The
Mormons never did indulge in gold-mining. But the samples served to
inflame the ardor of the immigrants from the east. Their one desire at
once became to lighten their loads so that they could get to the
diggings in the shortest possible time. Then the Mormons began to reap
their harvest. Animals worth only twenty-five or thirty dollars would
bring two hundred dollars in exchange for goods brought in by the
travelers. For a light wagon the immigrants did not hesitate to offer
three or four heavy ones, and sometimes a yoke of oxen to boot. Such
very desirable things to a new community as sheeting, or spades and
shovels, since the miners were overstocked, could be had for almost
nothing. Indeed, everything, except coffee and sugar, was about half the
wholesale rate in the East. The profit to the Mormons from this
migration was even greater in 1850. The gold-seeker sometimes paid as
high as a dollar a pound for flour; and, conversely, as many of the
wayfarers started out with heavy loads of mining machinery and
miscellaneous goods, as is the habit of the tenderfoot camper even unto
this day, they had to sell at the buyers' prices. Some of the
enterprising miners had even brought large amounts of goods for sale at
a hoped-for profit in California.
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