KNOW YOUR UTAH Apr - 1956 Sea Gulls Save Mormon Pioneers and Crops (Following is another in a new series of weekly articles based on the theme, “Know Your Utah,” prepared as a public feature in line with the campaign of Sons of Utah Pioneers. Today’s article was written by Jesse P. Rich, Logan City Judge and member of Temple Fork Camp, SUP.) By JESSE P. RICH By the Spring of 1848 the Pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley had plowed and planted 5143 acres, of which nearly 900 acres were planted to winter wheat. Fortunately the winter of 1847-8 had been very mild. For many the bread stuff had run out and they had been living on very short rations, eating weeds, roots and wild thistles and anything they could get, but they survived. The crops were growing beautifully. Potatoes were very scarce, but they managed to get some to plant. The prospects were very encouraging. Three saw mills had been built and one grist mill. Then came swarms of crickets. The wheat was just heading out. They would light on a patch of wheat, bite off the heads and eat them, then eat the stems. They cleaned it right up as they went and left it a barren waste. Men, women and children turned out to fight them. They would drive the crickets in ditches, in piles of weeds and straw and burn them, but it was like trying to hold back a sea of water. Fight Lost? It seemed the fight was lost, when the sea gulls came, some thought to eat everything the crickets hadn’t. Some wanted to send word to President Young at Winter Quarters not to bring any more people into the valley as it looked like they would all starve. One man stopped building a grist mill, as he said there would be no wheat to grind. It looked like all was lost; but the people prayed very earnestly for help. If they were to be saved it would have to be done by divine providence. John R. Young, described that spring thus: “By the time the grass began to grow (1848) the famine had waxed sore. For several months we had no bread. Beef, milk, pig weeds, segoes and thistles formed our diet. It was the hired boy and while out watching the stock I used to eat thistle stalks until my stomach would be as full as a cow’s. At last the hunger was so sharp that father took down the old bird-pecked ox hide from the limb, and it was concocted into a most delicious soup and enjoyed by the family as a rich treat. As the summer crept on and the scant harvest drew nigh, the fight with the crickets commenced. Oh! How we fought and prayed and prayed and fought the myriads of black loathsome insects that flocked down like a flood of filthy water from the mountains above. And we should surely have been inundated, and swept into oblivion save for the merciful Father’s sending of the blessed sea gulls for our deliverance. The first I knew of the gulls, I heard their sharp cry. Upon looking up I beheld what appeared like a vast flock of pigeons coming from the northwest. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. My brother Franklin and I were trying to save an acre of what of father’s growing not far from where the Salt Lake now stands. The wheat was just beginning to turn yellow. The crickets would climb the stalk, cut off the head and then come down to eat it.” Leave Crops The Sea Gulls never touched the crops but devoured the crickets. They would eat ll they could and then fly to the water’s edge and spew them out and go back and devour more. There were thousands of them, and they finally got the crickets. The crops then took on new life and matured. The people gave thanks for this to them was a miracle. Since that time, to the people in Utah the sea gull has been regarded as a sacred bird and protected. In 1913 a monument was erected on Temple Square commemorating this event. On August 10, 1848, a harvest feast was held, where they had a program of songs, speeches and dancing and gave thanks to the Lord.