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Show MORMON-CATHOLIC RELATIONS a policy of open dialogue between the two leaders, Young admonished Kelly that “if you hear rumors flying about touching me or this people, come right here with them and I will always set things right. That’s the best way.”6 Actually, both the legend of Brigham Young’s intervention and the settlement in court could be true. The Utah judicial system at the time was the probate court system—infamous to those outside the LDS church because it was little more than a rubber stamp for the church—and the court would have followed whatever the prophet decided. On another occasion, a non-Mormon doctor in Salt Lake City, John Robinson, entered into a property conflict with the mayor, Daniel H. Wells, and the city council. Robinson was called out in the middle of the night, supposedly to look after a patient, and brutally gunned down— some thought by Mormon fanatics. “Fears of violence seized the whole non-Mormon community,” one observer recalled. “The Gentiles are Panic Stricken and dare not express opinions of the foul deed,” reported another. After attending the funeral, Kelly received an anonymous note ordering him to leave the city. The next day, he showed the note to Brigham Young, who said, “Father Kelly, that was not written by my people and I can prove it by the quality of the paper used. You remain and I will see that you shall not be disturbed and that not even a hair of your head shall be touched.”7 What should we make of these two alleged encounters with the Lion of the Lord? The first one, the offer to dispel rumors, has a ring of authenticity, both because it is a first-hand report from Bishop Daniel S. Tuttle of the Episcopal Church about his own experience and because Tuttle would likely have known that Young made the same suggestion to Kelly. And certainly Young had an interest in any opportunity to rebut rumors started by his Protestant antagonists. Young’s reported dismissal of the threatening note, however, cannot be literally true—though the prophet likely encouraged the priest to stay, for the welcome of any clergy who bore an olive branch meant good public relations for the Mormons. But the report itself is ridden with problems. One supposes that non-Mormon merchants, many of whom operated in Salt Lake City in 1866, imported paper of a better quality than the 6 Stoffel, "The Hesitant Beginnings,” 56. The property, which did indeed become the site of the first permanent Catholic church in Utah, was at the east end of Social Hall Avenue, on Second East between South Temple and First South. Kelly does seem to have met Brigham Young, however: Bishop O’Connell wrote that the young priest “was introduced to the monster Young, who received him most courteously . . . and invited him to officiate in the Tabernacle.” Kelly declined the offer, preferring to celebrate Mass in the Congregationalist Independence Hall. Walsh, Hallowed Were the Gold Dust Trails, 205. The story of the offer of five hundred dollars for the school appears in the Semi-Weekly Telegraph, March 14, 1867. I am indebted to Ron Watt for this reference. Kelly left Utah shortly after the resolution of the property dispute and never built the school; no record exists that Brigham Young ever paid him the money or renewed the offer to his successor. Young’s offer to dispel rumors comes from the reminiscences of the pioneer Episcopal Bishop Daniel S. Tuttle, to whom he made the same offer and who reported that Young had previously made it to Father Kelly. Quinn, Building the “Goodly Fellowship of Faith,” 12. 7 Kiely, “The Story of the Catholic Church in Utah.” 233 |
