9 Remembering Joseph but Following Brigham: An Overview of the Utah Years

Shortly after William Clayton arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, he joined the rest of the vanguard pioneer company in an important symbolic act. On Friday, August 6, the members of the Quorum of the Twelve set the example by having themselves rebaptized in the waters of City Creek. “As we had come into a glorious valley to locate & build a temple & build up Zion we felt like renewing our Covenants before the Lord and each other,” explained Wilford Woodruff, and the Apostles instructed everyone else to do the same. Clayton, along with fifty-four others, was baptized the next evening by Heber C. Kimball, and by Sunday night all the Camp of Israel had been rebaptized for the remission of sins, had the hands of the Apostles laid on their heads for reconfirmation of Church blessings, and rededicated themselves to building the Kingdom. All this dramatically portrayed the pioneers’ vision of another new beginning for the Church as well as for themselves, and it demonstrated publicly their renewed commitment to follow the direction of their leaders. They were determined to build a new community in the West—a community that would be both a refuge from the world and a light on a hill—and they must reconsecrate their lives to the proposition that nothing would let it fail.¹

Neither the Church leaders nor William Clayton, however, spent the winter in the valley. Instead, they were back on the plains of Iowa setting in order the affairs of the Church and making preparation for the next season’s migration. It had been over three years since the death of Joseph Smith, and even though the Twelve were recognized by the westward-bound Saints as his rightful successors, many wondered if the First Presidency should not be reorganized. On December 27, 1847, in a small log tabernacle near Kanesville, a general conference sustained Brigham Young as president, along with Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as his counselors. This settled the matter for the westering Saints, and the action was subsequently ratified in several meetings throughout the scattered pioneer camps as well as in the annual conference the following April. Undoubtedly Clayton attended at least one, if not more, of those meetings and raised his hand along with the others as evidence of his support for the man who now fully replaced Joseph Smith, so far as Church administration was concerned.

Clayton spent the winter of 1847–48 making his own preparations for taking his family to Salt Lake Valley. With four wives and all their children, his job was difficult, to say the least. In June 1848, they were on their way, and Clayton, as might be expected, was made clerk of his pioneer company.² The pioneer company was part of two huge “encampments,” under the leadership, respectively, of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, each divided into groups of hundreds, fifties, and tens—the same plan that had worked so well in 1847. Brigham Young’s encampment consisted of 1,229 people and 397 wagons, while Kimball’s totaled 1,891 people and 623 wagons. This group traveled more slowly than the vanguard company of 1847, for they had in tow not only household goods, foodstuff, and other supplies, but also the livestock needed to plant and sustain a whole new empire in the West. The group could hardly gallop across the plains while driving, coaxing, herding, or otherwise carrying a huge assortment of horses, mules, oxen, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, geese, beehives, doves, and ducks. Kimball’s group, according to the record, even counted one squirrel among its numbers!³ They all arrived in the valley late in September, followed three weeks later by a similar large encampment headed by Willard Richards. At the end of the summer, Clayton was among some five thousand settlers who would spend the Mormons’ second winter there.

Meanwhile, the winter of 1847–48 was not easy for the two thousand pioneers already camped in the valley. To protect themselves against possible Indian attacks, most moved into a typical frontier log and adobe fort. There was a small harvest that fall and the winter was relatively mild, but food was in short supply, and by spring many were living on rose haws, sego lily, thistle roots, wild animals and birds, and anything else remotely edible. They planted early, but a frost destroyed much of the crop and delayed the harvest. Then, in May and June, hordes of the black, wingless crickets that Clayton had observed in the hills appeared in the fields, adding near despair to the discouragement the settlers already felt. Some people, in fact, became so disheartened that they made plans to move to California. Others went out to fight the invading insects with shovels, brooms, fire, and anything else they could think of, but all to no avail—until suddenly flocks of seagulls appeared and, instead of joining in devouring the crops, began to devour the crickets, disgorge them in nearby streams or ditches, and come back for more. The “miracle of the gulls,” as it is still known among the Mormons, saved enough foodstuff to assure the colony’s survival the following winter.⁴

At the same time, the settlers moved out of the fort and began selecting, by lottery, the lots where they would build their homes and plant their gardens. By the time Clayton arrived in September, the huge planned community was taking shape. Within a year or so, not only many adobe homes but also a Council House, several stores and shops, a post office, a printing office, a church building, and several other structures denoted the permanence of Salt Lake City. Clayton built his own adobe home just two blocks west of Brigham Young’s estate, and for the next thirty years of Clayton’s life he was inextricably entwined with the life of Salt Lake City.⁵

Much changed for Clayton after 1847. He became one of Salt Lake City’s most prominent and well-respected citizens, but he was never as close to the center of power as he had been in the days of Joseph. No longer was he the prophet’s official scribe and bookkeeper, though for a time he worked in Brigham Young’s office and kept some of the financial records of the Church. He also performed the duties of historian or clerk as periodically assigned. In 1852 he went on a mission, but after that, it appears, he stood progressively further outside the prophet’s inner circle.⁶ Though Clayton continued to preach in public meetings and take care of miscellaneous tasks at the request of Church leaders, he frequently found himself looking backward, longing for his former closeness to the seat of power and in particular the intimate friendship with the men of power that he had once enjoyed as one of Joseph’s right-hand men.

Clayton’s life took on several new elements, however. On September 23, 1851, he applied for U.S. citizenship, and on December 5, 1853, his petition was granted by the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah. He broadened his cultural activities, and his personal interests became much more secular than before. Since he no longer earned his living working primarily for the Church, he directed his energies into private business and public service. As breadwinner for one of Utah’s largest families, he had reason to pay more attention than ever before to the necessities of seeking mammon as well as serving God.

He continued, nevertheless, to ponder the things of the Kingdom, but he sometimes let his reflections carry him to the edges of orthodoxy. His image of how things ought to be was colored by his personal reconstruction of how he thought Joseph would respond. In 1863, for example, dismayed at the unseemly manners he observed in the Salt Lake Theater, he wrote to George Q. Cannon: “I often think of the cautions we used to receive on such matters years ago in Nauvoo. Brother Joseph used to tell us that were there an assembly of Saints and the angels of God present, if one of the Saints even laughed aloud the angels would immediately take their departure.”⁷ Whether or not Joseph really preached such doctrine, it is doubtful that Brigham would have said it just that way. In William’s mind, however, the true test of orthodoxy was in measuring whatever was said or done against the way Joseph would have responded.

In a sense, Clayton’s life in Utah might be more representative of one dilemma of Mormon discipleship than was his life in Nauvoo. Being further away from the inner circles of power, and hence from the decision-making process, he was more like the rest of the Saints. Many did not always understand or agree with every word they heard from the pulpit, and it was a struggle for some to reconcile their personal views and actions with everything that came from Church headquarters. Clayton was not atypical: he never doubted the prophetic calling of Brigham Young and the Apostles but on a few occasions he had private doubts about the wisdom of some things they did. The dilemma had no easy solution.

One early incident suggests the biting nature of the dilemma. We have only William’s side of the story, but between the lines we sense at least two aspects of human nature: the deepening paranoia that might follow a series of rebuffs that a disciple like Clayton felt were undeserved, and a very human tendency among some Saints to judge too quickly when the actions of their fellow Church members seemed out of phase with the ideal.

The episode began innocently enough on the night of Monday, February 18, 1850. To earn a little extra money, Clayton had agreed to play with the band for a dancing party. He took along his youngest wife, Diantha, and during the course of the evening suggested that she dance with a certain Mr. Grist, a Gentile. The band, however, played a waltz, and the sensibilities of some good Saints were suddenly shocked to see the wife of William Clayton not only waltzing, but waltzing with a Gentile! Waltzing was still frowned upon in many proper Victorian circles, for it brought the couples in closer physical contact than traditional jigs and square dances. Waltzing with a Gentile, in some minds, only compounded the offense.

So tongues began to wag, and the winds of gossip soon carried this and other tidbits to top authorities. Suddenly, on Wednesday morning, after Clayton had gone to work, a Brother Benson (Elder Ezra T. Benson of the Twelve) and a Brother Lytle arrived at his home and confronted Diantha. According to William, they accused her of three serious errors unbefitting a Latter-day Saint: (1) waltzing with a Gentile on Monday night, (2) “harboring and encouraging gentiles in her house the past winter,” and (3) “slandering the authorities of the church to the gentiles.” “The peace of my family is in a great degree destroyed,” the distraught disciple wrote to Brigham Young that night, for the priesthood leader had given his young wife a “very severe chastisement.”⁸

Few sets of charges could illustrate the social concerns of the Mormon community in 1850 better than those made against Diantha Farr Clayton. Even though the Mormons welcomed Gentiles to the city and were happy to do business with them, they tried to remain apart from them—and hence from “the world”—so far as their social and religious life was concerned. The same thought was behind the charge of “harboring” Gentiles—that is, allowing them to visit at length in one’s home. Mingling socially could too easily bring undesirable influences into the Kingdom.

Equally serious was speaking ill of the leaders of the Church. It was a cardinal virtue to uphold Church authorities as prophets and to defend their good names before the world. Slander from within could only cause division and therefore undermine the Kingdom. “Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed,”⁹ the Lord had said to Joseph Smith, and Clayton was understandably upset that his wife should be so accused. He also felt the delicacy of his own position as he wrote six agonizing, legal-size pages to the prophet, knowing that his letter easily could be interpreted as improper criticism.

William was especially dismayed because no one seemed ready to defend Diantha’s good name, so he set out to do it. So far as dancing with Grist was concerned, Clayton had made the suggestion to Diantha himself. With regard to “harboring” Gentiles, he declared that only two had been in his home at all that winter, and in each case it was at his own invitation and while he was present. So far as the charge of maligning the authorities was concerned, Clayton was furious but frustrated, for he had no desire to criticize an Apostle. “If it was from any source but from the heads of the church, I would treat it with contempt,” he wrote. As it was, he could only declare, respectfully but firmly, that the charge was false and that Diantha was absolutely loyal. “I know Diantha’s feelings in regard to the heads of the church, and instead of her saying anything against them, say nothing of slandering them, she has invariably spoke well of them when conversing with the gentiles.” “I never was more surprised than when I heard the story,” he pleaded, suggesting that the Church leader “must have been very much misinformed.”

Clayton did not blame the leaders for starting the rumors, but he was not above suggesting that the Apostle could have found a more discreet way to confront them with the problem. If he “had asked me to be present, or told me of it before chastising her, I should have felt it more as a mark of friendship,” he wrote with some constraint.

Unfortunately, Clayton’s dismay only added to his intensely self-conscious paranoia and to his tendency to exaggerate. In this case he again began to believe that somewhere among the Saints there was a conspiracy against him. “I cannot help but conclude,” he said, “as I have done in times past, that some person or persons make it their business to injure and crush me.” As with most such charges there was no hint as to who was lurking behind the bushes, or why. Nevertheless his deep, though momentary, depression led him to wonder if he was welcome anywhere. At the office as well as in the Legislative Council, he said, he felt in the way, as though “my room would be preferable to my company.” He felt rejected even by friends among the leaders, for in all the time they had been in the valley, none had paid a social visit to his home.

In a PS that carried a final flourish of the dramatic, he told Brigham Young that since music was the cause of his present problem, he now intended to quit. For a man who loved his music as much as Clayton, it would take a severe emotional crisis to make him even consider such a drastic gesture. As one might suspect, that resolution was short-lived.

The tragedy is that the depression evident in Clayton’s letter could have been avoided—in part if the accusing parties had been more discreet in their reporting and investigation, and in part if Clayton had not allowed himself to see conspiracy in so many corners. But Clayton eventually found a silver lining around most of his clouds, and in later years he probably opined that it took such times as these to strengthen him for even greater trials to come. Something in him—whether it was faith, credulity, optimism, or all of these combined with a stubborn will—was always in the long run stronger than his tendency toward gloom.

Certainly a high degree of optimism and willpower was necessary as Clayton began to carve a role for himself in the economic and public life of Salt Lake City. His proven clerical skills again served him well as he made another new beginning. For a brief time he worked in the Church’s mint in Salt Lake City, making coins from the gold dust brought in from California. He continued to work, at least for a while, with the financial records of the Church, and presumably he was paid for that. At least into the 1860s he was reading the financial report of the trustee-in-trust in general conferences.¹⁰ But beyond his Church employment he was also publicly and self-employed. In 1850 he set up a book shop in Salt Lake City’s Council House and also opened a boardinghouse for the benefit of passing emigrants.¹¹ Presumably neither of these activities made him much money. In 1849 he was appointed public auditor for the State of Deseret, and in 1852, after the Territory of Utah had been organized, he was appointed territorial auditor as well as recorder of marks and brands. After returning from his 1852–53 mission to England, he was reappointed to those positions and held them until his death.

These appointments, however, hardly provided enough to sustain a family such as William Clayton’s. In 1864 he received an annual salary of $400 as auditor and $300 as recorder of marks and brands, though he had to pay for his own printing of brand sheets. In 1867 his auditor’s salary was $1,000, but in 1868 it was down to $600. By 1875 he was complaining that it was still only $50 per month and that this did not go far in a family of thirty.¹² In 1867 he became treasurer of the newly incorporated Deseret Telegraph Company, and from 1869 to 1871 he served as secretary of Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution, the Church-controlled co-op that began to dominate the economy of Utah in the 1870s. Beyond all that, he ventured into such private business efforts as collecting debts, filing land claims, acting as an attorney, lending money, merchandising, the lumber business, farming, and speculating in mining.

Though Clayton was engaged in several business ventures, much of his daily working time was taken up with his duties as territorial auditor and as recorder of marks and brands. Such work was not exciting, but it was important as well as time consuming. As auditor he was thorough and meticulous, but this meant that he spent long hours going over accounts, balancing books, preparing reports, and writing people who owed money to the territory. Not surprisingly, his religious terminology often spilled over into his official duties. When writing the Weber County assessor and collector in 1875, for instance, appealing for prompt payment of $546.75 owed to the territory, William did not hesitate to address him as “Dear Brother.”¹³ Such mixing of brotherhood and business was common among the Mormons.

One of the few controversial situations in which Clayton found himself as auditor came in 1870. U.S. Marshal M. T. Patrick demanded funds from Clayton to pay the expenses of the U.S. courts in Utah, but Clayton understood that such funds could be disbursed only on the order of J. D. T. McAllister, territorial marshal. The territorial attorney general confirmed his view, and Clayton refused Patrick’s request. Angered, Patrick threatened to take the auditor’s books and property by force. Nothing came of the threat, but a few days later a certain G. W. Bostwick appeared in Clayton’s office with a commission from anti-Mormon Governor J. Wilson Shaffer appointing Bostwick as territorial auditor. Clayton rejected this affront on the grounds that only the legislature had the authority to make such an appointment. That ended the matter so far as the auditor’s position was concerned, but Patrick persisted in other attacks. Governor Shaffer appointed Samuel Kahn a director of the penitentiary. Patrick joined with Kahn and R. H. Robertson in posting bonds and then demanded funds for the penitentiary from Clayton. Again Clayton refused, holding that the bonds presented were illegal, and again the marshal could do nothing. The auditor’s office thus became indirectly involved in the Mormon-Gentile conflict, but except for a few such incidents the life of the auditor was monotonously routine.¹⁴

As recorder of marks and brands, Clayton also performed an important but routine public service. He began his duties as early as 1849 and methodically recorded the nature, size, and location on the animal of each brand submitted to him. In 1855 he published the Book of One Thousand Marks and Brands, Alphabetically Arranged, which was expanded in later editions as new brands were recorded. The book still stands as an important source of information for anyone interested in early livestock history and, like everything else Clayton did, is exemplary in its attention to detail.

William Clayton also played a background, though minor, role in the political life of Utah Territory. His only elections to public office came in 1862 and 1864 when he was elected a city alderman.¹⁵ Several public appointments, however, kept him close to much of what was going on. In December 1849, he was appointed to a committee to draft an ordinance for the legislature in relation to branding horses, mules, and cattle. The following December he was appointed secretary for the General Assembly of the State of Deseret, and for over a decade after that he was regularly appointed as assistant secretary or as secretary for the Legislative Council of the territory. He was also secretary pro tem of the Constitutional Convention held in January 1862, in one of Utah’s several attempts to achieve statehood, and it was he that signed the official letter notifying Brigham Young of his “election” as governor of the hoped-for State of Deseret. That same year, Clayton also acted as chief clerk in the territorial House of Representatives.

For the most part, then, Clayton’s political activity was, like his other activities, that of a loyal workhorse who was willing to take the tedious, routine assignments and who had the reputation of completing such assignments well. He was never in the political forefront, though he readily participated when meetings were called to express community feelings. On March 3, 1863, for example, a mass meeting in Salt Lake City adopted a petition calling for the removal of Governor Stephen S. Harding and Associate Utah Supreme Court Justices Charles B. Waite and Thomas J. Drake. Clayton was there, and he and Thomas Williams were appointed clerks of the meeting.¹⁶ At the end of June, Clayton became chairman of a committee of three to select the names of people to fill various vacancies in county offices. He reported back a slate of nominees, noting his belief that “every gentleman therein named will receive the cordial and unanimous support of the electors of Great Salt Lake County.”¹⁷ This was no doubt typical of general election procedures in Utah, where in most cases a caucus selected one slate of nominees and it was generally known that that slate represented a Church consensus. The nominees were nearly always elected.

Clayton also had slightly higher political ambitions—he wanted to become the federally appointed secretary of the Territory of Utah. On August 7, 1863, he wrote a former secretary, Frank Fuller, asking him to intercede with the president. In spite of the paranoid tendency noted earlier, in this case he seemed to have high confidence in his own acceptability to the people of Utah. “The people here from the highest to the lowest would appreciate the favor if you would write to President Lincoln and solicit the appointment of the writer to the office of Secretary,” he wrote.¹⁸ Whether Fuller made the effort is not known, but Clayton never received the appointment.

Salt Lake City became the religious and economic center for a vast group of settlements throughout the Intermountain West. Under the direction of Brigham Young, colonists were sent to establish communities north and south along the Wasatch Front, further north into Cache Valley and Idaho, further south into Nevada, Arizona, and California, west to Mormon Station (now Genoa) in Nevada, and east into eastern Utah and Colorado. By the time Brigham Young died, over three hundred fifty new communities had been settled or planned under his direction.

Among the most important sites for settlement was Iron County in southern Utah. In late November 1849, the Southern Exploring Company under the leadership of Parley P. Pratt (illus. 9-1) left Salt Lake City to scout out the region, traveling also into the present St. George area—eventually to be known as Utah’s Dixie. The party returned on February 2, 1850, and reported, among other things, the discovery of a mountain of iron. It was not long before a call went out for volunteers to pull up stakes and join the “Iron Mission,” and in mid-December a company of some 167 Saints was on its way to establish a new colony at Parowan. Later in 1851, another colony, Cedar City, was planted farther south, and these settlements eventually became the nucleus for at least a dozen more in the area. That same year, Brigham Young took the first of his annual excursions to southern Utah.

Illus. 9-1. Parley P. Pratt led the first official exploring party into southernmost Utah. Courtesy Church Archives

When the Church president made his second trip south in 1852, William Clayton was assigned to go along and was also appointed camp historian. The group had an auspicious mission: “visiting the southern settlements; exploring the country; ascertaining the situation of the Indians; making roads; building bridges; killing snakes; preaching the gospel; and doing and performing all other acts and things needed to be done, as they may be led by the Good Spirit.”¹⁹ Clayton must have felt almost as if he were back in the “good old days,” and, beginning April 21, he kept a daily journal. That was the day he left Salt Lake City. Three days later his group rendezvoused with Brigham Young’s at Springville. The expedition eventually traveled over three hundred miles southward, a little beyond Parowan, and returned to Salt Lake City on May 21.

Kingdom-building in the West was still in its early stages, and Clayton took the opportunity to record in his journal a few impressions of how that process was proceeding.²⁰ The weather was cold and stormy the first few days, so much so that Clayton made special note of the generous hospitality of Edward Robison when his party arrived at Robison’s cabin, in the south end of Salt Lake Valley about noon on April 22. The next day was no improvement, with heavy rain and hail punctuating their progress toward Provo, some forty-five miles south of Salt Lake City. Clayton was unimpressed with the two-year-old Mormon outpost in Utah Valley. “This town looks dirty,” he wrote. “The houses look miserable, and many young men idling in the streets. It seems there is not much energy here and there seems to be little spirit of accommodation or friendship among the people.” The reception could not have been quite that bad, however, for that evening William Pitt’s band (which was part of the expedition) went to the home of Josh Worthen, where it played while the others danced cotillions. Like the pioneer company of 1847, the members of this expedition were well prepared to enjoy themselves.

As territorial auditor, Clayton had with him the delinquent tax list for Utah County, which he delivered to Probate Judge George Bean. Clayton’s group then proceeded to Springville, where they met Brigham Young and his nineteen wagons. Clayton was much more impressed with this little community than he was with Provo: “Springville is one of the most handsome locations we have seen on the route. The land is beautifully situated, plenty of water. The houses look clean and neat, and the hand of industry is clearly manifested throughout the village.”

At several points along the way the company made contact with local Native Americans, and Clayton’s extensive comments suggest several elements of the sometimes precarious relationship between cultures in Utah. On Sunday, the twenty-fifth, for example, after pitching camp in Payson, Brigham Young went to visit Chief Walker. This famous Indian leader had been baptized in 1850, though it is apparent that he really was not a converted member. Such acts of friendship were among Brigham Young’s efforts to establish peaceful relations between the two peoples. On this visit he gave Walker some flour and potatoes and had a long conversation with him, possibly trying to keep rising tensions at a minimum. This was not completely successful, however, for the next day one of the explorers, Elijah Ward, claimed that someone in Walker’s band had stolen his horse. Three days later, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball paid a visit to Walker’s brother, Arapene, who was ill, and they “laid hands on him and blessed him.” Two days after that, Arapene was reportedly much better and tensions were again subsiding. When the explorers arrived at Fillmore the following Sunday, they met another band of Native Americans who, Clayton reported, “are good looking and have the character of being very peaceable.” The chief, nevertheless, came into camp complaining that the Mormons took advantage of them in trading and were not feeding them enough. The next day the local bishops canvassed the camp collecting food for the Indians and, observed the camp historian, “they received enough to give them quite a feast.”

On May 5, the company met a group of Native Americans who were eager to trade children for guns. Albert P. Rockwood had previously traded for a child, and on this occasion James Ferguson made a similar purchase. On the return trip, Clayton’s company met more Native Americans, some of whom tried to trade a little girl for a gun and two blankets. The Mormons did not seem shocked at these open invitations to participate in the slave trade. Rather, in this instance they simply were not disposed to give so much for the child! The Saints were well aware of the Indian practice of trading children into slavery and of the brutal treatment they often received as slaves. For this reason, Brigham Young actually encouraged his followers to purchase such children and then to raise them, educate them, and teach them the gospel. He even successfully urged the territorial legislature to pass an Indian slave act, thus legally authorizing the purchases and providing the Mormons with a chance to help in the process of “civilizing” the natives. This, they hoped, would virtually eliminate the Indian slave trade.

On this occasion, D. B. Huntington talked to the Native Americans camped near Fillmore, urging them to “quit stealing from the Mormons and go to work as the Mormons do.” Huntington told them to cease killing other Indians, preached the doctrine of baptism to them, “hinted at the resurrection and told them that God made the law for Mormons as well as them.” He further advised them to stop trading their children to the Spaniards, assuring them that if they would trade them to the Mormons they would be taught to read and write as well as be “clothed like Mormons are.” Such idealism presupposed, of course, that the nomadic tribes saw some advantage in being able to read and write or in wearing clothes like the Mormons—something that was not necessarily true in those days of cultural conflict. Nevertheless, according to Clayton’s report, the local chief, Canosha (or Kanosh), appeared pleased with the discussions and promised that the Utes would do everything Huntington asked. The ironic reality of the situation, however, was subtly suggested when the chief added that “when they see the Mormons’ fat cattle and they are hungry, it is hard work to keep from killing them.” The following year, Utah’s Walker War broke out, and Brigham Young found it hard work to keep Mormons from killing Native Americans as he tried to pursue a policy of strong defensive ability tempered by peaceful reconciliation.²¹

The exploring party eventually visited all the Mormon settlements between Salt Lake City and Parowan. One part of the group took a week’s side trip from Fillmore, searching for a lead mine presumably discovered earlier by Elijah Ward. The explorers were also trying to find silver, but they found neither. The expedition is not known for any significant contribution to Mormon history, and it was the last such exploring trip to be taken by Clayton. The only other time he acted as a camp historian or scribe was on the outward leg of his 1852 missionary trip to England.

In his private life, William Clayton remained an avid patron of the arts. Despite his hasty 1850 resolution to quit music, he was equally if not more active in the musical world. He was partly responsible for organizing the Nauvoo Legion Band (the Nauvoo Legion was actually the name of the Utah militia). And it was in his home that the Deseret Musical and Dramatic Association was organized on February 20, 1852. Clayton often participated in the productions of this group, sometimes as a member of the orchestra and other times simply as a prompter. Throughout the 1850s it was he who arranged the publicity for grand concerts, which at first were held in the bowery. He was a member and at times leader of the quadrille band, and this popular musical group provided the backdrop for much of the social life of Salt Lake City. In the early days it even, at times, marched through the streets on wintry nights, serenading various people. At other times it provided the music for the most prestigious social affairs. During the first week of February 1861, for instance, with Clayton leading, the band played at a splendid inaugural ball, where it was reported that the music, both vocal and instrumental, was excellent and the dancing superb.²² Clayton was versatile, and even when he could hardly afford it he purchased an ophicleide (a deep-toned brass wind instrument consisting of a large tapering tube bent double), which he wanted to learn to play.²³ Whatever his role, it was clear that he enjoyed both music and drama and did everything he could to promote them in Salt Lake City.²⁴

The all-pervading influence of the Church is clearly seen in Clayton’s musical activity. He did not write music, but he enjoyed composing lyrics to set to tunes already well known, and he took almost any occasion to do so. “Gentle Gale” was sung regularly in Nauvoo, probably because it reflected so well the spirit of the immigrants who continued to flow into the city, and “O God Save the Band” was written sometime after the death of Joseph Smith. Though most of Clayton’s literary efforts have not endured, this song well represented the optimism of Latter-day Saint discipleship. To quote two stanzas:

O God save the Band, whose hearts are all one
To sound forth thy praise even with music and song,
To sound forth thy praise in marches so grand,
To play the sweet tones: of God Save the Band.

We ask that the Twelve may regard us in love
And lead us to play with the band that’s above
Where Joseph and Hyrum forever will stand
And join the rich strains of God save the Band.²⁵

“Come, Come, Ye Saints,” became his most famous piece, but another, “When First the Glorious Light of Truth,” survived in the Church’s hymnal until 1985. It first appeared in 1853 under the title “Resurrection Day” and was sung to the tune of “The Field of Monteray.”²⁶ In 1851 he wrote a piece entitled “A Home for the Saints,” which was sung at an assembly celebrating the fourth anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley.²⁷

Illus. 9-2. Willard Richards (above), a counselor to Brigham Young, and Orson Hyde (below), a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, also served in various civic capacities in Utah. Both courtesy Church Archives

Clayton also had wide-ranging tastes in literature. The reading material he ordered in the 1860s and 1870s, for instance, included history, such as a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots; MacNalley’s Complete School Geography; many novels, including Hugo’s Les Misérables, Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo, and Cooper’s Deerslayer; popular story magazines such as Weekly Novellette and Dollar Monthly; and a newspaper, the Baltimore Sun. When he ordered Les Misérables through the mail, he told James Linforth that he had searched the entire city for the novel and found only two copies, owned by private individuals. “I always prefer buying to borrowing,” he commented.²⁸

The single overriding factor in William Clayton’s Utah life, however, was his religion. As noted earlier, after his immigration from England he held no further leadership positions. One might expect that such a dedicated builder of the Kingdom and prominent citizen in Salt Lake City should rise at least to some kind of additional ecclesiastical authority. The explanation might be, simply, that he was thought of primarily as a clerk, and that Church leaders felt this was the place he could make his best contribution. Clayton also did not seek religious office—more important to him, it appears, was recognition from his leaders for the services he performed. Too frequently he chafed inwardly at the uncomfortable suspicion that his work was not appreciated.

But Clayton was not ignored. He continued, at least in the early 1850s, to meet with Brigham Young and other leaders in private prayer groups, where those in attendance not only prayed but also discussed important matters of the Kingdom.²⁹ Some of these meetings had political implications. On June 27, 1852, for instance, he met and prayed with the “council” (what “council” the sources do not say) that appointed Willard Richards and Orson Hyde (illus. 9-2) to take the places of a federal judge and a territorial secretary, who had left Utah rather hastily after some serious disagreements with Church leaders.³⁰ Making the new appointments was actually a federal responsibility, but the council felt that someone must function in those capacities until the government in Washington could act.

Clayton was also called upon to speak before general church meetings as well as in the local ecclesiastical wards. In the early days of Salt Lake City, general preaching meetings were held every Sunday, first in a temporary bowery and then in the tabernacle (illus. 9-3). Brigham Young and William Clayton were the preachers in a bowery meeting on May 12, 1852,³¹ and Clayton continued to preach in such meetings at least until the early 1870s. On January 15, 1871, for example, he spoke in Salt Lake City’s Seventeenth Ward on the subject of polygamy—certainly one of his favorite topics.³² Most likely his reputation as a friend of the first prophet and his keen memory of the life and teachings of Joseph Smith made him a welcome speaker. Beyond clerking, it appears, his Church service was to help the Saints remember and cherish their heritage. It was a service he relished. As Elder Daniel H. Wells remarked at Clayton’s funeral, “It always afforded me a great deal of pleasure when opportunity occurred, to stop and talk with him on the things of the kingdom. This topic was the burden of his mind. I never knew him to converse upon anything else. When he had any leisure and also in his preaching, the prophet Joseph and the Kingdom of God were uppermost in his mind.”³³

Illus. 9-3. The old tabernacle, where Clayton was often called to speak, stands as the only building in this 1865 view of Temple Square. Courtesy Church Archives

There are only two brief accounts that provide any details of what Clayton said when he got a chance to stand before the Saints, and both come from the Seventeenth Ward, where he regularly attended church. The first account, moreover, provides an instructive glimpse into the nature of pioneer preaching meetings. On June 11, 1854, at a meeting in the schoolhouse, the bishop made a few preliminary comments, then called on Clayton to speak on anything he had on his mind. Clayton thought it best, he said, to preach on what he had heard that morning in the tabernacle, and he gave a “beautiful discourse” on the growing prosperity of the Saints, tithing, how to govern, the persecutions of the Saints, and building the temple—probably a typical sermon in pioneer Utah. But that did not end the meeting. The bishop got up again and discussed several matters that were on his mind concerning the Seventeenth Ward, then he told the congregation that Clayton would preach every Sunday evening “until he is satisfied.” What that cryptic remark meant is unclear, but perhaps Clayton had made it known that he had a lot to say, and it seems that the people were as eager to listen to him as to anyone in the ward, at least for the immediate future. The bishop also told the brethren in the congregation not to forget the upcoming tithing day, reminding them that their ward was as well off as any other in the city. Finally, the clerk dutifully wrote at the end of the record, “As no body had nothing more to say, the meeting was brought to a close.” So ended a typical church service day for William Clayton.³⁴

The following Sunday, Clayton preached again, but this time his topic, the concept of “eternal progression,” might have been a bit controversial. As indicated earlier, Joseph Smith taught that every human being existed in a premortal life as an actual spirit-child of God and that mortality is only one step in an eternal process of progression. Eventually, according to the divine plan, if one is worthy enough he might even progress to become like God.³⁵ The unanswered question was whether God himself (who was once like man) is still “progressing” in any way. Clayton took the position popularized by Orson Pratt. “Does our God always progress in knowledge, power and dominion?” he asked. His answer was that God had arrived to a full degree of knowledge of everything that had been and that would be. One wonders how he might have responded if he knew Brigham Young would soon take the opposite position. This and other such topics, however, are among those on which the Church has never announced a firm, official doctrine, nor is it likely to. Latter-day Saint theology was never so rigid that Saints could not find room somewhere for debate and speculation. Controversial or not, the audience apparently enjoyed Clayton’s sermon that day. It included at least two other topics—the Resurrection and the priesthood—and, according to the clerk, it was another “beautiful, and also very interesting discourse, the congregation was very attentive.”³⁶

If William Clayton said anything in public that was contrary to Brigham Young’s views, he probably did not know it at the time, for he was one of those who seemed to go out of his way not to offend the Church leader. For some unexplained reason, early in 1856, Clayton and a group of friends even felt the need to get Brigham Young’s permission before they took on a seemingly innocent new musical activity. Perhaps the consecration movement of the mid-1850s helped create a spirit of rededication and reform that really anticipated the dramatic reform movement that swept Utah beginning in fall 1856.³⁷ If so, that might account for Clayton’s unusual letter to Brigham Young dated January 2, 1856. William Pitt—leader of the famous pioneer brass band—David Calder, Hugh Findlay, James Smithies, Horace K. Whitney, a Brother Barson, and William Clayton wanted to start meeting together privately to sing and play “original compositions adapted to the reformation and the spirit of the times.” Their private choir would consist of four male voices accompanied by two violins, a base viol, and a flute. None of them, however, wanted to go ahead without President Young’s approval, and Clayton was selected to contact him. Unable to get an appointment, he wrote the letter seeking permission. “If there is a shade of doubt on your mind in regard to it,” he declared, “we drop it where it is. If it is all right, please say yes to brother Calder, and we will meet and go ahead, but we feel careful not to engage in any thing which would not meet with your hearty approval.”³⁸ Such complete deference to Church authority, even in Mormon Utah, seems a little extreme, but at least the letter suggests the paramount role of religious considerations even in the private lives of some devoted pioneers. We have no record of Brigham Young’s response.

Public service, music, drama, dancing, reading, associating with friends and family, and preaching the doctrines of the Kingdom: these were the pleasures of William Clayton’s life in Utah. But they were balanced by trials and disappointments, some of which would sorely test his ability to retain the attitude of his famous pioneer hymn: “All Is Well! All Is Well!”

One of Clayton’s problems was personal health. His eyesight gave him difficulty, and at least by the 1860s it was hard for him to work without reading glasses.³⁹ Aches and pains of various other sorts plagued him throughout his life, and in Utah they seemed to come more frequently than in either England or Nauvoo. For one thing, the malaria he contracted in Zarahemla seemed to recur for the rest of his life, because from that time on he frequently complained of fever as well as other persistent ailments. It was not unusual for him to comment in personal letters, as he did to J. C. Wright in 1865, that “my health is unusually poor this spring.” The following year he took a three-week trip to southern Utah expressly to improve his health, and upon returning he reported to James Linforth that he had gained some fifteen pounds during the trip and was as strong and hearty as ever.⁴⁰ For the last ten years of his life, however, Clayton complained of a variety of ailments, including erysipelas (a disease characterized by fever and serious skin inflammations). “My right hand is now so bad that it is with the greatest difficulty I write,” he confided to a friend in 1870. “It is through my system and keeps me sick indeed.”⁴¹ Such comments appear frequently in his letters, and during the last few months of his life he lived in almost constant suffering.

All this was undoubtedly the cause of Clayton’s interest in various popular remedies. In 1872, for example, he was convinced that wormwood root was good for “purifying the blood in the spring,” and when grasshoppers destroyed most of the crop in Salt Lake City, he wrote a friend asking for twenty to thirty roots, declaring that “I need some very much.”⁴² A year later he was praising the virtues of vapor baths as “one of the greatest boons ever offered to suffering humanity, and should be in every family.”⁴³ They had cured him, he claimed in a letter to a friend, of a spinal disease, dyspepsia, and a palpitation of the heart, and earlier that week he had cured one of his children who was “insensible” with typhoid by administering vapor baths. If the people of Sanpete County had such baths, he said, they would have stamped out smallpox in a week. In 1875 he began taking certain powders, apparently offered through the mail by one Dr. George F. Munro. He thought they were improving his health. He wrote Munro shortly after receiving the first supply, for he was sleeping better, the pain in his head was not so intense, and “neither is the buzzing sound so bad,” though his nerves were no quieter. “While writing this my hand jumps and trembles so I can scarcly write. The powders will be done two days hence, and as I cannot hear from you in that time, I shall duplicate the prescription.”⁴⁴ Another popular remedy was alcohol, and it is apparent that Clayton’s frequent illness was one reason why he continued to use it. It was not unusual, in Utah or elsewhere, for people to take “spiritous liquors” for medicinal purposes.⁴⁵

One of the most difficult burdens this Mormon disciple had to bear came with his frequent self-criticism and the uncomfortable thought that he might not be living up to all the requirements of the Kingdom. His faith that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was God’s only true religion carried with it a Puritan-like commitment to make the community of the Saints a light on a hill, and any action unbecoming a Saint was also an embarrassment to the Kingdom. It was in this spirit that what he perceived to be his personal imperfections often gnawed at him even more than the disappointment he sometimes felt at the actions of others.

In the bittersweet life of most early Utah Mormons, however, it was the principle of repentance and the possibility of forgiveness that often turned a suffering conscience into a rejoicing one. During the dramatic “Mormon Reformation” of 1856–57, thousands of Saints, including Clayton, went through another period of intensive soul-searching and made firm, new commitments to live exemplary lives. Such efforts to overcome faults, rather than the faults themselves, were really the most significant aspects of Mormon discipleship in that remarkable year of reform.⁴⁶

The reform movement, sparked by the fiery preaching of Jedediah M. Grant (illus. 9-4) of the First Presidency, was just the kind of thing Clayton would think right for the community of Saints. There were backsliders among them, and Church leaders began to call upon all members to reexamine their lives, repent of their sins, and rededicate themselves to the service of the Kingdom. They were to clean up not only their lives but also their homes and yards, as the reform was designed to sink deep into every aspect of Mormon living.⁴⁷ It affected all levels of the Church—leaders as well as ordinary members. The symbol of rededication was rebaptism, and thousands of Saints responded to the call. For many, including William Clayton, this was at least the third time they had gone through such soul-searching and been baptized: first when they initially joined the Church, again as a symbolic rededication when they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, and now as part of the reformation.⁴⁸

Illus. 9-4. The preaching of Jedediah M. Grant, a counselor of the First Presidency, ignited the Latter-day Saint reform movement of 1856–57. Courtesy L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

All the drama of personal visions, speaking in tongues, and more accompanied the new movement, and it was even reported that the territorial legislature experienced the Pentecostal fervor. When the legislature met in Salt Lake City in December 1856, Heber C. Kimball preached a reformation sermon and demanded that all members repent of their sins and be baptized before the lawmaking began, which they did.⁴⁹ Nor did William Clayton’s Seventeenth Ward escape the fires of reform, and undoubtedly Clayton was deeply affected by what went on there. He probably heard Phil Margets sing a new song, “The Reformation,” in the Seventeenth Ward schoolhouse. It went, in part, as follows:

The reformation has commenced,
    All hail! the glorious day,
May God his Holy Spirit send
    To guide us on his way;
Now, brethren, the time has come
    For wickedness to cease;
So live like honest Saints of God,
    And righteousness increase.

...Chorus
Then, O, brethren, come
    And let us all agree
And strive to gain the blessings
    In store for you and me.

To gain these blessings we must try
    And do what we are told;
I’ll tell you what we ought to do,
    If you won’t think me bold:
We ought to put down wickedness,
    We ought to watch and pray,
We ought to build the kingdom up—
    Not loaf our time away.

...

We ought our bishops to sustain,
    Their counsels to abide
And knock down every dwelling
    Where wicked folks reside:
We ought our Teachers to respect,
    Not give them looks nor snubs;
And keep our ditches free from pots,
    Likewise from stinking tubs.

...

Now, brethren, let us study
    To do the will of God;
If it’s sowing, reaping, preaching,
    We’ll get a just reward:
Keep sacred all your covenants,
    And do the best you can;
I pray that God will bless you all,
    Worlds without end, Amen.⁵⁰

Though the reform had its dramatic and exciting moments, it was certainly much more than a frenzy of fiery preaching and platitudes. It got down to fundamental Christian virtues, as seen in a catechism read by Brigham Young at a priesthood meeting in November. The questions he asked were really the cardinal principles of reform. Had anyone committed adultery, betrayed a brother, borne false witness against a neighbor, gotten drunk, stolen, lied, contracted debts they could not pay, coveted, taken the name of the Lord in vain? Had they done such positive things as working faithfully for their wages, presiding in their families as servants of God, and tithed? Soon these and other questions were being asked in Latter-day Saint homes by ward teachers, and the new questions inquired into whether or not the members taught their families the gospel, spoke against the brethren or the principles taught in the scriptures, kept their bodies clean, worked six days and worshipped on the seventh, attended ward meetings, or oppressed “the hireling in his wages.”⁵¹ Such catechisms reveal the genuine religious nature of the movement. The Saints were also advised to confess and make restitution to those whom they had injured, and, if necessary, to confess to proper ecclesiastical authorities. Church officers were warned, however, not to pry into sins that were “between a person and his or her God.”⁵² Every student of the reformation agrees that it had the overall effect of raising the spiritual tone of the entire Latter-day Saint community in Utah.

As William Clayton looked at himself through the eyes of the reformation, he judged himself harshly, particularly with regard to his use of alcohol. The problem was not new with him, and it is possible that by this time he had developed a tendency toward alcoholism. Today’s experts disagree on precise definitions of alcoholism, but at least a few of the characteristics consistently described in the literature were shown by Clayton.⁵³ In any case, he interpreted his taste for alcohol as a personal failing, and the height of the reformation became the occasion for a poignant letter to Brigham Young in which Clayton did just what good Church members were supposed to do—recognized his fault, resolved to change, and asked humbly for his leader’s forgiveness. In the Mormon mind, God’s forgiveness would come only after an erring soul sought also the forgiveness of those he had wronged, and Clayton felt he had offended Brigham Young. The president’s forgiveness, Clayton wrote, “will give me courage to go on in the reformation, with far superior feeling. . . . , for when I am called up in the ward meetings I feel as if I had no business to teach others until I have made restitution to you.”⁵⁴

For lack of more specifics, we can only surmise that Brigham Young assured Clayton of his forgiveness. The pioneer leader was plainspoken, denouncing evil in harsh and colorful language, yet beneath his rough exterior was a generous and understanding heart. If Brigham was critical of sin, he was also critical of anyone who would unduly fault a man for one mistake when that man had many other good qualities. “When we have done good ninety-nine times and then do an evil,” he once reminded the Saints, “how common it is . . . to look at that one evil all the day long and never think of the good.” Before judging, he said, “we should look at the design of the heart.”⁵⁵ The Saints, above all people, he believed, should be willing to forgive an erring brother who sought forgiveness.⁵⁶

It does not appear, in any case, that Brigham faulted William Clayton too severely, for he continued to give him various Church-related assignments, to recommend his professional services, and to allow him to speak in public meetings. In the long run, Clayton was probably no less successful than most other Utah Church members in their striving for perfection. But the striving itself was a prime ingredient in the lives of Mormons such as he.

William Clayton’s Utah years were filled with new challenges, old memories, and continuing personal struggles. Some of those struggles were the type that could come to anyone. Others represented the tests, enigmas, and paradoxes sometimes connected with discipleship in particular and provide interesting insights into several other aspects of the Mormon community in nineteenth-century Utah.