Over 130 years ago, the followers of Joseph Smith regrouped after the death of their leader and under the leadership of Brigham Young moved westward and settled in what was to become Utah territory. Some nine years after their arrival Young initiated what is commonly called the Mormon Reformation. For the next nine months, Church members were warned by their leaders to repent of their sins, tidy up their residences, and demonstrate their desire to do better by being rebaptized. Church-appointed teachers were sent around with a checklist of questions to measure individual worthiness. It was a time of fervent and sometimes irresponsible rhetoric, of emotional fanaticism, of blood atonement utterances.1 It was also a time of measured and judicious reform, and most interestingly, a time of forgiveness. The latter characteristics have remained slighted or unknown, however, while the lurid and sensational have been emphasized. It is a period that has often been criticized by non-Mormon writers for its excesses, yet staunchly defended by Mormon apologists as a necessary corrective to purify the Saints. In short, nearly everyone that has written [1] about nineteenth-century Mormonism has had something to say, however brief, about the Reformation.
That is not to say, though, that much is known of this controversial era. While a good deal has been written about the Reformation, much of it is of little worth. Most of the early literature was calculated either to offend or defend and the majority of recent studies of the reform have been part of larger summaries or have concentrated on a single aspect of the Reformation. In essence a quick survey of Reformation literature leaves the reader with the unmistakable impression that there remain yet vital elements to be extracted from historical sources in order to bring balance and meaning to this era.
An example of unbalanced writing at its best is found in John H. Beadle’s account of the Reformation. Beadle’s work, first published in 1870, emphasized the sensational and bizarre. He described the Reformation as a “new point of departure,” and wrote of Mormons lapsing into a “furious climax of unnatural and degrading obscenity.”2 Accompanying this degradation, according to Beadle, was a series of murders which could be traced to the fervent rhetoric of Jedediah Grant, “a frothing fanatic, whom it is only charity to judge as of diseased mind.”3 Typical of many nineteenth-century exposes, Beadle’s account made for exciting reading but as history it is unreliable. [2]
Blood-letting was also a dominant theme in the account of T. B. H. Stenhouse, a Mormon apostate, who claimed the Reformation was designed by Church leaders to increase adulation for them among Church members. Stenhouse’s book was, on the whole, more reliable than Beadle’s, but unfortunately his chapter on the Reformation was based on the account of an anonymous witness. Stenhouse maintained that the Reformation began as the result of an angry speech delivered by Jedediah Grant after indifferent Church elders mistreated his mule. Claiming that emotional excesses and even blood atonement murders were commonplace, Stenhouse is quick to free lay members from any wrongdoing and attribute the blame to Church leaders.4
Most writers who were critical of the Reformation spent an inordinate amount of time in writing of the lurid aspects. Beadle and Stenhouse were guilty of this and so was Frank J. Cannon, son of President George Q. Cannon, and, like Stenhouse, a disenchanted Mormon. In his work on Mormonism, Cannon devoted twelve pages to the Reformation and blood atonement, but he was so engrossed with what he considered to be the bizarre that he neglected to analyze the movement. Cannon believed the reformation began somewhat indirectly when Brigham Young sought to check license and tighten the bands of discipline. He credited Jedediah Grant with doing what Young merely preached about (and never intended to do) and claimed that Grant instigated the inquisitorial phase of the Reformation. Cannon did [3] admit that evidence was lacking on several so-called blood atonement murders but that there was enough to indicate Mormon duplicity.5 One nineteenth-century historian who did attempt to view the Reformation objectively was Hubert Howell Bancroft. Bancroft described the movement as “more in the nature of a revival, and attended with all the excitement and bitterness of denunciation common to such movements elsewhere in the world.” He admitted that some benefit was wrought but that the effect was mainly emotional, “the people being worked up to a state of frenzy, and most . . . believing that the coming of Christ was at hand.”6 Bancroft made too much of the revivalistic and millennial aspects. There were many Saints who never reached frenzied proportions and fewer still who expected Christ to come immediately.
Twentieth-century non-Mormons have not approached the Reformation with any more objectivity than their nineteenth-century counterparts. William A. Linn’s treatment of the reformative era is like the rest of his book—superficial. Ironically this book was for many years favorably regarded by the non-Mormon world as an accurate portrayal of Mormonism. Linn maintained that swearing and stealing had become epidemic in Mormondom, that bishops were stealing items from storehouses, and that elders were using coarse language. The Reformation was then instigated, according to Linn, as a measure [4] to curb such practices.7 The majority of Linn’s account dealt with “church-inspired” murders. Like Cannon, he contended that Grant was the instigator of the doctrine of blood atonement.8
M. L. Werner’s biography of Brigham Young represents a transition in non-Mormon accounts of Mormonism. Unlike Beadle, Werner was able to see some good in Young and the Mormon community. Commendably, he attempted to place the Reformation in historical context by connecting what he called “the disintegration of religious values” with economic problems brought on by the famines of 1854–55. He also admitted that there were few instances where blood atonement was actually practiced. Still, unqualified statements such as “murder became a righteous duty at times” and “the entire Mormon population was keyed up to a pitch of fiery faith by the psychological effect of the terrifying doctrine [of blood atonement]” give evidence that Werner relied heavily on the tainted accounts of his predecessors.9
Two comparatively recent books about Mormonism and its leaders complete the cycle of non-Mormon accounts of the Reformation. The first, a biography of Brigham Young written by Stanley Hirshon, is, despite its scholarly trappings, a poor book. To any knowledgeable student of Mormon history, Hirshon’s understanding of Mormon personalities and institutions is shallow. Like his other chapters, his [5] account of the Reformation is based on earlier, slanted writings. He accepted Stenhouse’s “mistreatment of Jed Grant’s mule” as the spark that ignited the movement and referred to blood atonement as the heartbeat of the Reformation.10
Another book with the aura of respectability is Massacre at Mountain Meadows by William Wise. Published by a reputable publishing company, equipped with an impressive bibliography, and gracefully written, it at first glance appears to be a reliable, if provocative, work. Unfortunately, it is not. Wise’s chapter on the Reformation is nearly as jaundiced as Beadle’s account was some hundred years earlier. Wise maintained that Young instigated the reform to shift public attention from the handcart fiasco. In other words, the movement was formulated to divert public attention from the administrative shortcomings of their leaders. Not surprisingly, Wise made good use of the standard stories on blood atonement. He claimed it was instigated by Young and other leaders, “not merely to save the souls of . . . errant followers, . . . but also to temporarily assuage, through the most brutal acts of suppression and violence, their own subconscious rage against the rest of mankind.”11
In essence, then, non-Mormon accounts of the Reformation have improved little since Beadle first wrote of it. The authors have emphasized the sensational and have repeated the same age-old stories [6] of blood atonement murders, many of which are taken from questionable sources. They have demonstrated little if any familiarity with the Mormon people and their religion. Most writers had a built-in disdain for Young and Grant and made no attempt to understand their admittedly coarse rhetoric within context of their total characters. With few exceptions, there was little attempt to tie in the Reformation with other historical forces. In short, the efforts of a majority of these writers seem to have been directed at heaping further condemnation upon what they considered to be a radical sect, than to understand a peculiar people.
Conversely, Mormon writers, especially earlier ones, wrote from a defensive posture and refused to confront some of the unfortunate and ugly aspects of the Reformation. Orson F. Whitney, author of the first comprehensive history of Utah, conceded that it was characterized by great enthusiasm and even some fanaticism, but maintained that it was on the whole a very beneficial movement.12 Henry Evans, author of a brief history of the Church in 1900, wrote only of the forgiveness and charity which characterized the Reformation.13 Apostle Matthias Cowley, while admitting that there were excesses, claimed that the movement did a “vast amount of good.”14 While it is difficult to disagree with any of the above conclusions, it is [7] easy to criticize the authors for choosing not to deal with the unfortunate results of irresponsible rhetoric, the emotional excesses, and the occasional harassment of those judged to be recalcitrant.
A later generation of writers did a better job in assessing the Reformation. B. H. Roberts was perhaps the first orthodox Church member to attempt to deal objectively with this controversial era. Roberts, a member of the Church’s First Council of Seventy, acknowledged that there were excesses, that the leading elders of the Church uttered statements which were irresponsible, and that “in some if its aspects this Reform movement resembled more in spirit the severe justice and retribution of the old Mosaic Law than the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”15 Roberts proposed a frontier-degeneracy theory to account for the origin of the Reformation. That is, the unsettled conditions, the constant moving about, the irregularities of a camp-life existence had resulted in a lethargic approach to religion on the part of many Mormons.16 This, coupled with the high aspirations of Church leaders who were concerned with members living as righteously as possible, brought about a reformation. Robert’s apologetic spirit did filter through occasionally, especially in his insistence that Church leaders were not responsible in an way for Reformation excesses.17 He also failed to delineate some of the other social and economic forces that were influential in bringing about the reform movement. [8]
Andrew Love Neff, a University of Utah historian and member of the Church, also pointed out blemishes in the Reformation in his History of Utah, published in 1940. While concluding that the results of the Reformation were in the main gratifying, Neff admitted that there were by-products which “were matters of regret to the sponsors and promoters of the movement.” Like Roberts, Neff viewed the Reformation as the understandable response of Church leaders to what was perceived as an increase in moral degeneracy brought on by a camp-life style of living.18
Two years after Neff’s account was published, sociologist and Mormon convert Nels Anderson gave a slightly different emphasis to the Reformation by claiming that it was instigated in part to prepare the Saints for upcoming events of importance. Anderson maintained that the Reformation had a logical evolution when viewed in relation to its social antecedents. Challenging times lay ahead as Zion girded itself for a struggle, “a struggle for statehood, for population increase, for economic self-sufficiency.” A toning up was needed to prepare for such events.19 Anderson acknowledged that blood atonement was preached and wrote of an “atonement mania” in the air, but avoided telling the macabre but largely unsubstantiated tales which many earlier writers seemingly accepted as fact. He also noted that some Church members conducted themselves toward others as Jackson County [9] residents had treated Mormons in the 1830s.20 On the whole, Anderson’s summary is fair but brief.
Perhaps the best summation of the Reformation to appear in a general history was Ray B. West’s account in Kingdom of the Saints. West, a member of the Church, came to doubt that the Church had a divine mission but never lost his cultural affinity for the Mormon people. He did a commendable job at putting the movement in historical perspective. He correctly perceived the Old Testament orientation of the Saints and noted that their reaction to the famine of 1855–56 was much like ancient Israel would have responded to similar catastrophes.21 He incorrectly contended that the Reformation and especially the teachings on blood atonement represented one of Brigham Young’s few attempts to “influence the religious doctrines handed down to him by Joseph Smith.”22 As will be seen, Young was not the initiator of the doctrine of blood atonement. West admitted that Church leaders engaged in wild rhetoric but denied that a rash of killings took place. Still, he believed that certain Church members, under the stimulus of the Reformation, “did on occasion shed the blood of an apostate, possibly with the benevolent hope that they were thus sparing him the torments of hell.” West concluded that on the whole the Reformation did the Mormons more harm than good. While “it did reawaken the saints, rouse them to a sense of greater [10] responsibility and heightened energy . . . and purge the church of lazy administrators,” wrote West, it also provided fresh fodder for Eastern newspaper editors to use to further sway public opinion against the Mormons.23
One year before West’s book was published, Howard C. Searle completed his master’s thesis at Brigham Young University. Searle’s topic was the Mormon Reformation and to date it remains the most comprehensive account of the reform era. While it is evident that Searle wrote from a defensive posture and though the thesis suffers from a lack of analysis and interpretation, he does, at least, accumulate sufficient material to give the student, for the first time, a somewhat complete account of Reformation activities.24 It should also be mentioned that Searle did his research some years before many LDS historical records were made available to responsible scholars.
Shortly after Searle completed his thesis, Gustive Larsen, professor of Church history at Brigham Young University, wrote a summation of the Reformation in the Utah Historical Quarterly. It is apparent that Larsen relied heavily on Searle’s thesis for his basic information, but because he provided some interpretation and because he attempted to place the Reformation in some kind of meaningful historical context, his article remains one of the best summaries available. Larsen, well acquainted with Mormon history, maintained that the Reformation was spawned by a variety of motives and causes: [11]
It appeared as a reaction to the crop destruction 1855–56 which was interpreted as a divine rebuke for wastefulness and moral laxity. To others it represented a drive for unity among the saints in face of increasing “Gentile” invasion. Some explained it as a preparatory move against impending hardships, while others read into it the enlistment of divine support against increasing social and political opposition. It was all these, and in a sense it was a New England conscience struggling with the moral expedience of frontier life.25
One of the earliest writers to seek a pluralistic cause for the Reformation, Larsen was also one of the first to recognize that previous writers had spent so much time on the so-called excesses of the movement, both real and imaginary, that its basic structure and course remained uncharted.
In 1971 a rather novel slant toward the Reformation was taken by Lewis Reinwand. Reinwand completed a thesis that year on Mormon millennialism and devoted one of his chapters to an examination of the Reformation as a millennial movement. If I understand Reinwand, he seems to be saying that undergirding the evangelical zeal of 1856–57 was an overt concern among Church leaders with the impending millennium and specifically with the return of Church members to the land of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri.26 If Reinwand means by this that Church leaders recognized the need to build the kingdom of God as a millennial prelude and were dissatisfied with the progress the Saints were making toward reaching that objective, I concur. I [12] discuss this theme in the next chapter. If he is maintaining, however, that the reform was a time of preoccupation with millennial concerns, I disagree. Certainly a key to understanding nineteenth-century LDS Church history is to understand that Church members believed that Christ’s second coming was near. Many Mormons arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in the 1840s and 1850s believed this event would occur during their lifetimes. But because Church leaders refused to pinpoint the Parousia, it did not become an item of immediate concern. Certainly it was not the dominant feature on the theological landscape in 1856–57. Indeed, I believe it would be more accurate to claim that the Reformation brought about an increase in millennialism than to argue that it was a by-product of the millennial fervor of the times. Reinwand’s basic problem was that he had a predesigned scheme of Mormon history and attempted to squeeze the Reformation into it. It does not fit all that well.
The most recent analysis of the Reformation came about in 1975 when Michael Orme, an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University, published an honors paper on the movement. Orme recognized that the Reformation era would become more understandable if it were treated within the larger framework of Mormon history and thought. He provided an incisive analysis of the causative factors that brought about the reform but said comparatively little about the course the Reformation followed.27 Orme’s paper along with Larson’s account are probably the most valuable summaries available. [13]
The historiography of this period, then, has been varied. The first accounts written by non-Mormons or apostates were biased. Blood almost drips through the pages of books by Beadle, Stenhouse, and Linn. They are, for the most part, unreliable. More recent non-Mormon accounts by Hirshon and Wise, though written under the guise of scholarly respectability, are not much better. In contrast, the early assessments of the reform era by Mormon historians are narrow and defensive. No effort was made to confront harsh Reformation realities. More recent treatments of the Reformation by Mormon writers are of more value. Searle’s thesis serves as a solid point of departure and the articles by Larsen and Orme are certainly useful additions. Still, there is much about the Reformation that remains unknown. No one has, for example, provided an in-depth account of the organizational procedures initiated by Church leaders to bring about reform. No one has traced the course or effect of the movement in areas away from Church headquarters and especially in the foreign missions of the Church. No one has written a scholarly study of Jedediah Grant, Brigham’s counselor and the moving force behind early Reformation activities.28 Was he as unbalanced and reactionary as some have maintained? Finally, there are many questions on the doctrine of blood atonement that remain unanswered. That it was preached by Church leaders is a matter of record, but were they sincere in their admonitions or were they attempting to frighten their [14] followers into conformity? More importantly, did Church members ever engage in the practice? These questions among others deserve answers. Hopefully, this work will supply at least some of them. [15]
