THE PERPETUAL EMIGRATION FUND, Pages 69-74 of Ch 7 of The Gathering of Israel

THE PERPETUAL EMIGRATION FUND, Pages 69-74 of Chapter 7 of The Gathering of Israel by Ogden Kraut 

Our President said he would be glad to have some six discourses, each six hours long, preached to the people upon the subject of doing their duty unto others in regard to this Fund. (Orson Pratt, J.D. 2:55)

In 1849 President Brigham Young established a Perpetual Emigration Fund which was a financial company offering aid to those seeking to gather to Utah. Many of the Saints in foreign lands were very poor, if not in financial bondage, yet they had the desire to gather with the Saints in Zion. The Fund would loan them the money to emigrate to Utah, after which they were to repay that loan as soon as they could. This idea probably was conceived back in the days of Nauvoo. Apostle George A. Smith said:

While the Saints were surrounded by their enemies on every hand in illinois, they entered into a solemn covenant within the walls of the Temple at Nauvoo that they would exert themselves to the extent of their influence and property to aid every Latter-day Saint that desired to gather to the mountains. This covenant they did not forget, and the very moment they began to gather a little surplus they commenced to use it to aid their brethren and sisters left behind. At first they purchased, in the East, cattle and wagons necessary to bring the emigrants here; but in a few years they raised cattle here, and sent their teams to the Missouri river year af-[70]ter year, sometimes two hundred and sometimes three hundred, and they have sent as many as five hundred teams, for several successive seasons…. (J.D. 13:84)

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