Strangers for Ancestors #10: Latter-day Saints

Mormon March through Ohio 1738, artist unknown

I took a needed break from blogging last week. I’ve been having a hard time focusing and staying grounded; and my mind is all over the place. One moment I’m in eighteenth century New England thinking about the devastating injustices being committed against the Native and Black Peoples by the European settler-colonizers, my ancestors included; another, I’m walking along San Francisco’s Market Street and feel like I’m in Boris Sagal’s The Omega Man wondering where everyone is and what’s happened; and then in another I’m in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower in an encampment and the world is burning up, though not from people setting fires, but from the unbearable temperatures and the unhinged state of the natural world, as though someone has picked up earth and flung it into an inescapable space somewhere between the furnace and the washing machine on full spin.

Everything Everywhere All At Once, only with real terror and without the popcorn, budget, and/or comfort of knowing that it was all just a movie. Instead it’s 2023, one year away from 2024, the date that marks the setting for Butler’s book and the veil is oh so thin, and the arc becoming fully visible.

Depiction of Kumeyaay warriors defending themselves against the genocide being inflicted on them by Spanish invaders, including Father Luís Jayme (depicted here) during the 1775 attack on the mission in San Diego, California.

Bradley Barlow Wilson, the son of Deliverance Wilson and Sarah Smith was born on October 11, 1769 in Petersham, Massachusetts, the land stolen from the Nichewaug peoples. Bradley Barlow is my great, great, great, great grandfather. He is also a seminal character in my Wilson family’s history as the patriarch of the family when they joined and were baptized into the Mormon Church in 1836 by Oliver Granger and George Albert Smith (Joseph Smith’s first cousin).

To put the time of Bradley Barlow’s birth in context, some of the other events that occurred in 1769 include:

Charles III of Spain sent Spanish missionaries to create California missions in San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Monterey, and begin the settlement and colonization of California through land theft and subjugation of Indigenous peoples. These acts of genocide, include the founding of Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first of the 21 California missions, by Father Junípero Serra.
A party of the expedition of Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola became the first European invaders to reach San Francisco Bay. Sergeant Jose Francisco de Ortega and his group accidentally find the area while searching for Drakes Bay in Alta California.
Pope Clement XIII died, the night before preparing an order to dissolve the Jesuits.
Scottish inventor James Watt was granted a British patent for "A method of lessening the consumption of steam in steam engines" – the separate condenser, the basis for the Watt steam engine which drove the Industrial Revolution.
Richard Arkwright patented a spinning frame in England, able to weave fabric mechanically.
Massive droughts in Bengal lead to the Bengal famine of 1770, in which ten million people, a third of the population, will die, the worst natural disaster in human history (in terms of lives lost).
James Cook landed in New Zealand, at Poverty Bay.

Bradley Barlow Wilson married Mary Gill (nicknamed ‘Polly’), daughter of Daniel Gill Jr. and Mercy Whitford of Springfield, Vermont on February 25, 1798. Bradley was 29; Mary was 18. By 1810, they would have nine children, the youngest dying not long after birth:

Whitford Gill Wilson was born June 4, 1799 in St. Albans, Vermont
George Clinton Wilson was born in St. Albans on August 22, 1800
Guy Carlton was born on August 31, 1801 in Milton, Vermont
Sarah Wilson was born in Milton, Vermont in 1802
Henry Hardy Wilson was born May 16, 1803 in Milton
Lewis Dunbar Wilson was born June 2, 1805 in Milton
Bradley Barlow Wilson Jr. was born on October 11, 1806 in Milton
Bushrod Washington Wilson was born on May 22, 1808 in Willsboro, New York
Emeline Wilson was born in 1810 in Willsboro, New York and died not long after birth

In 1808 Bradley Barlow sold the family’s home and the land that the European settler-colonizers stole from the Mahican and Abenaki peoples in what is now called Milton, Vermont, and they moved to Willsboro, New York. The entire family - Bradley, Polly, their children, and their children’s families moved again to Perry, Richland County, Ohio in 1825.

This would be the first recorded deed for this land the European settler-colonizers stole from the Mahican and Abenaki peoples. The deed represents evidence of the crime.

The land now known as Milton Vermont was stolen from the Mahican and Wobanakiak peoples by the European settler-colonizers

The land now known as Richland County, Ohio was stolen from the Wyandotte, Lenni-Lenape, Mahican, and Mingo peoples by the European settler-colonizers

*Megan Wilson, Stains Series: Richland, quilling (paper craft) on paper, 9” x 9” unframed, 12.5” x 12.5” framed, 2021*

The “Seven Brothers” and their baptism into the Mormon Church

Perry, Richland County, Ohio represents an important point in my Wilson family’s history. It would direct the trajectories of the next four generations in ways that reveal the cycles and impacts of Manifest Destiny’s trauma, violence, and addiction, and the resulting resistance, resilience, and voice to speak truth to power.

The family’s baptism into the Mormon Church is chronicled in an article in the Deseret News, the oldest continuously operating settler-colonizer publication in the American West, founded in 1850 in Salt Lake City, Utah:

During an exchange of remembrances at the gathering of the Bradley Wilson family on October 2, 1895, it was determined that in 1837, Bradley Wilson, with his family of seven sons and their families, joined the church in a body. Notice was made of this event in the Prophet Joseph Smith's journal. Hoving from Vermont in about 1808, this Patriarch settled in the state of New York with the intention of locating his family of boys on farms round about him. Finding that part of the country was too thickly settled for his purpose, Bradley Wilson, in about 1825, again took up the "course of empire," and found his way, with his numerous following, into central Ohio, where he settled in Richland County. It was here that the family found the gospel in the spring of 1837. Oliver Granger and George Smith were the bearers of the message. Upon coming into the neighborhood as Mormon missionaries, these men were received with coldness. They were refused the use of the schoolhouse to preach in, and were threatened with violence, unless they left the locality. Learning the condition of affairs, and knowing it was the usual custom for other denominational preachers to have the use of the schoolhouse, the Wilson boys told the travelers they would constitute themselves as a committee of seven to see fair play prevailed. Accordingly, notice of a meeting was given out and, with the Wilson's on guard, services were held without disturbance. On taking leave of the Wilson family the next day, Oliver Granger told them that they would yet join the church. The old gentleman simply replied, "I guess not." The preachers had not been on the road many hours, however, before they were overtaken by a man in a wagon with a summons for them to return. Their defenders of the previous night had reconsidered and they were ready for baptism.

Selling out their farms and giving the proceeds to the Church, the Wilson family moved the same year to Missouri, where they all settled at Tenny's Grove, not many miles from Far West. Here the troubles and mobbings of 1838 found them.

At Nauvoo, the father, Bradley Wilson, died in 1842. The sons, Whitford Gill, George Clinton, Guy Carlton, Henry Hardy, Lewis Dunbar, Bradley Barlow and Bushrod Washington became known as the "Seven Brothers." After the exodus from Nauvoo, Guy Carlton died on the plains, but the other six all reached "the valleys" and all died there, faithful to the last, with the exception of the youngest, who went on to San Bernardino and remained there until his death. George Clinton, Lewis Dunbar, and Bradley Barlow, settled at what is now known as Wilson Ward, west of Ogden. Whitford Gill made his home at Farmington, Davis County, and Henry Hardy was called to the Dixie country, and settled at St. George. With the moving of its' members, the family is now scattered from the north to the extreme south of the intermountain region.

Deseret News - October 2, 1895

According to researchers Ronald Romig and Lachlan Mackay, Smith posed for a daguerreotype by Lucian R. Foster sometime in 1844; the photograph was published in 2022 in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal.

There is so much to unpack with this history and Mormonism, which was one of the religions that emerged during the Second Great Awakening; a period (roughly 1790 - 1840) during the early 19th century which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparking a number of reform movements. The Second Great Awakening was characterized by enthusiasm, emotion, and an appeal to the supernatural. It rejected the skepticism, deism, Unitarianism, and rationalism left over from the American Enlightenment.

The Origin Story of Moronism as Told by Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith

The origin story of Mormonism revolves around Joseph Smith (1805 - 1844), who grew up during this era of religious enthusiasm and whose parents and grandfather reported having visions or dreams they believed were communications from God. Joseph also claimed to have had visions, the first occurring in 1820, while he was praying in a wooded area near his home, God the Father and Jesus Christ together appeared to him, told him his sins were forgiven, and said that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from the gospel." The second vision he said happened while he was praying one night in 1823 and was visited by an angel named Moroni. Smith claimed this angel revealed the location of a buried book made of golden plates, as well as other artifacts including a breastplate and a set of interpreters composed of two seer stones set in a frame, which had been hidden in a hill near his home. Smith said he attempted to remove the plates the next morning, but was unsuccessful because Moroni returned and prevented him. He reported that during the next four years he made annual visits to the hill, but, until the fourth and final visit, each time he returned without the plates.

Meanwhile, Smith's family faced financial hardship, due in part to the death of his oldest brother Alvin, who had assumed a leadership role in the family. Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers, a type of magical supernaturalism common during the period. Smith was said to have an ability to locate lost items by looking into a seer stone, which he also used in treasure hunting, including, beginning in 1825, several unsuccessful attempts to find buried treasure sponsored by Josiah Stowell, a wealthy farmer in Chenango County. In 1826, Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for "glass-looking", or pretending to find lost treasure; Stowell's relatives accused Smith of tricking Stowell and faking an ability to perceive hidden treasure, though Stowell attested that he believed Smith had such abilities. The result of the proceeding remains unclear because primary sources report conflicting outcomes.

Image of Joseph Smith from the website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 2023

While boarding at the Hale house, located in the township of Harmony (now Oakland) in Pennsylvania, Smith met and courted Emma Hale. When he proposed marriage, her father, Isaac Hale, objected; he believed Smith had no means to support his daughter. Hale also considered Smith a stranger who appeared "careless" and "not very well educated." Smith and Emma eloped and married on January 18, 1827, after which the couple began boarding with Smith's parents in Manchester. Later that year, when Smith promised to abandon treasure seeking, his father-in-law offered to let the couple live on his property in Harmony and help Smith get started in business.

Smith made his last visit to the hill shortly after midnight on September 22, 1827, taking Emma with him. This time, he said he successfully retrieved the plates. Smith said Moroni commanded him not to show the plates to anyone else, but to translate them and publish their translation. He also said the plates were a religious record of Middle-Eastern indigenous Americans and were engraved in an unknown language, called reformed Egyptian. He told associates that he was capable of reading and translating them.

Although Smith had abandoned treasure hunting, former associates believed he had double crossed them and had taken the golden plates for himself, property they believed should be jointly shared. After they ransacked places where they believed the plates might have been hidden, Smith decided to leave Palmyra.

In October 1827, Smith and Emma permanently moved to Harmony, aided by a relatively prosperous neighbor, Martin Harris. Living near his in-laws, Smith transcribed some characters that he said were engraved on the plates and dictated their translations to Emma.

In February 1828, after visiting Smith in Harmony, Harris took a sample of the characters Smith had copied to a few prominent scholars, including Charles Anthon. Harris claimed Anthon initially authenticated the characters and their translation, but then retracted his opinion after learning that Smith claimed to have received the plates from an angel. Anthon denied Harris's account of the meeting, claiming instead that he had tried to convince Harris that he was the victim of a fraud. Harris returned to Harmony in April 1828 and began serving as Smith's scribe.

Although Harris and his wife Lucy were early supporters of Smith, by June 1828 they began to have doubts about the existence of the golden plates. Harris persuaded Smith to let him take 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members, including his wife. While in Harris's possession, the manuscript—of which there was no other copy—was lost. Smith was devastated by this loss, especially since it came at the same time as he lost his first son, who died shortly after birth. Smith said that as punishment for his having lost the manuscript, Moroni returned, took away the plates, and revoked his ability to translate.

Smith said that Moroni returned the plates to him in September 1828, and he then dictated some of the book to his wife Emma. In April 1829 he met Oliver Cowdery, who also dabbled in folk magic; and with Cowdery as scribe, Smith began a period of "rapid-fire translation". Between April and early June 1829, the two worked full time on the manuscript, then moved to Fayette, New York, where they continued the work at the home of Cowdery's friend, Peter Whitmer. When the narrative described an institutional church and a requirement for baptism, Smith and Cowdery baptized each other. Dictation was completed about July 1, 1829.

Although Smith had previously refused to show the plates to anyone, he told Harris, Cowdery, and Whitmer's son David that they would be allowed to see them. These men, known collectively as the Three Witnesses, signed a statement stating that they had been shown the golden plates by an angel, and that the voice of God had confirmed the truth of their translation. Later, a group of Eight Witnesses — composed of male members of the Whitmer and Smith families – issued a statement that they had been shown the golden plates by Smith. According to Smith, Moroni took back the plates once Smith finished using them.

The completed work, titled the Book of Mormon, was published in Palmyra by printer Egbert Bratt Grandin and was first advertised for sale on March 26, 1830. Less than two weeks later, on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ, and small branches were established in Manchester, Fayette, and Colesville, New York. The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety and renewed the hostility of those who remembered the 1826 Chenango County trial. After Cowdery baptized several new church members, Smith's followers were threatened with mob violence. Before Smith could confirm the newly baptized, he was arrested and charged with being a "disorderly person." Although he was acquitted, both he and Cowdery fled to Colesville to escape a gathering mob. Smith later claimed that, probably around this time, Peter, James, and John had appeared to him and had ordained him and Cowdery to a higher priesthood.

Smith's authority was undermined when Cowdery, Hiram Page, and other church members also claimed to receive revelations. In response, Smith dictated a revelation which clarified his office as a prophet and an apostle, stating that only he had the ability to declare doctrine and scripture for the church. Smith then dispatched Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and others on a mission to proselytize Native Americans. Cowdery was also assigned the task of locating the site of the New Jerusalem, which was to be "on the borders" of the United States with what was then Indian territory.

On their way to Missouri, Cowdery's party passed through northeastern Ohio, where Sidney Rigdon and over a hundred followers of his variety of Campbellite Restorationism converted to the Church of Christ, swelling the ranks of the new organization dramatically. After Rigdon visited New York, he soon became Smith's primary assistant. With growing opposition in New York, Smith announced a revelation that his followers should gather to Kirtland, Ohio, establish themselves as a people and await word from Cowdery's mission.

Engraving of a Methodist camp meeting, 1819 via Library of Congress

There is something fascinating about those who are able to convince a critical mass of people to follow them in the name of religion; and also compelling are those who follow; think Jim Jones, Rajneesh, and David Koresh, amongst many others. I understand why the period of the Second Great Awakening would be marked by enthusiasm, emotion, and an appeal to the supernatural; and why it rejected the skepticism, deism, Unitarianism, and rationalism left over from the American Enlightenment. It makes sense that the younger generations would be questioning the religious practices that brought their families to the position of being liars, thieves, and murderers. This new religious approach could be seen as the early groundwork for the marketing strategies that would later be used in the mid- to late nineteenth century.

Though, I’m not one to give much credence to organized religion. Very early on, I adopted the practices of questioning everything, trusting what I experienced to be true, and not being a blind follower. In other words, lacking the sort of faith that would be needed to believe that men should be served, women and People of Color are inferior, and that the land and its animals are to be controlled by man, or that by just asking God for forgiveness and maybe chanting a few hail Mary’s, it would make all okay. I was never going to believe any of that, instead it all sounded like some sleazy belief system thought up by men and for men to get what they wanted. Basically just a temper tantrum with rituals added, and of course the greatest giveaway - that money would be needed to achieve the greatest results. That’s not to say I don’t recognize the good that organized religion can have in bringing communities together and providing support for one another, I most definitely see that and respect it when it’s clear it’s about just that; I know that that is especially true for Communities of Color. However, I do have issue with it being used as a tool for controlling and/or excluding others, or as an excuse for land theft and/or murder, or as a means to support someone’s wealthy lifestyle. The histories of the United States and Israel are great examples of how religion has been, and is used to do just that, checking off all the boxes.

And I have digressed …

Next week I will continue with the Mormon Missouri War.