I knew, vaguely and in the back of my mind, that Utah was a slave territory before the Civil War. It’s one of bits of trivia I trot out from time to time to serve as a reminder that I’m a history nerd. Not that anyone really cares. Not that it matters to Civil War buffs, either. Utah wasn’t part of the Confederacy. The early Mormons were realists. They cooperated with the Union...
I count on High Country News for compelling stories about my Western homeland but I don’t always get to the articles right away. I had this one marked to come back later but somehow it’s been over a year — Nick Bowlin, “How Mormon history helps explain today’s public-land fights” (Apr. 13, 2020). It’s got Mormon history, which would usually put it at the top of...
I wrote a post recently about my 2nd great grandmother, Annie Noble Luce. I had occasion to look at and link to the entry about her in Book of the Pioneers. She says there her parents were John and Elizabeth Quarmby. We had no information beyond that until her grandson James Marker (1899-1980) decided to tackle the problem of tracing her ancestry. He preserved from his mother Hattie (Luce) Marker...
The 1850 census of Deseret (really taken in 1851) shows two boys in the household of Stephen Luce. There’s a mystery here. The Mormons got to Utah in 1847. The Luces arrived in 1848. Everyone was still settling in when Brigham Young decided to conduct a census that would be the official 1850 census of Deseret (Utah) even though it was conducted in 1851. The census shows two young boys in...
When my Mormon ancestors joined the church and moved west their neighbors weren’t sorry to see them go. It was even worth a poem to celebrate them leaving. good bye to Mr. Hale, Good by to Mr. Ball,good bye to Mr. Woodruff, the greatest one of all.good bye to all the Deacons good bye to all their Churchthey Can not get their money, they’ve left them in the lurchgood bye their Book of...