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Q. James Henry Martineau may not have a lot of name recognition, so tell us a little about who he was.
A. James Henry Martineau was born in Amsterdam, Montgomery county, New York, on March 13, 1828, to John Martineau, a physician turned engineer, and Eliza Mears. After a liberal arts education at the Munro Academy in Elbridge, New York, and a stint in the Mexican-American War, Martineau spent the rest of his adult life as a surveyor, civil engineer, clerk, and pathfinder in the West.
In 1850, during what was meant to be a winter stopover in Salt Lake City on his way to the California gold fields, Martineau converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was sent with apostle George A. Smith to settle Parowan. He spent a long eventful life in nearly all the major Mormon settlement areas. As a colonel in the Utah Territorial Militia, in which he was also a military adjutant and topographical engineer, he conducted military drills, explored wilderness areas in southern and northern Utah, submitted reports, and drew maps to document his travels. Geographically, his life’s work covered the entire “Mormon corridor” and spanned nearly seven decades.
Q. Why are his journals so important? In what ways should historians of this period get excited about them?
A. As a skillful recordkeeper and diarist, James Henry Martineau often filled his journals with full and meaningful entries. The journals contain descriptions of events, observations on people and church doctrines, and introspections on personal faith. Martineau was also very candid about his polygamous relationships, kinship, and temple ordinance work to connect his family for the eternities.
I think that students and scholars of Utah History and Mormon settlement will find this to be a wealth of information on the exploration and settlement of the Mormon corridor—from southern Idaho to northern Mexico. Martineau surveyed nearly all the major settlement areas: the southern Utah Settlements, Cache Valley, Gila Valley in Arizona, Tucson and its surrounding area, and northern Mexico, when the Mormons were seeking places to settle in the state of Chihuahua.
Scholars of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, polygamy, and railroad history (the Union Pacific Railroad, Central Pacific, Utah Northern Railroad, and railroad projects in Mexico, headed by John Young) will be excited by Martineau’s direct involvement in these events and his journal entries for all of them.
Q. Briefly give an example of one or two entries that shed light on important events.
A. In early June 1875, Brigham Young and several of the Twelve visited Logan. Martineau wrote that on Sunday, June 6, President Young “spoke with great power in reference to the United Order.” The next day, Martineau accompanied President Young’s party on their return to Salt Lake City. On June 8, after visiting the Surveyor General’s office, and making several other stops in the city, he paid a visit to his old friend, William Dame:
“In the afternoon I went to the Penitentiary and saw Br. W.H. Dame, who has been confined 7 months on charge of murder, committed at the Mountain Meadows at the time of Buchanan’s war on Utah. He is innocent, and I know it. It was a joyful meeting. We talked old times, and of the crime of which he is charged. He wishes me to attend his trial as a witness, 12th July next at Beaver. I remained with him until 8 P.M.”
Two days later, Martineau went north to Ogden in company with John W. Young and his family. From Ogden, the party went east on the U.P.R.R. toward Carter Station, Wyoming. Martineau intended to visit his coal mine in western Wyoming. He and several other men acquired a quarter section each, after Edwin Crocker had shown them coal deposits in an area about 41 miles north of Evanston:
“Arrived at Ogden at 8 A.M. and at 9.30 Started up the Weber Canon—the first time since I was
surveying on the U.P. Railroad—the change seemed marvelous indeed, and as I whirled rapidly by so many familiar spots, where we had toiled so long in mud, water, thorny thickets, precipices, and rocks, with a broiling sun, and legions of mosquitoes I could hardly analyze my feelings.”
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On October 1903, when he was nearly seventy-six, Martineau was awarded a federal surveying contract in the High Uintas. In one undated journal entry in early October, he wrote:
“Our work was very arduous. In the lower part of my work we had miles at a time of dense cedars through which constant use of the axes was required and one or two miles advance in a day was all we could accomplish and when near to top of the Uintah range of mountains, where about half my work must be done we had to continue with the most dense undergrowth of pines and aspens I ever saw in all my life,—so dense that a man could hardly get through it on foot. So we had to cut every foot of the way a path through the thicket. And all this was made still more impassible for men, and totally so for horses in many places by fallen trunks of timber lying every way, over which it was often difficult to pass.
Sometimes heavy labor all day gave us only a mile advance. In other places, where was no timber, we had to go over huge boulders with no earth among them, making it difficult to pass on foot;—totally impossible for horses or mules.
Q. These journals have been published before. What makes this edition better than the previously published version?
A. BYU’s Religious Studies Center published Martineau’s journals under the title, Uncommon Common Pioneer (2008). That version undoubtedly filled a need for Martineau’s many descendants to have published edition of the journals. The editors, Rebecca Martineau-McCarty and Donald Godfrey, were commissioned by the family organization to produce an edition of the journals that was accessible and reflected what was then known about Martineau in published accounts and family histories.
The version that we have published through Signature Books contains more informative, accurate information in the annotations. I searched for and included as many manuscript sources and newspaper articles as possible to provide more historical context. I included abundant collateral primary sources in the footnotes for the purpose of better informing the journal entries.
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