Brigham Jr. and Cannon—requested that he do so. As such, Kane wrote, “The
plan for carrying out your most cherished views by a peculiar disposition of
your Realty—to which so much study and reflection brought me—had better
now be abandoned.” Shortly after his visit with Kane, Cannon wrote to Young
that Kane “hoped you would not convey any more property to the Trustee-in-
Trust until he and myself met again. In the meantime he would think upon
and examine the subject, I having told him what was thought of being done.”1
Cannon had brought to Kane a copy of Young’s will, which had been signed
by Young on November 14, shortly before Cannon had left Utah to take his seat
in Congress as the territorial delegate. In the following letter to Young, Kane
also transmitted various instructions on wills, intended both for Young and
for other Mormons; he particularly advised the Saints to use the legal forms
drawn up by himself and Eli Price, the Philadelphia estate lawyer who had
assisted Kane with Young’s will. In response to the disappointing news of the
failure of Mormon efforts to colonize northern Arizona, Kane reported that he
had likewise been unsuccessful in attempts to obtain a land grant in Mexico
for the Saints.
1. C
annon to Young, December 6, 1873, BYOF.
Kane to Young, December 4, 1873
483
Cannon had also told Kane that Young had resolved “to found an Educational
institute.” Kane exulted that the Saints would “inaugurate a System of Education
informed by your own experience of the world” rather than send “your bright
youths abroad to lay the basis of the opinions of their lives on the crumbling
foundations of Modern Unfaith and Specialism.” Kane continued to support
Young’s plans for education in the coming years. In May 1874, Kane “very enthu-
siastically” shared with Cannon his “views on the education of the rising gen-
eration” of the Saints,” hoping that they could be “educated at home, free from
evil and corrupting influences and examples, where faith in God and virtue and
purity can be preserved.”2 Kane’s vision corresponded with Young’s own views.
Kane may have helped Young and Cannon in the preparation of legal documents
to found colleges in Logan, Salt Lake City, and Provo (now known as Brigham
Young University).3
Source
Kane to Young, December 4, 1873, box 40, fd 14, BYOF.
Letter
Kane, Decem. 4. ’73
My dear friend:
I learn by a telegram this morning that I am likely to miss a visit
I expected from your worthy son John W.4 I shall try and see him on the
Cars as he passes Kane in the afternoon, and charge him according to
our custom with a budget of intelligence; but there are a few points on
which you should hear from me, however hastily, in writing.
2. C
annon, journal, May 19, 1874. For similar enthusiasm, see Daniel H. Wells to the Utah Legislature, February 13, 1874, BYOF.
3. Arrington, “Thomas L. Kane,” 440; Ernest L. Wilkinson, ed., Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 1:63–64.
4. John W. Young’s inability to visit apparently related to his wife’s illness. He wrote to Kane from Erie, Pennsylvania, the following day, December 5, that his wife felt better after taking a “tonic treatment” that the Kanes had recommended. He continued, “Last evening as little Johnny was saying his prayers at my knee, he mentioned over all those he is accustomed to pray for adding that of Genl. Kane, and, of his own accord I assure you.” John W. Young to Kane, December 5, 1873, Kane Collection, BYU.
484
the prophet and the reformer
figure 93.1 Thomas L. Kane in 1874.
Source: Reproduced by permission from L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
You must let me express pointedly my disappointment that so long
a time was suffered to elapse between the date of Brigham and5 [p. 2]
George Q. Cannon’s visit,6 and my being provided with a reliable opportu-
nity to communicate with you. My professional labors of months are ren-
dered in great part nugatory in consequence. I do not grudge them to you,
my dear friend: I truly hope that the future may prove that I exaggerated
the pressing importance of regard being paid to them: but it was a great
mistake not to have George A. Smith call here pursuant to my request.7 It
5. A
t the bottom of the page, Kane wrote “President Brigham Young.”
6. Brigham Young Jr. and Cannon had visited Kane at his home in Kane, Pennsylvania, during the first weeks of June 1873. See Young to Kane, July 31, 1873.
7. This request was likely carried verbally by Cannon and Brigham Young Jr. Along with other church leaders, George A. Smith traveled through Europe and the Middle East from late 1872 to July 1873, which may have made him less willing to travel to meet with Kane. See
Kane to Young, December 4, 1873
485
was my intention to communicate to him the points of the case with per-
fect candor, and he would not, I am confident, have hesitated a moment
on the expediency of acting as I proposed. It is too late now, for Mr. Smith
to sign the paper which I drew [p. 3] up, and without it, I can no lon-
ger advise the course which I was prepared to recommend. The plan for
carrying out your most cherished views by a peculiar disposition of your
Realty—to which so much study and reflection brought me—had better
now be abandoned.
Perhaps, at a future d day, the essential end may be partially attained
in another manner.
As to your Will.
Although no request in writing such as I solicited was received by
me, I took it upon myself to cancel the instrument confided me dated
August 17, 1871 and June 25. 1872, cutting out your signatures, to Will
and Codicil,8 and causing Mr. Cannon to write upon the last page from
which we had cut out the signatures: “Cancelled: Revoked [p. 4] by
Will made Novem. 14. 1873 (signed) George Q. Cannon” I also in his
presence wrote in my own hand on each of the four pages: Cancelled.
It might be well for you to inform me where your Will of Nov. 14. is
deposited.
I had better add a few remarks commenting upon the intelligence
brought me by Mr. Cannon, but relating more particularly to the Wills
which should be made by others than to your own.
I would urge them to expedite the execution of their Wills, if they
shd. look upon them merely as so many temporary and provisional safe
guards.9 After making the body of his Will each man can still by codicil
modify it conformably to any whim or humor [p. 5] of his own. I do
not care if he add fifty Codicils so they be properly attested. After his
Codicils accumulate, he will be helped by them to settle definitely in
his mind the will which it is at his heart to make. He can then at any
time afterward make a new one. The new one can be digested from
Correspondence of P
alestine Tourists; Comprising a Series of Letters by George A. Smith, Lorenzo
Snow, Paul A. Schettler, and Eliza R. Snow, of Utah (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Steam Printing Establishment, 1875).
8. A codicil is “a supplement to a w
ill, or an addition made by the testator, and annexed to.”
See Alexander Burrill, A Law Dictionary and Glossary, vol. 1 (New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co., 1871), 304–305.
9. The previous month, Young had suggested that “those Elders who desired to use [William Clayton’s form, based on Kane’s work] for their own wills could obtain one through him but not for public exposure.” School of the Prophets, November 10, 1873.
486
the prophet and the reformer
a copy of the old with its Codicils: the original standing and keeping
things safe until the new Will is properly executed.
Either the Will or a Codicil can contain a general provision that
whereas conveyances of land have been heretofore made to persons
who are devisees under the Will, all such conveyances shall be consid-
ered as Advancements. This is as simple a way of putting it as any. [p. 6]
A testator can express whether any gifts or conveyances made by
him prior to the Will, and not under it, are to be considered as advance-
ments, in whole, or in part. Of course whether the advancements are to
be considered in full of the share of the devisee, or only pro tanto partly
so, must depend on the intentions of the testator, and he will have to
express them.
It is safer to press the (Price-Kane) “Young” Form upon your
people, as you know that we have a Judge of the
Court to aid the rest of that Bench in interpreting it. We now count
three judges as with us on Constitutional Questions: have probably
our majority.
Mr. Cannon has not brought me draughts or abstacts of your Deeds.
Nor did he explain to me [p. 7] the object sought to be attained by
the mesne conveyances,10 to trustees. In ordinary cases, I wd. dispense
with intermediaries: in cases outside the ordinary it is generally most
needful to be plain and straight forward. A direct conveyance in fee
simple for consideration named is, nine times out of ten, worth a jacob’s
ladder of trusteeships. The soundest of the old fashioned conveyancing
indulged freely in recitals. I like them where the case admits of such
clear explanation as your, I wd. decidedly prefer an Opening Recital “+
+ + + + + + + + +”11 &c.—To which you add: “in consideration of “the
premised above recited, and of the “sum of one dollar lawful money”
&c. [p. 8]
I am delighted with the excellent typography of the will, and the
more cordially recommend the preparation and issue under your sanc-
tion of such important law forms as your community have frequent
10. N
otices of transmittal from the testator to the recipient carried by an intermediary. See Herbert Mozley, A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution of the United States of America and of the Several States of the American Union, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1868), 176.
11. Kane left this row blank, except for the + signs, to indicate the space for the “Opening Recital.”
Kane to Young, December 4, 1873
487
occasion to use. Mr. Cannon with his clear head could with a little practice
make you an unsurpassed conveyancer.
The most cheering, probably the most important feature of the tidings
brought by Mr. Cannon is your resolve to found an Educational Institution
worthy to bear your name. It is impossible to deprecate too seriously the
growing practice of sending your bright youths abroad to lay the basis of
the opinions of their lives on the crumbling foundations of Modern Un
faith and Specialism.12 [p. 9] Why should you not inaugurate a System of
Education informed upon by your own experience of the world, embody-
ing your own dearly earned wisdom, and calculated peradventure to
endure for ages with the stamp of your originality upon it?
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of Independence
Founder of the University of Virginia
As the world grows older it begins to appreciate how much honor
Jefferson attributed to himself by the last line of this Epitaph.13
Here may arise a subject of reflection, for you as well as myself.
This work that I have been at the last five months, to secure you
and your people their property, has not borne the fruit which I appeared
to promise. John W. will explain to you why I [p. 10] I can do noth-
ing with the land grant matter in the City of Mexico this winter. The
Railroad Schemes there and those hanging on the Texas Pacific Co.,
and Co. are at a dead lock.14 Your Arizona Colonization too is behind
12. Y
oung sent several of his sons to study at eastern universities: Willard at the United States Military Academy, Alfales at the University of Michigan, Joseph Don Carlos at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Feramorz at the United States Naval Academy and at Rensselaer.
The late nineteenth century was marked by specialization in professional fields, such as medicine and law, as well as in academic disciplines. Kane considered himself a gentleman scientist in the decades before the professionalization of science, when amateurs were still accepted in leading scientific circles and sometimes made significant contributions. See Arrington, American Moses, 367; Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, 108; Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1966).
13. Within months of his death, Thomas Jefferson prepared the text for his tombstone: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.” Thomas Jefferson, epitaph, c. March 1826, Library of Congress.
14. From 1868 to 1873, General William S. Rosecrans and Edward Plumb supported the building of American railroads in Mexico and petitioned the Mexican government for economic concessions. In 1870, the Mexican Congress approved concessions for American financiers seeking to build railroads, including granting public lands. However, the Mexican government’s offer was unsatisfactory to most American investors, who viewed the timeline for construction as too short and objected to the Mexican government’s right to seize property
488
the prophet and the reformer
hand a year. And here we have Cannon, triumphantly admitted to his
seat in Congress, worthy to fill it, and competent to relieve me entirely
of my half life long responsibility of mounting guard over the brigands
of Washington.15 May it not be that this pause is intended to give us
time to attend to what Providence discerns to be the intrinsically nobler
work, of Education?
If you think so, write me word, and I will turn my thoughts upon
it. It has the advantage of being a theme upon which [p. 11] the most
private correspondence can be conducted without risk.
On two points I know your sentiments: that Utah shd. before this
have been educating her own trustees teachers, and preparing if not
publishing her own text books. The young fledglings who would resort
to our Eastern seminaries of learning—to learn what you will hardly be
able to unteach them all their days—should even now be training in
the Brigham Young University, a Normal College of the highest grade,
to officiate as “Zion” tutors and professors. And the work of revision
and correction of your Common School books should not be postponed
unnecessarily, one hour.
But my carriage is at the door! My wife and children
[p. 12] were
touched by your kind messages of regard, and would more than recip-
rocate them to you and all yours. I beseech you be careful of your
health. The best news you can write me will be that the rheumatism
has entirely left you.
With unfailing affection
Your friend ever
Thomas L. Kane
should the construction not be completed on time. Thomas A.
Scott of the Texas and Pacific
Railroad even promised funding as soon as the Mexican government revised its proposal.
By May 1873, Mexican writers accused Rosecrans and others of undermining Mexican
sovereignty, prompting Mexican authorities to cancel the concession. See David Pletcher,
“General William S. Rosecrans and the Mexican Transcontinental Railroad Project,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 38, no. 4 (1952): 657–678.
15. Several congressmen questioned Cannon’s right to take the seat because of his practice of plural marriage. When Cannon took the oath of office, the Speaker of the House “could scarcely be heard there was such a buzz all through the galleries.” Cannon quipped that he was “so interested in the scene that I entirely forgot that I was the principal personage.”
Cannon to Young, December 2, 1873, BYOF.
94
Kane to Young, September 12, 1875
in the Years preceding Young’s death, both Young and Kane thought about who
would succeed Young as church president. In August 1875, when Kane received
news that Young’s oldest son, Joseph A., had died, his thoughts turned to the
question of succession. During the 1870s, three of Young’s sons—Joseph A.,
John W., and Brigham Jr. (all sons of Brigham and his wife Mary Ann Angell)—
served as intermediaries between Young and Kane by delivering letters to and
visiting with Kane in Pennsylvania. Young, who ordained all three of these sons
as apostles at young ages, hoped to encourage relationships between them and
the church’s stalwart defender. In the turmoil following Joseph Smith’s death,
Young had established a pattern for succession that promoted the senior apostle
to the presidency. Yet Young tinkered with succession at times and hoped that
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