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David Marshall Stuart was orphaned as a young boy in Paisley, Scotland. He joined the LDS church when he was sixteen years old. He set sail from Liverpool and arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847. In early 1856, still unmarried, he was preaching the gospel in Sacramento, California, when he wrote a letter to Apostle Amasa Mason Lyman full of flowery observations on religion. As a second letter later attests, he must not have expected a reply. Here is an excerpt from his second letter, written from the heart of California gold country.
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Auburn, Placer Co, Cal,
August 23/[18]56Dear Br Amasa
I have just received your letter of the 31st of May. I am over joyed to think you have not forgotten me, me a friendless out cast on the cold heartless world without a relative on earth, to sooth my feelings or point the way to virtue! I have had to struggle up through this wicked world all alone! Thus far I have escaped its elurements, but it was not me, but the promptings of some unseen power that has saved me from the veryest hell! Yours was the first friendly letter I ever got, and from an apostle of Jesus Christ. I read your letter o’er, and o’er, and weept, and wiped the tears away to weep again.…
… If we have the spirit of trouth we have the spirit of Christ. If we have not we are none of his. The spirit of a man so manafest in his writings, as well as in his actions. I am still traveling with Br [William H.] Shearman Preaching every opportunity doing all the good we can still remembering what you told us we have souls to be saved.
Yours truly
David M. Stuart
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Do you remember the first friendly letter you ever received?
When is the last time you wrote someone a real letter, the kind that starts with “Dear” and ends with “Truly yours”?
Is there a letter you should write? Do you have an elderly relative, an old friend, a missionary serving from your ward, or know someone in a care center? If so, put down your smartphone or step away from the keyboard and go find stationery and a stamp! Come back and comment later!
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This guest post is part one of three selections from the Amasa M. Lyman Collection at the Church History Library. Tomorrow: The Price of Plural Marriage. The next day: How to be a Refugee. The picture of David Marshall Stuart (1826–1898), is courtesy of Anne Dennis, used by permission.
There. Just took my own advice and put two stamped letters in the mail. The postman won’t know what to do.
I was wondering how Lyman’s letter would reach Stuart. It could have been hand-delivered since there was regular traffic between San Bernardino and Sacramento, but it probably went by postal service. I checked the California papers and a search doesn’t find Stuart in the list of letters. Here’s this, though, from the Sacramento paper, March 10, 1856.
Oh, man. His story is even more interesting than I suspected from the biographical materials I’ve already seen. In 1858 Stuart and some others survived an attack by the Pitt River Tribe while returning to Great Salt Lake from preaching the gospel in Oregon Territory. The newspaperman seems rather fascinated with Stuart, seems to find it hard to believe that a man of such talents and adventure was a Mormon (!). In the interview Stuart says that he was baptized at age fourteen, “was in the first immigration to Salt Lake, and has been active as a missionary since.” Hopefully he left autobiographical writings.
Letters!
Correspondence is my favorite type of document for research! There is nothing quite like them for immediacy (people usually write about what’s happening NOW rather than recalling the past, although there is some of that), and personality (people write to those they know, or they reveal themselves to those they don’t) and candor (sure, some writers put forth a false face, but most of the time letter writers are open and honest because they don’t expect their letters to be seen by anyone but the one who is addressed.)
But I mostly consume letters. I’ll have to take your advice and consider who might want to receive a letter.
And as for autobiographical writings by David M. Stuart, I think I can help you there …
Does it count if I sent it Saturday? I wrote a birthday letter to a woman I used to visit teach in another state. She was born with some mental handicaps that will be with her for her whole life, so her circle of friends is a bit limited. When I discovered that she got so excited when I sent postcards and notes that she even slept with them–well, I had to keep it up. How else can I make someone so happy for the cost of a stamp.
That definitely counts, Laura! Good for you. Not just the cost of a stamp, also a few minutes of your time … surely a fair price to pay for creating some of the small threads that hold our communities together.
I used to be a mail man. It was rare and obvious, and we really enjoyed the work, when someone received hand-written, hand-addressed letters with a licked stamp. We would talk about what lucky people they are. Everyone else got junk mail. It made even us depressed.