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John Steele: Medicine Man, Magician, Mormon Patriarch
John Steeleand his wife Catherine Caynpbell Steele, "Toquerville Kane Co. Utah Territory. North America April 4th 1873. " Original in possession of Josephine Kay Garfield.
John Steele: Medicine Man,, Magician, Mormon Patriarch
BY KERRY WILLIAM BATE
WHEN THE "ROVING REPORTER OF THE DESERT," Nell Murbarger, visited Toquerville in 1951 she interviewed eighty-nine-year-old Lorine Lamb Higbee, a woman who could tell a lot of interesting western stories After all, Higbee was a long-time town member, her husband Richard was known as the "town kleptic-maniac," and her daughter Rhea was so given to pronouncing doom that she was nicknamed "Calamity."1
But when Murbarger and Mrs Higbee sat before the fireplace in the Higbee home and listened to the thunder, lightning, and rain outside, they talked instead about the history of the town. And one of the most colorful personalities in the older days, according to Higbee, was John Steele, former Mormon Battalion member and shoemaker who "served as an unlicensed doctor, binding the wounds of the injured, setting broken bones, and treating the sick with remedies from native herbs."2
Born March 21, 1821, in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland, Steele was always curious, later reporting that he was "a pret[t]y fare hand at whatever I undertook to do," and that he received "a liberal Common School Education." Apprenticed as a shoemaker, he moved in 1839 to Belfast, courted and married an aristocratic woman named Catherine Campbell, and then migrated to Glasgow where he joined the Mormon church. He followed the Mormons to Nauvoo just in time for the exodus,joined the Mormon Battalion, and as a member of the Pueblo detachment made it into Salt Lake Valley onJuly 29, just days after Brigham Young's arrival. Catherine gave birth on August 9 to Young Elizabeth Steele, the first Mormon child born in Utah. Called in 1850 to settle in what became Parowan, John moved his family to Toquerville after losing a town election despite being the "priesthood" candidate
Because John Steele saw science and theology as united, he could subscribe to Raphael's Prophetic Almanacat the same time he was soliciting subscriptions for Scientific American. His descendants were not sure how to classify his medical techniques: his great-granddaughter said he was "what you call a—well I was going to say a medicine man—I don't know what you call it But he set bones and he would take care of wounds . . . and do anything he could in the line of sickness."3 And perhaps it was not only the primitiveness of Steele's technique that made his descendants reluctant to call him a doctor
In Toquerville John's career as a doctor flourished: in the 1870 census he listed himself as "Dr & surveyor," and his library and papers confirm he practiced both, but it was medicine mixed with the magic world view that made him interesting. Magic met the requirements Michael Quinn noted in his seminal study Early Mormonism and the Magic World View: it was persuasive, gave verifiable results, and was emotionally satisfying.4 John's library hints at the ways he integrated medicine, magic, and astrology. One of the books in his still-intact library is Dr. Thomas Andrew's heavy leather bound Cyclopedia of Domestic Medicine and Surgery. Others are Care of the Sick, The American Health Improvement Association Book I: Catarrh, Diseases of the Urinary Organs, Luytie's Physicians Price List, and The Medical News. He also had M. Young's Great Book of Secrets Containing Many of the Most Valuable Recipes Known; Also, Dr. Lamotte's Celebrated Cure for Consumption; and Directions to the Working Class How to Start a MontyMakingBusiness,WithorWithoutCapital,6fc,&c.
In John's earlier years in Parowan, Utah, there were three doctors: William A Morse, Priddy Meeks, and Calvin Crane Pendleton Morse was a sixty-four-year-old Canadian-born doctor famed for his knowledge of herbs and was also a one-time partner of Priddy Meeks. Morse was sent south in 1850, and when Parowan was organized on May 16, 1851, he was made one of several city councilors. But on February 28, 1853,John Calvin Lazelle Smith wrote the Deseret News, "We also have to lament the death of our Beloved Brother Dr. William A Morse."5 Despite Morse's short reign in Parowan, his medical theories may have had the most profound effect on John, for Morse was not only a doctor but an astrologer, and astrology came to play a large part in John's practice.
The second doctor, frontiersman Priddy Meeks, had lived an exciting life: his mother was tomahawked and his father was killed by Shawnee Indians in 1812 when Priddy was seventeen Meeks, John's personal doctor,6 was a Thomsonian herbal doctor whose favorite remedy was lobelia He sometimes treated John for kidney problems and John named his youngest daughter Susann Adams after Meeks's stepdaughter Susann Smith Adams.
The third doctor, Calvin Crane Pendleton, confirmed Matthew Carruther's boast that "No Lawyer nor Doctor can live here [in southern Utah] by his trade."7 Pendleton, trained at the Eclectic Medical College at Worthington, Ohio, was more renowned for his gunsmith work than his medical cures His school of medicine "condemned the use of calomel and the abuse of the lancet, placed emphasis on proper diet, and advocated temperance in eating and drinking."8
All of these men exerted some influence on John's developing theories. Meeks and Pendleton both gave public lectures on their medical theories but those theories were wildly divergent Unlike Meeks, Pendleton was enthusiastic about surgery. Meeks, like Morse, was a follower of Samuel Thomson, founder of the Thomsonian school of medicine Thomson learned his techniques from a "rootdoctor" and relied heavily on God, cayenne pepper, lobelia, cherry stones, and steaming According to Wesley P Larsen, "Thomsonianism was simply a modification of the early Greek humoral theory of disease. His idea was that heat is a manifestation of life and that cold is the cause of disease."9 Therefore, a sick person needed to first have his body cleansed with natural emetics, such as lobelia, and enemas. Second, lost heat should be restored through the use of cayenne pepper internally and hot pads and steam or vapor externally. Third, the residue of the "canker" should be carried away by doses of herbs. Probably one of the reasons for Thomson's relative success is that the alternative offered by others—nicknamed by their critics the "poison and pill" doctors—included bleeding, purging, blistering, surgery, and poisonous compounds such as calomel (mercurous chloride), arsenic, and strychnine.
Steele leaned toward the Thomsonian method, but when his young son Robert Henry had "a breaking out on its head and face" the boy was treated and killed by calomel, a chemical medicine repudiated by doctors with Meeks's training.10 Consequently, in Steele's handwritten pharmacy book we find an herbal emphasis. Cholera was to be treated with a mixture of gum camphor, laudanum, red pepper, oil of spearmint, oil of cedar, oil of hemlock, and alcohol which was mixed and to be taken "fifteen drops to a teaspoonful in a gill of hot water." So confident of this remedy was the self-taught medicine man that he insisted, "No one traveling in a Cholera district Should be without this excelant Remedy." Like Meeks, Steele favored lobelia— good "to produce a vomit" and excellent in solutions for "Deptheria," scarlet fever, and yellow fever. Dandelion was also helpful for scarlet fever and boneset or mint tea for yellow fever and for smallpox
It is a mistake to assume that these were timid recipes of the gentle herbal doctor—instead, suffering was emphasized. In treating yellow fever one took lobelia as an emetic and was expected to then "vomit for an hour or more As nearly to death as you can and live, then take a thorrough Steeming with wild Sage or Burning Rum, or alcoholl then take you out of the Sweating and give you half a pint of caster oil, then go to Bed and cover up, and Sleep Several hours " However, not all cures were herbal: for a bloody nose, "Chew a piece of paper rapidly, or place a role of mislin [sic], or role of paper under the upper lip which pressed hard upon will arrest the Bleeding at the nose."11
Besides being a doctor, Steele prided himself on his veterinarian skills: he had a "Horse Taming" concoction of equal parts of oil of rodium, cummin, anise, and poppy, to which shavings from the fore limb of the horse were added to one teaspoonsful of castor and two or three drops of this in a handkerchief—or in serious cases, six drops on the tongue to calm the animal. This was a remedy given him by J H Williamson, "Ventroloquist and Lecturer."12
Steele was not busy just administering doubtful herbal cures: he also was famous for his ability to set broken bones. Although Steele died in 1903, when I visited Toquerville in 1984 with a tape recorder under my arm, I was able to twice interview ninety-year-old Charles Andrew Olds whose arm had been set by "Doc Steele."
Olds called Steele "a nice old fellow Apparently he had quite a nice education, the way he talked. In fact at one time he used to come to school with one of the other fellows when they'd come over, the trustees, just to visit and tell us a few stories about what was the best thing to do for us in order to get an education while we was young, and all this, that, and the other." Olds "was getting over a rock wall with a big old watermelon like that," he said, motioning to show an enormous melon, "and I slipped and fell, broke my [right] arm. We stayed away from home. I didn't want to tell mother or anything about it, my broken arm, or dad neither We stayed there until about dark before we went home. Mother said, 'where you kids been? Why didn't you come home a long while ago?' And Arthur [his brother] or somebody, I don't know who it was, spoke up and said, 'couldn't come home,' he says, 'Andy broke his arm!' So they all surrounded me, you know, and rolled my sleeve up and it was broke Picked me up and took me up there, and that old man [John Steele] got a—them days all the boxes they had were made out of wood. Now you don't see so many of 'em. Broke the slats off that, put it down and put it along there, and you can't tell it was broke, it was right along in there, [you can] feel it."13 So you could.
But John Steele was reaching for an integrated approach to the world, and incorporating medicine was just one of the elements Consequently, following doctor and astrologer William A Morse, he was anxious to determine how the moon, the planets, the sun and the stars fit into medical care. he made early in life. In 1900, writing to "Mr. Azrael of the Penny Magazine,"" he confessed, "I have worked in the Science [of astrology] for the last 40years."14 The date 1860 is confirmed by his personal library, which includes The Grammar of Astrology ,Containing All Things Necessary for Calculating a Nativity, By Zadkiel Author of Several Works on Astrology, inscribed in the back, 'John Steele March 21 1860." Beginning at least as early as 1875, he subscribed to Raphael's Prophetic Almanac; or, The Prophetic Messenger and Weather Guide, "by Raphael, The Astrologer of the 19th Century." John's collection of these almanacs runs from 1876 to 1903, the year of his death; they are supplemented by Raphael's Key to Astrology.
It seems to have been the Raphael series that led him directly into what his great-great-granddaughter called his interest in "black magic, astrology, and numerology."15 The magazine carried advertisements for books on astrology, magic, witchcraft, spirits, and predictions, and the 1881 issue contained an article titled "Astrology and Medicine."
But other factors contributed to this interest: folk magic was widely practiced in southern Utah. Priddy Meeks owned a seer stone used with wonderful results by his foster son William Titt.16 Priscilla Parrish Roundy, wife of Kanarraville's bishop, bragged at age sixty-six that she had "never taken a bit of Doctor's medicine in her life" and later that "she did not believe in doctors but put her trust in Elders and the power of God." For her, the "power of God" included the use of a magic charm to cure toothaches.17 There were even rumors of witchcraft being practiced in some of the little Mormon communities.18 John's black magic interests are shown in several papers found in his handwriting in his old trunk. My favorite is the following:
There are, however, other spells of great interest, such as one "To make two persons Enemays and hate one another," which is done by making waxen images in the position of fighting each other. Another spell is used "To injure any wicked man or Enemay Write on parchment the Names or name and over the name the Spirit of mercury and its Gharacter then bury the parchment in the Earth, Spirit of mercury Tophtharath mercury."19 You may also injure a witch—or anyone else—by making a waxen image, and taking into account the stars and moon, sticking it with "a Copper nail in the image where you want it hurt and bury it in Earth."
Another spell requires that you "Write on the first day of the Moon and perfume it with aloes or a dried frogs head, then wrap in black Silk or white linen and ty a tape or String of the Same Kind about it then hang around your neck to reach the heart and Keep it there at least one moon then write in a Circle the following - In the begining was the word &c—full of grace and truth++-r E1+ Elohim+ Elohe+ Sabboth+ Elion+ Exerchie+ La+ Tetra gammation+ Adonay+ Saday+++, Exierat denset dispentur inimsee, just mosen habent et prophetes exierat omnes Spiritus Candent Dominion."20
A thief may be forced to return stolen goods by writing the correct astrological symbols on a piece of parchment and, if the goods are not promptly returned, "prick the parchment full of holes and hang it up in a Chimney Whare it will be Kept warm and the heat of the fire scorch it a little -and the thief will be tormented in mind and body and bring back the goods."
Steele also knew magic signs, one of which says, "whoever beareth this sign all Spirits will do him homage" and underneath "with the 5 points in back." Each one has the points of the star or eighths of the circle labeled with astrological symbols.
Numerology served as a key to the laws binding the gods and the devil. To fight thieves John provided a table where each letter was represented by a certain number. Numbers corresponding to one's first name were written down and then wrapped "in Black Silk hang it about your neck, do it when [the moon] 2 1 Changes" and "the thief will be tormented in Mind and body and bring back the Goods."
John took these occult practices very seriously—so seriously that when a calf was born to his yellow cow he recorded the exact hour.22 When he wrote to "Azrael" in New York City, he admitted that despite all his best efforts, he "Could not Satisfy myself on Some points, — now I would like you to Send me the nature of the Disease or accident that will terminate my Existance here."23 Azrael was quick to reply: "Your health will be severely tried in January, Sept. and Dec. 1901. Passing those periods you come under affliction again, in April 1902 and in December of the same year If you escape those afflictions you might live to see your 87th birthday."24
He was much troubled by his big and, in his opinion, lazy, son John Alma Steele "I have one Son at home unmarried he is now 37," John confessed to his niece Letitia Todd. "He is rather Careless, but tends to the horses and teams. He is a stout man Six feet high and weighs 196 lbs and very good looking." John Alma was an alcoholic who on one of his rougher nights had had part of his ear bitten off by Bryan Roberts.25 John wildly and vainly insisted to skeptical winemakers in Toquerville that wine selling and wine drinking "paved the way to chicken stealing and other crimes," but when he preached such doctrine in sacrament meeting he was gently contradicted by the bishop's counselor and winemaker Charles Stapley, Jr.26
In frustration John wrote about his son to a Boston astrologist, Oliver Ames Goold, explaining that the young man had been born April 6, 1853, at 9 a.m "with Gemini ascending" and begged for guidance Goold wrote back in a large, careless hand, "I am of the opinion that he will do something Yet—Have hope." John, desperate for solace, worked out the astrological signs based on the date and time of receiving the letter, and then carefully rewrote Goold's letter in his own cramped and rounded handwriting underneath Goold's ornate lettering.27
One might suppose that these strange practices going on in a small Mormon community would incite suspicion and hostility. Far from it John was in such demand for horoscopes that Olive DeMill Stevens wrote from Orderville, "My children often say 'why did not you get Brother Steele to figure about me.'" And, she inquired, could John tell Minnie "what kind of a man and when she is going to marry"? To be helpful, Olive included the fact that her daughter's full name was Minnie Deserett and that she was born on July 24, 1881, at half past seven or 8 p.m and "has been and is always a good trusty girl I can well recommend her." Meanwhile, what about her wayward son Nephi?28
John hurried an answer back, suggesting that Minnie was "a natural worker"; but he had miscalculated the day of birth, which brought a rejoinder from Minnie's mother and more information: "Minnie has went with three different boys, but she didn't feel like she wanted to go with them, and she told them they need not come any more." Anyway, "She don't think about marrying and, in fact, says she don't never want a husband unless he is a true Latter-day Saint." Olive invited John to come spend the summer with the Stevenses on their ranch on the North Fork and added a postscript that she herself had "a very little mold under my right eye" and "a dark spot on my left arm about the size of three or four pin heads."29 What he made of this the record does not say
After his wife Catherine's death John got a housekeeper, but that arrangement did not last. Then the seventy-two-year-old man took up with twenty-five-year-old Tamer Elizabeth Booth, a woman with a somewhat checkered past—she had been twice married but only once divorced when John married her on April 8, 1893 That was not the only problem: his Toquerville neighbors complained that "the marriage ceremonies were performed by a Gentile Judge. This is contrary to the rule of the Church in such matters and excites unfavorable comment with many of the Saints."30
Things were sometimes grand: "Lizzie" sentJohn a valentine that insisted, "I love you, dear,/ I love you,/ You ne'er can know how well/ For the deep, deep love/ I bear you,/ No words have power/ to tell." But Lizzie hated the isolation of Toquerville as much as Catherine had and was much more confrontive about it. Even her mother reminded Lizzie "to keep a guard on your tongue for it is an unruly member." Six months after the marriage, Lizzie's mother wrote to John, "I am sorry to hear that you cannot live with her" and demanded of her daughter, "Now Lizzie I want you to repent at once. Ask your husband forgiveness for all your hard speeches." She then complained to both of them that "I think another [letter] like the last one would finish me up out right."31 Lizzie, unimpressed with her mother's letter, tore it in half.
"I should have answered your last letter," John wrote back to Matilda on October 25, "but was waiting to see if things would take a better turn, which oft it does, and at other times it returns with all the fury of a maniac." To his mother-in-law's pointed reminder that he had taken Lizzie knowing she had a foul temper, he replied: "It is true I took your daughter, not knowing or caring particularly if she was a saint or what she had passed through, and, as Brother Drakeford said, she had a bad temper. But as I have had considerable experience in handling different bad tempers and believing my own one of the best to control others with I thought it must be bad indeed if I could not manage it." Yes, Lizzie had asked John's forgiveness: "She did once, but it did not last but a few days until she was as bad or worse than before, and every trifle that takes her toe she flares up and then she uses the most pet names she can think of such as liar, whore, master, blackhearted, scoundral, etc etc etc."
Then there were his little stepsons: "they are always destroying something, whatever comes within their reach and leading other boys to do as they do." Besides all this, "when she gets one of her trantrums [sic] coming on, which is very often, everything she takes hold of is dashed to pieces. She threw a bucket-full of water about me and then threw a stone about three-pounds weight, which by good luck just missed me. At another time she threw a washbasin of water about me as I was leaving the house to get away from her noise and abuse." As for himself, "I should not be controlled by one of the worst tongues that ever stuck in awoman's head." Besides, she was so loud that "everybody around here has heard her voice in the street." He continued, "for me to ask her forgiveness - that is simply nonsence. There is no compromise I am either right or I am wrong, and if she has any concessions to make I am ready to hear them, otherwise, there is a stand off. I have held my tongue and went into the garden among the trees and vines and there she would follow me and abuse me, then, when good-natured, it would be all kisses and in one hour it would be all curses, which made me think that a lunatic asylum were the proper place for her just then."32
There seems to have been a stand-off, but by January 26, 1894, Lizzie's mother was writing gently, "Now Lizzie I want you to take care of yourself Take plenty of cooling medicine I want you to tell your husband how you are, for he is a fine doctor and perhaps he will give you something that will do you good."33
John did have an herbal cure for irritable women or, as he put it, "For nervious Debillity, in Females," and he underlined the word "females." "Take Some puruvian Bark (Cinchini) 2 ozs. (Indian or Common hemp) Cannibis Satira 2 ozs Blue vervine (Verbena Hastata) 2 drs Elecampan 3 Drs. Latan name Inulin 3 ozs with one pind [sic] good Whiskey" and other ingredients. One stands amazed to see that calming down excitable women demanded both cannibas, or marijuana, and a pint of "good Whiskey."34
Perhaps that provides a clue to Catherine's ability to live with this man for fifty-one years, but it did not work with Lizzie. A postscript to the January 29, 1894, letter from Lizzie's mother said, "I was just going to post this letter when the other came, so I have put a bit more to it. So you need not expect me coming now, for if you are not welcome I know I should not be. But tell Brother Steele that I shall be very much obliged to him if he will send you straight away You have plenty of friends here if you have none there Tell him I begin to think marriage is a failure, tell him I would like him to release you honorably as you have not committed the unpardonable sin. Tell him we told him you had a very bad temper and we heard that he had another Everybody thot he loved children and he would have educated them good, but we have been deceived."35
John, in desperation, had written to astrologer Goold for marital advice The answer was clear and absolutely accurate: "Owing to the presence of Saturn in the 7th House of the Heavens, you do not seem to be destined to much good fortune in marriage." The stars were so opposed that "Had I been advising you early in life I should have counciled you to have nothing or not married any woman in the world"; but now that the mistake has been made, "get rid of the one you have, [and] do not take any other." A query to astrologer Azrael brought the answer, "old John Gadbury, suggests as little marrying as possible. If I were in your place, I would not risk it."36
Still, the saga of this doomed marriage dragged on. Lizzie was obviously a young woman full of life, writing the staid old man "you never miss a wive till she['s] gone," and "I will soon be with you and do my best to cheer you ... so cheer up. and dont die in a shell, live in hopes."37 Nevertheless, these two could not live together in peace and were soon talking of divorce.38
It seems doubtful that either needed incitement to violence: in one rage Lizzie pummeled John, broke his dishes, threatened his life, and broke in his doors and smashed his windows, but when he notified her of the divorce proceedings, she wrote back, "you know full well that i aint got a cent to get a divorce with" and signed her letter, "your loving wife Lizzie."39 The rages and fights between them became such a matter of public knowledge that Levi Savage wrote in his journal, "Brother Steel and his wife quarreling was mentioned [in the Teachers Quorum meeting]. Some proposed to arrest them for disturbing the peace, others thought a better way could be adopted The matter rested here."40 They were finally separated, and Steele consoled himself by compiling a brief study of divorces, which were given "not only fore infidelity, for illegal Crualty, intemperance, prolonged absence, mental incapacity, Sent to the penetentiary," but, no doubt thinking of Lizzie, also for "incompatibility of temper."41
Even after the divorce she kept up a correspondence with him, writing on April 3, 1896, "Dear husband, if anyone has suffered more than I since I left home I sincerely pity them, but I have learned a lesson which I shall not easily forget We are married for life and all eternity and remember, if we are separated by the laws of the land we are as bound together by the laws of God. I feel sometimes I would not dare to come back after so much scandal and if anyone was to upbraid me it would affect me very much. ... I will have to come home as soon as we can make it convenient, I can't live this way much longer." She congratulated him on his birthday and said, "I drank your health the last birthday party, but, alas, not this." She thanked him for five dollars and gave him an update on the hellion stepsons, Charlie and Albert Cheetham. 4 2 Still, the relationship gradually diminished, and by August 15, 1901,John was writing somewhat disingenuously to his Australian niece that his first wife had died and "since then my house & home has been disorganized. I married another, and She departed this life also, So that I am measurably alone. ."43 He consoled himself by having hundreds of dead women sealed to him in the St George Temple and carefully wrote down for his files the fate of the wives of Henry VIII.44
Eventually the old man also found himself left out of modern medicine When the state presumed to begin licensing doctors he wrote an angry blast to James Duffin, his state representative: "Dear Sir, as there has been great discrimination among a certain Class of Doctors, who . . . have amalgamated themselves togather As a Board Excluding Every other person who have not been, or are not able, to answer Certain Questions of Greek, and Latin, in medical practice, from practising the healing art, although they may have Served the public for Twent[y], or Forty years ... a Ring of professionals, have held Controle, Shutting out from practice all who Could not understand Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, of Greek, Or the Latin, ah, bay. . . . Having Spent a Couple of years in Some institution of learning, come out a full fledged Doctor with a Diploma as long as your arm, with the privilige of Charging a Fee as long as your leg ... I write to you as our Delegate asking you to draft a Bill to abolish this medical Ring business and Set the people free. . . ."45
As he got older, he gradually got shorter—losing an inch in the ten years between 1887 and 1897. But he lost none of his ferociousness, and when Dr. S. Husted of Silver Reef was called upon to give John a physical to see if he was entitled to a pension for kidney injuries supposedly sustained in the Mormon Battalion, the doctor did not think he deserved the pension but instead of telling John wrote quietly to the commissioner of pensions, "He is a Mormon and in this part of the Country my wellfare and life would scarcely be safe should he know of the nature of the report."46
There may have been some reason in the past for Husted to worry; a bizarre and nearly incoherent letter to John from Harrisburg's William Leany dated February 17, 1883, toldJohn as though it were common knowledge of "the day those three were murdered in our ward & the murderer killed to stop the shed[d]ing of more blood" and further that "blood tondreth blood if that was not fulfilled in the killing the three in one room in our own ward please saywhat it was. ... " One southern Utah historian, Wesley P. Larsen, argues that this refers to the murders of Seneca Howland, O G Howland, and William H Dunn of theJohn Wesley Powell Party in 1869.47
Much of what Steele stood for was beginning to be outmoded toward the latter part of the nineteenth century, though his astrology skills remained in demand and he continued to set broken bones. Honors were showered on him: he was elected justice of the peace, participated regularly in church services, and was a conscientious St George Temple worker.
When Apostle Matthias F. Cowley took a trip south in the early spring of 1903, he ordained eighty-two-year-old John Steele a patriarch.48 On his daughter Elizabeth's birthday, August 9, 1903, he was in vigorous good spirits and he and his daughter Susie joined other family members at the Stapley ranch on the Kanarra Mountain for the birthday celebration. There he sang her a heartfelt—and at his age, probably reedy—rendition of "Oh My Father."49 Perhaps its reference to a mother God was a sop to Elizabeth, who was as strong-willed as he was.
It seemed nothing could wear him down But his great-granddaughter Reba Roundy LeFevre explained what happened late that year. "He stepped on a nail an they didn't do it right an it turned to gangrene."50 His daughter Elizabeth went to Toquerville to take care of him. "He had to take so many drops of medicine," Reba said. "I don't know what kinda medicine it was. But . . . they didn't have a medicine dropper. 'Now you count them drops an you make jest exactly what they are, no bigger, nor no littler.' The drops has got to be the same size. Then he would take his medicine. If he didn't, he wouldn't take it. An he's very strict. You done this. You done that. I think that's where Granma [Stapley] got her strictness from." He had a cure for gangrene, too: "Cantharis, Spanish Fly good in burning, itching of Skin rawness, Soreness of the whole body inflamation"; another standby for gangrene was hemlock But none of it worked, or perhaps he took too much hemlock; he gathered his family around him and gave his daughter Elizabeth a remarkable blessing where he told her she was "a chosen vessel of the Lord" and would "do a great and a mighty work." Furthermore, he stated, "You shall live Yet Many Years upon the earth" and, in what struck me as a most remarkable promise, said, "The Lord will give unto thee in his own due time the Holy Priesthood in fullness."51
Then he went to Kanarraville to spend his last days with Elizabeth. He remained fiesty and arrogant to the end, boasting that if it were not for his foot he could "walk a mile in ten minutes." His old friend, convicted murderer George Wood, stopped by to see him, while the newspaper reporter commented that "He is surprisingly smart at the age of 82." However, a few days later things took a turn for the worse, and the Kanarraville correspondent reported to the Iron County Record that "Grandfather Steele is gradually climbing the ladder to the other side His sons and daughter have been telegraphed for."52 The issue which would have reported Steele's death is missing, but he died December 31, 1903, and two days later he was buried in Parowan, one of his few surrenders to his first wife, Catherine, who—still resentful of being forced to move to Toquerville—had insisted on being buried there
John received a posthumous sanctification; he was remembered in Toquerville as "Doc," who wore a blue cape with a red lining and carried a cane, always on call for the sick and wounded, riding his fine horse Charlie. His diaries and letters were kept in his old honey-colored trunk, depleted by occasional raids from bandit family historians In the first issue of the 1933 Utah Historical Quarterly one version of his journal and life story was published, safely edited with spelling errors corrected and everything potentially controversial deleted Historians of the southern Utah country have delighted in quoting his often pungent comments about his contemporaries, and time has softened the harsh qualities that his contemporaries found distasteful.
But complete sainthood was only reached with the placement of the Steele home in Toquerville on the National Register of Historic Places The files at the Utah State Historical Society explain that the home belonged to "John Steele, the parent of the first Mormon child in Utah" and note that it is in good condition and has significance because of an "Associated Historic Person"—"John Steele."
NOTES
Mr Bate is the state housing programs manager in the Utah Department of Community and Economic Development. This paper was presented at the 27th Annual Conference of the Mormon History Association on May 15, 1992, at a session called "New Mormon Biography."
1 Interview with Edwin Kenneth Slack, Toquerville, Utah, April 29, 1988, p 11: "He stole every thing he could git ahold of an git in his hind pocket, he took. ... It didn't make any difference if it wuz a bolt er an axe—he wuz more or less a kleptic-maniac." When Horace Slack and Hamilton Wallace got into a drunken brawl on November 18, 1890, one of the questions asked of a witness at the subsequent trial was, "Did you hear any body say Horace was as bad as Dick Higbee or Henry Jackson?" which suggests Higbee's community standing. See John Steele, Justice of the Peace Records, November 18, 1890, "Complaint Entered by Hamilton M Wallace , " photocopy in my possession.
Lavina ("Vinnie") Sylvester Leeds, Los Angeles, May 22, 1956, to Maud Sylvester Gregerson, says, "according to her [Rhea Higbee Wakeling]—the mother [Lorine Lamb Higbee] is crazy as Hell." Also see Leeds to Gregerson, January 4, 1964, and an anonymous "Sketch of the Life of Richard Tait Higbee and Lorine Isabell Lamb Higbee," in Special Collections Room, Washington County Library, St George.
2 Nell Murbarger, Sovereigns of the Sage (Tucson: Treasure Chest Publications, Inc., 1958), pp 188-89.
3 Among the copies of John Steele's papers sent me by Genevieve Sooy Jensen of Henderson, Nevada, is p 3 of an autobiography, written on the back of an 1875 subscription list for Scientific American. His papers show he solicited subscriptions for other publications, such as the Family Herald and Weekly Star of Montreal (see Steele's December 8, 1898, letter to the Montreal publication, transcribed by IoiiaJ Poling, typescript copy furnished me by Genevieve SooyJensen) Interview with Reba Roundy LeFevre, Salt Lake City, July 29, 1978, p 30.
4 D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), pp. xiii-xiv.
5 "Autobiography of Priddy Meeks," Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City, typescript (1936), pp. 60-61; George O. Zabriskie and Dorothy L. Robinson, "The U.S. Census of Utah, 1851," Utah Genealogical Magazine 29 (April 1938): 68; Millennial Star 13 (September 15, 1851): 276; Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereinafter JH), February 28, 1853, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City.
6 John Steele, Mormon Battalion Pension Application, affidavit, October 3, 1882, says John "was constantly treated by Dr P Meeks from the year 1847 for 30 years"; but an affidavit dated January 10, 1882, says "he is unable to obtain proof by Dr. Calvin C. Pendelton [sic], who first treated him for this disease of the kidneys"; and in a pension clai.m dated April 15, 1882, Meeks testified to having treated Steele for kidney problems since 1847
7 Millennial Star 15 (1853): 459, quoting a letter from Matthew Carruthers dated Cedar City, February 1853.
8 Mark A Pendleton, "Dr Calvin Crane Pendleton," Utah Historical Quarterly 10 (1942): 34.
9 "Autobiography of Priddy Meeks," pp 61-62; "Life of Henry Lunt and Family: Together with a Portion of His Diary," March 2, 1853, typescript, pp 155-56, Brigham Young University Library, Provo; Parowan Stake, High Priests Minutes, vol 1, 1855-87, see January 5, 12, 1861, LDS Church Archives Wesley Pratt Larsen, Indian and Pioneer Medicine in Utah Territory, 1847-1900 (Toquerville: Author, 1992), p. 20.
10 Susan E.Johnson Martineau to James Henry Martineau, May 30, 1858, James Henry Martineau Collection, LDS Church Archives, MS 4786, folder 5.
11 In "Journal of Priddy Meeks," typescript by Beth Bringhurst, 1937, Utah State Historical Society Library, p 55, Meeks wrote, "Never knowing lobelia to fail in a case of poison neither indeed in any other case " Gary Hall Callister, when the owner of John Steele's papers, sent me a photocopy of Steele's booklet of handwritten medical cures and labeled it "Book #2."
12 On a loose scrap of paper in the Genevieve Sooy Jensen collection; see also Poling tvpescript of Steele's letter to the Family Herald and Weekly Star.
13 Interview with Charles Andrew Olds, Toquerville, Utah, October 11, 1984, pp 7-9; also see Kerry William Bate Journal, 1984, p. 92 (July 30, 1984), and p. 119 (October 11, 1984); and Kerry William Bate to Rodell Bate, August 7, 1984, in Kerry William Bate Letterbook, 1984, pp 172-73 Bate Journals and Letterbooks cited here and later are in my possession.
14 John Steele, Toquerville, July 27, 1900, to "Mr Azrael of the penny magaz[ine]," torn copy in the John Steele papers.
15 Conversation with JoAnn Sylvester Bate, February 12, 1992 (see Kerry William Bate Journal, 1992, under that date); JoAnn Sylvester Bate, Pima, Arizona, to Kerry William Bate, February 11, 1992 in Kerry William Bate Letterbook, 1992, pp 100-102.
16 "Journal of Priddy Meeks," p 64 Meeks wrote, "He was born a natural seer, but no knowledge of the fact was had until he came to live with me that I ever knew of seer stones or peepstones as they are more commonly called was very plenty about Parowan." Parowan Elders Quorum Minutes show that William H Titt was born October 27, 1841, London, England, son of William C and Maryann Titt, ordained an elder on December 17, 1859, and that he was excommunicated from the Mormon church on July 28, 1861, because he "Went to the United States" (Elders Quorum Minutes, 1856-1877, pp 35, 58, LDS Church Archives).
17 Kanarraville Ward Records, Book B, March 23, 1878 - September 24, 1905, p 163, p 161 (January 1, 1899), LDS Church Archives Reba Roundy LeFevre, St George, Utah, to Kerry William Bate, July 12, 1982, and April 30, 1983 (see Kerry William Bate Letterbook, 1983, p 75); interview with Karl G Roundy, June 20, 1981, Woods Ranch, Cedar Canyon, Utah; interview with Reba Roundy LeFevre, November 7, 1981, Salt Lake City; interview with JoAnn Sylvester Bate, August 11, 1982, Salt Lake City.
18 'Journal of Priddy Meeks," pp 65-68 Meeks explained what the devil had to tell William Titt, and then talked about witches; he seems to identify witchcraft and evil spirits with mental illness, for he wrote, "Those kinds of spirits work mostly on the mental functions instead of the physical functions "
19 The astrological symbol for mercury and not the word is used in the original of this spell.
201 have photocopies of these spells in Steele's handwriting.
21 The symbol here seems to be meant for the moon; it is a half moon with a squiggled line representing the left face of it; copy in my possession.
22 See draft of Steele's July 27, 1900, letter to Azrael, on the bottom of which is noted, "yellow cow -July 27 Cow had a calf 4 p m"; copy in my possession.
23 Ibid.
24 Azrael, New York, undated, to John Steele; transcript typed by Iona J Poling; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
25 John Steele, Toquerville, March 21, 1891, to Letitia Todd, Australia; copy in my possession John Steele, Toquerville, August 17, 1880, to George Spilsbury, Justice of the Peace Apparently no action was taken against Roberts John wrote at the bottom of his retained copy of the complaint, "but Justice crawls back in the Shade and if a person Speaks So as to be herd, the word is we are Sent here to make wine and we must Sell it to all who will buy ."; copy in my possession.
26 Levi M Savage Journal, 3:128 (October 11, 1891), Collection of Mormon Diaries, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.John must have given up condemning wine, for he wrote his niece Letitia Connelly Todd in Australia just before Christmas (December 24, 1897) that "my Barrels are well filled with Wine, [and I] will drink your health in a full bumper"; copy in my possession Trying to convince her of the Utopia he lived in, he later insisted that "there is plenty of wine made here, But very few Drunkards as it is So Cheap few think any thing about it," September 12, 1902; copy in my possession Nevertheless in May 1894 he wrote or more likely copied into his papers a maudlin song about a wife begging her husband not to go out, for "Who can tell how much I suffer/ From the cursed cup he drinks." The husband was brought back drunk and crying for "rum, more rum!" See typescript by Iona J Poling, furnished me by Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
27 Oliver Ames Goold, Boston, December 22, 1891, to "My Dear Fellow" John Steele; copy in my possession.
28 Olive E. DeMill Stevens, Orderville, Utah, March 26, 1901, to John Steele; transcript in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen of Henderson, Nevada.
29 Olive E DeMill Stevens, Orderville, Utah, April 13, 1901, to John Steele; transcript in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
30 Jane Catherine Steele Jensen, Taylor, Arizona, July 9, 1892, to "Mr John Steele/ Dear Father," copy of transcript by IonaJ Poling in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen This letter says, "I am delighted beyond expression to think you have got you a housekeeper I am sure you did not get her before you needed one. I hope you will enjoy yourselves together and see many pleasant hours." See also Levi M Savage Journal, 5:7 (April 23, 1893).
31 Tamer Elizabeth Booth Steele to John Steele, undated valentine; and Matilda Booth, Salt Lake City, March 9, 1894, to John Steele and Tamer Elizabeth Booth Steele; copies in my possession Matilda Booth, Salt Lake City, September 8,1893, to "Dear Son and daughter"; typescript by IonaJ Poling in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
32 John Steele, Toquerville, October 25, 1893, to Matilda Booth; copy of IonaJ Poling typescript in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
33 Matilda Booth, Salt Lake City, January 26, 1894, to "Dear Son and daughter"; copy of IonaJ Poling typescript in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
34 From John Steele's booklet of handwritten medical cures labeled by Gary Hall Callister as "Book #2." Steele also recommended cannabis for "Kidney Blader Rheumatism occationed By fatigue ulcerated pains in Kidneys Catarrh inflamation of Chest &c."
35 Matilda Booth, Salt Lake City, January 29, 1894, to "Dear Son and daughter"; copy of IonaJ Poling typescript in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen
36 Oliver Ames Goold, Boston, September 19, 1893, to John Steele; copy in my possession Azrael, New York, to John Steele, undated, and Azrael to John Steele, August 4, 1900; typescripts by IonaJ Poling; originals in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
37 Tamer Elizabeth Booth Steele, Salt Lake City, ca September 3, 1894, to John Steele; copy in my possession.
38 Ibid Matilda Booth, Salt Lake City, February 14, [1895?], to John Steele and Tamer Elizabeth Booth Steele; copy in my possession.
39 John Steele v. Tamer E. Steele, Third Judicial District Court, Beaver County, August 8, 1895; divorce papers in John Steele's handwriting; copy in my possession. Tamer Elizabeth Booth Steele, Salt Lake City, August 27, 1895, to John Steele; copy in my possession.
40 Levi M Savage Journal, 6:9 (July 7, 1895).
41 Steele's handwritten notes on the back of an envelope; copy in my possession.
42 Tamer Elizabeth Booth Steele, Salt Lake City, April 3, 1896, to "My dear Husband"; copy of IonaJ Poling typescript in my possession; original in possession of Genevieve Sooy Jensen.
43 John Steele, Toquerville, August 15, 1901, to Letitia Todd; copy in my possession Lizzie's problems were more complicated than a "bad temper" or lack of self-control. On September 1, 1900, she was admitted to the state mental hospital in Provo where she spent the rest of her life, dying there October 18, 1914 The death certificate gave her name as "Elizabeth Renick Cheetham," but it was really Tamer Elizabeth Booth Cheetham Renick Steele Her son Charles Edwin Cheetham met an equally sad fate, reported by the Deseret News on July 20, 1922, sec 2, p 8, in "Death Follows Debauch": "As the result of drinking denatured alcohol, Charles Cheetham, 33, died Wednesday night [July 19] at the emergency hospital His two companions, William Gritten and Ed Lund who were also suffering from the effects of the alcohol, were asleep in the city jail when Cheetham died. The man has been arrested a number of times before on charges of drunkenness Efforts are now being made to locate relatives." Salt Lake City Death Records, Entry #5-1106, are more blunt: "Charles Edward [sic] Cheetham died in Emergency Hospital 19 July 1922 of acute alcoholism Residence: Cityjail most of the time " Apparently no relatives could be found; what happened to Albert Henry Cheetham is unknown I thank Lorraine Booth Furse for sharing with me her research notes on this family.
44 See undated paper in Steele's handwriting, "Catherine of Arigon ."; copy in my possession.
45 Photocopy of original in my possession; also see Larsen, Indian and Pioneer Medicine, pp 63-64.
46 S Husted, Silver Reef, December 1887, to Hon Mr Black, Commissioner of Pensions, in the John Steele pension file for Mormon Battalion service, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.
47 William Leany, Sr., Harrisburg, February 17, 1883, to John Steele; original in possession of Gary Hall Callister, copy in my possession. See Wesley P. Larsen, "The 'Letter' or Were the Powell Men Really Killed by Indians?" Canyon Legacy, Spring 1993, pp. 12-19.
48 JH, March 26, 1903, p 6.
49 Mahonri M Steele, Panguitch, September 11, 1903, to John Steele, Toquerville; copy in my possession.
50 For the details of Steele's death I have especially drawn on interviews with Reba Roundy LeFevre, St. George, Utah, May 1, 1986, pp. 5-6; January 24, 1987 p. 21; July 23, 1987, p. 5; April 29, 1988, p 1; and October 6, 1989, pp 10-11.
51 John Steele patriarchal blessing of Young Elizabeth Steele Stapley, Toquerville, December 6, 1903, scribe Mahonri M Steele; copy in my possession.
52 Iron County Record, December 26, 1903, Kanarraville byline dated December 17 with a note that the article was received late.
