The 19th Wife (48 page)

CLOSED ARCHIVE

BY ORDER OF

WILFORD WOODRUFF

Prophet & President

October 5, 1890

SEALED

Access Shall Be Limited to

The Prophet & Leader of the Latter-day Saints,

Whoever He Shall Be.

Thursday, March 11, 1875

Night has come. Outside my window, the snow clouds have cleared, allowing the moon, my old friend, to burn through. The snow atop the Penitentiary walls reflects the moonlight in a glowing ring. Beyond the walls the valley basin lays dark and mysterious. I can see nothing, although I know someone is out there, waiting for me.

I could look out this window all night if I did not have this other task before me. They have given me the Warden’s office. It is a bare room with a bare floor, and a simple, rectangular writing table where the Warden drafts the papers for the incoming and outgoing prisoners. Earlier Warden Paddock drafted my papers here. Out of deference to my age, I gather, he has decided to house me here with a guard outside the door. Upstairs the Warden’s wife is looking after her children, including a newborn, a singing babe with a yellow forelock named Esther. Earlier Mrs. Paddock brought a plate of bread, spiced peaches, and a strip of apricot leather. She asked if I needed anything else. I requested a longer candle, an ink pot, and these pages. I will not sleep tonight.

The Warden’s house stands outside the Penitentiary’s adobe walls, adjoining them at the gate. From the window, I can see into the prison yard, an acre of snowy mud, and the Penitentiary itself, a block-house better suited to corral sheep than to house men. I see the barred windows, the gate studded with iron buttons, and the chimney coughing white smoke. At least the men have a fire. The Warden has fourteen prisoners tonight, myself included, and two guards, not including himself. If there is a rebel among us, a riot could break out easily. I have not met the other prisoners, although I saw them an hour before dusk running in a circle around the prison yard. The men wear black-and-white striped pajamas, the stripes running horizontally, and simple Chinese-style caps. They are mostly young men, imprisoned, the Warden tells me, for crimes as mundane as stealing flour and as heinous as ravishment and murder. Looking down at them, all thirteen, running about the yard, kicking their feet high to clear the mounds of snow, I, nor anyone, could tell who has committed the worst crime. Which man has stolen the sack of flour off the mill’s wagon? Who ravished the maiden down by the creek? Which man among the thirteen slit his neighbor’s throat with a deer knife, as the Warden tells it, from ear to ear? Each man appears the same; he is hungry, cold, and anxious to be free.

I too wear a prison uniform, although my stripes run vertically. I asked the Warden about this, but he did not have an explanation. I believe he is too thoughtful to attribute it to my girth, which has expanded in proportion to my years. My younger wives tease me about this. Mary calls me her water buffalo. Amelia, she likes to poke me in the middle until I laugh like a child. During the brief time we were fond of one another, Ann Eliza would fall off to sleep with her head on my belly. She was a good wife. I am only sorry it has come to this.

The events that led me to this writing table—with its short fourth leg and the rapidly burning candle—began with her apostasy. I knew our relations had soured; I am too familiar with the ways of marriage to expect them all to last. What surprised me, and continues to surprise me, is her tenacity. In truth, I expected her to quit my household, perhaps accept a small sum, and be gone. In all this noise about my 19th Wife, people have ignored the fact that Ann Eliza is not the first woman I have separated from. Mary Woodward, Mary Ann Clark Powers, Mary Ann Turley, Mary Jane Bigelow, Eliza Babcock, Elizabeth Fairchild—all fine Sisters who requested a release from our engagements. They were young, a few not yet twenty if I recall, and our time together was sweet but shallow, not unlike a pie. A pie on the table is always a marvelous sight, but soon it shall be gone, its tin nicked by fork and knife. In each case they requested a disunion and I agreed. In the case of Mary Jane I paid her five hundred dollars and wished her joy and peace. Once outside my household, these good women proceeded with their lives. A few might have married again, I am not certain. Yet I know none ever spoke of our time as man and wife. My first mistake was assuming Ann Eliza would be the same.

Four weeks ago the subject of my sermon was “How Have I Come Here?” Before some two thousand Saints, I spoke of our chosen paths, and the meaning of these. I invoked the Pioneers pushing across the plains in ’47 and ’48, and the thousands of emigrants since, sailing, riding, walking to Zion. Each man, woman, and child present has come to God, I said, and yet the course of each has been different, and so it must always be. I asked my followers to go forth and consider this question in their prayers. How have I come here? Indeed, ever since, when I have met Saints on the street, many have told me they have spent much time pondering the question for themselves.

And so I must do so as well.

After Ann Eliza’s apostasy in the summer of ’73, a long legal battle has ensued. Yet throughout it has seemed to me Ann Eliza, in her public statements, wants both sides of a coin. She has claimed that in my bountiful household, with so many wives and children, she was never truly a wife. If this is so, let the woman complain. Yet she also says I owe her a vast sum of alimony. If this is so, let the woman complain. Yet according to her own logic, it cannot be both. Either she was my wife and I owe her a claim, or she was not my wife, and I owe her nothing. My lawyers, good men, perhaps too eager to please, have advised that under federal law she was never my wife. The civil courts, which so despise our marital customs, would never honor her request for alimony. Thus our legal strategy was set: Ann Eliza Young was never my wife. My mistress and my confidant, yes—but not my wife. My lawyers were the first to publicly call her a social harlot—an unfortunate outburst of hostility yet benign compared to the charges she has hurled against me.

For many months the lawyers argued. The man she hired, Judge Hagan, never truly had her interests in mind. In truth, I did not pay close attention to the case, for so many other matters engaged me. I admit bewilderment then, when on February 25th of this year Judge McKean ordered me to pay Ann Eliza alimony in the sum of five hundred dollars a month by March 10th or be held in contempt of court. When I read the court order I remember thinking, It is a bluff. The United States government has ordered me to pay alimony to a 19th wife? It would mean they believed my wives to be legal in every sense. It would mean an acceptance of plural marriage. I knew this had not come to pass, and I shredded the court order, throwing the bits into the fire.

It was after nine o’clock this morning when the Deputy United States Marshal, A. K. Smith, a modest, dutiful man whose brass buttons shone like the sun, arrived at the Beehive with a warrant for my arrest. My loyal men—Brother Adam at the guardpost, Brother Caleb at the door, Brother Orson and Brother Herman in my office—each attempted to stop the Marshal from arresting me. The man had come armed with certified papers, and I told my men that we must always respect the force of law, and its majesty. “A piece of paper written with legal will is a weapon more powerful than a rifle,” I advised. “And so it shall be.”

The morning was cold, blustery, the winds throwing fresh, fine-grained snow against the window panes. At the time of the Marshal’s arrival I had been planning an emergency rescue for the citizens of Big Cottonwood. Yesterday’s snows, and those from the day before, had caused snow slides from Canyon Flat to Porcupine Cabin, burying the canyon in near fifty feet of snow, blocking the creek and the road for one mile. We did not know how many pitiable souls lay under the snow, whether dead, frozen blue into the frost, or alive and awaiting rescue. Together my men and I were organizing the teams to be sent when the Marshal entered my office.

The Marshal said we were due in court but allowed me the time necessary to sign my morning letters and documents. His orders had been to bring me at once, but he is a good man and understands that every man, whether crook or king, has business to finish before he can leave his house. I dressed in my cape and hat, hung my watch from my shirtwaist, and said good-bye to my men. I told them to continue with the rescue, and worry none for me. In the hall, as I was leaving the Beehive, I met Sister Mary Ann. She is nearly as old as I, fortified in her routine, suspicious of all Gentiles, Babylonians she names them, refusing to greet any outside our faith, even President Grant, she often says, were he to call. When she saw the Marshal, she looked as if she was about to reach for her pistol and bucket and chase him from the house in the fearless manner she drives the rats from the orchard. I told my good wife to be still and pray.

At ten o’clock we entered the Third District Court Room and the Marshal seated me in a chair on the east side. So many had gathered for the spectacle, supporters and enemies alike, that mine was the last vacant seat, with the exception of the chair awaiting Judge McKean. My supporters included many of my sons and sons-in-law, who sat in a row headed by Hiram Clawson; members of the Nauvoo Legion, some of them now older than I, their shoulders bent under fond memories of the olden days; a variety of Bishops, Elders, and other well-wishers; and Captain Hooper from the co-op’s hat department, who, just before the proceedings began, called out, “All of Zion rise up for our Prophet, Brigham Young!”

Judge McKean silenced the court room with his angry gavel. With each bang of the mallet’s head he looked at me with obvious disdain. From whence his adversity to our Faith comes I know not. True, the recent publication of Ann Eliza’s memoir has soiled my character in many parts of the nation. I am told it has sold more than 100,000 copies, sending the publisher back to the printing press three or four times. Are there 100,000 men and women interested in the Saints? If only they had read our Book, not hers. Now, for many, knowledge of our Church, and of me, comes mostly from her pen. I have not read
The 19th Wife,
but I have it here with me, should I need the company. I hope it does not come to that.

My attorneys, Brother Hempstead and Brother Kirkpatrick, had prepared themselves with an armory of books and briefs. Their adversary, Judge Hagan, stood nearby, solid with confidence. In dealing with him, he is the kind of lawyer who grants you the sensation of victory, while in truth you have lost everything.

Hagan began by declaring I had shown disdain for the court’s mandate by refusing to pay Ann Eliza’s fee in the stated time. Judge McKean asked my attorneys if this was true. Kirkpatrick attempted first, claiming it was not. Hempstead fortified Kirkpatrick’s position, saying, “While it’s true Brother Brigham has not paid the fees, he has not shown disdain for the court or its mandate.” Both men continued adequately for more than an hour, incorporating legal thinking derived from American and English courts, all in my support. While competent in legal history, they possess ordinary imaginations and therefore they could not create, as an artist would, a means for my escape. At 12:35, Judge McKean called an hour recess. When the court returned, I was found in contempt and ordered to the Penitentiary.

The cheers and whoops of hurrah drowned out the weeping of my supporters. The Marshal shackled me at the wrist, apologizing for having to do so. As he led me from the court room a voice cried out, “Remember Carthage!” A second echoed the first, “We’ll always remember Carthage!”

I, too, was thinking of Carthage, of the stone jailhouse where the mob assassinated my dear Joseph and his brother, Hyrum, nearly thirty-one years before. Joseph had submitted to the rule of law, giving himself up to the Gentile authorities, yet in the end the law could not protect him from the mob. I was away on mission that terrible day. I did not speak to him in his last hours. What were his thoughts? Those who witnessed him said he was pensive and in peace. Yet there is no greater mystery to me, at least among matters from here on Earth, than what occupied Joseph’s mind on his last day. We have his letter to Emma, but how often I have wished he had kept a deeper record of his final hours. I know he was not afraid, yet there is much more I wish I could know.

If this candle burns out before dawn, I will have to write by the light of the moon. Perhaps the guard outside my door will ask Mrs. Paddock for a second, yet he must do so now, before she falls asleep. To do this he will have to leave his post and he will only do so if he can trust me. The guard, a Catholic boy named Christopher, he reminds me of my son Willard. They share the same supple smile and wave of chestnut hair. They could be the same age—I shall ask when I request the second candle. I think of Willard often, of how bravely he withstood the slander when he arrived at West Point a few years ago. Many called for his removal from campus, writing Senators and Congressmen letters of disapproval, disparaging him as the son of whores. When I read this in the newspapers, I telegraphed Willard, inviting him to return home. His reply was swift and short: “Father, will stay.” Now he’s preparing to graduate from the Military Academy with a commission in the national Corps of Engineers. He is the kind of brave son I have always hoped to rear.

There, I have now spoken with the guard. His name is Officer O’Conner, he is twenty-three—Willard’s age by a month. He will fetch a second candle from Mrs. Paddock’s cupboard. While waiting for him, I have been standing at the window for some time. The immense valley lay in blackness, yet the moon on the snow casts a revealing silver-blue light. While gazing out, I have come to sense a movement out there. I cannot perceive it with any precision. That is what it is to my eye—a movement in the dark. I do not know if it is a trick of the light, or a wolf pack crouching through the snow, or men gathering. Or perhaps there is no movement, perhaps all is still, and it is time for me to sleep.

When Officer O’Conner returned I asked if he worried I might try to escape. “No, Sir,” he said. “You gave me your word.” He handed me a long tapered candle barely burned at the top.

Now, with ample candle-power, I should have the friend of light to guide me through the night. When I think of all there is to do, I become anxious and walk in circles around this small room. I am not restless for lack of freedom. During my house arrest in the winter of ’72, I could stay at my desk day and night, hacking away at my tasks at a pace even I had never before known. There is always much to do, matters to consider, works to accomplish. Next month I would like to return to St. George to review the progress of the Temple. The roof will rise soon—how I hope to witness that. When it is up, and the building stands secure, we can begin our many important rites, starting with the baptism of the dead. Then I must tend to the United Order, which has yet to take root. Later this summer I should like to reintroduce the New Alphabet. How much easier it will be on our emigrants when they arrive in Deseret, unfamiliar with English as they are. The last attempt failed, I know, because I did not lead the Saints to it. This time they will know its importance to me. And always so much more—the letters I owe my sons, including Willard, to whom I must describe the guard. The upcoming conference of the councils of the Priesthood. The audit of the statements of the Z.C.M.I. The meeting with the Board of Directors of the Deseret Bank, and of the Street Railroad Co., too, and that of the Deseret Telegraph Co., all of which shall be held very soon, and a review of the Utah Southern Railroad’s future tracks, and the annual meeting of the Gas Co., &c. &c.—these are the matters, and many others, preoccupying my mind of late. The misperception among those who do not know me, or care not to know me, is that my spoiled marriage to Ann Eliza has consumed my days. Ann Eliza does not hold such a commanding position in my thoughts. She is perhaps 87th on a list of tasks and items requiring my attention. This no doubt has fueled her rage. I should have been more mindful of this. My rage for her, however, has never matched hers for me. I admire her, and always will. I remember the night she was born. There are no words to depict the joy she brought her mother, herself a true Saint. As a baby Ann Eliza was dark in the face, with two slits for eyes. How those eyes opened as she grew, blossoming into a beauty that, even tonight, can catch upon my old heart.