UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS: A PROFILE OF THE SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRANT

BY WILLIAM MULDER*

TAH'S Anglo-Scandinavian population, as everybody knows, U is the fruit of over a century of Mormon proselyting abroad. To thousands of Biblically minded Europeans, America seemed the land of Zion, with Deseret's adobe and sagebrush community the visible Kingdom to which a latter-day Israel was being gathered, particularly from '.'the land of the north." From 1850 to 1900, when "the gathering" was most ardently preached, thirty thousand Scandinavian Mormons came to Utah's rainless but dedicated valleys. They became hardy grass roots settlers on a frontier far beyond the rich and comfortable acres their country- men were homesteading in Minnesota and Wisconsin and well ahead of the Scandinavian invasion of Nebraska and the Dakotas. In the 1850's over three-fourths of Denmark's total emigra- tion to the United States was Mormon, and nearly two-fifths in the 1860's. Of six counties in the United States in 1870 numbering 500 or more Danes, Utah had four. In 1890 still only Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota exceeded Utah's Danish-born. More Swedish-born lived in Utah just prior to 1880 than in any other mountain state. In 1910 Utah, coming within a fraction of Dakota and Nebraska, emerged as the fifth highest state in per cent of total population formed of Swedish stock. Norwegians in actual numbers were few, but they were locally important and histori- cally the oldest Scandinavians on the scene: Ellen Sanders Kim- ball, one of the three women to enter the Salt Lake Valley with the pioneer vanguard in 1847, was a Norwegian convert from the

•William Mulder is a professor of English at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. His "Mormons from Scandinavia, 1850-1900: A Shepherded Migration," published in the Pacific Historical Review. August, 1954, received the Louis Knott Koontz Memorial Award for 1954, for the most deserving con- tribution to that magazine. He is co-author, with A. R. Mortensen, of a forth- coming book dealing with accounts by contemporary observers of visits to Mormon country. 234 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 235 famous Fox River settlement in Illinois, where a Norwegian at its tip and in the countryside around Aalborg, Aarhus, and congregation had been founded in the days of Joseph Smith; a Fredericia, they won their largest following outside Copenhagen remnant of that congregation came west in 1849, in time to b« itself.* In proportion to its population, Vendsyssel, it was said, numbered, thirty-two strong, in Utah's first census, when the yielded more converts than any other part of Scandinavia—a Danes numbered but two and the Swedes one.1 hardy, independent stock, descendants of Jutes who had resisted By 1900 Scandinavians formed 34% of Utah's foreign-born; Catholic Christianity centuries before and made Lim Fjorden, and Scandinavian stock that year formed 16% of the total popu- which separated them from the rest of Jutland, renowned as "the lation. Two years later Anthon H. Lund, Danish immigrant of northernmost frontier of righteousness."5 Visiting Apostle Amasa 1862, could tell a big reunion of Scandinavians in Brigham City, M. Lyman, who in 1861 toured Jutland by carriage and found "We are now 45,000 and are a great power in our state."* His "a good Danish shake of the hand ... no sickly, indifferent af- own appointment the year before to the high office of counselor fair," compared the flat country beyond Lim Fjorden with in the First Presidency of the Mormon Church was a recognition "the prairies of the great West," treeless except for occasional of that power, an official acknowledgment of the role his country- isolated islands of growth, the green foliage framing the white men were playing in Utah's affairs. For him, as for his people, it walls of the better farmhouses. In contrast to Utah's valleys, he marked a rise from humble beginnings. found the soil poor, the "hardy husbandmen" only partially Most of them came from the compact villages of Denmark repaid for their toil and their habitations very primitive: and southernmost Sweden. In far-stretching Norway and northern Sweden the needle of emigration to America was already oriented, Yet in these hovels . . . with all their indications of and Utah seemed a meager offering alongside the riches of Min- squalor and poverty, the spirit of genial friendship shed nesota's "New Scandinavia." Though Denmark, was actually its cheering light; and, although there were no bedsteads, enjoying agricultural prosperity, the religious unrest was con- a liberal supply of fresh clean straw, placed on the siderable, in part the product of the discouraging strife over earthy floor of the best apartment, afforded the traveler Schleswig-Holstein in which many read God's disfavor with an opportunity to think of the rude and humble enter- Denmark, and in part product of dissatisfaction with the Establish- tainment extended to the Sinner's Friend . . . .6 ment.3 The times were ripe for the Mormons, who still found many poor. The island of Fyen, on the other hand, where the Mormons On the sandy peninsula of Jutland, less fertile than the numbered but 170 compared with Vendsyssel's 600, reminded Danish isles, particularly in the barren province of Vendsyssel him of the richest country districts of England and Scotland, the whole "a sea-girt picture of rural loveliness and beauty." Everywhere in Scandinavia—in Malmo, Oslo, Copenhagen, 'Ellen Kimball's Norwegian name was Aagaata Ystensdatter Bake. Odense<—he received "most expressive proofs of the hospitality Canute Peterson and his wife Sarah, among the founders of Lehi and later and brotherly love" of the Saints, though it was clear the gospel prominent in Sanpete County, were Fox River converts. See my forthcoming article, "Norwegian Forerunners among the Early Mormons," in Norwegian- "at present finds its votaries" among the hardy poor, "sound American Studies and Records. 2Utah Korrespondenten. August 1, 1902. The U. S. Twelfth Census (1900) shows 24,751 inhabitants of Danish stock, 14,578 of Swedish, and •More than half, or 53%, of the Danish converts were won in Jutland— 4,554 of Norwegian in Utah for a total of 43,883 of Scandinavian stock, or 27% of the total Scandinavian membership. The Copenhagen Conference (rep- very close to Lund's 45,000. resenting the whole of Zealand as well as the capital) produced 37% of the aP. S. Vlg notes that economic conditions Improved in Denmark after Danish membership—21% of the Scandinavian total. 1850, especially for farmers, only indirectly for laborers and artisans. Three 6 factors making for emigration from Denmark, he says, were Mormonism, "Tale af Aeldste Andrew Jenson," Morgenstjernen, IV (1885), 179. gold fever, and America letters. Danike i Amerika (2 vols., Minneapolis, "Letter, August 21, 1861, MS., in Scandinavian Mission History, L.D.S. 1907), I, 284ff. Church Historian's Library. Hereafter cited as Mission History.

f UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS material for the development of that worldwide nationality, in the But the Norwegian proselytes, largely from Christiania (later broad shadow of which the saved of the world shall repose . . . called Oslo), proved a highly articulate minority, producing an Even a satirical missionary like Joseph W. Young, in whose intelligentsia easily distinguished among the Scandinavian con- eyes Jutland had "a very hungry appearance" and who thought verts, who were in the main the "respectable farmers and me- the stables connected to the dwellings bred "the finest fleas in chanics, with their families," as Daniel Spencer observed in 1855, the world," was of the same opinion: the country people might "who have embraced this work . , . and were constantly inquiring be plain and simple with their black bread and strong coffee, and being baptized wherever we went."13 their age-old wooden shoes and homespun; and their "hornspoon All prevalent notions to the contrary, these converts by and and finger" manners might be as primitive as their dress, but large embraced Mormonism in families. Lurid stories of abduction they were industrious "and certainly the most strictly honest to supply women for Utah's supposed harems had their germ in that I have ever met with."8 occasional runaways and desertions, but the statistics and the Most early proselytes in Sweden were made in the equally accounts of the converts themselves provide a convincing, not to rural province of Scania or Skaane just across the Sound from say startling, corrective of folklore. Of 10,565 converts making Zealand and historically and culturally an extension of Denmark. up 31 representative companies" which left Scandinavia between But Stockholm and its environs soon rivalled Copenhagen's 1853 and 1882, 7,785, or 74%, were in family groups ranging successes." Franklin D. Richards, visiting Stockholm in 1867, from married pairs to flocks of eleven, with couples most common noted "an insatiable thirst on the part of the people, that is grow- —560 of them—followed by 470 families of three, 345 families ing with the ruler and sovereign also, for an extension of human of four, and so on, in descending order as the families grow larger. rights, and freedom of thought, of speech, of the press, and of The majority of the emigrants, as the family structure would conscientious worship of almighty God . . . ,"10 That spirit predict, were in their vigorous thirties and forties. Unmarried predicted the welcome changes of the ensuing years, a far cry girls and women (at the "spinster" age of 14 years and over) from the days when in some places in Sweden meetings had to numbered 1,515, or 15%, and the eligible boys and men (at the be held privately and at night, as Carl Widerborg remembered: apprentice age of 14 years and over) numbered 1,184, or 12%, "We assembled at midnight, enjoyed much comfort of the spirit, a difference so slight it renders ridiculous the public headshaking transacted our business, and dispersed quietly at five o'clock in in both Scandinavia and America, where it was assumed "the the morning."11 females were in the majority" in every boatload. Critics, besides, Norway, though it had given Mormonism forerunners like did not realize that a great many of the eligible young women the Illinois converts, turned a cold shoulder to Zion's invitation."

7Loc. cif. quite 14% were Norwegian. Of the 22,653 of these "members of record" who 'Letter, February 4, 1858. in New York Times. March 10. 1858. under emigrated (over 30,000 counting children under eight years of age, who were the heading "The Mormons in Europe—Progress of Mormonism in Northern not baptized and hence not recorded as members), 56% were Danish, a little Europe." over 32% were Swedish, 11% were Norwegian, and a fraction Icelandic. "By 1905, when it became a separate mission, Sweden furnished altogether ""A Visit to Scandinavia." Millennial Star, XVII (November 10, 1855), 16,695 converts, or 36*/o of the Scandinavian total. A little over a third, 36%, came from the Stockholm Conference; another third, 34%, from Skaane, eacn 705. of these areas contributing about 11% of the whole Scandinavian membership. "This count includes every company to leave during the 1860's, when Mormonism was at floodtide in Scandinavia and most characteristic; beyond 10Letter, February 6, 1867, in Mission History. this, the count—which takes in over a third of the total emigration, a "Letter, June 25. 1858, ibid. jtnerous representation—samples companies leaving in the 1850 s, 1870's, "From 1850 to 1905 Norway contributed but 6,360, or 14%, of all con- •nd 1880's as recorded in the Scandinavian Mission Emigration Records, verts and 2,556, or 11%. of all the emigrants. To recapitulate: altogether, of MS., Books A-G (1854-86), L.D.S. Church Historian's Library, supplemented the 46.497 converts which Scandinavia yielded between 1850 and 1905, sllahtly ky passenger manifests from the National Archives of certain vessels whose more than 50% were Danish, slightly less than 36% were Swedish, and not itcords were missing from the Mormon files. 238 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 239 in the emigrant companies married the young men, their own holders, tenants, or simply journeyman hands. Their peasant countrymen, before journey's end." ancestry would figure years later in directives from the Gene- "The people wherewith you plant," Francis Bacon had alogical Society of Utah outlining "how we must go to work advised America's first English colonizers, "ought to be garden- if we want to construct a genealogical table of a farmer-family," ers, ploughmen, labourers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, a matter "of particular interest in Utah because most of the fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks and bak- Latter-day Saints of Danish origin have come from the country ers."16 Except for the "apothecaries and surgeons" the Scandi- districts."18 They included a few like the well-to-do Peter navian proselytes would have strengthened the "plantations" of Thomsen of Bregninge on Falster Island, so prominent his con- the New World as they did in fact strengthen Zion. Although version rocked the village, and the landed Anders Eliason of the Collector of Customs at New Orleans, on March 17, 1853, Ennerkulen, Sweden, who provided a hundred of his fellow con- indiscriminately labeled the first shipload of converts "Labourers verts with passage to America. At the other extreme were young and Shoemakers"—and had them coming from "Ireland"— hands like Christian Lund, who remembered herding cattle one they were in reality Danish farmers and artisans representing winter for his board and a pair of wooden shoes, and Hans Chris- the same variety of skills which marked the whole emigration." tensen, whose sole possession was the sheep his father gave him as Farmers and their families (including an occasional shepherd his share of the family property. In between were freeholders and a few called gardeners or agriculturalists) made up fully half like Jens Nielsen, who at thirty years of age could buy five acres the emigration in the 1850's—57% in one company. In the of land and build a cottage enabling him to be "looked upon 1860's they made up about a third, their numbers steadily dimin- as a respectable neighbor and many times invited to the higher ishing with each decade as the proportion of laborers rese- class of society."19 The great majority in the 1850's and 1860's ttle 5. S. Nevada company in 1882, for example, counted 12% —decades of Mormonism's largest rural following in Scandinavia farmers, 37% laborers, and 16% servant girls, reflecting a shift —were independent enough to pay their passage to Zion, at least from rural to urban membership. The "farmers" of the shipping as far as the frontier where wagons from Utah Territory awaited lists were small farmers, Europe's familiar peasants—free them, and to assist those without enough salable goods to scrape their passage together. They were, besides, a vanguard which, once established in Zion, sent help to the Old Country and made "Females did, in fact, predominate—by a slim margin. Of 12,477 emi- possible the greater emigration, proportionately, of the 1870's grants—a somewhat larger sampling of Mormon companies leaving during the half century—5,796 were males, 6,681 females, a difference of 885, or and 1880's.so The well-to-do farmers were few enough to be 7%. The difference is significant enough because the general emigration from especially noticed, though of course wealth was relative: James Denmark was 60% male from 1869 to 1900; from Norway 57% for the same period; and from Sweden 54% between 1851 and 1900. (See Imre Ferenczi, Jensen remembered that owning a cow gave his parents "some International Migrations 12 vols.. New York, 1929], I. 667-78, 748-50, 757-58.) Among Scandinavian Mormons the ratio was essentially reversed: 46.5% male, 53.5% female. 18"Of Plantations," Bacon's Essays (Cornell Series, n.d.), 178. "T. H. Hauch-Fausboll, "How is Genealogy to be Studied?" Utah 17Records of the Bureau of Customs, Office of the Collector of Customs, Genealogical Magazine, XXII (January, 1931), 6. Port of New Orleans, Passenger List of the Forest Monarch, March 17, »•Scandinavian Jubilee Album (Salt Lake City, 1900), 228; "Across the 1853. Microfilm from the National Archives and Records Service. Washington. Plains in 1863,' Heart Throbs o[ the West (12 vols., Salt Lake City, 1939-51), D. C. Danish immigrants were such a novelty the customs officials must have IV, 351; C. N. Lund, Autobiography, MS., typescript in Brigham Young mistaken their tongue for Gaelic. The original Mormon roll of the Forejf University Library; Hans Christensen, Memoirs, MS., microfilm in Utah Monarch company has not survived, but a partial reconstruction in the L.D.S. State Historical Society; Jens Nielsen, Letter to son Uriah, in Albert R. Church archives from extant journals kept by members of the company Lyman, "Sketch of Bishop Jens Nielsen," MS., Utah State Historical Society, mentions several weavers and blacksmiths, a tailor, wagonmaker, seaman, WPA Writers' Project Biographies. miller, wheelwright, carpenter, cabinetmaker, cooper, a government clerk, •"For the story of this self-help and assistance see my article "Mormons a former Baptist lay preacher, a village choirmaster, a school trustee, and a from Scandinavia, 1850-1900: A Shepherded Migration," Pacific Historical good many fanners. See the Forsgren Company, MS. compilation. L.D.S. Rtvitw. XXIII (August, 1954), 227-46. Church Historian's Library. UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 24 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY 241

21 recalled that "From the foundrymen the gospel went round among recognition socially" in the village of Haugerup. Certainly the the smiths, good and solid material, and from there to the stone farmers of those early years were far from the indigent serfs masons," a sequence readily illustrated: himself an ironfounder, they were commonly imagined to be. They were seed corn for Fjeld passed his psalmbook and tracts around until they became Zion. supplying it with a skill most sorely needed. Better fitted as black as the workers themselves. They convinced Jonas Ot- for an agrarian experience than the urban British migration, they terstrom, a smith who could no more keep silence, the newspapers were destined to make the valleys where they settled known as noted, than he could from using a sledgehammer. And among the granaries and creampots of Utah. those who heard him was stonemason Gustave Andersen, whose Like the farmers, the artisans, who outnumbered the un- wife sold milk on the square, a capital opportunity to proclaim skilled laborers, included the prosperous and the poor. Among Mormonism at the same time.23 them were masters, journeymen, and apprentices—at one ex- There were about the same number of butchers, brewers, treme, established proprietors like Hans Jensen, whose black- bakers, and millers (only 17 in the sample companies) as there smith works in Aalborg was valued at $4,000.00, and tailor Jens were fishermen and seamen (only 16). The sailors were few. Weibye of Vendsyssel, who kept fourteen employees busy in his Landlocked in Zion, they might on some glorious Fourth of July shop; at the other extreme, a journeyman carriagemaker like climb the community flagpole like a mast or, like bargeman Hans Jens Christopher Kempe, who had nothing but the tools of his "Pram Stikker" Larsen, work the block and tackle to hoist the trade. Others, like weaver Hans Zobell, owned their cottage stone for meetinghouses and temples.24 Four ropemakers, two worksteads, which they could sell when they emigrated. Ola house painters, a miner, a matmaker, a hairdresser, a hunter, a Nilsson Liljenquist, Copenhagen tailor, whose wife could af- bookbinder, a printer, a thatcher, a sailmaker, a shipbuilder, five ford silks and a servant, was one of the few early converts en- watch- or instrument-makers, four clerks, four potters, and a fur- joying the privileges of burghership.22 rier complete the inventory of occupations. Three musicians— Among the artisans, carpenters and related craftsmen like all members of the Monarch o[ the Sea company in 1861—alone cabinetmakers, coopers, wheelwrights, joiners, turners, and car- saved the day for the professions, though the B. S. Kimball emi- riagemakers made up a considerable group, 11 % of reported grants included a homeopath. For a budding artist like young occupations in the 31 companies being sampled; in the John Carl Christian Anton Christensen, whose expert silhouettes won Boyd company in 1855 they formed 17%. The next largest him a scholarship to Copenhagen's Royal Academy until he joined group of artisans were the tailors, seamstresses, dyers, and weav- the Mormons, Zion had at first no call. He had to content himself ers (7%). Smiths—blacksmiths, ironfounders, coppersmiths, with farming when he emigrated in 1857, though he kept his tinsmiths, and an occasional machinist—followed these (6%), interest alive as an amateur, painting scenery for the Salt Lake with shoemakers, tanners, saddle- and harness-makers almost as Theatre and creating a traveling panorama of church history large a group (5.6%), not far outnumbering stonecutters, masons, which won him at last a kind of fame.25 and bricklayers (4.5%). Speaking of early converts among the The basic skills were all there; others would be developed in workmen in Oslo's factory district along the Aker, Carl Fjeld the settlements. "I would never have believed," wrote Christensen in 1872 after visiting the Utah Territorial Fair, "so much talent 21 j M. Tanner, Biographical Sketch of James Jensen (Salt Lake City. could be found among us as a people who are nearly all gathered 1911). <5. "Hans Peter Jensen, Biographi and Jurnal [sic], MS., to possession ol "Carl M. Hagberg, Den Norske Misjonshistorie (Oslo, 1928), 23-26. Le Roi C. Snow; Jens Weibye. "Dagbog, Morgenstjernen, III (1 ). V>i. "Arthur Schmidt Larsen, Life Sketch of Hans Larsen, MS., Utah State J. C. Kempe, Autobiography. MS., typescript in my possession; Hans £obeM. Historical Society, WPA Writers' Project Biographies. Autobiography. MS., typescript in possession of A L. Zobell. Jr.: U. IN. Liljenquist. • Autobiography," Tullidges Quarterly Magazine, I (July. 1BN11. ,!C. C. A. Christensen, "Levnedslob," Digte og Afhandlinger (Salt Lake 564. City, 1921), 329-81. 24 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 243 from among the poor and most downtrodden classes of man- a major issue in their campaign to bring the church to its knees kind." Someone from his hometown, the Danish settlement of and the territory to unsullied statehood. "The local journalistic Ephraim, had won the silver medal for a landscape painting maligner," as the Deseret News called the Tribune, talked "with showing several children gleaning corn in the field just outside frequent scorn about the Scandinavian element, as though the . . . "our town"; a Swedish sister had received the premium for presence of such people was sufficient to show the degraded "haararbeide" or hair artistry; "our friend W." (without doubt the character of Utah's population."29 In the bitter anti-Mormon Norwegian painter Dan Weggeland) had received the silver Handbook on Mormonism, Mormons were foreigners by def- medal for his portraits; a young Norwegian brother had taken inition, "low, base-born foreigners, hereditary bondsmen . . . the prize for wood-carving; a Swede for an artistic watch; "and serf blood . . . ."ao The Rev. J. Wesley Hill's patriotism erupted many others won premiums .... It's only a small part of what in odious images of the converts: they were "gathered from the can be accomplished."26 Twenty years later Christensen ob- slums of Europe; . . . brought from the fetid fields of the Old served that he met Scandinavians "nearly everywhere" in his World . . . refugees" who endeavored "in the name of Religion to travels and found his countrymen in many places holding "the undermine our liberties and destroy our government . . . ."31 most responsible positions both in church and civic affairs," which Governor Caleb West's animosity in 1889 drove him to extremes: he found "a greatly satisfying witness to our national character "It is just as if a lot of Chinamen or other foreign people should by the world's most practical nation—the Americans."27 come here and take possession of that Territory, with ideas en- tirely distinct and diametrically opposed to ours."32 The governor retracted the implication as accidental, but II such hyperbole was all too common. In vain did an impartial ob- server like the Rev. John C. Kimball ask: "Who has implicit con- But the acceptance had come slowly. For years both Europe fidence in a Californian's denunciation of the Chinese, or in a and America took a dim view of the convert-emigrants. They western squatter's diatribe against the Indians or in a Protestant theologian's strictures on Roman Catholicism? So with the criti- were an embarrassment to Scandinavia, a trouble to the United 33 States, where Secretary of State William Evarts, for example, cisms of Utah gentiles on their Mormon neighbors." And in in 1879, felt uneasy about Utah's "accessions from Europe . . . vain did Apostle George Q. Cannon contend that "a large part of our people are native-born," and that "our proselytes are more drawn mainly from the ignorant classes, who are easily influenced 84 by the double appeal to their passions and their poverty."" largely Americans than any other nationality." It was an Utah, already outlandish enough as the Mormon refuge, seemed ingrained national habit to speak ill of the Mormons. Praise, if all the more un-American with its alien population, recruited, it any, was always left-handed—amazement at the good results was feared, to strengthen Mormon subversion of federal authority from disreputable beginnings. Rarely did anyone like Hugh Mc- and Christian morality. Villification of the convert in this respect was most vicious in *»"The Scandinavian Element," Deseret News, June 25, 1886. Utah itself, among the gentiles, who made Mormon immigration '"John M. Coyner, ed., Handbook on Mormonism (Salt Lake City, 1882), <0: C. C. Goodwin, "The Mormon Situation," Harper's, LXIII (October, IM1). 756. 26Letter. November 10, 1872, Stjerne, XXII (January 15, 1873), 123-24. "John W. Hill, Mormonism vs. Americanism (Salt Lake City, 1889), "Letter, December 29, 1891, Nordstjarnan, XVI (February 1, 1892), 12. 47. "Hearings before the Committee on Territories in Regard to the Ad- "William M. Evarts, "Diplomatic Correspondence Circular No 10. mission of Utah as a State. 1889 (Washington, D. C., 1889), 128. August 9, 1879. Sent to Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the Unitrt IM4)"Joh, 3. n C. Kimball, Mormonism Exposed, the Other Side (Hartford, Conn., States," Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1879 (Washington, D. C. 1880), 11. "Interview, March 27, 1881, New York Times, April 11, 1881. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS Cullough, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, applaud the Mormon of the Inner Mission, but these were at least native movements immigration: "The people of the United States," he said in the and patriotic. Sweden, also on national grounds, was frankly New York Tribune in 1877, "are under obligation to the Mormons. envious: while its missionaries were evangelizing the heathen in . . . They have brought to the country many thousands of Africa, China, and India, the Mormons were making proselytes industrious, peaceable and skillful people, and added largely to in Sweden itself, with the added difference that the Mormon its wealth. . . ." The irrationalism of the anti-polygamy prosecu- proselytes, at an economic loss to the country of 5,000 kronor tion in the late 1880's betrayed even the Commissioner of Im- capital worth, emigrated to strengthen the community in Utah, migration into an irresponsible description of one company: where they paid tithing, supported missions, and maintained In many instances there were women with children born churches, whereas the Swedish missions had only a handful of out of wedlock, wives who had deserted their husbands black and yellow natives to show for their trouble.SB and brought their children with them, husbands who had The bad opinion of the Mormons in Scandinavia was uni- left behind their wives, children who had run away from versal: "I knew nothing of the Mormons except very bad reports." home, and parents who had abandoned their children.3" "I had always understood them to be a wicked, mean people that ought to be shunned." "Father did not care so much about It was a perfectly stereotyped picture of Mormon immigrants, the Baptists, if my brother would only keep away from the Mor- as common in Europe as in the United States. mons." Anna Karine Widtsoe, widow of a Trondhjem school- While the United States blamed Europe for supplying master, felt contaminated when her shoemaker stuffed some proselytes "ignorant enough and sufficiently docile to carry Mormon tracts into shoes she had left for repair. It was always a out the schemes of the apostles,"3" and on occasion even sought surprise to find any good apples in the barrel. Tailor Olof Han- the help of foreign governments to check them, Europe blamed son remembered his pastor's astonishment: "He asked me how I, America for exporting an undesirable ism which "victimized who could read so well, could have become a Mormon."40 Over- and depleted" the population by "immoral and criminal means."" night, established reputations could be blighted. Convert Hannah Scandinavia deplored Mormon success. National pride dismissed Sorensen. though twenty-five years a respected midwife in Sned- the converts as not representative—it was consoling to think sted, lost her practice and was threatened with the workhouse; they were the sick, the poor, the outcast, and that the well-heeled Oslo impresarios, eager to engage Agnes Olsen's golden voice and intelligent among them were the exception, though Den- to sing Solveig's song from Peer Gynt, told her no audience would mark expressed surprise, if not concern, that its peasants, tradi- tolerate her as a Mormon. It was not often that teachers or em- tionally so stable and sober, should be persuaded in such num- ployers took the part of the proselyte as did Annie Christensen's bers.38 Worst of all, the Mormon proselytes alienated themselves teacher, who told the children not to make fun of her. On the from both church and country: the Danish Establishment already contrary, Johan Nielsen's schoolmates dubbed him "John the had its hands full with dissenting Grundtvigians and the pietists Baptist" and made him fill his wooden shoes with water to baptize them. Christina Oleson's Swedish pastor, encountering her on the village street one day, struck her with his cane for joining the "Edward Stephenson to the Secretary of the Treasury, July 15, 1886, In 41 "Paupers and Mormons," ibid., August 2, 1886, describing the arrival of 497 despised Mormons. She felt she was getting off easy. Mormon immigrants on the S. S. Nevada, July 7, 1886, "bound for Utah with passage prepaid." Stephenson urged that future shiploads not be al- lowed to land. 0 AsSar Mormo 38"Our Western Patriarchs," ibid„ July 9, 1877. „I ' "^nas Zion (Stockholm, 1911) 57 37 Jens Nielsen, op. cit.; Hannah Sorensen, "Life Sketch" TA„ V John L. Stevens to William M. Evarts, September 23, 1879, In Pap*rt Romans Journal. I (August 18901 iq?. h"' nu , . ' The Y°un0 Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1879. p. 964. A- Widtsoe /„ the GosPl?Nef (SaltTake'"oty ^wYPfiJ C?{ f'ti ,0hn 38Gunnar Hansen. "Dansk Udvandring til U.S.A. tog Fart for 100 Aar Autobiography. MS., typescript in my possession '' 6 ' 0'°f HanS°"' siden," Danmarksposten (Aalborg, Denmark), June, 1948. "Hannah Sorensen. op. cit.. 393; "Zlons Daughters Sing," Heart Throbs 24 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 247

An immorality of the clergy's own making gave many early Hardly a company of Mormon emigrants ever left Copen- proselytes an unsavory reputation. They came from a class hagen without a warrant being served on someone for child- already in bad repute because, cut off from benefits of clergy stealing: fearful relatives or suspicious neighbors often tried to through fees they couldn't meet or having an antipathy to the interfere when a Mormon family sent some of their young ahead. Anna Lucia Krause, wife of a prospering wheelwright and nail- authority and ritual of the Establishment, they had entered into maker who was in no mood to give up his thriving shop to go common law marriages. Franklin D. Richards observed in Stock- to America, kept her Mormon membership a secret for two years, holm in 1867 that the clergy had "bastardized" 42% of the popu- 42 until her unhappiness prevailed on him and he agreed to go as lation. far as St. Louis. When they sailed, Anna left eight-year-old Stories about the Mormons emphasized their credulity and Maria behind to come with a later Mormon company. It was part low caste. Not a few tales had to do with runaways, desertions, of Anna's design to get her unbelieving husband to Utah, where child-stealing and broken homes. In their zeal, some converts he would have to journey to fetch the girl, and in the process committed follies that rumor easily magnified. They took Christ perhaps be converted and remain. When the emigrant company at his word and left family and friends to form new ties stronger passed through St. Louis the father asked for Maria, but her than the old. More than one frantic parent tried to win back a zealous guardians were determined not to leave the child among son or daughter lost to the Mormons — run away, he might say, gentiles. Krause, already griefstricken at the loss of his wife and but very likely turned out of doors. Despite her mother's "heart- three children, all victims within a week of the cholera, made a rending pleadings" Olina Torasen would not return home from heartbreaking search for his daughter. Going from wagon to Christiania, where she had gone in 1864 to learn dressmaking and wagon, throwing covers off even sick people in his desperate had met the Mormons; her father, "crazed with grief," came for quest, he spied her playthings, but he never found her; the her, sitting up all night at her boarding house because he did not Mormons, confident they were doing a good deed, took her off dare to leave her alone; but she outwitted him in an unguarded to Utah, leaving the father, already at odds with them, more moment and with the help of a missionary, and disguised as a embittered than ever and source of more damaging evidence boy, made her way to Copenhagen until the spring emigration of against them.44 the Saints, working meanwhile at a cape factory and writing home, her mother finally relenting to the extent of sending Olina her "grandmother's feather bed and a few clothes."4' What were testimonies of God's providences to the faithful seemed cloak Ill and dagger treachery to the bereft. The popular image of the Mormon proselytes—their poverty, their ignorance, their fanaticism—made them Europe's of the Wesf, IX. 13-18; Annie Catrine Christensen Olsen, Autobiography, ugly ducklings, objects of scorn and ridicule, though the novelist MS.. Utah State Historical Society, WPA Writers' Project Biographies! Ole Rolvaag called emigrants from the same class "giants in the Johan Nielsen, Autobiography, MS., microfilm in Utah State Historical Society; Christina Oleson Warnick, Autobiography, MS., Utah State Histori- earth." It was precisely the poor and humble the Mormons were cal Society, WPA Writers' Project Biographies. after. Poverty and ignorance were ills for which America itself 42Letter, February 6, 1867, in Mission History. Farmer Hans Jensen was the remedy, an assurance that was one of Mormonism's Hals noted the inability of the poor to afford a dowry or the "church marriage tax." Diary, August 12, 1867, microfilm copy in Utah State Historical Society. enthusiasms. "The people have much to learn," observed Apostle "Olina Torasen Kempe, Autobiography, MS., typescript in my possession. | George Q. Cannon. "Transplanting them to Zion will benefit One Norwegian girl ordered out of the house by parents who could not bt reconciled to her joining the Mormons was Kristine Mauritzdatter, who W the plural wife of Abraham O. Smoot became the mother of Reed Smoot. U.S. Senator from Utah for five unbroken terms and at the same time an ApoitW, "Biography of Maria W. C. Krause Madsen, MS., Utah State Historical member of the leading council of the Mormon Church. Society, WPA Writers' Project Biographies. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS them in every way, if they will do right .... The gospel will deliverance. As colonizer, Indian peacemaker, merchant, stockman, not only bestow spiritual benefit ... it will benefit them tem- bishop and patriarch, he would make his broken-tongued maxim porally."45 Their "habits of industry and the various ways in "Sticket to trude"—"Stick to the truth"—a badge of honor, which they are taught to apply it," felt Apostle George A. Smith, while Elsie in sandswept Bluff would plant mulberry trees to "render them well qualified to develop the resources of new and raise silkworms, tend beehives to provide the settlement its only untried countries, and their former experience greatly enhances sweets, spend long hours at the loom, giving her days to manual their appreciation of the emancipation the gospel brings to them labor, her evenings to the Bible and other good books, and de- 4 vote herself as foster mother to the children of her husband's and contentment follows." " The poverty of the Old World 49 was really a blessing; nothing so endangered salvation as a pros- plural wives. perity which killed the urge to gather. Besides, already inured to It was just such recruits Zion needed. Conversion called want, they were better prepared for hardships.47 The Mormons thousands like Jens and Elsie Nielsen out of obscurity, con- had no illusions about their converts, but they saw beyond their firming Mormonism's conviction that "The Lord is gathering out the best and the most pure material for his own use .... With limitations: the poor were after all the Lord's poor; the ignorant 80 had simply been denied schooling; and the credulous had faith, them will he build himself a people and a name in the earth." frequently displaying the "fortitude of patience and heroic mar- No ugly ducklings ever had a greater sense of destiny. Scandi- tyrdom unsung" which Milton found the essence of Christian navia might disown them and America not want them, but they humility. felt a singular identity as the Lord's own. In fact, they felt sorry for the unsaved, for the king himself. Apostle Franklin D. Rich- The hidden resources of the humble could be magnificent and ards, attending the Royal Theatre in Stockholm in 1867, and would prove Zion's greatest assets. How could the pastor who finding himself "in the midst of nobility and gentry, the beauty, caned Christina Oleson for joining the Mormons ever imagine elite, and authority of Sweden," thought how much he would like her a pillar of the community, a progenitor of leading citizens? "to impart to His Majesty the testimonies of the gospel restored, Yet who else in Deseret's wastes would get a precious daily and the work of God as it is now progressing on the earth, and pound of butter into town to sell before the sun could melt it, 81 or be forever knitting as she plowed or read or herded?48 How inform him how he could assure the stability of his throne . . . ." could fellow Lollanders ever see in Elsie Rasmussen and Jens But only royalty's humble subjects, their eyes on another Nielsen more than simple, hard-working hands hiring out from kingdom, came to know the high drama of conversion. For them one farm to another, now and then walking arm in arm into town the encounter with Mormonism was the great turning point in to dance away the night and return in time to do the chores? their lives, a new beginning to which all previous events, now How could anyone predict their heroic history? Underway to they looked back, had unerringly led. Zion when Jens' couarge failed him crossing Wyoming's snow- Conversion was far /rom simple-minded, though there were bound plateau, Elsie would load him, his feet frozen, into her immoderate seekers of signs, a frenetic fringe whose extravagant handcart and pull him till his courage returned, saving him, expectations spelled trouble both in the mission and later in Zion. though permanently crippled, to pioneer five settlements and build Often attended by doubt and indecision, conversion answered a as many homes to make good his dedication to the Lord for the variety of needs rational and emotional felt by the dispossessed looking for a place to belong, the worldly ready for moral reforma- "George Q. Cannon, visiting Scandinavia in September 1862. tion, the dissenter unsatisfied by the established creed or piqued in Andrew Jenson, History of the Scandinavian Mission (Salt Lake Uty. 1927). 170. ""Foreign Missions," Deseret News, November 16, 1860. "Jens Nielsen, op. cit. «Stjerne, XII (November 1, 1862), 40-43. 80George Q. Cannon, in Jenson. op. cit., 170. "Christina Oleson Warnick, op. cit. "Letter, February 6, 1867, Mission History. UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 251 250 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY with the clergy, the scriptural literalist looking for fulfillment of third of the proselytes could not pay the price but disavowed prophecy. Many were ripe for a spiritual experience, so many the faith in Scandinavia, with others following suit after emigra- Bunyans earnestly seeking their grace abounding: "I felt that tion, some en route to Zion, others after residence in Zion itself. I had alowed myselve to be careless, and to trifle with the most Such wholesale disaffection refutes the easy explanation that important of all subjects, my souls salvation." "A stranger intro- Mormonism was such an effective Pied Piper because its tune duced himself as an elder from America .... In an hour we saw was America. It was America, but on very special terms, forbid- and understood more of our Bible than ever before .... Our ding to any but the most ardent believers. Belated discovery of hearts rejoiced and a new life had opened before us."" unacceptable doctrine, inability to endure ostracism and persecu- They went to their first Mormon meeting on a dare or out of tion, capitulation to doubt and disbelief created by adverse pro- curiosity and universally with the worst expectations. "I went to paganda, disappointment in the expectation that passage to the meeting that night with the pronounced conviction that they America was a handout, all weighed in the scale of apostasy. were not even Christians . . . with the thought of spending the Moreover, some of the converts themselves, in church eyes, were evening in mischief." But time and again they were confounded: weighed and found wanting. Skandinaviens Stjerne, mission peri- "It seemed as though every word the Elder spoke went right odical, bluntly published names of those cast out for "whoredoms through me .... The sermon had an entirely different effect and abominations," while congregations were quick to censure upon my brother and the other young man. They were greatly backsliders for intemperance or for returning to an occasional amused. I sat there like a statue and could not join them in the service in the state church or for failing to pay tithes and offer- merriment."53 ings. Sometimes personal pique and backbiting, jealousies over Their fears routed at the first encounter, they were ready positions in the lay priesthood, or misunderstanding about the for more: "We bought some few of their tracts and studied order of the church led to breaches impossible to mend. It was them for a few weeks and were perfectly satisfied the work was a winnowing both natural and deliberate, intended to separate 54 the wheat from the chaff so that early and late it could be noted of God." that "many of our brethren have so improved their manner of And then invariably they felt the stigma that their affiliation living, the civil authorities have been obliged to acknowledge the with the new movement gave them in the eyes of friends and fruits of a good doctrine."56 neighbors still prejudiced. "From that time on all my former The winnowing was a part of a general reformation in which friends turned against me and spoke all kinds of evil against me, conversion, itself such a profound education, was only the be- and that falsely." The agonizing struggle to remain steadfast ginning. Mormonism might have blamed Scandinavia for having crushed some but strengthened others: "All my possessions had done so little for its lowest estate, but Mormonism took its con- no power over me then, my only desire was to sell out and come verts where it found them and prepared them for the American to Zion." "I had no idea before I was baptized that I should experience in an indoctrination unique among European emigrants. have to go through so much if I joined the Mormons; if I had To this end the mission considered itself "Eden's nursery," where known it. I don't think I could have done so."65 the gospel was sown and the seedlings readied for transplanting Conversion cost dear. No allegory of Christian warfare, the to Zion, the Garden itself.57 The husbandry was both spiritual soul against the world, was ever more terribly real. Nearly a and mundane, at once bent on a purification of motives and on a program for improved living intended to win greater respect for "Hans Christensen. op. cit.: Sarah Josephine Jensen, op. cit. 53Carl Madsen. My Conversion to Mormonisra. MS., typescript in pos- session of Dr. Brigham Madsen. 6"C. C. A. Christensen, "Beretning," Morgenstjernen, III (1884), 203. "Jens Nielsen, op. cit. ""The Outgathering of the Saints," Millennial Star, XXIV (March 29, 5SLoc. cit.: Hannah Sorensen, op. cit., 393. 1862), 200-202. UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 2 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY 253 Mormonism in Scandinavia and to make its converts better inhab- lude to church service, they were in a real sense religious ex- itants of Zion. ercises; a phrase in Peter Nielsen's journal unconsciously re- flects the familiar and natural affinity of the worldly and spiritual Though emigration was the great common impulse among in their lives: H. T. W. Eriksen, he says, who held an evening the converts, they were told not to make gathering the sole aim, school in Nyby for the children, "taught them English, religion, confusing means and ends. It was an urgent duty to gather, but and writing." And he was pleased to note "They made good those not feeling it should not be induced until moved by their progress according to the circumstances."80 The private journals own zeal. Simply getting to Utah did not insure salvation. Mo- themselves moved from Scandinavian to English, the language tives were all-important. Converts should come to build up Zion, mixed at first, then more confidently in the new tongue, though willing to be identified with it in adversity as well as in prosperity, the spelling remained woefully uncertain. One legacy the Estab- the object not wealth but only serving God. Whatever temporal lishment had bequeathed even the humble: in preparing them for benefits attended removal from Babylon came through the gospel confirmation it had made them literate, and not a few proudly and through their "own energies under wise direction and the recollected they stood first in Bible reading or response in cate- opportunities which the country affords," blessings which were chism. Converts who could not read or write were admonished to the natural fruits of righteousness.58 learn. English above all was "the language in which it had pleased The Saints were urged to make the most of opportunities the Almighty to manifest His will in this last dispensation";61 while still in the homeland, to add "to the treasury of the Church it was the language of the Book o[ Mormon and of latter-day all useful knowledge and all the benefits of their experience" prophets. It was an inherent part of the new gospel, and the gained there.5' The church itself supplied valuable training: desire to learn it was another evidence of how completely Mor- converts enjoyed a voice and by the uplifted hand a vote they had monism produced a break with the convert's past, separating him never known in the professionalized service of the Lutheran from mother church and fatherland and his native tongue, the Establishment; the men served as missionaries, teachers, book transition begun even before he left. agents, congregational leaders, filling a variety of positions in the lay priesthood—all an excellent apprenticeship for responsibili- Not only English was important to salvation; so was soap. ties in Zion. In the choirs (in Oslo as early as 1856), the Sunday It is not enough for a person to believe, be converted, and be schools, and the young people's and women's societies (dating baptized for forgiveness of sins. The gospel promotes a reforma- from the 1870's) congregations as a whole found important out- tion in every respect where many customs and habits inherited lets for recreation, an exhilarating experience, the dances and from the fathers are not in harmony with the gospel." Cleanliness outings and the visiting among the members satisfying and joyous. was paramount. The Holy Spirit did not dwell in unclean taber- As notable as any activity, and most directly related to prep- nacles. "The first step in this so important reformation is to wash aration for America, was the sustained effort to learn English, the whole body at least once a week and change linen as often. in which classes for children and for adults abetted the private Thus may health be preserved, peace and good cheer, and sick- sessions of painful learning. Held often on Sunday morning, pre- ness and death kept at bay." Such directives were as frequent as they were frank: "The Saints will forgive our speaking so freely. 58"Why Are So Many of the Saints Not Gathered?" ibid., XXIV (October 11, 1862), 649-52, and Skandinaviens Stjerne, XII (November 1. 1862). 40-43: "Vink til de Hellige, som skulle emigrere," Stjerne, XII (April April 23, 1859. The mission periodicals frequently admonished 15. 1863). 216; Stjerne, XII (July 1, 1863). 296-98: "Emigration and the Mo- converts to study English: "Det Enge ske Sprog," Stjerne V (lanuarv IS lives Which Prompt It," Millennial Star. XXVI (January 23. 1864). 57-60; 244-47; IX (October 15. 18f?9), 25; Nordstjarnan, VI (try 15. "Mormon Proselytism and Immigration," Deseret News, June 25, 1886. 5»"The Outgathering of the Saints," op. cit., 201. Adding "to the treasury of the Church" meant money as well as experience; Europe sustained Zion 24 !873ter Thomassen' "HiIscn fil vore Laesere," Utah Posten, December through tithing and temple contributions from the proselytes. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS

2 tions among all of the members of the Church in that little vil- but it is necessary to speak clearly for your benefits."' It would lage."64 In Copenhagen master tailor Ola N. Liljenquist, the have been good doctrine for rural America at the time, and it only burgher of the city among the converts, stood passport se- anticipated the catechism in Zion's frontier settlements when curity for so many of his fellow religionists in 1852 that the church teachers would visit the homes monthly and ask, "Sister officials summoned him to the city hall to belabor him for his Anderson, do you scrub your floors and wash your windows every audacity. He could be imprisoned for signing beyond his capaci- Saturday that your home may be in order for the Sabbath? . . . ty. "I know these people and I am willing to take all risks on Do you pay back the things you borrow and hunt for the owner their behalf," he told them. For four more years, until his own of things you find?" And "Brother Anderson, have you cut hay emigration, he staked his reputation on hundreds of emigrants. where you had no right to? . . . Have you taken water to irrigate The magistrate issued the same warnings, but the officers at the when it belonged to another person at the time you used it? Do emigration office became more friendly. On the eve of his own you preside over your household as a servant of God and is your departure for America in 1857, they told him they would rather family subject to you? . . . Have you labored diligently and accept his endorsement than that of many wealthier men because earned faithfully the wages paid you by your employer?"63 the Mormons took care of their poor and the city had never had Among the Mormons in Scandinavia the same inclusive the slightest difficulty with anyone he had underwritten. On one morality prevailed, the training as intense and diligent. The doc- occasion, after completing some 900 Mormon passes. Counsel trine on soap formed but part of the "general reformation" which Gendrup, who had often come to Liljenquist's aid when he was would have the converts, human beings by birth, become Saints in difficulty, said to him: "Mr. Liljenquist, should you arrive in by adoption, legalizing their common law marriages, ceasing card a better heaven than I, will you not think of me?"65 playing, abstaining from tobacco and strong drink, and paying The master tailor was but one of an unexpected number of their debts. The number who fell by the wayside, often over enterprising converts of refinement and substance who served as trivial matters, only indicates how serious a commitment member- a leaven in every congregation powerfully working for self- ship was and how far the converts had to go. In all respects improvement. The country crudities of some converts would fur- they were expected to be an example to an already critical world. nish Zion itself with the comic figure of the "Sanpete farmer" and Returning good for evil had its effects—at times it won his household, earthy and unsanitary as a scene from Breughel, over estranged members of the family, suspicious neighbors, and and they offended fastidious converts whose idealism had not angry employers; it gained the respect of wary officials; it anticipated such a lowly brotherhood and who did not stay long changed the face of a divided village and even erased national in such company. But those with tougher sensibilities remained prejudices, for among the members themselves identity as Danes to lift up their fellows and provide an effective native leadership. or Swedes or Norwegians was lost in their association as Latter- The convert-emigrants who returned from Zion on missions also day Saints. James Jensen remembered that half a dozen men served as living models of what the gospel and the new life could owned the farms in Haugerup village, with the social distance be- do. They attracted their kind and strengthened the work of ref- tween proprietors and tenants as wide as the middle ages; but ormation. more than half of Haugerup joined the Mormons, among them The fruit of all this husbandry in Eden's nursery was the some of the landlords. "From that time on a new relationship formation of a people more than ever set apart from their un- sprang up ... . The spirit of equality and brotherly love which believing countrymen, suffering at once the consequences of that the new message had brought to them led to more intimate rela- estrangement and enjoying the compensations of their new-found

«"Et Vink til Emigranterne," Stjerne, XI (April 1. 1862), 200-201. 94Tanner, op. cit., 8. •"William R. Palmer, "Questions to be Asked the Latter-day Saints," 80O. N. Liljenquist, "Autobiografi," Morgenstjernen, II (1883), 25-32. The Improvement Era, XLII (April, 1939), 210-11. 256 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS 257 fellowship and place in the sun. Indoctrination for Zion was If slaves at all, they are . . . slaves to their idealisms. essentially indoctrination for America, but with a significant . . . the docility and obedience of the people is the re- difference amounting to a paradox. Whatever the attraction of sult of an attempt to be consistent with the religious America and whatever the desire of the convert to be identified assumptions upon which their faith is founded; and from with it, he was brought to the painful realization that in joining which course, from their standpoint, they cannot depart the Mormons he joined a sect which America itself repudiated. without throwing off their faith altogether.68 Taught by doctrine and by circumstance to regard himself in the world but not of it. he learned early that he must shun gentile America as much as Babylon Europe. The centripital forces of And it had to be remembered that "Nearly every one of these persecution and ostracism in both America and Scandinavia in- supposed slavish Mormon people has . . . broken away from some popular and established church and joined his present one in the tensified the feeling. The faithful accepted the world's stigma as face of ministerial authority .... rendered sacred by tradition a seal of their apartness and relished union with a peculiar people and habit. Men in this temper . . . would not be likely to feel in whose destiny they believed. In Scandinavia the apartness very slavish."67 meant self-preservation as a valiant minority. In America it could easily become oppression as an illiberal majority, a barrier against inroads by outsiders. The doctrine of apartness was both a strength and a weakness. What was a shield was inevitably also IV the target against which Zion's attackers from without and the disgruntled from within broke their lances. At length even many Products of a conversion that shook most of them to the of the veteran converts felt its weight and worked themselves root, objects of a thoroughgoing reformation in their manner free of it. of living, welded together by doctrine and tried by experience, the proselytes found themselves impatient to "go up to Zion." "In- Akin to this apartness, so vital in forming the convert mind, tentions are secret; who can discover them?" they might have was their total acceptance of the authority of the new church, asked with John White in his Planter's Plea: and they found the habit of putting church before country, priesthood before their motivation as mixed as the reasons for the migration of government. To believers, the word of church leaders was the America's realistic first settlers, who believed "Nothing sorts Word of the Lord. Obedience to priesthood authority was the better with piety than competency."68 The temporal and the touchstone of good standing, whether it concerned spiritual or spiritual were inextricably mingled for a people who believed temporal affairs, whether—as it did often in Zion—it meant that a God who noted every sparrow's fall and numbered the a call to go on a mission, advice to take another wife, or an order hairs of a man's head would also concern himself with farms and to stop trading with the gentiles. It brought converts the security of implicit trust in a higher management of their affairs, but more merchandise and the daily transactions of the Saints. Was not the than anything else, such unquestioning obeisance gave the im- "all-seeing eye of the Lord" painted over the doorway of every pression of slavishness and ignorance. It was an aspect of their ihop in Zion? Christian Nielsen, Danish miller three years in indoctrination which bred serious difficulties, a source, like their Utah, voiced the multiple attractions and compulsions: apartness, of both inspiration and irritation and of a good deal of misunderstanding by outsiders, who generally believed the con- _ ""E- h T- Harriso?t ""The Question of the Hour: or, Radical or Con- verts to be subjugated by "the ambitious aims of the . . . leading servative Measures for Utah? Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, I (1881), 131. Priesthood." It was rather voluntary submission, a fact a few "Z.oc. cit. anti-Mormon liberals did acknowledge: ••John White, Planter's Plea, quoted in Ola Elizabeth Winslow, Meet- Mouse Hill: 1630-1783 (New York, 1952), 16-17. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY UTAH'S UGLY DUCKLINGS We own our own home and land, animals and equip- 259 ment to ride and till the soil . . . about twenty acres of ZdJUTS ba"en f°r 9rOWin9 Chi,dren outran the read plowland . . . two town lots .... About 300 Danish Xthat Pare r in haSte' bUt in Wisdom order Let families live in this town and seven English miles north effccts nd set their faces of us there are about as many .... In everything there o J <»n is freedom; here is freedom of trade; here anyone may organize in whatever manner he wishes and follow as many trades as he desires. . . .

Grieving that a son. Niels Emmanuel, had chosen to remain in Denmark, the father urged:

He could have the fat of everything here .... He could work for himself and not have to slave for another his whole life without ever having the pleasure of gaining something he could call his own .... Neils is now at an age when he will become a soldier. He stands alone . . . and Europe is involved in a great conflict .... I strongly beseech you to advise and help him to travel from Denmark with the next departure of emigrants. ... If the Constitution is still in effect they cannot for- bid him to leave ....

And finally Nielsen struck the chord of religion so common in the letters of the converts:

The gospel moves steadily forward .... I pray you to greet my wife's brother, Peter Hansen, for us; we wish we could have him here, however much he was against us; that we forgive .... There are missionaries; listen to them!89

Even had the material and spiritual magnet of Zion been less powerful, the expulsive forces of their precarious situation in Scandinavia made the converts long for their deliverance. The eagerness to leave Europe's poverty, the incessant wars of kings.

"Letter. April 27, 1856, in Bikuben (Salt Lake City), December 19, 1912. Original in Royal Library, Copenhagen. 70Stjerne. I (June 1, 1852), HI. 6 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY as legal subdivisions of the state and prescribed the method by which new changes were to be made. This called for the approval of the voters in the county and in the area affected.

The Provisional State of Deseret included an amazing 1862 amount of territory. All of the area presently within the states of Utah and Nevada was included, as were parts of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The famous "Mormon Corridor," extending from Salt Lake City to the coast of southern California, was part of Brigham Young's dream for a vast Mormon empire which included territory all the way to the sea. The first attempt to organize counties in this large area was made by the General Assembly of the State of Deseret on Janu- ary 31, 1850.1 Six counties were originally created, and the FIRST COUNTIES ~ 1850 boundaries were determined merely by reference to natural geo- AND REDUCTION OF TERRITORIAL BOUNDARIES graphic features. No attempt was made to organize the entire state into counties, but only that area where colonization had OF UTAH, 1861-1868 extended by 1850. Northernmost of the first counties was Weber, whose boundaries were described as being all of "that portion of country known as Weber Valley, and extending as far south as Stony Creek, and west to the Great Salt Lake." Great Salt Lake County was defined as ". . . all that portion of country known as the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, and lying South of Stony Creek." To the west was Tuilla County, which was identi- fied simply as "Tuilla Valley," and Utah Valley was made into Utah County. San Pete Valley, named after an Indian chieftain, Sanpitch, became San Pete County.2 An area called "Little Salt Lake Valley" also was made into a county, but the name was changed to Iron County later the same year,3 the new name coming from the rich iron deposits in

1Ordinances and Laws of the State of Deseret. 1848-1850. pp. 28-30. 2For origin of county names see Utah Writers' Project, comp., Origin of Utah Place Names (Salt Lake City, 1941). For changing of spelling of "San Pete" to "Sanpete" see p. 271 of this article. 3Letter from the First Presidency to Dr. J. M. Bernhisel, dated November 20, 1850, in Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Iron County was created by the legislature almost a full year before any UTAH COUNTIES-1852 colonization had taken place there. This pattern of creating counties prior to settlement was followed even more extensively by the territorial legislative assembly. 264 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY COUNTY BOUNDARIES IN UTAH 265 the region. Colonization had not extended into this area, but Juab,10 and Millard also were extended to the California border, within the next year towns such as Cedar City and Parowan and Iron and Washington counties were peculiar in that they were established. It is interesting to observe the immense amount stretched the entire width of the territory, a distance of approxi- of territory included within the county as it was finally defined mately six hundred miles. Weber County was extended north to in December, 1850: "... all that portion of country, lying in the Oregon (the present Oregon-Idaho) line and west to the the southeast corner of the Great Basin, and being south of the California boundary. To the south, Great Salt Lake and Utah divide between Beaver Creek and the Sevier River, and east of counties were bounded on the west by Tooele County and on the the Desert Range, extending south to the rim of the Basin, and east by the territorial line. San Pete County likewise extended east to the Wasatch Range of mountains."4 eastward to the territorial line, which was the Rocky Mountains A new county, Davis, was created on October 5, 1850, and in present Colorado. In northeastern Utah, Green River County included the smallest area of all. It occupied a small pocket east included all that territory in the Bear Lake area, and also the of the Great Salt Lake and extended as far south as the Hot Green River region of what is now Wyoming. Springs near Salt Lake City.5 This was the last county created in Little settlement had extended into the Green River Valley in Deseret, for in September, 185Q, Congress ignored the appeal 1852, but it is significant to note that Brigham Young wanted to for statehood and established the Territory of Utah with greatly have control over this area because of the fact that thousands of reduced borders. The new territory was bounded "... on the immigrants were coming through this gateway each year. A trad- west by the State of California,- on the north by the Territory of ing post at Fort Bridger would be a great advantage to them.11 Oregon, and on the east by the summit of the Rocky Mountains, In 1853 colonists were sent there, and by 1855 a very successful and on the south by the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude settlement had been made at Fort Supply. A year later Green . . . ,"6 In the new territory, after the counties of Deseret were River County was enlarged to include all the parts of Great Salt recognized as they then existed, the Legislative Assembly honored Lake and Utah counties that were east of a line intersecting Sul- Millard Fillmore by naming the first county of its creation after phur Creek where Emigration Road crossed it, and also part of the President. The new county was defined as "that portion of San Pete County. This change is important in that it reduced Iron County known as Pauvan valley . . . ."7 Millard County greatly the size of both Utah and Great Salt Lake counties, which included the city of Fillmore, where the seat of government for had extended to the eastern boundary of the territory. At the the territory was located for a time. same time, the eastern boundary of Davis County was defined as Although settlement had moved little beyond the valleys of being the western Summit County line.12 Summit County was the Wasatch Mountains, in March, 1852, the Legislative As- created January 13, 1854, from the western end of Green sembly of Utah passed an act defining county boundaries which River County and extended south to the southern line of Great extended the boundaries to include the entire territory.8 The Salt Lake County. Its area included the summit of the water- names of four new counties appeared: Juab, Desert. Green River shed between Green River and Salt Lake valleys. Few people and Washington. had settled here as yet, so the county was made dependent upon Desert County formed a strip about thirty-five miles wide Great Salt Lake County for election, revenue, and judicial pur- extending from the Great Salt Lake to California. Tooele," poses and remained so until 1861.13

tOrdinances of the General Assembly of the State of Deseret (1851), 1. J0Some writers indicate that Juab County was organized in 1850. I can 6Deseret News. October 19, 1850. find no supporting evidence, however, in any of the laws nor in the census «77ie Compiled Laws of the Territory of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1876), 28. of 1850. ''Acts. Resolutions, and Memorials, . . . (Great Salt Lake City, 1855), "Milton R. Hunter, Brigham Young, the Colonizer (Independence, Mo., 1945), 280-81. 224. i-'Acts. Resolutions and Memorials, ... (1855), 259-60. «/6id.. 224-26. ™E. W. Tullidge, Tullidges Histories (Salt Lake City, 1889), II. 134. "Notice the change in spelling from "Tuilla" to "Tooele." 266 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY COUNTY BOUNDARIES IN UTAH 267 In western Utah, Carson County was formed by an act of mons were in a distinct majority. In 1857, however, the settlers January 17, 1854, and was named after the famous frontiersman. were called home because Johnston's Army was approaching Kit Carson. It included all those parts of Tooele, Juab, Millard Utah, and the county was disorganized the same year.18 The and Iron counties west of 118° longitude.14 This was a direct out- same disposition was made of Green River County one year growth of the attempt of the settlers in Carson Valley to govern later.19 Both counties, however, were reorganized in 1859.20 themselves. Finding that they lacked authority to enforce their Two new counties were created in western Utah in 1856, own laws, they had petitioned California to annex this section for Humboldt and St. Mary's.21 They included all the area north of judicial purpose. California refused. Some of the settlers, gold Millard County, east of Carson, and west of 114" longitude. The miners especially, objected to Mormon rule from Salt Lake City 116th meridian divided the two counties, with Humboldt on the and wanted to be annexed to California. When the Utah legis- west. This action, it will be observed, greatly reduced the size lature heard of these actions, they took steps to provide these of Weber. Tooele, Desert and Juab counties. people with their own self-government by creating Carson County By 1856 Mormon settlement in northern Utah had pro- and sending Orson Hyde (one of the Twelve Apostles) to or- gressed,22 and the legislature had very good reason for organizing ganize the county and to be the probate judge. This was the first more counties there. The fact that they formed new counties county government organized in what is now the state of Neva- so soon after settlement began to filter into these areas shows the da." concern of the leaders for setting up good local self-government. No major changes in counties were made in 1855. The The creation of four new counties in 1856 again reduced the dividing line between Weber and Davis counties was changed size of Weber. Greasewood County, so named because of the when Davis was given that part of Weber County south of a line abundance of greasewood in the region, included all the area running down Weber River to a point north of the northwest west of the Great Salt Lake as far as St. Mary's County. All the area of Cache Valley, and west along the southern line as far corner of Kingston's Fort, then due west to the Great Salt Lake. 23 Davis County also was changed on the south by having that part as Green River County, was made into Cache County. This of the county west of the Jordan River attached to Great Salt region was settled the same year by a small group of families 18 under the supervision of Peter Maughn, who had come at the Lake County. The boundary between Juab and San Pete direction of Brigham Young for that purpose. Between Cache counties was further defined in 1855 by moving it slightly east and Greasewood counties, and as far south as the center of the to the dividing ridge between Juab and San Pete valleys. Bear River, lay the new Malad County, taking its name from Non-Mormon settlers in Carson County still continued to the Malad River. The rest of Weber County as far south as protest rule by Utahns, and in 1856 were agitating for annexation "a point due west from the hot springs at the territorial road in by California. This, of course, was refused by Congress, and Weber county" was made into Box Elder County.24 Utah took immediate action to increase the number of settlers in the valley.17 In January of that year the Utah legislature ex- tended the northern boundary of Carson County to the Oregon 'Mcfs, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . 1856-57, p. 11. ™Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . 1857-58, p. 5. line. New Mormon settlers brought their families with the intent 'Mcfs, Resolutions and Memorials. . . . 1858-59. pp. 19-20. of making permanent settlements. By August of 1856, the Mor- ".Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . 1855 [1856], 5-7. Humboldt County derived its name from the Humboldt River, and St. Mary's was named after the eastern tributary. Formerly the Humboldt River was called Mary ".Acfs, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . (1855), 261. River. "Effie Mona Mack, Nevada, a History of the State from the earliest "Hunter, op. cit.. Chapter XXVI. times through the Civil War (Glendale, California, 1936), 154-55. "The name comes from the fact that early trappers cached furs and 'Mcfs. Resolutions and Memorials, . . . (1855), 279. supplies in this valley. "Mack. op. cit.. 157-58. uActs, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . 1855-56, pp. 5-7. 268 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY At the same time two more new counties were created in other parts of the territory. Cedar County was created from that part of Utah County which approximates present-day Cedar Sr. MARY i OREEH; RIVER Valley. Iron County was split almost in half with the creation of Beaver County, but both continued to extend from Carson County CAW OH to the eastern extremity of the territory. It was in this same year that the first settlement in Beaver County was established, l&llllllltlij and other towns grew within a very few years. MILLARD |H By authority of the same act (January 5, 1856), the boundary eavtR between Iron and Washington counties was re-defined as being |||j|||j| "... a line running east and west across this Territory, through ... a point four miles north from the northeast corner of Fort Har- WAS«maroN mony." A few days later (January 12) a new county, Shambip. UTAH COUNTIES - I860 was created from the southern portion of Tooele County. The boundary was a line running west from Cedar County along the summit of the dividing ridge between Tooele and Rush valleys, thence west to St. Mary's County.25 This included Rush Valley where settlement was begun in 1855. It appears, however, that not enough people located there to justify a county organization, for it was returned to Tooele in 1862. The year 1861 brought many boundary changes to Utah. The legislative assembly re-defined boundaries in the west only to see their action nullified when Congress made western Utah into Nevada Territory. The territorial assembly had left Carson County as it was; Humboldt County was extended south to California; and St. Mary's County had its eastern boundary re- duced to the 115th meridian and was extended south to Califor- nia.29 These changes reduced the western area of Washington, Iron, Beaver and Millard counties, but extended Juab, Shambip. Tooele, Desert and Greasewood counties westward to 115° west longitude. However. Congress, by creating Nevada and placing her eastern border at 116°, upset all the recent changes of the

"Ibid., 7. J6The legislature must have been unfamiliar with the geography of that area, for this line would never touch California. The territory south of the 37th parallel was part of New Mexico Territory. See Edward M. Douglas, Boundaries, Areas, Geographic Centers and Altitudes of the United Statti and the Several States (U. S. Dept. of the Interior, Geological Survey Bulletin 817, 2d ed„ Washington. D. C.. 1930), 234. UTAH COUNTIES ~J862 2 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY COUNTY BOUNDARIES IN UTAH 271 territorial assembly. Carson, Humboldt, and St. Mary's disap- County remained nearly the same, but the eastern boundary was peared as Utah counties.27 The Utah counties now extended changed to follow the summit of the mountain ranges. Sanpete their borders one degree westward. This degree of territory was County was extended northward and eastward according to taken from them, however, the following year, when Congress certain ranges of mountains and became part of the southern moved the Nevada boundary to 115° west longitude. Four years boundary of the new Wasatch County. (Notice that from here later (1866), the western boundaries of Utah's western counties on the name "Sanpete" becomes one word instead of two.) Green were further affected by Congressional extension of Nevada River County was reduced by the formation of Wasatch County, Territory to the 114° of longitude, on the present Utah-Nevada and Utah County now included only that area near Utah Lake. boundary.28 It is interesting to note that the counties around Salt Lake On Utah's eastern border, the counties also were drastically area were divided more often during this early period and, of changed by the action of Congress in 1861. Colorado Territory course, were much smaller than those in other parts of the ter- was created, which took from the eastern counties about three ritory. This could well have been caused by the fact that even degrees of their area.29 Furthermore, Nebraska Territory though the pioneers were making an effort to expand colonization, (Wyoming) was extended westward to 110° west longitude, the population grew much more rapidly in this area. thus taking a sizeable area from Green River County.80 By 1864 settlement had extended into eastern Cache County; The territorial legislature, in January of 1862, re-defined the Richland County32 was carved out of it, the summit of the dividing county boundaries.31 The new definition created two new mountain range being the boundary. counties. Wasatch and Morgan, and discontinued Desert, Grease- In southern Utah another new county, Kane County, was wood, Malad, Cedar and Shambip counties. Wasatch County, created by detaching part of Washington County, leaving to named for the Wasatch Mountains, included the area known as Washington County only a small section in the west.33 The Provo Valley, which had been settled well enough by 1862 to principal city in Kane County was Virgin City, which had been justify the legislature in granting the citizens' petition for a settled as part of an attempt by the church to establish cotton county organization. Named after Jedediah Morgan Grant, a plantations, vineyards, etc., in Utah's "Dixie." The county councilor to Brigham Young, Morgan County was carved out received its name in honor of Colonel Thomas L. Kane, an early of the eastern part of Davis. friend of the Mormons. It now becomes increasingly difficult to locate county lines Settlement also was growing more rapidly in Washington exactly because of the fact that so many boundaries, especially County itself. In 1857 a number of missionaries who had been from 1862 to 1880, were determined by reference to roads, creeks, sent to preach to the Indians, along with their families, settled in ranches, forts, and other landmarks which are difficult to locate. the town of Washington. In 1861 three hundred Saints were We can, however, get a picture which will serve well enough to sent to found the city of St. George in what was now a large-scale give the reader a good idea of the most important changes. effort to colonize the southland. Washington, Iron and Beaver counties remained approxi- Two more counties were created on January 16, 1865. Sevier mately the same. The north, west, and south sides of Millard County34 was split off the southern part of Sanpete County, and Beaver County was divided in order to form Piute County315 from the eastern part.88 There was only one main settlement in Sevier "Ibid.. 234. "Mack, op. cit.. 406-09. 2»San Pete lost territory on the east to Colorado, but Beaver, Iron, and "Named for Charles C. Rich, early Mormon apostle who settled there. Washington lost territory on both the east and the west. They were con- "Acfs, Resolutions and Memorials. . . . 1863-64, p. 10. siderably reduced in length. Douglas, op. cit., 224. "Named after the Sevier River. 30Ibid., 211. '"The name comes from the Paiute Indians. »Mris, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . 1861-62, p. 46. "Acfs, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . 1864-65, p. 16. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY COUNTY BOUNDARIES IN UTAH County, Richfield, which had been settled the previous year by vu unfamiliar with the geography of the western part of the ter- eleven citizens from Manti. In a short time, however, more settle- ritory, for most of the country described seems to have been in ments grew. Nevada. Thus, there existed the unusual condition of a Utah A few towns in Piute County, such as Marysvale and Circle- county outside the Utah territorial boundaries. This was rectified, ville, had been settled by 1864. By this time, also, nearly all the however, in 1872 when the legislature again extended the bound- principal valleys of the Wasatch Mountains had been colonized. ary of Washington County to include "all that portion of Rio It is interesting to observe, in this connection, that seven more Virgin County now remaining in the Territory."43 Washington permanent counties were organized during the territorial period, County was further reduced in 1869, when another slice of her and of these none were in the western part of the state. It would eastern territory was given to Kane County and Tokerville was appear, therefore, that the extent of colonization had a great deal made the county seat of Kane County.44 Washington was now to do with the formation of and change in county lines. one of the smallest counties in the state, but contained the largest The final change in territorial lines came in 1868, when the population of any in southern Utah. coming of the railroad made it necessary to form a new territory In 1872 the last remaining part of Green River County was from parts of Dakota, Utah and Idaho.37 The commencement of absorbed into Summit County, extending the boundaries of the settlement along the line of the railroad made this necessary be- latter eastward to the territorial line.45 Another act in the same cause the country was so far from the capitals of the other ter- year extended the boundary of Rich County slightly to the ritories. Accordingly, part of the northeast corner of Utah was south,48 and seems to have had the effect of defining definitely given to the new territory, Wyoming, and Utah's borders were the boundaries in the area where Rich, Morgan and Summit then reduced to their present status.38 counties join. Previously, these three counties were supposed to In 1866 the legislature again re-defined all the county bound- meet at the place where the northern boundary of Summit County aries.39 This was the last complete re-definition. Later changes crossed the Bear River, but this point had been in Wyoming referred to and amended this act. There were no significant Territory since 1868. changes at this time, but it should be noted that even though most A more complete division of the eastern part of Utah was of Green River County was taken into Wyoming in this year, begun in 1880, with the creation of Emery, San Juan and Uintah the territory still remaining in Utah was added to no other county counties. It now becomes easier to locate most of the boundaries until 1872. The eastern boundary of Juab County was re-defined because of the fact that after 1880 many county lines were deter- in 1868,4U but the act appears to be only for clarification and mined by reference to range and township lines. not a major change. The names of two counties were changed in Emery County was created on February 12, and was carved 1868. Great Salt Lake County became simply Salt Lake County, out of the center of Sevier and Sanpete counties.47 The number and the name of Richland County was shortened to Rich.41 of settlers in this region had become so great that the need for A new county, Rio Virgin, was created from the western part such a move was apparent. A committee, therefore, petitioned the of Washington County.42 Apparently, however, the legislature legislature for creation of a new county to be called "Castle County." The law makers approved, but changed the name in 37C. G. Coutant, The History of Wyoming from the Earliest Known Discoveries (Laramie, Wyoming, 1899), I, 261. 38Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention i3Acts, Resolutions and Memorials. . . . 1872. p. 28. Assembled at Salt Lake City on the Fourth Day of March. 1895. to Adopt a "Acts. Resolutions and Memorials. . . . 1869. p. 17. The spelling of Constitution for the State of Utah (2 vols., Salt Lake City, 1898), I, 204. "Toquerville" with a "k" is as given in the original statute. so Acts, Resolutions and Memorials. . . . (Great Salt Lake City, 1866), 207. «6Acfs, Resolutions and Memorials. . . . 1872, p. 28. *°Acts, Resolutions and Memorials. . . . 1867-68, p. 26. '"Ibid.. 40. "Ibid.. 1-2. *7Laws. Memorials, and Resolutions of the Territory of Utah . . . 1880. 42Acfs, Resolutions and Memorials, . . . 1869, p. 7. p. 4. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY honor of George W. Emery, one of the few territorial governors who had the sincere respect of the people of Utah. This is the only Utah county which bears the name of a governor. The new county included most of the area of present Carbon and Emery counties. It is interesting to notice that the legislature did not include the area east of the Green River. This left the country formerly belonging to Sevier County completely cut off, and that area belonging to Sanpete County connected only by a narrow strip of land on the north. This unusual situation oc- curred because, on February 13, the governor vetoed a bill creat- ing San Juan County, which would have included this territory, on the grounds that the proposed county included too much territory for the convenience of the people.18 Five days later, therefore, the territory west of Green River, north of parallel 38°3l' and south of the mouth of Price River was added to Emery County, and San Juan County49 was formed with smaller borders.50 In 1879 the church had "called" 200 members to settle the San Juan country. This led to the famous Hole in the Rock ex- pedition to this isolated area of Utah and to the organization of San Juan County. San Juan included all those parts of Kane, Iron and Piute counties lying east of the Green and Colorado rivers. Bluff, the county seat, had only 225 inhabitants. In northeastern Utah, all of the territory west of the ll 0th meridian to where it strikes the Green River, and north of Emery County, was made into the new Uintah County.51 This reduced both Summit and Wasatch counties in area and also included that part of Sanpete County which would otherwise have been isolated by the creation of Emery County. Another important act of 1880 apportioned the waters and islands of Great Salt Lake to Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Box Elder and Tooele counties.52 Salt Lake County was extended only slightly to the northwest. Included in the Davis County section was Antelope Island, while Fremont Island went to Weber

4S]ournals of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, IfUtO, p. 278. "Named after the San Juan River. 60Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1880, p. 10. S1lbid., 11. The name comes from a word used by the Ute Indians "Ibid., 15. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY 26 COUNTY BOUNDARIES IN UTAH 277 County. Tooele County received a number of the smaller islands. to Iron.65 The dividing line between Tooele and Juab counties The largest piece of the lake was attached to Box Elder County. was finally and definitely fixed in 1894.63 The 1880 changes also altered the northern boundary of Two more new counties were created before the end of the Sanpete County by placing it at the township line between town- territorial period. Wayne County64 was formed in 1892 from the ships eleven and twelve. This necessitated extending the Utah eastern end of Piute, taking more than half of it.95 In 1894 and Wasatch lines a few miles to the south, which was done." Emery County was divided so that the northern section became This boundary was further defined in 1884, by an act which Carbon County, and the boundaries of both these counties be- placed the Utah-Wasatch boundary at its present location.54 came the same as they are today.99 This division came as a The creation of Garfield County, in March of 1882, took result of the efforts of the growing city of Price to have the another section off the eastern end of Iron County, cutting it by county seat transferred from Castle Dale. With the failure of this more than half. The new county was named after President project, the citizens along the Price River petitioned for the Garfield. At the same time, the legislature re-defined all the creation of a new county and their petition was granted by the boundaries of Kane, Iron and Washington counties according to legislature. The name comes from the immense deposits of coal range and township lines. With this re-definition Washington in this area. County was slightly enlarged both on the north and the east, With these final changes, the counties of Utah remained the gaining a strip of land approximately thirty miles wide.55 In same until after statehood. Twenty-seven counties existed in 1884 the line between Iron and Garfield counties was changed, 1895. In 1896 Utah became a state and the constitution stated which added a small section, including Panguitch Lake, to the that: "The several counties of the Territory of Utah, existing southwest corner of Garfield.56 An act of 1888 re-defined the at the same time of the adopting of this Constitution, are hereby boundaries of Millard and Juab counties, but the changes appear recognized as legal subdivisions of this State."67 Only two more to have been insignificant." counties have been created since that time. Two changes occurred in 1890: a very small portion of Duchesne County68 was created in 1914 on the petition of the northern end of Sevier County was attached to Sanpete citizens in the eastern portion of Wasatch County. An act of County,5" which made the dividing line the same as exists today. 1913 had made it legal for citizens of any portion of a county The second change was the creation of another new county, to petition for a new county. The petition had to be signed by at Grand.59 This was done by detaching that part of Emery County least one-fourth of the qualified electors of the area affected which lay east of the Green River.60 Grand County received and one-fourth of the qualified electors in the remainder of the another piece of land in 1892, when part of the southern end of county. Uintah County was given to it.61 The final change in the Wash- In 1917 the citizens of the northern part of Uintah County ington-Iron County boundary was made in 1892, when a small petitioned for the organization of a new county. Geographically, portion of the northeast corner of Washington County was given this district belonged more logically to Wyoming, for access from

"Ibid.. 18. "Ibid.. 82. "Laws. Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1884, p. 57. ''Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1894, pp. 31-32. iz Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1882, pp. 99-100. •4It is said that this name was given by Willis E. Robinson, a member '"Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1884. pp. 53, 58. of the legislature, in honor of his son Wayne. 57Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1888, pp. 44-46. "Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1892, p. 79. 58Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1890, p. 13. "Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1894, p. 82. 59Named after the Grand River, now called the Colorado River. Laws of Utah, 1896, p. 56. 60Laws, Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1890, pp. 92-94. •"The origin of this name is uncertain. It possibly was named after a eiLaws. Memorials, and Resolutions . . . 1892, p. 16. French explorer. UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Utah was, and still is, extremely difficult because of the high Uinta Mountains. The petition was acted upon and Daggett be- came the last new county in Utah. It was given its name after UTAH, THE MORMONS, AND THE WEST: Ellsworth Daggett, the first surveyor-general of Utah. A BIBLIOGRAPHY In summary, then, Utah's boundaries have seen frequent changes. Thirty-nine counties have been created, ten have be- A CHECK LIST OF THESES AT THE come extinct, and the first fifty years of Utah's history saw some BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY* change in boundaries with nearly every session of the legislature. Thus has been the evolution of county boundaries in Utah. Addy, Caroline (Stucki). "James Godson Bleak, Pioneer Histor- ian of Southern Utah." M.A. 1953, Department of History. Addy, George H. "The Economic and Social History of Bingham Canyon, Utah, Considered with Special Reference to Mor- mon-Gentile Synthesis." M.A. 1949, Department of History. Allen, Lorna Bagley. "A Study of the Alleged Mormon Rebel- lion." M.A. 1931, Department of History. Anderson. Robert D. "History of the Provo Times and Enquirer 1873-1897 . . . Provo." M.S. 1951, Department of History. Andrus, Hyrum L. "World Government as Envisioned in the Lat- ter-day Saint 'City of Zion.'" M.S. 1952, Department of Religion. Bailey, Raymond T. "Emma Hale, Wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith." M.S. 1952, Department of Religion. Barrett, Ivan J. "History of the Cotton Mission and Cotton Cul- ture in Utah." M.S. 1947, Department of Religion. Beck, J. Vern. "Studies on Utah 'Dixie Molasses.' " M.S. 1933, Department of Chemistry. Benson, Marie Danielsen. "A Study of Mormon Poetry Published Between 1880 and 1900." M.A. 1935, Department of English.

'This Item constitutes the third article in the projected series, "Utah, the Mormons, and the West: A Bibliography." For special aid in compiling this list, we wish to thank Ruth M. Jones and Robert N. McMillan, of the Uni- versity of Utah, Salt Lake City; and S. Lyman Tyler, Ralph Hansen, and Chad Flake, of Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. 340 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY THE INFAMOUS EMMA MINE 341

in the Wasatch Range to the east, at the head of the Uttk of Chisholm, who constantly corresponded with her brother Wil- Cottonwood Canyon. An agent of the New York and Utah liam, urging him to come back to his "dear little Emma" in Prospecting Company opened a road toward the Little Cotton- Illinois.5 Other stories describe the discoverers as men rough wood mines as far as Central City, a lumber milling center, and • manners and appearance" with an imaginative turn of mind, in 1866 built a small smelting works at the mouth of the who resolved to name their mine "after a lady with whom one or canyon.3 Inadequate transportation soon forced the smelting op- powibly both of them had been illicitly consorting in San Fran- erations to shut down. Between 1868 and 1870 the Utah mining dKO, and whose Christian name was Emma."6 picture changed rapidly, due primarily to the completion of th« Another mine promoter, James E. Lyon of New York, had transcontinental railroad. In the earlier year there was not a appeared on the scene as early as the spring of 1868, and mining shaft fifty feet deep in the entire territory and not more presumably advanced money to Chisholm and Woodman soon than a thousand resident non-Mormons. News of rich discover!** thereafter in exchange for a third interest in their claim. During were continuous through the spring and summer of 1869, and by the first year only a hundred tons of ore were taken from the the close of 1870 the mining population had increased to four Emma Mine, and Lyon, not pleased with the prospects of his thousand. enterprise, returned to New York, having first satisfied himself The greatest and most notorious discovery along the LlttW that the lode ran in a northwesterly direction.7 In the middle of Cottonwood was the Emma Mine, found by two prospector* October, 1869, the prospectors broke through to a chamber of Robert B. Chisholm and J. F. Woodman. Chisholm, a Scot born tolid ore. The new discovery had been found in a different in New York, had his first mining experience in the lead mina direction from the original shaft than Lyon had expected. Chis- near Galena, Illinois, but in 1851 migrated to California. Ac- holm and Woodman, unconcerned over the obligation to their cording to his reminiscences, his wanderings led him to Salt Lake partner, relocated their claim, and in February, 1870, had it City in 1864, where he happened to be in the assayer's office lurveyed and entered on the books of the district. Being without when an old soldier brought in an ore sample from the LlttW funds to do the necessary work, they borrowed money from two Cottonwood Canyon. Four years later, after the earliest clAicns former Army officers to sink a deeper shaft and to procure a in the area had been forfeited for non-development, Chishola supply of flour and meat. Each newcomer received a one-sixth formed a partnership with Woodman, and in the autumn of 1868 share in the enterprise. Three thousand feet along the ledge were they selected their claim. Winter snows forced the prosprcton claimed by the Emma Silver Mine of Utah. A month later the out of the Wasatch Mountains, and Chisholm returned to his partners sold four hundred feet of their claim to the Walker family farm near Elgin, Illinois, hoping to liquidate his property. Brothers of Salt Lake for $30,000.00. The Walkers began ship- Unable to sell the farm, Chisholm, with his son William, returned ping ore to Great Britain for reduction.8 to Utah in the spring of 1869, with ten dollars in his pocket. Woodman, whom he met in Brigham City, was penniless. At this time their mine was only "a hole as big as a small bedroom 5"A Famous Cave of Silver," Daily Morning Call (San Francisco), March 11, 1876. This article is reprinted from the New York Sun, which about 18 foot deep and full of mud and water." One account mt a reporter to interview the Chisholms in Elgin, Illinois. See also "The suggests the mine was christened the "Emma" for the daughter Emma Mine Heiress," Engineering and Mining Journal, XXI (May 13, 1176). ^"History of the Emma Mine," Mining and Scientific Press, XXVIII 3John R. Murphy, The Mineral Resources of the Territory of Utah ivith (January 10, 1874), 18. Mining Statistics, Maps. . . . (London, 1872), 22; F. V. Hayden. Sixth Ifbid. The mine founders do not agree relative to details of the early Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey of the Territotif financing. Lyon later accused Chisholm of "selling out" their combined (Washington. 1873), 106-08. taterests to Wall Street promoters. Engineering and Mining Journal, «J. H. Beadle. Western Wilds, and the Men who Redeem Them (Cincin- XL (August 1, 1885); LII (September 5, 1891). nati. 1879). 120. *Dally Morning Call, March 11. 1876. 356 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY THE INFAMOUS EMN

because he could not find out. which boy put pepper on The Engineering and Mining Journal ; as was the stove, are not permitted to newspaper editors. The juggested that time Nation was right in condemning the impropriety of Gen. Schenck's participation in the Emma scheme. It is right This is the sort of thing that < in condemning the system of inflated prices which private. It is a statement by the solici English promoters insist upon adopting, when they un- that upon evidence received on oat dertake to put American mining property upon the Lon- nounce that the bankers, the metal bi don market. It is right in denouncing whatever it consid- the inspecting director, the brokers, ers a swindle. But its way of following up special the accountants, have been bribed objects of hostility is tiresome; its way of blackening pounds by Mr. Albert Grant, or Gran ^o., the character of individuals without proof is wicked; and and that the American Minister to the Court of St. James, its way of trying to evade responsibility afterwards is upon the strength of whose name many British families pusillanimous and ridiculous.50 subscribed, has been bribed to the extent of £10,000.52 Periodically during 1875, the board of directors of the Emma Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor of England had decided Mining Company issued "private" circulars to the shareholders Against the petition to wind up the Emma Company unless it revealing information that provided the basis of the company's was "compulsory" and "under the supervision of the Court." suit against the vendors. Although Professor Silliman denied he The jurist did not doubt that the concern was originated in fraud, was bribed by being offered a higher fee for a favorable report that the shareholders had been cheated, that the mine was not than an unfavorable one, he had been permitted to fix his own fees worth working, and that an official liquidation commission, ap- on the basis of services rendered and he had named $25,000.00. pointed by a British court, could best conduct the suit against the More important. Professor W. J. Blake, noted American geolo- vendors in the United States. However, a minority of the share- gist, claimed the promoters had misused his letters of July, 1871, holders held out against liquidation. by including a paragraph about the former production of the At the annual meeting of 1875, shareholders learned that the mine in the prospectus and made it appear to apply to the future. only information on events in Utah came from outside sources, Also the following statement had been deleted: "It [the mine] Is but the directors were advised that Park had sold the property practically worked out. The ore has been taken out, leaving of the company, including the machinery, plant, and office fur- nothing in the cavity or the chamber from which it was extracted niture. Instructions had been sent to shut down the Salt Lake but falling rocks and crushed timbers, a wreck dangerous to ap- offices of the company. The discouraged directors all tendered proach. . . . The boundaries of limestone have been reached on 53 51 their resignations. all sides." On November 9, 1875, the London Hour published Affairs had now reached such a state that the United States another "private" circular, calling a meeting of shareholders to House of Representatives passed a resolution establishing a listen to testimony that Park had made payments in shares to special committee to investigate General Schenck's connection with others for their influence and services, particularly to Grant the Emma Mine promotion. Months were consumed in parading Brothers and Company for their promotional activities. At this all the principal participants before the Congressmen for inter- company meeting the directorate was once again revised, and rogation; 879 pages of testimony were recorded and printed, but the lawyer-secretary, appointed by Albert Grant, was dismissed. little new information came to light. Evidence presented to the 50Engineering and Mining Journal, XIX (February 6, 1875). nibid., XX (September 4, 1875). See also ibid., XXI (March 11, 18. SVbid., XX (November 27, 1875). 1876). 5ilbid.. XXXI (December 4, 1875). 36 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY additional claims in the Little Cottonwood District.70 In 1892, the Emma Company purchased the Grizzly mines, farther up the gulch, but the property was found not nearly so valuable as THIRTY-SIX MILES OF HISTORY the vendors had claimed, so the Grizzly was leased with a royalty of twenty per cent on any ore mined being paid to the Emma BY WAYNE WILCOX* Company. The directors were unable to raise additional capital to purchase other properties because of the depression of 1893.71 ith some small variations the Mormon Pioneer Memorial The decline in the price of silver meant the end of the Emma W Highway closely follows the route taken by the Mormon enterprise. At the close of 1894, the directors voted to spend their Pioneers through the Wasatch Mountains and into Salt Lake small remaining capital to investigate West Australian gold prop- Valley. Starting at Henefer the route winds thirty-six miles erties, and, if they should meet with success, to form a new through the crown of the Wasatch Mountains, and ends at the company with expanded capital.72 This Is the Place Monument, at the mouth of Emigration Canyon. From 1847 to 1862, except for a brief period in 1850, when Parley P. Pratt's Golden Pass Road was partially used, this route was the sole means of entrance into the valley from the east. Along this route came all the wagons of the immigrants, the freighters, the Pony Express, and Johnston's Army. Let us start at Henefer and trace those last thirty-six historic miles into Salt Lake Valley. The first wheeled vehicles over this route were those of the Donner Party, who preceded the Mormon migration by one year. These people, with their twenty-three wagons, required sixteen days of constant work cutting the trail through the Wasatch. The Mormons, who followed in their tracks a year later, came through in three days, but not without considerable labor—the Donner tracks, in some places, having been completely obliterated. Turning southwest at Henefer, a few rods north of a monument commemorating this famous route, we proceed up Main Canyon on a smooth oiled highway, with the old trail twisting its way along Henefer Creek. After winding six miles up Main Canyon we arrive at the summit or "Hogsback," where William Clayton of the Mormon party put up a guideboard, "80 miles to Fort Bridger." The old trail here was not extremely steep, but being mostly on the side hill, it required the expert care of the teamsters to

*The author is a resident of Midvale, Utah. This present article is his 70 Ibid.. LI I (December 26, 1891). first literary attempt, and he wishes to acknowledge considerable help from the 71 Ibid.. LVII (January 27. 1894). use of "West From Fort Bridger; The Pioneering of the Immigrant Trails 72Ibid.. LVIII (December 29, 1894). Across Utah, 1846-1850," Utah Historical Quarterly, XIX (1951).