Pioneer Day

.

The celebration of the Saints’ 1847 arrival to the Salt Lake Valley began to be celebrated roughly one decade later. It appears the first celebratory barbecue was held in 1858.

Details, details.

The following song was referenced in a sacrament-meeting talk this past Sunday by a descendant of its author, Samuel S. Jones (who, thirty years after this song’s premier, become Provo’s mayor). According to family tradition, Brigham Young (visiting Provo for the occasion) was so fond of the verse slamming California that he asked L. John Nuttal to sing it twice.

….

’Tis Utah’s Natal Day

….
May every heart in Utah’s vales
….Be jubilant and gay
Nor let the shades of by gone cares
….Becloud our holiday.
This day it is the twenty-fourth;
….’Tis Utah’s natal day;
….So cheer for liberty and Utah.

                                Chorus

Hurrah, Hurrah! ’Tis Utah’s natal day;
….Hurrah, Utah is twenty-one today.
Compare the present with the past
….Success has led the way——
….And cheer for liberty and Utah.

We’ll not forget today,
….To applaud the pioneer,
Who stared grim famine in the face,
….Met trials without fear,
And served the crickets, wolves, and snakes
….That once resided here
….With notices to quit the vales of Utah.

Nor will we fail to memorize
….Battalion boys so true,
Who left their wives and country
….To fight in Mexico.
For this blest country of our choice,
….The old Red, White and Blue.
….And prove to all our loyalty to Utah.

The gold fields all around have tried
….To ’lure us from our home,
Forsake our honest industry,
….For fantasies to roam;
But we think we’ve found the color,
….In our grain field’s fertile loam
….And struck a lead to happiness in Utah.

Now let us cheer for Brigham Young,
….Our faithful Mormon guide,
And cheer for all the faithful Saints
….That in these vales reside
And now a long, long, hearty cheer
….For Utah’s natal tide
….While heaven is smiling on Utah.

….

I’m charmed by how jingoistic this song is. Clearly identity-building was the order of the day. Now, I think, identity-spreading is the more pressing concern and so pioneer stories like Freetown are of more immediate importance to us in Mormondom.

Happy Pioneer Day, from the ’luring gold fields of California.

….

Note: the text for this natal song has been preserved in History of Provo, Utah by Jens Marinus Jensen which was scanned for me by the inestimable Kjerste Christensen.