1848 – 20 October, p. 2 – The Dysgedydd opens with an article on the Mormonites, the greater part of which is an account of Joseph Smith, by a Welshman in America, which has previously appeared in print.

1849 – 16 February, p. 5 – Merthyr. Mormonites – Many scores if not hundreds of this sect left this town and neighborhood the beginning of this week for the far-famed region of California. Some widows who have buried their husbands here have taken their clothes with them, expecting to meet them in that distant country! Do we really live in the 19^th century?

1849 – 16 February, p. 5 – Swansea. The Mormonites. Emigration to California. There was quite a sensation created in this town on Tuesday, by the arrival of a large number of laden wagons and carts, accompanied by two or three hundred country people, who came to Swansea for the purpose of embarking by the Troubadour steamer for Liverpool. From that port they purpose sailing for New Orleans, thence to the regions of California. From New Orleans their route is to St. Louis on the Missouri, thence to Council Bluffs, a Mormonite settlement, and thence to Salt Lake, in California. They do not go in quest of gold, but for the purpose of cultivating the land. This extraordinary expedition formed the general topic of discussion and conversation amongst all classes during the whole day. Capt. Jones is among them. He delivered a kind of valedictory discourse to his disciples at the Trades Hall in the evening.

1849 – 16 March, p. 5 – Aberavon. Mormonism or the Religion of the Latter-day Saints. On Wednesday evening last, the Rev. J. R. Morgan (Lleurwg,) delivered a very able lecture on the origin and progress of this sect. The Rev. R. Morgan, M.A., Vicar, presided, who opened the meeting in a most appropriate speech. A vote of thanks was proposed and unanimously awarded to the worthy chairman and the able lecturer. The meeting was intended to be held at the Town-hall; but in consequence of the immense number of people congregated, the meeting was adjourned to the Baptist chapel, and the spacious edifice was not only full, but totally crammed; every attention was paid to the discourse. (Another correspondent, who sent a notice of the meeting, says that the ‘Great Apostle’ has been sent for to reply to Mr. Morgan’s lecture.)

1849 – 8 June, p. 6 – An American correspondent of le Populaire asserts that the Mormons by the extraordinary ardor of their proselytism, are making rapid, unceasing, and considerable progress.

1849 – 16 November, p. 5 – A Mormonitish Feast. On Tuesday night the 23^rd ultimo, the Latter-day Saints of this town and neighborhood kept “a merry night,” at the house of Mr. Thomas Lewis, of Blaendare, near this town, who is one of the beloved brethren and a preacher of the denomination. President Henshaw and Ashman (‘the doorkeeper of heaven, who professes to have the keys of the celestial mansions suspended by his belt’), and several more of the brethren and sisters were present; they were entertained at a supper with something more than a reasonable sufficiency of beer. We understand that during the night Mr. John Barleycorn became a great favorite among all the company. Several dances and reels were performed, and the bagpipes added much to the melody of the music. The president superintended the whole of the strange affair, and not till the dawn of the day did the company break up, when most of the male and female members had some difficulty in finding their way home.

1849 – 23 November, p. 6 – The New Mormon State. The Principality. The New Mormon State. The last intelligence from America includes a notification which is as suggestive of reflection as anything which has recently transpired in those regions. The fraternity of the United States is likely to receive an additional member, and under circumstances without a parallel in modern politics. For some years past the sect of the Mormons has been steadily growing in numbers, and in that consideration which numbers, under the American constitution, cannot fail to insure. They played a conspicuous part during the presidency of Mr. Van Buren, and they have repeatedly been courted by the great political parties in their struggles for power. Neither the vagabond life nor the unheroic death of Joe Smith, the original “prophet,” served materially to discredit this prodigious imposture, and at the present moment Mormonism is a more acceptable and thriving doctrine than it has ever been before. It is curious, though not perhaps surprising, that the sect is mainly recruited by emigrants of whom by far the largest proportion are from this country. Proselytism in the States proceeds but slowly in comparison, and although the settlements of the new religionists have always been on the outskirts of civilisation, yet they have never made any converts amongst the aborigines. Nothing can be more remarkable than the superiority, in this respect, of instinct over education. Steady-going yeomen from Yorkshire and Cumberland pinned their spiritual and pecuniary trusts, with the utmost implicitness, upon a man whom the unlettered Indians denominated Tshe-wal-lis-ke, which, in an English version, signifies “a great rascal.”

In the disturbances, however, which ensued upon the incarceration and extinction of the “revelator” Joe Smith, the old settlement of Nauvoo was abandoned, and the last accounts represent this mysterious city as having most appropriately fallen into the hands of M. Cabet, who will no doubt acquire from the Indians as correct a designation as his predecessor, and incur perhaps somewhat similar risks from those American citizens who are accustomed to define “theft” rather as the abstraction than the possession of private property. The subsequent migrations of the brotherhood tended towards that extraordinary piece of inland water in the heart of Upper California termed the Great Salt Lake, which lies to the north-east of the gold country. Four years ago this district had not a single settled inhabitant, but so strong are the combined attractions of novelty, distance, solitude, false prophecies, and gold, that the central Mormon city has already a population of 6,000, and a resolution has been taken to form the whole region into a “State”—to be taken and accepted as an integral part of the American Union. In pursuance of this determination, a convention of citizens was summoned to meet at the city of the Great Salt Lake, and there invest themselves with a definite political constitution. The convention met accordingly, and the result was, the adoption of a memorial to congress, and the establishment, ad interim, of a provisional state government after the fashion following:

The first step was to define exactly the extent and boundaries of the free and independent government to be established and ordained. These limits are laid down with as much precision as the nature of the case admitted, but it will probably suffice to observe, that the new state appears to occupy the south-easternmost portion of the territory recently ceded by the government of Mexico, embracing a very large tract, and stretching westerly too the coast of the Pacific for a small seaboard between St. Diego and St. Fernando. The new government was then endowed with tripartite powers—legislative, executive, and judicial; comprising a senate of seventeen and a house of thirty-five members, with speaker, clerk, and sergeant-at-arms, and a governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, and treasurer. The first General Assembly met on the 2nd of July and adjourned on the 9th, having set forth their declaration of independence and memorialised Congress for admission into the Union under the name, style, and title of the State of Deseret—a designation which implies, in Mormon phraseology, “the honey-bee,” and is meant to typify the combined virtues of industry and love.

In reflecting on the affairs of the American continent, the extraordinary character of the country, as resulting from the distances between one state and another, cannot fail to strike the mind. The present instance furnishes a signal example of this peculiarity. Supposing that “Deseret” should be admitted into the political fraternity of the Union, in pursuance of its petition, then the capital of this state will be separated from the seat of federal government by 2,500 miles, being nearly twice the distance between Seringapatam and Delhi, and five-sixth of the distance between Liverpool and New York. It is, of course, well understood that the constitution of the new state is virtually based upon Mormonism, and that its internal economy will be characterised by the peculiarities of this creed. Whether such facts will operate as any bar to the political status now claimed, is a subject of speculation. The Americans are, undoubtedly, not particular to a shade or two of doctrine; or, as we should rather say, the general tendency of religious feeling in the Union is to subordinate doctrine altogether to practical developments of Christianity. Yet even the “Nothingarians” may be startled at the proposed recognition of so transparent an imposture as that conducted at Nauvoo. The convention, however, proceeded very adroitly in their business. Not only did they avoid any mention of the Wilmot proviso, and every allusion to the disagreeable topic of slavery, but they even suppressed any particular reference to the creed of the state, premising, merely in general terms, that “all men have a natural and inalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences,” and expressly ordaining that the General Assembly of the new state “should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or disturbing any person in his religious sentiments, provided he does not disturb others.” But, beyond doubt, the most interesting point of the question is that operation of popular credulity or superstition which still serves to maintain this prodigious doctrine in practical vitality. Joe Smith lived before the world for years together in the full reality of convicted scoundrelism. There was not an atom of mystery or doubt about his whole character, nor did he even condescend to the common austerities or hypocrisies of a religious impostor. He drank, swore, and swindled; drove about with a lumbering waggon in a broad-brimmed hat, cracking his whip, like a courier, and could scarcely stutter an intelligible address to extort the dollars of his followers. Yet year after year the emigration still sets towards these fanatical sectaries from the port of Liverpool, and, what is even more extraordinary, is found to consist, for the most part, of a bettermost sort of people—small farmers, tradesmen, and well-to-do labourers, with a respectable portion of capital amongst them. What can be the explanation of this?—Daily News.

1849 – 23 November, p. 7 – The Shrewsbury Journal notices the drowning of a Mormon “elder” whilst performing the ceremony of immersing a female convert. The latter narrowly escaped with life.

1850 – 12 July, p. 2 – The Temple of Nauvoo erected by the Mormons in 1845, but purchased in March, 1849, by the Icarian community, was totally destroyed by a hurricane on the 27^th of May. A new edifice of magnificent dimensions is to be erected in its place.