Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders

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Were Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy responsible for the "Parrish-Potter" murders?

Questions

Critics charge that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Answer

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the critics claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed here, violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much less frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only suggest that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder. ^[1] And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account ^[2] to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis. ^[3] Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

Brigham Young on punishing theft without due process

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion. ^[4] The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact. ^[5] Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had presented his views on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship. ^[6]

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.” ^[7]

Tensions with apostates in the 1850s

Brigham Young’s “motto” was included in an ill-considered sermon that Young used to menace Gladdenite missionaries and their converts. ^[8]“Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” A few weeks later, Young moderated his remarks. “We have been pretty severe upon them, but nowhere, except in the pulpit, to my knowledge. I counsel my brethren to keep away from their houses; let them alone, and treat them as courteously as you would any other person.” ^[9]In June 1858, after martial law had been lifted and Johnston’s army had entered the valley, Brigham Young could reflect, "With the exception of a short time during the late difficulties all persons have always had the privilege of going away from here when they pleased, and have been repeatedly invited to do so if they wished to." ^[10]

Despite invitations to leave, debt and poverty in Utah could be a significant barrier for apostates to actually do so. ^[11] When fortunes were reversed, Mormon history (especially in Lucy Mack Smith's biography ^[12]) is full of examples of debt collectors' harassment and efforts to evade them. Whenever parties moved out of an area, there was potential for extra-legal violence or imprisonment for debts. Once out of a jurisdiction, few legal remedies could be pursued to settle debts. The amount of economic entanglement with the Church and its members could be especially difficult to resolve amicably. Members could be in debt to the PEF fund while being emotionally invested in the Church through voluntary tithing and consecration of property. Harsh rhetoric against apostasy and rumors of Danites searching out fleeing apostates created an atmosphere of fear. In 1859, Mormon writer, John Jaques countered some of more sensationalistic elements appearing in exit narratives:

The idea put forth by some here, that men cannot think or act or speak freely in, or pass through, or leave this Territory without their lives being in danger is too absurd to be entertained. The fact that hundreds annually have peaceably left the Territory, from its first settlement to the present time is ample refutation of any such assertion. True some who attempt to leave with other people’s teams, or without liquidating their just debts, are sometimes intercepted in their flight. But if I am not mistaken, such interception is not altogether illegal, and I fancy it could be easily supported by eastern precedents. ^[13]

The Springville Murders

Edward Leo Lyman provides some details:

Even the local historians of Springville admitted that the "foul crime" would not fade away. William Parrish and his adult son, Beatson, both of whom had apostatized from the Latter-day Saint church, intended to leave for California against the wishes of local church authorities. According to one account, someone infiltrated their circle of friends and learned the time of their contemplated "escape." The good horses acquired for the journey were secreted in a cane thicket on the edge of town. At early dawn Parrish and two of his sons, along with a man named Duff Potter, walked single file along a trail to the horses. According to Orin Parrish who survived the attack, his father became suspicious of Potter lagging back of the others and insisted that he walk directly behind him. This may have confused those hiding in ambush who shot the first three men—William and Beatson Parrish and Potter—while Orin escaped into a cornfield. All accounts mention that the older Parrish's body was also lacerated with knife wounds. "[T]he perpetrators of the awful deed were never apprehended," concluded the local histories. According to historian Nels Anderson, despite attempts by non-Mormon territorial officials to bring the guilty to justice, "the fact remains that the Mormons in charge of the local government did nothing to find the murderers."^[14]

The claim that local members did nothing about the murders is false. There were no indictments brought in the Parrish-Potter murders at the first grand jury of 1859, but "[t]he second 1859 grand jury handed down indictments for the Parrish and Potter and the Henry Jones cases, yet Bagley [in Blood of the Prophets] tells us that no indictments were ever obtained for these crimes."^[15]

== Notes ==

1. [note]  Polly Aird, "'You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out': Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s," Journal of Mormon History 30 (Fall 2004): 129–207 off-site
2. [note]  Aird p. 191
3. [note]  Ardis Parshall, ˜'Pursue, Retake & Punish': The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush," Utah Historical Quarterly 73 (1): 64-86 off-site
4. [note]  Brigham Young to Aaron Johnson, Feb. 3, 1857, CR 1234 1, Box 3, Letterpress Copybook Volume 3, Pages 345-363in Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, [Dec. 2002],
5. [note]  William MacKinnon, “‘Lonely Bones’: Leadership and Utah War Violence.” Journal of Mormon History 33 (Spring 2007): 121–78 off-site
6. [note] Paul H. Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation," PhD Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1980, 176–199 citing Aaron Johnson Autobiography p. 95-96
7. [note] Richard Saunders, Francis Gladden Bishop And Gladdenism: A Study in the Culture of a Mormon Dissenter and his Movement, USU Thesis (1989): p. 143-146 off-site
8. [note] http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/2/24
9. [note] Aird, p. 147 citing Brigham Young, Sermon, June 6, 1858, Deseret News, July 28, 1858, 94.
10. [note]  Aird, p. 146-152
11. [note]  John Jacques, Millennial Star, July 1859
12. [note]  Edward Leo Lyman, San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1996), 343.
13. [note]  Robert D. Crockett, "A Trial Lawyer Reviews Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 199–254. off-site
14. [note]  Sally Denton, American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, (Secker & Warburg, 2003), 190. quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."

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Race	Brigham Young's statements regarding race
Critics	Fabricated quotes from Brigham Young Quote mining JoD 13:95 Not witness of Christ? Reviews of books about Brigham Young

What was the "Mormon Reformation"?

The "Mormon Reformation" was a reform or spiritual rejuvenation movement that began among the Utah Saints in the mid-1850s

The "Mormon Reformation" was a reform or spiritual rejuvenation movement that began among the Utah Saints in the mid-1850s. Ironically, noted one historian, "[m]ore has been written about its excesses (real and imaginary) than about what actually happened. Stenhouse's anonymous chapter on the Reformation and Blood Atonement was typical. Even church historian B. H. Roberts devoted twice as much space in discussing blood atonement in connection with the reform movement than he did to the Reformation itself."

What is the history of the "Mormon Reformation"?

Reasons for the Reformation

Wrote Thomas Alexander:

As life became more routine and economically stable by the mid-1850s, some of the General Authorities came to believe that many Church members and leaders had fallen spiritually asleep, becoming more enamored of materialism and the other trappings of Babylon than of building the kingdom. Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Jedediah Grant attributed the crop failures and grasshopper plagues of 1855 and 1856, in part at least, to a decline in faithfulness....Members seemed less committed and enthusiastic. Not that prosperity itself was bad; but the Saints seemed unable to maintain spirituality in the face of increasing prosperity.

First Phase

In an effort to stir the saints to improvement, Brigham Young began by sending apostles into individual communities, reversing a trend toward "congregational autonomy."

Second phase: Failure of these first reform efforts

Alexander:

By early March 1856, Brigham Young's own observations together with reports from members of the Twelve led the Church President to believe that the structural changes had not prompted a spiritual rejuvenation among the Saints and that even more intense measures would be required. Being a pragmatic man, he decided to take measures certain to elicit a response. Charging the "people," presumably leaders and followers alike, with sleeping on the job and "working wickedness," Young called upon the elders "to put away their velvet lips & smooth things & preach sermons like pitch forks tines downwards that the people might wake up." Heber C. Kimball, Young's first counselor, followed the President's lead, but it was second counselor Jedediah M. Grant who really led the rally, sometimes attacking the Gentiles but usually raining pitchforks on the Latter-day Saints. The Reformation entered a second phase.

It was during this phase that the leaders adopted a stern, "hellfire and damnation" preaching style, since their more moderate efforts in "phase one" had not succeeded. During this period Brigham Young and others began speaking about a doctrine later called "blood atonement".

Blood atonement was a rhetorical device, and required the theoretical voluntary sacrifice of one's own life to repent for especially grievous sins. As Davis Bitton noted, however, blood atonement soon became a handy club for anti-Mormon critics of the Church. It remained so for the rest of the nineteenth century:

Against the backdrop of this heated rhetoric, unsolved murders could easily be charged to the Mormons, and Hicks [a member who later became hostile to the Church] joins in the chorus: "Many were the victims that fell by the hand of the destroyer, but not one in Spanish Fork City. My wife and myself both saw the blood of the Parrishes at Springville two days after the murders. Those were truly peralous times such as only fanatics know how to bring on a country."53 In a more sweeping allegation, he writes, "With the single exception of Spanish Fork City, I do not know a city that had an existence in Utah that has not shed the blood of from one to many victims." It is surely not quibbling to imagine Hicks on the witness stand being asked the basis for his knowledge of all these cities and perhaps being asked whether he included legal executions in his calculations. Mormons have insisted that blood atonement, by necessity a voluntary action, was never carried out in practice. But from the late 1850s on, anti-Mormons developed a series of indictments used over and over again when denouncing Mormonism. The concept of blood atonement, imperfectly understood, was especially calculated to arouse horror and indignation. Critical of the preaching rhetoric of some church leaders during the 1850s, Hicks was drawn into another rhetorical network by 1878, that of the anti-Mormons.

Alexander:

Though Young's references to blood atonement were probably hyperbole, they may have prompted some overzealous members to put the doctrine into practice. In March 1857, William Parrish and several of his family and friends decided to leave the Church and the community at Springville. They were murdered under suspicious circumstances, and although the perpetrators were never found, a number of commentators associated the deeds with the doctrine of blood atonement.

To learn more: Blood atonement

As with any passionate, forceful campaign, some members risked getting 'swept up' and going to excess

As with any passionate, forceful campaign, some members risked getting 'swept up' and going to excess:

"President Young...said, 'there are some brethren who have confessed to sins they have not done. . . . I am happy to say there is not so much sin as I expected.' He said if the brethren repented and done these things no more they now started with a clean page, but if they did those things again their former sins would be accounted unto them." At this meeting, the same witness concluded, "I saw the power of the Priesthood and felt the same as I never saw or felt before."

In their eagerness to participate in the Reformation some members did, as President Young observed, confess to sins of which they were not guilty. Lorenzo Snow warned in a tabernacle address against the "popularity" of the Reformation. "Some join," he said, "and go through the external forms of religious zeal without the reform. They dare not admit they do not feel it." Also the penitents were warned not to be foolish and confess publicly. "Confess your faults to the individuals that you ought to confess them to and proclaim them not on the house tops."

Plural marriage during the Reformation

Because entering into plural marriage was regarded as an especial sign of devotion, more members applied for plural marriages during this period than at any other point. Average age of brides dropped to its lowest level during this period (between 16-17 years old for women in either monogamous or polygamous marriages). This is a good example of some of the probable excesses during the Reformation; divorces following the Reformation were substantially higher than at other points. It is likely that under the social pressure to prove their loyalty and fidelity to their covenants, some members married too quickly or unwisely. "I was obedient but not wise," wrote a member later, "I married a girl but she did it more of fright than of love; for that reason it could not last long—only about 9 months [and] then she was divorced in 1858."

On the other hand, more plural marriages created an artificial "shortage" of marriageable women. As Daynes notes, this helped integrate recent European immigrants into Utah. Women from overseas who would have probably remained unmarried under a "one-wife-per-man" policy were suddenly much better marriage prospects. This aided their integration, enhanced their economic standing, and also produced children by women who might would have otherwise remained childless.

At the same time, however, Brigham encouraged those who were dissatisfied with plural marriage to either make their peace with it, or apply to him for a divorce. On October 6, 1856, he told unhappy wives that he would approve their divorces under "certain conditions and that is that you will appear forthwith at my office and give good and sufficient reasons, and then marry men that will not have but one wife."

On the other hand, Brigham was far less lenient with men who requested divorces:

President Young said that when a man married a wife, he took her for better or worse and had no right to ill use her; a man that would mistreat a woman in order to get her to leave him would find himself alone in the worlds to come. He said he knew of no law to give a man in polygamy a divorce. He had told the brethren that if they would break the law, they should pay for it; but he did not want them to come to him for a divorce as it was not right....[Young went on to say that]

It is not right for the brethren to divorce their wives the way they do. I am determined that if men don't stop divorcing their wives, I shall stop sealing. Men shall not abuse the gifts of God and the privileges the way they are doing. Nobody can say that I have any interest in the matter, [p.12] for I charge nothing for sealings, but I do charge for divorcing. I want the brethren to stop divorcing their wives for it is not right.

A series of "worthiness" questions were prepared by the general authorities to be asked of the members

A series of questions were prepared by the general authorities to be asked of the members. Some critics have characterized these as excessive and invasive, but they are little different from the modern temple recommend interview questions. (For a list of the questions, see here).

Third phase

Alexander:

[On] 7 December, [Wilford] Woodruff [was] the concluding speaker in sacrament meeting. While still pressing the Reformation theme, Woodruff's speech nevertheless signalled a change in the tone of the Reformation--in effect opening a third phase characterized by love and concern. He called upon the ward leaders to repent by removing "the fog & darkness from your own minds & then you can see clearly to remove the darkness from the minds of the people." Woodruff also exhorted priesthood leaders to deal with the Saints in "the spirit of God." They did not, he said, need to "knock the people in the Head in order to wake them." Rather, he suggested, they ought to "get a Fatherly feeling & try to save" the Saints. The ultimate purpose of the Reformation, he said in an apocalyptic vein, was to prepare the people "for the great things of God which are Comeing upon the Earth & upon this people." Then he urged the "people to repent & do the works of righteousness" and live their religion. He spoke encouragingly to the members but left the ward leaders with no doubt that the Lord required strict obedience of them....Since the Reformation intended internal reform, it did not involve calling local nonmembers to repentance.

The Reformation continued throughout the remainder of the winter but on a much less intense level. On 7 January 1857 in a letter to the Western Standard, Woodruff said that an atmosphere of change had settled on the community. "The Saints," he said, "are living their religion and the power of God is resting upon them." On 8 February 1857, Brigham Young pulled back somewhat from his harsh preaching of blood atonement by saying, "In the name of the Lord, that if this people will sin no more, but faithfully live their religion, their sins will be forgiven them without taking life

What was the effect of the Mormon Reformation?

"Like many other enthusiastic movements, the Reformation had created unanticipated disruption within the community as lay members scurried to prove their loyalty and faithfulness"

Alexander:

How do we assess the Reformation? Like many other enthusiastic movements, the Reformation had created unanticipated disruption within the community as lay members scurried to prove their loyalty and faithfulness. The harsh discipline and Brigham Young's exercise of power in demanding obedience during the second phase of the movement provoked excessive demonstrations of loyalty and consequent disruption. The destruction of the Polysophical Society temporarily stymied the development of the humanities and fine arts in the community. The sermons on repentance and blood atonement seem to have led members to confess to sins they had not committed and may also have incited a few fanatics more orthodox than the General Authorities to murder dissidents (Larson 1958, 54). The emphasis on the visible trappings of orthodoxy that fueled those new plural marriages led inevitably to divorce or unhappy homes among the unprepared. The effort to achieve status in the kingdom or to demonstrate loyalty and spirituality by seeking advancement to the Melchizedek Priesthood disrupted the normal functioning of the Aaronic Priesthood quorums. Moreover, the excesses of the second phase of the Reformation added fuel to the charges lodged in Washington against the Mormons that led to the Utah War.

On the other hand, in spite of the harsh beginnings and in spite of the excesses, the reformation produced some worthwhile reforms. One of these was the increased emphasis on kindness and love in the third phase. This emphasis on love and charity may have contributed to the revival of the Female Relief Society in early 1857. Joseph Smith had first organized the Relief Society in Nauvoo on 17 March 1842. Although some Church members had organized Relief Societies to provide charitable help for Indians as early as 1854 and some general purpose Relief Societies had been organized as early as January 1855, the larger association authorized by Joseph Smith had remained dormant since the exodus from Nauvoo (Jensen 1983, 105-25).

When the Reformation turned from raining pitchforks to urging love and charity, local leaders revived the organization to aid the poor in a number of wards in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Fourteenth Ward furnished some of the leadership of this movement. On 14 February 1857, Woodruff, Hoagland, Joseph Horn, and Robert L. Campbell attended the organizational meeting. Bishop Hoagland had called Phebe Woodruff as president, and Mary Isabella Horn and Mary Southworth as counselors. They and the other sisters in the ward spent their Relief Society meetings quilting, sewing, and making carpets for the poor. By June 1857, they had clothed all the poor of the ward and made a sizeable donation to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund (Woodruff 1983-85, 5:20, 59-60).

The home missionary system of the first phase inaugurated an effort at cooperative revival that promised much for the future and undoubtedly contributed to the development of a Godly community. Regular visits to the homes of members by such priesthood holders and Relief Society women as home teachers, home missionaries, and visiting teachers have provided a sense of concern and connection with the larger community of the Saints.

Alexander:

In summary, the Reformation moved through three overlapping phases--a structural reform phase, a phase of intense demand for a demonstration of spiritual reform, and a phase of love and reconstruction. In the first phase, Church leaders tried to achieve reform through the home missionary effort. After Brigham Young and his counselors had become convinced that the missionaries had not achieved the desired result, they pressed the movement into the second phase. Missionaries continued to preach as the leadership rained pitchforks on member's heads and hearts. Generally loyal to their leaders, members scurried to prove their faithfulness by confessing sins and asking for rebaptism, entering plural marriages, and seeking advancement from the Aaronic to the Melchizedek priesthood. Larson:

Certainly, one unfortunate result of the Reformation was to give color to anti-Mormon propaganda which circulated in the East and helped send the United States Army marching on Utah to put down an imaginary rebellion....

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 231–243 ( Index of claims )

Notes

FairMormon web site

External links

• Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows," BYU Studies (1 January 2003) off-site
• Robert H. Briggs, "Sally Denton’s American Massacre: Authentic Mormon Past versus the Danite Interpretation of History (Review of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857)," FARMS Review 16/1 (2004): 111–134. off-site
• Justin Butterfield, "Let the Book of the Past Be Reopened: The Latest on the Mountain Meadows Massacre]" (review of Ron Walker's May 2006 Mormon History Association presentation), Mormon Wasp blog, 1 July 2006 (accessed 3 July 2006).off-site
• Lawrence Coates, "Review of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows," BYU Studies (1 January 2003) off-site
• Robert D. Crockett, "The Denton Debacle (Review of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857)," FARMS Review 16/1 (2004): 135–148. off-site
• Robert D. Crockett, "A Trial Lawyer Reviews Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets," FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 199–254. off-site
• Eric A. Eliason, "Review of: Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847–1896," FARMS Review of Books 12/1 (2000): 95–112. off-site
• Craig L. Foster, "The Butler Murder of April 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah," Mormon Historical Studies 1/1 (Spring 200): 105–112 PDF link

Printed material

• Dale L. Morgan, The State of Deseret (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1987), 7—27.
• W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, review of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Will Bagley, Mormon Historical Studies 4/1 (2003): 149—57.

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