The Prophet and the Reformer
Page 60
further than he could throw a two year old Bull by the tail.”6
Source
Young to Kane, August 16, 1870, box 15, fd 4, Kane Collection, BYU.
Retained copy is in Brigham Young Letterbooks, box 8, vol. 12, 300–301.
Salt Lake City. U. T.
16 August 1870
Gen. Thomas L. Kane.
Kane, Mc Kane Co
Penna.
My Dear Friend:
My son John W. being about to make a short trip to the Eastern
States, proposes the pleasure of visiting you. I gladly embrace the
opportunity of writing you a few lines to give expression to the feelings
of solicitude and interest with which your name and person are cher-
ished, not only by myself, but by all your old friends in Utah.
3. Y
oung to “The Brethren of the School of the Prophets,” October 22, 1870.
4. Young to the Board of Directors and Stockholders of the Utah Central Railroad, August 8, 1870, BYOF.
5. Walker, Wayward Saints.
6. Salt Lake City School of the Prophets Minutes, December 3, 1870, CHL.
Young to Kane, August 16, 1870
419
As my son will hand this to you himself, I shall not encumber my
note, with a dry detail of the events that have transpired in our midst
during the last few weeks. He can tell you so much better than can be
written, whatever may be interesting to you of “the situation” in Utah,
I must however say that my health is extremely good, I rejoice continu-
ally in the Providences of Our God, and never felt happier, of a lighter
heart, or of more joyful feelings, than in this my seventieth year on the
earth. And my hope and desire for my [p. 2] friend to whom I am now
writing is that he may continue to live, and enjoy life, until he is fully
satisfied that “the truth is mighty and will prevail.”7
I remain, My Dear Friend
Your’s Faithfully,
Brigham Young
7 . This phrase was a common nineteenth-century saying. For Latter-day Saint uses, see Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, An Apostle: The Father and Founder of the British Mission (Salt Lake City: Published by the Kimball Family, 1888), 133–134; Wilford Woodruff, discourse, January 6, 1884, Journal of Discourses, 25:4.
78
Young to Kane, April 16, 1871
in this letter, delivered by John W. Young to Kane,1 Brigham Young borrowed
from the slang sometimes used to describe the urban political machines of the
era (such as New York’s Tammany Hall) to denounce the “ring” of federal
appointees and disenchanted Mormons who Young believed were working
in combination with Eastern politicians to destroy the Saints’ political rights.2
Leading the effort was Judge James McKean, a New York lawyer and devout
Methodist appointed by President Grant as the Utah territorial chief justice
in May 1870.3 Before leaving for Salt Lake City, McKean reportedly declared,
“The mission which God has called upon me to perform in Utah is as much
above the duties of other courts and judges as the heavens are above the earth,
and whenever or wherever I may find the local or Federal laws obstructing
or interfering therewith, by God’s blessing, I shall trample them under my
feet.”4 A. B. Babcock, a non-Mormon real estate trader and probate judge in
Helena, Montana, warned Young privately: “They are bound to break you up
1. The envelope read, “G
en. Thomas L. Kane / Kane, McKean Co. / Penn. / per favor of John
W. Young.”
2. For the term’s usage, see Theodore Cook, The Life and Public Services of Hon. Samuel J. Tilden (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1876), 93–129; “Mr. Eaton’s Artful Dodging,” Hartford Daily Courant, April 1, 1871, 2. For usage among the Latter-day Saints, see “Editorials,” Deseret News, September 21, 1870, 8; “The Platform of the Ring,” Deseret News, October 5, 1870, 4.
3. McKean had represented New York in Congress from 1858 to 1863. One local newspaper called him a “man of unblemished character, a good parliamentarian,” and a “fluent speaker.” After serving in the Union army, he unsuccessfully ran for election to be secretary of state for New York. See Albany Evening Journal, September 17, 1858, 2; Nathaniel Sylvester, History of Saratoga County New York (Philadelphia: Everts and Ensign, 1878), 195–196.
4. Edward Tullidge, Life of Brigham Young: Or Utah and Her Founders (New York, 1876), 420–421.
Young to Kane, April 16, 1871
421
and will do it!” McKean had been “privately sent there for the destruction of
your people.”5
After arriving in Utah in September 1870, McKean moved to weaken the
Mormon-dominated probate courts and strengthen the powers of the federal
judicial officials. Furthermore, he targeted polygamists for prosecution and
barred all believers in plural marriage from serving on grand juries, thereby
ensuring that grand juries would be filled by non-Mormons.6 With McKean
in office, some outside observers felt that the Mormons were finally receiving
their due; the Philadelphia Inquirer stated that “slowly but surely and effectually the Mormons are being deprived of the power by which they ruled the
fair Territory of Utah so long.”7 By contrast, a Deseret News editorialist cried conspiracy: “We state plainly our feelings when we say we believe that Chief
Justice McKean . . . is only carrying out that part, which he has undertaken to
perform, of a certain pre-arranged programme.”8
Soon after his arrival, McKean began to target leading Latter-day Saints for
prosecution on various charges. In October 1870, Robert Burton was charged
with murder for his military action against a Mormon schismatic group led
by self-proclaimed revelator Joseph Morris in 1862. Beginning in 1857, Morris,
a Latter-day Saint, claimed to receive revelations directing him to call Young
to repentance. When Morris’s calls went unanswered, he organized a settle-
ment of followers at Kington Fort near present-day Ogden. Morris founded
his community on principles of communalism (the “law of consecration”),
the disavowal of polygamy, and a belief in the imminent Second Coming of
Jesus Christ. When some members of the group defected, they informed local
leaders that Morris was imprisoning disaffected followers.9 With instructions
5.
A. B. Babcock to Young, October 24, 1871, BYOF. On Babcock, see Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana, vol. 2 (Helena: State Publishing Company, 1896), 106; “Real Estate,” Helena Weekly Herald, July 8, 1869, 8.
6. Thomas G. Alexander, “Federal Authority Versus Polygamic Theocracy: James B. McKean and the Mormons, 1870–1875,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1.3 (1966): 85–100.
On the barring of Mormons from grand juries, see “The Revolution in Mormondom,”
New York Herald, December 12, 1870. In response, the territorial treasurer refused to pay jurors. See “The Utah Troubles,” New York Herald, July 4, 1871, 6; “Legal Decision,” Deseret News, September 28, 1870, 7.
7. Philadelphia Inquirer, September 21, 1870, 4.
8. “The Programme,” Deseret News, October 19, 1870, 9
9. See G. M. Howard, “Men, Motives, and Misunderstandings: A New Look at the Morrisite War of 1862,” Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2 (Spring 1976): 112–132; Leland Anderson, Joseph Morris and the Saga of the Morrisites Revisited (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2010).
422
the prophet and the reformer
/>
from federal judge John Kinney and territorial governor Frank Fuller, Burton,
then serving as deputy marshal, organized a posse to arrest Morris and his
followers.10
Morris refused to surrender and Burton temporarily laid siege to the fort.
In the course of the siege, Burton ordered that two cannon warning shots
be fired, one of which slammed into the fort, resulting in some deaths and
injuries. There are conflicting reports about what happened over the follow-
ing hours. A Mormon militia member, Christian Twede, recorded that the
Morrisites charged the militia: “Morris . . . would not yield we sent in the flag
of truce and the orders were to take them dead or alive.”11 Morrisite accounts
claim that Burton captured and then executed Morris and others.12 Following
the skirmish, Burton took 90 men as prisoners and marched them back to
Salt Lake. In March 1863, 7 of the prisoners were convicted of second-degree
murder in the death of two posse members, while an additional 66 men were
convicted of resistance. Territorial Governor Stephen Harding pardoned all of
them.13 Young, Burton, and other Mormons refused to acknowledge the legiti-
macy of Burton’s prosecution in McKean’s courtroom; Burton evaded arrest
and the indictment was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1872.14
Besides complaining about McKean’s tactics against Burton and others,
Young also reported to Kane on the Saints’ progress in “internal improve-
ments,” including railroad construction and mining. Young noted his intent
to partner strategically with “outside capital” in “developing the great resources of our Territory.” As an example of collaboration with national companies, the
Saints had contracted out the use of their telegraph lines to the Atlantic and
Pacific Telegraph Company in anticipation of “realizing a handsome income”
from $3.3 million in stock received as compensation.15
The newly built railroads also facilitated further exploration of Utah’s pre-
cious metal deposits, as Young told Kane. The Latter-day Saints had historically
10. F
rank Fuller to Daniel H. Wells, June 11, 1862, Daniel H. Wells Papers, CHL.
11. Christian Twede, journal, CHL. See also Benjamin Critchlow reminiscences, circa 1865, CHL.
12. See Alexander Dow, affidavit, April 18, 1863, in Bancroft, History of Utah, 617.
13. Howard, “Morrisite War of 1862”; Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites Revisited.
14. See Robert Burton, diary, fall 1872–spring 1872, CHL; Richard Young, “The Morrisite War,” The Contributor 11 (June 1890), 470. On Latter-day Saint concern about Burton’s prosecution, see Young to John Kinney, March 27, 1871, BYOF; “Editorials,” Deseret News, May 24, 1871, 2.
15. See George Q. Cannon to Young, March 10, 1870, BYOF.
Young to Kane, April 16, 1871
423
exhibited an aversion to the mining of precious metals. This initial hesitance
to mine in Utah was at least partly strategic; by “throwing coldness upon the
mining interests,” Orson Hyde wrote to Young, the Saints would secure “the
greater part of all the good land.” The Saints, Hyde thought, should “keep
closed mouths and secure all they find.”16 By 1871, however, the mining of pre-
cious metals no longer seemed to pose a threat to Utah society, Young thought,
as the interests of the new mining capitalists were for order and peace. “The
less we have of that rowdy element, to which our official ring is so closely
allied, the better,” Young said.17
Source
Young to Kane, April 16, 1871, box 15, fd 5, Kane Collection, BYU.
Retained copy is in Brigham Young Letterbooks, box 8, vol. 12, 641–645.
Letter
Salt Lake City, U. T.
April 16. 1871.
Gen. Thomas L. Kane.
Kane, McKean Co.
Dear Friend,
As my son John W. Young is about to return to Philadelphia I embrace
the opportunity of addressing you a few lines which he will favor me by
presenting to you.18
It is some time since I had the pleasure of writing you, but, thanks to
the great trans-continental iron-way our mutual friends now pass to and
fro so frequently as to almost preclude the necessity of writing so far as
general news is concerned.
You will, I am sure, be pleased to hear from my son, of the general
prosperity of the interests of our Territory, notwithstanding the almost
16. Orson Hyde to Y
oung, March 6, 1871, BYOF.
17. Young to David M. Stuart, March 13, 1871; Young to John F. Kinney, March 27, 1871, both in BYOF.
18. John Young traveled to the east to sell Utah Central Railroad bonds and to seek a loan for the church. However, he met few willing investors since the bonds held little market value.
See John Young to Brigham Young, June 1, 1871, BYOF. For the Utah Central bonds, see Young to Kane, February 14, 1870.
424
the prophet and the reformer
superhuman efforts of our enemies to destroy it. I say, destroy it, because
there is a “ring” of adventurers here—banded together with the object
of breaking up our institutions, and, in the most reckless manner assail-
ing the rights and liberties of the people. We suspect these scoundrels
are not without backing from high places, yet they have accomplished
absolutely nothing, save to make of themselves [p. 2] laughing stocks.
Our internal improvements continue. We are adding branch lines
to the main territorial telegraph line.19 The success of the Utah Central
Railroad is encouraging and seems to justify the extension of this road
southwards, at least so far as prospects indicate that it will pay.20 There
is so much low grade silver ores being discovered, and so little of a high
order, that, unless a cheaper mode of transit than ordinary teams is intro-
duced, mining must soon cease in this Territory.21 We prefer a narrow
guage road, to the wide, or the ordinary guage, as, in our judgment, there
is too much dead weight, involving useless expense, in the wide guage,
with its cumbrous rolling stock. A three feet track has been decided
upon.22
Chief Justice McKean, our present incumbent, has rendered him-
self so obnoxious to the people by his tyrannical and high handed
measures that the great majority of our citizens are strongly disposed
towards his removal. It is not, by any means, certain that they could
accomplish this, but there are ample grounds for such action, and this
is very general among all classes, excepting, of course, the ring of which
he is the acknowledged standard bearer. Were he removed, there is
19. A
Latter-day Saint observed in February 1871 that Utah was “extending her telegraph
lines to the remotest parts of her domain.” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, vol. 33, April 11, 1871, 235.
20. The Utah Central Railroad between Ogden and Salt Lake City had been finished in January 1870. See William Hooper to Young, January 17, 1870, BYOF.
21. For a discussion of the necessity of the railroad for silver mining, see Young to John Kinney, March 27 and April 11, 1871, BYOF.
22. In exploring the possibility of a narrow gauge road, which could be constructed at a much lower cost than the larger gauge ones, Young commissioned Horace Eldredge, president of the European Mission, to find
information about the “size, weight, style and dimen-sions of the Locomotives and cars, width of the track, size and weight of the rails and every other item pertaining to the construction and equipment of this class of road.” Eldredge responded that he was “much struck with the neatness and utility both of the engines and the various classes of carriages [of the small gauge railroads],” even if “the whole of it looked like child’s play in comparison with American Railroads.” Young to Eldredge, March 7, 1871, BYOF; Eldredge to Young, May 18, 1871, BYOF.
Young to Kane, April 16, 1871
425
every reason to believe that John F. Kinney of Nebraska City would be
a [p. 3] popular nominee for the office of Chief Justice, and we think
would be willing to accept it. Twice, and by two different Presidents
the Judge has been appointed to that office in Utah, and in both cases
without his solicitation.23 There is one reason perhaps more than any
other why Judge Kinney’s administration would be desirable. During
his incumbency
Morris and others who had previously resisted a civil process.24 We dis-
countenanced the measure at the time, but as it emanated from the
highest civil authorities and in regular course of law, and was urged
upon us, Gen. Robert T. Burton was called upon, and he, with a posse
marched upon a regular encampment of determined men pledged to
shoot any person who attempted to serve said writ; the consequence
was that several lives were lost, though I have never heard any blame
imputed to the Gen. or his posse, but this miserable clique of petifog-
ging25 carpet-baggers with their packed grand jury have found a true
bill against the General for murder in the first degree. The General
will not trust his person to the tender mercies of a packed tribunal, and,
however much to his discomfort, declines to appear voluntarily until he
can [p. 4] have justice.26
Under the wise providences of the Almighty we find ourselves sur-
rounded by a very different set of circumstances now than formerly. When
the Union Pacific Railroad was projected, overtures were made to us to