Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, Number 4, 2014

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U TA H HISTORICAL Q U A R T E R LY

EDITORIAL STAFF Brad Westwood — Editor

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ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS

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Jedediah S. Rogers — Co-Managing Editor

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Holly George — Co-Managing Editor

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Brian Q. Cannon, Provo, 2016 Craig Fuller, Salt Lake City, 2015

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Lee Ann Kreutzer, Salt Lake City, 2015 Kathryn L. MacKay, Ogden, 2017 Robert E. Parson, Benson, 2017

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W. Paul Reeve, Salt Lake City, 2014

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Susan Sessions Rugh, Provo, 2016 John Sillito, Ogden, 2017 Gary Topping, Salt Lake City, 2014 Ronald G. Watt, West Valley City, 2017 Colleen Whitley, Salt Lake City, 2015

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In 1897, public-spirited Utahns organized the Utah State Historical Society in order to expand public understanding of Utah’s past.

Today, the Utah Division of State History administers the Society and, as part of its statutory obligations, publishes the Utah Historical Quarterly (ISSN 0 042-143X), which has collected and preserved Utah’s unique history since 1928. The Division also collects materials related to the history of Utah; assists communities, agencies, building owners, and consultants with state and federal processes regarding archaeological and historical resources; administers the ancient human remains program; makes historical resources available in a specialized research library; offers extensive online resources and grants; and assists in public policy and the promotion of Utah’s rich history. Visit history.utah.gov for more information.

UHQ appears in winter, spring, summer, and fall. Members of the Society receive UHQ upon payment of annual dues: individual, $30; institution, $40; student and senior (age 65 or older), $25; business, $40; sustaining, $40; patron, $60; sponsor, $100.

Direct manuscript submissions to the address listed below. Visit history.utah.gov for submission guidelines. Articles and book reviews represent the views of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Utah State Historical Society.

POSTMASTER: Send address change to Utah Historical Quarterly,

Iron workers at the Denver and Rio Grande Depot, 1909.

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utah state historical society

300 S. Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. Periodicals postage is paid at Salt Lake City, Utah. history.utah.gov (801) 245-7231

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CONTENTS

249 IN THIS ISSUE 318 BOOK REVIEWS

ARTICLES

272 A long course of the most 288 Water Law on the eve of inhuman cruelty: statehood:

250 A “Distinction between mormons and americans”: Mormon Indian Missionaries, Federal Indian Policy, and the Utah War

By Brent M. Rogers

325 BOOK NOTICES 326 2014 index 338 utah in focus

The Abuse and Murder of Isaac Whitehouse

By Noel A. Carmack

306 Setting The Ute Photographic Record Straight through Google’s Picasa Face Recognition Tool

By Beth Simmons

Israel Bennion and a Conflict in Vernon, 1893–1896

By John Bennion

316 Highway 89 Digital Collections

By Jim Kichas

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Book Reviews

318 Elizabeth o. anderson, ed.

Cowboy Apostle: The Diaries of Anthony W. Ivins, 1875–1932 Reviewed by Kristen Iversen

319 Val Holley

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25th Street Confidential: Drama, Decadence, and Dissipation along Ogden’s Rowdiest Road Reviewed by Heidi Orchard

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320 Todd M. Compton

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A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary Reviewed by Richard W. Sadler

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321 Jedediah s. Rogers

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Roads in the Wilderness: Conflict in Canyon Country Reviewed by Clint Pumphrey

322 Edward Dorn; matthew hofer, ed.

The Shoshoneans: The People of the Basin–Plateau Reviewed by Robert S. McPherson

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323 Michael hittman Great Basin Indians: An Encyclopedic History

Reviewed by John D. Barton

Book NOTICES

325 Eileen Hallet Stone Hidden History of Utah

325 William shepard and h. Michael Marquardt Lost Apostles: Forgotten Members of Mormonism’s Original Quorum of Twelve

325 Jeff terry, thornton H. waite, and james j. reisdorff The Un-Driving of the Golden Spike

Volumes of legal material exist regarding the relationship between governmental entities and Native Americans. In the words of Francis Paul Prucha, from the origins of the United States to the present, “Indians as tribes or as individuals have been persistently in the consciousness of officials of all three branches of the federal government.”1 In 1850s Utah, another player—the LDS church— complicated the already difficult relationship between the government and the tribes. The LDS church and the federal government had separate, at times competing, policies regarding Great Basin Indians. Those policies could have very real effects on the ground. In our first article, Brent Rogers explores how federal officials perceived Mormons to be dangerously at odds with “Americans” in their dealings with indigenous peoples.

Critically, the president had the legal backing to enforce federal law in relation to Native Americans; as Rogers writes, “Indian policy emerged as a crucial factor in the federal government’s effort to assert national power and authority in Utah Territory in the 1850s.”

The second article in this issue moves from the world of presidents and governors to provide an entirely different look at Utah in the 1850s and 1 Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians, abridged ed. (1984; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), ix.

By 1881, conflict and anti-Indian furor had led to the relocation of certain Ute bands from Colorado to Utah. Many photographs document the Utes of the era, especially the principal players in these episodes. Unfortunately, the people in such photographs are often misidentified. Our fourth article shows how technology can assist in the study of history. In it, Beth Simmons uses a newly (and freely) available tool—face recognition software— to pin down the identities of Utes whose images were captured in an 1870s stereograph. Simmons’s article provides a fitting coda for the state historical society’s sixty-second annual meeting, which was held this September and focused on the place of technology in Utah’s past.

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As the third article attests, toward the end of the nineteenth century the loosening of LDS ecclesiastical control in Utah—in this case, over the distribution and management of water—contributed to bitter conflict in some Mormon villages. The angst over water is understandable: even in a state endowed with heavy snowpack and healthy runoff, then—and now—water scarcity was an issue of central concern. Slow to adopt the system of prior appropriation (“first in time, first in right”), Mormons had operated under a communitarian system of water management since their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. Some second-generation Mormons, faced with state regulation and private ownership of water, desperately attempted to retain control of the resource. John Bennion documents one conflict in Utah’s Rush Valley that pitted men, otherwise bound together by ecclesiastical responsibilities and familial ties, against one another.

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From traffic violations to weightier questions of domestic life and land use, laws and regulations fill the lives of everyday, contemporary Utahns. So too did laws circumscribe and inform the world of nineteenth-century Utah. In that historical setting, things ecclesiastical often became entangled with things civil. For many years after the settlement of the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, distinctive Mormon practices, institutions, and laws played a critical part in the governance of Utah.

People outside the LDS church soon chafed at this arrangement. Much of the fall 2014 issue of Utah Historical Quarterly explores the place of law in society and illuminates Utah’s church and state conundrum.

how behavior at home affects the most vulnerable of people: children. It presents the story of Isaac Whitehouse, a boy with disabilities who suffered terrible abuse—and, on one fall evening in 1855, a violent death—at the hands of his caretakers. Noel Carmack documents the injustices of the case: following his conviction for the boy’s murder, Samuel G. Baker served only two months in the territorial penitentiary before being pardoned by Brigham Young—a move Judge William Drummond found to be an affront to the rule of law in Utah. But Carmack reveals complex forces at work in the case and raises interesting, and surprising, questions about the intersection of religion, community, and domestic responsibility in early Utah.

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The Ute Chiefs Walker (or Wåkara, left) and Arapeen (right), from a sketch made by Frederick Piercy and used in Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley (1855). —

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Mormon Indian Missionaries, Federal Indian Policy, and the Utah War BY

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Indian policy played a vital role in shaping the perceptions about and the realities in Utah Territory in the 1850s. During that decade, two groups of people—Mormons and agents of the U.S. federal government—invaded Great Basin indigenous homelands and employed competing philosophies of Indian affairs.1 Both groups sought to control Native Americans: the federal government to protect emigrant routes and encourage the expansion of white settlement in the West and the Mormons to fulfill religious imperatives and foster peace between the growing settler and indigenous populations. Though some scholars have investigated the Mormon perspective on Mormon-Indian relations or focused on the actions of individual federal Indian agents in antebellum Utah, their analyses have generally not included an examination of federal Indian laws, particularly the Trade and Intercourse Act, and the national perception about Mormon-Indian relations. These facets are essential to understanding the federal-territorial relationship in Utah and the complex origins, execution, and impact of the Utah War.2 1 A note on terminology: In referring to the religious group belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this article will use the terms Mormons, Latter-day Saints, and LDS interchangeably. The article will also use Indian, indigenous, Native American, and American Indian interchangeably to refer to the indigenous inhabitants of the North American continent. In Utah, the primary groups that composed the indigenous population were Utes, Shoshones, Goshutes, Paiutes, and Navajos.

2 For more on the historiography of Mormon-Indian relations, see Sondra Jones, “Saints or Sinners? The Evolving Perceptions of Mormon-Indian Relations in Utah

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A “distinction between mormons and Americans”

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The Mormons, who had established themselves as a cohesive and autonomous group near the Great Salt Lake, pursued their own objectives and strategies toward Native Americans, which appeared to contradict the aims of the U.S. government’s Indian policy. Utah’s religious and civil leader, Brigham Young, also served as the superintendent of Indian affairs from 1851 to 1857. In that capacity, as the federal representative responsible for oversight of the area’s indigenous peoples, he permitted many Mormon missionaries to proselyte to them. Federal representatives in Utah Territory distrusted Mormon missionaries working amongst the indigenous population in and around the Great Basin. Their observations of Mormon-Indian interactions led to accusations that the missionaries had violated the long-standing Trade and Intercourse Act by sending messages to the Indians meant to encourage their alliance with the Mormons against federal agents, the government, and American citizens.3 By early Historiography,” Utah Historical Quarterly 72, no. 1 (2004): 19–46. For more on Mormon Indian policies, see Howard A. Christy, “Open Hand and Mailed Fist: Mormon-Indian Relations in Utah, 1847–1852,” Utah Historical Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1978): 215–35 and “The Walker War: Defense and Conciliation as Strategy,” Utah Historical Quarterly 47, no. 4 (1979): 395–420.

See also David L. Bigler and Will Bagley, The Mormon Rebellion: America’s First Civil War, 1857–1858 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011). Additional studies on individual federal Indian agents and superintendents in Utah include Dale L. Morgan, “The Administration of Indian Affairs in Utah, 1851–1858,” Pacific Historical Quarterly 17 (1948): 383–409; Floyd A. O’Neil and Stanford J. Layton, “Of Pride and Politics: Brigham Young as Indian Superintendent,” Utah Historical Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1978): 236–50; Wayne Miles Eckman, “Brigham Young’s Indian Superintendency (1851–58): A Significant Microcosm of the American Indian Experience” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1989); David L. Bigler, “Garland Hurt, the American Friend of the Utahs,” Utah Historical Quarterly 62, no. 2 (1994): 149–70; and Lawrence G. Coates, “Brigham Young and Mormon Indian Policies: The Formative Period, 1836–1851,” BYU Studies 18 (1978): 428–52.

3 The Trade and Intercourse Act, which became law on June 30, 1834, provided the principal legal base for regulating commerce and other interactions between American Indians and non-Natives in the United States at that time. A congressional act of February 27, 1851, which authorized Indian agents for the territories of New Mexico and Utah, also extended the provisions of the Trade and Intercourse Act to those geopolitical regions. U.S. Statutes at Large 9:586–87; Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Documents of United States Indian Policy, 3rd ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 63, 68.

1857, the White House had received numerous reports that Mormons had gained influence over the territory’s indigenous population at an unacceptable cost: the violation of federal Indian policy and the gross dismissal of federal sovereignty.

Indian policy was a locus of the United States’ efforts to govern new territories created from the Mexican cession. In developing newly acquired or conquered regions, the U.S. federal government established the territorial system.

Territories were subsidiary units of power that emanated from and remained subordinate to national sovereignty. While still in the territorial stage, the president and Congress had power “to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.”4 Federal Indian policies, administered by federally appointed superintendents of Indian affairs and Indian agents, aimed to manage Native and non-Native relations in order to benefit whites.5 Certain statutes, primarily the 1834 Trade and Intercourse Act, provided the president the authority to send the U.S. Army to enforce federal law. Ultimately, Indian policy emerged as a crucial factor in the federal government’s effort to assert national power and authority in Utah Territory in the 1850s and was one central element of the tension that led to the Utah War. Upon their arrival in the Great Basin in 1847, the Mormons established the provisional State of Deseret as an autonomous government. Simultaneously, they settled on Ute, Paiute, Goshute, and Shoshone lands and disrupted the already precarious natural environment by adding new competition for fish, game, water, timber, and

4 Northwest Ordinance, July 13, 1787, Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, roll 9, MS 332, Record Group 360, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA); U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3. See also Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman, The Constitution of Empire: Territorial Expansion and American Legal History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 3.

5 Stephen J. Rockwell, Indian Affairs and the Administrative State in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790–1834 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962).

6 Jared Farmer, On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); Ronald W. Walker, “Wakara Meets the Mormons, 1848–52: A Case Study in Native American Accommodation,” Utah Historical Quarterly 70, no. 3 (2002): 224; Virginia McConnell Simmons, The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2000), 91.

7 Stephen P. Van Hoak, “Waccara’s Utes: Native American Equestrian Adaptations in the Eastern Great Basin, 1776–1886,”Utah Historical Quarterly 67, no. 4 (1999): 309–330; Walker, “Wakara Meets the Mormons,” 215–37; Sondra Jones, “‘Redeeming’ the Indian: The Enslavement of Indian Children in New Mexico and Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 67, no. 3 (1999): 220–41.

8 John R. Alley, Jr., “Prelude to Dispossession: The Fur Trade’s Significance for the Northern Utes and Southern Paiutes,” Utah Historical Quarterly 50, no 2 (1982): 104–123; John W. Heaton, “‘No Place to Pitch Their Teepees’: Shoshone Adaptation to Mormon Settlers in Cache Valley, 1855–70,” in Being Different: Stories of Utah’s Minorities, ed. Stanford J. Layton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 35.

9 Ned Blackhawk, Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 253–54.

10 For some recent treatments of the “runaway officials,” see Ronald W. Walker, “The Affairs of the ‘Runaways’: Utah’s First Encounter with the Federal Officers, Part 1,” Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 4 (2013): 1–43; Ronald W. Walker and Matthew J. Grow, “The People Are ‘Hogaffed or Humbugged’: The 1851–52 National Reaction to Utah’s ‘Runaway’ Officers, Part 2,” Journal of Mormon History 40, no. 1 (2014): 1–52; Thomas G. Alexander, “Carpetbaggers, Reprobates, and Liars: Federal Judges and the Utah War (1857–1858),” The Historian (May 2008): 215–19; Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, “Enemies Foreign and Domestic: US Relations with Mormons in the US Empire in North America, 1844– 1854” (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 2010), 365– 95; see also Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), 21–29.

11 Luke Lea, in Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Transmitted with the Message of the President at the Opening of the Thirty-Second Congress, 1850 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1850), 12.

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Several hundred dollars worth of Indian goods as presents, for the purpose, no doubt, of conciliating the Indians and getting their permission to extend his settlements, thus making use of his office as superintendent, and the money of the government to promote the interest of his church. Therefore it seems to me that no Mormon should, officially, have anything to do with the Indians. I have no doubt but every effort will be

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In the midst of intermittent, occasionally intense conflict between indigenous groups and Mormon settlers, LDS church leaders set up their own Indian policy. In 1850, Congress agreed to the legislative package that created Utah Territory and placed the Mormons in the Great Basin under a territorial government.

However, the first wave of federal officials—

“We know but little,” U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea reported in November 1850, “of the Indians in Utah, beyond the fact that they are generally peaceable in their disposition and easily controlled.”11 Upon his arrival in Salt Lake City in 1851, the federal Indian agent Jacob Holeman wrote to Lea that he found Brigham Young and his fellow Mormon Indian agent Stephen B. Rose on an expedition to the Indians. According to Holeman, Young and Rose had taken with them

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who had been assigned to establish vital components of that territorial government—left quickly after their arrival in 1851 due to growing conflict with the Latter-day Saints. The federal government did not approve of their departure from the territory, and President Millard Fillmore determined that these “runaway officials” were derelict in their duties.10 Still, the reports these early officials sent to Washington became the basis for federal knowledge about Mormon Indian policy.

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other resources.6 At the same time, by 1847, the Ute chief Wákara sat atop a lucrative trading and raiding economy that specialized in human trafficking as far west as California, as far east as the Great Plains, and south into Mexico.7 Leaders and members of the LDS church, whose settlement in the Great Basin was initially accepted by Utes and Southern Paiutes, eventually attempted to disrupt Native American economies by curtailing the trade in horses, child slaves, and tribute between Utes and Mexicans. Nevertheless, at the outset, many Native peoples chose to affiliate or engage with Mormons and develop friendly relations with them. Utes viewed Mormons as stable and permanent trade partners, while the Paiutes saw their new neighbors as potential protectors against raiding bands of Utes and Shoshones.8 In the 1850s, however, Mormons legislated against the Indian slave trade, even as the white population grew and tensions between the settlers and the indigenous population, particularly the Utes, increased.9

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made by the Mormons to prevent the government from peaceably extending her laws over the Territory.

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Holeman recommended “to the department that while the Indians of this Territory are generally friendly disposed towards the Whites that some arrangement should be made with them by which their rights as well as those of the Government should be distinctly understood.”12

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With no other federal presence in the territory other than himself. . . .

Young implemented indian policy.

Despite the many Mormon-Indian conflicts that represented the reality on the ground and the agency of the region’s Native peoples, it was the Mormons, according to Holeman, who “easily controlled” the Great Basin’s native peoples.

Young was the federally appointed territorial governor and superintendent of Indian affairs. With this authority, he could license trade and intercourse between whites and Indians. On October 20, 1851, Young wrote to Fillmore to inform him “that upon Indian affairs I have never received any instructions.” According to Young, Holeman—the territorial Indian agent subordinate to Young—left immediately after arriving in Utah for business in Wyoming and had not yet returned. Meanwhile, Henry R. Day, the Indian subagent, had come to Utah with other federal officers, but, as Young presumed, “upon meeting with Mr. Holeman they all returned to the States together.”13 With no federal presence in the territory other than himself, unclear instructions about how to 12 Jacob Holeman to Luke Lea, November 28, 1851, in The Utah Expedition, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 71 (1857), 128–30 (hereafter Ex. Doc. 71).

13 Young to Fillmore, October 20, 1851, in Message of the President of the United States, 32d Cong., 1st Sess., Ex. Doc. 25 (1851), 7–8.

execute federal Indian policy, and mounting conflict between his people and regional Native bands, Young implemented an Indian policy that would benefit the white population of the territory, who belonged almost entirely to the church that he led.

Early members of the LDS church identified American Indians as descendants of the Lamanites, a people described in the Book of Mormon as the descendents of Joseph and members of scattered Israel.14 Indeed, the title page of the Book of Mormon stated that the book was written particularly “to the Lamanites.” The historian Richard Lyman Bushman characterized the general awareness of the religious doctrine shortly after its publication: “Almost as frequently as the book was called a ‘gold bible’ it was called a history of the Indians.”15 Further, the Book of Mormon “is not just sympathetic to Indians; it grants them dominance—in history, in God’s esteem, and in future ownership of the American continent.”16 The concept of Indians as worthy and capable of salvation equal to white Latter-day Saints existed in early Mormon thought as those church members worked toward Native American redemption in hopes of ushering in the Millennium. In fact, the church’s first formal proselytizing mission was to the American Indians in present-day Kansas in 1830–1831.17 However, other Americans, 14 The Evening and the Morning Star (Independence, MO), July 1832; Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland, OH), November 1835; Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 20:22.

15 Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 94; see also Dan Vogel, Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986), 30.

16 Bushman, Joseph Smith, 99. Indeed, the LDS church’s newspaper reflected on Book of Mormon teachings that made known “the choice people of this continent,” the American Indians. That article lauded the federal government’s efforts to remove Indians to the West as part of the prophesied gathering of the scattered people.

Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland, OH), January 1836.

17 For Book of Mormon passages relative to Native American redemption, see 2 Nephi 30 and 3 Nephi 16 and 21; see also Mark Ashurst-McGee, “Zion Rising: Joseph Smith’s Early Social and Political Thought” (Ph.D. diss., Arizona State University, 2008), 111–55, 387.

For more on the revelations on and early LDS missions to the “Lamanites,” see Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, eds., Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831, in The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C.

Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, Richard Lyman Bushman, and Matthew J. Grow (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 9, 177–90, 200–205.

18 In July 1836, Missourians were upset by the large numbers of Mormons immigrating to Clay County and alarmed at the possibility of a Mormon-Indian alliance. The Clay County citizens feared the Mormons’ open declarations “that the Indians are a part of God’s chosen people, and are destined, by heaven, to inherit this land, in common with themselves.” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland, OH), August 1836.

19 Ronald W. Walker, “Seeking the Remnant: The Native American during the Joseph Smith Period,” Journal of Mormon History 19, no. 1 (1993): 7, 21.

20 Farmer, On Zion’s Mount, 81.

21 Deseret News, June 22, 1854.

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of food, clothing, and other supplies to regional Native Americans. This policy was eventually encapsulated in the idea that “it was cheaper to feed the Indians than fight them.”22 As part of their efforts to secure peace and promote their own safety, LDS church leaders sought to implement a regulatory governing program to make the region’s Native Americans dependent upon them. Still, gaining and maintaining influence over Native peoples was a task easier said than done: both the 1853–1854 Walker War and the 1856 Tintic War attested to the inability of the Mormons to establish unfettered control over indigenous groups.

The Walker War consisted of a series of skirmishes between Mormons and Utes in central 22 The idea that it would be cheaper to feed than to fight Native peoples can be traced back to at least the summer of 1851. Other Mormon leaders, including Jedediah Grant, a member of the LDS church’s first presidency and the mayor of Salt Lake City, supported the formulated Indian policy. In a discourse of April 2, 1856, Grant noted that feeding and clothing the Indians would prove the cheapest way of fighting them and their ways. See Christy, “Open Hand and Mailed Fist,” 231–35; and Deseret News, February 27, April 2, 1856.

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Mormon Indian policy in Utah Territory remained concerned with Native redemption and salvation. Brigham Young, however, simultaneously had to deal with political and economic realities that conflicted with the spiritual obligations to convert Native peoples.20 The relationship between Mormons and Great Basin Indians vacillated between the Mormons’ religious motivations to redeem them and armed confrontations that emerged from the clash of cultures, the disruption of Native trade networks, and competition over the area’s limited natural resources. A Deseret News article perhaps summed the relationship up best: “The events that have transpired, since the settlement of 1847, have brought the settlers and Natives of Utah into frequent and extended intercourse under very diverse circumstances; sometimes pleasant, and mutually beneficial—at others quite the reverse.”21 Above all, Young attempted to secure the safety of his religious followers and sought after the best methods to obtain that end. These particularly included peaceful overtures such as giving gifts

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including Missourians, considered strange the notion that the United States could be the promised land for American Indians who had been enlightened by Mormon theology; these people largely insisted that the federal government remove Native peoples from their homelands and onto reservations of the worst land.18 The prophesied and providential destiny of the Indians, according to the historian Ronald W. Walker, “helped to shape the next several decades of the Latter-day Saint experience.”19 To be sure, Indian relations informed LDS efforts and shaped perceptions of them through the 1850s.

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Utah. During that conflict, on October 6, 1853, the Latter-day Saints renewed their convictions to preach, convert, and establish harmonious relationships with local Indian groups.

Accordingly, Young sanctioned the creation of the Southern Indian Mission, partially in order to increase resources in this component of territorial management. Proselytizing efforts in connection with this mission concentrated on the greater south-central part of Utah Territory, though they extended geographically into what is now Las Vegas, Nevada, in the south and to Parowan in the north.23 Meanwhile, in early February 1854, sixteen women in Salt Lake City responded to Young’s exhortation to befriend and aid Indians by independently organizing “a society of females for the purpose of making clothing for Indian women and children.” Patty Bartlett Sessions, a Mormon midwife and a respected woman in the community, recorded in her diary on June 10, 1854, that she went “to the ward meeting of the sisters” who “organized a benevolent society to clothe the Indians & squas,” as part of the broader missionary work among the area’s Native peoples.24 During 1854, Mormon women organized at least twenty-two Indian Relief Societies in Salt Lake City and outlying settlements.

Their members contributed substantial amounts of food, bedding, and clothing to help maintain positive relations between the settlers and the local indigenous population.25 This women-led effort furthered Mormon Indian policy.

The Southern Indian Mission finally commenced on April 10, 1854. Missionaries in the field and Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City concurred that the best way to achieve their desired 23 Juanita Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission: Diary of Thomas D. Brown (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1972), 1–3.

24 Donna Toland Smart, ed., Mormon Midwife: The 1846– 1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1997), 206. See also Richard L. Jensen, “Forgotten Relief Societies, 1844–67,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16 (Spring 1983): 105–125.

25 Sixteenth Ward Relief Society, Record Book, 1854, in Patty Bartlett Sessions, Diary and Account Book, MS 12481, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter CHL); Twelfth Ward Relief Society, Minutes, in Amanda Barnes Smith, Notebook, MS 2005, CHL; Ward Histories, box 77, fd. 2, Richard Douglas Poll Papers, MS0674, J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections, University of Utah, Salt Lake City (hereafter MLSC); Woman’s Exponent, July 1903, 6.

aims of conversion, dependence, and control came by teaching indigenous peoples the gospel in their own language, giving them food, and setting a good example. To better serve and potentially attract a greater number of Native converts, missionaries engaged in intensive language study. Near Provo, some Indians lived in and around Mormon settlements, giving church members an opportunity to learn their language.26 Within a short time, the LDS church had published pamphlets containing translations of Ute, Paiute, and Shoshone dialects.27 On Sunday May 21, 1854, the Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt spoke to the Southern Indian missionaries. His message concerned the instruction of Native Americans and the example of the Mormon people as a powerful teaching method. Pratt had received word that some of the LDS members living within the boundaries of the Southern Indian Mission spent their time in idleness, wrestling, and gambling. Pratt expounded that all living in the area were to serve as missionaries, women not excepted, through model behavior. Pratt stated that all should take up the duty to feed, clothe, and instruct their Native neighbors. He suggested that even though the two peoples may not understand each other verbally, “there is one language that all can understand and feel— kindness, sympathy, this they can feel.” Pratt instructed missionaries to focus their efforts on the younger generation of Indians, which, he thought, would be the most effective way to bring Native peoples into the Mormon fold.28 In the summer of 1854, the Deseret News 26 “Letter from Elder Henry Lunt,” December 29, 1853, in Deseret News, February 2, 1854; George W. Bean, Journal, May 1, 1855, MS 7805, CHL; Jonathan Oldham Duke, Reminiscences and Diary, July 17, 1855, MS 136, CHL; Deseret News, March 16, July 20, 1854; Brooks, Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 31; Juanita Brooks, “Indian Relations on the Mormon Frontier,” Utah Historical Quarterly 12 (1944), 11.

27 Dimick B. Huntington, Vocabulary of the Utah and ShoSho-Ne or Snake Dialects, 3rd. ed. (Salt Lake City: Salt Lake Herald Office, 1872). Huntington first published his pamphlet in 1854, but no original copies remain extant. Chad J. Flake and Larry W. Draper, eds., A Mormon Bibliography, 1830–1930 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 1:529.

See also Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, February 28, 1854, CR 100 137, CHL. 28 Brooks, Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 75.

Governing the region’s indigenous population was, ostensibly, a means of self-preservation for the Mormons and the mode for peacemaking in the territory.

In his dual role as superintendent of Indian affairs and leader of the LDS church, Young said, “If we can secure the good will of the Indians by conferring favors upon them we not only secure peace for the time being but gradually bring them to depend upon us for food and clothing, until they cannot get along without us.”31 Young 29 Deseret News, June 22, 1854.

30 Brooks, Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 85–86, 123.

31 Quoted in Coates, “Brigham Young and Mormon Indian Policies,” 452. Coates cites the document as “a scrap of paper in Brigham Young’s papers,” presumably at the LDS Church History Library. He further notes that although that scrap is not dated, the quotations contained thereon “succinctly express Brigham Young’s

This exchange provided the Mormon missionary with an opportunity to expound “upon the oft repeated cruelties, shootings and killings” perpetrated among the Indians by the “American” emigrants, crossing Utah en route to California. Brown explained that these crimes far outweighed the paltry presents the Indians received from Americans, which caused his new friends to exclaim, “The American no good, they are not our friends, but you are; we

philosophy of Indian relations.” I could not locate that scrap of paper in Young’s papers; however, one of Young’s letters to George W. Bradley used nearly the same words as this quote. See Young to George W. Bradley, June 13, 1854, Brigham Young Papers, CR 1234 1, CHL. Evidence found in the Deseret News and in the journals of Indian missionaries presented elsewhere in this article also substantiates Coates’s quotation of Young.

32 Brooks, Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 133.

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As Mormon missionaries began to labor with the Great Basin’s American Indians, they found many opportunities to demonstrate the differences between Mormons and other whites, particularly federal Indian agents. In July 1855, Thomas D. Brown, a Mormon missionary, wrote in his journal about an exchange of goods and ideas between Mormons and Indians. Brown and other missionaries gave some Paiutes a few blankets and other presents that, according to Brown, “caused them to say ‘The Americans sometimes very good, give us clothes.’” Brown initially thought that it “would have been a difficult task to explain to them why U.S. nincompoops had frequently more in their power to do them good than we had.” He delighted, however, in his ability to exhibit the benefits and confirm the friendship of the Mormons, who, he told his new Native associates, did everything in their power to provide assistance. Through “united and unfeigned attention and kindness to them,” Brown wrote, “we gained upon their affections.”32

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We shall be able ultimately to control and govern them, as it is now, whenever an excitement arises among them against the whites, they immediately become unapproachable and we find it difficult to get access to them at all. . . . Now if our people were so well established in their confidence and friendship as to control and influence them & more or less, be with them all the time being in their midst at such times. Do you not see that all such excitements should be kept down & we should be able through this agency to have peace & control the natives if this policy could be carried into general effect.30

assumed that Mormon policies could bring about Indian dependence on permanent settlers, who were invested in establishing and maintaining peaceful relationships in the territory. On the other hand, the Mormon leader could not believe that transient white overland travelers or federal officials were devoted to creating such a harmonious atmosphere.

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provided further guidance. An article entitled “The Best Course” stated “that the most absolute peaceable subjection of one person to another, arises when an individual is clothed, fed, and sustained at another’s expense, without compensation” and, if the Mormons could accomplish that subjection, then the Indians would have nowhere else to turn for their support system.29 A July 26, 1854, letter from Young to the leaders of the Southern Indian Mission similarly demonstrated this overarching idea in Mormon Indian policy. By providing for necessities, setting a good example, and gaining the confidence of the region’s tribes, Young stated,

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are Mormons and no longer Pahutes.”33 According to Brown’s record, these Paiutes chose, within the context of two competing entities, to improve their relationships with the Mormons, among whom they lived. In addition, these types of statements from Paiutes might have helped maintain peace between the two groups, even as they encouraged the Mormons to continue to offer protection against opposing Native bands and passing white travelers.

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Mormon missionaries and other church members discussed and debated their relationships with Native peoples and questioned whether the U.S. government had benefited the Indians at all. For instance, the Indian missionary George W. Bean argued that the government had done nothing, particularly in comparison with Mormon efforts. Bean depicted the “lasting friendship” he and his compatriots had developed with a group of Indians. Furthermore, that Mormons openly compared their efforts to those of the federal government suggests that they might have used such comparisons as a point of conversation to curry favor and encourage peace in the minds of Native Americans.34 Such evangelization allowed the Mormons to highlight the good they did and to contrast their actions against any negative interaction that Indians had with other white travelers or temporary federal officials. Conversely, non-Mormon onlookers certainly could have construed messages such as these as evidence that Mormons were disturbing the peace and attempting to alienate Great Basin Indians from other Americans and from the federal government.

The federal government and the American people’s knowledge of Mormon-Indian relations grew out of the writings of federal officers who had sojourned in Utah. For example, Captain John W. Gunnison, the second-in-command of Howard Stansbury’s survey of the Great Salt Lake, published his personal views in book form in 1852. Gunnison commented on the desires of Mormons for self-government, their plural marriage structure, and their exerting influence on the “great tribes” of the region, which he believed ensured “them a controlling power

33 Ibid., 133.

34 Bean, Journal, December 1, 30, 1855, CHL.

ultimately.”35 Gunnison proposed that the army or another federal entity could gain influence over this aspect of territorial governance and over the Native peoples themselves by establishing a defensive fort and Indian agency at a strategic location along the main route of travel.

A federal establishment at one of these points— Fort Bridger, for instance—could aid in regulating the Indians and promote “emigrant travel to Oregon and California.”36 Gunnison’s early report provided a blueprint for federal control over Utah Territory’s Indian affairs.

The fall of 1853 was a time of great conflict between Indians and settlers in Utah as the Walker War continued and created a tense atmosphere in the territory. Gunnison had returned to the territory to perform a federal survey for a potential transcontinental railroad route. On October 26, 1853, in retribution for the earlier killing of a Pahvant Ute by a passing wagon train, a Pahvant band murdered Gunnison and seven members of his surveying party while they camped at Lake Sevier near the town of Fillmore.37 A new, though temporary, federal presence would arrive in Utah Territory in August 1854 to assist in the investigation of the Gunnison murders. This army detachment, led

by Brevet Lt. Col. Edward J. Steptoe, remained in Utah until the spring of 1855. During this brief stay, Second Lieutenant Sylvester Mowry, the newly arrived federal Indian agent Garland Hurt, and Steptoe each sent reports to Washington that brought into stark relief the role of Mormon Indian policy in Utah Territory.38 35 John W. Gunnison, The Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake . . . (1852; repr., Brookline, MA, 1993), 150.

36 Ibid. The conflict between Mormons and the U.S. government over Fort Bridger began in 1853 and was not resolved until the Utah War of 1857–1858.

37 Brigham D. Madsen, ed., “John W. Gunnison’s Letters to His Mormon Friend, Albert Carrington,” Utah Historical Quarterly 59, no. 3 (1991): 264–85; see also Ronald W. Walker, “President Young Writes Jefferson Davis about the Gunnison Massacre Affair,” BYU Studies 35, no. 1 (1995): 146–70.

38 Steptoe to Manypenny, April 5, 1855, Ex. Doc. 71, 178–79; Sylvester Mowry, List of Camps and Distances from Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to Fort Tejon, California, 12, Selected Letters from Sylvester Mowry, 1854–1855, MIC A 106, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City (hereafter USHS); Hurt to Manypenny, May 2, 1855, in Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1857 (Washington, D.C.: William A. Harris, 1858), 306.

Garland Hurt, a St. Louis physician, arrived in Utah Territory in February 1855 to serve as an Indian agent, an organizational subordinate of Young in the office of Indian affairs. His letters and reports to his superiors in Washington helped confirm the image of a subversive Mormon-Indian relationship. Hurt primarily criticized the Mormon missionaries because they taught the Indians their theology and gave gifts 39 National Era, May 24, 1855. Emphasis in the original.

40 Steptoe to Manypenny, April 5, 1855, Ex. Doc. 71, 178–79.

41 Bangor (ME) Daily Whig and Courier, May 22, 1855; Christian Advocate and Journal (New York), July 19, 1855.

In a forthcoming book, W. Paul Reeve explores MormonIndian relations and the racialized social constructs of Mormons and Indians merging through their perceived alliances. W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming), chapter 5.

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in the form of food and clothing, paid for by the U.S. government but attributed to LDS largesse.

The Indian agent was so disgusted with Mormon missionary practices that he went over Young’s head to Washington. Hurt reported to Commissioner of Indian Affairs George Manypenny that soon after his arrival in Utah he “became impressed with the fact that the Indians had made a distinction between Mormons and Americans, which was calculated to operate to the prejudice of the interests and policy of government towards them.”42 The Indian agent explained his distress, stating that every tribe on the continent would receive a visit from the Mormons and that their missionaries would teach the “wretched savages that they are the rightful owners of the American soil, and that it has been wrongfully taken from them” by the United States.43

42 Hurt to Manypenny, August 30, 1856, U.S. Indian Affairs Department Correspondence, 1855–1859, MSS A 458, USHS. 43 Hurt to Manypenny, May 2, 1855, in Annual Report, 1857, 305.

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The Indian agent Garland Hurt, pictured here in 1874.

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Based on his observations and from his interactions with Great Basin Indians during his time in Utah, Steptoe stated that the Indians in the territory had learned “for the first time, what relation they hold to the government, and that to it alone they must look for encouragement in well doing, or chastisement for misconduct.”40 Steptoe earnestly asked for the full support of the government to establish federal control over Indian administration in the territory.

Steptoe’s report triggered a fear that Young had plotted to usurp the “authority of our sovereignty” and that his “tribe” reigned with undisputed sovereignty over a large territory of the American Union.41 Steptoe’s report foreshadowed a growing belief that LDS missionaries and their teachings had uniformly created a distinction between members of their church and government agents in order to create an alliance against the United States.

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Steptoe’s detachment assisted in the apprehension of a few Pahvants who were brought to trial and found guilty of manslaughter. The result of the Gunnison trial, including the all-Mormon jury’s refusal to try the case as murder and the subsequent escape of three convicted Indians from prison, also helped influence public perception about Mormon-Indian relations.

According to one account in the eastern press, the outcome of the Gunnison trial was due “entirely to the interference of the Mormons, who seem to be in league with the Indians in resisting the authority of the United States.”39

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In a May 1855 letter to Manypenny, Hurt categorized Mormon Indian missionaries as “a class of rude and lawless young men, such as might be regarded as a curse to any civilized community,” and offered a legal means to remedy the problems he saw in Mormon Indian policy.

Hurt indicated that “the conduct of these Mormon missionaries be subjected to the strictest scrutiny, and that the 13th and 14th sections of the ‘Act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers,’ he properly enforced.”44 The Mormons were no strangers to the Trade and Intercourse Act. In late 1851 and early 1852, Mormon officials used the act to arrest and convict Don Pedro León Luján, a New Mexican who traded with Utes for Indian captives without a proper license in Utah. At that time, Mormons attempted to combat the Mexican-Indian slave trade and employed the Trade and Intercourse Act as the legal means to do so.45 Just as the Mormons utilized the Intercourse Act as a legal means to thwart the Indian slave trade, Hurt and others accused the Mormons of violating the act as the means to curb the Mormon influence over the region’s indigenous peoples and to promote federal authority.

Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles E. Mix received Hurt’s letter in July 1855.46 Within a month, Mix wrote to Secretary of the Interior Robert McClelland regarding the Mormons’ Indian policy. Mix stated that the Mormon missionaries had “either accidentally or purposely created a distinction in the minds of the Indian tribes of the Territory between the Mormons and the citizens of the United States which must prove prejudicial to the interests of the latter.”47 Mix pled with McClelland to send a permanent body of U.S. troops to Utah to scrutinize and regulate Mormon actions and teachings. Mix warned that the federal government needed to intervene “as a precautionary step to preserve the harmony of our relations with the 44 Ibid., 306. Emphasis in original.

45 Sondra Jones, “The Trial of Don Pedro León: Politics, Prejudice, and Pragmatism,” Utah Historical Quarterly 65, no. 2 (1997): 165–68.

Indian tribes” and prohibit potential Mormon designs to interrupt the peace and turn the Indians against American travelers and the government in general.48 McClelland apparently took no action at this time, but Hurt’s many letters were kept on file and were eventually included in the official report on the factors that led to the military expedition to Utah.

Hurt wrote still more letters on Mormon-Indian relations to John M. Elliott, a congressional representative from Kentucky. In one letter, Utah’s Indian agent labeled Mormon missionaries as “unprincipled men” who sought to prejudice the minds of the indigenous population against the federal government and himself as its accredited agent through their “debasing and corrupting doctrines.” He further implied that the Mormons must be made to respect the laws and institutions of the government “or reap the penalties.”49 Hurt asked that Elliott use his influence to advise the president, the secretary of the interior, and the commissioner of Indian affairs on his report, which Elliott forwarded to the commissioner in December 1856.50 Hurt’s reports and observations suggested the importance of maintaining federal laws in Utah Territory and of combating the messages delivered by missionaries that could potentially form divisions between Mormons and Americans in the minds of the region’s indigenous population.

In late October 1856, Hurt sent a letter to Brigham Young. In it, Hurt stated, “Soon after commencing my labors among the Indians of this territory, I learned that they made a distinction between Mormons and Americans, which I thought was not altogether compatible with correct policy, believing that it would ultimately operate to the prejudice of one or the other party.” According to his letter, Hurt had expressed his views “on all suitable occasions” and had endeavored to teach the Indians that “no distinction” existed between “the two classes, but that we were all the Great Father’s people.” Hurt noted his disappointment with Mormon men who would “so far forget themselves, and the relations they 48 Mix, Memoranda, August 15, 1855, Ex. Doc. 71, 177–78.

46 Charles E. Mix, Memoranda for Secretary of the Interior, August 15, 1855, Ex. Doc. 71, 177–78.

49 Hurt to Elliott, October 1, 1856, Letters Received, Utah Superintendency, roll 898, M 234, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, NARA.

47 Mix to McClelland, July 10, 1855, in Annual Report, 1857, 306.

50 Elliott to Manypenny, December 20, 1856, Letters Received, Utah Superintendency.

56 Washington, D.C., Daily National Intelligencer, April 20, 1857; see also National Era, May 24, 1855; Philadelphia North American and United States Gazette, January 20, 1857; Prucha, Documents, 91.

57 Prucha, Documents, 91.

51 Hurt to Young, October 31, 1856, Ex. Doc. 71, 181–82.

52 Hurt to Young, September 1856, in George W. Manypenny, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1856 (Washington, D.C.: William A. Harris, 1857), 228; National Era, June 28, 1855.

53 Francis Paul Prucha, Indian Policy in the United States: Historical Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 37.

54 Letter to James Barbour, Secretary of War, March 1, 1826, American State Papers, Indian Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1834), 2:653, available online at memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsplink.html; Jay H. Buckley, William Clark: Indian Diplomat (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), 165–71.

55 Richard E. Jensen, ed., The Pawnee Mission Letters, 1834–1851 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), xxx, 81; extract from the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 25, 1838, in Prucha, Documents, 72–73.

58 For more on Mowry and his disposition towards the Mormons, see William P. MacKinnon, “Sex, Subalterns, and Steptoe: Army Behavior, Mormon Rage, and Utah War Anxieties,” Utah Historical Quarterly 76, no. 3 (2008): 227–46.

59 Mowry, List of Camps, 12. In an August 1856 letter, Utah Deputy Surveyor Columbus L. Craig similarly observed Mormon Indian policy. Prejudicial to surveying operations in Utah, Craig stated, “Arapeen, a noted chief of the Ute nation, who has been baptized in the church, said to me, afterwards that he ‘had been told

by Mormons, in Salt Lake City, that we intended, after surveying the lands, to put the Indians in chains, and drive off the Mormons.’ These facts, given to us by the Indians themselves, confirm a suspicion which I have had respecting the policy which the Mormons have been pursuing in regard to the Indians, which is, that they have been endeavoring in every possible way to establish a difference between Mormons and Americans, to prejudice them against the latter.” Columbus L. Craig

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Sylvester Mowry, a second lieutenant under Steptoe’s command, also observed that Mormons taught regional Indians that a difference existed between themselves and Americans.58 In a report to the U.S. Army adjutant general in July 1855, Mowry stated “that the Utah Indians inhabiting the Valleys of Salt Lake, Juab and Fillmore had been taught that the Mormons were a superior people to the Americans, and that the Americans were the natural enemies of the Indians, while the Mormons were their friends and allies.”59 Mowry explained that

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The education of Native groups during the Jacksonian era was merely one device to gain influence over them.53 The idea behind removal, advocated by William Clark and others, was to move Indians beyond contact with whites where they could be taught farming by federal agents, live in houses on private property, and learn to improve their condition.54 Among the federally approved agents who interacted with Indians were a federal field representative (often an Indian agent or subagent who was appointed by the president with congressional consent) and other whites employed by the Office of Indian Affairs, including religious missionaries, farmers, teachers, and blacksmiths.

Groups like the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions or the Missionary Society for the Methodist Episcopal Church typically recommended potential employees to the federal Indian office.55 With the federal government’s consent, small groups of Protestant men and women carried out the missions to the Indians in the antebellum West. The largest— and primary—difference between those missionaries and Mormon missionaries was that

in the former, small groups of men and women from different religions went west and created missions to Indians with federal sanction. Mormons, on the other hand, had a unique religion, were sanctioned by the government only inasmuch as Brigham Young was the de facto superintendent of Indian affairs, and belonged to a large, cohesive, and semi-autonomous group that lived among the Indians. Through their missions, the Mormons became the primary white contacts of Indians in the Great Basin, which created a fear of a large Mormon-Indian alliance against the United States.56 Though the federal government entrusted other religious groups with communicating and interacting with Indians, officials in that body—particularly those in the Office of Indian Affairs—apparently became uncomfortable with the Mormon proselytizing program.57

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sustain, both to Indians and to government, as to be guilty of gross misrepresentations so fatal to their own peace and prosperity.”51 When federal officials observed the ways in which Mormons represented themselves as different from other Americans, perhaps they perceived the Mormons as not loyal citizens. Finally, in a separate letter Hurt condemned what he viewed as the introduction of improper conduct toward and education of the area’s indigenous groups.52

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during his march along the Santa Clara, Virgin, Muddy, and Vegas Rivers he encountered “several hundred Warriors who had undergone the same tutelage.” “In each tribe,” he stated, “two or more Mormon Missionaries were found, whose object was to impress upon the Indians the belief in the inferiority and hostility of the Americans and the superiority and friendship of the Mormons.”60 In these conversations reported by Mowry, indigenous peoples, as conveyors of information, helped to shape and confirm the idea of Mormon influence over the region’s Native groups. To counteract what he considered a “mischievous impression made upon them by the Mormons,” Mowry added that he “‘talked’ with all the Chiefs explained to them the true relation existing between Americans and Mormons.”61 “The enmity of the Mormons went so far in one instance,” Mowry detailed, To induce the Chief of the Pah-Utes of the Muddy River to believe that my Command was on its way to attack his tribe. The Squaws and children were hurried into the Canons, and when I arrived on the Muddy the whole tribe was in “War paint” to receive me. By kindness I so completely changed the opinion of this Chief that he followed the train some miles to “renew the assurances” of his friendship towards all Americans.62 The Paiutes may have observed the response their words and actions elicited and perhaps used this opportunity to leverage economic or material benefit from their conversation.

It is not clear if Mowry or anyone in his detachment spoke any Indian dialect, let alone Paiute. Native Americans in the “Valleys of Salt Lake, Juab and Fillmore” likely had a limited command of the English language. Therefore, it is difficult to discern how much of the conversation and corrective offered by Mowry

in his report actually occurred. Nevertheless, the Indians decided to share information with Mowry and other federal agents they encountered, which became vital to the agents’ understanding of Indian relations in Utah and added to the tensions between the Mormons and the federal government. The information they chose to share prompted federal agents to consider that the messages Mormons delivered amongst the region’s indigenous groups would hinder larger federal efforts in the territory.

According to the reports they sent to Washington—based partly on the information received from the Native peoples—Mowry, like Hurt and Steptoe, argued that the teachings of the Mormons contradicted the aims of the federal government and its agents. While Mormons and federal agents competed over how best to manage the Indians, Native actions and reactions to the competing entities often informed white decision making.

Mowry requested that troops “be sent over this route every year, with instructions to the Commanding Officer to seek for opportunities to meet the Indians and assure them by kindness and by presents of the real strength and good intentions of the Government towards them.

If some such precaution is not taken I am satisfied they will become formidable allies of the Mormons.”63 The lieutenant echoed the fear of others that the Mormons’ influence with the Indians was problematic and identified some of the most powerful tribal leaders of the region, including Wákara, Arapeen, and Kanosh, as chiefs who became members of the LDS church.64 Like Steptoe and Gunnison before him, Mowry concluded that beneficial Indian relations and federal control in the region required a permanent armed presence to safeguard travel routes and halt the growth of the potential Mormon-Indian alliance.

60 Mowry, List of Camps, 12.

Reports to the commissioner of Indian Affairs from Utah’s Indian agents, missives from army officers who had previously served in Utah, other federal reports, and press accounts all expressed misgivings about Mormon missionaries exciting prejudices among the region’s tribes contrary to the interests and policy of the federal government and in direct violation

61 Ibid.

63 Ibid.

62 Ibid., 13–14.

64 Ibid.

to David H. Burr, August 1, 1856, 116–17. Thomas A. Hendricks to Jacob Thompson, February 3, 1858, 114, and David H. Burr to Thomas A. Hendricks, August 30, 1856, 115–16, Ex. Doc. 71.

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65 Hurt to Manypenny, May 2, 1855, in Annual Report, 1857, 305.

66 Prucha, Documents, 65. Prucha’s edited volume contains the full text of the Trade and Intercourse Act, U.S. Statutes at Large, 4:729–35.

67 The act’s tenth section reads, “That the superintendent of Indian affairs, and Indian agents and sub-agents, shall have authority to remove from the Indian country

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Two sections of the Trade and Intercourse Act also empowered the U.S. president with the legal authority to send forth the army to apprehend anyone breaking this law.67 Though

Garland Hurt at an Indian farm in 1856.

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of the Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834.65 Section thirteen of that act declared illegal “any citizen or other person residing within the United States or the territory thereof, [to] send any talk, speech, message, or letter to any Indian nation, tribe, chief, or individual, with an intent to produce a contravention or infraction of any treaty or other law of the United States, or to disturb the peace and tranquility of the United States.”

Section fourteen further held that anyone who knowingly transmitted such a communication “to or from any Indian nation, tribe, chief, or individual” faced a large fine. Finally, section fifteen punished anyone who “shall alienate, or attempt to alienate, the confidence” of Native Americans from the government.66 According to federal representatives, the Mormons had indeed alienated Great Basin Indians from other American citizens and especially the U.S. government through their teachings and gift-giving practices.

263 reports and letters from federal representatives in Utah may have been flawed or somewhat exaggerated, they provided evidence of Mormons violating that act and they were the primary pieces of intelligence that key members of the federal government in Washington read and understood. Mormon missionary diaries and the church’s newspaper, the Deseret News, likewise suggested that the Mormons were attempting to ally with the Indians both to influence them and to prove themselves more friendly than U.S. government officials.68 The 1834 act authorized the president to use all persons found therein contrary to law; and the President of the United States is authorized to direct the military force to be employed in such removal.” In addition, the twenty-third section states “that it shall be lawful for the military force of the United States to be employed in such manner and under such regulations as the President may direct, in the apprehension of every person who shall or may be found in the Indian country in violation of any of the provisions of this act.” Prucha, Documents, 65–66. See also Mix to McClelland, August 15, 1855, in Annual Report, 1857, 307–308.

68 Brooks, Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 25, 133; Bean, Journal, December 1, 30, 1855, CHL.

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military force against all persons in a given territory acting contrary to that law; officials in Washington, knowing only what they read in the reports from their agents in Utah and perhaps what they read in the newspapers, believed that the Mormons and their missionaries had violated federal law.69

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Early 1857 brought legislative changes to territorial Indian affairs intended to provide more structure and federal control over the West.

Congress renewed George Manypenny’s 1854 effort for efficiency in Indian affairs by separating “the governorship from the office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs.”70 Congress enacted legislation dividing the dual responsibilities combined in the office of superintendent of Indian affairs and governor in the territories of Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. On March 3, 1857, Congress authorized the discontinuance of the combined office in these western territories by passing the Indian Appropriations Act. Section three of the act concluded with a great assertion of federal power over territorial Indian policy by stipulating that the superintendents of Indian affairs in those four territories could not negotiate treaties with any tribes “unless instructed thereto by the President of the United States.”71 The Appropriations Act began to change the dynamics of power in Utah Territory, as one man—Brigham Young—no longer legally supervised the interests of both whites and American Indians.72 69 Trade and Intercourse Act, Section 23, U.S. Statutes at Large, 4:729–35.

70 According to acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles E. Mix, “As early as April 10, 1854, this office made a report to the department, requesting that immediate steps should be taken to separate the superintendency of Indian affairs for Utah from the office of governor of said Territory, which, however, was not effected until during the last session (the thirtyfourth) of Congress.” Mix to Jacob Thompson, February 22, 1858, Ex. Doc. 71, 125; see also George W. Manypenny, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Washington D.C., 1855), 14.

71 Indian Appropriations Act, Laws of the United States, Appendix to the Cong. Globe, 34th Cong., 3d Sess.

(1857), 408.

72 Nevertheless, during the Utah War, Young continued to refer to himself as both governor and superintendent.

In a letter to the commander of the army, dated September 29, 1857, Young stated, “I am still the governor and superintendent of Indian affairs for this Territory, no successor having been appointed and

Both the 1857 Indian Appropriations Act and the 1834 Trade and Intercourse Act clarified, if not established, the president’s power over federal territories and in Indian affairs. In addition to making the negotiation of territorial Indian treaties a presidential prerogative, the Appropriations Act placed the power to appoint superintendents of Indian affairs in the four western territories with the president.73 The Mormons, primarily through their missionaries, had reportedly inflamed insubordination and discontent amongst Great Basin Indians against American citizens; accordingly, the federal government moved to sustain its legal position toward Native Americans and the territories by giving itself the necessary power and the means of enforcement.74 On May 28, 1857—nearly three months after the Indian Appropriations Act passed and in what became known as the Utah War—President James Buchanan ordered 2,500 troops to Utah for the purpose of vindicating national sovereignty in Utah. Buchanan appointed judges; a new governor, Alfred Cumming of Georgia; and a new superintendent of Indian affairs for Utah, Jacob Forney. For their protection, he sent these officials with a substantial military force, which, if called upon by the governor, was to act as a posse comitatus in the execution of the laws.75 Secretary of State Lewis Cass wrote to Cumming in July 1857 and told the new governor that the president was “determined to exert all the requisite power of the Executive to preserve the authority of the law in the qualified as provided by law, nor have I been removed by the President of the United States.” Though Young technically remained governor until Alfred Cumming arrived in the territory and took the oath of office at Fort Bridger in November 1857, his official role as superintendent of Indian affairs ended on March 3, 1857. Jacob Forney did not relieve Young of his duties as superintendent of Indian affairs until he arrived in Utah in November 1857. Brigham Young to the Officer Commanding the Forces now invading Utah Territory, September 29, 1857, in Message from the President, 35th Cong., 1 Sess., Ex. Doc. 2 (December 16, 1857), 32 (hereafter Ex. Doc. 2); Indian Appropriations Act (1857), 408.

73 Indian Appropriations Act (1857), 408.

74 John B. Floyd, Report of the Secretary of War, Ex. Doc. 2, 16.

75 James Buchanan, First Annual Message of the President, December 8, 1857, Journal of the Senate, 25. See also Joan M. Jensen, Army Surveillance in America, 1775–1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 20.

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In his cover letter to the “copies of all papers on file in the Indian office,” Mix singled out the claims of Jacob Holeman and Garland Hurt. Mix reiterated what Holeman had stated in 1851, that “Brigham Young ‘made use of his office as superintendent and of the money of the government to promote the interests of his church.’”

The acting commissioner also summarized Hurt’s 1855 correspondence and emphasized that the Mormons intended “to teach them that the Indians were the rightful owners of the American soil, that it had been wrongfully taken from them by the whites, and that the Great Spirit had sent the Mormons among them to help them recover their rights.”79 In a private letter not included in the official report, the former Utah Territory chief justice John Kinney similarly advised the White House on the state of affairs in the Great Basin. Among Kinney’s six points were that the “Mormons

76 Cass to Cumming, July 30, 1857, Brigham Young Papers.

77 Message from the President, Ex. Doc. 2, 25.

78 Eighty-seven of 215 pages of the Buchanan adminis-

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In early December 1857, Buchanan delivered his first annual message to Congress and to the American people, which included a section on the decision to send federal troops to Utah Territory. The president highlighted the growing national fear that as superintendent of Indian affairs in Utah Territory, Brigham Young “has had an opportunity of tampering with the Indian tribes, and exciting their hostile feelings against the United States.”77 In the Buchanan administration’s official report on the intelligence that informed the decision to order a military expedition to Utah Territory, nearly a third of the number of documents contained in the report concerned Indian affairs. Those forty-six documents described the “policy pursued by the Mormons,” which the then-acting commissioner of Indian affairs Charles Mix believed “aimed at the establishment of an independent Mormon empire” by inciting Indians to malicious activities against all non-Mormons in the territory.78

courtesy w. paul reeve

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This April 1858 cartoon from Yankee Notions depicts the perception of a Mormon-Indian alliance against the federal government.

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Territory of Utah.”76 Executing or enforcing federal law in the territory was the key motive in sending the army to Utah. The federal government believed that Utahns had failed to uphold federal law. Among the laws that its officers perceived as violated were federal Indian laws: laws that empowered the president to send an army against people acting contrary to them.

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tration’s official report on the Utah War concerned Indian affairs. Ex. Doc. 71, 124–211; Bigler and Bagley, Mormon Rebellion, 11.

79 Charles E. Mix to Jacob Thompson, February 22, 1858, Ex. Doc. 71, 125.

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are inimical to the U.S. Government” and that they send out men “every year for the ostensible purpose of converting Indians but really to poison their minds against the government and Americans and also to make them their allies in case of any difficulty with the U.S.”80 This letter demonstrates that Buchanan and his cabinet knew of and had received documents additional to those printed in the official report that the public and Congress were not aware of when they acted. The Buchanan administration decided to send the army to Utah in part because of the voluminous documents on difficulties with the Mormons concerning Indian affairs and because of the administration’s belief that Mormon missionaries were breaking the laws of the United States by attempting to turn Native Americans into hostile enemies.81 A restoration of federal authority in Utah Territory was therefore in order; this required that U.S. troops go to Utah Territory to enforce federal Indian policy.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs James W. Denver and Brigham Young conducted little correspondence, but in the fall of 1857, in the midst of the Utah War, they exchanged a few intense letters on Indian policy and the presence of the army in Utah. Young, writing on September 12 with vouchers for expenditures on Indian affairs, reported that Native raiders had taken the lives of many emigrants and a great deal of property. He stated that the reason for the widespread raiding was the abhorrent practice of overland travelers “shooting at every Indian they could see.” Because of that practice, he suggested, “the Indians regard all white men alike their enemies, and kill and plunder whenever they can do so with impunity, and often the innocent suffer for the deeds of the guilty.” Young’s statement implicitly dismissed the ideas of a Mormon-Indian alliance by likening all white people in relation to indigenous people. He continued,

80 Kinney to Jeremiah Black, March 20, 1857, in William P. MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858 (Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, 2008), 110.

81 Winfield Scott to John B. Floyd, May 26, 1857, in M. Hamlin Cannon, “Winfield Scott and the Utah Expedition,” Military Affairs 5 (1941): 208–211; Mix to Thompson, Ex. Doc. 71, 125.

It is hard to make an Indian believe that the whites are their friends, and that the Great Father wishes to do them good, when, perhaps, the very next party which crosses their path shoots them down like wolves. This trouble with the Indians only exists along the line of travel west, and beyond the influence of our settlements.

The Mormon leader further expressed his concern over the coming of the army. Though white settlers in other frontier territories typically requested military protection, the governor considered the stationing of the army in Utah superfluous and potentially damaging to the territory’s white inhabitants, who already had precarious relations with Native peoples.

As a thinly veiled threat Young stated, “The troops must be kept away, for it is a prevalent fact that, wherever there are the most of these we may expect to find the greatest amount of hostile Indians and the least security to persons and property.”82 In November 1857, Denver wrote a return missive. The commissioner emphasized to Young the necessity of stationing troops in the heart of the territory by alluding to reports that the Mormons had violated the federal Trade and Intercourse Act by arousing Great Basin Indians to animosity against the United States and its citizens. Denver advised Young that the Department of the Interior had learned from reliable sources that, rather than encourage good relations between Indians and Americans, “you have studiously endeavored to impress on the minds of the Indians that there was a difference between your own sect . . . and the Government, and other citizens of the United States—that the former were their friends and the latter their enemies.”83 The commissioner expressed regret that such a state of affairs existed but noted that the president made the decision to send the army to the territory with “the strong arm 82 Young to Denver, September 12, 1857, Brigham Young Papers.

83 Denver to Young, November 11, 1857, Letters Sent, 1824–1886, M21, Records of the Office of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, NARA. For more on Denver’s tenure as commissioner, see Robert M. Kvasnicka and Herman J. Viola, eds. The Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824– 1977 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 70– 73.

During this period of tension, unrelated violence broke out in southern Utah Territory.

Between September 7 and 11, 1857, approximately 120 California-bound emigrants from Arkansas and Missouri were killed at Mountain Meadows near Cedar City. Mormon settlers in southern Utah, aided by some Native Americans, perpetrated this brutal massacre. The massacre came to symbolize Mormon savagery in the national media in the years and decades following the Utah War. The incident also seemingly affirmed the idea behind the Mormon-Indian alliance, as the press stereotyped Mormons and Indians and portrayed them as working together to perpetrate this crime. The 84 Denver to Young, November 12, 1857, Letters Sent, 1824– 1886.

In the early months of 1858, newspaper coverage about the Utah War speculated wildly on the strength of the Indian-Mormon alliance. The San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin wrote of a group of Comanche and Cheyenne Indians “who had been led to believe that the Mormons had 80,000 fighting [indigenous] men well equipped for service, [who] were to be employed in the spring, under Mormon influence, in harassing and cutting off supply trains sent to the relief of Colonel Johnston.”89 On April 28, 1858, the New York Herald ran 87 Among the studies to consider on Mountain Meadows are Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950); Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004); Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Douglas Seefeldt, “Horrible Massacre of Emigrants!!: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse,” accessed June 18, 2014, http://mountainmeadows.unl. edu. See also Gary Bunker and Davis Bitton, “Illustrated Periodical Images of Mormons, 1850–1860,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10 (1977): 90.

85 Ibid.

88 John B. Weller, Inaugural Address, January 8, 1858, California State Library, Sacramento.

86 Dimick B. Huntington, Journal, 1845–1859, August 10, 16, September 1, 1857, MS 1419, CHL.

89 San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, February 16, 1858; Ripley (OH) Bee, January 23, 1858.

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As the U.S. Army approached Utah Territory in the late summer of 1857, the question of a Mormon-Indian military alliance remained. It is unclear to what extent Mormons approached regional Native groups regarding such an alliance, or vice versa; it seems, however, some overtures were made. In mid-August 1857, Dimick Huntington met with various bands of Utes and Goshutes spreading the message that the army would kill the Mormons and then all of the Native peoples. Huntington told the Utes and Goshutes he met with that “they and the Mormons was one.” In early September 1857, Huntington and Young encouraged Anterro, a leader of the Uintah Utes, to “be at peace with all men except the Americans.”86

In early 1858, public discourse continued to propagate the idea of a subversive Mormon-Indian alliance. In January 1858, with the Utah War still unresolved, California Governor John Weller made the connection between the two groups several times in his inaugural address.

As he discussed overland emigration to the Pacific Coast, Weller suggested, “The Mormons and Indians on the one hand, are a heartless monopoly, having no sympathy with our people (and) on the other, may diminish this immigration, so essential in developing the resources of the state.”88 Weller, like much of the rest of the nation, believed that the army could diminish the power of a Mormon-Indian alliance and make the region safe for continued American expansion.

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Denver concluded by lambasting Young’s tenure as governor and superintendent of Indian affairs. He believed that Young, as “a subordinate officer,” had forgotten his duty and had done nothing but use “his official position” to “injure” overland emigrants—“his fellow-citizens”—and to “alienate” the region’s indigenous peoples “from loyalty to their government.”85 He concluded by employing the language of the Trade and Intercourse Act in yet another allusion to the belief of federal agents that the Mormons had violated that law.

massacre likewise offered another, later, opportunity for the federal government to encroach on the Mormons as investigators probed the crime for decades after its occurrence. Violence in the territory was real, whatever the motives behind the Mountain Meadows massacre.87

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of power to compel obedience” to federal laws, particularly those concerning Indian policy.84

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Native peoples were acting on their own. . . . The Mormons did not and could not control them.

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an article on the Utah War and the reported ongoing efforts of Mormon missionaries among the Indians on the route between Salt Lake City and San Bernardino “to organize the tribes and precipitate hostilities with the United States.”90 These reports added to earlier speculation about a Mormon-Indian alliance. For instance,

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a Norristown, Pennsylvania, newspaper worried that the Mormons had “20,000 Indian allies, whom they are ready to furnish with arms and horses in an emergency. These Indians are partially instructed in the Mormon religion— enough to make them superstitious in regard to the God of a superior race, yet modifying none of their ferocity.”91 Indian and Mormon complicity was also feared in the Pacific Northwest, where Mormons had sent emissaries to “many of the Indians of Oregon” and had allegedly prepared them to “join the Mormon force.”92 Another report from the Nashville Daily News exaggerated the closeness of “numerous bands of the Piute Indians, who were well armed, pretty comfortably attired, and apparently on very good terms with the Mormons.” The Tennessee newspaper also reported, “There is no question that the Mormons in all the settlements are fully posted on the war question and the Indians seem quite as much interested.”93 Other newspapers reported that Young and “350 of his followers” had visited “the Bannaks, Flatheads, and Nezperces” for the “purpose of uniting them with his own forces against the

92 See Ripley (OH) Bee, November 7, 1857.

93 Nashville Daily News, January 31, 1858.

In late 1857 and early 1858, Brigham Young corresponded with regional tribal leaders. His letters do not paint the portrait of a martial alliance. In November, Young explained in a letter to Washakie, the leader of a band of Shoshone, that the army was coming to fight the Mormons. Young articulated his desire to see the Shoshone remain neutral and expressed hope that Washakie and his band would not join the Americans in fighting against the Mormons.

Young could not be sure of what actions the Shoshone or any other Native band would take at this time of conflict. The Mormon leader’s letter indicates that neither he nor his followers could have controlled the Shoshone. It also suggests that their alliance, if they had one at all, was in flux.95 In January 1858, a Ute leader named Arapeen wrote to Young to ask why the Americans were coming to fight the Mormons and the Indians.

Arapeen proposed to fight against the troops.

Via an unknown interpreter, the Ute leader stated, Tell them that I am not afriad of them I know how to fight & I under stand all about the mountain tell the Americans that I have got a plenty of Powder & lead Guns & caps & I now how to use them & that they must not come on my Land to shead bllood . . . if they will not hear good counsil they will find me & my men a verry formidable fo.96

94 Lowell (MA) Daily Citizen and News, June 8, 1857; see also New York Herald, December 1, 1857.

90 New York Herald, April 28, 1858.

91 Norristown Register and Montgomery November 24, December 8, 1857.

general government. If the matter comes to blows, Brigham will stop the emigration across the plains, and take possession of the country.”94 Though these types of reports informed what the public “knew” about Utah and the West at the time, outside of them and the perceptions of federal officials, no evidence confirms the supposition that Mormons and local indigenous groups had formed a military alliance against the United States. In fact, some evidence suggests the opposite.

Democrat,

95 Young to Washakie, November 2, 1857, Brigham Young Papers.

96 “Arrapine” to Young, January 3, 1858, Brigham Young Papers.

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The next month, Arapeen sent another letter to Young that demonstrated his intent to fight with the Mormons against the army. The Ute leader told Young that the army had tried to “hire the Indians to take the Mormon Cattle & Horses in the Spring,” though Arapeen encouraged his people to avoid the army and that type of behavior. Arapeen then stated, “If the americans come here and want to drive the Mormons from this land I will geather all the indians from the sorounding mountains and fight them untill they will be glad for peace.”97 Young appears to have encouraged neutrality and, while Arapeen seemed willing to form an alliance with the Mormons to fight the Americans, or to fight them outright, the LDS leader evidently did not take Arapeen up on his offer. If Young did indeed control the Indians and could call tens of thousands of Native allies to arms as the American public believed, these and other letters do

97 “Arapene” to Young, February 28, 1858, Brigham Young Papers. For a similar situation, see Jacob Hamblin, Diary, December 23, 1854, Jacob Hamblin Papers, 1850–1877, MS 1951, CHL; and Todd M. Compton, A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013), 67–68.

A group of Shoshone Indians, including Chief Washakie (center front).

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utah state historical society

not so indicate.98 They place significant doubt on that idea and instead shed light onto the decisions of Native Americans to act according to their best interests in the winter of 1858.

After the army arrived in Utah Territory, reports from federal officials in Utah allowed those in Washington to perceive that the balance of power had shifted and relations with Native Americans had changed in the Great Basin. The newly arrived superintendent of Indian affairs for Utah Territory, Jacob Forney, who had been appointed to his post on August 27, 1857, labored amongst as many indigenous groups as he could to ascertain their loyalty to the government. He sought to prevent them from assisting 98 See also Young to Ben Simons, March 22, 1858, Brigham Young Papers.

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the Mormons in the ongoing conflict with the United States. In an early February 1858 letter to Charles Mix, Forney quieted the rumor of a large-scale Mormon-Indian alliance. He wrote, “I see it stated in the papers, & the impression seems to be general, that some of the Indian tribes, are in the employ of B. Young, there is no truth in this, & I think I stated so, to the Department, in my communications.”99 Though the reports of other federal officials and newspapers suggested a widespread Mormon-Indian conspiracy, Forney’s assessment of the realities on the ground indicated that Native peoples were acting on their own and making decisions for their own best interests. The Mormons did not and could not control them.

However, Forney also sent a mixed message as he declared that the Mormons frequently importuned the indigenous groups “to steal from & murder emigrants.” While he indicated that he observed little truth to the reports of a large-scale Mormon-Indian alliance, he simultaneously accused the Mormons—as had earlier accounts—of using their influence with Indians in nefarious ways.100 Nevertheless, in a September 1858 letter, Forney wrote that his endeavors to establish peaceful relations with territorial Indians had proven successful beyond his expectations. The superintendent concluded his letter with a strong declaration: “This route to California is now free from all danger from Indians.”101 The new territorial governor, Alfred Cumming, similarly apprised Secretary of State Lewis Cass in 1858 “that emigrants and others adopting the usual precautions for their safety against the Indians, may pass through Utah Territory without hindrance or molestation.”102 Just a few months after the arrival of the army and new federal officials in Utah, the government’s officers reported their perceived success in controlling the territory, its arteries of travel, and its Indian affairs.

President Buchanan lauded the efforts of the army in his second annual message, which he delivered on December 6, 1858. Buchanan’s speech revealed some of his administration’s desired outcomes in sending the army to Utah. “The march of the army to Salt Lake city, through the Indian Territory,” he asserted, “has had a powerful effect in restraining the hostile feelings against the United States which existed among the Indians in that region, and in securing emigrants to the Far West against their depredations. This will also be the means of establishing military posts and promoting settlements along the route” to expand federal influence.103 The president’s specific mention of the effect of the military on Indian affairs in Utah was significant. In an early draft of his message, Buchanan stated that the march of the army had a “happy” effect on Indian relations, but he changed the wording to “powerful,” likely to demonstrate the importance of that action in protecting federal law and extending federal sovereignty in the territory.104 Because of the Utah War, the army established two major military posts in Utah Territory for surveillance, protection, and the promotion of settlement. Strategically considered, Camp Floyd and Fort Bridger occupied commanding positions on important lines of travel and were located in close proximity to both Mormon settlements and indigenous homelands. At the end of 1858, with the new governor in place and the army stationed in Utah Territory, the president felt satisfied that the federal government now controlled that critical geographic crossroads and its peoples.105 Indian administration was a major focal point of federal activity in the West. On one hand, the government gave civil administrators the primary responsibility for organizing and managing settlement and expansion.106 The federal government accepted the numerous, if some

103 James Buchanan, Second Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1858, Journal of the Senate, 15.

99 Forney to Mix, February 10, 1858, Indian Affairs Correspondence, USHS. 100 Ibid.

101 Report of the Secretary of the Interior, Ex. Doc. 2, 565.

102 Cumming to Cass, May 12, 1858, Report of the Secretary of War, Ex. Doc. 2, 99.

104 James Buchanan, Notes, etc. Regarding Utah, reel 53, James Buchanan Papers, MS Group 8, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

105 James Buchanan, Mr. Buchanan’s Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion (New York: D. Appleton, 1866), 237–38.

106 Rockwell, Indian Affairs, 2–3.

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times flawed, reports of these administrators, which demonstrated Mormon violation of federal Indian policy, especially the Trade and Intercourse Act.107 On the other hand, Mormon civil administrators, particularly Brigham Young, directed territorial Indian policy in accordance with their religious views; they carried out peacekeeping measures by proselytizing to the indigenous population, which James Buchanan and other federal officials believed “excited their hostile feelings against the United States.”108 Buchanan sent the U.S. Army to enforce federal laws and establish a permanent federal presence in Utah Territory.

As a part of this process, the federal government, through the army, reclaimed national sovereignty over Indian affairs, a vital facet of federal activity in Utah and an important part of the context in which the Utah War occurred.

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Brent M. Rogers is a historian for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. He earned a Ph.D. in nineteenth-century U.S. history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The Mormon History Association gave Rogers its “best dissertation award” in 2014. He wishes to thank W. Paul Reeve for his generosity in sharing the Yankee Notions cartoon pictured herein and for his insightful comments on an earlier iteration of this article.

107 Charles James Faulkner, Speech of the Hon. C. J. Faulkner, of Virginia, in favor of An Increase of the Army and in Opposition to the Employment of Volunteers in Utah, delivered in the House of Representatives, March 9, 1858 (Washington, D.C., 1858).

108 Buchanan, First Annual Message, December 8, 1857, 25.

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WEB EXTRA At history.utah.gov/indian-policy we offer faithful reproductions of some of the primary documents Rogers used to construct his analysis of Indian policy.

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Children at play in Provo, Utah, circa 1890s. —

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The Abuse and Murder of Isaac Whitehouse BY

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A long course of the most inhuman cruelty C A R MAC K

273 On October 28, 1855, James H. Martineau, the Parowan City recorder and Iron County militia adjutant, made a chilling entry in his journal.1 “I heard of the sudden death and burial of an orphan boy named Izaac Whitehouse,” he wrote. “He died last night and was secretly buried in the night.”2 The next day, Martineau made another entry in his journal, detailing the abuses the boy had suffered at the hands of his custodians, Samuel and Elizabeth Baker. Martineau wrote that the body of the boy, who was an orphan of about ten years of age, was dug up and brought to the town hall where H. D. Bayless, the justice of the peace, held an inquest. When the boy’s body was examined, it showed obvious signs of violence. “It was a horrible sight to see,” Martineau wrote. The boy had been partially buried in his dirty clothes and excrement. “His hands and feet had been tied with a cord, (the marks of which were still shown in the flesh) and then he had been placed in a water ditch, and partly chilled and partly drowned.

The Sand had washed into and settled in the folds of his Clothing. His body had large purple spots where he had been kicked or struck, the skin being badly abrazed and broken.”3 1 For a parallel article on the murder of Isaac Whitehouse, see Connell O’Donovan, “The 1855 Murder of Isaac Whitehouse in Parowan, Utah,” Journal of Mormon History 40, no.

4 (Fall 2014).

2 James H. Martineau, Journal, October 28, 1855, Book 1, p. 85, MSS FAC 1499, Henry B. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

3 Ibid.

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When Samuel Baker was confronted with the crime, he denied responsibility, but his wife confessed and showed them the cord with which the boy had been tied. Martineau reported that, during the inquest, “The testimony of the people revealed a long course of the most inhuman cruelty, perpetuated on the poor boy, whose father and mother, dying while on their way here, left him to the care of Mrs. Baker, the sister of his mother. After she got here, she herself became a mother, and hated the boy most intensely, and incited Baker to his cruel deeds.”4 Aside from the grim details of the crime revealed in Martineau’s journal, we know little about the events leading up to Isaac’s horrifying demise. It is known, however, that eight-yearold Isaac Whitehouse had accompanied his parents, Jacob and Rebecca, on the ship Windermere with other westbound Latter-day Saints who left from Liverpool, England, on February 22, 1854. The Whitehouse family, of Watford Locks, Northamptonshire, England, traveled among a total of 477 Mormons under the charge of Daniel Garn, an elder in the church. Isaac, who was later described as “dumb” or mute (sometimes due to deafness or intellectual impairment) was listed as eight years of age, traveling in the company of his parents, a threeyear-old brother, Joseph, and his twenty-eightyear-old unmarried aunt, Elizabeth Ward.5 The record is silent as to the cause of Jacob’s and Rebecca’s deaths, but as many as nine passengers on the Windermere had succumbed to smallpox on the long and dreadful passage from England.6 Adverse winds and heavy gales hampered the first five weeks of travel. Thirty-seven passengers and two crewmen contracted smallpox on the voyage, but “at this crisis the malady 4 Ibid.

5 The passenger list notes Isaac’s father, Jacob, as age thirty-two, and his mother, Rebecca, as age thirty.

Passenger List for Windermere, April 24, 1854, NARA Series M259, roll 39, film no. 200177, LDS Family History Library (hereafter FHL), Salt Lake City, Utah.

For more on the 1854 voyage of the Windermere, see Conway Sonne, Ships, Saints, and Mariners: A Maritime Encyclopedia of Mormon Migration, 1830–1890 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1987).

6 Passenger List for Windermere. While the ship’s captain reported nine deaths, Sonne puts the death toll at ten.

See Sonne, Ships, 200.

was suddenly checked in answer to prayer.”7 After sixty-one days at sea, the Windermere arrived in the Port of New Orleans on April 23, 1854. Isaac’s parents were not listed among the dead who lost their lives to smallpox on the Windermere, but it was reported that a number of passengers died later from illness on the trek west.8 According to Eliza Goodson Jex, who had emigrated with the Windermere company, “Some lost mothers, some fathers, some both and then the poor children were left to the mercy of others which was sorrowful to see.”9As was the common treatment of orphaned children on the journey west, Isaac and his little brother were placed under the care of their aunt to be raised in Utah.10 The Windermere’s roster also listed Samuel George Baker, a pearl worker from Birmingham, and his wife Sarah, noting nothing more than their ages, twenty-four and twenty-eight, respectively. A three-year-old son, Edwin, traveled with them.11 The Baker family had 7 “Church Emigration,” The Contributor 13 (September 1892): 509–10. See also Sonne, Ships, 200.

8 “Foreign Intelligence,” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, June 3, 1854, 345–46. According to William Watton Burton, a traveler in the Garn Company, “We had no new cases of smallpox after leaving New Orleans, but were afflicted with cholera, which proved fatal to many from that time until June 19th, when we commenced our journey over the plains from our camping grounds near Kansas City.” Quote from Burton’s autobiography in Andrew Jenson, ed., Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901), 1:351. For more on overland deaths caused by cholera, see Ramon Powers and Gene Younger, “Cholera on the Overland Trails, 1832–1869,” Kansas Quarterly 5 (Spring 1973): 32–49; and Herbert C. Milikien, “‘Dead of the Bloody Flux’: Cholera Stalks the Emigrant Trail,” Overland Journal 14 (Autumn 1996): 4–11. For the effects of cholera on the Mormon migration, see Patricia Rushton, “Cholera and Its Impact on Nineteenth-Century Mormon Migration,” BYU Studies 44, no. 2 (2005): 123–44.

9 Eliza Goodson Jex, [Autobiography], in Heber Joseph McKell, comp., Jex Genealogy and Family History (Bountiful, UT: Paragon Press, 1963), 47–48.

10 For more on the kind treatment of orphaned children on the overland trail, see Emmy E. Werner, Pioneer Children on the Journey West (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995), 164–67; and Elliott West, “Family Life on the Trail West,” History Today 42 (December 1992): 33–39.

11 The British Mission Register for Windermere lists Samuel, a “Pearl Worker” from Birmingham, his wife Sarah, and a son, Edwin G. Baker. British Mission Registers, Book no. 1040, p. 21, film no. 025,690, Emigration Records, European Mission, FHL.

It is impossible to say when the abuse of Isaac Whitehouse began, but it is not unreasonable to conclude that it took place over the better part of a year, until the end of October 1855, when the boy’s body was discovered. At the inquest, 12 “From a Journal of Alma Eliot Russell: The Baker Family,” accessed April 23, 2014, http//trees.ancestryinstitution. com/tree. According to his grave marker, Franklin was born on May 4, 1854 (Franklin Edward Baker, memorial #120421936, accessed July 28, 2014, www.findagrave. com). His death certificate, however, lists his birth date as August 7, 1854 (“Idaho, Death Certificates, 1911–1937,” film no. 1509302, FHL).

13 For the arrival of Garn’s company in Salt Lake City on October 1, 1854, see “Immigration. Oct. 3,” Deseret News, October 5, 1854; and “Church Emigration,” The Contributor 13 (September 1892): 514.

14 See Leonard J. Arrington, “Planning an Iron Industry for Utah, 1851–1858,” Huntington Library Quarterly 21 (May 1958): 237–60, esp. 255–57; Morris A. Shirts and William T. Parry, “The Demise of the Deseret Iron Company: Failure of the Brick Furnace Lining Technology,” Utah Historical Quarterly 56 (Winter 1988): 23–35; and Morris A. Shirts and Kathryn H. Shirts, A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah’s Iron Mission (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2001), 343–94.

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Samuel Baker (1830–1912), photographed in his later years. Baker was tried and convicted for the murder of Isaac Whitehouse.

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public member tree, ancestry.com

Samuel and Elizabeth initially denied having anything to do with the crime. Martineau described Samuel as being “cool and defiant throughout” the questioning. Elizabeth’s deceit was soon broken, and as the truth came to light, it became clear that Samuel—aided and supported by his wife—had caused the death of their disabled nephew. On October 30, 1855, the day following the inquest, Martineau recorded that Samuel G. Baker and his wife were “cut off from the Church for their crime, by a unanimous vote of all the people.”15 The people of Parowan showed that they would not allow brutal acts of violence to go without justice.

Sometime between the time of the initial inquest and the first two weeks of November, Samuel and Elizabeth made an unsuccessful attempt to escape to California. Unfortunately, Martineau is the only known Parowan diarist to note the escape attempt. No extant account of the tragic affair describes their apprehension, but it is clear that on November 13, the Baker 15 Martineau, Journal, October 30, 1855, Book 1, p. 86.

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After losing his wife to cholera, Samuel Baker now faced a daunting overland trek to Salt Lake City with his three-year-old son and newborn baby boy. After losing her sister and brotherin-law, Elizabeth Ward faced the same grueling journey and was charged with the care of her two young nephews—one of whom was physically disabled. Perhaps out of mutual necessity, Samuel and Elizabeth joined together to shepherd these four children across the plains and into Utah. Baker and Ward were married somewhere on the trail, probably by Daniel Garn, who had solemnized six marriages on the Windermere. The Bakers likely arrived in Parowan sometime in late October or early November 1854.13 Parowan, an economically depressed southern Utah fort community, was inhabited by about 1,200 men, women, and children, who struggled to support the sporadically successful iron works in nearby Cedar City.14

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evidently received financial assistance for their journey from the LDS church’s Perpetual Emigration Fund (PEF). Samuel and his little family survived the turbulent Atlantic crossing and smallpox outbreak, but Sarah reportedly died from cholera on the overland journey to Saint Louis after giving birth to a second son, Franklin Edward.12

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When Deputy U.S. Marshal Alexander Williams reached Parowan with papers for the arrest of Samuel and for the retrieval of witnesses, James H. Martineau was subpoenaed to testify, presumably for his part in the postmortem examination, “much against my will,” he noted.18

couple was brought before Justice Charles Hopkins of the Cedar City precinct. The defendants were prosecuted by Jesse N. Smith, district attorney of the (then) territorial Third Judicial District, and then bound over to appear and answer the charge of murder at the next term of the U.S. District Court.16

On this day, James Martineau wrote to his wife of the uncertainty of the length of his service as witness: “I do not know whether the case of Baker will be got through with whether wend to Parowan for more witnesses, or not. If they do not send for more witnesses, the case will be dispensed of in short order. But if they send for more witnesses, it may take two or three weeks longer.”21 Stout added more detail, writing that the “Jury empannelled and witnesses

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The Bakers and the subpoenaed witnesses, accompanied by the marshal, made the snowy trek to Fillmore and arrived on November 24.

After spending a day investigating Baker’s case for his defense, Stout reported on November 26 that he had “commenced [a] suit against Baker the prisoner and in favor of the perpetual Emigration Fund in the sum of $155.20”; in other words, the fine against Baker for his alleged crime might go to pay debt to the PEF.19 Bair, the attorney for the defense, confessed judgment for the amount and its execution. Immediately following the settlement of this suit, Stout wrote that “the Case of The People &c vs Samuel G Baker for murder was taken up Joseph A. Kelting Prosecutor & I & Bair on defense. We moved to quash which was argued half a day Court Quashed first count and sustained the second Prisoner Plead not guilty.”20

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Elizabeth Ward Baker (1826–1913), Isaac Whitehouse’s aunt and Samuel Baker’s wife.

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The grand jury of the Second U.S. District Court presented an indictment against Samuel G. Baker for the murder of Isaac Whitehouse on November 19, 1855. Territorial District Attorney Joseph A. Kelting was appointed as prosecutor.

Hosea Stout and John Bair, deputy U.S. district attorneys, acted as counsel for the defense.17 16 Martineau, Journal, November 13, 1855, book 1, p. 87; Jesse N. Smith, Six Decades in the Early West: The Journal of Jesse Nathan Smith, 1834–1906 (Provo, UT: Jesse N. Smith Family Association, 1970), 21.

17 Hosea Stout, On the Mormon Frontier: The Diaries of Hosea Stout, ed. Juanita Brooks, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press; Utah State Historical Society, 1964), 2:566–68. The minutes of the trial are found in Second District Court Minute Books, Book 3, 1852–

1865, p. 73, 80–87, Series 5319, Utah State Archives and Records Service, Salt Lake City, Utah.

18 Martineau, Journal, November 21, 1855, Book 1, p. 87.

19 Stout, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:567. The amount included court expenses. See Second District Court Minute Books, Book 3, p. 80. For an excellent treatment of companies aided by the PEF, see Polly Aird, “Bound for Zion: The Ten- and Thirteen-Pound Emigrating Companies, 1853–54,” Utah Historical Quarterly 70 (Fall 2002): 300–325.

20 Stout, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:567.

21 James H. Martineau to wife [Susan E.?], November 26, 1855, box 1, fd. 1, James H. Martineau Collection, 1822–1932, MS 4786, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter CHL). My sincerest thanks to LaJean Purcell Carruth for transcribing this letter, which was written in the Deseret Alphabet.

On the day of Samuel’s sentencing, December 3, Stout made a poignant statement in his diary: “Mrs Baker now poor and destitute, sentenced to bereft of all she had on earth and her husband sentenced for ten years imprisonment, and herself in a peculiar condition and her fullness of times having expired was delivered of a son, whose name was called Douglass Drummond in token of his some day becoming a great man and a leading Democrat.”25 Recognizing the

In what appears to be a response to questions to local authorities about the abuse and murder of Isaac Whitehouse, the Parowan doctor Calvin C. Pendleton wrote to George A. Smith, a Mormon apostle, only weeks following the sentencing. Pendleton had learned that church authorities had heavily censured the selectmen and others in Parowan regarding the Baker case. Church officials in Salt Lake City believed that the local authorities had been aware of the course of ill treatment of the deceased boy for a considerable length of time prior to his death.

Pendleton, in contrast, did not think the LDS 26 Ibid.

24 Stout, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:567.

27 Public records indicate that John S. Baker was born in 1856. Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, California, population schedules (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1950, 1967), p. 33, San Bernardino, San Salvador township, household 243; Los Angeles County, “California, Great Registers, 1866–1910,” John S. Baker, 09 Jul 1884, p. 67, Norwalk, Los Angeles, California, United States, film no.

976928, FHL. A published biographical sketch of John S. Baker states that his birth was on December 3, 1855, in Riverside County, California. This sketch makes no mention of Samuel and Sarah’s sojourn in Parowan, only adding to the confusing timeline of events. It is apparent that Samuel G. Baker falsified birth and marriage dates to erase all memory of his notorious past in Utah. J. M. Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of Its Southern Coast Counties, 2 vols. (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1907), 2:2192, s.v. “John S. Baker.”

25 Ibid., 2:568.

28 Stout, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:568–69.

22 Stout, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:567.

23 Martineau, Journal, November 21–26, 1855, Book 1, p. 87. The “strumpet” Martineau referred to was a woman who accompanied Drummond as his wife but who is now believed to have been a prostitute from Washington State named Ada Carroll. See Jan MacKell, Red Light Women of the Rocky Mountains (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009), 296.

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Though such a namesake would indeed have been an irony, public records show that Elizabeth gave birth to a boy in 1856, but she did not name him for the notorious judge. She named him John Samuel Baker, and he was born in Fillmore on December 3, 1855, on the heels of her husband’s jury trial.27 Hosea Stout remarked, “Immediately afater [sic] the advent of the son the officer started with the father to his long 10 years home in prison.”28

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The trial continued on November 27 and occupied most of the day. When the prosecution rested its case on the third day, Stout reported that the judge “took a very active part in the trial against the prisoner and today even took on himself the examination of the witnesses very unbecomingly.”24 Baker’s defense rested on the fifth day of his trial. After five days of court testimony, the case was submitted to the jury. On the morning of December 1, 1855, the court met at nine o’clock and, according to Stout’s diary account, the jury was deadlocked. Then, at one p.m., came the verdict: the jury found Samuel Baker guilty of murder in the second degree. He was sentenced to ten years in the territorial penitentiary.

incongruity of Samuel’s son being born while his father was tried and sentenced under a Jacksonian Democrat, Stout concluded: “How could it be otherwise for born under the heigh auspecies of a Democratic Court while the same day his father was sentenced to the penetentiary for ten long years by said Court and then the names of two such conspicuous Democrats as Senator Douglas and Judge Drummond placed upon his head.”26

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introduced occupying the rest of the day U. S. D. M. Alex Williams again started for Parowan to summons witnesses on the part of Baker’s defence and to execute his property in favor of the P. E. F. Company.”22 Witness Martineau offered little description of the proceedings but noted that Judge William W. Drummond— whom Martineau considered to be unscrupulous—presided over the trial. Drummond, an associate justice of Utah’s territorial supreme court, had come to Utah earlier that year with his mistress, a woman he called “Mrs. Justice Drummond.” An attractive woman took a seat on the stand next to the judge, about whom Martineau later wrote “besides him on the bench sat a strumpet called wife.”23

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clothed as formerly, and his legs appearing in an uncomfortable condition.”30

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Pendleton then made inquiries of a man named Jones who came in company with Baker to Parowan and who was acquainted with the family. He asked Jones if he knew the cause of the boy’s condition. Jones responded that “the filthiness of the boys habits, rendered it impossible to cloth him in a common manner, or keep him in a comfortable condition.”31 The doctor delved no further into the matter since no subsequent complaints of neglect or ill treatment were made to him. According to Pendleton, this was the extent of his knowledge of the sad affair prior to Whitehouse’s murder or until he was called to attend the postmortem examination of the boy’s body.

Brigham Young, circa 1866.

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278 stake presidency or county court officials knew of the boy’s mistreatment. To his limited knowledge of the matter, a complaint had never been made to the court or to any member of it.29 Pendleton remembered seeing the boy soon after he and his caretakers arrived in Parowan.

He reported that Samuel’s treatment of the boy was, at that time, considered improper and that Samuel was “corrected by the teachers being sent to inquire into the matter.” Pendleton remembered observing the boy a few times during the summer season at play in the streets with his friends. At that time Whitehouse appeared comfortable and happy. “The next time I saw him,” Pendleton wrote, “was a few days before his death at mid day as he was passing up the street from towards the field, where as I learned after his death he had been. The day was warm but noticing that he was ^not^ as well 29 Calvin C. Pendleton to George A. Smith, January 9, 1856, box 5, fd. 11, George A. Smith Papers, 1834–1877, MS 1322, CHL. Quotations from this letter are published as they appear in the original, with no corrections or punctuation. Superscripted insertions appear between carets. Editorial additions appear between brackets.

The selectmen and the stake presidency knew this information, and it had been entered as in testimony to the court. As Pendleton wrote, however, the censure of church authorities “reminds me of the truth of the old addage, ‘that drowning men will grasp at straws’ Let my faults be what they may. I know this much, that Pendleton never looked quietly on, and disregarded the sufferings of his fellow creatures, and ^trust^ I shall not be condemned from the hearing of the ear.”32 If Parowan residents thought that the murderous tale of Samuel Baker had ended, then they were in for another stunning turn of events.

On January 24, 1856, Governor Brigham Young pardoned Samuel Baker. This occurred after a petition was signed by “a large number of persons, citizens of Iron County” who did not believe that Baker “either willfully, intentionally, or maliciously, did commit” the murder of Isaac Whitehouse.33 Not more than two months had passed from the day of Baker’s sentencing 30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Brigham Young Letterbook, February 26, 1855–August 19, 1856, p. 537–38, box 2, vol. 2, Brigham Young Office Files 1832–1878, CR 1234 1, CHL. The pardon is also found in Governor Brigham Young Letterbook, 1853–1858, p. 420–21, Series 13844, and Executive Proceedings, Book B, 1852–1871, p. 44, reel 2, box 1, Series 242, Secretary of State Executive Record Books, Utah State Archives and Records Service, Salt Lake City, Utah, (hereafter USARS).

According to historian Leonard Arrington, many petitions arrived at Governor Young’s office “mostly asking pardon for crimes or forgiveness of fines.” Occasionally, however, he issued pardons for murder convictions, “usually on the grounds of extreme youth and/or a conviction based on circumstantial evidence.”35 Further, at least according to Judge Drummond, the pardon of Samuel Baker was caught up in the ongoing conflict between Mormon and federal officials. Young’s influence on the rule of law in Utah Territory came under question during the period of increased government oversight by federal appointees chosen

by President Buchanan. From mid-1854 to the early months of 1857, Supreme Court Associate Justices John P. Kinney, George P. Stiles, and William W. Drummond waged a letter-writing campaign to Washington D.C., wherein they condemned Mormon authorities for using Utah probate courts as a means of denying due process to people outside the faith. Drummond, in particular, began to challenge the church’s influence on governance by questioning the jurisdiction of the probate courts and accusing 34 Stout, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:566–568, 590.

35 Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Knopf, 1985), 239.

who had been tried and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary, for the murder of a dumb boy by the name of White House, the proof showing one of the most aggravated cases of murder that I ever knew being tried; and to insult the court and government officers, this man Young took this pardoned criminal with him, in proper person, to church on the next Sabbath after his conviction; Baker, in the meantime, having received a full pardon from Governor Brigham Young.37 36 See “From Utah,” Washington, D.C. Daily National Intelligencer, April 1, 1857; “Freaks of Popular Sovereignty in Utah—Is the Democracy a Unit?”

National Era 11 (April 2, 1857): 54; “The Very Latest News,” San Francisco Daily Alta California, April 13, 1857; “Events of the Month. Domestic. The Mormons,” American Phrenological Journal 25 (May 1857): 112; “From the Mormon Country,” Washington, D.C. Daily National Intelligencer, June 6, 1857; Norman F. Furness, The Mormon Conflict: 1850–1859 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1960), 54–58; and William P. MacKinnon, ed., At Sword’s Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858 (Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, 2008), 472–74.

37 W. W. Drummond to Jeremiah S. Black, March 30, 1857, in James Buchanan, “The Utah Expedition,” House of Representatives, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., Exec. Doc. No. 71, p. 212–14, quote from 212. This letter was printed under “Affairs in Utah Territory,” Washington, D.C.

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By the end of March 1857, Surveyor General David H. Burr, Indian agents, and other federal authorities had fled the territory for fear of bodily harm by Mormon operatives. On March 30, 1857, Drummond sent Attorney General Jeremiah S. Black a resignation letter containing a list of indictments against Young and Mormon authorities. In addition to accusing Young of ordering the destruction of territorial supreme court files, Drummond leveled charges of treason against the governor for granting unwarranted pardons to Mormon convicts and incarcerating five or six non-Mormons for no crime but being outsiders. “I also charge Governor Young with constantly interfering with the federal courts,” he wrote. “The judiciary is only treated as a farce,” he further alleged, having done little good during his tenure as a judge in the territory. Drummond specifically named the Baker case, writing that Young had pardoned Samuel Baker,

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The pardoning of Samuel Baker for the abuse and murder of Isaac Whitehouse raises important questions about the prosecution of child abuse and domestic violence among Latter-day Saints in the frontier West. For example, what laws had been enacted for the protection of children against parental abuse? If members of the community had suspected the guardians of this orphaned boy of abuses prior to his murder, then why did they so willingly forgive Baker of such a crime? Even more troubling, does Whitehouse’s violent demise represent an underlying feeling in nineteenth-century frontier communities that disabled children were expendable? Perhaps what was inhumane cruelty to Martineau and a few other members of the community was considered a private family matter to a majority of others.

Young of treasonable acts as governor.36

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to when he was free to return home to Parowan.

On Friday, January 25, Hosea Stout reported that “Mr Baker came to my house, rejoicing that his term of ten years had expired so soon.”34

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At nearly the same time, a correspondent for the San Francisco Herald paraphrased Drummond’s charges against Young and the egregious circumstances surrounding the pardoning of Baker. Adding his own embellishments, the correspondent wrote:

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The reason assigned for his pardon was, that he [Baker] was a Saint, and a d—d Gentile Judge should not have the pleasure of seeing one of the Saints of God put in prison for the murder of so useless a being as a dumb boy; that, if people were so unfortunate as to have children that could not speak, they were incapable of becoming Saints, and it was a blessing to kill them off, and save the parents the trouble of bringing them up; and that God required a human being to talk before he could pray.38 Such a charged statement only mixes fact with conjecture. While Young’s pardon might have been an “insult” to the court, it was probably more about keeping an able-bodied breadwinner at home to support his wife and family.

Sending Samuel Baker to prison would have effectively rendered his wife, Elizabeth, an unmarriageable widow with four small children. Even worse, the confiscation of Samuel’s property in repayment of the PEF debt would have left Elizabeth completely ruined. The unanimous vote to excommunicate the Bakers went against the idea that neighboring citizens would forgive the uncle’s deadly abuse of the boy and petition for his pardon. The so-called petition of a “large number” of Iron County residents might have been concocted as a subterfuge—out of compassion for Elizabeth Baker— to keep the Baker family intact.39 Daily National Intelligencer, July 31, 1857, and “The Utah Problem,” San Francisco Daily Alta California, May 21, 1857, and reprinted in Leroy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, eds., The Utah Expedition, 1857–1858: A Documentary Account of the United States Military Movement under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, and the Resistance by Brigham Young and the Mormon Nauvoo Legion (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1958), 363–66; and Mackinnon, ed., At Sword’s Point, 116–18.

38 “‘Popular Sovereignty’ in Utah: Destroying the Records of the United States Courts,” National Era 11 (April 2, 1857): 55.

39 A letter from Governor Young’s clerk to the sheriff of Iron County appears to support this theory. Attached

Parowan resident James Henry Martineau (1828–1923), photograph probably taken in his late forties.

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Samuel and Elizabeth Baker were presumably restored to full fellowship in the church and allowed to reclaim their lives in Parowan. It appears, however, that Samuel may have been predisposed to violence. Less than a year from the time of his pardon, James Martineau noted in the official Parowan stake history that “Samuel G. Baker was cut off from the church for cutting a cow with an ax so bad she had to be killed, and trying to lay it to Zachariah B. Decker, on the night of Dec. 12, 1856.”40 In a letter to to the pardon were two blank forms for him “or the other proper person to fill up, because the petition from citizens of Iron County do[e]s not contain the necessary information to enable me to execute the paper in form, full, as it should be.” Daniel Mackintosh to Sheriff of Iron County, January 9, 1856, Young Letterbook, 1853– 1858, p. 422, Series 13844, USARS. 40 Martineau, “James H. Martineau Record and Negotiations,” typescript, part B, December 14, 1856, p.

27, box 90, fd. 4, William Rees Palmer Collection, MS 1, Special Collections and Archives, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University (hereafter SLSUU); the original MS is held in CHL, LR 6778 28.

According to Smith, Baker went to Bishop Tarlton Lewis the next morning and “confessed that he had done the deed.” It was believed by some that Baker cut the cow in hopes of getting the beef. When the bishop discovered at a priesthood council meeting that Baker belonged to the church, he decided, on motion, to cut him off. The vote was unanimous, with only one person “astride the fense” who did not know what Baker had done.43 Following this incident, several men shared what they knew of Baker’s past. Smith wrote that “Bro Tophane had known of him to steal wood” and “Bro Davenport had known of his taking the Indians corn in the Shock in the field.” Even more disturbing, “Bro Jacob West Said that on the plains as they were coming in Baker and another man crowded out a man and wife from the wagon they were all coming in when the woman was confined from the effects of which exposure both mother and child died 41 Jesse N. Smith to James H. Martineau, December 23, 1856, box 1, fd. 1, Martineau Collection. Quotations from this letter are published as they appear in the original, with no corrections or punctuation. Superscripted insertions appear between carets. Editorial additions appear between brackets.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 David T. Courtright, Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 37–41, quote from 37.

46 Samuel Timmins, ed., The Resources, Products, and Industrial History of Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District (London: Robert Hardwicke, 1866), 443–44, quote from 444. See also William Hutton, The History of Birmingham, 6th ed. (Birmingham, England: James Guest, 1836), 171–73.

47 Baker was one of innumerable young men who came to the North American frontier to, in a sense, overtake and occupy the land—often by violent means—like a heroic hunter who sought to exploit or conquer nature.

Violence on the American frontier under this premise has been examined as a subject of literary and historical mythology. See Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600– 1860 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), and Reginald Dyck, “Frontier Violence in the Garden of America,” in Eric Heyne, ed., Desert, Garden, Margin, Range: Literature on the American Frontier (New York: Twayne, 1992), 55–69.

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Initially, Baker not only denied responsibility for cutting the cow, he also tried to place the blame on someone else. Moreover, his reputation for insolence had followed him from England. His treacherous, duplicitous behavior had allegedly caused the death of an immigrant mother and child, his wife Sarah, and (in this case) his orphaned nephew. While it is generally believed that, as David Courtright writes, “families constrain violent and disorderly male behavior,” Samuel Baker had exhibited aggression in this family and in a marital union prior to his arrival in Parowan.45 As a pearl worker, Baker was undoubtedly familiar with the tedium of factory work, since Birmingham was known for its jewelry and pearl button manufacturing. According to one writer, the daily burnishing, turning, and polishing processes were so mentally taxing and intensely physical that “a certain kind of sharpening of the wits goes on, more than exists in many other kinds of labor.”46 Though his wits might have been sharpened and maintained at work, Baker must have given vent to pent-up frustrations and anger at home with little cause. A move to a peaceable, forgiving Mormon community in the American West would have offered a clean slate and the possibility that an aggressive temperament would go unnoticed or unchecked.47

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Smith, who was then serving as second counselor in the Parowan Stake presidency, described the sequence of events to Martineau: “That evening Bro Pendleton the Bishop and counsel Bro Silas [Smith] and myself ^and some others^ met with the Second Quorum [of Elders] and after ascertaining that none of [them] knew anything about the matter prayer was offered that this iniquity in Israel might come to light.”42

also that Baker caused the death of his own wife. ^(Bakers)^”44

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Martineau, Jesse N. Smith wrote that the cow was so “horribly mangled,” that one of the hind legs was completely severed. The killing must have been ghastly, for not only had blood been spilled on the ground, but it was also splattered on the gate of the corral in which the cow was held. The mutilated cow was found in the street the next morning and, as described by Smith, “the sight was enough to chill the blood of the Stoutest heart.”41 For some unknown reason, it was done to implicate Decker.

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Regardless of the circumstances leading up to Whitehouse’s abuse and murder, Baker’s arrest, conviction, and pardon for the boy’s death evidently did not scare him into reform. The cow mutilation signaled the end of his short and disgraceful period of residence in Parowan.

His act of brutality and the consequential second excommunication effectively banished him and his wife from the community. Samuel Baker was listed in the 1856 Utah Census as a resident of Cedar City, suggesting that the Bakers sought to flee the confines of the fort wall. The order of the census enumeration also suggests that Isaac’s five-year-old brother was placed under the care of Joseph and Nancy Barton of Parowan.48 Although we do not know precisely when they decided to move, Samuel and Elizabeth soon took their children away to live in anonymity in San Bernardino, California (where many Iron County residents out-migrated) and to avoid the possibility of awkward stares from neighboring members of the Parowan and Cedar City settlements.49 The Bakers’ move to California helped to stifle any public memory of the incident. Whitehouse’s murder was never reported in the Deseret News or any other published records.

With the exception of Martineau’s explicit journal entry, only a few extant diaries mention the murder and court case and then only obscurely. As a consequence, the tragic affair was never recounted in histories of Parowan or Iron County. One account, written decades after the incident by a Baker descendant, 48 See 1856 Utah Census Returns, “Cedar City, Iron County, Utah,” p. 19, col. A, line 1, and “Parowan City, Iron County,” p. 1, col. B, lines 13–15, film no. 0505913, FHL. Though many researchers consider the 1856 Utah census to be unreliable because it often duplicated individuals or incorrectly showed them as residing in Utah, the census may have accurately documented the location of Samuel Baker and Joseph Whitehouse.

49 Samuel G. Baker, his wife Elizabeth, and children (John, Joseph, Harriet, and Edwin) were listed as residents of the San Bernardino Valley as early as 1860. According to the 1860 California census, Edwin (age ten) was born in England and John Samuel (age four) was born in Utah, while Joseph (age two) and Harriet (age one) were born in California. Hence, the narrative of this article does not mention these two youngest children. The reason for Franklin’s absence is unknown. See Eighth Census, California, p. 33, San Bernardino, San Salvador township, household 243.

falsely tells a story of the Baker family passing through Utah, with no mention of their stay in Parowan or the boy’s death and the subsequent murder trial: “Before reaching Salt Lake City, the Whitehouse baby [Isaac] died. One of the Baker boys and Joe Whitehouse were left with some people in Salt Lake City while S. G. Baker and wife and the other Baker boy came on to San Bernardino, Calif. with the Mormons. Later the two boys were sent on to them in another wagon train.”50 By the mid-twentieth century, when this account was written, the episode had been effectively washed from collective memory.

The absence of reports of Baker’s crimes and the trial in contemporary newspapers seems to indicate that such violent abuses against children— and undoubtedly spouses—were taboo and kept from public knowledge. According to the historian Elliott West, “Violence and child abuse usually remained behind closed doors, but enough is mentioned in reminiscences and memoirs to show that it was certainly not unknown.”51 The stresses of frontier life, family transience, marital discord, the death of a parent, and the abandonment of children to strangers or uncompassionate caretakers often led to child neglect and abuse.52 Contemporary research has revealed some of the causal factors leading to the maltreatment of children with disabilities. Studies have shown that “children with chronic illnesses or disabilities often place higher emotional, physical, economic, and social demands on their families.”53 Newly arriving immigrants to Parowan encountered a rough and tumble existence and brought with them the social behaviors that they had adopted in industrialized cities like Birmingham, London, and Liverpool. Moreover, as clinical psychologists conclude, “Parents with limited social and community support may be at especially high risk of maltreating children with disabilities, because 50 “From a Journal of Alma Eliot Russell.”

51 Elliott West, Growing Up with the Country: Childhood on the Far Western Frontier (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989), 152–53, 203–204, quote from 152.

52 Ibid., 152–53.

53 Roberta A. Hibbard, Larry W. Desch, et al., “Maltreatment of Children with Disabilities,” Pediatrics 119 (May 2007): 1018–25, quote from 1020.

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If citizens of the young settlement of Parowan had acted upon the abuse and maltreatment of Whitehouse, then perhaps they would have placed the boy in another home or in an institution, where he would have received better attention than he did under his guardians. Salt Lake City was best prepared to have an institution for children, but an “Orphan’s Home and Day Nursery” was not established in the city until 1886.55 Larger towns and cities in the antebellum East often had facilities for people 54 Ibid.

55 “The Orphan’s Home Benefit,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, May 16, 1886; “The Orphan’s Home,” Salt Lake Evening Democrat, August 14, 1886; “Memorial to Congress.

Orphan’s Home,” Laws of the Territory of Utah, Passed at the Twenty-Eighth Session of the Legislative Assembly (Salt Lake City: Tribune Printing, 1888), 222. An act for the establishment of an “Institution of the Deaf Mutes” was passed at this session, but the purpose of the institution was to educate them. See idem, 77–78.

Parowan Fort in 1852, by William Warner Major.

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they feel more overwhelmed and unable to cope with the care and supervision responsibilities that are required.”54 These factors were particularly profound for the Bakers. The severely depressed conditions in Parowan would have exacerbated the tremendous demands placed on the blended Baker family. The day-to-day care of Isaac, the mute boy who was neither Elizabeth’s nor Samuel’s biological child, would have been extremely taxing on them.

283 with disabilities, though the care given in orphanages, almshouses, and mental hospitals often left much to be desired.56 Although Whitehouse had extended family with whom he could (and should) have been adequately cared for, the harsh economic conditions in Parowan only intensified the pressures on his guardians— creating a “simmering pot” ready to boil over on a defenseless, disabled boy. The idealism of church membership presupposed a closeness of the family unit, a family that adhered to Christian principles of compassion and care. Within the confines of Parowan’s fort wall, however, Samuel and Elizabeth must have felt that they could keep the abuse of the boy hidden and behind closed doors.

Territorial newspapers did not report violent treatment of children prior to about 1870. Utah newspapers were careful not to risk libel in reporting allegations of child abuse. For 56 David J. Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic, rev. ed. (1971; repr., Piscataway, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 2009), esp. 154– 204.

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example, in a landmark case decided in 1896, Tooele rancher Amos Fenstermaker sued the Salt Lake Tribune for libel after the newspaper alleged that Fenstermaker and members of his family had cruelly treated a thirteen-year-old girl who lived with them as an adopted child and had turned her out into the desert to die. The jury in the lower court found in favor of the defendant, after which the plaintiff appealed to the Utah Supreme Court. The court reversed the ruling of the lower court and ordered a new trial. Judge Powers, the attorney for the Salt Lake Tribune, petitioned for a rehearing of the case. Ultimately, the court ruled, in part, that “a newspaper article which relates wholly to the private acts of a family, with respect to cruel treatment of a child, is not a privileged publication, though made in good faith as a matter of news in which the public may have much interest.”57 Except for a high-profile case of abuse in December 1879 in which a father cruelly assaulted and beat his four-year-old son, incidents of physical abuse went virtually unreported in nineteenth-century Utah newspapers. The father in this case, Charles W. Morris, was charged and acquitted of simple assault.

Two and a half months later, when Morris was charged with attempted murder, he was acquitted on a technicality in the law. Because he had been previously tried and acquitted for the charge of assault by the police magistrate, the former trial was a bar to further prosecution for the same crime on the greater charge.58 57 Festermaker v. Tribune Publishing Co., 12 U. 439; 13 U. 532; 43 P. R. 112; 45 P. R. 1097; State of Utah, Revised Statutes (January 1, 1898) Title 38, Section 1348, p.

358–59. See also “The Fenstermaker Suit,” Salt Lake Herald, November 29, 1894; “The Fenstermaker Family,” Salt Lake Tribune, December 1, 1894; “Was Fond of Children,” Salt Lake Herald, December 2, 1894; “The Fenstermaker Waif,” Deseret Evening News, December 6, 1894; “A Just Verdict,” Salt Lake Herald, December 6, 1894; “Fenstermaker Case Again,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 6, 1895; “Fenstermaker Gets a New Trial,” Salt Lake Herald, December 22, 1895; “Supreme Court,” Salt Lake Herald, February 20, 1896; “Fenstermaker Decision,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 1896; “State Supreme Court,” Salt Lake Herald, July 7, 1896; “Fenstermaker Girl ReArrested,” Deseret Evening News, January 16, 1897; “Carrie Fenstermaker’s Arrest,” Salt Lake Tribune, January 8, 1897.

58 “The Child-Beating Affair,” Salt Lake Herald, November 16, 1879; “That Child Abuser,” Salt Lake Tribune, December 27, 1879; “Third District Court,” Salt Lake Tribune, February 3, 1880; “Local and Other Matters,” Deseret News, February 4, 1880; “Morris’ Trial,” Salt

The public outrage over the abuses the boy suffered and the father’s subsequent acquittal became the impetus for publicizing extreme cases of brutality and sexual assaults on children thereafter, but it did very little for increasing vigilance in protecting children generally.

Utahns applauded the labors of humanitarian societies and social reform groups in eastern cities for “accomplishing much for the protection of children from brutal parents and taskmasters,” but their efforts were seen as unnecessary in the prosecution of child abuse in Utah. “If anything of the kind existed in Utah,” reported the Deseret News, “it would be pointed out at once as an ‘outgrowth of Mormonism, a natural result of polygamic life.’” It was believed that these social reformers could find a sufficient number of important and perplexing issues within their own realm of influence in New York and other larger cities, “without troubling themselves with Utah, where such sorrows as afflict the poor of ‘Christian’ cities are unknown, and where there is no need for societies to protect little children from cruelty and oppression.”59 Although the mistreatment of children could hide behind a mask of religious idealism, it was no less a problem in Utah than it was a national one.60 Not until the coming of child protection Lake Tribune, February 27, 1880; “A Child Beater,” Deseret News, March 3, 1880; “City Jottings,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 4, 10, 1880; “The Child Abuser,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 9, 10, 1880; “The Torturer Free,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 11, 1880; “Morris Acquitted,” Deseret News, March 17, 1880. The earliest published reports of child assault include “Nephi, Dec. 5,” Deseret News, December 7, 1870, 516; “A Human Brute,” Deseret News, September 8, 1875, 508; “An Attempted Rape,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 3, 1876; “Rape. The Foul Ravisher of 12-year-old Girl Arrested,” Ogden Daily Herald, March 14, 1883.

59 “Cruelty to Children,” Deseret News, April 25, 1883. This viewpoint was reiterated six years later. See “Parental Cruelty,” Deseret Weekly, March 23, 1889, 398.

60 For more on the abuse of children in the nineteenth century, see Lloyd de Mause, “The History of Child Assault,” The Journal of Psychohistory 18 (1990): 1–29; Robert W. Ten Bensel, Marguerite M. Rheinberger, and Samuel X. Radbill, “Children in a World of Violence: The Roots of Child Maltreatment,” in The Battered Child, ed. Mary Edna Helfer, Ruth S. Kempe, and Richard D. Krugman, 5th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 3–28; Lester Alston, “Children as Chattel,” in Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America, 1850–1950, ed. Elliott West and Paula Petrik (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 208–231; Lloyd de Mause, “The History of Child Abuse,” Journal of Psychohistory 25 (Winter 1998): 216–36; Barbara

Finkelstein, “A Crucible of Contradictions: Historical Roots of Violence against Children in the United States,” History of Education Quarterly 40 (Spring 2000): 1–21.

61 See, for example, “Humane Society’s Work,” Salt Lake Tribune, September 20, 1900; “For Humane Causes,” Salt Lake Herald, September 20, 1900; “Local Briefs,” Deseret Evening News, August 5 and September 9, 1901.

For more on the joining of child protection laws with animal rights laws, see Susan J. Pearson, The Rights of the Defenseless: Protecting Animals and Children in Gilded Age America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

62 Ivan, “Church and State,” Deseret Weekly, January 16, 1892, 101; “Runaway Salt Lake Boys,” Deseret Evening News, February 14, 1898; “Children’s Aid Society Work,” Deseret Evening News, November 15, 1904; “Children’s Aid and Home Finding Association,” Salt Lake Tribune, February 21, 1904; Scipio A. Kenner, Utah as It Is (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1904), 357–58, 523–25.

63 “Children’s Aid Society of Ogden,” Ogden Standard, March 16, 1910; “New Incorporations,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 23, 1910; “Incorporations,” Salt Lake HeraldRepublican, April 23, 1910; Colleen R. Burnham, The Children’s Aid Society of Utah: A Brief History, 1910–1995: 85 Years of Caring (Ogden, UT: Children’s Aid Society of Utah, 1996), 6. For more on the CAS and the NYSPCC, see LeRoy Ashby, Endangered Children: Dependency, Neglect, and Abuse in American History (New York: Twayne, 1997), 35–54, and 59–67, and Marshall Spatz, “Child Abuse in the Nineteenth Century,” New York Affairs 4, no. 2 (1977): 80–90.

64 Burnham, Children’s Aid Society, 6–9. For a history of the orphan trains, see Miriam Z. Langsam, Children West: A History of the Placing Out System of the New York Children’s Aid Society, 1853–1890 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1964), and Stephen O’Connor, Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

65 Cases of assault and cruelty to children are found in the criminal case files and minute books of the various territorial district courts in Utah, preserved at the USARS. For more on the maltreatment and abuse of children in Utah, see Martha Sonntag Bradley, “Protect the Children: Child Labor in Utah, 1880–1920,” Utah Historical Quarterly 59 (1991): 52–71, and Doug Miller, “The History of Child Sexual Abuse in Utah, 1870–1910” (paper, Utah State History Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, September 12, 2008). On growing up in frontier Utah, see Davis Bitton, “Zion’s Rowdies: Growing Up on the Mormon Frontier,” Utah Historical Quarterly 50 (Spring 1982): 182–195, revised and republished in The Ritualization of Mormon History and Other Essays (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 54–68; Susan Arrington Madsen, “Growing Up in Pioneer Utah: Agonies and Ecstasies,” in Nearly Everything Imaginable, ed. by Ronald W. Walker and Doris R. Dant (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1999), 316–28; Elliott West, “Becoming Mormon,” Journal of Mormon History 28 (Spring 2002): 31–51.

66 Territory of Utah, Compiled Laws (1876), Title IX, Chap.

1, Sec. 1964, and Title XX, Sec. 1236; “Utah Laws against Sexual Crimes,” Deseret News Weekly, March 1, 1882, 88; “The Crime of Incest,” Salt Lake Daily Tribune, March 2, 1887; “An Act Regulating Marriage,” Ogden Standard, March 20, 1888; “Utah’s Marriage Law,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, April 29, 1888.

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In Utah, the efforts of benevolent societies to abrogate the maltreatment of children failed to yield results until the end of the nineteenth century, when those organizations began lobbying state representatives to criminalize abuses against children as much as they had done for cruelty to animals. For example, Utah’s 1876 penal code and form of civil actions, which was adapwted from California’s Code of Laws, imposed criminal penalties for sexual crimes, or the “carnal abuse of children,” and afforded a parent “an action for the injury or death of a child,” but did nothing specific for death or injuries caused by the abusive acts of parents or guardians.66

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City chapter of the Utah Humane Society and advised it to enlarge its scope by including a humane interest in neglected children. “This state so far had not enacted any special law applicable to their case,” he reminded them, “but the society should see the legislative nominees and obtain pledges from them before the election that if elected they would use their influence for the enactment of laws for the protection of children.”61 Likewise, state chapters of progressive reform organizations—such as the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC), founded in 1874 by Elbridge Gerry, and the American Home-Finding Association—did not arrive in Utah until the turn of the century.62 The Utah chapter of the Children’s Aid Society (CAS), founded in 1853 by Charles Loring Brace, was incorporated in Ogden in 1910 by Mary J. Gosling.63 These benevolent organizations primarily functioned as intercessors, pleading the cause of

neglected, orphaned, or abandoned children and placing them in foster homes, as did Brace when he started the orphan train movement of the mid-nineteenth century.64 Their advocacy led to vagrancy reforms and child protection laws in 1905, but only after decades of unpublicized child assault cases in Utah’s district courts.65

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laws did violence and other abuses of children receive the attention that they deserved.

In September 1900, Professor R. J. O’Hanion of Milwaukee, a representative of the American Humane Society, spoke to the Salt Lake

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Issues of maltreatment began to receive attention after several decades of advocacy by lobbyists, women’s groups, and humane societies to end child incest and illegitimacy in polygamous households. After Utah achieved statehood in 1896, the legislature passed the first child protection laws to impose limits on the length of work time for children, labor conditions, truancy, and the ages of consent for boys and girls.67 During the early decades of the twentieth century, successive legislative acts sought to criminalize physical and sexual violence against children, as well as to regulate child labor. On March 23, 1903, the Utah Legislature passed, along with the authorization and definition of terms for a children’s aid society, the first act to formally penalize any adult-aged person or custodian who failed to support and adequately care for minor children; it was the first to include specific verbiage intended to prosecute 67 “A Horrible Crime,” Provo Utah Inquirer, May 24, 1889; “Polygamous Children,” Deseret Evening News, July 29, 1890; “Polygamous Children,” Deseret Evening News, January 27, 1891; “Held for Incest,” Provo Dispatch, July 4, 1891; “Age of Consent,” Provo Daily Enquirer, February 6, 1896; “Fixed the Age of Consent,” Salt Lake Tribune, January 24, 1896.

A group of children at St. Ann Orphanage, December 1909. Formal aid for children—in the form of institutions and laws, for instance— came about slowly in Utah.

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the physical abuses of a child. Amendments to the Utah penal code soon followed, imposing more severe criminal penalties for abusive acts on children.68 68 “For Humane Causes,” Salt Lake Herald, September 20, 1900; “Abuse of Children,” State of Utah, Compiled Laws (1903), Chap. 124, Sec. 8, p. 174; “National Outlook for Children,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 14, 1905; “Child Labor,” Deseret Evening News, December 5, 1905; “Laws in Aid of Juvenile Work,” Salt Lake City Inter-Mountain Republican, January 13, 1907; State of Utah, Compiled Laws (1907), Chap. 10, 720x29, p. 369; “Club Women Ask for New Laws,” Salt Lake Herald, October 24, 1907; “Carnality Leads to Incest,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 29, 1910; State of Utah, Compiled Laws (1911), Secs. 2911, 2912; State v. Bess, 44 U. 39; 137 P.R. 829; State of Utah, Compiled Laws (1917), Section 1840. For the enactment of Utah child labor laws, see Bradley, “Protect the Children,” 212–14.

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Regrettably, these laws were too little and much too late for countless Utah children, such as Isaac Whitehouse, who suffered at the hands of an abusive parent or guardian. Their cries fall silent, as did Isaac’s, as the sordid details of their abuse remain undisclosed in the records that preserve the existence of the crimes.

Whitehouse’s bruised and battered body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave, immediately adjacent to and at the foot of Parowan’s beloved stake president, John Calvin Lazelle Smith. The sexton’s record failed to list the boy’s age and the cause of his death.69 We may never know the whole story behind the senseless murder of this child forgotten after more than one hundred and fifty years. The tragic sequence of events appears to have avoided the detection of local historians and storytellers. As the years pass, the unspeakable events surrounding Isaac Whitehouse’s death seem to sink deeper into the soil beneath the sod of the Parowan City cemetery and into oblivion.

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Noel A. Carmack is an assistant professor of art at USU Eastern in Price, Utah. He has published on the art, culture, and labor of nineteenth-century Mormonism, including his award-winning article on James Henry Martineau, which UHQ published in 2000. This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper he delivered at the Fifty-Seventh Annual Utah State History Conference on September 12, 2008.

— 69 Parowan City Cemetery, Block A, Lot 8, Grave 1. See Parowan Cemetery Internment Record, 1852–1929, microfilm, p. 13, Series 23643, roll 2721, SLSUU; the cemetery record is also available as a typescript by Lola Ann Johnson Jones, copy held at the Old Rock Church, Parowan, Utah.

WEB EXTRA Visit history.utah.gov/whitehouse-murder for a dialogue between the authors of articles published in Utah Historical Quarterly and Journal of Mormon History about the Whitehouse case.

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U.S. Geological Survey, Map of Utah Territory Representing the Extent of the Irrigable, Timber and Pasture Lands (1878), detail. —

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Israel Bennion and a Conflict in Vernon, 1893–1896 BY

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Water law on the eve of statehood B E N N I O N

The life of Israel Bennion, a second-generation Utah Mormon, was shaped by his desire to establish a Zion community in an arid land.1 His journals from 1893 to 1896 describe his efforts to resolve a local conflict over water—a type of conflict common where water is precious and streamflows vary during the year—in Vernon, a Mormon village at the south end of Rush Valley in Utah Territory. Bennion believed water ought to be administered according to the pattern established by the first settlers—through church and community channels, with water theoretically distributed according to the needs of all users. Others in Vernon chafed at communal administration and subscribed to a government-based system of prior appropriation, where water could be bought and sold as if it were private property. This practice became codified into law when Utah became a state. The squabble in Vernon illuminates two ideological positions as Utah shifted from communal to capitalistic management of water.

Several trends combined to create conflicts in Mormon villages in Utah in the 1890s: economic development required stable and permanent sources of water that could be transported to where industries needed it; new settlers, which by now included non-Mormons, hoped to gain water rights not mediated by LDS church authorities; and many residents of Utah Territory sought to become a part of the economic fabric of the United States. Even as the former attitudes toward water eroded, replaced gradually by new beliefs that were manifested in water code, Bennion 1 For Mormons, Zion was both a physical location and a state of righteous community. In his revelations, Joseph Smith designated Missouri as the place of Zion, but the term also came to mean Mormon settlements in the Great Basin, including Bennion’s home village of Vernon.

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and many other Mormon water users subverted the new laws because they continued to believe in a community approach to water distribution.

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As Vernon and other Mormon communities worked through these transitions in the cultural and legal landscape, they had to make decisions concerning what M. Catherine Miller refers to as a core attribute of water law: management of the tension between the rights of individuals and of the community to water access. According to Miller, people who value community more than individual rights resolve conflict differently than those who value individual freedom more than solidarity with their neighbors.

The law is perceived either as an instrument of the majority or of the “weak” for protection against the “powerful.”2 Those engaged in the conflicts over water in Vernon viewed law in both these ways, as a means of maintaining communal or majority control and as a means for protecting individual rights. Water scarcity in the community exacerbated the tension between these two perspectives.

John Wesley Powell was among the first to predict problems concerning water use in the arid West. At the beginning of Powell’s career, contemporary thought postulated that rain would follow the plow, that the West had the potential to join the Midwest as America’s Garden of the World, and that the Great American Desert would sustain millions of people in fulfillment of manifest destiny.3 Instead of relying on entrenched fantasy, Powell measured water and rainfall, mapped the land, and observed the practices of the West’s residents. He determined that “the extent of irrigable land is dependent upon the volume of water carried by the streams.”4 He estimated that in Utah Terri2 M. Catherine Miller, Flooding the Courtrooms: Law and Water in the Far West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 39–40.

3 Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954), 1–8.

4 John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States: With a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah, ed. Wallace Stegner (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 17. Powell also made some significant observations concerning development and management of water in the West, which would have simplified water law and practice if they had been observed when Utah became a state. He wrote that common water law, which required water to

tory only 2.8 percent of the total area could be cultivated through using the water available in streams to irrigate it.5 He knew the West was unique, and he sought to set this region on the path of developing land and water to facilitate human habitation.

However, Powell’s ideas did not always influence practice. Wallace Stegner writes that “western history is a series of lessons in consequences,” primarily that of farmers “trying to impose on a dry country the habits that have been formed in a wet one.”6 This was certainly true of the people of Vernon. There and elsewhere in Utah Territory, adaptation to a land of insufficient rainfall occurred in a tangled context: the web of traditional law designed for wetter landscapes, a patchwork political system, an atmosphere of tension among political parties and factions and between public and private interest, and the “stubborn and incredibly long-lived forces of tradition, inertia, folklore, ignorance, and regional dependency.”7 As these forces played out over the decades, they have resulted in massive dam and water delivery systems throughout the West. The historian Donald Worster described the arid West as a “hydraulic society,” implying that westerners have been overly dependent on developed water.8 Still the predominant view is that large-scale water development was necessary.

As political scientist Daniel McCool writes, westerners are subject to “hydrological deterbe returned to the channel after use, would not work for mining and irrigation. After studying the practices of the Mormons, who had been farming in the area for thirty years, Powell suggested that development of water would require cooperation to build the necessary superstructure of canals, dams, and reservoirs that irrigation required. For this reason he recommended that groups of people gather by common consent and form irrigation districts that had to be recognized by the federal land surveys, thus locating much decision making on the local level but within the context of general laws that would prohibit monopoly by wealthy interests. He said that a water right must be connected to ownership of land, because if the two are separated, speculators with capital could gain ownership of the water and render the land useless.

5 Ibid., 19.

6 Stegner, “Introduction,” in Powell, Report on the Lands, xiv. Powell predicted that Vernon Creek could irrigate 1,200 acres. Powell, Report on the Lands, 125, 140.

7 Stegner, “Introduction,” in Powell, Report on the Lands, xii.

8 Miller, Flooding the Courtrooms, 5.

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Detail of the 1878 Map of Utah Territory, with shaded areas in the valleys representing irrigable lands. Vernon is located at the bottom left-hand corner of the map at the south end of Rush Valley.

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minism.”9 The people of Vernon, a town founded at the convergence of several creeks that flow from the sickle-shaped Sheeprock Range, believed that their destinies depended on the development of water. For them, like other settlers in the West, water had a mythic power that enabled, distorted, and amplified the ways they viewed it and the land it flowed— or did not flow—across.10 Despite the Mormon tradition of responding to difficulties communally, the scarcity of water eventually caused conflicts in Vernon 9 Daniel C. McCool, Waters of Zion: The Politics of Water in Utah (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), 3.

10 Ibid, 3.

and among many of the settlers of Utah Territory, and they would need recourse to law and mediation to resolve those conflicts. For the historian Donald J. Pisani, the development of water law in the West reflected the transition from local agriculture to mining, commercial agriculture, and other industries as the primary means of economic activity and from viewing water as available to all the members of a community to seeing it as transportable property, using prior appropriation as a guide to rights.11 11 Donald Pisani, To Reclaim a Divided West: Water, Law, and Public Policy, 1848–1902 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992). According to Gordon Morris Bakken, the first historians of water law in the West based their analyses on Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 thesis that the frontier had absolute effect; rather than relying on precedent, settlers codified

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For the people of vernon, water had a mythic power that enabled, distorted, and amplified the ways they viewed it and the land it flowed—or did not flow—across.

Mining camps, often located far from a water source, required fixed and secure water rights— what John Leshy refers to as a “harsher and sharper-edged set of principles” than riparian water law.12 According to Pisani, for both agriculture and mining in the West “the chronological priority of a use transcended the value of a use” and “rights to water were exclusive and absolute.”13 This was distinct from the riparian water system, which depended on the direct proximity of the land to a stream of water. Westerners considered owning and consolidating water to be necessary for water law based on their frontier experiences. “Turner and the Law: Historiography,” The Development of Law on the Rocky Mountain Frontier: Civil Law and Society, 1850–1912 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983), 9–20.

This kind of thinking by historians and water users has led to viewing current practice as inevitable and not based on enduring human tradition. However, most contemporary historians see the creation of water law in the West as dynamic and dependent on a network of causes. See Bakken, Development of Law, 3, 7; Miller, Flooding the Courtrooms, 5; McCool, Waters of Zion, 4; and Kurt Vedder, “Water Development in Salt Lake Valley: 1847–1985,” in McCool, Waters of Zion, 28–52.

12 John Leshy, “Prior Appropriation Doctrine of Water Law in the West: An Emperor with Few Clothes,” Journal of the West 29, no. 3 (1990), 5–7.

13 Donald Pisani, Water, Land, and Law in the West: The Limits of Public Policy, 1850–1920 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996), 23.

economic development. The problem with prior appropriation was that it did not recognize public interest in how water was used and that it was not correlative to other users other than by right of priority.14 In Mormon Country, Stegner claims that Mormons settled and made decisions in unified groups, which was quite different from the way most of the West was colonized. “The American Dream as historians define it did not fit these whiskered zealots,” Stegner writes. “Theirs was a group dream, not an individual one; a dream of Millennium, not of quick fortune.”15 Mormons valued the concept of Zion, a community where all the righteous could dwell in peace. Brigham Young taught his people to bind themselves to other members of their community socially, economically, and spiritually.16 They manifested their idea in practical ways, by building towns patterned after the Heavenly City, where cooperation was more important than individualism.17 Consequently Mormons did not think of water rights the way most western immigrants did; for them, water was not viewed as property.

Young’s 1848 pronouncement prohibiting “private ownership of the streams that come out of the canyons” echoed the English common law view that “rivers were part of God’s plan as revealed in nature.”18 14 Ibid., 2.

15 Wallace Stegner, Mormon Country (Lincoln: Bison Book, 1981), 63.

16 Ibid., 25. The Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, Mormon scriptures, have much to say about that kind of community: “They that remain, and are pure in heart, shall return, and come to their inheritances, they and their children, with songs of everlasting joy, to build up the waste places of Zion” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:18), and “The Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18–19).

17 Stegner, Mormon Country, 28.

18 Pisani, To Reclaim a Divided West, 48; Pisani, Water, Land, Law in the West, 9. He records that William Blackstone described water as “a moving wandering thing,” not easily made into property. According to Gordon Bakken, Mormons created a tradition that combined distributive administration and individual appropriation. Whether this method of management was authoritarian or communal depends on the historian: Bakken suggests management was hierarchical. The Development of Law on the Rocky Mountain Frontier, 32, 36. Thomas O’Dea wrote that water management followed “the general outlines of their economic ethic of co-operation and their strong conception of the public aspects of property.” The Mormons (Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1957), 202. Thomas Alexander wrote that before 1852 administration was through common consent. “Interdependence and Change: Mutual Irrigation Companies in Utah’s Wasatch Oasis in an Age of Modernization, 1870–1930,” Utah Historical Quarterly 71, no. 4 (Fall 2003): 293. This conflict of interpretation among historians reflects the people they studied, who lived inside the tension between authority and individual right.

19 Wells A. Hutchins, The Utah Law of Water Rights, State Engineer of Utah and Natural Resource Economics Division, Economic Research Service, USDA, 1965, 8.

See also Hutchins, Water Rights Laws in the Nineteen Western States: Volume I, Miscellaneous Publication No. 1206, Natural Resource Economics Division, Economic Research Service, USDA, 285.

20 Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 53. See also George Thomas, The Development of Institutions under Irrigation (New York: MacMillan, 1920), 19–20.

21 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 53; O’Dea, Mormons, 201.

22 O’Dea, Mormons, 201–202; Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 53.

23 Thomas, Development of Institutions; Hutchings, Utah Law of Water Rights, 12.

24 Thomas, Development of Institutions, 27.

25 Pisani, To Reclaim a Divided West, 47.

26 O’Dea, Mormons, 203; Hutchins, Water Rights Laws, 285–86; Thomas, Development of Institutions, 44–45.

Thomas G. Alexander, Utah, the Right Place (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2003), 222.

27 Pisani, To Reclaim a Divided West, 48.

28 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 53; O’Dea, Mormons, 203; Thomas, Development of Institutions, 117; Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 222.

29 Pisani, Water, Land, Law in the West, 12.

30 As might be expected, historians have interpreted differently the practice of managing water conflicts through the Mormon-controlled probate courts. Bakken writes that keeping power in these courts prevented decisions from being made by the non-Mormon Supreme Court and that giving authority to irrigation companies made sure that the Mormon majority would have power over water: Bakken, Development of Law, 36–38. But Thomas praises this system of management because it focused on community welfare without

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In 1865 the territorial legislature formally authorized communities to organize irrigation districts.28 Member landholders still had the same communally managed rights to the water. The LDS church continued to supply the money and manpower needed for irrigation projects. From 1865 to statehood, the federal government had limited but gradually expanding involvement in Utah water law and practice.

Even though the 1877 Desert Land Act declared that “bona-fide prior appropriation” was the standard for water rights, this system was not often followed in Utah.29 Mormons and federal officials mistrusted each other. Mormons protected their resources from non-Mormons immigrating into the state. Non-Mormons, meanwhile, had to deal with exclusivist Mormon communities in their efforts to gain access to land and water.30

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Young and other leaders encouraged agricultural production and warned against mining and outside, non-Mormon funding of industry.25 Continuing that tradition, the territorial legislature passed an 1852 law codifying the tradition that water rights would remain tied to land. The legislature assigned county courts to control water privileges, though the Mormon church largely continued to manage and control water development in the territory, claiming to do so in the interest of communities.26 A Mormon bishop—or someone appointed by him— generally settled arguments over water. If this arbitration failed to solve the problem, bishop or high council courts levied judgments.27

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The provisional State of Deseret’s first legislation sustained this communal approach to water: individuals did not have the right to appropriate water, and the church granted the use of water to communities, leaders, and public officials to administer to others.19 Leonard Arrington writes that “dams and ditches were constructed on a community basis, rights to use the water were associated with the utilization of land, and a public authority was appointed to supervise the appropriation of water for culinary, industrial, and agricultural purposes.”20 Settlers assigned water masters and worked together to build irrigation systems.21 Church organization and water associations were not distinct. Users earned proportions of water by their labor and kept the right through continued “beneficial use.”22 George Thomas finds that economic cooperation during this preterritorial period kept settlers from acquiring more land and water than they could practically use.23 Working together also made development possible, because farmers were too poor to construct an irrigation superstructure without community support. This cooperative venture constituted “one of the greatest and most successful community or cooperative undertakings in the history of America.”24

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This vista of the southern end of Rush Valley shows the expanse of arid ground that the streams of water from Main, Bennion, and Harker Canyons had to cross to get to Vernon.

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In 1880, the Utah Supreme Court declared in Monroe v. Ivie that the power of irrigation companies had become too strong and that water and land ought to be freely accessible for appropriation by all, whether Mormon or non-Mormon.31 That year the Utah legislature ignoring individual rights. It was, he argues, a simple, efficient, inexpensive system managed by county officials familiar with the problems that water users faced. Thomas, Development of Institutions, 91.

31 Bakken believes this declaration was the primary force behind the Irrigation Act of 1880, but that in passing this body of laws the Mormon legislature only gave lip service to individual appropriation. The new laws simply transferred power from the probate courts to county water commissions and kept much of the previous communitarian and exclusionist system intact.

Bakken, Development of Law, 36, 38. Thomas argued that the 1880 law was possibly created due to fear of the federal government soon controlling the county courts, but he said that the changes were significant and disastrous—a “marked step in retrogression”—primarily because it declared that once water was appropriated it became private property. Thomas, Development of Institutions, 53–54, 56.

passed an act repealing the 1852 statute and creating “vested and accrued” primary (average stream) and secondary (spring floodwaters) water rights.32 Secondary claims were honored only when sufficient water existed to serve all primary rights, such as in early spring.33 The new law was confusing for communities as they tried to interpret it. While recognizing established rights, it did not provide legal authorization to new appropriations.34 In 1881, the district judge Phillip Emerson declared the 1880 law void because it violated the territorial Organic Act that had vested power over such decisions in district courts. Most counties reportedly ignored this judgment, and individuals continued to scramble to establish priority over water.35 In 1886 in Lehi, Utah, older pioneers tried to dispossess newer settlers.

In the consequent case, the Utah Supreme Court declared that settlers before 1880 had equal right to the water, but prior appropria32 Bakken, Development of Law, 73; Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 223.

33 In addition, as a means for older pioneer communities to retain control of the water, the law divided primary water rights into three stages of settlement: prior to 1860, 1860 to 1880, and after 1880. Pisani, To Reclaim a Divided West, 49. In each category the rights of the users were honored equally before the rights of users in a latter category.

34 Hutchins, Utah Law of Water Rights, 9, and Water Rights Laws, 286.

35 Val Holley, “Showdown at Geddes Gulch: How Prior Appropriation Ambushed Weber County,” Utah Historical Quarterly 77, no. 4 (2009): 338.

Vernon lies at the southern end of Rush Valley in current-day Tooele County. The Sheeprock Range curves to the south of this Mormon village in the shape of a scythe. In Israel Bennion’s time several streams—Vernon, Bennion, Dutch, and Harker—flowed from the mountains and converged in a delta, where farmers settled in 1863 because of the rich topsoil. Through the eons the 36 Ibid., 337. See also Alexander, Utah, the Right Place, 223– 24.

37 Holley, “Showdown at Geddes Gulch,” 338.

38 Clinton Robert Brimhall and Sandra Dawn Brimhall, “The Goshen and Mona Water Dispute, 1873–1881: A Case Study of the Struggle between Ecclesiastical and Secular Authority in Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 78, no. 4 (2010), 326–43. See also Holley, “Showdown at Geddes Gulch.”

39 Alexander, “John Wesley Powell, the Irrigation Survey, and the Inauguration of the Second Phase of Irrigation Development in Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 37, no.

2 (Spring 1969): 205.

In January 1894, Bennion summarized efforts during the previous year to settle “water difficulties, existing in Vernon.”41 John C. Sharp, the local LDS bishop, and Bennion, one of Sharp’s counselors, saw the benefits of continuing with an authority-driven system where church officials managed the water that was available to the community. Erick Johan Pehrson, the other counselor in the bishopric, advocated for a system that recognized individual claims on and democratic management of water. Bennion viewed Pehrson’s act as a selfish one, but he never discussed the fact that while Pehrson was on a mission in 1869, an unnamed speculator made a claim on his property, proved up, and took it from him.42 Pehrson might have once been bitter about the trend toward civil law having power independent of ecclesiastical 40 Deveral J. Fredricson, “History of Vernon Irrigation Company,” in Centennial Story Collection: Souvenir of Centennial Organization of Vernon Ward, n.p.: Transcript Bulletin Press, 1977.

41 Israel Bennion, Journal, January 7, 1894, Israel Bennion Journals, 1883, 1894–1943, MS 13900, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter CHL).

According to their descendants living in Vernon—Jackie, Helen, and Raymond Pehrson—neither Erick nor his son Emil left journals, except for Erick’s missionary journal.

42 Raymond Pehrson, interview by the author, May 17, 2013. None of the Pehrsons now living in Vernon knows who this person was.

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During the disagreements over water between 1893 and 1896, Israel Bennion’s decisions were consistently made on the basis of authority and community, while his opponents upheld the authority of an individual to establish water rights independent of other users. Although a water master was appointed sometime in the 1870s, the Vernon Irrigation Company was not organized until June 27, 1892. A later water master writes that local farmers formed the company “to help solve some of the water problems that plagued many of the early settlers in the valley.”40 However, many people came to resent the tightening control this company exerted and found onerous the assessments needed to expand community ditches.

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This brief history shows some of the forces that, between settlement and statehood, caused Utahns to abandon a communal system of water management and to adopt that system used in other western states, where water was property allotted through prior appropriation. In Vernon, the transition was accomplished only with difficulty. Conflict there, as in other parts of the state, reflected, in the words of Thomas Alexander, a “battle between an older Utah which had been built upon cooperation and a newer Utah which was to emerge in the twentieth century built upon a capitalistic base.”39

winding of the largest stream carved out a long valley, so Vernon lies about one hundred feet below the level of the flat. Early in the settlement of Vernon, farmers diverted water from a channel that flowed through the long, narrow valley.

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tion became the rule for determining right in diversions made after that date. Robert Dunbar describes the situation in Utah after the 1880 law as “a jungle of uncontrolled appropriations and undetermined water rights.”36 Water users in some counties decided the uncertainty meant that anybody could use any water they could divert.37 Despite the confusion, irrigators in many areas such as along the Weber River in northern Utah and Salt Creek in central Utah resorted to the law to defend or attack claims on water.38 But in other communities, including Vernon, water users avoided the non-Mormon courts and settled water difficulties through church courts. Water rights remained ambiguous until 1897, when the new state legislature codified prior appropriation as the sole standard for Utah.

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Israel Bennion.

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John C. Sharp, bishop of the LDS Vernon ward in 1894 and president of the Vernon Irrigation Company.

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influence, but he began paying attention to that new set of laws. Tangled relationships intensified the conflict: Sharp served as president of the Vernon Water Company; Pehrson was vice president, Bennion secretary. Also, Bennion had married as his first wife Sharp’s cousin, and as his second wife, one of Pehrson’s daughters.

In a long retrospective at the start of his journal Bennion described the historical context, writing that the “primary water rights to Vernon creek consisted of water for 220 acres of land, half meadow, and half plough land.” He claimed that the community generally used the water from the first of June through the first of September each year. “In the early settlement of the place,” he wrote, “A. P. Ericson and E. J. Pehrson, seeing here an opening, commenced to spread the water on land below the town.” They used spring runoff (secondary water) from farmers located upstream. “Years rolled on; Vernon’s 220 acres became ‘run-out,’ choked out with wild oats; did not yield enough to pay for cultivation.” The infestation by wild

oats might have been a natural invasion or it might have been facilitated by depleted soil.

This condition reduced pasture and the amount of grass hay available to cut. “Our stock soon trimmed off our little patch of ground, and there being nowhere else for them to go, we were compelled to feed them, from November 1st to May 1st. This meant poverty for beast, poverty for man.”43 By the early 1890s, open rangeland had been seriously overgrazed. Early settlers of southern Rush Valley stocked cattle, sheep, and horses in the valleys, foothills, and canyons, where native grasses had established ecological primacy.44 Bennion inherited a depleted landscape both in his irrigated land and in the open land he may have used as a winter range for his cattle.

43 Bennion, Journal, January 7, 1894. This continues Bennion’s long summary of the previous year’s events.

44 Glynn Bennion, “A Pioneer Cattle Venture of the Bennion Family,” Utah Historical Quarterly 34, no. 4 (1966): 315–25.

Erick John Pehrson, second counselor in the Vernon ward bishopric and vice president of the water company.

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However, Bennion noticed that someone was prospering: “Below [our fields], the two men I have named had hundreds of acres of hay and pasture. They sold us pasturage; they sold us hay; they got rich as we became poor; they fattened on what we threw away.”45 Bennion seemed to imply, in his summary of the previous year’s conflict, that the rights of the community were above the rights of the individual and that when conditions changed, water practice had to change so that the community could continue to prosper.

45 Thomas, in Development of Institutions, describes what was known as waste water, and Bennion’s language here is similar. Thomas said that this is one of the problematic aspects of the 1880 irrigation act, which provided for filing on “excess” water to obtain secondary rights.

Because water studies had not been performed, officials found it difficult to determine what “normal” flow was; consequently, they had trouble determining the excess.

Transferring water from one location to another was acceptable under territorial law.47 However, this new diversion of water was problematic because there had to be available water to appropriate before a new diversion could be made.48 All water flowing to Vernon had certainly already been claimed. The appropriation doctrine had several other elements that caused Sharp and Bennion problems: first in time is first in right; no user could impair the rights of other users; and the water had to be put to beneficial use, or the right would be lost.49 When Pehrson and Ericson diverted spring runoff, they claimed a right to that secondary water.

Although Bennion recognized the Pehrson and Ericson claim, he firmly believed that the community was more important than any individual right. He did not equivocate in his journal: “Knowing that the life of Vernon depended on her having the iron hand of Secondary Water Right removed from her throat, I interested that strong, determined, organizer, Bishop John C. Sharp, in the matter; and together we went to 46 Bennion, Journal, January 7, 1894.

47 Thomas, Development of Institutions, 82.

48 Ibid., 4.

49 Ibid., 1, 2, 5.

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Although Bennion expressed some self-doubt in his journal concerning his role in the conflict, he did not question his belief that Mormons were destined to fill the West. Prosperity was an index to righteousness and often worked against communal values. Both views were Eurocentric, disregarding the rights of the Goshutes who lived in Rush Valley before the Mormons came. Sometime during 1893, before his journal began, Bennion decided that it would improve the community to expand the land included in the domain of the irrigation company, which would also require using spring water previously used by Ericson and Pehrson. The conflict intensified: “When I read between the lines, and realized what was going on, and undertook to get out of the trap those men said ‘no’; it would be an injury to them, to quit throwing away; it was their means of living. And the law said ‘You must not make any change.’” Bennion proposed that the main body of settlers build a new canal and distribute excess runoff to new company land.46

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This picture of Vernon, taken around 1915, shows the location of one of the ditches dug by the Vernon Irrigation Company in 1894 to flow along the town’s primary street.

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the rescue.” Bennion’s journals do not specify his reasons, but he probably recognized that a new diversion above town to irrigate new fields would have to follow the rules set up by the 1880 law and would be junior to the claim made by Ericson and Pehrson. Continuing his summary of these acts, Bennion wrote, “Amid suspicion, accusation, and bitter opposition, we worked, and accomplished our object. We bought out Ericson, compromised with Pehrson; secured control of the secondary water rights, and then sold the same to Vernon for a reasonable sum; then as President and Secretary of the Vernon Irrigation Company, we secured the vote of the shareholders to extend our limits from 220 acres to 1100 acres.”50 This process was completed following the advice of an attorney, LeGrand Young. On April 24, 1893, Bennion bought seventy-two-and-a-half acres for $750.51 Following the principles of the new 50 Bennion, Journal, January 7, 1894.

51 Grantee Index A 1888–1896, Tooele County Recorder’s Office, Tooele, Utah.

standard of prior appropriation, Bennion and Sharp purchased the land and its water right, but did so with traditional, communal goals in mind. Bennion and Sharp’s purpose was to retain authority for water distribution in the irrigation company, in the person of the water master, who would be appointed by him and Sharp.

The grantee index for Tooele County shows that through the years between 1894 and 1896 water shares were bought, sold, traded, and lost through assessment by the water company. To Bennion, such transactions assisted struggling farmers, thus serving the larger community.

Their next act was to initiate a new ditch “to carry the waters of Vernon Creek along the bench to the head of the street, there to be distributed.” Making a new ditch would enable farmers to irrigate land eastward of and higher than the old channel, including land on the bench or flat above Vernon. However, the stream would be distributed to five times as much land before it flowed to land below town, so there would not be as much water for use

by Pehrson and Ericson, nor to other farmers whose land holdings did not expand as Bennion and Sharp’s did. Bennion thought of the ditch as “the means of beautifying and enlarging our town and opening to it the door of prosperity.”

But the compromise that enabled this beautification required Pehrson to give up a bounty he had legal right to.

Wilt Thou bless these Thy Saints that dwell here, who have shown their faith by coming to this desert place to make a home. May Thy Spirit possess them; may they see eye to eye; realizing and appreciating Thy blessings, in increasing the water, in modifying the climate, and in fact, in giving them the riches of this earth, and the riches of eternity. May brotherly love abound; may the owners of water realize their responsibility to Thee, the Lord of the whole earth, and for a just remuneration, divide their water shares, with others of Thy worthy people; and may all be wise stewards, so that if a man shall sell three-fourths of his water, remaining fourth will produce more than the whole, before it was divided.52 He predicted that dividing the water would multiply it, not unlike the New Testament miracle of the loaves and fishes. His prayer provided a way for good people to use the new laws (where water could be owned privately) in the service of the old tradition. The prayer of promise could have been heard as a not-so-veiled threat: without brotherly love, the water flow would diminish.

52 Bennion, Journal, January 7, 1894.

Whatever their specific complaints, the independent-minded individuals in Vernon, disturbed by the restrictiveness of the new system, believed that Bennion and Sharp had taken advantage of them. On April 24, 1894, water from the creek began flowing in the new ditch.

When Bennion “found the dam at the head of the irrigating ditch broken” two weeks later, he and Sharp repaired it.55 A few days later the stockholders of the water company met to consider David Sharp’s dissatisfaction with the new appropriations of water. David “made threats, and left the meeting.”56 David, Bishop Sharp’s first cousin and Bennion’s brother-in-law, complained because the company had forced him to make assessed payments in money or labor.

When he refused to make these payments, the company stripped him of twelve shares of water.57

53 Thomas G. Alexander, “Irrigating the Mormon Heartland: The Operation of the Irrigation Companies in Wasatch Oasis Communities, 1847–1880,” Agricultural History 76 (2002): 176.

54 Thomas, Institutions under Irrigation, 125.

55 Bennion, Journal, May 9, 1894.

56 Ibid., May 14, 1894.

57 Refusal to pay assessments or work on the system also plagued the irrigation company in Orem, Utah. See Alexander, Utah, the Right Place, 223.

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Despite Bennion’s hope that the compromise would settle the problem, late the following spring of 1894, when farmers required water for irrigation, trouble resumed. While part of the problem was the unchangeable scarcity of water, another influence was the unwillingness to share in the work of maintaining the new ditches.53 Irrigation organizations had the power to tax members for irrigation projects that would only help some of the members.54 This was the situation in Vernon, where all the members of the company were assessed to expand the land of a few. This caused irritation because one of the few was the already-wealthy Bishop Sharp.

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Late that summer and fall, the citizens of Vernon completed the diversion dam and ditch.

Unfortunately, they first put the ditch to use during the winter. The water froze and flooded onto “the prairie.” They then turned the water back into the old channel for the winter.

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Bennion hoped his and Sharp’s plan would mean the end of conflict over water. As the community prepared to construct the new diversion dam and ditch, he delivered a prayer: “Heavenly Father we have gathered at this place to make an irrigating ditch; wilt Thou bless and consecrate the performance of this labor to the welfare of our souls, and to the building up and beautifying of Zion.” He then blessed the mountains that their “treasures of snow” would increase and the springs that they would “pour forth abundantly.” He blessed the dam, canal, laterals, and fields “that they may yield abundantly, and that with less irrigation than heretofore, so that more land may be taken up, and more of Thy people provided with homes and the means of sustenance.” Lastly, he blessed the people, saying that God would help them be unified and would modify the climate and hence amplify the water if they were righteous.

He continued:

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The next day David Sharp was arrested by an unnamed official for holding water out of his turn.58 It might be that he was using a water share that the water company had stripped from him in lieu of an assessment. An ecclesiastical court tried him the next day.59 Sharp retaliated, as reported by Bennion: “D. Sharp had watermaster D. Bennion [Bennion’s brother] and Emil Pehrson arrested for breaking his dam.”60 Emil Pehrson, who helped fulfill the business of the water company, was Erick Pehrson’s son, one of the two men who had originally filed on secondary water.

The disagreeing parties, with the approval of their religious leader, the stake president, decided to submit their claims to the judgment of an arbitrator.61 The resulting settlement permitted David Sharp to withdraw from the irrigation company.

In return, he “relinquish[ed] all claim to water from October 1st to April 1st of each year.” If he was angry about being assessed work or money for an irrigation system that did not benefit him directly, the terms of the settlement likely satisfied his complaint. Sharp took his water shares with him when he left the company, including 58 Bennion, Journal, May 15, 1894.

59 Ibid., May 16, 1894.

This head gate, used when the author was a child, is probably close to the same location as the diversion dam built by the Vernon Irrigation Company in 1894. In the mountains, six miles in the background, are the sources of Vernon irrigation water, currently stored in a reservoir and transported across the flat in an undergound pipe.

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those he had lost because of delinquent payments, but he agreed to irrigate a limited amount of land, “not to exceed 30 acres.”62 While the arbitration seemed to solve one problem, a week later there was more trouble.

“In the evening, Emil Pehrson came to me, and said he would not abide the rules of the Irrigation Company, but would insist on having his turn as it was before any changes were made,” Bennion recorded. “I cautioned him against taking such a course, and told him that if the corporation were broken up, within two years the people would be begging to have it reestablished, and to have the measures adopted they

60 Ibid., May 17, 1894.

61 Ibid., May 18, 1894.

62 Ibid., May 22, 1894.

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63 Ibid., May 28, 1894.

64 Map of Vernon, no date [circa 1900], in the Tooele County Recorder’s Office, Tooele, Utah. The map post dates 1893.

John C. Sharp’s mansion, built on his property southward in Vernon, is the grandest structure in the history of Vernon.

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Bishop Sharp, as I know that our motives have been for the building up of His Kingdom.”65 Pehrson contended that many of the people in Vernon, those who could not afford to acquire more property, had less water when the new land came under irrigation.66 Although Pehrson viewed the water company’s act as oppressive, the bishop would have seen the irrigation company as the means through which Vernon 65 Bennion, Journal, June 3, 1894.

66 Ironically, Pehrson found himself in a position similar to non-Mormon settlers in Utah, who found irrigation companies’ control of water to be excessive. In 1880 the Utah Supreme Court in Munroe v. Ivie wrote: “This is a free country, and the lands are open to all, and the appropriation of the water is open to all, and the legislature cannot pass any law that will put it into the power of an irrigating company to control and manage the waters of any part of the Territory, regardless of the rights of the parties. Nor will the court allow irrigating companies to become engines of oppression.” Albert Hagen, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah from the January Term, 1877, to the June Term, 1880 Inclusive (Chicago: Callaghan, 1881), 2:538.

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are now so unwilling to accept.”63 Emil, Erick Pehrson’s son, demanded a return to the schedule of water turns from before Bennion and the bishop revised them. His complaint centered not on the assessment but on the duration of his water turn. In addition, perhaps he had watched the water declining in his ditches due to drought. He believed the fault lay with the irrigation company. On a plat map of Vernon roughly dated around the turn of the century, Emil Pehrson owned five parcels of land.64 The map shows land being watered from the new ditch, located farther up the bench and to the east than the older irrigation works. Since four of the parcels owned by Pehrson could have been watered directly from the creek, irrigating from the new ditch would have brought water to one-fifth of his land but decreased the flow to the other four-fifths. Pehrson talked “extremely hard” to Bennion about the plan devised by Bennion and Bishop Sharp. He said their acts were dishonest and that they had “robbed the widows and fatherless,” presumably because they had less water to spread across their gardens and small fields. Bennion declared that “the Lord will vindicate me, and also

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could open new land to irrigation. But although Bennion remarked several times on the bishop’s aggressive self-interest, he, too, considered the rights of the community, as embodied in the authority of the bishop, to be superior to the rights of the individual. Bennion, the bishop, and a handful of others stood alone in this judgment. “Opposition to the Bishop runs high,” he wrote in June 1894.67 Tension had grown because stream flow had declined, inadequate to satisfy irrigation demands. In fact the stream was so low that Bennion could not get water to flow through a new ditch around the upper end of his field.68 A week later the water had “given out.”69 It was a bad year to try to water five times more land with a reduced stream.

On July 4, when the community traditionally gathered to celebrate its freedoms, Bennion wrote about the division between the bishop’s faction and the rest of town: “No celebration here, excepting a promiscuous gathering at Durrants’, without leadership, without order.

The Saints here, on various fancied grievances, have arrayed themselves against the Ward authorities; thus greatly retarding the social, and religious well-being of the Ward.” Like his communalism, his reverence for authority was religious in origin. That fall he attended the LDS church’s general conference in Salt Lake City, later writing, “The irrigation question was talked of; the course already taken by Bishop Sharp and I in regard to those things was strongly recommended; otherwise we will be brought, in a measure, into subjection to our enemies, who are watching us.”70 By “enemies,” he probably referred to the general incursion of non-Mormons into Utah. He and others believed laxity in this effort would likely take 67 Bennion, Journal, June 8, 1894.

68 Ibid., June 12, 1894.

69 Ibid., June 18, 1894.

70 Ibid., October 8, 1894. The Deseret Evening News, October 8, 1894, reported that Franklin Richards spoke in the Mormon General Conference, saying that it was not a good time for the saints to “throw down their guard.” They should not be moved to “narrow-minded contrivances for the benefit of the few to the injury of the whole,” and they should do nothing in the political arena that would weaken them. During the same conference, Joseph F. Smith said that they should take up land adjacent to already-formed communities, rather than trying to settle in isolated areas where there was no church organization.

water rights away from the Mormons, especially if they were not united. Bennion wrote that it wasn’t only in Vernon that LDS church authorities worried about the effects of prior appropriation. “The organization of the Utah Company, at the head of which stands the First Presidency, is a move towards making Zion the head and not the heel,” he wrote. “The Saints were urged to divide the water and the land, and make such use of both, as to support the most settlers possible; in the organized wards; and to avoid scattering too much.”71 For Bennion, dividing the land and water amongst the community simply made good practical sense, because it was a mingling of economics and religion. The acts and proclamations of Mormon leaders threatened non-Mormon settlers, but this push to retain authority over water with the wards also caused difficulties for newcomers and for other marginal users of the water.

That fall and winter Bennion worked on various projects that would make better use of water during the following spring. He plowed ditches and hauled sods, “making dams in the gulches, so as to catch the flood water and level up the ground.”72 He completed one ditch “by working hard in wind, rain, and snow.” He wanted to complete this ditch so he could use it “very early in the spring.”73 His desire was to catch the water before the normal irrigation schedule, just as Erikson and Pehrson had done.

Even after the ground froze hard, he kept working, hauling “straw manure to fill up old ditches in hay meadow.”74 Once again, winter brought a long period of peace. When spring came, trouble resumed.

Bennion wrote, “By arrangement with other water owners, Bishop Sharp, Brother Pehrson, and I have been dividing the irrigating water equally. A few days ago Brother Pehrson claimed that the Bishop had been taking more than his share, so he went and stopped my 71 Bennion, Journal, October 8, 1894. In an article entitled “Working for Utah,” a Mr. Wantland wrote that incorporation of the Utah Company was possibly an effort by the Mormon church to retain political control of land and water when Utah became a state. Deseret Evening News, October 8, 1894.

72 Bennion, Journal, November 30, 1894.

73 Ibid., December 5, 1894.

74 Ibid., February 5, 1895.

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stream.”75 For some reason Pehrson stopped Bennion’s stream and not the bishop’s, the person he thought was taking more than his share.

A few days later, Bennion wrote, “Brother Pehrson gave me a scolding about ‘water,’ with incidental hits against the Bishop and David [Bennion]. Said we were dishonest. I feel that I can hardly tolerate Brother Pehrson’s insults, but I have complained about it to the church authorities before, and they have counseled ‘putting up with it:’ excusing him on account of age, and training; saying ‘you can’t change the spots on 75 Ibid., March 29, 1895. It’s not clear whether Bennion meant father or son, but references to age and habit suggest the elder Pehrson, Erick.

This plat map of Vernon shows the parcels of land owned by Emil Pehrson.

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the leopard.’”76 Bennion’s view of communitarian control by church leaders made it difficult for him to embrace any other perspective, so he blamed upbringing and age for Pehrson’s obstinance. Bennion listened to Pehrson more out of a condescending charity than out of a desire to be convinced that his neighbor might have a legitimate complaint. That same day David 76 Ibid., March 30, 1895.

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In all these matters, Bennion’s motive was to keep control of water in the hands of the irrigation company: “Took the water from Brother Pehrson 20 hours after my turn began, he having grumbled so much about lack of water.”77 On April 8, David Sharp took the water ten hours early, but when caught claimed to have made a mistake. On April 10, a Brother Anderson played the same trick, costing Bennion eight hours of water. As others entered the battle over water, he continued to try to mediate. Brothers Elg and Durrant disagreed concerning the size of two ditches that Durrant had built to cross Elg’s land. Bennion and the bishop brought them together to compromise.78 “The brethren were willing to receive counsel, which is good,” Bennion wrote, “but I think we should be wise, forbearing, courteous, charitable, and not require such elaborate ‘settling.’”79 Interestingly, the next week he found that the schedule of water turns had a gap, an extra day that nobody claimed. “I notified the watermaster, and was instructed to let the water run down the meadow, where it will do some good to all.”80 This act would have been satisfactory under both the old law and the new, when unused water returned to the public arena.

In addition to believing that people could be brought to such a pitch of righteousness that they would not disagree about water, Bennion persisted in his belief that righteousness would increase the water: “Watered the lucern by nine o’clock; the surplus water covering most of the hayland. Took the water down to the lower farm, very large stream. I have set the example of selling half my water, and do not miss it.”81 He was determined to make the water 77 Ibid., April 1, 1895.

78 They agreed that the ditch should remain the same size, that Durrant should keep it clean, and that Durrant’s old ditch would be abandoned so Elg could fill it in.

They were warned not to allow water to back up onto a neighbor’s land. Ibid., April 30, 1895.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid., May 6, 1895.

81 Ibid., May 8, 1895. Powell, in Report on the Lands, 104–06, wrote that the streams actually did increase in volume directly after the early Mormon settlements.

He rejected several explanations, such as the laying of railroad tracks, the cultivation of the soil, or divine

spread across the expanded farming area, and he was convinced that God would reward his communitarian efforts.

A few days later the stake presidency was called in to settle a new conflict concerning a dam built by Pehrson in a ditch owned by the bishop but traversing Pehrson’s land. Bennion wrote, “I feel that at the bottom of this, as well as many of our difficulties, is too great love for the things of this world, and too little appreciation of the ‘unspeakable things of the Kingdom.’ A dollar is allowed precedence of the love and fellowship of our brother.”82 He might have been speaking about both Pehrson and the bishop. After the meeting, Bennion wrote, “A general handshaking occurred at the last; and apparently all was peace. I feel that while such trifling things are allowed to occasion, so much settling by higher authority, while men holding the priesthood give way to bursts of temper, exhibitions of selfish weakness, the adversary can work mischief, according to his own good pleasure.”83 Despite the decision of the stake presidency that Pehrson should remove the dam, five days later it was still in place. Bennion described his reaction to their years of squabbling: I have become discouraged, working with a divided, fault-finding people; and don’t feel to undertake any more schemes. Utah is about to become a state, and the chances are that irrigation laws will be revised. In the interests of the state (the people), committees should investigate the sources of water supply, securing to prior holders reasonable rights and privileges; and throwing open all surplus to occupation and settlement; providing for economical use of water, as against waste, destruction, selfishness, etc. We are educated to think that another’s providence. Instead, Powell attributed the increase to changes in the surface of the land on which rain fell: damage to forests and grassland forced water to flow into streams rather than being absorbed into the earth.

Powell also suggested that causes were removal of driftwood and beaver dams that impeded flow. Bennion may have watched the increase in the stream, but chose to believe that God’s blessing was the cause.

82 Bennion, Journal, May 11, 1895.

83 Ibid., May 12, 1895.

84 Ibid., May 16, 1895.

85 Ibid., May 24, 1895.

86 Ibid., June 3, 1895.

87 Ibid., June 23, 1895.

The land that once was the town of Benmore now sits idle, and only a few foundations remain—monuments to Bennion’s reluctance to enter an age where religious community was separate from economics. His nature was formed by an opposition between values identified as Mormon—community, authority, and the belief that obedience will bring prosperity— and western American values—independence and the aggressive acquisition of resources.

The practical exigency of scarce water and pasture forced the compromise of abstract ideology for every western rancher. The choices Bennion made concerning these scarce resources moderated his character and values. Ironically, when the community most needed to work together during a dry year, the law was moving from supporting communal benefit to private ownership. His propensity to cling to previous communal traditions put him at odds with the community he strove to represent and unify.

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John Bennion, Israel Bennion’s great-grandson, is Associate Professor of English at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

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WEB EXTRA At history.utah.gov/water, you’ll find a sampling of the water use records available at the Utah State Historical Society’s research center, including journals, correspondence, and water filings.

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In a further effort to solve the problems, Sharp asked for impartial arbitrators, the bishop and his counselors from a neighboring town, to judge the case.85 Bennion wrote that as he was irrigating his own field, Brother Pehrson “talked water” again, wondering which side Bennion was on in the cases he wanted to bring against the bishop. He wrote, “I said I could only judge of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of a matter on hearing it, and then if obliged to take any part, it would be to espouse the cause of truth.”86 Later that month Bennion and the bishop decided to “withdraw our opposition to Brother Pehrson and sustain him as counselor; but have little to do with him.” How could they have little to do with him in such a small town as Vernon, when all three men were members of one bishopric, had familial bonds through marriage, and had to work together? Bennion continued, “We consider him a good man but eccentric, lacking in sensibility, and order. Also a little too much in love with the things of this world.” Despite his propensity to judge harshly those who did not agree with him, Bennion understood the problem with pointing fingers: “In entering in this judgment of him, my own faults loom up big before me.”87 At the end of that year, Sharp announced that the difficulty between himself and Pehrson had been satis

Soon Bennion left Vernon and attempted to farm closer to Harker Canyon on a homestead he named Ben Lomond. He aimed to show users lower on the creek that moving higher would cause them to prosper. When that project did not work out as he had hoped, he formed another community near the mouth of Bennion Canyon, naming it Benmore. He and the other families who joined him, including the Skidmores, used water directly from the canyon and tested the new theories of dry farming. Bennion persisted in believing that if people cooperated and followed conservationist principles, God would bless them with ample water.

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Bennion recognized the new law supporting prior appropriation but hoped that communitarian feeling would enable distribution of water in a manner that wouldn’t stint progress and would provide for all members of the community.

factorily settled and that the bishopric was in harmony. But water struggles in the desert are never really over.

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loss is our gain. The idea of gain to both is, in our philosophy, adverse to all law and reason. We are in need of a higher education, a broader philanthropy, a deeper philosophy, a charitable, brotherly, Christianity; “each man seeking the interest of his neighbor;” “preferring another, in honor, before ourselves.” This would tend to bring about harmony in matters pertaining to irrigation and also in a number of other directions.84

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A group of Ute Indians photographed by B. H. Gurnsey, circa 1875 —

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through Google’s Picasa Face Recognition Tool BY

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Historians want to include photographs of the people and places they write about, and digital databases across the world now make historic images readily available. The problem is making sure that the photographs are correctly identified. In years past, archivists had to depend on identifications supplied by either the photographer or someone familiar with the topic and collection. In many cases, catalogers read identifications from handwritten notes on the back of the photographs, which often provided only cursory information, such as “Group photo same as above” or “Ute Indians.” Now historians have tools that can help them accurately identify people in historical photographs—free face recognition programs, such as Picasa.

This article demonstrates the utility of this technology by applying it to photographs of the Ute Indians who once lived in Colorado and were relocated to Utah. In the late 1800s photographers would pay a small token to American Indians willing to sit for their photographs and then sell the photographs to tourists. Consequently, many photographs exist of the Utes. However, several digital image databases misidentify photographs of Ute Indians or simply do not label them at all.

Some of these captions include the “Ute” names of the pictured individuals. However, some photographers even went so far as to create Indian-sounding names for their subjects. Those fabricated names do not appear in either census records or annuity lists for the same people. Further compounding matters, some photographs—such as the one chosen for this demonstration—even bear two different call numbers and two entirely different descriptions of who is in the picture.

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Setting the Ute Photographic Record Straight

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Figure 1. Gurnsey’s photograph, with the author’s identification, using face recognition. Front row: Powatch (d), Quenche (c), Ouray (a).

Backrow: Colorow’s son (e), Colorow (b), Pooppe? ( f ), Charley Alhandra (g), unidentified man, unidentified woman.

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As I have prepared a comprehensive family history of Northern Ute tribal members, these discrepancies have been a source of great frustration: putting faces on the story obviously requires correct identification of photographs.

During my research, I was introduced to a tool previously accessible only to law enforcement and government security agencies, face recognition. Now, such power is in the hands of the general public through such software as Google’s free program, Picasa. Picasa searches for faces in all of the photographs that are introduced to it; it then creates thumbnail photographs of these faces and asks the researcher to identify these unnamed individuals. Once the user tags one thumbnail, Picasa will analyze the other faces it has found and present the user with likely matches. If the user accepts this recommendation, the program quickly adds more faces to the assortment for consideration.

Through the use of Picasa’s face recognition tool, I have finally been able to correctly identify many Utes who were previously unidentified or misidentified in group and individual photographs. The use of this tool helps researchers to identify people in historic photographs with a new degree of accuracy. Because of their similar facial features, Picasa even groups family members together.

The first photograph I examined, one often seen in books and articles about the Utes (fig.

1), comes from a stereograph taken by Byron H. Gurnsey in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Gurnsey was in the photographic business in Colorado Springs from 1872 to 1880. He also had a studio in Pueblo from 1872 to 1875; in 1875 he was in a partnership with Eugene Brandt.1 The test photograph, figure one, shows a group of Native Americans in front of a building in Colorado Springs, Colorado; this B. H. Gurnsey photograph underscores the role face recognition software can play in deciphering the past.2 The Denver Public Library database lists this image under two numbers, X-30557 and Z-2727. The first item, X-30557, is one half of a stereograph image; the second, Z-2727, is the complete stereograph. When this project began, number X-30557 bore the caption “Chief Colorow, Captain Jack, Piah, and others.” The library provided this description of photograph: Group portrait of Native American men (Ute): Chief Colorow (with a felt hat on his knee); Captain Jack, left top row; and Piah, fourth from left on top row, 1 Opal Harbar, “Directory of Early Photographers: 1853 through 1900” in Terry William Mangan, Colorado on Glass: Colorado’s First Half Century As Seen by the Camera (Denver: Sundance, 1975), 394; see also Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Colorado, El Paso County, Colorado Springs, p. 40, 41, ED43, lines 488-50, 1–5.

2 X-30557, Denver Public Library Digital Collections (hereafter DPL), accessed March 24, 2014, http:// cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/ collection/p15330coll22/id/20506/rec/6.

pose in front of the B. H. Gurnsey studio in Colorado Springs (El Paso County), Colorado. Their costumes include sashes, beaded bags, rifles, bows and arrows. Window lettering reads: “B. H. Gurnsey Views.”

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This statement estimated the image’s date as 1875.3 It also noted, “Hand-written on back of print ‘Ouray and others.’”4 The photograph itself bears a faint label in its lower right corner: “Ouray.” The Library of Congress website provides a similar description of the Gurnsey group portrait that includes an additional line from the back of the photograph: “Ouray and others.”5

This entry dates the photograph between 1872 and 1880.7 According to the caption of Z-2727, the photographer himself provided this description. Interestingly, the hand-written note “Ouray” in the bottom right corner is cut off from this image.

So who was who? Was the man with a felt hat on 3 Since I made the results of my research known to the Denver Public Library, the description of X-30557 has been changed to read, in part, “Group of Native American men (Ute) including Chief Ouray.” Ibid.

4 Ute Indians, Z-2727, DPL, accessed March 25, 2014, http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/ collection/p15330coll22/id/67575/rec/84.

5 Chief Colorow, Captain Jack, Piah and Others, “History of the American West, 1860–1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library,” Library of Congress, accessed March 27, 2014, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ query/r?ammem/AMALL:@field%28NUMBER+@ band%28codhawp+10030557%29%29.

6 Ute Indians, Z-2727, DPL. 7 Ibid.

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Figure 2. Ouray and Chipeta.

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his knee Ouray or Colorow? Picasa has helped to answer that question.

INDIVIDUAL 1: OURAY The note in the lower right hand corner of Gurnsey’s photograph (fig. 1a) clearly identifies the man in the right of the front row as Ouray, one of the most photographed Utes of all time.

Using Picasa, I compared photographs of Ouray taken during approximately the same time period (fig. 2).8 A Picasa examination of accurately labeled photographs demonstrates that the man on the right in the front row of Gurnsey’s stereograph is indeed Chief Ouray, not Colorow, as numerous books and articles have stated.9 Authors are not necessarily to blame for 8 Ouray and Wife, Z-2726, DPL, accessed June 25, 2014, http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/ collection/p15330coll22/id/67541/rec/101.

9 Arlene Appah and Janet Cuch, “Gutsy Ute Woman: Sarah Mountain,” Outlaw Trail Journal 37 (Summer 2009): 57; Richard Davis, “Bloody Siege at Milk Creek,” True West Magazine 60, no. 7 (July 2013): 34; Jan Pettit, Utes: The Mountain People (Boulder, CO: Johnson Printing, 1990), 36. P. David Smith, Ouray, Chief of the Utes (Ridgeway, CO: Wayfinder, 1990), 78.

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Chief Ouray sits and holds a felt hat and a rifle. Men have braids and wear sashes, choker necklaces, fur hair wraps, beaded bags with fringe, earrings, leather leggings, and moccasins and hold rifles or bows and arrows.

Lettering in a window of a brick building reads: “B. H. Gurnsey Views.”6

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The Denver Public Library lists this same photograph with the catalog number Z-2727 and the title “Ute Indians.” The caption reads, in part,

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Figure 3. Colorow, from one half of a stereograph made by B. A. Hawkins in 1874.

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Using the face recognition technique, I identified a separate person in Gurnsey’s photograph—the tall man in the back row, second left, wearing a flat-topped hat—as Colorow, a famous chief of the Northern Utes (fig. 1b). Personal effects provided another set of clues for this effort: a photograph taken by B. A. Hawkins in Denver in 1874 shows Colorow with a similar flat-topped hat (fig. 3).12 He holds a “new, or almost new, Maynard rifle” and a long-barreled piston, in comparison to Ouray’s gun in the photograph. 13 The Hawkins photograph, which I used as a control, finally surfaced after I searched for a year in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) collection; Hawkins had labeled it “Coloron Ute.”14 This photograph evidently served as the model for a sketch that appeared in an 1879 issue of Harper’s Weekly and in Jacob Dunn’s 1886 Massacres of the Mountains.15 After a hunting fracas in northwestern Colorado in the early fall of 1887, Colorow and his band finally moved onto the reservation in Utah where they were living when he died on December 11, 1888.16

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such mistakes; when a photograph in a widely used database is mislabeled, a single error will ripple through the subsequent literature. One caption stated, “His rifle is in a “fine buckskin case.”10 Such descriptions of personal items add an additional layer of identifying elements beyond facial recognition to verify identification. Ouray died in 1880, after having gone to Washington to meet with American leaders about negotiating a treaty and setting aside a reservation. He died as the final signing, which sent the Utes to Utah, occurred at the Southern Ute Agency at Ignacio, Colorado.11 10 Smith, Ouray, 78.

11 Clifford Duncan, “The Northern Utes of Utah” in A History of Utah’s American Indians, ed. Forrest S. Cuch (Salt Lake City: Utah State Division of Indian Affairs / Utah State Division of History, 2000), 196; Robert Silbernagel, Troubled Trails: The Meeker Affair and the Expulsion of the Utes from Colorado (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2011), 157–59. Congress ratified the treaty on June 15, 1880, after Utes had signed

it in Washington on March 6, 1880. It took many months before it was considered signed by the commission and the Utes because the Indian Commission officers had to make the rounds to the many camps and agencies. They were at Ignacio at the Southern Ute Agency when Ouray died. Acts of 46th Cong., 2nd Sess., ch. 223 (1880), 183, 186.

12 B. A. Hawkins, Colorow, Ute Chief, stereograph, Photo Lot 90-1, number 112, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Suitland, MD. 13 Smith, Ouray, 78.

14 NAA has since corrected the misspelling in its database to “Hawkins, Colorow, Ute Chief.” The name Coloran appears in the testimony given by Josephine Meeker on November 4, 1879, which was submitted as part of the White River Ute Commission Investigation of the Meeker incident of September 1879. Joseph Brady, the miller at the Los Pinos Indian Agency, used the name Colorado to refer to Colorow in the same investigation.

See White River Ute Commission Investigation, 46th Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 83 (1880), 28, 41. For more on the Meeker affair, see Silbernagel, Troubled Trails.

15 Harper’s Weekly, October 25, 1897, 845; Jacob Piatt Dunn Jr., Massacres of the Mountains: A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West (New York: Archer House, 1886), 700.

16 “Chief Colorow Dead.” Leadville (CO) Daily and Evening Chronicle, December 13, 1888.

Gurnsey photograph of this man with a sketch and photograph of Ouray’s brother, Quenche, made in 1869 (fig. 4).18 Genealogical research supports the hypothesis that the man in the picture was in fact Ouray’s brother.19 Unfortunately, an exhaustive study of other photographs of Utes, either by themselves or in group portraits, has not revealed Quenche in any other picture.

18 Yulé et Quincy, X-30707, DPL, accessed March 27, 2014, http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/ collection/p15330coll22/id/20030/rec/918.

Figure 4. Quenche, from an 1868 illustration entitled “Yulé et Quincy, chefs des Yutes.”

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INDIVIDUAL 3: QUENCHE The man sitting to the left of Ouray in Gurnsey’s stereograph (fig. 1c) has been often identified as Piah (Peah or Black-tailed Deer), the “Napoleon” chief of the Yampa Utes and possibly Colorow’s brother-in-law.17 However, in many tests, the Picasa program always pairs the 17 X-30557, DPL.

19 Quenche, Quinche, Quincy, or Cinche, was born in 1832 in Taos, New Mexico. According to legend, Ouray and Quenche’s mother died giving birth to Quenche.

In a letter written on July 20, 1864, from Santa Fe, J. M. Collins, superintendent of Indians in New Mexico, described that in negotiations in 1864, Lafayette Head’s contingent consisted of Shawano (Shavano) and two brothers, “Ulah or Ule & Quinche; both speak Spanish.”

Colorado Superintendency records, roll 197, NARA. 20 William H. Jackson, Powatch, CHS.J1029, History Colorado (hereafter HC), accessed March 27, 2014, http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/ collection/p15330coll21/id/7258/rec/1.

21 William G. Chamberlain, Group of Seven, Princeton University Digital Library, accessed March 27, 2014, http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/b5644s26c.

22 “Agreement with the Capote, Muache, and Weeminuche Utes,” Pagosa Springs, Colorado, November 9, 1878, “Mose, his x mark,” Office of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1879 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1879), p. 178.

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In Gurnsey’s photograph (fig. 1d), the man seated on the left in the front row with a handful of arrows and quiver at his feet is Powatch, also known as Mose (fig. 5).20 When analyzed with face recognition software, three photographs— one by William Henry Jackson labeled Powatch and a pair of photographs by William G. Chamberlain that label the same person as Mose— suggest that Powatch was given two names.

Mose also appears with Kwakonut in a number of photographs taken by Jackson on July 4, 1873, one with the famous Muache Ute chief, Curecanti.21 Powatch, signing as Mose, was one of the subchiefs who signed the 1878 treaty that relinquished the rights of the Muache, Capota, and Weiminuche Utes to the lands of the Confederated Ute Reservation and placed them on the San Juan River on what is now the Southern Ute Reservation.22

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wives had many sons: Pooppe bore Jim, Daniel, and Robert; Siah bore Chequito (Chick), Waperatz (Enie or Enny), Frank, Tabernash, Uncapahgugunt (Brock), and Waratza.26 Because of his knowledge of English, Waperatz often accompanied Colorow and served as an interpreter for Colorow throughout his life.27 Perhaps, then, the young man in Gurnsey’s group photograph was Waperatz.

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Figure 5. Powatch, photographed by William Henry Jackson, circa 1882–1900.

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Two women appear in figure one but according to Picasa tests neither of them are the two most photographed Ute women of the time: Chipeta, Ouray’s spouse (fig. 2), and Siah Colorow (fig.

6b), one of Chief Colorow’s wives, who raised at least seven of his children.28 The women may be the wives of the men they stand next to. If that is the case, the woman standing next to Colorow (fig. 1f ) could be his second wife, Siah’s older sister, Pooppe (fig. 6d), who raised five of Colorow’s children.29 However, Ute women are rarely identified in photographs if indeed they even appear. It will take much more research to determine Pooppe’s presence in other photographs of the Colorow clan and Ute Indians.30

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INDIVIDUAL 5: COLOROW’S SON Some researchers have identified the man on the far left of the back row (fig. 1e) as Nicaagat or Captain Jack.23 The man moved when the picture was taken, so the photograph is slightly out of focus. Despite the focus issue, Picasa did not match this photograph with any other images of Nicaagat. Rather, it paired the thumbnail with pictures of one of Chief Colorow’s sons (fig. 6c).24 This handsome son of Colorow appears in a number of single and group photographs of Northern Utes as well as in images of Colorow’s family.25 Who was he? Colorow and two of his

26 Allotment and probate records, “Si-ah Colorow,” Allotment 414, 1905; “Jim Colorow (Wit-cha),” p. 183, Allotment 400, 1924; “Bob Colorow (Ar-mon-tabbywatz),” p. 184, Allotment 403-404, 1914; “Wap-er-atz (Enie),” p. 295, Allotment 470; Si-bel-lo (Colorow’s son-in-law), p. 180, Allotment 390- 391, 1911, Janet Cuch collection.

27 “Stories of Colorado, Notorious Ute Chief,” Steamboat Pilot, January 18, 1929, 6. Waperatz and his three wives raised a large family of at least fourteen children, some of whom were their wards. One of his daughters, Patchowseratz, attended college. Waperatz died in 1907.

White River Ute Indians, Ouray Agency, 1895 Indian Census, p. 596, entry 24, roll 608, Indian Census Rolls, 1885–1940, M595, NARA; Mrs. W. G. King, “Our Ute Indians,” Colorado Magazine 37, no. 2 (April 1960): 128.

23 Davis, “Bloody Siege,” 34.

28 William Henry Jackson, Chipeta (July 1874), CHS40201, DPL-30679, DPL; Chamberlain, Colorow Family, HC.

24 William G. Chamberlain, Colorow Family, Scan 10039013, F-6671, HC.

29 Pooppe allotment records, #397, died April 15, 1910, Janet Cuch collection.

25 Lena M. Urquhart, Colorow, the Angry Chieftain (Denver: Golden Bell Press, 1968), 32.

30 Janet Cuch to Elizabeth Simmons, March 25, 2014, in the author’s possession.

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INDIVIDUAL 7: CHARLEY ALHANDRA One description of Gurnsey’s group photograph identifies the man fourth from the left as Piah (fig. 1g).31 The Picasa analysis shows that the man is not Piah but most likely Charley Alhandra, a Ute subchief nicknamed “Ignacio’s lieutenant” (referring to his position on the Indian police force) who signed many of the treaties between the Utes and the American government.32 In 1900, he earned two hundred dollars per year as an interpreter for the Ouray Agency, the center of the Uncompahgre Ute reservation in Utah at that time.33 The photograph of Charley Alhandra (fig. 7) that Picasa matched with the man in Gurnsey’s photograph was taken in 1880 by Matthew Brady in Washington, D.C.; 31 X-30557, DPL. 32 Robert Athearn, “Major Hough’s March into Southern Ute Country,” Colorado Magazine 25, no. 3 (May 1948): 104.

33 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the Year 1900 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900), 697; see also “Indian Agency Employees, Part 2,” Chipeta: Ute Peacemaker, accessed June 26, 2014, http://chipeta.wordpress.com/2013/0520/indianagency-employees-part 2/.

Figure 6. Colorow family, with labels. The labeled indivuduals are Colorow (a), Siah Colorow (b), Waperatz Colorow? (c) and Pooppe? (d).

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Ute chiefs had traveled to the nation’s capital to sign a treaty that sent them to Utah as “virtual prisoners.”34 INDIVIDUAL 8: UNKNOWN MALE, ONE OF PIAH’S SUBCHIEFS In figure one, the man on Alhandra’s right wearing a bandolier (or sash) has yet to be identified. However, Picasa paired his image with a photograph of Piah and his subchiefs taken by William Henry Jackson at the Los Pinos Agency 34 Pettit, Mountain People, 128, 129 (quotation); Matthew Brady, Ute Delegation to Washington, 1880, panel 3, Uintah County Heritage Museum, Vernal, Utah; Duncan, “Northern Utes,” 195–97; Silbernagel, Troubled Trails, 157–58.

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Guero and John (Yellow Flower) and this photo does not match those, leaving Yamanah and Ugapias as possibilities. The unique bandolier worn by this man in figure one, which could provide a clue for his identification, does not appear in any other photographs of the Utes I have studied. f

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Do newspaper reports and other historical records provide supporting evidence that these Utes could have been in Colorado Springs at the time B. H. Gurnsey took his photograph?

Both the Denver Tribune and Colorado Springs Gazette reported that Ouray and his associates came through Colorado Springs and Denver around October 16, 1874, with the Indian agent H. F. Bond, the interpreter E. R. Harris, and Otto Mears. The Utes were on their way to the plains for a buffalo hunt.37 Ouray’s group then wintered in High Park, south of the village of Florissant during the winter of 1874–1875, about one hundred miles east of the eastern boundary of the Ute reservation.38 In August 1874, Ouray’s supporters and those of his subchiefs had been at the Los Pinos Agency, on the reservation, where William Henry Jackson photographed Chipeta for the first time on August 19, 1874.39

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Figure 7. Charley Alhandra, from a group photograph taken in 1880.

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in August 1874.35 The Denver Indian agent, James B. Thompson, regularly mentioned Guero, Yamanah, John, and Ungapias as some of Piah’s petty chiefs.36 Other photos exist of 35 Pettit, Mountain People, 78.

36 J. B. Thompson to F. A. Walker, January 2, 1872 and March 4, 1872, Colorado Superintendency records, roll 202, NARA.

After greeting tourists and hunters in Middle Park during the late summer of 1874, Colorow and his followers joined Ouray’s group for the October buffalo hunt.40 Thus, the photograph analyzed in this article (fig. 1) appears to have been taken during the first two weeks of October of 1874. Perhaps it earned the Utes some extra cash for their stay in Colorado Springs and Denver.

It is hoped that publishing the proper identity of the people in Gurnsey’s 1874 photograph will 37 “Two Great Chiefs,” Colorado Springs Gazette via the Denver Tribune, October 18, 1874.

38 Atlanta Georgia Thompson, Daughter of a Pioneer (Portland, OR: Binford and Mort, 1990), 18.

39 Cynthia S. Becker, Chipeta, Ute Peacemaker (Palmer Lake, CO: Filter Press, 2008), 28. On that same visit Jackson took the photograph of Piah and his subchiefs in front of a teepee, from which the thumbnail for individual 8 was created.

40 Pueblo Colorado Daily Chieftain via Denver Tribune, August 20, 1872; Denver Daily Times, October 10, 1874.

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correct the inaccurate identification of the man in the front row as Colorow, as well as other errors found throughout the historical literature. This was my first attempt to use Picasa’s face recognition software to identify images of previously unrecognized or misidentified Northern Utes, with the goal of making the history of the Ute tribe more complete. The Picasa tool results in much more accurate face identification than previous methods. I encourage archivists and researchers at all levels to incorporate similar techniques in their protocols to properly identify photographs in their collections. The use of the Picasa face recognition tool—the application of technology to historical research—has opened many doors to understanding who was who among the Ute people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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Beth Simmons, who teaches at local Denver colleges, earned a Ph.D. in 2008, focusing on Colorado family history. She has authored and co-authored several books about Colorado history. She wishes to thank Janet Cuch, Harlan Unrau, Charles A. Billey, Coi Drummond, Melissa VanOtterloo, Gina Rappaport, and Heather Shannon.

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WEB EXTRA See history.utah.gov/ute-images for additional early Utah photographs and available identifying information.

HIGHWAY 89 DIGITAL COLLECTIONS J IM

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316 Roads are an integral part of the American experience. They connect people in a literal sense, but they also help weave narratives and human culture across time and space. Highway 89 is one such road. In its long march from the U.S.– Canadian border in Montana to its historic terminus at the U.S.–Mexican border at Nogales, Highway 89 transports its travelers through a distinctive slice of America. It is essential to Utah state tourism, chambers of commerce, and state and regional historians, as well as to those who live along its route. However, due to geographic and sometimes cultural distances, the complete story of U.S. 89 has yet to be told.1

Montana. Highway 89 has long served as a vital artery of western tourism as it passes through (or runs adjacent to) seven national parks: Saguaro, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier. It is little wonder that University of Wisconsin geographer Thomas R. Vale has described U.S. 89 as “a cross section of the West.”2

U.S. 89 has hardly received the nostalgic attention given to other fabled American thoroughfares, such as Route 66 or the Lincoln Highway, and yet it too can help unfold the complex history of the American West. Traveling from high mountains to low desert, it passes through five states: Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and

The Highway 89 Digital Collections initiative seeks to illuminate the history that has occurred along this road. Conceived and created through a collaborative effort among special collections and archives in Utah and northern Arizona, the project currently includes representatives from Utah State University, Weber State University, the University of Utah, LDS Church History Library, Utah State Archives and Records Service, Salt Lake County Archives, Brigham Young University, Southern Utah University, and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.

1 Portions of this piece originally appeared on the Highway 89 project website, www.highway89.org, and are used with permission here.

2 Thomas R. Vale and Geraldine R. Vale, Western Images, Western Landscape: Travels along U.S. 89 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989).

Utah State Department of Highways, “Welcome to Panguitch” road sign, Garfield County.

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Today, virtual travelers exploring the Highway 89 Digital Collections website (www.highway89.org) will find more than 1,200 images and documents, many of which have been grouped into exhibits that convey different aspects of the historic Highway 89 narrative.

Online road trippers can expect to find: An exhibit on roadside architecture focused on documenting the many buildings—such as diners, motels, and gas stations—that were a product of the road by which they were built. Others, such as residences, grocery stores, and movie theaters, served the community more than the passerby and also receive the attention they deserve.

An exhibit providing a sampling of historic signs and billboards that were a common sight along the roadside. Signs control traffic, give directions, draw attention to businesses, and advertise products or places. Such displays often help define a highway’s identity as much as the landscape, cars, or pavement. Over the years, High-

An exhibit showcasing photographs that document the Thistle Flood Disaster of 1983 and 1984. Thistle, originally the name of a town, became a term used to describe a massive mudslide that created a natural dam across the Spanish Fork River and destroyed the town of Thistle, located on U.S. 89. Several government agencies and construction workers joined Utah Department of Transportation workers in response to the Thistle slide, working tirelessly to reroute railroad lines, as well as U.S. 89 itself.

This exhibit documents the disaster and subsequent reconstruction, as well as photographs of Thistle before the disaster.

As these exhibits demonstrate, the Highway 89 Digital Collections serves as an important platform for all types of users, from the avid historian to the citizen with a general interest in looking at historic materials that help tell the story of what came before. Join us and watch the digital highway grow mile by mile. We look forward to seeing you on the Highway 89 Digital Collections route!

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Jim Kichas is a certified archivist for the Utah State Archives and Records Service. He holds a master’s degree in the Environmental Humanities from the University of Utah.

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way 89 has boasted thousands of signs, from painted plywood advertising national parks to flashy neon directing motorists to all manner of services along the route. This exhibit includes examples of such signs, many of which were taken down long ago but are nevertheless an important part of the highway’s history.

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The institutional members of the Highway 89 project have developed an online aggregator and exhibit space that brings together stories and images of life along U.S. 89. Still in its early stages, the project seeks to gather existing images, texts, and oral histories from various special collections and archives that are related to Highway 89, while simultaneously serving as a means to seek out new, relevant collections for potential preservation and digitization. Through online geospatial identification applications, the eventual goal is to maintain a dynamic, collaborative space where members of the public can augment the information supplied by regional institutions with their knowledge.

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BOOK REVIEWS

COWBOY APOSTLE:

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The Diaries of Anthony W. Ivins, 1875–1932

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Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2013. xli + 689. Cloth, $125

Anthony W. Ivins (1852–1934) was a lot of things: cowboy, explorer, rancher, actor, husband, father, Indian agent, attorney, mayor, legislator, businessman, colonizer, and ardent Democrat, as well as an LDS (Mormon) mission president in Mexico, apostle, and First Presidency member. His diaries can’t and don’t cover any of this activity very deeply. But they do give the reader a fuller understanding of the breadth of Ivins’s work and, more importantly, of the cultures and times that he influenced and that influenced him. For this we owe a large debt of gratitude to the editor, Elizabeth Anderson.

She has painstakingly transcribed, proofread, and annotated the diaries—the originals housed at the Utah State Historical Society.

The volume includes a helpful introduction, maps and photos, a transcription of Ivins’s Record Book of Marriages, his son Grant Ivins’s essay on “Polygamy in Mexico,” and—for an unexplained reason—the 1896 remarks of U.S. Representative Clarence E. Allen of Utah on Mormon polygamy.

Ivins’s work as leader of the Mexican colonies forms the heart of the book. In Mexico, he bought land and surveyed extensively for settlements. He arranged for roads, water, and telephone lines. He worked with the Mexican government, sometimes smoothly and sometimes in frustration: in 1898 the constant “annoyances,” “disapointments [sic],” and “humiliation” from officials so aggravated him that he announced his readiness to enlist if the United States went to war (193). He formed friendships with powerful men, such as military leader Emilio Kosterlitzky, whom he con-

strained from killing an innocent young man (185–86). He prospected for minerals, inspected mines, and visited widely scattered congregations, organizing them, speaking to them, and managing internal conflicts. In all of these endeavors, he traveled widely by rail or horse—camping or, if sleeping in hotels, often tormented by bedbugs. And, of course, he married couples who came to Mexico to form polygamous unions away from the reach of U.S. law. Unfortunately, the diaries don’t shed much light on post-Manifesto polygamy or even on Ivins’s thoughts about it. He simply doesn’t mention polygamy as such but only notes encounters and marriages in passing.

Lovers of the land can appreciate the sections detailing an exploring trip to Mexico—on assignment from the LDS church—when Ivins was a young man. In addition, accounts of ranching on the Arizona Strip and in Utah, with references to such places as House Rock Valley, Kane Springs, Pipe Springs, and Mount Trumbull, and Ivins’s numerous accounts of traveling, hunting, and camping give a sense of how closely he was connected to land. More maps and more detail in the maps would have greatly enhanced these geographical aspects.

The diaries also cover his early years in community life and politics in St. George, Utah, and his later years as a high LDS church official. As he grew older, however, his diary entries tended to focus on the content of meetings, which he detailed to a surprising extent—even noting in some cases the number of minutes occupied by each speaker. Ironically, part of his duty as an apostle was to investigate Mormons who had married plural wives in violation of the 1904 Second Manifesto.

Throughout, the editor is careful to guide the reader and make the reading journey as comfortable as possible. She translates various bureaucratic Spanish words; provides additional information taken from journals where

Even though such questions remain unanswered and the diaries don’t offer much insight on Ivins’s inner life, they are invaluable for the light they do shed. They reveal him as a man of energy and intelligence—a remarkable man by any standard, living in remarkable times.

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K RISTEN

Salt Lake City

IV E RS E N

Drama, Decadence, and Dissipation along Ogden’s Rowdiest Road

Twenty-Fifth Street—just as a large portion of Ogden itself—exists because of the railroad.

With the first trains coming into the city on March 8, 1869, the history and fate of the street became intertwined with that of the railroad.

Holley argues that Ogden in the nineteenth century was not unlike other western towns except for the contentious religious divide between Mormons and “gentiles.” The legendary vice of Twenty-Fifth Street had its roots during this period. Unfortunately, in the first few chapters, the tone at times borders on hokey, as Holley uses phrases like “you could scarcely toss an egg . . . without hitting a bootlegger or speakeasy” (12), “canoodling” for sex, “Sam was a goner,” and “gun-toting men” (31), which detract from significant history to be gleaned from Holley’s research.

Prostitution played a heavy role in Twenty-Fifth Street’s history. Holley details the famous Belle London’s power over not just her houses of ill repute but also over law enforce-

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In 25th Street Confidential: Drama, Decadence, and Dissipation along Ogden’s Rowdiest Road, Val Holley acknowledges the difficulty of documenting the history of a subject largely enshrouded in legend. Using a wide range of primary sources, including Sanborn maps, archival documents, photographs, mug shots, and oral histories, Holley presents a history of Twenty-Fifth Street just as compelling as the legends. The book lives up to its subtitle, and readers will find a historical basis to some of the Twenty-fifth Street legends while others are discredited. This work of local history offers a sound illustration of themes, trends, and events that dominated the country as a whole from the nineteenth century to the present day.

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Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013. xiv + 202.

Paper, $24.95

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Again, the diaries do not reveal the whole man.

Letters, sermons, other writings, and accounts by others fill in parts of the picture missing from this volume. But what was Ivins thinking as he wrote these particular diaries? What did the endeavor of so carefully keeping a record mean to him? Why was it so important to mention every deer he killed—and then neglect to discuss what happened when he attended the National Conservation Committee meeting in Washington, DC (428–29)? Why didn’t he describe the outcomes of a southern Utah tour he gave to a high-ranking senator, congressmen, government officials, and a Los Angeles Times reporter (599–600)? And why did he detail the murder of an Apache family by Mormons but make no comment on the morality of the situation (254–55)?

25th street confidential:

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Ivins annotated his diaries; and gives extensive information on places, people, context, and historical events. There are a few inevitable missteps in such a large project. For instance, Edward Snow is called the stepbrother of Ivins’s wife, Elizabeth Snow (he was her halfbrother—and Ivins’s important ally in the Democratic Party, for that matter). In many instances, chapter titles are confusing in that they describe only a tiny slice of the contents, and the introduction includes a letter written to Ivins that has no apparent relevance to this project—about a dream describing Jesus Christ.

I found a couple of holes in the index that made me wonder how complete it is.

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ment, the justice system, and the city of Ogden.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how long prostitution was actually accepted and tolerated. In the 1930s, houses of prostitution paid a monthly charge to police. The city in turn used that money in part to fund the Ogden City Health Department’s venereal disease clinic. The city required all prostitutes to report weekly to the clinic for an examination; individual prostitutes were given an allowance by madams or pimps to cover the charge.

(This vice–law partnership is detailed in Twenty-Fifth Street’s history of alcohol and gambling as well.) Holley does an admirable job of tracing prostitution’s evolution, from Belle London as proprietor of her own brothel in the late nineteenth century to the next century’s best known Ogden madam, Rosetta Davie. According to Holley, from 1948 to 1955 Davie “spent more time in courtrooms or jail than she did as a free woman”—a reflection of increasing intolerance and the stigma of prostitution in the twentieth century (99). Holley addresses the legends of Twenty-Fifth Street by attempting to allow historical sources and even folklore to speak for themselves.

If there is something missing from Holley’s book, it is attention to the association of Ogden residents to the street. The drama of Twenty-Fifth Street political intrigue and corruption, prostitution, gambling, and liquor is well known by Ogden residents, as well as to those familiar with local history. Less explored is the relationship between Twenty-Fifth Street and the rest of the city. How did Ogden residents view and associate with the street? How did the vice of the street affect residents, religious organizations, schools, and other businesses?

Holley refers to—but does not expound on— Ogden mayor Harman Ward Peery’s opinion of Twenty-Fifth Street as a place for “ordinary people,” those individuals neither associated with the Old West’s railroad crowd or Utah’s elite (71). While the everyday citizen is occasionally referenced or quoted, Holley’s focus on the “drama, decadence, and dissipation” of Twenty-Fifth Street ignores the simple, everyday reality surrounding it.

Holley’s concluding chapter details the historic preservation and the repurposing of many of downtown Ogden’s historic locations in recent

decades. Currently, Ogden City uses Twenty-Fifth Street as its gathering place for holiday events, the summer farmers’ and art market, and the annual Ogden Restaurant Week. While the development of commercial entertainment and dining, the remodeling of the Ogden LDS Temple, and UTA’s Frontrunner rail traffic add a modern look to a historic city, the dedication of the Ogden City Landmarks Commission ensures history endures on Twenty-Fifth Street.

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Utah Division of State History

A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary BY

TO D D

M.

CO MP TO N

Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 2013, xix + 642 Cloth, $44.95

In his well-organized, insightful, and thoroughly researched biography of Jacob Hamblin, Todd Compton presents Hamblin in the context of the nineteenth-century West, Mormonism, and the Indian frontier of the Great Basin and the American Southwest. Hamblin emerges as a rough-hewn frontiersman who through his extensive travels and interactions with Native Americans made a significant contribution to the exploration of the West and a salutary influence on Mormon-Indian relations.

Hamblin (1819–1886) has been the subject of numerous earlier biographies and other published research, and yet it has remained for Compton to flesh out his life, motives, explorations, and particularly his relationship with Paiutes, Navajos, Hopis, Utes, and other American Indian groups of the Southwest.

Compton’s book is divided into thirty-five chapters, which generally are organized on a chronological and geographical basis. The biography includes 127 pages of notes that are valuable and of great interest to the careful reader looking for scholarly references and

Five other important Hamblin relationships emerge and are well described through the book. These form much of the significance of his life. The first is Hamblin’s relationship with his wives and children; the second, his relationship with John D. Lee, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and Lee’s Ferry; the third, Hamblin’s kinship and relationship with Indians; the fourth, his relationship and association with his fellow Mormon Indian missionaries; and the fifth, his involvement with and commitment to Mormonism and Brigham Young.

Compton explores Hamblin’s relationship to Lee, often cooperative and sometimes combative—as when Hamblin delivered testimony at Lee’s second trial—in detail. Hamblin was a devoted follower of Young, though he did not always hesitate to suggest that Mormon colonization was destroying Indian culture and civilization. Compton deftly paints Hamblin as

a friend, confidante, brother, missionary, and advocate to and for Indians from his early days in Tooele to his last days in Arizona and New Mexico.

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W.

SA D LE R

Conflict in Canyon Country BY

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Roads in the wilderness:

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additional insight into the life and times of Hamblin. The extensive nature of the notes demonstrates the wide-ranging research on which the book is based. The notes also contain numerous instances of Compton’s agreement and disagreement with sources. Of great value in understanding Hamblin are the appendices.

The first, entitled “Jacob Hamblin’s Families,” notes his marriages, wives, and children. Listed in this section are Hamblin’s Caucasian wives and children and his Indian wives and his adopted Indian children. The second appendix, three pages in length, is a chronological listing of Jacob Hamblin’s trips to and across the Colorado River. This brief summary involves the period 1858 to 1877 and includes thirty-six trips with specific dates and the historical and geographical significance of each trip noted.

Hamblin’s explorations were often guided by Brigham Young’s requests and instructions and laid the foundation in different ways for Mormon settlement in southern Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and Mexico. The listing, along with complementary materials in the chapters dealing with each expedition or trip, places Jacob Hamblin in the forefront of explorers of the Southwest and arm-in-arm with John Wesley Powell and his explorations in the area and on the Colorado River. This summary is a significant historical contribution. Compton details well Hamblin’s relationships with Powell and others who explored this area.

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Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013. 252 pp. Paper, $24.95

It’s certainly no secret that Utah and the federal government have a rocky relationship over the issue of public lands. This decades-long conflict recently manifested itself in H.B. 148, passed by the state legislature in 2012, which demanded that the U.S. Congress relinquish control of some 30 million acres of federal land within Utah’s borders. Against impassioned protests from environmentalists, Governor Gary Herbert signed the legislation, declaring, “We feel the federal government has failed to keep its promises to the state of Utah. We feel it’s time we do something about that.”1 Given the ongoing litigation over H.B. 148, the publication of Roads in the Wilderness is certainly timely. In it, Jedediah S. Rogers argues that roads are a central issue driving the debate over public land in Utah.2 This is particularly true for wilderness designation, a process in 1 Dennis Romboy, “Herbert Signs Legislation Demanding Feds Give Public Land to Utah,” KSL, March 24, 2012, accessed July 21, 2014, http://www.ksl.com/?sid=19706081.

2 Rogers joined the staff of Utah Historical Quarterly after Roads in the Wilderness was assigned for review.

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which decisions for or against recognition often hinge on the existence and condition of roads.

But federal policies stemming from a one-sentence statute in the 1866 mining laws, R.S. 2477, and the conditions of its subsequent repeal in 1976, fail to define exactly what constitutes a road. Because of this ambiguity, Rogers argues we must first understand the history and cultural underpinnings of roads in order to resolve bitter disputes over public land in Utah and the West.

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To this end, Rogers examines a series of people and events that highlight conflicting world views in Utah’s remote canyon country. In chapter one, he uses the story of the 1879–80 Hole-in-the-Rock expedition to demonstrate the centrality of roads in Mormon lore, where they often represent the pioneer conquest of nature. Alternatively, Rogers tells the story of Clyde Kluckhohn, a young adventurer whose travels through Utah’s unsettled territory in the 1920s convinced him that such isolated areas should not to be etched with roads but simply visited and departed. Building from these early viewpoints, chapter two explores the rivalry between wilderness advocate Edward Abbey and the local official and booster Calvin Black over the construction of Utah State Highway 95, which was completed in 1976. Chapters three through seven explore still more recent conflicts—largely between environmentalists and local residents and county officials—over roads in areas including Negro Bill Canyon, Waterpocket Fold, Book Cliffs, Grand Staircase–Escalante, and Arch Canyon.

Despite the contentious nature of these stories, Rogers largely manages to remain above the entrenched positions that define them. In the final chapter, he admonishes locals who “fail to recognize that mining and industrial development erode not just the land they hold dear but also the culture and traditions that make the region unique.” As for conservationists, Rogers feels they “could do better to articulate a vision that recognizes the culture, identity, and needs of rural people instead of treating these as collateral damage in the quest to preserve nature” (183). Perhaps, Rogers suggests, the only way forward is to cast off this old dichotomy of environmentalists versus locals in favor of something new. “We are in the West an eclectic mix,”

he writes, “and we ought to create a landscape to match the culture, just as we need a society to match the scenery” (185).

While Rogers’s optimism seems hard to swallow given the current political climate, his argument is compelling; there is certainly a great deal to learn about the wilderness movement through the study of road development.

Though a few more maps might help clarify his retelling of the conflicts in Utah’s canyon country, Rogers excels in his use of primary sources from government offices and archives across the state. Roads in the Wilderness is sure to engage environmental historians, environmentalists, engineers, and anyone with a connection to southern Utah’s wild backcountry, and all are sure to share Rogers’s hope: “We can yet work for a middle way” (185).

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C LI N T

P U MP H R E Y

Utah State University

The Shoshoneans: The People of the Basin-Plateau BY

E DWA R D

MAT T H E W

D O R N ;

E D I T E D

BY

H O F E R

1966: Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013.

176 pp. Paper, $34.95

Edward Dorn and Leroy Lucas traveled across the Great Basin in 1965 to record their findings and feelings about the Shoshoneans—primarily Ute, Paiute, Goshute, and Shoshone—whom they encountered. Under contract to produce this volume, the two men—one a poet, the other an African American photographer—experienced a journey that took them through parts of Utah, Idaho, and Nevada. It was the mid1960s, with the Vietnam War gathering steam, the Civil Rights movement well underway, and appreciation of free-thinking views against the “establishment” de rigueur. Exalting the mundane and challenging the status quo to turn the staid American society of the 1950s on its head brought recognition. Dorn, as part and product of this era, wrote with an edge that found dis-

One might argue that because Dorn was a writer, not an anthropologist or historian, his expression of thought, feeling, and eloquence should be the measure of his work. Fair enough.

There are occasional passages that soar above the mundane while much is purely functional.

For a poet—supposedly the master of the finely tuned phrase—he does a lot of patching of others’ material into his work and does not build toward a tightly knit conclusion other than that problems abound in Indian country. For example, he ends his essay with a lengthy selection from Clyde Warrior—a Ponca Indian advocating for his people—with rhetoric that fits nicely into Dorn’s view of Native America: “We are among the poor, the powerless, the inexperienced, and the inarticulate” (93). This is his

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S.

MC P H E R SO N

BY

MI C H A E L

H I T T MA N

Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2013. xii + 494 pp. Paper, $58.50

This encyclopedic treatment of the indigenous peoples who occupied the Great Basin from prehistoric times to the present is an ambitious though not exhaustive work completed by Michael Hittman, professor emeritus of anthropology at Long Island University. The Ute, Shoshone, Goshute, and Paiute tribes and bands and their various groups and subgroups have been, perhaps, the most overlooked portion of Native people in American Indian scholarship.

Great Basin Indians: An Encyclopedic History incorporates “the fruits of several generations of scholarship as well as recent discoveries made possible by new areas of scientific inquiry” (xi).

The encyclopedic format enables Hittman to detail anthropological arguments, historical events, brief biographies of key individuals, intertribal relations, and many other topics that would overwhelm a monographic approach.

Hittman’s best entries include anthropological issues such as his treatment of the prehistoric people of the Great Basin and the spread and impact of the Ghost Dance and Peyote religion on the Great Basin tribes; however, as he is a professor of anthropology this strength is hardly surprising. He tackles some stimulating and provocative scholarly debates such as Numic Spread and the date of Sacajawea’s death. Citing the arguments and evidence advanced by

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This book is an expanded (from 85 to 166 pages), edited (with additional letters, interviews, and writings) version accompanied by three sections of Lucas’s black-and-white photos taken at the time. Close to a half century later, Shoshoneans again speaks to the public, but what does it say, and is it relevant? In keeping with Dorn’s approach, let’s be honest. His understanding of the historical and cultural context of these people was minimal, based primarily on time spent reading the works of anthropologists and historians to gain a base knowledge. He included passages of others’ writings in the text, but his own original understanding came from personal observation; the book sports less than two dozen endnotes, only half of which are about the people under discussion. On a number of occasions he records positive experiences and impressions, some bordering on the spiritual.

But often he finds those he meets immersed in poverty, alcohol, and social problems without hope, as degraded as those found in historical accounts that called them “diggers.” He describes people clinging low to the rungs of the human ladder. Dorn is at times sympathetic and other times brutally honest—whether writing about Native Americans or members of the dominant society. Again, the reader must realize that the author’s main focus is based in his brief experience and observations, not in honed understanding.

finding, painted on a canvas he takes from his observations. It is his way to look at the Shoshoneans and the conclusion he wants the reader to accept. The result: a starkly real, unsympathetic portrait of a people sketched by an outsider with limited knowledge.

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satisfaction in much of what he experienced.

It was all a matter of finding the “truth,” which was not often pretty.

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several differing historians, Hittman presents his inferences to these issues by historiographical examination rather than drawing his own conclusions.

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Less impressive were his treatment of wars and raids—the Walker War, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Meeker Massacre, and the removal of Utes from Colorado—and his treatment of the acquisition of horses and their impact on Ute and Shoshone culture and livelihood. Adoption of an equestrian culture was one of the most significant aspects of Ute and Shoshone history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and perhaps the most telling difference between those tribes and their non-equestrian cousins—the Goshutes, Paiutes, and Western Shoshone. Though adequate, these entries demonstrated far from the same level of scholarship apparent in other areas of the encyclopedia. This reviewer found some omissions and inclusions noteworthy. For example, in the entry on Ute Chief Wakara/ Walker, Hittman makes no comment on Wakara’s supposed links to gold mines (but details that his name might have meanings relating to gold in the Ute language), his baptism into the LDS church, or his urging of Mormons to settle in San Pete Valley, while his treatment of Chief Blackhawk was much more detailed in some of these same areas.

The author makes some small errors such as saying that John D. Lee was hanged for his role in the Mountain Meadow Massacre and that the Sundance originated with the Cheyenne or Kiowa when the Sioux/Lakota also claim that distinction (181, 301). The author makes little mention of the Comanche’s origin as a Shoshone people within the Great Basin. But these are small distractions and do not seriously harm the credibility of the study.

Great Basin Indians is a crucial addition to the library of serious scholars of Native peoples from the Great Basin and surrounding regions. The fifty-five page bibliography, which includes primary and secondary sources, is impressive and a worthwhile resource for researchers of all levels.

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JOH N

D.

BA RTO N

Utah State University, Uintah Basin

BOOK NOTICES

Eileen Hallett Stone, a history columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, has in this volume collected fifty-eight articles into a single source of lesser-known stories from Utah’s history.

The articles highlight the state’s diversity— both in bringing out the lives of immigrant and minority populations and in covering a wide variety of ground from the ordinary to the influential and the extraordinary. Most stories are centered on individuals who confront intriguing circumstances and, as a whole, they create a picture that is both intimate and wide ranging.

Lost apostles: Forgotten Members of Mormonism’s Original Quorum of Twelve BY H .

WILLIAM M ICH AEL

S H E PA RD

A N D

MA RQ UA RDT

Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2013. 426 pp. Paper, $35.95

This collective biography of six Mormon apostles called by Joseph Smith in 1835 documents the tumultuous early years of the Mormon faith.

Shepard and Marquardt exhume the lives and deeds of six men not generally recognized in Mormon history and so save them from relative obscurity. Thomas B. Marsh, William E. McLellin, Luke S. Johnson, William B. Smith, John F. Boynton, and Lyman E. Johnson each clashed and, at least temporarily, severed ties with Mormonism’s founder. Through the details of the apostles’ lives and substantial contributions to the Restoration movement, the authors reveal the dynamic of institutional authority and reli-

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The un-driving of the golden spike

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Charleston, NC: History Press, 2013. 206 pp. Paper, $19.99

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B Y J E F F T E R R Y, T H O R N T O N H .

WAITE, AND JAMES J. REISDORFF

David City, NE: South Platte Press, 2013. 80 pp. Paper, $24.95

This volume, containing seventy-five photographs, details the “un-driving of the Golden Spike” ceremony at Promontory Summit on September 8, 1942, seventy-three years after completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Construction of the Lucin Cutoff across the north end of the Great Salt Lake in the early twentieth century directly bypassed a portion of the 1869 route, relegating the track across Promontory Summit as a branch line. In the decades leading up to the “un-driving” ceremony the branch line was mostly abandoned, with only occasional commercial and passenger use. This volume briefly details the history of the Promontory line, the events of the 1942 ceremony officially marking the line’s end, and the subsequent commemorations and reenactments at the site of the Golden Spike. David H. Mann, a Utah farm magazine journalist, took a series of photographs of the 1942 event; many of these, along with other photos at Promontory Summit, are reproduced in this thin volume.

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gious dissent in early Mormonism. In the process, they also introduce readers to the broader world of Mormonism in Jacksonian America.

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THIS WINTER WITH

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY You or your gift recipient will receive four issues of Utah Historical Quarterly, the official journal of Utah history.

Subscription rates: Senior Citizen/Student Individual Sustaining Patron Sponsor Life

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Contact Lisa Buckmiller at (801) 245-7231 or lbuckmiller@utah.gov IMAGE: Children at play in the snow, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Utah State Historical Society.

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Bailey, James, educator, 158 Bair, John, deputy U.S. district attorney, 276 Baker, Elizabeth Ward, confessed murderer, 273–87, 276 Baker Mountain, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 54–56, 55 (map) Baker, Samuel, convicted murderer, 273–87, 275 Baker, Sarah, LDS immigrant, 274 Ballard, Henry, Cache Valley settler, 8 Banks, James Alva, LDS missionary, 139, 143 Bannocks, performing at Ogden Mardi Gras, 202–03, 205, 206 Barlocker, William A., turkey grower, 127–28 Bartch, George W., judge, 29 Barton, Joseph and Nancy, Iron County residents, 282 Bayless, H. D., Iron County justice of the peace, 273 Bean, George W., LDS missionary to Native Americans, 257–58 Beanham, William M., military, 197, 207 Bear Lake, and road construction, 8–10 Bear River, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 47–48, 49 (map) Beatty, Theodore, Salt Lake City health director, 103 Beaver, Utah, 166 Beehive Machine Company, 127 Behan, John Henry, float designer,

V O L .

B

197, 205 Bellevue, Utah, 232 Bennion, David, Vernon water master, 299, 302–03 Bennion, Israel, Vernon settler, and water rights administration, 289, 294– 305, 296 Benson, Ezra Taft, (1811–1869), 7 Benson, Ezra Taft, LDS leader and Secretary of Agriculture, 127 Benson, Lee, sports writer, 139 Bentley, Mary Ann Mansfield, early Utah settler, 229 Berryman, Jack H., wildlife management specialist, 13–15, 13 Bettridge Creek, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 61 Beyer, Herbert, turkey marketer, 122 Big Cottonwood Canyon, and water access, 97, 99 Big Pass, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 59 (map), 62–63 Black Ridge, 200–233, 220 (map), 233 (map) Black, William, sports writer, 139 Black, Jeremiah S., U.S. attorney general, 279 Blackham, Ralph, turkey grower, 124, 125 Blake, James, physician, 48 Bleak, James, historian, 225 Blood, Henry H., governor, and film Brigham Young, 74 Bond, H. F., Indian agent, 314 Bohn, George, Federal Highway Administration administrator, 18 Bonneville Speedway, 189 Boreman, Jacob S., educator, 165 Boundary lines, geographical, 185–93

I

Adams, Daniel E., and Sons Hatchery, 123 Adams, J. Arza, turkey grower, 118, 127 Ainge, Danny, athlete, 140 Albert, John J., military engineer, 44 Albertanti, Frank, sports writer, 142–45 Alderson, George, conservationist, 16 All Hallows Academy, Salt Lake City, 164–65 Allen, Rufus, LDS missionary, 225, 226 Alta Club, and Theodore Roosevelt, 37 Alvera, Rebecca, Salt Lake City resident, 112 American Association of State Highway Officials, 10–11 American Holding Company, St. George turkey processing plant, 129 American Pioneer Trails Association, 235 American Poultry Association, 117–18 Anderson, Jake, turkey grower, 124 Anderson, Minerva, Ogden resident, 203 Anderson, Wendell, Utah State University professor, 20 Anderson, Will, Ogden resident, 205 Anterro, Ute leader, 267 Arapeen, Ute leader, 262, 268 Archambault, August, explorer, 48 Ash Creek Canyon, 200–233, 220 (map), 231 Astor, Mary, actress, 68, 70, 71, 72 Athletics, and Mormon public relations, 140–42; and overt

religiosity, 142; and Word of Wisdom, 141, 146–47 Avenues, Salt Lake City neighborhood, 98–99, 106, 109, 113

U H Q

A

4

INDEX

327

4 N O .

I 8 2 V O L .

I U H Q

328

Brace, Charles Loring, children’s aid reformer, 285 Brady, Matthew, photographer, 313 Brand, Harry, film publicist, 69 Brandt, Eugene, photographer, 308 Bridewell, Kate, singer, 197, 206 Brigham Young Academy, Provo, 165, 166 Brigham Young (film), Salt Lake City premiere, 65–76, 66–67, 69–74; reviews, 75 Brigham Young High School, and Alma Richards, 135, 145, 148 Brigham Young University Hall of Fame, 134 Bromfield, Louis, writer, 68, 74 Broom Mountain, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 58–59 Brown, Benjamin, turkey grower, 120–22, 121, 131 Brown, Everett C., athletic director, 136 Brown, Owen, Logan resident, 12 Brown, Persis, educator, 159 Brown, Thomas, early Utah settler, 225, 257 Buchanan, James, U.S. president, 191, 279; orders troops to Utah, 264–66, 269 Budge, William, newspaper correspondent, 8 Bulger, John, Washington, D.C. writer, 13 Bullen, Charles, Utah state senator, 18 Burr, David H., U.S. surveyor, 279 Burton, C. Taylor, Utah State Department official, 14

C Cache Chamber of Commerce, and road construction, 21 Cache County, 6, 8

Cache Valley, 4-6, 7, 13 Camp Floyd, establishment, 270 Cannon, Angus, LDS leader, 232 Cannon, Frank, editor and politician, 27, 200, 206 Cannon, John Q., editor, 200–201, 203, 205 Cannon, Martha Hughes, 108 Carradine, John, actor, 68 Carrington, Albert, mapmaker, 46, 64 Carroll, Ada, companion of William Drummond, 277 Cass, Lewis, U.S. Secretary of State, on Mormon–Native American relations, 264, 269 Cater, L. G., turkey grower, 118 Cedar City, Utah, 158 Cereghino, Giovanno, Salt Lake City resident, 103 Cesspooch, Larry, Ute historian, 193 CH2M Hill, consulting firm, 19, 21–23 Chamberlain, William G., photographer, 311 Charley Alhandra, Ute, 308, 313, 314 Chase, Daryl, academic, 14 Children, abuse and maltreatment of, 282–87 Chinatown, in Salt Lake City, 100–102, 109 (map) Chipeta, Ute, 309, 314 Choke Cherry Canyon, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 51 Christian, Lulu, educator, 164 Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, the, and athletics, 139; communitarianism, 292–93; and education, 151–52, 155–63, 165–66; and gender roles, 156–57; and federal Indian agents, 251–71; and landscape stewardship,

189; Perpetual Emigration Fund, 275, 276, 280; public relations, 140–42; and relations with Native Americans, 251–71; and Salt Lake City Olympic bid, 140, 149; and social assimilation, 140, 149; and water rights administration, 289–305 Citizens for a Safe and Scenic Canyon, 26 Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, 18, 21, 22, 23, 26 City Creek Canyon, and water access, 93–95, 98, 99 Clafin, Jennie, educator, 163 Clarion, Utah, settlement, 120 Clark, Clarence D., Wyoming senator, 29 Clark, J. Reuben, LDS leader, and film Brigham Young, 69 Clark, William, explorer and U.S. officer, 261 Clayton, T. W., Utah resident, 205 Cobb Peak, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 63 Cole, Lulu, 164 Coleman, Prime, early Utah settler, 226 Colorow, Ute, 308–11, 308, 310, 313 Colorow’s son, Ute, 308, 312, 313 Common schools, 152–53, 155 Communitarianism, 230 Comstock, Boyd, Olympic coach, 136 Conrad, Alan, Logan resident, 12 Consumerism, and road construction projects, 12–13 Cook, Ida, educator, 160–61, 162 Cook, Mary, educator, 160–161, 162 Cornell University, and Alma Richards, 138, 143, 145 Cornaby, Samuel, educator, 158, 160

Dalby, William, Salt Lake City health commissioner, 103 Darnell, Linda, actress, 65, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 Day, Henry R., U.S. Indian agent, 254 Decker, Zachariah B., Parowan resident, 280–81 Delicate Arch, 188–89 Democratic Party, 27 Denver, James W., U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 266–67 Deseret, as place name, 190–91 Deseret, State of, 252–53; and water administration, 292–93 Deseret Iron Mining Company, 235 Deseret News, newspaper, 95, 96, 106, 114; reporting on Alma Richards, 139, 142–43, 145, 147, 150 Desert Land Act (1877), 293 Development, southern Utah, in library collections, 234 Dilworth, Mary Jane, educator, 155 Disabilities, and children, 282–83 Dixie, early travel, 200–233 Dolphin Island, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 57

E Eastern Slope, Salt Lake City neighborhood, 97–98, 105, 106, 109, 113 Eastside, Salt Lake City neighborhood, 103 Education, in the early West, 151–66; and gender, 151–66; and the LDS church, 151–52, 154–63, 165–66; and religion, 151–52, 162–66 Edmonds, Clyde C., banker, 122, 131 Edwards, William, Logan city mayor, 7 Eisenhower, Dwight D., U.S. president, and turkey, 127, 128 Ellerbeck, Thomas, engineer, 94 Elliott, John M., U.S. congressman from Kentucky, 260

F Farm Credit System, 123, 131 Federal Highway Administration, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24 Fillmore, Millard, U.S. president, on federal officials in Utah, 253, 254 Fillmore, Utah, Whitehouse trial site, 276–77 Fisher, S. G., Indian agent, 202 Fisher, Vardis, writer, 68 Flint, Steve, environmental activist, 25 Florez, John, Salt Lake City resident, 112 Floyd, J. Whitney, Utah State University dean, 13–14 Floyd, Craig, Laketown resident, 23 Fong, Jack, Chinese immigrant, 101–102 Foote, R. S., educator, 163 Forney, Jacob, superintendent of Indian affairs, 264, 269–70

4 N O .

I 8 2 V O L .

Emerson, Phillip, Utah district judge, 294 Environmentalism, conservationism, 4, 16, 26; preservationism, 5, 11–12, 21 Environmental degradation, deforestation, 6, 7; overgrazing, 6, 7, 34–35; water quality, 7 Erickson, Ephraim E., educator, 166 Ericson, A. P., Vernon settler, 295–98, 302 Ethnic enclaves, Salt Lake City, 111, 109 (map), 112 Escalante, Silvestre Vélez de, explorer, 222–23, 233 (map) Evans, Frank, lawyer, 121 Evanston, Illinois, and 1912 Olympic trials, 135

I

D

Dominguez, Atanasio, explorer, 222, 233 (map) Donner Spring, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 59 (map), 61, 62, 63 Doremus, Abraham, engineer, 107–108 Dove Creek, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 55–56, 55 (map), 57 Downey, George, 99 Driggs, Howard R., historian, 234–35 Drummond, William W., Utah territorial judge, 277, 279–80 Dry Bench Committee, water rights organization, 98–99 Duffin, Isaac, early Utah settler, 230 Dusenberry, Warren, educator, 156 Dusenberry, Wilson H., educator, 156, 163

U H Q

Cotton Creek, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 55 Covington, Robert D., Texas settler, 228 Crater Island, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 59, 60–61, 62, 63–64 Cumming, Alfred, Utah territorial governor, 264, 270 Curlew Valley, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 53

329

4 N O .

U H Q

I

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8 2

I

Fort Hall Indians, 202, 203, 205, 206 Fort Harmony, Utah, 223, 224, 225–27, 229 Four Corners area, placement of, 185–86 Fox, Jesse, surveyor, 96 Fox, Jesse W., educator, 158

330

G Gamble, Lulu, educator, 164 Garden City, and road construction, 10, 19, 20–21, 22 Garland, Utah, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 48 Garn, Daniel, LDS leader, 274, 275 Gender roles, and education, 151–66 Gerry, Elbridge, child cruelty activist, 285 Giant Joshua, The, novel, 221 Gilbert, Grove Karl, geologist, 189 Glasmann, William, Ogden politician and newspaperman, 29, 37–38, 40, 41 Goates, Les, sports editor, 143 Goodwin, Charles C., newspaper editor, 96 Goodard, George, entrepreneur, 115 Goshutes, and relations with LDS church, 267 Gosling, Mary J., children’s aid reformer, 285 Graf, Theodore, turkey grower, 116 Graff, E. J., turkey grower, 118–19 Grant, Heber J., LDS leader, and film Brigham Young, 69–70, 74, 75–76 Grauman, Sid, theater entrepreneur, 65–66 Grazing rights, 125 Great Salt Lake, as tourist

attraction, 187; geographical survey, 43–64, 43 (map), 49 (map), 51 (map), 55 (map), 63 (map); and sewage, 106–107 Greene, Louisa Lula, educator, 156 Grix, Arthur E., sports writer, 148–49 Groves, Elisha H., early Utah settler, 228 Gunnison, John W., military engineer, 44, 46, 642, 62; death of, 258 Gunnison Valley Canning Company, 120 Gurnsey, Byron H., Colorado photographer, 308, 314 Gustin, Amos, educator, 158

H Hafen, Ernest, turkey grower, 116 Hamblin, Jacob, explorer, 225–27 Hamblin, Oscar, early Utah settler, 227 Hampton Ford, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 47–48, 49 (map) Hand, M. A., educator, 163 Hansel Mountains, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 52 (map), 53 Hansen, Lorenzo, Logan mayor, 9 Hansen, Walter, inventor, 126–27 Hardy, Augustus, LDS missionary, 226 Harms, Herman, chemist, 105–106 Harris, E. R., Indian interpreter, 314 Harvey, Robert Smith, 199 Harvey, William Hope, and Ogden Mardi Gras, 195–207, 198 Haskell, Thales, LDS missionary, 226 Hastings Road, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 56, 59 (map), 62

Hatch, Abe, railroad worker, 29 Hatch, Ira, LDS missionary, 226 Hathaway, Henry, film director, 68 Hayes, Arthur B., editor, 202 Helm, William T., Utah State University professor, 16–17, 18 Henry’s Fork, Utah, 159 Herald Journal, Logan newspaper, 4, 12, 25 Hereford, Robert, educator, 159 Heywood, Martha Spence, educator, 158, 159 Hicks, George, early Utah settler, 221–22 Higgenbotham, Simon, educator, 159 Hillam, Silas, educator, 158 Hogup Mountains, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 55 (map), 56–58, 59 (map), 62 Hogup Ridge, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 59 (map), 62, 63 Holeman, Jacob, U.S. Indian agent, 253–54, 265 Homer School, Salt Lake City, 151 Hopkins, Charles, Cedar City judge, 275 Horine, George, Olympic athlete, 137, 143, 144 Horne, Richard S., educator, 161 Hoyt, Ellen Meeks, educator, 159 Howard, Mimmie, Salt Lake City resident, 102 Howell, Joseph, U.S. congressman, 7 Hull Lake, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 50, 51 (map) Huntington, Dimick, LDS missionary to Utes and Goshutes, 267 Hurt, Garland, U.S. Indian agent, 258–60, 259, 263, 265

J Jackson, William Henry, photographer, 230, 235, 311, 314 Jagger, Dean, actor, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 75 Jenkins, David Abbott, Salt Lake City mayor, 72, 73, 74 Jennings, William, store owner, 115 Jensen, Andrew, LDS leader, 158 Jex, Eliza Goodson, LDS immigrant, 274 John, David, educator, 158 Johnson, William D., educator, 159 Jolley, Marion, turkey grower, 124 Jones, Joseph, turkey grower, 119 Jones, Kumen, traveler in southern Utah, 231 Jordan Canal, 95–96, 99, 102 Jordan River, 94, 95,102–3, 106, 107 Joseph, Thomas, educator, 166 Joyce, Brenda, actress, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 76 Judd, Mary Minerva Dart, early Utah settler, 226–27, 227 Judd, Zadok Knapp, early Utah settler, 223, 226, 227

L Lambourne, Alfred, landscape painter, 188 Larsen, Wilford, turkey grower, 116 LaVerkin, Utah, 118–19 LaVerkin Feed and Hardware Company, 119

Logan Commercial-Boosters Club (later Logan Chamber of Commerce), 9 Love, Andrew, educator, 158 Ludden, Virginia W., 163 Luján, Don Pedro León, New Mexican human trafficker, 260 Luke, George, educator, 166 Lukez, Rudy, Sierra Club member, 19 Lundberg, F. O., turkey grower, 118 Lung, Jim, Chinese immigrant, 101 Lyon, Tom, Cache County resident, 23

4 N O .

I 8 2

Lea, Luke, U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 253 Leah, Margaret, educator, 158–59 Lee, John D., early Utah settler, 223–24, 223, 225, 226, 228, 229–30 Levy, David L., designer, 199 Lewis, David, LDS missionary, 225–26 Lewis, Tarlton, Parowan LDS bishop, 281 Liesche, Hans, Olympic athlete, 137–38, 142, 148–49 Light of the World performance, 141 Lippman, Joseph, journalist, 200 Little Mountain, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 50, 51 (map) Lloyd, Robert, road commissioner, 230 Logan Canyon, and road construction, 4–26, 4, 9 (map), Logan Canyon Coalition, 24–25 Logan Cañon Road Company, 8–9 Logan Chamber of Commerce, and road construction, 10

V O L .

Kanab, Utah, 159 Kane, Elizabeth Wood, wife of Thomas Kane, 231–32, 232 Kane, Thomas, military officer, 231–32 Kanosh, Utah, 262 Katsanevas, Andy, Salt Lake City resident, 111–12 Kearns, Jennie, wife of Thomas Kearns, 36 Kearns, Thomas, senator, 29–30, 33, 36, 40, 99; family, 99; mansion, 36 Kellet, Rex, turkey grower, 124 Kelly, Nancy, actress, 70, 71, 72 Kelting, Joseph A., Utah territorial district attorney, 276 Kelton, Utah, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 53–54, 55 (map) Kendrick, Floyd, Mrs., Providence resident, 13 Kennedy, Olin A., Ogden journalist, 199, 200, 203–04, 206 Kiesel, Frederick J., Ogden mayor, 197, 201 Kimball, Heber C., LDS leader, 155, 225; and turkeys as insect control, 15 Kinney, John, Utah territorial judge, 279, on LDS–Native American relations, 265 Knight, Samuel, LDS missionary, 226

I

K

Immigrants, Italian, to Odgen, 210–12, 214, 215 Improvement Era, LDS publication, 146–47 Indian Appropriations Act (1857), 263 Indian Creek, Utah, 116 Interfaith conflict, at Odgen Mardi Gras, 197, 200, 201–05 Irons, William, turkey grower, 124 Iverson, Floyd, forester, 15

U H Q

I

331

U H Q

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4

M

332

Maeser, Karl G., educator, 160, 165 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, and Theodore Roosevelt, 40 Malad River, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 47–48, 49 (map), 51 Manley, Mark, educator, 159 Mann, Horace, educator, 153 Manti, Utah, 158 Manypenny, George, U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 259, 264 Mapmaking, and Utah, 185–93 Mardi Gras, and Ogden, 195–207, 207; in New Orleans, 204 Marsh, Henry, Olympic athlete, 140–41 Martineau, James H., LDS official, 228–29, 273–74, 275, 276–77, 280–81, 280 Marysville, Utah, 163–64 Mass, Phil, settler of Henry’s Fork, 159 Maughan, Peter, Cache Valley settler, 5, 6, 8; Maughan’s Fort, 6 Mayne, Clifton E., speculator, 199–200, 205 McAllister, Ward, New York socialite, 200 McArthur, Daniel D., road commissioner, 230 McClelland, Mary L, educator, 163 McClelland, Robert, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, 260 McHouston Springs, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 61, 62 McKay, David O., and film Brigham Young, 69 McKay, Gunn, Utah congressman, 18 McKean, Theodore, water superintendent, 93 Mears, Otto, 314

Meeker, Ezra, ox-team pioneer, 235 Meridians, cartographic, 192–93 Merrill, Joseph F., LDS church leader, 147 Methodist Women’s Missionary Society, 163, 164 Metzgar, Harry H., turkey businessman, 121 Midway, Utah, 159 Mildon, Luke, engineer, 26 Military Academy, Ogden, 165 Miller, Hack, sports editor, 139, 143 Miller, Johnny, athlete, 140 Miner, Aurelius, attorney, 101 Mission schools, 152, 163–65 Mix, Charles E., U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 260, 265, 269 Monument Peak, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 52 (map), 53, Moon, Hugh, early Utah settler, 229 Moody, William Henry, Secretary of the Navy, 35–36, 40 Morgan Brothers, turkey processing plant, 129 Mork, Elida, educator, 164 Morley, Isaac, LDS leader, 158 Mormon Culture Region, 187, 189 Moroni Feed Company, 123–24, 127, 129, 130, 131 Morris, Charles W., accused child abuser, 284 Mount Timpanogos, origin of the myth, 191 Mountain Meadows Massacre, 267 Mountains, and regional identity, 187–88 Mousalimas, Mary, Salt Lake City resident, 112 Mowry, Sylvester, U.S. army officer, 258, 261–62

Murdock Academy, Beaver, 166; and Alma Richards, 134, 135 Murray, Ken, 70, 71, 72, 75 Murphy, Dale, athlete, 140 Murphy, Mike, track coach, 136–137 Murphy, Sam, railroad fireman, 29

N National Board of Popular Education, 154 National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 16–17 National Tavern, in Odgen, 209–219, 213 National Turkey Federation, 125, 127, 131 Native Americans, and relations with LDS church, 251–71 Navajo Nation, and the Four Corners area, 186, 187 Nephi, Manti, and Richfield Poultry Association, 120 Nephi, Utah, 158 New Jersey Academy, Logan, 164 New York Evening Mail, newspaper, 142–44 New West Education Commission, 163 Newfoundland Mountains, and their appearance on early maps, 46–47, 58–59, 59 (map), 62–64, 63 (map) Norbest, turkey growers association, 122, 124, 131 North Bench Committee, water rights organization, 100 Northwest Turkey Growers Association, 122 Northern Utah Environmental Advisory Committee, 17, 25–26 Noyes, Abbie Parish, 163

P Pack, John, educator, 161 Paiutes, 222–23, 224, 225, 226; in library collections, 234; and relations with LDS church, 253, 256, 257, 262 Paiute Reservoir and Irrigation System, 119 Palmer, Earl, athlete, 136 Palmer, William R., historian, 234–35 Pappas, Tom, Ogden resident, 215 Parashont, Tom, Cedar City resident, 234 Parent School, Salt Lake City, 161 Pardoe, T. Earl, drama professor, 139

Q Quenche, Ute, 308, 311

4 N O .

I 8 2

Poultry Day, American Fork, Utah, 119 Powatch, Ute, 308, 311–12, 312 Powell, John Wesley, on water use, 290 Power, Tyrone, actor, 65, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 Pratt, Louisa Barnes, early Mormon, 160 Pratt, Orson, LDS leader, 160, 163; and arrival in Utah, 192, 193 Pratt, Parley P., LDS leader, and exploration of southern Utah, 223; and LDS proselytizing to Native peoples, 256 Preuss, Charles, mapmaker, 46, 64 Preshaw, Samuel M., judge, 201–02 Price, Vincent, actor, 68 Promontory Range, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 49–51 Prostitution, and brothels in Ogden, 211, 212, 217–19; “Mary Belle,” Ogden madam, 211, 212, 217–19 Provo, Utah, 158 Public health reform, in Salt Lake City, 92–113; effect of religion, race, and class, 93, 95–113 Public Works Administration, 218 Pulley, Adolphus, turkey grower, 119 Pulley, Andrew W., turkey grower, 119 Pulley, John, turkey grower, 119 Pulley, Mary, Poultry Day queen, 119

V O L .

Park City, Utah, and Chinese laundries, 102 Park, John R., educator, 161, 165 Parley’s Canyon, 96–97, 96 Parowan High School, 134 Parowan, Utah, 223; and Alma Richards, 133, 140, 146, 148; and Whitehouse murder, 274–278, 283 Parson, Jack B., Company, contractor, 12 Pearson, William, educator, 159 Peery, Harman, Ogden mayor, 218 Pehrson, Emil, Vernon settler, 299–301, 303 (map) Pehrson, Erick Johan, Vernon LDS leader, 295–98, 297, 302–05 Pendery, Bruce, Cache County resident, 21 Pendleton, Calvin C., Parowan doctor, 277–78, 281 Penrose, Charles, newspaper editor, 106 Picasa face recognition software, 307–15 Pickles, Thomas, shipping magnate, 197 Pilot Mountains, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 47, 59, 63 Pilot Peak, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 57, 59 (map), 61, 62 Plant, Ross, Utah State Road Commission member, 17 Point Lookout Mountain, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 49 (map) Point of the Mountain, 188, 189 Pollock, Samuel, early Mormon settler, 229 Pooppe, Ute, 308, 313 Potter, Albert, Bureau of Forestry agent, 6, 7

I

O’Hanion, R. J., humane society activist, 284–85 Ogden Academy, 163 Ogden Poultry, 129 Ogden, Utah, 158, 163; in the 1930s, 207, 209–19; 211, 219; city hall building, 218; high school building, 218; and Mardi Gras, 195–207, 196; and rivalry with Salt Lake City, 198, 202 Oler, Wesley, Olympic athlete, 136 Olympic Games, 1912 (Stockholm), 133–38, 144, 148; 2002 (Salt Lake City), 140–41; Salt Lake City bid for, 139–40, 149 Ontario Canyon School, Park City, 164 Ord, Thomas, educator, 158 Orderville, Utah, 159 Osborn, Erma, educator, 164 Ouray, Ute, 308–310, 308, 309, 314 Outdoor recreation, and road construction, 11, 14

U H Q

O

333

U H Q

I

V O L .

8 2

I

N O .

4

R

334

Racism, 217, 219 Raft River Mountains, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 53 Ramsey, Emma, singer, 33 Ratoff, Gregory, director, 71, 72, 74 Rauzi, Pete, Ogden resident, 214 Rectangular Survey, 186, 192–93 Reed, Henry A., lobbyist, 101 Redford, Robert, and Sundance Resort, 192 Redmond, Thomas, Utah tourist, 115–16 Regional identity, 187–88 Republican Party, 27 Rich County, and road construction, 8–9, 23 Richards, Alma, Olympic athlete, 133–50, 133, 135, 138; folklore of Olympic prayer, 139, 140–50 Richards, Ralph T., physician, 92 Richardson, Albert, speculator, 200 Richmond, Utah, 6 Ring, Bernice Peaslee, educator, 163 Ring, Hiram Waldo, educator, 163 Rivard, Louis, explorer, 48 Road building, in early Utah, 224 (chart), 228–33 Roberts, Eugene, track coach, 145 Robinson, Doug, sports writer, 139 Rocky Mountain Carnival, 195– 207 Rogers, Jean, actress, 72 Romero, Caesar, actor, 69, 72, 74 Rose, Stephen B., Indian agent, 253 Roosevelt, Theodore, 27; and conservationism, 28, 34–35; on industrialization, 39; on irrigation policy, 34–35,

38–39; on foreign relations, 39–40, 41–42; on frontier growth, 34–35; visiting Utah, 27–42, 30, 33, 38, 39, 41 Rowland Hall school, Salt Lake City, 163 Rudd, Charles, turkey grower, 119, 122 Rush Valley, 288 (map), 295

S Saloons, in Ogden, 209–10 Salt Creek, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 49 (map), 51 (map) Salt Lake City, premiere of film Brigham Young, 65–76; sanitation, 92–113; Olympic bid, 139–40; and LDS Church, 140, 149; and rivalry with Ogden, 198, 202 Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce, and water access, 97, 106, 110 Salt Lake City Council, and water rights, 98–99, 101–102 Salt Lake City Real Estate Association, 103 Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, 164 Salt Lake Herald, newspaper, 108,109, 110, 113 Salt Lake Telegram, newspaper, 110 Salt Lake Tribune, newspaper, 94, 96, 101, 102, 106, 108 Salt Spring, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 49–50, 49 (map), 51 (map) Salt Wells Flat, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 51–53, 52 (map) Salvation Army band, 213, 216–17 Sanders, Bill, turkey grower, 118–19 Sanders, Ervil, turkey grower, 118–19

Sanders, Moroni, turkey grower, 118–19 Sanitation, in Salt Lake City, 92–113; and population growth, 93, 96, 104–5, 110–11 Sanpete Country, Utah, and turkey production, 117, 120, 123, 124–25, 128, 130 Santa Clara, Utah, 116, 222, 226 Savage, Charles, photographer, 230 School of the Good Shephard, Ogden, 163 Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company, 116 Scott, George, Salt Lake City mayor, 97 Sears, Septimus, water rights activist, 98–99 Seeholzer, Ted, Cache County resident, 20 Seeley, Ray, turkey grower, 124 Seppi, Fred, Ogden resident, 209–19, 212; parents of, 215 Sessions, Patty Bartlett, LDS midwife, and LDS proselytizing to Native peoples, 256 Sewer system, Salt Lake City, 92–113, 105, 107 Sharp, David, Vernon settler, 299–300, 303 Sharp, John C., Vernon LDS bishop, 295, 296, 297–99, 301–02, 301 (mansion), 304–05 Sheets, Elijah, Salt Lake City councilman, 93 Sheppard, Morris, senator, 147 Sherratt, Gerald R., Library, 234–35 Shields, Daniel B., educator, 164 Shilling, Watson N., Ogden official, 198–99

4 N O .

I

Tanner, Mary Jane Mount, educator, 156 Tanner, Ray S., turkey grower, 118 Taylor, Elmina Shepard, early Mormon, 160 Taylor, John, LDS leader, and water lobbying efforts, 95–96 Teachers, in the early West, 151– 66; and gender, 151–66; and qualification, 160 Temple Square, as cartographic meridian, 192–93 Thomas, Lowell, voice actor, 75 Thompson, Ezra, Salt Lake City mayor, 30, 32, 37 Thompson, James B., Colorado Indian agent, 314 Thorpe, Jim, athlete, 137, 143 Throssel, Jesse, turkey breeder, 123 Timpanogos Utes, 190–91, 192, 193 Tison, August, explorer, 48 Toquerville, Utah, 222, 225 Tourists, to Utah, 187–88 Trade and Intercourse Act (1834), 252, 260, 262–63, 267 Trueblood, Thomas C., University of Michigan professor, 134 Turkeys, in Utah, 114–32, 114; and American Indians, 115; as commercial industry, 116–31; and disease, 123–24, 128, 129; as insect control, 115–16; and geographic concentration, 117–19, 124–29; and technological advances, 116, 117, 126–27, 131–32; as tithing, 115

8 2

T

V O L .

St. Marks’ School, Salt Lake City, 163 St. Mary’s day school, Silver Reef, 165 Staheli, George, Swiss settler, 229 Stansbury, Howard, civil engineer, and expedition around the Great Salt Lake, 43–64, 45 Stapley, Charles, Jr., road commissioner, 230 Steele, Angie, educator, 163 Steele, John, early Utah settler, 223, 224 Steele, John, Ogden resident, 209–10, 217 Steptoe, Edward J., U.S. army officer, and investigation of death of John W. Gunnison, 258–59 Stewart, Levi, settler of Kanab, 159 Stiles, George P., Utah territorial judge, 279 Stockholm, Sweden, and 1912 Olympic Games, 133, 136–38 Stoddard, Will, Park City resident, 205 Stone, William, Logan resident, 23 Stout, Hosea, early Latter-day Saint, 276–77, 278–79 Sugar House, Salt Lake City neighborhood, 97–98, 113 Sullivan, James, of American Olympic Committee, 136, 144

Sweetwater Spring, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 51 (map) Swendsen, George L., hydraulic engineer, 6

I

Spencer, George, educator, 158 Spencer, Orson, educator, 161 Spring Bay, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 51 Sproul, Andrew, Jr., turkey grower, 116 St. Ann Orphanage, 286 St. John’s school, Logan, 163 St. George, Utah, 161, 222, 229

U H Q

Shirts, Peter, road commissioner, 223, 225, 228 Shoshones, performing at Odgen Mardi Gras, 202–203, 205, 206; and relations with LDS church, 253, 256, 268 Showell, William, Salt Lake City sanitation inspector, 103 Siah Colorow, Ute, 313 Sierra Club, and road construction, 18, 19, 21 Sigler, Amy, educator, 158 Silver Island Mountains, and their appearance on early maps, 46–47, 59 (map), 60, 61, 63 (map) Silver Reef, Utah, 165 Simoni, Eddie, Ogden resident, 215 Smith, Candace, educator, 158 Smith, George A., LDS leader, 158, 161–62, 224, 228, 277 Smith, Jedediah, explorer, 223 Smith, Jesse N., Utah territorial district attorney, 276, 280–81 Smith, John Calvin Lazelle, early Utah settler, 224 Smith, Joseph F., LDS leader, and Theodore Roosevelt, 32 Smith, Silas, Parowan resident, 281 Smith, Thomas W., early Utah settler, 229 Smithfield, Utah, 21 Smithson, Forrest, athlete, 142 Smoot, Reed, politician and LDS leader, 29–30, 38, 40, 41 Snow, Erastus, LDS leader, 162, 230, 232 Snow Field Station, Utah State Agricultural College turkey facility, 128 Southern Utah University, 234–35 Spanish Fork, Utah, 158 Spence, Jack, Utah State University professor, 18, 19

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Turkey Growers Incorporated, 129 Turkey Research Facility, Ephraim, Utah, 128 Turner, Frederick Jackson, historian, 33; and Theodore Roosevelt, 34–35, 40 Tuttle, Daniel, Episcopal bishop, 163 Twenty-fifth Street, Ogden, 209–19, 211, 219; and Mardi Gras, 197

U Uinta Basin, and turkey culture, 115–18 Uintah County Farm Bureau, 117–18 Uintah Special Meridian, 193 Union Station, in Ogden, 209 United States Forest Service, 12, 15–17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25 United States of America, and relations with Native Americans, 251–71, 265 University of Southern California, and Alma Richards, 138 U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, 15, 17 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 185, 193 USS Utah, name announced, 36, 40, 42 Utah, as a place name, 190–91 Utah Department of Transportation, 18–19, 20–21, 22, 23, 26 Utah Farm Bureau, 121, 131 Utah Federation of Women’s Club, and water access, 103, 110 Utah Lake, 190–92 Utah Poultry Association, 120, 121–22, 123, 124, 131 Utah Sports Hall of Fame, 134 Utah State Agricultural College, 119, 125, 128, 131

Utah State Department of Highways, 12, 14–18, 25 Utah State Division of Fish and Game, impact on road construction, 12, 14 Utah State Road Commission, 9, 10, 15–18 Utah Territory, arable land, 288 (map); water rights administration, 293–94 Utah Travel Council, 188, 189–90 Utah Turkey Growers Federation, 125, 127, 131 Utah War, 264–70, 263 Utes, and relations with LDS church, 253, 256, 267, 268; and death of John W. Gunnison, 258; photographs, 307–15, 306

V Vernacular architecture, 189 Vernon, site of water distribution conflict, 289–305, 299, 300, 303 (map) Vernon Irrigation Company, 294, 297–300, 299, 300 Vidmar, Peter, Olympic athlete, 140–41 Volkert, George H., police officer, 65

W Wagon travel, 200–233 Wákara, Ute chief, 253 Walker, Joseph, 99 Walker, Virgil, Missouri resident, 13 Walker War, 255, 258 Walmsley, Sylvester Pierce, New Orleanian, 197, 204, 205 Wasatch Academy, Mount Pleasant, 164 Washakie, Shoshone leader, 268, 269

Washington, Utah, 222, 228 Washington County Turkey Growers Association, 130 Water-borne illnesses, 92, 94, 100–101, 105, 108–109, 112 Water engineering, in Salt Lake City, 93–113, 105, 107; effect of religion, race, and class, 93, 95–113 Water rights administration, 289–305 Welch, Sam, railroad brakeman, 29 Weller, John, California governor, 267 Wells, Daniel H., mayor, 93 Wells, Emmeline B., early Mormon, 160 Wells, Heber M., governor, 29–30, 32–33, 40, 41 West, Jacob, Parowan resident, 281 Westenskow, Eldon, turkey grower, 124 Westside, Salt Lake City neighborhood, 96, 102–4, 106, 108–9, 110, 111, 112, 113 Whitehouse, Jacob, LDS immigrant, 274 Whitehouse, Joseph, LDS immigrant, 274, 282 Whitehouse, Rebecca, LDS immigrant, 274 Whitehouse, Isaac, murder victim, 273–87 Whiting, Mary, educator, 158 Widmer, Bus, and His Clevelanders (band), 216 Widtsoe, John A., and film Brigham Young, 69–70, 74 Wight’s Farm Fresh Turkey Business, 130 Wilcox, Sterling J., United States Forest Service officer, 25

Y Young, Brigham, LDS leader, 160, 162, 255, 278; and arrival in Utah, 192; and Cache Valley, 6, 8; and communitarianism, 292–93; and conflict with federal judges, 279; and definition of Utah, 191; and Howard Stansbury, 45; and Iron Mission, 223, 224–25; and road building, 230; and Samuel Baker murder case, 278–79; as superintendent of Indian affairs, 252–57, 259, 261, 264–67, 268, 265; on gender roles, 157; traveling in southern Utah, 228, 229, 230, 231 Young, LeGrand, attorney, 297 Young, Levi Edgar, historian, 191 Young, Steve, athlete, 140

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Zanuck, Darryl H., film producer, 68–69, 70, 71, 72, 74 Zeese, George, Salt Lake City resident, 112 Zolinger, Lynn, Utah Department of Transportation worker, 19

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Wildcat Hills, on early route around Great Salt Lake, 53, 54, 55 (map) Willard Academy, American Fork, 164 Willardson, Albertus, cattleman, 122 Williams, Alexander, deputy U.S. marshal, 276 Witbeck, William, turkey grower, 117 Withers, Jane, actress, 69, 72, 74, 75, 76 Woman’s Executive Committee of Home Missions, 164 Woodhouse, John, explorer, 227–28 Woodruff, Wilford, LDS leader, 161 Wootton, Attewall, educator, 159 Word of Wisdom, LDS health code, and athletics, 141, 146–47 Work Projects Administration, in Odgen, 218

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Harvest Scene This image of harvest time in the nineteenth century comes from the Salt Lake Tribune collection at the Utah State Historical Society.

The presence of children in the foreground is

significant: in Utah and throughout the West, girls and boys alike shouldered signficant burdens of agricultural work.

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I DEPARTMENT OF HERITAGE AND ARTS

Eugene E. Campbell (1915–1986)

Carol Cornwall Madsen

Everett L. Cooley (1917–2006)

Philip F. Notarianni

C. Gregory Crampton (1911–1995)

Floyd A. O’Neil

Michael W. Homer, Salt Lake City, 2014, Chair

S. George Ellsworth (1916–1997)

Charles S. Peterson

Dina Williams Blaes, Salt Lake City, 2017

Austin E. Fife (1909–1986)

Richard W. Sadler

Scott R. Christensen, Salt Lake City, 2014

LeRoy R. Hafen (1893–1985)

Gary L. Shumway

Yvette Donosso, Sandy, 2015

A. Karl Larson (1899–1983)

Melvin T. Smith

Maria Garciaz, Salt Lake City, 2015

Gustive O. Larson (1897–1983)

William A. Wilson

Deanne G. Matheny, Lindon, 2017

Brigham D. Madsen (1914–2010)

Robert S. McPherson, Blanding, 2015

Dean L. May (1938–2003)

Steven Lloyd Olsen, Heber City, 2017

David E. Miller (1909–1978)

David L. Bigler

Gregory C. Thompson, Salt Lake City, 2015

Dale L. Morgan (1914–1971)

Craig Fuller

Patty Timbimboo-Madsen, Plymouth, 2015

William Mulder (1915–2008)

Florence S. Jacobsen

Wesley Robert White, Salt Lake City, 2017

Helen Z. Papanikolas (1917–2004)

Marlin K. Jensen

Wallace E. Stegner (1909–1993)

Stanford J. Layton

Thomas G. Alexander

William P. MacKinnon

Brad Westwood, Director and State Historic

James B. Allen

John S. McCormick

Preservation Officer

Maureen Ursenbach Beecher

F. Ross Peterson

David L. Bigler

Richard C. Roberts

Max J. Evans

William B. Smart

Leonard J. Arrington (1917–1999)

Peter L. Goss

Melvin T. Smith

Fawn M. Brodie (1915–1981)

B. Carmon Hardy

Linda Thatcher

Juanita Brooks (1898–1989)

Joel Janetski

Gary Topping

Olive W. Burt (1894–1981)

William P. MacKinnon

BOARD OF STATE HISTORY

ADMINISTRATION

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY FELLOWS

HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS

The activity that is the subject of this journal has been financed in part with Federal funds from the National Park Service and U.S. Department of the Interior and administered by the State Historic Preservation Office of Utah. The contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior or the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Department of the Interior or the Utah State Historic Preservation Office.

This program receives Federal financial assistance for identification and protection of historic properties. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, or age in its federally assisted programs. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office for Equal Opportunity, National Park Service, 849 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20240.

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RIO GRANDE DEPOT, SALT LAKE CITY / PHOTO BY STANFORD KEKAUOHA

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THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF U TA H H I S TO R Y COV E R

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COVER

— James Thomas family, Elsinore, Utah, photographed by George E. Anderson in 1904. Utah State Historical Society

Water Law on the Eve of Statehood Using Face Recognition for Historic Images

Mormon and Federal Indian Policies The Murder of Isaac Whitehouse

B AC K

— A man naps on a porch, late nineteenth century. Utah State Historical Society

IN THIS ISSUE