Mormon Worries about Territorial Appointments
Figure 1
In 1849, Mormon leaders in Utah petitioned Congress to become an official state of the United States. The small population of the huge area caused Utah to become a territory, instead in 1850. The map (figure 1) shows the proposed State of Deseret by Mormon leaders and the territory of Utah that was granted.
The main complaint from Latter-day Saints about becoming a territory was that a territorial governor would be appointed and, in their minds, it would probably not be Brigham Young. Brigham Young was heard saying things such as, “I am the governor of the state of Deseret, I was elected for life, and no other person shall hold that office while I live… The United States may send a governor here and probably will send one [but] we will send him duck hunting.” In February 1851, the Latter-day Saints received the news that Brigham Young was appointed Governor of the Utah Territory, allowing Saints to relax. However, the anxieties LDS settlers felt about the possibility of a new non-LDS governor had already caused problems.
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Emigrants passing through Utah in the winter of 1850-51 faced the worries of the Saints head on, worries that exploded outward in sometimes violent incidents. Retired Army major William Singer spent the winter of 1850-51 in Utah Territory and reported “Many emigrants beside myself heard Brigham Young from the stand declare the most treasonable hostilities against the U. States.” Shortly after Singer wrote these words, he was arrested on suspicion of being a spy, his property was seized, and five of his cattle were shot. Singer and several other emigrants accused the Mormons of tampering with letters leaving the Utah territory with one relating his experience after sending a letter, “A day or two after, he was passing in the rear of some out houses near to the post-office, and his attention was arrested by observing a large pile of waste paper, and actually fished from that pile, pieces of the identical letter he had mailed.” The hostility shown toward emigrants also included threats of violence, unfair taxes, and high prices. Federal officials took reports of these charges very seriously, especially when they also included that Mormons were speaking ill of the government.
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Along with Young’s appointment as Governor, news came to Utah of non-Mormon judges and Indian agents appointed to the territory. These judges were virtually ignored as Young had already appointed an attorney general of the State of Deseret, Daniel H. Wells, a high ranking member of the Church. One judge, Judge Perry Brocchus, publicly denounced the lack of patriotism found in Utah after he heard LDS settlers speak ill of President Zachary Taylor. When Brocchus ended his remarks, Young counterattacked Brocchus and the US government. The result, Brocchus recalls, was “the people (I mean a large portion of them) were ready to spring on me like hyenas and destroy me.” Fearing for his life, Brocchus fled the territory with several other federal appointments.
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1. Bigler, Winter with the Mormons, 49-50.
2. William Singer, “about the Mormons,” St. Louis Intelligencer, 7 August 1851, 2.
3. Bigler, Winter with the Mormons, 78-79. Italics in original.
4. Ibid., 43.
5. 21 Fillmore, “Information in reference to the condition of affairs in the Territory of Utah,” 28-32.
Figure 1. Morgan, Dale L. "The State of Deseret." Utah Historical Quarterly 8 (1940):65-251. Reprinted as The State of Deseret. Logan, Utah, 1987.