Poetry, Polity, and the Cache Valley Pioneer: Polemics in the Journal of Aaron DeWitt, 1869-96

THESE SELECTIONS OF VERSE DESCRIBE DIVERGENT images of Utah in the nineteenth century. That they both came from the pen of one author suggests the enormous changes wrought on Utah and its people in their struggle for statehood Something of a lone voice in Cache Valley—as one of its first and permanent apostates of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—Aaron DeWitt spoke through his poetry, venting dissent, anger, and frustration in scathing commentaries on life in territorial Utah. DeWitt's verse expressed the variety of his personalities: as an immigrant, a pioneer, a Mormon, an ex-Mormon, an Episcopalian, and finally a Utahn His complexity empowers the simple, emotive lines. Analyzing several of DeWitt's poems within the context in which he wrote them, a series of illustrations of his life in Cache Valley and Utah emerges—portraits that lend a great deal of humanity and passion to a period characterized by political and religious strife.

"Poetry helps us seize our being-in-the-world, the better to enjoy, the better to endure."2 By any standard, Aaron DeWitt endured. Born on May 13, 1833, in Whaddon, Warwick, England, he immigrated to Utah Territory in 1857.3 He went to work, probably as a domestic servant, for Henry Ballard, with whom he moved to Cache Valley in 1859.4 He established Logan's first bakery and married Sarah Jenkins, a Welsh immigrant, in 1862.

Although in 1867 he still supported Utah's theocracy, by 1869 DeWitt had clearly become disillusioned with Mormonism for reasons that remain nebulous. His cynicism predates the disaffections that occurred in 1873 and the years immediately following, when Cache Valley's insulated Mormon society was shattered by the penetration of the railroad into the valley, the establishment of St. John's Episcopal Church, a trial involving a shooting death that divided the community along religious lines, and growing outrage over the cooperative movement, which for many seemed to stifle free enterprise.5

DeWitt and other apostates openly dissented from the Mormon church with the establishment of political opposition to the Mormondominated People's party—first by signing a petition in 1872 against Utah statehood and then in 1874 by voting on a ballot that did not remain secret. The following year DeWitt put his life in jeopardy when he testified as a witness against Thomas E. Ricks, a neighbor whose killing of David Skeen he had witnessed in 1860. But three federal laws, passed between 1874 and 1887, increased DeWitt's right to and safety in dissent. The Poland Act (1874), the Edmunds Act (1882), and the Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) incrementally diminished the powers of the LDS church within Utah Territory while increasing federal control. In this climate Aaron DeWitt became a venireman in 1874, a registrar for the electoral roll in 1882, ajudge for the election of 1887, and the Liberal party's nominee for treasurer in 1888.6 The shift in territorial power from the church to the federal government slowly caught up with DeWitt's own shift in allegiance, and as Utah moved toward statehood, political expediency and increasing material success tempered his attacks on the system.

How I would love to see my Sisters

In their homes beyond the sea!

Many times they've watched and watched

Prayed a thousand times for me

I would love to see them dearly

In the land that gave me birth;

For I think it is the sweetest

Little Island on the earth.

From "Loving recollections of a faraway Home" (undated)

Why did Aaron DeWitt emigrate? This passage indicates that he passionately loved his native home. But the Mormon church had a tremendous influence in England in the 1850s and 1860s, drawing converts to Utah by presenting visions of a fresh, rejuvenating religion that had a tangible focus in the American West, the Zion of Utah. Many English people felt that their own institutionalized religion had grown old and tired, and "Mormonism profited from this popular image [of the government-sponsored 'priestcraft' of the Church of England] and drew converts from the disenchanted among the large nominal sector of early Victorian Anglicanism." In 1857, the year that Aaron DeWitt emigrated, the climate within the LDS church offered a particularly appealing image to those disaffected Anglicans The Mormons staged something of a reformation, to which the missions in England and Europe quickly responded. A call to fundamental beliefs, including the millennial-directed doctrines of the church, encouraged converts to travel to Utah because gathering "was every bit as important as being baptized or obeying any other of the laws of God." Brigham Young told the English mission that "If you go forth with the spirit of reformation through England . . . you will be able to operate efficiently and successfully, in regard to emigration."7 Within this atmosphere of back-to-basics revivalism, Aaron DeWitt decided to travel to America and join the Mormons in Utah.

I want to write about the train the frozen and the dead

That crossed the plains in 56 and starved for want of

bread...

What was it caused those faithful souls to take this

fearful trip

It must be some delucive glare that held them in its grip.

(untitled, undated)

While Aaron DeWitt did not cross the plains with the handcart companies, his arrival in Utah on September 10, 1857, corresponds closely with another important event in the region's history: "On the 12th day of September, 1857, two days after I arrived in this accursed land, 119 men, women and children were murdered while traveling to California, by a band of Mormons painted as Indians, and led by a Mormon high priest. . . ."8 The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains a significant shadow in Mormon history, and while DeWitt may not have related its details with complete accuracy (he wrote about it to his sister eighteen years later), the event signaled the volatility of Mormon tolerance toward those outside their faith, which DeWitt, although baptized into the church on October 4, 1857, would in the next decade begin to question.9

They've made a covenant with Death, with Hell, and the

Grave,

They've promised all Freedom, and made each a slave

The men are all Traitors

The women betray

The Polity ruling the land where they stay.

(untitled, undated)

The violence at Mountain Meadows demonstrated a lawlessness that darkened much of the American West in the nineteenth century. DeWitt had reason to expect more violence of this frontier nature when he moved to and helped settle Cache Valley in 1859 Cache Valley began its Utah LDS history as a range for cattle owned by the Mormon church, which could no longer sustain significant herds in the grasshopper-ravaged, drought-ridden Salt Lake Valley The presence of cattle and other livestock, such as horses, attracted rustlers, and one of these, Elisha David Skeen, had become notorious within the Mormon communities along the Wasatch Front.10

Skeen came to Cache Valley in 1860 after escaping from the Utah County jail, which held him on charges of assault and challenging to duel. Thomas E. Ricks, the sheriff of Cache County, arrested Skeen in late June after the rustler had stolen several horses. Betraying "the Polity ruling the land where they stay," Ricks shot Skeen five times as the prisoner allegedly attempted to escape from the Cache jail. DeWitt heard the shots and ran to the scene in time to see Skeen die. 11 The incident would haunt twenty-seven-year-old Aaron, but for the next fifteen years Ricks's action went unquestioned by the community and by DeWitt.

Who can give information concerning Logan Hall?

Why twenty dollars should be charged for Theatre and Ball?

Have certain men the privilege the others right to sell?

When all the people built that house? Can anybody tell?

From "Can Anybody Tell" (undated)

The greatest of tyrants I ever did see,

Or that ever existed, is W B P

If he had the power, as he has the will,

He would freeze out, or burn out, or starve out or kill!

From "Lines inscribed to W B P." (undated)

By the autumn of 1861 Logan's increasing populace required a meeting hall. The community effort in building the structure, which stood at the present northwest corner of First North and Main streets, lasted from September 24, 1861, to February 16, 1862, when the people of Logan dedicated their new hall. In the next ten years the community improved the building, adding bricks and light fixtures William B Preston, Logan's first LDS bishop, oversaw construction of buildings and their positioning and layout within the town. And in 1860 he "spent much of his time in receiving new-comers, who now began to immigrate thither in great numbers, and apportioning off and selecting for them homes."12 In controlling the settlement of Cache, Preston wielded significant power, which, by the late 1860s, began to wear on the faith of Aaron DeWitt

We've "defence funds" and "Temple fees"

And emigration stock.

We've "teachers" round for "Mission" claims,

And "tithes" to rob the flock.

From "What we have in Zion" (undated)

DeWitt made many offerings to the church during the 1860s. The Perpetual Emigration Fund required endless donations, and payment for community projects came from tithing. As well as sacrificing for the substantial financial demands of the church in its early days in Utah, Aaron DeWitt lent his place of business to the Cache Valley Stake High Priests Quorum:

Pres Crockett spoke upon the inconvenience that we as a Quorum have been labouring under from the want of a place to meet in the Public Building being more or less occupied with entertainments of different kinds, however an opportunity had presented itself by which we could be comfortable through the winter Br Aron Dewett had offered the Quorum the use of a Room in his Bakery during the winter season he Br Crockett felt like accepting the kind offer at the same time he thought a small remuneration should be awarded to Br Dewett and that half a Bushel of wheat from each Member would suffice the roll was then called and the Members present responded to the segestion of Prest.

This entry in the High Priests minutes, dated December 12, 1866, suggests that DeWitt still adhered to the Mormon faith. But in consideration of the letter he wrote to his sister in 1875, DeWitt may have offered the use of his bakery to guard his safety within a community that had little tolerance for dissent.

I will now tell you the reason why we could not leave this blood-stained land. I mean ten or twelve years ago [my emphasis]. . . . [E]very bishop knew your business. . . . If you started they would send men to drive off your stock, and thus you would be compelled to return. Then, if you did not behave and act the hypocrite, the bishop would send the Danites to use you up. . . .

DeWitt's bakery served the quorum through the winter, with the last reference to the use of his bakery dated March 15, 1867.13 After this date, no mention of DeWitt occurs in the minutes through 1876, although DeWitt's disaffection appears in his poetry by 1869, a year in which Cache Valley underwent massive change.

The greatest impostor that ever went unhung

Or that ever existed, is old Brigham Young.

Why he's permitted to live I cannot conceive;

That the Devil protects him, I'm bound to believe. . . .

He sent his apostles to all foreign parts,

With lies on their tongues and guile in their hearts;

To induce fools and dupes to come to his realm,

Their tithings to pay, and keep him at the helm.

From "Ode to Brigham Young 1869" (1869)

By the late 1860s/early 1870s, disillusion with the status quo in Cache Valley had become apparent. The difficulties of subsisting in a frontier environment and within a rigid religious hierarchy did not meet the expectations of many settlers.

[H]e [Brother McNeil] said he had visited some of the saints that had lately emigrated from the old countries which felt disapointed and dissatisfied on account of some false representations that had been made to them by some of the Elders from the valleys while in the old countries Brother Cole made some remarks in regard to the remarks of Brother McNeil concerning some of the new comers being disapointed in coming here he spoke of the selfishness of our dispositions. 1 4

The frustrations of many settlers did not meet with approval from the quorum, who considered the settlers' "selfishness" destructive and unjustified. This attitude did not lend itself to the amicable resolution of disputes, which increased with an influx of trade that led the community into struggles for power.

The great U. P. Railroad is already here,

And Gentiles are coming from far and from near;

And soon "Uncle Sam" a legion will send,

Their wrongs to redress, and their right to defend.

From "An Ode to Brigham Young 1869" (1869)

Uncle Sam sent a "legion" of surveyors, accompanying the railroad across Utah. Until 1869 a Utah settler had only squatter's right to the land. The federal surveys could and did disrupt the Mormon village, a concept of agricultural community that relied on religious cohesion, a unifying force that had begun to disintegrate in Cache Valley. The national survey, placed upon the crazy quilt of Cache's small farms, posed a difficulty soon resolved by the valley's leadership, although not to the satisfaction of its disaffected An individual, representing the farmers whose property lay within a federal section, would take title to the plot through homestead or pre-emption laws, divide it along previous survey lines, and deed it back to the original owners. Those not favored by the church, however, allegedly came out of this process a bit worse for the wear, and "it is certain . . . that . . . Aaron DeWitt. . . lost land to Mormon pre-emptors."15

Although DeWitt suffered this loss in 1874, the assessment rolls of Cache County suggest that in 1869 (the same year the first dated poem that rings of dissent, "An Ode to Brigham Young 1869," appeared in hisjournal) a similar situation might have occurred. DeWitt lost a significant amount of land between 1869 and 1870, and his overall assessed worth dropped from $1,050 to $400.16

Down with the spirit and power of oppression!

Burst off your shackles, and cast them aside!

Angels have said that their is no aggression

In lifting up right over might to preside.

From "Written for 'The Godbe Movement'" (undated, 1869?)

One other factor might account for DeWitt's losses. In 1869 the Logan Cooperative Mercantile Institution incorporated and urged local merchants to donate their goods and close up their shops in an effort to benefit the buying power of the community, or to establish a monopoly, depending on one's point of view. DeWitt's connection to the cooperative movement remains hazy, but the $200 he held in "manufacturing companies" (presumably his bakery) had disappeared by the following year. 17 His poem, "Written for 'The Godbe Movement'," further suggests that his vocal dissent (at least as initially expressed in his verse) began with frustration over the establishment of thinly veiled monopolies such as the LCMI.

Led by William S. Godbe, the Godbeites formed to diversify the Mormon economy, which depended primarily on agriculture and manufacturing directed toward domestic trade rather than with other territories or states. They wanted to extend Utah's marketplace beyond the territorial limits by developing mineral resources and using manufacturing capabilities to supply the needs of other areas. Godbe's proposals, which implicitly criticized church policies, brought him and his followers excommunication; and although "the Godbeites undoubtedly had their influence, Mormon economic policy, in 1869 and immediately thereafter, was devoted almost fanatically to the preservation of the tightly-reigned independent theocratic commonwealth."18 Godbe's efforts at establishing a free-trade policy in Utah indirectly targeted the cooperative movement, and DeWitt's poem indicates a knowledge of and frustration with the stifling economic atmosphere prevalent in Utah.

Yet, while Aaron DeWitt does not appear from the documents to be a man bent on finding in Mormonism a scapegoat for his misfortunes, other viable economic factors may have played equally significant roles in his losses. Cache Valley in 1869 underwent one of its most devastating grasshopper infestations As farmers battled this plague their poor wheat yield would have placed DeWitt's bakery in jeopardy In addition, the ever-increasing trade with Montana's gold mining towns, which depended directly on Cache's agricultural abundance, often left little surplus for the trade-hungry Utahns (much to the chagrin of Utah's leaders) And finally, it may have been that the influx of cash from this trade into the valley, which had operated primarily on barter since settlement, upset assessment rolls to the point that 1869 was a hallmark year for accurately judging real cash value.

They are going to starve us out, my friends,

They are going to starve us out;

O, what a glorious time they'll have,

When this is brought about . . . .

But we'll never sell our birthright

To Priestcraft for a crust;

If we can't live and live upright,

We'll starve, and turn to dust.

From "They are going to 'Starve us Out'" (undated)

The demands of the LDS church, through tithing for various projects and funds, constituted a significant economic drain, and its imposition on the trade practices of the community must have appeared a great injustice to a person in DeWitt's situation. The oppressive nature of Utah's theocracy might have reminded him of what he had attempted to escape when he left England—a stultifying religious atmosphere growing out of a church that had become thoroughly entrenched in state politics By 1872 DeWitt obviously believed he had given enough of his money and spirit to the LDS religion, felt ready to "live and live upright," and signed a petition against statehood for Utah, a petition that the Deseret News printed With this his apostasy became open, and the following year DeWitt lent the use of his home and bakery (by now abandoned)—which only six years previously he had lent to the Cache Stake quorum—to St John's Episcopal Church, recently formed in Logan by Bishop Daniel S. Tuttle.

The Utah Northern Railroad and Bishop Tuttle arrived in Logan at the same time and threatened to upset a community that already rocked with the attendant problems of the cooperative movement and federal surveys of land. The outside world closed in, and Cache Valley's apostate community grew as an alternative religious experience appealed to the disaffected who had wearied of material and spiritual sacrifices.20 A non-Mormon community grew up around Aaron DeWitt, who had immediately joined St. John's, but in 1875 enough religious hostility remained for DeWitt to fear for his life.

A bloody bilk is Priesthood, and always was below,

Where'er this bloody Priesthood rules, the blood is

sure to flow. . . .

It has killed young men, and maidens, and infants

at the breast,

Unless engaged in murdering, it never seems to rest.

From "Priesthood" (undated)

In March 1875 Thomas E. Ricks came to trial in Salt Lake City for the shooting death of Elisha David Skeen in 1860. As one of the primary witnesses for the overzealous prosecution, Aaron DeWitt put his life in jeopardy by testifying against Ricks, who lived near DeWitt in Logan. Despite evidence that suggested Ricks's guilt, on March 23, 1875, thejury decided for his innocence, and by March 28 Ricks had returned to Logan and continued unquestioned in his duties as a member of the High Priests Quorum. DeWitt also returned to Logan and soon after claimed that the local Mormon leaders had threatened his life. As one man wrote, "His life is threatened because he testified in court last winter against a murderer. One time, the council decided to take his life, and appointed a time, but one of them proved traitor and went and told him, so he was on his guard and thus saved his life."21

The Porters and the Parishes, with Jones and his poor

Mother; Were murdered by the counsel, of this Prophet,

Priest, and Brother;

Then there were Yates, and Boman, and Morris, Banks,

and Long,

Who've all gone 'cross-lots' to their home, to join

the Martyr's throng.

From "Priesthood" (undated)

Well into the 1880s DeWitt believed he had good reason to fear for his life, allegedly seeing some of his contemporaries disappear or die after behaving in a manner that he believed had met with disapproval from the church. Letters to the editor in the Salt Lake Tribune, printed throughout the 1880s under various pseudonyms, expressed DeWitt's suspicion that too many settlers had joined "the Martyr's throng." Articles entitled "Killed By Temple 'Work'," "Where Are They!" "Infection at Logan," "A Glance at History, and "Looking at the Past" remain gathered next to DeWitt's poetry in his journal; and he supposedly expressed the sentiments contained therein to his family and neighbors.

Despite DeWitt's suspicions of Mormon treachery, by 1874 his situation as a non-Mormon began to improve considerably The Poland Act "transferred to federal officials the duties of the territorial attorney general and marshall; and gave federal judges considerable leeway in the selection of jurors. ... " Congress had begun to fear the power that the Mormons had consolidated in Utah, and the passage of the Poland Act in response to that concern directly affected the life of Aaron DeWitt. Historian A. J. Simmonds wrote, "In practice [the Poland Act] meant that every potential jury would be chosen from a list that was one-half Gentile or Apostate and one-half Mormon. And on July 23, 1874, Aaron DeWitt was chosen as a Federal venireman in the first jury selection under the Poland Act."23 The gentile community of Cache suddenly found it had political power, power that continued to grow until 1896 and statehood.

In 1882 Congress passed the Edmunds Act, which strengthened early legislation aimed at controlling the Mormon church. Its provisions "placed supervision of all Territorial elections in the hands of a Federally appointed Utah Commission" with the goal of keeping polygamists from voting. To help meet this end they appointed Aaron DeWitt to the position of registrar for Hyde Park (north Logan). As an original settler, DeWitt knew the Cache community well, including the polygamists.24 With this knowledge and the power to keep certain parties from voting, his position within the community began to carry a great deal of importance.

In 1887 the Edmunds-Tucker Act broke the overt power held by the Mormon church in Utah and laid the groundwork for statehood. It dissolved the church corporation, shut down the Perpetual Emigrating Company, and eliminated suffrage for women and polygamists in Utah. The Edmunds-Tucker Act has been seen as "a direct bid to destroy the temporal power of the Mormon Church." By requiring a test oath for polygamists it effectively drove the practice of polygamy underground and destroyed a significant segment of the Mormon power base at the polls. Federal control of the polls continued under this act, and in 1887 the Utah Commission appointed Aaron DeWitt to assist in judging elections.25

The Poland Act, the Edmunds Act, and the Edmunds-Tucker Act lent themselves to the establishment of an opposition party in Cache Valley. In 1888 the Liberal party challenged the People's party with the first open and organized party dissent from the Mormon-dominated political machine in Cache Valley In the election that year People's party candidate H. E. Hatch soundly defeated Aaron DeWitt in a bid for county treasurer. But the election had symbolic meaning—the end of institutionalized oligarchy in Cache Valley; that plus the federal legislation of the 1870s and 1880s helped make Cache Valley a place where DeWitt just might have found some amount of satisfaction: "If the Lord won't come the law will, and ifJesus is not approaching, justice is Then all who want can leave But now the priests want us to go, and we wish to stay."26

Another star has risen in the Western Hemisphere,

Bright as a polished diamond, illustrious and clear:

And all who live within its light, or dwell upon our heath,

Will find the way is opened to gain a civic wreath. . . .

The prospect's bright, the land is free, and as a fringe

of gold

Our polity gives liberty, to every honest soul

From "The Forty-Fifth Star (Written for The Republican)" (undated, 1896?)

DeWitt found a faith in the state of Utah that he could never have in Utah Territory. Increased federal measures within the territory had transformed its lawlessness, which DeWitt saw as inextricable from the Mormon political machine, into a polity that prepared Utah for statehood. This transformation of Utah's political/theological climate—in many ways as unjust to the Mormons as the previous LDS oppression of gentile discord—signalled a change in Utah's political atmosphere that could now sustain the dissent of citizens like DeWitt

Using the increased federal control in Utah as a gauge, the tone of DeWitt's journal (if the order of its entries indicates chronological succession) changed considerably during the 1880s The polemics subsided, and his sentimental poems dedicated to relatives and friends on special holidays or to the mourning of deceased Cache Valley residents increased noticeably DeWitt's world had changed, and he changed with it. He had endured an intense and crucial time in the settling of the West, and for this he deserves recognition in America's frontier history A very religious man, DeWitt could not "behave and act the hypocrite"; he desired a justice that had room for all people. In criticizing Bishop Robert Davidson for a verbal attack on the apostate community, DeWitt reminded Davidson, "You and I and all the human race shall meet in that glorious home of life above," and told the bishop "That love may abound in every bosom is the fervent desire of your true friend and well-wisher, though an 'Apostate.'"

27 A law-abiding and morally upright citizen, DeWitt nonetheless suffered for many years under the theocracy in Cache Valley, and the larger story of frontier prejudice and injustice in the West might do well to include the tribulations and poetry of Aaron DeWitt.

And all the busy bustling throng,

With all their joy and sorrow;

For every action right or wrong,

Will get their pay tomorrow.

For Nature tells us every day,

In an unerring tone,

That all along life's winding way,

We reap what we have sown.

From "A Question" (1893)

NOTES

Mr. Breaden is a freelance editor and writer living in Durham, North Caroline.

1 Poetry Journal of Aaron DeWitt, BD MS 46, Special Collections, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan. Hereafter the journal will not be cited, as all the selections of poetry included here are taken from this same source. Original spellings have been retained in all quoted matter.

2 Terence Des Pres, Praises and Dispraises (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), p xiii.

3 Individual Record, " Aaron DEWITT," AFN: 2CON-QC, Ancestral File, Family History Department, Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1990, Salt Lake City. Biographical information on DeWitt comes primarily from A. J. Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt, the Man, His Times, and His Letter," Saints Alive Journal (Fall 1987): and A.J Simmonds, The Gentile Comes to Cache Valley (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1976).

4 Joel E. Ricks places Ballard and DeWitt side by side in a list of household heads who came to the valley in 1859 and stayed through that winter, suggesting that DeWitt by that time had attained some degree of independence from his employer Joel Edward Ricks, The Beginnings of Settlement in Cache Valley, Twelfth Annual Faculty Research Lecture (Logan: Utah State University, 1953), p 16.

5 Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," p 1; and Simmonds, The Gentile Comesto Cache Valley.

6 A J Simmonds, "Escapee or Sitting Duck? A Simple Homicide; or, was the Sheriff Guilty?" copy of typescript in author's possession; LeonardJ Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1958), pp. 356, 376-79; Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," pp 4—5; and Kate B Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, vol 10 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1949), p 39.

7 Grant Underwood, "The Religious Milieu of English Mormonism" in Mormons in Early Victorian Britain, ed Richard L.Jensen and Malcolm R Thor p (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989), p 33; Frederick Stewart Buchanan, A Good Time Coming: Mormon Letters to Scotland (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988), p. 1; Brigham Young quoted in Paul H. Peterson, "The 1857 Reformation in Britain" in Mormons in Early Victorian Britain, p 213.

8 Quoted in A J Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," p 8.

9 "Aaron DEWITT," Ancestral File.

10 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp 150-51; and Simmonds, "Escapee or Sitting Duck?" pp 1-2.

11 Simmonds, "Escapee or Sitting Duck?" p 2 and passim.

12 Willis A Dial, A Survey of Church Buildings of Cache Stake of Zion of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1859-1874 (Logan: Historical Arts Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, 1974); and Andrew Jenson, comp., Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, vol 1 (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1901), p 234.

13 Minute Book of Cache Valley Stake High Priests Quorum, December 12, 1866, and March 15, 1867, COLL MS 65, Special Collections, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan; and Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," p. 10.

14 Minute Book, January 5, 1870.

15 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp 249-50, 10; and Simmonds, The Gentile Comes to Cache Valley, pp.

16 DeWitt's assets in land dropped from $400 to $250. Cache County Assessment Rolls, Logan City, 1869 and 1870, Special Collections, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

17 Simmonds, The Gentile Comes to Cache Valley, pp 11-12; and Cache County Assessment Rolls, Logan City.

18 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp 243-44 See also Wilford Leroy Goodliffe, "American Frontier Religion: Mormons and Their Dissenters, 1830-1900" (Ph.D. diss., University of Idaho, 1976).

19 LeonardJ Arrington, "Life and Labor among the Pioneers" in The History of a Valley: Cache Valley, Utah-Idaho, ed Joel E Ricks (Logan: Cache Valley Centennial Commission, 1956), p 151; and Leonard J Arrington, "Railroad Building and Cooperatives, 1869-1879," in ibid., pp 172-73, 191.

20 Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," pp 1-2; Simmonds, The Gentile Comes to Cache Valley,passim; and J Duncan Brite, "Non-Mormon Schools and Churches," in The History of a Valley, ed Ricks, p 304 According to Brite, DeWitt also housed the Rev William H Stoy until the Episcopalian minister could find a permanent residence.

21 Simmonds, "Escapee or Sitting Duck?" pp 10-12; Minute Book, March 28, 1873; and letter from W H Kelley, quoted in Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," p 3.

22 DeWitt Journal; and interview with Roy Palmer, great-grandson of Aaron DeWitt, March 14, 1991.

23 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p 357; and Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," p 4.

24 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p 356; and Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," pp 4, 5.

25 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p 361; and Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, 10:39.

26 Letter from Aaron DeWitt, quoted in A J Simmonds, "Aaron DeWitt," p 10.

27 Aaron DeWitt, "An Open Letter to Bishop Davidson," (unidentified newspaper), September 22, 1884, collected in DeWitt Journal.

Poetry, Polity, and the Cache Valley Pioneer: Polemics in the Journal of Aaron DeWitt, 1869-96

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