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Joseph Smith Ill's 1844 Blessing Ana the Mormons of Utah
Q). MicAael' J2umw Joseph Smith Ill's 1844 Blessing Ana The Mormons of Utah JVlembers of the Mormon Church headquartered in Salt Lake City may have reacted anywhere along the spectrum from sublime indifference to temporary discomfiture to cold terror at the recently discovered blessing by Joseph Smith, Jr., to young Joseph on 17 January 1844, to "be my successor to the Presidency of the High Priesthood: a Seer, and a Revelator, and a Prophet, unto the Church; which appointment belongeth to him by blessing, and also by right."1 The Mormon Church follows a line of succession from Joseph Smith, Jr., completely different from that provided in this document. To understand the significance of the 1844 document in relation to the LDS Church and Mormon claims of presidential succession from Joseph Smith, Jr., one must recognize the authenticity and provenance of the document itself, the statements and actions by Joseph Smith about succession before 1844, the succession de- velopments at Nauvoo after January 1844, and the nature of apostolic succes- sion begun by Brigham Young and continued in the LDS Church today. All internal evidences concerning the manuscript blessing of Joseph Smith III, dated 17 January 1844, give conclusive support to its authenticity. Anyone at all familiar with the thousands of official manuscript documents of early Mormonism will immediately recognize that the document is written on paper contemporary with the 1840s, that the text of the blessing is in the extraordinar- ily distinctive handwriting of Joseph Smith's personal clerk, Thomas Bullock, that the words on the back of the document ("Joseph Smith 3 blessing") bear striking similarity to the handwriting of Joseph Smith, Jr., and that the docu- ment was folded and labeled in precisely the manner all one-page documents were filed by the church historian's office in the 1844 period. -
A Tangled Skein
A Tangled Skein a Tangled Skein A Companion Volume to The Baker Street Irregulars’ Expedition to The Country of the Saints Edited by Leslie S. Klinger New York The Baker Street Irregulars 2008 Conan Doyle Was Right Danites,Avenging Angels,and Holy Murder in the Mormon West WILL BAGLEY “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. — George Orwell, 1984. S a native-born son of Utah and a fifth-generation Latter-day Saint, I am A honored to welcome the Baker Street Irregulars to our fair city on the Great Salt Lake and to the hallowed halls of the Alta Club. While I al- ways strive to be a gentleman and a scholar, I am going to relax my usual meticu- lous erudite standards in this paper in the hope of sharing some of the fun I have with Utah history. I am also going to take off the gloves and engage in some his- torical hand-to-hand combat. As my friend and colleague — and your fellow Irregular, “Enoch J. Drebber,” has pointed out so effectively in his paper later in this volume, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited Utah for the first time in 1923 to share his religious convictions with the Mormons, a population whose deeply held faith was as controversial and unortho- dox as his own. -
Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
Book Reviews 149 Book Reviews WILL BAGLEY. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. xxiv + 493 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95 hardback.) Reviewed by W. Paul Reeve, assistant professor of history, Southern Virginia University, and Ardis E. Parshall, independent researcher, Orem, Utah. Explaining the violent slaughter of 120 men, women, and children at the hands of God-fearing Christian men—priesthood holders, no less, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—is no easy task. Biases per- meate the sources and fill the historical record with contradictions and polemics. Untangling the twisted web of self-serving testimony, journals, memoirs, government reports, and the like requires skill, forthrightness, integrity, and the utmost devotion to established standards of historical scholarship. Will Bagley, a journalist and independent historian with sever- al books on Latter-day Saint history to his credit, has recently tried his hand at unraveling the tale. Even though Bagley claims to be aware of “the basic rules of the craft of history” (xvi), he consistently violates them in Blood of the Prophets. As a result, Juanita Brooks’ The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains the most definitive and balanced account to date. Certainly there is no justification for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Mormon men along with Paiute allies acted beyond the bounds of reason to murder the Fancher party, a group of California-bound emigrants from Arkansas passing through Utah in 1857. It is a horrific crime, one that Bagley correctly identifies as “the most violent incident in the history of America’s overland trails” (xiii), and it belongs to Utah and the Mormons. -
Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows Will Bagley
BYU Studies Quarterly Volume 42 Issue 1 Article 9 1-1-2003 Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows Will Bagley Thomas G. Alexander Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq Recommended Citation Alexander, Thomas G. (2003) "Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows Will Bagley," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 42 : Iss. 1 , Article 9. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol42/iss1/9 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in BYU Studies Quarterly by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Alexander: <em>Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Moun will bagley blood of the prophets Bpighambrigham young and the massacre at mountain meadows norman university of oklahoma press 2002 reviewed by thomas G alexander he massacre at mountain meadows remains one of the most heinous Ttheand least understood crimes in the history of the american west how a militia unit of god fearing christians could have murdered more than 120 people in cold blood seems beyond comprehension in a previous book I1 attempted to understand the massacre by comparing it to the mas- sacres of christian armeniansArmenians by moslem turks of jews by christian ger mans and ofmoslem bosniansBosnians by christian serbsgerbs 11I1 did not say as bagley flippantly claims -
Evaluating Robert Remini's Joseph Smith and Will Bagley's Brigham Youngs
A Biographer's Burden: Evaluating Robert Remini's Joseph Smith and Will Bagley's Brigham Youngs Newell G. Bringhurst DURING THE PAST YEAR, I have had the opportunity to read and review two sig- nificant books Robert Remini's Joseph Smith (New York: Viking Press, 2003) and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Mas- sacre at Mountain Meadows (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002). The two reviews—one for each book and each for a different publication—were extremely brief and perfunctory due to space limitations. This prevented me from doing full justice to the books, and I wish to rectify that now. I confess from the onset that I am favorably impressed with both. Both provide fresh, il- luminating insights into their principal subjects, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, thereby advancing the craft of Mormon biography, although I do find deficiencies in both works. The books have received nationwide attention, in- cluding reviews in such prestigious publications as the New York Times and the New York Review of Books.2 Such widespread notice would seem to suggest a coming-of-age for Mormon historical scholarship. Indeed, the fact that non-Mormon Robert Remini, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a nationally renowned Jacksonian scholar, would choose to write on Joseph Smith lends credence to such a coming of age. Remini is known for his definitive multi-volume biogra- phy of President Andrew Jackson, and he is a winner of the National Book Award. He has produced a compelling and, on the whole, sympathetic biogra- 1. -
Journal of Mormon History Vol. 25, No. 2, 1999
Journal of Mormon History Volume 25 Issue 2 Article 1 1999 Journal of Mormon History Vol. 25, No. 2, 1999 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/mormonhistory Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation (1999) "Journal of Mormon History Vol. 25, No. 2, 1999," Journal of Mormon History: Vol. 25 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/mormonhistory/vol25/iss2/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Mormon History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Journal of Mormon History Vol. 25, No. 2, 1999 Table of Contents CONTENTS LETTERS viii ARTICLES • --David Eccles: A Man for His Time Leonard J. Arrington, 1 • --Leonard James Arrington (1917-1999): A Bibliography David J. Whittaker, 11 • --"Remember Me in My Affliction": Louisa Beaman Young and Eliza R. Snow Letters, 1849 Todd Compton, 46 • --"Joseph's Measures": The Continuation of Esoterica by Schismatic Members of the Council of Fifty Matthew S. Moore, 70 • -A LDS International Trio, 1974-97 Kahlile Mehr, 101 VISUAL IMAGES • --Setting the Record Straight Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, 121 ENCOUNTER ESSAY • --What Is Patty Sessions to Me? Donna Toland Smart, 132 REVIEW ESSAY • --A Legacy of the Sesquicentennial: A Selection of Twelve Books Craig S. Smith, 152 REVIEWS 164 --Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian Paul M. Edwards, 166 --Leonard J. Arrington, Madelyn Cannon Stewart Silver: Poet, Teacher, Homemaker Lavina Fielding Anderson, 169 --Terryl L. -
Make It an Indian Massacre:”
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE “MAKE IT AN INDIAN MASSACRE:” THE SCAPEGOATING OF THE SOUTHERN PAIUTES A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By JOHN E. BAUCOM Norman, Oklahoma 2016 “MAKE IT AN INDIAN MASSACRE:” THE SCAPEGOATING OF THE SOUTHERN PAIUTES A THESIS APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY ______________________________ Dr. R. Warren Metcalf, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Rachel Shelden ______________________________ Dr. Sterling Evans © Copyright by JOHN E. BAUCOM 2016 All Rights Reserved. To my encouraging study-buddy, Heather ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: First, I would like to thank the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation. Specifically Dr. Burr Fancher, Diann Fancher, and Ron Wright. The MMMF is largely comprised of the descendants of the seventeen young children that survived the massacre. Their personal support and feedback have proven to be an invaluable resource. I wish them success in their continued efforts to honor the victims of the massacre and in their commitment to guarantee unrestricted access to the privately owned massacre site. I’m grateful for the MMMF’s courage and reverence for their ancestors, along with their efforts in bringing greater awareness to the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I must also acknowledge the many helpful archivists that I’ve met along the way. Their individual expertise, patience, and general support have greatly influenced this project. The Mountain Meadows Massacre is no trivial or unfamiliar topic in the quiet corridors of Utah’s archives. And rather than rolling their eyes at yet another ambitious inquiry into massacre, many were quick to point me in new directions. -
The Response to Joseph Smith's Innovations in the Second
Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 5-2011 Recreating Religion: The Response to Joseph Smith’s Innovations in the Second Prophetic Generation of Mormonism Christopher James Blythe Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, Religion Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Blythe, Christopher James, "Recreating Religion: The Response to Joseph Smith’s Innovations in the Second Prophetic Generation of Mormonism" (2011). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 916. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/916 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RECREATING RELIGION: THE RESPONSE TO JOSEPH SMITH’S INNOVATIONS IN THE SECOND PROPHETIC GENERATION OF MORMONISM by Christopher James Blythe A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in History Approved: _________________________ _________________________ Philip L. Barlow, ThD Daniel J. McInerney, PhD Major Professor Committee Member _________________________ _________________________ Richard Sherlock, PhD Byron R. Burnham, EdD Committee Member Dean of Graduate Studies UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, Utah 2010 ii Copyright © Christopher James Blythe 2010 All rights reserved. iii ABSTRACT Recreating Religion: The Response to Joseph Smith’s Innovations in the Second Prophetic Generation of Mormonism by Christopher James Blythe, Master of Arts Utah State University, 2010 Major Professor: Philip Barlow Department: History On June 27, 1844, Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was assassinated. -
Drought and the Mountain Meadows Massacre Dillon
Hell in the Promised Land: Drought and the Mountain Meadows Massacre Dillon Maxwell HIST 539: World Environmental History 5/7/2018 1 From September 7 to 11, 1857, hell came to the Promised Land. Between those days Mormon militiamen and several Paiute Native Americans attacked a wagon train leaving no survivors. On September 12, 120 bodies of men, women, and children lay bloody and lifeless, baking under the Utah sun. The gruesome scene spread across the valley of Mountain Meadows, Utah. The Baker-Fancher Party met their fate. A month earlier in August of 1857, the Baker-Fancher party stopped in Salt Lake City en- route to California to resupply their caravan. In Salt Lake City, the party decided to turn south to follow the Old Spanish Trail through Nevada. On September 7, they reached Mountain Meadows, a famous stop for migrants in southwestern Utah. Mountain Meadows hosted streams, springs, and rolling pastureland; a fine place for a large wagon train to make camp for a few days before making the trek across the deserts of Nevada. The event that took place in mid-September, 1857 became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Mormon militiamen from Iron County killed 120 members of the Baker-Fancher party, sparing the lives of several small children. Different perspectives offer different reasons as to what drove the Mormon Militia to attack the passing emigrants. Rising tensions between the US Government and Mormons, radicalized Mormon preaching against non-believers, and suspicion that the party of emigrants committed offensive acts to the Mormons settlers all factor into event. -
Journal of Mormon History Vol. 29, No. 2, 2003
Journal of Mormon History Volume 29 Issue 2 Article 1 2003 Journal of Mormon History Vol. 29, No. 2, 2003 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/mormonhistory Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation (2003) "Journal of Mormon History Vol. 29, No. 2, 2003," Journal of Mormon History: Vol. 29 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/mormonhistory/vol29/iss2/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Mormon History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Journal of Mormon History Vol. 29, No. 2, 2003 Table of Contents CONTENTS INMEMORIAM • --Dean L. May Jan Shipps, vi • --Stanley B. Kimball Maurine Carr Ward, 2 ARTICLES • --George Q. Cannon: Economic Innovator and the 1890s Depression Edward Leo Lyman, 4 • --"Scandalous Film": The Campaign to Suppress Anti-Mormon Motion Pictures, 1911-12 Brian Q. Cannon and Jacob W. Olmstead, 42 • --Out of the Swan's Nest: The Ministry of Anthon H. Lund, Scandinavian Apostle Jennifer L. Lund, 77 • --John D. T. McAllister: The Southern Utah Years, 1876-1910 Wayne Hinton, 106 • --The Anointed Quorum in Nauvoo, 1842-45 Devery S. Anderson, 137 • --"A Providencial Means of Agitating Mormonism": Parley P. Pratt and the San Francisco Press in the 1850s Matthew J. Grow, 158 • --Epilogue to the Utah War: Impact and Legacy William P. MacKinnon, 186 REVIEWS --David Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of The Book of Mormon. -
The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American History SARAH BARRINGER GORDON and JAN SHIPPS
Fatal Convergence in the Kingdom of God: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American History SARAH BARRINGER GORDON AND JAN SHIPPS “O Lord, my God, receive thy spirits, it is for thy Kingdom that I do this.” This was the prayer uttered by a Mormon participant in the notorious Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, as he fatally shot those already wounded. The massacre was an important by-product of religious change in early national life, and an infamous example of white- on-white violence in the antebellum American west. The longer history and dynamism of religious conflict uncovered here reveals deeply related expressions of faith by Methodist migrants on the move and Mormon settlers on the ground. As members of both faiths converged at Mountain Meadows, each was determined to build the Kingdom of God on earth and each assumed that they alone were empowered by God to conquer the continent in His name. These rival versions of Kingdom-building Sarah Barringer Gordon is Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. Jan Shipps is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. The authors thank many friends and interlocutors for their insight and critique, including audiences at the Huntington Library, Mormon History Association, Western Historical Association, and Washington University (St. Louis). In partic- ular, we are grateful for the assistance of Philip Barlow, Larry Coates, Debra Marsh, Lynnmarie Fancher, Richard Turley, Alison Wallner, Will Bagley, Richard Bushman, John Wigger, Ralph Gray, and Leigh Schmidt. We also thank the edi- tors and reviewers of the Journal of the Early Republic, who have helped immea- surably, especially in helping us grapple with the more unconventional source material for the Fancher story. -
Monuments and Massacre: the Art of Remembering
Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects Honors Program 5-2006 Monuments and Massacre: The Art of Remembering Lafe Gerald Conner Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Conner, Lafe Gerald, "Monuments and Massacre: The Art of Remembering" (2006). Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects. 714. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors/714 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Program at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MONUMENTS AND MASSACRE: THE ART OF REMEMBERING by Lafe Gerald Conner Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of HONORS IN UNIVERSITY STUDIES WITH DEPARTMENT HONORS in History Approved: Thesis/Project Advisor Department Honors Advisor Chris Conte Sue Shapiro Director of Honors Program Christie Fox UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, UT 2006 Monuments and Massacre The Art of Remembering Lafe Conner Honors Thesis April 26, 2006 "What else is there, after all, besides memory and dreams, and the way they mix with land and air and water to make us all whole? " 1 Robert Michael Pyle. I Rain transfonned the dusty trail outside our trailer into a highway of sediments speeding and settling. Inside the trailer I pulled on my boots and raincoat while my dad slipped into a larger version of his own . Then, with my two brothers , we embarked in puddle play. Aimed at impeding the torrent , we employed any object; rocks, branches, wood chips, even our own wet boots and hands .