Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, Number 1, 1980

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF MELVIN T. SMITH,

Editor

STANFORD J. L A Y T O N , Managing M I R I A M B. M U R P H Y , Associate J A N E T G. B U T L E R , Assistant

Editor Editor

Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS T H O M A S G. A L E X A N D E R , Provo,

1980

M R S . I N E Z S. C O O P E R , Cedar City, 1981 S. G E O R G E E L L S W O R T H , Logan,

1981

P E T E R L. G O S S , Salt Lake City, 1982 G L E N M . L E O N A R D , Farmington,

1982

L A M A R P E T E R S E N , Salt Lake City, R I C H A R D W . SADLER, Ogden,

1982

H A R O L D S C H I N D L E R , Salt Lake City, G E N E A. S E S S I O N S , Bountiful,

1980 1981

1980

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, a n d reviews contributing to knowledge of U t a h ' s history. T h e Quarterly is published by the U t a h State Historical Society, 307 West Second South, Salt Lake City, U t a h 8 4 1 0 1 . Phone (801) 533-5755 ( m e m b e r s h i p ) , 533-6024 (publications).

Members of t h e Society receive t h e Quarterly, Beehive History, a n d t h e bimonthly Newsletter u p o n p a y m e n t of t h e annual d u e s ; for details see inside back cover.

Single copies, $2.00.

Materials for publication should be submitted in duplicate accompanied by r e t u r n postage a n d should be typed double-space with footnotes a t the end.

Additional information on requirements is available from the managing editor. T h e Society assumes no responsibility for statements of fact or opinion by contributors.

T h e Quarterly is indexed in Book Review Index to Social Science Periodicals, America: History and Life, Combined Retrospective Index to the Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974, and Abstracts of Popular Culture.

Second class postage is paid at Salt Lake City, U t a h .

H I S T O R I C A L atXARTERLTr

Contents W I N T E R 1 9 8 0 / V O L U M E 48 / N U M B E R 1

IN T H I S ISSUE

3

T H E TAYLOR-COWLEY AFFAIR AND T H E WATERSHED OF M O R M O N HISTORY

"THE GOOSE HANGS H I G H " : EXCERPTS F R O M T H E LETTERS OF MARTHA HUGHES CANNON .

"ENTITLED T O BE CALLED AN A R T I S T " : LANDSCAPE AND P O R T R A I T PAINTER FREDERICK PIERCY

VICTOR W. JORGENSEN and B. CARMON HARDY

.

.

CONSTANCE

BOOK

LIEBER

37

WILFORD HILL L E C H E M I N A N T

49

M.

GUY BISHOP

66

VALEEN TIPPETTS AVERY and LINDA KING NEWELL

81

BUILDING RAILROADS FOR T H E K I N G D O M : THE CAREER OF J O H N W. YOUNG, 1867-91 T H E LION AND T H E LADY: BRIGHAM YOUNG AND EMMA S M I T H

L.

4

REVIEWS

98

BOOK NOTICES

107

T H E C O V E R The old clock on the southwest corner of Main Street and First South dates from the 1870s. Along with the Eagle Gate, the clock, with its Victorian pedestal of bronze and iron, remains one of the most distinctive pieces of "street furniture" in Salt Lake City. Its exact origin is not known. Mule cars appeared on the city scene in 1872. Historic photograph from USHS collections. Clock photograph,by Keith E. Montague.

© Copyright 1980 Utah State Historical Society

R E L L G. FRANCIS. The Utah

Photographs

of George Edward

.

Anderson

RONALD C. B R O W N . Hard-rock

The Intermountain

. DAVID MERRILL

Miners:

West,

1860^1920

J O H N E. BRINLEY, J R .

K E N N E T H B. C A S T L E T O N .

Petroglyphs

SAMUEL W. TAYLOR. Rocky Saints

The

99

and

Pictographs of Utah. Vol. 1: The East and Northeast, vol. 2 : The South, Central, West, and Northwest . . T O M ZEIDLER

Empire:

98

100

Mountain

Latter-day

Today

LEVI S. PETERSON

101

BEVERLY B E E T O N

102

Books reviewed ELLIOTT W E S T .

The Saloon

Rocky

Mountain

Mining

Frontier

on the

W I L L I A M E. U N R A U . Tending

the

Talking

Wire: A Buck Soldier's View of Indian Country, 1863-1866 .

. J O H N C. PAIGE

104

FRED R. G O W A N S

105

DONALD C. C U T T E R

106

DAVID J. W I S HART. The Fur Trade of

the American

West,

A Geographical

1807-1840:

Synthesis

M O R R I S F. TAYLOR. O. P.

and the Maxwell Grant

Conflict

.

.

McMains

Land

,

In this issue From its earliest beginnings to the present, Utah has been many things to many people. When it was a refuge from religious persecution to some, it was a stifling theocracy to others. At the very moment it was a scenic wonder to one observer, it was remote and uninviting to another. When one pundit could describe its politics as enlightened, another could dismiss them as reactionary.

T o the historian, of course, actual truth in such matters is a will-o'-the-wisp.

Only the perceptions — the images themselves — hold significance.

This issue, which deals with a few of Utah's many images, opens with two articles on polygamy. The first focuses on the cessation of this practice in official Mormondom, looks at the internal stress imposed by that climacteric event, and offers food for thought on the persistence of plural marriage in unofficial circles today. The second reveals the adventures and attitudes of a generally reticent source in Utah history, the plural wife on the underground.

T h e third article takes a more literal tack to images of Utah by sketching the life, convictions, and achievements of a nearly forgotten artist. It is followed by two pieces that place the historical stereoscope atop a couple of Utah's most extraordinary personalities, particularly as they asserted themselves in national and regional affairs. One — cosmopolitan and moderate — sought to promote Utah in the tourist trade, the other — isolationist and brusque — sought to keep Utah a homogeneous congregation. It is perhaps predictable that they represented two generations. It may be surprising that they were son and father. Certain it is that their apparent dichotomy of thought remains a part of the Utah image today.

"That Same Old Question of Polygamy and Polygamous Living"

The Taylor-Cowley Affair and the Watershed of Mormon History

BY VICTOR W . JORGENSEN AND B. CARMON HARDY

\

Matthias F. Cowley, left, and John W. Taylor, right, are spotlighted in this photograph of LDS church general authorities, 1898-1901.

USHS collections.

the admission of Utah as a state in 1896, passed through a profound watershed is a I H A T MORMONISM, DURING THE YEARS SURROUNDING

Mr. Jorgensen is a research and development engineer living in Logan. Dr. Hardy is a professor of history at California State University, Fullerton.

6

Utah Historical

Quarterly

commonly held though seldom explicitly stated assumption.1 Not only did the church relinquish practices that had invited intense opposition in the areas of theocratic politics, cooperative economics, and especially polygamy, but the same period witnessed the shift from an older to a younger generation of church leaders. The transition, as with rapid institutional change anywhere, was inevitably attended by conflict and misunderstanding. This paper suggests that, more than the actions of an obstreperous minority "out of harmony" with their brethren in the ruling councils of the church, as is usually described, the resignations of John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley from the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in 1905 can be understood only in the light of political as well as theological considerations; that with regard to the specific charge of having participated in polygamous marriages after the church had publicly announced their cessation, other apostles and authorities had done the same thing; and finally, that Taylor and Cowley are best explained as casualties of Mormonism's strenuous efforts to wrench itself into a posture of twentieth-century American acceptability.

I Many of the problems affecting Mormonism near the turn of the century, and certainly those leading to the Taylor-Cowley affair, began with vague and conflicting interpretations surrounding the Woodruff Manifesto in 1890. Problems with the document's language were chiefly two in number. To begin with, did President Woodruff intend by his declaration that, beyond the taking of new wives, those presently living in polygamy should no longer cohabit with any but the first or legal spouse? On this matter, the Manifesto was silent. Secondly, there was a question as to the jurisdiction of the document. The Woodruff statement said only that it was the president of the church's "advice" to

1 Appreciation of the axial significance for Mormonism of the period following the M a n i festo dates at least as early as Bernard De Voto's " T h e Centennial of Mormonism," American Mercury, J a n u a r y 1930, p. 9. T h e difficulty for M o r m o n writers seems to have been dealing with the reality and extent of such change without acknowledging an element of doctrinal surrender, hence, statements like t h a t of G. H o m e r D u r h a m , t h a t "a rather wonderful [but] by no means compromising transition and reconciliation have occurred in a century's time." See "A Political Interpretation of M o r m o n History," Pacific Historical Review 13 ( 1 9 4 4 ) : 138. Accounts treating the many alterations taking place near the turn of the century are to be found in J a n Shipps, " U t a h Comes of Age Politically: A Study of the State's Politics in the Early Twentieth Century," Utah Historical Quarterly 35 (1965) :91—111; T h o m a s G. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff and the Changing Nature of M o r m o n Religious Experience," Church History 45 ( M a r c h 1976) : 5 6 69, a n d "A Time of Transition, 1897-1907," in James B. Allen and Glen M . Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p p . 4 3 5 - 6 5 ; a n d all of William Preston, Jr., " T h e Watershed of M o r m o n History, 1 8 9 0 - 1 9 1 0 " (M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1950)'.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

7

members not to enter polygamous marriages "forbidden by the law of the land." Beyond the question of how much weight should be attached to the word "advice," did this mean that Mormon polygamous marriages might be contracted in lands where it was not against the law? Both issues proved troublesome and were destined to vex many both in and outside the church. Generally speaking, the matter of continued cohabitation with pre-Manifesto wives was the dominant reason for friction with non-Mormons during the first decade after the Manifesto was published. Although there were exceptions, the question of new polygamous marriages became ascendant only after 1900. This paper is devoted primarily to a consideration of the latter issue; however, a brief review of the difficulties associated with cohabitation will illustrate the confusion of many in the church concerning the Manifesto and so act as a preface to the more serious question of new plural marriages.

Since the Manifesto said nothing about unlawful cohabitation, the first assumption by church members must logically have been that they might rightfully continue to live with their existing plural families.

President Woodruff himself was reported to have originally taken this view, telling the Quorum of Twelve Apostles: "This manifesto only refers to future marriages, and does not affect past conditions. I did not, could not and would not promise that you would desert your wives and children. This you cannot do in honor."2 The difficulty, of course, was that those taking this stand were yet criminal before the law. Since 1882 unlawful cohabitation, rather than polygamy or bigamy per se, had been the chief means by which so many Mormons had been sent to prison, forced to go "underground," or led to flee to foreign lands.3 In this sense, the Manifesto was incomplete and begged amendment if Gentile demands for a cessation of all polygamous activity were to be met. This was precisely the dilemma faced by Woodruff when called to publicly testify before Master in Chancery Loofbourow in 1891 concerning the disposition of escheated church properties. Pressed by U.S. District Attorney Charles S. Varian to declare on which side of the law the Mormons fell, Woodruff said the Manifesto should be understood as applicable to both future and existing polygamous marriages.4 In other words,

2

As recorded in Abraham Hoagland Cannon Journal, vol. 13, p. 133, October 7, 1890, Special Collections, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo.

3 The Morrill and Edmunds acts, as well as the more severe Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, are ably explicated in O r m a Lindford's " T h e Mormons and the L a w : The Polygamy Cases," Utah Law Review 9 (1964-65) : 318-70, 543-91.

4 Salt Lake Tribune, October 20, 1891. Testimony given during the proceedings may also be found in the Deseret News Weekly, October 24, 31, 1891.

8

Utah Historical Quarterly

contrary to earlier assurances, he was brought to say that neither new polygamous marriages nor continued cohabitation with the wives of earlier marriages would any longer be permitted by the church. Woodruff later explained to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles that he had been placed in such a position that he could not have answered other than he did.5 While many unquestionably ceased living with their polygamous partners after 1890, using those leaders who testified before Congress at the time of the Smoot controversy as a guide, it seems safe to infer that a considerable number, especially among those at the highest levels of church leadership, did continue to cohabit with their plural wives.0 This, as much as anything, must have confused common lay members as to what church authorities honestly expected of them. As some later attested at the Smoot hearings, not only was there a lapse of a year (some remembered it as two) before President Woodruff indicated that the Manifesto was to be understood as prohibiting polygamous cohabitation, but this particular interpolation, unlike the Manifesto itself, was never submitted to an assembly of the church for its official acceptance.7 To compound the predicament, the First Presidency and most of the Q'uorum of Twelve Apostles accepted special grants of presidential amnesty, promising thereby to obey the Edmunds Act, including the provisions regarding unlawful cohabitation.8 The prospect of embarrassment arising from conflict between many authorities' polygamous lifestyles and their contrary public assurances led at least one LDS apostle to suggest that a new and revised Manifesto be issued to harmonize church behavior on the question.9 Failing that, and with the contin-

5

Cannon Journal, vol. 15, p. 121, November 12, 1891. * For instances of admitted continued cohabitation by prominent Mormon authorities at the time of the Smoot hearings, see U.S., Congress, Senate, Proceedings before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat, 59th Cong., 1st sess., Doc. no. 486, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1906), 1:12-13, 129, 336-37, 377, 428-29, 455, 718-19, 6 8 5 - 8 7 ; 2 : 2 8 6 ; 3 : 2 1 9 - 2 1 . Kenneth L. Cannon I I , in a recent study, found that a substantial majority, about 61 percent of the general authorities he surveyed, did continue to cohabit with their plural wives during the years 1890-1905. See his "Beyond the Manifesto: Pclygamous Cohabitation among LDS General Authorities after 1890," Utah Historical Quarterly 46 (1978) : 30-31 and n. 31.

7 Proceedings, 2:42, 5 1 , 840; 3 : 4 5 - 4 6 . As late as 1905, Smoot admitted there was still confusion about the Manifesto's intent concerning unlawful cohabitation. Ibid., 3:287, 294, 300.

For other examples of Mormon uncertainty, see Kimball Young, Isn't One Wife Enough?

(New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1954), pp. 410-18.

8 The petition for amnesty submitted by church leaders in late 1891 did not explicitly pledge obedience to the unlawful cohabitation provisions of the law. See Deseret Evening News, February 15, 1892. T h e grants of amnesty from Presidents Benjamin F. Harrison and Grover Cleveland, however, did impose the requirement as a condition of forgiveness. See Proclamation no. 42, at 27 U.S. Stat. 1058 (January 4, 1893), and Proclamation no. 14, at 28 U.S. Stat. 1257 (September 25, 1894).

Funeral of Wilford Woodruff, 1898, in Salt Lake Tabernacle. Ambiguities in his 1890 Manifesto clouded Mormon thinking on polygamy.

USHS collections.

••

ued absence from the pages of the Doctrine and Covenants of any Manifesto at all, it is hardly surprising that questions would arise as to the church's real intent.10 If unlawful cohabitation was the major source of Mormon-Gentile conflict during the 1890s, so far as the Manifesto and Mormon marriage practices were concerned, the decade nevertheless witnessed greater calm 9 See Heber J. Grant's remarks as quoted in Cannon Journal, vol. 15, pp. 120-21, November 11, 1891, and vol. 16, p. 80, April 1, 1892.

10 It is understandable how some could have seen the Manifesto as no more than a "dodge."

The quote attributed to Apostle John Henry Smith that "the Manifesto [was] only a trick to beat the devil at his own game" was first reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, January 16, 1906, and then before the Smoot investigating committee, Proceedings, 4 : 1 3 . While affidavits were prepared to deny that any such remarks were made (see ibid., 4 : 3 6 7 - 6 8 , 4 0 5 ; and John Henry Smith to T. D. Ehle, John Henry Smith Papers, 7 / 8 , Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City), the alleged remarks nevertheless agree with comments later credited to Charles W. Penrose and Joseph F. Smith by Matthias F. Cowley: "Brother Penrose told me once in the City of Mexico, that he had written the Manifesto, and it was gotten up so that it did not mean anything, and President Smith had told me the same." See The Trials for the Membership of John W. Taylor and Mathaias [sic] F. Cowley (West Jordan, Ut., n . d . ) , p. 15.

This pamphlet consists of excerpts from the official minutes of meetings held by the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in February, March, and May 1911 when inquiry was made of John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley as to their involvement in post-Manifesto plural marriages.

10

Utah Historical Quarterly

in Utah than either of the ten-year periods preceding or following it.

With few exceptions, non-Mormons seem to have been initially pleased with the Manifesto, believing that polygamy and unlawful cohabitation both would now suffer a happy, if gradual, demise. The result was that until after the achievement of statehood in 1896 something of an era of good feeling emerged. Mormons interpreted this as an "understanding" with Gentiles, as permission by implied consent that continued cohabitation would be tolerated so long as new polygamous marriages came to an end. This impression was reinforced by certain political events accompanying Utah's passage from a territory to statehood.11 Then, in 1898, Utah's criminal code was revised to include a statute specifically outlawing unlawful cohabitation. More troubling, a new journalistic onslaught commenced, accusing the church of bad faith.12 This was followed by the B. H. Roberts case in 1900 and, from 1904 to 1907, by the investigation made in Congress of Sen. Reed Smoot. The peace, beginning to crumble in the late 1890s, was now shattered. From 1900 until the disposition of the Smoot case in 1907, the Mormon question was again before the nation's eyes. This burst of renewed inquiry was to reveal that not only had polygamous cohabitation continued but, more disturbing, the performance of new polygamous marriages, including some by apostles, had taken place as well.

II It has long been acknowledged that a few church authorities continued to involve themselves in the contraction of polygamous marriages 11 For example, there seemed to be an intentional failure by both Mormons and Gentiles to implement that clause in the Enabling Act requiring all territorial enactments, including an 1892 law prohibiting polygamy and unlawful cohabitation, to be in force at the commencement of Utah's existence as a state. The clause is found at U.S., Statutes at Large (1894), X X V I I , ch. 138, sec. 19, p. 112. The 1892 territorial statute, which was little more than a restatement of the pertinent sections of the Edmunds Act and had obviously been passed to augment Utah's chances for statehood, is: "An Act to Punish Polygamy and Kindred Offenses," Laws of the Territory of Utah (1892), 30th Sess., ch. V I I I , sec. 2, pp. 5-7. Additionally, Charles S. Varian, perhaps the leading Gentile at the 1895 constitutional convention, proposed an amendment designed to implement the so-called "irrevocable" section that pledged U t a h to "forever" prohibit polygamy as required in the Enabling Act (Utah Constitution (1895), Art. I l l , 1 ) . In defending his proposed amendment, Varian explicitly indicated that neither the relevant clause in the constitution nor his amendment should be understood to comprehend unlawful cohabitation, incest, or adultery. Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates . . . 1895, to Adopt a Constitution for the State of Utah, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City, 1898), 2:1738.

12 The 1898 law may be read in The Revised Statutes of the State of Utah, in Force January 1, 1898, Tit. 75, ch. 24, sec. 4209, p. 900. Regarding journalistic attacks at this time, the local Protestant Ministerial Association, in a series of acrid articles, took the lead. This criticism often arose directly from what was believed to be a Mormon effort to place strained constructions upon Utah's laws so as to leave Mormons free to engage in unlawful cohabitation, if not new polygamy. See, for example, Marcus F. Jones, " T h e Present Situation in U t a h as the Result of Statehood," Kinsman, February 5, 1898. The number of pieces written by both Mormons and their detractors at this time was enormous.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

11

after the Manifesto.13 To date, however, there has been no attempt to examine the extent of this activity nor to describe how it occurred. This is important, especially as it relates to the apostles, because it bears so directly on an understanding of the Taylor-Cowley affair. The participation of high church authorities in post-Manifesto polygamous marriages went well beyond the activities of these two men. By demonstrating the organized, purposeful extent of that involvement it will be clear that, by accusing Taylor and Cowley of being "out of harmony" with their brethren, the apostolate, in eliminating them from the quorum, acted at least partly in an ulterior or symbolic way. Finally, the difficult, clandestine resorts to which the church found itself reduced by continuing the practice of polygamy during the years 1890-1904 demonstrate how dearly held the tenet was. That the period presents itself as one of tortuous, halting disengagement, involving men at every level of the church, reinforces the interpretation of the time as one of radical doctrinal change.

John W. Taylor appears to have been the first apostle to marry polygamously after the Manifesto, espousing Janet Maria Woolley as his third wife on October 10, 1890, just four days after the Manifesto was presented to the church in conference. As Janet recalled, the ceremony was perfomed by Taylor's fellow apostle, Francis M. Lyman, as they drove around in a carriage in Salt Lake City's Liberty Park at night. Taylor further increased the number of his wives to five when, on August 29, 1901, he married two half-sisters, Rhoda and Roxie Welling, both on the same day. Matthias F. Cowley performed the weddings at the Taylor home in Farmington, Utah. According to Janet, Taylor was given permission to marry the Welling girls by Joseph F. Smith one day at the temple, Smith speaking in parables.14 The polygamous marriage of Abraham H. Cannon probably stirred more controversy at the time of the Smoot hearings than any other.

Cannon's plural wife Wilhelmina told the Senate committee how her husband had admitted to her his intention of marrying Lillian Hamlin in the early part of June 1896. Despite his plan to marry the new wife on the high seas, outside the United States as he saw it, Wilhelmina objected to the propriety of the marriage nevertheless. But Abraham per13 These admissions have been grudging, however, usually associating such activities quite exclusively with Apostles Taylor and Cowley. See B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Century I, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1930), 6:399-400, and Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 443-44.

11 See Samuel W. Taylor, "Interviews with Nettie [Janet] M. Taylor," July 1947, pp. 8-9, Lee Library. In these interviews Nettie Taylor informed her son, Samuel W. Taylor, concerning the life and marriages of her husband. See also John W. Taylor Family Group Sheets, Latter-day Saint Genealogical Society Library, Salt Lake City; Trials, p. 17; Proceedings, 1:1051-58.

12

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Abraham H. Cannon, George Teasdale, A. O. Woodruff, Brigham Young, Jr., and Marriner W. Merrill were among the LDS leaders who contracted post-Manifesto polygamous marriages. USHS collections.

sisted, asking Wilhelmina to prepare his luggage as he was leaving town with Joseph F. Smith. He then left by train for Carson City, Nevada, on June 18, 1896. The next day Joseph F. Smith left for what was reported as "a visit through the North," accompanied by one of his wives.

These four, Joseph F. Smith, his wife, Abraham Cannon, and Lillian Hamlin, met in Los Angeles and proceeded with a small party of others on an excursion to Catalina Island. On the steamboat, as generally understood by both the Cannon and Hamlin families, Abraham was married to Lillian. Apostle Cannon returned to Salt Lake City on July 1, desperately ill, and died a few weeks later. Before dying, Abraham admitted to his wife Wilhelmina that he had, indeed, married Lillian.15 15 See Wilhelmina's testimony in Proceedings, 2:142-43; Journal History of the Church, June 18 and July 1, 1896, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City; Deseret Evening News, June 18, 1896; Proceedings, 1:110-12, 126-28, 1059-86 and 2:67-73, 142-46; Joseph F. Smith to Reed Smoot, April 9, 1904, Reed Smoot Correspondence, LDS Archives; Deseret Evening'News, March 2, 1911; Salt Lake Tribune, July 20, 1896.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

13

Another post-Manifesto polygamous marriage by a Mormon apostle, and like Abraham Cannon's performed at sea, is that of George Teasdale. Teasdale's bride was Marion Scoles whom he took as his second living wife on October 25, 1897. As with Abraham Cannon, Teasdale and fellow apostle Anthon H. Lund were reported as absent from Salt Lake City on a church assignment at the time of the marriage. Again, despite later denials by President Smith at the time of the Smoot hearings, there seems to be no question but that Teasdale was married to a plural wife, "On the Pacific Ocean," as church records have it, several years after the issuance of the Woodruff declaration.16 Abraham Owen Woodruff, son of Wilford WToodruff, also took a plural wife after the Manifesto. Born on November 23, 1872, and ordained an apostle on October 5, 1897, Woodruff at age twenty-four was the youngest quorum member at that time. In 1897 he married Helen Winters as his first bride. Then, about 1903, he took twenty-one-year-old Eliza Avery Clark as a plural wife. This case is interesting because it has been said that Avery, living with her family in Wyoming, was already engaged to a young man when approached by Woodruff and Cowley. They spoke to her of the blessings she would receive by marrying Apostle Woodruff in polygamy. Avery was persuaded; she is supposed to have broken her engagement and married Wroodruff, the ceremony being performed by Matthias F. Cowley in Preston, Idaho.

Avery then took up residence in a Mormon community in Mexico where her marriage to Woodruff was less likely to be discovered.17 This inAlthough the circumstances surrounding Cannon's marriage are unclear, Lillian did receive her endowments on June 17, 1896, an ordinance usually preceding a church marriage whenever possible, and Cannon did leave for Los Angeles the next day. Salt Lake Temple Records, A / 1 3 1 / 4 7 1 0 , Genealogical Society Library. A girl was born to Lillian on March 22, 1897, in Philadelphia. She was named Marba — Abram spelled backward — and given rights of inheritance to the Abraham Cannon estate. See Dale C. Josephson, comp., Abraham Hoagland Cannon Family Group Sheet, Genealogical Society Library, and Proceedings, 2:70. For Cannon's illness and death see Deseret Evening News, July 20, 1896.

16 Journal History, October 28, 1897; Living Sealings, Salt Lake Temple, Book C , Sealings Performed Elsewhere, February 5 to September 11, 1904, 186207/33/594, Genealogical Society Library. Positive evidence is unavailable, but every inference would suggest the ceremony was performed by Teasdale's colleague, Anthon H. Lund. As with Abraham Cannon, Teasdale and Lund were reported, in what may have been code, as absent "filling an appointment in the North." See Journal History, October 28, 1897. Teasdale's journal is unavailable to the researcher, and Lund's diary, otherwise complete, displays no entries for the period October 23-28, 1897, the week during which Teasdale was polygamously joined to Marion Scoles. Anthon Hendrick L u n d Journal, September 6, 1897-March 23, 1898, pp. 51-52, LDS Archives.

17 T h e fact that Avery took her temple endowments on November 1, 1900, might suggest her date of marriage to have shortly followed. See Abraham Owen Woodruff Family Group Sheets and Logan Temple Records, B / 2 5 / 8 8 1 , Genealogical Society Library. Cowley later said he married the two sometime in 1903; so that date, although approximate, has been used here.

See Trials, p. 16, and Victor Jorgensen, "Interview with Mary Bennion M u h s , " Salt Lake City, March 5, 1972, pp. 31-33, typewritten transcript, Oral History Department, California State University, Fullerton. Mrs. Muhs was a niece of A. O. Woodruff, her mother being a sister of his first wife, Helen Winters. This particular information was related to her by Avery's sister,

14

Utah Historical

Quarterly

stance has particular significance, not only from the priority Cowley and Woodruff obviously urged should yet be attached to the principle of polygamy in their talks with Avery but from the fact that Woodruff might be looked to as at least indirectly representative of his late father's views on the subject.

It is likely that Apostle Marriner W. Merrill was also joined to a plural wife, well after the Manifesto, by Cowley. Hilda Maria Erickson, a Swedish immigrant who had arrived in Logan, Utah, in 1889 consented to the marriage with Merrill which probably took place in the Logan Temple in 1901. Although Merrill later denied to the Smoot investigating committee that he had married Hilda after the Manifesto, the evidence strongly suggests otherwise. He had also performed the ceremony for his son, Charles E. Merrill, when the latter took a plural wife in 1891.18 Matthias F. Cowley, perhaps the most active advocate of polygamy among church leaders, took two additional wives after the Manifesto.

T h e first was Harriet Bennion of Salt Lake City, a woman who had been widowed years before. This marriage occurred in the Logan Temple in 1899. When later asked to say who had performed the ceremony, Cowley replied: "Brother [Marriner W.] Merrill put me under a solemn covenant binding me not to tell; I was married in the Logan Temple, so leave you to guess the rest." Since Merrill was temple president at the time, the inference is clear that it was he who solemnized the marriage. Cowley's second post-Manifesto marriage was to Lenorah Mary Taylor whom he married in 1905 as his fourth and last wife. In this case the wedding occurred in Canada, the ceremony being performed by a local Mormon patriarch. 19 Edna. Avery's child, a girl, was born April 11, 1904, in the Mormon colony of Juarez. See Victor Jorgensen, "Interview with Florence Ivins Hyde," Salt Lake City, August 19, 1972, in Jorgensen's possession, and Woodruff Family Group Sheets.

18 Charles Mostyn Owen to Dr. William Paden, October 11, 1904, in Letterbook, Charles Mostyn Owen Collection, LDS Archives, and Melvin C. Merrill, Utah Pioneer Apostle Marriner Wood Merrill and His Family (n.p., 1937), p. 501. When Cowley later recalled this episode before the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, he thought he remembered performing the ceremony sometime in 1903. See Trials, p. 15. It is more likely to have occurred in late 1901, as Hilda's first and only child was born April 17, 1902 (Logan 7th Ward Record of Members, 1910, 026076, Genealogical Society Library). This record indicates the child was confirmed on June 14, 1910, her father (then deceased) being Marriner W. Merrill and her mother Hilda M. Erickson.

Merrill recorded in his diary on July 2, 1901, that he, on that date, took Hilda Erickson to district court in Logan to file her naturalization papers. See Marriner Wood Merrill Journal no. 5, May 29, 1901-January 26, 1906, p. 7, LDS Archives. It is possible, but speculative, that the filing of Hilda's naturalization papers may have coincided with her marriage. Almost three years elapsed before she was mentioned again, not as Hilda Erickson, as in 1901 and before, but as Hilda M. Merrill. See Merrill Journal, October 7, 1889-March 31, 1892, p. 107, passim; and Merrill Journal no. 5, p. 142. For Merrill's denials see Proceedings, 3:439-43. The son's testimony is in Proceedings, 1:408-18.

19 Trials, p. 15, and Anthony W. Ivins Diary, January 25, 1911, 3/16, Anthony W. Ivins Collection, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

15

Finally, it is probable that Brigham Young, Jr., another apostle, took a plural wife after the Woodruff Manifesto. The woman involved was likely Hellen Armstrong, although that is uncertain. Matthias F. Cowley, at the time of his hearing in 1911, said only that he had joined Young to a plural wife, as he remembered, sometime in 1902. The probability of Young's complicity in the skein of post-1890 polygamous marriages by apostles is increased by the fact that he, like others of his brethren, likely performed at least one polygamous marriage ceremony himself during these years.20 There is, then, evidence of ten polygamous marriages by seven different Mormon apostles after 1890. There may have been more. Whatever the actual count, it is clear that many of those presiding in the highest echelons of the church either took a very qualified view of the Manifesto or, as some believed, looked upon it as no more than a ruse.21 That these marriages were not occurrences of an entirely private nature, consummated apart from the knowledge and approbation of other authorities, as President Joseph F. Smith claimed in his testimony before the Smoot committee, is clear if one examines the procedures by which such marriages were authorized and governed.

Since according to Mormon theology, the president of the church, or his designee, alone holds the keys to bind and loose marriages for 20 Hellen Armstrong was born January 17, 1856, in Salt Lake City. See Endowment House Records, H / 2 6 6 / 5 8 3 3 , Genealogical Society Library. According to ward records, she married Brigham Young, Jr., on June 7, 1890. See Ephraim North Ward, Sanpete Stake, Record of Members, Book C , Early to 1923, 025933/79, Genealogical Society Library. If Hellen Armstrong was married to Young by Cowley in 1902, Hellen or someone close to her must have submitted the pre-Manifesto date of 1890 to the ward clerk. The predating of post-Manifesto polygamous marriages was a means of protecting those involved. See Trials, pp. 16-17. However, if Hellen's June 7, 1890, marriage date is correct, then the identity of Young's seventh wife remains hidden. Cf. Owen Letterbook, September 18, 1899-November 25, 1899, p. 201.

Clara Mabel Barber Kennedy said Young married her to James Francis Johnson, as his second wife, in Mexico during the spring of 1894. Proceedings, 1 -389-91 ff. Unfortunately, the entries for 1894 are missing from Brigham Young, [Jr.], Journals, 1862-1902, LDS Archives.

For Young's presence in the colonies at that time, however, see John Henry Smith Journals, 1874-1875, 1880-1911, in the George A. Smith Family Papers, 1731-1969, vol. 18, entries for February-March 1894, Marriott Library; and Diary of Winslow Farr, 1856-99, pp. 96, 98, Lee Library.

21 Heber J. Grant, at the least, wished to take another plural wife but was refused permission by Joseph F. Smith. Grant was quite upset at the time. See Trials, p. 16; Heber J. Grant to Heber Ber.nion, May 2, 1929, Heber J. Grant Letterbook, February 12, 1929-June 28, 1929, p. 616, LDS Archives; and, Mary Bennion Powell to Dr. George R. Stewart, January 26, 1952, pp. 33-34, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. There was also the report, disputed to be sure, that Grant had said in 1899: "I am a lawbreaker; so is Bishop Whitney; so is B. H. Roberts.

My wives have brought me only daughters. I propose to marry till I get wives who will bring me sons." See the documents in Proceedings, 2 : 4 8 5 , and the testimony of Cowley that he could not prove it but he "believed" President Woodruff took an additional wife after the Manifesto (Trials, p. 17). It should also be added that John Henry Smith, innocent of taking new wives himself, assisted John W. Taylor in marrying many into polygamy in Arizona and Mexico during 1897-98. See John Henry Smith Journal, vol. 18, February 16, 1894; vol. 21, March 9, 1898.

This agrees with Taylor's comment in Trials, p. 3. See also Proceedings, 1:477-79, 486; and 3:192-206.

16

Utah Historical

Quarterly

eternity, his consent is and always has been necessary for such marriages to be performed. The involvement of the president and his counselors in the marriage ordinance, especially when it required permission for taking additional wives, is illustrated by an instance from the life of Abraham Cannon. His father, George Q. Cannon, a member of the First Presidency, was deeply grieved that Abraham's brother David had died leaving no children. In a manner somewhat like the leviratic practices of the ancient Hebrews, Cannon told Abraham he wanted him to take another wife and raise up seed by her in behalf of his deceased brother. Abraham was receptive to the idea, and one day while in the church president's office, suggested that he should marry his cousin Annie. This occurred in October 1894 in the presence of his uncle Angus (father of the girl), his own father, and other members of the First Presidency. All seemed pleased, providing Annie was willing, President Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith both saying they approved so long as the ceremony could be performed outside the United States, preferably in Mexico. Although there is no evidence that this particular marriage actually took place, it illustrates how permission for such marriages was obtained.22 Direct authority from the president was unusual, however, since it was administratively impossible to rule on every such request in a growing church. So far as polygamous marriages are concerned, George Q. Cannon, first counselor, seems to have been chiefly responsible for granting permission for such contractions until his death in 1901. Cowley later stated that Cannon told him he had received authority to sanction plural marriages from Wilford Woodruff. Cowley further testified that Joseph F. Smith told him on two different occasions that George Q. Cannon was given such authority because President Woodruff "didn't want to be known in it."23 Subsequent leaders seem to have been loath to change the pattern established by Woodruff and chose to leave the matter of polygamous marriages in Cannon's hands. After Cannon's death, it is unclear whether the resumption of all authority in such matters was undertaken by President Joseph F. Smith or if, as before, it was delegated to someone else.24 " C a n n o n Journal, vol. 18, pp. 168-69, October 19, 1894; p. 170, October 24, 1894.

Abraham's half-brother, Frank, later wrote t h a t it was Lillian H a m l i n who h a d been betrothed to David and, since his death, h a d been joined to A b r a h a m in "fulfillment of the biblical instruction that a m a n should take his dead brother's wife." Frank J. C a n n o n a n d Harvey J. O'Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah (Boston, 1911), p . 176. See also the affidavit of George F. Gibbs, J a n u a r y 10, 1912, Correspondence, George F. Gibbs Collection, L D S Archives.

23 Trials, p. 14.

24 See the comments of Cowley in ibid., p p . 15-16. Frank C a n n o n tried to clear his father's name, suggesting that responsibility for post-Manifesto marriages h a d lain with Joseph F. Smith all along. Under the Prophet in Utah, p p . 176-79, 237, passim.

17 George Q. Cannon granted permission for plural marriages. USHS collections.

The permission for such marriages to be performed seems to have rested on the notion, mentioned earlier, that if taken literally the Manifesto did not forbid polygamy among Mormons residing where there were no laws prohibiting it. It is true that, as with the matter of continued cohabitation, Woodruff, subsequent to the issuance of the Manifesto when testifying before the master in chancery, said that the interdiction was to be understood as universal, as applicable to Mormons throughout the world.25 Whether it was because this interpolation, like that relating to continued polygamous cohabitation, was never presented for ratification before a church conference or because church leaders never honestly intended to end the practice, new polygamous marriages continued to be performed, chiefly outside the land boundaries of the United States.

We have already shown that in the cases of Apostles Abraham Cannon and George Teasdale the ceremonies solemnizing their polygamous marriages took place at sea. Most who sought to engage in plural marriage, however, seem to have done so in Mexico or Canada, usually the former. A number of Mormon colonies had been established south of the border, beginning in the mid-1880s, for the purpose of providing a resort for those harried by prosecution under federal and territorial antipolygamy laws in the United States. The same is true of settlements in the Canadian province of Alberta. Both regions were used as havens for polygamist Mormons, but Mexico seems to have been most favored by those wishing to contract additional marriages in the post-Manifesto years. Many seem to have believed that laws prohibiting polygamous marriages did not exist in Mexico. This was widely accepted at the time and continues to be an explanation given as to why Mormons went there for the purpose of acquiring plural wives. In fact, polygamy, or matrimonio cloble, was and always had been a crime in Mexico. Such laws existed in Canada as well. But the Mexican government, then as now, took a far more lackadaisical view of laws relating to sexual relations 15

Salt Lake Tribune, October 20, 1891; Roberts, Comprehensive History, 6:225.

18

Utah Historical

Quarterly

than law enforcement officers in either Canada or the United States.

Additionally, Mexican officials at the national level, at the time of the Mormon entry, were quite willing to subordinate whatever reservations they felt about Mormon domestic manners to the more important goal of allowing industrious settlers to colonize vacant lands along the border.26 Although polygamous marriages had been performed on a random basis by visiting apostles or local church authorities in Mexico during the early years of the colonies' history, in the mid-1890s this authority largely came to repose in a single ecclesiastical official, Anthony W. Ivins.

Ivins was sent to Mexico to act as the stake president or leading church authority over all Mormons there in 1895. Though not a polygamist himself, Ivins was told before going to Mexico that he would occasionally be called on to perform such contractions for others. He was given special authority by the First Presidency to "seal" polygamous spouses to each other in Mexico away from the reach of United States law. A form letter was agreed upon which, when presented by a couple wishing to be so joined, would apprise Ivins they had previously obtained consent from the First Presidency, usually George Q. Cannon. Walter M. Wolfe later described the procedure involved when one of his students at the Brigham Young Academy, Ovena Jorgensen, consented to become the polygamous wife of William C. Ockey. She told WTolfe that Ockey had

26 For general histories of the Mormon movement into Mexico and Canada, see Thomas Cottam Romney, The Mormon Colonies in Mexico (Salt Lake City, 1938) ; and, Lawrence B. Lee, " T h e Mormons Come to C a n a d a , 1887-1902," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 59 ( 1 9 6 8 ) : 11—21. Austin and Alta Fife illustrate the nineteenth-century belief that polygamy was not against the law in Mexico in their Saints of Sage and Saddle (Bloomington, Ind., 1956), p. 171.

For a more recent affirmation of the same view, see James B. Allen and Richard O. Cowan, Mormonism in the Twentieth Century, rev. ed. (Provo, Ut., 1969), pp. 19-21. Relevant Mexican prohibitions regarding polygamy are to be found in: Codigo penal del distrito federal y territorio de la Baja-California (Mexico, 1871), Lib. I l l , Tit. I V , Cap. V I I , Arts. 831-32, 8 3 7 - 3 8 ; Codigo penal del estado libre y soberano de Chihuahua, Primera ed. oficial (Cd. Chihuahua, 1897), Lib. I l l , Tit. 6, Cap. 7; and, Codigo penal del estado de Sonora, 2d ed. oficial (Hermosillo, 1909), Lib. I l l , Tit. 6, C a p . 7. And, f o r ' C a n a d a , see "An Ordinance Respecting Marriage," sec. 2. Copies of Ordinances passed by the Lieutenant-Governor and Council of the North-west Territories, on the 2nd August, 1878..., Sessional Papers, No. 86 (Ottowa, 1879), 22; and, 53 Victoria 37, c. 11 ( 1 8 9 0 ) .

It has been said that, in the strictest sense, Mormons practicing polygamy in Mexico were not in violation of any laws. This view rests on Mexico's failure to pass statutes prohibiting adulterous cohabitation, the identical circumstance in U.S. territories prior to the Edmunds Act of 1882. While it is true that, unlike C a n a d a and the United States, Mexico never amended its laws to criminalize this activity, it is also true that it was bigamous relationships of the very sort engaged in by the Mormons that Mexican laws, like the Spanish codes and canon law on which they were based, sought to prevent. See Vincente Gonzales Castro, Redaccion del codigo civil de Mexico que se contiene en las leues espanoles . . . . (Guadalajara, 1839), I, 21-22, 3 1 ; D. Manuel Mateos Alarcon, La evolucion del derecho civil mexicano desde la independencia hasta nuestros dias (Mexico, 1911), 2 0 - 2 1 ; Jose M. Ots y Capdequi, Historia del derecho espanol en America y del derecho indiano (Madrid, 1969), 313-14, passim. Some of the Mormon colonists, including Anthony W. Ivins, seemed to understand this. See Historical Record, Juarez Stake, 1901-6, p p . 3-4 (February 23, 1901), L D S Archives.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

19

approached Woodruff who refused to grant permission for the marriage.

On a subsequent visit with the president by both Miss Jorgensen and Mr. Ockey, Woodruff said he would have nothing to do with the matter but referred them to George Q. Cannon. Cannon then gave the couple a letter addressed to Anthony W. Ivins who, when contacted in Mexico, was said to have performed the marriage there in the summer of 1897.27 Although Ivins at the time of the Smoot investigation was reported to have destroyed materials associated with his responsibilities in this regard, certain pieces of evidence have survived. These include copies of what appear to be two form letters used in such cases and, most important, an actual record of more than forty polygamous marriages performed by Ivins between 1897 and 1904. These documents, in company with private memoirs, genealogical data, and findings generated by investigations such as the Smoot case, provide a persuasive, complementary record of officially sanctioned Mormon polygamy in the postManifesto years. In all of this, it bears repeating, the First Presidency and the apostles were involved and aware. Permission to solemnize a polygamous marriage, whether by direct word or by letter, had to proceed from the First Presidency if it were to be efficacious. Neither Ivins, Cowley, nor anyone else might properly act without such permission; and both these men, at the very least, refused to marry couples in polygamy who were without it.28 27 Cannon Journal, vol. 13, pp. 159-60 November 2, 1890; Proceedings, 1:389-91 ff, 2:95-97, 295-96, 4 : 1 1 ; H. Grant Ivins, "Polygamy in Mexico," pp. ,4-5, typescript, Marriott Library.

28 Jorgensen, "Florence Ivins Hyde Interview," August 18, 1972, and Ivins, "Polygamy in Mexico," p. 6, both .refer to the destruction by their father of some of his records.

Anthony W. Ivins, shown on his horse Blanco, performed post-Manifesto polygamous marriages in Mexico.

USHS collections.

20

Utah Historical Quarterly

Polygamy cost B. H. Roberts, left, his seat in Congress involved Reed Smoot, r i g h t , in a three-year Senate USHS collections.

in 1900 and controversy.

Ill As already indicated, the first few years of public amity following the issuance of the Manifesto were, unhappily, succeeded by a renewal of conflict over the question of unlawful cohabitation. The first major episode of this kind occurred in 1900 when B. H. Roberts was denied his seat in Congress on grounds of continued cohabitation with his plural wives. It was alleged at that time that Roberts and other church leaders had betrayed the compact made with the nation that had led the federal The two presumed form letters, both brief and general in nature, one on letterhead of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the other on stationery from the Pioneer U t a h Electric Power Company of Utah of which Cannon was an officer, may be found, respectively, in the Anthony W. Ivins Collection, 1 0 / 1 / 1 0 , and the George Albert Smith Family Papers, 107/13. The Ivins Record Book of Marriages was given to the LDS church Historical Department by Anthony W. Ivins's son Antoine after his father's death. Before relinquishing the book, however, another son, Stanley, copied from it onto some five typewritten pages the data for more than fifty couples married by his father in Mexico between 1897 and 1904, most of which appear to have been polygamous. This list may be found as the last inclusion in a folder entitled "Polygamy B. F. Johnson Letter," Stanley Snow Ivins MSS, 8/10, U t a h State Historical Society, and Anthony W. Ivins Collection, 16/7. This record of marriages confirms, incidentally, the marriage of Ovena Jorgensen to William Ockey described above in the text but indicates the date to have been one year later than Walter M. Wolfe remembered it, September 14, 1898. See also, Victor Jorgensen, "Heber Grant Ivins Interview," July 18, 1972, tape and transcript in possession of Jorgensen; Trials, pp. 1 5 - 1 6 ; John T. Whetten note, July 12, 1900, in Alexander F. Macdonald Correspondence, LDS Archives, for evidence bearing on the First Presidency's exercise of authority over polygamous contractions during these years.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

21

government to return church properties, restore the franchise, bestow pardons, and admit Utah into the Union as a state. Clearly, church officials had assumed too much in their view of the early calm as approving continued cohabitation with pre-Manifesto wives. In addition to the Roberts case, a number of articles appeared in public journals attacking the Mormons for going back on their word. With this kind of notice, President Lorenzo Snow, who had succeeded Wilford Woodruff upon the latter's death in 1898, took a more conservative stand regarding polygamy. For a time, the number of plural marriages performed within the church sharply declined.29 The Smoot hearings more than anything else brought continued Mormon polygamy to public attention and stoked the embers of the old question into flame. Reed Smoot, one of the church's apostles, declared his candidacy for the United States Senate in 1902 and in early 1903 was elected to the office by the Utah legislature. Protests and petitions were prepared almost immediately demanding that Smoot not be allowed to take his seat. A number of charges were made, including the assertion that he and his brethren in the ruling councils of the church had continued to approve the practice of polygamy.30 The Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections commenced hearings in January 1904 and for the next two and a half years examined evidence from a wide variety of sources bearing on the question of political and polygamous activities by the Mormon church. Although some of the allegations were clearly false, those who prepared and were friendly to the charges succeeded in bringing evidence to light establishing both continued cohabitation and new polygamous marriages by apostles and others in the church.

The Smoot controversy not only took an extraordinary length of time to complete (January 1904 - February 1907) but ranged far beyond the immediate question of Smoot himself. The more than three thousand pages of inquiry concerned itself with Mormonism, its history, theology, and culture. It was the church, more than Reed Smoot, that 29 U.S., Congress, House of Representatives, Case of Brigham H. Roberts, of Utah, 56th Cong., 1st sess. ( 1 9 0 0 ) , Report no. 85, Pt. 1, esp. p p . 9-12, 4 0 - 4 5 ; R. Davis Bitton, " T h e B. H .

Roberts Case of 1 8 9 8 - 1 9 0 0 , " Utah Historical Quarterly 25 (1957) : 2 7 - 4 6 ; Robert H . M a h a n , B. H. Roberts, a Biography (Salt Lake City, 1966), p p . 62—77; Roberts, Comprehensive History, 6 : 3 6 3 - 7 4 ; a n d Allen and Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints, p p . 438—39.

T h e n u m b e r of polygamous contractions undertaken in Mexico is perhaps the best mirror for post-Manifesto polygamous marriages. This, in turn, can be estimated from the d a t a provided in the Anthony W. Ivins Record Book of Marriages. H . G r a n t Ivins, in his p a p e r on the subject, m a d e precisely this kind of inquiry, with the following results: Woodruff years ( 1 8 9 5 - 9 8 ) , seventeen marriages; Snow years ( 1 8 9 8 - 1 9 0 1 ) , four marriages; Smith years ( 1 9 0 1 - 4 ) , thirtyone marriages. See Ivins, "Polygamy in Mexico," p p . 8-9.

30 T h e petition and charges against Smoot are found in Proceedings, 1 : 1 - 3 0 .

22

Utah Historical Quarterly

was on trial. Friends and enemies, high church officials including President Joseph F. Smith, as well as common lay adherents were examined regarding everything from hearsay concerning secret polygamous marriages to the nature of oaths and covenants made by those entering Mormon temples. It seems doubtful, except for persecutions and drivings suffered in the early years of the church, that Mormonism has ever experienced a more dramatic moment. While a great deal of attention was devoted to alleged commercial and political domination by the church, it was polygamy that the committee returned to again and again, sensing the newsworthy flavor of the topic.

Unfortunately, the testimonies of President Smith and most of the authorities willing to appear did little to help the Mormon cause. Not only did they plead an incredible ignorance concerning the polygamous activities and status of fellow apostles but admitted, in their own cases, to having cohabited and fathered children with plural wives since the Manifesto. More than that, the church president said he was not able to pursue charges against the apostles or other church members with a view to bringing the practice of polygamy to an end. This, he said, was a matter left to the local wards and bishops' courts. It was shown that, unlike the revelation sanctioning plural marriages, the Manifesto suspending them had not yet been included in the official book of commandments, the Doctrine and Covenants. As awkward as anything, many accused of either taking additional plural wives or performing the ceremony for others left the country, claimed illness, or otherwise refused to appear in Washington. In consequence, some of those most faithful to the church expressed "profound surprise" over discoveries and admissions generated by the committee's research.31

31 E.g., the comment of Richard W. Young, president of the Ensign Stake, ibid., 2 : 9 7 5 : and James E. Talmage, ibid., 1:43, 107-8, 178, 336, 476-79. Also, ibid., 1:1057-58, 2: 302-3, 975; 3 : 1 2 6 ; and 4 : 4 7 8 - 7 9 . As one observer put it at the time, after hearing "the astounding testimony of President Joseph F. Smith," there was no doubt but that the Mormon hierarchy was engaged in a "conspiracy against the United States. . . ." See Alfred Henry Lewis, " T h e Great Mormon Conspiracy," Collier's, March 26, 1904, p. 11.

It was a vital part of their strategy for church authorities to deny knowledge of anything more than rumor concerning each other's family affairs. Otherwise, Smoot, if shown to be privy to such things, could have been charged with at least a constructive involvement in criminal activity and thus, perhaps, legally disqualified from public office. See, as examples of this stratagem, Proceedings, 1:476, 479 (Joseph F. S m i t h ) ; 1:438, 450-56 (Francis M. L y m a n ) ; 1:722 (Brigham H. Roberts) ; 1:785 (Angus Cannon) ; 2:250, 56, 58 (George Reynolds); 2:290-302 (John Henry Smith) ; 3:96 (James E. Talmage) ; 3:192, 205, 306 (Reed Smoot). For instances of admitted cohabitation, see Proceedings, 1:128-30, 334-36, 378-79 (Joseph F. Smith) ; 1:427, 455 (Francis M. L y m a n ) ; 1:515-22 (Brigham H. R o b e r t s ) ; 2:284-85 (John Henry Smith).

It was undoubtedly due to badgering by the committee that the Manifesto was finally incorporated into the Doctrine and Covenants in 1908, the year following the Smoot hearing. See Allen and Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints, p. 415.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

23

While confessing to continued cohabitation, President Smith repeatedly and categorically denied that he or either of his predecessors (Wilforcl Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow) had authorized new polygamous marriages since the Manifesto. Neither had any such contractions taken place with the "consent or knowledge or approval of the church." He was emphatic in denying that "secret" marriages of this kind had occurred anywhere in the world with official Mormon sanction. If some were shocked by the president's admissions concerning cohabitation, others must have been dumbfounded that he would endorse what many in the church knew, and increasing numbers outside the church believed, to be a fiction so far as the denial of new polygamous marriages was concerned. This was certainly what led E. B. Critchlow to say that, in the face of so much evidence, Smith must be employing his words differently from the way most people ordinarily use them. However bold, those testifying for the church stubbornly adhered to the same story.32 Joseph F. Smith was the first witness to appear at the Smoot hearings. Questioning was pointed and Smith's response, as already described, resulted in impressions unfavorable for the Mormon cause. Undoubtedly, this led him, in the month following his testimony, to present a special declaration to the church at its semiannual conference in early April 1904. This statement is often referred to as the "Second Manifesto."

Traditionally, this document has been explained as a reaction on Smith's part to discoveries only recently brought to his attention concerning polygamous marriages by a few scattered zealots. These individuals, by inference, were responsible for the embarrassments arising from the Smoot hearings. The 1904 declaration is usually described as a final warning given those who had displayed so independent an attitude in the matter.33 But a literal reading of all that Smith said suggests it was, *~ Proceedings, 1:143, 102, 177, 178, 184, 211, 312, 317-18, 485, 612-13, 430, 431, 448, 449; 2 : 3 0 2 - 3 ; 1:722; 2:50, 56, 57, 5 8 ; 3 :192, 205-6.

3:!

This interpretation is so universal as hardly to require documentation. See, for example, Roberts, Comprehensive History, 4 : 4 0 0 - 4 0 2 . It is essentially the explanation of the First Presidency itself, as provided in "An Address: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the World," Messages, 4 : 1 5 0 - 5 2 , March 26, 1907. As James R. Clark has pointed out, because this address was submitted to a general conference of the church and there accepted, it is, with its historical explanation of post-Manifesto polygamy as only the work of "a few overzealous individuals who refused to submit even to the action of the church," official Mormon doctrine (ibid., 4 : 1 4 2 ) . With the Smoot imbroglio behind them, perhaps church authorities assumed the door was closed on all that made the period between 1890 and 1904 so troublesome, and they might safely proceed to describe the era as they wished it to be remembered. Smoot himself transformed the hearings into a brief for Mormon veracity. The investigation of his case, he said, "proved conclusively that since the manifesto of 1890 there had not been celebrated in U t a h — o r elsewhere throughout the United States, for that matter—a solitary polygamous marriage by or with the consent, connivance, countenance, sanction or approval of the Mormon church. . . . The Senate inquiry established clearly that polygamous marriages in Utah became a thing of the past more than sixteen years ago. . . ." Reed Smoot, " T h e Passing of Polygamy," North American Review 187 ( 1 9 0 8 ) : 1 1 7 - 1 8 .

24

Utah Historical

Quarterly

rather, an effort to summon and project support for what he had claimed in Washington. After repeating the allegation that polygamous marriages had been undertaken since 1890, Smith again affirmed that no such marriages had occurred with the consent or approval of the church; that plural marriages were prohibited; and that transgressors of this rule were liable to be excommunicated. Then, he followed those remarks with the words: They charge us with being dishonest and untrue to our word. They charge the church with having violated a "compact" and all this sort of nonsense.

I want to see today whether the Latter-day Saints representing the church in this solemn assembly will not seal these charges as false by their voice [italics added]. 34

Having just emerged from the ordeal in Washington, with rumors at his back, President Smith was clearly seeking to buttress his testimony by the united, reassuring voice of church members themselves. Some Mormon authorities have said that the Smith statement extended the 1890 Manifesto to Mormons outside the United States, to all the world.

If that were so, it would justify Smith's remarks as new policy or at least an emendation of old policy needing official approval by an assembly of the church. The difficulty remains that there is no more in the actual wording of the Smith statement of 1904 about extending the interdiction to foreign lands than there had been in the Woodruff Manifesto of 1890. The statement also seems to have intentionally left polygamous cohabitation with pre-Manifesto wives uncensured. Angus Cannon later told the Smoot committee that he was among those who seconded the Smith statement when it was presented in conference and that he would not have done so if such relationships had been condemned.

With the exception of a somewhat sterner tone and the explicit threat of excommunication, from the standpoint of actual substance the 1904 "Official Statement" is indistinguishable from the Woodruff Manifesto of thirteen years before. In the strictest sense it was not a new or "Second Manifesto." Smith himself never so termed it and admitted that it was only a reaffirmation of the Woodruff doctrine. As such, the congregation's vote constituted nothing more than an expression of confidence that President Smith had told the truth. 35

34 Seventy-fourth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . (Salt Lake City, 1904), pp. 7 5 - 7 6 .

35 Ibid. An example of a recent authority claiming the 1904 statement to have extended the Woodruff Manifesto outside the United States is Mark E. Petersen, The Way of the Master (Salt Lake City, 1974), p p . 54, 62. T h e comments of Angus C a n n o n are in Proceedings, 1:789.

The Taylor-Cowley

Affair

This notwithstanding, from the perspective of time one might suggest that the Woodruff Manifesto said too little while the Smith statement said too much.

The confrontation endured by Smith in Washington and his resultant declaration to the church took place at the beginning of the Smoot hearings. In the next several months an enormous amount of evidence, some seriously undermining the credibility of Smith's testimony and "Official Statement," was destined to emerge.30 Numbers of otherwise believThe words of Anthon H . Lund following the presentation and vote on the statement, while stopping short of an outright denial of post-1890 polygamous marriages, not only acknowledge the rumors then heard in the church but reinforce the interpretation of the 1904 declaration as no more than a public denial by the church's membership of charges concerning new polygamy. Indeed, this was the whole point. Mormon leaders wished to convince everyone of their constancy since 1890, whatever may have been alleged or discovered in Washington, D.C. "Rumors have been afloat that plural marriages have taken place, and some are said to have commenced to doubt the truth of the declaration made by our President at Washington. Now it has been laid before you, and the church, by its vote in solemn assembly, has ratified this resolution, and the Saints know just where the church stands on this question. If any come to you with such rumors, you know that the church is true to that which it accepted thirteen years and six months ago, and which it has again ratified here in this conference. It is not a new manifesto.'^ Ibid., p. 76. For Smith's comment that his "Official Statement" was only a reconfirmation of the Woodruff Manifesto, see his remarks at the noon meeting held between conference sessions in Journal History, April 6, 1904, p. 6. Smith had testified only a few weeks before that neither he nor anyone else had received a new revelation for the government of the church since the Woodruff declaration was given (Proceedings, 1:314). But, see also, Salt Lake Tribune, March 20, 1905.

3<i Alleged post-Manifesto polygamous marriages brought to light by the Smoot investigating committee, subsequent to the appearance of Joseph F. Smith and apart from those already mentioned in this study are in Proceedings, 1:684, 701-2, 1051-56; 2 : 3 7 - 4 0 , 386-89, 397-400, 421, 427, 875; 4 : 7 3 , 75, 136-53, 324, 331, 336-38.

The Smoot hearings focused national attention on Joseph F. Smith's authority as president of the LDS church. USHS collections

26

Utah Historical

Quarterly

ing Mormons began to suspect the existence of an "inner circle" where, as some were, saying, new polygamous marriages were indeed taking place. 37 It is now known that the 1904 statement, unlike the Woodruff document, was intended once and for all to bring the business to an end.

Hilda B. Farr, one of the last women to be married into polygamy in Mexico with church approval, has told how she and others had been informed previously that a major change wrould be forthcoming at the spring conference of the church. She and Heber Farr were told to hurry with their plans and so were married by Anthony W. Ivins in Mexico just before conference in 1904.38 Additional evidence tending to demonstrate that authorities were determined to bring about a complete cessation of the practice is found in written instructions to some of the apostles enjoining strict compliance with the new policy.39 Of course, none of this could blot out the record of sub rosa polygamous marriages prior to 1904, a circumstance best described by Frank Cannon in conversation with John R. Winder, a member of the First Presidency: P r e s i d e n t W i n d e r m e t m e on t h e street . . . a n d s a i d : " F r a n k , you need n o t c o n t i n u e y o u r fight a g a i n s t p l u r a l m a r r i a g e . President S m i t h h a s s t o p p e d it." " T h e n , " I replied, " t w o things are e v i d e n t : I h a v e been telling the t r u t h w h e n I said t h a t p l u r a l m a r r i a g e has been r e n e w e d â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in spite of t h e a u t h o r i z e d denials â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a n d if President S m i t h has stopped it n o w , h e h a s h a d a u t h o r i t y over it all the t i m e . " 4 0

IV It may be, as one contemporary expressed it, that the Smoot hearings revealed nothing that was not already well known. They did, however, succeed in broadcasting word of continued Mormon polygamy to the American public at large. Within the first year and a half of their duration sentiment against Smoot steadily increased and, reciprocally, the public regard for Mormonism steadily declined. Numbers of polygamists, especially polygamous wives living in Utah, felt the need to leave for Mexico to make themselves less conspicuous. But anti-Mormon 37 Whisperings to that effect became so common that an official denial was made by John R. Winder at special priesthood meetings in 1906. Anthony W. Ivins Collection, 3 / 3 , April 9, 1906, 3/4, October 8, 1906. See also Carl Ashby Badger Journal, entry for October 8, 1904, LDS Archives.

38 Victor Jorgensen, "Interview with Hilda B. Farr," January 16, 1972, Provo, Utah, typewritten transcript, p. 3, Oral History Department, California State University, Fullerton. The Anthony W. Ivins Record Book of Marriages records the Farr marriage on March 29, 1904, at Colonia Juarez.

39 Francis M. Lyman to John W. Taylor, May 3, 1904, Joseph F. Smith Letterbooks, LDS Archives; and Francis M. Lyman to John Henry Smith, May 5, 1905, John Henry Smith Collection. The two letters are identical. Similar instructions seem to have been given to Anthony W. Ivins. Anthony W. Ivins Collection, 3 / 1 , December 17, 1904.

40 Cannon and O'Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah, p. 350.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

27

crusading continued anyway. A proposal made years before that an amendment prohibiting polygamy be added to the United States Constitution was formally endorsed by the Democrats in their 1904 party platform. By late 1905 and early 1906 public hostility reached such a pitch that talk was heard of disfranchising all members of the Mormon church.

It was in this atmosphere that important steps were decided upon to assist Smoot with his case in Washington and shore up the image of Mormonism. By this time at least a third of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles were new, younger men who, like Smoot, had only one wife and were understandably anxious to acquit the reputation of the church.

According to Smoot in testimony before the committee in early 1905, at his urging the quorum had undertaken a project of self-examination regarding post-Manifesto polygamous marriages. If it were found that any had married in polygamy or performed such marriages for others, Smoot assured the senators, he would no longer sustain them.41 Neither the precise chronology of affairs nor the extent to which events were orchestrated and understood on all sides — as they relate to Taylor, Cowley, and the Smoot hearings — can yet be established with certainty. But, as previously noted, it is known that the autumn of 1905 and spring of 1906 marked the nadir of prospects for Senator Smoot in Washington. It is also known that church leaders in Salt Lake City had come to view the battle over Smoot's credentials as essentially a battle for and by the church itself.42 Why Taylor and Cowley were specially marked at this time for the coming ordeal, however, is not entirely clear.

The impression was given that they refused to go to Washington and assist in shouldering the task of half-truths and denials required in Smoot's defense. This seemed to annoy President Smith and others.43 41 It was James Wilford Garner who said that the post-Manifesto polygamous activities of the Mormons were well known. See his "The Case of Senator Smoot and the Mormon Church," North American Review 184 ( 1 9 0 7 ) : 56. Regarding the movement of polygamous wives into Mexico at this time, particularly those married to prominent church figures, see Ivins, "Polygamy in Mexico,"_ pp. 14-18; and Nancy A. Clement Williams, "Reminiscences and Diary," p. 88, LDS Archives. For the proposal of an antipolygamy constitutional amendment see Donald Bruce Johnson and Kirk H. Porter, comps., National Party Platforms, 18401872, 5th ed. (Urbana, 111., 1973), p. 133; and "Polygamy Mandatory," Nation 78 ( 1 9 0 4 ) : 224—25. The resolution advocating wholesale disfranchisement was that of Senator Dubois, U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 59th Cong., 1st sess. (1906), XL, Pt. 9, p. 8401.

12 As much as a year before, on December 9, 1904, the First Presidency wrote to Smoot urging him not to forget "the double relationship in which you stand to the question. The first, of course, is your own personal interest, that of retaining your seat. The second is the interest of the church in this. . . ." The church worked closely with Smoot throughout in the preparation and presentation of his defense. James R. Clark has gathered a number of documents relating to this, including the letter quoted above, in his Messages, 6 : 9 0 - 9 1 , 98-100, 125-27, 135-55.

43 See Smith's remarks concerning Taylor and Cowley in Proceedings, 1:1057-58; his tone regarding them in Seventy-fourth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . , p. 75; and the comments of John Henry Smith in his Journal, vol. 27, October 20, 1905, ff. Additional insight is provided by Samuel W. Taylor, a son of John W. Taylor, in Rocky Mountain Empire: The Latter-day Saints Today (New York: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 81-97.

28

Utah Historical

Quarterly

But Anthony W. Ivins, as culpable in all this as any man then alive, also declined, telling his son Grant that he refused to go to Washington and there "perjure myself."44 Though not then a member of the quorum, Ivins was called to be an apostle only two years hence and, later still, became a member of the First Presidency. And George Teasdale who also had contracted a post-Manifesto polygamous marriage actually had been urged by Smith to remain out of the country during the hearings.45 The only significant difference seems to have been Cowley's and Taylor's insistence that the 1904 statement, if taken literally, was no more limiting than what the church had said before. In any case, since Smoot had committed himself before the investigating committee to vote against known offenders and inasmuch as he and other Mormons had been accused of routinely and mechanically raising their hands in support of whomever and whatever their leaders presented to them, the senator decided to withhold his vote from sustaining the Quorum of Twelve Apostles at the autumn conference of the church in 1905.46 Within two weeks of the conference a meeting was held to discuss the quorum's division. Perhaps the best summary available of what was said on that occasion was provided by another apostle, Charles W. Penrose, some half-dozen years later: The charge was made that Brothers Taylor and Cowley were out of harmony with the Twelve with regard to marrying plural wives themselves and encouraging others to take plural wives. They [Taylor and Cowley] said they would answer if they could have five minutes to talk with President Smith, President Smith refused to talk with them and therefore they refused to tell whether they had taken other wives. The question of the scope of the manifesto was also discussed. The other brethren of the quorum maintained that it covered every place and they claimed it referred to the United States. Then the question of their resigning came up. They were out of harmony with regard to plural marriages and they resigned, the matter was kept quiet for a number of months with the hope that they might reconcile themselves with the Brethren later. They seemed to take

44

Ivins, "Polygamy in Mexico," pp. 5, 18, 20.

George F. Gibbs to George Teasdale, August 20, 1904, and Gibbs to Teasdale, January 6, 1905; Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. L u n d to Teasdale, November 2, 1905, in Joseph F. Smith Letterbooks. T h e local press linked Teasdale with Taylor and Cowley, accusing him of being equally guilty and predicting all three would be dropped from the quorum.

T h e article further alleged that the moving force behind the purge was Smoot. See Salt Lake Herald, April 8, 1906.

40 Carl Ashby Badger, Smoot's legal assistant, wrote his wife, Rose, in U t a h on April 9, 1905: "If nothing is done [about Taylor a n d Cowley] at the October Conference, I would not be in Senator Smoot's shoes for one million cold cashâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to be candid, I would not now." Carl Ashby Badger Letterbook, L D S Archives. Concerning Smoot's refusal to vote to sustain the apostolate as presented to the church at the a u t u m n 1905 conference, see Smoot to Badger, October 11, 1905, Carl Ashby Badger Collection, 1/8, L D S Archives, and Merrill, "Reed Smoot in Politics," p. 66.

13

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

29

the ground that they had the right to go ahead and in this were out of harmony. 4 7

Penrose's description constitutes a good summary of the many problems inherited from the Wroodruff Manifesto and the conflicting interpretations that arose concerning it. Reference to the unsuccessful request

by Taylor and Cowley that Smith be consulted suggests the connection in their minds between authority for post-Manifesto polygamy and the First Presidency. They also may have been seeking to be released from oaths of secrecy in the matter.4S Or, they may have wished to establish, in the presence of the quorum, if they were to be allowed liberties with the 1904 directive just as they and others had been with the old. The question of whether the Manifesto was binding on Mormons outside the United States, when authorization for such marriages had in fact been given, can on its best face only be interpreted as evidence that some now in the quorum were unaware of what had been going on for a decade and a half.49 It is significant, however, that Penrose's account indicates that it was less the activities of the past than Taylor's and Cowley's belief that they had the right to go ahead with the practice that placed them at odds with their brethren.

Differences of opinion and understanding on all these matters palpably illustrate how the constituency of the quorum was changing. At the time of their resignations in 1905, George Teasdale and Marriner W. Merrill were the only living apostles, apart from Taylor and Cowley, known to have taken polygamous wives since the Manifesto. And both of these men were to die within a year and a half. Gradually, there were few who remembered the secret authorizations of the pre-1904 period, few who remembered the affair as Taylor recalled it to the quorum later: T h e question was asked what d o you think about the idea of your resigning, as to the effect it would have upon the people, and I told you brethren that while I didn't support you in the policy of deposing the Apostles to make a showing in Congress and said I would not approve of the policy of the church in this regard, I would not oppose it. 50

Whatever else resulted from that meeting in late October 1905, it seems to have become apparent that a schism was not without advantage.

47

As quoted in Trials, p. 10.

See Cowley's comment on being placed under oath in ibid., pp. 15, 17.

49 Cowley told the quorum in 1911 that Marriner W. Merrill had told him that the 1904 Smith "Official Statement," like the Woodruff Manifesto, should be understood as applicable only to the United States. Ibid., p. 16.

50 Ibid., pp. 9-10.

48

30

Utah Historical Quarterly

Expulsion of some who were closely identified with continued polygamous marriages would go far to substantiate the claims of Smith. Taylor and Cowley themselves may have agreed to such an altruistic appropriation of their cases, considering it a mission call of sorts to help Smoot in his difficulties with the Senate and to assist the beleaguered church.

Whatever their motives, clearly such an event would have appeared as an open fracture in the hierarchical unity. For more than a month, until early December 1905, the brethren seem to have been uncertain how to proceed or what exactly to do.

Gradually, equivocation gave way to the decision that Taylor and Cowley should be dropped in the hope that notice of the event could be turned to the benefit of Senator Smoot and the church. This was not an easy step for the quorum to take. Hesitation by the apostles can be read in a coded telegram sent to Smoot in Washington by George F. Gibbs, secretary to the First Presidency: "Brethren beginning feel J. W. Taylor and Cowley should not be sacrificed unless required by C[ommittee] of Privileges] & Ejections] save you."51 Senator Smoot was troubled by the prospect of sacrificing anyone to save him and so expressed himself to Gibbs and members of the quorum. The leaders in Salt Lake City apprised Smoot, however, that the resignations, should they be accepted, were being given not for his benefit alone but for the "relief of the Church."52 By the time of the spring conference in early April of 1906, the Taylor-Cowley resignations were formally brought to light and new appointees sustained to take their places."3 A. S. Worthington, chief counsel for Smoot in Washington, wras duly notified on April 11, 1906, by telegram from George F. Gibbs and told that the resignations of Taylor and Cowley had been received and accepted the previous autumn.54 When the investigating committee reconvened hearings on April 13, Worthington brought Taylor's and Cowley's resignations to the committee's attention and had Gibbs's telegram read into the record of the 51 Gibbs to Carl Ashby Badger, telegram, December 8, 1905, Reed Smoot Collection, 5 0 / 1 , Lee Library. °2 Smoot to Gibbs, December 8, 1905, 4 8 / 6 , Reed Smoot Collection; Smoot to Joseph F. Smith, December 8, 1905, p. 4, Reed Smoot Correspondence, 1903-1935, LDS Archives; Gibbs to Smoot, December 9, 1905, 4 8 / 1 6 , Reed Smoot Collection; Francis M. Lyman to Smoot, December 15, 1905, Reed Smoot Correspondence.

53 Due to the death of Marriner W. Merrill the previous February, three new appointments were madeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;George F. Richards, Orson F. Whitney, and David O. McKay. 54 Gibbs to Worthington, April 11, 1906, Joseph F. Smith Letterbooks. The telegram also gave notice that Joseph M. Tanner, whose polygamous activity had been discovered by the Senate investigating committee and who was general superintendent of the LDS Sunday Schools, had been dropped from his position as well.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

31

Matthias F. Cowley'and'his wife Sarah Elizabeth Foss. USHS collections.

proceedings.55 The "sacrifice," made public in both Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C., was now complete. Ironically, as it happened, this particular episode probably had little to do with the final outcome of the Smoot case. Newspapers and public opinion seem to have begun swinging back into Smoot's favor anyway. And though most on the committee voted against the senator in their final report, the two-thirds majority required to expel Smoot, when voted upon on the floor of the Senate, failed. Apostle Smoot was welcomed into full fellowship in the Congress. He then went on, returned again and again by the Utah electorate, to serve out a distinguished career of thirty years.50 Numbers within the church, however, even beyond those directly involved, associated Smoot's ordeal with that of Taylor and Cowley, seeing them as â&#x201E;˘ Proceedings, 4 : 4 4 1 .

The committee's majority and minority reports were bound with Proceedings, 4 : 4 6 7 542. The best summary of the debates on the floor of the Senate as well as an account of the final votes is to be found in Holsinger's "J. C. Burrows and the Fight against Mormonism: 1 9 0 3 1907," pp. 188-94. The effect of Taylor's and Cowley's resignations on the committee was, if anything, probably reactionary: "The dropping of Taylor and Cowley from the Quorum of Twelve Apostles was so evidently done for popular effect that the act merits no consideration whatever, except as an admission by the first presidency and twelve apostles that Apostles Taylor and Cowley have each taken one or more plural wives since the Manifesto." Proceedings, 4 : 477. But see also, New York Times, April 11, 1906. For a survey of periodical literature as it reflected the public's attitude toward Smoot at this time and during the balance of his career, see Jan Shipps, "The Public Image of Senator Reed Smoot, 1902-32," Utah Historical Quarterly 45 ( 1 9 7 7 ) : 3 8 0 - 4 0 0 .

M

32

Utah Historical

Quarterly

having been sacrificed, judging it a maneuver forced upon church leaders by the times to secure public favor."7 So far as Taylor's and Cowley's personal views are concerned, differences between themselves and the quorum seemed to grow as time passed. The problem of differing interpretations led to quarrels and unkind language. Taylor took another plural wife in 1910.:,s Then, late that same year, there arose another storm in the press, thundering on what B. H. Roberts called "that same old question of polygamy and polygamous living."59 Although there were a number of publications involved, the Salt Lake Tribune, which published the names of some 200 Mormons married in polygamy since 1890, nettled church leaders more than any other.60 The church had moved beyond the tensions of the Smoot hearings, but the barrage of journalistic criticism was too massive to ignore.61 In early November 1910 the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles responded by deciding to remove men who had taken additional wives after the Manifesto from positions of authority in the church, and so answer the "Tribune clamor."6" In the cases of Taylor and Cowley, they were again called before the apostles and charged with contumacious behavior. In the course of hearing their stories, a great deal of information was divulged, portions of which have been used in this study to clarify matters relating to Mormon poly57 John G. M c Q u a r r i e , for example, then president of the Eastern States Mission, wrote to George Albert Smith: "I suppose you had a glorious time at the conference, but the dropping of two of your associates in office must have been a trial to the members of the quorum. I cannot help but think you loved those men, and it is a sad thing to see our friends fall through their own mistakes, or to know that they are making a sacrifice for our good." M c Q u a r r i e to Smith, April 23, 1905, George Albert Smith Papers, 3 4 / 9 . And a resident of the M o r m o n colonies in Mexico described feelings there as follows: "at the April Con. 1906. Apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias Cowley two of the most faithful of the Apostles were dropped from the Apostleship. . . . T h e cause for dropping such 2 good & righteous men was to allay the persecution, that is being waged against the L a t t e r day Saints. . . ." Williams, Reminiscenses and Diary, pp. 114-15.

Anthony W. Ivins indicated t h a t it was commonly believed in Mexico " t h a t Brothers Taylor a n d Cowley were dropped for political reasons only." Trials, p . 9. r>s See John Henry Smith Journal, vol. 34, February 18, 1911; Trials, pp. 2, 11.

50 Roberts, Comprehensive History, 6 : 4 1 3 .

00 Salt Lake Tribune, October 8, 1910. T h e Tribune published a series of lists between November 13, 1909, and J a n u a r y 18, 1911, naming a total of 232 men as having married in polygamy after the Woodruff Manifesto. This figure does not include 9 men dropped from the list as inaccurate.

61 Examples include: Richard Barry, " T h e Mormon M e t h o d in Business," Pearson's Magazine, November 1910; Cannon a n d Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah, serialized in Everybody's Magazine during 1 9 1 0 - 1 1 ; Alfred Henry Lewis, " T h e Viper on the H e a r t h , " Cosmopolitan Magazine, M a r c h 1 9 1 1 ; and many more.

62 See J o h n H e n r y Smith Journal, vol. 34, entries for November 8, 1910, a n d J a n u a r y 5, 1 9 1 1 ; Anthony W. Ivins Collection, 3 / 1 6 , January 7, 1911. T h e r e was also a concerted effort to round up and place on trial for their church membership those married in polygamy after 1904. Although the Taylor-Cowley "trials" are the best known, there were numbers of others.

See, for example, the cases recorded in Juarez Stake High Council Minutes and Historical Record, 1895-1917, p p . 144-46, 1 5 5 - 5 6 ; Historical R e c o r d - H i g h Council Minutes, Juarez Stake, Book D, 1 9 0 8 - 1 1 , L D S Archives; Reed Smoot Journal, Book 6, entries for September 27, 28, October l / 1 9 1 0 , and Book 7, entries for November 9 and 29, 1910, Lee Library.

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

33

gamy in the post-Manifesto years. It did little to assist Taylor and Cowley, however. Taylor was excommunicated and Cowley, more penitent, was disfellowshipped.63 In the years that followed, both men seemed to feel they had been unfairly used. Janet Taylor, John W.'s third wife, told her inquiring son that Joseph F. Smith, at the time of their resignations in 1905, had said to John W. of him and Cowley, "You brethren are called upon to make this sacrifice, but you will lose nothing from it. When things quiet down you will be reinstated."64 Cowley expressed a similar view of the matter when he recollected to Raymond Taylor (another of John W.'s sons) in 1937: When we were in council relative to our trouble brother [Charles W.] Penrose remarked, "These brethren (Cowley and Father) are not on trail [sic] nor have they committed any ofense [sic], but if they are willing to offer the sacrifice and stand the embarrassment, we will admit them back after the situation clears," or words to that effect. 65

As time passed and the hoped for reinstatement did not occur, resentment deepened. "They held us up," Cowley said, "in the eyes of the lay members of the church, and the nation as the 'ring leaders' when in fact we were no more guilty than those who supposedly took action against us."66 Cowley was later readmitted to full fellowship in the church. And a story told in the Taylor family holds that long before, in a ceremony on the shore of Utah Lake, on his own authority Cowley rebaptized Taylor into the church as well. It is also said that Smith, regretting his role in the dismissals, called privately at the Nettie Taylor home in Salt Lake City on the evening of Taylor's death, giving Nettie a small parcel containing temple robes in which to bury the former apostle.67 V Before concluding, it is important that what has been described, the involvement of church authorities in post-Manifesto polygamous C3 Trials, pp. 12, 18; John Henry Smith Journal, vol. 24, March 28, 1911; and the comments of Apostle Lyman recorded in Salt Lake Stake High Council Minutes, February 11, 1914, 14, LDS Archives.

Gi Taylor, "Interviews with Nettie M. Taylor, January 15, 1936, p. 4.

05 Raymond W. Taylor to Samuel W. Taylor, May 3, 1937. Raymond W. Taylor Collection, Lee Library.

66 Ibid.

67 Taylor, "Interviews with Nettie M. Taylor," July 1947, pp. 7, 26-27. For Cowley's reinstatement, see Deseret Evening News, April 3, 1936; for Taylor's, Record of the Reinstatement of the Late Apostle John Whittaker Taylor, 1858-1916 (n.p., 1965).

The home John W. Taylor built in Farmington for his wives Rhoda and Roxie Welling. USHS collections.

marriages, be seen in perspective. To focus narrowly upon the activities of church leaders as no more than an exercise in deceit, requires that one ignore the larger setting in which the events occurred. Plural marriage had become an integral, nearly central, feature of Mormon theology.

It constituted a conceptual nexus for Latter-day Saint belief concerning deity, priesthood, and the family. Many believed the doctrine to be irrevocable. To give in on polygamy, in the words of one early apologist, would "amount to forfeiting all that [we] have toiled for, bled for, prayed for, or hoped for, a miserable failure and a waste of life."68 It is only with appreciation for this kind of commitment that one can understand the dilemma confronting the church in the 1880s and 90s. Imprisonment and heavy fines, fractured families, confiscation of church properties, and political dispossession left church authorities with little choice, short of wholesale emigration. It was only logical that an attempt would be made at once to keep faith with their religious consciences while saving themselves from the storm. And, for a time, they were successful.

Discoveries resulting from the B. H. Roberts case, the Smoot hearings, and the attendant rash of investigations undertaken by journalists led to a period of revived notoriety for the church. What was referred to as "the new polygamy" became almost an anti-Mormon shibboleth 68 From an editorial in the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph, Polygamy," in Millennial Star, October 28, 1865.

reprinted as "The Government and

The Taylor-Cowley Affair

35

during the first decade and a half of the twentieth century.69 Having caught Mormons in the toils of unwanted subreption, critics then read both backward and forward, insisting that the Mormon church never intended at any time to give up the practice. The Woodruff Manifesto was but a device whose single purpose had been to assist the cause of statehood for Utah. The years between 1890 and 1896 then became, as one writer derisively called them, "an oppossum period" during which Mormonism only pretended to have changed.70 After statehood, it was argued, the Saints betrayed their machinations by a return to old ways.

But neither the foes of Mormonism nor its apologists adequately perceived that much more was involved than exposing secret marriages and establishing who had or had not told the truth. Neither side seemed to comprehend the magnitude of theological dysfunction then afflicting the church. Mormonism was, in fact, in the throes of doctrinal reformation. What had commenced as a posture of expediency became an increasingly orthodox departure from the past. Those who disparaged the church were perhaps too close to appreciate the dislocations resulting from years of unyielding pressure. Their laws and invectives wrought more than they knew. When one considers how deeply imbedded the belief in polygamy had become in Mormon theological consciousness, the fifteen-year period of indirection and awkward posing associated with its arrest is remarkably brief.

The number who participated in post-Manifesto polygamy, though larger than the church has been willing to admit, still marked a reduction from the volume of such marriages in earlier years. Frank Cannon's estimate that the number of such contractions may have amounted to two thousand or more was undoubtedly excessive and probably only reflected his anti-church-establishment zeal.71 Certainly, after 1904 the number of such marriages drastically, if not completely, declined. But to repeat, by themselves neither the occurrence of such marriages nor their number is of greatest significance. Rather, the prevarication and distress surrounding them trumpet a larger drama: the seismic adjustments occurring in Mormonism generally. This period also saw radical alterations in the colorful and significant doctrine of the gathering; 60 The phrase, which may have originated with Frank Cannon, seems to have been especially common during 1910-11. See, for example, Cannon and O'Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah, p. 338, passim; Richard Barry, " T h e Mormon Evasion of Anti-Polygamy Law," Pearson's Magazine, October 1910, p. 4 1 5 ; and Burton J. Hendrick, "The Mormon Revival of Polygamy," McClure's Magazine, February 1911, pp. 458-59.

70 Barry, "The Mormon Evasion," p. 466.

71 Cannon and O'Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah, pp. 351-52. Stanley S. Ivins was more correct in describing Mormon polygamy between 1890 and 1904 as "in its death throes."

See his "Notes on Mormon Polygamy," Utah Historical Quarterly 35 (1967) :312.

36

Utah Historical

Quarterly

church-directed colonization; the law of adoption; the kingdom of God as a temporal, political entity; the united order; confinement of the idea of Zion to a particular geographical region; and the urgent expectation of an imminent return to Missouri and the Second Coming of Christ.

All that was terrible and glorious about the final apocalypse, in the words of two articulate observers of the Mormon past, began its retreat "into a future comfortably remote." 72 The tow that for so long had drawn the Mormons to the edge of, and sometimes beyond, American society now began an inexorable return.

It is difficult to establish a precise time when the church may be said to have passed the critical point, to have so thoroughly acquired what Fawn Brodie has called the contemporary Mormon "passion for respectability."73 Perhaps 1911 is as good a year as any. As a part of the general rumpus in the press at that time concerning "the new polygamy," former President Theodore Roosevelt, who some believed had not been sufficiently critical of the Mormons, took up his pen in his and their defense. Before this essay was completed, however, Senator Smoot wrote to Joseph F. Smith from concern that Roosevelt might ask him about the charge of post-Manifesto marriages. Smith replied: If the President inquires about new polygamy tell him the truth. Tell him that President Cannon was the first to conceive the idea that we (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) could consistently countenance polygamy beyond confines of the Republic where we have no chartered law against it, and consequently he authorized the solemnization of polygamy in Mexico and Canada after the manifesto of 1890, and the men occupying presiding positions who became polygamists since the manifesto did it in good faith.74

Such an admission, so at odds with what Smith and others had said only a few years before, contradicting even the claims of his 1904 "Official Statement," clearly stamped the arrival of a new confidence in Mormon-American relations. But more telling than anything, perhaps, was the excommunication and disfellowshipping, the same year, of Taylor and Cowley. Men who a short generation before would have been lionized for their defiance of the law, now found themselves swept aside, victims of the shearing forces brought to bear as the church shifted tack, taking its new heading for the middle of the stream.

72

William Mulder and A. Russell Mortensen, eds., Among the Mormons: Historical

by Contemporary Observers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958), p. 423.

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, rev. ed.

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), p . 401.

74 Smith to Smoot, April 1, 1911, telegram, as quoted in the reply from Smoot to Smith, April 18, 1911. Reed Smoot Correspondence, l / d l 3 2 4 . Roosevelt seems never to have asked Smoot about "new polygamy." At least there is nothing concerning it in his essay as finally published in Collier's. Isaac Russell, " M r . Roosevelt to the M o r m o n s : A Letter with an Explanatory Note," Collier's, April 15, 1911.

Accounts

73

Martha Hughes Cannon, 1897. USHS collections.

'The Goose Hangs High": Excerpts from the Letters of Martha Hughes Cannon

BY C O N S T A N C E L. L I E B E R

O N

APRIL 20,

1886,

A

traveler leaving New York for England wrote cheerily to her husband in Salt Lake City, Utah. The letter read in part: Mrs. Lieber, a resident of Salt Lake City, became intrigued with_ M a r t h a Hughes Cannon's life in exile when she worked as manuscript cataloguer for the Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Original spellings have been retained.

38

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Dear M u n n : " T h e gallant ship is u n d e r weigh T o bear us off to sea.

And yonder floats the streamers gay T h a t says she waits for " w e " T h e seamen dip the ready oar As rippling waves oft tell T h e y bear us swiftly from the shore O u r native land farewell."

"Everything is lovely a n d the goose hangs high."

Sweet Elizabeth has not even got the "sniffles," and now lies rolling on the floor, has kicked off her stockings and is licking your photo. T h e way she crowed when I gave it her â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I d o believe she t h o u g h t it h a d some connection with her pa. H a v e h a d a splendid time. N o w 1 must p u t on babe's things and off we go. Tell m a all right.

M u c h love Maria1

This was, however, somewhat less than a pleasure journey, despite "Maria's" good cheer. The writer was, in fact, Martha Hughes Cannon, fourth polygamous wife of Angus Munn Cannon, president of the Salt Lake Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elizabeth was their seven-month-old daughter. The two, Martha and Elizabeth, were going to England into a self-imposed exile to avoid possible indictment for cohabitation, which could result in the imprisonment of Angus.

Martha "Mattie" Hughes was born near Llandudno, Wales, on July 1, 1857, the second daughter of Peter Hughes and Elizabeth Evans.

The family was converted to the Mormon religion by missionaries in the area and emigrated to the United States, arriving in Utah about 1860.

Three days after they arrived Peter Hughes died. Two years later his widow married James Patton Paul.

Mattie's dream was to become a doctor. Toward that end, she earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Deseret and in 1880 graduated from the medical school of the University of Michigan. She practiced medicine for a short time in Algonac, Michigan. Mattie was a resident physician at the Deseret Hospital in Salt Lake City when she met Angus Cannon,2 one of the hospital's directors, to whom she later 1 Angus Munn Cannon Collection, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 Angus Munn Cannon was born on May 17, 1834, in Liverpool, England, the son of Ann Quayle and George Cannon. The family emigrated to Illinois in 1842 and to Utah in 1849.

Martha Hughes Cannon

39

wrote: "I, as well as yourself know that we were created for each other, only I have been a little more mulish in acknowledging it."3 They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on October 6, 1884.

On January 20, 1885, Angus was arrested on the charge of unlawful cohabitation. His nephew wrote on January 22 that Angus's "case was continued today without any new developments. The principal witness, Miss Hughes, has not yet been found by the marshalls, although she has been on the street considerable attending to her patients." 4 On February 7 Angus was indicted for lascivious cohabitation. His final trial began on April 27 and resulted in a sentence of six months' imprisonment. He was released from prison December 14, 1885.

After the birth of Elizabeth on September 13, 1885, Mattie decided to enter into exile in England, rather than play hideand-seek with marshals in Utah and give them yet another opportunity to arrest her husband.

Insight into why she deemed it necessary to leave Utah is given by a contemporary journalist, The Deseret Hospital where Dr. Martha William M. Bromley, who in Hughes met Angus'M. Cannon. USHS 1882 recorded the opinion of collections.

Judge Charles S. Zane that no matter if a Mormon did not live with a plural wife, if he attended the Church at which she worshipped at the same time that she did, or if he spoke to her on the street or elsewhere, he was guilty of holding her out which constituted the offense of unlawful cohabitation, unless he had put her away, and given her a bill of divorcement. 5

Mattie was aware of this and wrote at one point from England, chiding her husband for using the term "wife": "of course / may make use

C a n n o n became president of the Salt Lake Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1876. H e was the brother of George Q. Cannon, a member of the First Presidency of the church. Prior to marrying M a r t h a Hughes, C a n n o n married Sarah M a r i a Mousley and Ann A m a n d a Mousley on July 18, 1858, a n d Clara Cordelia Moses on June 16, 1878. H e later took two other wives: M a r i a Bennion and J o h a n n a Danielson. Cannon died in 1915.

3 October 18, 1886, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

4 Diary of Abraham Hoagland Cannon, vol. 6, L D S Archives.

5 Diary of William Michael Bromley, vol. 3, p. 116, L D S Archives.

40

Utah Historical Quarterly

of the pleasant appellations as often as it pleases my fancy, for there is no law against women 'holding out.' "G This also explains the use of assumed names to prevent identification, a common practice among "undergrounders." Throughout most of the correspondence Mattie is "Maria" and Angus is "Munn," although for a short period in 1887 she signed herself "Emma Quirk" and referred to her husband as "James." In one letter dated September 6, 1887, she indicated that Angus was to address all further letters to "Mrs. Alace Bennett."

Mattie might have stayed in hiding in Utah, as many did, or gone into seclusion in one of the neighboring states, but this was against her character. In a letter written from Algonac, Saint Clair, Michigan, shortly after her return from England, she emphasized her determination "to breathe the Rocky Mountain air freely or not at all," for, she continued, "I would rather be a stranger in a strange land, and be able to hold my head up among my fellow beings than to be a sneaking captive at home."7 Angus recorded in his diary her decision to leave Utah. "I am told friend wants to go to England and I consent. . . . I leave her tonight with the saddest heart I ever felt." That was March 23, 1886; on April 10 he again wrote: "It was 10:30 when they left me and at 8 PM after putting in one of my lonliest days, I returned to City. . . ."8 Mattie began her trip, excited at a new adventure: "Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high." On May 4, 1886, she wrote: Have reached our destination at last. Can't say that I am particularly pleased though. "On the fly" is decidedly more agreeable to a temperment like mine; but of course there is a limit to all procedures. I am thankful to meet my relatives, and my poor dear Uncle is quite overcome in meetme, it is all so unexpected to them. . . .D

She stayed for a short period with these relatives (her mother's brother's family) in Birmingham, an arrangement that proved unsatisfactory. Her aunt she thought "one of the most ignorant women I ever met," and her aunt's children kept Elizabeth in hysterics.10 Those problems, combined with the necessity of hiding from her relatives exactly why she had come to England, made the stay difficult; so Mattie went 6

August 16, 1886, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

M a r t h a Hughes Cannon to Angus M u n n Cannon, March 19, 1888, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

8 Diary of Angus M u n n Cannon, vol. 6, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

9 M a r t h a Hughes Cannon to Angus M u n n Cannon, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection. " M a r t h a Hughes Cannon to Angus M u n n Cannon, May 20, 1886, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

7

Martha Hughes Cannon

41

to visit other, more distant relatives in Wolverton, near Stratford-onAvon. Emily Wells Grant, a plural wife of Heber J. Grant, and also an exile, wrote to her husband of Mattie's arrival: Mattie Munn arrived in England the other week, we were perfectly amazed. She stayed with us [in Liverpool] two days and then went among her relatives. The other day we had a letter from her declaring her intentions to return to more "congenial climes" inside of three months.

There is nothing will induce her to live here, after one weeks experience, she don't understand how Mrs. C. and I have stood it. There have been several exiles here since we came but they didn't any of them stay long.

I would advise Mrs. Munn to remain away from Utah, for were any of her enemies there to get one peep of little Miss Munn, they could convict the whole family. I never saw such an image in my life.11

A letter written on September 14, 1886, from Wolverton gives insight into the kind of life Mattie and other undergrounders were leading.

At that time Mattie was rooming with another exile, Mrs. Hull, and her young child.

Dearest: Trusting you are well and happy I hastily pen a few lines to repeat the request I made just before leaving for London, in reference to means.

Simply duplicating the statement for fear the first might miscarry in which case I would be thrown short of money. London expenses running up somewhat higher than they do here, the amount on hand will not hold out until Christmas, so I wrote you to forward about fifty dollars in receipt of my letter of I believe Aug 29, which I trust carried O.K. Elizabeth is cutting her teeth very well, four through, four additional ones swelling the gums. Yesterday was her birthday, and Mrs. Hull and babe, myself and Elizabeth Rachel hired a trap and drove to spend the day among the ruins of Kennelworth Castle, what a history connected with, and what romance and tragedy clusters around the ancient pile. Have you read Scott's Kennelworth? The distance there and back to this point is 25 miles. It was a galla day for us all. Mrs. Hull anxiously awaits a letter from her lover, perhaps summonsing her back to the City of the Lake. He is supposed to have reached that point by this time and if matters look tolerable safe will send for her. Upon the arrival of which news Steam cannot carry her quick enough. If it is thought unwise for her to return yet; she will stay by me, providing I will move to some point less lonesome than this, which was my intention before winter thoroughly set in. The country air is doing her babe good which contents her for the time being. Hunting moderate priced lodging in England isn't the most desirable occupation, as related by some of our women who are perambulating the country. One, a Mrs. B. who arrived a month or so later than myself sails on the 16 of next, thoroughly disgusted with Eng. so she states. People are somewhat loathe to accommedate women with babies especially when the latter have the

May 17, 1886, Heber Jeddy Grant Collection, LDS Archives.

42

Utah Historical

Quarterly

diarrhea. If I am alone I will write to Mrs. Brass N[ea]r London and see what arrangements I can make with her for the winter. If Mrs. Hull remains we will secure a place together, that is rooms and board and selves in some town probably Leamington near Warwich which is a nice little place. I am of the opinion that the folks at Liverpool have it the best.

Better lodgings, that is a good sized room in the office and better food for a much lower price than we have been able to secure elsewhere. I look back and picture those girls as always having things pretty easy. Still they are far from happy under the present circumstances. Stating to me when I saw them that they cried half their time. We women are figity things any way of course. It reminds me of when we were at the London Station.

One of the Station men told me what time our train would leave. Shortly after noticing that a number of trains were preparing to leave somewhere near the same time, I began to enquire which was ours, when the same man observed me and stepping up remarked, "I told you when your train was due, and what's the use of your figiting around that way for." Yes sir you told me when due, but not what train, and I propose "figiting around" until I find out. With that he laughed and said if we would look after the babies he would take care of the satchels and help us to board when the train was ready which he did very nicely. Now pet excuse this blotting pen is poor this time. You sometimes ask me to overlook mistakes.

Do likewise with me if I use words inappropriately as I don't believe there is a dictionary in the whole village. I notice that the D[eputy] M[arshals] are doing the "vigorous" the other side of Jordan. Endeavoring to discover luminous bodies, "Evening Stars," or a Star. Perhaps, or probably trying to surprise the cookoos in their nest. It is needless for me to say look out.

I trust you are sharp enough for that. Mrs. H. sends love, so does your set orb. Don't shine any more have twinkled out. Mâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; 12

The above letter brings out several facets of the exile's life in England. Overshadowing all other problems was the simple longing to be at home among loved ones. Mattie referred to the "folks at Liverpool."

Liverpool was headquarters of the European and British missions of the LDS church, presided over by Daniel H. Wells. His daughter, Emily Wells Grant, was living at the Liverpool office at that time. Possibly Mattie was referring to her among others. Emily expressed to her husband a slightly different view of Mattie's situation: "She [Mattie] and Mrs. Hull are living in the country and are getting fat. They have all the fresh air, milk, eggs, &c. they want and are quite contented since they have been so pleasantly located together."13 The need for anonymity was important. All the exiles used assumed names. Emily Grant went by Mrs. Harris. "Mrs. B." and "Mrs. Hull" were undoubtedly assumed names.

12 13

M a r t h a Hughes Cannon to Angus M u n n Cannon, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

October 27, 1886, Heber Jeddy G r a n t Collection.

Martha Hughes Cannon

43

Mattie employed many devices in her letter to convey messages to her husband that would be clear to him but obscure to anyone else should the letter be intercepted. "City of the Lake," for example, means Salt Lake City, and "the other side of Jordan" refers to Cannon's farm near the Jordan River in the Salt Lake Valley. The letter also reflects two of her recurring concerns: anxiety that Angus would be arrested and imprisoned again and jealousy toward his other wives. Angus had married his fifth wife, Maria Bennion, in March, and she was expecting her first child. "Evening Stars or a Star" refers to both Mattie and Maria Bennion, as Mattie explained to Angus in an earlier letter, at which time she thought she might also be expecting: Won't you be in a pickle, if both we luminaries "Stars of the sea" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "Star of the sea" is the meaning of the word Maria â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are . . . both due about the same time and one each side of the "Herring Pond" [Atlantic Ocean] . . . now I think of it 'rebellious' is another portion of the definition of M a r i a : "Bitter, rebellious, Star of the'Sea". . . , 14

The fear of being exposed was very real. Mattie referred in several letters to acquaintances who were visiting in England and assured Angus of her intention to avoid meeting them or even attending church where they might be present.

On January 3, 1887, Mattie wrote of an encounter with her uncle in Birmingham who had gotten wind of exactly why his niece was in England.

Reaching there my "unkey" cordialy kissed me, a genuine "Judas," telling aunt to prepare a repast, and positively I believe he had got wind of my arrival from some source, for they were prepared for us (Mrs. Hull was with m e ) . Excusing himself a few moments and going and taking a good pull at the whiskey flask, Parsons like to brace up I presume, and which according to his own statement is the only genuine luxury in life, getting us fairly seated at the board he commenced and sloan like he exhausted his eloquence, only upon a different theme. A verbatim report of which I am as uncapable of giving as you yourself would be unwilling to listen to. Will merely drop sufficient to let you catch the drift. Me, your dear little "Quirk" a base imposter, coming to this section under false pretenses. Ill health all a sham. More deeply steeped in deception than ever was woman to his knowledge" (Mother Eve not excepted I might a d d ) .

"As intriguing and conniving as ever was bold adventuress, some of the depths of whose villany he had sounded since my departure from his house. Nor had he obtained his information from the wind." And when I suggested that were the source of his information sounded it might disclose a little villainy on his part, he became furious, saying I was "not an honored wife, but connected with one of those things out there"! etc 14

June 6, 1886, Angus Munn Cannon Collection.

Utah Historical Quarterly

44

etc. I suppose one of "those things" meant you, although I never heard the term used in a masculine sense before. I'll not trouble you with more of this. . . , 15

By this time, Mattie and Mrs. Hull were feeling the need to move from the country, as Mattie explained further in the same letter: We are now in the "Smokey city" [Birmingham] which at this season suggests the idea of Hades as near as anything. But why leave our rural retreat you ask. For various reasons, chief among them this, that we remained such a mystery that the villagers were becoming exercised about it. " O u r seclusion, our remaining in so dull a place after the sunny days had fled, the air we had about us of having seen better days, moving beneath our station" etc etc., all suggested the idea of mystery, and so the buzz increased, until we were discussed in the highways, byeways, private gatherings, at firesides, and particularly at the "Red Horse" and "Bell I n n " over the beer pots.

Just think what important personages we are, and all this went on long before it reached our ears.

Latterly the name M o r m o n became associated with us and the tune changed. Those who did not know the meaning of the word, and they a vast majority, were enlightened by those who thought they did. A result of which as I was wheeling little Elizabeth] past a threshing machine one day, one of the "dow heads" remarked, "get thee up and help we the work, and get thee petticoats full a dust and then let one o we men to dust Angus Munn Cannon. them out, at thou hast no m a n . " USHS collections.

And a day or two later as Mrs. H. was walking u p the land she saw an old widower working on the roads who accosted her thus: " I say, I have na woman and thee na mon wouldn't it be nice for we to cuddle?"

Mrs. H . hurried home to ask what "cuddle" meant.

The following excerpt from a letter dated March 14, 1887, written from new lodgings in London, shows the melancholy that often overtook one "banished seven thousand miles" from home and loved ones.

15

Martha Hughes Cannon to Angus Munn Cannon, Angus Munn Cannon Collection.

Martha Hughes Cannon

45

T h e sentence "well I am astonished!!" has become a bye-word here, and from what you say it must have run through your mind when you learned that it had been hinted that my letter supply was "meagre," and that in the face of all your efforts to "do the nice." Well I laugh too, but darling listen: T h e r e was a time in my life when letters became a burden to me, for the labor required to answer them all wearied me. I imagine your present situation much similar, a multiplicity of things press upon you and accumulating letters become bores; but you could never realize my present situation unless you were suddenly banished seven thousand miles from the scenes of your former activity, your identity lost, afraid to audibly whisper your own name and limited to one correspondent, whose letters as he himself states have been "written in a constrained and cautious manner," sans sentiment. I write not thus to elicit sympathy, but only to tell you, you can never know what a boon a letter is under these circumstances, unless you pass through a similar experience, which lucky stars forbid . . . I a m beginning to realize more than ever how dear you are to me. Tell dear mother if you see her I will write her soon.

XXX

Maria 3

fi

Angus's son Lewis17 joined Mattie in London that summer. He, Mattie, and Elizabeth, spent pleasant days Martha Hughes Cannon and her daughter, touring in North Wales and Gwendolyn. USHS collections. took a three-day Cook's tour in Paris. The following excerpt is from a letter dated September 16, 1887, from the St. Petersburg Hotel, Paris.

My Loved O n e â&#x20AC;&#x201D; My admiration for this beautiful spot of Earth knows no bounds, and my feelings go out to the French people, such as I never dreamed they would to any class outside our glorious gospel, but such is the fact. Whereever the eye rests in this great centre can be seen the impress of intellect â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to wander through its collections of art, its palaces of departed monarchs, its halls of pleasure or drive through its gardens and boulevardes such as 10

Ibid.

Lewis Mousley Cannon, the son of Ann Amanda Mousley and Angus M. Cannon, was born in St. George, Utah, on April 1, 1866. He was in England waiting for a passport for Switzerland where he was to serve a mission for the LDS church.

17

46

Utah Historical Quarterly we have been doing the last three days â&#x20AC;&#x201D; has been a period of enchantment such as I never thought to experience on this mundane sphere. That I have seen some sad days in Europe, is a reality, but this visit to this surely most beautiful city in the world or the most beautiful I have ever seen has compensated for all. Our time is up to-night and we leave for Switzerland in the morning. We came on one of Cook's three days Excursion from London to Paris, when Hotel arrangements and guides are all provided without any trouble whatever. Lizzie has stood the whirl remarkable well, in fact I think her better than when I left London. This air is better for us both, much lighter and clearer than in England. . . . I have had no word from you for some time but suppose there is one waiting for me in London. When I return to England I shall make it a point to stay over a day or so in Paris again and then go to the grand Opera.

Do not think I am becoming intoxicated with the allurements of Babylon.

Not so, I look upon this treat as an oasis in the dreary desert I have trod for the past two years: an oasis sent from God, to chase away the shadows that have enthralled me. "Wedded, yet experiencing none of the elements of true wedded life," looked up on with suspicion by those who see me tarry here. But I must not complain as I am happier now than ever before in my married life. Kind love. Maria. . . .3S

Mattie went from Paris to Switzerland where she stayed in the vicinity of Bern from September 27 through about November 10. She booked passage on a steamer leaving Liverpool November 19. Her second trip to Paris, taken en route to England, was described by her as "a complete failure"19 due to bad weather and Elizabeth's illness. Her daughter was still sick upon their arrival in England, so the two stayed at the mission offices in Liverpool until December. This was a difficult period for Mattie, longing to "gaze on the faces of loved ones occasionally â&#x20AC;&#x201D; something we have been totally deprived of during our wanderings here" and worried about her "little pale-faced baby, greatly in need of home comforts."20 She had apparently written a scathing letter to her husband. His reply must have been wounding, for her next letter, written from the steamer taking her to America, though reminiscent of that first gay letter from New York, shows a sadder and more penitent traveler: Oh Papa, Papa!!

Your letter of the 16 ult. just to hand, and I feel like crying myself sick to think what a wicked girl I have been to hurt your feelings as I have. . . . My Own Loved One can you forgive and ever have confidence

18

M a r t h a Hughes Cannon to Angus M u n n Cannon, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

19

Martha Hughes Cannon to Angus Munn Cannon, November 13, 1887, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

20 M a r t h a Hughes Cannon to Angus M u n n Cannon, September 30, 1887, Angus M u n n Cannon Collection.

• ?# •{] tf O'tXl y ['(] r("f^ tf , n .y <j r y ^ [*'(> I o M §§•*% •

STATE OF UTAH, ) COUNTY OF SALT LAKE, T

/ , C. li. Stanton, ,/

w

County

Clerk,

in and for Salt Lake County, Utah, do hereby certify

/^J|^^^

elected to the office

on the, 3rd day of itiovember, <J. ©. i896, duly

/ ^ ^ i ) 5 & h ^ ^

e

//; and for Sail Laic Canity, State of Utah, for the term prescribed bij law.

lichen commissioned bij the §ouonor

yott will be qualified to act.

WifllCS S imj InirJ a,,J effida! sea! at Salt Lah <?/«/, bfr^^X^m^M.^r^r<J.

®. 1896.

t/na^r-^^^U^.^.-^^.^^^reiay _.

.

A

. \...<M^c^ ffi-^B-^;

S}j

: "

*

.

- . • : '

•

Martha Hughes Cannon and document certifying her election tolthe Utah State Senate. USHS collections. in me again — write as soon as you get this and say you forgive me. I a m frantic with grief when I think how I have wronged you. I must be brief as

W*

W^^tHF'

Jl^l

T h e gallant ship is under weigh.

T o bear us off to sea A

i

i

n

i

And yonder floats the gay streamer T h a t says she waits for me T h e seamen dip the ready oar As rippling waves oft tell They bear us quickly from the shore Old England now farewell!21

«|T

"WE

Mattie and Elizabeth were met on the East Coast by Cannon, and they spent a few pleasant days together. They did not, however, return with him to Utah. They spent some time in Algonac, Saint Clair, Michigan, and in Chicago, where Elizabeth received medical attention. Algonac was probably chosen as a stoppingover point because of the pleasant memories Mattie had of her school days there. She wrote to Angus of 21

December 2, 1887, Angus Munn Cannon Collection.

48

Utah Historical Quarterly my beautiful St. Clair of years agone. Which I always then saw in its summer loveliness, its surface roseate with morning sunbeams or its crystal waters reflecting the different hued lights from the many crafts that dotted its surface at evening. 'Twas here I used to compose love letters and dream. . . . 22

By the summer of 1888 Mattie and her daughter were in Salt Lake City in the home of her own she had so longed for.

The Manifesto ending polygamy, issued in September 1890 by LDS church president Wilford Woodruff, enabled Mattie to live openly in Salt Lake City and pursue a more normal life. She and Cannon had two other children: James Hugh Cannon, born on May 19, 1890, and Gwendolyn Hughes Cannon, born April 20, 1899. Mattie continued her medical practice and became active in politics. She attended the Women's Congress at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, as one of the speakers, and also appeared before a congressional committee in Washington, D.C., to give a synopsis of political work done by women in Utah. The Chicago Record of May 15, 1893, recorded "Mrs. Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon . . . is considered one of the brightest exponents of women's cause in the United States."

In 1896 she was elected to the Utah State Senate, the first woman state senator to be elected in the United States. The contest is of interest as Martha, running on the Democratic ticket, had as a competitor in the race her husband, Angus, who was running on the Republican ticket.

They were in a field of ten candidates "at large," five in each party.

Elizabeth wrote of this election that "much to his [Angus's] relief, his wife was elected."23 From September 1904 until January 1905 Mattie and her children were in California. Then, convinced that living at sea level would improve her health, Mattie moved her family there permanently in 1906.

Later years were divided between California and the Utah home of her daughter Elizabeth. The last twelve years of her life were spent in Los Angeles, where she worked in the orthopedic department of the Graves Clinic. She died in Los Angeles on July 10, 1932, at age seventy-five.

22 2:i

City.

February 15, 1888, Angus Munn Cannon Collection.

Manuscript by Elizabeth Cannon McCrimmon, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake

^

•1

•••

e

,

.

,

• • -

tfc

• ;

Self-portrait, 1868, of Fredt Gallery, London. /

Piercy. Courtesy of the National Portrait •

"Entitled to Be Called an Artist": Landscape and Portrait Painter Frederick Piercy

BY WILFORD HILL LECHEMINANT

50

Utah Historical Quarterly

in history rests on his forty-five drawings which originally appeared in 1855 in his book, Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley, Illustrated, (Illustrated Route).

These drawings are an important part of the pictorial record of America's westward expansion in the mid-nineteenth century before the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Yet, little has been known of Piercy aside from the six-month period recorded in his journal during his trip to Utah in 1853, the trip on which he made his historical sketches. This journal was published with his pictures on his return to England and is the best available insight into Piercy's personal qualities and interests. A little more of his life story can be pieced together from references to Piercy found in the diaries and letters of his Mormon contemporaries. Most of this information concerns the period of his life from his eighteenth year, when he joined the Mormon church, until he was "cut off" from the church nine years later for declining Brigham Young's request that he emigrate to Utah.

Born on January 27, 1830, Frederick Piercy was the eighth of nine children in the family of George and Deborah Adams Piercy. Both of his parents and all of their children were born in Portsea, Hampshire, England. Piercy was baptized a Mormon on March 23, 1848, and subsequently advanced in the church's priesthood. In 1849, after being ordained a priest, he himself baptized converts on at least three occasions.

He was also secretary of the LDS London Conference in 1849 and 1850.1 Piercy married Angelina Hawkins on September 15, 1849. They had eleven children. The first, Emily, was born in 1850; the last, Guy, was born in 1876. Their second child, George, was christened in the LDS London Conference on September 19, 1852. Thus, they had two children before Frederick's journey to Utah. Angelina, a few months older than Frederick, was nineteen when she was baptized a Mormon by FREDERICK PIERCY'S MODEST PLACE

Dr. LeCheminant is a physician living in Bountiful, Utah. He wishes to acknowledge the library assistance of Jeffery O. Johnson of the LDS church's Historical Department.

1 Zina Biggs Brimhall, Family Group Sheet of George and Deborah Piercy, Genealogical Society Library, Salt Lake City; Membership Record of England, British Mission, pt. 26, London Conference, p. 21, no. 384, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City; Millennial Star 11 ( 1 8 4 9 ) : 287, 12 ( 1 8 5 0 ) : 15.

Fawn Brodie and others refer to Piercy as Frederick Hawkins Piercy. The middle name, Hawkins, is not his. It is Angelina's maiden name and was given to their son, Frederick, born in 1856. The younger Frederick Piercy is listed among students of the Royal Academy of Arts and in 1874 was beginning a three-year sculpturing course. On a list of Royal Academy exhibitors are Frederick Piercy, painter, and Frederick Hawkins Piercy, sculptor, both with the same London address. Frederick Hawkins Piercy later became art master at Bedford College and often went by Hawkins Piercy to distinguish himself from his father. See Royal Academy of Arts Students, 1769-1922, vol. 2, microfilm no. 558, 349, Genealogical Society Library. Some of this information was obtained from Joan Piercy, London, a granddaughter of Frederick Hawkins Piercy.

Frederick Piercy

51

John Banks on November 8, 1848. Members of her family had joined the church a month earlier.2 Curtis E. Bolton, one of the first Mormon missionaries to France, described a meeting of six elders in the London home of a Sister Stayner on June 17, 1850. Frederick Piercy, one of these elders, was set apart to go on a mission to France by LDS Apostle John Taylor who was in Europe to establish the French Mission of the church. Eight days later Piercy left Angelina at home, pregnant with their first child, and went with Arthur Stayner to Paris. In the meantime, John Taylor engaged Protestant ministers in heated public "discussions" in Boulogne-sur-mer.

The local newspaper, the Boulogne Interpreter, printed a transcript of these meetings from which the elders developed a proselyting tract. On July 19, 1850, Bolton joined Piercy and Stayner in Paris. The next day Bolton wrote, "Bro. John Taylor and I writing a pamphlet of his Boulogne discussions to be published in England. . . . Bro. Piercy sketching a lithographic likeness of Brother Taylor for the Pamphlet." In his next entry, September 1, Bolton said, "Fred Piercy left for London, having finished Elder Taylor's two likenesses." Also on September 1, Angelina gave birth to a daughter, Emily. Next, Bolton noted that John Taylor returned to England September 6, the same day that the records of the London Branch indicate Taylor officiated at the blessing of the Piercy infant.3 At the time of Piercy's Utah journey, the LDS church's membership in the British Isles was about 30,000, more than the total population of Utah. 4 Mormon leaders were urging as many Saints as possible to "hasten to Utah." Just over 2,300 Mormons emigrated from Europe in 1853 under the agency of Samuel W. Richards, then president of the British Mission and also publisher for the church in England.

The idea of creating a "collection of engravings of the most notable places" on the Mormon emigration route originated with Piercy and Samuel W. Richards early in 1853. Under an agreement with Richards to publish such engravings, Piercy traveled to America to make the

2 Membership Record, British Mission, pt. 26; Branch Registration; Children's Blessings, etc., England, British Mission, London Conference, pt. 25, LDS Archives. Banks later became a leader of the schismatic Morrisites and was killed during the so-called Morrisite War. 3 Curtis E. Bolton, Diaries, 1850, LDS Archives. This same meeting is also reported in the diary of William Cutler, LDS Archives.

Arthur Stayner was fifteen when he joined the LDS church and a few months later accompanied Piercy to France. He was born at Saint Peter Port, Guernsey, and was well educated.

H e emigrated to U t a h in 1852 and settled in Farmington, where he served as Davis County clerk.

In the 1880s he experimented with sugar beets and helped promote the first sugar factory in Utah.

4 Statistical Report ; British Mission, ending June 30, 1853; Millennial Star 15 (1853) :510.

Frederick Piercy

53

Opposite: Ferry and cottonwood trees at Council Bluffs, Iowa, in water color and pencil by Frederick Piercy. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston.

sketches. He sailed from Liverpool February 5, 1853, a week after his twenty-third birthday.5 On boarding the Jersey, Piercy identified two of his cabinmates as "young Joe H. and his brother, John."r> On the passenger list of the Jersey was John Hyde, Jr., age nineteen, and Joseph Hyde, age ten.

Both were listed from the London Conference, as was Piercy, while most other passengers were from other conferences of the church.7 Frederick Piercy and John Hyde, Jr., were friends. In 1856 Hyde left the church while en route to a church mission in Hawaii. The next year he published Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs, an anti-Mormon book.8 Hyde used copies of several of Piercy's pictures from the Illustrated Route in his book. However, these engravings are of poor quality and (fortunately for the artist) Hyde did not give Piercy credit for them.

At New Orleans Piercy left his shipboard companions and on his own traveled up the Mississippi River on paddle-wheel steamboats, stopping over at key landings along the way to draw scenes of the great river and its fledgling cities. After a side trip to Nauvoo and Carthage, Illinois, he went back to Saint Louis and took a steamboat up the Missouri River to Saint Joseph and then traveled by land to Council Bluffs. There he joined American Mormons from Potawattamie County, Iowa, who were organizing a wagon company for Utah. Piercy actively served as a mule skinner and at times handled an ox team. His opportunities to sketch the scenes and famous landmarks of the trail were sometimes hurried while the wagons moved on but were often taken during the usual delays of the road, such as those imposed by wagon repairs and by the crossing of streams and rivers. The scenes of the Mormon trail were essentially the same as those viewed by tens of thousands of non-Mormon settlers going to Oregon and California. Thus, Piercy's illustrations of this main road across the prairie and over the Wyoming Rockies relate to much of America's early growth west of the Mississippi River.

Fawn Brodie observes that Piercy's travel narrative "maintains a quiet detachment" from Mormon issues. During the parts of Piercy's 5 Frederick Piercy and James Linforth, Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley, ed. Fawn M. Brodie (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 35, 43, 3, 62.

0 Piercy and Linforth, Route from Liverpool, p. 65.

7 Emigration Record, Liverpool Office of British Mission, 1849-55, pt. 1, Jersey passenger list, February 4, 1853, LDS Archives. s John Hyde, Jr., Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs (New York, 1857).

54

Utah Historical Quarterly

journey when he was closely associated with LDS emigrants he makes no reference at all to the religious motives or the basic hopes and expectations of his Mormon comrades. His commentary on the Mormons is limited to factual observations of their mundane travel experiences.

In contrast, Piercy is fascinated with people of the riverboats and riverfront towns. He reports interviews and anecdotes of the laborer, the deckhand, the black slave, and the innkeeper.

After making his sketches of the Mississippi River towns, Piercy had a happy reunion with "J. H " at Keokuk, where the Mormon emigrants were camped. Piercy and a group of eight or ten people left Keokuk for Nauvoo, twelve miles away. That John Hyde, Jr., may have been one of those with Piercy is implied by Hyde: From Keokuk, I payed a visit to Nauvoo, in company with an estimable and talented gentleman, then a Mormon, but whom a view of Salt Lake doings has since caused to apostatize and return to England.

I spent several days conversing with J. Smith's mother, wife and family, and heard many charges against Brigham and His associates for actions in which, according to the Smiths, they had disobeyed the injunctions, contradicted the teachings, and maligned the memory of their late Prophet. 9

Piercy lodged at the Nauvoo Mansion, where Joseph Smith's family still lived and listened to the prophet's mother who "spoke very freely of her sons, and with tears in her eyes, and every other symptom of earnestness, vindicated their reputations for virtue and truth."10 Piercy drew portraits of her and two of her grandsons. Three and a half years later, in the fall of 1856, Erastus Snow and George A. Smith presented a copy of the Illustrated Route to the Smith family in Nauvoo, a gift of "the brethren in the Liverpool office."11 The keeper of the Carthage jail was away during Piercy's visit, and a girl showed him through the building. His sketch of the room in which Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed depicts a young lady pointing to the bullet holes in the wall. Her audience is a man in dress suit with his back to the viewer. He is holding what is likely an artist's portfolio under his left arm, suggesting that Piercy sketched himself into this scene.

In his last entry in the published journal, the young artist describes his arrival in Salt Lake City in an almost poetic word picture.

9

Ibid., p. 19.

Piercy and Linforth, Route from Liverpool, p. 94.

11 Edward L. Hart, Mormon in Motion (Salt Lake City: Windsor Books, 1978), p. 146.

10

Frederick Piercy

55

By the time we entered Great Salt Lake City darkness had enveloped it, shutting out from my straining eyes all details. I could see that the streets were broad and hear the refreshing sound of water rippling and gushing by the road side. Occasionally a tall house would loom u p through the gloom and every now and then the cheerful lights came twinkling through the cottage windows â&#x20AC;&#x201D; slight things to write about, but yet noticed with pleasure by one fresh from the plains. A happy meeting with relatives and a few moments of wakefulness ended the 9th of August, and also ends my hastily sketched and simple narrative. 1 2

Frederick presumably was greeted by his older sister, Syrina, and her husband, Thomas Biggs, who had joined the Mormon church in London, March 24, 1848, on her twenty-second birthday, and a day after Frederick was baptized. The Biggs family had emigrated to Utah and lived in Provo at the time of Piercy's visit to Utah.13 Little information exists on Piercy's stay in Utah. He did sketch scenes of the area, two of which, the Utah Territorial House and the old Tabernacle, were to be in the Illustrated Route, according to the prospectus, but are not in the published work.14 Also, Brigham Young posed for Piercy who arranged for the sitting by letter.

It has long been my desire to have the honor of executing a Portrait of you, worthy of both yourself and me, and now that I a m so near you, I cannot resist the temptation of making the request. I a m certain that my motives are not mercenary, for I have decided that if I a m not allowed to do it for the pleasure and honour of it, I will not do it at all. 15

On October 14, 1853, Samuel W. Richards sent a draft for seven pounds from Liverpool to Piercy in care of the church office in Saint Louis.10 This was sufficient to pay his way back to England. The only reference to his return to England notes that he was at sea en route home on December 27, 1853.17 He probably left Utah by mid-October and arrived in England in January 1854 if he sailed from the East Coast and not New Orleans.

After Piercy's return to England early in 1854, the scope of the project grew beyond the original plan. The collection of pictures was greater than intended, and Piercy's portraits of members of Joseph 12

Piercy and Linforth, Route from Liverpool, p. 127.

Zina Biggs Brimhall, Family Group Sheet of Thomas and Syrina Biggs, Genealogical Society Library. u Millennial Star 16 (1854) :330.

15 Piercy to Young, undated, Incoming Correspondence, 1853, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Archives.

10 Samuel W. Richards, Journal, LDS Archives.

17 Piercy and Linforth, Route from Liverpool, p. 65.

13

Utah Historical

56

Quarterly

Smith's family and of Brigham Young led to the inclusion of portraits of other Mormon leaders taken from daguerreotypes. The landscapes, the portraits, and Piercy's well-written account of his journey were given to James Linforth to edit. Linforth was on the staff of the Millennial Star and a secretary in the mission office. He added lengthy footnotes on the people and places reported in Piercy's narrative "in order to render it not only ornamental and interesting, but really useful."18 Linforth also wrote travel instructions for emigrants and a detailed review of the Mormon emigration experience through 1855. The work became a magnificently illustrated travel guide to help gather the Mormon faithful of Europe to the mountain valleys of Utah.

On June 14, 1854, two weeks before his release as mission president, Samuel W. Richards "examined the manuscript of the first number of the Illustrated Route."19 The November 4, 1854, issue of the Millennial Star carried a notice that several hundred copies of Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the Illustrated Route were available to those who wanted only the history of the LDS emigration from Europe without the entire work. In addition, it noted, Samuel W. Richards by Frederick Piercy "We are able also to supply 300 for Millennial Star shows the artist's new subscribers for the whole skill as an engraver. wrork."

The book was published in Liverpool in fifteen monthly parts from July 1854 to September 1855 and names as publisher Franklin D. Richards, successor to Samuel W. Richards. Those who planned to emigrate

Ibid., p. 3.

Richards Journal, June 14, 1854.

Frederick Piercy

57

before all parts of the book were completed were advised to pay before departure and obtain the remaining parts in Utah. In November 1854 Samuel Richards, then in Utah, advertised in the Deseret News that the work could be ordered for delivery with the next spring's emigration.

On August 31 James Linforth wrote Brigham Young that he was sending him the first two parts of the book. The third part was not completed because of "disappointment of the artists (engravers') engaged."

Linforth was still gathering information and asked Young to help him obtain biographical data from those whose portraits were to be in the book. Linforth also commented, Your portrait, I understand from Brother Piercy, was approved by you and he informs me that you would like a number of copies sent out to you when engraved, which I shall feel a pleasure in connection with Brother Piercy in complying with. W e shall at the close of the work furnish you with a suitable copy of it. 20

Two and a half years later Young expressed to Linforth, then in Utah, what may be a different opinion. He did not refer specifically to his own portrait, but he did say, "Some of the likenesses are so far from the truth, I think of having them engraved again from photographic likenesses sent on."21 James Ferguson reviewed the Illustrated Route in the Millennial Star on April 5, 1856. He considered Piercy's sketch of Brigham Young "deficient" but added, "In the Prophet Brigham there is a peculiarity of expression, which defies alike chisel and pencil." Ferguson judged Piercy's portraits of the mother and sons of Joseph Smith as excellent and those of Willard Richards and the patriarchs, John Smith, Sr., and John Smith, Jr., as "faithful likenesses." He concluded, "Taking the sketches in aggregate, the work is superior to anything I have ever seen. It is. . . a vivid history of some of the most important epochs and sojournings of the Church, and will survive in truthfulness, any vicissitudes of time or chance."52 However, by 1855 the church was routing its emigrants to East Coast ports instead of New Orleans to avoid epidemic fevers associated with the Mississippi River. With this change the book may have lost some of its practical value. To what extent the book was used is uncertain. In 1857 Orson Pratt wrote Brigham Young from England, "There has been no sale whatever of the book for an entire year."25 20

Linforth to Young, August 31, 1854, Incoming Correspondence.

Young to Linforth, March 14, 1857, Letter Press file, Brigham Young Papers.

"Millennial Star 18 (1856) :221-23. Piercy acknowledges that the Willard Richards and John Smith portraits are from daguerreotypes.

23 Pratt to Young, June 27, 1857, Incoming Correspondence.

21

5g

Utah Historical Quarterly

Nevertheless, since their original publication in the Illustrated Route, Piercy's pictures have been used in many histories of the American West, especially accounts of the Mormon pioneering epic. One authority considers the book to be "one of the basic sources of illustrated western Americana of the period."24 However, Piercy himself is not well known or readily associated with his pictures. Sometimes his prints are used without credit being given him. He is acknowledged as the artist for only one of seven of his pictures used in B. H. Roberts's Comprehensive History of the Church. In some books, such as Nauvoo by Robert B. Flanders, credit for Piercy illustrations is given to the libraries supplying the pictures, while recognition of the artist is ignored.

The cultural importance of Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley is also recognized by the publication of two later editions.

A limited number of replicas of the original work were produced in 1959

by Bookcraft of Salt Lake City. A 1962 edition, edited by Fawn M. Brodie, was sponsored by the John Harvard Library as part of a project, noted on the book jacket, to republish a series of significant books of America's past and thereby "create a library that will, in time, cover the full range of cultural achievements in this country." The historic value of Piercy's drawings has been further enhanced by the unfortunate loss over the years of similar paintings by other artists of this period.20 Although Piercy had just turned twenty-three when he embarked on his long journey to Utah, he was already an accomplished artist and a skilled engraver. In his narrative he states, "I thought myself entitled to be called an artist, because I had attempted to produce works of art for a number of years and I had lived by my profession."20 By that time, 1853, four Piercy works had been exhibited in London, two at the Royal Academy of Arts and two at the Suffolk Street Gallery. The first of these was shown at the academy when he was only eighteen years old,27 the same year he joined the LDS church.28 What formal training in art Piercy may have received in his youth is not known. His father crafted model ships for the British Admiralty for his livelihood and apparently was an amateur painter. Upon his

" R o b e r t Taft, Artists and Illustrators of the Old West, 1850-1900 (New York, 1953), p. 285.

25 Piercy and Linforth, Route from Liverpool, p. xxiii.

20 Ibid., p. 82.

27 Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, a Complete Dictionary of Contributors . . . (London 1906), vol. 7, p. 151; Antique Collectors Club, Works Exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists, 1824-1893 (Suffolk, 1975), vol. 1, p. 371.

28 Membership Record, British Mission, pt. 26.

Frederick Piercy

59

death in 1872 he bequeathed his pictures and painting supplies to Frederick. In evaluating original Piercy drawings now owned by the Missouri State Historical Society, Mary Powell says, "The engravings . . . show him to be well trained in the topographical manner of the mid-nineteenth century English landscape school." She concludes, "He draws his subject with conscientious attention to detail, but his feeling for natural beauty appears in the varied forms of clouds and trees and his emphasis on sparkling light which he achieves by touches of opaque white for highlights."29 Original Piercy sketches are also found in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Jonathan Fairbanks, curator of American decorative arts for the museum, points out that for many of his scenic drawings Piercy used a camera lucida, a lens device that projects the scene onto the artist's paper and essentially allows him to trace the view. This technique gives his scenes a photographic accuracy and a greater scope than possible with the photographic cameras of that time.30 Piercy's specialty is listed as portraits by the Royal Academy of Arts.31 Of the fourteen portraits in the Illustrated Route, Piercy drew five. The others were engraved from daguerreotypes or from portraits by other artists. In Nauvoo, Piercy drew from life the portraits of Joseph Smith's mother and two of his sons, Joseph and David Smith. Brigham Young sat for Piercy in Salt Lake City. John Taylor's portrait may be one of the two likenesses Taylor posed for while he and Piercy were in France in 1850.

The church had utilized Piercy's talents before he produced his Illustrated Route. Between 1849 and 1852 his portraits of Orson Pratt, John Taylor, and Franklin D. Richards were used with Mormon publications in England.32 In January 1853, just before Piercy's departure for Utah, a composite panel of individual portraits of the then-current general authorities of the LDS church was printed in Liverpool. Piercy is credited as the engraver of these portraits taken from daguerreotype photographs made in Utah by Marsena Cannon.33 In 1854, after his 23 Marriage Record of Frederick Piercy and Catherine Agnes Wornum, 1884, Public Records Office, Saint Catherine's Flouse, London; Will of George Piercy, 1872, Public Records Office, Somerset House, London; Mary M. Powell, "Three Artists of the Frontier," Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 5 (October 1948), pp. 34-39.

30 Personal communication from Jonathan L. Fairbanks, curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

31 Algernon Graves, Dictionary of Artists Who Have Exhibited Works . . . (Bath, England, 1901), p. 219.

32 Orson Pratt, Series of Pamphlets ... with Portrait...

(Liverpool, 1851), Special Collections, Salt Lake City Public Library. John Taylor, A Discussion Held in France . . . (Liverpool, 1851), in ibid, and LDS Archives.

33 A copy is in LDS Archives.

60

Utah Historical Quarterly

return from America, he did a portrait of Samuel W. Richards for the Millennial Star; and in 1856 he engraved an architectural perspective of the Salt Lake Temple for Truman O. Angell, the church architect.34 Truman Angell tells of his dealings with Piercy over a six-month period ending January 9, 1857. Angell, Brigham Young's brother-in-law and the architect for the Salt Lake Temple, was sent to Europe by the church to recover from the demanding pressures of his work. He brought with him a daguerreotype copy of what he called a "temple plate," an architectural perspective of the Salt Lake Temple. Angell arrived in Liverpool July 14, 1856, and promptly asked the mission president, Franklin D. Richards, for help in having the "temple plate" engraved.

Frederick Piercy was at the mission office and agreed to find an engraver for him. Piercy could not find the engraver he wanted and proposed to do the job himself for a fee of forty pounds. Angell agreed to this and subsequently met with Piercy from time to time until the engraving was completed in mid-November. Angell then had prints of the temple made and sold them in England and America.

Angell next engaged Piercy to make an engraving of Brigham Young's house to be used as Young's letterhead. It was relative to this that on December 8, 1856, Truman Angell and Elder John Kay went to Piercy's home where, Angell reported, T o our surprise we were cooly received or, we judged so. As we knocked on the door a child came and said Mr. Piercy was not at home. We asked for the woman. She came to the door and we entered but O h , the cold feelings. But after informing her of our business, we left desiring that he should send us a line. an

Angell did not identify the woman and child, who could well have been Angelina and five-year-old Emily. This "cold reception" may have been related to the circumstances surrounding the excommunication of Frederick and Angelina three months later on March 6, 1857.36 Some of these circumstances couple Piercy with James Marsden and are found in the correspondence between Brigham Young and Orson Pratt, then mission president, in England. In October 1856 a letter of Brigham Young began with a reference to "a list of persons not coming to Utah, who were sent for and reasons why." Near the end of this lengthy letter he added, "Brother Marsden's labors are not needed in Europe, let him, and also Frederick Piercy come immediately to Zion 84

A copy is in LDS Archives.

Truman O. Angell, Diaries, 1856, LDS Archives.

30 Membership Record, British Mission.

3o

;i_/.

;;. • -

•;":.

" * ?.!&

ire-

Top: view of Great Salt Lake City, pencil drawing; left: Independence Rock, print; right: near Linden on the Kanesville Road, watercolor. All by Frederick Piercy.

Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

.

" ' : . . "; :

:; :: : . ^

62

Utah Historical

Quarterly

or be cut off from the Church and give no countenance to F. Piercy's publication of his travels." In January 1857 Pratt responded that James Marsden was planning to go to the valley without his wife and children, who refused to go with him. However, in his letter of April 2, 1857, Pratt told Young, "James Marsden and Fred Piercy have declined going to the Valley and have been cut off from the Church." This report immediately followed Pratt's brief statement that the church's "reformation program is going well in Europe and should result in much good."2 In the Millennial Star, April 18, 1857, appeared an explanation that Brigham Young had requested Piercy and Marsden to come to Utah and that these "brethren" had been excommunicated for failure to comply with "this requisition of the First Presidency . . .and for other transgressions." Brigham Young's next letter to Orson Pratt, May 29, 1857, asserted, "Bros. Marsden and Piercy have not disappointed us from what we have seen and learned of them." This comment was associated with a reference to the LDS reformation and followed by a theological discourse on obedience to the gospel.38 James Linforth left England for Utah with Franklin D. Richards in July 1856. They stopped in New York City where John Taylor introduced them to the editor of Leslie's Illustrated Paper who was reproducing some of Piercy's engravings from the Illustrated Route for his periodical.39 In Utah Linforth met with Brigham Young who agreed to purchase the engraved plates and the copyright to the Illustrated Route for 200 pounds. He confirmed this decision in a letter to Linforth on March 14, 1857,40 and two weeks later, April 1, Brigham Young wrote Orson Pratt regarding the purchase: You will please credit J a m e s Linforth for 100 pounds and charge this office, this is for the p a y m e n t of the plates, blocks, etc., belonging to J a m e s Linforth a n d Frederick Piercy. I enclose a d o c u m e n t to which you will please get the signature of F. Piercy and u p o n his depositing the plates and all matters pertaining to the said work published by Piercy a n d Linforth, then you will pay him 100 pounds, the balance of said purchase of copyright, etc., a n d for this office also, and return to me said paper. You will deposit the plates, blocks, etc., pertaining to this work in a place of safety till we give you further instructions in reference to them. 4 1

37 Young to Pratt, October 30, 1856, Letter Press file: Pratt to Young, January 30 and April 2, 1857, Incoming Correspondence.

3S Young to Pratt, May 29, 1857, Letter Press file.

39 Linforth to Asa Calkin in Millennial Star 18 (1856) : 683-85.

40 Young to Linforth, March 14, 1857; Young to Pratt, April 1, 1857, Letter Press file.

41 Ibid.

Frederick Piercy

63

Piercy did not receive the entire 100 pounds Brigham Young had agreed to pay him. Unaware of Young's purchase of the rights to the book, Piercy had negotiated independently with Orson Pratt and reluctantly had accepted 75 pounds for his part. When he learned the entire story from Linforth, he wrote Orson Pratt, June 23, 1857, and also sent a copy to Brigham Young saying, "Herewith I send you a correct copy of a letter addressed by me to Orson Pratt. It would be a gratification to me to know, and let others know, that you do not countenance the dishonourable transaction detailed in it." His letter to Pratt stated: Sometime ago I wrote you offering the whole of my share1 in the Route to Salt Lake Valley Illustrated for 100 pounds. Upon your declining to purchase and informing me that you had received orders from the Valley to give no encouragement to the book and also publishing the same in the Star, I offered you the half relating to the Church for 50 pounds. This you also refused to buy.

On the 8th of June (after a mail had come in from GSL) you wrote me saying that you had reconsidered my proposition of May 23 and offered me 50 pounds for the whole. Of course, I felt certain that you had not reconsidered it but that Brigham had instructed you to buy. But I had no proof of this, and therefore foolishly said that you should have it for 75 pounds. In your reply you agreed to purchase for that sum but said, "I made you the offer in order to pressure Linforth's interests." Now sir I am prepared to show you that you have not reconsidered my proposition and that no sudden regard for Linforth's interest impelled you to go in direct opposition to Brigham's councils and your obvious intention in the Star.

My proof is the following contract from a letter of James Linforth's dated March 29 and sent from your office yesterday.

This letter continued with a copy of Brigham Young's agreement with Linforth and a copy of Linforth's letter advising Piercy that he had executed a deed of transfer to Brigham Young for his part in the book.

Linforth also congratulated Piercy on the settlement, believing Piercy had deservedly received 100 pounds for his part and for his "labours performed and risk run . . . in getting up the work." Piercy concluded: This sentiment is like Linforth and is doubtless shared by Governor Young and ought I think to have had some weight with you. I will not say more here about this letter of Linforth's being kept back until after I had signed a copy of the agreement sent with it from the Valley. Nor will I trouble you with any reflections on the above. All that I have to say on the subject now is that unless instant reparation is made and the 25 pounds are handed over to me, I shall send a copy of this to Governor Young and insert it in the Times and Liverpool papers as an advertisement, feeling sure that the story will excite in the minds of all honest men the deepest indignation. 42 42

Piercy to Young, June 25, 1857, Incoming Correspondence.

64

Utah Historical Quarterly

Brigham Young's copy of Piercy's letter to Orson Pratt was received in Salt Lake City June 3, 1858, almost a year later. Pratt received Piercy's letter within four days and promptly wrote Young on June 27, 1857: Frederick Piercy has apostatized, and is filled with bitterness against the C h u r c h . H e has several times solicited me to purchase the Route property plates, etc. and finally offered me his interest for 50 pounds but I declined â&#x20AC;&#x201D; on receipt of your letter I wrote him accepting his offer, he then refused to take it but offered to take 75 pounds. I finally closed the bargain with h i m at that price, and have received the property with expenses of Stamp freight. . . . Since then I have received a very impudent, saucy, and threatening letter from him in which he demands 25 pounds more, on the ground that Linforth has written him that you would give 100 pounds. T h e r e is nothing of any value at all except the plates. All the complete volumes already belonged to the C h u r c h , but there has been no sale for them whatever for the last year â&#x20AC;&#x201D; O n the whole I think, more has already been paid for the property than it is worth. Still if you desire it, after knowing all the circumstances, I a m ready and willing to pay Piercy whatever additional sum you shall say. 43

Brigham Young's next letter to Orson Pratt, August 12, 1857, contained no instructions on settling with Piercy. By then Young had received word that a United States Army was marching to Utah, and he was preoccupied with this problem. Thus, five months after Piercy's excommunication for not coming to Utah, Young instructed Orson Pratt to stop the Mormon emigration to the United States and send all of the American missionaries home.14 Piercy apparently did not receive the final 25 pounds.

Insight into Piercy's activities after he left the church is largely limited to two lists of his exhibited art. He had a lifetime total of twelve works exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and nine at the Suffolk Street Gallery. The most pictures he exhibited in any one year were five, in 1857, the year of his excommunication. He had only nine pictures exhibited after 1857. He last exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880 and at the Suffolk Street Gallery in 1882-83. To put Piercy's contributions in perspective, one must appreciate that between 1824 and 1893, some 7,000 artists exhibited more than 110,000 pictures at the Suffolk Street Gallery.45

43

Pratt to Young, June 27, 1857, Incoming Correspondence.

Young to Pratt, August 12, 1857, Letter Press file.

15 Graves, Dictionary; Antique Collectors Club, Works Exhibited.

14

Frederick Piercy

65

From 1859 to 1862 Piercy's address was H.M.S. Britannia, Portsmouth. Since he is not on any of the personnel lists of the Britannia at this time, he may have been attached to the newly commissioned naval training ship as a civilian artist or teacher.40 During much of the 1870s Piercy lived next door to the National Gallery and a block from the Suffolk Street Gallery. His future father-in-law, Ralph Nicholson Wornum, was curator of the National Gallery for twenty-two years and wrote several scholarly books on art. The artist was a witness to his will in 1874. Wornum died in 1877 and Angelina Piercy died August 30, 1881. On March 17, 1884, in Saint Peter's Church, Hampstead Parish, Piercy married Catherine Agnes Wornum, also an artist.17 Piercy reportedly suffered from paralysis during the last ten years of his life.48 Nevertheless, he sired a son, Selden, who was born in 1886.

Piercy died June 10, 1891, in London.

Most of Piercy's original drawings of his journey to Utah in 1853 were acquired for American collections in 1948 and 1949.

These may have been in Selden's possession; he died August 16, 1948. Piercy portraits of Disraeli, Adm. James Dundas, and Dr. J. R. Bennett are extant in England. The whereabouts of his other "English" drawings are not known to major art dealers. Locating these drawings and the engravings bought

by Brigham Young would be valuable in more completely restoring Piercy's legacy of art. Regardless, Frederick Piercy's Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley continues to be a valuable pictorial source For the last ten years of his and record of the pioneer story of western life Piercy was paralyzed.

This left profile pose would America. " H.M.S. Britannia Officer List (1859-62), Description Book (1859-63), Victualling List (1859), Public Records Office, Kew, England. A Frederick Piercy was found in the British navy list of 1857 as a surgeon on the H.M.S. Nankin serving in the East Indies and China.

47 Public Records Office, Somerset House and Saint Catherine's House.

48 Taft, Artists and Illustrators.

mask the results of a stroke to the right side'of the brain: sagging of the muscles of the right side of the face and paralysis of the left extremities.

He appears to be holding a paralyzed'left arm with his right hand. Courtesy of Joan Piercy, London.

John W. Young. USHS collections.

Building Railroads for the Kingdom: The Career of John W. Young, 1867-91

BY M . G U Y B I S H O P

1 HE POST-CIVIL WAR PERIOD in American history, often labeled the Gilded Age, produced numerous enterprising young men who were exMr. Bishop is a doctoral candidate in history at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

He was the Utah State Historical Society Golden Spike railroad research intern in 1976.

John W. Young

67

ceptionally blessed with the ability to promote their own ideas and projects. Numbered among these famous capitalists were Jay Gould, the railroad speculator; Andrew Carnegie, who built a steel empire; John D. Rockefeller, the oil magnate; J. P. Morgan, the financial wizard; and a handful more who amassed huge personal fortunes during the late nineteenth century.1 Utah Territory also nurtured several able businessmen during this period, but none could surpass the promotional talents of John W. Young.

The son of Utah's "founding father," John W. was destined to become one of the territory's premier businessmen and promoters.

Nearly all of the financial barons of the Gilded Age were born just before or very shortly after 1840, and such was the case with John W. Young. He was born in Nauvoo, Illinois, on October 1, 1844, the third son of Brigham Young and Mary Ann Angell Young. While still a very young boy, he participated in the Mormon emigration to the Salt Lake Valley. Although his early education was received in the local schools of Salt Lake City and from private tutors in his father's home, John W. was really educated most fully in the broader school of experience and travel, an education many of his contemporaries felt allowed him to attain a "development and culture almost phenomenal."2 An energetic and intelligent young man, his natural talents led him early in life to the propagation of large enterprises. He began as a railroad promoter at twenty-three years of age by acquiring a portion of the subcontracting work for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1867. Many members of the Young family were involved in the construction of the railroad, which Brigham initially espoused as a godsend to aid the Mormons' economic development. Therefore, it was natural for John W. also to be involved in railroad-oriented ventures.

Following the completion of the transcontinental railroad, Brigham and his sons immediately embarked on building the Utah Central Railroad to link Salt Lake City with the Union Pacific line at Ogden. Much of John W. Young's organizational and promotional abilities matured through his labors with the Utah Central. He served as secretary of the company, and as such he controlled all the financial matters and directed most of the tracklaying crews in construction of the road.3 1 Matthew Josephson, The Robber 1934), p. 5.

Barons

(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.,

'Deseret News, February 12, 1924, contains the obituary of John W. Young. See also the Salt Lake Tribune of the same date.

3 Clarence A. Reeder, " T h e History of Utah's Railroads 1869-1883" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1970), pp. 73-74.

68

Utah Historical

Quarterly

A very congenial relationship seemed to exist between Young and the laborers. He often urged the workers on with exhortations that tied the Utah Central to the building up of the kingdom of God, as witnessed by the following bulletin of December 1869: D o n ' t forget Brethren, it is the K i n g d o m we are laboring for, and that the building of this Railroad is one of the greatest achievements ever accomplished by Latter-day Saints and will really do more good in giving us influence with the world than anything we have ever done. 4

This message accompanied a statement from John W. to the employees notifying them that the Utah Central could not, at that time, guarantee when wages would be paid. Because of this shortage of capital, a problem Young was frequently to encounter in his railroad projects, the company sought mainly employees who owed the LDS church money for expenses incurred while emigrating to Utah and thus could be allowed to work off their debts in lieu of any cash settlements. This arrangement was possible because the Utah Central was actually more of a cooperative church project than a private enterprise.

Although constantly embattled with financial problems as secretary of the Utah Central, a position more likely to make enemies than friends, John W. Young managed to retain the personal loyalty of most of the workers whom he supervised. Upon completion of the line, the tracklayers for the company published this testimonial to Young: We the brethren employed in laying track on the U t a h Central Railroad, take this present occasion of congratulating you on the speedy and successful termination of the greatest enterprise of the age, which we feel is mainly due to the energy and spirit displayed by you. 5

Not only did John W. gain in great measure by polishing his managerial skills with the Utah Central, but he was also able to become acquainted with some of the most powerful men associated with the Union Pacific Railroad. Early in 1871 he accompanied John Sharp, another Mormon with a great interest in railroads, to New York City to recover money owed to the church in Utah by the Union Pacific from past-due construction contracts. Not only was this duo successful in securing the much-desired monetary aid, but John W. established good rapport with influential railroad builders such as Oliver Ames, Sidney Dillon, and John Duff of the Union Pacific hierarchy. These and other 4 John W. Young Papers, Outgoing Correspondence, December 28, 1869, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

5 Deseret Evening News, January 11, 1870.

John W. Young

69

financial links in the East were later to prove invaluable to John W. Young in his own railroad promotion in the West.

In the fall of 1870 the Utah Central found itself in dire financial straits, and Brigham Young decided to sell his interest in the company.

As evidence of John W.'s growing circle of wealthy acquaintances, one of the first people he contacted concerning the sale of the line was Collis P. Huntington, the financial and intellectual muscle behind the Central Pacific. Huntington was very interested in purchasing the Utah railroad, and in October 1870 John W. Young wrote to him stating that he felt a sale could be effected.0 Although the Central Pacific eventually lost the purchase to their Union Pacific rivals, John W. developed a very valuable relationship with Huntington. Fifteen years later the railroad magnate who had helped form the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads penned a recommendation for his Utah counterpart: This letter will introduce . . . Mr. John W. Young. . . . Mr. Young is a gentleman whom I have known favorably for a number of years, and can commend him to your confidence as a man of character and candor upon whose word I believe you may, as I do, place implicit reliance. 7

Following his disassociation with the Utah Central, John W. next turned his promotional interests to the building of the Utah Northern Railroad. There existed widespread interest in a railroad to serve northern Utah and southern Idaho, especially among the residents of Cache Valley and the Bear Lake region. In the summer of 1871 William B. Preston of Logan wrote to Brigham Young concerning the prospects of a rail line to that area. Brigham encouraged church leaders in northern Utah to proceed with the planning, and he then directed John W. Young to initiate the project.8 John W. was a logical choice for his father, since he now had railroad promotion and construction experience in his work with the Utah Central and he had begun to make impressive financial friendships in the East. Brigham knew as well as anyone how important these connections would be to Utah's developing transportation industry.

Almost immediately after receiving this calling, John W. Young journeyed to New York City to seek monetary support for the proposed " John W. Young Papers, Outgoing Correspondence, October 31, 1870.

7 Ibid., Incoming Correspondence, May 11, 1885.

8 Merrill D. Beal, Intermountain Railroads: Standard and Narrow Gauge (Caldwell, Ida.: Caxton Printers, 1962), pp. 2-5. For more information on the Utah Northern Railroad see also David E. Miller, ed., The Golden Spike (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1973), pp. 63-79.

70

Utah Historical Quarterly

railroad. Once in New York he contacted Joseph and Benjamin Richardson, wealthy eastern financiers, who earlier had professed interest in backing a railroad to service northern Utah. The Richardson brothers agreed to pay for material (iron and rolling stock) for the road, and John W. agreed to arrange for labor to construct the line. The people of Utah, especially William Preston who had so strongly advocated the project, expressed a fear of these "foreign" investors' involvement in the local railroad. But the apprehensions were soon allayed as Brother Brigham gave the arrangement his approval.9 After financial assistance had been secured, Young returned to Utah to become the infant railroad's most active spokesman. After he toured northern Utah to discuss the venture, seventeen ecclesiastical leaders from the LDS church in Cache Valley vowed to "go to work and build the railroad" and take stock in the line as payment for their labors. With this strong local support, the Utah Northern was soon transformed from a dream to a reality.

On August 23, 1871, the Utah Northern Railroad Company was officially formed with John W. Young appointed president and general superintendent. In organizing the board of directors, John W. showed great wisdom by providing a seat for a prominent member of each community along the line, thus ensuring support for the railroad in each locale.10 Expenditures for the railroad soon proved to be much higher than had been anticipated, and by spring 1874 the local company was forced to call on the Richardson brothers for additional capital. The eastern financiers provided the much-needed funds but began to exercise more personal control of the company. Young also arranged for a loan from Jay Gould of the Union Pacific in return for a large share of Utah Northern stock. The increased eastern control of the line marked a decline in John W. Young's interest in the project.

The reasons for this shift of interests were not stated at the time of his resignation as president of the company in October 1875. He merely announced that there were "considerations in themselves sufficient to justify" the departure. The letter was, interestingly, written on Union Pacific stationery, perhaps indicating some pressure from the eastern capitalists. However, the main reason was probably that John W. found himself too deeply involved financially with a number of enter-

"Reeder, "Utah's Railroads," p. 217.

Ibid., p. 220.

10

71

John Mills Whitaker, personal secretary of John W. Young. USHS collections.

John Sharp, president of the Utah Central.

USHS collections.

William B. Preston, advocate of the Utah Northern. USHS collections.

prises and felt it would be best to abandon any further expenditures with the Utah Northern.11 Shortly after John W. Young's separation from the line, Jay Gould forced the faltering company to incorporate into the Union Pacific system, resulting in the formation of the Utah and Northern Railroad.

This new line eventually became an integral link in the Union Pacific chain.

One of the projects that encompassed much of John W. Young's attention and money at the same time as the Utah Northern was the Salt Lake City Railroad Company. John W. was elected president of this line, chartered in January 1872, and was, along with William Riter of Salt Lake City, its principal promoter. Financial problems plagued the endeavor almost from its inception, and in April 1873 Young sold his interest in the company to his father. Under this new arrangement the line was eventually completed, with funding coming from the LDS church and Brigham Young's private coffers. During his short affiliation with the line John W. had established a very sound reputation for good management and service, and many residents of the city felt that the road was never operated as efficiently after he left the company.12 By spring 1873, when he left the Salt Lake City line, John W. Young was involved in yet another railroad promotion in Utah Territory. This project, the Utah Western, had initially been started by a

11 John W. Young Papers, Outgoing Correspondence, October 19, 1875.

12 Salt Lake Journal of Commerce, vol. 2, nos. 11 and 12 (Salt Lake City, 1888-89).

72

Utah Historical Quarterly

group of non-Mormon businessmen who had named it the Salt Lake, Sevier Valley, and Pioche Railroad. The project had been a financial catastrophe from its outset, and the founders were more than willing to sell the controlling interest to Young. As was his custom, John W. went immediately to the East to draw on his greatest asset â&#x20AC;&#x201D; his numerous financial connections. After a brief sojourn in New York City, he was back in Utah with monetary aid for the Utah W'estern.13 John W. hoped to promote his newest enterprise in two ways: first, as a means of shipping ore from the mines of eastern Nevada to the smelters in Salt Lake City; and second, to transport tourists to the Great Salt Lake for swimming and bathing. The latter aspect paid the greatest dividends for the Utah Western, and in the cultivation of Utah tourism John W. Young found yet another avenue for his public relations genius.

Early in 1875, in order to promote tourism on the Great Salt Lake, John W. purchased the lake steamer City of Corinne, renamed it the General Garfield, and offered a round-trip excursion to the lake on the Utah Western, coupled with a three-hour cruise on the steamer, all for $1.50. Reportedly, large numbers of people, including internationally known celebrities, took the trip in the years after its inception.14 Young was able to get dual service from the General Garfield by using the ship to connect the Utah Western with the Central Pacific terminal at Corinne and thus transship freight and passengers across the lake. In this instance, as in many others, he was able to serve numerous purposes by an innovative approach to the transportation business.

From this point in time on through his later railroad ventures, John W. Young retained his vision of Utah's potential market for vacationers. He told the board of directors of the Utah Western: T h e tourist travel from Salt Lake City to Lake Point will be very extensive. Many merchants and men of business will erect cottages on the shores of the lake and reside there during the summer.

Thousands of the residents of the territory will visit the watering place, as the people of the Eastern states visit their seaside resorts. 15

In sponsoring Utah tourism, he recognized that industry's growing importance to the nation and to the people of the territory. As John W. saw it, the promotion of recreation could give his railroad, in this case the Utah Western, an advantage over its competitors: 1:1

Reeder, "Utah's Railroads," pp. 278-80.

Ibid., p. 293.

15 John W. Young Papers, Railroad Papers, 1869-74, n.d.

14

John W. Young

J3

The most successful way to compete with the other roads is to make Lake Point so attractive and convenient for excursion parties that out of preference to the accommodation and general attention, they will always choose Lake Point as a place of resort.1'1

Although the Utah Western suffered financial death in 1880, it had attracted many well-known investors during its peak period of operation in the mid-1870s. Among those listed as stockholders at various times were the Richardson brothers, J. Pierpont Morgan, and P. T. Barnum, testifying to the broad scope of Young's fiscal acquaintances.17 The 1880s found John W. Young spending a great amount of time outside of Utah Territory. At the start of that decade, he became involved in the construction of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad across northern Arizona. This project rapidly soured, and the circumstances surrounding it caused him to lose grace with the hierarchy of the Mormon church.

Young had convinced the church leaders that it would be an economic windfall for the Saints to allow him to subcontract construction on the railroad in Arizona using Mormon manpower for the project.

This was agreed to by the First Presidency of the church in Salt Lake City, who were to be the ultimate overseers of the venture.

However, John W. chose to take a larger contract than the First Presidency had recommended, overlooking implicit directions sent by John Taylor, and soon found himself in financial difficulties and unable to meet his payroll. He seemed to have had good intentions in dealing with the Mormon laborers but simply felt less pressure to pay his brethren, whom he had encouraged to enter the project, than to meet his outside obligations. Full restitution was continually promised to the workers, and there is no evidence that anyone doubted Young's promises.18 For what was considered to be misuse of his trust and stewardship in the Arizona railroad undertaking, John W. Young was called before the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency of the LDS church to make an accounting of his actions. In his statement to this body, John W. argued that he had misunderstood the instructions and that he felt he was being unfairly judged. In his summation to the church leadership, he issued the following statement: 10

Ibid., Outgoing Correspondence, n.d.

17

Ibid., Railroad Papers, 1869-74, n.d.

18

Ibid. Statements about John W. Young by General Authorities, n.d.; Charles S. Peterson, Take up_ Your Mission: Mormon Colonizing along the Little Colorado River, 1870-1900 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973), p. 134.

Mormon laborers grading for the Union Pacific at the mouth of Weber Canyon. USHS collections.

Utah Western, ca. 1875, east of Garfield Beach. USHS collections.

Salt Lake, Sevier Valley, & Pioche Railroad locomotive, the Kate Connor, made by the Brooks Locomotive Works in 1873. USHS collections.

I love the kingdom of God and I want to build it up. I want to have the fellowship of the First Presidency, of this quorum and of all good Latterday Saints if I can get it. . . ,19

The leaders seemed at least partially to accept Young's account of the problems in Arizona and his remorse for failing to follow their directions. He was ordered to make full restitution as soon as possible and admonished to act in a more prudent manner in the future. While outwardly all seemed to have been forgiven, John W. Young, who had earlier held many high ecclesiastical positions in the church, was never again to be viewed in such high esteem by the Saints.

In fact, a very strange relationship developed between the Mormon leadership and John W. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one of mutual need more than true under111

John W. Young Papers, Statements about John W. Young by General Authorities.

Men and equipment of the Utah Central, 1885, at the roundhouse in Salt Lake City. USHS collections.

mmmmmm<

76

Utah Historical

Quarterly

standing. The more involved John W. Young became in the temporal world of business and speculation, the harder it became for the church leaders to relate to him. The church continued to maintain close ties with Young because of his influence in the East and his aid to Utah's development, and John W. needed church connections to successfully promote his projects in Utah. But the relationship was often very strained.

Throughout a large part of the mid-1880s, John W. did represent the church and the territory in the East as he headed a group lobbying against the Edmunds-Tucker Act and the attacks on polygamy. As a practitioner of the Mormon concept of plural marriage, and having once been arrested on charges of polygamy, Young may have had a personal interest in fighting the act. But whatever private reasons he had, he was the logical choice for the church's representative. It was evident that no Mormon of that period had any greater influence in the East than did John W. Young.20 Young served his church and territory in that location from May 1887 until May 1888. Although the Edmunds-Tucker Act did pass Congress and was instituted in Utah, John W. was able to recruit some very influential supporters for the Latter-day Saints. In fact, Young's intimate acquaintance with Grover Cleveland resulted in a presidential pardon for D. K. Udall, an Arizona Mormon who had been imprisoned for polygamy in 1885.21 In the late 1880s, as his political mission in the East was drawing to a close, John W. again began to promote railroads in Utah. This speculation involved one road intended to serve mainly the Salt Lake City area, incorporated as the Salt Lake and Fort Douglas Railway â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and one line, the Salt Lake & Eastern, which was planned on a much grander scale. Young intended the Salt Lake & Eastern to eventually link the Salt Lake Valley with Denver and areas farther east. Again drawing upon his numerous financial connections, he received monetary backing for the Salt Lake & Eastern, largely from bankers and industrialists on the East Coast and in England."2 As he had done with the Utah Western, Young used tourism to promote the Salt Lake and Fort Douglas line. In a circular to the bondholders of the road, he wrote: 33

J o h n W. Young's arrest on charges of polygamy resulted more from the jealousy of a wife w h o was disenchanted with the practice than from any government persecution. See the Deseret Evening News, February 15, 1881, and October 6, 1884.

21 Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, p p . 232-37.

22 J o h n Mills Whitaker Papers, Daily Journal, vol. 1, p. 171, Western Americana, M a r r i o t t Library, University of U t a h , Salt Lake City.

John W. Young

77

T h e beautiful scenery of the Cottonwood Mountains and Canyon, will attract all the Tourists and a large excursion business every year; and hundreds of cottages will be erected in the romantic side canyons that can be easily reached from the terminus of our railroad, and thousands of people will seek the vicinity of our line to construct homes. . . , 23

Not only would the Salt Lake and Fort Douglas Railway boost the tourist trade of the valley, but John W. saw it as serving a civic duty as well. At that time, the people of the Salt Lake Valley obtained their ice from the Jordan River, which was also the receptacle for most of the city's sewage. Young told the railroad stockholders: T h e most important feature however, . . . is that the Inhabitants of Salt Lake City have arrived at a state of feeling on the Ice question, that makes it necessary as a sanitary measure, for them to procure pure ice from ponds situated about and beyond all suspicious surroundings of foulness or filth. 24

He then proposed that the railroad company construct several ponds at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon for ice in the winter and recreational use, such as boating and fishing, in the summer. Once again, with an eye for innovative means of promoting his enterprises in the most profitable manner, John W. advanced the Salt Lake and Fort Douglas Railway as a blessing to local welfare and tourism for the valley â&#x20AC;&#x201D; two reasons hard for any potential investor to overlook.

When interviewed by the Salt Lake Herald in the fall of 1888, John W. Young said of his "little roads" that "the same object which has led me to build other roads to benefit the country and the people of this territory" had motivated the construction of the Salt Lake & Eastern and the Salt Lake and Fort Douglas railroads and that the purpose of the lines was to facilitate trade and commerce and to promote tourism in the Salt Lake Valley.25 By the latter part of 1888 and early in 1889, Young was once again plagued by financial difficulties, this time with the Salt Lake & Eastern.

On September 26, 1888, Joseph Richardson had assumed the title of president of the line, probably under the directives of the eastern investors. However, John W. was still supervising the construction of the road.

The escalating monetary problems of the line were seen by the businessmen of Salt Lake City as a community problem and not just John W. Young's personal dilemma. John Mills Whitaker, who was employed as Young's personal secretary at the time, reported that: 23

John W. Young Papers, Railroad Papers, August 1886. ibid.

25 Salt Lake Herald, October 20, 1888.

24

78

Utah Historical Quarterly Things are getting very serious and businessmen are discussing the present condition of John W. Young, and also the Chamber of Commerce called a business group together to discuss. . . what they could do to assist [him] in his distress. 26

Quite obviously from this observation by Whitaker, much of the financial community of Salt Lake City was either dependent upon Young's enterprises to bolster their own economies or realized the value of his transportation projects. Furthermore, John W. was not the only local businessman who was suffering financially at the time.

The cause of Young's problems, and those of many of his associates, was a financial panic among eastern capitalists in late 1888 and the first part of 1889. Many of these investors had been ruined by falling stock prices, and consequently loans were very difficult to obtain. The panic rapidly spread from the East to the West, and Salt Lake City was hard hit by the monetary drought. Whitaker noted conditions in the city's financial world: "Men unable to meet their obligations are taking bankruptcy, disowning their obligations, some are taking their lives. . . ."2 By the spring of 1891 John W. had withdrawn from active participation in both of the local lines and had embarked on what was the grandest railroad promotion idea of his life. In alliance with W. Derby Johnson, a Mormon bishop at the settlement of Diaz, in northern Mexico, Young began to lay plans for the construction of the Mexican Northwestern Railway. The proposed venture was to be a fifteen-hundred-mile line through northern Mexico to link the Mormon colonies in Chihuahua with Deming, New Mexico, to the north and Guaymas, on the Mexican Pacific coast, to the southwest. The immediate goal of Young and Johnson was to build a line from Deming through Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and part of Sonora in order to provide employment and prosperity for the Saints in that region (and undoubtedly a handsome profit).28 As was his custom, John W. had probed in numerous areas for financial support. His reputation was, evidently, quite widespread, for the Deseret Evening News printed this excerpt from a paper in London: J o h n W. Young continues making positive arrangements [concerning the proposed railway] with competent persons. Young is resolved to construct the road and it is assumed here [in London] that his efforts will result satisfactorily. 29 2

" Whitaker Daily Journal, vol. 1, p. 178.

Ibid., pp. 178-79.

28 Dean C. Jessee, ed., Letters of Brigham Young to His Sons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1974), p. 93.

29 Deseret Evening News, April 17 and May 29, 1891.

27

John W. Young

79

Despite the confidence in the Mexican enterprise that was expressed in London, the line failed before a single track had been laid due to a lack of capital. In fact, in northern Mexico it came to be known as the "Mafiana Railway" because of repeated delays of promised payrolls.30 Although nearly all of John W. Young's railroad promotions seemed to end in financial disaster, this was not necessarily a reflection on his business prowess. In a frontier setting capital was scarce and numerous enterprises failed for monetary reasons. For example, many local railroad projects with which John W. had no connection, such as the Utah Eastern, an attempt to link Salt Lake and Park City in the 1880s, also ended in failure due to a lack of assets.31 Although John W. Young did have many unsuccessful ventures, the Salt Lake Journal of Commerce noted of him: It will be thus seen that John W. Young has not always succeeded, but we have heard it said of him that he has accomplished far more for the people by his failures than many others have done by their successes.

In the same article, Young said of himself: . . . my career has been directed to the welfare of the people amongst whom I have been reared, and it will afford me pleasure to know that it is recognized, for I have had no aims other than to glorify and develop the resources of our territory.3-'

John W. Young was very much a paradox in the Mormon society of Utah. He was a man who professed deep religious convictions and yet was a constant reminder, by his life-style and circle of friends, of the secular world his church disdained. And though, while many questioned Young's faithfulness in promoting the kingdom of God in Utah Territory and charged him with manipulating the church for his own ends, John Mills Whitaker, who probably knew John W. as intimately as any man, said: He is a praying man. . . . He preaches the gospel to all friends. . . , and it seems very strange to see such a businessman spending so much of his time remembering his Heavenly Father. It is remarkable what influence he seems to have with great men. . . ,83

30

Jessee, Letters,

p. 93.

31

See M. Guy Bishop, "The Coal Conflict: Utah's Fight with the Union Pacific Railroad" ^Master's seminar paper, Utah State University, 1976), pp. 28-34.

32

Salt Lake Journal of Commerce,

33

Whitaker Daily Journal, vol. 1, p. 186.

vol. 2, nos. 11 and 12.

SO

Utah Historical Quarterly

Whitaker himself was a very active member of the LDS church and had close associations with many of its leaders during his lifetime. In a personal letter to Whitaker, John W. said of himself: I made up my mind many years ago to try and do my duty as I understood it. . . . I am glad to say that this has always been uppermost in my mind, and although I have been greatly misunderstood at times, and people have been full of criticism and faultfinding, yet when the day comes that all must be adjudged for what they have done, good or evil, certainly my intentions will prove that my interests have been ever for the cause and the people. 34

In the Utah environment in which John W. Young did his railroad promotion, it was impossible for him to separate religion and business. Much of his local financial support and, perhaps more importantly, his labor force were drawn from the Saints. As an unavoidable consequence of this practice of linking church and business so closely, he found that a large number of both his friends and his enemies were from within the church (possibly depending upon the success or failure of a certain project he promoted).

During his business career he rose in time to be the most wellknown railroad promoter in the history of Utah. Not only did he promote railroads, but, more importantly, he promoted Utah. He was a key figure in the development of the territory's transportation facilities and natural resources. Young's reputation and dynamic personality promoted Utah in the East, at times even representing the territory to members of Congress and to the president of the United States.

Although John W. fell from grace within his own religious denomination, and due to numerous financial reverses spent the final decade of his life as an obscure elevator operator in New York City, he nevertheless had a tremendous impact on Utah. Regardless of the many enemies he acquired, the reviling of his motives, and his questionable obedience to LDS church leaders, he had, in his own mind and in the opinion of many of his fellow businessmen, rendered Utah much service. Morris R. Locke, a business associate of many years, perhaps best summarized John W. Young when he said: "Mr. Young is a gentleman in every sense of the word, and a man of extraordinary ability, and will do far more for Utah and the Western Territories than anyone I know of.'"'

John Mills Whitaker Papers, Letter File, August 11, 1!

Ibid., December 18, 1888.

Brigham Young and Emma Hale Smith.

USHS collections.

The Lion and the Lady: Brigham Young and Emma Smith

BY VALEEN TIPPETTS AVERY AND LINDA KING NEWELL

L / U R I N G THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY BRIGHAM Y O U N G ' S

influential

power grew until it was felt throughout the western areas of the United States. For the most part his followers revered him and his enemies kept a respectful distance, yet to his extreme annoyance he was never successful in extending that same influential power over Emma Smith. She neither revered him nor kept her adult sons a respectful distance from him, and her opposition plagued him from the time he became head of Mrs. Valeen Tippetts Avery and Mrs. Linda King Newell are coauthors of a forthcoming book about Emma Smith to be published by Doubleday.

82

Utah Historical

Quarterly

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Brigham and Emma freely expressed their opinions of each other but never understood the other's position; they were victims of circumstance, personality, and differing doctrinal views. Their mutual inability to resolve their differences cemented the division of the Latter-day Saints.

On October 6, 1866, Brigham Young, "the Lion of the Lord," 1 president of the Mormon church, ex-governor of Utah Territory, colonizer of a vast area of the West and spiritual leader to 100,000 Mormons, was in the midst of one of his usually pointed tabernacle sermons. As he approached the end of his remarks, Brigham remembered an unsettling incident. Alexander Hale Smith, a son of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of Mormonism, had recently visited Salt Lake City. He came, however, not as the son of a beloved old friend who wanted to renew acquaintances, but as a missionary for a rival church whose president was the eldest of Joseph Smith's sons, Joseph Smith III. Attempting to explain the origins of so peculiar a situation, Brigham said, I will now speak upon a subject which I think I ought to notice for the benefit of a few who are inclined to be giddy-headed. . . . You are already apprized of the fact that a son of Joseph Smith the prophet was here in our city. . . . The sympathies of the Latterday Saints are with the family of the martyred prophet. I never saw a day in the world that I would not almost worship that woman, Emma Smith, 2 if she would be a saint instead of being a devil. . . . [We] would have been exceeding glad if the prophet's family had come with us when we left Nauvoo. . . . We would have made cradles for them . . . and would have fed them on milk and honey. Emma is naturally a very smart woman; she is subtle and ingenious . . . she has made her children inherit lies. To my certain knowledge Emma Smith is one of the damnest liars I know of on this earth; yet there is no good thing I would refuse to do for her, if she would only be a righteous woman. 3

By implication Brigham Young laid the troublesome activities of the sons of Joseph at the feet of their mother.

1 T h e Council of the Twelve Apostles in 1845 had some elegant names: Brigham Young, the Lion of the L o r d ; H e b e r C. Kimball, the Herald of G r a c e ; Orson Hyde, the Olive Branch of Israel; Willard Richards, the Keeper of the Rolls; John Taylor, the Champion of R i g h t ; William Smith, the Patriarchal Jacob's Staff; Wilford Woodruff, the Banner of the Gospel; Parley P. Pratt, the Archer of Paradise; George A. Smith, the Establisher of T r u t h ; Orson Pratt, the Gauge of Philosophy; J o h n E. Page, the Sun D i a l ; Lyman Wight, the Wild R a m of the Mountains. Brigham Young a n d Lyman Wight were the only two whose names were well known, perhaps because they were so apt. Alan H . Gerber, " C h u r c h Manuscripts," microfilm vol. 11, p. 122, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo.

2 E m m a Hale married Joseph Smith in 1827 and Lewis C. Bidamon in 1847. Brigham Young refused to call her E m m a Bidamon although she used that name and lived u n d e r it for thirty-two years.

3 Brigham Young Address, October 7, 1866, Brigham Young Papers, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. Some punctuation and spelling have been previously corrected in this manuscript.

The Lion and'the Lady

83

Emma Hale Smith had refused to go west with the main body of Mormons and remained aloof from the western settlement. Instead, she raised her children in Nauvoo, Illinois, far removed in distance and philosophy from the Mormon church and kingdom established in the valleys of the Utah mountains. Spokesmen for the loosely knit group of Saints remaining in the general Illinois area contacted Emma's son, Joseph III, in 1856 and asked him to assume the leadership of their organization â&#x20AC;&#x201D; later known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. After four years of deliberation, he became prophet and president of the RLDS church at their Amboy, Illinois, conference on April 6, 1860. Emma Smith was received unanimously as a member of the group on the same day.

Two months before Brigham Young's conference address in 1866 Emma wrote to her son, Joseph Dear . . . Now you must not let those L.D.S.'s trouble you too much. If they are determined to do evil, they will do it, and such as are anxiously willing to make you trouble are not worth laboring very hard to save from the dogs.4

Three years after Brigham's conference address, Alexander returned to Utah on a second mission. With him as his companion was his youngest brother, David. Apprehensive about their experiences in Utah, Emma wrote again to her son Joseph.

I tried before they left here to give them an idea of what they might expect of Brigham and all of his ites, but I suppose the impression was hardly sufficient to guard their feelings from such unexpected falsehoods and impious profanity as Brigham is capable of. . . . I do not like to have my children's feelings abused, but I do like that Brigham shows to all, both Saint and sinner that there is not the least particle of friendship existing between him and myself.5

Historians have assumed considerable enmity must have existed between Brigham and Emma during the twelve years that spanned their meeting in Kirtland, Ohio, on November 8, 1832, to the death of Joseph in 1844.° There is no supportive evidence of such antagonism until a year or so before that death.

4 August 19, 1866, E m m a Smith Bidamon Papers, Library-Archives, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Independence, Missouri.

D August 1, no year, E m m a Smith Bidamon Papers, R L D S Library-Archives. Three of Emma's sons, Joseph, Alexander, and David, served missions in U t a h for the R L D S church.

0 O u r thanks to Gene Sessions of Weber State College who challenged us on this point and to Ronald K. Esplin of the LDS church Flistorical D e p a r t m e n t for his valuable assistance in documenting it. Both of these men have given valuable insights and assistance in the preparation of this article.

84

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Brigham Young had arrived in Kirtlancl that November day in 1832 in search of a prophet. That he found one chopping wood may have surprised him, but once confident that Joseph Smith spoke for the Lord, Brigham arranged his affairs to join the Mormons. He was thirty-one years old, an accomplished painter, carpenter, and glazier.

He came as a seeker, anxious to know more, willing to assist, eminently able, and awed to be in the association of his prophet.

That same day Joseph Smith took Brigham Young inside the Gilbert and Whitney store to a room on the second floor to meet his wife Emma.

She rested in bed, a two-day-old son at her side. The first child of Emma and Joseph to live beyond infancy,7 the baby was named after his father and grandfather, and called "young Joseph" in his youth, and Joseph III as an adult. This day marked the first meeting of these most influential people in the history of the LDS churches.

Emma was three years younger than Brigham. Already married nearly six years to Joseph Smith, she lived singled out by an 1830 revelation her prophet-husband received that titled her the "elect lady" and commissioned her to compile the first Latter-day Saint hymnal.8 Less than two years later, Joseph charged William W. Phelps with correcting and printing the hymns Emma had selected.9 Diligent in completing the church assignments given him, Brigham knew that Emma too had filled hers. He took with him a copy of Emma's Sacred Hymns on his 1839-41 mission to England. He included some of her hymns in a new hymnal printed for the English Saints and commented on his efforts when he wrote to his wife Mary Ann Angell in June 1840: We are printing 3,000 copes of a hym book 5,000 copes of the Book of Mormon. . . I have now got through with the hym book. I have had perty much the whole of it to doe my self . . . so it has made my labor so hard that it seems as though it would be imposable for me ever to regane my helth. 10 7 Joseph's and Emma's first three children did not survive their birth: a son Alvin born in Harmony, Pennsylvania, June 15, 1828; and twins, Thaddeus and Louisa, born in Kirtland, Ohio, April 30, 1831. An adopted son, Joseph Murdock, died April 21, 1832, at the age of eleven months. His twin sister, Julia, was the only surviving child in the Smith household when Joseph Smith I I I was born.

8

Doctrine and Covenants, sec. 25.

9

Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H .

Roberts, 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1 9 0 0 - 3 2 ) , 1:217. For a more detailed account of the publication of the hymnal, see Peter Crawley, "A Bibliography of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York, Ohio and Missouri," Brigham Young University Studies 12 ( 1 9 7 2 ) : 503-5.

10 J u n e 12, 1840, Phillip Blair Collection, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of U t a h , Salt Lake City.

The Lion and the Lady

85

Thoughtful of Emma after knowing her for over eight years, he sent a copy of the hymnal to her and checked on its safe arrival when he wrote to Mary Ann again. Brigham instructed his wife to, "Tell Br Joseph Smith that I send as much love to him and Emma and famely . . . as I can get carid a cross the water."11 Brigham Young named a daughter after Emma Smith. The first child born to him and Mary Ann was a son whom they named Joseph â&#x20AC;&#x201D; perhaps not revealing whether the namesake was his brother or his prophet. Their twins were called Brigham and Mary Ann, but the daughter born ten days before Brigham departed for his English mission was named Roxy Emma Alice. He wrote plaintively of his sixteen-month-old daughter as he expressed his homesickness to Mary Ann in a letter of January 15, 1841, "My little daughter Emma she dos not know eny thing a bout me."12 After 1847, when the relationship between Emma and Brigham had disintegrated, Roxy Emma Alice became known only as Alice.13 If Emma resented the men who took Joseph's time from her, there was little reason for her to extend those feelings to Brigham Young.

Absent from Kirtland much of the time the Saints spent there, it was not Brigham who was knocking on Joseph's door with constant demands that Joseph meet the needs of the Mormon kingdom. In addition, Brigham was away nearly three of the five years from 1839 to 1844. There were others besides Brigham who might have earned her animosity.

William Marks as president of the Nauvoo stake, president of the high council, and regent for the University of Nauvoo, required much of Joseph's time but remained Emma's friend.

Young stayed in Nauvoo from the summer of 1841 to July 1843 but John C. Bennett's meteoric rise to power as Bennett became mayor of Nauvoo, major general of the Nauvoo Legion, and de facto counselor in the church presidency, certainly eclipsed Brigham's presence the first of those years. According to her son, Emma distrusted Bennett from the first.14 When he was stripped of his power and forced from office, he launched a vituperative campaign against Joseph. Brigham's support in ridding the church of Bennett and his influence may have made Brigham an ally of Emma's rather than an antagonist.15 11 32

Ibid.

Phillip Blair Collection.

Dean C. Jessee, "Brigham Young's Family: Part I, 1824-1845," Brigham Young University Studies 18 ( 1 9 7 8 ) : 321.

14 Joseph Smith I I I , Joseph Smith III and the Restoration, ed. Mary Audentia Smith Anderson and Bertha Audentia Anderson Hurmes (Independence, M o . : Herald House, 1953), pp. 57-58.

15 Brigham Young did take an active part in negating John C. Bennett's influence. He and others assisted Joseph in preparing and printing the anti-Bennett affidavits that appeared in 13

86

Utah Historical Quarterly

If Emma had any reservations about Brigham's character, she did not express them in her pre-1844 correspondence. She neither commented about him negatively nor influenced her young children to dislike him.

For example, young Joseph was well aware that his mother did not like or trust John C. Bennett, yet he did not acquire negative feelings about Brigham Young during that same period. By the time Joseph III wrote his memoirs, the temptation to discredit Young may have been very strong, but he remembered, I saw but little of [Brigham] before Father's death, though I did know him. . . . I often saw him upon the stand, in the streets, and in his home, and thought him a pleasant man to meet, neither liking nor disliking him particularly as I now recall, until a short time after my father's death. l f i

Both Brigham and Emma had great affection for Joseph but naturally had differing views about some of his actions. Brigham commented about his own attitude toward Joseph: "Though I admitted in my feelings and knew all the time that Joseph was a human being and subject to err, still it was none of my business to look after his faults." He admitted to only one uncertainty about Joseph but the thought was quickly put down. "A feeling came over me that Joseph was not right in his financial management, though I presume the feeling did not last sixty seconds." Brigham Young surveyed Joseph Smith's dealings, all of them, with a detachment that was truly remarkable. He never distinguished Joseph's personal life and human mistakes from the divine dictation of the Lord.

I t was not my prerogative to call him in question with any regard to any act of his life. H e was God's servant, and not mine . . . and if H e should suffer him to lead the people astray, it would be because they ought to be led astray . . . because they deserved it, or to accomplish some righteous purpose. 1 7

Emma recognized Joseph's prophetic calling, but the realities of marriage forced her to deal more directly with Joseph's faults. His inability to farm and translate at the same time caused an estrangement between the Smiths and Emma's parents. If there was a scandal because of Joseph, Emma felt the sting. If there was no money, Emma took in the Millennial Star 26:151. He was also among three hundred and eighty elders of the Mormon church who volunteered to go to the eastern states to help neutralize Bennett's influence in the eastern press. Our thanks to Peter Crawley for this information.

18 Smith, Joseph Smith III, p. 87.

17 Speech by Brigham Young, March 29, 1857, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool, 1854-86), 4:297-98.

87

The Lion and the Lady

boarders. When Joseph was arrested, Emma bore the loneliness. She played the roles accorded her by tradition: wife, mother, hostess, nurse, companion, figurehead. She also assumed roles that were not part of Brigham Young's relationship with women: roles as partner, agent, spokesman. Inasmuch as Joseph assigned her these roles himself, she felt confident in assuming them.

Emma also felt free to address Joseph as a business partner. "The situation of your business is such as is very difficult for me to do anything of any consequence," she complained from Kirtland. "Partnership matters give everybody such an unaccountable right to every particle of property or money that they can lay their hands on." She requested further information from him about the state of his affairs and ended her letter with a little free legal advice in the form of a postscript, "If you should give anyone a power of attorney, you had better give it to brother Knight, as he is the only man that has not manifested a spirit of indifference to your temporal interest."18 From Liberty Jail, Joseph made Emma his spokesman to the Mormon church in seeking redress for the property lost in Missouri when he 18

Emma Smith to Joseph Smith, May 3, 1837, Joseph Smith Collection, LDS Archives.

Jail at Liberty, Missouri, where Joseph Smith, Jr., and others were imprisoned during the winter of 1838-39. USHS collections.

:

-\

88

Utah Historical Quarterly

wrote: "I want all the Church to make out a bill of damages and apply to the United States Court as soon as possible. . . . You emphasize my feelings concerning the order."19 In later years her son too recognized her business acumen. Joseph Smith III had been president of the Reorganized church for thirteen years when he wrote his sixty-nine-year-old mother, "So much was your mind like my own upon the matter that I at once wrote to Kirtland, offering the temple for sale. Should I be able to sell for the price offered, I will be able to get out of debt."20 Emma sympathized with her son's concern for getting out of debt; financial difficulties plagued her for most of her years. During the Kirtland era, Emma sometimes had problems obtaining food for her family.

There is no prospect of my getting one dollar of current money or even get the grain you left for our bread, as I sent to the French place for that wheat and brother Strong says that he shall let us only have ten bushel, he has sold the hay and keeps the money . . . it is impossible for me to do anything, as long as every body has so much better right to all that is called yours than I have. 2 1

Brigham knew of the monetary plight of Joseph's family and assisted them on several occasions.

On the morning of December 22, 1837, Brigham fled Kirtland.

He went as far as Dublin, Indiana, where a number of Mormon families were spending the winter. Joseph and Emma and their three children joined them, "destitute of means," and Joseph asked Brigham's advice in the matter. "You rest yourself and be assured, brother Joseph, you shall have plenty of money to pursue your journey," Brigham replied.

A Brother Tomlinson who lived in the area planned to sell a tavern stand he owned and had already approached Brigham for his opinion. "I told him if he would do right and obey counsel, he should have opportunity to sell soon, and the first offer he would get would be the best." Not long after this, Tomlinson sold his place for $500 in money, a team, and $250 in store goods. I told him that was the hand of the Lord to deliver President Joseph Smith from his present necessity. . . . Brother Tomlinson . . . gave the Prophet three hundred dollars, which enabled his comfortably to proceed on his journey. 2 2 19

Joseph Smith to Emma Smith, March 21, 1839, Joseph Smith Collection, LDS Archives.

Joseph Smith III to Emma Bidamon, March 8, 1873, Emma Smith Bidamon Collection, RLDS Library-Archives. Joseph III was not the first to offer the LDS temple for sale. Under the signatures of Babbitt, Heywood, and Fullmer, who were Brigham Young's attorneys, the temple at Nauvoo had been advertised for sale in 1846, being "admirably designed for Literary or religious purposes." In the same newspaper, the Kirtland temple, "this splendid edifice," was also offered "on advantageous terms." Hancock Eagle, Nauvoo, Illinois, April 10, 1846.

21 Emma Smith to Joseph Smith, May 3, 1837, Joseph Smith Letterbooks, LDS Archives.

22 Elden Jay Watson, ed., Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1801-1844 (Salt Lake City: Smith Secretarial Service, 1968), pp. 24-25.

20

The Lion and the Lady

89

Brigham also came to the Smiths' financial aid in Nauvoo. The Council of the Twelve Apostles, under the direction of Brigham, made a request to the Mormon church in La Harp. They informed the members there that foodstuffs available in La Harp could not be obtained in Nauvoo and they could decide whether their prophet should spend his time earning a livelihood for his family or meeting the spiritual needs of the church.23 The apostles issued a second plea only five days later to the church members at Ramus: Brethren, we are not unmindful of the favors our President has received from you in former days but a man will not cease to be hungry this year because he eat [sic] last year.24

Emma was a spirited woman who did not sit back helplessly and let events take their course, and there were two aspects of her relationship with Joseph to which she never became resigned. The first was the relentless attempts by legal authorities to imprison her husband. There were endless warrants for his arrest and constant attempts to extradite him to Missouri as he tried to administer the affairs of church and state.

This was a constant source of anxiety to her, and she resolved to do something about it. By 1842 she had personally visited the governor of Illinois on Joseph's behalf and following that visit she and the governor exchanged a series of letters. With Eliza R. Snow acting as scribe, Emma wrote: To His Excellency Gov. Garlin . . . I much regret your ill health, and still hope that you will avail yourself sufficient time to investigate our cause, and thoroughly acquaint yourself with the illegality of the Prosecution instituted against Mr. Smith . . . we do believe that it is your duty to allow us in this place, the privileges and advantages guaranteed to us by the laws of this State and the United States.25

Emma then outlined for him the provisions of the city charter and reminded the governor that those powers existed over his own signature.

The overall tone of the Carlin letters indicates that Emma was not likely to drop the issue simply due to the state's inertia. She clearly intended to do something about the precarious legal situation in which Joseph lived.

The second unresolved aspect of Emma's relationship with Joseph centered around his attempts to establish polygamy. Here Joseph felt 23 Twelve to the Church at La H a r p , February 18, 1843, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Archives.

24 Twelve; to Ramus, February 23, 1843, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Archives.

23 Emma Smith to Governor Carlin, August 27, 1842, Emma Smith Bidamon Papers, RLDS Library-Archives.

90

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Emma's strong determination, formerly used in his behalf, now turned against him. It was Joseph's reaction to Emma's efforts to stop plural marriage that forced Brigham Young to choose sides. As long as Joseph approved of Emma's activities, Brigham also accepted them. Until Joseph complained about Emma, Brigham held his tongue and kept his feelings in check.

The first covert conflict between Brigham Young and Emma Smith probably came when Brigham's loyalty to Joseph led Brigham to accept polygamy both as a doctrine and a practice, while it was apparently Emma's loyalty to her traditional concept of Christian morality that led her to reject it. When Joseph resorted to subterfuge in order to take other wives, Emma vacillated, first agreeing to his marrying other women, then recanting her decision, and finally confronting him.20 When Joseph recruited his brother to assist him in convincing Emma to change her mind, Hyrum came home cowed from an interview with her. That this incident was reported by William Clayton27 argues that other apostles, including Brigham Young, knew about the Smiths' domestic difficulties. It exasperated Emma to realize that other people knew more about her husband's matrimonial affairs than she did. Suspicions and speculations that knew no bounds added to her anxiety. The exasperation for Brigham was that, despite her obvious inside knowledge of plural marriage, Emma denied to her death its painful existence in her life.

The real irony of the whole polygamous affair came later for Emma.

On December 23, 1847, she married a non-Mormon businessman named Lewis C. Bidamon. He had delivered new7 carriages to Joseph and Hyrum Smith before their deaths. The first correspondence between the "Major" and Emma was a request from him to lease the Mansion House.28 Emma's marriage to Bidamon was a problem for the Saints in 1847 and has remained so to this day, many preferring to believe that he married her for her money and she married him for convenience. Their letters attest that she loved him and their union lasted thirty-two years.29 2 " Among the wives t h a t E m m a agreed to give Joseph were two sets of sisters â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Emily and Eliza Partridge, and Sarah and M a r i a Lawrence. Danel W. Bachman's "A Study of the Practice of Plural Marriage before the D e a t h of Joseph Smith," (M.A. thesis, Purdue University, 1975), contains one of the most comprehensive studies of plural marriage during Joseph Smith's lifetime. I t documents E m m a ' s agonizing participation in the practice of plural marriage. Also see Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knws My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), pp. 4 3 4 - 6 5 .

27 Bachman, "Plural M a r r i a g e , " p. 160.

28 Lewis C r u m Bidamon to E m m a Smith, January 11, 1847, E m m a Smith Bidamon Papers, R L D S Library-Archives.

29 See letters in the E m m a Smith and Lewis Bidamon collections, R L D S Library-Archives.

The Lion and the Lady

91

Their life together was not without its difficulies for Emma, however.

In the fifteenth year of their marriage, Lewis Bidamon sired a son as the result of a liaison with a widow named Nancy Abercrombie who lived with her three children in the Nauvoo area. When this son, named Charles, was four years old Emma took him into her home to be raised.

Charles Bidamon's own words establish that this alien child received love and affection. "I was raised in her home and knew what kind of a woman she was. . . . [I] was as one of the family until her death. . . . She was a person of very even temper. I never heard her say an unkind word, or raise her voice in anger."30 When Emma was on her deathbed in 1879 her son Joseph came to Nauvoo to be at her side. His daily journal entry for April 22 reads: "Found Alex here at Nauvoo and Julia in care of Mother. Mrs. Abercrombie doing the work of the house."''1 There were women in Utah who could sympathize with both Emma's and Nancy Abercrombie's positions.

Emma lived the practice, if not the principle, of polygamy.

The first open conflict between Brigham and Emma occurred when Young as president of the Council of the Twelve was successful in his bid for leadership of the church after Joseph was killed. Emma opposed him, and he was embarrassed and frustrated to have the prophet's widow in another camp. Her feelings on the succession to the presidency were recorded by James Monroe, a young schoolteacher who lived with the Smith family. His diary entry of April 24, 1845, reveals: My time . . . has been occupied chiefly in conversing with Aunt E m m a from w h o m I have obtained several new and interesting ideas concerning the organization and government of the church. . . . Now as the Twelve have no power with regard to the government of the Church in the Stakes of Zion, but the High Council have all power, so it follows that on removal of the first President, the office would devolve upon the President of the High Council in Zion. . . . Mr. Rigdon is not the proper successor of President Smith, being only his councelor, but Elder Marks should be the individual. . . . And according to the ordination pronounced upon him

by Br Joseph he is the individual contemplated by him for his successor.

T h e Twelve never received any such instructions or commands or ordinations as would authorize them to take that office. They were aware of these facts but acted differently. 32

""Charles E. Bidamon to L. L. Hudson, August 10, 1940, Special Collections, Lee Library.

31 Joseph Smith I I I Journal, April 22, 1879, Joseph Smith I I I Papers, R L D S LibraryArchives. Italics not in original.

32 James Monroe Diary, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven. Microfilm copy at the U t a h State Historical Society, Salt Lake City. For a detailed account of the organizational structure that could have been the basis for Emma's support of Marks see D. Michael Quinn, " T h e Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844," Brigham Young University Studies 16 ( 1 9 7 6 ) : 187-233.

The Mansion House in Nauvoo where Emma Smith continued to live after her husband's death. USHS collections.

Joseph and Emma Smith's sons with their stepfather. From the left: Lewis Bidamon, David Smith. Frederick Smith, Alexander Smith, Joseph Smith III. USHS collections.

The Lion and the Lady

93

The rift over succession widened when Emma offered hospitality to William Smith â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Joseph's only surviving brother â&#x20AC;&#x201D; when the apostles, under Brigham's leadership, excommunicated him. William was an unstable character and sought to be installed as guardian of the Mormon church until young Joseph was old enough to assume his father's role.

There is little evidence that Emma ever supported William in his bid for leadership, but he did stay in Emma's house and his presence was enough to raise a question in Brigham's mind about Emma's loyalty to the church.

Emma's home served as a central meeting place for the surviving members of the Smith family during this period. Because the threat of violence was great in Nauvoo, armed men periodically guarded several of the church leaders' homes, including Emma's. Reports by Joseph III and Samuel Smith's daughter, Mary, reveal that the Smiths regarded this action as hostile house arrest. Whether the family was unaware of the danger or whether the guard represented hostility on the part of Young is not clear. Communication had broken down enough between Brigham and Emma that explanations for the guard were not satisfactory.

Brigham's suspicions toward Emma were not eased when a man named Van Tuyl took up quarters in the Mansion House when Emma fled from Nauvoo during the anti-Mormon attack. She returned just in time to stop the man from stealing everything she owned, but it was discovered that he was a spy from the anti-Mormon forces and had used his position in the house to report not only on the Mormons but also on those Gentiles friendly to the Saints. Emma certainly did not knowingly harbor a spy, but the incident was not one to effect an increase of love and affection in the hearts of those already suspicious of her.

Brigham's and Emma's disagreement over the doctrine of polygamy and the succession to the Mormon church presidency, almost as a matter of course, opened the way to argument over Joseph's estate. During Joseph's lifetime, Emma had enjoyed a practical, quiet, businesslike approach to life, seasoned by theatrical military performances and other occasions for fancy dress. After Joseph's death, however, when Brigham Young assumed that Joseph's trappings went along with his office, Emma resented it and took offense.

In preparation for a parade of the Nauvoo Legion, Brigham sent a note to Emma requesting use of the prophet's uniform, sword, and his favorite horse, a sorrel named Jo Duncan. Twelve-year-old Joseph had recently nursed the animal back to health. The boy obediently fitted out the horse with the requested saddle, housings, holsters, and bridle. After

94

Utah Historical Quarterly

the parade, Brigham's clerk rode the horse to exhaustion, which infuriated young Joseph, who resolved never to put a saddle on a horse for Brigham Young again.33 Brigham accused Emma of taking a portrait and ring from Hyrum's widow, Mary Fielding, and a ring from Don Carlos's widow and never returning them.34 Brigham and the other apostles took most of Joseph's papers. Emma was furious over the absence of Joseph's long wool cloak.

In reality both Brigham and Emma were caught in the classic struggle to determine the disposal of a loved one's properties. Emma, as widow, and Brigham, as successor, each asserted authority the other was unwilling to concede.

The struggle soon escalated into a major dispute between them over the disposal of Joseph's real property and the payment of his debts.

Joseph had made little distinction in his efforts to provide for his family, on the one hand, and the Mormon converts who came to Nauvoo, on the other. A case in point is the Hotchkiss Purchase, five hundred acres of land bought by the First Presidency: Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Sidney Rigdon. It was clear that these men had purchased land for Mormon church members to live on, but they had pledged their personal credit to do so.35 In addition to land purchases, Joseph had become involved in business ventures that ranged from stores to steamboats, and he included members of the Mormon church in all his various dealings. By 1841 Joseph was elected sole trustee-in-trust for the Mormon church, but Brigham Young became officially involved when Joseph asked him and the other apostles to assist in the management of lands and the settling of immigrants.

The Smiths' financial situation was not entirely dependent on Joseph.

As far back as Kirtland, Emma took in boarders whenever the family finances were low. When she assessed Joseph's estate, whatever it consisted of and however it was titled, she viewed the assets not only as a widow who assumed she would inherit the fruit of her husband's work but also as properties which she as a businesswoman had helped buy with money she herself had earned. At Joseph's death the question facing Emma, with five children to raise, was how to preserve for herself 33

Smith, Joseph Smith III, p. 87.

84

Brigham Young Statement, Liverpool, April 1, 1867, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Archives.

33 Joseph I. Bentley and Dallin H. Oaks, "Joseph Smith and the Legal Process: In the Wake of the Steamboat Nauvoo," Brigham Young University Law Review 6 (1976) : 745.

The Lion and1 the Lady

95

and her family the inheritance that was rightfully theirs. The question facing Brigham, with thousands of destitute church members to look after, whose tithing and labor had helped build the city, was how to preserve for them what was rightfully theirs as a church.

Emma was made administrator of Joseph's estate but was replaced

by Joseph W. Coolidge after two months when she failed to post the bond required by the court. By 1848 Coolidge was replaced by a man named Ferris at the request of Almon Babbitt, one of the lawyers retained by Brigham Young. The settling of the estate then provided the setting for another classic struggle â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the widow versus the executor.

Coincidental with her marriage to Lewis C. Bidamon, Emma decisively won the first major round. Almon Babbitt wrote from Nauvoo to Heber C. Kimball: On my arrival home I found considerable excitement in Nauvoo from the fact that Emma Bidamon had made a Suit Claim deed of all the Lands in the City that she conveyed to the church. . . . It operates as a perfect Estopel to the sale of any more City property until the matter is tested in the courts of Law.â&#x201E;˘

It was a blow, and it left Brigham helpless and frustrated in his attempts to secure capital for the trek west. He felt for the rest of his life that Emma had usurped properties paid for by the labor and tithing of the members of the Mormon church.'7 When the exodus west began, everyone was forced to sell fine homes and beautiful farms for a pittance in order to outfit a wagon.

It was easy for those crossing the river to look back at the expansive Mansion House, the Homestead, the red brick store, and the foundations of the Nauvoo House, which Emma was not abandoning, and make their private judgments about her generosity. Brigham anxiously looked at her holdings in terms of the cash equity the church so desperately needed.

Emma was in for an equally great disappointment. When Joseph was alive there had been a great deal of entertaining; Emma herself commented that he never liked to eat alone. There were military parades in spectacular uniforms, and only ten months before Joseph's death the Smith family had seen completion of their new7 home and hostelry.

36 37

January 31, 1848, LDS Archives. Italics in original.

Brigham Young Address, October 7, 1866, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Archives.

Accounts such as the following illustrate the frustrations Brigham's agents felt and communicated to him as they tried to sell Nauvoo properties and found them in Emma's name. See Joseph L. Heywood to Heber C. Kimball, March 17, 1846; John Bernhisel to Brigham Young, June 10, 1846; Almon W. Babbitt to Heber C. Kimball, January 31, 1848. These letters are in the LDS Archives.

96

Utah Historical Quarterly

Where, then, was all the money? Emma was to learn that the legacy of debt she had inherited would plague her for a long time and that Nauvoo city lots were of little cash value. She was land rich and money poor, and the only explanation she could find for the situation was that somehow Brigham Young must have swindled her out of what should rightfully have been hers.

In reality, neither Brigham nor Emma fully understood where the riches had gone, for, in fact, there were no riches. Nauvoo had been built in a speculative economy, and when the Mormons left, the remaining inhabitants of the desolated city could not generate the thriving, bustling economy that had characterized the building up of Zion.

Five months before Joseph Smith's death, Jacob Scott in Nauvoo had written to his daughter in Canada, M a n y hundreds come in to Nauvoo, from different parts of the union, and a great number from Europe, & the brick laying continued, plastering & chimney building, until a few days ago — Nauvoo is now a splendid spectacle to view from any point in sight, hundreds of elegant brick buildings, after the mode of different countries and the taste of the owners — and the Saints of other climes, in their respective costumes, is to me a novel & interesting sight. . . . We confidently expect before long to witness the arrival of Saints from every country in Europe. And the time is not far distant when the Arabians will arrive with their tents & their camels & dromedaries, 'And Etheopia will soon stretch out her hands to God.' 3 8

Emma could not bring herself to leave the dream; Brigham confidently believed he could take it with him. They both erred in assuming that Nauvoo could finance it.

Brigham Young was right — Emma was smart and ingenious — but he underestimated her. She was smart enough to know that he did not always appreciate those qualities in her. He did not understand the relationship Emma had with Joseph. An independent woman, she would have scorned the offer of a "cradle" to carry her across the plains.

The Relief Society she had presided over had been dissolved, leaving her without a base of influence. If she went west she probably could have gone as a plural wife of one of the Twelve. She did not choose that future. "I have no friend but God," she said, "and no place to go but home."39 With the passage of time both Brigham and Emma may have seen that their struggle was not entirely of their own making, but their opposition to each other polarized the uncomfortable emotions that many 38

Jacob Scott to Mary Scott Warnock, January 5, 1844, R L D S Library-Archives.

E. Cecil McGavin, Nauvoo the Beautiful (Salt Lake City: Stevens and Wallis, Inc., 1946), p. 191.

39

Traditional postcard photo, RLDS church, Independence,

Missouri.

of the early Mormons felt as they embraced an unorthodox religion.

The "moderate Mormons"40 who remained in Illinois shed such encumbering practices as temple activities and plural marriage, and they blamed Brigham Young for whatever embarrassment they felt about being Latter Day Saints. Among Brigham Young's followers a gradual sentiment developed that there was something sinister about Emma Smith. It became an undercurrent of anticipation: what would be learned about Emma could the depths of hell be probed for an interview?41 Whether or not Emma raised her sons on falsehoods, or Brigham ineptly handled his beloved friend's wife, the most unfortunate result of their conflict was the institutionalized rancor that developed between two churches that claimed the same founder.

Brigham Young and Emma Smith centered their lives around the charismatic Joseph. Brigham loved him and did his bidding; Emma loved him and challenged him. Both died calling his name.42 40 "Moderate Mormons" is Alma Blair's term for members of the RLDS church and stems from his article, " T h e Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Moderate Mormons," The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History, ed. F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards (Lawrence, K a n . : Coronado Press, 1973).

41 Mormon folklore has Joseph stating he would go to hell for Emma and Brigham commenting that that's where he would find her.

42 For an account by his daughter of Brigham's death see: Susa Young Gates and Leah D. Widtsoe, The Life Story of Brigham Young (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1930), p. 362.

For an account by her son, Alexander Hale Smith, of Emma's death see: Zion's Ensign, December 31, 1903 (RLDS publication).

The Utah Photographs of George Edward Anderson. By R E L L G. FRANCIS. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. X i i + 155 pp. $23.50.)

Every collector of historical photographs has heard tales about the discovery of some attic horde of long lost glass plates, but Rell Francis's discovery of 10,000 George Edward Anderson negatives must rank as the Lost Dutchman gold mine of the genre. While Francis was looking for a photo of Springville sculptor Cyrus E. Dallin in 1972, a friend offered to give him the Anderson glass plates which lay unused in the attic. Perhaps there was a photograph of the sculptor in the collection, his friend suggested.

A year later Francis had selected and printed for exhibition 150 of the finest negatives and submitted an article to Popuar Photography magazine. T h e George Edward Anderson boom had begun. Now after several years, Rell Francis, with the help of a commission from the Amon Carter Museum, has drawn together the many bits and pieces of Anderson's art and life into a thorough and well-documented account.

Utah-born in 1860, G. E. Anderson learned photography at the studio of the territory's then-acknowledged master.

C. R. Savage. Francis provides no reason for this choice of careers by the young Anderson or w h a t gave him his early "passion for picture taking," but by the age of nineteen Anderson had taken top honors for photography at the U t a h Territorial Fair.

T h e railroad made it easy for George Edward Anderson to set u p satellite

tent galleries in central and southern U t a h â&#x20AC;&#x201D; small farming communities like Springville, Nephi, and Manti -â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as well as to tour the mining towns (usually on p a y d a y ) . Like most photographers, Anderson found portrait work to be the most remunerative, and much of the book's account of the photographer's life concerns his financial affairs.

Rell Francis traces Anderson's move to Manti, where he married Olive Lowry, then to Springville where he finally set u p a permanent studio in partnership with U t a h artist John Hafen. T h e studio portraiture work comprises a full two-thirds of his photographic legacy, and the images selected for the book show a deep sensitivity for his subjects. Although many of the portraits were done in his studio with its hand-painted classical setting, Anderson also used props extensively â&#x20AC;&#x201D; props which always tell us something about his view of the individuals sitting before the camera. For the town barber, he acquired a barber chair and a willing customer. For a Scofield couple, he included the family hunting dog and a brace of rabbits. T h e editors of the Salina Press he grouped around a table clipping their own paper.

Occasionally, some of the portraits are taken in the customer's natural surroundings. T h e town butchers stood proudly in front of a locker filled with sides of beef; a local weaver rocked next to her spinning wheel.

99

Book Reviews and Notices Most people, however, will find Anderson's work as a documentarian more interesting and, to historians, ultimately more valuable. Although the major events of Utah's early settlement period were already history when George Edward Anderson took u p the camera, he was still able to record the state's growth from those first settlements. As a devout Mormon, Anderson must have felt that the efforts of his fellow churchmen were indeed "making the desert bloom," and he clearly recognized the record-making capacity of his camera. Francis has included a selection of his most famous documentary series â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Scofield mine disaster â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that tells the story of that tragedy more eloquently than words ever could.

T w o things become evident in studying the sampler of photographs provided by this volume. George Edward Anderson had an understanding of and a remarkably deep feeling for the people in these small towns and farms. H e could lure them into seemingly natural poses in front of their homes, surrounded by the familiar objects of their daily life, and then make photographs that were artistic jewels as well as an accurate documents.

One of the problem's with Rell Francis's biography of Anderson is that it is difficult to obtain a feeling for the photographer that would account for the sensitivity and art of his photographs. T h e outline details of a life are present, well organized, and interestingly written, but nowhere does George Edward Anderson the m a n reflect at length on his life and art. Only through the pictures do we feel his w a r m t h and

love for his subjects, or the keenly perceptive way he captured their lives, or the reverence he felt at the scenes of Mormonism's beginnings. In the meticulous craftsmanship of each image, we feel his "passion for picture-taking" and the dedication it took to achieve beautifully precise photographs in primitive circumstances.

It is most disturbing, then, that University of Nebraska Press should not have shown the same care and dedication in reprinting these images. I n comparison with Photography and the Old West, published by the Amon Carter Museum with photographs printed by William R. Current, most of the photographs in this book have a grayish cast and lack the clarity Anderson intended. In addition, several of the images have been cropped to a standard size, some of them with real damage to the view (compare no. 59 in The Utah Photographs of George Edward Anderson and no. 126 in Photography and the Old West, both of which show a crew cleaning m u d from a resevoir after a flood).

Despite the faults with the book's production, The Utah Photographs of George Edward Anderson is a useful introduction to the work of one of our most prominent photographers. We can only hope that it spurs further scholarship into Anderson's life and work and encourages researchers to visit the archives where his prints are held to see them in person.

DAVID M E R R I L L

Utah State Historical

Society

Hard-rock Miners: The Intermountain West, 1860-1920. By RONALD C. B R O W N .

(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1979. Xvi + 201 pp. $15.95.)

Professor Brown of Southwest Texas State University has provided an excellent social history of the lives of the people who mined the West's metal ores.

Students of U t a h ' s history will be richly rewarded with numerous examples of

life drawn from the state's mining camps. In addition, nine of the book's twenty-nine illustrations are of U t a h scenes and people. It does seem that "Alba City" (p. 99) should be Alta City.

100 The lives of the men and women who worked and lived in the mining towns are gracefully described. Their work and leisure, their ups and downs, and their hopes and hardships are all explored.

Dr. Brown has performed yeoman duty in giving us portraits of real flesh-andblood people rather than shadows acting on the stage of history. This entertaining glimpse of many of our greatgrandparents' generation maintains a high level of historical accuracy. The liberal use of selections from letters, diaries, and memories of the participants significantly enlivens the narrative.

These "working-stiffs" of the western mining frontier were hardly stiff.

Many of Brown's conclusions and descriptions could easily fit the other western mining areas beyond those included. While the author limits his concentration to Utah, Nevada. Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming,

Utah Historical Quarterly the situations and life-styles of miners and their families in Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, and California were substantially the same as those written about here. In fact, the high geographical mobility of the miners in the West almost ensured that the similarities would exist.

Footnotes are at the bottom of each page (where they belong), and an excellent bibliography is included for the scholarly among us. A minor nit: the Western Federation of Miners not only "considered" (p. 146) forming women's auxiliaries, they did so, including ones at Park City and Leadville.

If the price tag seems a little high for an evening's read, talk your local library into buying it. Thanks, Professor Brown.

J O H N E. BRINLEY, JR.

Boeing Computer Services Tukwila, Washington

Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah. By KENNETH B. CASTLETON. Vol. 1: The

East and Northeast. (Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Natural History, 1978.

Xxiii + 215 pp. Paper, $15.00.) Vol. 2: The South, Central, West, and Northwest.

(Salt Lake City: Utah Museum of Natural History. 1979. Xxx4-341 pp. Paper, $15.00.)

Rock art is the kind of subject that sends crackpots scurrying to Xerox machines and vanity presses to crank out theories of Hebraic submarines, supragalactic spacemobiles, or exotic codes and ciphers.

Professional archaeologists, on the other hand, sometimes tend to overlook rock art since it cannot be adequately dated or positively ascribed to a specific culture. (A few years ago several Utah archaeologists visited a rock shelter above Granite Creek by the Nevada border without noticing a large pictograph panel inside the shelter. The site was later named Scribble Rock Shelter, although Overlooked Overlook might have been more appropriate.) Unless physical chemists can devise a method to date pigment so that pictographs can be assigned to a specific culture, rock

art will remain an enigma to archaeologists. It can only be described geographically or stylistically as in Polly Schaafsma's The Rock Art of Utah.

Happily for those interested in reading about Utah's prehistory, Kenneth Castleton is neither a crackpot nor a professional archaeologist. Dr. Castleton, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Utah, is what used to be called a natural historian.

As such, he is reminiscent of those physicians-turned-naturalist like Drs. Gideon Mantell, Richard Owen, or Joseph Leidy who made many contributions to paleontology during the 1800s. Unlike many amateur archaeologists, Dr. Castleton did not rush out with pick and shovel to acquire his own collection of Indian artifacts. Instead, he read the applicable archaeological literatureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a chore some-

Book Reviews and Notices times like performing an appendectomy on a 750-pound patient: what should be a simple operation becomes protracted by excess materialâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and set off camera in hand.

Whether these volumes are "science" is irrelevant. They do represent the prologue to all science which is to observe and to record. Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah is an invaluable guide to appreciating Utah's prehistory. Anyone venturing into Utah's wilderness with a camera should have these volumes as a reference. But the reader should not expect to be given directions to where to park his Jeep CJ-5 within fifty feet of a particular petroglyph.

Shortly after volume 1 appeared, several friends and I spent, hours traipsing down washes and u p slopes looking for a large panel in Rochester Wash, Emery County. We never found it. T h e particular joy of rock art, however, is com-

101 ing upon it accidentally. It is Utah's serendipitous treasure. W h a t makes D r .

Castleton's work treasurable is that now the amateur prehistorian can return from the field with boxes of color slides to spend further gleeful hours comparing them with the many photographs and illustrations herein.

Despite the price, these are not coffee table art books. It would indeed be marvelous if someone could induce Eliot Porter, who incidentally was also trained as a physician, to do a photographic book on U t a h rock art. Better still would be a collaborative work by Porter with color and Ansel Adams with black-andwhite. With Dr. Castleton's Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah as their guide, they surely could lay claim along with J. K. Hillers to have "photographed all the best scenery."

T O M ZEIDLER

Utah State Historical

Society

Rocky Mountain Empire: The Latter-day Saints Today. By SAMUEL W. TAYLOR. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1978. Xii + 273 pp. $12.95.)

In a prefatory statement, Samuel Taylor presents his book as an account of the radical metamorphosis of Mormon character between 1885 and the present.

In the first half of the book, Taylor employs historical narrative to follow a number of important changes in Mormon doctrine and practice, though he does not make it clear that the changes were as radical as he claims, and he neglects consideration of many other aspects of Mormon character. In the second half of his book, Taylor shifts from historical narrative to biographical essay. These chapters are not a comprehensive survey of the modern M o r m o n personality; rather, they spotlight individuals whose eccentricity and defiance make them exceptions to the Latter-day Saint norm. As objective history, the account is less than satisfactory. But as a satirical critique of the inconsistencies and incongruities of the official Mormon church, Taylor's book is very much worth reading.

T h e first half of the book is called "Latter-day Laocoon." a title that suggests the official church has struggled unsuccessfully with the forces of change.

In this part of the book Taylor follows the convulsive events by which the church came to a complete renunciation of polygamy. H e creates an ironic contrast between the official proscription and the continuing vitality of underground polygamy among a large population of dissident Mormons. Taylor emphasizes the political intolerance of the church in its attempts during the decade when U t a h became a state to enforce solidarity among Mormons through disciplinary action against ranking Mormon Democrats Moses T h a t c h er a n d B. H . Roberts. Taylor also follows the transformation of the church from an organization benumbed by persecution, debt, and disincorporation into a powerful and wealthy institution whose vast resources derive not only

102 from tithes but also from numerous secular enterprises.

The second half of this book is entitled "Happy Valley." Its chapters are a series of biographical and personal essays about the Mormon character in places where Samuel Taylor has lived— Utah Valley, where he grew up, and the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived for much of his adult life. One chapter deals with the remarkable expedition of Benjamin Cluff, president of Brigham Young Academy, who, with the obsessed determination of a mountain climber, went by foot and muleback from North to South America in search of Book of Mormon ruins. Two other chapters delineate the eccentric and irascible personalities of BYU Professors Eugene L. Roberts and M. Wilford Poulson. Another chapter traces the career of the mystic bishop, John H. Koyle, whose visions of buried Nephite riches created the Dream Mine in a mountainside near Spanish Fork. Other chapters are autobiographical. Speaking of himself in the third person as "Joe Budro," Taylor portrays his life as the son of John W. Taylor, an apostle cashiered from the quorum for taking wives after the Manifesto, and narrates his own evolution into an adult Mormon of a dissenting variety. In a sense, much of the entire book is autobiographical. The historical events dealt with in the first half to a considerable degree involve Taylor's grandfather and father, and Taylor personalizes those events by treating them from the point of view of his elder sister.

As an explanation of modern Mormon character this book is incomplete, disunified, and biased. The historical materials of the first half are derived from widely available sources and are often presented as long, undigested

Utah Historical

quotations. They will be of interest to the general reader rather than to the professional historian. Many readers will be disappointed that Taylor neglects so many features of the orthodox Mormon character and that he treats the official church with such unvarying ridicule.

However, many other readers will find this book to be stimulating and valuable.

Its narratives and biographies have strong dramatic tension, they move at a brisk pace, and they are written in a lucid style. This work will have particular interest to those who find the Mormon establishment to be oppressive.

Taylor speaks often of a Salt Lake samizdat—an underground network of persons, presumably Mormons, who monitor and report the repressions of fact and freedom by which the official church maintains its image and power. The information network of this samizdat, he says, "is rivaled only by that of Russia." Taylor has chosen an ironic title for his chapter on the finances of the modern church—"Latter-day Profits"— and he speaks satirically of the Mormon commitment to traditional Christian values by saying, "one thing can be said for sure: the vow of poverty is utterly incomprehensible in the Mormon culture." In a multitude of similar ways Taylor provides a comic vent for those who may find their sense of freedom diminished within the boundaries of Mormondom.

For many readers, the autobiographical content of the book will also be of value. Samuel Taylor is a notable feature of Mormon culture. Insight into his truculent, outspoken personality is itself a sufficient reason for reading his book.

LEVI S. PETERSON

Weber State College

The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier. By ELLIOTT University of Nebraska Press, 1979. Xx + 197 pp. $14.50.)

A bawdy place where men downed rye whiskey and engaged in games of

Quarterly

WEST.

(Lincoln:

chance and violence is the popular image of the public drinking house of the

Book Reviews and Notices American frontier. Until now historians have done little to correct this image or to delve deeper into the role of the saloon as a social institution or to see it as part of the economic structure of the western urban frontier.

With his case study of the saloon on the Rocky Mountain mining frontier during 1858-90, Elliott West analyzes an important business and places the saloon in the context of the mining townâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"its physical growth, social composition, and prevailing attitudes." Framing his book with chapters on " T h e Sacramental Glass of Whiskey" and " T h e Morning After," the author explores the nature of the "Saloonman" and discovers the "Social Heart-Centre" of the mining camp in the saloon where the "Revenue Flows Freely."

Those who followed the "Gold!" cry to the isolated Rocky Mountain mining frontier, West found, were usually white men in their early thirties, of whom over half were born in the United States, with a quarter of the foreign-born coming from England, Ireland, or Germany.

More likely, the miners were single, but even if married they were without their families. This restless, transitory gathering, which "seemed less a community than a swarm," sought relief from disappointment, loneliness, and boredom through companionship and a sense of association. T h e competitive, highly mobile, unstable lives of the miners led them to be fond of "filling up their bowels with bad whiskee." And, the saloon, with its bartender of about the same age and background as the miners, offered a place where the latter could engage in social exchange and drink.

Crude structures of canvas, logs, or unseasoned lumber bearing the sign "Saloon" appeared across the Rockies as soon as mining camps were struck.

If the camp prospered and a system of streets and a distinct commercial district emerged, more substantial, usually wood, buildings of greater size were erected to house the barmen and their brew. If

103 the camp began to grow into a town the saloons took on a more refined and permanent look. As a defense against fire these new saloons were constructed of brick or native stone.

Although the primary function of the saloon was still drinking and gambling, saloonkeepers in their attempt to draw customers away from the competition often added fancy bars, pianos, fine stemware, art objects, billiard tables, reading rooms, and meeting halls for social clubs and dancing classes. T h e lure of female companionship in the male mining town was always high, and a saloonkeeper who could offer waitresses or "a chance to dance with tired and haggard women" always attracted customers.

T h e saloon Professor West characterizes on the Rocky M o u n t a i n frontier was not unique. It helped men to cope and survive, which can generally be said of most drinking houses; but beyond that, "the saloon was a setting, an experience, a scene of many activities, and a business." And, as the author demonstrates, "the changes in the structure of the saloon paralleled the evolution of the town, from its primitive beginnings through its maturity."

West has borrowed skillfully from the sparse documents, mostly newspapers and diaries, to give a flavor of the time without burdening the reader with long quotations and has developed generalizations from statistics and a few firsthand accounts to give flesh to the narrative. With stories of individual saloonkeepers in different circumstances and case studies of the development of mining towns such as Leadville, he has developed a picture of the saloonkeeper and shown the development of the saloon in the context of the town in which it was set.

O n the other hand, West does not dwell on the negative impact of the "grog" served by the bartenders, nor does he moralize about the "social evil" the saloons were. Rather, he views the

Utah Historical Quarterly

104 saloon as an institution providing services in a developing community.

cial and economic history of the American West.

Overall, this concise, well written volume makes a contribution to the so-

Governors State

Tending

BEVERLY B E E T O N

University Chicago

the Talking

Wire: A Buck So Idler's View of Indian Country, 1863-1866.

(Salt Lake City: University of U t a h Press, 1979.

Xvi + 3 8 2 p p . $20.00.)

Edited by W I L L I A M E. U N R A U .

Most published memoirs, diaries, a n d letters are from the famous or infamous celebrities of the day. This notoriety makes their thoughts and observations on subjects, seemingly, of transcendent importance or, at least, holds the prospect of lucrative economic gain for cashconscious publishers. T h u s their letters or journals are deemed worthy of eternal preservation through the printed word.

Rarely are the thoughts a n d observations of the common m a n given the same deferential treatment. Dr. Unrau's book is a rare exception that gives us the common man's view of the western American frontier during the tumultuous years of 1863-66, times of Indian warfare and westward emigration.

Dr. U n r a u edited over one hundred letters of Q u a k e r Hervey Johnson, " a n uncelebrated nobody," to his family in Ohio. In these letters, Johnson reveals much about the nineteenth-century American West and himself. Johnson expresses the prejudices of his times a n d some of his own when he regards the Mormons with dislike, the emigrants with distaste, a n d the Indians with disgust. Also, Johnson's letters relate the natural wonder of the new land and the extreme loneliness of serving on an isolated outpost. H e describes vividly the horrors of I n d i a n warfare and the difficulties of keeping the peace on the high plains.

This young Quaker's western adventure began in July 1863 when he enlisted in Company G of the Eleventh Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. Instead of marching off to the battlefield of the then raging Civil War, this unit marched off in the opposite direction to Fort

Laramie then located in I d a h o Territory.

T h e soldiers made a short detour to chase the guerilla leader William Clark Quantrill and his raiders in Kansas but soon resumed their journey westward. U p o n arriving at Fort Laramie, the troopers were assigned the dual mission of guarding the newly constructed transcontinental telegraph line from storm or I n d i a n depredation and protecting from peril the emigrants traveling west. Their area of responsibility was from Fort Laramie to South Pass over two hundred miles away on the Oregon Trail. T h e Plains Indians h a d the distressing habit of cutting down the telegraph poles for bonfires a n d tearing down miles of lines. O n such occasions, small groups of soldiers would venture out from the shelter of stage stations to reconstruct the line. Also the Indians would steal livestock from the emigrants, again bringing out the cavalry in oftentimes futile attempts to retrieve the animals. Johnson's letters recount these incidents and the more routine daily life along the Oregon Trail.

I n addition, he describes such events as the Platte Bridge fight in which Casper Collins was killed and treaty negotiations at Fort Laramie in 1866 between the United States commissioners and representatives of the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe nations.

I n editing the letters, Dr. U n r a u made the sound decision to let Johnson's letters be published with a minimal a m o u n t of corrections to g r a m m a r and spelling.

This gives the reader a better understanding of everyday language of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the editor leaves the textual material with

Book Reviews and Notices incorrect place names. For example, Box Elder Creek is persistently referred to as Box Alder Creek. The book needs more explanatory footnotes to assist the reader in identifying geographical locations and historical events. One footnote concerning Devil's Gate on p. 192 even gives rather misleading information: "According to Horace Greeley more than 100 Mormons died of exposure there during an extended snowstorm prior to 1859." The event referred to

by Greeley occurred in 1856 when a handcart company under the leadership of Edward Martin was caught in a severe October snowstorm and the emigrants sought shelter in a cove two miles north of Devil's Gate. Brigham Young on receiving word of this disaster dispatched a rescue party from Salt Lake City which brought the survivors back to Utah; tragically, one hundred and

105 thirty-five persons of the Martin company perished.

Another minor flaw in the work is the poor quality of some of the map reproductions. For example, the map and floor plan of the Sweetwater Station on p. 202 is blurred and the writing illegible. On the original, the lines are crisp and clear and the writing legible.

Despite these flaws, the work is remarkable and should be of interest to both amateur and professional western historians. The best feature of this book is that it gives flesh and blood to the usual skeleton of western history found in general narrative histories of the American West. One only fears that the $20.00 price tag will diminish the chances of this book achieving the wide readership it deserves.

J O H N C. PAIGE

National Park Service Denver

The Fur Trade of the American West, 1807-1840: A Geographical Synthesis. By DAVID J. Wis HART. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. 237 pp. $15.00.)

To write a geographic synthesis of the western American fur trade is an arduous undertaking. This possibly may be the reason why students and scholars, who have had access to hundreds of publications associated with the fur trade, have been without any scholarly work in this specific area. The Fur Trade of the American West, 1807-1840, by David J. Wishart not only fills the void but will be recognized as a major contribution.

The book deals with the physical, biological, and cultural environment in the upper Missouri drainage basin and the northern, central, and southern Rockies.

However, very little coverage is given to the southern Rockies with headquarters in Taos and Santa Fe. Additional detail certainly would have made the text more valuable.

The introductory chapter entitled "The Geographical Setting" gives an

overview of the physical characteristics of the land in which the fur industry was carried on. In many ways the geographical base not only influenced and dictated the activities of the local trading and trapping operations but also controlled the major fur companies of Saint Louis, Taos, and Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.

The major contributions of the text are contained in chapters 2 through 5.

Chapter 2 and 3 look at the strategy and the annual cycle of operations, respectively, or the upper Missouri fur trade. The strategy of the upper Missouri was an Indian trade systemâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not a trapping systemâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which would emerge two decades later in the northern, central, and southern Rockies, the prime ingredient being the bison robe. The author carefully examines the trading system of the upper Missouri River in chapter 2 and shows how the geograph-

106 ical base of the land dictated the strategy used by the Saint Louis-based fur companies. This was done by, first, cultivating and keeping the Indians as suppliers of the furs and, second, through trial and error developing a knowledge of the land to make the fur trade a profitable enterprise.

Chapter 3 looks at the climate timetable on the upper Missouri and demonstrates how nature scheduled the fur companies' operations of obtaining and transporting furs to national and international markets.

The examination of the Rockies in regards to strategy and annual operations are contained in chapters 4 and 5.

The author explains how the fur system in the Rockies was a trapping system based on the beaver pelt. Here the Indian was replaced by the mountain man as the producer of the furs. The rendezvous superseded the trading post, and the transportation of trade goods was accomplished by mule and horse caravans. Each spring the caravans traveled from Saint Louis to the annual rendezvous and returned in the late summer with their furry banknotes. As on the upper Missouri the strategy and operations of the Rocky Mountain trapping

Utah Historical

Quarterly

system was controlled by the geographical base of the land.

Professor Wishart has carefully outlined the demise of both the trading and trapping systems. In summary he states: T h e geographical base (including the physical, biological, and cultural environments) was the foundation for the fur trade of the Trans-Missouri West.

T h e traders and trappers built their productions systems on this foundation, improvising, modifying and intensifying their methods of exploration until the superstructure became too heavy for the base and large areas of operations were abandoned [p. 37].

The book is greatly enhanced by the numerous maps, tables, and pictures and contains an excellent bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The University of Nebraska Press has published a well organized and usable book; however, those readers who are not grounded in geographical terminology will find the dictionary a useful companion. Professor Wishart is to be congratulated for his excellent study. The book is a welcome addition and will be used widely by scholars and students in their efforts to better understand the history of the American fur trade.

FRED R. GOWANS

Brigham Young

University

O. P. McMains and the Maxwell Land Grant Conflict. By MORRIS F. TAYLOR. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979. Xvi + 365 pp. Cloth, $16.95: paper, $9.50.)

Situated in the Rocky Mountains athwart the New Mexico-Colorado line, the "Maxwell grant" represents the largest land fraud and miscarriage of justice in western land claims. What started as perhaps no more than a "normal" Mexican-period grant of 40,000 to 90,000 acres was magnified by boundary juggling, by political maneuvering, and by outright corruption into a huge corporate estate of over 1,700,000 acres.

There were protests over this illegal expansion of the original grant which had been made in 1841 by Gov. Manuel

Armijo to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda. Complaints increased after purchase of the grant by foreign investors, mostly as a result of events of the intervening period which included adverse entry and possession by incoming settlers who believed they were preempting public domain lands. In fact, some residents even held title through United States government patent, but legal decisions continually favored the corporate landowners and adverse occupants faced eviction.

Book Reviews and Notices In their extremity the settlers turned for guidance to a controversial and charismatic erstwhile clergyman, Oliver P. McMains, self-styled "agent for the settlers." McMains dedicated himself to opposing the Maxwell Land Company, even employing direct action when legal means failed. As a result of these complications he was tried for murder, for manslaughter, a n d for conspiracy; he made fourteen trips to Washington on behalf of his settlers; a n d he became a hero to some a n d a villain to others.

Stubborn, outspoken, and single-minded, he died in 1899 having failed in his major goal of forcing government recognition of individual land equities. I n a later age Old McMains might have emerged a hero, a representative of the

107 little m a n in his battle against absentee ownership; but he was either ahead of or behind the times and was therefore thought by many to be a demagogue, a radical, and a crank.

Written in sympathetic but historically authentic style by Morris Taylor, the book is a well-documented study.

T h e University of Arizona Press has done a most satisfactory job of book production, characterized by clear typography and good graphics. Unfortunately, author Taylor's recent death takes from the profession a m a n whose stature as a regional historian is further enhanced by this workmanlike study.

D O N A L D C. C U T T E R

University

'

Adventures with Life. By HERBERT B. M A W . (Salt Lake City: Author, 1978.

Xii + 2 6 8 p p . ) In J a n u a r y of 1949 Gov. Herbert B. M a w retired from eighteen years of public service a n d vowed h e would not become a tragic victim of retirement.

His autobiography delightfully depicts his theory that " t h e h u m a n body, together with its mind, is the only mechanism known to m a n which improves through use." T h e story he tells is of a shy, introverted youngster who forced himself to excel in forensics and d r a m a and to eventually become a state senator and a two-term governor of U t a h . T h e eighty-six-year-old ex-governor traces his life with humor through his experiences as a newsboy and candy concessionaire

. ' •

of New Mexico

' . • • . - • • ' • • . ' • • • : . - • . ' • • : • ' • ' <

to the t o p governmental position a n d his active days as a practicing attorney.

Leota:

End of William

Stewardship.

H.

Smart's

By R O B E R T P. C O O P E R .

(Salt Lake City: Author, 1979. Vii

+ 198 pp.)

T h e little town of Leota, which was the "tail e n d " of pioneer colonization in U t a h , comes alive in M r . Cooper's homey book on the early settlers. His account covers the years from 1925 to 1954, the same years as the old Leota ward, although William H . Smart's stewardship actually began in 1904 when h e was directed by Joseph F .

Smith, L D S church president, to assume the responsibility of fathering the settlement.

Utah Historical Quarterly

108 Through the forty-seven diaries of Smart are left the memories of families of Ellsworth, Jorgensen, Bryant, Kidd, and many others. Anecdotes of the youngsters in the twelve-pupil school who scattered from the skunk under the floor and harassed the teacher by rolling a large snowball in front of the only entrance to the outhouse are delightful to read. Memorabilia abound through the reminiscences of the various families depicted in the down-to-earth manner of Mr. Cooper.

The publication also traces the Leota area from the time of the DominguezEscalante expedition of 1776 through the pathways made by William Ashley and Kit Carson and the early mountain men.

Freeway to Perfection: A Collection of Mormon

Cartoons. By CALVIN GRON-

(Salt Lake City: Sunstone Foundation, 1978. 93 pp. $2.95.)

DAHL.

Calvin Raymond Grondahl is a unique individual with the wit and ability to poke fun at himself. Mormons who read his book of cartoons with that same spirit can enjoy twenty minutes of outrageous fun-poking. Johnnie Miller, the Osmonds, missionaries, ERA, population growth, temple recommends, and family home evening all fall to the light, deft touch of Grondahl who is funny but never flippant.

A returned missionary, Grondahl draws editorial cartoons for the Deseret News and is syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association of New York which serves 700 papers.

Guide to America?! Historical Manuscripts in the Huntington Library.

(San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library. 1979. Viii + 401 pp. $25.00.)

Over five million pieces of historical data are numbered in the collection of the Huntington Library, and this publication indexes, among other things, genealogical information valuable to scholars in Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Nevada.

Sketches, diaries, biographical material, and family histories are catalogued in the book which took six years to summarize, describe, and publish. Three additional guide volumes will be published, including: Guide to Literary Manuscripts in the Huntington Library, British Historical Manuscripts, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.

Agricultural methods, railroading, mining, and women's rights also are indexed in the publication.

The Fist in the Wilderness. By DAVID LAVENDER. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979. Xiv + 490 pp. Paper, $8.95.)

A paperback reprint of a book originally copyrighted in 1964 that tells the story of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company from its founding in 1808 to its sale in 1833. The company was established to oppose British control of the fur trade in the Northwest Territory.

The Great Platte River Road. By MERA Journey to California: The Letters of Thaddeus Dean, 1852. Edited by KATHARINE DEAN W H E E L E R . (Tampa: American Studies Press, Inc., 1979. Vi + 26 pp. Paper, $3.00.)

A collection of letters spanning the years from 1845 to 1902 written by a traveler to California whose route took him through Utah.

RILL J. MATTES. (Lincoln: Nebraska

State Historical Society, 1979. Xix + 583 pp. Paper, $8.95.)

A reprinted edition of the story of the main transcontinental route followed by the covered-wagon settlers migrating to the American West during the years 1841 to 1866. The work is based largely on original overland journals.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Department of Community and Economic Development Division of State History BOARD OF STATE HISTORY M I L T O N C. A B R A M S , Smithfield, 1981

President D E L L O G. D A Y T O N , O g d e n , 1983

Vice President M E L V I N T . S M I T H , Salt Lake City Secretary T H O M A S G. ALEXANDER, Provo, 1983 A I R S . E L I Z A B E T H G R I F F I T H , O g d e n , 1981

W A Y N E K . H I N T O N , Cedar City, 1981 T H E R O N L U K E , Provo, 1983

DAVID S. M O N S O N , Lieutenant G o v e r n o r /

Secretary of State, Ex officio M R S . ELIZABETH M O N T A G U E , Salt Lake City, 1983 WILLIAM D . O W E N S , Salt Lake City, 1983 M R S . H E L E N Z. PAPANIKOLAS, Salt Lake City, 1981 T E D J. W A R N E R , Provo, 1981

ADMINISTRATION MELVIN T. SMITH,

Director

STANFORD J. L A Y T O N , Managing JAY M . H A Y M O N D ,

Editor

Librarian

DAVID B. M A D S E N , State

Archaeologist

A. K E N T P O W E L L , Historic Preservation W I L S O N G. M A R T I N , Historic Preservation

Research Development

T h e U t a h State Historical Society was organized in 1897 by public-spirited U t a h n s to collect, preserve, and publish U t a h and related history. Today, under state sponsorship, the Society fulfills its obligations by publishing the Utah Historical Quarterly and other historical materials; locating, documenting, and preserving historic and prehistoric buildings and sites; and maintaining a specialized research library. Donations and gifts to the Society's programs or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can it live up to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past.

MEMBERSHIP Membership in the U t a h Stale Historical Society is open to all individuals and institutions interested in U t a h history.

Membership applications and change of address notices should be sent to the membership secretary.

Annual dues a r e : Individual, $7.50; institution, $10.00; student, $5.00 (with teacher's statement) ; contributing, $15.00; sustaining, $25.00; patron $50.00; life member, $150.00. Your interest and support are most welcome.