Passing the Company

https://history.lds.org/bc/content/images/media/handcart-willie-and-martin-exhibit/780x780/rastsweetwatercrossing1856l.jpg

On September 12, 1856 who passed the Willie Company and promised them that they would have “some trials?”

a.                  Brigham Young

b.                  Franklin D. Richards

c.                   Willard Richards

d.                  Parley P. Pratt

Yesterday’s answer:

C   Have your name inscribed on Independence Rock

The story of the naming of the rock (Independence Rock) has only incomplete records. Lansford W. Hastings wrote in 1842: “The first party which noticed this rock was a party of American trappers who chanced to pass this way upon the Fourth of July, when, wishing to be Americans even in that secluded region of aboriginal barbarism, they proceeded to celebrate the great day which gave birth to human liberty. This they did by a succession of mountain raveling’s, festivities, and hilarities, which having been concluded, they all inscribed their names together with the word ‘Independence’ upon the most prominent and conspicuous portions of the rock, hence its name. Independence Rock thus consecrated, is destined in all coming time to stand forth as an enduring monument to civil liberty and American Independence.” Velma Linford gives this honor to Ashley’s men who camped here July 4, 1825.

Another historian wrote: “Asahel Munger, a missionary Oregon-bound in 1839, was told by Harris. . .mountain man, that the name Independence was bestowed upon it in 1830 by trappers of the American Fur Company who happened to spend the fourth of July camped in its shadow. . .  The enterprising Mormons sometimes had a man or two at the Rock who would undertake to inscribe the name and date for varying prices up to five dollars, depending on location.”

Stewart E. Glazier and Robert S. Clark, Journey of the Trail (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1997), 14.