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Title: The Story of the Mormons
From the Date of their Origin to the Year 1901
Author: William Alexander Linn
Release Date: December 2000 [EBook #2443]
Last Updated: July 25, 2012
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE MORMONS ***
Produced by Several Anonymous Volunteers, Dianne Bean, and David Widger
THE STORY OF THE MORMONS
FROM THE DATE OF THEIR ORIGIN TO THE YEAR 1901
By William Alexander Linn
PREFACE
No chapter of American history has remained so long unwritten as that
which tells the story of the Mormons. There are many books on the
subject, histories written under the auspices of the Mormon church,
which are hopelessly biased as well as incomplete; more trustworthy
works which cover only certain periods; and books in the nature of
"exposures" by former members of the church, which the Mormons attack as
untruthful, and which rest, in the minds of the general reader, under
a suspicion of personal bias. Mormonism, therefore, to-day suggests to
most persons only one doctrine--polygamy--and only one leader--Brigham
Young, who made his name familiar to the present generations. Joseph
Smith, Jr., is known, where known at all, only in the most general
way as the founder of the sect, while the real originator of the whole
scheme for a new church and of its doctrines and government, Sidney
Rigdon, is known to few persons even by name.
The object of the present work is to present a consecutive history of
the Mormons, from the day of their origin to the present writing, and as
a secular, not as a religious, narrative. The search has been for facts,
not for moral deductions, except as these present themselves in the
course of the story. Since the usual weapon which the heads of
the Mormon church use to meet anything unfavorable regarding their
organization or leaders is a general denial, this narrative has been
made to rest largely on Mormon sources of information. It has been
possible to follow this plan a long way because many of the original
Mormons left sketches that have been preserved. Thus we have Mother
Smith's picture of her family and of the early days of the church; the
Prophet's own account of the revelation to him of the golden plates, of
his followers' early experiences, and of his own doings, almost day by
day, to the date of his death, written with an egotist's appreciation of
his own part in the play; other autobiographies, like Parley P. Pratt's
and Lorenzo Snow's; and, finally, the periodicals which the church
issued in Ohio, in Missouri, in Illinois, and in England, and the
official reports of the discourses preached in Utah,--all showing up, as
in a mirror, the character of the persons who gave this Church of Latter
Day Saints its being and its growth.
In regard to no period of Mormon history is there such a lack of
accurate information as concerning that which covers their moves to
Ohio, thence to Missouri, thence to Illinois, and thence to Utah. Their
own excuse for all these moves is covered by the one word "persecution"
(meaning persecution on account of their religious belief), and so
little has the non-Mormon world known about the subject that this
explanation has scarcely been challenged. Much space is given to these
early migrations, as in this way alone can a knowledge be acquired of
the real character of the constituency built up by Smith in Ohio, and
led by him from place to place until his death, and then to Utah by
Brigham Young.
Any study of the aims and objects of the Mormon leaders must rest on the
Mormon Bible ("Book of Mormon") and on the "Doctrine and Covenants," the
latter consisting principally of the "revelations" which directed the
organization of the church and its secular movements. In these alone
are spread out the original purpose of the migration to Missouri and the
instructions of Smith to his followers regarding their assumed rights
to the territory they were to occupy; and without a knowledge of these
"revelations" no fair judgment can be formed of the justness of
the objections of the people of Missouri and Illinois to their new
neighbors. If the fraudulent character of the alleged revelation to
Smith of golden plates can be established, the foundation of the
whole church scheme crumbles. If Rigdon's connection with Smith in the
preparation of the Bible by the use of the "Spaulding manuscript" can be
proved, the fraud itself is established. Considerable of the evidence on
this point herein brought together is presented at least in new shape,
and an adequate sketch of Sidney Rigdon is given for the first time. The
probable service of Joachim's "Everlasting Gospel," as suggesting the
story of the revelation of the plates, has been hitherto overlooked.
A few words with regard to some of the sources of information quoted:
"Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and his Progenitors for Many
Generations" ("Mother Smith's History," as this book has been generally
called) was first published in 1853 by the Mormon press in Liverpool,
with a preface by Orson Pratt recommending it; and the Millennial Star
(Vol. XV, p. 682) said of it: "Being written by Lucy Smith, the
mother of the Prophet, and mostly under his inspiration, will be ample
guarantee for the authenticity of the narrative.... Altogether the
work is one of the most interesting that has appeared in this latter
dispensation." Brigham Young, however, saw how many of its statements
told against the church, and in a letter to the Millennial Star (Vol.
XVII, p. 298), dated January 31, 1858, he declared that it contained
"many mistakes," and said that "should it ever be deemed best to publish
these sketches, it will not be done until after they are carefully
corrected." The preface to the edition of 1890, published by the
Reorganized Church at Plano, Illinois, says that Young ordered the
suppression of the first edition, and that under this order large
numbers were destroyed, few being preserved, some of which fell into the
hands of those now with the Reorganized Church. For this destruction
we see no adequate reason. James J. Strang, in a note to his pamphlet,
"Prophetic Controversy," says that Mrs. Corey (to whom the pamphlet
is addressed) "wrote the history of the Smiths called 'Mother Smith's
History.'" Mrs. Smith was herself quite incapable of putting her
recollections into literary shape.
The autobiography of Joseph Smith, Jr., under the title "History of
Joseph Smith," began as a supplement to Volume XIV of the Millennial
Star, and ran through successive volumes to Volume XXIV. The matter
in the supplement and in the earlier numbers was revised and largely
written by Rigdon. The preparation of the work began after he and Smith
settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. In his last years Smith rid himself almost
entirely of Rigdon's counsel, and the part of the autobiography then
written takes the form of a diary which unmasks Smith's character as
no one else could do. Most of the correspondence and official documents
relating to the troubles in Missouri and Illinois are incorporated in
this work.
Of the greatest value to the historian are the volumes of the Mormon
publications issued at Kirtland, Ohio; Independence, Missouri; Nauvoo,
Illinois; and Liverpool, England. The first of these, Evening and
Morning Star (a monthly, twenty-four numbers), started at Independence
and transferred to Kirtland, covers the period from June, 1832, to
September, 1834; its successor, the Latter Day Saints' Messenger and
Advocate, was issued at Kirtland from 1834 to 1837. This was followed
by the Elders' journal, which was transferred from Kirtland to Far West,
Missouri, and was discontinued when the Saints were compelled to leave
that state. Times and Seasons was published at Nauvoo from 1839 to 1845.
Files of these publications are very scarce, the volumes of the Times
and Seasons having been suppressed, so far as possible, by Brigham
Young's order. The publication of the Millennial Star was begun in
Liverpool in May, 1840, and is still continued. The early volumes
contain the official epistles of the heads of the church to their
followers, Smith's autobiography, correspondence describing the
early migrations and the experiences in Utah, and much other valuable
material, the authenticity of which cannot be disputed by the Mormons.
In the Journal of Discourses (issued primarily for circulation in
Europe) are found official reports of the principal discourses (or
sermons) delivered in Salt Lake City during Young's regime. Without
this official sponsor for the correctness of these reports, many of them
would doubtless be disputed by the Mormons of to-day.
The earliest non-Mormon source of original information quoted is
"Mormonism Unveiled," by E. D. Howe (Painesville, Ohio, 1834). Mr. Howe,
after a newspaper experience in New York State, founded the Cleveland
(Ohio) Herald in 1819, and later the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph.
Living near the scene of the Mormon activity in Ohio when they moved to
that state, and desiring to ascertain the character of the men who were
proclaiming a new Bible and a new church, he sent agents to secure
such information among the Smiths' old acquaintances in New York
and Pennsylvania, and made inquiries on kindred subjects, like the
"Spaulding manuscript." His book was the first serious blow that Smith
and his associates encountered, and their wrath against it and its
author was fierce.
Pomeroy Tucker, the author of "Origin and Progress of the Mormons" (New
York, 1867), was personally acquainted with the Smiths and with Harris
and Cowdery before and after the appearance of the Mormon Bible. He read
a good deal of the proof of the original edition of that book as it was
going through the press, and was present during many of the negotiations
with Grandin about its publication. His testimony in regard to early
matters connected with the church is important.
Two non-Mormons who had an early view of the church in Utah and who
put their observations in book form were B. G. Ferris ("Utah and the
Mormons," New York, 1854 and 1856) and Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison of
the United States Topographical Engineers ("The Mormons," Philadelphia,
1856). Both of these works contain interesting pictures of life in Utah
in those early days.
There are three comprehensive histories of Utah,--H. H. Bancroft's
"History of Utah" (p. 889), Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City" (p.
886), and Orson F. Whitney's "History of Utah," in four volumes, three
of which, dated respectively March, 1892, April, 1893, and January,
1898, have been issued. The Reorganized Church has also published a
"History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" in three
volumes. While Bancroft's work professes to be written from a secular
standpoint, it is really a church production, the preparation of the
text having been confided to Mormon hands. "We furnished Mr. Bancroft
with his material," said a prominent Mormon church officer to me. Its
plan is to give the Mormon view in the text, and to refer the reader for
the other side to a mass of undigested notes, and its principal value to
the student consists in its references to other authorities. Its general
tone may be seen in its declaration that those who have joined the
church to expose its secrets are "the most contemptible of all"; that
those who have joined it honestly and, discovering what company they
have got into, have given the information to the world, would far better
have gone their way and said nothing about it; and, as to polygamy, that
"those who waxed the hottest against" the practice "are not as a rule
the purest of our people" (p. 361); and that the Edmunds Law of 1882
"capped the climax of absurdity" (p. 683).
Tullidge wrote his history after he had taken part in the "New
Movement." In it he brought together a great deal of information,
including the text of important papers, which is necessary to an
understanding of the growth and struggles of the church. The work was
censored by a committee appointed by the Mormon authorities.
Bishop Whitney's history presents the pro-Mormon view of the church
throughout. It is therefore wholly untrustworthy as a guide to opinion
on the subjects treated, but, like Tullidge's, it supplies a good deal
of material which is useful to the student who is prepared to estimate
its statements at their true value.
The acquisition by the New York Public Library of the Berrian collection
of books, early newspapers, and pamphlets on Mormonism, with the
additions constantly made to this collection, places within the reach of
the student all the material that is necessary for the formation of the
fairest judgment on the subject.
W. A. L. HACKENSACK, N. J., 1901.
DETAILED CONTENTS
BOOK I. THE MORMON ORIGIN
I. FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF: The Real Miracle of Mormon
Success--Effrontery of the Leaders' Professions--Attractiveness of
Religious Beliefs to Man--Wherein the World does not make Progress--The
Anglo-Saxon Appetite for Religious Novelties
II. THE SMITH FAMILY: Solomon Mack and his Autobiography
--Religious Characteristics of the Prophet's Mother--The Family Life in
Vermont--Early Occupations in New York State--Pictures of the Prophet as
a Youth--Recollections of the Smiths by their New York Neighbors
III. HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER: His Use of a
Divining Rod--His First Introduction to Crystal-gazing--Peeping after
Hidden Treasure--How Joseph obtained his own "Peek-stone"--Methods of
Midnight Money-digging
IV. FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOLDEN BIBLE: Variations in the
Early Descriptions--Joseph's Acquaintance with the Hales--His Elopement
and Marriage--What he told a Neighbor about the Origin of his Bible
Discovery--Early Anecdotes about the Book
V. THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF THE REVELATION OF THE BIBLE:
The Versions about the Spanish Guardian--Important Statement by the
Prophet's Father--The Later Account in the Prophet's Autobiography--The
Angel Visitor and the Acquisition of the Plates--Mother Smith's Version
VI. TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE: Martin Harris's
Connection with the Work--Smith's Removal to Pennsylvania--How the
Translation was carried on--Harris's Visit to Professor Anthon--The
Professor's Account of his Visit--The Lost Pages--The Prophet's
Predicament and his Method of Escape--Oliver Cowdery as an
Assistant Translator--Introduction of the Whitmers--The Printing and
Proof--reading of the New Bible--Recollections of Survivors
VII. THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT: Solomon Spaulding's
Career--History of "The Manuscript Found"--Statements by Members of
the Author's Family--Testimony of Spaulding's Ohio Neighbors about the
Resemblance of his Story to the Book of Mormon--The Manuscript found in
the Sandwich Islands
VIII. SIDNEY RIGDON: His Biography--Connection with the
Campbells--Efficient Church Work in Ohio--His Jealousy of his Church
Leaders--Disciples' Beliefs and Mormon Doctrines--Intimations about
a New Bible--Rigdon's First Connection with Smith--The Rigdon-Smith
Translation of the Scriptures--Rigdon's Conversion to Mormonism
IX. "THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL": Probable Origin of the Idea of
a Bible on Plates--Cyril's Gift from an Angel and Joachim's Use
of it--Where Rigdon could have obtained the Idea Prominence of the
"Everlasting Gospel" in Mormon Writings
X. THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES: Text of the Two
"Testimonies"--The Prophet's Explanation of the First--Early Reputation
and Subsequent History of the Signers--The Truth about the Kinderhook
Plates and Rafinesque's Glyphs
XI. THE MORMON BIBLE: Some of its Errors and
Absurdities--Facsimile of the First Edition Title-page--The Historical
Narrative of the Book--Its Lack of Literary Style--Appropriated Chapters
of the Scriptures--Specimen Anachronisms
XII. ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH: Smith's Ordination by John
the Baptist--The First Baptisms--Early Branches of the Church--The
Revelation about Church Officers--Cowdery's Ambition and How it was
Repressed--Smith's Title as Seer, Translator, and Prophet--His Arrest
and Release--Arrival of Parley P. Platt and Rigdon in Palmyra--The
Command to remove to Ohio
XIII. THE MORMONS' BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES--CHURCH GOVERNMENT:
Long Years of Apostasy--Origin of the Name "Mormon"--Original Titles of
the Church--Belief in a Speedy Millennium--The Future Possession of
the Earth--Smith's Revelations and how they were obtained--The
First Published Editions--Counterfeit Revealers--What is Taught of
God--Brigham Young's Adam Sermon--Baptism for the Dead--The Church
Officers
BOOK II. IN OHIO
I. THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND: Original Missionaries sent
out to the Lamanites--Organization of a Church in Ohio--Effect of
Rigdon's Conversion--General Interest in the New Bible and Prophet--How
Men of Education came to believe in Mormonism--Result of the Upturning
of Religious Belief
II. WILD VAGARIES OF THE CONVERTS: Convulsions and
Commissions--Common Religious Excitements of those Days--Description of
the "Jerks"--Smith's Repressing Influence
III. GROWTH OF THE CHURCH: The Appointment of Elders--Beginning
of the Proselyting System--Smith's Power Entrenched--His Temporal
Provision--Repression of Rigdon--The Tarring and Feathering of Smith
and Rigdon--Treatment of the Mormons and of Other New Denominations
compared--Rigdon's Punishment
IV. GIFTS OF TONGUES AND MIRACLES: How Persons "Spoke in
Tongues"--Seeing the Lord Face to Face--Early Use of Miracles--The
Story of the "Book of Abraham"--The Prophet as a Translator of Greek and
Egyptian.
V. SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES: Young's Picture of the
Prophet's Experience as a Retail Merchant--The Land Speculation--Laying
out of the City--Building of the Temple--Consecration of Property--How
the Leaders looked out for themselves--Amusing Explanation of Section
III of the "Doctrine and Covenants"--The Story of the Kirtland Bank--The
Church View of its Responsibility for the Currency--The Business Crash
and Smith's Flight to Missouri
VI. LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND: Pictures of the Prophet--Accusations
against Church Leaders in Missouri--Serious Charge against the
Prophet--W. W, Phelps's Rebellion--Smith's Description of Leading Lights
of the Church--Charges concerning Smith's Morality--The Church accused
of practising Polygamy--A Lively Fight at a Church Service--Smith's and
Rigdon's Defence of their Conduct--The Later History of Kirtland
BOOK III. IN MISSOURI
I. THE DIRECTIONS TO THE SAINTS ABOUT THEIR ZION: Western
Missouri in the Early Days--Pioneer Farming and Home-making--The Trip
of the Four Mormon Missionaries--Direction about the Gathering of the
Elect--How they were to possess the Land of Promise--Their Appropriation
of the Good Things purchased of their Enemies
II. SMITH'S FIRST VISITS TO MISSOURI: Founding the City of Zion
and the Temple--Marvellous Stories that were told--Dissatisfaction of
Some of the Prophet's Companions
III. THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY: Rapid Influx of
Mormons--Result of the Publication of the Revelations--First
Friction with their Non-Mormon Neighbors--Manifesto of the Mormons'
Opponents--Their Big Mass Meeting--Demands on the Mormons--Destruction
of the Star Printing-office--The Mormons' Agreement to leave--Smith's
Advice to his Flock--Repudiation of the Mormon Agreement and Renewal of
Hostilities--The Battle at Big Blue--Evacuation of the County--March of
the Army of Zion--An Inglorious Finale
IV. FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE JACKSON COUNTY PEOPLE: A
Fair Offer Rejected--The Mormon Counter Propositions--Governor Dunklin
on the Situation
V. IN CLAY, CALDWELL, AND DAVIESS COUNTIES: Welcome of the
Mormons by New Neighbors--Effect of their Claims about Possessing the
Land--Ordered out of Clay County--Founding of Far West--A Welcome to
Smith and Rigdon
VI. RADICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CHURCH: Trial of Phelps and
Whitmer--Conviction of Oliver Cowdery on Serious Charges--Expulsion
of Leading Members--Origin of the Danites--Suggested by the Prophet at
Kirtland--The Danite Constitution and Oath--Origin of the Tithing System
VII. BEGINNING OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES: Result of Smith's
Domineering Course--Jealousy caused by the Scattering of the
Saints--Founding of Adam-ondi-Ahman--Rigdon's Famous Salt Sermon--Open
Defiance of the Non-Mormons--The Mormons in Politics--An Election Day
Row--Arrests and Threats
VIII. A STATE OF CIVIL WAR: Calling out of the Militia--Proposed
Expulsion of the Mormons from Carroll County--The Siege of De Witt--The
Prophet's Defiance--Work of his "Fur Company"--Gentile Retaliation--The
Battle of Crooked River--The Massacre at Hawn's Mills--Governor Boggs's
"Order of Extermination"
IX. THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE: General Lucas's Terms to
the Mormons--Surrender of Far West and Arrest of Mormon Leaders--General
Clark's Address to the Mormons--His Report to the Governor--General
Wilson's Picture of Adam-ondi-Ahman--Fate of the Mormon
Prisoners--Testimony at their Trial--Smith's Escape--Migration to
Illinois
BOOK IV. IN ILLINOIS
I. THE RECEPTION OF THE MORMONS: Incidents in the Early History
of the State--Defiant Lawlessness--Politicians the First to Welcome the
Newcomers--Landowners Among their First Friends
II. THE SETTLEMENT OF NAUVOO: Smith's Leadership
Illustrated--The Land Purchases--A Reconciliation of Conflicting
Revelations--Smith's Financiering--Shameful Misrepresentation to
Immigrants
III. THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY: Unhealthfulness of its
Site--Rapid Growth of the Place--Early Pictures of it--Foreign
Proselyting--Why England was a Good Field--Method of Work there--The
Employment of Miracles--How the Converts were Sent Over
IV. THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT: Dr. Galland's Suggestions--An
Important Revelation--Church Buildings Ordered--Subserviency of the
Legislature--Dr. John C. Bennett's Efficient Aid--Authority granted to
the City Government--The Nauvoo Legion--Bennett's Welcome--The Temple
and How it was Constructed
V. THE MORMONS IN POLITICS: Smith's Decree against Van
Buren--How the Prophet swung the Mormon Vote back to the Democrats--The
Attempted Assassination of Governor Boggs--Smith's Arrest and What
Resulted from it--Defeat of a Whig Candidate by a Revelation
VI. SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: His
Letter to Clay and Calhoun--Their Replies and Smith's Abusive
Wrath--The Prophet's Views on National Politics--Reform Measures that
He Proposed--His Nomination by the Church Paper--Experiences of
Missionaries sent out to Work Up his Campaign
VII. SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN NAUVOO: Character of its
Population--Treatment of Immigrant Converts--Some Disreputable
Gentile Neighbors--The Complaints of Mormon Stealings--Significant
Admissions--Mormon Protection against Outsiders--The Whittlers
VIII. SMITH'S PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS AUTOCRAT: Glances at his
Autobiography--Difficulties Connected with the Building Enterprises--A
Plain Warning to Discontented Workmen--Trouble with Rigdon--Pressed by
his Creditors--Transaction with Remick--Currency Law passed by his City
Council--How Smith regarded himself as a Prophet--His Latest Prophecies
IX. SMITH'S FALLING OUT WITH BENNETT AND HIGBEE: Bennett's
Expulsion and the Explanations concerning it--His Attacks on his
Late Companions--Charges against Nauvoo Morality--The Case of Nancy
Rigdon--The Higbee Incident
X. THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY: An Examination of its
Origin--Its Conflict with the Teachings of the Mormon Bible and
Revelations--Early Loosening of the Marriage View under Smith--Proof of
the Practice of Polygamy in Nauvoo--Testimony of Eliza R. Snow--How
her Brother Lorenzo shook off his Bachelorhood--John B. Lee as a
Polygamist--Ebenezer Robinson's Statement--Objects of "The Holy
Order"--The Writing of the Revelation about Polygamy--Its First Public
Announcement--Sidney Rigdon's Innocence in the Matter
XI. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY: Text of
the Revelation--Orson Pratt's Presentation of it--The Doctrine of
Sealing--Necessity of Sealing as a Means of Salvation--Attempt to show
that Christ was a Polygamist
XII. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE EXPOSITOR: Dr. Foster and the
Laws--Rebellion against Smith's Teachings--Leading Features of
the Expositor--Trial of the Paper and its Editors before the City
Council--Destruction of the Press and Type--Smith's Proclamation
XIII. UPRISING OF THE NON-MORMONS: Resolutions Adopted at
Warsaw--Organizing and Arming of the People--Action of Governor
Ford--Smith's Arrest--Departure of the Prisoners for Carthage
XIV. THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET: Legal Proceedings after his
Arrival in Carthage--The Governor and the Militia--The Carthage Jail and
its Guards--Action of the Warsaw Regiment--The Attack on the Jail
and the Killing of the Prophet and his Brother--Funeral Services in
Nauvoo--Final Resting-place of the Bodies--Result of Indictments of the
Alleged Murderers--Review of the Prophet's Character
XV. AFTER SMITH'S DEATH: The People in a Panic--The Mormon
Leaders for Peace--The Future Government of the Church--Brigham Young's
Victory--Rigdon's Trial before the High Council--Verdict Against
Him--His Church in Pennsylvania--His Ambition to be the Head of a
Distinct Church--A Visit from Heavenly Messengers--His Last Days
XVI. RIVALRIES OVER THE SUCCESSION: The Claim of the Prophet's
Eldest Son--Trouble caused by the Prophet's Widow--The Reorganized
Church--Strang's Church in Wisconsin--Lyman Wight's Colony in Texas
XVII. BRIGHAM YOUNG: His Early Years--His Initiation into the
Mormon Church--Fidelity to the Prophet--Embarrassments of his Position
as Head of the Church--His View about Revelations--Plan for Home Mission
Work--His Election as President
XVIII. RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS: More Charges
of Stealing--Significant Admission by Young--Business Plight of
Nauvoo--More Politics--Defiant Attitude of Mormon Leaders--An Editor's
View of Legal Rights--Stories about the Danites--Brother William
on Brigham Young--The "Burnings"--Sheriff Backenstos's
Proclamations--Lieutenant Worrell's Murder--Mormon
Retaliation--Appointment of the Douglas-Hardin Commission
XIX. THE EXPULSION OF THE MORMONS: General Hardin's
Proclamation--County Meetings of Non-Mormons--Their Ultimatum--The
Commission's Negotiations--Non-Mormon Convention at Carthage--The
Agreement for the Mormon Evacuation
XX. THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO: Major Warren as a Peace
Preserver--The Mormons' Disposition of their Property--Departure of
the Leaders hastened by Indictments--Arrival of New Citizens--Continued
Hostility of the Non-Mormons--"The Last Mormon War"--Panic in
Nauvoo--Plan for a March on the Mormon City--Fruitless Negotiations
for a Compromise--The Advance against the City--The Battle and its
Results--Terms of Peace--The Final Evacuation XXI. NAUVOO AFTER
THE EXODUS: Arrival of Governor Ford--The Final Work on the Temple--The
"Endowment" Ceremony and Oath--Futile Efforts to sell the Temple--Its
Destruction by Fire and Wind--The Nauvoo of To-day
BOOK V. THE MIGRATION TO UTAH
I. PREPARATIONS FOR THE LONG MARCH: Uncertainty of their
Destination--Explanations to the People--Disposition of Real and
Personal Property--Collection of Draft Animals--Activity in Wagon and
Tent Making--The Old Charge of Counterfeiting--Pecuniary Sacrifices of
the Mormons in Illinois
II. FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI: The First Crossings of
the River--Camp Arrangements--Sufferings from the Cold--The Story of
the Westward March--Motley Make-up of the Procession--Expedients
for obtaining Supplies--Terrible Sufferings of the Expelled
Remnant--Privations at Mt. Pisgah
III. THE MORMON BATTALION: Extravagant Claims Regarding
it Disproved--General Kearney's Invitation--Source of the Initial
Suggestion--How the Mormons profited by the Organization--The March to
California--Colonel Thomas L. Kane's Visit to the Missouri--His Intimate
Relations with the Mormon Church
IV. THE CAMPS ON THE MISSOURI: Friendly Welcome of the Mormons
by the Indians--The Site of Winter Quarters--Busy Scenes on the River
Bank--Sickness and Death--The Building of a Temporary City
V. THE PIONEER TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS: Early Views of the
Unexplored West--The First White Visitors to that Country--Organization
of the Pioneer Mormon Band--Rules observed on the March--Successful
Buffalo Hunting--An Indian Alarm--Dearth of Forage--Post-offices of the
Plains--A Profitable Ferry
VI. FROM THE ROCKIES TO SALT LAKE VALLEY: No Definite
Stopping-place in View--Advice received on the Way--The Mormon
Expedition to California by Way of Cape Horn--Brannan's Fall from
Grace--Westward from Green River--Advance Explorers through a
Canon--First View of Great Salt Lake Valley--Irrigation and Crop
Planting begun
VII. THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES: Their Leaders and Make-up
--Young's Return Trip--Last Days on the Missouri--Scheme for a Permanent
Settlement in Iowa--Westward March of Large Companies
BOOK VI. IN UTAH
I. THE FOUNDING OF SALT LAKE CITY: Utah's First White
Explorers--First Mormon Services in the Valley--Young's View of the
Right to the Land--The First Buildings--Laying out the City--Early
Crop Disappointment--Discomforts of the First Winter--Primitive
Dwelling-places--The Visitation of Crickets--Glowing Accounts sent to
England
II. PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT: Schools and Manufactures
--How the City appeared in 1849--Sufferings during the Winter of
1908--Immigration checked by the Lack of Food--Aid supplied by the
California Goldseekers--Danger of a Mormon Exodus--Young's Rebuke to his
Gold-seeking Followers--The Crop Failure of 1855 and the Famine of the
Following Winter--The Tabernacle and Temple
III. THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH: The Commercial joint Stock
Company Scandal--Deceptive Statements made to Foreign Converts--John
Taylor's Address to the Saints in Great Britain--Petition to
Queen Victoria--Mormon Duplicity illustrated--Young's Advice to
Emigrants--Glowing Pictures of Salt Lake Valley--The Perpetual
Emigrating Fund--Details of the Emigration System
IV. THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY: Young's Scheme for Economy--His
Responsibility for the Hand-cart Experiment--Details of the
Arrangement--Delays at Iowa City--Unheeded Warnings--Privations by
the Way--Early Lack of Provisions--Suffering caused by Insufficient
Clothing--Deaths of the Old and Infirm--Horrors of the Camps in the
Mountains--Frozen Corpses found at Daybreak--Sufferings of a Party at
Devil's Gate--Young's Attempt to shift the Responsibility
V. EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY: The Aim at Independence--First
Local Government--Adoption of a Constitution for the State of
Deseret--Babbitt's Application for Admission as a Delegate--Memorial
opposing his Claim--His Rejection--The Territorial Government
VI. BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DESPOTISM: Causes that contributed to
its Success--Helplessness of the New-comers from Europe--Influence of
Superstition--Young's Treatment of the Gladdenites--His Appropriation
of Property Laws passed by the Mormon Legislature--Bishops as Ward
Magistrates--A Mormon Currency and Alphabet--What Emigrants to
California learned about Mormon Justice
VII. THE "REFORMATION": Young's Disclosures about the Character
of his Flock--The Stealing from One Another--The Threat about "Laying
Judgment to the Line"--Plain Declarations about the taking of
Human Lives--First Steps of the "Reformation"--An Inquisition and
Catechism--An Embarrassing Confession--Warning to those who would leave
the Valley
VIII. SOME CHURCH-INSPIRED MURDERS: The Story of the
Parrishes--Carrying out of a Cold-blooded Plot--Judge Cradlebaugh's
Effort to convict the Murderers--The Tragedy of the Aikin Party--The
Story of Frederick Loba's Escape
IX. BLOOD ATONEMENT: Early Intimations concerning it--Jedediah
M. Grant's Explanation of Human Sacrifices--Brigham Young's Definition
of "Laying Judgment to the Line"--Two of the Sacrifices described--"The
Affair at San Pete"
X. TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT: Brigham Young the First
Governor--Colonel Kane's Part in his Appointment--Kane's False
Statements to President Fillmore--Welcome to the Non-Mormon
Officers--Their Early Information about Young's Influence--Pioneer
Anniversary Speeches--Judge Brocchus's Offence to the Mormons--Young's
Threatening and Abusive Reply--The Judge's Alarm about his Personal
Safety--Return of the Non-Mormon Federal Officers to Washington--Young's
Defence
XI. MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS: A Territorial Election
Law--Why Colonel Steptoe declined the Governorship--Young's Assertion of
his Authority--His Reappointment--Two Bad Judicial Appointments--Judge
Stiles's Trouble about the Marshals--Burning of his Books and
Papers--How Judge Drummond's Attempt at Independence was foiled--The
Mormon View of Land Titles--Hostile Attitude toward the Government
Surveyors--Reports of the Indian Agents
XII. THE MORMON "WAR": What the Federal Authorities had learned
about Mormonism--Declaration of the Republican National Convention of
1856--Striking Speech by Stephen A. Douglas--Alfred Cumming appointed
Governor with a New Set of Judges--Statement in the President's
Message--Employment of a Military Force--The Kimball Mail
Contract--Organization of the Troops--General Harney's Letter of
Instruction--Threats against the Advancing Foe--Mobilization of the
Nauvoo Legion--Captain Van Vliet's Mission to Salt Lake City--Young's
Defiance of the Government--His Proclamation to the Citizens of
Utah--"General" Wells's Order to his Officers--Capture and Burning of a
Government Train--Colonel Alexander's Futile March--Colonel Johnston's
Advance from Fort Laramie--Harrowing Experience of Lieutenant Colonel
Cooke's Command
XIII. THE MORMON PURPOSE: Correspondence between Colonel
Alexander and Brigham Young--Illustration of Young's Vituperative
Powers--John Taylor's Threat--Incendiary Teachings in Salt Lake City--A
Warning to Saints who would Desert--The Army's Winter Camp--Proclamation
by Governor Cumming--Judge Eckles's Court--Futile Preparations at
Washington
XIV. COLONEL KANE'S MISSION: His Wily Proposition to President
Buchanan--His Credentials from the President--Arrival in California
under an Assumed Name--Visit to Camp Scott--General Johnston
ignored--Reasons why both the Government and the Mormons desired
Peace--Kane's Success with Governor Cumming--The Governor's Departure
for Salt Lake City--Deceptions practiced on him in Echo Canon--His
Reception in the City--Playing into Mormon Hands--The Governor's
Introduction to the People--Exodus of Mormons begun
XV. THE PEACE COMMISSION: President Buchanan's Volte-face--A
Proclamation of Pardon--Instructions to Two Peace Commissioners--Chagrin
of the Military--Governor Cumming's Misrepresentations--Conferences
between the Commissioners and Young--Brother Dunbar's Singing
of "Zion"--Young's Method of Surrender--Judge Eckles on Plural
Marriages--The Terms made with the Mormons--March of the Federal Troops
to the Deserted City--Return of the Mormons to their Homes
XVI. THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE: Circumstances Indicative
of Mormon Official Responsibility--The Make-up of the Arkansas
Party--Motives for Mormon Hostility to them--Parley P. Pratt's Shooting
in Arkansas--Refusal of Food Supplies to the Party after leaving Salt
Lake City--Their Plight before they were attacked--Successful Measures
for Defence--Disarrangement of the Mormon Plans--John D. Lee's
Treacherous Mission--Pitiless Slaughter of Men, Women, and
Children--Testimony given at Lee's Trial--The Plundering of the
Dead--Lee's Account of the Planning of the Massacre--Responsibility
of High Church Officers--Lee's Report to Brigham Young and Brigham's
Instructions to him--The Disclosures by "Argus"--Lee's Execution and
Last Words
XVII. AFTER THE "WAR": Judge Cradlebaugh's Attempts to enforce
the Law--Investigation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre--Governor
Cumming's Objections to the Use of Troops to assist the Court--A
Washington Decision in Favor of Young's Authority--The Story of a
Counterfeit Plate--Five Thousand Men under Arms to protect Young from
Arrest--Sudden Departure of Cumming--Governor Dawson's Brief
Term--His Shocking Treatment at Mormon Hands--Governor Harding's
Administration--The Morrisite Tragedy
XVIII. ATTITUDE OF THE MORMONS DURING THE SOUTHERN REBELLION:
Press and Pulpit Utterances--Arrival of Colonel Connor's Force--His
March through Salt Lake City to Camp Douglas--Governor Harding's Plain
Message to the Legislature--Mormon Retaliation--The Governor and Two
Judges requested to leave the Territory--Their Spirited Replies--How
Young escaped Arrest by Colonel Connor's Force--Another Yielding to
Mormon Power at Washington
XIX. EASTERN VISITORS To SALT LAKE CITY: Schuyler Colfax's
Interviews with Young--Samuel Bowles's Praise of the Mormons and his
Speedy Correction of his Views--Repudiation of Colfax's Plan to drop
Polygamy--Two more Utah Murders--Colfax's Second Visit
XX. GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM: Young's Jealousy of
Gentile Merchants--Organization of the Zion Cooperative Mercantile
Institution--Inception of the "New Movement"--Its Leaders and
Objects--The Peep o' Day and the Utah Magazine--Articles that aroused
Young's Hostility--Visit of the Prophet's Sons to Salt Lake City--Trial
and Excommunication of Godbe and Harrison--Results of the "New
Movement".
XXI. THE LAST YEARS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG: New Governors--Shaffer's
Rebuke to the Nauvoo Legion--Conflict with the New Judges--Brigham Young
and Others indicted--Young's Temporary Imprisonment--A Supreme Court
Decision in Favor of the Mormon Marshal and Attorney--Outside Influences
affecting Utah Affairs--Grant's Special Message to Congress--Failure
of the Frelinghuysen Bill in the House--Signing of the Poland Bill--Ann
Eliza Young's Suit for Divorce--The Later Governors
XXII. BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH: His Character--Explanation of
his Dictatorial Power--Exaggerated Views of his Executive
Ability--Overestimations by Contemporaries--Young's Wealth and how he
acquired it--His Revenue from Divorces--Unrestrained Control of the
Church Property--His Will--Suit against his Executors--List of his
Wives--His Houses in Salt Lake City
XXIII. SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY: Varied Provisions for Plural
Wives--Home Accommodations of the Leaders--Horace Greeley's Observation
about Woman's Place in Utah--Means of overcoming Female Jealousy--Young
and Grant on the Unhappiness of Mormon Wives--Acceptance of Fanatical
Teachings by Women--Kimball on a Fair Division of the Converts--Church
Influence in Behalf of Plural Marriages--A Prussian Convert's
Dilemma--President Cleveland on the Evils of Polygamy
XXIV. THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY: First Measures introduced in
Congress--The Act of 1862--The Cullom Bill of 1869--Its Failure in
the Senate--The United States Supreme Court Decision regarding
Polygamy--Conviction of John Miles--Appeal of Women of Salt Lake City to
Mrs. Hayes and the Women of the United States--President Hayes's Drastic
Recommendation to Congress--Recommendations of Presidents Garfield and
Arthur--Passage of the Edmunds Bill--Its Provisions--The Edmunds-Tucker
Amendment--Appointment of the Utah Commission--Determined Opposition of
the Mormon Church--Placing their Flags at Half Mast--Convictions under
the New Law--Leaders in Hiding or in Exile--Mormon Honors for those
who took their Punishment--Congress asked to disfranchise All
Polygamists--The Mormon Church brought to Bay--Woodruff's Famous
Proclamation--How it was explained to the Church--The Roberts Case and
the Vetoed Act of 1901--How Statehood came
XXV. THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY: Future Place of the Church in
American History--Main Points of the Mormon Political Policy--Unbroken
Power of the Priesthood--Fidelity of the Younger Members--Extension
of the Membership over Adjoining States--Mission Work at Home and
Abroad--Decreased Foreign Membership--Effect of False Promises to
Converts--The Settlements in Canada and Mexico--Polygamy still a Living
Doctrine--Reasons for its Hold on the Church--Its Appeal to the Female
Members--Importance of a Federal Constitutional Amendment forbidding
Polygamous Marriages--Scope of the Mormon Political Ambition
THE STORY OF THE MORMONS
BOOK I. -- THE MORMON ORIGIN
CHAPTER I. -- FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF
Summing up his observations of the Mormons as he found them in Utah
while secretary of the territory, five years after their removal to the
Great Salt Lake valley, B. G. Ferris wrote, "The real miracle [of their
success] consists in so large a body of men and women, in a civilized
land, and in the nineteenth century, being brought under, governed, and
controlled by such gross religious imposture." This statement presents,
in concise form, the general view of the surprising features of the
success of the Mormon leaders, in forming, augmenting, and keeping
together their flock; but it is a mistaken view. To accept it would be
to concede that, in a highly civilized nation like ours, and in so
late a century, the acceptance of religious beliefs which, to the
nonbelievers, seem gross superstitions, is so unusual that it may be
classed with the miraculous. Investigation easily disproves this.
It is true that the effrontery which has characterized Mormonism from
the start has been most daring. Its founder, a lad of low birth,
very limited education, and uncertain morals; its beginnings so near
burlesque that they drew down upon its originators the scoff of their
neighbors,--the organization increased its membership as it was driven
from one state to another, building up at last in an untried wilderness
a population that has steadily augmented its wealth and numbers;
doggedly defending its right to practise its peculiar beliefs and obey
only the officers of the church, even when its course in this respect
has brought it in conflict with the government of the United States.
Professing only a desire to be let alone, it promulgated in polygamy a
doctrine that was in conflict with the moral sentiment of the Christian
world, making its practice not only a privilege, but a part of
the religious duty of its members. When, in recent years, Congress
legislated against this practice, the church fought for its peculiar
institution to the last, its leading members accepting exile and
imprisonment; and only the certainty of continued exclusion from the
rights of citizenship, and the hopelessness of securing the long-desired
prize of statehood for Utah, finally induced the church to bow to the
inevitable, and to announce a form of release for its members from the
duty of marrying more wives than one. Aside from this concession, the
Mormon church is to-day as autocratic in its hold on its members,
as aggressive in its proselyting, and as earnest in maintaining its
individual religious and political power, as it has been in any previous
time in its history.
In its material aspects we must concede to the Mormon church
organization a remarkable success; to Joseph Smith, Jr., a leadership
which would brook no rival; to Brigham Young the maintenance of an
autocratic authority which enabled him to hold together and enlarge his
church far beyond the limits that would have been deemed possible when
they set out across the plains with all their possessions in their
wagons. But it is no more surprising that the Mormons succeeded in
establishing their church in the United States than it would have been
if they had been equally successful in South America; no more surprising
that this success should have been won in the nineteenth century than it
would have been to record it in the twelfth.
In studying questions of this kind, we are, in the first place, entirely
too apt to ignore the fact that man, while comparatively a "superior
being," is in simple fact one species of the animals that are found upon
the earth; and that, as a species, he has traits which distinguish him
characteristically just as certain well-known traits characterize those
animals that we designate as "lower." If a traveller from the Sun should
print his observations of the inhabitants of the different planets, he
would have to say of those of the Earth something like this: "One of
Man's leading traits is what is known as belief. He is a credulous
creature, and is especially susceptible to appeals to his credulity
in regard to matters affecting his existence after death." Whatever
explanation we may accept of the origin of the conception by this animal
of his soul-existence, and of the evolution of shadowy beliefs into
religious systems, we must concede that Man is possessed of a tendency
to worship something,--a recognition, at least, of a higher power
with which it behooves him to be on friendly terms,--and so long as the
absolute correctness of any one belief or doctrine cannot be actually
proved to him, he is constantly ready to inquire into, and perhaps give
credence to, new doctrines that are presented for his consideration.
The acceptance by Man of novelties in the way of religions is a
characteristic that has marked his species ever since its record has
been preserved. According to Max Matter, "every religion began simply as
a matter of reason, and from this drifted into a superstition"; that
is, into what non-believers in the new doctrine characterize as a
superstition. Whenever one of these driftings has found a lodgement,
there has been planted a new sect. There has never been a year in the
Christian era when there have not been believers ready to accept
any doctrine offered to them in the name of religion. As Shakespeare
expresses it, in the words of Bassanio:--
"In religion, What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it, and
approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?"
In glancing at the cause of this unchanged susceptibility to religious
credulity--unchanged while the world has been making such strides in
the acquisition of exact information--we may find a summing up of the
situation in Macaulay's blunt declaration that "natural theology is not
a progressive science; a Christian of the fifth century with a Bible is
on a par with a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible." The
"orthodox" believer in that Bible can only seek a better understanding
of it by studying it himself and accepting the deductions of other
students. Nothing, as the centuries have passed, has been added to
his definite knowledge of his God or his own future existence. When,
therefore, some one, like a Swedenborg or a Joseph Smith, appears with
an announcement of an addition to the information on this subject,
obtained by direct revelation from on high, he supplies one of the
greatest desiderata that man is conscious of, and we ought, perhaps, to
wonder that his followers are not so numerous, but so few. Progress in
medical science would no longer permit any body like the College of
the Physicians of London to recognize curative value in the skull of a
person who had met with a violent death, as it did in the seventeenth
century; but the physician of the seventeenth century with a
pharmacopoeia was not "on a par with" a physician of the nineteenth
century with a pharmacopoeia.
Nor has man changed in his mental susceptibilities as the centuries have
advanced. It is a failure to recognize this fact which leads observers
like Ferris to find it so marvellous that a belief like Mormonism
should succeed in the nineteenth century. Draper's studies of man's
intellectual development led him to declare that "man has ever been the
same in his modes of thought and motives of action, and to assert his
purpose to judge past occurrences in the same way as those of our own
time."* So Macaulay refused to accept the doctrine that "the world is
constantly becoming more and more enlightened," asserting that "the
human mind, instead of marching, merely marks time." Nothing offers
stronger confirmation of the correctness of these views than the history
of religious beliefs, and the teachings connected therewith since the
death of Christ.
* "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II, Chap. 3.
The chain of these beliefs and teachings--including in the list only
those which offer the boldest challenge to a sane man's credulity--is
uninterrupted down to our own day. A few of them may be mentioned by way
of illustration. In one century we find Spanish priests demanding the
suppression of the opera on the ground that this form of entertainment
caused a drought, and a Pope issuing a bull against men and women having
sexual intercourse with fiends. In another, we find an English tailor,
unsuccessfully, allotting endless torments to all who would not accept
his declaration that God was only six feet in height, at the same time
that George Fox, who was successful in establishing the Quaker sect,
denounced as unchristian adoration of Janus and Woden, any mention of a
month as January or a day as Wednesday. Luther, the Protestant pioneer,
believed that he had personal conferences with the devil; Wesley,
the founder of Methodism, declared that "the giving up of (belief) in
witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible." Education and mental
training have had no influence in shaping the declarations of the
leaders of new religious sects.* The learned scientist, Swedenborg, told
of seeing the Virgin Mary dressed in blue satin, and of spirits wearing
hats, just as confidently as the ignorant Joseph Smith, Jr., described
his angel as "a tall, slim, well-built, handsome man, with a bright
pillar upon his head."
* "The splendid gifts which make a seer are usually found among
those whom society calls 'common or unclean.' These brutish beings
are the chosen vessels in whom God has poured the elixirs which amaze
humanity. Such beings have furnished the prophets, the St. Peters, the
hermits of history." BALZAC, in "Cousin Pons."
The readiness with which even believers so strictly taught as are the
Jews can be led astray by the announcement of a new teacher divinely
inspired, is illustrated in the stories of their many false Messiahs.
One illustration of this--from the pen of Zangwill--may be given:--
"From all the lands of the Exile, crowds of the devout came to do
him homage and tender allegiance--Turkish Jews with red fez or
saffron-yellow turban; Jerusalem Jews in striped cotton gowns and soft
felt hats; Polish Jews with foxskin caps and long caftans; sallow German
Jews, gigantic Russian Jews, highbred Spanish Jews; and with them often
their wives and daughters--Jerusalem Jewesses with blue shirts and
head-veils, Egyptian Jewesses with sweeping robes and black head-shawls,
Jewesses from Ashdod and Gaza, with white visors fringed with gold
coins; Polish Jewesses with glossy wigs; Syrian Jewesses with eyelashes
black as though lined with kohl; fat Jewesses from Tunis, with clinging
breeches interwoven with gold and silver."
This homage to a man who turned Turk, and became a doorkeeper of the
Sultan, to save himself from torture and death!
Savagery and civilization meet on this plane of religious credulity. The
Indians of Canada believed not more implicitly in the demons who howled
all over the Isles of Demons, than did the early French sailors and the
priests whose protection the latter asked. The Jesuit priests of the
seventeenth century accepted, and impressed upon their white followers
in New France, belief in miracles which made a greater demand on
credulity than did any of the exactions of the Indian medicine man. That
the head of a white man, which the Iroquois carried to their village,
spoke to them and scolded them for their perfidy, "found believers among
the most intelligent men of the colony," just as did the story of the
conversion of a sick Huguenot immigrant, with whose gruel a Mother
secretly mixed a little of the powdered bone of a Jesuit martyr.* And
French Canada is to-day as "orthodox" in its belief in miracles as
was the Canada of the seventeenth century. The church of St. Anne de
Beaupre, below Quebec, attracts thousands annually, and is piled with
the crutches which the miraculously cured have cast aside. Masses were
said in 1899 in the church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours at Montreal,
at the expense of a pilots' association, to ward off wrecks in the
treacherous St. Lawrence; and in the near-by provinces there were
religious processions to check the attacks of caterpillars in the
orchards.
* Parkman's "Old Regime in Canada."
Nor need we go to Catholic Quebec for modern illustrations of this kind
of faith. "Bareheaded people stood out upon the corner in East 113th
Street yesterday afternoon," said a New York City newspaper of December
18, 1898, "because they were unable to get into the church of Our Lady
Queen of Angels, where a relic of St. Anthony of Padua was exposed for
veneration." Describing a service in the church of St. Jean Baptiste
in East 77th Street, New York, where a relic alleged to be a piece of a
bone of the mother of the Virgin was exposed, a newspaper of that city,
on July 24th, 1901, said: "There were five hundred persons, by actual
count, in and around the crypt chapel of St. Anne when afternoon service
stopped the rush of the sick and crippled at 4.30 o'clock yesterday.
There were many more at the 8 o'clock evening Mass." What did these
people seek at the shrine? Only the favor of St. Anne and a kiss and
touch of the casket that, by church authority, contains bone of
her body. "France has to-day its Grotto of Lourdes, Wales its St.
Winefride's Well, Mexico its wonder-working doll" that makes the sick
well and the childless mothers, and Moscow its "wonder-working picture
of the Mother of God," before which the Czar prostrates himself."
Not in recent years has the appetite for some novelty on which to fasten
belief been more manifest in the United States than it was at the
close of the nineteenth century. Old beliefs found new teachers, and
promulgators of new ideas found followers. Instructors in Brahminism
attracted considerable attention. A "Chapter of the College of Divine
Sciences and Realization" instituted a revival of Druid sun-adoration
on the shores of Lake Michigan. An organization has been formed of
believers in the One-Over-At-Acre, a Persian who claimed to be the
forerunner of the Millennium, and in whom, as Christ, it is said that
more than three thousand persons in this country believe. We have among
us also Jaorelites, who believe in the near date of the end of the
world, and that they must make their ascent to heaven from a mountain in
Scotland. The hold which the form of belief called Christian Science has
obtained upon people of education and culture needs only be referred
to. Along with this have come the "divine healers," gaining patients
in circles where it would be thought impossible for them to obtain even
consideration, and one of them securing a clientage in a Western city
which has enabled him to establish there a church of his own.
In fact, instead of finding in enlightened countries like the United
States and England a poor field for the dissemination of new beliefs,
the whole school of revealers find there their best opportunities.
Discussing this susceptibility, Aliene Gorren, in her "Anglo-Saxons and
Others," reaches this conclusion: "Nowhere are so many persons of sound
intelligence in all practical affairs so easily led to follow after
crazy seers and seeresses as in England and the United States. The truth
is that the mind of man refuses to be shut out absolutely from the world
of the higher abstractions, and that, if it may not make its way thither
under proper guidance, it will set off even at the tail of the first
ragged street procession that passes."
The "real miracle" in Mormonism, then,--the wonderful feature of its
success,--is to be sought, not in the fact that it has been able to
attract believers in a new prophet, and to find them at this date and in
this country, but in its success in establishing and keeping together in
a republic like ours a membership who acknowledge its supreme authority
in politics as well as in religion, and who form a distinct organization
which does not conceal its purpose to rule over the whole nation. Had
Mormonism confined itself to its religious teachings, and been preached
only to those who sought its instruction, instead of beating up the
world for recruits and conveying them to its home, the Mormon church
would probably to-day be attracting as little attention as do the
Harmonists of Pennsylvania.
CHAPTER II. -- THE SMITH FAMILY
Among the families who settled in Ontario County, New York, in 1816, was
that of one Joseph Smith. It consisted of himself, his wife, and nine
children. The fourth of these children, Joseph Smith, Jr., became the
Mormon prophet.
The Smiths are said to have been of Scotch ancestry. It was the mother,
however, who exercised the larger influence on her son's life, and she
has left very minute details of her own and her father's family.* Her
father, Solomon Mack, was a native of Lyme, Connecticut. The daughter
Lucy, who became Mrs. Joseph Smith, Sr., was born in Gilsum, Cheshire
County, New Hampshire, on July 8, 1776. Mr. Mack was remembered as
a feeble old man, who rode around the country on horseback, using a
woman's saddle, and selling his own autobiography. The "tramp" of those
early days often offered an autobiography, or what passed for one, and,
as books were then rare, if he could say that it contained an account of
actual adventures in the recent wars, he was certain to find purchasers.
* "Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and his Progenitors for
Many Generations," Lucy Smith.
One of the few copies of this book in existence lies before me. It
was printed at the author's expense about the year 1810. It is wholly
without interest as a narrative, telling of the poverty of his parents,
how he was bound, when four years old, to a farmer who gave him no
education and worked him like a slave; gives some of his experiences in
the campaigns against the French and Indians in northern New York and
in the war of the Revolution, when he was in turn teamster, sutler,
and privateer; describes with minute detail many ordinary illnesses and
accidents that befell him; and closes with a recital of his religious
awakening, which was deferred until his seventy-sixth year, while he was
suffering with rheumatism. At that time it seemed to him that he several
times "saw a bright light in a dark night," and thought he heard a voice
calling to him. Twenty-two of the forty-eight duodecimo pages that the
book contains are devoted to hymns "composed," the title-page says, "on
the death of several of his relatives," not all by himself. One of these
may be quoted entire:--
"My friends, I am on the ocean, So sweetly do I sail; Jesus is my
portion, He's given me a pleasant gale.
"The bruises sore, In harbor soon I'll be, And see my redeemer there
That died for you and me."
Mrs. Smith's family seem to have had a natural tendency to belief in
revelations. Her eldest brother, Jason, became a "Seeker"; the "Seekers"
of that day believed that the devout of their times could, through
prayer and faith, secure the "gifts" of the Gospel which were granted to
the ancient apostles.* He was one of the early believers in faith-cure,
and was, we are told, himself cured by that means in 1835. One of Lucy's
sisters had a miraculous recovery from illness. After being an invalid
for two years she was "borne away to the world of spirits," where she
saw the Saviour and received a message from Him for her earthly friends.
* A sect called "Seekers," who arose in 1645, taught, like the
Mormons, that the Scriptures are defective, the true church lost, and
miracles necessary to faith.
Lucy herself came very exactly under the description given by Ruth
McEnery Stuart of one of her negro characters: "Duke's mother was of the
slighter intelligences, and hence much given to convictions. Knowing
few things, she 'believed in' a great many." Lucy Smith had neither
education nor natural intelligence that would interfere with such
"beliefs" as came to her from family tradition, from her own literal
interpretations of the Bible, or from the workings of her imagination.
She tells us that after her marriage, when very ill, she made a covenant
with God that she would serve him if her recovery was granted; thereupon
she heard a voice giving her assurance that her prayer would be
answered, and she was better the next morning. Later, when anxious for
the safety of her husband's soul, she prayed in a grove (most of
the early Mormons' prayers were made in the woods), and saw a vision
indicating his coming conversion; later still, in Vermont, a daughter
was restored to health by her parent's prayers.
According to Mrs. Smith's account of their life in Vermont, they were
married on January 24, 1796, at Tunbridge, but soon moved to Randolph,
where Smith was engaged in "merchandise," keeping a store. Learning of
the demand for crystallized ginseng in China, he invested money in that
product and made a shipment, but it proved unprofitable, and, having in
this way lost most of his money, they moved back to a farm at Tunbridge.
Thence they moved to Royalton, and in a few months to Sharon, where,
on December 23, 1805, Joseph Smith, Jr., their fourth child, was born.*
Again they moved to Tunbridge, and then back to Royalton (all these
places in Vermont). From there they went to Lebanon, New Hampshire,
thence to Norwich, Vermont, still "farming" without success, until,
after three years of crop failure, they decided to move to New York
State, arriving there in the summer of 1816.
** There is equally good authority for placing the house in which
Smith was born across the line in Royalton.
Less prejudiced testimony gives an even less favorable view than this of
the elder Smith's business career in Vermont. Judge Daniel Woodward,
of the county court of Windsor, Vermont, near whose father's farm the
Smiths lived, says that the elder Smith while living there was a hunter
for Captain Kidd's treasure, and that he also "became implicated with
one Jack Downing in counterfeiting money, but turned state's evidence
and escaped the penalty."* He had in earlier life been a Universalist,
but afterward became a Methodist. His spiritual welfare gave his wife
much concern, but although he had "two visions" while living in Vermont,
she did not accept his change of heart. She admits, however, that after
their removal to New York her husband obeyed the scriptural injunction,
"your old men shall dream dreams," and she mentions several of these
dreams, the latest in 1819, giving the particulars of some of them. One
sample of these will suffice. The dreamer found himself in a beautiful
garden, with wide walks and a main walk running through the centre. "On
each side of this was a richly carved seat, and on each seat were placed
six wooden images, each of which was the size of a very large man. When
I came to the first image on the right side it arose, bowed to me with
much deference. I then turned to the one which sat opposite to me, on
the left side, and it arose and bowed to me in the same manner as the
first. I continued turning first to the right and then to the left until
the whole twelve had made the obeisance, after which I was entirely
healed (of a lameness from which he then was suffering). I then asked my
guide the meaning of all this, but I awoke before I received an answer."
* Historical Magazine, 1870.
A similar wakefulness always manifested itself at the critical moment
in these dreams. What the world lost by this insomnia of the dreamer the
world will never know.
The Smiths' first residence in New York State was in the village
of Palmyra. There the father displayed a sign, "Cake and Beer Shop,
"selling" gingerbread, pies, boiled eggs, root beer, and other like
notions," and he and his sons did odd jobs, gardening, harvesting, and
well-digging, when they could get them.*
* Tucker's "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 12.
They were very poor, and Mrs. Smith added to their income by painting
oilcloth table covers. After a residence of three years and a half in
Palmyra, the family took possession of a piece of land two miles south
of that place, on the border of Manchester. They had no title to it,
but as the owners were nonresident minors they were not disturbed. There
they put up a little log house, with two rooms on the ground floor
and two in the attic, which sheltered them all. Later, the elder Smith
contracted to buy the property and erected a farmhouse on it; but he
never completed his title to it.
While classing themselves as farmers, the Smiths were regarded by
their neighbors as shiftless and untrustworthy. They sold cordwood,
vegetables, brooms of their own manufacture, and maple sugar, continuing
to vend cakes in the village when any special occasion attracted a
crowd. It may be remarked here that, while Ontario County, New York, was
regarded as "out West" by seaboard and New England people in 1830,
its population was then almost as large as it is to-day (having 40,288
inhabitants according to the census of 1830 and 48,453 according to the
census of 1890). The father and several of the boys could not read,
and a good deal of the time of the younger sons was spent in hunting,
fishing, and lounging around the village.
The son Joseph did not rise above the social standing of his brothers.
The best that a Mormon biographer, Orson Pratt, could say of him as a
youth was that "He could read without much difficulty, and write a very
imperfect hand, and had a very limited understanding of the elementary
rules of arithmetic. These were his highest and only attainments, while
the rest of those branches so universally taught in the common schools
throughout the United States were entirely unknown to him."* He was "Joe
Smith" to every one. Among the younger people he served as a butt
for jokes, and we are told that the boys who bought the cakes that he
peddled used to pay him in pewter twoshilling pieces, and that when he
called at the Palmyra Register office for his father's weekly paper, the
youngsters in the press room thought it fun to blacken his face with the
ink balls.
* "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 16.
Here are two pictures of the young man drawn by persons who saw him
constantly in the days of his vagabondage. The first is from Mr.
Tucker's book:--
"At this period in the life and career of Joseph Smith, Jr., or 'Joe
Smith,' as he was universally named, and the Smith family, they were
popularly regarded as an illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless,
irreligious race of people--the first named, the chief subject of this
biography, being unanimously voted the laziest and most worthless of
the generation. From the age of twelve to twenty years he is distinctly
remembered as a dull-eyed, flaxen-haired, prevaricating boy noted
only for his indolent and vagabondish character, and his habits
of exaggeration and untruthfulness. Taciturnity was among his
characteristic idiosyncrasies, and he seldom spoke to any one outside
of his intimate associates, except when first addressed by another;
and then, by reason of his extravagancies of statement, his word was
received with the least confidence by those who knew him best. He could
utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvellous absurdity with the
utmost apparent gravity. He nevertheless evidenced the rapid development
of a thinking, plodding, evil-brewing mental composition--largely given
to inventions of low cunning, schemes of mischief and deception, and
false and mysterious pretensions. In his moral phrenology the professor
might have marked the organ of secretiveness as very large, and that of
conscientiousness omitted. He was, however, proverbially good natured,
very rarely, if ever, indulging in any combative spirit toward any one,
whatever might be the provocation, and yet was never known to laugh.
Albeit, he seemed to be the pride of his indulgent father, who has been
heard to boast of him as the 'genus of the family,' quoting his own
expression."*
* "Remarkable Visions."
The second (drawn a little later) is by Daniel Hendrix, a resident of
Palmyra, New York, at the time of which he speaks, and an assistant in
setting the type and reading the proof of the Mormon Bible:--
"Every one knew him as Joe Smith. He had lived in Palmyra a few years
previous to my going there from Rochester. Joe was the most ragged,
lazy fellow in the place, and that is saying a good deal. He was about
twenty-five years old. I can see him now in my mind's eye, with his torn
and patched trousers held to his form by a pair of suspenders made out
of sheeting, with his calico shirt as dirty and black as the earth, and
his uncombed hair sticking through the holes in his old battered hat. In
winter I used to pity him, for his shoes were so old and worn out that
he must have suffered in the snow and slush; yet Joe had a jovial, easy,
don't-care way about him that made him a lot of warm friends. He was a
good talker, and would have made a fine stump speaker if he had had
the training. He was known among the young men I associated with as a
romancer of the first water. I never knew so ignorant a man as Joe
was to have such a fertile imagination. He never could tell a common
occurrence in his daily life without embellishing the story with his
imagination; yet I remember that he was grieved one day when old Parson
Reed told Joe that he was going to hell for his lying habits."*
* San Jacinto, California, letter of February 2, 1897, to the St.
Louis Globe-Democrat.
To this testimony may be added the following declarations, published in
1833, the year in which a mob drove the Mormons out of Jackson County,
Missouri. The first was signed by eleven of the most prominent citizens
of Manchester, New York, and the second by sixty-two residents of
Palmyra:--
"We, the undersigned, being personally acquainted with the family of
Joseph Smith, Sr., with whom the Gold Bible, so called, originated,
state: That they were not only a lazy, indolent set of men, but also
intemperate, and their word was not to be depended upon; and that we are
truly glad to dispense with their society."
"We, the undersigned, have been acquainted with the Smith family for
a number of years, while they resided near this place, and we have
no hesitation in saying that we consider them destitute of that
moral character which ought to entitle them to the confidence of any
community. They were particularly famous for visionary projects; spent
much of their time in digging for money which they pretended was hid in
the earth, and to this day large excavations may be seen in the earth,
not far from their residence, where they used to spend their time in
digging for hidden treasures. Joseph Smith, Sr., and his son Joseph
were, in particular, considered entirely destitute of moral character,
and addicted to vicious habits."*
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 261.
Finally may be quoted the following affidavit of Parley Chase:--
"Manchester, New York, December 2, 1833. I was acquainted with the
family of Joseph Smith, Sr., both before and since they became Mormons,
and feel free to state that not one of the male members of the
Smith family were entitled to any credit whatsoever. They were lazy,
intemperate, and worthless men, very much addicted to lying. In this
they frequently boasted their skill. Digging for money was their
principal employment. In regard to their Gold Bible speculation, they
scarcely ever told two stories alike. The Mormon Bible is said to be a
revelation from God, through Joseph Smith, Jr., his Prophet, and this
same Joseph Smith, Jr., to my knowledge, bore the reputation among his
neighbors of being a liar."*
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 248.
The preposterousness of the claims of such a fellow as Smith to
prophetic powers and divinely revealed information were so apparent to
his local acquaintances that they gave them little attention. One of
these has remarked to me in recent years that if they had had any idea
of the acceptance of Joe's professions by a permanent church, they would
have put on record a much fuller description of him and his family.
CHAPTER III. -- HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER
The elder Smith, as we have seen, was known as a money-digger while a
resident of Vermont. Of course that subject as a matter of conversation
in his family, and his sons were a character to share in his belief in
the existence of hidden treasure. The territory around Palmyra was as
good ground for their explorations as any in Vermont, and they soon let
their neighbors know of a possibility of riches that lay within their
reach.
The father, while a resident of Vermont, also claimed ability to locate
an underground stream of water over which would be a good site for a
well, by means of a forked hazel switch,* and in this way doubtless
increased the demand for his services as a well-digger, but we have no
testimonials to his success. The son Joseph, while still a young lad,
professed to have his father's gift in this respect, and he soon added
to his accomplishments the power to locate hidden riches, and in
this way began his career as a money-digger, which was so intimately
connected with his professions as a prophet.
* The so-called "divining rod" has received a good deal of
attention from persons engaged in psychical research. Vol. XIII, Part
II, of the "Proceedings of the Society Of Psychical Research" is devoted
to a discussion of the subject by Professor W. F. Barrett of the
Royal College of Science for Ireland, in Dublin, and in March, 1890, a
commission was appointed in France to study the matter.
Writers on the origin of the Mormon Bible, and the gradual development
of Smith the Prophet from Smith the village loafer and money-seeker,
have left their readers unsatisfied on many points. Many of these
obscurities will be removed by a very careful examination of Joseph's
occupations and declarations during the years immediately preceding the
announcement of the revelation and delivery to him of the golden plates.
The deciding event in Joe's career was a trip to Susquehanna County,
Pennsylvania, when he was a lad. It can be shown that it was there that
he obtained an idea of vision-seeing nearly ten years before the date he
gives in his autobiography as that of the delivery to him of the golden
plates containing the Book of Mormon, and it was there probably that, in
some way, he later formed the acquaintance of Sidney Rigdon. It can also
be shown that the original version of his vision differed radically
from the one presented, after the lapse of another ten years spent under
Rigdon's tutelage, in his autobiography. Each of these points is of
great incidental value in establishing Rigdon's connection with the
conception of a new Bible, and the manner of its presentation to the
public. Later Mormon authorities have shown a dislike to concede that
Joe was a money-digger, but the fact is admitted both in his mother's
history of him and by himself. His own statement about it is as
follows:--
"In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old gentleman by the
name of Josiah Stoal, who lived in Chenango County, State of New York.
He had heard something of a silver mine having been opened by the
Spaniards in Harmony, Susquehanna County, State of Pennsylvania, and
had, previous to my hiring with him, been digging in order, if possible,
to discover the mine. After I went to live with him he took me, among
the rest of his hands, to dig for the silver mine, at which I continued
to work for nearly a month, without success in our undertaking, and
finally I prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging for it.
Hence arose the very prevalent story of my having been a moneydigger."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 6.
Mother Smith's account says, however, that Stoal "came for Joseph on
account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could
discern things invisible to the natural eye"; thus showing that he had
a reputation as a "gazer" before that date. It was such discrepancies
as these which led Brigham Young to endeavor to suppress the mother's
narrative.
The "gazing" which Joe took up is one of the oldest--perhaps the
oldest--form of alleged human divination, and has been called
"mirror-gazing," "crystal-gazing," "crystal vision," and the like. Its
practice dates back certainly three thousand years, having been noted
in all ages, and among nations uncivilized as well as civilized. Some
students of the subject connect with such divination Joseph's silver cup
"whereby indeed he divineth" (Genesis xliv. 5). Others, long before the
days of Smith and Rigdon, advanced the theory that the Urim and Thummim
were clear crystals intended for "gazing" purposes. One writer remarks
of the practice, "Aeschylus refers it to Prometheus, Cicero to the
Assyrians and Etruscans, Zoroaster to Ahriman, Varro to the Persian
Magi, and a very large class of authors, from the Christian Fathers and
Schoolmen downward, to the devil."* An act of James I (1736), against
witchcraft in England, made it a crime to pretend to discover property
"by any occult or crafty science." As indicating the universal knowledge
of "gazing," it may be further noted that Varro mentions its practice
among the Romans and Pausanias among the Greeks. It was known to the
ancient Peruvians. It is practised to-day by East Indians, Africans
(including Egyptians), Maoris, Siberians, by Australian, Polynesian, and
Zulu savages, by many of the tribes of American Indians, and by persons
of the highest culture in Europe and America.** Andrew Lang's collection
of testimony about visions seen in crystals by English women in 1897
might seem convincing to any one who has not had experience in weighing
testimony in regard to spiritualistic manifestations, or brought this
testimony alongside of that in behalf of the "occult phenomena" of Adept
Brothers presented by Sinnett.***
* Recent Experiments in "Crystal Vision," Vol. V, "Proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research."
** Lang's "The Making of Religion," Chap. V.
*** "The Occult World."
"Gazers" use different methods. Some look into water contained in a
vessel, some into a drop of blood, some into ink, some into a round
opaque stone, some into mirrors, and many into some form of crystal or a
glass ball. Indeed, the "gazer" seems to be quite independent as to the
medium of his sight-seeing, so long as he has the "power." This "power"
is put also to a great variety of uses. Australian savages depend on it
to foretell the outcome of an attack on their enemies; Apaches resort to
it to discover the whereabouts of things lost or stolen; and Malagasies,
Zulus, and Siberians to see what will happen. Perhaps its most general
use has been to discover lost objects, and in this practice the seers
have very often been children, as we shall see was the case in the
exhibition which gave Joe Smith his first idea on the subject. In the
experiments cited by Lang, the seers usually saw distant persons or
scenes, and he records his belief that "experiments have proved beyond
doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see vivid
landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and other
vehicles."
It can easily be imagined how interested any member of the Smith family
would have been in an exhibition like that of a "crystal-gazer," and
we are able to trace very consecutively Joe's first introduction to the
practice, and the use he made of the hint thus given.
Emily C. Blackman, in the appendix to her "History of Susquehanna
County, Pennsylvania" (1873), supplies the needed important information
about Joe's visits to Pennsylvania in the years preceding the
announcement of his Bible. She says that it is uncertain when he arrived
at Harmony (now Oakland), "but it is certain he was here in 1825 and
later." A very circumstantial account of Joe's first introduction to a
"peep-stone" is given in a statement by J. B. Buck in this appendix. He
says:--
"Joe Smith was here lumbering soon after my marriage, which was in
1818, some years before he took to 'peeping', and before diggings were
commenced under his direction. These were ideas he gained later. The
stone which he afterward used was in the possession of Jack Belcher of
Gibson, who obtained it while at Salina, N. Y., engaged in drawing salt.
Belcher bought it because it was said to be a 'seeing-stone.' I have
often seen it. It was a green stone, with brown irregular spots on it.
It was a little longer than a goose's egg, and about the same thickness.
When he brought it home and covered it with a hat, Belcher's little boy
was one of the first to look into the hat, and as he did so, he said he
saw a candle. The second time he looked in he exclaimed, 'I've found my
hatchet' (it had been lost two years), and immediately ran for it to
the spot shown him through the stone, and it was there. The boy was soon
beset by neighbors far and near to reveal to them hidden things, and
he succeeded marvellously. Joe Smith, conceiving the idea of making
a fortune through a similar process of 'seeing,' bought the stone
of Belcher, and then began his operations in directing where hidden
treasures could be found. His first diggings were near Capt. Buck's
sawmill, at Red Rock; but because the followers broke the rule of
silence, 'the enchantment removed the deposit.'"
One of many stories of Joe's treasure-digging, current in that
neighborhood, Miss Blackman narrates. Learning from a strolling Indian
of a place where treasure was said to be buried, Joe induced a farmer
named Harper to join him in digging for it and to spend a considerable
sum of money in the enterprise. "After digging a great hole, that is
still to be seen," the story continues, "Harper got discouraged, and was
about abandoning the enterprise. Joe now declared to Harper that there
was an 'enchantment' about the place that was removing the treasure
farther off; that Harper must get a perfectly white dog (some said
a black one), and sprinkle his blood over the ground, and that would
prevent the 'enchantment' from removing the treasure. Search was made
all over the country, but no perfectly white dog could be found. Then
Joe said a white sheep would do as well; but when this was sacrificed
and failed, he said The Almighty was displeased with him for attempting
to palm off on Him a white sheep for a white dog." This informant
describes Joe at that time as "an imaginative enthusiast,
constitutionally opposed to work, and a general favorite with the
ladies."
In confirmation of this, R. C. Doud asserted that "in 1822 he was
employed, with thirteen others, by Oliver Harper to dig for gold
under Joe's direction on Joseph McKune's land, and that Joe had begun
operations the year previous."
F. G. Mather obtained substantially the same particulars of Joe's
digging in connection with Harper from the widow of Joseph McKune about
the year 1879, and he said that the owner of the farm at that time "for
a number of years had been engaged in filling the holes with stone
to protect his cattle, but the boys still use the northeast hole as a
swimming pond in the summer."*
* Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1880.
Confirmation of the important parts of these statements has been
furnished by Joseph's father. When the reports of the discovery of a new
Bible first gained local currency (in 1830), Fayette Lapham decided to
visit the Smith family, and learn what he could on the subject. He found
the elder Smith very communicative, and he wrote out a report of his
conversation with him, "as near as I can repeat his words," he says, and
it was printed in the Historical Magazine for May, 1870. Father Smith
made no concealment of his belief in witchcraft and other things
supernatural, as well as in the existence of a vast amount of buried
treasure. What he said of Joe's initiation into "crystal-gazing" Mr.
Lapham thus records:--
"His son Joseph, whom he called the illiterate,* when he was about
fourteen years of age, happened to be where a man was looking into a
dark stone, and telling people therefrom where to dig for money and
other things. Joseph requested the privilege of looking into the stone,
which he did by putting his face into the hat where the stone was. It
proved to be not the right stone for him; but he could see some things,
and among them he saw the stone, and where it was, in which he could see
whatever he wished to see.... The place where he saw the stone was not
far from their house, and under pretence of digging a well, they found
water and the stone at a depth of twenty or twenty-two feet. After this,
Joseph spent about two years looking into this stone, telling fortunes,
where to find lost things, and where to dig for money and other hidden
treasures."
* Joe's mother, describing Joe's descriptions to the family, at
their evening fireside, of the angel's revelations concerning the golden
plates, says (p. 84): "All giving the most profound attention to a boy
eighteen years of age, who had never read the Bible through in his life;
he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the
rest of our children."
If further confirmation of Joe's early knowledge on this subject is
required, we may cite the Rev. John A. Clark, D.D., who, writing in 1840
after careful local research, said: "Long before the idea of a golden
Bible entered their [the Smiths'] minds, in their excursions for
money-digging.... Joe used to be usually their guide, putting into a hat
a peculiar stone he had, through which he looked to decide where they
should begin to dig."*
* "Gleanings by the Way" (1842), p. 225.
We come now to the history of Joe's own "peek-stone" (as the family
generally called it), that which his father says he discovered by using
the one that he first saw. Willard Chase, of Manchester, New York, near
Palmyra, employed Joe and his brother Alvin some time in the year 1822
(as he fixed the date in his affidavit)* to assist him in digging a
well. "After digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth,"
he says, "we discovered a singularly appearing stone which excited my
curiosity. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we were examining
it, Joseph put it into his hat and then his face into the top of the
hat. It has been said by Smith that he brought the stone from the well,
but this is false. There was no one in the well but myself. The next
morning he came to me and wished to obtain the stone, alleging that
he could see in it; but I told him I did not wish to part with it on
account of its being a curiosity, but would lend it. After obtaining
the stone, he began to publish abroad what wonders he could discover by
looking in it, and made so much disturbance among the credulous part of
the community that I ordered the stone to be returned to me again.
He had it in his possession about two years." Joseph's brother Hyrum
borrowed the stone some time in 1825, and Mr. Chase was unable to
recover it afterward. Tucker describes it as resembling a child's foot
in shape, and "of a whitish, glassy appearance, though opaque."**
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 240.
** Tucker closes his chapter about this stone with the
declaration "that the origin [of Mormonism] is traceable to the
insignificant little stone found in the digging of Mr. Chase's well in
1822." Tucker was evidently ignorant both of Joe's previous experience
with "crystal-gazing" in Pennsylvania and of "crystal-gazing" itself.
The Smiths at once began turning Chase's stone to their own financial
account, but no one at the time heard that it was giving them any
information about revealed religion. For pay they offered to disclose by
means of it the location of stolen property and of buried money. There
seemed to be no limit to the exaggeration of their professions. They
would point out the precise spot beneath which lay kegs, barrels, and
even hogsheads of gold and silver in the shape of coin, bars, images,
candlesticks, etc., and they even asserted that all the hills thereabout
were the work of human bands, and that Joe, by using his "peek-stone,"
could see the caverns beneath them.* Persons can always be found to give
at least enough credence to such professions to desire to test them. It
was so in this case. Joe not only secured small sums on the promise of
discovering lost articles, but he raised money to enable him to dig for
larger treasure which he was to locate by means of the stone. A Palmyra
man, for instance, paid seventy-five cents to be sent by him on a fool's
errand to look for some stolen cloth.
* William Stafford's affidavit, Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p.
237.
Certain ceremonies were always connected with these money-digging
operations. Midnight was the favorite hour, a full moon was helpful, and
Good Friday was the best date. Joe would sometimes stand by, directing
the digging with a wand. The utmost silence was necessary to success.
More than once, when the digging proved a failure, Joe explained to his
associates that, just as the deposit was about to be reached, some one,
tempted by the devil, spoke, causing the wished-for riches to disappear.
Such an explanation of his failures was by no means original with
Smith, the serious results of an untimely spoken word having been long
associated with divers magic performances. Joe even tried on his New
York victims the Pennsylvania device of requiring the sacrifice of
a black sheep to overcome the evil spirit that guarded the treasure.
William Stafford opportunely owned such an animal, and, as he puts
it, "to gratify my curiosity," he let the Smiths have it. But some new
"mistake in the process" again resulted in disappointment. "This, I
believe," remarks the contributor of the sheep, "is the only time they
ever made money-digging a profitable business." The Smiths ate the
sheep.
These money-seeking enterprises were continued from 1820 to 1827 (the
year of the delivery to Smith of the golden plates). This period
covers the years in which Joe, in his autobiography, confesses that
he "displayed the corruption of human nature." He explains that his
father's family were poor, and that they worked where they could find
employment to their taste; "sometimes we were at home and sometimes
abroad." Some of these trips took them to Pennsylvania, and the stories
of Joe's "gazing" accomplishment may have reached Sidney Rigdon, and
brought about their first interview. Susquehanna County was more thinly
settled than the region around Palmyra, and Joe found persons who were
ready to credit him with various "gifts"; and stories are still current
there of his professed ability to perform miracles, to pray the frost
away from a cornfield, and the like.*
* Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1880.
CHAPTER IV. -- FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOLDEN BIBLE
Just when Smith's attention was originally diverted from the discovery
of buried money to the discovery of a buried Bible engraved on gold
plates remains one of the unexplained points in his history. He was
so much of a romancer that his own statements at the time, which were
carefully collected by Howe, are contradictory. The description given of
the buried volume itself changed from time to time, giving strength in
this way to the theory that Rigdon was attracted to Smith by the rumor
of his discovery, and afterward gave it shape. First the book was
announced to be a secular history, says Dr. Clark; then a gold Bible;
then golden plates engraved; and later metallic plates, stereotyped or
embossed with golden letters.* Daniel Hendrix's recollection was that
for the first few months Joe did not claim the plates any new revelation
or religious significance, but simply that they were a historical record
of an ancient people. This would indicate that he had possession of the
"Spaulding Manuscript" before it received any theological additions.
* "Gleanings by the Way," p. 229.
The account of the revelation of the book by an angel, which is accepted
by the Mormons, is the one elaborated in Smith's autobiography, and
was not written until 1838, when it was prepared under the direction of
Rigdon (or by him). Before examining this later version of the story, we
may follow a little farther Joe's local history at the time.
While the Smiths were conducting their operations in Pennsylvania, and
Joseph was "displaying the corruption of human nature," they boarded for
a time in the family of Isaac Hale, who is described as a "distinguished
hunter, a zealous member of the Methodist church," and (as later
testified to by two judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Susquehanna
County)" a man of excellent moral character and of undoubted veracity."*
Mr. Hale had three daughters, and Joe received enough encouragement to
his addresses to Emma to induce him to ask her father's consent to their
marriage. This consent was flatly refused. Mr. Hale made a statement
in 1834, covering his knowledge of Smith and the origin of the Mormon
Bible.** When he became acquainted with the future prophet, in 1825, Joe
was employed by the so-called "money-diggers," using his "peek-stone."
Among the reasons which Mr. Hale gave for refusing consent to the
marriage was that Smith was a stranger and followed a business which he
could not approve.
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 266.
** Ibid., p. 262.
Joe thereupon induced Emma to consent to an elopement, and they were
married on January 18, 1827, by a justice of the peace, just across
the line in New York State. Not daring to return to the house of his
father-in-law, Joe took his wife to his own home, near Palmyra, New
York, where for some months he worked again with his father.
In the following August Joe hired a neighbor named Peter Ingersol to
go with him to Pennsylvania to bring from there some household effects
belonging to Emma. Of this trip Ingersol said, in an affidavit made in
1833:--
"When we arrived at Mr. Hale's in Harmony, Pa., from which place he
had taken his wife, a scene presented itself truly affecting. His
father-in-law addressed Joseph in a flood of tears: 'You have stolen
my daughter and married her. I had much rather have followed her to her
grave. You spend your time in digging for money--pretend to see in a
stone, and thus try to deceive people.' Joseph wept and acknowledged
that he could not see in a stone now nor never could, and that his
former pretensions in that respect were false. He then promised to give
up his old habits of digging for money and looking into stones. Mr. Hale
told Joseph, if he would move to Pennsylvania and work for a living,
he would assist him in getting into business. Joseph acceded to this
proposition, then returned with Joseph and his wife to Manchester....
"Joseph told me on his return that he intended to keep the promise which
he had made to his father-in-law; 'but,' said he, it will be hard for
me, for they [his family] will all oppose, as they want me to look in
the stone for them to dig money'; and in fact it was as he predicted.
They urged him day after day to resume his old practice of looking in
the stone. He seemed much perplexed as to the course he should pursue.
In this dilemma he made me his confidant, and told me what daily
transpired in the family of Smiths.
"One day he came and greeted me with joyful countenance. Upon asking the
cause of his unusual happiness, he replied in the following language:
'As I was passing yesterday across the woods, after a heavy shower of
rain, I found in a hollow some beautiful white sand that had been washed
up by the water. I took off my frock and tied up several quarts of it,
and then went home. On entering the house I found the family at the
table eating dinner. They were all anxious to know the contents of
my frock. At that moment I happened to think about a history found in
Canada, called a Golden Bible;* so I very gravely told them it was the
Golden Bible. To my surprise they were credulous enough to believe what
I said. Accordingly I told them I had received a commandment to let
no one see it, for, says I, no man can see it with the natural eye and
live. However, I offered to take out the book and show it to them, but
they refused to see it and left the room. 'Now,' said Joe, 'I have got
the d--d fools fixed and will carry out the fun.' Notwithstanding he
told me he had no such book and believed there never was such book, he
told me he actually went to Willard Chase, to get him to make a chest in
which he might deposit the Golden Bible. But as Chase would not do it,
he made the box himself of clapboards, and put it into a pillow-case,
and allowed people only to lift it and feel of it through the case."**
* The most careful inquiries bring no information that any such
story was ever current in Canada.
** Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 234.
In line with this statement of Joe to Ingersol is a statement which
somewhat later he made to his brother-in-law, Alva Hale, that "this
'peeking' was all d--d nonsense; that he intended to quit the business
and labor for a livelihood."*
* Ibid., p. 268.
Joe's family were quite ready to accept his statement of his discovery
of golden plates for more reasons than one. They saw in it, in the first
place, a means of pecuniary gain. Abigail Harris in a statement (dated
"11th mo., 28th, 1833") of a talk she had with Joe's father and mother
at Martin Harris's house, said:--
"They [the Smiths] said the plates Joe then had in possession were but
an introduction to the Gold Bible; that all of them upon which the Bible
was written were so heavy that it would take four stout men to load them
into a cart; that Joseph had also discerned by looking through his stone
the vessel in which the gold was melted from which the plates were made,
and also the machine with which they were rolled; he also discovered in
the bottom of the vessel three balls of gold, each as large as his fist.
The old lady said also that after the book was translated, the plates
were to be publicly exhibited, admission 25 cts."*
* Ibid, p. 253.
But aside from this pecuniary view, the idea of a new Bible would have
been eagerly accepted by a woman like Mrs. Smith, and a mere intimation
by Joe of such a discovery would have given him, in her, an instigator
to the carrying out of the plot. It is said that she had predicted that
she was to be the mother of a prophet. She tells us that although, in
Vermont, she was a diligent church attendant, she found all preachers
unsatisfactory, and that she reached the conclusion that "there was not
on earth the religion she sought." Joe, in his description of his state
of mind just before the first visit of the angel who told him about
the plates, describes himself as distracted by the "war and tumult of
opinions." He doubtless heard this subject talked of by his mother
in the home circle, but none of his acquaintances at the time had any
reason to think that he was laboring under such mental distress.
The second person in the neighborhood whom Joe approached about his
discovery was Willard Chase, in whose well the "peek-stone" was found.
Mr. Chase in his statement (given at length by Howe) says that Joe
applied to him, soon after the above quoted conversation with Ingersol,
to make a chest in which to lock up his Gold Book, offering Chase an
interest in it as compensation. He told Chase that the discovery of
the book was due to the "peek-stone," making no allusion whatever to an
angel's visit. He and Chase could not come to terms, and Joe accordingly
made a box in which what he asserted were the plates were placed.
Reports of Joe's discovery soon gained currency in the neighborhood
through the family's account of it, and neighbors who had accompanied
them on the money-seeking expeditions came to hear about the new Bible,
and to request permission to see it. Joe warded off these requests
by reiterating that no man but him could look upon it and live.
"Conflicting stories were afterward told," says Tucker, "in regard to
the manner of keeping the book in concealment and safety, which are
not worth repeating, further than to mention that the first place of
secretion was said to be under a heavy hearthstone in the Smith family
mansion."
Joe's mother and Parley P. Pratt tell of determined efforts of mobs and
individuals to secure possession of the plates; but their statements
cannot be taken seriously, and are contradicted by Tucker from personal
knowledge. Tucker relates that two local wags, William T. Hussey and
Azel Vandruver, intimate acquaintances of Smith, on asking for a sight
of the book and hearing Joe's usual excuse, declared their readiness to
risk their lives if that were the price of the privilege. Smith was not
to be persuaded, but, the story continues, "they were permitted to go to
the chest with its owner, and see WHERE the thing was, and observe its
shape and size, concealed under a piece of thick canvas. Smith, with his
accustomed solemnity of demeanor, positively persisting in his refusal
to uncover it, Hussey became impetuous, and (suiting his action to
his word) ejaculated, 'Egad, I'll see the critter, live or die,' and
stripping off the canvas, a large tile brick was exhibited. But Smith's
fertile imagination was equal to the emergency. He claimed that his
friends had been sold by a trick of his."*
* "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 31.
Mother Smith, in her book, gives an account of proceedings in court
brought by the wife of Martin Harris to protect her husband's property
from Smith, on the plea that Smith was deceiving him in alleging the
existence of golden plates; and she relates how one witness testified
that Joe told him that "the box which he had contained nothing but sand,"
that a second witness swore that Joe told him, "it was nothing but a
box of lead," and that a third witness declared that Joe had told him
"there was nothing at all in the box." When Joe had once started the
story of his discovery, he elaborated it in his usual way. "I distinctly
remember," says Daniel Hendrix, "his sitting on some boxes in the store
and telling a knot of men, who did not believe a word they heard, all
about his vision and his find. But Joe went into such minute and careful
details about the size, weight, and beauty of the carvings on the golden
tablets, and strange characters and the ancient adornments, that I
confess he made some of the smartest men in Palmyra rub their eyes in
wonder."
CHAPTER V. -- THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF THE REVELATION OF THE BIBLE
The precise date when Joe's attention was first called to the
possibility of changing the story about his alleged golden plates so
that they would serve as the basis for a new Bible such as was finally
produced, and as a means of making him a prophet, cannot be ascertained.
That some directing mind gave the final shape to the scheme is shown by
the difference between the first accounts of his discovery by means
of the stone, and the one provided in his autobiography. We have also
evidence that the story of a direct revelation by an angel came some
time later than the version which Joe gave first to his acquaintances in
Pennsylvania.
James T. Cobb of Salt Lake City, who has given much time to
investigating matters connected with early Mormon history, received a
letter under date of April 23, 1879, from Hiel and Joseph Lewis, sons
of the Rev. Nathaniel Lewis, of Harmony, Pennsylvania, and relatives of
Joseph's father-in-law, in which they gave the story of the finding of
the plates as told in their hearing by Joe to their father, when he was
translating them. This statement, in effect, was that he dreamed of
an iron box containing gold plates curiously engraved, which he must
translate into a book; that twice when he attempted to secure the plates
he was knocked down, and when he asked why he could not have them, "he
saw a man standing over the spot who, to him, appeared like a Spaniard,
having a long beard down over his breast, with his throat cut from ear
to ear and the blood streaming down, who told him that he could not get
it alone." (He then narrated how he got the box in company with Emma.)
In all this narrative there was not one word about visions of God, or of
angels, or heavenly revelations; all his information was by that dream
and that bleeding ghost. The heavenly visions and messages of angels,
etc., contained in the Mormon books were afterthoughts, revised to
order.
In direct confirmation of this we have the following account of the
disclosure of the buried articles as given by Joe's father to Fayette
Lapham when the Bible was first published:--
"Soon after joining the church he [Joseph] had a very singular dream....
A very large, tall man appeared to him dressed in an ancient suit of
clothes, and the clothes were bloody. This man told him of a buried
treasure, and gave him directions by means of which he could find the
place. In the course of a year Smith did find it, and, visiting it by
night, "I by some supernatural power" was enabled to overturn a huge
boulder under which was a square block of masonry, in the centre of
which were the articles as described. Taking up the first article, he
saw others below; laying down the first, he endeavored to secure the
others; but, before he could get hold of them, the one he had taken up
slid back to the place he had taken it from, and, to his great surprise
and terror, the rock immediately fell back to its former place, nearly
crushing him [Joseph] in its descent. While trying in vain to raise the
rock again with levers, Joseph felt something strike him on the breast,
a third blow knocking him down; and as he lay on the ground he saw
the tall man, who told him that the delivery of the articles would be
deferred a year because Joseph had not strictly followed the directions
given to him. The heedless Joseph allowed himself to forget the date
fixed for his next visit, and when he went to the place again, the tall
man appeared and told him that, because of his lack of punctuality, he
would have to wait still another year before the hidden articles would
be confided to him. "Come in one year from this time, and bring your
oldest brother with you," said the guardian of the treasures, "then you
may have them." Before the date named arrived, the elder brother
had died, and Joseph decided that his wife was the proper person to
accompany him. Mr. Lapham's report proceeds as follows:--
"At the expiration of the year he [Joseph] procured a horse and light
wagon, with a chest and pillowcase, and proceeded punctually with his
wife to find the hidden treasure. When they had gone as far as they
could with the wagon, Joseph took the pillow-case and started for the
rock. Upon passing a fence a host of devils began to screech and
to scream, and make all sorts of hideous yells, for the purpose of
terrifying him and preventing the attainment of his object; but Joseph
was courageous and pursued his way in spite of them. Arriving at the
stone, he again lifted it with the aid of superhuman power, as at
first, and secured the first or uppermost article, this time putting it
carefully into the pillow-case before laying it down. He now attempted
to secure the remainder; but just then the same old man appeared, and
said to him that the time had not yet arrived for their exhibition to
the world, but that when the proper time came he should have them and
exhibit them, with the one he had now secured; until that time arrived,
no one must be allowed to touch the one he had in his possession; for
if they did, they would be knocked down by some superhuman power. Joseph
ascertained that the remaining articles were a gold hilt and chain, and
a gold ball with two pointers. The hilt and chain had once been part
of a sword of unusual size; but the blade had rusted away and become
useless. Joseph then turned the rock back, took the article in the
pillow-case, and returned to the wagon. The devils, with more hideous
yells than before, followed him to the fence; as he was getting over the
fence, one of the devils struck him a blow on the side, where a black
and blue spot remained three or four days; but Joseph persevered and
brought the article safely home. "I weighed it," said Mr. Smith, Sr.,
"and it weighed 30 pounds." In answer to our question as to what it was
that Joseph had thus obtained, he said it consisted of a set of gold
plates, about six inches wide and nine or ten inches long. They were in
the form of a book."*
* Historical Magazine, May, 1870.
We may now contrast these early accounts of the disclosure with the
version given in the Prophet's autobiography (written, be it remembered,
in Nauvoo in 1838), the one accepted by all orthodox Mormons. One of
its striking features will be found to be the transformation of the
Spaniard-with-his-throat-cut into a messenger from Heaven.*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt.
It was, according to this later account, when he was in his fifteenth
year, and when his father's family were "proselyted to the Presbyterian
church," that he became puzzled by the divergent opinions he heard from
different pulpits. One day, while reading the epistle of James (not a
common habit of his, as his mother would testify), Joseph was struck by
the words, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." Reflecting
on this injunction, he retired to the woods on the morning of a
beautiful clear day early in the spring of 1820, and there he for the
first time uttered a spoken prayer. As soon as he began praying he was
overcome by some power, and "thick darkness" gathered around him. Just
when he was ready to give himself up as lost, he managed to call on God
for deliverance, whereupon he saw a pillar of light descending upon him,
and two personages of indescribable glory standing in the air above him,
one of whom, calling him by name, said to the other, "This is my beloved
Son, hear him." Straightway Joseph, not forgetting the main object of
his going to the woods, asked the two personages: "which of all the
sects was right." He was told that all were wrong, and that he must
join none of them; that all creeds were an abomination, and that all
professors were corrupt. He came to himself lying on his back.
The effect on the boy of this startling manifestation was not radically
beneficial, as he himself concedes. "Forbidden to join any other
religious sects of the day, of tender years," and badly treated by
persons who should have been his friends, he admits that in the next
three years he "frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed
the weakness of youth and the corruption of human nature, which, I am
sorry to say, led me into diverse temptations, to the gratification of
many appetites offensive in the sight of God." It was during this period
that he was most active in the use of his "peek-stone."
On the night of September 21, 1823, to proceed with his own account,
when again praying to God for the forgiveness of his sins, the room
became light, and a person clothed in a robe of exquisite whiteness,
and having "a countenance truly like lightning," called him by name, and
said that his visitor was a messenger sent from God, and that his name
was Nephi. This was a mistake on the part of somebody, because the
visitor's real name was Moroni, who hid the plates where they were
deposited. Smith continues:--
"He said there was a book deposited, written upon golden plates, giving
an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the
source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the
Everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Saviour to
the ancient inhabitants. Also, there were two stones in silver bows (and
these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the
Urim and Thummim) deposited with the plates; and the possession and use
of these stones was what constituted seers in ancient or former times,
and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book."
The messenger then made some liberal quotations from the prophecies
of the Old Testament (changing them to suit his purpose), and ended by
commanding Smith, when he got the plates, at a future date, to show them
only to those as commanded, lest he be destroyed. Then he ascended into
heaven. The next day the messenger appeared again, and directed Joseph
to tell his father of the commandment which he had received. When he had
done so, his father told him to go as directed. He knew the place (ever
since known locally as "Mormon Hill") as soon as he arrived there, and
his narrative proceeds as follows:--
"Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario Co., N. Y., stands
a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the
neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under
a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box;
this stone was thick and rounded in the middle on the upper side, and
thinner toward the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible
above the ground, but the edge all round was covered with earth. Having
removed the earth and obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge
of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up, I looked in,
and there, indeed, did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim and
breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was
formed by laying stones together in a kind of cement. In the bottom of
the box were laid two stones crosswise of the box, and on these stones
lay the plates and the other things with them. I made an attempt to take
them out, but was forbidden by the messenger. I was again informed that
the time for bringing them out had not yet arrived, neither would till
four years from that time; but he told me that I should come to that
place precisely one year from that time, and that he would there meet
with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time should come
for obtaining the plates".
Mother Smith gives an explanation of Joe's failure to secure the plates
on this occasion, which he omits: "As he was taking them, the unhappy
thought darted through his mind that probably there was something else
in the box besides the plates, which would be of pecuniary advantage
to him.... Joseph was overcome by the power of darkness, and forgot the
injunction that was laid upon him." The mistakes which the Deity made in
Joe's character constantly suggest to the lay reader the query why the
Urim and Thummim were not turned on Joe.
On September 22, 1827, when Joe visited the hill (following his own
story again), the same messenger delivered to him the plates, the Urim
and Thummim and the breastplate, with the warning that if he "let them
go carelessly" he would be "cut off", and a charge to keep them until
the messenger called for them.
Mother Smith's story of the securing of the plates is to the effect that
about midnight of September 21 Joseph and his wife drove away from his
father's house with a horse and wagon belonging to a Mr. Knight. He
returned after breakfast the next morning, bringing with him the Urim
and Thummim, which he showed to her, and which she describes as "two
smooth, three-cornered diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set
in silver bows that were connected with each other in much the same way
as old-fashioned spectacles." She says that she also saw the breastplate
through a handkerchief, and that it "was concave on one side and convex
on the other, and extended from the neck downward as far as the stomach
of a man of extraordinary size. It had four straps of the same material
for the purpose of fastening it to the breast.... The whole plate was
worth at least $500." The spectacles and breastplate seem to have
been more familiar to Mother Smith than to any other of Joseph's
contemporaries and witnesses.
The substitution of the spectacles called Urim and Thummim for the
"peek-stone" was doubtless an idea of the associate in the plot, who
supplied the theological material found in the Golden Bible. Tucker
considers the "spectacle pretension" an afterthought of some one when
the scheme of translating the plates into a Bible was evolved, as "it
was not heard of outside of the Smith family for a considerable period
subsequent to the first story."* This is confirmed by the elder Smith's
early account of the discovery. It would be very natural that Rigdon,
with his Bible knowledge, should substitute the more respectable
Urim and Thummim for the "peek-stone" of ill-repute, as the medium of
translation.
* "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 33.
The Urim and Thummim were the articles named by the Lord to Moses in
His description of the priestly garments of Aaron. The Bible leaves them
without description;* and the following verses contain all that is
said of them: Exodus xxviii. 30; Leviticus viii. 8; Numbers xxvii. 21;
Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8; Samuel xxviii. 6; Ezra ii. 63; Nehemiah vii. 65.
Only a pretence of using spectacles in the work of translating was kept
up, later descriptions of the process by Joe's associates referring
constantly to the employment of the stone.
* "The Hebrew words are generally considered to be plurales
excellentoe, denoting light (that is, revelation) and truth.... There
are two principal opinions respecting the Urim and Thummim. One is
that these words simply denote the four rows of precious stones in the
breastplate of the high priest, and are so called from their brilliancy
and perfection; which stones, in answer to an appeal to God in difficult
cases, indicated His mind and will by some supernatural appearance....
The other principal opinion is that the Urim and Thummim were two small
oracular images similar to the Teraphim, personifying revelation and
truth, which were placed in the cavity or pouch formed by the folds of
the breastplate, and which uttered oracles by a voice.... We incline to
Mr. Mede's opinion that the Urim and Thummim were 'things well known to
the patriarchs' as divinely appointed means of inquiries of the Lord,
suited to an infantile state of religion. 'Cyclopedia of Biblical
Literature.'" Kitto and Alexander, editors.
Joe says that while the plates were in his possession "multitudes" tried
to get them away from him, but that he succeeded in keeping them until
they were translated, and then delivered them again to the messenger,
who still retains them. Mother Smith tells a graphic story of attempts
to get the plates away from her son, and says that when he first
received them he hid them until the next day in a rotten birch log,
bringing them home wrapped in his linen frock under his arm.* Later, she
says, he hid them in a hole dug in the hearth of their house, and again
in a pile of flax in a cooper shop; Willard Chase's daughter almost
found them once by means of a peek-stone of her own.
* Elder Hyde in his "Mormonism" estimates that "from the
description given of them the plates must have weighed nearly two
hundred pounds."
Mother Smith says that Joseph told all the family of his vision the
evening of the day he told his father, charging them to keep it secret,
and she adds:--
"From that time forth Joseph continued to receive instructions from the
Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening for
the purpose of listening while he gave us a relation of the same. I
presume our family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever
lived upon the face of the earth--all seated in a circle, father,
mother, sons, and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to
a boy eighteen years old, who had never read the Bible through in his
life.... We were now confirmed in the opinion that God was about to
bring to light something upon which we could stay our mind, or that
would give us a more perfect knowledge of the plan of salvation and the
redemption of the human family."
CHAPTER VI. -- TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE
The only one of his New York neighbors who seems to have taken a
practical interest in Joe's alleged discovery was a farmer named Martin
Harris, who lived a little north of Palmyra. Harris was a religious
enthusiast, who had been a Quaker (as his wife was still), a
Universalist, a Baptist, and a Presbyterian, and whose sanity it would
have been difficult to establish in a surrogate's court. The Rev.
Dr. Clark, who knew him intimately, says, "He had always been a firm
believer in dreams, visions, and ghosts."
*Howe describes him as often declaring that he had talked with
Jesus Christ, angels, and the devil, and saying that "Christ was the
handsomest man he ever saw, and the devil looked like a jackass, with
very short, smooth hair similar to that of a mouse." Daniel Hendrix
relates that as he and Harris were riding to the village one evening,
and he remarked on the beauty of the moon, Harris replied that if his
companion could only see it as he had, he might well call it beautiful,
explaining that he had actually visited the moon, and adding that
it "was only the faithful who were permitted to visit the celestial
regions." Jesse Townsend, a resident of Palmyra, in a letter written in
1833, describes him as a visionary fanatic, unhappily married, who "is
considered here to this day a brute in his domestic relations, a fool
and a dupe to Smith in religion, and an unlearned, conceited hypocrite
generally." His wife, in an affidavit printed in Howe's book (p. 255),
says: "He has whipped, kicked, and turned me out of the house." Harris,
like Joe's mother, was a constant reader of and a literal believer in
the Bible. Tucker says that he "could probably repeat from memory every
text from the Bible, giving the chapter and verse in each case." This
seems to be an exaggeration.
* "Gleanings by the Way."
Mother Smith's account of Harris's early connection with the Bible
enterprise says that her husband told Harris of the existence of the
plates two or three years before Joe got possession of them; that when
Joe secured them he asked her to go and tell Harris that he wanted
to see him on the subject, an errand not to her liking, because "Mr.
Harris's wife was a very peculiar woman," that is, she did not share in
her husband's superstition. Mrs. Smith did not succeed in seeing Harris,
but he soon afterward voluntarily offered Joe fifty dollars "for the
purpose of helping Mr. Smith do the Lord's work." As Harris was
very "close" in money matters, it is probable that Joe offered him a
partnership in the scheme at the start. Harris seems to have placed
much faith in the selling quality of the new Bible. He is said to have
replied to his wife's early declaration of disbelief in it: "What if it
is a lie. If you will let me alone I will make money out of it."* The
Rev. Ezra Booth said: "Harris informed me [after his removal to Ohio]
that he went to the place where Joseph resided [in Pennsylvania], and
Joseph had given it [the translation] up on account of the opposition of
his wife and others; and he told Joseph, 'I have not come down here for
nothing, and we will go on with it.'"**
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 254.
** Ibid., p. 182.
Just at this time Joe was preparing to move to the neighborhood of
Harmony, Pennsylvania, having made a trip there after his marriage,
during which, Mr. Hale's affidavit says, "Smith stated to me that he had
given up what he called 'glass-looking,' and that he expected to work
hard for a living and was willing to do so." Smith's brother-in-law
Alva, in accordance with arrangements then made, went to Palmyra and
helped move his effects to a house near Mr. Hale's. Joe acknowledges
that Harris's gift or loan of fifty dollars enabled him to meet the
expenses of moving.
Parley P. Pratt, in a statement published by him in London in 1854, set
forth that Smith was driven to Pennsylvania from Palmyra through fear of
his life, and that he took the plates with him concealed in a barrel of
beans, thus eluding the efforts of persons who tried to secure them by
means of a search warrant. Tucker says that this story rests only on
the sending of a constable after Smith by a man to whom he owed a small
debt. The great interest manifested in the plates in the neighborhood of
Palmyra existed only in Mormon imagination developed in later years.
According to some accounts, all the work of what was called
"translating" the writing on the plates into what became the "Book of
Mormon" was done at Joe's home in New York State, and most of it in a
cave, but this was not the case. Smith himself says: "Immediately after
my arrival [in Pennsylvania] I commenced copying the characters off the
plates. I copied a considerable number of them, and by means of the Urim
and Thummim I translated some of them, which I did between the time
I arrived, at the house of my wife's father in the month of December
(1827) and the February following."
A clear description of the work of translating as carried on in
Pennsylvania is given in the affidavit made by Smith's father-in-law,
Isaac Hale, in 1834.* He says that soon after Joe's removal to his
neighborhood with his wife, he (Hale) was shown a box such as is used
for the shipment of window glass, and was told that it contained the
"book of plates"; he was allowed to lift it, but not to look into it.
Joe told him that the first person who would be allowed to see the
plates would be a young child.** The affidavit continues:--
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 264.
** Joe's early announcement was that his first-born child was to
have this power, but the child was born dead. This was one of the
earliest of Joe's mistakes in prophesying.
"About this time Martin Harris made his appearance upon the stage, and
Smith began to interpret the characters, or hieroglyphics, which he
said were engraven upon the plates, while Harris wrote down the
interpretation. It was said that Harris wrote down 116 pages and lost
them. Soon after this happened, Martin Harris informed me that he must
have a GREATER WITNESS, and said that he had talked with Joseph about
it. Joseph informed him that he could not, or durst not, show him the
plates, but that he [Joseph] would go into the woods where the book of
plates was, and that after he came back Harris should follow his track
in the snow, and find the book and examine it for himself. Harris
informed me that he followed Smith's directions, and could not find the
plates and was still dissatisfied.
"The next day after this happened I went to the house where Joseph
Smith, Jr., lived, and where he and Harris were engaged in their
translation of the book. Each of them had a written piece of paper which
they were comparing, and some of the words were, I my servant seeketh a
greater witness, but no greater witness can be given him.... I inquired
whose words they were, and was informed by Joseph or Emma (I rather
think it was the former), that they were the words of Jesus Christ. I
told them that I considered the whole of it a delusion, and advised them
to abandon it. The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret
was the same as when he looked for the moneydiggers, with the stone in
his hat and his hat over his face, while the book of plates was at the
same time hid in the woods.
"After this, Martin Harris went away, and Oliver Cowdery came and wrote
for Smith, while he interpreted as above described.
"Joseph Smith, Jr., resided near me for some time after this, and I
had a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with him, and somewhat
acquainted with his associates; and I conscientiously believe, from the
facts I have detailed, and from many other circumstances which I do not
deem it necessary to relate, that the whole Book of Mormon (so-called)
is a silly fabrication of falsehood and wickedness, got up for
speculation, and with a design to dupe the credulous and unwary."
Harris's natural shrewdness in a measure overcame his fanaticism, and he
continued to press Smith for a sight of the plates. Smith thereupon made
one of the first uses of those "revelations" which played so important
a part in his future career, and he announced one (Section 5, "Doctrine
and Covenants"*), in which "I, the Lord" declared to Smith that the
latter had entered into a covenant with Him not to show the plates to
any one except as the Lord commanded him. Harris finally demanded of
Smith at least a specimen of the writing on the plates for submission to
experts in such subjects. As Harris was the only man of means interested
in this scheme of publication, Joe supplied him with a paper containing
some characters which he said were copied from one of the plates. This
paper increased Harris's belief in the reality of Joe's discovery, but
he sought further advice before opening his purse. Dr. Clark describes a
call Harris made on him early one morning, greatly excited, requesting a
private interview. On hearing his story, Dr. Clark advised him that the
scheme was a hoax, devised to extort money from him, but Harris showed
the slip of paper containing the mysterious characters, and was not to
be persuaded.
* All references to the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" refer to
the sections and verses of the Salt Lake city edition of 1890.
Seeking confirmation, however, Harris made a trip to New York City in
order to submit the characters to experts there. Among others, he called
on Professor Charles Anthon. His interview with Professor Anthon
has been a cause of many and conflicting statements, some Mormons
misrepresenting it for their own purposes and others explaining away
the professor's accounts of it. The following statement was written by
Professor Anthon in reply to an inquiry by E. D. Howe:--
"NEW YORK, February 17, 1834.
"DEAR SIR: I received your favor of the 9th, and lose no time in making
a reply. The whole story about my pronouncing the Mormon inscription to
be 'reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics' is perfectly false. Some years ago
a plain, apparently simple-hearted farmer called on me with a note
from Dr. Mitchell, of our city, now dead, requesting me to decypher,
if possible, the paper which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M.
confessed he had been unable to understand. Upon examining the paper in
question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick--perhaps
a hoax. When I asked the person who brought it how he obtained the
writing, he gave me, as far as I can recollect, the following account:
A 'gold book' consisting of a number of plates fastened together in
the shape of a book by wires of the same metal, had been dug up in
the northern part of the state of New York, and along with the book an
enormous pair of 'spectacles'! These spectacles were so large that, if
a person attempted to look through them, his two eyes would have to
be turned toward one of the glasses merely, the spectacles in question
being altogether too large for the breadth of the human face. Whoever
examined the plates through the spectacles, was enabled, not only to
read them, but fully to understand their meaning. All this knowledge,
however, was confined to a young man who had the trunk containing the
book and spectacles in his sole possession. This young man was placed
behind a curtain in the garret of a farmhouse, and being thus concealed
from view, put on the spectacles occasionally, or rather, looked through
one of the glasses, decyphered the characters in the book, and, having
committed some of them to paper, handed copies from behind the curtain
to those who stood on the outside. Not a word, however, was said about
the plates being decyphered 'by the gift of God.' Everything in this way
was effected by the large pair of spectacles. The farmer added that he
had been requested to contribute a sum of money toward the publication
of the 'golden book,' the contents of which would, as he had been
assured, produce an entire change in the world, and save it from ruin.
So urgent had been these solicitations, that he intended selling his
farm, and handing over the amount received to those who wished to
publish the plates. As a last precautionary step, however, he had
resolved to come to New York, and obtain the opinion of the learned
about the meaning of the paper which he had brought with him, and which
had been given him as part of the contents of the book, although no
translation had been furnished at the time by the young man with the
spectacles. On hearing this odd story, I changed my opinion about the
paper, and, instead of viewing it any longer as a hoax upon the learned,
I began to regard it as a part of a scheme to cheat the farmer of his
money, and I communicated my suspicions to him, warning him to beware of
rogues. He requested an opinion from me in writing, which, of course,
I declined giving, and he then took his leave, carrying his paper with
him.
"This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of
crooked characters, disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared
by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various
alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman
letters inverted, or placed sideways, were arranged and placed in
perpendicular columns; and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a
circle, divided into various compartments, decked with various strange
marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calendar, given by
Humbolt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence
it was, derived. I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper,
inasmuch as I have frequently conversed with my friends on the subject
since the Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper
contained anything else but 'Egyptian Hieroglyphics.'
"Some time after, the farmer paid me a second visit. He brought with
him the golden book in print, and offered it to me for sale. I declined
purchasing. He then asked permission to leave the book with me for
examination. I declined receiving it, although his manner was strangely
urgent. I adverted once more to the roguery which had been, in my
opinion, practised upon him, and asked him what had become of the gold
plates. He informed me that they were in a trunk with the large pair
of spectacles. I advised him to go to a magistrate, and have the trunk
examined. He said 'the curse of God' would come upon him should he do
this. On my pressing him, however, to pursue the course which I had
recommended, he told me he would open the trunk if I would take 'the
curse of God' upon myself. I replied I would do so with the greatest
willingness, and would incur every risk of that nature provided I could
only extricate him from the grasp of the rogues. He then left me.
"I have thus given you a full statement of all that I know respecting
the origin of Mormonism, and must beg you, as a personal favor, to
publish this letter immediately, should you find my name mentioned again
by these wretched fanatics. Yours respectfully,
"CHARLES ANTHON."*
* "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 270-272. A letter from Professor
Anthon to the Rev. Dr. Coit, rector of Trinity Church, New Rochelle, New
York, dated April 3, 1841, containing practically the same statement,
will be found in Clark's "Gleanings by the Way," pp. 233-238.
While Mormon speakers quoted Anthon as vouching for the mysterious
writing, their writers were more cautious. P. P. Pratt, in his "Voice of
Warning" (1837), said that Professor Anthon was unable to decipher
the characters, but he presumed that if the original records could
be brought, he could assist in translating them. Orson Pratt, in his
"Remarkable Visions" (1848), saw in the Professor's failure only a
verification of Isaiah xxix. 11 and 12:--
"And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is
sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this,
I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed: and the book is
delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee:
and he saith, I am not learned."
[Illustration:
Facsimile of the Characters of the Book of Mormon
072]
John D. Lee, in his "Mormonism Unveiled," mentions the generally used
excuse of the Mormons for the professor's failure to translate the
writing, namely, that Anthon told Harris that "they were written in
a sealed language, unknown to the present age." Smith, in his
autobiography, quotes Harris's account of his interview as follows:--
"I went to New York City and presented the characters which had been
translated, with the translation thereof, to Prof. Anthon, a man quite
celebrated for his literary attainments. Prof. Anthon stated that the
translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated
from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet
translated, and he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and
Arabic, and he said they were the true characters."
Harris declared that the professor gave him a certificate to this
effect, but took it back and tore it up when told that an angel of God
had revealed the plates to Joe, saying that "there were no such things
as ministering angels." This account by Harris of his interview with
Professor Anthon will assist the reader in estimating the value of
Harris's future testimony as to the existence of the plates.
Harris's trip to New York City was not entirely satisfactory to him,
and, as Smith himself relates, "He began to tease me to give him liberty
to carry the writings home and show them, and desired of me that I would
enquire of the Lord through the Urim and Thummim if he might not do so."
Smith complied with this request, but the permission was twice refused;
the third time it was granted, but on condition that Harris would show
the manuscript translation to only five persons, who were named, one of
them being his wife.
In including Mrs. Harris in this list, the Lord made one of the greatest
mistakes into which he ever fell in using Joe as a mouthpiece. Mrs.
Harris's Quaker belief had led her from the start to protest against the
Bible scheme, and to warn her husband against the Smith family, and she
vigorously opposed his investment of any money in the publication of
the book. On the occasion of his first visit to Joe in Pennsylvania,
according to Mother Smith, Mrs. Harris was determined to accompany him,
and he had to depart without her knowledge; and when he went the second
time, she did accompany him, and she ransacked the house to find the
"record" (as the plates are often called in the Smiths' writings).
When Harris returned home with the translated pages which Joe intrusted
to him (in July, 1828), he showed them to his family and to others, who
tried in vain to convince him that he was a dupe. Mrs. Harris decided on
a more practical course. Getting possession of the papers, where Harris
had deposited them for safe keeping, she refused to restore them to him.
What eventually became of them is uncertain, one report being that she
afterward burned them.
This should have caused nothing more serious in the way of delay
than the time required to retranslate these pages; for certainly a
well-equipped Divinity, who was revealing a new Bible to mankind, and
supplying so powerful a means of translation as the Urim and Thummim,
could empower the translator to repeat the words first written. Indeed,
the descriptions of the method of translation given afterward by Smith's
confederates would seem to prove that there could have been but one
version of any translation of the plates, no matter how many times
repeated. Thus, Harris described the translating as follows:--
"By aid of the seer stone [no mention of the magic spectacles] sentences
would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin, and,
when finished, he would say 'written'; and if correctly written, that
sentence would disappear, and another appear in its place; but if not
written correctly, it remained until corrected, so that the translation
was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language
then used."*
* Elder Edward Stevenson in the Deseret News (quoted in Reynold's
"Mystery of the Manuscript Fund," p. 91).
David Whitmer, in an account of this process written in his later years,
said:--
"Joseph would put the seer stone into a hat [more testimony against the
use of the spectacles] and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely
around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual
light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would
appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would
appear, and under it was the translation in English. Brother Joseph
would read off the English to O. Cowdery, who was his principal scribe,
and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if
it were correct, then it would disappear and another character with the
interpretation would appear."*
* "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."
But to Joseph the matter of reproducing the lost pages of the
translation did not seem simple. When Harris's return to Pennsylvania
was delayed, Joe became anxious and went to Palmyra to learn what
delayed him, and there he heard of Mrs. Harris's theft of the pages. His
mother reports him as saying in announcing it, "my God, all is lost! all
is lost!" Why the situation was as serious to a sham translator as it
would have been simple to an honest one is easily understood. Whenever
Smith offered a second translation of the missing pages which differed
from the first, a comparison of them with the latter would furnish proof
positive of the fraudulent character of his pretensions.
All the partners in the business had to share in the punishment for what
had occurred. The Smiths lost all faith in Harris. Joe says that Harris
broke his pledge about showing the translation only to five persons,
and Mother Smith says that because of this offence "a dense fog spread
itself over his fields and blighted his wheat." When Joe returned to
Pennsylvania an angel appeared to him, his mother says, and ordered him
to give up the Urim and Thummim, promising, however, to restore them
if he was humble and penitent, and "if so, it will be on the 22d of
September."* Here may be noted one of those failures of mother and son
to agree in their narratives which was excuse enough for Brigham Young
to try to suppress the mother's book. Joe mentions a "revelation" dated
July, 1828 (Sec. 3, "Doctrine and Covenants"), in which Harris was
called "a wicked man," and which told Smith that he had lost his
privileges for a season, and he adds, "After I had obtained the above
revelation, both the plates and the Urim and Thummim were taken from me
again, BUT IN A FEW DAYS they were returned to me."**
* "Biographical Sketches," by Lucy Smith, p. 125.
** Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 8.
For some ten months after this the work of translation was discontinued,
although Mother Smith says that when she and his father visited the
prophet in Pennsylvania two months after his return, the first thing
they saw was "a red morocco trunk lying on Emma's bureau which, Joseph
shortly informed me, contained the Urim and Thummim and the plates."
Mrs. Harris's act had evidently thrown the whole machinery of
translation out of gear, and Joe had to await instructions from his
human adviser before a plan of procedure could be announced. During this
period (in which Joe says he worked on his father's farm), says Tucker,
"the stranger [supposed to be Rigdon] had again been at Smith's, and the
prophet had been away from home, maybe to repay the former's visits."*
* "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 48.
Two matters were decided on in these consultations, viz., that no
attempt would be made to retranslate the lost pages, and that a second
copy of all the rest of the manuscript should be prepared, to guard
against a similar perplexity in case of the loss of later pages. The
proof of the latter statement I find in the fact that a second copy did
exist. Ebenezer Robinson, who was a leading man in the church from
the time of its establishment in Ohio until Smith's death, says in his
recollections that, when the people assembled on October 2, 1841, to lay
the corner-stone of Nauvoo House, Smith said he had a document to
put into the corner-stone, and Robinson went with him to his house to
procure it. Robinson's story proceeds as follows:--
"He got a manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon, and brought it into the
room where we were standing, and said, 'I will examine to see if it is
all here'; and as he did so I stood near him, at his left side, and saw
distinctly the writing as he turned up the pages until he hastily went
through the book and satisfied himself that it was all there, when he
said, 'I have had trouble enough with this thing'; which remark struck
me with amazement, as I looked upon it as a sacred treasure."
Robinson says that the manuscript was written on foolscap paper and most
of it in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting. He explains that two copies were
necessary, "as the printer who printed the first edition of the book had
to have a copy, as they would not put the original copy into his hands
for fear of its being altered. This accounts for David Whitmer having a
copy and Joseph Smith having one."*
* The Return, Vol. II, p. 314. Ebenezer Robinson, a printer,
joined the Mormons at Kirtland, followed Smith to Missouri, and went
with the flock to Nauvoo, where he and the prophet's brother, Don
Carlos, established the Times and Seasons. When the doctrine of polygamy
was announced to him and his wife, they rejected it, and he followed
Rigdon to Pennsylvania when Rigdon was turned out by Young. In later
years he was engaged in business enterprises in Iowa, and was a resident
of Davis City when David Whitmer announced the organization of
his church in Missouri, and, not accepting the view of the prophet
entertained by his descendants in the Reorganized Church, Robinson
accepted baptism from Whitmer. The Return was started by him in
January, 1889, and continued until his death, in its second year. His
reminiscences of early Mormon experiences, which were a feature of the
publication, are of value.
Major Bideman, who married the prophet's widow, partly completed and
occupied Nauvoo House after the departure of the Mormons for Utah, and
some years later he took out the cornerstone and opened it, but found
the manuscript so ruined by moisture that only a little was legible.
In regard to the missing pages, it was decided to announce a revelation,
which is dated May, 1829 (Sec. 10, "Doctrine and Covenants"), stating
that the lost pages had got into the hands of wicked men, that "Satan
has put it into their hearts to alter the words which you have caused to
be written, or which you have translated," in accordance with a plan
of the devil to destroy Smith's work. He was directed therefore to
translate from the plates of Nephi, which contained a "more particular
account" than the Book of Lehi from which the original translation was
made.
When Smith began translating again, Harris was not reemployed, but Emma,
the prophet's wife, acted as his scribe until April 15, 1829, when a new
personage appeared upon the scene. This was Oliver Cowdery.
Cowdery was a blacksmith by trade, but gave up that occupation, and,
while Joe was translating in Pennsylvania, secured the place of teacher
in the district where the Smiths lived, and boarded with them. They told
him of the new Bible, and, according to Joe's later account, Cowdery
for himself received a revelation of its divine character, went to
Pennsylvania, and from that time was intimately connected with Joe in
the translation and publication of the book.
In explanation of the change of plan necessarily adopted in the
translation, the following preface appeared in the first edition of the
book, but was dropped later:--
"TO THE READER.
"As many false reports have been circulated respecting the following
work, and also many unlawful measures taken by evil designing persons to
destroy me, and also the work, I would inform you that I translated,
by the gift and power of God, and caused to be written, one hundred
and sixteen pages, the which I took from the book of Lehi, which was an
account abridged from the plates of Lehi, by the hand of Mormon; which
said account, some person or persons have stolen and kept from me,
notwithstanding my utmost efforts to recover it again--and being
commanded of the Lord that I should not translate the same over again,
for Satan had put it into their hearts to tempt the Lord their God,
by altering the words; that they did read contrary from that which I
translated and caused to be written; and if I should bring forth the
same words again, or, in other words, if I should translate the same
over again, they would publish that which they had stolen, and Satan
would stir up the hearts of this generation, that they might not receive
this work, but behold, the Lord said unto me, I will not suffer that
Satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing; therefore thou
shalt translate from the plates of Nephi until ye come to that which ye
have translated, which ye have retained; and behold, ye shall publish it
as the record of Nephi; and thus I will confound those who have altered
my words. I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will
show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the Devil.
Wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, I have, through
His grace and mercy, accomplished that which He hath commanded me
respecting this thing. I would also inform you that the plates of which
hath been spoken, were found in the township of Manchester, Ontario
County, New York.--THE AUTHOR."
In June, 1829, Smith accepted an invitation to change his residence to
the house of Peter Whitmer, who, with his sons, David, John, and Peter,
Jr., lived at Fayette, Seneca County, New York, the Whitmers promising
his board free and their assistance in the work of translation. There,
Smith says, they resided "until the translation was finished and the
copyright secured."
As five of the Whitmers were "witnesses" to the existence of the plates,
and David continued to be a person of influence in Mormon circles
throughout his long life, information about them is of value. The
prophet's mother again comes to our aid, although her account conflicts
with her son's. The prophet says that David Whitmer brought the
invitation to take up quarters at his father's, and volunteered the
offer of free board and assistance. Mother Smith says that one day, as
Joe was translating the plates, he came, in the midst of the words
of the Holy Writ, to a commandment to write at once to David Whitmer,
requesting him to come immediately and take the prophet and Cowdery to
his house, "as an evil-designing people were seeking to take away his
[Joseph's] life in order to prevent the work of God from going forth to
the world." When the letter arrived, David's father told him that,
as they had wheat sown that would require two days' harrowing, and a
quantity of plaster to spread, he could not go "unless he could get a
witness from God that it was absolutely necessary." In answer to his
inquiry of the Lord on the subject, David was told to go as soon as his
wheat was harrowed in. Setting to work, he found that at the end of the
first day the two days' harrowing had been completed, and, on going out
the next morning to spread the plaster, he found that work done also,
and his sister told him she had seen three unknown men at work in the
field the day before: so that the task had been accomplished by "an
exhibition of supernatural power."*
* "Biographical Sketches," Lucy Smith, p. 135.
The translation being ready for the press, in June, 1829 (I follow
Tucker's account of the printing of the work), Joseph, his brother
Hyrum, Cowdery, and Harris asked Egbert B. Grandin, publisher of the
Wayne Sentinel at Palmyra, to give them an estimate of the cost of
printing an edition of three thousand copies, with Harris as security
for the payment. Grandin told them he did not want to undertake the job
at any price, and he tried to persuade Harris not to invest his money
in the scheme, assuring him that it was fraudulent. Application was next
made to Thurlow Weed, then the publisher of the Anti-Masonic Inquirer,
at Rochester, New York. "After reading a few chapters," says Mr. Weed,
"it seemed such a jumble of unintelligent absurdities that we refused
the work, advising Harris not to mortgage his farm and beggar his
family." Finally, Smith and his associates obtained from Elihu F.
Marshall, a Rochester publisher, a definite bid for the work, and with
this they applied again to Grandin, explaining that it would be much
more convenient for them to have the printing done at home, and pointing
out to him that he might as well take the job, as his refusal would not
prevent the publication of the book. This argument had weight with him,
and he made a definite contract to print and bind five thousand copies
for the sum of $3000, a mortgage on Harris's farm to be given him as
security. Mrs. Harris had persisted in her refusal to be in any way a
party to the scheme, and she and her husband had finally made a legal
separation, with a division of the property, after she had entered a
complaint against Joe, charging him with getting money from her husband
on fraudulent representation. At the hearing on this complaint, Harris
denied that he had ever contributed a dollar to Joe at the latter's
persuasion.
Tucker, who did much of the proof-reading of the new Bible, comparing it
with the manuscript copy, says that, when the printing began, Smith
and his associates watched the manuscript with the greatest vigilance,
bringing to the office every morning as much as the printers could set
up during the day, and taking it away in the evening, forbidding also
any alteration. The foreman, John H. Gilbert, found the manuscript
so poorly prepared as regards grammatical construction, spelling,
punctuation, etc., that he told them that some corrections must be made,
and to this they finally consented.
Daniel Hendrix, in his recollections, says in confirmation of this:--
"I helped to read proof on many pages of the book, and at odd times set
some type.... The penmanship of the copy furnished was good, but the
grammar, spelling and punctuation were done by John H. Gilbert, who was
chief compositor in the office. I have heard him swear many a time at
the syntax and orthography of Cowdery, and declare that he would not set
another line of the type. There were no paragraphs, no punctuation and
no capitals. All that was done in the printing office, and what a
time there used to be in straightening sentences out, too. During the
printing of the book I remember that Joe Smith kept in the background."
The following letter is in reply to an inquiry addressed by me to Albert
Chandler, the only survivor, I think, of the men who helped issue the
first edition of Smith's book:--
"COLDWATER, MICH., Dec. 22, 1898.
"My recollections of Joseph Smith, Jr. and of the first steps taken in
regard to his Bible have never been printed. At the time of the printing
of the Mormon Bible by Egbert B. Grandin of the Sentinel I was an
apprentice in the bookbindery connected with the Sentinel office. I
helped to collate and stitch the Gold Bible, and soon after this was
completed, I changed from book-binding to printing. I learned my trade
in the Sentinel office.
"My recollections of the early history of the Mormon Bible are vivid
to-day. I knew personally Oliver Cowdery, who translated the Bible,
Martin Harris, who mortgaged his farm to procure the printing, and
Joseph Smith Jr., but slightly. What I knew of him was from hearsay,
principally from Martin Harris, who believed fully in him. Mr. Tucker's
'Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism' is the fullest account I have
ever seen. I doubt if I can add anything to that history.
"The whole history is shrouded in the deepest mystery. Joseph Smith Jr.,
who read through the wonderful spectacles, pretended to give the scribe
the exact reading of the plates, even to spelling, in which Smith was
woefully deficient. Martin Harris was permitted to be in the room with
the scribe, and would try the knowledge of Smith, as he told me, saying
that Smith could not spell the word February, when his eyes were off the
spectacles through which he pretended to work. This ignorance of Smith
was proof positive to him that Smith was dependent on the spectacles for
the contents of the Bible. Smith and the plates containing the original
of the Mormon Bible were hid from view of the scribe and Martin Harris
by a screen.
"I should think that Martin Harris, after becoming a convert, gave up
his entire time to advertising the Bible to his neighbors and the public
generally in the vicinity of Palmyra. He would call public meetings and
address them himself. He was enthusiastic, and went so far as to say
that God, through the Latter Day Saints, was to rule the world. I heard
him make this statement, that there would never be another President of
the United States elected; that soon all temporal and spiritual power
would be given over to the prophet Joseph Smith and the Latter Day
Saints. His extravagant statements were the laughing stock of the people
of Palmyra. His stories were hissed at, universally. To give you an idea
of Mr. Harris's superstitions, he told me that he saw the devil, in all
his hideousness, on the road, just before dark, near his farm, a little
north of Palmyra. You can see that Harris was a fit subject to carry out
the scheme of organizing a new religion.
"The absolute secrecy of the whole inception and publication of the
Mormon Bible stopped positive knowledge. We only knew what Joseph Smith
would permit Martin Harris to publish, in reference to the whole thing.
"The issuing of the Book of Mormon scarcely made a ripple of excitement
in Palmyra.
"ALBERT CHANDLER."*
* Mr. Chandler moved to Michigan in 1835, and has been connected
with several newspapers in that state, editing the Kalamazoo Gazette,
and founding and publishing the Coldwater Sentinel. He was elected
the first mayor of Coldwater, serving several terms. He was in his
eighty-fifth year when the above letter was written.
The book was published early in 1830. On paper the sale of the first
edition showed a profit of $3250 at $1.25 a volume, that being the
lowest price to be asked on pain of death, according to a "special
revelation" received by Smith. By the original agreement Harris was to
have the exclusive control of the sale of the book. But it did not sell.
The local community took it no more seriously than they did Joe himself
and his family. The printer demanded his pay as the work progressed,
and it became necessary for Smith to spur Harris on by announcing a
revelation (Sec. 19, "Doctrine and Covenants"), saying, "I command thee
that thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to
the printing of the Book of Mormon." Harris accordingly disposed of his
share of the farm and paid Grandin.
To make the book "go," Smith now received a revelation which permitted
his father, soon to be elevated to the title of Patriarch, to sell it on
commission, and Smith, Sr., made expeditions through the country, taking
in pay for any copies sold such farm produce or "store goods" as he
could use in his own family. How much he "cut" the revealed price of the
book in these trades is not known, but in one instance, when arrested in
Palmyra for a debt of $5.63, he, under pledge of secrecy, offered seven
of the Bibles in settlement, and the creditor, knowing that the old man
had no better assets, accepted the offer as a joke.*
* "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," Tucker, p. 63.
CHAPTER VII. -- THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT
The history of the Mormon Bible has been brought uninterruptedly to this
point in order that the reader may be able to follow clearly each
step that had led up to its publication. It is now necessary to give
attention to two subjects intimately connected with the origin of this
book, viz., the use made of what is known as the "Spaulding manuscript,"
in supplying the historical part of the work, and Sidney Rigdon's share
in its production.
The most careful student of the career of Joseph Smith, Jr., and of his
family and his associates, up to the year 1827, will fail to find any
ground for the belief that he alone, or simply with their assistance,
was capable of composing the Book of Mormon, crude in every sense as
that work is. We must therefore accept, as do the Mormons, the statement
that the text was divinely revealed to Smith, or must look for some
directing hand behind the scene, which supplied the historical part and
applied the theological. The "Spaulding manuscript" is believed to have
furnished the basis of the historical part of the work.
Solomon Spaulding, born in Ashford, Connecticut, in 1761, was graduated
from Dartmouth College in 1785, studied divinity, and for some years
had charge of a church. His own family described him as a peculiar
man, given to historical researches, and evidently of rather unstable
disposition. He gave up preaching, conducted an academy at Cherry
Valley, New York, and later moved to Conneaut, Ohio, where in 1812 he
had an interest in an iron foundry. His attention was there attracted to
the ancient mounds in that vicinity, and he set some of his men to work
exploring one of them. "I vividly remember how excited he became,"
says his daughter, when he heard that they had exhumed some human
bones, portions of gigantic skeletons, and various relics. From these
discoveries he got the idea of writing a fanciful history of the ancient
races of this country.
The title he chose for his book was "The Manuscript Found." He
considered this work a great literary production, counted on being able
to pay his debts from the proceeds of its sale, and was accustomed to
read selections from the manuscript to his neighbors with evident pride.
The impression that such a production would be likely to make on the
author's neighbors in that frontier region and in those early days, when
books were scarce and authors almost unknown, can with difficulty be
realized now. Barrett Wendell, speaking of the days of Bryant's early
work, says:--
"Ours was a new country...deeply and sensitively aware that it lacked a
literature. Whoever produced writings which could be pronounced adorable
was accordingly regarded by his fellow citizens as a public benefactor,
a great public figure, a personage of whom the nation could be proud."*
This feeling lends weight to the testimony of Mr. Spaulding's neighbors,
who in later years gave outlines of his work.
* "Literary History of America."
In order to find a publisher Mr. Spaulding moved with his family to
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. A printer named Patterson spoke well of the
manuscript to its author, but no one was found willing to publish
it. The Spauldings afterward moved to Amity, Pennsylvania, where Mr.
Spaulding died in 1816. His widow and only child went to live with Mrs.
Spaulding's brother, W. H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, New York, taking
their effects with them. These included an old trunk containing Mr.
Spaulding's papers. "There were sermons and other papers," says his
daughter, "and I saw a manuscript about an inch thick, closely written,
tied up with some stories my father had written for me, one of which he
called 'The Frogs of Windham.' On the outside of this manuscript were
written the words 'Manuscript Found.' I did not read it, but looked
through it, and had it in my hands many times, and saw the names I
had heard at Conneaut, when my father read it to his friends." Mrs.
Spaulding next went to her father's house in Connecticut, leaving her
personal property at her brother's. She married a Mr. Davison in 1820,
and the old trunk was sent to her at her new home in Hartwick, Otsego
County, New York. The daughter was married to a Mr. McKinstry in
1828, and her mother afterward made her home with her at Monson,
Massachusetts, most of the time until her death in 1844.
When the newly announced Mormon Bible began to be talked about in Ohio,
there were immediate declarations in Spaulding's old neighborhood of a
striking similarity between the Bible story and the story that Spaulding
used to read to his acquaintances there, and these became positive
assertions after the Mormons had held a meeting at Conneaut. The opinion
was confidently expressed there that, if the manuscript could be found
and published, it would put an end to the Mormon pretence.
About the year 1834 Mrs. Davison received a visit at Monson from D.
P. Hurlbut, a man who had gone over to the Mormons from the Methodist
church, and had apostatized and been expelled. He represented that he
had been sent by a committee to secure "The Manuscript Found" in order
that it might be compared with the Mormon Bible. As he brought a letter
from her brother, Mrs. Davison, with considerable reluctance, gave him
an introduction to George Clark, in whose house at Hartwick she had left
the old trunk, directing Mr. Clark to let Hurlbut have the manuscript,
receiving his verbal pledge to return it. He obtained a manuscript from
this trunk, but did not keep his pledge.*
* Condensed from an affidavit by Mrs. McKinstry, dated April 3,
1880, in Scribner's Magazine for August, 1880.
The Boston Recorder published in May, 1839, a detailed statement by Mrs.
Davison concerning her knowledge of "The Manuscript Found." After giving
an account of the writing of the story, her statement continued as
follows:--
"Here [in Pittsburg] Mr. Spaulding found a friend and acquaintance in
the person of Mr. Patterson, who was very much pleased with it, and
borrowed it for perusal. He retained it for a long time, and informed
Mr. Spaulding that, if he would make out a title-page and preface, he
would publish it, as it might be a source of profit. This Mr. Spaulding
refused to do. Sidney Rigdon, who has figured so largely in the history
of the Mormons, was at that time connected with the printing office of
Mr. Patterson, as is well known in that region, and, as Rigdon himself
has frequently stated, became acquainted with Mr. Spaulding's manuscript
and copied it. It was a matter of notoriety and interest to all
connected with the printing establishment. At length the manuscript was
returned to its author, and soon after we removed to Amity where Mr.
Spaulding deceased in 1816. The manuscript then fell into my hands, and
was carefully preserved."
This statement stirred up the Mormons greatly, and they at once
pronounced the letter a forgery, securing from Mrs. Davison a statement
in which she said that she did not write it. This was met with a counter
statement by the Rev. D. R. Austin that it was made up from notes of
a conversation with her, and was correct. In confirmation of this
the Quincy [Massachusetts] Whig printed a letter from John Haven of
Holliston, Massachusetts, giving a report of a conversation between his
son Jesse and Mrs. Davison concerning this letter, in which she stated
that the letter was substantially correct, and that some of the names
used in the Mormon Bible were like those in her husband's story. Rigdon
himself, in a letter addressed to the Boston Journal, under date of May
27, 1839, denied all knowledge of Spaulding, and declared that there
was no printer named Patterson in Pittsburg during his residence there,
although he knew a Robert Patterson who had owned a printing-office in
that city. The larger part of his letter is a coarse attack on Hurlbut
and also on E. D. Howe, the author of "Mormonism Unveiled," whose
whole family he charged with scandalous immoralities. If the use of
Spaulding's story in the preparation of the Mormon Bible could be proved
by nothing but this letter of Mrs. Davison, the demonstration would be
weak; but this is only one link in the chain.
Howe, in his painstaking efforts to obtain all probable information
about the Mormon origin from original sources, secured the affidavits of
eight of Spaulding's acquaintances in Ohio, giving their recollections
of the "Manuscript Found."* Spaulding's brother, John, testified that
he heard many passages of the manuscript read and, describing it, he
said:--
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 278-287.
"It was an historical romance of the first settlers of America,
endeavoring to show that the American Indians are the descendants of
the Jews, or the lost tribe. It gave a detailed account of their journey
from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till they arrived in America, under the
command of Nephi and Lehi. They afterwards had quarrels and contentions,
and separated into two distinct nations, one of which he denominated
Nephites, and the other Lamanites. Cruel and bloody Wars ensued, in
which great multitudes were slain.... I have recently read the "Book
of Mormon," and to my great surprise I find nearly the same historical
matter, names, etc., as they were in my brother's writings. I well
remember that he wrote in the old style, and commenced about every
sentence with 'and it came to pass,' or 'now it came to pass,' the
same as in the 'Book of Mormon,' and, according to the best of my
recollection and belief, it is the same as my brother Solomon wrote,
with the exception of the religious matter."
John Spaulding's wife testified that she had no doubt that the
historical part of the Bible and the manuscript were the same, and she
well recalled such phrases as "it came to pass."
Mr. Spaulding's business partner at Conneaut, Henry Lake, testified that
Spaulding read the manuscript to him many hours, that the story running
through it and the Bible was the same, and he recalls this circumstance:
"One time, when he was reading to me the tragic account of Laban, I
pointed out to him what I considered an inconsistency, which he promised
to correct, but by referring to the 'Book of Mormon,' I find that it
stands there just as he read it to me then.... I well recollect telling
Mr. Spaulding that the so frequent use of the words 'and it came to
pass,' 'now it came to pass,' rendered it ridiculous."
John N. Miller, an employee of Spaulding in Ohio, and a boarder in his
family for several months, testified that Spaulding had written more
than one book or pamphlet, that he had heard the author read from the
"Manuscript Found," that he recalled the story running through it, and
added: "I have recently examined the 'Book of Mormon,' and find in it
the writings of Solomon Spaulding, from beginning to end, but mixed up
with Scripture and other religious matter which I did not meet with in
the 'Manuscript Found'.... The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and in fact
all the principal names, are brought fresh to my recollection by the
'Gold Bible.'"
Practically identical testimony was given by the four other neighbors.
Important additions to this testimony have been made in later years. A
statement by Joseph Miller of Amity, Pennsylvania, a man of standing in
that community, was published in the Pittsburg Telegraph of February 6,
1879. Mr. Miller said that he was well acquainted with Spaulding when he
lived at Amity, and heard him read most of the "Manuscript Found," and
had read the Mormon Bible in late years to compare the two. On hearing
read, "he says," the account from the book of the battle between the
Amlicites (Book of Alma), in which the soldiers of one army had placed
a red mark on their foreheads to distinguish them from their enemies,
it seemed to reproduce in my mind, not only the narration, but the
very words as they had been impressed on my mind by the reading of
Spaulding's manuscript.... The longer I live, the more firmly I am
convinced that Spaulding's manuscript was appropriated and largely used
in getting up the "Book of Mormon."
Redick McKee, a resident of Amity, Pennsylvania, when Spaulding lived
there, and later a resident of Washington, D. C., in a letter to the
Washington [Pennsylvania] Reporter, of April 21, 1869, stated that
he heard Spaulding read from his manuscript, and added: "I have an
indistinct recollection of the passage referred to by Mr. Miller about
the Amlicites making a cross with red paint on their foreheads to
distinguish them from enemies in battle."
The Rev. Abner Judson, of Canton, Ohio, wrote for the Washington County,
Pennsylvania, Historical Society, under date of December 20, 1880, an
account of his recollections of the Spaulding manuscript, and it was
printed in the Washington [Pennsylvania] Reporter of January 7, 1881.
Spaulding read a large part of his manuscript to Mr. Judson's father
before the author moved to Pittsburg, and the son, confined to the house
with a lameness, heard the reading and the accompanying conversations.
He says: "He wrote it in the Bible style. 'And it came to pass,'
occurred so often that some called him 'Old Come-to-pass.' The 'Book of
Mormons' follows the romance too closely to be a stranger.... When it
was brought to Conneaut and read there in public, old Esquire Wright
heard it and exclaimed, 'Old Come-to-pass' has come to life again."*
* Fuller extracts from the testimony of these later witnesses
will be found in Robert Patterson's pamphlet, "Who wrote the Book of
Mormon," reprinted from the "History of Washington County, Pa."
The testimony of so many witnesses, so specific in its details, seems
to prove the identity of Spaulding's story and the story running through
the Mormon Bible. The late President James H. Fairchild of Oberlin,
Ohio, whose pamphlet on the subject we shall next examine, admits
that "if we could accept without misgiving the testimony of the eight
witnesses brought forward in Howe's book, we should be obliged to accept
the fact of another manuscript" (than the one which President Fairchild
secured); but he thinks there is some doubt about the effect on the
memory of these witnesses of the lapse of years and the reading of
the new Bible before they recalled the original story. It must be
remembered, however, that this resemblance was recalled as soon as they
heard the story of the new Bible, and there seems no ground on which to
trace a theory that it was the Bible which originated in their minds the
story ascribed to the manuscript.
The defenders of the Mormon Bible as an original work received great
comfort some fifteen years ago by the announcement that the original
manuscript of Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" had been discovered in the
Sandwich Islands and brought to this country, and that its narrative
bore no resemblance to the Bible story. The history of this second
manuscript is as follows: E. D. Howe sold his printing establishment at
Painesville, Ohio, to L. L. Rice, who was an antislavery editor there
for many years. Mr. Rice afterward moved to the Sandwich Islands, and
there he was requested by President Fairchild to look over his old
papers to see if he could not find some antislavery matter that would be
of value to the Oberlin College library. One result of his search was
an old manuscript bearing the following certificate: 'The writings of
Solomon Spaulding,' proved by Aaron Wright, Oliver Smith, John N.
Miller and others. The testimonies of the above gentlemen are now in my
possession.
"D. P. HURLBUT."
President Fairchild in a paper on this subject which has been published*
gives a description of this manuscript (it has been printed by the
Reorganized Church at Lamoni, Iowa), which shows that it bears no
resemblance to the Bible story. But the assumption that this proves that
the Bible story is original fails immediately in view of the fact
that Mr. Howe made no concealment of his possession of this second
manuscript. Hurlbut was in Howe's service when he asked Mrs. Davison for
an order for the manuscript, and he gave to Howe, as the result of his
visit, the manuscript which Rice gave to President Fairchild. Howe
in his book (p. 288) describes this manuscript substantially as does
President Fairchild, saying:--
* "Manuscript of Solomon Spaulding and the 'Book of Mormon,'"
Tract No. 77, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.
"This is a romance, purporting to have been translated from the Latin,
found on twenty-four rolls of parchment in a cave on the banks of
Conneaut Creek, but written in a modern style, and giving a fabulous
account of a ship's being driven upon the American coast, while
proceeding from Rome to Britain, a short time pious to the Christian
era, this country then being inhabited by the Indians."*
* Howe says in his book, "The fact that Spaulding in the latter
part of his life inclined to infidelity is established by a letter in
his handwriting now in our possession." This letter was given by Rice
with the other manuscript to President Fairchild (who reproduces it),
thus adding to the proof that the Rice manuscript is the one Hurlbut
delivered to Howe.
Mr. Howe adds this important statement:--
"This old manuscript has been shown to several of the foregoing
witnesses, who recognize it as Spaulding's, he having told them that he
had altered his first plan of writing, by going further back with dates,
and writing in the old scripture style, in order that it might appear
more ancient. They say that it bears no resemblance to the 'Manuscript
Found.'"
If Howe had considered this manuscript of the least importance
as invalidating the testimony showing the resemblance between the
"Manuscript Found" and the Mormon Bible, he would have destroyed it (if
he was the malignant falsifier the Mormons represented him to be), and
not have first described it in his book; and then left it to be found
by any future owner of his effects. Its rediscovery has been accepted,
however, even by some non-Mormons, as proof that the Mormon Bible is an
original production.*
* Preface to "The Mormon Prophet," Lily Dugall.
Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, a great-niece of Spaulding, who has
painstakingly investigated the history of the much-discussed manuscript,
visited D. P. Hurlbut at his home near Gibsonburg, Ohio, in 1880 (he
died in 1882), taking with her Oscar Kellogg, a lawyer, as a witness to
the interview.* She says that her visit excited him greatly. He told of
getting a manuscript for Mr. Howe at Hartwick, and said he thought
it was burned with other of Mr. Howe's papers. When asked, "Was it
Spaulding's manuscript that was burned?" he replied: "Mrs. Davison
thought it was; but when I just peeked into it, here and there, and
saw the names Mormon, Moroni, Lamanite, Lephi, I thought it was all
nonsense. Why, if it had been the real one, I could have sold it for
$3000;** but I just gave it to Howe because it was of no account."
During the interview his wife was present, and when Mrs. Dickenson
pressed him with the question, "Do you know where the 'Manuscript Found'
is at the present time?" Mrs. Hurlbut went up to him and said, "Tell
her what you know." She got no satisfactory answer, but he afterward
forwarded to her an affidavit saying that he had obtained of Mrs.
Davison a manuscript supposing it to be Spaulding's "Manuscript Found,"
adding: "I did not examine the manuscript until after I got home, when
upon examination I found it to contain nothing of the kind, but being
a manuscript upon an entirely different subject. This manuscript I left
with E. D. Howe."
With this presentation of the evidence showing the similarity between
Spaulding's story and the Mormon Bible narrative, we may next examine
the grounds for believing that Sidney Rigdon was connected with the
production of the Bible.
* A full account of this interview is given in her book, "New
Light on Mormonism" (1885).
** There have been surmises that Hurlbut also found the
"Manuscript Found" in the trunk and sold this to the Mormons. He sent a
specific denial of this charge to Robert Patterson in 1879.
CHAPTER VIII. -- SIDNEY RIGDON
The man who had more to do with founding the Mormon church than Joseph
Smith, Jr., even if we exclude any share in the production of the Mormon
Bible, and yet who is unknown even by name to most persons to whom the
names of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are familiar, was Sidney Rigdon.
Elder John Hyde, Jr., was well within the truth when he wrote: "The
compiling genius of Mormonism was Sidney Rigdon. Smith had boisterous
impetuosity but no foresight. Polygamy was not the result of his
policy but of his passions. Sidney gave point, direction, and apparent
consistency to the Mormon system of theology. He invented its forms and
the manner of its arguments.... Had it not been for the accession of
these two men [Rigdon and Parley P. Pratt] Smith would have been lost,
and his schemes frustrated and abandoned."*
* "Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs" (1857). Hyde, an
Englishman, joined the Mormons in that country when a lad and began to
preach almost at once. He sailed for this country in 1853 and joined the
brethren in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young's rule upset his faith, and he
abandoned the belief in 1854. Even H. H. Bancroft concedes him to have
been "an able and honest man, sober and sincere."
Rigdon (according to the sketch of him presented in Smith's
autobiography,* which he doubtless wrote) was born in St. Clair
township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 1793. His
father was a farmer, and he lived on the farm, receiving only a limited
education, until he was twenty-six years old. He then connected himself
with the Baptist church, and received a license to preach. Selecting
Ohio as his field, he continued his work in rural districts in that
state until 1821, when he accepted a call to a small Baptist church in
Pittsburg.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt.
Twenty years before the publication of the Mormon Bible, Thomas and
Alexander Campbell, Scotchmen, had founded a congregation in Washington
County, Pennsylvania, out of which grew the religious denomination
known as Disciples of Christ, or Campbellites, whose communicants in
the United States numbered 871,017 in the year 1890. The fundamental
principle of their teaching was that every doctrine of belief, or
maxim of duty, must rest upon the authority of Scripture, expressed or
implied, all human creeds being rejected. The Campbells (who had been
first Presbyterians and then Baptists) were wonderful orators and
convincing debaters out of the pulpit, and they drew to themselves many
of the most eloquent exhorters in what was then the western border of
the United States. Among their allies was another Scotchman, Walter
Scott, a musician and schoolteacher by profession, who assisted them
in their newspaper work and became a noted evangelist in their
denomination. During a visit to Pittsburg in 1823, Scott made Rigdon's
acquaintance, and a little later the flocks to which each preached
were united. In August, 1824, Rigdon announced his withdrawal from his
church. Regarding his withdrawal the sketch in Smith's autobiography
says:--
"After he had been in that place [Pittsburg] some time, his mind was
troubled and much perplexed with the idea that the doctrines maintained
by that society were not altogether in accordance with the Scriptures.
This thing continued to agitate his mind more and more, and his
reflections on these occasions were particularly trying; for, according
to his view of the word of God, no other church with whom he could
associate, or that he was acquainted with, was right; consequently,
if he was to disavow the doctrine of the church with whom he was then
associated, he knew of no other way of obtaining a living, except by
manual labor, and at that time he had a wife and three children to
support."
For two years after he gave up his church connection he worked as a
journeyman tanner. This is all the information obtainable about this
part of his life. We next find him preaching at Bainbridge, Ohio, as
an undenominational exhorter, but following the general views of the
Campbells, advising his hearers to reject their creeds and rest their
belief solely on the Bible.
In June, 1826, Rigdon received a call to a Baptist church at Mentor,
Ohio, whose congregation he had pleased when he preached the funeral
sermon of his predecessor. His labors were not confined, however, to
this congregation. We find him acting as the "stated" minister of a
Disciples' church organized at Mantua, Ohio, in 1827, preaching with
Thomas Campbell at Shalersville, Ohio, in 1828, and thus extending the
influence he had acquired as early as 1820, when Alexander Campbell
called him "the great orator of the Mahoning Association". In 1828 he
visited his old associate Scott, was further confirmed in his faith in
the Disciples' belief, and, taking his brother-in-law Bentley back with
him, they began revival work at Mentor, which led to the conversion of
more than fifty of their hearers. They held services at Kirtland, Ohio,
with equal success, and the story of this awakening was the main subject
of discussion in all the neighborhood round about. The sketch of Rigdon
in Smith's autobiography closes with this tribute to his power as a
preacher: "The churches where he preached were no longer large enough
to contain the vast assemblies. No longer did he follow the old beaten
track,... but dared to enter on new grounds,... threw new light on the
sacred volume,... proved to a demonstration the literal fulfilment of
prophecy...and the reign of Christ with his Saints on the earth in the
Millennium."
In tracing Rigdon's connection with Smith's enterprise, attention must
be carefully paid both to Rigdon's personal characteristics, and to the
resemblance between the doctrines he had taught in the pulpit and those
that appear in the Mormon Bible.
Rigdon's mental and religious temperament was just of the character
to be attracted by a novelty in religious belief. He, with his
brother-in-law, Adamson Bentley, visited Alexander Campbell in 1821, and
spent a whole night in religious discussion. When they parted the next
day, Rigdon declared that "if he had within the last year promulgated
one error, he had a thousand," and Mr. Campbell, in his account of the
interview, remarked, "I found it expedient to caution them not to begin
to pull down anything they had builded until they had reviewed, again
and again, what they had heard; not even then rashly and without much
consideration."*
* Millennial Harbinger, 1848, p. 523.
A leading member of the church at Mantua has written, "Sidney Rigdon
preached for us, and, notwithstanding his extravagantly wild freaks, he
was held in high repute by many."*
* "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve," by A: S. Hayden (1876), p. 239.
An important church discussion occurred at Warren, Ohio, in 1828.
Following out the idea of the literal interpretation of the Scriptures
taught in the Disciples' church, Rigdon sprung on the meeting an
argument in favor of a community of goods, holding that the apostles
established this system at Jerusalem, and that the modern church, which
rested on their example, must follow them. Alexander Campbell, who was
present, at once controverted this position, showing that the apostles,
as narrated in Acts, "sold their possessions" instead of combining them
for a profit, and citing Bible texts to prove that no "community system"
existed in the early church. This argument carried the meeting,
and Rigdon left the assemblage, embittered against Campbell beyond
forgiveness. To a brother in Warren, on his way home, he declared, "I
have done as much in this reformation as Campbell or Scott, and yet they
get all the honor of it." This claim is set forth specifically in the
sketch of Rigdon in Smith's autobiography. Referring to Rigdon and
Alexander Campbell, this statement is there made:--
"After they had separated from the different churches, these gentlemen
were on terms of the greatest friendship, and frequently met together to
discuss the subject of religion, being yet undetermined respecting the
principles of the doctrine of Christ or what course to pursue. However,
from this connection sprung up a new church in the world, known by the
name of 'Campbellites'; they call themselves 'Disciples.' The reason
why they were called Campbellites was in consequence of Mr. Campbell's
periodical, above mentioned [the Christian Baptist], and it being the
means through which they communicated their sentiments to the world;
other than this, Mr. Campbell was no more the originator of the sect
than Elder Rigdon."
Rigdon's bitterness against the Campbells and his old church more
than once manifested itself in his later writings. For instance, in
an article in the Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland), of June, 1837,
he said: "One thing has been done by the coming forth of the Book of
Mormon. It has puked the Campbellites effectually; no emetic could have
done so half as well.... The Book of Mormon has revealed the secrets of
Campbellism and unfolded the end of the system." In this jealousy of the
Campbells, and the discomfiture as a leader which he received at their
hands, we find a sufficient object for Rigdon's desertion of his old
church associations and desire to build up something, the discovery of
which he could claim, and the government of which he could control.
To understand the strength of the argument that the doctrinal teachings
of the Mormon Bible were the work of a Disciples' preacher rather
than of the ne'er-do-well Smith, it is only necessary to examine
the teachings of the Disciples' church in Ohio at that time. The
investigator will be startled by the resemblance between what was then
taught to and believed by Disciples' congregations and the leading
beliefs of the Mormon Bible. In the following examples of this the
illustrations of Disciples' beliefs and teachings are taken from
Hayden's "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve."
The literal interpretation of the Scriptures, on which the Mormon
defenders of their faith so largely depend,--as for explanations of
modern revelations, miracles, and signs,--was preached to so extreme a
point by Ohio Disciples that Alexander Campbell had to combat them in
his Millennial Harbinger. An outcome of this literal interpretation was
a belief in a speedy millennium, another fundamental belief of the early
Mormon church. "The hope of the millennial glory," says Hayden, "was
based on many passages of the Holy Scriptures.... Millennial hymns were
learned and sung with a joyful fervor.... It is surprising even now,
as memory returns to gather up these interesting remains of that mighty
work, to recall the thorough and extensive knowledge which the convert
quickly obtained. Nebuchadnezzar's vision... many portions of the
Revelation were so thoroughly studied that they became the staple of
the common talk." Rigdon's old Pittsburg friend, Scott, in his report
as evangelist to the church association at Warren in 1828, said:
"Individuals eminently skilled in the word of God, the history of the
world, and the progress of human improvements see reasons to expect
great changes, much greater than have yet occurred, and which shall give
to political society and to the church a different, a very different,
complexion from what many anticipate. The millennium--the millennium
described in the Scriptures--will doubtless be a wonder, a terrible
wonder, to all."
Disciples' preachers understood that they spoke directly for God, just
as Smith assumed to do in his "revelations." Referring to the preaching
of Rigdon and Bentley, after a visit to Scott in March, 1828, Hayden
says, "They spoke with authority, for the word which they delivered was
not theirs, but that of Jesus Christ." The Disciples, like the Mormons,
at that time looked for the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. Scott* was
an enthusiastic preacher of this. "The fourteenth chapter of Zechariah,"
says Hayden, "was brought forward in proof--all considered as
literal--that the most marvellous and stupendous physical and climatic
changes were to be wrought in Palestine; and that Jesus Christ the
Messiah was to reign literally in Jerusalem, and in Mount Zion, and
before his ancients, gloriously."
* "In a letter to Dr. Richardson, written in 1830, he [Scott]
says the book of Elias Smith on the prophecies is the only sensible
work on that subject he had seen. He thinks this and Crowley on the
Apocalypse all the student of the Bible wants. He strongly commends
Smith's book to the doctor. This seems to be the origin of millennial
views among us. Rigdon, who always caught and proclaimed the last word
that fell from the lips of Scott or Campbell, seized these views (about
the millennium and the Jews) and, with the wildness of his extravagant
nature, heralded them everywhere."--"Early History of the Disciples'
Church in the Western Reserve," p. 186.
Campbell taught that "creeds are but statements, with few exceptions,
of doctrinal opinion or speculators' views of philosophical or dogmatic
subjects, and tended to confusion, disunion, and weakness." Orson Pratt,
in his "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," thus stated the
early Mormon view on the same subject: "If any man or council, without
the aid of immediate revelation, shall undertake to decide upon such
subjects, and prescribe 'articles of faith' or 'creeds' to govern the
belief or views of others, there will be thousands of well-meaning
people who will not have confidence in the productions of these
fallible men, and, therefore, frame creeds of their own.... In this way
contentions arise."
Finally, attention may be directed to the emphatic declarations of the
Disciples' doctrine of baptism in the Mormon Bible:--
"Ye shall go down and stand in the water, and in my name shall ye
baptize them.... And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and come
forth again out of the water."--3 Nephi Xi. 23, 26.
"I know that it is solemn mockery before God that ye should baptize
little children.... He that supposeth that little children need baptism
is in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity; for he hath
neither faith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should he be cut off while
in the thought, he must go down to hell. For awful is the wickedness to
suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism, and the other must
perish because he hath no baptism."--Moroni viii. 9, xc, 15.
There are but three conclusions possible from all this: that the Mormon
Bible was a work of inspiration, and that the agreement of its doctrines
with Disciples' belief only proves the correctness of the latter; that
Smith, in writing his doctrinal views, hit on the Disciples' tenets by
chance (he had had no opportunity whatever to study them); or, finally,
that some Disciple, learned in the church, supplied these doctrines to
him.
Advancing another step in the examination of Rigdon's connection with
the scheme, we find that even the idea of a new Bible was common belief
among the Ohio Disciples who listened to Scott's teaching. Describing
Scott's preaching in the winter of 1827-1828, Hayden says:--
"He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original apostolic
order which would restore to the church the ancient gospel as preached
by the apostles. The interest became an excitement;... the air was thick
with rumors of a 'new religion,' a 'new Bible.'"
Next we may cite two witnesses to show that Rigdon had a knowledge
of Smith's Bible in advance of its publication. His brother-in-law,
Bentley, in a letter to Walter Scott dated January 22, 1841, said,
"I know that Sidney Rigdon told me there was a book coming out, the
manuscript of which had been found engraved on gold plates, as much as
two years before the Mormon book made its appearance or had been heard
of by me."*
* Millennial Harbinger, 1844, p. 39. The Rev. Alexander Campbell
testified that this conversation took place in his presence.
One of the elders of the Disciples' church was Darwin Atwater, a
farmer, who afterward occupied the pulpit, and of whom Hayden says,
"The uniformity of his life, his undeviating devotion, his high and
consistent manliness and superiority of judgment, gave him an undisputed
preeminence in the church." In a letter to Hayden, dated April 26,
1873, Mr. Atwater said of Rigdon: "For a few months before his professed
conversion to Mormonism it was noticed that his wild extravagant
propensities had been more marked. That he knew before the coming of the
Book of Mormon is to me certain from what he said during the first
of his visits at my father's, some years before. He gave a wonderful
description of the mounds and other antiquities found in some parts of
America, and said that they must have been made by the aborigines. He
said there was a book to be published containing an account of those
things. He spoke of these in his eloquent, enthusiastic style, as being
a thing most extraordinary. Though a youth then, I took him to task for
expending so much enthusiasm on such a subject instead of things of
the Gospel. In all my intercourse with him afterward he never spoke of
antiquities, or of the wonderful book that should give account of them,
till the Book of Mormon really was published. He must have thought I was
not the man to reveal that to."*
* "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve," p. 239.
Dr. Storm Rosa, a leading physician of Ohio, in, a letter to the Rev.
John Hall of Ashtabula, written in 1841, said: "In the early part of
the year 1830 I was in company with Sidney Rigdon, and rode with him on
horseback for a few miles.... He remarked to me that it was time for
a new religion to spring up; that mankind were all right and ready for
it."*
* "Gleanings by the Way," p. 315.
Having thus established the identity of the story running through the
Spaulding manuscript and the historical part of the Mormon Bible, the
agreement of the doctrinal part of the latter with what was taught at
the time by Rigdon and his fellow-workers in Ohio, and Rigdon's previous
knowledge of the coming book, we are brought to the query: How did the
Spaulding manuscript become incorporated in the Mormon Bible?
It could have been so incorporated in two ways: either by coming into
the possession of Rigdon and being by him copied and placed in Smith's
hands for "translation," with the theological parts added;* or by coming
into possession of Smith in his wanderings around the neighborhood of
Hartwick, and being shown by him to Rigdon. Every aspect of this matter
has been discussed by Mormon and non-Mormon writers, and it can only be
said that definite proof is lacking. Mormon disputants set forth that
Spaulding moved from Pittsburg to Amity in 1814, and that Rigdon's first
visit to Pittsburg occurred in 1822. On the other hand, evidence is
offered that Rigdon was a "hanger around" Patterson's printing-office,
where Spaulding offered his manuscript, before the year 1816, and the
Rev. John Winter, M.D., who taught school in Pittsburg when Rigdon
preached there, and knew him well, recalled that Rigdon showed him a
large manuscript which he said a Presbyterian minister named Spaulding
had brought to the city for publication. Dr. Winter's daughter wrote to
Robert Patterson on April 5, 1881: "I have frequently heard my father
speak of Rigdon having Spaulding's manuscript, and that he had gotten
it from the printers to read it as a curiosity; as such he showed it to
father, and at that time Rigdon had no intention of making the use of it
that he afterward did." Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, in a report of a talk
with General and Mrs. Garfield on the subject at Mentor, Ohio, in 1880,
reports Mrs. Garfield as saying "that her father told her that Rigdon
in his youth lived in that neighborhood, and made mysterious journeys to
Pittsburg."*** She also quotes a statement by Mrs. Garfield's** father,
Z. Rudolph, "that during the winter previous to the appearance of the
Book of Mormon, Rigdon was in the habit of spending weeks away from his
home, going no one knew where."**** Tucker says that in the summer of
1827 "a mysterious stranger appears at Smith's residence, and holds
private interviews with the far-famed money-digger.... It was observed
by some of Smith's nearest neighbors that his visits were frequently
repeated." Again, when the persons interested in the publication of the
Bible were so alarmed by the abstraction of pages of the translation
by Mrs. Harris, "the reappearance of the mysterious stranger at Smith's
was," he says, "the subject of inquiry and conjecture by observers from
whom was withheld all explanation of his identity or purpose."*****
* "Rigdon has not been in full fellowship with Smith for more
than a year. He has been in his turn cast aside by Joe to make room for
some new dupe or knave who, perhaps, has come with more money. He
has never been deceived by Joe. I have no doubt that Rigdon was the
originator of the system, and, fearing for its success, put Joe forward
as a sort of fool in the play."--Letter from a resident near Nauvoo,
quoted in the postscript to Caswall's "City of the Mormons". (1843)
* For a collection of evidence on this subject, see Patterson's
"Who Wrote the Mormon Bible?"
** "Scribner's Magazine," October, 1881.
*** "New Light on Mormonism," p. 252.
***** "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," pp. 28, 46.
In a historical inquiry of this kind, it is more important to establish
the fact that a certain thing WAS DONE than to prove just HOW or WHEN
it was done. The entire narrative of the steps leading up to the
announcement of a new Bible, including Smith's first introduction to
the use of a "peek-stone" and his original employment of it, the changes
made in the original version of the announcement to him of buried
plates, and the final production of a book, partly historical and partly
theological, shows that there was behind Smith some directing mind, and
the only one of his associates in the first few years of the church's
history who could have done the work required was Sidney Rigdon.
President Fairchild, in his paper on the Spaulding manuscript already
referred to, while admitting that "it is perhaps impossible at this day
to prove or disprove the Spaulding theory," finds any argument against
the assumption that Rigdon supplied the doctrinal part of the new Bible,
in the view that "a man as self-reliant and smart as Rigdon, with a
superabundant gift of tongue and every form of utterance, would never
have accepted the servile task of mere interpolation; there could have
been no motive to it." This only shows that President Fairchild wrote
without knowledge of the whole subject, with ignorance of the motives
which did exist for Rigdon's conduct, and without means of acquainting
himself with Rigdon's history during his association with Smith. Some of
his motives we have already ascertained: We shall find that, almost from
the beginning of their removal to Ohio, Smith held him in a subjection
which can be explained only on the theory that Rigdon, the prominent
churchman, had placed himself completely in the power of the
unprincipled Smith, and that, instead of exhibiting self-reliance, he
accepted insult after insult until, just before Smith's death, he was
practically without influence in the church; and when the time came to
elect Smith's successor, he was turned out-of-doors by Brigham Young
with the taunting words, "Brother Sidney says he will tell our secrets,
but I would say, 'O don't, Brother Sidney! Don't tell our secrets--O
don't.' But if he tells our secrets we will tell his. Tit for tat!"
President Fairchild's argument that several of the original leaders of
the fanaticism must have been "adequate to the task" of supplying the
doctrinal part of the book, only furnishes additional proof of his
ignorance of early Mormon history, and his further assumption that
"it is difficult--almost impossible--to believe that the religious
sentiments of the Book of Mormon were wrought into interpolation" brings
him into direct conflict, as we shall see, with Professor Whitsitt,*
a much better equipped student of the subject.
* Post, pp. 92. 93.
If it should be questioned whether a man of Rigdon's church connection
would deliberately plan such a fraudulent scheme as the production of
the Mormon Bible, the inquiry may be easily satisfied. One of the first
tasks which Smith and Rigdon undertook, as soon as Rigdon openly joined
Smith in New York State, was the preparation of what they called a new
translation of the Scriptures. This work was undertaken in conformity
with a "revelation" to Smith and Rigdon, dated December, 1830 (Sec. 35,
"Doctrine and Covenants") in which Sidney was told, "And a commandment I
give unto thee, that thou shalt write for him; and the Scriptures shall
be given, even as they are in mine own bosom, to the salvation of mine
own elect." The "translating" was completed in Ohio, and the manuscript,
according to Smith, "was sealed up, no more to be opened till it arrived
in Zion."* This work was at first kept as a great secret, and Smith
and Rigdon moved to the house of a resident of Hiram township, Portage
County, Ohio, thirty miles from Kirtland, in September, 1831, to carry
it on; but the secret soon got out. The preface to the edition of the
book published at Plano, Illinois, in 1867, under the title, "The Holy
Scriptures translated and corrected by the Spirit of Revelation, by
Joseph Smith, Jr., the Seer," says that the manuscript remained in the
hands of the prophet's widow from the time of his death until 1866, when
it was delivered to a committee of the Reorganized Mormon conference for
publication. Some of its chapters were known to Mormon readers earlier,
since Corrill gives the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew in his
historical sketch, which was dated 1839.
* Millenial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 361.
The professed object of the translation was to restore the Scriptures to
their original purity and beauty, the Mormon Bible declaring that "many
plain and precious parts" had been taken from them. The real object,
however, was to add to the sacred writings a prediction of Joseph
Smith's coming as a prophet, which would increase his authority and
support the pretensions of the new Bible. That this was Rigdon's scheme
is apparent from the fact that it was announced as soon as he visited
Smith, and was carried on under his direction, and that the manuscript
translation was all in his handwriting.*
* Wyl's "Mormon Portraits," p.124.
Extended parts of the translation do not differ at all from the King
James version, and many of the changes are verbal and inconsequential.
Rigdon's object appears in the changes made in the fiftieth chapter
of Genesis, and the twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah. In the King James
version the fiftieth chapter of Genesis contains twenty-six verses, and
ends with the words, "So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years
old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." In
the Smith-Rigdon version this chapter contains thirty-eight verses, the
addition representing Joseph as telling his brethren that a branch of
his people shall be carried into a far country and that a seer shall
be given to them, "and that seer will I bless, and they that seek to
destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise I give unto you; for
I will remember you from generation to generation; and his name shall be
called Joseph. And he shall have judgment, and shall write the word of
the Lord."
The twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah is similarly expanded from
twenty-four short to thirty-two long verses. Verses eleven and twelve of
the King James version read:--
"And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is
sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I
pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed.
"And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read
this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned."
The Smith-Rigdon version expands this as follows:--"11. And it shall
come to pass, that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of
a book; and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered.
"12. And behold, the book shall be sealed; and in the book shall be
a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending
thereof.
"13. Wherefore, because of the things which are sealed up, the things
which are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of the wickedness and
abominations of the people. Wherefore, the book shall be kept from them.
"14. But the book shall be delivered unto a man, and he shall deliver
the words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered
in the dust; and he shall deliver these words unto another, but the
words that are sealed he shall not deliver, neither shall he deliver the
book.
"15. For the book shall be sealed by the power of God, and the
revelation which was sealed shall be kept in the book until the own due
time of the Lord, that they may come forth; for, behold, they reveal all
things from the foundation of the world unto the end thereof."
No one will question that a Rigdon who would palm off such a fraudulent
work as this upon the men who looked to him as a religious teacher would
hesitate to suggest to Smith the scheme for a new Bible. During the work
of translation, as we learn from Smith's autobiography, the translators
saw a wonderful vision, in which they "beheld the glory of the Son on
the right hand of the Father," and holy angels, and the glory of the
worlds, terrestrial and celestial. Soon after this they received an
explanation from heaven of some obscure texts in Revelation. Thus, the
sea of glass (iv. 6) "is the earth in its sanctified, immortal, and
eternal state"; by the little book which was eaten by John (chapter x)
"we are to understand that it was a mission and an ordinance for him to
gather the tribes of Israel."
It may be added that this translation is discarded by the modern Mormon
church in Utah. The Deseret Evening News, the church organ at Salt Lake
City, said on February 21, 1900:--
"The translation of the Bible, referred to by our correspondents, has
not been adopted by this church as authoritative. It is understood
that the Prophet Joseph intended before its publication to subject
the manuscript to an entire examination, for such revision as might be
deemed necessary. Be that as it may, the work has not been published
under the auspices of this church, and is, therefore, not held out as a
guide. For the present, the version of the scriptures commonly known
as King James's translation is used, and the living oracles are the
expounders of the written word."
We may anticipate the course of our narrative in order to show how much
confirmation of Rigdon's connection with the whole Mormon scheme is
furnished by the circumstances attending the first open announcement
of his acceptance of the Mormon literature and faith. We are first
introduced to Parley P. Pratt, sometime tin peddler, and a lay preacher
to rural congregations in Ohio when occasion offered. Pratt in his
autobiography tells of the joy with which he heard Rigdon preach, at
his home in Ohio, doctrines of repentance and baptism which were the
"ancient gospel" that he (Pratt) had "discovered years before, but
could find no one to minister in"; of a society for worship which he
and others organized; of his decision, acting under the influence of the
Gospel and prophecies "as they had been opened to him," to abandon the
home he had built up, and to set out on a mission "for the Gospel's
sake"; and of a trip to New York State, where he was shown the Mormon
Bible. "As I read," he says, "the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I
knew and comprehended that the book was true."
Pratt was at once commissioned, "by revelation and the laying on of
hands," to preach the new Gospel, and was sent, also by "revelation"
(Sec. 32, "Doctrine and Covenants"), along with Cowdery, Z. Peterson,
and Peter Whitmer, Jr., "into the wilderness among the Lamanites." Pratt
and Cowdery went direct to Rigdon's house in Mentor, where they stayed
a week. Pratt's own account says: "We called on Mr. Rigdon, my former
friend and instructor in the Reformed Baptist Society. He received us
cordially, and entertained us with hospitality."*
* "Autobiography of P. P. Pratt," p. 49.
In Smith's autobiography it is stated that Rigdon's visitors presented
the Mormon Bible to him as a revelation from God, and what followed is
thus described:--
"This being the first time he had ever heard of or seen the Book of
Mormon, he felt very much prejudiced at the assertion, and replied that
'he had one Bible which he believed was a revelation from God, and with
which he pretended to have some acquaintance; but with respect to the
book they had presented him, he must say HE HAD SOME CONSIDERABLE DOUBT'
Upon which they expressed a desire to investigate the subject and argue
the matter; but he replied, 'No, young gentlemen, you must not argue
with me on the subject. But I will read your book, and see what claim
it has upon my faith, and will endeavor to ascertain whether it be a
revelation from God or not'. After some further conversation on the
subject, they expressed a desire to lay the subject before the people,
and requested the privilege of preaching in Elder Rigdon's church, TO
WHICH HE READILY CONSENTED. The appointment was accordingly published,
and a large and respectable congregation assembled. Oliver Cowdery and
Parley P. Pratt severally addressed the meeting. At the conclusion Elder
Rigdon arose and stated to the congregation that the information
they that evening had received was of an extraordinary character, and
certainly demanded their most serious consideration; and, as the apostle
advised his brethren 'to prove all things and hold fast that which is
good,' so he would exhort his brethren to do likewise, and give the
matter a careful investigation, and NOT TURN AGAINST IT, WITHOUT BEING
FULLY CONVINCED OF ITS BEING AN IMPOSITION, LEST THEY SHOULD POSSIBLY
RESIST THE TRUTH."
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 47.
Accepting this as a correct report of what occurred (and we may consider
it from Rigdon's pen), we find a clergyman who was a fellow-worker with
men like Campbell and Scott expressing only "considerable doubt" of
the inspiration of a book presented to him as a new Bible, "readily
consenting" to the use of his church by the sponsors for this book, and,
at the close of their arguments, warning his people against rejecting
it too readily "lest they resist the truth"! Unless all these are
misstatements, there seems to be little necessity of further proof that
Rigdon was prepared in advance for the reception of the Mormon Bible.
After this came the announcement of the conversion and baptism by the
Mormon missionaries of a "family" of seventeen persons living in some
sort of a "community" system, between Mentor and Kirtland. Rigdon,
who had merely explained to his neighbors that his visitors were "on
a curious mission," expressed disapproval of this at first, and took
Cowdery to task for asserting that his own conversion to the new belief
was due to a visit from an angel. But, two days later, Rigdon himself
received an angel's visit, and the next Sunday, with his wife, was
baptized into the new faith.
Rigdon, of course, had to answer many inquiries on his return to Ohio
from a visit to Smith which soon followed his conversion, but his policy
was indignant reticence whenever pressed to any decisive point. To an
old acquaintance who, after talking the matter over with him at his
house, remarked that the Koran of Mohammed stood on as good evidence as
the Bible of Smith, Rigdon replied: "Sir, you have insulted me in my own
house. I command silence. If people come to see us and cannot treat us
civilly, they can walk out of the door as soon as they please."* Thomas
Campbell sent a long letter to Rigdon under date of February 4, 1831,
in which he addressed him as "for many years not only a courteous and
benevolent friend, but a beloved brother and fellow-laborer in the
Gospel--but alas! how changed, how fallen." Accepting a recent offer of
Rigdon in one of his sermons to give his reasons for his new belief, Mr.
Campbell offered to meet him in public discussion, even outlining the
argument he would offer, under nine headings, that Rigdon might be
prepared to refute it, proposing to take his stand on the sufficiency
of the Holy Scriptures, Smith's bad character, the absurdities of the
Mormon Bible and of the alleged miraculous "gifts," and the objections
to the "common property" plan and the rebaptizing of believers. Rigdon,
after glancing over a few lines of this letter, threw it into the fire
unanswered.**
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 112.
** Ibid., p. 116-123.
CHAPTER IX. -- "THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL"
Having presented the evidence which shows that the historical part of
the Mormon Bible was supplied by the Spaulding manuscript, we may
now pay attention to other evidence, which indicates that the entire
conception of a revelation of golden plates by an angel was not even
original, and also that its suggestor was Rigdon. This is a subject
which has been overlooked by investigators of the Mormon Bible.
That the idea of the revelation as described by Smith in his
autobiography was not original is shown by the fact that a similar
divine message, engraved on plates, was announced to have been received
from an angel nearly six hundred years before the alleged visit of an
angel to Smith. These original plates were described as of copper, and
the recipient was a monk named Cyril, from whom their contents passed
into the possession of the Abbot Joachim, whose "Everlasting Gospel,"
founded thereon, was offered to the church as supplanting the New
Testament, just as the New Testament had supplanted the Old, and caused
so serious a schism that Pope Alexander IV took the severest measures
against it.*
* Draper's "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II, Chap.
III. For an exhaustive essay on the "Everlasting Gospel," by Renan,
see Revue des Deux Mondes, June, 1866. For John of Parma's part in the
Gospel, see "Histoire Litteraire de la France" (1842), Vol. XX, p. 24.
The evidence that the history of the "Everlasting Gospel" of the
thirteenth century supplied the idea of the Mormon Bible lies not only
in the resemblance between the celestial announcement of both, but in
the fact that both were declared to have the same important purport--as
a forerunner of the end of the world--and that the name "Everlasting
Gospel" was adopted and constantly used in connection with their message
by the original leaders in the Mormon church.
If it is asked, How could Rigdon become acquainted with the story of
the original "Everlasting Gospel," the answer is that it was just such
subjects that would most attract his attention, and that his studies had
led him into directions where the story of Cyril's plates would probably
have been mentioned. He was a student of every subject out of which he
could evolve a sect, from the time of his Pittsburg pastorate. Hepworth
Dixon said, "He knew the writings of Maham, Gates, and Boyle, writings
in which love and marriage are considered in relation to Gospel liberty
and the future life."* H. H. Bancroft, noting his appointment as
Professor of Church History in Nauvoo University, speaks of him as
"versed in history, belles-lettres, and oratory."** Mrs. James A.
Garfield told Mrs. Dickenson that Rigdon taught her father Latin and
Greek.*** David Whitmer, who was so intimately acquainted with the
early history of the church, testified: "Rigdon was a thorough biblical
scholar, a man of fine education and a powerful orator."**** A writer,
describing Rigdon while the church was at Nauvoo, said, "There is no
divine in the West more learned in biblical literature and the history
of the world than he."***** All this indicates that a knowledge of the
earlier "Everlasting Gospel" was easily within Rigdon's reach. We
may even surmise the exact source of this knowledge. Mosheim's
"Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern" was at his disposal.
Editions of it had appeared in London in 1765, 1768, 1774, 1782, 1790,
1806, 1810, and 1826, and among the abridgments was one published in
Philadelphia in 1812. In this work he could have read as follows:--
"About the commencement of this [the thirteenth] century there were
handed about in Italy several pretended prophecies of the famous
Joachim, abbot of Sora in Calabria, whom the multitude revered as a
person divinely inspired, and equal to the most illustrious prophets of
ancient times. The greatest part of these predictions were contained in
a certain book entitled, 'The Everlasting Gospel,' and which was also
commonly called the Book of Joachim. This Joachim, whether a real or
fictitious person we shall not pretend to determine, among many other
future events, foretold the destruction of the Church of Rome, whose
corruptions he censured with the greatest severity, and the promulgation
of a new and more perfect gospel in the age of the Holy Ghost, by a set
of poor and austere ministers, whom God was to raise up and employ for
that purpose."
* "Spiritual Wives," p. 62.
** "Utah," p. 146.
*** Scribner's Magazine, October, 1881.
**** "Address to All Believers in Christ;" p. 35.
***** Letter in the New York Herald.
Here is a perfect outline of the scheme presented by the original
Mormons, with Joseph as the divinely inspired prophet, and an
"Everlasting Gospel," the gift of an angel, promulgated by poor men like
the travelling Mormon elders.
The original suggestion of an "Everlasting Gospel" is found in
Revelation xiv. 6 and 7:--
"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the
everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to
every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud
voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is
come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the
fountains of water."** "Bisping (after Gerlach) takes Rev. xiv. 6-11 to
foretell that three great events at the end of the last world-week are
immediately to precede Christ's second advent (1) the announcement of
the 'eternal' Gospel to the whole world (Matt. xxiv. 14); (2)the Fall of
Babylon; (3)a warning to all who worship the beast.... Burger says
this vision can denote nothing but a last admonition and summons to
conversion shortly before the end."--Note in "Commentary by Bishops and
Other Clergy of the Anglican Church."
This was the angel of Cyril; this the announcement of those "latter
days" from which the Mormon church, on Rigdon's motion, soon took its
name.
That Rigdon's attention had been attracted to an "Everlasting Gospel" is
proved by the constant references made to it in writings of which he had
at least the supervision, from the very beginning of the church. Thus,
when he preached his first sermon before a Mormon audience--on the
occasion of his visit to Smith at Palmyra in 1830--he took as his text a
part of the version of Revelation xiv. which he had put into the Mormon
Bible (1 Nephi xiii. 40), and in his sermon, as reported by Tucker, who
heard it, holding the Scriptures in one hand and the Mormon Bible in the
other, he said, "that they were inseparably necessary to complete the
everlasting gospel of the Saviour Jesus Christ." In the account, in
Smith's autobiography, of the first description of the buried book given
to Smith by the angel, its two features are named separately, first,
"an account of the former inhabitants of this continent," and then "the
fulness of the Everlasting Gospel." That Rigdon never lost sight of the
importance, in his view, of an "Everlasting Gospel" may be seen from the
following quotation from one of his articles in his Pittsburg organ,
the Messenger and Advocate, of June 15, 1845, after his expulsion from
Nauvoo: "It is a strict observance of the principles of the fulness of
the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ, as contained in the Bible,
Book of Mormon, and Book of Covenants, which alone will insure a man an
inheritance in the kingdom of our God."
The importance attached to the "Everlasting Gospel" by the founders
of the church is seen further in the references to it in the "Book of
Doctrine and Covenants," which it is not necessary to cite,* and further
in a pamphlet by Elder Moses of New York (1842), entitled "A Treatise
on the Fulness of the Everlasting Gospel, setting forth its First
Principles, Promises, and Blessings," in which he argued that the
appearance of the angel to Smith was in direct line with the Scriptural
teaching, and that the last days were near.
* For examples see Sec. 68, 1; Sec. 101, 22; Sec. 124, 88.
CHAPTER X. -- THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES
In his accounts to his neighbors of the revelation to him of the golden
plates on which the "record" was written, Smith always declared that no
person but him could look on those plates and live. But when the
printed book came out, it, like all subsequent editions to this day, was
preceded by the following "testimonies":--
"THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES
"Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom
this work shall come, that we through the grace of God the Father, and
our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record,
which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites,
their brethren, and also the people of Jared, who came from the tower of
which hath been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated
by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us;
wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify
that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they
have been shewn unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we
declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from
heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw
the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the
grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and
bear record that these things are true; and it is marvellous in our
eyes, nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should
bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments
of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are
faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men,
and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall
dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honour be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.
"OLIVER COWDERY, DAVID WHITMER, MARTIN HARRIS.
"AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF THE EIGHT WITNESSES
"Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom
this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this
work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have
the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has
translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings
thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious
workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the
said Smith has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of
a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken.
And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that
which we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.
"CHRISTIAN WHITMER, HIRAM PAGE, JACOB WHITMER, JOSEPH SMITH, SEN., PETER
WHITMER, JUN., HYRUM SMITH, JOHN WHITMER, SAMUEL H. SMITH."
In judging of the value of this testimony, we may first inquire, what
the prophet has to say about it, and may then look into the character
and qualification of the witnesses.
We find a sufficiently full explanation of Testimony No. 1 in Smith's
autobiography and in his "revelations." Nothing could be more natural
than that such men as the prophet was dealing with should demand a sight
of any plates from which he might be translating. Others besides Harris
made such a demand, and Smith repeated the warning that to look on them
was death. This might satisfy members of his own family, but it did
not quiet his scribes, and he tells us that Cowdery, David Whitmer, and
Harris "teased me so much" (these are his own words) that he gave out a
"revelation" in March, 1829 (Sec. 5, "Doctrine and Covenants"), in which
the Lord was represented as saying that the prophet had no power over
the plates except as He granted it, but that to his testimony would
be added "the testimony of three of my servants, whom I shall call and
ordain, unto whom I will show these things, "adding," and to none else
will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this
generation." The Lord was distrustful of Harris, and commanded him not
to be talkative on the subject, but to say nothing about it except, "I
have seen them, and they have been shown unto me by the power of God."
Smith's own account of the showing of the plates to these three
witnesses is so luminous that it may be quoted. After going out into
the woods, they had to stand Harris off by himself because of his evil
influence. Then:--
"We knelt down again, and had not been many minutes engaged in prayer
when presently we beheld a light above us in the air of exceeding
brightness; and behold an angel stood before us. In his hands he held
the plates which we had been praying for these to have a view of;
he turned over the leaves one by one, so that we could see them and
discover the engravings thereon distinctly. He then addressed himself
to David Whitmer and said, 'David, blessed is the Lord and he that keeps
his commandments'; when immediately afterward we heard a voice from out
of the bright light above us saying, 'These plates have been revealed by
the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The
translation of them is correct, and I command you to bear record of what
you now see and hear.'
"I now left David and Oliver, and went into pursuit of Martin Harris,
whom I found at a considerable distance, fervently engaged in prayer. He
soon told me, however, that he had not yet prevailed with the Lord, and
earnestly requested me to join him in prayer, that he might also realize
the same blessings which we had just received. We accordingly joined
in prayer, and immediately obtained our desires; for before we had yet
finished, the same vision was opened to our view, AT LEAST IT WAS
AGAIN TO ME [Joe thus refuses to vouch for Harris's declaration on the
subject]; and I once more beheld and heard the same things; whilst, at
the same moment, Martin Harris cried out, apparently in ecstasy of
joy, 'Tis enough, mine eyes hath beheld,' and, jumping up, he shouted
'Hosannah,' blessing God, and otherwise rejoiced exceedingly."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 19.
If this story taxes the credulity of the reader, his doubts about the
value of this "testimony" will increase when he traces the history
of the three witnesses. Surely, if any three men in the church should
remain steadfast, mighty pillars of support for the prophet in his
future troubles, it should be these chosen witnesses to the actual
existence of the golden plates. Yet every one of them became an
apostate, and every one of them was loaded with all the opprobrium that
the church could pile upon him.
Cowdery's reputation was locally bad at the time. "I was personally
acquainted with Oliver Cowdery," said Danforth Booth, an old resident of
Palmyra, in 1880. "He was a pettifogger; their (the Smiths') cat-paw to
do their dirty work."* Smith's trouble with him, which began during
the work of translating, continued, and Smith found it necessary to
say openly in a "revelation" given out in Ohio in 1831 (Sec. 69), when
preparations were making for a trip of some of the brethren to
Missouri, "It is not wisdom in me that he should be intrusted with the
commandments and the monies which he shall carry unto the land of Zion,
except one go with him who will be true and faithful."
* Among affidavits on file in the county clerk's office at
Canandaigua, New York.
By the time Smith took his final departure to Missouri, Cowdery and
David and John Whitmer had lost caste entirely, and in June, 1838, they
fled to escape the Danites at Far West. The letter of warning addressed
to them and signed by more than eighty Mormons, giving them three days
in which to depart, contained the following accusations:--
"After Oliver Cowdery had been taken by a state warrant for stealing,
and the stolen property found in the house of William W. Phelps; in
which nefarious transaction John Whitmer had also participated. Oliver
Cowdery stole the property, conveyed it to John Whitmer, and John
Whitmer to William W. Phelps; and then the officers of law found it.
While in the hands of an officer, and under an arrest for this vile
transaction, and, if possible, to hide your shame from the world
like criminals (which, indeed, you were), you appealed to our beloved
brethren, President Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon, men whose
characters you had endeavored to destroy by every artifice you could
invent, not even the basest lying excepted....
"The Saints in Kirtland having elected Oliver Cowdery to a justice of
the peace, he used the power of that office to take their most sacred
rights from them, and that contrary to law. He supported a parcel of
blacklegs, and in disturbing the worship of the Saints; and when the men
whom the church had chosen to preside over their meetings endeavored to
put the house to order, he helped (and by the authority of his justice's
office too) these wretches to continue their confusion; and threatened
the church with a prosecution for trying to put them out of the house;
and issued writs against the Saints for endeavoring to sustain their
rights; and bound themselves under heavy bonds to appear before his
honor; and required bonds which were both inhuman and unlawful; and one
of these was the venerable father, who had been appointed by the church
to preside--a man of upwards of seventy years of age, and notorious for
his peaceable habits.
"Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Lyman E. Johnson, united with a gang
of counterfeiters, thieves, liars and blacklegs of the deepest dye, to
deceive, cheat and defraud the Saints out of their property, by every
art and stratagem which wickedness could invent; using the influence
of the vilest persecutions to bring vexatious lawsuits, villainous
prosecutions, and even stealing not excepted.... During the full career
of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer's bogus money business, it got
abroad into the world that they were engaged in it, and several
gentlemen were preparing to commence a prosecution against Cowdery; he
finding it out, took with him Lyman E. Johnson, and fled to Far West
with their families; Cowdery stealing property and bringing it with him,
which has been, within a few weeks past, obtained by the owner by means
of a search warrant, and he was saved from the penitentiary by the
influence of two influential men of the place. He also brought notes
with him upon which he had received pay, and made an attempt to sell
them to Mr. Arthur of Clay County."*
* "Documents in Relation to the Disturbances with the Mormons,"
Missouri Legislature (1841), p. 103.
Rigdon, who was the author of this arraignment, realizing that the
enemies of the church would not fail to make use of this aspersion of
the character of the witnesses, attempted to "hedge" by saying, in the
same document, "We wish to remind you that Oliver Cowdery and David
Whitmer were among the principal of those who were the means of
gathering us to this place by their testimony which they gave concerning
the plates of the Book of Mormon, that they were shown to them by an
angel; which testimony we believe now as much as before you had so
scandalously disgraced it." Could affrontery go to greater lengths?
Cowdery and David Whitmer fled to Richmond, Missouri, where Whitmer
lived until his death in January, 1888. Cowdery went to Tiffin, Ohio,
where, after failing to obtain a position as an editor because of his
Mormon reputation, he practised law. While living there he renounced his
Mormon views, joined the Methodist church, and became superintendent of
a Sunday-school. Later he moved to Wisconsin, but, after being defeated
for the legislature there, he recanted his Methodist belief, and
rejoined the Saints while they were at Council Bluffs, in October,
1848, after the main body had left for Salt Lake Valley. He addressed
a meeting there by invitation, testifying to the truth of the Book of
Mormon, and the mission of Smith as a prophet, and saying that he wanted
to be rebaptized into the church, not as a leader, but simply as a
member.* He did not, however, go to Utah with the Saints, but returned
to his old friend Whitmer in Missouri, and died there in 1850. It has
been stated that he offered to give a full renunciation of the Mormon
faith when he united with the Methodists at Tiffin, if required, but
asked to be excused from doing so on the ground that it would invite
criticism and bring him into contempt.** One of his Tiffin acquaintances
afterward testified that Cowdery confessed to him that, when he signed
the "testimony," he "was not one of the best men in the world," using
his own expression.*** The Mormons were always grateful to him for his
silence under their persecutions, and the Millennial Star, in a notice
of his death, expressed satisfaction that in the days of his apostasy
"he never, in a single instance, cast the least doubt on his former
testimony," adding, "May he rest in peace, to come forth in the morning
of the first resurrection into eternal life, is the earnest desire of
all Saints."
* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p.14.
** "Naked Truths about Mormonism," A. B. Demming, Oakland,
California, 1888.
*** "Gregg's History of Hancock County, Illinois," p. 257.
The Whitmers were a Dutch family, known among their neighbors as
believers in witches and in the miraculous generally, as has been shown
in Mother Smith's account of their sending for Joseph. A "revelation" to
the three witnesses which first promised them a view of the plates (Sec.
17) told them, "It is BY YOUR FAITH you shall obtain a view of them,"
and directed them to testify concerning the plates, "that my servant
Joseph Smith, Jr., may not be destroyed." One of the converts who joined
the Mormons at Kirtland, Ohio, testified in later years that David
Whitmer confessed to her that he never actually saw the plates,
explaining his testimony thus: "Suppose that you had a friend whose
character was such that you knew it impossible that he could lie; then,
if he described a city to you which you had never seen, could you not,
by the eye of faith, see the city just as he described it?"*
* Mrs. Dickenson's "New Light on Mormonism."
The Mormons have found consolation in the fact that Whitmer continued to
affirm his belief in the authenticity of the Mormon Bible to the day of
his death. He declared, however, that Smith and Young had led the
flock astray, and, after the open announcement of polygamy in Utah, he
announced a church of his own, called "The Church of Christ," refusing
to affiliate even with the Reorganized Church because of the latter's
adherence to Smith. In his "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon,"
a pamphlet issued in his eighty-second year, he said, "Now, in 1849 the
Lord saw fit to manifest unto John Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and myself
nearly all the remaining errors of doctrine into which we had been
led by the heads of the church." The reader from all this can form an
estimate of the trustworthiness of the second witness on such a subject.
We have already learned a great deal about Martin Harris's mental
equipment. A lawyer of standing in Palmyra told Dr. Clark that, after
Harris had signed the "testimony," he pressed him with the question:
"Did you see the plates with your natural eyes, just as you see
this pencil case in my hand? Now say yes or no." Harris replied (in
corroboration of Joe's misgiving at the time): "Why, I did not see them
as I do that pencil case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith. I saw
them just as distinctly as I see anything around me--though at the time
they were covered over with a cloth."*
* "Gleanings by the Way."
Harris followed Smith to Ohio and then to Missouri, but was ever a
trouble to him, although Smith always found his money useful. In 1831,
in Missouri, it required a "revelation" (Sec. 58) to spur him to "lay
his monies before the Bishop." As his money grew scarcer, he received
less and less recognition from the Mormon leaders, and was finally
expelled from the church. Smith thus referred to him in the Elders'
Journal, July, 1837, one of his publications in Ohio: "There are negroes
who wear white skins as well as black ones, granny Parish, and others
who acted as lackeys, such as Martin Harris."
Harris did not appear on the scene during the stay of the Mormons in
Illinois, having joined the Shakers and lived with them a year or two.
When Strang claimed the leadership of the church after Smith's death,
Harris gave him his support, and was sent by him with others to England
in 1846 to do missionary work. His arrival there was made the occasion
of an attack on him by the Millennial Star, which, among other things,
said:--
"We do not feel to warn the Saints against him, for his own unbridled
tongue will soon show out specimens of folly enough to give any person
a true index to the character of the man; but if the Saints wish to know
what the Lord hath said of him, they may turn to the 178th page of the
Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and the person there called a WICKED MAN
is no other than Martin Harris, and he owned to it then, but probably
might not now. It is not the first time the Lord chose a wicked man as
a witness. Also on page 193, read the whole revelation given to him, and
ask yourselves if the Lord ever talked in that way to a good man. Every
one can see that he must have been a wicked man."*
*Vol. VIII, p. 123.
Harris visited Palmyra in 1858. He then said that his property was all
gone, that he had declined a restoration to the Mormon church, but
that he continued to believe in Mormonism. He thought better of his
declination, however, and sought a reunion with the church in Utah
in 1870. His backslidings had carried him so far that the church
authorities told him it would be necessary for him to be rebaptized.
This he consented to with some reluctance, after, as he said, "he had
seen his father seeking his aid. He saw his father at the foot of a
ladder, striving to get up to him, and he went down to him, taking him
by the hand, and helped him up."* He settled in Cache County, Utah,
where he died on July 10, 1875, in his ninety-third year. "He bore his
testimony to the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon a short time
before he departed," wrote his son to an inquirer, "and the last words
he uttered, when he could not speak the sentence, were 'Book,' 'Book,'
'Book.'"
* For an account of Harris's Utah experience, see Millennial
Star, Vol. XLVIII, pp.357-389.
The precarious character of Smith's original partners in the Bible
business is further illustrated by his statement that, in the summer of
1830, Cowdery sent him word that he had discovered an error in one of
Smith's "revelations,"* and that the Whitmer family agreed with him on
the subject. Smith was as determined in opposing this questioning of
his divine authority as he always was in stemming any opposition to his
leadership, and he made them all acknowledge their error. Again, when
Smith returned to Fayette from Harmony, in August, 1830 (more than a
year after the plates were shown to the witnesses), he found that "Satan
had been lying in wait," and that Hiram Page, of the second list of
witnesses, had been obtaining revelations through a "peek-stone" of his
own, and that, what was more serious, Cowdery and the Whitmer family
believed in them. The result of this was an immediate "revelation"
(Sec. 28) directing Cowdery to go and preach the Gospel to the Lamanites
(Indians) on the western border, and to take along with him Hiram Page,
and tell him that the things he had written by means of the "peek-stone"
were not of the Lord.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 36.
Neither Smith's autobiography nor the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants"
contains any explanation of the second "testimony." The list of persons
who signed it, however, leaves little doubt that the prophet yielded to
their "teasing" as he did to that of the original three. The first four
signers were members of the Whitmer family. Hiram Page was a root-doctor
by calling, and a son-in-law of Peter Whitmer, Sr. The three Smiths were
the prophet's father and two of his brothers.*
* Christian Whitmer died in Clay County, Missouri, November 27,
1835; Jacob died in Richmond County, April 21, 1866; Peter died in Clay
County, September 22, 1836; Hiram Page died on a farm in Ray County,
August 12, 1852.
The favorite Mormon reply to any question as to the value of these
"testimonies" is the challenge, "Is there a person on the earth who can
prove that these eleven witnesses did not see the plates?" Curiously,
the prophet himself can be cited to prove this, in the words of the
revelation granting a sight of the plates to the first three, which
said, "And to none else will I grant this power, to receive this same
testimony among this generation." A footnote to this declaration in the
"Doctrine and Covenants" offers, as an explanation of Testimony No.
2; the statement that others "may receive a knowledge by other
manifestations." This is well meant but transparent.
Mother Smith in later years added herself to these witnesses. She said
to the Rev. Henry Caswall, in Nauvoo, in 1842, "I have myself seen and
handled the golden plates." Mr. Caswall adds:--
"While the old woman was thus delivering herself, I fixed my eyes
steadily upon her. She faltered and seemed unwilling to meet my glances,
but gradually recovered her self-possession. The melancholy thought
entered my mind that this poor old creature was not simply a dupe of her
son's knavery, but that she had taken an active part in the deception."
Two matters have been cited by Mormon authorities to show that there
was nothing so very unusual in the discovery of buried plates containing
engraved letters. Announcement was made in 1843 of the discovery near
Kinderhook, Illinois, of six plates similar to those described by Smith.
The story, as published in the Times and Seasons, with a certificate
signed by nine local residents, set forth that a merchant of the place,
named Robert Wiley, while digging in a mound, after finding ashes and
human bones, came to "a bundle that consisted of six plates of brass, of
a bell shape, each having a hole near the small end, and a ring through
them all"; and that, when cleared of rust, they were found to be
"completely covered with characters that none as yet have been able to
read." Hyde, accepting this story, printed a facsimile of one of these
plates on the cover of his book, and seems to rest on Wiley's statement
his belief that "Smith did have plates of some kind." Stenhouse,* who
believed that Smith and his witnesses did not perpetrate in the
new Bible an intentional fraud, but thought they had visions and
"revelations," referring to the Kinderhook plates, says that they were
"actually and unquestionably discovered by one Mr. R. Wiley." Smith
himself, after no one else could read the writing on them, declared that
he had translated them, and found them to be a history of a descendant
of Ham.**
* T. B. H. Stenhouse, a Scotchman, was converted to the Mormon
belief in 1846, performed diligent missionary work in Europe, and was
for three years president of the Swiss and Italian missions. Joining the
brethren in Utah with his wife, he was persuaded to take a second wife.
Not long afterward he joined in the protest against Young's dictatorial
course which was known as the "New Movement," and was expelled from the
church. His "Rocky Mountain Saints" (1873) contains so much valuable
information connected with the history of the church that it has been
largely drawn on by E. W. Tullidge in his "History of Salt Lake City and
Its Founders," which is accepted by the church.
**Millennial Star, January 15, 1859, where cuts of the plates
(here produced) are given.
[Illustration:
Stenhouse Plates
124]
But the true story of the Kinderhook plates was disclosed by an
affidavit made by W. Fulgate of Mound Station, Brown County, Illinois,
before Jay Brown, Justice of the Peace, on June 30, 1879. In this he
stated that the plates were "a humbug, gotten up by Robert Wiley, Bridge
Whitton, and myself. Whitton (who was a blacksmith) cut the plates out
of some pieces of copper Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making
impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid, and putting it on the
plates. When they were finished, we put them together with rust made
of nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop
iron, covering them completely with the rust." He describes the burial
of the plates and their digging up, among the spectators of the latter
being two Mormon elders, Marsh and Sharp. Sharp declared that the Lord
had directed them to witness the digging. The plates were borrowed and
shown to Smith, and were finally given to one "Professor" McDowell of
St. Louis, for his museum.*
* Wyl's "Mormon Portraits," p. 207. The secretary of the Missouri
Historical Society writes me that McDowell's museum disappeared some
years ago, most of its contents being lost or stolen, and the fate of
the Kinderhook plates cannot be ascertained.
In attacking Professor Anthon's statement concerning the alleged
hieroglyphics shown to him by Harris, Orson Pratt, in his "Divine
Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," thought that he found substantial
support for Smith's hieroglyphics in the fact that "Two years after the
Book of Mormon appeared in print, Professor Rafinesque, in his Atlantic
journal for 1832, gave to the public a facsimile of American glyphs,*
found in Mexico. They are arranged in columns.... By an inspection of
the facsimile of these forty-six elementary glyphs, we find all the
particulars which Professor Anthon ascribes to the characters which he
says 'a plain-looking countryman' presented to him. "These" elementary
glyphs of Rafinesque are some of the characters found on the famous
"Tablet of the Cross" in the ruins of Palenque, Mexico, since so fully
described by Stevens. A facsimile of the entire Tablet may be found
on page 355, Vol. IV, Bancroft's "Native Races of the Pacific States."
Rafinesque selected these characters from the Tablet, and arranged them
in columns alongside of other ancient writings, in order to sustain his
argument that they resembled an old Libyan alphabet. Rafinesque was a
voluminous writer both on archaeological and botanical subjects, but
wholly untrustworthy. Of his Atlantic Journal (of which only eight
numbers appeared) his biographer, R. E. Call, says that it had
"absolutely no scientific value." Professor Asa Gray, in a review of his
botanical writings in Silliman's Journal, Vol. XL, No. 2, 1841, said,
"He assumes thirty to one hundred years as the average time required for
the production of a new species, and five hundred to one thousand for
a new genus." Professor Gray refers to a paper which Rafinesque sent
to the editor of a scientific journal describing twelve new species
of thunder and lightning. He was very fond of inventing names, and his
designation of Palenque as Otolum was only an illustration of this. So
much for the 'elementary glyphs.'"
* "Glyph: A pictograph or word carved in a compact distinct
figure."--Standard Dictionary.
CHAPTER XI. -- THE MORMON BIBLE
The Mormon Bible,* both in a literary and a theological sense, is just
such a production as would be expected to result from handing over to
Smith and his fellow-"translators" a mass of Spaulding's material and
new doctrinal matter for collation and copying. Not one of these
men possessed any literary skill or accurate acquaintance with the
Scriptures. David Whitmer, in an interview in Missouri in his later
years, said, "So illiterate was Joseph at that time that he didn't know
that Jerusalem was a walled city, and he was utterly unable to
pronounce many of the names that the magic power of the Urim and Thummim
revealed." Chronology, grammar, geography, and Bible history were alike
ignored in the work. An effort was made to correct some of these errors
in the early days of the church, and Smith speaks of doing some of this
work himself at Nauvoo. An edition issued there in 1842 contains on
the title-page the words, "Carefully revised by the translator." Such
corrections have continued to the present day, and a comparison of
the latest Salt Lake edition with the first has shown more than three
thousand changes.
* The title of this Bible is "The Book of Mormon"; but as one of
its subdivisions is a Book of Mormon, I use the title "Mormon Bible,"
both to avoid confusion and for convenience.
The person who for any reason undertakes the reading of this book sets
before himself a tedious task. Even the orthodox Mormons have found this
to be true, and their Bible has played a very much less considerable
part in the church worship than Smith's "revelations" and the discourses
of their preachers. Referring to Orson Pratt's* labored writings on this
Bible, Stenhouse says, "Of the hundreds of thousands of witnesses to
whom God has revealed the truth of the 'Book of Mormon,' Pratt knows
full well that comparatively few indeed have ever read that book,
know little or nothing intelligently of its contents, and take little
interest in it."** An examination of its contents is useful, therefore,
rather as a means of proving the fraudulent character of its pretension
to divine revelation than as a means of ascertaining what the members of
the Mormon church are taught.
* Orson Pratt was a clerk in a store in Hiram, Ohio, when he was
converted to Mormonism. He seems to have been a natural student, and he
rose to prominence in the church, being one of the first to expound and
defend the Mormon Bible and doctrines, holding a professorship in Nauvoo
University, publishing works on the higher mathematics, and becoming one
of the Twelve Apostles.
** "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 553.
The following page (omitted in this etext) presents a facsimile of the
title-page of the first edition of this Bible. The editions of to-day
substitute "Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun.," for "By Joseph Smith,
junior, author and proprietor."
The first edition contains 588 duodecimo pages, and is divided into 15
books which are named as follows: "First Book of Nephi, his reign and
ministry," 7 chapters; "Second Book of Nephi," 15 chapters; "Book of
Jacob, the Brother of Nephi," 5 chapters; "Book of Enos," 1 chapter;
"Book of Jarom," 1 chapter; "Book of Omni," 1 chapter; "Words of
Mormon," 1 chapter; "Book of Mosiah," 13 chapters; "Book of Alma, a Son
of Alma," 30 chapters; "Book of Helaman," 5 chapters; "Third Book of
Nephi, the Son of Nephi, which was the son of Helaman," 14 chapters;
"Fourth Book of Nephi, which is the Son of Nephi, one of the Disciples
of Jesus Christ," 1 chapter; "Book of Mormon," 4 chapters; "Book of
Ether," 6 chapters; "Book of Moroni," 10 chapters. The chapters in
the first edition were not divided into verses, that work, with the
preparation of the very complete footnote references in the later
editions, having been performed by Orson Pratt.
The historical narrative that runs through the book is so disjointedly
arranged, mixed up with doctrinal parts, and repeated, that it is not
easy to unravel it. The following summary of it is contained in a letter
to Colonel John Wentworth of Chicago, signed by Joseph Smith, Jr., which
was printed in Wentworth's Chicago newspaper and also in the Mormon
Times and Seasons of March 1, 1842:--
"The history of America is unfolded from its first settlement by a
colony that came from the Tower of Babel at the confusion of languages,
to the beginning of the 5th century of the Christian era. We are
informed by these records that America in ancient times has been
inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called
Jaredites, and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race
came directly from the city of Jerusalem about 600 years before Christ.
They were principally Israelites of the descendants of Joseph. The
Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from
Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inhabitance of the country. The
principal nation of the second race fell in battle toward the close of
the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this
country."
This history purports to have been handed down, on metallic plates, from
one historian to another, beginning with Nephi, from the time of the
departure from Jerusalem. Finally (4 Nephi i. 48, 49*), the people
being wicked, Ammaron, by direction of the Holy Ghost, hid these sacred
records "that they might come again unto the remnant of the house of
Jacob."
* All references to the Mormon Bible by chapter and verse refer
to Salt Lake City edition of 1888.
To bring the story down to a comparatively recent date, and account for
the finding of the plates by Smith, the Book of Mormon was written by
the "author." This subdivision is an abridgment of the previous records.
It relates that Mormon, a descendant of Nephi, when ten years old, was
told by Ammaron that, when about twenty-four years old, he should go to
the place where the records were hidden, take only the plates of Nephi,
and engrave on them all the things he had observed concerning the
people. The next year Mormon was taken by his father, whose name also
was Mormon, to the land of Zarahemla, which had become covered with
buildings and very populous, but the people were warlike and wicked.
Mormon in time, "seeing that the Lamanites were about to overthrow the
land," took the records from their hiding place. He himself accepted the
command of the armies of the Nephites, but they were defeated with great
slaughter, the Lamanites laying waste their cities and driving them
northward.
Finally Mormon sent a letter to the king of the Lamanites, asking that
the Nephites might gather their people "unto the land of Cumorah, by
a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we would give them battle."
There, in the year 384 A.D., Mormon "made this record out of the plates
of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which have been
entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were those few plates
which I gave unto my son Moroni."* This hill, according to the Mormon
teaching, is the hill near Palmyra, New York, where Smith found the
plates, just as Mormon had deposited them.
* Hyde gives a list of twenty-four additional plates mentioned in
this Bible which must still await digging up in the hill near Palmyra.
In the battle which took place there the Nephites were practically
annihilated, and all the fugitives were killed except Moroni, the son of
Mormon, who undertook the completion of the "record." Moroni excuses
the briefness of his narrative by explaining that he had not room in the
plates, "and ore have I none" (to make others). What he adds is in the
nature of a defence of the revealed character of the Mormon Bible and of
Smith's character as a prophet. Those, for instance, who say that there
are no longer "revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor
speaking with tongues," are told that they know not the Gospel of Christ
and do not understand the Scriptures. An effort is made to forestall
criticism of the "mistakes" that are conceded in the title-page
dedication by saying, "Condemn me not because of mine imperfection,
neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have
written before him" (Book of Mormon ix. 31).
Evidently foreseeing that it would be asked why these "records," written
by Jews and their descendants, were not in Hebrew, Mormon adds (chap.
ix. 32, 33):--
"And now behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge,
in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being
handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.
"And if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written
in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could
have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our
record."
Few parts of this mythical Bible approached nearer to the burlesque
than this excuse for having descendants of the Jews write in "reformed
Egyptian."
The secular story of the ancient races running through this Bible is
so confused by the introduction of new matter by the "author"* and by
repetitions that it is puzzling to pick it out. The Book of Ether was
somewhat puzzling even to the early Mormons, and we find Parley P.
Pratt, in his analysis of it, printed in London in 1854, saying, "Ether
SEEMS to have been a lineal descendant of Jared."
*Professor Whitsitt, of the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, in his article on Mormonism in "The
Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, and Gazetteer" (New York,
1891), divides the Mormon Bible into three sections, viz.: the first
thirteen books, presented as the works of Mormon; the Book of Ether,
with which Mormon had no connection; and the fifteenth book, which was
sent forth by the editor under the name of Moroni. He thus explains his
view of the "editing" that was done in the preparation of the work for
publication:--
"The editor undertook to rewrite and recast the whole of the abridgment
(of Nephi's previous history), but his industry failed him at the close
of the Book of Omni. The first six books that he had rewritten were
given the names of the small plates.... The book called the 'Words
of Mormon' in the original work stood at the beginning, as a sort of
preface to the entire abridgment of Mormon; but when the editor had
rewritten the first six books, he felt that these were properly his own
performance, and the 'Words of Mormon' were assigned a position just in
front of the Book of Mosiah, when the abstract of Mormon took its real
commencement....
"The question may now be raised as to who was the editor of the Book of
Mormon.... In its theological positions and coloring the Book of Mormon
is a volume of Disciple theology (this does not include the later
polygamous doctrine and other gross Mormon errors). This conclusion is
capable of demonstration beyond any reasonable question. Let notice also
be taken of the fact that the Book of Mormon bears traces of two several
redactions. It contains, in the first redaction, that type of doctrine
which the Disciples held and proclaimed prior to November 18, 1827, when
they had not yet formally embraced what is commonly considered to be
the tenet of baptismal remission. It also contains the type of doctrine
which the Disciples have been defending since November 18, 1827, under
the name of the ancient Gospel, of which the tenet of socalled baptismal
remission is a leading feature. All authorities agree that Mr. Smith
obtained possession of the work on September 22, 1827, a period of
nearly two months before the Disciples concluded to embrace this tenet.
The editor felt that the Book of Mormon would be sadly incomplete
if this notion were not included. Accordingly, he found means to
communicate with Mr. Smith, and, regaining possession of certain
portions of the manuscript, to insert the new item.... Rigdon was the
only Disciple minister who vigorously and continuously demanded that his
brethren should adopt the additional points that have been indicated."
Very concisely, this Bible story of the most ancient race that came to
America, the Jaredites, may be thus stated:--
This race, being righteous, were not punished by the Lord at Babel, but
were led to the ocean, where they constructed a vessel by direction of
the Lord, in which they sailed to North America. According to the
Book of Ether, there were eight of these vessels, and that they were
remarkable craft needs only the description given of them to show: "They
were built after a manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they
would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like
unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish; and
the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto
a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door
thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish" (Book of Ether
ii. 17). This description certainly establishes the general resemblance
of these barges to some kind of a dish, but the rather careless
comparison of their length simply to that of a "tree" leaves this detail
of construction uncertain.
Just before they embarked in these vessels, a brother of Jared went up
on Mount Shelem, where the Lord touched sixteen small stones that he had
taken up with him, two of which were the Urim and Thummim, by means of
which Smith translated the plates. These stones lighted up the vessels
on their trip across the ocean. Jared's brother was told by the spirit
on the mount, "Behold, I am Jesus Christ." A footnote in the modern
edition of this Bible kindly explains that Jared's brother "saw the
preexistent spirit of Jesus."
When they landed (somewhere on the Isthmus of Darien), the Lord
commanded Nephi to make "plates of ore," on which should be engraved
the record of the people. This was the origin of Smith's plates. In time
this people divided themselves, under the leadership of two of Lehi's
sons--Nephi and Laman--into Nephites and Lamanites (with subdivisions).
The Lamanites, in the course of two hundred years, had become dark
in color and "wild and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people; full of
idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents
and wandering about in the wilderness, with a short skin girdle about
their loins, and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow and
the cimeter and the ax" (Enos i, 20). The Nephites, on the other hand,
tilled the land and raised flocks. Between the two tribes wars waged,
the Nephites became wicked, and in the course of 320 years the worst of
them were destroyed (Book of Alma).
Then the Lord commanded those who would hearken to his voice to depart
with him to the wilderness, and they journeyed until they came to the
land of Zarahemla, which a footnote to the modern edition explains "is
supposed to have been north of the head waters of the river Magdalena,
its northern boundary being a few days' journey south of the Isthmus"
(of Darien). There they found the people of Zarahemla, who had left
Jerusalem when Zedekiah was carried captive into Babylon. New teachers
arose who taught the people righteousness, and one of them, named Alma,
led a company to a place which was called Mormon, "where was a fountain
of pure water, and there Alma baptized the people." The Book of Alma, the
longest in this Bible, is largely an account of the secular affairs
of the inhabitants, with stories of great battles, a prediction of the
coming of Christ, and an account of a great migration northward, and the
building of ships that sailed in the same direction.
Nephi describes the appearance of Christ to the people of the western
continent, preceded by a star, earthquakes, etc. On the day of His
appearance they heard "a small voice" out of heaven, saying, "Behold
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my
name; hear ye him." Then Christ appeared and spoke to them, generally in
the language of the New Testament (repeating, for instance, the Sermon
on the Mount*), and afterward ascended into heaven in a cloud. The
expulsion of the Nephites northward, and their final destruction, in
what is now New York State, followed in the course of the next 384
years.
* In the Mormon version of this sermon the words, "If thy right
eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee," and "If thy right
hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee," are lacking. The
Deseret Evening News of February 21, 1900, in explaining this omission,
says that the report by Mormon of the "discourse delivered by Jesus
Christ to the Nephites on this continent after his resurrection from the
dead... may not be full and complete."
There is throughout the book an imitation of the style of the Holy
Scriptures. Verse after verse begins with the words "and it came to
pass," as Spaulding's Ohio neighbors recalled that his story did. The
following extract, from 1 Nephi, chap. viii, will give an illustration
of the literary style of a large part of the work:--
"1.. And it came to pass that we had gathered together all manner of
seeds of every kind, both of grain of every kind, and also of the seeds
of fruit of every kind.
"2. And it came to pass that while my father tarried in the wilderness,
he spake unto us, saying, Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or in other
words, I have seen a vision.
"3. And behold, because of the thing which I have seen, I have reason to
rejoice in the Lord, because of Nephi and also of Sam; for I have reason
to suppose that they, and also many of their seed, will be saved.
"4. But behold, Laman and Lemuel, I fear exceedingly because of you; for
behold, methought I saw in my dream, a dark and dreary wilderness.
"5. And it came to pass that I saw a man, and he was dressed in a white
robe; and he came and stood before me.
"6. And it came to pass that he spake unto me, and bade me follow him.
"7. And it came to pass that as I followed him, I beheld myself that I
was in a dark and dreary waste.
"8. And after I had travelled for the space of many hours in darkness, I
began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to
the multitude of his tender mercies.
"9. And it came to pass after I had prayed unto the Lord, I beheld a
large and spacious field.
"10. And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable
to make one happy.
"11. And it came to pass that I did go forth, and partake of the fruit
thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever
before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to
exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen."
Whole chapters of the Scriptures are incorporated word for word. In the
first edition some of these were appropriated without any credit; in the
Utah editions they are credited. Beside these, Hyde counted 298 direct
quotations from the New Testament, verses or sentences, between pages 2
to 428, covering the years from 600 B.C. to Christ's birth. Thus, Nephi
relates that his father, more than two thousand years before the King
James edition of the Bible was translated, in announcing the coming of
John the Baptist, used these words, "Yea, even he should go forth and
cry in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his
paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and
he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose"
(1 Nephi x. 8). In Mosiah v. 8, King Benjamin is represented as saying,
124 years before Christ was born, "I would that you should take upon
you the name of Christ as there is no other name given whereby salvation
cometh."
The first Nephi represents John as baptizing in Bethabara (the spelling
is Beathabry in the Utah edition), and Alma announces (vii. 10) that
"the Son of God shall be born of Mary AT JERUSALEM." Shakespeare is
proved a plagiarist by comparing his words with those of the second
Nephi, who, speaking twenty-two hundred years before Shakespeare was
born, said (2 Nephi i. 14), "Hear the words of a trembling parent, whose
limbs you must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence
no traveller can return."
The chapters of the Scriptures appropriated bodily, and the places where
they may be found, are as follows:--
First Edition Utah Edition
[Illustration:
"Scripture" Chapter headings
142]
Among the many anachronisms to be found in the book may be mentioned the
giving to Laban of a sword with a blade "of the most precious steel" (1
Nephi iv. 9), centuries before the use of steel is elsewhere recorded.
and the possession of a compass by the Jaredites when they sailed
across the ocean (Alma xxxvii. 38), long before the invention of such
an instrument. The ease with which such an error could be explained is
shown in the anecdote related of a Utah Mormon who, when told that the
compass was not known in Bible times, responded by quoting Acts xxviii.
13, where Paul says, "And from thence we fetched a compass." When Nephi
and his family landed in Central America "there were beasts in the
forest of every kind, both the cow, and the ox, and the ass, and the
horse" (ix Nephi xviii. 25). If Nephi does not prevaricate, there must
have been a fatal plague among these animals in later years, for horses,
cows, and asses were unknown in America until after its discovery by
Europeans. Moroni, in the Book of Ether (ix. 18, 19), is still more
generous, adding to the possessions of the Jaredites sheep and swine*
and elephants and "cureloms and cumoms." Neither sheep nor swine are
indigenous to America; but the prophet is safe as regards the "cureloms
and cumoms," which are animals of his own creation.
* "And," it is added, "many other kinds of animals which were
useful for the use of man," thus ignoring the Hebrew antipathy to pork.
The book is full of incidental proofs of the fraudulent profession
that it is an original translation. For instance, in incorporating 1
Corinthians iii. 4, in the Book of Moroni, the phrase "is not easily
provoked" is retained, as in the King James edition. But the word
"easily" is not found in any Greek manuscript of this verse, and it is
dropped in the Revised Version of 1881.
Stenhouse calls attention to many phrases in this Bible which were
peculiar to the revival preachers of those days, like Rigdon, such as
"Have ye spiritually been born of God?" "If ye have experienced a change
of heart."
The first edition was full of grammatical errors and amusing phrases.
Thus we are told, in Ether xv. 31, that when Coriantumr smote off the
head of Shiz, the latter "raised upon his hands and fell." Among other
examples from the first edition may be quoted: "and I sayeth"; "all
things which are good cometh of God"; "neither doth his angels"; and
"hath miracles ceased." We find in Helaman ix. 6, "He being stabbed by
his brother by a garb of secrecy." This remains uncorrected.
Alexander Campbell, noting the mixture of doctrines in the book, says,
"He [the author] decides all the great controversies discussed in New
York in the last ten years, infant baptism, the Trinity, regeneration,
repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement,
transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, the call to the
ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize,
and even the questions of Freemasonry, republican government and the
rights of man."*
* "Delusions: an Analysis of the Book of Mormon" (1832). An
exhaustive examination of this Bible will be found in the "Braden and
Kelley Public Discussion."
Such is the book which is accepted to this day as an inspired work
by the thousands of persons who constitute the Mormon church. This
acceptance has always been rightfully recognized as fundamentally
necessary to the Mormon faith. Orson Pratt declared, "The nature of the
message in the Book of Mormon is such that, if true, none can be saved
who reject it, and, if false, none can be saved who receive it." Brigham
Young told the Conference at Nauvoo in October, 1844, that "Every spirit
that confesses that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that he lived and died
a prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God, and every
spirit that does not is of Anti-Christ." There is no modification of
this view in the Mormon church of to-day.
CHAPTER XII. -- ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH
The director of the steps taken to announce to the world a new Bible and
a new church realized, of course, that there must be priests, under some
name, to receive members and to dispense its blessing. No person openly
connected with Smith in the work of translation had been a clergyman.
Accordingly, on May 15, 1829 (still following the prophet's own
account), while Smith and Cowdery were yet busy with the work of
translation, they went into the woods to ask the Lord for fuller
information about the baptism mentioned in the plates. There a messenger
from heaven, who, it was learned, was John the Baptist, appeared to them
in a cloud of light, "and having laid his hands on us, he ordained us,
saying unto us, 'Upon you, my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I
confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering
angels, and of the Gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion
for the remission of sins.'" The messenger also informed them that "the
power of laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost" would be
conferred on them later, through Peter, James, and John, "who held the
keys of the priesthood of Melchisedec"; but he directed Smith to baptize
Cowdery, and Cowdery then to perform the same office for Smith. This
they did at once, and as soon as Cowdery came out of the water he "stood
up and prophesied many things" (which the prophet prudently omitted to
record). The divine authority thus conferred, according to Orson Pratt,
exceeds that of the bishops of the Roman church, because it came direct
from heaven, and not through a succession of popes and bishops.*
* Orson Pratt, in his "Questions and Answers on Doctrine" in his
Washington newspaper, the Seer (p. 205), thus defined the Mormon view of
the Roman Catholic church:--
Q."Is the Roman Catholic Church the Church of Christ?" A."No, for she
has no inspired priesthood or officers."
Q."After the Church of Christ fled from earth to heaven what was left?"
A."A set of wicked apostates, murderers and idolaters," etc.
Q."Who founded the Roman Catholic Church?" A."The devil, through the
medium of the apostates, who subverted the whole order of God by denying
immediate revelation, and substituting in place thereof tradition and
ancient revelations as a sufficient rule of faith and practice."
Smith and Cowdery at once began telling of the power conferred upon
them, and giving their relatives and friends an opportunity to become
members of the new church. Smith's brother Samuel was the first convert
won over, Cowdery baptizing him. His brother Hyrum came next,* and then
one J. Knight, Sr., of Colesville, New York.** Each new convert was
made the subject of a "revelation," each of which began, "A great and
marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men." Hyrum
Smith, and David and Peter Whitmer, Jr., were baptized in Seneca Lake in
June, and "from this time forth," says Smith, "many became believers and
were baptized, while we continued to instruct and persuade as many as
applied for information."
* Hyrum wanted to start in to preach at once, and a "revelation"
was necessary to inform him: "You need not suppose you are called to
preach until you are called.... Keep my commandments; hold your peace"
(Sec.11).
** Colesville is the township in Broome County of which
Harpursville is the voting place. Smith organized his converts there
about two miles north of Harpursville.
By April 6, 1830, branches of the new church had been established at
Fayette, Manchester, and Colesville, New York, with some seventy members
in all, it has been stated. Section 20 of the "Doctrine and Covenants"
names April 6, 1830, as the date on which the church was "regularly
organized and established, agreeable to the laws of our country." This
date has been incorrectly given as that on which the first step was
taken to form a church organization. What was done then was to organize
in a form which, they hoped, would give the church a standing as a legal
body.* The meeting was held at the house of Peter Whitmer. Smith,
who, it was revealed, should be the first elder, ordained Cowdery,
and Cowdery subsequently ordained Smith. The sacrament was then
administered, and the new elders laid their hands on the others present.
* Whitmer's "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."
"The revelation" (Sec. 20) on the form of church government is dated
April, 1830, at least six months before Rigdon's name was first
associated with the scheme by the visit of Cowdery and his companions
to Ohio. If the date is correct, it shows that Rigdon had forwarded this
"revelation" to Smith for promulgation, for Rigdon was unquestionably
the originator of the system of church government. David Whitmer has
explained, "Rigdon would expound the Old Testament Scriptures of
the Bible and Book of Mormon, in his way, to Joseph, concerning the
priesthood, high priests, etc., and would persuade Brother Joseph to
inquire of the Lord about this doctrine and about that doctrine, and of
course a revelation would always come just as they desired it."*
* Whitmer's "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."
The "revelation" now announced defined the duty of elders, priests,
teachers, deacons, and members of the Church of Christ. An apostle was
an elder, and it was his calling to baptize, ordain, administer the
sacrament, confirm, preach, and take the lead in all meetings. A
priest's duty was to preach, baptize, administer the sacrament, and
visit members at their houses. Teachers and deacons could not baptize,
administer the sacrament, or lay on hands, but were to preach and invite
all to join the church. The elders were directed to meet in conference
once in three months, and there was to be a High Council, or general
conference of the church, by which should be ordained every President of
the high priesthood, bishop, high counsellor, and high priest.
Smith's leadership had, before this, begun to manifest itself. He had,
in a generous mood, originally intended to share with others the honor
of receiving "revelations," the first of these in the "Book of Doctrine
and Covenants," saying, "I the Lord also gave commandments to others,
that they should proclaim these things to the world." In the
original publication of these "revelations," under the title "Book of
Commandments," we find such headings as, "A revelation given to Oliver,"
"A revelation given to Hyrum," etc. These headings are all changed in
the modern edition to read, "Given through Joseph the Seer," etc.
Cowdery was the first of his associates to seek an open share in the
divine work. Smith was so pleased with his new scribe when they first
met at Harmony, Pennsylvania, that he at once received a "revelation"
which incited Cowdery to ask for a division of power. Cowdery was told
(Sec. 6), "And behold, I grant unto you a gift, if you desire of me, to
translate even as my servant Joseph." Cowdery's desire manifested itself
immediately, and Joseph almost as quickly became conscious that he had
committed himself too soon. Accordingly, in another "revelation," dated
the same month of April, 1829 (Sec. 8), he attempted to cajole Oliver by
telling him about a "gift of Aaron" which he possessed, and which was a
remarkable gift in itself, adding, "Do not ask for that which you ought
not." But Cowdery naturally clung to his promised gift, and kept on
asking, and he had to be told right away in still another "revelation"
(Sec. 9), that he had not understood, but that he must not murmur, since
his work was to write for Joseph. If he was in doubt about a subject,
he was advised to "study it out in your mind"; and if it was right, the
Lord promised, "I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you";
but if it was not right, "you shall have a stupor of thought, that shall
cause you to forget the thing which is wrong." To assist him until he
became accustomed to discriminate between this burning feeling and this
stupor, the Lord told him very plainly, "It is not expedient that you
should translate now." That all this rankled in Cowdery's heart was
shown by his attempt to revise one of Smith's "revelations," and the
support he gave to Hiram Page's "gazing."
Cowdery continued to annoy the prophet, and Smith decided to get rid
of him. Accordingly in July, 1830, came a "revelation," originally
announced as given direct to Joseph's wife Emma, instructing her to
act as her husband's scribe, "that I may send my servant Oliver Cowdery
whithersoever I will." This occurred on a trip the Smiths had made
to Harmony. On their return to Fayette, Smith found Cowdery still
persistent, and he accordingly gave out a "revelation" to him, telling
him again that he must not "write by way of commandment," inasmuch as
Smith was at the head of the church, and directing him to "go unto the
Lamanites (Indians) and preach my Gospel unto them." This was the first
mention of the westward movement of the church which shaped all its
later history.
A "revelation" in June, 1829 (Sec. 18), had directed the appointment of
the twelve apostles, whom Cowdery and David Whitmer were to select. The
organized members now began to inquire who was their leader, and Smith,
in a "revelation" dated April 6, 1830 (Sec. 21), addressed to himself,
announced: "Behold there shall be a record kept among you, and in it
thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of
Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God the Father,
and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ"; and the church was directed in
these words, "For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth,
in all patience and faith." Thus was established an authority which
Smith defended until the day of his death, and before which all who
questioned it went down.
Some of the few persons who at this time expressed a willingness to join
the new church showed a repugnance to being baptized at his hands,
and pleaded previous baptism as an excuse for evading it. But Smith's
tyrannical power manifested itself at once, and he straightway announced
a "revelation" (Sec. 22), in which the Lord declared, "All old covenants
have I caused to be done away in this thing, and this is a new and
everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning."
Five days after the formal organization, the first sermon to the Mormon
church was preached in the Whitmer house by Oliver Cowdery, Smith
probably concluding that it would be wiser to confine himself to the
receipt of "revelations" rather than to essay pulpit oratory too soon.
Six additional persons were then baptized. Soon after this the first
Mormon miracle was performed--the casting out of a devil from a young
man named, Newel Knight.
The first conference of the organized church was held at Fayette,
New York, in June, 1830, with about thirty members present. In recent
"revelations" the prophet had informed his father and his brothers Hyrum
and Samuel that their calling was "to exhortation and to strengthen the
church," so that they were provided for in the new fold.
The region in New York State where the Smiths had lived and were well
known was not favorable ground for their labors as church officers,
conducting baptisms and administering the sacrament. When they dammed a
small stream in order to secure a pool for an announced baptism, the dam
was destroyed during the night. A Presbyterian sister-in-law of Knight,
from whom a devil had been cast, announced her conversion to Smith's
church, and, when she would not listen to the persuasions of her pastor,
the latter obtained legal authority from her parents and carried her
away by force. She succeeded, however, in securing the wished-for
baptism. All this stirred up public feeling against Smith, and he was
arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.
At the trial testimony was offered to show that he had obtained a horse
and a yoke of oxen from his dupes, on the statement that a "revelation"
had informed him that he was to have them, and that he had behaved
improperly toward the daughters of one of these men. But the parties
interested all testified in his favor, and the prosecution failed. He
was immediately rearrested on a warrant and removed to Colesville, amid
the jeers of the people in attendance. Knight was subpoenaed to tell
about the miracle performed on him, and Smith's old character of a
money-digger was ventilated; but the court found nothing on which to
hold him. Mormon writers have dilated on these "persecutions", but the
outcome of the hearings indicated fair treatment of the accused by
the arbiters of the law, and the indignation shown toward him and his
associates by their neighbors was not greater than the conduct of such
men in assuming priestly rights might evoke in any similar community.
Smith returned to his home in Pennsylvania after this, and endeavored
to secure the cooperation of his father-in-law in his church plans, but
without avail. It was four years later that Mr. Hale put on record his
opinion of his son-in-law already quoted. Failing to find other support
in Harmony, and perceiving much public feeling against him, Smith
prepared for his return to New York by receiving a "revelation" (Sec.20)
which directed him to return to the churches organized in that state
after he had sold his crops. "They shall support thee", declared the
"revelation"; "but if they receive thee not I shall send upon them a
cursing instead of a blessing". For Smith's protection the Lord further
declared: "Whosoever shall lay their hand upon you by violence ye
shall command to be smitten in my name, and behold, I will smite them
according to your words, IN MINE OWN DUE TIME. And whosoever shall go
to law with thee shall be cursed by the law." This threat, it will be
noted, was safeguarded by not requiring immediate fulfillment.
Smith returned to Fayette in September, and continued church work
thereabouts in company with his brothers and John and David Whitmer.
Meanwhile Parley P. Pratt had made his visit to Palmyra and returned
to Ohio, and in the early winter Rigdon set out to make his first open
visit to Smith, arriving in December. Martin Harris, on the ground that
Rigdon was a regularly authorized clergyman, tried to obtain the use of
one of the churches of the town for him, but had to content himself
with the third-story hall of the Young Men's Association. There Rigdon
preached a sermon to a small audience, principally of non-Mormons,
announcing himself as a "messenger of God". The audience regarded the
sermon as blasphemous, and no further attempt was made to secure this
room for Mormon meetings. Rigdon, however, while in conference with
Smith, preached and baptized the neighborhood, and Smith and Harris
tried their powers as preachers in barns and under a tree in the open
air.
A well-authenticated story of the manner in which one of the Palmyra
Mormons received his call to preach is told by Tucker* and verified by
the principal actor. Among the first baptized in New York State were
Calvin Stoddard and his wife (Smith's sister) of Macedon. Stoddard told
his neighbors of wonderful things he had seen in the sky, and about
his duty to preach. One night, Steven S. Harding, a young man who was
visiting the place, went with a companion to Stoddard's house, and
awakening him with knocks on the door, proclaimed in measured tones that
the angel of the Lord commanded him to "go forth among the people
and preach the Gospel of Nephi." Then they ran home and went to bed.
Stoddard took the call in all earnestness, and went about the next
day repeating to his neighbors the words of the "celestial messenger,"
describing the roaring thunder and the musical sounds of the angel's
wings that accompanied the words. Young Harding, who participated in
this joke, became Governor of Utah in 1862, and incurred the bitter
enmity of Brigham Young and the church by denouncing polygamy, and
asserting his own civil authority.**
* "Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism," pp. 80, 285
**Stoddard and Smith had a quarrel over a lot in Kirtland in
1835, and Smith knocked down his brother-in-law and was indicted for
assault and battery, but was acquitted on the ground of self-defence.
AS a result of Smith's and Rigdon's conferences came a "revelation" to
them both (Sec. 35), delivered as in the name of Jesus Christ, defining
somewhat Rigdon's position. How nearly it met his demands cannot be
learned, but it certainly granted him no more authority than Smith
was willing to concede. It told him that he should do great things,
conferring the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, as did the apostles
of old, and promising to show miracles, signs, and wonders unto all
believers. He was told that Joseph had received the "keys of the
mysteries of those things that have been sealed," and was directed to
"watch over him that his faith fail not." This "revelation" ordered the
retranslation of the Scriptures.
The most important result of Rigdon's visit to Smith was a decision to
move the church to Ohio. This decision was promulgated in the form of
"revelations" dated December, 1830, and January, 1831, which set forth
(Secs. 37, 38):--
"And that ye might escape the power of the enemy, and be gathered unto
me a righteous people, without spot and blameless:
"Wherefore, for this cause I give unto you the commandment that ye
should go to the Ohio; and there I will give unto you my law; and there
you shall be endowed with power from on high; and from thence whomsoever
I will shall go forth among all nations, and it shall be told them what
they shall do; for I have a great work laid up in store, for Israel
shall be saved.... And they that have farms that cannot be sold, let
them be left or rented as seemeth them good."
A sufficient reason for the removal was the failure to secure converts
where Smith was known, and the ready acceptance of the new belief among
Rigdon's Ohio people. The Rev. Dr. Clark says, "You might as well go
down in the crater of Vesuvius and attempt to build an icehouse amid
its molten and boiling lava, as to convince any inhabitant in either of
these towns [Palmyra or Manchester] that Joe Smith's pretensions are not
the most gross and egregious falsehood."*
* "Gleanings by the Way."
The Rev. Jesse Townsend of Palmyra, in a reply to a letter of inquiry
about the Mormons, dated December 24, 1833 (quoted in full by Tucker),
says: "All the Mormons have left this part of the state, and so palpable
is their imposture that nothing is here said or thought of the subject,
except when inquiries from abroad are occasionally made concerning them.
I know of no one now living in this section of the country that ever
gave them credence."
CHAPTER XIII. -- THE MORMONS' BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES--CHURCH GOVERNMENT
The Mormons teach that, for fourteen hundred years to the time of
Smith's "revelations," there had been "a general and awful apostasy from
the religion of the New Testament, so that all the known world have been
left for centuries without the Church of Christ among them; without a
priesthood authorized of God to administer ordinances; that every one
of the churches has perverted the Gospel."* As illustrations of this
perversion are cited the doing away of immersion for the remission of
sins by most churches, of the laying on of hands for the gift of the
Holy Ghost, and of the miraculous gifts and powers of the Holy
Spirit. The new church presented a modern prophet, who was in direct
communication with God and possessed power to work miracles, and who
taught from a Golden Bible which says that whoever asserts that there
are no longer "revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor
speaking with tongues and the interpretation of tongues,... knoweth not
the Gospel of Christ" (Book of Mormon ix. 7, 8).
* Orson Pratt's "Remarkable Visions," No. 6.
It is impossible to decide whether the name "Mormon" was used by
Spaulding in his "Manuscript Found," or was introduced by Rigdon. It is
first encountered in the Mormon Bible in the Book of Mosiah xviii. 4,
as the name of a place where there was a fountain in which Alma baptized
those whom his admonition led to repentance. Next it occurs in 3 Nephi
v. 20: "I am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi." This Mormon
was selected by the "author" of the Bible to stand sponsor for the
condensation of the "records" of his ancestors which Smith unearthed. It
was discovered very soon after the organization of the Mormon church was
announced that the word was of Greek derivation,
[Illustration: Greek 153]
meaning bugbear, hobgoblin. In the form of "mormo" it is Anglicized with
the same meaning, and is used by Jeremy Collier and Warburton.* The word
"Mormon" in zoology is the generic name of certain animals, including
the mandril baboon. The discovery of the Greek origin and meaning of the
word was not pleasing to the early Mormon leaders, and they printed
in the Times and Seasons a letter over Smith's signature, in which he
solemnly declared that "there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from
which I, through the grace of God, translated the Book of Mormon," and
gave the following explanation of the derivation of the word:
* See "Century Dictionary."
"Before I give a definition to the word, let me say that the Bible, in
its widest sense, means good; for the Saviour says, according to the
Gospel of St. John, 'I am the Good Shepherd'; and it will not be beyond
the common use of terms to say that good is amongst the most important
in use, and, though known by various names in different languages, still
its meaning is the same, and is ever in opposition to bad. We say from
the Saxon, good; the Dane, god; the Goth, gods; the German, gut; the
Dutch, goed; the Latin, bonus; the Greek, kalos; the Hebrew, tob; the
Egyptian, mo. Hence, with the addition of more, or the contraction mor,
we have the word Mormon, which means literally more good."
This lucid explanation was doubtless entirely satisfactory to the
persons to whom it was addressed.
In the early "revelations" collected in the "Book of Commandments" the
new church was not styled anything more definite than "My Church,"
and the title-page of that book, as printed in 1833, says that these
instructions are "for the government of the Church of Christ." The name
"Mormons" was not acceptable to the early followers of Smith, who looked
on it as a term of reproach, claiming the designation "Saints." This
objection to the title continues to the present day. It was not until
May 4, 1834, that a council of the church, on motion of Sidney Rigdon,
decided on its present official title, "Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints."
The belief in the speedy ending of the world, on which the title
"Latter-Day Saints" was founded, has played so unimportant a part in
modern Mormon belief that its prominence as an early tenet of the church
is generally overlooked. At no time was there more widespread interest
in the speedy second coming of Christ and the Day of Judgment than
during the years when the organization of the Mormon church was taking
place. We have seen how much attention was given to a speedy millennium
by the Disciples preachers. It was in 1833 that William Miller began his
sermons in which he fixed on the year 1843 as the end of the world, and
his views not only found acceptance among his personal followers, but
attracted the liveliest interest in other sects.
The Mormon leaders made this belief a part of their early doctrine.
Thus, in one of the first "revelations" given out by Smith, dated
Fayette, New York, September, 1830, Christ is represented as saying
that "the hour is nigh" when He would reveal Himself, and "dwell in
righteousness with men on earth a thousand years." In the November
following, another "revelation" declared that "the time is soon at hand
that I shall come in a cloud, with power and great glory." Soon
after Smith arrived in Kirtland a "revelation," dated February, 1831,
announced that "the great day of the Lord is nigh at hand." In January,
1833, Smith predicted that "there are those now living upon the earth
whose eyes shall not be closed in death until they shall see all these
things of which I have spoken" (the sweeping of the wicked from the
United States, and the return of the lost tribes to it). Smith declared
in 1843 that the Lord had promised that he should see the Son of Man
if he lived to be eighty-five (Sec. 130).* When Ferris was Secretary
of Utah Territory, in 1852-1853, he found that the Mormons were still
expecting the speedy coming of Christ, but had moved the date forward to
1870. All through Smith's autobiography and the Millennial Star will be
found mention of every portent that might be construed as an indication
of the coming disruption of this world. As late as December 6, 1856, an
editorial in the Millennial Star said, "The signs of the times clearly
indicate to every observing mind that the great day of the second advent
of Messiah is at hand."
* Speaking of W. W. Phelps's last years in Utah, Stenhouse says:
"Often did the old man, in public and in private, regale the Saints with
the assurance that he had the promise by revelation that he should not
taste of death until Jesus came." Phelps died on March 7, 1872.
As the devout Mohammedan* passes from earth to a heaven of material
bliss, so the Mormons are taught that the Saints, the sole survivors of
the day of judgment, will, with resurrected bodies, possess the purified
earth. The lengths to which Mormon preachers have dared to go in
illustrating this view find a good illustration in a sermon by arson
Pratt, printed in the Deseret News, Salt Lake City, of August 21, 1852.
Having promised that "farmers will have great farms upon the earth
when it is so changed," and foreseeing that some one might suggest a
difficulty in providing land enough to go round, he met that in this
way:--
* The similarity between Smith's early life and visions and
Mohammed's has been mentioned by more than one writer. Stenhouse
observes that Smith's mother "was to him what Cadijah was to Mohammed,"
and that "a Mohammedan writer, in a series of essays recently published
in London, treats of the prophecies concerning the Arabian Prophet, to
be found in the Old and New Testaments, precisely as Orson Pratt applied
them to the American Prophet."
"But don't be so fast, says one; don't you know that there are only
about 197,000,000 of square miles, or about 126,000,000,000 of
acres upon the surface of the globe? Will these accommodate all the
inhabitants after the resurrection? Yes; for if the earth should stand
8000 years, or 80 centuries, and the population should be a thousand
millions in every century, that would be 80,000,000,000 of inhabitants,
and we know that many centuries have passed that would not give the
tenth part of this; but supposing this to be the number, there would
then be over an acre and a half for each person upon the surface of the
globe."
By eliminating the wicked, so that only one out of a hundred would share
this real estate, he calculated that every Saint "would receive over 150
acres, which would be quite enough to raise manna, flax to make robes
of, and to have beautiful orchards of fruit trees."
The Mormon belief is stated by the church leaders to rest on the Holy
Bible, the Mormon Bible, and the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants,"
together with the teachings of the Mormon instructors from Smith's time
to the present day. Although the Holy Bible is named first in this list,
it has, as we have seen, played a secondary part in the church ritual,
its principal use by the Mormon preachers having been to furnish
quotations on which to rest their claims for the inspiration of their
own Bible and for their peculiar teachings. Mormon sermons (usually
styled discourses) rarely, if ever, begin with a text. The "Book of
Doctrine and Covenants" "containing," as the title-page declares, "the
revelations given to Joseph Smith, Jr., for the building up of the
Kingdom of God in the last days," was the directing authority in the
church during Smith's life, and still occupies a large place in the
church history. An examination of the origin and character of this work
will therefore shed much light on the claims of the church to special
direction from on high.
There is little doubt that this system of "revelation" was an idea of
Rigdon. Smith was not, at that time, an inventor; his forte was making
use of ideas conveyed to him. Thus, he did not originate the idea of
using a "peek-stone," but used one freely as soon as he heard of it.
He did not conceive the idea of receiving a Bible from an angel, but
readily transformed the Spaniard-with-his-throat-cut to an angel when
the perfected scheme was presented to him. We can imagine how attractive
"revelations" would have been to him, and how soon he would concentrate
in himself the power to receive them, and would adapt them to his
personal use.
David Whitmer says, "The revelations, or the Book of Commandments, up
to June, 1829, were given through the stone through which the Book of
Mormon was translated"; but that after that time "they came through
Joseph as a mouthpiece; that is, he would inquire of the Lord, pray and
ask concerning a matter, and speak out the revelation, which he thought
to be a revelation from the Lord; but sometimes he was mistaken about
its being from the Lord."* Who drew the line between truth and error has
never been explained, but Smith would certainly have resented any such
scepticism.
* "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."
Parley P. Pratt thus describes Smith's manner of receiving "revelations"
in Ohio, "Each sentence was uttered slowly and very distinctly, and
with a pause between each sufficiently long for it to be recorded by an
ordinary writer in long hand."*
* Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 65.
These "revelations" made the greatest impression on Smith's followers,
and no other of his pretensions seems to have so convinced them of his
divine credentials. The story of Vienna Jaques well illustrates this. A
Yankee descendant of John Rodgers, living in Boston, she was convinced
by a Mormon elder, and joined the church members while they were in
Kirtland, taking with her her entire possession, $1500 in cash. This
money, like that of many other devoted members, found its way into
Smith's hands--and stayed there. But he had taken her into his family,
and her support became burdensome to him. So, when the Saints were
"gathering" in Missouri, he announced a "revelation" in these words
(Sec. 90):--
"And again, verily, I [the Lord] say unto you, it is my will that my
handmaid, Vienna Jaques, should receive money to bear her expenses,
and go up unto the land of Zion; and the residue of the money may be
consecrated unto me, and she be rewarded in mine own due time. Verily,
I say unto you, that it is meet in mine eyes that she should go up
unto the land of Zion, and receive an inheritance from the hand of the
Bishop, that she may settle down in peace, inasmuch as she is faithful,
and not to be idle in her days from thenceforth."
The confiding woman obeyed without a murmur this thinly concealed scheme
to get rid of her, migrated with the church from Missouri to Illinois
and to Utah, and was in Salt Lake City in 1833, supporting herself as
a nurse, and "doubly proud that she has been made the subject of a
revelation from heaven."*
* "Utah and the Mormons," p. 182.
These "revelations" have been published under two titles. The first
edition was printed in Jackson, Missouri, in 1833, in the Mormon
printing establishment, under the title, "Book of Commandments for the
Government of the Church of Christ, organized according to Law on the
6th of April, 1830." This edition contained nothing but "revelations,"
divided into sixty-five "chapters," and ending with the one dated
Kirtland, September, 1831, which forms Section 64 of the Utah edition of
"Doctrine and Covenants." David Whitmer says that when, in the spring
of 1832, it was proposed by Smith, Rigdon, and others to publish these
revelations, they were earnestly advised by other members of the church
not to do so, as it would be dangerous to let the world get hold of
them; and so it proved. But Smith declared that any objector should
"have his part taken out of the Tree of Life."*
* It has been stated that the "Book of Commandments" was never
really published, the mob destroying the sheets before it got out. But
David Whitmer is a very positive witness to the contrary, saying, "I say
it was printed complete (and copyrighted) and many copies distributed
among the members of the church before the printing press was
destroyed."
Two years later, while the church was still in Kirtland, the
"revelations" were again prepared for publication, this time under the
title, "Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints,
carefully selected from the revelations of God, and compiled by Joseph
Smith, Jr.; Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, F. G. Williams, proprietors."
On August 17, 1835, a general assembly of the church held in the
Kirtland Temple voted to accept his book as the doctrine and covenants
of their faith. Ebenezer Robinson, who attended the meeting, says that
the majority of those so voting "had neither time nor opportunity to
examine the book for themselves; they had no means of knowing whether
any alterations had been made in any of the revelations or not."* In
fact, many important alterations were so made, as will be pointed out in
the course of this story. One method of attempting to account for these
changes has been by making the plea that parts were omitted in the
Missouri editions. On this point, however, Whitmer is very positive, as
quoted.
* In his reminiscences in The Return.
At the very start Smith's revelations failed to "come true." An amusing
instance of this occurred before the Mormon Bible was published. While
the "copy" was in the hands of the printer, Grandin, Joe's brother Hyrum
and others who had become interested in the enterprise became impatient
over Harris's delay in raising the money required for bringing out
the book. Hyrum finally proposed that some of them attempt to sell the
copyright in Canada, and he urged Joe to ask the Lord about doing
so. Joe complied, and announced that the mission to Canada would be
a success. Accordingly, Oliver Cowdery and Hiram Page made a trip to
Toronto to secure a publisher, but their mission failed absolutely. This
was a critical test of the faith of Joe's followers. "We were all in
great trouble," says David Whitmer,* "and we asked Joseph how it was
that he received a 'revelation' from the Lord for some brethren to go to
Toronto and sell the copyright, and the brethren had utterly failed in
their undertaking. Joseph did not know how it was, so he inquired of the
Lord about it, and behold, the following 'revelation' came; through the
stone: 'Some revelations are from God, some revelations are of man,
and some revelations are of the Devil.'" No rule for distinguishing
and separating these revelations was given; but Whitmer, whose faith in
Smith's divine mission never cooled, thus disposes of the matter, "So we
see that the revelation to go to Toronto and sell the copyright was
not of God." Of course, a prophet whose followers would accept such an
excuse was certain of his hold upon them. This incident well illustrates
the kind of material which formed the nucleus of the church.
* "Address to All Believers in Christ," p. 30.
Smith never let the previously revealed word of the Lord protect any
of his flock who afterward came in conflict with his own plans. For
example: On March 8, 1831, he announced a "revelation" (Sec. 47),
saying, "Behold, it is expedient in me that my servant John [Whitmer]
should write and keep a regular history" of the church. John fell into
disfavor in later years, and, when he refused to give up his records,
Smith and Rigdon addressed a letter to him,* in connection with his
dismissal, which said that his notes required correction by them before
publication, "knowing your incompetency as a historian, that writings
coming from your pen could not be put to press without our correcting
them, or else the church must suffer reproach. Indeed, sir, we never
supposed you capable of writing a history." Why the Lord did not
consult Smith and Rigdon before making this appointment is one of the
unexplained mysteries.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 133.
These "revelations," which increased in number from 16 in 1829 to 19 in
1830, numbered 35 in 1831, and then decreased to 16 in 1832, 13 in 1833,
5 in 1834, 2 in 1835, 3 in 1836, 1 in 1837, 8 in 1838 (in the trying
times in Missouri), 1 in 1839, none in 1840, 3 in 1841, none in 1842,
and 2, including the one on polygamy, in 1843. We shall see that in
his latter days, in Nauvoo, Smith was allowed to issue revelations only
after they had been censored by a council. He himself testified to the
reckless use which he made of them, and which perhaps brought about this
action. The following is a quotation from his diary:--
"May 19, 1842.--While the election [of Smith as mayor by the city
council] was going forward, I received and wrote the following
revelation: 'I Verily thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph,
by the voice of the Spirit, Hiram Kimball has been insinuating evil and
forming evil opinions against you with others; and if he continue in
them, he and they shall be accursed, for I am the Lord thy God, and will
stand by thee and bless thee.' Which I threw across the room to Hiram
Kimball, one of the counsellors."
Thus it seems that there was some limit to the extent of Joe's
effrontery which could be submitted to.
We shall see that Brigham Young in Utah successfully resisted constant
pressure that was put upon him by his flock to continue the reception
of "revelations." While he was prudent enough to avoid the pitfalls that
would have surrounded him as a revealer, he was crafty enough not to
belittle his own authority in so doing. In his discourse on the occasion
of the open announcement of polygamy, he said, "If an apostle magnifies
his calling, his words are the words of eternal life and salvation to
those who hearken to them, just as much so as any written revelations
contained in these books" (the two Bibles and the "Doctrine and
Covenants").
Hiram Page was not the only person who tried to imitate Smith's
"revelations." A boy named Isaac Russell gave out such messages at
Kirtland; Gladdin Bishop caused much trouble in the same way at Nauvoo;
the High Council withdrew the hand of fellowship from Oliver Olney for
setting himself up as a prophet; and in the same year the Times and
Seasons announced a pamphlet by J. C. Brewster, purporting to be one of
the lost books of Esdras, "written by the power of God."
In the Times and Seasons (p. 309) will be found a report of a conference
held in New York City on December 4, 1840, at which Elder Sydney Roberts
was arraigned, charged with "having a revelation that a certain brother
must give him a suit of clothes and a gold watch, the best that could be
had; also saluting the sisters with what he calls a holy kiss." He was
told that he could retain his membership if he would confess, but he
declared that "he knew the revelations which he had spoken were from
God." So he was thereupon "cut off."
The other source of Mormon belief--the teachings of their leading
men--has been no more consistent nor infallible than Smith's
"revelations." Mormon preachers have been generally uneducated men, most
of them ambitious of power, and ready to use the pulpit to strengthen
their own positions. Many an individual elder, firm in his faith, has
travelled and toiled as faithfully as any Christian missionary; but
these men, while they have added to the church membership, have not made
its beliefs.
Smith probably originated very little of the church polity, except the
doctrine of polygamy, and what is published over his name is generally
the production of some of his counsellors. Section 130 of the "Book of
Doctrine and Covenants," headed "Important Items of Instruction, given
by Joseph the Prophet, April 2, 1843," contains the following:--
"When the Saviour shall appear, we shall see him as he is. We shall see
that he is a man like ourselves....
"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son
also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a
personage of spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in
us."
An article in the Millennial Star, Vol. VI, for which the prophet
vouched, contains the following:--
"The weakest child of God which now exists upon the earth will possess
more dominion, more property, more subjects, and more power in glory
than is possessed by Jesus Christ or by his Father; while, at the same
time, Jesus Christ and his Father will have their dominion, kingdom and
subjects increased in proportion."
One more illustration of Smith's doctrinal views will suffice. In
a funeral sermon preached in Nauvoo, March 20, 1842, he said: "As
concerning the resurrection, I will merely say that all men will come
from the grave as they lie down, whether old or young; there will not be
'added unto their stature one cubit,' neither taken from it. All will
be raised by the power of God, having spirit in their bodies but not
blood."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, p. 213.
In "The Latter-Day Saints' Catechism or Child's Ladder," by Elder David
Moffat, Genesis v. 1, and Exodus xxxiii. 22, 23, and xxiv. 10 are cited
to prove that God has the form and parts of a man.
The greatest vagaries of doctrinal teachings are found during Brigham
Young's reign in Utah. In the way of a curiosity the following
diagram and its explanation, by Orson Hyde, may be reproduced from the
Millennial Star, Vol. IX, p. 23:--
[Illustration: Order and Unity of the Kingdom of God
162]
"The above diagram (not included in this etext) shows the order and
unity of the Kingdom of God. The eternal Father sits at the head,
crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Wherever the other lines meet
there sits a king and priest under God, bearing rule, authority and
dominion under the Father. He is one with the Father because his Kingdom
is joined to his Father's and becomes part of it.... It will be seen
by the above diagram that there are kingdoms of all sizes, an infinite
variety to suit all grades of merit and ability. The chosen vessels
of God are the kings and priests that are placed at the heads of their
kingdoms. They have received their washings and anointings in the Temple
of God on earth."
Young's ambition was not to be satisfied until his name was connected
with some doctrine peculiarly his own. Accordingly, in a long sermon
preached in the Tabernacle on April 9, 1852, he made this announcement
(the italics and capitals follow the official report):--
"Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and
sinner. When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into
it with a CELESTIAL BODY, and brought Eve, ONE OF HIS WIVES, with him.
He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the ARCHANGEL,
the ANCIENT OF DAYS, about whom holy men have written and spoken.* HE
is our FATHER and our GOD, AND THE ONLY GOD WITH WHOM 'WE' HAVE TO DO...
Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must
hear it and WILL KNOW IT SOONER OR LATER.... I could tell you much more
about this; but were I to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be
nothing to it, in the estimation of the superstitious and over righteous
of mankind.... Jesus, our Elder Brother, was begotten in the flesh by
the same character that was in the Garden of Eden, and who is our Father
in heaven."**
* Young, in a public discourse on October 23, 1853, declared that
he rejected the story of Adam's creation as "baby stories my mother
taught me when I was a child." But the Mormon Bible (2 Nephi ii. 18-22)
tells the story of Adam's fall.
** Journal of Discourses, VOL I, pp. 50, 51.
This doctrine was made a leading point of difference between the Utah
church and the Reorganized Church, when the latter was organized, but
it is no longer defended even in Utah. The Deseret Evening News of March
21, 1900, said on this point, "That which President Young set forth
in the discourse referred to is not preached either to the Latter-Day
Saints or to the world as a part of the creed of the church."
Young never hesitated to rebuke an associate whose preaching did not
suit him. In a discourse in Salt Lake City, on March 8, 1857, he rebuked
Orson Pratt, one of the ablest of the church writers, declaring that
Pratt did not "know enough to keep his foot out of it, but drowns
himself in his philosophy." He ridiculed his doctrine that "the devils
in hell are composed of and filled with the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost,
and possess all the knowledge, wisdom, and power of the gods," and said,
"When I read some of the writings of such philosophers they make me
think, 'O dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got.'"*
* Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 297.
The Mormon church still holds that an existing head of that organization
can always interpret the divine will regarding any question. This was
never more strikingly illustrated than when Woodruff, by a mere dictum,
did away with the obligatory character of polygamy.
When the Mormons were under a cloud in Illinois, in 1842, John
Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, applied to Smith for a
statement of their belief, and received in reply a list of 13 "Articles
of Faith" over Smith's signature. This statement was intended to win for
them sympathy as martyrs to a simple religious belief, and it has been
cited in Congress as proof of their soul purity. But as illustrating the
polity of the church it is quite valueless.
The doctrine of polygamy and the ceremonies of the Endowment House will
be considered in their proper place. One distinctive doctrine of the
church must be explained before this subject is dismissed, namely, that
which calls for "baptism for the dead." This doctrine is founded on an
interpretation of Corinthians xv. 29: "Else what shall they do which are
baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then
baptized for the dead?"
An explanation of this doctrine in the Times and Seasons of May 1, 1841,
says:--"This text teaches us the important and cheering truth that
the departed spirit is in a probationary state, and capable of being
affected by the proclamation of the Gospel.... Christ offers pardon,
peace, holiness, and eternal life to the quick and the dead, the living,
on condition of faith and baptism for remission of sins; the departed,
on the same condition of faith in person and baptism by a living kinsman
in his behalf. It may be asked, will this baptism by proxy necessarily
save the dead? We answer, no; neither will the same necessarily save the
living."
This doctrine was first taught to the church in Ohio. In later years, in
Nauvoo, Smith seemed willing to accept its paternity, and in an article
in the Times and Seasons of April 15, x 842, signed "Ed.," when he was
its editor, he said that he was the first to point it out. The article
shows, however, that it was doubtless written by Rigdon, as it indicates
a knowledge of the practice of such baptism by the Marcionites in
the second century, and of Chrysostom's explanation of it. A note
on Corinthians xv. 29, in "The New Testament Commentary for English
Readers," edited by Lord Bishop Ellicott of Gloucester and Bristol
(London, 1878), gives the following historical sketch of the practice:--
"There have been numerous and ingenious conjectures as to the meaning
of this passage. The only tenable interpretation is that there existed
amongst some of the Christians at Corinth a practice of baptizing a
living person in the stead of some convert who had died before that
sacrament had been administered to him. Such a practice existed amongst
the Marcionites in the second century, and still earlier amongst a sect
called the Cerinthians. The idea evidently was that, whatever benefit
flowed from baptism, might be thus vicariously secured for the deceased
Christian. St. Chrysostom gives the following description of it:--
"After a catechumen (one prepared for baptism but not actually baptized)
was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased; then,
coming to the bed of the dead man, they spoke to him, and asked whether
he would receive baptism; and, he making no answer, the other replied in
his stead, and so they baptized the living for the dead: Does St.
Paul then, by what he here says, sanction the superstitious practice?
Certainly not. He carefully separated himself and the Corinthians,
to whom he immediately addresses himself, from those who adopted this
custom .... Those who do that, and disbelieve a resurrection, refute
themselves. This custom possibly sprang up among the Jewish converts,
who had been accustomed to something similar in their faith. If a Jew
died without having been purified from some ceremonial uncleanness, some
living person had the necessary ablution performed on him, and the dead
were so accounted clean."
Other commentators have found means to explain this text without giving
it reference to a baptism for dead persons, as, for instance, that it
means, "with an interest in the resurrection of the dead."* Another
explanation is that by "the dead" is meant the dead Christ, as referred
to in Romans vi. 3, "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized
into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?"
* "Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican
Church."
This doctrine was a very taking one with the uneducated Mormon converts
who crowded into Nauvoo, and the church officers saw in it a means to
hasten the work on the Temple. At first families would meet on the bank
of the Mississippi River, and some one, of the order of the Melchisedec
Priesthood, would baptize them wholesale for all their dead relatives
whose names they could remember, each sex for relatives of the same. But
as soon as the font in the Temple was ready for use, these baptisms were
restricted to that edifice, and it was required that all the baptized
should have paid their tithings. At a conference at Nauvoo in October,
1841, Smith said that those who neglected the baptism of their dead "did
it at the peril of their own salvation."*
* Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 578.
The form of church government, as worked out in the early days, is
set forth in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants." The first officers
provided for were the twelve apostles,* and the next the elders,
priests, teachers, and deacons, Edward Partridge being announced as
the first bishop in 1831. The church was loosely governed for the first
years after its establishment at Kirtland. A guiding power was provided
for in a revelation of March 8, 1833 (Sec. 90), when Smith was told by
the Lord that Rigdon and F. G. Williams were accounted as equal with him
"in holding the keys of this last kingdom." These three first held the
famous office of the First Presidency, representing the Trinity.
* (Sec. 18, June, 1829.)
On February 17, 1834 (Sec. 102), a General High Council of twenty-four
High Priests assembled at Smith's house in Kirtland and organized the
High Council of the church, consisting of Twelve High Priests, with
one or three Presidents, as the case might require. The office of
High Priest, and the organization of a High Council were apparently an
afterthought, and were added to the "revelation" after its publication
in the "Book of Commandments." Other forms of organization that were
from time to time decided on were announced in a revelation dated March
28, 1835 (Sec. 107), which defined the two priesthoods, Melchisedec and
Aaronic, and their powers. There were to be three Presiding High Priests
to form a Quorum of the Presidency of the church; a Seventy, called to
preach the Gospel, who would form a Quorum equal in authority to the
Quorum of the Twelve, and be presided over by seven of their number.
Smith soon organized two of these Quorums of Seventies. At the time of
the dedications of the Temple at Nauvoo, in 1844, there were fifteen of
them, and to-day they number more than 120.
Each separate church organization, as formed, was called a Stake,
and each Stake had over it a Presidency, High Priests, and Council
of Twelve. We find the meaning of the word "Stake" in some of Smith's
earlier "revelations." Thus, in the one dated June 4, 1833, regarding
the organization of the church at Kirtland, it was said, "It is
expedient in me that this Stake that I have set for the strength of Zion
be made strong." Again, in one dated December 16, 1839, on the gathering
of the Saints, it is stated, "I have other places which I will appoint
unto them, and they shall be called Stakes for the curtains, or
the strength of Zion." In Utah, to-day, the Stakes form groups of
settlements, and are generally organized on county lines.
The prophet made a substantial provision for his father, founding
for him the office of Patriarch, in accordance with an unpublished
"revelation." The principal business of the Patriarch was to dispense
"blessings," which were regarded by the faithful as a sort of charm, to
ward off misfortune. Joseph, Sr., awarded these blessings without charge
when he began dispensing them at Kirtland, but a High Council held there
in 1835 allowed him $10 a week while blessing the church. After his
formal anointing in 1836 he was known as Father Smith, and the next year
his salary was made $1.50 a day.* Hyrum became Patriarch when his father
died in 1840, his brother William succeeded him, his Uncle John came
next, and his Uncle Joseph after John. Patriarchal blessings were
advertised in the Mormon newspaper in Nauvoo like other merchandise.
They could be obtained in writing, and contained promises of almost
anything that a man could wish, such as freedom from poverty and
disease, life prolonged until the coming of Christ, etc.** In 1875 the
price of a blessing in Utah had risen to $2. The office of Patriarch
is still continued, with one chief Patriarch, known as Patriarch of the
Church, and subordinate Patriarchs in the different Stakes. The position
of Patriarch of the church has always been regarded as a hereditary one,
and bestowed on some member of the Smith family, as it is to-day.
* The departure of the Patriarch from Ohio was somewhat dramatic.
As his wife tells the story in her book, the old man was taken by a
constable before a justice of the peace on a charge of performing
the marriage service without any authority, and was fined $3000,
and sentenced to the penitentiary in default of payment. Through the
connivance of the constable, who had been a Mormon, the prisoner was
allowed to leap out of a window, and he remained in hiding at New
Portage until his family were ready to start for Missouri. The
revelation of January 19, 1841, announced that he was then sitting "with
Abraham at his right hand."
* Ferris's "Utah and the Mormons," p. 314, and "Wife No. 19," p.
581.
BOOK II. -- IN OHIO
CHAPTER I. -- THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND
The four missionaries who had been sent to Ohio under Cowdery's
leadership arrived there in October, 1830. Rigdon left Kirtland on
his visit to Smith in New York State in the December following, and in
January, 1831, he returned to Ohio, taking Smith with him.
The party who set out for Ohio, ostensibly to preach to the Lamanites,
consisted of Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, Jr., and
Ziba Peterson, the latter one of Smith's original converts, who, it may
be noted, was deprived of his land and made to work for others a year
later in Missouri, because of offences against the church authorities.
These men preached as they journeyed, making a brief stop at Buffalo to
instruct the Indians there. On reaching Ohio, Pratt's acquaintance with
Rigdon's Disciples gave him an opportunity to bring the new Bible to the
attention of many people. The character of the Smiths was quite unknown
to the pioneer settlers, and the story of the miraculously delivered
Bible filled many of them with wonder rather than with unbelief.
The missionaries began the work of organizing a church at once. Some
members of Rigdon's congregation had already formed a "common stock
society," and were believers in a speedy millennium, and to these the
word brought by the new-comers was especially welcome. Cowdery baptized
seventeen persons into the new church. Rigdon at the start denied his
right to do this, and, in a debate between him and the missionaries
which followed at Rigdon's house, Rigdon quoted Scripture to prove that,
even if they had seen an angel, as they declared, it might have been
Satan transformed. Cowdery asked if he thought that, in response to
a prayer that God would show him an angel, the Heavenly Father would
suffer Satan to deceive him. Rigdon replied that if Cowdery made such
a request of the Heavenly Father "when He has never promised you such
a thing, if the devil never had an opportunity of deceiving you before,
you give him one now."* But after a brief study of the new book, Rigdon
announced that he, too, had had a "revelation," declaring to him that
Mormonism was to be believed. He saw in a vision all the orders of
professing Christians pass before him, and all were "as corrupt as
corruption itself," while the heart of the man who brought him the book
was "as pure as an angel."
* "It seemed to be a part of Rigdon's plan to make such a fight
that, when he did surrender, the triumph of the cause that had
defeated him would be all the more complete."--Kennedy, "Early Days of
Mormonism."
The announcement of Rigdon's conversation gave Mormonism an
advertisement and a support that had a wide effect, and it alarmed the
orthodox of that part of the country as they had never been alarmed
before. Referring to it, Hayden says, "The force of this shock was like
an earthquake when Symonds Ryder, Ezra Booth, and many others submitted
to the 'New Dispensation.'" Largely through his influence, the Mormon
church at Kirtland soon numbered more than one hundred members.
During all that autumn and early winter crowds went to Kirtland to learn
about the new religion. On Sundays the roads would be thronged with
people, some in whatever vehicles they owned, some on horseback, and
some on foot, all pressing forward to hear the expounders of the new
Gospel and to learn the particulars of the new Bible. Pioneers in a
country where there was little to give variety to their lives, they were
easily influenced by any religious excitement, and the announcement of
a new Bible and prophet was certain to arouse their liveliest interest.
They had, indeed, inherited a tendency to religious enthusiasm, so
recently had their parents gone through the excitements of the early
days of Methodism, or of the great revivals of the new West at the
beginning of the century, when (to quote one of the descriptions given
by Henry Howe) more than twenty thousand persons assembled in one
vast encampment, "hundreds of immortal beings moving to and fro, some
preaching, some praying for mercy, others praising God. Such was the
eagerness of the people to attend, that entire neighborhoods were
forsaken, and the roads literally crowded by those pressing forward on
their way to the groves."* Any new religious leader could then make his
influence felt on the Western border: Dylkes, the "Leatherwood God," had
found it necessary only to announce himself as the real Messiah at
an Ohio campmeeting, in 1828, to build up a sect on that assumption.
Freewill Baptists, Winebrennerians, Disciples, Shakers, and
Universalists were urging their doctrines and confusing the minds of
even the thoughtful with their conflicting views. We have seen to what
beliefs the preaching of the Disciples' evangelists had led the people
of the Western Reserve, and it did not really require a much broader
exercise of faith (or credulity) to accept the appearance of a new
prophet with a new Bible.
* "Historical Collections of the Great West."
While the main body of converts was made up of persons easily
susceptible to religious excitement, and accustomed to have their
opinions on such subjects formed for them, men of education and more or
less training in theology were found among the early adherents to the
new belief. It is interesting to see how the minds of such men were
influenced, and this we are enabled to do from personal experiences
related by some of them.
One of these, John Corrill, a man of intelligence, who stayed with the
church until it was driven out of Missouri, then became a member of the
Missouri Legislature, and wrote a brief history of the church to the
year 1839, in this pamphlet answered very clearly the question often
asked by his friends, "How did you come to join the Mormons?" A copy
of the new Bible was given to him by Cowdery when the missionaries,
on their Western trip, passed through Ashtabula County, Ohio, where he
lived. A brief reading convinced him that it was a mere money-making
scheme, and when he learned that they had stopped at Kirtland, he did
not entertain a doubt, that, under Rigdon's criticism, the pretensions
of the missionaries would be at once laid bare. When, on the contrary,
word came that Rigdon and the majority of his society had accepted the
new faith, Corrill asked himself: "What does this mean? Are Elder Rigdon
and these men such fools as to be duped by these impostors?" After
talking the matter over with a neighbor, he decided to visit Kirtland,
hoping to bring Rigdon home with him, with the idea that he might be
saved from the imposition if he could be taken from the influence of
the impostors. But before he reached Kirtland, Corrill heard of Rigdon's
baptism into the new church. Finding Kirtland in a state of great
religious excitement, he sought discussions with the leaders of the new
movement, but not always successfully.
Corrill started home with a "heart full of serious reflections." Were
not the people of Berea nobler than the people of Thessalonica because
"they searched the Scriptures daily; whether these things were so?"
Might he not be fighting against God in his disbelief? He spent two or
three weeks reading the Mormon Bible; investigated the bad reports of
the new sect that reached him and found them without foundation; went
back to Kirtland, and there convinced himself that the laying on of
hands and "speaking with tongues" were inspired by some supernatural
agency; admitted to himself that, accepting the words of Peter (Acts ii.
17-20), it was "just as consistent to look for prophets in this age as
in any other." Smith seemed to have been a bad man, but was not Moses a
fugitive from justice, as the murderer of a man whose body he had hidden
in the sand, when God called him as a prophet? The story of the long
hiding and final delivery of the golden plates to Smith taxed his
credulity; but on rereading the Scriptures he found that books are
referred to therein which they do not contain--Book of Nathan the
Prophet, Book of Gad the Seer, Book of Shemaiah the Prophet, and Book
of Iddo the Seer (1 Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. ix. 29 and xii. 15). This
convinced him that the Scriptures were not complete. Daniel and John
were commanded to seal the Book. David declared (Psalms xxxv.) "that
truth shall spring out of the earth," and from the earth Smith took
the plates; and Ezekiel (xxxvii. 15-21) foretold the existence of two
records, by means of which there shall be a gathering together of the
children of Israel. It finally seemed to Corrill that the Mormon Bible
corresponded with the record of Joseph referred to by Ezekiel, the Holy
Bible being the record of Judah.
Not fully satisfied, he finally decided, however, to join the new
church, with a mental reservation that he would leave it if he ever
found it to be a deception. Explaining his reasons for leaving it when
he did, he says, "I can see nothing that convinces me that God has been
our leader; calculation after calculation has failed, and plan after
plan has been overthrown, and our prophet seemed not to know the event
till too late."
The two other most prominent converts to the new church in Ohio were the
Rev. Ezra Booth, a Methodist preacher of more than ordinary culture, of
Mantua, and Symonds Ryder, a native of Vermont, whom Alexander Campbell
had converted to the Disciples' belief in 1828, and who occupied the
pulpit at Hiram when called on. Booth visited Smith in 1831, with some
members of his own congregation, and was so impressed by the miraculous
curing of the lame arm of a woman of his party by Smith, that he soon
gave in his allegiance. Ryder had always found one thing lacking in the
Disciples' theology--he looked for some actual "gift of the Holy Spirit"
in the way of "signs" that were to follow them that believed. He was
eventually induced to announce his conversion to the new church after
"he read in a newspaper, an account of the destruction of Pekin in
China, and remembered that, six weeks before, a young Mormon girl had
predicted the destruction of that city." This statement was made in
the sermon preached at his funeral. Both of these men confessed their
mistake four months later, after Booth had returned from a trip to
Missouri with Smith.
Among the ignorant, even the most extravagant of the claims of the
Mormon leaders had influence. One man, when he heard an elder in the
midst of a sermon "speak with tongues," in a language he had never
heard before, "felt a sudden thrill from the back of his head down
his backbone," and was converted on the spot. John D. Lee, of Catholic
education, was convinced by an elder that the end of the world was near,
and sold his property in Illinois for what it would bring, and moved to
Far West, in order to be in the right place when the last day dawned.
Lorenzo Snow, the recent President of the church, says that he was
"thoroughly convinced that obedience to those [the Mormon] prophets
would impart miraculous powers, manifestations, and revelations," the
first manifestation of which occurred some weeks later, when he heard a
sound over his head "like the rustling of silken robes, and the spirit
of God descended upon me."*
* Biography of Snow, by his sister Eliza.
The arguments that control men's religious opinions are too varied even
for classification. In a case like Mormonism they range from the really
conscientious study of a Corrill to the whim of the Paumotuan, of whom
Stevenson heard in the South Seas, who turned Mormon when his wife died,
after being a pillar of the Catholic church for fifteen years, on the
ground that "that must be a poor religion that could not save a man his
wife." Any person who will examine those early defences of the Mormon
faith, Parley P. Pratt's "A Voice of Warning," and Orson Pratt's "Divine
Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," will find what use can be made of
an insistence on the literal acceptance of the Scriptures in defending
such a sect as theirs, especially with persons whose knowledge of the
Scriptures is much less than their reverence for them.
Professor J. B. Turner,* writing in 1842, when the early teachings of
Mormonism had just had their effect in what is now styled the middle
West, observed that these teachings had made more infidels than Mormon
converts. This is accounted for by the fact that persons who attempted
to follow the Mormon argument by studying the Scriptures, found their
previous interpretation of parts of the Holy Bible overturned, and
the whole book placed under a cloud. W. J. Stillman mentions a similar
effect in the case of Ruskin. When they were in Switzerland, Ruskin
would do no painting on Sunday, while Stillman regarded the sanctity of
the first day of the week as a "theological fiction." In a discussion of
the subject between them, Stillman established to Ruskin's satisfaction
that there was no Scriptural authority for transferring the day of rest
from the seventh to the first day of the week. "The creed had so bound
him to the letter," says Stillman, "that the least enlargement of the
stricture broke it, and he rejected, not only the tradition of the
Sunday Sabbath, but the whole of the ecclesiastical interpretation
of the texts. He said, 'If they have deceived me in this, they have
probably deceived me in all.'" The Mormons soon learned that it was
more profitable for them to seek converts among those who would accept
without reasoning.
* "Mormonism in all Ages."
CHAPTER II. -- WILD VAGARIES OF THE CONVERTS
The scenes at Kirtland during the first winter of the church there
reached the limit of religious enthusiasm. The younger members outdid
the elder in manifesting their belief. They saw wonderful lights in the
air, and constantly received visions. Mounting stumps in the field, they
preached to imaginary congregations, and, picking up stones, they would
read on them words which they said disappeared as soon as known. At the
evening prayer-meetings the laying on of hands would be followed by a
sort of fit, in which the enthusiasts would fall apparently lifeless
on the floor, or contort their faces, creep on their hands or knees,
imitate the Indian process of killing and scalping, and chase balls of
fire through the fields.*
*Corrill's "Brief History of the Church," p. 16; Howe's
"Mormonism Unveiled," p. 104.
Some of the young men announced that they had received "commissions" to
teach and preach, written on parchment, which came to them from the sky,
and which they reached by jumping into the air. Howe reproduces one of
these, the conclusion of which, with the seal, follows:--
"That you had a messenger tell you to go and get the other night, you
must not show to any son of Adam. Obey this, and I will stand by you in
all cases. My servants, obey my commandments in all cases, and I will
provide.
"Be ye always ready, Be ye always ready, Whenever I shall call,
Be ye always ready, My seal.
[Illustration:
Seal
175]
"There shall be something of great importance revealed when I shall call
you to go: My servants, be faithful over a few things, and I will make
you a ruler over many. Amen, Amen, Amen."
Foolishly extravagant as these manifestations appear (Corrill says that
comparatively few members indulged in them), there was nothing in them
peculiar to the Mormon belief. The meetings of the Disciples, in the
year of Smith's arrival in Ohio and later, when men like Campbell and
Scott spoke, were swayed with the most intense religious enthusiasm. A
description of the effect of Campbell's preaching at a grove meeting in
the Cuyahoga Valley in 1831 says:--
"The woods were full of horses and carriages, and the hundreds already
there were rapidly swelled to many thousands; all were of one race--the
Yankee; all of one calling, or nearly, the farmer.... When Campbell
closed, low murmurs broke and ran through the awed crowd; men and women
from all parts of the vast assembly with streaming eyes came forward;
young men who had climbed into small trees from curiosity, came down
from conviction, and went forward for baptism."*
* Riddle's "The Portrait."
It is easy to cite very "orthodox" precedents for such manifestations.
One of these we find in the accounts of what were called "the jerks,"
which accompanied a great revival in 1803, brought about by
the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Badger, a Yale graduate and a
Congregationalist, who was the first missionary to the Western Reserve.
J. S. C. Abbott, in his history of Ohio, describing the "jerks," says:--
"The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms in every muscle,
nerve and tendon. His head was thrown backward and forward, and from
side to side, with inconceivable rapidity. So swift was the motion that
the features could no more be discerned than the spokes of a wheel can
be seen when revolving with the greatest velocity.... All were impressed
with a conviction that there was something supernatural in these
convulsions, and that it was opposing the spirit of God to resist them."
The most extravagant enthusiasm of the Kirtland converts, and the most
extravagant claims of the Mormon leaders at that time, were exceeded by
the manifestations of converts in the early days of Methodism, and
the miraculous occurrences testified to by Wesley himself,*--a cloud
tempering the sun in answer to his prayer; his horse cured of lameness
by faith; the case of a blind Catholic girl who saw plainly when her
eyes rested on the New Testament, but became blind again when she took
up the Mass Book.
* For examples see Lecky's "England in the Nineteenth Century,"
Vol. III, Chap. VIII, and Wesley's "Journal."
These Mormon enthusiasts were only suffering from a manifestation to
which man is subject; and we can agree with a Mormon elder who, although
he left the church disgusted with its extravagances, afterward remarked,
"The man of religious feeling will know how to pity rather than upbraid
that zeal without knowledge which leads a man to fancy that he has found
the ladder of Jacob, and that he sees the angel of the Lord ascending
and descending before his eyes."
When Smith and Rigdon reached Kirtland they found the new church in a
state of chaos because of these wild excitements, and of an attempt to
establish a community of possessions, growing out of Rigdon's previous
teachings. These communists held that what belonged to one belonged to
all, and that they could even use any one's clothes or other personal
property without asking permission. Many of the flock resented this,
and anything but a condition of brotherly love resulted. Smith, in his
account of the situation as they found it, says that the members were
striving to do the will of God, "though some had strange notions, and
false spirits had crept in among them. With a little caution and some
wisdom, I soon assisted the brothers and sisters to overcome them.
The plan of 'common stock,' which had existed in what was called 'the
family,' whose members generally had embraced the Everlasting Gospel,
was readily abandoned for the more perfect law of the Lord,"*--which the
prophet at once expounded.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 56.
Smith announced that the Lord had informed him that the ravings of the
converts were of the devil, and this had a deterring effect; but at an
important meeting of elders to receive an endowment, some three months
later, conducted by Smith himself, the spirits got hold of some of the
elders. "It threw one from his seat to the floor," says Corrill. "It
bound another so that for some time he could not use his limbs or
speak; and some other curious effects were experienced. But by a mighty
exertion, in the name of the Lord, it was exposed and shown to be of an
evil source."
CHAPTER III. -- GROWTH OF THE CHURCH
In order not to interrupt the story of the Mormons' experiences in Ohio,
leaving the first steps taken in Missouri to be treated in connection
with the regular course of events in that state, it will be sufficient
to say here that Cowdery, Pratt, and their two companions continued
their journey as far as the western border of Missouri, in the winter
of 1830 and 1831, making their headquarters at Independence, Jackson
County; that, on receipt of their reports about that country, Smith and
Rigdon, with others, made a trip there in June, 1831, during which the
corner-stones of the City of Zion and the Temple were laid, and officers
were appointed to receive money for the purchase of the land for the
Saints, its division; etc. Smith and Rigdon returned to Kirtland on
August 27, 1831.
The growth of the church in Ohio was rapid. In two or three weeks after
the arrival of the four pioneer missionaries, 127 persons had been
baptized, and by the spring of 1831 the number of converts had increased
to 1000. Almost all the male converts were honored with the title of
elder. By a "revelation" dated February 9, 1831 (Sec. 42), all of these
elders, except Smith and Rigdon, were directed to "go forth in the power
of my spirit, preaching my Gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up
your voices as with the voice of a trump." This was the beginning of
that extensive system of proselyting which was soon extended to Europe,
which was so instrumental in augmenting the membership of the church in
its earlier days, and which is still carried on with the utmost zeal
and persistence. The early missionaries travelled north into Canada and
through almost all the states, causing alarm even in New England by
the success of their work. One man there, in 1832, reprinted at his own
expense Alexander Campbell's pamphlet exposing the ridiculous features
of the Mormon Bible, for distribution as an offset to the arguments of
the elders. Women of means were among those who moved to Kirtland from
Massachusetts. In three years after Smith and Rigdon met in Palmyra,
Mormon congregations had been established in nearly all the Northern and
Middle states and in some of the Southern, with baptisms of from 30 to
130 in a place.*
Smith had relaxed none of his determination to be the one head of
the church. As soon as he arrived in Kirtland he put forth a long
"revelation" (Sec. 43) which left Rigdon no doubt of the prophet's
intentions. It declared to the elders that "there is none other but
Smith appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until
he be taken," and that "none else shall be appointed unto his gift
except it be through him." Not only was Smith's spiritual power thus
intrenched, but his temporal welfare was looked after. "And again I
say unto you," continues this mouthpiece of the Lord, "if ye desire
the mysteries of the Kingdom, provide for him food and raiment and
whatsoever he needeth to accomplish the work wherewith I have commanded
him." In the same month came another declaration, saying (Sec. 41) "is
meet that my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., should have a house built,
in which to live and translate" (the Scriptures). With a streak of
generosity it was added, "It is meet that my servant Sidney Rigdon
should live as seemeth him good."
*Turner's "Mormonism in all Ages," p. 38.
The iron hand with which Smith repressed Rigdon from the date of their
arrival in Ohio affords strong proof of Rigdon's complicity in the
Bible plot, and of Smith's realization of the fact that he stood to his
accomplice in the relation of a burglar to his mate, where the burglar
has both the boodle and the secret in his possession. An illustration of
this occurred during their first trip to Missouri. Rigdon and Smith
did not agree about the desirability of western Missouri as a permanent
abiding-place for the church. The Rev. Ezra Booth, after leaving the
Mormons, contributed a series of letters on his experience with Smith
to the Ohio Star of Ravenna.* In the first of these he said: "On our
arrival in the western part of the state of Missouri we discovered that
prophecy and visions had failed, or rather had proved false. This fact
was so notorious that Mr. Rigdon himself says that 'Joseph's vision was
a bad thing.'" Smith nevertheless directed Rigdon to write a description
of that promised land, and, when the production did not suit him, he
represented the Lord as censuring Rigdon in a "revelation" (Sec. 63):--
* Copied in Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled."
"And now behold, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, am not pleased
with my servant Sidney Rigdon; he exalteth himself in his heart, and
receiveth not counsel, but grieveth the spirit. Wherefore his writing is
not acceptable unto the Lord; and he shall make another, and if the Lord
receiveth it not, behold he standeth no longer in the office which I
have appointed him."
That the proud-minded, educated preacher, who refused to allow Campbell
to claim the foundership of the Disciples' church, should take such a
rebuke and threat of dismissal in silence from Joe Smith of Palmyra, and
continue under his leadership, certainly indicates some wonderful hold
that the prophet had upon him.
While the travelling elders were doing successful work in adding new
converts to the fold, there was beginning to manifest itself at Kirtland
that "apostasy" which lost the church so many members of influence, and
was continued in Missouri so far that Mayor Grant said, in Salt Lake
City, in 1856, that "one-half at least of the Yankee members of this
church have apostatized."* The secession of men like Booth and Ryder,
and their public exposure of Smith's methods, coupled with rumors
of immoral practices in the fold, were followed by the tarring and
feathering of Smith and Rigdon on the night of Saturday, March 25, 1832.
The story of this outrage is told in Smith's autobiography, and the
details there given may be in the main accepted.
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 201.
Smith and his wife were living at the house of a farmer named Johnson
in Hiram township, while he and Rigdon were translating the Scriptures.
Mrs. Smith had taken two infant twins to bring up, and on the night in
question she and her husband were taking turns sitting up with these
babies, who were just recovering from the measles. While Smith was
sleeping, his wife heard a tapping on the window, but gave it no
attention. The mob, believing that all within were asleep, then burst
in the door, seized Smith as he lay partly dressed on a trundle bed, and
rushed him out of doors, his wife crying "murder." Smith struggled as
best he could, but they carried him around the house, choking him until
he became unconscious. Some thirty yards from the house he saw Rigdon,
"stretched out on the ground, whither they had dragged him by the
heels." When they had carried Smith some thirty yards farther, some of
the mob meantime asking, "Ain't ye going to kill him?" a council was
held and some one asked, "Simmons, where's the tarbucket?" When the
bucket was brought up they tried to force the "tarpaddle" into Smith's
mouth, and also, he says, to force a phial between his teeth. He adds:
"All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar, and one man
fell on me and scratched my body with his nails like a mad cat. They
then left me, and I attempted to rise, but fell again. I pulled the tar
away from my lips, etc., so that I could breathe more freely, and after
a while I began to recover, and raised myself up, when I saw two lights.
I made my way toward one of them, and found it was father Johnson's.
When I had come to the door I was naked, and the tar made me look
as though I had been covered with blood; and when my wife saw me she
thought I was all smashed to pieces, and fainted. During the affray
abroad, the sisters of the neighborhood collected at my room. I called
for a blanket; they threw me one and shut the door; I wrapped it around
me and went in.... My friends spent the night in scraping and removing
the tar and washing and cleansing my body, so that by morning I was
ready to be clothed again.... With my flesh all scarified and defaced,
I preached [that morning] to the congregation as usual, and in the
afternoon of the same day baptized three individuals."
Rigdon's treatment is described as still more severe. He was not only
dragged over the ground by the heels, but was well covered with tar
and feathers; and when Smith called on him the next day he found him
delirious, and calling for a razor with which to kill his wife.
All Mormon accounts of this, as well as later persecutions, attempt to
make the ground of attack hostility to the Mormon religious beliefs,
presenting them entirely in the light of outrages on liberty of opinion.
Symonds Ryder (whom Smith accuses of being one of the mob), says that
the attack had this origin: The people of Hiram had the reputation of
being very receptive and liberal in their religious views. The Mormons
therefore preached to them, and seemed in a fair way to win a decided
success, when the leaders made their first trip to Missouri. Papers
which they left behind outlining the internal system of the new church
fell into the hands of some of the converts, and revealed to them the
horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and
place it under the control of Smith, the Prophet.... Some who had been
the dupes of this deception determined not to let it pass with impunity;
and, accordingly, a company was formed of citizens from Shalersville,
Garretsville, and Hiram, and took Smith and Rigdon from their beds and
tarred and feathered them.*
* Hayden's "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve," p. 221.
This manifestation of hostility to the leaders of the new church was
only a more pronounced form of that which showed itself against Smith
before he left New York State. When a man of his character and previous
history assumes the right to baptize and administer the sacrament, he
is certain to arouse the animosity, not only of orthodox church members,
but of members of the community who are lax in their church duties.
Goldsmith illustrates this kind of feeling when, in "She Stoops to
Conquer," he makes one of the "several shabby fellows with punch and
tobacco" in the alehouse say, "I loves to hear him, the squire sing,
bekeays he never gives us nothing that's low," and another responds, "O,
damn anything that's low." The Anti-Mormon feeling was intensified
and broadened by the aggressiveness with which the Mormons sought for
converts in the orthodox flocks.
Beliefs radically different from those accepted by any of the orthodox
denominations have escaped hostile opposition in this country, even when
they have outraged generally accepted social customs. The Harmonists,
in a body of 600, emigrated to Pennsylvania to escape the persecution to
which they were subjected in Germany, purchased 5000 acres of land and
organized a town; moved later to Indiana, where they purchased 25,000
acres; and ten years afterward returned to Pennsylvania, and bought
5000 acres in another place,--all the time holding to their belief in a
community of goods and a speedy coming of Christ, as well as the duty of
practicing celibacy,--without exciting their neighbors or arousing
their enmity. The Wallingford Community in Connecticut, and the Oneida
Community in New York State, practised free love among themselves
without persecution, until their organizations died from natural causes.
The leaders in these and other independent sects were clean men within
their own rules, honest in their dealings with their neighbors,
never seeking political power, and never pressing their opinions upon
outsiders. An old resident of Wallingford writes to me, "The Community
were, in a way, very generally respected for their high standard of
integrity in all their business transactions."
As we follow the career of the Mormons from Ohio to Missouri, and thence
to Illinois, we shall read their own testimony about the character of
their leading men, and about their view of the rights of others in each
of their neighborhoods. When Horace Greeley asked Brigham Young in Salt
Lake City for an explanation of the "persecutions" of the Mormons, his
reply was that there was "no other explanation than is afforded by the
crucifixion of Christ and the kindred treatment of God's ministers,
prophets, and saints in all ages"; which led Greeley to observe that,
while a new sect is always decried and traduced,--naming the Baptists,
Quakers, Methodists, and Universalists,--he could not remember "that
either of them was ever generally represented and regarded by the other
sects of their early days as thieves, robbers, and murderers."*
* "Overland Journey," p. 214.
Another attempt by Rigdon to assert his independence of Smith occurred
while the latter was still at Mr. Johnson's house and Rigdon was
in Kirtland. The fullest account of this is found in Mother Smith's
"History," pp. 204-206. She says that Rigdon came in late to a
prayer-meeting, much agitated, and, instead of taking the platform,
paced backward and forward on the floor. Joseph's father told him they
would like to hear a discourse from him, but he replied, "The keys of
the Kingdom are rent from the church, and there shall not be a prayer
put up in this house this day." This caused considerable excitement, and
Smith's brother Hyrum left the house, saying, "I'll put a stop to this
fuss pretty quick," and, mounting a horse, set out for Johnson's and
brought the prophet back with him. On his arrival, a meeting of the
brethren was held, and Joseph declared to them, "I myself hold the keys
of this Last Dispensation, and will forever hold them, both in time and
eternity, so set your hearts at rest upon that point. All is right." The
next day Rigdon was tried before a council for having "lied in the name
of the Lord," and was "delivered over to the buffetings of Satan," and
deprived of his license, Smith telling him that "the less priesthood he
had, the better it would be for him." Rigdon, Mrs. Smith says, according
to his own account, "was dragged out of bed by the devil three times in
one night by the heels," and, while she does not accept this literally,
she declares that "his contrition was as great as a man could well live
through." After awhile he got another license.
CHAPTER IV. -- GIFTS OF TONGUES AND MIRACLES
In January, 1833, Smith announced a revival of the "gift of tongues,"
and instituted the ceremony of washing the feet.* Under the new system,
Smith or Rigdon, during a meeting, would call on some brother, or
sister, saying, "Father A., if you will rise in the name of Jesus Christ
you can speak in tongues." The rule which persons thus called on were
to follow was thus explained, "Arise upon your feet, speak or make some
sound, continue to make sounds of some kind, and the Lord will make
a language of it." It was not necessary that the words should be
understood by the congregation; some other Mormon would undertake their
interpretation. Much ridicule was incurred by the church because of
this kind of revelation. Gunnison relates that when a woman "speaking in
tongues" pronounced "meliar, meli, melee," it was at once translated by
a young wag, "my leg, my thigh, my knee," and, when he was called before
the Council charged with irreverence, he persisted in his translation,
but got off with an admonition.** At a meeting in Nauvoo in later years
a doubting convert delivered an address in real Choctaw, whereupon a
woman jumped up and offered as a translation an account of the glories
of the new Temple.
* This ceremony has fallen into disuse in Utah.
** "The Mormons." p. 74.
At the conference of June 4, 1831, Smith ordained Elder Wright to the
high priesthood for service among the Indians, with the gift of tongues,
healing the sick, etc. Wright at once declared that he saw the Saviour.
At one of the sessions at Kirtland at this time, as described by an
eye-witness, Smith announced that the day would come when no man would
be permitted to preach unless he had seen the Lord face to face. Then,
addressing Rigdon, he asked, "Sidney, have you seen the Lord?" The
obedient Sidney made reply, "I saw the image of a man pass before my
face, whose locks were white, and whose countenance was exceedingly
fair, even surpassing all beauty that I ever beheld." Smith at once
rebuked him by telling him that he would have seen more but for his
unbelief.
Almost simultaneously with Smith's first announcement of his prophetic
powers, while working his "peek-stone" in Pennsylvania and New York, he,
as we have seen, claimed ability to perform miracles, and he announced
that he had cast out a devil at Colesville in 1830.* The performance of
miracles became an essential part of the church work at Kirtland, and
had a great effect on the superstitious converts. The elders, who in
the early days labored in England, laid great stress on their miraculous
power, and there were some amusing exposures of their pretences. The
Millennial Star printed a long list of successful miracles dating
from 1839 to 1850, including the deaf made to hear, the blind to see,
dislocated bones put in place, leprosy and cholera cured, and fevers
rebuked. Smith, Rigdon, and Cowdery took a leading part in this work at
Kirtland.** To a man nearly dead with consumption Rigdon gave assurance
that he would recover "as sure as there is a God in heaven." The man's
death soon followed. When a child, whose parents had been persuaded
to trust its case to Mormon prayers instead of calling a physician,***
died, Smith and Rigdon promised that it would rise from the dead, and
they went through certain ceremonies to accomplish that object.****
* For particulars of this miracle, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIV,
pp. 28, 32.
** While Smith was in Washington in 1840, pressing on the federal
authorities the claims of the Mormons for redress for their losses in
Missouri, he preached on the church doctrines. A member of Congress
who heard him sent a synopsis of the discourse to his wife, and Smith
printed this entire in his autobiography (Millennial Star, Vol. XVII, p.
583). Here is one passage: "He [Smith] performed no miracles. He did
not pretend to possess any such power." This is an illustration of
the facility with which Smith could lie, when to do so would serve his
purpose.
*** The Saints were early believers in faith cure. Smith, in a
sermon preached in 1841, urged them "to trust in God when sick, and live
by faith and not by medicine or poison" (Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII,
p. 663). A coroner's jury, in an inquest over a victim of this faith in
London, England, cautioned the sect against continuing this method of
curing (Times and Seasons, 1842, p. 813).
**** For further illustrations of miracle working, in Ohio, see
Kennedy's "Early Days of Mormonism," Chap. V.
The lengths to which Smith dared go in his pretensions are well
illustrated in an incident of these days. Among the curiosities of
a travelling showman who passed through Kirtland were some Egyptian
mummies. As the golden plates from which the Mormon Bible was translated
were written in "reformed Egyptian," the translator of those plates was
interested in all things coming from Egypt, and at his suggestion the
mummies were purchased by and for the church. On them were found some
papyri which Joseph, with the assistance of Phelps and Cowdery, set
about "translating." Their success was great, and Smith was able to
announce: "We found that one of these rolls contained the writings of
Abraham, another the writings of Joseph.* Truly we could see that the
Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of truth." That there might
be no question about the accuracy of Smith's translation, he exhibited
a certificate signed by the proprietor of the show, saying that he had
exhibited the "hieroglyphic characters" to the most learned men in many
cities, "and from all the information that I could ever learn or meet
with, I find that of Joseph Smith, Jr., to correspond in the most minute
matters." * When the papyri were shown to Josiah Quincy and Charles
Francis Adams, on the occasion of their visit to Nauvoo in 1844, Joseph
Smith, pointing out the inscriptions, said: "That is the handwriting of
Abraham, the Father of the Faithful. This is the autograph of Moses, and
these lines were written by his brother Aaron. Here we have the earliest
account of the creation, from which Moses composed the first Book of
Genesis."--"Figures of the Past," p. 386.
Smith's autobiography contains this memorandum: "October 1, 1835. This
afternoon I labored on the Egyptian alphabet in company with Brother
O. Cowdery and W. W. Phelps, and during the research the principals of
astronomy, as understood by Father Abraham and the Ancients, unfolded
to our understanding." When he was in the height of his power in
Nauvoo, Smith printed in the Times and Seasons a reproduction of these
hieroglyphics accompanied by this alleged translation, of what he called
"the Book of Abraham," and they were also printed in the Millennial
Star.* The translation was a meaningless jumble of words after this
fashion:--
* See Vol. XIX, p. 100, etc., from which the accompanying
facsimile is taken.
[Illustration: Egyptian Papyri
188]
"In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my father, I,
Abraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of
residence, and finding there was greater happiness and peace and
rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the Fathers, and the right
whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same, having been
myself a follower of righteousness, desiring to be one also who
possessed great knowledge, and to possess greater knowledge, and to be a
greater follower of righteousness."
Remy submitted a reproduction of these hieroglyphics to Theodule
Deveria, of the Museum of the Louvre, in Paris, who found, of course,
that Smith's purported translation was wholly fraudulent. For instance,
his Abraham fastened on an altar was a representation of Osiris coming
to life on his funeral couch, his officiating priest was the god Anubis,
and what Smith represents to indicate an angel of the Lord is "the soul
of Osiris, under the form of a hawk."* Smith's whole career offered no
more brazen illustration of his impostures than this.
* See "A Journey to Great Salt Lake City", by Jules Remy (1861),
Note XVII.
A visitor to the Kirtland Temple some years later paid Joseph's father
half a dollar in order to see the Egyptian curios, which were kept in
the attic of that structure.
A well-authenticated anecdote, giving another illustration of Smith's
professed knowledge of the Egyptian language is told by the Rev. Henry
Caswall, M.A., who, after holding the Professorship of Divinity in
Kemper College, in Missouri, became vicar of a church in England. Mr.
Caswall, on the occasion of a visit to Nauvoo in 1842, having heard of
Smith's Egyptian lore, took with him an ancient Greek manuscript of the
Psalter, on parchment, with which to test the prophet's scholarship. The
belief of Smith's followers in his powers was shown by their eagerness
to have him see this manuscript, and their persistence in urging Mr.
Caswall to wait a day for Smith's return from Carthage that he might
submit it to the prophet. Mr. Caswall the next day handed the
manuscript to Smith and asked him to explain its contents. After a brief
examination, Smith explained: "It ain't Greek at all, except perhaps
a few words. What ain't Greek is Egyptian, and what ain't Egyptian
is Greek. This book is very valuable. It is a dictionary of Egyptian
hieroglyphics. These figures (pointing to the capitals) is Egyptian
hieroglyphics written in the reformed Egyptian. These characters are
like the letters that were engraved on the golden plates."*
* "The City of the Mormons," p. 36 (1842).
CHAPTER V. -- SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES
When Rigdon returned to Ohio with Smith in January, 1831, it seems to
have been his intention to make Kirtland the permanent headquarters of
the new church. He had written to his people from Palmyra, "Be it known
to you, brethren, that you are dwelling on your eternal inheritance."
When Cowdery and his associates arrived in Ohio on their first trip,
they announced as the boundaries of the Promised Land the township
of Kirtland on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Within two
months of his arrival at Kirtland Smith gave out a "revelation" (Sec.
45), in which the Lord commanded the elders to go forth into the western
countries and buildup churches, and they were told of a City of Refuge
for the church, to be called the New Jerusalem. No definite location of
this city was given, and the faithful were warned to "keep these things
from going abroad unto the world." Another "revelation" of the same
month (Sec. 48) announced that it was necessary for all to remain for
the present in their places of abode, and directed those who had lands
"to impart to the eastern brethren," and the others to buy lands, and
all to save money "to purchase lands for an inheritance, even the city."
The reports of those who first went to Missouri induced Smith and
Rigdon, before they made their first trip to that state, to announce
that the Saints would pass one more winter in Ohio. But when they had
visited the Missouri frontier and realized its distance from even the
Ohio border line, and the actual privations to which settlers there must
submit, their zeal weakened, and they declared, "It will be many years
before we come here, for the Lord has a great work for us to do in
Ohio." The building of the Temple at Kirtland, and the investments
in lots and in business enterprises there showed that a permanent
settlement in Ohio was then decided on.
Smith's first business enterprise for the church in Ohio was a general
store which he opened in Hiram. This establishment has been described as
"a poorly furnished country store where commerce looks starvation in the
face."* The difficulty of combining the positions of prophet, head of
the church, and retail merchant was naturally great. The result of the
combination has been graphically pictured by no less an authority than
Brigham Young. In a discourse in Salt Lake City, explaining why the
church did not maintain a store there, Young said:--
* Salt Lake Herald, November 17, 1877.
"You that have lived in Nauvoo, in Missouri, in Kirtland, Ohio, can you
assign a reason why Joseph could not keep a store and be a merchant? Let
me just give you a few reasons; and there are men here who know just
how matters went in those days. Joseph goes to New York and buys $20,000
worth of goods, comes into Kirtland and commences to trade. In comes
one of the brethren. Brother Joseph, let me have a frock pattern for my
wife: What if Joseph says, 'No, I cannot without money.' The consequence
would be, 'He is no Prophet,' says James. Pretty soon Thomas walks in.
'Brother Joseph, will you trust me for a pair of boots?' 'No, I cannot
let them go without money.' 'Well,' says Thomas, 'Brother Joseph is no
Prophet; I have found THAT out and I am glad of it.' After a while in
comes Bill and Sister Susan. Says Bill, 'Brother Joseph, I want a
shawl. I have not got any money, but I wish you to trust me a week or
a fortnight.' Well, Brother Joseph thinks the others have gone and
apostatized, and he don't know but these goods will make the whole
church do the same, so he lets Bill have a shawl. Bill walks of with
it and meets a brother. 'Well,' says he, 'what do you think of Brother
Joseph?' 'O, he is a first rate man, and I fully believe he is a
Prophet. He has trusted me with this shawl.' Richard says, 'I think
I will go down and see if he won't trust me some.' In walks Richard.
Brother Joseph, I want to trade about $20.' 'Well,'says Joseph, 'these
goods will make the people apostatize, so over they go; they are of less
value than the people.' Richard gets his goods. Another comes in the
same way to make a trade of $25, and so it goes. Joseph was a first rate
fellow with them all the time, provided he never would ask them to pay
him. And so you may trace it down through the history of this people."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 215.
If this analysis of the flock which Smith gathered in Ohio, and which
formed the nucleus of the settlements in Missouri, was not permanently
recorded in an official church record, its authenticity would be
vigorously assailed.
Later enterprises at Kirtland, undertaken under the auspices of the
church, included a steam sawmill and a tannery, both of which were
losing concerns. But the speculation to which later Mormon authorities
attributed the principal financial disasters of the church at Kirtland
was the purchase of land and its sale as town lots.* The craze for land
speculation in those days was not confined, however, to the Mormons.
That was the period when the purchase of public lands of the United
States seemed likely to reach no limit. These sales, which amounted to
$2,300,000 in 1830, and to $4,800,000 in 1834, lumped to $14,757,600 in
1835, and to $24,877,179 in 1836. The government deposits (then made
in the state banks) increased from $10,000,000 on January 1, 1835, to
$41,500,000 on June 1, 1836, the increase coming from receipts from land
sales. This led to that bank expansion which was measured by the growth
of bank capital in this country from $61,000,000 to $200,000,000 between
1830 and 1834, with a further advance to $251,000,000.
* "Real estate rose from 100 to 800 per cent and in many cases
more. Men who were not thought worth $50 or $100 became purchasers
of thousands. Notes (sometimes cash), deeds and mortgages passed and
repassed, till all, or nearly all, supposed they had become wealthy,
or at least had acquired a competence."--Messenger and Advocate, June,
1837.
The Mormon leaders and their people were peculiarly liable to be led
into disaster when sharing in this speculators' fever. They were,
however, quick to take advantage of the spirit of the times. The Zion of
Missouri lost its attractiveness to them, and on February 23, 1833, the
Presidency decided to purchase land at Kirtland, and to establish there
on a permanent Stake of Zion. The land purchases of the church began at
once, and we find a record of one Council meeting, on March 23, 1833,
at which it was decided to buy three farms costing respectively $4000,
$2100, and $5000. Kirtland was laid out (on paper) with 32 streets,
cutting one another at right angles, each four rods wide. This provided
for 225 blocks of 20 lots each. Twenty-nine of the streets were named
after Mormons. Joseph and his family appear many times in the list of
conveyors of these lots. The original map of the city, as described
in Smith's autobiography, provided for 24 public buildings temples,
schools, etc.; no lot to contain more than one house, and that not to be
nearer than 25 feet from the street, with a prohibition against erecting
a stable on a house lot.*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 438-439.
Of course this Mormon capital must have a grand church edifice, to meet
Smith's views, and he called a council to decide about the character
of the new meeting-house. A few of the speakers favored a modest frame
building, but a majority thought a log one better suited to their means.
Joseph rebuked the latter, asking, "Shall we, brethren, build a house
for our God of logs?" and he straightway led them to the corner of a
wheat field, where the trench for the foundation was at once begun.*
No greater exhibition of business folly could have been given than
the undertaking of the costly building then planned on so slender a
financial foundation.
* Mother Smith's "Biographical Sketches" p. 213.
The corner-stone was laid on July 23, 1833, and the Temple was not
dedicated until March 27, 1836. Mormon devotion certainly showed itself
while this work was going on. Every male member was expected to give
one-seventh of his time to the building without pay, and those who worked
on it at day's wages had, in most instances, no other income, and often
lived on nothing but corn meal. The women, as their share, knit and wove
garments for the workmen.
The Temple, which is of stone covered with a cement stucco (it is still
in use), measures 60 by 80 feet on the ground, is 123 feet in height to
the top of the spire, and contains two stories and an attic.
The cost of this Temple was $40,000, and, notwithstanding the sacrifices
made by the Saints in assisting its construction, and the schemes of
the church officers to secure funds, a debt of from $15,000 to $20,000
remained upon it. That the church was financially embarrassed at
the very beginning of the work is shown by a letter addressed to the
brethren in Zion, Missouri, by Smith, Rigdon, and Williams, dated June
25, 1833, in which they said, "Say to Brother Gilbert that we have no
power to assist him in a pecuniary point, as we know not the hour when
we shall be sued for debts which we have contracted ourselves in New
York."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 450.
To understand the business crash and scandals which compelled Smith
and his associates to flee from Ohio, it is necessary to explain the
business system adopted by the church under them. This system began with
a rule about the consecration of property. As originally published
in the Evening and Morning Star, and in chapter xliv of the "Book
of Commandments," this rule declared, "Thou shalt consecrate all thy
properties, that which thou hast, unto me, with a covenant and a deed
which cannot be broken," with a provision that the Bishop, after he had
received such an irrevocable deed, should appoint every man a steward
over so much of his property as would be sufficient for himself and
family. In the later edition of the "Doctrine and Covenants" this
was changed to read, "And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and
consecrate thy properties for their support," etc.
By a "revelation" given out while the heads of the church were in
Jackson County, Missouri, in April, 1832 (Sec. 82), a sort of firm was
appointed, including Smith, Rigdon, Cowdery, Harris, and N. K. Whitney,
"to manage the affairs of the poor, and all things pertaining to the
bishopric," both in Ohio and Missouri. This firm thus assumed control of
the property which "revelation" had placed in the hands of the
Bishop. This arrangement was known as The Order of Enoch. Next came a
"revelation" dated April 23, 1834. (Sec. 104), by which the properties
of the Order were divided, Rigdon getting the place in which he was
living in Kirtland, and the tannery; Harris a lot, with a command
to "devote his monies for the proclaiming of my words"; Cowdery and
Williams, the printing-office, with some extra lots to Cowdery; and
Smith, the lot designed for the Temple, and "the inheritance on which
his father resides." The building of the Temple having brought the
Mormon leaders into debt, this "revelation," was designed to help them
out, and it contained these further directions, in the voice of
the Lord, be it remembered: "The covenants being broken through
transgression, by covetousness and feigned words, therefore you are
dissolved as a United Order with your brethren, that you are not bound
only up to this hour unto them, only on this wise, as I said, by loan
as shall be agreed by this Order in council, as your circumstances will
admit, and the voice of the council direct.....
"And again verily I say unto you, concerning your debts, behold it is
my will that you should pay all your debts; and it is my will that you
should humble yourselves before me, and obtain this blessing by your
diligence and humility and the prayer of faith; and inasmuch as you are
diligent and humble, and exercise the prayer of faith, behold, I will
soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, until I shall send
means unto you for your deliverance.... I give you a promise that
you shall be delivered this once out of your bondage; inasmuch as you
obtained a chance to loan money by hundreds, or thousands even until you
shall loan enough [meaning borrow] to deliver yourselves from bondage,
it is your privilege; and pledge the properties which I have put into
your hands this once.... The master will not suffer his house to be
broken up. Even so. Amen."
It does not appear that the Mormon leaders took advantage of this
authorization to borrow money on Kirtland real estate, if they could;
but in 1835 they set up several mercantile establishments, finding firms
in Cleveland, Buffalo, and farther east who would take their notes on
six months' time. "A great part of the goods of these houses," says
William Harris, "went to pay the workmen on the Temple, and many were
sold on credit, so that when the notes became due the houses were not
able to meet them."
Smith's autobiography relates part of one story of an effort of his to
secure money at this trying time, the complete details of which have
been since supplied. He simply says that on July 25, 1836, in company
with his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery, he started
on a trip which brought them to Salem, Massachusetts, where "we hired a
house and occupied the same during the month, teaching the people from
house to house."* The Mormon of to-day, in reading his "Doctrine and
Covenants," finds Section 111 very perplexing. No place of its reception
is given, but it goes on to say:--
* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 281.
"I, the Lord your God, am not displeased with your coming this journey,
notwithstanding your follies; I have much treasure in this city for you,
for the benefit of Zion;... and it shall come to pass in due time, that I
will give this city into your hands, that you shall have power over it,
insomuch that they shall not discover your secret parts; and its wealth
pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours. Concern not yourself
about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them.... And inquire
diligently concerning the more ancient inhabitants and founders of this
city; for there are more treasures than one for you in this city."
"This city" was Salem, Massachusetts, and the "revelation" was put forth
to brace up the spirits of Smith's fellow-travellers. A Mormon named
Burgess had gone to Kirtland with a story about a large amount of money
that was buried in the cellar of a house in Salem which had belonged to
a widow, and the location of which he alone knew. Smith credited this
report, and looked to the treasure to assist him in his financial
difficulties, and he took the persons named with him on the trip. But
when they got there Burgess said that time had so changed the appearance
of the houses that he could not be sure which was the widow's, and he
cleared out. Smith then hired a house which he thought might be the
right one,--it proved not to be,--and it was when his associates
were--becoming discouraged that the ex-money-digger uttered the words
quoted, to strengthen their courage. "We speak of these things with
regret," says Ebenezer Robinson, who believed in the prophet's divine
calling to the last.*
* The Return, July, 1889.
Brought face to face with apparent financial disaster, the next step
taken to prevent this was the establishment of a bank. Smith told of a
"revelation" concerning a bank "which would swallow up all other banks."
An application for a charter was made to the Ohio legislature, but it
was refused. The law of Ohio at that time provided that "all notes and
bills, bonds and other securities [of an unchartered bank] shall be
held and taken in all courts as absolutely void." This, however, did not
deter a man of Smith's audacity, and soon came the announcement of the
organization of the "Kirtland Safety Society Bank," with an alleged
capital of $4,000,000. The articles of agreement had been drawn up on
November 2, 1836, and Oliver Cowdery had been sent to Philadelphia to
get the plates for the notes at the same time that Orson Hyde set out
to the state capital to secure a charter. Cowdery took no chances of
failure, and he came back not only with a plate, but with $200,000 in
printed bills. To avoid the inconvenience of having no charter, the
members of the Safety Society met on January 2, 1837, and reorganized
under the name of the "Kirtland Society Anti-banking Company," and, in
the hope of placing the bills within the law (or at least beyond
its reach), the word "Bank" was changed with a stamp so that it read
"Anti-BANK-ing Co.," as in the facsimile here presented.
[Illustration: Bank-Note
198]
W. Harris thus describes the banking scheme:--
"Subscribers for stock were allowed to pay the amount of their
subscriptions in town lots at five or six times their real value; others
paid in personal property at a high valuation, and some were paid
in cash. When the notes were first issued they were current in the
vicinity, and Smith took advantage of their credit to pay off with them
the debts he and his brethren had contracted in the neighborhood for
land, etc. The Eastern creditors, however, refused to take them. This
led to the expedient of exchanging them for the notes of other banks.
Accordingly, the Elders were sent into the country to barter off
Kirtland money, which they did with great zeal, and continued the
operation until the notes were not worth twelve and a half cents to the
dollar."*
* "Mormonism Portrayed," p. 31
Just how much of this currency was issued the records do not show. Hall
says that Brigham Young, who had joined the flock at Kirtland, disposed
of $10,000 worth of it in the States, and that Smith and other church
officers reaped a rich harvest with it in Canada, explaining, "The
credit of the bank here was good, even high."* Kidder quotes a gentleman
living near Kirtland who said that the cash capital paid in was only
about $5000, and that they succeeded in floating from $50,000 to
$100,000. Ann Eliza, Brigham's "wife No. 19," says that her father
invested everything he had but his house and shop in the bank, and lost
it all.
* "Abominations of Mormonism Exposed" (1852), pp. 19, 20.
Cyrus Smalling, one of the Seventy at Kirtland, wrote an account of
Kirtland banking operations under date of March 10, 1841, in which he
said that Smith and his associates collected about $6000 in specie, and
that when people in the neighborhood went to the bank to inquire about
its specie reserve, "Smith had some one or two hundred boxes made, and
gathered all the lead and shot the village had, or that part of it that
he controlled, and filled the boxes with lead, shot, etc., and marked
them $1000 each. Then, when they went to examine the vault, he had one
box on a table partly filled for them to see; and when they proceeded to
the vault, Smith told them that the church had $200,000 in specie;
and he opened one box and they saw that it was silver; and they were
seemingly satisfied, and went away for a few days until the elders were
packed off in every direction to pass their paper money."*
* "Mormons; or Knavery Exposed" (1841).
Smith believed in specie payments to his bank, whatever might be his
intentions as regards the redemption of his notes, for, in the Messenger
and Advocate (pp. 441-443), following the by-laws of the Anti-banking
Company, was printed a statement signed by him, saying:--
"We want the brethren from abroad to call on us and take stock in the
Safety Society, and we would remind them of the sayings of the Prophet
Isaiah contained in the 60th chapter, and more particularly in the 9th
and 17th verses which are as follows:--
"Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to
bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the
name of the Lord thy God.
"For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, etc."
The Messenger and Advocate (edited by W. A. Cowdery), of July, 1837,
contained a long article on the bank and its troubles, pointing out,
first, that the bank was opened without a charter, being "considered a
kind of joint stock association," and that "the private property of
the stockholders was holden in proportion to the amount of their
subscriptions for the redemption of the paper," and also that its notes
were absolutely void under the state law. The editor goes on to say:--
"Previously to the commencement of discounting by the bank, large debts
had been contracted for merchandise in New York and other cities, and
large contracts entered into for real estate in this and adjoining
towns; some of them had fallen due and must be met, or incur forfeitures
of large sums. These causes, we are bound to believe, operated to
induce the officers of the bank to let out larger sums than their better
judgments dictated, which almost invariably fell into or passed through
the hands of those who sought our ruin.... Hundreds who were enemies
either came or sent their agents and demanded specie, till the officers
thought best to refuse payment."
This subtle explanation of the suspension of specie payments is followed
with a discussion of monopolies, etc., leading up to a statement of the
obligations of the Mormons in regard to the discredited bank-notes, most
of which were in circulation elsewhere. To the question; "Shall we unite
as one man, say it is good, and make it good by taking it on a par with
gold?" he replies, "No," explaining that, owing to the fewness of the
church members as compared with the world at large, "it must be confined
in its circulation and par value to the limits of our own society."
To the question, "Shall we then take it at its marked price for our
property," he again replies, "No," explaining that their enemies had
received the paper at a discount, and that, to receive it at par from
them, would "give them voluntarily and with one eye open just that
advantage over us to oppress, degrade and depress us." This combined
financial and spiritual adviser closes his article by urging the
brethren to set apart a portion of their time to the service of God, and
a portion to "the study of the science of our government and the news of
the day."
A card which appeared in the Messenger and Advocate of August, 1837,
signed by Smith, warned "the brethren and friends of the church to
beware of speculators, renegades, and gamblers who are duping the unwary
and unsuspecting by palming upon them those bills, which are of no worth
here."
The actual test of the bank's soundness had come when a request was made
for the redemption of the notes. The notes seem to have been accepted
freely in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where it was taken for granted that a
cashier and president who professed to be prophets of the Lord would not
give countenance to bank paper of doubtful value.* When stories about
the concern reached the Pittsburg banks, they sent an agent to Kirtland
with a package of the notes for redemption. Rigdon loudly asserted the
stability of the institution; but when a request for coin was repeated,
it was promptly refused by him on the ground that the bills were a
circulating medium "for the accommodation of the public," and that to
call any of them in would defeat their object.**
* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 71.
** "Early Days of Mormonism," p. 163.
Other creditors of the Mormons were now becoming active in their
demands. For failing to meet a note given to the bank at Painesville,
Smith, Rigdon, and N. K. Whitney were put under $8000 bonds. Smith,
Rigdon, and Cowdery were called into court as indorsers of paper for one
of the Mormon firms, and judgment was given against them. To satisfy a
firm of New York merchants the heads of the church gave a note for
$4500 secured by a mortgage on their interest in the new Temple and
its contents.* The Egyptian mummies were especially excepted from this
mortgage. Mother Smith describes how these relics were saved by "various
stratagems" under an execution of $50 issued against the prophet.
* Ibid., pp. 159-160.
The scheme of calling the bank corporation an "anti-banking" society did
not save the officers from prosecution under the state law. Informers
against violators of the banking law received in Ohio a share of the
fine imposed, and this led to the filing of an information against
Rigdon and Smith in March, 1837, by one S. D. Rounds, in the Caeuga
County Court, charging them with violating the law, and demanding a
penalty of $1000 They were at once arrested and held in bail, and were
convicted the following October. They appealed on the ground that the
institution was an association and not a bank; but this plea was never
ruled upon by the court, as the bank suspended payments and closed its
doors in November, 1837, and, before the appeal could be argued, Smith
and Rigdon had fled from the state to Missouri.
CHAPTER VI. -- LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND
It is easy to understand that a church whose leaders had such views of
financial responsibility as Smith's and Rigdon's, and whose members were
ready to apostatize when they could not obtain credit at the prophet's
store, was anything but a harmonious body. Smith was not a man to
maintain his own dignity or to spare the feelings of his associates.
Wilford Woodruff, describing his first sight of the prophet, at
Kirtland, in 1834, said he found him with his brother Hyrum, wearing a
very old hat and engaged in the sport of shooting at a mark. Woodruff
accompanied him to his house, where Smith at once brought out a
wolfskin, and said, "Brother Woodruff, I want you to help me tan this,"
and the two took off their coats and went to work at the skin.* Smith's
contempt for Rigdon was never concealed. Writing of the situation at
Kirtland in 1833, he spoke of Rigdon as possessing "a selfishness and
independence of mind which too often manifestly destroys the confidence
of those who would lay down their lives for him."** Smith was in the
habit of announcing, from his lofty pulpit in the Temple, "The truth is
good enough without dressing up, but brother Rigdon will now proceed to
dress it up."*** Some of the new converts backed out as soon as they got
a close view of the church. Elder G. A. Smith, a cousin of Joseph, in
a sermon in Salt Lake City, in 1855, mentioned some incidents of this
kind. One family, who had journeyed a long distance to join the church
in Kirtland, changed their minds because Joseph's wife invited them to
have a cup of tea "after the word of wisdom was given." Another family
withdrew after seeing Joseph begin playing with his children as soon
as he rested from the work of translating the Scriptures for the day.
A Canadian ex-Methodist prayed so long at family worship at Father
Johnson's that Joseph told him flatly "not to bray so much like a
jackass." The prayer thereupon returned to Canada.
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 101.
** Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 584-585.
*** Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1880.
But the discontented were not confined to new-comers. Jealousy and
dissatisfaction were constantly manifesting themselves among Smith's old
standbys. Written charges made against Cowdery and David Whitmer, when
they were driven out of Far West, Missouri, told them: "You commenced
your wickedness by heading a party to disturb the worship of the Saints
in the first day of the week, and made the house of the Lord in Kirtland
to be a scene of abuse and slander, to destroy the reputation of those
whom the church had appointed to be their teachers, and for no other
cause only that you were not the persons." In more exact terms, their
offence was opposition to the course pursued by Smith. During the winter
and spring of 1837, these rebels included in their list F. G. Williams,
of the First Presidency, Martin Harris, D. Whitmer, Lyman E. Johnson, P.
P. Pratt, and W. E. McLellin. In May, 1837, a High Council was held in
Kirtland to try these men. Pratt at once objected to being tried by
a body of which Smith and Rigdon were members, as they had expressed
opinions against him. Rigdon confessed that he could not conscientiously
try the case, Cowdery did likewise, Williams very properly withdrew, and
"the Council dispersed in confusion."* It was never reassembled, but the
offenders were not forgotten, and their punishment came later.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 10.
Mother Smith attributes much of the discord among the members at this
time to "a certain young woman," an inmate of David Whitmer's house,
who began prophesying with the assistance of a black stone. This seer
predicted Smith's fall from office because of his transgressions, and
that David Whitmer or Martin Harris would succeed him. Her proselytes
became so numerous that a written list of them showed that "a great
proportion of the church were decidedly in favor with the new party."*
* "Biographical Sketches," p. 221.
While Smith was thus fighting leading members of his own church, he
was called upon to defend himself against a serious charge in court. A
farmer near Kirtland, named Grandison Newell, received information from
a seceding Mormon that Smith had directed the latter and another Mormon
named Davis to kill Newell because he was a particularly open opponent
of the new sect. The affidavit of this man set forth that he and Davis
had twice gone to Newell's house to carry out Smith's order, and were
only prevented by the absence of the intended victim. Smith was placed
under $500 bonds on this charge, but on the formal hearing he was
discharged on the ground of insufficient evidence.*
* Fanny Brewer of Boston, in an affidavit published in 1842,
declared, "I am personally acquainted with one of the employees, Davis
by name, and he frankly acknowledged to me that he was prepared to do
the deed under the direction of the prophet, and was only prevented by
the entreaties of his wife."
A rebellious spirit had manifested itself among the brethren in Missouri
soon after Smith returned from his first visit to that state. W. W.
Phelps questioned the prophet's "monarchical power and authority," and
an unpleasant correspondence sprung up between them. As Smith did not
succeed by his own pen in silencing his accusers, a conference of twelve
high priests was called by him in Kirtland in January, 1833, which
appointed Orson Hyde and Smith's brother Hyrum to write to the Missouri
brethren. In this letter they were told plainly that, unless the
rebellious spirit ceased, the Lord would seek another Zion. To Phelps
the message was sent, "If you have fat beef and potatoes, eat them in
singleness of heart, and not boast yourself in these things." It was,
however, as a concession to this spirit of complaint, according to
Ferris, that Smith announced the "revelation" which placed the church in
the hands of a supreme governing body of three.
Smith himself furnishes a very complete picture of the disrupted
condition of the Mormons in 1838, in an editorial in the Elders'
journal, dated August, of that year. The tone of the article, too, sheds
further light on Smith's character. Referring to the course of "a set
of creatures" whom the church had excluded from fellowship, he says they
"had recourse to the foulest lying to hide their iniquity;... and this
gang of horse thieves and drunkards were called upon immediately to
write their lives on paper." Smith then goes on to pay his respects to
various officers of the church, all of whom, it should be remembered,
held their positions through "revelation" and were therefore professedly
chosen directly by God.
Of a statement by Warren Parish, one of the Seventy and an officer of
the bank, Smith says: "Granny Parish made such an awful fuss about
what was conceived in him that, night after night and day after day,
he poured forth his agony before all living, as they saw proper to
assemble. For a rational being to have looked at him and heard him groan
and grunt, and saw him sweat and struggle, would have supposed that his
womb was as much swollen as was Rebecca's when the angel told her
there were two nations there." He also accuses Parish of immorality and
stealing money.
Here is a part of Smith's picture of Dr. W. A. Cowdery, a presiding high
priest: "This poor pitiful beggar came to Kirtland a few years since
with a large family, nearly naked and destitute. It was really painful
to see this pious Doctor's (for such he professed to be) rags flying
when he walked upon the streets. He was taken in by us in this pitiful
condition, and we put him into the printing-office and gave him enormous
wages, not because he could earn it, but merely out of pity.... A truly
niggardly spirit manifested itself in all his meanness."
Smith's old friend Martin Harris, now a high priest, and Cyrus Smalling,
one of the Seventy, are lumped among Parish's "lackeys,", of whom Smith
says: "They are so far beneath contempt that a notice of them would be
too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to make." Of Leonard Rich, one
of the seven presidents of the seventy elders, Smith says that he "was
generally so drunk that he had to support himself by something to keep
from falling down." J. F. Boynton and Luke Johnson, two of the Twelve,
are called "a pair of young blacklegs," and Stephen Burnett, an elder,
is styled "a little ignorant blockhead, whose heart was so set on money
that he would at any time sell his soul for $50, and then think he had
made an excellent bargain."
Smith's own personal character was freely attacked, and the subject
became so public that it received notice in the Elders' Journal. One
charge was improper conduct toward an orphan girl whom Mrs. Smith had
taken into her family. Smith's autobiography contains an account of
a council held in New Portage, Ohio, in 1834, at which Rigdon accused
Martin Harris of telling A. C. Russel that "Joseph drank too much liquor
when he was translating the Book of Mormon," and Harris set up as a
defence that "this thing occurred previous to the translating of the
Book."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 12.
There was a good deal of talk concerning a confession "about a girl,"
which Oliver Cowdery was reported to have said that Smith made to him.
Denials of this for Cowdery appeared in the Elders' Journal of July,
1838, one man's statement ending thus, "Joseph asked if he ever said to
him (Oliver) that he (Joseph) confessed to any one that he was guilty of
the above crime; and Oliver, after some hesitation, answered no."
The Elders' Journal of August, 1838, contains a retraction by Parley P.
Pratt of a letter he had written, in which he censured both Smith
and Rigdon, "using great severity and harshness in regard to certain
business transactions." In that letter Pratt confessed that "the whole
scheme of speculation" in which the Mormon leaders were engaged was of
the "devil," and he begged Smith to make restitution for having sold
him, for $2000, three lots of land that did not cost Smith over $200.
Not only was the moral character of Smith and other individual members
of the church successfully attacked at this time, but the charge was
openly made that polygamy was practised and sanctioned. In the "Book of
Doctrine and Covenants," published in Kirtland in 1835, Section 101 was
devoted to the marriage rite. It contained this declaration: "Inasmuch
as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of
fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should
have one wife, and one woman one husband, except in case of death, when
either is at liberty to marry again." The value of such a denial is seen
in the ease with which this section was blotted out by Smith's later
"revelation" establishing polygamy.
An admission that even elders did practise polygamy at that time is
found in a minute of a meeting of the Presidents of the Seventies, held
on April 29, 1837, which made this declaration: "First, that we will
have no fellowship whatever with any elder belonging to the Quorum of
the Seventies, who is guilty of polygamy."*
* Messenger and Advocate, p. 511.
Again: The Elders' journal dated Far West, Missouri, 1838, contained
a list of answers by Smith to certain questions which, in an earlier
number, he had said were daily and hourly asked by all classes of
people. Among these was the following: "Q. Do the Mormons believe in
having more wives than one? A. No, not at the same time." (He condemns
the plan of marrying within a few weeks or months of the death of the
first wife.) The statement has been made that polygamy first suggested
itself to Smith in Ohio, while he was translating the so-called "Book of
Abraham" from the papyri found on the Egyptian mummies. This so-called
translation required some study of the Old Testament, and it is not at
all improbable that Smith's natural inclination toward such a doctrine
as polygamy secured a foundation in his reading of the Old Testament
license to have a plurality of wives.
For the business troubles hanging over the community, Smith and Rigdon
were held especially accountable. The flock had seen the funds confided
by them to the Bishop invested partly in land that was divided among
some of the Mormon leaders. Smith and Rigdon were provided with a house
near the Temple, and a printing-office was established there, which was
under Smith's management. Naturally, when the stock and notes of the
bank became valueless, its local victims held its organizers responsible
for the disaster. Mother Smith gives us an illustration of the depth
of this feeling. One Sunday evening, while her husband was preaching at
Kirtland, when Joseph was in Cleveland "on business pertaining to the
bank," the elder Smith reflected sharply upon Warren Parish, on whom the
Smiths tried to place the responsibility for the bank failure. Parish,
who was present, leaped forward and tried to drag the old man out of
the pulpit. Smith, Sr., appealed to Oliver Cowdery for help, but Oliver
retained his seat. Then the prophet's brother William sprang to his
father's assistance, and carried Parish bodily out of the church.
Thereupon John Boynton, who was provided with a sword cane, drew his
weapon and threatened to run it through the younger Smith. "At this
juncture," says Mrs. Smith, "I left the house, not only terrified at the
scene, but likewise sick at heart to see the apostasy of which Joseph
had prophesied was so near at hand."*
* "Biographical Sketches," p. 221.
Eliza Snow gives a slightly different version of the same outbreak,
describing its wind-up as follows:--
"John Boynton and others drew their pistols and bowie knives and rushed
down from the stand into a congregation, Boynton saying he would blow
out the brains of the first man who dared lay hands on him.... Amid
screams and shrieks, the policemen in ejecting the belligerents knocked
down a stove pipe, which fell helter-skelter among the people; but,
although bowie knives and pistols were wrested from their owners and
thrown hither and thither to prevent disastrous results, no one was
hurt, and after a short but terrible scene to be enacted in a Temple
of God, order was restored and the services of the day proceeded as
usual."*
* "Biography of Lorenzo Snow," p. 20.
Smith made a stubborn defence of his business conduct. He attributed the
disaster to the bank to Parish's peculation, and the general troubles
of the church to "the spirit of speculation in lands and property of all
kinds," as he puts it in his autobiography, wherein he alleges that "the
evils were actually brought about by the brethren not giving heed to
my counsel." If Smith gave any such counsel, it is unfortunate for his
reputation that neither the church records nor his "revelations" contain
any mention of it.
The final struggle came in December, 1837, when Smith and Rigdon made
their last public appearance in the Kirtland Temple. Smith was as
bold and aggressive as ever, but Rigdon, weak from illness, had to be
supported to his seat. An eye-witness of the day's proceedings says*
that "the pathos of Rigdon's plea, and the power of his denunciation,
swayed the feelings and shook the judgments of his hearers as never
in the old days of peace, and, when he had finished and was led out, a
perfect silence reigned in the Temple until its door had closed upon him
forever. Smith made a resolute and determined battle; false reports had
been circulated, and those by whom the offence had come must repent and
acknowledge their sin or be cut off from fellowship in this world, and
from honor and power in that to come." He not only maintained his right
to speak as the head of the church, but, after the accused had partly
presented their case, and one of them had given him the lie openly, he
proposed a vote on their excommunication at once and a hearing of their
further pleas at a later date. This extraordinary proposal led one of
the accused to cry out, "You would cut a man's head off and hear him
afterward." Finally it was voted to postpone the whole subject for a few
days.
* "Early Days of Mormonism," Kennedy, p. 169.
But the two leaders of the church did not attend this adjourned session.
Alarmed by rumors that Grandison Newell had secured a warrant for their
arrest on a charge of fraud in connection with the affairs of the bank
(unfounded rumors, as it later appeared), they fled from Kirtland on
horseback on the evening of January 12, 1838, and Smith never revisited
that town. In his description of their flight, Smith explained that they
merely followed the direction of Jesus, who said, "When they persecute
you in one city, flee ye to another." He describes the weather as
extremely cold, and says, "We were obliged to secrete ourselves
sometimes to elude the grasp of our pursuers, who continued their race
more than two hundred miles from Kirtland, armed with pistols, etc.,
seeking our lives." There is no other authority for this story of an
armed pursuit, and the fact seems to be that the non-Mormon community
were perfectly satisfied with the removal of the mock prophet from their
neighborhood.
Although Kirtland continued to remain a Stake of the church, the
real estate scheme of making it a big city vanished with the prophet.
Foreclosures of mortgages now began; the church printing-office was
first sold out by the sheriff and then destroyed by fire, and the
so-called reform element took possession of the Temple. Rigdon had
placed his property out of his own hands, one acre of land in Kirtland
being deeded by him and his wife to their daughter.
The Temple with about two acres of land adjoining was deeded by the
prophet to William Marks in 1837, and in 1841 was redeeded to Smith as
trustee in trust for the church. In 1862 it was sold under an order of
the probate court by Joseph Smith's administrator, and conveyed the same
day to one Russel Huntley, who, in 1873, conveyed it to the prophet's
grandson, Joseph Smith, and another representative of the Reorganized
Church (nonpolygamist). The title of the latter organization was
sustained in 1880 by judge L. S. Sherman, of the Lake County Court of
Common Pleas, who held that, "The church in Utah has materially and
largely departed from the faith, doctrines, laws, ordinances and usages
of said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and
has incorporated into its system of faith the doctrines of celestial
marriage and a plurality of wives, and the doctrine of Adam-God worship,
contrary to the laws and constitution of said original church," and that
the Reorganized Church was the true and lawful successor to the original
organization. At the general conference of the Reorganized Church,
held at Lamoni, Iowa, in April, 1901, the Kirtland district reported a
membership of 423 members.
BOOK III. -- IN MISSOURI
CHAPTER I. -- THE DIRECTIONS TO THE SAINTS ABOUT THEIR ZION
The state of Missouri, to which the story of the Mormons is now
transferred, was, at the time of its admission to the Union, in 1821,
called "a promontory of civilization into an ocean of savagery." Wild
Indian tribes occupied the practically unexplored region beyond its
western boundary, and its own western counties were thinly settled.
Jackson County, which in 1900 had 195,193 inhabitants, had a population
of 2823 by the census of 1830, and neighboring counties not so many.
It was not until 1830 that the first cabin of a white man was built
in Daviess County. All this territory had been released from Indian
ownership by treaty only a few years when the first Mormons arrived
there.
The white settler's house was a log hut, generally with a dirt floor,
a mudplastered chimney, and a window without glass, a board or quilt
serving to close it in time of storm or severe cold. A fireplace, with
a skillet and kettle, supplied the place of a well-equipped stove. Corn
was the principal grain food, and wild game supplied most of the meat.
The wild animals furnished clothing as well as food; for the pioneers
could not afford to pay from 15 to 25 cents a yard for calico, and from
25 to 75 cents for gingham.* Some persons indulged in homespun cloth for
Sunday and festal occasions, but the common outside garments were made
of dressed deerskins. Parley P. Pratt, in his autobiography, speaks of
passing through a settlement where "some families were entirely dressed
in skins, without any other clothing, including ladies young and old."
* "When the merchants sold a calico or gingham dress pattern they
threw in their profit by giving a spool of thread (two hundred yards),
hooks and eyes and lining. In the thread business, however, it was only
a few years after that thirty and fifty yard spools took the place of
the two hundred yards."--"History of Daviess County", p. 161.
The pioneer agriculturist of those days not only lacked the
transportation facilities and improved agricultural appliances which
have assisted the developers of the Northwest, but they did not even
understand the nature and capability of the soil. The newcomers in
western Missouri looked on the rich prairie land as worthless, and they
almost invariably directed their course to the timber, where the soil
was more easily broken up, and material for buildings was available.
The first attempts to plough the prairie sod were very primitive. David
Dailey made the first trial in Jackson County with what was called
a "barshear plough" (drawn by from four to eight yokes of oxen), the
"shear" of which was fastened to the beam. This cut the sod in one
direction pretty well, but when he began to cross-furrow, the sod piled
up in front of the plough and stopped his progress. Determined to see
what the soil would grow, he cut holes in the sod with an axe, and in
these dropped his seed. The first sod was broken in Daviess County in
1834, with a plough made to order, "to see what the prairies amounted
to in the way of raising a crop." Such was the country toward which the
first Mormon missionaries turned their faces.
We have seen that the first intimation in the Mormon records of a
movement to the West was found in Smith's order to Oliver Cowdery in
1830 to go and establish the church among the Lamanites (Indians), and
that Rigdon expected that the church would remain in Ohio, when he wrote
to his flock from Palmyra. The four original missionaries--Cowdery, P.
P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, and Peterson--did not stop long in Kirtland,
but, taking with them Frederick G. Williams, they pushed on westward to
Sandusky, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, preaching to some Indians on the
way, until they reached Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, early in
1831. That county forms a part of the western border of the state,
and from 1832, until the railroad took the place of wagon trains,
Independence was the eastern terminus of the famous Santa Fe trail, and
the point of departure for many companies destined both for Oregon and
California. Pratt, describing their journey west of St. Louis, says: "We
travelled on foot some three hundred miles, through vast prairies and
through trackless wilds of snow; no beaten road, houses few and far
between. We travelled for whole days, from morning till night, without a
house or fire. We carried on our backs our changes of clothing, several
books, and corn bread and raw pork."*
* "Autobiography of P. P. Pratt," p. 54.
The sole idea of these pioneers seemed to be to preach to the Indians.
Arriving at Independence, Whitmer and Peterson went to work to support
themselves as tailors, while Cowdery and Pratt crossed the border into
the Indian country. The latter, however, were at once pronounced by
the federal officers there to be violators of the law which forbade
the settlement of white men among the Indians, and they returned to
Independence, and preached thereabout during the winter. Early in
February the four decided that Pratt should return to Kirtland and make
a report, and he did so, travelling partly on foot, partly on horseback,
and partly by steamer.
As early as March, 1830, Smith had conceived the idea (or some one else
for him) of a gathering of the elect "unto one place" to prepare for the
day of desolation (Sec. 29). In October, 1830, the four pioneers were
commanded to start "into the wilderness among the Lamanites," and on
January 2, 1831, while Rigdon was visiting Smith in New York State,
another "revelation" (Sec. 38) described the land of promise as "a land
flowing with milk and honey, upon which there shall be no curse when the
Lord cometh." This land they and their children were to possess, both
"while the earth shall stand, and again in eternity." A "revelation"
(Sec. 45), dated March 7, 1831, at Kirtland, called on the faithful to
assemble and visit the Western countries, where they were promised an
inheritance, to be called "the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of
refuge, a place of safety for the saints of most High God." These things
they were to "keep from going abroad into the world" for the present.
The manner in which the elect were told by "revelation" that they
should possess their land of promise has a most important bearing on the
justification of the opposition which the Missourians soon manifested
toward their new neighbors. In one of these "revelations," dated
Kirtland, February, 1831 (Sec. 42), Christ is represented as saying, "I
will consecrate the riches of the Gentiles unto my people which are of
the house of Israel." Another, in the following June (Sec. 52), which
directed Smith's and Rigdon's trip, promised the elect, "If ye are
faithful ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land
in Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, WHICH IS NOW THE
LAND OF YOUR ENEMIES." Another, given while Smith was in Missouri, in
August, 1831 (Sec. 59), promised to those "who have come up into this
land with an eye single to My glory," that "they shall inherit the
earth," and "shall receive for their reward the good things of the
earth." On the same date the Saints were told that they should "open
their hearts even to purchase the whole region of country as soon as
time will permit,... lest they receive none inheritance save it be by the
shedding of blood." It seems to have been thought wise to add to
this last statement, after the return of the party to Ohio, and a
"revelation" dated August, 1831 (Sec. 63), was given out, stating that
the land of Zion could be obtained only "by purchase or by blood," and
"as you are forbidden to shed blood, lo, your enemies are upon you, and
ye shall be scourged from city to city."
* Tullidge, in his "History of Salt Lake City" (1886), defining
the early Mormon view of their land rights, after quoting Brigham
Young's declaration to the first arrivals in Salt Lake Valley, that he
(or the church) had "no land to sell," but "every man should have his
land measured out to him for city and family purposes," says: "Young
could with absolute propriety give the above utterances on the land
question. In the early days of the church they applied to land not only
owned by the United States, but within the boundaries of states of the
Union." After quoting from the above-cited "revelation" the words "save
they be by the shedding of blood," he explains, "The latter clause of
the quotation signifies that the Mormon prophet foresaw that, unless his
disciples purchased 'this whole region of country' of the unpopulated
Far West of that period, the land question held between them and
anti-Mormons would lead to the shedding of blood, and that they would be
in jeopardy of losing their inheritance; and this was realized."
As to their obligation to pay for any of the "good things" purchased of
their enemies, a "revelation" dated September 11, 1831 (the month after
the return from Missouri), gave this advice:--
"Behold it is said in my laws, or forbidden, to get in debt to thine
enemies;
"But behold it is not said at any time, that the Lord should not take
when he pleased, and pay as seemeth him good.
"Wherefore as ye are agents, and ye are on the Lord's errand; and
whatever ye do according to the will of the Lord, it is the Lord's
business, and it is the Lord's business to provide for his Saints in
these last days, that they may obtain an inheritance in the land of
Zion."--"Book of Commandments," Chap. 65.
In the modern version of this "revelation" to be found in Sec. 64 of the
"Doctrine and Covenants," the latter part of this declaration is changed
to read, "And he hath set you to provide for his saints in these last
days," etc.
So eager were the Saints to occupy their land of Zion, when the movement
started, that the word of "revelation" was employed to give warning
against a hasty rush to the new possessions, and to establish a certain
supervision of the emigration by the Bishop and other agents of the
church. Notwithstanding this, the rush soon became embarrassing to
the church authorities in Missouri, and a modified view of the Lord's
promise was thus stated in the Evening and Morning Star of July, 1832,
"Although the Lord has said that it is his business to provide for the
Saints in these last days, he is not BOUND to do so unless we observe
his sayings and keep them." Saints in the East were warned against
giving away their property before moving, and urged not to come to
Missouri without some means, and to bring with them cattle and improved
breeds of sheep and hogs, with necessary seeds.
CHAPTER II. -- SMITH'S FIRST VISITS TO MISSOURI--FOUNDING THE CITY AND THE TEMPLE
On June 7, 1831, a "revelation" was given out (Sec. 52) announcing that
the next conference would be held in the promised land in Missouri, and
directing Smith and Rigdon to go thither, and naming some thirty elders,
including John Corrill, David Whitmer, P. P. and Orson Pratt, Martin
Harris, and Edward Partridge, who should also make the trip, two by two,
preaching by the way. Booth says: "Only about two weeks were allowed
them to make preparations for the journey, and most of them left what
business they had to be closed by others. Some left large families, with
the crops upon the ground."*
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled."
Smith's party left Kirtland on June 19, and arrived at Independence
in the following month, journeying on foot after reaching St. Louis, a
distance of about three hundred miles. Smith was delighted with the
new country, with "its beautiful rolling prairies, spread out like real
meadows; the varied timber of the bottoms; the plums and grapes and
persimmons and the flowers; the rich soil, the horses, cattle, and hogs,
and the wild game.... The season is mild and delightful nearly three
quarters of the year, and as the land of Zion is situated at about equal
distances from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as from the
Alleghany and Rocky Mountains, it bids fair to become one of the most
blessed places on the earth."* The town of Independence then consisted
of a brick courthouse, two or three stores, and fifteen or twenty
houses, mostly of logs.
* Smith's "Autobiography," Millennial Star, Vol. XIV.
The usual "revelation" came first (Sec. 57), announcing that "this
is the land of promise and the place for the City of Zion," with
Independence as its centre, and the site of the Temple a lot near the
courthouse. It was also declared that the land should be purchased by
the Saints, "and also every tract lying westward, even unto the line
running directly between Jew and Gentile" (whatever that might mean),
"and also every tract bordering by the prairies." Sidney Gilbert was
ordered to "plant himself" there, and establish a store, "that he might
sell goods without fraud," to obtain money for the purchase of land.
Edward Partridge was "to divide the Saints their inheritance," and W. W.
Phelps* and Cowdery were to be printers to the church.
* Phelps came from Canandaigua, New York, where, Howe says, he
was an avowed infidel. He had been prominent in politics and had edited
a party newspaper. Disappointed in his political ambition, he threw in
his lot with the new church.
Marvellous stories were at once circulated of the grandeur that was to
characterize the new city, of the wealth that would be gathered there by
the faithful who would survive the speedy destruction of the wicked, and
of the coming of the lost tribes of Israel, who had been located near
the north pole, where they had become very rich. While not tracing these
declarations to Smith himself, Booth, who was one of the party, says
that they were told by persons in daily intercourse with him. It is
doing the prophet no injustice to say that they bear his imprint.
The laying of the foundation of the City of Zion was next in order.
Rigdon delivered an address in consecrating the ground, in which he
enjoined them to obey all of Smith's commands. A small scrub oak
tree was then cut down and trimmed, and twelve men, representing the
Apostles, conveyed it to a designated place. Cowdery sought out the
best stone he could find for a corner-stone, removed a little earth, and
placed the stone in the excavation, delivering an address. One end of
the oak tree was laid on this stone, "and there," says Booth, "was laid
down the first stone and stick which are to form an essential part of
the splendid City of Zion."
The next day the site of the Temple was consecrated, Smith laying the
cornerstone. When the ceremonies were over, the spot was merely marked
by a sapling, from two sides of which the bark was stripped, one side
being marked with a "T" for Temple, and the other with "ZOM," which
Smith stated stood for "Zomas," the original of Zion. At the foot of
this sapling lay the corner-stone--"a small stone, covered over with
bushes."
Such ceremonies might have been viewed with indulgence if conducted in
some suburb of Kirtland. But when men had travelled hundreds of miles at
Smith's command, suffering personal privations as well as submitting to
pecuniary sacrifices, it was a severe test of their faith to have two
small trees and t wo round stones in the wilderness offered to them
as the only tangible indications of a land of plenty. Rigdon expressed
dissatisfaction with the outcome, as we have seen; Booth left the church
as soon as he got back to Ohio; members of the party called Cowdery
and Smith imperious, and the prophet and Rigdon incurred the charge of
"excessive cowardice" on the way.
Smith made a second trip to Independence, leaving Ohio on April 2,
1832, and arriving there on his return the following June. His stay
in Missouri this time was marked by nothing more important than his
acknowledgment as President of the high priesthood by a council of the
church there, and a "revelation" which declared that Zion's "borders
must be enlarged, her Stakes must be strengthened."
CHAPTER III. -- THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY--THE ARMY OF ZION
The efforts of the church leaders to check too precipitate an emigration
to the new Zion were not entirely successful, and, according to the
Evening and Morning Star of July, 1833, the Mormons with their families
then numbered more than twelve hundred, or about one-third of the total
population of the county. The elders had been pushing their proselyting
work throughout the States and in Canada, and the idea of a land of
plenty appealed powerfully to the new believers, and especially to those
of little means. The branch of the church established at Colesville,
New York, numbering about sixty members, emigrated in a body and settled
twelve miles from Independence. Other settlements were made in the rural
districts, and the non-Mormons began to be seriously exercised over the
situation. The Saints boasted openly of their future possession of the
land, without making clear their idea of the means by which they would
obtain title to it. An open defiance in the name of the church appeared
in an article in the Evening and Morning Star for July, 1833, which
contained this declaration:--
"No matter what our ideas or notions may be on the subject; no matter
what foolish report the wicked may circulate to gratify an evil
disposition; the Lord will continue to gather the righteous and destroy
the wicked, till the sound goes forth, IT IS FINISHED."
With even greater fatuity came the determination to publish the
prophet's "revelations" in the form of the "Book of Commandments." Of
the effect of this publication David Whitmer says, "The main reason why
the printing press [at Independence] was destroyed, was because they
published the 'Book of Commandments.' It fell into the hands of the
world, and the people of Jackson County saw from the revelations that
they were considered intruders upon the Land of Zion, as enemies of the
church, and that they should be cut off out of the Land of Zion and sent
away."*
* "Address to All Believers in Christ," p. 54.
Corrill says of the causes of friction between the Mormons and their
neighbors:--*
* Corrill's" Brief History of the Church," p. 19.
"The church got crazy to go up to Zion, as it was then called. The
rich were afraid to send up their money to purchase lands, and the poor
crowded up in numbers, without having any places provided, contrary to
the advice of the Bishop and others, until the old citizens began to
be highly displeased. They saw their country filling up with emigrants,
principally poor. They disliked their religion, and saw also that, if
let alone, they would in a short time become a majority, and of course
rule the county. The church kept increasing, and the old citizens became
more and more dissatisfied, and from time to time offered to sell their
farms and possessions, but the Mormons, though desirous, were too poor
to purchase them."*
* After the survey of Jackson County, Congress granted to the
state of Missouri a large tract of land, the sale of which should be
made for educational purposes, and the Mormons took title to several
thousand acres of this, west of Independence.
The active manifestation of hostility toward the new-comers by the
residents of Jackson County first took shape in the spring of 1832, in
the stoning of Mormon houses at night and the breaking of windows. Soon
afterward a county meeting was called to take measures to secure the
removal of the Mormons from that county, but nothing definite was done.
The burning of haystacks, shooting into houses, etc., continued until
July, 1833, when the Mormon opponents circulated a statement of their
complaints, closing with a call for a meeting in the courthouse at
Independence, on Saturday, July 20. The text of this manifesto, which
is important as showing the spirit as well as the precise grounds of the
opposition, is as follows:--
"We, the undersigned, citizens of Jackson County, believing that
an important crisis is at hand, as regards our civil society, in
consequence of a pretended religious sect of people that have settled,
and are still settling, in our county, styling themselves Mormons, and
intending, as we do, to rid our society, peaceably if we can, forcibly
if we must; and believing as we do, that the arm of the civil law does
not afford us a guarantee, or at least, a sufficient one, against the
evils which are now inflicted upon us, and seem to be increasing, by the
said religious sect, we deem it expedient and of the highest
importance to form ourselves into a company for the better and easier
accomplishment of our purpose--a purpose, which we deem it almost
superfluous to say, is justified as well by the law of nature, as by the
law of self preservation.
"It is more than two years since the first of these fanatics, or knaves,
(for one or the other they undoubtedly are,) made their first appearance
amongst us, and, pretending as they did, and now do, to hold personal
communication and converse face to face with the Most High God; to
receive communications and revelations direct from heaven; to heal
the sick by laying on hands; and, in short, to perform all the
wonder-working miracles wrought by the inspired Apostles and Prophets of
old.
"We believed them deluded fanatics, or weak and designing knaves, and
that they and their pretensions would soon pass away; but in this we
were deceived. The arts of a few designing leaders amongst them have
thus far succeeded in holding them together as a society; and, since
the arrival of the first of them, they have been daily increasing in
numbers; and if they had been respectable citizens in society, and
thus deluded, they would have been entitled to our pity rather than our
contempt and hatred; but from their appearance, from their manners, and
from their conduct since their coming among us, we have every reason to
fear that, with but few exceptions, they were of the very dregs of that
society from which they came, lazy, idle, and vicious. This we conceive
is not idle assertion, but a fact susceptible of proof, for with these
few exceptions above named, they brought into our county little or no
property with them, and left less behind them, and we infer that those
only yoked themselves to the Mormon car who had nothing earthly or
heavenly to lose by the change; and we fear that if some of the leaders
amongst them had paid the forfeit due to crime, instead of being chosen
ambassadors of the Most High, they would have been inmates of solitary
cells.
"But their conduct here stamps their characters in their true colors.
More than a year since, it was ascertained that they had been tampering
with our slaves, and endeavoring to rouse dissension and raise seditions
amongst them. Of this their Mormon leaders were informed, and they said
they would deal with any of their members who should again in like case
offend. But how specious are appearances. In a late number of the
Star, published in Independence by the leaders of the sect, there is an
article inviting free negroes and mulattoes from other states to become
Mormons, and remove and settle among us. This exhibits them in still
more odious colors. It manifests a desire on the part of their society
to inflict on our society an injury, that they knew would be to us
entirely insupportable, and one of the surest means of driving us from
the county; for it would require none of the supernatural gifts that
they pretend to, to see that the introduction of such a caste amongst us
would corrupt our blacks, and instigate them to bloodshed.
"They openly blaspheme the Most High God, and cast contempt on His holy
religion, by pretending to receive revelations direct from heaven,
by pretending to speak unknown tongues by direct inspirations, and
by divers pretences derogatory of God and religion, and to the utter
subversion of human reason.
"They declare openly that their God hath given them this county of land,
and that sooner or later they must and will have the possession of our
lands for an inheritance; and, in fine, they have conducted themselves
on many other occasions in such a manner that we believe it a duty
we owe to ourselves, our wives, and children, to the cause of public
morals, to remove them from among us, as we are not prepared to give up
our pleasant places and goodly possessions to them, or to receive
into the bosom of our families, as fit companions for our wives and
daughters, the degraded and corrupted free negroes and mulattoes that
are now invited to settle among us.
"Under such a state of things, even our beautiful county would cease to
be a desirable residence, and our situation intolerable! We, therefore,
agree that, if after timely warning, and receiving an adequate
compensation for what little property they cannot take with them, they
refuse to leave us in peace, as they found us--we agree to use such
means as may be sufficient to remove them, and to that end we each
pledge to each other our bodily powers, our lives, fortunes, and sacred
honors.
"We will meet at the court-house, at the Town of Independence, on
Saturday next, the 20th inst., to consult ulterior movements."*
* Evening and Morning Star, p. 227; Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p.
516.
Some hundreds of names were signed to this call, and the meeting of July
20 was attended by nearly five hundred persons. There is no doubt that
it was a representative county gathering. P. P. Pratt says that the
anti-Mormon organization, which he calls "outlaws," was "composed of
lawyers, magistrates, county officers, civil and military, religious
ministers, and a great number of the ignorant and uninformed portion of
the population."* The language of the address adopted shows that skilled
pens were not wanting in its preparation.
* Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 103.
The first business of the meeting was the appointment of a committee to
prepare an address stating the grievances of the people with somewhat
greater fulness than the manifesto above quoted. Like the latter, it
conceded at the start that there was no law under which the object in
view could be obtained. It characterized the Mormons as but little above
the negroes as regards property or education; charged them with having
exerted a "corrupting influence" on the slaves;* asserted that even the
more intelligent boasted daily to the Gentiles that the Mormons would
appropriate their lands for an inheritance, and that their newspaper
organ taught them that the lands were to be taken by the sword. Noting
the rapid increase in the immigration of members of the new church, the
address, looking to a near day when they would be in a majority in the
county, asked: "What would be the state of our lives and property in the
hands of jurors and witnesses who do not blush to declare, and would not
upon occasion hesitate to swear, that they have wrought miracles,
and have been the subjects of miraculous and supernatural cures, have
conversed with God and his angels, and possess and exercise the gifts
of divination and of unknown tongues, and are fired with the prospect
of obtaining inheritances without money and without price, may be better
imagined than described." That this apprehension was not without grounds
will be seen when we come to the administration of justice in Nauvoo and
in Salt Lake City.
* The Mormons never hesitated to change their position on the
slavery question. An elder's address, published in the Evening and
Morning Star of July, 1833, said: "As to slaves, we have nothing to
say. In connection with the wonderful events of this age, much is doing
toward abolishing slavery and colonizing the blacks in Africa." Three
years later, in April, 1836 the Messenger and Advocate published a
strong proslavery article, denying the right of the people of the North
to interfere with the institution, and picturing the happy condition of
the slaves. Orson Hyde, in the Frontier Guardian in 1850 (quoted in the
Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, p. 63), said: "When a man in the Southern
states embraces our faith and is the owner of slaves, the church says
to him, 'If your slaves wish to remain with you, and to go with you, put
them not away; but if they choose to leave you, and are not satisfied to
remain with you, it is for you to sell them or to let them go free, as
your own conscience may direct you. The church on this point assumes not
the responsibility to direct.'" Horace Greeley quoted Brigham Young
as saying to him in Salt Lake City, "We consider slavery of divine
institution and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham
shall have been removed from his descendants" ("Overland journey," p.
211).
The address closed with these demands:--
"That no Mormon shall in future move and settle in this county.
"That those now here, who shall give a definite pledge of their
intention within a reasonable time to remove out of the county, shall
be allowed to remain unmolested until they have sufficient time to sell
their property and close their business without any material sacrifice.
"That the editor of the Star (W. W. Phelps) be required forthwith
to close his office and discontinue the business of printing in this
county; and, as to all other stores and shops belonging to the sect,
their owners must in every case strictly comply with the terms of
the second article of this declaration; and, upon failure, prompt and
efficient measures will be taken to close the same.
"That the Mormon leaders here are required to use their influence in
preventing any further emigration of their distant brethren to this
county, and to counsel and advise their brethren here to comply with the
above regulations.
"That those who fail to comply with the requisitions be referred to
those of their brethren who have the gifts of divination and of unknown
tongues, to inform them of the lot that awaits them"*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 487-489.
A recess of two hours was taken in which to permit a committee of twelve
to call on Bishop Partridge, Phelps, and Gilbert, and present these
terms. This committee reported that these men "declined giving
any direct answer to the requisitions made of them, and wished an
unreasonable time for consultation, not only with their brethren here,
but in Ohio." The meeting thereupon voted unanimously that the Star
printing-office should be razed to the ground, and the type and press be
"secured."
A report of the action of this meeting and its result was prepared by
the chairman and two secretaries, and printed over their signatures in
the Western Monitor of Fayette, Missouri, on August 2, 1833, and it is
transferred to Smith's autobiography. It agrees with the Mormon
account set forth in their later petition to Governor Dunklin. It
particularized, however, that the Mormon leaders asked the committee
first for three months, and then for ten days, in which to consider the
demands, and were told that they could have only fifteen minutes.
What happened next is thus set forth in the chairman's report:--
"Which resolution (for the razing of the Star office) was with the
utmost order and the least noise and disturbance possible, forthwith
carried into execution, AS ALSO SOME OTHER STEPS OF A SIMILAR TENDENCY;
but no blood was spilled nor any blows inflicted."
Mobs do not generally act with the "utmost order," and this one was not
an exception to the rule, as an explanation of the "other steps" will
make clear. The first object of attack was the printing office, a
two-story brick building. This was demolished, causing a loss of $6000,
according to the Mormon claims. The mob next visited the store kept by
Gilbert, but refrained from attacking it on receiving a pledge that the
goods would be packed for removal by the following Tuesday. They then
called at the houses of some of the leading Mormons, and conducted
Bishop Partridge and a man named Allen to the public square. Partridge
told his captors that the saints had been subjected to persecution in
all ages; that he was willing to suffer for Christ's sake, but that he
would not consent to leave the country. Allen refused either to agree
to depart or to deny the inspiration of the Mormon Bible. Both men were
then relieved of their hats, coats, and vests, daubed with tar, and
decorated with feathers. This ended the proceedings of that day, and an
adjournment as announced until the following Tuesday.
On Tuesday, July 23 (the date of the laying of the corner-stone of the
Kirtland Temple), the Missourians gathered again in the town, carrying
a red flag and bearing arms. The Mormon statement to Governor Dunklin
says, "They proceeded to take some of the leading elders by force,
declaring it to be their intention to whip them from fifty to five
hundred lashes apiece, to demolish their dwelling houses, and let their
negroes loose to go through our plantations and lay open our fields for
the destruction of our crops."* The official report of the officers
of the meeting** says that, when the chairman had taken his seat, a
committee was appointed to wait on the Mormons at the request of the
latter.
* Greene, in his "Facts Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons
from the State of Missouri" (1839), says that the mob seized a number of
Mormons and, at the muzzle of their guns, compelled them to confess that
the Mormon Bible was a fraud.
** Millennial Star Vol. XIV, p. 500.
As a result of a conference with this committee, a written agreement was
entered into, signed by the committee and the Mormons named in it, to
this effect: That Oliver Cowdery, W. W. Phelps, W. E. McLellin, Edward
Partridge, John Wright, Simeon Carter, Peter and John Whitmer, and
Harvey Whitlock, with their families, should move from the county by
January 1 next, and use their influence to induce their fellow-Mormons
in the county to do likewise--one half by January 1 and all by April
1--and to prevent further immigration of the brethren; John Corrill
and A. S. Gilbert to remain as agents to wind up the business of the
society, Gilbert to be allowed to sell out his goods on hand; no Mormon
paper to be published in the county; Partridge and Phelps to be allowed
to go and come after January 1, in winding up their business, if their
families were removed by that time; the committee pledging themselves
to use their influence to prevent further violence, and assuring Phelps
that "whenever he was ready to move, the amount of all his losses in the
printing house should be paid to him by the citizens." In view of this
arrangement there was no further trouble for more than two months.
The Mormon leaders had, however, no intention of carrying out their part
of this undertaking. Corrill, in a letter to Oliver Cowdery written in
December, 1833, said that the agreement was made, "supposing that before
the time arrived the mob would see their error and stop the violence,
or that some means might be employed so that we could stay in peace."*
Oliver Cowdery was sent at once to Kirtland to advise with the church
officers there. On his arrival, early in August, a council was convened,
and it was decided that legal measures should be taken to establish
the rights of the Saints in Missouri. Smith directed that they should
neither sell their lands nor move out of Jackson County, save those who
had signed the agreement.** It was also decided to send Orson Hyde and
John Gould to Missouri "with advice to the Saints in their unfortunate
situation through the late outrage of the mob."***
* Evening and Morning Star, January, 1834
** Elder Williams's Letter, Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 519.
*** Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 504.
To strengthen the courage of the flock in Missouri, Smith gave forth at
Kirtland, under date of August 2, 1833, a "revelation" (Sec. 97), "in
answer to our correspondence with the prophet," says P. P. Pratt,* in
which the Lord was represented as saying, "Surely, Zion is the city of
our God, and surely Zion cannot fail, NEITHER BE MOVED OUT OF HER PLACE;
for God is there, and the hand of God is there, and he has sworn by the
power of his might to be her salvation and her high tower." The same
"revelation" directed that the Temple should be built speedily by
means of tithing, and threatened Zion with pestilence, plague, sword,
vengeance, and devouring fire unless she obeyed the Lord's commands.
*Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 100,
The outcome of all the deliberations at Kirtland was the sending of
W. W. Phelps and Orson Hyde to Jefferson City with a long petition to
Governor Dunklin, setting forth the charges of the Missourians against
the Mormons, and the action of the two meetings at Independence, and
making a direct appeal to him for assistance, asking him to employ
troops in their defence, in order that they might sue for damages, "and,
if advisable, try for treason against the government."
The governor sent them a written reply under date of October 19, in
which, after expressing sympathy with them in their troubles, he said:
"I should think myself unworthy the confidence with which I have been
honored by my fellow citizens did I not promptly employ all the means
which the constitution and laws have placed at my disposal to avert the
calamities with which you are threatened.... No citizen, or number of
citizens, have a right to take the redress of their grievances, whether
real or imaginary, into their own hands. Such conduct strikes at the
very existence of society." He advised the Mormons to invoke the laws
in their behalf; to secure a warrant from a justice of the peace, and so
test the question "whether the law can be peaceably executed or not"; if
not, it would be his duty to take steps to execute it.
The Mormons and their neighbors were thus brought face to face in a
manner which admitted of no compromise. The situation naturally seemed
rather a simple one to the governor, who was probably ignorant of the
intentions and ambition of the Mormons. If he had understood the nature
and weight of the objections to them, he would have understood also
that he could protect them in their possessions only by maintaining a
military force.
His letter gave the Mormons of Jackson County new courage. They had been
maintaining a waiting attitude since the meeting of July 23, but now
they resumed their occupations, and began to erect more houses, and to
improve their places as if for a permanent stay, and meanwhile there
was no cessation of the immigration of new members from the East. Their
leaders consulted four lawyers in Clay County, and arranged with them to
look after their legal interests.
This evident repudiation by the Mormons of their part of their agreement
with the committee incensed the Jackson County people, and hostilities
were resumed. On the night of October 31, a mob attacked a Mormon
settlement called Big Blue, some ten miles west of Independence, damaged
a number of houses, whipped some of the men, and frightened women
and children so badly that they fled to the outlying country for
hiding-places. On the night of November 1, Mormon houses were stoned
in Independence, and the church store was broken into and its goods
scattered in the street. The Mormons thereupon showed the governor's
letter to a justice of the peace, and asked him for a warrant, but their
accounts say that he refused one. When they took before the same officer
a man whom they caught in the act of destroying their property, the
justice not only refused to hold him, but granted a warrant in his
behalf against Gilbert, Corrill, and two other Mormons for false
imprisonment, and they were locked up.* Thrown on their own resources
for defence, the Mormons now armed themselves as well as they could, and
established a night picket service throughout their part of the county.
On Saturday night, November 2, a second attack was made by the mob on
Big Blue and, the Mormons resisting, the first "battle" of this campaign
took place. A sick woman received a pistolshot wound in the head, and
one of the Mormons a wound in the thigh. Parley P. Pratt and others were
then sent to Lexington to procure a warrant from Circuit Judge Ryland,
but, according to Pratt, he refused to grant one, and "advised us to
fight and kill the outlaws whenever they came upon us."**
* Corrill's letter, Evening and Morning Star, January, 1834.
** Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 105.
On Monday evening, November 4, a body of Missourians who had been
visiting some of the Mormon settlements came in contact with a company
of Mormons who had assembled for defence, and an exchange of shots
ensued, by which a number on both sides were wounded, one of the Mormons
dying the next day.
These conflicts increased the excitement, and the Mormons, knowing how
they were outnumbered, now realized that they could not stay in Jackson
County any longer, and they arranged to move. At first they decided to
make their new settlement only fifty miles south of Independence, in Van
Buren County, but to this the Jackson County people would not consent.
They therefore agreed to move north into Clay County, between which and
Jackson County the Missouri River, which there runs east, formed
the boundary. Most of them went to Clay County, but others scattered
throughout the other nearby counties, whose inhabitants soon let them
know that their presence was not agreeable.
The hasty removal of these people so late in the season was accompanied
by great personal hardships and considerable pecuniary loss. The Mormons
have stated the number of persons driven out at fifteen hundred, and the
number of houses burned; before and after their departure, at from two
hundred to three hundred. Cattle and household effects that could not be
moved were sold for what they would bring, and those who took with them
sufficient provisions for their immediate wants considered themselves
fortunate. One party of six men and about one hundred and fifty women
and children, panic-stricken by the action of the mob, wandered for
several days over the prairie without even sufficient food. The banks of
the Missouri River where the fugitives were ferried across presented a
strange spectacle. In a pouring rain the big company were encamped
there on November 7, some with tents and some without any cover, their
household goods piled up around them. Children were born in this camp,
and the sick had to put up with such protection as could be provided.
So determined were the Jackson County people that not a Mormon
should remain among them, that on November 23 they drove out a little
settlement of some twenty families living about fifteen miles from
Independence, compelling women and children to depart on immediate
notice.
The Mormons made further efforts through legal proceedings to assert
their rights in Jackson County, but unsuccessfully. The governor
declared that the situation did not warrant him in calling out the
militia, and referred them to the courts for redress for civil injuries.
In later years they appealed more than once to the federal authorities
at Washington for assistance in reestablishing themselves in Jackson
County,* but were informed that the matter rested with the state of
Missouri. Their future bitterness toward the federal government was
explained on the ground of this refusal to come to their aid.
* James Hutchins, a resident of Wisconsin, addressed a long
appeal "for justice" to President Grant in 1876, asking him to reinstate
the Mormons in the homes from which they had been driven.
Meanwhile Smith had been preparing to use the authority at his command
to make good his predictions about the permanency of the church in the
Missouri Zion. On December 6, 1833, he gave out a long "revelation"
at Kirtland (Sec. 101), which created a great sensation among his
followers. Beginning with the declaration that "I, the Lord," have
suffered affliction to come on the brethren in Missouri "in consequence
of their transgressions, envyings and stripes, and lustful and covetous
desires," it went on to promise them as follows:--
"Zion shall not be moved out of her place, notwithstanding her children
are scattered.... And, behold, there is none other place appointed than
that which I have appointed; neither shall there be any other place
appointed than that which I have appointed, for the work of the
gathering of my saints, until the day cometh when there is found no more
room for them."
The "revelation" then stated the Lord's will "concerning the
redemption of Zion" in the form of a long parable which contained these
instructions:--
"And go ye straightway into the land of my vineyard, and redeem my
vineyard, for it is mine, I have bought it with money.
"Therefore get ye straightway unto my land; break down the walls of mine
enemies; throw down their tower and scatter their watchmen;
"And inasmuch as they gather together against you, avenge me of mine
enemies, that by and by I may come with the residue of mine house and
possess the land."
This "revelation" was industriously circulated in printed form among the
churches of Ohio and the East, and so great was the demand for copies
that they sold for one dollar each. The only construction to be placed
upon it was that Smith proposed to make good his predictions by means
of an armed force led against the people of Missouri. This view soon had
confirmation.
The arrival of P. P. Pratt and Lyman Wight in Kirtland in February,
1834, was followed by a "revelation" (Sec. 103) promising an outpouring
of God's wrath on those who had expelled the brethren from their
Missouri possessions, and declaring that "the redemption of Zion must
needs come by power," and that Smith was to lead them, as Moses led the
children of Israel.
In obedience to this direction there was assembled a military
organization, known in church history as "The Army of Zion." Recruiters,
led by Smith and Rigdon, visited the Eastern states, and by May 1 some
two hundred men had assembled at Kirtland ready to march to Missouri to
aid their brethren.*
* There are three detailed accounts of this expedition, one in
Smith's autobiography, another in H. C. Kimball's journal in Times and
Seasons, Vol. 6, and another in Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," procured
from one of the accompanying sharpshooters.
The Army of Zion, as it called itself, was not an impressive one in
appearance. Military experience was not required of the recruits; but
no one seems to have been accepted who was not in possession of a weapon
and at least $5 in cash. The weapons ranged from butcher knives and
rusty swords to pistols, muskets, and rifles. Smith himself carried a
fine sword, a brace of pistols (purchased on six months' credit), and
a rifle, and had four horses allotted to him. He had himself elected
treasurer of the expedition, and to him was intrusted all the money of
the men, to be disbursed as his judgment dictated.
According to his own account, they were constantly threatened by enemies
during their march; but they paid no attention to them, knowing that
angels accompanied them as protectors, "for we saw them."
As they approached Clay County a committee from Ray County called
on them to inquire about their intention, and, when a few miles from
Liberty, in Clay County, General Atchison and other Missourians met
them and warned them not to defy popular feeling by entering that town.
Accepting this advice, they took a circuitous route and camped on Rush
Creek, whence Smith on June 25 sent a letter to General Atchison's
committee saying that, in the interest of peace, "we have concluded that
our company shall be immediately dispersed."
The night before this letter was sent, cholera broke out in the camp.
Smith at once attempted to perform miraculous cures of the victims, but
he found actual cholera patients very different to deal with from old
women with imaginary ailments, or, as he puts it, "I quickly learned by
painful experience that, when the great Jehovah decrees destruction upon
any people, and makes known his determination, man must not attempt to
stay his hand."* There were thirteen deaths in camp, among the victims
being Sidney Gilbert.
* "Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 86.
Of course, some explanation was necessary to reconcile the prophet's
surrender without a battle with the "revelation" which directed the
army to march and promised a victory. This came in the shape of another
"revelation" (Sec. 105) which declared that the immediate redemption
of the people must be delayed because of their disobedience and lack of
union (especially excepting himself from this censure); that the Lord
did not "require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion"; that a
large enough force had not assembled at the Lord's command, and that
those who had made the journey were "brought thus far for a trial of
their faith." The brethren were directed not to make boasts of the
judgment to come on the Missourians, but to keep quiet, and "gather
together, as much in one region as can be, consistently with the
feelings of the people"; to purchase all the lands in Jackson County
they could, and then "I will hold the armies of Israel guiltless
in taking possession of their own lands, which they have previously
purchased with their monies, and of throwing down the powers of mine
enemies." But first the Lord's army was to become very great.
It seems incredible that any set of followers could retain faith in
"revelations" at once so conflicting and so nonsensical.
CHAPTER IV. -- FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE JACKSON COUNTY PEOPLE
Meanwhile, the Mormons in Clay County, with the assent of the natives
there, had opened a factory for the manufacture of arms "to pay the
Jackson mob in their own way,"* and it was rumored that both sides were
supplying themselves with cannon, to make the coming contest the more
determined. Governor Dunklin, fearing a further injury to the good name
of the state, wrote to Colonel J. Thornton urging a compromise, and on
June 10 Judge Ryland sent a communication to A. S. Gilbert, asking
him to call a meeting of Mormons in Liberty for a discussion of the
situation.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 68.
This meeting was held on June 16, and a committee from Jackson County
presented the following proposition: "That the value of the lands,
and the improvements thereon, of the Mormons in Jackson County, be
ascertained by three disinterested appraisers, representatives of the
Mormons to be allowed freely to point out the lands claimed and the
improvements; that the people of Jackson County would agree to pay the
Mormons the valuation fixed by the appraisers, WITH ONE HUNDRED PER CENT
ADDED, within thirty days of the award; or, the Jackson County citizens
would agree to sell out their lands in that county to the Mormons on the
same terms." The Mormon leaders agreed to call a meeting of their people
to consider this proposition.
The fifteen Jackson County committeemen, it may be mentioned, in
crossing the river on their way home, were upset, and seven of them were
drowned, including their chairman, J. Campbell, who was reported to have
made threats against Smith. The latter thus reports the accident in
his autobiography, "The angel of God saw fit to sink the boat about
the middle of the river, and seven, out of the twelve that attempted
to cross were drowned, thus suddenly and justly went they to their own
place by water."
On June 21 the Mormons gave written notice to the Jackson County people
that the terms proposed were rejected, and that they were framing
"honorable propositions" on their own part, which they would soon
submit, adding a denial of a rumor that they intended a hostile
invasion. Their objection to the terms proposed was thus stated in an
editorial in the Evening and Morning Star of July, 1834, "When it is
understood that the mob hold possession of a large quantity of land more
than our friends, and that they only offer thirty days for the payment
of the same, it will be seen that they are only making a sham to cover
their past unlawful conduct." This explanation ignores entirely the
offer of the Missourians to buy out the Mormons at a valuation double
that fixed by the appraisers, and simply shows that they intended to
hold to the idea that their promised Zion was in Jackson County, and
that they would not give it up.*
* The idea of returning to a Zion in Jackson County has never
been abandoned by the Mormon church. Bishop Partridge took title to the
Temple lot in Independence in his own name. In 1839, when the Mormons
were expelled from the state, still believing that this was to be
the site of the New Jerusalem, he deeded sixty-three acres of land in
Jackson County, including this lot, to three small children of Oliver
Cowdery. In 1848, seven years after Partridge's death, and when all the
Cowdery grantees were dead, a man named Poole got a deed for this land
from the heirs of the grantees, and subsequent conveyances were made
under Poole's deed. In 1851 a branch of the church, under a title
Church of Christ, known as Hendrickites, from Grandville Hendrick, its
originator, was organized in Illinois, with a basis of belief which
rejects most of the innovations introduced since 1835. Hendrick in 1864
was favored with a "revelation" which ordered the removal of his church
to Jackson County. On arriving there different members quietly bought
parts of the old Temple lot. In 1887 the sole surviving sister and heir
of the Cowdery children executed a quit claim deed of the lot to Bishop
Blakeslee of the Reorganized Church in Iowa, and that church at once
began legal proceedings to establish their title. Judge Philips, of
the United States Circuit Court for the Western Division of Missouri,
decided the case in March, 1894, in favor of the Reorganized Church, but
the United States Court of Appeals reversed this decision on the ground
that the respondents had title through undisputed possession ("United
States Court of Appeals Reports," Vol. XVII, p. 387). The Hendrickites
in this suit were actively aided by the Utah Mormons, President Woodruff
being among their witnesses. This Church of Christ has now a membership
of less than two hundred.
Two Mormon elders, describing their visit to Independence in 1888,
said that they went to the Temple lot and prayed as follows: "O
Lord, remember thy words, and let not Zion suffer forever. Hasten her
redemption, and let thy name be glorified in the victory of truth and
righteousness over sin and iniquity. Confound the enemies of the people
and let Zion be free:"--"Infancy of the Church," Salt Lake City, 1889.
On June 23 (the date of Smith's last quoted "revelation"), the Mormons
presented their counter proposition in writing. It was that a board
of six Mormons and six Jackson County non-Mormons should decide on the
value of lands in that county belonging to "those men who cannot consent
to live with us," and that they should receive this sum within a year,
less the amount of damage suffered by the Mormons, the latter to be
determined by the same persons. The Jackson County people replied that
they would "do nothing like according to their last proposition," and
expressed a hope that the Mormons "would cast an eye back of Clinton, to
see if that is not a county calculated for them." Clinton was the county
next north of Clay.
Governor Dunklin, in his annual message to the legislature that year,
expressed the opinion that "conviction for any violence committed
against a Mormon cannot be had in Jackson County," and told the
lawmakers it was for them to determine what amendments were necessary
"to guard against such acts of violence for the future." The Mormons
sent a petition in their own behalf to the legislature, which was
presented by Corrill, but no action was taken.
CHAPTER V. -- IN CLAY, CALDWELL, AND DAVIESS COUNTIES
The counties in which the Mormons settled after leaving Jackson County
were thinly populated at that time, Clay County having only 5338
inhabitants, according to the census of 1830, and Caldwell, Carroll, and
Daviess counties together having only 6617 inhabitants by the census
of 1840. County rivalry is always a characteristic of our newly settled
states and territories, and the Clay County people welcomed the Mormons
as an addition to their number, notwithstanding the ill favor in which
they stood with their southern neighbors. The new-comers at first
occupied what vacant cabins they could find in the southern part of
the county, until they could erect houses of their own, while the men
obtained such employment as was offered, and many of the women sought
places as domestic servants and school-teachers. The Jackson County
people were not pleased with this friendly spirit, and they not only
tried to excite trouble between the new neighbors, but styled the Clay
County residents "Jack Mormons," a name applied in later years in other
places to non-Mormons who were supposed to have Mormon sympathies.
Peace was maintained, however, for about three years. But the Mormons
grew in numbers, and, as the natives realized their growth, they showed
no more disposition to be in the minority than did their southern
neighbors. The Mormons, too, were without tact, and they did not
conceal the intention of the church to possess the land. Proof of their
responsibility for what followed is found in a remark of W. W. Phelps,
in a letter from Clay County to Ohio in December, 1833, that "our people
fare very well, and, when they are discreet, little or no persecution is
felt."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 646.
The irritation kept on increasing, and by the spring of 1836 Clay County
had become as hostile to the Mormons as Jackson County had ever been. In
June, the course adopted in Jackson County to get rid of the new-comers
was imitated, and a public meeting in the court house at Liberty adopted
resolutions* setting forth that civil war was threatened by the rapid
immigration of Mormons; that when the latter were received, in pity and
kindness, after their expulsion across the river, it was understood that
they would leave "whenever a respectable portion of the citizens of this
county should require it," and that that time had now come. The reasons
for this demand included Mormon declarations that the county was
destined by Heaven to be theirs, opposition to slavery, teaching the
Indians that they were to possess the land with the Saints, and
their religious tenets, which, it was said, "always will excite deep
prejudices against them in any populous country where they may locate."
In explanations of the anti-Mormon feeling in Missouri frequent allusion
is made to polygamous practices. This was not charged in any of the
formal statements against them, and Corrill declares that they had done
nothing there that would incriminate them under the law. The Mormons
were urged to seek a new abiding-place, the territory of Wisconsin being
recommended for their investigation. The resolutions confessed that "we
do not contend that we have the least right, under the constitution and
laws of the country, to expel them by force"; but gave as an excuse
for the action taken the certainty of an armed conflict if the Mormons
remained. Newly arrived immigrants were advised to leave immediately,
non-landowners to follow as soon as they could gather their crops
and settle up their business, and owners of forty acres to remain
indefinitely, until they could dispose of their real estate without
loss.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 763.
The Mormons, on July 1, adopted resolutions denying the charges against
them, but agreeing to leave the county. The Missourians then appointed
a committee to raise money to assist the needy Saints to move. Smith and
his associates in Ohio had not at that time the same interest in a Zion
in Missouri that they had three years earlier, and they only expressed
sorrow over the new troubles, and advised the fugitives to stop short
of Wisconsin if they could. An appeal was again made by the Missouri
Mormons to the governor of that state, but he now replied that if they
could not convince their neighbors of their innocence, "all I can say to
you is that in this republic the vox populi is the vox dei."
The Mormons selected that part of Ray County from which Caldwell County
was formed (just northeast of Clay County) for their new abode, and
on their petition the legislature framed the new county for their
occupancy. This was then almost unsettled territory, and the few
inhabitants made no objection to the coming of their new neighbors.
They secured a good deal of land, some by purchase, and some by entry
on government sections, and began its improvement. Many of them were
so poor that they had to seek work in the neighboring counties for
the support of their families. Some of their most intelligent members
afterward attributed their future troubles in that state to their
failure to keep within their own county boundaries.
As the county seat they founded a town which they named Far West, and
which soon presented quite a collection of houses, both log and frame,
schools, and shops. Phelps wrote in the summer of 1837, "Land cannot
be had around town now much less than $10 per acre."* There were
practically no inhabitants but Mormons within fifteen or twenty miles of
the town,** and the Saints were allowed entire political freedom. Of the
county officers, two judges, thirteen magistrates, the county clerk, and
all the militia officers were of their sect. They had credit enough
to make necessary loans, and, says Corrill, "friendship began to be
restored between them and their neighbors, the old prejudices were fast
dying away, and they were doing well, until the summer of 1838."
* Messenger and Advocate, July, 1837.
** Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 53.
It was in January, 1838, that Smith fled from Kirtland. He arrived in
Far West in the following March; Rigdon was detained in Illinois a short
time by the illness of a daughter. Smith's family went with him, and
they were followed by many devoted adherents of the church, who, in
order to pay church debts in Ohio and the East, had given up their
property in exchange for orders on the Bishop at Far West. In other
words, they were penniless.
The business scandals in Ohio had not affected the reputation of the
church leaders with their followers in Missouri (where the bank bills
had not circulated) and Smith and Rigdon received a hearty welcome, their
coming being accepted as a big step forward in the realization of their
prophesied Zion. It proved, however, to be the cause of the expulsion of
their followers from the state.
CHAPTER VI. -- RADICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CHURCH--ORIGIN OF THE DANITES--TITHING
While the church, in a material sense, might have been as prosperous
as Corrill pictured, Smith, on his arrival, found it in the throes of
serious internal discord. The month before he reached Far West, W. W.
Phelps and John Whitmer, of the Presidency there, had been tried before
a general assembly of the church,* and almost unanimously deposed on
several charges, the principal one being a claim on their part to $2000
of the church funds which they had bound the Bishop to pay to them.
Whitmer was also accused of persisting in the use of tea, coffee, and
tobacco. T. B. Marsh, one of the Presidents pro tem. selected in their
places, in a letter to the prophet on this subject, said:--
* For the minutes of this General Assembly, and text of Marsh's
letter, see Elders' Journal, July, 1838.
"Had we not taken the above measures, we think that nothing could have
prevented a rebellion against the whole High Council and Bishop; so
great was the disaffection against the Presidents that the people began
to be jealous that the whole authorities were inclined to uphold these
men in wickedness, and in a little time the church undoubtedly would
have gone every man his own way, like sheep without a shepherd."
On April 11, Elder Bronson presented nine charges against Oliver Cowdery
to the High Council, which promptly found him guilty of six of them,
viz. urging vexatious lawsuits against the brethren, accusing the
prophet of adultery, not attending meeting, returning to the practice
of law "for the sake of filthy lucre," "disgracing the church by being
connected with the bogus [counterfeiting] business, retaining notes
after they had been paid," and generally "forsaking the cause of God."
On this finding he was expelled from the church. Two days later David
Whitmer was found guilty of unchristianlike conduct and defaming the
prophet, and was expelled, and Lyman E. Johnson met the same fate.*
Smith soon announced a "revelation" (Sec. 114), directing the places of
the expelled to be filled by others.
* For minutes of these councils, see Millennial Star, Vol. XVI,
pp. 130-134.
It was in the June following that the paper drawn up by Rigdon and
signed by eighty-three prominent members of the church was presented to
the recalcitrants, ordering them to leave the county, and painting their
characters in the blackest hues.* This radical action did not meet
the approval of the more conservative element, which included men like
Corrill, and he soon announced that he was no longer a Mormon. Not
long afterward Thomas B. Marsh, one of the original members of the High
Council of Twelve in Missouri, and now President of the Twelve, and
Orson Hyde, one of the original Apostles, also seceded, and both gave
testimony about the Mormon schemes in Caldwell and Daviess Counties.
Cowdery and Whitmer considered their lives in such danger that they fled
on horseback at night, leaving their families, and after riding till
daylight in a storm, reached the house of a friend, where they found
refuge until their families could join them.
* See p. 81 ante. For the full text of Rigdon's paper, see the
"Correspondence, Orders, etc., in Relation to the Mormon Disturbances in
Missouri," published by order of the Missouri legislature (1841).
The most important event that followed the expulsion of leading
members from the church by the High Council was the formation of that
organization which has been almost ever since known as the Danites,
whose dark deeds in Nauvoo were scarcely more than hinted at,* but
which, under Brigham Young's authority in Utah, became a band of
murderers, ready to carry out the most radical suggestion which might be
made by any higher authority of the church.
* Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 158.
Corrill, an active member of the church in Missouri, writing in 1839
with the events fresh in his memory, said* that the members of the
Danite society entered into solemn covenants to stand by one another
when in difficulty, whether right or wrong, and to correct each
other's wrongs among themselves, accepting strictly the mandates of the
Presidency as standing next to God. He explains that "many were opposed
to this society, but such was their determination and also their
threatenings, that those opposed dare not speak their minds on the
subject.... It began to be taught that the church, instead of God, or,
rather, the church in the hands of God, was to bring about these things
(judgments on the wicked), and I was told, but I cannot vouch for the
truth of it, that some of them went so far as to contrive plans how they
might scatter poison, pestilence, and disease among the inhabitants,
and make them think it was judgments sent from God. I accused Smith and
Rigdon of it, but they both denied it promptly."
* "Brief History of the Church," pp. 31, 32.
Robinson, in his reminiscences in the Return in later years, gave the
same date of the organization of the Danites, and said that their first
manifesto was the one directed against Cowdery, Whitmer, and others.
We must look for the actual origin of this organization, however, to
some of the prophet's instructions while still at Kirtland. In his
"revelation" of August 6, 1833 (Sec. 98), he thus defined the treatment
that the Saints might bestow upon their enemies: "I have delivered thine
enemy into thine hands, and then if thou wilt spare him, thou shalt be
rewarded for thy righteousness;... nevertheless thine enemy is in thine
hands, and if thou reward him according to his works thou art justified,
if he has sought thy life, and thy life is endangered by him, thine
enemy is in thine hands and thou art justified."
What such a license would mean to a following like Smith's can easily be
understood.
The next step in the same direction was taken during the exercises
which accompanied the opening of the Kirtland Temple. Three days after
the dedicatory services, all the high officers of the church, and the
official members of the stake, to the number of about three hundred, met
in the Temple by appointment to perform the washing of feet. While this
was going on (following Smith's own account),* "the brethren began
to prophesy blessings upon each other's heads, and cursings upon the
enemies of Christ who inhabit Jackson County, Missouri, and continued
prophesying and blessing and sealing them, with hosannah and amen, until
nearly seven o'clock P. M. The bread and wine were then brought in.
While waiting, I made the following remarks, 'I want to enter into the
following covenant, that if any more of our brethren are slain or driven
from their lands in Missouri by the mob, we will give ourselves no rest
until we are avenged of our enemies to the uttermost.' This covenant was
sealed unanimously, with a hosannah and an amen." **
* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, pp. 727-728.
* "The spirit of that covenant evidently bore fruit in the Fourth
of July oration of 1838 and the Mountain Meadow Massacre."--The Return,
Vol. II, p. 271.
The original name chosen for the Danites was "Daughters of Zion,"
suggested by the text Micah iv. 13: "Arise and thresh, O daughter of
Zion; for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thine hoofs
brass; and thou shalt beat in pieces many people; and I will consecrate
thy gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole
earth." "Daughters" of anybody was soon decided to be an inappropriate
designation for such a band, and they were next called "Destroying (or
Flying) Angels," a title still in use in Utah days; then the "Big Fan,"
suggested by Jeremiah xv. 7, or Luke iii. 17; then "Brothers of Gideon,"
and finally "Sons of Dan" (whence the name Danites,) from Genesis xlix.
17: "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that
biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backward."*
* Hyde's "Mormonism Exposed," pp. 104-105.
Avard presented the text of the constitution to the court at Richmond,
Missouri, during the inquiry before Judge King in November, 1838* It
begins with a preamble setting forth the agreement of the members "to
regulate ourselves under such laws as in righteousness shall be deemed
necessary for the preservation of our holy religion, and of our most
sacred rights, and the rights of our wives and children," and declaring
that, "not having the privileges of others allowed to us, we have
determined, like unto our fathers, to resist tyranny, whether it be in
kings or in the people. It is all alike to us. Our rights we must
have, and our rights we shall have, in the name of Israel's God." The
President of the church and his counsellors were to hold the "executive
power," and also, along with the generals and colonels of the society,
to hold the "legislative powers"; this legislature to "have power to
make all laws regulating the society, and regulating punishments to be
administered to the guilty in accordance with the offence." Thus was
furnished machinery for carrying out any decree of the officers of the
church against either life or property.
* Missouri "Correspondence, Orders, etc.," pp. 101-102.
The Danite oath as it was administered in Nauvoo was as follows:--"In
the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I do solemnly obligate myself
ever to regard the Prophet and the First Presidency of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as the supreme head of the church on
earth, and to obey them in all things, the same as the supreme God; that
I will stand by my brethren in danger or difficulty, and will uphold
the Presidency, right or wrong; and that I will ever conceal, and never
reveal, the secret purposes of this society, called Daughters of Zion.
Should I ever do the same, I hold my life as the forfeiture, in a
caldron of boiling oil."*
* Bennett's "History of the Saints," p. 267.
John D. Lee, who was a member of the organization, explaining their
secret signs, says,* "The sign or token of distress is made by placing
the right hand on the right side of the face, with the points of the
fingers upward, shoving the hand upward until the ear is snug up between
the thumb and forefinger."
*Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 57.
It has always been the policy of the Mormon church to deny to the
outside world that any such organization as the Danites existed, or at
least that it received the countenance of the authorities. Smith's
City Council in Nauvoo made an affidavit that there was no such society
there, and Utah Mormons have professed similar ignorance. Brigham Young,
himself, however, gave testimony to the contrary in the days when he was
supreme in Salt Lake City. In one of his discourses which will be found
reported in the Deseret News (Vol. VII, p. 143) he said: "If men come
here and do not behave themselves, they will not only find the Danites,
whom they talk so much about, biting the horses' heels, but the
scoundrels will find something biting THEIR heels. In my plain remarks
I merely call things by their own names." It need only be added that the
church authority has been powerful enough at any time in the history of
the church to crush out such an organization if it so desired.
A second organization formed about the same time, at a fully attended
meeting of the Mormons of Daviess County, was called "The Host of
Israel." It was presided over by captains of tens, of fifties, and of
hundreds, and, according to Lee, "God commanded Joseph Smith to place
the Host of Israel in a situation for defence against the enemies of God
and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."
Another important feature of the church rule that was established at
this time was the tithing system, announced in a "revelation" (Sec.
119), which is dated July 8, 1838. This required the flock to put all
their "surplus property" into the hands of the Bishop for the building
of the Temple and the payment of the debts of the Presidency, and that,
after that, "those who have thus been tithed, shall pay one-tenth of
all their interest annually; and this shall be a standing law unto them
forever."
Ebenezer Robinson gives an interesting explanation of the origin of
tithing. *In May, 1838, the High Council at Far West, after hearing a
statement by Rigdon that it was absolutely necessary for the church to
make some provision for the support of the families of all those who
gave their entire time to church affairs, instructed the Bishop to deed
to Smith and Rigdon an eighty-acre lot belonging to the church, and
appointed a committee of three to confer with the Presidency concerning
their salary for that year. Smith and Rigdon thought that $1100 would be
a proper sum, and the committee reported in favor of a salary, but left
the amount blank. The council voted the salaries, but this action caused
such a protest from the church members that at the next meeting the
resolution was rescinded. Only a few days later came this "revelation"
requiring the payment of tithes, in which there was no mention of using
any of the money for the poor, as was directed in the Ohio "revelation"
about the consecration of property to the Bishop.
* The Return, Vol. 1, p. 136.
This tithing system has provided ever since the principal revenue of the
church. By means of it the Temple was built at Nauvoo, and under it vast
sums have been contributed in Utah. By 1878 the income of the church by
this source was placed at $1,000,000 a year,* and during Brigham Young's
administration the total receipts were estimated at $13,000,000. We
shall see that Young made practically no report of the expenditure
of this vast sum that passed into his control. To Horace Greeley's
question, "What is done with the proceeds of this tithing?" Young
replied, "Part of it is devoted to building temples and other places
of worship, part to helping the poor and needy converts on their way to
this country, and the largest portion to the support of the poor among
the Saints."
* Salt Lake Tribune, June 25, 1879.
As the authority of the church over its members increased, the
regulation about the payment of tithes was made plainer and more severe.
Parley P. Pratt, in addressing the General Conference in Salt Lake City
in October, 1849, said, "To fulfil the law of tithing, a man should make
out and lay before the Bishop a schedule of all his property, and pay
him one-tenth of it. When he hath tithed his principal once, he has no
occasion to tithe again; but the next year he must pay one-tenth of his
increase, and one-tenth of his time, of his cattle, money, goods, and
trade; and, whatever use we put it to, it is still our own, for the Lord
does not carry it away with him to heaven."* Millennial Star, Vol.
XII, p. 134.
The Seventh General Epistle to the church (September, 1851) made this
statement, "It is time that the Saints understood that the paying of
their tithing is a prominent portion of the labor which is allotted to
them, by which they are to secure a future residence in the heaven they
are seeking after."* This view was constantly presented to the converts
abroad.
* Ibid., Vol. XIV, p. 18.
At the General Conference in Salt Lake City on September 8, 1850,
Brigham Young made clear his radical view of tithing--a duty, he
declared, that few had lived up to. Taking the case of a supposed Mr. A,
engaged in various pursuits (to represent the community), starting with
a capital of $100,000 he must surrender $10,000 of this as tithing. With
his remaining $90,000 he gains $410,000; $41,000 of this gain must be
given into the storehouse of the Lord. Next he works nine days with his
team; the tenth day's work is for the church, as is one-tenth of the
wheat he raises, one-tenth of his sheep, and one-tenth of his eggs.*
* Ibid., Vol. XIII, p. 21.
Under date of July 18, came another "revelation" (Sec. 120), declaring
that the tithings "shall be disposed of by a Council, composed of the
First Presidency of my church, and of the Bishop and his council, and by
my High Council." The first meeting of this body decided "that the First
Presidency should keep all their property that they could dispose of to
advantage for their support, and the remainder be put into the hands
of the Bishop, according to the commandments."* The coolness of this
proceeding in excepting Smith and Rigdon from the obligation to pay a
tithe is worthy of admiration.
* Ibid., Vol. XVI, p. 204.
CHAPTER VII. -- BEGINNING OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES
Smith had shown his dominating spirit as soon as he arrived at Far West.
In April, 1838, he announced a "revelation" (Sec. 115), commanding the
building of a house of worship there, the work to begin on July 4, the
speedy building up of that city, and the establishment of Stakes in the
regions round about. This last requirement showed once more Smith's lack
of judgment, and it became a source of irritation to the non-Mormons,
as it was thought to foreshadow a design to control the neighboring
counties. Hyde says that Smith and Rigdon deliberately planned the
scattering of the Saints beyond the borders of Clay County with a view
to political power.*
* Hyde's "Mormonism," p. 203.
In accordance with this scheme, a "revelation" of May 19 (Sec. 116),
directed the founding of a town on Grand River in Daviess County,
twenty-five miles northwest of Far West. This settlement was to be
called "Adam-ondi-Ahman," "because it is the place where Adam shall come
to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by
Daniel the Prophet." The "revelation" further explains that, three years
before his death, Adam called a number of high priests and all of his
posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and
there blessed them. Lee (who, following the common pronunciation, writes
the name "Adam-on-Diamond") expresses the belief, which Smith instilled
into his followers, that it "was at the point where Adam came and
settled and blessed his posterity, after being driven from the Garden
of Eden. There Adam and Eve tarried for several years, and engaged in
tilling the soil." By order of the Presidency, another town was
started in Carroll County, where the Saints had been living in peace.
Immediately the new settlement was looked upon as a possible rival
of Gallatin, the county seat, and the non-Mormons made known their
objections.
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 91.
With Smith and Rigdon on the ground, if these men had had any tact,
or any purpose except to enforce Mormon supremacy in whatever part of
Missouri they chose to call Zion, the troubles now foreshadowed might
easily have been prevented. Every step they took, however, was in the
nature of a defiance. The sermons preached to the Mormons that
summer taught them that they would be able to withstand, not only the
opposition of the Missourians, but of the United States, if this should
be put to the test.*
* Corrill's "Brief History of the Church," p. 29.
The flock in and around Far West were under the influence of such advice
when they met on July 4 to lay the corner-stone of the third Temple,
whose building Smith had revealed, and to celebrate the day. There was a
procession, with a flagpole raising, and Smith embraced the occasion to
make public announcement of the tithing "revelation" (although it bears
a later date).
The chief feature of the day, and the one that had most influence on the
fortunes of the church, was a sermon by Sidney Rigdon, known ever since
as the "salt sermon," from the text Matt. v. 13: "If the salt have lost
its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for
nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." He
first applied these words to the men who had made trouble in the church,
declaring that they ought to be trodden under foot until their bowels
gushed out, citing as a precedent that "the apostles threw Judas
Iscariot down and trampled out his bowels, and that Peter stabbed
Ananias and Sapphira." It was what followed, however, which made the
serious trouble, a defiance to their Missouri opponents in these words:
"It is not because we cannot, if we were so disposed, enjoy both the
honors and flatteries of the world, but we have voluntarily offered
them in sacrifice, and the riches of the world also, for a more durable
substance. Our God has promised a reward of eternal inheritance, and
we have believed his promise, and, though we wade through great
tribulations, we are in nothing discouraged, for we know he that has
promised is faithful. The promise is sure, and the reward is certain.
It is because of this that we have taken the spoiling of our goods. Our
cheeks have been given to the smiters, and our heads to those who have
plucked off the hair. We have not only, when smitten on one cheek,
turned the other, but we have done it again and again, until we are
weary of being smitten, and tired of being trampled upon. We have proved
the world with kindness; we have suffered their abuse, without cause,
with patience, and have endured without resentment, until this day, and
still their persecution and violence does not cease. But from this day
and this hour, we will suffer it no more.
"We take God and all the holy angels to witness this day, that we warn
all men, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no more for ever,
for, from this hour, we will bear it no more. Our rights shall no more
be trampled on with impunity. The man, or set of men, who attempt it,
DOES IT AT THE EXPENSE OF THEIR LIVES. And that mob that comes on us to
disturb us, it shall be between us and them A WAR OF EXTERMINATION, FOR
WE WILL FOLLOW THEM TO THE LAST DROP OF THEIR BLOOD IS SPILLED, OR ELSE
THEY WILL HAVE TO EXTERMINATE US; for we will carry the seat of war to
their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the other
SHALL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED. Remember it then, all men.
"We will never be aggressors; we will infringe on rights of no people;
but shall stand for our own until death. We claim our own rights, and
are willing that all shall enjoy theirs.
"No man shall be at liberty to come in our streets, to threaten us with
mobs, for if he does, he shall atone for it before he leaves the place;
neither shall he be at liberty to vilify or slander any of us, for
suffer it we will not in this place.
"We therefore take all men to record this day, as did our fathers. And
we pledge this day to one another, our fortunes, our lives, and our
sacred honors, to be delivered from the persecutions which we have
had to endure for the last nine years, or nearly that. Neither will
we indulge any man, or set of men, in instituting vexatious lawsuits
against us to cheat us out of our just rights. If they attempt it we
say, woe be unto them. We this day then proclaim ourselves free, with
a purpose and a determination that never can be broken, no never, NO
NEVER, NO NEVER."
Ebenezer Robinson in The Return (Vol I, p. 170) says:--
"Let it be distinctly understood that President Rigdon was not alone
responsible for the sentiment expressed in his oration, as that was a
carefully prepared document previously written, and well understood by
the First Presidency; but Elder Rigdon was the mouthpiece to deliver it,
as he was a natural orator, and his delivery was powerful and effective.
"Several Missouri gentlemen of note, from other counties, were present
on the speaker's stand at its delivery, with Joseph Smith, Jr.,
President, and Hyrum Smith, Vice President of the day; and at the
conclusion of the oration, when the president of the day led off with a
shout of 'Hosannah, Hosannah, Hosannah,' and joined in the shout by the
vast multitude, these Missouri gentlemen began to shout 'hurrah,'
but they soon saw that did not time with the other, and they ceased
shouting. A copy of the oration was furnished the editor, and printed in
the Far West, a weekly newspaper printed in Liberty, the county seat
of Clay county. It was also printed in pamphlet form, by the writer of
this, in the printing office of the Elders' Journal, in the city of Far
West, a copy of which we have preserved.
"This oration, and the stand taken by the church in endorsing it, and
its publication, undoubtedly exerted a powerful influence in arousing
the people of the whole upper Missouri country."
At the trial of Rigdon, when he was cast out at Nauvoo, Young and others
held him alone responsible for this sermon, and declared that it was
principally instrumental in stirring up the hostilities that ensued.
A state election was to be held in Missouri early in August, and there
was a good deal of political feeling. Daviess County was pretty equally
divided between Whigs and Democrats, and the vote of the Mormons was
sought by the leaders of both parties. In Caldwell County the Saints
were classed as almost solidly Democratic. When election day came, the
Danites in the latter county distributed tickets on which the Presidency
had agreed, but this resulted in nothing more serious than some
criticism of this interference of the church in politics. But in Daviess
County trouble occurred.
The Mormons there were warned by the Democrats that the Whigs would
attempt to prevent their voting at Gallatin. Of the ten houses in
that town at the time, three were saloons, and the material for an
election-day row was at hand. It began with an attack on a Mormon
preacher, and ended in a general fight, in which there were many broken
heads, but no loss of life; after which, says Lee, who took part in it,
"the Mormons all voted."*
* Smith's autobiography says, "Very few of the brethren voted."
Exaggerated reports of this melee reached Far West, and Dr. Avard,
collecting a force of 150 volunteers, and accompanied by Smith and
Rigdon, started for Daviess County for the support of their brethren.
They came across no mob, but they made a tactical mistake. Instead
of disbanding and returning to their homes, they, the next morning
(following Smith's own account)* "rode out to view the situation." Their
ride took them to the house of a justice of the peace, named Adam Black,
who had joined a band whose object was the expulsion of the Mormons.
Smith could not neglect the opportunity to remind the justice of his
violation of his oath, and to require of him some satisfaction, "so that
we might know whether he was our friend or enemy." With this view they
compelled him to sign what they called "an agreement of peace," which
the justice drew up in this shape:--
* Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 229.
"I, Adam Black, A Justice of the Peace of Davies County, do hereby
Sertify to the people called Mormin that he is bound to suport the
constitution of this state and of the United States, and he is not
attached to any mob, nor will not attach himself to any such people, and
so long as they will not molest me I will not molest them. This the 8th
day of August, 1838.
"ADAM BLACK, J.P."
When the Mormon force returned to Far West, the Daviess people secured
warrants for the arrest of Smith, L. Wight, and others, charging them
with violating the law by entering another county armed, and compelling
a justice of the peace to obey their mandate, Black having made an
affidavit that he was compelled to sign the paper in order to save
his life. Wight threatened to resist arrest, and this caused such a
gathering of Missourians that Smith became alarmed and sent for two
lawyers, General D. R. Atchison and General Doniphan, to come to
Far West as his legal advisers.* Acting on their advice, the accused
surrendered themselves, and were bound over to court in $500 bail for a
hearing on September 7.
* General Atchison was the major general in command of that
division of the state militia. His early reports to the governor must
be read in the light of his association with Smith as counsel. General
Douiphan afterward won fame at Chihuahua in the Mexican War.
CHAPTER VIII. -- A STATE OF CIVIL WAR
All peaceable occupations were now at an end in Daviess County. General
Atchison reported to the governor that, on arriving there on September
17, he found the county practically deserted, the Gentiles being
gathered in one camp and the Mormons in another. A justice of the peace,
in a statement to the governor, declared, "The Mormons are so numerous
and so well armed [in Daviess and Caldwell counties] that the judicial
power of the counties is wholly unable to execute any civil or criminal
process within the limits of either of the said counties against a
Mormon or Mormons, as they each and every one of them act in concert and
outnumber the other citizens." Lee says that an order had been issued
by the church authorities, commanding all the Mormons to gather in two
fortified camps, at Far West and Adam-ondi-Ahman. The men were poorly
armed, but demanded to be led against their foes, being "confident that
God was going to deliver the enemy into our hands."*
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 78.
Both parties now stood on the defensive, posting sentinels, and making
other preparations for a fight. Actual hostilities soon ensued. The
Mormons captured some arms which their opponents had obtained, and
took them, with three prisoners, to Far West. "This was a glorious day,
indeed," says Smith.* Citizens of Daviess and Livingston counties sent a
petition to Governor Boggs (who had succeeded Dunklin), dated September
12, declaring that they believed their lives, liberty, and property
to be "in the most imminent danger of being sacrificed by the hands of
those impostorous rebels," and asking for protection. The governor had
already directed General Atchison to "raise immediately four hundred
mounted men in view of indications of Indian disturbances on our
immediate frontier, and the recent civil disturbances in the counties
of Caldwell, Daviess, and Carroll." The calling out of the militia
followed, and General Doniphan found himself in command of about one
thousand militiamen. He seems to have used tact, and to have employed
his force only as peace preservers. On September 20 he reported to
Governor Boggs that he had discharged all his troops but two companies,
and that he did not think the services of these would be required
more than twenty days. He estimated the Mormon forces in the disturbed
counties at from thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred men, most of them
carrying a rifle, a brace of pistols, and a broadsword; "so that," he
added, "from their position, and their fanaticism, and their unalterable
determination not to be driven, much blood will be spilt and much
suffering endured if a blow is at once struck, without the interposition
of your excellency."
* Smith's autobiography, at this point, says: "President Rigdon
and I commenced this day the study of law under the instruction of
Generals Atchison and Doniphan. They think by diligent application we
can be admitted to the bar in twelve months." Millennial Star, Vol. XVI,
p. 246.
The people of Carroll County began now to hold meetings whose object was
the expulsion of the Mormons from their boundaries, and some hundreds
of them assembled in hostile attitude around the little settlement of
Dewitt. The Mormons there prepared for defence, and sent an appeal to
Far West for aid. Accordingly, one hundred Mormons, including Smith
and Rigdon, started to assist them, and two companies of militia, under
General Parks, were hurried to the spot. General Parks reported to
General Atchison on October 7 that, on arriving there the day before,
he found the place besieged by two hundred or three hundred Missourians,
under a Dr. Austin, with a field-piece, and defended by two hundred or
three hundred Mormons under G. M. Hinckle, "who says he will die before
he is driven from thence." Austin expected speedy reenforcements that
would enable him to take the place by assault. A petition addressed by
the Mormons of Dewitt to the governor, as early as September 22, having
been ignored, and finding themselves outnumbered, they agreed to abandon
their settlement on receiving pay for their improvements, and some fifty
wagons conveyed them and their effects to Far West.
A period of absolute lawlessness in all that section of the state
followed. Smith declared that civil war existed, and that, as the state
would not protect them, they must look out for themselves. He and his
associates made no concealment of their purpose to "make clean work of
it" in driving the non-Mormons from both Daviess and Caldwell counties.
When warned that this course would array the whole state against them,
Smith replied that the "mob" (as the opponents of the Mormons were
always styled) were a small minority of the state, and would yield to
armed opposition; the Mormons would defeat one band after another, and
so proceed across the state, until they reached St. Louis, where
the Mormon army would spend the winter. This calculation is a fair
illustration of Smith's judgment.
Armed bands of both parties now rode over the country, paying absolutely
no respect to property rights, and ready for a "brush" with any
opponents. At Smith's suggestion, a band of men, under the name of the
"Fur Company," was formed to "commandeer" food, teams, and men for the
Mormon campaign. This practical license to steal let loose the worst
element in the church organization, glad of any method of revenge on
those whom they considered their persecutors. "Men of former quiet,"
says Lee, who was among the active raiders, "became perfect demons
in their efforts to spoil and waste away the enemies of the church."*
Cattle and hogs that could not be driven off were killed.** Houses were
burned, not only in the outlying country, but in the towns. A night
attack by a band of eighty men was made on Gallatin, where some of the
houses were set on fire, and two stores as well as private houses were
robbed. The house of one McBride, who, Lee says, had been a good friend
to him and to other Mormons, did not escape: "Every article of moveable
property was taken by the troops; he was utterly ruined." "It appeared
to me," says Corrill, "that the love of pillage grew upon them very
fast, for they plundered every kind of property they could get hold of,
and burnt many cabins in Daviess, some say 80, and some say 150." ***
* Lee naively remarks, "In justice to Joseph Smith I cannot say
that I ever heard him teach, or even encourage, men to pilfer or steal
little things."--"Mormonism Unveiled," p. 90.
** W. Harris's "Mormonism Portrayed," p. 30.
*** "Brief History of the Church," p. 38.
The Missourians retaliated in kind. Mormons were seized and whipped, and
their houses were burned. A lawless company (Pratt calls them banditti),
led by one Gilliam, embraced the opportunity to make raids in the Mormon
territory. It was soon found necessary to collect the outlying Mormons
at Far West and Adam-ondi-Ahman, where they were used for purposes both
of offence and defence. The movements of the Missourians were closely
watched, and preparations were made to burn any place from which a force
set out to attack the Saints.
One of the Missouri officers, Captain Bogart, on October 23, warned some
Mormons to leave the county, and, with his company of thirty or forty
men, announced his intention to "give Far West thunder and lightning."
When this news reached Far West, Judge Higbee, of the county court,
ordered Lieutenant Colonel Hinckle to go out with a company, disperse
the "mob," and retake some prisoners. The Mormons assembled at midnight,
and about seventy-five volunteers started at once, under command of
Captain Patton, the Danite leader, whose nickname was "Fear Not," all on
horseback. When they approached Crooked River, on which Bogart's force
was encamped, fifteen men were sent in advance on foot to locate the
enemy. Just at dawn a rifle shot sounded, and a young Mormon, named
O'Barrion, fell mortally wounded. Captain Patton ordered a charge, and
led his men at a gallop down a hill to the river, under the bank of
which the Missourians were drawn up. The latter had an advantage, as
they were in the shade, and the Mormons were between them and the east,
which the dawn was just lighting. Exchanges of volleys occurred, and
then Captain Patton ordered his men to rush on with drawn swords--they
had no bayonets. This put the Missourians to flight, but just as they
fled Captain Patton received a mortal wound. Three Mormons in all were
killed as a result of this battle, and seven wounded, while Captain
Bogart reported the death of one man.*
* Ebenezer Robinson's account in The Return, p. 191.
The death of "Fear Not" was considered by the Mormons a great loss. He
was buried with the honors of war, says Robinson, "and at his grave a
solemn convention was made to avenge his death." Smith, in the funeral
sermon, reverted to his old tactics, attributing the Mormon losses to
the Lord's anger against his people, because of their unbelief and their
unwillingness to devote their worldly treasures to the church.
The rout of Captain Bogart's force, which was a part of the state
militia, increased the animosity against the Mormons, and the wiser of
the latter believed that they would suffer a dire vengeance.*
* Corrill's "Brief History of the Church," p. 38.
This vengeance first made itself felt at a settlement called Hawn's Mill
(of which there are various spellings), some miles from Far West, where
there were a flour mill, blacksmith shop, and other buildings. The
Mormons there were advised, the day after the fight on Crooked River,
to move into Far West for protection, but the owners of the buildings,
knowing that these would be burned as soon as deserted, decided to
remain and defend their property.
On October 30 a mounted force of Missourians appeared before the place.
The Mormons ran into the log blacksmith shop, which they thought would
serve them as a blockhouse, but it proved to be a slaughter-pen. The
Missourians surrounded it, and, sticking their rifles into every hole
and crack, poured in a deadly fire, killing, some reports say eighteen,
and some thirty-one, of the Mormons. The only persons in the town who
escaped found shelter in the woods. The Missourians did not lose a man.
When the firing ceased, they still showed no mercy, shooting a small boy
in the leg after dragging him out from under the bellows, and hacking to
death with a corn cutter an old man while he begged for his life. Dead
and wounded were thrown into a well, and some of the wounded, taken out
by rescuers from Far West, recovered. "I heard one of the militia tell
General Clark," says Corrill, "that a well twenty or thirty feet deep
was filled with their dead bodies to within three feet of the top."*
* Details of this massacre will be found in Lee's "Mormonism
Unveiled," pp. 78-80; in the Missouri "Correspondence, Orders, etc.,"
p. 82; the Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 507, and in Greene's "Facts
Relative to the Expulsion of the Mormons from Missouri," pp. 21-24.
The Mormons have always considered this "massacre," as they called it,
the crowning outrage of their treatment in Missouri, and for many years
were especially bitter toward all participants in it. A letter from two
Mormons in the Frontier Guardian, dated October, 1849, describing the
disinterred human bones seen on their journey across the plains, said
that they recognized on the rude tombstone the names of some of their
Missouri persecutors: "Among others, we noted at the South Pass of the
Rocky Mountains the grave of one E. Dodd of Gallatin, Missouri. The
wolves had completely disinterred him. It is believed that he was the
same Dodd that took an active part as a prominent mobocrat in the
murder of the Saints at Hawn's Mill, Missouri; if so, it is a righteous
retribution." Two Mormon elders, describing a visit in 1889 to the
scenes of the Mormon troubles in Missouri, said, "The notorious Colonel
W. O. Jennings, who commanded the mob at the [Hawn's Mill] massacre, was
assaulted in Chillicothe, Missouri, on the evening of January 20, 1862,
by an unknown person, who shot him on the street with a revolver or
musket, as the Colonel was going home after dark." * They are silent as
to the avenger.
* "Infancy of the Church" (pamphlet).
Governor Boggs now began to realize the seriousness of the situation
that he was called to meet, and on October 26 he directed General John
B. Clark (who was not the ranking general) to raise, for the protection
of the citizens of Daviess County, four hundred mounted men. This order
he followed the next day with the following, which has become the most
famous of the orders issued during this campaign, under the designation
"the order of extermination":--
"HEADQUARTERS OF THE MILITIA,
"CITY OF JEFFERSON, Oct. 27, 1838.
"GEN. JOHN B. CLARK,
"Sir:--Since the order of this morning to you, directing you to cause
four hundred mounted men to be raised within your Division, I have
received by Amos Rees, Esq., of Ray County and Wiley C. Williams, Esq.,
one of my aids, information of the most appalling character, which
entirely changes the face of things, and places the Mormons in the
attitude of an open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made
war upon the people of this state. Your orders are, therefore, to hasten
your operations with all possible speed.
"The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or
driven from the State if necessary for the public peace--their outrages
are beyond all description. If you can increase your force, you are
authorized to do so to any extent you may consider necessary. I have
just issued orders to Maj. Gen. Willock, of Marion County, to raise
five hundred men, and to march them to the northern part of Daviess, and
there unite with Gen. Doniphan, of Clay, who has been ordered with five
hundred men to proceed to the same point for the purpose of intercepting
the retreat of the Mormons to the north. They have been directed to
communicate with you by express; you can also communicate with them if
you find it necessary.
"Instead therefore of proceeding, as at first directed, to reinstate
the citizens of Daviess in their homes, you will proceed immediately to
Richmond and then operate against the Mormons. Brig. Gen. Parks, of Ray,
has been ordered to have four hundred of his brigade in readiness to
join you at Richmond. The whole force will be placed under your command.
"I am very respectfully,
"Your ob't serv't,
"L. W. Boggs, Commander-in-chief."
The "appalling information" received by the governor from his aids was
contained in a letter dated October 25, which stated that the Mormons
were "destroying all before them"; that they had burned Gallatin and
Mill Pond, and almost every house between these places, plundered the
whole country, and defeated Captain Bogart's company, and had determined
to burn Richmond that night. "These creatures," said the letter, "will
never stop until they are stopped by the strong hand of force, and
something must be done, and that speedily."*
* For text of letter, see "Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 59.
The language of Governor Boggs's letter to General Clark cannot be
defended. The Mormons have always made great capital of his declaration
that the Mormons "must be exterminated," and a man of judicial
temperament would have selected other words, no matter how necessary he
deemed it, for political reasons, to show his sympathy with the popular
cause. But, on the other hand, the governor was only accepting the
challenge given by Rigdon in his recent Fourth of July address, when
the latter declared that if a mob disturbed the Mormons, "it shall be
between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them
till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to
exterminate us." What compromise there could have been between a band
of fanatics obeying men like Smith and Rigdon, and the class of settlers
who made up the early Missouri population, it is impossible to conceive.
The Mormons were simply impossible as neighbors, and it had become
evident that they could no more remain peaceably in the state than they
could a few years previously in Jackson County.
General Atchison, of Smith's counsel, was not called on by the governor
in these latest movements, because, as the governor explained in a
letter to General Clark, "there was much dissatisfaction manifested
toward him by the people opposed to the Mormons." But he had seen his
mistake, and he united with General Lucas in a letter to the governor
under date of October 28, in which they said, "from late outrages
committed by the Mormons, civil war is inevitable," and urged the
governor's presence in the disturbed district. Governor Boggs excused
himself from complying with this request because of the near approach of
the meeting of the legislature.
General Lucas, acting under his interpretation of the governor's order,
had set out on October 28 for Far West from near Richmond, with a force
large enough to alarm the Mormon leaders. Robinson, speaking of the
outlook from their standpoint at this time, says, "We looked for warm
work, as there were large numbers of armed men gathering in Daviess
County, with avowed determination of driving the Mormons from the
county, and we began to feel as determined that the Missourians should
be expelled from the county."* The Mormons did not hear of the approach
of General Lucas's force until it was near the town. Then the southern
boundary was hastily protected with a barricade of wagons and logs,
and the night of October 30-31 was employed by all the inhabitants in
securing their possessions for flight, in anticipation of a battle the
next day.
* The Return, Vol. I, p. 189.
CHAPTER IX. -- THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE
At eight o'clock the next morning the commander of the militia sent a
flag of truce to the Mormons which Colonel Hinckle, for the Mormons,
met. General Lucas submitted the following terms, as necessary to carry
out the governor's orders:
1. To give up their leaders to be tried and punished.
2. To make an appropriation of their property, all who have taken up
arms, to the payment of their debts and indemnity for damage done by
them.
3. That the balance should leave the State, and be protected out by
the militia, but be permitted to remain under protection until further
orders were received by the commander-in-chief.
4. To give up the arms of every description, to be receipted for.
While these propositions were under consideration, General Lucas asked
that Smith, Rigdon, Lyman Wight, P. P. Pratt, and G. W. Robinson be
given up as hostages, and this was done. Contemporary Mormon accounts
imputed treachery to Colonel Hinckle in this matter, and said that Smith
and his associates were lured into the militia camp by a ruse.
General Lucas's report to the governor says that the proposition for a
conference came from Hinckle. Hyrum Smith, in an account of the trial of
the prisoners, printed some years later in the Times and Seasons,
said that all the men who surrendered were that night condemned by
a court-martial to be shot, but were saved by General Doniphan's
interference. Lee's account agrees with this, but says that Smith
surrendered voluntarily, to save the lives of his followers.
General Lucas received the surrender of Far West, on the terms named, in
advance of the arrival of General Clark, who was making forced marches.
After the surrender, General Lucas disbanded the main body of his force,
and set out with his prisoners for Independence, the original site
of Zion. General Clark, learning of this, ordered him to transfer the
prisoners to Richmond, which was done.
Hearing that the guard left by General Lucas at Far West were committing
outrages, General Clark rode to that place accompanied by his field
officers. He found no disorder,* but instituted a military court of
inquiry, which resulted in the arrest of forty-six additional Mormons,
who were sent to Richmond for trial. The facts on which these arrests
were made were obtained principally from Dr. Avard, the Danite, who was
captured by a militia officer. "No one," General Clark says, "disclosed
any useful matter until he was captured."
* "Much property was destroyed by the troops in town during their
stay there, such as burning house logs, rails, corn cribs, boards, etc.,
the using of corn and hay, the plundering of houses, the killing
of cattle, sheep, and hogs, and also the taking of horses not their
own."--"Mormon Memorial to Missouri Legislature," December 10, 1838.
After these arrests had been made, General Clark called the other
Mormons at Far West together, and addressed them, telling them that they
could now go to their fields for corn, wood, etc., but that the terms of
the surrender must be strictly lived up to. Their leading men had
been given up, their arms surrendered, and their property assigned as
stipulated, but it now remained for them to leave the state forthwith.
On that subject the general said:--
"The character of this state has suffered almost beyond redemption, from
the character, conduct, and influence that you have exerted; and we deem
it an act of justice to restore her character to its former standing
among the states by every proper means. The orders of the governor to
me were that you should be exterminated and not allowed to remain in
the state. And had not your leaders been given up, and the terms of the
treaty complied with, before this time you and your families would have
been destroyed, and your houses in ashes. There is a discretionary
power vested in my hands, which, considering your circumstances, I shall
exercise for a season. You are indebted to me for this clemency.
"I do not say that you shall go now, but you must not think of staying
here another season, or of putting in crops, for the moment you do this
the citizens will be upon you; and if I am called here again, in a case
of a non-compliance of a treaty made, do not think that I shall do as I
have done now. You need not expect any mercy, but extermination, for
I am determined the governor's orders shall be executed. As for your
leaders, do not think, do not imagine for a moment, do not let it enter
into your mind, that they will be delivered and restored to you again,
for their fate is fixed, their die is cast, their doom is sealed.
"I am sorry, gentlemen, to see so many apparently intelligent men found
in the situation you are; and O! if I could invoke the great spirit,
the unknown God, to rest upon and deliver you from that awful chain of
superstition, and liberate you from those fetters of fanaticism with
which you are bound, that you no longer do homage to a man. I would
advise you to scatter abroad, and never organize yourselves with
bishops, presidents, etc., lest you excite the jealousies of the people,
and subject yourselves to the same calamities that have now come
upon you. You have always been the aggressors: you have brought upon
yourselves these difficulties by being disaffected, and not being
subject to rule. And my advice is that you become as other citizens,
lest by a recurrence of these events you bring upon yourselves
irretrievable ruin."
General Clark then marched with his prisoners to Richmond, where the
trial of all the accused began on November 12, before Judge A. A. King.
By November 29 the called-out militia had been disbanded, and on that
date General Clark made his final report to the governor. In this
he asserted that the militia under him had conducted themselves as
honorable citizen soldiers, and enclosed a certificate signed by five
Mormons, including W. W. Phelps, Colonel Hinckle, and John Corrill,
confirming this statement, and saying, "We have no hesitation in saying
that the course taken by General Clark with the Mormons was necessary
for the public peace, and that the Mormons are generally satisfied with
his course."
In his summing up of the results of the campaign, General Clark said:
"It [the Mormon insurrection] had for its object Dominion, the ultimate
subjugation of this State and the Union to the laws of a few men called
the Presidency. Their church was to be built up at any rate, peaceably
if they could, forcibly if necessary. These people had banded themselves
together in societies, the object of which was to first drive from their
society such as refused to join them in their unholy purposes, and then
to plunder the surrounding country, and ultimately to subject the state
to their rule."
"The whole number of the Mormons killed through the whole difficulty, so
far as I can ascertain, are about forty, and several wounded. There has
been one citizen killed, and about fifteen badly wounded."*
* "Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 92.
Brigadier General R. Wilson was sent with his command to settle the
Mormon question in Daviess County. Finding the town of Adamondi-Ahman
unguarded, he placed guards around it, and gathered in the Mormons of
the neighborhood, to the number of about two hundred. Most of these, he
explained in his report, were late comers from Canada and the northern
border of the United States, and were living mostly in tents, without
any adequate provision for the winter. Those against whom criminal
charges had been made were placed under arrest, and the others were
informed that General Wilson would protect them for ten days, and would
guarantee their safety to Caldwell County or out of the state. "This
appeared to me," said General Wilson, in his report to General Clark,
"to be the only course to prevent a general massacre." In this report
General Wilson presented the following picture of the situation there
as he found it: "It is perfectly impossible for me to convey to you
anything like the awful state of things which exists here--language is
inadequate to the task. The citizens of a whole county first plundered,
and then their houses and other buildings burnt to ashes; without
houses, beds, furniture, or even clothing in many instances, to meet the
inclemency of the weather. I confess that my feelings have been shocked
with the gross brutality of these Mormons, who have acted more like
demons from the infernal regions than human beings. Under these
circumstances, you will readily perceive that it would be perfectly
impossible for me to protect the Mormons against the just indignation of
the citizens.... The Mormons themselves appeared pleased with the idea
of getting away from their enemies and a justly insulted people, and I
believe all have applied and received permits to leave the county; and
I suppose about fifty families have left, and others are hourly leaving,
and at the end of ten days Mormonism will not be known in Daviess
county. This appeared to me to be the only course left to prevent a
general massacre."*
* "Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 78.
The Mormons began to depart at once, and in ten days nearly all had
left. Lee, who acted as guide to General Wilson, and whose wife and babe
were at Adamondi-Ahman, says:
"Every house in Adamondi-Ahman was searched by the troops for stolen
property. They succeeded in finding very much of the Gentile property
that had been captured by the Saints in the various raids they made
through the country. Bedding of every kind and in large quantities was
found and reclaimed by the owners. Even spinning wheels, soap barrels,
and other articles were recovered. Each house where stolen property was
found was certain to receive a Missouri blessing from the troops. The
men who had been most active in gathering plunder had fled to Illinois
to escape the vengeance of the people, leaving their families to suffer
for the sins of the believing Saints."*
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 89.
We may now follow the fortunes of the Mormon prisoners. On arriving at
Richmond, they were confined in the unfinished brick court-house. The
only inside work on this building that was completed was a partly laid
floor, and to this the prisoners were restricted by a railing, with a
guard inside and out. "Two three-pail iron kettles for boiling our meat,
and two or more iron bake kettles, or Dutch ovens, were furnished us,"
says Robinson, "together with sacks of corn meal and meat in bulk.
We did our own cooking. This arrangement suited us very well, and we
enjoyed ourselves as well as men could under such circumstances."*
* The Return, Vol. I, p. 234.
Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Caleb Baldwin, and A. McRea
were soon transferred to the jail at Liberty. The others were then put
into the debtor's room of Richmond jail, a two-story log structure which
was not well warmed, but they were released on light bail in a few days.
A report of the testimony given at the hearing of the Mormon prisoners
before judge King will be found in the "Correspondence, Orders, etc.,"
published by order of the Missouri legislature, pp. 97-149. Among the
Mormons who gave evidence against the prisoners were Avard, the Danite,
John Whitmer, W. W. Phelps, John Corrill, and Colonel Hinckle. There
were thirty-seven witnesses for the state and seven for the defence. As
showing the character of the testimony, the following selections will
suffice.
Avard told the story of the origin of the Danites, and said that he
considered Joseph Smith their organizer; that the constitution was
approved by Smith and his counsellors at Rigdon's house, and that the
members felt themselves as much bound to obey the heads of the church as
to obey God. Just previous to the arrival of General Lucas at Far West,
Smith had assembled his force, and told them that, for every one they
lacked in numbers as compared with their opponents, the Lord would
send angels to fight for them. He presented the text of the indictment
against Cowdery, Whitmer, and others, drawn up by Rigdon.
John Corrill testified about the effect of Rigdon's "salt sermon," and
also that he had attended meetings of the Danites, and had expressed
disapproval of the doctrine that, if one brother got into difficulty, it
was the duty of the others to help him out, right or wrong; that Smith
and Rigdon attended one of these meetings, and that he had heard Smith
declare at a meeting, "if the people would let us alone, we would preach
the Gospel to them in peace, but if they came on us to molest us, we
would establish our religion by the sword, and that he would become
to this generation a second Mohammed"; just after the expulsion of the
Mormons from Dewitt, Smith declared hostilities against their opponents
in Caldwell and Daviess counties, and had a resolution passed, looking
to the confiscation of the property of the brethren who would not join
him in the march; and on a Sunday he advised the people that they might
at times take property which at other times it would be wrong to take,
citing David's eating of the shew bread, and the Saviour's plucking ears
of corn.* Reed Peck testified to the same effect.
* Corrill, Avard, Hinckle, Marsh, and others were formally
excommunicated at a council held at Quincy, Illinois, on March 17, 1839,
over which Brigham Young presided.
John Clemison testified to the presence of Smith at the early meetings
of the Danites; that Rigdon and Smith had advised that those who were
backward in joining his fighting force should be placed in the front
ranks at the point of pitchforks; that a great deal of Gentile property
was brought into Mormon camps, and that "it was frequently observed
among the troops that the time had come when the riches of the Gentiles
should be consecrated to the state."
W. W. Phelps testified that in the previous April he had heard Rigdon
say, at a meeting in Far West, that they had borne persecution and
lawsuits long enough, and that, if a sheriff came with writs against
them, they would kill him, and that Smith approved his words. Phelps
said that the character of Rigdon's "salt sermon" was known and
discussed in advance of its delivery.
John Whitmer testified that, soon after the preaching of the "salt
sermon," a leading Mormon told him that they did not intend to regard
any longer "the niceties of the law of the land," as "the kingdom spoken
of by the Prophet Daniel had been set up."
The testimony concerning the Danite organization and Smith's threats
against the Missourians received confirmation in an affidavit by no
less a person than Thomas B. Marsh, the First President of the twelve
Apostles, before a justice of the peace in Ray County, in October, 1838.
In this Marsh said:--
"The plan of said Smith, the Prophet, is to take this state; and
he professes to his people to intend taking the United States and
ultimately the whole world. The Prophet inculcates the notion, and it is
believed by every true Mormon, that Smith's prophecies are superior
to the law of the land. I have heard the Prophet say that he would yet
tread down his enemies, and walk over their dead bodies; that, if he
was not let alone, he would be a second Mohammed to this generation, and
that he would make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the
Atlantic Ocean."
This affidavit was accompanied by an affidavit by Orson Hyde, who was
afterward so prominent in the councils of the church, stating that he
knew most of Marsh's statements to be true, and believed the others to
be true also.
Of the witnesses for the defence, two women and one man gave testimony
to establish an alibi for Lyman Wight at the time of the last Mormon
expedition to Daviess County; Rigdon's daughter Nancy testified that
she had heard Avard say that he would swear to a lie to accomplish an
object; and J. W. Barlow gave testimony to show that Smith and Rigdon
were not with the men who took part in the battle on Crooked Creek.
Rigdon, in an "Appeal to the American People," which he wrote soon
after, declared that this trial was a compound between an inquisition
and a criminal court, and that the testimony of Avard was given to save
his own life. "A part of an armed body of men," he says, "stood in the
presence of the court to see that the witnesses swore right, and another
part was scouring the country to drive out of it every witness they
could hear of whose testimony would be favorable to the defendants. If a
witness did not swear to please the court, he or she would be threatened
to be cast into prison.... A man by the name of Allen began to tell the
story of Bogart's burning houses in the south part of Caldwell; he was
kicked out of the house, and three men put after him with loaded guns,
and he hardly escaped with his life. Finally, our lawyers, General
Doniphan and Amos Rees, told us not to bring our witnesses there at
all, for if we did, there would not be one of them left for the final
trial.... As to making any impression on King, if a cohort of angels
were to come down and declare we were clear, Doniphan said it would be
all the same, for he had determined from the beginning to cast us into
prison." Smith alleged that judge King was biased against them because
his brother-in-law had been killed during the early conflicts in Jackson
County.
Several of the defendants were discharged during or after the close of
the hearing. Smith, Rigdon, Lyman Wight, and three others were ordered
committed to the Clay County jail at Liberty on a charge of treason;
Parley P. Pratt and four others to the Ray County jail on a charge of
murder; and twenty-three others were ordered to give bail on a charge of
arson, burglary, robbery, and larceny, and all but eight of these were
locked up in default of bail. The prisoners confined at Liberty
secured a writ of habeas corpus soon after, but only Rigdon was ordered
released, and he thought it best for his safety to go back to the jail.
He afterward, with the connivance of the sheriff and jailer, made his
escape at night, and reached Quincy, Illinois, in February, 1839.
P. P. Pratt, in his "Late Persecution," says that the prisoners were
kept in chains most of the time, and that Riodon, although ill, "was
compelled to sleep on the floor, with a chain and padlock round his
ankle, and fastened to six others." Hyrum Smith, in a "Communication to
the Saints" printed a year later, says; "We suffered much from want of
proper food, and from the nauseous cell in which I was confined."
Joseph Smith remained in the Liberty jail until April, 1839. At one time
all the prisoners nearly made their escape, "but unfortunately for us,
the timber of the wall being very hard, our augur handles gave out,
which hindered us longer than we expected," and the plan was discovered.
The prophet employed a good deal of his time in jail in writing long
epistles to the church. He gave out from there also three "revelations,"
the chief direction of which was that the brethren should gather up all
possible information about their persecutions, and make out a careful
statement of their property losses. His letters reveal the character
of the man as it had already been exhibited--headlong in his purposes,
vindictive toward any enemy. He says in his biography that he paid his
lawyers about $50,000 "in cash, lands, etc." (a pretty good sum for the
refugee from Ohio to amass so soon), but got little practical assistance
from them, "for sometimes they were afraid to act on account of the mob,
and sometimes they were so drunk as to incapacitate them for business."
In one of his letters to the church he thus speaks of some of his recent
allies, "This poor man [W. W. Phelps] who professes to be much of a
prophet, has no other dumb ass to ride but David Whitmer, or to forbid
his madness when he goes up to curse Israel; but this not being of the
same kind as Balaam's, therefore, notwithstanding the angel appeared
unto him, yet he could not sufficiently penetrate his understanding but
that he brays out cursings instead of blessings."*
* Times and Seasons, Vol. I, p. 82.
On April 6, Smith and his fellow-prisoners were taken to Daviess
County for trial. The judge and jury before whom their cases came were,
according to his account, all drunk. Smith and four others were promptly
indicted for "murder, treason, burglary, arson, larceny, theft, and
stealing." They at once secured a change of venue to Boone County,
120 miles east, and set out for that place on April 15, but they never
reached there. Smith says they were enabled to escape because their
guard got drunk. In a newspaper interview printed many years later,
General Doniphan is quoted as saying that he had it on good authority
that Smith paid the sheriff and his guards $1100 to allow the prisoners
to escape. Ebenezer Robinson says that Joseph and Hyrum were allowed to
ride away on two fine horses, and that, a few Weeks later, he saw the
sheriff at Quincy making Joseph a friendly visit, at which time he
received pay for the animals.* The party arrived at Quincy, Illinois,
on April 22, and were warmly welcomed by the brethren who had preceded
them. Among these was Brigham Young, who was among those who had found
it necessary to flee the state before the final surrender was arranged.
The Missouri authorities, as we shall see, for a long time continued
their efforts to secure the extradition of Smith, but he never returned
to Missouri.
As the Mormons had tried to set aside their original agreement with
the Jackson County people, so, while their leaders were in jail, they
endeavored to find means to break their treaty with General Lucas.
Their counsel, General Atchison, was a member of the legislature, and
he warmly espoused their cause. They sent in a petition,* which John
Corrill presented, giving a statement in detail of the opposition they
had encountered in the state, and asking for the enactment of a law
"rescinding the order of the governor to drive us from the state, and
also giving us the sanction of the legislature to inherit our lands in
peace"; as well as disapproving of the "deed of trust," as they called
the second section of the Lucas treaty. The petition was laid on
the table. An effort for an investigation of the whole trouble by a
legislative committee was made, and an act to that effect was passed
in 1839, but nothing practical came of it. When the Mormon memorial was
called up, its further consideration was postponed until July, and then
the Mormons knew that they had no alternative except to leave the state.
* For full text, see Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, pp. 586-589.
While the prisoners were in jail, things had not quieted down in the
Mormon counties. The decisive action of the state authorities had given
the local Missourians to understand that the law of the land was on
their side, and when the militia withdrew they took advantage of their
opportunity. Mormon property was not respected, and what was left to
those people in the way of horses, cattle, hogs, and even household
belongings was taken by the bands of men who rode at pleasure,* and who
claimed that they were only regaining what the Mormons had stolen
from them. The legislature appropriated $2000 for the relief of such
sufferers.
* See M. Arthur's letter, "Correspondence, Orders, etc.," p. 94.
Facing the necessity of moving entirely out of the state, the Mormons,
as they had reached the western border line of civilization, now turned
their face eastward to Quincy, Illinois, where some of their members
were already established. Not until April 20 did the last of them leave
Far West. The migration was attended with much suffering, as could not
in such circumstances be avoided. The people of the counties through
which they passed were, however, not hostile, and Mormon writers have
testified that they received invitations to stop and settle. These were
declined, and they pressed on to the banks of the Mississippi, where,
in February and March, there were at one time more than 130 families,
waiting for the moving ice to enable them to cross, many of them
without food, and the best sheltered depending on tents made of their
bedclothing.*
* Green's "Facts Relative to the Expulsion."
What the total of the pecuniary losses of the Mormons in Missouri was
cannot be accurately estimated. They asserted that in Jackson County
alone, $120,000 worth of their property was destroyed, and that fifteen
thousand of their number fled from the state. Smith, in a statement
of his losses made after his arrival in Illinois, placed them at
$1,000,000. In a memorial presented to Congress at this time the losses
in Jackson County were placed at $175,000, and in the state of Missouri
at $2,000,000. The efforts of the Mormons to secure redress were long
continued. Not only was Congress appealed to, but legislatures of other
states were urged to petition in their behalf. The Senate committee at
Washington reported that the matter was entirely within the jurisdiction
of the state of Missouri. One of the latest appeals was addressed by
Smith at Nauvoo in December, 1843, to his native state, Vermont, calling
on the Green Mountain boys, not only to assist him in attaining justice
in Missouri, "but also to humble and chastise or abase her for the
disgraces she has brought upon constitutional liberty, until she atones
for her sin."
The final act of the Mormon authorities in Missouri was somewhat
dramatic. Smith in his "revelation" of April 8, 1838, directing the
building of a Temple at Far West, had (the Lord speaking) ordered the
beginning to be made on the following Fourth of July, adding, "in one
year from this day let them recommence laying the foundation of my
house." The anniversary found the latest Missouri Zion deserted, and
its occupants fugitives; but the command of the Lord must be obeyed.
Accordingly, the twelve Apostles journeyed secretly to Far West,
arriving there about midnight of April 26, 1839. A conference was at
once held, and, after transacting some miscellaneous business, including
the expulsion of certain seceding members, all adjourned to the selected
site of the Temple, where, after the singing of a hymn, the foundation
was relaid by rolling a large stone to one corner.* The Apostles
then returned to Illinois as quietly as possible. The leader of this
expedition was Brigham Young, who had succeeded T. B. Marsh as President
of the Twelve.
* The modern post-office name of Far West is Kerr. All the Mormon
houses there have disappeared. Traces of the foundation of the Temple,
which in places was built to a height of three or four feet, are still
discernible.
Thus ended the early history of the Mormon church in Missouri.
BOOK IV. -- IN ILLINOIS
CHAPTER I. -- THE RECEPTION OF THE MORMONS
The state of Illinois, when the Mormons crossed the Missouri River to
settle in it, might still be considered a pioneer country. Iowa, to the
west of it, was a territory, and only recently organized as such. The
population of the whole state was only 467,183 in 1840, as compared
with 4,821,550 in 1900. Young as it was, however, the state had had some
severe financial experiences, which might have served as warnings to
the new-comers. A debt of more than $14,000,000 had been contracted for
state improvements, and not a railroad or a canal had been completed.
"The people," says Ford, "looked one way and another with surprise,
and were astonished at their own folly." The payment of interest on the
state debt ceased after July, 1841, and "in a short time Illinois became
a stench in the nostrils of the civilized world.... The impossibility
of selling kept us from losing population; the fear of disgrace or high
taxes prevented us from gaining materially."* The State Bank and the
Shawneetown Bank failed in 1842, and when Ford became governor in that
year he estimated that the good money in the state in the hands of the
people did not exceed one year's interest on the public debt.
* Ford's "History of Illinois," Chap. VII.
The lawless conditions in many parts of the state in those days can
scarcely be realized now. It was in 1847 that the Rev. Owen Lovejoy
(handwritten comment in the book says "Elijah P. Lovejoy." Transcriber)
was killed at Alton in maintaining his right to print there an abolition
newspaper. All over the state, settlers who had occupied lands as
"squatters" defended their claims by force, and serious mobs often
resulted. Large areas of military lands were owned by non-residents,
who were in very bad favor with the actual settlers. These settlers made
free use of the timber on such lands, and the non-residents, failing
to secure justice at law, finally hired preachers, who were paid by the
sermon to preach against the sin of "hooking" timber.*
* Ford's "History of Illinois," Chap. VI.
Bands of desperadoes in the northern counties openly defied the officers
of the law, and, in one instance, burned down the courthouse (in Ogle
County in 1841) in order to release some of their fellows who were
awaiting trial. One of these gangs ten years earlier had actually built,
in Pope County, a fort in which they defied the authorities, and against
which a piece of artillery had to be brought before it could be taken.
Even while the conflict between the Mormons was going on, in 1846,
there was vitality enough in this old organization, in Pope and Massac
counties, to call for the interposition of a band of "regulators," who
made many arrests, not hesitating to employ torture to secure from one
prisoner information about his associates. Governor Ford sent General
J. T. Davies there, to try to effect a peaceable arrangement of the
difficulties, but he failed to do so, and the "regulators," who found
the county officers opposed to them, drove out of the county the
sheriff, the county clerk, and the representative elect to the
legislature. When the judge of the Massac Circuit Court charged the
grand jury strongly against the "regulators," they, with sympathizers
from Kentucky, threatened to lynch him, and actually marched in such
force to the county seat that the sheriff's posse surrendered, and the
mob let their friends out of jail, and drowned some members of the posse
in the Ohio River.
The reception and treatment of the Mormons in Illinois, and the success
of the new-comers in carrying out their business and political schemes,
must be viewed in connection with these incidents in the early history
of the state.
The greeting of the Mormons in Illinois, in its practical shape, had
both a political and a business reason.* Party feeling ran very high
throughout the country in those days. The House of Representatives at
Washington, after very great excitement, organized early in December,
1839, by choosing a Whig Speaker, and at the same time the Whig National
Convention, at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, nominated General W. H.
Harrison for President. Thus the expulsion from Missouri occurred on the
eve of one of our most exciting presidential campaigns, and the Illinois
politicians were quick to appraise the value of the voting strength of
the immigrants. As a residence of six months in the state gave a man the
right to vote, the Mormon vote would count in the presidential election.
* "The first great error committed by the people of Hancock
County was in accepting too readily the Mormon story of persecution.
It was continually rung in their ears, and believed as often as
asserted."--Gregg, "History of Hancock County," p. 270.
Accordingly, we find that in February, 1839, the Democratic Association
of Quincy, at a public meeting in the court-house, received a report
from a committee previously appointed, strongly in favor of the
refugees, and adopted resolutions condemning the treatment of the
Mormons by the people and officers of Missouri. The Quincy Argus
declared that, because of this treatment, Missouri was "now so fallen
that we could wish her star stricken out from the bright constellation
of the Union." In April, 1839, Rigdon wrote to the "Saints in prison"
that Governor Carlin of Illinois and his wife "enter with all the
enthusiasm of their nature" into his plan to have the governor of each
state present to Congress the unconstitutional course of Missouri toward
the Mormons, with a view to federal relief. Governor Lucas of Iowa
Territory, in the same year (Iowa had only been organized as a territory
the year before, and was not admitted as a state until 1845), replying
to a query about the reception the Mormons would receive in his domain,
said: "Their religious opinions I consider have nothing to do with our
political transactions. They are citizens of the United States, and are
entitled to the same political rights and legal protection that other
citizens are entitled to." He gave Rigdon at the same time cordial
letters of introduction to President Van Buren and Governor Shannon
of Ohio, and Rigdon received a similar letter to the President,
recommending him "as a man of piety and a valuable citizen," signed by
Governor Carlin, United States Senator Young, County Clerk Wren, and
leading business men of Quincy. Thus began that recognition of the
Mormons as a political power in Illinois which led to concessions
to them that had so much to do with finally driving them into the
wilderness.
The business reason for the welcome of the Mormons in Illinois and Iowa
was the natural ambition to secure an increase of population. In all of
Hancock County there were in 1830 only 483 inhabitants as compared with
32,215 in 1900. Along with this public view of the matter was a private
one. A Dr. Isaac Galland owned (or claimed title to) a large tract of
land on both sides of the border line between Illinois and Iowa, that in
Iowa being included in what was known as "the half-breed tract," an
area of some 119,000 acres which, by a treaty between the United States
government and the Sacs and Foxes, was reserved to descendants of Indian
women of those tribes by white fathers, and the title to much of which
was in dispute. As soon as the Mormons began to cross into Illinois,
Galland approached them with an offer of about 20,000 acres between the
Mississippi and Des Moines rivers at $2 per acre, to be paid in twenty
annual instalments, without interest. A meeting of the refugees was held
in Quincy in February, 1839, to consider this offer, but the vote was
against it. The failure of the efforts in Ohio and Missouri to establish
the Mormons as a distinct community had made many of Smith's followers
sceptical about the success of any new scheme with this end in view, and
at this conference several members, including so influential a man
as Bishop Partridge, openly expressed their doubt about the wisdom of
another gathering of the Saints. Galland, however, pursued the subject
in a letter to D. W. Rodgers, inviting Rigdon and others to inspect
the tract with him, and assuring the Mormons of his sympathy in their
sufferings, and "deep solicitude for your future triumphant conquest
over every enemy." Rigdon, Partridge, and others accepted Galland's
invitation, but reported against purchasing his land, and the refugees
began scattering over the country around Quincy.
CHAPTER II. -- THE SETTLEMENT OF NAUVOO
Smith's leadership was now to have another illustration. Others might be
discouraged by past persecutions and business failures, and be ready to
abandon the great scheme which the prophet had so often laid before them
in the language of "revelation"; but it was no part of Smith's character
to abandon that scheme, and remain simply an object of lessened respect,
with a scattered congregation. He had been kept advised of Galland's
proposal, and, two days after his arrival in Quincy, we find him, on
April 24, presiding at a church council which voted to instruct him with
two associates to visit Iowa and select there a location for a church
settlement, and which advised all the brethren who could do so to move
to the town of Commerce, Illinois. Thus were the doubters defeated, and
the proposal to scatter the flock brought to a sudden end. Smith and his
two associates set out at once to make their inspection.
The town of Commerce had been laid out (on paper) in 1834 by two Eastern
owners of the property, A. White and J. B. Teas, and adjoining its
northern border H. R. Hotchkiss of New Haven, Connecticut, had mapped
out Commerce City. Neither enterprise had proved a success, and when the
Mormon agents arrived there the place had scarcely attained the dignity
of a settlement, the only buildings being one storehouse, two frame
dwellings and two blockhouses. The Mormon agents, on May 1, bought two
farms there, one for $5000 and one for $9000 (known afterward as the
White purchase), and on August 9 they bought of Hotchkiss five hundred
acres for the sum of $53,500. Bishop Knight, for the church, soon
afterward purchased part of the town of Keokuk, Iowa, a town called
Nashville six miles above, a part of the town of Montrose, four miles
above Nashville, and thirty thousand acres in the "half-breed tract,"
which included Galland's original offer, and ten thousand acres
additional.
Thus was Smith prepared to make another attempt to establish his
followers in a permanent abiding-place. But how, it may be asked, could
the prophet reconcile this abandonment of the Missouri Zion and this
new site for a church settlement with previous revelations? By further
"revelation," of course. Such a mouthpiece of God can always enlighten
his followers provided he can find speech, and Smith was not slow of
utterance. While in jail in Liberty he had advised a committee which was
sent to him from Illinois to sell all the lands in Missouri, and in a
letter to the Saints, written while a prisoner, he spoke favorably of
Galland's offer, saying, "The Saints ought to lay hold of every door
that shall seem to be opened unto them to obtain foothold on the earth."
In order to make perfectly clear the new purpose of the Lord in regard
to Zion he gave out a long "revelation" (Sec. 124), which is
dated Nauvoo, January 19, 1841, and which contains the following
declarations:--
"Verily, verily I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any
of the sons of men to do a work under my name, and those sons of men go
with all their might and with all they have, to perform that work and
cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder
them from performing that work, behold, it behooveth me to require that
work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept their
offerings.
"And the iniquity and transgression of my holy laws and commandments I
will visit upon the heads of those who hindered my work, unto the third
and fourth generation, so long as they repent not and hate me, saith the
Lord God.
"Therefore for this cause have I accepted the offerings of those whom I
commanded to build up a city and house unto my name in Jackson County,
Missouri, and were hindered by their enemies, saith the Lord your God."
This announcement seems to have been accepted without question by
the faithful, as reconciling the failure in Missouri with the new
establishment farther east.
The financiering of the new land purchases did credit to Smith's genius
in that line. For some of the smaller tracts a part payment in cash was
made. Hotchkiss accepted for his land two notes signed by Smith and his
brother Hyrum and Rigdon, one payable in ten, and the other in twenty
years. Galland took notes, and, some time later, as explained in a
letter to the Saints abroad, the Mormon lands in Missouri, "in payment
for the whole amount, and in addition to the first purchase we have
exchanged lands with him in Missouri to the amount of $80,000."*
Galland's title to the Iowa tract was vigorously assailed by Iowa
newspapers some years later. What cash he eventually realized from the
transaction does not appear.** Smith had influence enough over him
to secure his conversion to the Mormon belief, and he will be found
associated with the leaders in Nauvoo enterprises.
* Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 275.
** "Galland died a pauper in Iowa."--"Mormon Portraits," p. 253.
The Hotchkiss notes gave Smith a great deal of trouble. Notwithstanding
the influx of immigrants to Nauvoo and the growth of the place, which
ought to have brought in large profits from the sale of lots, the
accrued interest due to Hotchkiss in two years amounted to about $6000.
Hotchkiss earnestly urged its payment, and Smith was in dire straits to
meet his demands. In a correspondence between them, in 1841, Smith told
Hotchkiss that he had agreed to forego interest for five years, and not
to "force payment" even then. Smith assured Hotchkiss that the part of
the city bought from him was "a deathly sickly hole" on which they had
been able to realize nothing, "although," he added, with unblushing
affrontery for the head of a church, "we have been keeping up
appearances and holding out inducements to encourage immigration that we
scarcely think justifiable in consequence of the mortality that almost
invariably awaits those who come from far distant parts."* In pursuance
of this same policy (in a letter dated October 12, 1841), the Eastern
brethren were urged to transfer their lands there to Hotchkiss in
payment of the notes, and to accept lots in Nauvoo from the church in
exchange.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 631.
The name of the town was changed to Nauvoo in April, 1840, with
the announcement that this name was of Hebrew origin, signifying "a
beautiful place."*
* In answer to a query about this alleged derivation of the name
of the city, a competent Hebrew scholar writes to me: "The nearest
approach to Nauvoo in Hebrew is an adjective which would be
transliterated Naveh, meaning pleasant, a rather rare word. The letter
correctly represented by v could not possibly do the double duty of uv,
nor could a of the Hebrew ever be au in English, nor eh of the Hebrew be
oo in English. Students of theology at Middletown, Connecticut, used
to have a saying that that name was derived from Moses by dropping
'iddletown' and adding 'mass.'"
CHAPTER III. -- THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY--FOREIGN PROSELYTING
The geographical situation of Nauvoo had something in its favor. Lying
on the east bank of the Mississippi, which is there two miles wide, it
had a water frontage on three sides, because of a bend in the stream,
and the land was somewhat rising back from the river. But its water
front was the only thing in its favor. "The place was literally a
wilderness," says Smith. "The land was mostly covered with trees and
bushes, and much of it so wet that it was with the utmost difficulty a
foot man could get through, and totally impossible for teams. Commerce
was so unhealthy very few could live there, but, believing it might
become a healthy place by the blessing of heaven to the Saints, and no
more eligible place presenting itself, I considered it wisdom to make an
attempt to build up a city."
Contemporary accounts say that most of the refugees from Missouri
suffered from chills and fevers during their first year in the new
settlement. Smith, in his autobiography, laments the mortality among the
settlers. The Rev. Henry Caswall, in his description of three days at
Nauvoo in 1842, says:--
"I was informed again and again in Montrose, Iowa, that nearly half
of the English who emigrated to Nauvoo in 1841 died soon after their
arrival... In his sermon at Montrose in May 9, 1841, the following words
of most Christian consolation were delivered by the Prophet to the poor
deluded English: 'Many of the English who have lately come here have
expressed great disappointment on their arrival. Such persons have every
reason to be satisfied in this beautiful and fertile country. If they
choose to complain, they may; but I don't want to be troubled with their
complaints. If they are not satisfied here, I have only this to say to
them, "Don't stay whining about me, but go back to England, and go to
h--l and be d--d."'"*
*"City of the Mormons," p. 55.
Brigham Young, in after years, thus spoke of Smith's exhibition of
miraculous healing during the year after their arrival in Illinois:
"Joseph commenced in his own house and dooryard, commanding the sick,
in the name of Jesus Christ, to arise and be made whole, and they were
healed according to his word. He then continued to travel from house
to house, healing the sick as he went."* Any attempt to reconcile
this statement by Young with the previously cited testimony about the
mortality of the place would be futile.
* "Life of Brigham Young" (Cannon & Son, publishers), p. 32.
The growth of the town, however, was more rapid than that of any of
the former Mormon settlements. The United States census shows that the
population of Hancock County, Illinois, increased from 483 in 1830 to
9946 in 1840. Statements regarding the population of Nauvoo during the
Mormon occupancy are conflicting and often exaggerated. In a letter
to the elders in England, printed in the Times and Seasons of January,
1841, Smith said, "There are at present about 3000 inhabitants in
Nauvoo." The same periodical, in an article on the city, on December
15, 1841, said that it was "a densely populated city of near 10,000
inhabitants." A visitor, describing the place in a letter in the
Columbus (Ohio) Advocate of March, 1842, said that it contained about
7000 persons, and that the buildings were small and much scattered, log
cabins predominating. The Times and Seasons of October, 1842, said, "It
will be no more than probably correct if we allow the city to contain
between 7000 and 8000 houses, with a population of 14,000 or 15,000,"
with two steam mills and other manufacturing concerns in operation.
W. W. Phelps estimated the population in 1844 at 14,000, almost all
professed Mormons. The Times and Seasons in 1845 said that a census
just taken showed a population of 11,057 in the city and one third more
outside the city limits.
As soon as the Mormons arrived, Nauvoo was laid out in blocks measuring
about 180 by 200 feet, with a river frontage of more than three miles.
An English visitor to the place in 1843 wrote "The city is of great
dimensions, laid out in beautiful order; the streets are wide and cross
each other at right angles, which will add greatly to its order and
magnificence when finished. The city rises on a quick incline from the
rolling Mississippi, and as you stand near the Temple you may gaze on
the picturesque scenery round. At your side is the Temple, the wonder of
the world; round about and beneath you may behold handsome stores, large
mansions, and fine cottages, interspersed with varied scenery."*
* Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 128.
Whatever the exact population of the place may have been, its rapid
growth is indisputable. The cause of this must be sought, not in natural
business reasons, such as have given a permanent increase of population
to so many of our Western cities, but chiefly in active and aggressive
proselyting work both in this country and in Europe. This work was
assisted by the sympathy which the treatment of the Mormons had very
generally secured for them. Copies of Mormon Bibles were rare outside of
the hands of the brethren, and the text of Smith's "revelations" bearing
on his property designs in Missouri was known to comparatively few even
in the church. While the Nauvoo edition of the "Doctrine and Covenants"
was in course of publication, the Times and Seasons, on January 1, 1842,
said that it would be published in the spring, "but, many of our readers
being deprived of the privilege of perusing its valuable pages, we
insert the first section." Mormon emissaries took advantage of this
situation to tell their story in their own way at all points of the
compass. Meetings were held in the large cities of the Eastern states
to express sympathy with these victims of the opponents of "freedom of
religious opinion," and to raise money for their relief, and the voice
of the press, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, was, without a
discovered exception, on the side of the refugees.
This paved the way for a vast extension of that mission work which
began with the trip of Cowdery and his associates in 1830, was expanded
throughout this country while the Saints were at Kirtland, and was
extended to foreign lands in 1837. The missionaries sent out in the
early days of the church represented various degrees of experience and
qualification. There were among them men like Orson Hyde and Willard
Richards, who, although they gave up secular callings on entering the
church, were close students of the Scriptures and debaters who could
hold their own, when it came to an interpretation of the Scriptures,
before any average audience. Many were sent out without any especial
equipment for their task. John D. Lee, describing his first trip,
says:--
"I started forth an illiterate, inexperienced person, without purse or
scrip. I could hardly quote a passage of Scripture. Yet I went forth to
say to the world that I was a minister of the Gospel." He was among the
successful proselyters, and rose to influence in the church.* Of the
requirement that the missionaries should be beggars, Lorenzo Snow, who
was sent out on a mission from Kirtland in 1837, says, "It was a severe
trial to my natural feelings of independence to go without purse or
scrip especially the purse; for, from the time I was old enough to work,
the feeling that 'I paid my way' always seemed a necessary adjunct to
self respect."
* For an account of his travels and successes, see "Mormonism
Unveiled."
Parley P. Pratt, in a letter to Smith from New York in November, 1839,
describing the success of the work in the United States, says, "You
would now find churches of the Saints in Philadelphia, in Albany, in
Brooklyn, in New York, in Sing Sing, in Jersey, in Pennsylvania, on Long
Island, and in various other places all around us," and he speaks of the
"spread of the work" in Michigan and Maine.
The importance of England as a field from which to draw emigrants to the
new settlement was early recognized at Nauvoo, and in 1840 such lights
of the church as Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, P. P. Pratt, Orson
Pratt, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and George A. Smith, of the Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles, were sent to cultivate that field. There they
ordained Willard Richards an Apostle, preached and labored for over a
year, established a printing-office which turned out a vast amount of
Mormon literature, including their Bible and "Doctrine and Covenants,"
and began the publication of the Millennial Star.
In 1840 Orson Hyde was sent on a mission to the Jews in London,
Amsterdam, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and the same year missionaries
were sent to Australia, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the East
Indies. In 1844 a missionary was sent to the Sandwich Islands; in 1849
others were sent to France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, Italy,
and Switzerland; in 1850 ten more elders were sent to the Sandwich
Islands; in 1851 four converts were baptized in Hindostan; in 1852
a branch of the church was organized at Malta; in 1853 three elders
reached the Cape of Good Hope; and in 1861 two began work in Holland,
but with poor success. We shall see that this proselyting labor has
continued with undiminished industry to the present day, in all parts of
the United States as well as in foreign lands.
England provided an especially promising field for Mormon missionary
work. The great manufacturing towns contained hundreds of people,
densely ignorant,* superstitious, and so poor that the ownership of a
piece of land in their own country was practically beyond the limit of
their ambition. These people were naturally susceptible to the Mormon
teachings, easily imposed upon by stories of alleged miracles, and ready
to migrate to any part of the earth where a building lot or a farm was
promised them. The letters from the first missionaries in England gave
glowing reports of the results of their labors. Thus Wilford Woodruff,
writing from Manchester in 1840, said, "The work has been so rapid it
was impossible to ascertain the exact number belonging to each branch,
but the whole number is 33 churches, 534 members, 75 officers, all of
which had embraced the work in less than four months." Lorenzo Snow, in
a letter from London in April, 1841, said: "Throughout all England,
in almost every town and city of any considerable importance, we have
chapels or public halls in which we meet for public worship. All over
this vast kingdom the laws of Zion are rolling onward with the most
astonishing rapidity."
* "It has been calculated that there are in England and Wales six
million persons who can neither read nor write, that is to say, about
one-third of the population, including, of course, infants; but of
all the children more than one-half attend no place of public
instruction."--Dickens, "Household Words."
The visiting missionaries began their work in England at Preston,
Lancashire, in 1836 or 1837, and soon secured there some five hundred
converts. Then they worked on each side of the Ribble, making converts
in all the villages, and gaining over a few farm owners and mechanics of
some means. Their method was first to drop hints to the villagers that
the Holy Bible is defective in translation and incomplete, and that the
Mormon Bible corrects all these defects. Not able to hold his own in
any theological discussion, the rustic was invited to a meeting. At that
meeting the missionary would announce that he would speak simply as the
Lord directed him, and he would then present the Mormon view of
their Bible and prophet. As soon as converts were won over, they were
immersed, at night, and given the sacrament. Then they were initiated
into the secret "church meeting," to which only the faithful were
admitted, and where the flock were told of visions and "gifts," and
exhorted to stand firm (along with their earthly goods) for the church,
and warned against apostasy.
One way in which the prophetic gift of the missionaries was proved in
the early days in England was as follows: "Whenever a candidate was
immersed, some of the brethren was given a letter signed by Hyde and
Kimball, setting forth that 'brother will not abide in the spirit of the
Lord, but will reject the truth, and become the enemy of the people of
God, etc., etc.' If the brother did not apostatize, this letter
remained unopened; if he did, it was read as a striking verification of
prophecy."*
* Caswall's "City of the Mormons," appendix.
Miracles exerted a most potent influence among the people in England
with whom the early missionaries labored, and the Millennial Star
contains a long list of reported successes in this line. There are
accounts of very clumsy tricks that were attempted to carry out the
deception. Thus, at Newport, Wales, three Mormon elders announced that
they would raise a dead man to life. The "corpse" was laid out and
surrounded by weeping friends, and the elders were about to begin
their incantations, when a doubting Thomas in the audience attacked the
"corpse" with a whip, and soon had him fleeing for dear life.*
* Tract by Rev. F. B. Ashley, p. 22.
Thomas Webster, who was baptized in England in 1837 by Orson Hyde and
became an elder, saw the falsity of the Mormon professions through the
failure of their miracles and other pretensions, and, after renouncing
their faith, published a pamphlet exposing their methods. He relates
many of the declarations made by the first missionaries in Preston to
their ignorant hearers. Hyde declared that the apostles Peter, James,
and John were still alive. He and Kimball asserted that neither of
them would "taste death" before Christ's second coming. At one meeting
Kimball predicted that in ten or fifteen years the sea would be dried up
between Liverpool and America. "One of the most glaring things they
ever brought before the public," says Webster, "was stated in a letter
written by Orson Hyde to the brethren in Preston, saying they were on
the way to the promised land in Missouri by hundreds, and the wagons
reached a mile in length. They fell in with some of their brethren
in Canada, who told him the Lord had been raining down manna in rich
profusion, which covered from seven to ten acres of land. It was like
wafers dipped in honey, and both Saints and sinners partook of it. I was
present in the pulpit when this letter was read."
However ridiculous such methods may appear, their success in Great
Britain was great.* In three years after the arrival of the first
missionaries, the General Conference reported a membership of 4019 in
England alone; in 1850 the General Conference reported that the Mormons
in England and Scotland numbered 27,863, and in Wales 4342. The report
for June, 1851, showed a total of 30,747 in the United Kingdom, and
said, "During the last fourteen years more than 50,000 have been
baptized in England, of which nearly 17,000 have migrated from her
shores to Zion." In the years between 1840 and 1843 it was estimated
that 3758 foreign converts settled in and around Nauvoo.**
* "There is no page of religious history which more proudly tells
its story than that which relates this peculiar phase of Mormon
experience. The excitement was contagious, even affecting persons in the
higher ranks of social life, and the result was a grand outpouring
of spiritual and miraculous healing power of the most astonishing
description. Miracles were heard of everywhere, and numerous
competent and most reliable witnesses bore testimony to their
genuineness."--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 10.
** Two of the most intelligent English converts, who did
proselyting work for the church and in later years saw their error, have
given testimony concerning this work in Great Britain. John Hyde, Jr.,
summing up in 1857 the proselyting system, said: "Enthusiasm is the
secret of the great success of Mormon proselyting; it is the universal
characteristic of the people when proselyted; it is the hidden and
strong cord that leads them to Utah, and the iron clamp that keeps them
there."--"Mormonism," p. 171.
Stenhouse says: "Mormonism in England, Scotland and Wales was a grand
triumph, and was fast ripening for a vigorous campaign in Continental
Europe" (when polygamy was pronounced). The emigration of Mormon
converts from Great Britain to the United States, in its earlier stages,
was thoroughly systemized by the church authorities in this country. The
first record of the movement of any considerable body tells of a company
of about two hundred who sailed for New York from Liverpool in August,
1840, on the ship North American, in charge of two elders. A second
vessel with emigrants, the Shefeld, sailed from Bristol to New York in
February, 1841. The expense of the trip from New York to Nauvoo proved
in excess of the means of many of these immigrants, some of whom were
obliged to stop at Kirtland and other places in Ohio. This led to a
change of route, by which vessels sailed from British ports direct to
New Orleans, the immigrants ascending the Mississippi to Nauvoo.
The extent of this movement to the time of the departure of the Saints
from Nauvoo is thus given by James Linforth, who says the figures are
"as complete and correct as it is possible now to make them*":--
* "Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley," 1855.
Year *** No. of Vessels *** No. of Emigrants
1840
1
200
1841
6
1177
1842
8
1614
1843
5
769
1844
5
644
1845-46
3
346
Total
3750
The Mormon agents in England would charter a vessel at an English port*
when a sufficient company had assembled and announce their intention to
embark. The emigrants would be notified of the date of sailing, and an
agent would accompany them all the way to Nauvoo. Men with money were
especially desired, as were mechanics of all kinds, since the one sound
business view that seems to have been taken by the leaders at Nauvoo was
that it would be necessary to establish manufactures there if the people
were to be able to earn a living. In some instances the passage money
was advanced to the converts.
* For Dickens's description of one of these vessels ready to
sail, see "The Uncommercial Traveller," Chap. XXII
CHAPTER IV. -- THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT--TEMPLE AND OTHER BUILDINGS
A tide of immigration having been turned toward the new settlement, the
next thing in order was to procure for the city a legal organization.
Several circumstances combined to place in the hands of the Mormon
leaders a scheme of municipal government, along with an extensive plan
for buildings, which gave them vast power without incurring the kind of
financial rocks on which they were wrecked in Ohio.
Dr. Galland* should probably be considered the inventor of the general
scheme adopted at Nauvoo. He was at that time a resident of Cincinnati,
but his intercourse with the Mormons had interested him in their
beliefs, and some time in 1840 he addressed a letter to Elder R. B.
Thompson, which gave the church leaders some important advice.** First
warning them that to promulgate new doctrinal tenets will require not
only tact and energy, but moral conduct and industry among their people,
he confessed that he had not been able to discover why their
religious views were not based on truth. "The project of establishing
extraordinary religious doctrines being magnificent in its character,"
he went on to say, would require "preparations commensurate with the
plan." Nauvoo being a suitable rallying-place, they would "want a temple
that for size, proportions and style shall attract, surprise and dazzle
all beholders"; something "unique externally, and in the interior
peculiar, imposing and grand." The "clergymen" must be of the best as
regards mental and vocal equipment, and there should be a choir such as
"was never before organized." A college, too, would be of great value if
funds for it could be collected.
* "In the year 1834 one Dr. Galland was a candidate for the
legislature in a district composed of Hancock, Adams, and Pike Counties.
He resided in the county of Hancock, and, as he had in the early part
of his life been a notorious horse thief and counterfeiter, belonging to
the Massac gang, and was then no pretender to integrity, it was
useless to deny the charge. In all his speeches he freely admitted the
fact."--"FORD's History of Illinois," p. 406.
** Times and Seasons, Vol. II, pp. 277-278. The letter is signed
with eight asterisks Galland's usual signature to such communications.
These suggestions were accepted by Smith, with some important additional
details, and they found place in the longest of the "revelations" given
out by him in Illinois (Sec. I 24), the one, previously quoted from, in
which the Lord excused the failure to set up a Zion in Missouri. There
seemed to be some hesitation about giving out this "revelation." It
is dated after the meeting of the General Conference at Nauvoo which
ordered the building of a church there, and it was not published in the
Times and Seasons until the following June, and then not entire. The
"revelation" shows how little effect adversity had had in modifying the
prophet's egotism, his arrogance, or his aggressiveness.
Starting out with, "Verily, thus with the Lord unto you, my
servant Joseph Smith, I am well pleased with your offerings and
acknowledgments," it calls on him to make proclamation to the kings of
the world, the President of the United States, and the governors of the
states concerning the Lord's will, "fearing them not, for they are
as grass," and warning them of "a day of visitation if they reject my
servants and my testimony." Various direct commands to leading members
of the church follow. Galland here found himself in Smith's clutches,
being directed to "put stock" into the boardinghouse to be built.
The principal commands in this "revelation" directed the building of
another "holy house," or Temple, and a boardinghouse. With regard to the
Temple it was explained that the Lord would show Smith everything about
it, including its site. All the Saints from afar were ordered to come to
Nauvoo, "with all your gold, and your silver, and your precious stones,
and with all your antiquities,... and bring the box tree, and the fir
tree, and the pine tree, together with all the precious trees of the
earth, and with iron, with copper, and with brass, and with zinc, and
with all your most precious things of the earth."
The boarding-house ordered built was to be called Nauvoo House, and was
to be "a house that strangers may come from afar to lodge therein... a
resting place for the weary traveler, that he may contemplate the glory
of Zion." It was explained that a company must be formed, the members of
which should pay not less than $50 a share for the stock, no subscriber
to be allotted more than $1500 worth.
This "revelation" further announced once more that Joseph was to be "a
presiding elder over all my church, to be a translator, a revelator, a
seer and a prophet," with Sidney Rigdon and William Law his counsellors,
to constitute with him the First Presidency, and Brigham Young to be
president over the twelve travelling council.
Legislation was, of course, necessary to carry out the large schemes
that the Mormon leaders had in mind; but this was secured at the state
capital with a liberality that now seems amazing. This was due to the
desire of the politicians of all parties to conciliate the Mormon vote,
and to the good fortune of the Mormons in finding at the capital a
very practical lobbyist to engineer their cause. This was a Dr. John C.
Bennett, a man who seems to have been without any moral character, but
who had filled positions of importance. Born in Massachusetts in 1804,
he practised as a physician in Ohio, and later in Illinois, holding a
professorship in Willoughby University, Ohio, and taking with him to
Illinois testimonials as to his professional skill. In the latter
state he showed a taste for military affairs, and after being elected
brigadier general of the Invincible Dragoons, he was appointed
quartermaster general of the state in 1840, and held that position at
the state capital when the Mormons applied to the legislature for a
charter for Nauvoo.
With his assistance there was secured from the legislature an act
incorporating the city of Nauvoo, the Nauvoo Legion, and the University
of the City of Nauvoo. The powers granted to the city government
thus established were extraordinary. A City Council was authorized,
consisting of the mayor, four aldermen, and nine councillors, which was
empowered to pass any ordinances, not in conflict with the federal and
state constitutions, which it deemed necessary for the peace and order
of the city. The mayor and aldermen were given all the power of justices
of the peace, and they were to constitute the Municipal Court. The
charter gave the mayor sole jurisdiction in all cases arising under the
city ordinances, with a right of appeal to the Municipal Court. Further
than this, the charter granted to the Municipal Court the right to issue
writs of habeas corpus in all cases arising under the city ordinances.
Thirty-six sections were required to define the legislative powers of
the City Council.
A more remarkable scheme of independent local government could not
have been devised even by the leaders of this Mormon church, and the
shortsightedness of the law makers in consenting to it seems nothing
short of marvellous. Under it the mayor, who helped to make the local
laws (as a member of the City Council), was intrusted with their
enforcement, and he could, as the head of the Municipal Court, give them
legal interpretation. Governor Ford afterward defined the system as "a
government within a government; a legislature to pass ordinances at
war with the laws of the state; courts to execute them with but little
dependence upon the constitutional judiciary, and a military force at
their own command." *
* A bill repealing this charter was passed by the Illinois House
on February 3, 1843, by a vote of fifty-eight to thirty-three, but
failed in the Senate by a vote of sixteen ayes to seventeen nays.
This military force, called the Nauvoo Legion, the City Council was
authorized to organize from the inhabitants of the city who were subject
to military duty. It was to be at the disposal of the mayor in executing
city laws and ordinances, and of the governor of the state for
the public defence. When organized, it embraced three classes of
troops--flying artillery, lancers, and riflemen. Its independence of
state control was provided for by a provision of law which allowed it
to be governed by a court martial of its own officers. The view of its
independence taken by the Mormons may be seen in the following general
order signed by Smith and Bennett in May, 1841, founded on an opinion by
judge Stephen A. Douglas:--"The officers and privates belonging to the
Legion are exempt from all military duty not required by the legally
constituted authorities thereof; they are therefore expressly inhibited
from performing any military service not ordered by the general
officers, or directed by the court martial."*
* Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 417. Governor Ford commissioned
Brigham Young to succeed Smith as lieutenant general of the Legion from
August 31, 1844. To show the Mormon idea of authority, the following is
quoted from Tullidge's "Life of Brigham Young," p. 30: "It is a singular
fact that, after Washington, Joseph Smith was the first man in America
who held the rank of lieutenant general, and that Brigham Young was the
next. In reply to a comment by the author upon this fact Brigham Young
said: 'I was never much of a military man. The commission has since been
abrogated by the state of Illinois; but if Joseph had lived when the
(Mexican) war broke out he would have become commander-in chief of the
United States Armies.'"
In other words, this city military company was entirely independent
of even the governor of the state. Little wonder that the Presidency,
writing about the new law to the Saints abroad, said, "'Tis all we ever
claimed." In view of the experience of the Missourians with the Mormons
as directed by Smith and Rigdon, it would be rash to say that they would
have been tolerated as neighbors in Illinois under any circumstances,
after their actual acquaintance had been made; but if the state of
Illinois had deliberately intended to incite the Mormons to a reckless
assertion of independence, nothing could have been planned that would
have accomplished this more effectively than the passage of the charter
of Nauvoo.
What next followed remains an unexplained incident in Joseph Smith's
career. Instead of taking the mayoralty himself, he allowed that office
to be bestowed upon Bennett, Smith and Rigdon accepting places among
the councillors, Bennett having taken up his residence in Nauvoo in
September, 1840. His election as mayor took place in February, 1841.
Bennet was also chosen major general of the Legion when that force was
organized, was selected as the first chancellor of the new university,
and was elected to the First Presidency of the church in the following
April, to take the place of Sidney Rigdon during the incapacity of
the latter from illness. Judge Stephen A. Douglas also appointed him a
master in chancery.
Bennett was introduced to the Mormon church at large in a letter signed
by Smith, Rigdon, and brother Hyrum, dated January 15, 1841, as the
first of the new acquisitions of influence. They stated that his
sympathies with the Saints were aroused while they were still in
Missouri, and that he then addressed them a letter offering them his
assistance, and the church was assured that "he is a man of enterprise,
extensive acquirements, and of independent mind, and is calculated to be
a great blessing to our community." When his appointment as a master
in chancery was criticised by some Illinois newspapers, the Mormons
defended him earnestly, Sidney Rigdon (then attorney-at-law and
postmaster at Nauvoo), in a letter dated April 23, 1842, said, "He is a
physician of great celebrity, of great versatility of talent, of
refined education and accomplished manners; discharges the duties of his
respective offices with honor to himself and credit to the people." All
this becomes of interest in the light of the abuse which the Mormons
soon after poured out upon this man when he "betrayed" them.
Bennett's inaugural address as mayor was radical in tone. He advised the
Council to prohibit all dram shops, allowing no liquor to be sold in a
quantity less than a quart. This suggestion was carried out in a city
ordinance. He condemned the existing system of education, which gave
children merely a smattering of everything, and made "every boarding
school miss a Plato in petticoats, without an ounce of genuine
knowledge," pleading for education "of a purely practical character."
The Legion he considered a matter of immediate necessity, and he
added, "The winged warrior of the air perches upon the pole of American
liberty, and the beast that has the temerity to ruffle her feathers
should be made to feel the power of her talons."
Smith was commissioned lieutenant general of this Legion by Governor
Carlin on February 3, 1841, and he and Bennett blossomed out at once as
gorgeous commanders. An order was issued requiring all persons in
the city, of military obligation, between the ages of eighteen and
forty-five, to join the Legion, and on the occasion of the laying of
the corner-stone of the Temple, on April 6, 1841, it comprised fourteen
companies. An army officer passing through Nauvoo in September, 1842,
expressed the opinion that the evolutions of the Legion would do honor
to any militia in the United States, but he queried: "Why this exact
discipline of the Mormon corps? Do they intend to conquer Missouri,
Illinois, Mexico? Before many years this Legion will be twenty, perhaps
fifty, thousand strong and still augmenting. A fearful host, filled with
religious enthusiasm, and led on by ambitious and talented officers,
what may not be effected by them? Perhaps the subversion of the
constitution of the United States." *
* Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 121.
Contemporary accounts of the appearance of the Legion on the occasion
of the laying of the Temple corner-stone indicate that the display was a
big one for a frontier settlement. Smith says in his autobiography,
"The appearance, order, and movements of the Legion were chaste, grand,
imposing." The Times and Seasons, in its report of the day's doings,
says that General Smith had a staff of four aides-de-camp and twelve
guards, "nearly all in splendid uniforms. The several companies
presented a beautiful and interesting spectacle, several of them
being uniformed and equipped, while the rich and costly dresses of
the officers would have become a Bonaparte or a Washington." Ladies
on horseback were an added feature of the procession. The ceremonies
attending the cornerstone laying attracted the people from all the
outlying districts, and marked an epoch in the church's history in
Illinois.
The Temple at Nauvoo measured 83 by 128 feet on the ground, and was
nearly 60 feet high, surmounted by a steeple which was planned to be
more than 100 feet in height. The material was white limestone, which
was found underlying the site of the city. The work of construction
continued throughout the occupation of Nauvoo by the Mormons, the laying
of the capstone not being accomplished until May 24, 1845, and the
dedication taking place on May 1, 1846. The cost of the completed
structure was estimated by the Mormons at $1,000,000.* Among the costly
features were thirty stone pilasters, which cost $3000 each.
* "The Temple is said to have cost, in labor and money, a million
dollars. It may be possible, and it is very probable, that contributions
to that amount were made to it, but that it cost that much to build
it few will believe. Half that sum would be ample to build a much more
costly edifice to-day, and in the three or four years in which it
was being erected, labor was cheap and all the necessaries of life
remarkably low."--GREGG'S "History of Hancock County," p. 367.
The portico of the Temple was surrounded by these pilasters of polished
stone, on the base of which was carved a new moon, the capital of each
being a representation of the rising sun coming from under a cloud,
supported by two hands holding a trumpet. Under the tower were the
words, in golden letters: "The House of the Lord, built by the Church of
Latter-Day Saints. Commenced April 6, 1841. Holiness to the Lord." The
baptismal font measured twelve by sixteen feet, with a basin four feet
deep. It was supported by twelve oxen "carved out of fine plank
glued together," says Smith, "and copied after the most beautiful
five-year-old steer that could be found." From the basement two
stairways led to the main floor, around the sides of which were small
rooms designed for various uses. In the large room on this floor were
three pulpits and a place for the choir. The upper floor contained a
large hall, and around this were twelve smaller rooms.
The erection of this Temple was carried on without incurring such
debts or entering upon such money-making schemes as caused disaster at
Kirtland. Labor and material were secured by successful appeals to the
Saints on the ground and throughout the world. Here the tithing system
inaugurated in Missouri played an efficient part. A man from the
neighboring country who took produce to Nauvoo for sale or barter said,
"In the committee rooms they had almost every conceivable thing, from
all kinds of implements and men and women's clothing, down to baby
clothes and trinkets, which had been deposited by the owners as tithing
or for the benefit of the Temple." *
* Gregg's "History of Hancock County," p. 374
Nauvoo House, as planned, was to have a frontage of two hundred feet
and a depth of forty feet, and to be three stories in height, with a
basement. Its estimated cost was $100,000.* A detailed explanation of
the uses of this house was thus given in a letter from the Twelve to the
Saints abroad, dated November 15, 1841:--
* Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 369.
"The time set to favor the Stakes of Zion is at hand, and soon the kings
and the queens, the princes and the nobles, the rich and the honorable
of the earth, will come up hither to visit the Temple of our God, and to
inquire concerning this strange work; and as kings are to become nursing
fathers, and queens nursing mothers in the habitation of the righteous,
it is right to render honor to whom honor is due; and therefore
expedient that such, as well as the Saints, should have a comfortable
house for boarding and lodging when they come hither, and it is
according to the revelations that such a house should be built... All
are under equal obligations to do all in their power to complete the
buildings by their faith and their prayers; with their thousands and
their mites, their gold and their silver, their copper and their zinc,
their goods and their labors."
Nauvoo House was not finished during the Prophet's life, the appeals in
its behalf failing to secure liberal contributions. It was completed in
later years, and used as a hotel.
Smith's residence in Nauvoo was a frame building called the Mansion
House, not far from the r*iver side. It was opened as a hotel on October
3, 1843, with considerable ceremony, one of the toasts responded to
being as follows, "Resolved, that General Joseph Smith, whether we view
him as a prophet at the head of the church, a general at the head of the
Legion, a mayor at the head of the City Council, or a landlord at the
head of the table, has few equals and no superiors."
Another church building was the Hall of the Seventies, the upper story
of which was used for the priesthood and the Council of Fifty. Galland's
suggestion about a college received practical shape in the incorporation
of a university, in whose board of regents the leading men of the
church, including Galland himself, found places. The faculty consisted
of James Keeley, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, as president;
Orson Pratt as professor of mathematics and English literature; Orson
Spencer, a graduate of Union College and the Baptist Theological
Seminary in New York, as professor of languages; and Sidney Rigdon as
professor of church history. The tuition fee was $5 per quarter.
CHAPTER V. -- THE MORMONS IN POLITICS--MISSOURI REQUISITIONS FOR SMITH
The Mormons were now equipped in their new home with large landed
possessions, a capital city that exhibited a phenomenal growth, and
a form of local government which made Nauvoo a little independency of
itself; their prophet wielding as much authority and receiving as much
submission as ever; a Temple under way which would excel anything that
had been designed in Ohio or Missouri, and a stream of immigration
pouring in which gave assurance of continued numerical increase. What
were the causes of the complete overthrow of this apparent prosperity
which so speedily followed? These causes were of a twofold character,
political and social. The two were interwoven in many ways, but we can
best trace them separately.
We have seen that a Democratic organization gave the first welcome to
the Mormon refugees at Quincy. In the presidential campaign of 1836 the
vote of Illinois had been: Democratic, 17,275, Whig, 14,292; that of
Hancock County, Democratic, 260, Whig, 340. The closeness of this vote
explained the welcome that was extended to the new-comers.
It does not appear that Smith had any original party predilections. But
he was not pleased with questions which President Van Buren asked him
when he was in Washington (from November, 1839, to February, 1840)
seeking federal aid to secure redress from Missouri, and he wrote to the
High Council from that city, "We do not say the Saints shall not vote
for him, but we do say boldly (though it need not be published in the
streets of Nauvoo, neither among the daughters of the Gentiles), that we
do not intend he shall have our votes."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XVII, p.452.
On his return to Illinois Smith was toadied to by the workers of both
parties. He candidly told them that he had no faith in either; but the
Whigs secured his influence, and, by an intimation that there was divine
authority for their course, the Mormon vote was cast for Harrison,
giving him a majority of 752 in Hancock County. In order to keep the
Democrats in good humor, the Mormons scratched the last name on the Whig
electoral ticket (Abraham Lincoln)* and substituted that of a Democrat.
This demonstration of their political weight made the Mormons an object
of consideration at the state capital, and was the direct cause of the
success of the petition which they sent there, signed by some thousands
of names, asking for a charter for Nauvoo. The representatives of both
parties were eager to show them favor. Bennett, in a letter to the Times
and Seasons from Springfield, spoke of the readiness of all the members
to vote for what the Mormons wanted, adding that "Lincoln had the
magnanimity to vote for our act, and came forward after the final vote
and congratulated me on its passage."
*This is mentioned in "Joab's" (Bermett's) letter, Times and
Seasons, Vol, II, p. 267.
In the gubernatorial campaign of 1841-1842 Smith swung the Mormon vote
back to the Democrats, giving them a majority of more than one thousand
in the county. This was done publicly, in a letter addressed "To my
friends in Illinois,"* dated December 20, 1841, in which the prophet,
after pointing out that no persons at the state capital were more
efficient in securing the passage of the Nauvoo charter than the heads
of the present Democratic ticket, made this declaration:--
* Times and Seasons, Vol. III, p. 651.
"The partisans in this county who expect to divide the friends of
humanity and equal rights will find themselves mistaken. We care not a
fig for Whig or Democrat; they are both alike to us; but we shall go for
our friends, OUR TRIED FRIENDS, and the cause of human liberty which is
the cause of God.... Snyder and Moore are known to be our friends....
We will never be justly charged with the sin of ingratitude,--they have
served us, and we will serve them."
If Smith had been a man possessing any judgment, he would have realized
that the political course which he was pursuing, instead of making
friends in either party, would certainly soon arraign both parties
against him and his followers. The Mormons announced themselves
distinctly to be a church, and they were now exhibiting themselves as
a religious body already numerically strong and increasing in numbers,
which stood ready to obey the political mandate of one man, or at least
of one controlling authority. The natural consequence of this soon
manifested itself.
A congressional and a county election were approaching, and a mass
meeting, made up of both Whigs and Democrats of Hancock County, was held
to place in the field a non-Mormon county ticket. The fusion was not
accomplished without heart-burnings on the part of some unsuccessful
aspirants for nominations. A few of these went over to Smith, and the
election resulted in the success of the state Democratic and the Mormon
local ticket, legislative and county, Smith's brother William being
elected to the House. It is easy to realize that this victory did not
lessen Smith's aggressive egotism.
Some important matters were involved in the next political contest,
the congressional election of August, 1843. The Whigs nominated Cyrus
Walker, a lawyer of reputation living in McDonough County, and the
Democrats J. P. Hoge, also a lawyer, but a weaker candidate at the
polls. Every one conceded that Smith's dictum would decide the contest.
On May 6, 1842, Governor Boggs of Missouri, while sitting near a window
in his house in Independence, was fired at, and wounded so severely that
his recovery was for some days in doubt. The crime was naturally
charged to his Mormon enemies,* and was finally narrowed down to O. P.
Rockwell,** a Mormon living in Nauvoo, as the agent, and Joseph Smith,
Jr., as the instigator. Indictments were found against both of them
in Missouri, and a requisition for Smith's surrender was made by the
governor of that state on the governor of Illinois. Smith was arrested
under the governor's warrant. Now came an illustration of the value
to him of the form of government provided by the Nauvoo charter. Taken
before his own municipal court, he was released at once on a writ of
habeas corpus. This assumption of power by a local court aroused
the indignation of non-Mormons throughout the state. Governor Carlin
characterized it somewhat later, in a letter to Smith's wife, as "most
absurd and ridiculous; to attempt to exercise it is a gross usurpation
of power that cannot be tolerated."***
* The hatred felt toward Governor Boggs by the Mormon leaders was
not concealed. Thus, an editorial in the Times and Seasons of January 1,
1841, headed "Lilburn W. Boggs," began, "The THING whose name stands at
the head of this article," etc. Referring to the ending of his term of
office, the article said, "Lilburn has gone down to the dark and dreary
abode of his brother and prototype, Nero, there to associate with
kindred spirits and partake of the dainties of his father's, the
devil's, table."
Bennett afterward stated that he heard Joseph Smith say, on July 10,
1842, that Governor Boggs, "the exterminator, should be exterminated,"
and that the Destroying Angels (Danites) should do it; also that in the
spring of that year he heard Smith, at a meeting of Danites, offer to
pay any man $500 who would secretly assassinate the governor. Bennett's
statement is only cited for what it may be worth; that some Mormon fired
the shot is within the limit of strict probability.
** Rockwell, who, in his latter days, was employed by General
Connor to guard stock in California, told the general that he fired
the shot at Governor Boggs, and was sorry it did not kill him.--"Mormon
Portraits," p. 255.
*** Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 23.
Notwithstanding his release, Smith thought it best to remain in hiding
for some time to escape another arrest, for which the governor ordered
a reward of $200. About the middle of August his associates in Nauvoo
concluded that the outlook for him was so bad, notwithstanding the
protection which his city court was ready to afford, that it might
be best for him to flee to the pine woods of the North country. Smith
incorporates in his autobiography a long letter which he wrote to his
wife at this time,* giving her directions about this flight if it should
become necessary. Their goods were to be loaded on a boat manned by
twenty of the best men who could be selected, and who would meet them
at Prairie du Chien: "And from thence we will wend our way like larks up
the Mississippi, until the towering mountains and rocks shall remind us
of the places of our nativity, and shall look like safety and home;
and there we will bid defiance to Carlin, Boggs, Bennett, and all their
whorish whores and motley clan, that follow in their wake, Missouri not
excepted, and until the damnation of Hell rolls upon them by the voice
and dread thunders and trump of the eternal God."
* Ibid., pp. 693-695.
In October Rigdon obtained from Justin Butterfield, United States
attorney for Illinois, an opinion that Smith could not be held on a
Missouri requisition for a crime committed in that state when he was
in Illinois. In December, 1842, Smith was placed under arrest and taken
before the United States District Court at Springfield, Illinois, under
a writ of habeas corpus issued by Judge Roger B. Taney of the State
Supreme Court. Butterfield, as his counsel, secured his discharge
by Judge Pope (a Whig) who held that Smith was not a fugitive from
Missouri.
While these proceedings were pending, the Nauvoo City Council (Smith was
then mayor), passed two ordinances in regard to the habeas corpus powers
of the Municipal Court, one giving that court jurisdiction in any
case where a person "shall be or stand committed or detained for any
criminal, or supposed criminal, matter."* This was intended to make
Smith secure from the clutches of any Missouri officer so long as he was
in his own city.
* For text of these ordinances, see millennial Star, Vol. XX, p.
165.
But Smith's enemy, General Bennett (who before this date had been cast
out of the fold), was now very active, and through his efforts another
indictment against Smith on the old charges of treason, murder, etc.,
was found in Missouri, in June, 1843, and under it another demand was
made on the governor of Illinois for Smith's extradition. Governor Ford,
a Democrat, who had succeeded Carlin, issued a warrant on June 17, 1843,
and it was served on Smith while he was visiting his wife's sister in
Lee County, Illinois. An attempt to start with him at once for Missouri
was prevented by his Mormon friends, who rallied in considerable numbers
to his aid. Smith secured counsel, who began proceedings against the
Missouri agent and obtained a writ in Smith's behalf returnable, the
account in the Times and Seasons says, before the nearest competent
tribunal, which "it was ascertained was at Nauvoo"--Smith's own
Municipal Court. The prophet had a sort of triumphal entry into Nauvoo,
and the question of the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court in his case
came up at once. Both of the candidates for Congress, Walker (who
was employed as his counsel) and Hoge, gave opinions in favor of such
jurisdiction, and, after a three hours' plea by Walker, the court
ordered Smith's release. Smith addressed the people of Nauvoo in the
grove after his return. From the report of his remarks in the journal of
Discourses (Vol. II, p. 163) the following is taken:
"Before I will bear this unhallowed persecution any longer, before I
will be dragged away again among my enemies for trial, I will spill the
last drop of blood in my veins, and will see all my enemies in hell....
Deny me the writ of habeas corpus, and I will fight with gun, sword,
cannon, whirlwind, thunder, until they are used up like the Kilkenny
cats.... If these [charter] powers are dangerous, then the constitutions
of the United States and of this state are dangerous. If the Legislature
has granted Nauvoo the right of determining cases of habeas corpus, it
is no more than they ought to have done, or more than our fathers fought
for."
Smith expressed his gratitude to Walker for what the latter had
accomplished in his behalf, and the Whig candidate now had no doubt that
the Mormon vote was his.
But the Missouri agent, indignant that a governor's writ should be set
aside by a city court, hurried to Springfield and demanded that Governor
Ford should call out enough state militia to secure Smith's arrest and
delivery at the Missouri boundary. The governor, who was not a man of
the firmest purpose, had no intention of being mixed up in the pending
congressional fight and struggle for the Mormon vote; so he asked for
delay and finally decided not to call out any troops.
The Hancock County Democrats were quick to see an opportunity in this
situation, and they sent to Springfield a man named Backenstos (who
took an active part in the violent scenes connected with the subsequent
history of the Mormons in the state) to ascertain for the Mormons
just what the governor's intentions were. Backenstos reported that the
prophet need have no fear of the Democratic governor so long as the
Mormons voted the Democratic ticket.*
* Governor Ford, in his "History of Illinois," says that such a
pledge was given by a prominent Democrat, but without his own knowledge.
When this news was brought back to Nauvoo, a few days before the
election, a mass meeting of the Mormons was called, and Hyrum Smith
(then Patriarch, succeeding the prophet's father, who was dead)
announced the receipt of a "revelation" directing the Mormons to vote
for Hoge. William Law, an influential business man in the Mormon circle,
immediately denied the existence of any such "revelation." The prophet
alone could decide the matter. He was brought in and made a statement
to the effect that he himself proposed to vote for Walker; that
he considered it a "mean business" to influence any man's vote
by dictation, and that he had no great faith in revelations about
elections; "but brother Hyrum was a man of truth; he had known brother
Hyrum intimately ever since he was a boy, and he had never known him to
tell a lie. If brother Hyrum said he had received such a revelation, he
had no doubt it was a fact. When the Lord speaks, let all the earth be
silent." *
* Ford's"History of Illinois," p. 318.
The election resulted in the choice of Hoge by a majority of 455!
CHAPTER VI. -- SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Smith's latest triumph over his Missouri enemies, with the feeling that
he had the governor of his state back of him, increased his own and his
followers' audacity. The Nauvoo Council continued to pass ordinances
to protect its inhabitants from outside legal processes, civil and
criminal. One of these provided that no writ issued outside of Nauvoo
for the arrest of a person in that city should be executed until it had
received the mayor's approval, anyone violating this ordinance to be
liable to imprisonment for life, with no power of pardon in the governor
without the mayor's consent! The acquittal of O. P. Rockwell on the
charge of the attempted assassination of Governor Boggs caused great
delight among the Mormons, and their organ declared on January 1, 1844,
that "throughout the whole region of country around us those bitter and
acrimonious feelings, which have so long been engendered by many, are
dying away."
Smith's political ideas now began to broaden. "Who shall be our next
President?" was the title of an editorial in the Times and Seasons of
October 1, 1843, which urged the selection of a man who would be
most likely to give the Mormons help in securing redress for their
grievances.
The next month Smith addressed a letter to Henry Clay and John
C. Calhoun, who were the leading candidates for the presidential
nomination, citing the Mormons' losses and sufferings in Missouri, and
their failure to obtain redress in the courts or from Congress, and
asking, "What will be your rule of action relative to us as a people
should fortune favor your ascendancy to the chief magistracy? "Clay
replied that, if nominated, he could "enter into no engagements, make no
promises, give no pledges to any particular portion of the people of the
United States," adding, "If I ever enter into that high office, I must
go into it free and unfettered, with no guarantees but such as are to
be drawn from my whole life, character and conduct." He closed with
an expression of sympathy with the Mormons "in their sufferings under
injustice." Calhoun replied that, if elected President, he would try to
administer the government according to the constitution and the laws,
and that, as these made no distinction between citizens of different
religious creeds, he should make none. He repeated an opinion which he
had given Smith in Washington that the Mormon case against the state of
Missouri did not come within the jurisdiction of the federal government.
These replies excited Smith to wrath and he answered them at length,
and in language characteristic of himself. A single quotation from his
letter to Clay (dated May 13, 1844) will suffice:--
"In your answer to my question, last fall, that peculiar trait of the
modern politician, declaring 'if you ever enter into that high office,
you must go into it unfettered, with no guarantees but such as are to be
drawn from your whole life, character and conduct,' so much resembles a
lottery vender's sign, with the goddess of good luck sitting on the
car of fortune, astraddle of the horn of plenty, and driving the
merry steeds of beatitude, without reins or bridle, that I cannot help
exclaiming, 'O, frail man, what have you done that will exalt you? Can
anything be drawn from your LIFE, CHARACTER OR CONDUCT that is worthy of
being held up to the gaze of this nation as a model of VIRTUE, CHARACTER
AND WISDOM?'... 'Your whole life, character and conduct' have been
spotted with deeds that causes a blush upon the face of a virtuous
patriot; so you must be contented with your lot, while crime, cowardice,
cupidity or low cunning have handed you down from the high tower of
a statesman to the black hole of a gambler.... Crape the heavens with
weeds of woe; gird the earth with sackcloth, and let hell mutter one
melody in commemoration of fallen splendor! For the glory of America has
departed, and God will set a flaming sword to guard the tree of liberty,
while such mint-tithing Herods as Van Buren, Boggs, Benton, Calhoun,
and Clay are thrust out of the realms of virtue as fit subjects for the
kingdom of fallen greatness--vox reprobi, vox Diaboli."
Calhoun was admonished to read the eighth section of article one of
the federal constitution, after which "God, who cooled the heat of a
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, or shut the mouths of lions for the honor of
a Daniel, will raise your mind above the narrow notion that the general
government has no power, to the sublime idea that Congress, with the
President as executor, is as almighty in its sphere as Jehovah is in
his." 1
*For this correspondence in full, see Times and Seasons, January
1, and June 1, 1844, or Mackay's "The Mormons," p. 143.
Smith's next step was to have judge Phelps read to a public meeting in
Nauvoo on February 7, 1844, a very long address by the prophet, setting
forth his views on national politics.* He declared that "no honest man
can doubt for a moment but the glory of American liberty is on the wane,
and that calamity and confusion will sooner or later destroy the peace
of the people," while "the motto hangs on the nation's escutcheon,
`every man has his price.'"
* For its text, see Times and Seasons, May 15,1844, or Mackay's
"The Mormons," p.133.
Smith proposed an abundance of remedies for these evils: Reduce the
members of Congress at least one-half; pay them $2 a day and board;
petition the legislature to pardon every convict, and make the
punishment for any felony working on the roads or some other place where
the culprit can be taught wisdom and virtue, murder alone to be cause
for confinement or death; petition for the abolition of slavery by the
year 1850, the slaves to be paid for out of the surplus from the sale
of public lands, and the money saved by reducing the pay of Congress;
establish a national bank, with branches in every state and territory,
"whose officers shall be elected yearly by the people, with wages of
$2 a day for services," the currency to be limited to "the amount of
capital stock in her vaults, and interest"; "and the bills shall be par
throughout the nation, which will mercifully cure that fatal disorder
known in cities as brokery, and leave the people's money in their own
pockets"; give the President full power to send an army to suppress
mobs; "send every lawyer, as soon as he repents and obeys the ordinances
of heaven, to preach the Gospel to the destitute, without purse or
scrip"; "spread the federal jurisdiction to the west sea, when the red
men give their consent"; and give the right hand of fellowship to Texas,
Canada, and Mexico. He closed with this declaration: "I would, as the
universal friend of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the
ears, and open the hearts of all people to behold and enjoy freedom,
unadulterated freedom; and God, who once cleansed the violence of the
earth with a flood, whose Son laid down his life for the salvation of
all his father gave him out of the world, and who has promised that he
will come and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should
be supplicated by me for the good of all people. With the highest
esteem, I am a friend of virtue and of the people."
It seems almost incomprehensible that the promulgator of such political
views should have taken himself seriously. But Smith was in deadly
earnest, and not only was he satisfied of his political power, but, in
the church conference of 1844, he declared, "I feel that I am in more
immediate communication with God, and on a better footing with Him, than
I have ever been in my life."
The announcement of Smith's political "principles" was followed
immediately by an article in the Times and Seasons, which answered
the question, "Whom shall the Mormons support for President?" with the
reply, "General Joseph Smith. A man of sterling worth and integrity, and
of enlarged views; a man who has raised himself from the humblest walks
in life to stand at the head of a large, intelligent, respectable, and
increasing society;... and whose experience has rendered him every way
adequate to the onerous duty." The formal announcement that Smith was
the Mormon candidate was made in the Times and Seasons of February 15,
1844, and the ticket--
FOR PRESIDENT,
GENERAL JOSEPH SMITH,
Nauvoo, Illinois.
was kept at the head of its editorial page from March 1, until his
death.
A weekly newspaper called the Wasp, issued at Nauvoo under Mormon
editorship, had been succeeded by a larger one called the Neighbor,
edited by John Taylor (afterward President of the church), who also had
charge of the Times and Seasons. The Neighbor likewise placed Smith's
name, as the presidential candidate, at the head of its columns, and on
March 6 completed its ticket with "General James A. Bennett of New York,
for Vice-President."* Three weeks later Bennett's name was taken down,
and on June 19, Sidney Rigdon's was substituted for it. There was
nothing modest in the Mormon political ambition.
* This General Bennett was not the first mayor of Nauvoo, as some
writers like Smucker have supposed, but a lawyer who gave his address as
"Arlington House," on Long Island, New York, and who in 1843 had offered
himself to Smith as "a most undeviating friend," etc.
Proof of Smith's serious view of his candidacy is furnished in his next
step, which was to send out a large body of missionaries (two or three
thousand, according to Governor Ford) to work-up his campaign in the
Eastern and Southern states. These emissaries were selected from among
the ablest of Smith's allies, including Brigham Young, Lorenzo Snow, and
John D. Lee. Their absence from Nauvoo was a great misfortune to Smith
at the time of his subsequent arrest and imprisonment at Carthage.
The campaigners began work at once. Lorenzo Snow, to whom the state
of Ohio was allotted, went to Kirtland, where he had several thousand
pamphlets printed, setting forth the prophet's views and plans, and he
then travelled around in a buggy, distributing the pamphlets and making
addresses in Smith's behalf. "To many persons," he confesses, "who knew
nothing of Joseph but through the ludicrous reports in circulation, the
movement seemed a species of insanity."* John D. Lee was a most devout
Mormon, but his judgment revolted against this movement. "I would a
thousand times rather have been shut up in jail," he says. He began his
canvassing while on the boat bound for, St. Louis. "I told them," he
relates, "the prophet would lead both candidates. There was a large
crowd on the boat, and an election was proposed. The prophet received
a majority of 75 out of 125 votes polled. This created a tremendous
laugh."**
* "Biography of Lorenzo Snow."
** "Mormonism Unveiled," p.149.
We have an account of one state convention called to consider Smith's
candidacy, and this was held in the Melodeon in Boston, Massachusetts,
on July 1, 1844, the news of Smith's death not yet having reached that
city. A party of young rowdies practically took possession of the hall
as soon as the business of the convention began, and so disturbed the
proceedings that the police were sent for, and they were able to
clear the galleries only after a determined fight. The convention
then adjourned to Bunker Hill, but nothing further is heard of
its proceedings. The press of the city condemned the action of the
disturbers as a disgrace. Mention is made in the Times and Seasons of
July 1, 1844, of a conference of elders held in Dresden, Tennessee,
on the 25th of May previous, at which Smith's name was presented as a
presidential candidate. The meeting was broken up by a mob, which the
sheriff confessed himself powerless to overcome, but it met later and
voted to print three thousand copies of Smith's views.
The prophet's death, which occurred so soon after the announcement of
his candidacy, rendered it impossible to learn how serious a cause of
political disturbance that candidacy might have been in neighborhoods
where the Mormons had a following.
CHAPTER VII. -- SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN NAUVOO
Having followed Smith's political operations to their close, it is now
necessary to retrace our steps, and examine the social conditions which
prevailed in and around Nauvoo during the years of his reign--conditions
which had quite as much to do in causing the expulsion of the Mormons
from the state as did his political mistakes.
It must be remembered that Nauvoo was a pioneer town, on the borders
of a thinly settled country. Its population and that of its suburbs
consisted of the refugees from Missouri, of whose character we have
had proof; of the converts brought in from the Eastern states and from
Europe, not a very intelligent body; and of those pioneer settlers,
without sympathy with the Mormon beliefs, who were attracted to the
place from various motives. While active work was continued by the
missionaries throughout the United States, their labors in this country
seem to have been more efficient in establishing local congregations
than in securing large additions to the population of Nauvoo, although
some "branches" moved bodily to the Mormon centre.*
* Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled;" p. 135.
Of the class of people reached by the early missionaries in England we
have this description, in a letter from Orson Hyde to his wife,
dated September 14,1837:--"Those who have been baptized are mostly
manufacturers and some other mechanics. They know how to do but little
else than to spin and weave cloth, and make cambric, mull and lace; and
what they would do in Kirtland or the city of Far West, I cannot say.
They are extremely poor, most of them not having a change of clothes
decent to be baptized in."*
* Elders' Journal, Vol. I, No. 2.
In a letter of instructions from Smith to the travelling elders in Great
Britain, dated October, 1840, he warned them that the gathering of
the Saints must be "attended to in the order that the Lord intends
it should"; and he explains that, as "great numbers of the Saints in
England are extremely poor,... to prevent confusion and disappointment
when they arrive here, let those men who are accustomed to making
machinery, and those who can command a capital, though it be small, come
here as soon as convenient and put up machinery, and make such other
preparations as may be necessary, so that when the poor come on they may
have employment to come to."
The invitation to all converts having means was so urgent that it took
the form of a command. A letter to the Saints abroad, signed by Joseph
and Hyrum Smith, dated January 15, 1841, directed those "blessed of
heaven with the possession of this world's goods" to sell out as soon
as possible and move to Nauvoo, adding in italics: "This is agreeable to
the order of heaven, and the only principal (sic) on which the gathering
can be effected."*
* The following is a quotation from a letter written by an
American living near Nauvoo, dated October 20, 1842, printed in the
postscript to Caswall's "The City of the Mormons":--
"If an English Mormon arrives, the first effort of Joe is to get his
money. This in most cases is easily accomplished, under a pledge that he
can have it at any time on giving ten days' notice. The man after some
time calls for his money; he is treated kindly, and told that it is not
convenient to pay. He calls a second time; the Prophet cannot pay,
but offers a town lot in Nauvoo for $1000 (which cost perhaps as many
cents), or land on the 'half-breed tract' at $10 or $15 per acre....
Finally some of the irresponsible Bishops or Elders execute a deed for
land to which they have no valid title, and the poor fellow dares not
complain. This is the history of hundreds of cases.... The history of
every dupe reaches Nauvoo in advance. When an Elder abroad wins one over
to the faith, he makes himself perfectly acquainted with all his family
arrangements, his standing in society, his ability, and (what is of most
importance) the amount of ready money and other property which he will
take to Nauvoo.... They make no converts in Nauvoo, and it appears to me
that they would never make another if all could witness their conduct at
Nauvoo for one month... . In regard to this communication, I prefer,
on account of my own safety, that you should not make known the author
publicly. You cannot appreciate these fears [in England]. You have no
idea what it is to be surrounded by a community of Mormons, guided by a
leader the most unprincipled." We have seen how hard-pressed Smith was
for money with which to meet his obligations for the payment of land
purchased. It was not necessary that a newcomer should be a Mormon
in order to buy a lot, special emphasis being laid on the freedom
of religious opinion in the city; but it was early made known that
purchasers were expected to buy their lots of the church, and not
of private speculators. The determination with which this rule was
enforced, as well as its unpopularity in some quarters, may be seen in
the following extract from Smith's autobiography, under date of February
13, 1843: "I spent the evening at Elder O. Hyde's. In the course of
conversation I remarked that those brethren who came here having money,
and purchased without the church and without counsel, must be cut off.
This, with other observations, aroused the feelings of Brother Dixon,
from Salem, Mass., and he appeared in great wrath."
The Nauvoo Neighbor of December 27, 1843, contained an advertisement
signed by the clerk of the church, calling the attention of immigrants
to the church lands, and saying, "Let all the brethren, therefore, when
they move into Nauvoo, consult President Joseph Smith, the trustee in
trust, and purchase their land from him, and I am bold to say that God
will bless them, and they will hereafter be glad they did so."
A good many immigrants of more or less means took warning as soon as
they discovered the conditions prevailing there, and returned home. A
letter on this subject from the officers of the church said:--
"We have seen so many who have been disappointed and discouraged when
they visited this place, that we would have imagined they had never been
instructed in the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, and thought
that, instead of coming into a society of men and women, subject to all
the frailties of mortality, they were about to enjoy the society of the
spirits of just men made perfect, the holy angels, and that this place
should be as pure as the third heaven. But when they found that this
people were but flesh and blood... they have been desirous to choose
them a captain to lead them back."
The additions to the Mormon population from the settlers whom they found
in the outlying country in Illinois and Iowa were not likely to be of
a desirable class. The banks of the Mississippi River had long been
hiding-places for pirate bands, whose exploits were notorious, and the
"half-breed tract" was a known place of refuge for the horse thief, the
counterfeiter, and the desperado of any calling. The settlement of the
Mormons in such a region, with an invitation to the world at large to
join them and be saved, was a piece of good luck for this lawless class,
who found a covering cloak in the new baptism, and a shield in the
fidelity with which the Mormon authorities, under their charter,
defended their flock. In this way Nauvoo became a great receptacle for
stolen goods, and the river banks up and down the stream concealed
many more, the takers of which walked boldly through the streets of
the Mormon city. The retaliatory measures which Smith encouraged his
followers to practise on their neighbors in Missouri had inculcated
a disregard for the property rights of non-Mormons, which became an
inciting cause of hostilities with their neighbors in Illinois.
The complaints of thefts by Mormons became so frequent that the church
authorities deemed it necessary to recognize and rebuke the practice.
Lee quotes from an address by Smith at the conference of April, 1840,
in Nauvoo, in which the prophet said: "We are no longer at war, and you
must stop stealing. When the right time comes, we will go in force and
take the whole state of Missouri. It belongs to us as our inheritance;
but I want no more petty stealing. A man that will steal petty articles
from his enemies will, when occasion offers, steal from his brethren
too. Now I command you that have stolen must steal no more."*
* Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled;" p. 111.
The case of Elder O. Walker bears on this subject. On October 11, 1840,
he was brought before a High Council and accused of discourtesy to the
prophet, and "suggesting (at different places) that in the church at
Nauvoo there did exist a set of pilferers who were actually thieving,
robbing and plundering, taking and unlawfully carrying away from
Missouri certain goods and chattels, wares and property; and that the
act and acts of such supposed thieving, etc., was fostered and conducted
by the knowledge and approval of the heads and leaders of the church,
viz., by the Presidency and High Council."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 185.
The action of the church authorities themselves shows how serious they
considered the reports about thieving. As early as December 1, 1841,
Hyrum Smith, then one of the First Presidency, published in the Times
and Seasons an affidavit denying that the heads of the church "sanction
and approbate the members of said church in stealing property from those
persons who do not belong to said church," etc. This was followed by a
long denial of a similar character, signed by the Twelve, and later by
an affidavit by the prophet himself, denying that he ever "directly or
indirectly encouraged the purloining of property, or taught the doctrine
of stealing." On March 25, 1843, Smith, as mayor, issued a proclamation
beginning with the declaration, "I have not altered my views on the
subject of stealing," reciting rumors of a secret band of desperadoes
bound by oath to self-protection, and pledging pardon to any one who
would give him any information about "such abominable characters." This
exhibition of the heads of a church solemnly protesting that they were
opposed to thieving is unique in religious history.
The Patriarch, Hyrum Smith, made an announcement to the conference of
1843, which further confirms the charges of organized thieving made by
the non-mormons. While denouncing the thieves as hypocrites, he said he
had learned of the existence of a band held together by secret oaths and
penalties, "who hold it right to steal from anyone who does not belong
to the church, provided they consecrate one-third of it to the building
of the Temple. They are also making bogus money.... The man who told me
this said, 'This secret band referred to the Bible, Book of Doctrine and
Covenants, and Book of Mormon to substantiate their doctrines; and if
any of them did not remain steadfast, they ripped open their bowels and
gave them to the catfish.'" He named two men, inmates of his own house,
who, he had discovered, were such thieves. The prophet followed this
statement with some remarks, declaring, "Thieving must be stopped."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XX, pp. 757-758.
The Rev. Henry Caswall, in a description of a Sunday service in Nauvoo
in April, 1842 "City of the Mormons," (p. 15) says:--
"The elder who had delivered the first discourse now rose and said a
certain brother whom he named had taken a keg of white lead. 'Now,' said
he, 'if any of the brethren present has taken it by mistake, thinking it
was his own, he ought to restore it; but if any of the brethren present
have stolen a keg, much more ought he to restore it, or else maybe he
will get catched.'... Another person rose and stated that he had lost
a ten dollar bill. If any of the brethren had found it or taken it,
he hoped it would be restored." This introduction of calls for the
restoration of stolen property as a feature of a Sunday church service
is probably unique with the Mormons.
That the Mormons did not do all the thieving in the counties around
Nauvoo while they were there would be sufficiently proved by the
character of many of the persons whom they found there on their arrival,
and also by the fact that their expulsion did not make those counties a
paradise.* The trouble with them was that, as soon as a man joined them,
no matter what his previous character might have been, they gave him
that protection which came with their system of "standing together." An
early and significant proof of this protection is found in the action of
the conference held in Nauvoo on October 3, 1840, two months before the
charter had given the city government its extended powers, which voted
that "no person be considered guilty of crime unless proved by the
testimony of two or three witnesses."**
* "Long afterward, while the writer was travelling through
Hancock, Pike and Adams Counties, no family thought of retiring at night
without barring and doublelocking every ingress."--Beadle, "Life in
Utah," p. 65.
** Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 153.
It became notorious in all the country round that it was practically
useless for a non-Mormon to attempt the recovery of stolen property in
Nauvoo, no matter how strong the proof in his possession might be. S. J.
Clarke* says that a great deal of stolen stock was traced into Nauvoo,
but that, "when found, it was extremely difficult to gain possession of
it." He cites as an illustration the case of a resident of that county
who traced a stolen horse into Nauvoo, and took with him sixty witnesses
to identify the animal before a Mormon justice of the peace. He found
himself, however, confronted with seventy witnesses who swore that the
horse belonged to some Mormon, and the justice decided that the "weight
of evidence," numerically calculated, was against the non-Mormon.
* "History of McDonough County," p. 83.
A form of protection against outside inquirers for property, which is
well authenticated, was given by what were known as "whittlers." When a
non-Mormon came into the city, and by his questions let it be known
that he was looking for something stolen, he would soon find himself
approached by a Mormon who carried a long knife and a stick, and who
would follow him, silently whittling. Soon a companion would join this
whittler, and then another, until the stranger would find himself fairly
surrounded by these armed but silent observers. Unless he was a man of
more than ordinary grit, an hour or more of this companionship would
convince him that it would be well for him to start for home.*
* Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 168.
CHAPTER VIII. -- SMITH'S PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS AUTOCRAT
Smith's autobiography gives incidentally many interesting glimpses of
the prophet as he exercised his authority of dictator during the height
of his power at Nauvoo. It is fortunate for the impartial student that
these records are at his disposal, because many of the statements,
if made on any other authority, would be met by the customary Mormon
denials, and be considered generally incredible.
That Smith's life, aside from the constant danger of extradition which
the Missouri authorities held over him, was not an easy one at this time
may readily be imagined. He had his position to maintain as sole
oracle of the church. He was also mayor, judge, councillor, and
lieutenant-general. There were individual jealousies to be disposed
of among his associates, rivalries of different parts of the city over
wished-for improvements to be considered, demands of the sellers of
church lands for payment to be met, and the claims of politicians to
be attended to. But Smith rarely showed any indication of compromise,
apparently convinced that his position at all points was now more secure
than it had ever been.
The big building enterprises in which the church was engaged were a
heavy tax on the people, and constant urging was necessary to keep them
up to the requirements. Thus we find an advertisement in the Wasp dated
June 25, 1842, and signed by the "Temple Recorder," saying, "Brethren,
remember that your contracts with your God are sacred; the labor is
wanted immediately." Smith referred to the discontent of the laborers,
and to some other matters, in a sermon on February 21, 1843. The
following quotations are from his own report of it. "If any man working
on the Nauvoo House is hungry, let him come to me and I will feed him
at my table... and then if the man is not satisfied I will kick his
backside.... This meeting was got up by the Nauvoo House committee. The
Pagans, Roman Catholics, Methodists and Baptists shall have place in
Nauvoo--only they must be ground in Joe Smith's mill. I have been in
their mill... and those who come here must go through my smut machine,
and that is my tongue."* The difficulty of carrying on these building
enterprises at this time was increased by the financial disturbance that
was convulsing the whole country. It was in these years that Congress
was wrestling with the questions of the deposits of the public funds,
the United States Bank, the subtreasury scheme, and the falling off of
customs and land-sale revenues, with a threatened deficit in the federal
treasury. The break-down of the Bank of the United States caused a
general failure of the banks of the Western and Southern states, and
money was so scarce at Nauvoo that one Mormon writer records the fact
that "when corn was brought to my door at ten cents a bushel, and sadly
needed, the money could not be raised."
* Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 583.
The relations between Smith and Rigdon had been strained ever since the
departure of the Mormons from Missouri. The trouble between them was
finally brought before a special conference at Nauvoo, on October 7,
1843, at which Smith stated that he had received no material benefits
from Rigdon's labors or counsel since they had left Missouri. He
presented complaints against Rigdon's management of the post-office,
brought up a charge that Rigdon had been in correspondence with General
Bennett and Governor Carlin, and offered "indirect testimony" that
Rigdon had given the Missourians information of Smith's whereabouts at
the time of his last arrest. Rigdon met these accusations, some with
denials and some with explanations, closing with a pitiful appeal to
the all-powerful head of the church, whose nod would decide the verdict,
reciting their long associations and sufferings, and signifying
his willingness to resign his position as councillor to the First
Presidency, but not concealing the pain and humiliation that such a
step would cause him. Smith became magnanimous. "He expressed entire
willingness to have Elder Rigdon retain his station, provided he
would magnify his office, and walk and conduct himself in all honesty,
righteousness and integrity; but signified his lack of confidence in his
integrity and steadfastness."* This incident once more furnishes proof
of some great power which Smith held over Rigdon that induced the latter
to associate with the prophet on these terms.
* Times and Seasons, Vol. IV, p. 330. H. C. Kimball stated
afterward at Rigdon's church trial that Smith did not accept him as an
adviser after this, but took Amasa Lyman in his place, and that it was
Hyrum Smith who induced his brother to show some apparent magnanimity.
Smith's creditors finally pressed him so hard that he attempted to
secure aid from the bankruptcy act. In this he did not succeed,* and
he was very bitter in his denunciation of the law because it was
interpreted against him. It was about this time that Smith, replying
to reports of his wealth, declared that his assets consisted of one old
horse, two pet deer, ten turkeys, an old cow, one old dog, a wife and
child, and a little household furniture. On March 1, 1843, the Council
of the Twelve wrote to the outlying branches of the church, calling
on them "to bring to our President as many loads of wheat, corn, beef,
pork, lard, tallow, eggs, poultry, venison, and everything eatable, at
your command," in order that he might be relieved of business cares and
have time to attend to their spiritual interests. It was characteristic
of Smith to find him, at a conference held the following month,
lecturing the Twelve on their own idleness, telling them it was not
necessary for them to be abroad all the time preaching and gathering
funds, but that they should spend a part of their time at home earning a
living.
* See chapter on this subject in Bennett's "History of the
Saints."
At this same conference Smith was compelled to go into the details of
a transaction which showed of how little practical use to him were his
divining and prophetic powers. A man named Remick had come to him the
previous summer and succeeded in getting from him a loan of $200 by
misrepresentation. Afterward Remick offered to give him a quit-claim
deed for all the land bought of Galland, as well as the notes which
Smith had given to Galland, and one-half of all the land that Remick
owned in Illinois and Iowa, if Smith would use his influence to build up
the city of Keokuk, Iowa. Smith actually agreed to this in writing. At
the conference he had to explain this whole affair. After alleging that
Remick was a swindler, he said: "I am not so much of a 'Christian' as
many suppose I am. When a man undertakes to ride me for a horse I feel
disposed to kick up, and throw him off and ride him. David did so, and
so did Joshua." *
* Millennial Star, Vol. XX, pp. 758-759.
The old Kirtland business troubles came up to annoy Smith from time to
time, but he always found a way to meet them. While his writ of habeas
corpus was under argument out of the city in 1841, a man presented to
him a five-dollar bill of the Kirtland Bank, and threatened to sue him
on it. As the easiest way to dispose of this matter, Smith handed the
man $5.
Smith's Ohio experience did not lessen his estimation of himself as an
authority on finance. We find him, at the meeting of the Nauvoo City
Council on February 25, 1843, denouncing the state law of Illinois
making property a legal tender for the payment of debts; asserting that
their city charter gave them authority to enact such local currency
laws as did not conflict with the federal and state constitutions, and
continuing:--
"Shall we be such fools as to be governed by their [Illinois] laws which
are unconstitutional? No. We will make a law for gold and silver; then
their law ceases, and we can collect our debts. Powers not delegated
to the states, or reserved from the states, are constitutional. The
constitution acknowledges that the people have all power not reserved to
itself. I am a lawyer. I am a big lawyer, and comprehend heaven, earth
and hell, to bring forth knowledge that shall cover up all lawyers,
doctors and other big bodies."*
*Ibid., p. 616.
Smith had his way, as usual, and on March 4, the Council passed
unanimously an ordinance making gold and silver the only legal tender
in payment of debts and fines in Nauvoo, and fixing a punishment for
the circulation of counterfeit money. Perhaps this Council never took a
broader view of its legislative authority than in this instance.
Smith never laid aside his natural inclination for good fellowship, nor
took himself too seriously while posing as a mouthpiece of the Lord.
Along with the entries recording his predictions he notes such matters
as these: "Played ball with the brethren." "Cut wood all day." A visitor
at Nauvoo, in 1843, describes him as "a jolly fellow, and one of the
last persons whom he would have supposed God would have raised up as a
Prophet."* Josiah Quincy said that Smith seemed to him to have a
keen sense of the humorous aspects of his position. "It seems to me,
General," Quincy said to him, "that you have too much power to be safely
trusted in one man." "In your hands or that of any other person," was
his reply, "so much power would no doubt be dangerous. I am the only man
in the world whom it would be safe to trust with it. Remember, I am a
prophet." "The last five words," says Quincy, "were spoken in a rich
comical aside, as if in hearty recognition of the ridiculous sound they
might have in the ears of a Gentile."**
* This same idea is presented by a writer in the Millennial Star,
Vol. XVII, p. 820: "When the fact of Smith's divine character shall
burst upon the nations, they will be struck dumb with wonder and
astonishment at the Lord's choice,--the last individual in the whole
world whom they would have chosen."
** "Figures of the Past;" p. 397.
Smith makes this entry on February 20, 1843: "While the [Municipal]
Court was in session, I saw two boys fighting in the street. I left the
business of the court, ran over immediately, caught one of the boys and
then the other, and after giving them proper instruction, I gave the
bystanders a lecture for not interfering in such cases. I returned
to the court, and told them nobody was allowed to fight in Nauvoo but
myself."
In January, 1842, Smith once more became a "storekeeper." Writing to
an absent brother on January 5, 1842, he described his building, with a
salesroom fitted up with shelves and drawers, a private office, etc.
He added that he had a fair stock, "although some individuals have
succeeded in detaining goods to a considerable amount. I have stood
behind the counter all day," he continued, "dealing out goods as
steadily as any clerk you ever saw."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, p. 21.
The following entry is found under date of June 1, 1842: "Sent Dr.
Richards to Carthage on business. On his return, old Charley, while on
a gallop, struck his knees and breast instead of his feet, fell in the
street and rolled over in an instant, and the doctor narrowly escaped
with his life. It was a trick of the devil to kill my clerk. Similar
attacks have been made upon myself of late, and Satan is seeking our
destruction on every hand."
Smith practically gave up "revealing" during his life in Nauvoo. At
Rigdon's church trial, after Smith's death, President Marks said,
"Brother Joseph told us that he, for the future, whenever there was a
revelation to be presented to the church, would first present it to the
Quorum, and then, if it passed the Quorum, it should be presented to
the church." Strong pressure must have been exerted upon the prophet
to persuade him to consent to such a restriction, and it is the only
instance of the kind that is recorded during his career. But if he did
not "reveal," he could not be prevented from uttering oral prophecies
and giving his interpretation of the Scriptures. That he had become
possessed with the idea of a speedy ending of this world seems
altogether probable. All through his autobiography he notes reports of
earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, etc., and he gives special emphasis to
accounts that reached him of "showers of flesh and blood." Under date
of February 18, 1843, he notes, "While at dinner I remarked to my family
and friends present that, when the earth was sanctified and became like
a sea of glass, it would be one great Urim and Thummim, and the Saints
could look in it and see as they are seen." Another of his wise sayings
is thus recorded, "The battle of Gog and Magog will be after the
Millennial."
In some remarks, on April 2, 1843, Smith made the one prediction that
came true, and one which has always given the greatest satisfaction to
the Saints. This was: "I prophesy in the name of the Lord God that
the commencement of the difficulties which will cause much bloodshed
previous to the coming of the Son of man will be in South Carolina.
It may probably arise through the slave trade." This prediction was
afterward amplified so as to declare that the war between the Northern
and Southern states would involve other nations in Europe, and that the
slaves would rise up against their masters. It would have been better
for his fame had he left the announcement in its original shape.
Such is the picture of Smith the prophet as drawn by himself. Of the
rumors about the Mormons, current in all the counties near Nauvoo, which
cannot be proved by Mormon testimony there were hundreds.
CHAPTER IX. -- SMITH'S FALLING OUT WITH BENNETT AND HIGBEE
Surprise has been expressed that Smith would permit the newcomer,
General John C. Bennett, to be elected the first mayor of Nauvoo under
the new charter. Much less surprising is the fact that a falling-out
soon occurred between them which led to the withdrawal of Bennett
from the church on May 17, 1842, and made for the prophet an enemy who
pursued him with a method and vindictiveness that he had not before
encountered from any of those who had withdrawn, or been driven, from
the church fellowship.
The exact nature of the dispute between the two men has never been
explained. That personal jealousy entered into it there is little doubt.
Smith never had submitted to any real division of his supreme authority,
and when Bennett entered the fold as political lobbyist, mayor, major
general, etc., a clash seemed unavoidable. It was stated, during
Rigdon's church trial after Smith's death, that Bennett declared, at
the first conference he attended at Nauvoo, that he sustained the same
position in the First Presidency that the Holy Ghost does to the Father
and the Son; and that, after Smith's death, Bennett visited Nauvoo, and
proposed to Rigdon that the latter assume Smith's place in the church,
and let Bennett assume that which had been occupied by Rigdon.*
* Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 655.
The Mormon explanation given at the time of Bennett's expulsion was that
some of their travelling elders in the Eastern states discovered that
the general had a wife and family there while he was paying attention
to young ladies in Nauvoo; but a very slight acquaintance with Smith's
ideas on the question of morality at that time is needed to indicate
that this was an afterthought. The course of the church authorities
showed that they were ready to every way qualified to be a useful
citizen. Smith directed the clerk of the church to permit Bennett to
withdraw "if he desires to do so, and this with the best of feelings
toward you and General Bennett." But as soon as Bennett began his
attacks on Smith the church made haste to withdraw the hand of
fellowship from him, and framed a formal writ of excommunication, and
Smith could not find enough phials of wrath to pour upon him. Thus, in a
statement published in the Times and Seasons of July 1, 1842, he called
Bennett "an impostor and a base adulterer," brought up the story of
his having a wife in Ohio, and charged that he taught women that it was
proper to have promiscuous intercourse with men.
As soon as Bennett left Nauvoo he began the publication of a series of
letters in the Sangamon (Illinois) Journal, which purported to give
an inside view of the Mormon designs, and the personal character and
practices of the church leaders. These were widely copied, and seem to
have given people in the East their first information that Smith was
anything worse than a religious pretender. Bennett also started East
lecturing on the same subject, and he published in Boston in the same
year a little book called "History of the Saints; or an Expose of
Joe Smith and Mormonism," containing, besides material which he had
collected, copious extracts from the books of Howe and W. Harris.
Bennett declared that he had never believed in any of the Mormon
doctrines, but that, forming the opinion that their leaders were
planning to set up "a despotic and religious empire" over the territory
included in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, he decided
to join them, learn their secrets, and expose them. Bennett's personal
rascality admits of no doubt, and not the least faith need be placed in
this explanation of his course, which, indeed, is disproved by his later
efforts to regain power in the church. It does seem remarkable, however,
that neither the Lord nor his prophet knew anything about Bennett's
rascality, and that they should select him, among others, for special
mention in the long revelation of January 19, 1841, wherein the Lord
calls him "my servant," and directs him to help Smith "in sending my
word to the kings of the people of the earth." There is no doubt
that Bennett obtained an inside view of Smith's moral, political, and
religious schemes, and that, while his testimony un-corroborated might
be questioned, much that he wrote was amply confirmed.
According to Bennett's statements, Mormon society at Nauvoo was
organized licentiousness. There were "Cyprian Saints," "Chartered
Sisters of Charity," and "Cloistered Saints," or spiritual wives, all
designed to pander to the passions of church members. Of the system
of "spiritual wives" (which was set forth in the revelation concerning
polygamy), Bennett says in his book:
"When an Apostle, High Priest, Elder or Scribe conceives an affection
for a female, and he has satisfactorily ascertained that she experiences
a mutual claim, he communicates confidentially to the Prophet his
affaire du coeur, and requests him to inquire of the Lord whether or not
it would be right and proper for him to take unto himself the said woman
for his spiritual wife. It is no obstacle whatever to this spiritual
marriage if one or both of the parties should happen to have a husband
or wife already united to them according to the laws of the land."
Bennett alleged that Smith forced him, at the point of a pistol, to
sign an affidavit stating that Smith had no part in the practice of
the spiritual wife doctrine; but Bennett's later disclosures went into
minute particulars of alleged attempts of Smith to secure "spiritual
wives," a charge which the commandments to the prophet's wife in the
"revelation" on polygamy amply sustain. A leading illustration cited
concerned the wife of Orson Pratt.* According to the story as told
(largely in Mrs. Pratt's words), Pratt was sent to England on a mission
to get him out of the way, and then Smith used every means in his power
to secure Mrs. Pratt's consent to his plan, but in vain. Nancy Rigdon,
the eldest unmarried daughter of Sidney Rigdon, was another alleged
intended victim of the prophet, and Bennett said that Smith offered him
$500 in cash, or a choice lot, if he would assist in the plot. One day,
when Smith was alone with her, he pressed his request so hard that she
threatened to cry for help. The continuation of the story is not by
General Bennett, but is taken from a letter to James A. Bennett, he of
"Arlington House," dated Nauvoo, July 27, 1842, by George W. Robinson,
one of Smith's fellow prisoners in Independence jail, and one of the
generals of the Nauvoo Legion:--
* Ebenezer Robinson says that when Orson Pratt returned from his
mission to England, and learned of the teaching of the spiritual wife
doctrine, his mind gave way. One day he disappeared, and a search party
found him five miles below Nauvoo, hatless, seated on the bank of the
river.--The Return, Vol. II, p. 363.
"She left him with disgust, and came home and told her father of the
transaction; upon which Smith was sent for. He came. She told the tale
in the presence of all the family, and to Smith's face. I was present.
Smith attempted to deny at first, and face her down with a lie; but she
told the facts with so much earnestness, and the fact of a letter being
proved which he had caused to be written to her on the same subject, the
day after the attempt made on her virtue, breathing the same spirit, and
which he had fondly hoped was destroyed, all came with such force that
he could not withstand the testimony; and he then and there acknowledged
that every word of Miss Rigdon's testimony was true. Now for his excuse.
He wished to ascertain if she was virtuous or not!"
To offset this damaging attack on Smith, a man named Markham was induced
to make an affidavit assailing Miss Rigdon's character, which was
published in the Wasp. But Markham's own character was so bad, and the
charge caused so much indignation, that the editor was induced to say
that the affidavit was not published by the prophet's direction.
Bennett's charges aroused great interest among the non-Mormons in all
the counties around Nauvoo, and increased the growing enmity against
Smith's flock which was already aroused by their political course and
their alleged propensity to steal.
A minor incident among those leading up to Smith's final catastrophe was
a quarrel, some time later, between the prophet and Francis M. Higbee.
This resulted in a suit for libel against Smith, tried in May, 1844,
in which much testimony disclosing the rotten condition of affairs
in Nauvoo was given, and in the arrest of Smith in a suit for $5000
damages. The hearing, on a writ of habeas corpus, in Smith's behalf,
is reported in Times and Seasons, Vol. V, No. 10. The court (Smith's
Municipal Court) ordered Smith discharged, and pronounced Higbee's
character proved "infamous."
CHAPTER X. -- THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY
The student of the history of the Mormon church to this date, who seeks
an answer to the question, Who originated the idea of plural marriages
among the Mormons? will naturally credit that idea to Joseph Smith,
Jr. The Reorganized Church (non-polygamist), whose membership includes
Smith's direct descendants, defend the prophet's memory by alleging
that "in the brain of J. C. Bennett was conceived the idea, and in
his practice was the principle first introduced into the church."
In maintaining this ground, however, they contend that "the official
character of President Joseph Smith should be judged by his official
ministrations as set forth in the well authenticated accepted official
documents of the church up to June 27, 1844. His personal, private
conduct should not enter into this discussion."* The secular
investigator finds it necessary to disregard this warning, and in
studying the question he discovers an incontrovertible mass of testimony
to prove that the "revelation" concerning polygamy was a production of
Smith,** was familiar to the church leaders in Nauvoo, and was lived up
to by them before their expulsion from Illinois.
* Pamphlets Nos. 16 and 46 published by the Reorganized Church.
** "Elder W. W. Phelps said in Salt Lake Tabernacle in 1862 that
while Joseph was translating the Book of Abraham in Kirtland, Ohio,
in 1835, from the papyrus found with the Egyptian mummies, the Prophet
became impressed with the idea that polygamy would yet become an
institution of the Mormon Church. Brigham Young was present, and was
much annoyed at the statement made by Phelps; but it is highly probable
that it was the real secret that the latter then divulged."--"Rocky
Mountain Saints," p. 182.
The Book of Mormon furnishes ample proof that the idea of plural
marriages was as far from any thought of the real "author" of the
doctrinal part of that book as it was from the mind of Rigdon's
fellow-Disciples in Ohio at the time. The declarations on the subject in
the Mormon Bible are so worded that they distinctly forbid any following
of the example of Old Testament leaders like David and Solomon. In the
Book of Jacob ii. 24-28, we find these commands: "Behold, David and
Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable
before me saith the Lord; wherefore, thus with the Lord, I have led this
people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm,
that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the
loins of Joseph.
"Wherefore, I, the Lord God, will not suffer that this people shall do
like unto them of old. Wherefore my brethren, hear me, and hearken to
the word of the Lord; for there shall not any man among you hath save
it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none; for I, the Lord God,
delighteth in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination
before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts."
The same view is expressed in the Book of Mosiah, where, among the sins
of King Noah, it is mentioned that "he spent his time in riotous living
with his wives and concubines," and in the Book of Ether x. 5, where it
is said that "Riplakish did not do that which was right in the sight of
the Lord, for he did have many wives and concubines."
Smith, at the beginning of his career as a prophet, inculcated the same
views on this subject in his "revelations." Thus, in the one dated at
Kirtland, February 9, 1831, it was commanded (Sec. 42), "Thou shalt love
thy wife with all thy heart, and shall cleave unto her and none else;
and he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her shall deny the faith,
and shall not have the spirit, and if he repents not he shall be cast
out." In another "revelation," dated the following month (Sec. 49), it
was declared, "Wherefore it is lawful that he should have one wife, and
they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might
answer the end of its creation."* These teachings may be with justness
attributed to Rigdon, and we shall see on how little ground rests a
carelessly made charge that he was the originator of the "spiritual
wife" notion.
"It is the strongest proof of the firm hold of a party, whether
religious or political, upon the public mind, when it may offend with
impunity against its own primary principles." MILMAN, "History of
Christianity."
That there was a loosening of the views regarding the marriage tie
almost as soon as Smith began his reign at Kirtland can be shown on
abundant proof. Booth in one of his letters said, "it has been made
known to one who has left his wife in New York State, that he is
entirely free from his wife, and he is at pleasure to take him a
wife from among the Lamanites" (Indians).* That reports of polygamous
practices among the Mormons while they were in Ohio were current was
conceded in the section on marriage, inserted in the Kirtland edition of
the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants"--"Inasmuch as this Church of Christ
has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy," etc.;
and is further proved by Smith's denial in the Elders' Journal,** and
by the declaration of the Presidents of the Seventies, withholding
fellowship with any elder "who is guilty of polygamy."
* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled."
** p. 157, ante.
Of the enmity of the higher powers toward transgressors of the law
of morality of this time, we find an amusing (some will say shocking)
mention in Smith's "revelation" of October 25, 1831 (Sec. 66). This
"revelation" (announced as the words of "the Lord your Redeemer, the
Saviour of the world") was addressed to W. E. McLellin (who was soon
after "rebuked" by the prophet for attempting to have a "revelation" on
his own account). It declared that McLellin was "blessed for receiving
mine everlasting covenant," directed him to go forth and preach, gave
him power to heal the sick, and then added, "Commit no adultery, a
temptation with which thou hast been troubled." Could religious bouffe
go to greater lengths?
Testimony as to the liberal Mormon view of the marriage relation while
the church was in Missouri is found in the case of one Lyon, reported
by Smith on page 148 of Vol. XVI of the Millennial Star. Lyon was the
presiding high priest of one of the outlying branches of the church.
Desiring to marry a Mrs. Jackson, whose husband was absent in the East,
Lyon announced a "revelation," ordering the marriage to take place,
telling her that he knew by revelation that her husband was dead. He
gained her consent in this way, but, before the ceremony was performed,
Jackson returned home, and, learning of Lyon's conduct, he had him
brought before the authorities for trial. The high priest was found
guilty enough to be deposed from his office, but not from his church
membership.
There is abundant testimony from Mormon sources to show that the
doctrine of polygamy, with the "spiritual wife" adjunct, was practised
in Nauvoo for some time before Joseph Smith's death. A very orthodox
Mormon witness on this point is Eliza R. Snow. In her biography of her
brother, Lorenzo Snow,* the recent head of the church, she gives this
account of her connection with polygamy:
* "This biography and autobiography of my brother Lorenzo Snow
has been written as a tribute of sisterly affection for him, and as a
token of sincere respect to his family. It is designed to be handed down
in lineal descent, from generation to generation,--to be preserved as a
family memorial."--Extract from the preface.
"While my brother was absent on this [his first] mission to Europe
[1840-1843], changes had taken place with me, one of eternal import,
of which I supposed him to be entirely ignorant. The Prophet Joseph
had taught me the principle of plural or celestial marriage, and I was
married to him for time and eternity. In consequence of the ignorance of
most of the Saints, as well as people of the world, on this subject,
it was not mentioned, only privately between the few whose minds were
enlightened on the subject. Not knowing how my brother [he returned on
April 12, 1843] would receive it, I did not feel at liberty, and did not
wish to assume the responsibility, of instructing him in the principle
of plural marriage.... I informed my husband [the prophet] of the
situation, and requested him to open the subject to my brother. A
favorable opportunity soon presented, and, seated together on the bank
of the Mississippi River, they had a most interesting conversation.
The prophet afterward told me he found that my brother's mind had been
previously enlightened on the subject in question. That Comforter which
Jesus says shall I lead unto all truth had penetrated his understanding,
and, while in England, had given him an intimation of what at that time
was to many a secret. This was the result of living near the Lord.
"It was at the private interview referred to above that the Prophet
Joseph unbosomed his heart, and described the trying ordeal he
experienced in overcoming the repugnance of his feelings, the natural
result of the force of education and social custom, relative to the
introduction of plural marriage. He knew the voice of God--he knew the
command of the Almighty to him was to go forward--to set the example and
establish celestial plural marriage.... Yet the prophet hesitated and
deferred from time to time, until an angel of God stood by him with a
drawn sword, and told him that, unless he moved forward and established
plural marriage, his priesthood would be taken from him and he should
be destroyed. This testimony he not only bore to my brother, but also to
others."*
* "Biography of Lorenzo Snow" (1884), pp. 68-70. Young married
some of Smith's spiritual widows after the prophet's death, and four
of them, including Eliza Snow, appear in Crockwell's illustrated
"Biographies of Young's Wives," published in Utah.
Catherine Lewis, who, after passing two years with the Mormons, escaped
from Nauvoo, after taking the preliminary degrees of the endowment,
says: "The Twelve took Joseph's wives after his death. Kimball and Young
took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph's wives.
I heard her say to her mother: 'I will never be sealed to my father
[meaning as a wife], and I would never have been sealed [married] to
Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and
they deceived me by saying the salvation of our whole family depended
on it.' The Apostles said they only took Joseph's wives to raise up
children, carry them through to the next world, and there deliver them
up to him; by so doing they would gain his approbation."--"Narrative
of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons." Smith's versatility as a
fabricator seems to give him a leading place in that respect in the
record of mankind. Snow says that he asked the prophet to set him right
if he should see him indulging in any practice that might lead him
astray, and the prophet assured him that he would never be guilty of
any serious error. "It was one of Snow's peculiarities," observes his
sister, "to do nothing by halves"; and he exemplified this in this
instance by having two wives "sealed" to him at the same time in 1845,
adding two more very soon afterward, and another in 1848. "It was
distinctly understood," says his sister, "and agreed between them, that
their marriage relations should not, for the time being, be divulged to
the world."
The testimony of John D. Lee in regard to the practice of polygamy in
Illinois is very circumstantial, and Lee was a conscientious polygamist
to the day of his death. He says* that he was directed in this matter by
principle and not by passion, and goes on to explain:--
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 200
"In those days I did not always make due allowance for the failings of
the weaker vessels. I then expected perfection in all women. I know now
that I was foolish in looking for that in anything human. I have, for
slight offences, turned away good-meaning young women that had been
sealed to me, and refused to hear their excuses, but sent them away
brokenhearted. In this I did wrong. I have regretted the same in sorrow
for many years .... Should my history ever fall into the hands of
Emeline Woolsey or Polly Ann Workman, I wish them to know that, with my
last breath, I asked God to pardon me the wrong I did them, when I drove
them from me, poor young girls as they were"
Lee says that in the winter of 1843-1844 Smith set one Sidney Hay Jacobs
to writing a pamphlet giving selections from the Scriptures bearing on
the practice of polygamy and advocating that doctrine. The appearance
of this pamphlet created so much unfavorable comment (even Hyrum Smith
denouncing it "as from beneath") that Joseph deemed it best to condemn
it in the Wasp, although men in his confidence were busy advocating its
teachings.
The "revelation" sanctioning plural marriages is dated July 12, 1843,
and Lee says that Smith "dared not proclaim it publicly," but taught it
"confidentially," urging his followers "to surrender themselves to God"
for their salvation; and "in the winter of 1845, meetings were held
all over the city of Nauvoo, and the spirit of Elijah was taught in the
different families, as a foundation to the order of celestial marriage,
as well as the law of adoption."* The Saints were also taught that
Gentiles had no right to perform the marriage ceremony, and that their
former marriage relations were invalid, and that they could be "sealed"
to new wives under the authority of the church.
*"Mormonism Unveiled," p. 165.
Lee gives a complete record of his plural marriages, which is
interesting, showing how the business was conducted at the start. His
second wife, the daughter of a wealthy farmer near Quincy, Illinois, was
"sealed" to him in Nauvoo in 1845, after she had been an inmate of his
house for three months. His third and fourth wives were "sealed" to him
soon after, but Young took a fancy to wife No. 3 (who had borne Lee a
son), and, after much persuasion, she was "sealed" to Young. At this
same "sealing" Lee took wife No. 4, a girl whom he had baptized in
Tennessee. In the spring of 1845 two sisters of his first wife AND THEIR
MOTHER were "sealed" to him; he married the mother, he says, "for the
salvation of her eternal state." At the completion of the Nauvoo Temple
he took three more wives. At Council Bluffs, in 1847, Brigham Young
"sealed" him to three more, two of them sisters, in one night, and he
secured the fourteenth soon after, the fifteenth in 1851, the sixteenth
in 1856, the seventeenth in 1858 ("a dashing young bride"), the
eighteenth in 1859, and the nineteenth and last in Salt Lake City. He
says he claimed "only eighteen true wives," as he married Mrs. Woolsey
"for her soul's sake, and she was nearly sixty years old." By these
wives he had sixty-four children, of whom fifty-four were living when
his book was written.
Ebenezer Robinson, explaining in the Return a statement signed by him
and his wife in October, 1842, to offset Bennett's charges, in which
they declared that they "knew of no other form of marriage ceremony"
except the one in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," said that this
statement was then true, as the heads of the church had not yet taught
the new system to others. But they had heard it talked of, and the
prophet's brother, Don Carlos, in June, 1841, had said to Robinson, "Any
man who will teach and practise spiritual wifery will go to hell, no
matter if it is my brother Joseph." Hyrum Smith, who first opposed the
doctrine, went to Robinson's house in December, 1843, and taught the
system to him and his wife. Robinson was told of the "revelation" to
Joseph a few days after its date, and just as he was leaving Nauvoo on a
mission to New York. He, Law, and William Marks opposed the innovation.
He continues: "We returned home from that mission the latter part of
November, 1843. Soon after our return, I was told that when we were
gone the 'revelation' was presented to and read in the High Council in
Nauvoo, three of the members of which refused to accept it as from the
Lord, President Marks, Cowles, and Counsellor Leonard Soby." Cowles at
once resigned from the High Council and the Presidency of the church at
Nauvoo, and was looked on as a seceder.
Robinson gives convincing testimony that, as early as 1843, the
ceremonies of the Endowment House were performed in Nauvoo by a secret
organization called "The Holy Order," and says that in June, 1844, he
saw John Taylor clad in an endowment robe. He quotes a letter to
himself from Orson Hyde, dated September 19, 1844, in which Hyde refers
guardedly to the new revelation and the "Holy Order" as "the charge
which the prophet gave us," adding, "and we know that Elder Rigdon does
not know what it was." *
* The Return, Vol. II, p. 252.
We may find the following references to this subject in Smith's diary:
"April 29, 1842. The Lord makes manifest to me many things which it is
not wisdom for me to make public until others can witness the proof of
them."
"May 1. I preached in the grove on the Keys of the Kingdom, etc.
The Keys are certain signs and words by which the false spirits and
personages can be detected from true, and which cannot be revealed to
the Elders till the Temple is completed."
"May 4. I spent the day in the upper part of my store... in council with
(Hyrum, Brigham Young and others) instructing them in the principles
and order of the Priesthood, attending to washings, anointings,
endowments.... The communications I made to this Council were of things
spiritual, and to be received only by the spiritually minded; and there
was nothing made known to these men but what will be made known to all
the Saints of the last days as soon as they are prepared to receive, and
a proper place is prepared to communicate them." *
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, pp. 390-393.
In one of Smith's dissertations, which are inserted here and there in
his diary, is the following under date of August, 1842:--
"If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will be added. So
with Solomon. First he asked wisdom and God gave it to him, and with
it every desire of his heart, even things which might be considered
abominable to all who understand the order of heaven only in part, but
which in reality were right, because God gave and sanctioned them by
special revelation." *
* Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, p. 774.
While the Mormon leaders, Lorenzo Snow and others, were in the Utah
penitentiary after conviction under the Edmunds antipolygamy law,
refusing pardons on condition that they would give up the practice of
polygamy, the Deseret News of May 20, 1886, printed an affidavit made
on February 16, 1874, at the request of Joseph F. Smith, by William
Clayton, who was a clerk in the prophet's office in Nauvoo and temple
recorder, to show the world that "the martyred prophet is responsible to
God and the world for this doctrine." The affidavit recites that while
Clayton and the prophet were taking a walk, in February, 1843, Smith
first broached to him the subject of plural marriages, and told him
that the doctrine was right in the sight of God, adding, "It is your
privilege to have all the wives you want." He gives the names of a
number of the wives whom Smith married at this time, adding that his
wife Emma "was cognizant of the fact of some, if not all, of these being
his wives, and she generally treated them very kindly." He says that
on July 12, 1843, Hyrum offered to read the "revelation" to Emma if the
prophet would write it out, saying, "I believe I can convince her of its
truth, and you will hereafter have peace." Joseph smiled, and remarked,
"You do not know Emma as well as I do," but he thereupon dictated the
"revelation" and Clayton wrote it down. An examination of its text
will show how largely it was devoted to Emma's subjugation. When Hyrum
returned from reading it to the prophet's lawful wife, he said that "he
had never received a more severe talking to in his life; that Emma
was very bitter and full of resentment and anger." Joseph repeated
his remark that his brother did not know Emma as well as he did, and,
putting the "revelation" into his pocket, they went out. *
* Jepson's "Historical Record," Vol. VI, pp. 233-234, gives the
names of twenty-seven women who, "besides a few others about whom we
have been unable to get all the necessary information, were sealed to
the Prophet Joseph during the last three years of his life."
"At the present time," says Stenhouse ("Rocky Mountain Saints"), p.
185, "there are probably about a dozen sisters in Utah who proudly
acknowledge themselves to be the `wives of Joseph, 'and how many
others there may be who held that relationship no man knoweth.'" At
the conference in Salt Lake City on August 28, 1852, at which the first
public announcement of the revelation was made, Brigham Young said in
the course of his remarks: "Though that doctrine has not been preached
by the Elders, this people have believed in it for many years.* The
original copy of this revelation was burned up. William Clayton was the
man who wrote it from the mouth of the Prophet. In the meantime it was
in Bishop Whitney's possession. He wished the privilege to copy it,
which brother Joseph granted. Sister Emma burnt the original." The
"revelation," he added, had been locked up for years in his desk, on
which he had a patent lock.**
* As evidence that polygamy was not countenanced by Smith and his
associates in Nauvoo, there has been cited a notice in the Times and
Seasons of February, 1844, signed by Joseph and Hyrum Smith, cutting off
an elder named Brown for preaching "polygamy and other false and corrupt
doctrines," and a letter of Hyrum, dated March 15, 1844, threatening to
deprive of his license and membership any elder who preached "that a man
having a certain priesthood may have as many wives as he pleases." The
Deseret News of May 20, 1886, noticing these and other early denials,
justifies the falsehoods, saying that "Jesus enjoined his Disciples on
several occasions to keep to themselves principles that he made known
to them," that the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" gave the same
instruction, and that the elders, as the "revelation" was not yet
promulgated, "were justified in denying those imputations, and at the
same time avoiding the avowal of such doctrines as were not yet intended
for this world." P. P. Pratt flatly denied, in England, in 1846, that
any such doctrine was known or practised by the Saints, and John Taylor
(afterward the head of the church), in a discussion in France in
July, 1850, declared that "these things are too outrageous to admit of
belief." The latter false statements would be covered by the excuse of
the Deseret News.
** Deseret News, extra, September 14, 1852. Young declared in a
sermon in Salt Lake City in July, 1855, that he was among the doubters
when the prophet revealed the new doctrine, saying: "It was the first
time in my life that I desired the grave, and I could hardly get over
it for a long time.... And I have had to examine myself from that day to
this, and watch my faith and carefully meditate, lest I should be
found desiring the grave more than I ought to." His examinations proved
eminently successful.
Further proof is not needed to show that this doctrine was the
offspring of Joseph Smith, and that its original object was to grant him
unrestricted indulgence of his passions.
Justice to Sidney Rigdon requires that his memory should be cleared
of the charge, which has been made by more than one writer, that the
spiritual wife doctrine was of his invention. There is the strongest
evidence to show that it was Smith's knowledge that he could not win
Rigdon over to polygamy which made the prophet so bitter against his old
counsellor, and that it was Rigdon's opposition to the new doctrine that
made Young so determined to drive him out of church after the prophet's
death.
When Rigdon returned to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, to establish his own
Mormon church there, he began in October, 1844, the publication of a
revived Latter-Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate. Stating "the
greater cause" of the opposition of the leaders of Nauvoo to him, in an
editorial, he said:--
"Know then that the so-called Twelve Apostles at Nauvoo are now teaching
the doctrine of what is called Spiritual Wives; that a man may have more
wives than one; and they are not only teaching it, but practising it,
and this doctrine is spreading alarmingly through that apostate branch
of the church of Latter-Day Saints. Their greatest objection to us was
our opposition to this doctrine, knowing, as they did, that we had got
the fact in possession. It created alarm, great alarm; every effort was
made while we were there to effect something that might screen them from
the consequence of exposure....
"This doctrine of a man having more wives than one is the cause which
has induced these men to put at defiance the ecclesiastical arrangements
of the church, and, what is equally criminal, to do despite unto the
moral excellence of the doctrine and covenants of the church, setting
up an order of things of their own, in violation of all the rules and
regulations known to the Saints."
In the same editorial Rigdon prints a statement by a gentleman who was
at Nauvoo at the time, and for whose veracity he vouches, which said,
"It was said to me by many that they had no objection to Elder Rigdon
but his opposition to the spiritual wife system."
Benjamin Winchester, who was one of the earliest missionaries sent out
from Kirtland, adds this testimony in a letter to Elder John Hardy of
Boston, Massachusetts, whose trial in 1844 for opposing the spiritual
wife doctrine occasioned wide comment:
"As regards the trial of Elder Rigdon at Nauvoo, it was a forced affair,
got up by the Twelve to get him out of their way, that they might the
better arrogate to themselves higher authority than they ever had, or
anybody ever dreamed they would have; and also (as they perhaps hope) to
prevent a complete expose of the spiritual wife system, which they knew
would deeply implicate themselves."
CHAPTER XI. -- PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY
Although there was practically no concealment of the practice of polygamy
by the Mormons resident in Utah after their arrival there, it was not
until five years from that date that open announcement was made by the
church of the important "revelation." This "revelation" constitutes Sec.
132 of the modern edition of the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants,"
and bears this heading: "Revelation on the Eternity of the Marriage
Covenant, including Plurality of Wives. Given through Joseph, the Seer,
in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, July 12, 1843." All its essential
parts are as follows:
"Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that inasmuch
as you have inquired of my hand, to know and understand wherein I, the
Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; as also Moses,
David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine
of their having many wives and concubines:
"Behold! and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching
this matter:
"Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which
I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed
unto them must obey the same;
"For behold! I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and
if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject
this covenant, and be permitted to enter into my glory;
"For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which
was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were
instituted from before the foundation of the world:
"And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was
instituted for the fullness of my glory; and he that receiveth a
fullness thereof, must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned,
saith the Lord God.
"And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these:
All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances,
connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made, and
entered into, and sealed, by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is
anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most
holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed,
whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have
appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days,
and there is never but one on the earth at a time, on whom this power
and the keys of this Priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy,
virtue, or force, in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all
contracts that are not made unto this end, have an end when men are
dead....
"I am the Lord thy God, and I give unto you this commandment, that no
man shall come unto the Father but by me, or by my word, which is my
law, saith the Lord;...
"Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not
by me, nor by my word; and he covenant with her so long as he is in the
world, and she with him, their covenant and marriage are not of force
when they are dead, and when they are out of the world; therefore, they
are not bound by any law when they are out of the world;
"Therefore, when they are out of the world, they neither marry, nor are
given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels
are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far
more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory;
"For these angels did not abide my law, therefore they cannot be
enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their
saved condition, to all eternity, and from henceforth are not Gods, but
are angels of God, for ever and ever.
"And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife, and make a
covenant with her for time and for all eternity, if that covenant is
not by me, or by my word, which is my law, and is not sealed by the Holy
Spirit of promise, through him whom I have anointed, and appointed unto
this power--then it is not valid, neither of force when they are out of
the world, because they are not joined by me, saith the Lord, neither
by my word; when they are out of the world, it cannot be received there,
because the angels and the Gods are appointed there, by whom they cannot
pass; they cannot, therefore, inherit my glory, for my house is a house
of order, saith the Lord God.
"And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word,
which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is
sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed,
unto whom I have appointed this power, and the keys of this Priesthood;
and it shall be said unto them, ye shall come forth in the first
resurrection; and if it be after the first resurrection, in the next
resurrection; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and
powers, dominions, all heights and depths--then shall it be written in
the Lamb's Book of Life, that he shall commit no murder whereby to shed
innocent blood, and if ye abide in my covenant, and commit no murder
whereby to shed innocent blood, it shall be done unto them in all things
whatsoever my servant hath put upon them, in time, and through all
eternity, and shall be of full force when they are out of the world;
and they shall pass by the angels, and the Gods, which are set there, to
their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their
heads, which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds
for ever and ever.
"Then shall they be Gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they
be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall
they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall
they be Gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject
unto them.
"Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye abide my law, ye cannot attain
to this glory;...
"And verily, verily I say unto you, that whatsoever you seal on earth,
shall be sealed in Heaven; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in my
name, and by my word, with the Lord, it shall be eternally bound in
the heavens; and whosesoever sins you remit on earth shall be remitted
eternally in the heavens; and whosesoever sins you retain on earth,
shall be retained in heaven.
"And again, verily I say, whomsoever you bless, I will bless, and
whomsoever you curse, I will curse, with the Lord; for I, the Lord, am
thy God....
"Verily I say unto you, a commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma
Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself, and
partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did
it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham; and that I might
require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.
"And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been
given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before
me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be
destroyed, with the Lord God;
"For I am the Lord, thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto
my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things, for
he hath been faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will
strengthen him.
"And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto
my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this
commandment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord
thy God, and will destroy her, if she abide not in my law;
"But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant
Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him
and multiply him, and give unto him an hundred fold in this world, of
fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and
children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.
"And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph
his trespasses; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein
she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her,
and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice....
"And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood, if any man
espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her
consent; and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have
vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery,
for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that
that belongeth unto him and to no one else.
"And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit
adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him, therefore
is he justified.
"But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall
be with another man; she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed;
for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth,
according to my commandment, and to fulfill the promise which was
given by my Father before the foundation of the world; and for their
exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men;
for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.
"And again, verily, verily I say unto you, if any man have a wife who
holds the keys of this power, and he teacheth unto her the law of my
priesthood, as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe, and
administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God,
for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon all those who
receive and abide in my law.
"Therefore, it shall be lawful in me, if she receive not this law, for
him to receive all things, whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will give
unto him, because she did not administer unto him according to my word;
and she then becomes the transgressor; and he is exempt from the law
of Sarah; who administered unto Abraham according to the law, when I
commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife.
"And now, as pertaining to this law, verily, verily I say unto you, I
will reveal more unto you, hereafter; therefore, let this suffice for
the present. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen."
This jumble of doctrinal and family commands bears internal evidence of
the truth of Clayton's account of its offhand dictation with a view to
its immediate submission to the prophet's wife, who was already in a
state of rebellion because of his infidelities.
The publication of the "revelation" was made at a Church Conference
which opened in Salt Lake City on August 28, 1852, and was called
especially to select elders for missionary work.* At the beginning of
the second day's session Orson Pratt announced that, unexpectedly,
he had been called on to address the conference on the subject of a
plurality of wives. "We shall endeavor," he said, "to set forth before
this enlightened assembly some of the causes why the Almighty has
revealed such a doctrine, and why it is considered a part and portion of
our religious faith."
*For text of the addresses at this conference, see Deseret News,
extra, September 14, 1852.
He then took up the attitude of the church, as a practiser of this
doctrine, toward the United States government, saying:--
"I believe that they will not, under our present form of government
(I mean the government of the United States), try us for treason for
believing and practising our religious notions and ideas. I think, if I
am not mistaken, that the constitution gives the privilege to all of
the inhabitants of this country, of the free exercise of their religious
notions, and the freedom of their faith and the practice of it. Then,
if it can be proved to a demonstration that the Latter-Day Saints have
actually embraced, as a part and portion of their religion, the doctrine
of a plurality of wives, it is constitutional. And should there ever be
laws enacted by this government to restrict them from the free exercise
of their religion, such laws must be unconstitutional."
Thus, at this early date in the history of Utah, was stated the Mormon
doctrine of the constitutional foundation of this belief, and, in
the views then stated, may be discovered the reason for the bitter
opposition which the Mormon church is still making to a constitutional
amendment specifically declaring that polygamy is a violation of the
fundamental law of the United States.
Pratt then spoke at great length on the necessity and rightfulness of
polygamy. Taking up the doctrine of a previous existence of all souls
and a kind of nobility among the spirits, he said that the most likely
place for the noblest spirits to take their tabernacles was among the
Saints, and he continued:--"Now let us inquire what will become of
those individuals who have this law taught unto them in plainness, if
they reject it." (A voice in the stand "They will be damned.") "I will
tell you. They will be damned, saith the Lord, in the revelation he hath
given. Why? Because, where much is given, much is required. Where there
is great knowledge unfolded for the exaltation, glory and happiness of
the sons and daughters of God, if they close up their hearts, if they
reject the testimony of his word and will, and do not give heed to the
principles he has ordained for their good, they are worthy of damnation,
and the Lord has said they shall be damned."
After Brigham Young had made a statement concerning the history of the
"revelation," already referred to, the "revelation" itself was read.
The Millennial Star (Liverpool) published the proceedings of this
conference in a supplement to its Volume XV, and the text of the
"revelation" in its issue of January 1, 1853, saying editorially in the
next number:--
"None [of the revelations] seem to penetrate so deep, or be so well
calculated to shake to its very center the social structure which has
been reared and vainly nurtured by this professedly wise and Christian
generation; none more conclusively exhibit how surely an end must come
to all the works, institutions, ordinances and covenants of men; none
more portray the eternity of God's purpose--and, we may say, none have
carried so mighty an influence, or had the power to stamp their divinity
upon the mind by absorbing every feeling of the soul, to the extent of
the one which has appeared in our last."
With the Mormon church in England, however, the publication of the
new doctrine proved a bombshell, as is shown by the fact that 2164
excommunications in the British Isles were reported to the semi-annual
conference of December 31, 1852, and 1776 to the conference of the
following June.
The doctrine of "sealing" has been variously stated. According to one
early definition, the man and the woman who are to be properly mated are
selected in heaven in a pre-existent state; if, through a mistake in an
earthly marriage, A has got the spouse intended for B, the latter may
consider himself a husband to Mrs. A. Another early explanation which
may be cited was thus stated by Henry Rowe in the Boston Investigator
of, February 3, 1845:--
"The spiritual wife doctrine I will explain, as taught me by Elder W--e,
as taught by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Elder Adams, William Smith,
and the rest of the Quorum, etc., etc. Joseph had a revelation from God
that there were a number of spirits to be born into the world before
their exaltation in the next; that Christ would not come until all these
spirits received or entered their 'tabernacles of clay'; that these
spirits were hovering around the world, and at the door of bad houses,
watching a chance of getting into their tabernacles; that God had
provided an honorable way for them to come forth--that was, by the
Elders in Israel sealing up virtuous women; and as there was no
provision made for woman in the Scriptures, their only chance of heaven
was to be sealed up to some Elder for time and eternity, and be a star
in his crown forever; that those who were the cause of bringing forth
these spirits would receive a reward, the ratio of which reward should
be the greater or less according to the number they were the means of
bringing forth."
Brigham Young's definition of "spiritual wifeism" was thus expressed:
"And I would say, as no man can be perfect without the woman, so no
woman can be perfect without a man to lead her. I tell you the truth as
it is in the bosom of eternity; and I say to every man upon the face of
the earth, if he wishes to be saved, he cannot be saved without a
woman by his side. This is spiritual wifeism, that is, the doctrine of
spiritual wives."*
* Times and Seasons, Vol. VI, p. 955.
The Mormon, under polygamy, was taught that he "married" for time,
but was "sealed" for eternity. The "sealing" was therefore the more
important ceremony, and was performed in the Endowment House, with the
accompaniment of secret oaths and mystic ceremonies. If a wife disliked
her husband, and wished to be "sealed" to a man of her choice, the
Mormon church would marry her to the latter*--a marriage made actual in
every sense--if he was acceptable as a Mormon; and, if the first husband
also wanted to be "sealed" to her, the church would perform a mock
ceremony to satisfy this husband. "It is impossible," says Hyde, "to
state all the licentiousness, under the name of religion, that these
sealing ordinances have occasioned." **
* One of Stenhouse's informants about the "reformation" of 1856
in Utah writes: "It was hinted, and secretly taught by authority, that
women should form relations with more than one man." On this Stenhouse
says: "The author has no personal knowledge, from the present leaders
of the church, of this teaching; but he has often heard that something
would then be taught which 'would test the brethren as much as polygamy
had tried the sisters."'--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 301.
** "Mormonism," p. 84.
A Mormon preacher never hesitated to go to any lengths in justifying
the doctrine of plural marriages. One illustration of this may suffice.
Orson Hyde, in a discourse in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in March, 1857,
made the following argument to support a claim that Jesus Christ was a
polygamist:--
"It will be borne in mind that, once on a time, there was a marriage in
Cana of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that transaction it will be
discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that
occasion. If he was never married, his intimacy with Mary and Martha,
and the other Mary also, whom Jesus loved, must have been highly
unbecoming and improper, to say the best of it. I will venture to say
that, if Jesus Christ was now to pass through the most pious countries
in Christendom, with a train of women such as used to follow him,
fondling about him, combing his hair, anointing him with precious
ointments, washing his feet with tears and wiping them with the hair of
their heads, and unmarried, or even married, he would be mobbed,
tarred and feathered, and rode, not on an ass, but on a rail.... Did
he multiply, and did he see his seed? Did he honor his Father's law by
complying with it, or did he not? Others may do as they like, but I
will not charge our Saviour with neglect or transgression in this or any
other duty."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 259.
The doctrine of "adoption," referred to, taught that the direct line of
the true priesthood was broken with the death of Christ's apostles, and
that the rights of the lineage of Abraham could be secured only by being
"adopted" by a modern apostle, all of whom were recognized as lineal
descendants of Abraham. Recourse was here had to the Scriptures, and
Romans iv. 16 was quoted to sustain this doctrine. The first "adoptions"
took place in the Nauvoo Temple. Lee was "adopted to" Brigham Young, and
Young's and Lee's children were then "adopted" to their own fathers.
With this necessary explanation of the introduction of polygamy, we may
take up the narrative of events at Nauvoo.
CHAPTER XII. -- THE SUPPRESSION OF THE EXPOSITOR
Smith was now to encounter a kind of resistance within the church that
he had never met. In all previous apostasies, where members had dared to
attack his character or question his authority, they had been summarily
silenced, and in most cases driven at once out of the Mormon community.
But there were men at Nauvoo above the average of the Mormon convert as
regards intelligence and wealth, who refused to follow the prophet in
his new doctrine regarding marriage, and whose opposition took the very
practical shape of the establishment of a newspaper in the Mormon city
to expose him and to defend themselves.
In his testimony in the Higbee trial Smith had accused a prominent
Mormon, Dr. R. D. Foster, of stealing and of gross insults to women. Dr.
Foster, according to current report, had found Smith at his house, and
had received from his wife a confession that Smith had been persuading
her to become one of his spiritual wives.*
* "At the May, 1844, term of the Hancock Circuit Court two
indictments were found against Smith by the grand jury--one for adultery
and one for perjury. To the surprise of all, on the Monday following,
the Prophet appeared in court and demanded that he be tried on the
last-named indictment. The prosecutor not being ready, a continuance was
entered to the next term."--GREGG, "History of Hancock County," p. 301.
Among the leading members of the church at Nauvoo at this time were two
brothers, William and Wilson Law. They were Canadians, and had brought
considerable property with them, and in the "revelation" of January 19,
1841, William Law was among those who were directed to take stock in
Nauvoo House, and was named as one of the First Presidency, and was made
registrar of the University. Wilson Law was a regent of the University
and a major general of the Legion. General Law had been an especial
favorite of Smith. In writing to him while in hiding from the Missouri
authorities in 1842, Smith says, "I love that soul that is so nobly
established in that clay of yours." * At the conference of April, 1844,
Hyrum Smith said: "I wish to speak about Messrs. Law's steam mill. There
has been a great deal of bickering about it. The mill has been a great
benefit to the city. It has brought in thousands who would not have come
here. The Messrs. Law have sunk their capital and done a great deal of
good. It is out of character to cast any aspersions on the Messrs. Law."
* Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 695.
Dr. Foster, the Laws, and Counsellor Sylvester Emmons became greatly
stirred up about the spiritual wife doctrine, and the effort of Smith
and those in his confidence to teach and enforce the doctrine of plural
wives; and they finally decided to establish in Nauvoo a newspaper that
would openly attack the new order of things. The name chosen for this
newspaper was the Expositor, and Emmons was its editor.* Its motto
was: "The Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth," and its
prospectus announced as its purpose, "Unconditional repeal of the
city charter--to correct the abuses of the unit power--to advocate
disobedience to political revelations." Only one number of this
newspaper was ever issued, but that number was almost directly the cause
of the prophet's death.
* Emmons went direct to Beardstown, Illinois, after the
destruction of the paper, and lived there till the day of his death,
a leading citizen. He established the first newspaper published in
Beardstown, and was for sixteen years the mayor of the city.
The most important feature of the Expositor (which bore date of June 7,
1844) was a "preamble" and resolutions of "seceders from the church at
Nauvoo," and affidavits by Mr. and Mrs. William Law and Austin Cowles
setting forth that Hyrum Smith had read the "revelation" concerning
polygamy to William Law and to the High Council, and that Mrs. Law had
read it.*
* These were the only affidavits printed in the Expositor. More
than one description of the paper has stated that it contained many
more. Thus, Appleton's "American Encyclopedia," under "Mormons," says,
"In the first number (there was only one) they printed the affidavits
of sixteen women to the effect that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon and
others had endeavored to convert them to the spiritual wife doctrine."
The "preamble" affirmed the belief of the seceders in the Mormon Bible
and the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," but declared their intention
to "explode the vicious principles of Joseph Smith," adding, "We
are aware, however, that we are hazarding every earthly blessing,
particularly property, and probably life itself, in striking this blow
at tyranny and oppression." Many of them, it was explained, had sought a
reformation of the church without any public exposure, but they had been
spurned, "particularly by Joseph, who would state that, if he had been
or was guilty of the charges we would charge him with, he would not make
acknowledgment, but would rather be damned, for it would detract from
his dignity and would consequently prove the overthrow of the church.
We would ask him, on the other hand, if the overthrow of the church were
not inevitable; to which he often replied that we would all go to hell
together and convert it into a heaven by casting the devil out; and,
says he, hell is by no means the place this world of fools supposes it
to be, but, on the contrary, it is quite an agreeable place."
The "preamble" further set forth the methods employed by Smith to induce
women from other countries, who had joined the Mormons in Nauvoo, to
become his spiritual wives, reciting the arguments advanced, and thus
summing up the general result: "She is thunderstruck, faints, recovers
and refuses. The prophet damns her if she rejects. She thinks of the
great sacrifice, and of the many thousand miles she has travelled
over sea and land that she might save her soul from pending ruin, and
replies, 'God's will be done and not mine.' The prophet and his devotees
in this way are gratified." Smith's political aspirations were condemned
as preposterous, and the false "doctrine of many gods" was called
blasphemy.
Fifteen resolutions followed. They declared against the evils named,
and also condemned the order to the Saints to gather in haste at Nauvoo,
explaining that the purpose of this command was to enable the men in
control of the church to sell property at exorbitant prices, "and thus
the wealth that is brought into the place is swallowed up by the one
great throat, from whence there is no return." The seceders asserted
that, although they had an intimate acquaintance with the affairs of
the church, they did not know of any property belonging to it except
the Temple. Finally, as speaking for the true church, they ordered all
preachers to cease to teach the doctrine of plural gods, a plurality of
wives, sealing, etc., and directed offenders in this respect to report
and have their licenses renewed. Another feature of the issue was a
column address signed by Francis M. Higbee, advising the citizens of
Hancock County not to send Hyrum Smith to the legislature, since to
support him was to support Joseph, "a man who contends all governments
are to be put down, and one established upon its ruins."
The appearance of this sheet created the greatest excitement among the
Mormon leaders that they had experienced since leaving Missouri.
They recognized in it immediately a mouthpiece of men who were better
informed than Bennett, and who were ready to address an audience
composed both of their own flock and of their outlying non-Mormon
neighbors, whose antipathy to them was already manifesting itself
aggressively. To permit the continued publication of this sheet meant
one of those surrenders which Smith had never made.
The prophet therefore took just such action as would have been expected
of him in the circumstances. Calling a meeting of the City Council, he
proceeded to put the Expositor and its editors on trial, as if that body
was of a judicial instead of a legislative character. The minutes of
this trial, which lasted all of Saturday, June 8, and a part of Monday,
June l0, 1844, can be found in the Neighbor of June 19, of that year,
filling six columns. The prophet-mayor occupied the chair, and the
defendants were absent.
The testimony introduced aimed at the start to break down the characters
of Dr. Foster, Higbee, and the Laws. A mechanic testified that the Laws
had bought "bogus"--(counterfeit) dies of him. The prophet told how
William Law had "pursued" him to recover $40,000 that Smith owed him.
Hyrum Smith alleged that William Law had offered to give a man $500 if
he would kill Hyrum, and had confessed adultery to him, making a still
more heinous charge against Higbee. Hyrum referred "to the revelation
of the High Council of the church, which has caused so much talk about
a multiplicity of wives," and declared that it "concerned things which
transpired in former days, and had no reference to the present time."
Testimony was also given to show that the Laws were not liberal to the
poor, and that William's motto with his fellow-churchmen who owed him
was, "Punctuality, punctuality."* This was naturally a serious offence
in the eyes of the Smiths.
* The Expositor contained this advertisement: "The subscribers
wish to inform all those who, through sickness or other misfortunes, are
much limited is their means of procuring bread for their families, that
we have allotted Thursday of every week to grind toll free for them,
till grain becomes plentiful after harvest.--W. & W. Law."
The prophet declared that the conduct of such men, and of such papers
as the Expositor, was calculated to destroy the peace of the city. He
unblushingly asserted that what he had preached about marriage only
showed the order in ancient days, having nothing to do with the present
time. In regard to the alleged revelation about polygamy he explained
that, on inquiring of the Lord concerning the Scriptural teaching that
"they neither marry nor are given in marriage in heaven," he received a
reply to the effect that men in this life must marry in one of eternity,
otherwise they must remain as angels, or be single in heaven.
Smith then proposed that the Council make some provision for putting
down the Expositor, declaring its allegations to be "treasonable against
all chartered rights and privileges." He read from the federal and state
constitutions to define his idea of the rights of the press, and quoted
Blackstone on private wrongs. Hyrum openly advocated smashing the
press and pieing the type. One councillor alone raised his voice for
moderation, proposing to give the offenders a few days' notice, and to
assess a fine of $300 for every libel. W. W. Phelps (who was back in the
fold again) held that the city charter gave them power to declare the
newspaper a nuisance, and cited the spilling of the tea in Boston harbor
as a precedent for an attack on the Expositor office. Finally, on June
10, this resolution was passed unanimously:--
"Resolved by the City Council of the City of Nauvoo that the printing
office from whence issues the Nauvoo Expositor is a public nuisance,
and also all of said Nauvoo Expositors which may be or exist in said
establishment; and the mayor is instructed to cause said printing
establishment and papers to be removed without delay, in such manner as
he shall direct."
Smith, of course, made very prompt use of this authority, issuing the
following order to the city marshal:--
"You are hereby commanded to destroy the printing press from whence
issues the Nauvoo Expositor, and pi the type of said printing
establishment in the street, and burn all the Expositors and libellous
hand bills found in said establishment; and if resistance be offered to
the execution of this order, by the owners or others, destroy the house;
and if any one threatens you or the Mayor or the officers of the city,
arrest those who threaten you; and fail not to execute this order
without delay, and make due return thereon.
"JOSEPH SMITH, Mayor."
To meet any armed opposition which might arise, the acting major general
of the Legion was thus directed:--
"You are hereby commanded to hold the Nauvoo Legion in readiness
forthwith to execute the city ordinances, and especially to remove
the printing establishment of the Nauvoo Expositor; and this you are
required to do at sight, under the penalty of the laws, provided the
marshal shall require it and need your services."
JOSEPH SMITH,
"Lieutenant General Nauvoo Legion."
The story of the compliance with the mayor's order is thus concisely
told in the "marshal's return," "The within-named press and type is
destroyed and pied according to order on this loth day of June, 1844, at
about eight o'clock P.M." The work was accomplished without any serious
opposition. The marshal appeared at the newspaper office, accompanied
by an escort from the Legion, and forced his way into the building. The
press and type were carried into the street, where the press was broken
up with hammers, and all that was combustible was burned.
Dr. Foster and the Laws fled at once to Carthage, Illinois, under the
belief that their lives were in danger. The story of their flight and
of the destruction of their newspaper plant by order of the Nauvoo
authorities spread quickly all over the state, and in the neighboring
counties the anti-Mormon feeling, that had for some time been growing
more intense, was now fanned to fury. This feeling the Mormon leaders
seemed determined to increase still further.
The owners of the Expositor sued out at Carthage a writ for the removal
to that place of Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo counsellors on a charge
of a riot in connection with the destruction of their plant. This writ,
when presented, was at once set aside by a writ of habeas corpus issued
by the Nauvoo Municipal Court, but the case was heard before a Mormon
justice of the peace on June 17, and he discharged the accused. As if
this was not a sufficient defiance of public opinion, Smith, as mayor,
published a "proclamation" in the Neighbor of June 19, reciting the
events in connection with the attack on the Expositor, and closing thus:
"Our city is infested with a set of blacklegs, counterfeiters and
debauchees, and that the proprietors of this press were of that class,
the minutes of the Municipal Court fully testify, and in ridding our
young and flourishing city of such characters, we are abused by not only
villanous demagogues, but by some who, from their station and influence
in society, ought rather to raise than depress the standard of human
excellence. We have no disturbance or excitement among us, save what is
made by the thousand and one idle rumors afloat in the country. Every
one is protected in his person and property, and but few cities of a
population of twenty thousand people, in the United States, hath less of
dissipation or vice of any kind than the city of Nauvoo.
"Of the correctness of our conduct in this affair, we appeal to every
high court in the state, and to its ordeal we are willing to appear at
any time that His Excellency, Governor Ford, shall please to call us
before it. I, therefore, in behalf of the Municipal Court of Nauvoo,
warn the lawless not to be precipitate in any interference in our
affairs, for as sure as there is a God in Israel we shall ride
triumphant over all oppression."
JOSEPH SMITH, Mayor.
CHAPTER XIII. -- UPRISING OF THE NON-MORMONS--SMITH'S ARREST
The gauntlet thus thrown down by Smith was promptly taken up by his
non-Mormon neighbors, and public meetings were held in various places to
give expression to the popular indignation. At such a meeting in Warsaw,
Hancock County, eighteen miles down the river, the following was among
the resolutions adopted:
"Resolved, that the time, in our opinion, has arrived when the adherents
of Smith, as a body, should be driven from the surrounding settlements
into Nauvoo; that the Prophet and his miscreant adherents should then be
demanded at their hands, and, if not surrendered, a war of extermination
should be waged, to the entire destruction, if necessary for our
protection, of his adherents."
Warsaw was considered the most violent anti-Mormon neighborhood, the
Signal newspaper there being especially bitter in its attacks; but the
people in all the surrounding country began to prepare for "war" in
earnest. At Warsaw 150 men were mustered in under General Knox, and
$1000 was voted for supplies. In Carthage, Rushville, Green Plains,
and many other towns in Illinois men began organizing themselves into
military companies, cannon were ordered from St. Louis, and the near-by
places in Iowa, as well as some in Missouri, sent word that their
aid could be counted on. Rumors of all sorts of Mormon outrages were
circulated, and calls were made for militia, here to protect the
people against armed Mormon bands, there against Mormon thieves.
Many farmhouses were deserted by their owners through fear, and the
steamboats on the river were crowded with women and children, who
were sent to some safe settlement while the men were doing duty in the
militia ranks. Many of the alarming reports were doubtless started
by non-Mormons to inflame the public feeling against their opponents,
others were the natural outgrowth of the existing excitement.
On June 17 a committee from Carthage made to Governor Ford so urgent a
request for the calling out of the militia, that he decided to visit
the disturbed district and make an investigation on his own account.*
On arriving at Carthage he found a considerable militia force already
assembled as a posse comitatus, at the call of the constables. This
force, and similar ones in McDonough and Schuyler counties, he placed
under command of their own officers. Next, the governor directed the
mayor and council of Nauvoo to send a committee to state to him their
story of the recent doings. This they did, convincing him, by their
own account, of the outrageous character of the proceedings against
the Expositor. He therefore arrived at two conclusions: first, that no
authority at his command should be spared in bringing the Mormon leaders
to justice; and, second, that this must be done without putting the
Mormons in danger of an attack by any kind of a mob. He therefore
addressed the militia force from each county separately, urging on them
the necessity of acting only within the law; and securing from them all
a vote pledging their aid to the governor in following a strictly legal
course, and protecting from violence the Mormon leaders when they should
be arrested.
* The story of the events just preceding Joseph Smith's death are
taken from Governor Ford's report to the Illinois legislature, and from
his "History of Illinois."
The governor then sent word to Smith that he and his associates would
be protected if they would surrender, but that arrested they should be,
even if it took the whole militia force of the state to accomplish this.
The constable and guards who carried the governor's mandate to Nauvoo
found the city a military camp. Smith had placed it under martial law,
assembled the Legion, called in all the outlying Mormons, and ordered
that no one should enter or leave the place without submitting to the
strictest inquiry. The governor's messengers had no difficulty, however,
in gaining admission to Smith, who promised that he and the members of
the Council would accompany the officers to Carthage the next morning
(June 23) at eight o'clock. But at that time the accused did not appear,
and, without any delay or any effort to arrest the men who were wanted,
the officers returned to Carthage and reported that all the accused had
fled.
Whatever had been the intention of Smith when the constable first
appeared, he and his associates did surrender, as the governor had
expressed a belief that they would do.. Statements of the circumstances
of the surrender were written at the time by H. P. Reid and James W.
Woods of Iowa, who were employed by the Mormons as counsel, and were
printed in the Times and Seasons, Vol. V, No. 12. Mr. Woods, according
to these accounts, arrived in Nauvoo on Friday, June 21, and, after an
interview with Smith and his friends, went to Carthage the next evening
to assure Governor Ford that the Nauvoo officers were ready to obey the
law. There he learned that the constable and his assistants had gone to
Nauvoo to demand his clients' surrender; but he does not mention their
return without the prisoners. He must have known, however, that the
first intention of Smith and the Council was to flee from the wrath
of their neighbors. The "Life of Brigham Young," published by Cannon &
Sons, Salt Lake City, 1893, contains this statement:--
"The Prophet hesitated about giving himself up, and started, on the
night of June 22, with his brother Hyrum, W. Richards, John Taylor, and
a few others for the Rocky Mountains. He was, however, intercepted
by his friends, and induced to abandon his project, being chided with
cowardice and with deserting his people. This was more than he could
bear, and so he returned, saying: 'If my life is of no value to
my friends, it is of no value to myself. We are going back to be
slaughtered.'"
It will be remembered that Young, Rigdon, Orson Pratt, and many others
of the leading men of the church were absent at this time, most of them
working up Smith's presidential "boom." Orson Pratt, who was then in New
Hampshire, said afterward, "If the Twelve had been here, we would not
have seen him given up."
Woods received from the governor a pledge of protection for all who
might be arrested, and an assurance that if the Mormons would give
themselves up at Carthage, on Monday, the 24th, this would be accepted
as a compliance with the governor's orders. He therefore returned to
Nauvoo with this message on Sunday evening, and the next morning the
accused left that place with him for Carthage. They soon met Captain
Dunn, who, with a company of sixty men, was going to Nauvoo with an
order from the governor for the state arms in the possession of the
Legion.* Woods made an agreement with Captain Dunn that the arms
should be given up by Smith's order, and that his clients should place
themselves under the captain's protection, and return with him to
Carthage. The return trip to Nauvoo, and thence to Carthage, was not
completed until about midnight. The Mormons were not put under restraint
that night, but the next morning they surrendered themselves to the
constable on a charge of riot in connection with the destruction of the
Expositor plant.
* It was stated that on two hours' notice two thousand men
appeared, all armed, and that they surrendered their arms in compliance
with the governor's plans.
CHAPTER XIV. -- THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET--HIS CHARACTER
On Tuesday morning, Joseph and Hyrum Smith were arrested again in
Carthage, this time on a charge of treason in levying war against the
state, by declaring martial law in Nauvoo and calling out the Legion. In
the afternoon of that day all the accused, numbering fifteen, appeared
before a justice of the peace, and, to prevent any increase in the
public excitement, gave bonds in the sum of $500 each for their
appearance at the next term of the Circuit Court to answer the charge of
riot.* It was late in the evening when this business was finished, and
nothing was said at the time about the charge of treason.
* The trial of the survivors resulted in a verdict of acquittal.
"The Mormons," says Governor Ford, "could have a Mormon jury to be tried
by, selected by themselves, and the anti-Mormons, by objecting to the
sheriff and regular panel, could have one from the anti-Mormons. No one
could [then] be convicted of any crime in Hancock County."--"History of
Illinois," p. 369.
Very soon after their return to the hotel, however, the constable who
had arrested the Smiths on the new charge appeared with a mittimus from
the justice of the peace, and, under its authority, conveyed them to the
county jail. Their counsel immediately argued before the governor that
this action was illegal, as the Smiths had had no hearing on the charge
of treason, and the governor went with the lawyers to consult the
justice concerning his action. The justice explained that he had
directed the removal of the prisoners to jail because he did not
consider them safe in the hotel. The governor held that, from the time
of their delivery to the jailer, they were beyond his jurisdiction and
responsibility, but he granted a request of their counsel for a military
guard about the jail. He says, however, that he apprehended neither an
attack on the building nor an escape of the prisoners, adding that if
they had escaped, "it would have been the best way of getting rid of the
Mormons," since these leaders would never have dared to return to the
state, and all their followers would have joined them in their place of
refuge.
The militia force in Carthage at that time numbered some twelve hundred
men, with four hundred or five hundred more persons under arms in the
town. There was great pressure on the governor to march this
entire force to Nauvoo, ostensibly to search for a counterfeiting
establishment, in order to overawe the Mormons by a show of force. The
governor consented to this plan, and it was arranged that the officers
at Carthage and Warsaw should meet on June 27 at a point on the
Mississippi midway between the latter place and Nauvoo.
Governor Ford was not entirely certain about the safety of the
prisoners, and he proposed to take them with him in the march to Nauvoo,
for their protection. But while preparations for this march were still
under way, trustworthy information reached him that, if the militia once
entered the Mormon city, its destruction would certainly follow, the
plan being to accept a shot fired at the militia by someone as a signal
for a general slaughter and conflagration. He determined to prevent
this, not only on humane grounds,--"the number of women, inoffensive and
young persons, and innocent children which must be contained in such a
city of twelve hundred to fifteen thousand inhabitants"--but because he
was not certain of the outcome of a conflict in which the Mormons would
outnumber his militia almost two to one. After a council of the militia
officers, in which a small majority adhered to the original plan, the
governor solved the question by summarily disbanding all the state
forces under arms, except three companies, two of which would continue
to guard the jail, and the other would accompany the governor on a visit
to Nauvoo, where he proposed to search for counterfeiters, and to tell
the inhabitants that any retaliatory measures against the non-Mormons
would mean "the destruction of their city, and the extermination of
their people."
The jail at Carthage was a stone building, situated at the northwestern
boundary of the village, and near a piece of woods that were convenient
for concealment. It contained the jailer's apartments, cells for
prisoners, and on the second story a sort of assembly room. At the
governor's suggestion, Joseph and Hyrum were allowed the freedom of this
larger room, where their friends were permitted to visit them, without
any precautions against the introduction of weapons or tools for their
escape.
Their guards were selected from the company known as the Carthage Grays,
Captain Smith, commander. In this choice the governor made a mistake
which always left him under a charge of collusion in the murder of
the prisoners. It was not, in the first place, necessary to select
any Hancock company for this service, as he had militia from McDonough
County on the ground. All the people of Hancock County were in a fever
of excitement against the Mormons, while the McDonough County militia
had voted against the march into Nauvoo. Moreover, when the prisoners,
after their arrival at Carthage, had been exhibited to the McDonough
company at the request of the latter, who had never seen them, the Grays
were so indignant at what they called a triumphal display, that they
refused to obey the officer in command, and were for a time in revolt.
"Although I knew that this company were the enemies of the Smiths,"
says the governor, "yet I had confidence in their loyalty and their
integrity, because their captain was universally spoken of as a most
respectable citizen and honorable man." The governor further excused
himself for the selection because the McDonough company were very
anxious to return home to attend to their crops, and because, as the
prisoners were likely to remain in jail all summer, he could not have
detained the men from the other county so long. He presents also the
curious plea that the frequent appeals made to him direct for the
extermination or expulsion of the Mormons gave him assurance that no act
of violence would be committed contrary to his known opposition, and he
observes, "This was a circumstance well calculated to conceal from me
the secret machinations on foot!"
In this state of happy confidence the governor set out for Nauvoo on the
morning of June 27. On the way, one of the officers who accompanied him
told him that he was apprehensive of an attack on the jail because of
talk he had heard in Carthage. The governor was reluctant to believe
that such a thing could occur while he was in the Mormon city, exposed
to Mormon vengeance, but he sent back a squad, with instructions
to Captain Smith to see that the jail was safely guarded. He had
apprehensions of his own, however, and on arriving at Nauvoo simply made
an address as above outlined, and hurried back to Carthage without even
looking for counterfeit money. He had not gone more than two miles when
messengers met him with the news that the Smith brothers had been killed
in the jail.
The Warsaw regiment (it is so called in the local histories), under
command of Colonel Levi Williams, set out on the morning of June 27 for
the rendezvous on the Mississippi, preparatory to the march to Nauvoo.
The resolutions adopted in Warsaw and the tone of the local press had
left no doubt about the feeling of the people of that neighborhood
toward the Mormons, and fully justified the decision of the governor in
countermanding the march proposed. His unexpected order disbanding the
militia reached the Warsaw troops when they had advanced about eight
miles. A decided difference of opinion was expressed regarding it. Some
of the most violent, including Editor Sharp of the Signal, wanted to
continue the march to Carthage in order to discuss the situation with
the other forces there; the more conservative advised an immediate
return to Warsaw. Each party followed its own inclination, those who
continued toward Carthage numbering, it is said, about two hundred.
While there is no doubt that the Warsaw regiment furnished the men who
made the attack on the jail, there is evidence that the Carthage Grays
were in collusion with them. William N. Daniels, in his account of the
assault, says that the Warsaw men, when within four miles of Carthage,
received a note from the Grays (which he quotes) telling them of the
good opportunity presented "to murder the Smiths" in the governor's
absence. His testimony alone would be almost valueless, but Governor
Ford confirms it, and Gregg (who holds that the only purpose of the
mob was to seize the prisoners and run them into Missouri) says he is
"compelled" to accept the report. According to Governor Ford, one of the
companies designated as a guard for the jail disbanded and went home,
and the other was stationed by its captain 150 yards from the
building, leaving only a sergeant and eight men at the jail itself. "A
communication," he adds, "was soon established between the conspirators
and the company, and it was arranged that the guards should have their
guns charged with blank cartridges, and fire at the assailants when they
attempted to enter the jail."
Both Willard Richards and John Taylor were in the larger room with the
Smith brothers when the attack was made (other visitors having recently
left), and both gave detailed accounts of the shooting, Richards soon
afterward, in a statement printed in the Neighbor and the Times and
Seasons under the title "Two Minutes in Gaol," and Taylor in his
"Martyrdom of Joseph Smith." * They differ only in minor particulars.
* To be found in Burton's "City of the Saints."
All in the room were sitting in their shirt sleeves except Richards,
when they saw a number of men, with blackened faces, advancing around
the corner of the jail toward the stairway. The door leading from the
room to the stairs was hurriedly closed, and, as it was without a lock,
Hyrum Smith and Richards placed their shoulders against it. Finding
their entrance opposed, the assailants fired a shot through the door
(Richards says they fired a volley up the stairway), which caused Hyrum
and Richards to leap back. While Hyrum was retreating across the room,
with his face to the door, a second shot fired through the door struck
him by the side of the nose, and at the same moment another ball, fired
through the window at the other side of the room, entered his back, and,
passing through his body, was stopped by the watch in his vest pocket,
smashing the works. He fell on his back exclaiming, "I am a dead man,"
and did not speak again.
One of their callers had left a six-shooting pistol with the prisoners,
and, when Joseph saw his brother shot, he advanced with this weapon to
the door, and opening it a few inches, snapped each barrel toward the
men on the other side. Three barrels missed fire, but each of the three
that exploded seems to have wounded a man; accounts differ as to the
seriousness of their injuries. While Joseph was firing, Taylor stood by
him armed with a stout hickory stick, and Richards was on his other
side holding a cane. As soon as Joseph's firing, which had checked the
assailants for a moment, ceased, the latter stuck their weapons through
the partly opened doorway, and fired into the room. Taylor tried to
parry the guns with his cudgel. "That's right, Brother Taylor, parry
them off as well as you can," said the prophet, and these are the last
words he is remembered to have spoken. The assailants hesitated to enter
the room, perhaps not knowing what weapons the Mormons had, and Taylor
concluded to take his chances of a leap through an open window opposite
the door, and some twenty-five feet from the ground. But as he was about
to jump out, a ball struck him in the thigh, depriving him of all power
of motion. He fell inside the window, and as soon as he recovered power
to move, crawled under a bed which stood in one corner of the room.
The men in the hallway continued to thrust in their guns and fire, and
Richards kept trying to knock aside the muzzles with his cane. Taylor
in this way, before he reached the bed, received three more balls, one
below the left knee, one in the left arm, and another in the left hip.
Almost as soon as Taylor fell, the prophet made a dash for the window.
As he was part way out, two balls fired through the doorway struck him,
and one from outside the building entered his right breast. Richards
says: "He fell outward, exclaiming 'O Lord, my God.' As his feet went
out of the window, my head went in, the balls whistling all around. At
this instant the cry was raised, 'He's leaped the window,' and the mob
on the stairs and in the entry ran out. I withdrew from the window,
thinking it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayonets, then around
General Smith's body. Not satisfied with this, I again reached my head
out of the window and watched some seconds, to see if there were any
signs of life, regardless of my own, determined to see the end of him I
loved. Being fully satisfied that he was dead, with a hundred men near
the body and more coming round the corner of the gaol, and expecting a
return to our room, I rushed toward the prison door at the head of the
stairs." Finding the inner doors of the jail unlocked, Richards dragged
Taylor into a cell and covered him with an old mattress. Both expected
a return of the mob, but the lynchers disappeared as soon as they
satisfied themselves that the prophet was dead. Richards was not injured
at all, although his large size made him an ample target.
Most Mormon accounts of Smith's death say that, after he fell, the
body was set up against a well curb in the yard and riddled with balls.
Taylor mentions this report, but Richards, who specifically says that he
saw the prophet die, does not. Governor Ford's account says that Smith
was only stunned by the fall and was shot in the yard. Perhaps the
original authority for this version was a lad named William N. Daniels,
who accompanied the Warsaw men to Carthage, and, after the shooting,
went to Nauvoo and had his story published by the Mormons in pamphlet
form, with two extravagant illustrations, in which one of the assailants
is represented as approaching Smith with a knife to cut off his head.*
*A detailed account of the murder of the Smiths, and events
connected with it, was contributed to the Atlantic Monthly for December,
1869, by John Hay. This is accepted by Kennedy as written by "one whose
opportunities for information were excellent, whose fairness cannot be
questioned, and whose ability to distinguish the true from the false is
of the highest order." H. H. Bancroft, whose tone is always pro-Mormon,
alludes to this article as "simply a tissue of falsehoods." In reply
to a note of inquiry Secretary Hay wrote to the author, under date
of November 17, 1900: "I relied more upon my memory and contemporary
newspapers for my facts than on certified documents. I will not take my
oath to everything the article contains, but I think in the main it
is correct." This article says that Joseph Smith was severely wounded
before he ran to the window, "and half leaped, half fell into the jail
yard below. With his last dying energies he gathered himself up, and
leaned in a sitting posture against the rude stone well curb. His
stricken condition, his vague wandering glances, excited no pity in the
mob thirsting for his life. A squad of Missourians, who were standing by
the fence, leveled their pieces at him, and, before they could see
him again for the smoke they made, Joe Smith was dead:" This is not an
account of an eye-witness.
The bodies of the two brothers were removed to the hotel in Carthage,
and were taken the next day to Nauvoo, arriving there about three
o'clock in the afternoon. They were met by practically the entire
population, and a procession made up of the City Council, the generals
of the Legion with their staffs, the Legion and the citizens generally,
all under command of the city marshal, escorted them to the Nauvoo
Mansion, where addresses were made by Dr. Richards, W. W. Phelps, the
lawyers Woods and Reid, and Colonel Markham. The utmost grief was shown
by the Mormons, who seemed stunned by the blow.
The burial followed, but the bodies did not occupy the graves. Stenhouse
is authority for the statement that, fearing a grave robbery (which in
fact occurred the next night), the coffins were filled with stones,
and the bodies were buried secretly beneath the unfinished Temple.
Mistrustful that even this concealment would not be sufficient, they
were soon taken up and reburied under the brick wall back of the Mansion
House.*
* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 174.
Brigham Young said at the conference in the Temple on October 8, 1845,
"We will petition Sister Emma, in the name of Israel's God, to let us
deposit the remains of Joseph according as he has commanded us, and
if she will not consent to it, our garments are clear." She did not
consent. For the following statement about the future disposition of
the bodies I am indebted to the grandson of the prophet, Mr. Frederick
Madison Smith, one of the editors of the Saints' Herald (Reorganized
Church) at Lamoni, Iowa, dated December 15, 1900:--
"The burial place of the brothers Joseph and Hyrum has always remained a
secret, being known only to a very few of the immediate family. In fact,
unless it has lately been revealed to others, the exact spot is known
only to my father and his brother. Others who knew the secret are now
silent in death. The reasons for the secrecy were that it was feared
that, if the burial place was known at the time, there might have been
an inclination on the part of the enemies of those men to desecrate
their bodies and graves. There is not now, and probably has not been for
years, any danger of such desecration, and the only reason I can see for
still keeping it a secret is the natural disinclination on the part of
the family to talk about such matters.
"However, I have been on the ground with my father when I knew I was
standing within a few feet of where the remains were lying, and it is
known to many about where that spot is. It is a short distance from the
Nauvoo House, on the bank of the Mississippi. The lot is still owned by
the family, the title being in my father's name. There is not, that
I know, any intention of ever taking the bodies to Far West or
Independence, Missouri. The chances are that their resting places will
never be disturbed other than to erect on the spot a monument. In fact,
a movement is now underway to raise the means to do that. A monument
fund is being subscribed to by the members of the church. The monument
would have been erected by the family, but it is not financially able to
do it."
In the October following, indictments were found against Colonel
Williams of the Warsaw regiment, State Senator J. C. Davis, Editor
Sharp, and six others, including three who were said to have been
wounded by Smith's pistol shots, but the sheriff did not succeed in
making any arrests. In the May following some of the accused appeared
for trial. A struck jury was obtained, but, in the existing state of
public feeling, an acquittal was a foregone conclusion. The guards at
the jail would identify no one, and Daniels, the pamphlet writer, and
another leading witness for the prosecution gave contradictory accounts.
But the prophet, according to Mormon recitals, did not go unavenged.
Lieutenant Worrell, who commanded the detachment of the guards at the
jail, was shot not long after, as we shall see. Murray McConnell, who
represented the governor in the prosecution of the alleged lynchers, was
assassinated twenty-four years later. P. P. Pratt gives an account
of the fate of other "persecutors." The arm of one Townsend, who was
wounded by Joe's pistol, continued to rot until it was taken off, and
then would not heal. A colonel of the Missouri forces, who died in
Sacramento in 1849, "was eaten with worms, a large, black-headed kind of
maggot, seeming a half-pint at a time." Another Missourian's "face and
jaw on one side literally rotted, and half his face actually fell off."*
*Pratt's "Autobiography," pp. 475-476.
It is difficult for the most fair-minded critic to find in the character
of Joseph Smith anything to commend, except an abundance of good-nature
which made him personally popular with the body of his followers. He has
been credited with power as a leader, and it was certainly little less
than marvellous that he could maintain his leadership after his business
failure in Ohio, and the utter break-down of his revealed promises
concerning a Zion in Missouri. The explanation of this success is to
be found in the logically impregnable position of his character as a
prophet, so long as the church itself retained its organization, and in
the kind of people who were gathered into his fold. If it was not true
that HE received the golden plates from an angel; if it was not true
that HE translated them with divine assistance; if it was not true that
HE received from on high the "revelations" vouchsafed for the guidance
of the church,--then there was no new Bible, no new revelation, no
Mormon church. If Smith was pulled down, the whole church structure must
crumble with him. Lee, referring to the days in Missouri, says, "Every
Mormon, if true to his faith, believed as freely in Joseph Smith and his
holy character as they did that God existed."* Some of the Mormons who
knew Smith and his career in Missouri and Illinois were so convinced of
the ridiculousness of his claims that they proposed, after the gathering
in Utah, to drop him entirely. Proof of this, and of Brigham Young's
realization of the impossibility of doing so, is found in Young's
remarks at the conference which received the public announcement of the
"revelation" concerning polygamy. Referring to the suggestion that had
been made, "Don't mention Joseph Smith, never mention the Book of Mormon
and Zion, and all the people will follow you," Young boldly declared:
"What I have received from the Lord, I have received by Joseph Smith;
he was the instrument made use of. If I drop him, I must drop these
principles. They have not been revealed, declared, or explained by any
other man since the days of the apostles." This view is accepted by the
Mormons in Utah to-day.
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 76.
If it seems still more surprising that Smith's associates placed so
little restraint on his business schemes, it must be remembered that
none of his early colaborers--Rigdon, Harris, Cowdery, and the rest--was
a better business man than he, and that he absolutely brooked no
interference. It was Smith who decided every important step, as, for
instance, the land purchases in and around Nauvoo; and men who would
let him originate were compelled to let him carry out. We have seen how
useless better business men like the Laws found it to argue with him
on any practical question. The length to which he dared go in
discountenancing any restriction, even regarding his moral ideas, is
illustrated in an incident related in his autobiography.* At a service
on Sunday, November 7, 1841, in Nauvoo, an elder named Clark ventured
to reprove the brethren for their lack of sanctity, enjoining them
to solemnity and temperance. "I reproved him," says the prophet, "as
pharisaical and hypocritical, and not edifying the people, and showed
the Saints what temperance, faith, virtue, charity, and truth were. I
charged the Saints not to follow the example of the adversary non-mormons
in accusing the brethren, and said, 'If you do not accuse each other,
God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser, you will enter heaven;
if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you
through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not
accuse me, I will not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity
over my sins, I will over yours--for charity covereth a multitude of
sins. What many people call sin is not sin. I do many things to break
down superstition."' A congregation that would accept such teaching
without a protest, would follow their leader in any direction which he
chose to indicate.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 743.
Smith was the farthest possible from being what Spinoza has been called,
"a God-intoxicated man." Real reverence for sacred things did not enter
into his mental equipment. A story illustrating his lack of reverence
for what he called "long-faced" brethren was told by J. M. Grant in
Salt Lake City. A Baptist minister, who talked much of "my dee-e-ar
brethren," called on Smith in Nauvoo, and, after conversing with him for
a short time, stood up before Smith and asked in solemn tones if it were
possible that he saw a man who was a prophet and who had conversed with
the Saviour. "'Yes,' says the prophet, 'I don't know but you do; would
you not like to wrestle with me?' After he had whirled around a few
times, like a duck shot in the head, he concluded that his piety had
been awfully shocked."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 67.
In manhood Smith was about six feet tall, weighing something over two
hundred pounds. From among a number of descriptions of him by visitors
at Nauvoo, the following may be cited. Josiah Quincy, describing his
arrival at what he calls "the tavern" in Nauvoo, in May, 1844, gives
this impression of the prophet: "Pre-eminent among the stragglers at
the door stood a man of commanding appearance, clad in the costume of
a journeyman carpenter when about his work. He was a hearty, athletic
fellow, with blue eyes standing prominently out on his light complexion,
a long nose, and a retreating forehead. He wore striped pantaloons,
a linen jacket which had not lately seen the wash-tub, and a beard of
three days' growth. A fine-looking man, is what the passer-by would
instinctively have murmured upon meeting the remarkable individual
who had fashioned the mould which was to shape the feelings of so many
thousands of his fellow-mortals." *
*" Figures of the Past," p. 380.
The Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., who had an interview with the prophet at
Nauvoo, in 1842, thus describes him: "He is a coarse, plebeian, sensual
person in aspect, and his countenance exhibits a curious mixture of
the knave and the clown. His hands are large and fat, and on one of his
fingers he wears a massive gold ring, upon which I saw an inscription.
His eyes appear deficient in that open and straightforward expression
which often characterizes an honest man."
* Millennial Star, November 1, 1850.
John Taylor had death-casts taken of the faces of Joseph and Hyrum after
their murder. By the aid of these and of sketches of the brothers which
he had secured while they were living, he had busts of them made by a
modeller in Europe named Gahagan, and these were offered to the Saints
throughout the world, for a price, of course.*
The proofs already cited of Smith's immorality are convincing. Caswall
names a number of occasions on which, he charges, the prophet was
intoxicated after his settlement in Nauvoo. He relates that on one of
these, when Smith was asked how it happened that a prophet of the Lord
could get drunk, Smith answered that it was necessary that he should do
so to prevent the Saints from worshipping him as a god!*
* "Mormonism and its Author," 1852.
No Mormon ever concedes that proof of Smith's personal failings affects
his character as a prophet. A Mormon doctor, with whom Caswall argued at
Nauvoo, said that Smith might be a murderer and an adulterer, and yet
be a true prophet. He cited St. Peter as saying that, in his time, David
had not yet ascended into heaven (Acts ii. 34); David was in hell as a
murderer; so if Smith was "as infamous as David, and even denied his own
revelations, that would not affect the revelations which God had given
him."
CHAPTER XV. -- AFTER SMITH'S DEATH--RIGDON'S LAST DAYS
The murder of the Smiths caused a panic, not among the Mormons, but
among the other inhabitants of Hancock County, who looked for summary
vengeance at the hands of the prophet's followers, with their famous
Legion to support them. The state militia having been disbanded, the
people considered themselves without protection, and Governor Ford
shared their apprehension. Carthage was at once almost depopulated, the
people fleeing in wagons, on horseback, and on foot, and most of the
citizens of Warsaw placed the river between them and their enemies. "I
was sensible," says Governor Ford, "that my command was at an end; that
my destruction was meditated as well as the Mormons', and that I
could not reasonably confide longer in one party or the other." The
panic-stricken executive therefore set out at once for Quincy, forty
miles from the scene of the murder.
From that city the governor issued a statement to the people of the
state, reciting the events leading up to the recent tragedy, and, under
date of June 29, ordered the enlistment of as many men as possible in
the militia of Adams, Marquette, Pike, Brown, Schuyler, Morgan, Scott,
Cass, Fulton, and McDonough counties, and the regiments of General
Stapp's brigade, for a twelve days' campaign. The independent companies
of all sorts, in the same counties, were also told to hold themselves
in readiness, and the federal government was asked to station a force
of five hundred men from the regular army in Hancock County. This last
request was not complied with. The governor then sent Colonel Fellows
and Captain Jonas to Nauvoo by the first boat, to find out the
intentions of the Mormons as well as those of the people of Warsaw.
Meanwhile the voice of the Mormon leaders was for peace. Willard
Richards, John Taylor, and Samuel H. Smith united in a letter (written
in the first person singular by Richards), on the night of the murders,
addressed to the prophet's widow, General Deming (commanding at
Carthage), and others, which said:--
"The people of the county are greatly excited, and fear the Mormons will
come out and take vengeance. I have pledged my word the Mormons will
stay at home as soon as they can be informed, and no violence will be on
their part. And say to my brethren in Nauvoo, in the name of the Lord,
be still, be patient; only let such friends as choose come here to
see the bodies. Mr. Taylor's wounds are dressed and not serious. I am
sound."
This quieting advice was heeded without even a protest, and after the
funeral of the victims the Mormons voted unanimously to depend on the
law for retribution.
While things temporal in Nauvoo remained quiet, there were deep feeling
and great uncertainty concerning the future of the church. The First
Presidency had consisted, since the action of the conference at Far West
in 1837, of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and Sidney Rigdon. Two of these were
now dead. Did this leave Rigdon as the natural head, did Smith's son
inherit the successorship, or did the supreme power rest with the Twelve
Apostles? Discussion of this matter brought out many plans, including a
general reorganization of the church, and the appointment of a trustee
or a president. Rigdon had been sent to Pittsburg to build up a church,*
and Brigham Young was electioneering in New Hampshire for Smith.
Accordingly, Phelps, Richards; and Taylor, on July 1 issued a brief
statement to the church at large, asking all to await the assembling of
the Twelve.
John Taylor so stated at Rigdon's coming trial. This, perhaps,
contradicts the statement in the Cannons' "Life of Brigham Young" that
Rigdon had gone there "to escape the turmoils of Nauvoo."
Rigdon arrived in Nauvoo on August 3, and preached the next day in the
grove. He said the Lord had shown him a vision, and that there must be a
"guardian" appointed to "build the church up to Joseph" as he had begun
it. Cannon's account, in the "Juvenile Instructor," says that at a
meeting at John Taylor's the next day Rigdon declared that the church
was in confusion and must have a head, and he wanted a special meeting
called to choose a "guardian." On the evening of August 6, Young, H.
C. Kimball, Lyman Wight, Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, and Wilford Woodruff
arrived from the East. A meeting of the Twelve Apostles, the High
Council, and high priests was called for August 7, at 4 P.m., which
Rigdon attended. He declared that in a vision at Pittsburg it had been
shown to him that he had been ordained a spokesman to Joseph, and
that he must see that the church was governed in a proper manner. "I
propose," said he, "to be a guardian of the people. In this I have
discharged my duty and done what God has commanded me, and the people
can please themselves, whether they accept me or not."
A special meeting of the church was held on the morning of August 8.
Rigdon had previously addressed a gathering in the grove, but he had not
been winning adherents. As we have seen, he had alienated himself from
the men who had accepted Smith's new social doctrines, and a plan which
he proposed, that the church should move to Pennsylvania, appealed
neither to the good judgment nor the pecuniary interests of those to
whom it was presented. Young made an address at this meeting which so
wrought up his hearers that they declared that they saw the mantle of
Joseph fall upon him. When he asked, "Do you want a guardian, a prophet,
a spokesman, or what do you want?" not a hand went up. Young then went
on to give his own view of the situation; his argument pointed to a
single result--the demolition of Rigdon's claim and the establishment of
the supreme authority of the Twelve, of whom Young himself was the head.
W. W. Phelps, P. P. Pratt, and others sustained Young's view. Before a
vote was taken, according to the minutes quoted, Rigdon refused to have
his name voted on as "spokesman" or guardian. The meeting then voted
unanimously in favor of "supporting the Twelve in their calling," and
also that the Twelve should appoint two Bishops to act as trustees for
the church, and that the completion of the Temple should be pushed.*
* For minutes of this church meeting, see Times and Seasons, Vol.
V, p. 637. For a full account of the happenings at Nauvoo, from August 3
to 8, see "Historical Record" (Mormon), Vol VIII, pp.785-800.
On August 15 Young, as president of the Twelve, issued an epistle to the
church in all the world in which he said:--
"Let no man presume for a moment that his [the Prophet's] place will be
filled by another; for, remember he stands in his own place, and always
will, and the Twelve Apostles of this dispensation stand in their own
place, and always will, both in time and eternity, to minister, preside,
and regulate the affairs of the whole church." The epistle told the
Saints also that "it is not wisdom for the Saints to have anything to do
with politics, voting, or president-making at present."
Rigdon remained in Nauvoo after the decision of the church in favor of
the Twelve, preaching as of old, declaring that he was with the brethren
heart and soul, and urging the completion of the Temple. But Young
regarded him as a rival, and determined to put their strength to a test.
Accordingly, on Tuesday, September 3, he had a notice printed in the
Neighbor directing Rigdon to appear on the following Sunday for trial
before a High Council presided over by Bishop Whitney. Rigdon did not
attend this trial, not only because he was not well, but because, after
a conference with his friends, he decided that the case against him was
made up and that his presence would do no good.*
* For the minutes of this High Council, see Times and Seasons,
Vol. V, pp. 647-655, 660-667.
When the High Council met, Young expressed a disbelief in Rigdon's
reported illness. He said that, having heard that Rigdon had ordained
men to be prophets, priests, and kings, he and Orson Hyde had obtained
from Rigdon a confession that he had performed the act of ordination,
and that he believed he held authority above any man in the church. That
evening eight of the Twelve had visited him at his house, and, getting
confirmation of his position, had sent a committee to him to demand his
license. This he had refused to surrender, saying, "I did not receive
it from you, neither shall I give it up to you." Then came the order for
his trial.
Orson Hyde presented the case against Rigdon in detail. He declared
that, when they demanded the surrender of his license, Rigdon threatened
to turn traitor, "His own language was, 'Inasmuch as you have demanded
my license, I shall feel it my duty to publish all your secret meetings,
and all the history of the secret works of this church, in the public
journals.'* He intimated that it would bring a mob upon us." Parley P.
Pratt, the member of Rigdon's old church in Ohio, who, according to his
own account, first called Rigdon's attention to the Mormon Bible, next
spoke against his old friend.
* Lee thus explains one of these "secret works": "The same winter
[1843] he [Smith] organized what was called 'The Council of Fifty.'
This was a confidential organization. This Council was designated as a
lawmaking department, but no record was ever kept of its doings, or, if
kept, they were burned at the close of each meeting. Whenever anything
of importance was on foot, this Council was called to deliberate upon
it. The Council was called the 'Living Constitution.' Joseph said that
no legislature could enact laws that would meet every case, or attain
the ends of justice in all respells."--"Mormonism Unveiled," p.173.
After Amasa Lyman, John Taylor, and H. C. Kimball had spoken against
Rigdon, Brigham Young took the floor again, and in reply to the threat
that Rigdon would expose the secrets of the church, he denounced him in
the following terms:--
"Brother Sidney says, if we go to opposing him, he will tell our
secrets. But I would say, 'O, don't, brother Sidney! don't tell our
secrets--O, don't!' But if he tells our secrets, we will tell his.
Tit for tat. He has had long visions in Pittsburg, revealing to him
wonderful iniquity among the Saints. Now, if he knows of so much
iniquity, and has got such wonderful power, why don't he purge it out?
He professes to have the keys of David. Wonderful power and revelations!
And he will publish our iniquity. O, dear brother Sidney, don't publish
our iniquity! Now don't! If Sidney Rigdon undertakes to publish all our
secrets, as he says, he will lie the first jump he takes. If he knew of
all our iniquity why did he not publish it sooner? If there is so much
iniquity in the church as you talk of, Elder Rigdon, and you have known
of it so long, you are a black-hearted wretch because you have
not published it sooner. If there is not this iniquity, you are a
blackhearted wretch for endeavoring to bring a mob upon us, to murder
innocent men, women and children. Any man that says the Twelve are
bogus-makers, or adulterers, or wicked men is a liar; and all who say
such things shall have the fate of liars, where there is weeping and
gnashing of teeth. Who is there who has seen us do such things? No man.
The spirit that I am of tramples such slanderous wickedness under my
feet." *
* William Small, in a letter to the Pittsburg Messenger and
Advocate, p. 70, relates that when he met Rigdon on his arrival at St.
Louis by boat after this trial, Orson Hyde, who was also a passenger
and thought Small was with the Twelve, addressed Small, asking him to
intercede with Rigdon not to publish the secret acts of the church,
and telling him that if Rigdon would come back and stand equal with the
Twelve and counsel with them, he would pledge himself, in behalf of the
Twelve, that all they had said against Rigdon would be revoked.
At this point the proceedings had a rather startling interruption.
William Marks, president of the Stake at Nauvoo, and a member of the
High Council (who, as we have seen, had rebelled against the doctrine
of polygamy when it was presented to him) took the floor in Rigdon's
defence. But it was in vain.
W. W. Phelps moved that Rigdon "be cut off from the church, and
delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until he repents." The vote
by the Council in favor of this motion was unanimous, but when it was
offered to the church, some ten members voted against it. Phelps at once
moved that all who had voted to follow Rigdon should be suspended
until they could be tried by the High Council, and this was agreed to
unanimously, with an amendment including the words, "or shall hereafter
be found advocating his principles." After compelling President Marks,
by formal motion, to acknowledge his satisfaction with the action of the
church, the meeting adjourned.
Rigdon's next steps certainly gave substance to his brother's
theory that his mind was unbalanced, the family having noticed his
peculiarities from the time he was thrown from a horse, when a boy.* He
soon returned to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where his first step was to
"resuscitate" the Messenger and Advocate, which had died at Kirtland. In
a signed article in the first number he showed that he then intended
"to contend for the same doctrines, order of government, and discipline
maintained by that paper when first published at Kirtland," in other
words, to uphold the Mormon church as he had known it, with himself at
its head. But his old desire for original leadership got the better of
him, and after a conference of the membership he had gathered around
him, held in Pittsburg in April, 1845, at which he was voted "First
President, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Translator," he issued an
address to the public in which he declared that his Church of Christ
was neither a branch nor connection of the church at Nauvoo, and that it
received members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints only after baptism
and repentance.** In an article in his organ, on July 15, 1845, he made
assertions like these: "The Church of Christ and the Mormons are so
widely different in their respective beliefs that they are of necessity
opposed to one another, as far as religion is concerned.... There is
scarcely one point of similarity.... The Church of Christ has obtained a
distinctive character."
* Baptist Witness, March I, 1875.
**Pittsburg Messenger and Advocate, p, 220.
Rigdon told the April conference that he had one unceasing desire,
namely, to know whether God would accept their work. At the suggestion
of the spirit, he had taken some of the brethren into a room in his
house that morning, and had consecrated them. What there occurred he
thus described:--
"After the washing and anointing, and the patriarchal seal, as the Lord
had directed me, we kneeled and in solemn prayer asked God to accept
the work we had done. During the time of prayer there appeared over
our heads in the room a ray of light forming a hollow square, inside of
which stood a company of heavenly messengers, each with a banner in
his hand, with their eyes looking downward upon us, their countenance
expressive of the deep interest they felt in what was passing on the
earth. There also appeared heavenly messengers on horseback, with crowns
upon their heads, and plumes floating in the air, dressed in glorious
attire, until, like Elisha, we cried in our hearts, 'The chariots of
Israel and the horsemen thereof.' Even my little son of fourteen years
of age saw the vision, and gazed with great astonishment, saying that he
thought his imagination was running away with him. After which we arose
and lifted our hands to heaven in holy convocation to God; at which time
was shown an angel in heaven registering the acceptance of our work,
and the decree of the Great God that the kingdom is ours and we shall
prevail."
While the conference was in session, Pittsburg was visited by a
disastrous conflagration. Rigdon prayed for the sufferers by the fire
and asked God to check it. "During the prayer" (this quotation is from
the official report of the conference in the Messenger and Advocate, p.
186), "an escort of the heavenly messengers that had hovered around
us during the time of this conference were seen leaving the room; the
course of the wind was instantly changed, and the violence of the flames
was stayed."
Rigdon's attempt to build up a new church in the East was a failure.
Urgent appeals in its behalf in his periodical were made in vain. The
people addressed could not be cajoled with his stories of revelations
and miraculous visions, which both the secular and religious press held
up to ridicule, and he had no system of foreign immigration to supply
ignorant recruits. He soon after took up his residence in Friendship,
Allegheny County, New York, where he died at the residence of his
son-in-law, Earl Wingate, on July 14, 1876. In an obituary sketch of him
the Standard of that place said:--
"He was approached by the messengers of young Joseph Smith of Plano,
Ill., but he refused to converse or answer any communication which in
any way would bring him into notice in connection with the Mormon church
of to-day. It was his daily custom to visit the post-office, get the
daily paper, read and converse upon the chief topics of the day. He
often engaged in a friendly dispute with the local ministers, and always
came out first best on New Testament doctrinal matters. Patriarchal in
appearance, and kindly in address, he was often approached by citizens
and strangers with a view to obtaining something of the unrecorded
mysteries of his life; but citizen, stranger and persistent reporter
all alike failed in eliciting any information as to his knowledge of the
Mormon imposture, the motives of his early life, or the religious
faith, fears and hopes of his declining years. Once or twice he spoke
excitedly, in terms of scorn, of those who attributed to him the
manufacture of the Mormon Bible; but beyond this, nothing. His library
was small: he left no manuscripts, and refused persistently to have a
picture of himself taken. It can only be said that he was a compound of
ability, versatility, honesty, duplicity, and mystery."
One person succeeded in drawing out from Rigdon in his later years a
few words on his relations with the Mormon church. This was Charles L.
Woodward, a New York bookseller, who some years ago made an important
collection of Mormon literature. While making this collection he sent
an inquiry to Rigdon, and received a reply, dated May 25, 1873. After
apologizing for his handwriting on account of his age and paralysis, the
letter says:--
"We know nothing about the people called Mormons now.* The Lord notified
us that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were going to be
destroyed, and for us to leave. We did so, and the Smiths were killed a
few days after we started. Since that, I have had no connection with any
of the people who staid and built up to themselves churches; and chose
to themselves leaders such as they chose, and then framed their own
religion.
* The statement has been published that, after Young had
established himself in Utah, be received from Rigdon an intimation that
the latter would be willing to join him. I could obtain no confirmation
of this in Salt Lake City. On the contrary, a leading member of the
church informed me that Young invited Rigdon to join the Mormons is
Utah, but that Rigdon did not accept the invitation.
"The Church of Latter-Day Saints had three books that they acknowledged
as Canonical, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Commandments.
For the existence of that church there had to be a revelater, one who
received the word of the Lord; a spokesman, one inspired of God to
expound all revelation, so that the church might all be of one faith.
Without these two men the Church of Latter-Day Saints could not exist.
This order ceased to exist, being overcome by the violence of armed
men, by whom houses were beaten down by cannon which the assailents had
furnished themselves with.
"Thus ended the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it
never can move again till the Lord inspires men and women to believe it.
All the societies and assemblies of men collected together since then is
not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, nor never can there
be such a church till the Lord moves it by his own power, as he did the
first.
"Should you fall in with one who was of the Church [of] Christ, though
now of advanced age, you will find one deep red in the revelations of
heaven. But many of them are dead, and many of them have turned away, so
there are few left.
"I have a manuscript paper in my possession, written with my own hands
while in my {30th. year}, but I am to poor to do anything with it;
and therefore it must remain where it [is]. During the great fight of
affliction I have had, I have lost all my property, but I struggle along
in poverty to which I am consigned. I have finished all I feel necessary
to write.
"Respectfully,
"SIDNEY RIGDON."*
* The original of this letter is in the collection of Mormon
literature in the New York Public Library. An effort to learn from
Rigdon's descendants something about the manuscript paper referred to by
him has failed.
Rigdon's affirmation of his belief in Smith as a prophet and the Mormon
Bible when he returned to Pennsylvania was proclaimed by the Mormons as
proof that there was no truth in the Spaulding manuscript story, but
it carries no weight as such evidence. Rigdon burned all his old
theological bridges behind him when he entered into partnership with
Smith, and his entire course after his return to Pittsburg only adds to
the proof that he was the originator of the Mormon Bible, and that his
object in writing it was to enable him to be the head of a new church.
Surely no one would accept as proof of the divinity of the Mormon
Bible any declaration by the man who told the story of angel visits in
Pittsburg.
CHAPTER XVI. -- RIVALRIES OVER THE SUCCESSION
Rigdon was not alone in contending for the successorship to Joseph
Smith as the head of the Mormon church. The prophet's family defended
vigorously the claim of his eldest son to be his successor.* Lee says
that the prophet had bestowed the right of succession on his eldest
son by divination, and that "it was then [after his father's death]
understood among the Saints that young Joseph was to succeed his father,
and that right justly belonged to him," when he should be old enough.
Lee says further that he heard the prophet's mother plead with Brigham
Young, in Nauvoo, in 1845, with tears, not to rob young Joseph of his
birthright, and that Young conceded the son's claim, but warned her to
keep quiet on the subject, because "you are only laying the knife to the
throat of the child. If it is known that he is the rightful successor
of his father, the enemy of the Priesthood will seek his life."** Strang
says, "Anyone who was in Nauvoo in 1846 or 1847 knows that the majority
of those who started to the Western exodus, started in this hope," that
the younger Joseph would take his father's place.***
* The prophet's sons were Joseph, born November 6, 1832; Fred G.
W., June 20, 1836; Alexander, June 2, 1838; Don Carlos, June 13, 1840;
and David H., November 18, 1844.
** "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 155, 161.
*** Strang's "Prophetic Controversy," p. 4.
At the last day of the Conference held in the Temple in Nauvoo, in
October, 1845, Mother Smith, at her request, was permitted to make
an address. She went over the history of her family, and asked for
an expression of opinion whether she was "a mother in Israel." One
universal "yes" rang out. She said she hoped all her children would
accompany the Saints to the West, and if they did she would go; but
she wanted her bones brought back to be buried beside her husband and
children. Brigham Young then said: "We have extended the helping hand
to Mother Smith. She has the best carriage in the city, and, while she
lives, shall ride in it when and where she pleases." * Mother Smith died
in the summer of 1856 in Nauvoo, where she spent the last two years
of her life with Joseph's first wife, Emma, who had married a Major
Bideman.
* Millennial Star, Vol. VII, p. 23.
Emma caused the Twelve a good deal of anxiety after her husband's death.
Pratt describes a council held by her, Marks, and others to endeavor to
appoint a trustee-in-trust for the whole church, the necessity of which
she vigorously urged. Pratt opposed the idea, and nothing was done about
it.* Soon after her husband's death the Times and Seasons noticed
a report that she was preparing, with the assistance of one of the
prophet's Iowa lawyers, an exposure of his "revelations," etc. James
Arlington Bennett, who visited Nauvoo after the prophet's death, acting
as correspondent for the New York Sun, gave in one of his letters the
text of a statement which he said Emma had written, to this effect, "I
never for a moment believed in what my husband called his apparitions or
revelations, as I thought him laboring under a diseased mind; yet they
may all be true, as a prophet is seldom without credence or honor,
excepting in his own family or country." Mrs. Smith, in a letter to the
Sun, dated December 30, 1845, pronounced this letter a forgery, while
Bennett maintained that he knew that it was genuine.**
*Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 373.
** Emma Smith is described as "a tall, dark, masculine looking
woman" in "Sketches and Anecdotes of the Old Settlers."
The organization--or, as they define it, the reorganization of a church
by those who claim that the mantle of Joseph Smith, Jr., descended
on his sons, had its practical inception at a conference at Beloit,
Wisconsin, in June, 1852, at which resolutions were adopted disclaiming
all fellowship with Young and other claimants to the leadership of the
church, declaring that the successor of the prophet "must of necessity
be the seed of Joseph Smith, Jr." At a conference held in Amboy,
Illinois, in April, 1860, Joseph Smith's son and namesake was placed
at the head of this church, a position which he still holds. The
Reorganized Church has been twice pronounced by United States courts
to be the one founded under the administration of the prophet. Its
teachings may be called pure Mormonism, free from the doctrines
engrafted in after years. It holds that "the doctrines of a plurality
and community of wives are heresies, and are opposed to the law of God."
Its declaration of faith declares its belief in baptism by immersion,
the same kind of organization (apostles, prophets, pastors, etc.) that
existed in the primitive church, revelations by God to man from time
to time "until the end of time," and in "the powers and gifts of the
everlasting gospel, viz., the gift of faith, discerning of spirits,
prophesy, revelation, healing, visions, tongues, and the interpretation
of tongues." No one ever heard of this church having any trouble with
its Gentile neighbors.
The Reorganized Church moved its headquarters to Lamoni, Iowa, in 1881.
It has a present membership of 45,381, according to the report of the
General Church Recorder to the conference of April, 1901. Of these
members, 6964 were foreign,--286 in Canada, 1080 in England, and 1955 in
the Society Islands. The largest membership in this country is 7952 in
Iowa, 6280 in Missouri, and 3564 in Michigan. Utah reported 685 members.
The most determined claimant to the successorship of Smith was James J.
Strang. Born at Scipio, New York, in 1813, Strang was admitted to the
bar when a young man, and moved to Wisconsin. Some of the Mormons who
went into the north woods to get lumber for the Nauvoo Temple planted
a Stake near La Crosse, under Lyman Wight, in 1842. Trouble ensued very
soon with their non-Mormon neighbors, and after a rather brief career
the supporters of this Stake moved away quietly one night. Strang heard
of the Mormon doctrines from these settlers, accepted their truth, and
visiting Nauvoo, was baptized in February, 1844, made an elder, and
authorized to plant another Stake in Wisconsin. He first attempted to
found a city called Voree, where a temple covering more than two acres
of ground, with twelve towers, was begun.
When Smith was killed, Strang at once came forward with a declaration
that the prophet's revelations indicated that, at the close of his own
prophetic office, another would be called to the place by revelation,
and ordained at the hands of angels; that not only had he (Strang) been
so ordained, but that Smith had written to him in June, 1844, predicting
the end of his own work, and telling Strang that he was to gather
the people in a Zion in Wisconsin. Strang began at once giving out
revelations, describing visions, and announcing that an angel had shown
him "plates of the sealed record," and given him the Urim and Thummim to
translate them.
Although Strang's whole scheme was a very clumsy imitation of Smith's,
he drew a considerable number of followers to his Wisconsin branch,
where he published a newspaper called the Voree Herald, and issued
pamphlets in defence of his position, and a "Book of the Law,"
explaining his doctrinal teachings, which included polygamy. He had five
wives. His Herald printed a statement, signed by the prophet's mother
and his brother William, his three married sisters, and the husband
of one of them, certifying that "the Smith family do believe in the
appointment of J. J. Strang." Among other Mormons of note who gave in
their allegiance to Strang were John E. Page, one of the Twelve (whom
Phelps had called "the sun-dial"), General John C. Bennett, and Martin
Harris.
Strang gave the Mormon leaders considerable anxiety, especially when he
sent missionaries to England to work up his cause. The Millennial Star
of November 15, 1846, devoted a good deal of space to the subject. The
article began:--
"SKETCHES OF NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS: James J. Strang, successor of Sidney
Rigdon, Judius Iscariot, Cain & Co., Envoy Extraordinary and a Minister
Plenipotentiary to His Most Gracious Majesty Lucifer L, assisted by
his allied contemporary advisers, John C. Bennett, William Smith, G. T.
Adams, and John E. Page, Secretary of Legation."
Strang announced a revelation which declared that he was to be "King
in Zion," and his coronation took place on July 8, 1850, when he was
crowned with a metal crown having a cluster of stars on its front. Burnt
offerings were included in the programme.
This ceremony took place on Beaver Island, in Lake Superior, where
in 1847 Strang had gathered his people and assumed both temporal and
spiritual authority. Both of these claims got him into trouble. His
non-Mormon neighbors, fishermen and lumbermen, accused the Mormons of
wholesale thefts; his assumption of regal authority brought him before
the United States court, (where he was not held); and his advocacy of
the practice of polygamy by his followers aroused insubordination, and
on June 15, 1856, he was shot by two members of his flock whom he had
offended, and who were at once regarded as heroes by the people of the
mainland. A mob secured a vessel, visited Beaver Island, where Strang
had maintained a sort of fort, and compelled the Mormon inhabitants to
embark immediately, with what little property they could gather up. They
were landed at different places, most of them in Milwaukee. Thus ended
Strang's Kingdom.*
* "A Moses of the Mormons," by Henry E. Legler, Parkman Club
Publications, Nos. 15-16, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 11, 1897; "An
American Kingdom of Mormons," Magazine of Western History, Cleveland,
Ohio, April, 1886.
Another leader who "set up for himself" after Smith's death was Lyman
Wight, who had been one of the Twelve in Missouri, and was arrested with
Smith there. Wight did not lay claim to the position of President of the
church, but he resented what he called Brigham Young's usurpation. In
1845 he led a small company of his followers to Texas, where they first
settled on the Colorado River, near Austin. They made successive moves
from that place into Gillespie, Burnett, and Bandera counties. He died
near San Antonio in March, 1858. The fact that Wight entered into the
practice of polygamy almost as soon as he reached Texas, and still
escaped any conflict with his non-Mormon neighbors, affords proof of his
good character in other respects. The Galveston News, in its notice of
his death, said, "Mr. Wight first came to Texas in November, 1845, and
has been with his colony on our extreme frontier ever since, moving
still farther west as settlements formed around him, thus always being
the pioneer of advancing civilization, affording protection against the
Indians."
After Wight's death his people scattered. A majority of them became
identified with the Reorganized Church, a few gave in their allegiance
to the organization in Utah, and others abandoned Mormonism entirely.
CHAPTER XVII. -- BRIGHAM YOUNG
Brigham Young, the man who had succeeded in expelling Rigdon and
establishing his own position as head of the church, was born in
Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont, on June 1, 1801. The precise
locality of his birth in that town is in dispute. His father, a native
of Massachusetts, is said to have served under Washington during the
Revolutionary War. The family consisted of eleven children, five sons
and six daughters, of whom Brigham was the ninth. The Youngs moved
to Whitingham in January, 1801. In his address at the centennial
celebration of that town in 1880, Clark Jillson said, "Henry Goodnow,
Esq., of this town says that Brigham Young's father came here the
poorest man that ever had been in town; that he never owned a cow,
horse, or any land, but was a basket maker." Mormon accounts represent
the elder Young as having been a farmer.
His circumstances permitted him to give his children very little
education, and, when sixteen years old, Brigham seems to have started
out to make his own living, working as a carpenter, painter, and
glazier, as jobs were offered. He was living in Aurelius, Cayuga County,
New York, in 1824, working at his trade, and there, in October of that
year, he married his first wife, Miriam Works. In 1829 they moved to
Mendon, Monroe County, New York.
Joseph Smith's brother, in the following year, left a copy of the Mormon
Bible at the house of Brigham's brother Phineas in Mendon, and there
Brigham first saw it. Occasional preaching by Mormon elders made the new
faith a subject of conversation in the neighborhood, and Phineas was an
early convert. Brigham stated in a sermon in Salt Lake City, on August
8, 1852, that he examined the new Bible for two years before deciding
to receive it. He was baptized into the Mormon church on April 14, 1832.
His wife, who also embraced the faith, died in September of that year,
leaving him two daughters.
Young married his second wife, Mary A. Angel, in Kirtland on March 31,
1834. His application for a marriage license is still on file among the
records of the Probate Court at Chardon, now the shire town of Geauga
County, Ohio, and his signature is a proof of his illiterateness,
showing that he did not know how to spell his own baptismal name,
spelling it "Bricham."
Young began preaching and baptizing in the neighborhood, having at once
been made an elder, and in the autumn of 1832, after Smith's second
return from Missouri, he visited Kirtland and first saw the prophet.
Mormon accounts of this visit say that Young "spoke in tongues," and
that Smith pronounced his language "the pure Adamic," and then predicted
that he would in time preside over the church. It is not at all
improbable that Joseph did not hesitate to interpret Brigham's
"tongues," but at that time he was thinking of everything else but a
successor to himself.
Young, with his brother Joseph, went from Kirtland on foot to Canada,
where he preached and baptized, and whence he brought back a company of
converts. He worked at his trade in Kirtland (preaching as called upon)
from that time until 1834, when he accompanied the "Army of Zion" to
Missouri, being one of the captains of tens. Returning with the prophet,
he was employed on the Temple and other church buildings for the next
three years (superintending the painting of the Temple), when he was
not engaged in other church work. Having been made one of the original
Quorum of Twelve in 1835, he devoted a good deal of time in the warmer
months holding conferences in New York State and New England.
When open opposition to Smith manifested itself in Kirtland, Young was
one of his firmest defenders. He attended a meeting in an upper room
of the Temple, the object of which was to depose Smith and place David
Whitmer in the Presidency, leading in the debate, and declaring that
he "knew that Joseph was a prophet." According to his own statement, he
learned of a plot to kill Smith as he was returning from Michigan in
a stage-coach, and met the coach with a horse and buggy, and drove the
prophet to Kirtland unharmed. When Smith found it necessary to flee from
Ohio, Young followed him to Missouri with his family, arriving at Far
West on March 14, 1838. He sailed to Liverpool on a mission in 1840,
remaining there a little more than a year.
In all the discords of the church that occurred during Smith's life,
Young never incurred the prophet's displeasure, and there is no evidence
that he ever attempted to obtain any more power or honor for himself
than was voluntarily accorded to him. He gave practical assistance to
the refugees from Missouri as they arrived at Quincy, but there is no
record of his prominence in the discussions there over the future plans
for the church. The prophet's liking for him is shown in a revelation
dated at Nauvoo, July 9; 1841 (Sec. 126), which said:--
"Dear and beloved brother Brigham Young, verily thus saith the Lord unto
you, my servant Brigham, it is no more required at your hand to leave
your family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me; I
have seen your labor and toil in journeyings for my name. I therefore
command you to send my word abroad, and take special care of your family
from this time, henceforth, and forever. Amen."
The apostasy of Marsh and the death of Patton had left Young the
President of the Twelve, and that was the position in which he found
himself at the time of Smith's death.
One of the first subjects which Young had to decide concerned
"revelations." Did they cease with Smith's death, or, if not, who would
receive and publish them? Young made a statement on this subject at
the church conference held at Nauvoo on October 6 of that year, which
indicated his own uncertainty on the subject, and which concluded
as follows, "Every member has the right of receiving revelations for
themselves, both male and female." As if conscious that all this was
not very clear, he closed by making a declaration which was very
characteristic of his future policy: "If you don't know whose right it
is to give revelations, I will tell you. It is I."* We shall see that
the discontinuance of written "revelations" was a cause of complaint
during all of Young's subsequent career in Utah, but he never yielded to
the demand for them.
* Times and Seasons, Vol. V, pp. 682-683.
At the conference in Nauvoo Young selected eighty-five men from the
Quorum of high priests to preside over branches of the church in all
the congressional districts of the United States; and he took pains to
explain to them that they were not to stay six months and then return,
but "to go and settle down where they can take their families and tarry
until the Temple is built, and then come and get their endowments, and
return to their families and build up a Stake as large as this." Young's
policy evidently was, while not imitating Rigdon's plan to move the
church bodily to the East, to build up big branches all over the
country, with a view to such control of affairs, temporal and spiritual,
as could be attained. "If the people will let us alone," he said to this
same conference, "we will convert the world."
Many members did not look on the Twelve as that head of the church
which Smith's revelations had decreed. It was argued by those who upheld
Rigdon and Strang, and by some who remained with the Twelve, that the
"revelations" still required a First Presidency. The Twelve allowed this
question to remain unsettled until the brethren were gathered at
Winter Quarters, Iowa, after their expulsion from Nauvoo, and Young had
returned from his first trip to Salt Lake valley. The matter was taken
up at a council at Orson Hyde's house on December 5, 1847, and it was
decided, but not without some opposing views, to reorganize the church
according to the original plan, with a First Presidency and Patriarch.
In accordance with this plan, a conference was held in the log
tabernacle at Winter Quarters on December 24, and Young was elected
President and John Smith Patriarch. Young selected Heber C. Kimball
and Willard Richards to be his counsellors, and the action of this
conference was confirmed in Salt Lake City the following October. Young
wrote immediately after his election, "This is one of the happiest days
of my life."
The vacancies in the Twelve caused by these promotions, and by Wight's
apostasy, were not filled until February 12, 1849, in Salt Lake City,
when Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, C. C. Rich, and F. D. Richards were
chosen.
CHAPTER XVIII. -- RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS--"THE BURNINGS"
The death of the prophet did not bring peace with their outside
neighbors to the Mormon church. Indeed, the causes of enmity were too
varied and radical to be removed by any changes in the leadership, so
long as the brethren remained where they were.
In the winter of 1844-1845 charges of stealing made against the Mormons
by their neighbors became more frequent. Governor Ford, in his message
to the legislature, pronounced such reports exaggerated, but it probably
does the governor no injustice to say that he now had his eye on the
Mormon vote. The non-Mormons in Hancock and the surrounding counties
held meetings and appointed committees to obtain accurate information
about the thefts, and the old complaints of the uselessness of tracing
stolen goods to Nauvoo were revived. The Mormons vigorously denied these
charges through formal action taken by the Nauvoo City Council and a
citizens' meeting, alleging that in many cases "outlandish men" had
visited the city at night to scatter counterfeit money and deposit
stolen goods, the responsibility for which was laid on Mormon shoulders.
It is not at all improbable that many a theft in western Illinois in
those days that was charged to Mormons had other authors; but testimony
regarding the dishonesty of many members of the church, such as we have
seen presented in Smith's day, was still available. Thus, Young, in one
of his addresses to the conference assembled at Nauvoo about two months
after Smith's death, made this statement: "Elders who go to borrowing
horses or money, and running away with it, will be cut off from the
church without any ceremony. THEY WILL NOT HAVE SO MUCH LENITY AS
HERETOFORE."*
* Times and Seasons, Vol. V, p. 696.
A lady who published a sketch of her travels in 1845 through Illinois
and Iowa wrote:--
"We now entered a part of the country laid waste by the desperadoes
among the Mormons. Whole farms were deserted, fields were still covered
with wheat unreaped, and cornfields stood ungathered, the inhabitants
having fled to a distant part of the country.... Friends gave us a good
deal of information about the doings of these Saints at Nauvoo--said
that often, when their orchards were full of fruit, some sixteen of
these monsters would come with bowie knives and drive the owners into
their houses while they stripped their trees of the fruit. If these
rogues wanted cattle they would drive off the cattle of the Gentiles."*
* "Book for the Married and Single," by Ann Archbold.
A trial concerning the title to some land in Adams County in that year
brought out the fact that there existed in the Mormon church what was
called a "Oneness." Five persons would associate and select one of their
members as a guardian; then, if any of the property they jointly owned
was levied on, they would show that one or more of the other five was
the real owner.
While the Mormons continued to send abroad glowing pictures of the
prosperity of Nauvoo, less prejudiced accounts gave a very different
view. The latter pointed out that the immigrants, who supplied the only
source of prosperity, had expended most of their capital on houses and
lots, that building operations had declined, because houses could be
bought cheaper than they could be built, and that mechanics had been
forced to seek employment in St. Louis. Published reports that large
numbers of the poor in the city were dependent on charity received
confirmation in a letter published in the Millennial Star of October 1,
1845, which said that on a fast-day proclaimed by Young, when the poor
were to be remembered, "people were seen trotting in all directions to
the Bishops of the different wards" with their contributions.
We have seen that the gathering of the Saints at Nauvoo was an idea of
Joseph Smith, and was undertaken against the judgment of some of the
wiser members of the church. The plan, so far as its business features
were concerned, was on a par with the other business enterprises that
the prophet had fathered. There was nothing to sustain a population of
15,000 persons, artificially collected, in this frontier settlement, and
that disaster must have resulted from the experiment, even without the
hostile opposition of their neighbors, is evident from the fact that
Nauvoo to day, when fifty years have settled up the surrounding district
and brought it in better communication with the world, is a village of
only 1321 inhabitants (census of 1900).
Politics were not eliminated from the causes of trouble by Smith's
death. Not only was 1844 a presidential year, but the citizens of
Hancock County were to vote for a member of Congress, two members of the
legislature, and a sheriff. Governor Ford urgently advised the Mormons
not to vote at all, as a measure of peace; but political feeling ran
very high, and the Democrats got the Mormon vote for President, and with
the same assistance elected as sheriff General Deming, the officer left
by Governor Ford in command of the militia at Carthage when the Smiths
were killed, as well as two members of the legislature who had voted
against the repeal of the Nauvoo city charter.
The tone of the Mormons toward their non-Mormon neighbors seemed to
become more defiant at this time than ever. The repeal of the Nauvoo
charter, in January, 1845, unloosened their tongues. Their newspaper,
the Neighbor, declared that the legislature "had no more right to repeal
the charter than the United States would have to abrogate and make
void the constitution of the state, or than Great Britain would have
to abolish the constitution of the United States--and the man that says
differently is a coward, a traitor to his own rights, and a tyrant; no
odds what Blackstone, Kent or Story may have written to make themselves
and their names popular, to the contrary."
The Neighbor, in the same article, thus defined its view of the
situation, after the repeal:--
"Nor is it less legal for an insulted individual or community to resist
oppression. For this reason, until the blood of Joseph and Hyrum Smith
has been atoned for by hanging, shooting or slaying in some manner every
person engaged in that cowardly, mean assassination, no Latter-Day Saint
should give himself up to the law; for the presumption is that they wilt
murder him in the same manner.... Neither should civil process come into
Nauvoo till the United States by a vigorous course, causes the State
of Missouri and the State of Illinois to redress every man that has
suffered the loss of lands, goods or anything else by expulsion. ...
If any man is bound to maintain the law, it is for the benefit he may
derive from it.... Well, our charter is repealed; the murderers of the
Smiths are running at large, and if the Mormons should wish to imitate
their forefathers and fulfil the Scriptures by making it 'hard to kick
against the pricks' by wearing cast steel pikes about four or five
inches long in their boots and shoes to kick with, WHAT'S THE HARM?"
Such utterances, which found imitation in the addresses of the leaders,
and were echoed in the columns of Pratt's Prophet in New York, made it
easy for their hostile neighbors to believe that the Mormons considered
themselves beyond the reach of any law but their own. Some daring
murders committed across the river in Iowa in the spring of
1845 afforded confirmation to the non-Mormons of their belief in
church-instigated crimes of this character, and in the existence and
activity of the Danite organization. The Mormon authorities had denied
that there were organized Danites at Nauvoo, but the weight of testimony
is against the denial. Gregg, a resident of the locality when the
Mormons dwelt there, gives a fair idea of the accepted view of the
Danites at that time:--
"They were bound together with oaths of the most solemn character, and
the punishment of traitors to the order was death. John A. Murrell's
Band of Pirates, who flourished at one time near Jackson, Tennessee,
and up and down the Mississippi River above New Orleans, was never so
terrible as the Danite Band, for the latter was a powerful organization,
and was above the law. The band made threats, and they were not
idle threats. They went about on horseback, under cover of darkness,
disguised in long white robes with red girdles. Their faces were covered
with masks to conceal their identity."*
* "History of Hancock County." See also "Sketches and Anecdotes
of the Old Settlers," p. 34.
Phineas Wilcox, a young man of good reputation, went to Nauvoo
on September 16, 1845, to get some wheat ground, and while there
disappeared completely. The inquiry made concerning him led his friends
to believe that he was suspected of being a Gentile spy, and was quietly
put out of the way.*
* See Lee's "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 158-159, for accounts of
methods of disposing of objectionable persons at Nauvoo.
William Smith, the prophet's brother, contributed to the testimony
against the Mormon leaders. Returning from the East, where he had been
living for three years when Joseph was killed, he was warmly welcomed
by the Mormon press, and elevated to the position of Patriarch, and,
as such, issued a sort of advertisement of his patriarchal wares in the
Times and Seasons* and Neighbor, inviting those in want of blessings to
call at his residence. William was not a man of tact, and it required
but a little time for him to arouse the jealousy of the leaders, the
result of which was a notice in the Times and Seasons of November 1,
1845, that he had been "cut off and left in the hands of God." But
William was not a man to remain quiet even in such a retreat, and he
soon afterward issued to the Saints throughout the world "a proclamation
and faithful warning," which filled eight and a half columns of the
Warsaw Signal of October 29, 1845, in which, "in all meekness of spirit,
and without anger or malice" (William possessed most of the family
traits), he accused Young of instigating murders, and spoke of him in
this way:--
* Vol. VI, p. 904.
"It is my firm and sincere conviction that, since the murder of my two
brothers, usurpation, and anarchy, and spiritual wickedness in high
places have crept into the church, with the cognizance and acquiescence
of those whose solemn duty It was to guardedly watch against such
a state of things. Under the reign of one whom I may call a Pontius
Pilate, under the reign, I say, of this Brigham Young, no greater tyrant
ever existed since the days of Nero. He has no other justification than
ignorance to cover the most cruel acts--acts disgraceful to any one
bearing the stamp of humanity; and this being has associated around him
men, bound by oaths and covenants, who are reckless enough to commit
almost any crime, or fulfil any command that their self-crowned head
might give them."
William was, of course, welcomed as a witness by the non-Mormons. He
soon after went to St. Louis, and while there received a letter from
Orson Hyde, which called his proclamation "a cruel thrust," but urged
him to return, pledging that they would not harm him. William did not
accept the invitation, but settled in Illinois, became a respected
citizen, and in later years was elected to the legislature. When invited
to join the Reorganized Church by his nephew Joseph, he declined,
saying, "I am not in sympathy, very strongly, with any of the present
organized bands of Mormons, your own not excepted."
By the spring of 1845 the Mormons were deserted even by their Democratic
allies, some three hundred of whom in Hancock County issued an address
denying that the opposition to them was principally Whig, and declaring
that it had arisen from compulsion and in self-defence. Governor Ford,
anxious to be rid of his troublesome constituents, sent a confidential
letter to Brigham Young, dated April 8, 1845, saying, "If you can get
off by yourselves you may enjoy peace," and suggesting California as
opening "a field for the prettiest enterprise that has been undertaken
in modern times."
An era of the most disgraceful outrages that marked any of the conflicts
between the Mormons and their opponents east of the Rocky Mountains
began in Hancock County on the night of September 9, when a schoolhouse
in Green Plain, south of Warsaw, in which the anti-Mormons were holding
a meeting, was fired upon. The Mormons always claimed that this was
a sham attack, made by the anti-Mormons to give an excuse for open
hostilities, and probabilities favor this view. Straightway ensued what
were known as the "burnings." A band of men, numbering from one hundred
to two hundred, and coming mostly from Warsaw, began burning the houses,
outbuildings, and grain stacks of Mormons all over the southwest part of
the county. The owners were given time to remove their effects, and were
ordered to make haste to Nauvoo, and in this way the country region was
rapidly rid of Mormon settlers.*
* Gregg's "History of Hancock County," p. 374.
The sheriff of the county at that time was J. B. Backenstos, who, Ford
says, went to Hancock County from Sangamon, a fraudulent debtor, and
whose brother married a niece of the Prophet Joseph.* He had been
elected to the legislature the year before, and had there so openly
espoused the Mormon cause opposing the repeal of the Nauvoo charter that
his constituents proposed to drive him from the county when he returned
home. Backenstos at once took up the cause of the Mormons, issued
proclamation after proclamation,** breathing the utmost hostility to the
Mormon assailants, and calling on the citizens to aid him as a posse in
maintaining order.
* Ford's "History of Illinois," pp. 407-408.
** For the text of five of these proclamations, see Millennial
Star, Vol. VI.
A sheriff of different character might have secured the help that was
certainly his due on such an occasion, but no non-Mormon would respond
to a call by Backenstos. An occurrence incidental to these disturbances
now added to the public feeling. On September 16, Lieutenant Worrell,
who had been in command of the guard at the jail when the Smith brothers
were killed, was shot dead while riding with two companions from
Carthage to Warsaw. His death was charged to Backenstos and to O. P.
Rockwell,* the man accused of the attempted assassination of Governor
Boggs, and both were afterward put on trial for it, but were acquitted.
The sheriff now turned to the Nauvoo Legion for recruits, and in his
third proclamation he announced that he then had a posse of upward of
two thousand "well-armed men" and two thousand more ready to respond to
his call. He marched in different directions with this force, visiting
Carthage, where he placed a number of citizens under arrest and issued
his Proclamation No. 4., in which he characterized the Carthage Grays as
"a band of the most infamous and villanous scoundrels that ever infested
any community."
* "Who was the actual guilty party may never be known. We have
lately been informed from Salt Lake that Rockwell did the deed, under
order of the sheriff, which is probably the case."--Gregg, "History of
Hancock County," p. 341.
"During the ascendency of the sheriff and the absence of the
anti-Mormons from their homes," said Governor Ford,* "the people who had
been burnt out of their houses assembled at Nauvoo, from whence, with
many others, they sallied forth and ravaged the country, stealing and
plundering whatever was convenient to carry or drive away." Thus it
seems that the governor had changed his opinion about the honesty of
the Mormons. To remedy the chaotic condition of affairs in the
county, Governor Ford went to Jacksonville, Morgan County, where, in a
conference, it was decided that judge Stephen A. Douglas, General J. J.
Hardin, Attorney General T. A. McDougal, and Major W. B. Warren should
go to Hancock County with such forces as could be raised, to put an end
to the lawlessness. When the sheriff heard of this, he pronounced the
governor's proclamation directing the movement a forgery, and said, in
his own Proclamation No. 5, "I hope no armed men will come into Hancock
County under such circumstances. I shall regard them in the character of
a mob, and shall treat them accordingly."
*Ford's "History of Illinois," p. 410.
The sheriff labored under a mistake. The steps now taken resulted, not
in a demonstration of his authority, but in the final expulsion of all
the Mormons from Illinois and Iowa.
CHAPTER XIX. -- THE EXPULSION OF THE MORMONS
General Hardin announced the coming of his force, which numbered about
four hundred men, in a proclamation addressed "To the Citizens of
Hancock County," dated September 27. He called attention to the lawless
acts of the last two years by both parties, characterizing the recent
burning of houses as "acts which disgrace your county, and are a stigma
to the state, the nation, and the age." His force would simply see that
the laws were obeyed, without taking part with either side. He forbade
the assembling of any armed force of more than four men while his troops
remained in the county, urged the citizens to attend to their ordinary
business, and directed officers having warrants for arrests in
connection with the recent disturbances to let the attorney-general
decide whether they needed the assistance of troops.
But the citizens were in no mood for anything like a restoration of
the recent order of things, or for any compromise. The Warsaw Signal of
September 17 had appealed to the non-Mormons of the neighboring counties
to come to the rescue of Hancock, and the citizens of these counties
now began to hold meetings which adopted resolutions declaring that the
Mormons "must go," and that they would not permit them to settle in any
of the counties interested. The most important of these meetings, held
at Quincy, resulted in the appointment of a committee of seven to
visit Nauvoo, and see what arrangements could be made with the Mormons
regarding their removal from the state. Notwithstanding their defiant
utterances, the Mormon leaders had for some time realized that their
position in Illinois was untenable. That Smith himself understood this
before his death is shown by the following entry in his diary:--
"Feb. 20, 1844. I instructed the Twelve Apostles to send out a
delegation, and investigate the locations of California and Oregon,
and hunt out a good location where we can remove to after the Temple is
completed, and where we can build a city in a day, and have a government
of our own, get up into the mountains, where the devil cannot dig us
out, and live in a healthy climate where we can live as old as we have a
mind to."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. XX, p. 819.
The Mormon reply to the Quincy committee was given under date of
September 24 in the form of a proclamation signed by President Brigham
Young.* In a long preamble it asserted the desire of the Mormons "to
live in peace with all men, so far as we can, without sacrificing the
right to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences";
recited their previous expulsion from their homes, and the unfriendly
view taken of their "views and principles" by many of the people of
Illinois, finally announcing that they proposed to leave that country
in the spring "for some point so remote that there will not need to be a
difficulty with the people and ourselves." The agreement to depart was,
however, conditioned on the following stipulations: that the citizens
would help them to sell or rent their properties, to get means to assist
the widows, the fatherless, and the destitute to move with the rest;
that "all men will let us alone with their vexatious lawsuits"; that
cash, dry goods, oxen, cattle, horses, wagons, etc., be given in
exchange for Mormon property, the exchanges to be conducted by a
committee of both parties; and that they be subjected to no more house
burnings nor other depredations while they remained.
* Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 187.
The adjourned meeting at Quincy received the report of its committee on
September 26, and voted to accept the proposal of the Mormons to move in
the spring, but stated explicitly, "We do not intend to bring ourselves
under any obligation to purchase their property, nor to furnish
purchasers for the same; but we will in no way hinder or obstruct
them in their efforts to sell, and will expect them to dispose of their
property and remove at the time appointed." To manifest their sympathy
with the unoffending poor of Nauvoo, a committee of twenty was appointed
to receive subscriptions for their aid. The resignation of Sheriff
Backenstos was called for, and the judge of that circuit was advised to
hold no court in Hancock County that year.
The outcome of the meetings in the different counties was a convention
which met in Carthage on October 1 and 2, and at which nine counties
(Hancock not included) were represented. This convention adopted
resolutions setting forth the inability of non-Mormons to secure justice
at the hands of juries under Mormon influence, declaring that the only
settlement of the troubles could be through the removal of the Mormons
from the state, and repudiating "the impudent assertion, so often and
so constantly put forth by the Mormons, that they are persecuted for
righteousness' sake." The counties were advised to form a military
organization, and the Mormons were warned that their opponents "solemnly
pledge ourselves to be ready to act as the occasion may require."
Meanwhile, the commissioners appointed by Governor Ford had been in
negotiation with the Mormon authorities, and on October 1 they, too,
asked the latter to submit their intentions in writing. This they did
the same day. Their reply, signed by Brigham Young, President, and
Willard Richards, Clerk,* referred the commission to their response
to the Quincy committee, and added that they had begun arrangements
to remove from the county before the recent disturbances, one thousand
families, including the heads of the church, being determined to start
in the spring, without regard to any sacrifice of their property;
that the whole church desired to go with them, and would do so if the
necessary means could be secured by sales of their possessions, but that
they wished it "distinctly understood that, although we may not find
purchasers for our property, we will not sacrifice it or give it away,
or suffer it illegally to be wrested from us." To this the commissioners
on October 3 sent a reply, informing the Mormons that their proposition
seemed to be acquiesced in by the citizens of all the counties
interested, who would permit them to depart in peace the next spring
without further violence. They closed as follows:--
* Text in Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 190.
"After what has been said and written by yourselves, it will be
confidently expected by us and the whole community, that you will remove
from the state with your whole church, in the manner you have agreed in
your statement to us. Should you not do so, we are satisfied, however
much we may deprecate violence and bloodshed, that violent measures
will be resorted to, to compel your removal, which will result in most
disastrous consequences to yourselves and your opponents, and that the
end will be your expulsion from the state. We think that steps should
be taken by you to make it apparent that you are actually preparing to
remove in the spring.
"By carrying out, in good faith, your proposition to remove, as
submitted to us, we think you should be, and will be, permitted to
depart peaceably next spring for your destination, west of the Rocky
Mountains. For the purpose of maintaining law and order in this county,
the commanding general purposes to leave an armed force in this county
which will be sufficient for that purpose, and which will remain so long
as the governor deems it necessary. And for the purpose of preventing
the use of such force for vexatious or improper objects, we will
recommend the governor of the state to send some competent legal officer
to remain here, and have the power of deciding what process shall be
executed by said military force.
"We recommend to you to place every possible restraint in your power
over the members of your church, to prevent them from committing acts
of aggression or retaliation on any citizens of the state, as a contrary
course may, and most probably will, bring about a collision which will
subvert all efforts to maintain the peace in this county; and we propose
making a similar request of your opponents in this and the surrounding
counties.
"With many wishes that you may find that peace and prosperity in
the land of your destination which you desire, we have the honor to
subscribe ourselves,
"JOHN J. HARDIN, W. B. WARREN.
"S. A. DOUGLAS, J. A. MCDOUGAL."
On the following day these commissioners made official announcement
of the result of their negotiations, "to the anti-Mormon citizens of
Hancock and the surrounding counties." They expressed their belief in
the sincerity of the Mormon promises; advised that the non-Mormons be
satisfied with obtaining what was practicable, even if some of their
demands could not be granted, beseeching them to be orderly, and at the
same time warning them not to violate the law, which the troops left in
the county by General Hardin would enforce at all hazards. The report
closed as follows:--
"Remember, whatever may be the aggression against you, the sympathy of
the public may be forfeited. It cannot be denied that the burning of
the houses of the Mormons in Hancock County, by which a large number
of women and children have been rendered homeless and houseless, in the
beginning of the winter, was an act criminal in itself, and disgraceful
to its perpetrators. And it should also be known that it has led many
persons to believe that, even if the Mormons are so bad as they are
represented, they are no worse than those who have burnt their houses.
Whether your cause is just or unjust, the acts of these incendiaries
have thus lost for you something of the sympathy and good-will of your
fellow-citizens; and a resort to, or persistence in, such a course
under existing circumstances will make you forfeit all the respect and
sympathy of the community. We trust and believe, for this lovely portion
of our state, a brighter day is dawning; and we beseech all parties not
to seek to hasten its approach by the torch of the incendiary, nor to
disturb its dawn by the clash of arms."
The Millennial Star of December 1, 1845, thus introduced this
correspondence:--
THE END OF AMERICAN LIBERTY
"The following official correspondence shows that this government
has given thirty thousand American citizens THE CHOICE OF DEATH or
BANISHMENT beyond the Rocky Mountains. Of these two evils they have
chosen the least. WHAT BOASTED LIBERTY! WHAT an honor to American
character!"
CHAPTER XX. -- THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO--"THE LAST MORMON WAR"
The winter of 1845-1846 in Hancock County passed without any renewed
outbreak, but the credit for this seems to have been due to the firmness
and good judgment of Major W. B. Warren, whom General Hardin placed in
command of the force which he left in that county to preserve order,
rather than to any improvement in the relations between the two parties,
even after the Mormons had agreed to depart.
Major Warren's command, which at first consisted of one hundred men,
and was reduced during the winter to fifty and later to ten, came
from Quincy, and had as subordinate officers James D. Morgan and B. M.
Prentiss, whose names became famous as Union generals in the war of the
rebellion. Warren showed no favoritism in enforcing his authority, and
he was called on to exercise it against both sides. The local newspapers
of the day contain accounts of occasional burnings during the winter,
and of murders committed here and there. On November 17, a meeting of
citizens of Warsaw, who styled themselves "a portion of the anti-Mormon
party," was held to protest against such acts as burnings and the murder
of a Mormon, ten miles south of Warsaw, and to demand adherence to
the agreement entered into. On February 5, Major Warren had to issue a
warning to an organization of anti-Mormons who had ordered a number of
Mormon families to leave the county by May 1, if they did not want to be
burned out.
Governor Ford sent Mr. Brayman to Hancock County as legal counsel for
the military commander. In a report dated December 14, 1845, Mr. Brayman
said of the condition of affairs as he found them:--
"Judicial proceedings are but mockeries of the forms of law; juries,
magistrates and officers of every grade concerned in the civil affairs
of the county partake so deeply of the prevailing excitement that no
reliance, as a general thing, can be placed on their action. Crime
enjoys a disgraceful impunity, and each one feels at liberty to commit
any aggression, or to avenge his own wrongs to any extent, without
legal accountability.... Whether the parties will become reconciled or
quieted, so as to live together in peace, is doubted.... Such a series
of outrages and bold violations of law as have marked the history of
Hancock County for several years past is a blot upon our institutions;
ought not to be endured by a civilized people." *
* Warsaw Signal, December 24, 1845.
Meanwhile, the Mormons went on with their preparations for their
westward march, selling their property as best they could, and making
every effort to trade real estate in and out of the city, and such
personal property as they could not take with them, for cattle, oxen,
mules, horses, sheep, and wagons. Early in February the non-Mormons were
surprised to learn that the Mormons at Nauvoo had begun crossing the
river as a beginning of their departure for the far West. "We scarcely
know what to make of this movement," said the Warsaw Signal, the general
belief being that the Mormons would be slow in carrying out their
agreement to leave "so soon as grass would grow and water run." The date
of the first departure, it has since been learned, was hastened by the
fact that the grand jury in Springfield, Illinois, in December, 1845,
had found certain indictments for counterfeiting, in regard to which the
journal of that city, on December 25, gave the following particulars:--
"During the last week twelve bills of indictment for counterfeiting
Mexican dollars and our half dollars and dimes were found by the Grand
Jury, and presented to the United States Circuit Court in this city
against different persons in and about Nauvoo, embracing some of the
'Holy Twelve' and other prominent Mormons, and persons in league with
them. The manner in which the money was put into circulation was stated.
At one mill $1500 was paid out for wheat in one week. Whenever a land
sale was about to take place, wagons were sent off with the coin into
the land district where such sale was to take place, and no difficulty
occurred in exchanging off the counterfeit coin for paper.... So soon
as the indictments were found, a request was made by the marshal of the
Governor of this state for a posse, or the assistance of the military
force stationed in Hancock County, to enable him to arrest the alleged
counterfeiters. Gov. Ford refused to grant the request. An officer has
since been sent to Nauvoo to make the arrests, but we apprehend there
is no probability of his success."
The report that a whole city was practically for sale had been widely
spread, and many persons--some from the Eastern states--began visiting
it to see what inducements were offered to new settlers, and what
bargains were to be had. Among these was W. E. Matlack, who on April
10 issued, in Nauvoo, the first number of a weekly newspaper called the
Hancock Eagle. Matlack seems to have been a fair-minded man, possessed
of the courage of his convictions, and his paper was a better one in,
a literary sense than the average weekly of the day. In his inaugural
editorial he said that he favored the removal of the Mormons as a peace
measure, but denounced mob rule and threats against the Mormons who had
not departed. The ultra-Antis took offence at this at once, and, so far
as the Eagle was supposed to represent the views of the new-comers,--who
were henceforth called New Citizens,--counted them little better than
the Mormons themselves. Among these, however, was a class whom the
county should have welcomed, the boats, in one week in May, landing four
or five merchants, six physicians, three or four lawyers, two dentists,
and two or three hundred others, including laborers.
The people of Hancock and the surrounding counties still refused to
believe that the Mormons were sincere in their intention to depart,
and the county meetings of the year before were reassembled to warn
the Mormons that the citizens stood ready to enforce their order. The
vacillating course of Governor Ford did not help the situation. He
issued an order disbanding Major Warren's force on May 1, and on the
following day instructed him to muster it into service again. Warren was
very outspoken in his determination to protect the departing Mormons,
and in a proclamation which he issued he told them to "leave the
fighting to be done by my detachment. If we are overpowered, then
recross the river and defend yourselves and your property."
The peace was preserved during May, and the Mormon exodus continued,
Young with the first company being already well advanced in his march
across Iowa. Major Warren sent a weekly report on the movement to the
Warsaw Signal. That dated May 14 said that the ferries at Nauvoo and
at Fort Madison were each taking across an average of 35 teams in
twenty-four hours. For the week ending May 22 he reported the departure
of 539 teams and 1617 persons; and for the week ending May 29, the
departure of 269 teams and 800 persons, and he said he had counted the
day before 617 wagons in Nauvoo ready to start.
But even this activity did not satisfy the ultra element among the
anti-Mormons, and at a meeting in Carthage, on Saturday, June 6,
resolutions drawn by Editor Sharp of the Signal expressed the belief
that many of the Mormons intended to remain in the state, charged that
they continued to commit depredations, and declared that the time
had come for the citizens of the counties affected to arm and equip
themselves for action. The Signal headed its editorial remarks on this
meeting, "War declared in Hancock."
When the news of the gathering at Carthage reached Nauvoo it created a
panic. The Mormons, lessened in number by the many departures, and with
their goods mostly packed for moving, were in no situation to repel
an attack; and they began hurrying to the ferry until the streets were
blocked with teams. The New Citizens, although the Carthage meeting had
appointed a committee to confer with them, were almost as much alarmed,
and those who could do so sent away their families, while several
merchants packed up their goods for safety. On Friday, June 12, the
committee of New Citizens met some 600 anti-Mormons who had assembled
near Carthage, and strenuously objected to their marching into Nauvoo.
As a sort of compromise, the force consented to rendezvous at Golden
Point, five miles south of Nauvoo, and there they arrived the next
day. This force, according to the Signal's own account, was a mere mob,
three-fourths of whom went there against their own judgment, and only to
try to prevent extreme measures. A committee was at once sent to Nauvoo
to confer with the New Citizens, but it met with a decided snubbing. The
Nauvoo people then sent a committee to the camp, with a proposition that
thirty men of the Antis march into the city, and leave three of their
number there to report on the progress of the Mormon exodus.
On Sunday morning, before any such agreement was reached, word came from
Nauvoo that Sheriff Backenstos had arrived there and enrolled a posse
of some 500 men, the New Citizens uniting with the Mormons for the
protection of the place. This led to an examination of the war supplies
of the Antis, and the discovery that they had only five rounds
of ammunition to a man, and one day's provision. Thereupon they
ingloriously broke camp and made off to Carthage.
After this nothing more serious than a war of words occurred until July
11, when an event happened which aroused the feeling of both parties
to the fighting pitch. Three Mormons from Nauvoo had been harvesting
a field of grain about eight miles from the city.* In some way they
angered a man living near by (according to his wife's affidavit, by
shooting around his fields, using his stable for their horses, and
feeding his oats), and he collected some neighbors, who gave the
offenders a whipping, more or less severe, according to the account
accepted. The men went at once to Nauvoo, and exhibited their backs, and
that night a Mormon posse arrested seventeen Antis and conveyed them
to Nauvoo. The Antis in turn seized five Mormons whom they held as
"hostages," and the northern part of Hancock County and a part of
McDonough were in a state of alarm.
* The Eagle stated that the farm where the Mormons were at work
had been bought by a New Citizen, who had sent out both Mormons and New
Citizens to cut the grain.
Civil chaos ensued. General Hardin and Major Warren had joined the
federal army that was to march against Mexico, and their cool judgment
was greatly missed. One Carlin, appointed as a special constable, called
on the citizens of Hancock County to assemble as his posse to assist in
executing warrants in Nauvoo, and the Mormons of that city at once
took steps to resist arrests by him. Governor Ford sent Major Parker of
Fulton County, who was a Whig, to make an inquiry at Nauvoo and defend
that city against rioting, and Mr. Brayman remained there to report to
him on the course of affairs.
What was called at that time, in Illinois, "the last Mormon war" opened
with a fusillade of correspondence between Carlin and Major Parker.
Parker issued a proclamation, calling on all good citizens to return to
their homes, and Carlin declared that he would obey no authority which
tried to prevent him from doing his duty, telling the major that it
would "take something more than words" to disperse his posse. While
Parker was issuing a series of proclamations, the so-called posse was,
on August 25, placed under the command of Colonel J. B. Chittenden of
Adams County, who was superseded three days later by Colonel Singleton.
Colonel Singleton was successful in arranging with Major Parker terms of
peace, which provided among other things that all the Mormons should be
out of the state in sixty days, except heads of families who remained
to close their business; but the colonel's officers rejected this
agreement, and the colonel thereupon left the camp. Carlin at once
appointed Colonel Brockman to the chief command. He was a Campbellite
preacher who, according to Ford, had been a public defaulter and
had been "silenced" by his church. After rejecting another offer of
compromise made by the Mormons, Brockman, on September 11, with about
seven hundred men who called themselves a posse, advanced against
Nauvoo, with some small field pieces. Governor Ford had authorized
Major Flood, commanding the militia of Adams County, to raise a force to
preserve order in Hancock; but the major, knowing that such action would
only incense the force of the Antis, disregarded the governor's request.
At this juncture Major Parker was relieved of the command at Nauvoo and
succeeded by Major B. Clifford, Jr., of the 33rd regiment of Illinois
Volunteers.
On the morning of September 12, Brockman sent into Nauvoo a demand for
its surrender, with the pledge that there would be no destruction of
property or life "unless absolutely necessary in self-defence." Major
Clifford rejected this proposition, advised Brockman to disperse his
force, and named Mayor Wood of Quincy and J. P. Eddy, a St. Louis
merchant then in Nauvoo, as recipients of any further propositions from
the Antis.
The forces at this time were drawn up against one another, the Mormons
behind a breastwork which they had erected during the night, and the
Antis on a piece of high ground nearer the city than their camp. Brayman
says that an estimate which placed the Mormon force at five hundred or
six hundred was a great exaggeration, and that the only artillery they
had was six pieces which they fashioned for themselves, by breaking some
steamboat shafts to the proper length and boring them out so that they
would receive a six-pound shot.
When Clifford's reply was received, the commander of the Antis sent out
the Warsaw riflemen as flankers on the right and left; directed the Lima
Guards, with one cannon, to take a position a mile to the front of the
camp and occupy the attention of the men behind the Mormon breastwork,
who had opened fire; and then marched the main body through a cornfield
and orchard to the city itself. Both sides kept up an artillery fire
while the advance was taking place.
When the Antis reached the settled part of the city, the firing became
general, but was of an independent character. The Mormons in most cases
fired from their houses, while the Antis found such shelter as they
could in a cornfield and along a worm fence. After about an hour of such
fighting, Brockman, discovering that all of the sixty-one cannon balls
with which he had provided himself had been shot away, decided that
it was perilous "to risk a further advance without these necessary
instruments." Accordingly, he ordered a retreat and his whole force
returned to its camp. In this engagement no Antis were killed, and
the surgeon's list named only eight wounded, one of whom died. Three
citizens of Nauvoo were killed. The Mormons had the better protection
in their houses, but the other side made rather effective use of their
artillery.
The Antis began at once intrenching their camp, and sent to Quincy for
ammunition. There were some exchanges of shots on Sunday and Monday, and
three Antis were wounded on the latter day.
Quincy responded promptly to the request for ammunition, but the people
of that town were by no means unanimously in favor of the "war." On
Sunday evening a meeting of the peaceably inclined appointed a committee
of one hundred to visit the scene of hostilities and secure peace
"on the basis of a removal of the Mormons." The negotiations of this
committee began on the following Tuesday, and were continued, at times
with apparent hopelessness of success, until Wednesday evening, when
terms of peace were finally signed. It required the utmost effort of the
Quincy committee to induce the anti-Mormon force to delay an assault on
the city, which would have meant conflagration and massacre. The terms
of peace were as follows:
"1. The city of Nauvoo will surrender. The force of Col. Brockman to
enter and take possession of the city tomorrow, the 17th of September,
at 3 o'clock P.m.
"2. The arms to be delivered to the Quincy Committee, to be returned on
the crossing of the river.
"3. The Quincy Committee pledge themselves to use their influence
for the protection of persons and property from all violence; and
the officers of the camp and the men pledge themselves to protect all
persons and property from violence.
"4. The sick and helpless to be protected and treated with humanity.
"5. The Mormon population of the city to leave the State, or disperse,
as soon as they can cross the river.
"6. Five men, including the trustees of the church, and five clerks,
with their families (William Pickett not one of the number), to be
permitted to remain in the city for the disposition of property, free
from all molestation and personal violence.
"7. Hostilities to cease immediately, and ten men of the Quincy
Committee to enter the city in the execution of their duty as soon as
they think proper."
The noticeable features of these terms are the omission of any reference
to the execution of Carlin's writs, and the engagement that the Mormons
should depart immediately. The latter was the real object of the
"posse's" campaign.
The Mormons had realized that they could not continue their defence, as
no reenforcements could reach them, while any temporary check to their
adversaries would only increase the animosity of the latter. They acted,
therefore, in good faith as regards their agreement to depart. How they
went is thus described in Brayman's second report to Governor Ford: *
* For Brayman's reports, see Warsaw Signal, October 20, 1846.
"These terms were not definitely signed until the morning of Thursday,
the 17th, but, confident of their ratification, the Mormon population
had been busy through the night in removing. So firmly had they been
taught to believe that their lives, their city, and Temple, would fall
a sacrifice to the vengeance of their enemies, if surrendered to them,
that they fled in consternation, determined to be beyond their reach at
all hazards. This scene of confusion, fright and distress was
continued throughout the forenoon. In every part of the city scenes of
destitution, misery and woe met the eye. Families were hurrying
away from their homes, without a shelter,--without means of
conveyance,--without tents, money, or a day's provision, with as much of
their household stuff as they could carry in their hands. Sick men and
women were carried upon their beds--weary mothers, with helpless babes
dying in the arms, hurried away--all fleeing, they scarcely knew or
cared whither, so it was from their enemies, whom they feared more than
the waves of the Mississippi, or the heat, and hunger and lingering life
and dreaded death of the prairies on which they were about to be cast.
The ferry boats were crowded, and the river bank was lined with anxious
fugitives, sadly awaiting their turn to pass over and take up their
solitary march to the wilderness."
On the afternoon of the 17th, Brockman's force, with which the members
of the Quincy committee had been assigned a place, marched into Nauvoo
and through it, encamping near the river on the southern boundary.
Curiosity to see the Mormon city had swelled the number who entered at
the same time with the posse to nearly two thousand men, but there was
no disorder. The streets were practically deserted, and the few Mormons
who remained were busy with their preparations to cross the river.
Brockman, to make his victory certain, ordered that all citizens of
Nauvoo who had sided with the Mormons should leave the state, thus
including many of the New Citizens. The order was enforced on September
18, "with many circumstances of the utmost cruelty and injustice,"
according to Brayman's report. "Bands of armed men," he said, "traversed
the city, entering the houses of citizens, robbing them of arms,
throwing their household goods out of doors, insulting them, and
threatening their lives."
CHAPTER XXI. -- NAUVOO AFTER THE EXODUS
Brockman's force was disbanded after its object had been accomplished,
and all returned to their homes but about one hundred, who remained
in Nauvoo to see that no Mormons came back. These men, whose number
gradually decreased, provided what protection and government the place
then enjoyed. Governor Ford received much censure from the state at
large for the lawless doings of the recent months. A citizens' meeting
at Springfield demanded that he call out a force sufficient "to restore
the supremacy of the law, and bring the offenders to justice." He did
call on Hancock County for volunteers to restore order, but a public
meeting in Carthage practically defied him. He, however, secured a force
of about two hundred men, with which he marched into Nauvoo, greatly to
the indignation of the Hancock County people. His stay there was marked
by incidents which showed how his erratic course in recent years had
deprived him of public respect, and which explain some of the bitterness
toward the county which characterizes his "History." One of these was
the presentation to him of a petticoat as typical of his rule. When Ford
was succeeded as governor by French, the latter withdrew the militia
from the county, and, in an address to the citizens, said, "I
confidently rely upon your assistance and influence to aid in preventing
any act of a violent character in future." Matters in the county then
quieted down. The Warsaw newspapers, in place of anti-Mormon literature,
began to print appeals to new settlers, setting forth the advantages of
the neighborhood. But a newspaper war soon followed between two factions
in Nauvoo, one of which contended that the place was an assemblage of
gamblers and saloon-keepers, while the other defended its reputation.
This latter view, however, was not established, and most of the houses
remained tenantless.
Amid all their troubles in Nauvoo the Mormon authorities never lost
sight of one object, the completion of the Temple. To the non-Mormons,
and even to many in the church, it seemed inexplicable why so much zeal
and money should be expended in finishing a structure that was to be
at once abandoned. Before the agreement to leave the state was made, a
Warsaw newspaper predicted that the completion of the Temple would
end the reign of the Mormon leaders, since their followers were held
together by the expectation of some supernatural manifestation of power
in their behalf at that time* Another outside newspaper suggested that
they intended to use it as a fort.
* A man from the neighborhood who visited Nauvoo in 1843 to buy
calves called on a blind man, of whom he says: "He told me he had a nice
home in Massachusetts, which gave them a good support. But one of the
Mormon elders preaching in that country called on him and told him if he
would sell out and go to Nauvoo the Prophet would restore his sight. He
sold out and had come to the city and spent all his means, and was now
in great need. I asked why the Prophet did not open his eyes. He replied
that Joseph had informed him that he could not open his eyes till the
Temple was finished."--Gregg, "History of Hancock County," p. 375.
Orson Pratt, in a letter to the Saints in the Eastern states, written
at the time of the agreement to depart, answering the query why the Lord
commanded them to build a house out of which he would then suffer
them to be driven at once, quoted a paragraph from the "revelation" of
January 19, 1841, which commanded the building of the Temple "that
you may prove yourselves unto me, that ye are faithful in all things
whatsoever I command you, that I may bless you and cover you with honor,
immortality, and eternal life."
The cap-stone of the Temple was laid in place early on the morning of
May 24, 1845, amid shouts of "Hosannah to God and the Lamb," music by
the band, and the singing of a hymn.
The first meeting was held in the Temple on October 5, 1845, and from
that time the edifice was used almost constantly in administering the
ordinances (baptism, endowment, etc.). Brigham Young says that on one
occasion he continued this work from 5 P.M. to 3.30 A.M., and others of
the Quorum assisted.
The ceremony of the "endowment," although considered very secret,
has been described by many persons who have gone through it. The
descriptions by Elder Hyde and I. McGee Van Dusen and his wife go into
details. A man and wife received notice to appear at the Temple at
Nauvoo at 5 A.m., he to wear white drawers, and she to bring her
nightclothes with her. Passing to the upper floor, they were told to
remove their hats and outer wraps, and were then led into a narrow hall,
at the end of which stood a man who directed the husband to pass through
a door on the right, and the wife to one on the left. The candidates
were then questioned as to their preparation for the initiation, and
if this resulted satisfactorily, they were directed to remove all their
outer clothing. This ended the "first degree." In the next room their
remaining clothing was removed and they received a bath, with some
mummeries which may best be omitted. Next they were anointed all over
with oil poured from a horn, and pronounced "the Lord's anointed," and
a priest ordained them to be "king (or queen) in time and eternity." The
man was now furnished with a white cotton undergarment of an original
design, over which he put his shirt, and the woman was given a somewhat
similar article, together with a chemise, nightgown, and white
stockings. Each was then conducted into another apartment and left there
alone in silence for some time. Then a rumbling noise was heard, and
Brigham Young appeared, reciting some words, beginning "Let there
be light," and ending "Now let us make man in our image, after our
likeness." Approaching the man first, he went through a form of making
him out of the dust; then, passing into the other room, he formed the
woman out of a rib he had taken from the man. Giving this Eve to the man
Adam, he led them into a large room decorated to represent Eden, and,
after giving them divers instructions, left them to themselves.
Much was said in later years about the requirement of the endowment
oath. When General Maxwell tried to prevent the seating of Cannon as
Delegate to Congress in 1873, one of his charges was that Cannon had, in
the Endowment House, taken an oath against the United States government.
This called out affidavits by some of the leading anti-Young Mormons
of the day, including E. L. T. Harrison, that they had gone through the
Endowment House without taking any oath of the kind. But Hyde, in his
description of the ceremony, says:--
"We were sworn to cherish constant enmity toward the United States
Government for not avenging the death of Smith, or righting the
persecutions of the Saints; to do all that we could toward destroying,
tearing down or overturning that government; to endeavor to baffle its
designs and frustrate its intentions; to renounce all allegiance and
refuse all submission. If unable to do anything ourselves toward the
accomplishment of these objects, to teach it to our children from the
nursery, impress it upon them from the death bed, entail it upon them as
a legacy." *
* Hyde's "Mormonism," p. 97.
In the suit of Charlotte Arthur against Brigham Young's estate, to
recover a lot in Salt Lake City which she alleged that Young had
unlawfully taken possession of, her verified complaint (filed July
11, 1874) alleged that the endowment oath contained the following
declaration:--"To obey him, the Lord's anointed, in all his orders,
spiritual and temporal, and the priesthood or either of them, and all
church authorities in like manner; that this obligation is superior to
all the laws of the United States, and all earthly laws; that enmity
should be cherished against the government of the United States; that
the blood of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and Apostles slain in this
generation shall be avenged."
As soon as the agreement to leave the state was made, the Mormons tried
hard to sell or lease the Temple, but in vain; and when the last Mormon
departed, the structure was left to the mercy of the Hancock County
"posse." Colonel Kane, in his description of his visit to Nauvoo soon
after the evacuation, says that the militia had defiled and defaced such
features as the shrines and the baptismal font, the apartment containing
the latter being rendered "too noisome to abide in."
Had the building been permitted to stand, it would have been to Nauvoo
something on which the town could have looked as its most remarkable
feature. But early on the morning of November 19, 1848, the structure
was found to be on fire, evidently the work of an incendiary, and what
the flames could eat up was soon destroyed. The Nauvoo Patriot deplored
the destruction of "a work of art at once the most elegant in its
construction, and the most renowned in its celebrity, of any in the
whole West."
When the Icarians, a band of French Socialists, settled in Nauvoo, they
undertook, in 1850, to rebuild the edifice for use as their halls of
reunion and schools. After they had expended on this work a good deal
of time and labor, the city was visited by a cyclone on May 27 of that
year, which left standing only a part of the west wall. Out of the stone
the Icarians then built a school house, but nothing original now remains
on the site except the old well.
The Nauvoo of to-day is a town of only 1321 inhabitants. The people are
largely of German origin, and the leading occupation is fruit growing.
The site of the Temple is occupied by two modern buildings. A part of
Nauvoo House is still standing, as are Brigham Young's former residence,
Joseph Smith's "new mansion," and other houses which Mormons occupied.
The Mormons in Iowa were no more popular with their non-Mormon neighbors
there than were those in Illinois, and after the murders by the Hodges,
and other crimes charged to the brethren, a mass meeting of Lee County
inhabitants was held, which adopted resolutions declaring that the
Mormons and the old settlers could not live together and that the
Mormons must depart, citizens being requested to aid in this movement
by exchanging property with the emigrants. In 1847 the last of these
objectionable citizens left the county.
BOOK V. -- THE MIGRATION TO UTAH
CHAPTER I. -- PREPARATIONS FOR THE LONG MARCH
Two things may be accepted as facts with regard to the migration of the
Mormons westward from Illinois: first, that they would not have moved
had they not been compelled to; and second, that they did not know
definitely where they were going when they started. Although Joseph
Smith showed an uncertainty of his position by his instruction that
the Twelve should look for a place in California or Oregon to which his
people might move, he considered this removal so remote a possibility
that he was at the same time beginning his campaign for the presidency
of the United States. As late as the spring of 1845, removal was
considered by the leaders as only an alternative. In April, Brigham
Young, Willard Richards, the two Pratts, and others issued an address
to President Polk, which was sent to the governors of all the states
but Illinois and Missouri, setting forth their previous trials, and
containing this declaration:--"In the name of Israel's God, and by
virtue of multiplied ties of country and kindred, we ask your friendly
interposition in our favor. Will it be too much for us to ask you to
convene a special session of Congress and furnish us an asylum where we
can enjoy our rights of conscience and religion unmolested? Or will you,
in special message to that body when convened, recommend a remonstrance
against such unhallowed acts of oppression and expatriation as this
people have continued to receive from the states of Missouri and
Illinois? Or will you favor us by your personal influence and by your
official rank? Or will you express your views concerning what is called
the Great Western Measure of colonizing the Latter-Day Saints in Oregon,
the Northwestern Territory, or some location remote from the states,
where the hand of oppression will not crush every noble principle
and extinguish every patriotic feeling?" After the publication of the
correspondence between the Hardin commission and the Mormon authorities,
Orson Pratt issued an appeal "to American citizens," in which, referring
to what he called the proposed "banishment" of the Mormons, he said: "Ye
fathers of the Revolution! Ye patriots of '76! Is it for this ye toiled
and suffered and bled? ... Must they be driven from this renowned
republic to seek an asylum among other nations, or wander as hopeless
exiles among the red men of the western wilds? Americans, will ye suffer
this? Editors, will ye not speak? Fellow-citizens, will ye not awake?"*
* Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 193.
Their destination could not have been determined in advance, because
so little was known of the Far West. The territory now embraced in the
boundaries of California and Utah was then under Mexican government, and
"California" was, in common use, a name covering the Pacific coast and
a stretch of land extending indefinitely eastward. Oregon had been heard
of a good deal, and it, as well as Vancouver Island, had been spoken
of as a possible goal if a westward migration became necessary. Lorenzo
Snow, in describing the westward start, said: "On the first of March,
the ground covered with snow, we broke encampment about noon, and soon
nearly four hundred wagons were moving to--WE KNEW NOT WHERE." *
* "Biography of Lorenzo Snow," p. 86.
The first step taken by the Mormon authorities to explain the removal to
their people was an explanation made at a conference in the new Temple,
three days after the correspondence with the commission closed. P. P.
Pratt stated to the conference that the removal meant that the Lord
designed to lead them to a wider field of action, where no one could say
that they crowded their neighbors. In such a place they could, in five
years, become richer than they then were, and could build a bigger and
a better Temple. "It has cost us," said he, "more for sickness, defence
against mob exactions, persecutions, and to purchase lands in this
place, than as much improvement will cost in another." It was then voted
unanimously that the Saints would move en masse to the West, and that
every man would give all the help he could to assist the poorer members
of the community in making the journey.*
* Millennial Star, Vol. VI, p. 196. Wilford Woodruff, in an
appeal to the Saints in Great Britain, asked them to buy Mormon books
in order to assist the Presidency with funds with which to take the poor
Saints with them westward.
Brigham Young next issued an address to the church at large, stating
that even the Mormon Bible had foretold what might be the conduct of the
American nation toward "the Israel of the last days," and urging all to
prepare to make the journey. A conference of Mormons in New York City on
November 12, 1845, attended by brethren from New York State, New Jersey,
and Connecticut, voted that "the church in this city move, one and all,
west of the Rocky Mountains between this and next season, either by land
or by water."
Active preparations for the removal began in and around Nauvoo at once.
All who had property began trading it for articles that would be needed
on the journey. Real estate was traded or sold for what it would bring,
and the Eagle was full of advertisements of property to sell, including
the Mansion House, Masonic Hall, and the Armory. The Mormons would load
in wagons what furniture they could not take West with them, and trade
it in the neighborhood for things more useful. The church authorities
advertised for one thousand yokes of oxen and all the cattle and
mules that might be offered, oxen bringing from $40 to $50 a yoke. The
necessary outfit for a family of five was calculated to be one wagon,
three yokes of cattle, two cows, two beef cattle, three sheep, one
thousand pounds of flour, twenty pounds of sugar, a tent and bedding,
seeds, farming tools, and a rifle--all estimated to cost about $250.
Three or four hundred Mormons were sent to more distant points in
Illinois and Iowa for draft animals, and, when the Western procession
started, they boasted that they owned the best cattle and horses in the
country.
In the city the men were organized into companies, each of which
included such workmen as wagonmakers, blacksmiths, and carpenters,
and the task of making wagons, tents, etc., was hurried to the utmost.
"Nauvoo was constituted into one great wagon shop," wrote John Taylor.
If any members of the community were not skilled in the work now in
demand, they were sent to St. Louis, Galena, Burlington, or some other
of the larger towns, to find profitable employment during the winter,
and thus add to the moving fund.
On January 20, 1846, the High Council issued a circular announcing that,
early in March, a company of hardy young men, with some families, would
be sent into the Western country, with farming utensils and seed, to put
in a crop and erect houses for others who would follow as soon as the
grass was high enough for pasture.
This circular contained also the following declaration:--
"We venture to say that our brethren have made no counterfeit money; and
if any miller has received $1500 base coin in a week from us, let him
testify. If any land agent of the general government has received wagon
loads of base coin from us in payment for lands, let him say so. Or if
he has received any at all, let him tell it. These witnesses against us
have spun a long yarn."
This referred to the charges of counterfeiting, which had resulted in
the indictment of some of the Twelve at Springfield, and which hastened
the first departures across the river. That counterfeiting was common in
the Western country at that time is a matter of history, and the Mormons
themselves had accused such leading members of their church as Cowdery
of being engaged in the business. The persons indicted at Springfield
were never tried, so that the question of their guilt cannot be decided.
Tullidge's pro-Mormon "Life of Brigham Young" mentions an incident which
occurred when the refugees had gone only as far as the Chariton River in
Iowa, which both admits that they had counterfeit money among them, and
shows the mild view which a Bishop of the church took of the offence
of passing it:--"About this time also an attempt was made to pass
counterfeit money. It was the case of a young man who bought from a Mr.
Cochran a yoke of oxen, a cow and a chain for $50. Bishop Miller wrote
to Brigham to excuse the young man, but to help Cochran to restitution.
The President was roused to great anger, the Bishop was severely
rebuked, and the anathemas of the leader from that time were thundered
against thieves and 'bogus men,' and passers of bogus money.... The
following is a minute of his diary of a council on the next Sunday, with
the twelve bishops and captains: 'I told them I was satisfied the course
we were taking would prove to be the salvation, not only of the camp
but of the Saints left behind. But there had been things done which were
wrong. Some pleaded our sufferings from persecution, and the loss of our
homes and property, as a justification for retaliating on our enemies;
but such a course tends to destroy the Kingdom of God'."
As soon as the leaders decided to make a start, they sent a petition
to the governor of Iowa Territory, explaining their intention to pass
through that domain, and asking for his protection during the temporary
stay they might make there. No opposition to them seems to have been
shown by the Iowans, who on the contrary employed them as laborers, sold
them such goods as they could pay for, and invited their musicians to
give concerts at the resting points. Lee's experience in Iowa confirmed
him, he says, in his previous opinion that much of the Mormons' trouble
was due to "wild, ignorant fanatics"; "for," he adds, "only a few years
before, these same people were our most bitter enemies, and, when
we came again and behaved ourselves, they treated us with the utmost
kindness and hospitality."*
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 179.
How much property the Mormons sacrificed in Illinois cannot be
ascertained with accuracy. An investigation of all the testimony
obtainable on the subject leads to the conclusion that a good deal of
their real estate was disposed of at a fair price, and that there were
many cases of severe individual loss. Major Warren, in a communication
to the Signal from Nauvoo, in May, 1846, said that few of the Mormons'
farms remained unsold, and that three-fourths of the improved property
on the flat in Nauvoo had been disposed of.
A correspondent of the Signal, answering on April 11 an assertion that
the Mormons had a good deal of real estate to dispose of before they
could leave, replied that most of their farms were sold, and that there
were more inquiries after the others than there were farms. As to the
real estate in the city, he explained:--
"It is scattered over an area of eight or ten square miles, and contains
from 1500 to 2000 houses, four-fifths of which, at least, are wretched
cabins of no permanent value whatever. There are, however, 200 or 300
houses, large and small, built of brick and other desirable material.
Such will mostly sell, though many of them, owing to the distance from
the river and other unfavorable circumstances, only at a very great
sacrifice." *
* "A score or more of chimneys on the northern boundary of the
city marked the site of houses deliberately burned for fuel during the
winter of 1845-1846."--Hancock Eagle, May 29,1846.
A general epistle to the church from the Twelve, dated Winter Quarters,
December 23, 1847, stated that the property of the Saints in Hancock
County was "little or no better than confiscated." *
* See John Taylor's address, p. 411 post.
CHAPTER II. -- FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI
The first party to leave Nauvoo began crossing the Mississippi early
in February, 1846, using flatboats propelled by oars for the wagons and
animals, and small boats for persons and the lighter baggage. It soon
became colder and snow fell, and after the 16th those who remained were
able to cross on the ice.
Brigham Young, with a few attendants, had crossed on February 10, and
selected a point on Sugar Creek as a gathering place.* He seems to
have returned secretly to the city for a few days to arrange for the
departure of his family, and Lee says that he did not have teams enough
at that time for their conveyance, adding, "such as were in danger of
being arrested were helped away first." John Taylor says that those who
crossed the river in February included the Twelve, the High Council, and
about four hundred families.**
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 171.
** "February 14 I crossed the river with my family and teams, and
encamped not far from the Sugar Creek encampment, taking possession of
a vacant log house on account of the extreme cold."--P. P. Pratt,
"Autobiography," p. 378.
"Camp of Israel" was the name adopted for the camp in which President
Young and the Twelve might be, and this name moved westward with them.
The camp on Sugar Creek was the first of these, and there, on February
17, Young addressed the company from a wagon. He outlined the journey
before them, declaring that order would be preserved, and that all who
wished to live in peace when the actual march began "must toe the mark,"
ending with a call for a show of hands by those who wanted to make the
move. The vote in favor of going West was unanimous.*
* "At a Council in Nauvoo of the men who were to act as the
captains of the people in that famous exodus, one after the other
brought up difficulties in their path, until the prospect was without
one poor speck of daylight. The good nature of George A. Smith was
provoked at last, when he sprang up and observed, with his quaint humor,
that had now a touch of the grand in it, 'If there is no God in Israel
we are a sucked-in set of fellows. But I am going to take my family and
the Lord will open the way.'"--Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City,"
p.17.
The turning out of doors in midwinter of so many persons of all ages
and both sexes, accustomed to the shelter of comfortable homes, entailed
much suffering. A covered wagon or a tent is a poor protection from
wintry blasts, and a camp fire in the open air, even with a bright sky
overhead, is a poor substitute for a stove. Their first move, therefore,
gave the emigrants a taste of the trials they were to endure. While they
were at Sugar Creek the thermometer dropped to 20 degrees below zero,
and heavy falls of snow occurred. Several children were born at this
point, before the actual Western journey began, and the sick and the
feeble entered upon their sufferings at once. Before that camp broke up
it was found necessary, too, to buy grain for the animals.
The camp was directly in charge of the Twelve until the Chariton
River was reached. There, on March 27, it was divided into companies
containing from 50 to 60 wagons, the companies being put in charge of
captains of fifties and captains of tens--suggesting Smith's "Army of
Zion." The captains of fifties were responsible directly to the High
Council. There were also a commissary general, and, for each fifty, a
contracting commissary "to make righteous distribution of grains and
provisions." Strict order was maintained by day while the column was in
motion, and, whenever there was a halt, special care was taken to
secure the cattle and the horses, while at night watches were constantly
maintained. The story of the march to the Missouri does not contain a
mention of any hostile meeting with Indians.
The company remained on Sugar Creek for about a month, receiving
constant accessions from across the river, and on the first of March
the real westward movement began. The first objective point was Council
Bluffs, Iowa, on the Missouri River, about 400 miles distant; but on
the way several camps were established, at which some of the emigrants
stopped to plant seeds and make other arrangements for the comfort
of those who were to follow. The first of these camps was located at
Richardson's Point in Lee County, Iowa, 55 miles from Nauvoo; the next
on Chariton River; the next on Locust Creek; the next, named by them
Garden Grove, on a branch of Grand River, some 150 miles from Nauvoo;
and another, which P. P. Pratt named Mt. Pisgah, on Grand River, 138
miles east of Council Bluffs. The camp on the Missouri first made was
called Winter Quarters, and was situated just north of the present site
of Omaha, where the town now called Florence is located. It was not
until July that the main body arrived at Council Bluffs.
The story of this march is a remarkable one in many ways. Begun
in winter, with the ground soon covered with snow, the travellers
encountered arctic weather, with the inconveniences of ice, rain, and
mud, until May. After a snowfall they would have to scrape the ground
when they had selected a place for pitching the tents. After a rain, or
one of the occasional thaws, the country (there were no regular roads)
would be practically impassable for teams, and they would have to remain
in camp until the water disappeared, and the soil would bear the weight
of the wagons after it was corduroyed with branches of trees. At one
time bad roads caused a halt of two or three weeks. Fuel was not always
abundant, and after a cold night it was no unusual thing to find wet
garments and bedding frozen stiff in the morning. Here is an extract
from Orson Pratt's diary:--"April 9. The rain poured down in torrents.
With great exertion a part of the camp were enabled to get about six
miles, while others were stuck fast in the deep mud. We encamped at
a point of timber about sunset, after being drenched several hours in
rain. We were obliged to cut brush and limbs of trees, and throw them
upon the ground in our tents, to keep our beds from sinking in the mud.
Our animals were turned loose to look out for themselves; the bark and
limbs of trees were their principal food." **
* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 370.
Game was plenty,--deer, wild turkeys, and prairie hens,--but while the
members of this party were better supplied with provisions than their
followers, there was no surplus among them, and by April many families
were really destitute of food. Eliza Snow mentions that her brother
Lorenzo--one of the captains of tens--had two wagons, a small tent, a
cow, and a scanty supply of provisions and clothing, and that "he was
much better off than some of our neighbors." Heber C. Kimball, one of
the Twelve, says of the situation of his family, that he had the ague,
and his wife was in bed with it, with two children, one a few days old,
lying by her, and the oldest child well enough to do any household work
was a boy who could scarcely carry a two-quart pail of water. Mrs. F.
D. Richards, whose husband was ordered on a mission to England while the
camp was at Sugar Creek, was prematurely confined in a wagon on the
way to the Missouri. The babe died, as did an older daughter. "Our
situation," she says, "was pitiable; I had not suitable food for myself
or my child; the severe rain prevented our having any fire."
The adaptability of the American pioneer to his circumstances was shown
during this march in many ways. When a halt occurred, a shoemaker might
be seen looking for a stone to serve as a lap stone in his repair work,
or a gunsmith mending a rifle, or a weaver at a wheel or loom. The women
learned that the jolting wagons would churn their milk, and, when a halt
occurred, it took them but a short time to heat an oven hollowed out of
a hillside, in which to bake the bread already "raised." Colonel Kane
says that he saw a piece of cloth, the wool for which was sheared, dyed,
spun, and woven during this march.
The leaders of the company understood the people they had in charge, and
they looked out for their good spirits. Captain Pitt's brass band was
included in the equipment, and the camp was not thoroughly organized
before, on a clear evening, a dance--the Mormons have always been great
dancers--was announced, and the visiting Iowans looked on in amazement,
to see these exiles from comfortable homes thus enjoying themselves on
the open prairie, the highest dignitaries leading in Virginia reels and
Copenhagen jigs.
John Taylor, whose pictures of this march, painted with a view to
attract English emigrants, were always highly colored, estimated that,
when he left Council Bluffs for England, in July, 1846, there were in
camp and on the way 15,000 Mormons, with 3000 wagons, 30,000 head of
cattle, a great many horses and mules, and a vast number of sheep.
Colonel Kane says that, besides the wagons, there was "a large number
of nondescript turnouts, the motley makeshifts of poverty; from the
unsuitable heavy cart that lumbered on mysteriously, with its sick
driver hidden under its counterpane cover, to the crazy two-wheeled
trundle, such as our own poor employ in the conveyance of their slop
barrels, this pulled along, it may be, by a little dry-dugged heifer,
and rigged up only to drag some such light weight as a baby, a sack of
meal or a pack of clothes and bedding." *
* "The Mormons," a lecture by Colonel T. L. Kane.
There was no large supply of cash to keep this army and its animals
in provisions. Every member who could contribute to the commissary
department by his labor was expected to do so. The settlers in the
territory seem to have been in need of such assistance, and were very
glad to pay for it in grain, hay, or provisions. A letter from one of
the emigrants to a friend in England* said that, in every settlement
they passed through, they found plenty of work, digging wells and
cellars, splitting rails, threshing, ploughing, and clearing land. Some
of the men in the spring were sent south into Missouri, not more than
forty miles from Far West, in search of employment. This they readily
secured, no one raising the least objection to a Mormon who was not to
be a permanent settler. Others were sent into that state to exchange
horses, feather beds, and other personal property for cows and
provisions.
* Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 59.
A part of the plan of operations provided for sending out pioneers to
select the route and camping sites, to make bridges where they were
necessary, and to open roads. The party carried light boats, but a good
many bridges seem to have been required because of the spring freshets.
It was while resting after a march through prolonged rain and mud, late
in April, that it was decided to establish the permanent camp called
Garden Grove. Hundreds of men were at once set to work, making log
houses and fences, digging wells, and ploughing, and soon hundreds of
acres were enclosed and planted.
The progress made during April was exasperatingly slow. There was soft
mud during the day, and rough ruts in the early morning. Sometimes camp
would be pitched after making only a mile; sometimes they would think
they had done well if they had made six. The animals, in fact, were so
thin from lack of food that they could not do a day's work even under
favorable circumstances. The route, after the middle of April, was
turned to the north, and they then travelled over a broken prairie
country, where the game had been mostly killed off by the Pottawottomi
Indians, whose trails and abandoned camps were encountered constantly.
On May 16, as the two Pratts and others were in advance, locating the
route, P. P. Pratt discovered the site of what was called Mt. Pisgah
(the post-office of Mt. Pisgah of to-day) which he thus describes:
"Riding about three or four miles over beautiful prairies, I came
suddenly to some round sloping hills, grassy, and crowned with beautiful
groves of timber, while alternate open groves and forests seemed blended
into all the beauty and harmony of an English park. Beneath and beyond,
on the west, rolled a main branch of Grand River, with its rich bottoms
of alternate forest and prairie."* As soon as Young and the other high
dignitaries arrived, it was decided to form a settlement there, and
several thousand acres were enclosed for cultivation, and many houses
were built.
* Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 381.
Young and most of the first party continued their westward march through
an uninhabited country, where they had to make their own roads. But
they met with no opposition from Indians, and the head of the procession
reached the banks of the Missouri near Council Bluffs in June, other
companies following in quite rapid succession.
The company which was the last to leave Nauvoo (on September 17), driven
out by the Hancock County forces, endured sufferings much greater than
did the early companies who were conducted by Brigham Young. The latter
comprised the well-to-do of the city and all the high officers of the
church, while the remnant left behind was made up of the sick and
those who had not succeeded in securing the necessary equipment for the
journey. Brayman, in his second report to Governor Ford, said:--
"Those of the Mormons who were wealthy or possessed desirable real
estate in the city had sold and departed last spring. I am inclined
to the opinion that the leaders of the church took with them all the
movable wealth of their people that they could control, without making
proper provision for those who remained. Consequently there was much
destitution among them; much sickness and distress. I traversed the
city, and visited in company with a practising physician the sick, and
almost invariably found them destitute, to a painful extent, of the
comforts of life."*
* Warsaw Signal, October 20, 1846.
It was on the 18th of September that the last of these unfortunates
crossed the river, making 640 who were then collected on the west bank.
Illness had not been accepted by the "posse" as an excuse for delay.
Thomas Bullock says that his family, consisting of a husband, wife,
blind mother-in-law, four children, and an aunt, "all shaking with the
ague," were given twenty minutes in which to get their goods into two
wagons and start.* The west bank in Iowa, where the people landed, was
marshy and unhealthy, and the suffering at what was called "Poor
Camp," a short distance above Montrose, was intense. Severe storms were
frequent, and the best cover that some of the people could obtain was a
tent made of a blanket or a quilt, or even of brush, or the shelter to
be had under the wagons of those who were fortunate enough to be thus
equipped. Bullock thus describes one night's experience: "On Monday,
September 23, while in my wagon on the slough opposite Nauvoo, a most
tremendous thunderstorm passed over, which drenched everything we
had. Not a dry thing left us--the bed a pool of water, my wife and
mother-in-law lading it out by basinfuls, and I in a burning fever and
insensible, with all my hair shorn off to cure me of my disease. A poor
woman stood among the bushes, wrapping her cloak around her three little
orphan children, to shield them from the storm as well as she could."
The supply of food, too, was limited, their flour being wheat ground
in hand mills, and even this at times failing; then roasted corn was
substituted, the grain being mixed by some with slippery elm bark to eke
it out.** The people of Hancock County contributed something in the way
of clothing and provisions and a little money in aid of these sufferers,
and the trustees of the church who were left in Nauvoo to sell property
gave what help they could.
*Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 28.
** Bancrofts "History of Utah," p. 233,
On October 9 wagons sent back by the earlier emigrants for their
unfortunate brethren had arrived, and the start for the Missouri began.
Bullock relates that, just as they were ready to set out, a great flight
of quails settled in the camp, running around the wagons so near that
they could be knocked over with sticks, and the children caught some
alive. One bird lighted upon their tea board, in the midst of the cups,
while they were at breakfast. It was estimated that five hundred of the
birds were flying about the camp that day, but when one hundred had been
killed or caught, the captain forbade the killing of any more, "as it
was a direct manifestation and visitation by the Lord." Young closes his
account of this incident with the words, "Tell this to the nations of
the earth! Tell it to the kings and nobles and great ones."
Wells, in his manuscript, "Utah Notes" (quoted by H. H. Bancroft), says:
"This phenomenon extended some thirty or forty miles along the river,
and was generally observed. The quail in immense quantities had
attempted to cross the river, but this being beyond their strength, had
dropped into the river boats or on the banks."*
* Bancroft's "History of Utah," p. 234, note.
The westward march of these refugees was marked by more hardships than
that of the earlier bodies, because they were in bad physical condition
and were in no sense properly equipped. Council Bluffs was not reached
till November 27.
The division of the emigrants and their progress was thus noted in an
interview, printed in the Nauvoo Eagle of July 10, with a person who
had left Council Bluffs on June 26, coming East. The advance company,
including the Twelve, with a train of 1000 wagons, was then encamped on
the east bank of the Missouri, the men being busy building boats. The
second company, 3000 strong, were at Mt. Pisgah, recruiting their cattle
for a new start. The third company had halted at Garden Grove. Between
Garden Grove and the Mississippi River the Eagle's informant counted
more than 1000 wagons on their way west. He estimated the total number
of teams engaged in this movement at about 3700, and the number of
persons on the road at 12,000. The Eagle added:--
"From 2000 to 3000 have disappeared from Nauvoo in various directions,
and about 800 or less still remain in Illinois. This comprises the
entire Mormon population that once flourished in Hancock County. In
their palmy days they probably numbered 15,000 or 16,000."
The camp that had been formed at Mt. Pisgah suffered severely from the
start. Provisions were scarce, and a number of families were dependent
for food on neighbors who had little enough for themselves. Fodder for
the cattle gave out, too, and in the early spring the only substitute
was buds and twigs of trees. Snow notes as a calamity the death of his
milch cow, which had been driven all the way from Ohio. Along with their
destitution came sickness, and at times during the following winter
it seemed as if there were not enough of the well to supply the needed
nurses. So many deaths occurred during that autumn and winter that
a funeral came to be conducted with little ceremony, and even the
customary burial clothes could not be provided.* Elder W. Huntington,
the presiding officer of the settlement, was among the early victims,
and Lorenzo Snow, the recent head of the Mormon church, succeeded him.
During Snow's stay there three of his four wives gave birth to children.
* "Biography of Lorenzo Snow," p. 90.
Notwithstanding these depressing circumstances, the camp was by no means
inactive during the winter. Those who were well were kept busy repairing
wagons, and making, in a rude way, such household articles as were
most needed--chairs, tubs, and baskets. Parties were sent out to the
settlements within reach to work, accepting food and clothing as
pay, and two elders were selected to visit the states in search of
contributions. These efforts were so successful that about $600 was
raised, and the camp sent to Brigham Young at Council Bluffs a load of
provisions as a New Year's gift.
The usual religious meetings were kept up during the winter, and the
utility of amusements in such a settlement was not forgotten. Ingenuity
was taxed to give variety to the social entertainments. Snow describes
a "party" that he gave in his family mansion--"a one-story edifice about
fifteen by thirty feet, constructed of logs, with a dirt roof, a ground
floor, and a chimney made of sod." Many a man compelled to house four
wives (one of them with three sons by a former husband) in such a
mansion would have felt excused from entertaining company. But the Snows
did not. For a carpet the floor was strewn with straw. The logs of the
sides of the room were concealed with sheets. Hollowed turnips provided
candelabras, which were stuck around the walls and suspended from the
roof. The company were entertained with songs, recitations, conundrums,
etc., and all voted that they had a very jolly time.
In the larger camps the travellers were accustomed to make what they
called "boweries"--large arbors covered with a framework of poles,
and thatched with brush or branches. The making of such "boweries" was
continued by the Saints in Utah.
CHAPTER III. -- THE MORMON BATTALION
During the halt of a part of the main body of the Mormons at Mt. Pisgah,
an incident occurred which has been made the subject of a good deal of
literature, and has been held up by the Mormons as a proof both of
the severity of the American government toward them and of their own
patriotism. There is so little ground for either of these claims that
the story of the Battalion should be correctly told.
When hostilities against Mexico began, early in 1846, the plan of
campaign designed by the United States authorities comprised an invasion
of Mexico at two points, by Generals Taylor and Wool, and a descent on
Santa Fe, and thence a march into California. This march was to be made
by General Stephen F. Kearney, who was to command the volunteers
raised in Missouri, and the few hundred regular troops then at Fort
Leavenworth. In gathering his force General (then Colonel) Kearney sent
Captain J. Allen of the First Dragoons to the Mormons at Mt. Pisgah, not
with an order of any kind, but with a written proposition, dated June
26, 1846, that he "would accept the service, for twelve months, of four
or five companies of Mormon men" (each numbering from 73 to 109),
to unite with the Army of the West at Santa Fe, and march thence to
California, where they would be discharged. These volunteers were to
have the regular volunteers' pay and allowances, and permission to
retain at their discharge the arms and equipments with which they would
be provided, the age limit to be between eighteen and forty-five years.
The most practical inducement held out to the Mormons to enlist was
thus explained: "Thus is offered to the Mormon people now--this year--an
opportunity of sending a portion of their young and intelligent men
to the ultimate destination of their whole people, and entirely at the
expense of the United States; and this advance party can thus pave the
way and look out the land for their brethren to come after them."
There was nothing like a "demand" on the Mormons in this invitation, and
the advantage of accepting it was largely on the Mormon side. If it had
not been, it would have been rejected. That the government was in no
stress for volunteers is shown by the fact that General Kearney reported
to the War Department in the following August that he had more troops
than he needed, and that he proposed to use some of them to reenforce
General Wool.*
* Chase's "History of the Polk Administration," p. 16.
The initial suggestion about the raising of these Mormon volunteers came
from a Mormon source.* In the spring of 1846 Jesse C. Little, a
Mormon elder of the Eastern states, visited Washington with letters of
introduction from Governor Steele of New Hampshire and Colonel Thomas L.
Kane of Philadelphia, hoping to secure from the government a contract to
carry provisions or naval stores to the Pacific coast, and thus pay part
of the expense of conveying Mormons to California by water. According
to Little, this matter was laid before the cabinet, who proposed that
he should visit the Mormon camp and raise 1000 picked men to make a dash
for California overland, while as many more would be sent around Cape
Horn from the Eastern states. This big scheme, according to Mormon
accounts, was upset by one of the hated Missourians, Senator Thomas H.
Benton, whose Macchiavellian mind had designed the plan of taking from
the Mormons 500 of their best men for the Battalion, thus crippling them
while in the Indian country. All this part of their account is utterly
unworthy of belief. If 500 volunteers for the army "crippled" the
immigrants where they were, what would have been their condition if 1000
of their number had been hurried on to California? **
* Tullidge's "Life of Brigham Young," p. 47.
** Delegate Berahisel, in a letter to President Fillmore
(December 1, 1851), replying to a charge by Judge Brocchus that the
24th of July orators had complained of the conduct of the government in
taking the Battalion from them for service against Mexico, said,
"The government did not take from us a battalion of men," the Mormons
furnishing them in response to a call for volunteers.
Aside from the opportunity afforded by General Kearney's invitation
to send a pioneer band, without expense to themselves, to the Pacific
coast, the offer gave the Mormons great, and greatly needed, pecuniary
assistance. P. P. Pratt, on his way East to visit England with Taylor
and Hyde, found the Battalion at Fort Leavenworth, and was sent back
to the camp* with between $5000 and $6000, a part of the Battalion's
government allowance. This was a godsend where cash was so scarce, as
it enabled the commissary officers to make purchases in St. Louis, where
prices were much lower than in western Iowa.** John Taylor, in a letter
to the Saints in Great Britain on arriving there, quoted the acceptance
of this Battalion as evidence that "the President of the United States
is favorably disposed to us," and said that their employment in the
army, as there was no prospect of any fighting, "amounts to the same as
paying them for going where they were destined to go without."***
* "Unexpected as this visit was, a member of my family had been
warned in a dream, and had predicted my arrival and the day."--Pratt,
"Autobiography," p. 384.
** "History of Brigham Young," Ms., 1846, p. 150.
*** Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 117.
The march of the federal force that went from Santa Fe (where the Mormon
Battalion arrived in October) to California was a notable one, over
unexplored deserts, where food was scarce and water for long distances
unobtainable. Arriving at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers
on December 26, they received there an order to march to San Diego,
California, and arrived there on January 29, after a march of over two
thousand miles.
The war in California was over at that date, but the Battalion did
garrison duty at San Luis Rey, and then at Los Angeles. Various
propositions for their reenlistment were made to them, but their
church officers opposed this, and were obeyed except in some individual
instances. About 150 of those who set out from Santa Fe were sent back
invalided before California was reached, and the number mustered out
was only about 240. These at once started eastward, but, owing to news
received concerning the hardships of the first Mormons who arrived in
Salt Lake Valley, many of them decided to remain in California, and a
number were hired by Sutter, on whose mill-race the first discovery of
gold in that state was made. Those who kept on reached Salt Lake Valley
on October 16, 1847. Thirty-two of their number continued their march to
Winter Quarters on the Missouri, where they arrived on December 18.
Mormon historians not only present the raising of the Battalion as a
proof of patriotism, but ascribe to the members of that force the credit
of securing California to the United States, and the discovery of gold.*
* "The Mormons have always been disposed to overestimate the
value of their services during this period, attaching undue importance
to the current rumors of intending revolt on the part of the
Californians, and of the approach of Mexican troops to reconquer the
province. They also claim the credit of having enabled Kearney to
sustain his authority against the revolutionary pretensions of Fremont.
The merit of this claim will be apparent to the readers of preceding
chapters."--Bancroft, "History of California," Vol. V, p. 487.
When Elder Little left Washington for the West with despatches for
General Kearney concerning the Mormon enlistments, he was accompanied by
Colonel Thomas L. Kane, a brother of the famous Arctic explorer. On his
way West Colonel Kane visited Nauvoo while the Hancock County posse were
in possession of it, saw the expelled Mormons in their camp across the
river, followed the trail of those who had reached the Missouri, and lay
ill among them in the unhealthy Missouri bottom in 1847. From that time
Colonel Kane became one of the most useful agents of the Mormon church
in the Eastern states, and, as we shall see, performed for them services
which only a man devoted to the church, but not openly a member of it,
could have accomplished.
It was stated at the time that Colonel Kane was baptized by Young at
Council Bluffs in 1847. His future course gives every reason to accept
the correctness of this view. He served the Mormons in the East as a
Jesuit would have served his order in earlier days in France or Spain.
He bore false witness in regard to polygamy and to the character of men
high in the church as unblushingly as a Brigham Young or a Kimball could
have done. His lecture before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
in 1850 was highly colored where it stated facts, and so inaccurate in
other parts that it is of little use to the historian. A Mormon writer
who denied that Kane was a member of the church offered as proof of this
the statement that, had Kane been a Mormon, Young would have commanded
him instead of treating him with so much respect. But Young was not a
fool, and was quite capable of appreciating the value of a secret agent
at the federal capital.
CHAPTER IV. -- THE CAMPS ON THE MISSOURI
Mormon accounts of the westward movement from Nauvoo represent that
the delay which occurred when they reached the Missouri River was an
interruption of their leaders' plans, attributing it to the weakening
of their force by the enlistment of the Battalion, and the necessity of
waiting for the last Mormons who were driven out of Nauvoo. But after
their experiences in a winter march from the Mississippi, with something
like a base of supplies in reach, it is inconceivable that the Council
would have led their followers farther into the unknown West that same
year, when their stores were so nearly exhausted, and there was no
region before them in which they could make purchases, even if they had
the means to do so.
When the Mormons arrived on the Missouri they met with a very friendly
welcome. They found the land east of the river occupied by the
Pottawottomi Indians, who had recently been removed from their old home
in what is now Michigan and northern Illinois and Indiana; and the west
side occupied by the Omahas, who had once "considered all created things
as made for their peculiar use and benefit," but whom the smallpox and
the Sioux had many years before reduced to a miserable remnant.
The Mormons won the heart of the Pottawottomies by giving them a concert
at their agent's residence. A council followed, at which their chief,
Pied Riche, surnamed Le Clerc, made an address, giving the Mormons
permission to cut wood, make improvements, and live where they pleased
on their lands.
The principal camp on the Missouri, known as Winter Quarters, was on the
west bank, on what is now the site of Florence, Nebraska. A council was
held with the Omaha chiefs in the latter apart of August, and Big Elk,
in reply to an address by Brigham Young, recited their sufferings at the
hands of the Sioux, and told the whites that they could stay there for
two years and have the use of firewood and timber, and that the young
men of the Indians would watch their cattle and warn them of any danger.
In return, the Indians asked for the use of teams to draw in their
harvest, for assistance in housebuilding, ploughing, and blacksmithing,
and that a traffic in goods be established. An agreement to this effect
was put in writing.
The arrival of party after party of Mormons made an unusually busy scene
on the river banks. On the east side every hill that helped to make up
the Council Bluffs was occupied with tents and wagons, while the bottom
was crowded with cattle and vehicles on the way to the west side. Kane
counted four thousand head of cattle from a single elevation, and says
that the Mormon herd numbered thirty thousand. Along the banks of the
river and creeks the women were doing their family washing, while men
were making boats and superintending in every way the passage of the
river by some, and the preparations for a stay on the east side
by others--building huts, breaking the sod for grain, etc. The
Pottawottomies had cut an approach to the river opposite a trading post
of the American Fur Company, and established a ferry there, and they now
did a big business carrying over, in their flat-bottom boats, families
and their wagons, and the cows and sheep. As for the oxen, they were
forced to swim, and great times the boys had, driving them to the bank,
compelling them to take the initial plunge, and then guiding them across
by taking the lead astride some animal's back.
Sickness in the camps began almost as soon as they were formed. "Misery
Bottom," as it was then called, received the rich deposit brought down
by the river in the spring, and, when the river retired into its banks,
became a series of mud flats, described as "mere quagmires of black
dirt, stretching along for miles, unvaried except by the limbs of
half-buried carrion, tree trunks, or by occasional yellow pools of
what the children called frog's spawn; all together steaming up vapors
redolent of the savor of death." In the previous year--not an unusually
bad one--one-ninth of the Indian population on these flats had died in
two months. The Mormons suffered not only from the malaria of the river
bottom, but from the breaking up of many acres of the soil in their
farming operations.
The illness was diagnosed as, the usual malarial fever, accompanied in
many cases with scorbutic symptoms, which they called "black canker,"
due to a lack of vegetable food. In and around Winter Quarters there
were more than 600 burials before cold weather set in, and 334 out of a
population of 3483 were reported on the sick list as late as December.
The Papillon Camp, on the Little Butterfly River, was a deadly site.
Kane, who had the fever there, in passing by the place earlier in the
season had opened an Indian mound, leaving a deep trench through it. "My
first airing," he says, "upon my convalescence, took me to the mound,
which, probably to save digging, had been readapted to its original
purpose. In this brief interval they had filled the trench with bodies,
and furrowed the ground with graves around it, like the ploughing of a
field."
But amid such affliction, in which cows went unmilked and corpses became
loathsome before men could be found to bury them, preparations continued
at all the camps for the winter's stay and next year's supplies. Brigham
Young, writing from Winter Quarters on January 6, 1847, to the elders in
England, said: "We have upward of seven hundred houses in our miniature
city, composed mostly of logs in the body, covered with puncheon, straw,
and dirt, which are warm and wholesome; a few are composed of turf,
willows, straw, etc., which are comfortable this winter, but will not
endure the thaws, rain, and sunshine of spring." * This city was divided
into twenty-two wards, each presided over by a Bishop. The principal
buildings were the Council House, thirty-two by twenty-four feet, and
Dr. Richard's house, called the Octagon, and described as resembling the
heap of earth piled up over potatoes to shield them from frost. In this
Octagon the High Council held most of their meetings. A great necessity
was a flouring mill, and accordingly they sent to St. Louis for the
stones and gearing, and, under Brigham Young's personal direction as
a carpenter, the mill was built and made ready for use in January. The
money sent back by the Battalion was expended in St. Louis for sugar and
other needed articles.
* Millennial Star, Vol. IX, p. 97.
As usual with the pictures sent to Europe, Young's description of the
comfort of the winter camp was exaggerated. P. P. Pratt, who arrived at
Winter Quarters from his mission to Europe on April 8, 1847, says:--
"I found my family all alive, and dwelling in a log cabin. They had,
however, suffered much from cold, hunger, and sickness. They had
oftentimes lived for several days on a little corn meal, ground in a
hand mill, with no other food. One of the family was then lying very
sick with the scurvy--a disease which had been very prevalent in camp
during the winter, and of which many had died. I found, on inquiry, that
the winter had been very severe, the snow deep, and consequently that
all my four horses were lost, and I afterward ascertained that out of
twelve cows, I had but seven left, and, out of some twelve or fourteen
oxen, only four or five were saved."
If this was the plight in which the spring found the family of one of
the Twelve, imagination can picture the suffering of the hundreds who
had arrived with less provision against the rigors of such a winter
climate.
CHAPTER V. -- THE PIONEER TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS
During the winter of 1846-1847 preparations were under way to send
an organization of pioneers across the plains and beyond the Rocky
Mountains, to select a new dwelling-place for the Saints. The only
"revelation" to Brigham Young found in the "Book of Doctrine and
Covenants" is a direction about the organization and mission of
this expedition. It was dated January 14, 1847, and it directed the
organization of the pioneers into companies, with captains of hundreds,
of fifties, and of tens, and a president and two counsellors at their
head, under charge of the Twelve. Each company was to provide its own
equipment, and to take seeds and farming implements. "Let every man," it
commanded, "use all his influence and property to remove this people to
the place where the Lord shall locate a Stake of Zion." The power of the
head of the church was guarded by a threat that "if any man shall seek
to build up himself he shall have no power," and the "revelation" ended,
like a rustic's letter, with the words, "So no more at present," "amen
and amen" being added.
In accordance with this command, on April 14* a pioneer band of
volunteers set out to blaze a path, so to speak, across the plains and
mountains for the main body which was to follow.
* Date given in the General Epistle of December 23, 1847. Others
say April 7.
It is difficult to-day, when this "Far West" is in possession of the
agriculturist, the merchant, and the miner, dotted with cities and
flourishing towns, and cut in all directions by railroads, which have
made pleasure routes for tourists of the trail over which the pioneers
of half a century ago toiled with difficulty and danger, to realize
how vague were the ideas of even the best informed in the thirties
and forties about the physical characteristics of that country and
its future possibilities. The conception of the latter may be best
illustrated by quoting Washington Irving's idea, as expressed in his
"Astoria," written in 1836:--
"Such is the nature of this immense wilderness of the far West; which
apparently defies cultivation and the habitation of civilized life.
Some portion of it, along the rivers, may partially be subdued by
agriculture, others may form vast pastoral tracts like those of the
East; but it is to be feared that a great part of it will form a lawless
interval between the abodes of civilized man, like the wastes of the
ocean or the deserts of Arabia, and, like them, be subject to the
depredations of the marauders. There may spring up new and mongrel
races, like new formations in zoology, the amalgamation of the 'debris'
and 'abrasions' of former races, civilized and savage; the remains of
broken and extinguished tribes; the descendants of wandering hunters
and trappers; of fugitives from the Spanish-American frontiers; of
adventurers and desperadoes of every class and country, yearly ejected
from the bosom of society into the wilderness.... Some may gradually
become pastoral hordes, like those rude and migratory people, half
shepherd, half warrior, who, with their flocks and herds, roam the
plains of upper Asia; but others, it is to be apprehended, will become
predatory bands, mounted on the fleet steeds of the prairies, with the
open plains for their marauding grounds, and the mountains for their
retreats and lurking places. There they may resemble those great hordes
of the North, 'Gog and Magog with their bands,' that haunted the gloomy
imaginations of the prophets--'A great company and a mighty host, all
riding upon horses, and warring upon those nations which were at rest,
and dwelt peaceably, and had gotten cattle and goods."'
"What about the country between the Missouri River and the Pacific,"
asked a father living near the Missouri, of his son on his return from
California across the plains in 1851--"Oh, it's of no account," was the
reply; "the soil is poor, sandy, and too dry to produce anything but
this little short grass afterward learned to be so rich in nutriment,
and, when it does rain, in three hours afterward you could not tell that
it had rained at all."*
* Nebraska Historical Society papers.
But while this distant West was still so unknown to the settled parts
of the country, these Mormon pioneers were by no means the first to
traverse it, as the records of the journeyings of Lewis and Clark,
Ezekiel Williams, General W. H. Ashley, Wilson Price Hunt, Major S. H.
Long, Captain W. Sublette, Bonneville, Fremont, and others show.
The pioneer band of the Mormons consisted of 143 men, three women (wives
of Brigham and Lorenzo Young and H. C. Kimball), and two children. They
took with them seventy-three wagons. Their chief officers were Brigham
Young, Lieutenant General; Stephen Markham, Colonel; John Pack, First
Major; Shadrack Roundy, Second Major, two captains of hundreds, and
fourteen captains of companies. The order of march was intelligently
arranged, with a view to the probability of meeting Indians who, if not
dangerous to life, had little regard for personal property. The Indians
of the Platte region were notorious thieves, but had not the reputation
as warriors of their more northern neighbors. The regulations required
that each private should walk constantly beside his wagon, leaving it
only by his officer's command. In order to make as compact a force as
possible, two wagons were to move abreast whenever this could be done.
Every man was to keep his weapons loaded, and special care was insisted
upon that the caps, flints, and locks should be in good condition. They
had with them one small cannon mounted on wheels.
The bugle for rising sounded at 5 A.M., and two hours were allowed for
breakfast and prayers. At night each man was to retire into his wagon
for prayer at 8.30 o'clock, and for the night's rest at 9. The night
camp was formed by drawing up the wagons in a semicircle, with the river
in the rear, if they camped near its bank, or otherwise with the wagons
in a circle, a forewheel of one touching the hind wheel of the next. In
this way an effective corral for the animals was provided within.
At the head of Grand Island, on April 30, they had their first sight
of buffaloes. A hunting party was organized at once, and a herd of
sixty-five of the animals was pursued for several miles in full view
of the camp (when game and hunters were not hidden by the dust), and so
successfully that eleven buffaloes were killed.
The first alarm of Indians occurred on May 4, when scouts reported a
band of about four hundred a few miles ahead. The wagons were at once
formed five abreast, the cannon was fired as a means of alarm, and the
company advanced in close formation. The Indians did not attack them,
but they set fire to the prairie, and this caused a halt. A change of
wind the next morning and an early shower checked the flames, and
the column moved on again at daybreak. During the next few days the
buffaloes were seen in herds of hundreds of thousands on both sides of
the Platte. So numerous were they that the company had to stop at times
and let gangs of the animals pass on either side, and several calves
were captured alive.* With or near the buffaloes were seen antelopes and
wolves.
* "The vast herds of buffalo were often in our way, and we were
under the necessity of sending out advance guards to clear the track so
that our teams might pass." Erastus SNOW, "Address to the Pioneers," in
Mo.
At Grand Island the question of their further route was carefully
debated. There was a well-known trail to Fort Laramie on the south side
of the river, used by those who set out from Independence, Missouri, for
Oregon. Good pasture was assured on that side, but it was argued that,
if this party made a new trail along the north side of the river,
the Mormons would have what might be considered a route of their own,
separated from other westward emigrants. This view prevailed, and the
course then selected became known in after years as the Mormon Trail
(sometimes called the "Old Mormon Road"); the line of the Union Pacific
Railroad follows it for many miles.
Their decision caused them a good deal of anxiety about forage for
their animals before they reached Fort Laramie. It had not rained at
the latter point for two years, and the drought, together with the vast
herds of buffaloes and the Indian fires, made it for days impossible
to find any pasture except in small patches. When the fort was reached,
they had fed their animals not only a large part of their grain, but
some of their crackers and other breadstuff, and the beasts were so weak
that they could scarcely drag the wagons.
During the previous winter the church officers had procured for their
use from England two sextants and other instruments needed for taking
solar observations, two barometers, thermometers, etc., and these were
used by Orson Pratt daily to note their progress.* Two of the party
also constructed a sort of pedometer, and, after leaving Fort Laramie, a
mile-post was set up every ten miles, for the guidance of those who were
to follow.
* His diary of the trip will be found in the Millennial Star for
1849-1850, full of interesting details, but evidently edited for English
readers.
In the camp made on May 10 the first of the Mormon post-offices on the
plains was established. Into a board six inches wide and eighteen long,
a cut was made with a saw, and in this cut a letter was placed. After
nailing on cleats to retain the letter, and addressing the board to the
officers of the next company, the board was nailed to a fifteen-foot
pole, which was set firmly in the ground near the trail, and left to its
fate. How successful this attempt at communication proved is not stated,
but similar means of communication were in use during the whole period
of Mormon migration. Sometimes a copy of the camp journal was left
conspicuously in the crotch of a tree, for the edification of the next
camp, and scores of the buffaloes' skulls that dotted the plains were
marked with messages and set up along the trail.
The weakness of the draught animals made progress slow at this time, and
marches of from 4 to 7 miles a day were recorded. The men fared better,
game being abundant. Signs of Indians were seen from time to time, and
precautions were constantly taken to prevent a stampede of the animals;
but no open attack was made. A few Indians visited the camp on May 21,
and gave assurances of their friendliness; and on the 24th they had
a visit from a party of thirty-five Dakotas (or Sioux who tendered a
written letter of recommendation in French from one of the agents of
the American Fur Company. The Mormons had to grant their request for
permission to camp with them over night, which meant also giving them
supper and breakfast--no small demand on their hospitality when the
capacity of the Indian stomach is understood).
Little occurred during May to vary the monotony of the journey. On the
afternoon of June 1 they arrived nearly opposite Fort Laramie and the
ruins of old Fort Platte, a point 522 miles from Winter Quarters, and
509 from Great Salt Lake. The so-called forts were in fact trading
posts, established by the fur companies, both as points of supply for
their trappers and trading places with the Indians for peltries. On the
evening of their arrival at this point they had a visit from members of
a party of Mormons gathered principally from Mississippi and southern
Illinois, who had passed the winter in Pueblo, and were waiting to join
the emigrants from Winter Quarters.
The Platte, usually a shallow stream, was at that place 108 yards wide,
and too deep for wading. Brigham Young and some others crossed over
the next morning in a sole-leather skiff which formed a part of their
equipment, and were kindly welcomed by the commandant. There they
learned that it would be impracticable--or at least very difficult--to
continue along the north bank of the Platte, and they accordingly hired
a flatboat to ferry the company and their wagons across. The crossing
began on June 3, and on an average four wagons were ferried over in an
hour.
Advantage was taken of this delay to set up, a bellows and forge, and
make needed repairs to the wagons. At the Fort the Mormons learned that
their old object of hatred in Missouri, ex-Governor Boggs, had recently
passed by with a company of emigrants bound for the Pacific coast.
Young's company came across other Missourians on the plains; but no
hostilities ensued, the Missourians having no object now to interfere
with the Saints, and the latter contenting themselves by noting in their
diaries the profanity and quarrelsomeness of their old neighbors.
The journey was resumed at noon on June 4, along the Oregon trail. A
small party of the Mormons was sent on in advance to the spot where the
Oregon trail crossed the Platte, 124 miles west of Fort Laramie. This
crossing was generally made by fording, but the river was too high for
this, and the sole-leather boat, which would carry from 1500 to 1800
pounds, was accordingly employed. The men with this boat reached the
crossing in advance of the first party of Oregon emigrants whom they had
encountered, and were employed by the latter to ferry their goods across
while the empty wagons were floated. This proved a happy enterprise for
the Mormons. The drain on their stock of grain and provisions had by
this time so reduced their supply that they looked forward with no
little anxiety to the long march. The Oregon party offered liberal pay
in flour, sugar, bacon, and coffee for the use of the boat, and the
terms were gladly accepted, although most of the persons served were
Missourians. When the main body of pioneers started on from that point,
they left ten men with the boat to maintain the ferry until the next
company from Winter Quarters should come up.*
* "The Missourians paid them $1.50 for each wagon and load, and
paid it in flour at $2.50; yet flour was worth $10 per hundredweight,
at least at that point. They divided their earnings among the camp
equally."--Tullidge, "Life of Brigham Young," p. 165.
The Mormons themselves were delayed at this crossing until June 19,
making a boat on which a wagon could cross without unloading. During
the first few days after leaving the North Platte grass and water
were scarce. On June 21 they reached the Sweet Water, and, fording
it, encamped within sight of Independence Rock, near the upper end of
Devil's Gate.
CHAPTER VI. -- FROM THE ROCKIES TO SALT LAKE VALLEY
More than one day's march was now made without finding water or grass.
Banks of snow were observed on the near-by elevations, and overcoats
were very comfortable at night. On June 26 they reached the South Pass,
where the waters running to the Atlantic and to the Pacific separate.
They found, however, no well-marked dividing ridge-only, as Pratt
described it, "a quietly undulating plain or prairie, some fifteen or
twenty miles in length and breadth, thickly covered with wild sage."
There were good pasture and plenty of water, and they met there a
small party who were making the journey from Oregon to the states on
horseback.
All this time the leaders of the expedition had no definite view of
their final stopping-place. Whenever Young was asked by any of his
party, as they trudged along, what locality they were aiming for, his
only reply was that he would recognize the site of their new home when
he saw it, and that they would surely go on as the Lord would direct
them.*
* Erastus Snow's "Address to the Pioneers," 1880.
While they were camping near South Pass, an incident occurred which
narrowly escaped changing the plans of the Lord, if he had already
selected Salt Lake Valley. One of the men whom the company met there
was a voyager whose judgment about a desirable site for a settlement
naturally seemed worthy of consideration. This was T. L. Smith, better
known as "Pegleg" Smith. He had been a companion of Jedediah S. Smith,
one of Ashley's company of trappers, who had started from Great Salt
Lake in August, 1826, and made his way to San Gabriel Mission in
California, and thence eastward, reaching the Lake again in the spring
of 1827. "Pegleg" had a trading post on Bear River above Soda Springs
(in the present Idaho). He gave the Mormons a great deal of information
about all the valley which lay before them, and to the north and south.
"He earnestly advised us," says Erastus Snow, "to direct our course
northwestward from Bridger, and make our way into Cache Valley; and he
so far made an impression upon the camp that we were induced to enter
into an engagement with him to meet us at a certain time and place two
weeks afterward, to pilot our company into that country. But for some
reason, which to this day never to my knowledge has been explained, he
failed to meet us; and I have ever recognized his failure to do so as a
providence of an all-wise God."*
* "Address to the Pioneers," 1880.
"Pegleg's" reputation was as bad as that of any of those reckless
trappers of his day, and perhaps, if the Mormons had known more about
him, they would have given less heed to his advice, and counted less on
his keeping his engagement.
With the returning Oregonians they also made the acquaintance of Major
Harris, an old trapper and hunter in California and Oregon, who
gave them little encouragement about Salt Lake Valley, as a place of
settlement, principally because of the lack of timber. Two days later
they met Colonel James Bridger, an authority on that part of the
country, whose "fort" was widely known. Young told him that he proposed
to take a look at Great Salt Lake Valley with a view to its settlement.
Bridger affirmed that his experiments had more than convinced him that
corn would not grow in those mountains, and, when Young expressed doubts
about this, he offered to give the Mormon President $1000 for the first
ear raised in that valley. Next they met a mountaineer named Goodyear,
who had passed the last winter on the site of what is now Ogden, Utah,
where he had tried without success to raise a little grain and a few
vegetables. He told of severe cold in winter and drought in summer.
Irrigation had not suggested itself to a man who had a large part of a
continent in which to look for a more congenial farm site.
Mormons in all later years have said that they were guided to the Salt
Lake Valley in fulfilment of the prediction of Joseph Smith that they
would have to flee to the Rocky Mountains. But in their progress across
the plains the leaders of the pioneers were not indifferent to any
advice that came in their way, and in a manuscript "History of Brigham
Young" (1847), quoted by H. H. Bancroft, is the following entry, which
may indicate the first suggestion that turned their attention from
"California" to Utah: "On the 15th of June met James H. Grieve, William
Tucker, James Woodrie, James Bouvoir, and six other Frenchmen, from whom
we learned that Mr. Bridger was located about three hundred miles west,
that the mountaineers could ride to Salt Lake from Fort Bridger in two
days, and that the Utah country was beautiful." *
* Bancroft's "History of Utah," p. 257.
The pioneers resumed their march on June 29, over a desolate country,
travelling seventeen miles without finding grass or water, until they
made their night camp on the Big Sandy. There they encountered clouds
of mosquitoes, which made more than one subsequent camping-place very
uncomfortable. A march of eight miles the next morning brought them to
Green River. Finding this stream 180 yards wide, and deep and swift,
they stopped long enough to make two rafts, on which they successfully
ferried over all their wagons without unloading them.
At this point the pioneers met a brother Mormon who had made the journey
to California round the Horn, and had started east from there to meet
the overland travellers. He had an interesting story to tell, the points
of which, in brief, were as follows:--A conference of Mormons, held in
New York City on November 12, 1845, resolved to move in a body to the
new home of the Saints. This emigration scheme was placed in charge of
Samuel Brannan, a native of Maine, and an elder in the church, who was
then editing the New York Prophet, and preaching there. Why so important
a project was confided to Brannan seems a mystery, in view of P.
P. Pratt's statement that, as early as the previous January, he
had discovered that Brannan was among certain elders who "had been
corrupting the Saints by introducing among them all manner of false
doctrines and immoral practices"; he was afterward disfellowshipped
at Nauvoo. By Pratt's advice he immediately went to that city, and was
restored to full standing in the church, as any bad man always was
when he acknowledged submission to the church authorities.* Plenty of
emigrants offered themselves under Orson Pratt's call, but of the 300
first applicants for passage only about 60 had money enough to pay their
expenses.
* Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 374.
Although it was estimated that $75 would cover the outlay for the trip.
Brannan chartered the Brooklyn, a ship of 450 tons, and on February 4,
1846, she sailed with 70 men, 68 women, and 100 children.*
* Bancrofts figures, "History of California," Vol. V, Chap. 20.
The voyage to San Francisco ended on July 31. Ten deaths and two births
occurred during the trip, and four of the company, including two elders
and one woman, had to be excommunicated "for their wicked and licentious
conduct." Three others were dealt with in the same way as soon as the
company landed.* On landing they found the United States in possession
of the country, which led to Brannan's reported remark, "There is that
d--d flag again." The men of the party, some of whom had not paid all
their passage money, at once sought work, but the company did not hold
together. Before the end of the year some 20 more "went astray," in
church parlance; some decided to remain on the coast when they learned
that the church was to make Salt Lake Valley its headquarters, and some
time later about 140 reached Utah and took up their abode there.
* Brannan's letter, Millennial Star, Vol. IX, pp. 306-307.
Brannan fell from grace and was pronounced by P. P. Pratt "a corrupt and
wicked man." While he was getting his expedition in shape, he sent to
the church authorities in the West a copy of an agreement which he said
he had made with A. G. Benson, an alleged agent of Postmaster General
Kendall. Benson was represented as saying that, unless the Mormon
leaders signed an agreement, to which President Polk was a "silent
partner," by which they would "transfer to A. G. Benson and Co., and to
their heirs and assigns, the odd number of all the lands and town lots
they may acquire in the country where they settle," the President would
order them to be dispersed. This seems to have been too transparent a
scheme to deceive Young, and the agreement was not signed.
The march of the pioneers was resumed on July 3. That evening they were
told that those who wished to return eastward to meet their families,
who were perhaps five hundred miles back with the second company, could
do so; but only five of them took advantage of this permission. The
event of Sunday, July 4, was the arrival of thirteen members of the
Battalion, who had pushed on in advance of the main body of those who
were on the way from Pueblo, in order that they might recover some
horses stolen from them, which they were told were at Bridger's Fort.
They said that the main body of 140 were near at hand. This company had
been directed in their course by instructions sent to them by Brigham
Young from a point near Fort Laramie.
The hardships of the trip had told on the pioneers, and a number of
them were now afflicted with what they called "mountain fever." They
attributed this to the clouds of dust that enveloped the column of
wagons when in motion, and to the decided change of temperature from
day to night. For six weeks, too, most of them had been without bread,
living on the meat provided by the hunters, and saving the little flour
that was left for the sick.
The route on July 5 kept along the right bank of the Green River for
about three miles, and then led over the bluffs and across a sandy,
waterless plain for sixteen miles, to the left bank of Black's Fork,
where they camped for the night. The two following days took them
across this Fork several times, but, although fording was not always
comfortable, the stream added salmon trout to their menu. On the 7th the
party had a look at Bridger's Fort, of which they had heard often.
Orson Pratt described it at the time as consisting "of two adjoining log
houses, dirt roofs, and a small picket yard of logs set in the ground,
and about eight feet high. The number of men, squaws, and half-breed
children in these houses and lodges may be about fifty or sixty."
At the camp, half a mile from the fort, that night ice formed. The next
day the blacksmiths were kept busy repairing wagons and shoeing horses
in preparation for a trail through the mountains. On the 9th and 10th
they passed over a hilly country, camping on Beaver River on the night
of the 10th.
The fever had compelled several halts on account of the condition of the
patients, and on the 12th it was found that Brigham Young was too ill to
travel. In order not to lose time, Orson Pratt, with forty-three men
and twenty-three wagons, was directed to push on into Salt Lake Valley,
leaving a trail that the others could follow. From the information
obtainable at Fort Bridger it was decided that the canyon leading into
the valley would be found impassable on account of high water, and that
they should direct their course over the mountains.
These explorers set out on July 14, travelling down Red Fork, a small
stream which ran through a narrow valley, whose sides in places were
from eight hundred to twelve hundred feet high,--red sandstone walls,
perpendicular or overhanging. This route was a rough one, requiring
frequent fordings of the stream, and they did well to advance thirteen
miles that day. On the 15th they discovered a mountain trail that had
been recommended to them, but it was a mere trace left by wagons that
had passed over it a year before. They came now to the roughest country
they had found, and it became necessary to send sappers in advance to
open a road before the wagons could pass over it. Almost discouraged,
Pratt turned back on foot the next day, to see if he could not find a
better route; but he was soon convinced that only the one before them
led in the direction they were to take. The wagons were advanced only
four and three-quarters miles that day, even the creek bottom being
so covered with a growth of willows that to cut through these was
a tiresome labor. Pratt and a companion, during the day, climbed a
mountain, which they estimated to be about two thousand feet high,
but they only saw, before and around them, hills piled on hills and
mountains on mountains,--the outlines of the Wahsatch and Uinta ranges.
On Monday, the 18th, Pratt again acted as advance explorer, and went
ahead with one companion. Following a ravine on horseback for four
miles, they then dismounted and climbed to an elevation from which, in
the distance, they saw a level prairie which they thought could not
be far from Great Salt Lake. The whole party advanced only six and a
quarter miles that day and six the next.
One day later Erastus Snow came up with them, and Pratt took him along
as a companion in his advance explorations. They discovered a point
where the travellers of the year before had ascended a hill to avoid
a canyon through which a creek dashed rapidly. Following in their
predecessors' footsteps, when they arrived at the top of this hill there
lay stretched out before them "a broad, open valley about twenty miles
wide and thirty long, at the north end of which the waters of the Great
Salt Lake glistened in the sunbeams." Snow's account of their first view
of the valley and lake is as follows:--"The thicket down the narrows, at
the mouth of the canyon, was so dense that we could not penetrate through
it. I crawled for some distance on my hands and knees through this
thicket, until I was compelled to return, admonished to by the rattle of
a snake which lay coiled up under my nose, having almost put my hand
on him; but as he gave me the friendly warning, I thanked him and
retreated. We raised on to a high point south of the narrows, where
we got a view of the Great Salt Lake and this valley, and each of us,
without saying a word to the other, instinctively, as if by inspiration,
raised our hats from our heads, and then, swinging our hats, shouted,
'Hosannah to God and the Lamb!' We could see the canes down in the
valley, on what is now called Mill Creek, which looked like inviting
grain, and thitherward we directed our course."*
* "Address to the Pioneers," 1880.
Having made an inspection of the valley, the two explorers rejoined
their party about ten o'clock that evening. The next day, with great
labor, a road was cut through the canyon down to the valley, and on
July 22 Pratt's entire company camped on City Creek, below the present
Emigration Street in Salt Lake City. The next morning, after sending
word of their discovery to Brigham Young, the whole party moved some two
miles farther north, and there, after prayer, the work of putting in a
crop was begun. The necessity of irrigation was recognized at once. "We
found the land so dry," says Snow, "that to plough it was impossible,
and in attempting to do so some of the ploughs were broken. We therefore
had to distribute the water over the land before it could be worked."
When the rest of the pioneers who had remained with Young reached the
valley the next day, they found about six acres of potatoes and other
vegetables already planted.
While Apostles like Snow might have been as transported with delight
over the aspect of the valley as he professed to be, others of the party
could see only a desolate, treeless plain, with sage brush supplying the
vegetation. To the women especially the outlook was most depressing.
CHAPTER VII. -- THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES--LAST DAYS ON THE MISSOURI
When the pioneers set out from the Missouri, instructions were left for
the organization of similar companies who were to follow their trail,
without waiting to learn their ultimate destination or how they fared on
the way. These companies were in charge of prominent men like Parley P.
Pratt, John Taylor, Bishop Hunter, Daniel Spencer, who succeeded Smith
as mayor of Nauvoo, and J. M. Grant, the first mayor of Salt Lake City
after its incorporation.
P. P. Pratt set out early in June, as soon as he could get his wagons
and equipment in order, for Elk Horn River, where a sort of rendezvous
was established, and a rough ferry boat put in operation. Hence started
about the Fourth of July the big company which has been called "the
first emigration." It consisted, according to the most trustworthy
statistics, of 1553 persons, equipped with 566 wagons, 2213 oxen,
124 horses, 887 cows, 358 sheep, 35 hogs, and 716 chickens. Pratt had
brought back from England 469 sovereigns, collected as tithing, which
were used in equipping the first parties for Utah. This company had at
its head, as president, Brigham Young's brother John, with P. P. Pratt
as chief adviser.
Nothing more serious interrupted the movement of these hundreds of
emigrants than dissatisfaction with Pratt, upsets, broken wagons, and
the occasional straying of cattle, and all arrived in the valley in the
latter part of September, Pratt's division on the 25th.
The company which started on the return trip with Young on August 26
embraced those Apostles who had gone West with him, some others of the
pioneers, and most of the members of the Battalion who had joined them,
and whose families were still on the banks of the Missouri. The eastward
trip was made interesting by the meetings with the successive companies
who were on their way to the Salt Lake Valley. Early in September some
Indians stole 48 of their hoses, and ten weeks later 200 Sioux charged
their camp, but there was no loss of life.
On the 19th of October the party were met by a mounted company who had
left Winter Quarters to offer any aid that might be needed, and were
escorted to that camp. They arrived there on October 31, where they were
welcomed by their families, and feasted as well as the supplies would
permit.
The winter of 1847-1848 was employed by Young and his associates in
completing the church organization, mapping out a scheme of European
immigration, and preparing for the removal of the remaining Mormons to
Salt Lake Valley.
That winter was much milder than its predecessor, and the health of the
camps was improved, due, in part, to the better physical condition of
their occupants. On the west side of the river, however, troubles
had arisen with the Omahas, who complained to the government that the
Mormons were killing off the game and depleting their lands of timber.
The new-comers were accordingly directed to recross the river, and it
was in this way that the camp near Council Bluffs in 1848 secured its
principal population. In Mormon letters of that date the name Winter
Quarters is sometimes applied to the settlement east of the river
generally known as Kanesville.
The programme then arranged provided for the removal in the spring of
1848 to Salt Lake Valley of practically all Mormons who remained on
the Missouri, leaving only enough to look after the crops there and to
maintain a forwarding point for emigrants from Europe and the Eastern
states. The legislature of Iowa by request organized a county embracing
the camps on the east side of the river. There seems to have been
an idea in the minds of some of the Mormons that they might effect a
permanent settlement in western Iowa. Orson Pratt, in a general epistle
to the Saints in Europe, encouraging emigration, dated August 15, 1848,
said, "A great, extensive, and rich tract of country has also been,
by the providence of God, put in the possession of the Saints in the
western borders of Iowa," which the Saints would have the first chance
to purchase, at five shillings per acre. A letter from G. A. Smith and
E. T. Benson to O. Pratt, dated December 20 in that year, told of the
formation of a company of 860 members to enclose an additional tract of
11,000 acres, in shares of from 5 to 80 acres, and of the laying out
of two new cities, ten miles north and south. Orson Hyde set up a
printing-press there, and for some time published the Frontier Guardian.
But wiser counsel prevailed, and by 1853 most of the emigrants from
Nauvoo had passed on to Utah,* and Linforth found Kanesville in 1853
"very dirty and unhealthy," and full of gamblers, lawyers, and dealers
in "bargains," the latter made up principally of the outfits of
discouraged immigrants who had given up the trip at that point.
* On September 21, 1851, the First Presidency sent a letter to
the Saints who were still in Iowa, directing them all to come to Salt
Lake Valley, and saying: "What are you waiting for? Have you any good
excuse for not coming? No. You have all of you unitedly a far
better chance than we had when we started as pioneers to find this
place."--Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 29.
Young himself took charge of the largest body that was to cross the
plains in 1848. The preparations were well advanced by the first of May,
and on the 24th he set out for Elk Horn (commonly called "The Horn")
where the organization of the column was to be made. The travellers were
divided into two large companies, the first four "hundreds" comprising
1229 persons and 397 wagons; the second section, led by H. C. Kimball,
662 persons and 226 wagons; and the third, under Elders W. Richards and
A. Lyman, about 300 wagons. A census of the first two companies, made
by the clerk of the camp, showed that their equipment embraced the
following items: horses, 131; mules, 44; oxen, 2012; cows and other
cattle, 1317; sheep, 654; pigs, 237; chickens, 904; cats, 54; dogs,
134; goats, 3; geese, 10; ducks, 5; hives of bees, 5; doves, 11; and one
squirrel.*
* Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 319.
The expense of fitting out these companies was necessarily large, and
the heads of the church left at Kanesville a debt amounting to $3600,
"without any means being provided for its payment."*
* Ibid, Vol. XI, p. 14.
President Young's company began its actual westward march on June 5, and
the last detachment got away about the 25th. They reached the site of
Salt Lake City in September. The incidents of the trip were not more
interesting than those of the previous year, and only four deaths
occurred on the way.
BOOK VI. -- IN UTAH
CHAPTER I. -- THE FOUNDING OF SALT LAKE CITY
The first white men to enter what is now Utah were a part of the force
of Coronado, under Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardinas, if the reader of
the evidence decides that their journey from Zuni took them, in 1540,
across the present Utah border line.* A more definite account has been
preserved of a second exploration, which left Santa Fe in 1776, led
by two priests, Dominguez and Escalate, in search of a route to the
California coast. A two months' march brought them to a lake, called
Timpanogos by the natives--now Utah Lake on the map--where they were
told of another lake, many leagues in extent, whose waters were so salt
that they made the body itch when wet with them; but they turned to the
southwest without visiting it. Lahontan's report of the discovery of a
body of bad-tasting water on the western side of the continent in 1689
is not accepted as more than a part of an imaginary narrative. S. A.
Ruddock asserted that, in 1821, he with a trading party made a journey
from Council Bluffs to Oregon by way of Santa Fe and Great Salt Lake.**
* See Bancroft's "History of Utah," Chap. I.
** House Report, No. 213, 1st Session, 19th Congress.
Bancroft mentions this claim "for what it is worth," but awards the
honor of the discovery of the lake, as the earliest authenticated, to
James Bridger, the noted frontiersman who, some twelve years later,
built his well-known trading fort on Green River. Bridger, with a party
of trappers who had journeyed west from the Missouri with Henry and
Ashley in 1824, got into a discussion that winter with his fellows,
while they were camped on Bear River, about the course of that stream,
and, to decide a bet, Bridger followed it southward until he came to
Great Salt Lake. In the following spring four of the party explored the
lake in boats made of skins, hoping to find beavers, and they, it is
believed, were the first white men to float upon its waters. Fremont saw
the lake from the summit of a butte on September 6, 1843. "It was," he
says, "one of the great objects of the exploration, and, as we looked
eagerly over the lake in the first emotions of excited pleasure, I am
doubtful if the followers of Balboa felt more enthusiasm when, from
the heights of the Andes, they saw for the first time the great Western
Ocean." This practical claim of discovery was not well founded, nor was
his sail on the lake in an India-rubber boat "the first ever attempted
on this interior sea."
Dating from 1825, the lake region of Utah became more and more familiar
to American trappers and explorers. In 1833 Captain Bonneville, of the
United States army, obtained leave of absence, and with a company of
110 trappers set out for the Far West by the Platte route. Crossing the
Rockies through the South Pass, he made a fortified camp on Green River,
whence he for three years explored the country. One of his parties,
under Joseph Walker, was sent to trap beavers on Great Salt Lake and
to explore it thoroughly, making notes and maps. Bonneville, in his
description of the lake to Irving, declared that lofty mountains rose
from its bosom, and greatly magnified its extent to the south.* Walker's
party got within sight of the lake, but found themselves in a desert,
and accordingly changed their course and crossed the Sierras into
California. In Bonneville's map the lake is called "Lake Bonneville or
Great Salt Lake," and Irving calls it Lake Bonneville in his "Astoria."
* Bonneville's "Adventures," p. 184.
The day after the first arrival of Brigham Young in Salt Lake Valley
(Sunday, July 25), church services were held and the sacrament was
administered. Young addressed his followers, indicating at the start his
idea of his leadership and of the ownership of the land, which was then
Mexican territory. "He said that no man should buy any land who came
here," says Woodruff; "that he had none to sell; but every man should
have his land measured out to him for city and farming purposes. He
might till it as he pleased, but he must be industrious and take care of
it." *
* "After the assignments were made, persona commenced the usual
speculations of selling according to eligibility of situation. This
called out anathemas from the spiritual powers, and no one was permitted
to traffic for fancy profit; if any sales were made, the first cost
and actual value of improvements were all that was to be allowed. All
speculative sales were made sub rosa. Exchanges are made and the records
kept by the register."--Gunnison, "The Mormons" (1852), p. 145.
The next day a party, including all the Twelve who were in the valley,
set out to explore the neighborhood. They visited and bathed in Great
Salt Lake, climbed and named Ensign Peak, and met a party of Utah
Indians, who made signs that they wanted to trade. On their return Young
explained to the people his ideas of an exploration of the country to
the west and north.
Meanwhile, those left in the valley had been busy staking off fields,
irrigating them, and planting vegetables and grain. Some buildings,
among them a blacksmith shop, were begun. The members of the Battalion,
about four hundred of whom had now arrived, constructed a "bowery."
Camps of Utah Indians were visited, and the white men witnessed their
method of securing for food the abundant black crickets, by driving them
into an enclosure fenced with brush which they set on fire.
On July 28, after a council of the Quorum had been held, the site of the
Temple was selected by Brigham Young, who waved his hand and said:
"Here is the 40 acres for the Temple. The city can be laid out perfectly
square, east and west."* The 40 acres were a few days later reduced to
10, but the site then chosen is that on which the big Temple now stands.
It was also decided that the city should be laid out in lots measuring
to by 20 rods each, 8 lots to a block, with streets 8 rods wide, and
sidewalks 20 feet wide; each house to be erected in the centre of a lot,
and 20 feet from the front line. Land was also reserved for four parks
of to acres each.
* Tullidge's "Life of Brigham Young," p. 178.
Men were at once sent into the mountains to secure logs for cabins,
and work on adobe huts was also begun. On August y those of the Twelve
present selected their "inheritances," each taking a block near the
Temple. A week later the Twelve in council selected the blocks on
which the companies under each should settle. The city as then laid out
covered a space nearly four miles long and three broad.*
* Tullidge says: "The land portion of each family, as a rule, was
the acre-and-a-quarter lot designated in the plan of the city; but the
chief men of the pioneers, who had a plurality of wives and numerous
children, received larger portions of the city lots. The giving of
farms, as shown is the General Epistle, was upon the same principle as
the apportioning of city lots. The farm of five, ten, or twenty acres
was not for the mechanic, nor the manufacturer, nor even for the farmer,
as a mere personal property, but for the good of the community at large,
to give the substance of the earth to feed the population.... While the
farmer was planting and cultivating his farm, the mechanic and tradesman
produced his supplies and wrought his daily work for the community."
He adds, "It can be easily understood how some departures were made from
this original plan." This understanding can be gained in no better way
than by inspecting the list of real estate left by Brigham Young in his
will as his individual possession.
On August 22 a General Conference decided that the city should be called
City of the Great Salt Lake. When the city was incorporated, in 1851,
the name was changed to Salt Lake City. In view of the approaching
return of Young and his fellow officers to the Missouri River, the
company in the valley were placed in charge of the prophet's uncle, John
Smith, as Patriarch, with a high council and other officers of a Stake.
When P. P. Pratt and the following companies reached the valley in
September, they found a fort partly built, and every one busy, preparing
for the winter. The crops of that year had been a disappointment, having
been planted too late. The potatoes raised varied in size from that of
a pea to half an inch in diameter, but they were saved and used
successfully for seed the next year. A great deal of grain was sown
during the autumn and winter, considerable wheat having been brought
from California by members of the Battalion. Pratt says that the snow
was several inches deep when they did some of their ploughing, but that
the ground was clear early in March. A census taken in March, 1848, gave
the city a population of 1671, with 423 houses erected.
The Saints in the valley spent a good deal of that winter working on
their cabins, making furniture, and carting fuel. They discovered that
the warning about the lack of timber was well founded, all the logs and
firewood being hauled from a point eight miles distant, over bad roads,
and with teams that had not recovered from the effect of the overland
trip. Many settlers therefore built huts of adobe bricks, some with
cloth roofs. Lack of experience in handling adobe clay for building
purposes led to some sad results, the rains and frosts causing the
bricks to crumble or burst, and more than one of these houses tumbled
down around their owners. Even the best of the houses had very flat
roofs, the newcomers believing that the climate was always dry; and
when the rains and melted snow came, those who had umbrellas frequently
raised them indoors to protect their beds or their fires.
Two years later, when Captain Stansbury of the United States
Topographical Engineers, with his surveying party, spent the winter
in Salt Lake City, in "a small, unfurnished house of unburnt brick or
adobe, unplastered, and roofed with boards loosely nailed on," which let
in the rains in streams, he says they were better lodged than many of
their neighbors. "Very many families," he explains, "were obliged
still to lodge wholly or in part in their wagons, which, being covered,
served, when taken off from the wheels and set upon the ground, to
make bedrooms, of limited dimensions, it is true, but exceedingly
comfortable. In the very next enclosure to that of our party, a whole
family of children had no other shelter than one of these wagons, where
they slept all winter."
The furniture of the early houses was of the rudest kind, since only
the most necessary articles could be brought in the wagons. A chest or a
barrel would do for a table, a bunk built against the side logs would be
called a bed, and such rude stools as could be most easily put together
served for chairs.
The letters sent for publication in England to attract emigrants spoke
of a mild and pleasant winter, not telling of the privations of these
pioneers. The greatest actual suffering was caused by a lack of food as
spring advanced. A party had been sent to California, in November, for
cattle, seeds, etc., but they lost forty of a herd of two hundred on
the way back. The cattle that had been brought across the plains were
in poor condition on their arrival, and could find very little winter
pasturage. Many of the milk cows driven all the way from the Missouri
had died by midsummer. By spring parched grain was substituted for
coffee, a kind of molasses was made from beets, and what little flour
could be obtained was home-ground and unbolted. Even so high an officer
of the church as P. P. Pratt, thus describes the privations of his
family: "In this labor [ploughing, cultivating, and sowing] every
woman and child in my family, so far as they were of sufficient age
and strength, had joined to help me, and had toiled incessantly in the
field, suffering every hardship which human nature could well endure.
Myself and most of them were compelled to go with bare feet for several
months, reserving our Indian moccasins for extra occasions. We toiled
hard, and lived on a few greens, and on thistle and other roots."
This was the year of the great visitation of crickets, the destruction
of which has given the Mormons material for the story of one of their
miracles. The crickets appeared in May, and they ate the country clear
before them. In a wheat-field they would average two or three to a
head of grain. Even ditches filled with water would not stop them. Kane
described them as "wingless, dumpy, black, swollen-headed, with bulging
eyes in cases like goggles, mounted upon legs of steel wire and clock
spring, and with a general personal appearance that justified the
Mormons in comparing them to a cross of a spider and the buffalo." When
this plague was at its worst, the Mormons saw flocks of gulls descend
and devour the crickets so greedily that they would often disgorge the
food undigested. Day after day did the gulls appear until the plague
was removed. Utah guide-books of to-day refer to this as a divine
interposition of Heaven in behalf of the Saints. But writers of that
date, like P. P. Pratt, ignore the miraculous feature, and the white
gulls dot the fields between Salt Lake City and Ogden in 1901 just
as they did in the summer of 1848, and as Fremont found them there in
September, 1843. Gulls are abundant all over the plains, and are
found with the snipe and geese as far north as North Dakota. Heaven's
interposition, if exercised, was not thorough, for, after the crickets,
came grasshoppers in such numbers that one writer says, "On one occasion
a quarter of one cloudy dropped into the lake and were blown on shore by
the wind, in rows sometimes two feet deep, for a distance of two miles."
But the crops, with all the drawbacks, did better than had been deemed
possible, and on August 10 the people held a kind of harvest festival in
the "bowery" in the centre of their fort, when "large sheaves of wheat,
rye, barley, oats, and other productions were hoisted on poles for
public exhibition."* Still, the outlook was so alarming that word was
sent to Winter Quarters advising against increasing their population at
that time, and Brigham Young's son urged that a message be sent to
his father giving similar advice.** Nevertheless P. P. Pratt did not
hesitate in a letter addressed to the Saints in England, on September 5,
to say that they had had ears of corn to boil for a month, that he had
secured "a good harvest of wheat and rye without irrigation," and that
there would be from ten thousand to twenty thousand bushels of grain in
the valley more than was needed for home consumption.
* Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 406.
** Bancroft's "History of Utah;" p. 281.
CHAPTER II. -- PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT
With the arrival of the later companies from Winter Quarters the
population of the city was increased by the winter of 1848 to about five
thousand, or more than one-quarter of those who went out from Nauvoo.
The settlers then had three sawmills, one flouring mill, and a threshing
machine run by water, another sawmill and flour mill nearly completed,
and several mills under way for the manufacture of sugar from corn
stalks.
Brigham Young, again on the ground, took the lead at once in pushing
on the work. To save fencing, material for which was hard to obtain, a
tract of eight thousand acres was set apart and fenced for the common
use, within which farmhouses could be built. The plan adopted for
fencing in the city itself was to enclose each ward separately, every
lot owner building his share. A stone council house, forty-five
feet square, was begun, the labor counting as a part of the tithe;
unappropriated city lots were distributed among the new-comers by a
system of drawing, and the building of houses went briskly on, the
officers of the church sharing in the labor. A number of bridges were
also provided, a tax of one per cent being levied to pay for them.
Among the incidents of the winter mentioned in an epistle of the First
Presidency was the establishment of schools in the different wards,
in which, it was stated, "the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, German,
Tahitian and English languages have been taught successfully"; and the
organization of a temporary local government, and of a Stake of Zion,
with Daniel Spencer as president. It was early the policy of the church
to carry on an extended system of public works, including manufacturing
enterprises. The assisted immigrants were expected to repay by work
on these buildings the advance made to them to cover their travelling
expenses. Young saw at once the advantage of starting branches of
manufacture, both to make his people independent of a distant supply and
to give employment to the population. Writing to Orson Pratt on October
14, 1849, when Pratt was in England, he said that they would have the
material for cotton and woollen factories ready by the time men and
machinery were prepared to handle it, and urged him to send on cotton
operatives and "all the necessary fixtures." The third General Epistle
spoke of the need of furnaces and forges, and Orson Pratt, in an address
to the Saints in Great Britain, dated July 2, 1850, urged the officers
of companies "to seek diligently in every branch for wise, skilful and
ingenious mechanics, manufacturers, potters, etc."*
* The General Epistle of April, 1852, announced two potteries in
operation, a small woollen factory begun, a nail factory, wooden bowl
factory, and many grist and saw mills. The General Epistle of October,
1855, enumerated, as among the established industries, a foundery, a
cutlery shop, and manufactories of locks, cloth, leather, hats, cordage,
brushes, soap, paper, combs, and cutlery.
The General Conference of October, 1849, ordered one man to build
a glass factory in the valley, and voted to organize a company to
transport passengers and freight between the Missouri River and
California, directing that settlements be established along the route.
This company was called the Great Salt Lake Valley Carrying Company. Its
prospectus in the Frontier Guardian in December, 1849, stated that the
fare from Kanesville to Sutter's Fort, California, would be $300, and
the freight rate to Great Salt Lake City $12.50 per hundredweight, the
passenger wagons to be drawn by four horses or mules, and the freight
wagons by oxen.
But the work of making the new Mormon home a business and manufacturing
success did not meet with rapid encouragement. Where settlements
were made outside of Salt Lake City, the people were not scattered in
farmhouses over the country, but lived in what they called "forts,"
squalid looking settlements, laid out in a square and defended by a dirt
or adobe wall. The inhabitants of these settlements had to depend on the
soil for their subsistence, and such necessary workmen as carpenters and
shoemakers plied their trade as they could find leisure after working in
the fields. When Johnston's army entered the valley in 1858, the largest
attempt at manufacturing that had been undertaken there--a beet sugar
factory, toward which English capitalists had contributed more
than $100,000--had already proved a failure. There were tanneries,
distilleries, and breweries in operation, a few rifles and revolvers
were made from iron supplied by wagon tires, and in the larger
settlements a few good mechanics were kept busy. But if no outside
influences had contributed to the prosperity of the valley, and hastened
the day when it secured railroad communication, the future of the people
whom Young gathered in Utah would have been very different.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune, on his way to California,
writing on July 8, 1849, thus described Salt Lake City as it presented
itself to him at that time:--"There are no hotels, because there had
been no travel; no barber shops, because every one chose to shave
himself and no one had time to shave his neighbor; no stores, because
they had no goods to sell nor time to traffic; no center of business,
because all were too busy to make a center. There was abundance of
mechanics' shops, of dressmakers, milliners and tailors, etc., but they
needed no sign, nor had they any time to paint or erect one, for they
were crowded with business. Besides their several trades, all must
cultivate the land or die; for the country was new, and no cultivation
but their own within 1000 miles. Everyone had his lot and built on it;
every one cultivated it, and perhaps a small farm in the distance. And
the strangest of all was that this great city, extending over several
square miles, had been erected, and every house and fence made, within
nine or ten months of our arrival; while at the same time good bridges
were erected over the principal streams, and the country settlements
extended nearly 100 miles up and down the valley."*
* New York Tribune, October 9, 1849.
The winter of 1848 set in early and severe, with frequent snowstorms
from December 1 until late in February, and the temperature dropping one
degree below zero as late as February 5. The deep snow in the canyons,
the only outlets through the mountains, rendered it difficult to bring
in fuel, and the suffering from the cold was terrible, as many families
had arrived too late to provide themselves with any shelter but their
prairie wagons. The apprehended scarcity of food, too, was realized.
Early in February an inventory of the breadstuffs in the valley, taken
by the Bishops, showed only three-quarters of a pound a day per head
until July 5, although it was believed that many had concealed stores
on hand. When the first General Epistle of the First Presidency was sent
out from Salt Lake City in the spring of 1849,* corn, which had sold for
$2 and $3 a bushel, was not to be had, wheat had ranged from $4 to $5 a
bushel, and potatoes from $6 to $20, with none then in market.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227.
The people generally exerted themselves to obtain food for those whose
supplies had been exhausted, but the situation became desperate before
the snow melted. Three attempts to reach Fort Bridger failed because of
the depth of snow in the canyons. There is a record of a winter hunt of
two rival parties of 100 men each, but they killed "varmints" rather
than game, the list including 700 wolves and foxes, 20 minks and skunks,
500 hawks, owls and magpies, and 1000 ravens.* Some of the Mormons, with
the aid of Indian guides, dug roots that the savages had learned to eat,
and some removed the hide roofs from their cabins and stewed them for
food. The lack of breadstuffs continued until well into the summer, and
the celebration of the anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers in the
valley, which had been planned for July 4, was postponed until the 24th,
as Young explained in his address, "that we might have a little bread to
set on our tables."
* General Epistle, Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 227.
Word was now sent to the states and to Europe that no more of the
brethren should make the trip to the valley at that time unless they had
means to get through without assistance, and could bring breadstuffs to
last them several months after their arrival.
But something now occurred which turned the eyes of a large part of the
world to that new acquisition of the United States on the Pacific coast
which was called California, which made the Mormon settlement in Utah
a way station for thousands of travellers where a dozen would not have
passed it without the new incentive, and which brought to the Mormon
settlers, almost at their own prices, supplies of which they were
desperately in need, and which they could not otherwise have obtained.
This something was the discovery of gold in California.
When the news of this discovery reached the Atlantic states and those
farther west, men simply calculated by what route they could most
quickly reach the new El Dorado, and the first companies of miners who
travelled across the plains sacrificed everything for speed. The first
rush passed through Salt Lake Valley in August, 1849. Some of the
Mormons who had reached California with Brannan's company had by that
time arrived in the valley, bringing with them a few bags of gold dust.
When the would-be miners from the East saw this proof of the existence
of gold in the country ahead of them, their enthusiasm knew no limits,
and their one wish was to lighten themselves so that they could reach
the gold-fields in the shortest time possible. Then the harvest of the
Mormons began. Pack mules and horses that had been worth only $25 or $30
would now bring $200 in exchange for other articles at a low price, and
the travellers were auctioning off their surplus supplies every day. For
a light wagon they did not hesitate to offer three or four heavy
ones, with a yoke of oxen sometimes thrown in. Such needed supplies as
domestic sheetings could be had at from five to ten cents a yard, spades
and shovels, with which the miners were overstocked, at fifty cents
each, and nearly everything in their outfit, except sugar and coffee, at
half the price that would have been charged at wholesale in the Eastern
states.*
* Salt Lake City letter to the Frontier Guardian.
The commercial profit to the Mormons from this emigration was greater
still in 1850, when the rush had increased. Before the grain of that
summer was cut, the gold seekers paid $1 a pound for flour in Salt Lake
City. After the new grain was harvested they eagerly bought the flour
as fast as five mills could grind it, at $25 per hundredweight. Unground
wheat sold for $8 a bushel, wood for $10 a cord, adobe bricks for more
than seven shillings a hundred, and skilled mechanics were getting
twelve shillings and sixpence a day.* At the same time that the
emigrants were paying so well for what they absolutely required, they
were sacrificing large supplies of what they did not need on almost any
terms. Some of them had started across the plains with heavy loads of
machinery and miscellaneous goods, on which they expected to reap a big
profit in California. Learning, however, when they reached Salt Lake
City, that ship-loads of such merchandise were on their way around the
Horn, the owners sacrificed their stock where it was, and hurried on to
get their share of the gold.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 350.
This is not the place in which to tell the story of that rush of the
gold seekers. The clerk at Fort Laramie reported, "The total number of
emigrants who passed this post up to June 10, 1850, included 16,915 men,
235 women, 242 children, 4672 wagons, 14,974 horses, 4641 mules, 7475
oxen, and 1653 cows." A letter from Sacramento dated September 10, 1850,
gave this picture of the trail left by these travellers: "Many believed
there are dead animals enough on the desert (of 45 miles) between
Humboldt Lake and Carson River to pave a road the whole distance. We
will make a moderate estimate and say there is a dead animal to every
five feet, left on the desert this season. I counted 153 wagons within
a mile and a half. Not half of those left were to be seen, many having
been burned to make lights in the night. The desert is strewn with all
kinds of property--tools, clothes, crockery, harnesses, etc."
Naturally, in this rush for sudden riches, many a Mormon had a desire
to join. A dozen families left Utah for California early in 1849, and
in March, 1851, a company of more than five hundred assembled in Payson,
preparatory to making the trip. Here was an unexpected danger to the
growth of the Mormon population, and one which the head of the church
did not delay in checking. The second General Epistle, dated October 12,
1849,* stated that the valley of the Sacramento was unhealthy, and that
the Saints could do better raising grain in Utah, adding, "The true
use of gold is for paving streets, covering houses, and making culinary
dishes, and when the Saints shall have preached the Gospel, raised
grain, and built up cities enough, the Lord will open up the way for a
supply of gold, to the perfect satisfaction of his people."
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 119.
Notwithstanding this advice, a good many Mormons acted on the idea that
the Lord would help those who helped themselves, and that if they
were to have golden culinary dishes they must go and dig the gold.
Accordingly, we find the third General Epistle, dated April 12, 1850,
acknowledging that many brethren had gone to the gold mines, but
declaring that they were counselled only "by their own wills and
covetous feelings," and that they would have done more good by staying
in the valley. Young did not, however, stop with a mere rebuke. He
proposed to check the exodus. "Let such men," the Epistle added,
"remember that they are not wanted in our midst. Let such leave their
carcasses where they do their work; we want not our burial grounds
polluted with such hypocrites." Young was quite as plain spoken in his
remarks to the General Conference that spring, naming as those who "will
go down to hell, poverty-stricken and naked," the Mormons who felt that
they were so poor that they would have to go to the gold mines.*
Such talk had its effect, and Salt Lake Valley retained most of its
population.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 274,
The progress of the settlement received a serious check some years later
in the failure of the crops in 1855, followed by a near approach to a
famine in the ensuing winter. Very little reference to this was made in
the official church correspondence, but a picture of the situation
in Salt Lake City that winter was drawn in two letters from Heber C.
Kimball to his sons in England.* In the first, written in February, he
said that his family and Brigham Young's were then on a ration of half
a pound of bread each per day, and that thousands had scarcely any
breadstuff at all. Kimball's family of one hundred persons then had on
hand about seventy bushels of potatoes and a few beets and carrots,
"so you can judge," he says, "whether we can get through until harvest
without digging roots." There were then not more than five hundred
bushels of grain in the tithing office, and all public work was stopped
until the next harvest, and all mechanics were advised to drop their
tools and to set about raising grain. "There is not a settlement in the
territory," said the writer, "but is also in the same fix as we are.
Dollars and cents do not count in these times, for they are the tightest
I have ever seen in the territory of Utah." In April he wrote: "I
suppose one-half the church stock is dead. There are not more than
one-half the people that have bread, and they have not more than
one-half or one quarter of a pound a day to a person. A great portion
of the people are digging roots, and hundreds and thousands, their teams
being dead, are under the necessity of spading their ground to put
in their grain." The harvest of 1856 also suffered from drought and
insects, and the Deseret News that summer declared that "the most rigid
economy and untiring, well-directed industry may enable us to escape
starvation until a harvest in 1857, and until the lapse of another year
emigrants and others will run great risks of starving unless they bring
their supplies with them." The first load of barley brought into Salt
Lake City that summer sold for $2 a bushel.
* Ibid., Vol. XVIII, pp. 395-476.
The first building erected in Salt Lake City in which to hold church
services was called a tabernacle. It was begun in 1851, and was
consecrated on April 6, 1852. It stood in Temple block, where the
Assembly Hall now stands, measuring about 60 by 120 feet, and providing
accommodation for 2500 people. The present Tabernacle, in which the
public church services are held, was completed in 1870. It stands just
west of the Temple, is elliptical in shape, and, with its broad gallery
running around the entire interior, except the end occupied by the organ
loft and pulpit, it can seat about 9000 persons. Its acoustic properties
are remarkable, and one of the duties of any guide who exhibits the
auditorium to visitors is to station them at the end of the gallery
opposite the pulpit, and to drop a pin on the floor to show them how
distinctly that sound can be heard.
The Temple in Salt Lake City was begun in April, 1853, and was not
dedicated until April, 1893. This building is devoted to the secret
ceremonies of the church, and no Gentile is ever admitted to it.
The building, of granite taken from the near-by mountains, is
architecturally imposing, measuring 200 by 100 feet. Its cost is
admitted to have been about $4,000,000. The building could probably
be duplicated to-day for one-half that sum. The excuse given by church
authorities for the excessive cost is that, during the early years of
the work upon it, the granite had to be hauled from the mountains by ox
teams, and that everything in the way of building material was expensive
in Utah when the church there was young. The interior is divided into
different rooms, in which such ceremonies as the baptism for the dead
are performed; the baptismal font is copied after the one that was in
the Temple at Nauvoo.
There are three other temples in Utah, all of which were completed
before the one in Salt Lake City, namely, at St. George, at Logan, and
at Manti.
CHAPTER III. -- THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH
When the Mormons began their departure westward from Nauvoo, the
immigration of converts from Europe was suspended because of the
uncertainty about the location of the next settlement, and the
difficulty of transporting the existing population. But the necessity of
constant additions to the community of new-comers, and especially those
bringing some capital, was never lost sight of by the heads of the
church. An evidence of this was given even before the first company
reached the Missouri River.
While the Saints were marching through Iowa they received intelligence
of a big scandal in connection with the emigration business in England,
and P. P. Pratt, Orson Hyde, and John Taylor were hurriedly sent to that
country to straighten the matter out. The Millennial Star in the early
part of 1846 had frequent articles about the British and American
Commercial Joint Stock Company, an organization incorporated to assist
poor Saints in emigrating. The principal emigration agent in Great
Britain at that time was R. Hedlock. He was the originator of the
Joint Stock Company, and Thomas Ward was its president. The Mormon
investigators found that more than 1644 pounds of the contributions of
the stockholders had been squandered, and that Ward had been lending
Hedlock money with which to pay his personal debts. Ward and Hedlock
were at once disfellowshipped, and contributions to the treasury of
the company were stopped. Pratt says that Hedlock fled when the
investigators arrived, leaving many debts, "and finally lived incog.
in London with a vile woman." Thus it seems that Mormon business
enterprises in England were no freer from scandals than those in
America.
The efforts of the leaders of the church were now exerted to make the
prospects of the Saints in Utah attractive to the converts in England
whom they wished to add to the population of their valley. Young and his
associates seem to have entertained the idea, without reckoning on the
rapid settlement of California, the migration of the "Forty-niners," and
the connection of the two coasts by rail, that they could constitute a
little empire all by itself in Utah, which would be self-supporting as
well as independent, the farmer raising food for the mechanic, and the
mechanic doing the needed work for the farmer. Accordingly, the church
did not stop short of every kind of misrepresentation and deception in
belittling to the foreigners the misfortunes of the past, and picturing
to them the fruitfulness of their new country, and the ease with which
they could become landowners there.
Naturally, after the expulsion from Illinois, in which so many foreign
converts shared, an explanation and palliation of the emigration thence
were necessary. In the United States, then and ever since, the
Mormons pictured themselves as the victims of an almost unprecedented
persecution. But as soon as John Taylor reached England, in 1846, he
issued an address to the Saints in Great Britain* in which he presented
a very different picture. Granting that, on an average, they had not
obtained more than one-third the value of their real and personal
property when they left Illinois, he explained that, when they settled
there, land in Nauvoo was worth only from $3 to $20 per acre, while,
when they left, it was worth from $50 to $1500 per acre; in the same
period the adjoining farm lands had risen in value from $1.25 and $5
to from $5 to $50 per acre. He assured his hearers, therefore, that the
one-third value which they had obtained had paid them well for their
labor. Nor was this all. When they left, they had exchanged their
property for horses, cattle, provisions, clothing, etc., which was
exactly what was needed by settlers in a new country. As a further bait
he went on to explain: "When we arrive in California, according to the
provisions of the Mexican government, each family will be entitled to a
large tract of land, amounting to several hundred acres," and, if that
country passed into American control, he looked for the passage of a law
giving 640 acres to each male settler. "Thus," he summed up, "it will
be easy to see that we are in a better condition than when we were in
Nauvoo!"
* Millennial Star, Vol. VIII, p. 115.
The misrepresentation did not cease here, however. After announcing the
departure of Brigham Young's pioneer company, Taylor* wound up with
this tissue of false statements: "The way is now prepared; the roads,
bridges, and ferry-boats made; there are stopping places also on the way
where they can rest, obtain vegetables and corn, and, when they arrive
at the far end, instead of finding a wild waste, they will meet with
friends, provisions and a home, so that all that will be requisite for
them to do will be to find sufficient teams to draw their families, and
to take along with them a few woollen or cotton goods, or other articles
of merchandise which will be light, and which the brethren will require
until they can manufacture for themselves." How many a poor Englishman,
toiling over the plains in the next succeeding years, and, arriving in
arid Utah to find himself in the clutches of an organization from which
he could not escape, had reason to curse the man who drew this picture!
* John Taylor was born in England in 1808, and emigrated to
Canada in 1829, where, after joining the Methodists, he, like Joseph
Smith, found existing churches unsatisfactory, and was easily secured as
a convert by P. P. Pratt. He was elected to the Quorum, and was sent to
Great Britain as a missionary in 1840, writing several pamphlets while
there. He arrived in Nauvoo with Brigham Young in 1841, and there edited
the Times and Seasons, was a member of the City Council, a regent of the
university, and judge advocate of the Legion, and was in the room with
the prophet when the latter was shot. He was the Mormon representative
in France in 1849, publishing a monthly paper there, translating the
Mormon Bible into the French language, and preaching later at Hamburg,
Germany. He was superintendent of the Mormon church in the Eastern
states in 1857, when Young declared war against the United States, and
he succeeded Young as head of the church.
In 1847, at the suggestion of Taylor, Hyde, and Pratt, who were still in
England, a petition bearing nearly 13,000 names was addressed to Queen
Victoria, setting forth the misery existing among the working classes
in Great Britain, suggesting, as the best means of relief, royal aid to
those who wished to emigrate to "the island of Vancouver or to the
great territory of Oregon," and asking her "to give them employment
in improving the harbors of those countries, or in erecting forts of
defence; or, if this be inexpedient, to furnish them provisions and
means of subsistence until they can produce them from the soil." These
American citizens did not hesitate to point out that the United States
government was favoring the settlement of its territory on the Pacific
coast, and to add: "While the United States do manifest such a strong
inclination, not only to extend and enlarge their possessions in the
West, but also to people them, will not your Majesty look well to
British interests in those regions, and adopt timely precautionary
measures to maintain a balance of power in that quarter which, in the
opinion of your memorialists, is destined at no very distant period to
participate largely in the China trade?" *
* See Linforth's "Route," pp. 2-5.
The Oregon boundary treaty was less than a year old when this petition
was presented. It was characteristic of Mormon duplicity to find their
representatives in Great Britain appealing to Queen Victoria on the
ground of self-interest, while their chiefs in the United States were
pointing to the organization of the Battalion as a proof of their
fidelity to the home government. Practically no notice was taken of this
petition. Vancouver Island, was, however, held out to the converts in
Great Britain as the one "gathering point of the Saints from the islands
and distant portions of the earth," until the selection of Salt Lake
Valley as the Saints' abiding place.
On December 23, 1847, Young, in behalf of the Twelve, issued from Winter
Quarters a General Epistle to the church a which gave an account of his
trip to the Salt Lake Valley, directed all to gather themselves speedily
near Winter Quarters in readiness for the march to Salt Lake Valley, and
said to the Saints in Europe:--
"Emigrate as speedily as possible to this vicinity. Those who have but
little means, and little or no labor, will soon exhaust that means if
they remain where they are. Therefore, it is wisdom that they remove
without delay; for here is land on which, by their labor, they can
speedily better their condition for their further journey." The list of
things which Young advised the emigrants to bring with them embraced
a wide assortment: grains, trees, and vines; live stock and fowls;
agricultural implements and mills; firearms and ammunition; gold
and silver and zinc and tin and brass and ivory and precious stones;
curiosities, "sweet instruments of music, sweet odors, and beautiful
colors." The care of the head of the church, that the immigrants should
not neglect to provide themselves with cologne and rouge for use in
crossing the prairies, was most thoughtful.
* Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 81.
The Millennial Star of February 1, 1848, made this announcement to the
faithful in the British Isles:--
"The channel of Saints' emigration to the land of Zion is now opened.
The resting place of Israel for the last days has been discovered. In
the elevated valley of the Salt and Utah Lakes, with the beautiful river
Jordan running through it, is the newly established Stake of Zion. There
vegetation flourishes with magic rapidity. And the food of man, or
staff of life, leaps into maturity from the bowels of Mother Earth with
astonishing celerity. Within one month from planting, potatoes grew from
six to eight inches, and corn from two to four feet. There the frequent
clouds introduce their fertilizing contents at a modest distance from
the fat valley, and send their humid influences from the mountain tops.
There the saline atmosphere of Salt Lake mingles in wedlock with the
fresh humidity of the same vegetable element which comes over the
mountain top, as if the nuptial bonds of rare elements were introduced
to exhibit a novel specimen of a perfect vegetable progeny in the
shortest possible time," etc.
Contrast this with Brigham Young's letter to Colonel Alexander in
October, 1857,--"We had hoped that in this barren, desolate country we
could have remained unmolested."
On the 20th of February, 1848, the shipment of Mormon emigrants began
again with the sailing of the Cornatic, with 120 passengers, for New
Orleans.
In the following April, Orson Pratt was sent to England to take charge
of the affairs of the church there. On his arrival, in August, he issued
an "Epistle" which was influential in augmenting the movement. He said
that "in the solitary valleys of the great interior" they hoped to hide
"while the indignation of the Almighty is poured upon the nations"; and
urged the rich to dispose of their property in order to help the poor,
commanding all who could do so to pay their tithing. "O ye saints of
the Most High," he said, "linger not! Make good your retreat before the
avenues are closed up!"
Many other letters were published in the Millennial Star in 1848-1849,
giving glowing accounts of the fertility of Salt Lake Valley. One from
the clerk of the camp observed: "Many cases of twins. In a row of seven
houses joining each other eight births in one week."
In order to assist the poor converts in Europe, the General Conference
held in Salt Lake City in October, 1849, voted to raise a fund, to be
called "The Perpetual Emigrating Fund," and soon $5000 had been secured
for this purpose. In September, 1850, the General Assembly of the
Provisional State of Deseret incorporated the Perpetual Emigration Fund
Company, and Brigham Young was elected its first president. Collections
for this fund in Great Britain amounted to 1410 pounds by January, 1852,
and the emigrants sent out in that year were assisted from this fund.
These expenditures required an additional $5000, which was supplied
from Salt Lake City. A letter issued by the First Presidency in October,
1849, urged the utmost economy in the expenditure of this money, and
explained that, when the assisted emigrants arrived in Salt Lake City,
they would give their obligations to the church to refund as soon as
possible what had been expended on them.* In this way, any who were
dissatisfied on their arrival in Utah found themselves in the church
clutches, from which they could not escape.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XII, p. 124.
There were outbreaks of cholera among the emigrant parties crossing the
plains in 1849, and many deaths.
In October, 1849, an important company left Salt Lake City to augment
the list of missionaries in Europe. It included John Taylor and two
others, assigned to France; Lorenzo Snow and one other, to Italy;
Erastus Snow and one other, to Denmark;* F. D. Richards and eight
others, to England; and J. Fosgreene, to Sweden.
* Elder Dykes reported in October, 1851, that, on his arrival in
Aalborg, Denmark, he found that a mob had broken in the windows of the
Saints' meeting-house and destroyed the furniture, and had also broken
the windows of the Saints' houses, and, by the mayor's advice, he left
the city by the first steamer. Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, p. 346.
The system of Mormon emigration from Great Britain at that time seems to
have been in the main a good one. The rule of the agent in Liverpool was
not to charter a vessel until enough passengers had made their deposits
to warrant him in doing so. The rate of fare depended on the price paid
for the charter.* As soon as the passengers arrived in Liverpool they
could go on board ship, and, when enough came from one district,
all sailed on one vessel. Once on board, they were organized with
a president and two counsellors,--men who had crossed the ocean, if
possible,--who allotted the staterooms, appointed watchmen to serve in
turn, and looked after the sanitary arrangements. When the first through
passengers for Salt Lake City left Liverpool, in 1852, an experienced
elder was sent in advance to have teams and supplies in readiness at the
point where the land journey would begin, and other men of experience
accompanied them to engage river portation when they reached New
Orleans. The statistics of the emigration thus called out were as
follows:--
* See Linforth's "Route," pp. to, 17-22; Mackay's "History of the
Mormons," pp. 298-302; Pratt's letter to the Millennial Star, Vol. XI,
p. 277.
YEAR VESSELS EMIGRANTS 1848 5 754 1849 9 2078 1850 6 1612 1851 4 1869
The Frontier Guardian at Kanesville estimated the Mormon movement across
the plains in 1850 at about 700 wagons, taking 5000 horses and cattle
and 4000 sheep.
Of the class of emigrants then going out, the manager of the leading
shipping agents at Liverpool who furnished the ships said, "They are
principally farmers and mechanics, with some few clerks, surgeons,
and so forth." He found on the company's books, for the period between
October, 1849, and March, 1850, the names of 16 miners, 20 engineers, 19
farmers, 108 laborers, 10 joiners, 25 weavers, 15 shoemakers, 12 smiths,
19 tailors, 8 watchmakers, 25 stone masons, 5 butchers, 4 bakers, 4
potters, 10 painters, 7 shipwrights, and 5 dyers.
The statistics of the Mormon emigration given by the British agency for
the years named were as follows:--
YEAR
VESSELS
EMIGRANTS
1852
3
732
1853
7
2312
1854
9
2456
1855
13
4425
In 1853 the experiment was made of engaging to send adults from
Liverpool to Utah for 10 pounds each and children for half price; but
this did not succeed, and those who embraced the offer had to borrow
money or teams to complete the journey.
In 1853, owing to extortions practised on the emigrants by the merchants
and traders at Kanesville, as well as the unhealthfulness of the
Missouri bottoms, the principal point of departure from the river was
changed to Keokuk, Iowa. The authorities and people there showed the
new-comers every kindness, and set apart a plot of ground for their
camp. In this camp each company on its arrival was organized and
provided with the necessary teams, etc. In 1854 the point of departure
was again changed to Kansas, in western Missouri, fourteen miles west of
Independence, the route then running to the Big Blue River, and through
what are now the states of Kansas and Nebraska.
CHAPTER IV. -- THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY
In 1855 the crops in Utah were almost a failure, and the church
authorities found themselves very much embarrassed by their debts. A
report in the seventh General Epistle, of April 18, 1852, set forth
that, from their entry into the valley to March 27, of that year, there
had been received as tithing, mostly in property, $244,747.03, and in
loans and from other sources $145,513.78, of which total there had been
expended in assisting immigrants and on church buildings, city lots,
manufacturing industries, etc., $353,765.69. Young found it necessary
therefore to cut down his expenses, and he looked around for a method of
doing this without checking the stream of new-comers. The method which
he evolved was to furnish the immigrants with hand-carts on their
arrival in Iowa, and to let them walk all the way across the plains,
taking with them only such effects as these carts would hold, each party
of ten to drive with them one or two cows.
Although Young tried to throw the result of this experiment on others,
the evidence is conclusive that he devised it and worked out its
details. In a letter to Elder F. D. Richards, in Liverpool, dated
September 30, 1855, Young said: "We cannot afford to purchase wagons
and teams as in times past. I am consequently thrown back upon MY OLD
PLAN--to make hand-carts, and let the emigration foot it." To show what
a pleasant trip this would make, this head of the church, who had three
times crossed the plains, added, "Fifteen miles a day will bring them
through in 70 days, and, after they get accustomed to it, they will
travel 20, 25, or even 30 with all ease, and no danger of giving out,
but will continue to get stronger and stronger; the little ones and
sick, if there are any, can be carried on the carts, but there will be
none sick in a little time after they get started."*
* Millennial Star, Vol. VII, p. 813.
Directions in accordance with this plan were issued in the form of a
circular in Liverpool in February, 1856, naming Iowa City, Iowa, as the
point of outfit. The charge for booking through to Utah by the Perpetual
Emigration Fund Company was fixed at 9 pounds for all over one year old,
and 4 pounds 10 shillings for younger infants. The use of trunks
or boxes was discouraged, and the emigrants were urged to provide
themselves with oil-cloth or mackintosh bags.
About thirteen hundred persons left Liverpool to undertake this foot
journey across the plains, placing implicit faith in the pictures of
Salt Lake Valley drawn by the missionaries, and not doubting that the
method of travel would be as enjoyable as it seemed economical. Five
separate companies were started that summer from Iowa City. The first
and second of these arrived at Florence, Nebraska, on July 17, the
third, made up mostly of Welsh, on July 19, and the fourth on August 11.
The first company made the trip to Utah without anything more serious to
report than the necessary discomforts of such a march, and were received
with great acclaim by the church authorities, and welcomed with an
elaborate procession. It was the last companies whose story became a
tragedy.*
* The experiences of those companies were told in detail by a
member of one, John Chislett, and printed in the "Rocky Mountain
Saints." Mrs. Stenhouse gives additional experiences in her "Tell it
All."
The immigrants met with their first disappointment on arriving at Iowa
City. Instead of finding their carts ready for them, they were told that
no advance agent had prepared the way. The last companies were subjected
to the most delay from this cause. Even the carts were still to be
manufactured, and, while they were making, many a family had to camp in
the open fields, without even the shelter of a tent or a wagon top. The
carts, when pronounced finished, moved on two light wheels, the only
iron used in their construction being a very thin tire. Two projecting
shafts of hickory or oak were joined by a cross piece, by means of which
the owner propelled the vehicle. When Mr. Chislett's company, after
a three weeks' delay, made a start, they were five hundred strong,
comprising English, Scotch, and Scandanavians. They were divided, as
usual, into hundreds, to each hundred being allotted five tents, twenty
hand-carts, and one wagon drawn by three yokes of oxen, the latter
carrying the tents and provisions. Families containing more young men
than were required to draw their own carts shared these human draught
animals with other families who were not so well provided; but many
carts were pulled along by young girls.
The Iowans bestowed on the travellers both kindness and commiseration.
Knowing better than did the new-comers from Europe the trials that
awaited them, they pointed out the lateness of the season, and they did
persuade a few members to give up the trip. But the elders who were in
charge of the company were watchful, the religious spirit was kept up by
daily meetings, and the one command that was constantly reiterated was,
"Obey your leaders in all things."
A march of four weeks over a hot, dusty route was required to bring them
to the Missouri River near Florence. Even there they were insufficiently
supplied with food. With flour costing $3 per hundred pounds, and bacon
seven or eight cents a pound, the daily allowance of food was ten ounces
of flour to each adult, and four ounces to children under eight years
old, with bacon, coffee, sugar, and rice served occasionally. Some of
the men ate all their allowance for the day at their breakfast, and
depended on the generosity of settlers on the way, while there were any,
for what further food they had until the next morning.
After a week's stay at Florence (the old Winter Quarters), the march
across the plains was resumed on August 18. The danger of making this
trip so late in the season, with a company which included many women,
children, and aged persons, gave even the elders pause, and a meeting
was held to discuss the matter. But Levi Savage, who had made the trip
to and from the valley, alone advised against continuing the march that
season. The others urged the company to go on, declaring that they were
God's people, and prophesying in His name that they would get through
the mountains in safety. The emigrants, "simple, honest, eager to go to
Zion at once, and obedient as little children to the 'servants of God,'
voted to proceed." *
* A "bond," which each assisted emigrant was required to sign in
Liverpool, contained the following stipulations: "We do severally
and jointly promise and bind ourselves to continue with and obey the
instructions of the agent appointed to superintend our passage thither
to [Utah]. And that, on our arrival in Utah, we will hold ourselves,
our time, and our labor, subject to the appropriation of the Perpetual
Emigration Fund Company until the full cost of our emigration is paid,
with interest if required."
As the teams provided could not haul enough flour to last the company to
Utah, a sack weighing ninety-eight pounds was added to the load of
each cart. One pound of flour a day was now allowed to each adult, and
occasionally fresh beef. Soon after leaving Florence trouble began with
the carts. The sand of the dry prairie got into the wooden hubs and
ground the axles so that they broke, and constant delays were caused by
the necessity of making repairs., No axle grease had been provided, and
some of the company were compelled to use their precious allowance of
bacon to grease the wheels. At Wood River, where the plains were alive
with buffaloes, a stampede of the cattle occurred one night, and thirty
of them were never recovered. The one yoke of oxen that was left to
each wagon could not pull the load; an attempt to use the milch cows
and heifers as draught animals failed, and the tired cart pullers had to
load up again with flour.
While pursuing their journey in this manner, their camp was visited one
evening by Apostle F. D. Richards and some other elders, on their way
to Utah from mission work abroad. Richards severely rebuked Savage for
advising that the trip be given up at Florence, and prophesied that
the Lord would keep open a way before them. The missionaries, who were
provided with carriages drawn by four horses each, drove on, without
waiting to see this prediction confirmed.
On arriving at Fort Laramie, about the first of September, another
evidence of the culpable neglect of the church authorities manifested
itself. The supply of provisions that was to have awaited them there was
wanting. They calculated the amount that they had on hand, and estimated
that it would last only until they were within 350 miles of Salt Lake
City; but, perhaps making the best of the situation, they voted to
reduce the daily ration and to try to make the supply last by travelling
faster. When they reached the neighborhood of Independence Rock, a
letter sent back by Richards informed them that supplies would meet them
at South Pass; but another calculation showed that what remained would
not last them to the Pass, and again the ration was reduced, working men
now receiving twelve ounces a day, other adults nine, and children from
four to eight. Another source of discomfort now manifested itself. In
order to accommodate matters to the capacity of the carts, the elders in
charge had made it one of the rules that each outfit should be limited
to seventeen pounds of clothing and bedding. As they advanced up the
Sweetwater it became cold. The mountains appeared snow-covered, and
the lack of extra wraps and bedding caused first discomfort, and
then intense suffering, to the half-fed travellers. The necessity of
frequently wading the Sweetwater chilled the stronger men who were
bearing the brunt of the labor, and when morning dawned the occupants
of the tents found themselves numb with the cold, and quite unfitted to
endure the hardships of the coming day. Chislett draws this picture of
the situation at that time:--
"Our old and infirm people began to droop, and they no sooner lost
spirit and courage than death's stamp could be traced upon their
features. Life went out as smoothly as a lamp ceases to burn when the
oil is gone. At first the deaths occurred slowly and irregularly, but in
a few days at more frequent intervals, until we soon thought it unusual
to leave a camp ground without burying one or more persons. Death was
not long confined in its ravages to the old and infirm, but the young
and naturally strong were among its victims. Weakness and debility were
accompanied by dysentery. This we could not stop or even alleviate,
no proper medicines being in the camp; and in almost every instance it
carried off the parties attacked. It was surprising to an unmarried
man to witness the devotion of men to their families and to their faith
under these trying circumstances. Many a father pulled his cart, with
his little children on it, until the day preceding his death. These
people died with the calm faith and fortitude of martyrs."
An Oregonian returning East, who met two of the more fortunate of these
handcart parties, gave this description to the Huron (Ohio) Reflector in
1857:--
"It was certainly the most novel and interesting sight I have seen for
many a day. We met two trains, one of thirty and the other of fifty
carts, averaging about six to the cart. The carts were generally drawn
by one man and three women each, though some carts were drawn by women
alone. There were about three women to one man, and two-thirds of the
women single. It was the most motley crew I ever beheld. Most of them
were Danes, with a sprinkling of Welsh, Swedes, and English, and were
generally from the lower classes of their countries. Most could not
understand what we said to them. The road was lined for a mile behind
the train with the lame, halt, sick, and needy. Many were quite aged,
and would be going slowly along, supported by a son or daughter. Some
were on crutches; now and then a mother with a child in her arms and
two or three hanging hold of her, with a forlorn appearance, would
pass slowly along; others, whose condition entitled them to a seat in a
carriage, were wending their way through the sand. A few seemed in good
spirits."
The belated company did not meet anyone to carry word of their condition
to the valley, but among Richard's party who visited the camp at Wood
River was Brigham Young's son, Joseph A. He realized the plight of the
travellers, and when his father heard his report he too recognized the
fact that aid must be sent at once. The son was directed to get together
all the supplies he could obtain in the city or pick up on the way,
and to start toward the East immediately. Driving on himself in a light
wagon, he reached the advanced line, as they were toiling ahead through
their first snowstorm. The provisions travelled slower, and could not
reach them in less than one or two days longer. There was encouragement,
of course, even in the prospect of release, but encouragement could not
save those whose vitality was already exhausted. Camp was pitched that
night among a grove of willows, where good fires were possible, but in
the morning they awoke to find the snow a foot deep, and that five of
their companions had been added to the death list during the night.
To add to the desperate character of the situation came the announcement
that the provisions were practically exhausted, the last of the flour
having been given out, and all that remained being a few dried apples, a
little rice and sugar, and about twenty-five pounds of hardtack. Two of
the cattle were killed, and the camp were informed that they would have
to subsist on the supplies in sight until aid reached them. The best
thing to do in these circumstances, indeed, the only thing, was to
remain where they were and send messengers to advise the succoring party
of the desperateness of their case. Their captain, Mr. Willie, and one
companion acted as their messengers. They were gone three days, and
in their absence Mr. Chislett had the painful duty of doling out
what little food there was in camp. He speaks of his task as one that
unmanned him. More cattle were killed, but beef without other food did
not satisfy the hungry, and the epidemic of dysentery grew worse. The
commissary officer was surrounded by a crowd of men and women imploring
him for a little food, and it required all his power of reasoning to
make them see that what little was left must be saved for the sick.
The party with aid from the valley had also encountered the snowstorm,
and, not appreciating the desperate condition of the hand-cart
immigrants, had halted to wait for better weather. As soon as Captain
Willie took them the news, they hastened eastward, and were seen by the
starving party at sunset, the third day after their captain's departure.
"Shouts of joy rent the air," says Chislett. "Strong men wept till tears
ran freely down their furrowed and sunburnt cheeks, and little children
partook of the joy which some of them hardly understood, and fairly
danced around with gladness. Restraint was set aside in the general
rejoicing, and, as the brethren entered our camp, the sisters fell upon
them and deluged them with kisses."
The timely relief saved many lives, but the end of the suffering had not
been reached. A good many of the foot party were so exhausted by what
they had gone through, that even their near approach to their Zion and
their prophet did not stimulate them to make the effort to complete the
journey. Some trudged along, unable even to pull a cart, and those who
were still weaker were given places in the wagons. It grew colder, too,
and frozen hands and feet became a common experience. Thus each day
lessened by a few who were buried the number that remained.
Then came another snowstorm. What this meant to a weakened party like
this dragging their few possessions in carts can easily be imagined.
One family after another would find that they could not make further
progress, and when a hill was reached the human teams would have to
be doubled up. In this way, by travelling backward and forward, some
progress was made. That day's march was marked by constant additions to
the stragglers who kept dropping by the way. When the main body had
made their camp for the night, some of the best teams were sent back
for those who had dropped behind, and it was early morning before all of
these were brought in.
The next morning Captain Willie was assigned to take count of the dead.
An examination of the camp showed thirteen corpses, all stiffly frozen.
They were buried in a large square hole, three or four abreast and three
deep. "When they did not fit in," says Chislett, "we put one or two
crosswise at the head or feet of the others. We covered them with
willows and then with the earth." Two other victims were buried before
nightfall. Parties passing eastward by this place the following summer
found that the wolves had speedily uncovered the corpses, and that their
bones were scattered all over the neighborhood.
Further deaths continued every day until they arrived at South Pass.
There more assistance from the valley met them, the weather became
warmer, and the health of the party improved, so that when they arrived
at Salt Lake City they were in better condition and spirits. The date of
their arrival there was November 9. The company which set out from Iowa
City numbered about 500, of whom 400 set out from Florence across the
plains. Of these 400, 67 died on the way, and there were a few deaths
after they reached the end of their journey.
Another company of these hand-cart travellers left Florence still later
than the ones whose sufferings have been described. They were in charge
of an elder named Martin. Like their predecessors, they were warned
against setting out so late as the middle of August, and many of them
tried to give up the trip, but permission to do so was refused. Their
sufferings began soon after they crossed the Platte, near Fort Laramie,
and snow was encountered sixty miles east of Devil's Gate. When they
reached that landmark, they decided that they could make no further
progress with their hand-carts. They accordingly took possession of half
a dozen dilapidated log houses, the contents of the wagons were placed
in some of these, the hand-carts were left behind, and as many people as
the teams could drag were placed in the wagons and started forward. One
of the survivors of this party has written: "The track of the emigrants
was marked by graves, and many of the living suffered almost worse than
death. Men may be seen to-day in Salt Lake City, who were boys then,
hobbling around on their club-feet, all their toes having been frozen
off in that fearful march." * Twenty men who were left at Devil's Gate
had a terrible experience, being compelled, before assistance reached
them, to eat even the pieces of hide wrapped round their cart-wheels,
and a piece of buffalo skin that had been used as a door-mat. Strange to
say, all of these men reached the valley alive.
* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 337.
We have seen that Brigham Young was the inventor of this hand-cart
immigration scheme. Alarmed by the result of the experiment, as soon as
the wretched remnant of the last two parties arrived in Salt Lake City,
he took steps to place the responsibility for the disaster on other
shoulders. The idea which he carried out was to shift the blame to F. D.
Richards on the ground that he allowed the immigrants to start too
late. In an address in the Tabernacle, while Captain Willie's party was
approaching the city, he told the returned missionaries from England
that they needed to be careful about eulogizing Richards and Spencer,
lest they should have "the big head." When these men were in Salt Lake
City he cursed them with the curse of the church. E. W. Tullidge, who
was an editor of the Millennial Star in Liverpool under Richards when
the hand-cart emigrants were collected, proposed, when in later years he
was editing the Utah Magazine, to tell the facts about that matter; but
when Young learned this, he ordered Godbe, the controlling owner of the
magazine, to destroy that issue, after one side of the sheets had been
printed, and he was obeyed.* Fortunately Young was not able to destroy
the files of the Millennial Star.
* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 342.
There is much that is thoroughly typical of Mormonism in the history of
these expeditions. No converts were ever instilled with a more confident
belief in the divine character of the ridiculous pretender, Joseph
Smith. To no persons were more flagrant misrepresentations ever made by
the heads of the church, and over none was the dictatorial authority of
the church exercised more remorselessly. Not only was Utah held out to
them as "a land where honest labor and industry meet with a suitable
reward, and where the higher walks of life are open to the humblest and
poorest," * but they were informed that, if they had not faith enough
to undertake the trip to Utah, they had not "faith sufficient to endure,
with the Saints in Zion, the celestial law which leads to exaltation
and eternal life." Young wrote to Richards privately in October, 1855,
"Adhere strictly to our former suggestion of walking them through across
the plains with hand-carts";** and Richards in an editorial in the Star
thereupon warned the Saints: "The destroying angel is abroad. Pestilence
and gaunt famine will soon increase the terrors of the scene to an
extent as yet without a parallel in the records of the human race. If
the anticipated toils of the journey shake your faith in the promises of
the Lord, it is high time that you were digging about the foundation
of it, and seeing if it be founded on the root of the Holy Priesthood,"
etc.
* Thirteenth General Epistle, Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 49.
** Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p, 61.
The direct effect of such teaching is shown in two letters printed in
the Millennial Star of June 14, 1856. In the first of these, a sister,
writing to her brother in Liverpool from Williamsburg, New York,
confesses her surprise on learning that the journey was to be made with
hand-carts, says that their mother cannot survive such a trip, and
that she does not think the girls can, points out that the limitation
regarding baggage would compel them to sell nearly all their clothes,
and proposes that they wait in New York or St. Louis until they could
procure a wagon. In his reply the brother scorns this advice, says that
he would not stop in New York if he were offered 10,000 pounds besides
his expenses, and adds "Brothers, sisters, fathers or mothers, when they
put a stumbling block in the way of my salvation, are nothing more to me
than Gentiles. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and when
we start we will go right up to Zion, if we go ragged and barefoot."
Young found himself hard put to meet the church obligations in 1856,
notwithstanding the economy of the hand-cart system; and the Millennial
Star of December 27 announced that no assisted emigrants would be sent
out during the following year. Saints proposing to go through at their
own expense were informed, however, that the church bureau would supply
them with teams. Those proposing to use hand-carts were told of the
"indispensable necessity" of having their whole outfit ready on their
arrival at Iowa City, and the bureau offered to supply this at an
estimated cost of 3 pounds per head, any deficit to be made up on their
arrival there.*
* "The agency of the Mormon emigration at that time was a very
profitable appointment. By arrangement with ship brokers at Liverpool,
a commission of half a guinea per head was allowed the agent for every
adult emigrant that he sent across the Atlantic, and the railroad
companies in New York allowed a percentage on every emigrant ticket. But
a still larger revenue was derived from the outfitting on the frontiers.
The agents purchased all the cattle, wagons, tents, wagon-covers, flour,
cooking utensils, stoves, and the staple articles for a three
months' journey across the Plains, and from them the Saints supplied
themselves."--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 340.
CHAPTER V. -- EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY
We have seen that Joseph Smith's desire was, when he suggested a
possible removal of the church to the Far West, that they should have,
not only an undisturbed place of residence, but a government of their
own. This idea of political independence Young never lost sight of. Had
Utah remained a distant province of the Mexican government, the Mormons
might have been allowed to dwell there a long time, practically without
governmental control. But when that region passed under the
government of the United States by the proclamation of the Treaty of
Guadalupe-Hidalgo, on July 4, 1848, Brigham Young had to face anew
situation. He then decided that what he wanted was an independent state
government, not territorial rule under the federal authorities, and he
planned accordingly. Every device was employed to increase the number
of the Saints in Utah, to bring the population up to the figure required
for admission as a state, and he encouraged outlying settlements at
every attractive point. In this way, by 1851, Ogden and Provo had become
large enough to form Stakes, and in a few years the country around Salt
Lake City was dotted with settlements, many of them on lands to which
the "Lamanites," who held so deep a place in Joseph Smith's heart,
asserted in vain their ancestral titles.
The first General Epistle sent out from Great Salt Lake City, in 1849,
thus explained the first government set up there, "In consequence of
Indian depredations on our horses, cattle, and other property, and the
wicked conduct of a few base fellows who came among the Saints, the
inhabitants of this valley, as is common in new countries generally,
have organized a temporary government to exist during its necessity, or
until we can obtain a charter for a territorial government, a petition
for which is already in progress."
On March 4, 1849, a convention, to which were invited all the
inhabitants of upper California east of the Sierra Nevadas, was held in
Great Salt Lake City to frame a system of government. The outcome was
the adoption of a constitution for a state to be called the State
of Deseret, and the election of a full set of state officers. The
boundaries of this state were liberal. Starting at a point in what is
now New Mexico, the line was to run down to the Mexican border, then
west along the border of lower California to the Pacific, up the coast
to 118 degrees 30 minutes west longitude, north to the dividing ridge
of the Sierra Nevadas, and along their summit to the divide between the
Columbia River and the Salt Lake Basin, and thence south to the place of
beginning, "by the dividing range of mountains that separate the waters
flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the waters flowing into the Gulf of
California." The constitution adopted followed the general form of such
instruments in the United States. In regard to religion it declared,
"All men have a natural and inalienable right to worship God according
to the dictates of their own consciences; and the General Assembly shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof, or disturb any person in his religious worship or
sentiments." *
*For text of this constitution and the memorial to Congress, see
Millennial Star, January 15, 1850.
An epistle of the Twelve to Orson Pratt in England, explaining this
subject, said, "We have petitioned the Congress of the United States for
the organization of a territorial government here. Until this petition
is granted, we are under the necessity of organizing a local government
for the time being."* The territorial government referred to was that
of the State of Deseret. The local government mentioned was organized on
March 12, by the election of Brigham Young as governor, H. C. Kimball as
chief justice, John Taylor and N. K. Whitney as associate justices,
and the Bishops of the wards as city magistrates, with minor positions
filled. Six hundred and seventy-four votes were polled for this ticket.
* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p. 244.
The General Assembly, chosen later, met on July 2, and adopted a
memorial to Congress setting forth the failure of that body to provide
any form of government for the territory ceded by Mexico,* declaring
that "the revolver and the bowie knife have been the highest law of the
land," and asking for the admission of the State of Deseret into
the Union. That same year the Californians framed a government for
themselves, and a plan was discussed to consolidate California and
Deseret until 1851, when a separation should take place. The governor
of California condemned this scheme, and the legislature gave it no
countenance.
* "When Congress adjourned on March 4, 1849, all that had been
done toward establishing some form of government for the immense domain
acquired by the treaty with Mexico was to extend over it the revenue
laws and make San Francisco a port of entry."--Bancroft's "Utah," p.
446.
The Mormons had a confused idea about the government that they had set
up. In the constitution adopted they called their domain the State
of Deseret, but they allowed their legislature to elect their
representative in Congress, sending A. W. Babbitt as their delegate to
Washington, with their memorial asking for the admission of Deseret, or
that they be given "such other form of civil government as your wisdom
and magnanimity may award to the people of Deseret." The Mormons'
old political friend in Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas, presented this
memorial in the Senate on December 27, 1849, with a statement that it
was an application for admission as a state, but with the alternative of
admission as a territory if Congress should so direct. The memorial was
referred to the Committee on Territories.
On the 31st of December, a counter memorial against the admission of the
Mormon state was presented by Mr. Underwood of Kentucky, a Whig. This
was signed by William Smith, the prophet's brother, and Isaac Sheen (who
called themselves the "legitimate presidents" of the Mormon church), and
by twelve other members. This memorial alleged that fifteen hundred of
the emigrants from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City, before their departure for
Illinois, took the following oath:--
"You do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, his holy
angels, and these witnesses, that you will avenge the blood of Joseph
Smith upon this nation; and so teach your children; and that you will
from this day henceforth and forever begin and carry out hostility
against this nation, and keep the same a profound secret now and ever.
So help you God."
This memorial also set forth that the Mormons were practising polygamy
in the Salt Lake Valley; that since their arrival there they had tried
two Indian agents on a charge of participation in the expulsion of
the Mormons from Missouri, and that they were, by their own assumed
authority, imposing duties on all goods imported into the Salt Lake
region from the rest of the United States. Senator Douglas, in an
explanation concerning the latter charge, admitted that Delegate Babbitt
acknowledged the levying of duties, the excuse being that the Mormons
had found it necessary to set up a government for themselves, pending
the action of Congress, and as a means of revenue they had imposed
duties on all goods brought into and sold within the limits of Great
Salt Lake City, but asserted that goods simply passing through were not
molested. This tax seems to have been established entirely by the church
authorities, the first of the "ordinances" of the Deseret legislature
being dated January 15, 1850.
The constitution of Deseret was presented to the House of
Representatives by Mr. Boyd, a Kentucky Democrat, on January 28,
1850, and referred to the Committee on Territories. On July 25, John
Wentworth, an Illinois Democrat, presented a petition from citizens
of Lee County, in his state, asking Congress to protect the rights of
American citizens passing through the Salt Lake Valley, and charging on
the organizers of the State of Deseret treason, a desire for a kingly
government, murder, robbery, and polygamy.
The Mormon memorial was taken up in the House of Representatives on July
18, after the committee had unanimously reported that "it is inexpedient
to admit Almon W. Babbitt, Esq., to a seat in this body from the alleged
State of Deseret." A long debate on the admission of the delegate from
New Mexico had deferred action. The chairman of the committee, Mr.
Strong, a Pennsylvania Whig, explained that their report was founded
on the terms of the Mormon memorial, which did not ask for Babbitt's
reception as a delegate until some form of government was provided for
them. Mr. McDonald, an Indiana Whig, offered an amendment admitting
Babbitt, and a debate of considerable length followed, in which the
slavery question received some attention. The Committee of the Whole
voted to report to the House the resolution against seating Babbitt, and
then the House, by a vote of 104 yeas to 78 nays, laid the resolution
on the table (on motion of its friends), and tabled a motion for
reconsideration. On the 9th of September following, the law for the
admission of Utah as a territory was signed. The boundaries defined were
California on the west, Oregon on the north, the summit of the Rocky
Mountains on the east, and the 37th parallel of north latitude on the
south.
CHAPTER VI. -- BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DESPOTISM
There is no reason to believe that, to the date of Joseph Smith's
death, Brigham Young had inspired his fellow-Mormons with an idea of his
leadership. This was certified to by one of the most radical of them,
Mayor Jedediah M. Grant of Salt Lake City, in 1852, in these words:--
"When Joseph Smith lived, a man about whose real character and
pretensions we differ, Joseph was often and almost invariably imposed
upon by those in whom he placed his trust. There was one man--only one
of his early adherents--he could always rely upon to stick to him closer
than a brother, steadfast in faith, clear in counsel, and foremost in
fight. He seemed a plain man in those days, of a wonderful talent for
business and hundred horse-power of industry, but least of everything
affecting cleverness or quickness. 'Honest Brigham Young,' or
'hard-working Brigham Young,' was nearly as much as you would ever hear
him called, though he was the almost universal executor and trustee of
men's wills and trusteed estates, and a confidential manager of our most
intricate church affairs."*
* Grant's pamphlet, "Truth about the Mormons."
When the Saints found themselves in Salt Lake Valley they had learned
something from experience. They could not fail to realize that, distant
as they now were from outside interference, union among themselves was
an essential to success. The body of the church was soon composed of two
elements--those who had constituted the church in the East, and the
new members who were pouring in from Europe. Young established his
leadership with both of these parties in the early days. There was
much to discourage in those days--a soil to cultivate that required
irrigation, houses to build where material was scarce, and starvation
to fight year after year. Young encouraged everybody by his talk at
the church meetings, shared in the manual labor of building houses and
cultivating land, and devised means to entertain and encourage those
who were disposed to look on their future darkly. No one ever heard
him, whatever others might say, doubt the genuineness of Joseph Smith's
inspiration and revelations, and he so established his own position
as Smith's successor that he secured the devout allegiance of the
old flock, without making such business mistakes as weakened Smith's
reputation. "I believed," says John D. Lee, one of the most trusted and
prominent of the church members almost to the day of his death, "that
Brigham Young spoke by the direction of the God of heaven. I would have
suffered death rather than have disobeyed any command of his." Said
Young's associate in the First Presidency, Heber C. Kimball, "To me the
word comes from Brother Brigham as the word of God," and again, "His
word is the word of God to his people."*
The new-comers from Europe were simply helpless. They were, in the first
place, religious enthusiasts, who believed, when they set out on their
journey, that they were going to a real Zion. Large numbers of them were
indebted to the church for at least a part of their passage money
from the day of their arrival. Few of those who had paid their own way
brought much cash capital, all depending on the representations about
the richness of the valley which had been held out to them. Once, there,
they soon realized that all must sustain the same policy if the church
was to be a success. They were, too, of that superstitious class
which was ready, not only to believe in modern miracles, "signs," and
revelations, but actually hungered for such manifestations, and, once
accepting membership in the church, they accepted with it the dictation
of the head of the church in all things. Secretary Fuller has told me
that, after he ascertained the existence of gold near Salt Lake City,
he said to an intelligent goldsmith there, "Why do you not look for the
gold you need in your business in the mountains?" "Why," was the reply,
"if I went to the mountains and found gold, and put it into my pouch,
the pouch would be empty when I got back to the city. I know this is so,
because Brigham Young has told me so."
* Journal of Discourses, VOL IV, p. 47.
The extent of the dictatorship which Young prescribed and carried out
in all matters, spiritual and commercial, might be questioned if we
were not able to follow the various steps taken in establishing his
authority, and to illustrate its scope, by the testimony, not of men
who suffered from it, but by his own words and those of his closest
associates. With a blindness which seems incomprehensible, the sermons,
or "discourses," delivered in the early days in Salt Lake City were
printed under church authority, and are preserved in the journal of
Discourses. The student of this chapter of the church's history can
obtain what information he wants by reading the volumes of this Journal.
The language used is often coarse, but there is never any difficulty in
understanding the speakers.
Young referred to his own plain speaking in a discourse on October 6,
1855. He said that he had received advice about bridling his tongue--a
wheelbarrow load of such letters from the East, especially on the
subject of his attacks on the Gentiles. "Do you know," he asked, "how I
feel when I get such communications? I will tell you. I feel just like
rubbing their noses with them."* In a discourse on February 17, 1856, he
vouchsafed this explanation, "If I were preaching abroad in the world,
I should feel myself somewhat obliged, through custom, to adhere to the
wishes and feelings of the people in regard to pursuing the thread of
any given subject; but here I feel as free as air." **
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 48.
** Ibid., p. 211.
Mention has already been made of Young's refusal to continue Smith's
series of "revelations." In doing this he never admitted for a moment
any lack of authority as spokesman for the Almighty. A few illustrations
will make clear his position in this matter. Defining his view of his
own authority, before the General Conference in Salt Lake City, on
April 6, 1850, he said, "It is your privilege and it is mine to receive
revelation; and my privilege to dictate to the church." *
* Millennial Star, VOL XII, p, 273.
When the site of the Temple was consecrated, in 1853, there were many
inquiries whether a revelation had been given about its construction.
Young said, "If the Lord and all the people want a revelation, I can
give one concerning this Temple"; but he did not do so, declaring that
a revelation was no more necessary concerning the building of a temple
than it was concerning a kitchen or a bedroom.* We must certainly
concede to this man a dictator's daring.
* Ibid., Vol. XV, p. 391.
An early illustration of Young's policy toward all Mormon offenders was
given in the case of the so-called "Gladdenites." There were members
of the church even in Utah who were ready to revolt when the open
announcement of the "revelation" regarding polygamy was made in 1852,
and they found a leader in Gladden Bishop, who had had much experience
in apostasy, repentance, and readmission.* These men held meetings
and made considerable headway, but when the time came for Brigham to
exercise his authority he did it.
* "This Gladden gave Joseph much trouble; was cut off from the
church and taken back and rebaptized nine times."--Ferris, "Utah and the
Mormons," p. 326.
On Sunday, March 20, 1853, a meeting, orderly in every respect,
which the Gladdenites were holding in front of the Council House, was
dispersed by the city marshal, and another, called for the next Sunday,
was prohibited entirely. Then Alfred Smith, a leading Gladdenite, who
had accused Young of robbing him of his property, was arrested and
locked up until he gave a promise to discontinue his rebellion. On the
27th of March Young made the Gladdenites the subject of a large part
of his discourse in the Tabernacle. What he said is thus stated in the
church report of the address:--
"I say to those persons: You must not court persecution here, lest you
get so much of it you will not know what to do with it. Do not court
persecution. We have known Gladden Bishop for more than twenty years,
and know him to be a poor, dirty curse.... I say again, you Gladdenites,
do not court persecution, or you will get more than you want, and it
will come quicker than you want it. I say to you Bishops, do not allow
them to preach in your wards." (After telling of a dream he had had,
in which he saw two men creep into the bed where one of his wives
was lying, whereupon he took a large bowie knife and cut one of
their throats from ear to ear, saying, "Go to hell across lots," he
continued:) "I say, rather than that apostates should flourish here I
will unsheath my bowie knife and conquer or die." (Great commotion in
the congregation, and a simultaneous burst of feeling, assenting to the
declaration.) "Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be
put to the line and righteousness to the plummet." (Voices generally,
"Go it," "go it.") "If you say it is all right, raise your hand." (All
hands up.) "Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this and every
good work." *
*Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 82.
This was the practical end of Gladdenism.
Young's dictatorship was quite as broad and determined in things
temporal as in things spiritual. He made no concealment of the fact that
he was a money-getter, only insisting on his readiness to contribute
to the support of church enterprises. The canyons through the mountains
which shut in the valley were the source of wood supply for the city,
and their control was very valuable. Young brought this matter before
the Conference of October 9, 1852, speaking on it at length, and finally
putting his own view in the form of a resolution that the canyons be
placed in the hands of individuals, who should make good roads through
them, and obtain their pay by taking toll at the entrance. After getting
the usual unanimous vote on his proposition, he said: "Let the Judges
of the County of Great Salt Lake take due notice and govern themselves
accordingly.... This is my order for the judges to take due notice
of. It does not come from the Governor, but from the President of the
church. You will not see any proclamation in the paper to this effect,
but it is a mere declaration of the President of the Conference."* The
"declaration," of course, had all the effect of a law, and Young got one
of the best canyons.
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, pp. 217, 218.
Very early in his rule Young defined his views about the property rights
of the Saints. "A man," he declared in the Tabernacle on June 5, 1853,
"has no right with property which, according to the laws of the land,
legally belongs to him, if he does not want to use it.... When we first
came into the valley, the question was asked me if men would ever be
allowed to come into this church, and remain in it, and hoard up their
property. I say, no." *
* Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 252-253
Another view of property rights was thus set forth in his discourse of
December 5, 1853:--
"If an Elder has borrowed [a hundred or a thousand dollars from you],
and you find he is going to apostatize, then you may tighten the screws
on him. But if he is willing to preach the Gospel without purse or
scrip, it is none of your business what he does with the money he has
borrowed from you." *
* Ibid, Vol. I, p. 340.
Addressing the people in the trying business year of 1856, when his own
creditors were pushing him hard, Young said:
"I wish to give you one text to preach upon, 'From this time henceforth
do not fret thy gizzard.' I will pay you when I can and not before. Now
I hope you will apostatize if you would rather do it."*
* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 4.
Kimball, in giving Young's order to some seventy men, who had displeased
him, to leave the territory, used these words: "When a man is appointed
to take a mission, unless he has a just and honorable reason for not
going, if he does not go he will be severed from the church. Why?
Because you said you were willing to be passive, and, if you are not
passive, that lump of clay must be cut off from the church and laid
aside, and a lump put on that will be passive." *
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 242.
With this testimony of men inside the church may be placed that of
Captain Howard Stansbury, of the United Stated Topographical Engineers,
who arrived in the valley in August, 1849, under instructions from the
government to make a survey of the lakes of that region. The Mormons
thought that it was the intention of the government to divide the land
into townships and sections, and to ignore their claim to title by
occupation. In his official report, after mentioning his haste to
disabuse Young's mind on this point, Captain Stansbury says, "I was
induced to pursue this conciliatory course, not only in justice to the
government, but also because I knew, from the peculiar organization
of this singular community, that, unless the 'President' was fully
satisfied that no evil was intended to his people, it would be useless
for me to attempt to carry out my instructions." The choice between
abject conciliation or open conflict was that which Brigham Young
extended to nearly every federal officer who entered Utah during his
reign.
The Mormons of Utah started in to assert their independence of the
government of the United States in every way. The rejection of
the constitution of Deseret by Congress did not hinder the elected
legislature from meeting and passing laws. The ninth chapter of the
"ordinances," as they were called, passed by this legislature (on
January 19, 1851) was a charter for Great Salt Lake City. This charter
provided for the election of a mayor, four aldermen, nine councillors,
and three judges, the first judges to be chosen viva voce, and their
successors by the City Council. The appointment of eleven subordinate
officers was placed in the Council's hands. The mayor and aldermen were
to be the justices of the peace, with a right of appeal to the municipal
court, consisting of the same persons sitting together, and from that
to the probate court. The first mayor, aldermen, and councillors were
appointed by the governor of the State of Deseret. Similar charters were
provided for Ogden, Provo City, and other settlements.
As soon as Salt Lake City was laid off into wards, Young had a Bishop
placed over each of these, and, always under his direction, these
Bishops practically controlled local affairs to the date of the city
charter. Each Bishop came to be a magistrate of his ward,* and under
them in all the settlements all public work was carried on and all
revenue collected. The High Council of ten is defined by Tullidge as "a
quorum of judges, in equity for the people, at the head of which is the
President of the state."
* Brigham Young testified in the Tabernacle as to the kind of
justice that was meted out in the Bishops' courts. In his sermon of
March 6, 1856, he said: "There are men here by the score who do not know
their right hands from their left, so far as the principles of justice
are concerned. Does our High Council? No, for they will let men throw
dirt in their eyes until you cannot find the one hundred millionth part
of an ounce of common sense in them. You may go to the Bishops' courts,
and what are they? A set of old grannies. They cannot judge a case
pending between two old women, to say nothing of a case between man and
man." Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 225.
These men did not hesitate to attempt a currency of their own. On the
arrival of the Mormons in the valley, they first made their exchanges
through barter. Paper currency was issued in 1849 and some years later.
When gold dust from California appeared in 1849, some of it was
coined in Salt Lake City by means of homemade dies and crucibles. The
denominations were $2.50, $5, $10, and $20. Some of these coins, made
without alloy, were stamped with a bee-hive and eagle on one side, and
on the reverse with the motto, "Holiness to the Lord" in the so-called
Deseret alphabet. This alphabet was invented after their arrival in Salt
Lake Valley, to assist in separating the Mormons from the rest of the
nation, its preparation having been intrusted to a committee of the
board of regents in 1853. It contained thirty-two characters. A primer
and two books of the Mormon Bible were printed in the new characters,
the legislature in 1855 having voted $2500 to meet the expense; but the
alphabet was never practically used, and no attempt is any longer made
to remember it. Early in 1849 the High Council voted that the Kirtland
bank-bills (of which a supply must have remained unissued) be put out
on a par with gold, and in this they saw a fulfilment of the prophet's
declaration that these notes would some day be as good as gold.
Another early ordinance passed by the Deseret legislature incorporated
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," authorizing the
appointment of a trustee in trust to hold and manage all the property
of the church, which should be free from tax, and giving the church
complete authority to make its own regulations, "provided, however, that
each and every act or practice so established, or adopted for law
or custom, shall relate to solemnities, sacraments, ceremonies,
consecrations, endowments, tithing, marriages, fellowship, or the
religious duties of man to his Maker, inasmuch as the doctrines,
principles, practices, or performances support virtue and increase
morality, and are not inconsistent with or repugnant to the constitution
of the United States or of this State, and are founded on the
revelations of the Lord." Thus early was the ground taken that the
practice of polygamy was a constitutional right. Brigham Young was
chosen as the trustee.
The second ordinance passed by this legislature incorporated the
University of the State of Deseret, at Salt Lake City, to be governed by
a chancellor and twelve regents.
The earliest non-Mormons to experience the effect of that absolute
Mormon rule, the consequences of which the Missourians had feared,
were the emigrants who passed through Salt Lake Valley on their way to
California after the discovery of gold, or on their way to Oregon. The
complaints of the Californians were set forth in a little book, written
by one of them, Nelson Slater, and printed in Colona, California, in
1851, under the title, "Fruits of Mormonism." The general complaints
were set forth briefly in a petition to Congress containing nearly two
hundred and fifty signatures, dated Colona, June 1, 1851, which asked
that the territorial government be abrogated, and a military government
be established in its place. This petition charged that many emigrants
had been murdered by the Mormons when there was a suspicion that they
had taken part in the earlier persecutions; that when any members of
the Mormon community, becoming dissatisfied, tried to leave, they were
pursued and killed; that the Mormons levied a tax of two per cent on the
property of emigrants who were compelled to pass a winter among them;
that it was nearly impossible for emigrants to obtain justice in
the Mormon courts; that the Mormons, high and low, openly expressed
treasonable sentiments against the United States government; and that
letters of emigrants mailed at Salt Lake City were opened, and in many
instances destroyed.
Mr. Slater's book furnishes the specifications of these general charges.
CHAPTER VII. -- THE "REFORMATION"
Young soon had occasion to make practical use of the dictatorial power
that he had assumed. The character which those members of the flock
who had migrated from Missouri and Illinois had established among their
neighbors in those states was not changed simply by their removal to
a wilderness all by themselves. They had no longer the old excuse that
their misdeeds were reprisals on persecuting enemies, but this did not
save them from the temptation to exercise their natural propensities.
Again we shall take only the highest Mormon testimony on this subject.
One of the first sins for which Young openly reproved his congregation
was profane swearing. He brought this matter pointedly to their
attention in an address to the Conference of October 9, 1852, when
he said: "You Elders of Israel will go into the canyons, and curse and
swear--damn and curse your oxen, and swear by Him who created you. I
am telling the truth. Yes, you rip and curse and swear as bad as any
pirates ever did."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 211.
Possibly the church authorities could have overlooked the swearing, but
a matter which gave them more distress was the insecurity of property.
This became so great an annoyance that Young spoke out plainly on the
subject, and he did not attempt to place the responsibility outside of
his own people. A few citations will illustrate this.
In an address in the Tabernacle on June 5, 1853, noticing complaints
about the stealing and rebranding of cattle, he said: "I will propose a
plan to stop the stealing of cattle in coming time, and it is this--let
those who have cattle on hand join in a company, and fence in about
fifty thousand acres of land, and so keep on fencing until all the
vacant land is substantially enclosed. Some persons will perhaps say, 'I
do not know how good or how high a fence it will be necessary to build
to keep thieves out.' I do not know either, except you build one
that will keep out the devil."* On another occasion, with a personal
grievance to air, he said in the Tabernacle: "I have gone to work and
made roads to get wood, and have not been able to get it. I have cut
it down and piled it up, and still have not got it. I wonder if anybody
else can say so. Have any of you piled up your wood, and, when you have
gone back, could not find it? Some stories could be told of this kind
that would make professional thieves ashamed."**
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 252.
** Ibid., Vol. I, p. 213.
Young made no concealment of the fact that men high in the councils of
the church were among the peculators. In his discourse of June 15,
1856, he said: "I have proof ready to show that Bishops have taken in
thousands of pounds in weight of tithing which they have never reported
to the General Tithing Office. We have documents to show that Bishops
have taken in hundreds of bushels of wheat, and only a small portion of
it has come into the General Tithing Office. They stole it to let their
friends speculate upon."*
* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 342.
The new-comers from Europe also received his attention. Referring to
unkept promises of speedy repayment by assisted immigrants of advances
made to them, Young said, in 1855: "And what will they do when they get
here? Steal our wagons, and go off with them to Canada, and try to steal
the bake-kettles, frying-pans, tents, and wagon-covers; and will borrow
the oxen and run away with them, if you do not watch them closely. Do
they all do this? No, but many of them will try to do it."* And again,
a month later: "What previous characters some of you had in Wales, in
England, in Scotland, and perhaps in Ireland. Do not be scared if it
is proven against some one in the Bishop's court that you did steal the
poles from your neighbor's garden fence. If it is proven that you have
been to some person's wood pile and stolen wood, don't be frightened,
for if you will steal it must be made manifest." ** J. M. Grant was
quite as plain spoken. In an address in the bowery in Salt Lake City in
September, 1856, he declared that "you can scarcely find a place in this
city that is not full of filth and abominations."***
* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 3.
** Ibid., Vol. III, p. 49.
*** Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 51.
Young's denunciations were not quietly accepted, but protests and
threats were alike wasted upon him. Referring to complaints of some
of the flock that his denunciation was more than they could bear, he
replied, "But you have got to bear it, and, if you will not, make up
your minds to go to hell at once and have done with it." * On another
occasion he said, "You need, figuratively, to have it rain pitchforks,
tines downward, from this pulpit, Sunday after Sunday." On another
occasion, alluding to letters he had received, warning him against
attacking men's characters, he said, "When such epistles come to me, I
feel like saying, I ask no advice of you nor of all your clan this side
of hell."**
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 49.
** Ibid, p. 50.
When mere denunciation did not reform his followers, Young became still
plainer in his language, and began to explain to them the latitude which
the church proposed to take in applying punishment. In a remarkable
sermon on October 6, 1855, on the "stealing, lying, deceiving,
wickedness, and covetousness" of the elders in Israel, he spoke as
follows:--
"Live on here, then, you poor miserable curses, until the time of
retribution, when your heads will have to be severed from your
bodies. Just let the Lord Almighty say, Lay judgment to the line and
righteousness to the plummet,* and the time of thieves is short in
this community. What do you suppose they would say in old Massachusetts
should they hear that the Latter-day Saints had received a revelation
or commandment to 'lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the
plummet'? What would they say in old Connecticut? They would raise a
universal howl of, 'How wicked the Mormons are. They are killing the
evil doers who are among them. Why, I hear that they kill the wicked
away up yonder in Utah.'... What do I care for the wrath of man? No more
than I do for the chickens that run in my door yard. I am here to teach
the ways of the Lord, and lead men to life everlasting; but if they have
not a mind to go there, I wish them to keep out of my path."**
* These words, from Isaiah xxviii. 17, are constantly used by
Young to denote the extreme punishment which the church might inflict on
any offender.
** Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 50.
From this time Young and his closest associates seemed to make no
concealment of their intention to take the lives of any persons whom
they considered offenders. One or two more citations from his discourses
may be made to sustain this statement. On February 24, 1856, he
declared, "I am not afraid of all hell, nor of all the world, in laying
judgment to the line when the Lord says so."* In the following month he
told his congregation: "The time is coming when justice will be laid to
the line and righteousness to the plummet; when we shall take the old
broadsword and ask, Are you for God? And if you are not heartily on
the Lord's side, you will be hewn down."** Heber C. Kimball was equally
plain spoken. A year earlier he had said in the Tabernacle: "If a man
rebels, I will tell him of it, and if he resents a timely warning, HE IS
UNWISE.... I have never yet shed man's blood, and I pray to God that I
never may, unless it is actually necessary."*** Sultans and doges have
freely used assassination as a weapon, but it seems to have remained for
the Mormon church under Brigham Young to declare openly its intention
to make whatever it might call church apostasy subject to capital
punishment.
*Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 241.
** Ibid., p. 266.
*** Ibid., pp, 163-164.
Out of the lawless condition of the Mormon flock, as we have thus seen
it pictured, and out of this radical view of the proper punishment of
offenders, resulted, in 1856, that remarkable movement still known in
Mormondon as "The Reformation "--a movement that has been characterized
by one writer as "a reign of lust and fanatical fury unequalled
since the Dark Ages," and by another as "a fanaticism at once blind,
dangerous, and terrible." During its continuance the religious zealot,
the amorous priest, the jealous lover, the man covetous of worldly
goods, and the framers of the church policy, from acknowledged Apostle
to secret Danite, all had their own way. "Were I counsel for a Mormon
on trial for a crime committed at the time under consideration, I should
plead wholesale insanity," said J. H. Beadle. It was during this period
that that system was perfected under which the life of no man,--or
company of men,--against whom the wrath of the church was directed, was
of any value; no household was safe from the lust of any aged elder;
no person once in the valley could leave it alive against the church's
consent.
The active agent in starting "The Reformation" was the inventor of
"blood atonement," Jedediah M. Grant.* That his censure of a Bishop and
his counsellors at Kayesville was the actual origin of the movement,
as has been stated,** cannot be accepted as proven, in view of the
preparation made for the era of blood, as indicated in the church
discourses. Lieutenant Gunnison, for whom the Mormons in later years
always asserted their friendship, writing concerning his observations as
early as 1852, said:--
* A correspondent of the New York Times at this date described
Grant as "a tall, thin, repulsive-looking man, of acute, vigorous
intellect, a thorough-paced scoundrel, and the most essential blackguard
in the pulpit. He was sometimes called Brigham's sledge hammer."
** "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 293.
"Witnesses are seldom put on oath in the lower courts, and there is
nothing known of the 'law's delay,' and the quibbles whereby the ends of
truth and justice may be defeated. But they have a criminal code called
'The Laws of the Lord,' which has been given by revelation and not
promulgated, the people not being able quite to bear it, or the
organization still too imperfect. It is to be put in force, however,
before long, and when in vogue, all grave crimes will be punished and
atoned for by cutting off the head of the offender. This regulation
arises from the fact that without shedding of blood there is no
remission."*
* "History of the Mormons," Book 1, Chapter X.
Gunnison's statement furnishes indisputable proof that this legal system
was so generally talked of some four years before it was put in force
that it came to the ears of a non-Mormon temporary resident.
After the condemnation of the Kayesville offenders and their rebaptism,
the next move was the appointment of missionaries to hold services
in every ward, and the sending out of what were really confessors,
appointed for every block, to inquire of all--young and old--concerning
the most intimate details of their lives. The printed catechism given
to these confessors was so indelicate that it was suppressed in later
years. These prying inquisitors found opportunity to gain information
for their superiors about any persons suspected of disloyalty, and one
use they made of their visitations was to urge the younger sisters to
be married to the older men, as a readier means of salvation than union
with men of their own age. That there was opposition to this espionage
is shown by some remarks of H. C. Kimball in the Tabernacle, in March,
1856, when he said: "I have heard some individuals saying that, if the
Bishops came into their houses and opened their cupboards, they would
split their heads open. THAT WOULD NOT BE A WISE OR SAFE OPERATION." *
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 271.
Some of the information secured by the church confessional was
embarrassing to the leaders. At a meeting of male members in Social
Hall, Young, Grant, and others denounced the sinners in scathing terms,
Young ending his remarks by saying, "All you who have been guilty of
committing adultery, stand up." At once more than three-quarters of
those present arose.* For such confessors a way of repentance was
provided through rebaptism, but the secretly accused had no such avenue
opened to them.
* "A leading Bishop in Salt Lake City stated to the author that
Brigham was as much appalled at this sight as was Macbeth when he beheld
the woods of Birnam marching on to Dunsinane. A Bishop arose and asked
if there were not some misunderstanding among the brethren concerning
the question. He thought that perhaps the elders understood Brigham's
inquiry to apply to their conduct before they had thrown off the works
of the devil and embraced Mormonism; but upon Brigham reiterating that
it was the adultery committed since they had entered the church, the
brethren to a man still stood up:"--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 296.
One of the first victims of the reformers was H. J. Jarvis, a reputable
merchant of Salt Lake City. He was dragged over his counter one evening
and thrown into the street by men who then robbed his store and defiled
his household goods, giving him as the cause of the visitation the
explanation that he had spoken evil of the authorities, and had invited
Gentiles to supper. His two wives could not secure even a hearing from
Young in his behalf.* This, however, was a minor incident.
* "Rocky Mountain Saints;" p. 297.
That Young's rule should be objected to by some members of the church
was inevitable. There were men in the valley at that early day who
would rebel against such a dictatorship under any name; others--men of
means--who were alarmed by the declarations about property rights, and
others to whom the announcement concerning polygamy was repugnant.
When such persons gave expression to their discontent, they angered the
church officers; when they indicated their purpose to leave the valley,
they alarmed them. Anything like an exodus of the flock would
have broken up all of Young's plans, and have undone the scheme of
immigration that had cost so much time and money. Accordingly, when
this movement for "reform" began, the church let it be known that any
desertion of the flock would be considered the worst form of apostasy,
and that the deserter must take the consequences. To quote Brigham
Young's own words: "The moment a person decides to leave this people,
he is cut off from every object that is desirable for time and eternity.
Every possession and object of affection will be taken from those who
forsake the truth, and their identity and existence will eventually
cease."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 31.
The almost unbreakable hedge that surrounded the inhabitants of the
valley at this time, under the system of church espionage, has formed a
subject for the novelist, and has seemed to many persons, as described,
a probable exaggeration. But, while Young did not narrate in his
pulpit the tales of blood which his instructions gave rise to, there
is testimony concerning them which leaves no reasonable doubt of their
truthfulness.
CHAPTER VIII. -- SOME CHURCH-INSPIRED MURDERS
The murders committed during the "Reformation" which attracted most
attention, both because of the parties concerned, the effort made by a
United States judge to convict the guilty, and the confessions of
the latter subsequently obtained, have been known as the Parrish, or
Springville, murders. The facts concerning them may be stated fairly as
follows:--
William R. Parrish was one of the most outspoken champions of the Twelve
when the controversy with Rigdon occurred at Nauvoo after Smith's death,
and he accompanied the fugitives to Salt Lake Valley. One evening, early
in March, 1857, a Bishop named Johnson (husband of ten wives), with two
companions, called at Parrish's house in Springville, and put to him
some of the questions which the inquisitors of the day were wont to
ask--if he prayed, something about his future plans, etc. It had been
rumored that Parrish's devotion to the church had cooled, and that
he was planning to move with his family--a wife and six children--to
California; and at a meeting in Bishop Johnson's council house a
letter had been read from Brigham Young directing them to ascertain the
intention of certain "suspicious characters in the neighborhood,"* and
if they should make a break and, being pursued, which he required, he
'would be sorry to hear a favorable report; but the better way is to
lock the stable door before the horse is stolen.' This letter was over
Brigham's signature.** This letter was the real cause of the Bishop's
visit to Parrish. At a meeting about a week later, A. Durfee and G.
Potter were deputed to find out when the Parrishes proposed to leave the
territory. Accordingly, Durfee got employment with Parrish, and both of
them gave him the idea that they sympathized with his desire to depart.
One morning, about a week later, Parrish discovered that his horses had
been stolen, and efforts to recover them were fruitless.
* "There had been public preaching in Springville to the effect
that no Apostles would be allowed to leave; if they did, hog-holes
in the fences would be stopped up with them. I heard these
sermons."--Affidavit of Mrs. Parrish; appendix to "Speech of Hon. John
Cradlebaugh".
** Confession of J. M. Stewart, one of the Bishop's counsellors
and precinct magistrate.
Meanwhile, Parrish, unsuspicious of Potter and Durfee,* was telling them
of his continued plans to escape, how constantly his house was watched,
and how difficult it was for him to get out the few articles required
for the trip. Finally, at Parrish's suggestion, it was arranged that he
and Durfee should walk out of the village in the daytime, as the method
best calculated to allay suspicion.
* Durfee's confession, appendix to Cradlebaugh's speech.
They carried out this plan, and when they got to a stream called Dry
Creek, Parrish asked Durfee to go back to the house and bring his two
sons, Beason and Orrin, to join him. When Durfee returned to the house,
at about sunset, he found Potter there, and Potter set off at once for
the meeting-place, ostensibly to carry some of the articles needed for
the journey.
Potter met Parrish where he was waiting for Durfee's return, and they
walked down a lane to a fence corner, where a Mormon named William
Bird was lying, armed with a gun. Here occurred what might be called
an illustration of "poetic justice." In the twilight, Bird mistook his
victim, and fired, killing Potter. As Bird rose and stepped forward,
Parrish asked if it was he who had fired the unexpected shot. For a
reply Bird drew a knife, clenched with Parrish, and, as he afterward
expressed it, "worked the best he could in stabbing him." He "worked"
so well that, as afterward described by one of the men concerned in the
plot,* the old man was cut all over, fifteen times in the back, as well
as in the left side, the arms, and the hands. But Bird knew that his
task was not completed, and, as soon as the murder of the elder Parrish
was accomplished, taking his own and Potter's gun, he again concealed
himself in the fence corner, awaiting the appearance of the Parrish
boys. They soon came up in company with Durfee, and Bird fired at Beason
with so good aim that he dropped dead at once. Turning the weapon on
Orrin, the first cap snapped, but he tried again and put a ball through
Orrin's cartridge box. The lad then ran and found refuge in the house of
an uncle.
* Affidavit of J. Bartholemew before Judge Cradlebaugh.
The outcome of this crime? The arrest of ORRIN and Durfee as the
murderers by a Mormon officer; a farcical hearing by a coroner's jury,
with a verdict of assassins unknown; distrusted participants in the
crime themselves the object of the Mormon spies and would-be assassins;
the robbery of a neighbor who dared to condemn the crime; a vain appeal
by Mrs. Parrish to Brigham Young, who told her he "would have stopped it
had he known anything about it," and who, when she persisted in seeking
another interview, had her advised to "drop it," and a failure by the
widow to secure even the stolen horses. "The wife of Mr. Parrish told
me," said Judge Cradlebaugh, when he charged the jury concerning this
case, "that since then at times she had lived on bread and water, and
still there are persons in this community riding about on those horses."
The effort to have the men concerned in this and similar crimes
convicted, forms a part of the history of Judge Cradlebaugh's judicial
career after the "Mormon War," but it failed. When the grand jury would
not bring in indictments, he issued bench warrants for the arrest of
the accused, and sent the United States marshal, sustained by a
military posse, to serve the papers. It was thus that the affidavits
and confessions cited were obtained. Then followed a stampede among the
residents of the Springville neighborhood, as the judge explained in his
subsequent speech, in Congress, the church officials and civil officers
being prominent in the flight, and, when their houses were reached, they
were occupied only by many wives and many children. "I am justified,"
he told the House of Representatives, "in charging that the Mormons are
guilty, and that the Mormon church is guilty, of the crimes, of murder
and robbery, as taught in their books of faith."*
* "I say as a fact that there was no escape for any one that the
leaders of the church in southern Utah selected as a victim.... It was a
rare thing for a man to escape from the territory with all his property
until after the Pacific Railroad was built through Utah."--LEE,
"Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 275, 287.
Charles Nordhoff, in a Utah letter to the New York Evening Post in May,
1871, said: "A friend said to me this afternoon, 'I saw a great change
in Salt Lake since I was there three years ago. The place is free; the
people no longer speak in whispers. Three years ago it was unsafe to
speak aloud in Salt Lake City about Mormonism, and you were warned to be
cautious.'"
Another of the murders under this dispensation, which Judge Cradlebaugh
mentioned as "peculiarly and shockingly prominent," was that of the
Aikin party, in the spring of 1857. This party, consisting of six men,
started east from San Francisco in May, 1857, and, falling in with a
Mormon train, joined them for protection against the Indians. When they
got to a safer neighborhood, the Californians pushed on ahead. Arriving
in Kayesville, twenty-five miles north of Salt Lake City, they were at
once arrested as federal spies, and their animals (they had an outfit
worth in all, about $25,000) were put into the public corral. When their
Mormon fellow-travellers arrived, they scouted the idea that the men
even knew of an impending "war," and the party were told that they would
be sent out of the territory. But before they started, a council, held
at the call of a Bishop in Salt Lake City, decided on their death.
Four of the party were attacked in camp by their escort while asleep;
two were killed at once, and two who escaped temporarily were shot
while, as they supposed, being escorted back to Salt Lake City. The
two others were attacked by O. P. Rockwell and some associates near the
city; one was killed outright, and the other escaped, wounded, and
was shot the next day while under the escort of "Bill" Hickman, and,
according to the latter, by Young's order. *
* Brigham's "Destroying Angel," p. 128.
A story of the escape of one man from the valley, notwithstanding
elaborate plans to prevent his doing so, has been preserved, not in the
testimony of repentant participants in his persecution, but in his own
words.*
* Leavenworth, Kansas, letter to New York Times, published May 1,
1858.
Frederick Loba was a prosperous resident of Lausanne, Switzerland,
where for some years he had been introducing a new principle in gas
manufacture, when, in 1853, some friends called his attention to the
Mormons' professions and promises. Loba was induced to believe that all
mankind who did not gather in Great Salt Lake Valley would be given over
to destruction, and that, not only would his soul be saved by moving
there, but that his business opportunities would be greatly advanced.
Accordingly he gave up the direction of the gas works at Lausanne, and
reached St. Louis in December, 1853, with about $8000 worth of property.
There he was made temporary president of a Mormon church, and there he
got his first bad impression of the Mormon brotherhood. On the way to
Utah his wife died of cholera, leaving six children, from six to twelve
years old. Welcomed as all men with property were, he was made Professor
of Chemistry in the University, and soon learned many of the church
secrets. "These," to quote his own words, "opened my eyes at once, and I
saw at a glance the terrible position in which I was placed. I now found
myself in the midst of a wicked and degraded people, shut up in the
midst of the mountains, with a large family, and deprived of all
resources with which to extricate myself. The conviction had been
forced upon my mind that Brigham himself was at the bottom of all the
clandestine assassinations, plundering of trains, and robbing of mails."
The manner, too, in which polygamy was practised aroused his intense
disgust.
He married as his second wife an English woman, and his family relations
were pleasant; but the church officers were distrustful of him. He was
again and again urged to marry more wives, being assured that with
less than three he could not rise to a high place in the church. "This
neglect on my part," he explained, "and certain remarks that I made with
respect to Brigham's friends, determined the prophet to order my private
execution, as I am able to prove by honest and competent witnesses."
Loba adopted every precaution for his own safety, night and day. Then
came the news of the Parrish murders, and there was so much alarm among
the people that there was talk of the departure of a great many of
the dissatisfied. To check this, when the plain threats made in the
Tabernacle did not avail, Young had a band of four hundred organized
under the name of "Wolf Hunters" (borrowed from their old Hancock County
neighbors), whose duty it was to see that "the wolves" did not stray
abroad.
Loba now communicated his fears to his wife, and found that she also
realized the danger of their position, and was ready to advise the risk
of flight. The plan, as finally decided on, was that they two should
start alone on April 1, leaving the children in care of the wife's
mother and brother, the latter a recent comer not yet initiated in the
church mysteries.
At ten o'clock on the appointed night Loba and his wife--the latter
dressed in men's clothes--stole out of their house. Their outfit
consisted of one blanket, twelve pounds of crackers, a little tea and
sugar, a double-barrelled gun, a sword, and a compass. They were without
horses, and their route compelled them to travel the main road for
twenty-five miles before they reached the mountains, amid which
they hoped to baffle pursuit. They were fortunate enough to gain the
mountains without detention. There they laid their course, not with a
view to taking the easiest or most direct route, but one so far up
the mountain sides that pursuit by horsemen would be impossible. This
entailed great suffering. The nights were so cold that sometimes they
feared to sleep. Add to this the necessity of wading through creeks in
ice-cold water, and it is easy to understand that Loba had difficulty to
prevent his companion from yielding to despair.
Their objective point was Greene River (170 miles from Salt Lake City by
road, but probably almost 300 by the route taken), where they expected
to find Indians on whose mercy they would throw themselves. Two days
before that river was reached they ate the last of their food, and they
kept from freezing at night by getting some sage wood from underneath
the snow, and using Loba's pocket journal for kindling. Mrs. Loba had to
be carried the whole of the last six miles, but this effort brought them
to a camp of Snake Indians, among whom were some Canadian traders, and
there they received a kindly welcome. News of their escape reached Salt
Lake City, and Surveyor General Burr sent them the necessary supplies
and a guide to conduct them to Fort Laramie, where, a month later,
all the rest of the family joined them, in good health, but entirely
destitute.
They then learned that, as soon as their flight was discovered, the
church authorities sent out horsemen in every direction to intercept
them, but their route over the mountains proved their preservation.*
* Referring to the frequent Mormon declarations that there were
fewer deeds of violence in Utah than in other pioneer settlements of
equal population, the Salt Lake Tribune of January 25, 1876, said: "It
is estimated that no less than 600 murders have been committed by the
Mormons, in nearly every case at the instigation of their priestly
leaders, during the occupation of the territory. Giving a mean average
of 50,000 persons professing that faith in Utah, we have a murder
committed every year to every 2500 of population. The same ratio of
crime extended to the population of the United States would give 16,000
murders every year."
The Messenger, the organ of the Reorganized Church in Salt Lake City,
said in November, 1875: "While laying the waste pipes in front of the
residence of Brigham Young recently the skeleton of a man--a white
man--was dug up. A similar discovery was made last winter in digging a
cellar in this city. What can have been the necessity of these secret
burials, without coffins, in such places?"
CHAPTER IX. -- BLOOD ATONEMENT
As early as 1853 intimations of the doctrine that an offending member
might be put out of the way were given from the Tabernacle pulpit. Orson
Hyde, on April 9 of that year, spoke, in the form of a parable, of the
fate of a wolf that a shepherd discovered in his flock of sheep, saying
that, if let alone, he would go off and tell the other wolves, and they
would come in; "whereas, if the first should meet with his just deserts,
he could not go back and tell the rest of his hungry tribe to come and
feast themselves on the flock. If you say the priesthood, or authorities
of the church here, are the shepherd, and the church is the flock, you
can make your own application of this figure."
In September, 1856, there was a notable service in the bowery in Salt
Lake City at which several addresses were made. Heber C. Kimball urged
repentance, and told the people that Brigham Young's word was "the word
of God to this people." Then Jedediah M. Grant first gave open utterance
to a doctrine that has given the Saints, in late years, much trouble
to explain, and the carrying out of which in Brigham Young's days has
required many a Mormon denial. This is, what has been called in Utah the
doctrine of "blood atonement," and what in reality was the doctrine of
human sacrifice.
Grant declared that some persons who had received the priesthood
committed adultery and other abominations, "get drunk, and wallow in the
mire and filth." "I say," he continued, "there are men and women that I
would advise to go to the President immediately, and ask him to appoint
a committee to attend to their case; and then let a place be selected,
and let that committee shed their blood. We have those amongst us that
are full of all manner of abominations; those who need to have their
blood shed, for water will not do; their sins are too deep for that."*
He explained that he was only preaching the doctrine of St. Paul, and
continued: "I would ask how many covenant breakers there are in this
city and in this kingdom. I believe that there are a great many; and if
they are covenant breakers, we need a place designated where we can shed
their blood.... If any of you ask, Do I mean you, I answer yes. If any
woman asks, Do I mean her, I answer yes.... We have been trying long
enough with these people, and I go in for letting the sword of the
Almighty be unsheathed, not only in word, but in deed."**
* Elder C. W. Penrose made an explanation of the view taken by
the church at that time, in an address in Salt Lake City on October
12, 1884, that was published in a pamphlet entitled "Blood Atonement
as taught by Leading Elders." This was deemed necessary to meet the
criticisms of this doctrine. He pleaded misrepresentation of the Saints'
position, and defined it as resting on Christ's atonement, and on
the belief that that atonement would suffice only for those who have
fellowship with Him. He quoted St. Paul as authority for the necessity
of blood shedding (Hebrews ix. 22), and Matthew xii. 31, 32, and Hebrews
x. 26, to show that there are sins, like blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost, which will not be forgiven through the shedding of Christ's
blood. He also quoted 1 John v. 16 as showing that the apostle and
Brigham Young were in agreement concerning "sins unto death," just as
Young and the apostle agreed about delivering men unto Satan that
their spirits might be saved through the destruction of their flesh (1
Corinthians v. 5). Having justified the teaching to his satisfaction,
he proceeded to challenge proof that any one had ever paid the penalty,
coupling with this a denial of the existence of Danites.
Elder Hyde, in his "Mormonism," says (p. 179): "There are several men
now living in Utah whose lives are forfeited by Mormon law, but spared
for a little time by Mormon policy. They are certain to be killed, and
they know it. They are only allowed to live while they add weight and
influence to Mormonism, and, although abundant opportunities are given
them for escape, they prefer to remain. So strongly are they infatuated
with their religion that they think their salvation depends on their
continued obedience, and their 'blood being shed by the servants of
God.' Adultery is punished by death, and it is taught, unless the
adulterer's blood be shed, he can have no remission for this sin.
Believing this firmly, there are men who have confessed this crime to
Brigham, and asked him to have them killed. Their superstitious fears
make life a burden to them, and they would commit suicide were not that
also a crime."
** Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, pp. 49, 50.
Brigham Young, who followed Grant, said that he would explain how
judgment would be "laid to the line." "There are sins," he explained,
"that men commit, for which they cannot receive forgiveness in this
world nor in that which is to come; and, if they had their eyes open to
see their true condition, they would be perfectly willing to have their
blood spilt upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend to
heaven for their sins...I know, when you hear my brethren telling
about cutting people off from the earth, that you consider it a strong
doctrine; but it is to save them, not to destroy them."
That these were not the mere expressions of a sudden impulse is shown
by the fact that Young expounded this doctrine at even greater length
a year later. Explaining what Christ meant by loving our neighbors as
ourselves, he said: "Will you love your brothers and sisters likewise
when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the
shedding of blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed
their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant.... I have seen scores and
hundreds of people for whom there would have been a chance (in the last
resurrection there will be) if their lives had been taken, and their
blood spilled on the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty, but
who are now angels to the devil."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, pp. 219, 220.
Stenhouse relates, as one of the "few notable cases that have properly
illustrated the blood atonement doctrine," that one of the wives of
an elder who was sent on a mission broke her marriage vows during his
absence. On his return, during the height of the "Reformation," she
was told that "she could not reach the circle of the gods and goddesses
unless her blood was shed," and she consented to accept the punishment.
Seating herself, therefore, on her husband's knee, she gave him a last
kiss, and he then drew a knife across her throat. "That kind and
loving husband still lives near Salt Lake City (1874), and preaches
occasionally with great zeal."*
* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 470.
John D. Lee, who says that this doctrine was "justified by all the
people," gives full particulars of another instance. Among the Danish
converts in Utah was Rosmos Anderson, whose wife had been a widow with
a grown daughter. Anderson desired to marry his step-daughter also, and
she was quite willing; but a member of the Bishop's council wanted the
girl for his wife, and he was influential enough to prevent Anderson
from getting the necessary consent from the head of the church. Knowing
the professed horror of the church toward the crime of adultery,
Anderson and the young woman, at one of the meetings during the
"Reformation," confessed their guilt of that crime, thinking that in
this way they would secure permission to marry. But, while they were
admitted to rebaptism on their confession, the coveted permit was not
issued and they were notified that to offend would be to incur death.
Such a charge was very soon laid against Anderson (not against the
girl), and the same council, without hearing him, decided that he
must die. Anderson was so firm in the Mormon faith that he made no
remonstrance, simply asking half a day for preparation. His wife
provided clean clothes for the sacrifice, and his executioners dug his
grave. At midnight they called for him, and, taking him to the place,
allowed him to kneel by the grave and pray. Then they cut his throat,
"and held him so that his blood ran into the grave." His wife, obeying
instructions, announced that he had gone to California.*
* "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 282.
As an illustration of the opportunity which these times gave a
polygamous priesthood to indulge their tastes, may be told the story of
"the affair at San Pete." Bishop Warren Snow of Manti, San Pete County,
although the husband of several wives, desired to add to his list a
good-looking young woman in that town When he proposed to her, she
declined the honor, informing him that she was engaged to a younger man.
The Bishop argued with her on the ground of her duty, offering to have
her lover sent on a mission, but in vain. When even the girl's parents
failed to gain her consent, Snow directed the local church authorities
to command the young man to give her up. Finding him equally obstinate,
he was one evening summoned to attend a meeting where only trusted
members were present. Suddenly the lights were put out, he was beaten
and tied to a bench, and Bishop Snow himself castrated him with a bowie
knife. In this condition he was left to crawl to some haystacks, where
he lay until discovered "The young man regained his health," says Lee,
"but has been an idiot or quiet lunatic ever since, and is well known
by hundreds of Mormons or Gentiles in Utah."* And the Bishop married
the girl. Lee gives Young credit for being very "mad" when he learned of
this incident, but the Bishop was not even deposed.**
* Ibid., p. 285.
** Stenhouse quotes the following as showing that the San Pete
outrage was scarcely concealed by the Mormon authorities: "I was at a
Sunday meeting, in the spring of 1857, in Provo, when the news of the
San Pete incident was referred to by the presiding Bishop, Blackburn.
Some men in Provo had rebelled against authority in some trivial matter,
and Blackburn shouted in his Sunday meeting--a mixed congregation of all
ages and both sexes: 'I want the people of Provo to understand that the
boys in Provo can use the knife as well as the boys in San Pete. Boys,
get your knives ready.'" "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 302.
CHAPTER X. -- THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT--JUDGE BROCCHUS'S EXPERIENCE
In March, 1851, the two houses of the legislature of Deseret, sitting
together, adopted resolutions "cheerfully and cordially" accepting the
law providing a territorial government for Utah, and tendering Union
Square in Salt Lake City as a site for the government buildings. The
first territorial election was held on August 4, and the legislative
assembly then elected held its first meeting on September 22. An act was
at once passed continuing in force the laws passed by the legislature of
Deseret (an unauthorized body) not in conflict with the territorial
law, and locating the capital in the Pauvan Valley, where the town
was afterward named Fillmore* and the county Millard, in honor of the
President.
* Only one session of the legislature was held at Fillmore
(December, 1855). The lawmakers afterward met there, but only to adjourn
to Salt Lake City.
The federal law, establishing the territory, provided that the governor,
secretary, chief justice and two associate justices of the Supreme
Court, the attorney general, or state's attorney, and marshal should be
appointed by the President of the United States. President Fillmore on
September 22, 1850, filled these places as follows: governor, Brigham
Young; secretary, B. D. Harris of Vermont; chief justice, Joseph
Buffington of Pennsylvania; associate justices, Perry E. Brocchus and
Zerubbabel Snow; attorney general, Seth M. Blair of Utah; marshal, J.
L. Heywood of Utah, Young, Snow, Blair, and Heywood being Mormons. L. G.
Brandebury was later appointed chief justice, Mr. Buffington declining
that office.
The selection of Brigham Young as governor made him, in addition to
his church offices, ex-officio commander-in-chief of the militia and
superintendent of Indian affairs, the latter giving him a salary of
$1000 a year in addition to his salary of $1500 as governor. Had the
character of the Mormon church government been understood by President
Fillmore, it does not seem possible that he would, by Young's
appointment, have so completely united the civil and religious authority
of the territory in one man; or, if he had had any comprehension of
Young's personal characteristics, it is fair to conclude that the
appointment would not have been made.
The voice which the President listened to in the matter was that of that
adroit Mormon agent, Colonel Thomas L. Kane. Kane's part in the business
came out after these appointments were announced, and after the Buffalo
(New York) Courier had printed a communication attacking Young's
character on the ground of his record both in Illinois and Utah.
President Fillmore sent these charges to Kane (on July 4, 1851) with a
letter in which he said, "You will recollect that I relied much upon you
for the moral character of Mr. Young," and asking him to "truly state
whether these charges against the moral character of Governor Young are
true." Kane sent two letters in reply, dated July 11. In a short open
one he said: "I reiterate without reserve the statement of his
excellent capacity, energy, and integrity, which I made you prior to the
appointment. I am willing to say that I VOLUNTEERED to communicate to
you the facts by which I was convinced of his patriotism and devotion
to the Union. I made no qualification when I assured you of his
irreproachable moral character, because I was able to speak of this from
my own intimate personal knowledge."
The second letter, marked "personal," went into these matters much more
in detail. It declared that the tax levied by Young on non-Mormons who
sold goods in Salt Lake City was a liquor tax, creditable to Mormon
temperance principles. Had the President consulted the report of the
debate on Babbitt's admission as a Delegate, he would have discovered
that this was falsehood number one. The charges against Young while in
Illinois, including counterfeiting, Kane swept aside as "a mere rehash
of old libels," and he cited the Battalion as an illustration of Mormon
patriotism. The extent to which he could go in falsifying in Young's
behalf is illustrated, however, most pointedly in what he had to say
regarding the charge of polygamy: "The remaining charge connects itself
with that unmixed outrage, the spiritual wife story; which was fastened
on the Mormons by a poor ribald scamp whom, though the sole surviving
brother and representative of their Jo. Smith, they were literally
forced to excommunicate for licentiousness, and who therefore revenged
himself by editing confessions and disclosures of savor to please
the public that peruses novels in yellow paper covers."* In regard to
William Smith, the fact was that he opposed polygamy both before and
after his expulsion from the church. Kane's stay among the Mormons on
the Missouri must have acquainted him with the practically open practice
of polygamy at that time. His entire correspondence with Fillmore stamps
him as a man whose word could be accepted on no subject. It would have
been well if President Buchanan had availed himself of the existence of
these letters. Fillmore stated in later years that at that time neither
he nor the Senate knew that polygamy was an accepted Mormon doctrine.
* For correspondence in full, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, pp.
341-344.
Young took the oath of office as governor in February, 1851. The
non-Mormon federal officers arrived in June and July following, and
with them came Babbitt, bringing $20,000 which had been appropriated by
Congress for a state-house, and J. M. Bernhisel, the first territorial
Delegate to Congress, with a library purchased by him in the East for
which Congress had provided. The arrival of the Gentile officers gave
a speedy opportunity to test the temper of the church in regard to any
interference with, or even discussion of, their "peculiar" institutions
or Young's authority.
Their first welcome was cordial, with balls and dinners at the Bath
House at the Hot Springs at which, for their special benefit, says a
local historian, was served "champagne wine from the grocery," with
home-brewed porter and ale for the rest. When Judge Brocchus reached
Salt Lake City, his two non-Mormon associates had been there long enough
to form an opinion of the Mormon population and of the aims of the
leading church officers. They soon concluded that "no man else could
govern them against Brigham Young's influence, without a military
force,"* and they heard many expressions, public and private, indicating
the contempt in which the federal government was held. The anniversary
of the arrival of the pioneers, July 24, was always celebrated with much
ceremony, and that year the principal addresses were made by "General"
D. H. Wells and Brigham Young. Some of the new officers occupied seats
on the platform. Wells attacked the government for "requiring" the
Battalion to enlist. Young paid especial attention to President Taylor,
who had recently died, and whose course toward the Mormons did not
please them, closing this part of his remarks with the declaration, "but
Zachary Taylor is dead and in hell, and I am glad of it," adding, "and
I prophesy in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the priesthood
that's upon me, that any President of the United States who lifts his
finger against this people, shall die an untimely death, and go to
hell."
* Report of the three officers to President Fillmore, Ex. Doc.
No. 25, 1st Session, 32d Congress.
Judge Brocchus had been commissioned by the Washington Monument
Association to ask the people of the territory for a block of stone
for that structure, and, on signifying a desire to make known his
commission, he was invited to do so at the General Conference to be
held on September 7 and 8. The judge thought that, with the life of
Washington as a text, he could read these people a lesson on their duty
toward the government, and could correct some of the impressions under
which they rested. The idea itself only showed how little he understood
anything pertaining to Mormonism.
There was no newspaper in Salt Lake City in that time, and for a report
of the judge's address and of Brigham Young's reply, we must rely on the
report of the three federal officers to President Fillmore, on a letter
from Judge Brocchus printed in the East, and on three letters on the
subject addressed to the New York Herald (one of which that journal
printed, and all of which the author published in a pamphlet entitled
"The Truth for the Mormons",) by J. M. Grant, first mayor of Salt Lake
City, major general of the Legion, and Speaker of the house in the
Deseret legislature.
Judge Brocchus spoke for two hours. He began with expressions of
sympathy for the sufferings of the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois,
and then referred to the unfriendliness of the people toward the federal
government, pointing out what he considered its injustice, and alluding
pointedly to Brigham Young's remarks about President Taylor. He defended
the President's memory, and told his audience that, "if they could not
offer a block of marble for the Washington Monument in a feeling of full
fellowship with the people of the United States, as brethren and fellow
citizens, they had better not offer it at all, but leave it unquarried
in the bosom of its native mountain." The officers' report to President
Fillmore says that the address "was entirely free from any allusions,
even the most remote, to the peculiar religion of the community, or to
any of their domestic or social customs." Even if the Mormons had so
construed it, the rebuke of their lack of patriotism would have aroused
their resentment, and Bernhisel, in a letter to President Fillmore,
characterized it as "a wanton insult."
But the judge did make, according to other reports, what was construed
as an uncomplimentary reference to polygamy, and this stirred the church
into a tumult of anger and indignation. According to Mormon accounts,*
the judge, addressing the ladies, said: "I have a commission from the
Washington Monument Association, to ask of you a block of marble, as
a test of your citizenship and loyalty to the government of the United
States. But in order to do it acceptably you must become virtuous, and
teach your daughters to become virtuous, or your offering had better
remain in the bosom of your native mountains."
* The report of what follows, including Young's address, is taken
from Grant's pamphlet...
Mild as this language may seem, no Mormon audience, since the marrying
of more wives than one had been sanctioned by the church, had ever
listened to anything like it. To permit even this interference with
their "religious belief" was entirely foreign to Young's purpose, and he
took the floor in a towering rage to reply. "Are you a judge," he asked,
"and can't even talk like a lawyer or a politician?" George Washington
was first in war, but he was first in peace, too, and Young could handle
a sword as well as Washington. "But you [addressing the judge] standing
there, white and shaking now at the howls which you have stirred up
yourself--you are a coward.... Old General Taylor, what was he?* A mere
soldier with regular army buttons on; no better to go at the head of
brave troops than a dozen I could pick out between here and Laramie." He
concluded thus:--
* In a discourse on June 19, 1853, Young said that he never heard
of his alleged expression about General Taylor until Judge Brocchus made
use of it, but he added: "When he made the statement there, I surely
bore testimony to the truth of it. But until then I do not know that it
ever came into my mind whether Taylor was in hell or not, any more
than it did that any other wicked man was there," etc.--Journal of
Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 185.
"What you have been afraid to intimate about our morals I will not
stoop to notice, except to make my particular personal request to every
brother and husband present not to give you back what such impudence
deserves. You talk of things you have on hearsay since your coming among
us. I'll talk of hearsay then--the hearsay that you are discontented,
and will go home, because we cannot make it worth your while to stay.
What it would satisfy you to get out of us I think it would be hard to
tell; but I am sure that it is more than you'll get. If you or any one
else is such a baby-calf, we must sugar your soap to coax you to wash
yourself of Saturday nights. Go home to your mammy straight away, and
the sooner the better."
This was the language addressed by the governor of the territory and the
head of the church, to one of the Supreme Court judges appointed by the
President of the United States!
Young alluded to his reference to the judge's personal safety in a
discourse on June 19, 1853, in which, speaking of the judge's remarks,
he said: "They [the Mormons] bore the insult like saints of God. It is
true, as it was said in the report of these affairs, if I had crooked my
little finger, he would have been used up, but I did not bend it. If
I had, the sisters alone felt indignant enough to have chopped him in
pieces." A little later, in the same discourse, he added: "Every man
that comes to impose on this people, no matter by whom they are sent, or
who they are that are sent, lay the axe at the root of the tree to kill
themselves. I will do as I said I would last conference. Apostates, or
men who never made any profession of religion, had better be careful how
they come here, lest I should bend my little finger."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 187.
If the records of the Mormon church had included acts as well as words,
how many times would we find that Young's little finger was bent to a
purpose?
Bold as he was, Young seems to have felt that he had gone too far in his
abuse of Judge Brocchus, and on September 19 he addressed a note to him,
inviting him to attend a public meeting in the bowery the next Sunday
morning, "to explain, satisfy, or apologize to the satisfaction of the
ladies who heard your address on the 8th," a postscript assuring the
judge that "no gentleman will be permitted to make any reply." The judge
in polite terms declined this offer, saying that he had been, at the
proper time, denied a chance to explain, "at the peril of having my
hair pulled or my throat cut." He added that his speech was deliberately
prepared, that his sole design was "to vindicate the government of
the United States from those feelings of prejudice and that spirit of
defection which seemed to pervade the public sentiment," and that he
had had no intention to offer insult or disrespect to his audience. This
called out, the next day, a very long reply from Young, of which the
following is a paragraph: "With a war of words on party politics,
factions, religious schisms, current controversy of creeds, policy
of clans or state clipper cliques, I have nothing to do; but when the
eternal principles of truth are falsified, and light is turned into
darkness by mystification of language or a false delineation of facts,
so that the just indignation of the true, virtuous, upright citizens of
the commonwealth is aroused into vigilance for the dear-bought
liberties of themselves and fathers, and that spirit of intolerance and
persecution which has driven this people time and time again from their
peaceful homes, manifests itself in the flippancy of rhetoric for female
insult and desecration, it is time that I forbear to hold my peace, lest
the thundering anathemas of nations, born and unborn, should rest upon
my head, when the marrow of my bones shall be ill prepared to sustain
the threatened blow."*
* For correspondence in full, see Tullidge's "History of Salt
Lake City," pp. 86--91.
Judge Brocchus wrote to a friend in the East, on September 20: "How it
will end, I do not know. I have just learned that I have been denounced,
together with the government and officers, in the bowery again to-day by
Governor Young. I hope I shall get off safely. God only knows. I am in
the power of a desperate and murderous sect."
The non-Mormon federal officers now announced their determination to
abandon their places and return to the East. Young foresaw that so
radical a course would give his conduct a wide advertisement, and
attract to him an unpleasant notoriety. He, therefore, called on the
offended judges personally, and urged them to remain.* Being assured
that they would not reconsider their determination, and that Secretary
Harris would take with him the $24,000 appropriated for the pay and
mileage of the territorial legislature, Young, on September 18, issued a
proclamation declaring the result of the election of August 4, which
he had neglected to do, and convening the legislature in session on
September 22. "So solicitous was the governor that the secretary and
other non-Mormon officers should be kept in ignorance of this step,"
says the report of the latter to President Fillmore, "that on the 19th,
two days after the date of a personal notice sent to members, he most
positively and emphatically denied, as communicated to the secretary,
that any such notice had been issued."
* Young to the President, House Doc. No. 25, 1st Session, 32d
Congress.
As soon as the legislature met, it passed resolutions directing the
United States marshal to take possession of all papers and property
(including money) in the hands of Secretary Harris, and to arrest him
and lock him up if he offered any resistance. On receipt of a copy of
this resolution, Secretary Harris sent a reply, giving several reasons
for refusing to hand over the money appropriated for the legislature,
among them the failure of the governor to have a census taken before the
election, as provided by the territorial act, the defective character
of the governor's proclamation ordering the election, allowing aliens to
vote, and the governor's failure to declare the result of the election,
his delayed proclamation being pronounced "worthless for all legal
purposes."
On September 28 the three non-Mormon officers took their departure,
carrying with them to Washington the disputed money, which was turned
over to the proper officer.*
* Tullidge, in his "History of Salt Lake City," says: "Under the
censure of the great statesman, Daniel Webster, and with ex-Vice
President Dallas and Colonel Kane using their potent influence against
them, and also Stephen A. Douglas, Brandebury, Brocchus, and Harris were
forced to retire." As these officers left the territory of their own
accord, and contrary to Brigham Young's urgent protest, this statement
only furnishes another instance of the Mormon plan to attack the
reputation of any one whom they could not control. The three officers
were criticized by some Eastern newspapers for leaving their post
through fear of bodily injury, but Congress voted to pay their salaries.
All the correspondence concerning the failure of this first attempt to
establish non-Mormon federal officers in Utah was given to Congress in
a message from President Fillmore, dated January 9, 1852. The returned
officers made a report which set forth the autocratic attitude of the
Mormon church, the open practice of polygamy,* and the non-enforcement
of the laws, not even murderers being punished. Of one of the
allegations of murder set forth,--that a man from Ithaca, New York,
named James Munroe, was murdered on his way to Salt Lake City by a
member of the church, his body brought to the city and buried without
an inquest, the murderer walking the streets undisturbed, H. H. Bancroft
says, "There is no proof of this statement."** On the contrary, Mayor
Grant in his "Truth for the Mormons" acknowledges it, and gives the
details of the murder, justifying it on the ground of provocation,
alleging that while Egan, the murderer, was absent in California,
Munroe, "from his youth up a member of the church, Egan's friend too,
therefore a traitor," seduced Egan's wife.
* J. D. Grant, following the example of Colonel Kane, had the
effrontery to say of the charge of polygamy, in one of his letters to
the New York Herald: "I pronounce it false.... Suppose I should admit it
at once? Whose business is it? Does the constitution forbid it?"
** "History of Utah," p. 460, note.
Young, in a statement to the President, defended his acts and the acts
of the territorial legislature, and attacked the character and motives
of the federal officers. The legislature soon after petitioned President
Fillmore to fill the vacancies by appointing men "who are, indeed,
residents amongst us."
CHAPTER XI. -- MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS
The next federal officers for Utah appointed by the President (in
August, 1852) were Lazarus H. Reid of New York to be chief justice,
Leonidas Shaver, associate justice, and B. G. Ferris, secretary. Neither
of these officers incurred the Mormon wrath. Both of the judges died
while in office, and the next chief justice was John F. Kinney, who
had occupied a seat on the Iowa Supreme Bench, with W. W. Drummond of
Illinois, and George P. Stiles, one of Joseph Smith's counsel at the
time of the prophet's death, as associates. A. W. Babbitt received the
appointment of secretary of the territory.*
* Some years later Babbitt was killed. Mrs. Waite, in "The Mormon
Prophet" (p. 34) says: "In the summer of 1862 Brigham was referring to
this affair in a tea-table conversation at which judge Waite and the
writer of this were present. After making some remarks to impress
upon the minds of those present the necessity of maintaining friendly
relations between the federal officers and the authorities of the
church, he used language substantially as follows: 'There is no need of
any difficulty, and there need be none if the officers do their duty and
mind their affairs. If they do not, if they undertake to interfere with
affairs that do not concern them, I will not be far off. There was Almon
W. Babbitt. He undertook to quarrel with me, but soon afterward was
killed by Indians."
The territorial legislature had continued to meet from time to time,
Young having a seat of honor in front of the Speaker at each opening
joint session, and presenting his message. The most important measure
passed was an election law which practically gave the church authorities
control of the ballot. It provided that each voter must hand his ballot,
folded, to the judge of election, who must deposit it after numbering
it, and after the clerk had recorded the name and number. This, of
course, gave the church officers knowledge concerning the candidate for
whom each man voted. Its purpose needs no explanation.
In August, 1854, a force of some three hundred soldiers, under command
of Lieutenant Colonel E. J. Steptoe of the United States army, on their
way to the Pacific coast, arrived in Salt Lake City and passed the
succeeding winter there. Young's term as governor was about to expire,
and the appointment of his successor rested with President Pierce.
Public opinion in the East had become more outspoken against the
Mormons since the resignation of the first federal officers sent to the
territory, the "revelation" concerning polygamy having been publicly
avowed meanwhile, and there was an expressed feeling that a non-Mormon
should be governor. Accordingly, President Pierce, in December, 1854,
offered the governorship to Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe.
Brigham Young, just before and after this period, openly declared that
he would not surrender the actual government of the territory to any
man. In a discourse in the Tabernacle, on June 19, 1853, in which
he reviewed the events of 1851, he said, "We have got a territorial
government, and I am and will be governor, and no power can hinder it,
until the Lord Almighty says, 'Brigham, you need not be governor any
longer.'"* In a defiant discourse in the Tabernacle, on February 18,
1855, Young again stated his position on this subject: "For a man to
come here [as governor] and infringe upon my individual rights and
privileges, and upon those of my brethren, will never meet my sanction,
and I will scourge such a one until he leaves. I am after him." Defining
his position further, and the independence of his people, he said: "Come
on with your knives, your swords, and your faggots of fire, and destroy
the whole of us rather than we will forsake our religion. Whether
the doctrine of plurality of wives is true or false is none of your
business. We have as good a right to adopt tenets in our religion as
the Church of England, or the Methodists, or the Baptists, or any other
denomination have to theirs."**
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 187.
** Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 187-188.
Having thus defied the federal appointing power, the nomination of
Colonel Steptoe as Young's successor might have been expected to cause
an outbreak; but the Mormon leaders were always diplomatic--at least,
when Young did not lose his temper. The outcome of this appointment was
its declination by Steptoe, a petition to President Pierce for Young's
reappointment signed by Steptoe himself and all the federal officers in
the territory, and the granting of the request of these petitioners.
Mrs. C. B. Waite, wife of Associate Justice C. B. Waite, one of
Lincoln's appointees, gives a circumstantial account of the manner in
which Colonel Steptoe was influenced to decline the nomination and sign
the petition in favor of Young.* Two women, whose beauty then attracted
the attention of Salt Lake City society, were a relative by marriage
of Brigham Young and an actress in the church theatre. The federal army
officers were favored with a good deal of their society. When Steptoe's
appointment as governor was announced, Young called these women to
his assistance. In conformity with the plan then suggested, Young one
evening suddenly demanded admission to Colonel Steptoe's office, which
was granted after considerable delay. Passing into the back room, he
found the two women there, dressed in men's clothes and with their faces
concealed by their hats. He sent the women home with a rebuke, and then
described to Steptoe the danger he was in if the women's friends learned
of the incident, and the disgrace which would follow its exposure.
Steptoe's declination of the nomination and his recommendation of Young
soon followed.
President Pierce's selection of judicial officers for Utah was not made
with proper care, nor with due regard to the dignity of the places to
be filled. Chief Justice Kinney took with him to Utah a large stock of
goods which he sold at retail after his arrival there, and he also kept
a boarding-house in Salt Lake City. With his "trade" dependent on Mormon
customers, he had every object in cultivating their popularity. Known as
a "Jack-Mormon" in Iowa, Mrs. Waite declared that his uniform course, to
the time about which she wrote, had been "to aid and abet Brigham Young
in his ambitious schemes," and that he was then "an open apologist
and advocate of polygamy." Judge Drummond's course in Utah was in many
respects scandalous. A former member of the bench in Illinois writes to
me: "I remember that when Drummond's appointment was announced there was
considerable comment as to his lack of fitness for the place, and, after
the troubles between him and the Mormon leaders got aired through the
press, members of the bar from his part of the state said they did not
blame the Mormons--that it was an imposition upon them to have sent him
out there as a judge. I never heard his moral character discussed."
If the Mormon leaders had shown any respect for the government at
Washington, or for the reputable men appointed to territorial offices,
more attention might be paid to their hostility manifested to certain
individuals.
* "The Mormon Prophet," p. 36, confirmed by Beadle's "Life in
Utah," p. 171.
A few of the leading questions at issue under the new territorial
officers will illustrate the nature of the government with which they
had to deal. The territorial legislature had passed acts defining the
powers and duties of the territorial courts. These acts provided that
the district courts should have original jurisdiction, both civil and
criminal, wherever not otherwise provided by law. Chapter 64 (approved
January 14, 1864) provided as follows: "All questions of law, the
meaning of writings other than law, and the admissibility of testimony
shall be decided by the court; and no laws or parts of laws shall be
read, argued, cited, or adopted in any courts, during any trial,
except those enacted by the governor and legislative assembly of this
territory, and those passed by the Congress of the United States, WHEN
APPLICABLE; and no report, decision, or doings of any court shall be
read, argued, cited, or adopted as precedent in any other trial."
This obliterated at a stroke the whole body of the English common law.
Another act provided that, by consent of the court and the parties, any
person could be selected to act as judge in a particular case. As the
district court judges were federal appointees, a judge of probate
was provided for each county, to be elected by joint ballot of the
legislature. These probate courts, besides the authority legitimately
belonging to such tribunals, were given "power to exercise original
jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, as well in chancery as at common
law." Thus there were in the territory two kinds of courts, to one of
which alone a non-Mormon could look for justice, and to the other of
which every Mormon would appeal when he was not prevented.
The act of Congress organizing the territory provided for the
appointment of a marshal, approved by the President; the territorial
legislature on March 3, 1852, provided for another marshal to be elected
by joint ballot, and for an attorney general. A non-Mormon had succeeded
the original Mormon who was appointed as federal marshal, and he took
the ground that he should have charge of all business pertaining to the
marshal's office in the United States courts. Judge Stiles having issued
writs to the federal marshal, the latter was not able to serve them, and
the demand was openly made that only territorial law should be enforced
in Utah. When the question of jurisdiction came before the judge, three
Mormon lawyers appeared in behalf of the Mormon claim, and one of them,
James Ferguson, openly told the judge that, if he decided against him,
they "would take him from the bench d--d quick." Judge Stiles adjourned
his court, and applied to Governor Young for assistance; but got only
the reply that "the boys had got their spunk up, and he would not
interfere," and that, if Judge Stiles could not enforce the United
States laws, the sooner he adjourned court the better.* All the records
and papers of the United States court were kept in Judge Stiles's
office. In his absence, Ferguson led a crowd to the office, seized and
deposited in a safe belonging to Young the court papers, and, piling up
the personal books and papers of the judge in an outhouse, set fire to
them. The judge, supposing that the court papers were included in the
bonfire, innocently made that statement in an affidavit submitted on his
return to Washington in 1857.
* This account is given in Mrs. Waite's "The Mormon Prophet."
Tullidge omits the incident in his "History of Salt Lake City."
Judge Drummond, reversing the policy of Chief Justice Kinney and Judge
Shaver, announced, before the opening of the first session of his court,
that he should ignore all proceedings of the territorial probate courts
except such as pertained to legitimate probate business. This position
was at once recognized as a challenge of the entire Mormon judicial
system,* and steps were promptly taken to overthrow it. There are
somewhat conflicting accounts of the method adopted. Mrs. Waite, in
her "Mormon Prophet," Hickman, in his confessions, and Remy, in his
"Journey," have all described it with variations. All agree that a
quarrel was brought about between the judge and a Jew, which led to the
arrest of both of them. "During the prosecution of the case," says Mrs.
Waite, "the judge gave some sort of a stipulation that he would not
interfere any further with the probate courts."
* A member of the legislature wrote to his brother in England, of
Drummond: He has brass to declare in open court that the Utah laws
are founded in ignorance, and has attempted to set some of the most
important ones aside,... and he will be able to appreciate the merits of
a returned compliment some day."
* Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City," p. 412.
Judge Stiles left the territory in the spring of 1857, and gave the
government an account of his treatment in the form of an affidavit when
he reached Washington. Judge Drummond held court a short time for Judge
Stiles in Carson County (now Nevada)* in the spring of 1857, and then
returned to the East by way of California, not concealing his opinion
of Mormon rule on the way, and giving the government a statement of the
case in a letter resigning his judgeship.
* The settlement of what is now Nevada was begun by both Mormons
and non-Mormons in 1854, and, the latter being in the majority, the Utah
legislature organized the entire western part of the territory as one
county, called Carson, and Governor Young appointed Orson Hyde
its probate judge. Many persons coming in after the settlement of
California, as miners, farmers, or stock-raisers, the Mormons saw their
majority in danger, and ordered the non-Mormons to leave. Both sides
took up arms, and they camped in sight of each other for two weeks. The
Mormons, learning that their opponents were to receive reenforcements
from California, agreed on equal rights for all in that part of the
territory; but when the legislature learned of this, it repealed the
county act, recalled the judge, and left the district without any legal
protection whatever. Thus matters remained until late in 1858, when a
probate judge was quietly appointed for Carson Valley. After this an
election was held, but although the non-Mormons won at the polls, the
officers elected refused to qualify and enforce Mormon statutes.--Letter
of Delegate-elect J. M. Crane of Nevada, "The Mormon Prophet," pp.
4l-45.
After the departure of the non-Mormon federal judges from Utah, the only
non-Mormon officers left there were those belonging to the office of
the surveyor general, and two Indian agents. Toward these officers the
Mormons were as hostile as they had been toward the judges, and the
latest information that the government received about the disposition
and intentions of the Mormons came from them.
The Mormon view of their title to the land in Salt Lake Valley appeared
in Young's declaration on his first Sunday there, that it was theirs and
would be divided by the officers of the church.* Tullidge, explaining
this view in his history published in 1886, says that this was simply
following out the social plan of a Zion which Smith attempted in Ohio,
Missouri, and Illinois, under "revelation." He explains: "According to
the primal law of colonization, recognized in all ages, it was THEIR
LAND if they could hold and possess it. They could have done this so far
as the Mexican government was concerned, which government probably never
would even have made the first step to overthrow the superstructure of
these Mormon society builders. At that date, before this territory was
ceded to the United States, Brigham Young, as the master builder of the
colonies which were soon to spread throughout these valleys, could with
absolute propriety give the above utterances on the land question."**
* "They will not, however, without protest, buy the land, and
hope that grants will be made to actual settlers or the state,
sufficient to cover their improvements. If not, the state will be
obliged to buy, and then confirm the titles already given."--Gunnison.
"The Mormons," 1852, p. 414.
** Captain Gunnison, who as lieutenant accompanied Stansbury's
surveying party and printed a book giving his personal observations, was
murdered in 1853 while surveying a railroad route at a camp on
Sevier River. His party were surprised by a band of Pah Utes while at
breakfast, and nine of them were killed. The charge was often made that
this massacre was inspired by Mormons, but it has not been supported by
direct evidence.
When the act organizing the territory was passed, very little of the
Indian title to the land had been extinguished, and the Indians made
bitter complaints of the seizure of their homes and hunting-grounds, and
the establishment of private rights to canyons and ferries, by the
people who professed so great a regard for the "Lamanites." Congress,
in February, 1855, created the office of surveyor general of Utah and
defined his duties. The presence of this officer was resented at once,
and as soon as Surveyor General David H. Burr arrived in Salt Lake City
the church directed all its members to convey their lands to Young as
trustee in trust for the church, "in consideration of the good will
which ---- have to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."
Explaining this order in a discourse in the Tabernacle on March 1, 1857,
H. C. Kimball said: "I do not compel you to do it; the trustee in trust
does not; God does not. But He says that if you will do this and the
other things which He has counselled for our good, do so and prove
Him.... If you trifle with me when I tell you the truth, you will trifle
with Brother Brigham, and if you trifle with him you will also trifle
with angels and with God, and thus you will trifle yourselves down to
hell."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, pp. 249, 252.
The Mormon policy toward the surveyors soon took practical shape. On
August 30, 1856, Burr reported a nearly fatal assault on one of his
deputies by three Danites. Deputy Surveyor Craig reported efforts of
the Mormons to stir up the Indians against the surveyors, and quoted a
suggestion of the Deseret News that the surveyors be prosecuted in the
territorial court for trespass. In February, 1857, Burr reported a visit
he had had from the clerk of the Supreme Court, the acting district
attorney, and the territorial marshal, who told him plainly that the
country was theirs.
They showed him a copy of a report that he had made to Washington,
charging Young with extensive depredations, warned him that he could
not write to Washington without their knowledge, and ordered that such
letter writing should stop. "The fact is," Burr added, "these people
repudiate the authority of the United States in this country, and are in
open rebellion against the general government.... So strong have been
my apprehensions of danger to the surveyors that I scarcely deemed it
prudent to send any out.... We are by no means sure that we will be
permitted to leave, for it is boldly asserted we would not get away
alive."* He did escape early in the spring.
* For text of reports, see House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session,
35th Congress.
The reports of the Indian agents to the commissioner at Washington at
this time were of the same character. Mormon trespasses on Indian land
had caused more than one conflict with the savages, but, when there was
a prospect of hostilities with the government, the Mormons took steps to
secure Indian aid. In May, 1855, Indian Agent Hurt called the attention
of the commissioner at Washington to the fact that the Mormons at their
recent Conference had appointed a large number of missionaries to preach
among the "Lamanites"; that these missionaries were "a class of lawless
young men," and, as their influence was likely to be in favor of
hostilities with the whites, he suggested that all Indian officers
receive warning on the subject. Hurt was added to the list of fugitive
federal officers from Utah, deeming it necessary to flee when news came
of the approach of the troops in the fall of 1857. His escape was quite
dramatic, some of his Indian friends assisting him. They reached General
Johnston's camp about the middle of October, after suffering greatly
from hunger and cold.
The Mormon leaders could scarcely fail to realize that a point must be
reached when the federal government would assert its authority in
Utah territory, but they deemed a conflict with the government of less
serious moment than a surrender which would curtail their own civil and
criminal jurisdiction, and bring their doctrine of polygamy within reach
of the law. A specimen of the unbridled utterances of these leaders
in those days will be found in a discourse by Mayor Grant in the
Tabernacle, on March 2, 1856:--
"Who is afraid to die? None but the wicked. If they want to send troops
here, let them come to those who have imported filth and whores, though
we can attend to that class without so much expense to the Government.
They will threaten us with United States troops! Why, your impudence and
ignorance would bring a blush to the cheek of the veriest camp-follower
among them. We ask no odds of you, you rotten carcasses, and I am not
going to bow one hair's breadth to your influence. I would rather be cut
into inch pieces than succumb one particle to such filthiness .... If
we were to establish a whorehouse on every corner of our streets, as in
nearly all other cities outside of Utah, either by law or otherwise, we
should doubtless then be considered good fellows."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, pp. 234-235
Two weeks later Brigham Young, in a sermon in the same place, said, "I
said then, and I shall always say, that I shall be governor as long as
the Lord Almighty wishes me to govern this people."*
* Ibid., p. 258.
In January, 1853, Orson Pratt, as Mormon representative, began the
publication in Washington, D.C., of a monthly periodical called The
Seer, in which he defended polygamy, explained the Mormon creed, and set
forth the attitude of the Mormons toward the United States government.
The latter subject occupied a large part of the issue of January,
1854, in the shape of questions and answers. The following will give an
illustration of their tone:--
"Q.--In what manner have the people of the United States treated the
divine message contained in the Book of Mormon?
"A.--They have closed their eyes, their ears, their hearts and their
doors against it. They have scorned, rejected and hated the servants of
God who were sent to bear testimony of it.
"Q.--In what manner has the United States treated the Saints who have
believed in this divine message?
"A.--They have proceeded to the most savage and outrageous
persecutions;... dragged little children from their hiding-places, and,
placing the muzzles of their guns to their heads, have blown out their
brains, with the most horrid oaths and imprecations. They have taken
the fair daughters of American citizens, bound them on benches used for
public worship, and there, in great numbers, ravished them until death
came to their relief."
Further answers were in the shape of an argument that the federal
government was responsible for the losses of the Saints in Missouri and
Illinois.
CHAPTER XII. -- THE MORMON "WAR"
The government at Washington and the people of the Eastern states knew a
good deal more about Mormonism in 1856 than they did when Fillmore gave
the appointment of governor to Young in 1850. The return of one federal
officer after another from Utah with a report that his office
was untenable, even if his life was not in danger, the practical
nullification of federal law, and the light that was beginning to be
shed on Mormon social life by correspondents of Eastern newspapers had
aroused enough public interest in the matter to lead the politicians to
deem it worthy of their attention. Accordingly, the Republican National
Convention, in June, 1856, inserted in its platform a plank declaring
that the constitution gave Congress sovereign power over the
territories, and that "it is both the right and the duty of Congress to
prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism--polygamy and
slavery."
A still more striking proof of the growing political importance of the
Mormon question was afforded by the attention paid to it by Stephen A.
Douglas in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, on June 12, 1856, when
he was hoping to secure the Democratic nomination for President.
This former friend of the Mormons, their spokesman in the Senate, now
declared that reports from the territory seemed to justify the belief
that nine-tenths of its inhabitants were aliens; that all were bound by
horrid oaths and penalties to recognize and maintain the authority of
Brigham Young; and that the Mormon government was forming alliances
with the Indians, and organizing Danite bands to rob and murder American
citizens. "Under this view of the subject," said he, "I think it is the
duty of the President, as I have no doubt it is his fixed purpose, to
remove Brigham Young and all his followers from office, and to fill
their places with bold, able, and true men; and to cause a thorough and
searching investigation into all the crimes and enormities which are
alleged to be perpetrated daily in that territory under the direction
of Brigham Young and his confederates; and to use all the military force
necessary to protect the officers in discharge of their duties and to
enforce the laws of the land. When the authentic evidence shall arrive,
if it shall establish the facts which are believed to exist, it will
become the duty of Congress to apply the knife, and cut out this
loathsome, disgusting ulcer."*
* Text of the speech in New York Times of June 23, 1856.
This, of course, caused the Mormons to pour out on Judge Douglas the
vials of their wrath, and, when he failed to secure the presidential
nomination, they found in his defeat the verification of one of Smith's
prophecies.
The Mormons, on their part, had never ceased their demands for
statehood, and another of their efforts had been made in the preceding
spring, when a new constitution of the State of Deseret was adopted by a
convention over which the notorious Jedediah M. Grant presided, and sent
to Washington with a memorial pleading for admission to the Union, "that
another star, shedding mild radiance from the tops of the mountains,
midway between the borders of the Eastern and Western civilization, may
add its effulgence to that bright light now so broadly illumining the
governmental pathway of nations"; and declaring that "the loyalty of
Utah has been variously and most thoroughly tested." Congress treated
this application with practical contempt, the Senate laying the memorial
on the table, and the chairman of the House Committee on Territories,
Galusha A. Grow, refusing to present the constitution to the House.
Alarmed at the manifestations of public feeling in the East, and the
demand that President Buchanan should do something to vindicate at least
the dignity of the government, the Mormon leaders and press renewed
their attacks on the character of all the federal officers who had
criticized them, and the Deseret News urged the President to send to
Utah "one or more civilians on a short visit to look about them and see
what they can see, and return and report." The value of observations by
such "short visitors" on such occasions need not be discussed.
President Buchanan, instead of following any Mormon advice, soon after
his inauguration directed the organization of a body of troops to march
to Utah to uphold the federal authorities, and in July, after several
persons had declined the office, appointed as governor of Utah Alfred
Cumming of Georgia. The appointee was a brother of Colonel William
Cumming, who won renown as a soldier in the War of 1812, who was a Union
party leader in the nullification contest in Jackson's time, and who was
a participant in a duel with G. McDuffie that occupied a good deal of
attention. Alfred Cumming had filled no more important positions than
those of mayor of Augusta, Georgia, sutler in the Mexican War, and
superintendent of Indian affairs on the upper Missouri. A much more
commendable appointment made at the same time was that of D. R. Eckles,
a Kentuckian by birth, but then a resident of Indiana, to be chief
justice of the territory. John Cradlebaugh and C. E. Sinclair were
appointed associate justices, with John Hartnett as secretary, and Peter
K. Dotson as marshal. The new governor gave the first illustration of
his conception of his duties by remaining in the East, while the troops
were moving, asking for an increase of his salary, a secret service
fund, and for transportation to Utah. Only the last of these requests
was complied with.
President Buchanan's position as regards Utah at this time was thus
stated in his first annual message to Congress (December 8, 1857):--
"The people of Utah almost exclusively belong to this [Mormon] church,
and, believing with a fanatical spirit that he [Young] is Governor of
the Territory by divine appointment, they obey his commands as if these
were direct revelations from heaven. If, therefore, he chooses that his
government shall come into collision with the government of the United
States, the members of the Mormon church will yield implicit obedience
to his will. Unfortunately, existing facts leave but little doubt that
such is his determination. Without entering upon a minute history of
occurrences, it is sufficient to say that all the officers of the United
States, judicial and executive, with the single exception of two Indian
agents, have found it necessary for their own safety to withdraw from
the Territory, and there no longer remained any government in Utah but
the despotism of Brigham Young. This being the condition of affairs in
the Territory, I could not mistake the path of duty. As chief executive
magistrate, I was bound to restore the supremacy of the constitution and
laws within its limits. In order to effect this purpose, I appointed a
new governor and other federal officers for Utah, and sent with them a
military force for their protection, and to aid as a posse comitatus in
case of need in the execution of the laws.
"With the religious opinions of the Mormons, as long as they remained
mere opinions, however deplorable in themselves and revolting to the
moral and religious sentiments of all Christendom, I have no right to
interfere. Actions alone, when in violation of the constitution and
laws of the United States, become the legitimate subjects for the
jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. My instructions to Governor
Cumming have, therefore, been framed in strict accordance with these
principles."
This statement of the situation of affairs in Utah, and of the duty of
the President in the circumstances, did not admit of criticism. But
the country at that time was in a state of intense excitement over the
slavery question, with the situation in Kansas the centre of attention;
and it was charged that Buchanan put forward the Mormon issue as a part
of his scheme to "gag the North" and force some question besides
slavery to the front; and that Secretary of War Floyd eagerly seized
the opportunity to remove "the flower of the American army" and a vast
amount of munition and supplies to a distant place, remote from Eastern
connections. The principal newspapers in this country were intensely
partisan in those days, and party organs like the New York Tribune could
be counted on to criticise any important step taken by the Democratic
President. Such Mormon agents as Colonel Kane and Dr. Bernhisel, the
Utah Delegate to Congress, were doing active work in New York and
Washington, and some of it with effect. Horace Greeley, in his "Overland
journey," describing his call on Brigham Young a few years later,
says that he was introduced by "my friend Dr. Bernhisel." The "Tribune
Almanac" for 1859, in an article on the Utah troubles, quoted as "too
true" Young's declaration that "for the last twenty-five years we have
trusted officials of the government, from constables and justices to
judges, governors, and presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision,
insulted and betrayed."* Ulterior motives aside, no President ever had
a clearer duty than had Buchanan to maintain the federal authority in
Utah, and to secure to all residents in and travellers through
that territory the rights of life and property. The just ground for
criticising him is, not that he attempted to do this, but that he
faltered by the way.**
* Greeley's leaning to the Mormon side was quite persistent,
leading him to support Governor Cumming a little later against the
federal judges. The Mormons never forgot this. A Washington letter
of April 24, 1874, to the New York Times said: "When Mr. Greeley was
nominated for President the Mormons heartily hoped for his election. The
church organs and the papers taken in the territory were all hostile to
the administration, and their clamor deceived for a time people far more
enlightened than the followers of the modern Mohammed. It is said
that, while the canvass was pending, certain representatives of the
Liberal-Democratic alliance bargained with Brigham Young, and that he
contributed a very large sum of money to the treasury of the Greeley
fund, and that, in consideration of this contribution, he received
assurances that, if he should send a polygamist to Congress, no
opposition would be made by the supporters of the administration that
was to be, to his admission to the House. Brigham therefore sent Cannon
instead of returning Hooper."
** It is curious to notice that the Utah troubles are entirely
ignored in the "Life of James Buchanan" (1883) by George Ticknor Curtis,
who was the counsel for the Mormons in the argument concerning polygamy
before the United States Supreme Court in 1886.
Early in 1856 arrangements were entered into with H. C. Kimball for a
contract to carry the mail between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake
City. Young saw in this the nucleus of a big company that would maintain
a daily express and mail service to and from the Mormon centre, and he
at once organized the Brigham Young Express Carrying Company, and had
it commended to the people from the pulpit. But recent disclosures
of Mormon methods and purposes had naturally caused the government to
question the propriety of confiding the Utah and transcontinental mails
to Mormon hands, and on June 10, 1857, Kimball was notified that the
government would not execute the contract with him, "the unsettled state
of things at Salt Lake City rendering the mails unsafe under present
circumstances." Mormon writers make much of the failure to execute this
mail contract as an exciting cause of the "war." Tullidge attributes
the action of the administration to three documents--a letter from Mail
Contractor W. M. F. Magraw to the President, describing the situation in
Utah, Judge Drummond's letter of resignation, and a letter from Indian
Agent T. S. Twiss, dated July 13, 1856, informing the government that a
large Mormon colony had taken possession of Deer Creek Valley, only one
hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, driving out a settlement of Sioux
whom the agent had induced to plant corn there, and charging that the
Mormon occupation was made with a view to the occupancy of the country,
and "under cover of a contract of the Mormon church to carry the
mails."* Tullidge's statement could be made with hope of its acceptance
only to persons who either lacked the opportunity or inclination to
ascertain the actual situation in Utah and the President's sources of
information.
* All these may be found in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session,
35th Congress.
As to the mails, no autocratic government like that of Brigham Young
would neglect to make what use it pleased of them in its struggle with
the authorities at Washington. As early as November, 1851, Indian Agent
Holman wrote to the Indian commissioner at Washington from Salt Lake
City: "The Gentiles, as we are called who do not belong to the Mormon
church, have no confidence in the management of the post-office here. It
is believed by many that there is an examination of all letters coming
and going, in order that they may ascertain what is said of them and
by whom it is said. This opinion is so strong that all communications
touching their character or conduct are either sent to Bridger or
Laramie, there to be mailed. I send this communication through a friend
to Laramie, to be there mailed for the States."
Testimony on this point four years later, from an independent source, is
found in a Salt Lake City letter, of November 3, 1855, to the New York
Herald. The writer said: "From September 5, to the 27th instant the
people of this territory had not received any news from the States
except such as was contained in a few broken files of California
papers.... Letters and papers come up missing, and in the same mail come
papers of very ancient dates; but letters once missing may be considered
as irrevocably lost. Of all the numerous numbers of Harper's, Gleason's,
and other illustrated periodicals subscribed for by the inhabitants of
this territory, not one, I have been informed, has ever reached here."
The forces selected for the expedition to Utah consisted of the Second
Dragoons, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth in view of possible trouble
in Kansas; the Fifth Infantry, stationed at that time in Florida; the
Tenth Infantry, then in the forts in Minnesota; and Phelps's Battery of
the Fourth Artillery, that had distinguished itself at Buena Vista--a
total of about fifteen hundred men. Reno's Battery was added later.
General Scott's order provided for two thousand head of cattle to
be driven with the troops, six months' supply of bacon, desiccated
vegetables, 250 Sibley tents, and stoves enough to supply at least the
sick. General Scott himself had advised a postponement of the expedition
until the next year, on account of the late date at which it would
start, but he was overruled. The commander originally selected for this
force was General W. S. Harney; but the continued troubles in Kansas
caused his retention there (as well as that of the Second Dragoons),
and, when the government found that the Mormons proposed serious
resistance, the chief command was given to Colonel Albert Sidney
Johnston, a West Point graduate, who had made a record in the Black Hawk
War; in the service of the state of Texas, first in 1836 under General
Rusk, and eventually as commander-in-chief in the field, and later as
Secretary of War; and in the Mexican War as colonel of the First Texas
Rifles. He was killed at the battle of Shiloh during the War of the
Rebellion.
General Harney's letter of instruction, dated June 29, giving the
views of General Scott and the War Department, stated that the civil
government in Utah was in a state of rebellion; he was to attack no body
of citizens, however, except at the call of the governor, the judges, or
the marshals, the troops to be considered as a posse comitatus; he was
made responsible for "a jealous, harmonious, and thorough cooperation"
with the governor, accepting his views when not in conflict with
military judgment and prudence. While the general impression, both at
Washington and among the troops, was that no actual resistance to this
force would be made by Young's followers, the general was told that
"prudence requires that you should anticipate resistance, general,
organized, and formidable, at the threshold."
Great activity was shown in forwarding the necessary supplies to Fort
Leavenworth, and in the last two weeks of July most of the assigned
troops were under way. Colonel Johnston arrived at Fort Leavenworth
on September 11, assigned six companies of the Second Dragoons, under
Lieutenant Colonel P. St. George Cooke, as an escort to Governor
Cumming, and followed immediately after them. Major (afterward General)
Fitz John Porter, who accompanied Colonel Johnston as assistant adjutant
general, describing the situation in later years, said:--
"So late in the season had the troops started on this march that fears
were entertained that, if they succeeded in reaching their destination,
it would be only by abandoning the greater part of their supplies, and
endangering the lives of many men amid the snows of the Rocky Mountains.
So much was a terrible disaster feared by those acquainted with the
rigors of a winter life in the Rocky Mountains, that General Harney was
said to have predicted it, and to have induced Walker [of Kansas] to ask
his retention."
Meanwhile, the Mormons had received word of what was coming. When A. O.
Smoot reached a point one hundred miles west of Independence, with the
mail for Salt Lake City, he met heavy freight teams which excited his
suspicion, and at Kansas City obtained sufficient particulars of the
federal expedition. Returning to Fort Laramie, he and O. P. Rockwell
started on July 18, in a light wagon drawn by two fast horses, to carry
the news to Brigham Young. They made the 513 miles in five days and
three hours, arriving on the evening of July 23. Undoubtedly they gave
Young this important information immediately. But Young kept it to
himself that night. On the following day occurred the annual celebration
of the arrival of the pioneers in the valley. To the big gathering of
Saints at Big Cottonwood Lake, twenty-four miles from the city, Young
dramatically announced the news of the coming "invasion." His position
was characteristically defiant. He declared that "he would ask no odds
of Uncle Sam or the devil," and predicted that he would be President
of the United States in twelve years, or would dictate the successful
candidate. Recalling his declaration ten years earlier that, after ten
years of peace, they would ask no odds of the United States, he declared
that that time had passed, and that thenceforth they would be a free and
independent state--the State of Deseret.
The followers of Young eagerly joined in his defiance of the government,
and in the succeeding weeks the discourses and the editorials of the
Deseret News breathed forth dire threats against the advancing foe.
Thus, the News of August 12 told the Washington authorities, "If you
intend to continue the appointment of certain officers,"--that is, if
you do not intend to surrender to the church federal jurisdiction in
Utah--"we respectfully suggest that you appoint actually intelligent and
honorable men, who will wisely attend to their own duties, and send
them unaccompanied by troops"--that is, judges who would acknowledge the
supremacy of the Mormon courts, or who, if not, would have no force to
sustain them. This was followed by a threat that if any other kind
of men were sent "they will really need a far larger bodyguard
than twenty-five hundred soldiers."* The government was, in another
editorial, called on to "entirely clear the track, and accord us the
privilege of carrying our own mails at our own expense," and was accused
of "high handedly taking away our rights and privileges, one by one,
under pretext that the most devilish should blush at."
* An Englishman, in a letter to the New York Observer, dated
London, May 26, 1857, said, "The English Mormons make no secret of
their expectation that a collision will take place with the American
authorities," and he quoted from a Mormon preacher's words as follows:
"As to a collision with the American Government, there cannot be two
opinions on the matter. We shall have judges, governors, senators and
dragoons invading us, imprisoning and murdering us; but we are prepared,
and are preparing judges, governors, senators and dragoons who will
know how to dispose of their friends. The little stone will come into
collision with the iron and clay and grind them to powder. It will be in
Utah as it was in Nauvoo, with this difference, we are prepared now for
offensive or defensive war; we were not then." Young in the pulpit was
in his element. One example of his declarations must suffice:--
"I am not going to permit troops here for the protection of the priests
and the rabble in their efforts to drive us from the land we possess....
You might as well tell me that you can make hell into a powder house as
to tell me that they intend to keep an army here and have peace.... I
have told you that if there is any man or woman who is not willing to
destroy everything of their property that would be of use to an enemy
if left, I would advise them to leave the territory, and I again say so
to-day; for when the time comes to burn and lay waste our improvements,
if any man undertakes to shield his, he will be treated as a traitor;
for judgment will be laid to the line and righteousness to the
plummet."*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 160.
The official papers of Governor Young are perhaps the best illustrations
of the spirit with which the federal authorities had to deal.
Words, however, were not the only weapons which the Mormons employed
against the government at the start. Daniel H. Wells, "Lieutenant
General" and commander of the Nauvoo Legion, which organization had
been kept up in Utah, issued, on August 1, a despatch to each of twelve
commanding officers of the Legion in the different settlements in the
territory, declaring that "when anarchy takes the place of orderly
government, and mobocratic tyranny usurps the powers of the rulers, they
[the people of the territory] have left the inalienable right to defend
themselves against all aggression upon their constitutional privileges";
and directing them to hold their commands ready to march to any part
of the territory, with ammunition, wagons, and clothing for a winter
campaign. In the Legion were enrolled all the able-bodied males between
eighteen and forty-five years, under command of a lieutenant general,
four generals, eleven colonels, and six majors.
The first mobilization of this force took place on August 15, when
a company was sent eastward over the usual route to aid incoming
immigrants and learn the strength of the federal force. By the
employment of similar scouts the Mormons were thus kept informed of
every step of the army's advance. A scouting party camped within half a
mile of the foremost company near Devil's Gate on September 22, and did
not lose sight of it again until it went into camp at Harris's Fort,
where supplies had been forwarded in advance.
Captain Stewart Van Vliet, of General Harney's staff, was sent ahead
of the troops, leaving Fort Leavenworth on July 28, to visit Salt Lake
City, ascertain the disposition of the church authorities and the people
toward the government, and obtain any other information that would be of
use. Arriving in Salt Lake City in thirty three and a half days, he was
received with affability by Young, and there was a frank interchange of
views between them. Young recited the past trials of the Mormons farther
east, and said that "therefore he and the people of Utah had determined
to resist all persecution at the commencement, and that the TROOPS NOW
ON THE MARCH FOR UTAH SHOULD NOT ENTER THE GREAT SALT LAKE VALLEY. As he
uttered these words, all those present concurred most heartily."* Young
said they had an abundance of everything required by the federal troops,
but that nothing would be sold to the government. When told that,
even if they did succeed in preventing the present military force from
entering the valley the coming winter, they would have to yield to a
larger force the following year, the reply was that that larger force
would find Utah a desert; they would burn every house, cut down every
tree, lay waste every field. "We have three years' provisions on hand,"
Young added, "which we will cache, and then take to the mountains and
bid defiance to all the powers of the government."
* The quotations are from Captain Van Vliet's official report in
House Ex. Doc. No. 71, previously referred to. Tullidge's "History of
Salt Lake City" (p. 16l) gives extracts from Apostle Woodruff's private
journal of notes on the interview between Young and Captain Van Vliet,
on September 12 and 13, in which Young is reported as saying: "We do not
want to fight the United States, but if they drive us to it we shall do
the best we can. God will overthrow them. We are the supporters of the
constitution of the United States. If they dare to force the issue,
I shall not hold the Indians by the wrist any longer for white men to
shoot at them; they shall go ahead and do as they please."
When Young called for a vote on that proposition by an audience of four
thousand persons in the Tabernacle, every hand was raised to vote yes.
Captain Van Vliet summed up his view of the situation thus: that it
would not be difficult for the Mormons to prevent the entrance of the
approaching force that season; that they would not resort to actual
hostilities until the last moment, but would burn the grass, stampede
the animals, and cause delay in every manner.
The day after Captain Van Vliet left Salt Lake City, Governor Young gave
official expression to his defiance of the federal government by issuing
the following proclamation:--
"Citizens of Utah: We are invaded by a hostile force, who are evidently
assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction.
"For the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the
government, from constables and justices to judges, governors, and
Presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted, and
betrayed. Our houses have been plundered and then burned, our fields
laid waste, our principal men butchered, while under the pledged faith
of the government for their safety, and our families driven from their
homes to find that shelter in the barren wilderness and that protection
among hostile savages, which were denied them in the boasted abodes of
Christianity and civilization.
"The constitution of our common country guarantees unto us all that we
do now or have ever claimed. If the constitutional rights which pertain
unto us as American citizens were extended to Utah, according to the
spirit and meaning thereof, and fairly and impartially administered, it
is all that we can ask, all that we have ever asked.
"Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudice existing against
us, because of our religious faith, to send out a formidable host to
accomplish our destruction. We have had no privilege or opportunity of
defending ourselves from the false, foul, and unjust aspersions against
us before the nation. The government has not condescended to cause an
investigating committee, or other persons, to be sent to inquire into
and ascertain the truth, as is customary in such cases. We know those
aspersions to be false; but that avails us nothing. We are condemned
unheard, and forced to an issue with an armed mercenary mob, which has
been sent against us at the instigation of anonymous letter writers,
ashamed to father the base, slanderous falsehoods which they have given
to the public; of corrupt officials, who have brought false accusations
against us to screen themselves in their own infamy; and of hireling
priests and howling editors, who prostitute the truth for filthy lucre's
sake.
"The issue which has thus been forced upon us compels us to resort to
the great first law of self-preservation, and stand in our own defence,
a right guaranteed to us by the genius of the institutions of our
country, and upon which the government is based. Our duty to ourselves,
to our families, requires us not to tamely submit to be driven and
slain, without an attempt to preserve ourselves; our duty to our
country, our holy religion, our God, to freedom and liberty, requires
that we should not quietly stand still and see those fetters forging
around us which were calculated to enslave and bring us in subjection to
an unlawful, military despotism, such as can only emanate, in a country
of constitutional law, from usurpation, tyranny, and oppression.
"Therefore, I, Brigham Young, Governor and Superintendent of Indian
Affairs for the Territory of Utah, in the name of the people of the
United States in the Territory of Utah, forbid:
"First. All armed forces of every description from coming into this
Territory, under any pretence whatever.
"Second. That all forces in said Territory hold themselves in readiness
to march at a moment's notice to repel any and all such invasion.
"Third. Martial law is hereby declared to exist in this Territory from
and after the publication of this proclamation, and no person shall be
allowed to pass or repass into or through or from this Territory without
a permit from the proper officer.
"Given under my hand and seal, at Great Salt Lake City, Territory of
Utah, this 15th day of September, A.D. 1857, and of the independence of
the United States of America the eighty-second.
"BRIGHAM YOUNG."
The advancing troops received from Captain Van Vliet as he passed
eastward their first information concerning the attitude of the
Mormons toward them, and Colonel Alexander, in command of the foremost
companies, accepted his opinion that the Mormons would not attack them
if the army did not advance beyond Fort Bridger or Fort Supply, this
idea being strengthened by the fact that one hundred wagon loads of
stores, undefended, had remained unmolested on Ham's Fork for three
weeks. The first division of the federal troops marched across Greene
River on September 27, and hurried on thirty five miles to what was
named Camp Winfield, on Ham's Fork, a confluent of Black Fork, which
emptied into Greene River. Phelps's and Reno's batteries and the Fifth
Infantry reached there about the same time, but there was no cavalry,
the kind of force most needed, because of the detention of the Dragoons
in Kansas.
On September 30 General Wells forwarded to Colonel Alexander, from Fort
Bridger, Brigham Young's proclamation of September 15, a copy of
the laws of Utah, and the following letter addressed to "the officer
commanding the forces now invading Utah Territory":
"GOVERNOR'S OFFICE, UTAH TERRITORY,
"GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, September 29, 1857.
"Sir: By reference to the act of Congress passed September 9, 1850,
organizing the Territory of Utah, published in a copy of the laws of
Utah, herewith forwarded, pp. 146-147, you will find the following:--
"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, that the executive power and
authority in and over said Territory of Utah shall be vested in a
Governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his
successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the
President of the United States. The Governor shall reside within said
Territory, shall be Commander-in-chief of the militia thereof', etc.,
etc.
"I am still the Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for this
Territory, no successor having been appointed and qualified, as provided
by law; nor have I been removed by the President of the United States.
"By virtue of the authority thus vested in me, I have issued, and
forwarded you a copy of, my proclamation forbidding the entrance of
armed forces into this Territory. This you have disregarded. I now
further direct that you retire forthwith from the Territory, by the same
route you entered. Should you deem this impracticable, and prefer to
remain until spring in the vicinity of your present encampment,
Black's Fork or Greene River, you can do so in peace and unmolested, on
condition that you deposit your arms and ammunition with Lewis Robinson,
Quartermaster General of the Territory, and leave in the spring, as soon
as the condition of the roads will permit you to march; and, should you
fall short of provisions, they can be furnished you, upon making the
proper applications therefor. General D. H. Wells will forward this, and
receive any communications you may have to make.
"Very respectfully,
"BRIGHAM YOUNG,
"Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Utah Territory."
General Wells's communication added to this impudent announcement the
declaration, "It may be proper to add that I am here to aid in carrying
out the instructions of Governor Young."
On October 2 Colonel Alexander, in a note to Governor Young,
acknowledged the receipt of his enclosures, said that he would submit
Young's letter to the general commanding as soon as he arrived, and
added, "In the meantime I have only to say that these troops are here
by the orders of the President of the United States, and their future
movements and operations will depend entirely upon orders issued by
competent military authority."
Two Mormon officers, General Robinson and Major Lot Smith, had been sent
to deliver Young's letter and proclamation to the federal officer in
command, but they did not deem it prudent to perform this office in
person, sending a Mexican with them into Colonel Alexander's camp.* In
the same way they received Colonel Alexander's reply.
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 171.
The Mormon plan of campaign was already mapped out, and it was thus
stated in an order of their commanding general, D. H. Wells, a copy
of which was found on a Mormon major, Joseph Taylor, to whom it was
addressed:--
"You will proceed, with all possible despatch, without injuring your
animals, to the Oregon road, near the bend of Bear River, north by east
of this place. Take close and correct observations of the country on
your route. When you approach the road, send scouts ahead to ascertain
if the invading troops have passed that way. Should they have passed,
take a concealed route and get ahead of them, express to Colonel Benton,
who is now on that road and in the vicinity of the troops, and effect
a junction with him, so as to operate in concert. On ascertaining the
locality or route of the troops, proceed at once to annoy them in every
possible way. Use every exertion to stampede their animals and set fire
to their trains. Burn the whole country before them and on their flanks.
Keep them from sleeping by night surprises; blockade the road by felling
trees or destroying river fords, where you can. Watch for opportunities
to set fire to the grass on their windward, so as if possible to envelop
their trains. Leave no grass before them that can be burned. Keep your
men concealed as much as possible, and guard against surprise. Keep
scouts out at all times, and communications open with Colonel Benton,
Major McAllster and O. P. Rockwell, who are operating in the same way.
Keep me advised daily of your movements, and every step the troops take,
and in which direction.
"God bless you and give you success. Your brother in Christ."
The first man selected to carry out this order was Major Lot Smith.
Setting out at 4 P.M., on October 3, with forty-four men, after an all
night's ride, he came up with a federal supply train drawn by oxen. The
captain of this train was ordered to "go the other way till he reached
the States." As he persistently retraced his steps as often as the
Mormons moved away, the latter relieved his wagons of their load and
left him. Sending one of his captains with twenty men to capture or
stampede the mules of the Tenth Regiment, Smith, with the remainder of
his force, started for Sandy Fork to intercept army trains.
Scouts sent ahead to investigate a distant cloud of dust reported that
it was made by a freight train of twenty-six wagons. Smith allowed
this train to proceed until dark, and then approached it undiscovered.
Finding the drivers drunk, as he afterward explained, and fearing that
they would be belligerent and thus compel him to disobey his instruction
"not to hurt any one except in self-defence," he lay concealed until
after midnight. His scouts meanwhile had reported to him that the train
was drawn up for the night in two lines.
Allowing the usual number of men to each wagon, Smith decided that his
force of twenty-four was sufficient to capture the outfit, and, mounting
his command, he ordered an advance on the camp. But a surprise was in
store for him. His scouts had failed to discover that a second train had
joined the first, and that twice the force anticipated confronted them.
When this discovery was made, the Mormons were too close to escape
observation. Members of Smith's party expected that their leader would
now make some casual inquiry and then ride on, as if his destination
were elsewhere. Smith, however, decided differently. As his force
approached the camp-fire that was burning close to the wagons, he
noticed that the rear of his column was not distinguishable in the
darkness, and that thus the smallness of their number could not be
immediately discovered. He, therefore, asked at once for the captain of
the train, and one Dawson stepped forward. Smith directed him to have
his men collect their private property at once, as he intended to "put
a little fire" into the wagons. "For God's sake, don't burn the trains,"
was the reply. Dawson was curtly told where his men were to stack their
arms, and where they were themselves to stand under guard. Then, making
a torch, Smith ordered one of the government drivers to apply it, in
order that "the Gentiles might spoil the Gentiles," as he afterward
expressed it. The destruction of the supplies was complete. Smith
allowed an Indian to take two wagon covers for a lodge, and some flour
and soap, and compelled Dawson to get out some provisions for his own
men. Nothing else was spared.
The official list of rations thus destroyed included 2720 pounds of ham,
92,700 of bacon, 167,900 of flour, 8910 of coffee, 1400 of sugar, 1333
of soap, 800 of sperm candles, 765 of tea, 7781 of hard bread, and
68,832 rations of desiccated vegetables. Another train was destroyed
by the same party the next day on the Big Sandy, besides a few sutlers'
wagons that were straggling behind.
On October 5 Colonel Alexander assumed command of all the troops in the
camp. He found his position a trying one. In a report dated October
8, he said that his forage would last only fourteen days, that no
information of the position or intentions of the commanding officer
had reached him, and that, strange as it may appear, he was "in utter
ignorance of the objects of the government in sending troops here, or
the instructions given for their conduct after reaching here." In
these circumstances, he called a council of his officers and decided to
advance without waiting for Colonel Johnston and the other companies, as
he believed that delay would endanger the entire force. He selected as
his route to a wintering place, not the most direct one to Salt Lake
City, inasmuch as the canyons could be easily defended, but one twice as
long (three hundred miles), by way of Soda Springs, and thence either
down Bear River Valley or northeast toward the Wind River Mountains,
according to the resistance he might encounter.
The march, in accordance with this decision, began on October 11, and a
weary and profitless one it proved to be. Snow was falling as the column
moved, and the ground was covered with it during their advance. There
was no trail, and a road had to be cut through the greasewood and sage
brush. The progress was so slow--often only three miles a day--and the
supply train so long, that camp would sometimes be pitched for the night
before the rear wagons would be under way. Wells's men continued to
carry out his orders, and, in the absence of federal cavalry, with
little opposition. One day eight hundred oxen were "cut out" and driven
toward Salt Lake City.
Conditions like these destroyed the morale of both officers and men, and
there were divided counsels among the former, and complaints among the
latter. Finally, after having made only thirty-five miles in nine days,
Colonel Alexander himself became discouraged, called another council,
and, in obedience to its decision, on October 19 directed his force to
retrace their steps. They moved back in three columns, and on November
2 all of them had reached a camp on Black's Fork, two miles above Fort
Bridger.
Colonel Johnston had arrived at Fort Laramie on October 5, and, after
a talk with Captain Van Vliet, had retained two additional companies
of infantry that were on the way to Fort Leavenworth. As he proceeded,
rumors of the burning of trains, exaggerated as is usual in such times,
reached him. Having only about three hundred men to guard a wagon train
six miles in length, some of the drivers showed signs of panic, and the
colonel deemed the situation so serious that he accepted an offer of
fifty or sixty volunteers from the force of the superintendent of the
South Pass wagon road. He was fortunate in having as his guide the well
known James Bridger, to whose knowledge of Rocky Mountain weather signs
they owed escapes from much discomfort, by making camps in time to avoid
coming storms.
But even in camp a winter snowstorm is serious to a moving column,
especially when it deprives the animals of their forage, as it did now.
The forage supply was almost exhausted when South Pass was reached, and
the draught and beef cattle were in a sad plight. Then came another big
snowstorm and a temperature of l6 deg., during which eleven mules and
a number of oxen were frozen to death. In this condition of affairs,
Colonel Johnston decided that a winter advance into Salt Lake Valley was
impracticable. Learning of Colonel Alexander's move, which he did not
approve, he sent word for him to join forces with his own command on
Black's Fork, and there the commanding officer arrived on November 3.
Lieutenant Colonel Cooke, of the Second Dragoons, with whom Governor
Cumming was making the trip, had a harrowing experience. There was
much confusion in organizing his regiment of six companies at Fort
Leavenworth, and he did not begin his march until September 17, with a
miserable lot of mules and insufficient supplies. He found little grass
for the animals, and after crossing the South Platte on October 15, they
began to die or to drop out. From that point snow and sleet storms were
encountered, and, when Fort Laramie was reached, so many of the animals
had been left behind or were unable to travel, that some of his men were
dismounted, the baggage supply was reduced, and even the ambulances
were used to carry grain. After passing Devil's Gate, they encountered
a snowstorm on November 5. The best shelter their guide could find was a
lofty natural wall at a point known as Three Crossings. Describing their
night there he says: "Only a part of the regiment could huddle behind
the rock in the deep snow; whilst, the long night through, the storm
continued, and in fearful eddies from above, before, behind, drove the
falling and drifting snow. Thus exposed, for the hope of grass the poor
animals were driven, with great devotion, by the men once more across
the stream and three-quarters of a mile beyond, to the base of a granite
ridge, which almost faced the storm. There the famished mules, crying
piteously, did not seek to eat, but desperately gathered in a mass,
and some horses, escaping guard, went back to the ford, where the lofty
precipice first gave us so pleasant relief and shelter."
The march westward was continued through deep snow and against a cold
wind. On November 8 twenty-three mules had given out, and five wagons
had to be abandoned. On the night of the 9th, when the mules were tied
to the wagons, "they gnawed and destroyed four wagon tongues, a number
of wagon covers, ate their ropes, and getting loose, ate the sage fuel
collected at the tents." On November 10 nine horses were left dying on
the road, and the thermometer was estimated to have marked twenty-five
degrees below zero. Their thermometers were all broken, but the freezing
of a bottle of sherry in a trunk gave them a basis of calculation.
The command reached a camp three miles below Fort Bridger on November
19. Of one hundred and forty-four horses with which they started, only
ten reached that camp.
CHAPTER XIII. -- THE MORMON PURPOSE
When Colonel Johnston arrived at the Black's Fork camp the information
he received from Colonel Alexander, and certain correspondence with the
Mormon authorities, gave him a comprehensive view of the situation; and
on November 5 he forwarded a report to army headquarters in the East,
declaring that it was the matured design of the Mormons "to hold and
occupy this territory independent of and irrespective of the authority
of the United States," entertaining "the insane design of establishing
a form of government thoroughly despotic, and utterly repugnant to our
institutions."
The correspondence referred to began with a letter from Brigham Young
to Colonel Alexander, dated October 14. Opening with a declaration of
Young's patriotism, and the brazen assertion that the people of Utah
"had never resisted even the wish of the President of the United States,
nor treated with indignity a single individual coming to the territory
under his authority," he went on to say:--
"But when the President of the United States so far degrades his high
position, and prostitutes the highest gift of the people, as to make use
of the military power (only intended for the protection of the people's
rights) to crush the people's liberties, and compel them to receive
officials so lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the
known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to
need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should
be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and
patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for
which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its
most corrupt stages, against the rights, liberties, and lives of our
forefathers."
He then appealed to Colonel Alexander, as probably "the unwilling agent"
of the administration, to return East with his force, saying, "I have
yet to learn that United States officers are implicitly bound to
obey the dictum of a despotic President, in violating the most sacred
constitutional rights of American citizens."
On October 18 Colonel Alexander, acknowledging the receipt of Young's
letter, said in his reply that no one connected with his force had any
wish to interfere in any way with the religion of the people of Utah,
adding: "I repeat my earnest desire to avoid violence and bloodshed,
and it will require positive resistance to force me to it. But my
troops have the same right of self-defence that you claim, and it rests
entirely with you whether they are driven to the exercise of it."
Finding that he could not cajole the federal officer, Young threw off
all disguise, and in reply to an earlier letter of Colonel Alexander,
he gave free play to his vituperative powers. After going over the old
Mormon complaints, and declaring that "both we and the Kingdom of God
will be free from all hellish oppressors, the Lord being our helper," he
wrote at great length in the following tone:--
"If you persist in your attempt to permanently locate an army in this
Territory, contrary to the wishes and constitutional rights of the
people therein, and with a view to aid the administration in their
unhallowed efforts to palm their corrupt officials upon us, and to
protect them and blacklegs, black-hearted scoundrels, whoremasters,
and murderers, as was the sole intention in sending you and your troops
here, you will have to meet a mode of warfare against which your tactics
furnish you no information....
"If George Washington was now living, and at the helm of our government,
he would hang the administration as high as he did Andre, and that,
too, with a far better grace and to a much greater subserving the best
interests of our country....
"By virtue of my office as Governor of the Territory of Utah, I command
you to marshal your troops and leave this territory, for it can be of
no possible benefit to you to wickedly waste treasures and blood in
prosecuting your course upon the side of a rebellion against the general
government by its administrators.... Were you and your fellow officers
as well acquainted with your soldiers as I am with mine, and did
they understand the work they were now engaged in as well as you may
understand it, you must know that many of them would immediately revolt
from all connection with so ungodly, illegal, unconstitutional and
hellish a crusade against an innocent people, and if their blood is
shed it shall rest upon the heads of their commanders. With us it is the
Kingdom of God or nothing."
To this Colonel Alexander replied, on the 19th, that no citizen of
Utah would be harmed through the instrumentality of the army in the
performance of its duties without molestation, and that, as Young's
order to leave the territory was illegal and beyond his authority, it
would not be obeyed.
John Taylor, on October 21, added to this correspondence a letter to
Captain Marcy, in which he ascribed to party necessity the necessity of
something with which to meet the declaration of the Republicans against
polygamy--the order of the President that troops should accompany the
new governor to Utah; declared that the religion of the Mormons was
"a right guaranteed to us by the constitution"; and reiterated their
purpose, if driven to it, "to burn every house, tree, shrub, rail, every
patch of grass and stack of straw and hay, and flee to the mountains."
"How a large army would fare without resources," he added, "you can
picture to yourself."*
* Text of this letter in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session, 35th
Congress, and Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City."
The Mormon authorities meant just what they said from the start.
Young was as determined to be the head of the civil government of the
territory as he was to be the head of the church. He had founded a
practical dictatorship, with power over life and property, and had
discovered that such a dictatorship was necessary to the regulation of
the flock that he had gathered around him and to the schemes that he had
in mind. To permit a federal governor to take charge of the territory,
backed up by troops who would sustain him in his authority, meant an end
to Young's absolute rule. Rather than submit to this, he stood ready to
make the experiment of fighting the government force, separated as that
force was from its Eastern base of supplies; to lay waste the Mormon
settlements, if it became necessary to use this method of causing a
federal retreat by starvation; and, if this failed, to withdraw his
flock to some new Zion farther south.
In accordance with this view, as soon as news of the approach of the
troops reached Salt Lake Valley, all the church industries stopped; war
supplies weapons and clothing were manufactured and accumulated; all the
elders in Europe were ordered home, and the outlying colonies in Carson
Valley and in southern California were directed to hasten to Salt Lake
City. A correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin at San Bernardino,
California, reported that in the last six months the Mormons there had
sent four or five tons of gunpowder and many weapons to Utah, and
that, when the order to "gather" at the Mormon metropolis came, they
sacrificed everything to obey it, selling real estate at a reduction of
from 20 to 50 per cent, and furniture for any price that it would bring.
The same sacrifices were made in Carson Valley, where 150 wagons were
required to accommodate the movers. In Salt Lake City the people were
kept wrought up to the highest pitch by the teachings of their leaders.
Thus, Amasa W. Lyman told them, on October 8, that they would not be
driven away, because "the time has come when the Kingdom of God should
be built up."* Young told them the same day, "If we will stand up as men
and women of God, the yoke shall never be placed upon our necks again,
and all hell cannot overthrow us, even with the United States troops to
help them."** Kimball told the people in the Tabernacle, on October 18:
"They [the United States] will have to make peace with us, and we never
again shall make peace with them. If they come here, they have got
to give up their arms." Describing his plan of campaign, at the same
service, after the reading of the correspondence between Young and
Colonel Alexander, Young said: "Do you want to know what is going to be
done with the enemies now on our border? As soon as they start to come
into our settlements, let sleep depart from their eyes and slumber from
their eyelids until they sleep in death. Men shall be secreted here and
there, and shall waste away our enemies in the name of Israel's God."***
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. V, p. 319.
** Ibid., Vol. V, p. 332
*** Ibid., Vol. V, p. 338.
Young was equally explicit in telling members of his own flock what they
might expect if they tried to depart at that time. In a discourse in the
Tabernacle, on October 25, he said:--
"If any man or woman in Utah wants to leave this community, come to me
and I will treat you kindly, as I always have, and will assist you to
leave; but after you have left our settlements you must not then depend
upon me any longer, nor upon the God I serve. You must meet the doom
you have labored for.... After this season, when this ignorant army has
passed off, I shall never again say to a man, 'Stay your rifle ball,'
when our enemies assail us, but shall say, 'Slay them where you find
them."'*
* Ibid, Vol. V, p. 352.
Kimball, on November 8, spoke with equal plainness on this subject:--
"When it is necessary that blood should be shed, we should be as ready
to do that as to eat an apple. That is my religion, and I feel that our
platter is pretty near clean of some things, and we calculate to keep
it clean from this time henceforth and forever .... And if men and women
will not live their religion, but take a course to pervert the hearts
of the righteous, we will 'lay judgment to the line and righteousness to
the plummet,' and we will let you know that the earth can swallow you
up as did Koran with his hosts; and, as Brother Taylor says, you may dig
your graves, and we will slay you and you may crawl into them."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. VI, p. 34.
The Mormon songs of the day breathed the same spirit of defiance to
the United States authorities. A popular one at the Tabernacle services
began:--
"Old Uncle Sam has sent, I understand,
Du dah,
A Missouri ass to rule our land,
Du dah! Du dah day.
But if he comes we'll have some fun,
Du dah,
To see him and his juries run,
Du dah! Du dah day.
Chorus:
Then let us be on hand,
By Brigham Young to stand,
And if our enemies do appear,
We'll sweep them from the land."
Another still more popular song, called "Zion," contained these words:--
"Here our voices we'll raise, and will sing to thy praise,
Sacred home of the Prophets of God;
Thy deliverance is nigh, thy oppressors shall die,
And the Gentiles shall bow 'neath thy rod."
When the Mormons found that the federal forces had gone into winter
quarters, the Nauvoo Legion was massed in a camp called Camp Weber,
at the mouth of Echo canyon. This canyon they fortified with ditches
and breastworks, and some dams intended to flood the roadway; but they
succeeded in erecting no defences which could not have been easily
overcome by a disciplined force. A watch was set day and night, so that
no movement of "the invaders" could escape them, and the officer in
charge was particularly forbidden to allow any civil officer appointed
by the President to pass.
This careful arrangement was kept up all winter, but Tullidge says that
no spies were necessary, as deserting soldiers and teamsters from the
federal camp kept coming into the valley with information.
The territorial legislature met in December, and approved Governor
Young's course, every member signing a pledge to maintain "the rights
and liberties" of the territory. The legislators sent a memorial to
Congress, dated January 6, 1858, demanding to be informed why "a hostile
course is pursued toward an unoffending people," calling the officers
who had fled from the territory liars, declaring that "we shall not
again hold still while fetters are being forged to bind us," etc. This
offensive document reached Washington in March, and was referred in
each House to the Committee on Territories, where it remained. When the
federal forces reached Fort Bridger, they found that the Mormons
had burned the buildings, and it was decided to locate the winter
camp--named Camp Scott--on Black's Fork, two miles above the fort. The
governor and other civil officers spent the winter in another camp near
by, named "Ecklesville," occupying dugouts, which they covered with
an upper story of plastered logs. There was a careful apportionment of
rations, but no suffering for lack of food.
An incident of the winter was the expedition of Captain Randolph B.
Marcy across the Uinta Mountains to New Mexico, with two guides and
thirty-five volunteer companions, to secure needed animals. The story of
his march is one of the most remarkable on record, the company pressing
on, even after Indian guides refused to accompany them to what they
said was certain death, living for days only on the meat supplied by
half-starved mules, and beating a path through deep snow. This march
continued from November 27 to January 10, when, with the loss of only
one man, they reached the valley of the Rio del Norte, where supplies
were obtained from Fort Massachusetts. Captain Marcy started back on
March 17, selecting a course which took him past Long's and Pike's
Peaks. He reached Camp Scott on June 8, with about fifteen hundred
horses and mules, escorted by five companies of infantry and mounted
riflemen.
During the winter Governor Cumming sent to Brigham Young a proclamation
notifying him of the arrival of the new territorial officers, and
assuring the people that he would resort to the military posse only
in case of necessity. Judge Eckles held a session of the United States
District Court at Camp Scott on December 30, and the grand jury of that
court found indictments for treason, resting on Young's proclamation
and Wells's instructions, against Young, Kimball, Wells, Taylor, Grant,
Locksmith, Rockwell, Hickman, and many others, but of course no arrests
were made.
Meanwhile, at Washington, preparations were making to sustain the
federal authority in Utah as soon as spring opened.* Congress made
an appropriation, and authorized the enlistment of two regiments of
volunteers; three thousand regular troops and two batteries were ordered
to the territory, and General Scott was directed to sail for the Pacific
coast with large powers. But General Scott did not sail, the army
contracts created a scandal,** and out of all this preparation for
active hostilities came peace without the firing of a shot; out of all
this open defiance and vilification of the federal administration by the
Mormon church came abject surrender by the administration itself.
* For the correspondence concerning the camp during the winter of
1858, see Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II.
** Colonel Albert G. Brown, Jr., in his account of the Utah
Expedition in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1859, said: "To the shame
of the administration these gigantic contracts, involving an amount of
more than $6,000,000, were distributed with a view to influence votes in
the House of Representatives upon the Lecompton Bill. Some of the lesser
ones, such as those for furnishing mules, dragoon horses, and forage,
were granted arbitrarily to relatives or friends of members who were
wavering upon that question."
The principal contract, that for the transportation of all the supplies,
involving for the year 1858 the amount of $4,500,000, was granted,
without advertisement or subdivision, to a firm in Western Missouri,
whose members had distinguished themselves in the effort to make Kansas
a slave state, and now contributed liberally to defray the election
expenses of the Democratic party."
CHAPTER XIV. -- COLONEL KANE'S MISSION
When Major Van Vliet returned from Utah to Washington with Young's
defiant ultimatum, he was accompanied by J. M. Bernhisel, the
territorial Delegate to Congress, who was allowed to retain his seat
during the entire "war," a motion for his expulsion, introduced soon
after Congress met, being referred to a committee which never reported
on it, the debate that arose only giving further proof of the ignorance
of the lawmakers about Mormon history, Mormon government, and Mormon
ambition.
In Washington Bernhisel was soon in conference with Colonel T. L.
Kane, that efficient ally of the Mormons, who had succeeded so well in
deceiving President Fillmore. In his characteristically wily manner,
Kane proposed himself to the President as a mediator between the federal
authorities and the Mormon leaders.* At that early date Buchanan was
not so ready for a compromise as he soon became, and the Cabinet did not
entertain Kane's proposition with any enthusiasm. But Kane secured from
the President two letters, dated December 3.** The first stated, in
regard to Kane, "You furnish the strongest evidence of your desire to
serve the Mormons by undertaking so laborious a trip," and that "nothing
but pure philanthropy, and a strong desire to serve the Mormon
people, could have dictated a course so much at war with your private
interests." If Kane presented this credential to Young on his arrival in
Salt Lake City, what a glorious laugh the two conspirators must have had
over it! The President went on to reiterate the views set forth in his
last annual message, and to say: "I would not at the present moment,
in view of the hostile attitude they have assumed against the United
States, send any agent to visit them on behalf of the government." The
second letter stated that Kane visited Utah from his own sense of duty,
and commended him to all officers of the United States whom he might
meet.
* H. H. Bancroft ("History of Utah," p. 529) accepts the
ridiculous Mormon assertion that Buchanan was compelled to change his
policy toward the Mormons by unfavorable comments "throughout the United
States and throughout Europe." Stenhouse says ("Rocky Mountain Saints,"
p. 386): "That the initiatory steps for the settlement of the Utah
difficulties were made by the government, as is so constantly repeated
by the Saints, is not true. The author, at the time of Colonel Kane's
departure from New York for Utah, was on the staff of the New
York Herald, and was conversant with the facts, and confidentially
communicated them to Frederick Hudson, Esq., the distinguished manager
of that great journal."
** Sen. Doc., 2d Session. 35th Congress, Vol. II, pp. 162-163.
Kane's method of procedure was, throughout, characteristic of the secret
agent of such an organization as the Mormon church. He sailed from New
York for San Francisco the first week in January, 1858, under the name
of Dr. Osborn. As soon as he landed, he hurried to Southern California,
and, joining the Mormons who had been called in from San Bernardino, he
made the trip to Utah with them, arriving in Salt Lake City in February.
On the evening of the day of his arrival he met the Presidency and the
Twelve, and began an address to them as follows: "I come as ambassador
from the Chief Executive of our nation, and am prepared and duly
authorized to lay before you, most fully and definitely, the feelings
and views of the citizens of our common country and of the Executive
toward you, relative to the present position of this territory, and
relative to the army of the United States now upon your borders." This
is the report of Kane's words made by Tullidge in his "Life of Brigham
Young." How the statement agrees with Kane's letters from the President
is apparent on its face. The only explanation in Kane's favor is that he
had secret instructions which contradicted those that were written and
published. Kane told the church officers that he wished to "enlist their
sympathies for the poor soldiers who are now suffering in the cold
and snow of the mountains!" An interview of half an hour with Young
followed--too private in its character to be participated in even by the
other heads of the church. An informal discussion ensued, the following
extracts from which, on Mormon authority, illustrate Kane's sympathies
and purpose:--
"Did Dr. Bernhisel take his seat?"
Kane--"Yes. He was opposed by the Arkansas member and a few others,
but they were treated as fools by more sagacious members; for, if the
Delegate had been refused his seat, it would have been TANTAMOUNT TO A
DECLARATION OF WAR."
"I suppose they [the Cabinet] are united in putting down Utah?"
Kane--"I think not."*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 203.
Kane was placed as a guest, still incognito, in the house of an elder,
and, after a few days' rest, he set out for Camp Scott. His course on
arriving there, on March 10, was again characteristic of the crafty
emissary. Not even recognizing the presence of the military so far as to
reply to a sentry's challenge, the latter fired on him, and he in turn
broke his own weapon over the sentry's head. When seized, he asked to be
taken to Governor Cumming, not to General Johnston.* "The compromise,"
explains Tullidge, "which Buchanan had to effect with the utmost
delicacy, could only be through the new governor, and that, too, by his
heading off the army sent to occupy Utah." A fancied insult from General
Johnston due to an orderly's mistake led Kane to challenge the general
to a duel; but a meeting was prevented by an order from Judge Eckles to
the marshal to arrest all concerned if his command to the contrary was
not obeyed.
"Governor Cumming," continued Tullidge, "could do nothing less than
espouse the cause of the `ambassador' who was there in the execution of
a mission intrusted to him by the President of the United States."**
* Colonel Johnston was made a brigadier general that winter.
** Kane brought an impudent letter from Young, saying that he had
learned that the United States troops were very destitute of provisions,
and offering to send them beef cattle and flour. General Johnston
replied to Kane that he had an abundance of provisions, and that, no
matter what might be the needs of his army, he "would neither ask nor
receive from President Young and his confederates any supplies while
they continued to be enemies of the government" Kane replied to this the
next day, expressing a fear that "it must greatly prejudice the public
interest to refuse Mr. Young's proposal in such a manner," and begging
the general to reconsider the matter. No farther notice seems to have
been taken of the offer.
Kane did not make any mistake in his selection of the person to approach
in camp. Judged by the results, and by his admissions in after years,
the most charitable explanation of Cumming's course is that he was
hoodwinked from the beginning by such masters in the art of deception
as Kane and Young. A woman in Salt Lake City, writing to her sons in
the East at the time, described the governor as in "appearance a very
social, good-natured looking gentleman, a good specimen of an old
country aristocrat, at ease in himself and at peace with all the
world."* Such a man, whom the acts and proclamations and letters of
Young did not incite to indignation, was in a very suitable frame of
mind to be cajoled into adopting a policy which would give him the
credit of bringing about peace, and at the same time place him at the
head of the territorial affairs.
* New York Herald, July 2, 1858. For personal recollections of
Cumming, see Perry's "Reminiscences of Public Men," p. 290. What is said
by Governor Perry of Cumming's Utah career is valueless.
In looking into the causes of what was, from this time, a backing down
by both parties to this controversy, we find at Washington that lack of
an aggressive defence of the national interests confided to him by his
office which became so much more evident in President Buchanan a few
years later. Defied and reviled personally by Young in the latter's
official communications, there was added reason to those expressed in
the President's first message why this first rebellion, as he called it,
"should be put down in such a manner that it shall be the last." But a
wider question was looming up in Kansas, one in which the whole nation
recognized a vital interest; a bigger struggle attracted the attention
of the leading members of the Cabinet. The Lecompton Constitution was a
matter of vastly more interest to every politician than the government
of the sandy valley which the Mormons occupied in distant Utah.
On the Mormon side, defiant as Young was, and sincere as was his
declaration that he would leave the valley a desert before the advance
of a hostile force, his way was not wholly clear. His Legion could not
successfully oppose disciplined troops, and he knew it. The conviction
of himself and his associates on the indictments for treason could be
prevented before an unbiased non-Mormon jury only by flight. Abjectly as
his people obeyed him,--so abjectly that they gave up all their gold and
silver to him that winter in exchange for bank notes issued by a company
of which he was president,--the necessity of a reiteration of the
determination to rule by the plummet showed that rebellion was at least
a possibility? That Young realized his personal peril was shown by some
"instructions and remarks" made by him in the Tabernacle just after
Kane set out for Fort Bridger, and privately printed for the use of
his fellow-leaders. He expressed the opinion that if Joseph Smith had
"followed the revelations in him" (meaning the warnings of danger), he
would have been among them still. "I do not know precisely," said
Young, "in what manner the Lord will lead me, but were I thrown into
the situation Joseph was, I would leave the people and go into the
wilderness, and let them do the best they could.... We are in duty bound
to preserve life--to preserve ourselves on earth--consequently we must
use policy, and follow in the counsel given us." He pointed out the sure
destruction that awaited them if they opened fire on the soldiers, and
declared that he was going to a desert region in the territory which he
had tried to have explored "a desert region that no man knows anything
about," with "places here and there in it where a few families could
live," and the entire extent of which would provide homes for five
hundred thousand people, if scattered about. In these circumstances "a
way out" that would free the federal administration from an unpleasant
complication, and leave Young still in practical control in Utah, was
not an unpleasant prospect for either side.
A long Utah letter to the Near York Herald (which had been generally
pro-Mormon in tone) dated Camp Scott, May 22, 1858, contained the
following: "Some of the deceived followers of the latest false Prophet
arrived at this post in a most deplorable condition. One mater familiar
had crossed the mountains during very severe weather in almost a state
of nudity. Her dress consisted of a part of a single skirt, part of a
man's shirt, and a portion of a jacket. Thus habited, without a shoe or
a thread more, she had walked 157 miles in snow, the greater part of the
way up to her knees, and carried in her arms a sucking babe less than
six weeks old. The soldiers pulled off their clothes and gave them to
the unfortunate woman. The absconding Saints who arrive here tell a
great many stories about the condition and feeling of their brethren
who still remain in the land of promise.... Thousands and thousands of
persons, both men and women, are represented to be exceedingly desirous
of not going South with the church, but are compelled to by fear of
death or otherwise."
Governor Cumming, in his report to Secretary Cass on the situation as
he found it when he entered Salt Lake City, said that, learning that
a number of persons desirous of leaving the territory "considered
themselves to be unlawfully restrained of their liberty," he decided,
even at the risk of offending the Mormons, to give public notice of his
readiness to assist such persons. In consequence, 56 men, 38 women, and
71 children sought his protection in order to proceed to the States.
"The large majority of these people;" he explained, "are of English
birth, and state that they leave the congregation from a desire to
improve their circumstances and realize elsewhere more money for their
labor."
Kane having won Governor Cumming to his view of the situation, and
having created ill feeling between the governor and the chief military
commander, the way was open for the next step. The plan was to have
Governor Cumming enter Salt Lake Valley without any federal troops, and
proceed to Salt Lake City under a Mormon escort of honor, which was to
meet him when he came within a certain distance of that city. This he
consented to do. Kane stayed in "Camp Eckles" until April, making one
visit to the outskirts to hold a secret conference with the Mormons,
and, doubtless, to arrange the details of the trip.
On April 3 Governor Cumming informed General Johnston of his decision,
and he set out two days later. General Johnston's view of the policy
to be pursued toward the Mormons was expressed in a report to army
headquarters, dated January 20:--
"Knowing how repugnant it would be to the policy or interest of the
government to do any act that would force these people into unpleasant
relations with the federal government, I have, in conformity with the
views also of the commanding general, on all proper occasions manifested
in my intercourse with them a spirit of conciliation. But I do not
believe that such consideration of them would be properly appreciated
now, or rather would be wrongly interpreted; and, in view of the
treasonable temper and feeling now pervading the leaders and a greater
portion of the Mormons, I think that neither the honor nor the dignity
of the government will allow of the slightest concession being made to
them."
Judge Eckles did not conceal his determination not to enter Salt Lake
City until the flag of his country was waving there, holding it a shame
that men should be detained there in subjection to such a despot as
Brigham Young.
Leaving camp accompanied only by Colonel Kane and two servants, Governor
Cumming found his Mormon guard awaiting him a few miles distant. His own
account of the trip and of his acts during the next three weeks of his
stay in Mormondom may be found in a letter to General Johnston and a
report to Secretary of State Cass.* As Echo canyon was supposed to
be thoroughly fortified, and there was not positive assurance that a
conflict might not yet take place, the governor was conducted through it
by night. He says that he was "agreeably surprised" by the illuminations
in his honor. Very probably he so accepted them, but the fires lighted
along the sides and top of the canyon were really intended to appear to
him as the camp-fires of a big Mormon army. This deception was further
kept up by the appearance of challenging parties at every turn, who
demanded the password of the escort, and who, while the governor was
detained, would hasten forward to a new station and go through the form
of challenging again: Once he was made the object of an apparent
attack, from which he was rescued by the timely arrival of officers of
authority.**
* For text, see Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City,"
pp. 108-212.
** "In course of time Cumming discovered how the Mormon leaders
had imposed upon him and amused themselves with his credulity, and to
the last hour that he was in the Territory he felt annoyed at having
been so absurdly deceived, and held Brigham responsible for the
mortifying joke."--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 390.
The trip to Salt Lake City occupied a week, and on the 12th the governor
entered the Mormon metropolis, escorted by the city officers and other
persons of distinction in the community, and was assigned as a guest
to W. C. Staines, an influential Mormon elder. There Young immediately
called on him, and was received with friendly consideration. Asked by
his host, when the head of the church took his leave, if Young appeared
to be a tyrant, Governor Cumming replied: "No, sir. No tyrant ever had
a head on his shoulders like Mr. Young. He is naturally a good man.
I doubt whether many of your people sufficiently appreciate him as
a leader."* This was the judgment of a federal officer after a few
moments' conversation with the reviler of the government and a month's
coaching by Colonel Kane.
Three days later, Governor Cumming officially notified General Johnston
of his arrival, and stated that he was everywhere recognized as
governor, and "universally greeted with such respectful attentions"
as were due to his office. There was no mention of any advance of
the troops, nor any censure of Mormon offenders, but the general was
instructed to use his forces to recover stock alleged to have been
stolen from the Mormons by Indians, and to punish the latter, and he was
informed that Indian Agent Hurt (who had so recently escaped from Mormon
clutches) was charged by W. H. Hooper, the Mormon who had acted as
secretary of state during recent months, with having incited Indians to
hostility, and should be investigated! Verily, Colonel Kane's work was
thoroughly performed. General Johnston replied, expressing gratification
at the governor's reception, requesting to be informed when the Mormon
force would be withdrawn from the route to Salt Lake City, and saying
that he had inquired into Dr. Hurt's case, and had satisfied himself
"that he has faithfully discharged his duty as agent, and that he has
given none but good advice to the Indians."
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 206.
On the Sunday after his arrival Young introduced Governor Cumming to the
people in the Tabernacle, and then a remarkable scene ensued. Stenhouse
says that the proceedings were all arranged in advance. Cumming was
acting the part of the vigilant defender of the laws, and at the same
time as conciliator, doing what his authority would permit to keep
the Mormon leaders free from the presence of troops and from the
jurisdiction of federal judges. But he was not all-powerful in this
respect. General Johnston had orders that would allow him to dispose of
his forces without obedience to the governor, and the governor could
not quash the indictments found by Judge Eckles's grand jury. Young's
knowledge of this made him cautious in his reliance on Governor Gumming.
Then, too, Young had his own people to deal with, and he would lose
caste with them if he made a surrender which left Mormondom practically
in federal control.
When Governor Cumming was introduced to the congregation of nearly four
thousand people he made a very conciliatory address, in which, however,
according to his report to Secretary Cass,* he let them know that he
had come to vindicate the national sovereignty, "and to exact an
unconditional submission on their part to the dictates of the law";
but informed them that they were entitled to trial by their
peers,--intending to mean Mormon peers,--that he had no intention of
stationing the army near their settlements, or of using a military posse
until other means of arrest had failed. After this practical surrender
of authority, the governor called for expressions of opinion from the
audience, and he got them. That audience had been nurtured for years on
the oratory of Young and Kimball and Grant, and had seen Judge Brocchus
vilified by the head of the church in the same building; and the
responses to Governor Cumming's invitation were of a kind to make an
Eastern Gentile quail, especially one like the innocent Cumming, who
thought them "a people who habitually exercised great self-control."
One speaker went into a review of Mormon wrongs since the tarring of the
prophet in Ohio, holding the federal government responsible, and naming
as the crowning outrage the sending of a Missourian to govern them. This
was too much for Cumming, and he called out, "I am a Georgian, sir,
a Georgian." The congregation gave the governor the lie to his face,
telling him that they would not believe that he was their friend
until he sent the soldiers back. "It was a perfect bedlam," says an
eyewitness, "and gross personal remarks were made. One man said, 'You're
nothing but an office seeker.' The governor replied that he obtained
his appointment honorably and had not solicited it."** If all this was
a piece of acting arranged by Young to show his flock that he was making
no abject surrender, it was well done.***
* Ex. Doc. No. 67, 1st Session, 35th Congress.
** Coverdale's statement in Camp Scott letter, June 4, 1858, to
New York Herald.
*** "Brigham was seated beside the governor on the platform, and
tried to control the unruly spirits. Governor Cumming may for the moment
have been deceived by this apparent division among the Mormons, but
three years later he told the author that it was all of a piece with
the incidents of his passage through Echo canyon. In his characteristic
brusque way he said: 'It was all humbug, sir, all humbug; but never
mind; it is all over now. If it did them good, it did not hurt
me.'"--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 393.
Young's remarks on March 21 had been having their effect while Cumming
was negotiating, and an exodus from the northern settlements was under
way which only needed to be augmented by a movement from the valley to
make good Young's declaration that they would leave their part of
the territory a desert. No official order for this movement had been
published, but whatever direction was given was sufficient. Peace
Commissioners Powell and McCullough, in a report to the Secretary of War
dated July 3, 1858, said on this subject: "We were informed by various
(discontented) Mormons, who lived in the settlements north of Provo,
that they had been forced to leave their homes and go to the southern
part of the Territory.... We were also informed that at least one-third
of the persons who had removed from their homes were compelled to do
so. We were told that many were dissatisfied with the Mormon church, and
would leave it whenever they could with safety to themselves. We are of
opinion that the leaders of the Mormon church congregated the people
in order to exercise more immediate control over them." Not only were
houses deserted, but growing crops were left and heavier household
articles abandoned, and the roads leading to the south and through Salt
Lake City were crowded day by day with loaded wagons, their owners--even
the women, often shoeless trudging along and driving their animals
before them. These refugees were, a little later, joined by Young and
most of his associates, and by a large part of the inhabitants of Salt
Lake City itself. It was estimated by the army officers at the time that
25,000 of a total population of 45,000 in the Territory, took part in
this movement. When they abandoned their houses they left them tinder
boxes which only needed the word of command, when the troops advanced,
to begin a general conflagration. By June 1 the refugees were collected
on the western shore of Utah Lake, fifty miles south of Salt Lake City.
What a picture of discomfort and positive suffering this settlement
presented can be partly imagined. The town of Provo near by could
accommodate but a few of the new-comers, and for dwellings the rest had
recourse to covered wagons, dugouts, cabins of logs, and shanties of
boards--anything that offered any protection. There was a lack of food,
and it was the old life of the plains again, without the daily variety
presented when the trains were moving.
In his report to Secretary Cass, dated May 2, Governor Cumming, after
describing this exodus as a matter of great concern, said:--
"I shall follow these people and try to rally them. Our military force
could overwhelm most of these poor people, involving men, women, and
children in a common fate; but there are among the Mormons many brave
men accustomed to arms and horses, men who could fight desperately
as guerillas; and, if the settlements are destroyed, will subject the
country to an expensive and protracted war, without any compensating
results. They will, I am sure, submit to 'trial by their peers,' but
they will not brook the idea of trial by 'juries' composed of 'teamsters
and followers of the camp,' nor any army encamped in their cities or
dense settlements."
What kind of justice their idea of "trial by their peers" meant was
disclosed in the judicial history of the next few years. This report,
which also recited the insults the governor had received in the
Tabernacle, was sent to Congress on June 10 by President Buchanan, with
a special message, setting forth that he had reason to believe that "our
difficulties with the territory have terminated, and the reign of the
constitution and laws been restored," and saying that there was no
longer any use of calling out the authorized regiments of volunteers.
CHAPTER XV. -- THE PEACE COMMISSION
Governor Cumming's report of May 2 did not reach Washington until June
9, but the President's volte-face had begun before that date, and
when the situation in Utah was precisely as it was when he had assured
Colonel Kane that he would send no agent to the Mormons while they
continued their defiant attitude. Under date of April 6 he issued a
proclamation, in which he recited the outrages on the federal officers
in Utah, the warlike attitude and acts of the Mormon force, which, he
pointed out, constituted rebellion and treason; declared that it was a
grave mistake to suppose that the government would fail to bring them
into submission; stated that the land occupied by the Mormons belonged
to the United States; and disavowed any intention to interfere with
their religion; and then, to save bloodshed and avoid indiscriminate
punishment where all were not equally guilty, he offered "a free and
full pardon to all who will submit themselves to the just authority of
the federal government."
This proclamation was intrusted to two peace commissioners, L. W. Powell
of Kentucky and Major Ben. McCullough of Texas. Powell had been governor
of his state, and was then United States senator-elect. McCullough had
seen service in Texas before the war with Mexico, and been a daring
scout under Scott in the latter war. He was killed at the battle of Pea
Ridge, Arkansas, in 1862, in command of a Confederate corps.
These commissioners were instructed by the Secretary of War to give the
President's proclamation extensive circulation in Utah. Without entering
into any treaty or engagements with the Mormons, they were to "bring
those misguided people to their senses" by convincing them of the
uselessness of resistance, and how much submission was to their
interest. They might, in so doing, place themselves in communication
with the Mormon leaders, and assure them that the movement of the
army had no reference to their religious tenets. The determination was
expressed to see that the federal officers appointed for the territory
were received and installed, and that the laws were obeyed, and Colonel
Kane was commended to them as likely to be of essential service.
The commissioners set out from Fort Leavenworth on April 25, travelling
in ambulances, their party consisting of themselves, five soldiers, five
armed teamsters, and a wagon master. They arrived at Camp Scott on May
29, the reenforcements for the troops following them. The publication
of the President's proclamation was a great surprise to the military.
"There was none of the bloodthirsty excitement in the camp which was
reported in the States to have prevailed there," says Colonel Brown,
"but there was a feeling of infinite chagrin, a consciousness that the
expedition was only a pawn on Mr. Buchanan's political chessboard; and
reproaches against his folly were as frequent as they were vehement."*
* Atlantic Monthly, April, 1859.
The commissioners were not long in discovering the untrustworthy
character of any advices they might receive from Governor Cumming.
In their report of June 1 to the Secretary of War, they mentioned his
opinion that almost all the military organizations of the territory had
been disbanded, adding, "We fear that the leaders of the Mormon people
have not given the governor correct information of affairs in the
valley." They also declared it to be of the first importance that the
army should advance into the valley before the Mormons could burn the
grass or crops, and they gave General Johnston the warmest praise.
The commissioners set out for Salt Lake City on June 2, Governor Cumming
who had returned to Camp Scott with Colonel Kane following them. On
reaching the city they found that Young and the other leaders were with
the refugees at Provo. A committee of three Mormons expressed to the
commissioners the wish of the people that they would have a conference
with Young, and on the 10th Young, Kimball, Wells, and several of the
Twelve arrived, and a meeting was arranged for the following day.
There are two accounts of the ensuing conferences, the official reports
of the commissioners,* which are largely statements of results, and a
Mormon report in the journal kept by Wilford Woodruff.** At the
first conference, the commissioners made a statement in line with the
President's proclamation and with their instructions, offering pardon
on submission, and declaring the purpose of the government to enforce
submission by the employment of the whole military force of the nation,
if necessary. Woodruff's "reflection" on this proposition was that the
President found that Congress would not sustain him, and so was seeking
a way of retreat. While the conference was in session, O.P. Rockwell
entered and whispered to Young. The latter, addressing Governor Cumming,
asked, "Are you aware that those troops are on the move toward the
city?" The compliant governor replied, "It cannot be."*** What followed
Woodruff thus relates:--
* Sen. Doc., 2d Session, 35th Congress, Vol. II, p. 167.
** Quoted in Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 214.
*** Governor Cumming on June 15 despatched a letter to General
Johnston saying that he had denied the report of the advance of the
army, and that the general was pledged not to advance until he had
received communications from the peace commissioners and the governor.
The general replied on the 19th that he did say he would not advance
until he heard from the governor, but that this was not a pledge; that
his orders from the President were to occupy the territory; that his
supplies had arrived earlier than anticipated, and that circumstances
required an advance at once.
"'Is Brother Dunbar present?' enquired Brigham.
"'Yes, sir,' responded someone. What was coming now?
"'Brother Dunbar, sing Zion.' The Scotch songster came forward and sang
the soul-stirring lines by C. W. Penrose."*
* See p. 498, ante.
Interpreted, this meant, "Stop that army or our peace conference is
ended." Woodruff adds:--
"After the meeting, McCullough and Gov. Cumming took a stroll together.
'What will you do with such a people?' asked the governor, with a
mixture of admiration and concern. 'D--n them, I would fight them if
I had my way,' answered McCullough. 'Fight them, would you? You might
fight them, but you would never whip them. They would never know when
they were whipped.'"
At the second day's conference Brigham Young uttered his final defiance
and then surrendered. Declaring that he had done nothing for which
he desired the President's forgiveness, he satisfied the pride of his
followers with such declarations as these:--
"I can take a few of the boys here, and, with the help of the Lord,
can whip the whole of the United States. Boys, how do you feel? Are you
afraid of the United States? (Great demonstration among the brethren.)
No. No. We are not afraid of man, nor of what he can do."
"The United States are going to destruction as fast as they can go. If
you do not believe it, gentlemen, you will soon see it to your sorrow."
But here was the really important part of his remarks: "Now, let me say
to you peace commissioners, we are willing those troops should come into
our country, but not to stay in our city. They may pass through it, if
needs be, but must not quarter less than forty miles from us."
Impudent as was this declaration to the representatives of the
government, it marked the end of the "war". The commissioners at once
notified General Johnston that the Mormon leaders had agreed not to
resist the execution of the laws in the territory, and to consent that
the military and civil officers should discharge their duties. They
suggested that the general issue a proclamation, assuring the people
that the army would not trespass on the rights or property of peaceable
citizens, and this the general did at once.
The Mormon leaders, being relieved of the danger of a trial for treason,
now stood in dread of two things, the quartering of the army among
them, and a vigorous assault on the practice of polygamy. Judge Eckles's
District Court had begun its spring term at Fort Bridger on April 5, and
the judge had charged the grand jury very plainly in regard to plural
marriages. On this subject he said:--
"It cannot be concealed, gentlemen, that certain domestic arrangements
exist in this territory destructive of the peace, good order, and morals
of society--arrangements at variance with those of all enlightened and
Christian communities in the world; and, sapping as they do the very
foundation of all virtue, honesty, and morality, it is an imperative
duty falling upon you as grand jurors diligently to inquire into this
evil and make every effort to check its growth.
"There is no law in this territory punishing polygamy, but there is one,
however, for the punishment of adultery; and all illegal intercourse
between the sexes, if either party have a husband or wife living at the
time, is adulterous and punishable by indictment. The law was made
to punish the lawless and disobedient, and society is entitled to the
salutary effects of its execution."
No indictments were found that spring for this offence, but the Mormons
stood in great dread of continued efforts by the judge to enforce the
law as he interpreted it. Of the nature of the real terms made with the
Mormons, Colonel Brown says:--
"No assurances were given by the commissioners upon either of these
subjects. They limited their action to tendering the President's
pardon, and exhorting the Mormons to accept it. Outside the conferences,
however, without the knowledge of the commissioners, assurances were
given on both these subjects by the Governor and Superintendent of
Indian Affairs, which proved satisfactory to Brigham Young. The exact
nature of their pledges will, perhaps, never be disclosed; but from
subsequent confessions volunteered by the superintendent, who appears
to have acted as the tool of the governor through the whole affair, it
seems probable that they promised explicitly to exert their influence to
quarter the army in Cache Valley, nearly one hundred miles north of Salt
Lake City, and also to procure the removal of Judge Eckles."*
* Atlantic Monthly, April, 1859. Young told the Mormons at Provo
on June 27, 1858: "We have reason to believe that Colonel Kane, on his
arrival at the frontier, telegraphed to Washington, and that orders were
immediately sent to stop the march of the army for ten days."--Journal
of Discourses, Vol. VII, p. 57.
Captain Marcy had reached Camp Scott on June 8, with his herd of horses
and mules, and Colonel Hoffman with the first division of the supply
train which left Fort Laramie on March 18; on the 10th Captain
Hendrickspn arrived with the remainder of the trains; and on the 13th
the long-expected movement from Camp Scott to the Mormon city began. To
the soldiers who had spent the winter inactive, except as regards their
efforts to keep themselves from freezing, the order to advance was a
welcome one. Late as was the date, there had been a snowfall at Fort
Bridger only three days before, and the streams were full of water. The
column was prepared therefore for bridge-making when necessary. When the
little army was well under way the scene in the valley through which ran
Black's Fork was an interesting one. The white walls of Bridger's Fort
formed a background, with the remnants of the camp in the shape of sod
chimneys, tent poles, and so forth next in front, and, slowly leaving
all this, the moving soldiers, the long wagon trains, the artillery
carriages and caissons, and on either flank mounted Indians riding here
and there, satisfying their curiosity with this first sight of a white
man's army. The news that the Mormons had abandoned their idea of
resistance reached the troops the second day after they had started,
and they had nothing more exciting to interest them on the way than the
scenery and the Mormon fortifications. Salt Lake City was reached on
the 26th, and the march through it took place that day. To the soldiers,
nothing was visible to indicate any abandonment of the hostile attitude
of the Mormons, much less any welcome.
Their leaders had returned to the camp at Provo, and the only civilians
in the city were a few hundred who had, for special reasons, been
granted permission to return. The only woman in the whole city was Mrs.
Cumming. The Mormons had been ordered indoors early that morning by the
guard; every flag on a public building had been taken down; every window
was closed. The regimental bands and the creaking wagons alone disturbed
the utter silence. The peace commissioners rode with General Johnston,
and the whole force encamped on the river Jordan, just within the city
limits. Two days later, owing to a lack of wood and pasturage there,
they were moved about fifteen miles westward, near the foot of the
mountains. Disregarding Young's expressed wishes, and any understanding
he might have had with Governor Cumming, General Johnston selected
Cedar Valley on Lake Utah for one of the three posts he was ordered to
establish in the territory, and there his camp was pitched on July 6.
Governor Cumming prepared a proclamation to the inhabitants of the
territory, announcing that all persons were pardoned who submitted
to the law, and that peace was restored, and inviting the refugees to
return to their homes. The governor and the peace commissioners made a
trip to the Mormon camps, and addressed gatherings at Provo and Lehi.
The governor bustled about everywhere, assuring every one that all
the federal officers would "hold sacred the amnesty and pardon by the
President of the United States, by G-d, sir, yes," and receiving from
Young the sneering reply, "We know all about it, Governor." On July 4.,
no northward movement of the people having begun, Cumming told Young
that he intended to publish his proclamation. "Do as YOU please," was
the contemptuous reply; "to-morrow I shall get upon the tongue of my
wagon, and tell the people that I am going home, and they can do as THEY
please."*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 226.
Young did so, and that day the backward march of the people began. The
real governor was the head of the church.
CHAPTER XVI. -- THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
We may here interrupt the narrative of events subsequent to the
restoration of peace in the territory, with the story of the most
horrible massacre of white people by religious fanatics of their own
race that has been recorded since that famous St. Bartholemew's night in
Paris--the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Committed on Friday,
September 11, 1857,--four days before the date of Young's proclamation
forbidding the United States troops to enter the territory--it was a
considerable time before more than vague rumors of the crime reached
the Eastern states. No inquest or other investigation was held by Mormon
authority, no person participating in the slaughter was arrested by
a Mormon officer; and, when officers of the federal government first
visited the scene, in the spring of 1859, all that remained to tell
the tale were human skulls and other bones lying where the wolves and
coyotes had left them, with scraps of clothing caught here and there
upon the vines and bushes. Dr. Charles Brewer, the assistant army
surgeon who was sent with a detail to bury the remains in May, 1859,
says in his gruesome report:--
"I reached a ravine fifty yards from the road, in which I found portions
of the skeletons of many bodies,--skulls, bones, and matted hair,--most
of which, on examination, I concluded to be those of men. Three hundred
and fifty yards further on another assembly of human remains was found,
which, by all appearance, had been left to decay upon the surface;
skulls and bones, most of which I believed to be those of women, some
also of children, probably ranging from six to twelve years of age.
Here, too, were found masses of women's hair, children's bonnets, such
as are generally used upon the plains, and pieces of lace, muslin,
calicoes, and other materials. Many of the skulls bore marks of
violence, being pierced with bullet holes, or shattered by heavy blows,
or cleft with some sharp-edged instrument."*
* Sen. Doc. No. 42, 1st Session, 36th Congress.
More than seventeen years passed before officers of the United States
succeeded in securing the needed evidence against any of the persons
responsible for these wholesale murders, and a jury which would bring in
a verdict of guilty. Then a single Mormon paid the penalty of his crime.
He died asserting that he was the one victim surrendered by the Mormon
church to appease the public demand for justice. The closest students
of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and of Brigham Young's rule will always
give the most credence to this statement of John D. Lee. Indeed, to
acquit Young of responsibility for this crime, it would be necessary to
prove that the sermons and addresses in the journal of Discourses are
forgeries.
In the summer of 1857 a party was made up in Arkansas to cross the
plains to Southern California by way of Utah, under direction of a
Captain Fancher.* This party differed from most emigrant parties of
the day both in character and equipment. It numbered some thirty
families,--about 140 individuals,--men, women, and children. They were
people of means, several of them travelling in private carriages, and
their equipment included thirty horses and mules, and about six hundred
head of cattle, when they arrived in Utah. Most of them seem to have
been Methodists, and they had a preacher of that denomination with
them. Prayers were held in camp every night and morning, and they never
travelled on Sundays. They did not hurry on, as the gold seekers were
wont to do in those days, but made their trip one of pleasure, sparing
themselves and their animals, and enjoying the beauties and novelties of
the route.**
* Stenhouse says that travelling the same route, and encamping
near the Arkansans, was a company from Missouri who called themselves
"Missouri Wildcats," and who were so boisterous that the Arkansans
were warned not to travel with them to Utah. Whitney says that the two
parties travelled several days apart after leaving Salt Lake City. No
mention of a separate company of Missourians appears in the official and
court reports of the massacre.
** Jacob Forney, in his official report, says that he made the
most careful inquiry regarding the conduct of the emigrants after they
entered the territory, and could testify that the company conducted
themselves "with propriety." In the years immediately following the
massacre, when the Mormons were trying to attribute the crime to
Indians, much was said about the party having poisoned a spring and
caused the death of Indians and their cattle. Forney found that one ox
did die near their camp, but that its death was caused by a poisonous
weed. Whitney, the church historian, who of course acquits the church of
any responsibility for the massacre, draws a very black picture of the
emigrants, saying, for instance, that at Cedar Creek "their customary
proceeding of burning fences, whipping the heads off chickens, or
shooting them in the streets or private dooryards, to the extreme danger
of the inhabitants, was continued. One of them, a blustering fellow
riding a gray horse, flourished his pistol in the face of the wife
of one of the citizens, all the time making insulting proposals and
uttering profane threats."--"History of Utah," Vol. I, p. 696.
Every emigrant train for California then expected to restock in
Utah. The Mormons had profited by this traffic, and such a thing as
non-intercourse with travellers in the way of trade was as yet unheard
of. But Young was now defying the government, and his proclamation of
September 15 had declared that "no person shall be allowed to pass or
repass into or through or from this territory without a permit from
the proper officer." To a constituency made up so largely of dishonest
members, high and low, as Young himself conceded the Mormon body politic
to be, the outfit of these travellers was very attractive. There was a
motive, too, in inflicting punishment on them, merely because they were
Arkansans, and the motive was this:--
Parley P. Pratt was sent to explore a southern route from Utah to
California in 1849. He reached San Francisco from Los Angeles in the
summer of 1851, remaining there until June, 1855. He was a fanatical
defender of polygamy after its open proclamation, challenging debate
on the subject in San Francisco, and issuing circulars calling on the
people to repent as "the Kingdom of God has come nigh unto you."
While in San Francisco, Pratt induced the wife of Hector H. McLean,
a custom-house official, the mother of three children, to accept the
Mormon faith and to elope with him to Utah as his ninth wife. The
children were sent to her parents in Louisiana by their father, and
there she sometime later obtained them, after pretending that she had
abandoned the Mormon belief. When McLean learned of this he went East,
and traced his wife and Pratt to Houston, Texas, and thence to Fort
Gibson, near Van Buren, Arkansas. There he had Pratt arrested, but there
seemed to be no law under which he could be held. As soon as Pratt was
released, he left the place on horseback. McLean, who had found letters
from Pratt to his wife at Fort Gibson which increased his feeling
against the man,* followed him on horseback for eight miles, and then,
overtaking him, shot him so that he died in two hours.** It was in
accordance with Mormon policy to hold every Arkansan accountable
for Pratt's death, just as every Missourian was hated because of the
expulsion of the church from that state.
* Van Buren Intelligencer, May 15, 1857.
** See the story in the New York Times of May 28, 1857, copied
from the St. Louis Democrat and St. Louis Republican.
When the company pitched camp on the river Jordan their food supplies
were nearly exhausted, and their draught animals needed rest and a
chance to recuperate. They knew nothing of the disturbed relations
between the Mormons and the government when they set out, and they
were astonished now to be told that they must break camp and move on
southward. But they obeyed. At American Fork, the next settlement, they
offered some of their worn-out animals in exchange for fresh ones, and
visited the town to buy provisions. There was but one answer--nothing to
sell. Southward they continued, through Provo, Springville, Payson,
Salt Creek, and Fillmore, at all settlements making the same effort to
purchase the food of which they stood in need, and at all receiving the
same reply.
So much were their supplies now reduced that they hastened on until Corn
Creek was reached; there they did obtain a little relief, some Indians
selling them about thirty bushels of corn. But at Beaver, a larger
place, nonintercourse was again proclaimed, and at Parowan, through
which led the road built by the general government, they were forbidden
to pass over this directly through the town, and the local mill would
not even grind their own corn. At Cedar Creek, one of the largest
southern settlements, they were allowed to buy fifty bushels of wheat,
and to have it and their corn ground at John D. Lee's mill. After a
day's delay they started on, but so worn out were their animals that it
took them three days to reach Iron Creek, twenty miles beyond, and two
more days to reach Mountain Meadows, fifteen miles farther south.
These "meadows" are a valley, 350 miles south of Salt Lake City, about
five miles long by one wide. They are surrounded by mountains, and
narrow at the lower end to a width of 400 yards, where a gap leads out
to the desert. A large spring near this gap made that spot a natural
resting-place, and there the emigrants pitched their camp. Had they been
in any way suspicious of Indian treachery they would not have stopped
there, because, from the elevations on either side, they were subject to
rifle fire. Their anxiety, however, was not about the Indians, whom they
had found friendly, but about the problem of making the trip of seventy
days to San Bernardino, across a desert country, with their wornout
animals and their scant supplies. Had Mormon cruelty taken only the form
of withholding provisions and forage from this company, its effect would
have satisfied their most evil wishers.
On the morning of Monday, September 7, still unsuspicious of any form of
danger, their camp was suddenly fired upon by Indians, (and probably by
some white men disguised as Indians). Seven of the emigrants were
killed in this attack and sixteen were wounded. Unexpected as was this
manifestation of hostility, the company was too well organized to be
thrown into a panic. The fire was returned, and one Indian was killed,
and two chiefs fatally wounded. The wagons were corralled at once as
a sort of fortification, and the wheels were chained together. In the
centre of this corral a rifle pit was dug, large enough to hold all
their people, and in this way they were protected from shots fired
at them from either side of the valley. In this little fort they
successfully defended themselves during that and the ensuing three
days. Not doubting that Indians were their only assailants, two of their
number succeeded in escaping from the camp on a mission to Cedar City to
ask for assistance. These messengers were met by three Mormons, who shot
one of them dead, and wounded the other; the latter seems to have made
his way back to the camp.
The Arkansans soon suffered for water, as the spring was a hundred yards
distant. Two of them during one day made a dash, carrying buckets, and
got back with them safely, under a heavy fire.
* Lee denies positively a story that the Mormons shot two little
girls who were dressed in white and sent out for water. He says that
when the Arkansans saw a white man in the valley (Lee himself) they
ran up a white flag and sent two little boys to talk with him; that he
refused to see them, as he was then awaiting orders, and that he kept
the Indians from shooting them. "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 231.
With some reenforcements from the south, the Indians now numbered about
four hundred. They shot down some seventy head of the emigrants' cattle,
and on Wednesday evening made another attack in force on the camp,
but were repulsed. Still another attack the next morning had the same
result. This determined resistance upset the plans of the Mormons who
had instigated the Indian attacks. They had expected that the travellers
would be overcome in the first surprise, and that their butchery would
easily be accounted for as the result of an Indian raid on their camp.
But they were not to be balked of their object. To save themselves from
the loss of life that would be entailed by a charge on the Arkansans'
defences, they resorted to a scheme of the most deliberate treachery.
On Friday, the 11th, a Mormon named William Bateman was sent forward
with a flag of truce. The other undisguised Mormons remained in
concealment, and the Indians had been instructed to keep entirely out of
sight. The beleaguered company were delighted to see a white man, and at
once sent one of their number to meet him. Their ammunition was almost
exhausted, their dead were unburied in their midst, and their situation
was desperate. Bateman, following out his instructions, told the
representative of the emigrants that the Mormons had come to their
assistance, and that, if they would place themselves in the white men's
hands and follow directions, they would be conducted in safety to
Cedar City, there to await a proper opportunity for proceeding on their
journey.* This plan was agreed to without any delay, and John D. Lee
was directed by John M. Higbee, major of the Iron Militia, and chief
in command of the Mormon party, to go to the camp to see that the plot
agreed upon was carried out, Samuel McMurdy and Samuel Knight following
him with two wagons which were a part of the necessary equipment.
* This account follows Lee's confession, "Mormonism Unveiled," p.
236.
Never had a man been called upon to perform a more dastardly part than
that which was assigned to Lee. Entering the camp of the beleaguered
people as their friend, he was to induce them to abandon their defences,
give up all their weapons, separate the adults from the children and
wounded, who were to be placed in the wagons, and then, at a given
signal, every one of the party was to be killed by the white men who
walked by their sides as their protectors. Lee draws a picture of
his feelings on entering the camp which ought to be correct, even if
circumstances lead one to attribute it to the pen of a man who naturally
wished to find some extenuation for himself: "I doubt the power of
man being equal to even imagine how wretched I felt. No language can
describe my feelings. My position was painful, trying, and awful;
my brain seemed to be on fire; my nerves were for a moment unstrung;
humanity was overpowering as I thought of the cruel, unmanly part that
I was acting. Tears of bitter anguish fell in streams from my eyes;
my tongue refused its office; my faculties were dormant, stupefied and
deadened by grief. I wished that the earth would open and swallow me
where I stood."
When Lee entered the camp all the people, men, women, and children,
gathered around him, some delighted over the hope of deliverance, while
others showed distrust of his intentions. Their position was so strong
that they felt some hesitation in abandoning it, and Lee says that, if
their ammunition had not been so nearly exhausted, they would never have
surrendered. But their hesitation was soon overcome, and the carrying
out of the plot proceeded.
All their arms, the wounded, and the smallest children were placed in
the two wagons. As soon as these were loaded, a messenger from Higbee,
named McFarland, rode up with a message that everything should be
hastened, as he feared he could not hold back the Indians. The wagons
were then started at once toward Cedar City, Lee and the two drivers
accompanying them, and the others of the party set out on foot for the
place where the Mormon troops were awaiting them, some two hundred yards
distant. First went McFarland on horseback, then the women and larger
children, and then the men. When, in this order, they came to the place
where the Mormons were stationed, the men of the party cheered the
latter as their deliverers.
As the wagons passed out of sight over an elevation, the march of the
rest of the party was resumed. The women and larger children walked
ahead, then came the men in single file, an armed Mormon walking by the
side of each Arkansan. This gave the appearance of the best possible
protection. When they had advanced far enough to bring the women and
children into the midst of a company of Indians concealed in a growth of
cedars, the agreed signal the words, "Do your duty"--was given. As these
words were spoken, each Mormon turned and shot the Arkansan who was
walking by his side, and Indians and other Mormons attacked the women
and children who were walking ahead, while Lee and his two companions
killed the wounded and the older of the children who were in the wagons.
The work of killing the men was performed so effectually that only
two or three of them escaped, and these were overtaken and killed soon
after.* Indeed, only the nervousness natural to men who were assigned
to perform so horrible a task could prevent the murderers from shooting
dead the unarmed men walking by their sides. With the women and children
it was different. Instead of being shot down without warning, they first
heard the shots that killed their only protectors, and then beheld the
Indians rushing on them with their usual whoops, brandishing tomahawks,
knives, and guns. There were cries for mercy, mothers' pleas for
children's lives, and maidens' appeals to manly honor; but all in vain.
It was not necessary to use firearms; indeed, they would have endangered
the assailants themselves. The tomahawk and the knife sufficed, and in
the space of a few moments every woman and older child was a corpse.
* This is Judge Cradlebaugh's and Lee's statement. Lee said he
could have given the details of their pursuit and capture if he had had
time. An affidavit by James Lynch, who accompanied Superintendent Forney
to the Meadows on his first trip there in March 1859 (printed in Sen.
Doc. No. 42), says that one of the three, who was not killed on the
spot, "was followed by five Mormons who through promises of safety,
etc., prevailed upon him to return to Mountain Meadows, where they
inhumanly butchered him, laughing at and disregarding his loud and
repeated cries for mercy, as witnessed and described by Ira Hatch, one
of the five. The object of killing this man was to leave no witness
competent to give testimony in a court of justice but God."
When Lee and the men in charge of the two wagons heard the firing, they
halted at once, as this was the signal agreed on for them to perform
their part. McMurdy's wagon, containing the sick and wounded and the
little children, was in advance, Knight's, with a few passengers and
the weapons, following. We have three accounts of what happened when the
signal was given, Lee's own, and the testimony of the other two at Lee's
trial. Lee says that McMurdy at once went up to Knight's wagon, and,
raising his rifle and saying, "O Lord my God, receive their spirits;
it is for Thy Kingdom I do this," fired, killing two men with the first
shot. Lee admits that he intended to do his part of the killing, but
says that in his excitement his pistol went off prematurely and narrowly
escaped wounding McMurdy; that Knight then shot one man, and with the
butt of his gun brained a little boy who had run up to him, and that
the Indians then came up and finished killing all the sick and wounded.
McMurdy testified that Lee killed the first person in his wagon--a
woman--and also shot two or three others. When asked if he himself
killed any one that day, McMurdy replied, "I believe I am not upon
trial. I don't wish to answer." Knight testified that he saw Lee strike
down a woman with his gun or a club, denying that he himself took any
part in the slaughter: Nephi Johnson, another witness at Lee's second
trial, testified that he saw Lee and an Indian pull a man out of one of
the wagons, and he thought Lee cut the man's throat. The only persons
spared in this whole company were seventeen children, varying in age
from two months to seven years. They were given to Mormon families in
southern Utah--"sold out," says Forney in his report, "to different
persons in Cedar City, Harmony, and Painter Creek. Bills are now in
my possession from different individuals asking payment from
the government. I cannot condescend to become the medium of even
transmitting such claims to the department." The government directed
Forney in 1858 to collect these children, and he did so. Congress in
1859 appropriated $10,000 to defray the expense of returning them to
their friends in Arkansas, and on June 27 of that year fifteen of them
(two boys being retained as government witnesses) set out for the East
from Salt Lake City in charge of a company of United States dragoons and
five women attendants. Judge Cradlebaugh quotes one of these children, a
boy less than nine years old, as saying in his presence, when they were
brought to Salt Lake City, "Oh, I wish I was a man. I know what I would
do. I would shoot John D. Lee. I saw him shoot my mother."
The total number in the Arkansas party is not exactly known. The victims
numbered more than 120. Jacob Hamblin testified at the Lee trial that,
the following spring, he and his man buried "120 odd" skulls, counting
them as they gathered them up.
A few young women, in the confusion of the Indian attack, concealed
themselves, but they were soon found. Hamblin testified at Lee's
second trial that Lee, in a long conversation with him, soon after the
massacre, told him that, when he rejoined the Mormon troops, an Indian
chief brought to him two girls from thirteen to fifteen years old, whom
he had found hiding in a thicket, and asked what should be done with
them, as they were pretty and he wanted to save them. Lee replied that
"according to the orders he had, they were too old and too big to let
go."
Then by Lee's direction the chief shot one of them, and Lee threw the
other down and cut her throat. Hamblin said that an Indian boy conducted
him to the place where the girls' bodies lay, a long way from the rest,
up a ravine, unburied and with their throats cut. One of the little
children saved from the massacre was taken home by Hamblin, and she said
the murdered girls were her sisters. Richard F. Burton, who visited Utah
in 1860, mentions, as one of the current stories in connection with the
massacre, that, when a girl of sixteen knelt before one of the Mormons
and prayed for mercy, he led her into the thicket, violated her, and
then cut her throat.*
* "City of the Saints," p. 412.
As soon as the slaughter was completed the plundering began. Beside
their wagons, horses, and cattle,* they had a great deal of other
valuable property, the whole being estimated by Judge Cradlebaugh
at from $60,000 to $70,000. When Lee got back to the main party, the
searching of the bodies of the men for valuables began. "I did hold the
hat awhile," he confesses, "but I got so sick that I had to give it to
some other person." He says there were more than five hundred head of
cattle, a large number of which the Indians killed or drove away, while
Klingensmith, Haight, and Higbee, leaders in the enterprise, drove
others to Salt Lake City and sold them. The horses and mules were
divided in the same way. The Indians (and probably their white comrades)
had made quick work with the effects of the women. Their bodies, young
and old, were stripped naked, and left, objects of the ribald jests of
their murderers. Lee says that in one place he counted the bodies of ten
children less than sixteen years old.
* Superintendent Forney, in his report of March, 1859, said:
"Facts in my possession warrant me in estimating that there was
distributed a few days after the massacre, among the leading church
dignitaries, $30,000 worth of property. It is presumable they also had
some money."
When the Mormons had finished rifling the dead, all were called together
and admonished by their chiefs to keep the massacre a secret from the
whole world, not even letting their wives know of it, and all took the
most solemn oath to stand by one another and declare that the killing
was the work of Indians. Most of the party camped that night on the
Meadows, but Lee and Higbee passed the night at Jacob Hamblin's ranch.
In the morning the Mormons went back to bury the dead. All these lay
naked, "making the scene," says Lee, "one of the most loathsome and
ghastly that can be imagined." The bodies were piled up in heaps in
little depressions, and a pretence was made of covering them with dirt;
but the ground was hard and their murderers had few tools, and as a
consequence the wild beasts soon unearthed them, and the next spring the
bones were scattered over the surface.
This work finished, the party, who had been joined during the night by
Colonel Dame, Judge Lewis, Isaac C. Haight, and others of influence,
held another council, at which God was thanked for delivering their
enemies into their hands; another oath of secrecy was taken, and all
voted that any person who divulged the story of the massacre should
suffer death, but that Brigham Young should be informed of it. It was
also voted, according to Lee, that Bishop Klingensmith should take
charge of the plunder for the benefit of the church.
The story of this slaughter, to this point, except in minor particulars
noted, is undisputed. No Mormon now denies that the emigrants were
killed, or that Mormons participated largely in the slaughter. What the
church authorities have sought to establish has been their own ignorance
of it in advance, and their condemnation of it later. In examining this
question we have, to assist us, the knowledge of the kind of government
that Young had established over his people--his practical power of life
and death; the fact that the Arkansans were passing south from Salt Lake
City, and that their movements had been known to Young from the start
and their treatment been subject to his direction; the failure of Young
to make any effort to have the murderers punished, when a "crook of
his finger" would have given them up to justice; the coincidence of the
massacre with Young's threat to Captain Van Vliet, uttered on September
9, "If the issue continues, you may tell the government to stop all
emigration across the continent, for the Indians will kill all who
attempt it"; Young's failure to mention this "Indian outrage" in his
report as superintendent of Indian affairs, and the silence of the
Mormon press on the subject.* If we accept Lee's plausible theory that,
at his second trial, the church gave him up as a sop to justice, and
loosened the tongues of witnesses against him, this makes that part of
the testimony in confirmation of Lee's statement, elicited from them,
all the stronger.
* H. H. Bancroft, in his "Utah," as usual, defends the Mormon
church against the charge of responsibility for the massacre, and calls
Judge Cradlebaugh's charge to the grand jury a slur that the evidence
did not excuse.
Let us recall that Lee himself had been an active member of the church
for nearly forty years, following it from Missouri to Utah, travelling
penniless as a missionary at the bidding of his superiors, becoming
a polygamist before he left Nauvoo, accepting in Utah the view that
"Brigham spoke by direction of the God of heaven," and saying, as he
stood by his coffin looking into the rifles of his executioners, "I
believe in the Gospel that was taught in its purity by Joseph Smith in
former days." How much Young trusted him is seen in the fact that, by
Young's direction, he located the southern towns of Provo, Fillmore,
Parowan, etc., was appointed captain of militia at Cedar City, was
president of civil affairs at Harmony, probate judge of the county
(before and after the massacre), a delegate to the convention which
framed the constitution of the State of Deseret, a member of the
territorial legislature (after the massacre), and "Indian farmer" of the
district including the Meadows when the massacre occurred.
Lee's account of the steps leading up to the massacre and of what
followed is, in brief, that, about ten days before it occurred, General
George A. Smith, one of the Twelve, called on him at Washington City,
and, in the course of their conversation, asked, "Suppose an emigrant
train should come along through this southern country, making threats
against our people and bragging of the part they took in helping kill
our prophet, what do you think the brethren would do with them?" Lee
replied: "You know the brethren are now under the influence of the
'Reformation,' and are still red-hot for the Gospel. The brethren
believe the government wishes to destroy them. I really believe that
any train of emigrants that may come through here will be attacked and
probably all destroyed. Unless emigrants have a pass from Brigham Young
or some one in authority, they will certainly never get safely through
this country." Smith said that Major Haight had given him the same
assurance. It was Lee's belief that Smith had been sent south in advance
of the emigrants to prepare for what followed.
Two days before the first attack on the camp, Lee was summoned to Cedar
City by Isaac Haight, president of that Stake, second only to Colonel
Dame in church authority in southern Utah, and a lieutenant colonel in
the militia under Dame. To make their conference perfectly secret, they
took some blankets and passed the night in an old iron works. There
Haight told Lee a long story about Captain Fancher's party, charging
them with abusing the Mormons, burning fences, poisoning water,
threatening to kill Brigham Young and all the apostles, etc. He said
that unless preventive measures were taken, the whole Mormon population
were likely to be butchered by troops which these people would bring
back from California. Lee says that he believed all this. He was also
told that, at a council held that day, it had been decided to arm the
Indians and "have them give the emigrants a brush, and, if they killed
part or all, so much the better." When asked who authorized this, Haight
replied, "It is the will of all in authority," and Lee was told that he
was to carry out the order. The intention then was to have the Indians
do the killing without any white assistance. On his way home Lee met a
large body of Indians who said they were ordered by Haight, Higbee, and
Bishop Klingensmith, to kill and rob the emigrants, and wanted Lee to
lead them. He told them to camp near the emigrants and wait for him;
but they made the attack, as described, early Monday morning, without
capturing the camp, and drove the whites into an intrenchment from which
they could not dislodge them. Hence the change of plan.
During the early part of the operations, Lee says, a messenger had been
sent to Brigham Young for orders. On Thursday evening two or three wagon
loads of Mormons, all armed, arrived at Lee's camp in the Meadows, the
party including Major Higbee of the Iron Militia, Bishop Klingensmith,
and many members of the High Council. When all were assembled, Major
Higbee reported that Haight's orders were that "all the emigrants must
be put out of the way"; that they had no pass (Young could have given
them one); that they were really a part of Johnston's army, and, if
allowed to proceed to California, they would bring destruction on all
the settlements in Utah. All knelt in prayer, after which Higbee gave
Lee a paper ordering the destruction of all who could talk. After
further prayers, Higbee said to Lee, "Brother Lee, I am ordered by
President Haight to inform you that you shall receive a crown of
celestial glory for your faithfulness, and your eternal joy shall be
complete." Lee says that he was "much shaken" by this offer, because
of his complete faith in the power of the priesthood to fulfil such
promises. The outcome of the conference was the adoption of the plan of
treachery that was so successfully carried out on Friday morning. The
council had lasted so long that the party merely had time for breakfast
before Bateman set out for the camp with his white flag.*
* Bishop Klingensmith, one of the indicted, in whose case the
district attorney entered a nolle prosequi in order that he might be a
witness at Lee's first trial, said in his testimony: "Coming home the
day following their [emigrants'] departure from Cedar City, met Ira
Allen four miles beyond the place where they had spoken to Lee. Allen
said, 'The die is cast, the doom of the emigrants is sealed.'" (This
was in reference to a meeting in Parowan, when the destruction of the
emigrants had been decided on.) He said John D. Lee had received orders
from headquarters at Parowan to take men and go, and Joel White would be
wanted to go to Pinto Creek and revoke the order to suffer the emigrants
to pass. The third day after, Haight came to McFarland's house and told
witness and others that orders had come in from camp last night. Things
hadn't gone along as had been expected, and reenforcements were wanted.
Haight then went to Parowan to get instructions, and received orders
from Dame to "decoy the emigrants out and spare nothing but the small
children who could not tell the tale." In an affidavit made by
this Bishop in April, 1871, he said: "I do not know whether said
'headquarters' meant the spiritual headquarters at Parowan, or the
headquarters of the commander-in-chief at Salt Lake City." (Affidavit in
full in "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 439.)
Several days after the massacre, Haight told Lee that the messenger sent
to Young for instructions had returned with orders to let the emigrants
pass in safety, and that he (Haight) had countermanded the order for
the massacre, but his messenger "did not go to the Meadows at all." All
parties were evidently beginning to realize the seriousness of their
crime. Lee was then directed by the council to go to Young with a
verbal report, Haight again promising him a celestial reward if he would
implicate more of the brethren than necessary in his talk with Young.*
On reaching Salt Lake City, Lee gave Young the full particulars of the
massacre, step by step. Young remarked, "Isaac [Haight] has sent me
word that, if they had killed every man, woman, and child in the outfit,
there would not have been a drop of innocent blood shed by the brethren;
for they were a set of murderers, robbers, and thieves."
* "At that time I believed everything he said, and I fully
expected to receive the celestial reward that he promised me. But now
[after his conviction] I say, 'Damn all such celestial rewards as I am
to get for what I did on that fatal day'." "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 251.
When the tale was finished, Young said: "This is the most unfortunate
affair that ever befell the church. I am afraid of treachery among the
brethren who were there. If any one tells this thing so that it will
become public, it will work us great injury. I want you to understand
now that you are NEVER to tell this again, not even to Heber C. Kimball.
IT MUST be kept a secret among ourselves. When you get home, I want
you to sit down and write a long letter, and give me an account of the
affair, charging it to the Indians. You sign the letter as farmer to
the Indians, and direct it to me as Indian agent. I can then make use of
such a letter to keep off all damaging and troublesome inquirers." Lee
did so, and his letter was put in evidence at his trial.
Lee says that Young then dismissed him for the day, directing him to
call again the next morning, and that Young then said to him: "I have
made that matter a subject of prayer. I went right to God with it, and
asked him to take the horrid vision from my sight if it was a righteous
thing that my people had done in killing those people at the Mountain
Meadows. God answered me, and at once the vision was removed. I have
evidence from God that he has overruled it all for good, and the action
was a righteous one and well intended."*
* For Lee's account of his interview with Young, see "Mormonism
Unveiled," pp. 252-254.
When Lee was in Salt Lake City as a member of the constitutional
convention, the next winter, Young treated him, at his house and
elsewhere, with all the friendliness of old. No one conversant with
the extent of Young's authority will doubt the correctness of Lee's
statement that "if Brigham Young had wanted one man or fifty men or five
hundred men arrested, all he would have had to do would be to say so,
and they would have been arrested instantly. There was no escape for
them if he ordered their arrest. Every man who knows anything of affairs
in Utah at that time knows this is so."
At the second trial of Lee a deposition by Brigham Young was read, Young
pleading ill health as an excuse for not taking the stand. He admitted
that "counsel and advice were given to the citizens not to sell grain to
the emigrants for their stock," but asserted that this did not include
food for the parties themselves. He also admitted that Lee called on
him and began telling the story of the massacre, but asserted that he
directed him to stop, as he did not want his feelings harrowed up with
a recital of these details. He gave as an excuse for not bringing the
guilty to justice, or at least making an investigation, the fact that
a new governor was on his way, and he did not know how soon he would
arrive. As Young himself was keeping this governor out by armed force,
and declaring that he alone should fill that place, the value of his
excuse can be easily estimated. Hamblin, at Lee's trial, testified that
he told Brigham Young and George A. Smith "everything I could" about the
massacre, and that Young said to him, "As soon as we can get a court of
justice we will ferret this thing out, but till then don't say anything
about it."
Both Knight and McMurphy testified that they took their teams to
Mountain Meadows under compulsion. Nephi Johnson, another participant,
when asked whether he acted under compulsion, replied, "I didn't
consider it safe for me to object," and when compelled to answer the
question whether any person had ever been injured for not obeying such
orders, he replied, "Yes, sir, they had."
Some letters published in the Corinne (Utah) Reporter, in the early
seventies, signed "Argus," directly accused Young of responsibility for
this massacre. Stenhouse discovered that the author had been for thirty
years a Mormon, a high priest in the church, a holder of responsible
civil positions in the territory, and he assured Stenhouse that "before
a federal court of justice, where he could be protected, he was prepared
to give the evidence of all that he asserted." "Argus" declared that
when the Arkansans set out southward from the Jordan, a courier preceded
them carrying Young's orders for non-intercourse; that they were
directed to go around Parowan because it was feared that the military
preparations at that place, Colonel Dame's headquarters, might arouse
their suspicion; and he points out that the troops who killed the
emigrants were called out and prepared for field operations, just as the
territorial law directed, and were subject to the orders of Young, their
commander-in-chief.
Not until the so-called Poland Bill of 1874 became a law was any one
connected with the Mountain Meadows Massacre even indicted. Then the
grand jury, under direction of Judge Boreman, of the Second Judicial
District of Utah, found indictments against Lee, Dame, Haight, Higbee,
Klingensmith, and others. Lee, who had remained hidden for some years
in the canyon of the Colorado,* was reported to be in south Utah at the
time, and Deputy United States Marshal Stokes, to whom the warrant for
his arrest was given, set out to find him. Stokes was told that Lee had
gone back to his hiding-place, but one of his assistants located the
accused in the town of Panguitch, and there they found him concealed in
a log pen near a house. His trial began at Beaver, on July 12, 1875. The
first jury to try his case disagreed, after being out three days, eight
Mormons and the Gentile foreman voting for acquittal, and three Gentiles
for conviction. The second trial, which took place at Beaver, in
September, 1876, resulted in a verdict of "guilty of murder in the first
degree." Beadle says of the interest which the church then took in
his conviction: "Daniel H. Wells went to Beaver, furnished some new
evidence, coached the witnesses, attended to the spiritual wants of
the jury, and Lee was convicted. He could not raise the money ($1000)
necessary to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, although
he solicited it by subscription from wealthy leading Mormons for several
days under guard."**
* Inman's "Great Salt Lake Trail," p. 141
** "Polygamy," p. 507.
Criminals in Utah convicted of a capital crime were shot, and this was
Lee's fate. It was decided that the execution should take place at the
scene of the massacre, and there the sentence of the court was carried
out on March 23, 1877. The coffin was made of rough pine boards after
the arrival of the prisoner, and while he sat looking at the workmen
a short distance away. When all the arrangements were completed, the
marshal read the order of the court and gave Lee an opportunity to
speak. A photographer being ready to take a picture of the scene, Lee
asked that a copy of the photograph be given to each of three of his
wives, naming them. He then stood up, having been seated on his coffin,
and spoke quietly for some time. He said that he was sacrificed to
satisfy the feelings of others; that he died "a true believer in the
Gospel of Jesus Christ," but did not believe everything then taught by
Brigham Young. He asserted that he "did nothing designedly wrong in
this unfortunate affair," but did everything in his power to save the
emigrants. Five executioners then stepped forward, and, when their
rifles exploded, Lee fell dead on his coffin.
Major (afterward General) Carlton, returning from California in 1859,
where he had escorted a paymaster, passed through Mountain Meadows, and,
finding many bones of the victims still scattered around, gathered them,
and erected over them a cairn of stones, on one of which he had engraved
the words: "Here lie the bones of 120 men, women, and children from
Arkansas, murdered on the 10th day of September, 1857." In the centre of
the cairn was placed a beam, some fifteen feet high, with a cross-tree,
on which was painted: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will
repay it." It was said that this was removed by order of Brigham Young.*
* "Humiliating as it is to confess, in the 42d Congress there
were gentlemen to be found in the committees of the House and in
the Senate who were bold enough to declare their opposition to all
investigation. One who had a national reputation during the war, from
Bunker Hill to New Orleans, was not ashamed to say to those who sought
the legislation that was necessary to make investigation possible, that
it was 'too late.'" "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 456.
CHAPTER XVII. -- AFTER THE "WAR"
With the return of the people to their homes, the peaceful avocations
of life in Utah were resumed. The federal judges received assignments to
their districts, and the other federal officers took possession of their
offices. Chief Justice Eckles selected as his place of residence Camp
Floyd, as General Johnston's camp was named; Judge Sinclair's district
included Salt Lake City, and Judge Cradlebaugh's the southern part of
the state.
Judge Cradlebaugh, who conceived it to be a judge's duty to see
that crime was punished, took steps at once to secure indictments
in connection with the notorious murders committed during the
"Reformation," and we have seen in a former chapter with what poor
results. He also personally visited the Mountain Meadows, talked with
whites and Indians cognizant with the massacre, and, on affidavits sworn
to before him, issued warrants for the arrest of Haight, Higbee, Lee,
and thirty-four others as participants therein. In order to hold
court with any prospect of a practical result, a posse of soldiers was
absolutely necessary, even for the protection of witnesses; but Governor
Cumming, true to the reputation he had secured as a Mormon ally,
declared that he saw no necessity for such use of federal troops, and
requested their removal from Provo, where the court was in session; and
when the judge refused to grant his request, he issued a proclamation
in which he stated that the presence of the military had a tendency "to
disturb the peace and subvert the ends of justice." Before this dispute
had proceeded farther, General Johnston received an order from Secretary
Floyd, approved by Attorney General Black, directing that in future
he should instruct his troops to act as a posse comitatus only on the
written application of Governor Cumming. Thus did the church win one of
its first victories after the reestablishment of "peace."
An incident in Salt Lake City at this time might have brought about a
renewal of the conflict between federal and Mormon forces. The engraver
of a plate with which to print counterfeit government drafts, when
arrested, turned state's evidence and pointed out that the printing of
the counterfeits had been done over the "Deseret Store" in Salt Lake
City, which was on Young's premises. United States Marshal Dotson
secured the plate, and with it others, belonging to Young, on which
Deseret currency had been printed. This seemed to bring the matter so
close to Young that officers from Camp Floyd called on Governor Cumming
to secure his cooperation in arresting Young should that step be decided
on. The governor refused with indignation to be a party to what
he called "creeping through walls," that is, what he considered a
roundabout way to secure Young's arrest; and, when it became rumored
in the city that General Johnston would use his troops without the
governor's cooperation Cumming directed Wells, the commander of the
Nauvoo Legion, who had so recently been in rebellion against the
government, to hold his militia in readiness for orders. Wells is quoted
by Bancroft as saying that he told Cumming, "We would not let them [the
soldiers] come; that if they did come, they would never get out alive if
we could help it."* The decision of the Washington authorities in favor
of Governor Cumming as against the federal judges once more restored
"peace." The only sufferer from this incident was Marshal Dotson,
against whom Young, in his probate court, obtained a judgment of $2600
for injury to the Deseret currency plates, and a house belonging to
Dotson, renting for $500 year, was sold to satisfy this judgment, and
bought in by an agent of Young.
* "History of Utah," p. 573, note.
To complete the story of this forgery, it may be added that Brewer, the
engraver who turned state's evidence, was shot down in Main Street, Salt
Lake City, one evening, in company with J. Johnson, a gambler who had
threatened to shoot a Mormon editor. A man who was a boy at the time
gave J. H. Beadle the particulars of this double murder as he received
it from the person who lighted a brazier to give the assassin a sure
aim.* The coroner's jury the next day found that the men shot one
another!
* "Polygamy," p. 192.
Soon all public attention throughout the country was centred in the
coming conflict in the Southern states. In May, 1860, the troops at Camp
Floyd departed for New Mexico and Arizona, only a small guard being left
under command of Colonel Cooke. In May, 1861, Governor Cumming left Salt
Lake City for the east so quietly that most of the people there did not
hear of his departure until they read it in the local newspapers. He
soon after appeared in Washington, and after some delay obtained a pass
which permitted his passage through the Confederate lines. When the
Southern rebellion became a certainty, Colonel Cooke and his force
were ordered to march to the East in the autumn, after selling vast
quantities of stores in Camp Floyd, and destroying the supplies and
ammunition which they could not take away. Such a slaughter of prices
as then occurred was, perhaps, without precedent. It was estimated
that goods costing $4,000,000 brought only $100,000. Young had preached
non-intercourse with the Gentile merchants who followed the army, but
he could not lose so great an opportunity as this, when, for instance,
flour costing $28.40 per sack sold for 52 cents, and he invested $4,000.
"For years after," says Stenhouse, "the 'regulation blue pants' were
more familiar to the eye, in the Mormon settlements, than the Valley Tan
Quaker gray."
When Governor Cumming left the territory, the secretary, Francis H.
Wooton, became acting governor. He made himself very offensive to the
administration at Washington, and President Lincoln appointed Frank
Fuller, of New Hampshire, secretary of the territory in his place, and
Mr. Fuller proceeded at once to Salt Lake City, where he became acting
governor. Later in the year the other federal offices in Utah were
filled by the appointment of John W. Dawson, of Indiana, as governor,
John F. Kinney as chief justice, and R. P. Flenniken and J. R. Crosby as
associate justices.
The selection of Dawson as governor was something more than a political
mistake. He was the editor and publisher of a party newspaper at Fort
Wayne, Indiana, a man of bad morals, and a meddler in politics, who
gave the Republican managers in his state a great deal of trouble.
The undoubted fact seems to be that he was sent out to Utah on the
recommendation of Indiana politicians of high rank, who wanted to get
rid of him, and who gave no attention whatever to the requirements
of his office. Arriving at his post early in December, 1861, the new
governor incurred the ill will of the Mormons almost immediately
by vetoing a bill for a state convention passed by the territorial
legislature, and a memorial to Congress in favor of the admission of the
territory as a state (which Acting Governor Fuller approved). They were
very glad, therefore, to take advantage of any mistake he might make;
and he almost at once gave them their opportunity, by making improper
advances to a woman whom he had employed to do some work. She, as Dawson
expressed it to one of his colleagues, "was fool enough to tell of it,"
and Dawson, learning immediately that the Mormons meditated a severe
vengeance, at once made preparations for his departure.
The Deseret News of January 1, 1862, in an editorial on the departure
of the governor, said that for eight or ten days he had been confined to
his room and reported insane; that, when he left, he took with him his
physician and four guards, "to each of whom, as reported last evening,
$100 is promised in the event that they guard him faithfully, and
prevent his being killed or becoming qualified for the office of
chamberlain in the King's palace, till he shall have arrived at and
passed the eastern boundary of the territory." After indicating that he
had committed an offence against a lady which, under the common law,
if enforced, "would have caused him to have bitten the dust," the News
added: "Why he selected the individuals named for his bodyguard no one
with whom we have conversed has been able to determine. That they will
do him justice, and see him safely out of the territory, there can be no
doubt."
The hints thus plainly given were carried out. Beadle's account says,
"He was waylaid in Weber canyon, and received shocking and almost
emasculating injuries from three Mormon lads."* Stenhouse says: "He was
dreadfully maltreated by some Mormon rowdies who assumed, 'for the fun
of the thing,' to be the avengers of an alleged insult. Governor Dawson
had been betrayed into an offence, and his punishment was heavy."** Mrs.
Waite says that the Mormons laid a trap for the governor, as they had
done for Steptoe; but the evidence indicates that, in Dawson's case, the
victim was himself to blame for the opportunity he gave.
* "Polygamy," p. 195.
** "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 592.
Stenhouse says that the Mormon authorities were very angry because of
the aggravated character of the punishment dealt out to the governor,
as they simply wanted him sent away disgraced, and that they had all his
assailants shot. This is practically confirmed by the Mormon historian
Whitney, who says that one of the assailants was a relative of the woman
insulted, and the others "merely drunken desperadoes and robbers who,"
he explains, "were soon afterward arrested for their cowardly and brutal
assault upon the fleeing official. One of them, Lot Huntington, was shot
by Deputy Sheriff O. P. Rockwell [so often Young's instrument in such
cases] on January 26, in Rush Valley, while attempting to escape from
the officers, and two others, John P. Smith and Moroni Clawson, were
killed during a similar attempt next day by the police of Salt Lake
City. Their confederates were tried and duly punished."*
* "History of Utah," Vol. II, p. 38.
The departure of Governor Dawson left the executive office again in
charge of Secretary Fuller. Early in 1862 the Indians threatened the
overland mail route, and Fuller, having received instruction from
Montgomery Blair to keep the route open at all hazards, called for
thirty men to serve for thirty days. These were supplied by the Mormons.
In the following April, the Indian troubles continuing, Governor Fuller,
Chief Justice Kinney, and officers of the Overland Mail and Pacific
Telegraph Companies united in a letter to Secretary Stanton asking that
Superintendent of Indian Affairs Doty be authorized to raise a regiment
of mounted rangers in the territory, with officers appointed by him,
to keep open communication. These petitioners, observes Tullidge, "had
overrated the federal power in Utah, as embodied in themselves, for such
a service, when they overlooked ex-Governor Young" and others.* Young
had no intention of permitting any kind of a federal force to supplant
his Legion. He at once telegraphed to the Utah Delegate in Washington
that the Utah militia (alias Nauvoo Legion) were competent to furnish
the necessary protection. As a result of this presentation of the
matter, Adjutant General L. L. Thomas, on April 28, addressed a reply to
the petition for protection, not to any of the federal officers in
Utah, but to "Mr. Brigham Young," saying, "By express direction of the
President of the United States you are hereby authorized to raise, arm,
and equip one company of cavalry for ninety days' service."* The order
for carrying out these instructions was placed by the head of the Nauvoo
Legion, "General" Wells--who ordered the burning of the government
trains in 1857--in the hands of Major Lot Smith, who carried out that
order!
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 252.
** Vol. II, Series 3, p. 27, War of the Rebellion, official
records.
Judges Flenniken and Crosby took their departure from the territory a
month later than Dawson, and Thomas J. Drake of Michigan and Charles
B. Waite of Illinois* were named as their successors, and on March 31
Stephen S. Harding of Milan, Indiana, a lawyer, was appointed governor.
The new officers arrived in July.
* After leaving Utah Judge Waite was appointed district attorney
for Idaho, was elected to Congress, and published "A History of the
Christian Religion," and other books. His wife, author of "The Mormon
Prophet," was a graduate of Oberlin College and of the Union College of
Law in Chicago, a member of the Illinois bar, founder of the Chicago Law
Times, and manager of the publishing firm of C. W. Waite & Co.
At this time the Mormons were again seeking admission for the State
of Deseret. They had had a constitution prepared for submission to
Congress, had nominated Young for governor and Kimball for lieutenant
governor, and the legislature, in advance, had chosen W. H. Hooper
and George Q. Cannon the United States senators. But Utah was not
then admitted, while, on the other hand, an anti-polygamy bill (to be
described later) was passed, and signed by President Lincoln on July 2.
During the month preceding the arrival of Governor Harding, another
tragedy had been enacted in the territory. Among the church members
was a Welshman named Joseph Morris, who became possessed of the belief
(which, as we have seen, had afflicted brethren from time to time) that
he was the recipient of "revelations." One of these "revelations" having
directed him to warn Young that he was wandering from the right course,
he did this in person, and received a rebuke so emphatic that it quite
overcame him. He betook himself, therefore, to a place called Kington
Fort, on the Weber River, thirty-five miles north of Salt Lake City, and
there he found believers in his prophetic gifts in the local Bishop,
and quite a settlement of men and women, almost all foreigners. Young's
refusal to satisfy the demand for published "revelations" gave some
standing to a fanatic like Morris, who professed to supply that
long-felt want, and he was so prolific in his gift that three clerks
were required to write down what was revealed to him. Among his
announcements were the date of the coming of Christ and the necessity of
"consecrating" their property in a common fund. Having made a mistake
in the date selected for Christ's appearance, the usual apostates sprang
up, and, when they took their departure, they claimed the right to carry
with them their share of the common effects. In the dispute that ensued,
the apostates seized some Morrisite grain on the way to mill, and the
Morrisites captured some apostates, and took them prisoners to Kington
Fort.
Out of these troubles came the issue of a writ by Judge Kinney for the
release of the prisoners, the defiance of this writ by the Morrisites,
and a successful appeal to the governor for the use of the militia to
enable the marshal to enforce the writ. On the morning of June 13
the Morrisites discovered an armed force, in command of General R. T.
Burton, the marshal's chief deputy, on the mountain that overlooked
their settlement, and received from Burton an order to surrender in
thirty minutes. Morris announced a "revelation," declaring that the Lord
would not allow his people to be destroyed. When the thirty minutes
had expired, without further warning the Mormon force fired on the
Morrisites with a cannon, killing two women outright, and sending the
others to cover. But the devotees were not weak-hearted. For three
days they kept up a defence, and it was not until their ammunition was
exhausted that they raised a white flag. When Burton rode into their
settlement and demanded Morris's surrender, that fanatic replied,
"Never." Burton at once shot him dead, and then badly wounded John
Banks, an English convert and a preacher of eloquence, who had joined
Morris after rebelling against Young's despotism. Banks died "suddenly"
that evening. Burton finished his work by shooting two women, one of
whom dared to condemn his shooting of Morris and Banks, and the other
for coming up to him crying.*
* For accounts of this slaughter, see "Rocky Mountain Saints,"
pp. 593-606, and Beadle's "Life in Utah," pp. 413-420.
The bodies of Morris and Banks were carried to Salt Lake City
and exhibited there. No one--President of the church or federal
officer--took any steps at that time to bring their murderers to
justice. Sixteen years later District Attorney Van Zile tried Burton
for this massacre, but the verdict was acquittal, as it has been in all
these famous cases except that of John D. Lee. Ninety-three Morrisites,
few of whom could speak English, were arraigned before Judge Kinney and
placed under bonds. In the following March seven of the Morrisites were
convicted of killing members of the posse, and sentenced by Judge Kinney
to imprisonment for from five to fifteen years each, while sixty-six
others were fined $100 each for resisting the posse. Governor Harding
immediately pardoned all the accused, in response to a numerously signed
petition. Beadle says that Bishop Wooley advised the governor to be
careful about granting these pardons, as "our people feel it would be
an outrage, and if it is done, they might proceed to violence"; but
that Bill Hickman, the Danite captain, rode thirty miles to sign the
petition, saying that he was "one Mormon who was not afraid to sign."
The grand jury that had indicted the Morrisites made a presentment to
Judge Kinney, in which they said, "We present his Excellency Stephen S.
Harding, governor of Utah, as we would an unsafe bridge over a dangerous
stream, jeopardizing the lives of all those who pass over it; or as
we would a pestiferous cesspool in our district, breathing disease and
death." And the chief justice assured this jury that they addressed him
"in no spirit of malice," and asked them to accept his thanks "for your
cooperation in the support of my efforts to maintain and enforce the
law." It is to the credit of the powers at Washington that this judge
was soon afterward removed.*
* Even the Mormon historian has only this to say on this subject:
"Of the relative merit or demerit of the action of the United States and
territorial authorities concerned in the Morrisite affair the historian
does not presume to touch, further than to present the record itself and
its significance."--Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City," p. 320.
CHAPTER XVIII. -- ATTITUDE OF THE MORMONS DURING THE SOUTHERN REBELLION
The attitude of the Mormons toward the government at the outbreak
of hostilities with the Southern states was distinctly disloyal. The
Deseret News of January 2, 1861, said, "The indications are that the
breach which has been effected between the North and South will continue
to widen, and that two or more nations will be formed out of the
fragmentary portions of the once glorious republic." The Mormons in
England had before that been told in the Millennial Star (January 28,
1860) that "the Union is now virtually destroyed." The sermons in Salt
Lake City were of the same character. "General" Wells told the people
on April 6, 1861, that the general government was responsible for
their expulsion from Missouri and Illinois, adding: "So far as we are
concerned, we should have been better without a government than such a
one. I do not think there is a more corrupt government upon the face of
the earth."* Brigham Young on the same day said: "Our present President,
what is his strength? It is like a rope of sand, or like a rope made of
water. He is as weak as water.... I feel disgraced in having been born
under a government that has so little power, disposition and influence
for truth and right. Shame, shame on the rulers of this nation. I feel
myself disgraced to hail such men as my countrymen."**
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. VIII, pp. 373-374.
** Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 4.
Elder G. A. Smith, on the same occasion, railing against the non-Mormon
clergy, said, "Mr. Lincoln now is put into power by that priestly
influence; and the presumption is, should he not find his hands full by
the secession of the Southern States, the spirit of priestly craft would
force him, in spite of his good wishes and intentions, to put to death,
if it was in his power, every man that believes in the divine mission of
Joseph Smith."* On August 31, 1862, Young quoted Smith's prediction of
a rebellion beginning in South Carolina, and declared that "the nation
that has slain the prophet of God will be broken in pieces like a
potter's vessel," boasting that the Mormon government in Utah was "the
best earthly government that was ever framed by man."
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IX, p. 18.
Tullidge, discussing in 1876 the attitude of the Mormon church toward
the South, said:--
"With the exception of the slavery question and the policy of secession,
the South stood upon the same ground that Utah had stood upon just
previously.... And here we reach the heart of the Mormon policy and
aims. Secession is not in it. Their issues are all inside the Union. The
Mormon prophecy is that that people are destined to save the Union and
preserve the constitution.... The North, which had just risen to power
through the triumph of the Republican party, occupied the exact position
toward the South that Buchanan's administration had held toward Utah.
And the salient points of resemblance between the two cases were so
striking that Utah and the South became radically associated in the
Chicago platform that brought the Republican party into office. Slavery
and polygamy--these 'twin relics of barbarism'--were made the two chief
planks of the party platform. Yet neither of these were the real ground
of the contest. It continues still, and some of the soundest men of the
times believe that it will be ultimately referred in a revolution so
general that nearly every man in America will become involved in the
action.... The Mormon view of the great national controversy, then, is
that the Southern States should have done precisely what Utah did,
and placed themselves on the defensive ground of their rights and
institutions as old as the Union. Had they placed themselves under the
political leadership of Brigham Young, they would have triumphed, for
their cause was fundamentally right; their secession alone was the
national crime."**
** Tullidge's "Life of Brigham Young," Chap. 24.
Knowledge of the spirit which animated the Saints induced the Secretary
of War to place them under military supervision, and in May, 1862, the
Third California Infantry and a part of the Second California Cavalry
were ordered to Utah. The commander of this force was Colonel P. E.
Connor, who had a fine record in the Mexican War, and who was among the
first, at the outbreak of the Rebellion, to tender his services to the
government in California, where he was then engaged in business. On
assuming command of the military district of Utah, which included Utah
and Nevada, Colonel Connor issued an order directing commanders of
posts, camps, and detachments to arrest and imprison, until they took
the oath of allegiance, "all persons who from this date shall be guilty
of uttering treasonable sentiments against the government," adding,
"Traitors shall not utter treasonable sentiments in this district with
impunity, but must seek some more genial soil, or receive the punishment
they so richly deserve."
When Connor's force arrived at Fort Crittenden (the Camp Floyd of
General Johnston), the Mormons supposed that it would make its camp
there. Persons having a pecuniary interest in the reoccupation of the
old site, where they wanted to sell to the government the buildings they
had bought for a song, tried hard to induce Colonel Connor to accept
their view, even warning him of armed Mormon opposition to his passage
through Salt Lake City. But he was not a man to be thus deterred. Among
the rumors that reached him was one that Bill Hickman, the Danite chief,
was offering to bet $500 in Salt Lake City that the colonel could not
cross the river Jordan. Colonel Connor is said to have sent back the
reply that he "would cross the river Jordan if hell yawned below him."
On Saturday, October 18, Connor marched twenty miles toward the Mormon
capital, and the next day crossed the Jordan at 2 P.M., without finding
a person in sight on the eastern shore. The command, knowing that
the Nauvoo Legion outnumbered them vastly, and ignorant of the real
intention of the Mormon leaders, advanced with every preparation to meet
resistance. They were, as an accompanying correspondent expressed it,
"six hundred miles of sand from reinforcements." The conciliatory policy
of so many federal officers in Utah would have induced Colonel Connor to
march quietly around the city, and select some place for his camp where
it would not offend Mormon eyes. What he did do was to halt his command
when the city was two miles distant, form his column with an advance
guard of cavalry and a light battery, the infantry and commissary
wagons coming next, and in this order, to the bewilderment of the
Mormon authorities, march into the principal street, with his two bands
playing, to Emigrants' Square, and so to Governor Harding's residence.
The only United States flag displayed on any building that day was the
governor's. The sidewalks were packed with men, women, and children,
but not a cheer was heard. In front of the governor's residence the
battalion was formed in two lines, and the governor, standing in the
buggy in which he had ridden out to meet them, addressed them, saying
that their mission was one of peace and security, and urging them to
maintain the strictest discipline. The troops, Colonel Connor leading,
gave three cheers for the country and the flag, and three for Governor
Harding, and then took up their march to the slope at the base of
Wahsatch Mountain, where the Camp Douglas of to-day is situated. This
camp was in sight of the Mormon city, and Young's residence was in range
of its guns. Thus did Brigham's will bend before the quiet determination
of a government officer who respected his government's dignity.
But the Mormon spirit was to be still further tested. On December 8
Governor Harding read his first message to the territorial legislature.
It began with a tribute to the industry and enterprise of the people;
spoke of the progress of the war, and of the application of the
territory for statehood, and in this connection said, "I am sorry to
say that since my sojourn amongst you I have heard no sentiments, either
publicly or privately expressed, that would lead me to believe that much
sympathy is felt by any considerable number of your people in favor
of the government of the United States, now struggling for its very
existence." He declared that the demand for statehood should not be
entertained unless it was "clearly shown that there is a sufficient
population" and "that the people are loyal to the federal government and
the laws." He recommended the taking of a correct census to settle the
question of population. All these utterances were gall and wormwood to a
body of Mormon lawmakers, but worse was to come. Congress having
passed an act "to prevent and punish the practice of polygamy in the
territories," the governor naturally considered it his duty to call
attention to the matter. Prevising that he desired to do so "in no
offensive manner or unkind spirit," he pointed out that the practice was
founded on no territorial law, resting merely on custom; and laid, down
the principle that "no community can happily exist with an institution
so important as that of marriage wanting in all those qualities that
make it homogeneal with institutions and laws of neighboring civilized
countries having the same spirit." He spoke of the marriage of a mother
and her daughter to the same man as "no less a marvel in morals than in
matters of taste," and warned them against following the recommendation
of high church authorities that the federal law be disregarded. This
message, according to the Mormon historian, was "an insult offered to
their representatives."*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 305.
These representatives resented the "insult" by making no reference in
the journal to the reading of the message, and by failing to have it
printed. When this was made known in Washington, the Senate, on January
16, 1863, called for a report by the Committee on Territories concerning
the suppression of the message, and they got one from its chairman,
Benjamin Wade, pointing out that Utah Territory was in the control of "a
sort of Jewish theocracy," affording "the first exhibition, within
the limits of the United States, of a church ruling the state," and
declaring that the governor's message contained "nothing that should
give offence to any legislature willing to be governed by the laws of
morality," closing with a recommendation that the message be printed by
Congress. The territorial legislature adjourned on January 16 without
sending to Governor Harding for his approval a single appropriation
bill, and the next day the so-called legislature of the State of Deseret
met and received a message from the state governor, Brigham Young.
Next the new federal judges came under Mormon displeasure. We have
seen the conflict of jurisdiction existing between the federal and the
so-called probate courts and their officers. Judge Waite perceived the
difficulties thus caused as soon as he entered upon his duties, and he
sent to Washington an act giving the United States marshal authority
to select juries for the federal courts, taking from the probate courts
jurisdiction in civil actions, and leaving them a limited criminal
jurisdiction subject to appeal to the federal court, and providing for a
reorganization of the militia under the federal governor. Bernhisel
and Hooper sent home immediate notice of the arrival of this bill in
Washington.
Now, indeed, it was time for Brigham to "bend his finger." If a governor
could openly criticise polygamy, and a judge seek to undermine Young's
legal and military authority, without a protest, his days of power were
certainly drawing to a close. Accordingly, a big mass-meeting was held
in Salt Lake City on March 3, 1863, "for the purpose of investigating
certain acts of several of the United States officials in the
territory." Speeches were made by John Taylor and Young, in which the
governor and judges were denounced.* A committee was appointed to ask
the governor and two judges to resign and leave the territory, and a
petition was signed requesting President Lincoln to remove them, the
first reason stated being that "they are strenuously endeavoring to
create mischief, and stir up strife between the people of the territory
and the troops in Camp Douglas." The meeting then adjourned, the band
playing the "Marseillaise."
* Reported in Mrs. Waite's "Mormon Prophet," pp. 98-102.
The committee, consisting of John Taylor, J. Clinton, and Orson Pratt,
called on the governor and the judges the next morning, and met with a
flat refusal to pay any attention to the mandate of the meeting. "You
may go back and tell your constituents," said Governor Harding, "that I
will not resign my office, and will not leave this territory, until it
shall please the President to recall me. I will not be driven away. I
may be in danger in staying, but my purpose is fixed." Judge Drake told
the committee that he had a right to ask Congress to pass or amend any
law, and that it was a special insult for him, a citizen, to be asked
by Taylor, a foreigner, to leave any part of the Republic. "Go back to
Brigham Young, your master," said he, "that embodiment of sin, shame,
and disgust, and tell him that I neither fear him, nor love him,
nor hate him--that I utterly despise him. Tell him, whose tools and
tricksters you are, that I did not come here by his permission, and that
I will not go away at his desire nor by his direction.... A horse thief
or a murderer has, when arrested, a right to speak in court; and, unless
in such capacity or under such circumstances, don't you even dare to
speak to me again." Judge Waite simply declined to resign because to
do so would imply "either that I was sensible of having done something
wrong, or that I was afraid to remain at my post and perform my duty."**
* Text of replies in Mrs. Waite's "Mormon Prophet," pp. 107-109.
As soon as the action of the Mormon mass-meeting became known at Camp
Douglas, all the commissioned officers there signed a counter petition
to President Lincoln, "as an act of duty we owe our government,"
declaring that the charge of inciting trouble between the people and the
troops was "a base and unqualified falsehood," that the accused officers
had been "true and faithful to the government," and that there was no
good reason for their removal.
Excitement in Salt Lake City now ran high. Young, in a violent harangue
in the Tabernacle on March 8, after declaring his loyalty to the
government, said, "Is there anything that could be asked that we would
not do? Yes. Let the present administration ask us for a thousand men,
or even five hundred, and I'd see them d--d first, and then they could
not have them. What do you think of that?' (Loud cries of 'Good, Good,'
and great applause.)"*
* Correspondence of the Chicago Tribune.
Young expected arrest, and had a signal arranged by which the citizens
would rush to his support if this was attempted. A false alarm of this
kind was given on March 9, and in an hour two thousand armed men
were assembled around his house.* Steptoe, who in an earlier year had
declined the governorship of the territory and petitioned for Young's
reappointment, took credit for what followed in an article in the
Overland Monthly for December, 1896. Being at Salt Lake City at the
time, he suggested to Wells and other leaders that they charge Young
with the crime of polygamy before one of the magistrates, and have him
arraigned and admitted to bail, in order to place him beyond the
reach of the military officers. The affidavit was sworn to before the
compliant Chief Justice Kinney by Young's private secretary, was served
by the territorial marshal, and Young was released in $5000 bail.
Colonel Connor was informed of this arrest before he arrived in the
city, and retraced his steps; the citizens dispersed to their homes;
the grand jury found no indictment against Young, and in due time he was
discharged from his recognizance.
* "On the inside of the high walls surrounding Brigham's premises
scaffolding was hastily erected in order to enable the militia to fire
down upon the passing volunteers. The houses on the route which occupied
a commanding position where an attack could be made upon the troops were
taken possession of, and the small cannon brought out."--"Rocky Mountain
Saints," p. 604.
"In the meantime," says a Mormon chronicler, "our 'outside' friends in
this city telegraphed to those interested in the mail* and telegraph
lines that they must work for the removal of the troops, Governor
Harding, and Judges Waite and Drake, otherwise there would be
'difficulty,' and the mail and telegraph lines would be destroyed. Their
moneyed interest has given them great energy in our behalf."** This
"work" told Governor Harding was removed, leaving the territory on
June 11 and, as proof that this was due to "work" and not to his own
incapacity, he was made Chief Justice of Colorado Territory.*** With
him were displaced Chief Justice Kinney and Secretary Fuller.**** Judges
Waite and Drake wrote to the President that it would take the support
of five thousand men to make the federal courts in Utah effective.
Waite resigned in the summer of 1863. Drake remained, but his court did
practically no business.
* The first Pony Express left Sacramento and St. Joseph,
Missouri, on April 3, 1860. Major General M. B. Hazen in an official
letter dated February, 1807 (House Misc. Doc. No. 75, 2d Session,
39th Congress), said: "Ben Holiday I believe to be the only outsider
acceptable to those people, and to benefit himself I believe he would
throw the whole weight of his influence in favor of Mormonism. By the
terms of his contract to carry the mails from the Missouri to Utah, all
papers and pamphlets for the newsdealers, not directed to subscribers,
are thrown out. It looks very much like a scheme to keep light out of
that country, nowhere so much needed."
** D. O. Calder's letter to George Q. Cannon, March 13, 1863, in
Millennial Star.
*** "Every attempt was made to seduce him from the path of duty,
not omitting the same appliances which had been brought to bear upon
Steptoe and Dawson, but all in vain."--"The Mormon Prophet," p. 109.
**** Whitney, the Mormon historian, says that while the President
was convinced that Harding was not the right man for the place, "he
doubtless believed that there was more or less truth in the charges of
'subserviency' to Young made by local anti-Mormons against Chief
Justice Kinney and Secretary Fuller. He therefore removed them as
well."--"History of Utah," Vol. II, p. 103.
Lincoln's policy, as he expressed it then, was, "I will let the Mormons
alone if they will let me alone."* He had war enough on his hands
without seeking any diversion in Utah. J. D. Doty, the superintendent
of Indian affairs, succeeded Harding as governor, Amos Reed of Wisconsin
became secretary, and John Titus of Philadelphia chief justice.
* Young's letter to Cannon, "History of Salt Lake City," p. 325.
Affairs in Utah now became more quiet. General Connor (he was made a
brigadier general for his service in the Bear River Indian campaign in
1862-1863) yielded nothing to Mormon threats or demands. A periodical
called the Union Vidette, published by his force, appeared in November,
1863, and in it was printed a circular over his name, expressing belief
in the existence of rich veins of gold, silver, copper, and other metals
in the territory, and promising the fullest protection to miners and
prospectors; and the beginning of the mining interests there dated from
the picking up of a piece of ore by a lady member of the camp while
attending a picnic party. Although the Mormons had discouraged mining
as calculated to cause a rush of non-Mormon residents, they did not show
any special resentment to the general's policy in this respect. With
the increasing evidence that the Union cause would triumph, the church
turned its face toward the federal government. We find, accordingly, a
union of Mormons and Camp Douglas soldiers in the celebration of Union
victories on March 4, 1865, with a procession and speeches, and, when
General Connor left to assume command of the Department of the Platte,
a ball in his honor was given in Salt Lake City; and at the time
of Lincoln's assassination church and government officers joined in
services in the Tabernacle, and the city was draped in mourning.
CHAPTER XIX. -- EASTERN VISITORS TO SALT LAKE CITY--UNPUNISHED MURDERERS
In June, 1865, a distinguished party from the East visited Salt Lake
City, and their visit was not without public significance. It included
Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Lieutenant
Governor Bross of Illinois, Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield
(Massachusetts) Republican, and A. D. Richardson of the staff of the New
York Tribune. Crossing the continent was still effected by stage-coach
at that time, and the Mormon capital had never been visited by civilians
so well known and so influential. Mr. Colfax had stated publicly that
President Lincoln, a short time before his death, had asked him to
make a thorough investigation of territorial matters, and his visit
was regarded as semiofficial. The city council formally tendered to
the visitors the hospitality of the city, and Mr. Bowles wrote that the
Speaker's reception "was excessive if not oppressive."
In an interview between Colfax and Young, during which the subject of
polygamy was brought up by the latter, he asked what the government
intended to do with it, now that the slavery question was out of the
way. Mr. Colfax replied with the expression of a hope that the prophets
of the church would have a new "revelation" which would end the
practice, pointing out an example in the course of Missouri and Maryland
in abolishing slavery, without waiting for action by the federal
government. "Mr. Young," says Bowles, "responded quietly and frankly
that he should readily welcome such a revelation; that polygamy was
not in the original book of the Mormons; that it was not an essential
practice in the church, but only a privilege and a duty, under special
command of God."*
* "Across the Continent," p. 111.
It is worth while to note Mr. Bowles's summing up of his observations
of Mormondom during this visit. "The result," he wrote, "of the whole
experience has been to increase my appreciation of the value of
their material progress and development to the nation; to evoke
congratulations to them and to the country for the wealth they have
created, and the order, frugality, morality (sic), and industry they
have organized in this remote spot in our continent; to excite wonder at
the perfection of their church system, the extent of its ramifications,
the sweep of its influence, and to enlarge my respect for the personal
sincerity and character of many of the leaders in the organization."*
These were the expressions of a leading journalist, thought worthy to be
printed later in book form, on a church system and church officers about
which he had gathered his information during a few hours' visit, and
concerning which he was so fundamentally ignorant that he called their
Bible--whose title is, "Book of Mormon"--"book of the Mormons!" It
is reasonably certain that he had never read Smith's "revelations,"
doubtful if he was acquainted with even the framework of the Mormon
Bible, and probable that he was wholly ignorant of the history of their
recent "Reformation." Many a profound opinion of Mormonism has been
founded on as little opportunity for accurate knowledge.**
* "Across the Continent," p. 106.
** As another illustration of the value of observations by such
transient students may be cited the following, from Sir Charles
Wentworth Dilke's "Greater Britain," Vol. I, p. 148: "Brigham's deeds
have been those of a sincere man. His bitterest opponents cannot dispute
the fact that, in 1844, when Nauvoo was about to be deserted owing to
attacks by a ruffianly mob, Brigham Young rushed to the front and took
command. To be a Mormon leader was then to be the leader of an outcast
people, with a price set on his head, in a Missouri country in which
almost every man who was not a Mormon was by profession an assassin."
The Eastern visitors soon learned, however, how little intention the
Mormon leaders had to be cajoled out of polygamy. Before Mr. Bowles's
book was published, he had to add a supplement, in which he explained
that "since our visit to Utah in June, the leaders among the Mormons
have repudiated their professions of loyalty to the government, and
denied any disposition to yield the issue of polygamy." Tullidge sneers
at Colfax "for entertaining for a while the pretty plan" of having the
Mormons give up polygamy as the Missourians did slavery. The Deseret
News, soon after the Colfax party left the territory, expressed the
real Mormon view on this subject, saying: "As a people we view every
revelation from the Lord as sacred. Polygamy was none of our seeking. It
came to us from Heaven, and we recognized it, and still do, the voice of
Him whose right it is not only to teach us, but to dictate and teach
all men.... They [Gentiles] talk of revelations given, and of receiving
counter revelations to forbid what has been commanded, as if man was the
sole author, originator, and designer of them.... Do they wish to
brand a whole people with the foul stigma of hypocrisy, who, from their
leaders to the last converts that have made the dreary journey to these
mountain wilds for their faith, have proved their honesty of purpose and
deep sincerity of faith by the most sublime sacrifices? Either that is
the issue of their reasoning, or they imagine that we serve and worship
the most accommodating Deity ever dreamed of in the wildest vagaries of
the most savage polytheist."
This was a perfectly consistent statement of the Mormon position, a
simple elaboration of Young's declaration that, to give up belief in
Smith as a prophet, and in his "revelations," would be to give up
their faith. Just as truly, any later "revelation," repealing the one
concerning polygamy, must be either a pretence or a temporary expedient,
in orthodox Mormon eyes. The Mormons date the active crusade of the
government against polygamy from the return of the Colfax party to
the East, holding that this question did not enter into the early
differences between them and the government.*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 358.
In the year following Colfax's visit, there occurred in Utah two murders
which attracted wide notice, and which called attention once more to the
insecurity of the life of any man against whom the finger of the church
was crooked. The first victim was O. N. Brassfield, a non-Mormon, who
had the temerity to marry, on March 20, 1866, the second polygamous
wife of a Mormon while the husband was in Europe on a mission. As he was
entering his house in Salt Lake City, on the third day of the following
month, he was shot dead. An order that had been given to disband the
volunteer troops still remaining in the territory was countermanded
from Washington, and General Sherman, then commander of that department,
telegraphed to Young that he hoped to hear of no more murders of
Gentiles in Utah, intimating that, if he did, it would be easy to
reenlist some of the recently discharged volunteers and march them
through the territory.
The second victim was Dr. J. King Robinson, a young man who had come
to Utah as assistant surgeon of the California volunteers, married the
daughter of a Mormon whose widow and daughters had left the church, and
taken possession of the land on which were some well-known warm
springs, with the intention of establishing there a sanitarium. The
city authorities at once set up a claim to the warm springs property,
a building Dr. Robinson had erected there was burned, and, as he became
aggressive in asserting his legal rights, he was called out one night,
ostensibly to set a broken leg, knocked down, and shot dead. The
audacity of this crime startled even the Mormons, and the opinion
has been expressed that nothing more serious than a beating had been
intended. There was an inquest before a city alderman, at which some
non-Mormon lawyers and judges Titus and McCurdy were asked to assist.
The chief feature of this hearing was the summing up by Ex-Governor J.
B. Weller, of California, in which he denounced such murders, asked if
there was not an organized influence which prevented the punishment
of their perpetrators, and confessed that the prosecution had not been
permitted "to lift the veil, and show the perpetrators of this horrible
murder." *
* Text in "Rocky Mountain Saints," Appendix I.
General W. B. Hazen, in his report of February, 1867, said of these
victims: "There is no doubt of their murder from Mormon church
influences, although I do not believe by direct command. Principles
are taught in their churches which would lead to such murders. I have
earnestly to recommend that a list be made of the Mormon leaders,
according to their importance, excepting Brigham Young, and that the
President of the United States require the commanding officer at Camp
Douglas to arrest and send to the state's prison at Jefferson City, Mo.,
beginning at the head of the list, man for man hereafter killed as
these men were, to be held until the real perpetrators of the deed,
with evidence for their conviction, be given up. I believe Young for the
present necessary for us there"*
* Mis. House Doc. No. 75, 2d Session, 39th Congress.
Had this policy been adopted, Mormon prisoners would soon have started
East, for very soon afterward three other murders of the same character
occurred, although the victims were not so prominent.* Chief Justice
Titus incurred the hatred of the Mormons by determined, if futile,
efforts to bring offenders in such cases to justice, and to show their
feeling they sent him a nightgown ten feet long, at the hands of a
negro.
* See note 70, p. 628, Bancroft's "History of Utah." When, in
July, 1869, a delegation from Illinois, that included Senator Trumbull,
Governor Oglesby, Editor Medill of the Chicago Tribune, and many
members of the Chicago Board of Trade, visited Salt Lake City, they were
welcomed by and affiliated with the Gentile element;* and when, in the
following October, Vice President Colfax paid a second visit to the
city, he declined the courtesies tendered to him by the city officers.**
He made an address from the portico of the Townsend House, of which
polygamy was the principle feature, and was soon afterward drawn into a
newspaper discussion of the subject with John Taylor.
* In an interview between Young and Senator Trumbull during this
visit (reported in the Alta California), the following conversation took
place:--"Young--We can take care of ourselves. Cumming was good enough
in his way, for you know he was simply Governor of the Territory, while
I was and am Governor of the people."
"Senator Trumbull--Mr. Young, may I say to the President that you intend
to observe the laws under the constitution?"
"Young-Well-yes--we intend to."
"Senator Trumbull--But may I say to him that you will do so?"
"Young--Yes, yes; so far as the laws are just, certainly."
** "Mr. Colfax politely refused to accept the proffered
courtesies of the city. Brigham was reported to have uttered abusive
language in the Tabernacle towards the Government and Congress, and to
have charged the President and Vice President with being drunkards.
One of the Aldermen who waited upon Mr. Colfax to tender to him the
hospitality of the city could only say that he did not hear Brigham say
so."--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 638.
CHAPTER XX. -- GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM
The end of the complete seclusion of the Mormon settlement in Utah from
the rest of the country--complete except so far as it was interrupted
by the passage through the territory of the California emigration--dates
from the establishment of Camp Floyd, and the breaking up of that camp
and the disposal of its accumulation of supplies, which gave the first
big impetus to mercantile traffic in Utah.* Young was ever jealous of
the mercantile power, so openly jealous that, as Tullidge puts it, "to
become a merchant was to antagonize the church and her policies, so that
it was almost illegitimate for Mormon men of enterprising character to
enter into mercantile pursuits." This policy naturally increased the
business of non-Mormons who established themselves in the city, and
their prosperity directed the attention of the church authorities to
them, and the pulpit orators hurled anathemas at those who traded with
them. Thus Young, in a discourse, on March 28, 1858, urging the people
to use home-made material, said: "Let the calicoes lie on the shelves
and rot. I would rather build buildings every day and burn them down at
night, than have traders here communing with our enemies outside, and
keeping up a hell all the time, and raising devils to keep it going.
They brought their hell with them. We can have enough of our own without
their help."** A system of espionage, by means of the city police,
was kept on the stores of non-Mormons, until it required courage for a
Mormon to make a purchase in one of these establishments. To trade with
an apostate Mormon was, of course, a still greater offence.
* "The community had become utterly destitute of almost
everything necessary to their social comfort. The people were poorly
clad, and rarely ever saw anything on their tables but what was prepared
from flour, corn, beet-molasses, and the vegetables and fruits of their
gardens.... It was at Camp Floyd, indeed, where the principal Utah
merchants and business men of the second decade of our history may be
said to have laid the foundation of their fortunes, among whom were the
Walker Brothers."--Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City," pp. 246-247.
** Journal of Discourses, Vol. VII, p. 45.
Among the mercantile houses that became strong after the establishment
of Camp Floyd was that of Walker Brothers. There were four of them,
Englishmen, who had come over with their mother, and shared in the
privations of the early Utah settlement. Possessed of practical business
talent and independence of thought, they rebelled against Young's
dictatorial rule and the varied trammels by which their business was
restricted. Without openly apostatizing, they insisted on a measure
of independence. One manifestation of this was a refusal to contribute
one-tenth of their income as a tithe for the expenditure of which no
account was rendered. One year, when asked for their tithe, they gave
the Bishop of their ward a check for $500 as "a contribution to the
poor." When this form of contribution was reported to Young, he refused
to accept it, and sent the brothers word that he would cut them off from
the church unless they paid their tithe in the regular way. Their reply
was to tear up the check and defy Young.
The natural result followed. Brigham and his lieutenants waged an open
war on these merchants, denouncing them in the Tabernacle, and keeping
policemen before their doors. The Walkers, on their part, kept on
offering good wares at reasonable prices, and thus retained the custom
of as many Mormons as dared trade with them openly, or could slip
in undiscovered. Even the expedient of placing a sign bearing an
"all-seeing eye" and the words "Holiness to the Lord" over every Mormon
trader's door did not steer away from other doors the Mormon customers
who delighted in bargains. But the church power was too great for any
one firm to fight. Not only was a business man's capital in danger in
those times, when the church was opposed to him, but his life was
not safe. Stenhouse draws this picture of the condition of affairs in
1866:--"After the assassination of Dr. Robinson, fears of violence were
not unnatural, and many men who had never before carried arms buckled
on their revolvers. Highly respectable men in Salt Lake City forsook
the sidewalks after dusk, and, as they repaired to their residences,
traversed the middle of the public street, carrying their revolvers in
their hands."
With such a feeling of uneasiness, nearly all the non-Mormon merchants
joined in a letter to Brigham Young, offering, if the church would
purchase their goods and estates at twenty-five per cent less than
their valuation, they would leave the Territory. Brigham answered them
cavalierly that he had not asked them to come into the Territory, did
not ask them to leave it, and that they might stay as long as they
pleased.
"It was clear that Brigham felt himself master of the situation, and the
merchants had to bide their time, and await the coming change that was
anticipated from the completion of the Pacific Railroad. As the great
iron way approached the mountains, and every day gave greater evidence
of its being finished at a much earlier period than was at first
anticipated, the hope of what it would accomplish nerved the
discontented to struggle with the passing day." *
* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 625.
The Mormon historian incorporates these two last paragraphs in his book,
and says: "Here is at once described the Gentile and apostate view of
the situation in those times, and, confined as it is to the salient
point, no lengthy special argument in favor of President Young's
policies could more clearly justify his mercantile cooperative movement.
IT WAS THE MOMENT OF LIFE OR DEATH TO THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE
CHURCH.... The organization of Z. C. M. I. at that crisis saved the
temporal supremacy of the Mormon commonwealth."* It was to meet outside
competition with a force which would be invincible that Young conceived
the idea of Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, which was
incorporated in 1869, with Young as president. In carrying out this idea
no opposing interest, whether inside the church or out of it, received
the slightest consideration. "The universal dominance of the head of the
church is admitted," says Tullidge, "and in 1868, before the opening
of the Utah mines and the existence of a mixed population, there was no
commercial escape from the necessities of a combination."**
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 385.
** "Cooperation is as much a cardinal and essential doctrine of
the Mormon church as baptism for the remission of sin."--Tullidge,
"History of Salt Lake City."
Young is said to have received the idea of the big Cooperative
enterprise from a small trader who asked permission to establish a
mercantile system on the Cooperative plan, of moderate dimensions,
throughout the territory. He gave it definite shape at a meeting of
merchants in October, 1868, which was followed by
a circular explaining the scheme to the people. A preamble asserted
"the impolicy of leaving the trade and commerce of this territory to be
conducted by strangers." The constitution of the concern provided for a
capital of $3,000,000 in $100 shares. Young's original idea was to have
all the merchants pool their stocks, those who found no places in
the new establishment to go into some other business,--farming for
instance,--renting their stores as they could. Of course this meant
financial ruin to the unprovided for, and the opposition was strong. But
Young was not to be turned from the object he had in view. One man told
Stenhouse that when he reported to Young that a certain merchant would
be ruined by the scheme, and would not only be unable to pay his debts,
but would lose his homestead, Young's reply was that the man had no
business to get into debt, and that "if he loses his property it serves
him right." Tullidge, in an article in Harpers Magazine for September,
1871 (written when he was at odds with Young), said, "The Mormon
merchants were publicly told that all who refused to join the
cooperation should be left out in the cold; and against the two most
popular of them the Lion of the Lord roared, 'If Henry Lawrence don't
mind what's he's about I'll send him on a mission, and W. S. Godbe I'll
cut off from the church."'
After the organization of the concern in 1869 some of the leading Mormon
merchants in Salt Lake City sold their goods to it on favorable terms,
knowing that the prices of their stock would go down when the opening
of the railroad lowered freight rates. The Z. C. M. I. was started as a
wholesale and retail concern, and Young recommended that ward stores
be opened throughout the city which should buy their goods of the
Institution. Local cooperative stores were also organized throughout the
territory, each of which was under pressure to make its purchases of the
central concern. Branches were afterward established at Ogden, at Logan,
and at Soda Springs, Idaho, and a large business was built up and is
still continued.* The effect of this new competition on the non-Mormon
establishments was, of course, very serious. Walker Brothers' sales, for
instance, dropped $5000 or $6000 a month, and only the opportunity to
divert their capital profitably to mining saved them and others from
immediate ruin.
Bancroft says that in 1883 the total sales of the Institution exceeded
$4,000,000, and a half yearly dividend of five per cent was paid in
October of that year, and there was a reserve fund of about $125,000; he
placed the sales of the Ogden branch, in 1883, at about $800,000, and of
the Logan branch at about $600,000. The thirty-second annual statement
of the Institution, dated April 5,1901, contains the following figures:
Capital stock, $1,077,144.89; reserve, $362,898.95; undivided
profits, $179,042.88; cash receipts, February 1 to December 31, 1900,
$3,457,624.44, sales for the same period, $3,489.571.84. The branch
houses named is this report are at Ogden City and Provo, Utah, and at
Idaho Falls, Idaho.
But at this time an influence was preparing to make itself felt in Utah
which was a more powerful opponent of Brigham Young's authority than any
he had yet encountered. This influence took shape in what was known as
the "New Movement," and also as "The Reformation." Its original leaders
were W. S. Godbe and E. L. T. Harrison. Godbe was an Englishman, who saw
a good deal of the world as a sailor, embraced the Mormon faith in his
own country when seventeen years of age, and walked most of the way from
New York to Salt Lake City in 1851. He became prominent in the Mormon
capital as a merchant, making the trip over the plains twenty-four
times between 1851 and 1859. Harrison was an architect by profession, a
classical scholar, and a writer of no mean ability.
With these men were soon associated Eli B. Kelsey, a leading elder in
the Mormon church, a president of Seventies, and a prominent worker
in the English missions; H. W. Lawrence, a wealthy merchant who was
a Bishop's counsellor; Amasa M. Lyman, who had been one of the Twelve
Apostles and was acknowledged to be one of the most eloquent preachers
in the church; W. H. Sherman, a prominent elder and a man of literary
ability, who many years later went back to the church; T. B. H.
Stenhouse, a Scotchman by birth, who was converted to Mormonism in 1846,
and took a prominent part in missionary work in Europe, for three years
holding the position of president of the Swiss and Italian missions;
he emigrated to this country with his wife and children in 1855,
practically penniless, and supported himself for a time in New York City
as a newspaper writer; in Salt Lake City he married a second wife by
Young's direction, and one of his daughters by his first wife married
Brigham's eldest son. Stenhouse did not win the confidence of either
Mormons or non-Mormons in the course of his career, but his book, "The
Rocky Mountain Saints," contains much valuable information. Active with
these men in the "New Movement" was Edward W. Tullidge, an elder and
one of the Seventy, and a man of great literary ability. In later years
Tullidge, while not openly associating himself with the Mormon church,
wrote the "History of Salt Lake City" which the church accepts, a "Life
of Brigham Young," which could not have been more fulsome if written by
the most devout Mormon, and a "Life of Joseph the Prophet," which is a
valueless expurgated edition of Joseph's autobiography which ran through
the Millennial Star.
The "New Movement" was assisted by the advent of non-Mormons to the
territory, by Young's arbitrary methods in starting his cooperative
scheme, by the approaching completion of the Pacific Railroad, and, in
a measure, by the organization of the Reorganized Church under the
leadership of the prophet Joseph Smith's eldest son. Two elders of that
church, who went to Salt Lake City in 1863, were refused permission
to preach in the Tabernacle, but did effective work by house-to-house
visitations, and there were said to be more than three hundred of the
"Josephites," as they were called, in Salt Lake City in 1864.*
* "Persecution followed, as they claimed; and in early summer
about one-half of the Josephites in Salt Lake City started eastward, so
great being the excitement that General Connor ordered a strong escort
to accompany them as far as Greene River. To those who remained,
protection was also afforded by the authorities."--Bancroft, "History of
Utah," p. 645.
Harrison and Tullidge had begun the publication of a magazine called the
Peep o' Day at Camp Douglas, but it was a financial failure. Then Godbe
and Harrison started the Utah Magazine, of which Harrison was editor.
This, too, was only a drain on their purses. Accordingly, some time in
the year 1868, giving it over to the care of Tullidge, they set out on
a trip to New York by stage. Both were in doubt on many points regarding
their church; both were of that mental make-up which is susceptible to
"revelations" and "callings"; by the time they reached New York they
realized that they were "on the road to apostasy."
Long discussions of the situation took place between them, and the
outcome was characteristic of men who had been influenced by such
teachings as those of the Mormons. Kneeling down in their room, they
prayed earnestly, and as they did so "a voice spoke to them." For
three weeks, while Godbe transacted his mercantile business, his friend
prepared questions on religion and philosophy, "and in the evening, by
appointment, 'a band of spirits' came to them and held converse with
them, as friends would speak with friends. One by one the questions
prepared by Mr. Harrison were read, and Mr. Godbe and Mr. Harrison, with
pencil and paper, took down the answers as they heard them given by the
spirits."* The instruction which they thus received was Delphic in its
clearness--that which was true in Mormonism should be preserved and the
rest should be rejected.
* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 631.
When they returned to Utah they took Elder Eli B. Kelsey, Elder H. W.
Lawrence, a man of wealth, and Stenhouse into their confidence, and it
was decided to wage open warfare on Young's despotism, using the Utah
Magazine as their mouthpiece. Without attacking Young personally, or the
fundamental Mormon beliefs, the magazine disputed Young's doctrine
that the world was degenerating to ruin, held up the really "great
characters" the world has known, that Young might be contrasted with
them, and discussed the probabilities of honest errors in religious
beliefs. When the Mormon leaders read in the magazine such doctrine as
that, "There is one false error which possesses the minds of some in
this, that God Almighty intended the priesthood to do our thinking,"
they realized that they had a contest on their hands. Young got into
trouble with the laboring men at this time. He had contracts for
building a part of the Pacific Railroad, which were sublet at a profit.
An attempt by him to bring about a reduction of wages gave the magazine
an opportunity to plead the laborers' cause which it gladly embraced.*
* Harpers Magazine, Vol. XLIII, p. 605.
In the summer of 1869 Alexander and David Hyrum Smith, sons of the
prophet, visited Salt Lake City in the interest of the Reorganized
Church. Many of Young's followers still looked on the sons of the
prophet as their father's rightful successor to the leadership of the
Church, as Young at Nauvoo had promised that Joseph III should be.
But these sons now found that, even to be acknowledged as members of
Brigham's fold, they must accept baptism at the hands of one of his
elders, and acknowledge the "revelation" concerning polygamy as coming
from God. They had not come with that intent. But they called on
Young and discussed with him the injection of polygamy into the church
doctrines. Young finally told them that they possessed, not the spirit
of their father, but of their mother Emma, whom Young characterized as
"a liar, yes, the damnedest liar that lived," declaring that she tried
to poison the prophet * He refused to them the use of the Tabernacle,
but they spoke in private houses and, through the influence of the
Walker brothers, secured Independence Hall. The Brighamites, using a son
of Hyrum Smith as their mouthpiece,** took pains that a goodly number
of polygamists should attend the Independence Hall meetings, and
interruptions of the speakers turned the gatherings into something like
personal wrangles.
* For Alexander Smith's report, see True Latter-Day Saints'
Herald, Vol. XVI, pp. 85-86.
** Hyrum's widow went to Salt lake City, and died there in
September, 1852, at the house of H. C. Kimball, who had taken care of
her.
The presence of the prophet's sons gave the leaders of "The Reformation"
an opportunity to aim a thrust at what was then generally understood
to be one of Brigham Young's ambitions, namely, the handing down of
the Presidency of the church to his oldest son; and an article in
their magazine presented the matter in this light: "If we know the true
feeling of our brethren, it is that they never intend Joseph Smith's
nor any other man's son to preside over them, simply because of their
sonship. The principle of heirship has cursed the world for ages, and
with our brethren we expect to fight it till, with every other relic of
tyranny, it is trodden under foot." Young accepted this challenge, and
at once ordered Harrison and two other elders in affiliation with him to
depart on missions. They disobeyed the order.
Godbe and Harrison told their friends in Utah that they had learned from
the spirits who visited them in New York that the release of the people
of the territory from the despotism of the church could come only
through the development of the mines. So determined was the opposition
of Young's priesthood to this development that its open advocacy in the
magazine was the cause of more serious discussion than that given to any
of the other subjects treated. As "The Reformation" did not then embrace
more than a dozen members, the courage necessary to defy the church
on such a question was not to be belittled. Just at that time came the
visit of the Illinois party and of Vice President Colfax, and the latter
was made acquainted with their plans and gave them encouragement. Ten
days later the magazine, in an article on "The True Development of
the Territory," openly advised paying more attention to mining. Young
immediately called together the "School of the Prophets." This was an
organization instituted in Utah, with the professed object of discussing
doctrinal questions, having the "revelations" of the prophet elucidated
by his colleagues, etc. It was not open to all church members, the
"scholars" attending by invitation, and it soon became an organization
under Young's direction which took cognizance of the secular doings of
the people, exercising an espionage over them. The school is no longer
maintained. Before this school Young denounced the "Reformers" in his
most scathing terms, going so far as to intimate that his rule was
itself in danger. Consequently the leaders of the "New Movement" were
notified to appear before the High Council for a hearing.
When this hearing occurred, Young managed that Godbe and Harrison should
be the only persons on trial. Both of them defied him to his face,
denying his "right to dictate to them in all things spiritual and
temporal,"--this was the question put to them,--and protesting against
his rule. They also read a set of resolutions giving an outline of
their intended movements. They were at once excommunicated, and the
only elder, Eli B. Kelsey, who voted against this action was immediately
punished in the same way. Kelsey was not granted even the perfunctory
hearing that was customarily allowed in such cases, and he was "turned
over to the devil," instead of being consigned by the usual formula "to
the buffetings of Satan."
But this did not silence the "Reformers." Their lives were considered
in danger by their acquaintances, and the assassination of the most
prominent of them was anticipated;* but they went straight ahead on
the lines they had proclaimed. Their first public meetings were held on
Sunday, December 19, 1869. The knowledge of the fact that they claimed
to act by direct and recent revelation gave them no small advantage with
a people whose belief rested on such manifestations of the divine
will, and they had crowded audiences. The services were continued every
Sunday, and on the evening of one week day; the magazine went on with
its work, and they were the founders of the Salt Lake Tribune which
later, as a secular journal, has led the Gentile press in Utah.
* "In August my husband sent a respectful and kindly letter to
the Bishop of our ward, stating that he had no faith in Brigham's claim
to an Infallible Priesthood; and that he considered that he ought to be
cut off from the church. I added a postscript stating that I wished to
share my husband's fate. A little after ten o'clock, on the Saturday
night succeeding our withdrawal from the church, we were returning home
together.. . when we suddenly saw four men come out from under some
trees at a little distance from us.... As soon as they approached, they
seized hold of my husband's arms, one on each side, and held him firmly,
thus rendering him almost powerless. They were all masked.... In an
instant I saw them raise their arms, as if taking aim, and for one brief
second I thought that our end had surely come, and that we, like so many
obnoxious persons before us, were about to be murdered for the great sin
of apostasy. This I firmly believe would have been my husband's fate
if I had not chanced to be with him or had I run away.... The wretches,
although otherwise well armed, were not holding revolvers in their hands
as I at first supposed. They were furnished with huge garden syringes,
charged with the most disgusting filth. My hair, bonnet, face, clothes,
person--every inch of my body, every shred I wore--were in an instant
saturated, and my husband and myself stood there reeking from head to
foot. The villains, when they had perpetrated this disgusting and brutal
outrage, turned and fled."--Mrs. Stenhouse, "Tell it All," pp. 578-581.
But the attempt to establish a reformed Mormonism did not succeed, and
the organization gradually disappeared. One of the surviving leaders
said to me (in October, 1901): "My parents had believed in Mormonism,
and I believed in the Mormon prophet and the doctrines set forth in his
revelations. We hoped to purify the Mormon church, eradicating evils
that had annexed themselves to it in later years. But our study of the
question showed us that the Mormon faith rested on no substantial
basis, and we became believers in transcendentalism." Mr. Godbe and Mr.
Lawrence still reside in Utah. The former has made and lost more than
one fortune in the mines. The Mormon historian Whitney says of the
leaders in this attempted reform: "These men were all reputable and
respected members of the community. Naught against their morality or
general uprightness of character was known or advanced."* Stenhouse,
writing three years before Young's death, said:--
* Whitney's "History of Utah," Vol. II, p. 332.
"But for the boldness of the Reformers, Utah to-day would not have been
what it is. Inspired by their example, the people who have listened to
them disregarded the teachings of the priesthood against trading with
or purchasing of the Gentiles. The spell was broken, and, as in all such
like experience, the other extreme was for a time threatened. Walker
Brothers regained their lost trade.... Reference could be made to
elders, some of whom had to steal away from Utah, for fear of violent
hands being laid upon them had their intended departure been made known,
who are to-day wealthy and respected gentlemen in the highest walks of
life, both in the United States and in Europe."
** For accounts of "The Reformation" by leaders in it,
see Chap. 53 of Stenhouse's "Rocky Mountain Saints," and Tullidge's
article, Harper's Magazine, Vol. XLIII, p. 602.
CHAPTER XXI. -- THE LAST YEARS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG
Governor Doty died in June, 1865, without coming in open conflict with
Young, and was succeeded by Charles Durkee, a native of Vermont, but
appointed from Wisconsin, which state he had represented in the United
States Senate. He resigned in 1869, and was succeeded by J. Wilson
Shaffer of Illinois, appointed by President Grant at the request of
Secretary of War Rawlins, who, in a visit to the territory in 1868,
concluded that its welfare required a governor who would assert his
authority. Secretary S. A. Mann, as acting governor, had, just
before Shaffer's arrival, signed a female suffrage bill passed by the
territorial legislature. This gave offence to the new governor, and Mann
was at once succeeded by Professor V. H. Vaughn of the University of
Alabama, and Chief Justice C. C. Wilson (who had succeeded Titus) by
James B. McKean. The latter was a native of Rensselaer County, New York;
had been county judge of Saratoga County from 1854 to 1858, a member
of the 36th and 37th Congresses, and colonel of the 72nd New York
Volunteers.
Governor Shaffer's first important act was to issue a proclamation
forbidding all drills and gatherings of the militia of the territory
(which meant the Nauvoo Legion), except by the order of himself or the
United States marshal. Wells, signing himself "Lieutenant General," sent
the governor a written request for the suspension of this order. The
governor, in reply, reminded Wells that the only "Lieutenant General"
recognized by law was then Philip H. Sheridan, and declined to assist
him in a course which "would aid you and your turbulent associates to
further convince your followers that you and your associates are more
powerful than the federal government." Thus practically disappeared this
famous Mormon military organization.
Governor Shaffer was ill when he reached Utah, and he died a few days
after his reply to Wells was written, Secretary Vaughn succeeding him
until the arrival of G. A. Black, the new secretary, who then became
acting governor pending the arrival of George L. Woods, an ex-governor
of Oregon, who was next appointed to the executive office.
As soon as the new federal judges, who were men of high personal
character, took their seats, they decided that the United States
marshal, and not the territorial marshal, was the proper person to
impanel the juries in the federal courts, and that the attorney general
appointed by the President under the Territorial Act, and not the
one elected under that act, should prosecute indictments found in the
federal courts. The chief justice also filled a vacancy in the office of
federal attorney. The territorial legislature of 1870, accordingly, made
no appropriation for the expenses of the courts; and the chief justice,
in dismissing the grand and petit juries on this account, explained to
them that he had heard one of the high priesthood question the right of
Congress even to pass the Territorial Act.
In September, 1871, the United States marshal summoned a grand jury from
nine counties (twenty-three jurors and seventeen talesmen) of whom only
seven were Mormons. All the latter, examined on their voir dire,
declared that they believed that polygamy was a revelation to the
church, and that they would obey the revelation rather than the law, and
all were successfully challenged. This grand jury, early in October,
found indictments against Brigham Young, "General" Wells, G. Q. Cannon,
and others under a territorial statute directed against lewdness and
improper cohabitation. This action caused intense excitement in the
Mormon capital. Prosecutor Baskin was quoted as saying that the troops
at Camp Douglas would be used to enforce the warrant for Young's arrest
if necessary, and the possible outcome has been thus portrayed by the
Mormon historian:--"It was well known that he [Young] had often declared
that he never would give himself up to be murdered as his predecessor,
the Prophet Joseph, and his brother Hyrum had been, while in the hands
of the law, and under the sacred pledge of the state for their safety;
and, ere this could have been repeated, ten thousand Mormon Elders would
have gone into the jaws of death with Brigham Young. In a few hours the
suspended Nauvoo Legion would have been in arms."*
* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 527.
The warrant was served on Young at his house by the United States
marshal, and, as Young was ill, a deputy was left in charge of him. On
October 9 Young appeared in court with the leading men of the church,
and a motion to quash the indictment was made before the chief justice
and denied.
The same grand jury on October 28 found indictments for murder against
D. H. Wells, W. H. Kimball, and Hosea Stout for alleged responsibility
for the killing of Richard Yates during the "war" of 1857. The fact that
the man was killed was not disputed; his brains were knocked out with
an axe as he was sleeping by the side of two Mormon guards.* The defence
was that he died the death of a spy. Wells was admitted to bail in
$50,000, and the other two men were placed under guard at Camp Douglas.
Indictments were also found against Brigham Young, W. A. Hickman, O.
P. Rockwell, G. D. Grant, and Simon Dutton for the murder of one of the
Aikin party at Warm Springs. They were all admitted to bail.
* Hickman tells the story in his "Brigham's Destroying Angel," p.
122.
When the case against Young, on the charge of improper cohabitation, was
called on November 20, his counsel announced that he had gone South for
his health, as was his custom in winter, and the prosecution thereupon
claimed that his bail was forfeited. Two adjournments were granted at
the request of his counsel. On January 3 Young appeared in court, and
his counsel urged that he be admitted to bail, pleading his age and ill
health. The judge refused this request, but said that the marshal could,
if he desired, detain the prisoner in one of Young's own houses. This
course was taken, and he remained under detention until released by the
decision of the United States Supreme Court.
In April, 1872, that court decided that the territorial jury law
of Utah, in force since 1859, had received the implied approval of
Congress; that the duties of the attorney and marshal appointed by the
President under the Territorial Act "have exclusive relation to cases
arising under the laws and constitution of the United States," and
"the making up of the jury list and all matters connected with the
designation of jurors are subject to the regulation of territorial
law."* This was a great victory for the Mormons.
* Chilton vs. Englebrech, 13 Wallace, p. 434.
In October, 1873, the United States Supreme Court rendered its decision
in the case of "Snow vs. The United States" on the appeal from Chief
Justice McKean's ruling about the authority of the prosecuting officers.
It overruled the chief justice, confining the duties of the attorney
appointed by the President to cases in which the federal government was
concerned, concluding that "in any event, no great inconvenience
can arise, because the entire matter is subject to the control and
regulation of Congress." *
* Wallace's "Reports," Vol. XVIII, p. 317.
The following comments, from three different sources, will show the
reader how many influences were then shaping the control of authority in
Utah:--"At about this time [December, 1871] a change came in the action
of the Department of justice in these Utah prosecutions, and fair-minded
men of the nation demanded of the United States Government that it
should stop the disgraceful and illegal proceedings of Judge McKean's
court. The influence of Senator Morton was probably the first and
most potent brought to bear in this matter, and immediately thereafter
Senator Lyman Trumbull threw the weight of his name and statesmanship
in the same direction, which resulted in Baskin and Maxwell being
superseded,... and finally resulted in the setting aside of two years
of McKean's doings as illegal by the august decision of the Supreme
Court."--Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City," p. 547.
"The Attorney for the Mormons labored assiduously at Washington, and,
contrary to the usual custom in the Supreme Court, the forthcoming
decision had been whispered to some grateful ears. The Mormon
anniversary conference beginning on the sixth of April was continued
over without adjournment awaiting that decision."--"Rocky Mountain
Saints," p. 688.
"Thus stood affairs during the winter of 1870-71. The Gentiles had the
courts, the Mormons had the money. In the spring Nevada came over to run
Utah. Hon. Thomas Fitch of that state had been defeated in his second
race for Congress; so he came to Utah as Attorney for the Mormons.
Senator Stewart and other Nevada politicians made heavy investments in
Utah mines; litigation multiplied as to mining titles, and Judge McKean
did not rule to suit Utah.... The great Emma mine, worth two or three
millions, became a power in our judicial embroglio. The Chief Justice,
in various rulings, favored the present occupants. Nevada called upon
Senator Stewart, who agreed to go straight to Long Branch and see that
McKean was removed. But Ulysses the Silent... promptly made reply that
if Judge McKean had committed no greater fault than to revise a little
Nevada law, he was not altogether unpardonable."--Beadle, "Polygamy," p.
429.
The Supreme Court decisions left the federal courts in Utah practically
powerless, and President Grant understood this. On February 14, 1873,
he sent a special message to Congress, saying that he considered it
necessary, in order to maintain the supremacy of the laws of the United
States, "to provide that the selection of grand and petit jurors for
the district courts [of Utah], if not put under the control of federal
officers, shall be placed in the hands of persons entirely independent
of those who are determined not to enforce any act of Congress obnoxious
to them, and also to pass some act which shall deprive the probate
courts, or any court created by the territorial legislature, of any
power to interfere with or impede the action of the courts held by the
United States judges."
In line with this recommendation Senator Frelinghuysen had introduced a
bill in the Senate early in February, which the Senate speedily passed,
the Democrats and Schurz, Carpenter, and Trumbull voting against it.
Mormon influence fought it with desperation in the House, and in the
closing hours of the session had it laid aside. The diary of Delegate
Hooper says on this subject, "Maxwell [the United States Marshal for
Utah] said he would take out British papers and be an American citizen
no longer. Claggett [Delegate from Montana] asserted that we had spent
$200,000 on the judiciary committee, and Merritt [Delegate from Idaho]
swore that there had been treachery and we had bribed Congress."*
* The Mormons do not always conceal the influences they employ to
control legislation in which they are interested. Thus Tullidge,
referring to the men of whom their Cooperative Institution buys goods,
says: "But Z. C. M. I. has not only a commercial significance in the
history of our city, but also a political one. It has long been the
temporal bulwark around the Mormon community. Results which have been
seen in Utah affairs, preservative of the Mormon power and people,
unaccountable to 'the outsider' except on the now stale supposition that
'the Mormon Church has purchased Congress,' may be better traced to the
silent but potent influence of Z. C. M. I. among the ruling business men
of America, just as John Sharp's position as one of the directors of U.
P. R---r,--a compeer among such men as Charles Francis Adams, Jay Gould
and Sidney Dillon--gives him a voice in Utah affairs among the railroad
rulers of America."--"History of Salt Lake City;" p. 734.
In the election of 1872 the Mormons dropped Hooper, who had long served
them as Delegate at Washington, and sent in his place George Q. Cannon,
an Englishman by birth and a polygamist. But Mormon influence in
Washington was now to receive a severe check. On June 23, 1874, the
President approved an act introduced by Mr. Poland of Vermont, and
known as the Poland Bill,* which had important results. It took from the
probate courts in Utah all civil, chancery, and criminal jurisdiction;
made the common law in force; provided that the United States attorney
should prosecute all criminal cases arising in the United States courts
in the territory; that the United States marshal should serve and
execute all processes and writs of the supreme and district courts, and
that the clerk of the district court in each district and the judge of
probate of the county should prepare the jury lists, each containing two
hundred names, from which the United States marshal should draw the
grand and petit juries for the term. It further provided that, when a
woman filed a bill to declare void a marriage because of a previous
marriage, the court could grant alimony; and that, in any prosecution
for adultery, bigamy, or polygamy, a juror could be challenged if he
practised polygamy or believed in its righteousness.
* Chap. 469, 1st Session, 43d Congress.
The suit for divorce brought by Young's wife "No. 19,"--Ann Eliza
Young--in January, 1873, attracted attention all over the country. Her
bill charged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, set forth that
Young had property worth $8,000,000 and an income of not less than
$40,000 a year, and asked for an allowance of $1000 a month while the
suit was pending, $6000 for preliminary counsel fees, and $14,000 more
when the final decree was made, and that she be awarded $200,000 for
her support. Young in his reply surprised even his Mormon friends.
After setting forth his legal marriage in Ohio, stating that he and the
plaintiff were members of a church which held the doctrine that "members
thereto might rightfully enter into plural marriages," and admitting
such a marriage in this case, he continued: "But defendant denies that
he and the said plaintiff intermarried in any other or different sense
or manner than that above mentioned or set forth. Defendant further
alleges that the said complainant was then informed by the defendant,
and then and there well knew that, by reason of said marriage, in the
manner aforesaid, she could not have and need not expect the society or
personal attention of this defendant as in the ordinary relation between
husband and wife." He further declared that his property did not exceed
$600,000 in value, and his income $6000 a month.
Judge McKean, on February 25, 1875, ordered Young to pay Ann Eliza $3000
for counsel fees and $500 a month alimony pendente lite, and, when he
failed to obey, sentenced him to pay a fine of $25 and to one day's
imprisonment. Young was driven to his own residence by the deputy
marshal for dinner, and, after taking what clothing he required, was
conducted to the penitentiary, where he was locked up in a cell for a
short time, and then placed in a room in the warden's office for the
night.
Judge McKean was accused of inconsistency in granting alimony, because,
in so doing, he had to give legal sanction to Ann Eliza's marriage
to Brigham while the latter's legal wife was living. Judge McKean's
successor, Judge D. P. Loew, refused to imprison Young, taking the
ground that there had been no valid marriage. Loew's successor, Judge
Boreman, ordered Young imprisoned until the amount due was paid, but he
was left at his house in custody of the marshal. Boreman's successor,
Judge White, freed Young on the ground that Boreman's order was void.
White's successor, Judge Schaeffer, in 1876 reduced the alimony to $100
per month, and, in default of payment, certain of Young's property was
sold at auction and rents were ordered seized to make up the deficiency.
The divorce case came to trial in April, 1877, when Judge Schaeffer
decreed that the polygamous marriage was void, annulled all orders for
alimony, and assessed the costs against the defendant.
Nothing further of great importance affecting the relations of the
church with the federal government occurred during the rest of Young's
life. Governor Woods incurred the animosity of the Mormons by asserting
his authority from time to time ("he intermeddled," Bancroft says). In
1874 he was succeeded by S. B. Axtell of California, who showed such
open sympathy with the Mormon view of his office as to incur the
severest censure of the non-Mormon press. Axtell was displaced in the
following year by G. B. Emery of Tennessee, who held office until the
early part of 1880, when he was succeeded by Eli H. Murray.*
* Governor Murray showed no disposition to yield to Mormon
authority. In his message in 1882 be referred pointedly, among other
matters, to the tithing, declaring that "the poor man who earns a dollar
by the sweat of his brow is entitled to that dollar," and that "any
exaction or undue influence to dispossess him of any part of it, in any
other manner than in payment of a legal obligation, is oppression," and
he granted a certificate of election as Delegate to Congress to Allan G.
Campbell, who received only 1350 votes to 18,568 for George Q. Cannon,
holding that the latter was not a citizen. Governor Murray's resignation
was accepted in March, 1886, and he was succeeded in the following May
by Caleb W. West, who, in turn, was supplanted in May, 1889, by A. L.
Thomas, who was territorial governor when Utah was admitted as a state.
CHAPTER XXII. -- BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH--HIS CHARACTER
Brigham Young died in Salt Lake City at 4 P.M. on Wednesday, August 29,
1877. He was attacked with acute cholera morbus on the evening of the
23rd, after delivering an address in the Council House, and it was
followed by inflammation of the bowels. The body lay in state in the
Tabernacle from Saturday, September 1, until Sunday noon, when the
funeral services were held. He was buried in a little plot on one of the
main streets of Salt Lake City, not far from his place of residence.
The steps by which Young reached the position of head of the Mormon
church, the character of his rule, and the means by which he maintained
it have been set forth in the previous chapters of this work. In the
ruler we have seen a man without education, but possessed of an iron
will, courage to take advantage of unusual opportunities, and a thorough
knowledge of his flock gained by association with them in all their
wanderings. In his people we have seen a nucleus of fanatics, including
some of Joseph Smith's fellow-plotters, constantly added to by new
recruits, mostly poor and ignorant foreigners, who had been made to
believe in Smith's Bible and "revelations," and been further lured to a
change of residence by false pictures of the country they were going to,
and the business opportunities that awaited them there. Having made
a prominent tenet of the church the practice of polygamy, which Young
certainly knew the federal government would not approve, he had an
additional bond with which to unite the interests of his flock with his
own, and thus to make them believe his approval as necessary to their
personal safety as they believed it to be necessary to their salvation.
The command which Young exercised in these circumstances is not
an illustration of any form of leadership which can be held up to
admiration. It is rather an exemplification of that tyranny in church
and state which the world condemns whenever an example of it is
afforded.
Young was the centre of responsibility for all the rebellion,
nullification, and crime carried on under the authority of the church
while he was its head. He never concealed his own power. He gloried in
it, and declared it openly in and out of the Tabernacle. Authority
of this kind cannot be divided. Whatever credit is due to Young for
securing it, is legitimately his. But those who point to its acquisition
as a sign of greatness, must accept for him, with it, responsibility for
the crimes that were carried on under it.
The laudators of Young have found evidence of great executive ability in
his management of the migration from Nauvoo to Utah. But, in the first
place, this migration was compulsory; the Mormons were obliged to move.
In the second place its accomplishment was no more successful than the
contemporary migrations to Oregon, and the loss of life in the camps
on the Missouri River was greater than that incurred in the great rush
across the plains to California; while the horrors of the hand-cart
movement--a scheme of Young's own device--have never been equalled in
Western travel. In Utah, circumstances greatly favored Young's success.
Had not gold been discovered when it was in California, the Mormon
settlement would long have been like a dot in a desert, and its ability
to support the stream Of immigrants attracted from Europe would have
been problematic, since, in more than one summer, those already there
had narrowly escaped starvation while depending on the agricultural
resources of the valley.
J. Hyde, writing in 1857, said that Young "by the native force and vigor
of a strong mind" had taken from beneath the Mormon church system "the
monstrous stilts of a miserable superstition, and consolidated it into
a compact scheme of the sternest fanaticism."* In other words, he might
have explained, instead of relying on such "revelations" as served
Smith, he refused to use artificial commands of God, and substituted
the commands of Young, teaching, and having his associates teach, that
obedience to the head of the church was obedience to the Supreme Power.
Both Hyde and Stenhouse, writing before Young's death, and as witnesses
of the strength of his autocratic government, overestimated him. This
is seen in the view they took of the effect of his death. Hyde declared
that under any of the other contemporary leaders: Taylor, Kimball, Orson
Hyde, or Pratt: "Mormonism will decline. Brigham is its tun; this is
its daytime." Stenhouse asserted that, "Theocracy will die out with
Brigham's flickering flame of life; and, when he is laid in the tomb,
many who are silent now will curse his memory for the cruel suffering
that his ambition caused them to endure." But all such prophecies remain
unfulfilled. Young's death caused no more revolution or change in the
Mormon church than does the death of a Pope in the Church of Rome.
"Regret it who may," wrote a Salt Lake City correspondent less than
three months after his burial, "the fact is visible to every intelligent
person here that Mormonism has taken a new lease of life, and, instead
of disintegration, there never was such unity among its people; and in
the place of a rapidly dying consumptive, whose days were numbered, the
body of the church is the picture of pristine health and vigor, with all
the ambition and enthusiasm of a first love."** The new leadership has,
grudgingly, traded polygamy for statehood; but the church power is
as strong and despotic and unified to-day on the lines on which it is
working as it was under Young, only exercising that power on the more
civilized basis rendered necessary by closer connection with an outside
civilization.
* "Mormonism," p.151.
** New York Times, November 23, 1877.
Young was a successful accumulator of property for his own use. A poor
man when he set out from Nauvoo, his estate at his death was valued at
between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000. This was a great accumulation for a
pioneer who had settled in a wilderness, been burdened with a polygamous
family of over twenty wives and fifty children, and the cares of a
church denomination, without salary as a church officer. "I am the only
person in the church," Young said to Greeley in 1859, "who has not a
regular calling apart from the church service"; and he added, "We think
a man who cannot make his living aside from the ministry of the church
unsuited to that office. I am called rich, and consider myself worth
$250,000; but no dollar of it ever was paid me by the church, nor for
any service as a minister of the Everlasting Gospel." * Two years after
his death a writer in the Salt Lake Tribune** asserted that Young had
secured in Utah from the tithing $13,000,000, squandered about $9,000
on his family, and left the rest to be fought for by his heirs and
assigns.*** Notwithstanding the vast sums taken by him in tithing for
the alleged benefit of the poor, there was not in Salt Lake City, at
the time of his death, a single hospital or "home" creditable to that
settlement.
* "Overland Journey," p. 213.
** June 25, 1879.
*** "Having control of the tithing, and possessing unlimited
credit, he has added 'house to house and field to field,' while every
one knew that he had no personal enterprises sufficient to enable him
to meet anything like the current expenses of his numerous wives and
children. As trustee in trust he renders no account of the funds that
come into his hands, but tells the faithful that they are at perfect
liberty to examine the books at any moment."--"Rocky Mountain Saints,"
p. 665.
The mere acquisition of his wealth no more entitled Young to be held up
as a marvellous man of business than did Tweed's accumulations give him
this distinction in New York. Beadle declares that "Brigham never made
a success of any business he undertook except managing the Mormons,"
and cites among his business failures the non-success of every distant
colony he planted, the Cottonwood Canal (whose mouth was ten feet
higher than its source), his beet-sugar manufactory, and his Colorado
Transportation Company (to bring goods for southern Utah up the Colorado
River).*
* "Polygamy," p. 484.
The reports of Young's discourses in the Temple show that he was as
determined in carrying out his own financial schemes as he was in
enforcing orders pertaining to the church. Here is an almost humorous
illustration of this. In urging the people one day to be more regular
in paying their tithing, he said they need not fear that he would make a
bad use of their money, as he had plenty of his own, adding:--"I believe
I will tell you how I get some of it. A great many of these elders in
Israel, soon after courting these young ladies, and old ladies, and
middle-aged ladies, and having them sealed to them, want to have a bill
of divorce. I have told them from the beginning that sealing men and
women for time and all eternity is one of the ordinances of the House
of God, and that I never wanted a farthing for sealing them, nor for
officiating in any of the ordinances of God's house. But when you ask
for a bill of divorce, I intend that you shall pay for it. That keeps
me in spending money, besides enabling me to give hundreds of dollars
to the poor, and buy butter, eggs, and little notions for women and
children, and otherwise use it where it does good. You may think this a
singular feature of the Gospel, but I cannot exactly say that this is in
the Gospel."*
* Deseret News, March 20, 1861. For such an openly jolly old
hypocrite one can scarcely resist the feeling that he would like to pass
around the hat.
We have seen how Young gave himself control of a valuable canyon. That
was only the beginning of such acquisitions. The territorial legislature
of Utah was continually making special grants to him. Among them may
be mentioned the control of City Creek canyon (said to have been worth
$10,000 a year) on payment of $500; of the waters of Mill Creek;
exclusive right to Kansas Prairie as a herd-ground; the whole of Cache
Valley for a herd-ground; Rush Valley for a herd-ground; rights to
establish ferries; an appropriation of $2500 for an academy in Salt Lake
City (which was not built), etc.*
* Here is the text of one of these acts: "Be it ordained by the
General Assembly of the State of Deseret that Brigham Young has the
sole control of City Creek and canyon; and that he pay into the public
treasury the sum of $500 therefore. Dec. 9, 1850."
Young's holdings of real estate were large, not only in Salt Lake City,
but in almost every county in the territory.* Besides city lots and farm
lands, he owned grist and saw mills, and he took care that his farms
were well cultivated and that his mills made fine flour.**
* "For several years past the agent of the church, A. M. Musser,
has been engaged in securing legal deeds for all the property the
prophet claims, and by this he will be able to secure in his lifetime to
his different families such property as will render them independent at
his death. The building of the Pacific Railroad is said to have yielded
him about a quarter of a million."--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 666.
** "His position secured him also many valuable presents. From a
barrel of brandy down to an umbrella, Brigham receives courteously and
remembers the donors with increased kindness. I saw one man make him a
present of ten fine milch cows."--Hyde, "Mormonism," p. 165.
As trustee in trust for the church Young had control of all the church
property and income, practically without responsibility or oversight.
Mrs. Waite (writing in 1866) said that attempts for many years by
the General Conference to procure a balance sheet of receipts and
expenditures had failed, and that the accounts in the tithing office,
such as they were, were kept by clerks who were the leading actors in
the Salt Lake Theatre, owned by Young.* It was openly charged that, in
1852, Young "balanced his account" with the church by having the clerk
credit him with the amount due by him, "for services rendered," and
that, in 1867, he balanced his account again by crediting himself with
$967,000. A committee appointed to investigate the accounts of Young
after his death reported to the Conference of October, 1878, that "for
the sole purpose of preserving it from the spoliation of the enemy," he
"had transferred certain property from the possession of the church to
his own individual possession," but that it had been transferred back
again.
* "The Mormon Prophet," pp. 148-149,
Young's will divided his wives and children into nineteen "classes," and
directed his executors to pay to each such a sum as might be necessary
for their comfortable support; the word "marriage" in the will to mean
"either by ceremony before a lawful magistrate, or according to the
order of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or by their
cohabitation in conformity to our custom."
On June 14, 1879, Emmeline A. Young, on behalf of herself and the heirs
at law, began a suit against the executors of Young's estate, charging
that they had improperly appropriated $200,000; had improperly allowed
nearly $1,000,000 to John Taylor as trustee in trust to the church,
less a credit of $300,000 for Young's services as trustee; and that they
claimed the power, as members of the Apostles' Quorum, to dispose of
all the testator's property and to disinherit any heir who refused to
submit. This suit was compromised in the following September, the seven
persons joining in it executing a release on payment of $75,000. A suit
which the church had begun against the heirs and executors was also
discontinued. The Salt Lake Herald (Mormon) of October 5, 1879, said,
"The adjustment is far preferable to a continuance of the suit, which
was proving not only expensive, but had become excessively annoying to
many people, was a large disturbing element in the community, and was
rapidly descending into paths that nobody here cares to see trodden."
Just how many wives Brigham Young had, in the course of his life, would
depend on his own and others' definition of that term. He told Horace
Greeley, in 1859: "I have fifteen; I know no one who has more. But some
of those sealed to me are old ladies, whom I regard rather as mothers
than wives, but whom I have taken home to cherish and support."* In
1869, he informed the Boston Board of Trade, when that body visited Salt
Lake City, that he had sixteen wives living, and had lost four, and
that forty-nine of his children were living then. "He was," says Beadle,
"sealed on the spiritual wife system to more women than any one can
count; all over Mormondom are pious old widows, or wives of Gentiles and
apostates, who hope to rise at the last day and claim a celestial share
in Brigham." J. Hyde said that he knew of about twenty-five wives with
whom Brigham lived. The following list is made up from "Pictures
and Biographies of Brigham Young and his Wives," published by J. H.
Crockwell of Salt Lake City, by authority of Young's eldest son and of
seven of his wives, but is not complete:--
* "Overland journey," p. 215.
[Illustration:
List of Wives]
NAME************* DATE OF MARRIAGE *** NUMBER OF CHILDREN*** Mary Ann
Angell * February, 1834. Ohio 6 Louisa Beman ** April, 1841. Nauvoo 4
Mrs. Lucy Decker Seely June, 1842. Nauvoo 7 H. E. C. Campbell November,
1843.Nauvoo 1 Augusta Adams November, 1843. Nauvoo 0 Clara Decker
May, 1844. Nauvoo 5 Clara C. Ross September, 1844. Nauvoo 4 Emily Dow
Partridge** September, 1844. Nauvoo 7 Susan Snively November, 1844.
Nauvoo 0 Olive Grey Frost** February, 1845. Nauvoo 0 Emmeline Free
April, 1845. Nauvoo 0 Margaret Pierce April, 1845. Nauvoo 1 N. K. T.
Carter January, 1846. Nauvoo 0 Ellen Rockwood January, 1846. Nauvoo 0
Maria Lawrence** January, 1846. Nauvoo 0 Martha Bowker January, 1846.
Nauvoo 0 Margaret M. Alley January, 1846. Nauvoo 2 Lucy Bigelow March,
1847. (?) 3 Z. D. Huntington ** March, 1847 (?). Nauvoo 1 Eliza K.
Snow** June, 1849. S. L. C. 0 Eliza Burgess October, 1850. S. L. C.
1 Harriet Barney October, 1850. S. L. C. 1 Harriet A. Folsom January,
1863. S. L. C. 0 Mary Van Cott January, 1865. S. L. C. 1 Ann Eliza Webb
April, 1868. S. L. C. 0
* His first wife died 1832.
** Joseph Smith's widows.
Young's principal houses in Salt Lake City stood at the southeastern
corner of the block adjoining the Temple block, and designated on the
map as block 8. The largest building, occupying the corner, was called
the Beehive House; connected with this was a smaller building in which
were Young's private offices, the tithing office, etc; and next to this
was a building partly of stone, called the Lion House, taking its name
from the figure of a lion sculptured on its front, representing Young's
title "The Lion of the Lord." When J. Hyde wrote, seventeen or eighteen
of Young's wives dwelt in the Lion House, and the Beehive House became
his official residence.* Individual wives were provided for elsewhere.
His legal wife lived in what was called the White House, a few hundred
yards from his official home. His well-beloved Amelia lived in another
house half a block distant; another favorite, just across the street;
Emmeline, on the same block; and not far away the latest acquisition to
his harem.
* The Beehive House is still the official residence of the head
of the church, and in it President Snow was living at the time of his
death. The office building is still devoted to office uses, and the
Lion House now furnishes temporary quarters to the Latter-Day Saints'
College.
Young's life in his later years was a very orderly one, although he was
not methodical in arranging his office hours and attending to his many
duties. Rising before eight A.m., he was usually in his office at
nine, transacting business with his secretary, and was ready to receive
callers at ten. So many were the people who had occasion to see him, and
so varied were the matters that could be brought to his attention, that
many hours would be devoted to these callers if other engagements did
not interfere. Once a year he made a sort of visit of state to all the
principal settlements in the territory, accompanied by counsellors,
apostles, and Bishops, and sometimes by a favorite wife. Shorter
excursions of the same kind were made at other times. Each settlement
was expected to give him a formal greeting, and this sometimes took the
form of a procession with banners, such as might have been prepared for
a conquering hero.
CHAPTER XXIII. -- SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY
There was something compulsory about all phases of life in Utah during
Brigham Young's regime--the form of employment for the men, the domestic
regulations of the women, the church duties each should perform, and
even the location in the territory which they should call their home.
Not only did large numbers of the foreign immigrants find themselves in
debt to the church on their arrival, and become compelled in this way
to labor on the "public works" as they might be ordered, but the skilled
mechanics who brought their tools with them in most cases found on their
arrival that existence in Utah meant a contest with the soil for food.
Even when a mechanic obtained employment at his trade it was in the
ruder branches.
Mormon authorities have always tried to show that Americans have
predominated in their community. Tullidge classes the population in this
order: Americans, English, Scandinavian (these claim one-fifth of the
Mormon population of Utah), Scotch, Welsh, Germans, and a few Irish,
French, Italians, and Swiss. The combination of new-comers and the
emigrants from Nauvoo made a rude society of fanatics,* before whom
there was held out enough prospect of gain in land values (scarcely one
of the immigrants had ever been a landowner) to overcome a good deal
of the discontent natural to their mode of life, and who, in religious
matters, were held in control by a priesthood, against whom they could
not rebel without endangering that hope of heaven which had induced them
to journey across the ocean. There are roughness and lawlessness in all
frontier settlements, but this Mormon community differed from all other
gatherings of new population in the American West. It did not migrate
of its own accord, attracted by a fertile soil or precious ores; it was
induced to migrate, not without misrepresentation concerning material
prospects, it is true, but mainly because of the hope that by doing so
it would share in the blessings and protection of a Zion. The gambling
hell and the dance hall, which form principal features of frontier
mining settlements, were wanting in Salt Lake City, and the absence of
the brothel was pointed to as evidence of the moral effect of polygamy.
* "I have discovered thus early (1852) that little deference is
paid to women. Repeatedly, in my long walk to our boarding house, I was
obliged to retreat back from the [street] crossing places and stand on
one side for men to cross over. There are said to be a great many of
the lower order of English here, and this rudeness, so unusual with
our countrymen, may proceed from them."--Mrs. Ferris. "Life among the
Mormons."
The system of plural marriages left its impress all over the home life
of the territory. Many of the Mormon leaders, as we have seen, had more
wives than one when they made their first trip across the plains, and
the practice of polygamy, while denied on occasion, was not concealed
from the time the settlement was made in the valley to the date of its
public proclamation. In the early days, a man with more than one wife
provided for them according to his means. Young began with quarters
better than the average, but modest in their way, and finally occupied
the big buildings which cost him many thousands of dollars. If a man
with several wives had the means to do so, he would build a long, low
dwelling, with an outside door for each wife, and thus house all under
the same roof in a sort of separate barracks. When Gunnison wrote, in
1852, there were many instances in which more than one wife shared the
same house when it contained only one apartment, but he said: "It is
usual to board out the extra ones, who most frequently pay their own way
by sewing, and other female employments." Mrs. Ferris wrote: "The mass
of the dwellings are small, low, and hutlike. Some of them literally
swarmed with women and children, and had an aspect of extreme want of
neatness.... One family, in which there were two wives, was living in a
small hut--three children very sick [with scarlet fever]--two beds and a
cook-stove in the same room, creating the air of a pest-house."*
* "Life among the Mormons," pp. 111, 145.
Hyde, describing the city in 1857, thus enumerated the home
accommodations of some of the leaders:--"A very pretty house on the east
side was occupied by the late J. M. Grant and his five wives. A large
barrack-like house on the corner is tenanted by Ezra T. Benson and his
four ladies. A large but mean-looking house to the west was inhabited by
the late Parley P. Pratt and his nine wives. In that long, dirty row of
single rooms, half hidden by a very beautiful orchard and garden, lived
Dr. Richard and his eleven wives. Wilford Woodruff and five wives reside
in another large house still further west. O. Pratt and some four or
five wives occupy an adjacent building. Looking toward the north, we
espy a whole block covered with houses, barns, gardens, and orchards.
In these dwell H. C. Kimball and his eighteen or twenty wives, their
families and dependents."*
* "Mormonism," p. 34. The number of wives of the church leaders
decreased in later years. Beadle, giving the number of wives "supposed
to appertain to each" in 1882, credits President Taylor with four (three
having died), and the Apostles with an average of three each, Erastus
Snow having five, and four others only two each.
Horace Greeley, prejudiced as he was in favor of the Mormons when he
visited Salt Lake City in 1859, was forced to observe:--"The degradation
(or, if you please, the restriction) of woman to the single office of
childbearing and its accessories is an inevitable consequence of the
system here paramount. I have not observed a sign in the streets, an
advertisement in the journals, of this Mormon metropolis, whereby a
woman proposes to do anything whatever. No Mormon has ever cited to me
his wife's or any woman's opinion on any subject; no Mormon woman has
been introduced or spoken to me; and, though I have been asked to
visit Mormons in their houses, no one has spoken of his wife (or
wives) desiring to see me, or his desiring me to make her (or their)
acquaintance, or voluntarily indicated the existence of such a being or
beings."*
* "Overland journey," p. 217.
Woman's natural jealousy, and the suffering that a loving wife would
endure when called upon to share her husband's affection and her
home with other women, would seem to form a sort of natural check to
polygamous marriages. But in Utah this check was overcome both by the
absolute power of the priesthood over their flock, and by the adroit
device of making polygamy not merely permissive, but essential to
eternal salvation. That the many wives of even so exalted a prophet as
Brigham Young could become rebellious is shown by the language employed
by him in his discourse of September 21, 1856, of which the following
will suffice as a specimen:--"Men will say, 'My wife, though a most
excellent woman, has not seen a happy day since I took my second wife;
no, not a happy day for a year.'... I wish my women to understand that
what I am going to say is for them, as well as all others, and I want
those who are here to tell their sisters, yes, all the women in this
community, and then write it back to the states, and do as you please
with it. I am going to give you from this time till the 6th day of
October next for reflection, that you may determine whether you wish to
stay with your husbands or not, and then I am going to set every woman
at liberty, and say to them, 'Now go your way, my women with the rest;
go your way.' And my wives have got to do one of two things; either
round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world, and
live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them
about me. I will go into heaven alone, rather than have scratching and
fighting all around me. I will set all at liberty. What, first wife
too?' Yes, I will liberate you all. I know what my women will say; they
will say, 'You can have as many women as you please, Brigham.' But I
want to go somewhere and do something to get rid of the whiners... .
Sisters, I am not joking."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 55.
Grant, on the same day, in connection with his presentation of the
doctrine of blood atonement, declared that there was "scarcely a mother
in Israel" who would not, if they could, "break asunder the cable of
the Church in Christ; and they talk it to their husbands, to their
daughters, and to their neighbors, and say that they have not seen a
week's happiness since they became acquainted with that law, or since
their husbands took a second wife."* The coarse and plain-spoken H.
C. Kimball, in a discourse in the Tabernacle, November 9, 1856, thus
defined the duty of polygamous wives, "It is the duty of a woman to be
obedient to her husband, and, unless she is, I would not give a damn
for all her queenly right or authority, nor for her either, if she
will quarrel and lie about the work of God and the principles of
plurality."**
* Ibid, P. 52.
** Deseret News, Vol. VI, p. 291.
Gentile observers were amazed, in the earlier days of Utah, to see to
what lengths the fanatical teachings of the church officers would be
accepted by women. Thus Mrs. Ferris found that the explanation of the
willingness of many young women in Utah to be married to venerable
church officers, who already had harems, was their belief that they
could only be "saved" if married or sealed to a faithful Saint, and that
an older man was less likely to apostatize, and so carry his wives to
perdition with him, than a young one; therefore "it became an object
with these silly fools to get into the harems of the priests and
elders."
If this advantage of the church officers in the selection of new wives
did not avail, other means were employed,*as in the notorious San Pete
case. The officers remaining at home did not hesitate to insist on a
fair division of the spoils (that is, the marriageable immigrants),
as is shown by the following remarks of Heber C. Kimball to some
missionaries about starting out: "Let truth and righteousness be your
motto, and don't go into the world for anything but to preach the
Gospel, build up the Kingdom of God, and gather the sheep into the fold.
You are sent out as shepherds to gather the sheep together; and remember
that they are not your sheep; they belong to Him that sends you. Then
don't make a choice of any of those sheep; don't make selections before
they are brought home and put into the fold. You understand that. Amen."
Mr. Ferris thus described the use of his priestly power made by Wilford
Woodruff, who, as head of the church in later years, gave out the advice
about abandoning polygamy: "Woodruff has a regular system of changing
his harem. He takes in one or more young girls, and so manages, after he
tires of them, that they are glad to ask for a divorce, after which he
beats the bush for recruits. He took a fresh one, about fourteen years
old, in March, 1853, and will probably get rid of her in the course of
the ensuing summer." **
* Conan Doyle's story, "A Study in scarlet," is founded on the
use of this power.
** "Utah and the Mormons," p. 255.
Mrs. Waite thus relates a conversation she had with a Mormon wife about
her husband going into polygamy:--"'Oh, it is hard,' she said, 'very
hard; but no matter, we must bear it. It is a correct principle, and
there is no salvation without it. We had one [wife] but it was so hard,
both for my husband and myself, that we could not endure it, and she
left us at the end of seven months. She had been with us as a servant
several months, and was a good girl; but as soon as she was made a wife
she became insolent, and told me she had as good a right to the house
and things as I had, and you know that didn't suit me well. But,'
continued she, 'I wish we had kept her, and I had borne everything, for
we have GOT TO HAVE ONE, and don't you think it would be pleasanter to
have one you had known than a stranger?'"*
* "The Mormon Prophet," p. 260. Many accounts of the feeling
of first wives regarding polygamy may be found in this book and in Mrs.
Stenhouse's "Tell it All."
The voice which the first wife had in the matter was defined in the
Seer (Vol. I, p. 41). If she objected, she could state her objection to
President Young, who, if he found the reason sufficient, could forbid
the marriage; but if he considered that her reason was not good, then
the marriage could take place, and "he [the husband] will be justified,
and she will be condemned, because she did not give them unto him as
Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, and as Rachel and Leah gave Bilhah and
Zilpah to their husband, Jacob." Young's dictatorship in the choice of
wives was equally absolute. "No man in Utah," said the Seer (Vol. I, p.
31), "who already has a wife, and who may desire to obtain another, has
any right to make any proposition of marriage to a lady until he has
consulted the President of the whole church, and through him obtained a
revelation from God as to whether it would be pleasing in His sight."
The authority of the priesthood was always exerted to compel at least
every prominent member of the church to take more wives than one. "For
a man to be confined to one woman is a small business," said Kimball in
the Tabernacle, on April 4, 1857. This influence coerced Stenhouse to
take as his second wife a fourteen-year-old daughter of Parley P. Pratt,
although he loved his legal wife, and she had told him that she would
not live with him if he married again, and although his intimate friend,
Superintendent Cooke, of the Overland Stage Company, to save him,
threatened to prosecute him under the law against bigamy if he yielded.*
Another illustration, given by Mrs. Waite, may be cited. Kimball,
calling on a Prussian immigrant named Taussig one day, asked him how he
was doing and how many wives he had, and on being told that he had two,
replied, "That is not enough. You must take a couple more. I'll send
them to you." The narrative continues:--
* When Mr. and Mrs. Stenhouse left the church at the time of the
"New Movement" their daughter, who was a polygamous wife of Brigham
Young's son, decided with the church and refused even to speak with her
parents.
"On the following evening, when the brother returned home, he found two
women sitting there. His first wife said, 'Brother Taussig' (all the
women call their husbands brother), 'these are the Sisters Pratt.' They
were two widows of Parley P. Pratt. One of the ladies, Sarah, then said,
'Brother Taussig, Brother Kimball told us to call on you, and you know
what for.' 'Yes, ladies,' replied Brother Taussig, 'but it is a very
hard task for me to marry two' The other remarked, 'Brother Kimball told
us you were doing a very good business and could support more women.'
Sarah then took up the conversation, 'Well, Brother Taussig, I want to
get married anyhow.' The good brother replied, 'Well, ladies, I will see
what I can do and let you know."*
* "The Mormon Prophet," p. 258.
Brother Taussig compromised the matter with the Bishop of his ward by
marrying Sarah, but she did not like her new home, and he was allowed to
divorce her on payment of $10 to Brigham Young!
Each polygamous family was, of course, governed in accordance with the
character of its head: a kind man would treat all his wives kindly,
however decided a preference he might show for one; and under a brute
all would be unhappy. Young, in his earlier days at Salt Lake City, used
to assemble all his family for prayers, and have a kind word for each of
the women, and all ate at a common table after his permanent residences
were built. "Brigham's wives," says Hyde, "although poorly clothed and
hard worked, are still very infatuated with their system, very devout in
their religion, very devoted to their children. They content themselves
with his kindness as they cannot obtain his love."* He kept no servants,
the wives performing all the household work, and one of them acting as
teacher to her own and the others' children. As the excuse for marriage
with the Mormons is childbearing, the older wives were practically
discarded, taking the place of examples of piety and of spiritual
advisers.
* "Mormonism," p. 164.
** How far this doctrine was not observed may be noted in the
following remarks of H. C. Kimball in the Tabernacle, on February 1,
1857: "They [his wives] have got to live their religion, serve their
God, and do right as well as myself. Suppose that I lose the whole of
them before I go into the spiritual world, but that I have been a good,
faithful man all the days of my life, and lived my religion, and had
favor with God, and was kind to them, do you think I will be destitute
there? No. The Lord says there are more there than there are here. They
have been increasing there; they increase there a great deal faster than
they do here, because there is no obstruction. They do not call upon the
doctors to kill their offspring. In this world very many of the doctors
are studying to diminish the human race. In the spiritual world... we
will go to Brother Joseph... and he will say to us, 'Come along, my
boys, we will give you a good suit of clothes. Where are your wives?'
'They are back yonder; they would not follow us.' 'Never mind,'
says Joseph, 'here are thousands; have all you want.'"--Journal of
Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 209.
A summing up of the many-sided evils of polygamy was thus presented by
President Cleveland in his first annual message:--"The strength,
the perpetuity, and the destiny of the nation rests upon our homes,
established by the law of God, guarded by parental care, regulated by
parental authority, and sanctified by parental love. These are not the
homes of polygamy.
"The mothers of our land, who rule the nation as they mould the
characters and guide the actions of their sons, live according to God's
holy ordinances, and each, secure and happy in the exclusive love of
the father of her children, sheds the warm light of true womanhood,
unperverted and unpolluted, upon all within her pure and wholesome
family circle. These are not the cheerless, crushed, and unwomanly
mothers of polygamy.
"The fathers of our families are the best citizens of the Republic. Wife
and children are the sources of patriotism, and conjugal and parental
affection beget devotion to the country. The man who, undefiled with
plural marriage, is surrounded in his single home with his wife and
children, has a status in the country which inspires him with respect
for its laws and courage for its defence. These are not the fathers of
polygamous families."
CHAPTER XXIV. -- THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY--STATEHOOD
The first measure "to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in
the Territories of the United States" was introduced in the House of
Representatives by Mr. Morrill of Vermont (Bill No. 7) at the first
session of the 36th Congress, on February 15, 1860. It contained clauses
annulling some of the acts of the territorial legislature of Utah,
including the one incorporating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints. This bill was reported by the Judiciary Committee on March 14,
the committee declaring that "no argument was deemed necessary to prove
that an act could be regarded as criminal which is so treated by
the universal concurrence of the Christian and civilized world," and
characterizing the church incorporation act as granting "such monstrous
powers and arrogant assumptions as are at war with the genius of our
government." The bill passed the House on April 5, by a vote of 149
to 60, was favorably reported to the Senate by Mr. Bayard from the
Judiciary Committee on June 13, but did not pass that House.
Mr. Morrill introduced his bill by unanimous consent in the next
Congress (on April 8, 1862), and it was passed by the House on April 28.
Mr. Bayard, from the judiciary Committee, reported it back to the Senate
on June 3 with amendments. He explained that the House Bill punished
not only polygamous marriages, but cohabitation without marriage. The
committee recommended limiting the punishment to bigamy--a fine not
to exceed $500 and imprisonment for not more than five years. Another
amendment limited the amount of real estate which a church corporation
could hold in the territories to $50,000. The bill passed the Senate
with the negative votes of only the two California senators, and the
House accepted the amendments. Lincoln signed it.
Nothing practical was accomplished by this legislation, In 1867
George A. Smith and John Taylor, the presiding officers of the Utah
legislature, petitioned Congress to repeal this act, setting forth as
one reason that "the judiciary of this territory has not, up to the
present time, tried any case under said law, though repeatedly urged to
do so by those who have been anxious to test its constitutionality." The
House Judiciary Committee reported that this was a practical request for
the sanctioning of polygamy, and said: "Your committee has not been
able to ascertain the reason why this law has not been enforced. The
humiliating fact is, however, apparent that the law is at present
practically a dead letter in the Territory of Utah, and that the
gravest necessity exists for its enforcement; and, in the opinion of
the committee, if it be through the fault or neglect of the judiciary
of that territory that the laws are not enforced, the judges should
be removed without delay; and that, if the failure to execute the law
arises from other causes, it becomes the duty of the President of the
United States to see that the law is faithfully executed."*
* House Report No. 27, 2nd Session, 39th Congress.
In June, 1866, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio obtained unanimous consent
to introduce a bill enacting radical legislation concerning such
marriages as were performed and sanctioned by the Mormon church, but it
did not pass. Senator Cragin of New Hampshire soon introduced a similar
bill, but it, too failed to become a law.
In 1869, in the first Congress that met under President Grant, Mr.
Cullom of Illinois introduced in the House the bill aimed at
polygamy that was designated by his name. This bill was the practical
starting-point of the anti-polygamous legislation subsequently enacted,
as over it was aroused the feeling--in its behalf in the East and
against it in Utah--that resulted in practical legislation.
Delegate Hooper made the leading speech against it, summing up his
objections as follows:--
"(1) That under our constitution we are entitled to be protected in the
full and free enjoyment of our religious faith.
"(2) That our views of the marriage relation are an essential portion of
our religious faith.
"(3) That, in conceding the cognizance of the marriage relation as
within the province of church regulations, we are practically in accord
with all other Christian denominations.
"(4) That in our view of the marriage relation as a part of our
religious belief we are entitled to immunity from persecution under the
constitution, if such views are sincerely held; that, if such views are
erroneous, their eradication must be by argument and not by force."
The bill, greatly amended, passed the House on March 23, 1870, by a
vote of 94 to 32. The news of this action caused perhaps the greatest
excitement ever known in Utah. There was no intention on the part of
the Mormons to make any compromise on the question, and they set out to
defeat the bill outright in the Senate. Meetings of Mormon women were
gotten up in all parts of the territory, in which they asserted
their devotion to the doctrine. The "Reformers," including Stenhouse,
Harrison, Tullidge, and others, and merchants like Walker Brothers,
Colonel Kahn, and T. Marshall, joined in a call for a mass-meeting at
which all expressed disapproval of some of its provisions, like the
one requiring men already having polygamous wives to break up their
families. Mr. Godbe went to Washington while the bill was before the
House, and worked hard for its modification. The bill did not pass the
Senate, a leading argument against it being the assumed impossibility of
convicting polygamists under it with any juries drawn in Utah.
The arrest of Brigham Young and others under the act to punish
adulterers, and the proceedings against them before Judge McKean in
1871, have been noted. At the same term of the court Thomas Hawkins, an
English immigrant, was convicted of the same charge on the evidence of
his wife, and sentenced to imprisonment for three years and to pay a
fine of $500. In passing sentence, Judge McKean told the prisoner that,
if he let him off with a fine, the fine would be paid out of other
funds than his own; that he would thus go free, and that "those men who
mislead the people would make you and thousands of others believe that
God had sent the money to pay the fine; that, by a miracle, you had been
rescued from the authorities of the United States."
After the passage of the Poland law, in 1874, George Reynolds, Brigham
Young's private secretary, was convicted of bigamy under the law of
1862, but was set free by the Supreme Court of the territory on the
ground of illegality in the drawing of the grand jury. In the following
year he was again convicted, and was sentenced to imprisonment for two
years and to pay a fine of $500. The case was appealed to the United
States Supreme Court, which rendered its decision in October, 1878,
unanimously sustaining the conviction, except that Justice Field
objected to the admission of one witness's testimony.
In its decision the court stated the question raised to be "whether
religious belief can be accepted as a justification for an overt act
made criminal by the law of the land." Next came a discussion of views
of religious freedom, as bearing on the meaning of "religion" in the
federal constitution, leading up to the conclusion that "Congress was
deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free
to reach actions which were in violation of social duties, or subversive
of good order." The court then traced the view of polygamy in England
and the United States from the time when it was made a capital offence
in England (as it was in Virginia in 1788), declaring that, "in the
face of all this evidence, it is impossible to believe that the
constitutional guaranty of religious freedom was intended to prohibit
legislation in respect to this most important feature of social
life." The opinion continued as follows:--"In our opinion, the statute
immediately under consideration is within the legislative power of
Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule of action
for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which the
United States has exclusive control. This being so, the only question
which remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their
religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are,
then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may
be found guilty and punished, while those who do, must be acquitted and
go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws
are made for the government of actions, and, while they cannot interfere
with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.
Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of
religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil
government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a
sacrifice? Or, if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn
herself on the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the
power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into
practice?
"So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive
dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages
shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary
because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the
professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land,
and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.
Government could exist only in name under such circumstances.
"A criminal intent is generally an element of crime, but every man is
presumed to intend the necessary and legitimate consequences of what he
knowingly does. Here the accused knew he had been once married, and that
his first wife was living. He also knew that his second marriage was
forbidden by law. When, therefore, he married the second time, he is
presumed to have intended to break the law, and the breaking of the law
is the crime. Every act necessary to constitute the crime was knowingly
done, and the crime was therefore knowingly committed.*
* United States Reports, Otto, Vol. III, p. 162.
P. T. Van Zile of Michigan, who became district attorney of the
territory in 1878, tried John Miles, a polygamist, for bigamy, in 1879,
and he was convicted, the prosecutor taking advantage of the fact that
the territorial legislature had practically adopted the California
code, which allowed challenges of jurors for actual bias. The principal
incident of this trial was the summoning of "General" Wells, then a
counsellor of the church, as a witness, and his refusal to describe
the dress worn during the ceremonies in the Endowment House, and the
ceremonies themselves. He gave as his excuse, "because I am under
moral and sacred obligations to not answer, and it is interwoven in my
character never to betray a friend, a brother, my country, my God, or
my religion." He was sentenced to pay a fine, of $100, and to two days'
imprisonment. On his release, the City Council met him at the prison
door and escorted him home, accompanied by bands of music and a
procession made up of the benevolent, fire, and other organizations, and
delegations from every ward.
Governor Emery, in his message to the territorial legislature of 1878,
spoke as plainly about polygamy as any of his predecessors, saying that
it was a grave crime, even if the law against it was a dead letter, and
characterizing it as an evil endangering the peace of society.
There was a lull in the agitation against polygamy in Congress for some
years after the contest over the Cullom Bill. In 1878 a mass-meeting
of women of Salt Lake City opposed to polygamy was held there, and
an address "to Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes and the women of the United
States," and a petition to Congress, were adopted, and a committee
was appointed to distribute the petition throughout the country for
signatures. The address set forth that there had been more polygamous
marriages in the last year than ever before in the history of the Mormon
church; that Endowment Houses, under the name of temples, and costing
millions, were being erected in different parts of the territory, in
which the members were "sealed and bound by oaths so strong that even
apostates will not reveal them"; that the Mormons had the balance of
power in two territories, and were plotting to extend it; and asking
Congress "to arrest the further progress of this evil."
President Hayes, in his annual message in December, 1879, spoke of the
recent decision of the United States Supreme Court, and said that there
was no reason for longer delay in the enforcement of the law, urging
"more comprehensive and searching methods" of punishing and preventing
polygamy if they were necessary. He returned to the subject in his
message in 1880, saying: "Polygamy can only be suppressed by taking away
the political power of the sect which encourages and sustains it.. .. I
recommend that Congress provide for the government of Utah by a Governor
and judges, or Commissioners, appointed by the President and confirmed
by the Senate, (or) that the right to vote, hold office, or sit on
juries in the Territory of Utah be confined to those who neither
practise nor uphold polygamy."
President Garfield took up the subject in his inaugural address on March
4, 1881. "The Mormon church," he said, "not only offends the moral sense
of mankind by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of
justice through ordinary instrumentalities of law." He expressed the
opinion that Congress should prohibit polygamy, and not allow "any
ecclesiastical organization to usurp in the smallest degree the
functions and power, of the national government." President Arthur, in
his message in December, 1881, referred to the difficulty of securing
convictions of persons accused of polygamy--"this odious crime,
so revolting to the moral and religious sense of Christendom"--and
recommended legislation.
In the spirit of these recommendations, Senator Edmunds introduced in
the Senate, on December 12, 1881, a comprehensive measure amending
the antipolygamy law of 1862, which, amended during the course of
the debate, was passed in the Senate on February 12, 1882, without a
roll-call,*and in the House on March 13, by a vote of 199 to 42, and
was approved by the President on March 22. This is what is known as the
Edmunds law--the first really serious blow struck by Congress against
polygamy.
* Speeches against the bill were made in the Senate by Brown,
Call, Lamar, Morgan, Pendleton, and Vest.
It provided, in brief, that, in the territories, any person who, having
a husband or wife living, marries another, or marries more than one
woman on the same day, shall be punished by a fine of not more than
$500, and by imprisonment, for not more than five years; that a
male person cohabiting with more than one woman shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor, and be subject to a fine of not more than $300 or to six
months' imprisonment, or both; that in any prosecution for bigamy,
polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, a juror may be challenged if he is
or has been living in the practice of either offence, or if he believes
it right for a man to have more than one living and undivorced wife at
a time, or to cohabit with more than one woman; that the President
may have power to grant amnesty to offenders, as described, before the
passage of this act; that the issue of so-called Mormon marriages born
before January 1, 1883, be legitimated; that no polygamist shall be
entitled to vote in any territory, or to hold office under the United
States; that the President shall appoint in Utah a board of five persons
for the registry of voters, and the reception and counting of votes.
To meet the determined opposition to the new law, an amendment (known
as the Edmunds-Tucker law) was enacted in 1887. This law, in any
prosecution coming under the definition of plural marriages, waived the
process of subpoena, on affadavit of sufficient cause, in favor of an
attachment; allowed a lawful husband or wife to testify regarding each
other; required every marriage certificate in Utah to be signed by the
parties and the person performing the ceremony, and filed in court;
abolished female suffrage, and gave suffrage only to males of proper age
who registered and took an oath, giving the names of their lawful wives,
and promised to obey the laws of the United States, and especially the
Edmunds law; disqualified as a juror or officeholder any person who had
not taken an oath to support the laws of the United States, or who
had been convicted under the Edmunds law; gave the President power to
appoint the judges of the probate courts;* provided for escheating to
the United States for the use of the common schools the property of
corporations held in violation of the act in 1862, except buildings held
exclusively for the worship of God, the parsonages connected therewith,
and burial places; dissolved the corporation called the Perpetual
Emigration Company, and forbade the legislature to pass any law to
bring persons into the territory; dissolved the corporation known as the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and gave the Supreme Court
of the territory power to wind up its affairs; and annulled all
laws regarding the Nauvoo Legion, and all acts of the territorial
legislature.
* The first territorial legislature which met after the passage
of this law passed an act practically nullifying such appointments of
probate judges, but the governor vetoed it. In Beaver County, as soon as
the appointment of a probate judge by the President was announced, the
Mormon County Court met and reduced his salary to $5 a year.
The first members of the Utah commission appointed under the Edmunds
law were Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota, A. B. Carleton of Indiana, A.
S. Paddock of Nebraska, G. L. Godfrey of Iowa, and J. R. Pettigrew of
Arkansas, their appointments being dated June 23, 1882.
The officers of the church and the Mormons as a body met the new
situation as aggressively as did Brigham Young the approach of United
States troops. Their preachers and their newspapers reiterated the
divine nature of the "revelation" concerning polygamy and its obligatory
character, urging the people to stand by their leaders in opposition
to the new laws. The following extracts from "an Epistle from the First
Presidency, to the officers and members of the church," dated October
6, 1885, will sufficiently illustrate the attitude of the church
organization:--"The war is openly and undisguisedly made upon our
religion. To induce men to repudiate that, to violate its precepts, and
break its solemn covenants, every encouragement is given. The man who
agrees to discard his wife or wives, and to trample upon the most sacred
obligations which human beings can enter into, escapes imprisonment, and
is applauded: while the man who will not make this compact of dishonor,
who will not admit that his past life has been a fraud and a lie, who
will not say to the world, 'I intended to deceive my God, my brethren,
and my wives by making covenants I did not expect to keep,' is, beside
being punished to the full extent of the law, compelled to endure the
reproaches, taunts, and insults of a brutal judge....
"We did not reveal celestial marriage. We cannot withdraw or renounce
it, God revealed it, and he has promised to maintain it and to bless
those who obey it. Whatever fate, then, may threaten us, there is but
one course for men of God to take; that is, to keep inviolate the holy
covenants they have made in the presence of God and angels. For the
remainder, whether it be life or death, freedom or imprisonment,
prosperity or adversity, we must trust in God. We may say, however, if
any man or woman expects to enter into the celestial kingdom of our
God without making sacrifices and without being tested to the very
uttermost, they have not understood the Gospel....
"Upward of forty years ago the Lord revealed to his church the principle
of celestial marriage. The idea of marrying more wives than one was as
naturally abhorrent to the leading men and women of the church, at that
day, as it could be to any people. They shrank with dread from the bare
thought of entering into such relationship. But the command of God
was before them in language which no faithful soul dare disobey, 'For,
behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye
abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this
covenant, and be permitted to enter into my glory.'... Who would suppose
that any man, in this land of religious liberty, would presume to say
to his fellow-man that he had no right to take such steps as he thought
necessary to escape damnation? Or that Congress would enact a law which
would present the alternative to religious believers of being consigned
to a penitentiary if they should attempt to obey a law of God which
would deliver them from damnation?"
There was a characteristic effort to evade the law as regards political
rights. The People's Party (Mormon), to get around the provision
concerning the test oath for voters, issued an address to them which
said: "The questions that intending voters need therefore ask themselves
are these: Are we guilty of the crimes of said act; or have we THE
PRESENT INTENTION of committing these crimes, or of aiding, abetting,
causing or advising any other person to commit them. Male citizens who
can answer these questions in the negative can qualify under the laws as
voters or office-holders."
Two events in 1885 were the cause of so much feeling that United States
troops were held in readiness for transportation to Utah. The first of
these was the placing of the United States flag at half mast in Salt
Lake City, on July 4, over the city hall, county court-house, theatre,
cooperative store, Deseret News office, tithing office, and President
Taylor's residence, to show the Mormon opinion that the Edmunds law had
destroyed liberty. When a committee of non-Mormon citizens called at the
city hall for an explanation of this display, the city marshal said that
it was "a whim of his," and the mayor ordered the flag raised to its
proper place.
In November of that year a Mormon night watchman named McMurrin was shot
and severely wounded by a United States deputy marshal named Collin.
This caused great feeling, and there were rumors that the Mormons
threatened to lynch Collin, that armed men had assembled to take him
out of the officers' hands, and that the Mormons of the territory were
arming themselves, and were ready at a moment's notice to march into
Salt Lake City. Federal troops were held in readiness at Eastern points,
but they were not used. The Salt Lake City Council, on December 8, made
a report denying the truth of the disquieting rumors, and declaring that
"at no time in the history of this city have the lives and property of
its non-Mormon inhabitants been more secure than now."
The records of the courts in Utah show that the Mormons stood ready to
obey the teachings of the church at any cost. Prosecutions under the
Edmunds law began in 1884, and the convictions for polygamy or unlawful
cohabitation (mostly the latter) were as follows in the years named: 3
in 1884, 39 in 1885, 112 in 1886, 214 in 1887, and 100 in 1888, with
48 in Idaho during the same period. Leading men in the church went into
hiding--"under ground," as it was called--or fled from the territory.
As to the actual continuance of polygamous marriages, the evidence was
contradictory. A special report of the Utah Commission in 1884 expressed
the opinion that there had been a decided decrease in their number
in the cities, and very little decrease in the rural districts. Their
regular report for that year estimated the number of males and females
who had entered into that relation at 459. The report for 1888 stated
that the registration officers gave the names of 29 females who, they
had good reason to believe, had contracted polygamous marriages since
the lists were closed in June, 1887. As late as 1889 Hans Jespersen
was arrested for unlawful cohabitation. As his plural marriage was
understood to be a recent one, the case attracted wide attention, since
it was expected to prove the insincerity of the church in making the
protest against the Edmunds law principally on the ground that it broke
up existing families. Jespersen pleaded guilty of adultery and polygamy,
and was sentenced to imprisonment for eight years. In making his plea he
said that he was married at the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, that
he and his wife were the only persons there, and that he did not know
who married them. His wife testified that she "heard a voice pronounce
them man and wife, but didn't see any one nor who spoke." * Such were
some of the methods adopted by the church to set at naught the law.
* Report of the Utah Commission for 1890, p. 23.
But along with this firm attitude, influences were at work looking to a
change of policy. During the first year of the enforcement of the law
it was on many sides declared a failure, the aggressive attitude of
the church, and the willingness of its leaders to accept imprisonment,
hiding, or exile, being regarded by many persons in the East as proof
that the real remedy for the Utah situation was yet to be discovered.
The Utah Commission, in their earlier reports, combated this idea, and
pointed out that the young men in the church would grow restive as they
saw all the offices out of their reach unless they took the test oath,
and that they "would present an anomaly in human nature if they should
fail to be strongly influenced against going into a relation which thus
subjects them to political ostracism, and fixes on them the stigma of
moral turpitude." How wide this influence was is seen in the political
statistics of the times. When the Utah Commission entered on their
duties in August, 1882, almost every office in the territory was held by
a polygamist. By April, 1884, about 12,000 voters, male and female, had
been disfranchised by the act, and of the 1351 elective officers in
the territory not one was a polygamist, and not one of the municipal
officers of Salt Lake City then in office had ever been "in polygamy."
The church leaders at first tried to meet this influence in two ways, by
open rebuke of all Saints who showed a disposition to obey the new laws,
and by special honors to those who took their punishment. Thus, the
Deseret News told the brethren that they could not promise to obey the
anti-polygamy laws without violating obligations that bound them to time
and eternity; and when John Sharp, a leading member of the church in
Salt Lake City, went before the court and announced his intention to
obey these laws, he was instantly removed from the office of Bishop of
his ward.
The restlessness of the flock showed itself in the breaking down of the
business barriers set up by the church between Mormons and Gentiles.
This subject received a good deal of attention in the minority report
signed by two of the commissioners in 1888. They noted the sale of real
estate by Mormons to Gentiles against the remonstrances of the church,
the organization of a Chamber of Commerce in Salt Lake City in which
Mormons and Gentiles worked together, and the union of both elements in
the last Fourth of July celebration.
In the spring of 1890, at the General Conference held in Salt Lake City,
the office of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator and President" of the church,
that had remained vacant since the death of John Taylor in 1887, was
filled by the election of Wilford Woodruff, a polygamist who had refused
to take the test oath, while G. Q. Cannon and Lorenzo Snow, who were
disfranchised for the same cause, were made respectively counsellor
and president of the Twelve.* Woodruff was born in Connecticut in 1807,
became a Mormon in 1832, was several times sent on missions to England,
and had gained so much prominence while the church was at Nauvoo that
he was the chief dedicator of the Temple there. While there, he signed
a certificate stating that he knew of no other system of marriage in the
church but the one-wife system then prescribed in the "Book of Doctrine
and Covenants." Before the date of his promotion, Woodruff had declared
that plural marriages were no longer permitted, and, when he was
confronted with evidence to the contrary brought out in court, he denied
all knowledge of it, and afterward declared that, in consequence of the
evidence presented, he had ordered the Endowment House to be taken down.
* Lorenzo Snow was elected president of the church on September
13, 1898, eleven days after the death of President Woodruff, and he held
that position until his death which occurred on October 10, 1901.
Governor Thomas, in his report for 1890, expressed the opinion that
the church, under its system, could in only one way define its position
regarding polygamy, and that was by a public declaration by the head
of the church, or by action by a conference, and he added, "There is no
reason to believe that any earthly power can extort from the church
any such declaration." The governor was mistaken, not in measuring the
purpose of the church, but in foreseeing all the influences that were
now making themselves felt.
The revised statutes of Idaho at this time contained a provision (Sec.
509) disfranchising all polygamists and debarring from office all
polygamists, and all persons who counselled or encouraged any one to
commit polygamy. The constitutionality of this section was argued before
the United States Supreme Court, which, on February 3, 1890, decided
that it was constitutional. The antipolygamists in Utah saw in this
decision a means of attacking the Mormon belief even more aggressively
than had been done by means of the Edmunds Bill. An act was drawn
(Governor Thomas and ex-Governor West taking it to Washington) providing
that no person living in plural or celestial marriage, or teaching
the same, or being a member of, or a contributor to, any organization
teaching it, or assisting in such a marriage, should be entitled to
vote, to serve as a juror, or to hold office, a test oath forming a part
of the act. Senator Cullom introduced this bill in the upper House and
Mr. Struble of Iowa in the House of Representatives. The House Committee
on Territories (the Democrats in the negative) voted to report the
bill, amended so as to make it applicable to all the territories. This
proposed legislation caused great excitement in Mormondom, and petitions
against its passage were hurried to Washington, some of these containing
non-Mormon signatures.
As a further menace to the position of the church, the United States
Supreme Court, on May 19, affirmed the decision of the lower court
confiscating the property of the Mormon church, and declaring that
church organization to be an organized rebellion; and on June 21, the
Senate passed Senator Edmunds's bill disposing of the real estate of the
church for the benefit of the school fund.*
* After the admission of Utah as a state, Congress passed an act
restoring the property to the church.
The Mormon authorities now realized that the public sentiment of the
country, as expressed in the federal law, had them in its grasp. They
must make some concession to this public sentiment, or surrender
all their privileges as citizens and the wealth of their church
organization. Agents were hurried to Washington to implore the aid of
Mr. Blaine in checking the progress of the Cullom Bill, and at home
the head of the church made the concession in regard to polygamy which
secured the admission of the territory as a state.
On September 25, 1890, Woodruff, as President of the church, issued a
proclamation addressed "to whom it may concern," which struck out of the
NECESSARY beliefs and practices of the Mormon church, the practice of
polygamy.
This important step was taken, not in the form of a "revelation,"
but simply as a proclamation or manifesto. It began with a solemn
declaration that the allegation of the Utah Commission that plural
marriages were still being solemnized was false, and the assertion that
"we are not preaching polygamy nor permitting any person to enter into
its practice." The closing and important
part of the proclamation was as follows:--
"Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress, which laws have been
pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare
my intention to submit to these laws, and to use my influence with the
members of the church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
"There is nothing in my teachings to the church, or in those of my
associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed
to inculcate or encourage polygamy, and when any elder of the church has
used language which appeared to convey any such teachings he has been
promptly reproved.
"And now I publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-Day Saints is
to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the
land."
On October 6, the General Conference of the church, on motion of Lorenzo
Snow, unanimously adopted the following resolution:--
"I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as President of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the
present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider
him fully authorized, by virtue of his position, to issue the manifesto
that has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24,
1890, and as a church in general conference assembled we accept his
declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding."
This action was reaffirmed by the General Conference of October 6, 1891.
Of course the church officers had to make some explanation to the
brethren of their change of front. Cannon fell back on the "revelation"
of January 19, 1841, which Smith put forth to excuse the failure to
establish a Zion in Missouri, namely, that, when their enemies prevent
their performing a task assigned by the Almighty, he would accept their
effort to do so. He said that "it was on this basis" that President
Woodruff had felt justified in issuing the manifesto. Woodruff
explained: "It is not wisdom for us to make war upon 65,000,000
people.... The prophet Joseph Smith organized the church; and all that
he has promised in this code of revelations the "Book of Doctrine and
Covenants" has been fulfilled as fast as time would permit. THAT WHICH
IS NOT FULFILLED WILL BE." Cannon did explain that the manifesto was the
result of prayer, and Woodruff told the people that he had had a great
many visits from the Prophet Joseph since his death, in dreams, and also
from Brigham Young, but neither seems to have imparted any very valuable
information, Joseph explaining that he was in an immense hurry preparing
himself "to go to the earth with the Great Bridegroom when he goes to
meet the Bride, the Lamb's wife."
Two recent incidents have indicated the restlessness of the Mormon
church under the restriction placed upon polygamy. In 1898, the
candidate for Representative in Congress, nominated by the Democratic
Convention of Utah, was Brigham H. Roberts. It was commonly known in
Utah that Roberts was a violator of the Edmunds law. A Mormon elder,
writing from Brigham, Utah, in February, 1899, while Roberts's case was
under consideration at Washington, said, "Many prominent Mormons foresaw
the storm that was now raging, and deprecated Mr. Roberts's nomination
and election."* This statement proves both the notoriety of Roberts's
offence, and the connivance of the church in his nomination, because no
Mormon can be nominated to an office in Utah when the church authorities
order otherwise. When Roberts presented himself to be sworn in, in
December, 1899, his case was referred to a special committee of nine
members. The report of seven members of this committee found that
Roberts married his first wife about the year 1878; that about 1885 he
married a plural wife, who had since born him six children, the last
two twins, born on August 11, 1897; that some years later he married a
second plural wife, and that he had been living with all three till the
time of his election; "that these facts were generally known in Utah,
publicly charged against him during his campaign for election, and
were not denied by him." Roberts refused to take the stand before the
committee, and demurred to its jurisdiction on the ground that the
hearing was an attempt to try him for a crime without an indictment and
jury trial, and to deprive him of vested rights in the emoluments of
the office to which he was elected, and that, if the crime alleged was
proved, it would not constitute a sufficient cause to deprive him of
his seat, because polygamy is not enumerated in the constitution as
a disqualification for the office of member of Congress. The majority
report recommended that his seat be declared vacant. Two members of the
committee reported that his offence afforded constitutional ground for
expulsion, but not for exclusion from the House, and recommended that
he be sworn in and immediately expelled. The resolution presented by the
majority was adopted by the House by a vote of 268 to 50.**
* New York Evening Post, February 20, 1899.
** Roberts was tried in the district court in Salt Lake City, on
April 30, 1900, on the charge of unlawful cohabitation. The case was
submitted to the jury of eight men, without testimony, on an agreed
statement of facts, and the jury disagreed, standing six for conviction
and two for acquittal.
The second incident referred to was the passage by the Utah legislature
in March, 1901, of a bill containing this provision:
"No prosecution for adultery shall be commenced except on complaint of
the husband or wife or relative of the accused with the first degree of
consanguinity, or of the person with whom the unlawful act is alleged to
have been committed, or of the father or mother of said person; and
no prosecution for unlawful cohabitation shall be commenced except on
complaint of the wife, or alleged plural wife of the accused; but this
provision shall not apply to prosecutions under section 4208 of the
Revised Statutes, 1898, defining and punishing polygamous marriages."
This bill passed the Utah senate by a vote of 11 to 7, and the house
by a vote of 174 to 25. The excuse offered for it by the senator who
introduced it was that it would "take away from certain agitators the
opportunity to arouse periodic furors against the Mormons"; that more
than half of the persons who had been polygamists had died or dissolved
their polygamous relations, and that no good service could be subserved
by prosecuting the remainder. This law aroused a protest throughout the
country, and again the Mormon church saw that it had made a mistake, and
on the 14th of March Governor H. M. Wells vetoed the bill, on grounds
that may be summarized as declaring that the law would do the Mormons
more harm than good. The most significant part of his message, as
indicating what the Mormon authorities most dread, is contained in the
following sentence: "I have every reason to believe its enactment would
be the signal for a general demand upon the national Congress for a
constitutional amendment directed solely against certain conditions
here, a demand which, under the circumstances, would assuredly be
complied with."
The admission of Utah as a state followed naturally the promulgation by
the Mormon church of a policy which was accepted by the non-Mormons as
putting a practical end to the practice of polygamy. For the seventh
time, in 1887, the Mormons had adopted a state constitution, the
one ratified in that year providing that "bigamy and polygamy, being
considered incompatible with 'a republican form of government,' each of
them is hereby forbidden and declared a misdemeanor." The non-Mormons
attacked the sincerity of this declaration, among other things pointing
out the advice of the Church organ, while the constitution was before
the people, that they be "as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves."
Congress again refused admission.
On January 4, 1893, President Harrison issued a proclamation granting
amnesty and pardon to all persons liable to the penalty of the Edmunds
law "who have, since November 1, 1890, abstained from such unlawful
cohabitation," but on condition that they should in future obey the laws
of the United States. Until the time of Woodruff's manifesto there had
been in Utah only two political parties, the People's, as the Mormon
organization had always been known, and the Liberal (anti-Mormon).
On June 10, 1894, the People's Territorial Central Committee adopted
resolutions reciting the organization of the Republicans and Democrats
of the territory, declaring that the dissensions of the past should be
left behind and that the People's party should dissolve. The Republican
Territorial Committee a few days later voted that a division of the
people on national party lines would result only in statehood controlled
by the Mormon theocracy. The Democratic committee eight days later took
a directly contrary view. At the territorial election in the following
August the Democrats won, the vote standing: Democratic, 14,116;
Liberal, 7386; Republican, 6613.
It would have been contrary to all political precedent if the
Republicans had maintained their attitude after the Democrats had
expressed their willingness to receive Mormon allies. Accordingly, in
September, 1891, we find the Republicans adopting a declaration that it
would be wise and patriotic to accept the changes that had occurred,
and denying that statehood was involved in a division of the people on
national party lines.
All parties in the territory now seemed to be manoeuvring for position.
The Morman newspaper organs expressed complete indifference about
securing statehood. In Congress Mr. Caine, the Utah Delegate,
introduced what was known as the "Home Rule Bill," taking the control of
territorial affairs from the governor and commission. This was known
as a Democratic measure, and great pressure was brought to bear on
Republican leaders at Washington to show them that Utah as a state would
in all probability add to the strength of the Republican column. When,
at the first session of the 53d Congress, J. L. Rawlins, a Democrat who
had succeeded Caine as Delegate, introduced an act to enable the people
of Utah to gain admission for the territory as a state, it met with no
opposition at home, passed the House of Representatives on December
13, 1893, and the Senate on July 10, 1894 (without a division in either
House), and was signed by the President on July 16. The enabling
act required the constitutional convention to provide "by ordinance
irrevocable without the consent of the United States and the people
of that state, that perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be
secured, and that no inhabitant of said state shall ever be molested in
person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship;
PROVIDED, that polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited."
The constitutional convention held under this act met in Salt Lake City
on March 4, 1895, and completed its work on May 8, following. In the
election of delegates for this convention the Democrats cast about
19,000 votes, the Republicans about 21,000 and the Populists about 6500.
Of the 107 delegates chosen, 48 were Democrats and 59 Republicans. The
constitution adopted contained the following provisions:--
"Art. 1. Sec. 4. The rights of conscience shall never be infringed.
The state shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; no religious test shall be
required as a qualification for any office of public trust, or for any
vote at any election; nor shall any person be incompetent as a witness
or juror on account of religious belief or the absence thereof. There
shall be no union of church and state, nor shall any church dominate the
state or interfere with its functions. No public money or property shall
be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise, or
instruction, or for the support of any ecclesiastical establishment.
"Art. 111. The following ordinance shall be irrevocable without the
consent of the United States and the people of this state: Perfect
toleration of religious sentiment is guaranteed. No inhabitant of this
state shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or
her mode of religious worship; but polygamous or plural marriages are
forever prohibited."
This constitution was submitted to the people on November 5, 1895, and
was ratified by a vote of 31,305 to 7687, the Republicans at the same
election electing their entire state ticket and a majority of
the legislature. On January 4, 1896, President Cleveland issued
a proclamation announcing the admission of Utah as a state. The
inauguration of the new state officers took place at Salt Lake City
two days later. The first governor, Heber M. Wells,* in his inaugural
address made this declaration: "Let us learn to resent the absurd
attacks that are made from time to time upon our sincerity by ignorant
and prejudiced persons outside of Utah, and let us learn to know and
respect each other more, and thus cement and intensify the fraternal
sentiments now so widespread in our community, to the end that, by a
mighty unity of purpose and Christian resolution, we may be able to
insure that domestic tranquillity, promote that general welfare,
and secure those blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
guaranteed by the constitution of the United States."
* Son of "General" Wells of the Nauvoo Legion.
The vote of Utah since its admission as a state has been cast as
follows:--
REPUBLICAN **** DEMOCRAT
1895. Governor 20,833 18,519
1896. President 13,491 64,607
1900. Governor 47,600 44,447
1900. President 47,089 44,949
CHAPTER XXV. -- THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY
An intelligent examination of the present status of the Mormon church
can be made only after acquaintance with its past history, and the
policy of the men who have given it its present doctrinal and political
position. The Mormon power has ever in view objects rather than methods.
It always keeps those objects in view, while at times adjusting methods
to circumstances, as was the case in its latest treatment of the
doctrine of polygamy. The casual visitor, making a tour of observation
in Utah, and the would-be student of Mormon policies who satisfies
himself with reading their books of doctrine instead of their early
history, is certain to acquire little knowledge of the real Mormon
character and the practical Mormon ambition, and if he writes on the
subject he will contribute nothing more authentic than does Schouler
in his "History of the United States" wherein he calls Joseph Smith "a
careful organizer," and says that "it was a part of his creed to manage
well the material concerns of his people, as they fed their flocks and
raised their produce." Brigham Young's constant cry was that all the
Mormons asked was to be left alone. Nothing suits the purposes of the
heads of the church today better than the decrease of public attention
attracted to their organization since the Woodruff manifesto concerning
polygamy. In trying to arrive at a reasonable decision concerning their
future place in American history, one must constantly bear in mind the
arguments which they have to offer to religious enthusiasts, and the
political and commercial power which they have already attained and
which they are constantly strengthening.
The growth of Utah in population since its settlement by the Mormons has
been as follows, accepting the figures of the United States census:--
1850 11,380
1860 40,273
1870 86,786
1880 143,963
1890 207,905
1900 276,749
The census of 1890 (the religious statistics of the census of 1900 are
not yet available) shows that, of a total church membership of 128,115
in Utah, the Latter-Day Saints numbered 118,201.
What may be called the Mormon political policy embraces these objects:
to maintain the dictatorial power of the priesthood over the present
church membership; to extend that membership over the adjoining states
so as to acquire in the latter, first a balance of power, and later
complete political control; to continue the work of proselyting
throughout the United States and in foreign lands with a view to
increasing the strength of the church at home by the immigration to Utah
of the converts.
That the power of the Mormon priesthood over their flock has never been
more autocratic than it is to-day is the testimony of the best witnesses
who may be cited. A natural reason for this may be found in the strength
which always comes to a religious sect with age, if it survives the
period of its infancy. We have seen that in the early days of the church
its members apostatized in scores, intimate acquaintance with Smith and
his associates soon disclosing to men of intelligence and property their
real objects. But the church membership in and around Utah to-day is
made up of the children and the grandchildren of men and women who
remained steadfast in their faith. These younger generations are
therefore influenced in their belief, not only by such appeals as what
is taught to them makes to their reason, but by the fact that these
teachings are the teachings which have been accepted by their ancestors.
It is, therefore, vastly more difficult to convince a younger Mormon
to-day that his belief rests on a system of fraud than it was to enforce
a similar argument on the minds of men and women who joined the Saints
in Ohio or Illinois. We find, accordingly, that apostasies in Utah are
of comparatively rare occurrence; that men of all classes accept orders
to go on missions to all parts of the world without question; and that
the tithings are paid with greater regularity than they have been since
the days of Brigham Young.
The extension of the membership of the Mormon church over the states and
territories nearest to Utah has been carried on with intelligent
zeal. The census of 1890 gives the following comparison of members
of Latter-Day Saints churches and of "all bodies" in the states and
territories named:--
******* L.D. SAINTS **** ALL BODIES ***
Idaho******* 14,972 **** 24,036
Arizona***** 6,500 **** 26,972
Nevada****** 525 **** 5,877
Wyoming***** 1,336 **** 11,705
Colorado**** 1,762 **** 86,837
New Mexico** 456 **** 105,749
The political influence of the Mormon church in all the states and
territories adjacent to Utah is already great, amounting in some
instances to practical dictation. It is not necessary that any body
of voters should have the actual control of the politics of a state to
insure to them the respect of political managers. The control of certain
counties will insure to them the subserviency of the local politicians,
who will speak a good word for them at the state capital, and the
prospect that they will have greater influence in the future will be
pressed upon the attention of the powers that be. We have seen how
steadily the politicians of California at Washington stood by the
Mormons in their earlier days, when they were seeking statehood and
opposing any federal control of their affairs. The business reasons
which influenced the Californians are a thousand times more effective
to-day. The Cooperative Institution has a hold on the Eastern firms from
which it buys goods, and every commercial traveller who visits Utah to
sell the goods of his employers to Mormon merchants learns that a good
word for his customers is always appreciated. The large corporations
that are organized under the laws of Utah (and this includes the Union
Pacific Railroad Company) are always in some way beholden to the Mormon
legislative power. All this sufficiently indicates the measures quietly
taken by the Mormon church to guard itself against any further federal
interference.
The mission work of the Mormon church has always been conducted
with zeal and efficiency, and it is so continued to-day. The church
authorities in Utah no longer give out definite statistics showing the
number of missionaries in the field, and the number of converts brought
to Utah from abroad. The number of missionaries at work in October,
1901, was stated to me by church officers at from fourteen hundred to
nineteen hundred, the smaller number being insisted upon as correct by
those who gave it. As nearly as could be ascertained, about one-half
this force is employed in the United States and the rest abroad. The
home field most industriously cultivated has been the rural districts of
the Southern states, whose ignorant population, ever susceptible to
"preaching" of any kind, and quite incapable of answering the Mormon
interpretation of the Scriptures, is most easily lead to accept the
Mormon views. When such people are offered an opportunity to improve
their worldly condition, as they are told they may do in Utah, at the
same time that they can save their souls, the bait is a tempting one.
The number of missionaries now at work in these Southern states is said
to be much smaller than it was two years ago. Meanwhile the work of
proselyting in the Eastern Atlantic states has become more active. The
Mormons have their headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and their
missionaries make visits in all parts of Greater New York. They leave a
great many tracts in private houses, explaining that they will make
another call later, and doing so if they receive the least
encouragement. They take great pains to reach servant girls with their
literature and arguments, and the story has been published* of a Mormon
missionary who secured employment as a butler, and made himself so
efficient that his employer confided to him the engagement of all the
house servants; in time the frequent changes which he made aroused
suspicion, and an investigation disclosed the fact that he was a Mormon
of good education, who used his position as head servant to perform
effective proselyting work. By promise of a husband and a home of her
own on her arrival in Utah, this man was said to have induced sixty
girls to migrate from New York City to that state since he began his
labors.
* New York Sun, January 27, 1901.
The Mormons estimate the membership of their church throughout the world
at a little over 300,000. The numbers of "souls" in the church abroad
was thus reported for the year ending December 31, 1899, as published in
the Millennial Star:--
Great Britain
4,588
Scandinavia
5,438
Germany
1,198
Switzerland
1,078
Netherlands
1,556
These figures indicate a great falling off in the church constituency
in Europe as compared with the year 1851, when the number of Mormons
in Great Britain and Ireland was reported at more than thirty thousand.
Many influences have contributed to decrease the membership of the
church abroad and the number of converts which the church machinery
has been able to bring to Utah. We have seen that the announcement
of polygamy as a necessary belief of the church was a blow to the
organization in Europe. The misrepresentation made to converts abroad to
induce them to migrate to Utah, as illustrated in the earlier years
of the church, has always been continued, and naturally many of the
deceived immigrants have sent home accounts of their deception. A book
could be filled with stories of the experiences of men and women who
have gone to Utah, accepting the promises held out to them by the
missionaries,--such as productive farms, paying business enterprises; or
remunerative employment,--only to find their expectations disappointed,
and themselves stranded in a country where they must perform the hardest
labor in order to support themselves, if they had not the means with
which to return home. The effect of such revelations has made some parts
of Europe an unpleasant field for the visits of Mormon missionaries.
The government at Washington, during the operation of the Perpetual
Emigration Fund organization, realized the evil of the introduction of
so many Mormon converts from abroad. On August 9, 1879, Secretary of
State William M. Evarts sent out a circular to the diplomatic officers
of the United States throughout the world, calling their attention to
the fact that the organized shipment of immigrants intended to add to
the number of law-defying polygamists in Utah was "a deliberate and
systematic attempt to bring persons to the United States with the intent
of violating their laws and committing crimes expressly punishable under
the statute as penitentiary offences," and instructing them to call
the attention of the governments to which they were accredited to this
matter, in order that those governments might take such steps as were
compatible with their laws and usages "to check the organization of
these criminal enterprises by agents who are thus operating beyond the
reach of the law of the United States, and to prevent the departure of
those proposing to come hither as violators of the law by engaging
in such criminal enterprises, by whomsoever instigated." President
Cleveland, in his first message, recommended the passage of a law
to prevent the importation of Mormons into the United States. The
Edmunds-Tucker law contained a provision dissolving the Perpetual
Emigration Company, and forbidding the Utah legislature to pass any law
to bring persons into the territory. Mormon authorities have informed
me that there has been no systematic immigration work since the
prosecutions under the Edmunds law. But as it is conceded that the
Mormons make practically no proselytes among then Gentile neighbors,
they must still look largely to other fields for that increase of their
number which they have in view.
As a part of their system of colonizing the neighboring states and
territories, they have made settlements in the Dominion of Canada and
in Mexico. Their Canadian settlement is situated in Alberta. A report
to the Superintendent of Immigration at Ottawa, dated December 30, 1899,
stated that the Mormon colony there comprised 1700 souls, all coming
from Utah; and that "they are a very progressive people, with good
schools and churches." When they first made their settlement they gave
a pledge to the Dominion government that they would refrain from the
practice of polygamy while in that country. In 1889 the Department of
the Interior at Ottawa was informed that the Mormons were not observing
this pledge, but investigation convinced the department that this
accusation was not true. However, in 1890, an amendment to the criminal
law of the Dominion was enacted (clause 11, 53 Victoria, Chap. 37),
making any person guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to imprisonment
for five years and a fine of $500, who practises any form of polygamy
or spiritual marriage, or celebrates or assists in any such marriage
ceremony.
The Secretario de Fomento of Mexico, under date of May 4, 1901, informed
me that the number of Mormon colonists in that country was then 2319,
located in seven places in Chihuahua and Sonora. He added: "The laws of
this country do not permit polygamy. The government has never encouraged
the immigration of Mormons, only that of foreigners of good character,
working people who may be useful to the republic. And in the contracts
made for the establishment of those Mormon colonies it was stipulated
that they should be formed only of foreigners embodying all the
aforesaid conditions."
No student of the question of polygamy, as a doctrine and practice of
the Mormon church, can reach any other conclusion than that it is simply
held in abeyance at the present time, with an expectation of a removal
of the check now placed upon it. The impression, which undoubtedly
prevails throughout other parts of the United States, that polygamy was
finally abolished by the Woodruff manifesto and the terms of statehood,
is founded on an ignorance of the compulsory character of the doctrine
of polygamy, of the narrowness of President Woodruff's decree, and
of the part which polygamous marriages have been given, by the church
doctrinal teachings, in the plan of salvation. The sketch of the various
steps leading up to the Woodruff manifesto shows that even that slight
concession to public opinion was made, not because of any change of
view by the church itself concerning polygamy, but simply to protect
the church members from the loss of every privilege of citizenship. That
manifesto did not in any way condemn the polygamous doctrine; it simply
advised the Saints to submit to the United States law against polygamy,
with the easily understood but unexpressed explanation that it was to
their temporal advantage to do so. How strictly this advice has since
been lived up to--to what extent polygamous practices have since been
continued in Utah--it is not necessary, in a work of this kind, to try
to ascertain. The most intelligent non-Mormon testimony obtainable in
the territory must be discarded if we are to believe that polygamous
relations have not been continued in many instances. This, too, would
be only what might naturally be expected among a people who had so long
been taught that plural marriages were a religious duty, and that the
check to them was applied, not by their church authorities, but by an
outside government, hostility to which had long been inculcated in them.
It must be remembered that it is a part of the doctrine of polygamy
that woman can enter heaven only as sealed to some devout member of the
Mormon church "for time and eternity," and that the space around the
earth is filled with spirits seeking some "tabernacles of clay" by
means of which they may attain salvation. Through the teaching of this
doctrine, which is accepted as explicitly by the membership of the
Mormon church at large as is any doctrine by a Protestant denomination,
the Mormon women believe that the salvation of their sex depends on
"sealed" marriages, and that the more children they can bring into the
world the more spirits they assist on the road to salvation. In the
earlier days of the church, as Brigham Young himself testified,
the bringing in of new wives into a family produced discord and
heartburnings, and many pictures have been drawn of the agony endured
by a wife number one when her husband became a polygamist. All the
testimony I can obtain in regard to the Mormonism of today shows that
the Mormon women are now the most earnest advocates of polygamous
marriages. Said one competent observer in Salt Lake City to me, "As
the women of the South, during the war, were the rankest rebels, so the
women of Mormondom are to-day the most zealous advocates of polygamy."
By precisely what steps the church may remove the existing prohibition
of polygamous marriages I shall not attempt to decide. It is easy,
however, to state the one enactment which would prevent the success of
any such effort. This would be the adoption by Congress and ratification
by the necessary number of states of a constitutional amendment making
the practice of polygamy an offence under the federal law, and giving
the federal courts jurisdiction to punish any violators of this law. The
Mormon church recognizes this fact, and whenever such an amendment
comes before Congress all its energies will be directed to prevent its
ratification. Governor Wells's warning in his message vetoing the Utah
Act of March, 1901, concerning prosecutions for adultery, that its
enactment would be the signal for a general demand for the passage of a
constitutional amendment against polygamy, showed how far the executive
thought it necessary to go to prevent even the possibility of such an
amendment. One of the main reasons why the Mormons are so constantly
increasing their numbers in the neighboring states is that they may
secure the vote of those states against an anti-polygamy amendment.
Whenever such an amendment is introduced at Washington it will be found
that every Mormon influence--political, mercantile, and railroad--will
be arrayed against it, and its passage is unlikely unless the church
shall make some misstep which will again direct public attention to it
in a hostile manner.
The devout Mormon has no more doubt that his church will dominate this
nation eventually than he has in the divine character of his prophet's
revelations. Absurd as such a claim appears to all non-Mormon citizens,
in these days when Mormonism has succeeded in turning public attention
away from the sect, it is interesting to trace the church view of this
matter, along with the impression which the Mormon power has made on
some of its close observers. The early leaders made no concealment of
their claim that Mormonism was to be a world religion. "What the world
calls 'Mormonism' will rule every nation," said Orson Hyde. "God has
decreed it, and his own right arm will accomplish it."* Brigham Young,
in a sermon in the Tabernacle on February 15, 1856, told his people that
their expulsion from Missouri was revealed to him in advance, as well as
the course of their migrations, and he added: "Mark my words. Write them
down. This people as a church and kingdom will go from the west to the
east."
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. VII, pp. 48-53.
Tullidge, whose works, it must be remembered, were submitted to church
revision, in his "Life of Brigham Young" thus defines the Mormon view
of the political mission of the head of the church: "He is simply an
apostle of a republican nationality, manifold in its genius; or,
in popular words, he is the chief apostle of state rights by divine
appointment. He has the mission, he affirms, and has been endowed with
inspiration to preach the gospel of a true democracy to the nation, as
well as the gospel for the remission of sins, and he believes the United
States will ultimately need his ministration in both respects....
They form not, therefore, a rival power as against the Union, but an
apostolic ministry to it, and their political gospel is state rights and
self-government. This is political Mormonism in a nutshell."*
* p. 244.
Tullidge further says in his "History of Salt Lake City" (writing in
1886): "The Mormons from the first have existed as a society, not as a
sect. They have combined the two elements of organization--the social
and the religious. They are now a new society power in the world, and an
entirety in themselves. They are indeed the only religious community in
Christendom of modern birth."*
* p. 387.
Some of the closest observers of the Mormons in their earlier days took
them very seriously. Thus Josiah Quincy, after visiting Joseph Smith at
Nauvoo, wrote that it was "by no means impossible" that the answer to
the question, "What historical American of the nineteenth century has
exerted the most powerful influence upon the destiny of his countrymen,"
would not be, "Joseph Smith." Governor Ford of Illinois, who had to do
officially with the Mormons during most of their stay in that state,
afterward wrote concerning them: "The Christian world, which has
hitherto regarded Mormonism with silent contempt, unhappily may yet have
cause to fear its rapid increase. Modern society is full of material for
such a religion.... It is to be feared that, in the course of a century,
some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator who will be able by his
eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever ready to hear
and be carried away by the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of
sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may succeed in breathing a new
life into this modern Mohammedanism, and make the name of the martyred
Joseph ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty
name of Christ itself."*
* Ford, "History of Illinois," p. 359.
The close observers of Mormonism in Utah, who recognize its aims, but
think that its days of greatest power are over, found this opinion
on the fact that the church makes practically no converts among the
neighboring Gentiles; and that the increasing mining and other business
interests are gradually attracting a population of non-Mormons which
the church can no longer offset by converts brought in from the East and
from foreign lands. Special stress is laid on the future restriction on
Mormon immigration that will be found in the lack of further government
land which may be offered to immigrants, and in the discouraging stories
sent home by immigrants who have been induced to move to Utah by the
false representations of the missionaries. Unquestionably, if the Mormon
church remains stationary as regards wealth and membership, it will be
overshadowed by its surroundings. What it depends on to maintain its
present status and to increase its power is the loyal devotion of the
body of its adherents, and its skill in increasing their number in the
states which now surround Utah, and eventually in other states.
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