Reviews and Recent Publications

REVIEWS AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS

The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859. By Norman F. Furniss. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1960, 311 pp., $5.00)

Students of Western history will find Norman F. Furniss' The Mormon Conflict a very significant analysis of that little-known, turbulent period in Utah when United States troops were sent out to put down a "rebellion." In considering any phase of Mormon history, most writers assume the attitude of being either for or against the church, so that it is refreshing to read one whose approach is detached and unbiased. The author has gone through a great quantity of government documents, reports, letters, diaries, and contemporary publications and has sorted his materials with perception and skill. From it, by the alchemy of his own personality, he has produced an altogether readable book. The bibliography alone is a contribution of value, the footnotes numerous and detailed.

Had Dr. Furniss been allowed as much liberty in the use of L.D.S. Church records as he had in those of the government, he might have had a better insight into the inner workings of the theocracy, with Brigham Young at the head, the Council of Twelve to direct matters of religion, the Council of Fifty to deal with practical affairs of the Kingdom, the Bishop's Courts to settle differences between brethren, and the Stake High Councils to handle cases of malpractice or apostasy. He would have understood the forces behind the change in policy from the initial "stand up and fight!" to the one of fleeing before the enemy and leaving only ashes behind.

Even without these documents Dr. Furniss has done well. His opening chapters, especially, are rewarding, showing as they do the conflicts which culminated in the sending of an expedition "so hesitatingly launched and ineptly prosecuted" on the one hand, and die reaction of Brigham Young that "with God's help, they shall not come here" on the other. Mormons, who are apt to read the Hand of God into all situations where their welfare is concerned, might well count the sudden descent of winter in mid-October as a special providence to prevent a bloody encounter. As it was, Jesse Gove wrote truly his summary of this war: "Wounded, none; killed, none; fooled, everybody."

Dr. Furniss succeeds in making many of his characters real people. Often he depicts a man with a telling adjective, much as a cartoonist does widi a single, not-to-be-forgotten stroke. Usually this is well done indeed, but on occasion it produces a distorted image, as with the reference to the "Cyclopean Cradlebaugh." His portrayal of Thomas L. Kane, on the other hand, is especially apt. As this ardent young man presses his case in Washington, as he carries out his self-appointed task of commissioner of peace, dealing widi Governor Alfred Cumming, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston in the triangle of differing purposes, he becomes alive.

Every writer writes for a specific audience. As one student said, "This is a book by a Ph.D, for Ph.D-ers." Dr. Furniss includes many words carrying classical connotations which are lost on the average reader, but light the page for the more erudite. There are times when this use of the long or unusual word actually befogs the meaning, as "In the light of these unfortuitous developments, the Colonel called another council of war to discuss strategy."

Perhaps an incident will help to point up die fact diat the Mormon story can be told completely only if one has access to all the records. Speaking of Judge Eckels' single conviction, the author says (page 226):

... In July 1859 Marshall Peter Dotson had raided a Church tithing office hard by Brigham Young's residence and there had found evidence that a counterfeiter had been at work printing drafts upon die United States treasurer at St. Louis. Dotson seized the evidence, accidentally removing at the same time the plates of the Deseret Currency Association, and arrested twenty-six-year-old David McKenzie as the engraver. Two other men, one a well-known gambler, involved with McKenzie in the conspiracy were apparently left unpunished, but from Judge Eckels the Mormon drew a fine of fifty dollars and a sentence of two years' imprisonment. . . .

From Mormon sources, Dr. Furniss could have learned that the counterfeiter, A. C. Brewer, had been a member of the church in Nauvoo, where he was employed in the printing office. B. H. Roberts names his accomplice as J. M. Wallace, and Hosea Stout writing on Thursday 13 July 1859 said:

This evening I received a letter from David McKenzie. He states that he has been committed to the district court at Nephi and that Brewer & Wallace turned states' evidence and were turned loose.

Perhaps there was never a time when armed conflict between the soldiers and the Mormons was more imminent than following this arrest. The officers at Camp Floyd, learning that the counterfeit plates were found in Brigham Young's office, that the boy who had made them lived and boarded in the president's home, that the paper upon which they were reproduced came from the supply intended for the Deseret currency, felt that they had a clear case and proposed to surprise Brigham Young and take him by force. Word of this leaked out, and some five thousand Mormon men, members of the Nauvoo Legion, quickly assembled. Only the decisive stand of Governor Cummings prevented an open clash.

The one to suffer first was Marshal Dotson, who was brought into the probate court upon the charge that he had removed the plates for the Deseret currency and defaced them; he was convicted and fined $2,600.00, and when he could not pay it, a house which he owned was sold to satisfy the judgment. As for Brewer's escaping punishment, he escaped only until May 18 following, when he was shot through the head. Dying with him, evidently by the gun of the same assassin, was one Joaquin Johnson, a gambler.

These shots on a main street in Salt Lake City echoed throughout Mormondon. Charles L. Walker and George Laub both recorded them immediately; John D. Lee entered the facts in his diary within a fortnight, and C. C. Pendleton of Parowan wrote full details in a letter to William H. Dame in England. Each of the four named "Brewer, the counterfeiter," and the last two called his companion "Hell-Roaring Johnson." What happened to Wallace has not been determined.

This example is not used to discount die excellent work of Dr. Furniss, but only to point up the fact that Mormon history of this period has many facets, so many that it is difficult to consider them all.

JUANITA BROOKS

Utah State Historical Society

Fremont's Fourth Expedition: A Documentary Account of the Disaster of 1848-1849 with Diaries, Letters, and Reports by Participants in the Tragedy. Edited widi Introductions and Notes, by LeRoy R. and Ann W. Hafen. Volume XI The Far West and the Rockies Historical Series 1820-1875. (Glendale, Arthur H. Clark Company, 1960, 309 pp., $12.00)

LeRoy and Ann Hafen, so well known to workers in Western American history, introduce this volume with a broad picture of Manifest Destiny in the 1840's. Here are the voices of Asa Whitney and Thomas Hart Benton; here are the dreams of the transcontinental railroad and the overland passage to India; here, too, is the proper perspective for the Fremont Fourth Expedition of 1848-49. Fremont himself, stung by his court martial, plans at private expense and without government support, to prove that a central railroad route over the Rockies is practicable in winter. He leads a band of thirty-three men into the San Juan Range in southern Colorado during the storms of a peculiarly bitter season. Doggedly battling the elements, apparently lost in the search for the right passes, he will not retreat until sheer necessity requires. The result is disaster, a third of the men left dead on the trail.

Fremont blamed his guide, his men, almost anyone but himself; others put the responsibility squarely with the commander. The Hafens in their introduction judiciously refrain from taking sides and describe the whole effort as "heroic — or foolhardy."

The main section of the book consists of documents. These include seven accounts by members of the expedition, such as the diaries of the three Kern brothers and the narratives of Thomas Martin, Micajah McGehee, and Tom Breckenridge; letters from Fremont and other participants written shortly after the tragedy; and subsequent statements in the long debate over responsibility, leading down to 1856 when the matter was thoroughly rehashed during Fremont's presidential campaign.

All of the documents relating directly to the Fourtii Expedition are here widi one exception, the diary of Charles Preuss, which the Hafens have excluded because of its recent printing and easy availability elsewhere. A letter of Fremont to Snyder, December 11, 1849, reprinted in Bigelow's Fremont might have been included as showing Fremont's later thoughts on the results of the expedition, but this is a minor letter and certainly far on the periphery of relevance.

The book includes two maps and some excellent illustrations, heretofore unpublished, taken from Richard Kern's diaries and from the publisher's prospectus for Fremont's Memoirs.

Henceforth no one who wishes to join the endless debate of Western historians over the character and motives of John Charles Fremont can ignore this work of the Hafens.

ROBERT V. HINE

University of California, Riverside

Andrew Sublette, Rocky Mountain Prince, 1808-1853. By Doyce Blackman Nunis, Jr. (Los Angeles, Dawson's Book Shop, 1960, 123 pp., $10.00)

This biography brings together the scattered data upon one of the famous Sublettes — a family noted for having five brothers distinguished in the fur trade of the Far West. Although ranking in importance behind brothers William and Milton, Andrew did have a career worth the space devoted to it in this slim volume.

The Huguenot and Kentucky backgrounds of the family had been presented previously in Professor Sunder's recent biography of Bill Sublette. The general facts of Andrew's activity in the western fur trade had been outlined in the Colorado Magazine and elsewhere. Mr. Nunis' principal contribution is in the material presented regarding Andrew's military activity and his California career in mining and freighting. He also clarifies various controversial matters. The volume contains considerable information on Andrew's brothers, Milton and Solomon.

Mr. Nunis has utilized the important Sublette and Campbell papers at the Missouri Historical Society and the collection of family papers owned by Miss Anne Wilson Patton of San Marino, California.

Some geographical and factual errors are made, such as assuming the proximity of Independence Rock to the Platte River (p. 35) and describing E. W. Smith's route as taking him to Fort Laramie (p. 60). The author has confused the identity and locations of Fort Convenience and Fort Vasquez (pp. 56-57). But on the whole the study is a commendable piece of work, evidencing extensive and careful research.

Andrew's life was haunted by financial failures — with his fur fort on the South Platte, and his mining near the Amargosa River among others. But as the author points out in his Foreword, financial rewards are not a satisfactory measure of success. Andrew Sublette and his brothers "were among the heralds of Manifest Destiny. Their labors on the far frontier helped to create the American empire."

LEROY R. HAFEN

Brigham Young University

Notes on General Ashley the Overland Trail and South Pass. By Donald McKay Frost. (Barre, Massachusetts, Barre Gazette, 1960, xii + 149 pp., $5.00)

This small volume contains fifty-five pages of narrative written by its author; three letters of Daniel T. Potts (Appendix A); seventynine pages of newspaper excerpts dealing with the fur trade of the 1820's (Appendix B); an index and a folded red-line pocket map inside the back cover. Page iv carries a notice to the effect that the book is a reprint from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. Since neither volume number nor date of the original publication is given anywhere, the book's 1960 publication date tends to suggest that this is a report of a very recent — not to say current — piece of research, which it is not. The publishers have done a disservice to this document, to its author (now dead) and to the reader by failing to supply the date of the original publication plus adequate introduction and annotation for the current volume. Not all readers will wish to take time to research out the fact that the material was originally published in 1945. Yet anyone reasonably familiar with the rapidly growing mass of literature dealing with the fur trade of the Far West will not get through the first page of the "Foreword" without realizing that the account is outdated. Results of much significant research dealing with the subject at hand have been published in the past fifteen years.

The whole epic of the conflict between Peter Skene Ogden of Hudson's Bay Company and the Americans was shrouded in mystery until the 1950 publication of Ogden's 1824-25 journals and subsequent research which grew out of that publication. The book under examination here should carry a footnote on page 42 acquainting the reader with some of this literature, which, incidentally, proves that Jedediah Smith did not reach Great Salt Lake during the fall or winter of 1824- 25 (page 44). It is also now known that Etienne Provost was not an Ashley man at all but operated his fur business out of Taos. Hence, any earlier claim made for him as die likely discoverer of South Pass in 1824 (pages 32, 37) as a member of an Ashley brigade is simply out of date.

These things and others contained in the volume were not known when Mr. Frost was preparing his manuscript in the early 1940's. He deserves an explanation to that effect with the re-issue of his work in 1960.

In dealing with a major subject of the book — discovery of South Pass — the author presents some very interesting material regarding the activities of Andrew Henry's men prior to 1812 and the possibility (but not proof) that some of them might have crossed the South Pass a year or two before the returning Astorians did. His attempt to show that Jedediah Smith's 1824 party missed the pass, but that another group of Ashley men, of which Daniel Potts was a member, were the first to cross it that season is unconvincing, especially in light of more recent research in the field.

The significant contribution of the volume is found in the Appendixes which bring the reader many important documents which would otherwise be difficult to obtain. The letters of Daniel T. Potts contain colorful eye-witness accounts of some aspects of the fur trade and the country in which it was carried on. His descriptions of portions of present-day Utah are exceptionally interesting. The newspaper excerpts of Appendix B contain reprints of letters and a mass of other vital material dealing with Ashley's fur trading activities.

DAVID E. MILLER

University of Utah

South Pass, 1858: James Chisholm's Journal of the Wyoming Gold Rush. Introduced and edited by Lola M. Homsher. (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1960, vi+244 pp., $4.50)

The Pioneer Heritage Series, in which this is the third volume, tries to present the trans-Missouri West of frontier days as seen by ordinary people. James Chisholm, a Scot who had been in the United States only three years, visited Wyoming in 1868 as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. His reportorial work during nine months in Wyoming was negligible, but for part of the time he kept a "journal" which is now published.

Curiously Chisholm, who was supposed to report on the South Pass gold mines, spent the six months, March — September, 1868, in the end-of-track towns along the Union Pacific. After leaving the town of Green River for South Pass in September he began his journal. Once among the miners he noted: "What a contrast is there between the quiet life of this mountain camp and the roaring hells of railhead towns which I have but recently quitted."

In the mining area he found three small villages, South Pass City, Atlantic City and Hamilton City, each with perhaps 50 or 60 people. A hundred or so deserted cabins indicated that the population had recently been larger.

The journal is a curious bag of random reflections about people and places. "Informal essays" would be more appropriate than "journal." Except for details about mining practices there is little information and few cogent insights.

Chisholm had a pleasant enough time in South Pass although he got thoroughly soaked and chilled on his way there in a light spring wagon. The people were hospitable. Few were making more than wages. The miners were "mostly old Californians — very intelligent." He added, however, that "a vast amount of the gold dust is ground in the whiskey mill." The miners were skeptics: "You will rarely find an out-and-out orthodox man among what I would designate as the thinking population of the hills."

On the basis of a few contacts with Indians, who did him no harm, Chisholm concluded: "They are unlovely, intractable, useless, strutting, ridiculous, pompous humbugs — lying, faidiless, stealing, begging, cruel, hungry, howling vagabonds — cowardly, treacherous red devils."

Among individuals encountered, most attention is given to "Mountain Bill Rhodes" who "is as genuine an old hunter as Natty Bumpo." Rhodes, whose experience in the region went back to 1857, had a cabin and a patch of farming land in the Wind River Valley. In his wanderings around South Pass Chisholm twice visited the Wind River Valley where he found a few ranchers in addition to the mountain man.

Chisholm's journal confirms the suspicion which some people have entertained for a long time that the South Pass gold rush did not amount to much. Legends have placed the South Pass mining population at 10,000 in 1867 and 1868. The journal supports the view that there were never more than 2,000 there at one time.

When the snows began to pile up Chisholm made his way, how is not explained, to Cheyenne and on to Chicago where he became a drama critic for the Tribune. He probably had had enough of the frontier. In one of his essays he remarked that westerners "would have done better (and they know it) to remain where they came from. . . . The populations in the States are on the average better off than the floating populations out in the mountains."

The publisher and the editor have done their parts well, better one judges than the author of the journal.

T. A. LARSON

University of Wyoming

James Strang's Ancient and Modern Michilimackinac, Including an Account of the Controversy between Mackinac and the Mormons. Edited by George S. May. (Reprinted from the original edition of 1854, Mackinac Island, Michigan, W. Stewart Woodful, 1959, xii + 100 pp., $5.00)

This is mainly a limited edition reprint of a now very scarce pamphlet published in 1854 by James J. Strang, leader of a small faction of so-called Mormons living mostly on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. The Appendix (pp. 93-100) contains a reprint of "Some Remarks on the Natural History of Beaver Islands, Michigan" by James J. Strang which appeared originally in the Smithsonian Annual Report for 1854. This book includes also a fairly long introduction and footnotes by the editor, a modern map of the Beaver Islands, and seven well-chosen illustrations. The jirinting is very well done and readable. The binding is in buckram.

The book will be welcomed, especially, by the ever-increasing number of present-day students who are really exploring into the various facets of the background of early Mormonism. As to factions of so-called Mormons, there have been and are today, many of them. Not a few of their leaders have had published what they claimed to be divine revelations (see, for example, George B. Arbaugh's book Revelation in Mormonism published in 1932, and especially in it the fourteenth chapter entitled "Revelations of King James J. Strang").

Referring to Strang in his Introduction Editor May says, "Although physically a small, slightly built youth, he was possessed of unusual intellectual endowments." The first word of this sentence seems to imply that Strang's small physical size might be considered a necessary handicap to personal achievement. Such a "disadvantage" has very often proved to be a spur toward other kinds of bigness. In the diary which Strang kept as a young man (and to which this reviewer has had access) he often chides himself for not making better achievements in the direction of what he considered to be the high goals he had set for himself. He had dreams of some day exercising royal, military, or religious power. This also helps explain later frustrations which made him implement for himself the role of successor of Joseph Smith, discoverer of ancient plates, author, naturalist, legislator, and even a King. The editor's Introduction is a valuable part of this book and therefore should not be merely scanned. The one negative comment that perhaps should be said about it is that his many references to King Strang's small group of adherents as "the Mormons" is very misleading. A more correct designation would be "die Strangite faction of Mormons" or "the Beaver Island Mormons."

Thanks should go to the editor and the publication sponsor for this book.

M. WILFORD POULSON

Salt Lake City, Utah

Historical Sites in Glen Canyon, Mouth of San Juan River to Lee's Ferry. By C. Gregory Crampton. (Anthropological Papers, Number 46, Glen Canyon Series, Number 12. University of Utah Department of Anthropology, June, 1960, 130 pp., $3.00)

The above work follows an introductory volume, Outline History of the Glen Canyon Region, 1776-1922 (see review in the April, 1960, Quarterly). The first volume was written to provide an historical perspective for the studies to follow, for other investigators working in the same region, and for the general public, who, it is expected, will be visiting the region in greater numbers as time goes on.

In this latest volume are reported the facts of a detailed study of the historical sites in Glen Canyon below the mouth of the San Juan River. The object of the study was to learn what historical areas and remains will be covered up by the waters of Lake Powell and to answer the question as to how extensive was the historical occupancy of Glen Canyon — including both Indian and Anglo-American sites. By means of documentary research, through informants, and by historical salvage a number of mining and Indian sites were found and reported, about which there was no prior knowledge. Even so, an attempt has been made to examine historical places, to record the character and location of each, and to ascertain the kind and degree to which human action has taken place. Although completeness has been die objective of this study, says the author, the time allotted to the project has admitted of thorough-going studies only at selected historical sites. The extensive use of photographs and maps, along with the descriptions of each site, and the inclusion of the extensive bibliography of materials on the Glen Canyon area make this study a most comprehensive piece of work.

Forty Years Among the Indians. A True Yet Thrilling Narrative of the Author's Experiences Among the Natives. By Daniel W. Jones. Volume XIX Great West and Indian Series. (Los Angeles, Westernlore Press, 378 pp., $8.50)

No study of Mormon-Indian relations and the pioneer period in the Far West is complete without recourse to Forty Years Among the Indians, the reminiscent account by Daniel W. Jones. The first edition of 1890 has long been out of print, and this first re-publication in a limited edition of 1000 copies by Westernlore Press is an important addition to the record.

The strange introduction of Dan Jones to Mormonism, his conversion, his many relations with the Indians, his experiences succoring the Handcart Pioneers of 1856, his involvements in the Utah War and after, his introduction of Mormonism into Mexico, and his many colonizing activities in Utah and the Southwest demonstrate a vigorous living of frontier life unmatched by few in the history of the West. His career spanned the continent west and extended well into the twentieth century.

California As I Saw It. Pencillings by the Way of Its Gold and Gold Diggers! And Incidents of Travel by Land and Water. By William M'Collum, M.D., a Returned Adventurer. With Five Letters from the Isthmus, by W. H. Hecox. Edited by Dale L. Morgan. (Los Gatos, California, Talisman Press, 1960)

Constitution of the State of Utah, Original and Amended. Compiled by Utah State Archives. (Salt Lake City, the Secretary of State, 1959)

The Fur Trade in the West, 1815-1846. Edited by Edwin R. Bingham.(Boston, Heath, 1960)

A Guide to the Microfilm of Papers relating to New Mexico Land Grants. By Albert James Diaz. (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1960)

Men at Work * n tne Mountain States. By Harry Cogswell Rubican, Jr. (New York, Putnam and Sons, 1960)

HYRUM L. ANDRUS, "Joseph Smith and the West," Brigham Young University Studies, Spring-Summer, 1960.

KLAUS HANSEN, "The Political Kingdom of God as a Cause for Mormon-Gentile Conflict," ibid.

CLINTON F. LARSON, "The Mantle of the Prophet" (A Poetry Drama), ibid.

KENNETH W. PORTER, "William Gilpin: Sinophile and Eccentric as Seen by the German Scientist, Journalist and Traveler Julius Froebel," The Colorado Magazine, October, 1960.

FRANK JENSEN, "Kanab — Southern Utah's Cow-Town Tourist Stop," Desert, September, 1960.

EDMUND C. JAEGER, "Cottonwood, the Desert's 'Tree of Many Pleasures,' " ibid., October, 1960.

WELDON F. HEALD, "The Indians Couldn't Catch Him" [John Colter], Frontier Times, Fall, 1960.

BILL JUDGE, "The Echo Canyon War," ibid.ROY J. OLSON, "The Peacemaker" [Jacob Hamblin], ibid.

RAYMOND W. SETTLE and MARY LUND SETTLE, "The Early Careers of

William Bradford Waddell and William Hepburn Russell: Frontier Capitalists," Kansas Historical Quarterly, Winter, 1960.

"The Other Side of the Mountain" [opposite Bingham Canyon in the Oquirrh Range], Kennescope, October, 1960.

WILLIAM J. POWELL, "The Sign Said: 'Road to Oregon,' " The Pacific Northwesterner, Summer, 1960.

ZORRO A. BRADLEY, "The Whitmore-Mclntyre Dugout, Pipe Spring National Monument, Part I: History," Plateau, October, 1960.

CHRISTY G. TURNER II and MAURICE E. COOLEY, "Prehistoric Use of

Stone From The Glen Canyon Region," ibid.

HAROLD E. DEAN, "The Weber Basin Reclamation Project Approach to Ultimate Development," The Sugar Beet, Autumn, 1960.

"Skyline Drive . . . the Wasatch Crest," Sunset, September, 1960.

S. G. MANTEL, "The Man Who Saved California" [General Albert Sidney Johnston, as told by Asbury Harpending], Tradition, October, 1960.

JOSEPH STOCKER, "Action in Glen Canyon," Westways, September, 1960.