Faithfully, yours, Fanny Stenhouse
AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN UTAH:
THE STORY OF
A Life’s Experience in Mormonism.
An Autobiography:
BY
Mrs. T. B. H. STENHOUSE,
OF SALT LAKE CITY,
FOR MORE THAN TWENTY-FIVE YEARS THE WIFE OF A MORMON MISSIONARY AND ELDER.
With Introductory Preface by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.
INCLUDING A FULL ACCOUNT OF
THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE,
AND OF THE
LIFE, CONFESSION, AND EXECUTION OF BISHOP JOHN D. LEE.
FULLY ILLUSTRATED.
London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1880.
[All rights reserved.]
TO
MY CHILDREN;
WITH
ALL A MOTHER’S LOVE AND TENDERNESS,
THIS VOLUME,
THE
STORY OF MY LIFE’S EXPERIENCE,
IS
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
PREFACE
BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
In these pages, a woman, a wife and mother, speaks the sorrows and oppressions of which she has been the witness and the victim.
It is because her sorrows and her oppressions are those of thousands, who, suffering like her, cannot or dare not speak for themselves, that she thus gives this history to the public.
It is no sensational story, but a plain, unvarnished tale of truth, stranger and sadder than fiction.
Our day has seen a glorious breaking of fetters. The slave-pens of the South have become a nightmare of the past; the auction-block and whipping-post have given place to the church and school-house; and the songs of emancipated millions are heard through our land.
May we not then hope that the hour is come to loose the bonds of a cruel slavery whose chains have cut into the very hearts of thousands of our sisters—a slavery which debases and degrades womanhood, motherhood, and the family?
Let every happy wife and mother who reads these lines give her their sympathy, prayers, and aid to free her sisters from this degrading bondage. Let all the womanhood of the country stand united for them. There is a power in combined enlightened sentiment and sympathy before which every form of injustice and cruelty must finally go down.
May He who came to break every yoke hasten this deliverance!
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
PREFACE.
In the fall of the year 1869, a few earnest, thinking men, members of the Mormon Church, and living in Salt Lake City, inaugurated what was regarded at the time as a grand schism. Those who had watched with anxiety the progress of Mormonism, hailed the “New Movement” as the harbinger of the work of disintegration so long anticipated by the thoughtful-minded Saints, and believed that the opposition to Theocracy, then begun, would continue until the extraordinary assumptions of the Mormon priesthood were exploded, and Mormonism itself should lose its political status and find its place only among the singular sects of the day.
It was freely predicted that Woman, in her turn, would accept her part in the work of reformation, take up the marriage question among the Saints, and make an end of Polygamy.
Little did I imagine, at that period, that any such mission as that which I have since realized as mine, was in the Providence of Time awaiting me, or that I should ever have the boldness, either with tongue or pen, to plead the cause of the Women of Utah. But, impelled by those unseen influences which shape our destinies, I took my stand with the “heretics;” and, as it happened, my own was the first woman’s name enrolled in their cause.
The circumstances which wrought a change in my own life produced a corresponding revolution in the life of my husband.
In withdrawing from the Mormon Church, we laid ourselves, our associations, and the labours of over twenty years, upon the altar, and took up the burden of life anew. We had sacrificed everything in obedience to the “counsel” of Brigham Young; and my husband, to give a new direction to his mind, and also to form some plan for our future life, thought it advisable that he should visit New York. He did so; and shortly after employed himself in writing a history of the “Rocky Mountain Saints,” which has since been published.
In course of time, the burden of providing for a large family, and the anxiety and care of conducting successfully a business among a people who make it a religious duty to sternly set their faces against those who dissent from their faith, exhausted my physical and mental strength. Considering, therefore, that change might be beneficial to me, and my own personal affairs urgently calling me to New York City, I followed my husband thither.
On my way East I met a highly-valued friend of my family, who, in the course of our journey together over the Pacific Railroad, enthusiastically urged me to tell the story of my past life, and to give to the world what I knew about Polygamy. I had been repeatedly advised to do so by friends at home, but up to that time no plan had been arranged for carrying out the suggestion.
I had hardly arrived in New York before the electric messenger announced that a severe snow-storm was raging on the vast plains between the Rocky Mountains and the Missouri River, and for several weeks all traffic over the Union Pacific Railroad was interrupted, and I could not return to my home in the distant West.
That unlooked-for snow-blockade became seriously annoying; for not only was I most anxious to return to my children, but also, never having known an idle hour, I could not live without something to do. At that moment of unsettled feeling, a lady-friend, with whom I was visiting, suggested again “the book;” and she would not permit me to leave her house until she had exacted from me a promise that it should be written.
Next morning I began my task in earnest. I faithfully kept my room and laboured unremittingly; and in three weeks the manuscript of my little work on “Polygamy in Utah” was completed. It was very kindly welcomed by the press—both secular and religious—and for this I was sincerely grateful. I had not, up to that time, thought of much else than its effect upon the people of Utah; but the voluminous notices which that little book received showed the deep interest which the people of the United States had taken in “the Mormon question,” and how ardently they desired to see the extinction of the polygamic institution among the Saints.
In Salt Lake City I was so situated that I was daily—I might almost say hourly—brought in contact with visitors to the Modern Zion; for, during the summer, thousands of travellers pass over the Pacific Railroad. Not a few of these called to see me; and I received from ladies and gentlemen—whose kind interest in my welfare I felt very deeply—many personal attentions, many words of sympathy and encouragement, and many intelligent and useful suggestions in respect to my future life. Indeed, I saw myself quite unexpectedly, and, I may truthfully say, without my own desire, become an object of interest.
By the earnest suggestions of friends and strangers, and by the widely published opinions of the press, I was made to feel that I had only begun my work—that I had but partly drawn aside the veil that covered the worst oppression and degradation of woman ever known in a civilized country. Nearly all who spoke to me expressed their surprise that intelligent men and women should be found in communion with the Mormon Church, in which it was so clearly evident that the teachings of Christianity had been supplanted by an attempt to imitate the barbarism of Oriental nations in a long past age, and the sweet influences of the religion of Jesus were superseded by the most objectionable practices of the ancient Jews. How persons of education and refinement could ever have embraced a faith that prostrated them at the feet of the Mormon Prophet, and his successor Brigham Young, was to the inquiring mind a perfect mystery.
The numerous questions which I had to answer, and the explanations which I had to give, showed me that my little book had only whetted the appetite of the intelligent investigator, and that there was a general call for a woman’s book on Mormonism—a book that should reveal the inner life of the Saints,—exhibit the influences which had contributed to draw Christian people away from Christian Churches to the standard of the American Prophet, Joseph Smith, and subject them to the power of that organization which has, since his death, subjugated the mass of the Mormon people in Utah to the will and wickedness of the Priesthood under the leadership of Brigham Young.
A few months after the publication of my first book, I was invited to lecture upon “Polygamy in Utah;” and wherever I spoke I observed the same spirit of inquiry, and met with a renewed demand for more of circumstance and narrative—which I had, from a sense of personal delicacy, withheld in my former work.
I saw no way of satisfying myself and others than by accepting the rather spiteful invitation of a certain Mormon paper to “Tell it all;” and this, in a narrative of my own personal experience, which I now present to the reader, I have endeavoured to do. Not being in any sense a literary woman, or making any pretensions as a writer, I hope to escape severe criticism from the public and the press. I had a simple story to tell—the story of my life and of the wrongs of women in Utah. Startling and terrible facts have fallen under my observation. These also I have related; but my constant effort has been to tell my story in the plainest, simplest way, and, while avoiding exaggeration, never to shrink from a straightforward statement of facts. I have disguised nothing, and palliated nothing; and I feel assured that those who from their actual and intimate acquaintance with Mormonism in Utah as it really is, are capable of passing a just and impartial judgment upon my story, will declare without hesitation that I have told “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Fanny Stenhouse.
Salt Lake City, Utah.
CONTENTS.
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I. | My Early Life | [1] |
| II. | My First Introduction to Mormonism | [7] |
| III. | The Labour of my Life begun—How the Mormon Missionaries made Converts | [16] |
| IV. | Life among the Saints—My New Engagements | [25] |
| V. | The First Whisperings of Polygamy | [33] |
| VI. | My Husband’s Mission—I am left Alone | [41] |
| VII. | Our Mission in Switzerland—Mutterings of the Coming Storm | [56] |
| VIII. | The Revelation on “Celestial Marriage” | [67] |
| IX. | Missionary Work—Teaching Polygamy | [76] |
| X. | Mormonism in England—Preparing to Emigrate | [86] |
| XI. | Emigrating to Zion—We Arrive in New York | [97] |
| XII. | Life in New York—Conducting a Mormon Paper | [103] |
| XIII. | Saintly Pilgrims on the way—the “Divine” Hand-cart Scheme | [111] |
| XIV. | A Terrible Story—The Hand-cart Emigrants crossing the Plains | [123] |
| XV. | Mary Burton’s Story continued—Terrible ending of the Hand-Cart Scheme | [132] |
| XVI. | We forsake all, and set out for Zion—Our Journey across the Plains | [145] |
| XVII. | My First Impressions of the City of the Saints | [152] |
| XVIII. | Brigham Young at Home—We visit the Prophet and his Wives | [163] |
| XIX. | The Wives of Brigham Young—Their History and their Daily Life | [168] |
| XX. | Ways and Works of the Saints—The Prophet’s Millinery Bill | [179] |
| XXI. | Mysteries of the Endowment House—Fearful Oaths and Secret Ceremonies | [189] |
| XXII. | Secrets of Saintly Spouses—A Visit from my Talkative Friend | [202] |
| XXIII. | Social Life in Salt Lake City—Ball-rooms, “Wall-flowers,” and Divorce | [209] |
| XXIV. | The Origin of “The Reformation”—Extraordinary Doings of the Saints | [224] |
| XXV. | The “Reign of Terror” in Utah—The Reformation of the Saints | [235] |
| XXVI. | The Mountain Meadows Massacre—“I will Repay, saith the Lord” | [247] |
| XXVII. | What Women Suffer in Polygamy—The Story of Mary Burton | [259] |
| XXVIII. | How Marriages are made in Utah—A New Wife found for my Husband | [268] |
| XXIX. | Taking a Second Wife—The Experience of the First | [278] |
| XXX. | Trials—The Second Wife chosen—Shadows of Life | [285] |
| XXXI. | Marriage for the Dead—Entering into Polygamy—The New Wife | [293] |
| XXXII. | Domestic Arrangements of the Saints—Polygamy from a Woman’s Standpoint | [299] |
| XXXIII. | Lights and Shadows of Polygamy—Marriage and Baptism for the Dead | [306] |
| XXXIV. | My Daughter becomes the Fourth Wife of Brigham Young’s Son—The Second Endowments | [314] |
| XXXV. | Realities of Polygamic Life—Orson Pratt: The Story of his Young English Wife | [323] |
| XXXVI. | “Our” Husband’s Fiancée—A Second Wife’s Sorrows—Steps towards Apostasy | [331] |
| XXXVII. | Some curious Courtships—Brigham ruins our Fortunes—Belinda Divorces “our” Husband | [340] |
| XXXVIII. | Mary Burton—Life’s Journey ended: Rest at Last | [347] |
| XXXIX. | My Husband Disfellowshipped—We Apostatize—Brutal Outrage upon my Husband and Myself | [357] |
| XL. | Amusing Troubles of my Talkative Friend—Charlotte with the Golden Hair | [361] |
| XLI. | After we left the Church—Interesting Facts and Figures—Mormonism and Mormons of to-day | [363] |
| L’Envoi | [377] | |
| Postscript | [380] | |
| XLIV. | Mountain Meadows Massacre—Complete Confession of Bishop John D. Lee | [384] |
| Killing a Rival Prophet | [398] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| [1.] | Steel-plate Portrait of the Author | Frontispiece |
| [2.] | Steel-plate Portrait of Brigham Young | To face |
| [3.] | “Gathering to Zion”—Life on the Plains | 125 |
| [4.] | Over at Last | 136 |
| [5.] | View of Main Street, Salt Lake City (From a Photograph) The Ladies’ Side of Mormonism. | 148 |
| [6.] | Amelia Folsom Young, Brigham’s Favourite Wife | 168 |
| [7.] | “Ann Eliza,” Brigham’s Nineteenth Wife | 168 |
| [8.] | Miss Eliza R. Snow, Mormon Poetess and High Priestess | 168 |
| [9.] | Mrs. John W. Young, Wife of Brigham’s Apostate Son | 168 |
| [10.] | Brother Brigham’s Last Baby | 168 |
| [11.] | Scene of the Mountain Meadows Massacre | 255 |
| [12.] | The Crisis of a Life—Entering into Polygamy | 296 |
| [13.] | Polygamy in Low Life—The Poor Man’s Family | 302 |
| [14.] | Polygamy in High Life—The Prophet’s Mansion | 302 |
| [15.] | Despair! | 326 |
| [16.] | Fac-simile of a Mormon “Bill of Divorce” | 344 |