![\"C.](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/07\/Crossing_the_Mississippi_on_the_Ice_by_C.C.A._Christensen.png\")
<\/a>We began the day quite early, as we usually do during these filming expeditions, down on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River where the \u201cTrail of Hope\u201d comes to the shore.\u00a0 This is apparently the spot where the Latter-day Saints began their crossing of the river and their flight into Iowa Territory and beyond.\u00a0 We chose the spot, of course, because we were filming part of an episode on the exodus to the west.<\/p>\n
I can scarcely imagine the feelings of those who were going into exile in the barely explored American West. \u00a0This was not only a city that they had built. \u00a0They had reclaimed the malarial swamp upon which much of it stood. \u00a0They had labored to build a temple high above it, a deeply holy place in which they believed the glory and power of God to be uniquely manifest. \u00a0They were leaving behind the graves of their martyred prophet and patriarch<\/p>\n
But they were under enormous pressure and threats of violence \u2014 threats that were entirely credible because of the violence that had already occurred (including, but not limited to, the assassinations of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith and the severe wounding of John Taylor at Carthage Jail, about a year and a half before). \u00a0So, when unseasonably mild spring-like weather came to the area, the first Latter-day Saints took the opportunity to cross the river by ferry. \u00a0The emigration began on 4 February 1846. \u00a0But it was very slow and laborious work. \u00a0Fully wintry weather \u2014 actually, exceptionally cold<\/em> weather \u2014 returned with a vengeance on 19 February. \u00a0The Saints who were already encamped several miles into Iowa experienced violent winds and measured eight inches of snow. \u00a0The Mississippi temporarily froze over, so that teams and wagons were able to cross it without needing to wait for ferries.<\/p>\n Then we drove off across Iowa ourselves, recording some dialogue within one of our two cars along the way.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned that in-car filming is surprisingly difficult and can be time-consuming.<\/p>\n In the evening, we headed off the main road to Mount Pisgah<\/a>, which was, for about six years, one of the \u201cway stations\u201d along the Mormon Trail.\u00a0 The Saints had first founded a settlement at a place that they called \u201cGarden Grove,\u201d<\/a> building homes there and clearing, ploughing, and planting roughly 715 acres.\u00a0 But there was insufficient timber there for their needs (e.g., for building and for winter firewood). \u00a0So they commenced a search for a more suitable location.<\/p>\n It was Elder Parley P. Pratt, of the Quorum of the Twelve, who located a wooded hillock about twenty-five miles to the northwest that overlooked a level area of about a thousand acres or so. \u00a0He called it \u201cMount Pisgah.\u201d \u00a0Elder Pratt seems, quite obviously, to have been saturated in the Old Testament. \u00a0In the Hebrew Bible, the name Pisgah<\/em> (\u05e4\u05b4\u05bc\u05e1\u05b0\u05d2\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4, which means \u201csummit\u201d) refers to the mountain from which Moses was shown the entire land of Canaan, the Promised Land \u2014 extending from Gilead and Dan in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the Negev in the south \u2014 that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.\u00a0 See Deuteronomy 34:1-5, where it is also said that Moses died<\/em> on Mount Pisgah. \u00a0The mountain is identified by many with Mount Nebo, a traditional pilgrimage destination (and tourist site) in today\u2019s Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n If Elder Pratt was thinking that they had almost reached the Promised Land \u2014 that is, the Valley of the Great Salt Lake \u2014 he was seriously mistaken. \u00a0However, I doubt that he did. \u00a0The leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> knew pretty well by then where they were going and how great the distance was going to be. \u00a0But he plainly liked the area, and I can easily understand why. \u00a0Ezra T. Benson, himself ordained an apostle on 16 July 1846 and, as it turned out, the great grandfather of Ezra Taft Benson (the future thirteenth president of the Church), commented that it was the first place since he had left Nauvoo where he would have been happy to stay.<\/p>\n But the Saints didn\u2019t stay. \u00a0They used Mount Pisgah as a temporary way station on the trail to the Great Basin. \u00a0Emigrating members of the Church continued to pass through and then, after six years, they left it altogether. \u00a0It had served its purpose. \u00a0And they left behind the bodies of between five and eight hundred of their loved ones who had died there from the difficult conditions of the Mormon Trail, including exposure and overexertion and suboptimal nutrition.<\/p>\n Among the many who died and are buried there is an ancestor of my own, Joseph Knight Sr<\/a>. \u00a0He passed away at Mount Pisgah on 2 February 1847, at the age of seventy-four.<\/p>\n We filmed at Pisgah shortly before dusk. \u00a0It\u2019s far off the beaten path. \u00a0The light was marvelous; my photograph above doesn\u2019t do it full justice. \u00a0The place was serene and beautiful and, I thought, rather wonderfully melancholy. \u00a0It was, for me, a deeply and personally meaningful visit.<\/p>\n I posted three links here yesterday<\/a> about Bravo\u2019s idealistic new campaign to promote sympathetic understanding for an often misunderstood and even persecuted minority religious faith. \u00a0You may have been hearing a bit about it elsewhere, too. \u00a0It\u2019s called Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay<\/em>. \u00a0And now, here\u2019s another<\/em> relevant link. \u00a0However, this one, by contrast, suggests how Latter-day Saints ought to respond<\/em> to such ventures in religious scholarship: \u00a0\u201cAttention Is Cheap. Love Is Expensive. It\u2019s Worth It.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid that the authors are not recommending an especially easy path.<\/p>\n Posted from Creston, Iowa<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 We began the day quite early, as we usually do during these filming expeditions, down on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River where the \u201cTrail of Hope\u201d comes to the shore.\u00a0 This is apparently the spot where the Latter-day Saints began their crossing of the river and their flight into Iowa Territory and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":113594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39263,16164,39389,2905,788,39386],"class_list":["post-113585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heather-gay","tag-iowa","tag-joseph-knight-sr","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-pisgah"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a>\n
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