and the Valley of Paradise | Father Escalante
On the Eve of Settlement | Heinrich Lienhard
The Promised Land | William Clayton
"The Garden of Joseph" | Second General Epistle
Forty-niners | John B. Hazlip, A. P. Josselyn
"The Mormonee" | William L. Manly
An Oregon Emigrant | Solomon Zumwalt
A Soldier and Surveyor | Capt. Howard Stansbury
The Runaway Judges | Perry E. Brocchus
Jedediah Grant Strikes Back | Jedediah Morgan Grant
Critic in Crinoline | Mrs. B. G. Ferris
Fremont's Artist Observer | Solomon Nunes Carvalho
The Gallant Lieutenant | Lt. Sylvester Mowry
A French Botanist Attends a Mormon Conference | Jules Remy
Handcarts to Zion | John Chislett, Mary Ann Hafen
Carpetbag Crisis: Drummond and His Trollop | W. W. Drummond
The Coming of Johnston's Army | Brigham Young
A Deserted City | Capt. Albert Tracy
Letters from the Governor's Lady | Elizabeth Cumming
Massacre at Mountain Meadows | Juanita Brooks
Horace Greeley Interviews Brigham Young | Horace Greeley
A British Adventurer in the City of the Saints | Sir Richard Burton
Charles Dickens Describes a Mormon Emigrant Ship | Charles Dickens
Mark Twain Makes Some Wisecracks | Mark Twain
Glimpses of Mormon Society | Fitz Hugh Ludlow

IV. LAMENTATIONS. Conflict and Accommodations in Zion

The Irrepressible Conflict | Samuel Bowles
A Humanitarian Looks at the "Mormon Question" | William Hepworth Dixon
Denominational Inroads | Daniel Sylvester Tuttle
The Lord's Co-op | Edward W. Tullidge
The Mormons and the Mines | Charles Marshall
"An After-Clap of Puritanism" | Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Visit with Amelia Folson Young | A. M.
Retrenchment: Brigham Young's Doctrine on Dress | Brigham Young
Through Utah with Captain Codman | John Codman
The Orderville Brethren | Phil Robinson
Mormon Households | Sarah Wood Kane
Crusade and Countercrusade | John M. Coyner
Senator Brown of Georgia Defends the Mormons | Joseph E. Brown
The Cohabs Go Underground | Grace Atkin Woodbury
Capitulation: Wilford Woodruff Issues a Manifesto | Wilford Woodruff
Utah Joins the Union | Charles S. Varian

V. PSALMS. An Era of Good Feeling

Elegy: A Summer in a Mormon Village | Florence A. Merriam
The Plural Widows of St. George | Sarah Comstock
Reed Smoot, Apostle in Politics | Nels Anderson
Vachel Lindsay Encounters the Mormons in Canada | Stephen Graham
Sin Comes to Ogden | Bernard De Voto
Depression: "Perhaps the Mormons are Pointing the Way" | Richard L Neuberger
Tourist Holiday | Samuel W. Taylor
The Contemporary Scene | Dale L. Morgan
Hometown Revisited | Wallace Stegner

Index