Table of Contents

Books and Pamphlets ........................................................219
Periodicals.......................................................................... 226
Newspapers ....................................................................... 227
Theses & Dissertations...................................................... 228
Manuscripts....................................................................... 228
Public Documents............................................................. 229

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PREFACE

Few Americans of the twenty-first century can grasp the violent conflicts that marked the early years of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are generally known as Mormons. How was it that a church and community now regarded as highly patriotic as well as socially and politically conservative were involved in not one but three civil wars in the first thirty years of their existence? What happened in Missouri, in Illinois, and again in the country of the Great Salt Lake that found the Mormons embroiled in open combat with their neighbors, the state militia, and ultimately the army of the United States?

Obscured by the passage of 150 years, the Mormon conflicts have been overshadowed in historical accounts by the stories of the Mexican and Civil Wars. Compared to them, the violence associated with early Mormonism appears minor. But the cost of the Mormon disturbances, the political consequences, and the lives and property lost in them were significant. They were, for example, greater than those associated with the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco in 1993. Clearly, for nineteenth-century Americans, the new church presented great challenges that disrupted the established order. A close scrutiny of the tensions that led to the Mormon civil wars would reveal much about the conventions of American religious and political ideology (including the boundaries beyond which creativity and imagination were seen as deviant), about the relationship of American identity to the federal union and the limits of American nationalism, and about the extraordinary religious and social bond that inspired and enabled the Mormon effort to make the desert bloom.

Jotham Goodell's letters, originally published in The Oregonian in 1852 and re-published here for the first time, offer considerable insight into the origins and character of the animosity between Mormons and those they called "Gentiles" in early Deseret and Utah Territory. Goodell's observations, made at a time of uneasy truce, help us understand fundamental conflicts that came to a head in 1857 when President Buchanan sent one-third of the federal army marching toward Salt Lake City in what has ever since been known as the Utah War.

A perceptive if hostile observer, Jotham Goodell spent the winter of 1850-1851 living among the Mormons. His letters about that experience are polemic, not analytic. Convinced of his rectitude, Goodell does not soften his criticism of the Mormons with dispassionate prose. Presuming that most readers share his values and basic attitudes, Goodell offers neither apology nor defense of them. At the same time, Goodell worries that his reports may strain his readers' credulity. He takes care to support his assertions about the evils of Mormonism by providing considerable detail about his personal experiences.

The mixture of self-revelation and eyewitness testimony in Goodell's letters makes them an extraordinary resource. Their expression of his values and prejudices illuminates the cultural environment that led the Mormons to leave the settled regions of the United States. Goodell is not a sympathetic reporter, but his harsh tones and sharp judgements make clear the obstacles that Mormons faced in gaining respect for their religious beliefs and social values. The letters' detailed observations provide an unusual perspective on the society that was emerging in the Salt Lake valley; they are among the few reports of life in early Deseret not left by Mormons.

Goodell's descriptions allow us to appreciate more fully the ways in which Mormon millennial enthusiasm and defensive attitudes toward Gentiles helped convert religious differences into social and political conflicts.

A Presbyterian minister leading an emigrant party to Oregon, Goodell decided in September 1850 that it was more prudent to settle temporarily in Utah than to risk crossing the mountains in the fall. He appears to have had no previous experience with Mormons, writing in his letter number four to The Oregonian that "all my knowledge of them was derived from the testimony of others." Goodell's ignorance did not deter him from judging the Mormons: "I knew indeed that they were deluded," but he claimed that he had always thought them "a persecuted people."

Goodell's experiences soon transformed his attitude. The practice and general acceptance of polygamy astonished and infuriated him. Suspicion of Mormon leaders as "imposters" and a condescending view of the general community as misinformed dupes gave way to contempt for all of Mormon society. Mormons no longer seemed a merely misguided group whose theology was unsound; they were, in his eyes, deeply immoral. No matter how Mormon religious ceremony and civil practice regulated the exercise of polygamy, it was, for Goodell, nothing more than an expression of sexual depravity and a surrender of individual and social restraint. From such corruption no good could come.

Goodell's religious vocation might have made him more sensitive to polygamy than most Americans. Consider, however, that the editor of The Oregonian began the serial publication of Goodell's essays not with his general apology for sharing the story of his experiences among the Mormons, but with letter number four which contains his lengthy observations about the "spiritual wife" system. Whether Americans were outraged or titillated by Mormon polygamy, they were clearly intrigued by it.

Goodell's broad critique of Mormon society built upon his contempt for polygamy. His observations of Mormon legal, economic, and political relations continually return to the theme of expedient self-indulgence as the primary engine of Mormon behavior. Whether they are making cowardly deals with "savage" Indians, selling goods at inflated prices to hard-pressed travelers, using the courts to extort money from unfortunate outsiders, or seeking to obtain federal funds for irregular purposes, Goodell's Mormons are undisciplined, selfish, and unprincipled. When confronted with evidence of the sacrifices the pioneers have made to emigrate to Salt Lake or with their willingness to subordinate individual comfort to the needs of the larger community, Goodell sees not nobility but craven fear of the Danites, the church's secret militia.

Goodell's depiction of a corrupt, authoritarian society reflects a broader theme in American popular culture of the ante-bellum years, the fear that powerful conspiracies were undermining American freedom. Critics castigated the Freemasons, Roman Catholics, the slave-power conspiracy, and the abolitionists as secret, self-serving organizations whose ambitions were incompatible with American democracy. In such an era, Mormon social cohesion was seen not as an inspiring expression of community but as a political, economic, and social threat.

As much as Goodell's letters tell us about the attitudes that made it difficult for many Americans to accept Mormonism, it would be a mistake to regard them as merely vindictive diatribes. Goodell was a careful observer who supported his critique by thorough descriptions of specific incidents. While his interpretations may at times be simplistic and are uniformly unsympathetic to the Mormons, his letters contain rich details about life in Deseret. Time and again they reveal the intriguing way in which the Mormons' millennial confidence, consciousness of past wrongs, and fear of outsiders shaped society at Great Salt Lake.

By 1850, when Goodell's overland party paused among the Saints, the pioneer settlers of Deseret could take justifiable pride in all they had accomplished since leaving Nauvoo in the winter of 1846. The efficient migration of more than 5,000 settlers during the summers of 1847 and 1848 had vindicated Brigham Young's leadership. By 1852 the number of settlers would rise to 20,000. Following the construction of Great Salt Lake City, outlying settlements were quickly established and parties dispatched to establish a colony in southern California. The church, which had seemed on the verge of disintegration following the assassination of Joseph Smith, was convinced that it had emerged from a time of trial and was entering a period in which the prophecies of The Book of Mormon would be fulfilled. What Gentiles might have seen as an exile, Mormons saw as an exodus. Though they considered themselves persecuted, by 1850 the Mormons of Deseret were a self-confident community looking forward to their political as well as religious ascension.

Goodell's report of the celebrations that accompanied the blessing of the sanctuary in Utah Valley reveal the community's optimism. He may have been scandalized that the Mormons would hold a ball to mark a sacred occasion, but we learn from him that the Saints partied enthusiastically throughout the night. He cites the presence of numerous infants as evidence of Mormon sexual lasciviousness, but many sociologists would see a high birth rate and interest in children as a sign of a community's health and confidence in its future.

Mormon self-confidence could become arrogant and immodest. Goodell reports conversations in which settlers and officials expressed the conviction that the United States would soon pass away. Mormon courts refused to be bound by Anglo-American precedents as judges and prosecutors proclaimed the right to rely upon "higher laws." Emboldened by the success of their migration, the Mormons were prepared to create not only a new settlement but also a new polity with its own jurisprudence.

Despite its positive outlook, the Mormon community of Deseret cultivated the memory of past injuries. As Goodell observes, the Saints held Missourians in particular contempt. Public speakers decried them as "mobocrats" and reminded their audiences of the violence they had inflicted upon the Mormons. The Saints were also skeptical of federal officials and politicians in general. They blamed them, as a class, for failing to protect church members in either Missouri or Illinois. Past experience left the Mormons wary of outsiders in general and highly sensitive to criticism. They were especially suspicious whenever Gentiles met together or formed associations. Goodell observes how quickly Mormon acquaintances forgot the assistance he had rendered them when they learned that he was serving as secretary for the "emigrant community."

Mormon self-confidence did not lead them either to forgive past enemies or to trust unfamiliar people. It apparently contributed to a belief that retribution for their past suffering was not only just but imminent. Sometimes this attitude was expressed in vague, hypothetical terms about what might happen to a federal appointee so bold as to attempt to assume office in Utah. Other times it took the form of direct threats like the ones Goodell reports he received. Most often, however, the combination of millennial zeal and anger over past injustice appeared in the arbitrary and capricious use of power to monitor and harass travelers. Whether it was forcing emigrants to pay property taxes the same day they were assessed, compelling emigrants acquitted in court to nonetheless pay costs, insisting that an entire wagon party travel seventy miles in the midst of winter to stand trial for allegedly harboring a fugitive, or sending an "agent provocateur" to push the emigrants into foolish, illegal behavior, the Mormon authorities seemed willing to make disproportionate use of their power for little reason other than that they could.

Goodell's critique of Mormon religion led him to insist that there could be no reliance placed upon the civil institutions that the Mormons had created in Utah. In similar fashion, Mormon mistrust of Gentiles made them wary of any institutions they did not control. Brigham Young could defend Mormon patriotism by citing the service of five hundred Mormons during the Mexican War, but neither he nor the Mormon community at large believed that the federal government would treat them honorably. Protected by distance and terrain, Young and his people felt justified in resisting any effort to compel their subservience to federal norms.

Most historical accounts of early Utah Territory blame grasping, inept federal officials for creating the crisis that eventually led to the Utah War. President Fillmore's decision to appoint Lemuel Brandebury, Perry Brocchus, Broughton Harris, and Henry Day to territorial office was not wise, for the four men were principally interested in their own political careers. They were ill prepared to preside over one of the most volatile cultural and political fault lines in the country, but Goodell's letters make clear that the Mormons were ready to resist any appointments not drawn from their own ranks. The treatment the federal officers received in Utah was not a response to their personal faults. Their conduct exacerbated the crisis, but it is unfair to see them as the cause.

Having spent four years building a community that could isolate itself from the institutions and authority of the United States, the Mormons of Deseret were not prepared to surrender lightly their autonomy. It would take five years for the initial crisis to come to a head and an additional forty years before the Mormons and the country could agree upon Utah's admission as a state. The letters of Jotham Goodell help explain the enormous gulf that both sides had to bridge.

George Miles
New Haven, Connecticut

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I became interested in the 1852 letters of Jotham W. Goodell while conducting research for a paper on the impact of the Gold Rush on early Mormon settlements in the American west. Most of the California-bound emigrants who passed through Salt Lake Valley during the massive population shift to the west that began in 1849 commented favorably about the religious community Brigham Young and his followers established in 1847. But many of those who remained in Utah over the winter of 1850-1851 afterward expressed exactly opposite opinions. Their sharply negative reaction stands in surprising contrast to the generally positive impressions of emigrants who stayed only a few days in these raw frontier settlements before pushing on.

Among the most outspoken of such sojourners was Jotham Goodell. Unlike most overland emigrants of 1850, he was taking his family to Oregon to make a new home, not rushing to seek a fortune in California. His nine letters, published in 1852 by The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, open an important window on the nature of the theocratic society that existed at that time in the Great Basin. They also reflect the militant posture of the young millennial movement toward the American republic during the period of transition from the State of Deseret, an independent nation-state created in 1849 by Brigham Young, to a territory of the United States in 1850 with the unasked-for name of Utah.

In preparing Goodell's letters for publication, I have benefitted from the kindness and assistance of many longstanding associates and some esteemed new friends, a few of whom I would like to mention with appreciation.

To Margene Goodell of Amherst, Ohio, and Naomi B. Baker of Delevan, New York, I am especially indebted. They have generously shared their abundant knowledge of Goodell family history and resources in their possession, including letters, pictures, and other information. Teresa Goodell of Beaverton, Oregon, and Helen Goodell and Sharon Smith of Puyallup and Auburn, Washington, have also made helpful contributions to the final manuscript. The interest of these friends in Goodell family history and their concern to preserve it has truly made this work possible.

John and Vanessa Call of Derby, Kansas; Addie Rickey of Salem, Oregon; and Dr. Jim Tompkins of Beavercreek, Oregon, have contributed biographical information, journals, and pictures of Oregon and California pioneers whose stories validate Goodell's accounts. Their help is greatly appreciated. To Oregon Trail authority Arlie H. Holt and historian Robert Marsh of Dallas, Oregon, I am grateful for giving so freely of their time and knowledge to provide information about Goodell's activities in Oregon from 1851 to 1853.

Above all, I acknowledge with profound appreciation the constant support of Will Bagley, editor of the major new Arthur H. dark Company series, "Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier," who read the manuscript, made many useful suggestions, and discovered several journals of great value. Copy editor Dawn Corrigan's attention to detail was remarkable. I also wish to thank Gregory C. Thompson, Judith F. Jarrow, Floyd A. O'Neil, and Peter H. DeLafosse for their encouragement and advice.

Finally, may I never take for granted the kindness and service of the professional archivists and librarians at the Utah State Historical Society; J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah; Merrill Library, Utah State University; Stewart Library, Weber State University; Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; Utah State Archives; Ohio Historical Society; California State Library; Sacramento City Archives; Oregon State Historical Society; and the Washington State Historical Society.

Editorial Note

The Jotham Goodell letters in this volume have been literally transcribed from the pages of The Oregonian from April to June 1852 using the original spelling and grammar. Editorial additions are presented in square brackets, [thusly]. Words such as "defence" and "connexion" whose spelling differs from current usage are only noted by "sic" on the first occurrence.

This volume contains three appendices presenting documents mentioned in, or closely related to, Goodell's letters. Appendix A is a complete republication of Millard Fillmore's January 1852 report to Congress, "The Condition of Affairs in the Territory of Utah." Appendices B and C contain letters from emigrants who also spent the winter of 1850-1851 as uncomfortable guests of the Mormon Kingdom.

To my knowledge, none of these documents has appeared in print since their original publication.

David L. Bigler
Roseville, California

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INTRODUCTION

There are several families, among which are 16 females.¹ They left Salt Lake on the 28th of March, and arrived at the Dalles, May 29, making the journey in sixty-two days. The health of the company has been good during the journey. They were attacked by the Indians on Snake River, but lost none of their party. The Indians kept up a fire across the river upon them for two hours, which the emigrants returned, killing several Indians during the fight.

The Mormons at Salt Lake are represented as a very immoral and desperate set of men. They practice polygamy to a great extent. Some of their prophets are represented as having as many as sixty wives; all take unto themselves as many as may please their fancy, and their means will enable them to support. The above information was derived from several of the party who appear highly intelligent and respectable.²

For this news to spread did not take long. In less than three weeks, it reached California where The Daily Union at Sacramento reported: "The first of the emigration across the plains recently arrived in Portland: they tell a sad tale of their sufferings by the way, they wintered at Great Salt Lake, where the Mormons imposed upon them, put on the charges heavily and treated them harshly."³

For Jotham and "Annie" Goodell, the announcement ended a 2,500-mile journey that saw them and their children spend the winter of 1850-1851 camped in tent and wagons on the northern fringe of the new Mormon settlements in Salt Lake Valley. But it was not the end of the story for the captain of the year's first emigrant company to reach Oregon. In nine highly detailed letters to The Oregonian published from 10 April to 26 June 1852, he scathingly described the Great Basin theocratic society and protested the persecution his family and other emigrants to Oregon and California had suffered that winter at the hands of Mormon authorities.

Goodell was motivated to write his series by the publication early in 1852 of reports and correspondence on the earliest fight between Mormon leaders and so-called "Gentile" officials of the newly created Utah Territory that broke out during the summer of 1851.⁴ His accounts throw new light on a controversy that historians usually blame on the incompetence or arrogance of federal bureaucrats. They are also important in understanding Utah's theocratic society, which existed in its purest state prior to 1859, and later sources of conflict between a defiant territory and the United States. They must be considered in any evaluation of the reasons that President Buchanan in 1857 ordered an American army to Utah to assert federal authority.⁵

The author of these letters, Jotham Weeks Goodell, was born in Templeton, Massachusetts, on 23 April 1809, the eleventh and youngest child of William and Phebe Newton Goodell. He was a direct descendant of Robert and Catherine Kilham Goodell of Suffolk, England, who arrived at Salem in 1634 on the ship Elizabeth.⁶ He was also a cousin of early northwest mountain man and trail guide, Timothy Goodale, who gave his name to the Oregon Trail's Jeffrey/Goodale Cutoff between Fort Hall and Fort Boise in present Idaho.⁷

Goodell was known to be "a well-educated man, a fluent and eloquent speaker; often called on to give orations and speeches."⁸ Since his older brothers had attended Phillips Academy, Dartmouth College, or Andover Theological Seminary, he may have received at least some education at one of these institutions.⁹ At age eighteen he moved to Ontario, Canada, opposite Niagara Falls, New York. There he married Anna Glenning Bacheler and became a minister and a founder of the Niagara Presbyterian Church of Canada. The couple resided in Ancaster and Beamsville, where five of their eleven children were born.

A deeply religious man, Goodell wrote his children's names and birth dates in the family Bible with this prayer: "Believing in a covenant keeping God these children have been solemnly consecrated to God by placing upon them the token of God's covenant mercy. O thou God of Abraham; who keepest Covenant with Thy people forever; Pardon the sins of Thy servant and hand maid, & grant that these Thy children, may have grace, to lay hold of the covenant of Thy mercy for themselves and their children, and their children's children for a thousand generations!"¹⁰

Goodell also possessed a strong sense of loyalty to the young American republic. According to family tradition, he and his family had to leave Canada because he favored a move to join that part of Ontario to the United States. William L. Goodell, a grandson, said Elder Goodell "ran up the flags with the American flag above the British flag. This seemed to have angered the Canadians and they were going to lynch him so he and the family took refuge in a church and then rowed across Lake Erie to reach the American side." The descendant, a retired history teacher now deceased, told a relative to take all this "with a grain of salt,"¹¹ but other evidence tends to confirm the story which probably survived because it reflected how Goodell felt about his native land.¹²

From Canada, Jotham Goodell and his family moved in1837 to northern Ohio where they settled in Erie County on the shore of Lake Erie. There he served as second minister of the First Congregational Church in Florence Township, which was organized that year as a Presbyterian Church. In 1843 he served as a Congregational Church pastor in Medina County, south of Cleveland, where he wrote and published a forty-seven-page pamphlet, The nature, design and mode of baptism, or Campbellism exposed.¹³ That December, he preached the dedication sermon for the First Congregational Church in Vermilion, Ohio, where he and his family lived until they moved west.¹⁴

Goodell's own reasons for going to Oregon may be best expressed in a letter he wrote in 1852 to his future daughter-in-law, Anna Maria Pelton, who remained in Ohio with his oldest son, William Bird. The couple moved to Washington Territory in 1854.¹⁵ Referring to his son, Goodell wrote: "I know it would be vastly to his advantage, so far as temporal matters are concerned, to come to Oregon. Here with prudence, industry and economy he might in a short time, with God's blessing, become rich, while in Ohio, with no means to begin with, it will require a hard and long struggle."¹⁶ That Goodell chose at the flood tide of the Gold Rush to go to Oregon rather than California indicates that he valued land as a source of wealth more than gold.

In 1850 Jotham, now forty-one, and Annie Goodell gathered seven of their ten living children—Mary Weeks, a twin, eighteen; Melancthon Zwingle, fourteen; Emeline Davis, twelve; Nathan Edward, ten; Henry Martin, seven; Charlotte Elizabeth, four; and Jotham, Jr., barely one—and headed for Oregon. They were accompanied by Holden A. Judson, husband of their other twin daughter, Phoebe Newton, who remained in Ohio, as did their oldest son, William Bird. Another child, Joel Brigham Goodell Baker, sixteen, lived with Jotham Goodell's sister, Phoebe, and her husband, Jonas Baker, who resided in Lockport, New York.

If the Goodells traveled by wagon to the head of the Oregon Trail on the Missouri River, it would explain their relatively late arrival in Utah. But it is probable that the only segment of this journey they did not cover by water or rail was some twenty miles from their home in Vermilion, Ohio, to Sandusky on Lake Erie. It would have shortened their travel time by a month or more to take a steamboat from this port to Detroit, then another through the Straits of Mackinac to Chicago. Here the Illinois-Michigan Canal connected to steamboats on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, which sailed from St. Louis up the Missouri River to Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa.¹⁷

A more costly alternative would have been to board the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad at Sandusky and travel by rail to Cincinnati, transferring at Xenia, Ohio, to the Little Miami Railroad for the final leg of the trip. At Cincinnati, a major Ohio River port, steamboats offered transportation to the four main jumping off places of the Oregon Trail along the Missouri River, where they could purchase oxen, wagons, and supplies before heading west in late May or early June.¹⁸

Either way, three months and a thousand miles by ox team found them in present-day, western Wyoming, still far short of their destination, where Goodell probably decided it would be safer to spend the winter in Mormon settlements than attempt a Blue Mountains crossing that season. Rather than take Subletted Cutoff near today's Farson and go due west to Bear River and meet the Oregon Trail to Fort Hall, he chose instead to follow the original road to Fort Bridger. There the family took the Mormon Trail to reach Salt Lake Valley in September with two wagons, four yoke of oxen, and four milk cows. They came near the end of an emigration season that witnessed record numbers pass through the new "free and independent" State of Deseret.¹⁹

In 1850 from fifteen to seventeen thousand Gold Rush emigrants stopped at the "Mormon halfway house," as one called it, to rest and make ready to go on to California, outnumbering by about seven times that year's Mormon emigration. Most were energetic, robust young males in a hurry, hell-bent to reach the gold fields and "see the elephant."²⁰ In contrast, the Goodells and about one hundred of the other emigrants that wintered in Utah that year were headed for Oregon with their families to make new homes. Unlike gold seekers, they could not choose to take the all-season southern trail to Los Angeles if an extended stopover in the Great Basin settlements did not suit them. And not all would find the communal religious society to their liking.

Only three years before, after years of conflict in Missouri and Illinois, the people of Israel in the Last Days, better known as the Latter-day Saints or Mormons, had moved to the Great Basin of North America, then in Mexico, to establish the Kingdom of God as an earthly state. Governed by God through inspired men, its followers believed, the new theocracy was destined during its founders' days on earth to sweep to world dominion. Said its leader, Brigham Young: "We will roll on the Kingdom of our God, gather out the seed of Abraham, build the cities and temples of Zion, and establish the Kingdom of God to bear rule over all the earth."²¹

Those who undertook this visionary endeavor were unlike any other emigrants in America's move west to California or Oregon. Faith and destiny drove them, not a quest for homesteads or gold. Like their leaders, most were young. The average age of the eight highest officials in the first 1847 Mormon pioneer company, all apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was just under thirty-nine. Revolutions are made by the young, and their crusade, "to reduce all nations and creeds to one political and religious standard," was a revolutionary purpose.²²

Yet even as they surveyed their new millennial city, events elsewhere in 1847 would overtake and forever change their dream to establish God's Kingdom, prior to Christ's imminent return. An American army was moving that summer against Mexico City. And in Upper California, Swiss entrepreneur John A. Sutter and his partner, James Marshall, began to build a sawmill on the American River's South Fork, east of present Sacramento. On 24 January 1848, workmen turned the river into the new mill to test the flow of water on the wheel. That night, Henry W. Bigler, one of six Mormon Battalion veterans hired to work on the mill, wrote the words that would set off a population shift west: "This day some kind of mettle was found in the tail race that looks like goald."²³

Less than two weeks later, Mexico on 2 February under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo surrendered to the United States the entire Southwest. The second largest land acquisition in American history encompassed all of five present states, Utah, California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, and large parts of Wyoming and Colorado.

So it happened that less than one year after its first pioneer company landed in Salt Lake Valley, latter-day Israel was right back in the United States, and the ramparts of its new kingdom were about to be overrun by a horde of curious outsiders rushing to the placer diggings along the Sierra Nevada. After weeks on the trail, these overlanders were usually awestruck by their first glimpse of the city the Mormons had built in only two or three years. "For a moment not a word came from a single member of the company," said an Ohioan, "all were speechless at the grand scenery before us."²⁴ Most spent only a few days to rest and resupply before rolling on and took with them favorable impressions of their short visit. For Ansel McCall, the memory of his first meal with a Mormon family would live forever. It was a "sumptuous feast of new potatoes, green peas, bread and butter with rich, sweet milk," he said.²⁵ As forty-niner James Hutchings got ready to go, he lamented, "Tomorrow we leave civilization, pretty girls, and pleasant memories."²⁶

The longer some remained, however, the more their attitudes turned against their Mormon hosts. And many of those who stayed over the winter of 1850-1851, numbering as many as a thousand, afterward protested bitterly the alleged injustices they suffered in the faith's new Great Basin settlements.

One of this number was Jotham Goodell, who camped near Fair's settlement on the north side of Ogden River, near the mouth of the canyon, about forty miles north of Great Salt Lake City. Thirty-three-year-old Lorin Freeman Farr, a Vermont native, had selected the location earlier that year because it was an ideal place to build water-driven lumber and grist mills. When Goodell arrived, the settlement was a single row of cabins inhabited by several families. After Indian hostilities that fall, settlers added rows of houses to create a three-sided fort, enclosing some five acres, with the open side facing Mill Creek. Here as an ordained minister, on 13 December 1850 Goodell married his daughter Mary Weeks, by now nineteen, to Nathan Melory of Pennsylvania, twenty-five, another wintering emigrant.

Some three miles from Farr's settlement was a larger Mormon colony on Weber River named Brownsville after its founder, James Brown, a former Mormon Battalion captain during the war with Mexico.²⁷ Before spring, Goodell and about one hundred other emigrants to Oregon and California would move a dozen miles north to Willow Creek, now at Willard, Utah, to place as much distance between themselves and their Mormon neighbors as they could.

Goodell's account of this period, while angrily resentful, is significant because it identifies the earliest sources of controversy between Mormon theocracy in the west and other Americans. Among others, these included arbitrary court actions, disloyalty to the United States, denial of free speech, lack of political freedom, control of markets, and discriminatory taxation. Common to many causes of conflict between radically different forms of government was the issue of law, which many emigrants described as "informal, illegal, and unjust."²⁸ The system of justice exercised in Utah during this period appeared to offer some ground for this complaint.

The "free and independent" State of Deseret, established by Mormon settlers in 1849, provided that judges of its courts would be named by the legislature or chosen by election.²⁹ The same generally applied in Utah Territory, created by Congress in 1850, except that the territorial organic act required the president to appoint justices of the three federal district courts. These men were usually not Mormons.³⁰

On its face, the system appeared eminently democratic, but it rested on elections that were either never held or in which voters could not cast their ballots in secret. Hosea Stout became a legislator in 1849 "by what process," he wrote, "I know not."³¹ Utah lawmakers later ruled that laws not approved by themselves and the governor could not be "read, argued, cited or adopted" in any court. They further directed that "no report, decision, or doings of any court" could be "read, argued, cited or adopted as precedent in any trial."³² These laws removed two traditional cornerstones of American justice—legal precedence and common law. Finally, Mormon legislators ignored the intent of Congress and vested original criminal and civil jurisdiction in the probate (county) courts, ruled by Mormon judges, which effectively left appointed federal justices with empty courtrooms. In a society where perfect justice is bestowed by inspiration, one does not place one's trust in the rulings of men.

In most cases, Mormon judges or justices of the peace, usually local church leaders, settled disputes between quarrelsome emigrants with common sense and good judgment. But it was hardly any wonder that many travelers found the exercise of law by inspiration "informal, illegal and unjust."³³ Even before his series of letters appeared, Goodell expressed his contempt for theocratic law, to which he had been exposed more than most emigrants. In a letter to The Oregonian soon after his arrival in Portland, he wrote:

To the Editor of the Oregonian—

Sir: Perhaps some of your readers may be interested to know the manner in which the Mormons do business in their Courts of Justice. I therefore send you the following, as being the form of an Oath administered to a Jury in the County Court of Weber County, State of deseret, by the Clerk of the Court, Louis [Lorin] Farr, Esq., a prominent member of the Latter Day Saints.³⁴ The writer was present when the Oath was administered—and was interested in the suit about to be tried, and vouches for the truth of the statement he makes in relation to it. There are other persons in this Territory, who were present at the same Court, who will at once recognize the oath as there administered.

The jury were standing, each holding up his right hand, the Clerk also holding up his, with his eyes resting on the floor, and pausing at each part of the sentence: You do each of you in the presence of these witnesses, solemnly swear, that what you shall say to this Court concerning the case wherein A. B. is plaintiff and C. B. is defendant, shall be in accordance to the best of your knowledge, information, understanding and belief, in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe that is all. Amen!

This was the oath verbatim. And this was the Court which robbed me of $70—not by any verdict rendered against me in said Court, for in three distinct trials the jury decided in my favor; rendering a verdict of "no cause of action," and yet my property was attached to pay the costs.³⁵

Goodell may have made himself the target of what he considered to be arbitrary lawsuits and discriminatory taxation. He agreed at a supposedly secret meeting of emigrants to serve as chairman of a committee to draw up a memorial to Congress on the injustices they had suffered in Utah Territory. If so, he paid a heavy price for accepting this obligation. Not a wealthy man to begin with, he would become so impoverished by spring that he was unable to move his family without assistance from fellow emigrants. Eloquently he expressed his indignation: "Were Brigham Young to come in person and tender back the money he robbed us of, there is not a man among us but would exclaim: 'Your money perish with you! In our distress and anguish of soul, you robbed us of our all, and exposed our wives and little ones to the danger of perishing with famine, amid the wastes of the desert! Never, never, NEVER!'"³⁶

Even before his letters appeared, others had protested what happened that winter. In 1851, one hundred and fifteen emigrants to California called on Congress to replace Utah's new territorial government with military rule. They looked to Nelson Slater, a member of Goodell's committee, to expose the injuries they had endured in the Mormon theocracy. The forty-five-year-old New York seminary teacher and his wife, Emily, who wintered in Salt Lake Valley with their three children, ages fourteen, twelve, and nine, carried out this assignment in even greater detail.

Published in Coloma, site of Sutter's Mill and the 1848 California gold discovery, Slater's book compiled the personal accounts of dozens of outraged emigrants. In calling for the imposition of military rule in Utah, they endorsed ten resolutions charging that the court system was "a mockery"; that freedom of speech was "greatly abridged"; that "treasonable" opinions were often expressed against the U. S. government; and that "the policy of mormonism as a system, is oppressive, unjust, and unworthy of confidence."³⁷

These and other allegations find outspoken affirmation in the series of letters presented here for the first time since it was published in 1852. Not for nearly a year after arriving in Oregon was the author in a position to write them. Then events in Utah, which took place shortly after he left, prompted Jotham Weeks Goodell to carry out the commitment that he had made to fellow emigrants to Oregon and California during the winter of 1850-1851.
______________

NOTES:

1. In a letter to the Oregon City Spectator, published on 12 June 1851, Jotham Goodell said his train from Utah consisted of one hundred and five members, forty-eight men, nineteen women, and the rest children. See Clark, My Goodell Family in America, 1634-1978, copy courtesy of Margene Goodell of Amherst, Ohio, 13, 14.
2. The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon Territory, Saturday, 7 June 1851, Vol. 1, No. 27, 2.
3. The Daily Union, Sacramento, 26 June 1851, Vol. A, No. 86, 2/3.
4. These are contained in President Millard Fillmore's report to Congress on 9 January 1852, "Information in reference to the condition of affairs in the Territory of Utah," House Exec. Doc. 25 (32-1), 1852, referred to hereafter as House Exec. Doc. 25, Appendix A. Also see "Utah Territory," Congressional Globe (32-1), 9 January 1852, Vol. 100, App. 84-93.
5. For the story of this conflict, see Bigler, Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896.
6. Williams, A Genealogy of the Descendants of Robert Goodale/Goodell of Salem, Mass.
7. Timothy Goodale had his own run-in with the Mormons in July 1847 when Sgt. Thomas Williams and a party of Mormon Battalion soldiers, who had joined Brigham Young's pioneer company on Green River, seized Goodale's horse at Fort Bridger. Williams said he took the horse because one of the mountaineer's men had stolen a battalion mule at Pueblo, but Young made him return the animal "in the neatest, quietest, prettiest way possible; for which Goodale expressed his thankfulness to 'Captain Young,'" wrote Thomas Bullock. See Bagley, ed., The Pioneer Camp of the Saints: The 1846 and 1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas Bullock, 205, 221-22. For more on Goodale, see Harvey L. Carter's biographical sketch in Hafen, The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, 7:147-53.
8. Hargrave, Coodale-Goodell Forebears, 91.
9. Margene Goodell to David Bigler, 1 March 1999.
10. Clark, My Goodell Family in America, 1634-1978, 13.
11. Portion of a letter from William L. Goodell of Puyallup, Washington, to Margene Goodell, undated.
12. Clark, My Goodell Family in America, 1634-1978, 12
13. Alexander Campbell was the founder of the primitive gospel movement known as Disciples of Christ, which rejected other denominations and believed in a restored gospel and the imminent return of Christ. Many early Mormons, including Parley P. Pratt and Sidney Rigdon, had been Campbellite ministers.
14. Alien T. Price, Temporary Assistant Librarian, The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, to William L. Goodell, 11 April 1968. Sources listed are Aldrich, History of Erie County, Ohio (1889), 452; The Ohio Historical Society Library; and H. L. Peeke, The Centennial History of Erie County, O. [1925], 630. The editor is also indebted to Teresa Tarnowski Goodell of Beaverton, Oregon, for other information about this period.
15. See Anna Maria Godell [sic] and Elizabeth Austin, "The Vermillion Wagon Train Diaries, 1854," in Holmes, Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890, 7:78-130.
16. Jotham W. Goodell to Maria Pelton, 15 June 1852, letter in possession of Margene Goodell, Amherst, Ohio.
17. By this route forty-niner William Swain went from Sandusky to Independence in three weeks. See Holliday, The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience, 64-79.
18. As the railroad pushed west, more migrating Americans covered portions of this journey by rail. In 1853 Goodell's daughter Phoebe and son-in-law Holden Judson rode the train to Cincinnati and took steamboats down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Only a year later, his son, William and his wife, Anna Maria, took a steamer from Sandusky to Detroit and went from there by rail all the way to Alton, Illinois, on the Mississippi River, opposite St. Louis.
19. The word "Deseret" from The Book of Mormon means "honey bee" and complements the communal symbol of the beehive on today's Utah flag and seal. The State of Deseret, a synonym for the theocratic Kingdom of God, was established in 1849 and lasted in visible form until President Millard Fillmore on 9 September 1850 signed legislation that created Utah Territory. After that, it existed as an invisible system of government that operated behind the scenes until 1896 when Utah became a state. During the Civil War it reappeared for eight years to function as a "ghost government" in parallel with territorial rule until 1870. See Morgan, The State of Deseret, 91-119.
20. A popular expression that roughly meant "to see it all."
21. Brigham Young, 8 July 1855, Journal of Discourses, 2:317.
22. Proclamation of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to All the Kings of the World, to the President of the United States of America; to the Governors of the Several States, and to the Rulers and People of All Nations.
23. Paul, The California Gold Discovery: Sources, Documents, Accounts and Memoirs Relating to the Discovery of Gold at Sutter's Mill, 33.
24. From Lake Erie to the Pacific: An Overland Trip in 1850-51, quoted in Madsen, Gold Rush Sojourners, 34.
25. McCall, The Great California Trail in 1849, 57.
26. Sargent, Seeking the Elephant, 1849: James Mason Hutchings' Journal of His Overland Trek to California, 156.
27. President James Polk in 1846 authorized the enlistment of a battalion of five hundred Mormons during the war with Mexico to assist the faith's western migration. Brown established the first Mormon settlement on the Weber River in November 1847 when he purchased Fort Buenaventura from mountain man Miles Goodyear for $1,950 from the mustering-out pay he had collected for discharged battalion veterans who had served at Pueblo. Later moved to higher ground, Brownsville with Farr's settlement would come within the limits of Ogden City, incorporated in February 1851.
28. Slater, Fruits of Mormonism, or A Fair and Candid Statement of Facts Illustrative of Mormon Principles, Mormon Policy, and Mormon Character, by More than Forty Eye-Witnesses, 12.
29. See Morgan, The State of Deseret, 121-27.
30. See "An Act to Establish a Territorial Government for Utah," The Statutes at Large and Treaties of the United States of America from December 1, 1845, to March 3, 1851, Vol. 9, 453-58. The organic act is also published in Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, passed at the Several Annual Sessions of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, from 1851 to 1870 Inclusive, 26-28.
31. Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844-1861, 2:358.
32. Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed at the Several Annual Sessions of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, from 1851 to 1870 Inclusive, 32.
33. Slater, Fruits of Mormonism, 12.
34. This was Lorin Freeman Farr who came to Utah in 1847 and became first president of the Weber Stake of Zion. In 1851 he became Ogden's first mayor, an office he held for over twenty years; today's town of Farr West, Utah, is named for him.
35. The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon Territory, 26 July 1851, Vol. 1, No. 34, 1.
36. Ibid., 12 June 1852, Vol. 2, No. 28, 1.
37. Slater, Fruits of Mormonism. A graduate of New York's Union College and Auburn Theological Seminary, Slater later became school superintendent for Sacramento County. His book was the first copyrighted in California.

* * * * * 
Letter 2
"With Spartan Intrepidity"

Jotham Goodell addressed the issue of Mormon relations with the "Lamanites," their term for American Indians, in the second letter about his winter in Utah Territory. He described the 1850 Indian scare in Utah's Weber County settlements that began the day after Goodell camped for the winter on Ogden River. About midnight on 16 September, thirty-two-year-old Urban Van Stewart rushed up to Goodell's wagon with alarming news. He had just shot an Indian and begged the Oregon pioneer to help him move out of his cabin before other members of the tribe found the body and acted to impose tribal justice, which virtually guaranteed the death of a white man. Stewart, an 1847 Utah pioneer, had a farm on Four Mile Creek, some three miles to the north in today's Harrisville. Hearing noises in his garden, he had fired at the sound and killed Terikee, the friendly chief of the Weber Shoshoni band, who apparently had been trying to drive his horses out of Stewart's corn. A short time before the settler's thoughtless shot, the Shoshoni chief and his son had visited Farr's settlement to express their friendship.¹

Now badly frightened, Stewart found few friends willing to risk their own lives to help him. Login Farr, soon to become first president of the Weber Stake of Zion, advised him to leave the area while Farr prepared a defense and tried to pacify the natives. In the meantime, angry Indians rode down from Box Elder Creek and attacked a small party rounding up cattle and horses near the mouth of Ogden Canyon. They killed and mutilated one man and made off with some animals. Goodell explains why he chose not to name the victim of native vengeance, but other accounts identify him as one of several Campbells at the settlement, allegedly a non-Mormon emigrant, who had been hired as a millwright to build Farr's gristmill. Goodell tells a different story.

At this atrocity, leaders of the two Weber County settlements appeared to panic. At 2 p.m. on 17 September, they sent Kentuckian Daniel Burch with an urgent appeal to Nauvoo Legion Col. John S. Fullmer at Great Salt Lake. Signed by both Farr and James Brown, the message reflects the fright that Goodell describes:

Sir I wish you to Raise from one Hundred to one hundred & fifty men forth with and repare to this plase forth with [sic] the Indians has Commensed burning Houses Hay & wheat & have taken Broth[er] Camel [Campbell] prisone[r] and then shot & masse Crede [massacred] him² Our Lives and that of our wives & Children are exposed with all we have the word is our wheat & houses will be in ashes before to morrow morning nine o clock the Indians are geathering very fast be sertain to be hear by to morrow morning. Our Lives is Exposed.³

Late that day, Nauvoo Legion commander Maj. Gen. Daniel H. Wells ordered Brig. Gen. Horace S. Eldredge to select fifty additional men from his brigade and "act with promptitude in preserving the lives of our brethren and subduing the Indians."⁴ Eldredge, a six-foot-plus New Yorker, took command of the combined mounted force now numbering about one hundred men. Without further bloodshed the military expedition soon subdued the Indians, whose sense of justice had been satisfied and who seemed as afraid of the Mormon soldiers as their new neighbors were of them. Eldredge ordered outlying families to move into Farr's settlement and Brownsville and build forts at born locations. Goodell's account of this episode adds some humor and new information to the story.⁵

THE OREGONIA
Portland, Oregon, Territory
Saturday, 1 May 1852, vol. 2, No. 22,
The Mormons - No. 2.

Editor of Oregonian

I will not detain your readers with a recital of the causes which led me to the alternative of either wintering among the Mormons or among the savages. Much to our regret afterwards we chose the former. It was in the month of September that we made our entry into this famous city. Long trains of Mormons were also arriving, and we were at first taken to be ourselves Mormons; and though when we disabused their minds on this point, we were treated at first with a good deal of civility, still we perceived that a wide distinction was made between them and the gentiles, as they term all who are not Mormons.⁶ For instance, the price of flour, as regulated by the high council, was at that time $10 per hundred pounds, when sold to Mormons, but $25 when sold to the gentiles. It was only a few days after our arrival, that a lad came to our camp to inquire if we wished to purchase any flour, saying that there was a man in me city who had brought in some flour which he had not disposed of, and which I could buy at an advantage if I were disposed. I accordingly repaired to the place, and while attempting to make a bargain with the man, a woman living in the house opposite, came to the door and squalled out at the top of her voice: that man is a gentile, you know that Brigham says we must not sell flour to the gentiles for less than $25 a hundred."

To the credit of the Mormons, however, I will say, that this order from the high council, for some cause, became inoperative.⁷ The Mormon farmers were mighty glad to sell us their wheat at $3 per bushel, or their flour at $10 per hundred. And the time is close upon their heels, even though they are the favored saints of the Most High, when they will be glad to get 25 cents a bushel for their wheat, or else I will relinquish my claim as being a better prophet than their prophet Brigham.

Subsequent events, however, convinced me that we owed no thanks to the high council for the fall in the prices of flour to the gentiles. In the early part of January Brigham Young, in company with several of the twelve apostles, visited that part of the church established on the Weber, about 40 miles north of the city, where many of the emigrants passed the winter, and while there, publicly declared it to be his will that we poor gentiles should not be supplied with provisions at all!⁸ It devolved upon one of the apostles, I think it was Amos Lyma [Amasa Lyman], to introduce this matter in public.⁹ It was in an inflammatory speech against the emigrants. "Most of these gentiles now among you," said he, "are from Missouri," (as though that was in itself a crime), "many of them helped to mob us out of the State, and all sympathize with our enemies, and will you nourish them with the fruit of your toil?"¹⁰ For his part he said, "he had rather that the wheat in the valley was piled up as high as the mountains which surrounded them, than a bushel of it should be consumed by the emigrants then in the valley.^"11 To this inflammatory harangue, Brigham rose and gave his unqualified approval. "But," said he, "it will be asked what will become of our wheat if we do not sell it to the emigrants? Keep it to feed the saints who are coming here next fall by thousands."¹² But Brigham's counsel came too late, most of the emigrants had already secured their bread, and those who had not, found that when it came to the test, Mormon cupidity was stronger than Mormon credulity.

I remarked that upon our arrival we were treated with much civility. This was certainly the case so far as my own family was concerned, and so far as I have been able to learn, it was the case with the emigrants generally.¹³ In all my intercourse with them, from the highest to the lowest, so much civility was manifested, that I thought to myself, surely this people cannot be as bad as represented. A people who can be so civil certainly must have some redeeming qualities. But this bright sunshine was of short duration. The sky of Mormon civility soon became overcast with lowering clouds, and the prescriptive edicts of the high council, gave notice of the gathering storm of wrath.

I will remark here, that I do not blame those persons who, having stopped a few days at Salt Lake, and been treated with civility, think that we very much exaggerate when we tell the story of our wrongs from that people. I will only say that were we to judge of the climate of the frigid zone by the very few sun shiny days of summer, we should make awoful [sic] mistake. The Jesuits of the 16th century were not more deceitful and cunning than are the leaders of the Mormons. With the most deadly hatred rankling in their bosoms against our republican institutions, predicting with the utmost certainty the downfall of our nation, and anxiously waiting to see the hour when our fair republic shall be shattered into a thousand atoms, they can, when the occasion suits them, speak of our institutions in the most glowing terms of commendation; and in the language of Brigham Young, in his letter to President of the United States, can say: "No people exist who are more friendly to the United States than the people of Utah."¹⁴ Before I get through with these articles I will show how friendly this same Brigham Young and his servile followers are to the United States.

Mormon Courage and Intrepidity.After entering the city, it immediately became a question of importance to be settled, in what part of the valley I should spend the winter. I finally decided that it would be best for me [to] come as far this way as their settlement extended. This was the settlement on the Ogden [River], some 42 or 43 miles north of the city. This settlement I reached on Saturday night, one of the last days in September.¹⁵ On Sabbath night, about midnight, a man came to my wagon and informed me that he had just shot an Indian—the Indians for a few days previous had been very saucy and would steal his vegetables in the night. Determined to protect them he had watched that night, seeing an Indian approach shot him down.¹⁶ His house was about three miles off, and he wanted to get help in the morning to go and move his effects, as he had no doubt but the Indians in the morning would come and destroy them. Being a stranger, I could of course know nothing of the number or disposition of the Indians, and of course felt some uneasiness for the safety of my family, as we were camped some distance from the settlement and alone. Early in the morning I went into the settlement to ascertain how matters stood. You may judge of my surprise when I found the inhabitants perfectly paralized [sic] with fear.—An express had been dispatched to the city for help. The inhabitants were driving in their cattle and preparing for defence [sic]. Most of the houses were built adjoining each other in a single row. Those who lived in houses a little distance off forsook them, and taking what effects they could into their wagons, came and camped by the side of this row of buildings. For my part, seeing the panic into which the community was thrown, and having no wish to expose my family to be butchered by savages, I concluded to return to the city [Great Salt Lake]. But I finally yielded to the entreaties of the Mormons to stay and assist in their defense, and so rolled my wagon into line with theirs. In the meantime the Indians had gathered at the house where the Indian had been killed, and held a most terrible pow-wow over the body of their fallen chief--as chief he proved to be. This they continued till about noon, when discovering two men out hunting cattle, they gave chase. One man being well mounted made his escape, the other seeing the Indians were gaining upon him, and himself forsaken by his companion, surrendered and was immediately butchered and left in the road weltering in his blood.

And here a painful duty devolves upon me. I will not mention the name of the murdered man,¹⁷ lest these lines might meet the eye, and wound feelings of loved friends in a distant land. I would also remember that we are to tread lightly on the ashes of the dead. But we have a duty to discharge to the living. The emigrants, among whom he had intimate friends, looked upon this event as the just and righteous visitation of Almighty God.

He was himself an emigrant on his way to California. He left, as I have been informed, an interesting and dependent family in the States—an amiable wife and several children. He was respected in the county where he lived, and had filled several important offices of trust and honor. But his financial affairs had become deranged, and he had torn himself away from the loved ones around the domestic hearth to endeavor to retrieve his fortune in the land of gold. How tender and painful the parting hour! Methinks I can almost see the wife and mother bathed in tears, gazing long after the vehicle which bears from her sight, for a season, perhaps forever, the husband and father! But she bows in submission, believing the sacrifice necessary to their future happiness. He arrives at Salt Lake—the season is far spent, and concludes to spend the winter there. In all honesty he tells the Mormons of the wife and children he has left behind. But alas! This is not enough to shield him from the powers of woman, in a country where the marriage tie is so slender. He is told that if he only joins the Mormons he may have as many wives as he pleases. The woman who is thus artfully contriving to catch him in her toils is a widow. Alas! She too well succeeds. The very day previous to his death he was baptised into the Mormon church, and that week was to have witnessed his marriage to that woman! This the Mormons and the woman herself openly avowed.—She appeared as chief mourner on the occasion. She received all the sympathy that was bestowed by the Mormons on the occasion. As I was assisting in washing the body and preparing it for burial, this woman, (her name was Geans—the widow GEANS,¹⁸ I hope she will see it right here in print, and I want you to put it in capitals, and I would to God that I could condense into a single sentence, the indignation and abhorrence which the emigrants felt towards her, and she could be compelled to read it alone by herself and her God!) she having stepped out for a moment, a person present exclaimed—"poor Mrs. Geans! How she is to be pitied. This is a sore affliction to her!" Why? Exclaimed I in anger. "Oh," said he, "they were to be married this week." Married! Married! Exclaimed I, why, has he not a family of his own? "Oh, yes, I suppose he has in the States," was the indifferent reply. Not the first syllable of sympathy was expressed for that truly widowed mother and her poor fatherless babes who were yet to hear of the deplorable blow.

But I am not prepared to leave this subject yet. It was at this point that my eyes began to be torn open to the abominations of that people. I want to mention in this connection their inhumanity. There were at the Ogden at that time but four male emigrants. One of these was a nephew of the deceased. Two of the others immediately set about making a coffin. The number of men who were Mormons amounted to over thirty. As the murdered man was a recent proselyte to their faith, I had no doubt but his remains would receive the utmost attention. But what was my surprise, after his body was brought in, it was suffered to lie in its gore, until his nephew went from one to another begging of them to lay his "uncle out." I went but found no one to assist in preparing the body but the widow of whom I have spoken and another woman. With some difficulty I got a man to help me, and with the assistance of the women, we got the body washed and prepared for the grave. The next day he was buried, and then the same difficulty occurred in getting men enough to carry him to the grave, although there were not less than 30 men within a stone's throw. Nothing like a funeral was had. I felt at the time, and so expressed to my family, that it was more like the burial of an ass than that of a human being.

Having died in the Mormon faith, the Mormons took possession of his property. The widow Geans keeping all she could, which was supposed by his nephew to be considerable.

But let us return to the narrative of our Indian war. The Mormon assembly in their memorial to Congress, relative to the U. States officers leaving their territory, speak of their people as possessed of "more than Spartan intrepidity and fortitude."¹⁹ I have already spoken of the array which was made to repel an attack of the Indians should they venture to make one. There were in the fort at the Ogden [River] at least 30 men capable of bearing arms.²⁰ At the Weber [River], three miles from there, there were at least 70 more.²¹ These were all under arms. They had sent to the city for help, and that night and the next morning there arrived in the neighborhood some 200 more. From this marshalling of forces I had formed the idea that the Indians must be very formidable in numbers. But what was my surprise when I learned that the whole band, all told, would not exceed 60 or 70 fighting men, and these the most despicable cowards on the face of the earth. After they had committed me murder above mentioned, they seem to have been in as great a panic as the Mormons; for hastily shooting a few cattle, burning a hay stack or two and loading their ponies with what wheat they could carry, they hastily decamped, taking with them 6 or 8 stolen horses. In the mean time the most masterly preparation was going forward in the Mormon camp for pursuit, and on die morning of the third day about 9 o'clock A.M., the grand army, 150 or 200 strong, well mounted, armed to the teeth, with great military display, moved out of camp in pursuit of the enemy. Their trail was easily followed, for they had lied in such a panic that they strewed their plunder all along the way. With "Spartan intrepidity," the army pressed on in pursuit, till the day was so far advanced that the officers deemed it prudent to halt for the night. In the morning as they supposed themselves near the enemy, a scouting party was sent forward to reconnoiter. In the meantime a strong guard was posted some distance in advance of the army to prevent any surprise. In due course of time, the scouting party, not having been able to find any enemy in all that region, returned, and as they came in sight of their companions in advance of the army, feeling somewhat frolicksome, they put their horses upon the charge, gave the Indian yell, and came dashing in upon their comrades, not doubting for a moment but their comrades knew them. But they mistook them for Indians and run [sic] for the main body, giving the alarm that the whole band of Indians were charging with fury into camp! Upon this the whole body broke and run like lightning, and it was not until they had retreated several miles that they learned their mistake. They then all returned to the fort, court martialed the men who gave the false alarm, and thus ended the famous Indian war; with "Spartan intrepidity" they had succeeded in effecting a most masterly escape from an imaginary foe.

J. W. Goddell
_______________

NOTES:
1. See Moore, Journal and Life History of David Moore, Items of History, 67-70, and L. H. Nichols, "Dictation of David Moore," Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.
2. This is the only Mormon source that seems to confirm Goodell's claim that Campbell was a converted member of the faith.
3. Login Farr and James Brown to Col. John S. Fullmer, 17 September 1850, Doc. No. 2, Territorial Militia Records, Series 82210, Reel 4, Utah State Archives.
4. Daniel H. Wells to H S. Eldredge, Special Orders 17 September 1850, Doc. 69, ibid.
5. For one of the best of many accounts, see Carter, ed., Our Pioneer Heritage, 6:117-18.
6. Brigham Young explained, "Nine[-]tenths of those who come into this Church are the pure blood of Israel, the greater portion being purely of the blood of Ephraim." See Collier, ed., The Teachings of President Brigham Young, Vol. 3,191, and Discourse by Brigham Young, 6 April 1855, The Deseret News, 9, May 1855, 68. Considering themselves literally to be children of Israel, Mormons referred to outsiders as "gentiles."
7. While notably obedient in many respects, most Utah settlers quietly ignored repeated attempts by Brigham Young to control prices and trade.
8. Brigham Young's company, including apostles Heber C. Kimball and Amasa M. Lyman, left Great Salt Lake on 20 January 1851 to visit settlements in Davis and Weber counties. On 26 January he organized at South Fort (James Brown's settlement) the Weber Stake of Zion, a church entity that conformed in coverage to Weber County, created one year before, and named Login Farr as its first president. On his return, Young on 28 January met a cavalcade with a band some fifteen miles north of the capital coming to inform him of his appointment as governor of Utah Territory.
9. Amasa Mason Lyman, then thirty-seven, was ordained an apostle in 1842 and arrived in Utah in 1847 as a member of Brigham Young's pioneer company. He and Apostle Charles C. Rich established the Mormon settlement at San Bernardino, California, in 1851. He was excommunicated from the L.D.S. Church in 1870 for preaching false doctrine.
10. At this point in their history, Mormons were deeply bitter over persecution they had suffered from 1833 to 1846 in Missouri and Illinois. Gold Rush emigrant Dr. Israel Shipman Pelton Lord noted in 1849 that a Mormon ferryman told him that "none of their persecutors would be safe in passing through [Great Salt Lake City], and while he told of their wrongs, he ground his teeth so as to be heard two or three yards. Yet he was not naturally a violent man, rather the reverse." See Liles, ed., "At the Extremity of Civilization": A Meticulously Descriptive Diary of an Illinois Physician's Journey in 1849 Along the Oregon Trail to the Goldmines and Cholera of California, Thence in Two Years to Return by Boat Via Panama, 158.
11. This policy may have prompted some emigrants to become what was known as "winter saints," described by Hosea Stout as "those Emegrants who stop here, join the Church & Marry wives and go to the mines in the Spring." See Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 19 January 1851, 2:388.
12. The editor has not found any other source of such alleged "inflammatory" remarks by Lyman and Young.
13. As Goodell indicates, most Gold Rush and Oregon-bound emigrants reacted favorably to what he and others called the Mormon "half-way house," especially if their visit was short. But emigrant opinions soured the longer they stayed beyond the average six or seven days, and many of those who wintered in Utah because they arrived too late to go on or ran out of money, afterward told stories similar to Goodell's.
14. Goodell apparently took this quote from Brigham Young's 29 September 1851 letter to President Fillmore. The exact quote is: "Now, sir, I will simply state what I know to be true—that no people exists who are more friendly to the government of the United States, than the people of this Territory." See House Exec. Doc. 25, 30; Appendix A, page 197.
15. If Goodell arrived at the Ogden River on the Saturday before Chief Terikee was shot, he must have come on 14 September 1850.
16. Stewart said he fired a shot at the sounds in his field to frighten away intruders.
17. John Q. Blaylock has identified him as John Campbell, but this is difficult to confirm since the 1850 Utah Census for Weber County was apparently taken after his death. See Blaylock, "History of North Ogden, An Economic and Social Study."
18. The "widow Geans" may have been forty-eight-year-old Esther Ann Peirce Gheen, a former Pennsylvania Quaker, whose husband, William, died in 1845 in Nauvoo, Illinois. Two of their eight children, Ann Alice and Amanda, at ages sixteen and fourteen, respectively, married Mormon Apostle Heber C. Kimball, then forty-three, on the same day in 1844 in Nauvoo. The 1850 Utah Census for Weber County, taken soon after Campbell's death, appears to show her as the wife of Canadian Lemuel Mallory, age fifty, whose first wife, Elizabeth, died in 1850 during their journey to Utah. Esther Gheen subsequently had at least two other husbands.
19. The exact quote was "more than Spartan integrity and fortitude." See "Memorial signed by members of the Legislative Assembly of Utah to the President of the United States," 29 September 1851, House Exec. Doc. 25, Appendix A, page 202.
20. Farr's Settlement.
21. Brownsville or Brown's Settlement.

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