John Taylor's 1877 Prophetic Dream of Calamity and the Safety of the Saints

In 1877, a remarkable dream came to President John Taylor and was recorded in Wilford Woodruff's personal journal. The account begins:

"I went to bed as usual at about 7:30PM. I had been reading a revelation in the French language. My mind was calm, more so than usual if possible, so I composed myself for sleep, but could not. I felt a strange feeling come over me and apparently became partially unconscious. Still I was not asleep, nor exactly awake, with dreary feeling. The first thing that I recognized was that I was in the tabernacle of Ogden, Utah. I was sitting in the back part of the building for fear they would call on me to preach, which however they did, for after singing the second time they called me to the stand.

I arose to speak and said that I didn't know that I had anything especially to say, except to bear my testimony of the Latter-day work, when all at once it seemed as if I was lifted out of myself and I said, 'Yes, I have something to say and that is this: Some of my brethren have been asking, What is becoming of us? What is the wind blowing? I will answer you right here what is coming very shortly.'

I was then in a dream, immediately in the city of Salt Lake, and wandering around in the streets and in all parts of the city, and on the doors of the houses I found badges of mourning and I could not find a house but was in mourning. I passed my own house and found the same sign there, and I asked the question, 'Is that me that is dead?' Someone gave me the answer, 'No, you will get through it all.'

It seemed strange to me that I saw no person in the streets in all my wandering around the country. I seemed to be in their houses with the sick, but saw no funeral procession, nor anything of the kind, but the city looking still and as though the people were praying. And it seemed that they had controlled the disease, but what the disease was I did not learn; it was not made known to me. I then looked over the country, north, east, south, and west, and the same mourning was in every land and in every place.

The next thing I knew I was just this side of Omaha. It seemed though I was above the earth, and looking down upon it. As I passed along upon my way east I saw the road full of people, mostly women, with just what they could carry in bundles on their backs, traveling to the mountains on foot. I wondered how they would get through with such a small pack on their backs. It was remarkable that there were so few men among them. It didn't seem to me as though the cars were running, the rails looked rusty and the roads abandoned; and I have no conception of how I traveled as I looked down upon the people.

I continued east by the way of Omaha and Council Bluffs, which were full of disease. There were women everywhere. The state of Illinois and Missouri were in a tumult, men killing one another, women joining the fighting, family against family in the most horrid manner.

I imagined next that I was in Washington and I found desolation there. The White House was empty and the Halls of Congress the same, and everything in ruins. The people seemed to have left the city and left it to take care of itself.

I was in Baltimore. In the square where the Monument of 1812 stands in front of the Charles Hotel. I saw dead piled up so as to fill the street square. I saw mothers cutting the throats of their own children for their blood. I saw them suck it from their throats to quench their own thirst and then lie down and die. The water of Chesapeake Bay was stagnant, and the stench arising from it on account of their throwing their bodies into it so terrible, that the very smell carried the disease wherever it went.

I continued and passed through the cities of the coast, Norfolk and others. They were all in the same condition. Dead and dying were everywhere. I saw no living persons on the street in any of these places. I passed on to the ocean and could see vessels lying idle in the bay.

I found that the same condition of things existed all over the country, north, south, east and west, with very little exception. There were but a few living, and those who were living seemed to be a hardy and vigorous class who were living principally in the country.

I then thought, what has become of the Latter-day Saints? I was told that the saints who had kept the word of wisdom and who were righteous, had not suffered, except in isolated cases, but that those who had not kept the word of wisdom had died with the disease.

I was then shown those who were dead. It seemed to me that they were in great numbers. The whole land was practically desolate. Those that I was shown who had died were mostly persons who had been warned and had not heeded the warning.

I felt very sorry for them, for they were a good people in many respects. I was then taken to a high and mountainous country, beautiful in its appearance and fertile in its soil, and I saw the valleys of the mountains filled with those who had escaped the disease and I saw what appeared to be a very large city building up in a most beautiful valley which I took to be Salt Lake. I was shown the streets and the buildings and the whole of it was in a great state of order and perfection, and I saw that these people were the Latter-day Saints.

The dream concluded with President Taylor seeing the Saints gathered in the valleys of the mountains, having been protected through their faithfulness. He was shown that those who heeded the word of wisdom and lived righteously had been preserved while a great plague swept across the nation."