Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive All Faculty Publications 2004-11 The orM mon Hive: A Study of the Bee and Beehive Symbols in Nineteenth Century Mormon Culture J. Michael Hunter Brigham Young University - Provo, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Mormon Studies Commons Original Publication Citation J. Michael Hunter. The orM mon Hive: A Study of the Bee and Beehive Symbols in Nineteenth Century Mormon Culture. 2004. BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Hunter, J. Michael, "The orM mon Hive: A Study of the Bee and Beehive Symbols in Nineteenth Century Mormon Culture" (2004). All Faculty Publications. 1361. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1361 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. THE MORMON HIVE: A STUDY OF THE BEE AND BEEHIVE SYMBOLS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY MORMON CULTURE ____________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University Dominguez Hills ____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Master of Arts in Humanities ____________ by J. Michael Hunter Fall 2004 Copyright by J. MICHAEL HUNTER 2004 All Rights Reserved ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page COPYRIGHT PAGE ………………………………………………………………………...ii APPROVAL PAGE ………………………………………………………………………...iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………………………..iv LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………………………………….v ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………..ix CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...……………………………………………………………………….1 2. THE OLD WORLD HIVE …………………………………………………………………9 3. THE NEW WORLD HIVE ……………………………………………………………….35 4. DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORMON CONCEPT OF KINGDOM …………………………….50 5. THE MORMON HIVE …………………………………………………………………...69 6. TRANSFORMATION OF THE BEE AND BEEHIVE SYMBOLS ……………………………..122 7. CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………131 ENDNOTES …. …………………………………………………………………………..135 iv LIST OF FIGURES PAGE 1. Rock painting in Bicorp, Valencia Spain ……………………………………………11 2. Tree beekeeping was practiced by Neolithic peoples………………………………...12 3. Picture from the tomb of Pabasa ……………………………………………………..13 4. The sedge and the bee, symbols for Lower and Upper Egypt…………..…………….14 5. Stylized bees used to symbolize Egyptian royalty …………………………………...14 6. Minoan palace and bee signs ………………………………………………….……..15 7. Vase from the Etruscan city of Volci ………………………………………………...16 8. Chifflet’s 1655 drawing of Childeric’s bees …………………………………………24 9. Surviving bees from Childeric’s tomb ……………………………………………….25 10. Woodcut showing traditional European straw skeps ……………………...………..27 11. The royal bee from Bosch’s emblem book (1701) ...……………………………….28 12. Principis Clementia ...……………………………………………………………….29 13. The natural order of things as illustrated in Bosch’s emblem book (1701)….……...29 14. The title page of The Beehive of the Romishe Churche……………..……………...32 15. The Parliament of bees with “Mister Bee” as Pro-Rex …………………………….33 16. Pulling Down the Statue of George III ……………………………………………..39 17. America Guided by Wisdom ……………………………………………………….44 18. Agriculture, commerce, art and science …………………………………………….45 19. Beehive surrounded by thirteen bees ……………………………………………….46 20. French print, 1789 …………..………………………………………………………47 v 21. The beehive of the Republic next door to the Prytanee ...…………………..………48 22. Joseph Smith ……………………………………………………………..…………50 23. Joseph Smith receives the gold plates from the Angel Moroni ……………..……...51 24. The Kirtland Temple ………………………………………..………………………55 25. A Missouri mob tars and feathers Joseph Smith ……………..………...…………...55 26. An 1840s photograph of the Nauvoo Temple …………..…………………………..57 27. The Nauvoo Temple, rebuilt 2002 ……………………..…………………………...58 28. The martyrdom of Joseph Smith ………………………………..…………………..66 29. The Mormons leave Nauvoo by crossing the frozen Mississippi ……….………….66 30. Seal of Territory of Utah in U.S. Capitol ………..……………….…………………78 31. Washington Monument stone ………………………………………………………82 32. Nauvoo Temple sunstone………………………………………….………………..83 33. 19th-century Masonic apron……………………………………….………….……..83 34. Nauvoo Masonic Lodge …………………………………………….…………....... 84 35. Brigham Young’s Masonic emblems ……………………………….………………85 36. Great Seal of the United States …………………………………….……………….86 37. 19th-Century Masonic apron ...……………………………………...……………….87 38. All-seeing eye on Salt Lake Temple ………………………………......……………87 39. Brigham Young’s Beehive House ……………………………………..……….….90 40. Beehive House doorknob ………………………………………………..………....91 41. Beehive carving on Brigham Young’s mirror ……………………………..……….91 42. Beehives on banister at Beehive House …………………………………….………92 vi 43. Eagle Gate woodcarving ……………………………………………………..……..92 44. Eagle Gate in 19th century ……………………………………………………..…....93 45. Beehive emblem in Mark Twain’s Roughing It ………………………………..….100 46. Beehive emblem on Franklin, Idaho ZCMI branch ……………………………….109 47. 19th-century stained glass window ………………………………………………...109 48. 19th-century Mormon quilt ………………………………………………………...110 49. Engraved plate from bishop’s records chest ………………………………….…...110 50. Pioneer Day parade float 1897 …………………………………………………….110 51. 19th-century Mormon bed …………………………...…………………………….110 52. 1860s Deseret gold coin ………………………………………………………...…110 53. Lehi City seal ……………………………………………………………….…..…110 54. Brigham Young University seal ………………………………………………...…110 55. University of Utah seal …………………………………………………………....110 56. Brigham Young and the beehive emblem …………………………………...…….112 57. Beehive medallions on Salt Lake Temple………………………………………....113 58. Doorknob of the Salt Lake Temple ………………………………………………..113 59. Entrance beehives of the St. George Temple ……………………………………...113 60. Beehives on the stairs of the baptismal font of the Logan Temple ………………..113 61. Tombstone with beehive in Ephraim, Utah ……………………………………….114 62. Utah State Seal ………………………………………………………………….…123 63. Utah State Flag ………………………………………………………………….…124 64. Beehive rug at Utah State Capitol ………………………………….………….......125 vii 65. Sidewalk in downtown Salt Lake City …………………………………………….125 66. Utah Highway Patrol uniform patch ………………………………………………125 67. Hotel Utah 1911 ……………………………………………………………...........126 68. Deseret Industries truck 1938 ………………………………………………..........127 69. Deseret Industries logo ……………………………………………………………128 70. President Ronald Reagan at Bishop’s Storehouse ………………………………...128 71. LDS Conference Center podium ……………………………………………..........129 viii ABSTRACT From antiquity to the middle of the eighteenth century, humans used the bee and beehive symbols to represent monarchy. Political and social changes resulted in a reinterpretation of the bee and beehive symbols during the eighteenth century. Republicans ignored the royalist associations of bees and beehives, and used them to represent values of the new republicanism. In nineteenth-century America, the Mormons encountered the bee and beehive symbols while participating in the rites of Freemasonry. In the nineteenth century, Mormons used the bee and beehive symbols to represent the Kingdom of God on the earth in the form of the Mormon theocracy in territorial Utah. This study focuses on interpreting the bee and beehive symbols in nineteenth-century Mormon culture through a study of Mormon sermons, hymns, and folk art. This study of these symbols opens a window on the ideological differences between a democratic culture and a theocractic subculture. 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Existing historical records fail to state exactly when the Mormons conceived of adopting the beehive symbol as their “communal coat of arms.”1 Neither do the records provide a firm reason for why the Mormons chose the beehive over other possible symbols. However, the idea had made its way into Mormon thought by July 24, 1848. On that day, Brigham Young was leading a second company across the plains from Nebraska to the Rocky Mountains. The company stopped somewhere in what is now Wyoming to celebrate the first anniversary of the arrival of the Mormons in the Salt Lake Valley. In his journal, Richard Ballantyne wrote that it was a celebration “of independence in the Great Valley of the Great Salt Lake and on which occasion this the victory was declared and the dependant state entitled the ‘State of Deseret.’” During the celebration, Ballantyne presented Young with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. This was followed by the company cheering three times, “Long live the governor of the State of Deseret.” Young was then ceremoniously escorted by twenty-four young men “draped in white, with a white coronet on their heads and a white sash on their left shoulders tied under the right arm and carrying a sword and sheath in their left hands and a copy of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution in their right.”2 The popular term Mormons will be used in this thesis to refer to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Occasionally quotations will refer to this same group as Latter-day Saints. The term LDS Church will be used to refer to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2 Sometime between the day Brigham Young had first entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847 and the day of this celebration a year later, there had apparently been some discussion among the Mormons about the creation of a new state in the Salt Lake Valley to be called the “State of Deseret.” The term deseret was from a story