red paper boat

Anti-Mormon sentiments were common among the general US population in the mid-nineteenth century, so it’s not surprising that the covered wagon women would share them. It’s often difficult to tell, though, whether or not those prejudices were based on fact or on sensationalist tales that were popular at the time.

While reading the following passage, I was reminded of an episode of History Detectives I recently watched. It involved the authentication of an anonymously published book called Female Life Among the Mormons. The book purports to have been written by a Mormon wife in 1856—just a few years after Lucena Parsons’ diary entry. And while the book was at best highly fictionalized and at worst a complete fabrication, there’s no reason to believe that Lucena Parsons’ account—while inevitably colored by prejudice—isn’t generally truthful on the basic facts.

After all, I don’t think there’s much to debate about polygyny among the early Mormons. It happened then, as it happens now among fundamentalist Mormon sects. And if American women in the 1850s had little power comparative to men, it surely can’t have been any better for them in a patriarchal stronghold like the Mormon church.

Lucena Parsons had a few things to say about that, after her party wintered over at the Mormon settlement in Salt Lake City.

January, 1851

I know many men who have mothers & their daughters for these so called spiritual wives let the number be what it may. Oald Brigham Young for one. Archibald Gardner for another & Capt Brown for another & many more I could mention but it is too mean to write. These demons marry some girls at 10 years of age. For instance a man will take a mother & her daughters & marry them all at one time & perhaps he has persuaded her to leave a husband with whome she has always lived happy, or be damned. She believes it for perhaps he is one of the heads of the church & in this way many respectable families have been ruined. This I know to be true.

What will become of these men the Lord only knows. I have had the opportunity of knowing many of the women that are called spiritual wives & among them all I never saw one that seemed the least bit happy, but on the other hand they are a poor heart broken & deluded lot & are made slaves to the will of these hellish beings who call themselves men. All the preaching & teaching that is heard in this valley is obedience to rulers, & womens rights are trampled under foot. They have not as much liberty as common slaves in the south.

Brigham Young has some 70 women it is said [1]. Heber C Kimball has 50 [2], Doctor Richards 13, Parley Pratt 30 or 40 [3], John Taylor 8 [4], Capt Brown 8 [5], & in fact all the men who have but one are looking out for more. If when they have got them they would use them well it would be better but far from it. They fight & quarrel & the women leave one man & go to another. When a woman wishes to leave she goes to Brigham & gets a divorce & marries another & this is the way things are going all the time.

Lucena Pfuffer, 1821-1905, Diary of Lucena Parsons, January, 1851, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 2: 1850. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp.. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

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Her numbers are a little off. According to Wikipedia,

1. Brigham Young had 55 wives.

2. Heber C. Kimball had 43 wives.

3. Parley Pratt had 12 wives.

4. John Taylor had at least seven wives.

5. Capt. James Brown had 13 wives.

As I’m reading through the pioneer women’s journals, I’m finding myself wishing I could follow along behind them, to see with my own eyes the things they’re describing. Whether it’s natural landforms, like Chimney Rock, or unnamed mountain springs and wildflowers, I’m drawn to them. Which is strange, because I’ve never wanted to travel out west.

This is an especially lovely passage.

[June] 30 [1851]

A coquettish little stream darts along among the green grass dividing & uniting & then parting again Its clear cold sparkling water as it comes rushing from the mountains over the rocky bed is grateful to the taste

Clarke, Harriet Talcott Buckingham, 1832-1890, Diary of Harriet Talcott Buckingham Clarke, June, 1851, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 3: 1851. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Lucena Pfuffer Parsons took pains to record not just her impressions of the new sights surrounding her, but she also took careful note of the graves she passed by. A macabre task to set oneself to, but perhaps also a way to memorialize those who had died along the trail.

This passage struck me as particularly poignant, but also amazing in its matter-of-factness. In nearly the same breath, she describes graves dug up and bodies torn apart by wolves, and then the quality of feed they found in the area for their stock. That\’s one hell of a circle of life.

July 18 [1850]

This morning the wether is hot, too hot to go far. We only made about 12 miles. Stoped some 2 or 3 hours in the hotest part of the day. The sheep seem nearly done over with the heat. We have passt some 12 graves & I am told there is a burying ground near here of 300 graves. If so it must be a general camping ground for near these I find the most graves. I see some painfull sights where the wolves have taken up the dead & torn their garments in pieces & in some instances the skulls & jaw bones are strewed over the ground. Feed very poor what we find is on the river in low places. Wether dry as yet.

Parsons, Lucena Pfuffer, 1821-1905, Diary of Lucena Parsons, July, 1850, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 2: 1850. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, pp. 294.

Another passage from Elizabeth Dixon Smith Geer’s journal caught my attention. Some of the women write about taking the opportunity to explore the strange landscapes they see along the trail. Elizabeth’s husband trekked up a mountain and noted the striations of the rocks and the fossils contained within them. He described them to his wife when he returned.

August 7 [1847]

made 15 miles encamped on Blacks fork a small river bordered with willows this large waste of country in my opinion has once been a see my husband found on top of a mountain sea shells petrified in the stone the creaces in the rocks show the different stages of the water.

Geer, Elizabeth Dixon Smith, 1808/9?-1855, Diary of Elizabeth Dixon Geer, August, 1847, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 1: 1840-1849. Holmes, Kenneth L., editor and compiler.  Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, page 136.

What also struck me about this entry is that it shows that not just the poor and uneducated set out for the west. Clearly, Elizabeth and her husband possessed knowledge of natural history and an understanding that the world we know was once vastly different. (The basic rules of spelling and punctuation may be another matter, however!)

I’ve often wondered about the pioneer women who were forced or coerced to leave their homes, their loved ones, and all that is familiar behind them. I’m sure most of them resigned themselves to follow their husbands, but I’m not surprised that some women got thoroughly fed up.

[Sept] 15 [1847]

layed by this morning one company moved on except one family the woman got mad and would not budge nor let the children he had his cattle hitched on for 3 hours and coaxing her to go but she would not stur I told my husband the circumstance and him and Adam Polk and Mr Kimble went and took each one a young one and cramed them in the wagon and her husband drove off and left her siting she got up took the back track travled out of sight cut a cross overtook her husband meantime he sent his boy back to camp after a horse that he had left and when she came up her husband says did you meet John yes was the reply and I picked up a stone and nocked out his brains her husband went back to asertain the truth and while he was gone she set one of his waggons on fire which was loaded with store goods the cover burnt off and some valueable artickles he saw the flame and came runing and put it out and then mustered spunk enough to give her a good floging her name is Marcum she is cousin to Adam Polks wife

Geer, Elizabeth Dixon Smith, 1808/9?-1855, Diary of Elizabeth Dixon Geer, September, 1847, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 1: 1840-1849. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, pp. 272.

A footnote in the introduction to Elizabeth’s journal clarifies that Mrs. Marcum did not actually kill the boy she hit with the rock. He shows up in a later Census, alive and well. Mrs. Marcum did end up following her husband west, where they were later divorced. Unsurprisingly.

I said before that the covered wagon women were made of stern stuff. Mrs. Sessions, a midwife and all around extraordinary human being, not only did the cooking and washing for her family, but she delivered babies along the route and drove her own team of oxen. She had good cause to be proud of herself. And then she delivered the first baby in the new Mormon settlement at what was to become Salt Lake City.

Saturday 25 [1847]

P G went back to help up the rear of his camp they have all got here safe some broken waggons but no broken bones I have drove my waggon all the way but part of the two last mts P G drove a litle I broke nothing nor turned over had good luck I have cleaned my waggon and my self and visited some old friends

Sunday [Sept.] 26 [1847]

go to meeting hear the epistle read from the twelve then went put Lorenzo Youngs wife Harriet to bed with a son the first male born in this valley it was said to me more than 5 months ago that my hands should be the first to handle the first born son in the place of rest for the saints even in the city of our God I have come more than one thousand miles to do it since it was spoken

Sessions, Patty Bartlett, 1795-1892, Diary of Patty Bartlett Sessions, September, 1847, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 1: 1840-1849. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, pp. 272.