T H E REMINISCENCES OF JAMES H O L T A N A R R A T I V E OF T H E E M M E T T
COMPANY
EDITED BY D A L E L. MORGAN*
INTRODUCTION
F
the early Mormons whose lives did not compose a drama. Caught up voluntarily or involuntarily in the sweep of turbulent events, they were actors in some of the most stirring and striking scenes of the American pioneer experience, and even the simplest chronicle of their lives, written without embellishment or effort at literary grace, becomes a narrative of impelling interest. EW INDEED WERE
James Holt has been practically unknown in Utah historiography. His name ocurrs in none of the standard biographical reference works, and though he and his sons played a prominent part in the early history of several towns and villages in Washington County, in the southwest corner of the state, the striking events in which he participated in the Mississippi Valley before coming to Utah in 1852 have scarcely summoned his name to mind. This will now be changed. Born in North Carolina in 1804, James Holt moved to Tennessee with his parents when an infant, and grew to manhood there. In 1833, having meanwhile married, he moved with his father-inlaw to Illinois, a point on die Ohio River some 20 miles above its mouth, and took up a farm. Here, apparently in 1839, he was converted by a Mormon missionary and in due course, like so many other Saints, removed to Nauvoo, arriving in the fall of *Dale L. Morgan is a distinguished scholar and prolific writer on Utah, Mormon, and Western history. H e is the definitive biographer of Jedediah S. Smith. His latest work, in collaboration with Carl I. Wheat, is Jedediah Smith and his Maps of the American West, published late in 1954 by the California Historical Society. He is a long-time friend and member of the Utah Historical Society and a frequent contributor to this Quarterly. H e is now a prominent member of the Bancroft Library staff at Berkeley.
