Sadder still was the silence from others. My dear father, so regretful over his own multiple marriages, never found the courage to speak out on my behalf. My half-sister Diantha, whom I loved, went missing from the debate. And most painfully, my mother’s farewell letter always burned in my pocket, where I protected it, hoping another would come to revise its contents, to change her view of me.
On the eve of my arrival in Washington, where I would meet my most important audience, a letter from my beloved brother Gilbert was delivered to my door.
Sister—
I know the news about you is untrue. Anyone who knows you will say the same. Anyone who believes in your crusade knows it too. Don’t worry about your friends. We remain steadfast and true. Yet you have enemies. They repeat these tales, adding to them and puffing them up. I hear them in town, at the mill, in church. Whenever I can I tell the speaker to shut his mouth but there are too many mouths in Deseret for me to finish the job.
Since your departure I’ve been planning my own. By the time you read this, I should be half way to Albuquerque or El Paso. I’ll have to leave my wives behind, and my children too—an abandonment I know I’ll feel painful about for the rest of my days. But I have no choice. I no longer believe anything this Church has to say. When I see Brigham, it’s like looking at the face of a criminal. I know he feels the same about me. If I were to stay, I’d be dead soon enough, so either way my family will be left without husband and father. If I make any money, I’ll send it to my wives. But I won’t promise anything I don’t know for sure I’ll have. When I settle, I’ll write with my news. Until then, you should know I believe you, and only you.
Before closing, I want to tell you our Ma’s sick. Not of body but in heart. She’s twisted up about how Brigham’s been talking about you. She can’t stand it, I know, because she knows he’s telling lies. If I were a wagerer, I’d put a dollar down on her apostasy too. It’s a pitiful sight—watching someone so devout lose her faith. If you can, you might write her. Right now, only words from you might soothe. I can’t tell the future, but I suspect one day soon you and she will reunite. I know she wants to bring James to you. She’s in South Cottonwood, but how long she’ll last I can’t say.
Your Brother—
GILBERT WEBB
Immediately I wrote my mother, posting the letter in Baltimore.
My Dear Mother—
On this journey of mine, of which I know you are aware, each night, kneeling before the stiff hotel bed, I pray twice. Once for a swift return to James. And once for a reunion with you. If these prayers are not answered, I will live out my days burdened with doubt about the value of my Crusade. If I succeed in my mission, and eradicate polygamy from our land, and yet remain separated from you or my son, then I will ask myself, At what cost? Indeed, at what cost has all this been? These are my most private thoughts, shared with only you and my God.
—Your Daughter
THE 19TH WIFE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Defeating Polygamy
In Washington we drove up a muddy street, past a row of one-story private houses, narrow, crowding structures displaying squalor in their windows. Here and there were patches of springtime grass, ready to be trampled by the pigs who seemed to outnumber the Capital’s citizens. The street led to a wide avenue, grandly laid out, yet its buildings were no more elegant, or noble, in design than the huts we had previously passed. Had the Capitol’s dome not beckoned us, flashing in the April sun, I would have been sure we were on a highway to nowhere. On that drive it was impossible not to compare Washington to Great Salt Lake. The former had a fifty-year advantage on the latter, and yet any fair observer would crown the capital of Zion the more colonized metropolis.
We were a party of four—Lorenzo, Major Pond, Mr. Redpath, and myself—who entered the Capitol building, through a dim hall known as the Crypt. A clerk in epaulette informed us we were standing directly beneath the famous dome. The room was held up by forty brown columns, the veins in the stone coursing with force, as if revealing their strain as they worked to hold aloft the building above.
The clerk, a birdy fellow with clipped, flapping arms, led us to the House chamber. I was shown to the Ladies Waiting Area, a cordoned section of chairs, while the Major and Mr. Redpath were invited to sit with the gentlemen. The clerk wanted to seat Lorenzo with them, but I insisted he remain with me.
Mr. James Blaine, the House Speaker, is a quick-minded, flinty man, trained and fortified in the cold blasts of Maine. He has the inscrutable eyes of a newspaper editor, which he once was in Portland. When I arrived he was orating from his chair of authority, the famous gavel in his grasp, filling the chamber with, by chance, a lecture on the subject of the separation of Church and State. The clerk delivered to him my card and letter of introduction.
To my surprise, the Speaker set down his gavel, left his chair, and invited me into the elegant Speaker’s Room. By the warmth of a fire, and beneath the gentle glow of a French chandelier, Mr. Blaine invited me to tell my story. I began, and not far into it, he sent the clerk back to the chamber with the instruction of having another member replace him in the Speaker’s chair. I continued with my story, and some twenty minutes later, the person responsible for filling in for the Speaker gave up that position to come listen to me as well. For two hours I spoke; every few minutes another member of the great Chamber quit the floor to join me in the Speaker’s Room. Before I had finished the room was full and more members stood on toes in the hall.
I told them everything I have disclosed here, Dear Reader, from the early glories of Joseph Smith to the story of my parents’ conversion. I described my first meetings with Brigham, my unhappy marriage to Dee, and Brigham’s friendship at the time of my divorce. I discussed my mother’s sorrow as one wife, then the next entered her house, and my sense that I had lost my father to polygamy, so demanding upon his moral soul was it. I portrayed for these Gentlemen the workings of the Lion House, and the authority of the Beehive House next door. I recounted Brigham’s courtship, and my brother’s legal troubles, and my eventual submission. I offered every honest detail of what it has been like for me to be the 19th wife—the few morsels of affection and support it afforded me. All of this I portrayed for the Gentlemen of Congress, those responsible for the laws of our miraculous land. I could perceive the effects of my tale in their wincing eyes, in their agitated lips, twitching behind mustaches and beards.
I urged them to pass the necessary laws to ban this relic of the barbarian. “What kind of country are we that we let this pass? That today, beside this warm fire, sitting in this fine furniture, under the roof of this great building, we should be here while thousands of women and even more children suffer under this system. The Mormons will appeal to you in the name of religious freedom. They will tell you—indeed have already told you—that to subject them to the laws of the land is to persecute them for their faith. If you are inclined to believe this, if you are hesitant to trample on the rights of the religious, then I beg you to consider the question this way: Let a man be with a woman and another and another after her if he so chooses, and if they so choose. Let this happen for the sake of freedom, which we all hold so dear. But as soon as there is a child, as soon as one boy or one girl enters the house, you can no longer look away or protect the situation for the sake of religious freedom. Doesn’t every child deserve something better than neglect? Don’t you, and we, and all of us, have the obligation to protect that child? And what of this child’s rights—his right to be protected, her right to grow up to choose his or her own faith?
“Good Gentlemen, Sirs, I implore you, do not let doctrine ensnare you. Don’t hesitate over questions of God and the Lord. You are lawmakers, and your laws have been circumvented. Make it a crime to neglect a wife. Make it a crime to neglect a child. Make it a crime to force one woman to accept another into her home. Make it a crime, for that is what it is. It is not a religious practice, it is not a declaration of faith, it is not a testament of free
dom, it is a crime of cruelty and abandonment. And it is permitted today, in your borders, with your consent. Brigham has sanctioned adultery in the name of God, and you, in doing nothing, have condoned it. Your silence has allowed Brigham to claim it to be true. I, of course, cherish my freedom, but I shall never want my freedom to restrict the freedom of another. In that case then I am not truly free, and none of us is truly free.
“Gentlemen, here, let me introduce you to my son Lorenzo. He has traveled with me all this way. I selfishly took him with me, for I could not imagine the journey without him. I should have left him in school with his brother. But I could not, for he, ultimately, is the reason I wage this fight. I look at him and am reminded of my purpose. If my story has not impressed you, consider it from his eyes. Imagine what he has seen, and how it has affected him. If you owe me no protection, I at least ask you to give it to him.”
When I concluded my speech, the Gentlemen of Congress rushed to meet me, offering their cards and promising their support. For some time a circle of men ten-deep surrounded me and there was a general noise of congratulation, like at a party, with a hundred voices collecting to form a roar. At some point, something I could not see was taking place at the rim of this crowd, for many men fell silent, and urged others to do so too, and the men began to step aside. The quiet was sudden and complete and had an ominous quality to it. The men were making way for someone to pass through, I could tell, and at first I could not imagine who. Then, slowly, it became clear that somehow Brigham had followed me to the Capitol. He was here, but I did not know why. The Gentlemen continued to step aside, and I waited for my husband to appear from behind the shoulders and heads. I saw a presence, a form moving to me. I held on to Lorenzo, my fingers digging into his shoulders, and I loathed myself for not pushing him out of harm’s way, but I could not let go of my child. As the crowd continued to part, the man stepping forward began to take shape, and when at last the final ring of men moved aside, letting the visitor pass—just at this moment I saw before me, as close as my hand is to my face when I hold it out, President Grant. Mrs. Grant was at his side, her eyes crossed with fury. “Our nation will stew in shame,” the President said, “if this Congress does not heed your call.”
I thanked the President for his support. Next I introduced my son, and the great General knelt to discuss matters with my boy, including the quality of fishing in the Potomac. At the end of our interview, President Grant pledged his full support.
But the final word came from Mrs. Grant. “I want to assure you,” she said, “I won’t let him sleep until he gets this done.”
A few weeks after my visit, Congress passed the anti-polygamy Poland Bill. I can claim only a fraction of the credit for it, for many others have taken part in this Crusade. Time will tell of the bill’s effects, and its ability to dismantle what Brigham has so vigorously fought for, but my mission, as I saw it, was complete. I had brought to the nation’s attention the suffering of Utah’s women and children and forced the country to respond. How Brigham and the Church would react to this new onslaught would be up to them. Would they accept it, give up polygamy, and finally enter through our nation’s gates? Or defy it, and invite a battle that would lead to Deseret’s humiliation and defeat, along with the surrender of its leaders, like that of the South a decade before? I could not predict the next chapter in the Church’s life, nor the future of Brigham’s reign, or the prospect of his household, nor the final outcome of this tale of faith. At this point I was certain of only one thing—I had played my part and was ready to reunite my boys and find a home, wherever that may be.
THE END
XIX
PRISON DIARY
OF BRIGHAM YOUNG
CLOSED ARCHIVE
BY ORDER OF
WILFORD WOODRUFF
Prophet & President
October 5, 1890
SEALED
Access Shall Be Limited to
The Prophet & Leader of the Latter-day Saints,
Whoever He Shall Be.
Thursday, March 11, 1875
Night has come. Outside my window, the snow clouds have cleared, allowing the moon, my old friend, to burn through. The snow atop the Penitentiary walls reflects the moonlight in a glowing ring. Beyond the walls the valley basin lays dark and mysterious. I can see nothing, although I know someone is out there, waiting for me.
I could look out this window all night if I did not have this other task before me. They have given me the Warden’s office. It is a bare room with a bare floor, and a simple, rectangular writing table where the Warden drafts the papers for the incoming and outgoing prisoners. Earlier Warden Paddock drafted my papers here. Out of deference to my age, I gather, he has decided to house me here with a guard outside the door. Upstairs the Warden’s wife is looking after her children, including a newborn, a singing babe with a yellow forelock named Esther. Earlier Mrs. Paddock brought a plate of bread, spiced peaches, and a strip of apricot leather. She asked if I needed anything else. I requested a longer candle, an ink pot, and these pages. I will not sleep tonight.
The Warden’s house stands outside the Penitentiary’s adobe walls, adjoining them at the gate. From the window, I can see into the prison yard, an acre of snowy mud, and the Penitentiary itself, a block-house better suited to corral sheep than to house men. I see the barred windows, the gate studded with iron buttons, and the chimney coughing white smoke. At least the men have a fire. The Warden has fourteen prisoners tonight, myself included, and two guards, not including himself. If there is a rebel among us, a riot could break out easily. I have not met the other prisoners, although I saw them an hour before dusk running in a circle around the prison yard. The men wear black-and-white striped pajamas, the stripes running horizontally, and simple Chinese-style caps. They are mostly young men, imprisoned, the Warden tells me, for crimes as mundane as stealing flour and as heinous as ravishment and murder. Looking down at them, all thirteen, running about the yard, kicking their feet high to clear the mounds of snow, I, nor anyone, could tell who has committed the worst crime. Which man has stolen the sack of flour off the mill’s wagon? Who ravished the maiden down by the creek? Which man among the thirteen slit his neighbor’s throat with a deer knife, as the Warden tells it, from ear to ear? Each man appears the same; he is hungry, cold, and anxious to be free.
I too wear a prison uniform, although my stripes run vertically. I asked the Warden about this, but he did not have an explanation. I believe he is too thoughtful to attribute it to my girth, which has expanded in proportion to my years. My younger wives tease me about this. Mary calls me her water buffalo. Amelia, she likes to poke me in the middle until I laugh like a child. During the brief time we were fond of one another, Ann Eliza would fall off to sleep with her head on my belly. She was a good wife. I am only sorry it has come to this.
The events that led me to this writing table—with its short fourth leg and the rapidly burning candle—began with her apostasy. I knew our relations had soured; I am too familiar with the ways of marriage to expect them all to last. What surprised me, and continues to surprise me, is her tenacity. In truth, I expected her to quit my household, perhaps accept a small sum, and be gone. In all this noise about my 19th Wife, people have ignored the fact that Ann Eliza is not the first woman I have separated from. Mary Woodward, Mary Ann Clark Powers, Mary Ann Turley, Mary Jane Bigelow, Eliza Babcock, Elizabeth Fairchild—all fine Sisters who requested a release from our engagements. They were young, a few not yet twenty if I recall, and our time together was sweet but shallow, not unlike a pie. A pie on the table is always a marvelous sight, but soon it shall be gone, its tin nicked by fork and knife. In each case they requested a disunion and I agreed. In the case of Mary Jane I paid her five hundred dollars and wished her joy and peace. Once outside my household, these good women proceeded with their lives. A few might have married again, I am not certain. Yet I know none ever spoke of our time as man and wife. My first mistake was assuming Ann Eliza would be the same.
<
br /> Four weeks ago the subject of my sermon was “How Have I Come Here?” Before some two thousand Saints, I spoke of our chosen paths, and the meaning of these. I invoked the Pioneers pushing across the plains in ’47 and ’48, and the thousands of emigrants since, sailing, riding, walking to Zion. Each man, woman, and child present has come to God, I said, and yet the course of each has been different, and so it must always be. I asked my followers to go forth and consider this question in their prayers. How have I come here? Indeed, ever since, when I have met Saints on the street, many have told me they have spent much time pondering the question for themselves.
And so I must do so as well.
After Ann Eliza’s apostasy in the summer of ’73, a long legal battle has ensued. Yet throughout it has seemed to me Ann Eliza, in her public statements, wants both sides of a coin. She has claimed that in my bountiful household, with so many wives and children, she was never truly a wife. If this is so, let the woman complain. Yet she also says I owe her a vast sum of alimony. If this is so, let the woman complain. Yet according to her own logic, it cannot be both. Either she was my wife and I owe her a claim, or she was not my wife, and I owe her nothing. My lawyers, good men, perhaps too eager to please, have advised that under federal law she was never my wife. The civil courts, which so despise our marital customs, would never honor her request for alimony. Thus our legal strategy was set: Ann Eliza Young was never my wife. My mistress and my confidant, yes—but not my wife. My lawyers were the first to publicly call her a social harlot—an unfortunate outburst of hostility yet benign compared to the charges she has hurled against me.
The 19th Wife Page 44