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Articles/Essays – Volume 15, No. 3
Orson Pratt: Prolific Pamphleteer
The most prolific and perhaps most influential early Mormon pamphleteer was Orson Pratt. From his conversion in 1830 to his death in 1881, he authored over thirty works on both religious and scientific topics. Influential during his own lifetime, he wielded even more influence after his death. Writing for the Church’s Centennial in 1930, John Henry Evans observed: “In the first cen tury of ‘Mormonism’ there is no leader of the intellectual stature of Orson Pratt.”[1] In Nauvoo, W. W. Phelps labelled him the “Gauge of Philosophy.”[2] T. B. H. Stenhouse attributes to him “the first logical arguments in favour of Mormonism.”[3] In 1876, Edward Tullidge called Orson Pratt the “Paul of Mormonism,”[4] for his contribution to Mormon theology. At Orson Pratt’s funeral in 1881, Wilford Woodruff asserted that he had written “more upon the gospel and upon science than any other man in the Church.”[5] In the first scholarly study of Orson Pratt’s life, T. Edgar Lyon’s master’s thesis in 1932, the author finds that “Orson Pratt did more to formulate the Mormon idea of God, the religious basis of polygamy (polygyny), the pre-existence of spirits, the doctrine of the gathering, the resurrection, and eternal salvation than any other person in the Church, with the exception of Joseph Smith. . . . Due to his efforts . . . the odds and ends of Joseph Smith’s utterances were constructed and expanded into a philosophic system.”[6] And when Leonard Arrington asked fifty prominent Mormon scholars in 1968 to rank the leading intellectuals in the history of the Mormon Church, Orson Pratt was mentioned second only to B. H. Roberts, receiving more votes than Joseph Smith or his brother Parley.[7]
Orson was baptized on his nineteenth birthday, 19 September 1830, by his missionary brother Parley.[8] He was born at Hartford, Washington County, New York, to Jared Pratt and Charity Dickinson, the next to youngest of their six children. In 1814 or 1815 his family moved to New Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, where he attended school and his parents taught him to read the Bible, although he could not remember attending church more than a few times.
During the winter of 1829-1830, he spent four months at a boarding school studying geography, grammar, and surveying. Simultaneously, he began seek ing a religious experience. In the autumn of 1829, he says:
I . . . began to pray very fervently, repenting of every sin. In the silent shades of night, while others were slumbering upon their pillows, I often retired to some secret place in the lonely fields or solitary wilderness, and bowed to the Lord, and prayed for hours with a broken heart and contrite spirit; this was for the Lord to manifest His will concerning me. I continued to pray in this fervent manner until September, 1830, at which time two Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, came into the neighborhood, one of which was my brother Parley.[9]
Following his baptism he traveled to Fayette, New York, where he was ordained an elder by Joseph Smith and sent to Colesville, New York, on the first of his many missions. An important aspect of accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet was “the purity of the doctrine .. . he had brought forth. I knew it was a scriptural doctrine, agreeing in every respect with the ancient gospel . . . when my mind became fully satisfied that God had raised up a people to pro claim the gospel in all its ancient beauty and simplicity, with power to administer in its ordinances. . . .”[10]
For the next several years he undertook many short-term missions in the United States and Canada. In addition, he attended the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio, marched to Missouri with Zion’s Camp in 1834, was ordained one of the Standing High Council in Missouri (July 1834) and even acted for a short time as a clerk for Joseph Smith. In February 1835, he be came one of the members of the newly organized Quorum of Twelve Apostles. It was while studying Hebrew with members of the Kirtland School of the Prophets in the winter of 1834-1835 that he debated a fine point of the pronunciation of a Hebrew letter with Joseph Smith to the point of an argument. Joseph Smith recorded that Orson was stubborn and that only after some time did he calm down and ask for forgiveness.[11] Orson remembered that it was during the winter months of 1836-1837 that he began studying algebra with out a teacher.
By 1839 he was on his way with his fellow apostles to the British Isles, arriving in Liverpool on 6 April 1840. Though “penniless and strangers,” he and his companions baptized about eight thousand people in about twelve months. In Edinburgh, Orson managed in nine months to raise up a branch of 200 members.[12] On this mission he published his first pamphlet, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions . . . (Edinburgh, 1840). Within this tract of thirty-one pages was the first public recording of Joseph Smith’s First Vision and a list of fifteen “Articles of Faith,” which may have suggested those Joseph Smith appended to the Wentworth letter two years later.[13]
Orson’s return to America in 1841 thrust him into a maelstrom of rumors and gossip in Nauvoo — the results of which led eventually to his own excommunication. He spent the next five months seeking the truth regarding both Joseph Smith’s calling and the new doctrine of plural marriage. He came to accept both with such assurance that he spent the rest of his life in their defense.
During the two years prior to Joseph’s death in 1844, the Twelve learned privately about the doctrines and ordinances which in time were to be taught to the entire Church.[14] After the martyrdom of the Smith brothers, Orson joined with the Quorum of the Twelve in asserting its right to preside over the Church. Throughout this period he also spent “much of my leisure time in study, and made myself thoroughly acquainted with algebra, geometry, trigonomctry, conic sections, differential and integral calculus, astronomy, and most of the physical sciences. These studies I pursued without the assistance of a teacher.”[15] His interest in math and astronomy found an outlet in two Prophetic Almanacs, one published in 1845 and one in 1846.
On 6 April 1848, Pratt was appointed to preside over the Church in Eu rope. In addition to carrying out all the usual tasks, he managed to write and publish sixteen pamphlets in defense of Mormon doctrines — works oriented as much to investigators as to converts.[16] From the sale of these works he managed to support himself, his five wives, and ten children.
He returned to Salt Lake City in October 1851, and was soon assigned to teach at the newly established University of Deseret, delivering twelve lectures on astronomy that winter.[17] It was at a special missionary conference in August 1852 that Brigham Young asked Orson Pratt to publicly introduce plural marriage. Though tradition implies that he gave the talk extemporaneously, evidence now available suggests that Church leaders had been preparing this announcement for several weeks. The talk is too carefully constructed to have been delivered without preparation.[18] One outcome of the conference was Orson Pratt’s call to publish a Washington, D.C., periodical in defense of plural marriage. The twelve-month run of The Seer in 1853 provides what is still the most detailed analysis of the doctrine in Mormon literature. In May 1854, he returned to Salt Lake City where he picked up his interest in astronomy and, on 11 November 1854, announced to the world that he had dis covered “The Law of Planetary Rotation.”[19]
The last twenty-five years of his life continued busy. In 1856 he again presided over the European mission, producing another set of pamphlets.[20] In 1864 he was appointed to missions in Austria and Britain. While not successful as a missionary in Austria, he published, in May 1866 in England, his New and Easy Method of Solution of the Cubic and Biquadratic Equations.
After Brigham Young’s death in 1877, Pratt was assigned to help prepare new editions of the modern Mormon scriptures. He provided much of the critical work for the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, for the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon, and for the 1879 American edition of the Pearl of Great Price.[21]
In 1879, he published his Key to the Universe at Liverpool, but by this time he was suffering from diabetes. He preached his last public discourse on 18 September 1881 and died October 3 in Salt Lake City.
Orson Pratt’s early training in surveying, mathematics, and bookkeeping must have reinforced his inclination for exactness and precision. Mormons have traditionally claimed that he was most noted in non-Mormon circles as a mathematician and astronomer. Levi Edgar Young claimed that Pratt’s works were used as textbooks in England, Germany, and France, and others have repeated the claim,[22] primarily about his major published mathematical work, New and Easy Method of Solution of the Cubic and Biquadratic Equations (London and Liverpool, 1866). He also published and wrote other mathematical works. He contributed several articles to mathematical publications, and left unpublished or incomplete manuscripts on differential calculus and algebra.[23] These works demonstrate better than average skills in higher math, but he simply cannot be considered a great mathematician. Perhaps his real contribution, as critic Edward R. Hogan suggests, was his role as science teacher and educator on the Mormon frontier.[24] Given the disadvantages under which he worked, his work was still impressive.
His interest in mathematics led him to astronomy where he found in both fields the same evidence of God’s existence and designs as contemporary scientist Benjamin Silliman found in his study of geology and chemistry, “a transcript of the Divine Character.” Whether Pratt was aware of it, his own approach to nature was common among American thinkers by the 1820s. Identified as Baconianism, it was a thorough-going empiricism that had been borrowed from the Scottish Realists who believed that God spoke to man through scripture and nature, an attempt by orthodox protestants to find a satisfactory answer to the challenges of the Enlightenment.[25]
Like many of his contemporaries, Orson Pratt was a natural theologian whose religious views were held to be as empirical as his scientific observations. As Herbert Hovenkamp suggests, these conservative protestants maintained a strong commitment to two broad principles: that God created nature and that the evidence of his creativity is obvious everywhere, and that God provided equally reliable information about himself in the Bible.[26] While such beliefs were seriously challenged during the second half of the nineteenth century, it is clear that Orson Pratt was nurtured on these assumptions during the formative years he studied his math, science, and religion. In an address to the Nauvoo Lyceum on 19 November 1842, he posed the question, “Is there sufficient evidence in the works of Nature to prove the existence of a Supreme Being?”[27] The contents of his later works suggest he argued strongly in the affirmative.[28]
Throughout his life, Pratt combined science with his theology; each gave support and assurance to the other. It is not a coincidence that he turned more deeply to mathematics and astronomy during great crises, for the “finality” of empirical evidence provided a shelter from the storms of his life. During the Bennett affair, the challenge of plural marriage, the succession crisis of 1844, and his numerous disagreements with Brigham Young, contemporary records show his increased study of things scientific.
His first printed piece on astronomy appeared in the Times and Seasons in 1843 and his observations of the heavens continued throughout the rest of his life.[29] His Prophetic Almanac for 1845 and 1846 (he also proposed preparing almanacs for the British Isles), provided outlets for his interest in astronomy,[30] as did his series of twelve lectures of 1851-1852 in the Salt Lake Valley. These lectures were published in the Deseret News in 1854, with an expanded version delivered again in Salt Lake City, in January and February 1871. They provided the background for what many consider to be his principal scientific work, The Key to the Universe.[31] In these published lectures Pratt most clearly revealed his natural theology. Woven through them is his central belief that “the study of science is the study of something eternal. If we study astronomy, we study the works of God.”[32]
Pratt’s writings were the most complete attempt in early Mormonism to provide a vast teleological argument for God’s existence. He concluded his second astronomy lecture in Salt Lake City in 1854 by proclaiming, “Before its potent energies the complex machinery of nature discloses its beautiful harmonies, and proclaims with inspiring tones, the Divinity of its Author.” At the conclusion of Lecture IV he asked, “Who can but acknowledge the foot steps of Divinity in every part and in the whole?” At the end of another lecture on “Gravitation and Centrifugal forces,” he concluded:
Nothing is calculated to inspire the mind of man with a more profound reverence for the Great Author of nature than the contemplation of his marvelous works. For the exact mathematical adjustments of the various forces of nature — the consummate wisdom and skill exhibited in every department of the universe, accessible to finite minds — the omnipotent power and grandeur displayed in the construction of the magnificent machinery of creation — proclaim the majesty and glory of Him who formed and governs the mighty fabric.[33]
In all of this Orson Pratt was in tune with major thought in early nineteenth-century science. The concept of a mechanistic, clock-work universe was the product of the Enlightenment and its obsession with order and machines. Hence, inductive methods appeared to be the best way to understand the parts. There is no doubt that the science Pratt learned in the 1830s was heavily mechanistic, an emphasis visible throughout his mathematical and stellar work.
But at the same time, the rise of Romanticism had introduced an organic model which allowed for growth and change, placed God directly in nature and therefore tended toward a cosmic pantheism.[34] Orson Pratt managed to use both of these perspectives in his writings. Most of his work supported the mechanistic view, but his growing concern for discovering the absolute laws of nature led him to seek ultimate causes and universal laws which for him were metaphysical.[35]
Pratt died before confronting evolutionary naturalism which seriously challenged the mechanistic model and in time completely secularized the organic view. Although The Origin of Species was published in 1859, it did not have an influence in America until the 1880s; Pratt died in 1881. The fact that Pratt’s scientific work was centered in the physical sciences also helps explain his apparent unawareness of the revolutionary changes then taking place in biology.[36]
Most of Orson Pratt’s scientific theorizing centered on two main problems. The first was his search for the law which governed celestial dynamics. In the autumn of 1845, in his Prophetic Almanac, he first projected his hypothesis of universal law. In it he advanced a theory of “Intelligent Self-moving Matter.” This theory found its fullest expression in his 1849 Absurdities of Immaterialism, in his 1851 The Great First Cause and, shortly thereafter in The Holy Spirit.[37] Brigham Young’s denouncement of the latter in 1860 seems to have led Pratt to abandon his search for First Causes alone, and instead to seek for the underlying cause of all celestial laws.
This second problem found its “solution” in Pratt’s work in astronomy. On 11 November 1854 he proclaimed that he had discovered the “Law of Planetary Rotation.”[38] This theory has been abandoned by modern astronomy, but did describe rather accurately the movements of major planets known in his day.
A recent study has suggested the major flaws of his principal scientific work, the Key to the Universe: he does not mention energy; he misunderstands centrifugal force; he does not grasp the fundamental principles of dynamics; his theory of cosmic evolution fails to consider the conservation of energy principle; he informs the reader that he will avoid calculus, but in doing so he allows errors; his arguments for “ether” as part of gravitating matter ignore Newton; and finally, his approach in general shows he had not consulted the best thinking of his time on these questions. For example, he demonstrates no awareness of Maxwell’s electromagnetic field theory (1865) which suggests that he was not theoretically current.[39] Thus, he must be considered an amateur scientist, but one whose work should be acknowledged as impressive given his lack of formal education.
Of course, Pratt’s science must be viewed in the context of Mormon the ology, which was strongly materialistic and intensely teleological. God was material, inside space and time, as were his creations. Creation was organization and the law that governed the universe was eternal, not superceded by men or God.[40] Man and. God and nature were moving in the same direction — forward to a bright millennial day. In all of these areas he owed a heavy debt to Joseph Smith and his own brother Parley. The fact that he outlived his brother by about twenty-five years and that Joseph Smith left only fragments of his own teaching is likely the reason we tend to remember Orson more as the theologian of early Mormonism. Actually, it seems that Orson acquired his mechanical view of the universe from Joseph Smith and his organic view from his brother Parley and that both positions were reinforced by the scientific and religious thought of his day.
Orson Pratt’s greatest impact upon Mormonism came through his clearly and precisely written theological studies. Within each work he moved carefully from one point to another, gradually developing his position with the same exactness he would have used in solving a mathematical equation. More than anything else, his concern for definitiveness gave his works a finality early Mor mons found reassuring in an unstable world, and his ability to simplify — to reduce things to their lowest common denominator — was especially appreciated by elders defending the faith in mission fields all over the world.
All of Orson Pratt’s religious pamphlets grew out of a missionary context. His first work, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions was published in Edinburgh, Scotland as part of his efforts to introduce Mormonism in that country in 1840. As mission president in England, he issued two series of tracts: fifteen from 1848 to 1851 (under seven titles, including a reprinting of his 1840 work) and eight additional in 1857-1858. Little new Mormon doctrine surfaced in these works. Their importance lies in the extended arguments and “proofs” for the central tenets of Mormon theology. Mormon thought reduced to its essentials forms the core of Orson Pratt’s religious pamphlets.
Orson Pratt more or less outlined these essentials in his first pamphlet and then expanded them in his later essays. As we have noted, Interesting Account can be divided into several parts. He began with a biographical sketch of Joseph Smith, emphasizing his visions and his divine calling growing out of these experiences. Next he surveyed the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, discussing its inspired translation and the divinely inspired testimony of its wit nesses as additional proof of both Joseph Smith’s claims and of the fact of modern revelation. Next he told of the institutional embodiment of these things in the Church Joseph Smith organized in April 1830. Finally, he ended his sixteen-page pamphlet with a “sketch of the faith and doctrine of this Church.” This sketch included fifteen articles of belief that outlined the basic doctrines of Mormonism: the Godhead, the fall of Adam, the atonement of Jesus Christ, the purpose of mortality and evil, the first principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost), that Mor monism is patterned after the New Testament church, that Christianity had apostatized from the true order, authority, and pattern originally established by Jesus, that the honest in heart will receive the true gospel when it is presented to them by proper messengers, that revelation continues, that the Church has been reestablished to prepare mankind for the second coming of the Lord, that the righteous will be gathered out of the world to assist in building a latter day Zion, that ancient prophecies will be fulfilled through this latter-day work, and that terrible judgments await all those who fail to repent.
His later pamphlets expand on these notions by providing lengthy discussions and scriptural (mainly biblical) rationalizations for their authenticity. Divine Authority, or Was Joseph Smith Sent of God (1848) was an extended discussion of the Mormon position that modern revelation was absolutely necessary for any claim to be a disciple of Christ. The story of Joseph Smith, Pratt argued, was thoroughly consistent with the Bible which required heavenly messengers to open a dispensation of the gospel and to provide for legal administrators authorized to act for God pertaining to the salvation of mankind.[41]
Within one month after he finished Divine Authority, Orson began to issue The Kingdom of God. This series gave extended argument for the nature, purpose, and character of God’s kingdom on earth. While Joseph Smith and Parley P. Pratt had earlier addressed this subject,[42] Orson’s ninety-six-page essay was the most complete discussion of “theocracy” in early Mormon literature, an extensive examination of the Church or kingdom, its establishment, its officers, its laws and the requirements for admission to it, and the privileges and blessings of its citizens both now and in the future.[43]
After issuing two replies to anti-Mormon attacks, in which he repeated many of his earlier arguments, he then wrote an essay on the New Jerusalem of the last days[44] and a lengthy defense of the Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon.[45]
In these works Orson Pratt spelled out the implications of the ideas he had surveyed in his 1840 pamphlet. With logic and biblical proof-texts, he challenged his readers by asserting throughout that they had only two alternatives: either Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were divinely inspired or they were frauds. The evidence Pratt marshalled suggested that only the first alter native was possible for the honest seeker. This simplifying of complex questions and issues to an either/or answer had obvious benefits for missionary work and goes a long way to explain the popularity of Pratt’s pamphlets.
Orson’s second series of pamphlets (1857-1858) continued the same approach, but with more precise topics. Beginning in August 1856, he issued, at two-to-four week intervals, tracts on faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, miracles, and apostasy and the latter-day kingdom. Each had been listed as an item of faith and doctrine in his 1840 pamphlet and several had previously appeared in the second volume of The Seer.[46]
By the time Orson finished his second set of pamphlets, there were few, if any, doctrines left to write about. It was in his pamphlets that the key Mormon doctrines of the gathering, premortal existence, plural marriage, eternal progression, the eternal nature of matter, the first principles of the gospel, and several central millennial beliefs were articulated and analyzed. The two series of pamphlets published by 1857 demonstrate that he was one of the first systematizers of Mormon thought. While these pamphlets do not constitute a Summa Theologia, they do go further in that direction than any other Mor mon writer’s work in the nineteenth century. It has been this comprehensive ness that led both his contemporaries and later scholars to judge him, perhaps more generously than he deserves, as the intellectual of the early Church.
What is Orson’s true place within the development of Mormon thought? In almost every area he was taught the substance by Joseph Smith, often through his brother Parley. This suggests that Orson was more of a popularizer and systematizer than an innovator. Although there are great difficulties in tracing the sources of a person’s thought, it becomes increasingly clear that the real mind of the early Mormon movement was Joseph Smith. Before April 1839 Joseph Smith had depended upon public spokesmen to articulate many of his ideas; but after his escape to Illinois, he began acting as his own spokes man. As can be clearly shown in the early Mormon pamphlet literature, new Mormon doctrines first surfaced in the written works of those elders who heard Joseph preach during his journey to and from Washington, D.C., 1839—1840. As Peter Crawley claims, Parley Pratt was first taught the doctrine of eternal marriage during this time; Orson Pratt soon thereafter journeyed to Scotland where he published his Interesting Accounts of Several Remarkable Visions (1840), which includes the first published account of Joseph Smith’s first vision—-suggesting that Joseph first taught this event publicly in 1839-1840; Samuel Bennett published in 1840 A Few Remarks by Way of Reply to an Anonymous Scribbler which affirms the notion of a corporeal, anthropomorphic God, among other new doctrines; and Benjamin Winchester published his Examination of a Lecture Delivered by the Reverend H. Perkins, which spoke of the doctrine of the premortal existence of spirits. That same year Joseph Smith first taught the doctrine of vicarious work for the dead. Little wonder that in April 1842, Joseph Smith accused several of his followers (including Orson and Parley Pratt) of publishing his ideas as their own.[47]
In addition to learning from Joseph Smith, Orson Pratt benefited greatly from the writings of his brother Parley. Orson’s The Absurdity of Immaterial ism (1849), considered his most important philosophical treatise, demonstrates the fallacies of an ex nihilo creation and neatly dismantles the immaterial matter argument by demonstrating that this position is really one of atheism — i.e., belief in nothing, which he claimed is what immaterial matter is. But behind Orson’s work stand two important revelatory insights from Joseph Smith (D&C 93 :29; 131:7-8) which laid the foundation for such a position. In addition, Parley had published in 1840 The Millennium and other Poems to which he attached a forty-four page essay he had written while in a Missouri jail in 1839: “A Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter.”[48] In 1844, Parley published two additional essays which expanded on his 1839 essay, and Orson had access to all of his brother’s works.
Other works by Parley foreshadowed Orson’s own writings. Parley’s Voice of Warning (1837) provided such detailed arguments for the Book of Mormon and the basic principles of the gospel, including the gathering and the kingdom of God, that it is hard to ignore their potential influence on Orson. In addition, Parley’s essays on such topics as “Intelligence and Affection” and “Celestial Family Organization,” and his other pamphlets, which were replies to anti-Mormon writers as well as defenses of major Mormon doctrines, provided much upon which Orson likely drew. Parley’s preference for “dialogue” in his tracts also provided Orson with a writing technique in defending Mormonism. Even Orson’s detailed defenses of plural marriage were fore shadowed by Parley’s San Francisco broadside published six weeks before Orson publicly announced the practice.[49]
Orson clearly was aware of his brother’s works. He wrote his wife in January 1840 about the publication of The Millennium and specifically noted the material on the eternal duration of matter.[50] A year later he began selling Parley’s books out of his own home in Nauvoo and advertising them in Church periodicals.[51] The best evidence of Orson’s relationship to his brother comes in a letter he wrote Parley in 1853: “There are no writings in the church with the exception of the revelations, which I esteem more highly than yours. . . . Oh, my dear brother, in some way, burst these shackles and send forth your theological Works by thousands among all languages and nations till the whole earth shall be enlightened with the light thereof.”[52] This is not to say that Orson merely reproduced his brother’s work. It is clear that Orson labored diligently over his writing. In another letter to his brother he shared his frustrations:
Writing always was tedious to me, but seeing the good that may be accomplished, I have whipped my mind to it, till I am nearly bald-headed, and grey-headed, through constant application. I almost envy the hours that steal away, I find myself so fast hastening to old age. A few short years, if we live, will find us among the ranks of the old men of the earth; and how can I bear to have it so without doing more in this great cause? I wish to accomplish something ere I die, that shall not only be esteemed great by good and holy men, but that shall be considered great in the sight of God.[53]
In most of his work, however, Orson was an “elaborator,” a systematizer, and popularizer of Mormon thought, not an innovator nor an originator. He was among the most important of the approximately eighty pamphleteers in early Mormonism. He was at his best in developing the ideas of others and expanding them into fully elaborated statements. Without question, all religious movements in their infancy need such disciples.
[1] The Heart of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., for the LDS Department of Education, 1930), p. 411.
[2] Joseph Smith, History of the Church, B. H. Roberts, ed., revised ed., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954), 7: 434-35; originally published New York Sun, 6 Aug. 1845.
[3] Rocky Mountain Saints (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1873), p. 9.
[4] Life of Brigham Young (New York: n.p., 1876), Appendix, p. 74.
[5] Latter-day Saint’s Millennial Star 43 (7 Nov. 1881): 707.
[6] T. Edgar Lyon, “Orson Pratt — Early Mormon Leader” (M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1932), pp. 104, 99; see Orson F. Whitney, “Orson Pratt, Apostle, Pioneer, Phi losopher, Scientist, and Historian,” Improvement Era 15 (Jan. 1912) : 195—206.
[7] “The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mor mon Thought 4 (Spring 1969) : 22-23.
[8] For full documentation on biographical sources, see David J. Whittaker, “Early Mormon Pamphleteering,” (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1982), pp. 123-24.
[9] As cited in Elden J. Watson, comp., The Orson Pratt Journals (Salt Lake City: Elden J. Watson, 1975), pp. 8-9.
[10] Journal of Discourses 26 vols. (Liverpool: F.D.Richards, 1855-1866), (1 1 Aug. 1867), 12:85. Hereafter cited as JD by date of speech, volume, page.
[11] The context is provided in Louis C. Zucker, “Joseph Smith as a Student of Hebrew,” Dialogue 3 (Summer 1968) : 45. References to Orson’s study of Hebrew in the History of the Church include 2: 326, 356-57, 397, 406.
[12] Much of the story is told in James B. Allen and Malcolm R. Thorp, “The Mission of the Twelve to England, 1840-41: Mormon Apostles and the Working Classes,” BYU Studies 15 (Summer 1975): 499-526; see also Andrew Jenson, The Historical Record 6 (Sept. 1887): 348-51; and Orson Pratt’s letters in LDS Millennial Star 1 (Dec. 1840): 213-14; and 2 (May 1841) : 10-12.
[13] Some information on the textual background of the “Articles of Faith” is provided in John W. Welch and David J. Whittaker, ” ‘We Believe’ . . . : Development of the Articles of Faith,” Ensign 9 (Sept. 1979) : 51-55.
[14] See D. Michael Quinn, “The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844,” BYU Studies 16 (Winter 1976): 187-233; and the “Message” of Orson Pratt in New York Messenger as reprinted in Times and Seasons 6 (15 Aug. 1845) : 995-99.
[15] Quoted in Milando Pratt, “Life and Labors of Orson Pratt,” The Contributor 12 (Jan. 1891): 85-87.
[16] The fifteen pamphlets he issued during this time (1848-1851) include: Divine Authority, or Was Joseph Smith Sent of God, 16 pp. (30 Sept. 1848) ; The Kingdom of God, Part 1, 8 pp. (31 Oct. 1848); pt. 2, 8 pp. (30 Nov. 1848); pt. 3, 8 pp. (14 Jan. 1849); pt. 4, 16 pp. (14 July 1849) ; Reply to ‘Remarks on Mormonism’, 16 pp. (30 April 1849) ; Absurdities of Immaterialism, or a Reply to T. W. P. Taylder’s Pamphlet, entitled ‘The materialism of the Mormons or Latter-day Saints examined and exposed’, 32 pp. (31 July 1840) ; New Jerusalem or the Fulfillment of Modern Prophecy, 24 pp. (1 Oct. 1849; Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, 96 pp., no. 1 (15 Oct. 1850) ; no. 2 (1 Nov. 1850) ; no. 3 (1 Dec. 1850); no. 4 (15 Dec. 1850); no. 5 (7 Jan. 1851); no. 6 (no date given, probably 15 Jan. 1851) ; and Great First Cause, or the Self-Moving Forces of the Universe, 16 pp. (1 Jan. 1851). These were published under one cover with some additional material in 1851. For bibliographical information on these and the other published works of Orson Pratt, including foreign language editions, see Chad J. Flake, ed., A Mormon Bibliography, 1830-1930 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1978). He also reissued in 1848 as Remarkable Visions his earlier Interesting Account … .
[17] These were published in the Deseret News, but are more conveniently found in N. B. Lundwall, comp., Wonders of the Universe, or a Compilation of the Astronomical Writings of Orson Pratt (Salt Lake City: N. B. Lundwall, 1937).
[18] The conference minutes were published in a Deseret News extra (14 Sept. 1852) and in an LDS Millennial Star supplement, 15 (1853). In addition, Pratt’s speech can be found in JD 1: 53-66. The larger story and detailed examination of all of Orson Pratt’s polygamy defenses and their impact in LDS thought appears in Whittaker, “Early Mormon Pamphleteering,” pp. 333-43.
[19] So far, the best overview of this work in early Mormonism is in Howard C. Searle, “Early Mormon Historiography: Writing the History of the Mormons, 1830-1858,” (Ph.D. diss., UCLA, 1979), pp. 358-428. See also Orson Pratt to Lucy Mack Smith, 28 Oct. 1853, Historical Department Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hereafter cited as LDS Church Archives.
[20] His second series of pamphlets, eight in number, were issued separately, then bound into a book, Tracts by Orson Pratt . . . (Liverpool and London, 1857). They were issued between 25 Aug. 1856 and 15 March 1857: The True Faith, 16 pp. (25 Aug. 1856) ; True Repentance (8 Sept. 1856); Water Baptism, 16 pp. (22 Sept. 1856); The Holy Spirit, 16 pp. (15 Nov. 1856); Spiritual Gifts, 16 pp. (15 Dec. 1856); Necessity for Miracles, 16 pp. (15 Jan. 1857) ; Universal Apostasy, or the Seventeen Centuries of Darkness, 16 pp. (15 Feb. 1857) ; and Latter-day Kingdom, or the Preparations for the Second Advent, 16 pp. (15 March 1857). The pamphlet on the Holy Spirit had its origin in essays published in the LDS Millennial Star 12 (15 Oct. 1850): 305-9; 12 (1 Nov. 1850); 325-28. Since Pratt acted as the editor of the Star during his presidencies of the British Mission, much of the material that later appeared in pamphlet form was first printed in the Millennial Star.
[21] See Robert J. Woodford, “The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants” (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1974), vol. 1, pp. 54-92; Jeffrey R. Holland, “An Analysis of Selected Changes in Major Editions of the Book of Mormon, 1830-1920,” (M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1966) ; James R. Harris, “Changes in the Book of Moses and Their Implications upon a Concept of Revelation,” BYU Studies 8 (Summer 1968) : 361-82; and James R. Clark, The Story of the Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1955).
[22] Levi Edgar Young, The Founding of Utah (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924), p. 320. Lundwall and others have repeated the claim. It apparently originated in a letter from Orson to his wife Marian from Liverpool, 23 December 1878, in which he told her he hoped “to distribute a few hundred copies [of Key to the Universe] among the Universities, Colleges, Acadymies, and the great mathematicians of both Europe and America. I do not expect that such a work would sell, excepting now and then a copy. But my object is not speculation, but to preserve the mathematical propositions which cost me so much time and labor to discover, from falling into oblivion.” LDS Church Archives. Leonard J. Arrington called this letter to my attention.
[23] In February 1861, he submitted to the Mathematical Monthly (Cambridge, Massachusetts) a series of problems concerning mathematical laws relating to the origin of the solar system. He later recalled: “In the month of May [February] 1861, I prepared a series of problems relating to this subject, and forwarded the same to the editor of the Mathematical Monthly, . . . But in the consequence of the war then pending, the paper ceased its publication, and I heard nothing further from the manuscript. But as it was hastily and somewhat imperfectly prepared, it is perhaps better that it remained unpublished,” N. B. Lundwall, comp., Wonders of the Universe, p. 175. In a letter to the editor of the Mathematical Monthly dated 22 February 1861, Pratt noted that his work was done without the aid of “any mathematical works,” Orson Pratt Papers. This collection is in the LDS Church Archives. See also his letter to the editor of the Analyst (Des Moines, Iowa) 18 Sep. 1876; “Six Original Problems,” 3 (Nov. 1876): 186-87; “Problem 154,” 4 (March 1877): 63; and “Problem 221,” 5 (Sept. 1878): 159. These are identified in Edward R. Hogan, “Orson Pratt as a Mathematician,” Utah Historical Quarterly 41 (Winter 1973) : 62, n. 8. As Hogan suggests, this periodical was an outlet for amateurs; the first serious mathematical periodical did not appear until 1878, and the American Mathematical Society was not founded until 1888. The Orson Pratt Collection includes two unpublished mathematical works: “Differential Calculus” (224 pp. — pages 79 to 103 are missing) and an incomplete text book on “determinants” (40 pp.) for junior students. According to Orson Pratt’s 1 March 1878 letter to G. Rand (typescript in LDS Church Archives), he wrote the book on differential calculus after he published Cubic and Biquadratic Equations (1866).
[24] Hogan, “Orson Pratt as a Mathematician,” p. 66. This essay is the best evaluation available of Pratt’s mathematical work, and my comments have greatly benefited from it. Hogan notes that Pratt’s work, even when he claimed “originality” or “new discovery,” was really only slight modifications of well-known existing theorems (p. 64). See also William J. Christensen, “A Critical Review of Orson Pratt, Sr.’s Published Scientific Books” (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1929). Richard Anthony Proctor, a non-Mormon scientist, visited Salt Lake City in the 1870s and stated that Orson Pratt was one of the four real mathematicians in the world; his statement must be seen as good public relations, not an accurate judgment of Pratt’s mathematical standing. As cited in Orson F. Whitney, History of Utah 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon and Sons, 1904), 4: 29. Lyon suggests that Proctor used Pratt’s work on the Pyramid of Gizeh in his own The Great Pyramid (London: Chatto and Windus, Picadilly, 1883), “Orson Pratt,” p. 96n.
[25] The growing use of the inductive method and all Baconianism implied in early nineteenth century is presented in George H. Daniels, America Science in the Age of Jackson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), esp. ch. 3; Theodore Dwight Bozeman, Protestants in the Age of Science, The Baconian Ideal and Ante-bellum American Religious Thought (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977) ; and Herbert Hovenkamp, Science and Religion in America, 1800—1860 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978).
[26] Hovenkamp, Science and Religion in America, p. xi.
[27] See The Wasp 1(12 Nov. 1842) : [3].
[28] Pratt functioned in Mormonism as Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), a Yale professor of chemistry and natural history, did for New England audiences during the same period. While evidence is lacking, it is possible that Pratt attended some of Silliman’s lectures in the 1830s while doing missionary work in the Boston area, a claim made by Jules Remy, A Journey to Great Salt Lake 2 vols. (London, 1861), 2: 12ff. For the fuller picture see Margaret W. Rossiter, “Benjamin Silliman and Lowell Institute: The Popularization of Science in Nineteenth-Century America,” New England Quarterly 44 (Dec. 1971) : 602-26. The growing professionalization of science in America during the same time is told in John C. Greene, “American Science Comes of Age, 1738-1820,” Journal of American History 55 (June 1968): 22-41; and George H. Daniels, “The Process of Professionalization in American Science: The Emergent Period, 1820-1860,” Isis 58 (Summer 1967): 151-66. Also valuable is Donald Zochert, “Science and the Common Man in Ante-Bellum America,” Isis 65 (Dec. 1974) : 448-73.
[29] Times and Seasons 2 (16 Aug. 1841) : 517; “Halos and Parhelia,” Times and Sea sons 4 (1 April 1843) : 151-52; The Wasp 1 (5 April 1843) : 2, was dated 23 March 1843 and described the comet first seen from earth in late February and March 1843. Its appear ance added to the public awareness of astronomy — an interest pricked by the 1835 return of Hailey’s Comet. Like the Times and Seasons, newspapers all over America were telling their readers about what they were observing. The continuing popularity of Pratt’s writings and lectures on astronomy among the Mormons should be viewed in the context of the larger American interest in such matters. Some valuable background material is John C. Greene, “Some Aspects of American Astronomy, 1750-1815,” Isis 45 (Dec. 1954): 339-58; and D. J. Warner, “Astronomy in Antebellum America,” in Nathan Reingold, ed., The Sciences in the American Context (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1979), pp. 55-75.
[30] Both almanacs were twenty-four pages long and published in New York in 1844 and 1845 respectively. In addition to articles on religious matters (see the material from the 1846 Almanac in Watson, pp. 242-58), his calculations and observations went back to 6 April 1830 the day the Church was founded. In his 1879 Treatise on the Egyptian Pyramid of Gizeh (Liverpool, 1879) he argued that the date for the organization of the Church was recorded in the chronology of the floor lines in the Grand Gallery of the Great Pyramid. See also, the LDS Millennial Star 41 (5 and 12 May 1879): 280-82; 296-98; Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints, pp. 482-83 and Orson Pratt, Conference Address, 8 April 1880. Orson Pratt to Reuben Hedlock, 20 Aug. 1845 in The New York Messenger 2 (30 Aug. 1845) : 67, claims an edition of 5000 copies for his 1846 Almanac. Early sources that report his work and thought in astronomy include History of the Church 7:554; Watson, The Orson Pratt Journals, p. 478; “Mormon Philosophy, Space, Duration, and Matter,” The New York Messenger 2 (13 Sept. 1845) : 81; “The Immensity of the Universe,” in Lundwall, comp., Masterful Discourses and Writings of Orson Pratt, pp. 208-9; and “General Reflections on Eternal Existence,” LDS Millennial Star 10 (1 Nov. 1848) : 332-34.
[31] Deseret News 4 (26 Oct. 1854), p. 3 and issues following. Pratt’s audience raised $5000 in money and commodities to give to him at the end of the lectures, according to Lyon, “Orson Pratt,” pp. 62-63. Published in 1879 in Liverpool and Salt Lake City, Key to the Universe is most conveniently found in Lundwall, comp., Wonders of the Universe, pp. 214 ff.
[32] JD, 12 Feb. 1860, 7:157.
[33] Lundwall, comp., Wonders of the Universe, pp. 36, 75, 193, a lecture of 11 Aug. 1875.
[34] See the discussion, from which I have drawn, in Hovenkamp, Religion and Science in America, pp. 97—117.
[35] Examples of Pratt’s mathematical literalness applied to his theological discussion in- clude his calculations of the number of children promised to Abraham whose seed was to be as “numerous as the sands of the sea shore,” (JD 1 :61-62) ; his figures on the total number of spirit children created by God the Father (The Seer 1 [March 1853]: 38) and the weight of the earth in pounds, expressed to twenty-six places. As Hovenkamp points out, this kind of exactness reveals a strong belief in mathematics as the key to the underlying structure of the universe. Pratt came closely to doing what Benjamin Pierce, a Harvard mathematician, was doing with math. See Hovenkamp, Religion and Science in America, pp. 103ff; and Russell Blaine Nye, Society and Culture in America, 1830-1860 (New York: New American Nation Series of Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 236-82.
[36] The full implications of this must await a separate essay but for good discussions of the issues, etc., see, in addition to Hovenkamp, Theodore Dwight Bozeman, Protestants in the Age of Science, The Baconian Ideal and Ante-bellum American Religious Thought (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977); Lorin Eisley, Darwin’s Century (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1958) ; John C. Greene, The Death of Adam: Evolution and its Impact on Western Thought (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1959) ; Paul F. Boiler, Jr., American Thought in Transition: The Impact of Evolutionary Naturalism 1865-1900 (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1969); William Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1977); Michael Ruse, The Darwinian Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) ; Neal C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) ; and James P. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies . . . (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Shorter overviews are in Bert James Lowenberg, “Darwinism Comes to America, 1859-1900,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 28 (Dec. 1940): 339-68; and Richard Sherlock, “A Turbulent Spectrum: Mormon Reactions to the Darwinist Legacy,” Journal of Mormon History 5 (1978) : 33-59. Pratt did suggest a kind of spiritual evolution in man’s premortal existence in The Seer 1 (March 1853) : 37-39.
[37] I summarize here from Donald Skabelund, “Cosmology on the American Frontier: Orson Pratt’s Key to the Universe,” Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology 11 (1965) : 190-204. See also Lyon, “Orson Pratt,” pp. 87-90. The best published history of Pratt’s conflicts with Brigham Young is Gary James Bergera, “The Orson Pratt, Brigham Young Controversies: Conflict Within the Quorums, 1853-1868,” DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT 13 (Summer 1980) : 7-49. Bergera does not, however, consider the larger epistomological and cosmological questions which must be examined to fully understand both Pratt’s position and Young’s reactions. Actually, The Holy Spirit is quite in line with nineteenth-century Mormon speculation on the subject of the Holy Ghost as seen in Parley’s chapter on the subject in The Key to the Science of Theology (1855 ed.). See also the relevant material in Thomas G. Alexander, “The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine . . . ,” Sunstone 5 (July-August 1980) : 24-33. At their base, both The First Cause and The Holy Spirit were defenses of Mormon materialism. They also were, like Orson Pratt’s other scientific work, refutations of the deterministic atomism of Pierre Simon de LaPlace whose Celestial Mechanics (1799) argued for a completely mechanistic cosmos. See Ronald L. Numbers, Creation by Natural Law: LaPlace’s Nebular Hypothesis in American Thought (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977).
[38] Originally published in the Deseret News 5 (1 Aug. 1855) : 165-72, it was reprinted in other LDS periodicals: St. Louis Luminary 1 (13 Oct. 1855) : 185; The Mormon [New York City] 1 (27 Oct. 1855) ; and LDS Millennial Star 17 (15 Dec. 1855) : 792-97. There are many similarities between Orson Pratt’s “Law of Planatary Rotation” and Daniel Kirk wood’s theories which were introduced to the American scientific community in 1849, several years before Pratt announced his. On Kirkwood’s ideas see Ronald Numbers, Creation By Natural Law, pp. 41-54. A photo of Orson Pratt’s telescope and his observatory is in Lund wall, comp., Wonders of the Universe, p. 225 (telescope) and Deseret News (14 Nov. 1931) and Utah Historical Quarterly 41 (Winter 1972) : 66 (observatory). See also Era 15 (January 1912): 200.
[39] These are summarized from Skabelund, “Cosmology on the American Frontier.” The recent study of the cosmic symbolism in the architecture of the Salt Lake Temple greatly overemphasizes Orson Pratt’s role and brilliance as a scientist. In addition, it fails to suggest the possible influence of nineteenth-century masonic astronomy on the symbolism. See C. Mark Hamilton, “The Salt Lake Temple: Symbolic Statement of Mormon Doctrine,” in Thomas G. Alexander, ed., The Mormon People, Their Character and Traditions, Charles Redd Monographs in Western History, No. 10 (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1980), pp. 103-27. The larger story of the study of astronomy in the nineteenth century is told in Bessie Z. Jones, Lighthouse of the Skies . . . (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1965). Since astronomy was the queen of the physical sciences in the nineteenth century, public interest was broad-based.
[40] Sterling M. McMurrin, The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1965), esp. parts one and two. See also Lyon, “Orson Pratt,” pp. 88-90.
[41] Pratt argued consistently that authority from heaven was the key to the correctness of the Mormon message. See JD (24 June 1860), 8:101-06; JD (24 Feb. 1868), 12:352-62; JD (27 Nov. 1870), 14:289-99; JD (19 March 1871), 14:137-47; JD (22 Sept. 1872), 15:178-91; JD (20 Sept. 1874), 17:278-88; JD (15 Nov. 1874), 17:264-77; JD (11 July 1875), 18:41-57; JD (20 Aug. 1876), 18:264-71; JD (26 Aug. 1876), 18:222-29; JD (10 Oct. 1880), 22:27-38.
[42] Orson’s essay on the kingdom of God was an extended treatment (in the same order) of the material presented in chapter three of Parley P. Pratt’s Voice of Warning (1837). Joseph Smith’s teachings on this subject are presented in D. Michael Quinn, “The Council of Fifty and Its Members, 1844 to 1945,” BYU Studies 20 (Winter 1980): 163-97; and Andrew F. Ehat, ” ‘It Seems Like Heaven Began on Earth,’: Joseph Smith and the Constitution of the Kingdom of God,” BYU Studies 20 (Spring 1980) : 253-79.
[43] The Kingdom of God and Zion were regular topics in Pratt’s writings and speeches. See The Seer, pp. 147-50; JD (8 July 1855), 3:70-74; JD (14 Aug. 1859), 7:210-27; JD (10 April 1870), 13:124-38; JD (4 Feb. 1872), 15:67-76; The Seer, pp. 261-71; JD (10 March 1872), 14:343-56; JD (7 April 1872), 15:44-53; JD (26 Jan. 1873), 15:329-41; JD (7 April 1873), 16:1-8; JD (15 June 1873), 16:78-87; JD (6 April 1874), 17:24-36; and JD (7 Feb. 1875), 17:289-306.
[44] These defense pamphlets were Reply to a Pamphlet Printed at Glasgow, with the “Approbation of Clergyman of Different Denominations,” entitled “Remarks on Mormonism” (Liverpool: R. James, 30 April 1849) and Absurdities of Immaterialism, or, A Reply to T. W. P. Taylder’s Pamphlet, entitled, “The Materialism of the Mormons of Latter-Day Saints, Examined and Exposed” (Liverpool: R. James, 31 July 1849). The Seer, pp. 265-71, for his discussions of the New Jerusalem. 45. For Orson Pratt, the Book of Mormon was the key to Mormonism. His pamphlet on the Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon was an extended defense of modern revelation. He argued that to establish the truth of the Book of Mormon it must first be shown that continuing revelation is necessary, scriptural, and reasonable. The organization of the work follows a logical format: he states a proposition and then presents numerous subproofs for the position. Orson presents seven main propositions: 1) to expect more revelation is not unscriptural; 2) to expect more revelation is not unreasonable; 3) more revelation is indispensably necessary; 4) without further revelation, the Bible and tradition are insufficient guides; 5) the evidences of the Book of Mormon and Bible are compared; 6) the Book of Mormon is confirmed by miracles; and 7) the prophetic evidence is in favor of the Book of Mormon. All of these themes appeared regularly in sermons: JD (21 Sept. 1879), 21:128-36; JD (25 Aug. 1878), 20:62-77; JD (2 Jan. 1859), 7:22-38; JD (28 Sept. 1873), 16:209-20; and JD (10 April 1870), 13:124-38. See also The Seer, pp. 257-61. Orson ended his pamphlet with his own testimony: “And I now bear my humble testimony to all the nations of the earth who shall read this series of pamphlets, that the Book of Mormon is a divine revelation, for the voice of the Lord hath declared it unto me.” 46. The emphasis of this second series of tracts on the basic principles of Mormonism probably reflects the counsel he received from Brigham Young as he was publishing The Seer in 1854. See the letter of Orson Pratt to Brigham Young, 14 Feb. 1854, LDS Church Archives. The material that appeared in his second set of pamphlets that had previously appeared in The Seer includes: “Faith,” The Seer 2 (Jan., Feb. 1854): 198-204; 209-12; “Repentance,” ibid. 2 (Feb., March, April 1854): 218-24; 233-40; 252-54; “Baptism for the Remission of Sins,” ibid. 2 (April 1854) : 254-56; and “Preparations for the Second Advent,” ibid. 2 (Aug. 1854) : 305-20.
[45] See “Relief Society Minutes of Nauvoo,” 28 April 1842, LDS Church Archives.
[48] Parley P. Pratt, The Millennium and other Poems, to which is annexed A Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter (New York: Printed by W. Molineux, 1840), pp. 105—48. Orson probably benefited from the 7 April 1843 discourse of Joseph Smith. See Joseph Smith, Diary, for that date, LDS Church Archives. See also Peter Crawley, “The Passage of Mormon Primitivism,” Dialogue 13 (Winter 1980) : 26-37.
[49] The broadside, dated San Francisco, 13 July 1852, is titled Mormonism! Plurality of Wives! An especial chapter for the especial edification of certain inquisitive news editors, etc., photocopy in LDS Church Archives. It provided a curious defense of polygamy without admitting to its practice. See also Parley’s 1855 speech to the Utah Territorial Legislature, published as Marriage and Morals in Utah (Liverpool, 1856).
[50] Orson Pratt to Sarah M. Bates Pratt, 6 Jan. 1840 in Times and Seasons 1 (Feb. 1840): 61.
[51] Times and Seasons 2 (1 Aug. 1841) : 502, 518, 534. Three of the four works advertised were by Parley.
[52] Orson Pratt to Parley P. Pratt, 12 Sept. 1853, LDS Church Archives.
[53] Orson Pratt to Parley P. Pratt, 2 Nov. 1853, LDS Church Archives.