THE
WOMEN
OF
MORMONDOM.
--
By EDWARD W. TULLIDGE.
NEW YORK.
--
1877.
PREFACE.
Long enough, O women of America, have your Mormon sisters been
blasphemed!
From the day that they, in the name and fear of the Lord their
God, undertook to "build up Zion," they have been persecuted for
righteousness sake: "A people scattered and peeled from the beginning."
The record of their lives is now sent unto you, that you may have an
opportunity to judge them in the spirit of righteousness. So shall you
be judged by Him whom they have honored, whose glory they have sought,
and whose name they have magnified.
Respectfully,
EDWARD W. TULLIDGE.
_Salt Lake City, March_, 1877.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--A Strange Religious Epic. An Israelitish Type of Woman in
the Age.
CHAPTER II.--The Mother of the Prophet. The Gifts of Inspiration and
Working of Miracles Inherent in her Family. Fragments of her Narrative.
CHAPTER III.--The Opening of a Spiritual Dispensation to America.
Woman's Exaltation. The Light of the Latter Days.
CHAPTER IV.--Birth of the Church. Kirtland as the Bride, in the
Chambers of the Wilderness. The Early Gathering. "Mother Whitney," and
Eliza R. Snow.
CHAPTER V.--The Voice, and the Messenger of the Covenant.
CHAPTER VI.--An Angel from the Cloud is Heard in Kirtland. The
"Daughter of the Voice."
CHAPTER VII.--An Israel Prepared by Visions, Dreams and Angels.
Interesting and Miraculous Story of Parley P. Pratt. A Mystic Sign of
Messiah in the Heavens. The Angel's Words Fulfilled.
CHAPTER VIII.--War of the Invisible Powers. Their Master. Jehovah's
Medium.
CHAPTER IX.--Eliza R. Snow's Experience. Glimpses of the Life and
Character of Joseph Smith. Gathering of the Saints.
CHAPTER X.--The Latter-Day Iliad. Reproduction of the Great Hebraic
Drama. The Meaning of the Mormon Movement in the Age.
CHAPTER XI.--The Land of Temples. America the New Jerusalem. Daring
Conception of the Mormon Prophet. Fulfillment of the Abrahamic
Programme. Woman to be an Oracle of Jehovah.
CHAPTER XII.--Eliza R. Snow's Graphic Description of the Temple and its
Dedication. Hosannas to God. His Glory Fills the House.
CHAPTER XIII.--The Ancient Order of Blessings. The Prophet's Father.
The Patriarch's Mother. His Father. Kirtland High School. Apostasy and
Persecution. Exodus of the Church.
CHAPTER XIV.--An Illustrious Mormon Woman. The First Wife of the
Immortal Heber C. Kimball. Opening Chapter of her Autobiography. Her
Wonderful Vision. An Army of Angels Seen in the Heavens.
CHAPTER XV.--Haun's Mill. Joseph Young's Story of the Massacre. Sister
Amanda Smith's Story of that Terrible Tragedy. Her Wounded Boy's
Miraculous Cure. Her Final Escape from Missouri.
CHAPTER XVI.--Mobs Drive the Settlers into Far West. Heroic Death
of Apostle Patten. Treachery of Col. Hinkle, and Fall of the Mormon
Capital. Famous Speech of Major-General Clarke.
CHAPTER XVII.--Episodes of the Persecutions. Continuation of Eliza
R. Snow's Narrative. Bathsheba W. Smith's Story. Louisa F. Wells
Introduced to the Reader. Experience of Abigail Leonard. Margaret Foutz.
CHAPTER XVIII.--Joseph Smith's Daring Answer to the Lord. Woman,
through Mormonism, Restored to her True Position. The Themes of
Mormonism.
CHAPTER XIX.--Eliza R. Snow's Invocation. The Eternal Father and
Mother. Origin of the Sublime Thought Popularly Attributed to Theodore
Parker. Basic Idea of the Mormon Theology.
CHAPTER XX.--The Trinity of Motherhood. Eve, Sarah, and Zion. The
Mormon Theory Concerning our First Parents.
CHAPTER XXI.--The Huntingtons. Zina D. Young, and Prescindia L.
Kimball. Their Testimony Concerning the Kirtland Manifestations.
Unpublished Letter of Joseph Smith. Death of Mother Huntington.
CHAPTER XXII.--Woman's Work in Canada and Great Britain. Heber C.
Kimball's Prophesy. Parley P. Pratt's Successful Mission to Canada. A
Blind Woman Miraculously Healed. Distinguished Women of that Period.
CHAPTER XXIII.--A Distinguished Canadian Convert. Mrs. M. I. Horne. Her
Early History. Conversion to Mormonism. She Gathers with the Saints and
Shares their Persecutions. Incidents of her Early Connection with the
Church.
CHAPTER XXIV.--Mormonism Carried to Great Britain. "Truth will
Prevail." The Rev. Mr. Fielding. First Baptism in England. First Woman
Baptized. Story of Miss Jeannetta Richards. First Branch of the Church
in Foreign Lands Organized at the House of Ann Dawson. First Child Born
into the Church in England. Romantic Sequel. Vilate Kimball Again.
CHAPTER XXV.--Sketch of the Sisters Mary and Mercy R. Fielding. The
Fieldings a Semi-Apostolic Family. Their Important Instrumentality in
Opening the British Mission. Mary Fielding Marries Hyrum Smith. Her
Trials and Sufferings while her Husband is in Prison. Testimony of her
Sister Mercy. Mary's Letter to her Brother in England.
CHAPTER XXVI.--The Quorum of the Apostles go on Mission to England.
Their Landing in Great Britain. They Hold a Conference. A Holiday
Festival. Mother Moon and Family. Summary of a Year's Labor. Crowning
Period of the British Mission.
CHAPTER XXVII.--The Sisters as Missionaries. Evangelical Diplomacy.
Without Purse or Scrip. Picture of the Native Elders. A Specimen
Meeting. The Secret of Success. Mormonism a Spiritual Gospel. The
Sisters as Tract Distributers. Woman a Potent Evangelist.
CHAPTER XXVIII.--Mormonism and the Queen of England. Presentation of
the Book of Mormon to the Queen and Prince Albert. Eliza R. Snow's
Poem on that Event. "Zion's Nursing Mother." Heber C. Kimball Blesses
Victoria.
CHAPTER XXIX.--Literal Application of Christ's Command. The Saints
Leave Father and Mother, Home and Friends, to Gather to Zion. Mrs.
William Staines. Her Early Life and Experience. A Midnight Baptism in
Midwinter. Farewell to Home and Every Friend. Incidents of the Journey
to Nauvoo.
CHAPTER XXX.--Rise of Nauvoo. Introduction of Polygamy. Martyrdom
of Joseph and Hyrum. Continuation of Eliza R. Snow's Narrative. Her
Acceptance of Polygamy, and Marriage to the Prophet. Governor Carlin's
Treachery. Her Scathing Review of the Martyrdom. Mother Lucy's Story of
Her Murdered Sons.
CHAPTER XXXI.--The Exodus. To Your Tents, O Israel. Setting out from
the Borders of Civilization. Movements of the Camp of Israel. First
Night at Sugar Creek. Praising God in the Song and Dance. Death by the
Wayside.
CHAPTER XXXII.--Continuation of Eliza R. Snow's Narrative. Advent of a
Little Stranger Under Adverse Circumstances. Dormitory, Sitting-Room,
Office, etc., in a Buggy. "The Camp." Interesting Episodes of the
Journey. Graphic Description of the Method of Procedure. Mount Pisgah.
Winter Quarters.
CHAPTER XXXIII.--Bathsheba W. Smith's Story of the Last Days of Nauvoo.
She Receives Celestial Marriage and Gives Her Husband Five "Honorable
Young Women" as Wives. Her Description of the Exodus and Journey to
Winter Quarters. Death of One of the Wives. Sister Horne Again.
CHAPTER XXXIV.--The Story of the Huntington Sisters Continued. Zina D.
Young's Pathetic Picture of the Martyrdom. Joseph's Mantle Falls Upon
Brigham. The Exodus. A Birth on the Banks of the Chariton. Death of
Father Huntington.
CHAPTER XXXV.--The Pioneers. The Pioneer Companies that Followed.
Method of the March. Mrs. Horne on the Plains. The Emigrant's
Post-Office. Pentecosts by the Way. Death as they Journeyed. A Feast in
the Desert. "Aunt Louisa" Again.
CHAPTER XXXVI.--Bathsheba W. Smith's Story Continued. The Pioneers
Return to Winter Quarters. A New Presidency Chosen. Oliver Cowdery
Returns to the Church. Gathering the Remnant from Winter Quarters.
Description of her House on Wheels.
CHAPTER XXXVII.--The Martyred Patriarch's Widow. A Woman's Strength
and Independence. The Captain "Leaves Her Out in the Cold." Her
Prophesy and Challenge to the Captain. A Pioneer Indeed. She is Led by
Inspiration. The Seeric Gift of the Smiths with her Her Cattle. The
Race. Fate Against the Captain. The Widow's Prophesy Fulfilled.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.--Utah in the Early Days. President Young's Primitive
Home. Raising the Stars and Stripes on Mexican Soil. The Historical
Thread up to the Period of the "Utah War."
CHAPTER XXXIX.--The Women of Mormondom in the Period of the Utah War.
Their Heroic Resolve to Desolate the Land. The Second Exodus. Mrs.
Carrington. Governor Cumming's Wife. A Nation of Heroes.
CHAPTER XL.--Miriam Works and Mary Ann Angell. Scenes of the Past.
Death-Bed of Miriam. Early Days of Mary. Her Marriage with Brigham. The
Good Step-mother. She Bears her Cross in the Persecutions. A Battle
with Death. Polygamy. Mary in the Exodus and at Winter Quarters. The
Hut in the Valley. Closing a Worthy Life.
CHAPTER XLI.--The Revelation on Polygamy. Bishop Whitney Preserves a
Copy of the Original Document. Belinda M. Pratt's Famous Letter.
CHAPTER XLII.--Revelation Supported by Biblical Examples. The
Israelitish Genius of the Mormons Shown in the Patriarchal Nature of
their Institutions. The Anti-Polygamic Crusade.
CHAPTER XLIII.--Grand Mass-meeting of the Women of Utah on Polygamy and
the Cullom Bill. Their Noble Remonstrance. Speeches of Apostolic Women.
Their Resolutions. Woman's Rights or Woman's Revolution.
CHAPTER XLIV.--Wives of the Apostles. Mrs. Orson Hyde. Incidents of
the Early Days. The Prophet. Mary Ann Pratt's Life Story. Wife of Gen.
Charles C. Rich. Mrs. Franklin D. Richards. Phoebe Woodruff. Leonora
Taylor. Marian Ross Pratt. The Wife of Delegate Cannon. Vilate Kimball
Again.
CHAPTER XLV.--Mormon Women of Martha Washington's Time. Aunt Rhoda
Richards. Wife of the First Mormon Bishop. Honorable Women of Zion.
CHAPTER XLVI.--Mormon Women whose Ancestors were on board the
"Mayflower." A Bradford, and Descendant of the Second Governor of
Plymouth Colony. A Descendant of Rogers, the Martyr. The Three Women
who came with the Pioneers. The First Woman Born in Utah. Women of the
Camp of Zion. Women of the Mormon Batallion.
CHAPTER XLVII.--One of the Founders of California. A Woman Missionary
to the Society Islands. Her Life Among the Natives. The only Mormon
Woman Sent on Mission without Her Husband. A Mormon Woman in
Washington. A Sister from the East Indies. A Sister from Texas.
CHAPTER XLVIII--A Leader from England. Mrs. Hannah T. King. A Macdonald
from Scotland. The "Welsh Queen." A Representative Woman from Ireland.
Sister Howard. A Galaxy of the Sisterhood, from "Many Nations and
Tongues." Incidents and Testimonials.
CHAPTER XLIX.--The Message to Jerusalem. The Ancient Tones of
Mormonism. The Mormon High Priestess in the Holy Land. On the Mount of
Olives. Officiating for the Royal House of Judah.
CHAPTER L.--Woman's Position in the Mormon Church. Grand Female
Organization of Mormonism. The Relief Society. Its Inception at Nauvoo.
Its Present Status, Aims, and Methods. First Society Building. A Woman
Lays the Corner-stone. Distinguished Women of the Various Societies.
CHAPTER LI.--The Sisters and the Marriage Question. The Women of Utah
Enfranchised. Passage of the Woman Suffrage Bill. A Political Contest.
The First Woman that Voted in Utah.
CHAPTER LII.--The Lie of the Enemy Refuted. A View of the Women in
Council over Female Suffrage. The Sisters know their Political Power.
CHAPTER LIII.--Members of Congress Seek to Disfranchise the Women of
Utah. Claggett's Assault. The Women of America Come to their Aid.
Charles Sumner About to Espouse their Cause. Death Prevents the Great
Statesman's Design.
CHAPTER LIV.--Woman Expounds Her Own Subject. The Fall. Her Redemption
from the Curse. Returning into the Presence of Her Father. Her
Exaltation.
CHAPTER LV.--Woman's Voice in the Press of Utah. The Woman's Exponent.
Mrs. Emeline Wells. She Speaks for the Women of Utah. Literary and
Professional Women of the Church.
CHAPTER LVI.--Retrospection. Apostolic Mission of the Mormon Women. How
they have Used the Suffrage. Their Petition to Mrs. Grant. Twenty-seven
Thousand Mormon Women Memorialize Congress.
CHAPTER LVII.--Sarah the Mother of the Covenant. In Her the Expounding
of the Polygamic Relations of the Mormon Women. Fulfilment of God's
Promise to Her. The Mormon Parallel. Sarah and Hagar divide the
Religious Domination of the World.
CHAPTER LVIII.--Womanhood the Regenerating Influence in the World. From
Eve, the First, to Mary, the Second Eve. God and Woman the Hope of Man.
Woman's Apostleship. Joseph _vs_. Paul. The Woman Nature a Predicate of
the World's Future.
CHAPTER LIX.--Zion, a Type of "The Woman's Age." The Culminating Theme
of the Poets of Israel. The Ideal Personification of the Church. The
Bride. The Coming Eve.
CHAPTER LX.--Terrible as an Army with Banners. Fifty Thousand Women
with the Ballot. Their Grand Mission to the Nation. A Foreshadowing of
the Future of the Women of Mormondom.
CHAPTER I.
A STRANGE RELIGIOUS EPIC--AN ISRAELITISH TYPE OF WOMAN IN THE AGE.
AN epic of woman! Not in all the ages has there been one like unto it.
Fuller of romance than works of fiction are the lives of the Mormon
women. So strange and thrilling is their story,--so rare in its
elements of experience,--that neither history nor fable affords a
perfect example; yet is it a reality of our own times.
Women with new types of character, antique rather than modern; themes
ancient, but transposed to our latter-day experience. Women with
their eyes open, and the prophecy of their work and mission in their
own utterances, who have dared to enter upon the path of religious
empire-founding with as much divine enthusiasm as had the apostles
who founded Christendom. Such are the Mormon women,--religious
empire-founders, in faith and fact. Never till now did woman essay
such an extraordinary character; never before did woman rise to the
conception of so supreme a mission in her own person and life.
We can only understand the Mormon sisterhood by introducing them in
this cast at the very outset; only comprehend the wonderful story of
their lives by viewing them as apostles, who have heard the voices of
the invisibles commanding them to build the temples of a new faith.
Let us forget, then, thus early in their story, all reference to
polygamy or monogamy. Rather let us think of them as apostolic mediums
of a new revelation, who at first saw only a dispensation of divine
innovations and manifestations for the age. Let us view them purely as
prophetic women, who undertook to found their half of a new Christian
empire, and we have exactly the conception with which to start the epic
story of the Women of Mormondom.
They had been educated by the Hebrew Bible, and their minds cast by its
influence, long before they saw the book of Mormon or heard the Mormon
prophet. The examples of the ancient apostles were familiar to them,
and they had yearned for the pentecosts of the early days. But most had
they been enchanted by the themes of the old Jewish prophets, whose
writings had inspired them with faith in the literal renewal of the
covenant with Israel, and the "restitution of all things" of Abrahamic
promise. This was the case with nearly all of the early disciples of
Mormonism,--men and women. They were not as _sinners_ converted to
Christianity, but as _disciples_ who had been waiting for the "fullness
of the everlasting gospel." Thus had they been prepared for the new
revelation,--an Israel born unto the promises,--an Israel afterwards
claiming that in a pre-existent state they were the elect of God.
They had also inherited their earnest religious characters from their
fathers and mothers. The pre-natal influences of generations culminated
in the bringing forth of this Mormon Israel.
And here we come to the remarkable fact that the women who, with its
apostles and elders, founded Mormondom, were the Puritan daughters of
New England, even as were their compeer brothers its sons.
Sons and daughters of the sires and mothers who founded this great
nation; sons and daughters of the sires and mothers who fought and
inspired the war of the revolution, and gave to this continent a magna
charta of religious and political liberty! Their stalwart fathers also
wielded the "sword of the Lord" in old England, with Cromwell and his
Ironsides, and the self-sacrificing spirit of their pilgrim mothers
sustained New England in the heat and burden of the day, while its
primeval forests were being cleared, even as these pilgrim Mormons
pioneered our nation the farthest West, and converted the great
American desert into fruitful fields.
That those who established the Mormon Church are of this illustrious
origin we shall abundantly see, in the record of these lives, confirmed
by direct genealogical links. Some of their sires were even governors
of the British colonies at their very rise: instance the ancestor
of Daniel H. Wells, one of the presidents of the Mormon Church, who
was none other than the illustrious Thomas Wells, fourth governor of
Connecticut; instance the pilgrim forefather of the apostles Orson
and Parley Pratt, who came from England to America in 1633, and with
the Rev. Thomas Hooker and his congregation pioneered through dense
wildernesses, inhabited only by savages and wild beasts, and became
the founders of the colony of Hartford, Conn., in June, 1636; instance
the Youngs, the Kimballs, the Smiths, the Woodruffs, the Lymans, the
Snows, the Carringtons, the Riches, the Hunters, the Huntingtons, the
Patridges, the Whitneys, and a host of other early disciples of the
Mormon Church. Their ancestors were among the very earliest settlers of
the English colonies. There is good reason, indeed, to believe that on
board the Mayflower was some of the blood that has been infused into
the Mormon Church.
This genealogical record, upon which the Mormon people pride
themselves, has a vast meaning, not only in accounting for their
empire-founding genius and religious career, but also for their Hebraic
types of character and themes of faith. Their genius is in their very
blood. They are, as observed, a latter-day Israel,--born inheritors of
the promise,--predestined apostles, both men and women, of the greater
mission of this nation,--the elect of the new covenant of God, which
America is destined to unfold to "every nation, kindred, tongue and
people." This is not merely an author's fancy; it is an affirmation and
a prophecy well established in Mormon myth and themes.
If we but truthfully trace the pre-natal expositions of this peculiar
people--and the sociologist will at once recognize in this method a
very book of revelation on the subject--we shall soon come to look upon
these strange Israelitish types and wonders as simply a hereditary
culmination in the nineteenth century.
Mormonism, indeed, is not altogether a new faith, nor a fresh
inspiration in the world. The facts disclose that its genius has come
down to the children, through generations, in the very blood which the
invisibles inspired in old England, in the seventeenth century, and
which wrought such wonders of God among the nations then. That blood
has been speaking in our day with prophet tongue; those wonderful
works, wrought in the name of the Lord of Hosts, by the saints of the
commonwealth, to establish faith in Israel's God and reverence for His
name above all earthly powers, are, in their consummation in America,
wrought by these latter-day saints in the same august name and for the
same purpose. He shall be honored among the nations; His will done
among men; His name praised to the ends of the earth! Such was the
affirmation of the saints of the commonwealth of England two hundred
and thirty years ago; such the affirmation of the saints raised up to
establish the "Kingdom of God" in the nineteenth century. Understand
this fully, and the major theme of Mormonism is comprehended. It will
have a matchless exemplification in the story of the lives of these
single-hearted, simple-minded, but grand women, opening to the reader's
view the methods of that ancient genius, even to the establishing of
the patriarchal institution and covenant of polygamy.
That America should bring forth a peculiar people, like the Mormons,
is as natural as that a mother should bear children in the semblance
of the father who begat them. Monstrous, indeed, would it be if, as
offspring of the patriarchs and mothers of this nation, America brought
forth naught but godless politicians.