Mormon folklore as diverse, tragic and humorous as other religions

 

A friend loaned me a book published in 1956, "Saints of Sage and Saddle: Folklore Among the Mormons," by Austin and Alta Fife, that turned into a treasure over the weekend I read it.

"Saints of Sage..." is a collection of Mormon folk tales and tall tales. Anecdotes abound from diverse sources that include prophets and pioneers. The prologue essay, "A Mormon from the Cradle to the Grave," is just plain outstanding. It's folksy and witty, irreverent but never disrespectful. Latter-day Saints, warts and all, are captured in this book, but there's always an affection underneath the banter.

I'd wager that any reader who has been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for at least 40 years can recall hearing some of the folklore related in the book. One anecdote on polygamy recalls two LDS apostles on the way to Idaho to attend a church meeting passing a school with children tumbling out of the schoolhouse. A non-Mormon reverend turned to the apostle and asked him if the scene reminded him of his childhood. The apostle replied, "No, it reminds me of my father's backyard."

Long ago, when the church was more interesting (as my friend Cal Grondahl says), devils were frequently cast out of hijacked members and the Three Nephites tended not to be so publicity shy. In one anecdote, one of the Nephite trio is generous enough to show himself to an elderly lady who praised God that late in her life her prayer to see a Nephite perform a miracle had been answered. LDS folklore has it that Governor Thomas Ford of Illinois, who failed to protect the Prophet Joseph Smith, died loathsome, unpopular and in poverty. Another past anecdote involves LDS apostle and Logan Temple president Marriner W. Merrill arguing with Satan himself in his temple office, Old Scratch having visited to request that Merrill stop temple proceedings.

The LDS belief in a pre-existence is noted in the book. Allegedly the LDS Prophet Wilford Woodruff warned in his journal that there were literally trillions of Satan's army on earth doing their best to lead them astray. Woodruff's calculation of the earth holding 1 trillion people at a time seems way too high to this reviewer, though. Nevertheless, the Mormon belief in a pre-mortal existence is very personal to members, who worry that they may have lost friends and family members to Lucifer long ago. It can provide mixed emotions on how to respond to temptation of a personal nature.

No book on Mormon folklore would be any good if there wasn't a section on the legendary, cussing, LDS leader J. Golden Kimball. He has a chapter in "Saints of Sage ..." The former mule skinner once said, "Yeah, I love all of God's children, but there's some of them that I love a damn sight more than I do others."

Kimball also possessed wit: When former LDS U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot wanted to marry, he boasted to Kimball that he had just received the blessing of LDS Prophet Heber J. Grant. Kimball dead-panned, "Well now, I just don't know, Reed. I just don't know. You're a pretty old man, you know. And Sister Sheets, she's a pretty young woman. And she'll expect more from you than just the laying on of hands."

And once, during an excommunication trial for a man accused of adultery, Kimball, after hearing the man admit to being in bed with the married woman but not having sex with her, laconically said, "Brethren, I move that the brother be excommunicated. It's obvious that he doesn't have the seed of Israel in him."

The Mountain Meadows Massacre, and its aftermath, created much darker folklore. The wife of a Southern Utah Mormon, in the brief interlude where the spared young children of the slain settlers were being cared for in LDS homes, recalls a woman coming to her in her garden asking to see her child. She was led into the house. The Mormon wife followed the mysterious visitor, who disappeared the moment she reached the room where the child was.

"Saints of Sage and Saddle" is folklore history that the interested will spend hours poring over. Besides the tales, there are old LDS hymns, period photos and an index for quick reference. I choose to end this column with a song Mormons once enjoyed I encountered in this book, and once sung by Ogden's L.M. Hilton:

The Boozer
I was out upon a flicker and had had far too much liquor,
And I must admit that I was quite pie-eyed,
And my legs began to stutter, and I lay down in the gutter
And a pig arrived and lay down by my side.
As I lay there in the gutter with my heart strings all aflutter,
A lady passed and this was heard to say,
You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses.
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

 

--Doug Gibson

 

Originally published at StandardBlogs

 

John Corrill was an older Christian convert to the early Mormon church

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The early years of the Mormon Church are distinct for its young converts, with 20-something apostles embracing the progressive, radical-for-its-time distinctions between Joseph Smith’s Mormonism and the traditional Protestant Christianity. However, there was another type of early LDS convert; an older generation who embraced Christian primitivism, which encompassed a desire to return to strict Biblical principles, disdained “priestcraft,” and had a libertarian streak, mixed with republican ideals, that opposed a centralized church leadership dictating to local church groups. Most importantly, this type of convert would never place a prophet’s opinion over his own personal beliefs.

Given the direction the Mormon Church took over its 14-plus years with Smith solely at its helm, it’s not surprising that a substantial number of the older-generation converts did not stick with Mormonism. Perhaps the best example of this type of early Mormon convert who enjoyed prominence in the young church but later abandoned it is John Corrill, who is mentioned a couple of times in the Doctrine of Covenants. In the book “Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History,” University of Illinois Press, 1994, historian Kenneth H. Winn provides an interesting recap of Corrill’s life and tenure in Mormonism. A Christian primitivist, Corrill, who turned 36 in 1831, initially investigated Mormonism with a determination to expose its follies. However, Corrill, who admired the primitivist teachings of Alexander Campbell, was shocked when he heard Sidney Rigdon, a former Campbell advocate he admired, pitching Mormonism enthusiastically.

As Winn notes, Corrill, a Massachusetts native, read The Book of Mormon and decided he could not declare it a fraud. Also, Mormonism appealed to specific primitivists such as Corrill in that it contained a certainty of belief that they sought, whether with the Book of Mormon or a yearning for “a prophet who could speak for God.” He, as well as his wife and family, joined the church in 1831 in Ohio.

Soon after his baptism, Corrill, after serving a mission, was sent to Missouri to help develop the church’s growth there. He served under Bishop Edward Partridge. It was here that Corrill first clashed with Smith’s leadership. Both he and Partridge favored a more local control than Smith wanted, and both were criticized by the Mormon prophet. Also, Corrill foresaw the problems that would develop with mass migration of poor Mormon converts to land long dominated by non-Mormon Missourians. The combination of religious bigotry among Missourians as well as unwise boasting by saints of establishing a religious and political kingdom led to violence and conflicts that the Mormons would always lose over the years.

Despite the conflict with church leadership, Corrill mended his problems with Smith and according to Winn, had a very strong ecclesiastical relationship with the young prophet through the mid-1830s. In 1836, Winn notes, Corrill was appointed by Joseph Smith to head the completion of the Kirtland Temple. Corrill also developed a reputation of being the Mormon leader who was best able to negotiate with anti-Mormon elements in Missouri. By 1837, Corrill was a leading Mormon settler in Far West, Missouri, ”selected ... as the church’s agent and as the ‘Keeper of the Lord’s Storehouse,’” writes Winn.

But that was the peak that preceded the fall of Corrill’s tenure in the church. As tranquil as events in Far West were, an ill-fated banking endeavor in Kirtland by Smith and other church leaders was leading to apostasy and tense disputes between church leaders and native Missourians. Corrill, Winn writes, regarded the Kirtland monetary failure with “revulsion.” He saw the lust for wealth, and the subsequent fall, as evidence of “suffered pride.” Yet he was as critical of Smith’s dissenters as he was of the banking effort. Also, Corrill still believed that the overall church, with auxiliaries serving as checks and balances, could reform itself and maintain the better relations between Mormons and non-Mormons that still existed in Far West.

That was not to be. The turmoil of Kirtland followed the church to Far West. To cut to the chase, a speech by Rigdon, called the “Salt Sermon,” appalled Corrill. In it, Ridgon, comparing apostates to salt having lost its savor, argued that they could be “trodden under the foot of men.” In short, Rigdon said that the dissenters “deserved ill treatment.”

Corrill warned the dissenters that their safety was in danger. Later, the Danites, a Mormon vigilante group, was organized. The militant group frightened Corrill, who began to work against it in secret. As Winn explains, “The crisis that began in Kirtland and eventually swept Corrill up in Missouri marked a major turning point in early Mormon history, pitting the theocratically minded devotees of the prophet, who regarded opposition to the church leadership as opposition to God, against more libertarian minded dissenters, who rejected the First Presidency’s claim over their temporal affairs and the authoritarian demand for blind obedience.”

Corrill saw the Danites and Ridgon’s call for conflict in direct opposition to the Biblical belief that God is responsible for divine retribution. From this point on, 1838, Corrill was basically in wait to be excommunicated, no longer trusted by the Smith/Ridgon leadership of the church. Nevertheless, church leaders acknowledged Corrill’s reputation for honesty by electing him — with the Danites’ support — to the Missouri legislature. The final break between Smith and Corrill was over the church leadership’s call for a communal structure, which included church leaders being paid for work other than preaching. The communal structure was, Winn notes, allegedly voluntary, although pressure was exercised on members to contribute. “In any event,” Winn writes, “Corrill deeply disapproved of the revelation and readily shared his opinion with others.”

Despite his church status, Corrill worked without success in the Missouri legislature to push Mormon interests and even donated $2,000 of his own money to help the beleaguered saints. By the time his term ended, most of his constituency had fled the area. Ridgon’s rhetoric, and the Danites’ actions, had led to militias overwhelming the church and Smith, Rigdon and others being jailed. Corrill, now without a church and due to be excommunicated in early 1839, left his religion. He wrote a book, “A Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” in late 1839. It is an interesting read for its historical value. At the time though, it sold poorly and Corrill spent the last few years of his life in poverty. He died in 1842, leaving an estate of only $265.86. As Winn writes, “His integrity and basic decency were overshadowed by charges that he had betrayed the prophet and the church.” 

Corrill did offer testimony against Smith to Missouri court hostile to the Mormons. Richard Lyman Bushman, in his 2005 biography of Joseph Smith,also describes Corrill as a “the steady, clear-headed Missouri leader” who conflicted over how much free will he had to surrender to stay a faithful Mormon, and witnessing defeat after defeat, finally decided he had been deceived..

-- Doug Gibson

Originally published at StandardNet

Review: Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian

Originally published at StandardBlogs/Currents

In his book, “Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian,” Levi S. Peterson describes a woman who lived two distinct lives. In one, she was the Bunkerville, Nev., native one or two generations away from early-Mormon pioneer life, bred to be a farmer’s wife and live a life similar to her mother and grandmother.

But there were life changes in store for Brooks (1898-1989), a remarkable individual who experienced most of the 20th century. Left a young widow with a baby, she entered academia. As middle age approached, she made another life change. She married a sheriff, Will Brooks, and quickly had four more babies. Had she stayed single, opines biographer Peterson, she likely would have had a distinguished academic career, editing and writing literary criticism.

Instead, her return to a domestic life signaled the career of Mormonism’s most tenacious historian. Brooks’ achievements brought much-needed candor to Utah and Mormon history. Her signature work, “The Mountain Meadows Massacre,” brought sunshine to events that, through their secrecy, had long infected lives and a church’s reputation.

Long before she recounted the massacre, Brooks was at the deathbed of patriarch Nephi Johnson, who had participated at Mountain Meadows. His last words were “blood, blood, blood!”

According to Peterson’s account, Brooks long regretted that she had ignored Peterson’s earlier requests to discuss what he called a matter of great importance with her.
Brooks wrote, published and edited hundreds of works. Besides “Mountain Meadows Massacre,” she wrote a biography of John D. Lee, the main scapegoat of the crime. She also wrote biographies of early Utah/Nevada pioneers, including Dudley Leavitt. She wrote an autobiography of her early years and even finished a fond tribute to her husband, Will.

She was a faithful member of the Mormon church. A persistent historian, she discovered and saved many journals and old accounts, some left in the rooms of the St. George temple, which she had access to as stake Relief Society president. Brooks would frequent old attics and basements to find early Southern Utah journals. One she discovered had been re-used as a scrapbook. Working with her family, she painstakingly pried glue off pages to access the diaries.

As her reputation as a historian grew, her correspondence with colleagues, including Fawn Brodie and Dale Morgan, makes for interesting reading. She would both fiercely defend her Latter-day-Saint faith to detractors, such as Morgan and Brodie, and just as fiercely debate the need for historical openness with the most powerful Mormon apostles.

She requested Mountain Meadows documents from President David O McKay, who wouldn’t even see her. Most apostles refused to read her book. Elder LeGrand Richards did read it, and later contended with her as to its importance. From Peterson’s book it doesn’t seem that Brooks was ever in danger of serious church discipline, although she certainly was ostracized for a time in Southern Utah after “Mountain Meadows Massacre” was published. If there was one time she came close to trouble it was her insistence that a second edition of her biography of John D. Lee include an afternote that the LDS had restored Lee’s membership posthumously.

According to Peterson, President McKay threatened to rescind Lee’s unexcommunication and both an apostle, Delbert L. Stapley, and the Lee family were recruited to argue with Brooks. But she kept to her word and won, as the next edition included the afternote and Lee’s renewed church status remained.

Peterson;s biography is maybe too thorough — parts are tedious. This may be due to Peterson’s style, which is chronological to a fault. But there are valuable nuggets of information that describe life as a woman historian. Her adventures took place in locating old histories. Brooks scoured temple rooms, dusty rural towns and old attics for decaying diaries and journals. While immersed in researching and writing, Brooks would keep a clothes iron hot. Housework, Peterson explains,  was a reason to get rid of unwanted visitors. Writing was not deemed as important — at least for a woman.

Although she gained fame by middle age, Brooks was not immune to rejection. Her books and articles were routinely rejected by publishers. In fact, “Mountain Meadows Massacre,” was rejected several times, was finally published by Stanford University Press after a guarantee that descendants of John D. Lee would purchase a significant block of copies. Some early career breaks for her were landing articles in prestigious magazine such as The Atlantic, and her relationship with the Henry Huntington Library in California.

A lifelong Democrat, Brooks became a bit of a mild LDS rebel as her career progressed. She would routinely downgrade information from The Deseret News and Brigham Young University, believing it was unduly influenced by LDS leaders. She deplored what she regarded as the church’s penchant for secrecy as a means of maintaining harmony. She believed that the accomplishments of the LDS Church since its inception could stand without hiding details that it could not control, such as the massacre.

The reader witnesses Brooks gain confidence gradually and become an advocate for issues such as granting blacks the priesthood. The trauma of her first husband’s death solidified her belief in God and an afterlife, but made her more skeptical of man’s promises. She had a early LDS folklore-like belief in the Gospel that includes personal manifestations and Three Nephites-like visits of mercy.

She was an honest, persistent, thorough historian who kept dogma away from a search for truth. Peterson’s book captures that unique and enviable personality.

--- Doug Gibson

Review: Frank J. Cannon: Saint, Senator, Scoundrel

 

Is there even a statue of Frank Jenne Cannon in Ogden, Utah? Maybe a photo somewhere in a city or Weber County building, or perhaps Union Station, a passion of Frank Cannon's? After all, he was the fellow who helped create today's Ogden Standard-Examiner newspaper (still kicking -- barely -- as the largest Utah -- sort of -- daily newspaper still printing its paper). He was the Standard's first firebrand editor. I am proud of having wrote editorials in a newspaper Frank once penned them for,

He was one of Utah's first U.S. senators. Before that, he was a territorial representative to the U.S. Congress.

His talents for patience, diplomacy, coupled with his Utah elite name, enabled him to travel back east, whether to New York City or Washington D.C., and negotiate with U.S. presidents and congressmen over touchy issues, from how hard Congress would hammer the territory of Utah, which Gentile judges would sentence Utah polygamists, and also the fate of Utah's impending statehood.

When the man spoke in public, he would fill halls beyond capacity. In between bouts of drunkenness, LDS Church leaders pressured him to finish ghost-writing assignments, including "The Life of Joseph Smith," a book credited to his father.

Frank J. Cannon is buried in Ogden. As Val Holley notes in his superb biography of Frank J., "Frank J. Cannon: Saint, Senator, Scoundrel," The University of Utah Press, 2020, his death in 1934, at 74, attracted only a few plaudits, most notably from early Ogden journalist Olin A. Kennedy, who noted that "more than any other man," Cannon "negotiated [the] truce that led to peace between Mormons and Gentiles here in Utah," records Holley.

During the last score years of his life, Utah political and ecclesiastical leaders had other words to describe Frank. They included "unspeakable," "vile," and even "Son of Perdition," a quote allegedly from LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith. 

Frank J. Cannon was born in 1859 to George Q. Cannon and his polygamous wife, Sarah Jenne Cannon. He married in 1878, to Martha Brown, of Ogden. It would last until her death in 1909. Although Frank, a graduate of Deseret University at 19, impressed with his skills in writing, persuasion and business acumen, he was prone to alcoholic binges and, soon after his marriage, adultery. He seduced an immigrant servant woman, impregnating her. The baby was eventually adopted to a relative family. 

Holley doesn't gloss over Frank's problems with inebriation. The alcoholic binges, likely fueled from business, political and family/ecclesiastical stress, were frequent enough that Frank's family, notably half-brother and business partner Abram, would have to search for him through Salt Lake City red-light districts, including brothels. 

In the book, family father and leader George Q. Cannon is pictured as an authority figure, spending little quality time with his sons, preferring to lecture and counsel them through letters. It's fair to wonder if the emotional absence of a father figure contributed to his sons' dysfunctions. Besides Frank, an older, more-favored half-brother, general authority John Q. Cannon, seduced his own wife's sister. The affair ended in tragedy when the woman, Louie Wells -- briefly married to the temporarily excommunicated and divorced John Q. -- suffered a miscarriage and later died. 

Half-brother Abram, who eventually became member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, followed his father in embracing polygamy. One of the reasons was dad's desire to make sure a deceased son would have an eternal marriage beyond the grave. This kind of stress, including overwork, likely contributed to Abram's early death at 37, from meningitis. He had recently taken a fourth wife, notes Holley.

Although his adverse antics were frequently lamented -- and later in life re-emphasized by his former allies -- Frank largely escaped any long-term ecclesiastical sanction in the first half of his life. Frankly, his talents were needed by the territory of Utah and its dominant faith. He had an abundance of knowledge and eloquence that often impressed financiers and politicians. The LDS Church of the latter half of the 19th century faced real, and frightening possibilities of losing all its economic capital as well as imprisonment of its leaders. 

Over a period of a decade plus, Frank contributed to a gradual reduction of congressional punishment towards Utah. Accomplishments included easing judicial pressure on the state, helping the First Manifesto against polygamy occur and convincing Washington D.C. powers that Utah was ready to be admitted as a state. These happenings, chronicled in detail by Holley's meticulous research, were not easy accomplishments. They were frequent setbacks, including the capture of family patriarch George Q. Cannon. In the biography, Holley details a hare-brained scheme to rescue George Q. via a holdup on a train. Fortunately, the plan never reached a felonious stage. 

Frank was an opponent of polygamy, accurately believing that its eradication was the key to Utah's acceptance. The church's failure to stick to its Manifesto promises for a generation would be integral to his eventual disaffection with church leaders, his criticism of, and excommunication. 

Holley covers well the power struggle between Frank and his father, George Q., to become a Republican U.S. senator in 1896. Frank was the favorite for the seat. His father, backed by LDS Church leadership, ran a coy, shadow campaign, falsely denying he wanted the position. In a long struggle, Frank outlasted the wishes of dad and the First Presidency, winning appointment from the Legislature.

The cycles of partisan power had prevented his election to the House -- as a Republican -- a few years earlier, although he briefly served there just prior to becoming a senator. His nearly three-year tenure in the Senate was rocky. Although his pro-silver politics and opposition to a single gold standard was popular, Holley writes that his opposition to a trade bill that favored sugar interests sunk his popularity in Utah. Frank's attempts to grow a "Silver Republican" party were not successful and he was not re-elected in 1899, although his seat would remain vacant until 1901. He eventually became a Democrat.

George Q. Cannon's death in 1901 initially reinforced Frank's Mormon faith, which he had severely tested with criticisms of church leaders, including Heber J. Grant. Holley notes that his tithing was far, far more impressive than his long church-reinstated brother John Q's offerings, for example.

Yet his break with the church was imminent. The ascendency of Joseph F. Smith as president, as well as clandestine LDS polygamy despite two Manifestos, hastened his withdrawal. He also opposed Mormon apostle Reed Smoot's election to the U.S. Senate. During a short tenure as editor with the anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, Frank's harsh editorials against the LDS Church leadership, notably Joseph F. Smith, led to his excommunication. It was an ugly split, one that contributes to Frank's diminished status in history today. 

In 1909 his wife Martha died. Soon after he married her younger sister, May. That union lasted until his death. 

He would move to Denver, work as a journalist. He used his skills there to help bring down a corrupt municipality and prevent a corrupt mayor from becoming a U.S. senator. He later moved further in muckraking, with Mormonism as his target. He co-authored two books. The more successful was "Under the Prophet in Utah," which led Frank to a several-year success on the lecture circuit, condemning Mormonism, its prophet, and extolling Christianity as a solution to the nation's ills. The book even led to a Broadway play, "'Polygamy."

During this period of anti-Mormon activism, Frank would occasionally be followed and challenged by LDS missionaries and other church leaders while on the lecture circuit. He became a permanent major villain within the church. Nevertheless, he was a still popular draw when he visited Utah to lecture or promote his books, which were also serialized in magazines.

The final dozen years of his life were quieter, although he still retained enough prominence to appear before Congress and lobby presidents for a pro-silver policy. Bimetallism, silver, was likely his biggest passion. Late in life he pitched a plan to revive China's economy through a massive loan of silver to that nation. He advocated silver policies in writing up to his death, notes Holley.

A promising business venture in ores, including lead, was hampered by the Great Depression. His once fervent faith in Christianity cooled during the Roaring 20s. Holley recounts that late in life Frank considered himself an agnostic. Two of his three children died before him; his son months before his own death. Holley surmises that Frank's death from an abdominal condition may have resulted in part from grief over his son's death. 

I have omitted much of Frank's business ventures in this review. They do involve a substantial portion of Holley's research. They vary from bookselling ventures with his brothers to newspaper startups and acquisitions, as well as frequent times Frank represented the Mormon leadership in business. He encountered businesspeople of principle as well as charlatans. He invested in power companies, as well as fads including "liquid air" and "vapor light." He published books and invested in a planned film adaptation of "Under the Prophet in Utah." It turned out to be a scam that landed the swindler a felony conviction.

Holley accurately presents the paradox that was Frank J. Cannon. He's a difficult man to judge. Perhaps we shouldn't. He was imperfect in morals, and in his anger exaggerated claims against the faith he had once espoused. But, as Holley notes, his detractors exaggerated his claims, and withdrew any merit he had earned. Frank J. Cannon was also accurate in a chief charge -- that church leaders were not truthful -- for a long time -- in repudiating polygamy. 

It's well past time that Frank J., the scoundrel of the Cannons, get some notice for his many achievements. Holley's biography is a valuable, interesting read. Maybe it will lead to a statue for Frank J. (You can buy the biography via Amazon here).

-- Doug Gibson

Enjoy the Cal Grondahl cartoon below.

Hamblin biography captures the many talents of the 'apostle to the Indians'

Review by Doug Gibson

Add early Mormon explorer/colonizer/missionary Jacob Hamblin to the list of excellent biographies of early Mormon church leaders. Historian Todd Compton’s “A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamlin, Explorer and Indian Missionary,” University of Utah Press, 2013, covers its subject extensively.

Hamblin is best known for his efforts to assimilate American Indians into or near Mormon towns and culture. Those efforts, although very sincere, ultimately failed. As Compton explains, the entire movement of eastern United States’ settlers into long-inhabited Indian lands created a situation in which tribes were forced into competition for necessities such as water, seeds for food, hunting, and of course land. It was an overall battle that the American Indian would lose.

As a result, as Compton notes, Hamblin’s most effective skill with American Indians was his ability to negotiate through tense altercations. In 1874, after three Navajos were killed — and another wounded — by an Indian hater, his outlaw sons, and a hired man, Hamblin bravely went — essentially unprotected — to explain to the angry Navajos and others that the Mormons were not to blame. As Compton relates, Hamblin calmly asserted his innocence as Indians in the council were telling him he would soon be tortured and murdered as a payback. Hamblin survived that experience, and his explanation of the massacre ultimately overrode a biased report from a corrupt Indian agent who disliked Mormons. Only his genuine honesty, respect for the American Indians, and his past history of championing the Indians of the area, saved his life.

Compton’s biography solidifies Hamblin’s legacy as one of the best early explorers of the mid- to late- 19th century. He led exploring teams into pristine lands in and around the Grand Canyon. He led treks into Arizona, and was among the first to visit the Hopis. He moved into barren areas of Arizona, getting past the Colorado River, the Virgin River, going through canyons and along cliffs in areas that might trouble mountain goats. Compton relates Hamblin’s experiences with noted American West explorer John Wesley Powell, correctly noting that Powell relied heavily on Hamblin’s previous excursions, using his knowledge and experience.

In southern Utah, Hamblin settled Santa Clara, Kanab and other areas. A polygamist, he included American Indian women as wives. He was a fierce believer in Mormonism. As Compton explains, he was typical of believers in his era, noting “revelations” and judgments of God that could occur anywhere, in dreams, or while traversing the countryside. One explorer colleague wryly noted a trip in which Hamblin attempted to convert him to Mormonism.

Hamblin was baptized in Wisconsin in 1842. After his wife converted, the family traveled to Nauvoo shortly before the death of Joseph Smith. After the killing of the Mormon prophet, Hamblin gave his alliance to Brigham Young, eventually left Nauvoo after helping build the temple, and endured severe poverty in waiting areas such as Mount Pisgah, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, while waiting, with other Latter-day Saints, to earn the money to travel to Utah. One consolation was a return to Wisconsin and discovering his father, Isaiah, who had been anti-Mormon, had joined the church along with others of the family. They eventually traveled with him to Utah.

There was a severe drawback, though. Hamblin’s wife, Lucinda, left him and the family prior to the trek to Utah. As Compton notes, Hamblin is very harsh to her in his autobiography but conditions themselves were extremely harsh, and Compton adds that Hamblin’s next wife, Rachel, who knew Lucinda, had kinder recollections of her.

Things didn’t get easier for the family. Severe cholera struck their pioneer company while traveling to Utah. Although there were many deaths, and Jacob, Rachel and family members suffered, none of the Hamblin family died.

Although Compton clearly admires his subject, and the book often rebukes more hostile accounts of Hamblin, including John D. Lee’s memoirs, the author does not avoid the failings of Hamblin. Although he was not in southern Utah when the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred, and would have certainly opposed it, Hamblin did assist Brigham Young and other leaders in misleading authorities of the massacre’s details. He also helped hide suspects, such as John D. Lee, by moving him to remote living spots. And, when Lee became expendable to Brigham Young, Hamblin dutifully testified against him at his trail.

This “disloyalty,” however, is mitigated by the fact that Lee was indeed guilty. As Compton, and others have noted, a key injustice of the aftermath of the Mountain Meadows Massacre is that others clearly as guilty as Lee, were not prosecuted and punished.

Hamblin’s efforts with the Indians were hampered by the widespread inability to understand the deep cultural chasm between the natives and the settlers. In fact, he eventually more or less gave up on working with the Paiutes of southern Utah, turning his expectations to the Hopis in Arizona. His most valuable strengths were his history of integrity with the Indians and his negotiating skills. They were needed often, particularly during the long Black Hawk War, and an 1860 expedition in Navajo in which George A. Smith Jr., the teenage son of LDS apostle George A. Smith, was killed by Indians. Hamblin’s earned trust was used often in dealing with Navajos, a strong tribe, with wealthy farmers, that was decimated by westward expansion.

Hamblin lived a frontier man’s life, often away from his family, as liable to sleep in a leaky tent than a clean bed. He suffered economically due to his church devotion, and that caused hardship for his wives and children. The “apostle to the Indians,” and his family, dealt with floods and parched conditions, and threats from Indians. His sorrows included returns from long explorations only to learn a child had died. He lived to age 67, dying of malaria in his own bed at the family home.

-- Originally published at StandardNET

Joseph Smith biography does not shy away from historical scrutiny

This review was originally published in 2005 at StandardNET.

Today is the bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s birth. Two hundred years later, his claims of divine guidance are debated with as much ferocity — if not violence — as when he was alive. Unquestioned is the success of the church he established. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims more than 12 million members. Its influence stretches beyond the ecclesiastical, reaching into political, judicial and financial chambers.

What made Joseph Smith’s church so far-reaching? Columbia Professor emeritus Richard Lyman Bushman’s “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling,” offers clues. Bushman’s Joseph (he prefers the first name throughout the biography) is a prophet who slowly realized his calling. Sophistication as a religious leader and understanding of his religious calling took years. Smith was prone to anger and forgiveness, fear and courage, capable of finding talented people and seriously misjudging others.

Bushman’s catholic interpretation of Smith’s gradually adjusting to being a prophet is refreshing. As a believing Mormon, I am tired of watching films or reading books where, if you squint your eyes and look hard enough, you can either see or imagine the halo just above Joseph Smith’s head. Latter-day prophets and other church leaders are too often regarded as perfect individuals, rather than sinners, who like anyone else, make mistakes in their lives, seek forgiveness and continue to learn.

This fanciful view can extend to LDS Church history. Bushman, a Mormon, does not dismiss uncomfortable topics: Smith’s dabblings in money-digging; differing accounts of revelations; vigilante operations that exacerbated problems with frontier neighbors; a failed bank that seriously harmed the early church; political grandstanding that threatened longtime settlers; the secrecy of early plural marriage. All are discussed and, at least, placed in a context more even-handed than, say, an anti-Mormon website or ministry.

Bushman writes, “Joseph Smith did not offer himself as an examplar of virtue. He told his followers not to expect perfection. Smith called himself a rough stone, thinking of his own impetuosity and lack of polish.”

Readers may be surprised to discover that Smith visited President Martin Van Buren in an unsuccessful attempt to seek reparations from Missouri. Also, the prophet was involved in early preparations to move the church to the Rocky Mountains.

Prophets claiming revelations were common in Smith’s time. So why do his claims endure today? One reason from Bushman: The prophet did not make himself the center of early prostlyting efforts. Missionaries promised latter-day revelation, priesthood authority and a gathering of Israel. These three themes are prominent in an early newspaper article by Oliver Cowdery, reprinted in “Rough Stone Rolling.” It was these doctrines that gathered converts by the thousands.

To Bushman, the temple-endowment session is another reason Mormonism did not disappear. To many converts, it provided a path to deity. “This transition gave Mormonism’s search for direct access to God an enduring form. … The Mormon temple’s sacred story stabilized and perpetuated the original enthusiastic endowment,” writes Bushman.

Bushman describes the isolation of early frontier America. The reader understands the perils Mormons faced from larger mobs. Law and order was controlled by the largest bloc. Groups howling for murder, rape and pillaging were not necessarily stopped.

Early Mormons were responsible at times for inciting anger, but “Rough Stone Rolling” relates the fear of being surrounded by hostile forces with no protection.

Politicians in a position to help were either opportunists, such as Missouri Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs, or appeasers like Gov. Thomas Ford of Illinois, who talked blandly of a nonexistent rule of law.

Comprehending the obsessive hatred that drove the murder of Smith still remains a mystery, though Bushman tries to explain it. What caused ordinary men, such as newspaper editor Thomas Sharp — perhaps most responsible for Smith’s murder — to call for killing?

Bushman writes, “It was fear of the familiar gone awry. … Joseph was hated for twisting the common faith in biblical prophets into the visage of the arrogant fanatic, just as the abolitionists twisted the principle of equal rights into an attack on property in slaves. Both turned something powerful and valued into something dangerous. Frustrated and infuriated, ordinary people trampled down law and democratic order to destroy their imagined enemies.”

After the Mormons left Nauvoo, Sharp lived a nonviolent small-town life, serving as mayor, justice of the peace and judge.

“Rough Stone Rolling” will not satisfy those who hate Mormonism or those who wish to shield the faith from historical scrutiny. But Bushman’s superior biography of an interesting life will leave most wanting to learn more.

-- Doug Gibson

The Lost 116 Pages book explores Mormonism's great mystery

Review by Doug Gibson

Mormonism is a young religious movement. Perhaps our most prominent mystery is what's in the missing 116 pages of The Book of Mormon. The story, told so often: Transcriber Martin Harris pesters Joseph Smith to let him take a stack of translated pages to assuage his skeptical wife, Lucy. Once he has the pages, Harris loses them. The Lord rebukes Smith and Harris, and because of that, we have a shorter Book of Mormon.

The lost 116 pages is a sort of Holy Grail-mystery for many of the LDS faithful. What's in it, we wonder. Don Bradley, a prominent Latter-day Saint historian, has tackled the task of interpreting the timeline and what may indeed be in those lost pages. "The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories," Greg Kofford Books, Salt Lake City, 2019, is not an easy read. It's a scholarly work, and moves at a slow, deliberate, very detailed pace. It can be a slog at times, but it is ultimately rewarding.

I don't want this to be too much of a spoiler review, revealing to readers what is undoubtedly the most important part for many: what's in those lost pages, according to Bradley. A few tidbits of what is offered: The author's research leads him to opine that the Lost Pages are a narrative-heavy version of the time of Lehi and family in Jerusalem through the early chapters of Mosiah.

Bradley believes that the annual Passover observance coincides with the exodus from Jerusalem and the eventual possession by Nephi of the Brass Plates. Also, he believes that Lehi's followers constructed a movable temple during their journey. Readers may guess correctly that short accounts in the Book of Mormon, after the Book of Jacob, are opined to possess more detail in the Lost Pages. Topics include internal apostasy and more detail on a character named Aminadi, described as a forefather of Amulek, a missionary. In the Book of Mormon, Aminadi, an ancestor of Ishmael, is noted for interpreting writing on the wall of the temple, penned by the finger of God.

A LARGER 116 PAGES?

According to Bradley, the portion of the first 116 pages lost by Harris was much larger than what we would conceive as 116 pages today. The type of paper that was used to transcribe was roughly 13 by 17 inches. Also, through research of the various transcribers used by Smith and estimates of time spent and what could be accomplished, Bradley posits the possibility that the "116 pages" are at least 200 pages, and possibly as many as 300. The author devotes a section on potential thieves of the manuscript. He assigns a low possibility of guilt to Harris' wife, Lucy, who has often been blamed for the theft in Mormon lore.

Bradley's research is impressive. The book is heavy with footnotes, some dominating pages. Sources include Lucy Mack Smith's recollections, as well as a critical edition of same edited by historian Lavina Fielding Anderson. There arevarious 19th century published accounts of the translation from persons close to those involved. Also, the author draws parallels to events depicted or hinted at in the Book of Mormon to similar events or religious rituals depicted in The Bible.

A final note: I have noticed in conversations with friends about this book a distinction in reception. Some members seem interested, and even excited. Other members seem more reserved, even skeptical of the attempt. Granted I have only a few to several subjects, but I wonder if some members feel that the lost 116 pages should remain a great mystery, and not the subject of scholarly speculation. Is it a cultural issue?

As for me, I think it's a great, fascinating read. You can buy it from the publisher here, or via Amazon here.

Polygamy was no Mormon harem, but it tore at marriages and hearts

(Originally published at StandardNET in 2011)

I spent some time re-reading the late Richard S. Van Wagoner’s excellent book, “Mormon Polygamy: A History.” The 19th century tales of harems and never-ending teenage-girl hunting were, of course, lies to excite Eastern U.S. readers. Polygamy was a contradictory doctrine, and extremely dysfunctional. Brigham Young once said that he wished it wasn’t a doctrine, but later also raged that those who disbelieved in polygamy — and even monogomous LDS men — were in danger of damnation. And polygamy led to divorce among LDS elite leaders in numbers that would shock today. According to Van Wagoner, more than 50 marriages of LDS leaders ended in divorce in the mid 19th century.

Indeed, two early wives of LDS apostle brothers, Orson and Parley Pratt, gave their husbands the heave-ho for their enthusiastic embrace of polygamy, and for marrying young, teenage brides. And not every faithful LDS elder with a feisty wife was brave enough to try polygamy. Van Wagoner recounts the tale of one husband who abandoned plans to take a plural wife after his wife informed him that she had received a revelation from God directing her to shoot any spare wife who darkened the family doorstep.

As Van Wagoner writes, though, there was a somber paradox to polygamy, particularly for faithful LDS women who reluctantly embraced the doctrine as a commandment of God yet suffered personal heartache and financial pain due to their husband’s extracurricular wives. Emmeline Blanche Wells, early Mormon women’s leader and feminist, wrote publicly that polygamy “gives women the highest opportunities for self-development, exercise of judgment, and arouses latent faculties, making them truly cultivated in the actual realities of life, more independent in thought and mind, noble and unselfish.” In her private journal, though, Wells despaired of how polygamy had robbed her of the love of her husband, Daniel H. Wells, member of the church’s first presidency.

Emmeline wrote, “O, if my husband could only love me even a little and not seem to be perfectly indifferent to any sensation of that kind. He cannot know the cravings of my nature; he is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out.”

“He is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out,” is an appropriate indictment of polygamy, and no doubt a reason that it has long been discarded by the LDS Church.

As Van Wagoner recalls, another LDS women leader, physician Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, the first female state senator in the U.S., yearned in her personal letters for one husband who would be hers only to cherish. Despite these yearnings, she clung to her LDS faith in “the Principle.” Martha wrote her husband, Angus, that only her divine knowledge of the sacred principle of plural marriage made it bearable to endure. Nevertheless, Martha also wrote this scolding to Angus: “How do you think I feel when I meet you driving another plural wife about in a glittering carriage in broad day light? (I) am entirely out of money ...” 

For Emmeline Wells, there was a sort of happy ending that was denied many others. As Van Wagoner recounts, in his final years, her frail and aging husband, Daniel, seeking tender care and companionship, returned to Emmeline’s home and side, after mostly ignoring her for 40 years. In her eyes, that probably counted as a blessing due after decades of suffering.

Despite lurid tales and even the teenage bride races, sex was a distant reason for polygamy. It was the result of an odd doctrine, now mostly forgotten in the LDS Church, that taught that the more wives and children one accumulated on earth would increase one’s post-life eternal influence and kingdoms. Yet, one will rarely hear that explanation today.

-- Doug Gibson

Review: Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley ...

Historian Melvin C. Johnson's new book, Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley: A Mormon Ulysses of the American West," Greg Kofford Books, 2019, is a very interesting account of a man's life through various episodes of early Mormonism. Hawley was a not a major figure in the faith's history; he was mostly limited to regional prominence. However, his life traveled through significant eras of Mormon history.

Hawley's parents were baptized in the first half of the 1830s; Hawley was baptized in the midst of the Missouri turmoil and was part of the forced exodus from the state. His family ended in Wisconsin and his father served under church leader Lyman Wight. After Joseph Smith's murder, the family followed Wight's splinter group to Texas. After a short, unsuccessful marriage, Hawley had a successful lifetime marriage with Sylvia Johnson. He also helped build the Zodiac Temple and lived and served in the Cherokee Nation.

The decline of Wight's colony prompted Hawley's family, and his brother George's family, to cross the plains to Utah and join the "Brighamites." He and his family eventually helped to start the town of Pine Valley and build the church in Southern Utah. Hawley was a major figure there, serving as presiding elder, settling disputes, leading efforts at building, road creation and other initiatives. He rubbed both ecclesiastical and social shoulders with church leaders, including Apostle Erastus Snow and even President Brigham Young.

However, after serving an LDS Church mission in the late 1860s, Hawley slowly reconsidered his faith decisions, and he and his family left the "Brighamites" to join the "Josephites," or the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (now Church of Christ). He remained a faithful member for the rest of his life.

Modern church may regard Hawley's actions as an apostasy but I'm sure he did not. Johnson's account underscores the animus between the two major LDS factions in the late middle 19th century but also notes both faiths' strong reliance on the teachings of Joseph Smith and belief in new scripture, such as the Book of Mormon. Also, Hawley reconnected with family members, most notably his mother, during his mission to the RLDS, as well as old friends. He must have felt a strong pull.

Hawley's was a hard life. He and Sylvia buried several small children during the years in Pine Valley. Johnson notes how dangerous life was for youngsters, and women, in that era, particularly when a family did not have a secure house-like living arrangement. He also notes the terrifying, adverse affects that colonization had on the Native Americans, particularly in Southern Utah. The loss of land and traditional ways of living killed many, and reduced them to a begging existence, which generally led to scorn, rather than compassion, from settlers. Johnson notes that Hawley's autobiography virtually ignores the Native Americans, despite his and others' impact on their lives.

Hawley's autobiography is very sparse on details. One manner in which Johnson beefs up his book is to provide additional research on experiences Hawley shared, such as life for pioneers on the trail, the experiences of women in early Mormonism, how colonization affected Native Americans, slavery, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, etc. The massacre is a central incident in Hawley's life. He claims not to have been involved; indeed, a Johnson reports, he says he nearly lost his life protesting the murderous plans. That may be true; but the possibility also exists that Hawley may have succumbed to the pressure. Many of the victims were shot by revolvers. Hawley was one of only two men in the area who possessed revolvers.

I have neglected to mention that Hawley and family were in Utah during the Mormon Reformation. In the book Johnson provides a list of questions members were asked during the Reformation. An interesting anecdote involves an alleged conversation between Hawley and future LDS Prophet Wilford Woodruff in which the latter tells Hawley that some LDS apostles had confessed to adultery.

Hawley's  work and efforts in Utah were mostly respected. It's interesting he left the faith after a generation of setting roots in Pine Valley. It's possible that his failure to be called as bishop to the Pine Valley ward hurt him. He was called to be first counselor to a relative of the Snow apostles. This may have rankled as he had ruled against the Snows' interests earlier in a timber dispute and might have felt his "demotion" was a form of payback. In any event, after his mission to the RLDS, Johnson recaps Hawley's reassessing of personal religious beliefs, including church leadership lineage, a key dispute between "Brighamites" and "Josephites." Hawley reversed his belief in apostolic succession in family of a familial succession. This was likely prompted by his visits to RLDS prophet Joseph Smith III and his brother Alexander Smith.

Just before he left Mormonism, Hawley, who had always resisted polygamy, went back on his word to take a second wife, an action Erastus Snow had urged him to do. That probably sealed his decision to leave. I suspect his short-lived proposal to a much younger woman may have been a last effort to cling to a faith he was departing. It was doomed, as Johnson makes it clear Hawley and his wife Sylvia shared a lifetime bond that had no room for plural marriage.

As Johnson notes, Hawley's commitment to the RLDS late in life included omissions and fabrications that he had displayed while faithful to his Utah-based faith. For example, in a legal case, Hawley parroted the RLDS pleasant fiction that Joseph Smith had not taught or promulgated polygamy. He clearly knew that was not true.

Although he was conditioned by biases and prejudices that dominated his times, the Hawley depicted by biographer Johnson appears a basically decent, hard-working, loyal family-based man. He was clearly an asset to the various ecclesiastical leaders he swore allegiance to during his life. In fact, as Johnson notes, he received a second endowment during his tenure in Utah, one that guaranteed his exaltation.

We benefit from books such as "Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley." They underscore the uniqueness of the Mormon historical experience, for better or worse. Johnson's commendable effort provides us a looking glass into the daily life of an individual who helped shape that experience.

Polygamy opponents were swept aside in Nauvoo turmoil after Joseph Smith’s death

The months in Nauvoo following the murder of the LDS Church founder Joseph Smith were not surprisingly, filled with turmoil and political intrigue. The publication of “The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes” by Signature Books provides detailed accounts of the Nauvoo Stake’s high council meetings. It’s very interesting reading. The High Council was also a political body used to cast out prominent church members who did not support Brigham Young’s claim of leadership, or the church’s still-secret embrace of polygamy.

The purge of those who did not support Young in the months following Smith’s murder is an important part of LDS Church history. The Machiavellian tactics, while ruthless and arbitrary, ultimately underscored why the Mormons survived the Nauvoo disaster and thrived. They needed a “dictator,” — Young — not afraid to seize control and exercise it.

The Sept. 7, 1844 high council case of Leonard Soby, who publicly opposed polygamy in 1843 and helped publish The Nauvoo Expositor a year later, is a typical example of 1844 post-Martyrdom. Despite his past dissident status, which included an association with the anti-Smiths Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, Soby retained an uneasy status among the Nauvoo LDS religious hierarchy.

However, his support for Sidney Rigdon as church leader, and an altercation between Soby, Rigdon, Young and Orson Hyde on Sept. 3 over ordination authority for Rigdon, led to high council members “surprising” Soby with a motion that he be disfellowshipped. Soby protested vigorously, arguing that he was not a sinner, such as an adulterer or a moonshiner, but simply had honest differences with his high council colleagues.

It didn’t help. Soby may have been a bit naive, or disingenuous. By September 1844, among the Nauvoo High Council, any hesitancy to damn Rigdon as a false prophet trying to usurp authority was a one-way ticket out of the LDS Church. By the end of the night, Soby was effectively disfellowshipped. He followed Rigdon to his church in Pennsylvania, which eventually failed. Soby, 34 when drummed out of the LDS Church, died in 1891 in New Jersey. He remains a footnote in early LDS Church history.

For Young’s majority in the Mormon leadership, there was a far bigger fish to fry than Soby, or even Nauvoo Stake President William Marks, whose support for Rigdon and opposition to polygamy also ended his tenure later in 1844. On Sept. 8, 1844, in a public meeting, Rigdon would be kicked out of the church he had worked with Smith to build, with a litany of LDS Church apostles offering evidence against him.

As Brigham Young mentioned, Rigdon and Soby has been caught by Young and allies ordaining persons as “prophets” and “kings” etc. It was clear that Rigdon, who had already lost popular support in a contest with Young for church leadership, was attempting to take what members he could from Nauvoo with him to set up a rival church.

According to Young ally Orson Hyde, Rigdon, when asked that he surrender his license, threatened to publish “the history of this people since they came to Nauvoo of all their iniquity and midnight abominations.” Rigdon was referring to polygamy, and it was personal to him. His daughter, Nancy Rigdon, when 19, had resisted Joseph Smith’s efforts to make her a plural wife.

The stress of the Nauvoo polygamy battle caused Rigdon further deterioration of a long-taxed body and mind. By late 1844, he was a feeble adversary for Young and his allies. Young, who had long lost patience with Rigdon, chastised Rigdon with contempt. Other apostles provided anti-Rigdon rhetoric similar to what apostle John Taylor, future prophet, offered. He said “… he (Rigdon) is in possession of the same spirit which hurled the devil & those who we{r}e with him from heave(n) down to perdition(.)”

Only Marks offered support for Rigdon. To what must have been a very hostile audience, the Nauvoo Stake president pointed out that over the course of years, allegations against Sidney Rigdon had always been unfounded. Marks also argued in favor of a first presidency-directed church, rather than one — as Young and others argued for — directed by the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.

Marks added, “… I do not know of any other man this day that has the same power to receive revelations as Sidney Rigdon(,) as he has been ordained to be a prophet unto this people, & if he is cut off from the body this day I wish to the man if there is any that has the same power as he (Elder Rigdon).”

Young caustically responded that “Sidney had done as much (as was needed to show his unworthiness) when he arrived from Missouri(;) he had done as much as would sever any man from the priesthood …” Various Young allies also began to charge that the late Joseph Smith had had very little regard for Rigdon, and that his reputation within the church had been overstated. This is not an uncommmon tactic to use, in war, business or religion, when a longtime member of a group is being deposed by a new generation.

As mentioned, the removal of Rigdon and allies such as Soby and Marks were needed if the Mormons were to survive as a religion. Rigdon was an ill man by 1844, both physically and emotionally. He had suffered great physical hardships due to persecution in the 1830s and severe depression and anguish brought on by the introduction of polygamy and attempts by Smith to marry his daughter. Had Rigdon somehow defeated Young as Smith’s successor the LDS Church would have withered away. Rigdon’s efforts to build his own church was a miserable failure, and he spent his later years as an obscure, almost iconic curio who few paid attention to. His eccentricities included long, rambling denunciations mailed to Brigham Young that were ignored or perhaps considered with bemusement by the Utah leader.

In fact, I suspect that support for Rigdon from Marks, Soby and others (several were excommunicated the same day that Rigdon was cast out) had more to do with disgust for polygamy and the knowledge that Young intended to continue the practice.

There’s no way to know if Joseph Smith — had he lived — would have abandoned his polygamy experiment.

Under Young’s leadership, however, it was here to stay, and opposition to “the principle” would not be tolerated.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

On the deadly LDS handcart treks

As an active Mormon, I am accustomed to the romantic tales I hear in church of the wonderful “faith-inspiring” teams of pioneers who traveled to the Salt Lake valley with all their possessions in a handcart, presumably whistling as they trudged along.

Every year many faithful Latter-day Saints take pilgrimages as “handcart” pioneers, trudging along trails. We sometimes see pictures in the media of the happy, 21st century re-creators of the pioneer treks. I imagine a few may recount their experiences in Sacrament meeting.  Here’s a link to a re-enactment

It’s a pleasant modern-day fantasy, but if someone wanted to accurately recreate a handcart trek, they would need to do it half-starved, with bloody feet and blistered hands, with few supplies and noisy handcarts prone to breaking. And if winter crept up, the re-creators would have to stop every so often to bury children and other pioneers killed by disease and the elements.

The hard fact is, the LDS handcart experiment was a disaster. Any money saved did not come close to to suffering endured by new Latter-day Saints who had to trek across a country carrying heavier loads than any rickshaw carrier was forced to endure. In fact, the fourth and fifth handcart groups, the Willie and Martin teams of 1856, were so badly mismanaged that at least a quarter (250-plus) of the handcart pioneers perished on the trail.

Historian Will Bagley recounts the LDS handcart fiasco in the Winter 2009 edition of the Journal of Mormon History. It is must reading for LDS history enthusiasts. The genesis for the handcart idea was money. The Perpetual Immigration Fund was badly in debt and early church leaders wanted to cut costs. Leaders rationalized that new Latter-day Saints would be glad to make a few sacrifices and carry their supplies across the plains to get to Zion.

The first three handcart groups made it through by early fall in 1856. Only about 30 pioneers of 600 died, an average number for the times. However, the handcarts made loud noises that caused discomfort and food supplies were woefully inadequate. Bagley recounts that the Mormon prophet Brigham Young was badly shaken by the emaciated, starved state of many of the handcart pioneers. A key problem that was never adequately handled by Mormon leaders was setting up food and other supplies posts along the trail.

The biggest, most deadly mistake made by Mormon leaders was to allow the Willie and Martin teams to leave for Salt Lake City in mid and late July of 1856. Neither group had a realistic chance of making it to the Salt Lake Valley before the cold and snow set in and the latter parts of the trip were horrifying for the LDS pioneers. As mentioned, about 25 percent died and Bagley opines that many others died after arriving in Salt Lake City. Despite October efforts by church leaders to send out relief wagons, the weakest in the parties continued to die at alarming rates.

Given the horror of the early handcarts, it’s ironic we celebrate them today. Despite cheerily false 1850s reports of the handcart treks in the church-owned Deseret News, LDS leaders did not hide the grim facts. Church leaders hurled accusations, claiming that some leaders should not have sent out the parties so late in the summer. Later, church leaders launched a counterattack from the pulpits against those who criticized them for the deadly handcart  fiascos.

Martin’s Cove was a place where many perished. Here is an account from Bagley’s piece: “We stayed in the ravine for five or six days on reduced rations,” Samuel Jones continued. “One night a windstorm blew down almost every tent. Many perished of cold and hunger at this place.”

Now that would be an experience that would likely bring some empathy and understanding to all the modern-day trekkers to Martin’s Cove.

There’s no doubt that transporting thousands of saints across the plains to Utah was an impressive accomplishment by Brigham Young and other church leaders. But the handcart scheme, which staggered on for five more treks before being stopped, was a big mistake. Far too many suffered for whatever savings were intended.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs