Containing 109 items of retained records of Reynolds Cahoon, a Mormon from 1830; who was a traveling companion of Joseph Smith, his brothers, the first presidency, and the quorum of twelve. These papers contain documents signed by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Frederick G. Williams, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, Newel K. Whitney, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Reynolds Cahoon, William F. Cahoon, Harvey Stanley, Alvin A. Avery, William Clayton, Isaac Higbee, and a number of other authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Documents were written to and from Zion (Jackson County, Missouri), northwestern Missouri, Kirtland (Ohio), Quincy (Illinois), Commerce and Nauvoo (Illinois), Liverpool (England), Glasgow (Scotland), along the Mormon Trail (Chariton River, Winter Quarters, Council Bluffs, Linden, Loup Fork, and Devil’s Gate),the Territory of Utah (Great Salt Lake City, Provo, Big Cottonwood, and Camp Floyd), present day Nevada (Genoa and Carson City, Territory of Utah), California (Lake Tahoe, El Dorado, Sacramento and San Bernardino), Vancouver Island (British Columbia), and Fort Limhi (presently Idaho). A number of valuable printed broadsides are also in the collection from Nauvoo and the settlement of the Territory of Utah.
Highlights
• The manuscript autobiography of Reynolds Cahoon, 1830-1845. 30-50
• A manuscript Saints’ hymn signed by Parley P. Pratt written on the first mission in Zion (Missouri), 1831, the earliest of his writings anywhere. 100-200
• 4 of the earliest of priesthood licenses, 1831-1836, signed by Oliver Cowdery, Frederick G. Williams, and Joseph Smith. 100-150
• The manuscript autobiography of Kirtland seventy Arvin Allen Avery, 1845. 10-15
• A financial document from Hyrum Smith and Kirtland seventy Harvey Stanley. 5-10
• The earliest of bishop’s recommends, Kirtland to Far West, signed Newel K. Whitney, 1838. 25-50
• 2 letters from old Kirtland resident Mary Smith to Nauvoo, 1839 and 1845. 5
• A letter from the Mormons in Nauvoo when it was still named Commerce, 1839. 5-10
• A recommendation for the presiding elder of the Quincy branch when he was over all the Mormons who fled from Missouri, 1840. 15-30
• A letter addressed to Nauvoo from a Kirtland resident who describes the sound of Joseph Smith praying, 1841. 15-30
• An Illinois bankruptcy declaration from a Mormon who declared bankruptcy with Joseph Smith, 1842. 5
• 4 Nauvoo land indentures signed by Joseph Smith, William Clayton, Isaac Higbee, Reynolds Cahoon, and others, 1843-1846. 10-20
• 3 patriarchal blessings given by the Smiths in Nauvoo, two beautifully presented, and the third a more rare draft that shows the recipient paying for the later finer copies, 1845. 15-30
• The secret Nauvoo temple diary kept by Reynolds Cahoon who was with the Twelve in the temple when the first endowments were given, and one of three on the committee to build the temple, 1845-1846. 100-200
• A Nauvoo temple financial document, 1846. 5
• The earliest manuscript temple recommend, for the Nauvoo temple baptismal font, 1846. 15-25
• One bifolio of a detailed Nauvoo census describing Nauvoo homes, 1846. 10-15
• A rare Circular of the High Council, 1846, a broadside announcing the move to the West. 15-30
• A letter addressed to Reynolds Cahoon at Nauvoo negotiating land sales, 1846. 5
• A manuscript hymn carried on the Mormon Trail, 1846. 5
• 9 letters from Reynolds Cahoon and his sons detailing the intense hardships, spiritual blessings, and human frailties along the Mormon Trail,1846-1849. 75-150
• A letter from Elizabeth Ann Whitney, wife of Newel K. Whitney, on the Mormon Trail, deciding to preserve the Relief Society as its quorum president, and mentioning an unknown revelation from Joseph Smith about building another temple, 1846. 60-120
• 8 letters from the Nauvoo area written to the Camp of Israel describing the abandonment in Nauvoo, 1846. 40-60
• 7 letters from missionary Andrew Cahoon who accompanied authorities to England and Scotland and brought home three women who were born sisters and heiresses and married all of them, 1847-1848. 35-75
• 2 letters from El Dorado, California, related to Brigham Young and the Gold Rush, and the Mormon settlement of San Bernardino, 1850-1851. 10-15
• An early 1853 letter from a Missouri martyr’s family from the Mormon outpost of Provo five years before the Move South. 5-10
• The rare Deseret News—Extra, August 25, 1853, an important proclamation to settlers on the Indian War that announced within that it was already rare on the date it was printed. 10-20
• 3 rare ornamental broadsides from events hosted by Brigham Young in 1854, 1856, and 1857; all on special stationary and in fine condition; dramatic and controversial. 15-25
• 9 tithing, territorial, county, and city tax receipts, and one cheque from the church, 1851-1859; printed on matching stationary and with matching printer’s ornamental fonts. 20-40
• 2 manuscripts, one a detailed letter and one a hymn, from Fort Limhi, the Mormon settlement in Oregon Territory that was the Brigham Young’s “Lamanite” mission, 1857. 10-20
• Reynolds Cahoon’s 1856 diary or book of memoranda. 5
• An 1857 trail letter that puts the news about the death of Parley P. Pratt, the approach of the U.S. troops, the emigrant party from Arkansas, and the mission of “Wild Bill” Hickman all in one letter before news about any of the four arrived in Utah Territory. 20-40
• 3 documents about the Nauvoo Legion; two muster rolls, including one listing dozens of important earlier Mormons, some mentioned in the Book of Commandments, 1851-1857. 10-15
• A partly printed broadside signed by Brigham Young to Reynolds Cahoon, 1857. 15-20
• A manuscript Mormon hymn composed for the Utah War, 1857. 5
• 13 letters written primarily by a sixteen year old polygamous bride at the Mormon Settlement at the Sierra Nevada, some signed by two wives to the same husband, when there were scarcely a dozen women in all of what is now Nevada, 1856. 50-80
• 2 letters from the same marriages in Vancouver Island during the Utah War, 1858. 10-20
• 8 items from Sacramento, Carson City, and Lake Tahoe regarding Mormons and silver, the Comstock Lode, 1860-1864. 10-15
• 3 letters from Camp Floyd, Territory of Utah, including a request to get onto a jury,1858. 5
• 3 additional items, one 1861 family letter on the death of Reynolds Cahoon, one 1865 civil war letter, and one later cabinet card family photograph. 5
Reynolds Cahoon (1790-1861) fought in the War of 1812, moved to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1825 as a neighbor to Newel K. Whitney, Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, and Frederick G. Williams before any of them were Mormons. He was employed at the N. K. Whitney ashery. He was a prosperous leather tanner and shoemaker when he became a Mormon in October or November 1830. He was baptized by Parley P. Pratt, ordained an elder by Sidney Rigdon, and ordained a high priest by Lyman Wight when the first group of high priests were chosen for that new and debated office in June 1831. He was a missionary companion to Samuel H. Smith (called as companions in D&C 52:30 and 61:35) and Hyrum Smith (called as companions in D&C 75:32) and an early traveling companion of Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Parley P. Pratt, and David Whitmer. He introduced William E. McLellin to Mormonism. Joseph and Samuel H. Smith were with Reynolds when Joseph wrote several revelations. He was appointed in October 1831 to secure funds for the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. He was ordained a counselor to Kirtland bishop Newel K. Whitney and later a counselor to Kirtland stake president William Marks. He led the building committees of both the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples (called for this in D&C 94: 14-15), and with Joseph and Hyrum he was in charge when they dedicated the site for the Far West temple. He was in Fayette, New York, with Joseph and Oliver Cowdery; and in both Jackson County and Far West, Missouri, with Joseph Smith. He was a counselor to the Adam-ondi-Ahman stake president, and after the expulsion he was a counselor to the Iowa stake president, both in 1839, as well as taking charge of the 1839 refuge of the church majority at Quincy. He is recorded as receiving an early endowment in 1843 before the completion of the Nauvoo temple, and was a member of the Council of Fifty. He was originally in the Carthage jail with Joseph and Hyrum, but returned to Nauvoo before they were killed in 1844. He was counselor to Brigham Young in the “Camp of the Saints,” served in an extended stay at Winter Quarters, and then arrived in Utah in 1848 where he faded from prominence but not from honors, and he died in South Cottonwood in 1861.
Thirza Stiles (1789-1866) married Reynolds Cahoon in 1810, Mrs. Lucina Roberts Johnson (1806-?) married Reynold Cahoon in 1845, and Mary Hildrath married Reynolds Cahoon (?-?) in 1846. Thirza was baptized in 1830, and was a charter member of the “Relief Society” in Nauvoo. She lived in and traveled to the gathering places of the Saints with her husband, including moves from Kirtland to Far West and that region, then back to Quincy, the Iowa side, and Nauvoo, and finally to Winter Quarters, before settling Utah. She was the mother of seven and grandmother of fifty-two. Her correspondence with her husband is present in these papers, and accounts from Mormon women are more rare than those of men. These papers are from the following children of Reynolds Cahoon and Thirza Stiles who survived and lived in Nauvoo:
William Farrington Cahoon (1813-1893). William was baptized by Parley P. Pratt in 1830 at age seventeen, and ordained a priest Oliver Cowdery in 1831. He made free boots and shoes for missionaries in Kirtland. He was a missionary 1831-1833, companion to David W. Patten; then a missionary in 1833 with Amasa Lyman who ordained him to be an elder; part of the “Zion’s Camp” expedition to Missouri with Joseph Smith in 1834; and ordained one of the first seventy in 1835, making him a general autority. He was in the first public Mormon marriage in 1836 (by Joseph Smith), settled in Far West and Adam-ondi-Ahman where he was a prisoner of persecutors, and was a carpenter and framing foreman on the Nauvoo temple in 1844. He oversaw emigration through Nebraska until 1849, associating with his father and his father’s partner Alpheus Cutler, before catching up with the pioneers in Utah. These Cahoon papers include his correspondence from the “Camp of the Saints” and Camp Floyd, Territory of Utah.
Pulaski Stephen Cahoon (1819-1892). Pulaski was presumably baptized with his parents in 1830. He worked on the Kirtland temple and controversially oversaw stone cutters for the Nauvoo temple, but later remained near the early Mormon refuge of Quincy, Illinois, and across the Mississippi from there in northeast Missouri because of blindness. But as a teenager would have traveled in proximity to his parents through the Missouri movements of the Mormons. In 1841, Joseph Smith used the Nauvoo Legion under orders from the City Council, and “pulled down” a grog shop run by Pulaski (at age 21), which foreshadowed the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor office three years later. In 1840, he was married to Louisa Leopold (1822-1890) who was born in Kirtland before the arrival of the Mormons, and they were sealed by Brigham Young in 1846. Her correspondence is also included here. Settling down in Missouri, he continued the family trades of carpentry and a leather shop, while blind, and patented a lathe chuck for turning oval instead of round, again while blind. He received the first edition Book of Mormon (an item separately discovered by John Hajicek) that Hyrum Smith owned as the first one out of the Palmyra bindery, inscribed “Hyrum Smith’s Book,” “Pulaski S. Cahoon’s Book Bought of Hiram Smith Kirtland Febr the 11th 1832”, and “Pulaski S. Cahoon’s Book Bo’t of Hiram Smith.”
Daniel Stiles Cahoon (1822-1903). Daniel was baptized in 1831 by William E. McLellin. He lived at Kirtland in the home of Joseph Smith; he likely traveled close to his parents in the camp of Saints that emigrated to Caldwell and Davies Counties, Missouri; and then in the flight from Missouri to Quincy. He was a stone cutter for the Nauvoo temple, he carved one of the oxen for the Nauvoo baptismal font, and he was known as the “second-best stonecutter” who worked on the temple. In 1843, and 1847, he married two women—born sisters; his brother would marry three women who were sisters. He was ordained into the first quorum of seventy in late 1844, and afterwards was the president of the thirty-sixth quorum under the direction of Brigham Young. These papers contain his trail correspondence before settling in Utah.
Andrew Cahoon (1824-1900). He was presumably baptized about 1832, and of course lived in Kirtland, Missouri, and Nauvoo with the Mormons, in all of their flights from persecution. He wrote the first constitution for the “Young Men’s” organization at Nauvoo. He was also a stone cutter for the Nauvoo temple. He arrived in Garden Grove, Iowa, in May 1846 to join the “Camp of the Saints” and carried the mail from Nauvoo, and then returned to Nauvoo with mail. As part of the high council in Winter Quarters, he formed the first white settlement in present day Nebraska, where 700 Mormons died of exposure that winter. But Andrew had departed for a mission to England and Scotland in November 1846 where he served as a district president; and in February 1848 he left Scotland and rejoined the camp at Winter Quarters on 18 May 1848 with one hundred and twenty new converts, including three women whom he married as instructed by Brigham Young, all three born sisters of each other. In California for the Gold Rush, 1850-1852, he is said to have surveyed and laid out San Bernardino, California, a year before its purchase by the church and settlement there of five hundred other Mormons; there is an argument that Cajon Pass (pronounced ka-hoon) into San Bernardino was originally Cahoon Pass. In 1856, he was called by Brigham Young to go to Las Vegas in the capacity of a bishop. In 1874 he left the church over personal differences with Brigham Young, but in 1884 wrote an articulate and passionate editorial defending polygamy and the Mormons. He was the brightest naturally of the Cahoon family, as these letters illustrate. These papers contain his correspondence as a missionary to England and Scotland, writings from the Mormon Trail, settlement in El Dorado, California, during the Gold Rush; and Camp Floyd, after the Utah War.
Mahonri Moriancumer Cahoon (1834-1888). This youngest son’s principal accomplishment was at birth, in being famously named by Joseph Smith: “While residing in Kirtland, Elder Reynolds Cahoon had a son born to him. One day when President Joseph Smith was passing his door he called the Prophet in to bless and name the baby. Joseph did so and gave the boy the name of Mahonri Moriancumer. When he had finished the blessing he laid the child on the bed, and turning to Elder Cahoon said, ‘The name I have given your son is the name of the brother of Jared; the Lord has just shown (or revealed) it to me.’ Elder William F. Cahoon, who was standing near, heard the Prophet make this statement to his father; and this was the first time the name of the brother of Jared was known in the Church in this dispensation.” The name of “Moriancumer” as the answer to the unnamed “brother of Jared” in the Book of Mormon first appears in Mormon teachings in the April 1835 issue of the Messenger and Advocate within the letters of Oliver Cowdery, whilst Mahonri Moriancumer was born earlier on 26 July 1834. He is immortalized in the number of people named after him, including the Mormon artist Mahonri Young (the son of Mahonri Moriancumer Young, the son of Brigham Young), and his (Cahoon’s) given name was mentioned as a curiosity among Joseph Smith’s family birth names in an 1869 English book entitled Greater Britain. At 16, he accompanied his 26-year-old brother Andrew to the gold rush 1850-1852, and returned to Great Salt Lake City to take a Romney bride in 1853.
Thirza Lerona Stanley Taylor (1839-?), a granddaughter raised by Reynolds Cahoon after her young mother, Lerona Eliza Cahoon (1817-1840) died at Montrose, Iowa Territory; her father was Harvey Stanley (1814-?) one of the seventy in Kirtland. An early daughter and granddaughter of Kirtland old residents and general authorities on both sides of her family, she emigrated to Utah as a child and in 1856 married Hilliard Burnham Taylor (1824-?) whose correspondence is also present. Hilliard was baptized in Great Salt Lake City in 1854, married his first wife Asenath Eleanor Lufkin (born in New Hampshire in 1827) in 1854, and married Thirza two years later when his first wife was twenty-eight and his new wife was sixteen (he was thirty-two). Thirza pioneered at the Sierra Nevada five years before Nevada Territory was organized; at Sacramento, California; at Lake Tahoe; and at Carson City, Nevada Territory; and even on Vancouver Island, often alone in settlements of men as a sixteen-year-old bride.
Provenance: Reynolds Cahoon (to 1861), Thirza Cahoon (his wife, to 1865), Andrew Cahoon (hisson, presumably to 1874), Daniel Stiles Cahoon (another son of Reynolds Cahoon, presumably to1903), Charles Henry Cahoon (1856-1946, his son) and possibly shared with Alpha Alonzo Cahoon(1873-1942, another son of Daniel S.Cahoon), Louis Randall Cahoon (1902-1984, son of CharlesH. Cahoon), Varlo R. Cahoon (1939-2002, son of Louis R. Cahoon) and possibly shared withClayton K. Cahoon (born about 1904, the son of Alpha A. Cahoon), Gary Cahoon (his son, to 30April 2007), to John Hajicek (Mormon historian, Independence, Missouri, to 2010).
The Holograph Autobiography
Of an 1830 Mormon
1. CAHOON, Reynolds. Holograph autobiography, 1845, 1 page, small quarto (7 ⅞ x 9 ⅝), subsequently folded to envelope-size, with mend on center horizontal fold. Registered on the verso, “Journal & History.”
Genealogy from grandfather, ancestry in Scotland, Rhode Island, New York, Ohio. Baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints 16 October 1830 (with period marginal note “Baptized by Elder P P Pratt”), ordained elder by Sidney Rigdon March 1831, ordained high priest at June conference 1831 (with period marginal note “under the hands of L. Wight”), traveled to Missouri with 24 elders June 1831, returned to Ohio. September 1831, ordained counselor to Bishop Whitney with Hyrum Smith, December 1831. Called by revelation to build Lord’s House in Kirtland, Ohio, labored on House of the Lord with Hyrum Smith by the counsel of Joseph Smith, laid cornerstone of Temple July 1833 with bishop and high council. Assembly, dedication, and endowment 6 April 1836. Ordained by William Marks to be his counselor in the Stake at Kirtland, 1837, moved to Missouri 4 March 1838, driven from Missouri to Illinois, one of three appointed (with Alpheus Cutler and Elias Higbee) to build Temple of the Lord in Nauvoo, Illinois.
Cahoon was one of the first converts of Pratt in 1830, who was himself baptized a month before Cahoon. He was one of the first high priests ordained in June 1831. He was demonstrably one of the most important associates of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, especially in Kirtland, Ohio, but also in Nauvoo, Illinois, and on the first mission to Zion in 1831. This document is an important documentation of the early date of high priests, which became a controversy for many of the Book of Mormon witnesses.
Manuscript Poem from Parley P. Pratt
Written in Zion, His Earliest Known Manuscript
2. PRATT, Parley. Manuscript hymn “A Song of Zion By Parley,” artistically autographed “Parley P. Pratt” and integrally signed “By Parley,” and dedicated “To Mrs Clarisa Chapen of Independence Jacson County Misourie” (evidently Miss Clarissa Melissa Chapin, the daughter of Adolphus Chapin, a Mormon identified from the Whitmer settlement in Zion, Jackson County, Missouri), 2 pages, 7 ¾ x 12 ⅝, afterward folded into eighths, with mend on center vertical fold.
This is the “Historical Sketch from the Creation to the Present Day. In Three Parts.” which appears as “Song 1. (Common Metre)” in The Millennium, A Poem, to Which Is Added Hymns and Songs on Various Subjects, New and Interesting, Adapted to the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times (Boston: Printed for Elder Parley P. Pratt, Author and Proprietor, 1835), pages 31-36, and also Pratt’s The Millennium and Other Poems (New York: 1840), pages 31-39. Pratt’s Millennium preceded all other Mormon publications except the first edition Book of Mormon, the Book of Commandments, the Evening and the Morning Star and Messenger and Advocate (with the broadsides and extras published by those two papers). Therefore this is the earliest known Mormon hymn, the manuscript to the first Mormon hymn printed in a book, and the earliest privately held manuscript part of a Mormon book. Further, it is the earliest surviving writing or publication by Parley P. Pratt. Likely this was obtained between 14 July and 9 August 1831 when Cahoon visited Missouri.
Thirty-five stanzas, including:
33 This land was peopled with a race
Which long had dwelt alone
No record nor tradition traced
Their origin unknown
34 But latter ages has disclosed
The truth so long concealed
The record found beneath the ground
Has glorious things revealed
35 This land is the land which Moses blessed
To Joseph and his seed
These ware the everlasting hills
It was for his bounds decried
. . . By Parley
Documents of Oliver Cowdery,
Book of Mormon Witness
3. COWDERY, Oliver. Holograph document signed twice “Oliver Cowdery, An Elder,” at Hiram, Ohio, 1831. 2 pages, 7 ¾ x 3 ¼, oblong, folded into quarters with mend on the center vertical fold.
“This certifies that Reynolds Cahoon, A member of this Church of Christ organized on the 6th of April 1830, has been ordained an Elder of said Church under the hand of Sidney Rigdon, an Elder of this Church, May 1831. This is therefore to give him authority to act in the office of his calling according to the Articles and Covenants of said Church. Oliver Cowdery, An Elder, Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, October 1831.”
On verso, “This certifies that the within named Elder has been ordained to the office of the High Priesthood according to revelation. Oliver Cowdery, An Elder and High Priest of this Church. Hiram, Nov. 12, 1831.”
Edgewise, “Elder Reynolds Cahoon’s License, Oct. 1831.”
Oliver Cowdery, the Second Elder of the Church next to Joseph Smith, who co-founded the Church, was the presumed compiler of the Articles and Covenants” (now D&C 20) of the Church from the revelations of Joseph Smith. An exceedingly early Mormon document created the year after Oliver Cowdery witnessed the Book of Mormon, supposed to be as early as any known Cowdery document.
This a highly dramatic document related to the institution of “High Priest” as an office of the Church, which was difficult for the other Book of Mormon witnesses and other Church founders to accept.
A First Presidency Recommend
4. WILLIAMS, Frederick G. Holograph document signed “F. G. Williams” as clerk, 25 January 1832, 1 page plus note on verso, 7 ⅞ x 2 ½, oblong.
“A conference of Elders, Priests, Teachers, & Deacons of the Church of Jesus Christ certify that Reynolds Cahoon, the bearer of this, after due examination of his moral character and Christianments was found worthy to receive these testimonials from under our hands, we therefore certify that he is a regularly ordained Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ, and we hereby authorise him to preach the gospel of our Lord and Saviour and recommend him to all nations, Kindreds, Tongues and People as a man of God and a friend to mankind. Given under our hands at Amherst, Lorain County, Ohio, the 25th day of January 1832. F. G. Williams, Clk. of conference.” On verso, “Reynolds Cahoon, Elders License, Jan. 1832.”
Williams would later serve as a counselor to Joseph Smith in the first presidency of the Church. Williams and Cahoon are shown as Kirtland neighbors in the 1830 U.S. Census.
A First Presidency Recommend
Second Form
5. WILLIAMS, Frederick G. Holograph document signed artistically “F. G. Williams” as clerk, 25 January 1832, 1 page plus note on verso, 7 ⅞ x 4 ⅛, oblong, mended along folds.
“A conference of Elders, Priests, Teachers, and Deacons of the Church of Jesus Christ, certify that Reynolds Cahoon, the bearer of this, after due examination of his moral deportment and Christian attainments, was found worthy to receive these testimonials from under our hands, we therefore certify that he is a regularly ordained Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ, and we hereby authorise him to preach the gospel of our Lord and Saviour and recommend him to all nations, Kindreds, Tongues, and People as a man of God and a friend to mankind. Given under our hand, at Amherst, Lorain County, Ohio, the 25th day of January 1832.” On verso, “Reynolds Cahoon, A license to Reynolds Cahoon, Elder, Jan. 25, 1832.”
A Joseph Smith Recommend
Third Form, License
6. SMITH, Joseph Jr. and Frederick G. Williams. Partly printed document “To Whom it May Concern,” signed “Joseph Smith Jr.” as chairman and “F. G. Williams,” as clerk, Kirtland, Ohio, 3 March 1836 (dated in manuscript 20 May 1836), 1 page plus recording on verso, 7 ⅞ x 2 ⅞, oblong.
An exceptional partly printed certificate of membership, authorization to preach,“letter of commendation,” and “proof of our fellowship” as an elder, issued to Reynolds Cahoon, printed on the Kirtland press and signed in manuscript by two presidents of the Church, including Joseph Smith, the prophet, printed with the name of the “church of Latter Day Saints.” Recording facts are certified on the verso by Thomas Burdick, recording clerk.
A Kirtland Seventy Holograph Autobiography
7. AVERY, Arvin Allen. Manuscript autobiography signed, entitled on verso “A. A. Avery’s Chronology” [1845], 1 page plus identification on verso, 7 ⅞ x 7 ¼.
Places and dates of birth for himself and wife, Francis M. Babbit, and children, one born in Kirtland, Ohio, 18 June 1836, one named for Lester Brooks, 7 March 1845 (Brooks was in the presidency of the stake at Kirtland when it experienced a resurgence in 1841). In 1845 his “availables consists of one span of horses not very valuable and one harness and accounts to the amount of 150 dollars rather uncertain” (perhaps Kirtland bank notes or other uncollectible accounts).
Avery was one of the Seventies in Kirtland, Ohio. According to the Messenger and Advocate, he received his license on the same day as Reynolds Cahoon on 3 June 1836. He remained in Ohio after the exodus from Kirtland. No other connection with Cahoon is known that would explain this 1845 manuscript entering the Cahoon papers, except that he lived at the hometown of Reynolds Cahoon.
Hyrum Smith Document
8. SMITH, Hyrum. Manuscript note payable to “Hyrum Smith or bearer” (Reynolds Cahoon), signed “Harvey Stanley,” but the body is apparently in the hand of Hyrum Smith, Kirtland, Ohio, 6 July 1836, 1 page plus note on verso, 7 ¾ x 1 ¾, oblong, separating at folds.
A financial instrument from Kirtland, Ohio, where the Mormons were plagued by banking and finance troubles. “Due Hyrum Smith or bearer fifty nine dollars two years from date with use for value received.” Harvey Stanley (1814-?) was a resident of Kirtland before the arrival of the Mormons, a member of “Zion’s Camp,” one of the first quorum of seventy, was married to the daughter of Reynolds by Joseph Smith on the same day that his son William F. Cahoon was married by the prophet, and Stanley was member of the Kirtland Safety Society Banking Company. These two simultaneous weddings, earlier that year, were the first public Latter Day Saint weddings. He was in Ashtabula, Ohio, with the Cahoons before they all emigrated to Kirtland; and he died in California. Stanley, then, as the son-in-law of Reynolds Cahoon, hauled the first stone out of the Kirtland temple quarry, and laid the last capstone (distinct from the sun stone capital) on the Nauvoo temple under the direction of Reynolds. Reynolds Cahoon and Hyrum Smith, were, of course, missionary companions. The value of the note was equal to two months labor. The verso has a record, “Wm. Cahoon & H. Stanley: note $59.00, interest 15.34, $74.34,” on six lines.
The First Mormon Bishop’s Recommend
9. WHITNEY, Newel K. Holograph document signed, “N. K. Whitney, Bishop of S’d Church,” recommend “To the Bishop of the Church of Latterday Saints in the Far West,” Kirtland, Ohio, 3 March 1838, 1 page plus note on verso, 7 ⅞ x 3 ⅜, irregularly cut, one fold mended.
“This may certify that President Reynolds Cahoon is in good standing in the Church in Kirtland, Ohio, and agreeable to a vote of said Church I hereby recommend him as a faithful brother to all the Saints where ever he may find them.”
This is an astounding earliest example of a bishop’s recommend, as the Church disintegrated in Kirtland, Ohio, in the fallout of the Kirtland bank failure and the U.S. economic system was in upheaval, Joseph Smith fled Kirtland on 12 January and arrived in Far West on 14 March. Whitney and Cahoon were old residents of Kirtland from before the organization of the Church, and Cahoon presumably left Kirtland on 2 March and arrived in Far West on 7 June, when Joseph recorded “I visited with Elders Reynolds Cahoon and Parley P. Pratt who had this day arrived in Far West . . . And our hearts were made glad with the pleasing intelligence of the gathering of the Saints from all parts of the world.” They next day, again, Joseph spent his time “visiting Elder Cahoon at the place he had selected for his residence.” William F. Cahoon would write of their departure from Kirtland: “We turned the key and locked the door of our homes, leaving our property and all we possessed in the hands of enemies and strangers, never receiving a cent for anything we owned.”
A Kirtland Great-grandmother
10. SMITH, Mary. Autograph letter signed “Mary Smith” addressed to “Mr. Reyonald [sic] Cahoon,” and saluting “Dear & ever to be respected children,” datelined “Kirtland, September 22, 1839,” 1 page, quarto (7 ⅞ x 12 ⅝), sealed with wax, with integral address page as verso, with addressee on address panel but without address or postmark. Pencil notation of William F. Cahoon, “Letter from Grandmother Smith Cahoon.”
An affectionate letter arranged largely in poetic verse. “Kirtland . . . My health is as good as can be expected for a woman of my age. You wish to know how I enjoy life. As well as I expect to, & better than you anticipated. . . . Betsy is dead . . . And I hope we all shall meet her, In that blessed world above. . . . Rynold; I have that watch that was your father’s if you live longer then I do, it is yours. Thirza; this string of gold beeds which I now were are yours, after I have done with them. Produce this letter in any futer [future] day, it will percure [procure] you the above artickals when I am gone from earth. Mary Smith. . . . [postscript] if Mr. Whitney [Newel K. Whitney] comes to your house send me letter . . .” Apparently hand-delivered by emigrants or missionaries traveling from Kirtland to Nauvoo or Quincy.
This Mary Smith (1774-1863), is the step-mother of Reynolds Cahoon, who is buried in the North Kirtland Cemetary, as the remarried wife of Elijah Smith. The mother of Reynolds died in 1809 before the family emigrated to the Western Reserve. His father William married Mary in 1809 in Kirtland, and then he died in 1828 and was buried in Kirtland. She married Elijah Smith in 1836 and he died in 1855 and was buried in Kirtland. Last of all she died in 1863 and was buried in Kirtland. She is not the only Mary Smith buried there, as Mary Smith the grandmother of Joseph Smith is buried in the same cemetery. Elijah Smith, the new husband of Mary, was the uncle of Newel K. Whitney’s wife, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, and N. K. Whitney operated his first store out of Elijah Smith’s log cabin.
11. SMITH, Mary. Autograph letter signed “Mary Smith,” undated, addressed to “Mr. Reynolds [sic] Cahoon, Nauvoo” and saluting “Dear Children, Grandchildren & a great grandchild,” with a postscript: “This letter I send by Sister Winters who will leave Kirtland next week for the City of Joseph.” 1 page, quarto (8 x 12 ½), in blue ink, sealed with wax, with integral address page as verso, with addressee on address panel but without address or postmark.
Mary Smith writes that she is “as well as can be expected for a person of my age,” which she gives as almost seventy-one years. Responds to Cahoons “fearing that you will be killed by a Mob! or have to leave your beautifull [sic] City. She again promises his father’s gold watch and gold beads for Thirza. As this letter mentions the “City of Joseph” it is tentatively dated 1845. According to the diary of Reynolds Cahoon, in 1845, Andrew Cahoon visited Mary Smith at Kirtland and procured this gold watch for his father Reynolds.
Commerce before Nauvoo was Nauvoo
12. CAHOON, Pulaski S. Autograph letter signed, “P. S. Cahoon, Esq.” to “Most Expedient Father” (Reynolds Cahoon), dated at Commerce (Nauvoo), Illinois, 27 December 1839, 2 pages, small quarto (7 ⅞ x 9 ¾), rough left edge.
Reports about family and inquired about family including Mahonri Moriancumer Cahoon (age five), selling and sales of goods, transactions with Mr. Right, Mr. (Ebenezer) Robinson, Mr. (John P.) Green(e), visiting Carthage, Illinois, with Mr. (Stephen) Markham. An extraordinarily early letter from the town that would become Nauvoo, the City of Joseph. This also shows an interesting connection to the Greene family, for the Cahoons and Greenes had a similar relationship with Joseph Smith in Kirtland and Nauoo; and after John P. Greene died three months after Joseph (some said from chagrin, others said he was found floating in the Mississippi River for advocating the claims of James J. Strang), his son John Y. Greene associated with the Cahoon sons both in Utah and in California.
The Missouri Exodus to Quincy and then Nauvoo
13. SLOAN, James. Holograph document signed, “James Sloan,” as clerk of the branch of the church at Quincy, Illinois, 18 March 1840, one page plus two notes, “Recommendation at Quincy,” and date on verso, 7 ½ x 4 ⅛, oblong, mended.
“To the Church of Christ of Latter day Saints, in Commerce or elsewhere, This is to certify that Reynolds Cahoon has been with us for the last twelve months, the greater part of which time he has been (up to this period), presiding Elder in this the Quincy Branch of said Church, and has manifested by his faith and good works, to be a worthy Brother, and as such he be recommended to all the faithful in Christ Jesus; done by vote of the Church at Quincy, Illinois, this 18th day of March 1840. James Sloan, Clerk of said Branch of the Church.”
James Sloan would become the clerk of the city council of Nauvoo, the clerk of general conferences at Nauvoo, and the clerk for patriarchal blessings given by Hyrum Smith. Quincy was a safe haven for Mormons fleeing Missouri in 1839 prior to their settlement of Commerce which they renamed Nauvoo. This recommend is a unique forerunner to later temple recommends, independent of priesthood authorization.
The Sound of Joseph Smith Praying
14. TYLER, Clarissa. Autograph letter signed “Clarissa Tyler” to “Dear Brother & Sister in the Lord” (within, Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon) addressed to “Mr. Reynolds Cahoon, Nauvoo, Ill.” Dated July 5, 1841, and postmarked Columbus, Ind., July 6 [1841]. 3 pages small quarto (7 ¾ x 10), bifolio with integral address panel on page four.
Communication about seeing each other last, the death of Cahoon’s daughter Lerona: “. . . in her you lost a beloved daughter but your loss was her unspeakable gain, she was not happy hear [sic] and I hope she now rest[s] in the paridice of God. . . my mind has been filled with the ways of this world and have not enjoyed that portion of God’s spirit that I have in former days when we could sit and converse together about the things of the Kingdom of God our hearts would after be carried above things of this fading wourld. . . . we are now seperated [sic] far from each other and . . . how often I lament that I have not the privilege now that I once had I have no one to strengthen or to converce with about the things of God but Mr. Brewster and Chloe and I cannot use the freedom that I did when with you. Oh that I could enjoy such days once more when the candle of the Lord shone around about and his Holy Spirit alumanated my path continualy [sic] . . . Give my love to Br. Joseph and Sister Emma. Tell them that I request an interest in their prayers together with yours. Tell Br. Joseph that I have thought if I could have his prayers and hear that hearty amen that I have heard on former occasions for Mother Rigdon I should be restored to my health and the spirit of the Lord would attend it. Give my love to all of your family and all of the Brethren and Sisters that enquire after me . . . we found a few scattered Brethren hear [sic] poor in property and very weak in faith. They met together last winter and were formed into a church. Mr. Brewster has the charge of them.”
Calls herself “Aunty” to Mahonri (Moriancumer) Cahoon. For her to know Mahonri, born in 1834, and Joseph and Emma Smith, who left Kirtland in 1838, and Mother Rigdon who is not known at any other gathering place besides Kirtland, it is evident that Clarissa Tyler lived at Kirtland sometime 1834-1838 and is either the Clarissa Tyler from Erie County, Pennsylvania; or a sister of Thirza Stiles whose parents were David O. and Abigail Farrington Stiles.
Any glimpse into the personality of Joseph Smith that evokes an imagination of the sound of his voice is a treasure.
Joseph Smith and Reynolds Cahoon Go Bankrupt
15. CAHOON, Reynolds. Printed document signed James F. Owings, as clerk fo the district court for the district of Illinois. Reynolds Cahoon declared bankrupt, 5 October 1842. Embossed seal of the district court, 1 page, quarto (7 ½ x 12 ⅜).
This is a handsomely printed and preserved legal document. Cahoon surrendered his property and rights to property to his creditor and was discharged from his debts following his petition to be declared bankrupt. Congress passed a bankruptcy act effective 1 February 1842 in response to the banking collapse of 1837 that included the Kirtland Safety Society Banking Company. Mormons who immediately filed for bankruptcy simultaneous with Cahoon in 1842 included two dozen men such as Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Samuel H. Smith, Sidney Rigdon, John P. Greene, and Vinson Knight. Abraham Lincoln, practicing law in Illinois, brought a non-Mormon bankruptcy case before the same court that year.
Joseph Smith, Recorder
16. SMITH, Joseph, Robert D. Foster, and William Clayton. Partly printed document signed thrice by “R. D. Foster” and “Robert D. Foster” as Justice of the Peace. Indenture conveying the west ¼ of lot 4, block 1, in Wells Addition, Nauvoo, Illinois, from Edmund L. Brown and Mary Brown to Reynolds Cahoon, 25 July 1843. On verso, recording signed “Joseph Smith, Recorder” by “William Clayton, Clerk.” 2 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ¼), tanned along edges.
The Indenture refers makes “reference to the plat of said Wells addition to Nauvoo.” The lot was about six blocks east of the Temple of which Cahoon oversaw building.
“I, Joseph Smith, Recorder in and for the said City of Nauvoo, Hancock County and State aforesaid do hereby certify the within deed and certificate of acknowledgment were this day duly recorded . . .” Datelined “Recorder’s Office, August 21st, 1843 . . . City of Nauvoo.”
Robert D. Foster is highly visible in Mormon history as a politician, traveling companion of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon on their trip to Washington, D.C., general in the Nauvoo Legion of the Illinois militia, surgeon general, and for involvement in legal issues crescendoing in the Nauvoo Expositor incident and the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. Foster, also a Nauvoo hotelier, is mentioned in a revelation to Joseph Smith, now D&C 124:115, “And again, verily I say unto you, if my servant Robert D. Foster will obey my voice, let him build a house for my servant Joseph, according to the contract which he has made with him, as the door shall be open to him from time to time.” This document associates Joseph Smith with a conspirator and actor in his martyrdom.
Edmund L. Brown, here a New Orleans resident, was presumably the Edmund L. Brown in the Mormon Battalion who became a real estate investor in California.
Nauvoo City Lots Near the Temple
17. HIGBEE, Isaac. Partly printed document signed thrice by “Isaac Higbee” as Justice of the Peace. Indenture conveying land in Kimball’s Addition, Nauvoo, Illinois, from David Nelson and Mary Nelson to Reynolds Cahoon, 16 December 1844. On verso, identification. 1 page, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12), tanned along edges.
The Indenture refers makes reference to a tenth lot on Block 3 facing east to Bluff Street in 1844, reconfigured from the 1842 Gustavus Hill map when Bluff Street was then named Woodruff Street.
Isaac Higbee was an early Mormon, baptized in 1832, ordained a high priest in 1833, emigrated to Jackson County, Missouri, in 1833, fled across the bluffs of the Missouri River into Clay County, worked on the Kirtland temple, was in the battle of Crooked River near Far West, Missouri, in 1838, fled across the Mississippi River in 1839, appointed by Joseph Smith to be a bishop in Nauvoo in 1840, fled Nauvoo, with the first to settle Provo in 1849, first stake president in Provo in 1851 (his son was the first to be buried in Provo after being killed by Indians in Provo), the first postmaster in Provo, and the first chief justice of Utah County.
Pair of Revelatory Smith Blessings at Nauvoo
18. SMITH, John. “Thirza Cahoon’s Patriarchal Blessing.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ⅞ x 9 ⅝), bifolio, with beautiful calligraphy and penmanship in blue ink. Folded as if a letter with integral label on page four. “A Blessing give at Nauvoo, Jan’y, 24th 1845, by John Smith, Patriarch, upon the head of Thirza Cahoon, daughter of Daniel and Abig[a]il Stiles, born in Lanesborough, Connecticut, Oct. 18th 1789.”
Given by John Smith (1781-1854), the brother of Joseph Smith Sr., the father of Joseph the Seer. Patriarchal blessings were essentially father’s blessings on those who did not have a father in the Church and Kingdom of God.
Part of a pair with the blessing of her husband, this blessing says she was a lawful heir of the house and lineage of Judah, and a lawful heir to “all the power of the priesthood which is sealed upon the head of thy companion,” “power to heal thy sick children,” “thou shalt also see thy living friends in the bonds of the new and everlasting covenant according to the desire of thine heart,” “thou shalt have riches in abundance . . . inasmuch as thou wilt listen to the council of those whom the Lord hath placed over thee . . .”
There is no place called Lanesborough, Connecticut; she gave her birthplace as Connecticut again in the 1860 Census. Her obituary gave her birthplace as “Lanesborough, N.Y.,” also not a place. There is a substantial city of Lanesborough, Massachusetts.
19. SMITH, John. “Reynold’s Cahoon’s Patriarchal Blessing.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ⅞ x 9 ⅝), bifolio, with beautiful calligraphy and penmanship in blue ink. Folded as if a letter with integral label on page four. “A Blessing give at Nauvoo, Jan’y, 24th 1845, by John Smith, Patriarch, upon the head of Reynolds Cahoon, born in Cambridge, Washington Co., N.Y. April 30th 1790.“
Reynolds was blessed by the hands of John Smith as being of the House of Ephraim, and a lawful heir to the blessings given by Jacob to the sons of Joseph. High points include: “thou are appointed from the beginning to do a great work, and the Lord has given thee strength more than is common for man to enable thee to endure thy labours, he hath also given thee skill to transact business with prudence and Judgement . . . inasmuch as thou art appointed to superintend the building of the House of the Lord in Nauvoo, thou shalt be appointed to build and establish thyself a Kingdom that shall never have an end and to the increase of thy posterity there shall be no end, and thy name shall never be blotted out, but shall be had in everlasting remembrance among the saints . . . be exalted with thy companion and children to reign over a mighty Kingdom in the House of Israel to all eternity. . .”
Unusual Draft Retained by Recipient
20. SMITH, John. Reynold’s Cahoon’s Patriarchal Blessing. 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾). “Nauvoo, Jan’y 24th 1845. A Blessing by John Smith, Patriarch, upon the head of Reynolds Cahoon, born in Cambridge, Washington Co., N. York, April 30th 1790.“ Marked upside down on verso foot of verso, “Paid—Reynolds Cahoon, Recorded in Book B, on pages 295 & 6, No. 244, Albert Carrington, clerk.” Also, a signature below the blessing, “George A. Smith, scribe.”
A draft, probably created during the blessing, in the hand of Daniel S. Cahoon, and then taken to the recorder, where it was copied into the official books for a fee and a clean scribe’s copy was sold to the recipient. The draft was essentially identical to the copy, with minor differences of English.
The Secret Temple Diary
21. CAHOON, Reynolds. Holograph diary. “Reynolds Cahoon’s Book, Nauvoo, Illinois, No. 3.” 32mo. size (3 ¾ x 4 ⅞) hand stitched into scarlet limp goat. Entries in hands of Reynolds Cahoon, and Andrew and William Cahoon on behalf of Reynolds.
A beautifully scribed, purely bound, and excellently preserved diary of the most important Mormon events in their premier gathering place, Nauvoo, Illinois. This diary begins recording at the moment that the pinnacle Mormon events began: “The upper room of the temple. Dedicated on 30th November 1845. I attended with the Brethren of the Council on the occasion which took place on Sunday the last day in November 1845.”
Endowments, washings, anointings; appointed Captain over one hundred families for California Territory; sealing at Cahoon house; Andrew returns from Kirtland, he saw Mary Smith (step-mother to Reynolds), comments on father of Reynolds and his gold watch; family feasts and meetings; settlement with the Trustees by Reynolds, Daniel, and Andrew; William contributes to tithing; temple labor in relation to tithing; rough stone for Amos Davis; losses sustained by Cahoons from sale of temple property; buggy and harness from Higbees, trading goods at the temple, buying heifers at the temple, selling heifer to Orson Spencer, temple owed for lot; stone cutting for Amos Davis, details about stone work on Davis store versus temple; Whitney settling up for tithing and temple stone, sundry articles for the temple such as chalk lines; Raymond Clark; Wily and Isaac Allred.
Cahoon upset that he was charged more for rough stone than he gets for the finished stone, getting zero for his work on the Davis store, and then not credited for chalk lines bought for the temple; Cahoon needed money from Trustees to go to Ohio, received ten dollars from Kimball but could not borrow the balance needed, lost money on gold watch bought at the temple; bought a horse, saddle, bridle, and harness at the temple but could not get it added to his tithing account; Cahoon bought a gun from Whitney to help Whitney—the Trustees would put that on Cahoon’s account and credit Whitney even though “the Temple had plenty of guns for sale,” but Whitney will not help Cahoon; credits looked at closely, while debts were added right or wrong, and on occasion double charged.
Further endowments, washings, and anointings in the temple; elders who worked on washings included Gates and Hyde, Pulaski received endowment and then moved to Quincy.
Subscriptions to Music Hall, Young Gentleman and Ladies Relief Society, for the poor and general contributions, subscriptions on the temple, for the poor in general, fast days, provisions to the bishop; donations to houses for Orson Hyde, Amasa Lyman, John Smith, and Joseph Young; donations to the Nauvoo brass band, the second quorum of seventy, the seventies hall, and the seventies library.
Fighting fire at the temple on 9 February 1846; Reynolds officiates weddings with license from Carthage; deeding land with Isaac Higbee; William and Daniel starting for California Territory on 15 February 1846, Pulaski visiting from Quincy; dangers crossing the river to take provisions to Brigham; 22 March, Orson Hyde, Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball with congregation at temple then preach at grove on organization of the church.
1 March, the Camp removed from Sugar Creek; 1 and 15 March, John E. Page and Orson Hyde combat in the temple on James J. Strang; burying Orson Spencer’s wife; certificate entitling to baptismal font; Almon Babbitt and Orson Hyde preaching on tithing and consecration; preparations to travel with horses and cattle, Alpheus Cutler and family; visiting the Camp of the Saints; sold his place to G. H. Hickman but he did not close; widow Durphy (Cynthia Durfee) at Quincy store with Cahoon; efforts to trade land and brick house for provisions at Quincy, selling personal possessions even to the last handkerchief.
Complete transcript of infant’s blessing on granddaughter at “Cutler’s Park, Omaha Nation” (before Territory of Nebraska); genealogy of Christ from Matthew; Cahoon’s own generations backward.
The Earliest Temple Recommend
22. TEMPLE RECOMMEND. Manuscript document. “This may certify that Reynold’s Cahoon is entitled to the privilege of the the [sic] Baptismal Font, having paid his Tithing in full to January 12th 1846. City of Joseph, January 4th 1846. Wm. Clayton, Recorder.” 1 page, oblong (2 ⅞ x 7 ⅝), on verso: “Reynold’s Cahoon’s Tithing Certificate.”
The rule that someone could only get into the temple with a bishop’s recommend evolved from the Nauvoo experience wherein the temple was built through incomprehensible financial hardship and poverty of the members. While both the Kirtland temple and the Nauvoo temple were open to visitors, this collecting of ten percent of one’s income before ordinances necessary to salvation could be received, was a first precedent through this new temple font recommend. While many other members were issued these earliest temple recommends, they have not survived—perhaps they were surrendered. There are two transcripts of similar recommends online, one from a contemporary journal and one from a modern family history: Both are presumed lost. Further, Nauvoo temple historian Don F. Colvin has located only photocopies for his book.
Temple Banking at Nauvoo
23. [CLAYTON, William]. Holograph receipt unsigned. Small quarto (7 ⅝ x 9 ¾), afterward folded into sixteenths
“This may certify that there is due R[eynolds]. Cahoon on temple Books on settlement. $96.51.” Hand of William Clayton, note “Nauvoo” in pencil by William F. Cahoon.
An attractive note with insight into tithing books and the temple banking system, wherein the Trustees in Trust began to commingle Church property, tithing, temple funds, and personal assets; and began to make loans, collect tithing in kind, and sell merchandise on credit, credit and debit tithing accounts, charge interest, and let the Twelve have whatever they needed from tithing in kind for the support of their families, whether it was carriages, livestock, food, coats, watches, guns, and so forth.
A Description of Nauvoo
24. NAUVOO CENSUS. A bifolio of the Nauvoo emigration census listing forty-seven family members, their town where born, county, state, date, no. horses, yoke oxen, beef cattle, cows, sheep, wagons, buggies, money at interest, money in hand, available property, together with address by Lot, Block, and Addition, with a description of all real estate. Quarto (15 ½ x 12 ¼ when open), bifolio.
Descriptions like “1 Brick house, 1 Story high, 16 by 12, good cellar, valuation of house & lot $150.” Houses of 2 ½, 2 stories, 1 ½ stories, 1 story, dimensions, brick houses, stone houses, frame houses, log houses, log stables, barns, corn cribs, shops, rail fences, fruit trees—log houses as small as 13 x 13, a “perrarie” for $1,000,“20 fruit trees & well & cellar dug & stone to wall it,” or “25 apple trees, 25 peach trees.” Eight of the forty-seven were children born in Quincy or Nauvoo, the last birth date, 31 August 1845. Heads of households included:
Jeremiah Hatch [II]
Alexander Alvah
Samuel Alva
Jeremiah Hatch [I]
Henry Sanford
John Mitchel
Milo Andrus
Gideon D. Wood
Moses J. Daley
Moses Kelly
There seems to be no immediate relationship among all of the names as a whole, as their addresses are from the Wells’ Addition, Kimball’s Addition, and Warrington’s Addition and of random blocks in those additions.
This is an astounding fragment of a lost census that would have described every home and every lot in Nauvoo if all the bifolium were found.
Only Official Announcement of the Settlement of the American West
25. A CIRCULAR, OF THE HIGH COUNCIL. “To the Members of the Church of Jesus Christ [of] Latter Day Saints, and to All Whom it May Concern: Greeting.” Broadside, quarto (9 ¼ x 11 ¾), three columns with an attractive border of printer’s ornaments. At foot of column three, “Done in the City of Nauvoo on the 20th day of January, 1846.”
The high council beautifully produced this lengthy announcement in eight-point type on a broadside and circulated it in Nauvoo to alert citizens to prepare to move: “We, the members of the High Council of the Church . . . embrace this opportunity to inform you, that we intend to set out into the Western country from this place.” The leaders contemplated moving from their place by first sending an advance company of pioneers to take a printing press, farming equipment, seeds, and so forth, and build houses to prepare for the rest of the emigrants to follow. “Our pioneers are instructed to proceed West until they find a good place to make a crop, in some good valley in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains . . . in Oregon . . . the right of possessing the territory of Oregon.” The broadside says “Much of our property will be left in the hands of competent agents for sale at a low rate, for teams, for goods and for cash.” A plea was made for other citizens to let the Mormons prepare peacefully to leave, and a defense was made against accusations, “our brethren have made no counterfeit money . . . nor fed any [dissenters] to the ‘Cat-fish.’”
Selling Land for the Exodus from Nauvoo
26. HIGBEE, Isaac. Partially printed document signed thrice by “Isaac Higbee” as Justice of the Peace. Indenture conveying land in Kimball’s Addition, Nauvoo, Illinois, from Daniel S. Cahoon and Jane A. his wife, to Reynolds Cahoon, 10 February 1846 and signed 11 February. Also signed Daniel S. Cahoon and Jane A. Cahoon, and witnessed with a signature of Andrew Cahoon. Verso blank. 1 page, quarto (7 ½ x 12 ⅜).
The Indenture refers makes reference to a tenth lot on Block 3, where Reynolds previously had a commercial quality lot. As earlier stated, Isaac Higbee had Mormon history ranging from his baptism so early as 1832, to being in the first settlement at Provo in 1849. What is moving about this document was that it was executed just four days before Daniel S. Cahoon joined Brigham Young and most of the twelve in the Mississippi River crossing. Reynolds comments on this deed, the emotions of the exodus, and paying Higbee one dollar for services, in his diary.
Negotiating to Sell Nauvoo Properties
27. HICKMAN, G. H. Autograph letter signed “G. H. Hickman” addressed to “Mr. R. Cahoon, or Wm. Anderson [William or Andrew (Cahoon)], Nauvoo City, Ills.,”postmarked Farmington, Ills., Apr. 3, and datelined “Farmington, Fulton County, Ills., Apr. 1st 46.” 2 pages, quarto (7 ½ x 12 ⅝), in blue ink, sealed with wax, with integral address panel on second page.
Hickman promised money and provisions for land and home of Reynolds Cahoon in Nauvoo, but Cahoon discusses this failure to keep his promises. Discusses the market price of cattle in each location. Cahoon was trying to trade the real estate for money, cattle, horses, wagons, harness, and dry goods; Hickman failed to find cash or cattle; he proposed alternative goods or a later sale for cash through an agent. An important contextual letter about the difficulty in selling Nauvoo homes at their fair value, and in outfitting for the exodus from Nauvoo.
A Manuscript Hymn for Emigrant Families
28. CAHOON, Reynolds. Holograph manuscript, “Thee Loved ones at home.” 1 page, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), subsequently folded into eighths (wallet sized) and separated at folds, soiling especially at folds.
Popular anonymous hymn for young people, in four stanzas, composed circa 1841, “1 Be kind to thy father . . .,” “2 Be kind to thy mother . . . ,” “3 Be kind to thy brother . . . ,” and “4 Be kind to thy sister . . .” Possibly carried by Cahoon in his wallet at the separation of Cahoon from his family at the 1846 exodus from Nauvoo.
First Words From the “Camp of the Saints”
29. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of William F. Cahoon, signed “Wm. F. Cahoon,” to “Kind Parents and Friends,” dramatically datelined, “Camp of the Saints on the bank of the Shariton [Chariton] River [Iowa Territory], March 31st/[18]46” addressed to “R. Cahoon, City of Nauvoo.” 4 pages, small quarto (7 ¼ x 9), bifolio, with integral address panel on page four, wax seal, hand carried.
This Kirtland convert of 1830 was now on an exodus from the Mormon gathering places of the Midwest. Received his letter of 21 March three hours earlier, arrived with P. (Porter) Rockwell. “There is some in the Camp who are complaining with sickness, otherwise all is well.” (Emphasis added). Arrived ten days earlier, severe snow and rain, roads were drying, the Camp may move on or part of it six miles, the (Nauvoo brass) band were preparing to go, double teams to move forward because of the mud, caring for teams, hunting deer and turkies, Bro. (William) Clayton and he caught a deer, Stephen Hales killed another, a number of others, corn was scarcely for sale and high prices, advises at which price to buy when available as he follows, deed from Bro. Bent and Ira Miles, deed from Kimball at the Trustee’s Office, Bro. (William) Clayton said it was in the large “securtary” (sic) among the deeds recorded, Bro. Whitehead could find it, all deeds were put on record at Carthage, by Rockwood.
Sending whip back for team loaned to someone else, corn for horses, team returning, “He might as well wait as do lots of others. I find some go back for their families, who will not prosper.” (Porter) Rockwell, Daniel S. Cahoon was in the Spencer Company, but were on the move, Bro. Dusett arrived yesterday, news on Bro. Bolton, Gideon, Pulaski (Cahoon).
“Let me know how the Temple comes, on Strangism, & Bill Smithism, &c, &c.” That evening he wrote that they traveled seven miles, seven or more wagons broke, remaining in the morrow to repair them.
Changing Plans as the Camp has been Meandering through the Mud
30. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of William F. Cahoon, signed “Wm. F. Cahoon,” datelined, “Wednesday evening on the bank of the Grand River [Iowa Territory], April 29th 1846” addressed to “Mr. R. Cahoon, City of Joseph.” 2 pages, quarto (7 ½ x 12 ⅜), with integral address panel on page two, wax seal, hand carried.
“I have learned a little more, now things are turning. I judge that there will be but a few that will go over the mountains this season. We had a meeting to day, and now calculate to send some men only this season, probily [sic] one hundred if there is or can be provision and waggons [sic] & teams to carry what seed, grain and farming utentials & c. I think part of the camp will remain here and a part will go up north west about sixty or eighty miles and make another settlement. I shall go up & also Daniel I expect and then I shall stop till you come on.” Requests certain supplies be brought that were not considered, like: “Bro. Spencer has a small cooking stove they have it so they can put it in the tent every time they stop & they can cook at any time for five minutes whenever they stop.” Urges the bringing of milch cows as they were of great worth, and the cows learn to follow their own wagon, they carry themselves and the milch was valuable. Asked to have Gideon bring his other cow, as brethren were selling their last feather bed to get an additional cow. Much more on chains, spades, which seeds and potatoes, water cans, ink, and so forth have unanticipated value for the journey. Edwin Cutler sending this mail (the Cutlers and Cahoons were temple building associates).
Quorums for Women
Utah Will Be a Paradise
Whitney’s Revelations of Joseph Smith
31. WHITNEY, Elizabeth Ann. Autograph letter signed “Your sister in the gospel, E. A. Whitney” addressed to “Mrs. Thirza Cahoon, Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Illinois,”and saluting “Dear Sister Calhoun [sic]”, with a manuscript postmark “Camp of Israel” and datelined “Camp of Israel, Garden Grove [Iowa Territory], May 10, 1846.” 2 pages, quarto (7 ½ x 12 ⅝), with integral address on second page. Postscript: “Remember me to sister Cutler and tell her I expect to see her with you soon in the Camp of Israel. E. A. W.”
Elizabeth Ann Whitney(1800-1882) married the first Mormon bishop, Newel K. Whitney, at Kirtland, Ohio, in 1822, before there were Mormons to convert the Whitneys and Cahoons in November 1830. Obviously experiencing all of the elation of the restoration at Kirtland and Nauvoo, she was appointed first counselor to Emma Smith at the organization of the Relief Society in Nauvoo, 1842. She settled in Utah in 1848, and Newel K. Whitney died in 1850.
Here, Elizabeth wrote in part, “As one of the Mothers in Israel, I feel to address you in connection with Sister Kimball, knowing your lonely situation and imagining ourselves in that place in like circumstances, but the time is short and we rejoice in contemplating soon meeting with one of those, who has stood with us from the beginning, firm and steadfast as the everlasting hills, who has been through the trials and persecutions of the saints from the first rise and dawn of the church, in the Last Days. Strawberries have blossomed, and in two or three weeks, or four at the most, we anticipate having you at our side, together to range the great prairies of the Far West and feast on them, as the spontaneous production of the soil; This is a beautiful country, and more so as we go Westward; so I expect the place of our destination, must be almost a paradise.
“I can think of many things, I wish to say to you, but cannot express them here, but when we meet, then you will hear them from my lips. Very often Sister Kimball and I wish you here to constitute our little quorum, complete, that we might even in the wilderness go aside by ourselves, as we were wont to do, in days that are past, but I believe there are many such days, in future for us yet.
“I remember a revelation, or promise given long ago to your husband, that he should assist in constructing the third Temple, if this has faded from your memory, I now remind you of it, in order to strengthen your faith, that you may never let go that promise, and also that we shall administer, in that house, as Mothers in Israel, as we have in the preceding one. . . .”
Nauvoo Mail to “the Camp”
32. SHAW, Alonzo E. Autograph letter signed “Alonzo Shaw” addressed to “Miss Cyntha Durfey, To the Camp [Iowa Territory],” and saluting “My dear friends and Relations” directed to “Sintha Durfee,” and datelined “Nauvoo, May 17th, 1846.” 4 pages, small quarto (7 ½ x 9 ⅝), with integral address on second page. Postscript: “P. S. I wrote this just as they said, &c. A. Shaw.”
A letter on the dispersion of the Saints, scattering of their family, movements to Quincy, St. Louis, Peoria, etc.; selling teams, wagons, cattle, and cows; “Mr. Dikes and family, Levins and family all well and turned Strang-Ites,” measles and small pox in Nauvoo; information on Sherrif Backenstos; Reynolds Cahoon carrying this letter and leaving this day; Alonzo himself ends up near Galena and retired to Hannibal, Missouri; overall an insightful letter into the abandoned feeling at Nauvoo immediately following the main exodus that winter.
Alonzo E. Shaw (1823-1869) was from the Mormon missionary hotbed of Batavia, New York. He married Sophronia Durfey on 8 February 1844 in the Mormon settlement at Lima, Adams, Illinois. Sophronia was the daughter of James Durfey who died at Lima in 1844 and was buried at Nauvoo, and his widow “Cynthia Durfey” (born Cynthia Elizbeth Sowle) of Lima, who apparently emigrated with Cahoon but died at Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1847.
Nauvoo Stonecutter to the Camp of Israel
33. ARMSTRONG, Joshua. Autograph letter signed “Joshua Armstrong,” addressed to “Mr. Renals Kahoon, Camp of Isereal, [Iowa, Territory],” without postmark, datelined “Quincy, Aug. 6th, 1846.” 1 page, small quarto (7 ⅝ x 9 ⅝), with integral address on blank preliminary leaf.
Joshua Armstrong (born about 1796 in Maine) wrote to request a title to land sold by Reynolds to Armstrong, which Armstrong sold to “Brother Tuffs [Tufts].” Joshua Armstrong was the stone setter for one side of the Nauvoo temple, on the crane managing the assembly of thousand-pound stones, each part of the architectural design requiring a certain intricate cut and fitting. In that capacity, he would have worked closely with Cahoon who was in charge of temple construction, and with the Cahoon boys who were stone cutters. Armstrong expresses his intention to join Reynolds in the Spring. That did not happen, as he was living in Nauvoo in 1850 occupied as a stone cutter with considerable real estate.
Three Quincy Letters of Pulaski Cahoon to
Winter Quarters, Through Austin’s Post Office in Missouri
34. CAHOON, Pulaski. Autograph letter in the hand of Louisa Cahoon, signed “Louisa Cahoon, Pulaski Cahoon”to “Dear Father and Mother” addressed to Reynolds Cahoon at Austin’s Post Office, Huntsucker’s [Hunsaker’s] Ferry, Atchison County, Missouri, datelined Quincy, Ill., 1 January 1846 [1847], and postmarked Quincy, Ill., Jan. 13. 3 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ⅝), with integral address panel on page four.
Now at age twenty six, Pulaski visited medical college in Cincinnati to get his eyes cured by Doctor W. H. Hill, who unsuccessfully operated on Pulaski’s right eye. Andrew Cahoon took dinner with them in Cincinnati en route to English mission, Louisa mended his clothes and received updates on Reynolds, Thirza having tea, discussion with Orson Spencer, citizens of Quincy contributed to surgery expenses, Leopold brother in St. Louis contributed, passengers on river boat contributed, living with Leopold family, Pulaski wants his brother Mahonri Moriancumer (age eleven) to live with them as his assistant, Mrs. Atherton, Pulaski had two “jers” (journeymen) in his shop, John Shaw and Daniel Bull “an Englishman from Nauvoo,” and mentions a little son named Reynolds (Amos Reynolds) who genealogies show not born until April 1846.
The facts of this letter indicate it was written on 1 January 1847, not 1846. The Austin’s Post Office in Missouri was the nearest post office to Council Bluffs or Winter Quarters, and mail was directed there for all Saints including the pioneers of 1847 already at Great Salt Lake City as the fastest mail route.
Moriancumer, the Name Everyone Wanted
35. CAHOON, Pulaski. Autograph letter in the hand of Louisa Cahoon, signed “Louisa Cahoon & Pulaski Cahoon” to “Dear Father and Mother” addressed to Reynolds Cahoon with no location, datelined Quincy, Adams Co., 2 March 1847, and 3 March, and hand postmarked “N on Apl 13 -5” which might be a manual mark for [Nauvoo on April 13, 5 cents]. 2 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ⅝), with page three blank and integral address panel on page four. “N.B.” from William F. Cahoon.
Pulaski wants to know if his younger brother Mahonri Moriancumer (age eleven) was coming to live with them to work “if you can spare him,” discusses visit with Andrew Cahoon in Cincinnati, Pulaski’s eyes were not better, sending mail through Esquire Wells (Daniel H. Wells) who was in the Quincy carpentry shop, Pulaski making zink (sink) wash boards, Leopold folks “are afraid the ingens will kill you all off.” William F. Cahoon adds a penciled note that he met Brother Robison and found this letter for Reynolds and took the liberty of opening it before sending it along. Obviously hand delivered through an unusual postal history saga.
The Mormons Who Stayed Back
36. CAHOON, Pulaski. Autograph letter in the hand of Louisa Cahoon, signed “Louisa Cahoon, Pulaski Cahoon” to “Dear Father and Mother and Brothers and Sisters” addressed to Reynolds Cahoon at Austin’s Post Office, Huntsucker’s [Hunsaker’s] Ferry, Atchison County, Missouri, datelined Quincy, Ad[ams]. Co., Ill., 1 May 1847, and hand postmarked “5“ with a “Paid” stamp. 3 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ⅝), with integral address panel on page four.
Received a letter from Cahoon on 17 April, Pulaski’s eyes were not better, giving up doctoring, stopped using eye drops for relief, living with Leopold parents, Pulaski making zink wash boards with a crimping machine, iron rollers, and a crank on each end; Pulaski working in Leopold father’s shop, detailed descriptions of Pulaski’s new clothes, they plan to “go to the West” but not until other Cahoons settle, the children, summary of letter from Andrew Cahoon on mission in England, talks of Brother Miller (Reuben Miller) in Nauvoo, and “movers” who transport to California.
Alpheus Cutler with His Nauvoo Temple Knowledge
37. CAHOON, Daniel S. Letter datelined “St. Joseph [Missouri] Apriel [sic] the 11, 1847),” addressed to “Mr. R. Cahoon, “Winters quarters [Winter Quarters, Indian Territory (presently Nebraska)].” 1 page, quarto (7 ¾ x 12 ¼) of handmade paper, with integral address panel on verso.
The most important content in the letter is the whereabouts of Alpheus Cutler, figuring prominently in the church from his baptism in 1833 until he split with Brigham Young at Kanesville, Iowa, in 1851; particularly because of his high appointments by Joseph Smith on the Kirtland, Far West, and Nauvoo temples; and knowing certain endowment and anointing information unknown to most leaders, and being in the Council of Fifty that was a privy council in Nauvoo. Daniel S. Cahoon went south down the Missouri River by steamboat to raise capital for the emigration; he was then in St. Joseph with Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, and had been as far as Platte City, Missouri, north and west of the counties of Jackson, Clay, Caldwell, and Davies; he was sending this letter by the way of (Alpheus) Cutler, who remained at this time connected with the Cahoons after he and Reynolds were two of the three on the Nauvoo temple building committee. Cahoon wrote he earned $1.25 per day at Platte City, and earned enough, after expenses, to come to fifteen dollars; and in St. Joseph he was working as a stone cutter for $1.50 per day, encouraging others to join him.
Raising Emigration Capital
Working in Missouri
38. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of William F. Cahoon, signed “R. Cahoon by W. F. Cahoon,” with a note signed “Wm. F. Cahoon,” to “Thirza Cahoon, Winterquarters [Indian Territory (presently Nebraska)],” dated at Estill’s Mills Post Office (Platte County, Missouri), 14 July 1847. 4 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ½), bifolio on handmade paper (same paper as Daniel’s letter of 11 April), with integral address panel on page four, hand carried.
The Cahoons were in the backyard of the Missouri persecutors, in the county north of Jackson, west of Clay, and a step from their former homes in Davies and Caldwell. Mahonri Moriancumer was expected to start back for the Winter Quarters (not yet thirteen years old), other brethren came down with them, mentioning Bro. Sweet particularly, saying “The Spirit of the Lord is in our midst,” they arrived by road, many bridges out, comments on Missourians: “The people kind & hospitable & treat us well,” a great many brethren at work there and at St. Joseph, and other places, but wages were very low, doing stone work for twenty dollars per month, they have worked to purchase and were sending supplies, including flour, meal, Bro. Farr, Bro. Chase owed for what they loaned to the Cahoons, beans, Bro. Bradly, Bro. Vinson, buying shoes, sending twelve-year-old Mahonri for “Tea & Coffee at St. Joe’s” as he travels alone, it was $1.40 to 1.50 per pound in Missouri and only .50 to .75 in the Camp, mentions Mary, Lerona, Ermina, Daniel, and Lemon (Leman) at the Camp. He listed all the provisions bought and of course “5 Gallons Whiskey” for $2.00.
Twelve-year-old Moriancumer
Traveling the Country Alone
39. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of Reynolds Cahoon, signed “Reynolds Cahoon” with a note signed “R.C.” to “Thirza, Lucina, Daniel, and Jane” addressed to “Mrs. Thirza Cahoon, Winter quarters [Indian Territory (presently Nebraska)],” dated at Estill’s Mills Post Office (Platte County, Missouri), 18 July 1847. 3 pages, quarto (7 ½ x 12 ⅜), bifolio with integral address panel on page four, wax seal, hand carried.
As the other Pioneers were about to enter the Great Salt Lake Valley on 24 July 1847, the Cahoons were laboring as stone cutters in Missouri as the rich had left behind the poor, regardless of the Cahoon family sacrifices and persecution at every gathering place since their conversion in 1830.
Bro. Sweet sick; they built a cabin with boards with four rooms, “The Brethren all take hold of the work with one accord and are doing the best they can to get the wordk along.” Edwin Cutler and his wife were there, Mahonri Moriancumer started on his own traveling to Winter Quarters before the age of thirteen, with a load of supplies, owing Bro. Eldredge flour, J. Patten, ferry money at Winter Quarters for Mahonri, Brother Hutchison, then the boys along with their ox teams, Mahonri with his own load, working for Estill, a note for Rayus (Rais Cahoon) and Lemon (Leman).
Blessing the Sick
40. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of Reynolds Cahoon, signed “W. F. Cahoon” to “Thirza Cahoon, Council Bluff[s], [Iowa]” dated at Estill’s Mills Post Office (Platte County, Missouri), 17 August 1847, by the Politeness of William Cutler, Esq.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ½ x 9 ⅝) on blue paper, with integral address panel on page two, hand carried.
This letter was carried by William Cutler. The Cutlers and Cahoons were tied by their temple construction leadership roles at each gathering place. Cutler starting for the camp from Platte County, Missouri; Mormons have chills and fevers, Thadus and Lymon working; Bro. Pitt on his way to Missouri; sent four dollars with Mahonri Cahoon, two for tea and coffee at St. Joe (St. Joseph, Missouri), and two to carry home.
Rayas (Rais Cahoon) sick, not yet two year’s old; William F. Cahoon was sending Cook’s Pills (mercury chloride) but wrote: “Father [Reynolds Cahoon] says he does not think of anything in particular to do for Rayas, but whatever shall appear to you at the time, to do for the time being, will be the thing for him; and will be as if he [Reynolds] was there to give it himself; and in the same way for all of you, if any of you are sick, which we hope may not be the case, if it should be the case, never be scant or afraid & act free as if you was going to do a piece of work & ask the Lord to give you his spirit to direct you & lay before you what shall be the best means to do & that will be right for you to do & by so doing will be according to my prescription & blessing in the Name of the Lord.” (Spelling standardized.)
“He stopped to take a dose of pills which had a fine effect.”
41. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of Reynolds Cahoon, signed “W. F. Cahoon” to “Mrs. Thirza Cahoon, Council Bluff[s], [Iowa], by the Politeness of Peter Conover, Esq.,” dated at Estill’s Mills Post Office (Platte County, Missouri), 24 August 1847. 3 pages, small quarto (7 ½ x 9 ⅝) on blue paper, with integral address panel on page four, hand carried.
Reynolds Cahoon had chills and fever, taking mercury chloride or opium pills: “He stopped to take a dose of pills which had a fine effect.” Working for Estill was not seeming equitable, paying for supplies, paying for board, economic misfortunes, everyone was sick with chills and fever, sending the letter by William Cutler, Bro. Conover; speaks of Rayas (Rais Cahoon) and little Thirza (Thirza Stanley, the granddaughter raised by Reynolds Cahoon).
“Dram Before Breakfast of Good Old Whisky
Out of His Old Fashion Big Bellyd Bottle.”
42. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of William F. Cahoon, signed “Wm. F. Cahoon, Daniel Cahoon,” addressed to “Mr. R. Cahoon, Esq., Winter quarters & Camp of the Saints [Indian Territory (presently Nebraska)]”and directed to “R.C., T.C., L.J., N.M.C., M.C. & J.C. and all the Children” dated at “Lyndon [Linden], Mo.” 14 November 1847. 4 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), with integral address panel on page four, hand carried.
The family to whom this letter was directed would be Reynolds Cahoon, Thirza Cahoon (his wife), Lucina Johnson (kept her previous married name after marrying Reynolds as a second wife), Nancy Maranda Cahoon (wife of William F. Cahoon), Mary Cahoon (wife of William F. Cahoon), and Jane Cahoon (the wife of Daniel S. Cahoon).
The Cahoons returned home to their families in Winter Quarters, and were back at work in Missouri; this time at Linden, Missouri, immediately inside of Missouri south of Winter Quarters, Indian Territory. “We left the ferry at Winter Quarters . . . we went down & stayed with Bro. H. Hyde in what was called Bro. Allred Branch.” They write about Bo Clarks, minute details about creeks, bridges, cold, roads, mud, the Whitney cattle, camping, Bro. Henrix, snow, feed, breakfasts, Mr. Rice, Huntsucker’s [Hunsaker’s] Ferry (Atchison County, Missouri), found letter from Pulaski Cahoon (Austin’s Post Office) there, forwarding to Winter Quarters (this was likely to be his letter of 1 May 1847 in this collection), letter for Sister Johnson (the wife of Reynolds Cahoon), crossed ferry, stayed night with Bro. Eldredge, cleaned his clock, his wife gave them breakfast and twenty-five cents, went on to Linden, working on a building, boarding at an inn, working for a dollar per day, breakfast before light every morning, and a “dram before breakfast of good old whisky out of his old fashion big bellyd bottle.” Corn plenty for cattle because prairie fire burned fences and corn were eating fodder and remaindered kernels after harvest, they were considering work in Oregon, Missouri (nearing St. Joseph on the road from Council Bluffs), Mr. Jackson at the fork of the road at the Oregon turnoff, Bro. Turpin a saddler in Linden, news about Bro. Jacobs arriving in camp.
Linden was the site of the first camp of the Mormon Battalion in 1846 and getting there was to retrace the southward steps of the battalion from Council Bluffs. Linden, Oregon, St. Joseph, and Platte County were all stops of the battalion where the Cahoons found work a year later.
Pulcipher, A Boy from the Camp
43. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of Reynolds Cahoon, signed “W. F. Cahoon,” (undated and no place, but evidently Linden, Missouri, late 1847 or 1848 to Winter Quarters, Indian Territory, presently Nebraska). 1 page, small quarto with lower four tenths torn off for partial redaction of an N.B. by the writer (7 ¼ x 9 ⅝ [i.e 7 ¼ x 6]).
This letter is connected with his letter of 14 November 1847. This was a note that he was working for a man who wants a boy ten to fifteen years old named Pulcipher to come from the Camp to work for him; prospects for all the work that they want in Linden.
Manuscript Blessing
44. CAHOON, Reynolds. Manuscript blessing on Andrew Cahoon, “Winter Quarters, Omaha Nation [Indian Territory], Oct. 28th 1846.” 1 page, small quarto (7 ⅞ 10 ⅞ ), in the hand of Andrew Cahoon himself, with a note on the verso “Father’s Blessing By R. Cahoon on the Head of A. Cahoon” in the hand of William F. Cahoon.
Begins “Andrew, we are about to be separated for a little season, and I feel to bestow upon you a special Blessing, even that of a father who holds the keys and authority of the Melchisedec Priesthood . . .” Continues with much about his mission. “But shall have power to obtain food and raiments, Gold and Silver, until thy heart is satisfied in Righteousness.” Continues with much about power to perform miracles. “. . . Reynolds Cahoon, Amen.”
Essentially these promises were fulfilled. Andrew traveled back and forth across the nation, and the Atlantic, and Great Britain. He returned, not only with gold and silver, but with three daughters of the same parents to be his wives, all of them wealthy heiresses. They spent the fortune emigrating however, and Andrew went to El Dorado, California, to dig for more gold, only to find none and he died much less gifted spiritually and intellectually than he was on this mission.
The Perfect Missionary
45. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, datelined “New York, Dec. 13th /[18]46” and postmarked New York, 11 December, 10 cents. To “Father, Mother, Brothers, and Sisters,” and addressed to “Mr. Reynolds Cahoon (to be forwarded to Council Bluffs), Austin’s Post Office, near Huntsucker’s [Hunsaker’s] Ferry, Atchison County, Missouri.“ 3 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ½), bifolio with integral address panel soiled on page four.
Andrew Cahoon was in a higher degree than the rest of his family for his artistic penmanship and for his art with words:
“Dear Father, Mother, Brothers, and Sisters, I have deferred writing, because I thought I had nothing to write, but I have come to the conclusion at last that I have; with pleasure, then, I acknowledge the great kindness of my heavenly Father to me, in various ways, since we parted; this for one thing, I have to write you for your consolation as well as my own, for it consoles me daily that God condescends to ratify that calling and ordination (which I have Rec’d from the Authority of the Church), even by supporting me though every compromising prospect that urges itself in my way—for which I feel thankful to my heavenly Father and desire to be humble and faithful evermore.”
Left camp on 28 October 1846, much about friends, in eleven days he was in Quincy, Illinois, though it took eight and a half months to go the other direction with the Camp, much on Quincy, Bro. Randall left his horses and carriage in Quincy, Pulaski Cahoon was in Cincinnati in the company of an eye doctor, Pulaski easily raised one hundred dollars while those in the “Camp of the Saints” were starving and laboring off the trail long days for twenty dollars per month, Andrew goes to St. Louis by steamer, then another steamer for Cincinnati (down the Mississippi to the Ohio River, and then up the Ohio River) in six days, visited Pulaski in Cincinnati where he was keeping house with his wife and six month old boy; the Dibble family, operation for Pulaski’s eyes, Pittsburgh, passage by railroad and stage in Philadelphia, making the trip from “the Camp to Philadelphia in five days less than a month; Orson Spencer went on to New York and Massachusetts, and back to New York, Andrew stayed in Philadelphia and then went to New York, Mrs. Everett’s sister’s place, that is, Mrs. Van Praag, and the brethren in New York City, touring the city, sending papers to Brigham Young and Willard Richards, news about the new telegraph, conveying news to Heber C. Kimball and family and the folks of Orson Spencer, Brother Whitney and all, conveying word to Bro. Brigham.
A Letter Hand Carried from Liverpool, England
to the “Camp of Israel” by John Taylor in 1847
46. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, datelined “Liverpool [England], Jan. 28th /[18]47” from the return address of “6th Goree Piazza.” To “Father, Mother, Brothers, and Sisters,” and addressed to “Mr. Reynolds Cahoon, Camp of Israel.” 4 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ½), bifolio with integral address panel on page four.
Andrew arrived in Liverpool and wrote another artistically beautiful and informative letter. Forty days on the sea, Bro. Taylor and Bro. Pratt had sailed a week before, but saw them that evening because their ship had been turned back by wind after ten days with nine passengers, Brother Taylor carrying this letter, by way of New Orleans, Bro. Hyde going too in two or three weeks, Bro. Hyde then in Scotland: “We have had but a short Interview with him yet I have not as yet receiv’d my station. I do not know where or what my labours will be yet.” The way in which Cahoon is here appointed after an Interview was a new development in Mormon missions.
Orson Spencer and his papers, Bro. Franklin Richards was his assistant and counselor: “The state of the Church here is prosperous after much Revolution and Reformation,” Irish potato crop failure and suffering in Ireland, Orson Spencer’s obituary in the Millennial Star instead of Hiram Spencer.
“Father, I am here, and can say I have realized the truth of your Blessing so far in every instance, also Bro. Brigham’s words and Bro. Kimball’s. But still I am not master of my Business yet, nor hardly intend upon my apprenticeship, for you know I never was used to public speaking, and I think of standing up before a people that [are a] master of science, eloquence, and education to use my stammering tongue is no small trial. I assume when Br. Hyde asked me if I had ever preached any, I told him I had not, he said it would be something of an undertaking, but says he, you will have to try it, and either sink or swim. I am still inclined to try it, however, for all it looks so pokerish and if I can’t swim perhaps I can float.”
Wrote that Mahonri Moriancumer should prepare for the work, sends word to Bro. Brigham that “he must couple his little Joseph & Mahonri together and sell them at it for they are just the right age to commence.”
A Highly Poetic Letter to a “Mother in Israel”
47. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, undated, not posted [Glasgow, Scotland, 1847]. To “Dear Mother,” and addressed to “Mrs. Thirza Cahoon, Camp of Israel, Near Council Bluffs [Iowa], N. America.” 3 pages, small quarto (9 ¾ x 8), bifolio with integral address panel on page four. The letter head has a fine steel engraving of a “View of the Harbour of Glasgow from the Bridge.”
He wrote a highly poetic letter to his mother, with intense praise and love, on the finest of stationary, with the penmanship that all of the foregoing presentation deserves, and focuses on his upbringing by his mother for four pages. Mentions considerable sickness in the Camp at Winter Quarters, much sickness among American elders in Scotland, heard from Pulaski Cahoon and his wife Louisa at Quincy, Illinois: “He did not get any good done to his eyes [through surgery] but it was nothing unexpected to me for they are to be healed in another way if he endures in the faith. I had a manifestation a night or two before I saw him in Cincinnati, the joy of which was indescribably concerning it and how he would ruin his sight, &c.”
Reynolds Cahoon appointed as one of the presidents over a division of the emigrating camp. Urges his mother to “be of good cheer” and “keep in union with Father.” Andrew Cahoon had labored principally among the Church. “My health however is not so good since I have engaged in speaking and preaching often, sometimes I think my lungs are affected.” Sends love to Sister Johnson, the polygamous wife of Reynolds Cahoon who evidently kept the name of her “eternal husband” who widowed her before she married Cahoon for life only. Sending money through Bro. Jacobs.
A Cahoon on a Mission
48. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed “A. Cahoon,” datelined “Glasgow [Scotland], April 6th /[18]47.” To “Father,” and addressed to “Mr. Reynolds Cahoon, Camp of Israel, Council Bluffs [Iowa], or to Austin’s P. Office, Huntsuck’s [Hunsaker’s] Ferry, Mo.” 1 page, on irregularly torn quarto (7 ⅜ x 8 ⅛), with integral address panel soiled on page two.
Andrew was visiting the branches, and now expected to go among those who had never heard the Gospel. Concerns about climate, “But if I wear out here it will be in the best cause on earth.”
Preaching the Mormon Trail to the World
49. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, datelined “Makes(?) House near Cross Hills, Yorkshire, Eng., Nov. 29 /[18]47,” and postmarked Cross Hills, Skipton, Leeds, Boston Ship, and one black oval postmark that was originally too light to decipher; as well as some manuscript postmarks and postage and a note “P.M. [postmaster] only one sheet.” To “Dear Father,” and addressed to “Mr. Reynolds Cahoon, Austin Post Office, Huntsucker’s [Hunsaker’s] Ferry, Atchison Co., Missouri, U. S. A.” 4 pages, quarto (9 ½ x 15 ¼), bifolio with integral address panel on page four, with postmarks on both sides of the folded letter.
Certainly this oversized manuscript showpiece is a testimony to postal efficiency making its way both across the Atlantic and then to the Great Plains through unfriendly Missouri and up to Council Bluffs by hand; and then surviving without an archives, yet Andrew Cahoon had prayed: “—And while I write, I hope and pray that the few lines which I shall commit to paper may be speedily conducted across the great deep and safely deposited under the roof of your humble dwelling in the far distant West—to the comfort and joy of all who would like to hear a word from Andrew. Be ashured that neither time nor distance has eraced from my bosom the filial ties which bound me to you, my Father and Mother, Brothers and Sisters, and those too with whom I have passed through so many scenes of persecutions, are near to me and I often think of them.” These last words illustrate what, for the Mormon emigration experience, before the Transcontinental Railroad, but especially in the original “Camp of the Saints,” had become a rite of passage, bonding experience, and demonstration of perseverance, sacrifice, and loyalty, like “Zion’s Camp” had to the Kirtland Saints in 1834.
Andrew had labored in England since a calling in August. Orson Spencer quite sick, Andrew called down from Scotland to stop with Spencer until his recovery, and since the middle of August had been called to take the Presidency of the Clitheroe Conference (a geographical district comprising multiple branches in the Church equivalent to a modern stake in Utah containing multiple wards), since then had visited Scotland twice, once with Orson Spencer on a visit to the Scotland Conference, “and again on an errand of my own (to get me a companion).” Eventually, Andrew gets as companions all three Carruth sisters, Mary, Margaret, and Janet Carruth; but at first only Mary while the others were converts only. He married Mary Carruth on 9 November 1847, and the other two on the Mormon Trail at Chimney Rock, Indian Territory (presently Nebraska). All three of them were wealthy heirs to money and real estate.
Orson Spencer had anxiety about his children and wants to go home to move them on over the Mountains with approbation of the Twelve; Andrew worried about being in a comfortable dwelling “when my aged father like many others may be facing the pelting storm on some of those bleak prairies to procure something to make their families comfortable.” He wrote of spiritual awaking: “God is giving an almighty impulse to the cause of Zion throughout this nation in behalf of his people by confirming his word with signs and wonders, the Sick are healed, the Blind received their sight, the Dumb speak, the Deaf hear, and the Lame leap like a hart.” President of the U.S. having a tea party for the benefit of the Mormons. In Great Britain there was economic collapse and mass conversions to the Latter-day Saints, bank failures, money systems failing, trade and manufacturing broken down, factories shut, business stopped, and the working classes were all made beggars. “Bro. Spencer has written a Treatise on the Gospel in Letter form Addressed to the Rev. Wm. Crowel of Boston Mass., U.S.A.” Cahoon wants the whole nation “Mormonized or harmonized or all the honest gathered out.” Clitheroe Conference was the former preaching ground of Heber Kimball and Willard Richards “Ask Bro. Kimball if he remembers baptizing in a pond up by the Old Waddington Mill. . . The Brethren throughout the conference think a great deal of Bro. Kimball . . .” Bro. Hall of Chatham had a daughter in “the Camp” at Winter Quarters. He had seen the family of Mary. “Give my love to Bro. Brigham, Heber, Father Cutler, Bro. Whitney” etc., also sends word for Bro. Hyde, William Cutler, and wants William Cutler to study his German “for it may come in play, bye and bye.” (The Book of Mormon appeared in German four years later in 1852.) Mahonri Moriancumer to prepare for a mission, William Culter, Elias Smith, and Robert Burton were appointed, Bro. Feranklin Cutler, Horace Whintey, William Kimball, and Daniel and Claudius but supposes that Claudius had gone over the mountains.
“My wife [Mary Carruth Cahoon] is sister to a widow Young [Janet Carruth] who is going to the Camp with her two brothers, William & James [Carruth], some money contributed by Carruths sent by Bro. Jacobs, preparing fancier wagons for the wealthier Carruths, expecting to start in February and reach the Camp in April, and Andrew may join them, talk of navigating the Missouri River past St. Joseph if the river was low when trying to get to Council Bluffs; Andrew wanted to get ahead and make the way for the heiress Carruths to get from St. Louis to Council Bluffs especially if it was by wagon from St. Joseph to Council Bluffs; and Andrew wants to be with the Twelve going over the Mountains.
Written While Sailing the Atlantic with 120 Converts
50. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, datelined “On Board the Carnatic (in the River Mersey, in Sight of Liverpool—21st Feb ½ past 8 evening [1848]” and postmarked Liverpool Fe.[bruary] 28, 12 Paid. To “Dear Father and friends,” and addressed to “Mr. Reynolds Cahoon, Austin Post Office, Huntsucker’s [Hunsaker’s] Ferry, Atchison County, Missouri, U. S. A., forward this to L.D. S. Camp at Council Bluffs.” 3 pages, small quarto (8 ⅛ x 10 ¼), bifolio with integral address panel on page four.
Andrew wrote at the end of his successful mission, on board a ship waiting for a steamer to tug them out to sea at tide, with his wife and her two birth sisters whom eventually will all become his wives, and three children who will be his step-children, and his two brothers-in-law, altogether one hundred British Saints, and one hundred and twenty souls; F. D. Richards, Samuel Richards, and Cyrus H. Wheelock, a six week journey: “The Saints in this country are extremely anxious to get away and gather to that land.”
Orson Spencer was anxiously looking for Orson Pratt to come over. Andrew Cahoon proposes that every shipload of Saints going to America should have one American elder with them. F. D. Richards presides over the company under the Captain, and Wheelock and Cahoon were his councilors, according to appointments by Spencer. L. W. Richards was clerk of records for the company; a second ship leaving for New Orleans in about a week, anticipates being in St. Louis in about the middle of April; to buy provisions in St. Louis with Carruth money, Daniel to meet him in St. Joseph (Missouri) to assist with preparations; stopping this letter as the time for the light to go out (on the ship); may stop at St. Louis and go up to see Pulaski at Quincy and take the wealthy Carruth family to see Nauvoo and the Temple (perhaps the first “Mormon tourists” to make a pilgrimage to Nauvoo). “Give my love to Bro. Brigham, Bro. Kimball, Bro. Whitney, Bro. Richards, Father Cutler, Bro. Clayton, The Band,” and so forth (Andrew was in the Nauvoo brass band).
The Four-year Journey to the Salt Land
51. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of William F. Cahoon, signed “Wm. F. & D[aniel]. S. Cahoon,” addressed to Mr. Reynold[s] Cahoon or Andrew Cahoon, Great Salt Lake City, or the rode this side, By the politeness of Mr. Blodget, the beror will confer a favor by forwarding this as soon as possible.“ Dated at “Loop Fork” [Loup Fork, Indian Territory (presently Nebraska)], 22 June 1849. 4 pages, blue paper, quarto (7 ½ x 12 ¼), bifolio with integral address panel on page four, long wax seal, hand carried.
More than three years after leaving Illinois, the William F. and Daniel S. Cahoon wagons were rolling “and on our way for the Great Salt Lake with all of our folks and effects.” Reynolds and Andrew had arrived at the Great Salt Lake in 1848. Worries about losing a yoke of oxen, they were in the first fifty of two companies of fifty, mostly in sight of each other but corralling in two separate companies; the company alarmed with cholera, Bro. Nelson McCary died, the day mostly spent in finding a place to cross Loup Fork, water was high but falling fast, wet Spring, the roads bad, building bridges across almost every stream with full banks.
Cahoon continued the next day, writing that it had been five days of wading the stream looking for a crossing; now the two fifties were all safely landed on the other side, details about Gideon, Bron Porter, Sandy Dough, Jarvis (Johnson), quitting writing because of more cholera in the company, Mr. Blodget was carrying this letter, another death by cholera named Kellog who was hauling goods for Gulley. “There is one case more that we don’t know how it will turn with him, we remember the Promice which Father maid to us at the home & our families when we parted and we don’t feel alarmed because of the Cholery.”
Four days later, he wrote that they camped the previous day to overhaul wagons and clean them; no more deaths but another person just attracted with cholera a few minutes earlier; camped at Wood River.
On 21 April 1849, William wrote from a place called Plaingrove or Plumgrove, apparently in the vicinity of Kanesville, Iowa, in a letter that is lost from this collection but is available in facsimile. The Cahoons had then returned from shopping in St. Joseph, Missouri, and were about to embark on the Mormon Trail in ten or fifteen days. At that time, they were selling gold dust in St. Joseph that was received from the Territory of Utah, doubtlessly related to the discovery of gold by a Mormon in 1848 and the current Gold Rush in ‘49. They were discussing supplies the could not get in St. Joseph: Woolrolls, wallpaper, and less than enough tea. Discussion takes place through the letter about having the cattle come back from Utah to retrieve William and Daniel and supplies, or whether property should be left behind.
The heavily supplied Lewis and Clark Expedition went from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean and back between May 1804 and September 1806, exploring all the way. A year longer had elapsed and some of the heavy laden Mormon wagons were still only fractionally across what is presently Nebraka in June 1849, having left the Mississippi River in February 1846.
“Remember me in your prayers that we may be blest
in finding the treasures of the earth for I know my own heart,
I desire it for good purposes to do good in the Kingdom of God.
Remember me to Bro. Brigham, tell him if he wants me to get gold
he must pray to the Lord that I may find it, which if I do
I will try to use as the Lord wills.”
52. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, datelined “Greenwood Valley [El Dorado County, California], Aug. 11 /[18]50.” To “Dear Friend” and directed within “To All Our Folks.” 8 pages, small quarto (7 ½ x 9 ½), two bifolios with seven pages by Andrew Cahoon and the eighth page to “Dear Friends” signed “Mary Cahoon.”
Andrew Cahoon, having arrived at the Great Salt Lake City, went to California upon the discovery of gold. Taking only his first wife, Mary, and his sixteen-year-old brother Mahonri Moriancumer who was beloved by and recruited by all of his siblings, he was in El Dorado.
Mahonri was eight miles from Andrew down on the river, where they had some claims they were working, and Andrew planned to join them the follow day “and see if we can dig a little gold.” He sent by Joseph Kain one hundred dollars, seventy-five for Janet and twenty-five dollars for Margaret (likely based on need, as Janet had three children before their marriage, or who contributed the cattle teams that he then sold); mentioned Gen. Rich (Charles C. Rich), sold their cattle and wagon, bought provisions, “there is more gold here than will be dug out in 50 years but still all the best chances are taken up;” asked for John Green (John Y. Greene, 1826-1880), mentioned James Baily from Great Salt Lake Valley, sold both teams as they were too much trouble to track in timber country, he and Mary were together clearing (or hoping to clear) three hundred dollars per month after expenses of boarding in a room to themselves; but they wanted to try mining in the fall to see if there was any fortune; mentions James Gordon, Willie Gordon, Wilkie (a little Scotchman and his wife earned eleven thousand dollars without digging by keeping an entertainment house on the road, and plenty of others did the same; Andrew wanted to make two or three thousand dollars to come back next fall; regretted that Margaret did not come as a woman doing housekeeping earned more than the men; turning river beds, damming streams, canvas races over frames of timbers and boards, description of what a claim was, fifteen feet up and down one side of the bank to the center of a stream, Murderers Bar where gold was being taken out by the pound, “Remember me in your prayers that we may be blest in finding the treasures of the earth for I know my own heart, I desire it for good purposes to do good in the Kingdom of God. Remember me to Bro. Brigham, tell him if he wants me to get gold he must pray to the Lord that I may find it, which if I do I will try to use as the Lord wills.”
“Direct to me, at A. A. Lathrop’s—Mormon Tavern, California.” Asahel A. Lathrop (1810-1871) was a Captain of Ten (families) in the “Camp of the Saints” who had later been sent to El Dorado by Brigham Young in 1847, to get seeds and livestock, before the discovery of gold in 1848. He had been a Mormon in Far West, Missouri, in 1838; and is remembered for the ranching and driving of the cattle herds during seasonal layovers of the emigration camps crossing the Great Plains. He is in the 1850 U.S. Census at El Dorado as “Ashel” Lathrop, with his household as a “Hotel.”
A Letter from One Wife to Two Others Belonging to the Same Man
53. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, datelined “Greenwood Valley, El Dorado Co., Calif., August 15, 1851.” To “Dear Friends” and within directed to “Father, Mother, Brothers and Sisters.” 12 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 10), in three biofolios with eleven pages (1-7, and 9-12) by Andrew Cahoon and the eighth page (8) to “Dear Brothers and Sisters” signed “Mary Cahoon.” A note at the foot of page 12 directed: “Give my love to all for I haven’t room for names, give this letter inclosed to Janet, also read this to her and Margaret.”
Received two letters from Reynolds Cahoon, one dated in March and one dated in June. Cahoons “. . . hard at work, digging Gold, like ten thousand others in this country, you probably think we have had time enough to dig all we want by this time, but unfortunately that is not the case, “time” is not what gets the fortune—always, it is ”luck” we are still in hopes of getting something to pay for us coming here, we have no other intention but to return as soon as we can. . . . we have been unlucky in finding Gold and it may be that if we should stay another season that we would not be any better prepared to come than we are this fall coming . . . as is often said here in passing an old man at work, ‘ There sits an old man Rocking his Cradle (Gold machine) with one foot in the grave and the other has no business out.’ . . . as to making a fortune here, it is just like a Lottery only there [are] no blanks to be drawn by those that dig.” Mahonri Moriancumer Cahoon hated to go back without money; Willie, Gordon; Cahoons at the Middle Fork of the American River, five miles from Greenwood Valley, working a “Long Tom” which Cahoon described; they were with William Holliday and Arthur Barber from the Great Salt Lake and Cottonwood respectively, also Homer Chase and John Bellows from Stanbury’s company, Nathaniel Dodge, his brother Seth; responded to sickness of William F. Cahoon and Daniel S. Cahoon’s families and the death of one of William’s children; a large company with Bro. Dixon to carry this letter following his mission to the Sandwich Islands without success, Bro. Pratt on that mission, Bradford Elliot cut off from the church, Andrew Cahoon admonished to be careful; mentions John Green [John Y. Greene (1826-1880)]; Hanks at Cottonwood.
Mary wrote of her emotions, loneliness, and regrets; “I wish we never had left Salt Lake . . . tell Mother to keep a good lookout, and she will see us coming home in our chariot[?], and six horses and two nigger slaves, keep the door yard clean so that we can drive right up to the house and have supper ready.” (Spelling standardized).
Andrew resumed, “If I was convinced that ‘my coming’ had caused any of you to go hungry or want for the necessaries of life, I hope Father has not [had] to work too hard or Mother—that they have their Tobacco & Tea (I am afraid not), that William or Daniel don’t have to go into them desperate canyons for wood alone some cold wintery days and freeze their feet or hands (I am afraid they do).” Much on relations with other diggers, and treatment and rarity of women, and county law, graphic description of murder and hanging, horse thieves, etc. Mentions that Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich located in Southern California at San Bernardino. “I should like to make a fortune and I wuld not care how quick, and go down south where Amasa & Rich have located and see the country, they were up here not long since.”
Andrew and Mahonri must ultimately have gone to San Bernardino through the northern California Trail route and joined the Mormon layout of San Bernardino, Calornia, in the winter 1851 to 1852. The Deseret News of 21 April1852 reported that two Cahoon brothers returned to Great Salt Lake City on 21 April 1852 direct from San Bernardino where the boys were settled at Cahoon Pass, spelled this way by Mormons at least as early as 1850; the Cahoons were not part of the Mormon Battalion that in 1847 disbanded and crossed the pass to Utah; they were not part of the Lyman and Rich pioneers that were in Cajon Pass in May 1851; the “Cajon Pass of the Sierra Nevada,” as it is called in reports of explorations and government documents at the time, is actually is not part of the Sierra Nevada, but separates the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains. Rancho San Bernardino was settled at the opening of the Cajon Pass, and was part of the Mormon wagon road such that all movement between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City would come through the new Mormon city.
A Lovely Association with Early Mormons
54. LEMMON, Maria Louisa. Autograph letter signed “Louisa Lemmon [to] T. Cahoon”(Thirza Stiles Cahoon), and datelined “Provo Citty [sic], March the 14, 1853.” 1 page, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), folded into small twelfths, with “Thursey Cahoon” addressed in one small panel.
This Louisa Lemmon was born Maria Louisa Patten (1816-1864), for the letter mentioned her “fine daughter, we call her Edith Ann.” Of course, Edith Ann Lemmon was born at Provo on 2 October 1852 to James A. Lemmon and Maria Louisa Lemmon. James and Louisa Lemmon had prior children born in the early Mormon settlements of Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri; Montrose, Iowa Territory; and Nauvoo, Illinois.
Her mother was Abigail Stiles, the sister of Thirza, and thus she salutes her “Dear Aunt.” She also, in this letter, mentioned her “Uncle John and Aunt Percy” (John Stiles, the brother of Thirza Stiles Cahoon). Her father John M. Patten died in Council Bluffs in 1847, the brother of David W. Patten (an apostle under Joseph Smith) and Ira J. Patten (an apostle under James J. Strang).
Her husband, James A. Lemmon, was the son of John Lemmon, immortalized as a “martyr” by George A. Smith after being driven from six homes. He was converted by Samuel H. Smith in 1831, fled to Zion from persecution in 1832, and was then driven from Jackson County, Clay County, Caldwell County, Davies County, Caldwell again, altogether from the state of Missouri, and was in the background during the drive from Nauvoo; all of which contributed to his death at Quincy, Illinois, in 1846, said to have resulted from constant winter exposure.
This letter is important for its association and expression of the interrelationships among the earliest of Saints, and for its early date at Provo, named in 1850; other than that it is a letter about garden seeds for peas and carrots being needed for these original Mormons from 1831 to now pioneer Provo.
“. . . strictly forbidden to . . . in any manner render to any Utah Indian,
any aid, shelter, food, or comfort, either directly or indirectly . . .”
55. DESERET NEWS—EXTRA. “Great Salt Lake City, Thursday Morning, August 25, 1853.” Lead article was “Territory of Utah, Proclamation by the Governor.” 1 page folio (10 ¾ x 15 ¾) with verso blank. Uncut original ragged edged paper. Mending to verso of two upper folds.
“Whereas, the Utah Indians of this Territory have been for some time, and still are in a state of open and declared war with the white settlers, committing injuries upon them at every opportunity, killing them, driving off their stock, and burning their mills, and dwellings . . . I, Brigham Young . . . do hereby order and direct . . . all the forces to be in readiness to march to any point at a moment’s notice . . . every person be prepared to defend himself, and to aid others by personal service . . . [and] is hereby strictly forbidden to give, trade, or in any way voluntarily put in possession of any Utah Indian, and weapon . . . or in any manner render to any Utah Indian, any aid, shelter, food, or comfort, either directly or indirectly . . . let all, who go into kanyons, or any retired places, go armed . . . keep an accurate account of all services performed.”
Only one other copy of this broadside has survived. Evidently it was already rare on the day of its publication, for the circular requested separately from the proclamation to “be patient with us, as we are with all men, and especially the paper dealers; and let all those who receive this little sheet, read it quickly, and give it to the next one deserving; call your neighbors around and read it aloud, for it is an extra express for the good of the whole Territory. . . Should our carriers, having printing paper, come in contact with the mail carriage, or any safe conveyance, don’t fail to send us a few bundles of paper, ahead of your train.”
The paper (not the governor’s proclamation in it) sent a scathing warning to outlying pioneers to take care of themselves because they have it easy and cheap, and not expect those in Great Salt Lake City to leave their city walls to protect them after they paid extra to live there and build the walls, not for “protecting those in other valleys, from white, [or] copper-colored Indians.”
A third article brought news on the “Indian Difficulties” with details about killings on both sides, names, and places, walling in all of Great Salt Lake City. Other articles appeared on the Election in the Territory of Utah, “Friends of the Emigrating Poor Fund,” the Temple Wall, weather, emigration, scarcity of bread, immigrants to watch uncertain Indian and white men, fruits in the city, and so forth.
Overall a breathtaking display of early western printing during a particularly difficult month in Utah territorial history.
A Sensational Broadside
56. PROGRAMME. Grand Juvenile Procession. Monday, July 24th, 1854. Being the Seventh Anniversary of the Pioneers into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. 1 page broadside, quarto (7 ⅞ x 12 ½), on pale blue paper with ornamental typography.
This is the detailed program for the sixty-three elements of a procession, consisting of the firing cannon, ringing of bells, assembling at the Tabernacle, marching to the residence of Brigham Young, a Pioneer Salute of 7 guns, unfurling of the Mammoth Flag, seating in the Tabernacle, prayers, singing, addresses, toasts, bands, etc., and then an “Order of the Procession” with the sixty-three numbered parts with indescribable ceremonialism, costumes, symbolism, music, banners, maps and globes, books and rolls, white horses, theology, flowers, and militarism.
The Collection of Tithing and Taxes by Brigham Young
57. TITHING. Partly printed document, certifying that Reynolds Cahoon had paid “Property” Tithing in full in accordance with a vote of conference, 10 September 1851, signed by clerk at Great Salt Lake City, 10 November 1852. 1 page printed on blue lined stationary, oblong (7 ⅞ x 2 ⅛), irregularly cut.
58. TITHING. Partly printed document, certifying that Reynolds Cahoon had paid “Labor & Produce” Tithing in full to 6 October 1852, signed by clerk at Great Salt Lake City, 11 November 1852. 1 page printed on blue lined stationary, oblong (7 ⅞ x 2 ⅛), irregularly cut.
This pair, the above two documents, show how different forms of tithing were being collected, one on property and one on labor and produce; also how Cahoon was in arrears on tithes of his labor and produce.
59. CHEQUE. “Trustee in Trust’s Office: Great Salt Lake City, Oct. 28th, 1859, Bro. Hartrell, please pay R. Cahoon, One & 50/100 Dollars in Lime and charge Trustee in Trust, J. M. Firm, Clerk. $1.50, Not Transferable, Book 5, No. 867, Not Transferable.”
The typography, fonts, and paper of this document match the four following it, suggesting that they were printed by the same establishment.
60. TITHING. Partly printed document, certifying that Reynolds Cahoon had paid “Labor, Produce, & Increase” Tithing in full to 12 January 1856, signed by clerk at Great Salt Lake City, “H. K. Whitney” 14 January 1856. 1 page printed on blue stationary, oblong (7 ⅞ x 2 ⅞), typography of Western fonts.
The typography, fonts, and paper of this document match the one preceding it and three following it, suggesting that they were printed by the same establishment.
61. TERRITORIAL AND COUNTY TAX. Partly printed document. Received of Reynolds Cahoon, his “Territorial and County Tax, for the year 1856, including 10 percent.” The date was typeset 1855 and changed in manuscript to 1856, the words “including 10 percent” were added in manuscript. Signed 19 November 1856. 1 page printed on blue stationary, oblong (7 ⅞ x 3 ⅛), typography of Western fonts.
The typography, fonts, and paper of this document match the two preceding it and two following it, suggesting that they were printed by the same establishment.
62. TERRITORIAL AND COUNTY TAX. Partly printed document. Received of Reynolds Cahoon, his “Territorial and County Tax, for the year 1857.” Signed 29 August 1857. 1 page printed on blue stationary, oblong (7 ¾ x 2), typography of Western fonts.
The typography, fonts, and paper of this document match the three preceding it, and one following it, suggesting that they were printed by the same establishment.
63. CITY TAX. Partly printed document. “City Collector’s Office, Oct 3, 1859.” Reynolds Cahoon, city tax bill and receipt. “Assessor and Collector for G. S. L. [Great Salt Lake] City.” 1 page printed on blue stationary, oblong (3 ⅛ x 7 ⅞), typography of Western fonts.
The typography, fonts, and paper of this document match the four preceding it, suggesting that they were printed by the same establishment.
64. CITY TAX. Partly printed document. “Received of R. Cahoon, his City Tax, for the year 1856.” The date was typeset 1854 and changed in manuscript to 1856. Signed 29 January 1857. 1 page, oblong (7 ½ x 1 ½), cut very irregularly.
65. CITY TAX. Manuscript document. “Mr. R. Cahoon, your city money tax for 1858 . . . Received.” Dated “Coll’rs Office G. S. L. [Great Salt Lake] City, Nov. 15th /[18]58.” 1 page printed on blue lined stationary, oblong (7 ½ x 1 ¼), cut very irregularly.
Fort Limi and Hunting Shoshone Lamanites
66. DURFEY, Francillo. Autograph letter signed “Francillo Durfey” to “Brother Cahoon,” datelined “Fort Limhi [or Lemhi], December the 30, ‘55 [1855].” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ⅝), bifolio, blue paper, sealed with wax, with blank second leaf. William F. Cahoon penciled “Looked over” on second leaf.
Fort Limhi, Oregon Territory, at present day Lemhi, Idaho, was named for the walled city of king Limhi in the “book of Mosiah” in the Book of Mormon, the faithful protected from the Lamanites, wherein King Mosiah (forshadowing Brigham Young) sent an expedition of sixteen strong men up north. Lemhi is the birthplace of Sacagawea, the Shoshone interpreter who accompanied Lewis and Clark. Brigham Young visited in 1857. The fort was abandoned in 1858 after two hundred Bannock and Shoshone Indians attacked the fort and killed some Mormons. The Lemhi-Shoshone Indians are still laboring for recognition as a cultural identity.
Francillo Durfey (1812-1871) wrote Cahoon a poetic and informative letter from Fort Limhi on Salmon River. He reports that they left Ogden, Territory of Utah, on 15 October 1855 with twelve wagons and sixty-six head of cattle (for raising), and thirty-two people including women and children, arriving on 19 November, crossing the divide in the snow with wolves, George R. Grant mentioned, missionaries at Fort Limhi and baptizing “Lamanites” while Durfey’s party was getting supplies in the Territory of Utah, “Snag” the Shoshone chief was baptized, this was the mission to Israel, “remnants of Jacob,” crops and gardens described, nine log cabins and blacksmith shop in fort, saw and grist mill, mentioned Thomas Butterfield, George Hill, Isaac Shepherd, Baldwin Watts, Joseph Parry, Abram Zondal, Ira Ames, William Batchelor, and William Birch.
Durfey was baptized in 1840, emigrated from Vermont to Nauvoo in 1842, blessed by Hyrum Smith in 1843, acquainted with Joseph Smith, spiritually gifted with healing and tongues, in the Nauvoo temple in 1846, was one of the seventy in early 1844, in the Mormon Battalion, was a Utah pioneer of July 1847, settled Ogden in 1851, was in the first expedition to establish Fort Limhi in May 1855, and settled Cache Valley in 1859. Despite his obvious writing skill, histories recorded that were no known writings by Durfey.
A Mormon Hymn on Race and Color
67. DURFEY, Francillo. Autograph hymn signed “Lines composed by Capt. Francillo Durfey at Black Rock Point on Snake River, June 5th, ‘55 [1855], after a debate on the question, How are the Lamanites to become and white and a delightsome people[?]” 2 pages, full quarto (7 ⅞ x 12 ⅞); an open bifolio of blue paper, composed on two leaves of the same side of the open bifolio, providing for complete display in one view. Subsequently folded into additional eighths with rubbing to folds.
As above, but from the first expedition to Fort Limhi, as the Mormon camped along the Snake River exactly a week before their arrival at the future site of Fort Limhi. Apprehensiveness and anticipation fill the spirit of this hymn, as the camp at that time was joined by Indians called Lamanites by the Mormons:
1. Wake O Wake the camp from sleeping
Watchman watchmen what’s the hour[?]
Tis four o’clock and twenty minutes
The camp arise attend your prayers.
Chorus
2. For we’re a going to the land of Laman
To plant the Gospel Standard there
And bring them out from degradation
To a people white and fair.
Nine stanzas in all, the hymn is about the camp, the Indian lands known as the “land of Laman,” purifying the Indians, the holy priesthood: Joseph Smith—Peter, James, and John; spying on the Flat Head Nation, passing through the Bannock’s land; sent by commands from Brigham Young, waiting for commands from Brigham Young; the royal favor of the holy priesthood to be saviors to the Indians, and the slaying of the wicked who do not repent . . . “we hunt out Laman’s men,” from “the rocks and caves and dens.”
Mormon Diary with Tobacco, Wine, Tea & Coffee
and Meetings with Brigham Young
68. CAHOONS, Reynolds. 1856 diary or memoranda book in pencil, bound in purple blind-stamped sheep in narrow wallet format with blind fleur-de-lis. 52 weeks, one week per leaf (3 x 5 ⅞), lacking about one-third; vacant space used for entries from 1858, 1862, and 1863. This is an account book with debits and credits, evidently kept by Reynolds Cahoon’s family with entries in the hands of Daniel S. Cahoon, William F. Cahoon, and Andrew Cahoon.
Accounts for D. S. (Daniel S.) Cahoon, Daniel Spencer (president of the Great Salt Lake City stake), Mary Jane Cahoon, Andrew Cahoon, John Y. Greene (1826-1880), William F. Cahoon, M. M. (Mahonri Moriancumer) Cahoon, William Carruth, and many others. Information on log sizes for a home, wood, hay, antelope skins, a quart of whiskey, tea, egg tallies, buckskins, tithing paid in eggs, tithing paid in butter, sheep yards, herding, shearing, wool, carding, killing, meat, sheepskins, a pint of wine, a plug of tobacco, coffee, etc. Entries also included, “Went to see Brigham on 9th of August 1858,” “(Sunday, May 4) went to see Brigham,” and a number of distinctive Mormon hymns not sung today.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre Connected to
Parley P. Pratt, the U.S. Troops, the Arkansas Cattle, and “Wild Bill” Hickman
69. CAHOON, Daniel S. Letter datelined “Devil’s Gate [Territory of Nebraska], June the 19, 1857),” to “Dear Father” (Reynolds Cahoon, at Great Salt Lake City), 2 pages, small quarto (7 ½ x 9 ½) on blue paper.
Daniel S. Cahoon was, of course, heading east on a mission, and sending mail back with those heading west. In camp, he had sore eyes (like his brother Pulaski), inquiring about his family “especilli the girls and the children,” mentions “Hiram” (Hyrum Cahoon) by name, and also his brother Andrew Cahoon; Jane (wife of Daniel), Theron (son), Marthy (Martha daughter of Daniel); steward’s store; Brother (Abraham O.?) Smoot with Cahoon; William (“Wild Bill”) A. Hickman carrying this letter to Great Salt Lake City. Hickman was considered to be a Territory of Utah “Danite” and personal bodyguard of Brigham Young. Hickman carried news from Cahoon, and naturally from others. As Cahoon said “We hird the news of the deth of Parley Pratt. It is a sollum day with ous.” Pratt was killed on 13 May and that news was traveling westward; Wilford Woodruff recorded it in his journal on 23 June, and the Deseret News reported it on 1 July. The Cahoons were converted and baptized by Pratt in Ohio in 1830. Pratt, a Latter Day Saint since 1830, and the most popularly successful missionary of the Church, was killed in Arkansas by the estranged legal husband of a presumed religious wife of Pratt. Mormons said he was a martyr, and Brigham Young compared his death to those of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
Arrival of the Pratt news in the Territory of Utah is said to have motivated the Mountain Meadows Massacre on 11 September, involving a wagon train of Arkansas emigrants for California, in which Hickman and John D. Lee were rumored to have been involved. The Arkansas emigrants arrived right behind the news about the death of Pratt: They took the Cherokee Trail from Arkansas traveling generally northwest to Independence Rock, at that time part of Territory of Nebraska, staying along bountiful grasslands east of the Rocky Mountains necessary for their large herd of cattle, and then merged onto the Mormon Trail going west past Devil’s Gate toward Great Salt Lake. Cahoon and Hickman knew of this emigrant train: “The news is from the male [mail] that thier [sic] is goi[n]g to be a verry [sic] Large Emigration this year too [sic] California. Their has a bout 2,000 or more Cattle pasd here. We had Laid by a cupple of days here at the Devil Gate for shewing[?] cattle.” The Arkansas emigrant train is now believed to have as many as one thousand head of cattle. And whether Hickman saw the train or not, he was fresh from the Sante Fe Trail in Independence, Missouri, which the Cherokee Trail overlapped in the Territory of Kansas. On 3 August, the Arkansas emigrants to California arrived at Great Salt Lake City, following a publication about the death of Pratt on 1 July. On 11 September they were resting at Mountain Meadows on the Old Spanish Trail passing through Las Vegas and San Bernardino into California, and they were massacred by a presumably rogue company of the Mormon militia disguised as Paiute Indians. Hickman also carries the news as related by Cahoon: “They say thier [sic] is agoing to be 3,000 government troops to cepe you all strate ther this winter. I say dm [damn] them. I hope they won’t get quarters in the city nor in the valley.” On 28 May the U.S. government ordered troops to the Territory of Utah; the first troops did not leave Fort Leavenworth, Territory of Kansas, until 18 July; this letter was written before the midpoint of those dates. Hickman is known to have carried this news to Brigham Young on 24 June who kept it a secret for a month until it was dramatically leaked at his 24 July picnic. But this present letter uniquely demonstrates that the news—of the murder of Pratt in Arkansas, the news of the assembling U.S. troops, and the news of the emigrant party from Arkansas—all traveled together with Hickman. Some historians believe that the hysteria about the approaching troops led to the Mormons massacring the emigrants to warn that they controlled the Old Spanish Trail; others believe it was to avenge the Arkansas killing of Pratt on these Arkansas emigrants; or both.
The Nauvoo Legion
Manuscript Form
70. MUSTER ROLL. “Morning Report of Capt. David Pettigrew, Comp. A. 1st Regiment, 2 Callout[?]” A manuscript draft of a blank form designed in fine cursive. “Camp of General Muster, Oct. 8th, 1851.” 1 page, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾ ), of blue stationary.
An attractive record of the commitment of the Mormons to the defense of settlers, and a treasure of military history. This is a demonstration of the organization, chain of command, and detail with which the Mormon militia was organized. The only numbers that appear on this form are the numbers “137” after the word “abnegate,” in other words 137 volunteers; and the number 17 below that.
The Nauvoo Legion
List of Earlier Nauvoo Mormons
71. MUSTER ROLL. An organized company with a captain of one hundred and twenty, or perhaps one hundred and fifty, David Pettigrew (captain), Heman Hyde (first lieutenant), William Burgess (second lieutenant), Richard Braisier (third lieutenant), Reynolds Cahoon (first sergeant), Ephraim Badger (second sergeant), Levi Savage (third sergeant), John Cox (fourth sergeant), and corporals (too faint to read). 2 pages, quarto, (7 ½ x 12 ½), originally in faint pencil in the hand of Reynolds Cahoon, overwritten in pen in the hand of Daniel S. Cahoon jointly with Reynolds Cahoon. [8 October 1851.]
A list of 137 additional men, two crossed out, and penciled total of 135, subtotals of 20, 40, 80, 100, 120, named checked off in pencil, including legendary Mormon surnames like Kimball and Woodruff. There are three columns of 40, and then 17 of these names appear in the fourth column (second column of page two). These numbers seem to correlate with the previous document, so this item is tentatively dated 8 October 1851. The men on this list were probably a company of Silver Grays, or the “Fathers in Israel” who were men over fifty years of age; this was no more unique to Mormonism than Boy Scouts, or the Ladies’ Relief Society, but the Mormons did have the adversity necessary to make organizers.
Obviously this document is of great worth to the posterity of these 143 pioneers in understanding the emigration of their ancestors. The following examples from this list are selected here as fifteen percent of the names on the list, and some highlights of their connection with the Latter Day Saints but not necessarily their most important contributions:
Samuel Alger—father of Fannie Alger (purported to be an early wife of Joseph Smith)
Randolph Alexander—1836 convert of Woodruff and Patten, driven from Missouri
Woodville Andrews—Mormon surgeon general, Nauvoo Legion and in San Bernardino
Peter Dustin—witness to the Book of Commandments
Alanson Eldridge—strong advocate of the revelation to go west in companies
John Parry—first musical conductor for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
W. W. Phelps—printed the Book of Commandments, wrote much of the early history
Joseph C. Rich—a book has been written solely about, his family founded San Bernardino
Stephen Winchester—one of the first seventy in 1835
Miles Romney—great-great-grandfather of Mitt Romney (as was Parley P. Pratt)
Nathaniel Riggs—Latter Day Saint of 1831 in “Zion’s Camp” in 1834
Levi Jackman—early landowner in Far West who kept a detailed journal
Norton Jacobs—known for his detailed journal and remarks on Mormon succession
Isaac Allred—in Missouri in the early 1830s and an important family in Utah
Samuel Williams—mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants
John M. Burke—in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1830, and went through Missouri experience
H. G. Sherwood—planned Great Salt Lake City and San Bernardino, California
Sidney A. Knowlton—Cambellite convert, used Rigdon familiarity to defend Church
Simeon Carter—one of the first successful Mormon missionaries since 1831
Elijah Cheney—an elder since 1833, converted Wilford Woodruff
John Benbow—financed the first British edition of the Book of Mormon
Isaac Hill—in “Zion’s Camp” in 1834, his brick maker name is on Nauvoo bricks
A Beautifully Designed Treasure Signed by Brigham Young
72. YOUNG, BRIGHAM. Partly printed document signed, “Brigham Young” as governor, commissioning Reynolds Cahoon “Captain of Company B of Battalion of Infantry” of the Nauvoo Legion” the militia of the Territory of Utah following his earlier election to office on 21 April 1854, signed on 28 March 1855. Brigham Young, Governor of the Territory of Utah . . .” Also signed “A[lmon] W. Babbitt as Secretary. 1page on quarto (7 ⅞ 12 ⅜), bifolio on blue stationary with Japanese silk blue ribbons, die cut work, ornamental type and design, embossed die cut seal pasted down, the last three pages blank by design except the name of “Reynolds Cahoon” in manuscript on page four for the ceremony.
The Silver Grays
“Fathers in Israel”
73. UTAH WAR. “Report to Major Pettigrew from Capt. Cahoon of the 1st 50 Silver Grays.” “Volunteers from Capt. Cahooon’s 50 Com’y.” List of names, dated “G.S.L. [Great Salt Lake] City, October 1st 1857,” “By Order of Capt. Cahoon of the first 50 of the Silver Grays, John Lyon Ast.” 2 pages, small quarto (8 x 10), of blue stationary.
List of fifteen names, composed entirely of men aged fifty or over, in the guard. Men include important earlier Mormons Sidney A. Knowlton (lieutenant), Stephen Winchester, and William Pratt.
A Mormon Hymn for the Army during the Utah War
74. UTAH WAR. Manuscript hymn, two pages, small quarto (7 ¾ X 9 ¾) on pale blue paper, in fine cursive, dated “G. S. L. City [Great Salt Lake City], Oct. 26th, 1857.
A distinctively adapted Mormon hymn which although sung about a spiritual war certainly anticipates the Utah War of 1857-1858. “Then I will have a strong army, Jews and Gentiles shall agree . . For by one I’ll chase a thousand , And the Rebels they shall fly, I will build that Holy City . . . For to conquer now I’ll conquer, All the Blood Whores of Rome . . . And there are the Heathen nations, With I shall next begin, Jews and Gentiles joined together, Then the Victory they shall win.”
The joining of Jews and Gentiles together figuratively parallels the Mountain Meadows Massacre the previous month when Native Americans (Jews, in Mormon theology) of the Paiute tribe are said to have joined a company of Mormon militiamen (Gentile converts, in Mormon theology) to attack an emigrant party the prior month. However, the mood of the hymn is religious and not temporal (as with heavenly armor).
Brigham Young’s Pic-Nic Invitation on a Blue Broadside
75. YOUNG, BRIGHAM. Pic-Nic Party at the Headwaters of Big Cottonwood. “Pres. Brigham Young respectfully invites Reynolds Cahoon Esq. and family to attend a Pic-Nic Party at the Lake in Big Cottonwood Kanyon, on Thursday, 24th of July [1856].” Broadside with manuscript guest name, 16 mo. sized (4 ⅛ x 6 ⅝), printer’s ornament under title.
“You will be required to start from the city very early on Wednesday morning, as no one will be permitted, after 2 o’clock, p.m., of the 23d, to pass the first mil, about four miles up the Kanyon. All persons are forbid to make or kindle fires at any place in the Kanyon, except on the camp ground. G. S. L. [Great Salt Lake] City, July 18, 1856.”
“All persons are forbidden to smoke cigars or pipes,
or kindle fires, at any place in the Kanyon,
except on the camp ground.”
76. YOUNG, BRIGHAM. Pic-Nic Party at the Head Waters of Big Cottonwood. “Pres. Brigham Young respectfully invites Reynolds Cahoon and family to attend a Pic-Nic Party at the Lake in Big Cottonwood Kanyon, on Friday, 24th of July [1857].” Broadside with manuscript guest name, small 8vo. sized (4 x 7 ¾ ), on blue paper, printer’s ornament under title same as in 1856.
“You will be required to start so as to pass the first mill, about four miles up the Kanyon, before 12 o’clock, on Thursday, the 23rd, as no person will be allowed to pass that point after 2 o’clock, p.m. on that day.
“All persons are forbidden to smoke cigars or pipes, or kindle fires, at any place in the Kanyon, except on the camp ground.”
Much on bishops, wards, outfitting for trip, teams, wagons, etc. and bishops to “furnish a list of all persons accompanying them . . . to the Guard at the gate.” Dated at “Great Salt Lake City, July 18, 1857.”
It was at this picnic that three messengers sensationally rode in to announce that Johnston’s Army was coming from the Territory of Kansas, which marks the beginning of the Utah War as far as the Mormons knew it; after the picnic attendees rushed home to prepare for the 1858 Move South from the Great Salt Lake City to Utah County, and recalling the Mormons whom had been appointed to settle in present California, Nevada, and Idaho.
Pulaski Cahoon and His Bar Parties
77. CAHOON, Pulaski. Autograph letter in the hand of Louisa Cahoon, signed “Louisa Cahoon, Pulaski Cahoon”to “Dear Brother and Sister” addressed to “W. F. Cahoon, Council Bluffs, in the care of Mr. Brim,” dated 28 March 1849, without postmark. 2 pages, small quarto (7 ⅞ x 9 ⅞), with integral address panel on page four. Inscribed in pencil in the hand of William F. Cahoon, “Letters from Pulaski & Louisa, all looked over.”
Pulaski had received a letter from William F. Cahoon on 23 July 1848, which was answered and none had been received since then, Pulaski’s eyes were no better, sold his tools for making washboards, not working but “we still take in as much as supports us at the bar,” had three or four parties during the winter that were highly profitable, Gold Rush emigrants starting for Great Salt Lake City, not planning more children, Leopold brother at Keokuk, John Stiles and Aunt Percy at Keokuk (brother of Reynold’s wife), George and Izebell near Keokuk, Jenet in St. Louis, and no word from Reynolds since he left for the mountains.
The Mormons Left Behind in Illinois
78. CAHOON, Pulaski. Autograph letter in the hand of Louisa Cahoon, signed “Louisa Cahoon, Pulaski”to “Dear Father and Mother” addressed to “Mr. Reynolds Cahoon, Great Salt Lake Valley, Utah Territory,” dated 20 February 1852, and postmarked Quincy, Ill., Feb. 20. 3 pages, small quarto (7 ⅞ x 9 ⅞), with integral address panel on page four.
Louisa unwell for the last three years especially, details, sick basically since the birth of son Amos Reynolds, sold house for considerable price, bought a new house built by John Stiles (brother of Reynold’s wife) living in Quincy, Stiles moved to Council Bluffs, father Leopold in Quincy, Pulaski’s eyes no better, making chairs, sent zink washboards to Reynolds.
Finding Burr Riggs, the Dramatic Kirtland Authority
79. CAHOON, Louisa. Autograph letter in the hand of Louisa Cahoon, signed “Louisa Cahoon” to “Dear Niece” addressed to “Miss Thirz[a] Stanl[e]y, Greate [sic] Salt Lake City, Utah Teritory [sic], in the care of R. Cahoon,” dated at La Grange, Mo., 13 July 1854, and postmarked “La Grange with manuscript date 15 Jul. 3 pages, quarto (7 ¾ x 12 ⅜), with integral address panel on page four.
Most important in this letter is information about Burr Riggs (1811-1860). “You wanted to know something about Burr Riggs [at Quincey] and his children . . . The last I heard of them, Nathan Pinken [emigrant from Liverpool, 1846]had taken them to take care of them . . . Burr is a poor drunken sot. He is blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other.” Converses about the cousins, young Amos Reynolds, Thirza Stanley, Mahonri (Moriancumer), sending tea to Thirza Stiles Cahoon, mail from Reynolds and William F. Cahoon, fire burned Pulaski’s shop and all of his tools and supplies, turned chair, table, and bedstead parts lost, walnut lumber, workbench given to him by William F. Cahoon at Nauvoo, built a new shop, still have turning shop and turning tools, cabinet work, hurried with business wholesale and retail, hired labor, her parents in Quincy, and Pulaski’s eyes were no better.
Burr Riggs (1811-1860), mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants, was always a dramatic member, who like Reynolds Cahoon was living in Kirtland before the arrival of the Mormons, joined the Church in 1830, ordained a high priest in 1831, married the daughter of vice president Frederick G. Williams who was also an old Kirtland citizen, aided Philastus Hurlburt in persecuting Joseph Smith in early 1834, yet repented and joined Zion’s Camp later in 1834, received a patriarchal blessing in Kirtland in 1835, sensationally animated during baptisms and with spiritual gifts, identified as “Danite” near Far West, Missouri, in 1838 but also robbed the Saints, was in and out of the Church twice from 1830 to 1839. The death of his second wife made him a single father at thirty-six; at the time of his letter he was forty-three.
A Father’s Blessing on a16-year-old Bride
80. CAHOON, Reynolds. “Thirza Taylor’s blessing, by Elder Reynolds Cahoon. G. S. L. [Great Salt Lake] City, May 4th, 1856.” 2 pages, quarto (7 ¾ x 13), in pencil on lavender blue stationary, hand of Andrew Cahoon.
Reynolds gave his granddaughter Thirza Taylor, newly married at sixteen, a father’s blessing as she departed by ox team and wagon train of one hundred and fifty or two hundred from Great Salt Lake City, to pioneer Carson Valley (Presently Nevada) at the Sierra Nevada, a new Church settlement. The date of this blessing helps document that she traveled with that whole company that left on 7 May, and contributes to the mutual record.
He wrote, in part: “I do it with peculiar feeling because of they parentage, because thou are a daughter from the loins of thy mother whose heart was interwoven with her parents, was by them greatly beloved beyond what human capacity could express, therefore Thirza honor & respect thy parentage . . . ,” much more on giving her wisdom, feminine purity, pleasing her companion, but remaining in his (Reynolds’ house and kingdom).
The Mormon Plan to Settle Nevada
81. [TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley]. Letter to “Father and Mother” (Reynolds Cahoon and Thirza Stiles Cahoon), from Thousand Spring Valley (Territory of Utah, presently northeastern Nevada), 13 May 1856, unsigned. 1 page, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾).
Traveling in a company to the present California-Nevada line, this letter contains descriptions of their (Hillard and Thirza Taylor’s) personal appearances (Thirza was tan), and their travels. Hilliard and sixteen-year-old Thirza left Great Salt Lake City in a company to settle Carson Valley (Presently Nevada) at the Sierra Nevada; evidently traveling with the known party that left Great Salt Lake City on 7 May.
“Ragged and Sassy” and “Black as a Squaw”
82. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Father, Mother” (Reynolds Cahoon and Thirza Stiles Cahoon), from Humboldt River (Territory of Utah, presently northern Nevada), 11 June 1856. 1 page, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), unsigned. “Reynolds Cahoon” on verso.
Contains descriptions of their personal appearances and their travels, traveling on the California Trail along the Humboldt River to obtain water, grass, and wood. She was “ragged and sassy” and “black as a squaw” (tan), asking about Rais and Truman Cahoon, young sons of Reynold’s second wife; asking about Myron B. Durfee, who married Lerona the daughter of William F. Cahoon; Thirza traveling with elders going to Australia; other names. This young sixteen-year-old bride and true pioneer wrote: “I have got a little badger, we got it of an Indian, they call it Hona.”
Genoa, the Nevada Settlement by Orson Hyde
83. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Father, Mother” (Reynolds Cahoon and Thirza Stiles Cahoon), from Genoa, Carson County, Utah (Territory, presently western Nevada), 10 August [1856], signed “Thirza Taylor.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾).
Arrived at her destination in western Nevada. Discussed cattle, reports Hilliard Taylor absent with Brothers [William] Nixson and Hide [Orson Hyde]; asked about Miss Johnson (wife or daughter of Reynolds Cahoon), William Cahoon, Daniel Cahoon, Mahonri Moriancumer Cahoon, Andrew Cahoon, Rais Cahoon, Truman Cahoon, and other family members. This was a settlement made by Orson Hyde in 1856.
Genoa (at “Mormon Station”), Utah Territory (presently in Nevada on the California line) was already named in 1855, but was surveyed in 1856 by Orson Hyde as an agricultural settlement for Mormons and an outfitting post on the California Trail before crossing the Sierra Nevada. The station was abandoned in 1857 because of the progressing Utah War.
A 16-year-old Bride Alone at the Sierra Nevada
84. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter comprised of three parts to “Father,” “Mother,” and ”Miss Lucina [Johnson] Cahoon” (from Genoa, Carson County, Territory of Utah, presently western Nevada), 26 September 1856, three components signed “Daughter Thirza L. S. Taylor,” “Thirza L. Taylor,” and “Thirza L. S. Taylor” (practicing her new married name), addressed to Reynolds Cahoon, Great Salt Lake City, Utah. 2 pages, quarto (7 ¾ x 12 ½).
Writing to her father on behalf of her and her sister wife Asenath Eleanor, she said facetiously “I write to you to let you know how we lonesome widows are out here.” Hilliard was in Great Salt Lake City, Thirza was on the shifty California-Utah territorial line: “We do not know where we are, in California or in Utah [it would become Nevada Territory in five years],” family news among the Cahoons, William, Daniel, Mahonri Moriancumer, Rais; Jarvis (Johnson) and Leman (Johnson), Johnsons, Hannah, others in Great Salt Lake City. This “Miss” Lucina Cahoon might be the second wife (Lucina Johnson) or the step-daughter of Reynolds Cahoon (also Lucina Johnson) born in 1843 but who died as a child.
Thirza being just sixteen, married but alone without her husband in a settlement of men, and writing about her life in Nevada in 1856 is truly remarkable given the following account by a historian who was her contemporary: “The advent of a female in 1855 was an event of importance, because of the few of them that had settled in the country. There were but two at Mormon Station [Genoa, Carson Valley (Presently Nevada)], where a population of about 200 resided. There were but two at Gold Cańon, where about the same number of people were engaged in mining and trade, and probably but fifteen females in all who lived in what is now Nevada in the Fall of 1855 . . .The lives of some of those women would make a thrilling page in history, which would prove that truth is stranger than fiction.” (Thompson & West’s History of Nevada 1881, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers.)
“Dear Husband” Signed by Two Wives
Polygamists Being Killed in Nevada
85. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley and Asenath Eleanor Lufkin Taylor. Letter to “Husband” (Hilliard Taylor), from Genoa, Carson County, Utah (Territory, presently Nevada), 6 October 1856, signed “Thirza L. Taylor;” with a second letter on the same page signed by A. E. Taylor. 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾).
Talks of others at Carson, “Kinsey was married Wednesday to Sarah Jane, they came over from Wassau after dark so that the folks would not know that they were married, but the men found it out, and there was about 112 men with their [tempers?] and their bros. killed and everything to make [amends?] , they kept up till 3 o’clock in the morning, we were up [there] the next night and they said tho they was so glad that you and Alexander [Cowan] were not here for they knew that the [door] would have come down.” (Spelling standardized.) There is difficulty discerning here whether it was Mormons or old citizens who were doing the killing, or what they were killing, but Hyde had written to Brigham Young on 16 October that mobs were forming and “No man that is a Mormon can live who has more than one wife.”
This is a recorded marriage: “In Wassaw Valley (Washoe), on the second day of October, 1856, at the house of Judge Orson Hyde, Stephen A. Kinsey to Miss Sarah Jane Thompson [Hawkins], by the Hon. Orson Hyde.” (Thompson & West’s History of Nevada 1881, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers.)
Thirza continues, “The meeting is about 3 miles from here down to Roker’s, we shall not go today. I guess Mrs. Alexander will and the children.” Apparently this was the wife of Alexander Cowan.
The first wife of Hilliard Taylor shared the paper, and wrote an astounding second letter signed A. E. Taylor, or Asenath Eleanor. The two wives say “We sent three letters by Mr. Child, to Mary, Charlotte, and Father Cahoon.“ She was riding half-broken colts of Ace Kenyon’s with someone named “Hen[ry].” The reference to Ace Kenyon is important—before the settlement of Mormon Station, or Genoa, Ace Kenyon behaved like a vulture, enriching himself on outfitting after the misfortunes of emigrants and reputed to cause some of them too, driving off cattle in the night, only to rescue them during the day.
Hilliard married his first wife Asenath Eleanor Lufkin (born in New Hampshire in 1827) in 1854, and married Thirza two years later when his first wife was twenty-eight and his new wife was sixteen (he was thirty-two), all of which were still their ages when this letter was written soon afterward.
The Cahoon Family
86. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Father and Mother and Miss Johnson” (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon, and Lucina Johnson), from Genoa, Carson, Utah (Territory, presently Nevada), dated 2 November 1856, signed “Thirza Taylor.” 2 pages on first leaf of 4-page bifolio, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), with a section removed at top of otherwise blank second leaf to redact text.
Questions about family at home, McAdory, Canon and Jonas, Myron (Myron B. Durfee) in Great Salt Lake City with news from Thirza, awaiting Hilliard Taylor’s return, Andrew Cahoon, Rais Cahoon, Truman Cahoon, John Stiles and Percy Stiles, Janet and her little girl, news on Missy (Lucina) Johnson, and Emma Simons left her mom.
Love and Polygamy
87. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Father and Mother” (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon), from Genoa, Carson County, Utah (Territory, presently Nevada), date line torn from letter [1856], signed “Thirza Taylor.” 1 page, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), section removed at top.
Wrote of missing her husband, wrote of her sister wife Aseneth Eleanor who sent her love to the Cahoons, Daniel S. Cahoon had a “miniature” of Thirza Taylor, which presumably was a daguerreotype; one snowstorm that had cleared, cold; wanted Rais Cahoon to write; sent love to Miss (Lucina) Johnson; had never missed anyone in her life (at sixteen) as much as she missed her husband.
Finding Harvey Stanley,
of the First Seventy in Kirtland
88. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Father and Mother“(Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon), (from Genoa City, Carson County, Territory of Utah, presently Nevada) dated 12 November 1856, signed “From your granddaughter, Thirza Taylor.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾).
Thirza received her husband’s letter by way of the emigrants, with news that he got through safe. Her birth father, Harvey Stanley, was at Petaluma (Sonoma County), California (west of Genoa, or Mormon Station). “He wrote as good letter as ever you see a father write in life. I guess he is [well] and they have got three children, 3 girls, they have lost their boy.” Interestingly she wrote this way to Reynolds Cahoon, her adoptive father, and this was the sole letter which she signed “your granddaughter.” Plans for Stanley to “come over” (the Sierra Nevada) to visit Thirza at Carson Valley (Presently Nevada). Inquired about Rais Cahoon, and Lucina Johnson, and “Uncle Andrew” Cahoon. Sent love from her sister wife Asenath Eleanor Taylor.
A Kirtland Seventy in California,
and the Romance of Polygamy
89. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Husband,”addressed to “Hilliard B. Taylor,” from Genoa City, Carson, Utah (Territory, presently Nevada), dated 13 November 1856, signed “Thirza L. Taylor, wife.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾) with integral address panel.
Thirza received her husband’s letter by way of the emigrants, with news that he got through safe. Her birth father, Harvey Stanley, was at Petaluma (Sonoma County), California (west of Genoa, at Mormon Station) and wanted to get acquainted with Hilliard. Mary (Cahoon?) was married at home. She remained Hilliard’s affectionate wife with much romantic content about missing him, and also wrote with messages from his first wife Asenath Eleanor Taylor. This letter was folded and addressed to her husband and inserted into her letter to her father written the previous day.
Sister Wives, the Mormon Reformation, and Orson Hyde
90. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Husband,”addressed to “Hilliard B. Taylor” (from Genoa, Carson County, Territory of Utah, presently Nevada), dated 2 December 1856, signed “Thirza L. Taylor, wife.” 3 pages, paginated backwardly, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), bifolio. Upside-down on the third page is a four-line redaction of an similar letter begun the day before.
Writing on behalf of herself and her sister wife, she wrote to their husband: “It is with pleasure that I improve this opportunity of sending you a letter to let you know how the poor widows are.” She referred, naturally, to her and her sister wife being alone in the wilderness without him. “Hilliard, you don’t know how lonesome we [are] without you, it seems as though I never could content myself to stay so far from you this Winter.” Hilliard had gone to Great Salt Lake City on business and not returned before Winter.
“Myron [Myron B. Durfee] left here four weeks ago and will be there by this time, if ever. I expect there [are] many [who] think that they will never get through on account of the Indians, they are very bad. We heard that Elder Hide [Orson Hyde] was sent for—if he was, write and tell what for, some things that he has not done, write the reason that he was called back this winter. We heard that some of the Australia missionaries [were] cut off from the Church. If this is so, write and tell which ones.” (Spelling standardized.) Hyde had written to Brigham Young on 16 October that mobs were forming and “No man that is a Mormon can live who has more than one wife” On 6 November he was recalled to the Territory of Utah never to return.
Wrote of her father, Harvey Stanley, in Petaluma, Sonoma County, California; she planned a Spring visit there (over one hundred miles), and he wanted to get acquainted with Hilliard. “Well, Hilliard, Mr. and Mrs. Macmarlin [were] up here last week and spent the afternoon,” and wrote of conversation; this was likely James and Alice McMarlin from Gold Cańon.
Wrote about snow, Hilliard must have been cold sleeping alone, other people mentioned, Mary (Cahoon?) was married: “I am glad that you have not got such a woman, for you are too good for any such woman. I think she did forget you when out of sight. She said that she would be very lonesome when you come away, but she soon got over it. You said that you did not think that you would get any more women this winter. I drempt that you [were] married to Harriet Lish. I wish that I knew, I thought you dropped her to [Carson?] with you. I think that we will be very happy when you get back any way. We are going to be rebaptized and I think that I shall shall stop drinking tea and coffee, but I like it so well but I shall try to be good.” (Spelling standardized.) Sent love to Lerona (daughter of William F. Caoon); not going to Gold Cańon that winter. Her rebaptism was a reference to the Mormon Reformation of 1857 where members around the world recommitted and were rebaptized. Incidentally, Harriet A. Lish married Jacob Welker at Williard, Territory of Utah, in February 1855; and in 1856 and 1857 had children she named Harriet and Jacob.
The Mormons and San Bernardino, California
91. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham. Letter to “Parents & Friends“ (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon), datelined “[El] Monte [California], Dec. 3rd 1856,” signed “H. B. Taylor” 1 page, attractively composed in blue ink on blue stationary, small quarto (7 ½ x 9 ½), bifolio.
Seemingly oblivious that his wives were writing to him at Great Salt Lake City, Taylor had skipped them on the California Trail and gone south through the Territory of Utah to California by way of Las Vegas following the route of the Old Spanish Trail. Both of his mules and his horse were stolen at San Bernardino. He wrote a beautiful letter to his parents after passing San Bernardino and was then at El Monte traveling toward Los Angeles, where he intended to take a steamboat for San Francisco and then go overland across the Sierra Nevada on the California Trail back to his wives, and incredibly anticipated being home by 15 December.
A Polygamous Love Story
92. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham and Thirza Stanley Taylor. Letter to “Parents“ (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon), datelined “Carson Valley [presently Nevada], January 25th, [18]57,” signed “Hilliard B. and Thirza L. Taylor” 2 pages, on blue stationary, small quarto (7 ⅜ x 9 ¼), bifolio. Top half of the first page in the hand of Hilliard, remainder finished by Thirza.
“I am happy to inform you that I am at home with my family, well & happy. I arrived home on the 24th of Dec. I had to cross the mountains on snow shoes & had a hard trip. The snow was 7 feet deep. I found the girls well & comfortable.” This letter concludes an extraordinarily romantic saga in which Taylor arrives home to his two wives, who had given up expecting him that winter, thinking that he was eastward in Great Salt Lake City, when suddenly he arrives from the west, down the Sierra Nevada in the wintertime running on snowshoes over seven foot snow depths, and was at their door on Christmas Eve. Thirza wrote” “Hilliard came home after we gave up looking for him, he had a very hard trip and you can imagine how happy we [were] on his return.”
Thirza continued with news about her father in Petaluma, California, he asked Thirza to convey love to Reynolds Cahoon, he will visit in the Spring, “I don’t know what he will say when he hears that I have married a man that has got a wife but I don’t care, I have got a good man, if he has got another woman.” News from Andrew (Cahoon) who had returned home, Reynolds and Thirza not writing to her at Carson except once, she inquired about Myron (Myron B. Durfee), Miss Johnson, Rais and Truman (youngest sons of Reynolds Cahoon), about her personal appearance, and about Brother [Jedediah M.] Grant.“We heard that Brother Grant was dead, I think people will miss him very much. The next letter that you write and tell us who they put in his place.” (Spelling standardized.) Daniel H. Wells took his place. Grant called himself “Mormon Thunder” but was known in Eastern newspapers as “Brigham’s sledgehammer.” He pushed the Mormon Reformation (rebaptism) movement from September until his death on 1 December, which then peaked in 1857 and ended by 1858.
A Letter Produced by Two Polygamous Wives Together,
with Their Husband
93. TAYLOR, Hilliard, Thirza Stanley Taylor, and Asenath Eleanor Taylor. Letter to “Friends“ (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon at Great Salt Lake City), datelined “Victoria, Van Couver’s [Vancouver], Island, Sept. 4th /[18]58,” signed “H. B. Taylor” and “Thirza L. Taylor.” 3 pages, on blue stationary, small quarto (8 ¼ x 10 ⅝), bifolio. Two and a fifth page in the hand of Hilliard, two-fifth of third page by Thirza, and remaindered two-fifths of the third page accomplished by Asenath Eleanor Taylor when she forwarded the letter with the dateline “Sept. 11th /58 Carson Valley” (Territory of Utah, presently Nevada), and signed it “A. E. Taylor.” Pencil note of William F. Cahoon, “Letters from Thirza Taylor, all looked over,” on the blank fourth page.
More than one and a half years after their last letter from Genoa, Carson Valley in what is presently Nevada, Thirza and Hilliard resumed writing from Victoria, Vancouver Island (distinguished from Vancouver), British Columbia. In the intervening time, on 5 September 1857, less than a week before the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Brigham Young sent an express rider and recalled all Mormons appointed to settle at Carson; John Hyde Jr. wrote an editorial to the New York Herald 1 December 1857 which stated that the Mormons might flee the Territory of Utah: “They applied to Her Britannic Majesty's government for permission to settle Vancouver’s Island, but were refused. I know that the vast majority of the people would be frightened at the thought of encountering the frosts and storms of Russian America, and the Pacific coast and Pacific islands have long formed part of their projects and their prayers.”
A connection of dramatic events, this letter connects the Mormons settlements of Vancouver Island, Carson Valley, and Great Salt Lake City; on a single sheet it contains the letters of two wives and their shared husband, and it was directed to one of the earliest and most influential Latter Day Saints and his own two wives, at the height of Mormon conflict. The letter travels on the Pacific, and over the Sierra Nevada. It does not seem possible that this letter traveled from Vancouver’s Island to San Francisco by sail or steam, and then over the Sierras to Carson Valley, Territory of Utah, in a week, even by the “Express Office” from which it was mailed, without some mistake in the date. Hilliard wrote “I have just received a letter from Asenath & she says you want to have us write to you & as there is a way to get letters to Salt Lake now, I will write to you.” This presumed the California Trail was safe after the Utah War ended in April 1858 with the surrender of Brigham Young as governor.
Her husband wrote that Thirza “is in a family way, about four months along.” Much information on health and appearance, hoping to live to them again; “We went to Mr. [Harvey] Stanley’s last Fall & lived with them three months & then we bought furniture & went to keeping house by ourselves in Petaluma [Sonoma County, California]. There is where Mr. Stanley lives. We staid there until Spring & went from there to Georgetown & staid there about six weeks & came from there here & we have been here over three months & most likely we shall stay somewhere in this country until next summer & perhaps by next Fall we shall be in Salt Lake Valley. Mr. Stanley was very anxious to have us settle down & live in Petaluma, but that we never shall do. We both like Mr. Stanley well but his wife is the Devil. Thirza did not wish to ever see her again, nor we have not anxiety to ever see California again. Mr. Stanley is well off for this world’s goods. He is worth quite a number of thousand dollars.” More on Stanley. Sends love to “Mother and Mrs. Johnson” (the two wives of Reynolds Cahoon). “Don’t worry about Thirza, for there is many worse men in the world than I am & I presume I am not as wicked as you think & have not Apostatized.” Brief notes from Thirza and Asenath followed, acknowledging the contents; Asenath mentioned Henry, doubtlessly the “Hen” with whom she was riding colts two summers earlier.
At eighteen years old, Thirza Stanley was conceived at Mormon settlement in Missouri, orphaned by her mother at Lee County, Iowa Territory, settled and fled Nauvoo, emigrated on the Mormon Trail through Council Bluffs and Winter’s Quarters; grew up in the Territory of Utah, taken the California Trail, settled at the Sierras as one of the first women in what is presently Nevada; taken the California Trail through San Francisco, and steamed to Vancouver Island to arrive at Fort Victoria when it became an important base during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858.
Mormons on Vancouver Island
94. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham. Letter to “Parents“ (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon at Great Salt Lake City), datelined “Victoria [Vancouver Island], April 3rd 1859,” signed “H. B. Taylor, Victoria, V.I.” 4 pages, on blue stationary, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), bifolio.
Hilliard received a letter from Lucina (Johnson, the polygamous wife of Reynolds Cahoon), forwarded from Carson Valley (presently Nevada) by Asenath Eleanor Taylor, a wife. She announced the birth of a daughter by a second wife, Thirza L. Taylor, on 28 March, with much detail about the health, birth and appearance of mother and daughter. The Taylors were prosperously building houses in the gold boom at Victoria, earning four hundred dollars in just four weeks, hired a nurse for Thirza and the baby, expected to relocate at Salt Lake City the next Fall, Mr. Drummond was there who married Mary Ann Taylor and left his wife in California but expected her in Victoria; they were naming their own baby Mary Ann Taylor. Reynolds Cahoon had cancer (died in 1861), and Hilliard sent him a recipe for a potash cure.
Divorce in Polygamy
95. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham and Thirza Stanley Taylor. Letter to “Parents“ (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon), datelined “Sacramento City, March 7th 1860,” signed “H. B. Taylor.” 4 pages, small quarto (7 ⅝ x 9 ⅝), bifolio; the letter of Hilliard taking two and a half pages followed by a letter of Thirza of one and a half pages signed “Thirza Taylor.”
Hilliard wrote they have not received an answer to their sole letter from Victoria a year ago, or any letter since they first came to California, except one from Mrs. Johnson (the polygamous wife of Reynolds Cahoon). “We are better folks than what you think, we are much better than has been represented to you.” Descriptions of their little girl, happy and may go Great Salt Lake City the next Fall, but would come that summer if the Cahoons wrote; they were keeping house in Sacramento, left Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, on 1 December with one thousand and forty dollars, had a new house, a new stove, and new furniture, and comfort; economy was down in Sacramento. “It is no use for me to write to you about Asenath for you know more than I could tell you. I wish her happiness.” Thirza asked about Myron B. Durfee, Mahonri Moriancumer Cahoon, Mrs. Johnson, Rais, and Tede (Truman?), and others; would send a miniature (daguerreotype).
A List of Sacramento Mormons
96. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham and Thirza Stanley Taylor. Letter to “Parents and Friends“ (Reynolds and Thirza Cahoon), datelined “Sacramento City, May 13th 1860,” signed “H. B. Taylor.” 4 pages, small quarto (7 ⅝ x 9 ⅝), bifolio; the letter of Hilliard taking three and a half pages followed by a letter of Thirza of a half page to “Parents” signed “Thirza Taylor.”
Received letters from the Cahoons, wrote about daughter Mary Ann Taylor, Hilliard had formed a company to build a sawmill and it in Lake Valley (Lake Tahoe), California, just eight miles west of Carson Valley (presently Nevada). “I want to tell you one thing & I will tell you the truth, altho I have been cut off of the Church I am a Mormon. I always have been since I first joined & always shall be. I have not doubts about it at all, & we shall be with you again if your lives are spared. There is a great many folks in this city and about here that have been Mormons & I talked with them all, they have most of them apostatized. I will name some of them to you. Mr. Moor, Mr. Lawson, fidler, widow, Rush & daughter, Mr. Morell is here keeping company with the daughter [of] this Morell . . . Hauze family, Doctor McIntire . . . Thomas Gripheth . . . “ Wrote “There is a great rush to Carson Valley & if any of the Saints intend coming there tell them if they want to go right strait to hell, to go there, for it is a hell sure, & California is not much better. If folks there had ever had as much experience in this country as I have, they would all stay where they are. . . . the mines are not half as good as represented.” Much talk about marriage and daughter. Thirza did not wish to see Harvey Stanley ever again, nor his family. A note from Thirza inquired about Mrs. Johnson, the second wife of Reynolds Cahoon, John Stiles, Rais Cahoon, Mrs. Angel (Truman O. Angell, temple architect?); news about Jarvis (Johnson); details about Reynolds Cahoon and cancer; in Sacramento were “old man Stone,” Charley Warner (Warner was dead and his wife was there).
Building Camp Floyd
97. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed, datelined “Camp Floyd [Territory of Utah], Oct. 31 /[18]58.” To “Dear Father.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾).
Andrew Cahoon was at Camp Floyd, built that year by the U.S. Army under Albert Sidney Johnston. He was there as a civilian as the camp was being complete in November with four hundred buildings since the Army arrived in July.
Sending a letter by the stage, he did not like the wood chopping business, or working for “Makeham and Spriggs;” much detail on chopping cedars; his next job was plastering; “You can tell Bro. Terrill that I brought his Keg of Whiskey out—and offered it for sale at every little grocery there was on the road at 6 dollars a gallon and they would not buy it, they got their whiskey from Moons at four dollars a gallon and a great deal better article. They said I had watered it because it was so weak. I sold 1 pint to some soldiers on the road and after tasting it they poured it out on the ground.”
Requesting to Get onto a Jury
98. CAHOON, Andrew. Autograph letter signed [Camp Floyd, Territory of Utah, October 1858].” To “Father.” 1 page, small quarto irregularly torn (7 ¾ x 6 ½) irregularly torn.
Joins the previous letter as a note about work, making wire, and requesting supplies by stage by William Kimball. “Hiram Kimball has been summoned to the Jury but he wants to get off and you may get his place by seeing Dodson. I spoke to William Kimball about it today, when Kimball was telling him to see Dodson and get him excused. He said he would speak of you to fill the place.”
Nauvoo Stone Masons in Utah
99. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of William F. Cahoon, signed “Yours Truly, Wm. F. Cahoon,” to My Dear Father & Family” but addressed to “Mrs. N. M. Cahoon, G. S. L. City, U. T. [Nancy Maranda Cahoon, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory].” Dated at Camp Floyd (Territory of Utah), 25 November 1858. 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾) of blue paper, all in pencil, with integral address panel on page two, hand carried.
William F. Cahoon was at Camp Floyd, built that year by the U.S. Army under Albert Sidney Johnston. He was there as a civilian as the camp was being complete in November with four hundred buildings since the Army arrived in July.
William wrote that he had just returned from the other fort, where the boys Andrew and Mahonri Moriancumer were, Mahonri was extremely sick at the Fort. “When Father was out here we administered to him & he was relieved from the pain in his head and when I left him this evening he was better, I think he will be all right in the morning.” Daniel coming out with a team of oxen to get Mahonri; Andrew; Lime Kiln, firing the Kiln, Capt. Turley.
Evidently the Cahoon boys had taken their masonry skills from the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples and were working a lime kiln to produce lime for construction.
Reynolds Cahoon, Brandy and Pills
100. CAHOON, William F. Autograph letter in the hand of William F. Cahoon, signed “Yours most respectfully, W. F. Cahoon” to “Dear Father & Mother” and addressed to “R. Cahoon, South Cottonwood.” Dated at Great Salt Lake City, 24 February 1861, 12 Ward. 1 page, small quarto (7 ⅝ x 9) of blue paper, with integral address panel on page two, hand carried.
Two months before the death of his father, William F. Cahoon wrote to him, returned from meeting at the tabernacle, Doc. Wiseman, recommending “brandy & brisket at full strength,” taking pills, perhaps mercury chloride or opium.
Carson City Mormons
Silver at the Comstock Lode
101. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham and Thirza Stanley Taylor. Letter to “Mother and Friends“ (Thirza Stiles Cahoon), datelined “Carson City [Nevada Territory], July 17th 1861,” signed “H. B. Taylor.” 2 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾); the letter of Hilliard taking one and two-thirds pages followed by a letter of Thirza of a third page to “Mother” signed “Thirza Taylor.”
In 1859, gold prospectors hit silver, the Comstock Lode, the largest silver discovery in the world, and by 1861 Carson City was the capital of the newly created Nevada Territory that achieved statehood by 1864. Hilliard reported that Mr. Noland at Carson City, heard of the death of Reynolds Cahoon, “Father’s death,” hoping to visit Salt Lake City this Fall, Taylor land speculating at Carson City, large shop, nice home, building another to sell on speculation.
The Death of Reynolds Cahoon
102. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Dear Aunt” (Percy Stiles? or Mary Cahoon?), datelined “Carson City [Nevada Territory], Apr. 26th [1862?]” signed “Thirza L. Taylor.” 4 pages, octavo (5 x 8), brittle with second leaf broken.
Wrote of “Father’s” death, received first letter since his death from anyone, though she wrote five times; she had two daughters then, Mary Ann and Esther Taylor; Jesse Taylor, the brother of Hilliard was living in Carson City the past year, Mrs. Johnson (widow of Reynolds Cahoon) knew him; and she promised miniatures (photographs) of her children.
Nevada Territorial Postmark
First Year
103. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham. Postmarked yellow cover only, to “Mrs. Reynolds Cahoon, G. S. L. City, U.T. [Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory” with rare “Carson City, NevT. [Nevada Territory]” territorial blue circular cancel “Feb. 1, 1862.” from the first year of Nevada’s territorial status and before 1864 statehood, with postage “Due” stamp, torn off and partially cut around postmark by someone who thought better of it and then mended it.
This envelope, was awkwardly sealed so that it may have contained something up to ⅜ inch thick, like an ambrotype or tintype miniatures.
Nevada Territorial Postmark
Last Year
104. TAYLOR, Hilliard Burnham. Postmarked yellow cover only, to “Mr. Wm. F. Cahoon, G. S. L. City, U.T. [Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory]” with two rare “Carson City, NevT [Nevada Territory]” territorial black circular cancels “Jan. 31, 1864.” from the final year of Nevada’s territorial status and before 31 October 1864 statehood, cut around postmarks by someone who thought better of it and then mended it.
Carson City, Nevada
105. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Mother” (Thirza Stiles Cahoon), datelined “Carson City [Nevada Territory], Apr. 7th 1862” signed “Thirza Taylor.” 1 page, from quarto ledger book, cut at bottom (6 ¾ x 11).
Wrote a cover letter to send ambrotype or tintype miniatures with John (Y.) Greene who was traveling to Salt Lake City, with family talk.
Divorce within Polygamy
106. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Mother” (Thirza Stiles Cahoon), presumably from Carson City, Nevada Territory, dated 8 October 1862, signed “Thirza Taylor.” 3 pages, small quarto (7 ¾ x 9 ¾), bifolio.
Wrote of her estranged sister wife, Asenath Eleanor Taylor: “I have not seen Asenath since she came back but I have understood that you had all got an idea that I was nearly starved to death and had a very hard time out here. It is not so, and I wish that I had hold of the one that told any such thing. . . . I will convince you that Hilliard is as good a husband as I want . . .” with much more on the relationship. Hilliard could not sell the Carson City property (on which he speculated) to move to Great Salt Lake City because of the war economy, the “war in the east,” emigrants were passing through Carson City who were too poor to even buy enough flour to last them over the Sierra Nevada; heard from Aunt Mary (Cahoon); Mrs. Johnson (sister wife of her mother) in poor health, inquired about Rais and Tede (Truman?) Cahoon; and daughters of Daniel S. Cahoon; mentions John (Y.) Greene and her daughter Esther. Lawrence traveling between Salt Lake City and Carson City, Townson, Hilliard’s brother Jesse Taylor, and William F. Cahoon were mentioned.
Lake Tahoe
107. TAYLOR, Thirza Stanley. Letter to “Dear Aunt” (Percy Stiles?) , datelined “Markleville [Lake Tahoe, California], April 10th 1864” signed “Your Niece, T. L. Taylor.” 2 pages, small octavo (5 x 7 ¾), brittle and broken.
Family news, war economic depression, Mary Jane Cahoon and her unhappy marriage, and alternative who had been named “Brown,” Emma Child, Lerona Cahoon, and Rais and Truman Cahoon (the younger sons of Reynolds Cahoon).
The Civil War and the Cahoons
108. CAHOON, Amos Reynolds. Autograph letter in the hand of Amos Cahoon (1846-), signed “A. R. Cahoon” to “Dear Uncle and Aunt” dated 20 September 1865 (La Grange, Missouri), 4 pages, quarto (7 ⅝ x 12 ⅜). Louise Cahoon had added a letter in vacant space.
Nineteen year-old “Reynolds,” nephew of Reynolds Cahoon, and veteran Union soldier; received letter dated 16 July, “acquainted with Uncle Billy Blake, he was with father some time, we heard here that he and his family were all murdered by the Indians,” Cahoons tried to get Pulaski out to Great Salt Lake City but Pulaski was doing well keeping a shoe store, shoe shop, and saddle shop; Amos was enlisted in U. S. Army 31 March 1864, in the 65th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, gone four months, Springfield, Illinois, for three weeks, arrived in New York City 30 April for five days, 3 May to Bedloe’s Island, New York Harbor, transport to Fortress Munroe, Virginia, North Carolina, Cape Hatteras, Greensboro, Raleigh, “when the [railroad] cars ran off there was only two or three killed,” into camp and remained there until 15 July and started for home, through Baltimore, Petersburg (Virginia), and Chicago by 1 August, studying law before and after enlistment.
Louisa Cahoon added a number of things, the transcontinental railroad, Pulaski was afraid to travel by land with teams, afraid of the Indians, Pulaski’s eyes were no better, wanted William, Daniel, and Andrew to write, “We have not heard a Mormon preach since we left Nauvoo, are there no preachers out now? If there is ever any more of the brethren sent of I hope they will think it worth their while to come through this place, for we should be very happy to see them and hear them preach once more,” Leopold parents still living, Leopold niece visiting from Keokuk, Iowa.
8 x 10 Albumen Card of Cahoon Gentlemen
109. CAHOON, Daniel S. Cabinet card of seven men, circa 1890, labeled in ballpoint pen, Charles Henry, Alpha, and Arson as full brothers; Hyrum S., Theron, and Daniel as full brothers; and Daniel Stiles Cahoon. Cabinet card (6 x 8 albumen mounted on 8 x 10), card corner broken and damp-stained not affecting view. The likely photographer was Sainsbury & Johnson, Salt Lake City.
![[Valid RSS]](valid-rss-rogers.png "Validate my RSS feed")
