Fascinating 4pp. letter written in Salt Lake City, Utah on July 15th, 1859. The author, 33 year-old schoolteacher Charles E. Bowers, traveled to Utah from Michigan and shares his candid opinions on the Mormons and their practices. Included are references to Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and polygamy. One of the best Mormon-related letters we have handled, it reads in part:

“…I went this afternoon to hear Orson Pratt and the 12 apostles of the Mormon Church and this afternoon we all went to hear a man named Taylor. I did not see Brigham Young, he does not show himself often. Horace Greely was there, both for noon and afternoon. He is going through to California. He gave a lecture last night here in the city on woman’s rights. I did not hear him as I did not know it soon enough. We shall leave here tomorrow or the next day at farthest…

…I wished today that you had been at the church, first to see the congregation if nothing more. It was thought that there was two thousand people present. The tabernacle was full, and some had to stand outside. Pratt in the forenoon preached a first rate sermon but Taylor in the afternoon, I did not like at all. He is the man that was in the jail with Joseph and Hiram Smith when the two latter were murdered by the mob in Illinois. Just as long as the Mormons have such men to preach to them as he is, they will be in trouble. He is just a complete sledge hammer coming down on everything that is not Mormon. They have some peculiar customs here that is the plurality of wives. The men uphold it but I think the women would tell a different story if they were permitted to tell how they think of it but I do not know, that is my impression. The Mormons here in the valley are a very industrious people and they are also zealous people. Brigham’s nod is their law to judge by their talk. I have got some acquainted with some of them and I go to their houses and found them to be just like other people for all I can see. The majority of the citizens I believe to be good people. Some of them are no doubt, rascals, and what community does not have some bad ones.

I do not think that I shall write as often as cannot after I leave here as letters will go sooner from California than from beyond here to the states. From California they will go by water and between here and there back by land.”

Note: “Taylor” is John Taylor, who was indeed in jail with Joseph Smith when the latter was killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.

Important manscript.



[Old West, Paper Ephemera, Church of Latter-Day Saints, Mormonism]