Presidents Office,
G.S.L. City, June 18, 1860,
INSTRUCTIONS To the Settlements in Cache Valley
Care of Elder E.T. Benson.
Dear Brethren:-
We fully realize that temporally, compared with many if not all others in the mountains, you are greatly blest with facilities for speedily forming numerous and strong settlements; but we also realize that you are in a region where much judgement should be exercised in strengthening your settlements and in the application of labor, that your lives and property be not destroyed, nor the products of your labor be wasted.
Our advice is that no settlement, especially none of the northern and outside settlements, contain less than from 15 to 20 able bodied men; and that the smaller the settlement the better planned and stronger should be the stockade. Ordinary prudence will commend this counsel to the brethren, as also the further suggestion that all property and affairs be kept in as snug and secure a condition as wisdom may dictate.
In procuring wood, poles, timber, &c., and in performing other labor in the kanyons, arrangements can be easily made for two or more to be always in company, for the loss of only one life through being too venturesome far outweighs the trifling inconvenience of going in companies strong enough to be safe.
Always use every reasonable precaution in your settlements, on your ranges, in your fields, and in the kanyons, to prevent the Indians from gaining or taking any advantage over your lives or property.
Prosecute inclosing your fields with all the diligence that other important labors and duties will permit.
Continue to rigidly refrain from hunting and fishing and thus deprive the Indians of a plausible pretext for killing or driving off your animals.
During this season it may be difficult to seasonably provide the customary storage for your wheat, in which case, so far as you are unable to thresh it soon after harvest, let it be very well stacked and then well capped with hay or thatched with straw.
Whenever the owner is unacquainted with stacking and covering, as above, it will amply remunerate him to employ a competent person. When wheat is threshed by a machine, and other labors crowd, it can be well kept a long time by caving it in pens made of poles, with poles underneath, a short distance above the ground, to keep it from gathering dampness, and then covered as described for stacks. All straw and chaff should be saved, which is easily done by piling the chaff and taking a little pains to properly stack the straw over it.
Your arms should always be in order, and both arms and ammunition should ever be in readiness for use at a moment's notice.
On the least intimation of hostilities from Indians, let a sufficient proportionate number of mounted men be at once detailed from each settlement, to patrol the country until all danger is past; and at all times have men in each settlement ready to mount and meet hostility upon any sudden and unlooked for emergency.
As is enjoined upon us all, be vigilent, watchful, and prayerful - living your religion--and you will build up and increase prosperous and happy settlements, fill the purpose of our being gathered to the mountains, and, which is of far greater importance, honor the purpose of your organization, for the accomplishing of which you have the prayers of
Your Brethren in the Gospel.
Brigham Young
Heber C. Kimball
Daniel H. Wells
P.S.
Elder Ezra T. Benson will please read the foregoing "Instructions" to the brethren in each settlement in Cache Valley.