life in new york:—conducting a mormon paper.
very cold, and dark, and dreary, were the first days which we spent in the new world. that faith which once had led me to hope, and believe, and “endure all things,” was now powerless to nerve me to any new course of action for my religion’s sake; for the dark shadow of polygamy had come across my way; hope had fled, and my love, with the love of many other faithful saints, had waxed cold.
to my husband and children i was, of course, devotedly attached, and was willing to combat any difficulty or endure any trial with them, or for their sake; and it was not long before my constancy was put to the test.
the mormon emigrants have always a captain and two “counsellors” to every company. the captain on board the “emerald isle,”—the vessel in which we came—was a returning utah elder;—one of his counsellors was also a returning elder, and my husband was the other. as soon as the mormon captain had come on shore, and had reported to the apostle in charge of the new york saints, he left to visit his friends. the utah counsellor had a young lady in the company to whom he had become very much attached, and who afterwards became one of his wives. i was not, therefore, surprised that, as soon as he could get his baggage, he also should disappear; but my husband—the other counsellor—being encumbered with a wife and family, was obliged to remain, and the whole charge of seeing to the company devolved upon him.
we had, therefore, to remain in castle gardens until the whole company of emigrants was provided for; and during all the next week i, with my four children, remained in that public place, sick and weary, and as destitute of bedding and covering as we had been on board ship. the weather was intensely cold, and, unaccustomed as we were to the severity[104] of an american winter, we suffered not a little. the other unfortunate victims to faith were in the same condition, with the exception that they had something to sleep on at nights, while i had nothing but the bare boards for my bed since we left liverpool;—all that i could gather together had been reserved for my babes. how we lived through that journey i know not, but i am certain that, could i have foreseen what we should have to endure, i would never have left england, whatever my refusal might have cost me.
i could not refrain from contrasting my life before and since i knew mormonism. before, i scarcely knew what suffering was, so little had i been called upon to endure. i never knew what it was to be without money, or to want for anything; but now i was in a strange land, in the depth of winter, without a home, without a pillow to rest my weary head upon, and with a future before me so dark that not a single ray of light gave to it the promise of hope. could any slavery be more complete than mine? my fanaticism and zeal were all gone—i had nothing to sustain me. certainly, i was still held by the fear that mormonism, after all, might be of god, and that all this suffering might be necessary for my salvation—but if at that time i had only had a friend whose mind was clear from all the nonsense of mormonism, and who had felt sufficient interest in me to advise me for my good, i think even then i might have freed myself from the mental slavery in which i was bound. but i had no intercourse with any but mormons; and, indeed, a wish to form gentile friendships i should then have considered a sin.
a week after our arrival, my husband found time to seek for apartments for his family, and i was thankful to leave our miserable quarters at castle gardens.
the mormon authorities had, meanwhile, given instructions to the other emigrants how to act, and they did little more than this. those who had not found work or places to go to were ordered to leave the gardens, and received permission to occupy an old dilapidated school-room in williamsburgh, which had been used for preaching. i went there almost daily to see them, and therefore state what i saw as an eye-witness, and neither exaggerate nor misrepresent. there they huddled together, about one hundred and fifty—men, women and children. most of the men had been respectable mechanics in their own country; many of them i had known personally and had visited in their cosy english homes; and their wives and families had been decently brought up. what[105] they must have suffered under this change of circumstances i leave the reader to guess.
in that miserable place they lived day and night—the poor, dispirited mothers (many of them very sick) having to cook, and wash, and perform all the necessary domestic duties, round two small sheet-iron stoves. it was not long before the place became like a pest-house from so many being confined in so small a place, and breathing the same fetid and pestilential atmosphere; and many of the young children died of an epidemic which was raging among them.
they had saved some of the ship’s provisions, and that was all they had to eat, and it did not last long. to me it was most distressing to witness so much misery without being able to render any assistance, particularly to see the poor little children shivering and crying with hunger and cold, while many of their mothers were in such a miserable state of apathy that they paid little or no attention to them. i often tried to awaken in them feelings of human sympathy, but i was met with a murmur of discontent. the people, men and women alike—seemed to be utterly demoralized. nor can this be a matter of wonder; for in england the men had been told that—while at home they could only earn four or five shillings a day, and would never be able to put by enough to carry them all the way to utah—in new york they would be able to earn two-and-a-half to three, and even four dollars a day—equal to from ten to sixteen shillings english—and that employers would even come on board ship anxious to engage them. thus they had by false statements been allured from their homes and plunged into the most abject poverty. day by day they went out seeking work, but finding none; willing to do anything to provide bread for their families, but returning nightly, unsuccessful, to their starving wives and children.
my own resources were gone. i could do nothing. when we left castle gardens i think we only had about five dollars left, while the heavy snow which covered the ground and the intense cold promised many weeks of unusual severity. needing so greatly pity myself, how i sympathized with those poor sufferers, how i pitied them!
in the midst of all this, the apostle john taylor learned that some of these poor souls had been seen begging. so he came from his comfortable boarding-house in brooklyn, well wrapped up in a handsome overcoat, and scolded these poor, starving creatures, and harangued them concerning the meanness[106] of begging. with great swelling words he spoke of the dignity of the saints of the most high, and told them that he despised a mormon who could fall to the level of a common street beggar.
could he have heard the unspoken curses of the poor, wounded hearts of those who listened to him, as they thought of his brother “apostle” in england, and of how he had deceived them and sent them into a strange country, in the depth of winter, to beg, to starve, or to steal, he would have learned that though the victim of a delusive faith may mentally submit to man-made creeds and priesthoods, in his heart he will judge, not so much the words he hears as the man who utters them.
the wisdom of the apostle found out a remedy. he “counselled” the men and boys to buy shovels, and go forth into the streets and clean away the snow from the fronts of the doors and from the side-walks, and told them that they would thus get plenty of money to keep them until winter was over. one elderly brother, who had a little money left, bought a stock of shovels; but the emigrants found that there were plenty of others who were as eager as they for work, and who were much better acquainted with the way of obtaining it. the shovel experiment was a failure, and the poor old brother lost his money in the investment.
for whatever the apostle taylor may have contributed to these unfortunate persons—whether in “counsel,” money, or provisions—he will doubtless have his reward; and, for aught i know, he may have been unable to give anything more than counsel; but, at the same time, my opinion of the value of counsel remains unchanged. there has been no lack of “counsel” or counsellors in the mormon church. “counsel” has been given in abundance to all, and by no means always for the benefit of those who received it. it was not, however, because he failed to assist them practically that the people hated the apostle taylor, and have hated him ever since; but it was for his pride and arrogance, and the way in which he dared to talk to free-born englishmen and englishwomen about the dignity of the priesthood, and the contempt in which he held them in the hour of their humiliation and distress—for that they hated him.
i do not, of course, wish to justify the people in begging; such conduct would have been despicable if they could have found employment of any sort. but when i saw the starving condition of those men and their helpless families, in that[107] wretched school-house, in my heart i almost honoured them for having the courage to beg; and i thanked god that the “mean yankee gentiles”—as the elders taught the saints to call american citizens who did not believe in mormonism—were able and willing to assist them.
one of those emigrants very recently related to me some of the painful circumstances through which he passed at that time. he told me that he walked the streets of williamsburgh for three days and three nights without a mouthful of anything to eat, or a place to lay his head;—he could obtain no work, and at length, in sheer desperation, he was forced to beg. the church authorities knew well the misery of the people, but took no adequate steps to alleviate it.
during the first weeks after our arrival in new york city, we had nothing to depend upon but the provisions which we had saved from the ship’s rations. i had known what it was to be in a foreign country without money and without food; and on board ship i took care of our rations when they were not consumed by harry or “the rats;” for i thought that if i did not need them—which, indeed, i sincerely hoped might be the case—i could certainly find some one who would be thankful for them. these rations consisted chiefly of sugar that was almost black; very bad black tea, which when made looked like dye; the poorest kind of sea-biscuit; and other things accordingly. the provisions for the mormon emigrants were purchased in bulk by the church authorities, who made their own profits out of them, and the apostle at liverpool had the benefit of all that could be saved out of them during the voyage. it was commonly said among the people that the sight of them alone was quite sufficient for any one who was not half-starved; and yet they had paid the price of the best.
we had been in new york several weeks when one day my husband called at the office of a paper called the mormon, and there met with the apostle taylor, who conducted that paper. the apostle expressed great regret that mr. stenhouse should be without occupation at that season of the year, and with a family of children upon his hands. this sympathy, coming from a brother missionary was, i thought, very tardy, for my husband had then devoted over ten years of his life to the cause, and his record in the church had been untarnished. the apostle was living in an elegant house, surrounded by every comfort and luxury, while he knew that we had not so much as a chair, or even a bed to lie upon. what had he[108] done for the church more than my husband had done? indeed, i firmly believe that he had not endured half so much, but—he was an apostle! his unhelping sympathy appeared to me a little more than questionable.
he told my husband that he might come into the office of the mormon, and write the addresses on the wrappers, and that he would give him a few dollars a week “to help things along,” until something better presented itself. my husband thought this a disinterested action on the part of the apostle john taylor, but my experience in mormonism led me to be distrustful and suspicious of everything that an elder or apostle said or did. this offer, however, came when we really had nothing to look to, and dared not refuse any assistance that was offered, however small it might be. but i must admit that my ideas of apostolic liberality were very much shocked when at the end of the week mr. stenhouse informed me that he had been allowed four dollars for his services, and that out of that magnificent sum the apostle john taylor had deducted twenty-five cents which sheer necessity had compelled him to borrow for the week’s ferriage.
the apostle-editor had two assistants from utah with him in the mormon office—the one a “seventy,” and the other a “high-priest”—terms and titles which i shall presently explain. a few weeks after my husband entered the office, the “seventy” who had charge of getting out the paper was allowed to return to zion. the high-priest remained in the eastern states visiting alternately the various branches of the church, and doing some very zealous courting with a young english girl who lived in williamsburgh, while his two unsuspecting wives at home in salt lake city were earnestly praying the lord to bless him in his “mission.”
whatever the apostle may have thought of his associate, he could not very well remonstrate with him, for he himself was, and had been for some time, doing a good deal in that line with an amiable connecticut girl, and was only waiting for special permission from brigham young, to add her to the half-dozen wives he already had in utah.
there was, moreover, another high-priest attached to that office, but no one seemed to understand his exact position. to all appearance his principal occupation was travelling from new york to connecticut and from connecticut back again to new york. he was a very robust-looking man, but it was reported that he was troubled with heart-disease, and that the purer air of connecticut was a great relief to him. this[109] i fully believed when, some time after, i discovered that the young lady engaged to the apostle had a charming sister, for i thought it very probable that she rendered no small assistance to the connecticut air in giving relief to his diseased heart.
my husband not being at that particular time under the influence of “heart-disease,” soon became very useful on the editorial staff. in fact, pretty well everything was left to him, and not unfrequently for two or three days he saw nothing of the apostle or either of his associates, and the whole responsibility of getting out the paper—at the magnificent salary of four dollars a week!—rested upon him. he was told that he must regard it as a mission, and be prepared to act accordingly.
in course of time, however, the visits to connecticut came to an end. the apostle obtained brother brigham’s permission to practise a little polygamy among the gentiles, and miss young made him an excellent housekeeper in a handsomely furnished house in brooklyn. the poor high-priest and the seventy did not fare so well: they were expected to wait until they reached zion. the two young ladies to whom they were engaged were amiable and good girls, who would without doubt have met with excellent husbands either in or out of the church; but the name of an apostle or high-priest—when the men themselves were away from home—carried with it many charms, and won the hearts of the young ladies and their friends. the apostle was, of course, well used to the training of wives in the “celestial order,” and when he returned home with his youngest bride he suffered no particular inconvenience. but the high-priests realized the truth of the adage “the course of true love never did run smooth.” the first wife of one of them refused to have anything to do with his new bride, and kept him at a respectful distance from herself then and ever afterwards; while the first wife of the other declined to acknowledge the claims of her youthful rival. the first high-priest has gone to heaven; the other, in the course of time, gave a bill of divorce to his wife. what happiness either of these three girls found in polygamy they best know, but the young widow appears decidedly the happiest of the three.
i had heard much while in london about men taking wives “from principle,” and that, after the first wife, they made no open display of their love, but i could not see that they differed in the slightest from their gentile brethren in[110] that respect; the utah elders of whom i have spoken always seemed to be very human. in all polygamic courtships that i have since witnessed, the brethren have appeared to think that the “lord’s” revelation was a trifle too slow in arranging affairs of the heart, and they have been zealously preparing for its coming. in some instances the revelation has come too late, and in many others it would have been very disastrous if it had not come at all. in all cases it may be safely asserted that all that has been said about getting the consent of the first wife and obtaining a revelation from the lord as to whether it is pleasing in his sight for a man to take another wife, or not—is pure folly and nonsense. brigham young is the only “lord” who has ever been consulted on that question. if he acknowledged this to the people and they chose to abide by it, they alone would be to blame; but it is the grossest of frauds for men claiming to be the representatives of jesus christ to play upon the credulity of an honest people, trifling with the most sacred subjects, and telling them that god answers by special revelation and declares whether or not it is his will that each of these plural marriages should take place. the apostles and elders themselves are not deceived. they know well enough that there is no truth in all this mockery; they know that the only source of all their revelations is the man brigham young.
