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HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
SPRING 1972 / VOLUME 40 / NUMBER 2
Contents IN T H I S ISSUE
Ill
INFLATION IDYL: A FAMILY FARM IN HUNTSVILLE
F A W N M . BRODIE
112
MARK
P. L E O N E
122
BARRETT
142
" G L O R I O U S A N D I M P E R I S H A B L E F U T U R E " . G L E N M . LEONARD
163
THE EVOLUTION OF MORMON CULTURE IN EASTERN
ARIZONA
WALTER MURRAY GIBSON: T H E SHEPHERD SAINT O F LANAI REVISITED R. W. S L O A N ' S 1884 GAZETTEER:
GWYNN
BOOSTING UTAH'S
BOOK REVIEWS
178
BOOK NOTICES
194
RECENT ARTICLES
198
HISTORICAL NOTES
203
THE COVER For thirty years Mormon colonization efforts were directed by Brigham Young whose powerful personality was captured by the skilled eye of Charles R. Savage in this 1876 photograph of the aging leader from the Bennett Collection, Utah State Historical Society. Harvest time — so important in Mormon agricultural communities — is poignantly recalled on the back cover in a photograph from the Society's Tribune Collection.
©
Copyright 1972
U t a h State Historical Society
T A Y L O R , S A M U E L W., at Nauvoo
Nightfall L E V I S. P E T E R S O N
L A R S O N , A N D R E W K A R L , Erastus
178
Snow:
The Life of a Missionary and Pioneer for the Early Mormon Church . M E L V I N T . S M I T H W A S H I N G T O N , M A R Y , An Annotated
179
Bibliography
of Western Manuscripts in the Merrill Library at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, a n d SPECIAL C O L L E C T I O N S D E P A R T M E N T , M E R R I L L LIBRARY,
U T A H STATE U N I V E R S I T Y , Name
Library of Congress Collection
Index
of
to the
Mormon
Diaries
DAVIS BITTON
181
H A R R I N G T O N , V I R G I N I A S., AND H A R R I N G T O N , J. C ,
Rediscovery of the Nauvoo Temple: Report on the Archaeological Excavations . D E E F. GREEN
183
Books reviewed H A F E N , L E R O Y R., The Mountain
Men
and the Fur Trade of the Far West, vols. 5 a n d 6
DAVID E. M I L L E R
R U N D E L L , W A L T E R , J R . , In Pursuit
History: Research United
of
and Training
184
American
in the
States
S. L Y M A N T Y L E R
186
R H O A D E S , G A L E R., AND B O R E N , K E R R Y R o s s ,
Footprints in the Wilderness: Lost Rhoades Mines . .
A History of the C H A R L E S S. PETERSON
187
NAGATA, S H U I C H I , Modern Transformations of Moenkopi Pueblo . . . . R O B E R T C. E U L E R
188
GOELDNER, P A U L , Utah Catalog: Historic Building
Survey
American PETER L. G O S S
189
R O S E , J O S E P H I N E ; D O U G A N , T E R R E L L ; AND
C H U R C H I L L , S T E P H A N I E , This is the Place:
Salt Lake City; An
Entertaining
Guide
ILENE
H.
KINGSBURY
190
W A T K I N S , T . H., Gold and Silver in the West: The Illustrated History of an American Dream
JOHN
M.
BOURNE
191
. GEORGE S. T A N N E R
192
K R E N K E L , J O H N H . , ED., The Life and Times of
Joseph Fish, Mormon
Pioneer
STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF COLORADO
In this issue This year marks the 125th anniversary of Mormon entry into the Great Basin. Under Brigham Young's direction, colonizing during the first decades of settlement proceeded in an orderly fashion and extended far beyond Utah's present boundaries. Manti, Utah, photographed (above) by William Henry Jackson some forty years after its founding in 1849, is a typical example of the towns established by the Mormons. These agrarian villages were characterized by crosshatch layouts and a strong sense of community cooperation. Economic self-sufficiency was a policy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints implemented through agencies such as the local co-ops. Cooperative economics, like the polygamous marriage system, was abandoned late in the nineteenth century, and Mormons thereby readmitted themselves into the mainstream of American society. With other westerners, they experienced the pangs of diminishing frontiers in the late 1880s, struggled through the Great Depression of the 1930s, and accustomed themselves to a specialized, mechanized, and urbanized society. This issue of the Quarterly memorializes Mormon colonizing efforts since 1847 with articles and book reviews examining Mormon experience in two centuries and in varied settings. The impact of a depression-era farmer in Huntsville, Utah, is recalled by a member of his family. The Hawaiian adventures of the missionary-politician Walter Murray Gibson are reexamined in the light of new evidence. Mormon society on the Little Colorado frontier of northern Arizona is analyzed with perceptive insights into social patterns and cooperative economics. And the views of an 1884 Utah booster provide an assessment of the work of pioneering in Utah, along with some observations relevant for our own times. This issue appears amid evidence of increasing scholarly attention to the Mormon story, a trend apparent in historical activities of the past several years. The years ahead will undoubtedly see historians providing a fuller interpretive record of the Mormon role in the history of Utah and the West.
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Inflation Idyl: A Family Farm in Huntsville BY F A W N
M
M.
BRODIE
have written five letters in a single day, one to each of her scattered children, had she not had news as unexpected as it was memorable. With a caution born of long experience with my father's romantic business habits, she waited until the papers were signed, the deeds transferred, and the check for the first payment deposited in the bank. Then, with what must have been an unutterable feeling of release, she sat down with her pen. Y MOTHER WOULD NEVER
A Fellow of the U t a h State Historical Society, Mrs. Brodie is the author of several books as well as articles and reviews which have appeared in the Utah Historical Quarterly. Presently professor of history at the University of California in Los Angeles, she won the Society's Rosenblatt Award in September 1971 for her article, "Sir Richard F. Burton: Exceptional Observer of the Mormon Scene," which was published in the Fall 1970 issue of the Quarterly. T h e author's father was Thomas Evans M c K a y of Huntsville, U t a h . Above photograph of a Huntsville farm is from Art Work of Utah. All other photographs are courtesy of the author.
Inflation Idyl
113
"You will be happy to learn," she wrote, "that after all these years we are out of debt. The sheep range has been sold for a good price, more than enough to pay off the mortgage on the rest of the farm. After twenty-eight years it is hard to believe it true." Not even the end of the war caused such a flurry of letter writing in our family. Letters crisscrossed the country in five directions. "Do you remember our family prayers?" my older sister wrote. "And how comic we thought it, secretly, whenever Tommy would say, 'Please, God, bless Daddy that he'll get out of debt.' Oh, we of little faith!" That was precisely what made the news so unexpected, our little faith. To us the debt had been immutable, fixed as the polestar, the absolute around which the family revolved. My father had borne the burden, like Atlas, without hope and without lament. He had shouldered it before most of us were born, back in the days, so fresh to him, when he was newly married. My grandfather then was still alive, a gentle, white-bearded old Mormon patriarch who in a way was responsible for everything. It had all begun when my grandfather, contrary to the usual custom in the valley, divided his land among his sons before his death. Perhaps he had seen bickerings and jealousies follow too soon upon the funerals of his friends and hoped to miss such indignities at his own burial. Perhaps, since he was an indulgent and kindly man, he decided out of the pure generousness of his nature to give his four sons their patrimony when they needed it most, for they were all recently married and busily begetting children. To one who did not know this Utah valley, grandfather's land seemed a hodgepodge — fine green squares of irrigated truck farm on the valley floor, pastures crisscrossed with swamps, undulating acres of dryland grain in the foothills, and a wide swath of rangeland sweeping up to the top of the mountain that rimmed the valley to the east. But in the primitive pioneer economy it had been an almost self-sufficient unit, with each part contributing uniquely to the security of the family. Hay and grain fed the range stock in the winter; the lower pastures kept the milk cows fat; and the irrigated acres filled the cellar with vegetables and fruit. The quartering of the farm brought hopeless disorder, as everyone had expected in advance. The death of any farmer wrought this same havoc, for in those valleys where the Mormon farmers were generally more fertile than the soil, every family had three to six sons. The four
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Utah Historical Quarterly
sons of my grandfather, with the grandiose optimism of the young, saw in the farm's dismemberment not tragedy but a challenge. All were agreed that the farm could ill provide for more than one man and his children and that the farm's unity must speedily be restored. They cast lots to see which of the four should buy out the others, and the choice, happily or unhappily, fell upon my father. He paid them a stiff price for their shares and mortgaged the whole of my grandfather's acreage to settle the debts. But there was no resentment in him, though he liked farming no better than the others and would have been happier to try his luck in city politics. It was agreed among the brothers that the money borrowed on the land should be invested to make a fortune for them all. The mortgage would be quickly liquidated, the family inheritance kept intact, and all four sons started down the green road to opulence. In any year this scheme would have been romantic enough, for these sons were neither crafty nor careful, but in the frenetic inflation of 1919 it could have only one issue. Somehow — the exact fashion of which was never made clear to me by the meager allusions in later years David McKay, Huntsville, and his grandchildren, May 3,1916. Seated on the patriarch's lap are Thomas E. McKay's daughter Fawn and David O. McKay's son Edward.
Inflation Idyl
115
to "Arizona cotton" and "Canadian wheat" — they invested the money and lost it all. It took me a long time to understand why a single year's abandon could create a burden on my father that would last almost thirty years. Under my grandfather the farm had spelled shelter, security, and the goodness of life. With the flick of a pen these were signed away in the marbled city bank in the lower valley. The alfalfa grew green as ever and flowered purple before the cutting, the cows calved faithfully, and the potato harvests were better than before. But the farm now was in perpetual need of rescue. All through our childhood my sisters and I took the insecurity so much for granted that it never occurred to us that God had intended the good land of the valley to mean sustenance as well as sacrifice. We raised an astonishing variety of domestic animals in successive, desperate attempts to lessen the mortgage load. From cattle to pigs, from pigs to dairy cows, from dairy cows to chickens, from chickens to turkeys, from turkeys to sheep — the list encompassed all the livestock of the West. Of the pigs episode I remember nothing, though the family album has a faded snapshot of my father sitting on the trough, handsome and almost debonair, with twenty sows snuffling at his feet. Mother told us once, when we were laughing at the picture, that one time in the early spring my father had brought the pigs into the back yard. "They'll root up the garden," he had said, "and rid us of the old cabbage stocks." There was no more patient woman in the valley than my mother, but this was too much for her city breeding. She stood their grunting and squealing and lively stench for a whole day and then said smiling: "I had a suitor once, long before I met you, whom my father permitted rather often in the parlor. Then one day he said to me, Tf you marry that young man, you'll have pigs in your back yard.' So I never saw him after." The pigs went out of the back yard, and out of our lives apparently, for they were followed immediately in our album by snapshots of our dairy cows. The Holsteins, with their big splotches of white on black, were very photogenic, and mother, who did fine things with an ancient camera, took pictures of them with her practised artist's eye. Neither pigs nor Holsteins could keep the family solvent, and my father took a job in the city from which he commuted every day through Ogden canyon, at first with the horse and buggy, and then for fourteen years in a Model-T Ford. He held a variety of jobs, each one better than
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Utah Historical Quarterly
the one before, but the bulk of his earnings continued to pour into the cavernous maw of the city bank. For a while my father kept cows. He rose at four in the morning to milk all twenty-four of them and then hitched up the buggy to drive the twelve miles to his job. When he returned, it was usually after dark. He would light the lantern and walk down to the pasture gate, calling, "Sic, Boss, sic Boss," in a strong, even voice that never betrayed his increasing weariness. The cows would come running, for they knew his voice, and their milk bags were heavy and painful at that late hour. His doing the work of two men was no real solution for our financial straits. My father owed thirty thousand dollars. It might as well have been thirty million. Perhaps it was those hours out under the stars, milking the stolid Holsteins when he was tired enough to die, that convinced my father that the farm could never be redeemed in his lifetime. He fell easy prey to the notion that he could save it only with his death. In this the insurance salesmen were only too happy to encourage him. He took out first one policy and then another, and as his city jobs got better his insurance load became heavier. He stopped at the point where his death would have brought my mother thirty thousand dollars. To her the whole idea was preposterous, but she had no weapons to battle with my father's romanticism. She had been reared in the stern patriarchal tradition of the Mormon pioneer family where submission to the male was the primary feminine virtue. My father was stubborn, but he was also gentle, and she could not have fought him if she would. The insurance premiums and the interest on the mortgage kept us in a state of genteel poverty. This did not trouble my father, for his wants were simple, and he made his way among his wealthier associates with unfailing, unpretentious dignity. But there were symptoms that betrayed in him a smouldering hope that the farm could somehow be miraculously rescued while he was yet alive. He talked periodically about prospecting on our rangeland for gold. There was an odd-shaped, barren knoll at the foot of the mountain which seemed to him the likeliest spot for digging. He called it, without irreverence, the Hill Cumorah, after the hill where the first Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, had found his legendary golden plates. Our Hill Cumorah was a favorite spot for the rainbows that appeared so often in the valley after summer showers. When we saw the bow's end shining on the hill, we would rush to show it to my father, and he would gravely say, "There's where I'll find my pot of gold." We took it all very seriously.
Inflation Idyl
117
Meanwhile our experiments in animal husbandry multiplied. The first year we raised turkeys our luck held out until the Twenty-fourth of July. This was the great Mormon holiday, anniversary of the day the first pioneers entered Salt Lake Valley, and it was celebrated in every village with rodeos, parades, and worship. On ordinary days we herded the turkey flock out over the sagebrush foothills and across the alfalfa fields of our neighbors who were eager to have our birds stave off the grasshopper menace which threatened their crops. The big, bronze hens, each followed by twelve to fifteen scrawny, half-grown birds, had been easy to train and knew the route well. Mother was perpetually apprehensive about coyotes and always insisted that one of us be with the flock through the day. But on this morning, to our infinite pleasure, father waved aside her worried protest and insisted that the whole family see the village celebration. "The coyotes have followed the sheep herds into the mountains," he said. "There's none 'round here in July." When we returned toward sunset, the flock had come back to be fed at the grain troughs, and mother noted instantly that some were missing. Sensing a calamity, we all set out through the sagebrush. The usual route led north until it crossed a pasture where seepage from the big canal made the grass grow thick and heavy. It was here that the coyote, which must have been watching us every day for weeks, had come jauntily down to the kill. The first twenty-five or thirty birds were neatly eviscerated. The rest were merely killed. We could see the thin, short trails in the grass which the younger birds had made in their last, desperate scramble for life. At the end of the longer trails lay the hens, stiff and grotesque. So overwhelmed were we at this needless, casual slaughter that we scarcely heard mother's bitter voice, saying, "There go all our profits." While she silently counted the dead turkeys, my father drew us toward him, talking in a rapid, even voice. "This would never have happened," he said, "had Uncle John Grow been alive. He stalked coyotes every month in the year, poisoning, trapping, and shooting. We never had coyotes in the valley when he was alive. The state paid him for his work, and he was worth thousands to the sheepmen in the county. But now there's no one who knows how — or cares." As he went on to describe the planning and delicate trickery of the old hunter, we forgot our own responsibility for the day's tragedy. The fault lay not in ourselves but in our stars. We had been born too late to see the bear and coyote hides drying on Uncle John Grow's barn doors.
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And the civic conscience which had seen to it that he was paid for his pains seemed gone for good. My father did not ask my mother the result of her counting, and she did not burden him with it. Only my young brother had the indelicacy to ask the number. Mother replied, "Fifty-seven," and nothing more was ever said on the matter. What happened once with the turkeys was repeated every year when we switched to raising sheep, though here the coyotes were not to blame. My father began with a small herd of Hampshire ewes, selected carefully because they produce heavier lambs than other breeds. Since there were too few to be herded on the range, he kept them in the lower pastures, carefully and expensively fenced in so that they required no watching. He planned to sell only the buck lambs and let the flock increase until he had a thousand ewes, when he would put them on the range with a herder. Every pasture he then owned fronted on a field of alfalfa, which to either cows or sheep happens to be of all edibles the most succulent. It happens also, when eaten green and in large quantities, to be fatal. What my father was not told when he bought Hampshire sheep was that of all breeds this was the most restless, aggressive, and unconscionably greedy. No wire fence was built that would hold them indefinitely. Soon it became a ritual for mother to stand on our hill with the field glasses, anxiously checking the pastures to make sure that the sheep had not broken into the neighboring fields. Sometimes it was only one or two lambs that had squeezed under a fence through the irrigation ditch; sometimes a fierce young buck had bunted a hole through a weak spot and the whole flock had followed him joyously into the tender young alfalfa. Then one of us rode off frantically on the pony, trying to reach the sheep before they had gorged enough to bloat. Sometimes we found several already dead, their bodies distended and evil-looking, the deadly green fluid running out between their stiff jaws. More often we routed them all out and then waited fearfully to see which ones would die. Those which had been the greediest would stand swollen and panting in the sun. If one lay down we knew he was done for. A bloated cow could be stuck through the ribs with a knife and sometimes saved, but for some anatomical reason this was impossible with Posed in front of the Huntsville home of David McKay in 1916 are Thomas Evans McKay and his wife, Fawn Brimhall, with their daughters Flora, right, and Fawn.
Inflation
119
Idyl
( mm\\m •'••y§lMM-Mm§V
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Quarterly
sheep. There was absolutely no remedy but prayer, and this we tried silently and secretly without ever being certain of the results. We hated telling my father the news of each fresh casualty. He was never angered, but only saddened, and went out patiently to make the fence tight again. What made it easier for him to accept these losses was the simple fact that he never added them at the season's end. When my uncle asked him one afternoon how many sheep had bloated that summer, he answered unashamed that he did not know, and when mother supplied the figure he was visibly shocked. Nothing was better calculated to lay bare our fantastically uneconomic financial structure than the Great Depression. When my father's salary was abruptly halved, the first casualty was his insurance. As he was forced to give up first one and then another policy, the idea of dying, which until then had been so ingeniously robbed of its sting, now became hateful to him. Confident though he was of immortality in the Mormon "celestial kingdom," he could not stomach the notion that his only earthly legacy would be bankruptcy and foreclosure. Before long our neighbors in the valley were going into bankruptcy by scores. My father's income, truncated though it was, was still enough to enable him to make token payments which the bankers, faced with the appalling prospect of owning all the farms in the area, were only too glad to accept. Even token payments reduced unbearably the sum upon which the family was expected to live. The two of us in college, who felt the pinch most acutely, for the first time began to question the sanity of our family farm policy. With a relentlessness born of our hunger for pretty clothes we forced my father one day to wrestle with the facts. Out of the chaos of incomplete statistics and hopeful estimates he emerged cheerfully. "Well, girls, if I live long enough the farm'll be out of debt." He would have to live, we figured silently, until he was ninety-five. We argued futilely for him to sell. No one would pay enough, he knew, to cover even half the mortgage. We argued still more hopelessly for him to give the farm up to the banks, not sensing that he could no more do this than renounce his children, however much they plagued him. It was ironical that the one instrument which saved the farm in the thirties should have been that which my father most detested, the New Deal. An old guard Republican by habit, conviction, and considerable practice in state politics, he found it difficult to bring himself to take advantage of the New Deal's farm renegotiation policies, despite the fact that by that time he had paid the full sum of his debt in interest alone.
Inflation
Idyl
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When the federal loan was finally arranged and his debt was halved in the process, he felt a sense of guilt, as if he had betrayed his party. Later, when a local Democrat lillifin charge of the crop reduction pro"M gram telephoned to remind him of some small benefit for not raising his normal quota of wheat, he salved his conscience by turning it down with dignity. "No one should be paid for not planting wheat," he said. The federal loan lifted some of the burden the farm imposed upon my father's income; the marriages of his four daughters helped still more, but the farm continued to be a drain. As the war neared he rented all his Thomas Evans McKay land, admitting ruefully that with his special talent for losing money it was cheaper to be an absentee landlord. He still drove to the valley on weekends, surveying his land with pretended conscientiousness through the windows of his car and saying jocularly to my mother, "Now this is the way I like to farm!" We all thought he would go on this way until he died. Mother wrote that he talked occasionally of selling, but we all felt that he would ask a price no one could pay without starving out his days. What we had not reckoned with was the inflation. The same dizzy postwar spiral which caught up the price of steak and shoes dragged upward with it the market value of our Hill Cumorah and the rocky range towering above it. My father sold this, the most arid and unattractive part of his acreage, at a price that seemed fantastic to his depression-bred children, a price that restored to him the security he had thrown away so blithely almost thirty years before. Only then did we realize the unfathomable depth of his romanticism. No one of his children would have held on with such faith and tenacity in this particular thirty years of the world's history. Cataclysm and revolution far beyond his quiet valley had flung him back astride the wheel he had so confidently ridden in his youth. He never found his pot of gold, but this was a kindred miracle nonetheless.
The Evolution of Mormon Culture in Eastern Arizona BY MARK P. LEONE
_ | ^ INETEENTH-CENTURY
AMERICA W a s f u l l
of U t o p i a n g r o u p s .
Most
were religious like the Shakers, Mennonites, and Hutterites; some were secular like the Pullman community in Chicago. All of these groups shared the goal of removing or freeing a population from mainline American culture. They all sought to set up an environment where their group could lead an independent, autonomous, self-sustaining existence. Rough-hewn housing served the basic needs of early settlers. Mormon Battalion veteran Marshall Hunt and his wife, Sarah Ann Runyan, came to the Little Colorado in 1883. Marshall's brother John was bishop of Snowflake for many years. Photograph courtesy Lois M. Recore and Josie M. Reenders.
Mormon
Culture in Eastern Arizona
123
As a Utopian group seeking to remove its population from the iniquities of the larger world, Mormonism was no different in this characteristic from several dozen similar movements, both religious and secular. A typical nineteenth-century response to panics a n d depressions was to a t t e m p t to insulate one's c o m m u n i t y from the spreading paralysis by greater attention to home industry a n d the inauguration of local selfhelp movements. If one adds a liberal mixture of religious idealism, a n d some "I-told-you-so's" in relation to the effect of the enclave, this was essentially the response of the M o r m o n s . U n d e r t h e stimulus of the church, each community was to extend the cooperative principle to every form of labor a n d investment, a n d to cut t h e ties which b o u n d t h e m to t h e outside world. T h e resources of w a r d m e m b e r s were pooled, a n d an a t t e m p t was m a d e , u n d e r the a u r a of religious sanction, to root out individualistic profit-seeking a n d t r a d e a n d achieve the blessed state of self-sufficiency a n d equality. This n e w order . . . was called " T h e U n i t e d O r d e r of E n o c h . " 1
All Utopian efforts in the nineteenth century were to one degree or another communal. The original experiments tried by Joseph Smith, Jr., involved the complete sharing of property. The idea was soon abandoned and replaced with tithing, or more literally the common pooling of a tenth of one's yearly income. In the mid-1870s the United Order was founded as an attempt to create completely autonomous communities throughout the Great Basin. Their history is an illuminating footnote to the Mormonism of the period and is of consequence here because Mormon colonial activity in Arizona began during this period and was heavily influenced by the principles operating in the United Order idea. All nineteenth-century Mormon settlement in the Great Basin was organized around the notion of self-sufficiency within a framework of cooperation. The adaptive strategy used by the Mormons as well as by most other Utopian groups was internal completeness which was to lead to independence from the rest of the world. The level at which internal Dr. Leone is in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. The research presented in this paper was initiated with the support of the Southwest Archaeological Expedition of the Field Museum of Natural History directed by Paul S. Martin. The research is currently funded through National Science Foundation Institutional Grants to Princeton University and by a grant to the author from the National Institute of Mental Health of the Public Health Service (MH 19116-01). The Church Historian's Office of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been generous in its assistance with this research. The author wishes to thank Alfred L. Bush, Janet L. Dolgin, Louis A. Hieb, Peter L. Nowicki, Sherry O. Paul, Charles S. Peterson, Martin G. Silverman, George S. Tanner, and Ezra B. W. Zubrow for valuable contributions and scholarly aid. Special thanks are due Emma Freeman, Albert Levine, John Westover, and the late Lafe S. Hatch for their patience and willingness to explain turn-of-the-century Mormonism. 1 Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 324.
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Quarterly
completeness, or self-sufficiency defined economically, was to be realized for the Mormons varied several times within the nineteenth century. At one point all Mormondom was to be one huge cooperative enterprise. As that became unworkable, an effort at making every subdivision of the kingdom self-reliant prevailed. 2 Even under this idea the unit that was to be self-sufficient varied. If the M o r m o n settlements on the Little Colorado River are examined, the unit to become self-sufficient seems at first to be relative to the beholder. Church leaders in Salt Lake City thought and dealt with the Little Colorado area as a single entity. It was a colony of the M o r m o n Church and as such, even though it was internally differentiated, was viewed as a whole and as a piece for several decades. T h e highest levels of local church administration within the Little Colorado area itself shared the view of Salt Lake City in seeing the region as a whole. Later, as administrative subdivisions were spread over the area, the view of stake leaders tended to be circumscribed by the limits of their administrative units. Parallel cases of narrowing vision of what unit was to be self-sustaining are found for the leaders of towns or wards, and also at the level of the single farming family. T h e autonomy or selfsufficiency to be achieved in economic matters varied with the perspective of the individual, and that perspective was governed by his position on the scale of leadership and responsibility. After the initial period of settlement, there was no clear policy on what the level of cooperation and, on the reverse, autonomy should be. T h e initial settlements on the Little Colorado were founded under the United O r d e r of Enoch. They lasted from 1876 to about 1885. Their effective life was about five or six years, and they did feature the communal holding of property. T h e r e was unified leadership and constant direction from Salt Lake City headquarters. But after their rapid passing, the church was more concerned with fostering a viable colony t h a n with setting out precise rules for cooperative and autonomous behavior. As a result, variability in perspectives on the appropriate level of autonomy came into being. T h e r e is little doubt that M o r m o n communalism in its moderated form is one of the keys to understanding how the Mormons brought off the successful settlement of the Great Basin. T h e individualistic, profitmaking ethos that characterized much of the settlement of the American West was not as efficient an adaptive strategy as the communal one, when applied to the Great Basin. T h e Little Colorado area of Arizona had 2
Ibid., chapters 7, 10, 11.
Mormon
Culture in Eastern
125
Arizona
seen such efforts fail or barely survive before the successful arrival of the Mormons. And during the course of their own working adjustment to the area, several other non-cooperative, capitalist ventures were elaborate failures. The whole adaptive strategy of the Mormons was inward-looking. It is important to see that such a strategy can emphasize local autonomy as well as cooperative efforts at survival. These are two tendencies that are more likely to be contradictory and conflicting than complementary. Even though the Mormon cooperative effort succeeded in planting and sustaining a viable population in eastern Arizona, it was not successful until it counterbalanced serious trends toward fission among these same communities. Two factors will illustrate the trend toward internal isolation among the towns composing the Arizona Mormon colony. The first is the high rate of town endogamy. The second is the great homogeneity in crops grown in all the towns. Throughout the whole period of 1876 to 1900, the rate of intermarriage within the Mormon towns was eighty percent. That is, eight out of every ten marriages in any one town were between residents of that town. Only twenty percent of the time did a town resident take a spouse from
o\Nutrioso i 0 |Alpine
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another community. That was the pattern in Arizona and in Utah as well. Such a pattern of social relations certainly was not calculated to bind a region together through marriage and family ties. In fact, in Utah, community endogamy led to the emergence of genetic pathologies. Joseph E. Spencer has found "evidence which suggests that inbreeding was beginning to produce undesirable results in some villages, notably in Springdale." A few cases of congenital blindness and more numerous cases mental 'queerness' are to be found among certain age groups in some the villages which lived too closely within themselves. This may not conclusive of too great inbreeding but a decrease of such cases is seen later years of greater outside contacts. 3
of of be in
In addition to the isolation of towns through an inbred kinship network, the economic pattern whereby all towns raised the same crops fostered separation. This was another tendency that cooperative efforts had to counterbalance. Tithing records for Snowflake, Taylor, St. Joseph (Joseph City), Woodruff, Pinedale, and Show Low for the years 1885 to 1896 show all these towns raising the same products. Hay, grain, livestock, and vegetables with some dairy products were produced by every town. There were very few products centered in specialized locales4 and as a result little economic basis to foster trade between the towns. How, in spite of all this, was unity and cooperation achieved? Both the pattern of intensive in-marrying and the duplication of farm products had aspects to them that worked to tie the region together. Inmarrying was tied to economics and served as a pipeline to aid from relatives in the world outside a town during hard times, and the similarity in farm products guaranteed that any town needing aid was sure to find basic subsistence products within easy reach. The first part of this article is concerned with the means used by the Little Colorado communities to counteract their own economic and social isolation. Patterns of marriage exchange and the system of ecological interdependence are examined as ties unifying these towns. The initial question has two factors: patterns of marriage exchange, or the reciprocal circulation of women, and economic autonomy. The question is to what extent the economic autonomy of the towns produced community endogamy (marriage within the community). Further, in the twentieth century what is the relation3 Joseph Earle Spencer, " T h e Middle Virgin River Valley, U t a h ; A Study in Culture Growth and C h a n g e " (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1937), 199-200, 200 n. 29. 4 Snowflake Stake Funds 1882-1901, microfilm, Church Historian's Office, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.
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ship between the breakup of economic isolation in these towns and a changed rate of exogamy (marriage outside the community)? The second part of this study is concerned with the absorption of these towns into the national economy and how nineteenth-century Mormonism has adjusted in them to become a fully successful twentieth-century religion. As a whole the paper attempts to show Mormonism's changing relationship to the economic and social circumstances of its population from 1880 to 1965. UNIFYING FACTORS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
If individual communities were economically self-sufficient — or even if they so conceived of themselves in the face of reality — then what tied them together to preserve regional unity? This should include not just unity at a transcendant doctrinal level but at the level of practical cooperation as well. Consider the circulation of marriageable women among these communities. There was and is no marriage rule among Mormons prescribing exogamy or endogamy, except that a Mormon should always marry a Mormon. Therefore, one assumes that the pattern of marriage ties is free to conform to other pressures. The question then becomes, does the economic independence of a community produce community endogamy, or does regional religious unity produce community exogamy? Data from both historic and more recent cases follow. In order to measure patterns of marriage exchange within and among the communities of eastern Arizona, patterns of endogamy and, by contrast, exogamy were examined from 1879 to 1965. The data were obtained from marriage licenses in the county courthouse records at St. Johns and Holbrook, Arizona. Of course, even the initial period of settlement reflects more than Mormon patterns. It includes the MexicanAmerican population as well as small, less well-defined segments. Nevertheless the Mormons are by far the major segment of the population and the focus here. For the area covered by Navajo and Apache counties, the rate of exogamy averaged twenty percent from 1879 to 1900, and the contrasting rate of endogamy was eighty percent. These data are especially interesting since many of the Mormon families migrating into Arizona from Utah moved several times before settling in one town permanently.5 This trend is contradicted by the highest social stratum of the Little 6 Charles S. Peterson, Settlement on the Little Colorado, 1873—1890: A Study of Processes and Institutions of Mormon Expansion (microfilm; Ann Arbor, 1967), 286-87.
the
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Colorado area. The families of bishops, stake leaders, and the few who had wealth tended to form within themselves an endogamous elite who married out of their own towns, thus accounting for part of the twenty percent rate of exogamy. This latter observation has been corroborated in interviews with several living members of these same families. In the twentieth century, the average rate of out-marrying for the same set of communities is forty percent. The peaks in exogamy — that is, single people migrating in from outside and then marrying, or one member of a couple going outside his natal community for his spouse — are closely correlated with peaks of abnormal economic activity in the twentieth century. During normal times in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the economic base of the area was stable enough to permit the community the self-sufficiency that was the explicit Mormon ideal. During prosperity and depression, i.e., departures from the norm, the area could not remain self-contained. In both cases the departure was due to strong pressure for aid either to be given to or extracted from the world outside the community. When the towns were well off, individuals migrated to them, often marrying local people. When the towns were poorly off, people in them sought to stabilize their individual conditions by bringing to the town a spouse with family ties in an area that was better off. When generalized, this means that endogamy is a function of economic stability and exogamy is a function of economic instability. Economic instability usually implies crisis, but not always. From 1902 to 1908, the highest rate of exogamy ever experienced in the area was recorded. This was a period of rapid and unusual economic growth.6 Railroading combined with the success of the sheep-raising industry to make the area productive. In addition, this was also the period of highest rainfall for the area in the twentieth century,7 and agriculture proliferated as an economic base. Exogamy again reached highs in the Depression and in the 1950s. During these two periods of economic crisis, one of the means for stabilizing an individual's economic base was to seek a spouse in a community other than one's own. By extending the bonds of kinship and kin-based obligations, guarantees against localized disaster were maintained. Family ties, family influence, ties of friendship, and the rapid exchange of knowledge that such ties facilitate enable an individual to 8 Pearl Udall Nelson, Arizona Pioneer Mormon: David King Udall (Tucson, 1959), 152 ff; Harold C. Wayte, Jr., "A History of Holbrook a n d the Little Colorado Country," chapters 8 a n d 9, Holbrook Tribune News, M a y 21 a n d 28, 1970. T Christine Green and William Sellers, eds., Arizona Climate (Tucson, 1964), 2 2 3 - 2 6 .
Mormon
Culture in Eastern Arizona
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After six years of settlement on the Little Colorado, farming towns began to take on a look of permanence. Fences, log houses, and a brick stake house are shown here in the first known photograph of Snowflake, courtesy Albert J. Levine.
insure for himself a wider range of options in times of economic crisis than he would otherwise have. In summary, then, patterns of marriage alliance expressed as exogamous and endogamous relationships seem to be tied to economic conditions. From an impressionistic reading of the economic data available, it seems clear that for the whole of the period from 1879 to 1965, marriage patterns are correlated with economic factors. In the 1960s, for example, there has been a drop in the rate of exogamy from forty percent to thirty-five percent to complement the increased stability of the economy of the local communities. In the nineteenth century, economic stability was equated with the self-sufficiency of communities; however, economic stability since World War II has come about through connections with the national economy. Nevertheless, regardless of the source of economic strength, fluctuation in community exogamy reflects the degree of dependence on the outside world. The obvious contradiction to community in-marrying is the series of marriage bonds between the most powerful families in the area in the nineteenth century. Intermarrying between the families which produced bishops and other hierarchs had distinct economic advantages for the area. Since bishops controlled and managed the tithing storehouses, the water control systems, the system of civil justice, as well as almost all aspects of intercommunity exchange, tying the entire network together with marriage alliances guaranteed more secure links between the men who governed the area. Such ties produced a sociological canopy over
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the whole area insuring cooperation, immediate access to all conLmunities, and greater personal security for those families with the greatest capital invested. The data from the Little Colorado towns suggest that neither the faithful nor the hierarchy of the church seems to have felt that widespread intermarrying between Mormon towns was necessary either to facilitate economic ties or to maintain Mormon cultural and religious homogeneity. In the nineteenth century, exogamy seems to have been a specialized tool for unifying the managerial elite but not a tool for linking Mormons to each other for general cooperation and unity. Instead, exogamy would seem to be a trustworthy reflection of the rate of economic stability in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It would be easy to overemphasize the positive function of exogamy in the Mormon towns. But insofar as the function is clear, it seems to have been to pull in wealth and security from beyond the limits of the town during difficult periods and to equalize wealth with others during prosperous times. Although the church relied minimally on kinship ties between towns to sustain unity among its east-central Arizona communities, a large number of other means were employed. Many of these were economic institutions having religious overtones. Even though these towns tried to be economically independent of each other, none was self-sufficient. In the initial period of settlement, machinery, cattle, and other forms of capital were supplied from Utah. But after that, the principal means of supplying needed goods and produce to local Mormon communities took the form of tithing exchange within the church in Arizona. Along the Little Colorado there was, given the circumstances of a technologically primitive agricultural economy, a set of environmental circumstances that permitted each of the Mormon towns to raise essentially the same combination of plants and animals. But the proportions raised within the range of plants and animals varied widely from town to town as the Snowflake Stake Funds for 1882-1901 reveal. Some areas were better suited to some crops than to others. That kind of variation compromised self-sufficiency and made some exchange necessary. The vagaries of the climate also produced variation in crop success from town to town and from one year to the next in any one town. That also necessitated exchange. All of this was accomplished in good part through the tithing system, and almost wholly under the aegis of the church. Ecological variation was of several kinds. Some towns were better suited to producing some items than others. That circumstance was
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Culture in Eastern Arizona
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naturally reinforced even under primitive cooperative and market conditions. Within a town, resources varied from family to family thus creating another level of variation. Even though most families attempted to produce their basic foodstuffs on their own farm, crops obviously varied. A third level of ecological variation was introduced through annual fluctuations in temperature and rainfall. The arid Southwest presents a mosaic of climatic variability at any one time during a growing season in almost any of its locales. It was possible that within a year and especially over a period of years the agricultural products at one place would be noticeably inconsistent. These three levels of ecological variation, from town to town, from family to family in a town, and from year to year at any one farm, had to be dealt with successfully by any agrarian economy in the Southwest. The strategy used by Mormons to equalize the ecological imbalance natural to agriculture in this region was to tie the variation and its redistribution to religion. The religious device for balancing this variation was tithing. Ideally every individual paid one-tenth of his annual income into the ward. Tithing was almost always in kind or in labor until after the turn-of-thecentury. Each ward had a tithing house which was in fact a system of barns, pens, and root cellars. In charge of this storage complex was a tithing agent — in the Little Colorado communities usually the bishop — whose chief function was to get rid of the produce and stock by trading it off, preferably turning it into cash. The ward tithing houses and agents served as a community-wide network of redistribution. The tithing house was open to anyone in or out of the community. The house handled local surplus as well as needed produce traded in from other towns. Interviews reveal that, as in Utah, Arizona tithing offices served as general stores. Other stores existed, but tithing offices were open to all and would willingly trade or sell produce. Since tithing might be done on a weekly or monthly basis and often involved perishable kind, it was logical that the community receive the produce back as fast as possible. The Snowflake Stake Funds 1882-1901 reveal that very little tithing in kind went for welfare; so it would seem that the community was using the tithing office as a local trading center. Although ward and stake records are not without ambiguity on this point, it seems safe to conclude that ecological variation in a town — some people having too much of one item and others trading for it with some other item they had a surplus of — was easily handled on a daily basis by the tithing houses.
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Between towns, differing natural environments naturally produced differing quantities of produce. Those were traded off between towns in normal times using the tithing houses as intermediaries. In addition, climatic variation and the unpredictable pattern of natural disasters created an ever-present need for the redistribution of stored surpluses. Tithing surpluses could be shipped from one town to another in case of a disaster like a dam washout at Joseph City or Woodruff. They could be used to pay off church debts as occurred when tithing herds from southern Utah and the Joseph City area were allocated to purchase St. Johns. More generally the surpluses in ward tithing houses and at the central administrative center in Snowflake were put at the disposal of communities in the entire area. These surpluses could be traded for or shipped to any crisis point. The quarterly stake conferences served to advertise a season's particular strengths and needs on a town by town basis. The Snowflake Stake Conference Minutes for 1886 reveal, for example, that Erastus (Concho) was reported by its bishop to have a surplus of grain, while other officials reported that their towns lacked the same but had other strengths. Not only did the tithing system reallocate scarce resources, but tied to the conference system John Hunt, bishop of Snowflake there was a guarantee that reallocafrom 1878 to 1909, in front of the tithing house which served tion was based on accurate knowlas a redistribution center for edge of existing resources. farm surpluses. Courtesy Albert J. Levine. Quarterly stake conferences — two of which took place during the most important times of the agricultural cycle, planting and harvest — served as regulators for the agrarian system. In the spring the region's disparities could be compensated for by rearranging the proportions of crops planted, and in the fall the region's entire needs could be collectively and accurately assessed and its surpluses redistributed, traded off in kind, or simply sold off to areas where shortage was most acute. Much of the actual parceling out of surpluses may not have occurred
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Culture in Eastern Arizona
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directly under the aegis of the church, but the church acted as communications network, fixer of uniform prices, and often as redistributive agent to the bulk of the economic system. Tithing houses represented more than temporary storage. From interviews it is clear that individuals maintained large stores of grains when it was possible, and tithing accounts also reveal fair quantities always on hand in the tithing houses. Given that any one town might experience a rapid fluctuation of its yields from one year to the next, both the individual's store and the town's tithing reserve served as insurance. One might also tithe more than one-tenth in a prosperous year and draw against the extra in subsequent periods of need. Here the church played ecological banker with its prescriptions and foresight, and as it interpreted these activities in the realm of ultimate concerns, it played divine banker as well. Intermediary between ward storehouses and those in need of their surpluses were a series of trading companies, foremost among which was the Arizona Cooperative Mercantile Institution. The ACMI was a church-financed and -run trading company functioning as importing agent but, more importantly here, also as wholesaler and redistributor to the Little Colorado communities.8 The ACMI bought local surpluses and provided the storage facilities for them. It was credit-granting, would deal in kind, and would use time and labor as a medium for exchange when necessary. Modeled after the Utah version — Zion's Cooperative kind of monolithic decision-making body that enabled the Mormon communities as a cooperative. The shares were usually held by the most wealthy in a town, almost invariably the families in ecclesiastical authority, and it was capitalized jointly by them.9 When surpluses were still small, the route of exchange ran from tithing house to tithing house, every house being open to all in a town and to all surrounding towns. Ward tithing records from Joseph City, for example, indicate that bishops from surrounding towns had credit in the Joseph City tithing house. Bishops seem to have had call on the surpluses of neighboring towns, and certainly the stake presidency had such authority. It is, however, quite unclear how frequently actual tithing exchange occurred between towns. Usually surpluses went from individual to tithing house, to the ACMI, and to the public. In addition, the ACMI s
Peterson, Settlement on the Little Colorado, 235—42. "Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 303—6; Peterson, Settlement 237, 256.
on the Little
Colorado,
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was a market for surpluses produced by individuals, as well as for a town's tithing surplus. Interviewees in their nineties have corroborated both the fact that individuals used the tithing houses as stores for daily purchases and the fact that tithing surpluses were sold to the ACMI. Most of what a community produced it consumed itself.10 A total of ten percent of its overall produce would have represented most of its unconsumed surplus. What was not stored was sold back to the community or area towns for cash. Tithing expressed as cash was sent to church headquarters in Salt Lake City. It is hard to calculate what fraction of money sent to Salt Lake City returned to the villages, but much did. In the form of loans, equipment, and outright gifts, a major part of tithing was returned as a type of security otherwise unavailable to independent farming towns. Put in a very broad way, the church in Salt Lake City served as banker against hard times. And it never seems to have failed. The Snowflake Stake financial records show that in 1886 over twothirds of the total tithing from the stake was locally dispersed and never reached Salt Lake City. This figure, a not inconsequential one when expressed in dollars and cents, shows both the heavy reliance the whole of the Little Colorado placed on tithing exchange and redistribution and also how important it was to the church to maintain these villages to its service. Local redistribution of tithing was done with the full knowledge of church administrators in Salt Lake City. Tithing was spent largely to pay laborers in kind who spent time on public works projects. On the Little Colorado during the last three decades of the nineteenth century, a picture emerges of ecological variability tamed, exchanged, and equalized by the sanctions and personnel of the unifying church. To be sure, the church and its institutions were not called into existence by ecological circumstances in nineteenth-century Utah and Arizona. Rather, the church seems to have been a key factor permitting one of the most successful, longest-lived adaptations in this semiarid area. Cooperation and integration within and among the Little Colorado towns were strengthened by other economic factors in addition to ecological variation. Water control and irrigation works were carried out by individual towns, but the planning and engineering usually took place at a regional level. Since all the communities suffered similar natural 10
Peterson, Settlement
on the Little Colorado,
247.
Patterned after Salt Lake City's ZCMI, the Arizona Cooperative Mercantile Institution was an important buying, selling, and trading center for Little Colorado towns. Photograph courtesy of Albert J. Levine from his book, Snowflake: A Pictorial Review 1878-1964.
disasters, an umbrella of common endurance and continued effort acted to transform a technological effort to a shared symbolic activity.11 Water sharing and land allotment within towns were handled by a central authority •— the bishop and his administrators — with the backing of the town. Limited amounts of water and arable land had to be equalized on one hand, and used efficiently on the other. A cooperative and centralized administration was achieved through the use of the lay clergy. Most communal economic activities were handled through the town's clergy-hierarchy which included most of the male population. The harmony needed to secure such a system was guaranteed through the sacred sanctions members of an ideologically homogeneous town could bring against each other. To Mormons, all aspects of life had religious significance and hence there was a common understanding about all ranges of behavior. The efficiency produced by eliminating controversy in day-to-day life created the most prosperous towns along the Little Colorado. The community storehouses that provided for both surplus and relief were handled by a lay clergy as were irrigation and land management. Women handled many bureaucratic functions including the management of welfare which was channeled through the tithing office. The entire system was managed by a hierarchically arranged lay clergy, headed at the local level by a bishop and a stake president. The pyramid, of course, was topped by the Mormon president-prophet in Salt Lake City. All power was ultimately legitimized through his approval, but decisions had real effect because of a series of participatory decisions going down to the most local level. Until the turn-of-the-century, Utah Ibid., 314-49.
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and northern Arizona were in effect managed by a federal theocracy. Participation in a single ideology facilitated what economic exchange was necessary among the towns. T h e church served as an efficient vehicle for economic redistribution and for creating the social organization that staffed and reinforced the economic system. T h e church leadership was wise enough to see that adaptation in a marginal ecological zone involved almost continual crisis. Its success was built on mediating the crises. T h e towns the Mormons set u p in the Great Basin h a d a built-in tendency to become autonomous economic units. Few actually became autonomous, and most were tied together through a wide variety of social and economic practices fostered by a unified religious network. T h e strategy of adaptation used by Mormons in the nineteenth century emphasized independence and self-sufficiency through cooperation. So far this paper has been concerned with the role of cooperative institutions in counterbalancing the trends to complete independence. It is those institutions t h a t guaranteed the success of the network of towns on the Little Colorado River, and it is those institutions that permitted the Mormons to succeed with their ideal of withdrawing from mainline America to concentrate solely on themselves. This argument assumes that local ecological adjustment required some centralizing agencies over these scattered communities. Over much of the Southwest similar natural circumstances forced different cultures into similar adjustments. These adjustments included scattered communities, the linking together of unevenly distributed natural resources, widely varying agricultural products, water management complex enough to require central direction, and a primitive technology. This was true within the church's domain and without. I n east-central Arizona few systems produced as prosperous and long-lived communities as did the M o r m o n Church. T h a t institution's umbrella seems to be the factor t h a t distinguished mere survival from healthy success in the communities of the upper Little Colorado drainage. Clearly, the non-Mormon parts of the Southwest provide a comparative laboratory, and when t h a t laboratory is closely examined — as it cannot be here -— the decision will tend toward the cooperative institutions of the church as a key factor in survival, if not to ideological determinism. A D J U S T M E N T IN THE T W E N T I E T H
CENTURY
Ideally, Zion and its constituent communities were to be removed and independent from the rest of the United States. As Leonard J. Ar-
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rington so plainly shows, the United States spent a large part of the late nineteenth century destroying that independence. The Great Basin was brought fully into the economic domain of the Union until, with the Depression, the Second World War, and the succeeding periods of prosperity, Mormondom became in every way a part of the national entity.12 Community autonomy on the Little Colorado ended well before 1900. The rate of community exogamy alone doubled between 1900 and 1965, averaging forty percent in the twentieth century, thereby implying increased community interdependence. Although exogamy has continually risen in the twentieth century, the extensions and demands of American culture have forced more than the kind of social interdependence between communities that could be measured by changes in exogamous relationships. The interdependent links of the American economy which envelop the eastern Arizona towns certainly do not necessitate the kind of monolithic decision-making body that enabled the Mormon communities of the upper Little Colorado to endure in the late nineteenth century. Instead, what is needed is an organization capable of permitting individuals to cope with problems derived from too much specialization, too much progress leading to too little success, and an increasingly unpredictable future.13 How can an organization cope with the diffuse possibilities open to an American? Diversity in goals, priorities, and ultimate concerns within our population produces divergent expectations that could threaten the unity of Mormondom on the Little Colorado. For an individual, having many possibilities to aim life toward produces insecurity. If an institution sponsored diffuse aims for its adherents, it would produce fission in its population and weaken itself. The church faces these and all the similar problems of American culture. To be sure, it faces moderated versions of these problems, and often it does not face them in urban centers. All of that makes a difference, but it does not change the general nature of the problems. The church's unique difference is that it seems to be coping with them successfully. It is endlessly observed that Mormonism is one of the fastest growing churches in Christendom for its size. The church's ability to maintain its membership in the east-central Arizona communities is clear. It does not seem to have alienated its youth. Given what we know of what's happening in modern 12
Leonard J. Arrington, From Wilderness to Empire: The Role of Utah in Western Economic History, University of Utah, Institute of American Studies, monograph no. 1 (Salt Lake City, 1961), 1-20. 13 Robert N. Bellah, "Meaning and Modernization," in Beyond Belief (New York, 1970), 64-73.
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American culture, all of this is at the very least remarkable. How has it happened? This section presents some hypotheses that come as a result of field work in the communities of east-central Arizona. They are hunches; yet an impressive amount of data gives them credibility. The role of the church has shifted from that of centralized provider for a group of fledgling communities to that of decentralized definer of roles people are to fulfill. Originally, the church controlled internal competition and maximized efficiency in its hard-pressed communities by using a series of techniques. Two of these are the calling and the patriarchal blessing. It was and continues to be a function of the hierarchy to select men from the community best qualified for required tasks.14 Rather than relying on volunteers and needlessly wasting talent, the church hierarchy called a man to a specific task. The more localized the job, the more localized the authority to call, thus maximizing knowledge of qualifications and needs. Patriarchal blessings15 are fairly detailed statements of a prophetic sort made by an individual known for his wisdom to an individual usually in his teens. They are a nineteenth-century custom carried to the present. At one level, the blessing provides solace and security, but at another it creates expectations in an individual that coincide with the needs and circumstances of his own community. Since individuals regard their blessings as personalized statements about their own futures, and since the blessings have a status not unlike revelation, their potency as organizational devices is not small. Coupled with an individual's being called to perform a certain task by his neighbor-superiors, the blessing and calling efficiently divided labor in society and eliminated needless competition. The function of these devices has been both to forestall anxiety and to control interpersonal competition in the best Utopian tradition. From the 1920s and 1930s to today, the church's role-defining activity has shifted from creating precisely defined tasks with explicit expectations of performance to imprecise role definition coupled with intense and diffuse participation. Today members of the church are trained to play roles not to perform tasks. The average ward numbers about six hundred members. To the casual observer, there are as many posts, duties, and functions in a ward as there are people. The casual observer is not really wrong. Since the 14 15
Peterson, Settlement on the Little Colorado, 69. Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (2nd ed., Salt Lake City, 1966), 558.
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church has tried to affect the total life of an individual, it logically follows that all of its members are continually engaged in church-related activities. The average Mormon in east-central Arizona is in daily contact with his church. He and his neighbor do the church's business, and aspects of that business still affect much of a day's activities. No Mormon is too young or too old to be involved, and literally the ward is regarded as a family. Members throughout the church call one another "brother" and "sister," and at the local level the term accurately reflects ties between people that are as affective as consanguineal relationships are thought to be in the rest of American culture. All age-grades among men and to a less extent among women are organized to perform specific activities: administering the sacrament, directing the complex welfare operations, sponsoring the local missionary effort, singing, sewing, preaching, teaching, and so on and on. Within an age-grade all activities circulate. Most members preach at one time or another. Men are expected to serve missions in their early adulthood, and any man can be chosen to be a bishop. Participation is intense because an individual is "called" to perform a task by his bishop and is almost always engaged with one task or another. The tasks vary as he grows older. They also change radically, making his training diffuse. Special tasks are ultimately not as important in an individual's progress as is his adaptability, malleability, and versatility. A man is an organizer, fund raiser, speaker, dependable performer, innovator, amuser, or faithful servant before he is butcher, banker, or bureaucrat in or out of the church. At the present, there is a very strong emphasis on the means used to achieve, but not on the ends one should reach for. Further, the chief value seems to be service. Service as a primary objective was formerly thought of as a means to a set of goals rather closely defined by the church and community. There is a tendency now — more implicit than explicit — to identify service as the greatest good. And it is not appropriate to expect uniform answers to the question, Service to what? For that is the point. The individual not only supplies the answer for himself, but, in fact, he has been taught to do so all along by his revolving, role-fulfilling activities within the church.16 In matters of ultimate concern, the faithful seem to be permitted very wide latitude for self-definition. There is a strong emphasis on a 16
Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago, 1957), 150-54.
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man's ability to fill out the faith's message for himself. To this end, it is noteworthy that the church has almost no exegetical tradition. There are the sacred texts to which you go as your own interpreter. The church has often been called anti-intellectual. 1T There are several bases for the claim, but among them are a deliberate attempt to prevent the growth of an exegetical tradition and a distinct disinterest in fostering a professional approach to its own history. In the absence of such a series of authoritative texts, the membership must do the job itself, thereby permitting a large range of variation in interpretation concerning the answers to questions of ultimate concern. Undoubtedly the church officials in Salt Lake City know that wide latitude in doctrinal matters exists. And although it is probably disapproved because it contradicts Mormon literalism, no aspect of the church effectively proscribes doctrinal plurality. At the local level where every man, woman, and child attends Sunday school throughout his entire life, people may not be consciously aware that when doctrinal problems arise, more time is spent asking each other's opinion than in consulting the sacred texts. Opinion is a remarkably flexible and variable trait, one which when combined with the ambiguous texts lends the most marvelous dynamism to doctrine. This recent tradition of intense participation and low definition coincides perfectly with the rapid flux the local economic base is subject to,18 and it is a means of coping with the potential clash of traditional community values and those imposed by surrounding modern American culture. The key seems to be ideological decentralization. The church has evolved a do-it-yourself ideology which permits maximum behavioral flexibility given the demands of local circumstances. 19 One of the most interesting citations in support of this is the role of excommunication in the church. The most frequent causes for excommunication today are adultery, polygamy, and similar, remarkably worldly deeds, while excommunication for tampering with doctrine, promoting heresy, or schism is becoming more rare. Since dogma exists only in an underemphasized and vague form, denying it hardly merits excommunication. Regularity in practical and behavioral affairs as opposed to cognitive and ideological matters concerns the church. It is almost as though someone took Thomas "David L. Brewer, "The Mormons," in The Religious Situation: 1968 (Boston, 1968), 532-34; Davis Bitton, "Anti-Intellectualism in Mormon History," with a reply by James B. Allen, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 1 (Autumn 1966), 111—40. 18 Arizona State Employment Service, Arizona Basic Economic Data (Phoenix, 1950-68). 19 John W. M. Whiting et al., "The Learning of Values," in People of Rimrock, ed. Evon Z. Vogt and Ethel M. Albert (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 123.
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Jefferson seriously when he proclaimed, "I am a sect myself." The only real difference is he knew it, and the church's faithful do not. The historical evolution of the Mormon Church has proceeded along lines that are apparently diffuse. In the latter nineteenth century in eastcentral Arizona, it was both theocrat and economic planner, installing communities which were to be models of autonomy, all the while creating ideals of self-reliance and independence. In the modern situation, the church has disappeared as theocrat, espousing only the most general and transcendental values. The power of ultimate direction no longer lies in the hands of a man who as prophet has the key to reality but is in the process of devolving into the hands of individual church members. There has been a complete switch in relationship between church and faithful; where the church formerly did the revealing and the faithful the reacting, the faithful now do the defining and the church reacts by institutionalizing the means to preserve plurality of participation and definition. In east-central Arizona, the church seems to be producing modern men; the case in the rest of the world is less certain. As a product both of the frontier in its broadest sense and of Utopian communalism, the church has always been ambiguous about independence and self-reliance. As an institution, it sought independence as God's dictate, and its members were to be self-reliant but under the church's aegis. That day has passed, and now the church prepares an individual for economic adaptability and ideological independence within American culture. Editors Deseret
News:
T h a t no misunderstanding or conflict of opinion may arise, among those who contemplate moving to the settlements in Arizona, it has been deemed expedient to call attention to the following notice as published a short time since in the NEWS.
"All persons who contemplate moving to the settlements on the Little Colorado river and its tributaries, in the Territory of Arizona, should take along with them sufficient flour and other supplies to sustain them until crops can be raised. The grain raised in those settlements during the past year is becoming scarce, in consequence of so many going to that country last fall and this winter, and depending on the settlers for their bread. Flour cannot be procured for anything but money, and must be hauled from 250 to 350 miles. . . . " Respectfully, L. J O H N N U T T A L L
{Deseret Evening News, March 20, 1880.)
Walter Murray Gibson: The Shepherd Saint of Lanai Revisited BY G W Y N N BARRETT
Walter Murray Gibson, courtesy Archives of Hawaii.
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XMAGINATIVE; UTOPIAN DREAMERS were not uncommon in nineteenthcentury America, nor were their activities confined to the eastern parts of the country selected by Robert Owen and John Humphrey Noyes. The Great Basin kingdom also attracted some of the most colorful and imaginative figures of the Civil War era. Samuel Brannan, for example, who had intended to unite with the Mormons following their trek, became involved in the Gold Rush and sensational get-rich schemes in California. A lesser-known but equally energetic convert to Mormonism was Walter Murray Gibson. He was in no wise Brannan's inferior, but to conclude that this island missionary, excommunicant, and premier of the kingdom of Hawaii was simply an intriguer or an opportunist who used the Mormons in order to achieve his own personal objectives would be as inaccurate as to suggest that Brannan was a saint and that Brigham Young was misguided when he elected to remain in the Rockies rather than move on to Brannan's verdant California. Even before Walter Murray Gibson had come to know the Mormons well his empathy led him in November 1858, to urge John M. Bernhisel, Utah's first delegate to Congress, to propose that the Mormons who were involved in the so-called "Utah War" be relocated on New Guinea in the southwest Pacific. According to the New York Times, Bernhisel was sufficiently persuaded to submit the idea to the James Buchanan administration as a serious proposal. Having adjourned his own perplexing problems when he expressed sympathy for the Mormons and suggested a haven for them in the Pacific, Gibson went on during 1859 and 1860 to become the confidant of Mormon leaders and a popular lecturer in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and Social Hall. On January 15, 1860, he was baptized along with his sixteen-year-old daughter, Talula, by Heber C. Kimball, counselor to Brigham Young. After filling a six-month mission to the eastern states, he departed for the Pacific November 21, 1860, with an engraved gold watch and a unique commission from Brigham Young. Though Young was willing to give Gibson virtually a free hand in the Pacific, no serious consideration was given to the suggestion that the Mormons evacuate the Great Basin. Nor had Buchanan responded to the idea, for he was committed to the military occupation of Utah Territory and the subjugation of the Mormon community to federal authority. Dr. B a r r e t t is associate professor of history at Boise State College, Boise, I d a h o . T h e Walter M u r r a y Gibson diaries of 1886—88 were presented to t h e a u t h o r by the late K a t h l e e n Mellen. Edited a n d a n n o t a t e d by Jacob Adler a n d D r . Barrett, they will be published by the University of H a w a i i Press. Professor Adler is currently working on Gibson's biography.
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Gibson remained a Mormon missionary in the islands, spending most of his time on the island of Lanai, until 1864 when he was excommunicated from his adopted church. During the next three decades, while he moved into political circles and eventually became Hawaii's premier and minister of foreign affairs, the tradition developed that Gibson had cheated the Mormons — that he had stolen lands owned by the church while attempting to build an island kingdom over which he, the "Shepherd Saint," would preside. In 1882, Thomas G. Thrum, long-time publisher of the Hawaiian Annual, published a political tract, The Shepherd Saint of Lanai, in which he attacked Gibson. Thrum and Gibson had been on good terms during the previous decade, but after the "shepherd" of Lanai became prominent in politics, Thrum objected to Gibson's nativism. Aligning himself with the white oligarchy, Thrum railed against Gibson who was soon to become the new premier of the kingdom of Hawaii and published his Shepherd Saint with the intention of exposing Gibson as an opportunist and discrediting the David Kalakaua government. 1 Andrew Jenson, assistant to the church historian in Salt Lake City for many years, compiled a "History of the Hawaiian Mission" and in 1900 published an article on Walter Murray Gibson in the church magazine, The Improvement Era. In both his "History" and in his article, Jenson used Thrum's Shepherd Saint as one of his primary sources,2 Diaries, letters, and journals heretofore not readily available to scholars do not substantiate the Thrum-Jenson interpretation of Gibson's missionary activities in the islands and cast some doubt upon the traditional view of his premiership. In the pages that follow, Gibson's Hawaiian activities — particularly those relating to the Mormon Church — will be considered in light of this new information. Mormon missionaries had been assigned to the Hawaiian Islands in 1850, eleven years before Gibson's arrival. Led by George Q. Cannon and others, they had found the small foreign population unreceptive to their message and many of the Hawaiian converts unreliable or unwilling to consistently follow the advice of the Utah elders. An Elder Naylor reported that the Waialua Branch of the church on Oahu had for all practical purposes apostatized by December 1856, and six months later 1
President 188 2 ) . 2
11-13.
Thomas G. T h r u m , The Shepherd Saint of Lanai; of the Isle of the Sea; Rich "Primacy" Revelations. Andrew Jenson, "Walter M. Gibson," The
Priest of Melchisedec Facts for the People.
Improvement
Era,
and Chief (Honolulu,
4 (November
1900),
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Elder Smith B. Thurston reported many of the converts were leaving the church daily due to the anti-Mormon influence of Calvinistic friends. In September of 1857, Elder John R. Young reported that the Keanae Branch on the island of Maui was in a complete state of apostasy, and the Ulaino Branch was also in sad condition. Similar reports were received from time to time in Great Salt Lake City.3 In the face of these adverse reports, Brigham Young decided to recall the missionaries from Hawaii. In a letter dated September 4, 1857, the church president told Henry W. Bigler — among the first to discover gold in California — who was then serving as president of the Hawaiian Mission, The reports from the Sandwich Islands have for a number of years agreed in one thing; and that is that the majority of the Saints in those islands have either been dead or are dying spiritually. It would appear that they occasionally, spasmodically resuscitate for a moment, only to sink lower than they were before. Having taken the matter into consideration, I think . . . you had better wind up the whole business and return with most of the Elders as soon as possible.
Following receipt of these instructions all but eleven of the Utah elders left. Those who remained also left after receiving a letter from Young instructing them to return home as soon as possible because of the Utah War.4 The Hawaii years of Walter Murray Gibson began three years after the withdrawal of Young's missionaries. Arriving in the islands with his daughter, Talula, in 1861, he began immediately to proselyte. While his activities with the church passed in a few years, the remainder of his life was devoted to Hawaii. But Hawaii was not the only island kingdom in Gibson's life nor were the Hawaiians the first minority group whose cause he attempted to champion. Nearly half his thirty-nine years, prior to coming to Hawaii in 1861, had been spent in foreign parts, far removed from the South Carolina of his boyhood. When the bride of his youth died in childbirth with their third child, Gibson placed his small daughter and two sons with relatives. During the next few years he gained some little fortune aboard a steamship which ran from Savannah to Florida and in the California gold fields. Returning east in 1851, he purchased the Flirt, a surplus revenue cutter, for $3,500 in New York, and set sail on a seven-months' voyage to 3 Andrew Jenson, "History of the Hawaiian Mission," December 27, 1856; May 15, 1857; September 4, 1857, Church Historian's Office, C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (hereafter referred to as C H O ) . *Ibid., October 16, 1857; April 1, 1858.
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Sumatra. Here Gibson became acquainted with several of the leading natives, but he failed to develop a friendly rapport with the government. Though he had cleared with the captain of the port at Palembang, Gibson soon discovered that his affinity with native peoples contributed to a growing suspicion among the Dutch officials. They assumed that he was a revolutionary intriguing among the natives even though his unarmed Flirt carried no objectionable cargo. In the spring of 1852 Gibson was arrested, detained, judged guilty, and locked-up, remaining in the prison at Weltevreden for nearly a year before escaping disguised as a native. 5 Two matters occupied most of Gibson's time and attention upon his return to New York in 1853: the publication of his East Indies adventure and an attempt to press charges against the Dutch for the loss of his property and what he considered to have been illegal imprisonment. With monetary compensation as his objective, Gibson went to Europe where he associated with the staff of the American legation in Paris and unsuccessfully pressed his charges at The Hague. Returning to New York, he became interested in the "Mormon problem" so widely discussed at the time. When President James Buchanan decided to move an army into Utah under Albert Sidney Johnston, Gibson wrote a letter to Utah's delegate in Congress, John M. Bernhisel, suggesting that the Mormons might find greater peace and solitude in the Pacific. New York, Nov. 26, 1858 My dear Sir: I have some intention to visit Utah and design to start for that territory, enroute to the Pacific Coast. . . . I hope to accomplish a long cherished purpose of establishing a colony upon an island of Central Oceania. . . . I wish to have some correspondence with your constituents . . . and . . . the name of anyone in this city . . . who enjoys the confidence of the principal persons of your constituency. I wish to tell him freely the objectives I have in view in visiting Utah. . . . Yours very respectfully Walter M. Gibson Hon. J. M. Bernhisel Washington, D. C.
Gibson contacted Bernhisel in Washington and proposed that the latter seek congressional appropriation for the purpose of moving the 5 James W. Gould, " T h e Filibuster of Walter M u r r a y Gibson," Annual Report of the Hawaiian Historical Society, 1959 (Honolulu, 1960), 7 - 3 2 ; Frank W. McGhie, " T h e Life a n d Intrigues of Walter M u r r a y Gibson," (M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1 9 5 8 ) , 8; Walter M . Gibson, The Prison of Weltevreden (New York, 1855), 3 2 ; U.S., Congress, House, Report of Committees, 34th Cong., 1st sess. (1855—56), 870.
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Mormons to the western Pacific. Bernhisel did not actively promote the plan, but, nevertheless, both Brigham Young and James Buchanan were given an opportunity to consider the idea.6 It was this initial contact with the Mormons that led to Gibson's long sojourn in the Hawaiian Islands. When he arrived in Great Salt Lake City and related his East Indies venture in public lectures as well as in conversation with Young, the church president encouraged Gibson to join the church, promising that after his baptism further consideration might be given to his interest in the Pacific. But Gibson was called by Young to serve as a missionary in the States before being sent to the Pacific. In the company of apostles Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich and their sons Francis and Joseph, Gibson and his preaching companion, James S. Brown, departed from the valley on May 1, I860.7 Since Brown had been a missionary in the Society Islands more than a decade earlier, Gibson probably learned a great deal about the central Pacific while traveling and preaching with Brown. Just two months later, they were in Williamsburg, New York, across the East River from Brooklyn, engaged in their missionary labors.8 Gibson left his daughter, Talula, with the family of Brigham Young while he labored for the church in the East during the summer of I860.9 Gibson and Young exchanged several letters in which the latter expressed approval of Gibson's work and confidence in his judgment. In June, Young told Gibson, "Should duty and the dictation of the Spirit to you permit . . . you are at full liberty to return home this fall if you wish." 10 Acting upon this permission, Gibson returned to Great Salt Lake City in October bringing with him his two sons, John and Henry. He reported on his mission in the East on November 4, 1860, in the Tabernacle, and just two weeks later he stood behind the same 6
Gibson to Bernhisel, November 26, 1858. Unless otherwise noted, all letters used in this account are found in C H O . See also "Do the Mormons Intend to Leave U t a h , " Valley Tan (Salt Lake C i t y ) , October 19, 1859; New York Times, J u n e 25, 1858; Gibson to Young, M a y 30, 1859. 7 Jenson, "Walter M . Gibson," 11-13. Gibson had been ordained a "High Priest" in the Mormon priesthood. James S. Brown, Life of a Pioneer (Salt Lake City, 1900), 409, 4 1 6 ; Albert R. Lyman, Amasa Mason Lyman (Delta, U t a h , 1957), 235. 8 Brown, Life of a Pioneer, 416. 9 One observer said that Brigham Young took Talula as one of his wives. Richard F. Burton, The City of the Saints (New York, 1862), 424. Burton arrived in Great Salt Lake City August 25, 1860, and left September 19, 1860, shortly before Gibson returned from his mission. Reading the book, Gibson specifically refuted Burton's assertion when he told Young that Burton had made "some noteable mistakes. I suppose he imagined his statement about my daughter's marriage." Gibson to Young, August 30, 1862. 10 Young to Gibson, June [n.d.] 1860; Gibson to Young, July 25, 1860. Six letters exchanged between Gibson and Young during the summer of 1860 have been preserved.
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pulpit as a departing missionary.11 Gibson spoke of the feelings that inspired him to again go forth. Then Brigham Young arose and said that "Elder Gibson is . . . fully authorized to negotiate with all the nations of this world who will obey the gospel of Christ." With a special ribbon-bedecked commission addressed to the "wise, powerful, and gracious potentates, even the illustrious Sultans, Pajas, Panjoranges and Kapallas of the renowned Malay People," and a "good will message" to the "illustrious, Imperial Majesty and Tycoon of Japan," signed by the "First Presidency of the Church of the Most High God," Gibson departed.12 He traveled southwestward to San Bernardino and then on by steamer to San Francisco where he was given a letter from Brigham Young instructing him to go to Hawaii and minister to the native converts who had joined the Mormons during the early fifties.13 Not just one, but several letters were exchanged between the Mormon president and his emissary before Gibson's departure for the islands. Instructions were plentiful, but funds for the journey were difficult to come by. Nevertheless, Gibson soon raised more than enough to pay for the voyage by lecturing in San Francisco, in Sacramento where he addressed the California legislature, and in other nearby communities.14 Though Gibson held a commission that permitted him to "negotiate with all the nations of this world," it was understood that Japan would be his ultimate destination, and he hoped to go to Malaysia as well. But, upon his arrival in Hawaii July 1, 1861, aboard the Yankee, he decided to delay his voyage — as Young had suggested — after finding that the islanders needed and desired his leadership. "My counsel is cordially acquiesced here," Gibson wrote to Young soon after his arrival in Hono11
"Tabernacle," Deseret News, November 7 and 21, 1860. "Journal of President B. Young's Office, Great Salt Lake City, Book D , " Brigham Young Papers, C H O . 13 Gibson to Young, April 12, 1861. Gibson acknowledges Young's request re Hawaii in this letter. " G i b s o n to Young, J u n e 8, 1861. 12
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lulu. The "Kanaka Saints," he reported, were a small, scattered, utterly poor, and despised portion of the population of the island.15 On July 14, 1861, Gibson conducted a baptismal service for two young men, one of whom he had met in San Francisco and another who had made himself acquainted with the Mormon missionary aboard the Yankee. Haven B. Eddy, age twenty-six, told Gibson that he was the son of a Congregational minister in New York, while Charles O. Cummings, just twenty-two years of age, made no such claim with regard to his own background. Two days after the baptismal, much too soon, Gibson later found out, he dispatched Eddy and Cummings to the islands of Maui and Kauai as missionaries.16 Eddy soon returned to Oahu, making his headquarters in Honolulu. From here he sent letters to members of the church, dunning them for money under the lofty title of the "Chief President" of Oahu and Kauai, and "Bishop of Lahaina and President of the Quorum." " When Gibson became aware of the unauthorized activities of Eddy and Cummings he brought them to Lanai for counsel, but they did not remain very long. Rejecting Gibson's leadership, they returned to Honolulu where they became the perpetrators of derogatory rumors against Gibson. Actually, Eddy and Cummings did more than spread rumors. They signed sworn affidavits charging that Gibson was a scoundrel — that he was stealing the natives' lands and using the Mormon Church for his own ambitions — but they failed to document their accusations. Nevertheless, their charges were published in the planter-owned press.18 In November 1861, in a letter to certain native Saints, Gibson extolled Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball as men who had given "all they had two or three times over to help build up the church in " G i b s o n to Young, July 10, 1861. 16 Gibson to Young, July 16, 1861. " E d d y to "Bro. Brown," September 23, 1861, Joseph F. Smith Papers, C H O . 18 Kathleen Mellen, An Island Kingdom Passes (New York, 1958), 66.
The Honolulu waterfront in the 1870s looking toward Waikiki with Diamond Head in the background. Photograph courtesy Archives of Hawaii.
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Missouri and Illinois" and told his correspondents that he intended to follow their example by doing all the good he could for the Saints in the Hawaiian Islands.19 Anxious to correct Eddy and Cummings, Gibson also sent a report to the Hawaii minister of foreign affairs, Robert C. Wyllie, in which he explained that the religious principles of the Mormons in the islands differed from those in Utah only in not inculcating polygamy, a doctrine which he believed was never preached outside of Utah. 20 The laws of the Hawaiian kingdom forbad migration, therefore the island of Lanai, isolated from the sea ports and the more populous districts, had been selected as early as 1853 as a gathering place for the converts to Mormonism. Negotiations had been entered into for the rental of Palawai Valley, a grassy volcanic crater about three miles in diameter owned by one Haalelea, who was sympathetic with the Mormons and anxious to lease his lands. However, when Brigham Young learned that the missionaries were attempting to establish a gathering place in the islands, he told them that all improvements in such a place should be of the type that would sell easily when the Saints wished to leave. Young said that he wanted the Hawaiians to come to Utah as fast as the way could be opened up for them to do so.21 Lanai, the elders had been told by Young, would be but a temporary gathering place, for all the Saints would ultimately come to Zion in the Rocky Mountains. In 1856, John T. Caine, Honolulu agent for the Mormon newspaper published in San Francisco, the Western Standard, reported that negotiations had been entered into for the leasing of Palawai Valley, but nothing permanent had been accomplished.22 About a year later, William W. Cluff called Lanai the "temporal gathering place" in his mission report. "We took a large tract of land belonging to one of the chiefs on trial for five years with the privilege of buying or leasing at the expiration of that time," Cluff reported.23 Soon after this the Utah elders were called home by the Utah War. By the time they left, Lanai had been designated a temporary gathering place, but no money had been expended for either the purchase or lease of the land, nor had any significant improvements been completed. 19
Gibson to " D e a r Brother," November 1, 1861. Rufus Anderson, The Hawaiian Islands: Their Progress and Condition Under Missionary Labors (Boston, 1864), 369. 21 Young to "Elders in the Sandwich Islands," J a n u a r y 30, 1855. 22 "Minutes of a General Conference of the Sandwich Islands Mission," Western Standard (San Francisco), M a y 3 1 , 1856. See also R a l p h S. Kuykendall, "Story of M o r m o n Settlement on L a n a i Related," Honolulu Star-Bulletin, J u n e 24, 1926, p . 10. 23 Jenson, "History of the Hawaiian Mission," December 9, 1857; M a r v i n Pack, " T h e Sandwich Island Country and Mission," The Contributor, 17 ( 1 8 9 5 - 9 6 ) , 580, 20
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After the American elders returned home, Elder Kailihune, president of the Lanai District, claiming that he was the president of all the islands from Hawaii to Niihau, collected funds for the purchase of Palawai Valley from Haalelea, but he spent the money collected for his own interests and was ousted.24 There is no evidence that the new president, Solomona Umi, made any further effort to purchase the land with the few dollars that were contributed to the church each year. When Gibson arrived on Lanai in October 1861, he found that the land was still available for purchase even though the rental had not been paid. Gibson reported on his activities in considerable detail and frequently sought the advice of Brigham Young. In the fall of 1861, after several months of travel throughout the islands, but primarily on Oahu, Gibson told Young that his first estimates respecting the number of church members in the islands would have to be greatly reduced. Having had time to review the records left by Elders Cannon, Lewis, Hawkins, Winchester, and others who had preceded him, Gibson decided that the church had less than one thousand converts, and many of them were poor people who had lost all of their lands to whites. The only way they could make any money was to sell a few chickens, potatoes, and bananas to foreign shipping. Those who had directed the gathering project on Lanai earlier had been "strangely improvident" according to Gibson. They brought several hundred people to a spot on Lanai where there was neither water, nor food, and no chance to obtain any; hoping as the natives state that the Lord would provide, by inducing the people of the other islands to supply them, which they did not; and consequently the gathering was broken up to a great extent. There still remained, and I have found, a faithful few of the church, holding on and struggling.
Continuing, Gibson described the island to Young, stating that of the three thousand acres that were available for lease or purchase, only six hundred acres were fit for cultivation. They were drilling for water, he said, and they remained enthusiastic and optimistic. "Talula is teaching the domestic arts. . . . We love the work better every day. We love the whole church," Gibson concluded in his letter to Young.25 Within a few months after his arrival on Lanai, Gibson had large fields under cultivation and substantial houses under construction as well as a chapel. The Polynesian, a Honolulu newspaper, was soon to mark 24 25
Jenson, "History of the Hawaiian Mission," O c t o b e r 6, 1858. Gibson to Young, September 19, 1861.
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Gibson a "philanthropist" and a "social reformer unheralded." In a story which later appeared in both the Sacramento Union and the Salt Lake City Deseret News, editor Abraham Fornander said, T i m e is beginning t o d o C a p t . Gibson justice. O n e clear headed, energetic a n d devoted m a n can d o [much] for the benefit of his neighbors. . . . W h e n Gibson arrived on L a n a i [there was] a settlement of a b o u t forty families living in small, ruinous a n d u n h e a l t h y houses — crowded, n o agriculture, n o industry, n o water, without ambition or hope. Patience a n d perseverance have brought change. 2 6
Later, the Mormon Millennial Star in quoting from the Deseret News said, "Lanai settlement . . . demonstrates . . . what one truly earnest, practical and benevolent man can do for the improvement of this people. . . . And not the least remarkable and beneficient effect of Capt. Gibson's presence . . . is the sanitary condition of its people, there being not one deceased during the past year." 27 Not all reports were complimentary, however. Rumor had it that the "haole" on Lanai had forced his newly won native followers into servitude and that crude plows were hitched to men, women, and children. Gibson later gave his version of the reported "outrage upon humanity" in his Nuhou. As the New Year's Day of 1862 approached, Gibson desired to begin the year with some planting. He found an old plowshare that had been used by a native as an anchor, tied a rope to its beam, and invited some of his Hawaiian friends to lay hold of the rope with him. Talula took hold of the handles and away they went "the Shepherd in the lead amid the shouts and laughter and merriment of the crowd of natives looking on." A feast, Gibson said, had followed this commencement of cultivation.28 But it was not simply the exploitation of human resources that eventually convinced many Utah Mormons that Gibson was a scoundrel; it was the charge of economic exploitation. While contemporaries expressed little or no concern about his acquisition of real property, important Mormons eventually came to believe that Gibson had managed to gain title to church lands, failing to realize that the Utah elders had not completed any fee simple land transactions before their departure in 1858. Gibson may have felt that he was simply following the example of his religious mentors in Great Salt Lake City when he placed Lanai 26 "Capt. Gibson in the Sandwich Islands," Deseret News, December 10, 1862. The total population of Lanai in 1853 was 600; in 1860, 646, and in 1866, 394. Thomas G. Thrum, Hawaiian Annual (Honolulu, 1885), 20. 27 Millennial Star (Liverpool, England), February 7, 1863. 28 "Human Beings Harnessed Like Cattle to a Plow," Nuhou (Honolulu), April 22, 1873.
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lands his own name. Since the days of Joseph Smith, Mormon leaders had held church property in their own names. While serving as "trustee" for church property both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had also acquired large tracts of personal property. What had been considered a wise policy became a necessity in the 1850s after Utah's delegate to Congress, John M. Bernhisel, reported that Justin S. Morrill of Vermont planned to introduce a bill in the House intended to restrict the influence of the Mormon Church in the territory of Utah. 29 In 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Act limiting the total value of church owned property to $50,000 and providing for fines and imprisonment for polygamists.30 Therefore, while church policy regarding deeded property may have been an important factor in Gibson's land practices, it is not certain that he ever considered any portion of the Lanai lands to be church property. Brigham Young had told the elders that all island assets must remain fluid, so that items of value might be quickly disposed of when the Hawaii Saints gathered to Utah. 31 Gibson was aware of Young's policy, and this may have been the reason he did not buy land for the church. More important, the Mormon Church did not provide Gibson with funds to buy land or to carry out his missionary work, nor were monies available from the Utah headquarters of the church for most of its missionary activities throughout the world. Elders were expected to provide for themselves and build up the branches of the church with the assistance of the members among whom they labored. Seldom, if ever, were the missionaries expected to acquire large tracts of land for the church — a plot for a chapel, perhaps, but not plantations. In his efforts to acquire land for church purposes, Gibson soon learned that the members were too poor and too factious to be able to rally behind a land program. Therefore, he personally assumed the responsibility for the accumulation of property and in so doing he allowed the Saints to use his land as their own as long as he remained in the church. Brigham Young, who was busy demonstrating his own business acumen in Utah, said that neither he nor his associates cared how much property Walter Gibson acquired.32 Missionaries were called by Gibson to travel throughout the Hawaiian Islands and other parts of the Pacific. Two elders, Belia and Manoa, 29
Bernhisel to Young, December 17, 1857. Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 2nd sess., 1861-62, p p . 1581, 1847, 2507. 31 Y o u n g to "Elders in the Sandwich Islands," J a n u a r y 30, 1855. 32 Deseret News, J u n e 1, 1864; Millennial Star, April 12, 1864. 30
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were sent to Samoa where they inaugurated the work that paved the way for the U t a h elders in 1888, and other missionaries were sent to proselyte in "Central Polynesia." 33 In so doing, he kept Brigham Young and the apostles informed about his activities. "I have thought it best to ordain some seventies, and some Aaronic priests," he reported to Young in January of 1862, for six hundred and fifty new members had been added to the church since the previous September. 34 Gibson had the authority to ordain male members to the offices in the priesthood and appoint missionaries, for elders were endowed with the right to perform these tasks before they were sent to their fields of labor. Gibson concluded that the Hawaiians should not be required to migrate to Utah but remain within range of their own tropic and fruitful latitudes. They would be helpless additions to the church in the mountains, he told Young, but they would prosper under good leadership should a "centre stake" of the church be established in the Pacific. Gibson felt that a great deal could be accomplished but not simply by preaching to the people. T h e Mormon missionary must help the people to improve their standard of living while teaching them the gospel, he told Young. "I design to . . . have every family in a snug and wholesome dwelling. I am now pulling down many of their . . . unhealthy straw kennels. . . . Dear brother, I am indeed preaching the Gospel here with scissors and soap. But we are not altogether neglectful of the mind; and of preaching, praying and rejoicing." 35 After receiving this letter and additional reports from Gibson, Brigham Young told the captain that he rejoiced that so much was being accomplished in the islands and thanked Gibson for giving his ability to provide for so many of the things essential to the Hawaiian people. 36 Later, Joseph F. Smith concluded that the course adopted by Gibson with regard to the gathering and the instructing of the people in agricultural pursuits had been just what was needed. 37 A letter from Brigham Young received in September 1862 was the last correspondence Gibson received from any member of the church hierarchy for more than a year, but Dwight Eveleth whom Gibson had 83 Gibson to George A. Smith, March 13, 1864. See also, Jenson, "History of the Hawaiian Mission," August 19, 1872; George Nebeker reported from Laie, the new Mormon settlement on Oahu, "We rec. a letter from our native brethren who are on the Navigator Islands. They speak of the Church there being alive and are anxious to hear from their brethren in Zion." In 1888 Joseph H. Dean became the first Utah elder to be assigned to Samoa. 34 Gibson to Young, January 16, 1862. s5 Ibid. 36 Young to Gibson, July 10, 1862. 37 Joseph F. Smith to George A. Smith, July 14, 1864.
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met in San Francisco sent along the news from Salt Lake Valley from time to time and assured Gibson that Young and his associates regarded him kindly. Gibson wrote a letter to Apostle George A. Smith in the spring of 1864 which he intended should "meet the eye of bro Brigham." Gibson reviewed his activities of the past two and one-half years for Smith, observing that with the exception of "a lot of pestersome old sore heads" a good spirit prevailed among the members of the church in Hawaii. When he arrived in the islands in July 1861, he had found religious profession everywhere among the islanders, many of whom were "glib with the scriptures at their tongues ends, but at the same time . . . objects of white men's contempt." The people needed improvement in their daily lives more than preaching, Gibson had decided soon after he arrived. By the spring of 1864, he had a little flock of converts who would live their religion and who were a benefit and honor to their country. Gibson told George A. Smith that two parties had developed in the church in the islands — workers and idlers. The workers, Gibson claimed, were for him, and together they had made some "civilized tracks" on Lanai. A flourishing village with a chapel, male and female schoolhouses, a hospital, broad fields of sugar cane and corn, and several thousand head of sheep and goats occupied Palawai Valley. WThile working closely with the people in developing the settlement, Gibson had found that the Hawaiians were human like everyone else. Some had faith that motivated them to action, others a faith that prompted only talk. "There are true and traitors, faithful and apostate; and I have done my best to sift a good article out of this . . . Polynesian material, in order to carry out this work further in other lands. We have built up a permanent Stake and home for the Saints on this island. I have bought six thousands acres of land and leased twenty thousand," Gibson told Smith.38 In the spring of 1864, several Utah elders arrived on Lanai and sent word to Gibson that they were on the beach awaiting transportation to Palawai Valley, an uphill climb of several miles. "Kipikona," as Gibson was called by some of the Hawaiians, sent horses for his unexpected visitors, the first Utah representatives of the church to visit him since he had left the Rocky Mountains in November 1860. Gibson and the native Saints were cool and very formal, according to one of the group, Lorenzo Snow.39 But Gibson must have warmed to the situation, for the visitors 38 39
Gibson to George A. Smith, March 13, 1864. Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, 2 8 2 - 8 6 ; Thomas C. Romney, Life of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, 1955), 190.
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were given a guided tour by Talula on April 3, 1864. They were shown what had been accomplished — the houses, chapel, schools, gardens, fields, and flocks — but the elders, whose visit to Lanai had been prompted by one or more letters Brigham Young had received from disgruntled islanders, concluded during the next three days that Gibson, pleased with his situation, wanted to remain on Lanai indefinitely; and they later reported he was unwilling to subordinate himself to their dictation. The apostolic delegation, consisting of Ezra T. Benson and Lorenzo Snow, accompanied by Joseph F. Smith, William W. Cluff, and A. L. Smith, attended the April conference held in the branch chapel where they denounced the "Shepherd Saint" and announced their decision to excommunicate Gibson from the church. Though the decision was considered final as far as the Utah delegation was concerned, the members of the Lanai priesthood were asked to approve Gibson's removal by the customary "uplifted hands." The response was singular; only one of the Hawaiian elders voted against Gibson.40 Nevertheless, Gibson accepted the verdict of the Utah elders, and there is no evidence that he objected strenuously to their decision. While Benson and Snow prepared their report for Brigham Young, Gibson penned a note in which he attempted to explain his position. Palawai, April 7, 1864 Dear President Brigham Young, As such I would hail you, but I suppose you will deny me the privilege when you receive the report that will accompany this. I cannot forget my love and regard for your person, although you have dealt precipitately and harshly with me. My daughter remembers tenderly your interesting family. I think and feel that though my spirit has not responded to your call, and we are now in different channels, that yet my course will never lead me into an attitude that will be hostile to you or the work you direct. I aim to write to you more fully by and by and at present must leave with bros. Benson and Snow, the details respecting my present action, and relative to the church. Yours fraternally, Walter M. Gibson 41
If Gibson did write to Young more fully later on, the letter has been lost. As far as the record shows the above letter was the last that Gibson sent to Young. 40 B. H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Century I (6 vols., Salt Lake City, 1930), 5:97-100. 41 Gibson to Young, April 7, 1864.
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Walter Murray Gibson
Kalakaua's coronation on February 12,1883, was planned, according Gibson, "not to feed the vanity of the king . .. but to strengthen the nationalism of the people." Courtesy Archives of Hawaii.
to
While some islanders applauded the excommunication, many of the natives stood staunchly by Gibson. More important, he had come to enjoy the support of men of power and influence, including Prime Minister Robert Wyllie and Prince Lot (Kamehameha V ) . They did not desert him and pointed out that Gibson, in acquiring land, had merely followed the precedent set by his accusers, "who," said Prince Lot, "unlike Gibson, use the lands for themselves while he uses it for the benefit of the natives."42 Nevertheless, following the decision of the Utah elders, Gibson no longer attempted to carry out the duties and responsibilities of the commission conferred upon him by Brigham Young four years before. He remained on Lanai with his daughter and two sons, who had arrived in 1864, commuting to Oahu occasionally where he marketed produce and made new friends. The membership of the church on Lanai dwindled, for the Utah elders established a new gathering place on Oahu and urged the members of the church to move to this place called Laie. Gibson, now well-known throughout the kingdom of Hawaii, followed new pursuits while retaining his headquarters on Lanai. Founding a newspaper, the Nuhou, in 1873, he carried on a skillful campaign of 42
Mellen, An Island Kingdom
Passes, 67.
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propaganda against the annexation of the islands by the United States, and against the cession of Pearl Harbor, a reciprocity treaty, or for that matter any legislation he considered to be primarily favorable to the white merchants and sugar factors in Honolulu.43 The rapid decline of the native population had been a major concern for the Hawaiian monarchy for years, and Gibson attempted to contribute his own ideas for a solution to the problem. In his newspaper Gibson said, "Bad sewage and neglected privys are the fertile sources of disease in cities. . . . The Board of Health should look sharp after the sanitary condition of the city. . . . An ounce of prevention is worth more than a thousand pounds of cure." 44 Several years later, after Gibson had been elected to the legislature, the Honolulu newspaper most sympathetic with the Kalahaua administration, mentioned Gibson's sincerity, his "deep-seated interest in the welfare of the Hawaiians, and his laudable desire to do something about it." According to the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, no other foreign-born gentleman in the legislature wielded the same influence or enjoyed the same confidence of the native Hawaiians. "This has been owing to the sincerity, frankness, courtesy and earnestness with which he has advocated his opinions and the clearly unselfish zeal which has characterized his whole conduct," this newspaper concluded.45 Later, when Gibson published his 219-page Sanitary Instructions for Hawaiians, the Advertiser readily acknowledged that it was a well-written contribution to the literate populace.46 The Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, aware of Gibson's concern with social and cultural affairs in the islands, elected him secretary of a new immigration society in 1872. He had exhibited an interest in the need for the importation of laborers with his pen in the local newspapers, and he spoke out on this matter during the next several years. In an "Address to the Hawaiian People" in 1876, Gibson concluded that the vital question of the day was not reciprocity with the United States, but repopulation.47 His concern with the two pressing issues of health and labor led to Gibson's election to the legislature in 1878 and his subsequent appointment to the ministry. In May 1882, he was tendered the top 43
"Prospectus," Nuhou, February 25, 1873; November 4, 1873. "Bad Sewage," Nuhou, M a r c h 31, 1874. 45 Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 3, 1878. Gibson and Kalakaua, along with others, purchased this newspaper in 1880. 46 Walter M. Gibson, Sanitary Instructions for Hawaiians (Honolulu, 1 8 8 1 ) ; Hawaiian Gazette, August 4, 1880; Pacific Commercial Advertiser, April 17, 1880. 47 Merze Tate, The United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom (New Haven, 1965), 44. 44
Walter Murray Gibson
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post in the administration of King David Kalakaua, that of premier and minister of foreign affairs. In this position Gibson was a key figure in Hawaiian politics until 1887 when enemies among the determined annexationist "Committee of Thirteen" forced his resignation from the Kalakaua ministry and his deportation. They were aware of the premier's influence with the native Hawaiian faction that was trying to thwart the attempt of the sugar interests to get the islands annexed to the United States. Gibson's entry in his diary for Tuesday, June 28, 1887, was brief and to the point: "Meeting of the Ministers at 10 a.m. Resigned our offices. Hope that our resignation will quiet the public feelings." The next day he recorded, "A somewhat easier feeling since announcement of resignation of ministers"; however, the diary entry for Thursday, June 30, reads, "Threats of violence . . . rumors of armed mob; purpose to lynch me . . . the mob around my house, an anxious night." The next day, Friday, July 1, 1887, Gibson and his son-in-law, Frederick H. Hayselden, were forced to leave home under guard and were taken to the Pacific Navigation Company's warehouse where friends intervened when ropes were put around their necks. Eleven days later, Gibson recorded in his diary his departure for San Francisco, stating that for a few days before boarding the ship he had enjoyed a degree of peace with his family.48 48 "Diaries of Walter M u r r a y Gibson," Brigham Young University, Provo 10, 28, 29, 30; July 1, 12, 1887.
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During his last years in Honolulu Gibson found solace in the Catholic Church. He made frequent, almost daily, visits to the convent at Kakaako near present-day Waikiki. His friendship with the sisters, particularly Mother Marianne Kopp whom he referred to as " M " in his diary, provided him with the friendship and approval that he needed, as well as an opportunity to exercise his interest in religion. In San Francisco, Gibson continued to correspond with " M " while in the care of the sisters at St. Mary's Hospital located at First and Bryant streets. He spent most of his last five months there, but when enjoying good health he lived at the Occidental Hotel. Just a few weeks before his death on January 21, 1888, he paid the following tribute to those who cared for him while he suffered from acute tuberculosis: "What a glorious company of sweet good women they are. The Catholic religious woman is a true woman, and the best of women. Blessed I sincerely feel. How I reverence and love my Franciscans, and these Sisters of Mercy." A few days later he recorded his last entry in his diary: "The improvement in my health continues. Very cold." 49 This was in December, and death was but three weeks away. The following May, Mother Marianne paid tribute to her late friend in a letter to her superior. "Indeed our loss is great," she recorded, "it seemed that nothing 49
Ibid., December 31, 1887.
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Premier Gibson with Catholic sisters and leper children at Hospital, 1886. Courtesy Archives of Hawaii.
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gave him pleasure but to serve and wait on us. I have never in all my life seen a man like him. We miss him. He had great plans laid out — what all he was going to do for us, if God had spared his life. God alone knows the why of all the great trials and mean persecutions He allowed to come over this poor man." 50 According to prediction, tradition tells us, Sam Brannan and Walter Murray Gibson were to depart from this world ignominiously, without funds or friends. The prognosticators were nearly correct as far as Brannan was concerned, but Gibson died comfortably in bed rather than in the gutter reserved for him by his disparagers. His embalmed body was removed from San Francisco's St. Mary's Hospital and returned to Honolulu, where it was viewed by hundreds at his King Street residence. Some accounts conclude that Hawaii's premier was a "rascal" in his relationships with both the island kingdom and the Mormon Church. 51 He was not merely a scoundrel, but an ex-pirate who, after becoming a Mormon, hoodwinked Brigham Young.52 But, most Gibson accounts have relied on Andrew Jenson's views, and, in turn, Thomas G. Thrum's Shepherd Saint of Lanai. Some few have based their conclusions on Joseph B. Musser's "Oceanic Adventurer," or Lorrin A. Thurston's Memoirs. Both these latter men favored the cause of the annexationists and belittled Gibson's attempt to champion the native Hawaiians. Thurston was a contemporary of that "splendid body of men" who advocated revolution and the ousting of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893 after overthrowing the Gibson ministry in 1887.53 Ralph S. Kuykendall's The Hawaiian Kingdom: The Kalakaua Era and Jacob Adler's Glaus Spreckels are scholarly accounts of the Gibson era in Hawaii, but Kathleen Mellen's An Island Kingdom Passes should also be consulted, for she had access to sources unavailable to others.54 Through these accounts, and additional sources as they become 50
Leo V. Jacks, Mother Marianne of Molokai (New York, 1935), 70—71. James A. Michener and A. G. Day, Rascals In Paradise (London, 1957). While this account is highly critical, nevertheless cognizance is given to Gibson's commendable attributes as well as his farsighted and sound policies in government. 52 Samuel W. Taylor, "Walter M u r r a y Gibson, Great Mormon Rascal," The American West, 1 (Spring 1964), 18-27, 77. 53 Joseph B. Musser, "Walter Murray Gibson — Oceanic Adventurer," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 52 (September 1926), 1709-32; Lorrin A. Thurston, Memoirs of the Hawaiian Revolution (Honolulu, 1936), 227. 54 R a l p h S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom: The Kalakaua Era (Honolulu, 1 9 6 7 ) ; Jacob Adler, Claus Spreckels: The Sugar King of Hawaii (Honolulu, 1966) ; see also, Esther L. Sousa, "Walter Murray Gibson's Rise to Power in Hawaii" (M.A. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1942). 51
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available, the popular portrayal of Walter Murray Gibson (who remains an anathema for many people today, a schemer and scoundrel who stole the island of Lanai) may give way to a new, more accurate interpretation. Certainly, it should be quite obvious even at this point that "Captain" Gibson was a personality quite different from John C. Bennett, James J. Strang, or even Samuel Brannan, with whom Gibson has been compared. For Gibson, the Mormons remained a "remarkable people" for whom he maintained a love and respect throughout his life. "We have to remember great kindness and hospitality at their hands," he wrote ten years after his excommunication.55 On at least one occasion he said, "It is my opinion that the system of polity practiced by the Mormon Church is the best in the world. . . . it is founded upon true righteousness and I shall love them always." 56 53 56
" T h e Mormons or the L a t t e r Day Saints," Nuhou, Mellen, An Island Kingdom Passes, 67.
April 15, 1873.
Two new publications have been issued by the Utah State Historical Society. Prehistoric Petroglyphs and Pictographs in Utah, edited by Roland Siegrist, University of Utah art professor, examines selected Indian rock art. T h e seventy-two page paperback book was published, in part, to accompany an exhibit of photographs and silk screen prints of rubbings shown by the U t a h Museum of Fine Arts and later by the Smithsonian Institution. T h e second new publication, Mormon Battalion Trail Guide, is the first in a projected series of handy field manuals designed to help travelers locate historic trails. T h e guide to the 1846-47 march of the Mormon Battalion takes the reader on a day-by-day trek. Prepared by Charles S. Peterson, John F. Yurtinus, David E. Atkinson and A. Kent Powell, the guide contains seventy-four pages of text coordinated with thirty-five pages of United State Geological Survey maps.
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Robert W. Sloan as he appeared in a photograph of Utah's second state legislature in 1897. All the ads pictured with this article are from Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer.
R. W. Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer: Boosting Utah's "Glorious and Imperishable FutureJ9 BY G L E N
M.
LEONARD
Dr. Leonard is publications coordinator for the U t a h State Historical Society and director of the Utah Humanities Project.
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ilLTHOUGH H E WAS ONE OF only three Salt Lake City undertakers listed in the Utah Gazetteer and Directory . . .for 1884, Joseph E. Taylor must have felt the competition keen enough to justify two full pages of advertising. His chief competitor had a name (Joseph William Taylor) and one full page of advertising similar enough in content to suggest that the two were either arch rivals in the business or cooperating relatives. The third Salt Lake City embalmer, William Skewes, did not advertise. The Taylors wanted all to know they would respond promptly to every order. Both claimed expertise in shipping bodies worldwide. Individually they stocked large supplies of cloth-covered, metallic, and rosewood coffins and caskets, plus other "undertakers' goods." Joseph E. proclaimed himself the "pioneer undertaker of Utah," with twenty years' experience. His factory manufactured coffins and caskets; his warerooms stockpiled coffin handles, trimmings, and burial robes. He shared his building with the city sexton. Joseph William Taylor's selling points included low prices, reasonable terms, and a choice of hearses — black or white. His offices were "open day and night," and his specialty was "air-tight oak cases and caskets." 1 The Taylors were just two of 201 Utah merchants, businessmen, manufacturers, and tradesmen who advertised in the pages of the fact-filled Gazetteer. Most businessmen bought onepage ads or less. The only company to equal Joseph E.'s extravagance was the Salt Lake Herald, whose city editor compiled the Gazetteer. Twenty-nine-year-old Robert W. Sloan expected his Gazetteer to serve the territory's business community much as the yellow pages in a modern telephone directory do — by providing benefits for both the seller and prospective buyer. The Gazetteer was jointly dedicated to the area's economic interests and its citizens. It catered to those in Utah who, like Sloan, were "interested in the development of her resources and the establishment of a foundation that will insure her permanent prosperity." 2 The publication's 636 closely printed pages bristled with commercially useful information. The advertisements, set in dozens of eye-catching type styles, were mere supplement, however, to the basic contents — alphabetical lists of names. Names of people were included, with each head of household's occupation and address. A directory of businesses 1 Robert W. Sloan, ed. a n d comp., Utah Gazetteer and Directory of Logan vo and Salt Lake Cities, for 1884 (Salt Lake City, 1884), 3 1 8 - 2 2 , 472, 502, 513 2 Ibid., 3.
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W. Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer
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for each community was painstakingly compiled. And finally, as if to qualify the publication as a "gazetteer" (or geographical directory), the work included thumbnail sketches on towns and counties. In all, these and other features provided a convenient guide to "who was what and where" in Utah of the middle 1880s. Had the Gazetteer and Utah Directory of Logan, Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake Cities, for 1884 (its full caption) been no more than a dictionary of names and places, it would have fulfilled the promise of its title. However, Sloan included information not found in similar Utah guides. His desire to help promote commercial growth in his native territory went beyond encouraging an exchange of goods and services in the market place. For, as Sloan himself put it, he held an "abiding and unshaken faith in the future of Utah," which, in the process of assembling the directory, had "grown to a certain and immovable conviction." As an editor for the Gazetteer and Herald, Sloan believed that his own and Utah's interests would be better served if he could somehow awaken lackadaisical citizens to the opportunities of a virtually unlimited, untapped potential. In the exploitation of vast resources, Sloan said, "there awaits for Utah a glorious and imperishable future." 3 To fulfill his aim of boosting the economic development of the thirty-seven-year-old territory, Sloan expanded and revised his father's Gazet[t]eer of Utah, and Salt Lake City Directory, 1874,4 which was itself an updated version of Edward L. Sloan's original Salt Lake City Directory and Business Guide for 1869.5 The third gazetteer produced under the Sloan by-line borrowed ideas and materials from its predecessors — such things as a chronology of Utah history, updated to the late spring floods of 1884; a two-page "Sketch of Mormonism" composed in 1874; and corrected lists of government officials, telegraph stations, and post offices. The new publication contained much-expanded histories and descriptions of the churches, secret and benevolent societies, and schools of Utah. Also in the 1884 Gazetteer were descriptions of all twenty-four Utah counties and most towns. These were based on data provided by stake presidents and bishops of the Mormon Church. Featured in the publication was something earlier Sloan publications had not attempted — a complete business directory of Utah. The publishers said 3
Ibid., 5. Edward 1874 (Salt Lake 5 Edward 1869 (Salt Lake 4
L. Sloan, ed. and comp., Gazet[t]eer of Utah, and Salt Lake City Directory, City, 1874). L. Sloan, comp. and arr., Salt Lake City Directory and Business Guide for City, 1869).
R. W. Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer
167
they gathered this information by visiting each settlement in the territory. Still a valuable reference, this detailed list of business houses and tradesmen may well have deserved its billing as "the most complete and accurate ever published." 6 Among the other distinctive features in Robert Sloan's book was a thirty-five-year statistical overview of immigration, undoubtedly a reflection of his interest in the flow of people to and from Utah and his desire to discourage the outward drain of talented youth. The 2,090 immigrants arriving in Utah during the first full year of permanent settlement were listed by name. But these were the only arrivals who could be called "pioneers" according to the strictest definition of the word as used by the editor.7 Following the short statement on immigration was a sevenpage section on business statistics for 1883. With these up-to-date figures, the publication took on a freshness lacking in the eight-year-old statistics cited throughout the analytical articles elsewhere in the Gazetteer. All the lists and figures were preceded by Sloan's lengthy essays on Utah's physical conditions, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, trade and commerce, and railroads. It was in these articles — and in the pages dealing with counties, recreational attractions, and churches — that Sloan developed his argument for boosting Utah's commercial future. Although the comments were written for Utahns twelve years before statehood, these insights into Utah's problems and potential are not without value in the 1970s. The Gazetteer and Directory of 1884 was the joint venture of Robert Wallace Sloan and D. C. Dunbar, co-workers at the Salt Lake Herald. As was mentioned earlier, Sloan served the newspaper as city editor. Dunbar was treasurer and manager. In later years, the two gained further prominence in separate journalistic ventures. In the year following publication of the Gazetteer, Dunbar leased the job printing and bindery departments of the Herald. Sloan branched out in 1889 when he purchased the 6 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 302. T h e closest available checks on Sloan's claim are H . L. A. Culmer, comp. a n d ed., Utah Directory and Gazetteer for 1879-80 (Salt Lake City, [1879-80]) and J. C. G r a h a m & Co., Utah Directory for 1883-84 . . . (Salt Lake City, 1883). Sloan appears more accurate than Culmer who records some names incorrectly (Oviatt becomes "Obit," Burk becomes "Beark," and Christensen becomes "Cristerson," for example, in the Farmington listing, p p . 3 1 1 - 1 3 ) . T h e difference in publication dates probably explains the ten to fifteen percent variation between the entries in Sloan and G r a h a m ; they would appear closely parallel in completeness and accuracy. T h e earliest known local directory is George Owen, Salt Lake Directory; Including a Business Directory of Provo, Springville and Ogden, Utah Territory ([New York], 1867). 7 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 232-53. Sloan's use of "pioneers" for first settlers only (p. 426) is not consistent throughout the work.
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Utah Journal, renaming it the Logan Journal and continuing as editor until it became a Republican organ in January 1892.8 Both sponsors of the Gazetteer were tutored by their fathers. Edward L. Sloan and William C. Dunbar were co-founders in June 1870 of the Herald, where they served as editor and business manager, respectively, the same positions they had held earlier with the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph. The sons followed the specialities of their fathers. While the Dunbars managed the businesses, the Sloans of both generations wrote. The senior Sloan, an Irish convert to Mormonism and a minor poet, served his journalistic apprenticeship as a corresponding essayist for the Millennial Star of Liverpool, which was then under the editorship of Edward W. Tullidge. Sloan went into the Star office when Tullidge left, then several years later, in 1863, followed his mentor to America. Sloan was soon assistant editor for the Deseret News. His publication of the City Directory in 1869 and founding of the Herald one year later "brought him to the pinnacle of journalistic fame in Utah," according to Tullidge, who also eulogized Sloan (who died in 1874) as "incomparably the ablest newspaper man that has risen from the Mormon people." He is "a man of extraordinary genius." 9 Tullidge also thought well of Robert Sloan, whose early training was as a typesetter rather than a writer. It was 1878 or later before Sloan gained the post of local editor at the Herald and began to produce the articles which prompted Tullidge to describe him as "an apt and interesting writer in the line of journalistic correspondence." 10 Robert's honors included the George A. Meears prize at the 1881 Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society fair for an essay11 outlining the ideas he later developed in the pages of the Gazetteer. Sloan also used his pen to 8 Sloan then returned to Salt Lake City, where he worked as an insurance agent. I n 1905, he helped organize T h e Agency Co., a family insurance firm which he served as president for some fifteen years. Sloan lived a short time in San Francisco around 1913 and returned to the Bay Area in 1923, three years before his death. 9 Edward W. Tullidge, ed., Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, 1 (July 1881), 591. Biographical information is from ibid., 5 8 8 - 9 1 ; E. W. Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City, 1886), 4 7 0 - 7 8 , 669, 8 1 0 ; append., 9-10, 15; and J. Cecil Alter, Early Utah Journalism (Salt Lake City, 1938), 102-4, 307—12. Sloan's book of poetry was called The Bard's Offering: A Collection of Miscellaneous Poems (Belfast, 1854). Selected Herald editorial comments can be sampled through the index in O. N. Malmquist, The First 100 Years: A History of The Salt Lake Tribune, 1871-1971 (Salt Lake City, 1971). 10 Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City, 810. 11 The Meears Prize Essay. "Utah: Her Attractions and Resources, as Inviting the Attention of Tourists and Those Seeking Permanent Homes" (Salt Lake City, [1881]). Companion essays by Col. O. J. Hollister and S. A. Kenner, runners-up in the contest, also appear in this pamphlet.
R. W. Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer
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defend Mormonism12 and served as a Utah legislator.13 In retrospect, it would seem his historically important role in life was like that of the executive secretary of a modern chamber of commerce. Much of Sloan's writing conveyed an attitude of boosterism, and that attitude was still evident in The Mountain Empire: Utah, published after the turn of the century.14 Robert Sloan's philosophy of progress for Utah industry and commerce developed from long experience with the business community of the territory. During the decade or so preceding the appearance of the 1884 Gazetteer, he tested his ideas in the pages of the Herald, and in turn was influenced by others on the newspaper's staff. The paper gave "a large portion of its space to Utah affairs, Utah industries and Utah enterprises." 15 Like the directory which grew from it, the newspaper paid special attention to mining, without, however, neglecting manufacturing, agriculture, and commerce. As an alert journalist seeking objectivity, Sloan surveyed all areas of the local economy. He found weaknesses. He spotlighted specific strengths. And he heralded Utah's potential for growth as unlimited. Among the problems emphasized in the Gazetteer was an attitude of indifference which Sloan found among Utah's "young blood." They believed the West was filled and the day of opportunity past. Overpopulation had deadened the pioneering zeal of conquest. Evidence of this filling-up was everywhere apparent in a city which had doubled its population in a decade.16 Industry seemed to have reached a plateau, while farms pushed out into marginal lands.17 The younger generation was turning to more lucrative fields abroad and exhibited little willingness to expend more than a minimal effort in improving Utah. The pattern 12 The Great Contest. The Chief Advocates of Anti-Mormon Measures Reviewed by Their Speeches in the House of Representatives, January 12, 1887, on the Bill Reported by J. Randolph Tucker as a Substitute for Senator Edmund's Bill Against the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City, 1887). I n this ninety-eight-page pamphlet, Sloan attacks as contradictory and untrue specific statements of Congressmen Tucker of Virginia, Ezra B. Taylor of Ohio, and T . B. Reed of Maine. 13 14
H e served in the 1897 House of Representatives in U t a h ' s Second State Legislature. R. W. Sloan and George E. Blair, eds., The Mountain Empire: Utah (Salt Lake City,
1904). 15 Q u o t e d from the Herald's masthead. An examination of editorial comments in the late 1870s bears out this declaration. 16 T h e 1880 census recorded 20,768 people in the city. William Mulder, "Salt Lake City in 1880: A Census Profile," Utah Historical Quarterly, 24 (July 1956), 233. 17 See L e o n a r d J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latterday Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 3 5 4 - 5 5 . T h e "scattering policy" was discussed editorially in The Deseret Weekly, 38 (April 27, 1889), 548, in answer to allegations by the New York Herald a n d Philadelphia Bulletin that young M o r m o n s leaving U t a h for better lands were also a b a n d o n i n g their religion.
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which Sloan observed in 1884 promised no spectacular boom for the future. As far as he was concerned, the twenty years following publication of his Gazetteer produced no appreciable change in the situation. He looked back in 1904 somewhat disappointed but with an attitude of faith in ultimate triumph: I t h a s been characteristic of t h e people of U t a h t o m a k e h a s t e slowly [he wrote]. W h i l e t h e r e is a r e p u g n a n c e to all b o o m m o v e m e n t s as e p h e m eral a n d d a n g e r o u s , t h e r e is, nevertheless, a serious desire for as r a p i d a g r o w t h as m a y be consistent w i t h safety. H e n c e it comes t h a t t h e r e is a steady gain from year t o year — in p o p u l a t i o n , w e a l t h , m a n u f a c t u r e s a n d values generally. 1 8
Utah capitalists suffered the malady of conservative economic policies along with all other businessmen, Sloan said. The men of wealth refused to sponsor poor but able men who had skills in manufacturing. Sloan decided that manufacturing had flourished in Utah only where it as Sloan and Blair, Mountain Empire, 48. Moviemaker Robert Redford, who lives at his Sundance ski resort east of Provo, Utah, put it this way recently when asked for comments on "the initiative of the people of Utah": "I sense a large amount of reticence on the part of the people in the state to move forward because they like it the way it is, and I can't say that I blame them. One of the reasons I came here was because it was peaceful. . . . And there are many people who would like to not see change. They view change as a kind of threat. In many instances that it [sic] true." "Robert Redford Viewpoint: Skiing, Films, Industry," an interview conducted by Marilee Latta, Salt Lake Business, 6 (December 1971), 8.
Sloan described the Germania Smelter in Murray as "perhaps . . . the most systematically run smelter in Utah." Cars were switched by teams of oxen. Detailed information on Utah's resources greatly enhanced the value of the Gazetteer. Photograph from the T r i b u n e Mining Centennial Collection, courtesy Mrs. N. R. Liddle. Men identified are contractors Joseph C. and James W. Cahoon.
R. W. Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer
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served the region's basic needs: flour, woolen products, lumber, lath, shingles, bricks, and charcoal. Nothing in this list provoked the imagination. Nothing qualified for export. In agriculture, as in manufacturing, unimaginative minds had allowed the balance of local production and consumption to create what seemed to the editor an artificial plateau. He challenged the assumption that production had reached its maximum by speculating that of the 600,000 acres reported under cultivation by the census only two-thirds was actually productive. Utahns, he found, had adopted an attitude toward irrigation agriculture which would persist well into the next century. Water ditches were an agricultural handicap, and farmers viewed the Great Basin climate as imposing an insurmountable limitation on output. In food production, as in manufacturing, Sloan assessed the market situation in 1884 as stale.19 Even had there been surplus products available for export, Sloan was not certain commerce would have succeeded. The sluggish attitude he diagnosed within the territory was only half the problem. The two factors he found responsible for Utah's economic backwardness were "internal indifference and foreign opposition backed by large railroad interests." 20 The national railroads profited most from long hauls. It was not unreasonable from their own perspective to hesitate to encourage exports from the inconveniently located Utah. Sloan, however, interpreted this as open hostility. He bluntly criticized the Union Pacific and Denver and Rio Grande Western for policies of "unfailing opposition to the material welfare of the Territory; a tendency to crush inherent independence, and a determination to choke the life out of home enterprises." 21 The lamentable history of railroading in Utah held for Sloan but one bright spot. That was the Mormon-built Utah Central, an independent railroad applauded by Sloan for resisting subjugation. T h e line had accepted only minimal attachments to the self-serving trunk lines in order to provide external shipping connections for its clients,22 and for this it received the editor's warm praise. While frank in exposing weaknesses, the compiler of the Gazetteer did not neglect Utah's assets. Sloan's descriptions glowed with the vision 19
R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 43-53. Ibid., 61. 21 Ibid., 50; cf. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 276—77. Sloan's assessment had not changed twenty years later; see Sloan and Blair, Mountain Empire, 50, 55. 22 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 106-7. 20
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of future possibilities. "It can be no worse," he said of commerce, reflecting his attitude in all fields of the economy. "Any change . . . must be for good." 23 Perhaps the greatest possibilities he saw were in mining. " I n the resources of Utah," Sloan believed, "may be found the 'promise and potency' of her future." 24 The most abundant resources to be found were iron and coal. Already, in the southern counties, Utah had "the greatest and grandest iron mines in the world. . . . There are absolutely mountains of solid iron," the editor reported, "of every variety known in the world." 25 Coal was so plentiful, he enthused, it would take a full century just to open up the veins.26 Natural resources in Utah were not limited to iron and coal. Sloan added many others to his list of ores which were so plentiful he could find no point "anywhere in the Territory from which the eye could not rest upon vast mineral desposits, great in variety, endless in extent." 27 To exploit this mineral wealth, Sloan recommended government assistance in the form of professorships in mineralogical fields, a geological museum, and a bureau of mining statistics. This last suggestion grew from difficulties he had experienced in trying to accumulate data for the Gazetteer. Available mining statistics, he had decided, were inaccurate and unreliable, but local mining engineers did help him assemble an impressive digest of mines and mining districts.28 Sloan had no ready answer for the lack of a transportation system favorable toward exporting Utah goods. Despite the poor balance of trade, however, he steadfastly maintained — with a certainty bespeaking the future — that Utah was geographically situated at the center of a natural distribution center for the West. To achieve that potential, the Utah booster offered an obvious solution: new local industries should be created to fill the need for articles being imported. This would halt the outward flow of an estimated twelve million dollars annually. At the same time, Sloan argued, miners, manufacturers, and farmers should pro23
Ibid., 112. R. W. Sloan, Meears Prize Essay, 6. 25 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 59. 26 Eighty-five years after Sloan's prediction, economists confirmed Utah's importance as a storehouse of coal, but reported that because of competition, geological limitations, and decreasing demand, "coal is of limited significance in the economy of the state as a whole." Frank C Hachman and Douglas C W. Kirk, "Utah Coal: Market Potential and Economic Impact," Utah Economic and Business Review, 29 (April 1969), 1-2. 27 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 55. 28 Ibid., 6, 55—104. Assisting Sloan were Professor J. E. Clayton, a mining engineer and geologist; Dr. William Bredemeyer, a mining engineer and surveyor; and Col. O. J. Hollister, collector. U.S. Internal Revenue. 24
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duce materials for export. H e challenged agriculturists to double production and said it could be accomplished with no increase in water supplies if only a little effort were applied to the task. H e envisioned outside markets for dried fruit, cereals, and wine. In addition, he foresaw great opportunities for Utah as a pasture for raising horses.29 If only Utahns would improve existing opportunities, Sloan promised that the territory would soon claim "commercial preeminence among the rising young commonwealths of the mountains." 30 T h e Utah commonwealth held potential for exploitation beyond the major commercial spheres. T h e territory's scenic, recreational, and religious opportunities and programs caught Robert Sloan's eye for their aesthetic — and commercial — value. I n mountain scenery, for example, he discovered aesthetic satisfaction which he freely translated into loquacious prose. His interests were with Wasatch mountain canyons, though, and he did not dwell upon the "wild and weird" formations south of the rim of the Great Basin.31 I n his beloved pine and aspen forests, and in nearby mineral springs and salt ponds, Sloan saw value — both medicinal and economic. For local citizens and visitors alike, Sloan prescribed more "out-of-door living, tramping, and camping which so quickly renovates a broken-down nerve apparatus." 32 H e wondered why the mineral springs had not been used to supply the world with health-inducing drinking and bathing water. "The indifference of persons interested is something shameful," he said, employing a favorite approach. T h e same is true of the Great Salt Lake, of world-wide reputation, both as to pleasureable and to healthful effects resulting from bathing in its dense waters, and yet inadequate and few accommodations are offered those who might reside months every year on its shore, were surroundings made pleasant and comfortable. 33 29 Ibid., 43-47, 53. This optimism echoes the feeling of a Salt Lake Herald editorial, Tuly 18, 1877. 30 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 118. sl Ibid., 170-71, 132, 142. 32 Ibid., 191. 33 Ibid., 175. Sloan was not alone in his views, which mirrored those of the Herald; George A. Grofutt, in his Salt Lake City Directory (Salt Lake City [1885-86?]), 12, lamented, "Every resort in the world advertises its attractions but Utah." More recently, an adopted Utahn commented, "I think one of the sharpest criticisms that could be leveled at the state is that a large portion of the development that seems to be going on in the state is being done by outside interests. Most of the ski resorts [are] being developed by people from Texas, Seattle, California, [and] New Orleans. I don't think the bankers have illustrated much vision in developing the state as they might." He added, "Tourism is the greatest asset that Utah has at this time. And until they can figure out a way to attract industry, the thing that should be done is there should be energy and money spent on developing tourism in the best way." "Robert Redford Viewpoint," 8.
174
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UTAH GAZETTEER.
3*9
1S68.
1884.
GRANT'S MUSIC EMPORIUM AND
VV holesale and retail importers and dealers in all kinds of Musical Merchandise Hooks • Toys and Fancy Goods; also Chimiware, Glassware, Crockery, Cutlery Silver-plated Ware, Jewelry, Clocks and Watches, Picture Frames, Woodenware Fancy Bracket' etc etc. We have the most varied and largest stock in the Territory in our line Prices lou and satisfaction guaranteed. Mail orders solicited. Address—* GRANT'S
MUSIC
STORE, AMERICAN FORK,
JULIUS KREMER, Manufacturer
B O T T L E D
- -
-A-2>TID
& CO.,
KANOSH, MILLARD CO., UTAH,
Proprietor.
and Dealer in
SEEGrGrEXD.
ALL O R D E R S F I L L E D NADAULD
%
PROMPTLY
1. nmm&M & @©,, COALVILLE, UTAH,
Dealers in
DEALERS IN
GENERAL DRUGS, WOOL, HIDES, PRODUCE, ETC., Also office of A. A . Kimball, agent foi Grant, Odell ft Co. Wagons, Concord Harness, Sulky and Hand Plows. Reapers, Mowers, Hay Rakes.'Harrows, Cultivators, etc., etc.
EIxSII]O^E BLOU^ IRIIxLcS, A. BERTELSON & S O N , Props.,
UTAH.
MERCHANDISE,
Boots, Shoes, Hats, Caps, and Standard Groceries, R e a d y M a d e Clothing:, e t c . Also buy and sell general produce at market prices. Farming Implements, etc., on hand.
Salina Flouring ills Co.
Salina, Sevier County, Utah, M&aufccluxsia of tie Best Bt&des of Flour, Manufacturers of the best brands of Flour D E A L E R S IN
DEALERS IN
GRAIN, HEED, ETC.
G r a i n , F l o u r , F e e d , etc.
Correspondence solicited. Orders filled. Satisfaction guaranteed. Shipping a specialty.
E L S I N O R E , S E V I E R COUNTY, U T A H .
The Salina Mill was built in 1SS3, with 3*-hnrsc power; has a capacity for sixty barrels of flout every twenty-four hours. The nearest railroad station at present is Juab on the U. C. Railway. whence flour is delivered to all parts of the worlo. Correspondence solicited.
R. W. Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer
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The optimistic editor admitted to his critics that Utah's climate was less than ideal. Nevertheless, he supposed it was not bad enough to keep away visitors, or drive away the disappointed offspring of original settlers. In an expression about the environment which reflected equally well his attitude toward the economy, Sloan noted, "There is hardly ever a cloud in the skies of Utah through which the sun is not looking." 34 In his blunt admission of local shortcomings, Sloan avoided controversial social issues. It had been Herald policy to defend Mormonism against the caustic jabs of non-Mormon editors, thus winning from critics the titles "Organ of the Lesser Priesthood" and "The Church Echo." But the paper also tried to avoid being zealously pro-Mormon. This policy of friendly secularism was successfully aimed at winning friends on both sides of the hassle over polygamy.35 So in explaining Mormon teachings, the Gazetteer mentioned circumspectly the Latter-day Saint belief "that marriage, whether monogamic or polygamic, is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, when such marriage is contracted and carried out in accordance with the law of God." M In addition, Edward Sloan's republished short history of Mormonism credited the church with becoming, "in the short space of fifty odd years," both an organization of "power and influence" and a "society which is the greatest problem of the century." 37 Elsewhere in the Gazetteer -—in a short directory of Utah churches •—• Robert Sloan found that it was convenient to bolster his thesis by praising the Mormons for their building program. The "church works," he said, had created a veritable industry in communities throughout the territory. Although designed for non-productive devotion, meeting houses, tabernacles, and temples were an economic asset. Their construction won Sloan's commendation, because the wages paid to workers fostered the flow of capital.38 Likened by the boastful editor to the "great public works" of the ancients "now famous for their grandeur and magnificence," the buildings produced by this program evoked a special literary rendering from Sloan. For example, Sloan wrote concise pen pictures of the Mormon temples. 34
R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 188, 191. Alter, Early Utah Journalism, 3 0 9 - 1 1 . 36 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 215. T h e Herald maintained "a broad but somewhat biased stand at times" on polygamy, to which it devoted considerable space, according to Alter, Early Utah Journalism, 309. 37 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 205. 38 Ibid., 195, 203-4. 35
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He portrayed the edifice at Logan as "an eternal sentinel to watch the peaceful habitations of men at its feet." The whitewashed structure at St. George seemed to him "grand, solemn, silent and white as the driven snow in contrast to the red mountains by which it is surrounded." Only these two temples had been completed by 1884. Another was in process of construction on a hill in Manti: "It . . . presents a noble sight," Sloan wrote, "as, grandly and solemnly, it rises from the hill top in lonely magnificence." 39 And after more than thirty years? the granite walls of the Salt Lake Temple had finally risen above surrounding buildings. Sloan's disappointment in the aesthetic outcome of this multi-generational effort has been echoed in succeeding decades. Comparing this urban monument to other Utah temples, he found it unlike the rest in one respect. It does not, and never will command the marked attention that the others do. It is a larger and vastly more imposing structure, [but] its size is not so noticeable, for the reason that it is not elevated above the surrounding country as are the Logan and Manti, while it does not stand alone in a plain, in solemn and imposing whiteness, as does that at St. George. It is in a city filled with large buildings; but is much sought by the stranger and always will be. 40
The peculiar people of Utah, like the buildings, conveyed distinctive regional qualities to those who edited the Gazetteer. Along with his local informers, Sloan sensed that a special difference characterized each community of people. The highlights were captured in the delightful thumbnail sketches of Utah towns and counties. In Ogden, for example, the editor found "public spirited, energetic, busy citizens," 41 the kind who might be expected to respond most enthusiastically to the Gazetteer's positive suggestions. The possibilities in the newly-settled Logan area must have seemed a bit less certain, since here was the "young blood" Sloan had found so pessimistic about Utah's future.42 In Davis County's agricultural areas were "a peculiar, quiet, pastoral people," and in Provo, said the editor, history must yet be written without reference to any spasmodic display of energy. All improvements have been of slow, but absolutely permanent growth; every step was taken when fully considered, only. There has never been occasion to retrace; sa
Ibid., 195, 197-98, 200. Ibid., 203. The aesthetic quality of the Salt Lake Temple in its urban setting is the topic of periodic discussion in Utah. Two opposing viewpoints of Temple Square architecture ("obvious aesthetic eyesores" vs. "renowned aesthetical, historical and religious qualities") appeared recently, for example, in letters to the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune from S. Knapp (September 15, 1971) and John Houser (September 28, 1971). 41 R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 381. 42 Ibid., 331. 40
R. W. Sloan's 1884 Gazetteer
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an industry once planted or commenced, became fixed. Slowly and sure; "they trip that run fast," has ever been the motto of Provo City, and of Utah County.43 Sloan did not discourage even the slowest of progress among his fellow citizens. Yet, he was a booster. H e dreamed of better days. As a general characteristic, he found Utahns of his day indifferent in economic matters. Because of this, the territory would be slow to reap the vast potential Sloan could see for it. T h e young editor did not wish to dwell on past inadequacies. His role was t h a t of a catalyst for the future. " I t is not a question of what U t a h has been," he once wrote, "but what she is and w h a t she will become." 44 H e believed the territory's natural resources were ample to ensure a glorious future. U t a h was located in a prime geographic center and would someday serve an intermountain empire. It was a central purpose of his Gazetteer and Utah Directory . . . for 1884 to help spur action, to encourage the realization of that possibility. " T h e future of the territory," Sloan was convinced, "depends upon the awakening of the people to these opportunities." 45 43
R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 129-30, 356. R. W. Sloan, Meears Prize Essay, 3. iS Ibid.} 6. 44
CLIMATE. Perfect climate, like perfect humanity, is perfect nonsense. The most desirable climate is that which, while still calculated to promote health, is also adapted to outdoor employment the greatest possible number of days in the year. Generally, however, climate is considered excellent, according to the proportion of deaths among those who live in it. The climate of New Zealand is considered par excellence, because of the prevailing health of the people; in fact, it is called the "Sanitarium of the World," the proportion of deaths to the population being so extremely low. And yet if people living in Utah were subject to the terrible rains that are of common occurrence there, or should be forced to endure one of the long, strong and steady winds which blow, with such force as to carry clouds of gravel when it is not raining, they would pronounce the climate the most abominable under the sun. The climate of Utah is not perfect, it is too hot in summer for the most cold-blooded, too cold in winter for those of warmest blood; and yet during the greater part of the year it is delightful. (R. W. Sloan, Gazetteer, 188-89.)
Nightfall at Nauvoo. By S A M U E L W. Company, 1971. x + 4 0 4 p p . $8.95.) Samuel Taylor's Nightfall at Nauvoo treats in detail the eight-year period between 1839 and 1847 when M o r m o n Nauvoo sprouted, flourished, and died. Taylor's book is a study less in event t h a n in character. H e ventures far beyond the commonly known facts of Nauvoo history to portray M o r m o n personality and to interpret the impulses that gave rise to historical events. Taylor's explanations of the motives behind the historical facts are often intriguing and stimulating. For example, he portrays Joseph Smith as a rough-hewn frontier sport, a seeker after his colleagues' wives, and an instant reviser of prior revelations. H e attributes with some certitude the shooting of Governor Boggs to Porter Rockwell. H e has the Saints expecting supernatural aid in crushing their enemies as soon as the temple is finished. H e gives as the chief reason for the decision to leave Nauvoo in midwinter the M o r m o n fear t h a t federal troops would come u p the Mississippi after ice had broken to stop their attempted migration. Despite his dispassionate tone, Taylor's portrayal of M o r m o n character is derogatory; it emerges in his treatment as paranoic and grandiose. T h e r e is conspiratorial violence in Porter Rockwell and naive, megalomaniacal
TAYLOR.
(New York: T h e Macmillan
political aspirations in Joseph Smith. T h e r e is a spectacular persecution complex in the Saints and an insolent, uncompromising attitude toward their enemies. There is the prurience of polygamy only lamely rationalized by a Hebraic code of ethics. Although this negative portrait may offend the M o r m o n reader, it has its value in reinforcing Taylor's chief thesis: t h a t the Mormons themselves were the chief cause of their expulsion from Nauvoo. It is a plausible thesis and worth developing. However, it needs balance. Taylor says that both Mormons and Gentiles were good people a n d sincerely motivated in their conflict with each other, b u t he unfortunately does not provide a detailed examination of the Gentile p a r t in the conflict. Perhaps a more serious deficiency in this book is Taylor's treatment of materials. H e achieves his portraiture of the intimate causes behind the rise and fall of Nauvoo through a technique of fiction. H e looks at the prime movers of the Nauvoo saga through the eyes of second-level figures like J o h n M . Bernhisel, Eliza R. Snow, and Porter Rockwell, attributing to them dialogue, perceptions, a n d feelings far beyond the authority of historical sources. H e attributes to them the insights that he, as historian, has
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had into the Nauvoo saga. For the serious reader, the result is confusing: one wonders always which assertion is justified by verified sources and which assertion may merely be a projection of literary imagination. Taylor says that he has approached his task not as a historian, who must stick to "facts," but as a writer, who is free to discover "essential truth." Taylor is mistaken in believing the historian is bound to bare facts. Although a scientific scrupulousness to establish and verify facts is evident in the good historian, he may look far beyond those validated facts to interpret the intangibles of motive and impulse that gave rise to those facts. Taylor could have made his interpretations of the
179 facts of Nauvoo history while at the same moment serving historiography by attempting to establish the validity of those interpretations. It is perhaps unfair to tax Taylor for failing to write a book for professional historians. There is need in the world for popular histories, too. T h a t is precisely what this book is: history for the layman. As such it will surely be appealing to many. With its fictionlike focus upon character, its lucid style, and its fast-moving narrative, it will hold interest and give pleasure. L E V I S. P E T E R S O N
Associate Professor of English Weber State College
Erastus Snow: The Life of a Missionary and Pioneer for the Early Mormon Church. By A N D R E W K A R L LARSON. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1971.xiv + 814pp.$14.95.) T h e need for interpretive biographies of early Mormon leaders has long been obvious. In his most recent work Andrew Karl Larson makes a significant contribution to our understanding of one of those major figures, Erastus Snow. T h e author recounts the seven decades of Apostle Snow's life with genuine affection and empathy. His. access to family journals, letters and records, and family traditions provides interesting and useful documentation for a story told in two parts: Snow as missionary and as pioneer. Writing the history of a person's life looms as a rather awesome assignment, especially when the subject has lived a long and eventful life; when he has been a vital part of a new American religious movement — Mormon-
ism; and when that individual, by virtue of his commitments, is thrust into the western frontier as a polygamous pioneer leader. This biographer's problems are compounded because he undertakes to write not only the story of Erastus Snow and his family for the family, but also, in effect, to interweave a history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which was so much a part of Apostle Snow's life. And, if only incidentally, Larson has also written a chapter in the story of western American history. Perhaps in this ecumenical approach is the book's major weakness: it is too long and too inclusive. T h e wealth of detail in supporting themes interferes in some respects with the author's primary objective of telling the story of Erastus Snow.
180 Larson begins with a review of family life in Vermont where Erastus was converted to Mormonism. Both in the Snow family's stature and in the intensity of young Snow's conversion one senses parallels with the Joseph Smith family. From that beginning Larson reviews Snow's busy itinerate life. T h e family soon migrated to Ohio, where Erastus quickly became involved in missionary labors and developed into a persuasive public speaker. Totally devoted, Snow moved with the church from Kirtland to Missouri, to Nauvoo, and then with Brigham Young and the vanguard of Saints to settle Salt Lake Valley. T h e 1840s also saw several missions and marriages and a call to the apostleship for Erastus Snow. His sense of duty kept him going despite heartache and disappointment. T h e reader sees that Snow's and many other church leaders' prolonged absences from home on church assignments placed on their wives and children additional burdens that not infrequently required the ultimate sacrifice. Snow had several children die in infancy. His wives, especially under the warm supervision of Artimesia, his first, were required to create a matriarchal order with its strong social and economic overtones. They were in fact the mothers of Zion. T h e missionary Erastus Snow was called continually to leave his family. I n 1850, he sailed for Europe where he opened the Danish Mission, translated the Book of Mormon, and prepared proselytes to emigrate to America. Returning via England he solicited information and funds for the "Iron Mission." However, before he finally settled in Utah, he served another mission to St. Louis to direct
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the emigrating Saints to Zion, including the handcart companies. T h e missionary finally came home. At times one is overwhelmed with the mobility of Erastus Snow during this period of his life, in spite of his having four growing families which obviously he visited only occasionally. T h e author commences the second part of his book with the apostle's call to settle "Utah's Dixie," an area with which Larson is familiar and enamored. Snow's role as leader of a people faced with making a desert bloom was a hard one. But he was a patient man, possessed of absolute faith in the divine mandate that called them there. His devotion could carry the people through their trials and discouragement as well as marshall support from Brigham Young for projects and tithing to keep them alive when times were the most perilous. A part of that Dixie heritage still stands today — an old cotton factory, a courthouse, a tabernacle and a temple, all public works projects of this period. At least in his concern for his family's future, Snow was subject to some partisanship. Hoping for economic advantage, through diminished, if not eliminated competition, the apostle called all three entrepreneurs of the firm of Woolley, Lund, and J u d d on missions at the same time. O n this occasion they opposed counsel, stating that only two would leave at one time. By the 1870s Dixie had begun to stabilize somewhat, a story Larson retells well. But for Snow there was no stability. Mormon Manifest Destiny moved the Saints south into Arizona, a task Erastus Snow was to oversee. Later polygamy hunts haunted the aging apostle into Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Old Mexico, where
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Snow helped acquire land and settle the Saints. H e finally returned home, tired and devout, to his families. Death came in Salt Lake City May 27, 1888. T h e pioneer had passed. Larson's book contains a wealth of information, much of it unavailable before. T h e delineation of the family genealogies in the appendix is very useful. Erastus Snow faced many of the problems of polygamous life with a judiciousness and success less tactful men could not muster. With children from a first wife as old as his fourth wife, the task was not easy. T h e joy and pathos of that story are told well. Snow's life raises other peripheral questions. H o w could a man with such great family responsibilities spend so much time in direct service to his church, yet still provide comparatively well for his families? What kind of social and psychological inheritance did this polygamous pioneering leave its progeny? Larson's work raises these questions and suggests answers. It sug-
181 gests also the need for scholarship more particularly focused on these peculiarities. T h e book has a good index, and it is bound well. T h e printing on a lightweight paper creates a degree of transparency which hinders the reader. In at least two instances the footnoting leaves no bottom margin. Minor mistakes are noted. O n page 244, sugar factory no doubt should be iron factory; page 344, the date of Daniel Bonelli's letter should be 1902; page 358, the date is 1865; and, finally, the picture of James Snow (born April 28, 1842, died February 25, 1850) is that of a mature man. Larson's Erastus Snow is an important book. It is also a fine tribute to an important family and to a top-notch writer and historian. MELVIN T.
Utah State Historical
SMITH
Director Society
An Annotated Bibliography of Western Manuscripts in the Merrill Library at Utah State University, Logan, Utah. By M A R Y W A S H I N G T O N . Western Text Society Series, vol. 1, no. 3. (Logan, U t a h , 1971. 157 pp. $2.00.) Name Index to the Library of Congress Collection of Mormon Diaries. Compiled by the SPECIAL COLLECTIONS D E P A R T M E N T , M E R R I L L LIBRARY, U T A H STATE U N I V E R S I T Y . Western Text Society, vol. 1, no. 2. (Logan, Utah, 1971. 391 p p . $10.00.) T h e basic idea of preparing an annotated bibliography of western manuscripts in the Merrill Library is a good one. Like Dale Morgan's guide to the holdings of the Bancroft Library and Mary Withington's guide to the Coe Collection at Yale, Mary Washington's bibliography of the smaller collec-
tion at Utah State University will help librarians and historians. T h e work is divided into three parts. Part 1 is a general category of manuscripts, films, typed transcriptions, etc. Many of these are parts of earlier collections here labeled simply Cache Valley Historical Society and Ricks
182 Transcription. (Regrettably no information is provided about these earlier collecting efforts.) P a r t 2 lists work compiled by the W P A Federal Writers Project. Part 3 is a list of nineteen items, all on microfilm, from the National Archives or the U t a h State Archives in Salt Lake City. It is obvious t h a t a larger n u m b e r of the works listed are not unique holdings of U t a h State University. D u e to the advantages (or perils) of microfilming, the holdings of t h e Cache Valley Historical Society a n d m a n y of their diaries typed by the W P A can be consulted in other libraries. Researchers in other libraries using these materials can therefore consult this bibliography with profit. Preparing such a bibliography requires inordinate patience and meticulous care for detail. O n e m a y regret t h a t this work, while retaining its usefulness, is m a r r e d by numerous small errors and possibilities for confusion. T h e standard entry gives author, author's dates, kind of document, years covered, length, form (whether original or some kind of reproduct i o n ) , and call n u m b e r or category within the collection. Fair enough. But on item 8, the journal of George Barber, the next to last piece of information is omitted. O n item 171, a microfilm of a typed manuscript by H e m a n H a l e Smith, we are told t h a t the originals are in the Texas Archives, Austin, Texas. T h e "originals," simply a typescript, are in the University of Texas Archives, not to be confused with the Texas State Archives. Sometimes the entry is simply incomplete. T h e voluminous records of Samuel Roskelley ( n u m b e r 164) are said to be in "autograph m a n u s c r i p t " form. But they are also available in
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the collection on microfilm: a complete record would indicate this fact. M o r e serious t h a n these small irritants is the failure to mention the mimeographed guide prepared by S. George Ellsworth for the collections of the Cache Valley Historical Society. Since all of the C V H S materials are apparently included in the present listing, it would have been wise to alert the user to the existence of the earlier guide. A simple comparison of the entries for the papers of William Woodw a r d ( n u m b e r 210) will demonstrate how m u c h more detailed Ellsworth's descriptions can be. Such flaws suggest t h a t publication should possibly have been deferred long enough to allow for additional proofreading and revision. However, anyone familiar with the frustrations of similar projects will sympathize with those responsible. Wishing it might have been better, we can be thankful for a work that will prove useful to students and scholars. T h e r e is not m u c h to be said about the Name Index to the Library of Congress Collection of Mormon Diaries, also a product of the Special Collections Department at U t a h State U n i versity. Essentially it is a collation of the m a n y n a m e indexes prepared for the individual diaries compiled in U t a h by the W P A . Since the Library of Congress microfilmed t h e collection in 1950, copies of this microfilm version have been purchased by other libraries. Researchers at m a n y locations will therefore be able to benefit from the present index, which appears to be carefully prepared. DAVIS BITTON
Professor of History University of Utah
Book Reviews and Notices
183
Rediscovery of the Nauvoo Temple: Report on the Archaeological Excavations. By VIRGINIA S. HARRINGTON and J. C. HARRINGTON. (Salt Lake City: Nauvoo Restoration, Incorporated, 1971. xiv + 54 pp. + 3 folded charts. $1.75 paperback, $3.50 clothbound.) Archaeological reports are usually rather dull affairs consisting of numerous pages of detail about excavation technique and artifacts recovered. T h e Harringtons have done an admirable job in presenting for the general reader a good summary of the archaeological results of the Nauvoo Temple excavations without a large overburden of archaeological detail. This volume is the first in what we hope will be a continuing series published by Nauvoo Restoration, Incorporated, documenting their archaeological and historical studies in Nauvoo. While the archaeologist will lament the lack of detail to which he is accustomed (the artifacts section is particularly weak), N R I has performed a valuable service to the general reader. One hopes the additional detail necessary to a complete scientific job will follow. Excavation of the Nauvoo Temple was begun by this reviewer in the summer of 1962. Time and funds did not permit its completion in a single season. Furthermore, based on initial excavations I recommended that no additional work be done until final plans for the site had been formulated. Since the temple site is the only one of its kind, I felt a special responsibility to see that the utmost care was taken prior to any decisions affecting the future of the site. Nauvoo Restoration was fortunate in obtaining the services of such competent historical archaeologists as the Harringtons. Under their direction excavations were completed between 1966 and 1969. Perhaps one of the
most difficult jobs in archaeology is to assume responsibility in mid-excavation for someone else's work. There are always problems with how he dug, the condition of his notes and other records, etc. It is very much to the credit of the Harringtons that I can find no fault with their use and interpretation of my initial excavation. While some of their conclusions are slightly different in 1969 than mine were in 1962, the differences arise from the additional knowledge gained by more excavation. In their fifty-four pages the Harringtons have managed to include material on the historical background of the temple, a chapter on the excavations, a description and analysis section which is the longest in the book and includes information on the font, stairwells, font drain, floor, water supply, along with other details, and a conclusion. There is a brief appendix devoted to archaeological procedures as well as a bibliography and an index. T h e entire volume is well illustrated on almost every page, and the three foldouts at the end include a final plan drawing of the temple basement plus six vertical sections of the excavations. The frontpiece is a fullcolor painting by William Weeks of the temple as it looked at completion. For the most part the drawing appears accurate, although he shows the tower as made of stone when it may have been wooden. I believe there is still some doubt as to whether the weathervane which formed the spire was the figure of an angel. Although
184 Weeks shows it as such, he does not fall into the trap of giving it wings as some artists have. T h e only real weakness in the volume is the conclusion which is simply a very brief chronological listing of events surrounding the construction, destruction, and excavation of the temple between 1841 and 1969. O n e somehow feels that there is more to say. No attempt was m a d e to place the structure in architectural nor cultural perspective. There is a feel for the building but little feel for relationships between the building and its builders and users. As non-Mormons the Harringtons perhaps felt such delvings outside their prerogative or interest. There is, however, at least one important lesson for people in general
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and Utahns in particular, and the Harringtons have illustrated it well. Archaeology has something to say. W h e n it is conducted with the competence shown by the authors both in their excavation and their reporting, the average person can increase his appreciation of the past. And even events as close as the 1880s which we think we know so well can be fleshed out and better understood when history and archaeology combine their interpretive power. Nauvoo Restoration has served to focus this happy combination on Nauvoo. W h o will do the same for pioneer U t a h ? D E E F. G R E E N
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Weber State College
The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West. Edited by L E R O Y R. (Glendale, California: T h e Arthur H . Clark Company, 1968. Vol. 5, 404 p p . $14.50; vol. 6 , 4 1 0 p p . $14.50.) HAFEN.
As indicated on the title page, Dr. Hafen is editor, not author, of this excellent series dealing with the Mountain M e n of the Far West. However, he is author of one account ("Louy Simons") in volume 5 and two in volume 6 ("Charles G a r d n e r " and "Etienne Provost"). Volume 5 contains twenty-eight sketches; volume 6 carries thirty-one. These brief biographies are arranged alphabetically. No attempt is made to rate the various men under study. Although the two volumes contain sketches of m a n y famous characters of the West, most readers of this review will probably not recognize half of those treated. T h u s the volumes challenge all of us to en-
large our circle of knowledge about the Mountain Men by reading the complete series. Although these two volumes contain sketches of several Mountain Men fairly well known to Utahns, readers of the Utah Historical Quarterly may be somewhat surprised to find space treatment of certain events which U t a h history students, a n d patrons of the Society generally, have always considered highlights of U t a h history and important incidents in the lives of the trapper-explorers involved. Some examples may be cited. Every U t a h n knows that James Bridger is credited with having "discovered" Great Salt Lake. Yet Corne-
Book Reviews
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lius M. Ismert's account of Bridger gives that event scant treatment; Ismert does not say whence Bridger's trip of discovery was made nor give the source of the ultimate written confirmation of the discovery. Harvey L. Carter, reporting the activities of Kit Carson, does not mention the founding of Fort Kit Carson in the Uintah Basin. Carson's trip to Fremont Island in the Great Salt Lake with John C. Fremont in 1843 is treated with utmost brevity: "they had explored Great Salt Lake" on the way to Oregon. Neither the island nor the famous "Carson Cross" carved there is mentioned. Likewise, although it is quite common knowledge among scholars that (as Fremont's guide) Carson led the first group of white men across the heart of the Great Salt Lake Desert in 1845 — to blaze a trail that became part of Hastings Cutoff the following year and was made famous by the trials of the ill-fated Donner Party — Carter passes that part of Carson's activity without a word. In the biography of Captain Bonneville, the events associated with his Great Salt Lake-California expedition of 1833 under the leadership of Joseph Reddeford Walker are barely mentioned by Edgeley W. Todd. Later in the same volume (5) Ardis Walker's sketch of Joseph Reddeford Walker gives very scanty treatment to that same expedition. Dr. Hafen's treatment of Etienne Provost does more to associate his subject with activities familiar to Utahns than any of
185 the other writers, but Hafen also presents the broad view. These observations should not be considered as criticisms. The various sketches are necessarily brief; they cannot be loaded with details; they are written by major scholars well qualified to give broad coverage to the various Mountain Men under consideration. Students who know a few things about these famous trapper-explorers will do well to read these volumes in order to get a broader picture of their various heroes as well as information about a couple of dozen additional men less well known. Readers not familiar with details of geography will experience considerable frustration in trying to travel the western trails with the various Mountain Men. Although a separate map for each biography would probably be too much, at least one general map should have been included in each volume rather than just in the first volume of the whole series. Each volume contains some worthy illustrations — mostly portraits of persons portrayed in the sketches. There is no index for individual volumes; but a general index is promised for the last volume of the series. The various accounts are generally well written, quite thoroughly documented, and very informative. Dr. Hafen has done his usual superb job in bringing them to us. DAVID E. MILLER
Professor of History University of Utah
186 In Pursuit of American By W A L T E R R U N D E L L , 445 p p . $7.95.)
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History: Research and Training in the United States. ( N o r m a n : University of Oklahoma Press, 1970. xv +
JR.
T h e Ford Foundation m a d e a grant of two million dollars to the National Historical Publications Commission in 1964, to be spent over a decade in support of the publication of the Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, and Franklin papers. It was agreed t h a t the interest earned by the principal would be used for surveys of research and training of graduate students and editors who work with such collections of source materials. Walter Rundell, Jr., t h e n assistant executive secretary of the American Historical Association and director of its Service Center for Teachers of History, was invited by Wayne C. Grover, then archivist of the United States and chairman of the National Historical Publications Commission, to conduct such a survey early in 1965. D r . R u n dell began work on his project September 1, 1965. T h e first of two years was spent in securing information through the survey and the second in evaluating the data collected and writing the report. T h e published report is largely based on 557 interviews at 112 institutions concerned with training or making source materials available to graduate students in the field of history. Extensive questionnaires were sent to these and other universities, libraries, historical societies, archives, etc. Information compiled from these interviews and questionnaires has resulted in a report that candidly reveals the state of the training of American historians. Dr. Rundell presents the conclusions from his data in eleven chapters.
At the end of each chapter is a summary statement in which he makes specific recommendations t h a t relate to the particular topic treated in that chapter, for the improvement of training or services for graduate students. T h e following examples are drawn from these summary statements, and comprise a sampling of the kinds of insights the work offers. 1. " T h e evidence indicates that our profession needs more a n d better training in historical method." 2. " T h e historical profession is expressing more interest in social science concepts and tools t h a n ever in the past." 3. " T h e great abundance of original sources in hundreds of repositories across the country should leave no resourceful, energetic graduate student wanting for research material." 4. "Dissertation topic choice came about because of: specialties and interest of professors, backgrounds and interests of candidates, a n d knowledge of the accessibility of primary sources." 5. " T h e complaint of museum directors that historians are not sufficiently cognizant of the rewards of research among their holdings has been echoed by custodians of virtually every type of local source." 6. " T h e importance of printed sources in graduate history training has grown. . . . the quality of some types of printed sources has improved greatly." 7. "Photocopy: Historical research, because of the nature of the sources, must be a cooperative venture."
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8. " T h e thoughtfulness and variety of recommendations about finding aids indicated their essentiality and centrality to historical research." 9. " W i t h o u t question, documentary editing has become one of the piers supporting the house of American history." 10. "While relationships between custodians and researchers have been predominantly s a t i s f a c t o r y , both parties can take steps to improve them." 11. "Historians must work actively to see that their research needs are met, for through their research and publication historians can inform society of whence it came and w h a t it has done. Only through this knowledge do men
187 have hope for understanding the present and meeting the future." Persons concerned with the state of research in and the writing of American history will find Walter Rundell's work interesting and rewarding. While the views of librarians, archivists, graduate students, and historians, taken in bulk, sometimes agree a n d sometimes disagree -—• even among their own kind — the results of R u n dell's work give some definite directions to future research and training needs that relate to the field of history. S. L Y M A N T Y L E R
Director, Center for Studies of the American West University of Utah
Footprints in the Wilderness: A History of the Lost Rhoades Mines. By G A L E R. R H O A D E S and K E R R Y R O S S B O R E N . (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1971. 247 p p . $10.00.) The Lost Rhoades Mines traces the Rhoades family and its preoccupation with gold prospecting, and the lore of lost Spanish and Indian mines through at least four generations from the 1840s to the present. T h e enigmatic a n d mysterious Caleb B. Rhoades is the central figure though his father, T h o m a s , and a phalanx of brothers, sons, wives, and other relatives moves in and out of the narrative. Preceding the general M o r m o n migration west the Rhoades family made its way to California in 1846 striking it rich before returning to U t a h with a small fortune in gold. Once in U t a h they helped settle Kamas, Price, and other areas. Caleb, and to a lesser degree his father, were constantly on the trail of gold and appear to have been excepted from Brigham Young's
general proscriptions on chasing after precious metals. Unlike other whites they are also said to have had the blessings of the U t e Indians ( w h o m the authors show as being almost supernaturally defensive) in occasional workings of one mysterious mine where rich nuggets reportedly lay for the taking. I n tone and character the Lost Rhoades Mines is true to the sources used by its authors. In those sections dealing with settlement at K a m a s a n d Price it has the ring of a Daughters of the U t a h Pioneers centennial history. Otherwise it reflects the oral tradition upon which it rests and gives the impression of "true west" history. T h e authors have done a prodigious and praiseworthy work in tracing and relating a welter of traditions and
188 legends. In those parts of the book that lend themselves to documentation there are numerous factual problems. In large measure these are the product of the oral tradition. Lamentably the publishers construed their obligation in the narrowest sense and provided little help in solving such problems. The publishers are also to be faulted on the failure to provide an index and work out a consistent mode of citation.
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As history the book leaves much to be desired. On the other hand it has the strengths of the traditions and interests that have perpetuated the intrigue of not merely the Rhoades mines but legendary lodes throughout the West, and for this reader it was both interesting and useful reading. CHARLES S. PETERSON
Director, Man and His Bread Museum Utah State University
Modern Transformations of Moenkopi Pueblo. By SHUICHI NAGATA. Illinois Studies in Anthropology No. 6. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970. xviii + 336 pp. $10.95.) Students of Mormon and Indian historic relations have long been interested in the Hopi Indians of northern Arizona. Of all the Hopi pueblos visited during Mormon exploration and colonization, the one most influenced was Moenkopi. It is a colony of Oraibi, some forty miles to the west of that most ancient town, on the outskirts of the contemporary Navajo settlement of Tuba City. It was to Moenkopi that John D. Lee frequently came from his sojourn at Lonely Dell, Lees Ferry, on the Colorado River in the mid-nineteenth century. It was from Moenkopi that Jacob Hamblin induced the Hopi leader, Tuba, to journey to the settlements of Utah's Dixie in the 1860s, And it was at Moenkopi where Mormons introduced large-scale irrigation agriculture and constructed a woolen mill in the 1870s and 1880s. For all this historic contact, very little has been written about the native inhabitants of Moenkopi. This book, by a capable young Japanese anthropologist, should fill that gap. Nagata, well-trained in Japan and at the Uni-
versity of Chicago, lived in Moenkopi village for almost two years while he carefully documented the history of the development of its Hopi residents over the last century. The author's section on the prehistoric and the pre-Mormon period of Moenkopi is all too brief and somewhat in error. Beginning with his discussion of the Mormon mission period around 1875, however, the narrative is complete, accurate, and extraordinary in its enthnohistorical description of the transculturation of these Indians as they came under the sway of, first of all, Mormons, later Navajos, and finally non-Mormon Anglo-Americans in the area. The several chapters treat of the political, economic, and social changes that have taken place among the inhabitants of Moenkopi and in their native culture. The important position of Moenkopi as a colony of the parent village of Oraibi is discussed as is the environmental setting of this town on the Moenkopi Wash, a main tributary of the Little Colorado River.
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In all, as the distinguished student of the Hopi, Dr. Fred Eggan, remarks in his foreword, this is "an important contribution to our understanding of the processes of modernization in the Pueblo world." W e non-Indian students of history are all too inclined to place the developments of our own ancestors in the fore and to thus underestimate the importance of the changes that we have wrought upon the lives of native Americans.
189 I strongly recommend this volume to the readers of the Utah Historical Quarterly. But, read it in your local library. Don't buy your own copy. T h e $10.95 price tag is outrageous for a paperback. R O B E R T C. E U L E R
Professor of Anthropology Prescott College Prescott, Arizona
Utah Catalog: Historic American Building Survey. By P A U L GOELDNER. (Salt Lake City: U t a h Heritage Foundation, 1969. iv + 76 pp. $2.50. Second printing, 1971.) T h e handsome cover with its crisp line drawing of the Beaver County Courthouse is only a fraction of the visual reward awaiting the reader of this conveniently sized booklet. It is intended as both a guide to the interested individual and as a partial catalog of the rich architectural heritage of Utah. This work represents the joint efforts of the U t a h Heritage Foundation and the National Park Service's Historic American Building Survey ( H A B S ) . HABS, an archive of American architecture, was established in 1933 by the National Park Service in collaboration with the Library of Congress and the American Institute of Architects. State by state the HABS documents examples of buildings from the first colonial settlements to the early twentieth century. T h e Utah Catalog lists ninety-nine sites beginning with the 1845 Miles Goodyear cabin and concluding with Richard Kletting's 1916 State Capitol. T h e format consists of introductory statements concerning the survey, a short, well-illustrated essay on U t a h
architecture by Paul Goeldner, state survey project supervisor, followed by the actual catalog listing of the documented sites by county, and an index. This Catalog's main feature is the essay on the architecture of Utah. Well-written by an architectural historian and quite readable, it examines the growth of the Mormon settlements and their architecture as well as the later influence exerted by the Gentile migration. T h e range of architectural design extends from vernacular structures to high design and architect-designed buildings, A particularly fascinating section involves a discussion of U t a h domestic structures and their seemingly unique architectural characteristics. This brief, but well researched essay on Utah architecture relies on primary and secondary sources plus evidence gathered from the field survey, presenting for the first time under one cover a comprehensive examination. It is a rich heritage which Goeldner concludes "merits conservation for the benefit of future generations."
Utah Historical
190 T h e concluding portion of the booklet is the actual section to which the title refers. It lists, with brief annotations, pertinent information on each historic site arranged alphabetically by city. Included in each annotation is the amount of documented material compiled in both photographic and drawing form on file in the Library of Congress. Copies of all documents on the sites listed may be purchased by any interested person. Dr. Goeldner's essay is certainly informative though lacking in an attempt to seek stylistic or formal similarities between the more common types of structures and those of preUtah Mormon settlements. H e does mention similarities in town patterns to the "City of Zion" and some similarities and variations with reference to the temples in Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois. Bibliographic citations have been provided in the essay but have been spread throughout its fifty-odd page length. T h e inclusion of a selected bibliography would have been a welcome convenience for history buffs. Since the appearance of this publication new sites have been discovered throughout the state, and a further survey might result in an extended version of the Utah Catalog. As a layman's guidebook to historic towns and buildings, the catalog — despite its other pleasing qualities — suffers somewhat from a lack of user convenience. The catalog is organized
alphabetically by city. T h e sites documented are also arranged alphabetically under each city entry. H a d this pattern been followed in the otherwise thorough index, the work would be handier for quick reference either at a desk or more especially in an automobile. In its present format, sites, are not named in the index under the city or town in which they are located. T h e state m a p inside the front cover might have been more effectively placed opposite the opening page of the catalog section or even repeated at this point. In addition, since the publication of this work in 1969 (the catalog was reprinted in 1971 without change) numerous documented structures have been demolished. Perhaps an annual addenda sheet might be prepared and included in the sale of the booklet. Despite what might be regarded as a set of rigid publication guidelines established by the National Park Service for state catalogs, the Utah Catalog is considerably more colorful and pleasing graphically than most. A work of this nature is without a doubt long overdue, and this publication makes a very good effort to fulfill the need. It sets the reader straight on what has taken place architecturally over the past 125 years in the " L a n d of Zion." P E T E R L. G O S S
Assistant Professor of Architectural History University of Utah
This is the Place: Salt Lake City; An Entertaining and T E R R E L L DOUGAN. Illustrated by S T E P H A N I E Authors, 1971. viii + 184 pp. $2.95.) T h e Key to the City should be presented to every visitor. T h e factual and
Quarterly
Guide. By
JOSEPHINE ROSE
CHURCHILL.
(Salt Lake City:
magical gifts opened by that key should be in hand on a tour. T h e trav-
191
Book Reviews and Notices eler should stand on our sacred spots, wander down our memory lanes, and see our visible past in stone, artifacts, people, museums, displays, and patterns of culture. T h e hope is that visitors will never be the same after accepting that key and entering our gates, Guides, human and printed, are necessary aids on the tour. A new attempt has been made in the written field. This is the Place: Salt Lake City is the book's title. Chapters deal with: sights, lights, bells, smells, and tours; where to eat, where to buy, and where to call home; cultural exposures to art, dance, music, and museums; the environs and intermixed history background; a chronology of salt, saints, and sinners; plans to entertain children; and bibliography and index. Whether the subtitle — An Entertaining Guide — indicates the opinion of the authors or that of the readers may be put under questioning. Dust covers generally state such credentials, but as this guide has no dust cover, we must assume the authors valued it as such. T h e back cover certainly is humorous and reminiscent of old time medicine show spiels. T h e contents, however, shy from this formula and are factual, historical, economical, and theological, but not comical. T h e yellow page categories are reliable.
A traveling historian will find arrows shot ahead to direct his footsteps in squares, cemeteries, sacred spots, archives, and walking tours. Most arrows hit the bull's-eye, but some shy off (Bridger and the corn, Nauvoo and its sale[?]), and on p. 158, let us remember the Book of Mormon covers a period from 600 B . C to A.D. 4 2 1 , with one inner "book" from 2500 B . C to 600 B . C , not the mere 600 years the authors state. Explanations, apologies for oddities, news notes, and dates are in the main correct and factual. T h e authors have a preoccupation with polygamy which appears too repetitious. Side trips are too briefly covered. T h e traveling gourmet, shopper, entertainment seeker, and collector of hotel towels will find this book handy and time saving. This reviewer has a library of city guides, gathered in person, from around the world: Bangkok to Boston (of which this guide is in imitation), Fez to London, and Madrid to Zurich. Most of these books approach the ideal in presenting the home town to the stranger. Many have been revised as new material or new writers have appeared. This is the Place is a beginning effort of what may yet be called our perfect Key to the City. ILENE H.
KINGSBURY
Salt Lake
City
Gold and Silver in the West: The Illustrated History of an American Dream. By T . H . W A T K I N S . (Palo Alto: American West Publishing Company, 1971. 288 p p . $17.50.) T . H . Watkins, in Gold and Silver in the West, incorporates both a chronological and topical format to produce an excellent book. H e has subtitled his work The Illustrated History
of an American Dream, and he appears to feel that the dream was more significant than the wealth it produced. T h e author divides his writings into two sections. T h e first is a regional
192 survey of the major mining rushes in the New World and the American West. In the second part of the book, the author discusses factors common to most of the mining booms in the fields of geology, technology, society, and economics. Mr. Watkins makes some very thought-provoking observations in the later parts of the book — particularly on the theatrical aspects of frontier justice, the irregular quality of mining camp history, and the selective democracy of the mining camp. T h e only major fault this reviewer found with the author was in his handling of mining in U t a h (pp. 132— 3 3 ) . U t a h appears sandwiched between Arizona and New Mexico in the chapter on mining in the Southwest. While the account is brief but accurate, it is the association of U t a h with mining in the Southwest that seems tenuous. There were many factors which separated southwestern mining from Utah, not the least of which was a lack of good roads or trails through southern U t a h until the late nineteenth century. Travel through northwestern Arizona via the Rio Virgin did not become well established until around 1880. U t a h mining is difficult to handle, but it could have
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been better placed in the chapter on Nevada mining because of the influence of Salt Lake City on the mining activity in eastern Nevada or in the one on Idaho, Montana, and Colorado because of the status of Salt Lake City as a center of supply and the existence of well-defined trade routes to those three states. T h e author might have used more maps similar to those in his first chapter. H e also shows a fastidiousness unusual for a historian in his use of the present place name "Negro Gulch" (p. 60) rather than the less pleasing but more authentic original. In spite of the above criticisms, the advantages of the book strongly outweigh its weaknesses. T h e book as a whole appears well-researched, and interestingly illustrated with a wide selection of photographs. It is a delight to read, especially when the author is venting his wrath on tourist-trap mining towns or "breathless myth," "geewhiz history," and "cottony folklore." Unlike these varieties of pseudohistory, this book makes a much-needed contribution to the serious study of mining history in the American West. J O H N M.
BOURNE
Salt Lake
City
The Life
and Times of Joseph Fish, Mormon Pioneer. Edited by J O H N H. K R E N K E L . (Danville, Illinois: T h e Interstate Printers & Publishers, Inc., 1970. 543 p p . $7.00.) All too little is known of the historical writings of Joseph Fish, even by knowledgeable people. This is probably because his works have not been published and are relatively inaccessible. The number and magnitude of his various writings are quite remark-
able, and the circumstances of poverty and harassment under which they were written should give a sense of humility to today's writers. Following his father-in-law, Jesse N. Smith, from Parowan to Arizona in 1878 at the call of the First Presidency
Book Reviews and Notices of the Mormon Church, he endured the hardships and privations common to the early pioneers, and his plural families knew what it was to come face to face with actual want. In 1885, along with sixty of his brethren, he fled the country to escape prosecution and spent a year in Mexico, leaving two of his families to fend for themselves, a condition preferable in many respects to that endured by the family which went along with him. Upon his return he complained he was broke and in debt with little opportunity to better his circumstances, Most of the time he was in Arizona he worked for the Arizona Cooperative Mercantile Institution ( A C M I ) , a cooperative store patterned after Salt Lake City's Z C M I . His top salary was $93.50 a month when he was superintendent of the store, but much of the time he was bookkeeper at a salary of $75.00. With this he supported three families. His legal training enabled him to pass the bar in Utah and Arizona, but he found no opportunity to make a living in the legal profession. H e was also an acceptable civil engineer and spent the equivalent of two or three months' salary for suitable instruments, finding use for them only on a gratuitous basis, but plenty of that. It was in 1896, at the age of fiftysix, that the urge to "gather historical items" took possession of him. H e resolved to spend at least two hours a day on the subject and spent much needed money to purchase a book a month. H e acquired a typewriter from Heber J. Grant and pecked his way into a writing ability of sorts, His office at the A C M I was some distance from the pot-bellied stove in the middle of the store and was always cold. In all
193 the years he worked there he never enjoyed the luxury of heat in his office — he worked with his overcoat on. But work he did at every opportunity. He wrote inquiring letters by the score and held interviews with hundreds of men who had made and were making history. T h e editor, Dr. Krenkel, states that Fish was an honest and shrewd observer of the events he recorded. This was one of the remarkable attributes of this exceptional Mormon pioneer. But quite as important to his success was his persistence — his perseverance. Nothing seemed to discourage him — at least not for long. With the publication of The Life and Times of Joseph Fish, an important historical reference is made available. T h e historian can find in this volume —• taken from his journal which covers seventy years of his life — accurate information about such subjects as: Mormon life in Nauvoo, crossing the plains, the settlement of Parowan and southern Utah, the Little Colorado settlements, Indian wars in Utah and Arizona, the polygamy raids and life in Mexico, the struggle to make a living on the frontier, and countless others, T h e writings of Joseph Fish do not possess much style, but his straightforward narration of events -— most of which he observed — is honest, accurate, and complete. There was a touch of the artist in him, and he records accounts of rainbows, majestic canyons, and beautiful scenes usually passed over by the hard-bitten Mormon pioneer. One exasperating experience which seems amusing in retrospect, occurred during his second trip to Arizona. After crossing the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry and pulling his wagon up the steep Lee's hill, Fish's
194
Utah Historical
Quarterly
party camped for the night. T h e next morning, before resuming the journey, it was decided to return to the river with the horses to give t h e m a drink. T h e animals "waded in a short distance and started to drink but kept on wading and drinking" until they could no longer touch bottom. T h e n they swam to the U t a h side leaving Fish and his companions gaping as the horses rolled in the sand a n d then started on a trot toward their beloved U t a h . T h e ferryman intervened, and the horses were stopped. Fish tried on numerous occasions to get some of his manuscripts published but was unsuccessful. T h e publishers required financial guarantees which he could not furnish. T h a t D r . Krenkel has brought forth this, important book is to be commended. While one might wish t h a t he were an insider more familiar with the places and people in the book — as this would have aided in his making more accurate footnotes and index — w h o is going
to complain about someone's doing a job which should have been done a half-century ago? T h e job is well d o n e ; the index, though containing some inaccuracies, is helpful, a n d the preface is excellent. It is doubtful if anyone knows just how m a n y manuscripts Fish wrote. T h e editor gives a partial list in the preface, b u t it is far from complete. It is to be hoped that others will step forward and publish more of his work. As his son Silas L. Fish has stated, " H e has left historical records of events not chronicled by anyone else. H e has shown what a systematic, well-directed plan can do even w h e n one has to overcome the obstacles of poverty, lack of education and unfavorable environm e n t . " W h a t might this m a n have done h a d all these things been favorable!
Western America: The Exploration, Settlement, and Development of the Region Beyond the Mississippi. By
Completely redesigned a n d reset, with extensive revisions of selected chapters, this college textbook presents a detailed survey of frontier history useful for the student or for general reference. In updating the book, Professor Hafen of Brigham Young University enlisted the aid of Professor
LEROY
R.
H O L L O N , and
HAFEN,
W.
CARL COKE
EUGENE RISTER.
T h i r d edition. (Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970. xx + 584 p p . $10.95.)
G E O R G E S. T A N N E R
Salt Lake
City
Book
Reviews
and
Notices
Hollon of the University of Toledo. Professor Rister, who died in 1955, was co-author with Dr. Hafen of the 1941 and 1950 editions. T h e new edition trims by half its treatment of the Spanish Southwest, Texas independence, the Ohio country and Gulf Plains, and Spanish Louisiana, while a chapter on outlawry melts into brief mention, and the chapter on Mormon settlement remains virtually unchanged. Expanded fourfold are histories of aboriginal inhabitants and the agrarian revolution. Chapters on western mining and industry are broadened, while two new chapters examine scientific explorations and surveys and Alaska and Hawaii. Recent developments in urban history and conservation are added. T h e third edition, made more readable through selective rewriting, has eliminated pictures but doubled to twenty-nine the number of maps. T h e text provides a valuable overview of western America.
The Log Cabin in America: From Pioneer Days to the Present. By C. A. W E S L A G E R . (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1969. 382 pp. $12.50.) This book is an expansion of H . R. Shurtleff's 1939 monograph, The Log Cabin Myth, which demonstrated that log cabins were introduced from Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries rather than by the first English colonists. With illustrations from his extensive travels, Weslager describes the introduction of the log cabin to America by Finns, Swedes, Germans, and Scotch-Irish and its spread through the American frontier. In tracing this movement,
195 Weslager notes that the building techniques used in America were adapted to local needs, creating a folk art passed on with variations from neighbor to neighbor. This study contains a good index and footnotes and will be of value to anyone interested in the log cabin as a document of the westward movement.
Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce, Written by Himself. Introduction by ROBERT A. G R I F F E N . Second edition. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. xxiv + 222 pp. $4.95.) This story of a frontier businessman first appeared in 1923 in a limited edition published by Katie Toponce of Ogden, widow of the author. Reissued without alteration by a leading publisher of western books, it will delight a broader reading audience with its straightforward, firsthand look at the West. The son of 1846 French immigrants, Toponce (1839-1923) recalls his life among traders, cowboys, freighters, prospectors, Mormons, homesteaders, construction crews, and others who "played a chosen part in winning the Great West." Among other adventures, Toponce was a bullwhacker for Russell, Majors, and Waddell, stage driver, Pony Express rider, assistant wagon boss with Johnston's Army, and mayor of Corinne. He was acquainted with Brigham Young and other Mormon officials, Governor Eli H . Murray, Porter Rockwell, and numerous businessmen and citizens throughout Utah. These reminiscences, written just before his eightieth birthday, contain fascinating detail about the West of Alex Toponce.
196
Utah
Historical
American Folklore and the Historian. By RICHARD M . D O R S O N . (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971. xii + 230 pp. $7.95.) Reprinted essays.
The First Century
The Bureau of Land Management. By M A R I O N C L A W S O N . (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971. 209 p p . $8.50.)
Founding
The Bureau
of Outdoor
Recreation.
By E D W I N M . F I T C H and J O H N E. SHANKLIN.
Publishers, $7.95.)
(New York: Praeger 1970. xii + 227 p p .
California: A Remarkable History.
By J O H N
W.
State's
Life
CAUGHEY.
Third edition, revised. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970. xxiv + 674 p p . $10.95.) This latest fact-filled edition of a college textbook written by a respected western historian offers an attractive, new format a n d a strong focus on the twentieth century. Camp El Dorado, Arizona Territory: Soldiers, Steamboats, and Miners on the Upper Colorado River. By DENNIS G. CASEBIER. Arizona Monograph Number T w o . (Tempe: Arizona H i s t o r i c a l Foundation, 1970. 103 p p . $3.00.) Catalogue and Index of the Publications of the Hayden, King, Powell, and Wheeler Surveys. By L. F. SCHMECKEBIER.
Reprint.
(New
York: D a Capo Press, 1971. vi + 108 pp. $12.50.) Originally published in 1904 as U . S. Geological Survey Bulletin No. 222.
Church
Quarterly
of the
Methodist
in Utah. By U N I T E D M E T -
HODIST C H U R C H . (Salt Lake City: U t a h Methodism Centennial Committee, 1970. 106 p p . $2.25.)
Minutes
of the
Nauvoo
Lodge, U. D. By M E R V I N B. HOGAN.
(Des Moines, Iowa: Research Lodge Number 2, 1971. 32 p p . $2.00.) The Frontier Challenge: Responses to the Trans-Mississippi West. Edited by J O H N G. C L A R K . (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1971. vii + 307 p p . $10.00.) A collection of ten essays from the 1969 conference in honor of George L. Anderson, University of Kansas. Gifford Pinchot: Private and Public Forester. By H A R O L D T . P I N K E T T . ( U r b a n a : University of Illinois Press, 1970. xii + 167 p p . $6.95.) T h e 1968 award winner of the Agricultural History Society. Holladay, Salt Lake County, Utah. By E L I Z A B E T H N . H U T C H I N S O N . (Salt Lake City: Author [2090 Terra Linda Drive], 1971. $1.75.) Index to the Salt Lake Mining Review, 1899-1928. Compiled by C E C I L W . W A R R E N . (Salt Lake City: U t a h Geological and Mineralogical Survey, 1971. $3.00.) John Joseph Cantwell: His of
Los
Angeles.
By
Excellency
FRANCIS
J.
( H o n g K o n g : Cathay Press Limited, 1971. xvi + 1 7 7 p p . $9.00.) Limited edition of 300 copies. WEBER.
Book Reviews
and
197
Notices
Joseph Smith's New England Heritage: Influences of Grandfathers Solomon Mack and Asael Smith. By RICHARD LLOYD ANDERSON. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1971. xx + 230 pp. $4.95.) T h e first of a projected series on the Mormon leader.
Navajo Roundup: Selected spondence of Kit Carson's tion Against the Navajo, 1865.
By
(Boulder: $8.95.)
No
LAWRENCE
C.
CorreExpedi1863-
On the Big Range: A Centennial History of Cornish and Trenton, Cache County, Utah, 1870-1970. By A. SIMMONDS.
Tell Them Myth.
They Lie: The
Sequoyah
By TRAVELLER BIRD. ( L O S
Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1971. 148 pp. $7.95.) T h e author reinterprets "Sequoyah's" controversial life and challenges the view that his ancestor (real name, Sogwili) originated the Cherokee written language.
KELLY.
Pruett, 1971. 192 pp.
Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. By F A W N M . BRODIE. Second edition, revised. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971. xiii + 499 + xx pp. $10.00.)
JEFFREY
The Spanish Borderlands Frontier, 1513-1821. By J O H N FRANCIS BANNON. (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1970. 308 pp. $6.95.)
(Trenton:
Author, [Trenton 84338], 1970. x + 147 pp. $5.00.)
The Reformers and the American Indian. By ROBERT W I N S T O N M A R DOCK. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971. vii + 245 p p . $9.00.)
They Talked Navajo: The United States Marine Corps Navajo Code Talkers of World War II. Compiled by the D U K E INDIAN O R A L H I S T O R Y
(Salt Lake City: Duke Indian Oral History Project [Annex 2167, University of U t a h ] , 1971. 58 pp. $2.50.) PROJECT.
Uprooted Americans: The Japanese Americans and the War Relocation Authority during World War II. By DILLON S. M Y E R .
(Tucson:
The
University of Arizona Press, 1971. xxx + 360 p p . $8.50.) War, Conscription, Conscience, and Mormonism. Edited by GORDON C. T H O M A S SON. (Santa Barbara, California: Mormon Heritage [P.O. Box 15230], 1971. 116 + x p p . Paper, $1.25.) The Westerners: A Roundup of Pioneer Reminiscences. Compiled and annotated by J O H N M Y E R S M Y E R S .
The Reluctant Farmer: The Rise of Agricultural Extension to 1914. By R O Y V. SCOTT. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970. xi + 362 pp. $8.95.)
(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969. 258 p p . $6.95.) Oral history from the 1880s to 1914, covering aspects of the entire western scene.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Armstrong, Robert D., "Sources for Nevada History: A Survey of Institutional Collections Outside the State," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, 14 (Fall 1971), 3 3 - 3 8 . Dodds, Gordon B., ed., "Conservation and Reclamation in the Trans-Mississippi West: A Critical Bibliography," Arizona and the West, 13 (Summer 1971), 143. Hansen, Ralph W., ed., "Among the Mormons: A Survey of Current Literature [books, pamphlets, and reprints]," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Spring 1971), 8 9 - 9 6 . . Knights, Peter R., "Accuracy of Age Reporting in the Manuscript Federal Censuses of 1850 and 1860," Historical Methods Newsletter, 4 (June 1971). McCorison, Marcus A., "Donald McKay Frost — A Collector of Western Americana," Western Historical Quarterly, 3 (January 1972), 67—76. Palmer, Charlotte, "Conservation and the Camera [U. S. Forest Service photographs, 1895-1910, in the National Archives]," Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives, 3 (Winter 1971), 183-96. Rogers, Earl M., "Books on Agricultural History Published in 1969," History, 45 (October 1971), 297-302.
Agricultural
Slover, Robert H., II, "Resources in the Church Historian's Office Relating to Asia," Brigham Young University Studies, 12 (Autumn 1971), 107—18. Smiley, David L., "A Slice of Life in Depression America: T h e Records of the Historical Records Survey," Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives, 3 (Winter 1971), 153-59. CONSERVATION Amaral, Anthony, "Threat to the Free Spirit: T h e Question of the Mustang's Future," The American West, 8 (September 1971), 13-17, 6 2 - 6 3 . Bellport, B. P., "Moles Sweep 6 from Blasters [machine-excavated irrigation tunnels, including Starvation Tunnel in U t a h ] , " Reclamation Era, 57 (August 1971), 14-22. Bingham, Marc C , "Where Buffalo R o a m Free [Henry Mountains]," Our Public Lands, 21 (Fall 1971), 1 9 - 2 1 . Cowgill, Peter, "Too Many People on the Colorado River," National Conservation Magazine, 45 (November 1971), 11—14.
Parks and
Articles and Notes
199
"Great Salt Lake Level on Rise," Utah Geological and Mineralogical Quarterly Review, 6 (February 1972), 1.
Survey
Hickel, Walter J., " T h e U . S. Department of the Interior and the Economic Geology of the West," Journal of the West, 10 (January 1971), 129-32. Hundley, Norris, Jr., "Clio Nods: Arizona v. California and the Boulder Canyon Act — A Reassessment," Western Historical Quarterly, 3 (January 1972), 17-51. Oakeshott, Gordon B., comp., "Origin and Development of the State Geological Surveys," Journal of the West, 10 (January 1971), 133-36. O'Callaghan, Jerry, " B L M : 1946-1971," Our Public Lands, 21 (Fall 1971), 4-15. Oliva, Leo E., " O u r Frontier Heritage and the Environment," The West, 9 (January 1972), 44-47, 6 1 - 6 3 .
American
Sherwood, Glen, "If It's Big and Flies, Shoot It [includes hunting whistling swans and cranes in U t a h ] , " Audubon, 73 (November 1971), 72-99. Turner, John, "Eagles: Vanishing Americans," Sierra Club Bulletin, 56 (November 1971), 14-19. GOVERNMENT Bell, Dan, "Utah's Political Renegade: T h e American Party," Potpourri: of Utah's Past and Present, 1 (November 1971), 1,3.
Journal
Bowers, Kerry, "We Aim to Aid and Work to Save [Salt Lake City Fire Department, 1883-1914]," The Trolley Times, 1 (October 1971), 6. "Frank Edward Moss," Current Biography,
32 (December 1971), 24-27.
Larson, T. A., "Dolls, Vassals, and Drudges — Pioneer Women in the West," Western Historical Quarterly, 3 (January 1972), 5-16. Melville, J. Keith, "Colonel Thomas L. Kane on Mormon Politics," Young University Studies, 12 (Autumn 1971), 123-25.
Brigham
Moody, Eric N., "A Note on Politics and Religion in Twentieth-Century Nevada," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, 14 (Winter 1971), 4 1 - 4 2 . Rampton, Calvin L., "Federal Jurisdiction from the Government's Standpoint," Utah Law Review, 1971 (Summer 1971), 231—37. Thomasson, Gordon C , " T h e Manifesto was a Victory," Dialogue: of Mormon Thought, 6 (Spring 1971), 3 7 - 4 5 .
A
Journal
HISTORIANS AND HISTORIOGRAPHY Bitton, Davis, "The Mormon History Association, 1965-1971," Mormon tory Association Newsletter, no. 20 (January 15, 1972), pp. 1—6. Cooley, Everett L., "Dale L. Morgan ( 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 7 1 ) , " Dialogue: Mormon Thought, 6 (Spring 1971), 101.
His-
A Journal of
200
Utah Historical
Quarterly
Green, Arnold H., and Lawrence P. Goldrup, "Joseph Smith, An American Muhammad? An Essay on the Perils of Historical Analogy," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Spring 1971), 4 6 - 5 8 . McKiernan, F. Mark, " T h e Uses of History: Sidney Rigdon and the Religious Historians," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action, 2 (September 1971), 285-90. Wenham, Peter D., "Wild West in the British Classroom," The Westerners New York Posse Brand Book, 18, no. 3 ( 1 9 7 1 ) , 49, 6 2 - 6 3 . H I S T O R I C SITES A N D M U S E U M S Bowditch, George, "Cataloging Photographs: A Procedure for Small Museums," History News, 26 (November 1971), 241-48. Burns, William A., "What's Right with Museums?" Western Museums 8 (December 1971), 4 - 9 .
Quarterly,
Davis, Larry, "Anasazi Indian Village S[tate]. Historical]. M[useum]. [at Boulder, U t a h ] , " Pow Wow, 5 ([November 1971] j , 1-2. Findlay, Bob, " 'Garments or Garters??' [Asmussen Block Building, 54 South Main, Salt Lake City]," The Trolley Times, 1 (October 1971), 6. Gratz, Kathleen E., " T h e M[useum of] N[orthern] A[rizona] Ceramic Repository: Its History and Status in 1970 [includes Anasazi pottery from southern U t a h ] , " Plateau, 44 (Fall 1971), 72-74. Howard, Richard P., "Since Yesterday: T h e Nauvoo Mansion House," Saints' Herald, 118 (December 1971), 48. King, George G., "This House is 'Home' to an Ever Growing Family [Jesse N . Smith rock-adobe home, Parowan, U t a h ] , " The Kinsman [J. N . Smith Family Association newsletter, reprinted from Provo Herald, October 18, 1971], 25 (September-October 1971), 1,5,7. "Life's Career Opens in Old Lard Bucket [biographical sketch on U t a h geologist Dr. William Lee Stokes]," Utah Natural History, 3, no, 3 ( 1 9 7 1 ) , 1-2. McBride, Delbert J., "The Ethics of Ethnic Collections [Indian museum displays]," Western Museums Quarterly, 8 (December 1971), 10-12. Nason, James D., "Museums and American Indians: An Inquiry into Relationships," Western Museums Quarterly, 8 (December 1971), 13-17. Ursenbach, Maureen, "Cornerstone: For a Mormon Architectural Heritage," Potpourri: Journal of Utah's Past and Present, 1 (November 1971), 6. U t a h State Department of Parks and Recreation, " C a m p Floyd-—-113 Years Ago," Pow Wow, 5 (September 1971), 1-2. LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE Adams, Ramon F., "Charlie Russell Was More T h a n an Artist," Persimmon [National Cowboy Hall of Fame], 2, no. 2 ( 1 9 7 1 ) , 8-15.
Hill
Articles and Notes
201
"An Alta Apparition [1884]," The Rambler [Wasatch Mountain Club], January 1972, pp. 5-6. Cracroft, Richard H., "The Gentle Blasphemer: Mark Twain, Holy Scripture, and the Book of Mormon," Brigham Young University Studies, 11 (Winter 1971), 119-40. Gard, Wayne, "A Song of the Range," Persimmon Hill, 2, no. 2 ( 1 9 7 1 ) , 16-19. Hand, Wayland D., " T h e Folk Healer: Calling and Endowment," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 26 (July 1971). Lent, John A., "The Press on Wheels: A History of The Frontier Index [published as the Ogden (Utah) Freeman and under other names along the route of the Union Pacific]," Journal of the West, 10 (October 1971), 662-99. Lent, John A., " T h e Press on Wheels: A History of The Frontier Index of Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Elsewhere?" Annals of Wyoming, 43 (Fall 1971), 165-203. Powell, Lawrence Clark, "Southwest Classics Reread: Oliver La Farge's Laughing Boy [Navajo]," Westways, 63 (December 1971), 22-24, 50-52. Stevens, John D., "From Behind Barbed Wire: Freedom of the Press in World War II Japanese Centers," Journalism Quarterly, 48 (Summer 1971), 2 7 8 87. MORMONISM Bassett, Arthur R., and Leone R. Hartshorn, "Latter-day Prophets" [special issue featuring illustrated biographical sketches of the ten Mormon presidents], The New Era, 2 (January 1972), 14-65. Fetzer, Leland A., "Tolstoy and Mormonism," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Spring 1971), 13-29. Martin, David C , "Holy Ghost of Manti [Bruce David Longo of Manti, Utah, leader of a small schismatic group]," Restoration Reporter, 1 (December 1971), 1-4. Nibley, Hugh, "Islam and Mormonism — A Comparison," The Ensign of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2 (March 1972), 55—64. Trank, Douglas M., "The Negro and the Mormons: A Church in Conflict," Western Speech, 35 (Fall 1971), 220-30. Walton, Brian, "A University's Dilemma: B.Y.U. and Blacks," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Spring 1971), 31-36. "Whispered Faith: Utah's Mormon Polygamists," Time, The Weekly Newsmagazine, October 11, 1971, p. 25. SOCIETY AND T H E ARTS Arrington, Leonard J., "Blessed Damozels: Women in Mormon History," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Summer 1971), 2 2 - 3 1 . Brooks, Juanita Leavitt, "I Married a Family," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Summer 1971), 15-21.
202
Utah Historical Quarterly
Bushman, Claudia Lauper, "Women in Dialogue: An Introduction" [entire issue devoted to Mormon women], Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Summer 1971), 5-8. Cornish, Louise Larson, "Snowflake [Arizona] Girl," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Summer 1971), 101-10. Dunn, Marion, "Sports Figures from Utah's Past," Potpourri: Journal of Utah's Past and Present, 1 (November 1971), 5. "Eight Presidents Serve [Brigham Young] University in First 96 Years," Brigham Young University Today, 25 (November 1971), 3. "Five Served As Acting Presidents for [Brigham Young] University," Brigham Young University Today, 25 (November 1971), 5. Goates, Les, "Mormons and Jews Got Along Okay in Early Days," The Pioneer, 19 (January-February 1972), 6-7. Lambert, Linda, "An Afternoon with the Osmonds [interview]," The New Era, 2 (February 1972), 14-18. Nibley, Reid, "Thoughts on Music in the Church," The Ensign of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2 (February 1972), 13. Palmer, Spencer J., "Eliza R. Snow's 'Sketch of My Life': Reminiscences of One of Joseph Smith's Plural Wives," Brigham Young University Studies, 12 (Autumn 1971), 125-30. "Portrait of Joseph Smith, Jr., Presented to Smithsonian Gallery," Saints' Herald, 119 (January 1972), 7-9. [Adrian Lamb copy of original by 'unknown painter. 5 ] Taylor, Samuel W., "A Peculiar People: T h e Ultimate Disgrace [story about John W. Taylor]," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 6 (Spring 1971), 114-16. TRANSPORTATION Calder, Josephene, " 'Putta' the Brake, Doc' [Dr. Jim Dowd's 1907 automobile in Hiawatha, Carbon County, U t a h ] , " The Trolley Times, 1 (October 1971), 2. Latta, Marilee, "The Castle Gate Hold-up," The Trolley Times, 1 (October 1971), 5, 7. McKinstry, Pam, "Central Pacific's First Train Robbery — A Whopper! [Cornstock payroll, 1870, and later robberies in the Utah-Nevada area]," edited by Herbert S. Hamlin, The Pony Express, 37 ( M a y 1971), 3-6. Miller, Raymond W., "A Hero of the DC-3's Wild West [Denver-Salt Lake City flight in 1942 with one engine out]," The Westerners New York Posse Brand Book, 18, no. 3 ( 1 9 7 1 ) , 58. Pattison, William D., " T h e Pacific Railroad Rediscovered," Geographical Review, 52 (January 1 9 6 2 ) , 2 5 - 3 6 . Pennington, Loren E., "Collis P. Huntington and Peter Studebaker: T h e Making of a Railroad Rebate," Southern California Quarterly, 53 (March 1971).
Articles
and
Notes
WESTWARD M O V E M E N T AND
203 SETTLEMENT
Beaty, Janice, "Arizona's Bull R u n [Mormon Battalion skirmish with wild bulls]," Desert Magazine, 35 (February 1972), 3 3 . Bowers, Don, "Las Vegas in the Beginning," Nevada Highways and Parks, Spring 1972, pp. 4 8 - 5 0 . Clayton, William, "A Letter to England, 1842," edited by James B. Allen, Brigham Young University Studies, 12 ( A u t u m n 1971), 1 1 9 - 2 3 . Dillon, Richard, " T h e Other George Donner: Or, Don't J u m p to Hasty Conclusions," The San Francisco Westerners Argonaut, no. 2 (January 1 9 7 2 ) , 1-2. Kimball, Stanley B., "Thomas L. Barnes: Coroner of Carthage," Brigham Young University Studies, 11 (Winter 1971), 141-^47. Kirkpatrick, Don, "Orrin Porter Rockwell," Potpourri: Journal of Utah's Past and Present, 1 (November 1971), 7—8. "Leaves from the Wasatch: Big Cottonwood [Canyon] Names," The Rambler [Wasatch Mountain Club], J a n u a r y 1972, p p . 5-6. Munkres, Robert L., "Soda Springs: Curiosity of the [Oregon] Trail," Annals of Wyoming, 43 (Fall 1971), 2 1 5 - 3 5 .
T h e U t a h State Historical Society has added two microfiche readers, one of them portable, for use by researchers in the library. T h e machines will accept aperture cards and other transparencies issued by micropublishers, T h e first large research collection obtained for use with the readers consists of microcopies of three thousand original survey maps from the General Land Office. T h e surveys, beginning in 1870, note land claims and ownership in U t a h and were conducted under the supervision of the United States surveyor general. T h e library of the U t a h State Historical Society has acquired sixty-three books from the Herbert S. Auerbach collection at Princeton University. T h e nineteenth-century titles on U t a h and the Mormons were obtained through an exchange agreement with Princeton. T h e works were duplicates of titles already part of Princeton's Western Americana collection. Other recent additions to the Society's library include a typescript copy of the memoirs of former Congressman William A. Dawson and microfilms of thirty years of the Salt Lake City Deseret News, extending the library's holdings from July 1880 through December 1911.
204
Utah
Historical
Quarterly
T h e Utah Historical Quarterly is now included in a bibliographical index card service along with more than one hundred other scholarly journals. T h e Biblio-Card Company, P . O . Box 138, Mentor, Ohio 44060, lists titles of Quarterly articles on its card service for research libraries. T h e company informed the Society recently of its decision to begin indexing the U t a h publication with the summer 1971 issue. T h e Illinois State Historical Library has acquired two collections of Mormonrelated manuscripts, the papers of John D . Gillett and Charles S. Zane. Gillett, a landholder in Hancock and Logan counties, Illinois, recorded land transactions with Joseph Smith and others in Nauvoo, 1841-69. T h e Zane papers are of interest for the period 1884-99 when the federal government passed laws designed to prohibit the practice of polygamy in the Mormon Church. Zane, chief justice of U t a h Territory and the State of Utah, wrote many of the important opinions in the U t a h Supreme Court supporting those laws. T h e Illinois Library collection includes eighteen miscellaneous papers and nine volumes of Zane's diary 1889-1900. T h e Marriott Library of the University of U t a h has added several U t a h items to its Western Americana collection. T h e largest recent item contains records of J. Bracken Lee's years as mayor of Salt Lake City, 1 9 6 0 - 7 1 . T h e collection includes a detailed card index. Other gifts to Western Americana include the original "Dear Ellen Letters," edited for publication in Western Humanities Review, Spring 1959, by S. George Ellsworth, and other letters of the H i r a m Clawson family; the business papers of George W. Reed, secretary-treasurer of the Salt Lake Tribune (including letters on mining activities and references to the Godbe family) ; papers of Sterling M . M c M u r r i n , commissioner of education in the Kennedy administration, philosophy professor, and former administrator at the University of U t a h ; and the journal, letters, legal documents, and miscellanea ( 1 8 3 9 - 7 6 ) of Jacob Miller of Farmington, a participant in the Morrisite War. T h e Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, established in J a n u a r y at Brigham Young University, has announced a monograph series in western history to be known as the Charles R e d d monographs. Manuscripts between 40 and 150 double-spaced typewritten pages will be considered. According to Leonard J. Arrington, director, and Thomas G. Alexander, assistant director, the monographs may deal with any aspect of the American West, including history, economic development, literature, and the arts. Submit to D r . Arrington, Western Studies Center, 490 J. Reuben Clark Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, U t a h 84601. T h e Herbert Eugene Bolton Award in Spanish Borderlands History will be selected from articles submitted to the Western Historical Quarterly, by September 1, 1972. T h e award carries a $300 prize. Typewritten manuscripts (of from 5,000 to 7,500 words and on any phase or period of the history of the Spanish Borderlands in North America) should be sent to the Western Historical Quarterly, U t a h State University, Logan, U t a h 84321.