Also one correction about Lange and Adams. She camped here with her husband and two sons the entire summer of 1933. Adams came and stayed with the Dixons every year beginning in 1938.
Posted on 05/29/2011 9:37:03 AM PDT by Colofornian
ST. GEORGE — Tourism in Utah has had a complicated and ambiguous relationship to Mormonism from the time the state was settled, said Susan Sessions Rugh, the Friday luncheon speaker at the annual conference of the Mormon History Association.
SNIP
She applied it to Utah in analyzing "this messy mix of church and state, religion and business, God and mammon."
Rugh compared the views of three tourists to Utah: Frenchman Albert Tissandier, who came in 1885; Vermont novelist Zephine Humphrey in 1934; and photographers Dorothea Lang and Ansel Adams in the early 1950s.
How does the traveler observe the landscape, and how does the traveler see the Mormons were two questions Rugh posed.
SNIP
In 1954, an article appeared in Life magazine called "Three Mormon Towns," Tocquerville, Gunlock and St. George. It featured photography by Lang and Adams.
The text writer...wrote: "Once, somebody says nobody Mormon would give a gentile a bed to sleep in; now, they make a business of it."
The article claimed that most of St. George's 4,500 people earned their living catering to passing strangers. The city had 23 motels, many of which still exist.
SNIP
"Religion had been contained in a truce between church and state," Rugh remarked. But five years later, the hit TV show "Big Love" "exposed the state's identity as a home to fundamentalist Mormon sects with roots in the 19th century practice of polygamy," she added.
"In my view, we desperately need to move beyond the 19th century — keep it, but also move beyond it — and push the history of Mormonism forward into the 20th and 21st centuries if we're really to understand our past and its meaning," Rugh said.
"Can we do anything about being peculiar? About being the objects of curiosity?" she asked...
(Excerpt) Read more at deseretnews.com ...
Notice the periods of 1885, 1934, 1954 were covered re: "tourism" in Utah. Utah was almost completely devoid of "hospitality" in the 1850s -- so, of course, this speaker was relaying how they "desperately need to move beyond the 19th century..."
With this being Memorial weekend, look out how the Mormon "Avenging Angels" were treating our troops September 1857:
Per Sally Denton's 2003 book entitled: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 (Vintage Books, division from Random House):
“...small guerilla forces on swift horses and under the direction of Danite chiefs William Hickman and Porter Rockwell began harassing the army. Setting fire to the government's wagons and stampeding its cattle herds, the Avenging Angels created havoc for the already demoralized American troops. On October 3 the Danites burned Fort Bridger, then set fire to the grass surrounding the army post, threatening the survival of the government's grazing lifestock. On October 5, fourty-four Danites raided an army supply train, burning the seventy-five wagons loaded with three thousand pounds of desperately needed bacon, coffee, flour, ham, and other foodstuffs, and running off fourteen hundred head of the army's cattle. The army troops moved two miles away and from the smoldering Fort Bridger established a new camp, which they named for the army's commanding general, Winfield Scott.” (Sally Denton, p. 168)
From the Deseret News article: But five years later, the hit TV show "Big Love" "exposed the state's identity as a home to fundamentalist Mormon sects with roots in the 19th century practice of polygamy," she added.
Well, about 150 years earlier, Gunnison exposed the state's identity as a home to THE mainstream fundamentalist Mormon church -- polygamy and all.
In 1852, after living among the Mormons, Gunnison penned a book called, The Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
Even though the book was even-handed, and Gunnison even recommended a federal government "hands-off" approach to the Mormons, the problem from the Mormon perspective was that he "outed" them on their bedroom polygamy. Coincidentally, the Mormons didn't publicly give a written pronouncement of polygamy until 1852 -- even though Joseph Smith's now D&C 132 was written in the early 1840s.
“But for all the shocking revelations in Gunnison's treatise, none had a greater impact than the expose' of polygamy. Gunnison's confirmation of the widespread practice of plural marriage in Utah – vehemently, repeatedly denied by Young and his apostles throughout the world—made his book a best-seller in the nation and abroad.” (Sally Denton, American Massacre p. 69)
Gunnison noted Mormons' distinct lack of hospitality when he was there:
“...'unsaintly saints,' as they have been described, plagued Gunnison's camp, stealing their cattle. By early October the operation was stymied...Gunnison depicted Mormon hospitality as leaving much to be desired. 'Wood can scarcely be had an any price,' he wrote.” (Denton, p. 65)
Having become a perceived enemy of Brigham Young by outing polygamy, Gunnison was targeted when he returned to Utah territory.
Per Chicago Judge William Drummond: “...'at the same court a favorite Indian warrior of Gov. [Brigham] Young, by the name of Eneis,' was also tried for the murders of the Gunnison party. 'Upon his trial I became convinced beyond the possibility of a doubt,' Drummond wrote, 'that the whole affair was a deep and maturely laid plan to murder the whole party of engineers, or surveyors, and charge the murders upon the Indians.' Trial evidence revealed that Eneis was 'the property of Governor [Brigham] Young, and that he could speak English quite fluently, and that when he left the city of Salt Lake, he went under the order of Governor Young and the church.' Further much testimony indicated that Eneis was in the company of 'several white men on the day before the murder, and that they were all on their way toward the engineers' camp.'” (Sally Denton, American Massacre, pp. 88-89)
“'The white men [the murderers] were so accurately described,' Drummond continued, that he felt certain in identifying them. 'This I do for the benefit of those men who may go to Utah as apointees under the present administration, viz: William A. Hickman, Anson Call, Alexander McRay, Ephraim Hanks, James W. Cummings, Edward D. Wolley, George Peacock, Levi Abrams, and ___________ Bronson, all of whom are in good standing to this day in the [Mormon] church.'” (Denton, p. 89)
”'After the surveyors had been shot, their arms and legs had been cut off. Most brutal of all was Eneis' final act. He 'cut Capt. Gunnison's body open and took out his heart while he was yet alive, and the heart so full of blood that it bounded on the ground after being taken out; and not content with this, but cut out his tongue.'” (Denton, p. 89)
(If only 1850s Utah — and other later eras — had the same level of hospitality offered up by Utah Binger!)
...and there is Mark Twain's account of traveling through Mormon territory in his book, "Roughing It".
(Are ya sure it's only one???)
Heres the book by John Gunnison
I read it a couple of years ago
It makes interesting reading
http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/gu1852/index.htm
Nary a mention of Mark Twain's thoughts on his travel through Utah and all he had to say about it and mormonism?
Do I know you? You certainly do not know my wife. Her beliefs are hers alone and certainly not something she needs your opinion of by making it personal. So mind your own business.
And hey n00b try to remember about courtesy pings when you talk about folks behind their back.
George W. Givens is a Mormon writer.
He noted "the powerful backlash that resulted from the public pronouncement in 1852 that the [Mormon] Church taught and practiced plural marriage..." (500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History, p. 86, Bonneville Books, 2004)
So Gunnison did his part with his 1852 book: He exposed Mormonism's polygamy, which Brigham Young had managed to keep largely sequestered until 1852.
Givens says that "In an effort to counteract the powerful backlash" resulting from that, "President Brigham Young, beginning in that year, founded several LDS newspapers in major cities" -- what Givens references as "An Ambitious PR Initiative."
That's been the Mormon response to exposes' for years: When reality hits the fan, Mormons try to spin their way out of it.
Per Givens, these newspapers were...
* The Seer (Washington D.C. ... edited by Lds "apostle" Orson Pratt)
* The Mormon (New York City... edited by Lds "apostle" -- soon to be Lds "prophet" John Taylor)
* The St. Louis Luminary...edited by Erastus Snow
* The Western Standard...edited by George Q. Cannon, who was First Counselor to four distinct Lds "prophets"
Givens says "None of these lasted lasted long..."
(ya think?)
Also one correction about Lange and Adams. She camped here with her husband and two sons the entire summer of 1933. Adams came and stayed with the Dixons every year beginning in 1938.
In a 2003 FR thread, I posted the following:
I was recently reading the book DOWN THE GREAT UNKNOWN: JOHN WESLEY POWELL'S 1869 JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY & TRAGEDY by Edward Dolnick (Perennial Books), 2001. Powell, of course, was the one-armed Civil War vet who became the first known white man/white party to venture down the Green/Colorado River thru the Grand Canyon.
Shortly before finishing the trip, three of his party ventured out on foot into Utah Territory...never to be heard from again other than the Mormon leaders trying to pin the deaths of the three men on Indians. [a common pattern by Mormons]
On pp. 283-285, Dolnick cites an amateur historian & former dean of the college of science @ So. Utah Univ. (Wesley Larsen) re: a letter Larsen found in 1980 in a trunk belonging to the John Steele family.
Steele was a judge and a militia officer & father of the first white child born in Utah territory. The letter was written to Steele from William Leany. Both were devout Mormons.
Book mentions Leany had run afoul of the Mormon church by giving an emigrant a meal & roof & veggies.
Book excerpt: "Leany's fellow Mormons charged him with giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy.' To teach him a lesson, someone clubbed him over the head, fracturing his skull and leaving him for dead. Leany survived. By 1883, he and Steele were old men. Steele evidently suggested to his good friend Leany that the time had come for them both to repent of their sins. Leany wanted no part of it. The church had blood on its hands, but he had nothing to repent. Like an Old Testament preacher, Leany thundered that 'thieving whoredom murder & Suicide & like abominations' reigned in the land. Then came the sentence that, a century later, electrified Wes Larsen: 'You are far from ignorant of those deeds of blood from the day the picket fence was broken on my head to the day those three were murdered in our ward & the murderer killed to stop the shedding of more blood.'...Larsen...embarked on a frenzied round of detective work. The reference to 'our ward,' a local Mormon district run by a bishop, was the first clue. Leany and Steele had lived in the same ward only once through the years, in 1869. And in that same fateful year, Larsen found, only one trio of men...had been reported missing or killed in southern Utah."
"Further, Larsen learned, only weeks before the Powell expedition reached Separation Rapid, Brigham Young had traveled throughout the region warning the faithful that the long-threatened invasion of Utah by Gentiles was imminent. When 'war' came, Young warned his listeners, blood would rise 'to their knees and even to their waist and to their horses' bridle bits.' The Mormon leader ordered sentries posted at all the passes leading into southern Utah. Then, at the worst possible moment, three white strangers wandered into no-man's-land spouting a cock-and-bull story about their trip down a river that everyone knew was impassable. The three men were dragged off and executed as spies, Larsen speculates, and the news of the unsanctioned executions triumphantly telegraphed to Salt Lake City..."
"In Larsen's scenario, the next step was an exact replay of the Mormon response to the 120 killings at Mountain Meadows. First came cover-up...then a vow of silence on the part of those who knew the truth, and finally a finger of blame pinning the crime on the nearest Indians."
This history conference going on this weekend in southern Utah had several Friday sessions on the Mountain Meadow Massacre.
For that discussion, see MHA in St. George: Welcome to an exciting time! [Mormon History]
I didn't see your post #11 when I posted #12.
He lost his arm in the Civil War.
He was the first white man who dared to sail down the Colorado River all the way through the Grand Canyon. When he did that, its full navigation was still an unknown.
The book I mentioned in post #12 is a great account of that trek.
I remember that a whole lot of them got a DIRT bed at Mountain Meadows!
Quit pickin’ on ol’ PD!
One was a lot shorter than the other; courtesy of the Civil War.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/geology/publications/inf/74-24/sec1.htm
In 1869, John Wesley Powell and nine adventure-seeking companions completed the first exploration of the dangerous and almost uncharted canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers. By this trip, Powell, a 35-year-old professor of natural history, apparently unhampered by the lack of his right forearm (amputated after the Battle of Shiloh), opened up the last unknown part of the continental United States and brought to a climax the era of western exploration.
The museum in Green River had an excellent slide show some years back that documented the trip.
It had these haunting words:
We have an unknown distance yet to run,(it's been replaced by a video that lacks a lot; IMHO!)
an unknown river to explore.What falls there are, we know not;
what rocks beset the channel, we know not;
what walls ride over the river, we know not.Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.
John Wesley Powell
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