769

The Seer. Washington: January 1853–June 1854.

2 v. (18 nos. in 288 pp.) 23 cm. Text in two columns.

770

The Seer. Liverpool: January 1853–August 1854.

2 v. (20 nos. in 320 pp.) 22 cm. Text in two columns.

771

[Large handbill about 2 feet square handsomely printed. Washington? 1852?]

At the special conference in Salt Lake City on August 28–29, 1852, more than a hundred elders were called to missions around the world—including Orson Pratt, who was assigned to Washington, DC. During the second day of the conference, Orson delivered his seminal discourse, which established the theme of his mission—“to preach the doctrine of plurality of wives” (see item 734). In mid-September he started east with a large company of missionaries that included Orson Spencer, Jacob Houtz, Daniel Spencer, Benjamin Brown, Preston Thomas, William Clayton, William Pitt, Edward Bunker, Daniel D. McArthur, Edward Martin, John S. Fullmer, Jesse Haven, Leonard I. Smith, William Walker, Horace S. Eldredge, Andrew L. Lamoreaux, Jacob F. Secrist, Dan Jones, and Daniel Daniels. During this trip he wrote on celestial marriage and other doctrinal issues, and he discussed them in the evenings with his fellow travelers. On October 29, when a group was about to leave the main company, he told the camp he was planning to publish a monthly periodical called the Seer and urged them to help find subscribers, and on November 20, at St. Louis, he wrote Brigham Young that he had already written about eighty pages of manuscript on “The Peopling of Worlds” and hoped to issue the first number of the Seer in January. About four weeks later he reached Washington.1

On December 31, Orson reported to Brigham Young that the first number of the Seer had been in circulation “about one week,”; at that point, he had “a little less than 200” subscribers east of the Rocky Mountains. During that week he sent copies to the President, the “great ones of Washington,” and to each newspaper in the city, as well as to the New York Herald, the New York Tribune, and the St. Louis Missouri Republican. He also left the magazine in seven different bookstores in Washington, and “in order to call the attention of the people,” he remarked in his letter:

I had large hand bills about 2 feet square handsomely printed on good paper to be posted up in front of the book stores; many are so prejudiced that they would be ashamed to have such a bill before their door, while other booksellers, after reading the Seer refused to offer them for sale and requested me to take them away and the people generally dare not enquire for a Mormon paper, because they are ashamed so to do.

The cautious John M. Bernhisel tried to dissuade him from circulating the Seer among the members of Congress, but Orson was undaunted. To further promote the cause, he rented a room in Temperance Hall for three months, and preached there every Wednesday evening and three times on Sunday; he advertised his meetings “through the papers & by handbills.” Whether this handbill was the two-foot-square bill mentioned above or a different one is not known. The printing costs, rent of the hall, and room and board, Orson noted, “will bring me nearly $1000 in debt at the end of one year, unless I should get 1000 more subscribers which there are no prospect of at present.”2

During January some of the bookstores sold a few copies of the Seer; others declined to carry the second number. Orson continued to preach at the Temperance Hall, “most of the time to nearly empty walls.” Much of that month and the next he spent “shut up in a small room,” writing on “Marriage, & the Pre-existence of Man,” and when he wrote to Brigham Young on March 4, he had issued the first six numbers of the Seer and expected the proof of the seventh the following day. At this point he had “between four & five hundred subscribers” and was sending a thousand copies of each number to his wife Sarah to distribute in Utah. “My object,” he remarked, has been to hurry out the whole twelve Nos. of the Seer as soon as possible in order that the evidences and arguments in relation to Plurality may be set before the minds of the people before other works shall appear in opposition, and also that they may be led to investigate while the subject is fresh before their minds. I am satisfied that Washington is the place above all others for us to publish a Periodical. If I had commenced this paper in Philadelphia, or N. York, not one quarter of the notice would have been taken of it, that there is now. Almost every paper in the union now seems to notice us: the whole press is thundering down upon us; and this has been better than several million of advertisements.

The attendance at his lectures, however, had not improved, and he closed them “for the want of hearers.”3

In May, Orson Pratt left Washington for England (see items 828, 875–77), and on the 30th, from Liverpool, he informed Brigham Young that the first nine numbers of the Seer were in print and his subscriptions were “not far from 700” but that he was “somewhat at a loss” whether to continue the Seer for another year.4 Soon after he returned to Washington, early in September, he decided to continue the Seer, and in the tenth number, issued that month, he stated his intention to publish a second volume. Before the end of October, the twelfth number was out of press. At the same time, his earlier enthusiasm about the responses of the newspapers had cooled, and he remarked to Young that “the excitement on the introduction of celestial marriage has mostly subsided, and sunk down into a bitter, cold, deadly, silent hatred.”5 Orson moved the printing to Baltimore to reduce the cost, although he still continued to publish the magazine in Washington. By the following February the subscriptions for the second volume had reached about four hundred. But Orson Pratt’s financial losses were an increasing burden on him, so when Brigham Young offered him a release from his mission, Orson concluded to publish just six numbers of the second volume in Washington, and he informed his subscribers of this in the April 1854 issue. Two issues later he announced that the last six numbers of the second volume would be published in England. That May he left for the West, and on August 27, 1854, he reached Salt Lake City.6

The Millennial Star for January 15, 1853, ran Orson’s letter of November 22, 1852, stating his intention to publish the Seer; the Star of January 22 noted its receipt of the first number, and it printed the prospectus. Four weeks later the Star announced that the first number of the Seer had been reprinted in 10,000 copies, and it advertised it at 2d. per copy.7 The European Mission financial records show that orders for this number were initially filled on February 24, and those for the second through ninth reprinted numbers were filled on March 11, March 24, April 6, April 20, May 18, June 15, July 15, and August 4, respectively; orders for the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth numbers were first recorded on November 9, November 25, and December 9. The Star of December 17, 1853, indicated that the second volume of the Liverpool edition would be offered on the same terms as the first volume, and the first six numbers of the second volume were issued slightly more often than monthly between January 6 and May 19, 1854. The seventh appeared on June 23, and the eighth on July 28. Richard James printed each of the Liverpool numbers in 10,000 copies at a cost that varied between £20 and £21 6s.8

Orson Pratt apparently did not supply any further material beyond that for vol. 2, no. 8, for the Star of November 11, 1854, noted, “The publication of [the Seer] is necessarily discontinued until more copy is forwarded by Elder O. Pratt. We presume it is his intention to complete the present Volume.”9 That the Seer had indeed come to an end was made clear six months later when the Star of May 12, 1855, ran an excerpt from a letter of Brigham Young of January 31 requesting the office “not to publish any more Seers” and an accompanying notice that read, in part:

A monthly periodical called the “Seer,” published by Elder Orson Pratt at Washington City, D. C., contains beautifully written articles; but notwithstanding the general beauty of the style, and the apparent candour and minuteness of the reasoning, the “Seer” has many items of erroneous doctrine. As it would be a lengthy and laborious operation to enter minutely into their disproval, I prefer, for the present, to let the Saints have opportunity to exercise their faith and discernment in discriminating between the true and erroneous; and simply request them, while reading the “Seer,” to ask themselves what spirit they are of, and whether the Holy Ghost bears testimony to the truth of all the doctrines therein advocated.10

A complete run of the Washington Seer comprises eighteen monthly numbers from January 1853 to June 1854, the first volume in twelve numbers and the second volume in six. Each number is sixteen pages long, its main text two columns wide, and the whole continuously paginated. In the title of each number, a vignette of an eye inside a heart surrounded by radiating lines lies between The and Seer. Below the title is a quotation from Isaiah 18:3 and a line that gives the volume number, date, and issue number. Each number has a brief table of contents on the back page, followed by: Washington City, D. C. | Edited and Published by Orson Pratt, | at $1 per annum, invariably in advance. A catalogue of works, in a single column, is included on the back page of each of the first three numbers. The Seer itself is advertised in this catalogue at 10¢ each, or “$1 per year, in advance.”

Each of the first two numbers of the Washington Seer exists in two editions, identified as follows.11 For the first number: (1) with the 1 in 21 under the a in Washington, and (2) with the 1 in 21 under the W in Washington, in the last two lines of p. 1. For the second number: (1) with the 1 in 12 to the right of the N in RETURN, and (2) with the 1 in 12 centered under the N in RETURN, in lines 12 and 13 of the right column of p. 1. In the case of edition 1, the settings of the catalogue of works in the first three numbers are the same, while in edition 2 the settings of the catalogue in the first two numbers are the same but different from that in the third number. This suggests that edition 1 of each number is the earlier. One might guess that subsequent to the second number, Orson Pratt increased the pressrun of the magazine because of an increase in subscriptions and then at some later point reprinted the first two numbers so he could make up complete volumes.

The Liverpool edition generally follows the format of the Washington edition—including the vignette of an eye inside a heart, surrounded by radiating lines between The and Seer in the title. Slightly different is the addition of Price 2d. in the line of the caption that gives the volume number, issue number, and date. A complete run comprises twenty monthly numbers, January 1853–August 1854, the first volume in twelve numbers, the second volume in eight. Each number is in sixteen pages, the whole continuously paginated. At the foot of the back page of each of the first eighteen numbers is the following: Edited by Orson Pratt, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. | Liverpool: | Re-Published by S. W. Richards, 15, Wilton Street. | London: | For sale at the L. D. Saints’ Book and Millennial Star Depôt, 35 Jewin Street, City. | And by agents and all booksellers throughout Great Britain and Ireland. | Printed for the publisher, by R. James, 39, South Castle Street, Liverpool. The nineteenth and twentieth numbers delete Washington, D.C., U.S.A. The nineteenth number also replaces Re-Published by S. W. Richards with Published by F. D. Richards—reflecting the change in the British Mission presidency in June 1854—and the twentieth replaces F. D. with Franklin D. and the fifth, sixth, and seventh lines with For sale at the L. D. Saints’ Book Depôt, 35 Jewin Street, City. And all booksellers. | Printed by R. James, 39, South Castle Street, Liverpool. The first three numbers of the Liverpool Seer do not include a catalogue of works; otherwise, the first eighteen numbers of the Liverpool edition reprint the text of the Washington edition.

The contents of the Seer are Orson Pratt’s compositions—except for a report from the St. Louis Conference, some correspondence, and an excerpt from Brigham Young’s governor’s message of December 12, 1853—all in the second volume. Following the prospectus and the “First Epistle of Orson Pratt,” the first number contains the opening installment of Orson’s twelve-part article “Celestial Marriage”—an exhaustive explanation and defense of the theory and practice of Mormon plural marriage. His eight-part essay “The Pre-existence of Man”—the first comprehensive treatment of this topic—begins in the second number. These two serial articles make up the contents of the next seven numbers, except for “Figure and Magnitude of Spirits” in the third number. The tenth number includes “Power and Eternity of the Priesthood”; the eleventh, “Second Epistle of Orson Pratt”; and the twelfth, “Christian Polygamy in the Sixteenth Century” (see item 881).

The first number of vol. 2 contains “The Treatment of the United States Towards the Saints,” “Faith” (see item 1097), and the first installment of the two-part piece “Questions and Answers on Doctrine.” The second number includes “Faith is the Gift of God” and the first of three installments of “Repentance” (see item 1097). The third has “Powers of Nature” and “Explanation of Substituted Names in the Covenants”—an identification of the pseudonyms originally used in what are now D&C 78, 82, 92, 96, 103, 104, and 105. Vol. 2, no. 4, includes “War”—a discussion of the revelation of December 25, 1832 (now D&C 87); “Formation of the Earth”; and “Baptism for the Remission of Sins.” The fifth number contains four shorter articles: “New Revelation,” “Zion of Enoch,” “Latter-day Zion,” and “Utah.” Essentially all of the sixth number is Orson’s article “Resurrection of the Saints.” The seventh includes “The Equality and Oneness of the Saints,” an argument for the temporal equality among the Church members (see items 993–96), and “A Prophecy and Its Fulfilment,” a commentary on what is now D&C 44. The last number consists entirely of the article “Preparations for the Second Advent” (see item 1097).

As the notice in the Millennial Star of May 12, 1855, portended, the Seer was destined for official censure. Five years after this notice appeared, the First Presidency published a letter in the Deseret News of July 25, 1860, that identified certain passages they considered objectionable—the statements on pp. 24–25 that the “fullness” of the attributes of “love, goodness, mercy, and justice towards all” is “what constitutes God,” and on p. 117 that “the Father and the Son do not progress in knowledge and wisdom, because they already know all things.” An official condemnation came after another five years and was printed in the Deseret News of August 23, 1865, and Millennial Star of October 21. Signed by Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and all of the Twelve except Orson Pratt, it repeated the 1860 criticism of the Seer and listed three other works of Orson’s that “contain doctrines which we cannot sanction” (see items 543, 1097).12

Item 769: Flake-Draper 7609. CSmH, CtY, MH, NjP, UPB, USlC. Item 770: Flake-Draper 7610. CSmH, CU-B, ICN, MH, NjP, TxDaDF, UPB, USlC, UU.

772

Report of the London pastoral conference, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in the Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street, Long Acre, on Saturday and Sunday, December 25th and 26th, 1852. Elder Jacob Gates, President, [Elder] Jas. Marsden, [Elder] J. V. Long, Secretaries. Also, a brief half-yearly report of the London conference, held in the Eastern Lecture Hall, Whitechapel, Saturday, Dec. 5th [sic], 1852. Elder James Marsden, President. [Price twopence.] [At foot of p. [16]:] Printed by J. B. Franklin, Whetstone, Middlesex. [London, 1853?]

12[4] pp. 21.5 cm.

The sixth of ten located London reports (see items 490, 703, 814), this piece was probably printed after the first of the year, since on p. 11 it refers to “the revelation on marriage as published in No. 1 Star, vol. 15.” Pages [3]–12 of the pamphlet summarize four meetings involving the London, Reading, Kent, and Essex conferences (see item 635), one on Saturday evening, December 25, 1852, in the Eastern Lecture Hall, Whitechapel, and three on Sunday, the 26th, in the Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street. Although “plurality of wives” is explicitly mentioned only twice in the report, it is clear this topic was the major issue at these meetings (see item 734). Jacob Gates, the pastor over the four conferences, noted in his journal that, during the Sunday afternoon session, he spoke in preparation for the reading of the revelation of July 12, 1843 (D&C 132), after which James Marsden read the revelation to the congregation. Job Smith claimed this was the first public announcement of the practice in Great Britain.1 The report of Gates’s discourse in the pamphlet, however, avoids any explicit mention of plural marriage.

At the Sunday morning session, Marsden proposed that the conference presidents issue a tribute to Gates, who was about to leave for America (see item 748); this “testimonial,” signed by Marsden, Thomas Squires, John Lewis, and Martin Slack, is printed on p. [13]. John V. Long, president of the Cambridgeshire Conference, undoubtedly came to the December 25–26 meetings as a visiting conference president and was pressed into service because of his reporting skills (see item 582).

A brief summary of a meeting of the London Conference branch presidents in the Eastern Lecture Hall “on Saturday evening, December 5th, 1852,” occupies the first half of p. [14]. Following this is a financial statement showing that the London General Book and Star Agency owed the Millennial Star office about £577, had about £198 due from the London branches and £152 from the Kent, Essex, Reading, Norwich, Bradford, Preston, South, and Cambridgeshire conferences and Calcutta branch, and had about £222 in cash and stock on hand. Tables on pp. [15]–[16] give the statistics for forty branches in the London Conference, and the names, meeting places, presidents’ names, and presidents’ addresses for thirty-nine of these branches.

Flake-Draper 1940. MH, UPB, USlC.

773

Report of the Nottinghamshire conference, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, held in St. Ann’s Chapel, St. Ann’s Street, Nottingham, on the 26th day of December, 1852. Henry Savage, President. John Pimm [sic], Clerk. G. H. Goulder, Assistant. [Nottingham?] 1853.

13[2] pp. 21.5 cm. Double ruled border on title page and pp. [3]–13.

The last of three located Nottinghamshire Conference reports (see items 685, 708), this pamphlet actually covers two quarterly meetings of the conference. The first, in one session on October 2 and three on October 3, 1852, is briefly summarized on pp. [3]–4, along with a four-sentence summary of “Tea Meetings” on Monday and Tuesday, October 4 and 5. The second, in three sessions on December 26, 1852, is more fully reported on pp. [5]–13, with a reference to a “social tea party” on Monday, December 27. Two tables on pp. [14]–[15] give the statistics and finances for eighteen branches in the conference. No hint of a discussion of plural marriage occurs in the report of the December 26 meetings, unlike that of the London conference held the same day (preceding item).

George H. Goulder, the new assistant clerk, was born in Nottinghamshire on March 21, 1826, joined the Church in 1848, but separated from it a few years later. In 1890 he left England for America and that July was rebaptized in Salt Lake City, where he lived for a time. He died in Roy, Utah, on January 6, 1898.1

Flake-Draper 1945f. MH, UPB, USlC.

774

[An act regulating the mode of procedure in locating roads, and defining the duty of officers therein named. Salt Lake City, 1853?]

No copy of this piece is located, and what is known about it comes from the journal of the second territorial legislature. On the morning of January 6, 1853, in the House of Representatives, A. P. Rockwood, “from the committee on revising the existing road laws, presented a report recommending the adoption of an accompanying bill entitled ‘An act regulating the mode of procedure in locating roads, and defining the duty of officers therein named,’” which was read and received, with sixty copies ordered to be printed, and made the special order of the day for the joint session on January 11. The joint session took up the bill on the 11th, offered some amendments, and referred it back to the House. There it apparently died, since it does not appear in the published laws of the second legislature.1

775

[Ship circulars. Liverpool, 1853?]

The following entry occurs in the European Mission financial records among a list of charges from the printer Richard James: “By Invoice of 11th [January 1853] (circulars for ‘Golconda’) 0.7.0.” This is followed by a similar entry dated the 14th, with a charge of 0.3.0, and, in a second such list, two other similar entries were dated January 14 and 17, with charges of 0.3.0 and 0.2.6. This second list also includes an entry dated January 18 for “Circulars ‘Elvira Owen,’” and has a charge of 0.7.0. One infers that Samuel W. Richards issued circulars for the ships Golconda and Elvira Owen, like the ones for the James Pennell and Horizon (see items 430, 452, 561, 759, 871, 914, 984, 1027, 1058, 1078, 1130).1 Based on the charges, one might guess that the Golconda circular was printed in about 300 copies and the one for the Elvira Owen in about 150.

The Golconda sailed from Liverpool on January 23, 1853, with a company of 321 emigrating Saints under the direction of Jacob Gates and arrived at New Orleans on March 26. The Elvira Owen departed Liverpool on February 15 with 345 Mormon emigrants under the presidency of Joseph W. Young and reached New Orleans on March 31.2

776

[Eagle ornament] Typographic Association. “Liberty of [beehive ornament] the press.” [broken underline] are solicited to attend an annual festival, to be given by the printers of Deseret, at the Fourteenth Ward school-house, on Saturday, 15th inst., at 1 o’clock, p.m., precisely. Committee of arrangements: [four names in two columns separated by a vertical rule:] George Hales, Joseph Bull, James McKnight, Matthias Cowley. A. C. Brower, table and floor manager. N.B.---Dinner will be served at 2 o’clock p.m.,-- Supper at 8 o’clock in the evening. Jan. 12, 1853.] [News Typ.

Broadside 20.5 x 13 cm.

Three copies of this invitation are known, two in the LDS Church Archives addressed to Brigham Young and Willard Richards, and one in the Brigham Young University Lee Library addressed to Daniel H. Wells. The Young copy is printed in gold on a sheet of blue paper, 20.0 x 25.2 cm, and folded to make four pages with print only on the first page. The Richards copy is printed in gold on a single sheet of white paper, 15.2 x 12.5 cm. The Wells copy is printed in black on a sheet of gray paper, 20.4 x 25.5 cm, folded to make four pages with print on the first page.

The Lee Library also has an earlier version, printed in gold on blue paper, 20.4 x 24.3 cm, folded to make four pages. This reads: Printers’ annual festival. [Beehive ornament] Light---light---for the universe! [ruled underline] Your company is respectfully solicited at the grand anniversary of the printers of Deseret, to be celebrated on Monday, seventeenth of January inst., in commemoration of the birth day of Benjamin Franklin, a father of the art;--at the school rooms of the Fourteenth Ward, at precisely two o’clock, p.m. Committee of arrangements. George Hales, Joseph Bull, Arieh C. Brower, Joseph Cain, Matthias Cowley, James MacKnight. Floor manager---A. C. Brower. Great Salt Lake City, Jan. 8, 1853. Deseret News Print. Below the type at the bottom is the following manuscript note: “This merely as a specimen—the day being changed, another ticket was printed.”

This “annual festival” took place not quite eleven months after the first (see items 666, 745). The invitation—identifying the sponsoring group as the “Typographic Association”—demonstrates the evolving formality of this incipient printers’ guild, which would be officially organized in 1855 as the Typographical Association of Deseret (see item 960). The News of January 22, 1853, reports the festival, noting that “splendidly embellished invitation cards, printed in Gold, were presented to their patrons and friends.” The party, this report continues, “sat down to tables spread with all the luxuries and dainties that the heart could wish.” Dancing followed dinner, then a discourse by James Bond and more dancing and singing until about 11 o’clock, when the participants “retired to their several homes rejoicing . . . at the ‘Best party they had attended in the Valley.’”

James McKnight succeeded Arieh C. Brower as manager of the Deseret News print shop in the fall of 1854 and served as the territorial public printer for the 1856–57 and 1857–58 legislative sessions. Born in Ireland on December 11, 1828, he was baptized in the Church in 1851 and appears to have come to Utah that year. In 1875 he was excommunicated for “apostacy.” He died in Port Townsend, Washington, in 1906.1

Matthias Cowley was born on the Isle of Man, December 2, 1829, joined the Church in 1843, came that year to Nauvoo, and worked in the Times and Seasons bindery. For a time he was employed at the Frontier Guardian, and then in 1852 he made the journey to Utah, where he joined the Deseret News. The following year he left for a mission to England and four years later led a company of immigrating Saints to Utah. On June 5, 1864, near Salt Lake City, he accidentally drowned in the Jordan River.2

Flake-Draper 9065a. UPB, USlC.

777

Social Hall! The Deseret Dramatic Association. A. H. Raleigh, president, R. Campbell, R. T. Burton, stage managers. Friday evening, Jan. 21st, 1853, will be presented the following celebrated Melo-Drama, in three acts, entitled, Robert Macaire. Dramatis personæ. [7 lines] After which, song, by John Kay. The whole to conclude with the laughable farce entitled, The Irish Lion. Dramatis personæ. [8 lines] Doors open at five o'clock. Performance to commence at six precisely. Tickets, 50 cents, to be had at J. M. Barlow's Jewelry shop, and at the Tithing office. Children under six years old, not admitted. N.B. There will be plays on every evening during the week. For particulars, see bills of the day. [At bottom, right:] News Office Print. [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 51.5 x 20 cm.

778

Social Hall. The Deseret Dramatic Association. A. H. Raleigh, president, R. Campbell, R. T. Burton, stage managers. Wednesday evening, February 2, 1853. Will be presented the Celebrated Comedy in Three Acts, entitled, the Serious Family! Dramatis personæ. [6 lines] After which, songs, &c. The whole to conclude with the laughable play, in two acts, entitled the Irish Attorney. Dramatis personæ. [7 lines] Doors open at five o’clock. Performance to commence at 6 1-2 precisely. Tickets, 50 cents, to be had at J. M. Barlow's Jewelry shop, and at the Tithing office. Children in arms not admitted. [At bottom, right:] News Office Print. [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 49 x 21 cm.

779

Social Hall. The Deseret Dramatic Association. A. H. Raleigh, president, R. Campbell, R. T. Burton, stage managers. Saturday evening, February 5, 1853. Will be presented the celebrated Comedy in five acts, entitled, Money! Dramatis personæ. [8 lines] After which, comic duett, by Mrs. S. A. Cooke & son. Comic song by W. C. Dunbar. The whole to conclude with the laughable farce, entitled His Last Legs. Dramatis personæ. [6 lines] Doors open at 5 1-2. Performance to commence at 6 1-2 precisely. Tickets, 50 cents, to be had at J. M. Barlow’s Jewelry Shop, and at the Tithing office. Children in arms not admitted. [At bottom, right:] News Office Print. [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 48.5 x 20.5 cm.

The first plays in the Salt Lake Valley appear to have been those produced by William Pitt, who advertised “the celebrated Drama” Don Caesar de Bazan, the “Comic Farce” Dead Shot, the “Sentimental Play” The Stranger, and the “Laughable Farce” The Gentle Shepherd in June 1851 and the melodrama Robert Macaire and the farce Dead Shot that July. Indeed, it is possible that Pitt put on a theatrical program of some kind in the Valley as early as December 1850 (see items 498–99, 527, 588).1 These early plays were performed in the “Old Bowery”—“100 feet long by 60 feet wide, built on 104 posts, and covered with boards”—constructed at the southwest corner of the Temple Block in 1849 and torn down in December 1851 (see items 439, 686).2

On February 20, 1852, a group met at William Clayton’s house “for the purpose of organizing a theatrical association.” At this meeting thirteen men were enrolled as members: William Pitt, Clayton, Robert Campbell, Horace K. Whitney, Orson K. Whitney, Hiram B. Clawson, Amos M. Musser, James Ferguson, Jacob F. Hutchinson, William Glover, Edward Martin, Robert T. Burton, and James Smithies. Pitt was designated to select the orchestra for the association, and Money was picked as the first play for the group to rehearse. Clayton, Hutchinson, Burton, and Smithies had been members of Pitt’s original Nauvoo Brass Band (see item 259).3

The association met on Friday, February 27, and added more members, including Alonzo H. Raleigh, Truman O. Angell, Philip Margetts, and John D. T. McAllister. It met again the following evening and appointed Howard Coray prompter and selected a second play, Doctor in Spite of Himself, for rehearsal. At its meeting on March 2, Alonzo H. Raleigh was elected president of the association with William Clayton and Robert Campbell as stage managers, and Pizarro was added to the repertoire (see item 207). Also at this meeting, “on motion the members unanimously agreed that the association should be known & styled the Deseret Dramatic Association.” Three days later Robert T. Burton replaced Clayton as a stage manager. For the rest of the year, the Deseret Dramatic Association met about twice weekly, generally rehearsing two plays at each meeting, all the while increasing its repertoire and adding new members, and when it began to perform in January 1853 its membership stood at more than eighty.4

At its inception, the Association expected to perform its plays in the Old Tabernacle, which would be dedicated on April 6 (see item 686). But at its March 15 meeting, Brigham Young objected to theatrical programs in the tabernacle, and at the meeting four days later it was decided to “build a Social Hall for dancing & other purposes,” and Truman O. Angell, Alonzo H. Raleigh, Joseph W. Cummings, Edwin D. Woolley, and Amos M. Musser were designated a “permanent superintending committee” to oversee the construction and manage the hall after it was finished. By May 30 work on the hall had begun, and on January 1, 1853, the “Corps Dramatique” gathered in it for a dedicatory celebration. “The Social Hall is so far completed as to be comfortably occupied through the remainder of the winter,” the Deseret News reported, “the masonry, plastering &c., will be deferred till spring, or warmer weather.”5 Standing on the east side of State Street between South Temple and First South, the Social Hall was an adobe and sandstone structure, 33 feet by 73 feet, with a main floor and a basement.6

During the first two weeks of January 1853, the Association rehearsed every day except Sundays in preparation for its first public performances. On the 8th it resolved to advertise its plays with printed handbills and appointed Hiram B. Clawson, Joseph M. Simmons, and David Candland to draft the bills. At the same time, it set the price of admission at fifty cents half price for children between age six and twelve, children under six not admitted. By February 2 this last restriction had been relaxed to “children in arms not admitted.” Also on the 8th the Association voted that “no person be admitted unless a member, without paying,” suggesting that members of the Association, and probably their families, attended the plays without charge—an appropriate perquisite for the actors, who performed without pay.7

The Association’s first public performance came on Monday, January 17, with the plays Don Caesar de Bazan and The Irish Lion. The next evening it offered Robert Macaire and Hunting a Turtle. It performed The Lady of Lyon and Hunting a Turtle on Wednesday, The Lady of Lyon and His Last Legs on Thursday, Robert Macaire and The Irish Lion on Friday, January 21, and Don Caesar de Bazan and Hunting a Turtle on Saturday. The second week was less strenuous, with the Lady of Lyon and Fortune’s Frolic on Wednesday, January 26, and The Golden Farmer and How to Pay the Rent on Saturday, the 29th. The third week saw The Serious Family and The Irish Attorney performed on Wednesday, February 2, and Money—the first play chosen by the association—and His Last Legs on Saturday, February 5. Money was repeated on February 23, the last public performance of the Deseret Dramatic Association’s first season (see items 810, 1070, 1088, 1137).8

Three playbills survived from this first season, each listing the casts of the plays it advertises. John Kay played Robert Macaire on January 21, with Jonathan Grimshaw, David Candland, Hiram B. Clawson, Horace K. Whitney, William H. Kimball, George D. Grant, William F. Cahoon, Henry Margaretts, James Bond, Joseph M. Simmons, Philip Margetts, Miss. E. Wood, and Margaret Judd Clawson in the supporting roles. The cast of The Irish Lion included Kay, Whitney, Bond, Simmons, Miss Wood, Candland, George D. Watt, Miss M. Babbitt, Miss Ann Mariah Broomhead, Edmund Ellsworth, L. Wood, W. R. Judd, H. P. Richards, Mrs. Mary Ann Wheelock, and Miss Coray.

The cast of the February 2 performance of the Serious Family included J. M. Simmons, G. Crocheron, H. P. Richards, John T. Caine, James Ferguson, Mrs. Sarah Ann Cooke, Mary A. Wheelock, Margaret Judd Clawson, Miss Lawrence, and Miss Babbitt. The Irish Attorney featured Ferguson, H. K. Whitney, J. Bond, Leo Hawkins, J. M. Simmons, J. W. Cummings, D. Candland, G. D. Watt, Miss E. Wood, and Miss Babbitt.

Hiram B. Clawson and his wife Margaret Judd Clawson were the leads in the February 5 performance of Money, with John D. T. McAllister, D. Candland, H. K. Whitney, R. T. Burton, R. Campbell, James M. Barlow, Orson K. Whitney, J. Kay, Miss E. Wood, and Sarah Ann Cooke in supporting roles. James Bond was the lead in His Last Legs, supported by J. M. Simmons, E. Ellsworth, J. Grimshaw, W. R. Judd, J. D. T. McAllister, L. Hawkins, Mrs. Mary A. Wheelock, Mrs. E. Dyer, Miss B. Lawrence, and Miss E. Wood.

Alonzo H. Raleigh, the first president of the Deseret Dramatic Association, was born in New Hampshire on November 7, 1818, converted to Mormonism in 1842, joined the exodus from Nauvoo in 1846, and came to the Salt Lake Valley two years later. In 1856 he was called to be the bishop of the Salt Lake City Nineteenth Ward and in 1883 was ordained a patriarch. He served as a Salt Lake City alderman for twenty-eight years, as a Salt Lake County justice of the peace, and as a territorial legislator. He died in Salt Lake City on May 13, 1901.9

Robert Campbell—not to be confused with Robert Lang Campbell (see items 533, 650, 698, 728)—was born in Cambridgeshire, England, March 31, 1810, immigrated to the United States in 1835, and was baptized into the Church by Charles W. Wandell in 1838. He too participated in the exodus from Illinois and made the trek to Utah in 1850. He served as the Salt Lake City recorder, chief clerk of the territorial House of Representatives, and for more than forty years as the secretary and treasurer to the Seventies (see item 1132). He died in Salt Lake City on June 5, 1890.10

Robert T. Burton, the stage manager along with Campbell, was born in Ontario, Canada, October 25, 1821, joined the Church with his parents in 1838, and moved with his family to Nauvoo a few years later. Coming to Utah in 1848, he began his service in the Nauvoo Legion in 1849 as a bugler, held the rank of colonel during the Utah War, and was promoted to major general in 1868. He served for many years on the Salt Lake City Council and in the territorial legislature and was appointed bishop of the Salt Lake City Fifteenth Ward in 1867. Seven years later he was called to be second counselor to Bishop Edward Hunter and served in the Presiding Bishopric until his death in Salt Lake City on November 11, 1907.11

Joseph M. Simmons, one of those assigned to draft the playbills, was on his way to the California gold mines in 1850 when he stopped in Salt Lake City to replenish his supplies and decided to stay. Born in Massachusetts on September 3, 1824, he was baptized into the Church in 1851 and married Rachel Woolley, daughter of Edwin D. Woolley, that December. A prominent local actor, he was employed as one of Brigham Young’s clerks for several years and then as an assessor and collector. He died in Salt Lake City on February 14, 1872.12

Item 777: USlC. Item 778: USlC. Item 779: UPB.

780

The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star. [2 lines] Vol. XV. Supplement, 1853. Price 5d. Minutes of a special conference of elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, assembled in the tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, August 28, 1852. (From the Deseret News Extra of Sep. 14, 1852.) [Caption title] [At foot of p. 64:] Edited and published by S. W. Richards, 15, Wilton Street, Liverpool. Printed for the publisher by R. James, 39, South Castle Street. [1853]

64 pp. 21.5 cm.

This supplement reprints the Deseret News extra of September 14, 1852 (item 734), together with an editorial postscript by Samuel W. Richards. Copies of the extra had certainly reached England by December 20, when Orson Spencer, Daniel Spencer, and John Van Cott arrived in Liverpool (see items 769–71).1 Richards published the revelation of July 12, 1843, in the Millennial Star of January 1, 1853, and in the same issue announced his intention to issue the supplement, explaining that the extra was too long to reprint in its entirety in the Star. One week later the Star noted that the supplement was “nearly ready,” and on January 22 it reported that it was out of press—“Price fivepence.” Richard James printed it in 8,000 copies at a cost of £70 plus £3 for stitching. A year later the Star indicated that it was out of print and would be reprinted if there were enough new orders, but apparently it was not reprinted, since the catalogues in the May, August, and November 1854 issues of the Star do not list it.2 One finds the supplement routinely bound with vol. 15 of the Millennial Star.

All of the Deseret News extra of September 14, 1852, is included in the supplement except “Arrival from England, by the ‘Perpetual Emigrating Fund.’” Following the caption title the text is in two columns, except for the last three and a half pages, which are in single column. These last three and a half pages, headed “O Man! Weigh and Consider Before Thou Judgest,” contain Samuel W. Richards’s editorial postscript.

Flake-Draper 1403. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, MH, NjP, UPB, USlC, UU.

781

President’s party. [Beehive ornament] [dotted underline] and ladies, are respectfully invited to attend a festival in the Social Hall, on Thursday, January 27, at 2 o’clock p.m. precisely. Managers. Ezra T. Benson, Franklin D. Richards, Lorenzo Snow, Jedediah M. Grant. Furnishing committee. Edward Hunter, Edwin D. Woolley, Nathaniel H. Felt. N.B. Supper will be served punctually at 6 o’clock. (Five dollars per couple) G. S. L. City, Jan. 24, 1853. [News Typ.

Broadside 20 x 12 cm. Printed in gold.

Two copies of this piece are in the Brigham Young Papers in the LDS Church Archives, a broadside 20 x 12 cm, and a sheet 15.5 x 23.8 cm. folded to make four pages with print only on the first page. Two others are in the Willard Richards papers, one of which is a variant—probably an earlier trial impression. This variant has 27th inst., at 2 o’clock in place of January 27, at 2 o’clock p.m.; the name E. T. Benson in place of Ezra T. Benson; and the line Furnishing committee in larger type. A fifth copy, addressed to Hiram Clawson, is in the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum.

Invitations to the “President’s party” were sent to nearly all the “Gentiles” in Salt Lake City.1 The Deseret News of February 5, 1853, reported on it in one sentence: “The President’s Party, on the 27th ult., consisting of the general Authorities of the Church, National officers, merchants, and other distinguished friends, was truly splendid and worthy its name.” Wilford Woodruff made note of it in his journal, remarking, “all enjoyed themselves well.”2

Edwin D. Woolley, one of the “furnishing committee,” was born in Pennsylvania on June 28, 1807, converted to Mormonism in 1837, moved to Nauvoo in 1840, and made the trek to Utah in 1848. Called to the Salt Lake Stake high council in 1849, he was appointed bishop of the Salt Lake City Thirteenth Ward five years later, a position he held for the rest of his life. He served several terms in the territorial legislature and was a member of the committee that prepared the first territorial laws and legislative journals for publication (see items 714, 738). He died in Salt Lake City on October 14, 1881.3

Flake-Draper 6751b. USlC, USlD.

782

LYON, John. The harp of Zion, a collection of poems, &c. by John Lyon. With notes, and a steel portrait of the author. [7 lines] Published for the benefit of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund. Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 15, Wilton Street. London: T. C. Armstrong, 35, Jewin Street, City. And all booksellers. 1853.

xi[1]–223[1] pp. frontis. 18 cm. Double ruled border on each printed page except the last.

Twenty months after he converted to Mormonism in March 1844, John Lyon published one of his poems in the Millennial Star, and over the next seven years he contributed thirty-three more (see items 348, 579, 604, 650, 754).1 By the fall of 1851 he had concluded to issue a book of his poems, and by September 3, 1852, he had given the manuscript “of about 200 pages 8vo” to Samuel W. Richards, who had put it in the “hands of the printer, just commenced.” A month later the Star noted that Harp of Zion would “shortly” be ready for sale. “It will be beautifully printed,” this notice continued, “with fine clear type, on superfine paper, and bound in a superior manner,” and as Lyon had donated the book to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, “those who possess themselves of this choice volume will not only contribute to their own gratification intellectually, but at the same time they will have the privilege of aiding one of the most philanthropic, glorious, and Godlike enterprises pertaining to this last dispensation.” On January 29, 1853, thirty days before Lyon sailed for America, the Star announced that Harp of Zion was “ready for sale” and advertised it in three bindings—cloth at 2s. 6d.; gilt-decorated cloth at 3s. 6d.; and gilt-decorated morocco at 6s. 6d. At the end of the year, Orson Pratt advertised it in America in these bindings at $1.00, $1.25, and $2.00.2

The European Mission financial records indicate that John Sadler printed Harp of Zion in 5,100 copies at a cost of £176 12s. 8d., including stereotyping, plus an additional 50 copies on superior paper at £6. All but two of these were bound at the time of publication—undoubtedly by Thomas Fazakerley: 3,881 in cloth at a cost of £76 16s. 2¾d.; 917 in gilt-decorated cloth at £32 9s. 6½d; 300 in morocco at £45; and the 50 superior copies in gilt-decorated morocco at £7 10s. Other expenses such as the cost of the frontispiece, shipping, correcting the stereotype plates, and registration at Stationers’ Hall added another £34 5s. 1d., making the total cost of the book almost £379. Superior copies went to Lyon, Daniel Spencer, John Van Cott, James Linforth, and John Jaques—suggesting that Linforth and Jaques may have had a hand in seeing the book through the press.3

It seems clear the Perpetual Emigrating Fund lost money on the book. When George Q. Cannon shipped most of the British Mission’s inventory of books to Salt Lake City in 1862, he sent 3,407 copies of Harp of Zion—30 superior copies, 70 in morocco, 585 in gilt-decorated cloth, and 2,722 in cloth—so no more than 1,741 copies had been sold at that point.4 The Liverpool office undoubtedly sold the books at wholesale—2s. for copies in cloth, 2s. 10d. for those in gilt-decorated cloth, 5s. for those in morocco, and 5s. 6d. for superior copies—and if it had sold all 1,741 at these prices, it had received about £226.5 Sixteen years after Cannon sent the books to Utah, Harp of Zion was still being advertised for sale, and today it is a “common” rare book.6

Harp of Zion collates: title page (p. [i]), with Entered at Stationers’ Hall and Printed by J. Sadler, 16, Moorfields, Liverpool on the verso; Index (pp. [iii]–v), with the verso of p. v blank; Preface, dated at Glasgow, December 1852 (pp. [vii]–viii); Dedication. To F. D. Richards (pp. [ix]–xi ), with the verso of p. xi blank; Poems (pp. [1]–150); Sonnets (pp. [151]–166); Songs (pp. [167]­–198); Hymns (pp. [199]­–217, with the verso of p. 217 blank; and Notes (pp. [219]–223), with Printed by J. Sadler, Moorfields, Liverpool on the verso of p. 223. Preceding the title page is a frontispiece of an oval steel engraving of John Lyon, signed “Fred. Piercy” at the bottom of the oval, with a printed autograph presentation “Yours truly Lyon” underneath the portrait. Bound in at the end is an errata sheet, approximately 9.5 x 11 cm, with twelve lines of errata. Each printed page, except the verso of p. 223, has a double ruled border surrounding the text.

Following Lyon’s dedicatory poem to F. D. Richards (pp. [ix]–xi), the book contains fifty-nine poems, eighteen sonnets, sixteen songs, and ten hymns followed by the concluding piece, “The Poet’s Farewell.” Two of the poems are not Lyon’s: John Taylor’s “Lines Inscribed to the Author” (pp. [3]–4) and Eliza R. Snow’s “Lines to Elder Franklin D. Richards” (pp. 20–22) (see item 348). Thirty-one of Lyon’s pieces in the book had appeared earlier in the Millennial Star—some with textual differences; another, “Pilgrim Saint’s Song” (pp. 187­–88), had been printed in Report of the Glasgow Conference . . . 1st January, 1852 (item 650).7 Eight had been added to the 1851 hymnal (item 604).8 The section headed Notes contains commentaries on five of the poems: “Inspiration” (pp. 5–16), “Lines to Elder Franklin D. Richards,” “The Prophet” (pp. 34–36), “The Orphan” (pp. 57–60), and “Profligacy” (pp. 104–5).

The cloth bindings involve two basic cover designs—in each instance with the backstrip decorated in vines: (1) a vinelike figure with leaflike ends forming an oval in the center surrounding an urn-like figure and two circular figures at the top and two at the bottom, all inside a double ruled border, and (2) a central urn-like figure inside an open arabesque surrounded by a ruled border with corner decorations. Original cloth bindings include red, green, brown, blue, or purple cloth with design (1) in gilt on the front cover and in blind on the back, with a gilt-decorated backstrip and gilt title, gilt edges, and green, pink, or white coated endsheets with a diagonal array of gilt stars; purple cloth with design (1) in blind on both covers, blind-stamped backstrip with gilt title, and yellow coated endsheets; red, green, or blue cloth with design (2) in gilt on the front cover and in blind on the back, with a gilt-decorated backstrip, gilt edges, and lavender, green, or white coated endsheets with a diagonal array of gilt stars; green, blue, or brown cloth with design (2) in blind on the front and back, blind-stamped backstrip with gilt title, and yellow or pink coated endsheets. Surviving leather bindings include purple pebbled sheep with an open arabesque surrounding a central urn-like figure in gilt inside a gilt and blind ruled border on each cover, gilt decorations and gilt title between raised bands on the backstrip, gilt edges, and ivory coated endsheets with a diagonal array of gilt stars; green, brown, or black sheep with an open arabesque surrounding a central urn-like figure in gilt inside a multi-ruled gilt border with gilt corner elements on the covers, vine decoration and title in gilt on the backstrip, gilt edges, and pink or lavender endsheets with a diagonal array of gilt stars; green morocco with a gilt open arabesque surrounding an urn-like figure inside a double ruled gilt border with blind corner elements on the covers, gilt decorations and gilt title between raised bands on the backstrip, gilt edges, and white coated endsheets with a diagonal array of gilt stars.

Flake-Draper 5067. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, MH, NjP, UHi, ULA, UPB, USlC, UU, WHi.

783

SPENCER, Orson. Patriarchal order, or plurality of wives! By Elder Orson Spencer, A.B., chancellor of the University of Deseret, Utah Territory, U.S.A., and president of the Prussian Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being his fifteenth letter in correspondence with the Rev. William Crowel [sic], A.M., editor of the "Western Watchman," St. Louis, U.S.A., (late editor of the "Christian Watchman," Boston, Massachusetts.) [Caption title] [Dated at end:] Liverpool, England, January 13th, 1853. [At foot of p. 16:] Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 15, Wilton Street. Printed for the publisher by R. James, 39, South Castle Street. [1853]

16 pp. 22.5 cm.

Orson Spencer, Jacob Houtz, and Moses Clough were called to Prussia at the August 1852 special conference, and that September Spencer left with Orson Pratt’s company and arrived in Liverpool on December 20 (see items 769–71, 793).1 Polygamy was on all the missionaries’ minds during the overland trip east and in Great Britain after Spencer arrived, and he delivered two lectures on the topic at a conference in Glasgow on January 2–3, 1853 (see items 772, 780). By January 13—the date at the end of the tract—he had composed Patriarchal Order, and on the 15th he left Liverpool for Prussia. The Millennial Star of January 22 noted that Patriarchal Order was in press, and a week later the Star advertised it for sale at 2d. each.2 Richard James printed it in an edition of 30,000 at a cost of £52 17s. 6d., and Spencer was paid a royalty for it—about £15, it appears. The size of the edition makes it clear that, at that point, it was intended to be the principal tool in defending polygamy in the British Isles. Orson Pratt advertised it in Washington, DC, at the end of the year for 10¢ each, and the following year it was published in Danish and German (items 890, 919). When Pratt assumed the presidency of the British Mission in June 1856, however, more than half of the edition still remained in the Millennial Star office.3 Patriarchal Order was added as the fifteenth letter to the 1874 edition of Spencer’s Letters and maintained in the book thereafter.4

The opening line of Patriarchal Order indicates that Spencer had visited William Crowell (not Crowel) in St. Louis during his trip east. This visit undoubtedly prompted him to add a fifteenth installment to the sequence of letters he had addressed to his old friend (see items 334–35, 347, 736). Spencer’s central idea in the letter is the covenant God made with Abraham, which, he argues, includes plural marriage as part of this everlasting covenant. “The family order which God established with Abraham and the Patriarchs,” he declares, “was the order observed among celestial beings, in the celestial world.” In the hereafter, he continues, wives will be restored to their husbands and continue to bear children “in all worlds to come, and that without pain or sorrow in travail.” That God sanctioned this order of marriage, he contends, is clear from the honored position of the patriarchs and the scriptural injunctions to do the works of Abraham. Modern Christendom has “broken the new and everlasting covenant made with Abraham” by adopting “the one wife system,” which has resulted in the “debauchery and whoredoms . . . preeminently practiced among Christian nations”—the theme of his fourteenth letter and his 1848 tract Character!! (items 359–60). The last two pages contain a summary consisting of a series of questions and answers, two of which assert that more women than men will be saved because “females are not generally as wicked as males,” necessitating plural marriage in the hereafter.

Flake-Draper 8333. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, ICN, MH, MoInRC, NjP, NN, TxDaDF, UHi, ULA, UPB, USlC, UU.

784

THOMAS, Preston. A treatise on the gospel. By Preston Thomas, (elder in the Church of Jesus Christ,) of Latter Day Saints. Pontotoc, Miss: J. T. Heard, Letter-Press Printer. 1853.

15 pp. 17 cm.

The son of an affluent slaveholder, Preston Thomas was born in North Carolina on February 15, 1814, and was living in Mississippi when he converted to Mormonism in 1844. The following year he moved to Nauvoo, paused with the Saints at Winter Quarters, and in December 1847 began the first of six missions to Texas and the southern states. In 1851 he made the trek to Utah and settled in Lehi, where he served as a territorial legislator and probate judge. Nine years later Brigham Young sent him to Franklin, Idaho, and there he acted as the bishop and probate judge, before moving to Bear Lake in 1863. He left for his last mission to Texas in 1869 and in 1872 moved back to Franklin, where he was killed in a logging accident on July 10, 1877.1

Preston Thomas was called on a mission to Texas at the August 1852 special conference, and on September 15 he left Salt Lake City in Orson Pratt’s company (see items 734, 769–71). In December he passed through Pontotoc, Mississippi, about eighty-five miles southeast of Memphis, and on January 7, 1853, he returned to Pontotoc to stay with a Church member, William T. Dennis.2 Three days later he began working on “a Treatise on the Gospel,” an undertaking he had “for sometime entertained.” The next day he arranged with the office of the Pontotoc American Sovereign to print his pamphlet, and during the week he worked on his piece, finishing it on Saturday, January 15. The following Tuesday he delivered the manuscript to the printer, who agreed to print 1,000 copies “for about $39.00” and have them ready in about two weeks. Thomas checked the proof on the 24th and 25th, and on January 29, after bidding farewell to William T. Dennis, he picked up two hundred copies of A Treatise on the Gospel from the printer. Two days later, on the train to Memphis, he conversed with the passengers and sold them copies of his pamphlet.3

Thomas begins his tract by defining the gospel as “that plan or system which God ordained from before the foundation of the world, for the salvation of every one of the human family, who would receive it.” Then, in the conventional Mormon way, using many New Testament examples, he argues that the plan involves repentance from sin, baptism by immersion, and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. The gifts of the Spirit necessarily follow those who obey the gospel, he contends, and men have authority to preach it only if they are “called by new revelation” and “endowed with the Holy Ghost.”

Flake-Draper 8913. USlC.

785

Le Réflecteur, organe de l’Église de Jésus-Christ des Saints-des-Derniers-Jours. Lausanne: January–December 1853.

1 v. (12 nos. in 192 pp.) 24 cm.

Sent to Switzerland by Lorenzo Snow at the end of November 1850, Thomas B. H. Stenhouse began his efforts in Geneva, and in March 1851 he “commenced to baptize” (see items 418, 481, 558–59, 681–84). That May he visited Southampton and returned to Geneva three months later with his wife Fanny, a native of the Isle of Jersey who was fluent in French. By the following February, there was a twenty-member branch in Geneva and a small branch in Lausanne. Fanny had given French lessons to T. B. H. in Southampton before they were married and undoubtedly continued to do so in Switzerland, and fourteen months into his mission he was using the language with some fluency.1

In June 1852, Stenhouse baptized Serge Louis Ballif, a well-educated, affluent Swiss who immediately devoted his time and means to the missionary effort and provided the Stenhouses two rooms in his house in Lausanne rentfree.2 When Étoile du Déséret ceased publication in December 1852 (see item 576), Stenhouse turned to Ballif to underwrite a successor. In January 1853 the first issue of Le Réflecteur came off the press, and that March Stenhouse reported that it was being published monthly in 1,500 copies. The Millennial Star of June 24, 1854, announced that the Liverpool office had just received two hundred copies of Le Réflecteur and advertised the bound volume of twelve issues at 3s.3

T. B. H. Stenhouse was the editor and publisher throughout the magazine’s life. Ballif provided financial support, and Fanny undoubtedly assisted with the contents. One other Swiss convert, an “Elder Petitpierre,” is known to have rendered “great service” to the magazine. Baptized in Geneva, probably in February 1853, he was described by T. B. H. as a “regularly consecrated protestant minister in Paris” who had “preached both in Paris and Geneva … and was bold and honest enough to renounce the ‘black cloth.’” Fanny described him as “a man of more than three score years” and a “very useful translator.” Nothing else is known about him except that he apostatized before the Stenhouses left Switzerland.4

A complete run of Le Réflecteur (The Reflector) consists of twelve 16-page issues, labeled vol. 1, nos. 1–12, and dated January–December 1853, the twelve issues continuously paginated. Following the format of the Millennial Star, the issue number, date, and volume number are on a line between the caption title and main text. At the end of each of issue is: Lausanne. Edité et publié par T. B. H. Stenhouse, with the price, 20 centimes. All the issues except the last give Stenhouse’s Lausanne address as Cité-Derrière, 1, while the last issue notes that his address is now Cours de Rive, 42, à Genève—a move undoubtedly prompted by Ballif’s impending departure for Utah. The printer’s colophon is at the foot of the back page of each number: Lausanne.—Imp. Corbaz et Robellaz, Escalier-du-Marché, 20 in the first seven numbers and Lausanne.—Imp. Corbaz et Rouiller Fils, Escalier-du-Marché, 20 in the last five.

Stenhouse had used Corbaz and Robellaz to print his 1852 edition of Exposition des Premiers Principes (item 684), and in November 1852 he baptized Charles François Robellaz, one of the partners, who subsequently presided over the branch in Lausanne. Robellaz sold his share of the printing business and left Switzerland for Utah in 1854, and on June 27, 1854, at age thirty-two, he died while crossing the plains.5

Le Réflecteur is usually found with a title page and table of contents, the title page reading Le Réflecteur | organe de | l’Église de Jésus-Christ | des | Saints-des-Derniers-Jours | [8 lines] | Premier volume | 1853 | Genève | T. B. H. Stenhouse, Éditeur | Cours de Rive, 42. The line Lausanne.—Imprimerie de Corbaz et Rouiller Fils is on the verso. The title page and table of contents are known in two “states”: (a) with the table of contents paginated [193]–194 and occurring after p. 192, and (b) with it paginated [i]–ii and occurring after the title page. The two “states” are textually identical but printed from different settings. Which is the earlier is not known.6

The contents of Le Réflecteur are mainly French translations of pieces in the Millennial Star. These include, for example: an excerpt from the “History of Joseph Smith,” in three installments, likely taken from vol. 14 of the Star (see item 743); Thomas Smith’s children’s catechism in vol. 10 (see items 618–19); the thirty-seven questions in James F. Bell’s Letter to the Rev. Osborne (see items 419–20); Brigham Young’s discourses of July 24, 1852, September 3, 1852, and July 10, 1853, the first two in vol. 14, the third in vol. 15; Oliver Cowdery’s first letter to W. W. Phelps, originally in the Messenger and Advocate and reprinted in vol. 3 of the Star (item 197); Parley P. Pratt’s Proclamation to the People of the Coasts and Islands of the Pacific (item 630), in four installments, undoubtedly from vol. 14 of the Star; an excerpt in two installments from Howard Stansbury’s Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, from vol. 14; excerpts from the eighth and ninth general epistles of the First Presidency, from vol. 15; Thomas J. Bryceson’s “Restoration of the Priesthood” in vol. 15; William France’s “Sanctification” in vol. 14; Gilbert Clements’s “Fragment of a Lecture on the Coming Forth of Elijah ” in vol. 15; John Jaques’s serial essay “The Necessity of a Living Prophet,” in three installments, from vol. 15; Lorenzo Snow’s “Address to the Saints in Great Britain” in vol. 13; and Thomas Smith’s letter “The Valleys of the Mountains” in vol. 15. At the end of most issues is a section headed Nouvelles, which includes news of the Church’s progress around the world, mainly taken from the Millennial Star. A brief catalogue of French Mormon publications is included at the end of the third and ninth issues.

Flake-Draper 6842. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, DLC, MH, NjP, UPB, USlC, UU, WHi.

786

TAYLOR, John. Traité sur le baptême par John Taylor un des douze apôtres de l’Église de Jésus-Christ des Saints-des-Derniers-Jours. [2 lines] Publié par C. E. Bolton Rue de Tournon, 7, Paris. 1853

16 pp. 21.5 cm.

On November 15, 1852, Curtis E. Bolton purchased the rights from Louis A. Bertrand to publish his translation of Orson Pratt’s Divine Authority, and he “went immediately to Mr. Ducloux and ordered it stereotyped . . . also the article on Baptism and ordered 1000 of each struck off” (see items 500, 517, 576, 747). Item 786 is undoubtedly the piece on baptism that Bolton contracted with Ducloux to print. It bears Ducloux’s colophon Paris.—Imprimerie de Marc Ducloux et Compagnie, rue Saint-Benoît, 7.—1853, and since it was advertised in the March 1853 issue of Le Réflecteur (preceding item), it was likely struck off soon after the first of the year—after Bolton had left Paris.1

Traité sur le Baptême reprints John Taylor’s three-part article “Sur le baptême” in Étoile du Déséret for November 1851–January 1852. Its setting is the same as that of the article, and Bolton’s diary entry quoted above suggests it was printed from stereotype plates like his other French pamphlets (items 517, 566, 712, 713, 747). Arranged in six parts, it marshals many biblical examples and proof texts in support of the standard Mormon view of baptism.2 The first three parts argue that faith is an essential prerequisite and that only those capable of understanding and believing are proper candidates, that the correct mode is by immersion, and that it is for the remission of sins. Parts four and five contend that the necessity of baptism for salvation is to be taught to all mankind and that only those possessing authority from God have the right to administer the ordinance. The final part concludes that no one has the right to alter it without incurring the wrath of God.

Flake-Draper 8850. UPB, USlC.

787

PRATT, Parley Parker. Eine Stimme der Warnung und Belehrung für alle Völker; oder eine Einleitung zu dem Glauben und den Lehren der Kirche Jesu Christi, der Heiligen der letzten Tage. Von Parley P. Pratt. [4 lines] Erste Ausgabe. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Daniel Carn. Hamburg 1853. Gedruckt bei F. H. Nestler und Melle.

xi[1]–124 pp. 16 cm.

Daniel Garn (or Carn) was born in Pennsylvania on December 13, 1802, lived with the Saints in northern Missouri, and was appointed bishop of the Nauvoo Sixth Ward in August 1842. The following year, in Nauvoo, “the German brethren met . . . and chose Bishop Daniel Garn as their Presiding Elder, and organized to have preaching in their native language.” Coming to the Salt Lake Valley in 1848, he served as acting bishop of the Salt Lake City Ninth Ward from 1849 to 1851 and in September 1851 was called to lead the missionary effort in Germany. On April 3, 1852, he reached Hamburg just as George Parker Dykes and George Viett were finishing the translation of the Book of Mormon into German (see items 632, 694).1

Garn began his proselytizing effort privately in Hamburg, and on August 1, 1852, he organized a branch there with twelve members.2 The following January he reported to S. W. Richards that he had been “eight times before the authorities” and had been arrested on January 12 and told on the 17th he had eight days to leave the city. But he persevered until the end of the year, and on December 28, 1853, he came to Liverpool with a company of emigrating Saints, including thirty-three from Germany. On February 22, 1854, he sailed for New Orleans with 484 Mormon emigrants and that summer led a company to the Salt Lake Valley.3

When Garn finished his translation of the Voice of Warning is not known. On January 28, 1853, he wrote S. W. Richards that he had “not yet got the ‘Voice of Warning’ out” because of his problems with the government, and in a postscript dated February 11 he noted: “this week the printer will get the ‘Voice of Warning’ out.” Jacob F. Secrist and George C. Riser had arrived at Hamburg in January, and in March Garn sent them on missionary trips, Secrist to Saxe-Meiningen, Riser to Württemberg. Both men seem to have had copies of the German Voice of Warning with them on these journeys, so likely the book was finished in February 1853.4 To print it, Garn employed Nestler and Melle, the firm Dykes had used for Zions Panier and the Book of Mormon. Its rarity today suggests the edition was small. In October 1854 the Millennial Star office obtained 516 copies from G. C. Riser—116 copies with “covers” and 400 copies in sheets. By 1862 it was out of print.5

The book collates: title page (p. [i]), with the verso blank; Parley Pratt’s preface to the 1847 Edinburgh edition, signed by him at the end and dated December 4, 1846 (pp. [iii]­–v); the preface to the 1839 edition (pp. [vi]–xi), with the verso of p. xi blank; and main text (pp. [1]–124). The identification of the preface as coming from the Edinburgh edition suggests that Garn used the 1847 edition (item 326) for his translation. Both located copies are bound in blue paper–covered boards with Eine Stimme der Warnung und Belehrung für alle Völker; oder eine Einleitung zu dem Glauben und den Lehren der Kirche Jesu Christi, der Heiligen der letzten Tage within an ornamental border on the front cover and Hamburg. Gedruckt bei F. H. Nestler und Melle within the same border on the back.

Fifteen months after he returned to Salt Lake City, Daniel Garn became the first warden of the Utah territorial penitentiary, and in 1863 he was appointed justice of the peace in Sugar House. He died in Salt Lake City, April 20, 1872.6

Flake-Draper 6696. UPB, USlC.

788

[Placard advertising preaching. Aberdeen? 1853?]

Andrew Ferguson had been presiding over the Dundee Conference for almost a month when, on January 29, 1853, he met Daniel D. McArthur, who had just arrived in the British Mission and was assigned to labor in Scotland (see item 695).1 On Saturday, February 5, they took the train to Aberdeen, Ferguson’s former field of labor, where McArthur was to be the presiding elder. The following day they met with the Saints. “The city having been Playcarded,” Ferguson reports in his diary, “we had a number of Strangers, the day passed of[f] well.” Six days later Ferguson took the train to Arbroath, and on Sunday, February 13, he had an “excelent day with the Saints.” “The city having been playcarded,” he records, “meny strangers atended our meetings.” Three Sundays later, in Dundee, which also had been “playcarded,” he preached in the morning and evening. Again, on Sunday, May 8, in Perth, he met with the Saints three times and “had quit[e] a good time & altho the vilige had been Playcarded for some days Previous yet there were only 4 Strangers Present all day.”2

Whether the placards Ferguson mentions were different pieces or the same piece with the meeting times and locations written in by hand is not known (see items 76, 440, 447, 823). He mentions other placards in his diary, none of which are located (see items 695, 794, 821).

789

[Handbill advertising preaching in Truro on February 19, 1853. Truro? 1853?]

Joseph Hall, president of the Land’s End Conference, came to Truro on February 16, 1853, and met Samuel Francis, who had been laboring there since August and had organized a branch in December.1 On Sunday, February 19, according to Francis’s journal, “President Hall preached in the little chapel and we having posted the town with hand-bills, our meetings were well attended.”2

Hall had been president of the Land’s End Conference for about a month and a half when he came to Truro. Born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, on August 6, 1825, he was baptized into the Church on Christmas Day 1841 and labored as a local missionary until called to succeed W. G. Mills as conference president. In March 1855 he sailed for America and that year came to Utah with the Milo Andrus Company. Settling in Ogden, he served as postmaster, coroner of Weber County, justice of the peace, city editor of the Ogden Junction and traveling correspondent for the Ogden Daily Herald, and for many years as a member of the Weber Stake high council. He died in Ogden on September 1, 1906.3

790

FINDLAY, Hugh. “The Mormons” | or | “Latter-day Saints” | A | reply | by | Hugh Findlay | elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. | To a tract bearing the above title by J. G. Deck | and reprinted at the Bombay “Times Press.” | [1 line] | Bombay | Dufter Ashkara Press. | 1853.

[i–iv][1]–20[2] pp. 21.5 cm.

On September 1, 1851, the day before William Willes sailed for Calcutta, Lorenzo Snow wrote Hugh Findlay, then president of the Hull Conference, and called him to a mission in Bombay (see items 739–40). With funds raised in the conference, Findlay sailed from Southampton on October 20 and arrived in Bombay the following April.1 Immediately he began circulating Lorenzo Snow’s Only Way to be Saved and soon was defending the Church in the local newspapers. That May the Bombay Guardian ran excerpts from J. G. Deck’s The Mormons or Latter-day Saints: What are They? (Weymouth and London, 1851), but when Findlay submitted a long reply, the editor declined to print it.2

William Tait, a British soldier who had joined the Church in Scotland, was stationed at Poona, seventy-five miles southeast of Bombay, and, with Tait’s encouragement, Findlay moved to Poona on June 27. Three weeks later he encountered a Bombay edition of Deck’s tract, which the “chaplains and missionaries” were “diligently distributing,” and on August 30 he began a reply. In January 1853 he spent five days in Bombay and on the 7th contracted with a printer for 200 copies. He read the proof of the first eight pages on February 2 and learned on the 4th that the printer had struck off 300 copies before receiving the corrections. Nine days later he corrected another part and sent it to Bombay, so one might guess his tract was out of press that month.3

Neither edition of Deck’s tract is located, but the LDS Church has what appears to be a handwritten transcription of the British edition. Drawing on the Doctrine and Covenants, Book of Mormon, Millennial Star, the Voice of Warning, Orson Pratt’s Divine Authority, and Moses Martin’s Treatise on the Fulness of the Everlasting Gospel, it attacks the Mormons’ claims of miracles, contrasts the revelations about Zion with the losses in Missouri, assails the character of Joseph Smith, criticizes the Book of Mormon and its Witnesses, and disputes the doctrines of inspiration, the “one” true church, an anthropomorphic God, “salvation by works,” and the gathering.

Findlay’s Reply is largely a point-by-point rebuttal. It defends Joseph Smith and the Saints in general by quoting the affidavits regarding John C. Bennett (see items 156–57), the speeches of John S. Reid and O. H. Browning (see items 208, 578, 585), and Thomas Kane’s The Mormons (see items 402, 514–15, 578, 585, 670). It includes long defenses of the Mormon concepts of the Holy Ghost and a material, anthropomorphic God. And it ends with The Latter-day Saints’ Belief, which appears to be a reprint of the Liverpool broadsides of the same title—but with “5th, The Lord’s Supper weekly” deleted, the quotation from Luke 10:22 enlarged, and the final paragraph expanded (see items 645–46). The tract collates: title page, with the verso blank (pp. [i­–ii]); preface in single column (pp. [iii–iv]); the main text in two columns (pp. [1]–20), with p. [21] blank; and The Latter-day Saints’ Belief in single column (p. [22]). The last leaf is conjugate with the title leaf and hence is intrinsic to the tract. Two variants are known: with the page number 6 printed upside down and with it printed correctly.4

Findlay baptized his first convert, Douglas W. Davies, in Bombay on May 28, 1852. In Poona, he organized a branch with twelve members on September 12 and that winter erected a small meeting hall. On July 17, 1853, he organized a branch in Bombay of twenty members, “mostly Europeans.” Two months later his brother Allen joined him (see item 979), and in November he reported that “upwards of thirty” had been baptized at Poona, but the Bombay Branch lay “almost a total wreck.”5 With his brother leading the missionary effort in Poona and the Bombay Branch in Douglas Davies’ care, he left on March 27, 1854, for the cantonment in Belgaum, about 250 miles south of Bombay, and for the next nine months he labored there, baptizing at least eighteen. Back in Bombay after the first of the year, he published a tract in the Marathi language (item 980) and on March 16, 1855, sailed for Hong Kong with seven other Latter-day Saints, including William Tait and Douglas Davies.6

Born in Scotland on June 9, 1822, Hugh Findlay converted to Mormonism in 1844 and assumed the presidency of the Hull Conference in August 1850. On December 1, 1855, he arrived in Salt Lake City, where he lived until Brigham Young called him to Bear Lake in 1869. Nine years later he returned to the Scotland as a missionary. He served as a patriarch in Bear Lake until his death at Fish Haven in March 1900.7

Flake-Draper 3352. UPB, USlC.

791

RICHARDS, Joseph. What is Mormonism. Compiled from the writings of Elders Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Orson Spencer, Samuel Brannon [sic], and others of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By Joseph Richards, travelling elder of the East India Mission. [Caption title] [At end:] Agra, 25th February, 1853. [At foot of p. 16:] Re-printed by J. A. Gibbons, Agra Cantonments, for Joseph Richards and William Willes, East India Mission. Price 6 annas. [1853]

16 pp. 20.5 cm.

Joseph Richards arrived in Calcutta to assist William Willes on July 20, 1852, a year after his first missionary visit to India (see items 739–40). On November 10 he and Willes began a journey that took them to Agra, about 700 miles from Calcutta, during which they proselytized at various cantonments and baptized sixteen persons, mostly Europeans. At Agra, they rented a house for a month and in February 1853 published an expanded edition of Willes’s What is Mormonism? (item 740). With Willes remaining “up the country” trying to reclaim “the honest in heart,” Richards returned to Calcutta on May 11, 1853, when he meet Nathaniel V. Jones and some of the other missionaries who had arrived on April 26 (see items 817–18). On June 19 he sailed for England. Willes returned to Calcutta on December 1.1

The Agra What is Mormonism is an expanded version of the Calcutta edition, retaining all of the essential text of the earlier edition. It inserts the following five-line parenthetical comment, signed by Richards, just below the caption title: “This tract was originally published in Calcutta by my friend and fellow-laborer Elder William Willes, but as he and I have in the course of visitation of the principal cities of Upper India been assailed with the cry of Polygamy, &c. &c.—from all sorts of people, and being fully determined as far as possible so to vindicate the character of an injured and innocent people, I subjoin the correspondence which will be found at the end of these pages.” It adds John Haven’s letter to his daughter Elizabeth regarding Jesse Haven’s interview with Matilda Davison, Solomon Spaulding’s widow (see items 77, 169, 514–15), some newspaper excerpts and correspondence of Thomas Kane, from the Millennial Star of November 15, 1851, and, at the end, John Lyon’s poem “Away, Away to the Mountain Dell,” from the Star of March 1, 1850.

Richards’s name in the caption title and his five-line comment suggest he was responsible for the additions and probably underwrote the printing costs. Willes later recorded that they first heard of the Church’s public acknowledgment of plural marriage at Agra. Richards was unaware of the practice but, searching his Bible, “soon found plenty of evidence in its favor.” The public reaction to announcement undoubtedly prompted him to publish the Agra tract.2

Flake-Draper 9867a. UPB, USlC.

792

CLAYTON, William. [Handbill advertising a course of lectures in Sheffield beginning on February 27, 1853. Sheffield, 1853]

William Clayton had been away from his native England for twelve years when he was called at the August 1852 special conference to return to his homeland as a missionary, and on January 4, 1853, he arrived in Liverpool and was immediately assigned the pastoral charge of the Sheffield and Lincolnshire conferences (see items 71, 78, 106–7, 245, 769–71). On Saturday, February 19, at his lodging in Sheffield, he and two of the local elders concluded to offer “a course of lectures in Sheffield,” and that afternoon they composed “a bill for a notice of the same.” Two days later Clayton took “the matter for the handbills to the printing office.” The following Sunday, February 27, he spoke for an hour and three-quarters “on the Restoration of the Jews, and Apostacy of the Gentiles, according to previous notice given in the hand bills.” “The room was well filled,” he records, “and many strangers were present.” How many lectures the course included is not known.1

Not long after he arrived in England, Clayton became the target of some unflattering and, he claimed unfounded rumors, prompting Samuel W. Richards to relieve him of his pastoral duties, a notice of which appeared in the Millennial Star of February 5, 1853. Soon after, he was able to reassure Richards and on February 12 learned that he had been restored to his former position. Whether these rumors continued to plague him is not clear, but on Richards’s advice he decided to leave England, and on April 6 he sailed for America.2

793

SPENCER, Orson. The Prussian Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Report of Elder Orson Spencer, A.B., to President Brigham Young. [4 lines] Price 2d. Liverpool[:] S. W. Richards, 15, Wilton Street. London: T. C. Armstrong, 35, Jewin Street, City. And may be had of all booksellers. 1853.

16 pp. 22 cm.

At the August 1852 conference, Jacob Houtz and Moses Clough (or Cluff) were assigned to accompany Orson Spencer to the kingdom of Prussia—the largest state in the German confederation—and George Mayer, Jacob F. Secrist, George C. Riser, and William Taylor were called to labor elsewhere in the confederation, greatly expanding the missionary effort initiated a year earlier in Hamburg by John Taylor and George Parker Dykes (see items 632, 694, 769–71, 787).1 Houtz and Clough arrived in Liverpool on January 5, 1853, two weeks after Orson Spencer. Ten days later Spencer left Liverpool, and on the 25th he and Houtz reached Berlin. Clough remained in England for want of a passport. From the American delegation in Berlin, they learned their mission had been anticipated by the authorities, the Prussian king Frederick William IV was very protective of the state church, and “many highly respectable sectarian ministers [had] been unceremoniously ejected from Prussia.” Earlier, the Prussian ambassador in Washington had asked John M. Bernhisel for information about the Church, an inquiry undoubtedly prompted by a concern over the Mormon successes in Denmark, and in response the Liverpool office had sent a set of books to the king. On Saturday, January 29, Spencer and Houtz wrote to the state’s minister of public worship for an audience with the king and for permission to preach and publish in the kingdom, and the following Monday they received a summons to appear at the police office Tuesday morning. At this hearing they were questioned about their religion and purpose in Berlin and then ordered to leave the kingdom the next day. Six days after the hearing, on February 7, they arrived back in Liverpool, and on April 2 they sailed for Boston.2 Moses Clough labored as a missionary in England for three years and then left for home in May 1856.3

The Prussian Mission follows the pattern of the earlier mission reports (items 144, 583, 600), except that it reports a failure instead of a success. After an introduction (p. [2]), its text consists of a single letter from Orson Spencer to Brigham Young, dated at the end, Liverpool, February 8, 1853, which details his and Houtz’s experiences in Prussia with considerable editorializing. Richard James’s colophon is at the foot of the last page: Printed for the publisher, by R. James, 39, South Castle Street, Liverpool. The Millennial Star of March 12, 1853, advertised the pamphlet at 2d. each. Between March 3, 1853, and June 30, 1854, the office filled orders for slightly more than 4,100 copies and on the latter date had 841 copies in its inventory, suggesting that the Prussian Mission was published in an edition of 5,000, consistent with Richard James’s charge of £10 for printing it.4

Flake-Draper 8336. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, ICN, MH, NN, NjP, TxDaDF, UHi, ULA, UPB, USlC, UU.

794

[Placard advertising lectures by elders from the Great Salt Lake Valley on polygamy in the Watt Institution Hall, Dundee, March 20, 1853. Dundee? 1853?]

The quarterly conference in Dundee convened on Saturday and Sunday, March 19 and 20, 1853, with an evening session on Saturday and three sessions on Sunday in the Watt Institution Hall (see items 633a, 698, 855). At the Sunday evening meeting, Andrew Ferguson records:

Our Hall was filed to orflowing so much so that meny could not find seets, about 500 Preasent. The reason of so meny Strangers preasent was, that we had Playcarded for some days Previous, the city intimating, that we would have on that evening a number of Elders from the vallie, who would diliver a Lecture on Polygamy, as is belived in & Practised by us at the same Location viz: Salt Lake vallie. this drue, people of all secs, & denomations, high & low, some out of curiosity, & others to mock, while some for truth. . . . Elder Atwood was called upon to adress the metting, but after a short time he was frequently interupted by some calling for Proof, others making ruffing, crying &c while others desired to here the Lecture out, but a little before 8 o clock we was forsed to close the metting to the dissatisfaction of many, it being hard work for us to clear the Hal, for meny rushed to the stand, wanting to Disscuss, &c however we succedded in clearing the Hall without sustaining any injury.

Like the other handbills Ferguson mentions in his diary, no copy of this Dundee placard is located (see items 695, 788, 820).1

Born in Connecticut on May 24, 1817, Millen Atwood joined the Church in 1841 and came to Utah with the pioneer company in 1847. On January 5, 1853, he arrived in Liverpool and was assigned to Scotland. Subsequently, he led the Carlisle and Bradford conferences and was pastor over the South, Wiltshire, and Lands-End conferences and in 1856 returned to Utah with the Willie handcart company. He served on the Salt Lake Stake high council and as bishop of the Salt Lake City Thirteenth Ward from 1881 until his death on December 17, 1890.2

795

DYKES, George Parker? Bibliska hänvisningar, angäende lärdomar om det eviga evangelium och prästadömme, det nya och eviga löftet och Guds folks församling i de sista dagar, med mycket mera. [At foot of verso:] Utgifna af N. Capsson. (Kostar 4 skill.) Malmö[:] Tryckta hos F. A. Hartman, 1853.

Broadsheet 21 x 16 cm. Text in two columns.

Item 795 is a Swedish edition of George Parker Dykes’s 1851 Danish broadsheet Bibelske Henviisninger (item 572). It follows the format of his piece, and its text is a faithful translation including the calendar at the end, except for ten differences in the citations under the third, twelfth, thirteenth, seventeenth, and twenty-third headings. The only surviving copy has been trimmed at the top and bottom, taking the top two-thirds of the line Bibliska Hänvisningar, so the transcription of that part of the title is uncertain.

Nils Capson (or Capsson), born in Malmöhus County, Sweden, on May 30, 1816, joined the Church in Copenhagen in December 1851 and was called as a missionary to southern Sweden the following February. He made a number of converts and presided for a time over the branch in Malmö before being arrested and expelled from his homeland. On April 17, 1853, he returned to Copenhagen, so one might guess that he published Bibliska Hänvisningar during the first three months of 1853. That December he left Copenhagen and the following month sailed for America on the Benjamin Adams. Settling first in Salt Lake City, he went to southern Utah in 1861 and died in Virgin City of pneumonia on September 10, 1863.1

Flake-Draper 501a. USlC.

796

YOUNG, Brigham. A discourse delivered in the tabernacle, in Great Salt Lake City, Sunday, February 27, 1853, by President Brigham Young. [Caption title] [At end:] Reported by G. D. Watt. Price—25 cents, Cash. News Print. Great Salt Lake City, U.T., April 6, 1853.

8 pp. 20.5 cm.

In general terms, Brigham Young’s discourse of February 27, 1853, treats the privileges of the Latter-day Saints in the context of their religious commitments. At the beginning, his focus is recreation, and he asks, “When can I do this without abusing this privilege, and thereby bring condemnation upon myself?” His answer: “when I have performed every act, every duty that is incumbent upon me . . . until nothing remains to be done, but to lie down and rest; to seek recreation, then it becomes my lawful privilege, and not before” (pp. 1–2). And further: “When you go to amuse, or recreate yourselves in any manner whatever, if you cannot enjoy the Spirit of the Lord then and there, . . . leave that place, and return not to such amusements of recreation, until you have obtained the mastery over yourself” (p. 2). Moving to a broader context, he asserts: “Any person, man or woman, who does not receive these principles for the love which they bear towards them; because of their beauty, excellence, and glory . . . is not a Saint!” (p. 6). Moreover, “Men should act upon the principles of righteousness; because it is right; and is a principle which they love to cherish and see practiced by all men” (p. 7). With regard to marriage, he declares: “it is not the privilege of any Elder to have even one wife, before he has honored his Priesthood, before he has magnified his calling” (p. 7). In conclusion, he urges the Saints to “Pray the Lord to inspire your hearts; ask for wisdom and knowledge,” but “as for his coming down here to pour his Spirit upon you, while you are aiming after the vain and frivolous things of the world, . . . rest assured he will not come near you.”

Young delivered this discourse four days after the Deseret Dramatic Association finished its first season and thirteen days after he broke ground for the Salt Lake Temple (see items 777–79). The date at the end suggests the pamphlet was issued in conjunction with the April general conference, which included the public ceremony at which the Temple cornerstones were laid (see the next two items). One might conjecture, therefore, that the discourse was prompted by a concern that worldly pursuits might become too much of a diversion for the Saints, particularly when they had just taken upon themselves the massive task of building the new temple.

The lines Reported by G. D. Watt. | Price—25 cents, Cash at the end of the pamphlet suggest another speculation. At this time George D. Watt relied on his reporting skills to support himself and his family but found it difficult to make ends meet, a circumstance that would ultimately impel him to launch the Journal of Discourses (item 838). The preceding September he had hoped to publish some of the speeches at the August 1852 special conference as a profit-making venture but was preempted by the Deseret News extra of September 14, 1852 (item 734), a set of events that put him at odds with Willard Richards.1 Perhaps Brigham Young authorized Watt to publish and sell the February 27 discourse in order to provide him some additional income. The following year the discourse was included in the first volume of the Journal of Discourses, pp. 112–20.

Flake-Draper 10059. UPB, USlC.

797

Order of the day for the sixth of April, 1853, in laying the corner stones of the temple in Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. [At end:] By order of the Committee of Arrangements, D. H. Wells, Amasa Lyman, Lorenzo Snow. [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 40 x 14 cm.

798

Songs for the laying of the corner stones of the temple in G. S. L. City, April 6, 1853. [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 36 x 27.5 cm. Text in three columns, ornamental border.

On July 28, 1847, four days after he entered the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young identified the spot for the Salt Lake Temple, and at the April 1851 general conference the Saints voted to begin its construction. Brigham Young broke ground for it at a public ceremony on February 14, 1853, and conducted the ceremony on April 6, held in conjunction with the general conference, at which the four cornerstones were laid.1 Item 797 outlines the program for the cornerstone ceremony.

The proceedings began at 7 a.m. with a guard of four men placed at each side of the temple block. At 10 a.m. Brigham Young opened the conference in the Old Tabernacle, and after John Taylor’s prayer and a song by the choir, Thomas Bullock read Order of the Day. Then the Martial Band, Nauvoo Brass Band, and Ballo’s band, “Singers,” Church authorities, architects and workmen, and “Relief Guard” led the congregation to the southeast cornerstone. The First Presidency and Patriarch John Smith laid this cornerstone, followed by Brigham Young’s oration and Heber C. Kimball’s prayer. Next the procession moved to the southwest cornerstone, which was laid by Bishop Edward Hunter and presidencies of the lesser priesthood, with an oration by Hunter and prayer by Alfred Cordon. John Young, president of the high priests quorum, his counselors, and the presidency and high council of the Salt Lake Stake then laid the northwest cornerstone, with an oration from Young and a prayer by George B. Wallace. The Twelve, the presidents of the Seventies, and the elders quorum presidency laid the northeast cornerstone, followed by Parley P. Pratt’s oration and Orson Hyde’s prayer, after which the procession returned to the tabernacle, and the conference was adjourned until the 2:00 p.m.2 A postscript at the bottom of Order of the Day reads: “The Bands will remain on the ground playing, and the Military at their posts, for one half hour after benediction.” Wilford Woodruff noted in his journal that the cornerstone ceremony drew “the largest Assembly of saints ever gathered to gether in Deserett.”3

Item 798 was undoubtedly struck off for the ceremony. It includes the texts of five songs, the second of which, titled The Temple, identifies Eliza R. Snow as the author and is dated April 4, 1853. Its first two lines: “Our Era this day numbers three years and twenty, / And lo! a great people inhabit the West.” The first song, headed Song for the Last Corner, begins “Deep in this holy ground / These corner stones are laid.” The third, titled The Corner Stone, has the first two lines: “Last valentine was greatly blest— / A valley sacrifice.” Both of the last two songs are headed Song. Their first two lines are “Come saints of latter days, / Come sing our father’s praise” and “Proclaim to all people we’ve laid the foundation / Of a Temple to which the redeemed shall go.” The choir sang all of these, the first just preceding Brigham Young’s oration, Eliza’s following Heber C. Kimball’s prayer, and the third, fourth, and fifth songs after the prayers by Cordon, Wallace, and Hyde, respectively. All five are reprinted in the Deseret News of April 16, 1853, as part of a detailed report of the ceremony, in each instance from the broadside setting. Eliza’s song is included in the first volume of her Poems, pp. 225–26.

Item 797: Flake-Draper 6007a. USlC. Item 798: Flake-Draper 8277. USlC.

799

PRATT, Orson. Mormons bogs guddommelige troværdighed. Af Orson Pratt, een af de tolv apostle af Jesu Christi Kirke af Sidste-Dags [sic] Hellige. Udgivet paa Dansk af W. Snow. Kjøbenhavn. Trykt hos F. E. Bording. 1853.

6 parts. 22 cm.

Mormons Bogs Guddommelige Troværdighed is a Danish edition of Orson Pratt’s six-part series Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon (items 521–22). The first two parts were translated into Danish by Frans Julius Hahn, the last four by Alexander Weihe.1 Willard Snow reported to S. W. Richards on April 13, 1853, that he had just issued the first part in an edition of 3,000, and on July 4—seven weeks before his death—he wrote that he had “got out” another part. John Van Cott, Snow’s successor, completed the series before the end of the year (see items 616–17). F. E. Bording printed each part in 3,000 copies.2 The 1853 general title page appears to have been produced by Snow, perhaps in conjunction with the first part.

Each part bears the caption title Mormons Bogs guddommelige Troværdighed. Af Orson Pratt, een af de tolv Apostle i Jesu Christi Kirke af Sidste-Dages-Hellige. In the first two this is followed by Oversat fra Engelsk af F. J. Hahn, and in the last four by Oversat fra Engelsk af Alexander Weihe. The number of each part is printed at the right of the translator’s name. Each part is dated at the end the same as the English edition, and the first, second, and last parts give the price, 12 skilling, at the end. The last line of the fourth part reads Nr. 3 og 4 udgivet paa Dansk af J. Van Cott, and the fifth and sixth parts have Udgivet paa Dansk af J. Van Cott at the end. A variant of part 4 exists, with Van Cott’s name given as van Cott.3 The first two parts are continuously paginated, [1]–22 and [23]–46; the remaining four parts are separately paginated, with 23, 22, 23, and 21 pages, respectively. The Harvard copy, bound in contemporary brown ribbed cloth, was a gift from Brigham Young through Samuel W. Richards in 1854.

Parts 1 and 2 were subsequently reprinted, and the series was issued with an 1857 title page, using Van Cott’s editions of parts 3–6 (item 1152). The second edition of part 1 is distinguishable from the first edition by the absence of the lines Oversat fra Engelsk af F. J. Hahn and the centering of Nr. 1 in the caption. Hahn’s name is maintained in the caption of the second edition of part 2, but the first numbered paragraph of text on the first page of part 2 has five lines in the first edition and six lines in the second.

Flake-Draper 6454. CSmH, CtY, CU-B, MH, NjP, NN, ULA, UPB, USlC.

800

SNOW, Erastus. En sandheds-røst. Til de oprigtige af hjertet. [l line] Om evangeliets første principer eller herrens vei til at frelse menneskene [Caption title] [Signed at end of text:] E. Snow. [At foot of p. 16:] 4de Oplag.—Udgivet af W. Snow. Trykt hos F. E. Bording. [Copenhagen, 1853?]

16 pp. 21 cm.

In his letter to Samuel W. Richards of April 13, 1853 (see the preceding item), Willard Snow noted that he had “just issued a fourth edition of five thousand copies of the Voice of Truth.”1 Labeled 4de Oplag.—Udgivet af W. Snow, this edition is largely a line-for-line reprint of the earlier “second or third edition” (see items 516, 768).2 During the next four years, John Van Cott and Hector C. Haight reissued En Sandheds-Røst at least nine more times in Danish and twice in Swedish (see items 902–6, 970, 1134–35, 1166).

Flake-Draper 8171. CSmH, MH, USlC.

801

YOUNG, Brigham. Territory of Utah. Proclamation by the governor. Whereas it is made known to me by reliable information, from affidavits, and various other sources, that there is in this Territory, a horde of Mexicans, or outlandish men, who are infesting the settlements, stirring up the Indians to make aggressions upon the inhabitants; and who are also furnishing the Indians with guns, ammunition, &c., contrary to the laws of this Territory, and the laws of the United States: [32 lines] Done at the City of Provo, in the County of Utah, this, 23rd, day of April, A. D. 1853. Brigham Young, By the Governor, Benj. G. Ferris, Secretary. [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 28 x 20.5 cm.

Long before the Mormons arrived in the Great Basin, the dominant equestrian Utes routinely stole women and children from the weaker tribes and sold them to persons from New Mexico for slaves. These slaves were a major source of income for the Utes and for their powerful chief Wakara—called Walker by the whites—a source that grew more important as the white settlers encroached on traditional Ute lands.1 The Indian slave trade was repugnant to the Mormons, and in January and March 1852 the Utah territorial legislature passed three acts intended to impede it.2

On April 20, 1853, Brigham Young began a tour of the settlements south of Salt Lake City. At Provo he was accosted by a well-armed stranger “dressed in buck-skin, pretty well smoked,” with whom he refused to converse. Later he learned to his “satisfaction” that this man was a New Yorker living in New Mexico, who had come into the territory to buy Indian children to sell for slaves and had bragged that he had “four hundred Mexicans” awaiting his orders. This encounter prompted Young to issue his proclamation of April 23, 1853.3 It ordered Capt. William M. Wall to lead a force of thirty men to reconnoiter the “entire extent” of the southern settlements and directed him to arrest “every strolling Mexican party, and those associating with them, and other suspicious persons or parties.” Further, it instructed the territorial militia to be in readiness to march to any point at a moment’s notice, required “all Mexicans now in the Territory” to remain quiet and not attempt to leave until further advised, and it requested all the people “to remain quiet and orderly,” while being on their constant guard. The proclamation is reprinted in the Deseret News of April 30 from the broadside setting.

Wall left Provo on April 24 and returned there seventeen days later—an expedition that might be viewed as the opening salvo in what has become known as the Walker War (see item 822). Reaching Nephi on April 25, he proceeded south with a force of thirty men. At Parowan he learned from Dimick B. Huntington that Walker and his band had gone to the east branch of the Sevier River, and leaving the main detachment at Parowan, he took ten men and the freshest horses and continued southward. In Washington County he had “several talks” with the chiefs of the Piedes and Pahvants, who said that they were glad to have the Mormons among them, that they were afraid of Walker who stole their children and sold them to the Mexicans. “From the best information that I could get,” he reported, “Walker is willing to live in peace, if he can have his own way in stealing other Indian children to sell them to the Mexicans for guns and ammunition, or if we will buy those children of him and give him guns and ammunition, to enable him to continue his robberies.”4

Benjamin G. Ferris, whose name appears on the proclamation as Utah territorial secretary, was nominated by Millard Fillmore on May 7, 1852, to replace B. D. Harris and confirmed by the Senate on June 11. He and his wife Cornelia arrived in Salt Lake City on October 26, stayed for six months plus a few days, and then left to return to their home in New York. The following year B. G. Ferris published his book Utah and the Mormons, and in 1856 Mrs. Ferris published The Mormons at Home.5

Flake-Draper 9353d. CtY, NjP, UPB, USlC, UU.

802

LITTLE, Jesse Carter. New arrangements. United States Hotel, Great Salt Lake City. The subscriber having taken the premises at the Bath House, (formerly occupied by James Hendricks,) takes pleasure in announcing to his friends and the public generally, that he has refitted up the premises for a HOTEL, and will be pleased to accommodate the public with the comforts of his house. Our table will be furnished with the best and choicest productions of the valley. We shall receive daily from the gardens, all kinds of vegetables, fresh and choice, which will be very desirable to persons after the fatigue of a long journey over the plains. Our Bar, (the only one in the city,) will be furnished with the best liquors and syrups to be had in the mountains. [3 lines] In connection with the House are 12 WARM BATHS, which indeed is a luxury to persons in good health, and to the sick is the wonder and blessing of the age, and restorer of health. Persons afflicted with Rheumatism, Gout, Scurvy, Canker, Fever and Ague, Lice, Itch, Scrofula, Sore Eyes, Ring worms, Salt Rheum, Erysipelas, and finally all humors to which flesh is heir to, will find a speedy relief and cure from the use of these baths. At considerable expense we have conveyed pure cold water from the mountains into the Bath House, and can give persons a cold bath, or shower at their pleasure. [11 lines] J. C. Little, Proprietor. G. S. L. City, U.T. May 2, 1853. [At bottom, right:] Deseret News Print [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 40.5 x 27.5 cm.

Seven months after he arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Jesse C. Little opened the “refitted” Warm Spring Bath House as an inn and announced the opening with item 802 (see items 530, 531). A similar ad—but avoiding the mention of lice—appeared in the Deseret News of May 28, 1853, which included the prices for bathing (e.g., “One person single bath 15 cents. Towels furnished at 10 cents each.”). Oliver B. Huntington and his wife began working for Little on June 20, 1853, and Huntington continued to superintend the hotel until August 1854. Little ran an ad for the hotel in the Deseret Almanac for 1855, but by that June the bathhouse was being converted to a tannery. The printers of Deseret held their third annual festival at the United States Hotel on March 7, 1854 (see items 666, 776).1

USlC.

803

Half-yearly report of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held at Sunderland, on Saturday and Sunday, May 14th and 15th, 1853. Elder Thomas Squires, President. Elder Ebenezer Gillies, Secretary. Visitors present. Elder Jacob Secrist, late of the German Mission; [Elder] J. T. Hardy, president of the Hull Conference; and [Elder] Andrew Galloway, president of the Isle of Man Conference. London: Printed by W. Bowden, Bedford Street, Bedford Row. [1853]

14[2] pp. 21.5 cm.

A single report is located from the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Conference. It begins with Ebenezer Gillies’s history of the conference—organized as the Brampton Conference in 1841, renamed the Carlisle Conference about two years later, and then designated the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Conference in 1848.1 It contains detailed minutes of one meeting on Saturday, May 14, 1853, and three on Sunday, May 15. A table on p. [15] gives the date organized, meeting place, president’s name, and president’s address for each branch in the conference, and another table on the last page has the usual statistical report. The book agent’s account on p. 7 shows £75 10s. 2d. owing the Millennial Star office, with a balance of 15s. 4d. in the agent’s favor.

Born in Hertfordshire, November 4, 1811, Thomas Squires preached for the Wesleyan Methodists before converting to Mormonism in 1841. In January 1852 he became the first president of the newly organized Reading Conference and one year later assumed the presidency of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Conference, serving until January 1854, when he was released to immigrate to Utah. Settling first in Kaysville, he moved to Ogden a few years later, briefly aligned himself with the RLDS Church, and then moved to Colorado, where died on May 18, 1868.2

Gillies was born in Scotland in November 1819, converted to Mormonism in 1842, and served for several years as the secretary of the Carlisle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne conferences. In 1854 he immigrated to Utah, settling first in Provo and then in Beaver, where he died in 1883.3

Flake-Draper 1943. UPB, USlC.

804

LYON, John. Dairy [sic] of a voyage from Liverpool to New Orleans, on board the ship International, commanded by Capt. David Brown, with a crew, 26 in number, and a company of 419 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later [sic] Day Saints, under the presidency of Elders Arthur, Lyon and Waddington. [Caption title] [Keokuk? 1853?]

8 pp. 22.5 cm.

Nine years after he joined the Latter-day Saints, John Lyon sailed from Liverpool on the International as a counselor to Christopher A. Arthur in the presidency of the company (see items 348, 706, 782). Dairy [sic] of a Voyage is a record of this trip. It consists of daily entries from Lyon’s manuscript diary, some of it word-for-word, much of it edited with omissions and additions. Most of the added material is from the official journal of the trip kept by George Sims, the company clerk.1 The printed diary opens with an entry for February 21, 1853, a week before the International set sail. The last dated entry is for April 24, the day after the ship docked in New Orleans, and this entry is followed by the report:

Births, 6. Deaths, 6. Marriages, 5. Baptisms, 48, inclusive of rebaptisms. We stopped in New Orleans for four days, then started in two companies to St. Louis … where were arrived eight days thereafter, and the same evening embarked on the Jeannie Deans, and in 24 hours landed in Keokuk all in good health and spirit, and joined the Camp of Israel.

At the end is Henry Maiben’s An Original Song, Written and Sung . . . on board the Ship “International,” on the occasion of a Festival, held April 6th, 1853 (see the next item).

Lyon published Dairy of a Voyage in Keokuk prior to his departure on June 2 to join Jacob Gates’s wagon train.2 George Sims suggests in his journal that the pamphlet was a profit-making joint venture between himself, Lyon, Maiben, and Christopher A. Arthur, who assigned the distribution of the profits—half to Sims, three-eighths to Lyon, and one-eighth to Maiben. One might guess that Arthur underwrote the printing costs and passed his share to Sims because of his service as clerk of the company. Sims indicates that Lyon read the proof on May 21, and two days later they received 450 copies from the printer, even though they had paid him $8 for one thousand copies. Immediately upon receiving the pamphlets they began selling them to the members of the company.3

Sims also served as the clerk for Jacob Gates’s company, which reached the Salt Lake Valley at the end of September 1853. Born in London on March 4, 1822, he converted to Mormonism in 1848 and, upon arriving in the Valley, joined Brigham Young’s staff of secretaries. He returned to England as a missionary in 1862, and in October 1865, during the trip home, he drowned in the North Platte at Red Buttes.4

Flake-Draper 5066c. UPB, USlC.

805

MAIBEN, Henry. A song for the “Mormons,” written and sung by Henry Maiben, (an infant in the Church, only two days old,) at a tea meeting, held in London, at Finsbury Branch, Dec. 8, 1851. [First 4 lines] [N.p., 1853?]

4 pp. 18.5 cm.

This four-page piece contains just the titles, texts, and dates of five songs. The title given above is that of the first song. Sung to the tune of “The Rose of Allandale,” it is in four 8-line verses, with the following first two lines: “The earth was fair, when God walked there, / With Adam and with Eve.” The second song, titled Song for the Latter-day Saints and dated at the end Brighton, Dec. 29th, 1851, is in sixteen lines, beginning: “Now we are met, let’s joyful be, and sing with one accord, / In praise of Him, who is our God, and everlasting Lord.” The third, Shall We Build a Temple?, dated at the end Brighton, Feb. 15th, 1852, is in three 6-line verses, with the first two lines: “Brigham Young calls for assistance, / From the Saints in ev’ry land.” The fourth, Farewell Song, On Leaving for Zion, dated Brighton, Jan. 24th, 1853, and sung to the tune of “Jeannette and Jeannot,” is in thirty-two lines, beginning “I’m about to bid farewell / To the land which gave me birth.” The fifth, An Original Song, has the subtitle Written and Sung by Henry Maiben, (of Brighton,) on board the Ship “International,” on the occasion of a Festival, held April 6th, 1853, in commemoration of the Organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” it is in ten 8-line verses, with the following four-line chorus: “Then sing aloud ye Saints of God, / In one united Chorus, / Old Babylon we’ll leave behind, / For Zion is before us!”

Henry Maiben was a member of the company that sailed from Liverpool on the International in February 1853 (see items 748, 804). An Original Song mentions the leaders of the company—Christopher A. Arthur, John Lyon, and Richard Waddington, and the clerk, George Sims—as well as the ship’s officers and a few of the crew, some of whom had converted to Mormonism. It is reprinted with many changes in punctuation at the end of John Lyon’s Dairy [sic] of a Voyage (preceding item), which describes the celebration on board the International on April 6 when four couples were married, the company enjoyed “a repast of every delicacy the ship could afford” and went through “a variety of country dances,” and “Brother Henry Maiben (from Brighton) composed and sung a song commemorative of our leaving Liverpool and other circumstances in connexion with our voyage, which brought him enthusiastic bursts of applause from all the company.”1 When or where item 805 was printed is not known.

Flake-Draper 5246. MH.

806

MCDONALD, Alexander Findlay. What do the Latter-day Saints believe? Affectionately addressed to the inhabitants of Liverpool and vicinity, by Elder A. F. McDonald, President of the Liverpool Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [Caption title] [Dated on p. 7:] 107, Finch Street, Belle Vue, Liverpool. 27th May, 1853. [At foot of p. 8:] Printed by J. Sadler, 16, Moorfields, Liverpool. [1853?]

8 pp. 17 cm.

A. F. McDonald had been president of the Liverpool Conference for a year when he issued item 806, his second Liverpool tract (see item 719). He undoubtedly took the title from Glaud Roger’s earlier Liverpool broadside (item 461), and, like the broadside, his tract is mainly a treatment of Mormonism’s first principles. In the first half he discusses faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, with many references and quotations from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. His argument that immersion is the proper mode of baptism uses William Gahan’s A Compendious Abstract of the History of the Church of Christ and David Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. Next he treats the gifts of the Spirit, ordination by the laying on of hands, the Lord’s Supper, the Resurrection, and the Final Judgment, touching upon baptism for the dead and the restoration of the gospel authority through Joseph Smith, and here he refers his readers to Orson Pratt’s Kingdom of God and Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, Parley Pratt’s Voice of Warning, Spencer’s Letters, and the “History of Joseph Smith.” The last page, under the heading Invitation, contains Parley’s hymn “Repent Ye Gentiles All,” which had been in the LDS hymnal since 1840.

The Brigham Young University copy is in a reddish brown generic wrapper with the following printed on the front within an ornamental border: Come, and hear! | The | Latter-day Saints | meet for public worship | In the [three dotted underlines] | Sundays—at [blank space] A.M., [blank space] P.M., [blank space] P.M. | Please to keep this tract clean. | [dotted underline] District. | Printed by J. Sadler, 1, Moorfields, Liverpool. The back wrapper has A catalogue of works for sale, at 15, Wilton Street, Liverpool within a different ornamental border, and the interior is plain. The catalogue lists “Millennial Star, weekly, Vol. xv,” and since the pieces Salder printed subsequent to 1853 give his address as 1, Moorfields, Liverpool—the same as on the wrapper—one infers that the wrapper was struck off in 1853, but after the pamphlet.1

Flake-Draper 5134. UPB, USlC.

807

HAVEN, Jesse. Some of the principal doctrines or belief of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints by Jesse Haven, one of the presidents of the Seventies of said church, and president of the mission, at the Cape of Good Hope. Cape Town. Printed by W. Foelscher, No. 2, Church-Street. [1853]

8 pp. 21.5 cm.

808

HAVEN, Jesse. Celestical [sic] marriage, and the plurality of wives! By Jesse Haven, one of the presidents of the Seventies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and president of the mission at the Cape of Good Hope. [Caption title] [At foot of p. 8:] Cape Town. Printed by W. Foelscher, No. 2, Church-Street. [1853]

8 pp. 20.5 cm.

The first Mormon missionary in Africa seems to have been Joseph Richards, who, en route to India, paused at the Cape of Good Hope for a month during the spring of 1852 and “distributed some pamphlets, and talked with a number of the people, who were glad to hear the truth” (see items 739–40, 791).1 A formal missionary effort in Africa was inaugurated at the August 1852 special conference with the calls of Jesse Haven, William Walker, and Leonard I. Smith to the Cape of Good Hope. In mid-September the three Africa missionaries started east with Orson Pratt’s company (see items 769–71), sailed from London on February 11, 1853, and came ashore at Cape Town on April 19.2

During their first two weeks at the Cape, several of their meetings were violently disrupted, and polygamy was an aggravating issue. Haven felt the people did not have “any understanding of the subject,” so on May 5 he composed a letter on the “plurality of wives” for a local newspaper and six days later a second letter outlining the “principle Doctrines of the Latter-day Saints.” When the newspapers declined to print them and Leonard I. Smith showed some success in circulating tracts, Haven decided to enlarge his letters and publish them as pamphlets. On May 18 he worked on his piece on principal doctrines and finished it the next day. He corrected the proof on June 7 and picked up the first one hundred copies of Some of the Principal Doctrines on June 8. His work on the celestial marriage pamphlet began on May 20 and continued on the 27th, and on June 13 and 15 he corrected the proof. By June 18 he had started to distribute the tract. Both pieces were printed in an edition of 1,000.3 In anticipation of the bill from W. Foelscher, he attempted to borrow money on May 26, but finding this impossible, he “went to beg[g]ing” and over the next ten days, under various circumstances, solicited more than sixty shillings.4

Haven was unhappy with Some of the Principal Doctrines. He complained in his journal that he found four mistakes he had noted in the proof that the printer had failed to correct and two others he had missed. His references to his second tract in his journal invariably use Celestial, so Celestical in the tract’s title was undoubtedly a printer’s error. In the summary of his mission, he remarks that he had found only one printer in Cape Town who expressed a willingness to print for him, and “he was a great blunderer”—without doubt a reference to W. Foelscher (see item 1028).5

Some of the Principal Doctrines is based on the Articles of Faith, its main text consisting of thirty-three unnumbered statements, each beginning with “We believe” or “We claim.” These include the original thirteen Articles of Faith, with the thirteenth in modified form. The original articles are enclosed in quotation marks to distinguish them from the others. Haven’s additions include statements on baptism for the dead, the three degrees of glory, the notion that more women will be saved than men, the lawfulness of plural marriage in Zion, and the eternal nature of marriage. The final two pages contain Eliza R. Snow’s “Stanza on the Presentation of the Book of Mormon to Queen Victoria,” printed earlier in the Times and Seasons of January 1, Nauvoo Neighbor of January 17, Millennial Star of April 1844, and Lorenzo Snow’s The Italian Mission (item 583), and included in the first volume of Eliza Snow’s Poems, pp. 89–91, with some changes.

Celestical Marriage repeats the statement in Some of the Principal Doctrines that “there has been a law revealed, by which a man in Zion, and in Zion only . . . can have more than one wife” and explains that “this law is not given to gratify the lusts of men, but given for the exaltation of both men and women,—giving to every women the privilege of . . . obeying the first and great command, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.’” It uses Isaiah 4 to argue that upcoming world calamities will drive more women than men to Zion, necessitating a plurality of wives. It declares that the Latter-day Saints believe in “marrying for time and all eternity” and includes a two-page excerpt from Orson Pratt’s August 29, 1852, discourse which argues that marriage is eternal (see item 734). And it concludes with the hope that “man will remember that the time is near at hand, when he can no longer trample on the virtue of the innocent and defenceless female with impunity.” “This tract done good,” Haven notes in the summary of his mission. “It turned the minds of the people, and much of the persecution on that score sceased; many saying, ‘It is far different than what we expected.’”6

In May 1853, Haven sent Walker to work in the towns on the outskirts of Cape Town and Smith to Simon’s Bay, about twenty miles to the south. On the 23rd, he and his two companions walked to the top of a mountain near Cape Town and organized the Church in the Cape of Good Hope, with Haven as president and Walker and Smith as his counselors. Three days later Smith baptized their first two converts, Joseph Patterson and John Dodd (see items 826, 830).7 Walker and a new convert, John Wesley, started for Grahamstown, about four hundred miles east of Cape Town, on November 21, 1853, and Smith went to Port Elizabeth on March 25, 1854. They would serve out their missions there, while Haven continued to labor at the Cape (see items 1024–25, 1030).8

Jesse Haven had earlier enjoyed some notoriety when his interview with the widow of Solomon Spaulding was reported in his father’s widely reprinted letter (see items 77, 80, 169, 514–15). Born in Massachusetts on March 28, 1814, he converted to Mormonism in 1838, married Martha Hall in 1842, and moved to Nauvoo the following year, where he taught school and was chosen as one of the presidents of the Fourteenth Quorum of Seventy. In 1850 he came to the Salt Lake Valley and married his second wife that October. Returning from his mission in 1856, he settled in Morgan County, Utah, where he served as the probate judge. He died at his grandson’s home in Preston, Idaho, on December 13, 1905, and was interred in Salt Lake City.9

Item 807: Flake-Draper 3892. USlC. Item 808: Flake-Draper 3891. MH, UPB, USlC.

809

DAVIS, John Silvanus. Y casgl; neu grynhoad o draethodau, caniadau, a llythyron, perthynol i Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf. [1 line] Gan John Davis, Merthyr. Yr ail gyhoeddiad. Merthyr-Tydfil: Argraffwyd ac ar werth gan J. Davis, Georgetown; ar werth hefyd gan y Saint yn gyffredinol, a llawer Lyfrwerthwyr, trwy y Deau a’r Gogledd. 1853. [The collection; or a compilation of treatises, songs, and letters, pertaining to the Latter-day Saints. By John Davis, Merthyr. Second edition. Merthyr Tydfil: Printed and for sale by J. Davis, Georgetown; and for sale also by the Saints generally, and many booksellers throughout the South and the North. 1853.]

Various parts. 17 cm.

Flake-Draper 2722d. Dennis 71. USlC, WsN.

810

Theatre! Social Hall. Deseret Dramatic Association. A. H. Raleigh, president, D. Candland, acting stage manager. Saturday evening, June 18th, 1853 Will be presented the celebrated play, in five acts, Love's Sacrifice: or, the Rival Merchants, [6 lines] To conclude with the popular farce, Rough Diamond. [5 lines] Doors open at 7 c'clock. Curtain rises at 7 1-2. Tickets sold at the Church Store, McKenzie’s Shaving Saloon, Wm. Nixon’s Store, United States Hotel, and at the door. Tickets—50 cents. Children under twelve years of age, half price. Children in arms not admitted. [Salt Lake City, 1853]

Broadside 46 x 19.5 cm.

The Deseret Dramatic Association opened its second season in the Social Hall on Wednesday, June 15, 1853, and offered plays there on Wednesday and Saturday evenings through August 17 (see items 777–79).1 Item 810, the only located playbill from this season, advertised the productions on the second night. That evening David Candland served as stage manager, replacing Robert T. Burton and Robert Campbell, undoubtedly because Burton and Campbell had parts in the plays. Those performing in Love’s Sacrifice were James Ferguson, John T. Caine, Joseph M. Simmons, Horace K. Whitney, Mrs. Mary Ann Wheelock, Miss Hawkins, Burton, D. H. Sutherland, James M. Barlow, Hiram B. Clawson, Mrs. Margaret Judd Clawson, and Miss Lidget. The cast of Rough Diamond included Campbell, Edmund Ellsworth, Barlow, Miss Hawkins, H. B. Clawson, R. Alexander, William F. Cahoon, Mrs. Clawson, and Miss Ann Mariah Broomhead.2 The only known copy of item 810 is trimmed just below the line Children in arms not admitted and may be missing some text—perhaps the line News Office Print.

USlC.

811

Members of the Deseret Dramatic Association. [Ornament] [Salt Lake City? 1853?]

Broadside 14 x 12 cm. Text in two columns.

On June 21, 1853, six days after the opening of the second season of plays, Brigham Young met with some of the members of the Deseret Dramatic Association, who voted in favor of the motion that “the association be dissolved & reorganized” (see items 777–79, 810). Asa Calkin, Hiram B. Clawson, and Robert T. Burton were designated “a committee to propose members,” and Brigham Young appointed James W. Cummings as president of the reorganized association, Calkin as secretary, and Clawson as treasurer. Other committees were assigned, and the “Printing Committee was instructed to print a list of names of the members.”1 Why the association was reorganized at this point is unclear. During the meeting there was considerable discussion about the theater tickets, which, up to that point, association members and their families appear to have received gratis. Perhaps the association had grown so large that many attended the plays without paying an admission—making it difficult to sustain the productions.

Item 811 was likely struck off soon after the June 21 meeting. It lists, at the top of the left column, the officers, Cummings, Calkin, and Clawson, with David Candland, Stage Manager, and Thomas Bullock, Prompter. Next are fourteen “Actors”—Robert Campbell, Burton, Horace K. Whitney, John Kay, Clawson, James Ferguson, James M. Barlow, Philip Margetts, Joseph M. Simmons, John T. Caine, William C. Dunbar, D. H. Sutherland, Bernard Snow, and Edmund Ellsworth—and then six “Ladies” including Sarah Ann Cooke, Margaret Judd Clawson, and Mary Ann Wheelock. The right column begins with W. C. Staines, “Property man,” Claude Clive, “Costumer,” and Thomas McKinzie, “Hair-dresser,” followed by four “Scene Shifters,” two “Waiters,” two “Door keepers,” and the “Orchestra”—D. Ballo, Manager, J. M. Jones, Leader, and seven players including James Smithies and Jacob F. Hutchinson. At the bottom of the right column are “Committees”—Candland comprising the “Casting Commitee” [sic], Candland and Clawson comprising the “Furnishing Committee ” and the “Committe [sic] on Costume & Scenery,” and Simmons, the “Printing Committee.” In all, the piece lists thirty-eight different men and six women—about half the membership at the time the association began performing in January. Not included are two prominent members of the original organization, William Clayton and William Pitt, who had not yet returned from their English missions (see item 792).2 The only known copy of item 811 is pasted in the front of the second Deseret Dramatic Association minute book, in the LDS Church Archives.3

USlC.

812

[Catalogues of works. Liverpool? 1853]

The Millennial Star of July 2, 1853, mentions two catalogues—issued by Samuel W. Richards about halfway through his first term as president of the British Mission:

Notice to Book Agents.—With No. 26 Star [25 June] we sent out new Catalogues of works on sale at this office. The large one is intended for placing in the chapels or meeting-houses, and the small ones for distribution, principally among the strangers who may visit the meetings. The catalogue contains all the works now on sale, and also a new work—“Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and his Progenitors for many Generations,” which is now in press, and which will be duly advertized again when ready. It is hoped the Saints by means of this catalogue will be able to make up their stock of the Church works, and that strangers may be led to purchase such books as will give them correct views of the Faith and Doctrine of the Church.

The European Mission financial records identify the large ones as “Royal Catalogues,” the small ones as “Demy 8vo” catalogues, and indicate they were printed in 1,500 and 10,000 copies, respectively.1