Collected Leonard J Arrington Mormon History Lectures

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The Collected

LEONARD J. ARRINGTON

Mormon History Lectures Special Collection & Archives Utah State University Libraries

The Collected Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lectures

The Collected Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lectures

Special Collections & Archives University Libraries

Utah State University Logan, Utah

Arrington Lecture Series Board of Directors F. Ross Peterson, Chair Gary Anderson Harriet Arrington Jonathan Bullen Richard “Skip” Christenson Kenneth W. Godfrey Robert Parson Cherry Silver

Copyright © 2005 Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Utah State University All rights reserved

LC Number 2004021544 Complete Catalog Information Available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-87421-598-6 ISBN 0-87421-527-7 (e-book)

Distributed by Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322-7800

Contents Introduction vii 1 7 November 1995

Faith and Intellect as Partners in Mormon History Leonard J. Arrington 1 2 22 October 1996

Making Space for the Mormons Richard Lyman Bushman 31 3 6 November 1997

“My Idea Is to Go Right Through Right Side Up with Care” The Exodus as Reformation Richard E. Bennett 55 4 1 December 1998

The Theater in Mormon Life and Culture Howard R. Lamar 71 5 7 October 1999

Mormon Domestic Life in the 1870s Pandemonium or Arcadia? Claudia L. Bushman 91

6 25 October 2000

The Importance of the Temple in Understanding the Latter-day Saint Nauvoo Experience Then and Now Kenneth W. Godfrey 119 7 11 October 2001

Signifying Sainthood, 1830–2001 Jan Shipps 155 8 11 October 2002

Encountering Mormon Country John Wesley Powell, John Muir, and the Nature of Utah Donald Worster 185 9 23 October 2003

Rachel’s Death How Memory Challenges History Laurel Thatcher Ulrich 205 10 4 November 2004

“I Didn’t Want to Leave the House, but He Compelled Me To” A Personal Examination of a Mormon Family F. Ross Peterson 223

Notes 242

About the Authors 277

Introduction The establishment of a lecture series honoring a library’s special collection and a donor to that collection is unique. Special Collections and Archives, Utah State University Libraries, houses the personal and historical collection of Leonard J. Arrington, a renowned scholar of the American West. As part of Arrington’s gift to the university, he requested that the university’s historical collection become the focus for an annual lecture on an aspect of Mormon history. Utah State agreed to the request and in 1995 inaugurated the annual Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture Series. Utah State’s Special Collections and Archives is ideally suited as the host for the lecture series. The state’s land grant institution began collecting agricultural and economic records very early, but in the 1960s became a major depository for Mormonobilia. Utah is unique in that one religion dominated the historical evolution of the state. Leonard Arrington, accompanied by his wife Grace Fort, joined the USU faculty in 1946 and along with S. George Ellsworth, Joel Ricks, and Milton C. Abrams focused on gathering original Mormon diaries, journals, and letters for the library. Professional archivists were hired and the concept of “special collections” was born at Utah State University. In many ways, Leonard Arrington profited from this vision. Trained as an economist at the University of Carolina, Arrington became an economic historian of international repute. Each month, Arrington and Ellsworth met with Eugene Campbell and Wendell Rich and presented their ideas on specific historical topics. Arrington, a native of Twin Falls, Idaho, published Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints in 1958. Utilizing the available collections and always seeking additional material, Arrington and his associates made Utah State University their base as they embarked on numerous publishing and editorial ventures. vii

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Arrington Mormon History Lectures

They helped organize both the Western History Association and the Mormon History Association. They followed the professional organizations with the creation of journals such as the Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue, and the Western Historical Quarterly. The Quarterly has been edited at Utah State University since its inception twenty-five years ago. Arrington and Ellsworth were the first editors. Their idea was to provide new alternatives and opportunities for young scholars of the West in general and the Mormon West in particular. Arrington began writing biographies and institutional histories during the 1960s. He fostered careers, encouraged students, and employed many as researchers. His studies of Charles C. Rich, William Spry, and David Eccles illustrate this phase of his endeavors. At the same time, he also finished histories of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company and of Kennecott Copper. Arrington’s roles as researcher, writer, founder, editor, nourisher, and friend continued to blossom. His reward was an appointment as LDS church historian in 1973, a position he held for ten years. Simultaneously, Arrington assumed the newly created Lemuel Redd Chair of Western History at Brigham Young University. Arrington’s focus became exclusively Mormon history and he attempted to create an atmosphere of open professional research. The church allowed him to hire a number of historians to work on special projects and assignments. Mormon history flourished during his tenure as historian and his own career was enhanced by the publication of The Mormon Experience, co-authored with Davis Bitton, and American Moses: A Biography of Brigham Young. In 1981, Arrington and his staff moved to BYU full-time and established the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of History. He continued to publish and mentor other prospective historians. Since retirement, he has published the monumental two-volume History of Idaho as well as numerous biographies of such western figures as Harold Silver and Charlie Redd. Widowed, he married Harriet Horne during this period and she became his travel companion as well as an active partner in his research and writings. They chose to deposit their vast collection of primary material as well as their library at Utah State University. Thus the Leonard J. Arrington Historical Archives in Special Collections and Archives was established. Leonard himself presented the first annual lecture on November 7, 1995 and in typical Arrington fashion emphasized people who made an

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Introduction

intellectual difference in Mormon history. That lecture documented two of Arrington’s long held principles—(1) institutions, especially religious ones, should never fear their history and (2) understanding people is critical to the significance of institutions. Included in his presentation was the conviction that people of ideas and intellect make great contributions to the evolution of Mormon history. In his straightforward manner and style, Arrington’s lecture created a foundation for those who followed in this series. Leonard Arrington died on February 11, 1999. Utah State University’s Special Collections and Archives is honored to administer the Arrington Historical Archives and its lecture series. The Arrington Lecture Committee works with Special Collections to sponsor the annual lecture. It has been a tremendous opportunity and obligation to enhance a particular use of the archive and to perpetuate its use.

Leonard J. Arrington. Photo by Lynn R. Johnson, the Salt Lake Tribune.

1 Faith and Intellect as Partners in Mormon History Leonard J. Arrington

Introduction

Throughout its history the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, through its leaders and apologists, has declared that faith and intellect have a mutually supportive relationship.1 Faith opens the way to knowledge, and knowledge, in turn, often reaches up to reverence. Spiritual understanding comes with faith and is supported by intellect. Church President Spencer W. Kimball told Brigham Young University students in his “Second Century Address” in 1976: “As LDS scholars you must speak with authority and excellence to your professional colleagues in the language of scholarship, and you must also be literate in the language of spiritual things.”2 The theme of faith and intellect, not faith versus intellect, was established in the early days of the Restoration. Joseph Smith taught that “it is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance” (D&C 131:6),3 and that “a man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge.”4 “If a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come” (D&C 130:19). “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and by faith” for “the glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth” (D&C 109:7; 93:36). In a revelation that came to Joseph Smith in 1829, Oliver Cowdery was instructed that spiritual insight is not a product of the “heart” only. The use of the intellect could not be ignored in seeking the revealed word of 1

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God (D&C 8 and 9).5 Indeed the visions and revelations of the founding prophet initiated, as the Encyclopedia of Mormonism declared, “a dynamic interplay between mind and spirit.”6 Intellectual activity has been the means of developing and enriching life and faith among the Latter-day Saints and furthering the growth and betterment of the kingdom of God.7 Mormon theology, based, as it is, upon the Scriptures and modern revelation, reaches a balance between rationalistic explanation and faith in heavenly experiences. This belief that intellectual activity was clearly an aspect of worship was built upon the teaching of Jesus, who inferred the harmony of faith and intellect: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37). There is a similar statement in section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants: “See that ye serve him [God] with all your heart, might, mind and strength” (D&C 4:2). Under these divine instructions Latter-day Saints sought knowledge out of the best books (D&C 88:118) and established schools for instruction in both sacred and secular matters. These began with the Schools of the Prophets in Kirtland and Missouri and continued on the western frontier with the establishment of ward schools, stake academies, and colleges and universities in many settlements and stakes. Speaking as a Latter-day Saint, I believe faith means trust in God and the Restored Gospel—a confidence that the world is God’s and that when the gospel dwells among us and we teach and instruct one another with the wisdom in the best books we shall have the spirit of Christ (Colossians 3:16). Far from being the antithesis of faith, intellect helps us express our profound wonderment and eager enthusiasm in creative and meaningful ways—ways that may awaken a sense of gratitude and awe.8 Mormon leaders in every decade of the church’s history have been persons of high intellect—and at the same time persons of undoubted faith. In each period of the church’s history, persons in leadership positions, with God’s blessing, established a partnership of faith and intellect. There may have been occasional confrontations of faith and intellect, as with all religious leaders, but such tensions were resolved with the accommodations of mind to the spirit and spirit to the mind.9 Although the question of the relationship between faith and reason has a long history and is not limited to any one faith community,

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Faith and Intellect as Partners in Mormon History

I have chosen five Latter-day Saint leaders of thought to discuss this evening: three men and two women. I begin with Joseph Smith and then follow with four who knew the founding prophet personally: Eliza R. Snow, Brigham Young, Emmeline B. Wells, and George Q. Cannon.10 Unlike many leaders of religious thought, they did not experience a period of wrestling with the problem of being pulled in two directions, as had been true of the Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, Erasmus, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Henry Newman.11 They seem to have readily accepted the desirability and necessity of maintaining a healthy balance between faith and reason, regarding the two as complements, not competitors. When Jesus said “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32), they seem to have assumed that He meant both reasoned truth and spiritual truth. All five of those I shall discuss were human beings, with observable imperfections, but they exhibited astonishing intellectual vitality, spiritual power, and moral courage, and appealed to “the better angels of our nature.” As Latter-day Saints believe, the divine spirit shone brilliantly through their writings and acts. For each of them, faith and intellect were partners.12

Joseph Smith

O ur founding prophet was a man of both intellect and personal charm; he is remembered for his divine revelations, sociability, and warm personality.13 A visionary, city-planner, candidate for president of the United States, and father of eleven (of which two were adopted), he was also an imaginative organizer, friend of the helpless, brilliant debater, and intense student of the Scriptures. In an era when religious revivalism was characterized by intense enthusiasm, preachers pounding the pulpit demanding fealty and fear of God, he spoke of ideas and images, expanded perspectives of a largely uneducated people, and respected the commentary of others. He was at home, whether discussing complex religious philosophies or playing a game of ball with a group of boys and young men. He walked the streets of Nauvoo, played with children, chatted with neighbors, and opened his home to every kind of visitor. His followers thought he was precisely the kind of person the Lord would choose to restore his church.

Joseph Smith. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

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Although not schooled or well read by traditional standards, Joseph Smith was a person with both intellectual powers and charisma. Dr. John M. Bernhisel, graduate of the Philadelphia Medical School and Utah’s first (and four-term) delegate to Congress, a new convert who was a physician for the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, lived for most of a year in the household of Joseph and Emma Smith. Just before the prophet’s death in June 1844, Dr. Bernhisel gave this appraisal of his friend: Joseph Smith is naturally a man of strong mental powers, and is possessed of much energy and decision of character, great penetration, and a profound knowledge of human nature—He is a man of calm judgment, enlarged views, and is eminently distinguished by his love of justice. He is kind and obliging, generous and benevolent, sociable and cheerful, and is possessed of a mind of a contemplative and reflective character; he is honest, frank, fearless, and independent, and as free from dissimulation as any man to be found. But it is in the gentle charities of domestic life, as the tender and affectionate husband & parent, the warm and sympathizing friend, that the prominent traits of his character are revealed.14 Here is a similar appraisal by Emmeline B. Wells who, as a bright and well-educated girl of fourteen, left Massachusetts and joined the Saints in Nauvoo in the spring of 1844: In the Prophet Joseph Smith, I believed I recognized the great spiritual power that brought joy and comfort to the Saints; and withal he had that strong comradeship that made such a bond of brotherliness with those who were his companions in civil and military life, and in which he reached men’s souls, and appealed most forcibly to their friendship and loyalty. He possessed too the innate refinement that one finds in the born poet, or in the most highly cultivated intellectual and poetical nature.15 Not a systematic theologian, Joseph Smith was a revelator; that is, he made known divine truths that had been revealed to him by heavenly voices and angels in dreams and visions. He communicated these to his followers in books of Scripture, in articles in church periodicals, and in

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frequent sermons. In addition to the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, translated from ancient documents, and the Book of Moses, an explication and emendation of the text of the Old and New Testaments, the products of his mental and revelatory powers included many revelations published in the Book of Commandments and in the Doctrine and Covenants, doctrinal instructions recently published in The Words of Joseph Smith, and comments about such previously neglected texts as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Above all, with his introduction of new Scriptures and revelations, he demonstrated the limitations of Bible literalism which circumscribed the religious doctrines and practices of the Protestants of his day.16 His thoughts and expressions challenged many widely held doctrines. Yet he was convincing as a pulpit orator and presenter of ideas—well conceived and expounded. Joseph Smith became concerned about religion when he was twelve; he read the Scriptures carefully, prayed frequently, had religious discussions with his father and mother, attended a variety of religious services, and joined a debating society. In his 1832 description of his early conversion experience, Joseph Smith reveals that he had been torn between the universalism and rationalism of his father’s beliefs and his mother’s emphasis on the spiritual quality of religion. Here was the conflict between faith and intellect that Joseph prayed about and which heavenly revelations helped him to resolve. Thus, through his father, Joseph inherited the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the philosophical movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that stressed the power of human reason and worked for improvements in politics, religion, and education. From his mother he inherited the enthusiasm and religious excitement and warmth, zeal, and ardor of contemporary New England.17 One gets true religion “by study and by faith,” “through the mind and through the heart;” you “must study it out in your mind” (D&C 9:8). “I will tell you in your mind and in your heart” (D&C 8:2). On the one hand, he did not fear intellectual inquiry; on the other hand, he welcomed “gifts of the spirit,” such as faith healing, speaking in tongues, and shouts of “hosanna” at the dedication of temples.18 Joseph Smith was no Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Italian Catholic philosopher whose Summa Theologica gave a carefully organized and precise analysis of God, his attributes, and his relation to the universe and who systemized Catholic theology and the moral and political

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sciences in a superb monument of the medieval intellect. Nevertheless, Joseph’s teachings provided satisfying answers to the major questions of human existence; he was a prophet to his people, a conveyor of the will of deity. His sermons, according to those who heard them, were intellectually and spiritually uplifting and satisfying. Joseph’s King Follett discourse, given before several thousand Saints in Nauvoo in April 1844, is still regarded by Latter-day Saints as one of the great sermons in human history. In his last general conference address, delivered less than three months before he was martyred, the prophet discussed the character of God, the origin and destiny of man, the unpardonable sin, the resurrection of children, the creation, the tie between the living and their progenitors, and the prophet’s love for all men.19 In short, the prophet’s mind and heart were alive and alert. Faith and intellect were partners in achieving both spiritual and temporal goals. The works he published, whatever his own contribution to their substance and wording, were sophisticated, had significant intellectual content, and are worthy of the attention of students of American intellectual history.20 The prophet exercised leadership in relating individual members and the group to the universe and to society at large, he legitimated church authority and defined its responsibilities, and he interpreted the church’s historical role.

Eliza R. Snow

O

ne person on whom the prophet had enormous influence was Eliza R. Snow. She was present at the April 28, 1842 meeting of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo at which the prophet told the assembled sisters: “I now turn the key to you in the name of God, and this Society shall rejoice, and knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time. This is the beginning of better days for this Society.”21 Eliza knew that an essential part of the Restoration was restoring to women the status they enjoyed in early Christian communities. Eliza and the other women present at this meeting believed this to be a revelation on their behalf, and as they saw a gradual improvement in the position of women—in the church and in civilized society—they were quick to attribute this to God, to divine influences for good. Eliza was a leader in this activity.22

Eliza R. Snow. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

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Born in Massachusetts and reared in Ohio, Eliza R. Snow, who had lived as a governess in the household of Joseph and Emma Smith, was baptized in 1835.23 She wrote: “As I was reflecting on the wonderful events transpiring around me, I felt an indescribable, tangible sensation . . . commencing at my head and enveloping my person and passing off at my feet, producing inexpressible happiness. Immediately following, I saw a beautiful candle with an unusual long, bright blaze directly over my feet. I sought to know the interpretation, and received the following, ‘The lamp of intelligence shall be lighted over your path.”24 Eliza R. Snow organized and directed schools in Nauvoo. She herself taught the children of the prophet and Emma. And, since she had an original poem for every occasion, she was known as “Zion’s poetess.” She was the first secretary of the Nauvoo Relief Society, for which she drafted the constitution. With the assurance that came from the prophet’s inspiration, in Salt Lake City she directed the woman’s section of the Endowment House on Temple Square and gave instruction on prayers and administrations to midwives who were appointed to care for women who were about to give birth. Eliza and several female associates often administered to sick women and children, a practice that had the support of church authorities. In 1854, with the help of her brother Lorenzo, Eliza organized the Polysophical Society, a group that met bi-weekly at Lorenzo Snow’s home or the Seventies Hall. Eliza referred to the meetings as a “magnificent moral, intellectual and spiritual picnic.” There were original speeches, songs, readings, and recitations, as well as instrumental music on guitar, organ, piano, and bagpipe. In a time of general male domination, the women were there with their husbands and brothers as equals, performing as well as listening, and Eliza contributed often poetry, essays, and inspirational thoughts.25 A charismatic, highly visible person, Eliza was instrumental in the formation of Relief Societies in the 1850s and 1860s. As the number of Relief Societies grew, particularly after 1867, Eliza was set apart as president of the sisterhood of the entire church, in which position she served until her death in 1887. She became, in effect, a counselor to Brigham Young on matters pertaining to women and was often introduced as “presidentess.” Eliza also formed in each ward and settlement the Young

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Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Associations (Y.L.M.I.A.) for young women from ages twelve to twenty-five and the Primary Associations for boys and girls from three to twelve. On January 13, 1870, Eliza presided at a mass meeting in the Old Tabernacle in Salt Lake City (where the Assembly Hall now stands), where some six thousand women came to protest the passage, by the U.S. Congress, of the Cullom Bill, a bill that removed authority from local courts and juries, deprived wives of immunity as witnesses against their husbands, and authorized the use of the U.S. military to enforce these and other federal anti-Mormon regulations. Eliza’s address was strong and eloquent, as were those of other LDS women leaders. The meeting was given good national coverage, and from that time Mormon women were no longer regarded by national commentators as submissive and degraded. A month later the women of Utah agitated for and were granted suffrage, the first women in the nation to exercise this privilege. Now, as Eliza observed, “no woman in Zion need mourn because her sphere is too narrow. “26 Eliza exerted another influence when she encouraged Utah women to go East to study medicine. Under her direction and with the financial support of the Relief Societies, Utah quite possibly had, around the turn of the century, the largest colony of trained women doctors of any region in the nation.27 In 1876–77 Eliza directed the preparation of a manuscript which, with the assistance of Edward W. Tullidge, was published under the title The Women of Mormondom (New York, 1877). This 552-page book, containing the personal histories and important talks of twenty-six LDS women and shorter sketches of fifty-six additional women, was remarkable for the 1870s when women were just emerging as a visible force in Mormon society and culture. The final paragraphs testify to the influence of Joseph Smith: Paul, in the egotism of man’s apostleship, commanded, ‘let the woman be silent in the church,’ . . . and the Prophet Joseph corrected Paul, and made woman a voice in the church, and endowed her with an apostolic ministry. . . . First, woman in her ever blessed office of motherhood; next, in her divine ministry. . . . Woman shall leaven the earth with her own nature. She shall leaven it in

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her great office of maternity, and in her apostolic mission. . . . This is the woman’s age. . . . Woman must, therefore, lay the cornerstone of the new civilization.28 In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Eliza continued to organize and supervise Relief Societies, Young Ladies’ Mutuals, and Primaries in local wards and settlements; taught them the proper forms of washing and anointing women who were ill or about to give birth; made a special effort to work on behalf of American Indian women; published a hymnal (Salt Lake City, 1880); prepared a book of Bible Questions and Answers for Children (Salt Lake City, 1881); assisted in establishing the Deseret Hospital, of which she was president; published a First and Second Speaker or book of recitations for the Children’s Primary Association (Salt Lake City, 1882); and completed her Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, 1884). While one seldom finds any intellectual issues addressed by Eliza in her books and letters, her poems do reflect in veiled ways the seeds of such confrontations and struggles over plural marriage, the rights of women, Brigham Young’s penchant for giving advice to girls and women, and such doctrinal issues as the nature of the resurrection and the existence of the Heavenly Mother. Eliza accepted authority, but she sometimes challenged policies and procedures and, particularly on issues relating to women, was not timid in exerting her own authority. Until her death in 1887, at the age of 83, Eliza was an intellectual center around whom women clustered for mental stimulation. A born leader, an efficient organizer, her firmly established convictions of the principles of the Gospel, which had been personally taught her by the prophet, “gave her the confidence and assurance to act independently in places, and at times, when other women would have faltered or hesitated to undertake such heroic efforts.”29

Brigham Young

Just as Joseph Smith had been the dominant figure in the early days of the Mormon church, Brigham Young was the most prominent person in pioneer Mormon country. He was the first governor of Utah Territory, the first superintendent of Indian Affairs, the founder of many industries

Brigham Young. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

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and enterprises, the leading colonizer, and president of the church from 1844 until his death thirty-three years later. Like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young came close to being all things to all Latter-day Saints. He supervised the construction of houses, canals, roads and the erection of fences. He counseled settlers on farm operations; household management; relationships with wives, husbands, and children; and on the careful husbanding of cash. A superb organizer, Brigham formed wards and stakes, established courts and community offices, helped obtain machinery and equipment for the erection and operation of mills and factories, and fostered friendly relations with the native Americans in the region.30 Brigham Young was a disciplinarian on the trail west, a hard-headed businessman, a practical politician, and a visionary prophet; but he was also a kind and helpful human being—tender, understanding, and compassionate, and with a lively sense of humor. Living on the frontier of western New York as a child and young man, Brigham Young had only eleven days of formal schooling. His invalid mother, who suffered from tuberculosis, helped Brigham, who sometimes carried her from bed to table and back to bed, by schooling him in the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. He read the Bible daily, kept informed of current events by reading the newspaper, and listened carefully to visiting preachers and other educated persons. As the ninth child in a family of eleven, he learned to cook, keep house, clear fields of timber and brush, plant and tend crops, trap animals and birds. Occasionally, he attended religious meetings. He was bright, inquisitive, and interested in everything. Brigham had seen a copy of the Book of Mormon when it first appeared in 1830, and he was convinced of its authenticity. But he postponed baptism until he had determined that the members and officers of the Mormon church manifested “right good sense.” After meeting with Joseph Smith in 1832, he was baptized, undertook his first mission, and strove to learn all he could from the prophet. He was with him in Zion’s Camp; he directed the Saints’ migration from Missouri when the prophet was in jail; and he served as one of Joseph’s most trusted advisors. Brigham Young became an apostle in 1835, led a group of apostles in a massive missionary effort in Great Britain in 1839– 41, served as a business manager of the church until Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, and

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from his position as senior president of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles succeeded Joseph Smith as leader of the Saints in 1844. He was formally sustained as president of the church in 1847, the year he led the advance company of pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley. As Joseph Smith had been, Brigham Young was a persuasive speaker. He believed that most Christian sermons were too formal and other-worldly. Instead, he spoke earnestly about everyday and practical concerns. In a spirited manner he castigated the malfeasant politicians in Washington, warned his people to expect more of the same kind of treatment unless they repented and united, and pled with them to obey their leaders. Let the idle find employment, he said—the discouraged seek to obtain the Spirit of God. He often closed with a ringing affirmation of his testimony of Joseph Smith and the eventual victory of the Restoration. Between such items he delivered nuggets of doctrinal wisdom. He sometimes used stern images and folksy humor and conducted impatient chastenings, but his primary focus was to maintain the unity of the Latter-day Saints in the face of political, legal, social, and military pressure.31 Brigham Young was no more a formal theologian than Joseph Smith. He considered himself an eminently practical man whose religion was centered in earthly concerns and pragmatic admonitions. When his more educated colleagues voiced their speculative instincts, he curbed and corrected their effulgences in the light of hardy New England common sense. He believed in the simple Gospel. Once, in 1857, after listening to one of Orson Pratt’s long, involved, abstractly reasoned arguments, he declared: “[It] makes me think, ‘O dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got!’”32 Young’s scattered and unsystematized theological pronouncements were generally directed to the here-and-now. His great overriding vision was the literal establishment of the Kingdom of God in the valleys of the mountains. The Mormon village was a covenant community, based on the concept of gathering for those who had been converted in the East and foreign lands. There was in Brigham’s theology something of the medieval ideal of community. For him the injunction “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof ” was not simply a poetical metaphor. God ruled. Brigham and his fellow Saints were human stewards erecting at long last the divine commonwealth. Its citizens must yield personal desires to the whole. Temporal and spiritual unity and equality were emphasized.33

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Although Brigham realized that environment and events limited human agency, still enough individual freedom remained to allow mankind to choose good or evil. Correct choices, in turn, were rewarded by unending personal growth and the opportunity for eternal procreation. His eschatology for the righteous climaxed with the promise of a harmonious social order based upon enduring family relationships. Conversely, evil acts would bring upon the offenders diminution of self, the loss of increase, and inferior social organization. While he frequently urged, cajoled, and reproved his congregations, Brigham never preached depravity nor damnation. He believed that men and women were good, perfectible, and possessed of the divine. To realize their potential they must be liberated from erroneous tradition. They were, in fact, Gods in embryo, men and women seeking a heavenly partnership. Such a lofty, optimistic opinion of mankind, when joined with his view that men should never seek gifts from God which sweat and sinew could independently achieve, proved enormously energizing. It was a theology of empire building. At every turn Brigham pulled his theology and metaphysics earthward. Having a keen understanding of human nature, he believed that self-discovery brought a knowledge of God, and he accordingly molded this theology around daily human experience. Thus his laws of freedom, reward, growth, procreation, and organization were earthly as well as heavenly. They could be validated by experience. When asked why God’s determining hand did not more often intercede for the Saints, Young replied: “Man is destined to be a God, has to act as an independent being, and is left [by God] to see what he will do, to practice depending on his own resources, to be righteous in the dark, to do the best he can when left to himself to show his capacity.”34 The mission and responsibility of men and women, their destiny and privilege, Brigham said, was to build society—to plant trees, gardens, and vineyards; to build houses, shops, and meetinghouses; to dig ditches and dugways; to organize schools, concerts, and study classes. The whole face of the earth must be beautiful until it shall become like the Garden of Eden.35 A prime imperative is to keep learning—to grow, to develop, and to have joy. Empiricism undergirded all this thought; he was eminently practical. Both he and Joseph Smith believed that if the realm of God

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was to have any applicability to humankind, it must be explicable in terms men and women could understand and employ in their daily lives. If, on the other hand, the heavens operated on principles fundamentally different from the earth, he could see little hope or relevancy in discussing them. Brigham believed that revelations came frequently and that they were based on natural principles—not always (perhaps seldom) conveyed by ineffable experiences. Yet he did have an interior life of rich spirituality. He prayed—in private, in his family circle, and in council meetings and congregations. And he was a devoted participant in sacred ceremonies. There Brigham, removed from the ordinary routine of life, experienced an approach to God. A daring and courageous leader who dealt with a wide variety of practical matters, he was also responsive to the chords of celestial music as mediated through the liturgical experiences of the Salt Lake Endowment House and the Nauvoo and St. George temples. In most respects Brigham’s theology was simple, literalistic, and conservative in the Mormon context. Although Brigham was not an intellectual in any narrow definition of the term, he was unquestionably a person of intellectual power and mental alertness and had enormous influence on his generation of Saints—influence on doctrine, on “practical” thought, on the images and metaphors that have become part of the Gospel. He founded Brigham Young Academy, now Brigham Young University; Brigham Young College in Logan, which educated many early Utah teachers before closing in 1926; and the University of Deseret, which educated undoubted intellectuals like B. H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, John A. Widtsoe, William H. Chamberlin, Ephraim E. Ericksen, and other Mormon intellectual giants, and later evolved into the University of Utah. All truth—scientific and philosophical as well as doctrinal—was a part of Mormonism. “‘Mormonism,’” Brigham said, “embraces all truth that is revealed and that is unrevealed, whether religious, political, scientific, or philosophical.”36 Such a pronouncement encouraged his followers not only to develop moral excellence and purity bur also to grow in knowledge and intelligence. The arts and sciences came from God and were designed for the good of the Lord’s children. Since God operated on the basis of natural principles, learning

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more about the geology, chemistry, and other aspects of the order of nature was expected: “Every art and science known and studied by the children of men is comprised within the gospel. Where did the knowledge come from which has enabled men [and women] to accomplish such great achievements in science and mechanism [engineering] within the last few years? We know that knowledge is from God.”37 This approach encouraged young Mormons of the second generation to seek higher education in colleges and universities where they could make the best of their abilities. Under Brigham Young’s leadership, the hierarchial structure of the church continued. The theophanous works of Joseph Smith were canonized, and the doctrine and organizational structure of the church were firmly fixed. An accelerated educational program resulted in the founding of several colleges and universities and many academies and high schools in the various settlements.

George Q. Cannon

Brigham Young’s appreciation for intellect is manifested by his calling George Q. Cannon, a bright young immigrant from Great Britain, to serve as a counselor in the First Presidency, a position he held from 1873 to 1901.38 He was in Nauvoo as a teenager and became well acquainted with Prophet Joseph Smith. Born in 1827 in Liverpool, England, the eldest of seven children of a family living on the Isle of Man, his family was converted to the Mormon church in 1840 by his uncle, John Taylor, then an apostle. In 1842 they moved to Liverpool, then to Nauvoo. His mother died on the ocean voyage from Liverpool; his father died in Nauvoo. A young orphan, he was taken into the John Taylor home, where he worked with his uncle on the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor as both a writer and printer. He was adopted by John Taylor in 1846 in the Nauvoo Temple and moved west with the Taylor family in 1847, when he was twenty. In the fall of 1849 Cannon and two or three dozen other young men were called to California to mine gold for the benefit of the church and some of its aging but faithful early members. They worked for almost a year but their mining was not particularly

George Q. Cannon. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

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successful. In the fall of 1850 he and nine others were called to preaching missions in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Although five of the elders returned to Utah when they met with little success with the White settlers in the Islands, young Cannon remained, mastered the language, and worked with Hawaiian natives. He acquired the language rapidly. The natives loved and revered him. Within four years 4,000 native Hawaiians had joined the church and Cannon began translating the Book of Mormon into Hawaiian. In 1854 he returned to Salt Lake City to marry Elizabeth Hoagland. The two moved to San Francisco to publish the Hawaiian Book of Mormon and the church’s Western Standard magazine. When the U.S. Army’s Utah Expedition invaded in the spring of 1858, the Deseret News press was moved to Fillmore, Utah, and Cannon was appointed managing editor. He held this position and that of editor until 1880, when Charles W. Penrose became editorin-chief. Later in 1858 Cannon was sent to preside over the Eastern States Mission with instructions to influence eastern editors who were pressured by anti-Mormon sentiments. In 1860 Cannon returned to Utah and was ordained an apostle; he was only twenty-seven. Sent to England with Apostles Charles C. Rich and Amasa M. Lyman to preside over the European Mission, he edited and published the Millennial Star, remaining four years with the exception of part of 1862 when he was called back to Washington, D.C., to lobby for Utah statehood. Back in Salt Lake City from 1864 to 1867, he worked as private secretary and assistant president to Brigham Young. He was named general superintendent of the church’s Sunday schools in 1867 and held this position until his death in 1901. He founded the semi-monthly (after 1880 a monthly) Juvenile Instructor for the Sunday schools beginning in 1866. Profusely illustrated with clever and faith-promoting drawings and art work, the magazine continued in expanded form as the organ of the Sunday school until 1970. Through the George Q. Cannon and Sons Publishing Company, he printed the “Faith Promoting Series” of journals, biographies, and personal histories. Above all, he promoted education: “Latter-day Saints are ardent friends of learning, true seekers after knowledge. They recognize in a good education the best of fortunes, it broadens

20


the mind, creates liberal and noble sentiments, and fits the possessor for a more successful struggle with the obstacles of life. . . . The possession of knowledge is of itself the highest pleasure.”39 With his publications aimed primarily at the youth, Cannon was an important bridge between the first generation of church leaders and the late nineteenth century church membership. He served as an assistant president and then in the First Presidency from 1873 to 1901 as a counselor to four church presidents. He was intelligent, articulate, and well informed and had a wide circle of friends, both Mormon and non-Mormon. Next to Orson Pratt he was probably the pioneer who was recognized most widely for his faith and intellect. Cannon was a careful, thoughtful observer, a constant reader, and a student of men and policies. He was a “natural” diplomat, ready conversationalist, and popular speaker. He served in the legislature, was often called to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the church, undertook several short-term religious missions, and, as mentioned earlier, supervised the Deseret News. “More than any of the Mormon leaders,” as Orson F. Whitney wrote, “he was prepared to meet men of the world.”40 Cannon was a counselor to Brigham Young, 1873–1877, to John Taylor, 1877–1887, to Wilford Woodruff, 1887–1898, and to Lorenzo Snow, 1898–1901. He was Utah’s elected delegate to Congress in 1872 and served nine years. With his affable and engaging manner, his knowledge of departments and functions of government, and his wide acquaintance with people, he was a human book of ready reference. He was one of the ablest speakers in the House and had wide influence. He was known as “smooth-bore Cannon.” As Brigham’s secretary and confidant, he was one of the three executors of Brigham Young’s estate after Brigham died in 1877. As delegate to Congress he welcomed two presidents to Utah: Ulysses S. Grant in 1875 and Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. As an active member of the First Presidency, he helped promote the electric industry, mining, beet sugar, salt, Saltair Resort, railroads, and many other enterprises. President Cannon’s writings include My First Mission (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1879), The Life of Nephi (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1883), The Latter-day Prophet (Salt Lake City:

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Juvenile Instructor Office, 1900), Young People’s History of the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1890), The Life of Joseph Smith, The Prophet (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1888), and The First Book of the Faith Promoting Series, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882). He produced about three hundred recorded sermons or discourses and thousands of editorials and magazine and newspaper articles. He died in 1901 in California at the age of seventy-four. None of Cannon’s books or articles suggests that he experienced tension between his faith and intellect at any stage of his life. Those who believe this was inevitable may find evidence in his personal diary, which, since his death, has been in the vault of the First Presidency, and selections from which are currently being prepared for publication by his family. He was too bright not to have been aware of conflicting viewpoints. Orson F. Whitney, himself a distinguished Mormon intellectual, wrote of Cannon: “Possessed of an unusual mentality, he absorbed knowledge as a sponge takes in water, and what his quick and wide apprehension encompassed, his marvelous memory ever after retained.”41 Cannon was among the finest orators in the Mormon church’s history, one of the finest writers, one of the brightest intellects—eloquent and magnetic—and certainly one of the most faithful.

Emmeline B. Wells

E

mmeline Blanche Woodward, a woman of brilliant intellect, talented writing and editorial skills, determination, and perseverance, was born in Petersham, Worcester County, Massachusetts, in 1828, the seventh of nine children of descendants of early Puritan settlers.42 Her grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War and her father, who died when Emmeline was four, was in the War of 1812. A precocious child, Emmeline attended local schools and then was sent off to a select boarding school in New Salem. During her absence, her mother joined the Mormon church. When Emmeline returned from school in 1842, she accepted the Gospel and was baptized in an ice-covered pool on their farm on her fourteenth birthday. She taught school for a year in Orange, Massachusetts, and then at the urging of her mother, who worried that she might succumb to the pressure of her friends and superiors to give up Mormonism, she married

Emmeline B.Wells. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

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James Harris, the son of the local branch president. They moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, arriving aboard a Mississippi River steamboat in March 1844. She met Joseph Smith, was electrified by his presence, and forever after bore testimony that he was a prophet of God.43 “Emmie,” as she was called at the time, taught grade school and Sunday school in Nauvoo. She gave birth to a son who died within a month. Shortly after, her husband, perhaps intending to earn quick income, left her, never to return. Emmeline was befriended by Elizabeth Ann Whitney, wife of Presiding Bishop Newel K. Whitney and a counselor to Emma Smith in the first Relief Society. Emmeline married Whitney as a plural wife in 1845. After the exodus from Nauvoo, Emmeline taught school and Sunday school in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and arrived with the Whitneys in the Salt Lake Valley in October 1848. She resumed teaching in a small log schoolhouse in Salt Lake City’s Twelfth Ward. After the death of Bishop Whitney, by whom she had two daughters, Emmeline married Daniel H. Wells as a plural wife and had three daughters by him. A prominent Salt Lake City businessman, superintendent of public works for the church, and later a counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency, Wells was able to provide Emmie with a home and some income. He paid for the education of her five daughters and allowed her to concentrate on her reading, writing, and public speaking. Through him, she also gained a prominent place in the community. Emmeline was a small woman, barely five feet tall and weighing about one hundred pounds, but she had a strong will. Having suffered, with other women, from discriminatory actions, such as low pay, she vowed, in her words, “to do all in my power to help elevate the condition of my people, especially women . . . to do those things that would advance women in moral and spiritual, as well as educational work and tend to the rolling on of the work of the Lord upon the earth.”44 Beginning in 1869, under Eliza Snow’s presidency, she began to serve as secretary of the Young Ladies’ Retrenchment Association of the church. Impressed with the importance of providing cultural development for young people along literary and musical lines, she joined with others in 1874 to organize the Wasatch Literary Association. The thirty young Salt Lake City men and women, all active Latter-day Saints, met weekly to present original essays, poems, orations, plays, and dramatic readings, as well as vocal and instrumental musical renditions. Two of the group

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later became apostles, one was Utah’s first elected governor, one became head of the Christian Science Church in Boston, one became Utah’s first general in the U.S. Army, one became president of the LDS Church, and several were stake presidents. One became senior president of the First Quorum of Seventy, and one served twenty-four years as president of the Primary Association of the church.45 Others became members of the Y.W.M.I.A. general board. With Emmeline’s assistance and encouragement, these high-spirited future leaders fostered as much culture as their theocracy and pioneer economy would permit. As an educated product of Massachusetts schools, Emmeline read national newspapers and magazines, and as she reared her children, she watched with mounting interest the formation of a female reform movement aimed at social, educational, economic, and political equality with men. She was well aware of the efforts of Massachusetts women, particularly Abigail Adams, who agitated for women’s rights in the federal constitution, and she had read Margaret Fuller’s American feminist statement Woman in the Nineteenth Century, published in 1845. Emmeline also read of the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, which Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized in 1848 and which launched the woman suffrage movement.46 In 1874 Emmeline became vice president for Utah of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Emmeline knew there were good reasons for these movements. Women could not vote, hold office, sit on juries, or, if married, own property unless by special dispensation. Women were not expected to hold high positions in church, go to college, practice law, or speak in public.47 Emmeline rejoiced when Utah women were given the vote in 1870 and she began immediately, eagerly, to exercise her prerogatives. She became a member of the Central Committee of the People’s Party, the church’s political party; she was a member of several constitutional conventions when Utah was attempting to become a state; and she was nominated for the territorial legislature but was forced to withdraw when it was not clear from the constitution whether women could hold elective office. In 1879 she experienced first-hand discrimination when she was denied the office of Salt Lake City treasurer because she was a woman. In 1872, when the Woman’s Exponent was founded by Louisa Lula Greene, under the careful tutelage and protection of Eliza R. Snow and Brigham Young, Emmeline submitted material for it, often using the pen

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name “Blanche Beechwood.” Many of her articles dealt with women’s issues—equal pay for equal work and equal treatment in athletic programs. Emmeline became assistant editor of the Exponent, then editor in 1877, a position she held for thirty-seven years. Under her editorship the Exponent recorded the national story of women’s suffrage, the silk industry, the activities of the Relief Societies, literary and other club functions, and welfare organizations and educational institutions. She commented on slavery, polygamy, European diplomacy, congressional reform, and presidential elections. If it happened to women, whether locally, nationally, or overseas, Emmeline reported it in the Exponent, believing that Mormon women “should be the best-informed of any women on the face of the earth, not only upon our own principles and doctrines but on all general subjects.”48 For more than twenty years, the masthead carried the motto “For the Rights of Women of Zion and All Nations.” In strong editorials Emmeline campaigned against the “Cult of True Womanhood” of the period: [Ladies] must be preserved from the slightest blast of trouble, petted, caressed, dressed to attract attention, taught accomplishments that minister to man’s gratification; in other words, she must be treated as a glittering and fragile toy, a thing without brains or soul, placed on a tinselled and unsubstantial pedestal by man, as her worshipper.49 Is there nothing then worth living for, but to be petted, humored and caressed, by a man? . . . That man is the only thing in existence worth living for I fail to see. All honor and reverence to good men; but they and their attentions are not the only sources of happiness on the earth, and need not fill up every thought of woman. And when men see that women exist without their being constantly at hand, that they can learn to be self-reliant or depend upon each other for more or less happiness, it will perhaps take a little of the conceit out of some of them.50 A woman ought to be “a joint-partner in the domestic firm.” To Emmeline, a satisfying marriage was one in which both partners supported and uplifted the other.51

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Indeed, through the pages of the Exponent, Emmeline called for women to be given the same educational opportunities as men: [We] should learn that there is a better part for women than to be man’s dupe, or slave, or drudge. . . . The training of daughters as well as sons should be such as to develop powers that will strengthen character, attributes that will prepare them to put into practical execution the finest talents they may possess, so that they may learn how to live without leaning wholly on, or trusting blindly to another. . . . In the name of justice, reason, and common sense, let woman be fortified and strengthened by every possible advantage, that she may be adequately and thoroughly fitted not only to grace the drawing room, and manage every department of her household, but to perform with skill and wisdom the arduous and elaborate work of molding and fashioning the fabrics of which society is to be woven.52 If women were given the same opportunities for work and for education as men, Emmeline insisted, they would demonstrate that they were as smart as men, as able as men to exercise leadership in social, religious, and business activities. The desirable goal was for men and women to work and learn together, to be united, to share both responsibilities and ideas.53 Emmeline was not contending that women should neglect their children in seeking to do “public work.” She had a close relationship with her own daughters—Belle, Mellie, Emmie, Annie, and Louie— mentioning them almost daily in her diary. But she insisted that women should also be free to assume responsibilities outside the home—in church, in the community, and in the world of business.54 Emmeline found herself juggling family and personal challenges with her work with the Woman s Exponent, the woman suffrage movement, and the Relief Society.55 Several specific assignments given to Emmeline in the 1870s evolved into life-time responsibilities. In 1870 church leaders encouraged Emmeline and Zina Young Williams to attend the meeting of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, D.C.; Relief

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Society leaders continued to take an active role in that association until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granting suffrage to women in 1920. Utah women already had the right to vote, which was what the national suffrage leaders were fighting for; and national leaders believed that legislation should not be enacted to limit women’s rights, which Congress sought to do in the passage of anti-Mormon legislation. So here was a partnership; national leaders respected and admired Mormon women leaders, and the high regard was reciprocated. Emmeline wore a gold ring Susan B. Anthony gave to her, declaring, “It is a symbol of the sympathy of two great women for one great cause.”56 On Miss Anthony’s eightieth birthday Emmeline presented her with a black brocaded dress made from Utah silk. Emmeline formed close friendships with other national women leaders: Frances E. Willard, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anna Howard Shaw, Sarah Andrews Spencer, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, May Wright Sewall, Clara Barton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, and others. In 1891 Emmeline went to Washington, D.C., with Jane S. Richards to attend the first session of the National Council of Women. At that time the council accepted the Relief Society as a charter member of the feminist organization. At the World’s Congress of Women, held in Chicago at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, Emmeline was a prominent figure and presided at one of the important council meetings. May Wright Sewall, national chairman of the Congress of Women, recognized the importance of the Relief Society and Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association and used her influence to arrange department meetings for them in connection with the congress. At the Relief Society session, Emmeline gave papers entitled “Western Women in Journalism” and “The Storage of Grain.” Emmeline also edited two books exhibited in the Utah Pavilion: Charities and Philanthropies: Woman’s Work in Utah and Songs and Flowers of the Wasatch, both published in 1893 by George Q. Cannon and Sons. In the years that followed, Emmeline attended suffrage conventions and women’s congresses in Washington, D.C., Omaha, New Orleans, Des Moines, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, and London and addressed several of them. At the Atlanta convention, held in 1895, she delivered an address dealing with Utah and the Mormon people. So well was her talk received that, at its conclusion, the auditorium resounded

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with tumultuous applause and Susan B. Anthony came forward on the rostrum and embraced her. In June 1899, as an officer of the National Council of Women (she was recording secretary from 1899 to 1902), Emmeline attended and was a speaker at the International Council and Congress of Women held in London. She presented her address in Convocation Hall, Church House, Deanery of Westminster Abbey, London. She visited historic places while in England, Scotland, and France and spent evenings with prominent literary figures. She formed friendships with many leading European women.57 Emmeline also advanced in responsibility on the church scene. In 1888 she became general secretary and a member of the general board of the Relief Society and assisted in the organization of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association and the Primary Association. On October 3, 1910, after twenty-two years of service on the general level of the Relief Society, Emmeline, now eighty-two years old, was called to be the fifth general president of the organization, succeeding her long-time friend Bathsheba B. Smith. She continued as president until 1921, when she was ninety-two. Under her dynamic leadership, belying her age, she standardized and systematized the work of the Relief Society, instituted the Relief Society Magazine, began the first uniform course of study, and adopted the slogan “Charity Never Faileth.” Welfare work became more methodical, and she coordinated Relief Society work with those of civic and county agencies. In 1919 a social services department was organized under the direction of Amy Brown Lyman. Under Emmeline’s leadership the Relief Society also established courses in theology, genealogy, art, and literature, while courses on obstetrics, nursing, “home science,” and home arts were continued. Each ward and stake, however, was encouraged to work out its own program. Emmeline also founded the Utah Woman’s Press Club and the Reapers’ Club and in 1895 published a book of her poetry entitled Musings and Memories. In recognition of her many efforts and achievements in literature, Brigham Young University, in 1912 on her eighty-fourth birthday, conferred upon Emmeline the honorary degree of doctor of letters.

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She was the second person to receive the honor and the first woman to do so. BYU would wait forty-four years before honoring another woman in this way.58 When Emmeline turned ninety, a party was given for her at the Hotel Utah. In honor of the occasion, a moving picture was made of her and other pioneers who had been living in Nauvoo during the time Joseph Smith, the prophet, was alive. On her ninety-second birthday, more than a thousand people attended her birthday party in the Hotel Utah.59 Shortly after her release from the presidency of the Relief Society, Emmeline died at age ninety-three, and her funeral was in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, the second funeral ever held for a woman in that Temple Square facility. (The first was for Bathsheba Smith, who was Emmeline’s predecessor as general president of the Relief Society.) On what would have been her hundredth birthday, seven years after her death, the women of Utah placed a bust of Emmeline in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitol building. The brief inscription reads: “A fine soul who served us.”

Conclusion

W

e might close with the analogy of Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus. The human soul, like a charioteer, must drive two horses as it progresses toward heaven. The horses must work together or the chariot will just go round and round.60 To St. Augustine the horses might be spirit and flesh, to Shakespeare passion and reason, to Joseph Smith and his successors, faith and intellect. It would be unfortunate if either should outstretch the other. Over-emphasizing intellect to the neglect of spirituality, and over-emphasizing faith without the application of reason are both unworthy of practicing Latter-day Saints. We cannot achieve spiritual excellence without intellectual rigor, and intellectual excellence is hollow without active spirituality. We need to have the spirit as we learn, and we need to have learning as we build faith. Working together, faith and intellect help us achieve the Latter-day Saint goal of eternal progression.

Richard Lyman Bushman

2 Making Space for the Mormons Richard Lyman Bushman The organizers of this event are to be commended for initiating a lecture series named for Leonard Arrington, and I truly hope I can do justice to the occasion. I am tempted to devote the time to Leonard himself, for though his immense talents are widely appreciated, we always feel they are not appreciated enough. I met Leonard in 1960 when I took my first job at BYU as a new Ph.D. To my surprise one day in the fall, an envelope from Utah State appeared in the mail, and in it was a letter from Leonard welcoming me to the community of scholars in Utah. How did he know about me and why had he written from Logan to Provo? I realized eventually that he took responsibility for the entire enterprise of Mormon and Great Basin history and wanted to encourage me in the good work. A little over a decade later he came into our lives again when he got wind of a group of Boston women’s plans to write a history of women in the Church. He was there immediately with encouragement, interest, and a little subsidy to help publish Mormon Sisters. He won the hearts of those women, and made Claudia Bushman, the ringleader and my wife, his friend for life. Leonard drew me into Mormon studies by proposing that I write the first volume of the projected sixteen-volume history of the Church. I had planned for years to work on Joseph Smith, but kept putting it off in favor of other projects. He persuaded me to take on the assignment and made it easy to work from Boston by sending photocopies of key documents. Later he edited and defended the work, and I dedicated Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism to Leonard because it is his book as well as mine. Scores of authors could tell similar stories, and 31

“Map of the City of Nauvoo,” by Gustavus Hill. Courtesy of LDS Historical Department.

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Making Space for the Mormons

scores of books would not have been written without him. He is truly the patriarch of Mormon studies in our generation. Now I am returning to Joseph Smith at the suggestion of Ron Esplin, Leonard’s successor at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute. The Institute’s staff saw the need for a biography that would both develop Joseph Smith’s religious thought and give more credence to his spiritual influence on his followers, and they asked me to take on the assignment. Although I am just starting the research and have little to report so far, I want to give you an idea of my general perspective. I am writing a cultural biography of Joseph Smith that will be akin to the studies of literary scholars who situate their texts, as they say, in the culture of a period. A cultural biography makes a greater effort than usual to relate the subject’s thought to the thinking in his larger environment. I would like to know where Joseph stood in relation to contemporary theologians, reformers, and preachers. How do his ideas of Israel, priesthood, Zion, temples, riches, history, and so forth compare to the ideas of his time? This approach may seem out of place for a believing Latter-day Saint like myself, because it sounds like the method of historicist scholars who want to explain away Joseph Smith’s revelations. People like John Brooke or Fawn Brodie search contemporary sources for references to Melchizedek or baptism for the dead or eternal marriage or Enoch to show that Joseph got his ideas from his environment and that Mormonism came about through natural historical processes rather than by divine intervention as Mormons believe. My method is similar, but my purposes are different. I want to reconstruct the world around Joseph Smith just as the historicists do, but in order to understand him, not to find historical sources for the revelations. How are we to see and appreciate this many-faceted man without putting him in context? We define ourselves by comparison to others who are the same or different, and people from the past are understood in the same way. On the principle that a fish is the last one to discover water, I think Mormons themselves will not accurately perceive Joseph Smith until he is situated in his culture. As an example of what I mean, I want to talk tonight about space— Joseph Smith’s conception of space in comparison to the spatial constructions of his contemporaries. I do not mean the outer space of

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cosmonauts or the inner space of meditation; I am talking about the space we see and work, build, and travel in—in short, geography. We sometimes think of space as simply there and similar for everyone. But on second thought we know that we all shape the spaces we inhabit. Claudia and I recently moved to Pasadena, and at first everything was a confusing, undifferentiated mass of buildings and streets. Then gradually places began to stand out on the landscape—the bank, grocery story, church, copy shop, a museum or two—and having located them we lined out the best routes to each one. Now we have personal maps of Pasadena in our minds that suit the needs of our everyday routines. Every map works much like our mental maps of Pasadena. We sometimes think a map depicts the simple truth about space; it simply tells us what is there. Actually maps work only by suppressing the truth. Each map constructs a specialized and limited picture of space. A map of the United States that told everything about the country would be useless, for it would be the United States itself. Maps have to exclude information, huge amounts of it, to be workable at all, whether the map is of Utah, Logan, this room, or this podium. In making a map, most of what is known about each of these spaces must be left out. This reduction of spatial reality to a limited number of lines is an act of power. Someone has to decide what matters and eliminate everything else, thereby reshaping reality. In the old days, as the geographer J. B. Harley has written, mapmaking was the “science of princes.” They drew lines to trace in their kingdoms and to give an air of reality to their territorial claims. King Lear opens with a map scene and the plot grows out of the divisions Lear makes in the kingdom. More recently, as Harley points out, maps have been the “weapons of imperialism” as much as guns or warships. “Maps were used to legitimise the reality of conquest and empire.”1 Many of you will remember maps with the British possessions in pink, confirming the claim that the sun never sets on the British empire. The designation of Greenwich, England, as the median for time zones around the earth intimated this one nation’s control over the whole earth. In modern times, maps reflect another kind of power, cultural power. We enter our social values onto maps. In the familiar case of the road map, we designate urban places and the routes that enable us to speed between them—leaving off trees, mountains, ethnicity, architecture, soil

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types, and innumerable other matters in our preoccupation with movement between cities. Other maps record other values, and were we to bring together all the maps, we would have a map not just of space but of contemporary culture. Maps and culture continually interact, the maps directing and controlling thought on the one hand, and reflecting and expressing values on the other. It follows that a new kind of map alerts us to new values, and so we should pay attention when Joseph Smith, like other revolutionary figures, remaps space. One of his most powerful acts was to create a conception of space that governed the movement of tens of thousands of people for many decades. Were we to map Mormon space in the midnineteenth century, it would begin with wispy little lines originating in Scandinavian villages and the side streets of English industrial towns, and these thin lines would converge and grow darker as they approached port cities on the continent and in Britain. Then the map would show even darker sea routes from the ports to New Orleans, and then up the river to a jumping-off place where all the lines come together in a wide, dark path across the prairies and through the mountains to Salt Lake City. Then the lines would thin down again and spray like a star burst out to many sites in the Great Basin. This map was drawn after Joseph Smith died, but it was very much his creation, and during his life similar maps laid out the routes of Mormon converts to Nauvoo and the other gathering sites. Joseph Smith turned space into a funnel that collected people from the widest possible periphery and drew them like gravity into a central point. At that center, he formed another kind of space, this one mapped with lines on paper and not just words. In 1833 Joseph and Frederick G. Williams sent a plat of the city of Zion to the saints in Jackson County. Soon after, as Mark Hamilton discovered some years ago, they followed up with a second plat that simplified the first and enlarged it to hold more blocks. The first plat had a central square for the bishop that was eliminated in the second plat, but both plats showed two central tenacre squares with twelve temples on each one. These structures served as the “public buildings,” as the instructions on the margins called them, for the one-and-a-half-square-mile town. The temples were to serve as schools and houses of worship, and not just places for religious worship like temples today. On the surrounding blocks that made up the bulk of

“The Revised 1833 Plat for the City of Zion,” prepared by Frederick G. Williams. Courtesy of LDS Historical Department.

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the city, each family’s brick or stone house stood on a half acre of land with a grove in front—planted according to individual taste, the instructions said—and gardens in back. Barns and stables lay outside the city where the farmland began. Farmers would live in the city and go out each day to work. All together the city contained 2,600 lots, and the instructions in the margins set the population at fifteen to twenty thousand. When the population reached that number, the plat instructed, “Layoff another in the same way, and so fill up the world in the last days.”2 Mormon space, then, consisted of these two elements: first, the convert population streaming along the lines of gathering from all over the globe, and second, the central city of Zion where the saints settled or were distributed to similar cities plotted on the broader Zion landscape. In preparing a plat for the city of Zion, Joseph made a modest entry into a grand tradition, the planning and building of cities. He joined an enterprise that, like map making, had been the work of princes throughout the ages. To found a city was one of the magnificent gestures of a king. When Peter the Great wanted to bring European refinement to Russia, he founded St. Petersburg in 1703, and Catherine II made it a great capital. All the European Renaissance princes looked after their cities, straightening the streets and laying out grand vistas pointing toward imposing monuments. The burning of London gave Charles II an opportunity to redo his capital city, under the direction of Christopher Wren, with those characteristic baroque streets striking through the blocks toward central monuments. When the United States laid out its capital city, Charles L’Enfant, a French engineer who had volunteered for the American revolutionary army, introduced baroque design into the United States. In Europe the opportunities to found entirely new cities came only rarely, and even major remodeling (like London’s) required that part of the old city be destroyed. America was different. Because of its abundant open space, city building was almost an everyday affair as immigrants poured across the Atlantic and new towns sprang up everywhere. In the seventeenth century, little heed was paid to design principles; Boston streets, for example, grew organically, conforming to the natural flow of topography and making no attempt at squaring the blocks. But by the time William Penn laid out Philadelphia in 1682, conscientious planning had become the norm. By Joseph Smith’s day, virtually every land

Plan of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1796. Redrawing in 1855 by L. M. Pillsbury of the original plan of Cleveland done by Seth Pease in 1796.

Dedham Town Center with Courthouse, in John Warner Barber, Historical Collections, Being a General Collection of Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, etc., Relating to the History and Antiquities of Every Town in Massachusetts with Geographical Descriptions, Illustrated by 200 Engravings (Worcester: Dorr, Howland & Co., 1840), 454.

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A Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania in America. Plan of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, drawn by Thomas Holme.

speculator included town sites in his scheme, each with a plat put down on paper to convince prospective buyers of the city’s reality, even when it was only an imagined hope. Joseph’s city of Zion was one flake in a blizzard of town plans in nineteenth-century America.3 Joseph’s ideas about Zion are sometimes said to come from his native New England. His city resembles the towns of Massachusetts and Connecticut more than the fabulous New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation with its twelve pearly gates, walls of jasper, and streets of gold.4 Joseph toned down the extravagant decorations of the scriptural city to make the city of Zion into a farming community like the towns he knew in Vermont. In the 1830s, during the same decade when Joseph was establishing Zion, John Warner Barber, a Connecticut-born wood engraver and author, sketched some 320 New England towns and published his engravings with short histories of each town in his Historical Collections. Taken together, Barber’s villages, following one after another through the pages of his book, appear very much like Joseph’s Zion, filled up with cities like the one Joseph and Frederick G. Williams plotted for the Jackson County saints in 1833. But the New England comparison can only be carried so far. Joseph’s city of Zion is not a replica of a New England village transported to

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the frontier. Zion was a city, not a village or even a town. In 1830, the largest city in the West, St. Louis, had only ten thousand inhabitants, compared to Zion’s projected fifteen to twenty thousand. Only seven cities in the entire United States in 1830 had more than twenty-five thousand inhabitants.5 Joseph’s city was larger than any city he had ever seen, save Cincinnati, which he visited on his way to Missouri in 1831 and which had about twenty-nine thousand inhabitants. Moreover, the city of Zion resembled Philadelphia in format more than a New England village. Philadelphia, like the city of Zion, had straight streets, square blocks, and a square placed precisely in the center of the grid where the public buildings were to stand. In the 1820s and 1830s, New England towns were just beginning to develop small village greens, and they usually knew little of straight streets. Much more in the city mode, Zion even had similarities to Washington, D.C.: Jefferson thought the federal capital would fit into 1,500 acres, about the same size as Zion, and had asked for 100-foot-wide streets, grand boulevards by the standards of the time, comparable to Joseph’s 132-foot-wide streets. (In the revised plat, Joseph narrowed most streets to 82.5 feet, but so did L’Enfant, reducing Washington’s to 80-foot widths.)6 We have no idea of the origins of Joseph’s spacious conceptions, but they certainly do not conform to the New England town model.7 The city of Zion, moreover, was situated differently in its worldwide geography. New England towns existed more or less on a level plane, with Boston and a few other commercial centers elevated above the rest. The city of Zion stood at the center of a global vortex; all converts were to turn their faces to Zion. It was a place of refuge in the apocalyptic destructions that were to precede the coming of Christ. The revelations called Zion the “center place,” the point where all the saints were to gather.8 New England towns were dotted more or less evenly across the landscape; Zion was the point toward which all the gathering routes converged. In another departure from New England conventions, Joseph added a third dimension to the two-part Mormon geography of gathering and city: an architectural space. At the center of the city, on two ten-acre squares, would rise twenty-four temples, quite unlike anything in New England towns, even if we take into account the village greens with their churches, banks, and schools. A few lines on the plat descriptions do

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make the temples sound like the civic structures planned for Philadelphia’s public square. The lines read: “The painted squares in the middle are for public buildings,” and go on to explain, “It will require twenty-four buildings to supply them with houses of worship, schools, etc.” Those are the words of conventional town planning, but in the next paragraph, the titles for the temples shoot off into the heavens. Each temple is numbered on the plat and a title assigned to each group of three: “Numbers 10, 11, 12, are to be called House of the Lord, for the Presidency of the High and Most Holy Priesthood, after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of the Son of God, upon Mount Zion, City of the New Jerusalem.” Each trio had similarly elaborate names: “Numbers 19, 20, 21, House of the Lord, the Law of the Kingdom of Heaven, and Messenger to the People; for the Highest Priesthood after the Order of Aaron.” All eight titles are like that, couched in an extravagant language that suggests exotic functions not to be imagined in New England or Philadephia public buildings.9 This third spatial dimension, temples, appeared on Mormon maps from the beginning, even when the uses of the temples were only hinted at. The only known purpose for the temple in Independence, when it was designated in an 1831 revelation, was to be a place for the return of Jesus. The lack of known functions for the temples implies that the space was to be created first and its uses filled in afterwards. The purposes of the twenty-four temples on the Jackson County plat never got beyond the vague hints in the descriptions before the Mormons left. In Kirtland, the revelations called for two buildings: one a temple for the “work of the presidency,” and the other a twin of the first on an adjoining lot for printing and translating—a structure that was never built.10 As it worked out in the cities Joseph did build, the functions of the twenty-four temples were boiled down to fit into one building that served a variety of purposes. Little by little this single temple’s place in Mormon space was clarified. In a revelation in Jackson County in 1831, the site of the temple in Independence was called the “center place,” and a year later another revelation said, “The city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple.”11 The city was the center of gathering, and the temple was the beginning of the city—the center of the center—thus connecting the temple to the whole

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The 1833 Plat for Kirtland, Ohio. Courtesy of LDS Historical Department.

world.12 Gradually between 1831 and 1835, the dynamic of this spatial formation took shape. Converts from all over the earth were to collect in the central city to receive what the revelations called an “endowment of power” and then to go back into the wide world to teach the gospel.13 The temple, the city, and the gathering formed a pattern of movement and preparation in a distinctive Mormon geography.14 It is difficult to grasp exactly what the “endowment of power” in the temple entailed. Partly it was a pentecostal experience of spiritual illumination, visions, and even a view of God’s face. “Let thy house be filled, as with a rushing mighty wind, with thy glory,” Joseph prayed at Kirtland. Partly the endowment involved learning through rituals and ordinances, like the washing of feet, and study of the “best books.” Partly it was

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purification to rid the people of every sin. “Sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him.”15 The combination of holy experience, knowledge, and righteousness was to empower the recipients spiritually, enabling them to preach more convincingly. Having been strengthened and instructed, they were to go out into the world and harvest more souls.16 In the dedicatory prayer in the Kirtland temple, Joseph asked that “thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power,” and “from this place . . . bear exceedingly great and glorious tidings, in truth, unto the ends of the earth.”17 The whole scheme divided space in two, with Zion and the temple at the center emanating spiritual power, and a Babylon-like world outside, where people were to be converted and brought to Zion, the missionaries going out and the converts coming in.18 Joseph spoke of this combination of tasks, spaces, and movements as “the work.”19 As he realized almost immediately after the Church’s organization, the work required the three-part combination of temple, city, and gathering; and wherever circumstances led him, he strove with all his might to bring those spaces into existence. However impoverished and despairing the Saints were after moving to a new place, he began at once to reignite the work and construct these spaces. A simple temple was planned for Jackson County before the saints were expelled in 1833. Though only a shed-like structure with a plain facade, the Independence temple had two assembly rooms and double altars like the later Kirtland temple. Then while the Jackson County saints were still putting down their roots, he made plans for Kirtland. Though the Mormons owned very little land and were relative newcomers, Joseph mapped a plat for Kirtland on the model of the city of Zion. A revelation in May 1833 referred to Kirtland as a city of a stake of Zion, and at the center was to be a house of the Lord just as in Independence.20 After being driven out of Kirtland, he repeated this process at Far West, again planning for a temple and mapping a city plat, this time with one center square, but with the same 132-foot-wide main streets, and 82.5-foot-wide side streets.21 At Nauvoo, the temple was again the leading feature on the plat of the city prepared by Gustavus Hill. After Joseph’s death, Brigham Young replicated the pattern in Utah. By this time the basic model was carved in stone. In five locations from Jackson County to Salt Lake City, the saints reconstructed the

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gathering-city-temple model of space that was mapped within a year after the organization of the church.22 Joseph built temples to the neglect of far more sensible chapels and meetinghouses. As the church grew in Kirtland, the brethren suggested that they enlarge their meetinghouse like the other denominations in town had done. Joseph would have none of it, even with converts arriving by the hundreds. He proposed a building that would be huge for the time: 65 by 55 feet wide and two stories high, with a 120-foot bell tower—entirely out of scale for the little village even now. Later in Nauvoo the same vision possessed him. He could not even be bothered to find suitable places for the saints to meet on Sundays. They collected in houses, back rooms of stores and printing offices, and, in good weather, out of doors; they never did build a proper chapel, even when the Mormon population surged to over ten thousand. The building effort all went into a temple that stretched their resources to the limits, as if the temple was a vital part of the work and chapels and Sunday meetings were incidenta1.23 The temple was early Mormonism’s primal architectural space, as the city was its living space, and the gathering routes from the mission fields were its world geography. Joseph’s temples, like temples throughout history, focused sacred power at a single spot. Temples are traditionally the places where heaven touches the earth; in them the true format of the cosmos and the individual person is laid down in ritual and architecture. “The temple is the reduced plan of the cosmos,” the temple scholar John Lundquist has written, “and as such must be an accurate representation of the heavenly prototype.”24 Temples are similarly models for the body which is sometimes called a temple.25 People enter temples to divine the meaning of existence and to put themselves in touch with the holy.26 Joseph Smith’s temples, located in the center (or in the case of Nauvoo, at the high point) of a central city sacralized the landscape. At Kirtland, he prayed that God’s “holy presence may be continually in this house.”27 Instead of all spaces having an equal amount of divine presence, in this one space, God was present in greater intensity, sharply focusing Mormon religious space. The Mormons’ sacred geography had no equivalent elsewhere in the United States.28 Americans scattered their church buildings, putting up two or three in a single little town. Evangelical Christians would say

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God was diffused even more widely, into the hearts of all believers. No one place or building could lay special claim to God’s presence. The American religious landscape was flat, with no foci, no peaks, no vortexes; divinity was spread democratically through religious space just as political rights were distributed through civic space. The closest most Americans came to focused holiness was in the presence of sublime nature. Many visitors felt exalted as they stood before Niagara Falls or looked from a high promontory at the great bend in Connecticut River. “If, in th’ immensity of space,” an observer at Niagara wrote, “God makes one spot his special dwelling-place, That spot is this.”29 But sublime nature was not like Mormon space either, for the most inspiring scenes lay outside of settled society, beyond the margins of everyday life, while the Mormon temple stood at the center of the city, where daily life circulated around it. Was there anything like the temple and the city of Zion in the contemporary United States? More like Mormon geography than any other religious configuration was the space that formed around Nauvoo’s neighbor 200 miles to the east, Chicago. Chicago came into its own within a few years of Nauvoo’s founding and, though raised on entirely different principles, had a parallel spatial structure based on the powerful attraction of its markets. The signs of its future greatness were recognized soon after the United States received title to Chicago from the Indians in 1833. The continental divide, between Lake Michigan and the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico on the other, lay just a few miles southwest of Chicago and only about fifteen feet above the level of the lake. A swampy patch of ground covered the divide, and in high water season, a canoe could traverse it without portaging, making it possible theoretically to canoe from the Gulf of St. Lawrence through the lakes, up the Chicago River and across the portage to the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers and finally to New Orleans, all without leaving the water. Developers immediately saw that a relatively short canal could connect Chicago on Lake Michigan to the tributaries of the Mississippi, putting the Great Lakes in touch with the Gulf of Mexico. For four years after the Indian treaty in 1833, the city boomed. Population leaped from four hundred to four thousand, and land prices rose proportionately. Plans were laid out for a canal and a railroad, and

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the city was on its way. Then the Panic of 1837 stopped development in its tracks, and for the next seven years while Nauvoo was growing, Chicago stood still. Only when the saints were about to leave Illinois for the West did confidence return to Chicago. In 1848 the canal and the first stretch of railroad were completed, and the city began the sustained growth that made it the second largest in the nation by the end of the century. Nauvoo at its peak population in 1846 may have been about as large as Chicago, but would soon have been eclipsed. Chicago resembled Nauvoo in standing at the center of a vortex of converging forces. But in Chicago the market drew people rather than the temple. William Cronon’s magnificent study of the Chicago hinterland, Nature’s Metropolis, describes the Chicago market’s organizing influence on forests and prairies hundreds of miles away from the city. “Those who sought to explain its unmatched expansion,” he writes, “often saw it as being compelled by deep forces within nature itself, gathering the resources and energies of the Great West—the region stretching from the Appalachians and the Great Lakes to the Rockies and the Pacific—and concentrating them in a single favored spot at the southwestern corner of Lake Michigan.”30 Lumbermen felled trees in remote forests, herded them downstream to the lake where boards were sawn, and sent the finished products on to the city where they were sold to house builders who furiously constructed dwellings for the mushrooming population. Cattlemen started their drives on distant prairies, headed the animals to the railheads, and put them into cars headed for slaughter at the Chicago market. Farmers plowed, planted, and harvested their grain, had it graded, and shipped it to Chicago to get the best price. For hundreds of miles in every direction, the Chicago market mobilized the energies, schemes, and hopes of virtually the entire countryside. If the people themselves did not come, the products of their work converged on Chicago, just as Mormon converts gathered to Nauvoo. The shape of space was the same for the two cities—an expansive funnel collecting for a central city where energy was focused in a single institution. But the underlying principles were entirely different. The magnet for one was the market, for the other, the temple. Chicago’s central principle was wealth, Nauvoo’s, spiritual empowerment. Chicago’s work was to collect products, bring them to market, and exchange them for money to purchase manufactured goods coming from the east by

The Great Hall of the Board of Trade. Courtesy of Chicago Historical Society.

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ship and rail.31 Nauvoo’s work was to collect converts, bring them to Nauvoo for instruction, fill them with divine intelligence, and prepare them for life in the City of Zion.32 With these two systems standing side by side, the natural question is how did the principles of market and temple affect the two societies?33 The name Joseph gave to his city, Nauvoo, seems like a start on an answer, especially when we remember that the previous owners called the site Commerce. The earlier name expressed the hope that the flat pushing out into the Mississippi River had commercial possibilities. The rapids just below the city blocked downstream river traffic, making Commerce a natural terminus of shipping from further upstream. As early as 1816 a petition to Congress had requested federal aid to dig a canal to help realize the commercial potential. The drop in the river at Commerce also inspired hope that the Mississippi’s vast energy could be harnessed for manufacturing, which, combined with the canal, promised a great future for the site. Joseph Smith did not squelch these dreams nor attack the mercantile capitalists who conceived them. The plan for Nauvoo showed a canal running across the peninsula down the main street just like the previous owners’ plans for the city. John C. Bennett proposed a wing dam in the Mississippi to trap water for industrial use; Joseph did nothing to discourage these plans and even gave them his blessing.34 His letters to Britain, where the Quorum of the Twelve was managing the missionary work, urged them to convert capitalists and send them to Nauvoo to develop manufactures. Joseph rather enthusiastically supported commerce. And yet, he changed the city’s name from Commerce to Nauvoo, the city beautiful, as if he had something else in mind. The change did not exactly signify opposition to commercial capitalism, only a desire to harness it to his own ends. His invitation to capitalists said nothing of profits or great wealth, and in fact he invited them to Nauvoo during a depression, a poor time to begin a new venture. Nauvoo had its great spurt in population in the middle of the slow economic times that put Chicago on hold because people were reluctant to invest. Nauvoo’s growth was not dependent on people making a lot of money as Chicago’s was; other forces drove Joseph’s city. He wanted the capitalists for one reason only—to give work to the poor. In the “Proclamation of the First Presidency of the Church to the Saints Scattered Abroad,” he urged all

William Weeks’s Drawing of the Nauvoo Temple (c. 1844). Courtesy of LDS Historical Department.

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“who have been blessed of heaven with the possession of this world’s goods,” to “establish and build up manufactures in the city,” in order to “strengthen our hands, and assist in promoting the happiness of the Saints.”35 Joseph’s eyes were on the people moving along the gathering routes, and the thousands already in Nauvoo. They needed jobs, and the capitalists could provide them. Capitalism was welcome in Nauvoo, but on Joseph’s terms—to advance “the work.” In Chicago, where the great purpose was wealth, the streets had a different look than in Nauvoo. By the late 1840s, Chicago had three hundred dry good shops and groceries, doing a million dollars worth of business a year, not counting hundreds of artisan shops where craftsmen plied their trades. Nauvoo had only a few general stores and a handful of artisan shops.36 Wagonloads of outlying farmers did not converge on Nauvoo, as they did in Chicago, to sell the products of a year’s labor. In Chicago a farmer saw 1,200 wagons full of wheat in one day, there to exchange grain for clothes and tools.37 In Nauvoo, trade was between the city’s own residents and settlers from the immediate vicinity. If Nauvoo’s reach for converts was worldwide, its commercial reach went only a few miles into the countryside. Less tangible differences than trade figures and the number of shops are more difficult to measure. How did the temple on the highest spot in the city make life different from a place where the central institution was the Board of Trade with its cavernous hall echoing the shouts of the traders? What ideas of manhood and womanhood prevailed when divine intelligence was valued more than wealth? We must assume power went to people of a different sort. For its first mayor, Chicago elected William B. Ogden, born in the same year as Joseph Smith, and the epitome of the best commercial values. He was attracted to Chicago by real estate speculation, made a fortune in land and railroads, and had enough surplus capital to give Cyrus McCormick his start. Ogden exemplified the successful man of business and civic leadership, being the first president of the Union Pacific Railroad, president of Rush Medical College, and president of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees. Ogden was Chicago’s leading citizen, and the embodiment of a business society’s finest qualities. The mayor of Nauvoo in 1844 tried to sell real estate in his city but kept fumbling and making mistakes; he declared bankruptcy at one point and died with little property.38 Without wealth or business success

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to his credit, Joseph Smith was given all the highest posts in the city and received its nomination for president—and why? Because in the minds of the converts, he opened a conduit to heaven. He promised glories in the hereafter and divine authority to seal marriages and baptize for the dead. He spoke of gods and of ruling other worlds, and his words won the hearts of his people. He could come to power only in a society where divine intelligence and spiritual power outranked wealth and business acumen on the scale of values. The Marxists tell us that in a market society people turn themselves into commodities. We package ourselves, sell ourselves, and value people for their worth in the market of social exchange—that is, by status or position. We become in our essence what we are in our work—a professor, a stockbroker, a secretary, a car mechanic. The market invades our imaginations and takes over our ways of thinking about all of life. How would people in a temple society conceive themselves and other people? What would be the metaphors to govern self-understanding in Zion? These are the questions that must be asked of Mormon space in the nineteenth century, even if the answers are not entirely clear.39 With this question in mind, I came across a passage in The Republic, where Socrates and Glaucon describe an ideal man of understanding who refuses to pursue power or wealth like most men of his time. The questioner asks how the man can go on living in the city when he goes against common sense. The answer is that he does not live in an earthly city, but in an ideal city, for only there can he be his best person. “In heaven,” Socrates says, “there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.”40 Elsewhere, in his Laws, Plato argues that priorities must be changed for human life to flourish. “There are in all three things about which every man has an interest; and the interest about money, when rightly regarded, is the third and lowest of them: midway comes the interest of the body; and, first of all, that of the soul; and the state which we are describing will have been rightly constituted if it ordains honours according to this scale.”41 Joseph Smith, knowing nothing of this philosophical tradition, tried to build the heavenly city on earth and to put the cause of the soul first.

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Nauvoo did not long survive Joseph Smith. Just as Chicago was taking off, Nauvoo was obliterated. Within two years after Joseph’s death, nearly all the Mormon residents were straggling westward across the Iowa prairie, and the city was left empty. In another two years, an arsonist had burned the temple. Thereafter, Nauvoo fell into a deep sleep from which it awakened in the twentieth century as a historical shrine. But the destruction of the physical city did not erase Joseph Smith’s map from Mormon minds. “The work” began again the moment the saints reached the Salt Lake Valley. The city of Zion rose at the foot of the Wasatch mountains, and Brigham Young filled up the world with smaller satellite cities. Until the end of the century, the Mormon vortex gathered people with ever-increasing force. And at the center of Salt Lake, the temple anchored the whole system, as it had done in previous Zions. While the work went on as before, Mormon space also evolved during its Utah years. Long before the Salt Lake temple’s completion, it had numerous competitors in the realm of sacred space. In Utah, Mormons for the first time constructed chapels for worship and activity, creating hundreds of little epicenters of religious life. The diffusion of church buildings necessarily flattened the religious landscape, making Mormon space more like Protestant space outside of Utah. In the twentieth century, chapel and temple building has accelerated all around the globe wherever the saints reside, while the voice and face of the church president, relayed via satellite, is heard and seen on every continent. In modern Mormon space, one temple and one city do not focus a global geography as they once did; Salt Lake City is headquarters rather than the central place. The reversal of the gathering doctrine, coupled with this multiplication of temples and chapels, means that Mormon space is no longer a funnel with light from the center shining into the dark world and emissaries going forth to gather in converts. Zion is almost everywhere.42 These changes may appear to support the common reading of Mormon history as a twentieth-century apostasy from a nineteenthcentury visionary culture, a decline like the better known decline of Puritanism in colonial America. I am not persuaded by that understanding of Mormon history, nor do I believe that Joseph Smith would have regretted the spread of temples and chapels around the globe. He

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himself hinted that there would be temples in other places. He did not think of the temple, as the ancient Jews did, as a singular location where God touched the earth. If Joseph Smith was nothing else, he was expansive, and saw virtually unlimited possibilities for the work he began. The global ambitions of Mormonism today would only have pleased him. But if apostasy is not the right word, change certainly is. For Mormonism’s spatial configuration has evolved over a century and a half. In the early church, Joseph believed that the work required converts to gather, and so he pulled them out of the world into a city where divine intelligence would illuminate their lives and make them into saints. He built his cities more or less without heed of the commercial and political forces that organized national space in nineteenth-century America. He gathered people with promises of a spiritual endowment, not wealth. The converts who came to Nauvoo from many backgrounds, Joseph said, all “feel an attachment to the cause of truth.” If they would hold on and live right, he predicted, “the intelligence of heaven will be communicated to them, and they will, eventually see eye to eye, and rejoice in the full fruition of that glory which is reserved for the righteous.”43 That he attracted so many to his peculiar religious enterprise in a period when the market was taking over the nation is a tribute to his powerful vision and remarkable originality.

Richard E. Bennett

3 “My Idea Is to Go Right Through Right Side Up with Care” The Exodus as Reformation

Richard E. Bennett We go as Abram of old. Where we stop we know not. We want the brethren to cease every light-hearted speech, levity, nonsense, and childish notions and to act as servants of God. Are we not capable of improvement? Are we not susceptible of receiving more intelligence? We shall arise at the sound of the horn. We shall pray at the sound of the horn. Guards set at night and the rest retire to their beds. We shall not travel on the Sabbath. We shall go so as to claim the blessings of the Almighty.1 So remarked Brigham Young at the Platte River on the eve of the Mormon exodus on 15 April 1847. The wagon trains and the celebrations of this sesquicentennial remembrance year are now over, themselves a part of the history they so diligently tried to recreate. Now, in this season of afterglow and reflection, I intend to take us back yet one more time to look at the Mormon exodus in a somewhat different light perhaps than that offered by other commentators and historians. If Wallace Stegner in his wonderfully crafted study Gathering of Zion chose to humanize the pioneers while essentially ignoring their religion, if Preston Nibley attempted to deify their cause while disregarding their faults, and if Stan Kimball emphasized the trails while downplaying the trials, my purpose is to probe those factors the pioneers saw as paramount to 55

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their success.2 Though I take my cue from the writings of Leonard J. Arrington, B. H. Roberts, and Jan Shipps and their attention to the underlying religious cause and force of human personality, I will stake my claim on the original documentation, an ever-growing body of primary sources which continue to come to light. The essential purpose of this essay is to try to answer a fundamental question: under what circumstance did they, the active participants in this much-heralded original pioneer trek of 1847, believe they would succeed? What were their terms of exodus, their essential criteria for success? While others have given ample place for economics and geography, I intend to analyze their own statements. And though there is obvious room to discuss politics and preparations, leadership styles and trail blazing capacities, at core was the matter of how they viewed what they were doing. Nothing meaningful will come of these remarks, make sense, or hit home unless we give place to one or two intellectual ground rules. First, I seek not for that “willing suspension of disbelief ” we speak of when confronted with the patently unbelievable or the obviously incredulous, but rather the active admission of the possible—in this case, the allowance for personal conviction, faith if you will, and their particular brand of it—of those who made up Utah’s first wagon trains. My second request is that we regard their convictions as much as we do their accomplishments whether we agree with them or not. As Jan Shipps has argued: “The meaning that traveling on the Mormon trail and living in the Mormon kingdom had for those who were actually involved is as important to these considerations as the material results of the Saints’ activities.”3 The study of history fails us all if it emphasizes the effect or merely the results at the expense of the cause or conviction. Sir Thomas More may have said it right when he courageously defended his commitment to the principle of apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic Church and papal supremacy in opposition to King Henry VIII’s attempts at accommodation and rationalization, though More knew in doing so it would likely cost him his life. “Why, it’s a theory, yes; you can’t see it; can’t touch it; it’s a theory. But what matters to me is not whether it’s true or not but that I believe it to be true, or rather not that I believe it, but that I believe it.”4 As with More, so with these early pioneers. Some

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“My Idea is to Go Right Through”

may not agree with their belief systems but we cannot disregard their convictions if we seek to understand their accomplishments. Much of what I intend to discuss tonight stems from my research for my latest book, We’ll Find the Place: The Mormon Exodus, 1846–1848 .5 While preparing this book for publication, I wondered at first if there was anything left to say about the topic, considering the vast amount of literature. However, as I immersed myself in the primary documentation, studying sources never seen before so far as I know, I became less interested in the externalities—the facts and figures—and more involved in the inner workings of thought and belief, how the pioneers looked upon their migration. In doing so, it became ever more clear to me that their explanations have not at all been overemphasized. In fact, we have overlooked them. If the record is true, I maintain that in their eyes the sine qua non of their ultimate success was neither brawn nor brain but covenant and obedience. In the simplest of terms, they came to believe—and it was a gradual process of belief—that they would find their place if they would follow their God. Ever since Nauvoo, Brigham Young’s periodic outbursts had called for continued self-improvement and increased obedience to church authority and, by inference, to God. While splashing through the muds of Iowa he had reminded his sick and exhausted followers that “Now is the time to be the Lord’s, or else go into the world or to hell like other fools . . . If this people will continue as they have done [in reference to the cries of the people to join in with the vanguard company], their own prayers will bring a curse upon them and they will be blown up and scattered.”6 Later, at Winter Quarters, with death and disease claiming victims all around, Brigham returned to the same topic. “If we penetrate into the wilderness and do not do right and keep the commandments of God, it is better to tarry here . . . I want every family to break off from all iniquity and turn unto the Lord.”7 Even their sufferings at Winter Quarters were ascribed to God’s chastening hand. Blaming disobedience for their discomfiture, Brigham Young had said that they would continue to be “subject to sickness and disease and death until they learned to be passive and let council dictate their course.”8 “All of this pain, sorrow, death and affliction,” he said on another occasion, “is for a wise purpose in God” to give them “their exaltation and glory in the Eternal world.”9 While

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neither surrendering to death nor inciting to rebellion, the Mormons at the Missouri accepted it all for their eventual good. Later, in mid-April 1847 while their wagon trains were assembling at the Elkhorn River, their jumping off spot for the West, Brigham had again said: “We go as Abram of old. Where we stop we know not. We want the brethren to cease every light-hearted speech, levity, nonsense and childish notions and to act as servants of God.”10 They believed that they were on a divine errand; that their overland successes depended on their behavior; that a scourge awaited the rebellious among them; and that blessings abundant were in store for the faithful. Their past experiences had taught them to believe no less. In short, their’s was a journey of lasting consequence. To support this viewpoint, I submit we make examination from the following three perspectives: first, a review of an earlier, parallel travel experience in Zion’s Camp of 1834; second, a study of “The Word and Will of the Lord” of January 1847, Brigham Young’s only “canonized” revelation; and finally, an analysis of their several sermons delivered all along the way and soon after their arrival in the valley.

From Zion’s Camp to Zion’s March

F rom the earliest days of the Church, Latter-day Saint missionaries, though attributing what successes they enjoyed to many factors, had emphasized personal conformity to gospel teaching. For instance, while on an early mission east in 1833, William E. McLellin and Parley P. Pratt had often meditated “on the works of God and the holiness of heart required of those who travel to proclaim the fulness of his gospel in this wicked generation . . . we have been struggling for several weeks to keep ourselves in perfect obedience to the will and commandments of our Lord.”11 The careful student of Mormon pioneer history will further appreciate the fact that Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, and many others counted among the leaders of the vanguard pioneer company of 1847 saw in their present expedition west a striking parallel to, if not a repeat of, Zion’s Camp, that overland journey of two to three hundred men captained by Joseph Smith from Kirtland, Ohio, to Jackson County, Missouri, thirteen years before. That grueling

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two-thousand-mile ordeal, virtually the same distance as their imminent march to the Salt Lake, had failed in its stated purpose of reclaiming their Missouri properties because of disunity and murmurings among them. They came to believe then, as younger pioneers of the faith, as the cholera raged about them, that God would have a united and an obedient people. Had not Joseph Smith himself prophesied that “in consequence of disobedience of some who had been unwilling to listen to his words and had rebelled, God had decreed that sickness should come upon them and that they should die like sheep with the rot?”12 Joseph B. Noble confirmed his leader’s predictions while describing their agonizing nightmare: . . . Just at the time when we were dismissed to make our own arrangements to get back, behold the Cholera came on us with mighty power, and 14 of our men fell, and I myself very nearly escaped with my life . . . I . . . was violently seized with the Cholera, puking and purging powerfully then cramping from head to foot in the most powerful manner. With a burning fever in my bowels, in this situation I lay forty hours. My voice and my hearing had nearly left me. While in this situation my Brothers Brigham Young, Joseph Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde and Peter Whitmer, with some three or four others, prayed for me. I was laying on the floor, and they formed a ring around me. While in this situation, the veil became very thin between me and my God.13 Eventually, sixty-eight of their number, about one in four, were affected by the disease, and eighteen perished from it. Heber C. Kimball, temporarily blinded by the cholera, prayed fervently that God would spare his life. “I felt a covenant with my brethren,” he wrote, “and I felt it in my heart never to commit sin while I lived.”14 George A. Smith, only sixteen years of age at the time and later an apostle in the pioneer camp, was also devastated by the disease. Though spared, his cousin Jesse was less fortunate. Inconsolable at his cousin’s death, George A. “wished he could have died in Jesse’s place.”15 Brigham Young, spared from the disease in part because the camp had been broken into small companies of ten or more men, later

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related the circumstance under which he believed the fearful epidemic was finally checked: President Joseph Smith called the members of the camp of Zion together, and told them if they would humble themselves before the Lord, and covenant that they would from that time forth obey his counsel, that the plague should be stopped from that very hour, and there would not be another in camp, whereupon the brethren with uplifted hands covenanted that they would from that very hour hearken to his counsel and obey his word, and the plague was stayed according to the words of the Lord through his servant.16 The fact that modern medicine might have a different explanation for the matter is beside the mark. The point is they believed they were fit for rebuke and that only repentance and obedience would insure their success. Their Zion’s Camp experience remained an indelible reminder to the leadership of Zion’s March of how to believe and how not to behave. Later, as we pick up these same sojourners on the high plains of the North Platte near Scottsbluff some fifteen hundred miles west of Rushing River, there was a latent anxiety that what had happened to them in Zion’s Camp could happen here once more. George A. Smith reminded them as follows: I went up in the camp of 1834. There came among the leaders of that camp some division, growling, etc. I have noticed that those who murmured there murmured since. Joseph mounted a wagon wheel and told us a scourge would come upon us for murmuring. The caller came and sixteen or eighteen died . . . I wonder now if we will suffer ourselves to follow the such like snares. If we go on in union we shall accomplish our journey and return in peace.17 As with the ancient Israelites and their disrupted march to the promised land—a parallel to which they continually alluded—if they were now on his errand then they were subject to the same corrections and would pay the same price. If this were modern Israel, then they were under the same ancient obligation. Their God could be as much an

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Old Testament God of affliction as He was a New Testament God of mercy. In fact, it may be theme for future study to show that the transformation of their earlier concept of a sometimes Puritan-like God, quick to punish and discipline, into that of a more kind and benevolent Providence was one heritage of Zion’s March. The two marches came to see God differently.

The Word and Will of the Lord

A s much as they regarded Zion’s Camp, they also respected Brigham Young as the increasingly forceful, dominant pioneer leader he was showing himself to be. As B. H. Roberts rightly observed, their leader “was of Puritan extraction, and in sympathy with that stern school of moral uprightness by training as well as by birth.”18 Though not easy to separate the fear of the man from the respect for the message, we must look to understand the revelation he had recently proclaimed. Remembered today mainly for its blueprint of camp organization, “The Word and Will of the Lord,” given in January 1847 at Winter Quarters, had as its central message the call to obedience. “Zion shall be redeemed in mine own due time,” in reference to the disappointing postponement of their Jackson County building efforts. And if any man shall seek to build up himself, and seeketh not my counsel, he shall have no power, and his follow shall be made manifest. Seek ye; and keep all your pledges one with another . . . Keep yourselves from evil to take the name of the Lord in vain . . . Cease to contend one with another; cease to speak evil one of another. Cease drunkenness . . . My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them. The revelation ended with this familiar warning: “Be diligent in keeping all my commandments, lest judgments come upon you, and your faith fail you, and your enemies triumph over you.”19 Six weeks after proclaiming the revelation, and while preparing for the migration west, Brigham Young reminded the Saints of its central importance. “If The Word and Will of the Lord is not congenial to our spirits, say so, for I want a people whose heart is in the work.”20

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The parallels between the earlier revelation of Joseph Smith at Fishing River and this of Brigham Young could not have been more obvious. “My people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience,” the earlier text had recorded. And “were it not for the transgressions of my people . . . they might have been redeemed even now.” And it was all “for a trial of their faith.”21 One very important element of the later revelation is that it armed the Mormon leader with more than the sheer force of his own personality—as powerful as that was—and placed the success of their migration on heavenly terms while drawing obvious parallels to his style of leadership with that of his slain predecessor thereby laying the necessary groundwork for his later claim to succession. That, however, is another story. Does not, however, this emphasis on the tragedies of Zion’s Camp and the warnings of “The Word and Will of the Lord” point out yet another element in their thinking? There was fear, as well as faith, in their travels, at least an uncertain anxiety that if they were not unified and faithful, they might endure a similar fate as those before. And compared to the earlier years, they understood that so much more was now at stake—and expected. An endowed people, they saw clearly—at least Brigham Young did—that the very soul and salvation of the church was in the balance. They surely believed that if they were destined to fulfill a divine mission, it came with a moral obligation to what may be termed covenant obedience. It was a theme they returned to time and time again. “The Word and Will of the Lord” was also important for what it did not say. To the faithful it was signal that the death of Joseph Smith had not derailed the message and mission of the Restoration and was confirmation that they were as much the Kingdom of God under Brigham Young in the wilderness as they ever were under Joseph Smith in Kirtland or Nauvoo. The very statement of revelation was enough. “Many have marveled because of his [Joseph’s] death; but it was needful that he should seal his testimony with his blood, that he might be honored and that the wicked might be condemned. Have I not delivered you from your enemies . . . Now therefore hearken, O ye people of my church; and ye elders listen together; you have received my kingdom.”22 In this one statement, which was immediately accepted as gospel among the rank and file at Winter Quarters and all across the Iowa encampments, Brigham Young placed their pending exodus in scriptural

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terms. A brilliant stroke of statesmanship in the eyes of the onlooker, a careful expression of divine approval in the eyes of the Latter-day Saint, whatever one’s spin on it, “The Word and Will of the Lord” transformed their journey into an exodus, bringing with it all the obligations of a westward march into discipleship.

Sermonizing on the Plains

Z

ion’s Camp, “The Word and Will of the Lord,” the vast loneliness of the plains, the pioneers’ developing sense of mission, and the faith and fear along the way—all these combined to make of Mormon Sabbath sermons something more than was usually witnessed on the wagon trails of the West. The Mormons certainly owned no monopoly on the wagon pulpits of westering America. Scores, if not hundreds, of ministers and preachers often tried their hand at prairie sermonizing, but with mixed results. “If you had devotional services,” one woman recalled while en route to California in 1849, “the minister—pro tem—stood in the center of the corral while we all kept on with our work. There was no disrespect intended but there was little time for leisure.”23 Another California overlander by the name of Charles Gray told of yet another preaching attempt. “At about 10 o’clock a clerical looking young chap invited us to church in a grove about a mile distant and one of our men did actually attend. In the afternoon he preached in a grove quite near us and I believe no one condescended to pay their respects to him.”24 Not every sermon was so disregarded. Some companies simply enjoyed better preaching. And there was enough suffering and death along the way west to remind many of their dangerous circumstances. “In the afternoon we were summoned together by a blast from the horn to listen to a sermon by an old preacher,” another traveler recalled. I listened with pleasure. His text was ‘watch and pray.’ He was practical in his remarks and preached appropriately to the occasion. The audience was lounging about in the corral with heads uncovered and listening respectfully . . . A sermon on these prairies is listened to attentively by those at home who would not do so.25

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There must have been several wonderful sermons given in overland history. Unfortunately, few were recorded and even fewer preserved. Most overlanders looked upon religious exhortation with begrudging respect at best, a necessary intrusion into their busy schedules. Not so apparently among the Latter-day Saints, at least not as long as they were led by Brigham Young. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet made a careful study of the many sermons given by camp leaders while the Pioneer Company made tracks across America. I assure you, they make for colorful reading. With so many apostles and other leaders in tow, it reads like one continuous general conference of the church on wheels. Many were of the decidedly practical variety telling of camp duties and other obligations. But if there was one recurring theme it was clearly that obedience was indispensable to the success of their journey. Anything less would prove both damaging and disastrous. “We have to sanctify our hearts and bare [sic] off the Kingdom triumphantly in all faith and righteousness,” Brigham had reported back at Winter Quarters, “until you get perfect. According to our covenant we have to increase in grace until we accomplish the work the Lord has given us to do.”26 Of considerable importance is the fact that so many others shared in their leader’s vision. While some have argued that it was Brigham Young’s exodus and his accomplishment not only to find the valley but to imprint the symbol of exodus on the trek, the documents show that it was a decidedly shared interpretation. Seven other apostles were along for the ride and 140 other believers. Though Brigham Young was their leader, it was other men—Orson Pratt, George A. Smith, Erastus Snow, Wilford Woodruff, and others—who were as diligent in wresting meaning and interpretations out of their travels as Brigham Young ever was. Two weeks out, Heber C. Kimball reminded his fellow travelers that “our little children will look upon this camp as angels and will rank us as the first elders in this Church because they have learnt from the servants of the Lord and been instructed by them.”27 Wilford Woodruff, at a meeting of the camp just a few miles east of the Platte forks, said: “I believe the hand of God is in this journey and if we are faithful we shall go to the very spot where it will be.” And on the same day, their favorite scientist and student of scripture, Orson Pratt, put it this way: “We have been blessed with health and food and the hand of the Lord seems

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to be over us. It is about 500 miles further to the place of the great Salt Lake. If we are brought into straits and difficulties and we endeavor to do right, the Lord will overrule those very circumstances to our good.”28 While there were several sermons given by various pioneer leaders along the trail in 1847 (since they stopped over for the Sabbath on almost every occasion), the one that stands out most unforgettably was Brigham’s scotch blessing at Scottsbluff on the 29th of May on the North Platte. It is as much a landmark to pioneer history as Chimney Rock ever was to the overland trail. Upon calling each captain of ten together for a roll call, he began. “This morning I feel like preaching a little, and shall take for my text, ‘that as to pursuing our journey with this company with the spirit they possess, I am about to revolt against it.’” He continued: I have said many things to the brethren about the strictness of their walk and conduct when we left the Gentiles, and told them that we would have to walk upright or the law would be put in force . . . If you do not open your hearts so that the Spirit of God can enter your hearts and teach you the right way, I know that you are a ruined people and will be destroyed and that without remedy, and unless there is a change and a different course of conduct, a different spirit to what is now in this camp, I go no further. Give me the man of prayers . . . the man of faith . . . the man of meditation, and I would far rather go amongst the savages with six or eight such men than to trust myself with the whole of this camp with the spirit they now possess. Pinpointing the immediate cause of his frustration to the playing of cards, checkers, and dominoes, he went on to say that if they could get whiskey “they would be drunk half their time and in one week they would quarrel, get to high words, and draw their knives to kill each other.” “You don’t know how to control your senses,” he continued. Some of you are very fond of passing jokes. But will you take a joke? If you do not want to take a joke, don’t give a joke to your brethren. Joking, nonsense, profane language, trifling conversation and loud laughter do not belong to us . . . with a low, mean,

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dirty, trifling, covetous, wicked spirit dwelling in our bosoms. It is vain! vain!29 One can only speculate on what it was that bothered him so. Clearly there was more than playing cards and dominoes. Running behind their time, worried about the Big Company of hundreds of men, women, and children now coming in their wake, and concerned over the very survival of the Church, Brigham Young, and indeed most everyone in camp, were increasingly anxious. The evidence also suggests that the Mormon leader was under mounting pressure and a growing sense of frustration over the fact that his people were not yet fully living the Word of Wisdom, their code of living that prohibited liquor, tobacco, and hot drinks. “I am going to a stake of Zion with fasting and prayer,” he remarked on an earlier occasion, “and the Word of Wisdom has got to be kept, and quit tobacco, snuffing, drinking and swearing and if this people will be humble and prayerful the Spirit of the Lord will be increased a hundred fold. But if you neglect this you will be afflicted more than ever.”30 Some few days later, concerned at the supplies many were gathering in for the trip, he further commended: “Will the Latter-day Saints at this time think on the Word of Wisdom and take the money that we pay for tobacco, spirits, etc. and come over and clothe your children . . . I am for a reformation. You don’t go to a stake of Zion and prosper with these habits. It is good for these people to commence sacraments, fasts, prayer meetings and observe the Word of Wisdom. As a man can do without a little tobacco, put your king in your mouth and chew him up. If a man cannot reign over himself, what kind of a king would he be to others?”31 Heber C. Kimball picked up on the same theme. “I have felt in my heart that I never want another cup of coffee set before me. I feel better without it than with it. I left tobacco alone for about 12 years. Tobacco, tea, coffee and liquor all do me harm. The whiskey of this country is the meanest, nastiest, poisonous stuff I have ever saw.”32 Though frustrated at the general laxness many newer converts had toward the principle, Church leaders recognized that now, in the moment of migration, was not the time or place to redress the problem. At the very least, keep liquor from the natives. There will be a better time.

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There may well have been more on his mind than the Word of Wisdom. Counterfeiting was a recurring problem among the baser sort of Latter-day Saint discontents and tagalongs who were engaged in the business back at Winter Quarters on the east side of the river. They tended to pollute the reputation of the Mormons up and down the Missouri. There were also some in camp that had taken the law into their own hands on more than one occasion. Orrin Porter Rockwell, Return Jackson Redden, and “the notorious Tom Brown”—Nathaniel Thomas Brown—were all along for the ride most likely for gunfire protection against potential enemies. If Rockwell and Redden had acted as frontier police, Brown was a fugitive from justice for the robbery-murder of a man named Miller on the Iowa side of the Mississippi across from Nauvoo. Brown, wrote Stegner, “hardly matched the godly character of the expedition.”33 Upon his return to the Missouri, Brown was put away by friends and others in waiting in 1848.34 Whatever the causes of his Scottsbluff discontent, immediately after his sermon, Brigham Young repeated what Joseph Smith had done back in 1834—he called for a covenant-making of all in camp. Calling upon each quorum—eight apostles, fifteen high priests, four bishops, seventy-eight seventies, eight elders, and then all the rest—he asked them to show, by uplifted hand, if they were “willing to covenant, to turn to the Lord with all their hearts, to repent of all their follies.” All 148 did so without a dissenting voice. Zion’s Camp, “The Word and Will of the Lord,” prairie sermons along the way—they wrought a dramatic effect. A tearful, contrite Stephen Markham, who bore the brunt of his leader’s lashing, pleaded forgiveness. “I have been guilty of the things mentioned,” he admitted. “I confess it. My mind has been darkened and I confess it. I know the judgment will overtake us if we don’t profit by the lesson this morning. Wherein I have done wrong, I want you to forgive me. I have learnt something this morning and I will try to do better.”35 Many others openly wept. All covenanted to change their behavior, to reform themselves, to improve. “I expect you will think there is a reformation in me,” wrote company clerk Thomas Bullock to his wife back in Winter Quarters, “when you know that I have commenced reading the Bible through” while caring for teams and wagons, meetings,

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and minute-taking. “I have already read as far as the 7th chapter of Judges and express my gratitude to God . . . that I have already received much light and intelligence in things of which I have been a long time dark.”36 It may not have been a full-fledged reformation, but they recognized the opportunity, the constructive resolve so characteristic of new beginnings. The more successful that resolve, the more lasting the enterprise. And with any personal changes they were able to make here and there along the way came a change of understanding and self-awareness which many alluded to on several occasions. It was no longer a mere journey or expedition but a mission. “The elders will look back at this journey as one of the greatest schools they ever were in [during] our lives,” said George A. Smith.37 “Our little children will look upon this camp as angels,” recorded Heber C. Kimball, “and will rank us as the first elders in this Church because they have learnt from the servants of the Lord.”38 And from Amasa Lyman: “My idea is to go right through right side up with care.”39 Whether one can ever conclude that the Latter-day Saints were in fact less jealous, more unified, more upright than the next camp is impossible to argue and irrelevant. The point is they believed they had to live up to the mission and identity they had carved out for themselves. William Clayton, the favored journal writer in camp, upon hearing Brigham Young’s May 29 remarks, commented on its effects. It seemed as though we were just commencing on this important mission, and all realizing the responsibility resting upon us to conduct ourselves in such a manner that the journey may be an everlasting blessing to us, instead of an everlasting disgrace. No loud laughter was heard, no swearing, no quarreling, no profane language, no hard speeches to men or beast, and it truly seemed as though the cloud had burst and we had emerged into a new element, a new atmosphere, and a new society.40 Once in their new valley home, leaders interpreted their success in large measure by seeing themselves as God’s chastened, if chosen, people. “The revelation tell us what to do,” Amasa Lyman reminded his listeners in one of the earliest valley sermons,

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and if we are not a righteous people we deceive ourselves and shall defeat the very object we are laboring for and it is to begin to be holy and to build a city. It is ours because God has given it us. We must not buck at impurity in any way favorable. Go to work and be pure every wit and then if they build up a temple and the city the blessings will flow down to us as the waters from yonder hill . . . Zion is the pure in heart and the only way to be pure is to have no will but the will of God.41 Such also explains their decision, once in the valley, to rebaptize as many in camp as desired to renew their covenants. Performed sparingly previous to this time, rebaptism was a way of reaffirming publicly their faith. Wrote Woodruff: The bishops repaired with the Twelve to the streams of water for the purpose of baptizing and confirming the whole Camp who had not been [rebaptized] since we came into the Valley. We felt it our privilege to be baptized . . . for the remission of our sins and to renew our covenants before the Lord.42 This theme of covenant obedience is the religious motif of their travels, the prerequisite to their ultimate success. “The only thing we have to fear is the corruption of our own heart,” said Erastus Snow to the oncoming Emigration camp while at Green River in September of 1847. “We can raise the cotton, sugar cane everything else we need. If we then suffer evils and iniquity to rave in our midst, the heaviest curses of God will rest upon us.”43 I conclude with one last quote, this from Orson Pratt, while he was describing their new-found mountain home to the oncoming companies: I need not describe the land. Your eyes will soon behold the place. It is a land where we can be secure from our enemies. And gather strength against the time of need. The vision of our minds has not been opened to the future destiny of the Saints . . . now keep ourselves from polluting that land . . . let every heart now determine that as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.44

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My purpose has been to demonstrate that there was more to the exodus than trails and valleys. I have tried to show that it became a mission, a special errand and, if so, the essential criteria for their success was something I have called covenant obedience. If it was a matter of surpassing importance to them, then it deserves our attention and study today.

4 The Theater in Mormon Life and Culture Howard R. Lamar I

t is a great honor to be invited to deliver, in 1998, the fourth annual Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture. I have known Professor Arrington for more than forty years and I have always admired his scholarship, have frequently sought his advice, and have always treasured his friendship. For me, he is the senior ranking Western historian alive today, the most distinguished historian writing about the Mormon past, and a leading authority on Utah’s history in this century.1 His Great Basin Kingdom set a new benchmark for fine scholarship for Mormon religious, political, economic, and social history.2 Indeed, whatever subject one turns to he seems to have written about it. Thus you can understand why, after accepting the invitation to give the Arrington Lecture I found myself facing a terrible problem: what could I speak about that Leonard had not written about? After much searching I thought I had identified a safe topic when I discovered that at the time of Utah’s admission as a state in 1896, both Utah’s delegate, George Q. Cannon, Jr., and incoming Governor Heber M. Wells, both fantastic speakers, had been fine amateur actors for many years in Salt Lake City and that a previous territorial delegate, John T. Caine, had been both an actor and manager of the Salt Lake Theater for several decades. Moreover, Hiram Clawson, Caine’s fellow actor and comanager of the Salt Lake Theater, was not only successful in those two roles, but was the first superintendent of ZCMI. There have been many bad actors in politics, but these four men were both good actors and good politicians. Surely, I thought, the role of the 71

Howard R. Lamar

73 The Theater in Mormon Life and Culture

theater in Mormon life and culture might have escaped Leonard’s attention. But to my dismay, in my first day of research on the topic, I picked up his Brigham Young, American Moses and there on pages 288 to 93 Leonard had summarized the history of Brigham Young and the Salt Lake Theater in a brilliant, truly insightful way.3 No, ladies and gentlemen, one should never assume Leonard does not know everything. Then, to add to my dismay, Harriet Arrington, Leonard’s wife, emerged as the author of an excellent biographical sketch of Maud May Babcock, the founder of the Speech and Drama Department at the University of Utah, whom Harriet had known.4 If in the course of my remarks you see Professor and Mrs. Arrington smiling and nodding knowingly as I make a point, consider that as a clue that I am on the right track, because I will be paraphrasing their writing. I should also like to acknowledge my indebtedness to Myrtle E. Henderson, whose A History of the Theater in Salt Lake City from 1850 to 1870 I found invaluable.5 The role of the theater in society, for Western civilization at least, goes back, of course, to the Greeks and Romans, the ruins of whose impressive amphitheaters we visit as tourists today. We continue to read, produce, and attend the plays of the great Greek and Roman playwrights. Curiously, theater in northern Europe had a very different beginning, and is associated with the Christian religion. The classical theater tradition with buildings or amphitheaters did not move to Europe in medieval times. Rather, theater consisted of biblical scenes enacted first in church or cathedral altar areas. Soon, however, the performers were exiled from the church—so plays were performed outside—and eventually to market squares on feast days.6 Murray Biggs, associate professor of English and theater studies at Yale University, tells me that one of the first scenes enacted was set at the tomb of Christ with someone saying to Mary and others: “Whom do you seek?” These biblical scenes eventually became the medieval mystery plays in France and England. Although scenery became a vital part of these plays, there was never a theater in the modern sense. Indeed, often the mystery plays moved from town to town via wagons.7 The concept of theater in a building came in Renaissance Italy and almost independently in England with performances in inn courtyards that evolved into the Globe and other theaters. To make my first point, theater in Utah has its origins in English theater, and it is no accident

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that one of the inspirations for the Salt Lake Theater was the Drury Lane Theater in London. Built in 1862, the Salt Lake Theater attempted to imitate at least in its ornate interior the design of the famous London playhouse. As various historians of the Salt Lake Theater have observed, William H. Folsom, an English architect from London who admired the Drury Lane playhouse, aided in designing the interior of the building while on a visit to Salt Lake.8 Before we talk about the justly famous Salt Lake Theater, let us go to Nauvoo, Illinois, where Joseph Smith built a “fun house” for performances and dancing. Like Brigham Young, Smith believed his followers must have time for leisure and entertainment.9 What is more remarkable, George J. Adams, a young convert to Mormonism, traveled up to Philadelphia in the early 1840s on a mission. While there he persuaded his brother-in-law, 35-year-old actor Thomas A. Lyne, to consider Mormonism seriously. Not only was Philadelphia the site of the first regular theater in America, Lyne himself had played with the famous actors Edwin Forrest and his father, Junius Brutus Booth.10 Always a curious and active man, Lyne journeyed to Nauvoo to visit the Mormons. Once there he quickly befriended Joseph Smith and was soon producing plays, among them a powerful drama by Richard Brinsley Sheridan called Pizarro (1799) in which Pizarro’s brutal conquest of the noble Incas in Peru is recounted. In the play the tragic Indian hero is Rolla, who sacrifices his life to save his best friend Alonzo and Alonzo’s wife, Cora, and their child from the vindictive acts of Pizarro, who not only wanted to rule Peru but to kill Alonzo, the logical heir to the Incan throne.11 I would submit that no play could have pleased Joseph Smith and the Mormons more, for it was a paean against injustice, it defended family values to the hilt, and although Rolla is killed, Pizarro is assassinated, Alonzo and his family survive. For a fledgling religious sect having already experienced persecution in Missouri, it was a most appropriate play. In the Nauvoo performance, Brigham Young played the High Priest who blessed Rolla. Thomas A. Lyne, the actor, who later broke with the Mormons but came to perform in the Salt Lake Theater in 1862, jokingly observed that Young had been playing the role of High Priest ever since.12


That the theater was not just a casual interest of Joseph Smith is attested to by Horace G. Whitney’s account that when Thomas A. Lyne was in Nauvoo, Smith told him: “Here’s a boy who is clever at mimicry. I wish you would give him a chance.” The boy was Hiram Clawson, who then appeared in Pizarro and was later to act in hundreds of plays in Salt Lake while serving as co-manager of the Salt Lake Theater for many years with John T. Caine.13 Meanwhile we must not ignore Lyne’s powerful influence on early theatrical tastes. While at Nauvoo he played in William Tell, Virginius, Damon and Pythius, and Pizarro, all plays that the Salt Lake Theater was to present over and over again for more than four decades.14 But the point is that from the beginning of the Church of the Latter-day Saints, theater, music and dance were part of its members’ lives. Professor Biggs argues, in fact, that any society with elaborate ritual in the practice of its religion will have a healthy counterpart in secular drama.15 The trek to Utah in 1847 was so demanding no one could think of theater. By 1850, however, a group, The Deseret Dramatic Association, had formed, inspired, John Lindsay says, by members of the Nauvoo Brass Band. The group began performances in the Old Bowery, originally a brush arbor hall for both religious and social events. The first play performed was Robert Macaire in which Hiram Clawson joined with two fine amateur actors, James Ferguson and the delightful and flexible comedian Phillip Margetts, a blacksmith by trade, and with Horace Whitney, who had gotten his first taste of theater at Nauvoo. There were three women in the cast, Mrs. Oran, Margaret Judd, and Miss May Badlam. Miss Judd soon married Clawson and was, according to Myrtle E. Henderson, for many years a favorite local comedienne.16 Horace G. Whitney, son of the pioneer Horace K., recalled that “Among my earliest memories of my father are those of seeing him in our apple orchard, walking back and forth with a manuscript in his hand, committing his parts to memory.”17 The Deseret Dramatic Association argued from the first that having a theater proved that the Mormons were cultural and educated. Years later others argued that plays inform people who were not otherwise well educated about history and morality. This assertion has been repeated over and over again down to the present. Indeed, Professor Murray Biggs informs me that Queen Elizabeth, although head of the English church, approved theater in London because it not only provided entertainment, it was a sort

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The Salt Lake Theater. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

of release from tensions. And given Shakespeare’s and Ben Jonson’s historical dramas, people were certainly given a sense of history.18 By 1852 the Salt Lake drama group had moved to a more permanent building, Social Hall, located on State Street. Here indeed was something extraordinary for a frontier town: the forty by eighty foot building had a slanted floor and a level basement area for dances. The actors placed a bust of Shakespeare above the stage.19 The Deseret Dramatic Association displayed a sophistication in public relations that we must admire. The favorite Pizarro appears to have been one of the first plays acted in Social Hall, in 1853 with James Ferguson in the title role of Rolla, the tragic Incan hero. Other sources argue that Bulwer-Lytton’s remarkably effective play, The Lady of Lyons, which was also performed in 1853, was actually the first play performed in Social Hall. Whatever the case, the viewers knew Pizarro was a heavy drama full of violence and death. To relieve the tension, the Associates also performed a farce on the same night, a comedy called The Irish Lion. This


combination of tragedy and comedy was to be a device followed by the Salt Lake Theater throughout the nineteenth century. In addition, a song or a dance was performed between the acts.20 In many ways the Salt Lake players anticipated the coming of burlesque and vaudeville which swept American theaters after the Civil War. If one were to ask who were the favorite playwrights whose works were performed in Salt Lake, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton would win hands down. This incredibly prolific English author produced an unending series of popular historical novels, such as The Last Days of Pompeii, as well as plays from the 1830s to the 1850s. Three powerful plays written in 1838, 1839, and 1840, The Lady of Lyons, Richelieu, and Money, respectively, were performed over and over again in Salt Lake City.21 Although the Mormon War of 1857 had disrupted the activities of the old Deseret Dramatic Association, by 1859 the indefatigable Phillip Margetts organized and managed a new group: the Mechanics Dramatic Association. They performed in an unfinished private home owned by the Bowring family, and so it came to be called the Bowring Theater. Again we must admire the sophisticated public relations of the organizers. Having performed a delightful comedy, The Honeymoon, they asked Brigham Young and his entire family and friends to attend a special performance. Young liked the play and, as a result, is said to have been persuaded by Margetts to build the Salt Lake Theater.22 Here I rely on Leonard Arrington’s intriguing account of how the building of the theater was financed. Young gave Hiram Clawson $4,000 to buy army surplus goods from Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston at Camp Floyd. The goods were resold to Salt Lake residents for $40,000. Young then borrowed from a fund he had already set aside to build a hall for the Seventies. Somehow he raised the $100,000 it cost to construct the playhouse. Just how important this enterprise was to Young is suggested by the fact that of 183 direct employees under him, 20 were associated with the Sale Lake Theater.23 The theater building was Grecian Doric in design on the outside and resembled, as noted earlier, London’s famous Drury Lane Theater on the inside, with its four tiers of balconies, ornate gilt woodwork, and a magnificent chandelier said to have been designed and built by Brigham Young himself.24 It is worth noting that William H. Folsom, the designer and builder of this magnificent fifteen hundred seat theater, the largest

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between St. Louis and San Francisco for decades, also built the Mormon Tabernacle. The theater was opened with speeches and prayers in March 1862, and Hiram Clawson and John T. Caine were placed in charge and ran the theater for many years. It was an investment of Young’s and he made sure it made a profit. Once again the tried and true formula of a serious play— Young initially forbade tragedies and Gentile actors—was followed by a farce. In the opening year, a play, The Pride of the Market, described as “a beautiful comedy,” was followed by a farce called State Secrets. According to the newspapers, in the inter-acts Miss Sara Alexander danced.25 The biggest crisis came in 1866 – 67 when the actors, carpenters, and musicians said they could no longer work without pay—that the popularity of the theater took too much time from their regular jobs. Young argued with them, but in the end they were all given a salary.26 Once again the continuities in the theater stood out. T. A. Lyne returned, after 20 years, to perform in Pizarro, in Damon and Pythius, and to play Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, as well as William Tell, which had been performed 20 years earlier at Nauvoo. Each play was followed by Irish farces and songs. Inevitably conditions in the theater began to change. Salt Lake Theater began to import famous actors to play lead roles. Meanwhile Hiram Clawson was wearing down Young’s opposition to tragedies, and at least one local playwright, Edward W. Tullidge, had his play performed. After the coming of the railroad in 1869, operas and parodies of them were performed by traveling troupes.27 By 1869, a playbill reads as follows: Theater! Salt Lake City, U.T. . . . Sixth appearance of the talented Howson opera, burlesque & comedy troupe. operetta! concert! extravaganza!! Saturday eve. June 5, ‘69. The performance will commence with Offenbach’s comic opera, entitled, Pierette; or, La Rose St. Fleur! . . . Concert of vocal gems! . . . To conclude with, for the last time, the comical burlesque extravaganza, entitled Illtreated il trovatore; or, The mother, maiden and musicianer . . .28 It is said that parody was a form of Mormon approval of theater. Certainly parodies were performed at many levels. In 1878 W. T. Harris,

Poster advertising T. A. Lyne’s 1863 Salt Lake City appearance in Pizarro. Courtesy of Manuscripts Division, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah.

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a son-in-law of Brigham Young, did a “colored lecture”—meaning in black face, burlesquing Henry Ward Beecher’s sermons. In December, 1878, the Daily Tribune reported on a “Free Hutchinson concert at SLT.” There was, reported the Tribune, “high appreciation of the family’s generosity by frequent and rapturous applause.” The audience particularly liked the song “Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.” The paper described it as a “true vein of Yankee generosity,” that is, “mighty open-handed when it doesn’t cost anything.” And, added the Tribune, “it was terrifically applauded.”29 What is equally impressive was the range over space and in variety of form that theatrical performers took. Local dramatic clubs had formed in Provo, Springville, Ogden, Brigham City, and St. George. In October, 1878, the Salt Lake Daily Tribune reported that “Miss Susie Spencer—is going on a professional tour through southern Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana, and will be accompanied by a troupe of theatrical people of this city.”30 Concerning more local activities, the Daily Tribune reported that “The Salt Lake Amateur Dramatic Association gave a performance in the 11th ward schoolhouse tonight [of ] Nan, the Good for Nothing. This company are furnishing the various wards of the city with their dramatic entertainments.” The Tribune wryly noted that the actors could have been better. Indeed, said the reviewers, “the majority might take any amount of polish and have room for more.”31 After Brigham Young’s death in 1877, the fare was often more a minstrel show or burlesque than not. As Myrtle Henderson has observed, the playbills now included such things as M. B. Leavitt’s European Novelties, Rice’s Burlesque, acrobats, and later, John Philip Sousa’s band.32 By the 1880s the variety was almost bewildering. When the competing Walker Opera House was built in the 1880s, the Salt Lake Theater felt so threatened it allowed a traveling burlesque show called “Adamless Eden” to be performed. This combined satirical comedy with sexy display of women’s legs—always in pink tights. The Gentile Salt Lake Daily Tribune reported that the audience was largely Latter-day elders, gamblers, and prostitutes and predicted that if it traveled to other Western cities it would be suppressed due to outraged public opinion.33 Yet the commercialization of the Salt Lake Theater did not stifle local talent. A new generation of Mormon youths proved to be as stage struck


as their elders had been. In 1872 a local youth, James A. McKnight, wrote a play called The Robber of the Rockies which he and friends got permission to perform in the Salt Lake Theater. The sons of Brigham Young, the Wellses, the Clawsons, and the Whitneys appear to have performed in this production.34 Meanwhile Salt Lake teenagers were enlisted as soldiers in Macbeth, as Indians in the play Pocohantas, and in Pinafore. Horace Whitney recalls that when Maude Adams’s mother returned to Salt Lake to produce a play called The Two Orphans, Orson Whitney, Heber M. Wells, and John D. Spence were enlisted as extras.35 This younger group, with others, formed the Home Dramatic Club and performed until 1894. In the process Horace Whitney reports that future governor Heber M. Wells progressed from comedy roles to those of leading men. Heber Wells’s lifetime interest is suggested by the fact that he was still secretary of the Salt Lake Dramatic Association in 1915.36 Amateur theatricals and recitals were an important activity for other young persons in the 1870s. In a single week a young Mormon man raised money for his mission with an evening of recitals and vocal and instrumental pieces in the twentieth ward school house. There was even a Gentile teenage minstrel troupe that gave performances.37 The Thespian Association of the twenty-first ward performed “Ten Nights in a Bar Room.” Meanwhile the Latter-day Saints had been the critical subject of plays by Easterners that characterized them as either comic or villainous people. A play by Thomas Dunn English, The Mormons, a Life in Salt Lake City, produced in 1858, told how a New York alderman came to Salt Lake to reform the Mormons, but instead left the city with a gift of 13 wives! Deseret Deserted, or the Last Days of Brigham Young described Salt Lake City as “the paradise of Mahomet,” identifying polygamy with Islamic plural marriage.38 In a much harsher vein a play called The Danites, or the Heart of the Sierra (1877), by Alexander Fitzpatrick and the poet Joaquin Miller, suggested that the Mormons practiced murder and rapine. Generally speaking, however, portrayals in the East made Mormons comic figures right into the 1930s.39 By the turn of the century amateur groups, who had played supporting roles when famous actors or actresses came to town, had been marginalized by traveling stock companies who brought entire casts and scenery with them. The Salt Lake Theater now paid royalty fees for using New

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York plays. George Dollinger Pyper, who, along with Phillip Margetts, was possibly the most popular and beloved actor and musician in the history of Salt Lake theater and served as one of the last directors of the Salt Lake Theater, was constantly involved in negotiating with New York theatrical syndicates such as Klaw and Erlanger and the Shuberts. This was now a big business, for in 1915 there were still fifteen hundred legitimate theaters operating outside of New York City.40

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f I might change my chronological narrative for a few moments, let me comment on the nature of the plays most frequently performed in the years 1850 to 1890 and on what role the Mormons thought theater played in their lives. It has already been noted that both performers and citizens saw the theater as one of the truest signs of civilization a society could aspire to because it was educational as well as entertaining. Second, virtually all of the plays performed emphasized the achievement of nobility through virtue. It was also the case that practically all of the popular plays featured kings and nobles, fancy costumes, and European hierarchy rather than themes of democracy and equalitarianism. The main theme, however, was the triumph of virtue. The third characteristic was love of comedy, burlesque, and vaudeville —the latter a family event which was popular by the end of the century. This was a theatrical-musical tradition that was popular not only in London but in the midlands, the area from which so many English Mormon converts had come. The insistence on having songs, dances, and a farce at the end of a serious play and the success of vaudeville and burlesque continued that old world tradition.41 The strong Mormon musical tradition was, in turn, highly compatible with Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Pinafore was an early favorite, and the newspapers tell us that rehearsals for The Mikado were going well and that the costumes had arrived from San Francisco, along with twenty-six pairs of Japanese shoes for the ladies, ranging in size from 1 to 10.42 Where would the twentieth century story of theater in Utah lead? For this part of the narrative I am grateful to Harriet Arrington and to David G. Pace.43 Pace has written a fascinating summary of the career


of Maud May Babcock, the first woman to gain professional rank at the University of Utah, where she taught several thousand students oratory, speech, physical education, and acting for forty-six years.44 In 1891 when Miss Babcock was teaching a physical culture class at the Harvard University Summer School, her class was attended by Susa Young Gates, Brigham Young’s strong-minded suffragette daughter. Susa Young Gates was captivated by Babcock’s teaching and helped persuade her to come to the University of Utah as an instructor of elocution. In the course of her long tenure there, Maud May, or “Miss B” as her students called her, produced and directed over three hundred stage productions and helped start a regional theater movement inspired by the Little Theater Movement, which had begun in Chicago and eventually swept the country. But always interested in physical culture and athletics, she also helped organize the first women’s basketball games in Utah, where, as Harriet Arrington has noted, she introduced the innovative bloomersuit which disclosed the knee and ankle.45 David Pace and virtually everyone she worked with declare that Maud May Babcock was one of the most vigorous, dynamic, free-ranging, articulate, and influential women teachers in America. Wanda Clayton Thomas, who was a professor in the Communications Department at the University of Utah, recalls that “this woman could frighten you to pieces; a woman of great dignity, [who] could also be the sweetest.”46 Born in New York State in 1867, Babcock graduated from the National School of Oratory in Philadelphia and from the Lyceum School of Acting in New York City. At the Lyceum her mentor was Alfred Ayres, a well-known Shakespearean scholar who told her that “If you can read Shakespeare properly you can read anything.” Babcock also studied in London and Paris. After coming to Utah she soon attracted hundreds of students to her class and in 1893 used the Salt Lake Theater for an exhibition of “fancy steps, attitudinizing muscular poses, drills, dances, Swedish movement, and Indian club and dumbbell performances.” In 1895 one hundred of her female students performed what was to become the first play produced by a university in the United States. Called Eleusinia, it included “living statues of toga-ed figures in statuesque groups inspired by the Greek legends of Demeter and Persephone.” The play, writes David Pace, was “a smashing success.”47

Maud May Babcock. Courtesy of Manuscripts Division, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah.


By 1897 Babcock had organized the University Dramatic Club, which performed an impressive array of major plays over the next few years, among them George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and Ibsen’s Pillars of Society. One of Babcock’s students was Herbert Maw, future governor of Utah, whom she realized was terribly shy. Somehow she got him to play Theseus the King in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, telling him to act and speak like one. As Maw, in a tribute to Babcock, recalled, “Thus followed six or eight weeks of torture” in which she taught him to “read and stress lines.” “Make thoughts stand out,” she told him. She also criticized his walking:. “. . . she had to teach me to walk with dignity—the dignity of a king!” Maw recalled that “I learned to walk with self-control, and when I walked on the stage the opening night with my queen at my side, I was the king.”48 Maw must have been good because he later became an instructor in the University of Utah Speech and Theater Department, despite being a lawyer and having begun his political career. Faculty members who studied under Babcock feel that her insistence that you “become” the person you are portraying, anticipated or paralleled the famous Stanislavsky method of acting.49 Over the next twenty years Babcock became head of the Department of Speech and helped found the College of Physical Education, which included instruction in dance. As noted above she was very much into the Little Theater Movement and conducted the first university little theater west of the Mississippi. In 1930 she got her own theater in Kingsbury Hall, in which she produced Maurice Maeterlink’s The Bluebird. When she retired in 1938, the university named the student stage at Pioneer Memorial Theater for her.50 “Miss B” trained not only four generations of college students in speech and drama but many others through her work as a devout Mormon in the LDS Mutual Improvement Association.

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f I have demonstrated any theme this evening, it is that there has been a remarkable continuity and intimacy in the relation of Mormon culture and life to the theater. Beginning in Nauvoo when Joseph Smith built a “fun hall” and hired T. A. Lyne to produce plays, among them Sheridan’s Pizzaro, young Mormons such as Horace K. Whitney became enamored

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of the stage, as did the boy Hiram Clawson. Forty years later in Salt Lake City Horace Whitney had been in dozens of theatrical productions and his two sons, Horace G. and Orson F., were performers in a youth theatrical movement. In 1862 T. A. Lyne came to Salt Lake to direct and act in familiar plays in the Salt Lake Theater, now managed by John T. Caine and Hiram Clawson. Perhaps the most impressive example of devoted continuity, however, is demonstrated by the Margetts family. Phillip Margetts, a pioneer blacksmith by trade, not only had helped found the first players groups but also had been Salt Lake’s favorite comedian since the 1850s, just as Mrs. Clawson, a daughter of Brigham Young, had remained a favorite comedienne. But Phillip Margetts’s son, Phillip Margetts, Jr., continued the family tradition as an actor, and one of his nephews, Ralph Margetts, became a professor of theater at the University of Utah in this century. To read Everett L. Cooley’s 1883 interview with Ralph Margetts as part of the University of Utah’s Oral History Project is to realize how central acting was to this family. As Ralph Margetts recalled to Cooley, I believe I knew who Julia Dean Hayne [a visiting actress who captivated Salt Lake audiences] was before I knew who George Washington was. As a matter of fact, Julia Dean Hayne’s photograph was hanging on our wall.51 Ralph Margetts worked at scores of jobs and served in World War II—wherever he was he joined an acting group, including the Pasadena Playhouse—before finally returning to Utah to take a master’s and a Ph.D. His master’s thesis, incidentally, was on his grandfather’s theatrical life and his dissertation was on the career of Julia Dean Hayne.52 This phenomenon calls for, I think, a profound reassessment of the nature of Mormon social life, at least in Salt Lake City in the nineteenth century. None of the plays performed involved hostility toward American political persecution, or a defense of polygamy or other church doctrines. Although each play, and rehearsals as well, began with a prayer, the plays themselves were not religious tracts. Nor did the plays echo frontier beliefs, although a play about Davy Crockett was very popular. As suggested earlier, the plays were often set in Europe.


All the actors were, of course, playing someone they were not. Was this an effort to escape the limitations of life in Utah, or romantic fantasy? Or an effort to seek release from what might seem a stern religion full of “thou shalt nots”? Or was it an effort to do the forbidden, or even to parody the everyday life of the Saints? All of these feelings were probably there in varying guises and degrees, but they were not the dominant ones. Rather most saw it as closely related to their Mormon lifestyle. Although it is only conjecture, I think the joyous embrace of the theater stemmed from two factors: one is that theater is exotic. The theater is also life, but so was the Mormon experience. The greatest drama was the origins of the Latter-day Saints, a drama in which they were already involved and in which they had a role to play. The second was that the church itself had many religious rituals in which a single individual might assume many roles; a tradesman by profession might perform as a bishop as well as an official in temple ceremonies, all pointing toward a progression into other roles. Duties in their wards led both parents and youths to assume multiple roles as well. How natural then to assume roles in an enjoyable dramatic production and how exciting, yet related, was the contrast to daily life. The theater was thus both a logical part of one’s existence and still another way of realizing one’s self. As Bulwer-Lytton put it, by realizing one’s potential one realized one’s identity.53 Governor Maw’s moving from shy student to Theseus the King is but one example. Heber M. Wells was not only an amateur leading man but a powerful speechmaker as the incoming governor of Utah in 1896.54 Given the immediacy of the Salt Lake Theater and the need for female actors, most of whom were Mormon wives, it was inevitable that actresses would be viewed differently. Women on stage in the nineteenth century were generally viewed as loose, if not fallen, women. Not so in Utah. As veteran actor John Lindsay wrote in his memoirs, “Woman had long since demonstrated her equality with man in the arena of dramatic art.”55 The respectful tributes to favorite actresses, whether local or imported, was striking. One of the most powerful performers visiting at the Salt Lake Theater was Julia Dean Hayne. She was the city’s heroine. Brigham Young actually fashioned a huge snow sleigh for outing parties and named it the Julia Dean. Mrs. Cyrus Wheelock’s performance in The Lady of Lyons was such that she was painted in

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the role by artist Solomon Nunes Carvalho, who was in Salt Lake City as a member of one of John C. Frémont’s independent expeditions.56 The performances of Young’s own children, female and male, created an atmosphere of approbation unique to the theater. All of this is epitomized in the accolades for Maude Adams, who, though born in Utah, which she always claimed as her true home, had her incredible success in New York as both actress—notably in Sir John Barrie’s Peter Pan—and manager of the Empire Theater in New York City for decades. Nevertheless she has become an icon of Utah’s theater buffs. The respect for Adams as woman and actress was fostered by favorable views of women on stage in Salt Lake City. Indeed her mother Asenath Anne Adams performed on the Utah stage before moving to California.57 Maud May Babcock, both dramatist and suffragette, as great as her accomplishments were, came into a remarkably friendly environment so far as theater and women in theater were concerned. It is equally important to remember another continuity: the intricate relation of music, dance, and recitation to theater throughout, as well as the role of humor. Attendees at the Salt Lake Theater laughed and laughed at comedians, farces, minstrels, and story tellers. The grim outside image of Mormons as so intensively religious and polygamy obsessed that they could not allow for laughter and fun, must be corrected. The destruction of the Salt Lake Theater in 1928 to make way for a parking lot and commercial buildings was not a sign Utah was abandoning theater. Rather, it was a symbol that the old had made way for dozens of new theatrical enterprises in Utah. I need not comment on theater in Utah today—it is more lively and flourishing than ever. In Logan alone you have a distinguished teacher, Floyd Morgan, and a theater is named after him. Ruth and Vasco Call’s Children’s Theater, known through the West, is outstanding. Theater studies at the University of Utah furnish an amazing number of youthful actors and dancers for the New York stage, and the Utah Summer Shakespeare Festival at Cedar City is one of the great theatrical events in the entire West. It is no accident that theater, dance, and music thrive on Utah campuses, for it is a long tradition that these arts are educational. I end with a plea. I have just broached the subject of the role of the theater in Mormon culture and life, but I hope this will be an invitation for scholars and writers to see the Mormon past in a different


light—to see happiness in the lives of a people in everyday life, to appreciate the English theatrical heritage as we have come to appreciate the Scandinavian rural and village heritage, and to investigate the remarkable rich and complex traditions of role playing in both the religious and secular life of this state, and not least, to explore the special status of women on the Utah stage. I would like to conclude with two quotations. The first comes from the last lines of Brigham Young’s favorite Bulwer-Lytton play, The Lady of Lyons, in which the hero, Claude Melnotte, has won his wife, Pauline, by fraudulent claims as to who he is. He claimed to be a prince but was really a peasant. In disgrace, he goes off to war and comes home a hero and then discovers that despite his misleading her, she loves him dearly. They are reconciled and exclaim: Ah! The same love that tempts us to sin if it be true love, works out its redemption. And he who seeks repentance for the Past, Should woo the Angel Virtue in the future.58 It was a sentiment with which every Salt Lake theater-goer probably agreed. The last quotation is from John S. Lindsay, a veteran of many acting groups in Salt Lake City, who declared that the early Social Hall theatrical group was a major event in the history of Utah. “It may be truly said that it marked an epoch in the development of civilization in the Rocky Mountain region.”59 I think I would agree.

Claudia L. Bushman

5 Mormon Domestic Life in the 1870s Pandemonium or Arcadia?

Claudia L. Bushman I am greatly honored to be delivering this lecture in honor of Leonard J. Arrington, a person who has so deeply influenced me as well as a generation of others. Leonard was present for the first four of these lectures. He is no longer with us. I have been pleased to inspect his new portrait, however, and to see that it projects the authentic Arrington persona. Those coming along will be able to get an inkling of this remarkable man. Certainly those of us who knew him have greatly benefitted from the experience. This evening I will revisit Zion in the early 1870s when the desert was actually blossoming. William Staines, Brigham Young’s gardener, recalled the garden festivals in Salt Lake City. At first, the Utah peaches had been winter killed, year after year. Eventually, Staines could exhibit a half bushel of fruit. And by the 1870s he could point, with pardonable pride, to thousands of orchards and vineyards thriving in Utah in fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise.1 Now, over a hundred years later, those same orchards are disappearing acre by acre, as is the society that made them grow. Tonight we revisit the time when the early settlers of Utah were reaping the first fruits of their labors in building homes and planting gardens. Eastern interest in the Mormons had not decreased. In 1870, the gap was narrowing between the people in the desert stronghold and the rest of the nation, and the Eastern press presented a succession of caricatures of them. The Mormons had purposely distanced themselves from the United States, but after 1869, the transcontinental railroad crossed the plains they had laboriously walked for over twenty years. The Mormons were steadily pulled back into the national orbit. The railroad and the 91

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telegraph kept Utahns in close touch with the East, while also bringing the Mormons under unwelcome scrutiny. Visitors came to inspect and reform this strange sect. Much of the outsiders’ attention focused on Mormon women. In the 1870s, women became critical, central figures in the church’s relationship with the world. Visitors were immensely curious to know about the oppressed polygamous wives. How could civilized women submit to this enslaving patriarchal system? Ignorant women must have been coerced and held under duress. On the other hand, the Mormon women sometimes reversed this negative judgment by their refinement and independence. The case for or against Mormonism rested on its women. With this attention on women, the Mormon household was suddenly charged with meaning; the quality of home life measured the success of the Mormon experiment. A well-set table or a floor rug gauged Brigham Young’s success in creating a viable western kingdom. Were these people really civilized? Household evidence provided the answer. In this atmosphere, the visit of Thomas and Elizabeth Kane to Utah in 1872 assumed an importance beyond the ordinary. They came as privileged guests of Brigham Young because of Thomas Leiper Kane’s role in defending the Mormons. Kane had interceded for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on several occasions, notably in connection with the Mormon battalion in 1846 and later in 1857–58 when he came to Utah to help mediate the Utah War. The Kane connection continued to benefit the Mormons in succeeding years. Everett L. Cooley notes that Kane’s services were sought in 1869, and in 1871, Brigham Young urged Kane to come to Utah to confer on governmental matters. In 1872, after an unsuccessful run for Congress in Pennsylvania, Kane agreed to the trip, partially for health reasons. He had never been robust, and still suffered from Civil War wounds acquired when he mustered and served as colonel of the “Wildcat” Bucktail Regiment of 307 Pennsylvania backwoodsmen. The New York Tribune noted Kane’s reputation for hard service and “unflinching” loyalty.2 Kane also hoped to write a book on Brigham Young3 during the St. George winter. Thomas Kane was exceedingly sympathetic to the Mormons. His speech before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1850 glowingly described a visit to Nauvoo. He spoke of the Mormons’ impressive

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Mormon Domestic Life in the 1870s

industry and enterprise. He was complimentary of the women, in their worn clothes, who kept the “altar fire of home” alive on the trail, as their first duty. Kane’s friends urged him to tone down his praise of the Mormons, but he said that he could not, referring to their “general correctness of deportment, and purity of character.” When critics, “with a vile meaning,” noted that he said little about the marital practices, he praised the women as everything that Americans dignified by “the names of mother, wife, and sister.”4 Kane’s sympathy and his governmental service made him a Utah hero. Kane’s wife Elizabeth did not share his enthusiasm for the Mormons. She was frank in her distaste for their way of life, particularly polygamy and, reflecting what she had read in the East, suspected that the women were ignorant and misguided. Only her hopes for her husband’s improved health had brought her on this journey. Still, while traveling from Salt Lake to St. George, she inspected the women with curiosity to see what Mormonism had wrought. She sent letters home describing the contradictions and opposites she observed. Was this pandemonium or Arcadia? The economy had aspects of the industrialized east and the primitive west. The people dressed in homespun while following Eastern fashion and genteel behavior. Kane herself was caught between revulsion and admiration. Mrs. Kane, with literary skill and fixed opinions, was equipped to observe and judge the Mormon women. She came from a large traditional Christian family and was convinced of their superior ways. Born in 1836, she was the third child of six in an upper-middle-class merchant family devoted to business and Christian living. Her father traveled between Great Britain and the United States, and he was frequently away on business. During separations, the parents wrote long letters setting out their opinions of family life. They quite clearly saw their Protestant Christianity as God’s way. When Elizabeth was a child living in Liverpool, her mother’s cousin Thomas L. Kane, then about sixteen, came to visit. He was “a little fellow . . . full of mannerism,” which he continued to display throughout his life. When he went on to Paris, young Kane was arrested as a spy, the police suspecting the small, young man of a sinister purpose. Forceful beyond his age and size, Tom made the police apologize,5 foretelling his verbal effectiveness. Elizabeth, precocious herself, loved him

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from an early age and planned to marry him.6 He began to court her when she was fifteen, and they married the next year.7 When the Kanes visited Utah, some twenty years later, they traveled by train from Pennsylvania to Salt Lake City. The Woman’s Exponent, a new periodical, announced their presence, indicating the reverence in which Kane was held: “General Thos. L. Kane . . . has been paying our city a visit with his wife and two children. The heartfelt prayers of thousands have often been offered up for him, for the truthful and noble manner in which he recorded the acts and sufferings of a devoted people in their struggles to preserve their religious liberty. . . . We regret to learn, though, that Mrs. Kane contracted a severe cold on their way this far westward.”8 Kane was revered, but the editor had some doubt about the wife. Kane was a sympathetic insider, his wife admired but distant, known only through her husband. Still, the Mormons were hopeful. Eliza R. Snow, then en route to the Holy Land, wrote to Brigham Young, “I am heartily glad that Gen. Kane is with you, and also that his dear ‘Bessie’ is with him. How I would like to make her acquaintance personally, although I have heard the General speak of her so much, I almost feel that she is an intimate acquaintance.”9 From Salt Lake, the Kanes took the Utah Southern Railroad as far as Lehi. Thence they embarked in carriages with six baggage wagons to travel hundreds of miles south. The party of sixteen included church leaders, their families, Thomas and Elizabeth Kane, their two youngest sons, and their cook, a “colored gemman.” Traveling through the desert landscape, they stopped each evening at one of the small settlements along the way. Kane, disoriented from Eastern life, felt herself moving into a different world, an old Syrian Biblical world. She felt she was meeting ancient pastoral people like those Isaiah spoke to who had also come out of Egypt in search of a Promised Land.10 Kane was part of a religious procession. Twice a day, the travelers gathered for long prayers. Everyone attended and knelt while an honored person prayed aloud in great detail, nomads praying over congressional action. Elizabeth Kane participated and observed, describing and recording the scenes, as she clearly stated her prejudices. At the start of the journey south, Elizabeth Kane and Brigham Young circled each other warily. They were, after all, competitors for the interest and affection of Thomas L. Kane. Elizabeth found Young colorful

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and flamboyant. She described him inspecting the wagon train “like a well-intentioned wizard” carrying an odd six-sided staff. He wore a great fur-lined cloak of dark-green cloth reaching to his feet, as well as a fur collar, cap, and sealskin boots with undyed fur outside. At first amused, she soon respected him. When he removed his green goggles, his “keen, blue-gray eyes met mine with their characteristic look of shrewd and cunning insight. I felt no further inclination to laugh.”11 She later praised his “wonderful voice” and “very distinct enunciation”: “He seems to be using only an easy conversational tone, yet is distinctly heard at the farthest part of the Meeting.” She described him as “shrewd and full of common sense.” When he visited in Parowan, he gave his attention to everyone who came near him. “I used to fancy that he wasted a great deal of power in this way,” she noted, “but I soon saw that he was accumulating [power].” Her admiration, however, was undercut by his Mormon identity. When he answered a question as a Mormon, she was completely taken aback. “I felt as if I had asked one lunatic his opinion of another!” “Poor Brigham Young,” she later remarked. “With such powers, what might he not be but for this Slough of Polygamy in which he is entangled!”12 Elizabeth Kane described the Mormon women after observing them at the first church meeting she attended in Nephi: “I was so placed that I had a good opportunity to look around, and began at once to seek for the ‘hopeless, dissatisfied, worn’ expression travelers’ books had bidden me read on their faces.” But she found no hopeless, worn expressions. She saw ordinary women who looked like those in any large rustic congregation.13 If these were normal women, how could she then account for their faithful adherence to this unsettling faith? At first she thought “somewhat contemptuously,” that these were “ignorant English women led astray,” few of them being educated. She found women of the “smallshop keeping class,” who plainly lacked “superficial culture.” But she later came to another explanation: “These are women sufficiently educated to have studied their Bibles, and are clever enough to feel the difference” between the simple Christianity of the New Testament and the excesses of the Anglican state church in England. In her distinction between sincere and ornamental Christianity, she blamed the excesses of Christian churches for the success of the Mormons. She met many

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Englishwomen who were thoughtful and intelligent, who expressed themselves clearly and sometimes eloquently about their faith. She saw fewer American Mormons among the recent converts, and again, she postulated that American churches were “a little less far from the Primitive Church of the Apostles,”14 than English churches. She divined no virtue in the church of the Mormons itself. Those who joined must be reacting against existing Christian churches. Kane’s observations of the Utah trip afford a glimpse into the households and lives of Mormon women through the eyes of an astute observer. Her details take us inside a number of 1872 households. We look mostly into the homes of the elite Church leaders where Kane’s prosperous hosts prepared carefully and offered their best in a combination of refinement and simplicity. But Kane also visited common homes. In Scipio, “the poorest and newest of the settlements,” she visited the bishop’s second wife in a one-roomed, log-cabin with a lean-to behind, a fair specimen of the humbler homes she visited. She noted the “unusual cleanliness.” The living-room was given up to us. Its main glory consisted in a wide chimney-place, on whose hearth a fire of great pine logs blazed, that sent a ruddy glow over the white-washed logs of the wall and the canvas ceiling, and penetrated every corner of the room with delicious light and warmth. There was a substantial bedstead in one corner, and curtains of old-fashioned chintz were tacked from the ceiling around it as if it had been a four-poster, and a neat patchwork counterpane covered the soft feather-bed. A good rag-carpet was on the floor; clean white curtains hung at the windows; and clean white covers, edged with knitted lace, covered the various bracket-shelves that supported the housewife’s Bible, Book of Mormon, work-basket, looking-glass, and a few simple ornaments. Two or three pretty good colored prints hung on the walls. Then there was a mahogany bureau, a washstand, a rocking-chair, and half a dozen wooden ones, with a large chest on which the owner’s name was painted. . . . The small, round table was already spread for our supper with cakes, preserves, and pies; and the fair Lydia was busily engaged in bringing in hot rolls, meat, tea, and other good things, while a miniature of

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herself, still fairer and rosier, about two years old, trotted beside her. . . .with the assistance of a blue-ribboned yellow kitten.15 What is interesting in this modest and charming scene? All the specifics, under flattering firelight, are positive. Textiles, all imported from the East, bring comfort and refinement: the chintz of the bed curtains, the cloth of the good rag-carpet and neat patchwork counterpane, the clean white curtains and bracket covers are all produced far from Scipio. Fabrics soften surfaces and are enhanced by the artistic eye and hand of the housewife. The covers of the bracket-shelves, edged with knitted lace, turn utility to decoration; the kitten wears a blue ribbon; the bed-curtains suggest a four-poster bed, although the wife must tack the curtains into place rather than drawing them. Yet the cabin shows no textile producing equipment, no loom nor spinning wheel, and no sewing machine. None of the women visited engaged in any textile production but knitting.16 The shelves hold scriptures for religion, a work-basket for hand-work, and a looking-glass for beauty. The “few simple ornaments,” not described, are beauty for its own sake. Kane’s hostess has a mahogany bureau, a washstand, a rocking chair, and six straight chairs, as well as a large chest. These wooden items were probably not made in Scipio. The furniture was likely purchased in Salt Lake City, perhaps made there, as artisans were skilled at faux wood grains, imitating the fine and fashionable furniture of the East. The furniture might have been freighted from the East and on to Scipio, though. So this pretty second wife in her clean, one-roomed log cabin enhanced every surface: the walls were white-washed and the ceiling covered with canvas. She imitated, as best she could, a more elaborate, refined interior. And she succeeded, according to her critical guest. These people roughed it no more than they had to. Compare this picture to the first home of M. I. Horne, a pioneer of 1847, whose first two-room house thirty years before had neither floors nor doors. Lumber then had to be laboriously pitsawn. The Hornes made a bed by boring holes in two log walls and inserting poles which met at one single foot. Rawhide strips were woven to form a mattress. Packing boxes were adapted as cupboards, tables, and stools. No fabric was mentioned. But even this true pioneer house relied on the technology

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of the East; the Hornes had brought a little cook stove, a rocking chair, two small windows, and even the packing boxes with them.17 Compared to the Horne’s primitive house, the fair Lydia of Scipio had made her place very nice, and she served well-prepared food. Lydia’s sister wife, the first Mrs. Thompson, was no slouch either. She had what Elizabeth Kane called “faculty,” serving meals with “heat in them and coolness in herself.” Kane expressed “wonder at her deft ways,” and asked, “Ought I to despise that woman? She certainly came up to Solomon’s ideal of a virtuous wife.”18 The triumph of cleanliness over dirt is stunning considering the tiny houses in barren settlements. In Cove Creek Fort, Kane thought her hostess, with children hanging to her skirts, would have difficulty providing any food at all for her hungry guests. But she noted “the shining cleanliness of the table-linen and glass” and then discovered that every drop of water was carried a mile and a half into the settlement.19 Devotion to cleanliness triumphed even in a poor house where “everything was spotlessly clean, but everything showed the marks of poverty. The rag-carpet had large holes in it, but then the edges of each hole were carefully bound with wide braid.” The rug was past darning, but the housewife still made it nice.20 Kane found many fine houses and orderly towns. One of Bishop Lorenzo Snow’s wives in St. George lived in a nice adobe house with pretty mauve-tinted paper on the walls, windows neatly draped with white curtains, a nice rag carpet on the floor, knitted mats before the door and fireplace, a lounge, rocking chair, and sewing machine. Someone even played the melodeon.21 A house in Payson had two wellfurnished parlors and a costly carpet, all “virtuously clean and wellaired,” with trailing plants climbing around the windows and a singing canary.22 Provo, with its adobe or unburnt brick houses, was a dovecolored city. “The walls of the best houses in Provo were white or lightcolored, and, with their carved wooden window-dressings and piazzas and corniced roofs, looked trim as if fresh from the builder’s hand.”23 Even more primitive towns had wide streets, young fruit trees, and irrigation water. Each town had its open central square, some unfenced, some surrounded by the crumbling adobe and cobble-stone walls of the old forts. These towns were laid out with community identities rather than miscellaneous structures.24 Less than twenty-five years after settlement,

The sisters of the Provo 3rd Ward Relief Society. Courtesy of LDS Archives.

This early painting of Parowan, Utah, artist unknown, shows houses grouped around a center block where the fine Parowan Rock Church was constructed in 1870. Courtesy of Special Collections, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University.

Beaver, Utah, about 1875. Note the ambitious buildings and the fence. Courtest of LDS Archives.

Pine Valley, Utah, about 1870, a small Mormon settlement in the shadow of the mountains. Courtesy of LDS Archives.

William Carter Staines, Brigham Young’s gardener, who made the desert fruitful. Courtesy of LDS Archives.

Elizabeth Wood Kane, articulate visitor to Mormondom in 1872–73. Courtesy of Manuscripts Division, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah.

The Cedar City Tithing Office, bordered by flourishing young trees. Courtesy of LDS Archives.

This photograph of Cedar City ca. 1890 from the Alva Matheson collection shows telegraph lines already in place when Elizabeth Kane visited, as well as the more mature trees of the town. Courtesy of Special Collections, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University.

The presidency of the Provo 3rd Ward Relief Society. Courtesy of LDS Archives.

William H. Dame and three of his four wives of Parowan. Elizabeth Kane, who referred to Dame as Bishop Norman, mistook one of his wives for a daughter. Of interest in this picture are the knitted lace, the prominent featuring of the fruit, and the house which is finished on the front, but not on the side. Courtesy of Special Collections, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University.

The daughters of LDS Sunday School leaders. Courtesy of LDS Archives.

Two views of Salt Lake City’s Main Street in the 1870s. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved.

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Utah had civilization of the Eastern style even in tiny towns far from Salt Lake City. By the time the railroad arrived, Utah was already saturated with national domestic culture. All this squares with the advice of the Woman’s Exponent, the LDS journal published to critique Eastern views of Mormon women. The Exponent described no houses but gave the theory of refinement in its Household Hints column. This language, from Eastern periodicals, viewed woman as ornamental, the gracious mistress of the house, a very high standard for people in small log cabins. Here is an example: “A lady never appears to so much advantage as when doing the honors of her home. There she has opportunity for the full development of her character and a display of the charms which are truly her highest ornaments.”25 The descriptions go well beyond the virtues observed by Elizabeth Kane but stand as the accepted aspiration. Another quotation told “every true woman to look as beautiful” as she could, “to brighten and gladden the world with her loveliness” so her mind will become “the home of sweet and lovely things.”26 The high standard was tempered by hard actualities for the poor, hatchet-faced pioneer women. But the generally light-hearted, realistic Exponent ran a continuous stream of refinement talk. One entry told the women that real etiquette was natural and not learned from books27 and charged the pioneers to turn out educated and poised children even as they eschewed outward fashion. The Exponent, advocating Victorian gentility, relentlessly urged ever higher standards of behavior. Kane recorded her views of people, as well as houses. She was curious about life in polygamy, a condition to which she was clearly averse. How did women relate to their husbands and sister wives? While the Exponent urged lofty standards in marital relationships as in housekeeping, Elizabeth Kane observed real people and her comments yield interesting nuances. How did these women get along with each other and with their husbands? Where were their primary loyalties? What kind of marital relationship could a man have with several wives? She visited a “lovely-looking wom[a]n” who feared Mrs. Kane might have misunderstood her remarks on a previous visit. She had said then, laughingly, “Oh Mrs. K. don’t you ever consent to give your husband another wife! It’s a perfect pleasure to see one woman as happy as you are.” The remark suggested that a woman was not happy under

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polygamy and that she regretted allowing her husband another wife. But the woman’s later explanation of the earlier remark was “that she had not been envious: that she was perfectly satisfied with her condition as a plural wife, and thought her husband the best man on the whole earth. She admitted that if she had married the young man whom she had once loved in the ‘States’ and she had been henceforward his one darling wife that her earthly felicity might have been greater. But he was poor, they were very young, and when she joined the Saints he parted from her. And he had turned out badly.” What do we get from this? Plurality brought satisfaction. She respected her husband, but did not expect the romance of young love. Love was sacrificed to eternal concerns. She felt that the “highest elevation in the next world” required plural marriage. She, and many others, were content to live dutifully in expectation of a glorious future. Devotion to the gospel and a belief in a higher purpose kept them in polygamy. Kane responded that she would be content with a lower place in heaven rather than sacrifice her “undivided ownership of a husband” on earth. She concluded that an intimate relationship of mind and heart, was impossible under polygamy.28 How did these husbands and wives get along? Relationships seemed to be formal. In St. George she stayed with Erastus Snow in the Big House. The first day, he brought his wife Artemisia in for some pleasant conversation. Kane was nonplussed when he returned in a few minutes with another woman he introduced “with grave simplicity” as his wife Minerva. A few minutes later, he was back with another woman, Elizabeth. A fourth, Julia Josephine was indisposed. Kane was always surprised when the Mormons said “my wife” and not “one of my wives.” Snow brought in his wives individually rather than as a group, indicating that the relationship was between the husband and each wife, rather than the family.29 Could a husband of several wives actually love each one? Kane was surprised by evidence that they could and did. In Prairie Dog Hollow, Thomas Kane inquired about the wife of an old friend. The husband sadly produced her picture, speaking with great emotion of her death two years before. “Here, at last,” Elizabeth Kane exulted to herself, “is one man, high in Mormon esteem, yet a monogamist.” She was dumfounded to discover two other beloved wives.30 Bishop Macbeth’s house

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in Beaver, under the direction of his pretty, invalid wife, appeared thoroughly monogamic in tone. Kane’s satisfied diary note reads, “once more under a true wife’s roof.” But, she discovered, Macbeth had three wives.31 The husbands seemed devoted to individual multiple wives and did not seem to think them interchangeable. One sister wife thought that “of all the forlorn creatures . . . a man that has lost a wife is the forlornest. . . . He don’t know what to do for himself.” Her own husband had lost three wives since they had been married, and “I’m sure you’d have pitied him! He seemed so lost, we (we meaning the other wives!) scarcely knew how to comfort him.”32 If a parent might love several children individually with a great love, perhaps a husband might also love and value several wives as individuals. While these women loved and respected their husbands, the wives themselves often moved in interesting counterpoint, almost like a married couple themselves. The women figured as the basic group while the men were less distinct, away, sometimes scarcely mentioned. When Mrs. McDiarmid, whom Kane had fancied an only wife, turned out to have four sister-wives, Kane asked whether the women were generally happier living together or in individual houses. Happier together, she was told. “If a man governed his wives according to the Gospel, and they tried to live up to their religion, they were far happier together.” In her case the harmony was due to her husband’s just government; he treated them all exactly alike. She was “treated with the utmost respect” as the first wife and the head of the family; she got information from the husband and managed affairs with the other wives.33 In this apparent contradiction, all were equal, but some were more equal than others. Apart from the family, the women worked together in the Relief Society, an institution of growing importance, Kane observed, because “women are found to give their confidence more freely to each other than to men.” A major responsibility of the sisters was to “pick up the dropped stitches of the Bishops.”34 The monthly Fast Day provided a holiday for the women who had no dinner to cook. They gathered at meetings, bringing food and goods to the Tithing House, distributing them to the poor. This cooperative self-denial encouraged sisterhood and aided the community in general.35 The Exponent regularly reported on the activities of the Relief Societies, promoting their programs and doctrines and explaining them to

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outsiders. The Relief Society, considered by its members “the best organized benevolent institution of the age,” encouraged this female world. Joseph Smith said the Society would “assist, by correcting the morals and strengthening the virtues of the female community, and save the Elders the trouble of rebuking, etc.” Eliza R. Snow, in her brief history, said the Society was so popular in its early years, that even women of “doubtfulcharacter . . . applied for admission.” To prevent the inadvertent admission of shady ladies, applicants were required to present certificates of good moral character. Clearly this elitist organization encouraged pride of membership as well as good work. The Provo Fourth Ward announced their motto: “The poor to be filled first, the treasury next.”36 The women cooperated in marriage as well. Kane saw several sisterwives living in the closest friendship and cooperation. She was amazed to see Artemisia Snow’s sister-wife help serve dinner just as a married daughter would; she had expected competition.37 She found the two Steerforth wives in Nephi remarkably close. They pointed out “the comfort, to a simple family,” in having two wives to lighten the labors of the household. While all the children had been born by one wife, the two shared them. Kane was there long enough to see the tender intimacy between the wives and to feel sympathy, not revulsion, for them.38 Still, how could these husbands relate to their complex families? The children were certainly closer to their mothers than to their fathers. Kane had seen “a Mormon father pet and humor a spoiled thirty-fifth child,”39 but how often could that have occurred? There must have been real truth to a Mormon nursery rhyme which Kane quoted, “My mother’s my mother all the days of my life,/But my father’s my father, only till he gets a new wife.”40 When things worked well, there was harmony and affection, but these women suffered slights and miseries. Mrs. McDiarmid admitted that she had had to pray hard to overcome bitter feelings about sharing with the other wives, and she blushed “till her eyes burnt” when she admitted that “I’d have slapped any one’s face twenty years ago that dared to tell me I’d submit to what I have submitted to.” Still, she found no fault with her husband. Her trials were with herself.41 Some of Elizabeth Kane’s antipathy to Mormon marital practices can be attributed to her own family history. Her father, the Scottish William Dennistoun Wood, met the charming American Harriet Kane, the “prettiest and wittiest girl in New York,” when not yet twenty and pronounced

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himself “desperately in love.”42 Kane’s parents had a love match, as did she. But perhaps she married so young because her own home life fell apart. Kane’s mother, “a beautiful and interesting lady,” died after childbirth when the parents had been married just fifteen years. Her husband grieved: “In life and death she was lovely in body, and, oh! How lovely in mind.”43 She had been lively, angelic, devoid of selfishness. “God only knows what I shall do without her,” he mourned.44 Said the daughter, “With my mother’s death, our happy childhood ended.”45 The mother had said that her husband might marry again, if he wished, though she preferred that he remain single, not venturing the family happiness “in so perilous a lottery.”46 But the thirty-nine year old widower departed for England for three months leaving his houseful of motherless children, one the new infant who soon died. Widower Wood then married Margaret Lawrence, whom Bessie carefully described as “not only a very beautiful woman, but a most admirable and careful housekeeper.”47 On his next visit to Liverpool, Wood’s old Aunt refused to see him, “partly, I think, from being disgusted at my remarriage so soon, as she was a great friend and admirer of Harriet.” He returned to America as Margaret’s first child was born, just two years after his first wife’s death. Other children followed in rapid succession.48 At this point, Bessie married Thomas L. Kane. After the wedding, the family returned to the house. Bessie’s father noted that he was “a very busy man in those days, and could ill spare the time from Wall Street for weddings or any other ceremonies.” He thought he might “kill two birds with one stone,” an unfortunate phrase, and so asked Dr. Potts, who had performed the wedding, to baptize his new son at the same time. Potts hesitated, but assented.49 Bessie’s father was too busy to give his daughter an exclusive celebration. Bessie could well believe, with Utah’s polygamous children, that her father was her father until he got a new wife. Wood later married a third time. When Elizabeth Kane edited her father’s autobiography, she reworked it as “a loving tribute to his blessed memory.” She kept her own mother at the center of the family, shaping their lives into a great love match, making her mother’s death “the great sorrow of his life.” She emphasized his consideration, justifying his self-centeredness. For his late wife’s sake, he controlled his temper and overcame his impatience and dislike of children.50 They grew to trust him. Bessie began to love him when

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he first apologized for an undeserved punishment.51 Elizabeth Wood Kane’s story suggests that in her youth she suffered the same alienation of affection which she observed in polygamous homes. Her own father had three, if serial, marriages, which influenced her family life. Her story made poignant her observation in St. George about an older man’s marriage: “I am quite used now to seeing with tranquillity several wives of nearly the same age with a hale middle-aged husband, but it strikes me with the old repulsiveness, when I see an old man going down the generations to his grandchildren’s time to seek a new partner, while she who shared the joys and sorrows of his youth looks on, withered and gray. He will dandle babies on his knee, and enjoy a wintry sunshine, but her day is over.”52 Elizabeth Kane was surprised to find the Mormon women independent. She compared the polygamous wives to an Eastern harem and found considerable and curious differences. “So many of [the Mormon women] seem to have the entire management, not only of their families, but of their households and even outside business affairs, as if they were widows; either because they have houses where their husbands only visit them instead of living day in and day out, or because the husbands are off on Missions and leave the guidance of their business affairs to them.”53 This statement indicated not only equality, but once again the absence of men on the scene. In this desert outpost, women did the work of men for simple practicality. Independence was thrust upon them. They voted, Kane noted, and prayed over congressional debates, but they took no general interest in politics. Kane thought the Mormons “thousands of years behind” in some customs; but in others, “you would think these people the most forward children of the age.” No career by which a girl could earn a living was closed to her.54 Mormon girls were not ashamed to work for a living, even at domestic labor. Hired girls could aspire to marry their masters, assuring themselves prosperity as well as blessings in heaven. Brigham Young directly encouraged the women to work, not for feminist reasons, but because the territory needed much done, and he disapproved of strong men doing work women could do. He wanted women employed as “type-setters, proof-readers, book-binders, clerks in stores, tailors.” He wished the girls among the Saints to be educated to do all such work as belonged to women. He thought they should prepare

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school books as “the female mind was naturally better fitted for such pursuits than that of the male.” It was a “mistake to have girls taught nothing but to play the piano, and when tired of that to go to reading novels.” They should be taught all desirable knowledge with the “useful and practical” taking precedence. The Exponent pronounced him the most “genuine, impartial and practical ‘Woman’s Rights man’ upon the American continent.”55 Kane mentioned several attractive and businesslike lady telegraphers. She also mentioned two “brave little wives” in Cedar City who ran an inn and managed the telegraph to support their blind husband.56 Elizabeth Kane had been unwilling to come among the Mormon people at first, though she hoped the climate might benefit her husband. She considered the Mormons misguided and barbaric. She had not shared her husband’s sympathy for these misled people. Yet she came to admire their dedication; she believed they were sincere. She asked one elderly woman, a first-class gardener, why she had come to St. George, when her skills were lost on that desolate landscape. She answered, “Because I have Hope and Faith. When they wanted colonists for St. George, [she] said ‘Here am I, send me.’ And mind you, Mrs. K. I don’t repent.”57 Kane felt that anyone who had “gone through suffering voluntarily for an elevated motive” was well worth listening to. She loved to see people in earnest. She liked the middle-aged women who had joined the church in their youth.58 The two Steerforth wives of Nephi impressed her with their “simple kindliness of heart and unaffected enthusiasm.” They had been among the first in the valley in difficult pioneer times. Yet they did not call them dark days. “We were starving, we were dying, suffering was then consuming life itself; but it was that which gave its brightness to the flame. The flame of true religion was burning then. God was with his People. I would give a thousand days of the present luxury and folly, for one hour of that exalted life.”59 Perhaps in light of testimonies like the Steerforths, Kane thought that the effects of fashion would undo the Mormons. The Exponent voiced the same tension in its encouragements to be refined, but frugal. Was fashion overpowering Mormon simplicity? The Steerforth wives of Nephi called 1872, days we would consider austere, a time of “luxury and folly.” Many rural Mormons may have deplored the effects of fashion. At a meeting in St. George to discuss the Order of Enoch, a speaker

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commented on gender differences in Salt Lake City. He was always able to go into the “best society” and no one ever made him think he was rich or poor. But when he took along his wife in “her plain dress,” there were difficulties: “It isn’t that she isn’t made welcome but she herself objects to going among sisters dressed in laces, and furs and diamonds. I don’t grudge them anything beautiful in God’s kingdom, not a mite. Their rich dresses are honestly bought and paid for. Still, I find I don’t take [my wife] among them.” He went on to say that some folks objected to girls, including President Young’s daughters, being richly dressed. He didn’t fault them. But he hoped that the Order of Enoch might bring equality. Other brethren complained that they lived poorly and went on missions, “leaving their wives to toil for a living;” when they returned, they found that those who had stayed at home had grown rich.60 Fashion led to envy and friction. When Elizabeth Kane traveled back to Salt Lake City, the proud center of Mormonism, she was uneasy. The wealth of the city spoiled it for her. A passing traveler, she thought, could foresee the religious decay of the Mormons by looking at the “growth in material prosperity and worldly spirit.” She preferred the rural life. She had found “the best men and women, the most earnest in their belief, the most self-denying and ‘primitive Christian’ in their behavior clad in the homespun garments of the remote settlements.”61 Even Brigham Young indulged in luxury, indicating the tensions and contradictions of fashion. Clarissa Spencer, one of his daughters, noted that she was one of only two sisters married publicly in the Lion or Beehive Houses. Most of the Young girls married quietly into polygamy, which their father urged, in small quiet weddings. Clarissa, having a bridegroom to herself, had a large wedding, wearing a white, brocaded, satin dress and matching shoes and ribbed silk stockings. She traveled to the endowment house in a big barouche drawn by a fine span of horses. The family cooked for days for the reception supper of 350 people. While preaching simplicity and polygamy, the Young family lived elegantly and rewarded monogamy. The Beehive house, the only place to entertain visitors, was tastefully, even elegantly furnished, and served bountiful repasts.62 The living standards of the leaders were at odds with those of the people. Despite her concerns about fashion, Elizabeth Kane was converted to the kindness of the Saints. Her husband regained his strength in the

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desert and was able to walk long distances without his cane, but then he relapsed from the old wounds and came close to death. He suffered a great deal before he began to recover. During his illness, the Mormons watched at his bed, brought him delicacies, and prayed for him. For his recovery, Elizabeth Kane believed herself indebted to the “kind and able nursing of the Mormons. I shall not forget it.” As a result she wrote a memorandum to herself in her journal in red ink and signed it. “If I had entries in this diary to make again, they would be written in a kindlier spirit.”63 As erring as the Mormons might have been, she could not forget the “rest and peace of soul I have enjoyed among them.” She meant to remember that she felt she had done right “to worship with the Mormons as with Christians.”64 The “barbarous people” had shown them “no little kindness.”65 As she left St. George, she received letters from the East urging her to hasten back from “those dreadful Mormons.” She wrote, “Farewell, Arcadia! Or Pandemonium—Which?” but did not answer her own question. In Salt Lake, she spent a week at the Lion House, as the wife of an honored and trusted friend of the household and as a “public testimony . . . that my opinion of the Mormon women had so changed during the winter that I was willing to eat salt with them.”66 This was a dramatic and public change of heart. Kane, who had kept her distance from the “barbaric peoples,” publicly embraced them. Unfortunately for us, she put away her diary. As a friend, she could not report on her hostesses. This change of heart infused the last journal entries, but not her basic beliefs that the Mormons were wrong and that they were doomed. She saw internal decay through luxury, and she thought the nation was resolved to crush Mormonism. She saw “no prospect before these people but one of wretchedness—and it will be in the name of the Law that our President and Congress will bully and terrify these helpless women and innocent little children!” By the next year, 1874, Kane expected that the Mormons would be driven from “their hospitable homes.” She felt herself, a non-voter, blood-guilty for the terrorism. She wrote in penance for the hard thoughts and contemptuous opinions she had harbored and instilled in others.67 She left Utah in sorrow, regretting what she foresaw for the people there. She saw only one salvation for the Mormons. Their community would pass away “unless Persecution befriends them by making the

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young pass through the same purifying fires their elders traversed, burning out the impure and unsound in faith. . . . No use for us to ‘put down the Mormons.’ The World, the Flesh, and the Devil sap earnestness soon enough.”68 In yet another contradiction, she thought that the Mormons would benefit from the persecutions and mistreatments of the national government. That refiner’s fire would allow them to survive and to prosper. Elizabeth Wood Kane returned to Pennsylvania. Her father published her account of Twelve Mormon Homes to assist in understanding the unfortunate desert people, and the book has been read since 1874 as a valuable inside account. In the preface, her father said the book was published to command “sympathy for the Mormons, who are at this time threatened with hostile legislation by Congress.” He believed, like his daughter, that “any renewal of the persecution to which these unfortunate people have been subjected will confirm them in their most objectionable practices and opinions, and contribute directly to augment their numbers and influence as a sect.”69 Enemies of the church, he said, could not stamp out Mormonism; persecution strengthened the sect. The sequel to this book, Kane’s diary of her days in St. George, only recently rediscovered, was first published in 1995 as A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872–73. Back in Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Kane entered medical school and graduated in 1883, the year her husband finally succumbed to his ailments. What can be learned from the diary entries of Elizabeth Wood Kane? This historical moment, 1872–1873, then seemed a climactic one. But the period has since receded, sunk into a valley between the pioneer period and the persecutions which led to the loss of the vote, to the Manifesto, and to statehood. Was this pandemonium or arcadia? Looking through Elizabeth Kane’s eyes, I have to think arcadia. This was a good time for the Mormons, and thanks to Kane’s writings, we can revisit it. Full of complexities and contradictions, the seventies featured pioneer life emulating Eastern fashion, kindly people in bizarre marriages, independent women subject to strong leadership, and a people targeted for destruction who survived and flourished, perhaps because of their bad times. If these entries seem illuminating, remember that it is within your power to write documents that will similarly enlighten people yet unborn. Go and do likewise. Return to your homes and take up your pens.

6 The Importance of the Temple in Understanding the Latter-day Saint Nauvoo Experience Then and Now

Kenneth W. Godfrey

Introduction

B etween the years 1830 and 1844, more than thirty books were written

detailing the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints1 and attempting to explain this new religious movement founded by the New York farm boy Joseph Smith. Some, it appears, wrote about what they knew and had experienced, as most of these histories were authored by disciples of the Prophet2 (Latter-day Saints commonly refer to Joseph Smith as the Prophet, and I will follow their lead in this paper). Others, some of whom were openly hostile to Mormonism, wrote “in order to know”3 or expose the Mormon leader as a fraud. Few of these early historians seem to have grasped the appeal of Mormonism nor did they understand the joy new converts experienced as they were baptized into the church. Since the publication of those early deficient histories, hundreds of books have been written regarding the Latter-day Saints. Each one, some more successful than others, has sought to explain the Prophet and the church he established. Joseph Smith himself once remarked that no one knew his history: he had experienced so many remarkable things that he could understand why some people would not believe his story. Nevertheless, he said, it was true. 119

Kenneth W. Godfrey

121 The Importance of the Temple in the Nauvoo Experience

Even in the last few years, conflicting works continue to provide various opinions on Mormonism. Recently Robert N. Hullinger, after fifteen years of research on Mormon origins, published a book using, as do many other historians, naturalistic explanations for the Prophet and the religion he founded. Hullinger argues that Joseph Smith’s teachings, the Book of Mormon, and Latter-day Saint doctrines were an “answer to the skepticism which permeated Smith’s environment.”4 Kenneth H. Winn, in contrast, contended that Mormonism was not an exceptional phenomenon representing a countercultural ideology but instead affirmed republican principles. It was the way that the Latter-day Saints applied them that roused their neighbors to persecution.5 Marvin S. Hill, whose entire academic life has been devoted to studying Joseph and the church he founded, explained Mormon religious and political developments in terms of class struggle and a rejection of American pluralism in a world becoming increasingly secular. In his book Quest For Refuge, Hill argued that the first Mormons were of modest means, had little education, felt uneasy in established churches, and thus became Latter-day Saints because they felt comfortable in an authoritative religion which settled religious controversy once and for all and excluded pluralism.6 To cite another example, Dan Erickson attempted to come to grips with the history of Mormonism by finding as the summun bonum of the movement a quest for millennial deliverance. He also concluded that the church was founded on the belief that the world would soon end.7 Latter-day Saint history, Erickson argued, is best explained against this millennial backdrop. Because Mormonism has now been around for more than 170 years and continues to experience phenomenal growth, most wise historians would probably agree that it requires more than one thesis to adequately explain Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the church he organized on April 6, 1830. However, in this lecture I will focus on the Nauvoo Temple and its importance in understanding the Latterday Saint experience in the city historian Robert Bruce Flanders called the “Kingdom on the Mississippi.” I am not arguing that the temple is the only way to comprehend the history of Nauvoo; rather I am suggesting that emphasizing the importance of the temple, the endowment, sealings, and vicarious work for the dead helps to flesh out the complexity of the Mormon movement and the hold it had, and has,

Nauvoo Mormon Temple, Nauvoo, Ill.


on its members. It helps to explain why it causes them to sacrifice their lives on the altar of their faith. They, to use the words of Joseph Smith, were and are confident that “no unhallowed hand [could] stop the work from progressing . . . till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country and sounded in every ear. . . .”8 The Nauvoo Temple’s place in Latter-day Saint history, at least in part, helps to illuminate the source of members’ devotion and optimism.

The First Structure Emigrants and Visitors Saw

C hurch members on October 6, 1840, voted to commence building a temple so that God would have a place to come, “and restore again that which was lost . . . or had been taken away, even the fullness of the Priesthood.”9 Only a few years after construction began, the temple dominated the Nauvoo landscape. For example, one writer, John Francis McDermott, described the visit the artist John Banvard made to Nauvoo. Banvard arrived just as “the setting sun was casting its mellow light over the ever beautiful autumnal foliage,” and declared that “the great Mormon temple stands out conspicuous . . . it is the finest building in the west, and if paid for would have cost over half a million dollars.”10 Artists Samuel B. Stockwell, Henry Lewis, and Leon B. Pomarede, as well as photographers L. R. Foster and Elvira Stephens Barney, left behind pictures of the Nauvoo Temple as the most imposing feature of the Nauvoo landscape. Many Latter-day Saints pushed from the “City Beautiful” by angry Hancock County citizens in 1846 paused on the brow of a hill west of Nauvoo and gazed on the temple for the last time. Lewis Barney wrote, “On reaching the summit between the Mississippi and Des Moines Rivers the company made a halt for the purpose of taking a last piercing look at the Nauvoo temple, the spire of which was then glittering in the bright shining sun. The last view of the temple was witnessed in the midst of sighs and lamentations, all faces in gloom and sorrow bathed in tears, [from] being forced from our homes and temple that had cost so much toil and suffering to complete its erection.”11 Likewise, Wilford Woodruff recorded in his diary on May 26, 1846, “I was in Nauvoo . . . for the last time, and left the city of the Saints feeling that most likely I was taking a final farewell of Nauvoo for this

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life. I looked on the temple and city as they receded from view and asked the Lord to remember the sacrifices of his Saints.”12 Priddy Meeks perhaps best captured the pathos many Latter-day Saints experienced when they saw the temple for the last time. He wrote, “I have no words with which to convey a proper conception of my feelings when taking a last look at this sacred monument of the living faith of the Saints, and which was associated in their minds with the heavenly and holy.”13 For many Latter-day Saints leaving Nauvoo for the last time, the temple represented sacrifice. For others, it symbolized that which was holy, proof that God spoke to a prophet and restored priesthood power which sealed that which was heavenly to that which was of this earth in a bond that suffering and persecution only strengthened. The Nauvoo Temple, the first structure that Mormon emigrants and visitors saw when they approached the city and the last to fade from view as they departed, represented the crown jewel in Latter-day Saint theology. But why was the temple so important to Latter-day Saints and how does it illuminate much of Mormon history? Let us now turn our attention to answering these questions.

The Beginnings of the Mormon Temple Ritual

W hen

Joseph Smith recounted his experience with Moroni on September 21, 1823, he said that the angel quoted differently a passage of scripture taken from Malachi, chapter four, which called attention to the fact that in part the purpose of the priesthood was “to plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. “If it were not so,” Joseph Smith was told “the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his [Jesus’s] coming.”14 The Prophet learned from this experience that parents and children had made important promises, the nature of which (he may not have fully understood at that moment in his life) were somehow linked to the anticipated return of the Messiah. Later, while translating the Book of Mormon, according to diarist Charles Walker, Joseph Smith “had a revelation that the order of Patriarchal Marriage and the sealing was right.”15 As early as 1835, W. W. Phelps, in a letter to his wife Sally, wrote about a “new idea” preached by the Prophet: marriage, if the husband and wife were faithful,


could last throughout eternity.16 A week later Phelps addressed the same topic in a periodical he edited.17 This concern for linking families together also appeared in revelations18 Joseph Smith received in 1836 alluding to vicarious ordinance work for the dead. These same revelations declared that the Saints should gather together so that a temple, or house of the Lord, could be constructed and certain ordinances necessary for salvation could be performed therein.19 To emphasize the importance of ordinances, Smith told his followers that the greatest temporal and spiritual blessings came “from faithfulness and concerted effort, rather than through individual exertion or enterprise.”20 Furthermore, he believed that the power and authority to properly perform temple ordinances was given to him on April 3, 1836, by Moses, Elias, and Elijah.21 Parley P. Pratt wrote that while he was with Joseph Smith in Philadelphia in 1839, he learned “of eternal family organizations, and the eternal union of the sexes in those inexpressible endearing relationships which none but the highly intelligent, the refined and pure in heart, know how to prize, and which are the very foundation of everything worthy to be called happiness.”22 Even some students of Latter-day Saint history who prefer naturalistic explanations for Mormon origins believe that Joseph Smith’s home life was so good that his belief in the eternal family arose naturally from the feelings he cherished for his own family.23 Also important to the purpose of temple work was the Law of Consecration and Stewardship which became a part of Mormonism in the 1830s. Latter-day Saints through temple covenants pledge to devote their means, their energy, and their time to the church. “One of the central doctrines relating to the establishment of Zion,” the Law of Consecration and Stewardship has been the subject of numerous books and articles but is sometimes overlooked as “an integral theme” of temple worship.24 Thus, even before the Latter-day Saints were driven from Missouri in 1838 to the shores of the Mississippi River, doctrines were in place that foreshadowed the erection of a “House of the Lord.”

Plans for a Temple in Nauvoo

W hile Joseph Smith and other Mormons remained incarcerated in Missouri’s Liberty Jail the winter of 1838–39, some church leaders,

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including Sidney Rigdon, who served as first counselor in the church’s First Presidency, and Edward Partridge, a bishop, questioned the wisdom of gathering in one place again, believing that too many Mormons in a particular location had been a major cause of their difficulties in Ohio and Missouri.25 That Latter-day Saints belonged to a new religion, came from different backgrounds, held different political views than did the old settlers in Ohio and Missouri, and were grouped together in large numbers may have caused the persecution that seemed to follow the disciples of Joseph Smith. While the Prophet was aware of the problems gathering together presented, he still sent a letter to Bishop Partridge instructing him to purchase land in Hancock County, Illinois, offered to the Latter-day Saints by Isaac Galland and others.26 Joseph Smith, as alluded to earlier, believed that one of the reasons for the Mormons living in close proximity to one another was so they could build unto the Lord a house whereby He would reveal unto his people the ordinances of His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach them the way of salvation, for there are, the Prophet said, “certain ordinances and principles that, when they are taught and practiced, must be in a place or a house built for that purpose.”27 “God gathers together,” the Prophet continued, “his people . . . to build unto the Lord a house to prepare for the ordinances and endowments, washings and anointings, etc.”28 According to historian Ronald K. Esplin, another church leader, Brigham Young, said, “Without the gathering we cannot have the temple.”29 Young also taught that church members needed the power of the temple before they could go preach the gospel to all the world and perfect the Saints. He believed that temple ordinances were absolutely necessary for the church to carry out its mission30 because the ritual in which worthy members participated taught the plan of salvation and allowed them to make binding covenants and receive ordinances without which they could not be perfected and saved. The teachings of both Young and Smith, then, show that one of the fundamental principles of early Mormonism, the gathering, was intrinsically bound to the temple experience. In a similar way, Joseph Smith believed that the temple would, when built, be a place of refuge and divine protection for the Saints from the evils, dangers, and cares of the world. Moreover, it would be the edifice


where, through divine oracles, God would reveal his wisdom to his people. Holy ordinances performed therein would help prepare the Latterday Saints to meet their Savior and receive eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom of God. Within the walls of the temple, they would become a holy people. Thus the house they constructed must be a place of beauty, a place expressive of the glory of God.31 It should also be a structure where “the Great Jehovah would have a resting place on earth.32 The temples, especially the Nauvoo Temple, were “viewed as the standing witness[es] of the gathering of Israel.” Located on a hill, the Nauvoo Temple would be an ensign to the nations.33 Another important concept in early Latter-day Saint history, as historian Thomas G. Alexander has written, was the idea that the old covenant (the one God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with members of the primitive church) had been broken and a new covenant was necessary.34 This belief in the necessity of a new contract with God is helpful, Alexander asserts, in assisting our understanding of the temple in Mormonism. “While it may be interesting to speculate on the relationship between the Masonic ritual and the Latter-day Saint temple,” Alexander writes, “such speculation ignores the central purpose of the temple.” The core of temple worship is not found in those things that may have similarities to Masonic ritual. Instead, the “temple is an expression of the new covenant theology revealed early in the Church’s history. The covenants made in the temple [provide] a basis for sanctification through the atonement of Jesus Christ and for entrance into the presence of God as heirs of his kingdom with the potential of becoming gods and goddesses.”35 Those who see the temple as simply a building where Mormons participate in strange rituals fail to comprehend the essential core of the endowment which combines “the uniquely Mormon ideas of eternal progression, the potential of future godhood for the most faithful [and] priesthood sealing of marital relationships,” as well as turning the attention of Latter-day Saints to their forefathers as they perform vicarious work for the dead.36 Brigham Young in 1853 stated that the endowment was to “receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled

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to give them the key words, the signs, and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell.”37 While the Nauvoo Temple was under construction, Joseph Smith declared on July 12, 1843, that “the expectation of exaltation must be sealed unto you by the holy spirit of promise—that most holy ordinance . . .” and that this “anointing and sealing is to be called, elected and made sure.”38 Again on April 8, 1844 he said, “The declaraton this morning is that as soon as the temple and baptismal font are prepared, we calculate to give the Elders of Israel their washing and anointing, without which we cannot obtain Celestial thrones.”39 Orson Pratt in 1845 also spoke of the importance of temple ordinances. He said, “No person will be crowned with power in the eternal world, [we are to be kings and priests unto God through all eternity] unless they have been ordained thereto in this life, prior to their death, or by some friend acting as proxy for them afterward and receiving it for them.”40 Latter-day Saints throughout the Nauvoo period of church history believed that without participating in temple ordinances and the covenants entered into therein, they would not inherit the Celestial Kingdom or dwell with God in the hereafter, nor would they, to use Orson Pratt’s words, “be crowned with power” and become kings and queens, priests and priestesses, and “have honor, authority, and dominion, and kingdoms to preside over.”41 Thus it is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the temple as a theological construct and the role it played and still plays in Latter-day Saint thought. Indeed, even before the Saints began construction on the Nauvoo Temple, temples had played an important if somewhat different role in their theology. The Kirtland Temple was primarily a place for church members to gather together and hold meetings, but there were some cleansing rituals performed in that structure that involved water and perfumes that bore little resemblance to the ordinances performed in the Nauvoo Temple.42 While Church leaders had dedicated sites for temples in Independence and Far West, Missouri, they had not, before coming to Illinois, received the full temple ritual. Therefore, the Nauvoo Temple stands as the Holy Place where “the fulness of the Priesthood” (the full endowment) was given to worthy Latter-day Saints. The first reference to a temple in Nauvoo comes from a letter sent to the “Saints Scattered Abroad” on August 1, 1840, authorized by the


First Presidency of the church. The Latter-day Saints had been driven from Missouri only a year earlier and had lost land, homes, and most of their possessions. They were, moreover, engaged in draining a swamp, and only beginning to erect their “City Beautiful.” Still, church leaders declared in this missive that “the time has now come, when it is necessary to erect a house of prayer, a house of order, a house for the worship of our God. . . .”43 Only a few days after sending this letter, Joseph Smith spoke at the funeral of Seymour Brunson. In that sermon the Prophet “made the first public mention of the doctrine of vicarious baptism,”(baptism for the dead).44 Believing that everyone except little children must be baptized for admittance into the Celestial Kingdom, Smith declared that living people could stand as proxies for dead ancestors and receive baptism on their behalf. Only a few weeks passed before church members acted on the Prophet’s sermon and began performing baptisms for the dead in the Mississippi River. According to one scholar, “During the first two years of its practice this ordinance was not closely circumscribed. Faithful Saints simply identified their deceased relatives for whom they wished to be baptized and then performed the rite.”45 Males were immersed for females and females for males. Before the Saints completed the baptismal font in the temple, as many as 6,818 of these river baptisms were performed.46 The Latter-day Saints were not content to be baptized only for their progenitors but also performed this ordinance on behalf of such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Martha Washington and her mother, and William Henry Harrison. Proxy baptisms were done for George Washington a number of times in the Nauvoo Temple and again in the St. George Temple.47 According to at least one source, Joseph Smith himself officiated in the baptism of more than a hundred deceased persons.48 Yet even though Smith had emphasized the importance of baptism for the dead, he also declared that the proper place for them was not in the Mississippi River but in a consecrated temple. At the October 1841 general conference, for example, he told the Saints in the name of the Lord that “there shall be no more baptisms for the dead until the ordinance can be attended to in the Lord’s house.”49 The Prophet “may have suspended” baptisms in the river in an effort to motivate the Saints “to press forward with building the temple.”50

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During the summer and fall of 1841, workers constructed in the temple’s cellar a wooden baptismal font which rested on the backs of twelve oxen, patterned after the most beautiful ox that could be found in Hancock County.51 Brigham Young dedicated this structure on November 8, and the first baptisms for the dead in the still unfinished temple began on November 21, 1841.52 Joseph Smith III recalled “witnessing some of these baptisms” and “seeing the candidates march up one side of the stairs east to the font.”53 Before the Latter-day Saints left Nauvoo they had performed 15,626 baptisms for the dead.54 While the temple was being constructed, Joseph Smith “did not leave salvation for the dead in the realm of theory.” He told his followers that there was not “too much time to save and redeem the dead . . . before the earth will be smitten and the consumption decreed fall upon the world.”55 Church members responded to his message and began “to search for the genealogical records of their dead ancestors.” Some Mormons wrote letters to relatives in Europe asking for the names of grandparents and other close kin for whom they could do temple work.56 Patriarch William Smith, in the summer of 1845, blessed some church members that they would have a burning desire to save their dead.57 He told another Latter-day Saint that his “name would be written in the temple of God and that he would be a recorder of sacred histories.”58 An 1841 letter from the Twelve Apostles to the Latter-day Saints who had not gathered to Nauvoo further stressed the importance of baptism for the dead. It declared that “those who failed to relocate to Nauvoo,” among other things, were missing “the chance to redeem their dead.” Implicit in this remark was that those reluctant to gather must now do so as quickly as possible. As historian Guy Bishop noted, “baptism for the dead not only offered the Saints a means to save their worthy dead, but gave the Church a way to motivate those who were slow to do their duty.”59 Yet even though the First Presidency letter and these baptism lectures made church members aware as early as August 1840 that a temple was planned, it was not until the October semi-annual conference of that year that Joseph Smith “spoke of the necessity of building a ‘House of the Lord’” in Nauvoo.60 In that same meeting three men, Reynolds Cahoon, Elias Higbee, and Alpheus Cutler, were appointed and approved as the building committee.61 William Weeks, a twenty-seven year old New


Englander who had converted to Mormonism in the southern states, drew the plans for the temple.62 However, most Latter-day Saints then and now give Joseph Smith credit for the design of this new House of the Lord. Charlotte Haven, Josiah Quincy, Edward Stiff, and the editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette left Nauvoo with the impression that the Prophet had seen the temple in vision, and Major J. B. Newhall wrote “that the Nauvoo Temple was Jo Smith’s order of architecture.”63 Some reporters who either saw the temple in person or in drawings thought that the building showed a mixture of Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek architecture.64 However, a contemporary article that appeared in The American Architect and Building News said that “the temple was much like an ordinary congregational church.”65 To further help the temple design, the Latter-day Saints had the publications of Asher Benjamin whose architectural plans were the basis for building the Kirtland Temple. When Weeks drew his plans for the Nauvoo Temple “he followed the basic Benjamin design for a Federalist church, with a classical, pilastered front and a tiered, segmented bell tower ornamented with classical orders.”66 Based on revelation, “Joseph Smith made unique alterations to what would have been a typical New England church style.” He, for example, “replaced the triangular pediment of Protestant churches with a squared block between the facade and the tower.” The moon stones, sun stones, and small star stones which decorated the exterior were Joseph’s design and symbolized “variations of the classical order based on Mormon theology.”67 The semi-circular windows on the “top block of the temple were changed to rectangular shape, and the round windows were placed between floors. The two curved staircases leading from the first to the second floors and from the second floor to the attic, designed by Weeks, followed the pattern found in one of Benjamin’s books.68 Weeks, in the fall of 1840 and the winter of 1841,69 made the first drawing of the new temple, which was used to inspire the Saints and cause them to want to hasten its completion.70 For some the strategy worked. When Joseph Fielding saw the caricature he exclaimed, “The temple is indeed a noble structure, and I suppose the architects of our day know not what order to call it, Gothic, Doric, Corinthian, or what. I call it heavenly.”71 Others expressed similar views and greatly anticipated the day when the structure would be complete.

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Wards

A s motivational techniques pushed the Saints along, construction on the temple commenced early in the winter of 1841. Not many weeks after construction began, church leaders realized that a building of such magnitude required a community-wide organizational effort if it was to be completed. Subsequently the temple committee divided Nauvoo into ten districts to raise donations and labor. Later, on August 20, 1842, the high council (twelve men who served under the direction of the First Presidency) split Nauvoo into ten wards which matched the temple divisions and appointed a bishop for each ward.72 This move insured an “increased number of laborers day by day [and] week by week.” These were the first wards in the history of the church. Working together the temple committee and the bishops took steps to regularize the hours of labor for each day. They arranged to have a bell ring at 7:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, 1:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m.73 No matter how much efficiency this brought to the temple’s construction, however, these divisions were more important because they show that wards were initially created, in part at least, to meet the needs that directly related to building the temple. Thus, to a certain extent the Nauvoo Temple created a way to order and divide the Saints that still exists today.

Tithing

E ven though the law of tithing was revealed in 1838 while the Latterday Saints resided in northern Missouri, the Mormon War and the persecution that commenced soon after its inception insured that it would not be implimented. However, on October 12, 1840, just ten days after a church conference voted to accept it, temple workers put this law into operation, beginning in the rock quarries. Many of the stone cutters donated a tenth of their time in quarry work with Albert P. Rockwood, foreman, and Charles Drury, assistant foreman, coordinating this operation.74 After the city was divided into wards, the males of the ward spent every tenth day laboring on the temple. As the work load of the foreman and assistant foreman increased, William Felshaw was asked to coordinate all such tithing labor.75 Other groups in the Nauvoo populace were not forgotten. The aged, the children, and the women were also


integrated into the tithing system.76 Women made surprise dinners, sewed clothing, and carried water for the masons, sometimes assisted by older children. One woman gave every tenth round of flax to the church and the temple.77 The law of tithing, then, was adopted and used to supply the man (and woman) power to build the temple. Tithing also provided the capital necessary for its construction. A letter of the Twelve Apostles to the Saints dated December 13, 1841, declared “that the temple is to be built by tithing and consecration.” The Saints were required to give one tenth of all they possessed at the commencement of the temple’s erection and one tenth of their increase each year after that.78 Those who performed baptisms for the dead were required to produce evidence that they had paid their tithing promptly. Franklin D. Richards declared that not until he received his tithing receipt was he informed that he could now claim the benefits of the baptismal font.79 Leaders also told the Saints that only tithe payers would be permitted to participate in the endowment ceremonies.80 After the holdings of the church were centralized in 1841 and Joseph Smith was elected trustee-in-trust, the Saints appointed a tithing appraisor to “put a value on the tithing the church received.” Sometimes Joseph Smith did this himself.81 The Times and Seasons reported in the fall of 1842 that the tithing office had adequate pumpkins, squash, and potatoes but needed corn meal, flour, butter, and pork. Thus the tithing committee was required to advertise for certain commodities.82 Once the tithing committee complained that they were receiving too many guns and watches which did not “help much in the completion of the temple.”83 They had enough nose rings, finger rings, brass kettles, old rags, and bank notes, the committee claimed, but they really needed gold and silver.84 Indeed, so many animals were donated that tithing cattle had bells attached to their necks when they were herded on the prairie to distinguish them from regular animals. Unfortunately not all the residents of Nauvoo were saints and on at least one occasion a mare, a saddle, and three harnesses were stolen from the tithing office.85 The tithes were sufficient to feed and cloth temple workers and furnish their homes. Women, for example, donated carpets, bedspreads, quilts, clothing, and hosiery as their tithing. Leaders called special tithing missionaries to go among the people of America, especially Latter-day Saints residing outside of Nauvoo, and collect tithing.86

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Non-Mormons were sometimes asked to contribute their means to help build the temple. Because of these missionaries, as O. H. Olney wrote in his book Absurdities of Mormonism, by 1843 “the tithing movement had spread rapidly throughout the church and tithing agents traveled through America as far as the name of Mormon is known.”87 Yet some Saints charged that tithing agents appropriated the tithing they collected for their own use. To stop such abuses church members voted to bond all agents, beginning with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.88 The bond was set at $2,000.89 Political missionaries dispatched in the spring of 1844 to campaign on behalf of Joseph Smith, who was running for president of the United States, were also authorized to collect tithing monies. After the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young called forty-six agents to raise and receive money for the temple.90 Eventually the number of tithing missionaries increased to ninety-three. John Snyder was the first authorized tithing agent in Great Britain, and when he came to America he brought $1,000 with him.91 The church’s periodical published in New York, The Prophet, began in January of 1845 to publish the tithing receipts. A perusal of those records discloses that most Mormons were only able to pay small amounts of tithing, $5 or less.92 Still church leaders believed that every little bit helped, and Joseph Smith claimed that tithe paying would accelerate the construction of the house of the Lord.93 Responding to the declarations of Smith and others regarding the necessity of tithe paying, ecclesiastical leaders sometimes passed a collection plate following meetings or used old tobacco boxes as “the temple box” to increase contributions.94 Hyrum Smith asked the women of Nauvoo to establish a penny fund. Each sister was encouraged to donate one penny per week to the temple fund. Mormon women in the New England States sponsored sewing, quilting, and knitting bees, and donated the things they made for building the temple. Other women made shirts, dickies, and collars for temple workers. The Latter-day Saint women who resided in Boston organized the “Boston Female Penny Society,” “and raised $21.27. Latter-day Saint women who lived in Great Britain also donated small amounts of money. The penny societies raised more than $2,000 which was enough to purchase the glass for the temple.95


The non-Mormon populace of Hancock County, however, believed that temple construction impoverished the people, creating hardships and much sickness. Church leaders, in contrast, realized that “the poor people of Nauvoo and in the vicinity around the city found their best relief by working on the temple.” Building the temple furnished temporary jobs and helped Latter-day Saints make the transition from direct relief to more permanent employment.96 In August of 1844, Brigham Young told the building committee to “employ every man you can. I would rather pay out every cent I have to build up this place,” he continued, “even if I were driven out the next minute.”97 But Young also admitted that he knew malnourished men who worked on the temple having nothing more to eat than a half ration of corn meal.98 On one occasion, Young examined the tithing store and found spoiled butter, rotten potatoes, and barrels of spoiled pork. He ordered those in charge to empty the barrels and to dispense food and other supplies more liberally.99 Regardless of whether or not tithing funds were always put to good use, the temple tithing ledger shows that 5,742 church members made contributions. Thus, the construction of the Nauvoo Temple solidified tithing as the principal means of funding the needs of the church, a practice which has persisted ever since.

Public Events Pertaining to the Temple

E ven as the Latter-day Saints struggled against sickness, poverty and persecution, pivotal moments in the construction of the temple provided relief.100 Joseph Smith used occasions such as laying the cornerstones of the temple as a way to involve not only Mormons but also non-Mormons in southwestern Illinois in grand public celebrations. He also linked such ceremonies to priesthood power which reminded his followers that they were a special covenant people engaged in a work that transcended their sufferings and sorrows. For example, early on the morning of April 6, 1841, the eleventh anniversary of the organization of the church, the Nauvoo Legion, the city militia, assembled.101 The Legion fired a cannon, and the troops were inspected by the officers, including Lieutenant General Joseph Smith. The Legion then marched to the temple site, surrounded it, and stood at attention as crowds numbering in the thousands gathered to watch

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the cornerstone laying ceremonies. The generals, their staffs, and church authorities sat on platforms inside the center of the temple foundation. Those assembled sang hymns, Sidney Rigdon spoke for an hour, and the First Presidency laid the southeast cornerstone. Joseph Smith then asked God to speed the work of construction so “that the saints may have a place to worship God and the Son of Man have where to lay his head.”102 After a noon hour recess, the southwest cornerstone was laid under the “direction of the High Priesthood [the Nauvoo Stake president and high council].” William Marks, president of the Nauvoo Stake, pronounced a benediction, after which the northwest cornerstone “superintended by the High Council,” was laid. The closing prayer was given by Elias Higbee. Bishop Newell K. Whitney, representing the bishops of Nauvoo, put the fourth and last cornerstone in place. This aspect of the service was declared closed, and the military marching band led by Captain Duzette “made a conspicuous and dignified appearance” and performed “soulstirring strains” that “met harmoniously the rising emotions that swelled each bosom.” B. S. Wilber then directed the choir as they sang a hymn. The author of the history of the church wrote, “We never witnessed a more imposing spectacle than was presented on this occasion.”103 Thomas Sharp, editor of the only non-Mormon newspaper in Hancock County at the time, attended the ceremonies. Seated on the reviewing stand, he saw the Nauvoo Legion and the thousands who had gathered to watch the proceedings. After eating a turkey dinner in Joseph Smith’s home, he returned to Warsaw and wrote an article favorable to the church and its prophet. Later he recalled that the cornerstone laying ceremony deeply troubled him, causing him to believe that Mormonism was essentially a political and military movement aimed at domination of a vast empire by an independent hierarchy. Eventually Sharp and others founded the Anti-Mormon Party which will be discussed in more detail later in this paper and was instrumental in the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Illinois.104

Lumber for the Temple

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side from the temple’s effects on outsiders, it also stimulated Mormon settlement efforts elsewhere. Due to the shortage of low-cost lumber needed to construct the temple and other buildings in Nauvoo, the


temple committee in 1841 sent George A. Miller and Lyman Wight about five hundred miles north of Nauvoo to the Black River country in Wisconsin. There they and others procured forest land and established saw mills. Miller especially is generally credited “with taking the initiative and playing a leading roll in securing sufficient lumber for building the temple.”105 In February of 1841 he told Joseph Smith that he could deliver 1,200,000 feet of lumber by the summer’s end. By the spring of 1842 Church leaders had raised money to purchase other saw mills, and rafts as large as an acre arrived in Nauvoo. Sometimes shelters were constructed on these rafts which also had stone fireplaces so that those who rode them downstream could cook their food.106 The journey from Wisconsin to Nauvoo usually took two weeks. These huge rafts were difficult to maneuver in the currents of the river, and the journey was made more hazardous by the rapids, dams, and snags.107 When these “wooden islands” arrived in the “City Beautiful,” they were a wonder to behold.108 Surplus wood was used in the construction of private homes and public buildings throughout the city. In addition, the “pineries,” as they were called, furnished needed employment for some of Nauvoo’s citizens. Historians estimate that the camps had as many as 150 lumberjacks, while others grew food for the colony and still others tended the cattle and performed other necessary tasks. The wives and children of these workers cooked, sewed, and cleaned up around the camp. In addition to supplying necessary lumber for the construction of the temple, the Mormons in Wisconsin made friends with the Indians there, did some missionary work, and established a Mormon presence that has persisted to the present time.109 The Nauvoo Temple, then, stimulated Mormon settlement outside of the city, foreshadowing later Mormon colonization efforts in the Great Basin.

The Endowment

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hile the endowment was briefly discussed earlier in this paper, a more detailed treatment of this aspect of temple worship follows. In the revelation calling for the erection of a temple in Nauvoo, mention is made of an endowment.110 Scholars have shown that in the Kirtland Temple, washings, including the cleansing of the feet, and anointings were

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performed that were sometimes referred to as an endowment.111 However, it was not until the Prophet resided in Nauvoo that he administered the full endowment to his faithful followers. When this ritual was first revealed to the Mormon leader is the subject of some debate, as is the source or sources of the endowment. Latter-day Saints believe that the endowment existed in the ancient world and that Joseph Smith merely restored these sacred ceremonies just as he restored the church first founded by Jesus Christ.112 For example, John A. Widtsoe wrote that the temple endowment “relates the story of man’s eternal journey; sets forth the conditions upon which progress in the eternal journey depends; requires covenants or agreements of those participating to accept and use the laws of progress; gives tests by which our willingness and fitness for righteousness may be known; and finally points out the ultimate destiny of those who love truth and live by it.”113 While no one, as yet, has discovered a direct statement from the Prophet as to “how the endowment ceremony came to be,” some say that the “instructional material” was “drawn directly from scriptures introduced by Smith in his revision of the Bible and from pertinent sections that were published in the books of Moses and Abraham.”114 Heber C. Kimball, however, in a June 17, 1842, letter to Parley P. Pratt, wrote of a “similarity of Priesthood in Masonry,” remarking that “Bro Joses ses (sic) Masonry was taken from Priesthood.”115 Regardless of how Joseph Smith received the endowment, it is clear that following two days of preparation, he “in the upper story of the Red Brick Store, on May 4, 1842, gave nine men new theological instruction and a new ritual as well.”116 This ritual and instruction occupied the entire day. The History of The Church declares that Smith “instructed them [James Adams, Hyrum Smith, Newel K. Whitney, William Marks, William Law, George Miller, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards] in the principles and order of the priesthood, attending to washings, anointings, endowments, and the communication of keys to the Aaronic Priesthood, and so on, to the highest order of the Melchizedek Priesthood.”117 This endowment, Joseph Smith said, was “governed by the principle of revelation.” Indeed Latter-day Saints believe that the sacred ceremonies first administered in the Prophet’s store were the keystone of their religious faith. By worthily participating


in temple rituals, Mormons were confident that they would dwell with God and Christ in the life after this one. Joseph Smith assured them that once the temple was completed, every worthy Latter-day Saint would have the opportunity to participate in the sacred ceremonies that had been revealed to him. The temple ceremonies thus became the central part of Latter-day Saint theology. In 1843, even as the Mormons labored to complete the temple, Joseph Smith introduced other sacred ceremonies, which came after the endowment, called the fullness of the priesthood and celestial marriage. At this time, too, women first participated in the endowment and other rituals.118

The Temple and the Masons

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s mentioned before, some Latter-day Saints saw similarities between the endowment and Masonic rituals. Many non-Mormons in Hancock County confused the Mormon endowment with Masonic ceremonies which more than fifteen hundred Mormon males, including Joseph Smith, had received.119 Masons themselves became concerned when rumors circulated that Mormon women who had received the endowment were becoming Masons. In reality no Latter-day Saint females were ever initiated into the Masonic Order. Still, the rumors were enough to cause some Masons to join with the anti-Mormons. The fire of their hatred by 1843 was coming dangerously close to burning out of control. Furthermore, Masons accused the Prophet of stealing the endowment from them, and of breaking the oath of secrecy he had taken.120 Thus they believed themselves justified in withdrawing support from the Mormon lodges, and the Masons in the mob which took Smith’s life ignored the Masonic distress cry that the Mormon leader uttered just moments before he was shot on June 27, 1844. Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saints believed that the origins of Masonry and of temple ceremonies came from the same spring and thus there were bound to be similarities between the two rituals. The linking of the endowment to Masonry continues to this day, however, showing another way that the Nauvoo Temple contributed to anti-Mormon feeling.

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The Temple, the Fullness of the Priesthood, and the Savior’s Second Coming

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istorian Richard Lloyd Anderson has argued that Joseph Smith in 1842 expected to be killed and thus wanted to confer on other church leaders the keys and authority that messengers from God had given him.121 This is the reason why several faithful followers received the endowment even before the temple was completed. Orson Hyde, for example, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, declared that Joseph Smith told the apostles that “the Lord bids me to hasten and give you your endowments before the temple is finished.” “He,” Hyde wrote, “conducted us through every ordinance of the holy priesthood and . . . rejoiced very much, and says, now if they kill me you have got all the keys and all the ordinances, and you can confer them on others, and the hosts of Satan will not be able to tear down the kingdom as fast as you will be able to build it up.”122 The Prophet, before his death, also continued to promote the building of the temple, telling the Saints that the ordinances administered there were “essential to exaltation in the Celestial Degree of Glory.”123 But some Latter-day Saints believed that the Nauvoo Temple and others that would follow were all merely temples that were to prepare the Saints for the time when a temple would be built in Jackson County, Missouri, to which the Savior would come. The Nauvoo Temple, they said, was the most important preparatory temple in the lifetime of Joseph Smith because in it the full endowment would be administered.124 Other church members were confident that temple ordinances, which ritualized man’s contact with the divine, were so important that they considered Nauvoo and its temple to be the center of the world for spiritual things and everything else preparatory to the coming of the Son of Man.125

The Temple and the Council of Fifty

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n March 11, 1844, Joseph Smith established in Nauvoo what has been called by historians “The Council of Fifty.” “The primary role” of this council “was to symbolize the otherworldly world order that would be established during the millennial reign of Christ on earth.”126 Mormon documents reveal that Joseph Smith received the revelation to organize


this council on April 7, 1842, but, according to historian Andrew F. Ehat, Smith delayed in organizing the council until March of 1844 so that “he could unfold all the temple ordinances.”127 These ordinances, Smith claimed, “conferred ultimate priesthood authority upon men.” Only after men “were ordained kings and priests and thereby received the fulness of the priesthood” could the Kingdom of God be reestablished. Then and only then would the political order be in place which would govern the earth when Christ returned. Without the temple rites, “worldly kings anointed by priests who had no priesthood power did not have legitimate right to reign.”128 The Council of Fifty, then, rested on a foundation of sacred ordinances which the Prophet administered before the temple was completed but which were intended to be given only in the temple following its dedication.129 The Council of Fifty would govern the political kingdom of God, from which all laws would emanate for the rule, government, and control of all nations.130 “The governmental powers and duties of the Council,” historian Klaus J. Hansen has written, “were to be executive, legislative, and judicial.”131 The president of the church also served as president of the Council. As such he presumably would be the head of state of the political kingdom of God after it had achieved independence until Christ would come and assume that position.132 Joseph Smith explained the role of the Council of Fifty to its members in meetings during the spring of 1844. But it was only after important leaders in Nauvoo had received “the fullness of the Priesthood,” an ordinance intended for the temple, that this council was organized and began to function. Again, the Nauvoo temple played an important role in the creation of a significant organization in Latter-day Saint history.

The Temple and Church Museums

I n a recent provocative article, historian Glen M. Leonard argued that a revelation given to Joseph Smith in January 1841, which called upon the Saints to construct a temple, also lent divine sanction to a third133 project, that of a museum. John Taylor, Leonard claims, instructed the Saints that it was their duty “to bring to Nauvoo, their precious things, such as antiquities, and we may say, curiosities, whether animal, vegetable, or

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metal, ie., for the purpose of establishing a museum of the great things of God, and the inventions of men, at Nauvoo.”134 Leonard argues that the building materials “specified by the Nauvoo Temple revelation” included gold, silver, and precious stones; wood from box, fir, and pine trees; and iron, copper, brass, zinc, and other precious things of the earth.” Swift messengers were to instruct the saints to gather to Nauvoo with these materials for the temple and “with all [their] antiquities” as “offerings for use in beautifying the Lord’s dwelling place.”135 Persons with a knowledge of antiquities, that is, skills in fashioning precious woods and metals using ancient methods, were urged to come to Nauvoo and help build the temple.136 Leonard also declared that the scriptural language used in the call for a Nauvoo museum, including references to “precious things” and “antiquities,” and the use of “swift messengers,” implied a relationship between the museum notice and the temple revelation.137 Following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, Leonard asserted, John Taylor went ahead with plans for a museum in Nauvoo and published in the Times and Seasons a detailed “list of things to collect for the proposed museum in Nauvoo.”138 Thus, according to Leonard, the church’s interest in preserving the past, and constructing museums through which members can visit and develop close ties with that past, resulted from the revelation that commanded that a temple be constructed in Nauvoo.139

Finishing the Nauvoo Temple

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fter Joseph and Hyrum Smith died in Carthage Jail in 1844, finishing the temple became the single most important task confronting church members.140 They wanted to do this not only as a symbol of their love for the Prophet and his brother but also so that they could obtain the saving ordinances that would be administered there. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles sent letters to the Saints encouraging them to contribute even more to the construction of the temple and to prepare themselves for the sacred ordinances that would be performed therein. While Brother Brigham, as the Saints affectionately called him, saw that the entire temple was completed, he was particularly devoted to finishing the attic. After the rooms had been painted and carpeted, the large council room was divided by canvas partitions. “Six rooms were separated off for the convenience of the holy priesthood, two large ones and


four smaller ones and a hall passing through between the smaller ones,” Heber C. Kimball wrote.141 One room, called the garden room, was furnished with pots of evergreens donated by Hiram Kimball. Other rooms were neatly furnished, and, as mentioned before, the Saints received their washings, endowments, and sealing ordinances, and participated in prayer circles in the attic. As each section of the temple was finished, the “saints dedicated that portion to the Lord and then put it to use.142 As discussed earlier, the baptismal font was consecrated to the Lord in 1841. Then on October 5, 1845, as the building was enclosed, the entire structure was given to the Lord in a prayer offered by Brigham Young.143 The attic, we have learned, was dedicated on November 30, 1845, and the sealing altar located in the southeast corner room on January 7, 1846. Brigham Young and other apostles met together on February 8, 1846, and in a private ceremony presented the whole temple to the Lord.144 After many of the Saints had departed for the West and while others were getting ready to depart, the temple trustees announced in the Hancock Eagle on April 10 that the temple, now completed, would be dedicated to the Most High God on Friday, May 1, 1846. Tickets were required at a cost of $1 each.145 After spending most of April 30 sweeping out the rooms and making preparations for the next day’s ceremony thirty men gathered in the lower room dressed in priestly robes. After singing they formed a prayer circle, offered prayer, then sat by priesthood quorums while Joseph Young pronounced a prayer. Next they gave the “Hosanna Shout” and the group “partook of refreshments.”146 On May 1, as announced, the public assembled and Apostle Orson Hyde dedicated the temple. In his prayer, Hyde asked the Lord to accept the offering of his people and requested that those who had contributed and labored on the temple “come forth to receive kingdoms and dominions and glory and immortal power.”147 The Hancock Eagle reported that five thousand people attended the ceremony.148 Before many of the Saints left Nauvoo for the West, someone carved the words on one of the pulpits in the temple, “The Lord Has Beheld Our Sacrifice, Come After Us.” Though building the temple had been a great sacrifice, the Saints took satisfaction in knowing that they had not left behind an unfinished building but, instead, were leaving a monument to their God and His dead prophet Joseph Smith.

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Uses of the Temple

B y late fall of 1845, the attic story was ready for use.

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On December 10, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball began “administering the ordinance of the endowment.”150 Young organized the work, “established rules for the preservation of order,” and called clerks to keep a record of who received which ordinances. Every person who came to the temple was instructed to come only after “washing themselves from head to foot,” and those who officiated in the temple were required to bring with them a generous supply of food of the best quality.”151 The earliest temple officiators sometimes performed their duties for twelve or more hours at a time. No one was allowed in the temple “without an invitation,” and strict order and decorum were maintained. The temple remained open day and night to accommodate the large number of Latter-day Saints who were deemed worthy and who wanted to receive the ordinances administered there. More than five thousand endowments were performed in the Nauvoo Temple before the Saints vacated the city. On February 3, 1846, Brigham Young announced the closing of the temple because he and the Saints were leaving Nauvoo to find a new home somewhere in the American West. He walked out of the temple “informing the brethren” that he “was going to get [his] wagon started and be off.” After walking some distance, “supposing the crowd would dispel,” he discovered no one but himself had left the temple. He returned, and the temple remained open for another few days.152 All of the worthy Latter-day Saints, it appears, did not wish to leave Nauvoo without receiving their endowments and without being sealed as husband to wife and children to parents. The endowment and sealings would help fortify them for the arduous journey they faced. Before the Mormons left for the West, the temple was used for many purposes. Celestial or eternal marriages were performed there. In addition, families were sealed together, which Latter-day Saints believed would form an eternal union extending beyond the grave.153 Leaders performed 2,490 sealings of living husbands and wives, 369 sealings to spouses already passed away, and 71 sealings of living children to deceased parents.154 Because there were no chapels in Nauvoo, the temple was sometimes used as a meeting place. Sunday services, general conferences, and other


gatherings convened there as early as 1843.155 The building also provided office space for various church officials. The leaders of the seventies, the high priests, the apostles, the high council, the stake presidency, the presiding bishop, and others were all assigned accommodations in the temple. In this edifice leaders finalized plans for the exodus and organized companies for the journey.156 Several of the chief church officers, including Brigham Young, resided in the temple during the months of January and February 1846.157 Not only were they thus easily available to administer the ordinances and conduct the ceremonies, but they were also protected from their enemies. Guards were posted at the entrances, and no one was permitted inside who was not authorized. Four large lanterns were placed at the four corners of the temple which were lighted at night so that intruders could more easily be discovered. In this way the lives of the twelve apostles were secured.158 Furthermore, after a court issued an indictment against Brigham Young and eight other apostles accusing them of counterfeiting, it was even more imperative for them to remain inside the temple. Apostle Orson Pratt, one of the eight indicted, constructed an astronomical observatory “in a little nook there” and at night made astronomical measurements which helped the Saints navigate their way to the Great Basin. Breck England, Pratt’s biographer, asserts that the apostle ascertained the latitude of Nauvoo at 40 degrees, 35 minutes, 48 seconds north on December 27, 1845. Using this as a base, Pratt later calculated the position of the pioneer wagons on the prairies.159 Following one long grueling day, those who remained in the Celestial room danced as Brother Hanson played the violin and Elisha Averett the flute. After dancing for more than an hour, the group sang together before closing the day with prayer. This use of the Celestial room seemed to give dancing divine approval. During the month of January 1846, several other dances were held inside the temple. On January 2, 1846, Brigham Young told the Latter-day Saints that “they could worship God in the dance.”160 “We will praise the Lord as we please,” Young said. “Now as to dancing in this house—there are thousands of brethren and sisters that have labored to build these walls and put on this roof, and they are shut out from any opportunity of enjoying any amusement among the wicked or in this world. Shall they have any recreation? Yes! and this is the very place where they can have liberty.”161 The dancing

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helped unite the community at a time when they needed cohesion as they prepared for their removal. However, only a few weeks after he had initiated dancing in the temple, Young told his followers they had been carried away by vanity and ordered that the dancing cease.162 Still, after the migration west had begun, there was, at times, dancing in the house of the Lord. Other activities included feasts of cakes, cheeses, and raisins. On April 28, 1846, and into the next afternoon, members of prayer circles dined on cakes and pies and drank wine. They then prayed, administered to the sick, blessed some children, and danced until midnight. While some Saints celebrated, workers finished painting the large room on the second floor.163 After most of the Saints departed Nauvoo, those remaining used the temple for public balls and citizens’ meetings. Temple tours led by Lorin Walker, Joseph Smith III, and an unnamed seventeen-year-old girl were also common for a fee of twenty-five cents. Norman C. Salisbury, grandson of Lucy Mack Smith, carried the Prophet’s mother, who suffered from arthritis, to the top of the temple on one of these tours. There on the observation deck, she viewed the countryside and the city her son had founded. While the Mormon community utilized the Nauvoo Temple in a number of ways, still, the ordinances deemed most sacred by the Mormon people, which were administered in the attic, played a pivotal role in cementing within church members a willingness to sacrifice all they possessed to assist the church, and to consecrate their time and abilities in furthering the Mormon cause. The rituals also helped in developing loyalty to God and church leaders and gave the members assurance that whatever happened to them in the future, they would rise in the resurrection, sealed together as families.

The Temple and Anti-Mormonism

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oth Annette P. Hampshire and Marshall Hamilton have written about anti-Mormonism in Hancock County, Illinois.164 In their treatment of the Anti-Mormon movement, no mention is made of the temple as a factor in raising fear and resentment against the Latter-day Saints. However, as early as January 23, 1845, a leader of those opposed to the Mormons


told a large gathering that “they must drive the Mormons from Nauvoo before the temple was done or they never could.”165 News of this meeting and the content of the speaker’s remarks reached Nauvoo and was of such concern to Brigham Young that he “inquired of the Lord whether we should stay here and finish the temple.” Young’s prayer was answered in the affirmative.166 With this assurance, work on the temple accelerated. Still, many of those within the church who became unsatisified with their leaders (including Joseph Smith) at times used the building of the temple as an excuse to chafe against them. These individuals believed the sacrifice required was taking too much of a toll on church members and that the resources of the church could be put to better use.167 Such talk reached the ears of Joseph Smith, who, on March 7, 1844, called a mass meeting “to expose the opposition for saying the temple cannot be built; it costs too much,” and called upon the Saints to “double their diligence, promising them that they could do it.” Hyrum Smith in support of his brother “proclaimed we can do anything we undertake, we have power and we can do great things.”168 Some of the Saints were so motivated by the words of their leaders that they believed that if they completed the temple they would “receive sufficient power to put down all the opposition against the Church.”169 The Warsaw Signal published an editorial by Thomas Sharp who stated that if the Saints could be prevented from completing the temple it would be a great deterrent to the church.170 Brigham Young, in contrast, told his followers that if the enemy prevented them from completing the temple in Nauvoo, “we will receive our endowments, if we have to go into the wilderness and build an altar of stones.”171 While Brigham Young assured Hancock County politicians and the leaders of the Anti-Mormon Party that the Saints were in fact going to abandon Nauvoo in the spring of 1846, their work on the temple seemed to indicate otherwise. Those opposed to Mormonism were fearful that once the temple was completed and the wall constructed around it, the Saints might gather inside and refuse to leave the county. Thus an argument can be made that the temple only increased the anti-Mormon sentiment already at epidemic proportions in western Illinois. The temple is a significant, if not an over-riding factor, in understanding the mobocracy in Hancock County in 1845– 46.172 Brigham Young recognized this

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and told some of the Saints that for two years the enemies of the church “have threatened us all the time to prevent our finishing the temple and have made many prophecies against it,” but the Saints “have invincibly pressed a steady course of persistence.”173 Believing that he was only doing the will of the Lord, Young encouraged the Saints to complete the temple, in spite of the fact that there was no doubt in his mind that the future of the church would be somewhere in the West.

The Nauvoo Temple after Its Dedication

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he Mormons hoped that with less than a thousand Saints still residing in Nauvoo, most of whom were the sick, the aged, or single mothers with small children, mob activity would dissipate. Instead, mobocracy increased, and, as the summer progressed, “church members were warned to remove from the state or face extermination.”174 After the battle of Nauvoo in September of 1846, those opposed to the church took possession of the temple until October 20, 1846, when “the keys were returned to the trustees.”175 While the mob faction controlled the temple, several cannons, heavily charged, were placed in front of the building “with their mouths pointed towards the setting sun.”176 The mob defaced some of the temple before it was returned to the Latter-day Saints, but the damage was not extensive.177 Tourists were allowed to visit the temple and several Mormons served as guides. The trustees, Almon W. Babbitt, Joseph L. Heyward, John S. Fullmer, Henry W. Miller, and John M. Bernhisel, remained in Nauvoo and attempted to sell the temple.178 This task was made more difficult because of legal difficulties, including problems between the church and Emma Smith and her new husband, Lewis C. Bidaman,179 who, shortly after their marriage, took action to acquire all church property in Nauvoo.180 Finally the legal problems were worked out and the temple was rented to the Home Mission Society of New York.181 Even before most of the Saints had left Nauvoo, the temple was damaged. On February 9, 1846, as the Mormons were just beginning their exodus, a fire broke out in the roof. Quick action on the part of Willard Richards and others prevented too much damage from occurring. However, on September 6, 1846, lightning struck the steeple, again causing only slight damage.182


The fact that a few faithful Latter-day Saints remained in Nauvoo the summer of 1846 “incensed the more rabid anti-Mormons” who seemed to believe rumors that all the Mormons were planning to come back in force. The temple still stood and “gentile fanatics feared that the building might serve as a magnet to draw back the faithful.”183 By 1848, a few Latter-day Saints on their way to missions in the East and Europe stopped in Nauvoo to visit. As more Mormons were found in Nauvoo, “threats to destroy the temple increased.” At 3:00 a.m. on Monday morning, October 9, 1848, unidentified citizens discovered the Nauvoo Temple in flames. Inhabitants of the city rushed to the site, but the fire spread rapidly. A report in the Keokuk Register described the scene. “The fire presented a most sublime spectacle.” Flames “shot up to the sky,” throwing a “lurid glare into the surrounding darkness. The crack of windows breaking was heard, as well as timber falling, the sound of which carried across the river.”184 The melting zinc and lead dropped “its large drops during the day.” Many of the nation’s newspapers reported the destruction of this monument. The Mormons who remained in Nauvoo “were overwhelmed by the calamity.” The public, even the residents of Hancock County, condemned the act which everyone knew had been the work of some “nefarious incendiary.”185 The Keokuk Register said “that the economic effects of the destruction of the temple were felt on the Iowa side of the river as well as in Nauvoo. “Some estimated that following the fire the number of tourists declined by 75 percent.186 Still, editor Thomas Gregg, in the Warsaw Signal, “lauded its destruction as a benevolent act.”187 Many citizens in Hancock County did not share Gregg’s feelings, and forty-four citizens offered a reward which reached $640 for information regarding the incendiary. Yet no one came forward with helpful information.188 Latter-day Saints regarded the fire “as merely a new chapter of old horrors,” while the anti-Mormons “zealously denied their guilt.”189 Investigators learned that when the fire was first discovered, a window was found open, and they concluded that someone had entered the building and set the fire. Some thought Joseph B. Agnew was the most likely culprit. Known as “an ardent Mormon hater” who had taken “an active part in many of the violent activities” which drove the Saints from Illinois, he supposedly confessed to starting the blaze. However, no one produced enough evidence to bring him to trial.

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Lewis C. Bidaman, husband of Emma Smith, reported that a woman named Walker, who boarded at Agnew’s Dallas City home, told him that she saw Agnew and his brother go on horseback toward Nauvoo the night of the fire.190 Bidaman also said that some residents of Warsaw, Carthage, and Pontosecca had given Agnew $500 to set the fire.191 There were other suspects, and historian Joseph Earl Arrington concluded that though Agnew still is the most likely candidate, more evidence is needed before he can conclusively be shown to be responsible for the fire.192 However, author David R. Crockett in a recent article wrote that Agnew, many years later, confessed to the deed and explained that he and two others posing as traveling visitors asked the temple guard for a tour of the building. Agnew stole a key while on the tour and later that night went up into the temple attic and set the fire “where it would get a good start before it would shed any light to be seen from the outside (probably in the very spot which was used as the Celestial room). . . . I began to retrace my steps with joy and a light heart for I was sure that the temple was as good as burned.” Agnew then became lost in the dark building and trapped in the fire. He wrapped his coat around his head, ran through the flames and came out of the temple badly bruised and burned.193 What was left of the structure, mainly the walls, was purchased in the spring of 1849 by the Icarians, a French communistic group, who began rebuilding the temple. Soon after work began, a violent wind struck the building with such force that the walls came crashing to the ground “in a cloud of dust, hail, rain, thunder and lightning.”194 After the storm, stones continued to fall from the wall that remained standing.195 Later in the 1860s, city officials had the remaining portions of the temple leveled so that nothing remained “to mark its site but heaps of broken stone and rubble.”196 Some of the stones used in the temple became part of wine cellars and buildings within the city limits. Over the years the temple block was the site of a saloon, a slaughter house, a grocery and drug store, a pool hall, a telephone exchange, and private homes, according to Nauvoo Restoration historian, T. Edgar Lyon.197 Many, perhaps most, Latter-day Saints who visit the city find time to stand on the ground where the temple once stood. In 1900 my own grandfather, Henry M. Godfrey, “stood over the well and sang” a number of hymns with his mission president and other missionaries, “then drew a bucket of water from the well and everyone had a drink.”198


Richard W. Young, in 1883, walked to the temple site, found a few scattered pieces of rock, and heard the owner of the property describe in detail the architecture of the building and the history of its destruction, which he found very interesting.199 In 1886 Apostle Franklin D. Richards both described the temple site and brought a bottle of water from the well home to Salt Lake City.200 And visitors today look for souvenirs to remind them of this historic spot. During the early years of the twentieth century, the temple site at times came up for sale. Wilford Wood made several attempts to purchase it and other historic sites in the East, often acting as an agent for the church. On February 19, 1937, Wood convinced officials of the Bank of Nauvoo that they should sell the property to the church. Bank officials agreed to sell the temple lot for $900 and on February 20, 1937, the First Presidency announced the acquisition.201 In an article which appeared in the church’s official magazine, The Improvement Era, comments were made about the importance of the Nauvoo Temple as the initial “temple in which church ordinances in their fulness could be administered.” The unnamed writer declared that among the residents of Nauvoo “it is a matter of traditional knowledge, that although in drought seasons other lower wells have failed in Nauvoo, the higher temple site well has never been without water.”202 In March 1940 and in 1942, the church purchased an old Icarian office building and other remaining Icarian buildings on temple hill.203 Twenty-five years after purchasing the temple site, church officials announced that Nauvoo Restoration Incorporated, a non-profit corporation sponsored by the church, was going to make a partial restoration of the site. The purpose of the restoration was to create a center where the story of the church and the temple could be told. Artifacts unearthed by those who excavated the temple site were displayed in a sort of museum and visitors center located on the temple block.204 The temple’s footings and the well for the baptismal font were restored, and in 1977 a large nine-foot replica of the temple was in place. In 1994 one of the sunstones was put on exhibition as well.205 In 1935 Vern C. Thacker, laboring in the California mission, was assigned to work in the little town of Boron deep in the Mojave Desert. One day he felt inspired to stop at a small home where he met a man named Leslie M. Griffin. Griffin, who had no affiliation with

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Mormonism, told Thacker that he was a descendant of William Weeks, the architect of the Nauvoo Temple. On his last visit to Griffin’s home, Thacker and his companion were given a roll “of what looked like poster paper about three feet long, ten inches in diameter, and secured with a rubber band.” The “bundle” was the “original plans for the Nauvoo Temple.” A few weeks later, after being released from his mission, Thacker drove to Salt Lake City and gave the drawings to A. William Lund, Assistant Church Historian. These drawings were immediately taken to a photographer and negatives were made of each one. The drawings themselves were filed in a steel-locked safe.206 As the church continued to construct temples, rumors circulated from time to time that the temple would be restored in Nauvoo. Local church officials taught that only when there were sufficient church members in the area surrounding Nauvoo to warrant a temple would one be built there. However, while delivering his closing address in the April 1999 general conference, church President Gordon B. Hinckley said that he felt impressed to “announce that among all the temples we are constructing, we plan to rebuild the Nauvoo Temple.” He also said that “a member of the Church and his family have provided a very substantial contribution to make this possible.”207 Elder Hugh W. Pinnock, president of the church’s North American Central Area, when interviewed by a reporter for the Church News, said that the interior of the restored temple “would have to be much different than the original so that temple work could be accommodated as in other modern temples.”208 Ground was broken and construction begun on October 24, 1999. Speaking on that occasion, President Hinckley said, “There will grace this site a magnificent structure, a re-creation of that which existed here and served our people so briefly during that great epic period of the history of the Church.”209 On January 2, 1846, another church leader, Brigham Young, spoke to a small gathering of Latter-day Saints assembled in the attic of the Nauvoo Temple. “This Church,” he said, “has obtained already all they have labored for in building this temple, but after we leave here (I feel in my bones) there will be thousands of men that can go into any part of the world and build up the kingdom, and build temples.” In concluding his remarks he said, “We shall come back here [Nauvoo] and we shall go to Kirtland, and build houses all over the continent of North America.”210 The rebuilding of the Nauvoo Temple, in part, fulfills the


prophecy Young made as the Saints prepared to leave both Nauvoo and their temple.

Conclusions

J oseph Smith and his followers believed that temple worship was the pivot around which the Mormon movement revolved. The central purpose of missionary work, the gathering, and the quest for perfection was to prepare the Saints for the ordinances administered in temples. Those like Thomas Sharp who viewed Mormonism as a political movement intent on dominating and ruling the world failed to grasp the essential core of the church. Church members were primarily religious, and believed they were preparing a people worthy to dwell with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords who would come to his temple. That women participated in not only building the temple but in administering and receiving temple ordinances establishes Mormonism as a far-sighted religious movement somewhat ahead of its time. Only together, after being sealed in temple ceremonies Joseph Smith taught, could men and women achieve perfection and the exaltation they so much desired. In the King Follett address, Joseph told the Saints that even Deity had once been a man, and temple worship reinforced what the Prophet taught. Latter-day Saints came to believe that one day, they too might be perfected and become like Christ, their Heavenly Father, and their Heavenly Mother. Tithing, wards, the Relief Society, the Council of Fifty, and especially eternal marriage are best viewed as vehicles which pointed toward the temple on the hill and its purposes. Efforts were made to so unite a people that they would be willing to sacrifice everything to construct this house of the Lord in which to receive the fullness of the priesthood and the ratifying seal on their lives of consecrated and dedicated service. While it is instructive to see Mormonism as a quest for refuge, or a movement reacting against skepticism, or affirming republican principles, it is also important to view it as a movement that united heaven and earth through temple ceremonies. Thus, the temple captured the imagination of the Saints and, like a vault, held their hopes, their dreams, and their aspirations. It is thus essential in understanding the Latter-day Saint Nauvoo experience.

Jan Shipps

7 Signifying Sainthood, 1830 –2001 Jan Shipps A

rriving in Logan more than four decades ago, I looked around and thought what I was seeing was a typical western town. Let me explain. As everyone who listens for more than a few minutes discovers, I reveal my region of rearing by the way I talk. But an accent only discloses so much. More precisely, I grew up in the small-town South, not an elegant place of moonlight and magnolias, but a little Alabama town. That location limited my vision, especially since my birth coincided with the Great Depression, which made travel a luxury our working class family could not afford. I would learn about cities and the upper Midwest after I married and moved with my husband so that he could go to graduate school “up North.” But when he finished his education and agreed to move to Logan to take up a post in the library at Utah State University (USU), I knew very little about what being “out West” would be like. My entire knowledge of the region came from reading novelists like Edna Ferber and Zane Grey, and, more important, watching what, during my childhood, we all called the “moving pictures.” As nearly everyone did before television entered our lives, I went to the movies whenever an opportunity to do so presented itself—which was fairly often, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. I watched and enjoyed what I saw. But as I look back, I realize that after I had seen Gone with the Wind, Baby Doll, and a variety of other southern epics depicting the land where I lived as an area that was quite obviously divorced from the reality of the South I knew, all the films I saw began to take on a patina of unreality. Because our journey across the country gave me another chance to compare an actuality with its likeness, a place with its fictional 155

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representation, I began to think that the visual images presented in films might not always be distorted fabrications. Unlike their unrealistic depictions of the South, I concluded that at least with regard to the western landscape, the film makers got it right. As we drove toward Logan across the high plains and, especially, as we reached the mountains, over and over again I heard myself exclaiming, “it’s really real; it is really real.” Consequently, it is not surprising that I would confuse Logan with Hollywood’s portrayal of ordinary small western towns. Except that Logan was much more beautiful. Despite the grandeur of the setting— when we emerged from Logan Canyon into Cache Valley on a crisp late summer morning the view was breathtaking—I anticipated that Logan would also be another case of “it’s really real.” Of course, I was aware that Logan was a college town and I realized that this variation would set it apart from truly ordinary western towns. But back in Alabama, I had visited the town in which that state’s “ag” school is located. I knew that, aside from the fact that it was home to Alabama’s “cow college,” Auburn was a thoroughly conventional small Southern town. Therefore, I expected that as we settled into our new home in Logan, we would soon find out that we had moved from a large Midwestern city to an archetypal small college town in the heart of the Rocky Mountain West. (Back then, however, I would never have used the word “archetypal” for I would not have known what it meant). About Logan, I was wrong. Quite wrong. It was not then—and is not now—an everyday, ordinary, more or less generic small Western town that differs from other small towns all across the West only because it is home to a state’s land grant university. Yet discovering just how mistaken was my notion of Logan’s typicality took time. Actually, I should have known what to expect because I should have read all about Utah before we left Michigan. Smart people who plan journeys to places they have never been nearly always prepare for such trips by reading up on their destinations. Surely this is the recommended course for travelers. But such recommendations often fall by the wayside when the purpose of a forthcoming journey is not a vacation, but the moving of a household. Disengaging from one life and packing up to establish a home elsewhere is often such a busy and stressful time— especially for wives and mothers of small children—that reading about what you will find when you get there is neglected.

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Signifying Sainthood, 1830–2001

The Logan Temple. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

We knew something about the town where we would be living because we had read the literature sent to us by Logan’s Chamber of Commerce. But not an awful lot. In 1960, the chamber’s colorful Logan brochure pictured a town nestled against a mountain range. It told us about the size of the town’s population, its altitude, and the fact that it was home to the largest artificial insemination plant in the world. The text also informed us that the college was a great place to buy cheese. But it did not say much about the ethnicity of the town’s inhabitants or its religious makeup. The view of the Logan Temple that we saw as we entered the valley sent a signal that this was no ordinary small western town. But we did not know how to read that message. Indeed, I remember commenting on the magnificent architecture of this structure and marveling at its placement in the landscape. But I recall as well classifying this extraordinary edifice in my mind with other unusual buildings I had seen since we left the

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South—the impressive many-sided Baha’i temple in Wilmette, Illinois, for instance; Chicago’s formidable Museum of Science and Industry; and the graceful Fisher Building in Detroit. As my knowledge of Mormonism was almost nonexistent at the time, the religious significance of the temple did not strike me as anything exceptional. I probably thought of it as nothing more remarkable than a building that was an astonishingly elegant place of worship for a town of such modest size. Just how totally devoid of knowledge of Mormonism I was is probably best revealed by my somewhat confused response when, in inviting us to dinner in their home, English Professor Hubert Smith and his wife Anne told us that they were Gentiles. We were pleased to accept their kind invitation, but as we were ushered into their attractive living room I kept wondering why they had been so quick to let us know that they were not Jewish. Reconstructing a long ago dinner party conversation is impossible, but given my confusion, they must have defined Gentile in Utah terms, for apprehending our own Gentile status is something that was not long delayed. Since Anne Smith was a member of the library staff, the conversation no doubt moved on to a discussion of the university library. It is likely that we also talked about the relative merits of sending our son to public school, as opposed to the Edith Bowen Elementary School that, then as now, functioned as a laboratory for the College of Education at USU. But exactly what else we talked of I cannot remember. There is, however, one thing about that evening that I recall quite vividly. As one will when visiting in the home of someone theretofore unknown, I examined the books in a living room bookcase. When conversation flagged, I asked about one of the books on the shelf. I wondered about it since its title, A Little Lower than the Nagels, seemed somewhat odd. Our hostess removed the volume from the shelf and, opening the cover, revealed that it was a presentation copy signed by the author, Virginia Sorenson. The work, Anne said, was Sorenson’s fictionalized account of the life of Joseph Smith.1 Rarely, if ever, having seen a presentation copy before, I was impressed. But not as much as I might have been since I had to say, “Who is Joseph Smith?” After Anne explained, I asked, “And what exactly is a ‘nagel’?”

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Because I am not a journal keeper, recovering her exact answer after all these years is out of the question. But my memory is acute enough for me to provide an approximate account of Anne’s response. She said that an unfortunate accident had damaged the volume so that they had to have it rebound. She added that the work’s title is actually A Little Lower than the Angels, but that, in stamping the title in gold, the book-binder reversed the first two letters of the final word making the title read A Little Lower than the Nagels. The title notwithstanding, I asked to borrow the book. I took it home and read it, virtually in a single sitting. Such was my introduction to Mormonism and its founder. Considering my subsequent sojourn, my forty plus years with the followers of the prophet, make of that what you will.2 In any event, if reading Virginia Sorenson’s account was the first step in my orientation to the Mormon story, reading Great Basin Kingdom was the second step—and what a giant step that was.3 Someone told me that the author taught at USU, but in these initial stages of getting acquainted with Mormonism, it seemed to me much more critical to get to know the book than the man. (Although I would later have an opportunity to get to know him well, only once during the time we lived in Logan did I meet Leonard Arrington face to face. And that first meeting with this behemoth of Mormon-Utah scholarship, whose work and life is today being celebrated, occurred practically at the very end of our time of residence in Utah.) As important as those literary preambles were, my true introduction to Mormonism was more experiential than literary. As much as I learned from the Sorenson and Arrington works and from a number of other tomes about the Saints and their past that I managed to read during our months in Cache Valley during the 1960-61 academic year, I learned even more about this religious tradition simply by living in Logan and finishing my baccalaureate at Utah State University. Let me tell you a little about how this experiential learning came about. As it turned out, I was fortunate enough to take a course from the venerable Joel Ricks during my first quarter as a history major at USU.4 I say fortunate because this was Professor Ricks’s last quarter of teaching, which means that had I tarried even for three months before enrolling in history classes, I should have missed hearing about the “olden days” from one who had practically lived through them.

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Professor Ricks was powerfully influenced by the work of Frederick Jackson Turner, the famed author of “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” one of the most important essays ever written on the history of the American West.5 Ricks had studied about the westward movement with Turner in graduate school, and for all practical purposes, he had acted as Turner’s host when the influential scholar was a visiting professor at Utah State one summer. Thus it is not at all surprising that in teaching western history, Professor Ricks turned the course into a history of the frontier. This made for a fascinating term because this elderly scholar seemed to remember the frontier as it actually had been. Professor Turner characterized the process by which the frontier opened as a series of stages. First came the trappers who lived with the Indians, caught and skinned otters and other animals, and sold them. After they had opened paths into what was regarded as wilderness, the trappers and traders were followed by miners. Then came ranchers and, finally, farmers. Joel Ricks did not teach from a textbook as he described the opening and closing of the frontier. Instead the grizzled instructor gave our class a firsthand account of the frontier process, starting with an explanation that Cache Valley was so called because trappers had used it as a place to store their animal pelts while they waited for a time when they could be traded for money and supplies. He moved on to convince us of the frontier’s fascinating import by telling us stories of Western trappers and traders, miners, ranchers, and farmers that he had known personally. What is significant as far as forwarding my knowledge of Mormonism is concerned is that these Ricks stories were stories with a twist. Except for the early trappers and traders, all the Western men he described—women were virtually absent from Joel Ricks’s mountain West—were Latter-day Saints (LDS). I acquired a great deal of information about a host of Mormons in that western history class. But the reality of what being Mormon meant came alive in my consciousness when I invited a fellow student to accompany me to the little College Bluebird, the only restaurant on the edge of the campus in 1960. When she agreed, and after we found a table (not an easy thing to do back then), I asked her if she would like a cup of coffee. Her response was a disquisition on the Word of Wisdom that helped me understand why I had detected—or so it seemed to me—a look of surprise on the

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The College Bluebird. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

clerk’s face at Albertson’s when I asked to be directed to the section where coffee was sold.6 Coming face to face with what, in 1960, was probably the most serviceable means of signifying Sainthood, it started to dawn on me that there might be lots more to being Mormon than simply being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some years later, I would be alerted to the exceeding importance of identity markers in religion when—as a part of my preparation for teaching courses in religious studies—I read the work of Peter Berger and other theoretical sociologists and anthropologists of religion.7 But I needed no theoretician to explain the markers’ function. Growing up, as I had, in a monoculturally Protestant universe populated by people who spent their lives struggling to find ways to signal their “saved” status, I decided that Latter-day Saints were fortunate to

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have a specific means of announcing who they were. In the Mormon world I was confronting, no mysterious hand moved silently to separate the sheep from the goats. The Saints had a set of signifiers that did that sort of separating quite effectively. Back when smoking was still socially respectable despite the surgeon general’s warning that it was hazardous to health, not smoking on principle truly set people apart. It made them peculiar, or so it seemed to me. And not only to me. To the people who made up the larger culture in what could be described as the age of the coffee klatch and the cocktail party, those who did not smoke, drink alcohol, or even coffee were, at the very least, regarded as atypical if not abnormal. That is, everywhere except in the Mormon culture region. There, as I—then a smoker, a coffee addict, and a sometime consumer of alcohol—would soon see, the situation was reversed. Those who failed to keep the Word of Wisdom were the people who were weird. Knowing about the Word of Wisdom did little to help clarify issues of doctrinal belief. Most certainly it did not equip me with the sort of information that would allow me to figure out what was orthodox and what was heretical. Yet this overt means of signifying Sainthood furnished me, a newcomer with no knowledge of Mormonism, with a means of beginning an extended process of reading the culture. But if keeping the Word of Wisdom was a boundary marker providing a road map to Mormonism and Mormon culture, things were by no means as uncomplicated as my erstwhile classmate made it sound. Before we had been in Logan very long, we had attended several dinner parties whose guest lists were mostly composed of people who said they were Mormons, but where the ingredients of the drinks served before dinner included alcohol and where the dessert was always accompanied by after-dinner coffee. This made me wonder if degrees of being Mormon existed. If so, what sort of standing did drinking coffee but not alcohol signify in the world the Saints inhabited? And what about smoking? Was that worse than consuming beverages that were off-limits in the Mormon community? Over the years, any number of signals about the Word of Wisdom came my way. The one I remember best, I think, was the one sent by Robert Flanders, the author of Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi.8 At a meeting of the Mormon History Association in 1972, Bob, who was a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

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(RLDS), invited me to sit at a lunch table with a group of RLDS historians. When he ordered a cup of coffee, I was so obviously astonished that he reassured me it was okay. “You’ll notice,” he said, “that I’ll let it get cold before I drink it.” Having read the text of Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) 89 (Section 86 in the RLDS Book of Doctrine and Covenants) by that time, I knew that the original prohibition was against the consumption of “hot drinks.” Consequently, I realized that this was not simply an instance of following the first Mormon prophet’s advice quite literally. Not only was the Word of Wisdom a means by which Saints identified themselves to outsiders; it was also a very effective means of communicating where one stood inside the Mormon community. How closely its members complied with the dietary requirements set forth in the Doctrine and Covenants was an important means of establishing one’s position within that community. But as everyone who has been a part of the Mormon world well knows, the Word of Wisdom is only one of a multitude of tangible signals Latter-day Saints (and Latter Day Saints) used (and use) to locate themselves vis-à-vis the rest of the community. Just how intricate and complicated this set of interior messages was (and is) was not experientially impressed on my consciousness until I learned a couple of lessons about how dress likewise signifies standing within the Saintly circle. During the academic year that I spent in Logan, I heard about the special underclothing called garments that Latter-day Saints wear. But in 1960–1961, long before enterprising T-shirt makers came up with the one designed for sale in Salt Lake City that reads “Utah—the land of the funny underwear,” this aspect of Mormon practice was not visible to the uninitiated. Certainly it was not visible to me. If garments were mentioned in what I read about the Saints, I surely failed to fathom their contemporary significance for a people whose dress and—except for their adherence to the Word of Wisdom—behavior made them appear so thoroughly conventional. The study of Mormonism I did in order to write a master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation included descriptions of the prophet’s introduction in Nauvoo of seamless one-piece temple garments that covered the Saints from their wrists to their ankles. I had learned as well that Saints were instructed to wear a modified set of garments under their outer apparel

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after they had been through the Endowment ceremony in the temple. But as my research focus was the Mormons in politics, I read, but did not take note of, a newspaper account of a complaint made by a conservative Saint who was worried that alteration in the garments would undercut their protective properties. No doubt this was connected to the changes that were made in the style of the garments in 1923.9 Perhaps it was because these changes made the undergarments less bulky and easier to wear that I knew so little about garments when I traveled to Salt Lake City in the summer of 1973. By that time, Leonard Arrington had been appointed as church historian and he had been instrumental in making it possible for me to have a fellowship underwriting an extended stint of research in the LDS Church Archives. That was back, to put it charitably, in my casual phase. Except on days on which I had to teach, I mainly wore blue jeans. My wardrobe included few dresses of any kind and no summer dresses at all. As a result, in preparing to take up residence as a Church Historical Department fellow, I purchased three summer frocks. In Salt Lake City, I wore them sequentially, turning up in the archives in a dress every single day. On the last day before I returned to Indiana, several Latter-day Saint friends took me out for lunch. As we left the Church Historical Department, I turned to them and said, “Now aren’t you guys proud of me? I’ve worn a dress to the archives every day. Nobody would ever know that I am not a Mormon.” They laughed and laughed. All three dresses were sleeveless, which meant that every Latter-day Saint entering the reading room knew that I was not wearing a garment. This peculiar experience was an eye-opener: it alerted me to how all sorts of giveaways reveal whether someone is (or is not) wearing a garment. At the same time it sent me home with additional insight into Mormon culture, for it disclosed to me how deep was the level of things I still did not know. But my concern at the time was not with LDS culture. I was then engaged in a study of early Mormon history and dealing as best I could with the perplexing conundrum of where Mormonism fits into the JudeoChristian landscape. For years after I spent that summer research stint in Utah, I paid little conscious attention to the business of how Saints tell the world and tell each other who they are. An invitation to deliver this year’s Arrington lecture provided me with an occasion for revisiting this matter of how the members of the restored Church of Christ led by the Prophet

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Joseph Smith started sending signals that, while Christian, theirs was a church that differed from every other church on the earth. The best way to begin the less personal and more formal part of what I have to say is to direct your attention back to the early years of the church, prompting you to remember why it was the members of the church led by the Mormon prophet so desperately needed to find identifiers that would separate them from every other form of Christianity in the nation. The “burned-over district” is the way many scholars describe the situation in western New York where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints got its start. Surely they are correct, but the confusion obtaining on the American religious landscape was by no means limited to that particular geographical area. In the wake of the addition of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the disestablishment of religion at the federal level and similar disestablishment at the state level that ensued during the following forty years, all legal distinctions between an established church and sectarian bodies disappeared in the United States.10 What was left, as Laurence Moore put it in a fascinating book that he called Selling God, was a religious marketplace in which all faith communities were compelled to locate themselves.11 Naturally, this was easier for the church bodies that had been present in the nation from the colonial period forward than it was for recently formed church bodies. It was especially difficult for any new group whose doctrinal claims appeared, at least from the outside, not to differ significantly from other new groups. In particular, the appearance on the scene of two churches claiming to be restorations of New Testament Christianity caused considerable bewilderment. The church that would give rise to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Community of Christ, and several other Mormonisms, had to contend with the Campbellite restoration movement, which established an institution that was also called the Church of Christ. It was founded in the very same year that the Saints’ then Church of Christ was formally organized. In addition, the followers of the Mormon prophet had to contend with the Baptists who also believed that their institution was the true church of Christ. Such a profusion of churches that named themselves after Jesus exacerbated the religious turmoil on the American scene. This is revealed in a passage from the journal of William E. McLellin written on April 16, 1833. McLellin and his companion, missionaries of the Church of Christ

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led by Joseph Smith, had converted a Sister White and were about to baptize her. But when “Sister White was ready to go into the water [a] Mr. Peck [a Baptist minister] hailed her as a Sister and urged her not to throw herself away or out of the church of Christ, as he called it.”12 Despite such confusion—the same sort of confusion that led young Joseph Smith to inquire of the Lord as to which church was true—the members of the church organized after the publication of the Book of Mormon were convinced that theirs was the real New Testament church. They believed the true church had been lost from the second century until it was restored through the prophet’s agency, and they were sure that this gave them special access to the bequest made to the early Christians in 1 Peter 2:9, a bequest that let them understand themselves as • a chosen generation • a royal priesthood • a holy nation • a peculiar people Unlike the members of most other Christian groups who treated this heritage symbolically, the followers of the Mormon prophet put on these titles quite literally. As the first Saints in a new dispensation, they became the very embodiment of a chosen generation. Their birthrights as chosen people were secured by revelation, and they had a “royal” priesthood. Moreover, those Saints who accepted the leadership of Brigham Young and followed him West established themselves as a holy nation. They constructed a “kingdom in the tops of the mountains,” naming their holy nation the State of Deseret. More to the point of specific interest here, they not only believed with all their hearts, but with action visible to those within and without the church, they also sustained revelations that led to the adoption of a set of unique practices—particularly plural marriage and abiding by the Word of Wisdom—that made their existence as a peculiar people operational. Their atypical patterns of behavior and singular religious practices worked as peculiarity is intended to work. Theirs was still the Church of Christ, but it was not simply the doctrines and the manner of their church organization that set them apart from all other Christians. Their distinctive practices also set the Saints apart, separating them from everyone else on the basis of culture as well as religion.

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Unfortunately for them, the Saints were too sanguine about what the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees as far as religion is concerned. It provides a warrant for religious freedom, but it also ensures freedom from religion, making ours a nation that both values faith and is deeply suspicious of it. As a result, Americans are tolerant of people who are a little bit peculiar, but they are not tolerant of a genuinely peculiar people. The Saints' kingdom-making and odd marital arrangements made for too much peculiarity. As a consequence, these U.S. citizens living in the Great Basin became so alien in the land of their tradition's birth that they were forced to relinquish the practice of plural marriage and to dismantle their holy nation. After the decision in the famed Reynolds case, in which it was argued that under the First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion the practice of plural marriage was legal, it became settled law that religious belief did not come under the purview of the government but that religious practice could not contravene civil law.13 This constitutional settlement allowed the preservation of LDS doctrines and church organization but stopped some of the practices through which the Saints signified their acceptance of revealed doctrines. That makes a study of the practices that did not contravene civil law more important than it might otherwise be. Before addressing the topic of the importance of plural marriage as the practice that more than any other signified Sainthood throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, I need to take up the matter of the naming problem that has plagued the followers of the latter-day prophets since the early 1830s. The initial confusion generated by the existence of several churches with essentially the same name—the Church of Christ or the Church of Jesus Christ—led the Saints to set their ecclesiastical organization apart by calling it the Church of the Latter-day Saints.14 Apparently, a desire to deter people from calling their church the “Mormon Church” and its members “Mormonites” figured in the decision to change the church’s name. The change failed to banish the nickname. But the new name was distinctive. As used on the title page of the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, which reads “the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints carefully selected from the Revelations of God,” the name did more than set the Saints’ church apart from other churches. It bespoke the institution’s claim to being a millennial movement by naming its members Saints

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who were living in the “latter days.” The title page also stated the claim that the church was in receipt of divine revelation. For all that, the new name apparently bothered some of the members of the church who had been attracted to it because they were certain that it was the “primitive” New Testament church and equally certain that it should bear the name of Jesus Christ. For example, although saying for certain how much the name change figured in his disillusionment with Mormonism is impossible, long after Apostle William McLellin was no longer connected to the church he wrote vehemently against the name change.15 How many others were distressed by the name change is hard to determine. One reason may be that any disappointment with a name for the church that did not assert that it was the Church of Jesus Christ was short lived. The 1835 D&C nomenclature was supplanted on April 26, 1838, when the Prophet Joseph Smith proclaimed receipt of a revelation specifying that the church’s official name would be “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Although never formally recognized as an alternative designation, something curious happened to the church’s nickname. Joseph Smith turned pejorative references to Mormonism inside out by declaring “that Mormonism is truth and every man who embraced it felt himself at liberty to embrace every truth: consequently the shackles of superstition, bigotry, ignorance and priestcraft falls at once from his neck and his eyes are opened to see the truth. . . .” The derogatory designation “Mormonite” was likewise undermined as the prophet started to refer to his followers as the “Mormon people.”16 Glorying in the way the name reflected the Saints’ acceptance of the Book of Mormon as an additional testament of Christ’s life, church members made the “Mormon Church” a popular descriptor of the Saints’ ecclesiastical organization. Turning the “Mormonite” designation on its head, many Saints became quite comfortable calling themselves members of the Mormon Church. In a related verbal move, this one reflecting revelations about the Saints being “a chosen generation,” a “chosen people” with patriarchal blessings that identified them as members of the House of Israel, members of the church led by the Mormon prophet began to designate persons of other faiths (and those of no faith) as “Gentile.” Because the Saints responded to revelation by “gathering” into enclaves so that they could be protected

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the same way baby chickens are protected when they are gathered under a hen’s wing, it was easy to speak of outsiders as Gentile. When the Saints subsequently suffered persecution, this verbal signal became more powerful because it reminded the Saints of their own chosen status while reassuring them that those opposing them stood outside the protection of the Almighty.17 The nomenclature skirmishes continue unabated. In the spring of 2001, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued instructions to church members that the Mormon Church designation should be abandoned in favor of the church’s official name.18 On the church’s web site, the same terminology instruction was given to the members of the press. Journalists and others writing about the church were further advised that “on second reference” the church should not be called the “LDS Church.” “The Church of Jesus Christ,” or simply “The Church” (capital “T” capital “C”) is the currently approved designation.19 For decades, now, the use of the term Gentile for a person who is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been officially discouraged. Indicating their negative status vis-à-vis Mormonism, such persons were, instead, “non-Mormon” or “non-member.” In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints semi-annual conference in October, 2001, two apostles and the presiding bishop made it clear that even that shorthand negation of membership is now being abandoned in favor of “persons of other faiths” or, more simply, “neighbors.”20 The foremost expression of concern about finding ways to define non-Mormons in affirmative terms came in the address of Apostle Russell M. Ballard, but Bishop David Burton reiterated the general concern about being sensitive to the feelings of those not of the Saints’ faith with a warning that “our unique Church language can be misinterpreted and appear insensitive or even condescending to our neighbors.”21 With such authoritative advice to the Saints, the church seems to be encouraging the casting off of verbal signals of otherness, thereby moving away from the church’s traditional position that, in compliance with 1 Peter 2: 9, the Saints should identify themselves as a “peculiar people.” But with a certain note of resignation, these addresses recognized that many outsiders regard the Saints as peculiar, implying—at least to this observer—that it might be wise for church members to refrain from public assertions that they are a peculiar people.

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Elder Burton did not advocate a cessation of church members’ efforts to “keep themselves ‘unspotted’ from the world.” Indeed, that was the burden of his message, as it is the burden of most conference talks. With their many references to upright behavior, what the church’s General Authorities seem to be collectively saying is that church members should identify themselves as Latter-day Saints and set themselves apart through practices (i.e., actions) rather than with verbal claims. If the Saints follow this advice—and surely most of them will—it will not lead to much that is entirely new. Between the adoption in 1838 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the church’s correct name pursuant to revelation and the recent flurry of instructions to church members and to the press concerning what its members should be called and should call themselves, Latter-day Saints have been using all sorts of nonverbal signs to mark themselves as a peculiar people. Ever since the anthropologist Clifford Geertz analyzed that Balinese cock fight at the beginning of his distinguished career, observers of distinct cultures have been developing catalogs of cultural signifiers.22 At their most evident, cultural signifiers center on the following: • ritual actions that have a public dimension • what persons put in—and what they do not put into—their bodies (dietary restrictions) • what persons do with (and to) their bodies • how persons clothe and groom themselves • familial structures When cultures are organized around religion, rituals assume a central place in the creation of cultural identifiers. The rituals themselves can be markers of identity as well as occasions for worship and contemplation because those who participate regularly send one type of signal while those who participate rarely or not at all send an entirely different kind of signal. Both have the potential of being read by insiders and outsiders alike. This is obvious enough in the case of attending sacrament meetings, Sunday school, gatherings of the priesthood and relief society in adulthood, and age-appropriate gatherings during childhood and adolescence. Although such active participation in ritual activity often becomes habitual, individual volition—what the Saints call agency—makes

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participation a conscious choice, at least as far as older adolescents and adults are concerned. All sorts of motivation enters into the choices Saints make about participating. Desires to worship and to be a part of the community are both important. But at those points in their lives when such motivation is weak or altogether lacking, Latter-day Saints must decide whether they will do the Mormon thing and go or whether they will stay away. Hence it is obvious that engaging in public ritual activity sends a conscious message in two directions, one goes to the outside world and the other to the Latter-day Saint community. The contraction of the church’s main public ritual activity to a threehour block on Sundays diminished the pattern of virtually perpetual weekday church activity dramatically. A number of traditional activities for youth such as annual road shows were also discontinued. But the Saints still celebrate Pioneer Day on July 24 and hold onto their past in a variety of unofficial (yet obviously Mormon) activities, the reenactment of the pioneer trek and the sea journey across the Atlantic being the most visible.23 Participation in activities such as these last, as well as making individual and family treks to Mormon historical sites, are not merely the outcome of conscious decision making. They require careful planning and considerable financial expenditure. Other forms of ritual behavior are less conscious, but equally (and possibly even more) important in the identity creation that leads individuals to signify their Sainthood without realizing they are doing so. In Mormonism, one such form that becomes a significant sign of being Mormon is how, during public prayer, Saints earmark themselves as followers of the prophet. Many very young Mormons first meet this form of ritual behavior in a family setting when, at table, a blessing on the food precedes mealtime. Learning to cross their arms across their breasts long before they learn to bow their heads, toddlers (and even pretoddlers still eating in high chairs) incorporate a learned ritual behavior into their understandings of the way things are in the world they inhabit as they use their physical muscles to place their hands and arms in the correct position before the blessing commences. They quickly learn, as well, to use their vocal chords to close the ritual by articulating aloud the sounds that will become “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” Although the content of their prayers will change as they mature, so ingrained is this ritual behavior that it seems entirely natural.

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As a result, Latter-day Saints grow from childhood through adolescence to adulthood praying in public in much the same way, thereby broadcasting signals of their Sainthood to one and all. It should not be surprising that this distinctive manner of praying seems innate, so proper to anyone who was reared as a Latter-day Saint that even those who leave the church and physically remove themselves from the Mormon culture region find themselves automatically exercising the same arm movements as they prepare themselves for public prayer. Those individuals likewise find themselves saying “Amen” aloud in surroundings where this practice is not only not observed, but also regarded as distinctly eccentric. Converts to Mormonism, on the other hand, usually adopt this distinctive form of prayer early in their move toward becoming a part of Latterday Saint culture. Although the remainder of what I have to say will concentrate more on the next three types of signifiers, for one trained in history addressing the topic of signifying Sainthood without reference to familial structure would be absolutely foolhardy. Plural marriage—or polygamy as outsiders described it—was the preeminent signal of Sainthood in the nineteenth century. It was not necessary for a member of the Mormon community to be directly involved in the practice of plural marriage for it to be a signifier. Merely accepting the legitimacy of the practice was enough to set a Saint apart from the larger culture. This was so much the case that the practice of plural marriage erected what amounted to a barrier around the culture which, as Mark Twain pointed out in the appendix to Roughing It, had somehow to be transgressed in order to enter the Kingdom of the Saints. That form of marriage was a cultural identity marker par excellence. Its demise changed the world in which the Saints lived.24 Today’s LDS family structure is likewise an important marker of Sainthood, especially with regard to numbers of children and the closeness of families. Cars with bumper stickers that read “Happiness is a Family Home Evening” (a popular item in the 1970s and 80s) were as effective in marking their occupants as Saints as are cars with bumper stickers that read “In case of the Rapture this car will be unoccupied.” In the latter, the occupants will be members of the Christian Right, which brings up a problem about seeing today’s Mormon family structure as a cultural identifier.

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Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved.

Family size works as a signifier inside the LDS community because Saints always seem to be looking to see how many children per family there are. Moreover—and this is a dead giveaway of cultural signifiers—large families are a staple of intra-cultural Mormon humor.25 For example, Question: How do you know that you’re at a Mormon wedding? Answer: Because the bride is not pregnant. But her mother is. Question: Why do Mormons stop having kids at 35? Answer: Because 36 is too many. In addition, Saints also seem to want to know whether the Mother is a stay-at-home Mom. From the outside, however, domestic Mormonism at the beginning of the twenty-first century is not very different from domestic Evangelicalism or domestic Fundamentalism.26 Those forms of Protestantism have ideals for families that are almost identical to the ideals Latter-day Saints have for families, which means that using the family as a signifier of Sainthood nowadays doesn’t work as well as other signs of membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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Take the prohibition against tattooing and mutilation, for instance. These are practices that once were associated with the exotic tribes of central Africa and far-away Borneo, whose members adorned their bodies with trinkets that fit into pierced ears, eyebrows, tongues, navels, and other body parts. In the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, National Geographic magazine published numerous articles accompanied by color photographs of persons who engaged in what, in those days, seemed alien modes of decoration. Readers of the text of such articles learned that body piercing was not merely decorative, but that it was a means of dispensing information, sending signs of who the pictured individuals were, what tribe they belonged to, and what their positions were in those tribes. While it is likely that not all readers of National Geographic made the connection between exotic bodily mutilation and circumcision, the latter practice is a form of bodily mutilation which has, virtually since time began, had tremendous significance within the Hebraic religious tradition.27 Since the 1960s when such practices were adopted by the counter culture, the practice of bodily mutilation that once appeared so strange, even outlandish, has become commonplace in American culture. While I am aware of no systematic reading of the meaning of body piercings and tattooing among the nation’s younger generation, there are enough graduate students pursuing degrees in anthropology to say that it is bound to come. When it does, researchers are not likely to point to bodily mutilation as a cultural signifier much used among the Saints. Indeed, a repetition of the church’s warning against body piercing was included in the conference advice the Saints received in the 171st General Conference in October 2001. On the other hand, as my earlier discussion of the Word of Wisdom indicated, dietary rules have been remarkably conspicuous as signs of being part of Mormon culture. Two important points need to be made about the Word of Wisdom, however. One has been made many times by many scholars, including Leonard Arrington.28 The importance of keeping the Word of Wisdom has varied across LDS history. At some junctures, not smoking and not drinking intoxicating stimulants, including coffee, has been a less insistent signal of being Mormon than at other points in time. Those things were very important in the 1830s, although the Word of Wisdom was often honored more in the breach than in the observance, even by leaders of the Mormon community. But during the

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kingdom period, when plural marriage, that sine qua non of Sainthood, was publicly practiced, the Saints who were busy building the kingdom, marrying into plurality, and digging irrigation ditches that washed away time and time again, did not always need to send other powerful signs of belonging. They were Saints. As that period drew to a close, however, keeping the Word of Wisdom, along with tithing, practically became the premier signal of membership in the community of Saints. An indicator of its importance is the history of church president Heber J. Grant’s public pronouncements. He often said that in all his life as a Mormon leader, he had never failed to mention the need to keep the Word of Wisdom in talks to the Saints. This included talks given at the branch and ward level as well as conference talks.29 It is therefore not at all surprising that Grant would have been so adamantly opposed, in 1909 and subsequently, to the anti-prohibition policy which prevailed in the Republican Party before World War I.30 He welcomed the arrival of prohibition when it came in the form of a constitutional amendment and was adamantly opposed to the repeal of that amendment. How he must have cringed when the vote of Utahans sealed the ratification of repeal. Throughout the twentieth century, the significance of the Word of Wisdom as signifier of being Mormon increased after the passage of repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment legitimated social drinking in the larger culture. Within the Utah-Mormon community, its worth as a signifier of orthodox LDS status increased almost exponentially when the prohibition against the consumption of coffee and tea was extended, although never officially, to any beverage containing caffeine. Not only did the church’s position on liquor laws became an ever-present symbol to outsiders that Utah is a Mormon state, the prohibition against the sale of soda pop that contained caffeine practically became the symbol that Brigham Young University is a church-owned institution. Naturally, this prohibition was put in place as soon as the cafeteria in the newly constructed Church Office Building opened—something I remember particularly from my time as a summer fellow in the Church Archives. A suggestion box had been placed outside the door of the cafeteria, and Leonard Arrington once said to me, only half in jest, “Jan, why don’t you put in a suggestion that Coke be made available for sale in the cafeteria?” That “only half in jest” is a reminder that it is impossible to adequately consider the Word of Wisdom as cultural signifier without taking into

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account the extent to which the practice of the Word of Wisdom tends to divide the sheep from the goats inside the Mormon community. No wonder that Saints never acknowledge each other when they meet in the liquor store and no wonder the millennium has been defined as that point in time when Saints drink coffee in front of each other. A Saint’s standing as orthodox would likely not be destroyed, but it would surely be undercut by repeated instances of ordering coffee or wine in public venues. This reality points to something mentioned earlier, but something that needs particular emphasis. Signs that are used to signify Sainthood are not simply signs to the outside world. They are likewise internal signs indicating the position of the Saints within the community. Such signs go far beyond tangible actions such as what is consumed and what is not consumed. Moving beyond dietary restrictions, about which much more could be said, take the issue of how persons clothe and groom themselves. In Mormonism, as suggested above, the wearing of the post-Endowment temple garment is an extremely important way of signifying Sainthood. But unlike the wearing of a yarmulke by a Jewish man, which is a very public sign of membership in the Jewish community, the wearing of garments is a private sign of commitment. It may be read by others, especially other Saints who know how to interpret subtle clues that a garment is being worn. But the intent in wearing a garment is not to send a signal of membership to anyone. Rather, it is a sign intended to remind Saints of the commitments they made in the temple. Clothing and other decoration—jewelry, for example—and, equally important, grooming are a more public means of establishing Latter-day Saint identity. This is most easily observed by outsiders in the appearance of missionaries whose dress and grooming (along with their distinctive signage) identifies them as representatives of the church. Outsiders may not know that a Saintly appearance is equally critical in establishing place within the LDS community. The pattern of approved dress for missionaries, both men and women, carries over into the culture, so much so that a man’s donning of a white shirt and a tie for sacrament meeting is practically a sure sign of orthodoxy. This appears to be changing, especially in places outside the Mormon culture region. But for a long time a man’s attendance at Sunday meetings in a ward wearing a colored shirt and sports coat caused ward members to

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worry about his straying from the fold. Even now, facial hair and hair left to grow below the ears are signals that can cause concern on the part of local church leaders about the strength of a Mormon man’s testimony. For women, the pattern is less clear cut. What is called for is modest dress. A similar situation prevails for teenagers. The wearing of a white shirt and tie, requisite for the deacons who serve the sacrament, sets the standard for adolescent males.31 The standard for females is less exacting, but the “Britney Spears” look is to be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, teenagers have the possibility of signaling who they are with a means that is not quite so appropriate for adults. Jewelry featuring the initials “CTR” (Choose the Right) is a virtual insignia of membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a fascinating Sunstone article, Jana Reiss classified CTR jewelry and other regalia as Mormon “kitsch,” which the dictionary defines as something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste. Surely, she is absolutely correct at

White shirts, suits, and ties at a meeting of Mormon men. Courtesy of LDS Church Archives.

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CTR (Choose the Right) ring. Courtesy of Museum of Church History and Art.

some level.32 Yet such adornment is more than kitsch, for it explains to other young Saints as well as to those in the larger public who watch for signs of identity that here is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Young members of conservative Protestant groups have a similar insignia, only the initials that decorate their bracelets, necklaces, rings, and so on are “WWJD,” an acrostic abbreviation for “What would Jesus do?” Because so much emphasis is placed on Jesus in current LDS materials as well as in the church generally, some Deseret Book Store buyer apparently concluded there might be a brisk sale of WWJD items to young Latter-day Saints. But a recent interview with a salesperson in the “CTR” section of the main Deseret Book Store in Salt Lake City’s Crossroads Mall indicated that the WWJD merchandise they had ordered did not sell well. She had not seen any for sale for months, maybe for a year or more. This matter of cultural signifiers is so rich that it is impossible in a single lecture even to mention many of the ways in which members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints signify their standing as

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active participants in the life of the institution or inactive members of the church who are nevertheless full-scale participants in the Mormon culture of the intermountain West. Included here is an appendix with a list of additional verbal and physical emblems that send identity messages to persons both in and outside the Mormon community. At the same time, readers of this lecture are challenged to start making their own lists of cultural identifiers. Now, at the end, I will return to the matter of the primary purpose of signifiers, which is the maintaining of boundaries that make possible the continuing existence of a community of peculiar people. This is so critically important that unless the Saints manage to do this—unless the community manages to maintain its separateness while the church places itself within the larger ecumenical universe—it is quite possible that Mormonism could become so assimilated into the larger Christian world that it could become little more than an idiosyncratic denomination. Such private signifiers as wearing temple garments will continue to remind Saints that they must, individually, keep themselves unspotted from the world. But just as family structure does not discriminate so well between Latter-day Saints, Roman Catholics, and conservative Protestants as it once did, it is this observer’s conclusion that the public signification once provided by the Word of Wisdom is unlikely to continue setting the Saints apart. The reason is that the culture outside Mormondom has changed so much. In light of what is now known about what tobacco does to the body, anyone with good sense no longer smokes. Moreover, while not consuming alcohol was definitely a boundary marker in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s when cocktail parties were a preferred form of entertaining and hard liquor flowed, as they say, like wine, nowadays the cocktail party has almost entirely been superceded, at least in academic circles, by social occasions where the liquid fare is beer, wine, and “designer water.” At many of these affairs, nearly half the people choose one of the brands of designer water. As for coffee, the latest news is that caffeine increases the level of cholesterol in the blood. Therefore, this particular long-time holdout against the notion of abiding by the Word of Wisdom is reduced, mainly for health reasons, to an occasional glass of wine. And whatever we might be called—Gentiles, non-Mormons, non-members, neighbors, or persons of other faiths—

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there are so many of us out there beyond the pale who are health conscious that keeping the Word of Wisdom is unlikely to ever again be the Mormon distinctive it used to be. For quite different reasons, the teenagers’ CTR badge of being Mormon could well disappear in the wake of the changes in Mormonism that are wrought by the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now a worldwide church. The obvious reason is linguistic. Only in English does CTR work as a “choose the right” acrostic. In Spanish the expression would be coje el derecho, which would make the acrostic CED; in French the abbreviation would be CLD, and so on. While young missionaries in some parts of the world are finding Saintly entrepreneurs to create rings and other jewelry on which a translation of choose the right is inscribed, it seems likely that a more universal signifier will eventually appear on the horizon.33 Remember, however, that earlier I noted how rituals frequently assume a central place in the creation of cultural identifiers when cultures are organized around religion. Besides the Book of Mormon as an additional scripture, the other true Latter-day Saint distinctive—and here I deliberately selected the singular rather than plural form of this word—is the temple and the rituals that are performed therein. Consequently I am persuaded that Sainthood increasingly will be signified by things connected with Latter-day Saint temples. This is already happening. Even now, the hanging of the requisite (and ubiquitous) picture of a temple on the walls of the homes that Saints inhabit is a means of signifying Sainthood, saying to all who enter that “Saints live here.” Not merely doing genealogy—which everyone seems to be doing—but the temple work that is directly connected to genealogical endeavors is assuming profound cultural as well as religious significance. As a project that leads to the creation of what Saints describe as “eternal families,” this activity is a way of reclaiming the uniqueness of Mormon family structure, thereby preserving the notion of both individuals and families being part of a peculiar people. Temple-related endeavors are likely to preserve and extend that perception of peculiarity since, with the construction of new temples all across the nation and around the globe, going to the temple to participate in the ancient ordinances that set Saints apart from all other Christians is becoming, for an ever-increasing number of Mormons, more of a

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regular practice than an occasional activity. This is altering the sectoring patterns within Mormon communities, where once the most compelling agents of division were whether people in the LDS cultural universe were birthright Saints as opposed to converts and, within the choice world of birthright Saints, whether individuals could establish connections to the pioneer generation. The eradication of those dividing lines will be long in coming, and they may never disappear completely. Yet the emergence of the crucial salience of the temple within Mormonism means that, as time goes on, the possession of a temple recommend will very likely become the primary means of separating the sheep from the goats inside the Mormon fold. If, or more likely when, this occurs, it is probable that the role of traditional signifiers of Sainthood will diminish. This might well be happening in any case as Mormonism is making itself at home in a large number of diverse cultures. And while distinctive cultural signs of being Mormon will not altogether disappear, the import of those traditional signs of being Mormon will decrease. What this suggests to this soon-to-be aged historian is that as far as signifying fellowship in the community of peculiar people, the balance may be shifting from the individual to the group. As the importance of participation in temple rites accelerates, the recommends that local church authorities bestow will be an ever more critical factor in the relationship of ordinary Saints to the church and to the culture. Open questions for the twenty-first century: if bishops become the main arbiters of who fits where within the community of Saints as that community is located within the institution, will a new and very different Saintly culture emerge to surround and nourish the church? If such a culture does emerge, will new verbal emblems and behavioral badges spring forth to signify Sainthood in the new world of Mormondom? If so, what are they likely to be?

Appendix: A Few Additional Cultural Signifiers

• Displays of particular periodicals on LDS “Postum tables” often establish the place of Saints within the community. Having the Ensign, the New Era, and the Church News visible says one thing. Having Dialogue, Sunstone, and Exponent II visible says something entirely different. • Interestingly, the display of the Utah Historical Quarterly, BYU Studies, and the Journal of Mormon History is less likely to send signals locating subscribers in one as opposed to another part of the LDS community. • Conversations about “callings” often send signs about a Saints’ level of activity, as do discussions that indicate experience as a missionary. • Some Saints are likely to display BYU bumper stickers and wear BYU sweatshirts whether or not they are alumni of this institution. • In the nineteenth century, gathering with the Saints was a sure sign that individuals and families were Mormon. The gathering of retired persons to Utah sends the same signal nowadays. In fact, whether or not retired persons ever lived there when they were young, moving to Utah is a signifier that one is truly Mormon. • The presence of a new Mormon temple in an area signifies a significant Mormon population in the region. Together these generate a “mini-Zion” culture with its visible signs of being Mormon. • Although the storage of a year’s supply of food is decreasing among the Saints, this is still a signal of commitment to Church teachings. • In addition to pictures of temples on the walls of Mormon homes, another distinctive symbolic image is a picture of the current 182

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prophet or First Presidency somewhere in the home. Many Saints are now placing pictures of Jesus on the wall, but these are in no way an obvious Mormon distinctive. • Carrying the scriptures to church is a general practice among the Saints. This same pattern of behavior is present in many Protestant churches, especially the more conservative ones. But Protestants only carry the King James version of the Bible, not the Bible bound together with the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price.

Donald Worster

8 Encountering Mormon Country John Wesley Powell, John Muir, and the Nature of Utah

Donald Worster “A

region whose uses are unimaginable, unless to hold the rest of the globe together.”1 So Samuel Bowles, a newspaperman from green and wooded Massachusetts, described the Great Basin in 1865. He spoke for the many travelers who, like him, were repelled by the Basin’s apparent infertility and bleakness. But not all who came were so unmoved. The piney mountain passes, the spectacular canyon lands, the sparse but sheltering valleys, even the alkali deserts of Utah and Nevada drew admirers and settlers, until their tracks on the land became as numerous as those of water birds on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Among those drawn to this interior West were, of course, the native peoples, whose ancient footprints can still be found incised in rock where they are not obliterated by drifting sand. Much later came the Latter-day Saints, who settled here in large numbers, founding nearly five hundred colonies in the nineteenth century. Pushing aside the native peoples, as other Americans had done, they transformed this arid heart of the West into their home place, Mormon country. Today I want to focus not on that transformation itself nor on Mormon attitudes toward the nature of the Great Basin but rather on two non-Mormons who came to Utah Territory and found plenty to be positive about: John Wesley Powell and John Muir. The first John came in 1869 and then came back repeatedly during the decade of the 1870s, leaving a large imprint on the land of Utah, as it left a large imprint on his mind and career. The second John arrived in the spring of 1877 and stayed only briefly. Utah did not figure largely in his life work, nowhere 185

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near as much as California or Alaska. But John Muir did leave a small pile of words about Utah, published and unpublished, words that are worth uncovering. He was one of the first to celebrate the incomparable wild beauty of this place. Historians have tended to neglect the two Johns as part of Utah’s story, particularly Muir. They are commonly put into another story, the founding of the American conservation and environmental movement. But the two stories should not be kept apart. Through these two men, I will argue, Mormon country became linked to the conservation movement early on and has remained linked right down to the present. Many of this state’s current environmental struggles over wilderness preservation, the management of forests and water, and the role of religion, science, and agriculture in determining how we perceive and use the natural world were anticipated by those two conservationists who passed through more than a century ago, expressing both delight and criticism. Conservation was a movement to change how Americans used the land. But from the beginning, and this will be a key part of my argument, conservationists did not all think alike. Some put more emphasis on preserving the beauty and integrity of wild places and wild creatures, others on establishing what we now call a more sustainable use of the land for the sake of future generations. We can paint the differences too starkly; Powell and Muir, for example, agreed on setting up national parks and on wise use of natural resources. Both wanted a larger role for government, a new ethic in our treatment of the land, and more community control over the self-seeking individual. But there were significant differences in their philosophies; consequently, the two men looked at Utah through different eyes. Muir became an advocate for wildlands and their preservation, while Powell was an advocate of what we might today call sustainable development. This difference in perspective is all the more surprising when we realize that Powell and Muir came from almost identical backgrounds. Somehow both of them grew up to become conservationists, but by the time they arrived here they had acquired different interests and philosophies. The two Johns could have been cousins. Each was raised by evangelical Protestant parents who emigrated to the United States from Great Britain. Powell’s parents were Welsh and English Methodists; Muir’s parents were of Scottish Presbyterian background but drifted away from

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any firm denominational identity. Powell was born in New York State in 1834; Muir in Scotland in 1838. Then for a brief while they lived not far from one another in the state of Wisconsin, where their families owned farms and put their sons to work plowing and threshing wheat. Both ran away from that hard agricultural life and their parents’ strict, Biblebased doctrines. Both spent a couple of years in Midwestern colleges before setting out for the West right after the Civil War: Powell bound for Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah in 1867–68, Muir bound for California’s Sierra Nevada in the very same years. Subsequently, Powell lived out most of his adult life in Washington, D.C., as a federal bureaucrat, head of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Smithsonian’s Bureau of Ethnology. He died in 1902 from a stroke suffered on the coast of Maine. Muir settled eventually in Martinez, California, north of San Francisco Bay, acquiring through marriage a large fruit farm. In 1892 he joined others in forming the Sierra Club. And in 1914 he died in a Los Angeles hospital of pneumonia. They never met one another, but as I said, they might have been cousins, or even brothers.2 So what brought these two Johns to the vast interior majesty of Utah and what did they find here? What did their reactions to this place reveal about their respective approaches to the relationship between nature and humans? And how did each man assess Mormons and Mormon country?

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ajor John Wesley Powell, a Civil War veteran who had lost an arm at the battle of Shiloh, first burst onto the stage of national fame in mid-September 1869, when he arrived in Salt Lake City directly after a harrowing voyage through the waters of the Grand Canyon. He and his crew had succeeded in making the first recorded exploration of the Colorado River system, from its origins in Wyoming through the canyon to the mouth of the Virgin River, an exploration lasting three tensionfilled months. Appropriately, the citizens of Salt Lake gave Powell a hero’s welcome, for he had opened up for them, and for the whole country, the nearly unknown immensity of the Colorado Plateau. Until his warm reception in Salt Lake City, Powell had almost ignored the Mormons. But two years later, in 1871–72, when he returned to lead a second expedition down the river, the Mormons could not be ignored.

John Wesley Powell, ca 1890s. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved.

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They had penetrated into southern Utah and were everywhere around him. They had even built a primitive road down to the Colorado River, establishing a tiny settlement and crossing point at Lee’s Ferry, and had stretched a telegraph line to a point only a days’ ride from the Grand Canyon rim. In valley after valley across the plateau, they had begun to plow and plant crops, setting up sawmills, banks, churches, and printing presses. Their fast growing network of settlements became a valuable support for Powell’s second expedition. In a sense, the entire Mormon community was now ready to ride with him in his frail wooden boats.3 When the second expedition made a long pause in the winter of 1871–72, Powell and company hunkered down in canvas tents on the outskirts of the frontier town of Kanab. Here all the expedition’s men, and a couple of their wives, were drawn further into the social and economic life of their hosts. They went to community dances, made close friends among the Mormons, drank the local brew, and even thought about acquiring real estate. When Brigham Young paid a visit to the village, he got an offer on some of his extensive land holdings. “Maj. Powell,” he wrote, “has desired a lot at Kanab and says he will improve it and seems much interested in developing the country.”4 What attracted Powell to this backcountry Mormon village was its spirit of cooperative enterprise. That spirit stood in sharp contrast to the individualistic, laissez-faire society that Powell had known in the Midwest. He found among the Mormons a remarkable degree of social planning, social control, and social harmony. While most non-Mormon observers saw only the Saints’ polygamy and theocracy, regarding them both as a slide into barbarism, Powell was far more positive. He valued the Mormon model of an organic society in which individuals were united in a common cause. One of the members of his second expedition, Frederick Dellenbaugh, put into words what Powell himself felt: “As pioneers the Mormons were superior to any class I have ever come in contact with, their idea being home-making and not skimming the cream off the country with a sixshooter and a whiskey bottle.”5 At the very heart of that appealing frontier society lay Brigham Young’s economic philosophy. According to Leonard Arrington, what Young sought was “a system of relationships in which self-seeking individualism and personal aggrandizement would be completely replaced by common

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action, simplicity in consumption, relative equality, and group selfsufficiency.”6 Critical to that system was the idea of “cooperatives,” for both producing and marketing commodities from the land. From 1868 to 1884 as many as two hundred cooperatives were founded, the most famous of them being the Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution in Salt Lake City; every ward was expected to set up its own cooperative general store, with shares available to the poorest member. These jointlyowned businesses were intended to be the foundation of a virtually classless society. They did not last. Few survived the intense pressure from economic individualism and from the U.S. government during the 1880s to open Utah to private capital. But they were growing and thriving when John Wesley Powell surveyed the territory, and they made a profound impression on his social and environmental imagination. In 1878 Powell published a government document that has been called one of the most important contributions ever made to American conservation, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States.7 Six of its ten chapters dealt directly with Utah, suggesting that this single territory should be taken as representative of the whole West. They include a chapter describing the geographical divisions of Utah, from the Wasatch Mountains in the north to the high plateaus in the south. Another chapter addressed the question of whether the water supply of Utah, as indicated by the level of the Great Salt Lake, had increased or not with white settlement. (The author of the chapter, the geologist G. K. Gilbert, couldn’t make up his mind about it.) Still other chapters discussed the prospects for irrigation from the Bear, Weber, Jordan, Sevier, Virgin, Uinta, and other rivers. Powell and his associates had turned from exploring the country to the work of “redeeming” it, asking how its scarce water supply might be used most efficiently to raise crops and feed families. “The redemption of all these lands,” Powell declared, “will require extensive and comprehensive plans, for the execution of which aggregated capital or cooperative labor will be necessary. Here, individual farmers, being poor men, cannot undertake the task. For its accomplishment a wise prevision, embodied in carefully considered legislation, is necessary.”8 The legislation Powell had in mind would have repealed the Homestead Act, with its 160-acre allotments of free land to individual farmers, along with Thomas Jefferson’s famous grid system of 36-section townships, adopted back in the eighteenth century and still the template

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for frontier America. Those laws were unsuited, Powell maintained, to the arid West. In their place he recommended a system of group colonization adapted to the lay of the land: irrigation colonies of small farmers established wherever there was an adequate water supply, grazing colonies of cattle and sheep growers wherever there was not. A colony was a group of people who shared ownership of the principal resources of land and water. Clearly, Powell was talking revolutionary change. Where could he have found such an un-American idea? No such colonies existed in his boyhood past, where individualism and private property had ruled the day. The most obvious source was the Mormons, with their colonizing plans, their ideal of community ownership, and their newly established cooperatives. Powell acknowledged who his teachers were when he wrote, “In Utah Territory cooperative labor, under ecclesiastical organization, has been very successful.”9 The Mormons, he noted, had lacked capital so they substituted labor. That necessity turned out to be a virtue. They learned to work together to capture the scarce water. Although the land had once seemed hopeless to travelers, their labor built a strong agricultural economy here. And that same labor freed them from outside capital. They became independent by learning how to depend on one another. Make no mistake, Powell was no friend of Utah’s “ecclesiastical organization.” While the church’s authority, he admitted, had served to harmonize the inevitable conflicts over water, land, or grass, it was not, in his view, an essential ingredient. Moreover, such an authority was “not so easily attained by the great body of people settling in the Rocky Mountain Region,” that is, by the Gentiles who rejected Brigham Young and his church in every way. Since leaving his father’s household Powell had become an agnostic and secularist. He was unimpressed by Mormon theology; in his mind, it was so much “superstition,” no better or worse than Methodism or other religions. Instead of setting up bishops, apostles, or ministers of the gospel to harmonize the contending interests, he would rely on a more secular organization and secular goodwill. Whether that would have been effective is a hard question. Mormon religion was inextricably part of Mormon communalism. But Powell was confident that one could have the colony idea without the theocracy, and he carefully edited out all reference to God or saints in his report on the arid lands.

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We can give a name to Powell’s environmental ideal for the West: a land of agrarian villages. He imagined a country dominated by hundreds of agrarian villages planted all across the landscape, radiating out from Utah over the Rockies, the desert Southwest, the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest, and California. Each village in that new country would be a closely knit community of farmers and ranchers living in harmony with each other and with the land. Powell’s vision was different from Jefferson’s brand of agrarianism, which was based on an exclusive and private ownership of farmland and encouraged self-reliance and individualism. That was not what Powell had in mind. Indeed, what he contemplated had never really existed in America except among the earliest Puritan colonies, the Hispanics in the Southwest, and now among the Mormons. Established here in the West, the agrarian village, Powell hoped, might bring a greater stability to American life. Agriculture had been on the move since Jefferson’s day, exploiting soils and forests, moving on to fresh ground when the old ground was depleted, wasting a splendid patrimony time and again, and always looking toward the western horizon for another chance. Brigham Young may have seen this pattern in his native state of Vermont and regretted it, for he was determined that Utah would do things differently. The land here must support a permanent home for his people, who must realize that, if this place were also spoiled, there would be no other place to go. Powell too was hopeful that, contrary to all precedent, the arid West would encourage a more permanent kind of settlement, one that would not self-destruct in a few generations. Another attraction of the agrarian village was that it would stand like a strong fortress, not against Indians but against far more dangerous forces in the national economy. Only a closely knit village could offer any protection against the rich and rapacious interests that dominated the new market economy. Those interests would soon monopolize the West’s water and other resources, Powell feared, if the village did not get there first and, with government assistance, get those resources securely into its own hands. A government that truly favored the rights and welfare of the common people should work to encourage villages, not open the way to the corporations. I suppose that Powell was also drawn to the agricultural village for its simple elegance and grace. What he saw emerging across the Mormon

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landscape were places of man-made beauty, not the raw, ugly America of other frontiers. From their wide streets lined with fruit trees and irrigation ditches, villages looked outward toward patches of grains and vegetables and beyond them to sweeping upland pastures dotted with livestock and still farther on to snow-glistened mountains abundant with forests and water. The whole was an aesthetic delight, a satisfying blend of nature and culture. Finally, the agrarian village seemed to be better adapted to the realities of nature than the scattered homesteads of boom and bust. The village was better prepared to respect the limits that nature placed on human life, while trying to make the most of the land’s potential. Powell pointed out in his 1878 report that less than three percent of Utah could ever be irrigated; water would always have to be carefully conserved and used only where it was most productive and where it required the least investment. Most of the remaining land would remain forever vulnerable and must be protected by local rules over grazing and forestry; otherwise, the villages would self-destruct. We remember Powell today for his daring voyages down the great unknown of the Colorado River. But this other Powell, the environmental thinker who envisioned a West devoted to village democracy, has been largely ignored or forgotten. In his own day, Congress, though showering him with money for mapping the interior, paid no attention to his village ideal. It was as though he had proposed legalizing polygamy throughout the West. Agrarianism was a radical idea, Congress felt, and in contrast to the ideal of the lone, self-reliant farmer entrepreneur, it did not have much political support. Thus, Powell’s report of 1878 never even got a hearing. Much later, in the early 1890s, after he had tried one last time to lay out an agrarian model for the West, he was silenced and driven from public office. Congress went further, chopping away at the agrarian villages that had taken root under Brigham Young and repressing their communitarian spirit. Young’s environmental ideas did not long survive his death in August 1877. In the words of Leonard Arrington, Utah was forced to make a “great capitulation” and to join the Union on the terms of market capitalism.10 The Mormon Church was forced out of its role as a regulator of economic activity, and with that loss came a more free-wheeling economy, one that was not expected to obey any rules or any ethics. But what

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died with the great capitulation was not merely a check on free enterprise, nor the church’s defense of social justice and a moral economy. What also died was that vision of the agrarian village as humankind’s best hope for a sustainable relationship with the natural world. How effective that vision might have been, had it survived, is an open question. But with the great capitulation it never had a chance to develop as a model of human ecology. The village quickly gave way to the modern industrial capitalist landscape of mine, factory, railroad, and agribusiness. Powell, like Young, went down to defeat. Agrarianism had only a short trial, a brief moment, before it was snuffed out, and the West went under the wheels of corporate power.

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nd then there was that other John, the tall one with both arms intact and long skinny legs. John Muir slipped into Salt Lake City sometime in early May 1877 (on May 10 he was sketching an avalanche-covered cabin in Alta City) and did not leave until sometime in mid-June. No one paid attention to his coming or going; he was as yet no hero or celebrity. He came to write four articles for the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, which were published on May 22 and 25 and on June 14 and 19; later, after his death, they were reprinted in the book Steep Trails.11 Whether the San Francisco newspaper sent him on assignment or he came on his own initiative is not clear. Other national newspapers were sending in reporters at this time to cover what outsiders feared would be a war between the Nauvoo Legion and the federal troops. On April 30, only days before Muir arrived, a New York Herald journalist had been granted an interview with Brigham Young and his counselors down in Cedar City, where the main subject was the execution a few months earlier of John D. Lee for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Lee’s confession was made public in April, and it accused Young of being an accessory to the infamous deed. Young told the reporter that he did not approve of violence and could not be made responsible for the evil that others did. But the Gentile press was not convinced of his innocence. According to the anti-Young Salt Lake Tribune of May 13, “sedition is being preached from every Mormon pulpit, and the followers of the crime-stained and imperiled Prophet are preparing themselves for open rebellion.”12 The

John Muir, ca. 1909, by Edward B. Green. Courtesy of Colby Memorial Library, Sierra Club.

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federal troops at Fort Douglas were put on alert for possible military action. Thus, the atmosphere was tense and charged when Muir arrived. It seems plausible that he came because the San Francisco paper admired his reporting skills and trusted him to turn in a good story about an impending war between the Mormon kingdom and America. Muir, however, was as interested in political controversy as a eunuch is interested in sex. His previous articles for the paper had almost all dealt with wilderness rambles in the high Sierra, although one piece had described the war on the Modocs in the lava beds of California. If the paper now expected him to send back an account of bloodshed and uproar, it was disappointed. His four submissions described hiking through snowstorms, bathing in the Great Salt Lake, and climbing in the Oquirrhs—the adventures of a romantic naturalist who spent much of his time alone, admiring the wild mountain glory. He had, in fact, a very peaceful stay. “As for the Mormons one meets,” he wrote, “however their doctrines be regarded, they will be found as rich in human kindness as any people in all our broad land.”13 Muir’s first article, entitled “The City of the Saints,” presented a cursory picture of Mormon life in Salt Lake, while admitting it was hard to pay attention to the society when the mountains were so grand. He strolled about the town, admiring its leafiness, its gurgling irrigation channels (all polluted, he observed), its profusion of lilacs and tulips, its simple and unostentatious homes, its open-handed inhabitants. The women he saw on the streets, however, seemed “weary, repressed,” overburdened with hard work, and the men seemed even more overwhelmed by the institution of plural marriage. Muir complained about Mormon exclusiveness: “A more withdrawn, compact, sealed-up body of people,” he wrote, “could hardly be found on the face of the earth than is gathered here, notwithstanding railroads, telegraphs, and the penetrating lights that go sifting through society everywhere in this revolutionary, questionasking century.” Too often he ran into an overly defensive attitude: “We are as glad as you are that Lee was punished. . . .” he was told. “We Saints are not as bad as we are called.” Muir didn’t want to hear such apologies; he had not come to indict or to praise, but only to see the country.14 Besides the articles he sent back to his paper, Muir also kept, as he always did on his travels, a personal diary or notebook.15 It is written

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in some of his worst handwriting, which may explain why none of his biographers has paid any attention to it. But his notes afford a more revealing, unedited view of his stay in Utah. They reinforce the conclusion that Muir took a rather ambivalent view of the Mormon people, liking and disliking them in about equal measure. But the notes also include some surprising conclusions about the materialistic bent of this supposedly spiritual people. And they include some amusing observations on childbearing and demonstrate at least a casual reading in Mormon history and theology. On May 21, Muir’s notebook records, he arrived in the village of Nephi, about ninety miles south of Salt Lake City and lying in the shadow of one of the territory’s largest peaks, Mt. Nebo, which he had come to climb. First laid out in 1851, Nephi was the kind of place that Powell would have loved: a well-ordered farming community raising wheat, oats, barley, vegetables, fruit, and livestock.16 Muir liked it too, so much so that he failed even to mention his mountain climbing here but wrote extensively about the village and its people. He stayed with a 73-year-old bishop, a Welshman named Evans, who told about all the persecutions he had endured in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois before trekking to Utah. Evans now lived contentedly with his five wives and forty-one children. Muir admired their new prosperity—“the best fed[,] best clad[,] happiest & most self respecting poor people I ever saw.” He attributed their success to their strong work ethic and practical approach to life. “There is a method,” he wrote, “in all their madness[,] call it fanaticism or what you will[;] they keep their feet on the ground.” For all their “extraordinary extravagance concerning angels & god & heaven,” they never become so excited “as to forget their cows & crops[,] their children’s bread.” What a contrast, he added, to the “swoomy contortions screeming [sic] such as occur in camp meetings” among the Protestant fundamentalists he had known.17 One manifestation of this bent toward the practical was the number of clocks Muir found in Mormon houses—a clock in every room. For a lad from Wisconsin who had obsessively hand- carved a lot of wooden clocks and had crafted many machines of his own invention, this emphasis on time-work discipline, on machine-like rationality, was a positive sign. Yet both the hard work and the point of that work seemed

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pushed to an extreme here. Muir found his Mormon hosts materialistic to a fault. Life was almost all work, all thrift, and all accumulation. He complained that they ruthlessly drove their shovels and picks into the flowery soil, blind to the beauty of the earth.18 Muir’s personal religion was not his father’s traditional Protestantism. It was the religion of nature. He worshipped the American wilderness as the finest manifestation of God’s love and generosity. Nature spoke far more powerfully than any revelation written down in books. Nature revealed God directly to man, without any need of intermediaries— prophets, scriptures, churches. In Muir’s view, Mormons, like too many other Americans, seemed wholly unaware that God could best be found not in man’s theology but in the natural world that God had made and pronounced good and blessed. Mormons, complained Muir, had set themselves apart as superior to all other beings, nonhuman as well as human. To call oneself a saint and dismiss everybody and everything else as heathen was abhorrent to him. “The sun is a saint,” he wrote in his notebook, “so is the snow & the gl[acier]s & every virgin river.”19 All of nature is sanctified by its Creator. To dismiss any part of nature as unsaintly or fallen or treat it merely as raw material for making farms and commodities was, according to his own notion of spirituality, an act of sacrilege. Muir copied in his notebook a long summary of church doctrine from Parley Pratt’s Key to the Science of Theology (published in 1855).20 He made no commentary on it, leaving us to imagine what he thought about its doctrines. The subject of his summary was what Pratt identified as the three resurrections, the last of which is supposed to usher in a thousandyear millennium of peace and prosperity on earth. But first, Pratt said, the earth itself must undergo a transformation. Its mountains must be leveled, its valleys plowed up, its swamps drained, its deserts redeemed and rendered productive. The entire globe must be turned into a great farm, crossed by steam locomotives and telegraph lines. All the hidden minerals must be dug out of the earth and made into commodities. And women too must be improved. Wives, the summary of Pratt’s ideas continues, “will then [be] more fruitful than ever,” bearing even larger numbers of children. For Muir, the California lover of wilderness, this had to be an appalling vision. Leveling those sublime mountains? Plowing

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up every last rood of land? People proliferating everywhere, destroying all nature and all possibility of solitude? Humankind, in Muir’s opinion, definitely needed redemption; unquestionably, they needed a kind of resurrection. But nature itself did not need to be redeemed—not the Earth, God’s holy creation! For Muir the best thing about the Mormons was not their attitude of environmental conquest but their attitude toward their children. The children, he wrote, “are petted & loved & left to grow like wildfl[ow]ers” (unlike the real wildflowers, which were destroyed).21 Remembering his own harsh childhood with its heavy doses of physical punishment, he marveled at how much his hosts doted on their offspring. Muir always had a tender heart for any child; children seemed to share his pleasure in the simple beauties of nature and to live without guile or meanness. Anyone who treated children well won his respect, and in this regard the Mormons rated high. He could not, however, help poking a little fun at the Latter-day Saints’ legendary fertility. “The production of babies is the darling pursuit industry of Mormons,” he wrote, “& the reckless overbearing enthusiasm with wh[ich] they throw themselves into the business is truly admirable.” Later he wryly called it “baby farming.”22 The most important product raised in an agrarian village like Nephi was children, lots and lots of children. They were the biggest crop. Then Muir drew a lesson from the Utah climate and topography that echoed Major Powell’s concerns about respecting nature’s limits. There should be natural constraints, Muir wrote, not only on agriculture but on human fertility. “There is a limit to this crop as to every other,” he wrote. “It is controled [sic] by the quantity of water available for irrigation.” Wherever a stream issues from the mountains and forms a delta, there is also “a delta of babies … as if like the boulders they had been washed down in floods.” Now Muir knew where babies really come from, but he was having a little fun. Babies need water, he was saying; like little potatoes or brussel sprouts they can not live without it. Just as farmers could not cultivate crops above an elevation line where irrigation was impossible, so babies could not thrive there. “The height of the baby line in Utah,” Muir estimated, is about 6000 feet. Above this line one could find only Gentiles—“babyless, barren miners gold

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seekers.” The implication, of course, was that Powell’s iron law of aridity was not only a check on agricultural growth but also on procreation and the human population. This was not a country of infinite carrying capacity.23 Down in the valleys so teeming with happy children Muir became worried once more about the burdens that procreation placed on Mormon women. “Every woman,” he wrote, is “a factory.” In another strange but striking comparison, he described the childbearing wife as a tree in an eastern forest on which huge flights of migrating passenger pigeons alight, bending and breaking her branches, sending up a din of cooing, and covering the ground with their droppings.24 While staying in Nephi, Muir went to hear a widow of Joseph Smith speak at a “women’s industrial meeting,” where she gave her interpretation of “women’s rights.” Women, she declared, have these rights and only these rights—the right to bear children, to nurture them, and to practice virtue. Muir was skeptical. While he was impressed by the speaker’s tale of how she had overcome hardship, how she had learned through adversity to manage her household, he could not see that producing huge families was good for women’s health nor that it was either a right or a duty. Polygamy itself he said little about, but the fact that those five Evans wives had borne 41 children bothered him; their overproduction seemed harmful to the women’s health as well as unsustainable in the arid environment. Ironically, Muir was himself the product of a large family, eight children in all, exactly the same ratio per woman as in the Evans household. And, truth to tell, he had loved growing up with that big brood of siblings around the table—so many sisters and brothers to share his passions and pains, to play with and compete against and love. Away from them, indeed away from human companionship, John Muir was a very lonely man. All his life he was an intensely social person who made friends easily and held on to them with great tenacity. Since leaving his family and the Midwest ten years earlier, he had learned how to be alone in nature for long periods. Winters he would come down from the Sierra to San Francisco’s civilization and stay over for months with his friends. When spring came he was quickly out the door, looking for any place that was wild. Yet he was often more lonely than he could bear. Seeing the village of Nephi brought home what had been missing in his lonely mountain travels: children, domesticity, the presence of

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women. He felt with new intensity that his life had been too driven by his need for spiritual renewal in the wilderness, while his need for human companionship in society had gone unsatisfied. In one of the most poignant passages in all of Muir’s writings, he confessed in his notebook (probably right after climbing Mt. Nebo) that ”coming down from the mountains to men I always feel . . . out of place. . . . I am always glad to touch the living rock again & dip my head in high mountain sky. In Mormon baby thickets I feel more than ever insignificant.”25 But those baby thickets, he realized at the same time, are as important as the mountain forests. He was caught in an excruciating tension—a desire to connect with nature and a desire to connect with people. The first question Mormon women commonly asked him when he came into their houses was, how many children do you have? Even before they took his hat or offered a chair, they wanted to know whether he was a family man or not. “I say Ive not had baby opportunities . . . I have been in the woods gathering fl[owe]rs & studying nature[.] [B]irds & [squirrels] & wild sheep are my own children.” But it was not a completely honest answer. His hiking companion bragged to the women that he had eight little ones of his own at home. And then the good wives turned their full gaze on John, demanding an accounting of his own persistent bachelorhood. “I look out the door to the [mountains] instinctively,” he wrote to himself, “and fortunately there are [mountains] before every Utah door—and say Ive not got any.”26 That admission did not come easily. How could a man who loved women, children, and families as much as he loved the wilderness admit,“Ive not got any”—no family of his own? Two years later, in June 1879, Muir remedied that situation. He became engaged to Louie Strentzel of Alhambra, California, and in March 1881 the first of his two daughters would be born. The encounter with Mormon country and village life may not have been responsible for that decision to marry and start a family, but it showed Muir what had been missing in his mountain ramblings. Eventually he ceased his lonely ramblings, at least for a long spell, devoting his energies to his wife, her parents, their farm, and his children’s welfare. The wilderness would draw him back again, and always it would remain vital to his well-being. But the post-Utah phase of his life was spent more in family and society than in nature.

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——

During the 1870s it became clear to Americans what an incredible natural environment they possessed, from ocean to ocean. Utah, like the whole inner West once shunned or feared, was becoming a known place, and in a radical turn of attitudes, its geography now seemed to offer cause for national optimism. What nation could fail to be great that had such a great wealth of resources, so many riches for the human spirit as well as for the pocketbook? In those same years a new movement began to take shape to safeguard that wealth of nature from the old despoilers. Two of its greatest leaders, John Wesley Powell and John Muir, were founding figures in that movement. Whatever their differences, they were united in hoping that the West would not only enrich the country materially but also lead the way to a higher social and spiritual existence. That was the ultimate purpose behind the movement they founded to conserve this incomparable natural heritage. Both men passed through Utah on their way to national fame and influence as conservationists. And in that passage they laid the foundations for one of the nation’s most important social movements. No other nation has had such a diverse and vital tradition of environmental reform as the United States. It has been one of the things that has made us, in the past as well as in the present, a world leader in ethics and idealism. It is a tradition that has celebrated, in moving prose and poetry, music and art, the bounty of the American land. We do well to honor that tradition, to teach its literature and ideals in our schools and universities, and to remember its great pioneers. A good place to begin that remembering is to follow the unfolding lives of such individuals as Powell and Muir. We can follow them as they tried to imagine how nature and society might come together on this continent in ways no other places had achieved. We should remember their hope that a harmony between people and land might emerge in this country and in this Utah, that a nature-loving democracy might grow up here that could inspire the world. Americans, they believed, should aim at more than building up armies, asserting power, piling up wealth, making a global empire. They should learn to speak the language of the land and become its stewards.

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The environmental tradition that begins with Powell, Muir, and others of their century has taken deep root in our national thinking and continues to affect us in powerful ways. We need to understand that tradition and build upon it. Here in Utah, and in every part of the country, it is up to us to decide where and how in the future that tradition might grow and develop, for the benefit of all the world’s people and of this whole superbly endowed continent.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Photo by Jim Harrison.

9 Rachel’s Death How Memory Challenges History

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich T

here is the past. Then there are people’s recollections of the past, the stories they tell themselves and pass on to their children. Scholars call these stories, whether preserved in families or celebrated in public events, “memory.” Memory is not history. History is a documented account of the past. It asks memory, “Where did you get that?” and “How do you know?” “History,” as historian Richard White has observed, “is the enemy of memory. . . . History forges weapons from what memory has forgotten or suppressed.” Yet, memory is powerful, and it will not go away. In White’s words, “There are regions of the past that only memory knows.”1 When I was a little girl, I used to sit on a footstool in front of my grandpa’s rose-colored wing chair in his house on Fifth East in Salt Lake City and beg him to tell me stories. My grandfather, Nathan Davis Thatcher, was born in Logan, Utah in 1867, the son of John B. Thatcher and his first wife, Rachel Hannah Davis. Grandpa was fun. He could play the harmonica and sing nineteen verses of “Gentleman Frog,” ending with “If you want any more you can sing it yourself.” He told us about mischief as well as scriptures. His most astonishing story was about the time he went into one of the Thatcher stores, tied strings around his ankles, and filled his pant legs with candy. His uncle told him he could have some, so he decided to share the wealth. He went up onto the roof of the store and dropped the booty down to his friends. But most of Grandpa’s stories were about close scrapes. He was three when he nearly drowned in the mill race. He was twelve when he was 205

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thrown from a horse while herding cattle up Logan Canyon. Folks thought he was going to die. Maybe he did die one time in Gentile Valley when after being wounded on the trail, he lay helpless in bed for a day. One morning a window seemed to open up in the wall by his bed, and he saw a beautiful meadow where a young man came out of the woods with a gun on his shoulder and invited him to go with him. Though tempted, he finally said “No.” From that moment, he began to get better. My Grandpa was a little man, barely 5’4” by the time I knew him. He liked to say that these close scrapes stunted his growth, though he hastened to add, the candy may have had something to do with it too. Grandpa’s most haunting story, the one I can never forget, was an account of his mother’s death. This is how I remember him telling it: He was fifteen years old. His family had left Logan for a homestead in Gentile Valley in the southeastern corner of Idaho. They were living in a log cabin that had a lean-to attached to one side. On a winter day, Grandpa was with his mother in the lean-to while she was doing the laundry. She told him to go into the main part of the house to change his socks so she could add them to the washing. When he walked out of the room, the roof of the lean-to, heavy with snow, collapsed, killing her instantly. This might have been another story about Grandpa almost dying, but he didn’t tell it that way. I remember it as a story about inexpressible loss, about cold and sorrow and the difficulty of getting his mother’s body through the snow and across the mountain to Logan for burial. “Who took care of you when your mother died?” I asked. “We took care of ourselves,” Grandpa said. Some years ago when I was at Utah State University giving a talk, I decided to do a little research in family history. Until I turned the crank on the old microfilm reader, it hadn’t occurred to me that my greatgrandmother’s death had any sort of public significance. But there in the Logan Leader for January 20, 1882, under the heading “Fatal Accident,” was almost a full column. It explained that John B. Thatcher, formerly a merchant in Logan, had recently bought a ranch in Gentile Valley in southern Idaho. He had moved his wife Rachel and her children there the summer before. The newspaper corroborated some of the details in Grandpa’s story. The roof fell on an early morning, just after breakfast,

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though there was no mention of laundry, and, yes, the family did bring the body to Logan for burial. The cast of characters was larger though. According to the Leader, there were several children in the kitchen when Rachel, who was in another room, heard a “cracking sound.” Rushing in she told them to get out, which they did just in time, for “one of the long beams or stringers of the roof fell to the floor,” knocking her down with the falling debris. She lay stunned, with her head on the fallen beam, when another “heavy, long timber fell parallel with the first and fairly on top of it,” pinning her between the two. “Death was almost, if not quite, instantaneous. Three men tried to lift the upper log, but could not, and it had to be cut in two before the remains could be released.”2 The Leader did not mention snow or the difficulties of bringing the body to Logan for burial. Instead it focused on the wonders of modern technology and the prominence of Rachel’s family. From Gentile Valley, a messenger hastened to the nearest railroad station, twenty-five miles away at Oxford, dispatching telegrams to relatives in Logan and Salt Lake. “A despatch was sent to Apostle Moses Thatcher and President Wm. B. Preston, who are brothers-in-law of the deceased. They at once repaired to Logan.” Apostle Thatcher and Pres. Preston preached at her funeral the next day. The obituary closed with a conventional eulogy. “The deceased was a woman whom to know was indeed to respect and love.” Hundreds of citizens crowded into the basement of the tabernacle for her funeral, testifying to “the high estimation in which she was held in Logan, a city which she helped to found.” Although the Leader identified Rachel as a “founder,” it also described her primarily through her connections to and influence upon male relatives. It identified her as the daughter of “Brother Nathan Davis of Salt Lake,” without mentioning that her mother, Sarah Woolley, was still living. Of her eight children, only Johnny, the oldest, merited naming: “Elder John B. Thatcher, Jr. . . . is now doing noble work in the mission field in the state of Ohio, exemplifying the training he received from his mother.”3 Which story do I prefer? The newspaper account or the story I remember my grandfather telling? The newspaper gives me names and dates, and its description of the accident itself is more vivid, almost painfully so. But it lacks the intimacy of memory. In my mind’s eye it is that curious detail about Grandpa’s socks that stands out. Although I have no

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Rachel Hannah Davis Thatcher. From Preston Woolley Parkinson, The Utah Woolley Family.

doubt forgotten much of what Grandpa told me, I am sure I couldn’t have made that up. In Grandpa’s story the roof fell in the midst of wash day, like Icarus in the Bruegel painting. After I completed the first draft of this paper, I discovered an undated account of Rachel’s death written by her granddaughter Della Mendenhall. To my delight, it corroborated the detail about the laundry. It also located that log house, at least for those who knew the current owner, and it added yet another character to the story. Della Mendenhall’s father, Howard Thatcher, was another of Rachel’s children. She surely must have heard the story from him and perhaps as well from the woman who was helping with the wash that day. But like many stories passed down through time, this one got the date wrong (unless of course the person who typed it inadvertently struck the wrong key and changed January 17 to January 14).

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Grandmother Thatcher came to Gentile Valley in the fall of 1881 and lived in a log house where the Kenneth Wright residence now stands. The house was of logs with a dirt roof. On the fourteenth day of January, three months later Grandmother and Sister Edith Bollwinkel were washing. The steam from the washer made the logs slick and an extra heavy weight of dirt on the roof caused one of the logs to slip. Grandmother got on a chair and tried to put a piece of wood between the two logs to hold them from sliding further, while Sister Bollwinkel took the children out of the house, and ran for Grandfather. The logs held only a short time and down came the roof on top of her. Two logs crossed and caught her head between them, causing instant death. When Grandfather came he had to chop the logs in t[w]o to release her.4 A quick search online confirms that at nineteen Edith Bollwinkel was just the right age to have been working as a hired girl. She married the next year and raised a family in Thatcher. Perhaps Della Mendenhall knew her.5 The story itself suggests as much. In this version, the hired girl is at the center of the action. She stands with Rachel in the steamcovered room, then runs for help as the ceiling slips. But like my grandfather’s story, Della’s reduces the number of characters. True, there are children in the room, but only Sister Bollwinkel has a name, and instead of three men trying to lift the log from Rachel’s body, there is only the horrified husband with his axe. Again, memory captures the emotional resonance of an experience. But documents, too, can reveal feelings. As I began my research on Rachel’s death, a descendant of Rachel’s oldest son gave my brother a copy of a letter Moses Thatcher wrote to the young missionary two days after his mother’s death. It is a powerful document, filled with the kind of details historians love. Moses’s purposes were both to inform and to comfort Johnny. He began gently, reminding that young man of the death of his uncle Joseph less than a month before. But that death had been expected and, given the man’s illness, was even welcome. “But now, my dear young friend, and brave missionary boy, may our merciful, loving Heavenly Father prepare your heart and mind for the sad, sad news which it becomes my painful duty, through the cold and inadequate medium of conveying to you.”

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At this point, Johnny must have been anxious to know what terrible news his uncle had to convey. But Moses delayed the blow, interposing a full paragraph on the suffering of Jesus, the trial of Abraham, and the sorrows of Job, finally ending the suspense with a promise: “That God who permitted Satan to bring those troubles upon Job and family will comfort and console, strengthen and sustain you, who are trying so nobly to serve Him in the cause of Human redemption, when you learn that the sweet Spirit of your gentle, loving mother hath gone to join the host of the good and true in the Paradise of God.”6 Rachel’s death was no longer a “Fatal Accident.” It was part of a grand plan connecting Rachel to holy scripture. For her progeny it was an opportunity to seek God, an opportunity to discover God’s love. But Moses did not leave it there. He was a man of facts as well as sentiment. After testifying to the influence of the Holy Spirit at Rachel’s funeral, he launched into a long discussion of the house in which she died. He explained that the site of the accident was a three-sided addition to the original log house and that it had been poorly built. Now of course the new end wall of the addition was securely bound together by the side walls as is usual in building log houses. But the ends of the two side walls where they joined the old building were only secured by means of two inch planks nailed on the inside and outside just in the corners. . . . Instead of having a series of cross ties securely pinned or fastened to keep the room from spreading with the weight of the roof, the builders simply laid the cross logs upon the square of the building without any fastenings whatever, and then proceeded to build up the crib of the roof with the ribs (five in all) upon which in turn was placed boards and dirt. You will readily understand that while the south end of the addition could not spread, the north end joining on to the old building could scarcely, in time, fail to do so. All of these defects were, of course, unknown to your father, being concealed by the ceiling below, and therefore wholly hidden until after the disaster.7 Moses enclosed a “rough diagram of the log rooms, so that you may more easily understand how that which we call an accident occurred.” Most people today reading his description, would agree. This was no

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accident. Yet rather than trust God’s Providence, contemporary Americans, even Mormons, would probably hire a lawyer and initiate a suit for malfeasance. For Moses, the moral of this story was not that shoddy workmanship caused unnecessary suffering, but that Rachel was meant to die. He pushed on, restoring the children to the narrative and adding drama to a story that was already overflowing with pathos. He told John that his mother was in the kitchen when she heard “a sudden cracking noise. “ When she saw “one of the ceiling joists upon which the canvass was tacked settle somewhat,” she “ran to put a prop under it,” sending “little Gilbert to run for his father who was watering stock nearby.” Nathan, Howard, and Henry “were in the north room and were safe.” (Had all three boys been sent into the house to change their socks?) Although the girls were still in the kitchen, the peculiar nature of the construction ensured that their end of the room remained standing when the unstable north end collapsed. Hence, “Lula, Lettie, and the hired girl were saved.” All this detail assured Moses that Rachel’s death was meant to be. He told Johnny that his “mother fell towards the stove and her head was caught between the first and second ribs of the roof. . . . Had she fallen under instead of between the logs or a few inches more toward the south her life would have been spared. . . . There was no other place, scarcely, where your mother, in that room, could have found this untimely death.”8 Young Johnny surely must have been comforted by his uncle’s loving and detailed letter. It not only offered spiritual comfort but details that brought Johnny’s siblings into the story, reassuring him about their welfare and at the same time affirming, through their seemingly miraculous escape, the spiritual logic of his mother’s death. Moses was reporting, of course, things that others had told him. He seems to have omitted nothing, except the laundry and Sister Bollwinkel’s name. But the attention to facts suggests an additional purpose. His careful explanation justified the ways of God, but it also absolved Rachel’s husband of any responsibility for her death. The canvas ceiling concealed the faulty construction. John B. Thatcher had not knowingly provided substandard housing for his family. There were reasons to fear log houses. John’s mother, Alley Thatcher, still carried scars on her face from an accident at Winter Quarters while she and her husband, Hezekiah, were building a log house. A log she

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was holding turned when he lifted the other end, crushing and bruising her head and face.9 Rachel, too, had lived in, and perhaps helped to construct, log dwellings. Her sister-in-law, Hannah Morrison Thatcher, described living in a make-shift log house during the family’s first year in Logan. The roof was “fashioned from willows, covered with dirt covered with dirt. When it rained, the mud would come ‘plunk’ in one’s face while asleep, but there was little sleep for us when it rained as it kep[t] us moving to keep dry.”10 But by the time Rachel and John moved to Gentile Valley, such experiences were far in the past. In the 1860s, Hannah and her husband, Joseph Wycoff Thatcher, had built the handsome stone house still standing at 164 South 300 West in Logan. By 1881, John B. Thatcher owned two houses in Logan, and his brother George Washington Thatcher had erected the ostentatious Victorian mansion there now owned by the Capitol Arts Alliance. Little wonder that in its account of John’s move to Gentile Valley, the Logan Leader observed, “The house they occupied is of logs, but is large, roomy, and commodious.”11 This seemingly offhand remark suggests that the nature of the housing in Gentile Valley was an issue and needed explaining. So what was Rachel doing in that log house? An unsigned family sketch published three-quarters of a century after Rachel’s death claims that John “urged Rachel to stay in Logan until he had the ranch in operation but she refused to leave him.” The same account says that John’s own sorrow and guilt for having allowed her to accompany him turned his dark hair a light gray; “the hurt was always expressed in the sad expression in his eyes.”12 It is a sweet story, but it leaves something out. John B. Thatcher had two wives. Seven years before Rachel’s death, he had married her younger sister, Sarah Maria Davis, in polygamy. Fortunately, Sarah kept a diary. Although she did not write every day, she habitually recorded events of significance. Even better, she left a candid and often deeply moving record of the mundane struggles that preceded and followed Rachel’s fatal accident. Sarah ‘s name does not appear in the newspaper account of the accident nor in Moses Thatcher’s meticulous telling, because she had remained behind in Logan when John took Rachel to Gentile Valley. On August 18, 1882, Sarah wrote, “John has bot a farm in Gentile Valley.” She underscored the sentence to mark its significance. She and her sister were then

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John Bethel Thatcher. Courtesy of Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum, Logan.

living in separate houses in Logan. Obviously, the purchase of the farm was going to change that. The day Sarah learned about John’s purchase, she noted that someone had come to see about renting her house. She decided to send her piano to her brother Frank. Perhaps she thought she was going to Gentile Valley. But ten days later, she wrote, “I understand now that I am to remain in Rachel’s house, so I’ll keep my piano.”13 Within a few weeks she and her children had moved into Rachel’s house, and John had taken Rachel and her children to the new ranch. Last June I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah’s 93-year-old grandson, T. O. Thatcher. I was delighted when he told me that his earliest memory of his grandmother was of her singing many verses of “Froggie Would a Wooing Go,” though it turned out on investigation that his version of “Froggie” was different from the one I remembered. His story about

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Rachel’s death was different too. When I asked him if he ever heard his Grandmother talk about the accident, he said “Oh, yes.” He told me his grandmother was in the house when the roof started to fall. When her sister told her to go get the men to help, she ran, but it was too late. Even in old age, she felt partly responsible for her sister’s death.14 I was stunned by this version of the story. “But Sarah was in Logan,” I said. That’s history interrogating memory. But memory talked back. I realized that this story conveyed a psychological truth that may have been more important than the facts. It exposed a Sarah only partially revealed in the diary, and it forced me to think about my own grandfather’s stories in a different way. As Richard White observes, “Beyond history’s garden gates, the thick jungle of the past remains, and memory’s trails lead off into it.”15 At the very least, memory can take us back to documents with new insights and new questions. Sarah Davis was fifteen years younger than her sister Rachel. She had settled into married life awkwardly, uncertain of her status and homesick for her folks in Salt Lake City. “I craved love and sympathy too much to think of being a polygamous wife if I had only realized it,” she wrote shortly after the birth of her first child. Two weeks later, noting that Moses Thatcher had taken a second wife, she predicted, “I think she will regret it.”16 Sarah’s allusion to “love and sympathy” is significant. In their discourses on marriage, church authorities condemned romantic love because it could too easily turn into lust. In an 1856 discourse, Brigham Young advised men to “never love your wives one hair’s breadth further than they adorn the Gospel, never love them so but that you can leave them at a moment’s warning without shedding a tear.” In public at least, some women leaders agreed. Conjugal love could be a trap; women should focus on love of Christ and look toward the hereafter.17 Little wonder, then, that Sarah Thatcher blamed her unhappiness on her own unrequited and, perhaps in her view, unrighteous desire for John’s attention. She also believed, perhaps with some justice, that John had failed to live up to his promises. He grumbled over expenses, disdained her interest in popular periodicals, and showed up for dinner barely once a week, often bringing one of Rachel’s little boys with him. “Strange! that a man with about twenty years experience in housekeeping didn’t know it would cost something at least to keep another family,” Sarah fumed. When he complained about the cost of calico, Mother Thatcher “told him he mustn’t get

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any more wives if he couldn’t keep the ones he had. He said he was going to get one who could keep herself next time.” That made Sarah furious, “for it was the first time he’d bought me any calico dresses, and this is the fourth summer I’ve been his wife. R[achel]. said Oh! I’d had one before. Yes, but that was off of a bolt of damaged that only cost 8 cts. a yard, I said. I think they’d better throw that at me. That dress cost 55 cts.”18 It would be easy to dismiss Sarah as immature, petulant, and, from a Latter-day Saint perspective, way too focused on the things of this world. But, in fact, she was a bit stuck in Logan. She had a piano, but little cash, and no way to keep herself except by taking in knitting her father sent her from Salt Lake City. Nor were her complaints about polygamy unique. Family letters from the 1870s suggest that few of the Thatcher women were pleased to share their husbands. In comparison with other prosperous men, the Thatchers were surprisingly slow to enter into plural marriage. The patriarch, Hezekiah, didn’t take a second wife until 1869. He may have been inspired by his son George, who married one of Brigham Young’s daughters in 1861 and another in 1867. Letters from George’s wife Luna and from his sister, Harriet Thatcher Preston, suggest that Hezekiah’s marriage was a bit of a scandal in the family. At the age of 61 and after 40 years of marriage to Alley Kitchen, he had married an eighteen-year-old English convert, Jane Baugh. In 1872, Luna wrote to her husband George, who was serving a mission in England, “Jane (your Step Mother) had a Boy, weighing 10 lbs . . . I cannot feel to rejoice over it, I fear for the future peace, of your dear Mother, it seems so hard that the evening of her life, should be embitterred, by such trials, as she has had to endure the last two or three years. I don’t know how she feels about this last event, but judge her by myself, and feel that it is a bitter, bitter dose.”19 A few weeks later, Harriet wrote to Luna from Logan, “Mother does not feel very well in mind, I think. I guess Father just worships that baby and does not try to hide his feelings. This I think annoys Mother very much indeed, how is it that men can be so unfeeling. I cannot understand. Mother is too good a woman to be injured thus, do you not think so? I think she is far to valuable to Father for him to persue a course that will eventually wean her from him, and I think he will find it so when it may be too late to remedy the evil. However we can but trust in the Lord and pray for those we love.”20

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Sarah Maria Davis Thatcher. From Preston Woolley Parkinson, The Utah Woolley Family.

Harriet, like Luna, was judging her mother by herself. The year before, her own husband, William B. Preston, had taken a second wife. Luna told George, “Polygamy goes very hard with Harriet, Poor Girl, it seems to get harder for her to bear every day of her life, though Preston seems as kind, and considerate, as possible. It is hard to tell what may be in store for them, or any of us.”21 Even though Luna was the loving daughter of Mormonism’s most famous polygamist, she was clearly unhappy with having to share his affection with anyone. Although George already had a second wife, she was determined to remain first in his affections. After reporting her concerns about Harriet, she broke into effusive praise that nevertheless betrayed her own anxiety. “Deary, thank God, that he permitted me to win a loving, true and constant Heart. I often think of old times, Dearest, of our early experiences, but would not change the present for the past, for your Love and Trust for me, have been proven,

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and time has not dimmed either, has it Deary? and God grant the future may have no such trial in store for me, you will say Amen, will you not Dear, Dear George.”22 It would be interesting to know which of Brigham Young’s sermons on celestial marriage Sarah Thatcher copied for John on March 16, 1878. He had received it from her “Uncle Sammy” (no doubt her mother’s brother Samuel Woolley), but couldn’t read the handwriting. He intended to preach from it at the town of Hyrum that Sunday.23 I have no doubt but what Sarah believed in the principle of plural marriage, but it was one thing to embrace a doctrine, another to live it. Growing opposition from the government did not help. On January 9, 1879, Sarah noted the Supreme Court decision in the Reynolds case, adding, “The laws of our country now absolutely outlaw such persons as yours truly.”24 For Sarah and John, there was a moment of reconciliation just after Hezekiah’s death. In a moving bedside ceremony, recorded in detail in Moses’s diary, the family patriarch urged his children to love one another, and he enjoined Alley’s sons to care for Jane’s little boys. Sarah wrote, “John has just been over and talked to me in so comforting a way, that it has taken a great load off my heart. I dreaded his coming over here for I felt afraid of him. But he told me as God was his witness his heart was full of love for me and my little ones. But I realize how he is placed for he was married to her so long before I became his wife, and it hurts her so. Oh! if I could but be patient. If I could only do right everything will be satisfactory sometime.”25 Things did get better for awhile. John bought some things for the house, and he made plans to add on a porch and buttery. But the petty jealousies and hurt feelings persisted. Sarah tried to help Rachel during a spell of illness, but after a few days, Rachel told her she could handle things herself. “That means my room is better than my company, I presume, and that our bother is greater than my help,” Sarah wrote. “I wanted to help, and felt like I was doing so, but I guess not.” Insisting on independence, the two women continued to wound one another. After Sarah gave birth to her second son, she rejected help. “Rachel says she will keep one of the girls from school to help me but I don’t want one of her children kept from school to wait on me.”26 Sarah’s often sardonic descriptions of her husband suggest continuing anxieties over money. One Sunday, Rachel’s daughter took Sarah’s oldest

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son to Sunday School for the first time. Sarah gave her son fifty cents to donate to the Logan temple fund, and John gave two of Rachel’s boys each ten cents, “but he never gave Frank any money but once in his life, and that was ten cents New Years day, which I put away as a curiosity among my ‘treasures.’”27 After John and Rachel left for Gentile Valley, there were fewer complaints because there were fewer entries. Then almost two weeks after Rachel’s death, Sarah again picked up her diary: “On Tues. Jan. 17th, the saddest event of my life befell us. The kitchen roof at Gentile Valley fell in and killed Rachel. How can I take a mother’s place in caring for her children? Why is it, oh father, why is it, she, so capable and willing, just leave them.”28 She was now John’s only wife, but did that mean she would become responsible for his children? Sarah’s dilemma highlights the significance of my grandfather’s bitter statement, “We took care of ourselves.” It also gives new force to an ostensibly humorous story T. O. Thatcher remembers his grandmother telling. She was in Gentile Valley shortly after Rachel’s death. One day when she was in the cook house, her son Roy, who was then three years old, came in excitedly saying something that sounded like “Nate! Nate!” She thought he was trying to tell her that Nathan was teasing him again, so she went out of the house to see a very large rattler. He had been trying to say “snake! snake!”29 My grandfather was then fifteen years old. He seems to have been more than mischievous. The story about the snake reminds me of something my father once said about Nathan and his brothers shooting beans at Sarah’s children. Sarah’s diary gives structure to these memories. In May, four months after Rachel’s death she wrote, “Friday the 19th of this month we all arrived her at Gentile Valley with the expectation of making a home here. We found the house very dirty the new room unfinished, and the bedbugs and mice on the rampage. John talks of building soon. I try to lay no plans for the future but to take everything that comes as coolly as I can.”30 She lasted until January. By then Johnny had returned from his mission and married Nellie Muir. The young couple apparently took care of the children in Gentile Valley until April, when Sarah returned from Salt Lake City, just in time to give birth to another child. Meanwhile John had served sixty days in the Idaho Territorial Legislature.

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This time, Sarah lasted five months, from April until the end of August. As she explained in her diary, “I had been so sorely tried with home matters that I felt it utterly impossible to stay.” She stayed in Salt Lake City another six weeks, “then came back to try again.” She added, “John has been kinder and more like himself. “31 There were also fewer children, since she left her oldest son, Franklin, with her mother. Lula was with Harriet Preston and Lettie and Gil with Johnny and Nellie in Logan. But she still had her own three toddlers to care for as well as sixyear-old Henry and ten-year-old Howard. And there were teenagers in the house. Sarah was exhausted and too tired (or depressed) to socialize even when invited. As she ruefully told her diary, “Howard is so mean I feel like pounding him every day.” During this period, my grandfather, then seventeen, had his near death experience, though Sarah doesn’t describe it that way. “Last Tuesday Nate was taken very sick. . . . I sent for Sr. Peck during the day for I didn’t know what to do and had no time to [do] it—much.” Brother Hale sat up with him at night, and Sister Hale applied her poultices. John became very disheartened, and had me write to have his name remembered in the prayer circle.”32 The parade of children in and out of the house continued. “John started for Logan Wed. taking Henry with him and intending to bring back the others,” Sarah wrote in May, adding, “Heaven deliver me!” Heaven apparently had other challenges in store. In June, Moses Thatcher and the Presidency of the LDS Stake came to Gentile Valley and ordained John bishop of the newly created Thatcher Ward. “They wish him to take another wife,” Sarah wrote, “and I do too. I would be immensely pleased to share the honors.” Instead, after another “dickens of a row,” John moved Sarah into her own house and brought fifteen-year-old Lula home to keep house for her siblings. A year later, Sarah, again pregnant, lamented her inability to fulfill her calling in Relief Society: “I’ll be a grand success in this as in everything I’ve attempted. It would have been better to have never chosen me.” But she added, “I am so thankful I live by myself tho’ constantly dreading something being said regarding going back there. I honestly believe I would rather John would give one the bill he has several times offered than to live with them again.” She was no doubt alluding to a bill of divorce, a legal remedy available in Utah when spouses could not “live in peace and union together.”33

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In June 1886, she returned to Logan for good. The marriage continued in the usual way, with occasional visits from John and frequent pregnancies. Sarah gave birth five times after Rachel’s death. Her last child was born in 1893. My father, who was born in 1899, said that he never remembered his grandfather living with Aunt Sarah. As one of the family histories describes it, euphemistically, “In his declining years, John B. came to love his home in Thatcher more and more dearly and spent much time there. He loved to visit his children and see his grandchildren and to spend time with his wife, Sarah Maria, who was still living in Logan with her young family but whenever he could he would return to the ranch.”On his last visit to Logan in 1917, John slipped on a cement curb and broke his hip. T. O. Thatcher remembers seeing his grandfather, “a white old man with a very white beard lying in the white sheets of a hospital bed.” But as everyone in the family recalls, he wanted to die on the ranch, so they took him home. He died at Thatcher, Idaho, September 15, 1917.34 I suspect that Sarah’s marriage to John would have been difficult even without Rachel. They really belonged to two generations. John had spent his entire life pioneering, from Ohio to Indiana to Utah to California, back to Utah again, and on to Idaho. Sarah, who was born in Salt Lake City, had seen little else. For her, even Logan was remote. She was both sentimental and insecure. Judging from the diary, her most satisfying relationships were through letters. During the most difficult years of her life, her diary was a refuge. When I first learned about it, many years ago, I asked my Aunt Fleda if she knew that her grandfather’s other wife kept a diary. Aunt Fleda sniffed, “That diary should have been burned long ago!” Sarah did not leave a flattering portrait of the Thatcher family, but if she was hard on others, she was equally hard on herself. She spent her last years doing ordinance work in the Logan Temple. I wonder how she felt as she did work for the dead. Did she imagine being reunited in heaven with the family that had given her so much trouble on earth? As for Rachel, her fatal accident ensured that she would be enshrined in memory as a pioneer mother.35 She appears both sturdy and remarkably down-to-earth in the one letter in her own hand that has survived. Written to Johnny just a few weeks before her death, it describes her busy life, commends her missionary son for his willingness to serve, and then adds a perfectly ordinary comment on the weather that in

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retrospect seems resonant with meaning. “it has been quite cold for two or three days past, there is a little snow, but not enough to make very good sleighing. Our house is real warm if it is an old cabin. I believe it is warmer than our house in Logan.”36 Sometimes, in the thicket of the past, documents give meaning to memory.

F. Ross Peterson

10 “I Didn’t Want to Leave the House, but He Compelled Me To” A Personal Examination of a Mormon Family

F. Ross Peterson I

t is most appropriate that we gather this evening in this restored historical building. We also gather under the banner of the annual Leonard J. Arrington Lecture on Mormon History and the O.C. Tanner Symposium on Religious Studies. Leonard Arrington and Obert Tanner exemplified through their own research, writing, and intellectual and personal philanthropy the very best of both Mormon and religious studies. Born early in the twentieth century, Tanner and Arrington struggled with rural poverty, developed a passion for education, and devoted their respective lives to open honest historical and religious inquiry. Through their philosophical and financial support, scholarly journals, such as Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and The Journal of Mormon History as well as university presses expanded the publication opportunities for many scholars. Fortunately for me, my path intersected theirs many times in life, which has continued since their passing. As a student at Utah State University, I studied with Leonard Arrington, and he played a very crucial role in the selection of my dissertation topic. In the late winter of 1965, I went into his office in Old Main and asked for advice relative to a topic. He asked, “Do you want a topic in Mormon history?” “No, sir,” I replied. “Why is that?” Leonard responded. 223

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“I want to do modern U.S. and do not want to be categorized as a Mormon doing Mormon history.” “How about an Idaho topic?” he said with a twinkle in his eye. Enough said. I left his office with over forty possible dissertations scrawled on an envelope. In the early autumn of 1987 Obert C. Tanner called me and invited me to come to his office on South State in Salt Lake City. My wife, Kay, and I had accepted the co-editorship of Dialogue, and he reminded me of the significance of independent voices in the scholarship of religious studies, especially Mormon Studies. At one point he said, “Do you know what you are in for?” I naively said, “Yes, Sir!” He smiled and thoughtfully replied, “It will not be easy.” As usual, Obert Tanner was right. The Arrington-Tanner connection influenced me in another important way. Both men asked me to read their autobiographical manuscripts prior to publication. At various times, I had assisted them on other projects, and I was honored to review each man’s assessment of a life—his own. Suffice it to say, both men believed strongly in an honest, open, and analytical approach to autobiography and religious studies. However, both held back information that they felt might offend others. They left their mark on fields of study that deserve the best scholarship. Through their own memoirs, the several biographies Arrington wrote, and especially the autobiography Obert published of Annie Clark Tanner, his mother, they each remind future generations of scholars that religious studies is ultimately about people. Theology and philosophy are important. The theological issues of faith, grace, works, prophecy, and scriptural interpretation are significant because they effect individual lives.1 Religious organizations and denominations develop rituals, customs, ordinances, catechisms, and rites, but how people respond or react to their religious culture is telling. When you read the story of Annie Clark Tanner or the Arrington biography of Charles Redd, it is apparent that among the periods of Mormon history that magnified internal and external personal conflicts over religion were the times after the two manifestos that abandoned plural marriage as an official church doctrine. The effect of this policy change on individuals shows why religious studies is so intriguing. When choosing to study family history and religion, the historian may enter a path of difficult and conflicting interpretations.2 That is the path I have chosen this evening.

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“I Didn’t Want to Leave”

Both post-manifesto periods were critical times in Mormon history. After four decades of public ridicule, spirited ecclesiastical defense, legal first amendment maneuvering all the way to the Supreme Court, denial of statehood for Utah, disfranchisement of Mormons in Idaho, federal prosecution, and seeing its leaders incarcerated or hiding on the underground, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, officially, abandoned plural marriage by manifesto of its president and prophet in 1890. For some members it was not easy to walk away from a theologically revealed doctrine that had contributed to their self-description as a chosen, persecuted, and divinely guided people. For others, it was time for a change. In the theology of the LDS church in 1890, though, plural marriage is an eternal principle. Many believers simply ignored the Manifesto, and even church leaders entered into additional relationships or performed new marriages. In 1905, the church reiterated its position that there would be no more sanctioned plural marriages. Now a penalty of excommunication or disfellowshipment could be imposed and was. Confusion swept through the church. The church officially encouraged its members to sustain and obey the law and emphasized the doctrine of continual revelation that made change of this principle possible, but the practical reality of how to discontinue plural marriages created family crises. Families deeply entrenched in polygamy who believed temple sealings were for eternity found little solace in either divorce or abandonment.3 Refuge in Canada or Mexico were options for some, but changed church policy meant that those were temporary solutions. Realistically, most members allowed polygamy to die an evolutionary death rather than choose to sustain it. The impact on members entangled in this mandated web can be assessed by studying individual lives. The broad question is what kind of dislocation took place for a people who had been persecuted, hounded, and prosecuted over a religious doctrine when their church announced plural marriage was no longer a valid earthly principle? More telling, what was the effect on individual families, particularly the wives and children? Family histories provide tremendous insight into particular cases, showing how some people responded to the dramatic change. Many in the church gradually developed a rationale for plural marriage that evoked an idyllic world where sister wives and their progeny of halfbrothers and -sisters lived in harmony under the direction of a kindly

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patriarch called by God to enter the world of polygamy. In some plural households, harmony did prevail, but in others it did not. There is no generalization that can adequately describe every household and how it reacted. The economic and personal impact of the abandonment of polygamy was dramatic, but researchers cannot depend on memory or oral history as the most reliable measures of that impact. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s brilliant essay, “Rachel’s Death: How Memory Challenges History” last year’s Arrington lecture, demonstrated how historical records and memory can both corroborate and contradict transmitted family history and memory.4 Historically, the responses to the transition from polygamy to monogamy varied. They were personal, tragic, illuminating, uplifting, and devastating. Some individuals and groups refused to make the transition. In this light, the story told this evening is twofold. First, I will tell the oral tradition and family history version of a particular set of lives that reached maturity during the post-manifesto period of Mormon history. Then the veracity of that story will be analyzed utilizing primary sources such as deeds, court records, LDS ward and mission records, divorce proceedings, and other documents. The subjects of this brief study shared the religiously and culturally Mormon world of the early twentieth century. Some of them stayed close to the faith, some completely left the church, and others, in the words of J. Golden Kimball, “tried to cross the straight and narrow as much as possible.” The questions that have guided this study include how do we evaluate the lives of common people? What happens when memory and history do not necessarily edify nor uplift? Should a written biographical record be designed to promote faith? How does an analysis of an individual’s personal religious life contribute to religious studies? A Bear Lake, Idaho winter is legendary for both its length and frigid severity. The term “Bear Laker” in a story usually means a blizzard followed by sub-zero temperatures. The low bottom land along the meandering Bear River is the most frigid place in the 5,900-foot-high valley. Cattlemen who fed their cattle from horse-drawn sleighs had to chop water holes through the thick Bear River ice every day. One man, Parley Peterson, often spent the winter months alone in a green wooden sheep camp close to his livestock. A small pot-bellied stove heated the tiny wagon and every day other ranchers or his son stopped by to share

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coffee, biscuits, and flapjacks. On February 26, 1942, Tim Matthews drove his team to the sheep camp to check on Parley. Getting no response from his shouts, he knocked on the door, then entered the sheep camp, and found Parley dead. The grey-haired sixty-five-year-old Bear Lake rancher’s heart had stopped. Parley, raised by polygamous parents, served a mission to Scandinavia, worked hard, married in the temple, fathered six children, and accumulated land. However in a religious context, his picture-perfect world disintegrated when a number of decisions led to relocation, a divorce, troubled children, strong feelings of disenchantment, and physical separation from his church. He died alone without a home, seemingly sad and lonely. Why is this particular life and that of his divorced wife, Johanna, worthy of close examination? For one thing, people who married in the temple a hundred years ago were not supposed to divorce, so that needs explanation. Further understanding the human behavior of two such individuals can lead to greater understanding of the impact of religion.5 Parley and Johanna are my grandparents. For eighty years their extended family and friends have avoided the details of their lives. What happened to this couple who were adored in their final years but whose lives took paths away from the orthodox? Unraveling this mystery is why, in a very personal sense, this path is difficult. Parley Peterson’s life bridged the aforementioned difficult era of Mormon history. Born in 1877, he grew up while his father, Thomas, and his wives were assailed in the courts, in their homes, and in their politics. Parley’s story involves two high mountain valleys in the Great Basin, a rural village in Denmark, and how religion brought them together. It includes an account of love gained and then lost, property acquired and also lost, a family created and dismembered. Anger, jealousy, mistrust, and deception color the events. However, there are also elements of love rekindled, property reclaimed, parts of a family united, and a religion that did not give up on its own. This is a glimpse into the lives of people whose reputations, through memory and oral tradition, for good and bad, are clarified and better understood by a close examination of historical records. Religion, Mormonism, played a crucial role in their tragedies and triumphs. The story the family recorded and transmitted basically goes as follows. Ovid, Idaho, in Bear Lake County was settled by Danish con-

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verts to the LDS church near the end of the American Civil War. Although the altitude is more than 5,900 feet above sea level and the growing season is less than ninety days, Brigham Young dispatched settlers into the foreboding area. For sea-level-raised Danish farmers, it was an environmental shock. Thomas Peterson and his wife Johanna homesteaded north of Ovid and did their best to survive along the foothills. Shortly after arriving in Bear Lake, Thomas married as a plural wife a fifteen-year-old Swedish convert, Kerstine Peterson. Twenty years younger than her husband, Kerstine, or “Casty,” had nine children who lived, including Parley. Eventually, Thomas built a house for Casty next to that of Johanna, or “Aunty.” Aunty had one son and raised two stepchildren from a third wife who passed away shortly after marrying Thomas.6 In 1900 Parley did as many LDS men did and do, he accepted a church call to the Scandinavian mission. He spent two years in Sweden and Norway and a final year in Denmark. While in Denmark, Parley, as many missionaries before and after, became enthralled with an eighteenyear-old Danish convert, Johanna Marie Thomsen of Bronderslev, a community near the northern tip of the Danish peninsula. This was the same area from which Parley’s father, Thomas, had emigrated to the United States forty years earlier.7 According to oral accounts, Parley arranged to have his father take care of Johanna and her younger sister, Anna Sena, so they could come to Ovid and await Parley’s return. In September, 1903, the young couple traveled to Logan and were married in the Logan Temple. The family grew rapidly, six children in nine years, one of which died, and then a daughter added in 1918. Parley and Johanna purchased land in Ovid, built a dairy and acquired a summer ranch between Ovid and Nounan. During World War I they purchased a home in Montpelier on South Ninth Street (known as Incubator Street because of all the children). They were faithful and devoted to the church and seemed on the verge of economic stability. Then the postwar agricultural depression hit, prices plummeted, and troubles began. Their oldest son, Daniel, was in legal trouble over theft. Parley and Johanna disagreed on how to handle him and tensions developed. Parley’s hard work and diverse farming kept him from church, and most important, they had a serious disagreement over whether or not to stay in Idaho.

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Johanna and Parley Peterson’s wedding photograph.

Family historians write that shady LDS speculators from Salt Lake City persuaded some Utah and Idaho farmers and ranchers to trade their land for more acres in the Mason Valley of Nevada. A proposed water project on the Walker River, which sliced through Lyon County east of Carson City, would make irrigated land available. The growing season at 4,300 feet in western Nevada would be much longer; the rainfall would be considerably less, yet the snow-packed eastern slope of the Sierras created greater opportunity for irrigation. All of their land in Bear Lake was dry-farm land.8 Parley wanted to take the plunge and start a new adventure. The water was not there yet, the valley held an Indian reservation, and there were many uncertainties about land ownership. Johanna fought hard to emphasize the dangers. She had a new home in a town where the schools and shopping were within easy walking distances. Although the current financial struggles were major, the family grew its

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own meat, chickens, and vegetables and had plenty of milk. They were basically self-sufficient and making progress. Parley argued for the virtues of pioneering, a change of scenery for their oldest son, and the potential of more land to leave his sons. Johanna worried about the distance from their family and the lack of community. Parley, known for his stubbornness, won. The family made the land trade, loaded their belongings, livestock, and equipment in cattle cars at Montpelier and in early 1921, left Bear Lake Valley for Mason Valley. Some of the children rode with the horses and cattle in order to water and feed them throughout the six-hundred mile journey. They settled north of Yerington, the county seat, near the tiny hamlet of Wabuska. Since there was no LDS church, they stopped going and church was no longer a part of their lives in Nevada. From day one in Nevada, the venture was disastrous. Danny ended up in a Nevada Reform School. There was no church and the family began to argue and live apart. The water project was incomplete, the school was lousy, and Parley and Johanna quarrelled themselves into a stony silence. Mason Valley was high desert, and without rain or irrigation water, the venture was doomed to failure. From this point the story becomes quite murky, and because of generational silence relative to sensitive issues, like divorce, the events were less discussed and recorded. Some of the whispered innuendos and rumors, especially among Parley’s relatives in Ovid, talked about the Petersons’ oldest daughter getting involved with a married man, the school teacher cheating one son out of his pay, and Johanna “stepping out” on Parley. Parley lost his land, they divorced, and he abandoned his family and returned to Idaho to reclaim some semblance of his earlier life. The next year, Parley’s brother, John, went to Nevada to check on three homesick sons, one age twelve and a set of twins age ten, and he convinced Johanna that he should take them home to see their dad. They did not see their mother again for thirteen years. Johanna left Wabuska and with her daughters moved from Reno to Lake Tahoe to Carson City and other spots, working at every imaginable job to care for her family. The LDS church did not play a role in the family’s lives in Nevada or in Idaho. After the divorce, bitterness festered, and the family unit disintegrated. In the words of the Russian poet Mayakovsky, “Their boat of love crashed on the rocks of every day life.”9

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In the meantime, Parley regained some land along the Bear River in the bottoms. He lived out his days as a lonely man herding a few sheep and owning some beef cattle. Although there was a home on the ranch, he lived in a sheep camp or with his married son. Johanna returned to Idaho in 1935 to see her first grandchild and was taken down to the ranch to see Parley. She cried uncontrollably over the way he lived and how much he had aged. In February of 1942, Parley died of a heart attack at age 65 in the sheep camp on the remnant of his Bear Lake land. Johanna remarried in 1943 and lived another fifteen years in Nevada before she and her husband moved to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where she died in 1972. A common religious belief helped bring Parley and Johanna together. In the eyes of many, religion could not sustain them as they chose separate ways. Their choices had consequences that affected their lives and those of their children. In the opinions of so many of their old friends and dear relatives, they led very sad and disappointing lives from both personal and religious standpoints. In a culture where no success compensates for failure in the home, they did not fare well. However, there are other aspects of this story that deserve to be told. Memory and oral history are not always substantiated by historical documents. Perception established by time and retelling is often stronger than reality. What do the Bear Lake County tax, probate, census, and land records reveal? What do the LDS church records from Ovid, Montpelier, and the California mission add? Is there any information in the Lyon County or Nevada State court, land, and tax records to indicate what the Parley and Johanna Peterson family did there? Through examining all of these records, conducting interviews, and examining letters, the story becomesmuch different and more complete. When Johanna Marie Thomsen and her sister arrived in Ovid, Idaho, after a sea journey and a transcontinental railroad trip which brought them to the Montpelier, Idaho, train station five miles away from Ovid, she found a less than idyllic setting. Thomas Peterson was nearing death, and Aunty and Casty struggled continually over who should care for their dying husband. Casty’s children did all of the farm work and Johanna and Sena alternated living with each wife. At times Johanna felt totally isolated because her English language skills were minuscule and the Petersons spoke English around her. The two wives, separated

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by nearly two decades of age disagreed on the proper medical treatment for Thomas. Aunty did not like the doctor’s prescriptions of beer and other pain killers. She felt that the priesthood should be the source of healing power and on more than one occasion dumped the bucket of beer and threw away the drugs. Johanna often rode with one of Casty’s children to Montpelier and picked up the supplies at the Fair Store, a Jewish-owned establishment. She recalled delivering the beer to Aunty’s house where Thomas was and seeing Aunty pour it out and denounce in Danish everyone involved.10 The impact of living in an uncomfortable situation, seeing the Petersons less than totally committed to the LDS Church, not sure what to think of plural marriage, and comparing this life to that in her native land caused Johanna to doubt her decision to come to the United States and to consider marrying Parley. By the time Parley came back in the late spring of 1903, Johanna decided she needed time and space. She detested the way they lived. Johanna loved cleanliness and order. She enjoyed nice dinners, a formal table, and manners. The Petersons of Ovid were not orderly nor especially clean. However, the Petersons had taken her in, and when she and Parley informed Thomas of their decision to postpone the wedding, he told them in no uncertain terms, they were to marry in the temple.11 Thomas died on September 3, 1903, and twenty days later, Parley, Johanna, and a few of their friends drove wagons from Bear Lake through Preston, Idaho, to Logan, Utah, to be married in the Temple. The trip lasted over two days. According to Johanna “I cried all the way and no one cared. I have never felt so lonely in my life.” She understood almost nothing during the endowment and ceremony and cried all the way back to Ovid.12 Her thirteen-year-old sister, Sena, wanted to live with them in their small house, but Parley refused. During the next eighteen years, the couple worked very hard to accumulate land, animals, children, and some status. The status was not in the church. In examining the Ovid and Montpelier Second Ward records between 1903 and 1921, it is difficult to document that they attended church much at all. The children were blessed and baptized, not by their father, and in the carefully recorded minutes of speakers, testimonies, or prayers, their names do not appear. In examining the ward clerk notations of who held positions and attended priesthood

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meeting or Relief Society, their names are not recorded. However, Parley had a reputation as a very spiritual man with great faith. Tithing records are not available for examination, but according to Johanna they “never returned to the temple.” This was not unusual because of distance. At a time when few men attended services and there was less emphasis on manifested belief, it is difficult on the surface to assess the strength of their convictions.13 About 1917, Parley and Raymond both contracted typhoid fever. A number of people came to pay their respects because it appeared Parley might die. He was in bed for six weeks and Johanna prayed that he would live “and her prayers were answered.” At times, later in life, she wondered if she had prayed “let they will be done,” she could have kept her family together. As a young woman with a large family, she did not want to face the future without her husband.14 However, it is possible to document their property and transactions. Parley Peterson began acquiring land of his own as a consequence of his father’s death, Thomas’s first wife’s death, and his gradual buying out of his siblings. When Thomas died in 1903, he left each wife eighty acres. Since Johanna had no living children, the land was farmed by Parley and his brothers.15 All of them, but one, tried to farm. When their dad’s first wife died in 1912, the living eight children divided her eighty acres, but five of them bought out the other three. They knew how hard it was for their father to support multiple wives and children on a quarter of a section. Parley then acquired other land, most notably approximately 220 acres in the bottom land between Ovid and Montpelier.16 The deed book indicates that in acquiring these pieces of property, he always paid cash. All of the transactions are listed as sold to Parley and Johanna M. Peterson. The Petersons hoped to homestead a quarter section in Nounan valley; they filed on the claim, but moved to Nevada prior to completing the five-year probationary period. They did live on the land for a few summers in the perioed between 1918 and 1921.17 In 1916 on March 24, Parley purchased a quarter section from his brother John T. and did it only in his name. Johanna was not one of the signators when the land changed hands.18 Again, on March 30, 1918, Parley acquired a home in Montpelier for fifteen hundred dollars and did it in his name only. Why is there a change in the patterns of purchase? Earlier, they had always bought property together, which meant the land was in both names. Two years later, Parley purchased 320 acres from

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his brothers Thomas and Joseph and their wives on March 12, 1920. He bought them out for twelve hundred dollars.19 This transaction was actually a quitclaim deed and involved the long-owned bottom lands on the Bear River. Then on January 8, 1921, he purchased two more lots in Montpelier for four hundred dollars from a couple in Rock Springs, Wyoming.20 Once again, Johanna’s name was not included in either of these transactions. The family moved to Montpelier the year the youngest child, Bernice, was born, 1918, and commuted to the land. They attained selfsufficiency by having a garden, chickens, and milk cows; these plus sheep, swine, or beef provided all the food necessary for a family of eight. In the memories of the children, the time in Montpelier was great except when their oldest brother absconded with their savings. They delivered milk and eggs door to door with a wagon in the summer and on a sleigh in the winter. The boys used their dog, Ring, who knew the customer route by repetition. What is apparent though is that their home always contained a tense atmosphere of stubbornness, argument, and silence. The siblings recalled battles over the older children’s behavior and disagreements over communal punishment. After one of their sons, Raymond, was baptized in 1919, he and his cousin Leslie, who was baptized near the same time, decided to use their new-found ecclesiastical knowledge on behalf of a pen of young pigs. Each pig was immersed in a watering trough with an appropriate verbal prayer. Many of the other children witnessed the scene as well as the punishment that followed. According to Raymond, Leslie’s dad, John T., in the midst of the willow spanking, condemned them to purgatory for sacrilege. Since John T. was in the Ovid bishopric, later the bishop and a county commissioner, his proclamation was taken so seriously that “Leslie prayed he’d die and he did.”21 Actually Leslie died four years later of typhoid fever after Raymond had returned from Nevada.22 Johanna resented a relative whipping her son. Danny’s escapades can be documented in the court records, but Parley’s desire to go to Nevada was also based on acquiring more land in a better climate so he could do better financially. Apparently Johanna solicited help from his brothers, mother, and anyone else to convince him to stay in Idaho. She finally had a nice home, in a town where she could have the pretty things that she desired. Her daughters could enjoy

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a life away from dry and dirty farmsteads. Just as her world was improving, Parley wanted to start over. Why he made such a move is unclear, but the records do not reveal a swindle or loss of land.23 That is significant because the land exchange and being cheated through it has always been used by the family as a reason for the divorce. The county deed books in Bear Lake do not show a transfer of ownership of the property along the Bear River. He did sell the house in Montpelier. Whether he leased his other land as well as property in Ovid to family members is unclear, but he did not leave without a safety net of sorts. By the same token, the Lyon County, Nevada records do not document a land purchase in or near Wabuska. There is no recorded transaction in Nevada between 1920 and 1923 that involves Parley Peterson.24 Between 1916 and early 1921, Parley purchased 480 acres, two lots, and a home in Idaho. The high agricultural prices of World War I probably helped him, but the postwar recession did not slow him down. Although the family seemed on the verge of security, they sold their home in Montpelier in October, 1921, and made the ill-fated move to Nevada. They sold the home for $2,300, an increase of $800 from the price paid in 1918.25 Joseph Lockman of Montpelier purchased the home. Once again, the family’s oral tradition relative to the experience in Nevada is historically thin. Ironically, Lyon County is now Nevada’s leading agricultural county. One-fourth of all agricultural products in the state are grown in the valleys around Yerington. Some people who went down with them stayed longer and did quite well. Although Yerington family tradition has always placed blame on land swindlers, the reality is that the family’s internal relationships had deteriorated to the point that the move hastened and to a degree made easier a formal separation. Johanna may have stepped out on Parley; he may have had violent relationships with Johanna, Danny, and Ila; but the Nevada records show some concrete evidence as to what did take place. Court records indicate that Parley and Johanna leased a home and farm land three miles south of Wabuska. By moving to Nevada in October, they could not expect an income for at least a year. They spent most of the money made from the sale of their home on the moving costs. According to Johanna, Parley was a jealous man with a rather harsh temper. They disagreed over everything, primarily Danny, Ila, the

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farm, and religion. During the winter Parley threatened the Yerington businessman for pursuing Ila. By June 3, 1922, only eight months after selling the home in Montpelier, Johanna and Parley entered into an agreement in Yerington, Nevada, where for a sum of ten dollars, he yielded to her half interest in all of the ranch property in Idaho, 320 acres held along the Bear River. Nothing is said or noted about the other lots he purchased or other parcels of land he owned. The main farm was split by mutual consent in Lyon County, Nevada. There is no indication in the Nevada court records of why a decision was made to formally split the property in Idaho while they lived in Nevada. In reality, their life together was in the process of ending by June, 1922.26 In a major confrontation later in June, Parley tried to force Johanna out of their rented home. Cleanliness, order, and the Nevada decision were issues, but now he made other charges. A month later in July, he accused her of infidelity, threatened her, and demanded she leave the home. She stated that he was very angry with her “for some reason or other; he was terribly angry. He told me he did not care for me anymore.” Parley demanded that she get out of the home and take the children with her. She said, “I didn’t want to leave the house, but he compelled me to.”27 She took four of the children and walked three miles into Wabuska. (One son stayed with Parley.) Fearing his anger and temper, she stayed in town, got a job as a cook for a hay crew, and never returned to their home.28 When Parley came to visit the children, he refused to talk about a reconciliation. Indeed, Johanna offered to return, fix up the place, and take care of the children. Parley refused her offer. Shortly after, Parley, his brother John T., and his brotherin-law James Johnson came to Johanna and demanded all of the children be allowed to accompany their uncles back to Bear Lake. They took the twins along with the son who had stayed with Parley and sent them to Idaho. Ila, age fourteen, refused to go. Johanna later expressed fear as the main reason she allowed her sons to leave.29 Johanna protested vehemently but to no avail. Later, in November 1922, Parley left Nevada for good. He had fulfilled his agreement of a one-year lease and so moved back to Idaho. The family story has the uncles going to Nevada to get the boys after Parley had left. It actually happened before.

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Johanna remained in Wabuska with her two daughters, working at a restaurant as a waitress and then as a cook. She also managed a small two-bedroom boarding house, but said that “very seldom anyone comes and stays.” In the meantime, Parley returned to his Idaho acreage and began to farm again. He was only in Nevada thirteen months. After this time, his three sons never really lived with him in Idaho on a consistent basis but were placed in various relatives’ homes in the Ovid area.30 The next year, 1923, Danny was released from juvenile detention, so Johanna packed up her daughters and Danny and left for Idaho. There is no record of correspondence during the year or of why she went back other than to see her children and deliver her problem son, but perhaps Johanna hoped for some kind of reconciliation. She approached Parley in Ovid, and suggested “he get a house and provide a home and I would stay and take care of the children, but he didn’t.”31 Parley responded that he did not want her there. She said, “There was nothing for me to do . . . he, Parley said he could look after the children very well without my assistance.”32 The family environment in Ovid was very hostile toward Johanna because rumors circulated about her disloyalty and unfaithfulness. Her relatives by marriage were especially judgmental, and she quickly realized that any thought of putting her family back together had to be abandoned. Johanna took Ila and Bernice and returned to Wabuska. Her trip to Idaho lasted two weeks. Danny remained in Idaho, and Johanna would not see Parley or her sons for another twelve years. It is important to reiterate that the LDS Church was not a major player in their lives.33 Upon her return to Wabuska, Johanna continued her life as a waitress and cook. She and her daughters struggled financially, and Ila chose, at age seventeen, to marry and alleviate some of the pressure on her mother. Meanwhile, in Idaho, the three younger sons went to church enough to receive the Aaronic Priesthood, but they worked for other farmers and rarely lived with their father. Parley sent Johanna money on at least three occasions, but never more than thirty dollars.34 Finally, in the early spring of 1925, Johanna began divorce proceedings in Lyon County, Nevada. The first thing she did was record the document that gave her half ownership of the Idaho property. Then, in March, she began the process of legally notifying Parley of the charges of desertion. Parley never responded to any of the requests of the Nevada

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court or her attorney.35 A formal summons was issued in May for a court date on August 10, 1925. After hearing Johanna and her attorney, Frank Langan, review the entire history of the family’s Nevada experience, the judge granted the divorce and custody of the two daughters; even though Ila had married, she was still considered a minor. The judge cited desertion and failure to provide as the reasons for his decision. There was no mention of the Idaho property, her sons, or any other issues. Fundamentally, Johanna needed to move on and Parley had no interest in moving on together.36 In June, 1926, Parley paid Johanna $2,950 for her half interest in their farmland. There is no evidence of correspondence or legal communication. The deed book simply shows that Parley bought her out ten months after the divorce.37 None of the other property was considered in a financial settlement. A marriage for time and eternity had ended, at least the time part, but what has this got to do with religion and Mormon history? How does the tragic story of an obscure Idaho farm couple contribute to a discussion of religious history? Were once-held convictions abandoned through the conduct of life or were they merely set aside? In reality, this brief vignette illuminates much about the early twentieth century and the Mormon West. Indeed, by contemporary standards, there was not a high percentage of church attendance or temple activity. There were not intense periodic interviews for worthiness, and the residue of plural marriage created perplexion, disinterest, confusion, and doubt. Most of Parley’s and Johanna’s children had no relationship with the church that brought their parents together. Four of the six remained totally outside of the church. Two of the boys, probably because of the Bear Lake Mormon women they married, gravitated toward the church later in their lives. It is noteworthy, though, that parts of their religion ran deep and lasting through the lives of both of the divorced parents. While Johanna lived in Reno and operated a boarding house, she often served lunch or dinner to the LDS missionaries. These included some Bear Lake natives who found themselves in Reno. In fact, she kept track of her children through the missionaries, including the brother of her daughter-in-law.38 In early 1935 she decided to return to Bear Lake for a visit to see her first grandchild. It was on this trip that Johanna’s son took her down to the ranch to see her former husband. She did weep as

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she saw how he lived in a sheep camp and was amazed at how he had aged. At that time, he was 58 and she 51. He was cordial but quiet and somewhat withdrawn.39 They never talked again. Johanna kept her contacts through missionaries up until the time she remarried. Although he lived frugally, Parley was not a poor man by any means. Throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, he quietly accumulated more property and either listed himself as single or, on one occasion, a “widower.” By 1940, he owned over one thousand acres and several lots.40 Ever since his days as a missionary in Denmark, some people claimed that he had a religious gift—a gift of healing. One entire family that was converted in Denmark remained fiercely loyal to Parley. They often called him to bless the sick because they could not afford a doctor. One incident in the summer of 1935 indicates both faith and trust. His oldest grandchild, a boy, had contracted spinal meningitis after a rather severe case of pneumonia. His son and daughter-in-law were expecting their second child, and the doctors and nurses prepared them for the loss of their son. The young couple sent for the grandfathers to come and bless the baby. One grandfather was very active and in a bishopric; the other, a divorced sheepherder who rarely graced the doorway of the church was Parley Peterson. The mother asked Parley to give the prayer. According to witnesses who recorded the event, “I have never heard a prayer like that in my life. He pleaded with God in such a way that he willed life back into that baby. He prayed until we all knew the boy would be okay.”41 Another simply said “it was one of the most powerful prayers they ever heard.”42 Who was this man? At times, he lived with his children and is remembered as a kind and gracious gentleman. Yet his religious commitment seemed hard to measure. In trying to determine the veracity of allegations that Johanna cheated on Parley, a commonly held belief in Bear Lake Valley, her own recollections at various times may illuminate a very touchy emotional issue. According to Eulala Peterson, the sister of a daughter-in-law, Johanna explained to them in May of 1942, that “she flirted with those men in order to get Parley’s land back.”43 This version was repeated twenty years later during a lengthy car ride with a grandson and his wife.44 In both cases she claimed innocence of any infidelity but came close to admitting some type of less than appropriate association. If the flirtations involved Ila, her daughter, that is unknown. The Bear Lake rumors attacked

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both mother and daughter. What is clear is that Parley believed the worst and decided to return to Idaho and try to reclaim his property and reputation. Only thirty-eight when divorced, Johanna did not remarry until after Parley’s death in 1942. She lived in Nevada as a single woman for twenty years. Was there a faint memory of LDS concern about an eternal vow? It is intriguing, but unclear. Her new husband, George Keith, a retired railroader, who loved the Milwaukee Braves, did not like Mormons, and it was only in her last decade of life, after George died, that she found her way back to church in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.45 Johanna and Parley never applied for a temple divorce, and this led Johanna to return to the temple in the late 1960s when she was in her eighties. In many respects, she remains an enigma. Johanna, according to her family, never had contact with her parents after she left Denmark. Although they joined the LDS church and remained active throughout their lives, she completely lost contact with them. Her relationship with her younger sister, Sena, who married Parley’s brother, was always strained.46 She maintained an active and personal correspondence with her daughter-in-law in Idaho, became closer to grandchildren later in life, yet never got too close. Her house was always immaculate and orderly. Her style was proper etiquette and manners. When her son Raymond took his family to Nevada to meet her in May, 1942, after Parley died, they stopped outside of town and cleaned up the four children and themselves before they entered her home. She greeted her son with the words, “You told me you’d come back.”47 This may have referred to his departure with his uncles twenty years earlier and is a glimpse into the pain they both felt. During this research, the realization hit that I would not discover why my grandparents did what they did. The transcript of the divorce hearing shed light on Johanna’s version of the dissolution of the marriage. Jealousy, anger, mistrust, and frustration led to desertion and failure to provide. Their decision to step away from their religion prior to the divorce is unanswerable. At one point, thirty-five years ago, Johanna told me that they both despised polygamy because of the inherent unfairness toward women, especially young girls. They are only one example of the post-manifesto experience. Parley’s side of the story is unrecorded but not untold. His earlier version obviously created an atmosphere that devastated Johanna. At times, I felt that he set her up because of the land

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acquisition in his name only, the stories of land trades, and the manner in which the marriage ended. On the other hand, she may have driven him to throw her out because of her actions. Those who knew Parley later in life admired his honesty and love for his grandchildren. I do not need to know why. I only try to understand. This couple and their story illustrate a humbling, intriguing, and ironic reality of Mormon culture. It is hard to measure the impact of a changing theology on individual members. Parley and Johanna chose to live outside the umbrella of the church. Others that went to Nevada about the same time banded together and formed a branch. The LDS Church preaches and teaches that their people are peculiar, and they have to live by a higher standard of measured participation. Worthiness to enter the temple, perform priesthood ordinances, and hold positions is based on paying a tithe, living the word of wisdom, believing the Book of Mormon, remaining chaste, and sustaining called leaders. Parley Peterson’s priesthood blessings of seven decades ago would be scrutinized more carefully today. Consequently, those found worthy are considered part of a special chosen people and judged to be an exclusive elect. However, theologically the religion is eternally inclusive. Although everyone will be judged on how well they live their lives and baptized Mormons are held to a higher standard, the LDS Church casts an all-encompassing net that gathers everyone into some degree of eternal glory. The temples, like Logan, where Parley and Johanna recited their vows a century ago, also provide vicarious work for any and all who have died. The LDS Church created an inclusive theology and an ecclesiastical eternal welfare system that embarrasses the social and economic ideas of both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. This discussion of Parley and Johanna Peterson is about earthly lives, though, not eternal judgment. Does anger, desertion, divorce, ideology, and lack of church participation translate into wasted lives? Are the lives of the children criteria for judging the parents? Mormons have become much less willing to judge in the long run, especially the very long run. There are times when researching family history that we wonder: Is it better to leave the story to memory and put the upturned stones back into their proper resting place? Or should we follow the sources and tell the documented story the best we can? It is lcear that in a religious community, a congregation, a ward, a parish, or even a family, gossip, rumor,

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and a lack of forgiveness and understanding makes it difficult to remain in the fold. The principles of religion are not only manifested through texts, but through the lives of individuals. Perhaps I will return to what I told Leonard Arrington about doing Mormon history, “No sir.” And always remember that Obert Tanner’s counsel was “It will not be easy.” I abide by Thomas Jefferson’s counsel as well: “We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” Better, yet, Thomas Jefferson also reminded us “that speeches measured by the hour die by the hour.”48

Notes Arrington Faith and Intellect as Partners in Mormon History 1. I am grateful for the suggestions of Davis Binon on this lecture and on some of the sources on which it is based. 2. Spencer W. Kimball, “Second Century Address,” BYU Studies 16 (summer 1976): 466. 3. Doctrine and Covenants, cited as D&C. 4. Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 217. 5. See also Mark R. Grandstaff, “Having More Learning Than Sense,” Dialogue 26 (winter 1993): 41. 6. Richard F. Haglund Jr. and David J. Whittaker, “Intellectual History, “ in Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 2:687. 7. Ibid., 685. There may, of course, have been instances in which intellectual activity has had an opposite effect. 8. Van Austin Harvey, The Historian and the Believer: The Morality of Historical Knowledge and Christian Belief (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 264. 9. Penetrating essays that discuss Mormonism and intellectuals are Ephraim E. Ericksen, “William H. Chamberlin, Pioneer Mormon Philosopher,” Western Humanities Review 8 (autumn 1954): 275–85; R. Kent Fielding, “Historical Perspectives for a Liberal Mormonism,” Western Humanities Review 14 (winter 1960): 69–80; Davis Bitton, “Anti-Intellectualism in Mormon History,” Dialogue 1 (autumn 1966): 111–34; also James B. Allen, “Comment,” Dialogue 1 (autumn 1966): 134–40; and Thomas F. O’Dea, “Sources of Strain and Conflict,” in The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 222–57. See also Leonard J. Arrington, “The L. D. S. Intellectual Tradition,” Dialogue 4 (spring 1969): 11– 26; “To Be Learned Is Good If . . .“ (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987); and Clara V. Dobay, “Intellect and Faith: The Controversy over Revisionist Mormon History,” Dialogue 27 (spring 1994): 91–105. 10. There are, of course, others who could be mentioned: Sidney Rigdon, Orson Pratt, B. H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, John A. Widtsoe, William H. Chamberlin, Amy Brown Lyman, J. Reuben Clark Jr., Belle Smith Spafford, Henry Eyring, Hugh Nibley, and Lowell L. Bennion, to mention a few. 11. See The Confession of St. Augustine, trans. F. J. Sheed (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1943); Robert Richardson, Emerson: The Mind on Fire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (New York: Longmans Green, 1897) and An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (New York: Longmans Green, 1892); Robert Shafer, Christianity and Naturalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926); Roland H. Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969); R. G.

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12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

Notes to pages 3–7

Collingwood, Faith and Reason, ed. Lionel Rubinoff (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968); Nels F. Ferre, Reason in Religion (London and Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963); George Santayana, Reason in Religion (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936). The Arrington lectureship at Utah State University permits, but does not insist upon, a “friendly” treatment of Mormon history by the invited scholar-lecturer. The best biography of Joseph Smith is Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977). See also Leonard J. Arrington, “Joseph Smith,” in The Presidents of the Church: Biographical Essays, ed. Leonard J. Arrington (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1986), 340; Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984); John Henry Evans, Joseph Smith: An American Prophet (New York: Macmillan, 1933; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989); Preston Nibley, Joseph Smith, the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1944); Truman G. Madsen, Joseph Smith the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989); and Larry C. Porter and Susan Easton Black, eds., The Prophet Joseph: Essays on the Life and Mission of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988). John M. Bernhisel to Thomas Ford, 14 June 1844, Bernhisel Collection, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City. Emmeline B. Wells’s statement can be found in “Joseph Smith, the Prophet,” Young Woman’s Journal 16 (December 1905): 556. Joseph Smith’s thought is contained in Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1940); Alma Burton, comp., Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, 1960); Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980); B. H. Roberts, Joseph Smith: The Prophet Teacher (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1908, 1967); John A. Widtsoe, Joseph Smith: Seeker after Truth (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1957); and Garland E. Tickemyer, “The Philosophy of Joseph Smith and Its Educational Implications” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1963). See also Truman G. Madsen, “Teachings of Joseph Smith,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 3: 1339–43. Haglund and Whittaker, “Intellectual History,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:687. See also Richard Bushman, 9– 42. A stimulating article is Mark R. Grandstaff, “Having More Learning Than Sense: William E. McLellin and the Book of Commandments Revisited,” Dialogue 26 (winter 1993): 23–48. Donald Q. Cannon, “The King Follett Discourse: Joseph Smith’s Greatest Sermon in Historical Perspective,” BYU Studies 18 (winter 1978): 179–92. In the same issue of BYU Studies are Van Hale, “The Doctrinal Impact of the King Follett Discourse,” 209–25, and Stanley Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” 193–208. See Thomas O’Dea, The Mormon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 22–40. Minutes, Nauvoo Female Relief Society, March 1842 to 16 March 1844, 37–40, LDS Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah. Joseph Smith’s attitudes toward women are discussed in Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple: Toward a New Understanding,” in Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective, ed.

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23.

24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.


Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 80–110; Linda King Newell, “Gifts of the Spirit: Women’s Share,” in Sisters in Spirit, 111–50; Jill Mulvay Derr, “’Strength in Our Union’: The Making of Mormon Sisterhood,“ in Sisters in Spirit, 153–207; Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (New York: Knopf, 1979), 220–42; Leonard J. Arrington, “Persons for All Seasons: Women in Mormon History,” BYU Studies 20 (fall 1979): 39–58; and Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Struggle for Definition: The Nineteenth Century Church,” Sunstone 6 (November–December 1981): 7–11. Sources on the life of Eliza Roxcy Snow Smith include Augusta Joyce Crocheron, “Eliza R. Snow Smith,” in Representative Women of Deseret (Salt Lake City, 1884), 1–9; Andrew Jenson, “Snow, Eliza Roxcy,” in Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City, 1901), 1:693–97; Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, “Eliza R. Snow’s Nauvoo Journal,” BYU Studies 15 (summer 1975): 391–416 and “The Eliza Enigma: The Life and Legend of Eliza R. Snow,” in Sister Saints, ed. Vicky Burgess-Olson (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1978) and “Eliza R Snow,” in Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, ed. Claudia L. Bushman (Cambridge, Mass.: Emmeline Press, 1976), 24–41; Janet Peterson and LaRene Gaunt, “Eliza R. Snow,” in Elect Ladies (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), 23– 40; Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, ed., The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995). Many of Eliza’s writings have been compiled and published as a separate volume: Bryant S. Hinckley, LeRoi Snow, and Arthur M. Richardson, comps., Eliza R. Snow, an Immortal: Selected Writings of Eliza R. Snow (Salt Lake City: Nicholas G. Morgan Sr. Foundation, 1957); Life and Labors of Eliza R. Snow Smith (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1888). See also Leonard J. Arrington, “The Legacy of Latter-day Saint Women,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 10 (1990): 3–17; Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Eliza and Her Sisters (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1991); “The ‘Leading Sisters’: A Female Hierarchy in Nineteenth Centuty Mormon Society,” Journal of Mormon History 9 (1982): 25–39; Beecher, “The Eliza Enigma,” Dialogue 11 (spring 1978): 30–43. Hinckley, Snow, and Richardson, 6. Eliza R Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, 1884), 252–53. See also Maureen Ursenbach, “Three Women and the Life of the Mind,” Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (winter 1975): 26–40. Eliza published her first book of poems in 1856 under the title Poems, Religious, Historical and Political (Liverpool, 1856). A second volume was published in 1877. Both were ambitious projects; the first was 270 pages, the second 284 pages long. “An Address by Miss Eliza R Snow . . . August 14, 1872,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 36 (13 January 1874): 21. See Arrington, “Blessed Damozels: Women in Mormon History,” Dialogue 6 (summer 1971): 22–31; Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, “A Decade of Mormon Women—the 1870s,” The New Era (Salt Lake City) 8 (April 1978): 35–36. Edward R Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York, 1877), 541–51. Beecher, “Three Women and the Life of the Mind,” 35–40; Emmeline B. Wells, “L.D.S. Women of the Past: Personal Impressions,” Woman’s Exponent 36 (February 1908): 49–50.

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30. Biographies of Brigham Young include Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Knopf, 1985); Newell G. Bringhurst, Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986); Eugene England, Brother Brigham (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980); Francis M. Gibbons, Brigham Young: Modern Moses, Prophet of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981); M. R. Werner, Brigham Young (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925); and Susa Young Gates, in collaboration with Leah D. Widtsoe, The Life Story of Brigham Young (New York: Macmillan, 1930). 31. On Brigham Young’s thought: John A. Widtsoe, ed., Discourses of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1941); Carl J. Furr, “The Religious Philosophy of Brigham Young” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1937); H. Carleton Marlow, “Brigham Young’s Philosophy of History” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1959); Arrington, Brigham Young, chapters 12 and 17. 32. Journal of Discourses (hereafter JD) 4:267, sermon of 8 March 1857. 33. Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976). 34. Brigham Young Secretary Journal, 28 January 1857, 6, typescript, LDS Church Archives. 35. JD 1:254, sermon of 5 June 1853. 36. JD 9:149, sermon of 12 January 1862. 37. Widtsoe, Discourses of Brigham Young, 246. 38. Beatrice Cannon Evans and Janath Russell Cannon, eds., Cannon Family Historical Treasure (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon Family Association, 1967), 85–140; Joseph J. Cannon, “George Q. Cannon,” The Instructor, January 1944 through November 1945, a serialized biography; Orson F. Whitney, “George Quayle Cannon,” History of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1892–1904), 4:659–63; and George Q. Cannon, “Twenty Years Ago: A Trip to California,” The Juvenile Instructor 4 (January–June 1869): intermittently in 12 issues, 6–92. 39. Juvenile Instructor 27 (1892): 210. 40. Whitney, “George Quayle Cannon,” 661. 41. Ibid., 659–63. 42. The standard biography is Carol Cornwall Madsen, “A Mormon Woman in Victorian America” (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1985). Excellent short biographies include Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Emmeline B. Wells: Romantic Rebel,” in Supporting Saints: Life Stories of Nineteenth Century Mormons, ed. Donald Q. Cannon and David J. Whittaker (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1985), 305–41; Janet Peterson and LaRene Gaunt, “Emmeline B. Wells,” Elect Ladies (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), 79–94; Patricia Rasmussen EatonGadsby and Judith Rasmussen Dushku, “Emmeline B. Wells,” in Sister Saints, ed. Vicky Burgess-Olson (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1978), 457–78; Augusta Joyce Crocheron, “Emmeline B. Wells, “ in Representative Women of Deseret (Salt Lake City: privately published, 1884), 62–71; Andrew Jenson, “Wells, Emmeline Blanche Woodward,” in Latter-day Saints Biographical Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1898–1936), 2:731–34, 4:199–200; Orson F. Whitney, “Emmeline B. Woodward Wells,” History of Utah (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons, 1892–1904), 4:586–90; Susa Young Gates, “Emmeline B. Wells,” History of the Young Ladies’

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43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60.


Mutual Improvement Association, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: General Board of the Y.L.M.I.A., 1911), 45–53. See also Rebecca Anderson, “Emmeline B. Wells: Her Life and Thought” (master’s thesis, Utah State University, 1975). Young Woman’s Journal 16 (December 1905): 554–56. Emmeline B. Wells, Diary, 4 January 1878, 207, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Ronald W. Walker, “Growing up in Early Utah: The Wasatch Literary Association, 1874–1878,” Sunstone 6 (November–December 1981): 44–51. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman in Victorian America,” 148. See also Eleanor Flexner, A Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in America (1959; rev. ed., Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1975). Anne Firor Scott, “Mormon Women, Other Women: Paradoxes and Challenges,” Journal of Mormon History 13 (1986/87): 4. Emmeline B. Wells to Mary Elizabeth Lightner, 7 April 1882, Wells Papers, LDS Church Archives. Quoted in the article on Emmeline in Richard S. Van Wagoner and Steven C. Walket, A Book of Mormons (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1982), 384. The most complete description of the meaning of the objectionable phrase is Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1800–1860,” American Quarterly 18 (1966): 151–74. “Why, Ah! Why,” Woman’s Exponent 3 (1 October 1874): 67. I have made good use of Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Emmeline B. Wells: Romantic Rebel,” in which many Wells quotations are found. “Real Women,” Woman’s Exponent 2 (1 January 1874): 118. “After Long Years,” Woman’s Exponent 6 (15 November 1877): 89; Woman’s Exponent 4 (15 May 1876): 191. See also Orson F. Whitney, “Woman’s Work and Mormonism,” Young Woman’s Journal 17 (July 1906): 295–96. “Life Lessons, by Blanche Beechwood,” Woman’s Exponent 4 (1 October 1875): 70. Peterson and Gaunt, 85, where the preceding quotations also appear. Rebecca Anderson, 33. Carol Cornwall Madsen, “‘The Power of Combination’: Emmeline B. Wells and the National and International Councils of Women,” BYU Studies 33 (fall 1993): 646–73. About this time Susa Young Gates wrote of her: “Emmeline’s mind is keen, her intellect sure, and her powers unending. She possesses a rarely beautiful spirit, and is affectionate, confiding and exquisitely pure. . . . She is an eloquent speaker, a beautiful writer, a true friend, and a wise counsellor.” Susa Young Gates, “President Emmeline B. Wells,” Album Book: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and Their Mothers, ed. Joseph T. Jakeman (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1911), 54. Peterson and Gaunt, 90. See B. Jowett, The Works of Plato, 4 vols. in one (New York: Dial Press, 1938), 3: “Phaedrus,” 361–449; and Neal W. Kramer, “The Intellect and the Spirit,” New Perspectives (published by Ricks College) 9 (December 1992): 14–20.

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Bushman Making Space for the Mormons 1. J. B. Harley, “Maps, Knowledge, and Power,” in Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 281–82, 302. 2. C. Mark Hamilton, Nineteenth-Century Mormon Architecture and City Planning (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 15–18, 34. 3. The historian of American town planning is John W. Reps, and his priceless introduction to the subject is The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965). 4. Revelation 3:10–21. 5. Warren S. Thompson and P. K. Whelpton, Population Trends in the United States (New York: McGraw-HilI, 1933), 26. There were fifty-eight towns with populations between 2,500 and 10,000, and sixteen with populations between 10,000 and 25,000. The population projection for the city of Zion put it in the top quarter of all American cities in 1830. Only one city, New York, had over 100,000 people at that time. 6. Reps, The Making of Urban America, 243, 245, 250. Joseph’s four main boulevards remained a generous 132 feet wide. 7. Thomas Graves, the surveyor and engineer for the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629, favored square towns with a meetinghouse at the center, but with farmers on forty-acre farm lots and less than 150 families per town, compared to the city of Zion’s 2,600 houselots. Sylvia Fries, The Urban Idea in Colonial America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977), 48–49. Fries argues that Puritans were wary of urban concentrations and wanted to plant small country towns. James L. Machor resists Fries’s anti-urban emphasis and sees the Puritans configuring an urban-pastoral landscape where town and country blend and people enjoy the virtues of both. Pastoral Cities: Urban Ideals and the Symbolic Landscape of America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 47–70. John Reps, the leading student of town planning in the United Stares, links Joseph’s ideas to the biblical cities described in Numbers 35:1–5 and Ezekiel 42, 45, and 48: square cities with farms outside the city boundaries. Reps, Making of Urban America, 472. For analysis of Puritan adaptations of the bible cities, see Fries, The Urban Idea in America, 64–66. 8. Doctrine and Covenants 45:66; 57:1–3. 9. I read into these incongruent descriptions the divergent minds of Joseph Smith and Frederick Williams. Joseph calls for twenty-four temples and Frederick asks, “What for?” They are public buildings, Williams concludes, and Joseph lets it pass, for they were that, though their potential uses were far more elegant than Joseph could then explain or perhaps even understood himself. 10. Doctrine and Covenants 94. 11. Doctrine and Covenants 57:3; 84:4. 12. A Nauvoo convert understood that the saints gathered for safety’s sake in the first place, and then “that they may build a sanctuary to the name of the Most High . . . and attend to such ordinances and receive such blessings as they could not

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13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22.


while scattered upon the face of the whole earth.” Elder Francis Moon, quoted in Robert Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965), 69. Doctrine and Covenants 38:32–33, 38; 39:15; 43:16; 95:8. The reason for gathering was partly to build the city and the temple. “He that believeth shall not make haste, but let all the Saints who desire to keep the commandments of heaven and work righteousness, come to the place of gathering as soon as circumstances will permit. [I]t is by united efforts that great things are accomplished, and while the Saints are scattered to the four winds, they cannot be united in action, if they are in spirit; they cannot all build at one city, or lift at one stone of the great Temple, though their hearts may all desire the same thing.” Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1949), 4:449. Doctrine and Covenants 88:68. The meaning of the endowment of power seems especially to be the burden of section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants, though many passages in the revelations speak to the same end. The dedicatory prayer at the Kirtland temple summed up much of Joseph’s vision of a Zion people. Doctrine and Covenants 110:22–23. “The first great object before us, and the Saints generally, is to help forward the completion of the Temple and the Nauvoo House—buildings which are now in progress according to the revelations, which must be completed to secure the salvation of the Church in the last days; for God requires of His Saints to build Him a house where His servants may be instructed, and endowed with power from on high, to prepare them to go forth among the nations, and proclaim the fullness of the gospel for the last time, and bind up the law, and seal up the testimony, leaving this generation without excuse, and the earth prepared for the judgments which will follow. In this house all the ordinances will be made manifest, and many things will be shown forth, which have been hid from generation to generation.” “Epistle of the Twelve to Britain,” Nov. 15, 1841. Smith, History of the Church, 4:449. The center-periphery division shows up in writings to “the Saints scattered abroad,” and in the verb “go forth,” commonly used for missionaries sent from Zion into the world. Zion was home, peace, and truth; the world was darkness, struggle, and danger. The January 1841 “Proclamation of the First Presidency to the Saints Scattered Abroad” summed up “the work” in one sentence: “The Temple of the Lord is in process of eretion here, where the Saints will come to worship the God of their fathers, according to the order of His house and the powers of the Holy Priesthood, and will be so constructed as to enable all the functions of the Priesthood to be duly exercised, and where instructions from the Most High will be received, and from this place go forth to distant lands.” Smith, History of the Church, 4:269. Doctrine and Covenants 94: 1. Reps, The Making of Urban America, 468–69. For temple architecture, see Laurel B. Andrew, The Early Temples of the Mormons: The Architecture of the Millennial Kingdom in the American West (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1978); for the town plats, see Hamilton, Nineteenth-Century Mormon Architecture, chap. 2.

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23. On the absence of Mormon meetinghouses and the comparison to other denominations, see Milton V. Backman, Jr., The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latterday Saints in Ohio, 1830–1838 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983), 38–39, 275–76; and Andrew, The Early Temples, 59. 24. John M. Lundquist, The Temple: Meeting Place of Heaven and Earth (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993), 12. 25. On the homologies of temple, home, body, and heart, see Gerardus van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, trans. J. E. Turner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986 [orig. pub. in German in 1933]), and the discussion in David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal, eds., American Sacred Space (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 7. 26. “In its material production and practical reproduction, sacred space anchors a worldview in the world. As the anthropologist Robert Redfield suggested, a worldview is comprised of at least two dimensions: classification of persons, and orientation in space and time. Sacred space is a means for grounding classifications and orientations in reality, giving particular force to the meaningful focus gained through these aspects of a worldview. Sacred places focus more general orientations in space and time that distinguish center from periphery, inside from outside, up from down, and a recollected past from a meaningful present or an anticipated future.” Chidester and Linenthal, eds., American Sacred Space, 12. Joseph Fielding, an English convert who first saw the site of the Nauvoo temple in 1841, spoke of it as an earthly prototype of heaven: “It would be vain to attempt to describe my feelings on beholding this interesting sight; but if you have the same faith as myself in the great work of God, and consider that the things on earth are patterns of things in heaven, at the same time look back on the form of the temple and font, you may judge of my feelings. Many have been baptized therein for their deceased relatives, and also for the healing of their own afflicted bodies.” Quoted in Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi, 87–88. 27. Doctrine and Covenants 110:12–13. 28. For a useful overview of the literature and relevant theory on sacred space in the United States, see Chidester and Linenthal, American Sacred Space, 1– 42. 29. Quoted in Patrick McGreevy, “Niagara as Jerusalem,” Landscape, 28 (1985): 29. For the designations of sacred sites in America, see Edward Tabor Linenthal, Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), and John F. Sears, Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 30. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991), 9. 31. In Cronon’s words: “Although no booster would have put it quite so bluntly, the center of metropolitan empire—and of Turner’s frontier—was the marketplace of modern capitalism. When Turner spoke of the frontier as ‘the outer edge of the wave,’ what he unintentionally described was not some implicitly racist ‘meeting point between savagery and civilization’ but the ongoing extension of market relations into the ways human beings used the land—and each other—in the Great West.” Cronon, Natures Metropolis, 52–53. 32. There seems to be general agreement among historians about the religious motivation behind Nauvoo. As Arrington and Bitton put it: “One must remember

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33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.


that in many ways Mormonism was the least attractive of the several available means of emigration to a new country. Demanding of the emigrant strict obedience and continuing economic sacrifice, it offered in return a home in one of the least inviting regions of the hemisphere. Clearly the Mormon religion itself, if not the sole factor behind the emigration, was the key to the process.” Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latterday Saints (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 129. Also, from Laurel Andrew: “Nauvoo, whose sole basis for existence was religious, was an artificial creation with no foundation in commerce or manufacturing; moreover an unusual number of its members could not contribute capital or skills. . . . Its return to somnolence after the Mormon exodus is indicative of the limited possibilities which this location offered.” The Early Temples, 56–57. The theoretical explanations for Chicago, advanced by nineteenth-century theorists of city growth, emphasized commerce as the governing principle. Cronon, Natures Metropolis, 34 – 43, 53 –54. On Nauvoo’s commercial possibilities, see Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi, 40, 43, 150–51, 153. Smith, History of the Church, 4:268–69. On Nauvoo’s “industries,” see Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi, 153. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 59–60. For the bankruptcy case and the land business in Nauvoo, see Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi, chap. 5, pp. 168–69. Along with the market, democratic politics is the other source of ruling metaphors in modern American society. In one we buy and sell; in the other we vote as deliberative and equal citizens. In a temple society, people come into God’s presence to be spiritually empowered. The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, 2 vols. (New York: Random House, 1937 [orig. pub. 1892]), 1:851. The Dialogues of Plato, 2:509. On the termination of gathering, see Arrington and Bitton, The Mormon Experience, 140. Smith, History of the Church, 4:272–73.

Bennett “My Idea Is to Go Right Through” 1. Brigham Young’s instructions given at the Platte River on the eve of the Mormon trek, 15 April 1847. General Church Minutes, Brigham Young Papers, LDS Church Historical Deptartment. Hereafter referred to as Church Minutes. 2. Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail (Salt Lake City: Westwater Press, 1964); Preston Nibley, Exodus to Greatness: The Story of the Mormon Migration (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1947); and Stanley B. Kimball’s editing of William Clayton’s The Latter-day Saints’ Emigrants Guide (Gerald, Missouri: Patrice Press, 1983). 3. Jan Shipps, “Young and His Times: A Continuing Force in Mormonism,” Journal of the West, vol. 23, no. 1, p. 51. 4. Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play of Sir Thomas More (Toronto: Bellhaven House, 1960), p. 53.

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5. Richard E. Bennett, We’ll Find the Place: The Mormon Exodus, 1846 –1848 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1997). 6. Journal of Heber C. Kimball, 24 May 1846. LDS Church Archives. 7. Journal of Willard Richards, 18 January 1847. LDS Church Archives. 8. Journal of Wilford Woodruff, 21 March 1847. 9. Ibid., 23 February 1848. 10. Church Minutes, 15 April 1847. 11. The Journals of William E. McLellin, 1831–1836, edited by Jan Shipps and John W. Welch (Provo, Utah, and Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 101. 12. Roger Launius, Zion’s Camp: Expedition to Missouri, 1834 (Independence, Missouri: Herald Publishing House, 1984), p. 145. 13. Journal of Joseph B. Noble, p. 14, as quoted in Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 44. 14. Launius, Zion’s Camp, p. 148. 15. Ibid, p. 149. 16. Manuscript History of Brigham Young, p. 9, as quoted in Arrington, American Moses, p. 45. 17. Church Minutes, 25 April 1847. 18. B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1965); reprint of the 1929 edition, vol. 3:183. 19. Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 136:10 –24, 31, and 42. 20. Church Minutes, 8 March 1847. 21. Doctrine and Covenants, 105:2, 6, 19. 22. Doctrine and Covenants, 136: 40 – 42. 23. Journal of Catherine Haun, 1849, p. 13. Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. 24. Journal of Charles G. Gray, 17 June 1849. William Huntington Library, San Marino, California. 25. Journal of J. M. Wood, 20 May 1849. Huntington Library. 26. Church Minutes, 26 March 1847. 27. Church Minutes, 25 April 1847. 28. Ibid., 9 May 1847. 29. Journal of William Clayton, 29 May 1847. LDS Church Archives. 30. Minutes of an outdoor Sacrament service at Winter Quarters, 21 March 1847. Brigham Young Papers. LDS Church Archives. 31. Church Minutes, 26 March 1847. 32. Ibid. 33. Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p. 125. 34. Little wonder that once established in the valley, Church leaders later began a reformation in which members seeking worthiness recommends were asked not only about the Word of Wisdom but, as the first question, had they “ever committed murder, by shedding innocent blood, or consenting thereto?” See Paul H. Peterson, “The Mormon Reformation” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University, April 1981), p. 75. 35. Church Minutes, 29 May 1847.

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36. Letter of Thomas Bullock to Henrietta Bullock, 14 May 1847. Thomas Bullock Letters, Church Archives. 37. Church Minutes, 23 May 1847. 38. Ibid., 25 April 1847. 39. Ibid., 9 May 1847. 40. Journal of William Clayton, 29 May 1847. 41. Church Minutes, 1 August 1847. 42. Journal of Wilford Woodruff, 8 August 1847. 43. Church Minutes, 4 September 1847. 44. Ibid., 5 September 1847.

Lamar The Theater in Mormon Life and Culture In the preparation of this lecture I have become indebted to a number of individuals for their valuable assistance, chief among them Jeremy Mumford, a doctoral candidate in American history at Yale University, who identified and reported on Mormon newspaper accounts of the Salt Lake Theater and in the Bienecke Rare Book and Manuscripts Library at Yale University, and to Murray Biggs, associate professor of English and theater studies, Yale University. I am also grateful to Mrs. Harriet Arrington for copies of her own articles pertaining to theater in Utah, and to Dr. Everett L. Cooley who has graciously provided me with copies of materials pertaining to the history of theater in the University of Utah Marriott Library. 1. This paper is published as presented by Professor Lamar before the death of Leonard Arrington on February 11, 1999. 2. Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). 3. Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 288–93. Biographies of Cannon, Wells, Caine, and Clawson may be found in Andrew Jensen, Latter-day Saints Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Jensen History, 1901–36). 4. Letter, Harriet Arrington to Howard Lamar, Salt Lake City, September 29, 1998; and “Maud May Babcock,” typescript of biographical entry in Ann Commire, ed., Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Yorkin Publications, 1999). 5. Myrtle E. Henderson, A History of the Theatre in Salt Lake City, from 1850 to 1870 (Privately published, Evanston, Ill., July 1934). Two unpublished studies provide information beyond 1870: Roberta Reese Asahina, “Brigham Young and the Salt Lake Theater, 1862–1877” (PhD. diss., Tufts University, 1980), and Francis Therold Todd, “Operation of the Salt Lake Theater, 1862–1875” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oregon, 1973). 6. Oscar Brockett, History of the Theatre, 2nd ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1974), 365–430. 7. Interview with Murray Biggs, November 5, 1998, Yale University, New Haven. 8. References to William H. Folsom may be found in Henderson, Theatre in Salt Lake City, 48; John S. Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre, or the History of Theatricals in Utah (Salt Lake City: Century Printing, 1905), 23.

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9. Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre, 4. 10. Ibid., 4–7, 28–30. 11. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Pizarro. A Tragedy in Five Acts (London: Printed for J. Ridgway, 1799). The play was taken from the German drama, Die Spanier in Peru, of August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue and adapted to the English stage by Sheridan. An incredibly prolific dramatist, Kotzebue wrote over two hundred plays, some of which were staged by the Salt Lake Theater. Kotzebue’s fame was such that probably no Mormon on a mission to western Europe would not have been aware of his works. 12. Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre, 6. 13. Horace G. Whitney, The Drama in Utah: The Story of the Salt Lake Theatre (Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1915), 4. 14. An “Inventory of Salt Lake Theatre Posters” printed between 1862 and 1868, in the George Dollinger Pyper Collection in the Marriott Library, University of Utah, confirms the large number of repeated performances of favorite plays. A list of the most popular plays is also provided in Arrington, Young: American Moses, 293. 15. Murray Biggs, Interview, November 5, 1998. 16. Henderson, Theatre in Salt Lake City, 19. 17. Whitney, The Drama in Utah, 35. 18. Murray Biggs, Interview, November 5, 1998. 19. The Social Hall stage and auditorium are described in Henderson, Theatre in Salt Lake City, 27. The unbounded Mormon admiration for William Shakespeare is captured in John S. Lindsay’s claim that “Shakespeare was the most transcendent genius our earth has ever produced.” Lindsay, Mormons and the Theatre, 178. 20. Two theatrical announcements in the Deseret News amply illustrate the usual combination of a serious play, interacts, and a farce. Theatrical. The Management announces for this evening the fine play of “Damon and Pythias,” or The Test of Friendship, in which Mr. T.A. Lyne will appear as Damon. Mr. Lyne is a professional actor and since he has been in this city, in the capacity of an instructor, has very successfully gained the good opinion and kind sentiments of those which whom he has been in prof. Relationship. Mrs. A. Lynch’s second appearance in a popular sentimental song will doubtless give satisfaction to the patrons of the theatre. The laughable farce “The Secret, or The Hole in the wall” is also announced for the afterpiece. Deseret News, February 11, 1863. Fall season opens 10/3. 5 act “Thrilling American comedy—Señor Valiente.” “Some of the ‘old favorites’ among the ladies are necessarily unable to appear on the first night, as the Comedy is too lengthy to admit of concluding with a farce. Ibid., September 30, 1863.

It should be noted that the Deseret News carried theatrical notices from the time of the opening of the Salt Lake Theater in March, 1862. See especially the coverage from 1862 through 1868. The Deseret Evening News continued the coverage, but by the 1880s coverage was briefer and more casual, often reporting on lectures at the theater rather than plays. The anti-Mormon Salt Lake Daily Tribune also carried theatrical notices, as well as reports on plays and players in New York or as they were touring the country.

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21. Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton (1803–1973), English novelist, dramatist, and politician, was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a member of Parliament for fifteen years. He produced The Lady of Lyons in 1838, a play in which the famous actor George Macready was a great success in the Covent Garden premiere. See Charles H. Shattuck, ed., Bulwer and Macready: A Chronicle of Early Victorian Theatre (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958), and James L. Campbell, Sr., Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986). See also Bulwer-Lytton, The Lady of Lyons, or Love and Pride (London: Chapman and Hall, 1931, Piccadilly, 1851). 22. Lindsay, The Mormon and the Theatre, 20–23. 23. Arrington, Young: American Moses, 288ff. 24. Henderson, The Theatre in Salt Lake City, 48. 25. Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre, 23–26. 26. Arrington, Young: American Moses, 291–92. 27. Henderson, The Theatre and Salt Lake City, 126; Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre, 32, 87–108; and Whitney, The Drama in Utah, 35–41. 28. “Playbill” in Western Americana Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven. 29. Salt Lake Daily Tribune, December 13, 1878. 30. Ibid., October 23, 1878. 31. Ibid, August 10, 1878. 32. Henderson, The Theatre in Salt Lake City, 105, 126ff. The coming of burlesque to America is well chronicled in Robert Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991). 33. Salt Lake Daily Tribune, March 11 and 13, 1885. 34. Whitney, The Drama in Utah, 36 –38. 35. Ibid., 37–38. 36. Ibid., 46 – 47. 37. Deseret Evening News, November 6 and 11, 1878, and Salt Lake Daily Tribune, November 9, 1878. 38. See “Mormons in American Theatre and Drama,” in Gerald Boardman, ed., Oxford Companion to American Theatre (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 186–87. 39. Ibid., 187. 40. See inventory of various letters and telegrams between George D. Pyper and Klaw and Erlanger, 1901–1911, and Pyper telegrams to Erlanger, Lee Shubert, Jules Murray, and the Shubert Booking Agency, August 2, 1928, announcing the closing of the Salt Lake Theater, in Register of the Papers of George Dollinger Pyper, Western Americana Department, University of Utah Libraries, Salt Lake City, 1970. 41. Murray Biggs, Interview, November 5, 1998. 42. Salt Lake Daily Tribune, October 11, 1885, 43. Harriet Arrington, “Maud May Babcock,” 2–14. David G. Pace, a former theater critic in Salt Lake City, now lives in New York where he and his wife, Cheryl, are coeditors of Critic Quarterly, a publication of the American Theater Critics Association. 44. David G. Pace, “Maud May Babcock (1867–1954): Speak Clearly and Carry A Big Umbrella,” in Colleen Whitney, ed., Worth Their Salt: Notable But Often Unnoted Women of Utah (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996), 148–58.

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45. Unless otherwise noted, the biographical information about Maud May Babcock is drawn from accounts by Arrington and Pace, cited above. 46. Interview with Wanda Clayton Thomas by Winnifred Margetts, March 6, 1985, for the Everett L. Cooley Oral History Project, nos. 255 and 256. Typescript in Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. 47. Pace, “Babcock,” 151–52. 48. Maw reminiscences as cited in Arrington, “Babcock,” 8–9. 49. Maw’s role as teacher at the University of Utah is affectionately described in the Wanda Clayton Thomas interview. See pp. 30 and 56. 50. Pace, “Babcock,” 157. 51. Interview with Ralph E. Margetts by Everett L. Cooley, September 13, 1983, Everett L. Cooley Oral History Project, no. 20, typescript in Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 61. 52. Ibid., 6–29, 50. 53. Bulwer-Lytton used novels and plays, it is said, “to embody the leading features of a period, to show how a criminal can be reformed by the development of his character, and to explain the secrets of failure and success in life.” “Lytton” in Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 14 (Chicago, 1958), 538–39. Similarly the Mormons also saw theater as a means toward realizing one’s potential and therefore one’s true identity. Certainly the careers of the four Mormon leaders whose careers prompted this study, John T. Caine, Hiram B. Clawson, Governors Heber M. Wells and Herbert Maw felt they had realized themselves through their careers in the theater. 54. Howard R. Lamar, “National Perceptions of Utah’s Statehood,” Journal of Mormon History, 23 (Spring 1997), 44, 53. 55. Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre, 177. 56. Bertram W. Korn, ed., Solomon N. Carvalho, Incidents of Travel in the Far West (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1954), 223. I am grateful to Dr. Mary Lee Spence, University of Illinois, for calling my attention to Carvalho’s painting of Mrs. Cyrus Wheelock while in Salt Lake City. 57. Rachelle Pace Castor, “Maude Adams (1872–1953): No Other Actress Can Take Her Place,” in Whitney, Worth Their Salt, 189–202. 58. The Lady of Lyons, (1851 edition), 72. 59. Lindsay, The Mormons and the Theatre, 11.

Bushman Mormon Domestic Life in the 1870s 1. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872–73: Elizabeth Kane’s St. George Journal (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Library, 1995), 129. 2. William Dennistoun Wood, Autobiography, 2 vols. (New York: J. S. Babcock, 1895), 330, 346; quotation from New York Tribune, 4 May 1861. 3. Everett L. Cooley, introduction, to Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes: Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Library, 1974), xiii–xv. 4. Thomas L. Kane, The Mormons, a Discourse Delivered before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: March 26, 1850 (Philadelphia: King & Baird, Printers, Sansom

257

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.


Street, 1850) reprint, Martin Mormon Pamphlet Reprint Series, No. 13, pp. 4, 30, 45, 46, 85. Wood, Autobiography, 119. “Brief Biography of the Author,” in Elizabeth Dennistoun Kane, Story of John Kane of Dutchess County, New York (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1921), 3. Wood, Autobiography, 302, 303, 313. Woman’s Exponent 1 (December 1, 1872) 13: 101. Historian’s Office Journal, Brigham Young Incoming Correspondence, 1839– 1877 (MS 1234), George A. Smith to Brigham Young, January 3, 1873, box 44, fd. 21, p. 3, Eliza R. Snow to Brigham Young. I am indebted to Jill Mulvay Derr for this reference. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 115–16. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes: Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Library, 1974), 5–6. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 85–86, 96, 118; Twelve Mormon Homes, 101. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 41–42. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 150–51. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 54–56. Ibid., 128. M. Isabell Horne, “The First Year in the Valley,” in Preston Nibley, comp. and ed., Faith Promoting Stories (Independence: Zion’s Printing and Publishing, 1943), 67–68. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 58–59. Ibid., 76. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 65. Ibid., 48. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 17. Ibid., 7–8. Ibid., 23. “Household Hints,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 (July 15, 1872) 4: 26. Woman’s Exponent, 1 (September 1, 1872) 7: 54. “Real Etiquette,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 (January 1, 1873) 15: 116. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 20–21. Ibid., 3–4. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 83. Ibid., 92. Ibid., 49. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 119–20. Ibid., 33. Ibid., 142–43. “The Female Relief Society,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 (June 1, 1872) 1: 2; 1 (June 15, 1872) 2: 8. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 68 – 69. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 46 – 48. Ibid., 69.

258 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.


Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 11. Ibid., 121. Autobiography of William Wood, V. I, (New York: J. S. Babcock, 1895) 52, 59, 60. William Wood, Autobiography, 255, 256, 257. Ibid., 261. Ibid., 385, 386. Ibid., 254, 255, 256, 257, 267. Ibid., 388, 482. Ibid., 291, 293, 299. Ibid., 313. Ibid., 385, 386. Ibid., 389. Ibid., 389. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 39. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 5. “Work for Women,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 (April 15, 1873) 22: 172. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 109–111. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 70, 89. Ibid., 155, 160–61. Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 26, 30–31. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 157–58. Ibid., 178–79. Clarissa Young Spencer with Mabel Harmer, One Who Was Valiant (Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, 1940), 176, 178–80, 200. Elizabeth Wood Kane, A Gentile Account, 167–68. Ibid., 175–76. Ibid., 125. Ibid., 177. Ibid., 170, 175. Ibid., 179. William Wood, “Preface,” in Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, xxi.

Godfrey The Importance of the Temple in the Nauvoo Experience 1. Kenneth W. Godfrey, “Some Writers of Mormon History and the History They Wrote, 1830–1844: A Chronological Study,” (paper delivered at the Mormon History Association conference held in Logan, Utah, 1985), 2. 2. I have chosen in this paper to refer to Joseph Smith as do members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thus, I will seldom use his last name only as do most historians, nor will I use such terms as “alleged revelations” or other qualifiers when writing of the experiences he said he had with divine personages and with the Holy Ghost. He will be accepted on his own terms because I believe that is the best way to understand Mormons and Mormonism. 3. See Susan Wise Bauer, “Christian Fiction Gets Real,” Christianity Today, April 2000. Bauer cites Lewis B. Smede who wrote, “There are . . . two kinds of writers, smart and dumb ones. The smart kind write what they know. The dumb kind write in order to know. I am one of the dumb ones.”

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4. Robert N. Hullinger, Mormon Answer to Skepticism (St. Louis: Clayton Publishing House, 1980). 5. Kenneth H. Winn, Exiles in a Land of Liberty, Mormons in America, 1830–1846 (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carlina Press, 1989). 6. Richard L. Bushman gave this analysis of Hill’s book in a paper delivered at the thirty-fifth annual conference of the Mormon History Association in Aalborg, Denmark July 1, 2000. Marvin S. Hill, Quest For Refuge (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989). 7. Dan Erickson, “As A Thief in The Night:” The Mormon Quest for Millennial Deliverance (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998). 8. Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1973), 4: 540. Hereafter referred to as HC. 9. Doctrine and Covenants 124: 28. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981) 10. John Francis McDermott, The Lost Panoramas of the Mississippi (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), 18. 11. Life Sketch of Lewis Barney, Nauvoo Lands and Records Office, Nauvoo, Illinois. 12. Wilford Woodruff, Journal, May 26, 1846, copy in possession of Godfrey. 13. Diary of Priddy Meeks, Lands and Records Office, Nauvoo, Illinois. 14. “Joseph Smith History,” The Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1987), 1: 39. 15. A. Karl Larson and Katharine Miles Larson, eds. Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, 2 vols. (Logan Utah: Utah State University Press, 1980), 1: 349, quoted in Daniel W. Bachman, “The Eternity of The Marriage Relationship,” in Riches of Eternity, ed. John K. Challis and John G. Scott (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1993), 198. 16. W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, May 26, 1835, quoted in Walter Dean Bowen, “The Versatile W.W. Phelps—Mormon Writer, Educator, and Pioneer” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University 1958), 68, quoted in Bachman, 205. 17. The Latter–day Saint Messenger and Advocate, June 1, 1835, 130, quoted in Bachman, 205. 18. See Doctrine and Covenants 137: 7. 19. Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1967), 308, quoted in Bachman, 206. Hereafter referred to as TPJS. 20. Ibid., 183; Bachman, 206. 21. Doctrine and Covenants 110. 22. Parley P. Pratt, Jr., ed., Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938), 297–8. 23. Godfrey, “Joseph Smith as Husband and Father: The Roots of the Mormon Family,” (paper delivered at the annual conference of the Mormon History Association, Palmyra, New York, 1980). 24. Bachman, 208. 25. Church History in the Fullness of Times (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989), 215; Robert Bruce Flanders, Nauvoo Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965) 19; Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois, 1839–1846,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Brigham Young University, August 1967), 199–201.

260


26. Godfrey, “Immigration To Nauvoo,” in Historical Atlas of Mormonism, ed. S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard H. Jackson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 62. 27. TPJS, 307-8 28. Ibid., 309; 311–2. 29. From notes taken at a devotional held in Copenhagen, Denmark on July 1, 2000, in which Ronald Esplin spoke. 30. Ibid. 31. Joseph Earl Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 4 vols., Leonard J. Arrington Collection, Utah State University Special Collections Library, Logan, Utah, 435. 32. CH 4: 437. 33. Arrington, 1388. 34. Thomas G. Alexander, “‘A New and Everlasting Covenant ‘: An Approach to the Theology of Joseph Smith,” in New Views of Mormon History, ed. Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1987), 43–44. 35. Ibid., 57; see also James H. Anderson, “The Temple,” The Improvement Era 32 (October 1929): 969–971. 36. M. Guy Bishop, “‘What Has Become of Our Fathers?’ Baptism for the Dead at Nauvoo,” Dialogue 23 (Summer 1990): 87. 37. Journal of Discourses, 26 vols.(Liverpool: Printed and Published by Joseph F. Smith, 1877), 2: 31. 38. TPJS, 323. 39. Ibid., 323. 40. Orson Pratt, “Funeral Address,” Times and Seasons 6 (June 1, 1845): 920. 41. Ibid. 42. See Dean C. Jessee, “The Kirtland Diary of Wilford Woodruff,” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 365–400. 43. HC 4: 186. 44. Bishop, 86. 45. Ibid., 87. 46. Ibid., 89. 47. Brian H. Stuy, “Wilford Woodruff ’s Vision of The Signers of The Declaration of Independence,” Journal of Mormon History 26 (Spring 2000): 66–67. 48. Bishop, 91. 49. HC 4: 426. 50. Bishop, 92. 51. Arrington, 80 and 80a. 52. Don F. Colvin, “The Nauvoo Temple: Story of Faith,” manuscript in possession of Colvin, 70. 53. Thomas L. Kane, The Mormons: A Discourse Delivered Before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: March 26, 1850, Ind Co. (Provo: David C. Martin, 1995 [1850]), 7–8. 54. Colvin, 70. 55. Christopher Layton, Autobiography, LDS Church Archives, 15. 56. Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc., 1964), 229–30.

261 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.


William Smith, Patriarchal Blessing Book, no. 55, 67–68, LDS Church Archives. Ibid., no 3, 11. Bishop, 93. HC 4: 205. Ibid.; Joseph Earl Arrington, “William Weeks, Architect of the Nauvoo Temple,” BYU Studies 19, no. 3 (1979): 337. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 80 & 80a. See New York Weekly Tribune, July 15, 1843; Liberty Hall of Cincinnati Gazette, October 19, 1843; Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past, as quoted in Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 90a; The Prophet, June 1, 1842; Southern Literary Messenger, September 1840, 536; Burlington Hawkeye, February 12, 1846, 2. Nauvoo Independent, May 30, 1890, 4, as quoted in Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 1327. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 1334. Andrea G. Radke, “Beautiful Places: Federalist Architecture in Nauvoo and Galena, Illinois,” paper in possession of Godfrey, 23. Ibid., 24. Ibid. In Latter-day Saint theology the Celestial Kingdom is symbolized by the sun, the Terrestrial by the moon and the Telestial by the stars. Arrington, “William Weeks,” 342. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple.” Joseph Fielding, “The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding,” transcribed and edited by Andrew F. Ehat, BYU Studies 19: 158, quoted in Colvin, 108. William G. Hartley, “Nauvoo Stake, Priesthood Quorums and The Church’s First Wards,” BYU Studies 32 (Winter and Spring 1991): 61. Saints Herald, 62 (March 24, 1915): 290. CH 4: 305. Journal History of the Church, December 31, 1844, p. 14, LDS Church Historical Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Times and Seasons (July 1841) as quoted in Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 456. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 54. HC 4: 205. JD 26: 298. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 894. HC 4: 501; Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 928. The Times and Seasons, 2 (September 1, 1842): 909. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 930. HC 5: 586. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 943. HC 4: 422. There were more than sixty church units outside of Nauvoo in Illinois alone. See Godfrey, “Those Other Illinois Mormons: Latter-day Saints Who Did Not Reside In Nauvoo,” Mormon Heritage Magazine, 1 (December 1994): 36–41. Oliver H. Olney, Absurdities of Mormonism Portrayed (Hancock County, Illinois: n.p., 1843), 20. The Times and Seasons, 3 (May 1, 1843): 183. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 952. Ibid., 963.

262 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

101. 102. 103. 104.

105.

106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113.


Ibid., 973. The Prophet, January 18, 1845. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 973. The Millennial Star 4 (October 1843): 83. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 1017. The Contributor 12 (April 1891): 207. Journal History of the Church, August 18, 1844. The Millennial Star, November 27, 1855. The Deseret News, October 17, 1860, quoted in Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 939. Readers interested in examples of sickness, poverty and persecution see B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1930). Volume two is a history of the Mormons in Nauvoo. See also Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois 1839–1846.” Information regarding the Nauvoo Legion is found in Glen M. Leonard, “Picturing the Nauvoo Legion,” BYU Studies 35 (1995): 2: 95–137. HC 4: 326–31. Ibid. For a discussion as to why Thomas Sharp turned against the Mormons, see Marshall Hamilton, “Thomas Sharp’s Turning Point: Birth of an Anti-Mormon,” Sunstone 13 (October 1989): 16–22; Annette P. Hampshire, “Thomas Sharp and Anti-Mormonism Sentiment In Illinois,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 72 (May 1979): 82–100. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 187. The story of Mormonism in Wisconsin in the 1840s has been told by both Joseph Earl Arrington and David L. Clark. See David L. Clark, “‘They Came Singing’ Mormons in Wisconsin,” draft copy, July 14, 1993, copy in possession of Kenneth W. Godfrey, beginning on page 60. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 240. Colvin, 53. See Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 276; and Dennis Rowley, “The Mormon Experience in the Wisconsin Pineries, 1841–1845,” BYU Studies 32 (Winter and Spring 1992): 119–148. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 220. Doctrine and Covenants 124: 39. See Journal History of the Church, January 5, 1836; and David John Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness, A History of Mormon Temple Worship (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1994), 36. See Hugh Nibley, The Message of The Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1975); Hugh Nibley, “The Early Christian Prayer Circle,” BYU Studies 19 (Fall 1978): 41–78. John A. Widtsoe, Priesthood and Church Government (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1966), 351. The temple endowment is considered to be the most sacred of all Latter-day Saint rituals and details regarding this holy ordinance is not appropriately discussed in public. Therefore I will only use sources and present information that is found in the history of the church and in discourses of Latterday Saint apostles. For those who want to know more see Buerger, The Mysteries

263

114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

130. 131. 132. 133. 134.

135. 136. 137.


of Godliness, and William Clayton, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journal of William Clayton, ed. George D. Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1991). Buerger, 40– 41. Heber C. Kimball to Parley P. Pratt June 17, 1842, LDS Archives, quoted in Buerger, 40. Buerger, 36. HC 5: 2, also quoted in Buerger, 37. Buerger, 58–59. See also Andrew F. Ehat, “‘It Seems Like Heaven Began On Earth’: Joseph Smith and the Constitution of the Kingdom of God,” BYU Studies, 20 (Spring 1980): 256. Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict,” 73–90. Ibid. Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom, Prophecies and Submissions,” paper in possession of Godfrey. Anderson argues that as early as 1828 Joseph Smith’s violent death was foreshadowed and that throughout his life he told his followers that he would be killed. Anderson documents more than a dozen statements of the Prophet in which he declares that his life would be taken. The Millennial Star, 5 (December 1844): 104. HC 6: 319, quoted in Colvin, 73. HC 4: 438. Mormons believe that a great temple will be constructed in the New Jerusalem, ie., Jackson County, Missouri, and that Christ will come to this temple as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Times and Seasons, 3 (January 1, 1842): 648–649. D. Michael Quinn, “The Council of Fifty and Its Members 1844–1945,” BYU Studies 20 (Winter 1980): 163. Andrew F. Ehat, “‘It Seems Like Heaven Began on Earth’: Joseph Smith and the Constitution of the Kingdom of God,” 256. Ibid., 257. For further information regarding the Council of Fifty see Klaus J. Hansen, “Joseph Smith and the Political Kingdom of God,” American West, 5 (September 1968): 20–24,63; Klaus J. Hansen, Quest For Empire: The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty In Mormon History (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1967); and Hyrum L. Andrus, Joseph Smith and World Government (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1958). Klaus J. Hansen, Quest For Empire, 65–66. Ibid., 66. Ibid. The revelation not only commands the Saints to construct a temple but the Nauvoo House as well. Doctrine and Covenants 124. HC 5: 380, quoted in Glen M. Leonard, “Antiquities, Curiosities, and LDS Museums,” The Disciple As Witnesses, Essays On Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine In Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson, ed. Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo: The Foundation of Ancient Research and Mormon Studies at Brigham Young University, 2000), 293. Doctrine and Covenants 124: 27; Leonard, 294–95. Ibid., 295. Ibid., 296.

264 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164.

165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171.


Ibid., 297. Ibid., 299. Colvin, 74. Heber C. Kimball, On The Potters Wheel, The Diaries of Heber C. Kimball, ed. Stanley B. Kimball (Urbana: University of Illinois), 157. Colvin, 230. HC 4: 456–457. HC 7: 580. Hancock Eagle, April 10, 1846. Colvin, 233; Samuel W. Richards, Diary, 18–19; Wilford Woodruff, Journals, ed. Scott G. Kenny, 3: 42–43. Quoted in Colvin, 233. Hancock Eagle, May 8, 1846. Ibid., 75. Ibid. Ibid. Those who worked in the temple often remained in that structure for days at a time, hence they needed to bring food with them. Diary of Brigham Young, February 3, 1846, Leonard J. Arrington Collection, USU Special Collections Library, Logan, Utah. Colvin, 78. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 24. Ibid., 80. Ibid., 81. Colvin, 81. Ibid., 82. Breck England, The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1984), 108–9, quoted in Colvin, 84. Ibid., 82. The Women’s Exponent, 12 (September 15, 1883): 57–58; B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1930), 7: 561–562, quoted in Colvin, 82. Colvin, 82. Ibid., 84; Samuel Whitney Richards, Diary, book 2, 1–2, in LDS Church Archives. See Annette P. Hampshire, “The Triumph of Mobocracy In Hancock County, 1844–1846,” Western Illinois Regional Studies 5 (1982): 17–37; Marshall Hamilton, “From Assassination to Expulsion: Two Years of Distrust, Hostility and Violence,” Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited, ed. Roger D. Launius and John E. Hallwas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 214 –30. Diary of Brigham Young, February 23, 1845. Ibid., January 24, 1845. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 1135. HC 6: 237–39. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 1127. Quoted in “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” at ibid. E. Cecil McGavin, Mormons and Masonry (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft Publishers, 1956), 146.

265


172. Godfrey, “Causes of Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict,” 73–90. 173. Diary of William Clayton, May 28, 1845, LDS Church Archives. 174. B. H. Roberts, The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965), 357–58. 175. Journal History of the Church, November 4, 1846, quoted in Colvin 240. 176. Warsaw Signal, October 19, 1848. 177. Colvin, 241. 178. Ibid., 242. 179. Ibid., 242. 180. Journal History of the Church, January 27, 1848. 181. Ibid., October 2, 1848. 182. Arrington, “Destruction of the Mormon Temple at Nauvoo,” The Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (December 1947): 1–4. 183. Ibid. 1– 4. 184. Keokuk Register, October 12, 1848, as quoted in Arrington, “Destruction of the Mormon Temple,” 5–6. 185. Arrington, “Destruction of the Mormon Temple,” 6. 186. Arrington, “Construction of the Nauvoo Temple,” 749–50. 187. Warsaw Signal, October 12, 1848. 188. Joseph Earl Arrington, “Destruction of the Mormon Temple,” 7. 189. Ibid., 8. 190. Nauvoo Independent, August 15, 1890. 191. History of Brigham Young, November 19, 1848, 80–81, as quoted in Arrington, “Destruction of the Mormon Temple,” 9. 192. Ibid., 10. 193. David R. Crockett, “The Nauvoo Temple: A Monument of the Saints,” Nauvoo Journal 11 (Fall 1999): 25. Crockett’s source for his conclusions is Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Garden City: Doubleday, 1984), 251. All of the evidence pointing to Agnew comes from secondary sources that lead back to Lewis Bidaman. Therefore, I agree with Joseph Earl Arrington’s more cautious approach, believing the evidence inconclusive as to who set fire to the temple. 194. Arrington, “Destruction of the Mormon Temple,” 10. 195. Crockett, 20. 196. The Carthage Republican, February 2, 1865, quoted in Crockett, 21. 197. Edgar Lyon, “The Nauvoo Temple,” The Instructor (March 1965). 198. Diary of Henry Morris Godfrey, May 12, 1900, in possession of Godfrey. 199. Richard W. Young, “In The Wake of the Church,” The Contributor (January 1883), 151. 200. Franklin D. Richards, The Contributor (May 1886), quoted in Crockett, 22. 201. “Church Acquires Nauvoo Temple Site,” The Improvement Era (March 1937), 226–7. 202. Ibid., 227. 203. Crockett, 24. 204. Jay M. Todd, “Nauvoo Temple Restoration,” The Improvement Era (October 1968), 11. 205. Crockett, 24.

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206. Vern C. Thacker, “Nauvoo Temple Architect’s Drawings Lost and Found,” January 20, 2000, copy in possession of Godfrey. See also letter of A. William Lund to Mr. Griffin, September 28, 1948, copy in possession of Godfrey. 207. Conference Report (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1999) April 1999. 208. R. Scott Lloyd, “Historic Nauvoo Temple to be Rebuilt,” Church News (April 10, 1999), quoted in Crockett, 27. 209. Greg Hill, “Rebuilding of Magnificent Temple,” Church News (October 30, 1999), quoted in Crockett, 27. 210. A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History, introductory essay by Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and edited by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel (Provo: Religious Studies Center and Brigham Young University, 1997), 313–14.

Shipps Signifying Sainthood, 1830–2001 1. Virginia Sorenson, A Little Lower Than the Angels (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942). 2. Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000). “Passages,” the epilogue to this work, includes a much more extended account of our family’s journey across the country from Detroit to Logan. 3. Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958; pap. ed., University of Utah Press, 1993). 4. Joel E. Ricks (1889–1974) was a member of the one of the original families that settled Logan in the 1850s and 1860s. Along with Leland Creer, Levi Edgar Young, and Andrew Love Neff, he became one of the earliest “credentialed” historians of Mormonism. His dissertation, "Forms and Methods of Early Settlement in Utah and the Surrounding Region, 1847–77," completed at the University of Chicago in 1930, was strongly influenced by Frederick Jackson Turner, who taught history in summer sessions at Utah State University in 1924 and 1925. Ricks’s dissertation was published by the Utah State University Press in 1964. With Everett L. Cooley, Ricks edited The History of a Valley: Cache Valley, UtahIdaho (Logan: Cache Valley Centennial Commission, 1956). 5. This essay, pivotal in the study of the history of the American West, was delivered at the 1893 annual meeting of the American Historical Association, which was held that year at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was reprinted later that year by the American Historical Association and has been reprinted many times since then. 6. A substantial literature on the Word of Wisdom exists. A good place to start is Joseph Lynn Lyon’s entry on this topic in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. by Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan Pub. Co., 1992), 4: 1584–85. See also, Leonard J. Arrington, “An Economic Interpretation of the ‘Word of Wisdom,’” BYU Studies 1 (Winter 1959): 37–49; and Paul H. Peterson, “An Historical Analysis of the Word of Wisdom” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1972). A full bibliography of this literature is included in James B. Allen, Ronald W. Walker, and David J. Whittaker, Studies in Mormon History, 1830–1997: An

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7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14.


Indexed Bibliography (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 1040–41. Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: The Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.,1967); Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966). In addition to his Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1965), Robert Flanders was a co-editor of The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1973). He is also the author of several thoughtful essays about the writing of Mormon history that were published in Dialogue. For a long time, materials about LDS garments published by Latter-day Saints did not provide much specific descriptive information about their style or construction. The entry on garments in Bruce R. McConkie’s popular Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958, 1966) does not even go that far, simply explaining that “garments are various articles of clothing used to dress the body”; indicating that they may be worn for religious as well as utilitarian purposes; and providing scriptural references to make it clear that the Saints are aware that “clean garments are a sign of cleanliness, perfection, and salvation.” Evelyn T. Marshall’s entry in the quasi-official Encyclopedia of Mormonism edited by Daniel H. Ludlow gives enough information to let the reader know that ceremonial undergarments are worn by the Saints. But it, too, is fairly opaque. This does not mean that finding information about garments is difficult. The story of their introduction and how they changed in 1923 is fully told in the chapter on “The Twentieth-Century Temple” in David John Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1994), 133–71. A substantial chapter, “Mormon Garments: Sacred Clothing and the Body” is included in Colleen McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 198–221 . See also Helen Beach Cannon’s “Personal Voices” essay, “Sacred Clothing: An Inside-Outside Perspective,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 138–48. The formal separation of church and state came about much more slowly than most people realize, and the informal separation took nearly a century. The fight against polygamy was a part of the informal separation process. See Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). William E. McLellin, Journals, 1831–1836, ed. by Jan Shipps and John W. Welch (Provo, UT and Urbana, IL: BYU Studies and Univ. of Illinois Press, 1994), 115. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 167, 164 (1879). This name for the church was announced on May 3, 1834. In an address to the members of “Zion’s Camp,” the band of Saints who followed Joseph Smith to Missouri in an attempt to come to the aid of the members of the church who had been driven out of Independence, Sidney Rigdon said that the idea for the name had been his, but that the High Council had agreed that this should be

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15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

20.

21. 22.


the church’s new name. See Fawn McKay Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), 147. See Susan Easton Black, “Name of the Church,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism 3: 979. “The Name of the Church,” Ensign of Liberty 3: 20–24. Letter from Joseph Smith to Isaac Galland, March 22, 1839 printed in The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, compiled and edited by Dean C. Jessee (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984), 419. “From Gentile to Non-Mormon: Mormon Perceptions of the Other,” in Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land, 124– 42. The advice from the First Presidency to this effect came in a February 23, 2001 letter that was read from the stand in the church’s stakes and wards. That this announcement was pending was announced ahead of time in a February 20 New York Times story written by religion writer Gustav Niehbuhr. Niebuhr obtained his advance information in an interview with Apostle Dallin H. Oaks. See also Shipps, “That ‘M’ Word” ( Feb 17, 2001) and “Mormons, In; ‘Mormon Church,’ Out” (Mar 28, 2001). These columns both appeared on Beliefnet, a web site that covers religion (http://www.beliefnet.com/author/author_55.html). The church’s official style guide says, “While the term ‘Mormon Church’ has long been publicly applied to the Church as a nickname, it is not an authorized title and the Church discourages its use.” A notice at the foot of the page on official news releases reads: “When reporting about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, please use the complete name of the Church in the first reference. For a subsequent reference, the full name or the contractions ‘the Church of Jesus Christ’ or ‘The Church’ are appropriate.” A certain irony exists with regard to the church’s latest official web site which is specifically designed for those who are interested in learning more about the basic doctrines, teachings, history and organization of the church. Its web address is www.Mormon.org. A review of the coverage of Mormonism in the run up to the Olympic Games that were held in Salt Lake City (February 8–18, 2002) as well as coverage during the games indicates that members of the press generally ignored instructions about avoiding the use of “Mormon Church” and “LDS Church.” “Doctrine of Inclusion,”talk given at the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Russell M. Ballard, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, and “Sharing the Gospel,” talk given by at the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. Both talks were presented in the October 6 morning session of the 2001 General Conference. “Standing Tall,” talk given at the October 7 morning session of the 2001 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by David H Burton, the church’s presiding bishop. Ethnographer Clifford Geertz is best known for his studies of Javanese culture and for his writings on the interpretation of culture, by which title his wellknown 1973 volume published by Basic Books is known. A faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, he is one of the most influential thinkers in academia today. In the American Council of Learned Societies Charles Haskings Lecture for 1999, Geertz describes the route by which he became an anthropologist and specialist on Javanese religion.

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23. Davis Bitton, “The Ritualization of Mormon History,” Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (Winter 1975), 67–85, revised and republished in The Ritualization of Mormon History and Other Essays (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994). 24. Sarah Barringer’s Gordon’s The Mormon Question is only the latest in a long line of studies of various aspects of Mormon history that emphasize the extent to which polygamy was the emblematic cultural signifier of being Mormon in the nineteenth century. Earlier works include Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition, 1890–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986, paperback edition with a foreword written by Stephen J. Stein, 1996); and Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991); Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); and, pap. ed., Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984); Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); and Dennis L. Lythgoe, “The Changing Image of Mormonism in Periodical Literature” (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1969). 25. Joe Farofoli, “Take My Wives Please: All of Salt Lake’s a Stage as Mormons Show Off Self-Deprecating Humor,” San Francisco Chronicle, web edition, Wednesday, February 20, 2002. 26. David Harrington Watt, “The Private Hopes of American Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, 1926–1975,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 1 (Summer 1991) 2: 164–65. 27. Circumcision of males has been widely practiced as a religious rite since ancient times. An initiatory rite of Judaism, circumcision is also practiced by Muslims, for whom it signifies spiritual purification. Although its origins are unknown, earliest evidence of the practice dates from ancient Egypt about 2300 b.c., where it is thought to have been used originally to mark male slaves. By the time of the Roman takeover of Egypt in 30 b.c., the practice had a ritual significance, and only circumcised priests could perform certain religious offices. 28. Arrington, “An Economic Interpretation of the ‘Word of Wisdom,’” BYU Studies 1 (Winter 1959): 37–49; and “Have the Saints Always Given as Much Emphasis to the Word of Wisdom as They Do Today?” Ensign 7 (April 1977) 32, 33; Paul H. Peterson, “An Historical Analysis of the Word of Wisdom” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1972). 29. I knew many “Jack-Mormons” (a descriptor that has almost disappeared from the Mormon vocabulary) when we lived in Logan during the 1960–1961 academic year. In a long-ago conversation, I recall having heard that President Grant inveighed against the liquor and tobacco interests in every talk he gave. These memories are borne out by a cursory review of Grant’s talks recorded in the Conference Reports of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sampling his remarks in all the conference session reports included on Signature Press’s “New Mormon Studies CD Rom,” I discovered that the Word of Wisdom was either a main topic or one mentioned several times in passing in nearly all of his addresses. 30. Shipps, “The Mormons in Politics: The First Hundred Years” (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1965). 275 ff. See also, the diaries of Senator Reed Smoot in which Grant’s position vis-à-vis prohibition is mentioned again and again in

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the diaries for the years between 1909 and 1917. Typescripts of these important documents are located in both the LDS Church Archives and in the manuscript collections in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. In the World: The Diaries of Reed Smoot, [abridged and] ed. by Harvard S. Heath (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997) is a scholarly edition of these diaries. 31. This may be changing gradually. When I attended a sacrament meeting in a ward in an upper middle class section of Salt Lake City in March, 2002, I was astonished to see that one of the deacons who passed the sacrament was wearing a blue shirt. He nevertheless wore the requisite dark tie. 32. Jana K. Reiss, “Stripling Warriors Choose the Right: The Cultural Engagements of Contemporary Mormon Kitsch,” Sunstone 22 (June 1999) 2: 36–47. 33. It is not impossible that the emphasis the church now places on the Atonement could lead to greater use within Mormonism of a cross as symbol of Christ’s suffering, on the one hand, and commitment to the faith on the other. It is even possible that Mormon chapels will someday display crosses on their steeples. After all, for many generations Protestants avoided the placing of crosses on their church steeples for fear that a “Popish” symbol might be read as evidence of sympathy with Rome. Until the nineteenth century, steeples on Protestant churches in New England were all topped with weathervanes, most often weathervanes in the shape of roosters. Now many Protestant churches top their steeples with crosses.

Worster Encountering Mormon Country 1. Samuel Bowles, Across the Continent (1865), cited in Leonard Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 43. 2. Biographies include Donald Worster, A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the American West (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954); Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1945); and Frederick Turner, Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours (New York: Viking, 1985). I am at work on a new biography of Muir. 3. I make this point in greater detail in my essay, “The Second Colorado River Expedition: John Wesley Powell, Mormonism, and the Environment,” Surveying the Record: North American Scientific Exploration to 1930, edited by Edward C. Carter II (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1999), 317–28. 4. Brigham Young to Daniel Wells, Dec. 16, 1870, Brigham Young Papers, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Box 73, FD 33. 5. Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition Down the Green-Colorado River from Wyoming and the Explorations on Land, in the Years 1871 and 1872 (1908; Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1962), 175. 6. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p. 323. See also Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991).

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7. The full citation is John Wesley Powell, et al., Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah, 45th Congress, 2nd Session, House Executive Document 73, Serial Set 1805 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1878). It was reprinted in 1962 by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, with an introduction by Wallace Stegner. 8. Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region, viii. 9. Ibid., 11. 10. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 409. For an appraisal of Arrington’s work, see Great Basin Kingdom Revisited: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Thomas G. Alexander (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1991). 11. John Muir, Steep Trails (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918). Muir died in December 1914, and this book was posthumously edited by William Badé. The Utah essays are entitled: “The City of the Saints,” “A Great Storm in Utah,” “Bathing in Salt Lake,” and “Utah Lilies.” Citations here are to the 1994 edition published by the Sierra Club. 12. Salt Lake Tribune, May 13, 1877, p. 1, col. 4; p. 2, col. 1; p. 3, col. 1. The New York Herald reporter was Jerome B. Stillson. For another, pro-Mormon view of the reporter and the situation see Deseret News Weekly, May 23, 1877. For background see Juanita Brooks, John Doyle Lee: Zealot, Pioneer-Builder, Scapegoat (Glendale, Calif.: A.H. Clark, 1962), and The Mountain Meadows Massacre (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1950); Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A Hisory of the Latter-day Saints (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 161–84; David L. Bigler, Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896 (Spokane: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1998); and Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002). 13. Muir, “Bathing in Salt Lake,” Steep Trails, 89. 14. For another portrait of the city in this period, see John S. McCormick, “Salt Lake City,” Utah History Encyclopedia, edited by Allan Kent Powell (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994). 15. This notebook may be found in the Holt-Atherton Library, University of the Pacific, and in The Microfilm Edition of the John Muir Papers (Chadwyck-Healey, 1986), reel 25, frames 01303–01374. This edition is hereafter cited as JMP. 16. See Keith N. Worthington, Sadie H. Green, and Fred J. Chapman, They Left a Record: A Comprehensive History of Nephi, Utah, 1851-1978 (Provo: Community Press, 1979); and H. L. A. Culmer, Utah Directory and Gazetteer for 1879-80 (Salt Lake City: Culmer and Co., 1879), 355. 17. JMP, 25: 01324, 01327. 18. Ibid., 25: 01321, 01344, 01368. 19. Ibid., 25: 01321. 20. Ibid., 25: 01362. See Parley Parker Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology: Designed as an Introduction to the First Principles of Spiritual Philosophy (Liverpool, F. D. Richards, 1855). 21. JMP, 25: 01318. 22. Ibid., 25: 01318, 01322. 23. Ibid., 25: 01323, 01324. 24. Ibid., 25: 01321, 01322.

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25. Ibid., 25: 01329. 26. Ibid., 25: 01329, 01330.

Ulrich Rachel’s Death 1. Richard White, Remembering Ahanagran: Storytelling in a Family’s Past (New York: Hill & Wang, 1998), 4, 20, 21. 2. Logan Leader, January 20, 1882, p. 3. The Deseret News reprinted this account on January 25. 3. Ibid., p. 3. 4. Typescript in possession of Robert McGregor, Thatcher, Idaho. 5. Familysearch.org lists Edith May Bollwinkel (AFN: 23JL-J5), born in Salt Lake City in 1863. Married in Logan in 1884, she had several children born in Thatcher, Idaho, between 1885 and 1904. She died in Long Beach, California in 1943. Della Thatcher Mendenhall was born in Thatcher in 1903. 6. Moses Thatcher to John B. Thatcher Jr., January 19, 1882, photocopy of typescript, p. 1. 7. Ibid., p. 3. 8. Ibid., p. 3. 9. Edward W. Tullidge, Tullidge’s Histories, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor, 1889), 26, 27. Alley’s accident may have taken on new significance after Rachel’s death. Tullidge’s story was of course published forty years after Alley’s accident but only five years after Rachel’s death. 10. “Incidents in the Life of Hannah Morrison Thatcher,” April 10, 1931, typescript, pp. 2–3, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City. 11. Logan Leader, January 20, 1882, p. 3. 12. Hezekiah Thatcher Family Newsletter, issue no. 5, n.d. 13. Diary of Sarah Maria Davis Thatcher, August 18 and 28, 1882, typescript, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 14. T. O. Thatcher, interview by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, June 23, 2003. 15. White, p. 303. 16. Sarah Maria Davis Diary , February 27 and March 2, 1878, p. 3. 17. B. Carmen Hardy, Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 91-92. 18. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, February 3, 1879, p. 6; July 11, 1880, p. 13. 19. Luna Young Thatcher to George Washington Thatcher, January 23, 1871, Papers of Philip Blair, Box 4, Folder 5, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 20. Harriet Preston Thatcher to Luna Young Thatcher, March 11, 1872, Philip Blair Papers, Box 4, Folder 19. 21. Luna Young Thatcher to George Washington Thatcher, May 3, 1872, Philip Blair Papers, Box 4, Folder 5. 22. Luna Young Thatcher to George Washington Thatcher, January 15 and 29, 1872, Philip Blair Papers, Box 4, Folder 5. 23. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, March 16, 1878, p. 4; Preston Woolley Parkinson, The Utah Woolley Family (Salt Lake City, 1967). 24. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, January 9, 1879, p. 6.

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25. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, April 29, 1879, p. 8; Hezekiah Thatcher Family Newsletter, issue no. 2, n.d. 26. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, July 1, 1879, p. 10; Sept. 24, 1879, p. 11. 27. Ibid., May 22, 1880, p. 15. 28. Ibid., February 1, 1882, p. 18. 29. T. O. Thatcher, interview. 30. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, May 31, 1882, p. 19. 31. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, Dec. 25, 1883, p. 19. This is a retrospective entry that summarized events for more than a year. 32. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, March 27, 1884, p. 22; February 17, 1884, p. 21. 33. Sarah Maria Davis Diary, May 16, 1884, p. 22; June 8, 1884, p. 23; March 23, 1884, p. 24, 25. Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 143–44. 34. Hezekiah Family Newsletter, issue no. 5; T. O. Thatcher, interview; Parkinson, Utah Woolley Family, p. 266; and notes from my conversation with my father, n.d. 35. Three of her four oldest children, including my grandfather, named a first daughter Rachel Hannah in her memory. Parkinson, The Utah Woolley Family, 418–20. 36. Rachel H. Thatcher to “My Dear Son,” January 10, 1882, photocopy given my brother, Gordon S. Thatcher, by a descendant of John B. Thatcher, Jr.

Peterson “I Didn’t Want to Leave” Many individuals assisted in the research and writing of this essay. Michael L. Nicholls persuaded me to write fearlessly about a troubling aspect of my family history. Leonard N. Rosenband listened as my ideas unfolded. My brothers and sister tolerated my probing and uncomfortable questions about their memories. Ryan Miller, Zach Jones, Jackie Peterson, and Marian Yeoman helped with various parts of the research. Robert Parson, Utah State University Archivist is my partner on the Arrington Lecture Committee and often in research. Glenda Nesbit prepared the manuscript quickly and accurately. My wife, Kay, shared my passion for the project and her counsel is wise. 1. Obert C. Tanner, One Man’s Journey: In Search of Freedom (Salt Lake City: Humanities Center, University of Utah, 1994); Leonard J. Arrington, Adventure of a Church Historian (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1998); Annie Clark Tanner, A Mormon Mother: An Autobiography (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1969). See also, Obert C. Tanner, One Man’s Search: Addresses (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989). 2. Leonard J. Arrington, Utah’s Audacious Stockman: Charles Redd (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1995). Annie Clark Tanner, A Mormon Mother. Redd chose to operate independently and Annie Clark Tanner epitomized the trauma of being abandoned economically and ignored personally. 3. Jessie L. Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987); Richard S. Van Wagonen, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986); Carron B. Hardy, Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992); D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake

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4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.


City: Signature Books, 1997) and The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994); See also Quinn, “LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1900,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 18, no. 1 (Spring 1985); Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in 19 th Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Rachel’s Death, Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture 9, October 2003 (Logan, Utah: Special Collections & Archives, Utah State University, 2004). Ulrich describes how memory and history do not always correlate as the truth. This essay on her grandmother’s tragic death is really the inspiration for this essay. Harold Bloom. The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992). Levi S. Peterson, Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1996). The writing of biography is expanding within a Mormon context. The David and Beatrice Evans Biography Award and the workshop by the same title have encouraged the writing of biography and family history. Zora Poulsen Peterson, “Thomas C. Peterson.” A History of Bear Lake Pioneers, ed. F. Ross Peterson, Dorothy Matthews, Edith Haddock (Salt Lake City: Utah Printers, 1968). This is a large volume that includes over 250 brief biographies. See also Russell Rich, Land of the Sky Blue Water, A History of LDS Settlement in Bear Lake County (Montpelier, Idaho: Bear Lake Publishing, 2003). A. McKay Rich, The History of Montpelier, Idaho, 1864 –1925 (Montpelier, Idaho: Bear Lake Publishing, 2003). Zora Poulsen Peterson, “Raymond and Zora Peterson,” written about 1969, manuscript in author’s possession. The following individuals contributed in some way to the family history: Royal Peterson, Raymond Peterson, Eulala Peterson, Lois Lee Hulme, Dixie Miller Peterson, Lathair Peterson, Karl R. Peterson, Johanna T. Keith, Donna Lee Nickolaisen, Max Peterson, and Deloy Sorensen. This narrative is summarized from a variety of accounts gathered by the author. Raymond and Royal Peterson, two of the sons, both remembered certain aspects of the intrigue surrounding Parley’s desire to go to Nevada. They both listed the behavior of their oldest brother, the promise of more land, and a new beginning. These stories are augmented by their children, and other family members. The relatives in Ovid all repeated the idea of the land exchange and the desire to farm more land. Most of the reminisces relative to the events in Nevada and subsequent lives comes from children and grandchildren. Zora Poulsen Peterson wrote her version of the events and described the events in Nevada as foolish and devastating. The sons recall only the difficulties, poor schools, and how tough it was compared to Montpelier. Their daughter Ila was more willing to discuss the conflicts and refused to travel with her mother to Idaho until after Parley’s death. Johanna T. Keith, interview with author, February 1966, in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. She also discussed some of these feelings in letters to a granddaughter, Donna Lee Nicholaisen, letters in Donna Lee’s possession. To her family, she spent the last years of her life trying to explain her reasons for what she did.

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11. Ibid. This discussion was also held with other grandchildren. Dixie Lee Miller, who became very close to her grandmother, after Johanna moved to Bonner’s Ferry, heard similar versions. 12. Ibid. This story was repeated many times throughout her visits. Whether or not they talked about the temple is unknown. Parley and Johanna, like many couples of that time, never returned to the temple. That is partly due to lack of proximity and difficult geography and not faithlessness. However, the ceremony of 1903, in a foreign language, left a lasting impression on Johanna. 13. Ovid Ward Records, Montpelier second Ward Records, and California Mission records, LDS Archives, Division of Church History, Salt Lake City, Utah. The ward records indicate a list of all births, deaths, blessings, ordinations, callings, and releases. The minutes of each ward contain a brief description of each meeting including speakers, prayers, and sacrament participants. The attendance record at Priesthood meeting, then a weekday meeting, often reports “canceled for no attendance.” In an agrarian world where nearly every family milked cows, a weekday evening meeting was difficult to attend. Johanna never is listed as an attendee on the Relief Society rolls either. Their home in Ovid was a few miles from the church and in Montpelier it was four blocks away. 14. “Autobiography of Royal Peterson,” typescript in possession of the author. 15. Deed Book, Bear Lake County, Probate Court, May 15, 1915. The estate of Thomas C. Peterson and Hannah Peterson. Parley and his brother, Thomas, were the executors of the will. 16. Deed Book 19, Warranty Deed No. 19, p. 62, February 17, 1912. The description of the land. 17. Homestead claims, 1917, Bear Lake County, Idaho, Federal Records Center, Denver, Colorado. 18. Deed Book 26, Bear Lake County, March 24, 1916. 19. Ibid, March 2, 1918. He purchased this home in Montpelier from William and Anna Jonaly. 20. Ibid, Book 28, January 8, 1921. These lots were purchased from John and Margaret Boyer. 21. Oral interview with Raymond P. Peterson, interview by Mary Kay Peterson, February 27, 1976. He told versions of this story throughout his life. Henry’s sister, Venita, also told many people about the baptism and the subsequent thrashing. Raymond was baptized in 1919. 22. Leslie passed away September 5, 1923. News Examiner, Montpelier, Idaho. His sister Martha died two weeks later of the same disease. 23. Transcript, Dixie Peterson Miller, daughter of Royal Peterson, in possession of author. Zora Peterson, a daughter-in-law, repeated this story often. It is probable that family members looked for another reason for the divorce. 24. Marian Yeoman of Dayton, Nevada searched the Lyon County records in my behalf. The only land records that list the names of Parley and Johanna are about Bear Lake up until the divorce. 25. Deed Book 28, Bear Lake County, October 1, 1921. 26. This transaction appears in both the Lyon County, Nevada and Bear Lake County records, June 3, 1922. Parley deeded to Johanna half the main ranch. The other properties were not included. Deed Book 28.

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27. Johanna Peterson vs. Parley O. Peterson, District Court of the Eighth Judicial District, Lyon County, Nevada. Transcript. Lyon County records, August 12, 1925, p.5. 28. Ibid. p. 6. None of the children ever talked about this particular traumatic event. Raymond stayed with his father. The twins, Royal and Roland, Ila, and Bernice went with their mother. 29. Ibid. p.8. 30. Raymond lived with his dad’s sister, Selma, and her husband, George. Roland and Royal lived with Parley’s brother, John T., and his wife, Johanna, who had lost six children and constantly mourned over them. She resented the twins being there and being alive. They slept in an attic and ate leftovers. In all three cases, the boys felt mistreated. Raymond left two years later at age 14 and worked on ranches. 31. Peterson vs. Peterson, pp. 9-10. Johanna never told the court that Danny was in reform school. She said when asked why she went to Idaho, she said, “Well, the oldest boy was ___ I took him up there.” 32. Ibid. p.10. 33. The judge asked Johanna under what church rites were they married. She stated, “Mormon.” 34. Ibid. 35. Beginning in February, 1925, notice was sent to Parley that divorce proceedings would begin. He never replied, nor did an attorney. Lyon County records, Yerington, Nevada. 36. Peterson v. Peterson, p.15. 37. Bear Lake County, Deed Book 28, June 12, 1926. 38. Perth Poulsen, interview with author, February 11, 2004. Perth and his brother, Rex, both served in the California Mission during the 1930’s and Perth was in Reno nearly six months. He stated that it was a long-standing invitation to missionaries to eat with Mrs. Johanna Peterson. 39. Zora Poulsen Peterson, “History of Raymond and Zora Peterson,” typescript in possession of author. Danny, Ila, Bernice, and Roland all married outside the church. Bernice was never baptized. Raymond and Royal both became more involved much later in life. 40. The Bear Lake deed books show the purchase of acreage in 1928, 62 acres for six hundred dollars. Other land or lots were acquired in 1933, 1937, 1938, and 1939. Books 31, 34, 37 41. Eulala Poulsen Peterson, interview with author, February 8, 2004, see also the Zora Peterson manuscript. Deloy Sorensen of Ovid, whose parents were converted in Denmark by Parley, also reported the same. Lois Lee Bridges Hulme, the granddaughter of one of Thomas C. Peterson’s stepchildren also reports similar events. 42. Ibid. 43. Eula P. Peterson interview, also Zora P. Peterson, her sister reported the same. 44. Max and Karen Peterson, interview with author, February 2004. Donna Lee Nickolaisen kept an active correspondence with Johanna up until her death and she always, as she did to the divorce court, claimed the stories were false. 45. Dixie Peterson Miller, transcript. Dixie, Royals’ daughter, stayed with Johanna while working in Bonner’s Ferry and also remained very close. 46. All of the written and oral sources maintain that Johanna’s pride kept her from staying in contact with active LDS people.

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47. Zora Peterson manuscript. Interviews with Eulala Peterson and Donna Lee Nickolaisen. When his son Raymond executed the will of his father, he sold all of Parley’s property and divided the proceeds equally among his five siblings and his mother. He then bought back part of the land. Parley had $2,593.62 in First Security Bank listed as his personal property. His personal property consisted of four horses, two pushrakes, one Dane Ricker, three mowers, one hayrake, one plow, and one harrow. The belongings inside the sheep camp were not itemized. 48. Thomas Jefferson. The Collected Works of Thomas Jefferson. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905). The first quote is from v. 9, p. 196. The second is from v. 12, p. 312.

About the Authors Richard Lyman Bushman

R

ichard L. Bushman was born in Salt Lake City in 1931. A Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate at Harvard University, he remained there for his master’s and Ph.D., taking the latter in the History of American Civilization in 1961. Over his academic career, Professor Bushman has taught at Harvard, Brigham Young University, Boston University, and the University of Delaware and is currently the Gouverneur Morris Professor of History at Columbia University. His research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Huntington Library, the Charles Warren Center, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, among others. He is the author of From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765, for which he received the Bancroft Prize and the Phi Alpha Theta Prize; Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, for which he was awarded the Evans Biography Award; and more recently, King and People in Provincial Massachusetts, and The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. The latter was a selection of the History Book Club and the Book of the Month Club. The author of many articles and essays, and a book review editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, he has served as director, department head, and administrator of various academic programs and has been twice elected to the Council of the Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Richard E. Bennett

B orn in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, Richard graduated with a B.A. in English literature from BYU in 1972 and with a master’s degree in history from the same school in 1975. Later he studied at Wayne State 278

279

About the Authors

University, graduating with a Ph.D. in American intellectual history and archival management in 1984. After working as a curator of manuscripts at BYU from 1976 to 1978, he accepted a position as head of the Department of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, serving there for almost twenty years. During this time he also served as a business consultant to several large Canadian corporations in establishing successful records management and archival programs. In September 1997, he received an appointment to return to Brigham Young University as professor of church history and doctrine in the faculty of religious education. Through the years, Professor Bennett has been an active researcher and writer, publishing three books and a score of articles in professional journals on Mormon exodus history, the history of the American and Canadian West, and archival management. His books include Mormons at the Missouri, 1846 –1852: “And Should We Die” (1987), and more recently We’ll Find the Place: The Mormon Exodus, 1846 –1848 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1997).

Howard R. Lamar

By the early 1970s, Howard Lamar had redefined the study of the territorial era of the American West with his two books, Dakota Territory (1956) and The Far Southwest (1966) which looked at New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. He pushed on to comparative frontier studies, directing a wonderful seminar that examined South Africa and North America, and he was at work producing The Reader’s Encyclopedia of the American West (1977). He taught one of Yale’s most famous and popular undergraduate courses, a year-long survey of the history of the American West that went from Spanish exploration to the present day. From 1979 to 1985, he was dean of Yale College, which meant that he oversaw Yale’s entire undergraduate program, and in 1992-93 he served as president of Yale. During this period he also became Sterling Professor of History, perhaps the most prestigious academic appointment at the university. Despite his present emeritus status, he has not stopped being a remarkably productive scholar. The clearest proof is the publication of the magnificent New Encyclopedia of the American West (1998), which now sets the standard for reference works on the West.

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Claudia L. Bushman

Reared in San Francisco, Claudia Bushman studied English literature at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. There she met and married Richard Bushman. She completed her M.A. at Brigham Young University with a focus on American literature, but her academic interests broadened to social history and women’s studies. Her doctoral dissertation at Boston University was published as “Good Poor Man’s Wife”: Being a Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and Her Family in Nineteenth-Century New England. (1981; new edition, 1998). The editing of Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah in 1976 began with Bushman’s idea that she and her friends could study and write together. That volume raised interest in the history of LDS women. Claudia was the founding editor of Exponent II, the Latter-day Saint women’s journal inspired by the Mormon Sisters project. Claudia taught in the honors program at the University of Delaware and became executive director of the Delaware Heritage Commission from 1984 to 1989. Proceedings of the House Assembly of the Delaware State 1781–1792 appeared in two volumes she helped edit. Now, in New York City, Bushman teaches history and advises the American studies master’s students at Columbia University. Her publications have included America Discovers Columbus: How an Italian Explorer Became an American Hero (1992); Building the Kingdom: A History of Mormons in America, (1999) written with her husband, Richard, for Oxford University Press’s Religions in America Series; and In Old Virginia: Slavery, Farming, and Society in the Journal of John Walker.

Kenneth W. Godfrey

K enneth W. Godfrey is a Cache Valley native and grew up in Cornish, Utah. His parents, Wendel and Mabel Godfrey, taught him the value of hard work on the family farm and encouraged him to get an education. He received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Utah State Agricultural College and went on to study at the University of Southern California and the University of Utah. He finished his Ph.D. degree at Brigham Young University in the history of religion. His dissertation was on the causes of Mormon and non-Mormon conflict in Nauvoo,

281

About the Authors

Illinois. He is well known as an eminent Latter-day Saint (LDS) historian. He retired several years ago from the LDS Church Education System after serving as a teacher, supervisor, and institute director. Since then he has spent his time writing and has produced a history of Sunshine Terrace, a rest home in Logan, for their fiftieth anniversary. He has also written a biography of Charles Penrose, an early LDS apostle, and edited a collection of his speeches. He has written a weekly column for The Herald Journal, a newspaper in Logan, Utah, and has had over six hundred articles published in various journals and newspapers. As a missionary in the Illinois Nauvoo Mission, he taught at the Joseph Smith Academy (a semester abroad program of Brigham Young University).

Jan Shipps

J

an Shipps is professor emeritus of history and religious studies in the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. She is also senior research associate in the Polis Research Center at IUPUI and a regular columnist for beliefnet.com. She was a founding co-editor of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation and for ten years served as director of the IUPUI Center for American Studies. In addition to more than fifty articles and reviews for both popular and scholarly periodicals, she is the author of Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (1985). Her Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons was published in early 2001 and was selected for the Mormon History Association’s Best Book Award for the year 2000. She has received a number of other honors and awards. The one she says she probably treasures most is the Grace Fort Arrington Award for Historical Excellence that was conferred in 1986. Shipps is now working on Being Mormon: The Latter-day Saints Since World War II and See You in Church? Religion and Culture in Urban America, which will feature profiles of religion in five American cities. She is also serving as the editor of a book on religion in the mountain West. Shipps earned a B.S. in history from Utah State University in 1961; an M.A. in History from the University of Colorado in 1962; and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Colorado in 1965.

282


Donald Worster

Donald

Worster has primarily spent his career studying the western environment in the twentieth century. A native of California who later moved to Kansas, he received a Ph.D. at Yale and has taught at the University of Hawaii, Brandeis University, and the University of Kansas, where he holds a chair in history. Worster’s first book, Dust Bowl, won the Bancroft Prize and has become a classic because of its exceptional description of the economic causes and results of the environmental disaster of the 1930s. His Rivers of Empire also achieved acclaim for its explanation of the dynamic impact of western water development. In it, he analyzed how huge water projects on the Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado river systems enhanced agriculture, hydroelectric power, recreation, and irrigation but came with a heavy environmental price. His Evans Award-winning biography of John Wesley Powell, A River Running West, moved Worster into the nineteenth century. He will follow it with a much-needed thorough biography of John Muir. Worster’s studies of Powell and Muir as well as his knowledge of water history brought him into contact with Mormon history and culture.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where she taught for many years, she is the author of numerous articles and essays on early American history. She won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991 for A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812. During her tenure as a MacArthur Fellow, she assisted in the production of a documentary series based on A Midwife’s Tale that aired on the PBS series “The American Experience.” Professor Ulrich’s work is also featured on a prizewinning website dohistory.org. Her most recent book The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth explores the production and consumption as well as the social meanings of textiles in pre-industrial New England. Based on the study of museum artifacts as well as written documents, it is organized around a

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About the Authors

series of case studies drawn from each of the New England states. She is also the author of Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650–1750.

F. Ross Peterson

A

native of Montpelier, Idaho, Dr. F. Ross Peterson is currently President of Deep Springs College in California. Peterson taught at Utah State University from 1971-2004 where he received numerous teaching awards. He also taught at the University of Texas Arlington and received a Fulbright fellowship to teach African American history at Victoria University in New Zealand. The author of Idaho: A bicentennial History, A History of Cache County, and Prophet Without Honor: Glen H. Taylor and the Fight for American Liberalism, Peterson is continuing work on the biography of Stewart L. Udall. He wrote the chapter on Twentieth Century Politics for the Oxford History of the American West. From 1987-1992, he and his wife, Mary Kay, co-edited Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. At Utah State University, Peterson served eight years as Department Chair in History and twelve years as Director of the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies. In 2002, he was name the Milton R. Merrill chair in Political Science. He has chaired the David and Beatrice Evans Biography Award and the Leonard J. Arrington Lecture Committee. Statewide, he has served on Utah’s State Board of History, the Marin Luther King Human rights Commission, and the Humanities Council. Peterson received the prestigious Governor’s Award as the outstanding humanist in Utah in 1998.

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