AUTHOR  OF  THE  MORMON  BIBLE.

[At a public meeting lately held in Cherry Valley Judge Campbell said:] ... "Rev. Solomon Spaulding, one of the earliest preceptors of the Academy of Cherry Valley, was the actual composer of most of what is known as the Mormon Bible. He wrote it during a period of delicate health to beguile some of his weary hours, and also with a design to offer it for publication as a romance. Dr. Robert Campbell, late of Cherry Valley, and foster father of the first Mrs. Grant, of the Nestorian mission, calling some years since upon Mr. Spaulding, had the manuscript of this notable book to be shown to him, and was also informed by Mr. Spaulding that he had hopes of reaping some pecuniary advantage from it for himself and family. Mr. Spaulding has been dead for some years, though it is believed that his wife is still living in the United States. How it passed from the possession of his family into the hands of Joe Smith it is probable that Mrs. Spaulding could tell." -- New England Puritan.


Note: The exact text for the above article is undetermined -- see the Nov. 19th New York Daily Tribune below for essemtially the same reprint from the New England Puritan.

AUTHOR OF THE MORMON BIBLE. -- The New England Puritan states that [at] a public meeting lately held in Cherry Valley Judge Campbell said:

"Rev. Solomon Spaulding, one of the earliest preceptors of the Academy of Cherry Valley, was the actual composer of most of what is known as the Mormon Bible. He wrote it during a period of delicate health to beguile some of his weary hours, and also with a design to offer it for publication as a romance. Dr. Robert Campbell, late of Cherry Valley, and foster father of the first Mrs. Grant, of the Nestorian mission, calling some years since upon Mr. Spaulding, had the manuscript of this notable book to be shown to him, and was also informed by Mr. Spaulding that he had hopes of reaping some pecuniary advantage from it for himself and family. Mr. Spaulding has been dead for some years, though it is believed that his wife is still living in the United States. How it passed from the possession of his family into the hands of Joe Smith it is probable that Mrs. Spaulding could tell."


Note: This piece from the New England Puritan was responded to by an anonymous correspondent in the Dec. 6, 1850 issue of the Daily Tribune. See also the LDS Frontier Guardian of Feb. 7, 1851 for Orson Hyde's editorial juxtaposition of the two articles.

Authorship of the Book of Mormon.

              SCHENECTADY, Monday, Nov. 25, 1850.
To the Editor of the New-York Tribune:

In your paper of the 19th inst., my attention was drawn to an article headed "Author of the Mormon Bible," wherein it is stated a certain Judge Campbell asserted at a recent public meeting, at Cherry Valley, that the Rev. Solomon Spaulding was the actual composer of most of what is known as the Mormon Bible, and that he (Mr. S.) wrote it intending to publish it as a romance. A Dr. Robert Campbell is stated to have seen this celebrated manuscript. Mr. Spaulding has been dead many years, but how it got into the hands of Joe Smith the writer of said article knoweth not, but it is probable Mrs. S. can tell. Now, Mr. Editor, I am very averse to public writing or speaking, but being a humble member of that much calumniated and grossly persecuted community, I cannot suffer the above erroneous statement to pass current in spite of its endorsement by Revs. Drs. Judges, and high sounding titles, without endeavoring to throw a little more light upon the subject than the author of the assertion is capable of doing.

In the first place I would say that the term Mormon Bible, in the sense used, is inappropriate, and proceeds from the ignorance or prejudice of the speaker or writer. The Bible of the Mormons is that in common use, containing the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, in which they fully and sincerely believe, as any person who has had any conversation with them or at all examined their doctrines, must be quite convinced of; that they are more consistent in the belief thereof might be also asserted. But herein they differ from the professors, they do not regard them as all the revelation of God to man, or that revelation is necessarily confined to bye-gone days.

As regards the Book of Mormon, they look upon it as a written revelation to another portion of the House of Israel on this continent, and equally worthy of our belief as the Bible with which it fully coincides in the expression of doctrinal truth. So much for that part of the subject which may dispel in some measure a very popular error.

As regards the main subject in hand, the Authorship of the Book of Mormon, there are various conflicting statements, and all backed by very reverend and respectable authority, and each asserted with equal force. First and foremost, it is attributed to the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, from whose possession as MSS. was obtained by some unknown process, and subsequently converted into the aforesaid Book. Again another report or affidavit, asserts that Joseph Smith was the author, and that he translated the plates, when they were in the woods, and he in the house, same as when he looked for the money diggers with a stone in his hat, and his hat over his face, and Oliver Cowdery acted as Secretary or Scribe. Here is an evident contradiction, but the latter statement is so extensively absurd as to deserve no attention. The former is more plausible. But facts and dates are stubborn things, and these will completely demolish the whole affair. The story was started by an infamous character named D. P. Hulburt, who was cut off from the Church for immoral conduct, and whose disappointed ambition prompted him to a wrongful retaliation. He heard of this romance entitled "The Manuscript Found," and thinking it would suit his malicious purpose, obtained it from Mrs. Davison (widow of Mr. Spaulding) to get it out of the way, under pretence of having it published, and so destroy the Book of Mormon, promising to pay her half the proceeds arising from the sale thereof. He then writes her that the Manuscript does not read as he expected, and he should not print it. Hulburt finding little or no affinity between the writings to cover his retreat, endeavors to make out that Sidney Rigdon, during a temporary stay in Pittsburgh, where Mrs. S. formerly lived, obtained the Manuscript, but there the dates disagree. Mr. R. did not live in Pittsburgh until 1822, and resided there until 1826. Mr. Spaulding wrote his romance in 1812, in New Salem, Ohio; removed to Pittsburgh, according to Hulburt's statement, the same year, and thence to Amity in 1814.

Mrs. Davieson says, in the "Origin of Mormonism," published by La Roy Sunderland, "At length the MSS. was returned to its author and we removed to Amity. The MSS. then fell into my hands and was carefully preserved." -- so that the only time Mr. R. could possibly have obtained it was between the years 1812 and 1814, for since that time it has been carefully kept by Mrs. D. until delivered to Hulburt. Mr. Rigdon was then a mere lad, far distant and engaged at home in agricultural pursuits, and moreover the Book of Mormon was not published until after an interval of eighteen or tweny years. Thus we see the publishers of the Book of Mormon had not the benefit of the Reverend novel writer's production, and it remains with Mrs. Davieson or Mr. Hulburt to bring it to light. They have or should have it between them -- bring it forth, publish it to the world as the Book of Mormon is published, and let us see the indetity of the two publications, or let the advocates of the imposture forever hold their peace, and invent a story that is more consistent and plausible.

Now, Mr. Editor, the imposition is transparent. The story is long since exploded, and will not bear investigation, and as my only object and aim is to expose a popular error, operating adversely to our community, against whom calumny and falsehood have been too generally disseminated by the pulpit and press, which have eventuated in hostile acts of bloodshed, arson and expatriation, I trust your natural feeling of justice and benevolence will permit the insertion of this statement in reference to the former published article.
                Very truly, Yours,           JUSTITIA.


Note: The piece from the New England Puritan was reprinted in the Nov. 19, 1850 issue of the Daily Tribune. See also the LDS Frontier Guardian of Feb. 7, 1851 for Orson Hyde's editorial juxtaposition of the two Daily Tribune articles.

Bill Smith, the Mormon prophet, and brother of Joe Smith, the renowned founder of the Mormon church, is now closely confined in the jail at Dixon, Illinois. He has escaped once, but was retaken at St. Louis, on his way to Salt Lake City.

Note: It must have been especially embarrassing to Elder William Smith, that he was unable to duplicate his famous older brother's well-publicized evasion of confinement (in exactly the same jail from which Joseph was released) in July, 1843, and was discharged to successfully dispute arrest, in one of ante-bellum Illinois' most famous legal cases. The Times evidently derived the above news item from the report published in the May 4, 1854 issue of the Illinois Dixon Telegraph.

Tragical Occurrence.

                                                        Mackinac, June 8.
The Mormons murdered Thomas Bennett in his own house, and dangerously wounded his brother Samuel... the fishermen and Indians are collecting at MacKinley's Point, prepatory to an attack on the Mormons...


Note: The full text of this article will be posted when a proper copy becomes available.

LATER  NEWS  FROM  THE  PLAINS.

... Steamer Duroc arrived in St. Louis from the Missouri River with the latest news. Mr. Thomas Bateman met Orson Hyde and Company 198 miles this side of Fort Laramie.... Encounter with the Indians, near Loup Fork of the Platte... seven Mormons in company...


Note: The full text of this article will be posted when a proper copy becomes available.

The Mormons in Utah.

Messrs. Booth and Denniston arrived at Terre Haute a few days since, having come from California by way of the plains. From these gentlemen, who tarried some time at the Salt Lake City, The Terre Haute Express obtains considerable information in regard to the movements and progress of the Mormons.

This singular people have reoccupied their old station in Carson Valley and in much larger numbers, and intend making a permanent settlement there. It is there desire to occupy the whole of it, and in their hands it will become extremely valuable, as it is the only place fit for a settlement between their possessions in the great Salt Lake Valley and California. The whole valley is well watered and covered with the most luxuriant grass. By the term "Valley" is meant that portion which is susceptible of cultivation, lying at the base of the mountain, and is about twenty-five miles long, by five to fifteen in breadth.

The Mormons have extended their settlements along the base of the mountains, northward, and facing the Great Salt Lake, ninety miles, nearly to Bear River ferry. They are fast taking up all the good land in the valley. Each one claims and owns whatever he is able to inclose and improve. They are generally satisfied with a small tract each, say from forty to one hundred acres. They are a very industrious people, and their improvements are good and substantial. Their houses are small and neat, being built of adobes made of blue clay. They have mills in the mountain canyons, and make fair lumber, which is sold in the city at $50 per thousand feet.

The Mormons are engaged in building a railroad to the mountain, some seven or eight miles, on which to transport the materials for their great temple.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMON COUNTRY in Iowa is announced for sale, and the "Saints" of that locality are adjured to repair to the great Valley. The Sixth Epistle from the President of the Mormons, is published. It contains, among a vast number of religious matters...

Progress of some building in [Salt Lake City] such as the walls of the basement story of the Seventies Hall are in progress and the walls of the Tithing Barn are completed...


Notes: (forthcoming)

The  Mormons  in  Utah.

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

Mormonism Exposed, by an Ex-Mormon.

To the Editor of the Boston Transcript:
   The late high-minded and treasonable proceedings of the Mormons in the territory of Utah, as shown by the official report of the United States officers returned therefrom, however strange and startling they may appear to the uninitiated, form no new development to those who have had an opportunity of scrutinizing and observing them, and their doctrines and practices and designs, but are in perfect keeping with the character of the sect, openly avowed by them to most of their members for some ten years or more.

The writer of this, having been one of their number, and having been personally acquainted with Brigham Young and his associates called by them the twelve apostles and having had frequent conversations with them in respect to their policy in relation to the Government of this country, is perhaps better qualified than many to submit a few hints thereon.

First, then, a word in regard to their great leading doctrine. They believe and teach that the aborigines of this continent are descendants of a branch of the house of Israel, through the seed of Joseph, the Patriarch; and consequently those remarkable blessings pronounced upon Joseph and his two sons, by Jacob his father, also by Moses, will be fulfilled upon the head of the Mormon church, and on this continent. Hence all those terrible denunciations and destructions predicted of in the Prophets against the oppressors of Ephraim and Manassah (the Indians) are to be fulfilled upon the devoted heads of the American people, the Mormons being the instruments.

The Book of Mormon -- misnamed the Mormon bible -- which Joseph Smith claimed to have found miraculously, in the shape of metallic plates inscribed upon in an unknown or lost language, but translated by him through inspiration, is the sacred and political history of this branch of Israel, the predecessors of the American Indians. The organization of the Mormon Church is the beginning of this work of returning political power to the Indians ostensibly, but in reality to the Mormon Church. In regard to the government and laws of this country, they are ready at any and all times to set them at defiance, except when they may deem it politic to do otherwise. In addition to their religious idea of vengeance on this Government, they have sworn vengeance against the States of Missouri and Illinois, from which they have been driven, and against the United States Government for not aiding with them against those States.

The Salt Lake movement was got up for the avowed purpose of placing themselves without the pale of this Government, (they, with all their prophets, little dreaming that it was so soon to be part of that government,) that they could the better manage their treasonable designs; and at that time the Mormons petitioned Queen Victoria for her aid for the Mormon emigrants from Great Britain, urging in that petition the importance of her Majesty's government counteracting the rapid emigration from the United States to California! That petetion can be seen by examining the files of the Mormon paper printed in England at that time, called the Millennial Star.

In regard to polygamy, it has been preached among them for years; and, if it were necessary, I could give you cases of the separation of husbands and wives, and breaking up of families, the demoralization of young women by some of those twelve apostles, in this city and vicinity, that would almost chill the heart's blood.

They teach and avow openly that marriages performed out of that church are null and void, and can be broken at the pleasure of either or both parties! There is no particular order or system about it. The heads of the church manage to secure to themselves the most desirable of the females that join the church; and when tired of them give them over to the laymen of the church, and not before.

I know of one instance of a family from this city, where the mother and two daughters (mere children) were used as wives of one of these apostles, Heber Kimball, he at the same time living with his lawful wife! I know of another case, in which P. P. Pratt, another of these twelve, took the young wife of Mr. Hum, of this city, unbeknown to him, and they have lived as husband and wife since. But your space will not permit to begin to enumerate instances of that kind that have come to my personal knowledge. Instead of polygamy, it should be termed licentiousness run mad. Any and all of these charges I stand ready to sunstantiate by their own documents, and by unimpeachable witnesses.
                                        JOHN HARDY.


Notes: (forthcoming)

CALIFORNIA.

... THE MORMON DISTURBANCES. -- By the late acquirement of the Rancho of San Bernardino, the Saline brotherhood are gate-keepers to Southern California... they plan to take possession of all the arable lands in the Valley of the Gila...


Note: The full text of the above report will be posted after a proper copy of the article has been located.

The Mormons of the Salt Lake.

Correspondence of the St. Louis Republican.

                                        Salt Lake City, July 6, 1852.

After a delay of three days at Laramie, we started for Salt Lake. We took the road over the Black Hills...

This is a beautiful valley... I was most interested in seeing and hearing Brigham Young, the present Chief of Mormonism. He is a six-foot Vermonter, weighs about 180 lbs., has a florid complexion, light hair, well perfumed and combed, with a curl here and there, as if one of his new wives had twitched her fingers through it -- wears a black suit, a famous white cravat, a fashionable black hat, black cotton gloves, and sports a large, gold-headed cane. This was the man pointed out to me as the Governor of Utah, and Chief Apostle of the Mormons...


Note: The full text of the above report will be posted after a proper copy of the article has been located.

UTAH.  THE MORMONS -- POPULATION -- RELIGIOUS, ETC.

(Description of Salt Lake City & the Mormons -- under construction)

 


Notes: (forthcoming)

Nauvoo, From the Mississippi, Looking Down the River.

 

Note 1: No information has survived as to who the artist was, or exactly when this fetching view of old Nauvoo was first sketched. After appearing as a steel engraving in the  New York Illustrated News, copies were reprinted in various other media, including the July 22, 1854 issue of the Boston periodical, Gleason's Pictorial.

Note 2: The illustration was accompanied by a single paragraph of general, descriptive text, not reproduced here.

THE  MORMONS

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

The  Mormons.
_______

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMONS.
_______

Special Correspondence of the New-York Daily Times

                                        Territory of Utah,
                                        Great Salt Lake City, April 19, 1853.

Before I had the high honor of a residence among the Latter-Day Saints, I supposed them the most harmonious brother-and-sisterhood the world ever saw. A more discordant set of harmonies, however, were never combined. A very short acquaintance with them, with some knowledge of their history, exhibits a very curious accumulation and loss of members constantly going on in the Mormon community. It seems to require about as much work to keep the converts after they are made, as to make them...


Note: The full text of the above report will be posted after a proper copy of the article has been located.

The  Tribune  on  Polygamy
_______

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

FROM  GREAT  SALT  LAKE  CITY.
________

THE MORMON FAITH -- CLIMATE AND AGRICULTURE OF
THE MORMON SETTLEMENT -- LETTER FROM
GOV. BRIGHAM YOUNG.

From The St. Louis Republican, June 2.

A number of gentlemen from Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, were passengers in the Sam Cloon, on Tuesday night, from the Missouri River. They arrived at Fort Leavenworth on the 26th ult. by mail stage. Among them were the following gentlemen: W. C. Dunbar, Milo Andrews, C. H. Wheelock, J. M. Barlow, W. Frost, R. W. Wolcott, Seth M. Blair, Esq., U. S. District Attorney for Utah Territory, and Gen. James Ferguson. These gentlemen are all members of the Mormon Church, and have been sent on missions to portions of the United States, Europe and Ireland.

The left Salt Lake City on the 1st of May, and were only 23 traveling days to Fort Leavenworth. The winter had been very severe, and a great deal of snow had fallen. The wall around Great Salt Lake City was one-half completed, and the wall around the Temple was in the same state of forwardness. Money was plenty in the Valley, but there was a great want of ... [remainder of clipping cut off]


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMONS. -- Twenty-eight years ago, "Jo Smith," the founder of this sect, and "Harris," his first convert, applied to the senior editor of The Journal, then residing at Rochester, to print his "Book of Mormon," then just transcribed from the "Golden Bible" which "Jo" had found in the cleft of a rock to which he had been guided by a vision. We attempted to read the first chapter, but it seemed such unintelligible jargon that it was thrown aside. "Jo" was a tavern-idler in the Village of Palmyra. Harris, who offered to pay for the printing, was a substantial farmer. Disgusted with what we deemed a "weak invention" of an impostor, and not caring to strip Harris of his hard earnings, the proposition was declined. The manuscript was then taken to another printing office across the street, whence, in due time, the original "Mormon Bible" made its advent.

"Tall trees from little acorns grow."   

But who would have anticipated, from such a bald, shallow, senseless imposition, such world-wide consequences? To remember and contrast "Jo Smith" with the loafer-look, pretending to read from a miraculous slate-stone placed in his hat, with the Mormonism of the present day, awakens thoughts alike painful and mortifying. There is no limit, even in this most enlightened of all the ages of Knowledge, to the imposture and credulity. If knaves, or even fools, invent creeds, nothing is too monstrous for belief. Nor does the fact -- a fact not denied or disguised -- that all the Mormon leaders are rascals as well as impostors, either open the eyes of their dupes or arrest the progress of delusion.   [Albany Eve. Jour.


Note: The writer of this report reprinted from the Albany Evening Journal was Thurlow Weed, a noted editor, publisher, anti-Mason, and early Whig politician. Assuming that Smith and Harris came to visit Weed in Rochester in 1829, the paper he was then editing was the Anti-Masonic Enquirer. The paper Weed had previously edited was, by 1829, Robert Martin's Rochester Daily Advertiser & Telegraph. Weed left similar accounts in his 1883 Autobiography of Thurlow Weed and in an 1880 statement he prepared for Ellen E. Dickinson. Dan Vogel cites the date of this article as "August 3, 1854," see his Early Mormon Documents III pp. 327-331 for more information on Weed's reminiscences about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

The Beginning of Mormonism.

From the Albany Evening Journal, July 31.

Twenty-eight years ago, Joe Smith, the founder of this sect, and Harris, his first convert, applied to the senior editor of the Journal, then residing at Rochester, to print his "Book of Mormon," then just transcribed from the "Golden Bible" which Joe had found in the cleft of a rock to which he had been guided by a vision.

We attempted to read the first chapter, but it seemed such unintelligible jargon that it was thrown aside. Joe was a tavern idler in the village of Palmyra. Harris, who offered to pay for the printing, was a substantial farmer. Disgusted with what we deemed a "weak invention" of an impostor, and not caring to strip Harris of his hard earnings, the proposition was declined.

The manuscript was then taken to another printing office across the street, whence, in due time, the original "Mormon Bible" made its advent.

"Tall trees from little acorns grow."   

But who would have anticipated, from such a bald, shallow, senseless imposition, such world-wide consequences? To remember and contrast Joe Smith, with his loafer-look, pretending to read from a miraculous slate-stone placed in his hat, with the Mormonism of the present day, awakens thoughts alike painful and mortifying. There is no limit, even in this most enlightened of all the ages of knowledge, to the imposture and credulity. If knaves, or even fools, invent creeds, nothing is too monstrous for belief. Nor does the fact -- a fact not denied or disguised -- that all the Mormon leaders are rascals as well as impostors, either open the eyes of their dupes or arrest the progress of delusion.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE FOUNDER OF MORMONISM. -- The Sandusky (O.) Mirror notices the rejection by Thurlow Weed of the job of printing the Mormon Bible many years ago, which was published in The Tribune, and says:

"The veritable Joe Smith, the Mormon prophet, about thirty years ago loafed about the tavern on the Susquehanna, near the Great Bend. He courted the daughter of a respectable farmer named Hal[e], but the old man forbid him his house. He took advantage one Sunday of the absence of the old man at church, took a yoke of oxen and wagon, the girl's bedding, loaded them all up and put off, got married and then cheated his father-in-law. It was near Great Bend, on the New-York side of the river, that Joe pretended to find his revelation on stone! We were then a printer's devil, and carried a one horse mail from Montreal to Great Bend, and well remember of hearing frequently of the pranks of 'Lazy Joe.'"


Note: The Weekly Democratic Mirror (a.k.a. "Bay City Weekly Mirror" in 1854) was published in Sandusky, Erie Co., Ohio. The identity of the writer (who claims to have known Joseph Smith c. 1827) of this report (along with the name of the paper where he once worked as a "printer's devil) remains unknown. Thirty-five miles SW of Sandusky lies Gibsonburgh, Ohio, where D. P. Hurlbut settled in about 1854.

ORIGIN  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON.

The following account of the origin of the Book of Mormon was given to the writer of this article by the widow of the writer of the said book. She was a native of Pomfret, Conn., of respectable family and connections, and her statement is entitled to full credit, which is in substance as follows:

"A Mr. Spalding, her former husband, was a native of Ashford, Conn., a clergyman by profession, who removed with her into the State of Ohio. After some years' residence in that State, he became unable to follow his professional calling, from feeble health, which confined him to his domocil. In this situation of health, mind and location, the various ancient mounds and fortifications, so common in that region, attracted his attention; and the probable science and civilization of their builders, so far in advance of the natives of the country, led him to inquire by whom they were constructed, and from whence a people came, who could perform these stupendous labors. For his own amusement, and the exercise of his mind and inagination, he commenced writing, in the solemn style, his ideas of the migration of mankind, from the time of their dispersion after the deluge, through the regions of the East to this Western continent, giving such romantic names and descriptions of persons and places as his imagination furnished him with. His neighbors also enjoyed the fruits of his labors, and as he progressed, spent their evenings at his house, to hear and enjoy the effusions of his vivid imagination. These manuscripts, after the death of their writer; falling into the hands of designing Mormon prophets, have by them been claimed to be miraculously given and discovered; and, though written without any evil designs, have been made the instruments of leading many honest credulous minds into this fallacious delusion."

I have been induced to give this statement publicity, to prevent further imposition upon human credulity, and in the hope that further light may yet be given to the public, from others, concerning the rise of this spreading delusion.     S.


Note 1: The above paraphrase of an account reportedly provided by Solomon Spalding's widow, closely parallels her better known 1839 statement. The original text from which the 1854 paraphrase is derived, was apparently provided by Matilda Spalding Davison some time before her death in 1846. Two other statements from about the same period are credited to the widow: an 1842 reply to Rev. Gaston and an undated account first quoted from in 1851.

Note 2: The 1854 paraphrase of the widow's account bears a peculiar similarity to a statement attributed to her brother-in-law, John Spalding, which was also published in the 1851 source. John says that a story written by his brother, Solomon Spalding, relates that "the American continent was colonized by Lehi, the son of Japheth, who sailed from Chaldea soon after the great dispersion." The 1854 paraphrase has the widow recalling that Solomon Spalding wrote about "the migration of mankind, from the time of their dispersion after the deluge." Obviously, while such a fictional history might bear some resemblance to the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon, it would not tie the ancestry of the American Indians to the wandering Israelites of a much later period. John Spalding solves this seeming dilemma concerning the content of his brother's writings, by saying, "Long after this, Nephi, of the tribe of Joseph, emigrated to America with a large portion of the ten tribes whom Shalmanezer led away from Palestine."

 
(Mormon Legion threatens U.S. troops -- under construction)

 


Note: This report from Salt Lake City tells about a serious collision between U.S. soldiers and the citizens, Mormons ordered out the Legion, threatening to destroy the whole battalion of U.S. troops. Col. Steptoe was appointed governor of the territory with Brigham Young as his vice-governor.

 
Senator Stephen A. Douglas Speech
Springfield, Illinois, June 12, 1856
(under construction)

... Under this view of the subject, I think it is the duty of the President, as I have no doubt it is his fixed purpose, to remove Brigham Young and all his followers from office, and to fill their places with bold, able, and true men; and to cause a thorough and searching investigation into all the crimes and enormities which are alleged to be perpetrated daily in that territory under the direction of Brigham Young and his confederates; and to use all the military force necessary to protect the officers in discharge of their duties and to enforce the laws of the land. When the authentic evidence shall arrive, if it shall establish the facts which are believed to exist, it will become the duty of Congress to apply the knife, and cut out this loathsome, disgusting ulcer....


Note: Douglas gave this speech in the run-up to the 1856 Presidential election. He was the Democrat's candidate again in the next campaign for that office. Compare what Douglas had to say about the Mormons in 1856, to what he proclaimed in his speech of June 12, 1857. In the time that passed between Douglas' two anti-Mormon speeches, the LDS leaders in Salt Lake City had time to consider what their response would be to the new standard-bearer for their old political allies, the Democrats. It appears that the Mormon leaders chose to concentrate on attacking Stephan A. Douglas himself. The Deseret Evening News of Sept. 24, 1856, ran an article that told of a curse placed upon him by Joseph Smith, jr. on May 18, 1843. The "prophecy" is not known from any pre-1856 source, including the journals of William Clayton, from which its wording was supposedly taken. In later years the Mormons would claim that Douglas' failure to gain the Presidency in 1856 and 1860 was a result of Smith's purported "prophecy."

THE BEAVER ISLAND MORMONS. -- The Cleveland Plain-dealer states that the Mormons are leaving Beaver Island, in Lake Michigan, en masse, and are selling their property for the most they can get. the prophet Strang has left for Wisconsin. The Mormons do not appear to have lost anything of their religious peculiarity, as they have taken all their young wives and left the old women and babies. It seems to be the universal opinion of the lake navigators that Strang and his followers deserve the treatment they have received.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Mother  Lucy  Smith.

                                              WASHINGTON, D. C., July 5, 1856.
ED. MORMON: -- In the 19th number of your paper I read a notice of the death of Mrs. Lucy Smith, mother of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and who has been for the last twenty-six years familiarly known to all the saints as "Mother Smith."

She was born in Gilsum, Cheshire county, New Hampshire, July 8, 1776. She was the daughter of Solomon Mack, who was born in Lyme, New London county, Connecticut, September 26, 1735. He served in the war against France, and took part in many severe contests, and retired from them suffering many personal injuries, and was discharged in 1759; subsequently married Lydia Gates, daughter of Nathan Gates, of East Haddam, Ct.

He commenced a new settlement in the wilderness, forty miles from inhabitants, his wife adding to the duties of mother those of instructress, as there were no schools in the wilderness. On the commencement of the War of Independence he enlisted into the service of his country; was for a considerable length of time in the land forces, and afterwards -- accompanied by two of his sons, Jason and Stephen -- entered the navel service of the colonies, and continued to encounter many of the stirring and thrilling incidents to which our young marine was constantly exposed until the close of the war. Mother Smith was therefore born in troublesome times, the first seven years of her life being spent in the care of her pious and intelligent mother, while her father and brothers were battling for the independence of their country. They were exposed to every vicissitude which was incident to the distracted state of the colonies, and the absence of the protectors of the family.

In youth, Lucy was somewhat remarkable for a pensive character; her mind being awakened to the death of her sister Lovina, she determined to obtain that which she heard spoken of so much in the pulpit -- "a change of heart." Of this circumstance she says in the history of her life: -- 'To accomplish this I spent much time in reading the Bible and praying in my great anxiety to experience a change of heart." She went to live with her brother Stephen, in Tunbridge, Vermont, and on the 24th of January, 1778, was married to Joseph Smith, by whom she had ten children -- Alvin, born Feb. 11, 1779 -- who died Nov. 19, 1824; Hyrum, born Feb. 9, 1800; Sophronia, born May 18, 1803, at Tunbridge, Vermont; Joseph, Jr., born Dec. 23, 1805, at Sharon, Windsor County Vermont; Samuel Harrison, born March 13, 1808, and died July 10, 1844; Ephraim, March 13, 1810, died March 24, 1810; William, born March 13, 1811 at Royalton, Vt.; Catherine, born July 8, 1812, at Lebanon, New York; Don Carlos, born March 25, 1816, at Palmyra, Wayne Co., New York; Lucy, born July 18, 1821, at Palmyra, Wayne Co., New York. The care of rearing such a family, the labor of opening new farms in a wilderness country, (as Western New York then was), which must have necessarily surrounded a mother, where a family enduring much sickness and distress from accident were her lot. She became a member of the Presbyterian church, and three of her children, Hyrum, Samuel Harrison and Sophronia followed her example; and while Joseph was seeking the Lord with all his heart to know what church he should join, the visions of heaven were opened unto him, and he was entrusted with the Plates of the Book of Mormon, inspired by Revelation to translate them, received the authority of the Priesthood, and laid the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is now so widely spread throughout the world.

During the infancy of the Church, and while the work preparatory to its organization was going on, Mother Smith and her family had severe struggles to encounter by the opposition of the world, persecution, poverty and sickness; her faith and works were sufficient to bear her up against every oppression which men heaped upon her devoted family. Immediately upon the organization of the church, on April 6, 1830, she received baptism for the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost, which buoyed her up against all opposition, and prepared her to rejoice amid the most dreadful persecutions and sacrifices that mortal was ever called upon to endure. In 1831 her husband and family moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where they resided until '37; but the hand of persecution was not arrested by this movement. Her son, Joseph, was followed by a multiplied succession of vexatious law suits, which were invariably unsuccessful, but being attended with heavy expense, served to impoverish the family. On the 25th of March, 1832, Joseph Jr., was dragged from his bed at midnight, daubed with tar and feathers, and otherwise severely injured. Aquafortis was poured into his mouth, he was choked by the throat and left for dead. His infant child, sick with the measles in bed with him, at the time of the outrage, was thereby exposed to night air, and died immediately (she [sic] may be called the first martyr of this dispensation).

In 1837 the persecution in that county became so dreadful that her husband was made a prisoner, and the family were under the necessity of fleeing from Kirtland, and afterwards located in the Far West Missouri -- but it appears only to encounter a more terrible storm. The fatigue of this journey of a thousand miles land travel, and -- performed under indigent circumstances -- were enough to wear our persons of their age, yet they were endured much better than could have been expected; but this labor was hardly dispelled by rest when a renewed persecution burst around the Saints with unabated fury.

The cruelty of this mob, exceeding all possibility of description, was legalized by the exterminating order of Lilburn W. Boggs, Governor of Missouri, and rigidly enforced by Major General Clark, who marched thirteen thousand men to Far West, and executed the cruel decree. Joseph and Hyrum, her beloved sons, were betrayed into their hands under positive pledges of protection.

They were then permitted to bid adieu to their mother and families, and were told that "to-morrow they die at 9 o'clock," from which fate they were providentially saved through the interference of the gallant General Doniphan, who declared to Major General Lucas, "It is cool blooded murder; and if you execute them I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal. So help me God!" An imprisonment of six months followed, during which time they were asked how they liked "Mormon beef," having reference to human flesh, on which they had been fed; all the members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints were expelled from the State during the winter and spring, or perished by the violence of their enemies. An aged father and mother arrived in Quincy, Ill., penniless and friendless, surrounded by the wives and children of those imprisoned, and who had perished from murder, exposure or otherwise. Soon after the family arrived at Nauvoo, Ill. The toil and suffering of this persecution was too much to be borne by a man of his age, and Joseph Smith, Sr., died at Nauvoo, Sept. 14, 1840. He had faithfully performed the duties of Patriarch over the whole church, and blessed the fatherless for six years. He was the first to receive the testimony of Joseph, and had borne the heat and burden of sustaining the word of the Lord all day long, and at last laid down to rest, full of faith, integrity, charity and good works, aged [sixty-nine] years and one month and two days.

Mother Smith was thus left a widow, worn out with toil and sorrow -- her house having been filled with sick, like a hospital, from the time of their expulsion from Missouri, many of whom owed the preservation of their lives to her motherly care, attention and skill in nursing them, which she did without any pecuniary consideration, and the extent of which cannot be appreciated but by those only who are personally acquainted with the dreadful scenes of sickness and distress which followed in consequence of the Missouri expulsion. From this time until the day of his death she lived with her son Joseph. She was visited, congratulated and comforted by thousands who had partaken of their bounty, or listened to her testimony, and those who were desirous of making her acquaintance. Her spirit was like a fountain of light, that dispelled error and disseminated truth, wherever its influence was felt. From the time of the commencement of the work until the death of her husband their house was open to all, and tens of thousands of persons listened with delight to her teachings.

On the 7th day of August, 1855 [sic], she was called upon to part with her youngest son, Don Carlos, who was suddenly snatched away from this vale of tears, occupying at the time of his death the position of Brigadier General of the Illinois militia, and editor of the Times and Seasons, leaving a widow and ten children. He was universally respected, and his loss deeply felt and deplored by the community. The assassination of Joseph and Hyrum, under the protection of the Governor of Illinois, so shocked and benumbed her sensibilities and her aged frame, that she never fully recovered. This awful scene, the bringing home of the mutilated bodies, the violation of all legal protection, the moaning cries of widows and fatherless children, brothers and sisters, besides tens of thousands of weeping friends, combined to form a scene that no mother upon the face of the earth was ever before called upon to encounter. As if the blow had not been sufficient to crush a mother's heart, Samuel Harrison Smith, in escaping from the murderers of his brothers, overheated himself, which brought on a fever, that terminated fatally, July 30, 1844.

But recovering somewhat from the effect of her afflictions, she composed a history of her life which contains many thrilling incidents of herself as well as that of her family, which are given in her own style, yet mingled somewhat with evidence of difficulty of her remembering dates. When the Saints resolved to leave Nauvoo for the Rocky Mountains, she addressed a general conference, bearing testimony of the truth of her desire to lay her bones in Nauvoo beside her husband and sons. From that time until the day of her death, she mostly resided in Nauvoo, with her youngest daughter, Lucy Miliken, excepting the two last years she resided with her daughter-in-law, widow of her son Joseph. She enjoyed the gifts and influence of the holy spirit much, and the following hymn was given her in 1833, which she sang in the Nephite tongue, which caused great sensation and tears to flow in the congregation, and the gift of interpretation followed. The hymn has reference to the last great battle of the Nephites against the Lamanites, around the Hill Cumorah, in the State of New York, where the plates were found from which the Book of Mormon was translated. It is called "Moroni's Lamentation:"

I have no home, where shall I go?
While here I'm left to weep below
My heart is pained, my friends are gone,
And here I'm left on earth to mourn.

I see my people lying round,
All lifeless here upon the ground;
Young men and maidens in their gore,
Which does increase my sorrows more.

My Father look'd upon this scene
And in his writings made it plain,
How every Nephite's heart did fear,
When he beheld his foes draw near.

With axe and bow they fell upon
Our men and women, sparing none;
And left them prostrate on the ground;
Lo here they now are bleeding round!

Ten thousand that were led by me
Lie round this Hill call'd Cumorah!
Their spirits from their bodies fled,
And they are numbered with the dead.

Well might my Father in despair
Cry, "Oh! ye fair ones, once how fair!
How is it that you have fallen? oh!
My soul is filled with pain for you!

My life is sought, where shall I flee?
Lord, take me home to dwell with thee;
Where all my sorrow will be o'er,
And I shall sigh and weep no more.

Thus sung the Son of Mormon, when
He gazed upon his Nephite men;
And women, too, which had been slain,
And left to moulder on the plain.
Blessed woman! her name and memory are engraven upon the tablets of the heart of tens of thousands. and will be handed down to millions yet unborn, that will speak her praise and talk of her virtues and goodness, of her motherly kindness, her watchful care and administration to the sick and afflicted, the kind and affectionate mother, the beloved wife, the partner of her aged and venerable husband, for her deeds of love, her virtue, faith, hope and confidence in her God, the trials and persecutions she bore for the gospel of truth, her unvarying steadfastness to truth through all circumstances, and filled with charity to all, her God blessed her and nerved her up to bear the persecutions and trials she was called upon to undergo, and gave her strength and grace sufficient for her day, and in copious profusion poured out his Holy Spirit upon her.

Few indeed are the women that have ever lived or graced this lower world, that occupied the position she did. The chosen of the Lord, to bear and bring into the world one of the greatest prophets the world ever produced; one chosen and ordained of God to bring about His glorious purposes in the dispensation of the fulness of time that all holy prophets have spoken concerning ever since the world began, together with his brother Hyrum, clothed with the holy priesthood of God, holding the keys of salvation, immortality and eternal life to a ruined and fallen world -- conversed with God and his Redeemer, and with holy angels from the courts of the eternal world -- gazed upon the order and glory of the same, and understood the law that appertains to eternal life. Not only so, but the wife, the partner of the early father of such sons and prophets; her husband a patriarch of the Most High over all the church of God, pouring out his blessings in the name of his Redeemer upon the heads of thousands, by virtue of his priesthood and office, and causing the hearts to beat with joy; also many others of her sons, valiant in the cause of truth, clothed with power and eternal life, priests of the most high God. But her labors are closed, and like a shock of corn fully ripe, she has gone down to her grave in peace, full of honor and goodness, there to await the morning of the first resurrection, after having lived to commit to the silent tomb her husband, Joseph, Hyrum, Don Carlos, Samuel, &c.; but she has gone to meet them, kings and priests of the Most High, Noble mother in soul! blessed among women and queen among the mighty ones! thy calling and election has been made sure; and in the morning of the resurrection, with thy husband, sons and daughters wilt thou come forth and take thy place, and stand in thy lot with thy husband and offspring -- no more to be separated, no more to endure persecution, trials, tears, pains and sorrows, but bask in the smiles, fruition and blessings of a celestial world, under the smiles of thy Good and Redeemer while eternity goes and eternity comes. Peace to her ashes! Amen.
                                     G. A. SMITH.


Note: This article was reprinted in the August 23, 1856 issue of the LDS Church's San Francisco newspaper -- The Western Standard. Apostle George A. Smith carefully avoids telling exactly where Lucy Mack Smith died, who preached her funeral sermon, who her family survivors were, etc., etc. He also neglects to name the "daughter-in-law, widow of her son Joseph." As polygamy was openly being professed by the Salt Lake City Mormons at this time, the identity of Lucy's "daughter-in-law," among her late son's many wives is left ambiguous -- except to implicitly admit that it was a daughter-in-law who had not obeyed the LDS First Presidency's order for all straggling Mormons to move west. George A. Smith further neglects to mention that Lucy Mack Smith and most of her family had denounced Brigham Young and allowed their names to be published in support of the holy presidential claims of Elder James J. Strang. Since Lucy never came back into the Brighamite fold, the heavenly glories her nephew George paints as awaiting her, beyond the veil, might be just a little suspect, from the orthodox Utahan viewpoint at least.

Polygamy  in  Utah.

The Progress of Mormonism.

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

Resignation of Judge Drummond.

To the Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, Attorney-General of the United States, Washington City, D. C.:

MY DEAR SIR: As I have concluded to resign the office of Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah, which position I accepted in A.D., 1854, under the administration of President Pierce, I deem it due to the public to give some of the reasons why I do so. In the first place, Brigham Young, the governor of Utah Territory, is the acknowledged head of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," commonly called "Mormons"; and, as such head, the Mormons look to him, and to him alone, for the law by which they are to be governed: therefore no law of Congress is by them considered binding in any manner.

Secondly. I know that there is a secret oath-bound organization among all the male members of the church to resist the laws of the country, and to acknowledge no law save the law of the "Holy Priesthood," which comes to the people through Brigham Young direct from God; he, Young, being the vicegerent of God and prophetic successor of Joseph Smith, who was the founder of this blind and treasonable organization.

Thirdly I am fully aware that there is a set of men, set apart by special order of the Church, to take both the lives and property of persons who may question the authority of the church, (the names of whom I will promptly make known at a future time).

Fourthly. That the records, papers, &c., of the supreme court have been destroyed by order of the church, with the direct knowledge and approbation of Governor B. Young, and the federal officers grossly insulted for presuming to raise a single question about the treasonable act.

Fifthly. That the federal officers of the Territory are constantly insulted, harassed, and annoyed by the Mormons, and for these insults there is no redress.

Sixthly. That the federal officers are daily compelled to hear the form of the American government traduced, the chief executives of the nation, both living and dead, slandered and abused from the masses, as well as from all the leading members of the Church, in the most vulgar, loathsome, and wicked manner that the evil passions of men can possibly conceive.

Again: That after Moroni Green had been convicted in the district court before my colleague, Judge Kinney, of an assault with intent to commit murder, and afterwards, on appeal to the supreme court, the judgment being affirmed and the said Green being sentenced to the penitentiary, Brigham Young gave a full pardon to the said Green before he reached the penitentiary; also, that the said Governor Young pardoned a man by the name of Baker, who had been tried and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, for the murder of a dumb boy by the name of White House, the proof showing one of the most aggravated cases of murder that I ever knew being tried; and to insult the court and government officers, this man Young took this pardoned criminal with him, in proper person, to church on the next Sabbath after his conviction; Baker, in the meantime, having received a full pardon from Governor Brigham Young. These two men were Mormons.

On the other hand, I charge the Mormons, and Governor Young in particular, with imprisoning five or six young men from Missouri and Iowa, who are now in the penitentiary of Utah, without those men having violated any criminal law in America. But they were anti-Mormons -- poor, uneducated young men on their way for California; but because they emigrated from Illinois, Iowa, or Missouri, and passed by Great Salt Lake City, they were indicted by a probate court, and most brutally and inhumanly dealt with, in addition to being summarily incarcerated in the saintly prison of the Territory of Utah. I also charge Governor Young with constantly interfering with the federal courts, directing the Grand Jury whom to indict and whom not; and after the Judges charge the Grand Juries as to their duties, that this man Young invariably has some member of the Grand Jury advised in advance as to his will in relation to their labors, and that his charge thus given is the only charge known, obeyed, or received by all the Grand Juries of the federal courts of Utah Territory

Again, sir, after a careful and mature investigation, I have been compelled to come to the conclusion, heart-rending and sickening as it may be, that Captain John W. Gunnison, and his party of eight others, were murdered by the Indians in 1858, under the orders, advice, and direction of the Mormons; that my illustrious and distinguished predecessor, Hon. Leonidas Shaver, came to his death by drinking poisoned liquors, given to him under the order of the leading men of the Mormon Church in Great Salt Lake City; that the late secretary of the Territory, A. W. Babbitt, was murdered on the plains by a band of Mormon marauders, under the particular and special order of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and J. M. Grant, and not by the Indians, as reported by the Mormons themselves; and that they were sent from Salt Lake City for that purpose, and that only; and as members of the Danite Band they were bound to do the will of B. Young as the head of the Church, or forfeit their own lives.

These reasons, with many others that I might give, which would be too heart-rending to insert in this communication, have induced me to resign the office of Justice of the territory of Utah, and again return to my adopted State of Illinois. My reason, sir, for making this communication thus public is, that the democratic party, with which I have always strictly acted, is the party now in power, and therefore is the party the should now be held responsible for the treasonable and disgraceful state of affairs that now exists in Utah territory. I could, sir, if necessary, refer to a cloud of witnesses to attest the reason I have given, and the charges, bold as they are, against those despots who rule with an iron hand their hundred thousand souls in Utah, and their two hundred thousand souls out of that notable territory, but shall not do so, for the reason that the lives of such gentlemen as I should designate in Utah and in California would not be safe for a single day.

In conclusion, sir, I have to say that, in my career as Justice of the Supreme Court of Utah territory, I have the consolation of knowing that I did my duty; that neither threats nor intimidations drove me from that pat; upon the other hand, I am pained to say that I accomplished little good while there; that the judiciary is only treated as a farce. The only rule of law by which the infatuated followers of this curious people will be governed, is the law of the church, and that emanates from Governor Brigham Young, and him alone.

I do believe that, if there was a man put in office as Governor of that territory, who is not a member of the church (Mormon,) and he supported with a sufficient military aid, that much good would result from such a course; but, as the territory is now governed, and as it has been since the administration of Mr. Fillmore, at which time Young received his appointment as Governor, it is noon-day madness and folly to attempt to administer the law in that territory. The officers are insulted, harassed, and murdered for doing their duty, and not recognizing Brigham Young as the only law-giver and law-maker on earth. Of this every man can bear incontestable evidence who has been willing to accept an appointment in Utah; and I assure you, sir, that no man would be willing to risk his life and property in that territory after once trying the sad experiment.

With an earnest desire that the present administration will give due and timely aid to the officers that may be so unfortunate as to accept situations in that territory, and that the withering curse which now rests upon this nation by virtue of the peculiar and heart-rending in. situations of the territory of Utah may be speedily removed, to the honor and credit of our happy country,

   I now remain your obedient servant,
                                                    W. W. DRUMMOND,
                                            Justice Utah Territory.
March 30, A. D. 1857.


Note 1: See the May 20, 1857 issue of the Salt Lake City Deseret News, for a letter from Drummond's wife, revealing that her husband had abandoned her and taken up with a certain prostitute, whom he introduced in Utah as his actual wife. When Drummond got word of this impending, embarrassing disclosure, he left the Territory almost immediately. While some or all of what he says in his letter may be true, the Judge's dishonest misrepresentation of his marital affairs casts an offensive shadow over his entire tenure in Utah. Whether or not there is any truth in Drummond's allegations regarding Mormon complicity in the 1851 Gunnison massacre remains debatable. No hard evidence in support of his claims has surfaced since he first made them. However, for some of Drummond's reasoning on the inception of the incident, see the Judge's letter of April 14, 1857, published in the 1860 reprint of Gunnison's book, The Mormons.

Note 2: For more on the alleged Danite murder of Elder Almon W. Babbit, see Judge Drummond's letter in the May 20, 1857 issue of the Times.

What  Shall  we  Do  with  the  Mormons?

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

The Salt Lake Infamy -- What Should Be Done.

(under construction)

---

Interesting Letter from Judge Drummond.
Real State of Affairs in Utah

                    Chicago, Ill., Monday, May 4, 1857.

To the Editor of the New York Daily Times.

Sir: A valued friend of mine has just presented me an extract of a communication from Ferramorg [sic - Feramorz?] Little, of Great Salt Lake City, which made its appearance in some one of the New-York papers, in which this high functionary of Mormonism, this Elder of the Latter Days, this member of the "quorum" of the "seventies," this spiritual brother-in-law of Gov. Brigham Young, this tool, agent and abettor in the blackest crimes that the malignant heart of man can conceive, has had the church duty to perform in denying the allegations in my communications to Attorney-General Black. In the first place he asserts that the books and records were not destroyed. I assert that they were, that Mr. Little well knew it at the time of the black outrage, and that in his capacity of Elder he sat in judgment on certain members of the Church and cut them off, for the reason that they expressed a degree of dissatisfaction at that high-handed outrage of the High Priesthood of Mormonism.

Again he asserts that at the time that he left Salt Lake there were no persons in the Penitentiary of Utah save three Indians, who were convicted in A. D. 1854. This, I assert, is a gratuitous and unmitigated falsehood, and well-known by Mr. Little; and that there were at least four young men in the Utah Penitentiary who were tried and convicted before Elias Smith the Probate Justice of Great Salt Lake City and County, in March, A. D. 1856, and severally sentenced for fourteen, sixteen and eighteen months; and that, too, without those men having committed any criminal act known to the law books save the Mormon Priesthood, and that they were in the Penitentiary when he left Salt Lake City, and that he knew that fact.

Again: I assert that a man by the name of Lewis was tried and convicted before George Peacock, Probate Judge of Manti County, in Dec. last, of assault and battery, and put in the Penitentiary of Utah for five years' time, and that before he was incarcerated in the prison that he was castrated by a Mormon mob, all of which Mr. Little well knew and no doubt had an active hand in this bloody outrage.

Again, he asserts he never heard anything of the murder of the dumb boy, Whitehouse, by the English Doctor named Baker. I assert that Mr. Little's connection with that band of Church-licensed pirates and murderers well-known as Danites or Destroying Angels, is such as to keep him fully and promptly posted in all the nefarious acts of the Church, and in this case in particular, that he well knew that Baker was tried and should have been hung for one of the most brutal murders ever committed by the hand of man; that the Jurors did find him guilty of murder in the second degree, and that he, Baker, was sentenced to the Penitentiary in care of Deputy Marshal Anson Call, on Wednesday, and promptly pardoned by Gov. Young without ever seeing the inside of the Penitentiary, before the following Sunday; that Hosea Stout and John Bair were the lawyers who defended Baker, and that Joseph A. Kelting was the counsel for the Government on the trial; that Lewis Bronson, Wm. Stevens, Allen Russel, George Catlin, John Cavir, Chas. Price, Jeremiah Hatch, John Mangum, Warren Snow, Wm. Holden, and Orville Cox were the Jurors who tried the case.

Again, Mr. Little asserts that the murder of Col. Babbitt, on the Plains, last Fall, is all fancy, &c. Mr. Editor, I wish it was so; that Col. Babbitt was a bad man and a murderer, no man will deny, neither did I expect Mr. Little and his numerous licensed coadjutors in crime to acknowledge that they had murdered Babbitt and Sutherland, while on the way to the "peaceful valleys of the mountains;" but, Sir, it is the base and cruel act, the manner in which it was done, of which I complain. If Babbitt was worthy of death, let him be tried by a constitutional jury of his country, and not by a self-constituted court, known as the Melchisedec Priesthood, or higher law of a Church whose code is stained with the blood of countless scores. Babbitt had been in and out of the Church, as occasion seemed to require, for nearly twenty-nine years, and at times, when under the influence of liquor, told many solemn truths on the subject and design of Mormonism, among which were the secret oaths administered to the male members of the Church, all of which are pregnant with treasonable designs; and for this overt act the poor unfortunate fellow lost his life, in strict obedience to the absolute law of the Church, all of which Mr. Little well knew.

In connection with this communication I send you an affidavit made by Hiram A. Watson, now a resident of the city of Chicago, and a gentleman who enjoys the confidence of all who know him (save the Mormons;) and as Mr. Watson has been a minister of this Church, and was honest enough to leave it after losing several thousand dollars worth of property, I fancy that his statements will be taken for far more real worth than the man who is still in the meshes of the Church, who is still the pliant, willing and obedient tool of the Church, whose duty it is not only to say openly that the charges against the Mormons are untrue, but it is his duty to go into Court and swear that they are false and untrue, which he would assuredly do.

But, Sir, why is it that all the appointees under both Fillmore and Pierce's Administration so nicely agree as to the disloyalty of the Mormons, and their open and secret rebellion to the laws and instructions of the country? Does not the universal language of all these men agree in this state of facts? Certainly, Sir, no man will have the presumption or ignorance to take any other view of the subject. Then you must conclude that these men tell the simple truth as far as they go, or that they have all joined together as enemies to the truth.

Tear up the graves of a Shaver, a Harris, and of Babbitt; call together all the judges, secretaries and Indian agents, who have not been under the baneful influence of Mormonism, and in one universal tongue will they recite the same state of stubborn facts which constitute now a record that will yet agitate this happy country from centre to circumference. The American people, thank heaven, are kind and benevolent to a fault; hence, Sir, those arch-traitors are relying on that benevolence; and while the parent Government deals with this Territory as a rude child, in loose kindness, every effort is being made to bring into that Territory a class of ignorant aliens from foreign countries to build up an independent republic in the midst of the most beautiful republican form of Government that civilized men ever beheld, and after ages will yet point to America as a stench in the nostrils of all refined and civilized countries, unless a firm and speedy step is taken to suppress that spirit of organized hostility to our common country: and I, for one, Sir, confess that I have but little hope of seeing this question fairly and promptly met by this administration; but it will be met in the pulpit and on the rostrum, by politicians in after years, as a stepping-stone to political preferment, which should certainly be avoided; but will it?
  Respectfully yours,
                                                      W. W. DRUMMOND.

---

MR. WATSON'S AFFIDAVIT. -- The following is the affidavit referred to in Judge Drummond's letter:

State of Illinois, County of Cook, ss. -- Hiram A. Watson being first duly sworn on oath, says that he is well acquainted with Feramorz Little of Great Salt Lake City, in Utah Territory; that this affiant was once a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-Day Saints (commonly called Mormons), and lived in Great Salt Lake City for near three years, during which time he took three endowment degrees in the Church, and, that he knows from the order and secret organization in the Mormon Church that Mr. Little, as well as all other male members of the Church of the same degree and standing in the Church, have taken such oaths and obligations as to bind them to open hostility to the form of Government in the United States; that he is acquainted with Judge W. W. Drummond, late a Judge in Utah Territory, has read his letter of resignation in office, and from what he knows of Mormonism, he can fully vouch for much of what Judge Drummond charged against the Mormons in his letter of resignation, and that from what he has heard from reliable information he believes the whole to be true; that he knows Feramorz Little to be worthy of death under the laws of the country, and that the said Little is bound by his oath to the Mormon Priesthood to contradict the charges and statements of Judge Drummond, as well as all other Federal officers, relative to Mormonism, be they ever so true, or forfeit his life to the hands of Mormon assassins for failing to contradict the statements of the Gentiles and that said Little has often aided and abetted in the commission of murders at the request of his brother-in-law, Brigham Young, and that it is a part of the Church duty, of the whole Church, to murder and pit out of the way all who may question the authority of the Church, or disobey the will of Brigham Young; and that the secret organization of the Church is one of determined hatred to the American people, and particularly to the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that Mormonism teaches its Church members neither to obey nor respect any man in office or authority under the laws of the United States or any of them, unless that officer be a Mormon; and that he is bound to execute the will of the Church, and disobey the law of the land, or lose his life, according to the law of the Mormon Church, and further the deponent saith not.

Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 29th day of April, 1857.
                                                  H. A. WATSON,
W. L. Church, Clerk of Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.


Note 1: Almon Whiting Babbit (Babbitt) was born Oct. 12. 1812 in Massachusetts. He joined the Mormons in 1833 and was a participant in Joseph Smith. Jr's 1834 military expedition to Missouri. In 1840 Babbit was temporarily disfellowshipped for supporting President Sidney Rigdon's plan to build up an LDS stake at Kirtland, against the wishes of Joseph Smith, Jr. Eventually the Mormon leadership consented to the Kirtland project and Babbit served as Stake President there for about a year. Elder Babbit was in and out of the Church two or three more times prior to Smith's assassination, and after that he served as Brigham's major agent in Nauvoo for the next couple of years. Babbit went to Utah in 1848 but was not there for very long before he was sent as the hopeful Mormons' delegate to Congress in 1849. He was later made Secretary of Utah Territory and was functioning in that capacity when he was killed (reportedly by Indians) while traveling through Nebraska in the fall of 1856. Babbit's sister Drucilla married Isaac Sheen in 1841, probably at Kirtland (see Will. Bradford, Babbitt Family History, Taunton, MA, 1912, pp. 283-284, 499-501)

Note 2: Judge Drummond's recollection of Elder Babbit, "when under the influence of liquor," telling "many solemn truths on the subject and design of Mormonism," is quite believeable, especially in light of the fact that Babbit was temporarilly disfellowshipped from the Mormons, at Kanesville (Council Bluffs) in May of 1851 for "immorality and intemperance." This ecclesiastical action stands over and above his church trial at the same place, during August of the preceding year -- at that inquiry Babbit admitted: "I have been engaged in dirty and smutty work for this people... [however] the interest of this kingdom [justifies that]" (Pottawattomie High Priests High Council Minutes, 1850; Frontier Guardian, Dec. 11, 1850 to June 13, 1851).

Note 3: Elder Almon W. Babbit died under strange circumstances. He was away from the company he had been traveling with, practically alone on the prairie, where he was supposed to have been attacked and killed by Cheyenne Indians, on Sept. 7, 1856. This mysterious incident reportedly occurred near the confluence of Blue Cr. and the Platte River, at Ash Hollow, (located a couple of miles southeast of modern Lewellen, Garden Co., Nebraska).

ANOTHER  STARTLING  TRAGEDY.
_______

Elder Pratt, the Mormon, Killed -- Seduction of a Wife in California
She Deserts her Husband -- Steals Away her Children, and is
Sealed as the Ninth Concubine to her Debaucher.

From the St. Louis Democrat, 25th.

We have to record to-day another painful narrative of Mormon iniquity, seduction and villainy, followed up in this instance, however, as it will be seen, by a summary vengeance from the injured husband. The account which we publish below is taken from the Van Buren (Ark.) Intelligencer, and gives in brief the facts of the case pretty much as they have occurred. From the Fort Smith Herald and the New-Orleans Bulletin we also have confirmation of the whole story, up to the last act in the drama, the tragic death of Elder Pratt, the mormon apostle. Thus it will be seen what utter ruin and devastation have been wrought in a virtuous family by the designing arts of a saintly scoundrel and the lures of a false and licentious faith. Here is what the Van Buren Intelligencer records of the termination of this affair:

TRAGICAL. -- It is with regret that we have to chronicle the homicide, committed in our vicinity on Wednesday last, by Mr. Hector M. McLean, late of San Francisco, California, upon the person of a Mormon Preacher. More than all we do deplore the melancholy affair that led to its commission. The deceased, whose name was Parley Parker Pratt, was a man of note among the Mormons, and judging from his diary and his letter to Mrs. McLean, he was a man of more than ordinary intelligence and ability. He had been a Preacher and Missionary of the Mormons at San Francisco, California, where he made the acquaintance of Mrs. McLean, whom he induced to embrace the Mormon faith.

She was at that time living with her husband, Hector H. McLean: they were happy and prosperous until she made the acquaintance of Pratt, and embraced the Mormon faith. She is the mother of three children by McLean, two boys and a girl, and seems to be an intelligent and interesting lady: converses fluently, and with more grace and ease than most ladies. About two years ago, and soon after she became a convert to Mormonism, she made an attempt to abduct two of her children to Utah, but was detected and prevented by her brother, who was then in California, and residing with his brother-in-law, Mr. McLean. She soon after, however, found means to elope with said Pratt to Salt Lake, where it is said that she became his ninth wife.

After the elopement of Mrs. McLean, her parents, who reside near New Orleans, wrote to Mr. McLean, in California, to send the children to them. He did so. Several months after this Mr. McLean received news that his wife had been to her father, in New Orleans, and eloped with the two youngest children. He immediately left San Francisco, for New Orleans, and, on arriving at the house of his father-in-law, he learned from that Mrs. McLean had been there, and, after an ineffectual effort to convert her father and mother to Mormonism, she pretended to abandon it herself, and so far obtained the confidence of her parents as to induce them to entrust her in the City of New Orleans with the children; but they soon found she had betrayed their confidence, and eloped with the children.

They then wrote to McLean, in San Francisco, who, upon the receipt of their letter, went to New Orleans, and learning from them the above facts in relation to the affair, immediately started in pursuit of his children. He went to New York and then to St. Louis. While in St. Louis he learned that the woman and children were in Houston, Texas. On his arrival in Houston he found that his wife had left some time before his arrival to join a large party of Mormons en route for Utah. He then returned to New Orleans, and from there to Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee nation with the expectation of intercepting his wife and children at that point.

On arriving at Fort Gibson, and while there, he found letters in the Post-Office to his wife from Pratt, some of which were mailed at St. Louis, and others at Flint Post Office, Cherokee nation. We are unable to give the contents of these letters with particularity, but they contained the fact that McLean was on the look-out for her and the children, and that they were betrayed by the apostates and gentiles, and advising her to be cautious in her movements, and not to let herself be known, only to a few of the saints and elders. McLean then, upon affidavit made by himself, obtained a writ from the United States Commissioner at this place for their arrest, and succeeded in getting them arrested by the United States Marshal. They were brought to this place for trial, and after an examination before the Commissioner, were discharged.

Pratt, as soon as released, mounted his horse and left the city. McLean soon after obtained a horse and started in pursuit, and overtook Pratt about eight miles from the city, and shot him. Pratt died in about two hours after receiving the wound. This is a plain narrative of the facts as we heard them from the most reliable resources, which we give to our readers without comment, as we feel that we are unable to do so with justice to all parties. But deeply do we sympathize with McLean in the unfortunate condition in which Mormon villainy and fanaticism has placed him.

In addition to the foregoing, we have been placed in the possession of some of the letters from Elder Pratt to his victim after she had returned from Salt Lake, in order to get the children from their custody in New Orleans. The latter is addressed "Mrs. Lucy R. Parker, by P. Parker Pratt, from near Fort Gibson, Cherokee nation," dated April 14, 1857.

"Dear Eleanor -- McLean is in St. Louis; he has offered a reward for your discovery, or your children or me. The apostates have betrayed me and you. I had to get away on foot, and leave all save myself. If you come to Fort Gibson, you can hire a messenger and send him to Riley Perryman's mill, and let him inquire for Washington N. Cook, Mormon missionary, and when he has found him, he will soon tell where Elder Pratt-Parker is. Do not let your children or any friend know that I am in this region, or anywhere else on the earth; except it is an elder from Texas who is in your confidence, and even him under the strictest charge of keep you it.

"If you send a messenger to Perryman's mill for Elder Cook, in order to find me, send a note addressed to Washington N. Cook. Everybody knows the place. He may live a few miles distant, but the folks at Riley Perryman's mill know where he is. And they can be made sensible that it requires immediate action, some of them can go and find him. Your messenger can leave the note at Riley Perryman's, or with Elder George Burgess there, and return, but you must state in the note where you can be found, and Elder Cook will probably call on you before he can have time to see me, as I may be some days' journey away, for I don't expect you at Fort Gibson, as I don't believe you received my last letter mailed at St. Louis, March 4th, and addressed as usual in the usual place. Elder Cook knows all, and you can trust him with all necessary information. When I know that you and the children are safe and your circumstances, I will know what to do.

Be sure not to let the Texas company know anything, for all the frontiers are watched, and some of them may betray you there. I must hide you or pass you some other way.

Pray much. Be still and wise. I have made use of some of the late alterations in the alphabet. I am well,     And your own ____ _____ ______."

Other letters we may, perhaps, publish to-morrow, together with some further particulars, as the lateness of the hour and the want of space compels us to withhold them at present.

---

The Last Mormon Hegira -- Departure of Mormons from Illinois.

From the Alton Courier, May 21.

The Mormons of Alton have about all left, "bags and baggage," for the Upper Missouri, thence to take their weary march across the Plains. The most of them intend to go to a new region of the Salt Lake country, some 200 miles from the Great City -- to "the wilderness" as they term it -- and there found a new town. A small number, only, go to the city of Brigham Young. The latter band started from here one month later than the former. At New Florence, a town near St. Joseph, they are to be organized into companies, each two or three persons to one hand-cart, and with some ox-teams following, to carry the heavy luggage, and the aged and feeble; they set off upon their march as soon as the Spring weather permits. We are unable to state precisely how many persons or families have thus left our city, but have heard them estimated at 120 souls, and some 25 families. There is a large Mormon emigration, this Spring, of people who have lived in the various States during the Winter past, and whose eyes should have been opened somewhat to the real state of things in Utah.

The Peru Chronicle says that one day last week over 800 Mormons passed through that place on their way to Salt Lake City. We notice by the Rock Island papers that about 800 passed there about the same time, destined for the city of abominations. The "Outpost of Zion" at Cincinnati has been cleaned out by the citizens, and will shortly be on its way to Salt Lake City several hundred strong. The Cleveland Plain Dealer of a recent date says that about 2,500 will leave that city this Spring for the same place.

This infatuated people have left Alton, and forever -- and what have our philanthropic citizens done towards enlightening them, and causing them to abandon their perilous enterprise? Nothing, alas? This question is extremely applicable to those of our good folks who make themselves quite uncomfortable about the negro and his "citizenship."


Notes: (forthcoming)

Correspondence of the New York Tribune.

Mormonism

A letter from William Smith, Brother of Joseph the Prophet.

                                                      Warren, Pa., May 19, '57.
In looking over affairs relating to Utah, and the development of corruption of the Mormon people, it may not be amiss to remind the people once again of the petition that was drawn up by myself and signed by many of the citizens of the State of Illinois, and sent to Washington at the time when Utah was recognized as a Territory, in which were set forth clearly and plainly the facts in regard to the treasonable designs of the Mormons against the United States Government; also the fact that these Mormons proposed establishing the doctrines of polygamy, all of which statements the leading Mormons positively and peremptorily denied. The charges that are now preferred against Brigham Young and the Mormons generally, by ex-Judge Drummond and others from Utah, are so confirmatory of what was then published upon Mormon doings, that we presume the Government and public will no longer dispute our statement as set forth in said petition, which may now be found on the files of the Congressional Journal of 1851. Also the statement made by Mr. Drummond in his letter of resignation, of the manner in which the late Secretary of the Territory, A. W. Babbit, was murdered on the plains by a band of Mormons.

I verily believe, also, the statement that other officers and friends of the Government have been in a most cruel and murderous manner put out of the way by these Mormons, as each action is in strict keeping with their character. I will here remark also, that all the plans for this Mormon treason against the Government were laid in councils at Nauvoo previous to the expulsion of the saints from the State of Illinois -- an expulsion caused by the wicked doings of the corrupt Danite leaders, including robberies and murders. While the Mormons were yet at Nauvoo, Brigham Young took the incipient steps toward the organization of the Danite banditti, by administering to such Mormons as he could influence on oath that, from that time forward they would be the persistent enemies of the United States Government, and the Gentiles generally. Since their removal from Illinois, they have added the Danite and other treasonable oaths and covenants, binding still stronger and stronger the confederacy of traitors in their new and far off Land of Zion, in the Valley of the Mountains.

I have no doubt whatever of the truth of the charges against the Mormon people of having committed the most wanton and cruel murders in the disguise of Indians; and if the spirits of their victims now sleeping in their graves at Nauvoo could but speak to the world they would reveal tales of cruelty and horror which would make the people stand aghast and cause these murderous, guilty, Mormon rebels to quake with fear, and possibly to recoil at the contemplation of their own wickedness.

I have good reason for believing that my brother Samuel H. Smith, died of poison at Nauvoo, administered by order of Brigham Young and Willard Richards, only a few weeks subsequent to the unlawful murder of my other brothers, Joseph and Hiram Smith, while incarcerated in Carthage jail. Several other persons who were presumed to stand between Brigham Young and the accomplishment of his ambitions and wicked designs, mysteriously disappeared from Nauvoo about the same time, and have never been heard from since.

Arvine Hodge, a young woman [sic - Mormon?], was murdered in a most shocking manner within ten or fifteen yards of Brigham Young's house. This was done, as the Mormons themselves admitted, to prevent some developments coming out in exposure of Brigham's guilty connection with a banditti of murderers and counterfeiters, who, in those days of flourishing Mormonism, ranged along the Mississippi river from St. Louis to Galena. Also, Brigham Young, in connection with John Taylor, A. Lyman, P. P. Pratt, E. Snow, H. C. Kimball, Geo. A. Smith, W. Woodruff, Orson Hyde, Willard Richards, (now dead,) Hosea Stout, Orson Pratt, (killed [sic] a few days ago,) and others known as the principal leaders of the Mormons, were the founders of the secret Danite banditti, or "destroying angels," as they are called by the Mormons. In regard to the designs of these Mormons to rob and plunder the California emigrants, and to commit certain depredations upon the General Government -- to hoax, fool, and to gull money out of them under various pretences. I testify that I have heard Mormons boast and talk of these designs in Nauvoo, previous to their leaving for the Salt Lake Valley, and have, also often heard Mormons talk openly of their designs in robbing the Gentiles and of putting to death dissenting Mormons; and that also, when they got among Indians, they would lead them on to the slaughter of the men, women and children of the American people. -- Suffice it to say, that in presenting to Congress my remonstrance to these views of Mormons at the time I have mentioned, I greatly endangered my life.

I escaped the penalty of the Danite law, which is death; but the Mormons robbed me of all my property -- confiscated everything I possessed, including a library of valuable books; also, valuable manuscripts and records of Church history prepared for the press. One of these manuscripts, Orson Pratt, a leading Danite, published in England, which has since been extensively circulated in Europe and various parts of the United States.

The terrible measures resorted to by the Destroying Angels (Danites) [in exacting] their vengeance upon their foes, should open the eyes of the people of this country, and keep them [on guard] for their safety. These demon Danites are constantly on the alert for their prey.

On conclusion, permit me to say that I am not a Mormon. The treachery, corruption and murderous practices of the leaders of the Mormon Church long since disgusted me with a doctrine which produces such results, and as a matter of course I left the heaven-defying traitors, as every honest man should do, and leave the guilty wretches to suffer the fate which they so richly merit, and which is certain, sooner or later, to overtake them. The guilty and treasonable oath which the 40,000 or 50,000 Mormons now in the Salt Lake Valley, and many others scattered in all parts of the country, have taken upon themselves at the hands of Brigham Young and the Danite followers, read [sic] as follows:

We quote from Increase Van Dusen's Expose of the notorious spiritual wife endowment of the Mormons, as practiced by Brigham Young and his accomplices in crime and villainy. Pages 26 and 27.

THE  OATH.

"You do solemnly swear in the presence of Almighty God. His holy angels and these witnesses, that you will avenge the blood of Joseph Smith on this nation, and teach the same to your children, and that you will from this time henceforth and forever begin and carry out hostilities against the nation, to keep the same intent a profound secret, now and forever, so help you God."

Again. We quote from page 57: "Sixth degree of the Temple," of said Mormon endowment:

"Mormon, though you have eaten of the bread of life, you are still liable not only to the natural but to the eternal death. But such can only befall you through faithlessness to your oath of initiation, for otherwise you are superior to all mortal sin. Betray that oath and you hang for all time and burn for all eternity, for in such case no power can shield you from the vengeance of the brotherhood and the punishment of hell. But honor it to the end and no crime which you can commit can deprive you of an everlasting reward in heaven. Look to those skeletons -- they are the bones of faithless Mormons. Behold those captives in that burning lake -- they are their tortured souls, and assuredly such shall be your reward if such shall be your provocation. But be faithful and fear not! Be true to Mormonism and no species of falsehood can effect you. Against a Mormon you must never fight; against a Mormon you must never swear. Your words must comfort them -- your money must succor them. As judges you must deliver them -- as brothers and sisters, live and die for them. You must exalt them into all offices which they covet; you must abandon clan, kin and country for their sake; and in fine, you must make Mormonism and everything that effects its interests the great aim and object of your life. And now go forth upon you [sic] mission and be this your motto:

An oath I have given
  Let me honor it well;
For to keep it is heaven,
  And to break it is hell.
Such was Mormonism in Nauvoo, Illinois -- and such is Mormonism in Utah.

    Respectfully,                     WILLIAM SMITH,

Brother of Joseph Smith, the murdered Patriarch, and Prophet of the Mormon church.


Note 1: The exact wording of William B. Smith's letter to the Tribune remains uncertain. The text is taken from a reprint in the July 11, 1857 issue of the Decatur Illinois State Chronicle, and is thought to be relatively accurate and complete.

Note 2: It was not long after writing the above letter, from Warren, Warren Co., Pennsylvania, that William B. Smith married Eliza Elsie Sanborn Brain of Cattaraugus Co., New York. Their first child, William Enoch Smith, was born July 24, 1858 in neighboring Erie Co., Pennsylvania. A probably reliable record indicates that William and Eliza were married at Kirtland, Ohio on Nov. 12, 1857, but another account says that the wedding was held in nearby Erie, Pennsylvania.

Note 3: William Smith was no stranger to northwestern Pennsylvania -- it was there that he met his first wife (and her sister, who became William's second legal spouse) while serving a Mormon preaching mission in 1832. William had visited the region as recently as the fall of 1855, when he attempted to form a new organization of the Mormon church, in cooperation with Martin Harris. Perhaps William met the Widow Brain at Kirtland, during his unsuccessful efforts there in 1855 (see notes appended to an article in the Apr. 30, 1855 issue of the Painesville Telegraph). The 1860 Federal census for Erie Co., Pennsylvania shows the couple living in Venango township, near the border with Chautauqua Co., New York, with young William Enoch and Eliza's two children from her previous marriage. The couple's second child, Edson Don Carlos Smith, was born at Elkander, Clayton Co., Iowa on Sept. 6, 1862. According to the recollection of this second son (written down at the request of B. H. Roberts in 1933), William B. Smith moved his family from Pennsylvania to Iowa between 1858 and 1862.

Note 4: William's nephew, Joseph Smith III, recalled in his later years that his Uncle William had once preached for the Baptists in New York or Pennsylvania. It is possible that Eliza Elsie Sanborn's family were members of the Baptist Church and that William joined that religious group for awhile. He says in the above letter, "I am not a Mormon," and that must have been the confession which William shared with his non-LDS friends, c. 1856-59, in northeastern Pennsylvania. Erie Co., Pennsylvania and Chautauqua Co., New York are adjoining counties, so the "Rev. William Smith" might easily have preached in both localities before eventually falling into disfavor there, for "teaching heretical doctrine." At about the same time as the War between the States began, William Smith moved his family back to Clayton Co., Iowa. He is said to have served in the Illinois Infantry during the Civil War -- probably in 1861-63 and then again in 1864-66.

Note 5: William speaks with obvious bitterness over his loss of "valuable books; also, valuable manuscripts" at the hands of the Mormons, as well as certain "records of Church history prepared for the press." His complaint here echoes something he wrote to Brigham Young, on July 13, 1856: "I notice also that you have that scroundrel of A. Babbit about you... he is the man who paid Isaac Sheen one thousand dollars [for] my trunk of Books and advised my wife to separate from me..." This same "trunk" William describes in his 1850 legal complaint against his wife, Roxie Ann Grant Smith, as "a trunk containing a large quantity of books, & the records, journals and proceedings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints." The 1954 LDS edition of Lucy Mack Smith's biography of her son, Joseph, contains this interesting summary of the manuscript's history: "Lucy Smith died near Nauvoo, May 5, 1855, but years prior to this date some of her effects were left in the hands of her son, William Smith, among them being the manuscript copy of this history. From William... the document fell... into the hands of Isaac Sheen... When in September, 1852, Apostle Orson Pratt... called on Mr. Sheen... and being shown the manuscript copy, he purchased it... [and] took it to Liverpool with him, where... it was published under his direction in 1853."

Note 6: Regarding the murder of Samuel H. Smith at Nauvoo, by the secret administration of poison to him during the summer of 1844, see the final paragraph of the item "Martyrs of the Latter Day Saints," as published in William Smith's Melchisedek & Aaronic Herald for Oct., 1849. This text (obviously supplied by William Smith) was copied into J. J. Strang's Gospel Herald of Nov. 1, 1849 without any citation. William's nephew, Elder Samuel H. B. Smith, purportedly responded to William's claims in this matter, in the June 6, 1857 issue of The Mormon, however the response may have been written in the nephew's name by Apostle John Taylor. See also the various notes appended to Samuel's death notice, as published in the Sept. 6, 1844 issue of the Bloomington Herald.

Note 7: William's mistake concerning the fate of LDS Apostle Orson Pratt is understandable, in light of the fact that some newspapers erroneously reported Parley P. Pratt's 1857 murder as having been perpetrated upon the person of "Orson Pratt" -- for an example, see the May 26, 1857 issue of the New York Times. William's reference for the supposed "Danite" murder of Almon W. Babbit may be found in the "Resignation of Judge Drummond," as published in the Apr. 14, 1857 issue of the New York Times.

AN  EX-MORMON  ON  MORMONISM.

Mr. John Hyde, late an elder of the Mormon sect, has been discoursing to the Californians in exposition of the evils and depravity of Mormonism. At Oakland City his address elicited the warm approbation of large audiences. The San Francisco Daily Globe publishes several resolutions commendatory of the sayings and suggestions of Mr. Hyde, one of which strikes us as peculiarly pertinent and philosophical.

Resolved, That the plan recommended by Mr. Hyde of destroying this demon of evil by means of railroads, facility of communication with them, and opportunity for the disaffected and wretched to escape, instead of personal persecution and forcible resistance to them, is, in our estimation, the wisest and most effecient that can be adopted to eradicate this foul stain from our land.

We have not the least doubt of the all-sufficiency of this plan. This abominable system of licentiousness, fraud, and spiritual tyranny can exist only while isolated from the rest of the civilized world. No sooner will traveling facilities bring these deluded and deluding creatures into close communication with our monogamic population, than Mormonism, Polygamy, Brigham Young, Brother Kimball, "The Twelve," and all their "whining wives," with the "saints" in general, and the recent importation of young girls in particular, will be a great way from Great Salt Lake City, or else be nowhere.


Note: John Hyde was sent as an LDS missionary to the Hawaiian Islands, but became disenchanted with Mormonism before he arrived in that place. See Hyde's 1857 book, Mormonism, Its Leaders and Designs for his views on the unique religious movement. For Hyde's excommunication notice, see the Jan. 21, 1857 issue of the Deseret News. For information on Hyde's activities in Hawaii, see various articles in the 1850s Honolulu papers, including those for Apr. 1, 1853, for Oct. 18, 1856, and for Oct. 25, 1856. Articles on John Hyde were also featured in several northern California newspapers during the mid-1850s. Hyde also offered the President advice on how to cope with the 1857 "Mormon Problem" in Utah, by way of a letter he saw published in the New York Herald.

ASSASSINATION  OF  PRESIDENT  P. P. PRATT.

Our readers will doubtless be startled with the above announcement; our heart is deeply pained to say it, but we have no reason for doubting the sad intelligence that has reached us, though, as yet, only by the way of the public press. A few days ago we were advised of his apprehension near Fort Gibson; and, close upon the receipt of that information, we learned, by telegraphic despatch, that he had been assassinated near Van Buren, Arkansas, May 13....

As we have not the space this week that we require to enter into details, and may, before another issue, receive additional information on the subject, we shall only say, for the benefit of those who are interested, that his assassins followed him some twelve miles from the place of trial, and, taking advantage of his lonely position, shot him.

Though we deeply deplore the loss to the Church of such a great and upright man, and the bereavement to his family, yet we mourn not. His life has been one of honor and faithfulness; his days have been well spent in the service of his God; his name is revered by thousands and tens of thousands, and will be honored by millions yet unborn; while that of his cowardly assassins, and those who have cheered them on to this damning deed, and who now rejoice over their crime, will be loathsome, and a stink in the nostrils of God and good men.


Notes: (forthcoming)

A Wicked Charge Exposed.
_______

Among the many who have rushed into print recently against Mormonism is one -- whom we would, for the sake of others, fain never name -- William Smith. He has [sent] a lengthy letter to the New York Tribune to help Drummond through the mess he has got into. As he only mentions one thing that has some claim to novelty and a notice of it from a proper person has been handed to us for publication, we bring him before our readers.

                                                                   New York, June 1, 1857.
Editor Mormon -- Dear Sir: I deem it a duty I owe to truth to notice through your valuable paper the letter of William Smith, addressed to the Editor of the N. Y. Tribune, and published in that paper, on the 28th ult., at least that portion of his letter touching the death of my father, Samuel H. Smith. He says:

"I have good reason for believing that my brother Samuel H. Smith, died of poison in Nauvoo, administered by order of Brigham Young and Willard Richards, only a few weeks subsequent to the unlawful murder of my two brothers, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, while incarcerated in Carthage jail."

However much I deplore that such a statement is given to the public I am in no manner surprised. My uncle's course -- since he was expelled from the church, has been such that I am prepared to read from his own pen any calumny against President Young and the leaders of the Church without astonishment.

William Smith knows that my father, his brother, died of billious fever and not of poison.

After the assassination of his two brothers, my father was pursued for some miles, by two of the mob, whose object was evidently to shoot him likewise. Fleeing for his life, he did his ultimate in bodily exertion to increase the swiftness of his horse, and in so doing was necessarily excited in body and mind. In this state he was compelled to ride through a creek which laid him down in sickness on his arrival in Nauvoo. He died of billious fever, of which fact there are many witnesses, and not of poison. The above is the only reliable statement concerning his death,

It is anything but agreeable to expose my uncle, nevertheless hustice to those accused and my own sense of obligation to stand by the truth, compel me to do so.
                I am, dear sir, yours, &c.,
                       Samuel H. B. Smith.

Apostates generally lie so glaringly that we seldom take the trouble to refute their statements. When we do notice them it is more generally with a view to furnishing the Church historian with links in the chain of their career than from any conviction that our labors are required to warm the public against their impositions. Where they are known the odor of their corruptions is sufficient to indicate the state of their being to all whose senses are not impaired by the same dark course, without our drawing aside the veil to expose the putrid mass whence it emenates. The writer of the foregoing letter has considered it his duty to expose his uncle's wickedness, though at the risk of incurring the displeasure of many esteemed relatives; but indisposed to wound others, he has confined his letter to that only which pertained directly to the death of his honored father. We approve of his course; our veneration for Joseph, Hyrum, Don Carlos and Samuel, worthy brothers who died for their faith in a living God, an unchangeable Redeemer, an everlasting Gospel -- in Mormonism; our high appreciation of the virtue that adorned the lives of their worthy and honored parents; our esteem for many of their relatives who have maintained their integrity before God -- men and women who have kept themselves pure and unspotted from the corruptions of an adulterous generation -- induce us to leave William Smith in the obscurity where his deeds have launched him. How has the mighty fallen! William Smith strikes hands with and endorses the "Temple mysteries" of that mean, filthy and corrupt Van Dusen, whose very presence disturbs the equilebrium of our stomach, and a feeling worse than that which springs from the sea-sickness creeps over our system when we look at him -- loathsomeness and disgust. -- ED.


Note 1: William's nephew, Elder Samuel H. B. Smith, purportedly wrote the letter published in the June 6, 1857 issue of The Mormon. Young Samuel was called at the April, 1857 Conference in Salt Lake City, to serve a mission in England, and he evidently reached New York City by June. However the response printed in the LDS newspaper, under Samuel's name, may have been scripted or significantly redacted by the paper's editor, Apostle John Taylor.

Note 2: Samuel Harrison Bailey Smith, the third child of Samuel H. Smith and Mary Bailey Smith, was born in Missouri, in 1838, and was not quite six years old at the time of his father's death, on July 30, 1844. It is very doubtful that thirteen years later he recalled the exact circumstances of his father's passing. His step-mother, Lucy Jane Clark Smith, was in the final days of a problem pregnancy confinement when Samuel H. Smith passed away, and she also may have been mentally isolated from her husband's rapid decline and demise. Lucy took young Samuel to Utah, where he was raised under the watchful supervision of the LDS leadership. Samuel H. Smith's second daughter, Mary Smith Norman, was about seven and a half (a year and a half older than young Samuel) at the time of her father's terminal illness. Her recollection of the matter is probably more reliable than that of young Samuel. Many years after the publication of her brother's communication in The Mormon, Lucy confided, in a Mar. 27, 1908 letter to her cousin, Josephine Donna Smith (Ina Donna Coolbrith), that their uncle, Elder Arthur Milliken and Lucy's father were both being slowly poisoned at the same time, in Nauvoo during the summer of 1844, when the two men were both receiving "medicine" from the same doctors, Willard Richards and an associate physician (John M. Bernhisel?). Elder Milliken stopped ingesting the substance and lived -- while Samuel H. Smith took all that had been prescribed for him and died almost immediately thereafter. According to Mary, after her father took the final dose of his "medicine," the man "spit [it] out and said he was poisoned. But it was too late -- he died." (For documentation see D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, p.152-153 and Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents I, p. 488)

Note 3: News of William Smith's claims was carried by telegraph and express mail rider to Utah, and on July 26, 1857, President Brigham Young publicly denied any involvement in the death of Samuel H. Smith: "William Smith has asserted that I was the cause of the death of his brother Samuel, when brother Woodruff, who is here to-day, knows that we were waiting at the depot in Boston to take passage east at the very time when Joseph and Hyrum were killed... a few weeks after, Samuel Smith died, and I am blamed as the cause of his death." (Deseret News Aug. 5, 1857, reprinted in Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 77)

Crescent City Oracle.
______

This lively little paper, established only a few months ago, is out in a bigger dress already -- it keeps pace with the growth of that young city, which, according to the Oracle, is destined to be a mighty grand place. Mr. L. O. Littlefield who has heretofore been editor and proprietor has vacated the editorial chair and made his retiring bow to the sanctum, "yielding to our voluntary inclination of entering into other pursuits." Mr. J. E. Johnson. of Council Bluffs Bugle, hoists his penant -- Editor and Proprietor. Hoping that the "other pursuits" of Mr. K. will not force his pen to the shelf, and wishing prosperity to his successor, we introduce to our readers an article of interest at the present moment.

MURDER OF HON. A. W. BABBITT.

We notice in the letter of resignation of Hon. W. W. Drummond to Attorney General Black, that he there, among other very grave charges, asserts that the Hon. A. W. Babbitt was murdered by white men disguised as Indians, by order of the authorities of Utah. In justice to the parties thus maligned, we will state that we have taken much pains to gather all the information possible calculated to throw light upon the death of our relative, Mr. Babbitt, and the particulars connected with the same; and we have not a shadow of a doubt but that Indians of the Cheyenne nation murdered him for revenge and plunder, and for the satisfaction of his friends, who have not heard the full particulars, we will recount them briefly.

As Secretary of Utah, the late and lamented Col. Babbitt purchased the Stationary and other necessaries for Legislative purposes, ^c., and at a proper season started it from Florence across the plains with ox teams under the charge of a Mr. Nichols. Late in August, with only one attendant and in an open carriage, Mr. B. left Florence for Utah. Upon arriving at Fort Kearney, he there found some of his stock, his wagons, and a portion of the goods, and one man wounded from his train, being all that remained, for of the number having been killed, three on the spot, and one (Mrs. Wilson) the next day after capture.

Mr. Babbitt hastened to purchase more cattle, and, gathering up the remains of his freight, started the train again forward, and wrote us two several letters, stating that he would start forward himself with two attendants the day following. These are, probably, the last he ever wrote.

Mr. Babbitt left the fort as had been arranged, and was never again seen by white men. All the emigration were ahead. He intended to reach Fort Leavenworth in three days and was making good his time. Some weeks later an Indian came in to a French trader's station with a gold watch which bore the initials of Mr. B's name and soon another came with a massive ring, which was also marked as a seal ring.

The Indians then being charged with the murder acknowledged they had done it. News was sent to the Fort and Major Wharton immediately sent out a detachment in search, which found Mr. Babbitt's carriage, trunk and many valuable papers; but nothing of the unfortunate victim but a few bones.

The Indians then confessed, that, having been insulted and abused by the parties in charge of the mail, and then were killed by the soldiers, a company of twelve had fallen upon Mr. Babbitt's ox train as being the first they had met, to avenge the wrong. That they had seen Mr. Babbitt arrive at the Fort and knew him, (he having crossed the plains nearly 20 times,) and that he was a big man, and by killing him, they might be likely to get plunder and revenge at the same time. They had gone on ahead and lay in wait' when he passed they followed him at a distance until he had stopped, the second day in the afternoon. Then they rode down upon him, yelling and screaming. Mr. B. shouted at them and motioned them to stop and pointed his pistol at them; but they passed on and he fired at them.

Frank Rowland (a young man accompanying him) stood with his arms by his side until shot down; the other man ran away in some willows. The Colonel fought like a tiger, fired all his arms, then clubbed his rifle and fought the whole twelve savages, disputing every inch as he slowly backed up to his carriage for protection behind. He had seriously wounded several, when one, more cowardly than the others, jumped up into the wagon, and, with a tomahawk, killed a brave and noble man.

Major Wharton still has possession of the ring which he obtained of the Indians, and some other valuables and relics, found on the spot of the murder.

Mr. _____, a French trader, has a fine gold watch which belonged to Mr. B., which he purchased of the Indians, together with some articles of minor value.

All that is now known of the murder of the late Mr. Babbitt, is obtained through the Indians themselves, who acknowledge the murder.

It seems to be a very malicious charge the ex-Judge is thus making against the people of Utah, without anything to justify him in doing so.

The widow of the late Mr. Babbitt is now on her return from Utah to this place. Upon her arrival, we shall, at the earliest moment, announce the receipt of anything further connected with his murder.
                      Crescent City Oracle, May 22.


Note 1: Elder Joel E. Johnson, editor of the Crescent City Oracle, was the brother-in-law of Almon W. Babbit, his sister Julia Ann Hills Johnson having married Elder Babbit at Kirtland on Nov. 23, 1833. Elder Johnson's telling of the story, in which the total blame is placed upon the Indians, is similar to the "cover story" long upheld by the LDS leadership in the case of the 1857 Mountain Meadow Massacre.

Note 2: Babbit's widow came out from Utah to investigate the murder in person. She interviewed various relevant parties, obtained signed statements, etc. In late July, 1857 the New York Herald published her findings -- which were that Cheyenne Indians, who knew her husband, had killed him. In 1914 her son, Don Carlos Babbit, furnished a similar account for publication in the 1914 Babbitt Family History. The text was written by Elder Anthon H. Lund, who quoted the story's essentials from an earlier account written by Orson F. Whitney.

Note 3: It is altogether possible that Almon W. Babbit was killed by Cheyenne Indians -- but, if so, they were assassins who knew that they had nothing to fear from Brigham Young after they had carried out the deathly deed. High ranking Mormons like Babbit enjoyed the automatic friendship and protection of Indian leaders, all along the trail from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake City. It is highly unlikely that even a renegade, leaderless band of Cheyenne would have murdered Elder Babbit, unless other, higher ranking Utahans had made it clear to them that such a man was an "apostate" and "fair game" for plunder. The modern reader can only wonder if a "Lamanite missionary" and "Danite" like Elder Jack Reddin were not standing by, watching from a distance, as the tragic events occurred.

The Mormons Defiant.

We were in the right of it last week, in discrediting the rumour that a portion of the U. S. Utah expedition, five hundred strong, had been cut off by Indians or Mormons. So far no blood has been shed. It is true however that the unclean tribe has commenced open war upon the national forces, and that a train of seventy-five waggons, loaded with supplies and provisions, was captured and destroyed, on the 5th of last month, at a point which it is needless to specify, but which may be set down as distant from Great Salt Lake City about one hundred and eighty miles. Why this train had no military escort -- being midway between two detachments, and some thirty or forty miles from each, it is none of our business to enquire. And a score of similar questions, presenting themselves on the arrival of successive mails, may be left to the military critics of this country, who organize themselves into gratuitous and permanent courts-marshalls whenever and wherever they find food for their in genious comments.

But the loss of a train, serious as it is, is not the sum total of the bad news from Utah. Brigham Young, with matchless effrontry, has proclaimed martial law, and called upon his followers to resist the invasion of their territory. At the same time he has opened a communication with Colonel Alexander who heads the U. S. troops, forbidding his further advance, but offering him, with sarcastic impudence, the privilege of remaining in his encampment, on condition that he deliver up the arms and ammunition of his command. And, having burnt the grass and thus devastated large tracts of the dreary country through which lies the route to the Mormon capital, it must be owned that the ursurping Governor argues his points at considerable advantage.


Notes: (forthcoming)

IMPORTANT  FROM  THE  MORMON  WAR.
_______

Advances of the Army.
_______

PREPARATIONS  FOR  HOSTILITIES.
_______

SPECIAL BOUNTY TO THE SOLDIERS -- THE INDIANS NEUTRAL.
_______

Severe Weather -- Animals Frozen.

From Our Special Correspondent.

                                             CAMP IN THE SOUTH PASS, Oct. 17, 1857.
I have thawed my ink with some difficulty. The thermometer indicates 14 degrees above zero, and there is a cold now storm and a furious wind. The elements have begun to fight in earnest in behalf of the Mormons; but the army has no right to complain, for thus far it has been remarkably favored by the weather.

When I wrote to you on the 13th, announcing the commencement of hostilities, and complaining of the absence, at such a conjuncture, of the commanding officer of the expedition and the Governor of the Territory, we had little idea that two days would bring us such good news... [remainder of article illegible]

---

THE  MORMON  WAR.
______

We have been favored with the following extracts from private letters, written by an officer of high rank in the Utah Expedition...

                                                             CAMP IN THE SOUTH PASS
                                                             Sunday, Oct, 18, 1857.
Here we are, 918 miles from Fort Leavenworth and only 2 1/2 miles from the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, which divides the waters running east for the Gulf of Mexico from those emptying into the Pacific. Col. Albert S. Johnston of the Second Cavalry, the "Commander of the Army for Utah," joined us two days since with a small escort. He will remain here for five or six days, until all the supply trains are up, as well as some additional troops, and then proceed to join the main forces of the army, which will be soon but four or five days' march from here. When we go, I shall have the cavalry and infantry about 300 men under my command. I shall have to serve as escort (say) 11 trains and (about) 3,000 animals. Before you receive this, you will have known from Brigham Young's proclamation, as well as his letter to Col. Alexander, that Utah is in a state of rebellion, and that we are at open war with them...
[remainder of article illegible]


Notes: (forthcoming)

Army for Utah.

The latest advices from the army, which has been sent to pass the Winter amid the snows of Wahsatch Mountains, are anything but encouraging. In fact, they tend to confirm the worst fears which have been entertained as to the result of this ill-starred expedition. There the troops are, a thousand miles and more from the frontier, isolated amid the snows and among mountains of which the Mormons, and they alone, know all the passes. Already, at the commencement of Winter, their animals were perishing at the rate of a hundred a day. The grass is all burnt, and their supply of provisions, notwithstanding the vast sums of money spent on the commissariat and transportation departments, is so short that a very strict economy, if not, in facts, putting the troops on short allowance, will be necessary to carry them through the Winter. With inaction and short allowance will come disease and discontent, and it is but reasonable to expect that by the Spring the effective force of the troops will be very greatly diminished. -- Without draft cattle or means of transportation it will be impossible for them to move; and instead of marching against the Mormons, they will be exceedingly lucky if the Mormons do not march against them.

It seems highly probable that Brigham Young will represent to his deluded followers that the financial disasters which have visited us are a judgment from heaven upon us for our sin and wickedness in making war upon the Saints; and should the Spring present the soldiers, as seems almost certain, in an enfeebled condition, he may be apt to consider that very fact as a call... [remainder of clipping cut off]


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMONS.
_______

Character of the Mormon Leaders -- Will the Mormons Emigrate? --
Probabilities of their Return to Missouri -- the Secret Temple in Jackson County --
Determination of Brigham Young to Resist -- Fanaticism of his Followers.
_______

From Our Own Correspondent.

                      Sacramento, Thursday, Feb. 4, 1858.

In the time of Joe Smith, the Mormon Prophet, that personage found considerable difficulty in managing his most influential disciples. But, when they refused to believe new theories, or go on certain missions, or to give adequate pecuniary aid to the cause, he would manage to attain his object, and retain their support, by being delivered of a new revelation. These revelations, were, generally, little webs of argument interwoven with arbitrary assertions, wherein the individual, or individuals, offending, flattered to gladness by the Lord's special attention, were ensnared like so many flies. Some of these, along with those of a more spiritual cast, and others that Smith allowed his head disciples to be delivered of, have been gathered into a printed volume, called the "Book of Doctrines and Covenants," which is more perused than the Mormon Bible. In it one gets a glimpse of the foundation doctrines of the present Church, but a perusal of the outside revelations is necessary before one fully sees Mormonism, glaring with the Yankee signet of dollars and cents," and the stains of low desires. Since Smith's death, the occasions upon which Brigham Young has attempted to enunciate direct revelations have been few, and unlike the Prophet's half-persuasive inspirations, his are mere commands, ungarnished with rhetoric or argument. About the last of the kind, directing the present location of the Mormons, was given forth the morning after the encampment of the first company of pioneers upon the present site of Great Salt Lake City. By abstaining from the direct assertion of revelations, Young has rather increased than diminished his power over the Mormons. He possesses considerable caution and judgment, and not even such unfortunate events as the ravages of the crickets and grasshoppers caused him to make any unqualified assertions to quiet the voices of hunger, while, at the same time, he triumphantly pointed to his former exhortations to have the surplus grain hoarded instead of trafficked to the Gentiles.

Kimball is a more visionary character, and, once in a while, gives the outlines of a prophetic revelation, keeping clear, however, of offence to Young by avoiding new theories. As for Wells, he never was supposed to be guilty of revealing anything by words but what urgent business called for. The Twelve are very fond of their little revelations suited to their particular exigencies, when away from Brigham's eye; but are content to merely rearrange the doctrinal patchwork when in his presence, and none of their new points are considered aught else than theories until approved of by him. It will, therefore, be seen that Young, although he maintains a cautious reserve, and makes no vain boasts of his power of receiving revelations, has so wrought the enchantment of his authority as to occupy a higher appreciation in the index of divinity than Joe Smith in his falmiest day. The greater body of the Mormons receive the assertions of Young as coming from a mind continually illumined by revelation, and according to the prominence he gives those assertions so are they exalted in the eyes of his disciples. Nothing is clearer, than the fact that Young, when he puts forth any unmodified prophecy concerning the future movements of the Mormons, has fully considered its meaning, and intends to sustain it if possible.

In the winter of 1855 I heard Brigham Young deliver a discourse in the Tabernacle, wherein he discouraged outside settlement, particularly that of San Bernardino, and tried to throw a light of sanctity over the individual misfortunes of his disciples. The pith of the sermon was contained in the following remarks: "Now, brethren mark my words; whenever any portion of this people find a place where the soil is excellent and the climate mild, a place, in fact, where they can live with but little work, there they will find persecution and will be driven out. It has been so in all the places where this people have sojourned, and will be so in any place of settlement with more favorable circumstances than are to be found here. And I tell you, brethren, when this people again move, it will not be West into California, nor North into Oregon, nor south into Mexico." This was spoken with an exphasis and tone of voice that seemed to giveit the intentional cast of a right prophecy, and, as such, it is recorded in the memory of half of Utah's population. From the lasy sentence, the only conclusion deductible was that the next immigration would be eastward. And that such a migration is the general intention of the Mormons, when they finally quit Utah, I will now endeavor to show.

Before the Mormons abandoned Jackson County, Mo., a chosen number secretly laid the foundation of the future Temple, and then, carefully covering all traces of their work with dirt, planted it over. The location of this spot is held as a church secret. The idea of shortly returning to build this Temple is continually fostered by new anexdotes, passing current from time to time, to the effect that the Lord is suffering the hearts of the people of Jackson County, who desire their return; that some of the present possessors refuse to sell the land wrested from the Mormons, professing to only hold it in trust until their return, &c.

Those different off-shoots from Mormonism, known as Rigdonites, Strangites, Wm. Smithites, Gladdenites, &c., though differing as to the true successor of Joe Smith, look back to him as their foundation pillar, and forward to the Jackson County Millennium. And, it is said, that the number of Mormons passively residing in the States is large; while returning missionaries report finding in those localities where the Mormons formerly had their head-quarters, hundreds secretly professing Mormonism, and awaiting the gathering. This faithfulness to religious views is nothing new in the world, but the unity of Mormon designs is worthy of notice in this connection. The individual object of a pilgrimage to Utah is to undergo the secret ceremony known as "receiving endowments," after which each Mormon considers himself duly ticketed for Zion. Some of the men turn again to the States to bide the[ir] good time. Two years ago an old gentleman quietly proposed to lead back five hundred wagons to Jackson County, direct, and appointed a secret rendezvous in the mountains. Two weeks after his departure, Young publicly and significantly remarked, "He is still waiting there." Among Young's arguments for the Saints to remain together, and build towns in spite of expectant mobs, is that thus they are perfecting themselves, not only in religious knowledge and duties, but also, in the matter of architecture, which will be an essential thing in Zion...

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

NEWS FROM UTAH AND THE WEST.
_______

ACTION OF THE KANSAS PEOPLE. INTERESTING FROM SALT LAKE CITY
ESCAPE OF A DISGUSTED MORMON - PROBABILITIES OF A PEACEFUL RESULT
BRIGHAM YOUNG LIKELY TO RETREAT - LACK OF MILITARY MATERIAL
CONDITIONS OF THE FEMALES, ETC.
_______

From Our Own Correspondent.

(under construction)

IMPORTANT  FROM  UTAH.
___________

THE HEGIRA TO THE SOUTH.
___________

Salt Lake City Almost Deserted.
___________

40,000 SAINTS EMIGRATING

                                                  St. Louis, Tuesday, June 15, 1858.

Col. Thomas L. Kane, from Camp. Scott May 16, passed Boonesville this evening. He reports that Gov. Cumming had returned to Salt Lake City after making an ineffectual attempt to stop the Mormon hegira to the South. Salt Lake City and the northern settlements were nearly deserted, a few persons only remaining to guard the buildings. Forty thousand persons are said to be in motion, their trains extending for miles down the valley. The advanced trains were already 300 miles distant.

To evade answering where they are bound, they say they are going south, but their supposed destination is Cedar City or [the north part of] Sonora. There were 50 males at Camp Scott. Col. Hoffman's train was [just] twenty miles from the Platte Bridge. Col. Johnston would wait the arrival of the Peace Commissioners.

The Indians were annoying the Mormons. They call them squaws and say that they won't fight. Brigham Young had delivered the great seal, records, &c., which it was supposed had been destroyed, to Gov. Cumming. The recent heavy rains etended far to the west, and all the streams are full.


                                                  St. Louis, Tuesday, June 16, 1858.

A dispatch dated Leavenworth the 13th inst., brought by the United States Express to Boonesville, says, that two gentlemen names [Malean] and Nickerson, arrived there last night in 29 days from Camp Scott. They left Fort Bridger on the 14th of May, eight days subsequent to the last express. Gov. Cumming was still at Salt Lake City... [remainder illegible]


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMONS.
_______

COLONEL KANE'S STATEMENTS ON THE WAY HOME FROM SALT LAKE.
MOVEMENTS OF THE MORMONS - WHERE THEY ARE PROBABLY GOING.
GOV. CUMMING AND HIS MOVEMENTS IN UTAH.

(under construction)

INTERESTING  FROM  UTAH.
_______

PREPARATIONS OF THE ARMY FOR THE MARCH ON SALT LAKE CITY.
ARRIVAL OF COLONEL HOFFMAN AND CAPT. MARCY.
THE BURNING OF SUPPLY TRAINS IN OCTOBER - OTHER MORMON OUTRAGES.

(under construction)

IMPORTANT  FROM  UTAH.
_______

A Week's Later -News from the Army & Salt Lake
The Army to be Received Peaceably by the Mormons.
Brigham Young & his Followers Still at Provo.
Movements Of Troops.

(under construction)

THE  MORMONS:
_______

INTERESTING  LETTER  FROM  UTAH.

(under construction)

 


Notes: A letter signed: "A citizen of Utah." He tells of current events in Salt Lake City, the Peace Commissioners, Colonel Kane, Gov. Cumming, etc.

PROBABILITY  OF  ANOTHER  MORMON  EXODUS:

_______

BRIGHAM YOUNG AND THE GENTILE REPORTERS
CESSATION OF PREACHING -- INACCESSIBILITY OF THE PROPHET.

(under construction)

 


Notes: A letter signed: "A citizen of Utah." He tells of current events in the Territory.

UTAH. CONDITION  OF  MORMON  AFFAIRS.
_______

DELUGE OF BRIGHAM YOUNG - HIS CLAIMS AGAINST THE ARMY
POLYGAMIC PRACTICES, THE COURTS, ETC.

(under construction)

 


Notes: A letter signed: "A.B.C.," dated Great Salt Lake City, Saturday, July 24 1858 He tells of current events in the Territory.

U T A H.
______

300 MORMON WOMEN RENOUNCING THE FAITH.

(Letter from Brigham Young, etc. -- under construction)

 


Notes: (forthcoming)

"A Gentile And His Mormon Bride
Separated In Utah"

(public whipping of bride by LDS -- under construction)

 


Notes: (forthcoming)

[Greeley's Interview with Brigham Young]

                                        SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, July 13, 1859.

My friend, Dr. Bernhisel, M. C. (Mormon Church) took me this afternoon, by appointment, to meet Brigham Young, President of the Mormon Church, who had suggested a willingness to receive me at two PMJ. After some unimportant conversation on general topics, I stated that I had come in quest of fuller knowledge respecting the doctrines and polity of the Mormon church and would like to ask some questions bearing directly on these, if there were no objection. President Young avowed his willingness to respond to all pertinent inquiries. The conversation proceeded substantially as follows:

HG: Am I to regard Mormonism (so called) as a new religion or as simply a new development of Christianity?

BY: We hold that there can be no new Christian Church without a priesthood directly commissioned by and in immediate communication with the Son of God and Savior of mankind. Such a church is that of the Latter day Saints, called by their enemies Mormons; we know of no other that even pretends to have present and direct revelations of God's will.

HG: Then I am to understand that you regard all other churches professing to be Christian as the Church of Rome regards all churches not in communion with itself -- as schismatic, heretical, and out of the way of salvation.

BY: Yes, substantially.

HG: What is the position of your church with respect to slavery?

BY: We consider it of divine institution and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham shall have been removed from his descendants.

HG: Are there any slaves now held in this territory?

BY: There are.

HG: Do your territorial laws uphold slavery?

BY: Those laws are printed -- you can read for yourself. If slaves are brought here by those who owned them in the States, we do not favor their escape from their owners?

HG: Am I to infer that Utah, if admitted as a member of the Federal Union, will be a slave state?

BY: No, she will be a free state. Slavery here would prove useless and unprofitable. I regard it generally as a curse to the master. I myself hire many laborers and pay them fair wages. I could not afford to own them. I can do better than subject myself to an obligation to feed and clothe their families, to provide and care for them in sickness and health. Utah is not adapted to slave labor.

HG: Let me now be enlightened with regard to more especially to your church polity: I understand that you require each member to pay over one tenth of all he produces or earns to the Church.

BY: That is the requirement of our faith.

HG: What is done with the proceeds of this tithing?

BY Part of it is devoted to building temples and other places of worship; part to helping the poor and needy converts on their way to this country; and the largest portion to the support of the poor among the Saints.

HG: Is none of it paid to the bishops and other dignitaries of the Church?

BY Not one penny.

HG: How, then, do your ministers live?

BY: By the labor of their own hands, like the first Apostles. I am the only person in the Church who has not a regular calling apart from the Church's service.

HG: Can you give any rational explanation of the aversion and hatred with which your people are generally regarded by those among whom they have lived and with whom they have been brought directly into contact.

BY: No other explanation than that which is afforded by the crucifixion of Christ and the kindred treatment of God's ministers, prophets, and saints in all ages.

HG: How general is polygamy among you?

BY: I could not say. Some of those present (heads of the Church) have each but one wife; others have more; each determines what is his individual duty.

HG: What is the largest number of wives belonging to any one man?

BY: I have fifteen; I know of no one who has more; but some of those sealed to me are old ladies whom I regard rather as mothers than wives, but whom I have taken home to cherish and support.

HG: Does not Christ say that he who puts away his wife, or marries on whom another has put away, commits adultery?

BY: Yes, and I hold that no man should ever put away a wife except for adultery -- not always even for that. Such is my individual view of the matter. I do not say that wives have never been put away in our church, but that I do not approve of the practice.

GREELEY CONTINUES WITH NOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS:

Such is, as nearly as I can recollect, the substance of nearly two hours conversation. [Brigham Young] spoke readily, not always with grammatical accuracy, but with no appearance of hesitation or reserve, and with no apparent desire to conceal anything. We was very plainly dressed in thin summer clothing and with no air of sanctimony or fanaticism. In appearance, he is a portly, frank, good-natured, rather thick-set man of fifty five, seeming to enjoy life, and in no particular hurry to get to heaven. His associates are plain men, evidently born and reared to a life of labor, and looking as little like crafty hypocrites or swindlers as any body of men I have ever met.

I have a right to add here, because I said it to the assembled chiefs at the close of the above colloquy, that the degradation (or if you please the restriction) of women to the single office of childbearing and its accessories is an inevitable consequence of the system here paramount. I have not observed a sign in the streets, an advertisement in the journals, of this Mormon metropolis, whereby a woman proposes to do anything whatever. No Mormon has ever cited to me his wife's or any woman's opinion on any subject; no Mormon woman has been introduced or has spoken to me; and, though I have been asked to visit Mormons in their houses, no one has spoken of his wife (or wives) desiring to see me, or his desiring me to make her (or their) acquaintance, or voluntarily indicated the existence of such a being or beings.

One remark made by President Young I think I can give accurately, and it may serve as a sample of all that was offered on that side. It was in these words, I think exactly:

"If I did not consider myself competent to transact a certain businesss without taking my wife's or any woman's counsel with regard to it, I think I ought to let that business alone."

The spirit with regard to woman, of the entire Mormon, as of all other polygamic systems, is fairly displayed in this avowal. Let any such system become established and prevalent, and woman will soon be confined to the harem, and her appearance in the street with unveiled face will be accounted immodest.

I joyfully trust that the genius of the nineteenth century tends to a solution of the problem of woman's sphere and destiny radically different from this


Note: For more sympathetic patter on "Utah and the Mormons" by Editor Horace Greely, see his article in the 1859 Tribune Almanac.

THE  CONDITION  OF  UTAH.
_______

The Aims and Methods of the Mormon Hierarchy
State of Society -- Call for Intervention

(under construction)

 


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMONS.
_______

A  SCHISM  AMONG  THE  SAINTS.

(under construction)

 


Notes: (forthcoming)

"UTAH  AND  THE  MORMONS.

A pleasant hour with Capt. Walter M. Gibson, just returned from a Winter's sojourn with the Latter Day Saints ar Salt Lake, has supplied us with some additional items of interest respecting that singular people and their fortunes.

The oft-revived story of the Mormons wishing or consenting to sell out their landed possessions, in Utah, is a baseless fabrication. They like that country better and better; they are vanquishing the difficulties and impediments incidental to pioneer adventure, and are fast surrounding themselves (at least the magnates are) with the conforts of civiized life. Of cattle and grain they have good store; sheep are multiplying among them; wollen factories are beginning to turn out fabrics; excellent porcelain clay has been discovered among them, and emigrants from the English Potteries will soon be converting it into elegant and serviceable wares. Of iron ore, they have abundance, and most of the ruder manufactures are already naturalized among them. Fuel has been their chief desideratum -- miserable wood (cotton or quaking asp) being usually $15, and often $20 per cord in Salt Lake City, and abundant hardly anywhere. But mineral coal has lately been discovered in Salt Lake Valley, which, though poor in quality, gives promise to better; and a choice article is being mined on the waters of the Weber, hardly 30 miles from the Saints' metropolis. There are intervening mountains (the Wahsatch), but they can be passed by means of canyons, and a tram road from the Weber mines to the City will reduce the price of coal in the latter to $5 per ton at most. And then let New York look to it that she be not outstripped in the race for American preeminence!

Timber is fearfully scarce in Utah. In all its vast area, there is not today a stick growing (unless recently planted) that would furnish forth an ac-helve, much less an axel-tree. This dearth must be overcome by irrigation and planting. Trees are nowhere more thrifty than in the irrigated streets of Salt Lake City, and, though these are mainly the worthless bitter cottonwood, there is no reason to doubt that the oak, pine or hickory would flourish just as well. A great nursery and plantation of choice timber is greatly needed in Salt Lake Valley, and would afford a magnificent return. Meantime, the lucky inroad of the Federal Army has obvisted any present sense of need. Great provision wagons, whose axels had borne the jerks and strains of twelve hundred miles of travel over unmade raods and unbridged gullies, bearing loads of two or three tns have been sold in profusion...


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMONISM.
_______

Joseph Smith, the Mormon Leader.

In the Rochester Union & Advertiser we find the following account of the peculiarities which marked Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, previous to the publication of his Revelations:

"I knew him well before his book was published. He was then a wood-cutter on my farm, more willing to live by his wits than his axe, and worked through the winter in company with some twenty or thirty others, rough backwoodsmen. He and his two associates built a rude cabin of poles and brush, covered with leaves and earth, in the woods open to the south, with a camp-kettle in front for cooking; and here, at night, around a huge fire, he and his companions would gather, ten or a dozen at a time, to tell hard stories and sing songs and drink cheap whiskey, (two shillings per gallon), and although there were some hard cases among them, Joe could beat them all for tough stories and impracticable adventures, and it was in this school, I believe, that he first conceived his wonderful invention of the golden plates and marvelous revelations. And as these exercises were rehearsed nightly to his hearers, and as their ears grew longer to receive them, so his tales grew the more marvelous to please them, until some of them supposed that he also believed his own stories. But of this fact, there is no proof. He was impudent and assuming among his fellows, but ignorant and dishonest, plausible and obsequious to others, with sufficient low cunning to conceal his ignorance, but in my estimation, utterly unqualified to compose even such a jumble of truth and fiction as his book contained.

The most probable theory of the origin that I remember to have heard, is that it was that strange work of an eccentric Vermont clergyman, written to while away the tedious hours of long confinement by nervous debility, and this idle production, after his decease, fell into Joe's hands, and that having learned something of the gullibility of his cronies, this incidental matter incited in him the first idea of turning his foolish stories to account, and thus enable him to make the surreptitious manuscript the text book of his gross imposition. I speak understandingly in saying he was shameless as well as dishonest, and I relate a small matter to prove it. During the winter he was chopping for me. I was in the habit of riding through the clearing daily to see that the brush was piled as agreed, the wood fairly corded, and no scattering trees left uncut, and in this way became well acquainted with the conduct of every man; and on each Saturday took an account and paid the hands. My mode was to ride around while each party measured their ranks and turned a few sticks on the top to show they had been counted. In this way I one day took Joe's account, he accompanying me and removing the sticks on the top of each rank. After thus going the rounds and returning to the shanty, he said that he had another rank or two that I had not seen, and led me in a different direction in a roundabout way, to wood that I had already measured, but the sticks on top had all been laid back to their places. I saw the trick at once, and could only make him confess his attempt to cheat, by re-measuring the whole lot; and all this he thought would have been a fair trick if I had not found it out. So much for the man in small things.

After he left in the spring, I lost sight of him, until my friend Judge Whiting (long deceased) of the very respectable firm of Whiting & Butler, Attorneys, who was then loaning money on mortgages for a trust company, asked me if I knew anything about Joe Smith. I told him that I knew him for a great rogue in a small way, when he informed me that he pretended to be a prophet, and was about publishing a Book of Revelations, and had induced two credulous men in Palmyra to apply to him (Judge W.) for money on mortgages to publish it.

I learned afterward that Joe and an associate had prevailed on a worthy citizen of Waterloo (Col. C._____) who was then in a state of great depression from the recent loss of his wife, to join their fraternity and cast in his lot among them; and that while they were at his home taking inventory of his effects for the purpose, his son, a spirited young man, came in and on finding what they were about threatened them so strongly with a prosecution as swindlers, that they left for the time until his father had recovered from his delusion and escaped them.

I know nothing further of his doings here, but after his removal to Ohio, when he established a bank that failed, I was shown one of his bills, and I recollect that on examining it I thought the device on the face of it was most admirably appropriate, viz.: A sturdy fellow shearing a sheep."


Notes: (forthcoming)

AN  INDIO-MORMONITE  ROMANCE.

The Pringle Family of Mormons who left Oneida County, N.Y. for Salt Lake City in 1847. They were attacked by Indians. One son named John was captured....

... another son named William and his exploits throughout the years and his meeting in a saloon in Cleveland where he was united with his brother John.


Notes: (forthcoming)

AMONG  THE  MORMONS.
_______

RESPONSE TO THE ALLEGED STATEMENTS OF
BRIGHAM YOUNG JR.
_______

CONDITION OF AFFAIRS AMONG THE LATTER DAY SAINTS.

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

BRIGHAM  AND  NEWMAN.
_______

THE PROJECTED DEBATE ON POLYGAMY
AN IGNOMINIOUS FAILURE,
_______

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE CHAPLAIN OF
THE SENATE IN MORMONDOM
A DESPERATE MAN AND AN UNCIRCUMCISED PHILISTINE.
________

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMON  POLITY.
_______

A Letter from the Late Bishop, George A. Smith.
_______

A Virulent Narrative of the Alleged Grievances of
the Latter-Day Saints.

To the Editors of the Evening Post:

The press of late has been commenting on an atrocious massacre perpetrated by a combined force of Indians and outlaws in Utah eighteen years ago, one of the whites having been arrested and brought to trial.

Travelling extensively in that region during the last two years, I have in various publications placed before the public facts and impressions concerning the country and people, which I have endeavored to write out with impartiality. That these essays have been criticized was to be desired, inasmuch as a spirit of inquiry has been elicited; and that every [----iage] favorable to the great majority of the inhabitants among whom I sojourned has been made the groundwork of personal abuse by a journal in Salt Lake City, which assumes to be the organ of the minority, was naturally expected. For [affirmations?] [coming] from a Mormon source I am grateful, as they afford proof that a middle path has been pursued, the missiles coming from both sides of the road.

I offer no apology for the length of the enclosed communication. It was addressed to me last winter by Mr. George A. Smith, a prominent "apostle" of the Mormon church, who, but for his unexpected death yesterday, might perhaps have been the successor of Brigham Young. I have before referred to him as "a man of unimpeachable integrity."

His paper is interesting in various particulars. That part of it devoted to railroad enterprises will commend itself to gentlemen engaged in those undertakings; the romance of frontier life will gratify others; the enthusiasm of religious belief will call to mind the tales of the old Covenanteers; and the defence of Mormonism by one of its most sincere supporters, whose conscientious services the Mormon system has just lost, is at least entitled to the consideration of the curious.     J. C.
    New York, September 2, 1875.

---

                          St. George, Utah, December 4, 1874.
John Codman, Esq., Salt Lake City:

Dear Sir: Your letter of November 20 is received, and also your book entitled the "Mormon Country." I have hastily read it with great pleasure, as I had never had the privilege of doing so before. I should have been pleased if you could have visited this country, I was glad to learn that your tour through Sevier, Millard and Juab was agreeable and instructive.... [two or three paragraphs missing]

... Joseph Smith and his counsellor were tarred and feathered, in the spring of 1832, as a piece of modern Christian discipline, two Christian (?) ministers presiding on the occasion. A child sick with the measles died from the exposure caused by breaking into the house and tearing Joseph out of bed. In 1833 the Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist clergyman, and the Rev. D. Pixley, Presbyterian, were foremost in administering Christian discipline to the Latter-Day Saints in Jackson county, Missouri, aided by lesser lights in the Christian faith, tore down homes, destroyed printing offices, pillaged goods, whipped, tarred and feathered; killed wounded, and drove fifteen hundred people disarmed and destitute to perish in the wilderness, burned two hundred and sixteen of their houses, which stood upon lands for which they had paid their specie to the United States Treasury. The same Christian discipline, in a milder way, was again administered in Clay county. They were driven to the naked, uninhabited prairies of Caldwell county, their enemies even declaring that it was such a worthless country, and so destitute of timber, that the Mormons were welcome to it. Two years of industry and enterprise, with great faith on the part of our people, made Caldwell one of the most flourishing counties in the state... [paragraphs missing]

... your book, written with such apparent fairness, [bases] upon the extreme utterances of men, many of them extremists, a faith almost as brutal as that practised upon us by our religious trainers, the Christian clergy, and their assistants in the United States. Page 156 of your book says: "It is scarcely pretended that Brigham Young gave the order for the 'Mountain Meadow Massacre,' but he took no steps to bring the murderers to justice."

... Now the facts of this are, President Young, who has been superseded as Governor by Alfred Cummings, requested him and the United States District Attorney Wilson to investigate this matter. He offered to go with them; guaranty their protection, and use his influence for the arrest of every party desired; and that a fair trial be had. This was refused by the judiciary, notwithstanding it was urged by the Governor and Attorney., as an investigation of this subject would not bring guilt upon those whom political and religious [intriguantes?] wished to criminate. We are still desirous for a fair investigation of this subject, but do not want it investigated before a religious bigot or political trickster. Let the officers who handle this matter be just, high minded men....


Note: Unfortunately this clipping, containing these very interesting letters by John Codman and George A. Smith is fragmentary and partly illegible. Once a proper copy can be located, the entire text will be posted here.

A FOUNDER OF MORMONISM.
_______

DEATH OF SIDNEY RIGDON
HIS CONNECTION WITH THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE MORMONS.

From the Pittsburg (Penn.) Telegraph, July 18.

The early history of Mormonism is intimately blended withthe history of this county and of Western Pennsylvania, the Book of Mormon -- the bible of the polygamists -- having been printed in this city, and two of the most noted founders of the "twin relic" having had "a local habitation and a name" in our midst. Solomon Spalding, the author of of the Book of Mormon, lived in this city from 1812 to 1814, when he removed to Amity, Washington County, where he died and was buried. Sidney Rigdon, who died in Friendship, Alleghany County, N. Y., on Friday last, was born in St. Clair Township, this county, Feb. 19, 1793. The manuscript of the Book of Mormon was set up in a printing office in Pittsburg in 1812, with which young Rigdon was connected. Soon after getting possession of a copy of Spalding's manuscript he left the printing office and became a preacher of doctrines peculiar to himself and very similar to those afterward incorporated into the Book of Mormon. He gained a small number of converts to his views, when about 1829 he became associated with Joseph Smith. It is asserted that through Rigdon's agency Smith became possessed of a copy of Spalding's manuscript. Smith and Rigdon then set about to establish a Church having at first vague and confused ideas as to its nature and design, but with the Book of Mormon as their text and authority, they began to preach this new gospel; and Smith's family and a few of his associates, together with some of Rigdon's followers, were soon numerous enough to constitute the Mormon Church, as it was styled by the people around them, or the Latter Day Saints, as they presently began to call themselves. The Church was organized in Manchester, New York, in 1830.

The following year the believers were led by Smith and Rigdon to Kirtland, Ohio, which was to be the seat of the New Jerusalem. Here converts were rapidly made, and Smith and Rigdon established a mill and store, and set up a bank without a charter, of which Smith appointed himself President and made Rigdon cashier. The neighboring country was flooded with notes of a very doubtful value, and in consequence of this and other business transactions, in which Smith and Rigdon were accused of fraudulent dealing, a mob, on the night of March 22, 1832, dragged the two prophets from their beds and tarred and feathered them. About a year afterward a government for the Church was instituted, consisting of three Presidents, Smith, Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams, who together were styled the First Presidency, a revelation from the Lord having declared that the sins of Rigdon and Williams were forgiven, and that "they were henceforth to be accounted as equal with Smith in holding the keys of His kingdom."

In January, 1838, the bank at Kirtland having failed, Smith and Rigdon, to avoid arrest for fraud fled in the night, pursued by their creditors, and took refuge in Missouri. The Mormons soon became involved in quarrels with the Missourians, and toward the close of 1838 the conflict assumed the character and proportions of civil war. The Militia of the State was called out, and Rigdon and Smith were charged with treason, murder, and felony. Rigdon was released on a habeas corpus. Shirtly after this Rigdon and Smith established themselves in Illinois and built the City of Nauvoo.

After the death of Joe Smith, Sidney Rigdon aspired to succeed him as head of the Church, but Brigham Young was chosen First President, and Rigdon being contumacious, was cut off from the faithful, cursed, and solemnly delivered to the devil "to be duffeted in the flesh for a thousand years." Having thus been turned out of the fold, Mr. Rigdon returned to Pittsburg and tried to establish a church. Not succeeding, he moved to the Genesee Valley, New York, and has there remained up to the time of his death, a period of about thirty years. After abandoning his religious ventures, he devoted himself to the study of geology and supported himself in a great measure by lecturing upon that subject. He was in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and is said to have been high;y respected by his neighbors during the declining years of his life.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MOUNTAIN  MEADOWS.

JOHN D. LEE'S REJECTED CONFESSION --
A FRIENDLY MORMON VERSION --

HOW BRIGHAM YOUNG WEPT UPON
RECEIVING TIDINGS OF THE MASSACRE.

The Salt Lake Herald, a paper sympathizing with the Mormon authorities, publishes the substance of the confession made by John D. Lee, as furnished to it by W. W. Bishop, Lee's attorney. The Herald says, the statements being contained in its correspondence from Beaver, Utah:

Mr. Bishop said after he got to Beaver he found the excitement against Lee great. He believed he could not get a fair trial in Utah, and consented that his client should turn State's evidence to get immunity for his own acts. The prosecution agreed to enter a nolle prosequi as to the first indictment absolutely, Lee to take his chances as to future indictments. After a long consultation with his associate counsel he agreed to it, and so advised Lee, and the prosecution agreed that if the confession was satisfactory they would dismiss all kinds of indictments against Lee. After Lee made the confession the prosecution found it did not implicate the high church authorities, but only those of brief authority in the Iron military district, so they refused the statement, believing, Mr. Bishop presumes, that they could, by trying Lee, procure testimony reaching nearer the apostolic centre, and so disregarded their agreements and placed Lee on trial. Lee's statement opens as follows:

"It now becomes my painful though imperative duty to chronicle the circumstances that led to, and fully describe that unfortunate affair known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in Utah history, which has been shrouded in mystery for the last fifteen years, causing much comment, excitement, and vindictive feeling throughout the land. The entire blame has rested upon the Mormon people in Utah. Now, in justice to humanity, I feel it my duty to show up the facts as they exist, according to the best of my ability, though I implicate myself by so doing. I have no vindictive feelings whatever against any man or class of individuals. What I do in done from a sense of duty to myself, to my God and to the people at large, so that the truth may come to light and the blame rest where it properly belongs. I have been arrested on the charge of being engaged in the crime committed at the time and place referred to; I have been in close confinement over eight mouths since my arrest: I was in irons three months of the time during my confinement; for the last seventeen years -- in fact, since the commission of the crime -- I have given this subject much thought and reflection. I have made the effort to bear my confinement with fortitude and resignation, well knowing that most of those engaged in this unfortunate affair were led on by religious influences, commonly called fanaticism, and nothing but their devotion to God, and their duty to him, as taught to them by their religion and their church leaders, would ever have induced them to have committed the outrageous and unnatural acts, believing that all who participated in the lamentable transaction, or most of them, were acting under orders that they considered it their duty, their religious duty, to obey. I have suffered all kinds of ill-treatment and injury, as well us imprisonment, rather than expose these men, knowing the circumustances as I do, and believing in the sincerity of their motives, as I always have done; but I have a duty to perform, and have, since I was arrested, become convinced that it was not the policy of the Government or the wish of the court to punish those men, but rather to protect them and let the blame rest on their leaders, where it justly and lawfully belongs.

After much thought and meditation I have come to this conclusion that I cuuld no longer remain silent on this subject, but no far as I can bring to the light the circumstances connected therewith and remove the cloud of mystery that has so long obscured the transaction and seemed to agitate the public mind, believing it to be my duty as a man -- a duty to myself, to my family, to my God, and humanity -- to cast aside the shackles so long holding my conscience in silence, and in pursuance of the disinterested advice of my attorneys I now submit the facts so far as I know them, stating nothing from malice or for the purpose of revenge, holding that I can state of my own knowledge, willing that the world may know all that was done and why acts were committed, I submit the following as the exact, unvarying statements of facts and circumstances connected with the crime known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre."

(At this point the pages of the confession relating to the details of the massacre were refused to reporters for the present, but their character was permitted to be stated us follows. -- Reporter.)

Lee gives at great length a detailed, concise and alleged perfect statement of the acts and facts connected with the massacre, giving the names of persons, dates and places. He claims to fully expose all classes of men and every man connected with the outrage. He starts with his first knowledge of the emigrant train, following through their unfortunate experiences and conflicts up to the termination of their sad career. He describes all that was done by the murderers after the commission of the crime, and the action of all connected with it; also the action of Brigham Young and the proesthood; also the acts of those in authority, the disposition of the children saved, and the particulars of their delivery to Doctor Forney, the agent of the Government, who removed them to Missouri.

The statement of Lee fully explains why, for what reason, and how the tragedy was accimplished, stating the justification relied upon by the participants for the commission of that fearful crime.

The details fix the responsibility for the crime upon Isaac C. Haight and John M. Higbee, commanding officers, the former standing on an eminence and giving the signal agreed upon for the slaughter. After the emigrants had been decoyed out of their stronghold by a flag of truce the wounded were hauled out and dispatched. There were engaged in the massacre thirty white men and a large number of Indians. The details of the killing of the men, women and children surpass in horror all that has ever been written concerning the massacre, and are more terrible, atrocious and bloody than the most vivid imagination can conjure.

In conclusion he writes as follows:

"A few days after the massacre I was instructed by Major Isaac C. Haight, next in command to W. H. Dame, in Iron military district, to carry a report of what had been done to President Brighum Young at Salt Lake. Haight directed me to give my report and stand up with manly courage, and shoulder as much of the blame as possible, he saying to me that if I did so I should receive a celestial reward. It is my nature never to bind burdens on others that I am not willing to bear myself. I went to Salt Lake and reported to Brigham Young the exact facts connected with the transaction, shouldering a greater degree of responsibility than justly belonged to me.

In justice to Brigham Young I must say that when he heard my story he wept like a child, walked the floor and wrung his hands in bitter anguish, and said it was the most unfortunate affair, the most unwarranted event, that had ever happened to the Mormon people. He said 'This transaction will bring sorrow and trouble upon us in Utah. I would to God it had never happened.'

After hearing this I returned home with a drooping heart and reported the result of my mission to those in authority over me."

Lee says that seventeen children were saved and were all delivered to Dr. Forney, who promised to take them to their friends in Missouri and Nebraska. None of them were killed after the massacre. He sets out that the massacre was the result of military orders, Utah then being under martial law, under command of Brigham Young as Gvernor. Johnston's army being on the east in Echo Cnyon, and an invasion being expected from the west by way of California, the Mormon people were in a state of excitement, and acted as desperation dictated.

Attorney Bishop alleges that Lee offered to give the prosecution the names of twenty-five of the murderers and where they could be found, as he believes.


Notes (forthcoming)

JOE  SMITH, THE  MORMON
_______

THE ROMANTIC STORY OF HIS LIFE.
_______

Digging Gold Plates from the Side of Mormon Hill
Deciphering with a Moonstone. -- Tragic Death
of the Founder of Mormonism.
_______

Special Correspondence of The Times.

MANCHESTER, N. Y., May 12.    

Away up here, in the top of New York State, where the snow still lies deep in fence corners and gullies, I have found the birthplace of Mormonism. It was in the northern part of this county, Ontario, that Joseph Smith, the father of the polygamous clan and the victim of his own folly, sowed the seeds nearly half a century ago that have grown and ripened into the Mormon sect, as we know it now.

The shooting of John D. Lee, the bishop-murderer, called strongly to mind hereabouts the fact that the first little band of Latter-Day Saints set out from this county on their journey westward, and that it was from the side of a neighboring hill that Smith pretended to dig the golden plates on which were graven the teachings of the Mormon Bible. It had nearly passed out of mind, it was so long ago, but this last excitement has brought it all out fresh again, and the people of this quiet country point rather proudly toward Mormon Hill.

A careful search through this town, which lies fifteen or twenty miles south of Lake Ontario, has resulted in the unearthing of three reliable stories, from which the accompanying brief history of Smith, the Mormon, is compiled.

    The story of the Bible:
    The story of young Joe Smith, and
    The Printer's story.

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BIBLE.

The Rev. Solomon Spaulding was a young minister, just out of college, with a good education, a lively imagination and very little cash. In 1809 he took charge of his first parish, in a little town among the ancient mounds of Ohio. His congregation was almost as small, proportionately, as his salary, and he had time to spare for wandering among the mounds and working up in his mind a romance whose plot was laid in the supposed time of the mound-builders. He remained over the little church for several years and in 1812 the romance was finished. Spaulding had a friend in Pittsburg, a Mr. Patterson, who was a publisher, and to him he sent the embryo book for publication, under the blood-curdling title of "Manuscript Found." The country had a war on its hands and Patterson was afraid to touch the book, and after keeping it on hand for four years he returned it to the author, who, meanwhile, had removed to Amity, N. Y., where he died in 1827. One of the printers employed in Patterson's office was an intelligent young man named Sidney Rigdon, who afterward lived in this town, and it is generally believed that he copied the manuscript while it was in Patterson's office, and either gave or sold his copy to Joseph Smith, for in 1829 Smith had a copy of the Rev. Solomon Spaulding's unpublished romance. This manuscript, that the country clergyman wrote to occupy his leisure hours, is the Mormon Bible.

THE  STORY  OF  YOUNG  JOE  SMITH.

Joseph Smith was the son of a small farmer in this town. His father, with only a few acres of land, a large family and a disposition that kept him from doing any more work than was absolutely necessary, went through the world on the from-hand-to-mouth plan, and his indolent disposition was his only legacy to his children. Young Joe soon reduced the science of living without work to a fine point. As a boy he is represented as lazy and shiftless, a nuisance to the neighbors, a constant lounger in the few available loaferies, always ready to drink if there was anybody else to pay. In this way he grew up on his father's little farm, with no education and without giving any signs that he had brains in his head. This is the Joseph Smith into whose hands fell the stolen copy of Solomon Spaulding's romance.

Whether in his twenty odd years of idleness this young man had been thinking out a plot for gaining for himself fame and wealth, or whether the purchase of the manuscript was a sudden freak, no one can tell. But his movements as soon as the book came into his possession show plainly that at that time the plan was laid. He had the manuscript that the publisher had refused to print; the next thing was to make it available.

On his father's farm was a high hill, rocky and ragged; and Smith made frequent midnight excursions to its summit. His strange movements soon attracted attention, and when he was asked what he was doing, "digging out gold plates," he replied, adding that he had been told of their whereabouts by a dream and that they contained strange inscriptions. Sure enough, there was a huge hole in the hillside where he had dug, and the hole is there to this day. The plates (if there were any) were carefully concealed, and Smith set about deciphering the mysterious characters. He sent pretended copies of some of the inscriptions to many of the learned men of the day, but of course, nobody was able to decipher them. Then a dream came to the rescue again. This time Smith dreamed that with the aid of a certain curious stone, which he would find at a designated place, he could read the strange writing. (It is a curious stone, and is still in existence.) He found the stone and set about the translation. Sidney Rigdon, the printer, was his amanuensis. In due time the hieroglyphics were all deciphered; the translation was carefully written and made a great heap of manuscript. Then the copy of Solomon Spaulding's book was produced as the result of this labor. The story of Smith's finding the plates had made a great sensation; the finding of the stone had made another; public curiosity was excited; the plot was ripe.

THE  PRINTER'S  STORY.

The mysterious book was ready to be printed, but Smith had no money. Neighboring printers were consulted, but the pile of manuscript was formidable, and nobody would print it without security for the pay. So after all of Smith's plotting his scheme seemed about to fall through for lack of funds. But his success in fooling the public up to this point apparently quickened his intellect. He changed from the lazy, dirty farmer's boy into a spruce young man, with a winning way and a pleasant manner, and set about ingratiating himself into the affections and the pocket-books of some of his wealthier friends. Many of the neighboring farmers believed implicitly in the story of the plates, and wondered that young Joe Smith, the vagabond, should turn out so great a man. To one of the firmest of his believers Smith told his story -- the part of it that he meant the public should know -- and appealed to him for money to have the wonderful book published. He was successful. This man, Martin Harris, was a wealthy farmer near Palmyra, only a few miles from the mound that has ever since been known as "Mormon Hill." He mortgaged his farm for $3,000, and a contract was soon made with the proprietor of the Wayne Sentinel, in Palmyra, to print the book. It was long before the days of the great publishing centres, and the work was to be done in Palmyra. It was a long, slow piece of work. Rollers for inking type forms had not yet been invented, and the ink was applied with the old-fashioned balls covered with sheepskin, the printing being done on a hand-press capable of making, with hard labor, not more than two hundred and fifty or three hundred impressions an hour. The paper was made in Shortsville, a neighboring village; it was a home production throughout.

Five thousand copies of the book were printed, under the title of the "Book of Mormon," and they kindled the little flame into a great blaze. Hundreds of followers flocked about Smith. Allah was great and Joe Smith was his prophet. The clan grew larger and larger, and Smith was a demi-god. His most absurd notions were taken as Gospel truths. The seeds of Mormonism were sprouting finely.

Polygamy was openly practiced by this little band, and what to do with the offenders soon became a serious question. The go-to-church community would stand no such abomination in its midst. but it was feared that any legal measures would be looked upon as persecution, which would only increase the evil. The faithful, however, soon settled the question themselves by emigrating to Ohio, and thence to Nauvoo, Ill., where a furious mob made a quiet protest against polygamy by shooting Smith dead as he was trying to escape through a rear window.

The printer who set nearly all the type for the Mormon Bible is still living and still occasionally stands before the case. The books have nearly all disappeared, but one is occasionally found on the parlor table of some last-generation farmer. The story that Macaulay tried unsuccessfully for years to buy a copy is probably untrue, for I have met half a dozen farmers who would have sold me one gladly, for cash or barter.       DRYS.


Note: Although this clipping is marked as coming from the New York Times, it appears more likely to have been published in the Chicago Times.

BRIGHAM YOUNG'S CRIMES.
_______

Springfield, Ill., July 12. -- Capt. John Tobin, formerly a resident of California, later of St. Louis, and still later of Springfield, will be one of District Attorney Howard's principal witnesses to prove Brigham Young's personal connection with the massacre of the Gentiles. His name is mentioned in Lee's confession. He tells a long story, which is, in substance, that having gained the confidence of Young by aiding Mormon emigrants, he was appointed instructor of the Territorial Militia, which position he resigned because the cavalry were used as avengers. Subsequently he undertook to guide a party of three strong, outspoken anti-Mormons to California, but the party was overtaken by a band of mounted Mormons led by Brigham Young, Jr., and compelled to stop under the pretense that they were going to California to misrepresent Mormonism. They finally proceeded, but were continually dogged by Mormons, who at length fired upon them as they were encamping at night. The party were left for dead, and the Mormons, taking their horses, rode away. Sixty hours afterward the United States mail-wagon and a party en route to San Bernardino took them up, but two of their number died soon after. Tobin received a shot in the right eye, which made him nearly blind. He claims to have important documentary evidence of plottings against the Government and the Gentiles on the part of Brigham Young.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE ORIGIN OF MORMONISM.
_______

A THEORY THAT IT WAS FOUNDED UPON AN OHIO
PREACHER'S ROMANCE -- HOW JOE SMITH GOT A
COPY OF THAT MANUSCRIPT.

From the Springfield Republican.

Remarkable local testimony has been discovered by the Republican sustaining the charge that the religion of Joe Smith and Brigham Young had its origin in a romance written by Rev. Solomon Spaulding of Ohio of half a century or more ago. the story is furnished by Mr. J. A. McKinstry of Longmeadow, a son of the late Dr. McKinstry of Monson, and grandson of Rev. Mr. Spaulding. Mr. McKinstry is employed in the Main street store of Newsdealer Brace. Rev. Mr. Spaulding's widow, who afterward became Mrs. Davison, came east from Ohio to live with her daughter at Monson many years ago, bringing the manuscript of his romance with her. She died some twenty-five years ago, but before her death a plausible young man from Boston came to Monson to see and get the Spaulding writing. It was a time of considerable excitement concerning the Mormons, and he claimed to represent some Christian people who wanted to expose Mormonism, He therefore begged the loan of the manuscript for publication. Much against the wishes of Mrs. Dr. McKinstry, Mrs. Davison consented to let her husband's unpublished romance go. Nothing was ever heard from it again, and the family have always considered that the bland young gentleman was an agent of Brigham Young's to destroy the convicting evidence that Joe Smith's Mormon Bible was of earthly origin.

The story of how Rev. Mr. Spaulding came to prepare his romance, which Mr. McKinstry remembers as a child to have seen, is fresh and interesting. He was out of the active ministry in Ohio -- the name of the place Mr. McKinstry does not recollect, but it was near Palmyra, we believe -- running a small iron foundry, and being a man of literary tastes, employed his leisure moments in weaving a romance. It was a time when the work of the mound-builders was creating wild interest, the implements of cookery and war being unearthed showing the existence of a forgotten race. This furnished the inspiration for the chronicles of the story-writer. He entitled his production "Manuscript Found," the idea being that the romance woven by the ex-preacher was dug up out of one of the mounds in the region. It was a history of ancient America, not all written at once, but as leisure spells and the fancy fell to him Mr. Spaulding would add to it. His writing was no secret in the neighborhood. In that then frontier region, with few opportunities for literary enjoyment. Rev. Mr. Spaulding was prevailed upon to read his production to his neighbors as it progressed. It was written in Bible phraseology, and made as quaintly olden as possible, so as to carry out the conceit of its alleged mound origin. Among the attentive listeners at these readings were Joe Smith and Sidney Rigdon, the same who founded Mormonism. Not only did Smith hear the manuscript read, but on one occasion, as Mrs. Davison frequently testified before her death, he borrowed it for a week or so, giving as a reason that he wanted to read it to his family, who had been unable to attend on Mr. Spaulding's readings. Not long afterward it will be remembered, Smith claimed that an angel had revealed to him the existence of a buried history of aboriginal America, the plates of which it is alleged were dug up, and the book of Mormon made as a translation of their inscriptions. the widow of Mr. Spaulding and her daughter, Mrs. Dr. McKinstry of Monson, compared the Smith Bible with the parson's romance, and they were essentially the same. The similarity was so overwhelming as to leave no doubt that Smith copied in full Rev. Mr. Spaulding's writing, and made out of it bodily his divine "revelation."

The character of the minister's romance was such, and his elaboration of it so thorough, as to strike the fancy of Smith, who was given to the mysterious. His family had been noted for divination, treasure-seeking, etc., and so Joe found Mr. Spaulding's work just in his line. That the results of his appropriation of it have been so stupendous was always a great cross to Mr. Spaulding's good widow, Mrs. Davison. She mourned that, even innocently, her husband should have been the means of foisting upon the world so great an evil. This was the real reason of her willingness to allow the manuscript to be taken to Boston for publication. It is to be regretted that her family have not better preserved Mrs. Davison's recollections of her husband's writing, now forever lost to the world. Enough has been handed down, however, to establish beyond doubt the truth of the claim that here was a source of Joe Smith's "inspiration." Mrs. Davison's story has long been familiar to leading en of Monson, and so impressed was the late Rev. Dr. Ely with it that he prepared a considerable account of it years ago.


Notes: (forthcoming)

JOHN TAYLOR
THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE MORMON CHURCH.


THE  NEW  MORMON  PRESIDENT.

The luxury of "revelation" is not often indulged in by the Mormon Church in these latter days. Brigham Young never had more than two or three of these revelations during the entire period of his incumbency of the Presidency of the Church, though he always claimed to be on intimate personal relations with the Deity. And this revelation was uttered over thirty years ago, and had reference solely to the settlement in New York City. Joseph Smith, his predecessor, was an ecstatic seer, having visions every week, and describing them effusively to his church, chiefly concerning his passions, wants and personal ambition, and realizing the dream of his parents that a prophet and great man would arise in their family. Brigham Young was much more practical, and followed few phantoms. The Twelve Apostles of the Mormon Church, consisting of the most eminent elders, especially ardent for the apostleship, have always been very abstemious in this matter of revelations. Whether delusion or imposture, it seems that a dozen men working together, looking into each other's eyes, and hearing each other's voices, are far less liable to feel the divine afflatus than one dreaming in secret.

The Twelve Apostles had however, a revelation the other day, in which God spoke and commanded that the Twelve Apostles should hereafter and until further ordered superintend and direct all its affairs, temporal and spiritual, instead of a President. Elder John Taylor was, however, confirmed in his place as Senior Apostle, which gives him more power in the church than any other man. It is an odd fact that Brigham Young became Senior Apostle and thereafter President by the mere accident of his having been born earlier than the other elder[s]. As the Apostles took rank according to their age, Brigham Young happened to be the oldest and so was put in a place where he could grasp the keys of the kingdom.

John Taylor, whose portrait we give today, is equally fortunate. He is an Englishman, seventy years old, and very tall and imposing in appearance. His hair is white, and the Mormons declare that it was bleached with sudden terror when he heard the revelation of polygamy. But his complexion is swarthy, his eyes deep and striking, and he bears the marks of a strong intellectual man. He was formerly a local preacher in the Methodist Church, and it was in that capacity that he came to this country. He first settled in Canada, and while there married a Miss Leonora Cannon. In 1837 Taylor became a proselyte to Mormonism under the preaching of Parley P. Pratt, then on a mission to Canada. The headquarters of the Mormons was then in Missouri, and Taylor, soon after joining the Church, emigrated to that State and was ordained an apostle by Joseph Smith. In 1839 he was sent on a mission to England and Ireland, where he had about the usual success of the Mormon missionaries in making converts during a two years; stay. He edited a Mormon paper in Nauvoo called the Times and Seasons, and was always esteemed a tower of strength in political discussions with the Gentiles. In 1849 and 1850 he was in France as a Mormon missionary. He was very successful in collecting money and moderately so in gaining converts. In 1855 Taylor came to this city and established a weekly paper here for the defence and propagation of Mormonism, which had but a small circulation and a brief existence. In 1859 he returned to Utah, taking with him a new wife from Connecticut, and he has ever since resided at Salt Lake City.


Notes: (forthcoming)

INCIDENTS  OF  MORMONISM.
_______

MARRIED LIFE IN SALT LAKE CITY.

INTERVIEW WITH A LADY WHO LIVED TWELVE YEARS IN UTAH.
HOW SHE AND HER HUSBAND WERE TREATED BY
BRIGHAM YOUNG -- WOMEN FORCED TO MARRY MORMONS
THE STORY OF SARA ALEXANDER -- THE INQUISITORIAL REFORM

From our Own Correspondent.
Rochester, N. Y., Sunday, Sept. 2, 1877.

I was introduced last evening, at the residence of a friend in this city, to a lady of intelligence who was for 12 years the wife of a Mormon, ...

(under construction)

Notes: (forthcoming)

THE BOOK OF MORMON.

A couple of weeks ago Elders Orson Pratt and J. F. Smith, of the Mormon Church, arrived in the town of Richmond, Mo., and sought out the residence of one David Whitmer, who is said to be the only living witness of the translation of the Book of Mormon, and the custodian of the original manuscript as taken down by Oliver Cowdry. The object of the Elders; visit was to secure the manuscript for deposit in the archives of the Mormon Church, but Whitmer declined to surrender it. It has been in his custody nearly 50 years, and he declared his intention of holding it until the proper time arrives for its surrender to those entitled to receive it. The Richmond Conservator says that while refusing to surrender the manuscript he willingly produced and exhibited it to his visitors. They unhesitatingly pronounced it the original copy of the Book of Mormon, Elder Pratt being familiar with the handwriting of Oliver Cowdry, the writer. The offered Whitmer any price he might ask for the volume, but, finding him resolute, left him, with the request that he continue to take good care of it, so that the Church might receive it at the proper time. The Conservator states that "the book is in a splendid state of preservation, the ink as bright as if written yesterday, and it is inscribed on large paper, unruled, in a small hand, clearly written close to the edges, top, and bottom, making over 500 pages.


Notes: (forthcoming)

One B. F. CUMMINGS, a Mormon missionary, having written to the Boston Daily Advertiser a statement that Joseph Smith published in 1843 a book of discipline for the Mormon Church, a son of the deceased prophet writes a flat contradiction. He says that the book in question was first published by his father in Ohio, in 1835, was republished in 1845, and in 1852, in Liverpool, England, and that in neither of these editions does the so-called revelation concerning plural marriage appear. "Nor was it introduced into any edition of that book till 1876," says the son of the prophet, "when an edition was put out in Utah concerning it." Joseph Smith, who thus claps an extinguisher on the pretensions of the Mormon missionary, sharply adds that he (the said Cummings) must have known that he was not telling the truth. It has always been understood among the "Gentiles" that polygamy was an invention of the late Brigham Young.


Notes: (forthcoming)