Wife no. 19 – Chapter XX

Chapter XX.

Brigham Builds Wagons by “Inspiration.” — The Church Sets up a Whisky-Store.

SOME time before our family bereavement by the loss of Louise, my mother and I went to Skull Valley, about seventy miles from Salt Lake City, where my brothers were keeping a herd-ground.

We had intended to go by ourselves; but one of the young wives, who was very much attached to my mother, begged to be allowed to go. She appealed first to my father, and he, in turn, referred her to my mother.

I shall never forget the look of desperation on my mother’s face, the hunted look in her eyes, as she came to me after the request had been made and before she had given her answer. She told me of the new proposal, and added, in a bitterer tone than I had ever heard her use before, —

“Why can’t she see and understand that I want to make my escape from this confusion and trouble, and go away alone?”

But she could not see, and as she was kind and affectionate, and my mother was quite well aware of her regard for her, she could do nothing but say “yes,” although it was a great cross for her to be obliged to do so.

Here was the end of all her sweet dreaming. She had thought to go quietly away, taking me with her, and we two living with “the boys” at the herd-ground. To be sure, there was only a log-cabin there; but what did that matter? She would rest in her children’s love, which at least was her very own; and with them about her, she would forget, as far as possible, the horrible system that had brought so much unhappiness to her. Fond as she was of my father, it was much easier for her to be separated from him in this way, than it was to be under the same roof, and see him bestowing attentions, that used to be hers exclusively, on others. Dear as the husband was, yet she took very little comfort with a fifth part of him; and she longed to get away where she could live in memory the old happy days over again, and, with her children’s arms about her, forget the suffering the later years had brought, ignoring all but the very present, and close her eyes to the future, which promised but little better, after all, since what was her greatest cross here was to follow her into the hereafter.

I wonder sometimes, knowing as I do now what she suffered, and realizing it as I could not then, that she did not cry out in the bitterness of her sorrow, as one Mormon woman whom I know did, “O, if I could only believe that death was an eternal sleep, I think I should be better able to endure; but to think that we have got to live on eternally under this curse of polygamy, almost drives me mad.” Or like another, equally desperate and miserable, “I would kill myself if I thought death would end my misery; but as long as I must suffer, it might as well be here as anywhere. O for the anticipation of one hour of peace and rest!”

Ever since my father’s return from his mission my mother had begged to be allowed to go away, — to have a home by herself; but somehow my father could not bring himself to let her go until now. She was the balance-wheel in the domestic machinery, and things seemed to go smoothly when she was round about. She was always prepared for any emergency; and both my father and the other wives instinctively turned to her when anything was wrong. She was so strong, so helpful, so self-reliant, and so patient, that she seemed, some way, the protector of us all. I think, if my father had not seen her so very much in earnest, and so determined to go at all hazards, that his consent would not have been won; but finding it useless to oppose her, he gave a reluctant consent.

Then there was a little season of quiet joy between us two; for we did not dare make any very open demonstrations, for fear of hurting the feelings of those whom we were going to leave behind us. Our joy was short-lived, how-ever, for it was decided to take a third with us; and though we liked her, yet she would be what the children call a “spoil-sport;” and we didn’t want any one outside of our very selves.

So we went, we three, leaving the others in Salt Lake City, where they did not remain long after we left, but, to my mother’s great annoyance, followed soon after to Skull Valley.

Very soon after our removal, Brigham conceived the idea of establishing an express company, and called on my father to go to Chicago and superintend the construction of wagons and carriages for this purpose. They were to be built after plans which Brigham himself had drawn from “inspiration,” and he insisted that the designs should be closely and faithfully followed; so he sent my father to see that this was done, he being a practical wagon-builder.

Like the labor he had been engaged in for the four previous years, we expected that this would be called “mission” work, and he was not to receive a penny for his services; they were to be given for the good of the “kingdom.” This would make the fifth year he had spent away from us, working for the “church,” we receiving none of the benefits of his labors. He had no time, of course, to devote to his family, or to labor for its support; he must give his strength, and his time, and his labor to Brigham Young. During the three months that he had been at home, he had added as many wives to the family-circle; but there were no added means with which to care for them; so that now, when he was called to go away and leave them for an indefinite length of time, it was considered expedient to send the whole family to us, to remain during his absence.

More log-rooms were added to the cabin, and down came the whole flock, so that we were all together again. My mother has said, since then, that she never, in her whole life, felt so rebellious as she did then. She had become so entirely disgusted with polygamy, that even the fact that it was an important adjunct to the religion to which she was so devoted, did not reconcile her to it one bit. She hated it; she hated everybody connected with it; and she did not care if she never saw her Husband again in the world. She would not pray for his safe return, for she said she did not desire it, and she would not add heartless prayer to her list of hypocrisies.

She kept all this rebellion within her own heart, and I am sure that none of the wives knew at all the depth and intensity of her feelings at that time. An added sorrow to my mother came, when, about the same time that my father went to Chicago, my eldest brother was sent on a mission to the Sandwich Islands. She mourned his departure deeply, and even I could not comfort her. He was sent for five years, — that was the time designated in his order, — and my mother was so broken in health and spirits that she did not believe she should be alive when he returned. He was, however, immediately recalled on account of the opening of the Mormon War, with all other missionaries away from home.

In the autumn we heard that my father was coming home ill; he had got “leave of absence” from the head of the church, and was coming home to be taken care of. As soon as we heard the news, my mother suggested to Elizabeth that she should return to Salt Lake City, and prepare for his reception at the home there. She went at once, and my mother was going on quietly with her many duties, when a messenger arrived in haste from the city for my mother, to convey her to the husband who was calling for her.

I think I shall let her give the incident in her own words: —

“At first I declined going; so rebellious was I, and so bitter, that I actually felt that I could not go. There was a momentary feeling of triumph, that, in sickness or in trouble, my husband turned to me, his one true wife, for relief and comfort; that, however he might regard his younger wives while well and comparatively prosperous, he had no thought for them now; yet this feeling failed to move me, — as instantly choking it almost before it became a definite thought, came the bitter impulse — ‘Let him alone; leave him to suffer: you have not been spared; why should you be more merciful than he has been? Let him feel what it is to need, and long for, and even starve for some one’s love and care, and yet have it denied him in all his longing and his need;’ and for a moment I was actually glad that I had the power to inflict this pain.

“ ‘Let one of the other wives go,’ I replied to the messenger’s repeated and more urgent request. ‘I don’t see how I can leave.’

“ ‘But you must,’ was the imperative reply of the man; ‘your husband is very sick, and has sent for you, and I shall take no one else.’

“In a moment I relented. I felt ashamed of my selfish heartlessness; something of the old-time feeling came over me, and, with a sudden revulsion of emotion, such as only women ever feel, I was as anxious now to go to him as I had before been indifferent. After all, he was my husband, — mine as he could never be anyone’s else. I had a claim on him that none of the rest had, and he had a claim on me too. It seemed now as though I could not get to him quickly enough. I made my preparations in feverish haste, with fingers that trembled with nervous impatience, and in a short time was on my way.

“The journey seemed so long and tedious I and yet we made it very quickly; but to me, whose heart outran the very swiftest conveyance, it was inexpressibly tiresome. I expect I wearied the patience of my driver by requesting him constantly to ‘go faster,’ and perpetually asking if we were not almost there. I pictured to myself the pleasure of having my husband, for a little while even, all my own again. I would make the most of it. I would forget, by his sick bed, that there had ever been the slightest shadow between us. Polygamy should, in that sick chamber, be as though it never had existed. He had sent for me; he had chosen me out of all the rest to be the companion of his sick hours. In his sick-room, at least, my sway should be absolute, and I would not give up one bit of my authority to anyone else. There, at least, as in the days of long ago, he should be ‘mine, — mine only;’ but, alas! he could never again be ‘for ever mine.’ In spite of my impatience, I was more really happy than I had been for years. I felt more like myself than I had since that fatal day in Nauvoo, when, after long and prayerful consultation, we decided that duty and right demanded that we should enter polygamy, and made the choice of the first plural wife. I was coming to my own again, and my life was positively glorified by the thought. His illness, rather than distressing, gladdened me. I should have, of course, the exclusive care of him, and he should miss nothing of the old love and tenderness in my regard for him. For the time, at least, we should be all in all to each other.

“We arrived at last, and I hurried to the sick-room of my husband, with my heart full of tenderness for him, my eyes brimming over with loving tears. But, in my dreamings, I had forgotten, or had ignored the fact, that others had the same right to minister to him, to care for him, to remain with and watch over him, that I had; and when I entered the room, the tenderness was driven from my heart, the tears from my eyes, and I stood there a polygamic wife, in presence of three of my husband’s other wives, who had the same privileges of his room that I had, and who were doing their utmost to make the invalid comfortable.

“I was a good nurse, and, on account of my experience, the others deferred to my opinions and advice, but insisted upon sharing my labors. My husband made no objections; indeed, I daresay he would have been contented had the whole five of us been dancing attendance on him. I worked faithfully and hard in the sick-room, but very mechanically, and, in a dazed, bewildered sort of way. All the heart had gone out of my work. Feeling seemed entirely dead. I hadn’t the slightest emotion for the man who lay before me there, and I was as indifferent to his fate as though he had been an entire stranger.

“I don’t think it was heartlessness; I know it was not. It was because my heart had been tortured into numbness, and I no longer had any power to feel. If he had died, I do not think I should have shed a tear. The fountain of tears was absolutely frozen, and not one would have flowed had he lain before me cold, and mute, and motionless. I should have been as rigid as the white face set in death, on which my dry eyes would have looked vacantly and wonderingly, as on some strange, unaccustomed features.

“I did not wish that he might die; I was simply indifferent. With the last flickering light that burned up so brightly for a little while, until it entered the sick-chamber and was met by the chilling breath of the ghostly presence of polygamy, my life’s romance went out for ever. The life or death of one man could not change the face of the world to me. Where I had thought I was strong, I was weak; my dream was broken; life was henceforth a dead level of mere existence. My only thought was to get away. I took my daughter, as soon as I could with decency leave, and went on a visit to some relatives in Southern Utah, saying farewell to my domestic circle, without one regret.”

Yet even this separation was of short duration, for just about that time came the famous “move to the South,” which every Salt Lake City resident will remember — many of them to their sorrow.

In 1857 there was a prospect of United States troops being sent to the Territory, and Brigham determined to resist them. In a public speech on the 24th of July, the day celebrated by the Mormon Church as the anniversary of their first entrance into the Valley, he said, “God is with us, and I ask no odds of Uncle Sam or the devil.”

When it was ascertained beyond a doubt that the United States troops were on the way, he counselled every warlike preparation to be be made. Business was suspended; an adobe wall was built back of the city for protection against Johnson’s army; the elders on missions were ordered home at once, and all the people turned their attention to the task of repelling the invasion. “For,” said Brigham, “they SHALL NOT enter the Valley.” He issued a proclamation, forbidding all armed forces from entering the Territory, and martial law was also proclaimed.

The latter part of the winter the Mormons received a visit from Colonel Thomas S. Kane, of Philadelphia. He had before this proved his friendship for the Saints, and was respected and listened to accordingly. It is supposed the colonel convinced Brigham that he was not yet strong enough to conquer the United States, and advised a change of tactics. At all events, directly after his departure, Brigham began to talk of going south; he said he did not know where he should go; perhaps to the desert — “wherever the Lord should direct.”

Satisfied that it would be better not to fight, I suppose lie thought when the snow melted it would be impossible to keep the army out; therefore he issued orders to the Saints to pack up and take their flight. They obeyed the command; some going only thirty miles, others going three hundred; in fact, they were scattered along all through the southern settlements. In direct contradiction to his assertions made in the Tabernacle, everything was left standing — not even a tree or a stack of hay being burned. This move south brought our family together again under one roof, and we remained together until the church was recalled.

After the departure of the Saints from Salt Lake, the troops passed through; but they interfered with nothing: no spirit of retaliation was shown for all they had endured through the past winter.

Nearly the entire summer was spent in the move south, and in August, Brigham notified the people that he was going back, but that “others might do as they pleased.” All that could do so returned to their homes at once; others went when circumstances would permit; having been living from March until August in tents, wagons, or in the open air, they were glad to return. The people were poor, and dependent on their labor for sustenance, and could not well afford the time for this flitting; yet they obeyed Brigham implicitly, asking no questions and hazarding no objections.

With the return to the city our family was again divided. My mother was urged to go to Payson, and re-open her school, which she had relinquished on my father’s return from Europe. She decided to do so, and the people furnished a dwelling-house for her, and she and I commenced living our old cosy life again. We had occasional visits from different members of our family, and the first summer that we were there, one of the younger wives, while on a visit, increased our already somewhat numerous family by giving birth to a daughter, and, in addition to her school duties, my mother performed the several offices of cook, housekeeper, and nurse, until she was able to return home.

In the mean time, affairs in Salt Lake City had assumed their usual quiet. The troops were camped about forty miles from Salt Lake, in Cedar Valley. They called the station Camp Floyd. While they remained in the Territory, some of the Saints, wishing to dispose of their produce, sold a large quantity to the troops, and were well paid for it. Brigham heard of it, and the very next Sunday forbade their selling any more, and cursed all those who had had dealings with our enemies, as he called those men who had respected the honor of their government and spared the people who had so injured them.
It was not long before it was whispered that Brigham had agents in Camp Floyd selling tithing flour and lumber; taking large contracts, and obtaining large prices. But in the meanwhile he did not relax his severity towards his people. The bishops were ordered to withdraw the hand of fellowship from every person in their wards who traded at Camp Floyd. It was a sure sign of apostasy to be seen there at all, on any errand whatever; yet the church teams started from the tithing-office, loaded with flour, in the night, and it was known that Brigham received large sums of money from the government in payment.

In this, as in everything else, he was determined to have the monopoly. If there was any money to be made, he must make it. He could not endure to see a dollar go into another man’s pocket. I believe the sight was positive pain to him. This incarnation of selfish greed is made absolutely miserable by the prosperity of another, and he takes speedy measures to put a stop to it, as he did in the case of Moon and Badly, the distillers, whom he sent to the south on missions, and also in the affair with Mr. Howard, whose distillery he took possession of in the same manner, after having declared that it ought to be burned down, and the machinery destroyed.

After Howard was well out of the way (in England, I think), Brigham started the distillery again in the “church’s” interest, which, as he represents the church, meant himself. And over the door he placed as a sign the All-seeing eye, with the inscription, “Holiness to the Lord. Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institution. Wholesale Liquor-Dealers and Rectifiers.” His whiskey was not nearly so good as Howard’s, but he got as much money for it; so what did he care about the quality?

More fortunate than either Mr. Moon or Mr. Badly, Mr. Howard returned from his mission; but he has ever since been an enemy to the Prophet, who, by the way, still runs the distillery.

Mention having been made of the President’s “Improved Carriages,” I think they deserve a more extended notice, coming, as they do, under the head of Brigham’s sublime failures. He had purchased the contract for carrying the mails from Independence, Missouri, to Salt Lake City; so he decided to run an express between these two points, to be called “B. Young’s Express,” for the purpose of carrying passengers, freight, and the mails. He wanted the assistance of my father in preparing the train, and although the latter was very much averse to leaving his family again so soon after his return to them from his four years in England, yet he was, of course, overcome by the pressing eloquence of his leader.

It was very necessary that he should enter at once into some lucrative business, as his family was large, increased recently by the Prophet’s orders; and when he informed Brigham of the necessity of instant and remunerative labor, he was informed that this would be the most profitable undertaking in which he could engage, and gave him to understand that he would be well remunerated for his services.

It is by this time a well-established fact among the Saints — taking his word for it merely — that Brigham Young knows how to do everything. Therefore no one will be surprised to learn that he understood all about wagon and carriage building, and nothing could be more natural than that he should produce plans representing the manner in which the carriages should be built. These designs, with the most minute instructions, covering several sheets of foolscap, were laid before my father, and he ventured to suggest that there might be some slight alterations which would be for the better; but he was met with the sharp and abusive reply, that “there must not, on any consideration, be the least variation from this plan.” Brigham insisted that it should be adhered to in every particular. He became very much elated, and made use of all his magniloquence in describing the ease and comfort with which passengers might cross the plains in one of his carriages, saying, “They will be just as comfortable as though they were at home in their own parlors.”

Father said no more, but pocketed the plans, and started East with them, quite certain what the result would be. When he arrived in Chicago he presented the Prophet’s model to every carriage-maker in the city, and they only laughed very heartily over it. They said they had never seen anything like it, which was true enough, as it bore not the slightest resemblance to anything on the earth, or in the heavens above, or the waters beneath. It was most decidedly “unique and only.” They all declined to under-take the work, knowing that it must prove a failure. Finally, however, a Mr. Schuttler, being anxious to secure the Utah trade, consented to try two of them, on condition that my father should render constant assistance, not feeling exactly safe to proceed in so important an undertaking- without the aid of a Mormon who was supposed to know more about it than himself. The orders were to build fourteen carriages, besides a train of wagons. Schuttler’s wagons being ordered by the Prophet, of course there was no difficulty about them.

When the two carriages were ready for transportation, they entirely filled a railway car. If my father had followed directions, and had the entire fourteen made, he must have chartered seven cars to convey them to the frontiers. These nondescript affairs were the amusement of all the passengers on the train. As they found no passengers at the frontiers, except “Uncle Sam’s troops,” the carriages were filled with freight; and I believe the wreck of one of them reached Salt Lake City the following year, after peace had been made with the government. The Prophet was satisfied with the two, and ordered no more built; his “revelation” had proved a great failure, and owing to the rebellion, the mail contract was taken from him. He laid the entire failure to the United States troops, although it would puzzle a person of less acute perceptions than he to discover how the one had anything to do with the other. When a “revelation” fails, there must be some excuse, some reason for it, and President Young is never at fault for one; whether a valid one or not, it seems to make little difference.

Those who were so fortunate as to see one of those carriages in Its entirety, say that no one could form any idea of them without seeing them, and that the only way to get an adequate idea of the size would be to take the dimensions of a “Prairie Schooner,” and multiply them by five.

It is a poor plan that does not enrich him; he seems, in some way or other, to make money out of his very failures.
The wagons proved a success, as they were loaded with freight for Salt Lake merchants, for which they paid twenty-five cents a pound; and those wagons that came through with my father brought no less than five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of freight for the Prophet.

After my father’s recovery from his illness he presented his accounts for the Prophet’s inspection, and expected an immediate settlement, and his promised pay; instead of which, he was quietly informed that his services were to be a gratuity to the church, and at the same time he was presented by the Prophet with a bill from the express company for bringing his trunk of clothing through.

While in Chicago, he had sent two hundred and fifty pounds of freight home for the family’s use, and they would not let my mother have it until she had paid the full freight-charges. The clerks told her that “this was President Young’s order, and they dared not disobey.” Mother afterwards said that she believed the clerks saw the injustice of the whole proceeding, yet were powerless to do otherwise than according to their orders.

A man that had literally worn himself out in the service of Brigham Young could not be permitted to send a few of the necessaries of life to his family, nor even a trunk of linen, used on a journey for this man, without paying freight, and that when they came in wagons which he had helped to build, and that gratuitously, for the aggrandizement of the church, or, to be more exact, of the man who was constantly crying, “Give, give,” and was yet never satisfied. A man of our acquaintance, who had been similarly swindled, said, in referring to the subject; “Brigham Young would rob the King of heaven of His crown-jewels if he had the opportunity.”

It was the unfortunate termination of this “business arrangement” with the Prophet that decided my mother to resume teaching again; but when my father was again in business, he was so urgent that my mother should return to Salt Lake, that, a little while before my sixteenth birthday, we went there again to live.

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(This is such a perfect description of what polygamy does to the heart of women – and men. After sacrificing all and being dragged along, hoping and praying for some sign that they hold a special place in the heart of their dear lord, they are disappointed again and again. Men, in my experience, truly adore the idea of a crowd of women fawning over them and attending to their every desire. One rubbing each foot, another rubbing his temples, others preparing his favorite dishes with love and care. They come to expect to be pampered and babied. One wife isn’t enough to care for them, they must have them all. 

Yet these same men will often chastise those same women for being too concerned over their children when they are ill or in need. 

The constant cry of “give, give” is a familiar one. Give your time, give your money, “bow your backs and give more.” We were even told, across the pulpit, to max out credit cards if need be in order to give more and more and more. We gave until it hurt, and then we gave some more. We were told to give our all to the church, that it had greater buying power and could provide more for less. Then they provided almost nothing – and we had to buy it from them. 

I heard young men as they ridiculed employees of church owned businesses. Men who voiced a need to be paid a wage that they could support a family on. “You’re lucky you’re being paid at all! Uncle Warren sent you here as a mission. You should be grateful!” This from the “sons” of a man who was both living in the lap of luxury and claiming all the glory for the funds being donated to the church – funds that should have been paid to his employees. 

“Priesthood” power is a very controlling and evil influence. It has been since the day Joseph Smith invented it, and will continue to be for as long as it exists.)

(Go to Chapter XXI)