A History of Davis County

Defending the kingdom

CHAPTER 3 DEFENDING THE KINGDOM Rre sidents of the communities of early Davis County defined themselves in ways other than the civil and ecclesiastical boundaries that allowed services to be administered in an orderly way. Within these defined communities, people built a sense of community through their interactions in the workaday world and through their social and religious activities. They strengthened old friendships and became acquainted with new neighbors. Through human associa­tions, local communities solidified and gave a personal definition to the overarching goal of Utah's early Mormon settlers to build a har­monious and cooperative society. Some activities and events that occurred during the county's first twenty years strengthened the internal bonds of local communities. Central among them were the social and recreational pastimes. Other situations-particularly political and religious aspects of life, such as participation in the county militia, patriotic holidays, group-oriented church activities, and Mormon missions-strengthened the alle­giance of county residents in their loyalties. Certain challenges faced by Davis County residents in the 1850s and early 1860s threatened to 56 DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 57^ dissolve communities through physical displacement and dishar­mony that tested unity. The Utah War, for example, an external threat, rallied most Utahns to support local leaders in what was defined as a threat to both political and religious freedom. The con­frontation with the Morrisite group on the Weber River stemmed from disharmony within the LDS church. In this instance, Davis County residents opposed each other. This dilemma was resolved by government officials through legal and military actions that involved county militiamen. Leisure Activities The settlers of the pioneer period-before the coming of the transcontinental railroad in 1869-depended upon locally organized leisure-time activities. Providing a living occupied most of every workday for men and women, but Davis County's hardworking resi­dents found time for socializing in their homes and halls. Settlers throughout Utah developed local cultural activities not unlike those enjoyed in the broader Anglo-American community. Salt Lake City's Social Hall, built in 1852, set a pattern followed in smaller towns. But for Davis County residents, who sometimes attended the plays pre­sented by the Deseret Dramatic Association in the Social Hall and other cultural offerings in the capital city, it took about twenty years before they could afford local cultural halls. During the 1850s and 1860s, homes and meetinghouse/school buildings also served for din­ners, dances, dramatic presentations, musical entertainments, local lyceums, and traveling lecturers. All of these relaxing and socializing occasions lifted spirits and cemented relationships.1 The dinner party was a popular event throughout the county. It was hosted especially by those able to build large houses that would hold groups of a dozen or more friends. After dinner, guest vocalists or instrumentalists performed popular songs of the day, including southern spirituals and Mormon folk tunes. Each community enjoyed its own local talent.2 In the community halls built in every town for church meetings and schools, sizable groups gathered to socialize. They danced to band music and enjoyed local or imported drama and other enter­tainment. Dancing was the most common community recreational 58 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Early social events took place in community school-church buildings. Later on, specialized social halls were built, like the adobe Opera House in Farmington, affectionately known as the White Elephant. (Glen M. Leonard) activity in the early years. A fiddler was all that was needed, and a waxed floor in the school room was much appreciated. Women brought molasses cakes or other pastries for refreshments and their partners chipped in two bits (twenty-five cents) to pay the fiddler. In some areas of the county, dancing schools offered lessons for learning or improving such skills.3 A few large homes in every community also offered public danc­ing, sometimes to the chagrin of concerned citizens. In fact, danc­ing- wherever the setting-raised questions of propriety for many with strict religious upbringings. Latter-day Saint leaders condoned the practice, within limits. Orson Pratt said of dancing in 1856, "Though of no harm in itself, it is a pleasant exercise, but may be . .. carried to excess." He hoped the Saints would not let dancing keep them from their studies. Brigham Young endorsed the enjoyment of music, singing, and good society in a wholesome setting.4 Just what constituted "appropriate" behavior was the question. DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 59_ The standard square dances and quadrilles were always acceptable. After the waltz became popular, this new round dance was limited to one or two per evening. Because at times the youth became boister­ous, some bishops in Davis County policed dancing parties by requiring sponsors to get prior permission. If the organizer failed to control his guests, the right to host other dances was withheld.5 From time to time, Davis County residents enjoyed traveling entertainments, usually a lecture or dramatic presentation. Philo Dibble, an early Bountiful settler who later moved to Springville, lec­tured in halls throughout Utah using paintings he had commissioned depicting incidents in Mormon history The Wood String Orchestra of West Bountiful provided a musical accompaniment for Dibble's close-to-home lectures. At a presentation in Farmington, local resi­dent Truman Leonard, who had participated in the Battle of Nauvoo, added his own impassioned commentary on the paintings of Joseph Smith. Farmington's choir and brass band furnished "good and sweet music" for the evening. In the late 1860s, artist Reuben Kirkham of Bountiful toured the county with his own historical panorama.6 A special event in Davis County's early cultural life was a concert tour of the Nauvoo Brass Band in August 1855, the first such excur­sion held in Utah Territory. Brigham Young authorized eight mem­bers of the Salt Lake band to visit the northern settlements to perform orchestral, brass, and vocal numbers in schoolhouses and boweries. On one of its stops, the entourage entertained fifty-two families at a bowery at Kaysville. Family tickets cost one dollar each, payable in cash or produce. Bishop John W. Hess decided that because of the devastation caused to Farmington's crops by grasshop­pers, residents there "felt poor" and would not support a concert. The bishop's wife provided a dinner for the musicians, who played the bishop a tune and then moved on.7 Bishop Hess rectified the loss to Farmington's cultural life a year later, when he invited members of the Salt Lake band back for a musical entertainment in the courthouse. Then, to show his support for music, Hess formally organized a local group known as the Deseret Brass Band. With Salt Lake music professor Henry Pugh as instructor and William Glover as captain, the band worked hard in weekly rehearsals and was soon touring to give concerts. The band's 60 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY primary role involved regular drills with the local militia. Among other honors, it was one of three bands invited to play at the 1857 Deseret state fair, and one of four participating in the 24 July cele­bration in Big Cottonwood Canyon in 1860; all of the other invited bands were from Salt Lake City8 It was in the 1860s, after the Latter-day Saints completed their new area meetinghouses, that cultural activities blossomed in Davis County With the first years of settlement behind them, residents found additional time and means to spend in organized leisure activ­ities, recreation, and entertainment. New brass bands appeared in Bountiful, Farmington, and Kaysville. Other new organizations included a fife and drum corps in South Bountiful, a stringed orches­tra in West Bountiful, a dramatic association in Bountiful, and a debating society in Farmington.9 Religious Life Social gatherings offered a moment of relaxation from the back-bending work of tending fields and doing household chores. For spir­itual uplift, Latter-day Saints in Davis County congregated on Sunday afternoons or evenings to hear sermons, to pray, and to participate in worship through music. The Sabbath service cemented feelings and loyalties within the Mormon community. No other religious organi­zation existed in the towns during the county's early settlement years. Because the LDS church operated with a lay ministry that included all adult males in a potential missionary pool, the invitation to preach was extended widely and might involve the local bishop, his coun­selors, returned missionaries, others from the congregation, or visit­ing authorities. Messages ranged from millennial prophecies, the teachings of Jesus, and the revelations of Joseph Smith to practical advice on farming or raising children. Speakers in sacrament meet­ings varied in their knowledge and oratorical skills, but their effec­tiveness was judged more by their sincerity than presentation.10 To help parents properly teach their children religious and moral principles, most LDS wards in the county were hosting Sunday schools by the early 1850s. These Sunday morning gatherings had been attempted in Nauvoo and were begun in Salt Lake in 1849 by Richard Ballantyne, after which the idea quickly spread elsewhere. DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 61 The classes centered on instructions on the scriptures but sometimes included practical lessons on reading or writing. Religious and secu­lar learning were not really separated in the county's pioneer society11 Music was an important part of Latter-day Saint worship and religious activities. Ward choirs, organized as early as the 1850s, sang hymns and anthems for the Sabbath service to supplement congre­gational singing. Choirs also participated in other community gath­erings, including holiday festivities and funerals. For accompaniment, early choirs used violins or clarinets, but they adopted pianos or organs as soon as they were available. When Kaysville's congregation lacked a skilled director, the choir borrowed one from outside the ward's boundaries. Choir members, selected for their vocal abilities, often remained loyal to the organization for years. Singers with above-average talents rendered solos for weddings, funerals, and entertainments.12 On Thursday afternoons once a month, Latter-day Saint adults met for a fast and testimony meeting. They brought with them food and other goods as contributions-fast offerings-to help the poor. During the meeting they testified to God's goodness in their lives. During succeeding days, the bishop and ward teachers distributed the donated offerings to widows and orphans or others unable to pro­vide their own daily needs. Men and boys chopped wood for the fire­places and stoves of the needy. To determine needs and to provide a watchfulness in spiritual matters, members of the ward teachers quo­rum visited each home monthly This group of adult men played an important role in defining religious expectations for the community of faith and in helping meet the needs of people in the practical aspects of life. Several times during their lifetime most Latter-day Saint men would leave their families for preaching missions. In the nineteenth century these missionaries were generally married men, usually with children. Neighbors helped care for his family while the missionary was away. Many of the elders, as the missionaries were called (refer­ring to a priesthood office they held), traveled to places they had lived previously to call upon relatives and acquaintances there. The call to serve came typically from church leaders in Salt Lake City. At times a missionary would learn of his assignment by hearing his name read 62 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY from the pulpit at a general conference. He could accept the call or request a deferment because of pressing business at home. Missions within the United States often kept missionaries away less than a year. Some men planted crops in the spring and returned from preaching in time for the fall harvest. However, an assignment to India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Chile, France, Italy, Switzerland, the British Isles, or Scandinavia-all places designated for missionary work in the 1850s-might involve an absence from home and family for two to four years. In these cases, ward teachers helped sustain the absentee's family This acceptance of mission responsibilities impacted family life and strengthened the commitment within the Mormon commu­nity to look after one another.13 The Mormon Reformation During the mid-1850s the missionary zeal that was usually reserved for those not of the Mormon faith was turned inward in a campaign known as the Mormon Reformation.14 The foundation for the reformation was laid during the fall of 1855, when church leaders called "home missionaries" to visit members in their homes and encourage them to greater diligence in their religious duties. Soon afterward, Apostle Wilford Woodruff visited Davis County and orga­nized local presidencies to oversee the home missionary work. With this step, organized reform work began in the congregations of Davis County15 The reformation moved slowly. In the spring of 1856 Brigham Young invited church leaders at all levels to alert the people to their spiritual duties. When that effort largely failed, he sent his associates out to preach in local conferences and move the effort to an evangel­ical stage. Tell them, Young said, "to live their religion." Church lead­ers implemented the campaign in Davis County In mid-September, Young's second counselor, Jedediah M. Grant, the president's brother Joseph Young of the Council of Seventy, and home missionaries con­vened a conference in Kaysville that would effectively launch a terri-torywide reform movement.16 Latter-day Saints in Davis County were accustomed to church conferences. Visiting authorities attended them as often as quarterly somewhere in the county The purposes of the gatherings were to DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 63 regulate local church affairs and to preach. Usually the conferences lasted two days, with morning, afternoon, and evening sessions both days. But the message in 1856 carried a camp-meeting fervor. Jedediah Grant, a missionary in the southern states in the 1840s, called Kaysville's members to repentance in meetings held in a bow­ery over a three-day weekend. The Deseret News titled its report of the conference the "Great Reformation." With fervency of voice and urgency in his message, Grant encouraged a higher level of Christian living. He urged the payment of tithes and offerings and greater heed to honesty and Sabbath keep­ing. His preaching also paid attention to practical affairs. Grant encouraged more home manufactures. He reminded parents of their duties to their children and enjoined both physical and spiritual cleanliness. In the fervor of the experience, Grant decided to commit the congregation to do something about the messages he and his associates had delivered. Kaysville's members responded by agreeing to renew their baptismal covenants. On Monday, 15 September, Bishop Allen Taylor and more than 400 area members, virtually everyone over age eight, were immersed one by one in Weinel's millpond. With this outward symbol of compliance, members reded-icated themselves to the spiritual and promised to clear away from their lives the habits of frontier lethargy. Home missionary William Willes highlighted the conference message by singing a new reforma­tion song that ended: "For Deseret expects that all the Saints will do their duty"17 After Grant left his blessing on the people of Kaysville, he and his party moved on to Farmington, where transplanted New Yorkers, familiar with the revivals of the Burnt-over District, gathered in the upper room of the courthouse to hear a report of the reform meet­ings in the neighboring ward. Grant told Farmington residents that he wanted to put "this little village . . . to a similar test." Bishop John W Hess concurred and the entire assembly arose to signal accep­tance. A hastily scheduled conference began the next morning-a Tuesday-and continued for three days. One speaker after another stirred the congregation to an awareness of their shortcomings and a desire for a spiritual rebirth. A reported 406 local members signified 64 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY their acceptance of the challenges from the pulpit by being rebaptized at the millrace north of the city wall.18 In Centerville and Bountiful, Grant and his companions found local church leaders willing to convene reformation conferences, but not immediately. The reformers returned a week later and held three-day conferences in each town. The conferences in southern Davis County differed in tone and results from those held earlier. Instead of instructing members in their duties and encouraging them to repent, Grant openly chastised the congregations. At Centerville, in the milder of the two conferences, he chided the people for "their minds being set upon the things of this world more than upon their religion." Joseph Young spoke "of the spiritual slothfulness and inac­tivity of the Saints; and urged them to honor their religion." One of the home missionaries invited the Latter-day Saints to stand to man­ifest their willingness to keep the commandments, and they did. But Grant told the congregation on the second day of the conference that he would not authorize any rebaptisms until they were better pre­pared, and he invited Bishop William R. Smith and the local ward teachers to work with the people. Grant returned two days later and received the congregation's pledge to discharge their duties and honor the commandments. The next morning, 231 people were bap­tized. In a final gathering in the local schoolhouse, Grant left his blessing upon the people, their lands, flocks, and other belongings.19 Members in Bountiful received the most direct challenge in Davis County, and it was left for the bishop, John Stoker, to "enforce cleanliness and honesty, and to cast out the works of iniquity" in preparation for a complete reformation. Jedediah Grant declared that half the congregation had never been converted in the first place. His inaugural sermon, delivered in the local bowery, charged "the people of Bountiful with being as cold as the ice of the Polar regions; that they had been in a deep sleep, and were still asleep." Other speakers endorsed the reproof as justified and recited the problems: ingrati­tude, avarice, covetousness, lethargy pride, and backsliding. Grant encouraged the people to ready themselves for the work of "regener­ation and salvation," and he left them to prepare for a future renewal of their baptismal covenants.20 Overall, the reaction to the reformation message delivered in DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 65 When the home missionaries began urging Latter-day Saints in Davis County to improve their personal lives and living conditions, many of them still lived in log homes like this one, photographed in the 1860s or '70s at an unidentified location in the Salt Lake Valley. (Utah State Historical Society) these four communities pleased church leaders, yet they wished to effect not just promises but a change of behavior. Jedediah Grant told a gathering in the Salt Lake Bowery in October, "We want to see the spirit of the reformation in the people; we wish t h em . . . not only to talk about it, b u t to practice u p o n it." "The people were so sound asleep," Wilford Woodruff said in December, "that they did not real­ize the importance of [Grant's] mission."21 With Brigham Young's blessing, t h e campaign that had taken root in Davis County continued there and also moved throughout Utah Territory. Expectations were formalized in catechisms reviewed by the ward teachers in every home. The questions echoed all of t h e Ten C o m m a n d m e n t s as well as specific applications of them, such as: Have you cut hay where you had no right to, or turned your animals into another person's grain or field, without his knowledge and consent? 66 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Have you branded an animal that you did not know to be your own? Have you taken another's horse or mule from the range and rode it without the owner's consent? Have you fulfilled your promise in paying your debts, or run into debt without prospect of paying? Have you taken water to irrigate with, when it belonged to another person at the time you used it?22 Among the results of the Mormon Reformation was a 65 percent increase in plural marriages. This Old Testament marriage pattern, introduced by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, had been first preached pub­licly in the old Salt Lake Tabernacle in 1852. A very few of Davis County's early settlers had taken plural wives before coming west. The Reformation increased that number and changed the way many families lived.23 The home missionaries and ward teachers accepted the respon­sibility in Davis County to keep the Reformation alive and, as they put it, "to prune the vineyard of dead wood." Individuals unwilling to conform to Reformation standards of righteous living were "cut off"-excommunicated from the church. Some who felt imposed upon or unwilling to change left the territory for friendlier neigh­borhoods. Jedediah Grant had suggested that option in his Kaysville sermons. The Latter-day Saints who were willing to recommit them­selves accepted rebaptism and the behavioral standards of this intense but short-lived campaign. The Mormon Reformation-as did the practice of plural marriage-became a test of religious loyalty and commitment.24 Jedediah Grant's untimely death at age forty in December 1856 slowed the zeal of the Reformation and moved it into a more mod­erate phase. Wilford Woodruff tempered the intensity with a call for a greater tolerance and understanding. Although this dampened the cutting edge of the campaign, priesthood leaders in every commu­nity from Bountiful to Kaysville never forgot the push to perfect the Latter-day Saints, to unite them in a common religious endeavor. For years afterwards, anytime they wished to encourage greater religious commitment, they spoke of the need for a reformation.25 DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 67 Politics and Patriotism The Mormon Reformation created a religious enthusiasm that prepared Utah settlers for an event with both political and military repercussions. Known to history as the Utah War, the Utah Expedition, or Buchanan's Blunder-after the U.S. president who sent federal troops marching across the country to subdue a suppos­edly rebellious Utah-the events of 1857-58 had a traumatic impact on Davis County Furthermore, the approach of the U.S. Army tested the political loyalties of local residents during this emotionally charged period. The genesis of the problems that led to the Utah War lay in the form of government instituted in early Utah. Congress created Utah Territory as part of the Compromise of 1850. It was a substitute for the State of Deseret that had been requested by Brigham Young and his followers. Territorial status meant that top officials were appointed in Washington. Only half of those named were Utahns; the others satisfied the political debts of presidents. Over several years, misunderstandings and disagreements between local and imported officials led to reports to Washington, D.C., charging the Mormons with sedition, treason, disloyalty, violence, and rebellion against the federal government and the people of the United States.26 Both outwardly and by religious proscription most Utahns were loyal to the constituted government. The settlers of early Davis County, whether American or British in origin, celebrated Independence Day regularly in a show of patriotism for the freedoms promised by the U.S. Constitution. Latter-day Saints held the Constitution sacred, even though they sometimes denounced the "bad men" who had been elected or appointed to government office. By the mid-1850s, Fourth of July celebrations in Davis County echoed the more elaborate ones in larger cities elsewhere. On this national holiday, in at least some towns, county residents enjoyed a sunrise military salute, followed by breakfast in a local grove, speeches, toasts, and musical numbers.27 Salt Lake City observed a second patriotic July holiday as early as 1849-the 24 July anniversary of Brigham Young's arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. Some Davis County residents attended the celebrations 68 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY of both July holidays in the capital city Gradually local Pioneer Day observances appeared within the county In 1855 in Farmington, neighboring wards joined in a 24 July activity in a bowery built at the county seat especially for the occasion. The celebration was similar to Independence Day gatherings. According to Joseph Robinson, cel­ebrants enjoyed "feasting, and dancing, several very appropriate speeches, and toasts." The celebrations of both July anniversaries honored founding fathers and cemented loyalties-to the nation and to the territory Brigham Young, Utah's first territorial governor, sym­bolized this allegiance at the entrance to his Brigham Street (South Temple) estate in Salt Lake City. Atop the gate sat a carved wooden American eagle perched on Deseret's beehive. The beehive, symbol­izing Deseret (a Book of Mormon term meaning "industry") soon became part of Utah Territory's logo and was eventually incorporated into the state seal. Under the beehive a third symbol identified another loyalty-a star representing Jesus Christ. In territorial Utah, Mormon leaders exercised a definite influence in local government, and members pledged their allegiance to these leaders when choices between God and Caesar were necessary28 Participation in military service was one way Utah men mani­fested their patriotism to American constitutional government and its territorial component. En route to Utah in 1846, nearly 500 Latter-day Saints had formed a battalion in the war with Mexico. One of the reasons for that service was a show of fealty to the government, although it also benefited the Mormon church and the families of the soldiers financially At least sixteen of the Mormon Battalion veter­ans located with their families in Davis County. Residents honored these men for their service in helping the westward migration.29 Authorized in March 1849 by the Deseret Assembly, Utah's first militia was known as the Nauvoo Legion, after the city militia orga­nized by Illinois Mormons in 1840. Utah's citizen army theoretically included all males aged eighteen to forty-five; but in reality it depended upon willing volunteers. Most of the militia's officers had not been among the Mexican War volunteers. Among the leaders were five early residents of what would later become Davis County The highest in rank was Col. John S. Fullmer of Farmington, who headed the cavalry regiment. Within this regiment, Captain Daniel DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 69 C. Davis of Bountiful led a company of Mountain Dragoons, with Anson Call of Bountiful as one of his lieutenants. Two county resi­dents served as lieutenants in the foot-soldiers' regiment-Dorr P. Curtis of Kaysville in an artillery company and Jonathan H. Holmes of Farmington in the infantry company No records survive to iden­tify the numbers of enlisted men from Davis County; but, in 1850, an agent was asked to recruit sixty new volunteers for service.30 Before long, population growth and mobility made it necessary to reorganize the Nauvoo Legion. In January 1851, legislators divided the territory into nine military districts, two for Salt Lake County and one each for the other counties. Each district organized as a regiment that was subdivided into companies.31 Daniel C. Davis of Bountiful was promoted to colonel and headed the Davis County regiment. Volunteers drilled regularly at the county seat to meet their legisla­tive mandate to be ready at a minute's notice to repel hostile Indians or to preserve the peace. The companies established in each Davis County community held their own drills in between countywide training. For instance, Bountiful's Company E consisted of sixty men divided into six platoons of ten men each under Captain Jude Allen.32 Early in 1857 Utah's militia organization was again adjusted and the number of districts increased to thirteen. Colonel Philemon C. Merrill of Farmington became commander in Davis County33 Even though the required age for enlistment reached to age forty-five, an older group living in Bountiful and Centerville organized as a com­pany of "Silver Greys" called the Mountain Sharps. Joseph Holbrook served as captain. The men considered themselves "home guards," ready to provide protection within the community when the younger men were away at war. This followed the pattern set up in 1849, which not only included Silver Greys for those over fifty but a "Juvenile Rifle Company" for young men under the age of eighteen.34 The militia did not wait long for its first call to duty Some 2,700 guests of Brigham Young had gathered for a Pioneer Day celebration in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Among them were several from Davis County The celebrants arrived on the afternoon of 23 July for feast­ing and visiting, followed by dancing on three plank floors prepared especially for the event. Cannon blasts awoke them the next morn­ing, and that day's events included military demonstrations, singing, 70 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY addresses by host Brigham Young and others, and dancing until well after midnight.35 Around noon, Brigham Young received word from four messen­gers that U.S. Army forces were marching toward Utah to quell a sup­posed rebellion. The couriers, including Judson Stoddard of Centerville, informed Young that President James Buchanan had dis­patched 2,500 troops to escort new territorial officers to Utah. Among those accompanying General William S. Harney, the com­manding officer, was Alfred Cumming of Georgia, the new governor. Brigham Young declared that the appointees were welcome if they behaved themselves, but the army must be kept out. The Mormons had not forgotten the mobbings of Missouri and Illinois by men act­ing under the guidance of renegade militia leaders. Utahns immedi­ately set about preparing to defend themselves.36 Early in August, Brigham Young called home all proselytizing missionaries and invited settlers from the outlying settlements to join in defending the Mormon kingdom from the invading army General Daniel H. Wells activated the Nauvoo Legion. Some of Davis County's expatriates left their far-flung settlement missions and returned home because of this directive. The Davis County militia unit stepped up its pace of military parades and drills. On 13 September a number of them heard Young deliver some impassioned remarks in the Salt Lake Bowery. He declared that the army had been ordered west illegally, and he pledged to prevent the soldiers from entering the valley "I shall treat every army and every armed com­pany that attempts to come here as a mob," he said. Brigham Young discouraged a militant spirit among Utahns, however, and forbade any fighting unless absolutely necessary He announced that he would order all improvements burned if neces­sary and invited anyone unwilling to participate to leave the territory in peace. Two days later, acting as territorial governor, Young declared martial law and authorized the militia to keep the U.S. Army troops from entering Utah. The Utah Legislative Assembly quickly endorsed the governor's message with a series of resolutions, published early in October. Officers in Davis County received orders to be ready to respond at a moment's notice, and they instigated weekly drills.37 In September, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston replaced Harney DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 71 as head of the U.S. troops heading to Utah. Johnston found his sol­diers stalled on the plains of western Wyoming by indecision, bad weather, and the harassments of the Nauvoo Legion. Five special forces units of the Utah militia totaling no more than 200 men had played a decisive role in halting the army Heading two of them were Davis County militiamen Major Lot Smith and Colonel Robert T. Burton. The forces headed by these men burned supply wagons and grass fodder and captured cattle, horses, and mules. They effectively thwarted the army's westward march and forced it to spend the win­ter at hastily established Camp Scott, directly south of the burned-out Fort Bridger on Black's Fork that the Mormons had torched. Davis militiamen, including a dozen from Bountiful, were part of this effort. After completing their assignment, they were released early in December to return to their homes.38 Lot Smith's group was perhaps the most celebrated unit of the entire war. His group of forty men left on 3 October under the lead­ership of four officers-Smith, Capt. Horton D. Haight, Lt. Thomas Abbott, and Lt. John Vance (all but Vance being from Davis County). General Daniel H. Wells told Smith to take "every opportunity to burn their trains, stampede their stock, and keep them under arms by night surprises, so that they will be worn out." Smith's men directly confronted the wagonmasters of the Russell, Majors, and Waddell supply trains. When the wagonmasters refused to abandon the army they had been hired to support, the Utahns helped them­selves to supplies needed for their own support, then burned the wagons. The militia also drove off nearly 2,000 head of cattle and herded them to the Salt Lake Valley39 The task was made easier because the men with the supply trains thought that the Mormon militia numbered between 500 and 1,000 men. Smith was under orders not to interfere with the wagon trains of Salt Lake City merchants and not to take human life. Neither side suffered any fatalities. The accidental discharge of Smith's pistol, however, wounded Orson P. Arnold in the thigh and grazed two other soldiers. A shot fired by a U.S. soldier passed through the hat of one of Smith's volunteers from Ogden.40 With their primary mission accomplished, Smith and his men visited Wells's camp on Black's Fork and then rode through deep 72 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY During the Utah War, Davis County's militia furnished men to help fortify Echo Canyon, seen here in a C. R. Savage photo taken after completion of the transcontinental railroad. (Utah State Historical Society) snow and cold w i n d to Burton's camp on the Bear River. Here, Smith's men set u p camp to watch for army deserters. In mid- December, after ten weeks of service, all b u t ten men who were retained as guards left for home.41 In a second response to the approaching army, Governor Brigham Young and General Wells fortified Echo Canyon with Nauvoo Legion units positioned to intercept the approaching forces. Davis County provided several units to support this effort. The first was dispatched in late September after Colonel Merrill received orders sped from Salt Lake calling for a detachment of lancers. A week later, a Davis County infantry detachment joined General Wells. In November, Merrill led his own regiment to Echo Canyon. The men took along provisions to last one month. In all, 1,250 Utah sol­diers participated. They dug trenches across the canyon, built breast­works along the ridges above t h e road, a n d loosened stones that could be rolled down the steep slopes. With these defenses readied, Wells released all b u t a small guard from Echo Canyon duty about two weeks after Merrill's arrival. Johnston's U.S. forces remained stalled in Wyoming, and it was cheaper to let the Utah militiamen feed themselves at home t h a n haul supplies into the canyon. A few DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 73 guards stayed through the winter, and the Davis militia provided some of the reinforcements.42 The county's official militia band, the Deseret Brass Band of Farmington, also supported the defensive forces. Band members were placed on alert in mid-August and told to prepare for a three-month campaign in Echo Canyon. They escorted the infantry detachment part of the way to the canyon in September and then accompanied Colonel Merrill's regiment to the mouth of Emigration Canyon in November. Only five band members actually went into the canyon with the militia.43 It was during the Echo Canyon campaign that a Mormon soldier lost his life, the only military-related death during the Utah War. The victim was thirty-one-year-old William A. Simmons of Farmington, who was accidentally shot on 30 September by a comrade cleaning his gun. A tombstone in the Farmington Cemetery commemorates Simmons's death. With the U.S. Army motionless at Camp Scott, Utahns consoli­dated their position in a series of official statements and resolutions passed by the territorial legislature in December in response to a for­mal message delivered by Governor Brigham Young. Citizens of Salt Lake County endorsed the decrees in mid-January 1858. Over the next six weeks, mass meetings convened in major settlements in var­ious parts of the territory to endorse the pronouncements.44 Among the first was a public meeting in the Davis County Courthouse on 18 January Residents adopted resolutions drafted by a five-member cit­izens committee that vowed, "We will never submit to the rule of drunken, corrupt, and licentious officers, neither will we sustain the appointment of any but 'good' men." Accepting Young's scorched-earth policy, the assembly declared that rather than allow the invad­ing forces to occupy their property, they would "burn and utterly destroy everything we possess."45 The following week in Kaysville and Bountiful citizens committees drafted a more general set of resolu­tions supporting the declarations of Brigham Young and the legisla­ture. Rather than submit to military rule and occupation, Utahns declared their willingness to abandon their settlements and burn their homes, barns, fields, and other improvements.46 In February 1858 Thomas L. Kane, a friend of the Mormons 74 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY invited to Utah by Brigham Young, arrived in Utah by way of Panama and California. He came with Buchanan's unofficial permission to negotiate a settlement. Mormon leaders expressed their willingness to make peace, so Kane headed for Camp Scott to sound out Cumming and Johnston. Taking no chances, Brigham Young ordered northern Utahns to prepare to leave their homes and move south for safety. Much of Salt Lake City had been evacuated by the time Cumming arrived there with Kane in mid-April. Preparations in the regions northward, including Davis County, were well underway, and some settlers were on the road. Rumors circulated that the evacuees would move as far as Sonora, in northern Mexico. Actually, Brigham Young had sent an exploring party looking for a new place of refuge along the White Mountain Range in the central Great Basin. Nothing suitable could be found. "The difficulty," the scouts reported from Fillmore, "was to find soil, timber, and water together."47 The new governor's route to the capital city brought him from Echo Canyon by way of Weber Canyon because snow blocked the more direct route through Emigration Canyon. Mounted uniformed guards from the Davis militia met Cumming at the mouth of the canyon and escorted him along the mountain road to the courthouse in Farmington, where the party arrived around midnight. The Deseret Brass Band, patiently awaiting his arrival, demonstrated its loyalty to the United States by playing "The Star Spangled Banner." The new governor spent the night in Farmington, then headed south for a meeting with Brigham Young. That evening, the brass band followed in carriages. In Salt Lake City, the men played a few patriotic tunes. Cumming was impressed with the sincerity of the musical offering. But a non-Mormon witness who heard the band's welcome said that after Cumming was too far off to hear them, the Davis County musicians ignored their captain's instructions and vented some of their resentment toward the new appointee by play­ing "Doo Dah." Isaac Nash had written this ditty at the 24 July cele­bration in Big Cottonwood Canyon as a satirical challenge to the approaching army Later, he had sung it in the old Salt Lake Tabernacle. The words derided the new gubernatorial appointee and his escorts and expressed undeviating support for Brigham Young. It vowed, "If our enemies do appear, We'll sweep them from the land." DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 75 While respecting American government, Utahns worried that the sol­diers would be like the Missouri vigilantes who had worn military garb while mobbing the Saints there.48 Cumming met with Young, and the new appointee determined the falsity of the reports that had prompted Buchanan's orders. Cumming tried in vain to halt the planned evacuation of northern settlements. He then returned to Fort Scott and sent word to President Buchanan. The American president responded by issuing an amnesty He appointed two commissioners to carry the document to Utah. Their charge: Resolve unsettled issues between Mormons and gentiles, as non-Mormons were referred to by the Latter-day Saints. The commissioners reached the state in early June.49 The Move South, April-July 1858 Before these negotiations were underway, and with the results of them of course as yet unknown, the residents of Davis County con­tinued their preparations to abandon their homes. For more than six months they had anticipated the mass evacuation. Many of the county's missionaries to the Salmon River area had arrived home in September 1857, the planting season for winter wheat. They found that some of their relatives and neighbors had decided not to plant; others went ahead with the work and enclosed the fields with tight fences. Either way, food supplies were sufficient. Of greater concern as the departure neared in the spring of 1858 was what to do with surplus wheat and flour. Some residents built special boxes and made trips to Salt Lake and Utah Counties to store the grain at mills. In late April, at the new temporary church headquarters in Provo, Brigham Young found the tithing yard there already overflow­ing with bins of wheat and flour. He picked a vacant city block and ordered workmen to build a temporary storehouse 150 feet long to receive the surplus. Some in Davis County didn't bother to remove their grain. They buried the grain boxes in the ground at home, along with excess furniture. Those who expected not to return sold their property at a fraction of its value or abandoned it and left without securing their fields against the cattle streaming south with people from the more northern settlements of Weber and Box Elder Counties and Cache Valley50 76 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY A reporter from the New York Tribune visited these northern regions and wondered in print what would happen to the people. "They are moving south," he wrote, with "no inhabitable tracts of any considerable extent within seven hundred miles of their late settle­ments. So extraordinary a migration is hardly paralleled in history"51 Under Brigham Young's direction, the ward bishops supervised an orderly evacuation. This kept confusion to a minimum and helped protect individuals. An estimated 17,000 people moved out of north­ern Utah, including more than 2,000 from Davis County Young encouraged the exiles to put first things first. Load your wagons with food, he counseled; then, if space remained, take along the best of your furniture and your cabin doors with their scarce hardware.52 Most of the settlers in Davis County relocated in Utah and Juab Counties at sites selected by the ward bishops. These refugee camps were near existing communities but did not interfere with property already claimed by earlier settlers. Not everyone reached the desig­nated new townsites; some families joined friends and relatives in other locations.53 The evacuation of Davis County's communities proceeded under a common pattern. The families of Bountiful launched their move in April under the direction of Bishop John Stoker. The caravan camped just west of Salt Lake City the first day, then moved on toward their destination at Battle Creek, along the shores of Utah Lake west of today's Pleasant Grove. They set up tents, gathered willows for wick­iups, or made dugouts for temporary shelter. Perhaps it was the nature of these dwellings that prompted the residents to call their camp "Shanghai." Brigham Young evaluated the situation when he visited the camp and others along the lakeshore on 23 April. He reported, "Some of the people had made themselves quite comfort­able with sage brush and willow houses." Ute Indians were camped nearby, and the Bountiful exiles presented them with gifts of friend­ship. Both the Mormons and the Indians supplemented their diets with fish from the lake and the Provo River. With the camp estab­lished, the bishop dispatched twenty men back to Bountiful to stand ready to burn the now-abandoned city54 Bishop John W. Hess left on 1 May to lead the way for Farmington's residents. Organized companies followed him with DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 77 In 1850 Charles C. Rich built this adobe home for his wives Eliza Ann and Sarah Peck in Centerville. Rich returned to Centerville from a six-year col­onizing mission in San Bernardino just in time for the Move South. He sold the house to lohn Woolley when called by Brigham Young to settle the Bear Lake Valley in 1863. (The City In-Between: History of Centerville) heavily laden wagons. He found a settlement place in Juab County on Willow Creek, between Mona and Nephi. In three weeks Farmington was deserted. Some of the exiles dropped off along the way at Provo and Springville; others moved from the temporary camps into the towns of Mona and Nephi. Hess sent at least four men back as guards, with orders to burn the town if the army tried to possess it. Buildings had been filled with straw and tinder to make the job eas­ier. At Willow Creek, the displaced settlers built log and willow huts, hauled firewood, plowed the ground, and planted potatoes, wheat, and other crops.55 Bishop Allen Taylor of Kaysville had a personal concern as his community headed south toward Dry Creek, below Lehi: his wife Anna was close to delivering a child. The family set out anyway, and, with the help of an accompanying midwife, Anna gave birth just before reaching Salt Lake City Hers was not the only birthing expe­rience during the relocation; life went on in this and other aspects. Emily Stewart (Barnes) remembered, "We took everything we had in one wagon, which was not much except some chickens and one door, which was the only thing that was any good. Sister and I drove the 78 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY cows and pigs and we walked all the way. . . . [W] e had a little place made of rushes, which sheltered us. We had good water; it was a swampy place with lots of bull rushes." Although some of the migrants camped in other places, those who stayed together found the site acceptable. They caught fish in nearby Utah Lake and salted it for later use.56 The residents of South Weber left home with less concern for community togetherness than was the case in neighboring towns. Some reached the southern tip of Utah Lake and camped near Goshen. Other families stayed closer to home; they simply moved up Weber Canyon and found refuge in the Mountain Green area.57 Johnston's Army, as the federal troops were known, marched through a nearly deserted Salt Lake City on 26 June. The Utah and federal authorities agreed to let the army set up a peaceful encamp­ment under terms of Buchanan's amnesty Brigham Young insisted that it be at least forty miles from the capital city Federal officials looked southwesterly and picked Cedar Valley, where they set up Camp Floyd. The 100-acre encampment and its adjacent civilian community, now Fairfield, soon became the third largest city in Utah. The camp lasted until 1861, then disbanded in order for the troops to fight in the Civil War.58 Davis County exiles soon heard of the agreement and knew it meant they could go home. A few did not wait for the official instruc­tions; they soon headed north to water neglected crops, plant winter wheat, and repair fences. Brigham Young waited for the army to pass through Salt Lake County before issuing permission for reoccupation on 30 June. Within a few days, word reached Davis County's bishops in their places of exile. It took only three or four days after that for the settlers to pack their wagons for the trip north. Some of those from Farmington took a route home around the west side of Utah Lake and visited with the United States soldiers there.59 The two-months' absence left its mark on the well-kept towns and farms of Davis County When Emily Stewart (Barnes) returned to Kaysville, she remembered, "Everything at home looked for­saken- grass had grown over the pathway and the door to the little log hut stood open." Milton Hammond said he "found Farmington grown up to weeds and grass which made the place look lonesome."60 DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 79 Losses varied among individuals. Some had secured their fences against the migrating livestock. Those who abandoned hope and made no preparations to return generally found their crops damaged. In Farmington, the protected hay and grain harvests were generally better than had been expected, but smut damaged much of the spring wheat. In Bountiful, very little winter wheat had been sown the previous fall, but volunteer growth yielded a fair harvest. The spring plantings of oats and barley survived the neglect of the evacu­ation to yield a good harvest. Even so, a subsequent hard winter took its toll on livestock. After the crops were in, wagons were sent from every community to retrieve the grain and flour stored out of town. The Move South and return home was a heavy sacrifice for the indi­viduals affected. The loss of time and impact on property were a con­siderable price to pay for the preservation of those properties.61 In some instances, damages extended beyond that suffered by the crops. The Robert W. Burton family returned to Kaysville to discover that someone had grazed horses in their wheatfield. Burton decided it had been Indians. The intruders also had lived for a time in the Burton home and had pulled up the wooden floor for firewood.62 Some of the displaced settlers never did return to Davis County. Apparently they found other places better suited to their needs. Kaysville's bishop, for example, had to replace both of his counselors. The majority of the settlers did return, however, and quickly resumed a normal lifestyle. Overall, the impact of the Move South on the 1858 harvest was minor. Besides, because of plentiful earlier harvests, many of the settlers had a two-year supply of grain on hand.63 The removal required considerable effort, but the settlers took it in stride. An important impact of the Utah War was psychological. Davis County's residents wanted to be loyal to the United States, but for some of them President Buchanan's decision to send an army of occupation weakened their faith in the national government, as had the reports of seditious activity from territorial officials that had prompted the order in the first place. When Newton Tuttle obtained a copy of Buchanan's "Proclamation" while returning to Bountiful as one of the torchmen, he turned the document over and vented his frustrations by writing a strongly worded letter to relatives in Bean Town, Connecticut. Speaking for many of his neighbors in the 80 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY county, he denied the federal charges of lawbreaking in Utah and reaffirmed his willingness, if necessary, to abandon all he had: As a people, there are no more laws broken here than there are in Old Bean Town. We have the 4th of luly, 24th of July, and New Years here, the same as in the rest of the world with the exception that we do not get drunk and break our shins. . . . How would you like to have Old Ireland [Buchanan's father was an Irish immi­grant] send over to Bean Town a lot of petty officers with an army to back them to rule over you; and you not have the privilege of having a post master or any officer of your own townsmen, but have a pack of foreigners to make your laws for you? How would you like it? . . . If Doctor [Thomas L.] Kane had not of been sent in here last winter before the soldiers should have had our habita­tions, we would have burned the whole of the country and fled to the mountains. We could have used up all of the army that was sent here. If it had not been for our leaders, we would have done it.64 The Morrisite War, 1862 Two years after the Utah War, some residents of Davis County found themselves involved in another military skirmish. This one involved a confrontation with a group of about 200 Latter-day Saint dissenters at Kingston Fort on the Weber River. They were known as the Morrisites, after their leader, Joseph Morris. Born in England in 1824 a n d a convert to the M o r m o n church there in 1848, Morris migrated to St. Louis with his wife, Mary Thorpe. The couple spent time in St. Louis and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In b o t h places, Morris became acquainted with the teachings of o p p o n e n t s of Brigham Young. During these formative years for his religious views, Morris experienced his first visions. His later doctrines of the trans­migration of spirits (a type of reincarnation) echoed the teachings of Charles B. Thompson, a former Latter-day Saint living in St. Louis, who had been excommunicated for apostasy. Morris presided for a time in the Pittsburgh branch of the LDS church, but resigned over differences and moved to Utah in 1853. After a short stay in Salt Lake City, t h e family moved to Ephraim, where Morris's teachings were opposed by local church leaders and his wife left him. Morris then DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 81 moved to Provo, where he remarried and served as a teacher in the Mormon Reformation; he then moved back to Salt Lake City.65 In December 1857 the thirty-three-year-old Morris sent his first letter to Brigham Young, complaining of the treatment he had received from church leaders in Utah County In a second letter in October 1858 Morris presented himself as a prophet and deliverer of the Latter-day Saints. He challenged Young's prophetic authority while proposing that Young retain his administrative role in the church. In addition, Morris chided the Mormon church for excessive materialism and attacked the practice of plural marriage. Young ignored both letters, judging them to be the work of an illiterate, weak-minded man.66 Morris was not a very impressive individual physically, but he attracted followers because of his spiritual sensitivities. Of wiry, mus­cular build, he stood about five-foot six-inches tall. His handsome face featured an uncut beard, and his flowing black hair hung in soft curls about his head and neck. In England, Morris had labored on a farm and as a coal miner from his youth. Like Brigham Young, Morris had received little formal education. Severe burns in a min­ing accident may have affected his outlook on life. In St. Louis, Morris worked as a fireman on a steamboat. In Utah he sought work wherever he could find it, mostly as a farm laborer or hod carrier. He knew the toils of life and yearned for deliverance through the promises of religion.67 Letters to Brigham Young continued in 1859 and 1860, with Morris placing emphasis on the Second Advent of Christ and the beginning of the millennium. In some of his correspondence, Morris revealed that he had a demanding and militant spirit. He predicted a doomsday destruction of those who refused to follow him. Soon, Morris began a preaching mission in Utah. Rather than reform the Mormon church, however, he was now hinting at forming his own separatist community Morris saw himself ushering in Christ's mil­lennial kingdom on earth with a people who had been purified by the Mormon Reformation. He demonstrated his belief in continuing rev­elation by issuing a steady flow of written revelations-more than forty by February 1861. He intended to lead his people back to 82 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Jackson County, Missouri-an early center of the Mormon church- to build the City of Zion.68 In the spring of 1860, Morris moved to Slaterville, in Weber County Within months, local church leaders there invited him to leave. They also excommunicated thirty-one Latter-day Saints who accepted Morris as prophet. Morris made one last attempt to call Brigham Young to repentance, then moved forward with plans to establish his own church. Forced from Slaterville, Morris found a receptive audience in South Weber, at the time a settlement of fewer than one hundred Latter-day Saints. Among his earliest sig­nificant converts was Richard Cook, the South Weber LDS bishop, whose conversion influenced others to take seriously Morris's claims. Over the next several months, Morris attracted a following of nearly 200 people. Many of them moved to South Weber. Most residents who rejected Morris's teachings remained in the com­munity69 The growth of Morris's following prompted Brigham Young to send Wilford Woodruff and John Taylor to investigate the new prophet at Kingston Fort. Their visit in February 1861 led to the excommunication of seventeen members of the South Weber Ward who said they accepted Morris as a prophet, seer, and revelator to the church. Among them was Bishop Richard Cook. The Morrisites clus­tered in and around the ten-acre Fort Kingston, living in tents and wagon boxes. Many of them built new homes of wattle, made by interlacing willows and plastering them with mud. For meetings, they set up a large tent and bowery inside the fort.70 On 6 April 1861 Morris organized the Church of lesus Christ of Saints of the Most High, known soon by a shortened title, the Morrisite church. By midsummer, membership reached 300, and Morris encouraged all members to gather to Fort Weber, where all property was consecrated to the church in preparation for Christ's Second Advent. A year later, the Morrisite church counted 507 bap­tized members, many of them Danish immigrants. Several hundred more were unbaptized believers. The organization included a First Presidency, with Morris and counselors Richard Cook and John Banks (an able English missionary and a friend of Morris from Pleasant Grove), and twelve apostles. The talented and outgoing DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 83 William Kendell an early Morrisite Apostle and his family were living in Uintah, at the mouth of Weber Canyon, when this photo was taken in luly 1869. One of the first six persons to affiliate with Joseph Morris, Kendell was apparently "cut off for refusing to consecrate all of his property. (Utah State Historical Society) Banks, who had had a falling out with Brigham Young in 1858, played a key role as an orator for the naturally quiet Morris.71 As 1861 drew to a close, tensions within the Morrisite camp increased. Morris believed that Christ would come that year, and his followers, many of them poor, generally had not prepared adequate foodstuffs to sustain them beyond that time. Relationships were strained as well with the normally tolerant non-Morrisite commu­nity. Stigmatized as heretics and apostates in the larger community, the Morrisites were harassed by some local rowdies, who jeered at them and threatened to burn the fort. Disagreements between the Morrisites and their Latter-day Saint neighbors over livestock and the theft of some Morrisite horses increased tensions. The Morrisites appointed sentries to watch their herds, guards for firewood-collecting excursions into the canyons, and nightwatchmen around the camp. Their prophet's revelations defined all Latter-day Saint leaders and members as enemies of God and the Morrisites. Morris predicted a direct confrontation between the two groups to usher in 84 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY the millennium. A directive in November 1861 even instructed his followers how to act if Utah authorities attempted to arrest him.72 Under these circumstances, some of the Morrisites became fear­ful for their safety. Morris tried to calm them with reassurances of divine protection; however, a few became disenchanted and left. His counselors disagreed over policy and administrative duties and with the meaning of Morris's revelations. Reprimands from the prophet did not solve the problem of disunity A greater challenge to the unity of the Morrisite community was the failure of Morris's revelatory promises that the Lord would come unto His people before year's end. One revelation after another during December 1861 postponed Christ's appearance from one designated day of deliverance to another. However, when the New Year dawned without the expected millennium, only a few Morrisites departed; the majority remained at Fort Kingston through the cold and stormy winter of disappoint­ment. A January revelation declared, "I shall not tell my people to prepare for me any m o r e . . . . I shall come as a thief in the night."73 The anticipated confrontation with Mormon authorities came in 1862 over two legal issues that involved Davis County officials. One of these involved taxes, the other an incident over a load of wheat. Joseph Morris told his people to ignore the law of the land, since the law of God took precedence. The Morrisites therefore refused to pay their property taxes. County officials sent Sheriff Lot Smith to attach property in lieu of payment. In one incident, Smith attempted to take the horse of David Parks, but left when Parks intervened with the backing of several armed men. Smith then filed a complaint against Parks for resisting an officer.74 Latter-day Saint leaders counseled their members to avoid all dealings with the Morrisites. This made it difficult for the Morrisites to get their grain milled. Finally, they found a miller in Kaysville will­ing to turn their wheat into flour. In the spring of 1862, three Morrisite defectors living in Kaysville intercepted a load of flour and forced the teamster to abandon his team and wagon with its cargo. One of the defectors was William Jones, who had fled the Morrisite camp without his family. Several times, with no results, Jones had urged the Morrisite teamster to bring his wife and children to Kaysville. Soon afterward, an armed posse of about twenty Morrisites DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 85 captured the three defectors, hauled them to the fort, and locked them in a log house at Kingston. A revelation on 8 May condemned them to die at a time to be designated later by the Lord.75 Seeking release of the captives, friends and family of the prison­ers quickly filed a complaint with Chief Justice John F. Kinney of the Third District Court. On 22 May, Kinney ordered the Morrisite lead­ers to set the men free. The territorial marshal asked Judson L. Stoddard to deliver the habeas corpus writ. Stoddard took Thomas Abbott and Wells Smith with him. The three Davis County couriers were allowed inside the stockade, where Stoddard read the document to the assembled townspeople. John Banks, as spokesmen for Morris, refused to accept it. Stoddard tried again to hand the writ to Banks, but it fell to the ground and was burned by live coals brought from a nearby house.76 Morris appeared to be preparing for battle. By the time of Stoddard's visit, Morris had organized 142 soldiers into seven com­panies as the beginning of the "Army of the Kingdom." The men did not expect to fight their neighbors but, rather, to serve in a millen­nial world army after Christ's Second Coming. According to Morris's revelations, his people would witness a grand pageant on 30 May, the "Foreshadowing of the Kingdom of God Day" Soon afterward, an angelic army of the Lord would destroy the wicked and usher in the millennium.77 Stoddard claimed that he had been met by about sixty men from this Morrisite army when he attempted to delivered the writ. Most of them carried pistols, rifles, shotguns, or swords. On 10 June, Stoddard filed an official complaint against the Morrisites, explain­ing to Judge Kinney their reaction to his visit. Stoddard requested an armed posse to assist in a second attempt to deliver the writ. On the same day, two other Davis County residents, H. O. Hansen and Philo T. Allen, filed complaints describing the capture and detention of the prisoners. Judge Kinney acted immediately on Allen's affidavit and ordered the arrest of Joseph Morris, John Banks, Richard Cook, John Parson, and Peter Klemgaard. Territorial Marshal Henry W Lawrence was absent from Utah on private business, so the responsibility fell to his chief deputy, Colonel Robert T. Burton. Acting Governor Frank Fuller authorized the use of militiamen as a posse comitatus. The 86 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY posse included several hundred men drawn from ten different Latter-day Saint wards. Those called up from Davis County joined as the militia moved northward from Salt Lake City toward Kingston. According to Jacob Miller of Farmington, Davis County recruits dou­bled a 200-man force that came from Salt Lake, and another 100 men joined from Weber County. Burton hoped that the posse's massive size would intimidate Morris and cause his peaceful surrender.78 Though the posse acted under civil authority, it did so with the concurrence of Mormon church leader Brigham Young. Officially, the militia marched north to enforce a court order to arrest the five Morrisite leaders on charges of holding the defectors without due process of law. Members of the posse and its leaders also understood the religious aspects of the case, however. Morris and his council were seen not just as lawbreakers but as apostates. Similarly, the Morrisites did not view the challenging army as a federal posse. They were involved in a religious war; the opposing Mormons were seen as an evil force about to trigger Armageddon.79 Early on the morning of 13 June 1862, Burton positioned his forces on a high bluff south of Fort Kingston. He commandeered a Morrisite herdboy and sent him with a message to Morris demanding immediate surrender. Privately, Morris dictated a revelation promis­ing safety for his people and the destruction of their enemies. He then gathered his followers in the bowery for prayer and to hear the writ and their prophet's latest revelation. While John Parson was reading the revelation, Burton ordered two warning shots from his vantage point 200 feet above the valley. The first cannonball flew over the fort. The second struck plowed ground and ricocheted into the crowded bowery, killing two women and breaking the lower jaw of a young girl. With the confusion caused by the unexpected attack, Richard Cook shouted to the Morrisites to flee to their homes and prepare to defend themselves.80 The Morrisite position was virtually indefensible. The flimsy fort was surrounded on the south and west by the high bluff controlled by Burton's men. Another 100 volunteers from Ogden perched across the swollen Weber River atop another bluff to the north that gave them a view inside the fort. Burton posted riflemen on the east and west sides of the fort. The riflemen on the downriver side took a posi- DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 87 Mary Anderson was hit in the jaw with a cannon ball when the posse attacked the Morrisite compound. She is seated with her husband, Neils, and surrounded by their eight children in this family photograph taken many years later. (Utah State Historical Society) tion behind the mud walls of the old fort; the other group found a hiding place in brush along the river upstream. When the men started shooting, two Morrisite families came out, waving a white handkerchief. They were placed under guard. The Morrisites then released the prisoners they had taken in Kaysville. The Mormon sol­diers interpreted this as an attempt to end the hostilities, but Morris saw it as part of a larger scheme in which all "hypocrites" would leave the fort, leaving only the "true and faithful."81 Most accounts say that the militia's artillerymen fired first and that the Morrisites only returned the fire. Militiaman Jared Smith was the first soldier killed. He died from a shot in the chest received when he rose up to see what a shot he had just fired had accomplished. When Burton reported this fatality and the resistance of the Morrisites, Acting-Governor Fuller instructed him to enforce the order to arrest the Morrisite leaders. Heavy rain during most of 88 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Saturday, 14 June, hindered the posse; however, damage to the Morrisite fortification and to the homes inside discouraged the water-soaked inhabitants. They could not build fires or dry out soaked clothing or bedding. A number of the Morrisites surren­dered. 82 Clear weather on Sunday allowed Burton to storm the fort. His men prepared a battery out of three wagon wheels laced with willows and used it as a shield to advance toward the fort. Hungry and with little remaining ammunition, the Morrisites watched the advancing army, expecting a miraculous delivery. Their prophet had received a revelation that morning promising that the time of Christ's coming had arrived. The revelation directed them to continue their defense, which they did. Burton's men rushed a vacant home along the west perimeter of the fort, but in doing so they lost a second man, John Peter Wahlin. When the posse rolled their battery up against the fort, the Morrisites in adjacent homes fled to the far side of the fort. Resistance melted. When a bugle sounded in the fort, the Morrisites assembled and raised a white flag of surrender. Burton and his men entered the fort and collected the Morrisite arms.83 Burton had been sent to arrest Morris and four associates. He called for their unconditional surrender and told Morris he wanted all the men who had taken up arms against the posse. Undaunted, Morris invited his followers to die with him. A number of men moved toward him to accept the invitation. Burton interpreted the movement in the crowd as an attempt to recover their arms or to find a place of defense. When Morris ignored Burton's order to stop, the colonel fired several shots from his revolver. Morris fell dead. Other members of the posse also fired. John Banks suffered a fatal wound to the neck. Two women also died. "Even when Morris was shot and fell lifeless to the ground we did not think him dead," a Morrisite wit­ness later said. "We considered him invulnerable, or that if he should be killed he would be immediately restored to life." But with the death of their prophet, resistance ended. The posse left Fort Kingston with ninety Morrisite men as prisoners. Judge Kinney placed them under bond to appear in the spring 1863 session of the court. The bodies of Morris and Banks were viewed by thousands at Salt Lake City. Morris's robe, crown, and rod lay by his side.84 DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 89 At the court session in March 1863, seven Morrisite men were convicted of murder and sentenced to prison. Sixty-six others received $100 fines for resisting arrest, and two were acquitted. Utah Territory's new governor, Stephen S. Harding, who had arrived the previous July, subsequently concluded that the Mormons had been too heavy-handed in their treatment of the Morrisites and issued a full pardon. Harding was supported in his decision by the non- Mormon community. Among t h em were the soldiers of Colonel Patrick E. Connor, who had arrived in Utah in November 1862 and established Fort Douglas on the hill above Salt Lake City to watch over the Mormons. Chief Justice Kinney and most Latter-day Saints condemned the pardon. A grand jury composed mostly of Mormons declared the governor "not only a dangerous man, but also as one unworthy the confidence and respect of a free and enlightened people." Latter-day Saints petitioned President Abraham Lincoln to remove h im from office. Non-Mormons countered with a petition for Judge Kinney's removal. Lincoln transferred Harding to Colorado as chief justice there and removed Kinney from his post. Utahns then rewarded Kinney with an appointment to Congress, the only non-Mormon to serve as a territorial delegate until the 1890s. In 1879 a j u r y equally represented by Mormons and non- Mormons tried Robert T. Burton and pronounced him not guilty of murder in the death of one of the two women killed during the assault at Kingston Fort. The women were n o doubt accidental casu­alties in the confusion surrounding the event. Politics in the territory had taken a t u r n in the years after the Utah War. While locally the Mormons dominated, territorial officials represented the non- Mormon community. This division reinforced local feelings about government and heightened the tensions that played out over the next quarter-century85 The winter of 1862-63 proved difficult for the Morrisites left behind at Kingston Fort. The wives and children of the arrested men were in a desperate condition, lacking even the basic necessities. Many Latter-day Saint neighbors provided food, clothing, and shelter, and Brigham Young sent a doctor to care for the wounded. Some of Morris's followers rejoined the Mormons; others left the territory, 90 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY including Morrisite apostle Mark A. Forscutt, who later became an influential missionary, editor, chorister, and hymn writer for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.86 The pardon of the convicted Morrisites created a hostile envi­ronment for t h em in Utah and led to other legal challenges. Many of the Morrisites held to their faith in an imminent Second Advent and had come to see Joseph Morris as a forerunner of the expected mil­lennium, but they lacked a clear leader. Even with the supportive political climate in Utah, the Morrisites concluded that their best prospects for peace lay in removal elsewhere. A p o r t i o n of them, including Richard Cook, traveled to Carson City, Nevada, in the spring of 1863 with a military supply train from Fort Douglas. At the same time, Colonel Connor sent a second t r a i n to Soda Springs, Idaho, to establish a colony. Other Morrisites accompanied these troops and established a settlement there. A few Morrisites remained in Utah, while others moved to California, Washington, and else­where. The scattering of the Davis-Weber Morrisite colony led to fac­t i o n a l i sm and competing leadership w i t h i n the movement. This disunity persisted among the Morrisites despite the appearance over the years of a number of claimants to Joseph Morris's leadership. Eventually death and affiliation with other churches brought an end to the Morrisite church in the 1940s.87 ENDNOTES 1. lames B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 284-85. 2. For example, see Truman Leonard, lournal, 4, 21 February 1857, LDS Church Archives; Thomas S. Smith, lournal, 21 February, 7 luly 1857, LDS Church Archives. 3. Les Foy, The City Bountiful, 97; Truman Leonard, Journal, entry for second week of October 1856, LDS Church Archives; Annie Call Carr, East of Antelope Island, 450. 4. Journal of Discourses (Liverpool: S.W. and F.D. Richards, 1854-1886), 3:293-94; Brigham Young, sermon, 6 luly 1864, in Deseret News, 15 luly 1864. 5. Farmington Ward, Teachers Minutes, 22 February 1863, 18 December 1864, 12 February 1865. DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 91 6. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 267, 423; Leonard, lournal, 30 December 1856. 7. Deseret News, 29 August 1855. 8. Deseret News, 20 August 1856; Kate B. Carter, ed., Heart Throbs of the West (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1939-51), 4:135-37; lournal History of the Church of lesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 3 October 1857, 24 luly 1860. 9. Foy, City Bountiful, 97-99; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 432, 442-45. 10. Examples can be found in minutes of ward meetings preserved in the LDS Archives and in some individual diaries of county residents. 11. Margaret Steed Hess, My Farmington, 281; Carol I. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 81; Foy, City Bountiful, 81; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 319. 12. Hess, My Farmington, 276-79; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 22. 13. Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints, 288; Foy, City Bountiful, 102. 14. See Gustive O. Larson, "The Mormon Reformation," Utah Historical Quarterly 26 Qanuary 1958): 46-53; and Thomas G. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff and the Mormon Reformation of 1855-57," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25 (Summer 1992): 25-39. 15. Journal of Discourses 4:60-61, 72; Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff," 26-27. 16. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff," 27; Deseret News, 1 October 1856. 17. Glen M. Leonard, "History of Farmington to 1983" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1963), 55; Deseret News, 24 September 1856. 18. Deseret News, 1 October 1856; Leonard, "History of Farmington, 55. 19. Deseret News, 8 October 1856. 20. Ibid. 21. Deseret News, 7 January 1857; Journal of Discourses 4:146. 22. From an 1856 manuscript in the LDS Archives, quoted in Paul H. Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation of 1856-1857: The Rhetoric and the Reality," Journal of Mormon History 15 (1989): 70. Other versions of the cat­echism, most of them without the practical applications quoted here, are in luanita Brooks, John D. Lee: Zealot, Pioneer Builder, Scapegoat (Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark, 1972), 193-94; Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 12; and Larson, "The Mormon Reformation," 53-55. 23. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff," 33-34. The specific impact of the 92 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Reformation on polygamous marriages in Davis County has not been stud­ied. Findings from a study of the 1880 census are reported in a later chapter of this history. 24. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 55-56; Deseret News, 24 September 1856; Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation," 71-72, 76; Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff," 30. 25. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff," 31-33, 35-36; Leonard, "History of Farmington," 56. 26. Thomas G. Alexander, Utah, The Right Place: The Official Centennial History (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1995), 117-24. 27. Leonard, lournal, 1 July 1857; Milton D. Hammond, lournal, 4 luly 1857, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 28. loseph L. Robinson, Autobiography, 73 (1849), 101 (1853?), 106 (1855), LDS Church Archives; Linda Thatcher, "The State Symbols of Utah, Beehive History 12 (1986): 8. 29. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 499. 30. Ordinances of the General Assembly of the State of Deseret (Great Salt Lake City, 1851), 12-13, 15-17; Deseret News, 5 October 1850. 31. Ordinances of the General Assembly, 33. 32. Joseph L. Robinson, Journal, 100, entry for 25 March 1854, LDS Church Archives; Ordinances of the General Assembly, 15-17; Foy, City Bountiful, 109-10. 33. Deseret News, 29 April 1857. 34. Carr, East of Antelope Island, 494,; Journal History, 26 May 1849, 3. 35. Thomas S. Smith, Journal, July 1857, LDS Church Archives. 36. Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 126. 37. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 65-66; Foy, City Bountiful, 109-10; Journal of Discourses 5: 228-34; Richard D. Poll, et al., eds., Utah's History, 167-68; Deseret News, 7 October 1857. 38. Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 128-29; Foy, City Bountiful, 112-13. 39. "Narrative of Lot Smith" (written 1882-83), in LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, eds., The Utah Expedition, 1857-1858: A Documentary Account. . . (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1958), 220-25, 231-32, 236-37. 40. Ibid., 227-28, 232, 235, 242. 41. Ibid., 243-46. 42. Leonard, Farmington, 65-66, 68; Hafen and Hafen, The Utah Expedition, 196. DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 93 43. Hugh O'Neil, "Deseret Brass Band of Farmington," in Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, 4:135-37. 44. Journal History, 15 December 1857, 6-7, 12 January, and various entries during February 1858. 45. Deseret News, 27 January 1858; Journal History, 18 January 1858. 46. Andrew Jenson, "Kaysville Ward," manuscript history, LDS Church Archives; Journal History, 27 January 1858. 47. Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 134-35; Richard D. Poll, "The Utah War," in Allan Kent Powell, ed., Utah History Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 607; lournal History, 22 April 1858. A complete history is Clifford L. Stott, Search for Sanctuary: Brigham Young and the White Mountain Expedition (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1984). 48. Journal History, 15 April 1858; Hafen and Hafen, The Utah Expedition, 287; Otis G. Hammond, ed., The Utah Expedition, 1857-1858 (Concord: New Hampshire Historical Society, 1928), 288; Thomas E. Cheney, ed., Mormon Songs from the Rocky Mountains: A Compilation of Mormon Folksongs (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), 84-86. A ver­sion of "Doo Dah" from Deseret News, 17 February 1858, and another antifederalist song (Cheney, no. 33) are found in Claude T. Barnes, The Grim Years; or, The Life of Emily Stewart Barnes (1949; reprint, Kaysville: Inland Printing, 1964), 69-70. 49. Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 135; Poll, "The Utah War," 607. 50. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 70-71; lournal History, 22 April 1858. 51. Reprinted in Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 20:469. 52. This estimate of numbers is based on an extrapolation of the 1850 and 1860 census figures for the five affected counties. The 1860 census reported 22,087 people in Salt Lake and counties to the north. Ten years earlier, the count was 8,477. Assuming a steady growth, the population in 1857 would be about 16,565. Some estimates have placed the evacuees as high as 30,000, but that would involve all Utah residents in 1857. Brigham Young's advice was given in a sermon (lournal History, 28 March 1858). 53. See Journal History, 25 April 1858. 54. Foy, The City Bountiful, 114-15; Andrew Jenson, "Bountiful Ward," manuscript history, LDS Church Archives; Journal History, 23 April 1858. 55. Leonard, "History of Farmington, 70-73. 56. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 71-72; Barnes, The Grim Years, 69. 57. Lee D. Bell, South Weber, 67. 94 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY 58. Audrey M. Godfrey, Camp Floyd," in Powell, Utah History Encyclopedia, 66-67. 59. Leonard, "History of Farmington," 73. 60. Milton D. Hammond, "lournal," Marriott Library, University of Utah, 56; Barnes, The Grim Years, 69. 61. Leonard, "History of Farmington, 74; Foy, City Bountiful, 122. 62. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 74. 63. Ibid., 71. The two-year supply is mentioned in Foy, City Bountiful, 121. 64. Newton Tuttle to his brother and sister, 27 lune 1858, original in private possession, reproduced in Foy, The City Bountiful, 121-22. 65. C. LeRoy Anderson, For Christ Will Come Tomorrow: The Saga of the Morrisites (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1981), 37-44; G.M. Howard, "Men, Motives, and Misunderstandings: A New Look at the Morrisite War of 1862," Utah Historical Quarterly 44 (Spring 1976): 113-14. 66. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 14-15, 31-34; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 114. 67. Howard, "The Morrisite War," 113; Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 37, 43, 71. 68. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 45-49, 57-60, 64-65. 69. Ibid., 55-58, 65; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 115-16. 70. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 65-68, Howard, "The Morrisite War," 116-17, 120. 71. Howard, "The Morrisite War," 117-19, 131; Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 69-73. 72. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 74-88, 91-92; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 119-22. 73. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 89-95, 99; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 123-24. 74. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 101-2. 75. Ibid., 100-106, 108; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 124. 76. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 106-7, 113. 77. Ibid., 109-10. 78. Ibid., 112-20; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 124-25. 79. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 117-18, 132-34; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 132. 80. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 120-24, 132; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 125-26. 81. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 128-33. DEFENDING THE KINGDOM 95 82. Ibid., 133-36. 83. Ibid., 136-40. 84. Ibid., 140-44, 155-56. 85. Ibid., 144, 148-51, 155-56; Howard, "The Morrisite War," 126-31; Alexander, Utah, The Right Place, 147. 86. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 147; Richard P. Howard, The Church Through the Years (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1993), 2:25, 129, 189, 199. 87. Anderson, Saga of the Morrisites, 151, 159-62, 228-29.