Tag Archives: Brigham Young

Mormon history

Random Reasons Why I Like Brigham Young: One

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A recent post at BCC drew a plea (comment 67 and others) for positive stories about Brigham Young, from a reader who was finding it difficult to like the man. I don’t have any trouble liking him. While acknowledging that he was flawed, especially in the area of diplomacy with non-Mormons, I know him as a generous, affectionate, loyal man, a true shepherd to a people who returned his affection in countless ways. This knowledge comes not from any of the biographies that have been written about Brigham Young, but from an intimate knowledge of his interactions with his flock, from reading his sermons (not just the inflammatory sound-bites that authors luv luv luv to quote, but entire sermons, read as sermons with the same respect I give to sermons today), and through the personal writings of family members and the other Saints who know him best.

So I’m embarking on a series of posts about why I like the man. These reasons truly are random, presented in no particular order. They are idiosyncratic to me, and they may not be the most important reasons, or the reasons that mean the most to me (those reasons may turn out to be too personal for me to share here, knowing as I do that anything positive said about Brigham Young will be sneered at, not by Keepa’s regular readers but by an outside faction whose hatred of Brigham Young is beyond reason).

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Mormon history

Brigham Young’s Swimmin’ Hole

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After a cool and unprecedentedly rainy June, Utah is gearing up to settle into a hot, dry July. I’d rather not run my air conditioner any more than absolutely necessary to sleep, so I sit here under a ceiling fan, with a desk fan trained on my face. There are only so many layers of clothing that a modest Mormon woman can shed, and only so many glasses of ice water will go down any one throat in a day.

Wouldn’t it be nice, I think, to step outside my door and slip into a pool of water, warmed by the sun yet cool enough to wash all the heat away …

That’s a pleasure the Brigham Young children enjoyed, from the late 1850s onward.

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Mormon history

Long Gone: The Mystery of Gubernatorial Absences in South Carolina and Utah

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South Carolinians, if not most Americans, were mystified in June of 2009 to find that their state governor, Mark Sanford, had gone missing. He had vanished without explanation, leaving behind not only his mystified family but his omnipresent security detail.

For the better part of a week Governor Sanford’s embarrassed staff tried gamely but unsuccessfully to deal with press inquiries. Initially the story was that no one knew where the governor was. Pressed aggressively by reporters, the story morphed into a staff explanation that Sanford must have gone hiking along the Appalachian Trail to recharge his batteries after a stressful legislative session. No one knew on which segment of the Georgia-to-Maine track he had sought renewal or how he could be contacted. Out of the loop, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor was not amused. He commented publicly that “I cannot take lightly that his staff has not had communication with him for more than four days, and that no one including his family, knows his whereabouts.” A state senator asked who would have been able to authorize use of the South Carolina National Guard in Sanford’s absence. On Wednesday, June 24 a bizarre story emerged that Governor Sanford had reappeared in Charleston after returning unannounced from Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, not South Carolina.

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Mormon history

Confidential: Have I Got a Deal for You

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The original Keepapitchinin printed this “editorial” in 1870:

Confidential.

We have received the following letter:

”Dear Sir: – A confidential friend having notified us that you can be relied on we send you the enclosed circular.”

The “enclosed circular” informs us that they will send us “$50.00 worth of counterfeit greenbacks, which cannot be distinguished by the best judges, from the genuine currency for the sum of $10.

Stubbs & Co.”

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Mormon history

A Family by the Numbers

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Popular stories of the 19th century had it that Brigham Young had so many children that he couldn’t even recognize them when he met them on the street:

Riding in the outskirts of the city one day, Brigham Young came upon two boys fighting. Descending from his carriage, he boxed their ears, and asked them whose boys they were. “Mother says we’re Brigham Young’s,” whimpered one of the boys. [See “The Puissant Procreator,” Sunstone Magazine, November-December 19__, for this and other examples.]

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Mormon history

“The Qmlbwpnygax Eujugec Have Not the Power to Ktgjie the Wzznlhmpygtg”: Codes and Ciphers in Mormon History (part 3)

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Cable/Telegraph Codes

The substitution ciphers we have looked at can encrypt any message, even words or names unknown at the time a cipher was devised. True codes, on the other hand, are a closed system – when people are assigned new labels (Gazelam for “Joseph Smith,” for instance), you cannot introduce a new name without notifying correspondents of the additional code word.

Nineteenth century Mormon leaders used true codes following the completion of the telegraph, and especially following the completion of the transatlantic cable. Cable codes could be used to maintain secrecy, but generally they were intended to lower the expense of cabling between, say, Liverpool and Salt Lake City, because a single code word could replace the multi-word name of a person or city, or signal the completion of an assignment.

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Mormon history

“The Qmlbwpnygax Eujugec Have Not the Power to Ktgjie the Wzznlhmpygtg”: Codes and Ciphers in Mormon History (part 2)

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Other Coded Names (“Our Friend”)

A later instance of a code name began with a simple exchange of letters in 1851. “To Our Dear Friend, Colonel Kane,” began Brigham Young. “Our Friend, a title, than which we can give no greater; … we received it with pleasure, we impart [it] with delight.” “Our friend Colonel Kane” quickly became “our friend” in correspondence; eventually, “Our Friend” was used specifically to conceal Kane’s identity. Cannon’s letter cited in my introduction, for instance, describes his 1872 visit to “Our Friend,” and this 1860 letter from Utah Territorial Delegate William H. Hooper refers cryptically to “our Friend at P—.”

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Mormon history

“The Qmlbwpnygax Eujugec Have Not the Power to Ktgjie the Wzznlhmpygtg”: Codes and Ciphers in Mormon History (part 1)

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I delivered this paper at the 2006 meeting of the Mormon History Association in Casper, Wyoming. Because that was an oral presentation, which I haven’t converted to one intended to be read, the quotations below are filled with ellipses. I find that annoying as a reader, and I apologize for that. I promise, though, that the sense of the quotations hasn’t been changed; they are only streamlined to make it easier for listeners to grasp easily at the speed of the spoken word.

Introduction

LDS Apostle George Q. Cannon went to Washington in 1872 to assist with yet another bid for Utah statehood. If history proved any guide, failure would have consequences. Cannon wrote:

[T]he application for admission as a State … in 1856 … was followed by the sending of an army to wipe us out. The application for admission … in 1862, was followed by the passage of the anti-polygamy law. What will follow this application?

Seeking confidential political advice from long-time ally Thomas L. Kane, Cannon went to rural Pennsylvania. His written report does not mention Kane by name, nor the location of his meeting – no destination, not even the direction or means of travel or time necessary to reach the spot are given. The report refers vaguely to unnamed “parties” and unspecified “terms.” “[W]ritten communications on such subjects are dangerous,” Cannon noted.

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Mormon history, Utah history

A Utah War Primer

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This is a modified version of one of several “introduction to the Utah War” talks I’ve given over the past couple of years. Bill MacKinnon is the one who uncovers new documents and offers professional analyses — I just try to bring everybody up to speed with the basic outline.

This “Utah War Primer” is only an overview of the Utah War. Rather than breaking new ground, it is my purpose to remind you of the basic story of the Utah War, so that you have the framework on which to hang the more original information you may have heard or read during the 2007-08 sesquicentennial observance of the Utah War. If I do it right, you won’t think you have learned a thing – merely recalled stories and facts that you have heard before but which may have become jumbled or faded in your memory.

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Mormon history

Two Presidents Meet, 1919

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The victorious European and American powers drafted the Treaty of Versailles to settle affairs at the end of World War I. This Treaty also created the League of Nations, a prototype United Nations.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was a staunch supporter of the League of Nations; the U.S. Senate, which by constitutional fiat must ratify treaties before they become the law of the land, was not, and ultimately voted against the Treaty. (The United States’ formal acknowledgment of the end of hostilities was the Porter-Knox Resolution, an act of the U.S. Congress passed in 1921 and signed by Warren G. Harding, Wilson’s successor.)

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