USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Mormons, as they were commonly known, had moved west to escape religious discrimination. After the murder of founder and prophet Joseph Smith, they knew they had to leave their old settlement in Illinois. Many Mormons died in the cold, harsh winter months as they made their way over the Rocky Mountains to Utah.

Detailed explanation-2: -Most members of the Mormon church took a train to Utah. A small percentage traveled by horse and wagon, pulled handcarts, or walked. Many Mormon immigrants came from around the United States and western Europe, while others migrated from the Pacific Islands and other regions.

Detailed explanation-3: -Over the next two decades more than 60, 000 Mormons would journey to the Utah Territory; thousands came by wagon, and thousands more pulled handcarts across the harsh terrain. Many died along the way, and the survivors found the country they sought to escape would soon expand its borders to encompass them.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Mormons were persecuted for several reasons: They didn’t keep slaves, which was seen as a threat to the surrounding slave-owning culture at a time when the abolition of slavery was a big issue. Their doctrine of plural marriage was seen as a serious attack on the social and ethical rules of the period.

Detailed explanation-5: -The well-organized wagon train migration began in earnest in April 1847, and the period (including the flight from Missouri in 1838 to Nauvoo), known as the Mormon Exodus is, by convention among social scientists, traditionally assumed to have ended with the completion of the First transcontinental railroad in 1869.