ing abutment is to be. Accordingly the time has arrived to select the
first Site in Mexico, for the establishment of a principal settlement
there. That should be made the Objective Point, and in the setting of
intervening stakes, should be borne constantly in view. A single line to
connect the better regions North and South of the low hot and sterile
interval should be considered a sufficient drain on the resources of a
single generation. [p. 3]
II. Next: they may take it from me as an assured fact, that—whether
under the names of United States, Southern Union men, Texans,
Californians, or no names at all—our North Americans will soon be in
on Northern Mexico, and buy or steal all of it worth having that the
Mormons do not succeed in occupying before them.9 All the country
comprised within the Old Spanish Departments of the East and the
West appears fated to fall under the control of English speaking men,
8. The region known as “the M
idway” is a basin stretching throughout north-central Mexico.
Made up of clay, limestone, and sandstone, the Midway was noted for its lack of water. See Bulletin of the University of Texas, no. 44 (1916): 81–82.
9. Within three years of Porfirio Diaz’s ascent to power, American manufacturers were introducing agricultural equipment, railroads, and manufactured goods into the northern states. Americans also began purchasing large sections of Mexican property. See John Foster to William Evarts, May 21, 1879, in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1879, 46th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 1 (1879–1880): 804–808; Leonidas Hamilton, Border States of Mexico: Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Durango (San Francisco, 1881), 35, 94, 122, 189; John Hart, Empire and Revolution, chp. 6.
506
the prophet and the reformer
their laws and institution. For this reason (they)
see it follows; that any privileges or immunities which you may wish
to enjoy outside, or independent of the American System, should be
acquired at an early day. Valuable time for the attainment of this end
has perhaps been lost already. It was among my purposes to obtain for
you of the late President and Congress (Mexican) legislation conceding
to a colony founded by you such a judicial autonomy, [p. 4] so to speak,
such an independence of its
liberties you seek. But as things are and as they promise to be for some
time in Mexico, that sort of Article would be mere Paper. What you want
in any Northern province or state must also and first be secured in such
province. It must be got and held upon the ground.
So with the acquisition of Real Estate. Your titles to property should
be vested in you completely before your Northern American competi-
tors’ approaching conquest. Doubters may test the force of this remark
by considering the Example of lands reserved to Indians. Suppose, for
instance, the Mayo Yaqui country in Sonora, of which I have spoken
to Mr. Cannon, had been reported by your scouts as valuable as it was
represented. In that case, I was offered the State influence to further a
purchase from the Yaquis and procure the Contract Government what it
was alleged wd. be as serviceable as a Constitutional Amendment ratify-
ing an actual cession. Maybe so, maybe not; but think for a moment of
our trying to do any thing with Indian territory under the dominion of
the United States!10
But I have said more than enough. Ever rely on me as Affectionately
and truly yours.
Thomas L. Kane
10. S
onora was geographically isolated and populated by two indigenous tribes: the Mayo and the Yaqui. Throughout 1876, the Yaqui had been mounting an armed rebellion against the state of Sonora. See Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of The United States, 391–392; Thomas McGuire, Politics and Ethnicity on the Rio Yaqui (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1986), 28–32.
Epilogue
dUring sUmmer 1877, Kane was on a family holiday when a newsboy, peddling
an “extra” edition of a local newspaper at a railway station, shouted some-
thing about Brigham Young. Kane hurried into the train’s cars and bought
a paper. He learned that Young had died the day before. When Kane arrived
back to his home in western Pennsylvania, he found a telegram from Mormon
headquarters waiting for him.1 The telegram was dated 4:06 p.m., August 29,
1877—five minutes after Young had died.2
Kane decided to go to Salt Lake City, believing that his presence might
be necessary. Elizabeth went with him as far as Erie, Pennsylvania, before
Thomas headed west by himself. At Chicago he had second thoughts. Was
he really needed in Utah? Another telegram from Salt Lake City assured him
that he must come—urgently. Church leaders were waiting for his arrival
“before doing anything,” he was told. Like so many things involving Kane and
the Mormons, the telegram was enigmatic. Was Kane needed to help choose
Young’s successor? Were the Mormons worried about Young’s will that Kane
had been instrumental in writing? Or was there some other reason that the
Latter-day Saints wanted him to continue his trip?
As Kane continued on to Utah, he noticed two men in his Pullman car.
They were Mormons who had been sent to ride with Kane to protect him.
While earlier trains had been robbed, the most likely need for protection prob-
ably had to do with the rising tide of public opinion against the Mormons.
Since the recent conviction and execution of John D. Lee for his role in the
Mountain Meadows Massacre 20 years earlier, an outcry against the Mormons
1. G
eorge Q. Cannon, Daniel H. Wells, and Brigham Young Jr., telegram, August 29, 1877, Kane Collection, BYU.
2. Thomas L. Kane, “Account of Journey to Salt Lake City, 1877,” copied from his pocket book by Elizabeth W. Kane, BYU. Other details about Kane’s travel and visit to Salt Lake City in 1877 in this epilogue are taken from this source unless otherwise cited.
508
Epilogue
had “swept over the land like a tidal wave,” said one account. The torrent was
so strong that the church’s missionaries returned home.3 Young, who had a
providential view of events, believed that anti-Mormon feeling also was related
to the recent dedication of a temple in St. George, Utah. This temple, the first
built in the west, was an important spiritual milestone for the Mormons, and
Young wondered if its dedication had unleashed a reaction by the forces of
hell. “From a few days before the final dedication of the St. George Temple to
the present the powers of evil have been raging,” he wrote in one letter, “and
by bloody tales of a Mormon uprising, rebellion &c seek our dispersion and
destruction.”4 Whatever the reason for the uproar, Kane knew that he might
be in danger. He had used an alias at the beginning of his trip, but with body-
guards now protecting him, he gave up his “ridiculous efforts to maintain
incognito.”5 He was probably too well known and too easily recognizable for
an alias to have done any good in the first place.
Kane was decided on two things. First, he would not accept any position
that the Mormons migh
t offer him. Second, he wanted his trip to be short.
He was going simply to “render the last office of kindness to his dead friend.”
Although many Mormons knew that Kane was their friend, helping them
at crucial moments such as in the Utah War, few—not even many church
leaders—understood his full role. Only Kane and perhaps Young really knew.
Kane had helped to defend and even shape Mormon policy for more than
thirty years. This past service gave Kane reason to think he might be offered
some kind of position among them.
As the train traveled across the Missouri River and onto the Great Plains,
Kane must have reminisced about past times. His first trip through this terri-
tory had been in 1846 after meeting Young for the first time. Still very much
a tenderfoot, Kane had packed a few things, and, with a guide to help him, he
had gone as far as Grand Island in the middle of present-day Nebraska.6 His
second trip was in 1858 when returning east from Utah after mediating the
Utah War. His feeling of triumph on that occasion had been ruined by the
news of the death of his father. In 1872, Thomas and Elizabeth had come to
Utah to vacation with Young in St. George. Now, as Kane traveled through this
territory again, he recorded scenic landmarks in his pocket notebook.
3. David M. Stuart to Y
oung, May 31, 1877, BYOF.
4. Young to Ward W. Pack, May 23, 1877, Young Papers.
5. Kane, “Account of Journey to Salt Lake City, 1877.”
6. Thomas L. Kane to John K. Kane and John D. Kane, July 24, 1846, APS; Horace K. Whitney Diary, July 28 and August 5–6, 1846, CHL.
Epilogue
509
When Kane’s train reached Ogden, the Union Pacific Railroad’s main ter-
minus for Utah, he was met by a delegation from Salt Lake City led by Wilford
Woodruff, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, who knew Kane well.7
The delegation included John W. Young and Brigham Young Jr.—Brigham’s
sons—who in recent years had been carrying confidential letters and informa-
tion between Kane and their father.
Once in Utah, Kane continued to jot details in his memo book. He used
these books for record-keeping in case he decided to write a history of his
experiences. Elizabeth later added more details in a sketchy account that she
wrote, which must have relied upon information provided by Thomas after
he returned home. The result was an important record of personalities and
events after Young’s death, although the final document is often tantalizingly
too brief and even puzzling.
One prominent subject was John W. Young, along with his high hopes and
ambitions. Most recently, he had served as the first counselor in the church
presidency and had handled many of the church’s day-to-day affairs during
his father’s final days. When Kane first saw John at Ogden, the handsome
32-year-old looked pale, thin, and “greatly disturbed,” which Kane thought was
because he not had been appointed as the church’s new leader. “He [John]
had supposed himself Head and Successor,” Kane wrote. John Young was not
alone. Many outsiders thought because he had “verbal brilliance” and “per-
sonal magnetism” he might succeed his father.8 However, when the Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles met two days after the funeral, it proclaimed itself to
be Young’s institutional successor, with John Taylor, the senior apostle, having
the leading role. John Young was given the nominal position of “Counselor to
the Twelve.”9
John may have hoped that the decision might be reversed, and he appeared
to lobby Kane hard. “In an almost frantic manner,” he insisted that Kane spend
his first night in Salt Lake City at the “White House”—the old family home
a couple of city blocks east of what became known as “Temple Square.” John
seemed inconsolable. According to the Kanes’ account,
he kept coming in and out of K’s room to look at him as he lay abed, to
say that he would not disturb him, that he wanted him to rest; wanted
7 . Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, September 10, 1877, 7:372–373.
8. Compton, “John Willard Young,” 113–114. For an example of national newspaper speculation about John W. Young, see “Preparing to die,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 30, 1877.
9.“History of Brigham Young,” September 4, 1877, 59:2742–2743, CHL.
510
Epilogue
only to assure himself that the honored friend and benefactor was
really there. But he was full of his troubles and feelings, and could not
resist pouring them out piecemeal.
In addition to his failure to become the church’s leader, John’s finances
were in shambles.10
Understandably, Kane was anxious to free himself of John Young’s wor-
ries as soon as possible, and on the next day he left to stay at the home of
Bathsheba Smith, the widow of George A. Smith.11 However, for the next
ten days, Kane visited several of Brigham Young’s homes and mingled with
Young’s extended family. As a rule, Young had tried to shield his family from
the glare of outsiders, but Kane was an exception. During his visiting, he saw
keepsakes from the funeral everywhere—a piece of Brigham Young’s temple
robe, a few shoots of a flower spray, and a clipping of his hair.
The wives of Brigham Young were among those who were grieving. “I am
not as one of those who mourn without hope,” said Mary Ann Angell, whom
Kane identified as “Madame Mere.” She was Young’s wife before he began the
practice of plural marriage, and she was John W.’s mother. She said:
I have had with him 44 years, during which my life has been enlarged
by his life, and the consciousness that every breath he drew was for the
Lord and the advancement of His Kingdom . . . And I am comforted
to think that he is withdrawn from the persecution in preparation for
him. They [his tormentors] would have tried his old age. He always
despised them and said “Let them do their worst.” But in age and sick-
ness it is hard to have to ask—Will it never stop?
Kane thought that the Lion House, where many of Young’s wives and chil-
dren lived, had grown “shabbier” and “dingier” since his visit five years earlier.
Or perhaps the place simply had the somber mood of its inhabitants. He heard
a moan from one of the wives as he passed the door to her room. Perhaps the
grieving woman was Amelia Folsom. Young had married Folsom when he was
in his early sixties and she in her middle twenties. When Kane later visited her,
he found her fashionably fitted in a mourning dress and looking pretty, but “so
bloodless that you could almost see through her poor pale face.” Kane tried to
10. Kane to J
ohn W. Young, November 9, 1877; George Q. Cannon to Kane, December 6,
1877, both in Kane Collection, BYU.
11. Historian’s Office Journal, September 11, 1877, CHL.
Epilogue
511
comfort her. She told him that she had “lost her Prophet and her Priest and
her Father and her Baby.”
Sometime during the week that Kane spent in Salt Lake City, he walked
up the hill on present-day “A” Street to pay his respects at Young’s gra
ve. It
was located a short distance from the White House and had a commanding
view of the city. Young had left instructions that the vault should be built like
a fortress. Large slabs of stone were put at the base of the grave and still more
lined its walls. These stones were tied with a cross section of steel rods and
then leaded together. Finally, a seven inch stone “weighing many tons” was
placed over the top, which was fastened to the rest of the structure with addi-
tional rods. “The vault is so constructed that after it is once closed it will be
impossible to remove a single stone,” said the Salt Lake Herald. The newspaper probably published the report in the hope of deterring any desecration of
the body.12
As Kane was visiting the site, he met William C. Staines, an early convert
to the church from England and a man of wide-ranging interests. He had once
owned the best residence in the city, which eventually became known as the
“Devereaux Mansion.” Staines had met Kane many times and had served as
one of the confidential couriers between Kane and Young. In 1860 Kane had
written a letter of introduction for Staines to U.S. Attorney General Jeremiah
Black, which described Staines “as an honorable and excellent good fellow”—
but “not an Adonis.”13 Staines was a hunchback.
Kane saw an irony. What an “odious contrast to the Women at Christ’s sep-
ulchre,” he wrote, comparing Staines and himself to the women who visited
Jesus’s tomb on Resurrection Sunday. He knew that age, illness, and battle-
field wounds had disfigured him, too.
Then Kane wrote an unclear phrase in his memo book:
“It was not in either of us!” he said.
These last words may have been about the men’s lack of physical
strength—or perhaps Kane was referring to their suppressed emotions. Yet,
there may have been another explanation. Although each man had known the
Mormon leader for 30 years or longer, it was not easy to explain him. He may
have been a riddle to them even in death.
12.
Salt Lake Daily Herald, September 2, 1877. Also see Deseret Evening News, September 1, 1877; “Account of the funeral proceedings for President Brigham Young,” CHL.
The Prophet and the Reformer Page 71