The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana)

by Robert Lewis Taylor

  True to the prediction, we had two visitors one evening soon—a Brother Muller, a heavy, pimpled, loutish fellow with stained and jagged teeth set in a wet, half-opened mouth, and Elder Beasely, a church leader. They dropped in, took chairs stiffly, holding their black hats in their laps, and talked in an aimless, dull way about crops, building, and Indian troubles for half an hour. We knew about this Beasely, who was dark and smug-looking, though dour, as if he had a stomach-ache, but nothing about Muller. Beasely was the one who’d tried to destroy the Utes’ food supply during the middle of summer. In the driest season, the Utes commonly burn off the untilled fields of the Valley, along with the mountain slopes that have cover, to roast the millions of crickets there. These they gather up, then mix them into a thick, gummy, purplish paste, and eat it all winter. For a delicacy, Major Bridger said, this paste had it over the yellow-juicy grubs that the Worm Eater Indians favor. Beasely’s idea was to punish the few hostiles by burning off the fields and starving the whole tribe to death. But Brigham Young called the plan “inhumane, indoctrinaire, and generally unworthy.” Beasely was the leader of a very nasty faction among these Mormons, which recommended harshness, and even violence, whenever possible. He was also thought by some to be the leader of a secret and terrible society of Mormons that was organized in Missouri, called the Big Fan. The object of this bloodthirsty bunch, which had recognition signs and private words, called Key Words, was to hunt down and murder all backsliders: converts who got sick of Mormonismi and left the Church. The boy that told me this said if I ever peached on him, he’d likely be killed. He said the society was now known as the Danites and that the persons they did away with, including some Gentiles, too, for one reason or another, were said to have “slipped their breath.” This boy’s mother and father were against such goings-on, but they never said so outside the house.

  Twice, to our knowledge, Beasely had insisted on the full church punishment, decapitation, for plural-marriage brides who had been caught misbehaving. But he didn’t win out on this, either. Nobody was decapitated during our stay, though a few women were stripped entirely nude and lashed with a cat-of-nine-tails, by their husbands, in view of Beasely’s committee. Somebody said he seemed to relish it, being uncommonly religious even for a Mormon, and would grow flushed and sweaty, while shouting prayer aloud in a kind of frenzy as the naked women twisted and screamed. But when it was over, he was limp and loose, as if he had really driven the devil out. Most everybody was afraid of him, he was so religious.

  Anyway, here he sat and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. It took him a tiresome while to get to the point, but Brother Muller, who was a German-Swiss, said little or nothing at all. Except for John and Shep, I don’t know when I ever took a heartier dislike to anybody.

  “Brother McPheeters, Brother Coe, Brother Kissel,” said Beasely, “we have welcomed you all, we have opened our gates and our hearts. You have asked for work, and the Prophet has given you work. Won’t you, now, open your hearts to us? You say you seek gold—where is a richer lode than the strength in these sweet, well-watered fields? Acres and acres—a valley of five hundred miles—and ready for tillage, practically without cost, for any and all converts to the true faith.”

  Brother Muller leaned over and tugged at Beasely’s coat. “Say it about the girl.”

  “After the baptismal immersion, Brother Muller has expressed his willingness to have the widow”—he waved toward Jennie, whose eyes began snapping with anger—“sealed to him in wedlock.” In view of the difference in their condition—Brother Muller part owner of a thriving brewery on the one hand, and on the other a husbandless pauper—his gesture is generous; it’s more than that—it’s Saintly. It is typical of Brother Muller.”

  “I like ones with something to get a-hold of,” said Brother Muller, showing us his bad teeth. He didn’t address anything directly to Jennie, but that was in line with the Mormons’ feeling about women. Women were considered inferior by the Church. If there was only one seat available, nobody would dream of giving it to a woman. She must get up and turn it over to a man. And she must never try to go through a door ahead of a man, otherwise the last part of her through was apt to get a whack. Women were only “child-tenders,” and should not be made the objects of “Gentile gallantry and fashion.”

  I could see Jennie starting to get up and explode, but my father made a soothing gesture, and said, “We are honored, greatly honored, Elder Beasely, by your invitation to join the Church. But I feel that you, one of the intellectual heralds of your faith, will appreciate that this step should not be taken lightly. You would never respect us if we changed our devotion as casually as we change our garments. We view Salt Lake City with admiration, but we need time for study. To be converted to a new faith is to be reborn; some of us have not, ah, shed the old skin.”

  Well, that was a pretty good speech; we agreed on this later, particularly Mr. Coe, who said, “It was an effort worthy of a Burke. It embraced all and promised nothing,” but it didn’t seem to solve anything for Elder Beasely.

  Getting up, he said sourly, “The Council will be disappointed. May I submit hope that you will reach a decision soon?”

  My father and Mr. Kissel stood up, too; though Coe remained languidly seated.

  “Please tell them we shall re-examine the worship we have lived with all these years,” said my father, coming pretty close, too close, to getting off a piece of sarcasm. “You see, it may take a little time. We always thought we were happy with the old forms.”

  Elder Beasely looked at him sharply. Finally he said, with just the gentlest hint of a threat, “The Council is satisfied you will make the wise choice. In fact, we’ll pray for it. Salt Lake City is undergirt with prayer.”

  Before they left, Brother Muller announced to nobody in particular, “I don’t like to be put off, once I’m ready to wed. I’m itching for it. Some like them tender and raw, but there ain’t nothing like a fresh-broke-in widder, with handholds, for cutting up didoes on a wedding night.”

  I knew the signs; my father was precisely at the end of his tether, but he stepped in front of Jennie, to keep her quiet, and said, a little more loudly, “It’s a pleasure to meet such a high-minded connoisseur of romance as Brother Muller. Old-world courtesy is always refreshing, especially so in the wilderness. I’ll wager Mrs. Brice will be hard to contain over the next few weeks.”

  Elder Beasely turned a dark, muddy red. “Thank you, sir. I shall report your remarks, verbatim, to the Council.”

  My father bowed them out, with, “Pray do so. Good night-gentlemen.”

  Coe burst into laughter, but Jennie hit the door with one of her shoes. On solemn reflection, though, the men felt uneasy. When Mr. Kissel said, “We’d best repair our fences; these people are dead-serious,” he summed up the general sentiment.

  Salt Lake City

  Dec. 21, 1849

  My Dear Melissa:

  As suggested in my last message, we are finding it increasingly hard to maintain good relations with the Saints. These people can be irksome. Four times in the last weeks, we have been visited by a ruffianly oaf, heavy, sensual and coarse, named Muller, whose amorous propensities have been aroused by the sight of our Jennie. He sits, making comments that are perilously close to vile, while eyeing her with thinly concealed lust. This makes for a delicate situation, since Muller has some influence and is exerting great pressure to accomplish his unworthy end. This he can do only if she abandons her present religion and adopts the Mormon faith.

  Needless to say, there would be no question of her doing so by volition, so the aim of Muller, and friends, is to persuade, or subtly threaten, us all into conversion. To be perfectly candid, though our fever about gold remains high, we are feeling the strain. Were it not that the mountain passes are piled high with snow, and if Mrs. Kissel were well, we should be tempted to decamp.

  In my capacity as associate merchandiser (I’m confident there’s a vice-presidency for me there if I choose to remain) I meet ever
yone, give or take, and I’ve become acquainted with a Lieutenant Gunnison and a Captain Stansbury, both cultured gentlemen of quality, who are sent here on a governmental mission, surveying the Salt Lake Valley and generally exploring the region. Captain Stansbury, of course, will prepare for Congress, and the Army, a full report in book form of his findings. Lieutenant Gunnison, a man of strangely philosophical leanings for a career officer, is even now engaged in writing a History of the Mormons, with particular emphasis on their theology, practices and present social condition.

  Invited to the billet of these gentlemen, I held a long discussion of our problem. Both are fair-minded and see merit in the Mormons’ basic character and aims. But both acknowledge a certain grim inflexibility in the cult, though they feel that time will soften both the outlook in general and the inexorable punishments which the Saints now mete out for transgressors.

  Lieutenant Gunnison has kindly permitted me to copy a few paragraphs of notes that bear on these traits, and he says, at one point:

  “Of the parties organized in the States to cross the plains, there was hardly one that did not break into several fragments, and the division of property caused a great deal of difficulty. Many of these litigants applied to the courts of Deseret for redress of grievances, and there was every appearance of impartiality and strict justice done to all parties. Of course, there would be dissatisfaction when the right was declared to belong to one side alone; and the losers circulated letters, far and near, of the oppression of the Mormons. These would sometimes rebel against the equity decisions, and then they were made to feel the full majesty of the civil power. For contempt of court they were most severely fined, and in the end found it a losing game to indulge in vituperation of the court, or make remarks derogatory to the high functionaries.

  “Again, the fields in the valley are imperfectly fenced, and the emigrants’ cattle often trespassed upon the crops. For this, a good remuneration was demanded, and the value being so enormously greater than in the States, it looked to the stranger as an imposition and unjustice to ask so large a price. A protest would usually be made, the case taken before the bishop, and the costs be added to the original demand. Such as these, were the instances of terrible oppression that have been industriously circulated as unjust acts of heartless Mormons, upon the gold emigration.

  “But provisions were sold at very reasonable prices, and their many deeds of charity to the sick and broken-down gold-seekers all speak loudly in their favor, and must eventually redound to their praise. Such kindness, and apparently brotherly good-will among themselves, had its effect in converting more than one to their faith, and the proselytes deserted the search for golden ore, supposing they found here pearls of greater price.”

  This, you will agree, sounds fine, but Gunnison observes later on:

  “Thus they allow that mistakes have been made by some individuals in carrying out their doctrines; for instance, many have supposed that the time was come when they should take possession of the property of the Gentiles, and that it would be no theft to secure cattle and grain from neighboring pastures and fields, thus, despoiling the Egyptians, and we are told by themselves that such conduct had to be forbidden from the public desk. This instance of wrong application of the dogma that they are ‘the stewards of the Lord, and the inheritance of the earth belongs to the Saints,’ shows that some foundation exists for the charges against them, on the score of insecurity of property, in Illinois and Missouri—and that abuses can easily arise from their principles, when residing near people of other religious views.”

  Both Gunnison and Stansbury recommend, for us, a policy of diplomatic stalling until Spring, when, after the thaw, we can remove in peace. For my part, I am not convinced that this will succeed. A Mormon spurned is a Saint blasphemed, and trouble is almost sure to follow.

  Frankly, Melissa, I feel very strongly that their system of plural, or “spiritual” marriage has bred unconscious contempt for the whole institution. If Muller wants Jennie badly, he should have her—that, in essence, is the official attitude. That she might evince preferences in the matter is of little concern. This polygamous structure is furtive and dangerous as practiced. I say this in spite of a doctor’s suspicion that it could be of immense therapeutic value in reducing, or even banishing, boredom and monotony in marriage, a condition that certainly produces dry rot in our civilization. What did that wild-eyed young rebel, Thoreau, say in Concord, Massachusetts? “The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

  But this is a subject too daring for a real discussion in our age. I hope I have not shocked you. My remarks should not be taken as a measure of my devotion to home and family. It may be hundreds of years before mankind has the good sense to organize itself in such a way as to enjoy life to the full. So many, now, never taste its nectar from birth to grave.

  At present, plural marriage is not discussed openly in Deserei. In fact, it is customary for a Mormon, when questioned, away from his territory, to deny that spiritual marriage is a part of their doctrine. But a blind fool could see that a great many Saints keep a number of wives. Their first marriage is gone through in about the usual way as with “Gentiles”: a man’s addition of wives, after his first, is described as a “sealing to him.” I might comment that they consider their priests to be the only persons on earth truly ordained to perform marriages, hence other unions are null and void. You will recognize, then, that we have been living in sin for years. I hope your slumber remains undisturbed; mine will.

  In many cases, several wives occupy the same house, even the same room since a number of houses have only one room, but it is usual to board out the supernumeraries, who often help pay their own way by sewing, cooking, washing, and the like.

  The rules governing all this are exceedingly strict. For example, it is a point of personal honor for a man whose wife, daughter or sister has strayed to kill the seducer, and he can always find some like-minded co-religionists to help him. This is known hereabouts as “common mountain law”; taking it into account, no jury will convict the murderer in such cases. A sub-division of this, so stated recently in one of their courts, is that “The man who seduces his neighbor’s wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill him.”

  An anecdote that illustrates the harshness attending this local marriage structure involves an immigrant who resumed, in the Spring, his journey to California. A Mormon woman, with a small child, threw herself on his mercy, relating that a high dignitary to whom she was sealed had neither visited her nor contributed to her upkeep for three years. The immigrant regarded her case sympathetically, added both woman and child to his entourage, and trundled off toward the Elysian fields. Lo and behold, they had not gone a hundred miles before a grim-faced posse of Saints overhauled them and wrenched the screaming woman, with the badly frightened child, from the company and returned her to Salt Lake City. Of her fate thereafter, we have no record.

  As to the Mormon contention (on the infrequent occasions when it is mentioned) that plural marriage prevents the “awful licentiousness and the moral and physical degradations in the world,” I can only say that the philosophy, to me, has merit. But I cannot become convinced that this was the Saints’ original motive. Lieutenant Gunnison’s researches, for instance, have turned up some very equivocal material about the high moral tone of Joseph Smith himself. In the Nauvoo phase he was bitterly denounced by “influential and talented” converts, as well as by many of the Gentiles of the area, for “licentiousness, drunkenness and tyranny.” Women of the flock accused him of attempted seduction, to which he replied with sanctimonious heat that he was only “testing to see if they were virtuous.” This answer failed to satisfy anyone. If several of the intended victims were correct, their virtue would certainly have been jeopardized had they remained in the Saint’s presence about five more minutes.

  Smith’s paper, the Wasp, struck out at the dissenters, but a journal begun by the opposition, the Expositor, countered with a disturbingly detailed account o
f “the most offensive debaucheries on the part of the Prophet and his friends.”

  A footnote to the workability of plural marriage is this comment of Gunnison’s, based upon close and impartial scrutiny: “Of all the children that have come under our observation, we must in candor say those of the Mormons are the most lawless and profane.”

  There you have it. We are each entitled to his opinion, even on such subjects as religion, and it has been my observation that fanatical worship and orgiastic sex are brothers under the skin. But I am prejudiced. I do not believe in stern religions; what is more, my God has never signified his exclusive preference for anyone’s organized church. He is not divisible by quarreling sectarians.

  Still, I do not mean the above to be an indictment of Mormons, or Mormonism, generally. The sick, feverish compulsion to punish exemplified by Elder Beasely is not, I feel, the prevailing sentiment of this church. Temporarily the Beaselies exert great power; in time, the abuses will vanish and the good remain. It is ever so. And it would be a bigoted fool who could deny that for purpose, enterprise, industry, genius at organization and will to contend against odds, these people are in a class apart. What they have done with this essentially arid, discouraging waste is in itself a miracle.

  But they are filled with contradictions, and I wish to chronicle, in closing, the greatest witnessed by us to date.

  Saturday last, very late in the evening, when only Coe and I remained awake of our several families, and on a day when the weather—cold, blustery, spitting occasional snow—was so unpleasant that nobody stirred abroad, there came another tapping at our door, very different this time. These occurrences have begun to startle us, who are normally a social and gregarious group. We are wary of the Council; Muller grows more importunate, and Beasely more acid.

  So we opened the door no more than a crack at first, admitting a swirl of flakes, and peered out with caution.