In 1847 the hunted remnants of a religious cult founded by a semi-literate paranoid schizophrenic (grandiose type), who had been killed when an irate mob broke into his jail cell, made their way through the Rocky Mountains looking for the Promised Land (they would have settled for a place where they were no longer hunted). At a mountain pass they gazed down upon the fairest sight their fevered minds could dream: an enormous inland body of water. There they made their home.
It was a mirage. The lake contained salt water.
So came the Mormons to the shores of The Great Salt Lake in the territory that was to become the state of Utah in which they now have two United States senators and three congressmen just like normal people.
The founding of the Mormon religion came as part of the "Second Great Awakening" in America, from the late 1700's to about 1860, during which church membership rose dramatically.
The Founding Fathers had pulled it off. They "declared" their independence from Great Britain and then put their muskets where their mouths were. They drafted a Constitution giving such as Joseph Smith the right to practice any kind of religion they wanted (or none at all), including one preaching bigamy and claiming divine intervention from an agent from on high named "Moroni" who gave to Brother Smith a pair of eyeglasses (image) to better enable him to translate the Book of Mormon from the hitherto unknown "Reformed Egyptian" language into English.
Oh god.
The Founding Fathers were not pleased.
