A Letter from Israel Whiton, 1851

View PDF

A crest of wind runs and rustles through the pinons 
Below the butte, and it is evening; the moss-green shade
Glimmers with lancets and gems of the afternoon sun; 
The fields beyond glow yellow-gold; and the overcast 
Of azure dims pale and like powder in the air 
Fails away into the recesses of light and time. 
I sit before a candle that tips its flame 
From the door, and I write . . . 

Dear Mother: 
I received a letter from you the 8 of May. 
I was very glad to hear from you but I had to wet 
The letter with tears. You are a good Mother to me. 
Their was a letter came from Father too. 

I crease them at the edge of the desk, splinters 
Shifting the pages awry . . . 

I and Eliza have not forgot what you told us 
Before we started our journey, If we was faithful 
In the Gospel of the Priesthood, we should be instrumental
In the hands of God, of turning the hearts of the Children
To the Fathers. My health has been good every day 
Since I left home; I am tough and herty, enjoying 
Good health and this I am thankful for as usal. 

There in New Haven, the bank of pillows and the skin
Like the river sand beyond the sheeting water 
That subtly rises and fails, drawing grains 
In the tumult of recession, and the eyes sudden 
To see me near, from sleep, and my going away 
Beyond the doors that she sees closing. 

Eliza kept all my clothes in good order, 
She was a good woman to take care of things.
I do not know what I should have done to travel
Without her; we had a team of our own, one yoke
Of oxen and 2 yoke of cows. 

Over the plains from Laramie, west, the bow of mountains
Far to the south, and I write as if there, receding
Into the blue and golden undulations of distance,
Away from home and farther still to the great Divide
Of the land, and down the reaches of the far slope,
The canyons appearing between the walls and towers
Of rock and the high vales of the wind and the wisps
Of cirri against the high flanges of stone . . . 

We took in Sister Snow and her little boy 
To carry through to the vally for 75 dollars, 
When we got about 3Q0 miles she died 
With the Cholery. Her husband was to the gold
Minds and was a coming to meet her to the vally
In the fall, but I heard from him; he has been sick
In the Sutters’ gold minds and has not come yet.
By having Sister Snows things in my wagon 
I had to by another yoke of oxen when I got
To Fort Carny where I got my cattle, because
She was foot sore and could not go, for 55 dollars. 

The oxen before me, I watch the rhythm of the wagons
Tipping and heaving, and the finite dust 
Settles in our wake, paling the sage on either
Side, and after. I am the measure of that journey,
Never to return, and here where the soundless sky
Drifts from the still clouds, and where it goes
I see the quiet periods of stars and the sleek 
Heaven of that other certainty . . .

It was very bad for Eliza to have sickness 
And death in her wagon on such a journey. 
We see thousands and thousands of bufalows 
Moving in great heards; we kill some and had 
All the meat we wanted and it was as good 
As dried beef. We kill some antaloope, in animal 
As big as sheep; they was as good as mutton. 
Manly Barrows kill a good many rabits because 
He had a shot gun; I shot some sage hens 
With Manly’s gun. We see some raddle snake; 
A young man got bite by one, but got well, 
Very early one morning there was one run under 
Our wagon and they kill it. We see Indians 
In droves without number; one rode up to my wagon 
And give my Eliza some blake Cherrys 
And she gave him two crackers. They all ride 
Horses and have long slim poles fastened 
To there horses to carry there game. 

From the plain I see the declivity to the stream 
Then as we brake the wagon with poles, to the water’s edge,
Then easily into the cold, the oxen threshing for footing
On the stony bed; I steady the wagon, reaching 
From my horse to the buckboard, but over it goes 
Like a vane against the current and the rills 
Of cold, and Eliza sinks there before I catch her, 
Her skirts the mantles of darkness, laden with water. 

And she gazes wildly at me when I right her 
And help her to the bank. She shivers as I right 
The wagon from my saddle, and in the evening 
I touch the question in her, of the exposure and cold 
Of September, and the wind. She shivers again, trying 
Against the cold . . .

We got to the Vally about the middle of October.
I work one yoke of my cattle, the old brindle some.
A cold storm come and one died. We have 
Some brown sugar that we brought from St. Louis.
Wheat is worth 3 dollars a bushel, beef 10 dollars
A hundred and maybe potatoes 1 dollar a bushel.
There is grist mills and saw mills in the Valley a plenty.
The wheat on the ground bids fair for a good crop;
They raise from 40 to 60 bushels to acre; 
After harvest they plow in the old stuble 
And next summer get a great crop of wheat 
Without sowing and this they can follow up 
Year after year. 

Eliza, you lie there, under the window, the last sunlight
Over your hands, and I cannot see where you 
Must see, the pinons flickering like lashes 
Over your eyes, the fire of embers waiting in the ash
White powdering over them . . . You lie there,
Tucked in the quilt you made for us in New Haven,
Still as the evening before the crest of wind . . . 

Mr. Hunter finds teem and seeds and tools and land
And I have one half of the crop and give him 
The other half in the shock. I have 18 acres of wheat
On the ground, Mother, it looks fine up to my knees.
We have good meetings every Sunday. Eliza is . . .
The Vally is 100 miles long and about 20 wide
With the river running through the middle, called
The River Jordan and Mountains all around 
The Vally higher than the clouds.

But Eliza is still as I write, and I must only
Listen. I, Israel Whiton of the Salt Lake Valley,
Write this letter to you, Mother, from the canyons
And the butte above my land; it is a leaf
From the spring before we came, as both you and Eliza
Know, unanswerable except in the signs that come,
That I cannot seek. So I give it to the wind
From the tips of pinons or the butte, and it lifts
Away, and I try to see it as it diminishes 
Away, then vanishing though I know it is there,
As you know better than I, Mother . . . And it will rise
Beyond the golden seal and touch the white hand
In the cirri pluming the Oquirrh crest west
Over the sunset, and it is as if I take a veil
Full in my hand as I write, as if to let it yield
To the days consecrated to the journey west
That holds me aloof from all I have ever known,
The East and the cities of my common being,
As I am here, in Zion, wondering about you
Who cannot respond except in the barest hints
Of being that lift over me and show me the way
To yield and rise into the Kingdom, the sky
And the land like the white silver spirit 
That we know but is fathomless before us 
And indefinite as the planes of God rising
Into the sun . . . 

With love, 
Your son Israel