Mormon History
Fascination With Westward Migration of Cult - 1826
Wayne Sentinel – May 26, 1826
WONDERFUL INFATUATION.
Modern Pilgrims. --
In the Summer of 1818, a company of people, calling themselves Pilgrims,
appeared descending the Mississippi, in flat boats. By their own account, they
started from Lower Canada, in a company consisting of eight or ten. In Vermont
they recruited twenty or thirty; in the state of New-York several more -- and
when they reached Cincinnati, their numbers amounted to about sixty.
Their leader, a Canadian, by the name of Bullard, (called also by his followers,
the Prophet Elijah,) was of a diminutive stature, with a club foot. Before he
began his mission, he had a severe spell of sickness, when he fasted 40 days,
(as he said, and his disciples believed;) after which he recovered very
suddenly, by the special interposition of the Divine Spirit, and being filled
with enthusiasm, he declared that he was commanded to plant the church of the
Redeemer in the wilderness, and among the heathen. -- From these notions, thus
imbibed, and which he instilled into his followers, they believed themselves
capable of fasting 40 days; accordingly when they committed themselves to the
current, the Prophet enjoined a 40 days' fast. The people becoming sick and in
great distress from hunger, this severe commander found it necessary to remit,
in some degree, the rigor of his injunction, and he permitted the taking of
flour broth through a quill, because he received his food in this way after his
long sickness and fast, when he could not open his jaws; and which had the
vivifying effect taken by him for supernatural power or inspiration. But as the
gruel allowed was very meagre, being simply flour and cold water, debility,
misery, and death attended the experiment. Yet with faith and hope they
persisted.
In this wretched situation, they arrived at Pilgrim's island; which derives its
name from this fact; at which place they were fallen in with by a barge
belonging to Nashville, whose crew, detesting the conduct of the prophet and his
seconds, who watched and governed the timorous multitude, gave two or three of
the leaders a sound drubbing with the pliant cotton wood switch.
They next landed at the Little Prairie. The prophet's staff, which by the
direction of its fall had hitherto pointed out the way, now stood still; and he
declared that here he was commanded to settle and build a church; but Mr.
Walker, who owned the soil, and resided in this solitary spot, forbid the
undertaking. This was accounted persecution -- yet they continued seven days,
during which, several died, among whom were children, which were placed on the
beach by their parents, at the command of Elijah, when, exposed to the scorching
sun, they wallowed holes in the sand while they struggled away the agonies of
death. While here laboring under sickness and persecution, it seems they began
to suspect that they were forsaken by the divine spirit, and that no more
miracles could be wrought for them. Hence they commenced the cry of "Oh, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me!" when, by assisting each other, the vociferating cry
was not intermitted for three days and nights.
They stopped further down at a desert place, when six or eight more died, whose
bones still lie on the shore uncovered; and all who remained, when they arrived
at Helana, were objects of terror and compassion. The hospitable inhabitants
furnished them a plentiful supply of milk and more nourishing gruel, for taking
which every one was provided with a piece of reed cane.
Their boat next struck upon a sand-bar near the mouth of the Arkansas. The
prophet, his brother, and other leaders being dead, the remnant dispersed into
the settlements, and down the river in the passing boards.
From the time the party entered the Mississippi, their numbers decreased daily
by death or desertion. And when they made their final landing, only about 15
remained. One disciple eloped at the Little Prairie, with all the cash belonging
to the company. One child was rescued and here raised. Several individuals who
were dispersed in various directions, are now comfortably settled, but it is
supposed that more than half their number died on the pilgrimage.
This fete of folly and delusion, is perhaps worthy of notice, as furnishing a
striking instance of the blindness of credulity -- the wilderness of fanaticism,
and the miserable propensity of the mind, to believe itself possessed of powers
which do not belong to humanity.
Note 1: The above article must have originally appeared in the Western
Balance (of Franklin, TN?), in about late April of 1826. See the New York
City Telescope of
May, 6, 1826 for another reprint. For more on Isaac Bullard and his
"Pilgrims" in retrospective accounts, see the articles, "The Pilgrims" in the
Oct. 5, 1822 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, "The Mormon
Delusion" in the
June 24, 1831 issue of the Vermont Chronicle, and Zadock Thompson's
"Fanatical Sects," in his 1842 History of Vermont, (summarized in the
notes attached to
an 1817 article.)
Note 2: For contemporary accounts about Isaac Bullard's "Pilgrims," see the
Salem Register of
Sept. 15, 1817, the Boston American Baptist Magazine of
May 17, 1818, and the Chillicothe Weekly Recorder of Nov. 5, Nov. 12,
and Nov 26,
1817. None of these reports came late enough to relate Bullard's purported
1818 murder of the Pilgrims' children on the shore at Little Prairie (now
Caruthersville, Pemiscot Co.), Missouri -- however, in an
1817 report, Bullard was said to have fled from Quebec province, after
having poisoned the child of one of his followers, "by command of the Lord,"
rather like his other followers' children were put in a dire situation, "at the
command of Elijah."
Note 3: The story of Bullard and his followers' 1817 stop-over at Woodstock,
Vermont is summarized in David M. Ludlum's 1939 book, Social Ferment in
Vermont,
pp. 242-244. Although the Joseph Smith, Sr. family had departed Vermont by
the time the Bullard Pilgrims arrived on the scene, Oliver Cowdery's
Grandfather, (William Cowdery, Sr.) then lived in Woodstock and Oliver himself
lived in an adjoining county (see
area map). It is not unlikely that members of the Cowdery family had some
first-hand knowledge of Bullard's cult.
Note 4: In
a 1997 article entitled "Joseph Smith's Testimony: The First Vision and Book
of Mormon Evidence," Mark Stepherson has this to say about the cult and its
possible influence on early Mormonism: "Isaac Bullard was noticed and had the
public mind excited against him. He wore nothing but a bearskin girdle and a
beard. He gathered his "pilgrims" into a community near the Smith's old home in
Vermont. When the community moved west, they likely followed the same road the
Smith family used when moving to New York. Isaac Bullard taught free love, but I
wonder how many members were women willing to practice free love with their
leader, a man who regarded washing as a sin and bragged that he had not changed
clothes in seven years?"
