Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, Number 2, 1992

The Unforgiven: Utah's Executed Men.

By L KAY GILLESPIE (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991.viii + 199 pp. Paper, $18.95.)

Death-penalty historian Watt Espy has confirmed over 18,000 executions throughout the history of the United States and its territories. Virginia has executed over 2,000, New York over 1,300, Georgia over 1,100, and Pennsylvania and North Carolina both over 1,000.Myown state of Florida has executed 225 men in our electric chair since it was first used in 1924 Since 1847 Utah has executed only 47 men, yet this is still more than a dozen other states.

This book is a very brief history of those "unforgiven," as the author aptly calls them, with a minimum of background on the subject. The author is chair of the Department of Sociology at Weber State University, but, more important for this work, he was appointed to the Utah State Board of Pardons in 1983 and subsequently worked for the Department of Corrections. Those roles gave him an intimate contact with the death penalty and those men condemned to die for their crimes in Utah. The most engrossing passages of the book draw from those experiences, and the reader will wish he had drawn from them more often. While he professes to be a supporter of the death penalty, he observes in his very tempting prologue that 'There isno humane way to execute, but we pretend there is."

The author never suggests his book will plumb the souls of these men or his soul as he examines them It is more journalism than scholarship or introspection. After some introductory history on the nineteenth-century Mormon belief in blood atonement he briefly discusses demographics, the fate of unexecuted accomplices, and the manner of execution (Utah is one of the few states requiring the condemned to elect his manner of execution from statutory choices, currently lethal injection and firing squad but in the past including hanging and the never-used beheading.) The author then moves through a two- or three-page discussion of each of the 47 who died—names, dates, brief descriptions of crimes, trials, and executions. Most have an accompanying photograph.

His discussion of more recent events includes the most thought-provoking portion of the book, the sentencing and 1988 execution of Gary Bishop. He was that rare death-row inmate, a repentent man who wished to die, a "volunteer" in the vernacular of the death-row defense lawyer. Bishop's Mormon beliefs played an important role in his case The book winds down with a discussion of Utah commutations and pardons, past and present The author also recounts his own experimental stay of a few hours in an unoccupied death-row cell surrounded by and talking with the condemned.

This book is interesting and quickly read. The author makes a point not to promise a great deal, but when you finish you still wish you knew more about these "unforgiven," how it was they arrived at this state in life, and Gillespie's thoughtful reaction to them.

KEN DRIGGS Tallahassee, Florida

Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet.

By THOMAS G ALEXANDER (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991 xviii + 484 pp $28.95.)

For two decades Tom Alexander has been researching, reading, analyzing, discussing, and writing about Wilford Woodruff. Things in Heaven and Earth is the culmination of Alexander's efforts, and in a volume written with great care, concern, and scholarship, Woodruff appears for everyone to see in all his many facets. Alexander asserts that Woodruff saw more of nineteenth-century Mormonism than any other individual and that he is arguably the third most important figure in LDS church history. His fourteen detailed and documented chapters set out to prove these theses.

Woodruff was born in 1807 in the rustic Farmington River Valley of Connecticut. His childhood was laced with religious revivals, an uncommon opportunity for education, and manual labor, particularly mill work Against the patchwork of religious change and diversity of the early nineteenth century detailed by Alexander, Woodruff became a religious seeker imbued with "Christian primitivist convictions," and his lengthy seeking came to an end on the last day of 1833 when he accepted the gospel as it was preached by Mormon missionaries and was baptized From this point on and for the next half-century, Alexander notes, Woodruff planted one of his feet in the temporal area and the other firmly in the spiritual.

Woodruffs diaries (published in 1983 in nine volumes) have long been a major source of research information concerning nineteenth-century Mormonism. Alexander has mined these diaries in a thorough fashion to present both the spiritual and temporal sides of Woodruffs busy life In his involvement with Mormonism Woodruff was a missionary, a seventy, an apostle, and church president. He participated in the ordinance of foot washing in the Kirtland Temple and was shown the Urim and Thummim by Joseph Smith No doubt his most successful missionary effort (and perhaps the most successful of any Mormon missionary) was his British experience among the United Brethren in the Benbow Farm and Ledbury area Over time Woodruff served as president of both the British and Eastern States missions, member of the Quorum of the Anointed in Nauvoo, St. George Temple president, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, and assistant church historian He experienced dreams and visions, observed and recorded the Young-Pratt dispute in his diary, sealed living women to his son who had drowned, and initiated the baptism for the dead ordinance in the St. George Temple. All of these activities are detailed by Alexander with much attention being paid to Woodruffs Wilderness Revelation and the details of his church presidency, including the Manifesto and politics surrounding Utah's statehood.

Alexander does not neglect Woodruffs personal and temporal life. In fact, one of his major efforts is to weave together the spiritual and temporal pieces of Woodruffs career Woodruff was prone to accidents early in his life and experimented with cures for chills and fever, including the use of Joseph Smith's red handkerchief and a Thomsonian cure consisting of three emetics and a fifteenminute steaming. He enjoyed the cultural aspects of missionary work, including visiting museums and libraries; he wrote poetry; and he enjoyed fishing and hunting

Like many Mormons, he carried on a love-hate relationship with the United States. He was a colonizer, a retail merchant, a farmer, a rancher, and a gardener He was involved in promoting organizations to stimulate the economy of the territory, including the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society. His abilities and resources were stretched as he made considerable efforts to support and sustain his wives and children

Woodruffs family life is described and documented well in Alexander's treatment, and the Woodruff family life is interwoven into his spiritual and temporal experiences This is a major contribution of Alexander's work With characteristic honesty he recounts Woodruffs nine marriages, noting that four ended in divorce. The relationship between Wilford and his first wife, Phebe, receives the most attention, including the note that Woodruff was unable to attend his long-time companion's funeral in November 1885 for fear of arrest. Underlining and strengthening relationships among the Mormon hierarchy, Woodruff married one of Brigham Young's daughters, and one of Woodruff s daughters married Lorenzo Snow. Alexander examines and rejects the claim that Woodruff was married late in life to Lydia Mary Olive Mamreoff von Finkelstein Mountford—Madame Mountford.

The last decade of Woodruffs life involved the Manifesto and Utah's successful bid for statehood In that decade, Alexander notes, Woodruff was "a man for his season...he shepherded Mormonism out of a morass of persecution and isolation." With his unique combination of temporal shrewdness and spiritual insight, plus the ability to compromise, Woodruff became the navigator to steer the church out of plural marriage and Utah into statehood. Alexander's Woodruff is a "man for many seasons," each of them well balanced and examined in precise fashion in this very important contribution to Utah and Mormon history.

RICHARD W SADLER Weber State University

Cowboying: A Tough Job in a Hard Land.

By JAMES H. BECKSTEAD (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991. viii + 283 pp. Cloth, $45.00; paper, $19.95.)

The cowboy has long served as a symbol of the mythic West. Writers and actors have manicured his image to the point that individualism, toughness, and raw-boned courage are synonymous with the cattleman and his trade In spite of Robert Dykstra's The Cattle Towns and Lewis Atherton's The Cattle Kings, the popular notion of the hard-riding, two-fisted, gunslinging, hell-bent-for-leather cliche cowboy is alive and well, even in Utah.

Beckstead takes the approach that the ranching experience here was little different from that in other states during the last half of the 1800s and first quarter of the 1900s He depicts various aspects of this life in chapters on cattle barons, corporate cattle companies, cow towns, outlaws, manhunters, and the end of the old West. By grouping elements topically the author lumps ranching in the Basin and Range region with that of the Colorado Plateau, showing the whole undertaking as one dramatic slice of history. He achieves mixed results.

On the positive side, Beckstead is the first to synthesize the experience across the state from nascence to present He illustrates this evolution in over 250 photographs, many in sepia and nicely arranged, that portray various aspects of the trade and the personalities who plied it. Indeed, the pictures are one of the strongest points in this work.

A major problem in the text lies in its sources. The author depends too heavily on secondary works and other writers' interpretations In some instances, where cited works are based on sound scholarship, Beckstead is on safe ground, but even then he has often misquoted or misunderstood what was written For example, he tells how Al Scorup rode to Blanding in 1891 (founded 1905) when his source clearly states Bluff Perhaps this is a minor detail, but it illustrates how problems compound in other portions of the text when sources are inaccurate and the author uses only one or two for reference.

There is, however, no missing the author's theme. He is enamored with the wild West. Much of the material used in chapters such as "The Man Hunters" and "Finis of the Old West" has little to do with cowboying as an occupation, but it is dramatic and underscores the image of lawlessness and individualism The author relentlessly points out, in text and caption, just how wild and violent the West really was The reader may tire of "fearless lawmen" and "tough sheriffs," armed with "trusty six-shooters" and "true grit," who cause "desperados" to "pack up and leave the country." One picture shows twenty-four men, only two of whom carried firearms, but the captions reads, "Most of the men...are carrying guns which attests to the wild nature of the town [Myton]" (p 116) A few pages later three men are posed for the camera, two of them grasping the same bottle, the third holding a couple of glasses. To the author they "depict the wild side of Milford, Utah." Even the Indians, mentioned sporadically throughout the book, give out "blood-thirsty howls" when they are shot (p 233) and are "savages" (p. 263) who do not want to receive any more of that "same bad medicine" (p 233).

No one doubts that these events occurred, but it is the glorification and rhetoric that is disturbing The author tells of interviewing a 106-yearold man who showed him a pistol that he kept hidden At that point Beckstead realized "how special" this conversation had been because "the sixshooter under his pillow was a testament that his frontier spirit was still alive" (p. 258). In the same manner, the author relates how, a few years ago, a criminal gunned down two Fish and Game officials in Idaho and "became somewhat of a local folk hero" (p. 259). This may have been true for some people but hopefully not the majority And so it goes throughout the text as Beckstead features the dramatic at the expense of a more balanced understanding.

The book contains some excellent information and remarkable photographs, but the reader must peruse it selectively to sift fact from fiction.

ROBERT S MCPHERSON College of Eastern Utah San Juan Campus

In Mountain Shadows: A History of Idaho.

By CARLOS SCHWANTES (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. xiv + 292 pp. $24.95.)

Idaho is "more than Famous Potatoes" asserts Carlos Schwantes in his latest work, In Mountain Shadows: A History of Idaho. Nor does Idaho have anything to do with Iowa despite the fuzzy notion held by many that the two states are interchangeable In just over two hundred and fifty pages of text Schwantes provides a concise and informative view of Idaho history that successfully traces main themes without getting bogged down in dates, facts, and movements. As he reminds readers in his preface, history is about people; hence his work captures well the character of the state and its inhabitants. In fact, I would argue that Schwantes more than succeeds in that his evocative and delightful account causes the reader to want more Idaho history than is presented here Fortunately, he has anticipated this response and has provided suggestions for further reading to round out each chapter.

In eighteen chapters Schwantes presents a brief history of the Gem State in the modern era, that is since the arrival of Euro-Americans, most specifically Lewis and Clark In his discussion of the expedition, one of the few places where the author attempts to discuss women's roles in Idaho history, Schwantes gives a brief and fair account of Sacagawea's importance to the expedition. Unfortunately, the passage is marred by quoting Lewis's condescending remark that he believed that food and trinkets would suffice to keep the young woman explorer content From this marker event Schwantes moves on to show how fur trappers and traders, missionaries, and then emigrants came to settle the territory and eventual state.

A continuous thread throughout the book, beautifully represented in the dust jacket photo (taken by the author), is Idahoans' love of the land. As some have suggested, perhaps our license plates should reflect this love for the wilderness rather than our propensity to grow potatoes Yet like other western states who have long depende d on extracting resources to provide economic stability, Idaho has found that such dependenc y has proved to be anything but stable Schwantes brings the debate into the present when he notes that Idahoans are facing har d questions in th e 1990s, questions that were not yet formed in the 1890s but set the scene for the gradual degradation of the state's environment. He is gentle in his proddin g that Idahoan s must come to terms with their seemingly schizophrenic attitudes toward the state's lush natural beauty and abundant resources Whether to continue to "mine" the riches or to pull back and leave the wilderness untouched is the greatest issue facing the state, Schwantes warns.

In this well-written account the author tackles such delicate topics as the prejudice shown toward Mormons, Chinese, and Japanese-Americans in the past; the political history that has created the state's conservative nature; and the divisions that have long characterized the state, given its peculiar geographical boundaries as well as its political and religious differences His last two chapters, on contemporary Idaho and personalities and controversies, effectively bring the state's history up to the present His graceful prose is accompanied by excellent maps and photos as well as interesting sidebars, such as the one that should.

lay to rest the folklore that the state's nam e came from an Indian word meaning Gem of the Mountains when it really means nothing at all. This will be a wonderful book to use in the classroom, but in addition, it should also please any and all who wish to understand Idaho and its people who have long lived "in mountain shadows."

SANDRA SCHACKEL Boise State University

A Gift of Faith: Elias Hicks Blackburn, Pioneer, Patriarch, and Healer.

By VOYLE L MUNSON and LILLIAN MUNSON (Eureka, Ut: Basin/Plateau Press, 1991 xiv + 354 pp Cloth, $27.95; paper, $17.95.)

This book is the history of the life of Elias Blackburn who joined the Mormon church in Illinois with his family and immigrated to Utah As a faithful Latter-day Saint he became bishop of Provo with great responsibility over the tithing of the area He later served a mission to Britain and then moved to Minersville After spending a few years there he took his family and moved to Rabbit Valley, being one of the first to settle the town of Loa.

Blackburn's life would have been the story of just another faithful Latter-day Saint, except that he had a gift of healing. He learned the art of being doctor late in his life, and he used his skill considerably in Loa, the surroundin g communities , an d throughout Utah He expanded his knowledge by reading about doctoring and making pills from various ingredients, and he eventually received a certificate from the territory stating he was a medical doctor He healed many people with his art.

Since Blackburn was a religious man he also believed in healing by the spirit In many instances he healed by the use of olive oil and prayer. His journal lists many people coming to him to be healed of cancers, goiters, and other maladies. The authors, being concerned about his spiritual healings and wanting to prove their authenticity, discuss these healings in relation to modern medicine I wonder if this discussion is even necessary. Even modern medicine is based to some extent on the faith of the recipient in both the doctor and the medicine applied, and Blackburn had a source that many other pioneer doctors did not have What mattered most was that the people of pioneer Utah believed in him and flocked to him.

The authors have gone to great length s to find all the possible sources Their footnotes are excellent Their bibliography also reveals the great amount of research they have done The authors have a good knowledge of present historiography. For example, they use William Hartley's excellent article on tithing to show what Blackburn did in Provo. They also describe well the activities of a pioneer bishop and the settlement of the new community of Loa.

A Gift of Faith is a biography of Blackburn, but it is not a biography in which the authors have made extensive interpretations of the documents. The text does not flow as one would expect from a modern biography Instead, the authors quote extensively from Blackburn's journal, using the other sources to enlarge upon his life. The book is an excellent family history It is the story of a man who was faithful to his church, his family, and his medical practice. The authors should be proud of what they have written, and the family should be proud to be associated with such a devoted person as Elias Blackburn.

RONALD G WATT West Valley City

Voices from the Bottom of the Bowl: A Folk History of Teton Valley, Idaho, 1823-1952.

By THOMAS EDWARD CHENEY (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991 x + 136 pp. Paper, $16.95.)

Although the setting for Voices is the beautiful Teton Valley in the easternmost recesses of Idaho, the reminiscences of Thomas Edward Cheney will evoke memories in readers who lived in most small Idaho towns—or most small towns anywhere else for that matter—during the early to midtwentieth century.

Cheney is an excellent writer He fills this small book with a diversity of "voices," each adding to the development of his character as well as the character of the community. He recounts experiences of interacting with family and neighbors (everyone in the valley was a neighbor) during his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood . Th e voices h e recalls speak of events humorous, tragic, inspiring, pathetic, ironic, and sometimes illegal Voices speaks of huma n foibles, vices, and nobility.

Cheney's voices recall the exigencies of homesteading and trying to make a living in a land of short growing seasons and long, cold months They tell of the specter of death from accident and disease; of scholarly pursuits in frontier schools; of coming to grips with religious dogma; of contradictions between what was apparent and actual (that sometimes the saint was a scoundrel and the scoundrel was a saint); of community cohesion and fractionalization; of patriotic fervor mitigated by valley men dying in far-off France; of coming of age filled with curiosity and mischievousness.

The most oft-heard voice in the book is that of Cheney's mother. She epitomized the pious, intelligent, sensitive, shrewd, tough, self-reliant, frontier woman She saw beyond the mundane—the drudgery of day-to-day living—to the beauty of the valley and life generally She instilled in her son a sense of place.

Voices is a delight to read. Anyone interested in learning more about the folklife of Idaho's Teton Valley will enjoy reading this book, as will those who grew up in such an environment or are descendants of those who did.

The cover graphics of this book are excellent and a credit to the University of Utah Press The book contains a table of contents, acknowledgments, introduction, fifteen short chapters, but, unfortunately, n o index Although the author acknowledges that he "changed some names in order to not let any skeletons out of closets" (p. ix), that is no excuse for not including an index.

DAVID L CROWDER Boise, Idaho