Episode 165: The Peak of Mormon Polygamy

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:33)
Bryan, I have a question for you.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:35)
Do you ever not?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:37)
Okay, stop. Stop being so sassy. Alright, if someone told you that at its peak, the absolute statistical king's peak, that more than 4 in 10 people in Utah were living inside a polygamous family, what would you say?

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:53)
I'm no big city math guy, but I would say that's a lot of sister wives.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:58)
I believe the math is 43.6 percent. That's not a French practice Mormon apologists would have you believe.
That's the 1860 federal census.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:10)
Wait, that's not two or three percent. That's like half the population.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:14)
Yeah, like nearly half. And then within 30 years, it allegedly collapses to seven percent. So today, we're asking, what happened in the 1860s? What made this decade the absolute apex of Mormon plural marriage? And what did it actually cost the people who lived it?

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:32)
These are real people, real stories in the swinging 60s. Shag carpets, burning your draft card, digging on the doors, getting ready for a road trip up to Yazger's farm.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:42)
Wrong, wrong 60s. Rewind the clock about 100 years. But despite that, there were real stories, and they're messier than any mom talk drama, I can tell you that.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:52)
Was there a dance?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:54)
There's at least a dance. There's a bunch of murder too.
Some of them are hard. Today we're doing a deep dive into one of the most contested, most misunderstood chapters in Latter-day Saint history. Polygamy at its height, the 1860s, the decade when plural marriage was not underground, not whispered about, not lied about, not forged in Clayton's diaries. It was practiced openly, defended publicly, and woven into the theological, economic, and social fabric of an entire territory. And before you think I started a Richard Dutcher rumor, Clayton's diaries are not forged. Continue.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:32)
All right, we're gonna cover a lot of ground today. There's gonna be some statistics, which is actually a good thing, because instead of vibe claims and saying, I feel like this, these are hard data here. And the theology that makes this feel, not just permissible, but sacred. And then the federal government's attempts to crush it. Of course they would. What it looked like at the very top, like in Brigham Young's family. And then what it looked like for average yahoos who are just trying to live their faith and feed their kids.
Let's go.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:03)
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:05)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:07)
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** (3:34)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day. Saddle up.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:39)
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** (3:47)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:11)
So before we get into the stories, we need to paint the picture. It's 1860 Utah territory.
What is this place?

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:19)
Well, that's a territory. It's not a state yet.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:22)
Nope, not a state. It won't be a state for a hot second, and polygamy is a big reason why. In 1860, the transcontinental railroad hasn't been built just yet. Salt Lake City is still genuinely really remote. You have to cross plains or mountains to get there, and people are still doing it. In fact, the very last of the Mormon handcart pioneers arrives in Salt Lake City on September 24th, 1860 And these are people who had pulled their worldly possessions across the continent into wooden handcarts. They arrived that fall and...

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:53)
Wait, wait, wait. The Willie and Martin weren't like the only handcart companies ever. There were other ones.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:59)
They had multiple ones. Some fared better than others, but all of it sucked. That's the headline. And in fact, Bryan, I don't know if you know this, they're still doing handcart companies today.

**Bryan Buchanan** (5:08)
Well, how are we going to get all those flower sack babies across the plains?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (5:12)
Just got to kill a chicken if you're 14, that's all. Okay. Yeah. So these people, you know, the handcart company, the last of it arrives that fall. And the community that they're coming into, it's a community that's full flush practicing their principle. They just survived the Mormon Reformation and a near all out war within the federal government.