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The Spencer-Pike Affair
The Spencer- Pike Affair
BY RICHARD W. SADLER
At noon on August 11, 1859, an assailant shot and mortally wounded U. S. Army Sergeant Ralph Pike on a crowded Salt Lake City street. Thirty years later, Howard Orson Spencer, the victim of a brutal attack by the Camp Floyd soldier was tried and found innocent in a civilian court of the murder of Pike. Known as the Spencer-Pike affair, the events of 1859 were part of the larger Utah War that began in1857 when United States President James Buchanan ordered federal troops to Utah to escort Alfred Cumming, Brigham Young’s replacement as territorial governor. 1
After spending a cold and difficult winter at Camp Scott in western Wyoming, the soldiers, under the command of Col. Albert Sidney Johnston, marched through Salt Lake City and established Camp Floyd in Cedar Valley, forty miles southwest of Salt Lake City in late June 1858. Mistrust and animosity defined relations between Mormons and the army and sparked the confrontation between Howard Orson Spencer and Sergeant Ralph Pike. The resulting injury and death demonstrated that the Utah territory was infected by the propensities for violence that permeated mid-nineteenth century America.2 At the same time, while the tension and animosity between Mormons and the U.S. Army and its suppliers kept the prospect of violence boiling near the surface, very few physical altercations actually occurred.
Daniel Spencer, uncle to Howard O. Spencer and on whose Rush Valley ranch the encounter with Ralph Pike took place.
Utah State Historical Society
The Spencer-Pike affair was an exception as confrontation and anger resulted in bloodshed and death in the spring and summer of 1859. The week-long trial of Howard O. Spencer in 1889, a year before Mor mons capitulated to an intense and sustained congressional antipolygamy crusade, demonstrated that the animosity and bitter feelings of three decades earlier remained. Howard Orson Spencer was born to Orson and Catharine Curtis Spencer in Middlefield, Massachusetts, on June 16, 1838. 3 Orson was a Baptist minister, but in 1840, the Spencers converted to Mormonism, moved to Nauvoo, and eventually to Utah.4 For Spencer, church callings, including missionary service abroad, required lengthy absences from his family. When Catharine died in 1846, Howard, his brother, and six sisters were raised by neighbors and relatives in particular Orson’s brother Daniel.5
Howard O. Spencer c. 1910
LDS CHURCH HISTORY LIBRARY
A successful businessman first in Massachusetts then in Illinois, Daniel Spencer arrived in Utah in 1847, and acquired residential property and farm land in the Salt Lake City area. He also owned two substantial ranches located west of the city.The first was located in Salt Lake County about a mile west of what was called Millstone Point on the flat Bonneville Lake bottom north of the Oquirrh Mountains.This ranch, often called the ranch at the point of West Mountains, served as a way station for travelers going to and from Tooele and Rush Valleys. The second ranch was located in Rush Valley, south of the Tooele settlement, and on the south shore of Rush Lake. Spencer employed young farm and ranch hands including his nephew, Howard Orson Spencer. The Utah frontier, his uncle’s ranch, the Mormon faith, and his family were cornerstones for the young Spencer.
When Utahns learned that a federal army was on its way to Utah, they prepared to resist. Nineteen-year-old Howard Orson along with his brother-in-law Hiram B. Clawson joined the territorial militia and went to Echo Canyon, a key strategic location for blocking the entrance of federal soldiers into the territory. Spencer served for a time under Lot Smith, a seasoned frontiersman whose exploits in burning army supply wagons and harassing the Utah-bound troops on the high plains of Wyoming are a well-known element of Utah War lore.
Lot Smith wrote his Utah War reminiscences a quarter of a century after the event and recalled taking a group of young men into Echo Canyon that included Howard O. Spencer and his brother-in-law, Brigham Young Jr. On one occasion Joseph Rich and Howard Spencer, who was nursing a wound, were ordered to remain in camp. Lot Smith recorded: “The latter had a fever sore on his leg, and to his disgust at being kept in camp, he remarked to his comrades: ‘Boys, if you want to get out of doing anything, just scratch your leg a little.’ He then rolled up his pants and filled the gaping wound with hot embers. I thought him then the right kind of stuff to make a soldier.”6
Ralph Pike, a native of Hebron, New Hampshire, whose brother had died serving in the Mexican War, came west as a corporal in the 10th Regiment’s I Company. In November 1857, Pike volunteered to go with a group of soldiers under the command of Captain Randolph B. Marcy to New Mexico to purchase much needed mules, sheep, and salt for the Utah bound expedition then wintering at Camp Scott near Fort Bridger in western Wyoming. The mid-winter march of the Marcy expedition was particularly grueling and Pike’s participation in this journey may have led to his promotion to sergeant in 1858. 7
In late June 1858, after a truce had been negotiated with Brigham Young ensuring that the federal army would not meet with armed resistance, Ralph Pike and his fellow soldiers under the command of recently Brevetted Brigadier General Albert Sidney Johnston marched through Echo Canyon, the abandoned streets of Salt Lake City, and on to Cedar Valley forty miles to the southwest where they established Camp Floyd— named in honor of President Buchanan’s Secretary of War John B. Floyd.
Rush Valley, located north and west of Camp Floyd, had been explored by Captain Howard Stansbury in 1849 and 1850, and by Lt. Col. Edward J. Steptoe in 1854 and 1855.8 Steptoe had designated Rush Valley as a reserve for federal grazing and in doing so set up some tensions between the federal government and Mormons who viewed the areas as theirs to use by prior appropriation. When Steptoe and his troops left the Utah Territory in 1855, Mormons, including Daniel Spencer, moved in to utilize the land and resources in Rush Valley. In 1858, following the establishment of Camp Floyd, the army began to use Rush Valley as grazing ground for its livestock.
At the same time Daniel Spencer asked Governor Cumming for permission to continue to graze his cattle and sheep in Rush Valley as he had done for more than three years. Cumming wrote Johnston in October 1858, asking that Spencer be allowed to continue his grazing rights in Rush Valley, an arrangement to which the general apparently agreed. 9
Conflict intensified between the army and the Mormons as both grazed their herds in Rush Valley during the winter of 1858-59.With the approval of both Cumming and Johnston to continue to graze his livestock in Rush Valley, Spencer added animals owned by Erastus Snow, Jacob Gates, and J.C. Little to the Rush Valley herds. He also, without approval, enlarged structures and corrals. Furthermore, George Reeder, Spencer’s chief herdsman, was accused of illegally selling locally produced whiskey, known as “Valley Tan,” to the soldiers. These alleged misdeeds may have been reasons that Spencer was ordered to remove his herds from Rush Valley by mid-April 1859. As spring approached, soldiers began to move throughout Rush Valley to encourage Mormons to remove their animals before the mid- April deadline.As the troops pushed, Mormon herders resisted.
On March 21, 1859, Howard Spencer and Al Clift left Salt Lake City with directions to begin to move the Mormon owned animals north out of Rush Valley. Clift and Spencer spent the night at Daniel Spencer’s ranch at the point of West Mountain, and reached the Spencer ranch in Rush Valley the following afternoon where they were met by soldiers who ordered Spencer and Clift to move their herds from the valley that very afternoon. When Howard Spencer maintained that three weeks remained before they were obligated to remove the livestock, the argument intensified and angry words gave way to violent action.
Al Clift, an eyewitness to the event, recounted to Brigham Young and others what transpired. His report was recorded by Wilford Woodruff in his diary:
Ralph Pike attacked Howard Spencer with the butt of his musket, which shattered the pitchfork in Spencer’s hands and fractured Spencer’s skull. Bleeding and unconscious, Spencer collapsed to the ground. Mormon herders, Bishop Luke Johnson from nearby St. John, and army physician assistant Sergeant Charles E. Brewer rendered assistance.11 Spencer was carried to a nearby shelter where throughout the night he drifted between life and death. In his report about the incident Brewer wrote:
Brewer recommended that Spencer be moved to Camp Floyd, but the Mormons refused. Shortly after the altercation, Al Clift rode to Salt Lake City to inform Daniel Spencer, Brigham Young, and others about the seriousness of Howard’s injuries. Brigham Young sent his carriage to retrieve Howard. George Boardman Spencer, Howard’s younger brother, his uncle Daniel Spencer, and Dr. S. L. Sprague hurriedly traveled to the Rush Valley ranch to recover Howard. On March 23, the party reached Rush Valley and transported Howard that evening to the Spencer ranch at the point of the West Mountain.The following day Margaret Spencer, married to Howard’s cousin Charles, rode in the wagon in an effort to comfort Howard during the day-long rough and difficult journey to Salt Lake City.
Mormons, the army, and civilian officials responded to the news of the attack differently. Wilford Woodruff ’s reaction to the altercation in Rush Valley mirrored the feelings of most Mormons. On March 21, following discussions with Brigham Young, Woodruff noted in his diary that the troops at Camp Floyd were being “sent into our Cities to slay the People” and noted that Howard Spencer’s injuries seemed a fulfillment of prophecy. Woodruff added that the situation might lead to further bloodshed. “Unless the Lord wards off the blow it looks as though we were to have war & Boodshed. [sic] Our Enemies are determined on our over throw as far as possible. But I have faith to believe that the Lord will protect us as he has done.”13
The Spencer-Pike altercation brought different responses and assessments of blame. Soldiers at Camp Floyd justified Pike in his actions as the camp newspaper, The Valley Tan, maintained that Spencer had rushed Pike with a pitchfork, and Pike had to defend himself with his musket. Mormons in Salt Lake City saw the attack on Spencer as being unprovoked. Governor Cumming, who was a distant observer to the events in Rush Valley, noted in a letter to General Johnston that he had been informed of the March 22 altercation at the Spencer Ranch and that, Howard Spencer was “violently assailed and perhaps mortally injured by a soldier… endeavoring to eject the occupants of a herding ranch whose right to occupy the place for herding their own stock has been acquiesced in by you.”14 To Johnston, it appeared that the governor was taking the side of the Mormons against his soldiers.
George Boardman Spencer, brother to Howard O. Spencer and witness at the 1889 trial.
LDS CHURCH HISTORY LIBRARY
Over the course of the next several weeks, Howard Spencer received medical treatment in Salt Lake City. Doctor W. F. Anderson and a Doctor France of Salt Lake City performed several operations removing pieces of bone and placing a silver plate in Howard’s head to protect his brain as pieces of the skull were removed. Howard was sometimes delirious, but, in time, began the long process of recovery. At Camp Floyd a military inquiry into Pike’s role in the altercation cleared the sergeant of any wrong doing in the affair. However, shortly thereafter, Pike was indicted by a Salt Lake City grand jury on a charge of “assault with the intent to kill” and ordered to appear in associate justice Charles R. Sinclair’s District Court on August 11, 1859. With a military escort of four soldiers, Pike traveled to Salt Lake City, secured lodging in the Salt Lake House, and attended the court’s morning session where Major Fitz John Porter represented the camp commander.
During the noon recess, as Pike and his escort walked down Main Street between 100 and 200 South Streets, a man came from behind Pike and said, “Is that you, Pike?” And when Pike turned around, the man shot him in the side. The shooter quickly disappeared into the crowd of perhaps a hundred or more people, mounted a horse, and made his escape. At Camp Floyd, Captain Albert Tracy wrote in his journal:
Attempts to capture the shooter were unsuccessful. Pike was carried into the nearby Salt Lake House and operated on in an unsuccessful attempt to save his life. Pike clung to life for three days, but before he died on August 14, he identified his assailant as Howard Spencer. Pike’s body was returned to Camp Floyd where hundreds of his fellow soldiers attended a funeral Mass conducted by Father Bonaventure Keller and was buried in the Camp Floyd cemetery. The Valley Tan, labeled the incident “Another Assassination.” In his announcement of Pike’s death, Brig. Gen. Johnston wrote,“It is with much regret the commanding officer announces to the regiment the death of that excellent soldier, First Sergeant Ralph Pike of Company I, late last night, the victim of Mormon assassination, through revenge for the proper discharge of his duty.” 16
Capt.Tracy named Spencer as the assailant and recorded the mood of the soldiers and officers and the measures their leaders undertook to avoid further violence.
Measures were taken to calm Camp Floyd but were not entirely successful as soldiers from Company I, angry and bitter over the murder of their comrade, raided the nearby Mormon settlement of Cedar Fort and burned some haystacks. Fortunately, no civilians were injured. Relations between soldiers and civilians remained strained, especially in Provo and northern Utah County communities.18
The broad daylight shooting of Pike on Thursday, August 11, 1859, and his death the following Sunday, raised questions as to how the shooter could commit the deed and could get away. Lorenzo Brown reflected some of the Mormon point of view: “12 August, 1859, Yesterday a U.S.A. Sergeant Pike was shot while standing in a crowd by some person unknown who deliberately made his escape although persued [sic] by a host & strange to say although seen by hundreds no one knew him and no two gave the same description of him.”19
Hosea Stout commented in his diary about the murder of Ralph Pike and concluded that it was Spencer who shot Pike because “Pike struck him over the head with a gun and broke his skull near killing him.”20 A Salt Lake City grand jury issued a warrant for the arrest of Spencer for the murder of Pike; however, he was not taken into custody until 1888. The delay of Spencer’s arrest was the result of the threatening Civil War in the East, the subsequent abandonment of Camp Floyd by the army in 1861, and public support for Spencer that allowed him to live a quiet but not hidden life in Salt Lake City.
Nearly a year after the killing of Pike, Howard married Louise Lucy Catherine Cross in the Salt Lake Endowment House in April 1860.21 A year later Howard along with three other men were called to become members of the high council of the Salt Lake Stake presided over by his uncle Daniel Spencer. Wilford Woodruff recorded the setting apart of these four men to the Salt Lake Stake high council:
Howard Spencer also spent much of 1862 with Lot Smith in Wyoming helping to guard the overland mail and telegraph routes. He fought Indians, worked as a night watchman in Salt Lake City for ZCMI, and worked building the Union Pacific Railroad in Echo Canyon. In 1869-70 and again in 1877-78 he served LDS church missions to England, spending much of the time in the London area.
In September 1874, Howard Spencer was called by Brigham Young to move to Mt. Carmel, a southern Utah settlement in Long Valley near the present east entrance to Zion National Park. As bishop, or the ecclesiastical leader in Long Valley, Spencer was charged with ending contention in Mt. Carmel, most of which centered on issues relating to the United Order. Under Spencer’s council, one faction moved two miles north of Mt. Carmel in 1875 to establish the community of Orderville.23 Following his second mission to England, Spencer served as a counselor in the Kanab Stake Presidency from 1877 to 1884.
In 1888, at the age of fifty, Howard Spencer was arrested in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park on the charge of unlawful cohabitation as federal authorities vigorously prosecuted Mormons under the Edmunds-Tucker Anti-Polygamy Act. At the time of Spencer’s arrest territorial prison warden and U.S. Marshal Arthur Pratt remembered the murder of Ralph Pike years earlier and arraigned Spencer on that charge. Spencer posted a six thousand dollar bail and waited for his murder trial to begin in May 1889.
George Stringham, a close friend of Spencer, was also charged with Pike’s murder. At the beginning of the trial prosecutors intended to try Spencer and Stringham together in Judge John Walter Judd’s Salt Lake City court. However, the first year judge granted a defense motion for separate trials.24
Howard Spencer was tried first. District Attorney George S. Peters and his assistant named Hiles prosecuted the case. Spencer was defended by an effective and high-powered team of four attorneys—Joseph L. Rawlins, LeGrand Young, and Ben Sheets who were Mormon, and Arthur Brown a non-Mormon attorney who had practiced law in Nevada. 25
The week-long trial began on Monday May 6, 1889. The Third District Court was packed with onlookers, witnesses, and journalists who wrote daily articles for the city newspapers. During the first day and a half of the trial several dozen potential jurors were examined by the prosecution, defense, and judge before twelve men—three Mormons and nine non-Mor mons—were selected They were Frank Van Horne, E.B. Kelsey, John McVicker, William J. Lynch, H.C. Reich, T.P. Murray, J.B. Cornwell, Owen Hogle, J.L. Perkes, Frank Shelton, J.M.Young, and A.W. Caine. Judge Judd admonished the jury to be extremely cautious and to hold no communications with anyone outside of their number.
Brigham Young Jr. brother-in-law to Howard O. Spencer and witness at the 1889 trial.
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
It was clear from the onset that not only was Howard Orson Spencer on trial for murder, but that the trial would examine the treatment of Mormons by U.S. soldiers three decades earlier as well as the interaction between federal government officials and Mormons in the territory during the troubled years after 1858.
The trial began in earnest on Tuesday afternoon, May 7, as assistant district attorney Hiles told the jury that the government expected to prove that Sergeant Ralph Pike was mortally wounded by the defendant Howard Orson Spencer. Hiles recalled the events on August 11, 1859, in Salt Lake City leading to Pike’s death including Pike’s deathbed confirmation of Spencer’s guilt. He then called ten witnesses for the prosecution including Lewis Smith, James Gordon, Mrs. Elizabeth Townsend, Stephen Taylor, William Alma Williams, William Appleby, Henry Heath, Lehi Daniels, Leonard Phillips, and Henry Q. Cushing. Based on the testimony of these witnesses that placed Spencer at the crime scene, the prosecution asked Judge Judd to increase the amount of Spencer’s bond from six thousand dollars to a much higher amount. Spencer’s defense attorneys objected strenuously and were successful at keeping the bond at the six thousand dollar amount.
Cushing testified that just prior to the shooting he had observed Howard Spencer, Bill Hickman, George Stringham, and a man named Luce in the yard near the rear of his shoe shop examining pistols and conversing at some length. Cushing noted that a little later following the “report of a pistol,” he saw Spencer run from the area of the Salt Lake House where Pike had been shot. Phillips testified that Spencer and his friends Hickman, Stringham, Luce, and Steve Taylor had planned the shooting and that the four friends had acted to cause confusion following the shooting in order for Spencer to make his escape.The prosecution produced no eyewitnesses to the shooting but relied principally on Pike’s deathbed statement naming Spencer as his assailant to carry its case with the jury.
Arthur Brown made the opening statement for Spencer’s defense during the Wednesday afternoon session of the trial. While the prosecution had avoided discussion of the earlier events in Rush Valley, Brown gave an extensive recounting of the March 1859 attack on Spencer by Pike in Rush Valley. Spencer had been “rendered partially insane” by the blow from Pike and “his skull was crushed in and his brains oozed out.”26 Brown’s opening statement outlined the defense strategy—neither Spencer nor any of his friends were the shooter, Spencer was not in the area during the day of the shooting, Spencer was not the same person he had been before the attack by Pike, and if he had shot Pike it was not premeditated but a rash act by an insane victim. Ten witnesses, all family, friends, and medical doctors testified that Spencer had become unstable following the altercation in Rush Valley with Pike, that he had not fully recovered from the beating. Defense witnesses presented on Wednesday afternoon included Claudius V. Spencer, George Reeder, Elijah Seamons, Mrs. Margaret Spencer, Dr. W.F. Anderson, Mrs. Martha Spencer, Dr. Benedict, Dr. Hamilton, Dr. Joseph F. Richards, and Dr. Bascombe. 27
The next day George Boardman Spencer, brother to the defendant, testified that he was with his brother Howard all day on August 11, 1859, and that Howard was not and could not have been involved in the shooting. George noted that after the Rush Valley incident Howard became irritable and brusque and that he never fully recovered from the attack. Other defense witnesses included Orlando F. Herron and William Brown who testified as eyewitnesses to the Pike shooting that Howard was not the shooter but instead was someone they did not know. Further defense witnesses on Thursday included Vincent Shurtliff, Hiram B. Clawson, Thomas Jenkins, Mrs. Katherine S.Young, and Mrs. Ellen S. Clawson. 28 All testified to Howard’s weakened condition following the Pike attack and that he never fully recovered mentally from the beating. Howard Spencer did not testify in his own behalf as his attorneys maintained that he did not recall any subsequent events following the brutal beating by Pike.The defense then rested its case. The prosecution called two medical doctors—Dr. J.M. Dart and a Dr. Ewing—as rebuttal witnesses to counter the defense testimony that Spencer suffered a permanent diagnosable weakened mental condition caused by Pike’s blows. Beginning Thursday afternoon and continuing Friday morning, Spencer’s three attorneys offered their closing arguments. Joseph Rawlins asserted that the prosecutors had not proven their case and that the testimony of prosecution witnesses could not be reconciled. LeGrand Young followed Rawlins and recalled the tense and violent years of 1858 and 1859.
At this juncture Judge Judd asked Young: “Do you say the revolver was above the law?” Young with great enthusiasm and standing before Judge Judd responded: “In those times and under those circumstances, yes.” The judge ordered Young to restrain himself, and Young obediently took his seat. At this emotional climax in the trial, the judge recessed the court until the afternoon. Arthur Brown began the Friday afternoon session with his summation. He maintained that the prosecution had proven neither murder nor manslaughter.They had also tried to stir up a conspiracy with references to Bill Hickman in the hope that his name and association with violence in the territory would influence the jury against Spencer. Brown argued that the defense’s presentation was superior to that offered by the prosecution and that the prosecution failed to show that Spencer had killed Pike. He concluded his statement that Spencer experienced periods of temporary insanity brought on by the blows from Pike’s musket and these periods of insanity were substantial and real.
District attorney Peters made the closing argument for the prosecution noting that there was a conspiracy to kill Pike and that Spencer was involved in the conspiracy. Peters closed by stating that there was indeed conflict between the testimony of the prosecution and the defense witnesses, but that he believed the prosecution witnesses were more credible.
Following Peters arguments, Judge Judd gave meticulous and lengthy instructions to the jury. They were to be the exclusive judges of the testimony, but should not allow the statements about Howard Spencer’s insanity to influence the case.With those instructions fresh on their minds, the jury retired from the courtroom at 3 p.m. After the jury left the courtroom, Arthur Brown, speaking for the defense, made numerous objections to the judge’s instructions to the jury—especially those relating to the issue of Spencer’s sanity.
At nine o’clock on Saturday morning, May 11, 1889, John M.Young, the jury foreman, informed the judge that they had reached a verdict. A halfhour later the jury members filed into the courtroom and took their seats. When the clerk read the verdict of not guilty applause erupted in the crowded courtroom. Judge Judd promptly checked the demonstration and then voiced his displeasure to the jurors:
In a lengthy Sunday morning editorial under the headline “Farce Follows Tragedy,” the Salt Lake Tribune concluded that although insanity had been presented as a major factor in the case, it was a screen to hide Spencer’s guilt. “The facts of the case were that Spencer was an old time blood-atoner. He was in perfect accord with those other lambs HICK- MAN, LUCE, STRINGHAM, TAYLOR, and the rest.” To the Tribune the real villain in the case was the Mormon church and its leadership and its teachings in the decade of the 1850s.31
With an alternate view, the Sunday morning Salt Lake Herald noted:
The Spencer-Pike affair and the events surrounding it from Rush Valley to Salt Lake City in 1859, and then the trial of Howard Orson Spencer thirty years later provides a glimpse of attitudes and actions that characterized Mormon-Federal relations during the difficult years of the Utah War and its aftermath. Furthermore, the 1889 jury decision finding Spencer innocent reveals an ambivalence about law and order that existed in many parts of the country as well. Brigham Young’s 1861 statement recorded by Wilford Woodruff in the 1889 Salt Lake Herald indicate that Spencer did kill Pike. However, two questions remain—who posted Spencer’s six thousand dollar bail, and who financed the first-rate set of four lawyers who defended Spencer in his May 1889 trial? It appears that Mormon church leaders and members did not want Spencer to be convicted of murder.33
Vindicated, Howard Spencer quietly returned to beautiful and isolated Long Valley where for the remaining three decades of his life he farmed and ranched while rendering community and church service. He died at the age of seventy-nine on March 4, 1918, after an accidental fall from a bridge over the Virgin River in Glendale—nearly sixty years after the encounter with Ralph Pike in Rush Valley.
NOTES
Richard W Sadler is a Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society and Dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Weber State University
1 Histories deal briefly or not at all with this incident. Other coverage of this incident can be found in Charles P Roland, Albert Sidney Johnston, Soldier of Three Republics (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964); Harold Schindler, “Is that you Pike? Feud Between Settlers, Frontier Army Erupts and Simmers for Three Decades,” The Salt Lake Tribune, July 2, 1995; Lance D Chase, “The Spencer-Pike Affair, 1859-90: Method in Madness,” in Temple, Town, Tradition, The Collected Historical Essays of Lance D. Chase, (Laie: HI: The Institute for Polynesian Studies, 2000).
2 An 1859 case of violence that had some relationship to the Spencer-Pike affair was the murder committed in February of 1859 by Congressman Daniel Sickles of New York State who shot Philip Bar ton Key, U.S District Attorney for the District of Columbia and the son of Francis Scott Key Representative Sickles suggested that he was in a jealous rage over the illicit affair in which Key and Sickle’s young wife Teresa were involved. In the subsequent sensational trial, in which Sickles plead successfully temporary insanity, he was acquitted. He went on to be a successful soldier in the Civil War including losing a leg at Gettysburg and being awarded the Medal of Honor W.A. Swanberg, Sickles the Incredible (Gettysburg: Stan Clark Military Books, 1991); Nat Brandt, The Congressman Who Got Away With Murder (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991). The middle of the nineteenth century also saw political violence (Bleeding Kansas and the Christiana Affair), economic violence (the Squatters’ Riots in California), racial violence (the Nat Turner Rebellion and the Texas Slave Insurrection of 1860), race riots (in Cincinnati, New York, and New Orleans), religious and ethnic violence (the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and the Mountain Meadows Massacre), per sonal violence (the assault on Charles Sumner in the United States Senate), assassinations and political murder s (Elijah Lovejoy and Abraham Lincoln), and group violence (the vigilante movements in the West).
3 Andrew Jenson writes that Howard Spencer was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which differs from family accounts. Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901), 4:503-504.
4 Or son Spencer (1802-1855) received a degree from Union College at Schenectady, New York, in 1824 and a second degree from the Theological College at Hamilton, New York, in 1829. Orson served for a time as mayor of Nauvoo, LDS church mission president in Great Britain, and chancellor of both the University of Nauvoo in Nauvoo and the University of Deseret in Utah. Catharine Cur tis Spencer died on the plains of Iowa in 1846. On Or son and Catharine Spencer and their family see: Aurelia Spencer Rogers, Life Sketches of Orson Spencer and Others and History of Primary Work (Salt Lake City: George Q Cannon and Sons, 1898); Richard W Sadler, “The Life of Orson Spencer,” (masters thesis, University of Utah, 1965); Seymour H Spencer, Life Summary of Orson Spencer, (Salt Lake City: Mercury Publishing Company, 1964.)
5 Daniel Spencer (1794-1868) converted to Mormonism in 1840 along with his brother s Hiram and Or son. Daniel was also mayor of Nauvoo for a time, was the first president of the Salt Lake City LDS Stake (1849-1868) as well as being involved in the Utah Territorial government and the British Mission.
6 The narrative of Lot Smith is found in LeRoy R. and An W. Hafen, Mormon Resistance, A Documentary Account of the Utah Expedition, 1857-1858 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 22046 For accounts of the Utah War see Donald Moor man and Gene A Sessions, Camp Floyd and the Mormons, The Utah War (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992); Norman F Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966); Harold D Langley, ed., To Utah with the Dragoons and Glimpses of Life in Arizona and California, 1858-1859 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1974); Eugene E. Campbell, Establishing Zion, the Mormon Church in the American West, 1847-1869 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988).
7 Information on Ralph Pike comes from correspondence with William P MacKinnon in the author’s possession.
8 Rush Valley, located south of the city of Tooele and Tooele Valley, is thirty miles long from north to south and seventeen miles wide at the widest point It is distinguished by the presence of Rush Lake which was for med when Lake Bonneville laid down a lake bar which interdicted any natural drainage from Rush Valley to the Tooele Valley Rush Lake in the 1850s was about 1.5 miles in length and with its surroundings provided a supply of water and good grazing ground. Ouida Blanthorn, A History of Tooele County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Tooele County Commission, 1998), 15-16.
9 Letter s from Alfred Cumming to Albert Sidney Johnston, October 8, 1858, and March 24, 1859, in the Mrs. Mason Barret Collection of Albert Sidney and William Preston Johnston Paper s, Manuscripts Division, Howard Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana. Copies of these letters are in the Donald R. Moor man Collection, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden. 10 Scott G Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff ’s Journal,1853-1898 (Midvale: Signature Books, 1984), 5:31213.
11 Aurelia Spencer Rogers suggests that Brewer tried to poison her brother, see Rogers, Orson Spencer, 182-84 Luke Johnson had been an early Mormon convert and one of the original Mormon Twelve Apostles. He was excommunicated from the church in 1838, and later rejoined the church in Nauvoo, and in 1858 settled St. John. Johnson died in 1861 at the Salt Lake City home of his brother-in-law, Or son Hyde Sgt. Charles E. Brewer penned a description and analysis of Howard Spencer’s injuries and the confrontation in a two page letter to Colonel Charles F Smith, 10th Regiment Infantr y Camp Floyd, U.T Copy of the Brewer letter is in the Moor man Collection, Stewart Library, Weber State University March 23, 1859
12 Brewer to Smith, March 23, 1859 Wilford Woodruff reported that he was with Brigham Young when the news of the Spencer-Pike altercation reached him on March 23, 1859. Kenney, Wilford Woodruff ’s Journal, 5:312-15.
13 Kenney, Wilford Woodruff Journal, 5: 313.
16 Cumming to Johnston, March 24, 1859, Moorman collection.
15 “The Utah War Jour nal of Alber t Tracy, 1858-1860,” Utah Histor ical Quar terly 15 (1945): 72-73.
16 The Valley Tan, August 17, 1859, quoted in Moor man and Sessions, Camp Floyd, 256. Harold Schindler also quotes the newspaper article and makes the assertion that Bill Hickman, noted Mormon gunman, was involved in helping Spencer get away on the day of the shooting. Hickman in his Confessions mentions nothing about this Spencer-Pike affair. Schindler also suggests that Spencer's close friend George Stringham was nearby at the time of the shooting, see Schindler, “Is That You Pike?”.
17 “Journal of Albert Tracy,” 73.
18 Not all relationships between Mormons and the military were tense Patience Loader, a Mormon woman who arrived in Utah in the Fall of 1856 with the Mar tin Handcar t Company, married Sergeant John Rozsa of the Tenth Infantry from Camp Floyd in the summer of 1858 as he converted to Mormonism. Sandra Ailey Petree, ed., Recollections of Past Days, The Autobiography of Patience Loader Rozsa Arc her, (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2006) 98-106 John Nay and his wife Thirza were early Mormon settler s of Cedar For t. In the Fall of 1858, Cor poral James Haven (age twenty-six) began to regularly visit Thirza Nay (age for ty-five) who had been married to John Nay for twenty year s and had borne nine children in their relationship Thirza after becoming involved in “familiar intimacy” with Cor poral Haven, ran off with and married him. The family relationships are described in Joan Nay, Beth Breinholt, and Joy Stubbs, The Nay Family in Utah and the West, A History of John Nay Jr., and His wives and children, (Salt Lake City: privately published, 2002).
19 Lorenzo Brown, Journal I, 347 in Juanita Brooks, ed., On The Mormon Frontier, the Diary of Hosea Stout (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press and the Utah State Historical Society, 1964), 2:701, fn. 62.
20 Ibid. 701-702
21 The couple had five girls and one boy. In 1875, Spencer married twenty-year old Per sis Ann Brown and they had two sons and three daughter s. In 1877, Howard married twenty- year old Asenath Emmeline Carling and they had five sons and twelve daughter s Elda P Mortensen, compiler and editor, Isaac V Carling Family History (Provo: Printed by J Grant Stevenson, 1965).
22 Kenney, Wilford Woodruff, 5:573. On the Salt Lake Stake and its organization see Lynn M. Hilton, ed., The Salt Lake Stake, 1847-1972 (Salt Lake City: Utah Printing Company, 1972). Howard Spencer is listed as serving four teen year s on the stake high council. His cousin Claudius Spencer and his brother-in-law Brigham Young Jr who had married his sister Catharine Cur tis Spencer in 1855 also served with him par t of the time
23 On the settlement and development of Orderville, Long Valley and Kane County, see Martha Sonntag Bradley, A History of Kane County, (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Kane County Commission, 1999) 103-29. Howard Spencer’s role in the Long Valley settlements is also dealt with in Leonard J Arrington, Feramorz Y Fox and Dean L. May, Building the City of God, Community & Cooperation Among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1976). Spencer was proud of the success of the United Order in the Long Valley settlements and in 1875 and 1876 he attended a number of meetings in St. George where he often spoke about the success of the United Order in the Long Valley settlements. See A. Karl Larson and Katharine Miles Larson, editors, Diary of Charles Lowell Walker (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1980), 1: 409, 422, 433.
24 President Grover Cleveland appointed John Walter Judd an associate territorial Supreme Court judge of the Utah Territory where he served from 1888 to1893. Judd was born in 1839 in Gallatin, Sumner County, Tennessee, and during the Civil War he served as a cavalryman in the Confederate ar my In 1893 Judd was appointed as a U.S District Attorney for the Territory of Utah and served until Utah became a state In 1896 he returned to Tennessee where he taught law at Vanderbilt University until his death in 1919. Clifford L. Ashton, The Federal Judiciary in Utah, (Salt Lake City: Utah State Bar Foundation, 1988), 45-46.
25 LeGrand Young was born in Nauvoo, Illinois, December 27, 1840, the son of Joseph and Jane Adeline Young. He attended the common schools in Salt Lake City, later graduated from the law department of the Univer sity of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and was admitted to the Utah Territorial Bar in 1870. Joseph L. Rawlins was born in 1850 in Mill Creek, Salt Lake County, and attended Dr John Park’s school at Draper He later attended the University of Deseret from 1869 to 1871, and the University of Indiana from 1871 to 1873. Joseph L. Rawlins was professor of mathematics and Latin at the Univer sity of Deseret. He studied law in Salt Lake City and was admitted to the Utah Bar in 1874. A year later, he for med a partnership with Ben Sheets. Rawlins served as a delegate from the Utah Territory to the House of Representatives from 1892 to 1895. He introduced and helped to procure the passage of the bill under which Utah was admitted to statehood in 1896. He was elected U.S Senator from Utah in 1897, serving from 1897 to 1903. Arthur Brown was a non-Mormon attorney from Nevada who later became a leader in the Republican Party being elected along with Frank J. Cannon, as Utah's first United States Senators.
26 Deseret Evening News, May 8, 1889, Salt Lake Tribune, May 9, 1889, and Salt Lake Herald, May 9, 1889.
27 Claudius V Spencer, son of Daniel Spencer, was Howard Spencer’s cousin. George Reeder was the Spencer’s herdsman on the Rush Valley ranch in 1859. Mrs. Margaret Spencer was the wife of Howard’s cousin Charles Spencer, son of Hiram Spencer Margaret was born in England in 1830, married Charles in Salt Lake City in 1857, resided on Daniel Spencer’s ranch at the north end of the Oquirrh Mountains. She held Howard Spencer’s wounded head during the trip from the ranch to Salt Lake City in March 1859.
28 Hiram B Clawson was a substantial businessman in Salt Lake City and husband to Howard’s sister Ellen (Mrs. Ellen S Clawson, who also testified) Katherine S Young was Howard’s sister and wife of Brigham Young, Jr who was at this time a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
29 Salt Lake Herald, May 11, 1889. For additional coverage of the trial, see Deseret Evening News, May 11, 12, 1889, and Salt Lake Tribune, May 11, 1889.
30 Ibid.
31 Salt Lake Tribune, May 12, 1889.
32 Salt Lake Herald, May 12, 1889.
33 As noted, Hiram Clawson and Brigham Young Jr were both married to Howard Spencer’s sisters. Hiram Clawson was also married to two of Brigham Young’s daughter s and had served as Brigham Young’s private secretary Both Clawson and Young had access to money and influence and both were very interested in seeing Spencer found innocent.
