Content preview - You need a premium account to view this content.

On the River

"There is no sound in the world so filled with mystery and longing and unease as the sound at night of a river boat blowing for the landing-one long, two shorts, one long, two shorts. . . . The sound of the riverboats hangs inside your heart like a star." That was the memory of an old-timer who spent forty years on the Mississippi River, and it was the kind of memory found in the hearts of fifteen thousand Saints who evacuated Nauvoo in 1846 and headed west across the central plains. For the previous seven years, the river had been the lifeblood of their city, sustaining its commerce and encouraging its growth. It assisted the gathering of the Saints and served as the baptismal font for hundreds at a time. It soothed a troubled multitude after the persecutions of Missouri and inspired the temple builders as they labored on the hill overlooking it. To a large degree, it made Nauvoo the city it was, beautiful and large and prosperous.

Historians have tended to overlook the preeminence of Nauvoo as a river town. The economic importance of the Mississippi was demonstrated in the city charter, which extended the city limits to the midpoint of the river. The Prophet Joseph Smith foresaw the potential development of the waterfront area and the need of the city to have jurisdiction over it. "Every item imaginable for home and commercial use was carried by the hundreds of boats which plied the rivers, including flour, lumber, dry goods, furs, agricultural implements, farm produce, newspapers, the U. S. mail, military stores, foreign imports, iron and 'Galena Cotton' [lead]."

But the river carried more than just goods. It carried people, and exciting people they were. Few landlocked cities could hope to entertain such a variety of intriguing visitors as could a river town in nineteenth-century America. Boats touching at Nauvoo carried gamblers, Indians, soldiers, actors, roustabouts, fur trappers, slaves, musicians, and riverboat men. And to Nauvoo especially came well-known political figures, writers, and theologians anxious to see the font of Mormonism and its prophet.

Admittedly such visits did not occur during the entire year. During the winter on the upper Mississippi, river traffic came to a halt when the river froze over. On 1 March 1843 the Prophet noted in his journal: "The Mississippi froze up on the 19th of November last, and still continues so. Wagons and teams constantly pass over on the ice to Montrose."

The longer the river stayed open the better for the commerce of Nauvoo. In 1844, according to the 7 February Nauvoo Neighbor, the river did not freeze solid until February: "The weather has been very severe for a few days past and there is now a good bridge over the Father of Waters." But ice over it eventually did, every winter, and Nauvoo was cut off from the rest of the world except by horse and by foot for several weeks. Then in the spring came the thrilling breakup of the ice, which marked the beginning of another exciting season of river traffic and immigration: "Navigation is open, and steamboats are almost continually plying up and down our majestic river. They have already brought several families of emigrants to this place."