Episode 138: Mormon Castrations and Warren Snow

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:00)
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:02)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:04)
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** (0:32)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day. Saddle up.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:37)
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** (0:44)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast. All right. So as promised in our third Reformation episode, we brought up the story of Warren Snow, and we talked about how it's messy, and it's fascinating.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:14)
Messy is a way to say we're going to be talking about castration. We're going to be talking about castration today.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:19)
Yes, we are. Because this is one of these that as you get on the internet, this is one that people are starting to know. They know about Warren Snow.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:28)
It's one that I get asked about a lot, and I know it's weird to be like, Castration is so exciting. No, it's not exciting, but you hear that, and you're like, wait, what? You guys, remember, our ancestors started a frontier religion that was extreme and fundamentalist and compounded by a lot of violence and scarcity. So what do rural people do to things that they want to control? They domesticate them and sometimes they castrate them, and they did that to Mormon people too, sometimes. And today we're going to talk about how prevalent that was because, yes, there are instances that we can document. That does not mean that it was institutionalized by the church. However, it was done by some leaders in the church. So, like Bryan said, it's messy.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:23)
And this is an interesting story for me because Warren Snow is part of my wife's ancestry. So this one came up one of the very first times I met her extended family. And I don't even remember. She had mentioned something. I had found out that he was an ancestor. And so I was talking to her aunt and I brought up Warren Snow. And she looked puzzled. Thought for a minute, oh, you mean Warren Stone Snow? And then the light turned on. I was like, yes, yes, Warren Stone Snow, that guy. So, so to start with, like we did in our third Reformation episode, we'll give you the versions that you most often hear on the internet. Because that's where you'll see the versions. These are the versions that people know about the Warren Stone Snow story. So, this first one, this is the first published account of it. This comes from Analyze Young's memoir, Wife No. 19, published in 1876 Now, these two accounts we're going to read are a little bit long, but stay with us because this is where you'll get the themes that pop up on, on kind of popular versions of this story. Among the victims to priestly hatred and jealousy was a young man about 20 years of age in San Pete County named Thomas Lewis, a very quiet, inoffensive fellow, much liked by all who knew him, very retiring in his manners and not particularly fond of gay society. He lived with his widowed mother, and the very sweetest, tenderest relations that can exist between a mother and child existed between them. Contrary to his usual habit, he attended a dancing party one evening at the urgent and repeated entreaties of his friends, and during the evening, he was quite attentive to a young lady friend of his who was present, and with whom he was on terms of greater intimacy than with any other in the company. She knew his shy, retiring disposition and seemed to take pleasure in assisting him to make the evening a pleasant one, just as any good-natured, kindly girl will do for a young fellow whom she likes and who she knows is ill at ease and uncomfortable.
It happened that Snow, the bishop of the ward in which the Lewis family lived, had cast his patriarchal eye on this young girl and designed her for himself, and he did not relish the idea of seeing another person pay any attention to his future wife. He had a large family already, but he wished to add to it, and he did not choose to be interfered with. Lewis's doom was sealed at once. The bewitched bishop was mad with jealous rage, and he had only to give a hint of his feelings to some of his chosen followers who were always about, and the sequel was sure. He denounced Lewis in the most emphatic manner, and really succeeded in arousing quite a strong feeling of indignation against him for his presumption in daring to pay even the slightest attention to a lady who was destined to grace a bishop's harem. The closest espionage was kept upon him by the bishop's band of ruffians, and one evening a favorable opportunity presented itself. He was waylaid, and the bishop's sentence carried out, which was to inflict on the boy an injury so brutal and barbarous that no woman's pen may write the words that describe it. He lay in a concealed spot for 24 hours, weak and ill and unable to move. Here his brother found him in an apparently dying state, and took him home to his poor distracted mother, who nursed him with a breaking heart, until after a long time when he partially recovered. He then withdrew himself from all his former friends, and even refused to resume his place at the table with the family. He became a victim of melancholia, and would take no notice of what was occurring around him. He stayed with his mother for several years when he suddenly disappeared, and has never been heard of since. His mother and brother made every effort to find him, but they could not obtain the slightest clue to his whereabouts. Whether this victim of priestly rule is dead or living, must forever remain a mystery. It is probable that the emissaries of Bishop Snow have put an end to his existence. Yet during the whole of this affair, the bishop was sustained by Brigham Young, who knew all about it. He has held his sacred office as securely as though the stain of human blood was not on his conscience. He has been sent on a mission to preach the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ to the poor benighted nations of Christendom, and he has also taken more wives which were sealed to him by Brigham Young in the Endowment House. Then the following year, we get the other big time account of this, which comes from John D. Lee's memoir, Mormonism Unveiled.