I’ve recently been reading both the biographies of Joseph F. Smith and portions of his personal journals for a project I am working on, and have come to appreciate him in a different light. In the past, having read some of his sermons and writings in such works as Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith, I have had a perception of him as strict, doctrinaire, and very stern. However, reading the journals and some letters to his adopted son, Edward Arthur Smith, I’ve seen the depth of feelings towards family, tenderness with those he loved, and more emotional undercurrents than his very formal public persona would seem to indicate.

Nowhere do those feelings show up more than in notes he made in his journal while serving as President of the European Mission and learning that his cousin and close friend, George A. Smith had died.

Continue reading Guest Post: Unexpected Tenderness: Joseph F. Smith on the Death of George A. Smith →

Part of the fun for me in history research is learning a lot of unexpected bits of information along the way. As I have read journals, letters, and articles, I have often run across information that is just too good to ignore, even if it has nothing to do with what I am looking for.

In my article about the 1873 Mission to the Little Colorado, I had a few of those moments, but perhaps one of my favorites comes from the journal of Andrew Allen, one of the colonists at Moencopie. The 1873 colonists were spread out at several different locations near Moencopie, owing to limitations on the water supply and to avoid creating conflicts with the local Hopi Indians of Chief Tuby. After the group had determined that the Little Colorado basin they had explored that summer was inhospitable, the colonists found themselves waiting for an answer from Salt Lake City and church headquarters that never came. That left them with a lot of free time on their hands, and not much productive work to do before they finally retreated back to Utah.

Continue reading Guest Post: Arizona Pioneer Discovers Mexican Fast Food in 1873! →

Companies of immigrant converts traveling to Utah prior to the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 had many experiences in common. They had to get to the embarkation points in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska; they were met by immigration agents who helped them overcome obstacles in preparations for the journey; and then all had to endure the seemingly endless overland trek, subject to storms, heat, dust, hunger, sickness, and even death.

Immigration, though, from the standpoint of church leaders in Salt Lake City, was a constantly evolving physical and financial challenge to accommodate an ever increasing number of new Saints. The initial companies of the late 1840s had to be very self sufficient. It took time for Brigham Young to work out the best way to move the hundreds, then thousands, of Great Basin-bound church members and new converts. The Perpetual Emigrating Fund (PEF) is pretty well documented and known. Less is generally understood about arguably the most successful pre-railroad immigration plan, the down and back companies.

Continue reading Guest Post: “Down and Back” Immigrant Companies →