Peter Shirts (1808-1882?) was one of the 19th century Church’s remarkable frontiersmen. Raised in unsettled Ohio, he came into contact with the Church during Kirtland days and was baptized with his wife Margaret. He lived in Nauvoo, and then Winter Quarters, and emigrated to Utah in 1850. I don’t know whether all the stories told about Shirts are strictly true, but the stories all celebrate his prowess as a hunter and his ability to provide for the members of the “ten” over which he served as captain during the trek..
Once in Utah, Shirts was in his own element. For the rest of his days, it seems as though he felt the neighborhood was overcrowded if there was another white man within 50 miles, and he would strike out on his own. The remarkable number of creeks, washes, meadows, canyons, chasms, forts, hills, and other geographical features of early Utah that are or were named Peter’s _____ or Shirts’s ______ testify to his explorations and first-man-on-the-scene status. He favored the wildest and bleakest parts of Southern Utah.
Again, I can’t vouch for the details, but the story is told that during the Black Hawk War when settlers were called in from outlying regions for their own safety, Peter Shirts did not respond. The next spring when an armed expedition was mounted to see what had become of him, he was found in remote isolation, peacefully preparing his fields for planting, his plow being harnessed to two Paiutes – he had fed the local band during the winter, and in the spring he had told them that since they had eaten his oxen, they must pull his plow so that he could raise food for the next winter.
In 1882, when Shirts was 74, he set off on another exploring expedition through the badlands of Southern Utah, and was never heard from again. ((Family Search offers an exact date and place of death, but that is based on the assumption that an unidentified white man who appeared mysteriously near Fruitland, New Mexico and died there was in fact Peter Shirts. It may have been, but the identification is far from certain.)) The wild landscape had finally claimed the untamable frontiersman.
Margaret Cameron Shirts, the wife who had joined the Church with Shirts in Ohio, died on the westward migration. Shirts married again … and again … and again … in 1851, 1856, 1859. Maybe more, I don’t know. He had a lot of children.
He wanted to marry again in 1860.
Contrary to assumptions, men who wanted to marry polygamously did not simply marry who and when and where they pleased. Plural marriage was a priesthood ordinance, not a routine civil marriage. There were rules (those rules varied over time) that men were supposed to follow. They were numerous violations of those rules, admittedly, but that doesn’t change the fact that there were rules.
One of those rules was that, as with any major priesthood ordinance, a man seeking a plural wife was supposed to obtain permission from his priesthood leader. At some points, that leader was a man’s stake president; at other points, it was the president of the Church.
In February 1860, when Peter Shirts decided he wanted to marry yet again (despite having taken a new wife less than three months earlier), he sought permission from Brigham Young. The response by Brigham Young was put in writing:
Dear Brother: –
I would gladly bless you, agreeable to request in your note of the 10th inst., if you would take a course to retain such blessings after they are conferred upon you. But you are naturally inclined to be a little wild, and to draw away from settlements to places unpleasant and unsafe. I understand that you have lately been expressing a wish to settle in Uinta valley, and until you can tame your thoughts and actions so far as [to] be willing to live where a family can be safe and have a reasonable opportunity for social enjoyment and improvement, I am of the opinion that it will be altogether best for you to continue to lead the life of a hermit, for I know of no woman worth a groat who would be willing to agree with your wild unsocial ways for any length of time.
Your Brother in the Gospel,
BRIGHAM YOUNG
I don’t know how often or for what reasons other men were denied permission to take a plural wife. Most requests would have been made orally, and the few formal permissions I have seen were written by stake presidents on scraps of paper, with evidently no procedure to capture a permanent record.
In this case, though, there is a formal record.
Peter Shirts’s 1859 plural marriage is the last one listed in Family Search, or in the other online databases I have searched.
“. . . you have lately been expressing a wish to settle in Uinta valley . . .’
President Young was right to be concerned about settling in the Uinta(h] Valley. I don’t know how much influence he had in DC at this time, but on Oct. 3, 1861, Pres. A. Lincoln set aside land out of the public domain to establish the Uintah Valley Indian Reservation.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol1/Images/v1p0900.jpg
Ha! This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
I’m glad you appreciated this — it’s an interesting case of a significant historical point and an engaging bit of human drama.
Great story! And “there were rules” needs to be said. The plural marriage history is incomplete and misleading without the rules (and the rule breaking, of course).
chris, I tried to do a series on “the rules” for historical polygamy about four years ago, but all any commenter wanted to talk about was prospective polygamy because of modern temple sealings, so I gave it up.
Ardis: that’s unfortunate. I’m certainly not a lone voice on this, but I view historical polygamy, all the way from Joseph Smith through the Utah war, the manifesto, and the post-manifesto fall-out, as a classic example of where doing good history can benefit us in the present. Much of who and what we (the LDS church, Mormons) are today–culturally, socially, in respect or disrespect for authority, in feelings about persecution, etc.–can be traced to polygamy and reactions to polygamy. There are other big topics, to be sure. But we lose an important part of ourselves, in my opinion, if we box up polygamy and stuff it in a closet.
I promoted the heck out of this post on every platform I have, hoping that the unexpectedness hinted at in the title would spark a conversation. It worked to the extent that hundreds of visitors have stopped by, but it failed in that it elicited comments from only three readers. Thank you Grant MH, and christiankimball — I need your kind of feedback to make it worth the effort to keep Keepa going.
I’m wondering what BY knew about the wives he did have.
The lack of mention of a current wife response feels very much like Shirts is “single” again.
I love this story. Please rethink doing the historical rules again.
I have stopped by twice today to read the subsequent comments but didn’t comment.
Historical polygamy is more complex than many think. A g-g-grandmother of mine married polygamously and shortly after asked Brigham Young to grant her a divorce, which he did. She remained lifelong friends with the polygamous family – sister wife and former husband. Her grandson, from the son of her second husband, was named after her polygamous husband. I always thought that was surprising. But it was her life and she didn’t didn’t complain in her written record which is all we can know. The fact that she wrote and didn’t complain means she wanted that to be the story.
Polygamy is interesting. The rules and the breaking of them are interesting. This post is interesting, but your posts always are. Thanks.
Thanks, Rachelle, and Joseph and Juliann! I’m sorry to have whined — I do very much appreciate knowing who is reading, and hearing the stories that you tell.
I’ve got a couple of letters between Brigham and Shirts following up on this that should make a decent post next week.
Add mine to the voices calling for a revisit to “the rules” and the breaking of them.
“But we lose an important part of ourselves, in my opinion, if we box up polygamy and stuff it in a closet.”
Amen, Christian, Amen!
I read this and really enjoyed it. I did not comment at first because I was reading on my phone and I always seem to have troubles commenting through the phone browser.
Thanks for your efforts!
Thanks, Karen!
I’m thinking Brother Shirts had a bad case of wanderlust and to boot he was married several times. Very interesting fellow. It seems that maybe Bro Brigham may not have know about the others at the time of his letter but maybe enough was enough and he was more disapproving of he wondering and didn’t want to subject another Sister to that fate. You have anything on his wives and what they thought? You real knack for great little bits of history.
Thanks, Mex. I *don’t* have anything from the perspective of the several Mrs. Shirts — would give quite a bit to know! (And I’ll followup next week with more about that wanderlust.)
A great part of the value of your work here, Ardis, is that you share the past as it was, without critique (read: uncharitable judgment) based on modern (read: enlightened) sensibilities. They were people, real people, not mere objects for our criticism. Most people who share the past seem to do so to point out their benightedness (in contrast to our enlightenedness) or to put words in their mouths, so to speak, or to prove some point in argument today. Your blog allows me to read about people in the past without all that uncharitable judgment — people who lived the faith and people whom I have joined with and people I’d like to meet one day — ordinary people living ordinary lives. We simply cannot broadly judge people in the past based on our modern sensibilities. Your postings help me see people in the past as real people, and helps connect me to them and my adopted religion.
You said there were many children. I assume that would tell us if there were still current wives or if he was single again. Follow up communication between the two should be interesting!
Thanks for posting this Ardis. The moments of history are always fascinating to read about, especially things that are related to hard part’s of history for some. As others have mentioned it helps put context where it is much needed. As a young guy that context helps with questions and doubts that have been storming me for a while. It doesn’t end them but helps weather the storm if you will. Thanks again for the blog in general.
The small part of Brigham Young’s correspondence that I have read has always been fascinating, a man of often surprising contrasts. This is great. People talk now about living off the grid, and it appears that is what Peter Shirts was perhaps trying to do in a 18th century fashion.
Noting that comments on your blog aren’t what they used to be is no reflection on the quality of the content, which continues to be as good as it ever was, always enlivened by your great insights. It strikes home with me, as I know that I have been conspicuously absent so much in the last couple of years, with a change in jobs and a very time consuming ward mission leader calling. Work hasn’t changed, but the calling is about to, so I intend to have more time to spend reading your blog and doing history. In other words, I’ll be back.
All of my ancestral lines go back to polygamous families. In every case I come through the first wife. The same is true of my husband’s mother’ lines. From the stories I have read and research I have done, I don’t find any reference that the husband got permission to take an additional wife. If there were rules, I think, based on my family, that those rules were broken alot, or more likely, ignored.
On the other hand, Samuel Whitney Richards claimed that Brigham Young TOLD him it was time to take another wife, which he did, but he hadn’t asked for the privilege.
I’m with Mary Lynn (#12). Mark me down as a enthusiastic vote for revisiting the polygamy rules and in favor of self-examination of how polygamy has shaped modern mormonism. Like Maurine, most of my lines are polygamous, and family legend claims that most of the husbands were strongly pressured into polygamy by the authorities. BUT… family legend also claims that my antebellum ancestors were all kind-hearted farmers who treated their slaves with the utmost respect.
As to the OP, I think Mr. Shirts reminds me of Pa Ingalls in the Little House series. Brigham’s response is classic. I’m looking forward to the follow up post.
Keep up the outstanding work!
Ardis, I can help you with one thing, “the perspective of the several Mrs. Shirts.” I will dig up the family history, but Brigham Young certainly did know about the other wives, as after Belena Pulsipher’s death, her mother walked from Springville to Salt Lake city to have a private audience with Brigham Young and plead with him that she be allowed to retain custody of Belena’s children. He awarded her custody of the older children but sent the youngest back to him. It is still considered a great family tragedy. I can tell you more about the reasons for their divorce as well – it’s pretty scandalous.