CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Quest for Self-Sufficiency

After the Civil War, Church leaders recognized more than ever before the wisdom of being self-sufficient and the strength this would give the Saints both economically and spiritually. This was especially true with the arrival of the transcontinental railroad, which eliminated Utah’s isolation. Several measures were taken at this time to establish the Church’s independence from contaminating worldly influences.

Early Measures

Because he saw it as a great aid in making it easier for immigrants to reach the Great Basin, Brigham Young had encouraged a railroad as early as the 1850s. Leading public officials outside the Church also wanted the “iron horse” running through the Utah Territory, not only because of the wealth that they could accrue from this but also because they were confident that when the transcontinental railway reached Utah, the Church would collapse. Their confidence was based on an erroneous belief that Brigham Young was an evil dictator who held his people in captive subjection. Therefore, they reasoned that when the railroad came it would allow the oppressed Latter-day Saints a convenient means of fleeing to the freedom of the East—even though one of them acknowledged that President Young, upon learning of this idea, remarked that his religion “must, indeed, be a poor religion, if it cannot stand one railroad.”¹

Little did the nation’s leaders know that Brigham Young and his followers waited with anticipation and enthusiasm as workers laid track at a frantic pace. Church members, however, were not unaware, because of their experiences in the East, that potential problems were not just shadows lurking in the rails and ties being laid from both ends of the continent to rendezvous at Promontory Summit, Utah.

Realizing that the railroad would bring more non-Mormons to the territory, Brigham Young reorganized the School of the Prophets, promoted cooperatives, and revitalized the Church’s auxiliaries. To help strengthen the brethren in doctrine and policies of the Church, the School of the Prophets was instituted as early as 1867. President Young wanted the brethren to help him make economic decisions that would promote home industry and cooperative enterprises so that the Saints could maintain a degree of financial independence. The school was also intended to purify Church meetings and minimize the promulgation of false doctrines.²

In addition to Salt Lake City the School of the Prophets was also organized in Logan, Ogden, Brigham City, Provo, Parowan, and other principal settlements. Brigham Young sought a self-sufficient economy and encouraged Church members through this organization to purchase goods from their fellow Saints. Home industry was also stressed, which meant that Church members manufactured their own clothes, produced their own food, and constructed their own iron works. They also produced their own silk, cotton, and flax. They dug their own coal and even manufactured their own paper, some of which was made from rags.

Other activities of the School of the Prophets included raising funds for the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, instituting a mercantile boycott of merchants who opposed the Church, establishing the Provo Woolen Mills, reducing wages for Utah workers to make the prices of Utah manufactured goods more competitive with goods that would now be shipped from the East, and finally promoting the construction of the railroad from Salt Lake City to Ogden.

The School of the Prophets also motivated Church members to clean up their homes, yards, and public thoroughfares. Honesty, personal cleanliness, and neatness were stressed so that Zion’s people would indeed be a light to the world. While the Saints made their economy more secure, their personal property more tidy, and their lives more Christlike, the railroad began to penetrate the mountains that surrounded them.

In 1868 Brigham Young, on behalf of the School of the Prophets, signed a contract with Union Pacific officials to build the railroad from the head of Echo Canyon to Salt Lake City if the route came that way, or from the canyon to Ogden if that was the route chosen. The School of the Prophets considered such a contract advantageous for several reasons. First, it would avoid the troubles that always followed the railroad camps. The morality of the community was threatened by gamblers, prostitutes, and ruffians who followed the railroad to take advantage of the laborers and their earnings. Second, “it would insure that the income earned under the contract would go to the church and its members.” Third, it would “minimize an influx of undesirable ‘outsiders’ by deflating the reports on Utah’s mineral wealth, thus diminishing the prospect of a rush of miners to Utah.” And fourth, it would supply much needed employment for Latter-day Saints.³

Prominent Church members, including Elder Ezra T. Benson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Bishop Chauncy West, and Ogden Stake president Lorin Farr, also signed contracts to build two hundred miles of track east from Humboldt Wells, Nevada, to Ogden, Utah. Thus hundreds of the territory’s residents secured jobs. When the Union Pacific reached Ogden on 8 March 1869, the citizens celebrated and greeted the workmen with many banners, one of which read, “HAIL TO THE HIGHWAY OF NATIONS! UTAH BIDS YOU WELCOME!”⁴

It was 10 May 1869 when the two rail lines met at Promontory Summit, fifty-three miles northwest of Ogden, Utah. The last tie laid was made of California laurel wood with an inscription on a silver plate celebrating this great event in the nation’s history. At 12:47 P.M., using sledge hammers, both Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific, and Thomas C. Durant, vice-president of the Union Pacific, swung and missed hitting an iron spike. Still, the telegraph wires sent the message to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant that the last spike had been driven while two construction supervisors completed the task. Guns were fired in San Francisco, and the rest of the nation joined in the rejoicing of this historic event.⁵ Brigham Young was on an extended visit to the Saints in the southern part of the territory and missed the celebration.

In an effort to further improve transportation within the territory and to provide employment for Church members, the First Presidency, with the help of ward bishops and territorial surveyor Jesse W. Fox, began plans for the Utah Central Railroad that would connect Salt Lake City with the transcontinental line at Ogden. On 17 May 1869 the first ground was broken, not with a miner’s pick but with a farmer’s shovel to represent the Saints’ commitment to agriculture. The laying of the track was completed 10 January 1870. Thousands of spectators gathered to watch President Brigham Young drive home the last spike, which was made of Utah iron.

The construction of this line was followed with Church support by the laying of track for the Utah Southern Railroad, which ran through Provo and other southern settlements, and the Utah Northern lines, which were laid as far north as Butte, Montana.

For years the federal government had withheld giving land titles to the people of Utah; therefore, as the railroad approached, the citizens grew concerned about their holdings. Should the “iron horse” significantly increase the number of non-Latter-day Saints in the territory, there was a distinct possibility that without clear property title many residents would be denied both their land and the improvements they had made. That the Saints had lived in peace for so many years without clear title to their land is a tribute to their ability to cooperate with one another. Even the coming of some Gentiles had elicited very few land disputes in contrast to the many conflicts between ranchers and squatters in California, for example.

The Saints’ concern grew to such an extent that in 1869 the School of the Prophets appointed a committee to inform themselves “upon the land question and report to the people what steps were necessary to take to preserve their homesteads being claimed by the railway companies.”⁶ (This would also apply to others who might want to settle in the Great Basin.) “This committee made periodic reports to the school, and sent individuals on missions to assist local settlers throughout the territory with their land title applications.”⁷ Because of their efforts a minimum of injustice was done to the people.

By congressional decree the railroad had been given land along their right-of-way, except where property rights were already vested in private citizens. The committee visited the territory’s communities and assisted residents with their land title applications.

In the October 1865 general conference, Brigham Young announced that the Latter-day Saints had to help one another economically. He declared, “Let every one of the Latter-day Saints, male and female, decree in their hearts that they will buy of nobody else but their own faithful brethren, who will do good with the money they will thus obtain. I know it is the will of God that we should sustain ourselves, for, if we do not, we must perish, so far as receiving aid from any quarter, except God and ourselves. . . . We have to preserve ourselves, for our enemies are determined to destroy us.”⁸

Again in 1868, President Young carefully explained that our policy “must be to let this trade [with outside merchants] alone, and save our means for other purposes than to enrich outsiders. We must use it to spread the Gospel, to gather the poor, build temples, sustain our poor, build houses for ourselves, and convert this means to a better use than to give it to those who will use it against us.”⁹ Church leaders then began to promote locally-owned and Church-supervised cooperatives to avert the threat to the economic stability of the Saints.

The first Latter-day Saint cooperative institution was founded in 1864 in Brigham City under the direction of Elder Lorenzo Snow of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and proved so successful that it served as a model to the Church’s cooperative movement later that decade. Elder Snow had been sent in 1854 by Brigham Young to supervise the Saints in Box Elder, which was renamed Brigham City in 1864. That same fall President Young and Elder Snow had a lengthy conversation about instituting principles of the united order in Brigham City. President Young had long been anxious to apply principles of the law of consecration from the Doctrine and Covenants, and now that self-sufficiency was being stressed, Brigham City appeared to be the ideal place to start.

Elder Snow explained in an 1875 letter to President Young that his main objective for the cooperative was “to unite together the feelings of the people by cooperating their interests with their means and make them self-sustaining according to the spirit of your teachings and to make them independent of Gentile stores.”¹⁰

First, Lorenzo Snow supervised the organization of a cooperative general store. It was his intention to use this mercantile cooperative as the basis for the organization of the entire economic life of the community and the development of the industries needed to make Brigham City self-sufficient. A joint-stock enterprise was formed to which all members of the community were invited to subscribe. As the only store in town, the enterprise soon was producing dividends to the subscribers. But most of the profits were reinvested in home industries. The first was a tannery, which was built with cooperative labor and supervised by an English convert who had much experience in the business. This, in turn, was followed by a shoe manufacturing plant and a leather industry. Over the next several years other industries were added until the entire community became self-sustaining. The fame and success of this cooperative spread throughout the nation, and the famous writer, Edward Bellamy, who was studying cooperative movements in America, came to Brigham City and spent several days with Lorenzo Snow observing how the association worked.¹¹

In 1868 President Young established an economic system known as Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution. The purpose of ZCMI, as it was popularly known, was to bring goods to the territory, sell them as inexpensively as they could possibly be sold, and “let the profits be divided with the people at large.”¹² Furthermore, the directors were empowered to set standard retail prices, and these were to be charged to all cooperating concerns. Such prices were to be “reasonable” and “such as would tend to the satisfaction and benefit of both the merchants and the whole people.”¹³ The purpose of uniform retail prices was not to prevent price competition but to stifle exorbitant prices. The first such list of prices was adopted in the winter of 1869 “with the understanding that the Superintendent of Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institution be permitted to vary them according to circumstances.”¹⁴ ZCMI eventually had its own factories for boots, shoes, overalls, coats, vests, overshirts, undershirts, and men’s underwear.¹⁵

Within six weeks of the opening of the parent institution in Salt Lake City, 81 cooperative stores throughout the territory were in operation. The Saints in individual communities were urged to buy one or more shares in the joint-stock endeavor. Eventually over 150 stores were in operation in Utah and Southern Idaho. These stores managed nearly all the business of the Latter-day Saints.

In metropolitan Salt Lake City nearly every ward organized its own co-op, and many established individual manufacturing enterprises. Most of these provided dividends to their subscribers. Stockmen also managed their cattle, horses, and sheep on a cooperative basis and improved the quality of these herds by importing breeding stock.¹⁶ This cooperative system proved imminently successful in fulfilling the self-sufficiency goals of Church leaders until the Saints began feeling the effects of the nationwide panic of 1873. Some of the co-ops even survived into the twentieth century.

Revitalizing the Relief Society

At the same time that the School of the Prophets was reorganized in 1867, President Brigham Young reorganized the Church’s Relief Society. He sought to involve the sisters in promoting home industry and self-sufficiency, and encouraged them to teach each other how to withstand life’s temptations and how to fashion their own clothing and styles so that the community’s capital would remain within the territory and help stimulate economic growth. The importance of the Relief Society was emphasized when Brigham Young called Eliza R. Snow, probably the most respected woman in the Church, as its president. He wanted the sisters “to visit the sick and the helpless and the needy, and learn their wants, and, under their Bishops, collect the means necessary to relieve them.”¹⁷ They were, furthermore, to prevent or diminish female extravagance, inform themselves on political matters, and lobby against anti-Mormon legislation.¹⁸

Strengthening Zion Further

Conscious that the variety of languages converts brought with them to their new mountain homes made communication difficult and reading English periodicals a problem, President Young promoted for a time a new phonetic alphabet. He believed that this new alphabet would stimulate unity among the Saints. The president asked several of his associates to develop a new phonetic alphabet called Deseret. Drawing on Pitman shorthand as a source for the sounds and characters, these brethren soon accomplished their task. President Young then authorized the printing of the Book of Mormon and several school books using the new symbols. Orson Pratt transcribed the Book of Mormon into the new alphabet in 1869, and a small sized edition was produced.

President Young explained the merits of this new alphabet, stating that it would make it easier for children to learn to read and minimize the amount of time they would have to spend in school. In addition, he said it would reduce the time foreign converts would need to learn English. After the primers were printed, classes were held and other attempts were made to convert the Saints to implementing this alphabet. Soon it was discovered that using a new alphabet created more difficulties than it solved, and the experiment was abandoned.

Believing that the Saints could be strengthened spiritually if they had an adequate building where they could be called together and instructed by their leaders, President Young began planning for such a structure. Following several council meetings, a pattern for a great dome-shaped house of worship stamped itself vividly upon the mind of President Young. To make this vision a reality, he called to his office Henry Grow, who was a master mechanic as well as an experienced millwright. Brigham Young had recently watched Elder Grow complete a wooden arch bridge over the Jordan River—a rather unusual structure having no center supports, sustained wholly by fitting together wooden triangles and arches. President Young felt that it was just such a continuous bridge, or set of wooden bridges, that he needed to support the roof of the spacious, dome-shaped edifice that he had in mind.

With the assistance of architect William H. Folsom, President Young and Henry Grow worked out tentative architectural plans for the proposed pioneer Tabernacle, one of the largest buildings of its kind in the world—150 feet wide, 250 feet long, and 80 feet high, on the outside. The most novel part was that the massive ceiling was to be “bridged over,” without supporting pillars. Since some Saints doubted and others questioned the feasibility of such a high dome-shaped roof, President Young supervised the construction of a model tabernacle, which answered the Saints’ questions. Construction of the Tabernacle commenced during the spring of 1863.

By the fall of 1867 the Tabernacle and its famed organ were completed sufficiently to be used at the October conference. The organ and other inside fixtures were not entirely finished until after 1870. The gallery—30 feet wide and 480 feet long, extending entirely around three sides of the structure and resting upon seventy-two columns—was started in 1870, which improved the acoustics and added many seats to the Tabernacle. Finally, John Taylor, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, dedicated the completed Tabernacle at the October conference of 1875.

Joseph H. Ridges, a convert to the Church from Australia, brought with him to Utah a small pipe organ he had built. President Young, upon learning of Elder Ridges and his organ building capabilities, appointed him to construct the first Tabernacle organ. Finding the proper wood to build an organ was a major problem. Finally the desired timber was located in the Parowan and Pine Valley Mountains of Utah three hundred miles south of Salt Lake City.

The Tabernacle as it looked while under construction and when finished. The unique “eggshell” construction of the Tabernacle was a result of the large bridgelike trusses used to span the 150-foot width of the building, which was 80 feet high and 250 feet long.

Chipping and hauling heavy logs for this project was no small task in the 1800s; roads had to be constructed and canyon creeks bridged. Moreover, almost all the labor had to be done by volunteers. Sometimes as many as twenty teamsters with three yoke of oxen on each wagon journeyed to these distant mountains to chop and haul logs. In less than twenty months Elder Ridges had completed the organ sufficiently for it to be played at the October conference of 1867. Combined choirs from Payson, Springville, and Spanish Fork, Utah, provided music for part of this conference, and the newly organized Tabernacle Choir, under the direction of Robert Sands, provided the music for the Sunday services. The Tabernacle Choir grew in quality from this beginning and has today become world famous.

The Gospel Continues to Spread

Even as President Young and the Saints were busily engaged in establishing Zion in the tops of the mountains, the Church continued to grow in other parts of the world as well, but not without opposition.

In New Zealand, Elder Robert Beauchamp, a missionary from Melbourne, Australia, was peppered with rotten eggs in Wellington. On another occasion he escaped injury through the intervention of his Heavenly Father, who hid Elder Beauchamp from the eyes of the wicked men who were going to tar and feather him. In spite of mobs and a bitter attack by the newspaper, the Wellington Advertiser, a conference was held and the Saints “enjoyed a goodly portion of the Holy Spirit.”¹⁹

In Scandinavia, Elder Knud Peterson reported that during the year 1871, 1,021 souls were baptized into the Church. He continued, “A good many of the native Elders have been appointed to missions during the winter.” Crowded meetings were reported in Sweden, although in that country and Norway, Church elders “are still subjected to fines and imprisonment for administering the ordinances of the Gospel. In Norway exists religious liberty for all Christian denominations, but the supreme court has passed the strange sentence that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a Christian religion,” and therefore Church members were denied religious freedom. The Saints in Norway were also very poor, but 630 of them had raised sufficient means to emigrate to Zion that year.²⁰

Missionaries in Switzerland were described by Edward Schoenfeld as being as “united as a clover leaf,” and were sacrificing to publish a pamphlet that would plainly set forth the principles of the gospel to combat the distortions about the Church in the popular press.²¹

Near the end of 1872, one elder in Switzerland reported that the Saints there were striving to live their religion and were doing their best to sustain the missionaries. He added that in just a short time he had baptized twenty-seven persons and blessed ten children.

While laboring in Hawaii, Elder George Nebeker reported that over one hundred converts had been baptized and that the meetinghouse was too small; hence, the Saints were busily engaged in constructing a new one. In the Hawaiian Islands as a whole, during the last six months of 1872 there were more than six hundred souls added to the Church. The spring conference of 1872 reported an attendance of more than seven hundred Saints. There were healings of the sick, and emphasis was placed on obeying the Word of Wisdom.²²

Meanwhile, beginning in 1869, the Church required emigrating Saints to pay in advance for their entire journey to Zion. Previously most had been allowed credit for the portion of the trip covered by the Church trains (ox teams that met the emigrants at Winter Quarters and took them on to Salt Lake City). In order to help their friends and relatives emigrate, the Saints in the Great Basin established a Welsh Fund, a Scottish Fund, and similar area funds, which they then gave to Church officials to help those gathering to Zion from those areas of the British Isles. Ward Primaries contributed to the emigration of children, but perhaps the most popular kind of assistance was that sent by friends and relatives who deposited cash at the Church offices and had a “Church draft” sent to the prospective emigrants along with a notification that the funds were now available for their journey.

Dealing with Apostasy

Unfortunately, not all members of the Church supported the leaders and their philosophy of economic self-sufficiency. Some people fell into apostasy. Just as Brigham Young was promoting the cooperative system, certain Mormon businessmen and intellectuals who called themselves “liberals” publicly questioned his policies. This faction, known as the Godbeites, because they were led by William S. Godbe, called for cooperation with gentile merchants nationwide and argued that Utah should focus upon mining as its natural source of wealth rather than upon agriculture and stock raising. The outlet for their opinions was the Utah Magazine, which they founded in 1868.

Church leaders sought diligently to reclaim these men and tried calling some of them on missions. The calls were rejected, and their public outcries became even more strident. The men were summoned to the School of the Prophets to discuss the issues, but only an unpleasant confrontation took place. After further attempts at reconciliation, the Salt Lake Stake high council brought charges against the leaders of the New Movement, as they were also called, and the men were excommunicated from the Church. In 1870 they started their own church, named the Church of Zion, and made their periodical into a daily anti-Mormon newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune. Together with leading non-Mormons in Salt Lake City, they formed the Liberal Party to oppose the Church’s political activities.

By 1870 the New Movement had taken into its ranks former Apostle and colonizer Amasa M. Lyman, who had been dropped from the Twelve in 1867 for teaching false doctrine regarding the Atonement and for espousing spiritualist ideas. Lyman joined with others in the Church of Zion in conducting seances. By 1873, the Church of Zion had collapsed from lack of support, while the Liberal Party lived on and was a disruptive force in Utah politics until 1893.

The United Order

With the success of the cooperative movement, Brigham Young and other Church leaders desired a still better economic system. In the October 1872 general conference, Elder George Q. Cannon indicated that the three and one-half years of success of the cooperative institutions pointed to even more valuable results to be expected from the “order of Enoch.” This new order was needed, he insisted, to bring a time “when there shall be no rich and no poor among the Latter-day Saints; when wealth will not be a temptation; when every man will love his neighbor as he does himself; when every man and woman will labor for the good of all as much as for self.” The cooperative system was merely “a stepping stone to something beyond that is more perfect,” and the higher order “which exists in heaven will be practiced and enjoyed by men on the earth.”²³

Brigham Young took up the same theme the next day in his conference address, and for the next several months the General Authorities delivered messages to the Saints preparing them for the establishment of the united order system.

Several factors contributed to the forming of the united order in 1874. Brigham Young and other Brethren who had been closely associated with the Prophet Joseph Smith sought for a reformation among the Saints and the reestablishment of the principles and practices of the law of consecration. When the United States was hit by the depression of 1873, the Saints found that despite their efforts for independence, their economy was clearly affected by the economic rhythms of the nation. Thus, Church leaders began to establish orders of Enoch to soften the effects of future economic cycles upon the Latter-day Saints.²⁴

Also, village life in southern Utah had been disrupted for a few years by the mining industry headquartered in nearby Pioche, Nevada. Building materials and foodstuffs among the Saints had been drawn away by the miners, causing a shortage in the Mormon communities. Several young men had also left their homes for the mining camps to obtain cash wages, where they were subject to influences of the world. This also caused labor shortages at home.²⁵

St. George was particularly in need of an economic boost, and it was there that Brigham Young organized the first united order.²⁶ Its management board was composed primarily of the ecclesiastical officers of the stake and the various ward bishops. One of the order’s earliest acts was to direct the transportation of goods to and from the northern settlements. Soon thereafter they established community-owned flocks of poultry and herds of pigs, and helped construct the St. George Utah Temple. The members agreed to follow a list of fourteen spiritual rules, such as not taking the name of Deity in vain, observing the Word of Wisdom more fully, treating family members with kindness and affection, living the law of chastity, keeping the Sabbath day holy, and wearing non-extravagant clothing. Each member of the order signified his intent to comply with the rules by being rebaptized.

Convinced that conditions were right for establishing united orders throughout Zion, Brigham Young dispatched Church leaders to organize all the southern settlements according to the St. George model. Because of severe weather and bad roads, President Young was unable to arrive in Salt Lake City in time for the scheduled April general conference, where he had planned to introduce the united order to all the Church. Conference was therefore postponed to the first week of May. When the Prophet arrived in Salt Lake City, he immediately went to work to implement the united order in the Salt Lake City wards. During the four-day general conference, more than a dozen sermons were preached explaining all the favorable ramifications of the united order.²⁷

By the end of 1874, over two hundred united orders were established in Latter-day Saint settlements, including settlements in Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. In the larger communities of Ogden, Provo, and Logan, more than one order was set up, with each one specializing in different production projects. Salt Lake City had a separate order for each of its twenty wards. Brigham City and other communities, following the same model, maintained their cooperative network of industries. Under this pattern each person retained his own private property in addition to the stock he held in the cooperative business.

Another variation of the united order was the type established in small communities of no more than 750 people. In this variation each person shared equally in the community’s production, and everyone lived and ate together as a well-regulated family. The most famous of these was Orderville, Kane County, located in southern Utah, which was founded by twenty-four families in 1875. Within five years the town had grown to 700 people. By cooperative labor the citizens “built apartment house units or ‘shanties’ in a semi-fort arrangement around the town square and constructed a large common dining hall in the center.”²⁸ They also built shops, bakeries, and barns, and established farms, orchards, dairies, livestock projects, and various manufacturing enterprises, such as the building of furniture. The people all wore the same style of clothes, manufactured at Orderville, and no one could improve his or her situation unless all were likewise improved. For ten years this community was a model of cooperation and love, and the system only ended due to the accelerated anti-polygamy persecution of 1885. Those who labored to build Orderville continued to look back with genuine nostalgia for the happy feelings they had living in a well-ordered Christian community.

Generally speaking, most of the orders did not fare as well. Because of some selfishness and some mismanagement, as well as difficult economic pressures from the nation at large, most orders were abandoned by 1877. Some continued until the political problems of the 1880s forced their demise.

Nevertheless, there were several noteworthy accomplishments from the decade-long system of cooperatives and united orders in Zion. The Saints became less dependent upon imports, which consequently decreased drastically. Home production and local investment in manufacturing and retailing all increased considerably. Economic inequality diminished among the Saints. Noble qualities of thrift and industry were developed, which would benefit several generations in the Church. And finally, the economic self-sufficiency programs helped significantly in the building of the Utah temples in St. George, Logan, Manti, and Salt Lake City by providing both labor and material.²⁹

Endnotes

1. In Samuel Bowles, Our New West (Hartford, Conn.: Hartford Publishing Co., 1869), p. 260.

2. See Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 245–51.

3. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 246–47.

4. Joseph Hall, “Railway Celebration at Ogden,” Deseret Evening News, 9 Mar. 1869, p. 2.

5. See John J. Stewart, The Iron Trail to the Golden Spike (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1969), pp. 225–27; LeRoy R. Hafen, W. Eugene Hollon, and Carl Coke Rester, Western America, 3d ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970), pp. 405–6.

6. Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 20 Mar. 1869, Historical Department, Salt Lake City.

7. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p. 249.

8. In Journal of Discourses, 11:139; see Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 85.

9. In Journal of Discourses, 12:301; see Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, p. 90.

10. In Thomas C. Romney, The Life of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1955), p. 317; see Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, p. 111.

11. This paragraph is derived from Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, pp. 112–13; see also p. 123.

12. Brigham Young, in ZCMI First Record Book, Minute Book A, p. 17, cited in Arden Beal Olsen, “The History of Mormon Mercantile Cooperation in Utah,” Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1935, p. 80.

13. First Record Book, p. 19, in Olsen, “History of Mormon Mercantile Cooperation,” p. 81.

14. Olsen, “History of Mormon Mercantile Cooperation,” p. 93.

15. See Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 308–9.

16. See Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, pp. 108–9.

17. “Female Relief Societies,” Deseret Evening News, 6 Dec. 1867, p. 2.

18. Derived from Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 351.

19. “The Church in New Zealand,” Millennial Star, 9 Jan. 1872, p. 25.

20. Millennial Star, 30 Jan. 1872, pp. 75–76.

21. Millennial Star, 20 Feb. 1872, p. 125.

22. See Millennial Star, 5 Nov. 1872, p. 714.

23. In Journal of Discourses, 15:207, 209; derived from Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, p. 135.

24. Derived from James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 359.

25. Derived from Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, p. 137.

26. Derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, p. 362.

27. Previous two paragraphs derived from Arrington, Fox, and May, Building the City of God, pp. 143, 146, 158–59.

28. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p. 334.

29. Previous four paragraphs derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 363–66.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Brigham Young’s Presidency: The Final Decade

Since arriving in the Great Basin in 1847, the Saints had organized sundry, often short-lived, groups for theological, scientific, and literary study. During the last decade of Brigham Young’s life, under the inspiration of God, he established religious auxiliaries that would help meet the needs of Church members for the next century. He also worked to expand Zion and to increase the spirituality of Church members, as exemplified by the colonization of northern Arizona, the reorganization of the priesthood leadership of the Church, the building and dedication of the St. George Utah Temple, and the establishment of the Brigham Young Academy.

Development of the Auxiliaries

As mentioned, the first of the Church auxiliaries to receive renewed impetus and consolidation from general Church leadership was the Relief Society. Since arriving in Deseret, Latter-day Saint sisters had exemplified the ideals of work and compassionate service they had learned from the Prophet Joseph Smith in their Relief Society meetings in Nauvoo. By 1858 there were organizations of the society functioning in ten Salt Lake City wards and in Ogden, Provo, Spanish Fork, and Nephi. But the move south that same year, as a result of the coming of Johnston’s Army, interrupted Relief Society work.

In December 1867, President Brigham Young authorized Eliza R. Snow to reestablish Relief Societies in Salt Lake City. During the next two years the prophet gave official endorsement to the program and directed every bishop to cooperate with Sister Snow and her counselors, Zina Diantha Huntington Young and Elizabeth Ann Whitney, as they travelled throughout the territory setting up branch organizations of the society. Women in each settlement would travel miles—sometimes in carriages and wagons or sometimes on a horse or mule or simply on foot—to attend the semi-monthly Relief Society meetings. One meeting each month was devoted to sewing and caring for the needs of the poor. The second meeting featured discussions on elevating educational and spiritual themes and the bearing of testimonies.

Brigham Young gave the Relief Society several special “missions” during the last years of his life. In 1873 he instructed every Relief Society president to appoint three young women to study hygiene and nursing. In 1875 he called Zina Young to establish sericulture (the cultivation of silkworms and the production of silk) among the women of all the settlements. The “gospel of silk” was a major activity of sisters in the Church for many years as they were striving to produce enough silk for their own clothing and for temples and meetinghouses of the Church. In 1876 the prophet called Emmeline B. Wells to head a grain-saving movement among women. They were to store and save wheat against a time of need. President Young also constantly encouraged that the sisters support and participate in all the home industries spawned by the Church’s cooperative and United Order movements.

A group of sisters closely associated with the Relief Society also promoted a women’s newspaper. The enterprising semi-monthly newspaper, the Woman’s Exponent, started in 1872 with Louisa Lula Greene Richards as its first editor. “The aim of this journal will be to discuss every subject interesting and valuable to women. It will contain a brief and graphic summary of current news local and general, household hints, educational matters, articles on health and dress, correspondence, editorials on leading topics of interest suitable to its columns and miscellaneous reading.”¹ The Woman’s Exponent helped unite the sisters throughout all the settlements in numerous causes.²

As a final organizational development, just one month before his death in July 1877, President Young, accompanied by Eliza R. Snow, traveled to Ogden and organized the first stake Relief Society. He called Jane S. Richards, wife of Elder Franklin D. Richards, to serve as its president. The Saints, both men and women, were pleasantly surprised on this occasion at the unexpected creation of a stake Relief Society organization. The Woman’s Exponent described the day as one of rejoicing.³

The initial Relief Society meetings were often held in private homes, but with the help of the brethren in the settlements, the sisters had Relief Society halls of their own constructed. Relief Society cooperative stores often occupied the ground floor of these halls.

The second auxiliary to take more permanent shape was the Sunday School. The Sunday School concept began with Protestants in the British Isles in 1780 and came to the United States as early as 1790. In 1824 an American Sunday School Union was formed. Sunday Schools generally preceded or accompanied public education and taught reading and Bible subjects to youthful “scholars.” Latter-day Saints had sporadically introduced Sunday Schools, like the Protestant ones that many members of the Church had participated in, at Kirtland, Nauvoo, Winter Quarters, and in Britain before arriving in the Great Basin.

With permission from his bishop, Richard Ballantyne organized the first Sunday School in the Salt Lake Valley during the winter of 1849. Fifty children ranging from eight to fourteen years of age met in an especially built addition to the Ballantyne home. Later they met in the Fourteenth Ward meetinghouse. Sunday Schools were set up in a few other wards, but the approach of Johnston’s Army in 1857 and the move south the following year caused their disbandment.

In 1864, when Elder George Q. Cannon returned from serving in the presidency of the European Mission, he saw the need for teaching the gospel in Zion. He later said, “When I reflected upon the numbers of our children at home, I felt a burning desire to spend all the time I could in trying to teach them the principles of the Gospel.”⁵ He reorganized a Sunday School program in the Fourteenth Ward, and soon his example was followed in other Salt Lake City wards.

In early 1866 Elder Cannon launched the Juvenile Instructor as a personal project. On its pages, children’s conferences, weekly Sunday meetings, scriptural reading, and religious instructions were highlighted. Elder Cannon realized that a journal devoted to the needs of the Sunday Schools would be of great value, particularly since there was so little curriculum available. The Juvenile Instructor “was a means of strengthening the hands of those who had the Sunday School cause at heart.”⁶ This biweekly periodical, though dedicated entirely to the Sunday School cause, remained under the private direction of Elder Cannon until 1900, when it came under direct auspices of the Church.

In November 1867 steps were taken toward establishing a permanent Sunday School organization. President Brigham Young spoke to numerous local leaders concerning his desires for the education of the youth of Zion. Elder George Q. Cannon was selected as president of the fledgling general organization to unite the already existing local Sunday Schools and to promote the establishment of new ones throughout the Church. In 1872, the name Deseret Sunday School Union was formally adopted and “union meetings” of Sunday School workers were held the first Monday in each month. Year by year the union increased in numbers of youthful students. (There were no adult courses at that time.) Uniformity was reached in the methods of teaching and the mode of conducting the schools. Punctuality, memorization of gospel facts, and robust singing of hymns were highly prized in these early years of the Sunday School in the Church.

In the summer of 1874, the Deseret Sunday School Union organized and promoted a great jubilee throughout the territory. In Provo, on 15 June, five thousand persons, three-fourths children, assembled for a day of instruction from President Young and his counselors. There was also singing, recitations, and comic speeches, all by area children. The jubilee held in Salt Lake City netted twelve hundred dollars, which was used to purchase song books and other materials for Sunday Schools.

An organization for the young women of the Church came into being as part of the plans of President Young to protect the Saints against the Gentile world at the coming of the railroad. On 28 November 1869, Brigham Young called his daughters together and addressed them on the responsibilities of the women of Zion and organized them into a “Retrenchment Society.” The girls pledged themselves to avoid all extravagant practices, to retrench (cut back their excesses) in regard to dress, eating, and speech. The society was also to receive instruction in the principles of the gospel like that which the young men were receiving in their priesthood activities.⁷

By the end of 1870 the Retrenchment Association was operating on a firm basis in nearly every ward in Salt Lake City. Eliza R. Snow and Mary Isabella Horne then went from settlement to settlement establishing groups that soon were participating in all kinds of practical economic and cultural activities. After the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations were organized, President Young expressed the desire that the name of the Retrenchment Association should be the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association (or YLMIA), but the name was not permanently changed until 1878.

Although a few literary and debating societies for young men had existed in Utah, Brigham Young expressed a desire in 1875 that a unified organization for young men be established in the Church. The prophet wanted the boys to develop intellectually and spiritually and to have needed recreation under proper supervision. Accordingly he called twenty-one-year-old Junius F. Wells, son of his counselor Daniel H. Wells, to establish Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, first in Salt Lake City and then throughout the territory. The first meeting was held in the Thirteenth Ward meetinghouse, where Henry A. Woolley, son of Bishop Edwin D. Woolley, was chosen as president. He selected B. Morris Young, son of President Young, as first counselor and Heber J. Grant, son of Jedediah M. Grant, as the second counselor. Within the following months more than a hundred young men’s organizations were functioning.⁸

A general board for the YMMIA was formed in 1876 and directed a unified recreational program and course of study. The YMMIA had a powerful impact on the lives of thousands of the Church’s young men. The association began its own periodical, the Contributor, in 1879. As the name suggests, several articles in each issue came from the young men themselves.

In 1877, Bishop John W. Hess of the Farmington Ward called the mothers in his ward together and discussed the responsibility of their children being trained properly. He felt that “the responsibility of guiding their young minds” rested “almost entirely upon the mothers.”⁹

Aurelia Spencer Rogers, a devout, thoughtful Latter-day Saint, took the bishop’s charge seriously. After much prayer, she heard a voice say “that there was an auxiliary organization for all ages except the children, where members learned to do things and use their time wisely.” Bishop Hess, when approached by Sister Rogers, was excited by the idea of an organization for the children. He explained that he would carry Sister Rogers’s thoughts and inspiration to the First Presidency to see what should be done. The First Presidency directed Eliza R. Snow to discuss the matter with Sister Rogers when she attended auxiliary conferences in Farmington.¹⁰

During the summer of 1878, Aurelia spoke with Eliza R. Snow, who had been charged by President Brigham Young with the responsibility of overseeing the Church’s women’s auxiliaries and had come to Farmington for Relief Society and Young Women conferences. Sister Rogers “expressed a desire that something more could be effectuated for the cultivation and improvement of the children morally and spiritually.”¹¹

After returning to Salt Lake City, Eliza R. Snow met with President John Taylor and secured his blessing for a children’s organization to be held one day a week other than Sunday. Sister Snow then wrote to Bishop Hess and indicated President Taylor’s approval for Sister Rogers to organize and preside over a Primary in Farmington, Utah.

Sister Rogers organized the first Primary. On 11 August 1878, she gathered the parents together to explain the importance of the new organization. On Sunday, 25 August, Sister Rogers commenced Primary work in her Farmington Ward. She organized the children into their age groups, with the oldest child in each group serving as a monitor. Sister Rogers then told the children to be obedient to their parents and teachers and to be kind to one another.

As the primary movement spread into the various settlements, Eliza R. Snow attended the organizational meetings and spoke to the young children in the area impressing upon them the vital part that each of them played in the great movement begun by the Prophet Joseph Smith. She displayed the Prophet’s watch and then let each child hold it, subsequently admonishing them never to forget that they had held the Prophet’s watch.¹²

Meeting Educational Needs

The conflict between the Gentiles and the Saints in Utah¹³ contributed to a crisis in education that led to a reevaluation of the Church’s role in educating its youth. In the early days of settlement the Saints had made every effort to establish elementary schools in each ward. These were private schools in which teachers’ salaries were generally paid for by tuition. As the influx of Gentiles increased in the state as a result of the railroad reaching Utah, conflicts developed between Church and government officials over the administration of the “district schools.” The Gentiles objected to the teaching of Mormon values in the schools and demanded that all schools become tax-supported and freed from Church domination.

Another aspect of this debate climaxed in the 1870s. Like schools in many other areas of the country, Utah schools used the Bible as a reader. Federal office holders insisted that neither the Bible nor any other religious subjects be taught in public schools. President Young emphatically stated that the Mormons would not remove the Bible from their schools, even if the rest of the Christian world did so. The Church position received support when other religious leaders in Utah also opposed the elimination of the Bible, which they considered the cornerstone of all character building, in the schools.

Recognizing that secular forces were at work in the nation, Church leaders rejuvenated the University of Deseret and considered establishing branches in other communities. The Dusenberry brothers, Warren and Wilson, operated a school in Provo which they organized in 1869. In 1870 Church and territorial educational officials recommended to them that the Provo school be made a branch of the university. In April the Dusenberry school was established as the Timpanogos Branch of the Deseret University, and students began receiving both secular and religious training.

Because of his devotion to education, Salt Lake Mayor Abraham O. Smoot was assigned by Brigham Young to move to Provo, where he served as stake president, community leader, and supporter of the Provo branch of the university. In spite of President Smoot’s support, the school failed financially. Subsequently, in 1875, President Young appointed President Smoot and five other prominent Utah County men and one woman, Martha Jane Knowlton Coray—an author and teacher—as trustees of the school. A deed was drawn up and put into force. The new school was called the Brigham Young Academy. To ensure that there would be religious instruction at the school, “Brigham Young specifically stipulated that the ‘Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants shall be read and their doctrines inculcated in the Academy.’” A few weeks later Warren N. Dusenberry was appointed the school’s first principal.¹⁴

In 1876 skilled German educator Karl G. Maeser took over the principalship of the Brigham Young Academy and began a stellar career in Church education, which later included serving as Superintendent of Church Schools. By the twentieth century this small institution had grown to become Brigham Young University.

In 1877 a second academy, Brigham Young College, was opened in Logan and continued until 1926. The buildings of the college were then turned over to the city of Logan. Plans also went forward to establish a third academy, called Salt Lake Stake Academy, in Salt Lake City. This academy did not begin actual operations until 1886. It went by several names and eventually came to be known as Latter-day Saints’ College. The college officially closed in 1931 during the depression. Faculty members then organized a business college on their own, which was later acquired by the Church and named LDS Business College.

These three academies exemplified Brigham Young’s educational ideals, emphasizing a broad, liberal arts education, high moral principles, and religious training from the scriptures. Teacher training (normal) schools were also established at these institutions. These academies were forerunners of over twenty academies in various communities that would characterize Church education during the rest of the century and the early part of the twentieth.

Looking Outward

During the last decade of his life, Brigham Young continued to extend the borders of the Latter-day Saint commonwealth by colonization and to oversee further expansion in missionary work and immigration. By the end of his life, Mormon colonies had been established in Arizona, and missionary work extended into the Republic of Mexico.

Because missionaries continued to bring in converts who then immigrated to Utah Territory, Church leaders regularly sought new areas to colonize. As early as the 1850s, Church explorers had penetrated Arizona, but the aridity of the deserts, the lack of information on the territory south of the massive Colorado River, and the raiding Indians made it difficult to attempt any colonizing during the 1850s and 1860s. In 1870 the government pacified the Navajos, who had been raiding settlements in southern Utah since 1865. This led the way for a string of settlements to be established from Kanab, Utah, to Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River in Arizona as a springboard for further colonization.

As the winter of 1872–73 began, Brigham Young invited long-time friend of the Saints Thomas L. Kane and his wife, Elizabeth, to accompany him to St. George. During this trip President Young laid plans for a gathering place for the Saints in Sonora Valley, Mexico. Proposed settlements in Arizona were to form a connecting link between Utah and Mexico.

Establishing colonies in Arizona continued to be exceedingly difficult. In the early spring of 1873, President Young dispatched another set of explorers, the Arizona Exploring Company, which consisted of fourteen men, to visit the Little Colorado River area, the Rio Verde country, and the San Francisco mountain region, all south of the Colorado River. These explorers also became discouraged because the arid, broken countryside was difficult to traverse. Nevertheless, the determination of Brigham Young to colonize Arizona was not to be denied, and in 1874–75 he sent additional scouting parties to study the area.

Early in 1876 the First Presidency called two hundred “missionaries” to be part of four companies under Lot Smith, Jessie O. Ballenger, George Lake, and William C. Allen. By year’s end four struggling colonies were established in the lower valley of the Little Colorado. For many years these citizens in Arizona struggled to harness the water of the river through dams. By 1880 other colonizing parties settled along Silver Creek, a major tributary of the Little Colorado, further upstream, and near Mesa, in central Arizona. One successful village was Snowflake, named after Elder Erastus Snow of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who encouraged the colony, and their leader, William J. Flake.

Because Arizona settlements were struggling to survive, there was not an immediate push further south into Mexico. Brigham Young, however, desired that missionaries be sent to Mexico. In 1875 the prophet called Daniel Webster Jones, who had served in Mexico during the Mexican-American War, to head a mission and translate the Book of Mormon into Spanish. Elder Jones was soon unexpectedly joined in this project by Meliton G. Trejo, a native of Spain, who had recently joined the Church, stating that he had been inspired to seek out the Lord’s people in the Rocky Mountains. By the end of the year Elders Jones and Trejo and four others departed for Mexico. They crossed the border in January 1876. Although they encountered much opposition from the various clergy, the missionaries held some public meetings and also mailed out five hundred copies of “Selected Passages of the Book of Mormon” to leaders of more than one hundred communities throughout Mexico.

The missionaries also located an area in the state of Chihuahua that they felt would be suitable for a future Church colonization. In the fall of 1876, Elder Trejo and Elder Helaman Pratt proselyted in the state of Sonora. In 1879, Elder Moses Thatcher of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles headed a delegation of missionaries into Mexico City and succeeded in laying a solid foundation for the Church in that land.¹⁵

Throughout the 1870s the greatest number of converts to the Church continued to come from the British Isles and Scandinavia. Each year this long-established pattern was followed: the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company chartered transportation to gather the European Saints to Zion. In 1869 the Church began using steamships rather than sailing ships to cross the ocean. At about the same time, completion of the transcontinental railroad enabled the Saints to quickly cross the United States to Utah. Instead of approximately five months, the emigrating Saints now took less than three weeks to make the long trip. The cost of passage remained approximately the same.

In 1872–73, George A. Smith, first counselor in the First Presidency, led a delegation of Church leaders to Europe and Palestine to see what opportunities there might be for preaching the gospel and to rededicate the Holy Land preparatory to the return of the Jews. Orson Hyde had conducted a similar mission in 1840–41 but had been forced to go alone. Now the Brethren felt it was time to reassert the great interest the Church had in a regathering of the Jews to Palestine while the Saints were gathering to a new Zion in the West. The party visited several locations in Europe, and on 2 March 1873 both President Smith and Elder Lorenzo Snow of the Twelve offered prayers of dedication on the Mount of Olives.¹⁶

The St. George Utah Temple

Throughout the last years of his life, President Brigham Young persisted in working toward his desire to erect temples in the Saints’ “mountain home.” The Endowment House on Temple Square in Salt Lake City had served as a temporary holy place since 1855, and many Latter-day Saints had received their temple ordinances there, but still there was no permanent structure. Although Brigham Young had identified the site of the Salt Lake Temple in 1847, actual construction did not begin until 1853. The project was seriously delayed by the approach of the United States army and the move south in 1857–58. Progress was gradual on the construction of the Salt Lake Temple in the 1860s and 1870s. On Temple Square, over a hundred stonecutters were cutting blocks from granite, which was being delivered from Little Cottonwood Canyon.

The first temple to be completed in the West, however, was in St. George, which became a second headquarters of the Church as President Young spent most of his last several winters there. He dedicated the location for the sacred structure in November 1871. With the encouragement of the prophet, local Saints, helped by workmen called from the north, hastened the construction. Sandstone quarries were opened, and some timber was hauled from Pine Valley in southern Utah and the Kaibab Forest in northern Arizona, but most of the lumber came from Mount Trumbull in Arizona, eighty miles away. Many Saints donated food and clothing for the workers, and others donated one day in ten as “tithing labor.”

The temple and its interior were constructed almost entirely from native materials, reflecting President Young’s concern for the development of local industry. For example, the Provo Woolen Factory made carpet for the temple, and the fringe for the altars and pulpits was made from silk produced by the Relief Society organizations. The structure was completed in 1877, and individual rooms of the temple were dedicated in January. It was decided to hold the annual general conference in St. George; as part of the proceedings, the whole of the temple was dedicated on 6 April 1877. Daniel H. Wells read the dedicatory prayer.¹⁷

President Young was involved with other important aspects in connection with temple work in 1877. Together with other Church leaders, the prophet supervised the writing down of the endowment of the holy priesthood in correct form so that the work for the dead could be carried out more effectively. In a dramatic address given in the temple, President Young exclaimed, “What do you suppose the fathers would say if they could speak from the dead? Would they not say, ‘We have lain here thousands of years, here in this prison house, waiting for this dispensation to come? Here we are, bound and fettered, in the association of those who are filthy?’ What would they whisper in our ears? Why, if they had the power the very thunders of heaven would be in our ears.”¹⁸

President Young called Wilford Woodruff of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to be the temple president in St. George and directed him to begin in earnest the ordinance work for the dead. It was in this temple that the first endowments for the dead were performed. Furthermore, that same year President Young dedicated sites for two more temples to be built in Utah—Logan and Manti.

Elder Woodruff went immediately to his task. “His whole soul was wrapped up in the temple work for both the living and the dead.”¹⁹ He conducted several people through the ordinances for deceased persons, many of whom were his own relatives. In Salt Lake City, in September 1877, when he reported on his labors, Elder Woodruff said, “For the last eighteen hundred years, the people that have lived and passed away never heard the voice of an inspired man, never heard a Gospel sermon, until they entered the spirit-world. Somebody has got to redeem them, by performing such ordinances for them in the flesh as they cannot attend to themselves in the spirit.” He declared, “The Lord has stirred up our minds, and many things have been revealed to us concerning the dead. . . . The dead will be after you, they will seek after you as they have after us in St. George. They called upon us, knowing that we held the keys and power to redeem them.”

Wilford Woodruff then announced that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had appeared to him for two days and nights, inquiring why no ordinance work had been done for them, even though they had established the United States government and remained true to God. Elder Woodruff immediately was baptized by J. D. T. McAllister for these men and for fifty other prominent individuals, including John Wesley and Christopher Columbus. He then baptized Brother McAllister “for every President of the United States, except three [Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, and Ulysses S. Grant]; and when their cause is just, somebody will do the work for them.”²⁰ Under the administration of President Heber J. Grant the work for these three men was finally done.

Priesthood Reorganization

Realizing that his advancing age was cutting back on his ability to labor and knowing that he would not live much longer, Brigham Young made a number of important priesthood leadership and organizational changes during his last years. In 1873 he resigned from several Church business posts, including Trustee-in-Trust, and appointed a dozen others under the direction of his first counselor, President George A. Smith, to handle these affairs. He also called five additional counselors—Lorenzo Snow, Brigham Young, Jr., Albert Carrington, John W. Young, and George Q. Cannon—to labor with him in the First Presidency.

Seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was also corrected by President Young. Wilford Woodruff, who had been sustained for a number of years ahead of John Taylor because he was older, was sustained after John Taylor at the October general conference of 1861. President Young determined that seniority among the Twelve was based on date of ordination; thus, John Taylor who was ordained first was senior to Wilford Woodruff in the Quorum. Further refinement came at the April 1875 general conference when John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff were placed before Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt. Both Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt had been dropped from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at one time because of disobedience. During the time of their disaffection from the Church, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and George Albert Smith (who was serving in the First Presidency in 1875 and thus not sustained as a member of the Twelve at the time) were ordained to the apostleship. When Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt were reinstated they were given their original place in the Quorum. President Young corrected this explaining that continuous service also determined seniority.²¹

In 1876 President Young clarified the interrelationship of the stakes of Zion. He announced that the Salt Lake Stake held no primacy over the others as a “center stake,” that all stakes were equal and autonomous in relation to each other. In 1877, over half of the Apostles had been serving as stake presidents. They were relieved of these responsibilities so they could reassume more general leadership roles.²²

Brigham Young directed a major priesthood reorganization and reform throughout the stakes in 1877. New stake presidencies were called in nearly every stake, and the number of stakes was increased from thirteen to twenty.²³ To clarify leadership responsibilities on the local level, the “Circular of the First Presidency, July 11, 1877” and later messages instructed that all bishoprics were to be composed of three high priests, and that the bishops were to be the presiding high priests in their respective wards in addition to being responsible for taking care of temporal needs. Bishops were to begin handling temple donations, and their responsibility to preside over the Aaronic Priesthood quorums was reemphasized.

More young men were to be called into Aaronic Priesthood quorums and trained. Elders quorums were to be organized with ninety-six elders in each, even if it meant that the men came from several wards to form a quorum. Seventies were to meet only for missionary purposes. High priests were a stake quorum and were not to meet on a ward basis. Stake presidents were to hold quarterly conferences and monthly priesthood meetings. The priesthood leaders were to see that Sabbath meetings, Sunday Schools, YMMIA, and YWMIA were held in each ward.²⁴ The priesthood reorganization movement is a monument to Brigham Young. This action has been viewed as his last major achievement as the Lord’s prophet on this earth.

Lasting Contributions of Brigham Young

Brigham Young kept in close contact²⁵ with Church affairs to the end. As always, he met with a steady stream of visitors. On 23 August 1877, the seventy-seven-year-old prophet instructed a group of bishops gathered in the Council House. Following the meeting, he fell ill with violent cramps and vomiting. Despite the efforts of four physicians and the fasting and prayers of the Saints throughout the Church, he died on 29 August 1877. According to his daughter Zina, his final words were “‘Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!’ and the divine look in his face seemed to indicate that he was communicating with his beloved friend, Joseph Smith, the Prophet.”²⁶

Brigham Young’s body was placed in state in the Tabernacle, where an estimated twenty-five thousand people passed by. Speakers at his funeral included John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Daniel H. Wells, and George Q. Cannon. These words, offered by President Cannon, aptly summarize the contributions of this mighty prophet of the Lord:

“He has been the brain, the eye, the ear, the mouth and hand for the entire people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. From the greatest problems connected with the organization of this Church down to the smallest minutiae connected with the work, he has left upon it the impress of his great mind. From the organization of the Church and the construction of Temples, the building of Tabernacles; from the creation of a Provisional State government and a Territorial government, down to the small matter of directing the shape of these seats upon which we sit this day; upon all these things, as well as upon all the settlements of the Territory, the impress of his genius is apparent. Nothing was too small for his mind; nothing was too large.”²⁷

Brigham Young served longer as the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than has any other President of the Church. His contributions were numerous and many-faceted. So much of what is cherished, revered, or even taken for granted in the Church today has roots in the contributions and leadership of President Young. Brigham Young felt he was only following the lead of his mentor and friend, the Prophet Joseph Smith. He exclaimed, “I feel like shouting hallelujah, all the time, when I think that I ever knew Joseph Smith, the Prophet whom the Lord raised up and ordained, and to whom He gave keys and power to build up the kingdom of God on earth and sustain it.”²⁸ On another occasion he stated, “What I have received from the Lord, I have received by Joseph Smith: he was the instrument made use of. If I drop him, I must drop these principles: they have not been revealed, declared, or explained by any other man since the days of the Apostles.”²⁹

One of Brigham Young’s greatest legacies was his leadership in keeping the Church relatively self-sufficient from the gentile world—in recreation, business, government, and education. Historians recognize the massive kingdom of the Saints built up in the Rocky Mountains as a tribute to this man. This was achieved against great odds—the interference of federal troops and government officers, a desert climate and rough terrain, “outside” businessmen, the fashions of “Babylon,” the coming of the transcontinental railroad, and the discovery of precious metals in Utah.

Brigham Young led his people in one cooperative venture after another. As a leading member of the Twelve in 1838–39, he organized the persecuted Saints in their exodus from Missouri and in their establishment of a refuge in Illinois. Later, Brigham led the Saints from Nauvoo, across the Iowa plains to Winter Quarters, and on to the Great Salt Lake. Between 1848 and 1852, he directed the gathering of thousands from the camps in Iowa to the emerging stronghold in the West. Then, directing his attention to the tens of thousands of new converts in Britain and Europe, he founded the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, which established the best system of regulated immigration in American history. He organized colonization parties to lay out agricultural villages in some three hundred and fifty locations in Utah and in parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado.

President Young taught the people the importance of cooperation in conquering the difficult frontier. That same spirit continues in abundance in the Church throughout the world today. He directed the disseminating of the gospel to many nations of the earth and the erecting of temples unto the Most High God. He was inspired to set up cooperative economic enterprises and institute the united order among his people. Brigham Young gave the Latter-day Saints all manner of doctrinal and practical instruction. His more than eight hundred recorded sermons ranged widely in diverse subjects. He spoke on the nature of God, the power of evil, the necessity of “working” out one’s salvation, the principles of the priesthood, behavior in the family and marriage, women’s fashions, and keeping one’s earthly possessions clean and orderly. In the twentieth century John A. Widtsoe compiled some of Brigham Young’s teachings into the classic volume, Discourses of Brigham Young. Brigham Young urged the secular and spiritual education of the members of the Church and left an educational legacy that continues to bless the Saints.

Brigham Young left an enduring stamp on all members of the Church since his time. He was both kind-hearted to the meek and humble and fierce with the haughty, bigoted, and proud. He cried when he saw the suffering of helpless people and took many downtrodden people under his wing. He was patient with violators of Church standards, was a good listener, had a sense of humor, and enjoyed theatrical performances and dances. As a political leader, he was astute. He was a person of strong determination, resolute and unwavering. His spirituality was exhibited by his prayers, temple work, and healing of the sick. Throughout his long and colorful career, he exercised all manner of leadership to do what the Lord had sent him to do.

Endnotes

1. “Woman’s Exponent: A Utah Ladies’ Journal,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 June 1872, p. 8.

2. The previous two paragraphs are derived from Ann Vest Lobb and Jill Mulvay Derr, “Women in Early Utah,” in Richard D. Poll, et al., eds., Utah’s History, 2d ed. (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1989), pp. 343, 347–48.

3. “Home Affairs,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 Aug. 1877, pp. 36–37.

4. In Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1901–36), 1:705.

5. In Conference Report, Oct. 1899, p. 88.

6. Jubilee History of Latter-day Saints Sunday Schools, 1849–1899 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union, 1900), p. 14.

7. Derived from James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 336.

8. Derived from Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 370.

9. Aurelia Spencer Rogers, Life Sketches of Orson Spencer and Others, and History of Primary Work (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon and Sons Co., 1898), pp. 206–7.

10. Clara Richards, Insights of Early Farmington History (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, n.d.), p. 15.

11. Eliza R. Snow, an Immortal (Salt Lake City: Nicholas G. Morgan, Sr., Foundation, 1957), p. 40.

12. See Aurelia S. Rogers, Life Sketches (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon and Sons, 1898), pp. 205–17, 221–22; Farmington Ward, Davis Stake, Primary Minute Book, 1878–88, 11 Aug. 1878, pp. 1–4; 25 Aug. 1878, p. 5, LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City; Eliza R. Snow Smith, “Sketch of My Life,” microfilm of holograph, LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City, pp. 38–39; Carol Cornwall Madsen and Susan Staker Oman, Sisters and Little Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1979), pp. 1–13.

13. Section derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 350–53.

14. Ernest L. Wilkinson and W. Cleon Skousen, Brigham Young University: A School of Destiny (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1976), pp. 48–49.

15. Previous six paragraphs derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 366–69, 386, 388.

16. See B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Century One, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1930), 5:474–75.

17. Previous three paragraphs derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 370, 372.

18. In Journal of Discourses, 18:304.

19. Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff: History of His Life and Labors (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1964), p. 495.

20. In Journal of Discourses, 19:228–29; see also Conference Report, Apr. 1898, pp. 89–90.

21. John Taylor, Succession in the Priesthood, Priesthood meeting, 7 Oct. 1881, LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City, pp. 16–17; Deseret News, 14 Apr. 1875, p. 168.

22. See William G. Hartley, “The Priesthood Reorganization of 1877: Brigham Young’s Last Achievement,” Brigham Young University Studies, Fall 1979, p. 5.

23. See Hartley, “Priesthood Reorganization of 1877,” pp. 3, 34–35.

24. See Hartley, “Priesthood Reorganization of 1877,” pp. 20–21.

25. Section derived from Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses, pp. 398–408.

26. In Susa Young Gates with Leah D. Widtsoe, The Life Story of Brigham Young (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930), p. 362.

27. In Gates and Widtsoe, Life Story of Brigham Young, p. 364; spelling standardized.

28. In Journal of Discourses, 3:51; spelling standardized.

29. In Journal of Discourses, 6:279.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
A Decade of Persecution, 1877–87

The Church faced one of its most difficult, as well as one of its most exciting, decades immediately following the death of Brigham Young. The United States government, with the encouragement and support of many reform groups, passed laws, saw that they were enforced, and launched a media campaign against the practice of plural marriage. In spite of intense persecution, the Church under John Taylor’s able leadership continued to grow in numbers, expand its colonies, and unfold its programs.¹

Events during Apostolic Presidency

Following the death of President Young, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once more led the Church. In a meeting of this body on 4 September 1877, three important decisions were made. First, that the Twelve should take their place as the presiding quorum of the Church; second, that Elder John Taylor should be appointed as president of that quorum; and third, that Elders John W. Young and Daniel H. Wells were “to stand as counselors to the Twelve as they did to Brigham Young.”²

A month later, on 6 October 1877, following a pattern that dated back to the dedication of the Kirtland Temple but had not been practiced for many years, Elder George Q. Cannon announced to those assembled at the general conference that the afternoon session would be a priesthood solemn assembly. Elder Cannon then gave directions for the seating of the various priesthood quorums. The solemn assembly that afternoon voted unanimously by quorums to accept President John Taylor as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and “the Twelve Apostles as the presiding quorum and authority of the Church.”³

Born in England and trained there as a cooper, or barrel maker, John Taylor went to Canada as a young man. There he met and married Leonora Cannon, who was ten years his senior. Although he was a devout Methodist, when he encountered the Church he began an earnest investigation and for a period of three weeks did not miss a single sermon delivered by Elder Parley P. Pratt. He wrote them down, compared them with the scriptures, prayed about the Church, and was converted. Ordained an Apostle in 1839, he served as editor of many of the Church’s periodicals, almost lost his life with the Prophet Joseph in Carthage Jail, and served many Church missions. He was known as a fearless defender of the faith; his personal motto was “The kingdom of God or nothing.” He responded faithfully to all of the calls given him during his almost thirty years in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and was thus prepared in every way to lead the Church through a tumultuous sea of persecution.

After Brigham Young’s funeral, John Taylor and the Twelve turned to the difficult problem of sorting through President Young’s estate to determine how much of it belonged to the Church and how much to his heirs. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 had made it illegal for the Church to own property valued at more than fifty thousand dollars, other than that which was used exclusively for religious purposes. As a result of the law, properties that were acquired by the Church were placed in the hands of President Brigham Young. President Taylor continued the policy of secretly holding certain Church business properties in the names of individual trustees. President Taylor assigned George Q. Cannon, Albert Carrington, and Brigham Young, Jr. (the latter to represent the family’s interests) as executors of the estate. Their task was made more difficult by the tremendous publicity and speculation that appeared in the nation’s newspapers. Rumors were rampant that the estate was worth millions of dollars, raising the expectations of some of his large family.

After several months of dedicated work, the three executors determined that the estate was worth approximately $1,626,000. Over a million dollars of this actually belonged to the Church, however. When the monetary amount did not meet their high expectations, seven of Brigham’s heirs filed a complaint in the third district court, and the case went into litigation, causing even more national publicity. Siding with the heirs, the clearly anti-Mormon judge, Jacob S. Boreman, ruled that the executors were in contempt of court. Elders Cannon, Young, and Carrington spent three weeks of August 1879 in the Utah Territorial Penitentiary before the Territorial Supreme Court reversed Judge Boreman’s decision. Church leaders then agreed to give the heirs an additional $75,000 to settle the case.⁴

In the April 1880 general conference, the Church celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, and President Taylor, drawing from the Old Testament, declared the year one of jubilee. He announced on behalf of the Church that he was striking $802,000 (half the total deficit) from the amount still owed by certain Saints to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company. Then he asked that cattle and sheep be given to the poor and encouraged the Relief Society to lend wheat, which they had stored, without interest to less fortunate farmers. He called on everyone to give a helping hand to the destitute so that poverty in the territory might be eliminated.⁵

During the years of the apostolic presidency, the Twelve continued to expand the kingdom’s perimeters. Over one hundred new settlements were founded in such areas as Star Valley in western Wyoming, Castle Valley in eastern Utah, the rugged San Juan River country in southeastern Utah, the Virgin River territory in southern Nevada, and more in northern Arizona.

In October 1880, over three years after the death of President Young, a new First Presidency was created and sustained by the membership of the Church. Once again priesthood holders were asked to sit in a solemn assembly and vote by quorums. When the names of John Taylor, George Q. Cannon, and Joseph F. Smith were presented to the Saints, there was unanimous approval. Elders Cannon and Smith were men of great capabilities who served as counselors to President Taylor and to two subsequent presidents as well.⁶

The Practice of Plural Marriage

A large part of the persecution experienced by the Latter-day Saints centered around the practice of plural marriage, which was instituted under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The law of plural marriage was revealed to the Prophet as early as 1831, but he mentioned it only to a few trusted friends. Under strict commandment from God to obey the law, the Prophet began in 1841 to instruct leading priesthood brethren of the Church concerning plural marriage and their responsibility to live the law. The Prophet Joseph Smith dictated the revelation to William Clayton in 1843, when it was first written. Nine years passed, however, before the revelation was read in general conference and published.⁷

On 28–29 August 1852 a special conference was held in the Old Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. On the first day of the conference over one hundred missionaries were called to labor throughout the United States, Australia, India, China, and the islands of the sea. By holding the conference in August the missionaries were able to get an early start in crossing the plains before the cold weather set in.

On the second day of the conference, under the direction of President Brigham Young, Orson Pratt made the public announcement that the Church was practicing plural marriage under commandment of God. Speaking of the United States, he declared that “the constitution gives the privilege to all the inhabitants of this country, of the free exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith, and the practice of it. Then, if it can be proven to a demonstration, that the Latter-day Saints have actually embraced, as a part and portion of their religion, the doctrine of a plurality of wives, it is constitutional. And should there ever be laws enacted by this government to restrict them from the free exercise of this part of their religion, such laws must be unconstitutional.”⁸

Brother Pratt then delivered a lengthy discourse from a scriptural standpoint concerning plural marriage. He explained that marriage was ordained of God as the channel for spirits to acquire mortal bodies and that through plural marriage worthy priesthood holders could raise up a numerous righteous posterity unto the Lord. Brigham Young then spoke giving a brief history concerning the revelation on celestial marriage. Thomas Bullock, a clerk in the historian’s office, then read the revelation to the congregation for their sustaining vote.⁹

Expecting a great public outcry and a flood of negative publicity, Church leaders promptly sent four of its most faithful and articulate leaders to key population centers to launch newspapers that would both explain and justify “celestial marriage” and other restored gospel principles. Orson Pratt edited the Seer in the nation’s capital; John Taylor, the Mormon in New York City; Erastus Snow, the Saint Louis Luminary in St. Louis; and George Q. Cannon, the Western Standard in San Francisco.¹⁰ In each of these publications the righteous motives of the Saints in entering plural marriage were portrayed, which contrasted sharply with the view put forth in the nation’s newspapers, pulp magazines, and cheap novels. Soon, in spite of the articles published by the Church’s best writers and the talks given by its most articulate speakers, groups formed and began to pressure the government to pass laws that would completely eradicate such a marriage system.

Anti-Polygamy Crusade

In spite of all the attempts by the Latter-day Saints to convince their fellow citizens that the practice of plural marriage was their religious and moral right, the nation united against the Church. Missionaries in England and on the continent of Europe were often mobbed, and some elders in America lost their lives. Many people believed polygamy was immoral, barbaric, and deplorable. A mass of anti-polygamy literature claiming to expose the true story of the degradation of women under polygamy was written, primarily by people who never came to Utah or who were only superficial observers.

In 1862, President Lincoln signed into law the anti-bigamy bill known as the Morrill Law, but because of the Civil War its enforcement was overlooked. This “legislation struck at both polygamy and Church power by prohibiting plural marriage in the territories, disincorporating the . . . Church, and restricting the Church’s ownership of property to fifty thousand dollars.”¹¹ The Saints, believing that the law unconstitutionally deprived them of their First Amendment right to freely practice their religion, chose to ignore this law at this time until it was constitutionally defined.

In the ensuing years, several bills aimed at strengthening the anti-bigamy law failed to pass the United States Congress. These included the Wade, Cragin, and Cullom bills which had their origin in the territory of Utah and were initiated by men who were bitterly opposed to the Church. The Wade Bill initiated in 1866 would have destroyed local government if it had passed. Three years later the Cragin Bill was proposed, but within a few days it was substituted by the Cullom Bill, which was more radical than the Wade or Cragin bills. Members of the Church rose en masse to work for the defeat of the bill. Women of the Church held mass meetings throughout the territory in January 1870 in opposition to the bill.

“While they opposed all the features of the anti-‘Mormon’ legislation, their action was principally in protest against the measures, and the remarks of would-be reformers, in which the women of the Church were spoken of as being ‘down-trodden’ and ‘degraded’ by their husband-oppressors.”¹² Opposition by Latter-day Saint women was a great surprise to politicians and suffragettes who saw them as the epitome of suffering and bondage. Newspapers in the East also opposed the bill because of its military features. The president of the United States would have power to send an army to Utah to execute the provisions of the bill. The New York World said: “Its execution will assuredly be followed by war.”¹³ The Cullom Bill was defeated.

In June 1874, however, the Poland Law was passed. This act dismantled Utah’s judicial system by giving the United States district courts (controlled by non-Mormon federal appointees) exclusive civil and criminal jurisdiction. Individuals could now be brought to trial for breaking the Morrill Law. Under the Poland Act, jury lists were to be drawn by the district court clerk (a non-Mormon) and the probate judge (a Mormon) in order to give equal representation of members and nonmembers of the Church on juries. Immediately the United States attorney tried to bring leading Church officials to trial but experienced problems. Many of the Brethren had married before the law was passed in 1862 and could not be tried ex post facto. Furthermore, the wives could not be required to testify against their husbands, and the records for plural marriage that were kept privately in the Endowment House were not public record.

Church leaders became anxious to have a “test case” brought before the Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of the anti-bigamy law. So when the U.S. attorney, William Carey, promised to stop his attempts to indict General Authorities during the test case, the First Presidency chose thirty-two-year-old George Reynolds, a secretary in the office of the President, who had recently married a second wife, to stand in for the Church in the courts. Reynolds provided the attorney numerous witnesses who could testify of his being married to two wives. When Carey did not keep his promise and arrested President George Q. Cannon, Church leaders decided that they would no longer cooperate with him.¹⁴

In 1875 Reynolds was finally convicted and sentenced to two years hard labor in prison and a fine of five hundred dollars (later changed by the United States Supreme Court to imprisonment only). In 1876 the Utah Territorial Supreme Court upheld the sentence. In 1878 his appeal reached the United States Supreme Court, and in January 1879 that body ruled the anti-polygamy legislation constitutional and upheld Reynold’s sentence.¹⁵ George Reynolds was released from prison in January 1881, having served eighteen months of his original sentence. During his incarceration he taught reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and geography to other prisoners. Brother Reynolds also worked on a book which he completed and later published. It was called A Complete Concordance of the Book of Mormon. At the time of his release he had completed twenty-five thousand entries of this concordance.¹⁶

In 1882 Congress passed the Edmunds Act, which defined “unlawful cohabitation” as supporting and caring for more than one woman. Proof of a second marriage was no longer needed. The law also disenfranchised polygamists and declared them ineligible for public office. Not only those who practiced but also those who believed in plural marriage were disqualified from jury service. All registration and election officers in Utah Territory were dismissed, and a board of five commissioners was appointed by the president of the United States to administer elections.¹⁷

Shortly after the passage of the Edmunds Act, the April 1882 general conference convened. As the Saints gathered on the second day, the gusting wind pelted them with sleet. Referring to both the weather and the recent legislation, President Taylor mentioned the nation’s bitter prejudice against the Saints and “warned them that a storm was coming, and that it would break in its fury upon them. ‘Let us treat it,’ said he, half humorously, ‘the same as we did this morning in coming through the snow-storm—put up our coat collars (suiting the action to the word) and wait till the storm subsides. After the storm comes sunshine. While the storm lasts it is useless to reason with the world; when it subsides we can talk to them.’” On the next day he said that the Saints would “contend inch by inch” for their liberties and rights as American citizens.¹⁹

Many Latter-day Saint men, and even some women, had to go “underground” to avoid arrest. Thus began one of the most difficult times in Latter-day Saint history. To avoid incarceration, codes were made up to warn polygamist fathers of the approach of federal officers. St. George’s stake president, J.D.T. McAllister, had the code name of Dan; Henry F. Eyring’s was Look. Communities had code names also. St. George was White, Beaver was Black, and Toquerville was Cloudy. United States marshals were coded Ring, and Judge Boreman was Herod. The warnings could be sent by telegraph and would have no meaning if confiscated by federal authorities.

At times officials became obsessed in their harassment of the Latter-day Saints. United States Marshal Fred T. Dubois, in an attempt to use anti-Mormonism for his own political ends in Idaho, crawled into hidden holes under houses, commandeered trains to make trips to Mormon centers, slipped into Latter-day Saint towns, and raided homes during the night in an attempt to capture polygamous men. In order to avoid arrest, the bishop of the Oxford, Idaho, ward, left town at “night stowed away in a box marked pork, Ogden freight.” He remained twenty-four hours in the box before being set free by a Brother Nesbitt. Then in the night he made his way to a brother-in-law’s home in Ogden, Utah, where he remained safe.

James Morgan went deep into the hills with his fifth wife, Anna, where he cut logs, which his boys hauled to town.

Hyrum Poole “was a young man who lived in Menan, Idaho. In the winter of 1883 he was having a late supper with his brother, William. . . . As they were eating there was a loud knock on the door, and as Hyrum opened it a gun barrel was rammed through and the intruder shouted, ‘Let us in or we’ll break the door down.’ Hyrum grabbed the gun barrel and threw his weight against the door as his brother and two hired men came to his assistance.

“Finally the persons forcing admittance condescended to explain that they were deputies with a warrant to search the premises for N. A. Stevens. They were permitted to enter at once, but Hyrum Poole reprimanded them for attempting to force their way in ‘like a band of cutthroats.’ Whereupon the leader, one William Hobson, an Eagle Rock saloonkeeper, partly intoxicated at the time, swiped him across the face with his rifle and said, ‘Consider yourselves under arrest for resisting an officer.’

“The search proved futile, and as the men withdrew they ordered Poole to come along. As he stepped outside into the dark, Hobson mashed him over the head with the end of his rifle, which cut him badly and knocked him down.” Poole and another prisoner “were taken to Blackfoot and thrown in jail, where they remained two days without food, medical attention, a hearing, or bonds.”²⁰

Some Latter-day Saints were convicted and sent as far east as Detroit, where they served out their sentences in loneliness and fear.

Most of the Saints who were convicted were sent to Utah’s territorial penitentiary, where they were model prisoners. They were often found studying the gospel, writing books, or teaching the other prisoners reading, writing, and other neglected skills. When someone was released, community parties were held and tributes given to those who had preferred the laws of God to those of man. Perhaps it was more difficult for the families left behind. Some suffered from poverty, hunger, and sickness, without a husband and father to help. Thus, the crusade against the Church disrupted economic, social, ecclesiastical, and family life, and as the late 1880s drew near, darker clouds loomed on the horizon.

The Kingdom Moves Forward

Despite the “storm” of the anti-polygamy crusade, President Taylor guided the Church in the early 1880s through continuing progress. He regularly toured the stakes of Zion, setting them in order, teaching, counseling, and encouraging the Saints with great energy. He urged the people to upgrade their behavior in all the relations of life—as husbands, wives, parents, children, neighbors, and citizens—and to observe unity, honor, integrity, honesty, and purity in thought and act.

In 1881, President Taylor published a pamphlet he had written entitled Items on Priesthood; it instructed the various priesthood holders, especially young men then being ordained into the Aaronic Priesthood, in their respective offices. The following year he issued his book Mediation and Atonement, bringing together a collection of scriptural passages with commentary, illustrating the necessity and the glory and power of the Savior’s atonement for the sins of the world.²¹

His instructions to the Saints were founded upon the revelations he received. Following a pattern set by the Prophet Joseph Smith, President Taylor often wrote and published the inspiration given to him. One such revelation was dictated on 13 October 1882, just a few days after general conference. For two years the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had only ten members, and the vacancies had weighed heavily on the prophet’s mind. The revelation called George Teasdale and Heber J. Grant to the apostleship and physician Seymour B. Young to the First Council of the Seventy. It also called for increasing missionary work among various Indian tribes and for an increase in righteousness among priesthood bearers and all the Saints.²²

An experience of Elder Heber J. Grant a few months later gives some background to this revelation. Heber reported that for the first few months of his apostleship he felt that he was not qualified to be a special witness of the Savior. While traveling on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona in February 1883, helping establish the Church among the Indians, Elder Grant told his companions he wanted some time by himself and took a different route to their destination. He later recounted what happened as he rode:

“I seemed to see, and I seemed to hear, what to me is one of the most real things in all my life, I seemed to see a Council in heaven. I seemed to hear the words that were spoken. . . . The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles had not been able to agree on two men to fill the vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve. . . . In this Council the Savior was present, my father [Jedediah M. Grant] was there, and the Prophet Joseph Smith was there. They discussed the question that a mistake had been made in not filling those two vacancies and that in all probability it would be another six months before the Quorum would be completed, and they discussed as to whom they wanted to occupy those positions, and decided that the way to remedy the mistake that had been made in not filling these vacancies was to send a revelation. It was given to me that the Prophet Joseph Smith and my father mentioned me and requested that I be called to that position. I sat there and wept for joy. . . .

“. . . From that day I have never been bothered, night or day, with the idea that I was not worthy to stand as an Apostle.”²³

On 17 May 1884, President Taylor dedicated the Logan Utah Temple. It was the fourth temple in the Church and the second to be completed in Utah. The evening before, President Taylor asked the Lord if the building was acceptable. His prayer was answered and a revelation given to him, in which the Lord told him that “in these houses which have been built unto me, and which shall be built, I will reveal the abundance of those things pertaining to the past, the present, and the future, to the life that now is, and the life that is to come, pertaining to law, order, rule, dominion and government, to things affecting this nation and other nations; the laws of the heavenly bodies in their times and seasons, and the principles or laws by which they are governed.”²⁴ The Saints the next day witnessed a rich outpouring of the Spirit at the temple’s dedication.

During President Taylor’s administration several Church publications were republished or published for the first time. Of greatest importance were the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, which were reissued in 1879 with extensive cross-references and explanatory notes. The Pearl of Great Price, published in 1878, had previously been a missionary tract. The work on these publications was performed by Elder Orson Pratt. These new editions of the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price were formally canonized in the October 1880 general conference. Beginning in 1879, Junius F. Wells produced the first edition of the monthly periodical the Contributor, which became the official publication of the Mutual Improvement Association. Andrew Jenson, assistant Church historian, published the Historical Record, which contained numerous accounts and chronologies that have become invaluable to the study and writing of Church history. The Church also continued to emphasize economic unity. Zion’s Central Board of Trade was organized to replace united orders. Boards of trade were created in each stake to function under the coordination of the central organization. They promoted business activities, sought new markets, disseminated information to farmers and manufacturers, prevented competition harmful to home industry, and sometimes regulated wages and prices for community benefit.²⁵

Missionary Work Continues

Missionary work continued to expand. Elder Moses Thatcher dedicated Mexico for the preaching of the gospel in 1881, though there had been some successful efforts in that land since 1876. Work also began among the Maori people in New Zealand in 1881. In 1884 Jacob Spori opened the Turkish Mission, which was later extended to include Palestine.²⁶ Led by a vision he had received in Constantinople, Elder Spori found converts among the German-speaking people in Haifa who had come to the Holy Land to await the second coming of Christ. Missionary work also continued successfully in the British Isles, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Holland, and Germany.

In the United States missionary work was also growing. For example, John Morgan, remembering a dream he had even before he joined the Church, was led to a small community in Georgia, where he taught the gospel and baptized almost everyone who lived there. Missionary work, however, was not without dangers, especially in the American south. As the Church continued to grow in the South, opposition increased rapidly.

On 21 July 1879, Elders Joseph Standing and Rudger Clawson were planning to leave for a conference of the Church in Rome, Georgia. While traveling in the area of Varnell’s Station, they were surrounded by a dozen armed ruffians who threatened them and led them into a forest. While three of the men rode off to search for a more secluded area, the elders were verbally abused. When the three returned, Elder Standing, who had somehow gotten a gun, suddenly stood, aimed it at them, and yelled, “Surrender!” Quickly a man seated next to him fired at the young elder, hitting him in the face. Faced with a dozen rifles, Elder Clawson folded his arms and calmly awaited death. The rifles were lowered, and he was allowed to go for help for his companion. Returning with others Elder Clawson found his companion dead, having been shot several times in the head and neck at point-blank range. Elder Standing’s body, attended by Elder Clawson, was taken to Salt Lake City where he was reverently honored by the Saints as yet another martyr to the divine cause they shared.²⁷

At the time of the murder, Joseph Standing had served sixteen months of a second mission to the southern states and was expecting his release at any time. President John Morgan and Elder Clawson later returned to Georgia to testify against the murderers, who were nevertheless acquitted.

Five years later, on 10 August 1884, the Cane Creek Massacre took place. This incident was directly attributable to the wide dissemination, following its publication by the Salt Lake Tribune, of the “Bishop West address,” a spurious sermon purportedly delivered by a Mormon bishop in Juab, Utah, in March 1884. Although it was quickly ascertained that no Bishop West existed in Juab and that the vile sermon against the Gentiles was concocted, nevertheless the supposed address was circulated widely in the eastern and southern United States. A copy found its way to Lewis County, Tennessee, and its contents were spread among anti-Mormon elements.

Mobsters approached a Sabbath meeting of the Saints at the residence of James Condor and began shooting. Two missionaries—John H. Gibbs and William S. Berry—two members of the Condor family, and the leader of the mob were killed. The mission president was temporarily absent, and a young B. H. Roberts, who had been left in charge of the mission, disguised himself and risked his life to go to Cane Creek, exhume the bodies of the elders, and return them to Utah for burial.²⁸ He later bore witness that he was given divine help. As in the case of Elder Standing, the murderers were tried and acquitted.

Again the Storm Increased

Before the end²⁹ of the 1880s every community of the Saints was increasingly subject to harassment by deputy marshals. More than a thousand men, and even a few women, went to prison on charges of polygamy. President Taylor went into hiding, as did Wilford Woodruff and other Church officials.

By the end of 1885 because of persecution, hundreds of colonists, chiefly from Arizona and New Mexico, poured into hastily established settlements in Mexico. Elder George Teasdale presided over these exiled Saints. In 1886 Charles Ora Card, president of the Cache Stake in northern Utah, was asked to find a place of asylum in Canada. He succeeded in securing land in what is now known as the Cardston, Alberta, area, and Mormon settlements were soon established in that region.

As the judicial crusade against polygamy continued, a new way of life was created for many Saints. Otherwise law-abiding men escaped to the underground and frequently moved from place to place to avoid the marshals who were hunting them. Fleeing “cohabs” (as they were called) went into canyons, barns, fields, and cellars to avoid their pursuers. Federal officers countered by disguising themselves as peddlers or census takers in order to gain entry into homes. Some marshals raided houses, invading privacy and even mistreating wives and children to catch their prey. Ten- and twenty-dollar bounties were offered for every Latter-day Saint captured, and much larger amounts were available if a General Authority was apprehended. One tragedy occurred on 16 December 1886.

Edward M. Dalton of Parowan was shot and killed by Deputy Marshal William Thompson, Jr., as Dalton was riding on horseback down a street in Parowan. Dalton had been indicted in 1885 for unlawful cohabitation and had evaded trial by going to Arizona. He had returned to Parowan when the incident took place.³⁰

In 1886, President John Taylor, still in hiding, moved into the comfortable farm home of Thomas F. Rouche, mayor of Kaysville, Utah. There he continued his practice of communicating with the Saints by means of general epistles. Messages were conveyed between him and other Church leaders by horse and buggy under guard and cover of darkness. During this period President Taylor’s health continued to deteriorate, and President George Q. Cannon handled much of the Church’s business, even though he was also in hiding. Second Counselor Joseph F. Smith was so sought after that he went on a mission to Hawaii.

On 25 July 1887, President Taylor died while still in exile. Marshals were present at his funeral, but no arrests were made. Wilford Woodruff, who now presided over the Church, was in hiding. It was a time that tested the Saints’ loyalty to their God, who had commanded them to live plural marriage amidst a nation who opposed and legislated against it.

With the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Act in March 1887, wives were required to testify against their husbands, and all marriages were to be publicly recorded. The law also provided that county probate judges be appointed by the president of the United States. Women’s suffrage was abolished in Utah, the Perpetual Emigrating Fund was dissolved, as was the Nauvoo Legion, and a public education system was established. The Church was disincorporated, and authority was given to the United States attorney general to escheat (turn back to the United States) all Church property and holdings valued over fifty thousand dollars. Federally sponsored persecution of the Church thus continued into the new administration of President Wilford Woodruff.

Endnotes

1. This paragraph is derived from James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 377.

2. Wilford Woodruff Journals, 4 Sept. 1877, LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City; spelling standardized.

3. “General Conference,” Deseret News Semi-Weekly, 9 Oct. 1877, p. 2.

4. Derived from Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), pp. 425, 429.

5. See B. H. Roberts, The Life of John Taylor (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1963), pp. 334–37.

6. Previous two paragraphs derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 381–82, 385.

7. See Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4 Mar. 1883, Historical Department, Salt Lake City, pp. 8–10; Territorial Enquirer, 6 Mar. 1883; “Celestial Marriage: How and When the Revelation Was Given,” Deseret Evening News, 20 May 1886, p. 2.

8. Millennial Star, Supplement, 1853, p. 18.

9. Derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, p. 278.

10. B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Century One, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1930), 4:61–62, 66.

11. Gustive O. Larson, “Government, Politics, and Conflict” in Richard D. Poll et al., eds., Utah’s History, 2d ed. (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1989), p. 244.

12. Joseph Fielding Smith, Essentials in Church History, 27th ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1974), p. 444.

13. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, 5:314.

14. Previous two paragraphs derived from Larson, “Government, Politics, and Conflict,” pp. 252, 254.

15. Derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, p. 358.

16. See Bruce A. Van Orden, “George Reynolds: Secretary, Sacrificial Lamb, and Seventy,” Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1986, pp. 53, 57–62, 71, 76–77, 80–86, 103, 108.

17. Derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 394, 411.

18. George Reynolds, A Complete Concordance of the Book of Mormon, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book Co., 1957).

19. Roberts, Life of John Taylor, pp. 360, 362.

20. M. D. Beal, A History of Southeastern Idaho (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1942), pp. 86, 312–13.

21. Roberts, Life of John Taylor, p. 367.

22. See Roberts, Life of John Taylor, pp. 349–51.

23. In Conference Report, Apr. 1941, pp. 4–5.

24. Paul Thomas Smith, “John Taylor,” in Leonard J. Arrington, ed., The Presidents of the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1986), pp. 110–11.

25. Derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 382–85.

26. Derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, p. 388.

27. See “The Murder of Joseph Standing,” Deseret News, 6 Aug. 1879, pp. 428–29; “The Funeral Services of Elder Joseph Standing,” Deseret News, 6 Aug. 1879, p. 429.

28. See Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, 6:86–93; “Death of James Condor,” Improvement Era, Oct. 1911, pp. 1107–8.

29. Section derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 386–88, 396, 398–400, 406.

30. See Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, 6:116–21; “Homicide at Parowan,” Deseret News, 22 Dec. 1886, p. 777.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
An Era of Reconciliation

The decade before the death of President John Taylor in 1887 was turbulent and marked with persecution. The following decade became an era of reconciliation. Wilford Woodruff became President of the Church, the anti-polygamy crusade ended, Utah became a state, the Salt Lake Temple was finally completed and dedicated, and the Latter-day Saints looked to the new century with greater hope and optimism.

Wilford Woodruff Leads the Church

During the “underground” era, Wilford Woodruff, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, lived in exile in St. George and surrounding areas. Friends there protected him from searching marshals. When Elder Woodruff learned from President George Q. Cannon that President Taylor’s condition afforded no hope of recovery, Elder Woodruff set out for Salt Lake City. Informed en route of President Taylor’s death, Wilford Woodruff recorded the following in his journal:

“Thus another President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has passed away. President John Taylor is twice a martyr. At the death of the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum Smith in Carthage Jail he was shot with four balls and mingled his blood with the martyred Prophet. This was in 1844. Now in 1887 . . . he is driven into exile by the United States officers for his religion until through his confinement and suffering he lays down his life and suffers death. . . .

“President John Taylor died to day at 5 minutes to 8 o’clock which lays the responsibility and the care of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints upon my shoulders. As President of the Church or President of the Twelve Apostles, which is the presiding authority of the Church in the absence of the First Presidency, this places me in a very peculiar situation, a position I have never looked for during my life, but in the providence of God it is laid upon me.”¹

Wilford Woodruff was then eighty years old. He had joined the Church in 1833 in his native Connecticut. He accompanied Joseph Smith on Zion’s Camp in 1834 and spent the next five years in dedicated and fruitful missionary service. Following his ordination to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1839, Elder Woodruff and his fellow Apostles experienced remarkable success in England. For over sixty years he meticulously kept a daily journal, which has become a source of much of the history of the Church. He ceaselessly labored all his days for the salvation of both the living and the dead.

President Woodruff was in Salt Lake City during the funeral of John Taylor but did not attend for fear of being arrested. Immediately after the services he met with the Twelve and began leading the Church, but continued to avoid any public appearances. On 9 October 1887, however, President Woodruff entered the Tabernacle for the afternoon session of general conference in company with Lorenzo Snow and Franklin D. Richards. As the Saints recognized their leader, they greeted him with applause. President Woodruff addressed them and then left before the singing, again to avoid arrest.²

The government’s crusade was by no means ended. During the next several months President Woodruff quietly conducted Church business at his home, consulting often with the other Apostles, particularly George Q. Cannon, who had been so closely associated with President Taylor. These were difficult days for President Woodruff. Church property was confiscated by the government, and some private individuals were enriching themselves at the expense of the Church.

A major event in 1888 was the dedication of the Manti Utah Temple. In 1877 President Brigham Young had dedicated the site and broken the ground for the temple. The construction of the beautiful edifice of cream-colored limestone was delayed somewhat by the government’s crusade, but the building was completed in the spring of 1888. President Woodruff noted that it “is the finest temple, best finished, and most costly of any building the Latter Day Saints have ever built since the organization of the Church.”³

Church leaders gathered in the new temple on 17 May 1888 for a private dedication, at which Wilford Woodruff offered the dedicatory prayer. Later that day he recorded in his journal: “I felt to thank God that I had lived on the earth to once more have the privilege of dedicating another temple in the Rocky Mountains unto the Most High God and I pray God, my Eternal Father, that He will protect the Manti Temple and all other temples we have built . . . unto His holy name that they may never go into the hands of the Gentiles, our enemies, to be defiled by them.”⁴ Elder Lorenzo Snow conducted public dedicatory services on 21–23 May, reading the prayer originally offered by President Woodruff. Daniel H. Wells was set apart as the first president of the Manti Utah Temple.

Two years after the death of John Taylor, the First Presidency was again reorganized. At a solemn assembly held during the April general conference of 1889, President Woodruff was sustained as the fourth President of the Church. George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, who had served as counselors to President Taylor, were once again sustained as counselors in the First Presidency.⁵

Edmunds-Tucker Law and National Politics

From 1887 to 1890 the relationship⁶ between the Latter-day Saints and the United States government and its citizens continued to deteriorate. President Wilford Woodruff wrote concerning this on New Year’s Eve 1889: “Thus ends the year 1889 and the word of the Prophet Joseph Smith is beginning to be fulfilled that the whole nation would turn against Zion and make war upon the Saints. The nation has never been filled so full of lies against the Saints as to day.”⁷

The Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 included provisions aimed at destroying the Church as a political and economic entity. The law officially dissolved The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a legal corporation and required the Church to forfeit to the government all property in excess of fifty thousand dollars. Government officials set out immediately to confiscate Church holdings. For example, the buildings on Temple Square and other Church offices were placed in receivership and then rented back to the Church. In an attempt to stop the flow of European converts, the government dissolved the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, the chief agency for immigration. More and more Saints were stripped of their voting rights. Schools were placed under the direction of the federally appointed territorial supreme court. U.S. marshals arrested more men who were then nearly automatically sentenced to prison. Among them was President George Q. Cannon.

Although arrests and imprisonments caused families to suffer, the greatest problem for the Church was its inability to acquire and hold the funds necessary to build temples, do missionary work, publish material, and provide for the welfare of the Saints. Church leaders succeeded in getting their case before the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the confiscation of Church property under the Edmunds-Tucker Act was unconstitutional. But in May 1890 the Court upheld, in a five to four decision, the constitutionality of all the government had done under the Edmunds-Tucker Law. Though disappointed by the decision, there was little the Saints could do to ward off the impending economic destruction of the Church.

The gradual loss of voting rights added to the distress of the Church. The Edmunds-Tucker Act provided for the disfranchisement of anyone convicted of polygamy or unwilling to pledge obedience to anti-polygamy laws. By 1890 some twelve thousand Utah citizens had been deprived of their right to vote. In Idaho, where there were several communities of Saints in the southeast portion of the state, the legislature disfranchised all believing members of the Church by requiring voters to swear that they did not belong to a church that believed in plural marriage. In February 1890 the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this Idaho test oath. This decision encouraged the Saints’ opponents in Utah, who sent representatives to Washington to lobby for a similar oath for Utah citizens. The Cullom-Strubble bill was thus introduced, and by the spring of 1890 it appeared likely to pass. This bill would have deprived all members of the Church anywhere in the nation of the basic rights of citizenship.

Throughout this difficult period, the Church had several influential advocates in the nation’s capital. These included John T. Caine, Utah’s delegate to Congress; John W. Young, former member of the First Presidency and now a railroad promoter; Franklin S. Richards, the Church’s chief attorney and son of Elder Franklin D. Richards; and George Ticknor Curtis, a non-Mormon. On occasion George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith of the First Presidency and other Church authorities also labored with politicians in Washington. Among other things, these men struggled to obtain statehood for Utah. President Grover Cleveland and his fellow Democrats were somewhat agreeable to the proposition, but their efforts were not enough to give Utah statehood before they lost power to the Republican Party in the national election of 1888.

In Utah the Liberal Party was gaining influence as many members of the Church lost their voting rights. The Liberal Party’s political crusade matched the severity of the crusade of the federal officials. Using some illegal voting tactics, the Liberal Party succeeded in gaining control of the Ogden city government in 1889. Then they turned their attention to campaigning in Salt Lake City, where an election was scheduled for February 1890. The non-members were helped by the decision of a United States judge that no Latter-day Saint immigrants were worthy of becoming U.S. citizens or of having the right to vote. Many Gentile (nonmember) registrars also unfairly prevented members of the Church from registering to vote.

Church leaders sought in vain to convince government officials that the charge of Mormons being disloyal to the United States was false. Church members were asked to fast on Sunday, 23 December 1889, the anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith, to implore the help of Almighty God during this crisis. In January 1890 the People’s Party, the Church’s political organization, held a rousing rally to gain support for its candidates. Nevertheless, the non-Mormons gained control over the government in Salt Lake City in the February balloting.

After this disappointing loss and the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court against them, Church leaders in the spring of 1890 searched harder than ever to find influential friends in Washington, D.C. For the previous forty years the Democratic Party had been more lenient toward the Church than had the Republicans, but the Republicans were now in power, and the Church needed friends in that party to achieve a change in government policy and avoid disaster in Utah. Through Isaac Trumbo, a prominent businessman and lobbyist from California who had been a long-time friend to the Church, the First Presidency cultivated close ties with several Republicans—Leland Stanford, senator of California; Morris M. Estee, the chairman of the Republican national convention in 1888; and James S. Clarkson, chairman of the Republican national committee. All four of these men helped the lobbying effort of the Saints in 1890.⁸

President George Q. Cannon made two trips to Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1890. There he found several leading Republicans who were willing to cooperate with the Saints. Among these was the powerful Secretary of State James G. Blaine, who had befriended Elder Cannon years before when Cannon was Utah’s delegate to Congress. When President Cannon returned from his second trip in June, he confided that prospects were brighter for Utah than they had been for many years.

The Manifesto

Because so many Latter-day Saints were barred from voting, the anti-Mormon party won the Salt Lake City school election in July 1890, and with it control of secular education in the territorial capital. Before July ended, the Supreme Court ruled that children from polygamist marriages could not inherit their father’s estate. In the first week in August the anti-Mormon party won most of the elected offices in Salt Lake and Weber counties. Finally, Church leaders learned that the U.S. attorney for Utah was conducting an investigation as to whether or not Church property, especially the temples in St. George, Logan, Manti, and Salt Lake City, were being properly escheated as had been directed by the United States Congress. It was the end of August when President Woodruff received confirmation that the U.S. government, in spite of an 1888 agreement promising that temples would not be disturbed, was going to confiscate them.

President Woodruff, learning that he and his counselors were to be subpoenaed to testify in court regarding plural marriage, went to California to avoid confrontation. There he met with political leaders and found that, although the politicians were willing to exert what influence they could, they were ineffective when faced with the forces determined to eradicate plural marriage among the Saints.

President Woodruff wrote in his journal, within a week of his return to Salt Lake City, that after much anguish, prayer, and discussion with his counselors, he was prepared to act “for the temporal salvation of the Church.”⁹

President Woodruff said later that the Lord had shown him by revelation exactly what would take place if plural marriage did not cease. He was shown that the Church would suffer the “confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead” (Official Declaration 1, Excerpts from Three Addresses by President Wilford Woodruff Regarding the Manifesto).

As the Church president entered his office the morning of 24 September 1890, he told Bishop John R. Winder and President George Q. Cannon that he had not slept much the night before. He had been “struggling all night with the Lord about what should be done under the existing circumstances of the Church. And, he said, laying some papers upon the table, ‘here is the result.’ Upon these was written what, with the exception of some slight changes, is known as the manifesto.”¹⁰ He then showed the Brethren assembled before him the document he had written. After they had approved it and prepared it for publication, President Woodruff declared that the Lord had made it plain to him what he was to do and that it was the right thing. In the Manifesto, as it was called, he stated that the Church was no longer teaching plural marriage nor permitting any person to enter into it. He expressed his intent to obey the laws of the land, which forbade plural marriage, and to use his influence with Church members to do likewise. In closing he wrote, “I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land” (Official Declaration 1).

The Manifesto was released to the nation’s newspapers the next day. It even appeared in the Washington Post, having been given to that newspaper by Utah’s territorial delegate, John T. Caine.

In the first week of October, delegate Caine informed the First Presidency in a telegram that the Secretary of the Interior had told him the government would not recognize the official declaration unless it was formally accepted by the Church’s general conference.

General conference convened Saturday morning, 4 October 1890, and lasted three days. It was on the third day of the conference that President George Q. Cannon mentioned the Manifesto and then asked Orson F. Whitney, then bishop of the Salt Lake City 18th Ward, to read the document. President Lorenzo Snow then proposed that because the Saints recognized Wilford Woodruff as the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as the one who held the sealing keys, that they support the Manifesto as it had been issued by him. The vote was unanimous.

President Cannon then gave a lengthy discourse laying before the Saints the position of the Church concerning the doctrine of plural marriage. He explained that the Church had accepted plural marriage as a revelation from God binding upon them as a people and that they had endeavored to show that the law of 1862, which stopped the practice, was unconstitutional and in conflict with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion. He further testified that in this view they had been sustained by some of the best legal minds in the country. President Cannon reminded the Saints of the persecution they had endured, with upwards of thirteen hundred men in the Church having gone to prison as a result of their obedience to the commandment. Even with all the pressure from government leaders, as well as some members of the Church, they had obeyed the law of God until he sent the revelation directing that the practice of plural marriage be stopped.

President Cannon concluded his remarks by testifying that the Manifesto was from God and was supported by the General Authorities. He challenged the Saints that if their faith was tried because of the Manifesto, they must do as their leaders had done, which was to go to their Heavenly Father in prayer so they might have a testimony for themselves.¹¹

President Wilford Woodruff then closed the conference bearing testimony of the revelation that had come to him: “I want to say to all Israel that the step which I have taken in issuing this manifesto has not been done without earnest prayer before the Lord. I am about to go into the spirit world, like other men of my age. I expect to meet the face of my heavenly Father—the Father of my spirit; I expect to meet the face of Joseph Smith, of Brigham Young, of John Taylor, and of the apostles, and for me to have taken a stand in anything which is not pleasing in the sight of God, or before the heavens, I would rather have gone out and been shot. My life is no better than other men’s. I am not ignorant of the feelings that have been engendered through the course I have pursued. But I have done my duty, and the nation of which we form a part must be responsible for that which has been done in relation to this principle.”¹² As President Woodruff closed his remarks, he made the following promise: “I say to Israel, the Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.”¹³

Quest for Statehood Continues

Issuing the Manifesto¹⁴ was the important first step toward achieving reconciliation between the Latter-day Saints and the United States government. A new era of understanding began. Chief Justice Charles Zane, heretofore a harsh opponent of polygamy, adopted a more lenient attitude toward those brought before his court. Hence the raids against men with more than one wife came to an end. It was also generally understood that husbands would not be required to reject their wives or their children. After much petitioning, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison granted a limited pardon to all Mormon men who had lived in compliance with the anti-polygamy laws since 1890, and in September 1894, President Grover Cleveland issued a more general amnesty. In 1893 Congress passed a law allowing the escheated property to return to the Church. The quest for Utah statehood was also renewed. Before Congress would allow this to happen, however, it required the Church to relinquish participation in politics. The Church’s party—the People’s Party—would have to be disbanded, and Utah’s citizens would have to align themselves with national political parties. The First Presidency publicly supported all these actions. Accordingly, in June 1891 the People’s Party was formally dissolved and, after some contention, the anti-Mormon Liberal Party disbanded two years later.

Establishing the national Democratic and Republican parties in Utah proved exceedingly difficult. Traditionally the Saints had leaned toward the Democratic Party because the Republicans, who had been in power most of the time since 1861, had promoted and enforced the anti-polygamy legislation. Furthermore, the Democratic-appointed officials of 1885–89 had been more lenient with the Saints. Considering the political tendency of Church members and the fact that most nonmembers in Utah were Republican oriented, the First Presidency wanted to avoid the Democrats becoming another Church party.

Meetings were held with stake presidents and bishops where they were instructed to encourage more Latter-day Saints to vote Republican. This would demonstrate to national party leaders that a viable two-party system could exist in Utah. Local leaders, however, were also urged to use good sense and caution in their encouragement. Church members who were known to have strong Democratic convictions were not asked to switch parties, but those whose commitment was not particularly strong were encouraged to change. This method was effective, and by 1892 the Republican Party was strong in Utah politics.

Delicate negotiations continued for Utah statehood in both houses of Congress. Of importance to most congressmen was an assurance that the Church was sincere about stopping the practice of plural marriage and staying out of the political process. By means of astute political moves by lobbyists, primarily non-Mormon Isaac Trumbo and Bishop Hiram B. Clawson, the Utah Enabling Act was finally passed in July 1894. Throughout the rest of 1894 and in 1895, Utahns, both in and out of the Church, cooperated to produce a state constitution that achieved Congress’s acceptance. The constitution specifically prohibited plural marriage and ensured the complete separation of church and state.

On 4 January 1896, Utah finally became a state, with Heber M. Wells, son of Daniel H. Wells, as its first governor.

Throughout this arduous process of reconciliation, disagreements and misunderstandings over political matters continued among Church members. Even some General Authorities were affected as some campaigned for Democratic candidates and policies and others for the Republicans. The political issue came to a head in 1895 when Elder Moses Thatcher of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party for senator from Utah and Elder B. H. Roberts of the First Council of the Seventy ran for Congress from the same party. They were disciplined for accepting nominations without first consulting their Church leaders. Neither man was elected.

In April 1896 the General Authorities issued a formal statement, known as the political rule of the Church or the Political Manifesto. It emphasized the separation of church and state and the Church’s intention not to encroach upon the political rights of any citizens. The statement also added that for peace and goodwill to continue in Utah, it was inadvisable for high Church leaders “to accept political office or enter into any vocation that would distract or remove them from the religious duties resting upon them, without first consulting and obtaining the approval of their associates and those who preside over them.”¹⁵

At first B. H. Roberts, who felt that the document abridged his political rights, refused to sign. After being reasoned with, prayed with, and worked with by his Brethren among the General Authorities, he finally signed. Elder Moses Thatcher, in spite of similar efforts in his behalf, still refused to add his signature to the document. Therefore, he was released from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, although he retained his membership in the Church. The Political Manifesto has continued to be the standard that governs the actions of the General Authorities with respect to politics.

Another important development during this period of reconciliation was the change of some of the Church’s economic policies. Most Church-owned concerns were sold to private interests or were operated under the competitive policies of private enterprise as income-producing ventures, thus fitting into the national economic pattern. Throughout the 1890s the Church continued to suffer severe economic distress owing both to temporary divestiture of Church property to the government and to the nationwide financial panic of 1893.

Salt Lake Temple and Work for the Dead

President Young laid the cornerstones of the Salt Lake Temple in a solemn ceremony on 6 April 1853, not quite six years after seeing the temple in vision.¹⁶ He sensed that he would not live long enough to attend its dedication. President Young had insisted on only the best materials and craftsmanship in the temple’s construction. Forty years later, after the hard work and dedication of thousands of Latter-day Saints, President Wilford Woodruff prepared himself and the Church for the dedication ceremonies.

Construction of the Salt Lake Temple had been delayed many times, but since the late 1880s the full resources of the Church were consecrated to its completion. In April 1892, President Woodruff directed the laying of the capstone in connection with general conference. The audience of fifty thousand Saints (the largest assembly to that time) filled Temple Square and adjoining streets. A march was played, after which a special temple anthem was sung by the Tabernacle Choir. A prayer was offered by President Joseph F. Smith, and the choir then sang, “Grant Us Peace.” As noon approached, President Woodruff stepped to the platform, pressed an electric button, and the capstone was lowered into position. The congregation then shouted, “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb. Amen, amen, amen.” This was repeated three times, accompanied by the waving of white handkerchiefs. Then everyone sang “The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning.”

The next month the Saints held a special fast, and the money saved was sent to the First Presidency to help finish the temple by 6 April 1893, the fortieth anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone. Church leaders urged the members to discipline their thoughts and lives, to disregard partisan political feelings, and to make themselves pure in all things so they would be ready to participate in the temple dedication.

As the temple with its striking architecture neared completion, it engendered considerable curiosity in Utah and throughout the nation. Prior to the dedication more than a thousand government officials and prominent businessmen and their wives were taken on a tour of the temple. Such courtesy on the part of Church leaders helped continue the good feelings that had prevailed since the issuance of the Manifesto.

On 6 April 1893, dedicatory ceremonies commenced. President Woodruff saw in the events of the day the fulfillment of a prophetic dream. He told the Saints that many years before in a nocturnal visitation Brigham Young had given him the keys of the temple and had told him to dedicate it to the Lord. In his opening remarks President Woodruff prophesied that from that time the power of Satan would be broken and his power over the Saints diminished, and there would be an increased interest in the gospel message.¹⁷

Workmen had labored day and night for weeks to prepare the edifice in time. It had been decided that dedicatory sessions would be held twice daily until every worthy member of the Church who wished to could attend. Andrew Jenson, who attended all the sessions as a recommend examiner, wrote that on the first day of the dedication “the prince of the air, as if displeased with what was going on, opened a terrible wind storm, accompanied with hail and sleet; and while the glorious services were going on inside the building, the elements outside roared with such violence and force that the like was not remembered by the oldest inhabitants of Utah. Several buildings were blown down in the vicinity of the city and much damage done throughout the valley.”¹⁸ In spite of the stormy weather, a spirit of love and harmony was felt at the first dedicatory session and at subsequent sessions held for twenty-two days and attended by more than seventy-five thousand people. Even Sunday School children were invited to a special session.

The prophet noted in his journal, “The spirit and power of God rested upon us. The spirit of prophecy and revelation was upon us and the hearts of the people were melted and many things were unfolded to us.”¹⁹ Some saw angels, while others viewed past Presidents of the Church and deceased Apostles.²⁰ One unusual event occurred when Emma Bennett from Provo gave birth to a baby boy in the temple. A week later the child was blessed in the temple by President Joseph F. Smith and given the name Joseph Temple Bennett.²¹

If the dedicatory services had a theme, it was unity. Over and over speakers stressed the value of being one in the fold of the Master. Having lived through decades of bitter attacks upon the Church, anti-Mormon legislation, and partisan political conflicts, the Saints looked with anticipation toward an era of peace and harmony. Members and leaders alike had worked hard and had fasted and prayed to be able to attend the dedicatory ceremonies with bitter feelings resolved. They were successful, and said often in their sermons that the Church was now more unified than it had ever been.

The Salt Lake Temple became the symbol of the Church in many ways. Forty years of sacrifice and work, some of it the finest workmanship the Church could produce, went into the structure. Earlier Church leaders had sent Latter-day Saint artists on art missions to France where they studied under the world’s best artists so that the inside walls of the temple could be properly adorned. The Saints were now firmly convinced that their efforts had not been in vain and that the “mountain of the Lord’s house” was now raised in the tops of the mountains.

Much of the rest of President Woodruff’s life was dedicated to one of his greatest ambitions: promoting the salvation of the dead. A visionary man, he had numerous dreams about this work. In March 1894 he saw Benjamin Franklin, who he had been baptized and confirmed for in 1877 in the St. George Utah Temple. This distinguished patriot sought further ordinances through President Woodruff, which the prophet promptly saw to in the temple. This appearance of Benjamin Franklin satisfied President Woodruff that Franklin at least had joyfully received the blessings that had come to him earlier.²²

President Woodruff also prayerfully considered the ordinance of “adoption,” which had been performed for many years in the Church. It had been the custom for many members to have themselves and their families sealed to prominent Church leaders, such as Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, with the thought of being attached to these righteous families in the hereafter. In April 1894 general conference, President Woodruff announced that he had received a revelation on the subject. He was careful to point out that the revelation was consistent with principles taught by Joseph Smith. He began his talk by having President George Q. Cannon read Doctrine and Covenants 128:9–21, in which the Prophet wrote of the need for a welding link between the generations of the human family.

President Woodruff announced that it was the will of the Lord for the Saints “from this time to trace their genealogies as far as they can, and to be sealed to their fathers and mothers” thus uniting the generations through temple ordinances. Reassuringly, he then referred to Joseph Smith’s teaching that all who would have received the gospel in this life, had they heard it, would go to the celestial kingdom. He added, “So it will be with your fathers. There will be very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel.”²³

The results of this new revelation were impressive. Previously the Saints had done little genealogical work and had performed relatively few sealing ordinances. With the prophet’s urging, the Saints began tracing their genealogies as far as they could. That same year the Church established the Genealogical Society of Utah. Thus was launched one of the Church’s most enduring and productive enterprises.²⁴

New Directions

During times²⁵ of both stress and reconciliation, the Church continued to move forward. Missionary work continued to expand, areas of settlement were widened, many new stakes and wards were organized, auxiliary programs were augmented and refined, some doctrines were clarified, increasing attention was paid to education, and anniversary celebrations were held to commemorate significant events.

Ever interested in the dissemination of the gospel, President Woodruff expanded missionary work by opening eleven new missions, some of them in the United States. Nearly three times as many missionaries were called in the 1890s as had been during the previous decade. Much of the new activity centered in the South Pacific. The Samoan Mission was formally organized in 1888, and missionaries entered Tonga in 1891. At the same time elders were finding success among the Maori people of New Zealand, and by 1898 the New Zealand Mission was separated from the Australian Mission. Numerous South Sea islanders began emigrating to Zion. The colony of Iosepa (Hawaiian for Joseph), in western Utah’s Skull Valley, was opened in 1889 for Hawaiian members of the Church who had migrated to Utah to be near the Salt Lake Temple.

The Church also continued its missionary labors in its organized European missions, and there was some emigration, although much less than before due to the dissolution of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company in 1887. Another telling factor in the decline of immigration to Utah was the lessening of economic opportunities in the Mormon colonies. The original purpose of immigration, to fill the region with Latter-day Saints so the kingdom could not be shaken loose again, had been fulfilled. Even with fewer immigrants, new colonies were added in western Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Alberta, Canada.

The auxiliaries of the Church continued to assess their programs and improve their efficiency as the Church expanded. In 1889 annual conferences were begun in Salt Lake City for Relief Society and Primary workers, which significantly reduced the amount of travel required of general board members. Stake representatives could now carry instructions back directly from the conferences. The Deseret Sunday School Union also convened its own annual conference, and in 1893 added Sunday School conferences in each stake. Sunday School leaders also promoted teacher training classes held at Brigham Young Academy in Provo and LDS College in Salt Lake City.

The growth of cities and the subsequent increase in the number of Saints employed outside of agriculture necessitated a reexamination of the long-standing practice of having fast day and testimony meeting the first Thursday of the month. In 1896 the First Presidency issued instructions that henceforth the Saints would observe fast day on the first Sunday of each month, following the pattern already established by the Saints in Great Britain.

Church leaders also discontinued the long-standing practice of rebaptism. Oftentimes Latter-day Saints had been rebaptized in conjunction with important milestones, such as marriage or entering the United Order or sometimes for improvement of health. These rebaptisms were recorded on Church membership records. The First Presidency grew concerned that some members were substituting rebaptism for true repentance. In 1893, stake presidents were instructed not to require rebaptism of Saints wishing to attend the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, and in 1897 the practice of rebaptism was discontinued altogether. As President George Q. Cannon explained, “It is repentance from sin that will save you, not rebaptism.”²⁶

As the Church lost its influence over Utah’s public schools during this period, it established a program of religion classes in various ward meetinghouses after school, where religious training could take place without violating the laws governing separation of church and state. In 1888 President Woodruff directed the formation of the Church Board of Education to oversee all educational enterprises of the Church. Between 1888 and 1891 over thirty academies were started in the larger settlements of Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Canada, and Mexico. These academies provided secondary education, which emphasized classical and vocational training as well as religious instruction. One of the largest academies was Brigham Young Academy, started in 1875, which became Brigham Young University.

The year 1897 saw two significant anniversary celebrations. The first was for the ninetieth birthday of the Church’s greatly respected prophet, President Wilford Woodruff. On Sunday, 28 February 1897, the day before President Woodruff’s birthday, over ten thousand Sunday School children crowded into the beautifully decorated Tabernacle, filling even the aisles, to honor the prophet. This experience deeply touched President Woodruff. As he spoke, he told the children about when he was ten years old and attended Sunday School and read in the New Testament of Apostles and prophets. He said he remembered praying that he might live to see prophets and Apostles like those in the New Testament. Then he testified to the children—“sons and daughters of prophets, patriarchs and men of Israel”—that he had seen many times over the fulfillment of his humble youthful prayer.²⁷ The next day, on the prophet’s actual birthday, celebrations were once again held in his honor, this time for the general public. Seldom had members of the Church seen such an overpowering expression of love for a leader.

The week of 24 July 1897 was set aside as a special jubilee celebration, the fiftieth anniversary of the Saints’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. This was an opportunity for the new state of Utah to display herself to the world, and enthusiasm and patriotism marked every feature of the celebration. The festivities opened with the unveiling of the Brigham Young monument before an estimated crowd of fifty thousand people. Sculptured by Cyrus E. Dallin and cast in bronze, the monument weighed over twenty tons. It still stands in the center of Salt Lake City.

The surviving twenty-four members of the original pioneer company, including Wilford Woodruff, were honored in the Tabernacle, and each of them received an inscribed gold medallion. Several parades with gorgeous floats and thousands of excited children marked the occasion, while the finest products of Utah agriculture, mining, and industry were also displayed.

In 1898, following what had become a yearly tradition, President Woodruff, accompanied by President Cannon and others, escaped the summer heat of Utah for a vacation in California. The prophet’s health, however, totally failed him, and on 2 September he passed away in his sleep in the home of Isaac Trumbo in San Francisco, California. At his funeral in Salt Lake City a few days later, President George Q. Cannon declared, “President Woodruff was a man of God. He had finished the fight and had been called hence to mingle with his brethren, and to receive his well-earned reward. He was a heavenly being. It was heaven to be in his company, and his departure from this sphere of action, robs the community of a great and good man, and one who fully merited all the blessings promised to those who remain true and steadfast unto the end.”²⁸

Endnotes

1. Wilford Woodruff Journals, 25 July 1887, LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City; spelling, punctuation, and capitalization standardized; see also Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff: History of His Life and Labors (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1964), p. 560.

2. This paragraph is derived from James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 402.

3. Wilford Woodruff Journals, 15 May 1888; spelling, punctuation, and capitalization standardized.

4. Wilford Woodruff Journals, 17 May 1888; spelling, punctuation, and capitalization standardized.

5. Derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 402, 404.

6. Section derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 404, 406–7, 409–12.

7. Wilford Woodruff Journals, 31 Dec. 1889; spelling, punctuation, and capitalization standardized.

8. See Edward Leo Lyman, Political Deliverance: The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1986), pp. 130–31.

9. Wilford Woodruff Journals, 25 Sept. 1890; spelling and capitalization standardized.

10. In Salt Lake Temple Historical Record, 1893–1922, LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake City, p. 71.

11. See Millennial Star, 17 Nov. 1890, pp. 723–25; 24 Nov., pp. 737–38.

12. Millennial Star, 24 Nov. 1890, p. 739.

13. Millennial Star, 24 Nov. 1890, p. 741.

14. Section derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 417–19, 426.

15. “To the Saints,” The Deseret Weekly, 11 Apr. 1896, p. 533.

16. See Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 1:133.

17. See Cowley, Wilford Woodruff, pp. 582–83.

18. Autobiography of Andrew Jenson (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938), p. 205.

19. Wilford Woodruff Journals, 6 Apr. 1893; spelling, punctuation, and capitalization standardized.

20. See John Nicholson, “Temple Manifestations,” The Contributor, Dec. 1894, pp. 116–18.

21. See James H. Anderson, “The Salt Lake Temple,” The Contributor, Apr. 1893, p. 301.

22. See Wilford Woodruff Journals, 19 Mar. 1894; Cowley, Wilford Woodruff, pp. 586–87.

23. “The Law of Adoption,” The Deseret Weekly, 21 Apr. 1894, pp. 541–43.

24. Previous three paragraphs derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 424–25.

25. Section derived from Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, pp. 419–23, 425–26.

26. In Conference Report, Oct. 1897, p. 68.

27. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff, p. 602; see also Wilford Woodruff Journals, 28 Feb. 1897.

28. In Cowley, Wilford Woodruff, p. 633.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Church at the Turn of the Century

Church members, now secure in the Great Basin, anticipated the twentieth century with confidence that the restored Church would be more than equal to any challenges. With the death of their respected leader, Wilford Woodruff, the prophetic mantle fell on the equally seasoned eighty-five-year-old Lorenzo Snow. No previous Church president had entered this office at such an advanced age.

Preparation of a Prophet

Only five feet six inches tall, and weighing barely 130 pounds at the time he became President of the Church, Lorenzo Snow was the last of the General Authorities to have been personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith. In a November 1900 discourse delivered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, President Snow told the Saints that he had often visited the Prophet Joseph and his family, dined at his table, had private interviews with him, and knew that he was an honorable, moral man who was greatly respected. He feelingly declared that “the Lord has shown me most clearly and completely that he was a Prophet of God.”¹

President Snow had many experiences that prepared him for his prophetic calling. As a youth in Ohio, Lorenzo had obtained some academic training at Oberlin College and had gone on to teach school. Having become acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith and motivated by his sister Eliza, Lorenzo was baptized in 1836. Always a great missionary, he first served in Ohio in 1837 and in subsequent years also preached the gospel in Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois. In 1840 he was called on a mission to Great Britain, where he labored under the direction of the Twelve Apostles. As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles he directed the first preaching of the gospel in Italy and Switzerland in 1849–51. In 1853 he was called to preside over the settlements in Box Elder County of northern Utah, where he named the principal settlement Brigham City in honor of President Young. For the next forty years his main residence was in that region, and he was greatly beloved of the Saints there. Under his direction the community developed a series of cooperative enterprises that brought prosperity to the area and acclaim to the Church.²

One of Lorenzo Snow’s great contributions was his elucidation of the doctrine that man might one day become like God. As President of the Church he gave a discourse entitled “The Grand Destiny of Man.” He related how as a young man he had been inspired by one of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s sermons about the manifestations of God and Jesus Christ to him. Two and one-half years later, after a patriarchal blessing meeting, Joseph Smith, Sr., had promised Lorenzo that he could become as great as God himself. Two and one-half years after that, while Lorenzo listened to an explanation of the scriptures, the Lord inspired him to compose this couplet: “As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be.” President Snow stated, “Nothing was ever revealed more distinctly than that was to me.”³ Shortly before Joseph Smith’s death, Lorenzo heard him teach the same doctrine. Thereafter Elder Snow made this doctrine one of the subjects of his own discourses.

Succession in the Presidency

Almost six years before his death Wilford Woodruff asked Lorenzo Snow, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, to speak with him privately after a meeting with other Church leaders. With much feeling and energy, President Woodruff told President Snow that if he should die before President Snow, he was not to delay but was to organize the First Presidency immediately and take George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith as his counselors. He wished Lorenzo to regard this as a revelation.⁴

In 1898, as President Woodruff’s health deteriorated, Lorenzo visited him at his home nearly every evening. One night, shortly after the leader had been taken to California in an attempt to improve his physical condition, President Snow went into the Salt Lake Temple, of which he was president, and implored the Lord to extend the prophet’s life beyond his so that he would not have the burden of Church leadership. “Yet he promised the Lord that he would devotedly perform any duty required at his hands.”

Traveling to Brigham City, President Snow took care of some personal obligations. On 2 September 1898, President Snow was informed in Brigham City that Wilford Woodruff had passed away. Reaching Salt Lake City that evening, he again retired to the Salt Lake Temple and “poured out his heart to the Lord. He reminded the Lord how he had plead for President Woodruff’s life. . . . ‘Nevertheless, . . . Thy will be done. . . . I now present myself before Thee for Thy guidance and instruction. I ask that Thou show me what Thou wouldst have me do.’

“After finishing his prayer he expected a reply, some special manifestation from the Lord. So he waited—and waited—and waited. There was no reply, no voice, no visitation, no manifestation.” President Snow left the room greatly disappointed. As he was walking through one of the temple hallways, he saw before him, standing above the floor, the Savior of the world. He was told that he was to be President Woodruff’s successor. He was again instructed “to go right ahead and reorganize the First Presidency of the Church at once and not wait as had been done after the death of the previous presidents.”⁵

The day following President Woodruff’s funeral, the Apostles met in the Salt Lake Temple. President Snow, in apparent deference to the principles of agency and common consent, without disclosing to his brethren his conversation with the Savior, volunteered to step down from the leadership of the Quorum and yield to anyone his fellow Apostles might designate. His long service as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his brilliant leadership of that body for almost a decade had given his brethren a great love and admiration for him. The Twelve therefore, acting under inspiration, quickly sustained Lorenzo Snow as President of their Quorum.⁶ Later they met again in the President’s office. There Elder Francis M. Lyman reminded them that President Woodruff had left instructions that when he died, the First Presidency should be reorganized without delay. Only a little discussion followed before Lorenzo Snow was unanimously sustained as President of the Church.

President Snow then told his brethren that the Lord had revealed to him several days previously that this step should be taken and that George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith should be his counselors. “I have not mentioned this matter to any person, either man or woman. I, wanted to see what the feelings of the brethren were. I wanted to see if the same spirit which the Lord manifested to me was in you. I had confidence in you that the Lord would indicate to you that this was proper and according to his mind and will.” George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith were then sustained as his counselors (both men had served as counselors to Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff), and Franklin D. Richards became the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.⁷ Rudger Clawson, Brigham City stake president, was called a month later to fill the vacancy in the Quorum.

Apostolic Seniority Clarified

When Elder Franklin D. Richards, President of the Twelve, died in 1899, the First Presidency did not replace him with a quorum president, since George Q. Cannon, who was next in line, was serving in the First Presidency. There also arose a question whether Brigham Young, Jr., or Joseph F. Smith was next in line after President Cannon. Both men had been ordained Apostles by Brigham Young for an extended period of time before they had been called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Brigham Young, Jr., was the first to be ordained to the apostleship, but Joseph F. Smith had been the first to enter the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

On 5 April 1900, at a meeting held in the Salt Lake Temple, the First Presidency and the Twelve unanimously decided that the time an Apostle entered the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles established his position in the quorum. Furthermore, it was ruled that when the First Presidency was dissolved upon the death of the President, the counselors who were ordained Apostles in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles would resume their places in the Quorum according to seniority.⁸ Hence Joseph F. Smith ranked ahead of Brigham Young, Jr. This turned out to be a crucial factor in 1901 when the next president was selected.

Solving the Church’s Financial Problems

Only four days after his ordination, President Snow called a special meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to discuss the serious financial difficulties facing the Church. The Church went about $300,000 in debt as a direct result of the Edmunds-Tucker Act. It had also undertaken the care of the families of men incarcerated for plural marriage, as well as their legal fees and court costs and its own legal expenses. The building of the Salt Lake Temple, the increased needs of Church education and welfare expenditures, and start-up costs of various industries added to the large debt.

While the Church’s financial obligations had increased, tithing revenues had declined in the 1880s because members had been reluctant to contribute when the federal government was confiscating the money. Furthermore, hostile writers and speech makers so effectively spread the idea that tithing was compulsory that the words voluntary offering were printed on tithing certificates. Thus, Latter-day Saint leaders were forced to borrow large sums of money from various financial institutions during the 1890s, until the interest payments alone totaled $100,000 annually. “By July 1898 the church owed $935,000 to banks (about half was owed to banks outside Utah), more than $100,000 to business houses in Salt Lake City, and more than $200,000 to individual Latter-day Saints.”⁹

Frank J. Cannon, who had negotiated with financiers in the East for a $1,500,000 loan before President Woodruff’s death, was invited by the First Presidency to explain the status of his negotiations. Troubled by what he heard in this meeting, President Snow continued to study, ponder, and pray about the Church’s financial troubles. He was seriously concerned at the financial involvement of the Church in so many purely business ventures. He concluded that if half the means used for business enterprises had been devoted to spreading the gospel, a great work could have been accomplished. Therefore, he quietly announced to his fellow General Authorities that the Church would no longer borrow money from eastern financial institutions; it would, for the time being at least, follow a definite policy of financial retrenchment and free itself from debt as quickly as possible. The Church then proceeded to divest itself of such holdings as the Deseret Telegraph System, the Utah Sugar Company, the Utah Light and Railway Company, its Saltair holdings, and some of its mining property.

President Snow authorized the issuance of short-term 6 percent bonds in the amount of $1,000,000 instead of the $1,500,000 for which Frank J. Cannon had been negotiating. In spite of these measures, by the spring of 1899 no completely satisfactory answer to the complex problems of church finances had been found.

Following the April 1899 sessions of general conference, President Snow felt impelled to again seek the Lord in earnest prayer for wisdom in solving the Church’s financial problems. He received no immediate answer. He was nevertheless impressed that he and other General Authorities should visit St. George and other settlements in southern Utah. At least sixteen of the Brethren, including President Joseph F. Smith, and their wives accompanied him. At the time of their visit the settlements of southern Utah were experiencing a severe drought.

On Wednesday, 17 May 1899, at the opening session of the conference in the St. George Tabernacle, President Snow told the Saints that “we are in your midst because the Lord directed me to come; but the purpose of our coming is not clearly known at the present, but this will be made known to me during our sojourn among you.”¹⁰

LeRoi C. Snow, son of the President, who was reporting the conference for the Deseret News, recalled what happened: “All at once father paused in his discourse. Complete stillness filled the room. I shall never forget the thrill as long as I live. When he commenced to speak again his voice strengthened and the inspiration of God seemed to come over him, as well as over the entire assembly. His eyes seemed to brighten and his countenance to shine. He was filled with unusual power. Then he revealed to the Latter-day Saints the vision that was before him.”¹¹

President Snow told the Saints that he could see that the people had neglected the law of tithing and that the Church would be relieved of debt if members would pay a full and honest tithing. He then said that the Lord was displeased with the Saints for failing to pay their tithing and promised them that if they would pay their tithes the drought would be removed and they would have a bounteous harvest.

Following the conference session, President Snow was again impressed that the solution to the Church’s financial problems lay in the payment of tithing. In meetings held at Leeds, Cedar City, Beaver, and Juab, other southern Utah communities, he delivered powerful discourses relative to this gospel principle. In Nephi, in central Utah, a remarkable meeting was held where President Snow mentioned the revelation he had received on the law of tithing and “commissioned every one present to be his special witness to the fact that the Lord had given this revelation to him.”¹²

At Church headquarters, President Snow again spoke powerfully about tithing at the Mutual Improvement Association conference in June. Elder B. H. Roberts then made a motion, which was unanimously adopted, that the Saints accept the doctrine of tithing now presented. Visibly moved, President Snow stood up and declared, “Every man who is here, who has made this promise, will be saved in the Celestial Kingdom.”¹³

Tithing was preached in all the stake conferences, and a year later President Snow reported that the Saints had contributed twice as much tithing during the past year as they had paid the previous two years. Under inspiration, he had set in motion the program that would, by 1907, completely free the Church from debt. Many Saints testified that not only were the windows of heaven opened to save the Church, but those who followed this divine law were spiritually and temporally blessed as well.

President Snow also took measures to control more tightly the disbursements of Church funds. He created a comprehensive plan for the expenditure of those monies. Some financial experts recommended that there be a diffusion of authority relative to the spending of tithing. President Snow notified those involved that he did not intend to carry out such a plan, but rather would keep such power vested in the First Presidency as the Lord intended (see D&C 120).

Three months after being sustained as the Church’s president, President Snow brought the Deseret News back under Church control. Since 1892 the newspaper had been leased to George Q. Cannon and his sons. President Snow called Charles W. Penrose as editor, and the newspaper again became the official organ of the Church. Brother Penrose, a seasoned newspaperman with years of missionary service, was a few years later called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and, still later, became a member of the First Presidency.

Calling the First Women Missionaries

An innovative development in missionary work was announced at a reception the general board of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association held for the general board of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association in 1898. In the course of his talk to the two groups, President Cannon announced, “It has been decided to call some of our wise and prudent women into the missionary field.”¹⁴ In the past a few sisters, such as Louisa Barnes Pratt and Caroline Crosby, had accompanied their husbands who were serving as missionaries, but never before had the Church officially called and set apart sisters as ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Elizabeth Claridge McCune laid the foundation for the First Presidency’s decision. In the winter of 1897–98, before leaving for a tour of Europe with her family, Sister McCune went to Lorenzo Snow for a blessing. Among other things, he blessed her that “thy mind shall be as clear as an angel’s when explaining the principles of the Gospel.” This blessing was remarkably fulfilled in many gospel conversations abroad, and one day she told her daughter of her belief that it would not be very long before young women would be called to serve missions.¹⁵ Upon returning home, she told President Snow of her experiences in explaining gospel principles to nonmembers all over Europe. She told him, further, that her teachings were instrumental in bringing some members of her English family into the Church. It was shortly after this that President Cannon made his announcement in behalf of the First Presidency.

“The very first sister to be set apart and formally commissioned as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was Harriet Maria Horsepool Nye, wife of President E. H. Nye of the California mission. She was set apart at San Francisco, March 27, 1898, by Apostle Brigham Young.

“Shortly after this Bishop Joseph B. Keeler of the Fourth Ward, Provo, conferred with the stake presidency in regard to calling two young women of that ward on a mission to Europe.” As a result, Lucy Jane Brimhall and Inez Knight were called as full-time missionaries to the British mission.¹⁶ Both sisters were well educated, gifted teachers and well versed in the principles of the gospel.

After the sisters’ arrival in the mission field, several issues of the Young Woman’s Journal carried articles or letters regarding their proselyting activities. President George Q. Cannon even published an article in the Juvenile Instructor entitled “Women as Missionaries,” later printed in the Millennial Star, in which he quoted a letter praising their performance.¹⁷ These sisters energetically involved themselves in missionary work tracting door-to-door, taking part in street meetings, and even drawing large crowds. In the face of the degrading images painted on the pages of the English anti-Mormon press, it was a novelty for the British people to see two Mormon women who were not only attractive but intelligent, forceful speakers as well.

In a published letter, they reported, “We take part frequently in street meetings and have thus far been listened to attentively, with no interruptions. Having accepted many invitations to call upon people at their homes to talk upon Utah and her people, also the Gospel, as a result we already have some dear friends in Bristol.”¹⁸ The sisters’ presence in the mission was publicly acknowledged when their first mission priesthood meeting was renamed a “missionary meeting” for their sake.¹⁹

Gaining experience, they wrote that sometimes unkind things were said to them; in general their letters reflect the same kind of successes and disappointments that are characteristic of the elders’ epistles. By January 1899 an anti-Mormon league had been founded in Bristol and was attempting to hinder the work of the missionaries.²⁰ Other parts of Great Britain also saw opposition to the efforts of the young men and women proclaiming the restored gospel. Sister Knight, in a letter, reported: “Although we do not always have clear sailing and have even been forced to seek protection from mob violence in a police station, receiving the slurs of the mob and even spat upon by the enemy, together with rocks and sticks from their hands, yet we rejoice in the work.”²¹ Inez Knight and Lucy Brimhall were only the first of thousands of women to valiantly proclaim the gospel in missions all over the world.

The Church’s emphasis upon missionary work during the decade of 1890 to 1900 is reflected in the fact that the number of missionaries doubled. The number of missions and the number of missionaries would consistently rise throughout the decades to come.

The Church Moves into the Twentieth Century

As the world looked forward to a new century, Church members were also filled with anticipation. President Snow prepared a proclamation entitled Greeting to the World, in which he clearly described the kind of world that the Church was trying to build. He hoped the twentieth century would be an “age of peace, of greater progress, of the universal adoption of the golden rule. . . . War with its horrors should be but a memory. The aim of nations should be fraternity and mutual greatness. The welfare of humanity should be studied instead of the enrichment of a race of the extension of an empire. Awake, ye monarchs of the earth and rulers among nations, and gaze upon the scene which the early rays of the rising Millennial day gild the morn of the twentieth century! . . . Disband your armies; turn your weapons of strife into implements of industry; take the yoke from the necks of the people.” He bore his testimony that God, his Son, and holy angels had spoken to men and that God called upon all people to repent and come unto him. President Snow, then in his eighty-seventh year, concluded by invoking the blessing of heaven upon the earth’s inhabitants, and wished them peace.²²

To usher in the new year and the new century, special services were held in the Tabernacle on 31 December 1900 commencing at 11:00 P.M. Five thousand Saints gathered and saw the famed organ pipes illuminated with a cluster of electric lights fashioned into the words, “Welcome, 1901, Utah.” A devotional spirit pervaded the meeting, which was conducted by Salt Lake Stake President Angus Cannon. No doubt many in the audience contemplated the growth and accomplishments of the Church as it now boldly faced a new century. There were, at the end of 1900, forty-three stakes, twenty missions, and 967 wards and branches in the stakes and missions. The Church had 283,765 members, most of whom lived in the intermountain West. Four temples were in operation in Utah—St. George, Manti, Logan, and Salt Lake City. In 1900, 796 new missionaries had been set apart to preach the gospel among the nations of the earth.²³

With the increase in the number of missionaries being called, Church leaders recognized the need of training the missionaries more completely for their service. The First Council of the Seventy, in conjunction with the General Church Board of Education, agreed in 1900 to open missionary training courses at Brigham Young Academy in Provo, the Latter-day Saints University in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young College in Logan, and the Latter-day Saints Academy in Thatcher, Arizona. Prospective missionaries were taught theology, religious history, and teaching methods from the scriptures in a six-month curriculum. The Church schools charged no tuition for the class, and stake presidents were expected to provide for board and lodging for their students.

Church members participated each Sunday in a two-hour afternoon sacrament meeting. Once a month a fast and testimony meeting was held, usually following the Sabbath morning Sunday School. During the winter months, young men and young women meetings were held during the week, often on Thursday nights. The Relief Society met during the day each Tuesday, and Primary for the children was held each Wednesday after school. Priesthood quorum meetings were conducted either on Monday evening or on Sunday morning and were discontinued during the summer months because most Church members were busy farming.

Ward conferences presided over by stake officials were convened once a year, beginning in 1892, where members had the privilege of sustaining their leaders and receiving instruction and motivation from their presiding officials. Many wards sponsored social outings under the direction of the Sunday School, where members presented programs in the morning, held children’s parties in the afternoon, and danced away the evening. Each spring, wards sponsored old people’s parties that were usually climaxed by a “grand” evening dinner in a splendidly decorated hall.

At the turn of the century, the Church’s young women, in their official periodical, Young Woman’s Journal, read articles about Longfellow’s home, how to obtain a testimony of the truth, and ethics for young girls. They were also introduced to the Apostle Paul and the reminiscences of Elder Heber J. Grant. Women leaders wrote material that would not only deepen the young ladies’ understanding of the gospel but would also acquaint them with the world’s best literature. In addition they were instructed in quilting, basting, hemming, and buttonholing.

In January 1900 the Juvenile Instructor, which was designed to be read by all Church members, began a series entitled “Lives of Our Leaders—The Apostles.” In each subsequent issue there was a biographical essay on one of the General Authorities of the Church. Latter-day Saints also read short stories and became acquainted with such places as Alaska, Belgium, and Ireland through the series of articles entitled “History of the Nations.” Sunday School conferences were held in the stakes of the Church each year, at which reports were made and instructions given by general board members and General Authorities. Songs were sung by children’s choruses, and in-service training was conducted to improve the quality of teaching. Stakes were large. The Utah Stake, for example, had forty-nine Sunday Schools organized with a total enrollment of eleven thousand Saints.

The Improvement Era, which replaced the Contributor as the publication of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association, published articles regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon, sermons of General Authorities, and responses to attacks by ministers and anti-Mormon writers. The Young Men and the Young Women organizations held annual general conferences that were attended by thousands of youth. In these gatherings the General Authorities gave instruction, and the people held dances, presented plays, and highlighted programs for the new year.

As the twentieth century began, Utah was a state, the Church was on a secure financial basis, and the Saints, for the most part, no longer feared being driven from their homes by mobs. They had made the desert blossom and were looking forward with anticipation to the fulfillment of the prophecies about the latter days.

Responsibility of the Twelve Further Clarified

As the twentieth century dawned and it became obvious that the pioneering period in the Intermountain West was over, President Lorenzo Snow became most concerned with the necessity of taking the gospel to all the world. The duty of such an undertaking rested with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Under President Snow’s direction the Apostles laid plans to open new areas of the world for missionary work.

In 1901, President George Q. Cannon, speaking for the First Presidency, announced that a mission would be opened in Japan. As he said these words, Elder Heber J. Grant received a very strong impression, as plainly as though a voice had spoken to him, informing him that he would be called to preside there. Twenty-five minutes later, President Cannon announced that Elder Grant had been selected to go to Japan. Although he was greatly in debt, he decided that he would not use that as an excuse but would go as called. The First Presidency gave him a year to put his affairs in order and prepare for his mission.

Elder John W. Taylor, who knew Heber’s true financial condition and sacrifice, prophesied privately: “You shall be blessed of the Lord and make enough money to go to Japan a free man financially.” Elder Grant went home immediately and prayed to the Lord for help in dealing with his financial challenges. By a series of resourceful moves, all of which Elder Grant testified were inspired by God, and through other blessings, he was out of debt within four months.²⁴ Elder Heber J. Grant called three others—Louis A. Kelsch, former president of the Northern States Mission, twenty-nine-year-old Horace S. Ensign, and eighteen-year-old Alma O. Taylor—to assist him in Japan. They left Salt Lake City on Pioneer Day, 24 July 1901, and arrived in Yokohama Harbor, after a turbulent ocean crossing, on 12 August.

Upon arriving in the city of Yokohama, the missionaries began making contacts. They made tentative arrangements for translation and publication of some Church literature and began to seek permanent lodgings. They experienced much opposition, inspired largely by the ministers of other Christian sects who had learned of their coming and, being misled by false reports about the Church, were determined that it would not get a foothold.

The missionaries, however, were equally determined that the gospel would go forth. On 21 September 1901 they found a secluded spot in the woods outside Yokohama where they knelt, and Elder Grant offered up the dedicatory prayer. His tongue was loosed, and the Spirit rested mightily upon him—so much so that he recounted feeling that angels of God were near.

Elder Grant also prepared an “‘Address to the Great and Progressive Nation of Japan,’ which tells in plain and positive terms the reason why the ‘Mormon’ missionaries are there. . . .

“‘. . . We do not come to you for the purpose of trying to deprive you of any truth in which you believe, or any light that you have been privileged to enjoy. We bring to you greater light, more truth and advanced knowledge, which we offer you freely. . . .

“‘By His authority we turn the divine key which opens the kingdom of heaven to the inhabitants of Japan.’” He signed his letter, “Your servant for Christ’s sake.”²⁵

After touring Japan, Elder Grant began a series of articles in the pages of the Japan Mail, one of the most influential newspapers in Tokyo, trying to counter the libelous attacks on the Church made by other Christian denominations.

Elder Grant returned to Utah after two years, but the other missionaries remained. Elder Taylor stayed for nine years, during which time he translated the Book of Mormon into Japanese. Due to the policy called “Japan for the Japanese,” which the Japanese government began during the 1890s to minimize the westernization that had crept into their country, the Latter-day Saints and other Christian religions met with little success at this time. The Japanese Mission was finally closed in 1924. The great success that later attended missionary work in Japan came after 1945 and the end of World War II.

After Elder Grant left for Japan in 1901, the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve discussed taking the gospel to South America, the Austrian Empire, and Russia. The mission to Mexico was reopened in 1901 as a first step into Latin America. Elder Ammon M. Tenney was able to reestablish several former branches in Mexico. But due to insurmountable political problems, no further action was taken during this period.²⁶

Throughout the summer and early fall of 1901, which proved to be the last months of President Snow’s life, the Spirit brooded upon the venerable prophet. Often in council meetings of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President Snow referred to the duty of the Apostles and Seventies to preach to the nations of the earth before the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bemoaned the fact that the Apostles and the Seven Presidents of Seventy were spending so much of their time on matters that should be attended to by local priesthood leaders. Even though he had been afflicted for weeks with a severe cold and hacking cough, President Snow was anxious to deliver an important address on this subject in the October general conference.

The prophet was excused from all the early sessions of conference because of his health, but he appeared in the Tabernacle to speak in the concluding Sunday session on 6 October 1901. These were his last public words to the Saints. President Joseph F. Smith noted a month later, “While it was plain to be seen then that he was feeble, yet it was generally remarked how clear he was in his mind and with what emphasis and freedom his words flowed from him.”²⁷

As he proceeded into this monumental address, President Snow explained, “This Church is now nearly seventy-two years of age, and we are not expected to do the work of the days of our youth, but to do greater, larger and more extensive work.” The prophet then urged the stake presidents to regard the Saints in their charge as their own family and to look after their interests as they would those of their own sons and daughters. He continued, “Do not lay this duty upon the shoulders of the Apostles. . . . There is a certain channel by and through which the Lord intends to exalt His sons and daughters, to remove wickedness from the earth and to establish righteousness, and that channel is the Priesthood. . . . The Apostles and the Seventies, it is their business by the appointment of the Almighty, to look after the interests of the world. The Seventies and the Twelve Apostles are special witnesses unto the nations of the earth.”²⁸ To channel the work of the Twelve in this direction, the First Presidency released them from all their administrative duties in the stakes.

Regarding President Snow’s last charge to the General Authorities and the Saints, President Joseph F. Smith stated: “We accept what is contained therein on the duties of the Twelve, and presiding Priesthood, as the word of the Lord to us all. It is so plain and so convincing as to leave no room for doubt; and there remains but one thing for us to do, and that is to zealously and arduously labor to successfully accomplish all that is required at our hands.”²⁹

End of an Era

During the three years that President Snow presided over the Church, several important Church leaders passed away. In some respects their passing was indicative that an era was coming to an end and a new leadership would guide the expanding kingdom. The periodicals of the Church noted with pictures and bold headlines the death of Karl G. Maeser, who at the time was serving in the superintendency of the General Sunday School of the Church and was one of the Church’s most illustrious educators. Elder Franklin D. Richards, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, died in Salt Lake City on 9 December 1899. His loss was deeply felt in all parts of Zion, and the Millennial Star especially noted his passing.³⁰

On 12 April 1901, Church members learned of the death of Elder George Q. Cannon. At the time of his death he was serving as the first counselor in the First Presidency and as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He had served four Church presidents as a counselor and left his imprint upon the Church through the pages of the Juvenile Instructor, a magazine he had founded and had edited for more than three decades. His public discourses were masterpieces and filled volumes. He was an astute politician who had represented the Utah Territory in Congress for more than a decade and was very influential in obtaining statehood for Utah.

Zina Huntington Young, who had succeeded Eliza R. Snow as the Church’s General Relief Society President, died at her Salt Lake home on 28 August 1901. She was a wife of President Brigham Young and had been a delegate to the National Women’s Conference in Buffalo, New York. She had also served as president of the Deseret Hospital for more than a decade.

President Snow had heeded his family’s and physician’s advice and attended only the last session of general conference because of a severe chest cold. But the strain of projecting his voice so he could be heard by the vast audience in the Tabernacle returned him to his sickbed. On 10 October 1901, he quietly passed away. After a large funeral, his body was interred in the Brigham City Cemetery.

President Lorenzo Snow placed his apostolic calling above all else. He taught the Latter-day Saints how to live a life of culture and refinement, despite their poverty and desert environment. He also taught them how to convert the commonplace into something of uncommon beauty. He lived with poise and dignity and gave God the credit for his power. He clearly taught the Saints what they could become if they followed the teachings they had received through their prophets.

The three years Lorenzo Snow presided over the Church were significant ones. He made sound decisions that placed the Church once more on the road to financial solvency. He died as he lived, firm in the faith he had embraced when just a young man in Mantua, Ohio.

Endnotes

1. “The Redemption of Zion,” Millennial Star, 29 Nov. 1900, p. 754.

2. This section was written for the Church Educational System; also published in Richard O. Cowan, The Church in the Twentieth Century (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1985), pp. 3–4, 6.

3. “The Grand Destiny of Man,” Millennial Star, 22 Aug. 1901, p. 547; see also “The Grand Destiny of Man,” 15 Aug. 1901, pp. 541–42; LeRoi C. Snow, “Devotion to a Divine Inspiration,” Improvement Era, June 1919, p. 656.

4. See “Memorandum in the Handwriting of President Lorenzo Snow,” Elder’s Journal, 1 Dec. 1906, pp. 110–11; Reed C. Durham, Jr., and Steven H. Heath, Succession in the Church (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1970), pp. 103–4.

5. LeRoi C. Snow, “Remarkable Manifestation to Lorenzo Snow,” Church News, 2 Apr. 1938, pp. 3, 8; see also N. B. Lundwall, comp., Temples of the Most High (Salt Lake City: N. B. Lundwall, 1968), pp. 139–41; Thomas C. Romney, The Life of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1955), pp. 441–42.

6. See Romney, Life of Lorenzo Snow, pp. 443–44.

7. Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 13 Sept. 1898, Historical Department, Salt Lake City, pp. 2–6.

8. See Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Life of Joseph F. Smith, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1969), pp. 310–11.

9. Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 402.

10. In Romney, Life of Lorenzo Snow, p. 456.

11. LeRoi C. Snow, “The Lord’s Way out of Bondage Was Not the Way of Men,” Improvement Era, July 1938, p. 439.

12. Snow, “The Lord’s Way out of Bondage,” p. 440.

13. In Snow, “The Lord’s Way out of Bondage,” p. 442.

14. J. [Susa Young Gates], “Biographical Sketches: Jennie Brimhall and Inez Knight,” Young Woman’s Journal, June 1898, p. 245.

15. In Susa Young Gates, “Biographical Sketches: Elizabeth Claridge McCune,” Young Woman’s Journal, Aug. 1898, pp. 339–40.

16. J. [Gates], “Jennie Brimhall and Inez Knight,” pp. 245–46.

17. See “Women as Missionaries,” Millennial Star, 23 June 1898, p. 398.

18. “A Letter from Bristol,” Millennial Star, 28 July 1898, p. 477.

19. See Inez Knight, in “Our Girls,” Young Woman’s Journal, Sept. 1898, p. 416.

20. See “Bristol Conference,” Millennial Star, 26 Jan. 1899, p. 58.

21. In “Our Girls,” Young Woman’s Journal, Apr. 1899, p. 187.

22. Lorenzo Snow, Greeting to the World (pamphlet, 1900), p. 1.

23. See Deseret News 1987 Church Almanac (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1986), pp. 239, 253.

24. Heber J. Grant, “Ram in the Thicket,” Improvement Era, Dec. 1941, pp. 713, 765, 767.

25. “Address to the Japanese,” Millennial Star, 26 Sept. 1901, pp. 625–27.

26. Previous two paragraphs derived from James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 455.

27. Joseph F. Smith, “The Last Days of President Snow,” Juvenile Instructor, 15 Nov. 1901, p. 689.

28. In Conference Report, Oct. 1901, p. 61.

29. Smith, “Last Days of President Snow,” p. 690.

30. “Biographical Sketch of President F. D. Richards,” Millennial Star, 4 Jan. 1900, pp. 1–8.