Thomas Rhoades
Early
records indicate that Thomas Rhoades and his family have the distinction of
being the first Mormon group to travel through the present day Truckee Meadows
area then proceed over the Sierras into California in the early fall of 1846. (J. Kenneth Davies,
Olympus Publishing, Mormon Gold). The Rhoades family joined the church while living in Illinois
in 1834. From the start,
Thomas was a faithful, active member. When persecution of the Mormon population
increased, the Rhoades family were targeted and afflicted with the mob’s
cruelty. While attending church one Sunday, the mob burned his home, at the
same time killing a close personal friend. This, in conjunction with the Nauvoo
expulsion, prompted Thomas to join the saints heading west. While camped on the
Mississippi River, the family experienced great hardship. Thomas approached
Brigham Young with an idea that could help alleviate the suffering. He wrote, “[L]et
me go now. I have nearly 200 persons who will gladly follow me to wherever I
may choose. Let me take them and go westward until I find a suitable place—I
understand that California has much to offer in a good climate and soil—let me
take these and blaze the trail west. Should I venture too far, I’ll return when
the settlement has been made by you” (Gail
R. Rhoades, Footprints in the Wilderness).
Brigham held a council to consider the idea, then granted permission
for the westward journey by stating: “[G]o with my blessing. Your company will
be the Trailblazers that will pave the road to Zion. When the spring comes, I
will follow with the strongest of my company and after that, another will
follow me, and so forth until all the saints have been removed from this place;
and soon, we may be able to establish the Zion of which Brother Joseph spoke of
. . . wherever that place may be” (Gail R.
Rhoades,
Footprints in the Wilderness).
The Rhoades’s group advanced toward Iowa and shortly came to the
Missouri River. There they camped near another emigrant group going the same
direction. Two of the men introduced themselves as George Donner and James
Reed. Since the Donner-Reed parties were less familiar with overland travel,
George and James asked the more-seasoned Thomas Rhoads to join their party.
Thomas consented on one condition: the Donner-Reed parties would concede and abide
by the direction and rules of the Mormon wagon train. Both Donner and Reed
agreed to the mandates stipulated.
The Donner/Reed and the Rhoades groups traveled together without much
incident; occasionally running into an occasional skirmish with the Indians who
became more difficult the farther west they traveled.
When both groups arrived at Fort Bridger, they had a decision to make.
They could choose to use the Hastings cutoff, fabled to be a shortcut, or
continue on the safer, slower, middle route. Unfortunately, the Donner Party
chose the Hastings cutoff leading to a calamitous demise for many of their
group while the Rhoades’ company chose the more conservative middle route. The
separation led the Donner and Rhoades parties down two completely different
paths and outcomes.
The safer route took Thomas and his party through the Salt Lake Valley
before anyone knew it was to be the saints’ future home. It is uncertain
exactly which direction they took from there, but we know they passed through
the present-day Reno-Sparks area via the Truckee route sooner than the Donner
party.
After the Rhoades arrival at Johnson’s Ranch, north of Sutter’s Fort,
California, on October 5, 1846, family members settled in the Sacramento Valley
where they began employment with John Sutter.
Thomas and his family were then
in the perfect locale and position to take advantage of the gold discovery on
January 24, 1848. Thomas later joined some of the Brooklyn Ship saints as well
as several of the Mormon Battalion veterans panning for gold in the nearby
American River at a place commonly referred to as Mormon Island. By the time
Brigham Young sent a letter in 1849 to the Rhoades asking them to relocate to
Salt Lake, Thomas’s wife had died. He gathered one of his sons, three
daughters, Sam Brannon, Abner Blackburn, and others to leave California with
$17,000.00 of his own gold money and $13,000.00 as collected tithing. He
successfully buoyed the lagging economy of Salt Lake. The gold was used to
create coinage for the newly founded territorial mint. Thomas benefited quite
well during those few years in California. Brigham touted him as being the richest man in
Utah to come out of the gold fields.
California would not be the last state where Thomas mined gold. Three
years after arriving in Utah, Thomas was the only man Brigham Young and Chief
Walker of the Ute Nation entrusted to secretly mine gold in the Uintah
Mountains. Years earlier, the Ute Indians had been victimized by the Aztecs as
slaves in the gold mines of Utah. The Utes had no use for gold, so when Brigham
Young encouraged Chief Walker to divulge the location of the mines, Chief
Walker resorted to a compromise with him. The location would be revealed to
only one man who would be under constant surveillance. If the location was
divulged at any time, the man would be killed. This man would be allowed only
as much as he could carry in his arms at one time and the Utes would not be of
any assistance. That man was Thomas Rhoades.
According to family papers and
tradition, the first load weighed 62 pounds. There were several more trips in
the ensuing years, each trip took two weeks. It is said that “the Angel Moroni
on top of the Temple is overlayed with gold brought from the Indian mines, and
also in the spacious rooms of the Temple can be found woodwork with trimmings
of said gold” (Pioneer Heritage Library in the LDS Family
History Suite infobase.)
No comments:
Post a Comment