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Show DE SMET AND THE MORMONS. Did the Jesuit Father De Smct direct the Mormons Mor-mons to' Utah? John MacReynolds, writing to the Kansas City, Star, says: """The Rev. Father De Smct, of whom FatherS Dalton spoke so interestingly in his talk to the old settlers on last Thursday evening, visited Kansas City, probably the last time in January, 1862. He had walked the entire distance from St. Louis to Kansas- City, as transportation had closed on the Missouri river and staging was attended with too many difficulties, owing to the disturbed conditions incident to the Civil war. He was on his way back to the plains and New Mexico, where he had spent many years among the Indian'tribes. "From my recollection of what Father De Smet said to me at that time about the Mormon immigration immi-gration to Salt Lake valley iii Utah, Father Dal-ton's. Dal-ton's. statement was true that Father De Smet had met Brigham Young on the banks of the Missouri river nd advised him to go to Utah with his followers,' fol-lowers,' where they would be undisturbed by the trend of emigration for many years to. come, and that Father De Smet furnished the Mormon prophet proph-et with a vivid description of the beautiful and fertile fer-tile vaHey of Salt Lake, and also a map and chart of the route across the plains to that promised land," and Father Do Smet must have been the archangel whom the Mormons generally credit with appearing unto Brigham Young and directing his course across the western wilderness into a hitherto almost unknown part of the country. That Brigham Brig-ham had no definite knowledge of just where he would settle with his colony is a well known fact, and that after meeting with Father De Smet he determined to seek the land described to him by the Jesuit priest, and kept the matter a secret unto himself him-self until he had discovered the exact location pre- Rented on the map furnished him." ' |
