There was never a time in the life of William Clayton after his conversion to the Church that he allowed circumstances or personal problems to shake his total commitment to the faith. At the same time, it is not surprising that Mormons such as he should rub shoulders with some of the more esoteric quasi-religious fads that ran to and fro in nineteenth-century America. Phrenology, astrology, alchemy, and spiritualism were all elements of the popular cultural climate, and at least some Utah Mormons were attracted to each of them.
William Clayton did not associate himself with such esoteric trends until after he arrived in Utah. He may have heard about them in England and in Nauvoo, but if he did they had little influence on him. Whatever he picked up in Utah was probably a reflection of what was happening in the broader popular culture of America, as well as the fact that at least some other people in Utah were beginning to show an interest.1
It may seem enigmatic that even a few devout Latter-day Saints should become involved in such movements that at least today seem far removed from acceptable Church practice. Perhaps no explanation is fully adequate, but a few thoughts might help bring into focus William Clayton’s dabbling with astrology and alchemy. First, the proponents of both claimed scientific validity for their crafts, yet, they asserted, these crafts combined the world of nature with a transcendent mystical reality that could influence the soul of every person. In addition, both astrology and alchemy were authoritarian in nature—that is, the secrets could be discovered only by diligent study, so that laymen like Clayton relied on the interpretations of the masters rather than upon their own wisdom. It was not incompatible with religious faith to look beyond the Church for insight into matters about which the prophets said little or nothing. Furthermore, professors of both groups taught that their “science” was based in part on personal worthiness. William Lilly’s Introduction to Astrology, published in 1647 and still popular over two hundred years later, emphasized to students that they must “beware of pride and self-conceit,” free themselves from sin, communicate daily with the heavens, and in every way strive to put themselves in favor with the Divine. “The more holy thou art, the more neer to God, the purer judgement thou shalt give.”2 And the author of a 1907 text on alchemy had as a major theme the idea that true alchemists were not really concerned with transmuting base metals into gold. Rather, they were concerned with the soul and “sought the Highest Initiation or the Development of the Spiritual Nature in Man.” The alchemists’ power to preside over the transmutation of metals was only a result of the worthy transmutation of their own souls. The author even declared that true alchemists would have within themselves the “Magnetic Power” to attract and “coagulate” invisible elements, but that “this power is only possessed by those who are ‘reborn in the spirit.’ Those who do not know what this expression means are not ‘reborn’ (or initiated), and it cannot be explained to them.”3 Clayton’s constant striving for perfection and his penchant for frequently reexamining his worthiness as a Saint may help account for his attraction to such mystical rhetoric.
Since ancient times astrology has appeared in many forms and places. But the form that eventually influenced Clayton came from nineteenth-century England.4 It had flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but languished to the point that a would-be practitioner had practically no sources to turn to. By the 1820s a revival was in progress, and one of its great popularizers was Robert Cross Smith, often referred to as the father of modern astrology. Like many leaders of his craft, he published under a symbolic pseudonym. His was “Raphael,” and under this name he began a periodical called The Prophetic Messenger, the direct predecessor of the modern Raphael’s Almanac, Prophetic Messenger and Weather Guide. Though the most dedicated astrologers fervently denied that theirs was a mere fortune-telling profession, Raphael wrote a number of books on both astrology and fortune-telling in general.
The next great English popularizer of astrology was “Zadkiel,” otherwise known as Lieutenant Richard James Morrison of the British navy. Morrison left the navy in his twenties, became a follower of Raphael, and soon began to publish his own annual magazine, The Herald of Astrology or, after 1848, Zadkiel’s Almanac. Zadkiel was a pretentious writer, apparently very appealing to the popular mind, and it was through him that Clayton obtained much of his astrological knowledge.
Though there was considerable interest in astrology earlier, it caught on most intensely in the United States late in the nineteenth century.5 The Theosophical Society, one of the earliest American groups to promote astrology as well as other occult movements, was formed in 1875. Other societies followed around the turn of the century, and finally in 1926 the National Astrological Association was formed.
There were mixed feelings among Church members about the merits of astrology. Like many if not most Americans, Mormons were readers of almanacs. These annual publications provided information about the rising and setting of the sun and moon throughout the year, information on the stars, advice for farmers, and a wide variety of helpful hints and newsy tidbits of interest to readers. They also contained the names and characters of the twelve signs of the zodiac, showing their relationship to the paths of the planets. Elder Orson Pratt published almanacs specifically for the interest of Latter-day Saints from his office in New York City in 1845 and 1846 (illus. 12-1). He had no sympathy, however, for the use astrologers would make of the zodiac. Pratt’s 1846 almanac provided the usual listing but pointed out that it was only “according to the vulgar and erroneous ideas of the Ancients” that the signs governed “the different parts of the human system.”6
In Utah prominent Church member William W. Phelps published an annual almanac for about fifteen years in the 1850s and 1860s (illus. 12-2). In 1852 he made it clear that he, like Orson Pratt, believed the influence of “signs, stars, &c., according to the wisdom of the world” was “unworthy of the confidence of saints.”7 Five years later, however, he was beginning to change his mind, possibly because Brigham Young had expressed a temporary interest. On June 28, 1857, the Church leader asked Phelps if astrology were true. Phelps said he did not know, whereupon President Young replied that he thought it was.8 The next day, Phelps wrote a long letter to Brigham Young showing he had been thinking about the matter for quite some time, and by 1860 Phelps was apparently a believer (illus. 12-3).9 In the meantime, Brigham Young gave it more serious consideration and determined that the Saints ought not to be involved in such things, and when people came to him asking for permission to establish schools of astrology he firmly turned them down.10
Illus. 12-1. Orson Pratt published the Prophetic Almanac from his New York office in 1845 and 1846.
Illus. 12-2. William W. Phelps published the Deseret Almanac in Utah for about fifteen years.
It was probably sometime before 1861 that William Clayton first told Brigham Young of his own interest in astrology. Thomas Job and a group of friends decided they would like to form an astrological school, and Clayton became interested.11 Characteristically, however, Clayton hesitated to involve himself in something new without counseling with the prophet, and at his suggestion the group sought and was granted an interview with President Young. The matter, Clayton later recalled, “was pretty thoroughly talked over,” but then the prophet asked that the school be dropped and that the brethren stop studying astrology.12
Suddenly Clayton found himself in a dilemma. It was not like him to ignore the advice of the prophet, and for a short while he may have complied. But what he was learning had become so intriguing that he was unable to stay away from it for long. He had asked permission and been denied it, but some of his friends were still involved and he could not keep his interest in check.
Illus. 12-3. William W. Phelps, publisher of the Deseret Almanac, was apparently a believer in astrology. Courtesy Church Archives
By 1862, Clayton was taking an active interest in what the stars had to say about the future. A Mormon friend, John Sanderson of Springville, was one local authority on the subject, and on April 26, Clayton wrote him an interesting letter. William H. Hooper, Clayton explained, was on his way to Washington as a representative of the “State of Deseret,” in an effort to obtain entrance into the Union. He was accompanied by C. W. West, who was going on a mission to England. It was exactly four minutes past 2:00 p.m. when they left, Clayton carefully informed his friend, which was a fact that astrologers might use in calculating the future trend of events. “If you have no objections,” he said, “I would sincerely like your judgement upon three points.” First, he wanted to know, would the trip to the states be prosperous? Second, would the travelers meet with any delay or trouble, either from Native Americans or Anglo-Saxons? And, third, “what will probably be their success at Washington in striving to obtain the admission of the State of Deseret into the Union?” Then Clayton asked another question that demonstrated his belief that the astrologer could even obtain insight into important matters concerning the Kingdom. “I should also be much pleased to hear your judgement in regard to the probability of troops coming here this season,” he wrote, “and any other matters in relation to the welfare of Zion which you may feel free to communicate.”13 Little wonder that Brigham Young had no use for astrology. It was, and still is, a fundamental tenet of the gospel that any important matters “in relation to the welfare of Zion” will be revealed through the prophets, and certainly no astrologer could substitute in that respect.
We do not know what Sanderson replied, but whatever he said touched Clayton deeply. “Your very interesting letter of the 13th inst. has been received and read by me many times over,” he wrote his friend, “and I can assure you the matters you have touched upon are of very deep interest to me. I only wish you had felt like writing a little more. However I am very grateful for so much.”14 Clayton was becoming more certain all the time that the quest for statehood would not succeed. Even before his first letter to Sanderson, Clayton had grave questions about it, and at least by the following February he was positive that “Utah would never be admitted to the union.”15 It would be misleading to suggest that astrology alone convinced him of this, but evidence suggests that this occult “science” at least played a confirming role in William Clayton’s mind.
It was possibly at this point that Clayton began to become personally acquainted with the literature and techniques of astrology. Sanderson had told him of a book on the subject, and sometime in May a mutual friend, Charlie Evans, left at Clayton’s home Zadkiel’s Astronomical Ephemeris for 1862–3–4. Evans said only to take care of the book until he returned,16 but the curious Clayton would hardly pass up the opportunity to look at and learn from it. The following year he was writing to missionaries and others in London eagerly seeking several astrological works. “They are invaluable to me,” he told a missionary friend, and he would explain why when the elder arrived home.17
Clayton continued to write to Sanderson and ask for his insight into both public and personal affairs. He heard that federal troops were being dispatched to Utah and that government officials, with the troops to back them, would begin to enforce the Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862. Again he asked Sanderson for a prediction. “Will it be likely the officials can bring about a collision between the citizens and the troops,” he asked, and “are the signs favorable for our enemies or against them?” He also wanted to know if the troops would really be likely to arrive.18
Though the Saints were not directly involved in the Civil War, its outcome was of great concern to Clayton, and it was the subject of many questions to Sanderson.19 Clayton, after all, was getting ready to make some decisions regarding his own future, and how he felt about the probable outcome of the war would affect those decisions. What about difficulties for the coming winter, he asked in August 1863. “Are the indications favorable for us or against us?” Would Colonel Connor have the power to bring about any mischief, and what information could the astrologer give relating to the movement of troops? Clayton saw in the war a way for the enemies of the Church to wage battle against the Kingdom, and he looked to Sanderson for some confirmation or denial of his expectations. In 1865, convinced that the Saints could have no real peace for long in the Salt Lake Valley, Clayton wrote his friend, “Five hundred families called to go to Dixie fulfils my prophecies for the past seven years.”20
Even though popular astrologers claimed that almost anyone with average intelligence could learn to cast a horoscope, the task was complicated if done to perfection.21 The astrologer needed as a minimum the date and place of the subject’s birth. If the precise time of birth could be given, the “map” of the heavens could be more accurately constructed, and the horoscope presumably would be more accurate. The astrologer allegedly could draw character analysis, forecast life trends, portray tendencies toward weaknesses and disease, suggest remedies, and predict successes, failures, and other major events in his subject’s life. He could also, on the basis of what he knew about leading individuals, forecast trends for nations and communities. Once Clayton believed, it made little difference whether he was concerned with the affairs of the nation, of Utah, or of his family; the heavens would provide information that could help him. So it was that when his two-year-old son Albert Cassius, child of Augusta Braddock, had been mysteriously ill for five months, Clayton sought the advice of Sanderson. He described all the symptoms, including his “frantic screaming both night and day,” that no medicine seemed to help. He gave the exact time of the child’s birth, July 3, 1862, at 2:55 a.m., then wrote: “Now I believe if you can find the time you can tell me. What is the real cause and nature of his disease, and what is the best remedy?”22
Clayton also sought direction on business affairs. In the same letter, for example, he referred to the land warrant business. One of Clayton’s vocations was attempting to obtain warrants on behalf of those to whom the government had promised land, and Sanderson was one such person. Clayton had been working with Judge John Kinney on the matter but now asked his astrologer, “What is your judgment in regard to them? Do you think they will come?” A year later, Clayton was asking more specifically for Sanderson’s judgment on a figure he had raised for February 1 (that is, he had plotted the position of the various heavenly bodies at a precise time for that day), for, he said, “it may be of importance to me in my business operations” (illus. 12-4).23 To cap it all, in the same letter he asked Sanderson for a copy of the “church figure.”
Illus. 12-4. A page from the Prophetic Almanac mapping the movement in the heavens.
By this time Clayton was beginning to study the literature for himself and could raise his own figures, if not interpret them. Before 1865 he obtained his books from London, but during winter 1864–65 the overland mails were suspended and Clayton became impatient. He wrote to California trying to obtain Zadkiel’s 1865 almanac and ephemeris, for, he said, “I am anxious to get the books now.” He also wanted the second volume of Zadkiel’s Handbook of Astrology.24 Clayton was studying the literature and had been caught up with its possibilities—it would be hard for him to stop.
Perhaps he temporarily forgot the conversation with Brigham Young that took place several years before. Whatever the case, it came as a severe blow when he heard from a southern Utah friend in 1865 that Brigham Young had remarked, apparently with criticism, that Clayton had spent the past seven years in astrology. “I suppose from that,” he wrote his leader, “you certainly consider me an astrologer. This idea I beg leave respectfully to correct.”25
Undoubtedly, Clayton experienced a struggle with his conscience as he found himself on the horns of a harsh dilemma. He knew the prophet disapproved of something that he himself was intrigued with, yet he was devoted to the Church and his whole relationship to it was, in part, dependent upon the confidence of the prophet. His explanation was, at best, equivocal—perhaps an effort to save his credibility with Brigham Young and at the same time salve his own conscience through a rationalization that might leave room for more than one interpretation. In any case, after referring to the meeting in the prophet’s office years before, William wrote: “President Young I have not studied Astrology from that time to the present. I do not today know or understand even the first and most simple principles of it. I have never professed to understand it, and I am entirely innocent of all knowledge or practice of it.”26
Technically, Clayton was not really an “astrologer,” for he had not learned to cast horoscopes, he had not put himself in the business of advising others, and he still depended upon astrological experts to interpret for him. In that sense he was not a practitioner. But during the past two or three years he had read some of the literature, he could “raise a figure,” he believed there was something to it, and he would continue in his interest. This is not to say it was an all-consuming passion, like the gospel. But he must have felt a continuing uncomfortableness whenever these two forces—his overwhelming devotion to the Church and his less consuming but real intrigue with astrology—came into conflict.
Clayton’s brush with the Church president’s displeasure did not turn Clayton from his interest. For the rest of his life he subscribed to Zadkiel’s works27 and continued to discuss the merits of astrology with his friends. In 1869 he confided in a letter to John Royle that “I am kept so much confined with business I have no time to study, nor even to raise a figure on the new and full moon, which is important to us.”28 He referred his friend, who wanted some information, to Lilly’s astrologically prestigious Introduction to Astrology, a work with which he was clearly familiar. For a nonpractitioner, William Clayton’s interest was lively.
The same letter suggests that at least to some degree Clayton realized that astrologers could go too far. John Sanderson died in 1869, but by this time Clayton believed his friend had begun to take their common interest to extremes. “He got considerably reckless and led away by unprincipled men,” he wrote, “and I think it is well that the Lord took him, or he might have apostatized.” We are left uninformed as to the specific difference Clayton had with Sanderson, but Clayton commented that “men who get a little understanding of the science of Astrology, act so unwisely, generally, that it takes those who are true friends to the science, a great deal of time to counteract the influence so foolishly created.” The implication was that the “true friends” of astrology within the Church were those who, like Clayton, were not on the verge of apostasy. Clayton did not stop to consider that maybe he, too, was carrying his interest to extremes.
It is possible that some Mormons like Clayton were caught up with astrology partly because the predictions of forthcoming calamities by some popular astrologers were not unlike the predictions of the Mormons. Even the Church-owned Deseret News recognized this in 1879, some six months before Clayton’s death. The editor noted the receipt of a pamphlet, written by “Prof. O. A. Grimmer” and published in California, predicting a “long list of horrors” coming soon as a result of stellar influences. The Saints were warned not to become excited over such tidings of evil for the Lord himself had predicted them in the scriptures and yet had promised that his people should “stand in holy places and not be moved” when the scourging came.
The editor of the Deseret News warned his readers especially against those “star gazers” who fixed the hours, days, and seasons for impending events, though he added a polite bow to the astrologers. “We do not mean by this to cast any slur upon those who study the influences of the heavenly bodies,” he wrote, for the Saints believed that the Lord had placed these bodies in their positions for certain purposes. The editor even considered the possible reality of “solar, lunar and stellar influences,” including the possibility that heavenly bodies exerted both baneful and beneficial influences on the inhabitants of the earth. “But,” he declared with a warning clearly intended to steer the Saints away from any serious dabbling in astrology,
the so-called science of astrology, particularly in these latter times, is so imperfect and unreliable that it forms no proper guide for the Latter-day Saints. Those who depend upon it are led apparently right for a time, but are generally switched off into error and difficulty. Some knowledge may perhaps be obtained in regard to planetary and zodiacal influences. But who among the astrological adepts of the nineteenth century knows anything of the higher governing bodies from which the sun receives its light, or the new conditions into which the whole solar system is passing?
In their ignorance of “higher and more powerful worlds” the astrologers could only create confusion. The “great tribulation” of the earth was approaching, but only the revealed word of God was needed to foresee and prepare for it. “What God reveals may be relied on. But what man adds to those divine communications is untrustworthy and to be viewed with caution if not with distrust and indifference.”29 So much for the Church’s attitude, such as it was, toward the heavenly “science” in which Clayton was dabbling.
Clayton took no serious interest in other occult “sciences,” except for a short flirtation with what seemed to be a form of alchemy. It does not appear that the secret society to which he attached himself was actually trying to turn base metal to gold (the traditional quest of the alchemist), but it did convince its members that through a secret process, which only the specially initiated could obtain, they could change the property of metal to make it more valuable. Why Clayton’s faith allowed him to make this leap into the esoteric fringes is another enigma, but since there was often a bond between alchemists and astrologers30 Clayton’s interest may not have been so unusual.
The brief flirtation began and ended in 1864. A certain William Freeman of New York City had apparently combined in one mail-order business a variety of mystical opportunities for those who were so inclined. Someone loaned Clayton a copy of the guidebook Cabala, which evidently contained explanations of mysteries of Cabalism31 as well as explanations and advertisements for other things. Clayton immediately placed an order for a copy of the guide Cabala (price $1), two “mysterious Electrical and Weird Rings, or Secret Talisman of the Ancient Hebrew and Egyptians” ($3 each), and one certificate of membership in the British Metallic Mutual Association ($1), which was apparently headed by Freeman. The balance of the $10 he sent was for a special (and magical?) fish bait, also advertised in Cabala. He even sent along two pieces of twine, cut to duplicate exactly the size of the fingers he wanted the “weird rings” to fit. He knew the association he was about to join was a secret society, for he said to Freeman, “In regard to membership, any requirements as to secrecy will be freely subscribed to by me as fast as known.” Thus the mysticism of the Jews, the magic of the ancient Egyptians, the mysteries of metallic transposition, the obligations of a secret society, and the vicissitudes of angling were all part of the strange and esoteric world that Clayton was falling into.32
Clayton’s first brush with Freeman’s movement drew him into its orbit almost immediately, even before he knew much about it. Only five days after writing his first letter to Freeman, Clayton ordered even more of the fantastic articles advertised. “I have full confidence in your publications,” he wrote, “and in the reality of the wonderful things you promise.” The order included the “chemical composition” or “sacred chain” composed of “twelve different chemical ingredients” ($3), a mysterious item he called a “String of the Civit Cat” ($7), a pair of “Electro Galvanic” women’s shoes ($4), more special fish bait, with instructions ($3), and some special compound to make boots and shoes wear for five years ($3).33
Clayton was indeed eager to get going, possibly thinking of the larger project that involved changing the value of metals. Though the record is not clear, it may be that the “chemical composition” or “sacred chain” he wanted was something akin to the so-called Philosopher’s Stone of the ancient alchemists—a substance that supposedly enabled the adept, when applied correctly, to transmute metals. It was also imagined that the Philosopher’s Stone could be used to produce the “Elixir of Life,” a universal medicine that had the mystical quality of renewing youth. Though Clayton never spoke specifically of these items, his apparent expectations of the British Metallic Mutual Association were not far from such occult promises. “I am yet rather ignorant how to go to work,” he confessed to Freeman, but as soon as Clayton had more information he would order a “complete outfit” for himself.34 It was this outfit that would presumably provide the means to produce the fabled metallic changes.
It is difficult to piece together the whole story, but the record available suggests that as a hopeful initiate into a secret cult, Clayton was subjected to some of the trials often imposed upon novices as bait, though in the form of an apparent test of their true intentions. If Freeman was a conscious fraud (and the presumption here is that he was), his methods were indeed effective with people who had the will to believe. When Clayton’s “weird rings” did not arrive after nearly two months, he wrote Freeman on April 28 inquiring about them. Three weeks later, Clayton wrote again assuring Freeman that he now knew the reason for the delay. It was Clayton’s own worthiness to be let in on the secrets that must be investigated. “All is satisfactory to me in regard to the matter,” the novice wrote, “and I have the consolation to know that you have the means to satisfy yourself in regard to the purity of my intentions; hence I have no anxiety. I am satisfied the rings will come in due time.”35 Such trusting disciples, when finally pronounced worthy, would indeed be willing buyers of even more occult books and paraphernalia.
Clayton was not the only one in Utah attracted to Freeman’s association. On May 18, Clayton, his astrologer friend John Sanderson, and Nicholas H. Groesbeck each ordered a “complete outfit with private instructions.” “I know you are constantly communicating and forwarding outfits to numbers here,” he commented.36 Further, Clayton, Sanderson, and eleven others decided to form a branch of the British Metallic Mutual Association right in Salt Lake City. As might be expected, Clayton was appointed corresponding secretary. All thirteen signed a request to Freeman for a permit and the necessary instructions and sent, according to directions in Cabala, another $2 each.37
They had a problem obtaining their permit partly, as Clayton explained to Freeman, because they were all so “young in the knowledge of the science” and the organization that their procedures were irregular. They did not even know that it was necessary to sign and forward a special oath when applying for an outfit. He hoped, however, that with experience they would become “useful and worthy members” of the society. At the same time the optimistic Clayton presumed to make a suggestion to the eminent doctor. Why not organize Salt Lake as a central branch for the territory, authorized to represent all the branches in the territory? Then all the applications for membership and outfits could be handled through Clayton as corresponding secretary.38 Whatever the merits of Clayton’s new interest, he was still the willing workhorse for any group or institution to which he was committed. His willingness to serve as corresponding secretary was little different, in kind, from his willingness to serve as scribe, secretary, auditor, or treasurer in the other facets of his life.
As Clayton waited for the official permit to organize, he continued to order membership certificates for men whom he judged “worthy and desirous” of becoming members.39 Finally in July, some two months after their first application, the coveted permit was received.40 Clayton continued to act as corresponding secretary and even advanced money out of his own pocket to pay for postage and other expenses. As in so many other activities, willingness to serve meant at least a little economic sacrifice. “I find it causes me considerable trouble to keep track of all these little items which I advance for the brethren, especially when I have to wait so long before it is replaced,” he complained to Sanderson.41
The Salt Lake chapter of the British Metallic Mutual Association started with at least twenty-six members.42 They had paid their dues, ordered their outfits, signed their oaths of loyalty and secrecy, examined their own and each other’s worthiness, and were ready to learn the secrets that would bring them, they hoped, both wisdom and wealth.
Meanwhile, Clayton continued to write Freeman about other mystical services and problems. The special fish bait did not work. “Perhaps,” Clayton wrote, “I shall yet learn of some secret connected with it which would render it effective.” His rings, on which he placed “inestimable value” beyond any financial consideration, never came. At first it appeared they were lost, but Clayton also continued to persuade himself that they were being withheld until his personal worthiness was proved. When, in July, Freeman gave him hope that he would yet receive a ring of his own, Clayton replied: “I hope you have some means of satisfying yourself as to my integrity and the purity of my motives.” He welcomed a rigid inquiry into his “character, conduct and motives” and assured his New York mentor that “if, as I believe, you have the means to satisfy yourself, I have no doubt you will yet entrust me with that which is to be invaluable solely for my own personal protection and for no other purpose whatever.”43 Clayton seems to have accepted fully the notion that certain occult powers were dependent upon righteous living and personal integrity, and he was thus a ready target for being led along such paths.
Freeman even convinced Clayton and his associates that his occult devices had some mysterious healing powers. Clayton ordered, for example, a pair of metallic insoles for a woman afflicted with St. Vitus Dance. He provided Freeman with a physical description and assured him that when the woman was informed what to do she would forward the money to cover all expenses. He sent money for metallic insoles for a man and wife who had a strange, long-standing malady somehow contracted while cleaning a bedstead, and on another occasion he sent money for the healing of a woman with a stiff right hand and a swollen neck. In each case he forwarded a physical description of the afflicted, which suggests that Freeman had convinced his followers that he could do some kind of long-distance diagnosis and treatment in addition to sending metallic insoles.44 There is no record that any of these people were helped.
But the big letdown as well as the greatest financial loss was the failure of the metallic outfit. Each outfit cost $30, cash in advance, in addition to the $6.50 to $9.50 express delivery charges.45 The agreement was that after the new members had made $500 profit, they would be given additional outfits for $20.46 We do not know what the outfit consisted of, but it is apparent that each contained a set of “private instructions,” a piece of metal (possibly the base metal, lead?), and perhaps some special chemicals and working tools something akin to those of the alchemists. If the outfits did not produce, Clayton and his friends stood to lose at least $40 for each one ordered, counting the cost of returning the processed metal to Freeman.
As soon as the first outfits were received the ambitious group of novices began work. William Walker, who worked in metals by trade, built a small furnace at his home for “transmuting and working up the outfits for the members to the best possible advantage.”47 Clearly the “transmuting” process was designed to change the nature of the metal and make it more valuable. The group expected, in fact, to make it heavier and were convinced it would pass a certain test with acid, all of which suggests that their process was akin to the ancient quest for turning lead to gold. For every new effort, of course, a new “outfit” must be ordered—and another $30 must be sent.
Sometime in July, Walker “worked up” the first five outfits. “Everything worked to a charm,” reported Clayton, “with one very important exception.” The “growing properties” of the metal, which were supposed to become manifest after it was melted down, did not appear. In other words, the process did not work at all. The instructions had been followed to the letter for the entire complicated process. “The metal was never suffered to chill, and it was attended to during the three days’ heat with the greatest punctuality,” the disappointed Clayton wrote, “yet the metal is no heavier at the end of the three days than it was immediately after melting.” Nor did it pass the acid test as they had expected. The successive failures, Clayton commented sadly, “are a great disappointment to all the parties interested, but so it is. We feel confident you will be able to inform us where the failure arises.”48 He then packaged the five metal bars and returned them to Freeman by mail for analysis and for payment of whatever money they were worth. The payment, however, was not to be returned in cash but rather in more outfits! Optimism still bloomed, and Clayton was still certain that after Freeman’s new instructions were received, they would “be enabled to realize the full benefits enjoyed by others of your numerous members and co-workers.”49
What had gone wrong? Freeman never gave Clayton a satisfactory answer. At first Clayton’s loyalty to his new association made it impossible for him to think he had been bilked. It was part of a continuing test of worthiness, he rationalized to a friend even after a sixth outfit had failed. “We think Dr. Freeman has withheld some important ingredient until he assures himself of the purity and integrity of our intentions which we consider would only be a natural act of cautionary prudence.” Nevertheless, he cautioned his friend, “as our labors, like yours, have not been rewarded with the promised success, I would not recommend you to send for any more outfits for the present.”50 Here was the first note of pessimism. But if, as a result, Freeman sold no more outfits or memberships at all in Utah, he had already made hundreds of dollars from Clayton and his friends.
Four months later, Clayton was ready to admit defeat and disillusionment. More recent correspondence with Freeman had convinced him that the five outfits were a “complete flop.” “On account of extreme light weight and the fact it cracks when worked having fine red streaks running through it,” Freeman had written him, the firm that usually purchased the processed metal could not use it. Though he planned to write Freeman again, Clayton’s faith was practically gone. As he wrote to Charles Davis, who had also lost money on an outfit, “we have but little encouragement to hope for anything but entire loss,” and even though he would write Freeman again he had “little hope of any better encouragement.”51 So far as the records reveal, the matter ended there.
Clayton had been duped, and for that he was probably mocked for being overly credulous and gullible. Many of today’s readers may scoff the same way. But we must be cautious before casting stones, realizing that Clayton may not have been so unusual after all. Even today seemingly intelligent people are taken in by confidence rackets (including religious confidence games), miracle remedies, cults, and a variety of get-rich-quick schemes. It should not be wondered that over a century and a half ago the populace who had no inkling of present-day scientific knowledge should be intrigued by similar notions. Clayton, furthermore, saw no conflict between his religion and his efforts to draw upon the mysterious forces of the universe to further his own well-being. In less than a year, however, his dabbling was over. Further, this particular esoteric tendency was only one facet of his total life—one, perhaps, that has been blown out of proportion here—but nevertheless one that demonstrates in a very interesting manner the varieties of Mormon experiences in the nineteenth century. We may react with some surprise because the William Clayton who indulged himself in this interest seems different, somehow, from the Clayton we have seen in other situations. On the other hand, Clayton’s confrontation with spiritualism reveals again the man with whom we are more familiar: the dedicated, single-minded, sharp-tongued defender of the Kingdom.
Few things could be more abhorrent to William Clayton than either opposition to Church leadership or apostasy, and for this reason the Godbeite movement came in for special denunciation from his ever-sharp tongue and pen. The intellectual roots of this movement went back as far as the 1850s when E. L. T. Harrison and Edward W. Tullidge were publishing speculative articles in the Millennial Star. A few years later, Amasa Lyman, who became the president of the Godbeite “Church of Zion” in 1870, gave his first public sermon advancing rather unorthodox ideas at Dundee, Scotland. None of these incidents was linked directly with the organization of the New Movement in 1868–69, but they suggest that the unorthodoxy that resulted in the movement was not a sudden thing.
An important element of the New Movement was an effort to reform the Church, particularly with reference to the influence of its leaders in economic and political affairs. Church economic policy, in particular, came under attack. But hand in hand with these reform efforts went an active commitment to spiritualism. As early as fall 1868, E. L. T. Harrison and William S. Godbe reported a series of seances in New York at which early Latter-day Saint leaders as well as New Testament Apostles appeared and directed them in their attack on the Mormon system. Others who subsequently joined the movement and became important leaders included Edward W. Tullidge, prominent Utah historian and publisher, T. B. H. Stenhouse, another prominent Mormon publisher, and his wife, Fanny (both of whom later published harsh criticisms of the Church, and particularly of plural marriage), Henry W. Lawrence, Eli Kelsey, William H. Shearman, and Amasa Lyman, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The official break came in late 1869 when the leading dissenters were excommunicated from the Church and in December when the Church of Zion was organized. On May 10, 1870, Amasa Lyman was excommunicated, and he soon announced his acceptance of the presidency of the new church. As the Godbeites continued in their criticism of Latter-day Saint Church policy, they also promoted spiritualistic activities, including the use of mediums, participation in seances, and telling of the appearances of family members and former Church leaders. In September 1871, they were even granted a charter by the National Convention of Spiritualists. The Godbeite movement lasted about fifteen years before it dissipated.52
Though a few Mormons took a serious interest in spiritualism, even outside the confines of the New Movement, in this instance William Clayton was clearly within the mainstream and rejected spiritualism with a vengeance. If, as Ronald Walker suggests, spiritualism had enough in common with Mormonism that it offered the wavering Saint “a warm and even familiar home” and if joining with the Godbeites symbolized one’s belief that the Latter-day Saint religious commonwealth had failed,53 then William Clayton could have no part of it. Godbeism threatened the entire Mormon view of a theocratic society, and if all its economic, political, and religious ideals were adopted it would mean the dissolution of the Kingdom.
For Clayton the Kingdom was more important than any individual, and thus he even questioned the propriety of Brigham Young trying to save Stenhouse for the Church. In October 1869, Stenhouse, Godbe, and Harrison were disfellowshipped, pending a trial for their membership. For reasons unexplained, Brigham Young dropped the charges against Stenhouse. Clayton had no faith that this “desperate effort to save him” would succeed because, he said, “when a man is led by a woman who is bitterly opposed to polygamy, I have no confidence in him.” Though Brigham Young was merciful toward the apostates, Clayton was convinced that ultimately the religious leader must “protect the church from overthrow, no matter who is hurt to accomplish it. A dead limb is best cut out and burned.”54
Though such language appears harsh, Clayton meant it, for to him the challenge of the Godbeites was a challenge to his fundamental testimony: God speaks to and directs the Kingdom only through his chosen prophets, and to question their authority is to bore at the foundation of the Kingdom itself. By October 1869, the Godbeite organ, the Utah Magazine, was stepping up its attacks on Church policy, and by the end of the month Harrison and Godbe had been excommunicated from the Church. Apostasy was rampant, Clayton wrote to a friend, and during the trial of the church hundreds would probably go overboard, “and it will not be surprising if some big ones fall.”55 His expectations were exaggerated, for the movement never recruited enough members to create a major schism, but at least a number of prominent intellectuals and businessmen left the Church during these trying months. Clayton was unsympathetic with all of them; they were merely biting the hand that had so long fed them: “Poor fools! Mormonism will rise triumphant, and shine gloriously as the Kingdom of God on the earth, when all traitors and enemies to it are forgotten.”56 The apostates were trying to “bore with a big augur,” he said in December as he angrily described some of their meetings, and “it is useless ridiculing the movement, for they have all hell to back them.”57
Though Clayton considered the Godbeites as little different from other spiritualists,58 he also saw the economic implications of the growing heresy. He was deeply involved in the Church’s cooperative movement and saw the New Movement as a direct confrontation to it. In November he wrote of the prosperity of the cooperative movement, and the increased unity it was bringing to the Saints. ZCMI, he noted, would soon open a wholesale drugstore “so that the saints will no longer be under the necessity of purchasing of an apostate Mormon.”59 He observed, however, that Godbe and his “associate apostates” were growing more bitter daily and that they would cry persecution.
As in all the other confrontations he was involved in, whether personal or public, Clayton had absolute faith that the Lord would use the threat to his Kingdom to good advantage. “One thing is certain,” he wrote James McKean, “it seems as though hell is let loose, and the furies are darting their shafts against the Kingdom, but the Lord will overrule all things for good.”60 It was not impossible, in fact, that the Lord was using the apostates to purify the Church. By May 1870, Clayton was pleased that the movement had not accomplished all its leaders wanted, but he declared that those who did join it were the kind the Kingdom of God was better off without. “I look for a great apostacy before long, for the church will be purified before Zion is redeemed.”61 Four months earlier he had expressed it almost poetically: “The saints feel well, the apostates feel hell, but all is in the hands of the Lord.”62
In his own colorful style, William Clayton was particularly harsh on the apostate leaders. Of Henry Lawrence he said, “The apostates here grow more bitter and fiendish every day. . . . You would scarcely know H. W. Lawrence. The spirit within him actually seems to turn his countenance black.”63 Fred A. Perris was “a big bug among the apostates,”64 and the organizers of the Church of Zion were “poor fools.”65 The apostates, he told Francis M. Lyman, were the “Laws, Fosters and Higbees over again” (that is, like the traitors to Joseph Smith), except that “these ignorant blockheads are led by the spiritual mediums.”66 When, in January 1870, William Godbe told a New York merchant that he felt he had “the weight of a nation” on his shoulders, Clayton commented, “I think Godbe is actually becoming insane.”67
In a way, Clayton’s attitude toward individuals was like the delicate balancing of a scale. On the one side was his avid loyalty to the prophet and other Church leaders, including his refusal to speak ill of any of them. On the other side was his utter disdain for apostates, and his seeming incapacity to find any virtue whatsoever in their motives and actions, except to the extent that they helped purge the Church of its weaker elements. But could such a psyche maintain the balance if a trusted friend and Church leader should suddenly cross over to the other side? That test came when Amasa Lyman, a member of the Twelve, joined the Church of Zion and became its leader (illus. 12-5).
Illus. 12-5. Amasa Lyman, a member of the Twelve and one-time father-in-law to William Clayton, left the Church to become president of the Godbeite Church of Zion. Courtesy Church Archives
In effect Clayton was part of the Lyman family, for he had married one of the Apostle’s daughters, Maria, as a plural wife. He had drawn close to his father-in-law and seemed to have great respect for his outstanding intelligence and capabilities, though he probably never fully understood Lyman’s highly sophisticated theological speculations. When accusations began to circulate that Lyman was heretical and disloyal, Clayton could not believe them and came readily to his defense. In January 1867, for example, Lyman was called in to account before the Twelve for denying the literal necessity of the atonement in a sermon he had given five years earlier in Scotland. Lyman signed a confession of error, though he never really abandoned the unorthodox views he had actually held for years. Clayton, meantime, interpreted the criticism as the result of jealousy and assured his father-in-law that “we shall outlive all jealousy bye and bye, and perhaps the true friends of Joseph will be remembered for their integrity.”68
From this time on, Lyman’s association with the Church was, at best, tenuous. In May 1867, the Quorum of the Twelve voted to drop him as a member, and this action was ratified at the following October general conference. Lyman was finally excommunicated on May 10, 1870.69
The strain for Clayton must have been difficult, and it appears that he was simply not willing to class Lyman with the apostates he had been so roundly criticizing. When anyone accused the former Apostle of apostasy, in fact, Clayton became furious. About the end of July 1868 he was watching the organ being installed in the new tabernacle. Suddenly, John Wardrobe came up and began to complain about the unpleasant circumstances of his son-in-law who lived in Beaver, for, said Wardrobe, there were only five Latter-day Saints in Beaver, the rest being followers of Amasa Lyman. “Too indignant to make any reply,” Clayton held his tongue, but he later wrote to a friend that he knew where Wardrobe got his information and, said he, “It strikes me as particularly unpleasant that Bp. Murdock is compelled to have such a spirit for his tithing clerk.”70 Clayton had no use for rumor-mongering when it involved his father-in-law. That same year, Clayton affectionately wrote Lyman, “You have many true and sincere friends who will never forget you, especially while you continue to follow the course you are doing and have done. By your wise policy your friends rejoice while your foes are defeated.”71
The most abhorrent suggestion of all, so far as Clayton was concerned, was that Lyman might join the apostate Godbeites and even become their leader. Yet that is exactly what was being rumored late in 1869. “I have invariably ridiculed the idea that he would listen for a moment to any overtures from such a source,” wrote Clayton to Francis M. Lyman, his brother-in-law, “and I am pleased to say, there are few indeed who think he could be influenced by any such contemptible spirit as possesses these apostates.” But he heard the story again, and again wrote his brother-in-law, “I told him he was mistaken, for your father knew too much to associate himself with any such folly.” When Lyman wrote back confirming Clayton’s confidence, the faithful disciple was relieved, but within a week he had heard more such rumors from someone apparently close to Amasa. A certain Dr. Taggart claimed to have had an interview with Lyman, who, he said, read him the sermon for which he had been dropped from the Quorum. “He makes no secret,” Clayton wrote in distress,
of saying that your father is the man to take the lead of the apostate clique; that he is ready and expected to be the head of the apostate church. . . . I wish you would write at once and give me the facts, If there was an interview between your father and Taggart what was the topi. . . . I shall have this report to meet and combat in various quarters and I would like facts to fight with, for that is what the enemy cannot stand.72
Exactly what happened in the next few months is not clear, except that sometime between December and May, Clayton learned the truth—his father-in-law was, indeed, associated with the enemies of the Kingdom and would become their leader. Clayton was crushed. For him, however, there was only one course of action—to disassociate himself entirely from the man he had so admired yet never really understood. Clayton felt betrayed as he saw his former friend and leader move so easily into the camp of the enemy and must have felt a vast emptiness in the thought that he had been deceived for so long. The sad but necessary result was that he would simply never speak to Lyman again.
Lyman, too, felt a sadness, but from his point of view he was only doing what he must. He wrote his wife Louisa on the day of his final excommunication from the Church:
The time has at length come when I shall again open mouth in the proclamation of the Gospel. This I have announced to br. Clayton and Marion [Francis Marion], the former of whom denounced me and declared it had made an Eternal separation between him and me all the charity he extended to me was his silence and permission to visit our Maria she dear soul said to me weeping that she never should forget her Father.
Marion was most deeply touched but said he should ever love and respect his Father. I did not ask him to indorse my views but act honestly up to the views he entertained and the future would give him light to see differently.73
How the actions of one person inevitably affect the lives of others, and especially of loved ones, is no better illustrated than in the story of Amasa Lyman. His son Francis Marion was disappointed but remained both loving toward his father and loyal to the Church. In 1880 he became an Apostle. Amasa’s son-in-law William Clayton was horrified and openly turned against him, remaining, as Lyman described him, “cold and glum.”74 Amasa’s daughter Maria (illus. 12-6) was torn between two loves—one for her father, and the other for her church and her marriage. Her decision was a long and probably agonizing one, but for over a year she stuck with Clayton. Her affection for him, however, seemed gradually to wane, especially as he continued to spurn her father. “I was very sorry to hear that Mr. Clayton would not speak to you,” she wrote him in July, “but be assured it will never make me think any the less of my Father. I shall always love and honor my Father and do all I can to smooth off the rough edges of the trials he has to pass through in this life.”75 A year later she made her choice and left her husband, taking their son with her. Clayton was left to ponder the perplexities of discipleship and awesomeness of apostasy.
Illus. 12-6. After four years of marriage to Clayton, Maria Louisa Lyman left her husband because of the problems surrounding her father’s apostasy from the church. Courtesy Church Archives
William Clayton’s various confrontations with the esoteric fads of his day were only a minor part of his life, though in some way they had dramatic consequences. In terms of what they tell us about the Mormon community of nineteenth-century Utah, however, we hesitate to read too much into them, for Clayton was only one man among thousands. A few things are nevertheless suggested. Even though relatively few Mormons took up the “science” of astrology, that such a tenacious disciple as Clayton could take such a great interest in it suggests that his understanding of the gospel did not keep him from investigating a variety of possible sources of knowledge. That he did not drop the subject when told to do so suggests that he did not interpret Brigham Young’s distaste for it as official Church pronouncement. In a day when patent medicines, animal magnetism, metallic devices, and various other remedies were widely advertised and accepted, it is not surprising that at least some Mormons should dabble in a variety of mysteries.
In Clayton’s brush with alchemy, “weird rings,” and the like, he was even farther out of the Mormon mainstream, but it appears that he dropped such diversions quickly.
In his attitude toward spiritualism, Clayton represented the main current of Mormon discipleship, though his harsh reactions might be analogous to the rocks and rapids in that current. What Mormon could object to his denunciation of those who threatened the foundations of the Kingdom; what Mormon would not applaud his call for support of the living prophets, and them alone, as the only proper guides for the Kingdom; and what Mormon would not understand when, in disappointment, he broke all ties with a friend whom he felt had betrayed the Kingdom and embraced the enemy? Clayton’s kind of discipleship was perhaps summarized best in what he wrote to Francis Lyman during the crisis over the Godbeites: “As to myself, there is nothing in this world I care for, except that which is connected with Mormonism as it is and was.”76
Notes
1. Only in recent years have scholars begun to explore very deeply the persistence of esoteric tendencies in America. Recent studies have demonstrated, however, that certain occult practices, including astrology, spiritualism, “white magic,” and treasure hunting, were not uncommon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and that what we moderns might call “superstitious” was really a part of the folk culture even of respectable citizens. One astute scholar, R. Laurence Moore, has cautioned us against too quickly pinning pejorative labels on people of the past simply because their way of looking at the universe was different from ours.
Our investigation calls for caution because occultism was usually bandied about in the latter part of the nineteenth century as a pejorative term. None of the groups I propose to examine accepted for a moment the charge that it was occult (although each vigorously directed the charge at the others). Historians can try to detach themselves from the confused charges and countercharges that historical actors made and use their own notion of what constitutes occult and esoteric belief to settle the truth of those charges. But they cannot completely escape the implication of the observation that superstition is a label for the other person’s religion. From somebody’s point of view, all systems of though. . . . are tainted with occult associations. (R. Laurence Moore, “The Occult Connection? Mormonism, Christian Science, and Spiritualism,” in Howard Kerr and Charles L. Crow, eds., The Occult in America: New Historical Perspectives [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983], 136)
The entire book consists of several chapters that are each important contributions to a new interpretation of the occult in America. See especially Jon Butler, “The Dark Ages of American Occultism, 1760–1848.” The relationship of such esoteric tendencies to Mormonism has also only begun to be explored. For some excellent studies on treasure hunting in the time of Joseph Smith, for example, see the several articles in BYU Studies 24 (spring 1984), and especially two by Ronald W. Walker: “The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting,” and “Joseph Smith: The Palmyra Seer.” See also D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987, rev. ed. 1998), as well as three intensive review essays on this controversial book by Stephen E. Robinson, William A. Wilson, and Benson Whittle in BYU Studies 27 (fall 1987): 88–121. Though Clayton took up astrology and alchemy, there is no evidence that he showed any interest in treasure hunting or in another pseudoscience, phrenology, which some Mormons were curiously attracted to. For an interesting discussion of phrenology among the Mormons, see Davis Bitton and Gary L. Bunker, “Phrenology among the Mormons,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 9 (spring 1974): 43–61.
2. William Lilly, An Introduction to Astrology, ed. Zadkiel (London: G. Bell and Sons, Limited, 1910), 10–12.
3. R. Swinburne Clymer, Alchemy and the Alchemists, 1 (Allentown, Pa.: Philosophical Publishing Co., 1907), title page, and 265–66.
4. For an interesting historical account and personal evaluation of astrology, see Christopher McIntosh, The Astrologers and Their Creed (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969). Chapter 7 therein deals with the trends of the nineteenth century.
6. Orson Pratt, The Prophetic Almanac for 1846 (New York: “New York Messenger” Office, [1845]), 2. I am indebted to David J. Whittaker for leading me to information relating to early Mormon almanacs. David J. Whittaker, “Almanacs in the New England Heritage of Mormonism,” BYU Studies 29, no. 4 (1989): 89–113, will prove useful for anyone wishing to read further.
7. W. W. Phelps, Deseret Almanac for the Year of Our Lord 185. . . . (Great Salt Lake City: W. Richards, Printer, 1852), 37.
9. W. W. Phelps to Brigham Young, June 29, 1857, Brigham Young Papers; W. W. Phelps, Almanac for the Year 186. . . . (Great Salt Lake City: J. McKnight, 1860), 32. Here, Phelps provided the following definition of an almanac, as written by someone with the initials K. J.:
The word ALMANAC is probably of Arabic origin and means a daily calculation for the rising, setting, and position of the sun, moon, planets, stars, constellations and phenomena of a year, in advance; and anciently and modernly, contains many other matters of motion that may facilitate the business transactions of man.
A person without an Almanac is somewhat like a ship at sea, without a compass; he never knows what to do, nor when to do it;
So Mormon, others, sect and Quaker; Buy Almanacs, and pay the maker. [Italics added.]
10. In 1861, for example, he turned down a Salt Lake City tailor who came to him seeking permission to open a school of astrology. “Brigham Young Office Journal August 8, 1858 to September 30, 1863,” 328–29 (December 30, 1861), Church Archives. The entry reads: “Br. _________ a Tailor living in maine St. called upon the President for the purpose of getting permission to open a school to teach astrology. The Pres. referred him to Br. A. Carrington. President Young remarked it would not do to favor Astrology—an effort was made in the days of Joseph to establish astrology.”
11. We make the assumption that this was not the 1861 incident cited in the previous note but rather occurred a year or so earlier. Clayton’s 1865 letter, cited here, says that Brigham Young had accused him of studying astrology for the past seven years, and it seems that Clayton began the study about the time he asked permission to start the school.
12. Clayton to Brigham Young, October 30, 1865, Brigham Young Papers.
19. See chapter 11 herein for details on Clayton’s concerns over the war.
20. Clayton to Sanderson, August 8, 1863, February 24, 1865.
21. For description of “how to do it,” see Alan Leo, Astrology for All Part I, 3d. ed., rev. (London: Office of “Modern Astrology,” 1908), and McIntosh, Astrologers, chap. 11. Alan Leo was the pseudonym for William Frederick Allen, who in the last part of the nineteenth century became one of the leading popular astrologers in Europe. He probably reflected the type of astrology familiar to Clayton and, says McIntosh, with the help of his manuals (all published after Clayton’s death), “it was possible for almost any dilettante to fancy himself an expert caster of horoscopes” (Leo, Astrology for All Part I, 97).
31. Cabalism is an ancient and secretive Jewish tradition that has some elements relating to astrology. Celestial influences, mystical numbers, and magical powers are all part of the system.
42. At least twenty-six names can be identified in Clayton’s correspondence, and there is a clear implication that there are others, not only in Salt Lake City but also throughout the territory.
43. Clayton to Freeman, June 6, 13, July 22, 1864.
45. Clayton to Freeman, July 23, 1864. William Clayton to D. M. Thomas, July 28, 1864. Clayton originally sent only $20 for his first outfit, but he probably had to make up the difference later on.
51. Clayton to John Gerber Sr., November 5, 1864, and Clayton to Charles Davis, November 5, 1864.
52. Spiritualism, the Godbeites, and Godbeite leaders have received considerable attention from scholars. For a fine general statement on spiritualism in Utah, see Davis Bitton, “Mormonism’s Encounter with Spiritualism,” Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974): 39–50. For the best treatment of the Godbeite movement, which emphasizes the importance of spiritualism as part of the tradition of economic liberalism in Utah, see Ronald W. Walker, Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998). This excellent work was a revision of Ronald W. Walker, “The Godbeite Protest and the Making of Modern Utah” (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1977). See also Ronald W. Walker, “The Stenhouses and the Making of the Mormon Image,” Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974): 51–72, and “The Commencement of the Godbeite Protest: Another View,” Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (summer 1974): 216–44. For a recent and thorough study of Amasa Lyman, who was so important to Clayton’s attitudes, see Loretta Hefner, “Amasa Lyman, the Mormon Universalist Apostle” (master’s thesis, University of Utah, 1977).
68. Clayton to Amasa Lyman, February 13, 1867, Amasa Lyman Papers.
69. There is some confusion, perhaps, on this. Roberts, Comprehensive History, 5:271, indicates that Lyman was excommunicated at the time he was dropped from the Quorum. Both Ronald W. Walker and Loretta Hefner, however, who have done the most recent studies on Lyman and the Godbeites, indicate that the excommunication was not finally acted upon until 1870.
