Episode 137: Mormon Reformation, part three

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:19)
By 1855, frontier Utah was starving. Mormon immigration had swelled the ranks and settlements were suffering cycles of skirmishes with Native Americans, freezing winters and blistering hot summers. And remember, most of these new arrivals came from across the ocean, mostly from vastly different climates and languages. This year, a particularly fierce summer swept over the land and drought sucked hope from the ground like a curse.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:48)
The stalwart and faithful pioneers who had dreamed and sung about their newfound Zion were now struggling to survive the Great Basin Desert. This wasn't the first Old Testament-like scourge to plague the Saints. Oh, no. Remember, we already talked about the partially apocryphal story of the crickets and the seagulls.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:05)
This time, water and thirst parched the mouths of many, challenging the faith of even the most obedient. Hunger is one thing, but Mormons would declare open war against the US government, leading Mormons to feel the threat of their wrath like a specter. Forgotten were the feelings of unity and spirit that lifted them just a few years before as they built their kingdom of God on earth from scratch. And many were starting to apostatize. With famine and apostasy came raids and conflict. Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:40)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:42)
Bringing you the story of Mormonism from the shadow of the Everlasting Hills, straight out of Zion, this isn't your grandpa's Mormon history.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:09)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day. Saddle up.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:14)
Gird your loins, lock your hearts, and pay your tithing, because we're bringing you the story of Mormonism in all its paradisiacal glory.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:22)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast. We're going to let the brilliant historian and friend of the podcast, Polly Aird, lay out what a tumultuous period the 1850s were for Mormons in a pretty cool timeline.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:54)
Such a great timeline and it summarizes the issues that Mormons were dealing with at the time. So, spring and early summer of 1856, hunger was widespread because of the previous summer's crop loss. People begged in the streets and dug wild roots. In summer of 1856, drought, grasshoppers, cutworms and tobacco worms resulted in significant crop loss for a second year.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:16)
Why are tobacco worms a problem? Were the worms not following the word of wisdom?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:19)
I'm sure that's what it was.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:21)
Worm of wisdom?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:22)
Too early for that, Bryan. Late fall of 1856, the Martin and Willie Hancock companies, the last two this season arrived. They had started too late from the Missouri River and experienced early winter storms. All suffered and many died. Don't worry, we plan to cover this in depth coming up.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:39)
TLDR, it was all Franklin D. Richards' fault.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:41)
Oh my gosh.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:42)
Brigham was innocent.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:43)
I have so much dirt that I've been looking up on that thing. We're going to have to decide how deep we want to go.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:47)
Well, now, winter 1856 to 1857, Utah experienced another harsh winter. Snow eight feet deep in some places. Yeah, we used to have snow in the winter. It was crazy. Fall 1856 to summer 1857, although the Mormon Reformation had some positive effects in improving morale and increasing unity. Although the Mormon Reformation did have some positive effects in improving morals and increasing unity, Brigham Young and other church leaders used harsh rhetoric and expanded some, let's say, extreme doctrines to purify the people. Individuals were questioned, catechized about their behavior, and often made public confessions of wrongdoing, and rebaptism becomes the norm. And entering or expanding the practice of polygamy was considered a sign of zeal. Now March 1857, a father and two sons who had become disaffected from Mormonism tried to leave for California, but the father and one son, plus Plotwist, one of their betrayers, are killed in a bloody episode known as the Parish Potter Murders. Also something that we'll talk about in depth.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:54)
So now we're in May of 1857, and Parley P. Pratt, a popular apostle, was killed by the angry husband of one of Pratt's plural wives. Again, all of these stories we're going to go into. Then in July of 1857, the US Army was advancing on Utah to put down the Mormon Rebellion. News that Brigham Young announced with maximum effect on Pioneer Day, one of my favorite stories of all time.

**Bryan Buchanan** (5:16)
Is there any story in early Utah that you don't plan to cover in depth, Lindsay?