160 years ago today - Apr 15, 1866

Of all Western outlaws, none are more fondly remembered in story and folklore than the "Robin Hood of the West," Butch Cassidy--the alias of Robert LeRoy Parker. Parker was born 15 April 1866 in Beaver, Utah, and was raised by Mormon pioneer parents on a ranch near Circleville, Utah. While a teenager, Parker fell under the influence of an old rustler named Mike Cassidy. Parker soon left home to ride the outlaw trail. [Utah History Encyclopedia: Butch Cassidy, http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/]

35 years ago today - Apr 17,1991

Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Utah "ranks last in proportion of students who are female" throughout the United States. This is result of Utah's "traditions that inhibit the educational progress of women." [Quinn, D. Michael, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, Appendix 5, Selected Chronology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1848-1996, http://amzn.to/extensions-power]

45 years ago today - Apr 17, 1981-Friday

In almost every group to which I am invited to speak, the speaker introduces me as the Church Historian. When they ask me my position, I tell them of my BYU professorship and the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute directorship. And when they ask my secretary for a sheet to use in introducing me, I very clearly indicate the professorship and directorship. Yet they continually say Church Historian. I have finally developed a rationale for this. For me personally it is significant that I was sustained as Church Historian by the general conference in April 1972 and have never been released by the general conference. Elder [G. Homer] Durham says that I was released in 1978, and he and Earl Olson say that publicly, yet there has been no public statement from the First Presidency saying this, nor any letter to me saying so. My assumption is that Elder Durham wrote a letter for the First Presidency to himself, had them sign it, and this suggests in ambiguous terms that I was released in favor of the bureaucratic title Director, History Division. But in the minds of the Saints I am still the Church Historian. It now occurs to me that this is part of a general church practice of continuing to refer to people by titles they have held for a considerable period of time, and which it is tradition to continue to call them by. Thus, once a bishop always a bishop, and people continue to call him Bishop Jones long after he is released. Or President Smith long after his release from a stake presidency. Students of USU who used to know me as counselor to [stake] President Reed Bullen continue to call me President Arrington. In that same sense, then, people continue to call me Church Historian Leonard Arrington. From that point of view it is still true even if Elders Durham and Olson say it isn't. And who is the Church Historian? Elder Durham? People would never do it-he was never sustained as such, never called that, never will be unless formally sustained as such. Without a replacement, it is natural for them to assume that I must still be Church Historian. [Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]

60 years ago today - April 16, 18, 1966

McKay reversed his previous position: "I told Clare that I did not wish these paragraphs deleted; that I gave them and the statement should stand as given; that many people have recordings of the full statement…. These things are very upsetting to me, and the deletion of what I said at Priesthood Meeting is causing a lot of people to question and to wonder what is going on." The deleted paragraphs were restored in the official Conference Report and Improvement Era. His Secretary Clare Middlemiss tried to get the full version published in the next issue of the Church News, but was thwarted by Lawrence McKay. [David O. McKay diary; Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Write, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (2005)]

190 years ago today - Apr 16, 1836

Future-apostle Charles C. Rich describes his endowment ceremony-experience in the Kirtland Temple: "We then continued to fast and pray until the setting of the sun when we Broke Bread and Drank wine[.] we prophesied all night pronouncing blessings and cursings until the morning light[.] there was Great manifestations of the power of God . . . and I was filled with the spirit of prophesy and I was endued with power from on high."

130 years ago today - Apr 16, 1896; Thursday

I had a long conversation with one of his [Scott Anderson's] sons in reference to the Holy Ghost on which there had been some dispute in Sunday Schools. [Charles W. Penrose, Diary]

135 years ago today - Apr 16, 1891

The First Presidency learns that the U.S. solicitor general and Utah's district attorney have formally agreed "to let loose of our Temple." [The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]

185 years ago today - Apr 16, 1841

[Wilford Woodruff] [Upon preparing to leave England] "It hath truly been a miricle what God hath wrought by our hands in this land since we have been here & I am asstonished when I look at it for during our Stay here we have esstablished churches in all the most noted cities & towns in this Kingdom have Baptized more than 5,000 souls Printed 5,000 Books of mormon 3000 Hymn Books 2,500 Volumes of the Millennial Star & about 50,000 tracts, & gatherd to the land of Joseph 1,000 Souls & esstablished a great influence among those that trade in ships at sea & lacked for nothing to eat drink or ware. Truly the Lord hath been good." [Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

115 years ago today - Apr 15, 1911

Collier's magazine published a letter from Theodore Roosevelt refuting many charges made against Utah Sen. Reed Smoot and the Church. This action helped defuse an anti-Mormon propaganda surge of 1910-11. [Church News: Historical Chronology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/58765/Historical-chronology-of-The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints.html]

180 years ago today - April 15 or Aug 2, 1846

[Wilford Woodruff marriage] Mary Ann Jackson (married at the Nauvoo Temple or at Winter Quarters) Mary Ann was twenty-eight, Wilford was thirty-nine. They had one child, James Jackson, but divorced in 1848. ... Wilford Woodruff met her on his English mission. In his journal, on August 8, 1845, he wrote: I recieved 2 letters & wrote 2. 4 m. Sister Mary Jackson commenced labour with us this day." On August 2, 1846, Woodruff wrote: During the evening President Young And Dr Richards Called at my tent. President Young deliverd an interesting lecture upon the priesthood And the principal of sealing there being present: Phebe W. Woodruff / [Mary] Caroline Barton / Caroline [mistake for Sarah] Brown / Mary Jackson." There is a picture of a large heart with four keys. This is a typical pre-1852 cryptic reference to plural marriages. On August 8, at a time of rebaptisms, Woodruff baptized the trio, and got the names right: Caroline, Sarah, Mary." He also has the names correct on August 26: Caroline Barton and Sarah Brown." He describes them there as members of my family." ... Working for the Woodruffs as housekeeper [in Liverpool], she returned with Phebe and a party of emigrants via New Orleans in January 1846. On April 15, two days after his return to Nauvoo for a reunion with his wife and children, Wilford and his family and friends visited the temple. The records are contradictory, but he married Mary Ann on that occasion or on August 2, at Winter Quarters. ... [Compton, Todd, 'The Wives of Wilford Woodruff', http://toddmcompton.com/WWfamilies.htm]

170 years ago today - Apr 15, 1856

While reading the revelation upon the patriarchal marriage & While reading that paragraph relating to the sheding of innocent Blood President Young remarked that that was a vary nice point to distinguish between innocent Blood & that which is not innocent. Were we now Commanded to go & avenge the Blood of the prophets whare it wood reach infants from the Cradle to the third & forth generation would they know what to do in such a case? They would not. But there is one thing that is a consolation to me And that is I am satisfied that the Lord will not require it of this people untill they become sanctifyed & are led by the spirit of God so as not to shed inocent Blood. Again what does the saying mean that sayes all shall be damned that does not keep this Law unto whom it is revealed? Does it mean that they shall take more wives than one? I think it includes the whole law with its covenants. ... President B. Young then wrote the following words to be put upon one of the Stones of the Temple: Holiness to the Lord The Temple of our God Built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Commenced on the 6th day of April A.D. 1853. [Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

175 years ago today - Apr 15, 1851

24 free Blacks living in Utah in 1851 [http://www.xtimeline.com/timeline/Chronology-Pertaining-to-Blacks-and-the-LDS-Church]

180 years ago today - Apr 15, 1846

[Hosea Stout] [A description of shuffling of assignments of individuals involved in Nauvoo church security is given -- a group with ties to the earlier Danites.] Thus the distinction of the old Police was entirely done away & we could say according to the prophecy of Joseph "Where is the old Police" &c [Diaries of Hosea Stout]

180 years ago today - 1846 Apr 15

Warsaw Signal: Endowment exposé [https://docs.google.com/document/d/10ttN3vOzf2UcVhruCrvDf9pF27T0o0PP0Xj1X98tKBc/edit?fbclid=IwAR3HXLgL-X-M_c5LT2W-_F7AYqsqqaQ0yIhfNuyeFsX85irSPuEO6_Q993A]

150 years ago today - Apr 11, 1876

Stake president and future apostle Francis M. Lyman spends the day studying Buddhism and Confucianism. Four days later he studies Hindu philosophy for half-day. [The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]]

170 years ago today - Apr 14, 1856

I hear that Jacob Lance who was under arrest in Lehi Utah County for an assault with an intent to commit a Rape? on a Danish woman, this morning while his guards were snoozing and he either asleep or nodding had his head split asunder by a woman supposed to be the injured one, who came in and split his head with an axe then gently retiring with out saying a word [Diaries of Hosea Stout]

60 years ago today - Apr 13, 1966

Ernest Wilkinson and Skousen conversed about the John Birch Society: "We would probably agree with 90% of their principles but we both believe that Ezra Taft Benson has made some tactical or procedural errors in trying to vouch President McKay in on everything he has done . . ." [Wilkinson diary, 13 Apr. 1966. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]

130 years ago today - Apr 13, 1896

[Brigham Young jr.] [Ephraim, Sanpete Co. Considerable excitement over action on former apostle Moses Thatcher] People think he has been reigned up now in his sickness, when the fact is he has been rebellious since the death of Pres[iden]t Jno. Taylor. He has continued to seek to thwart his brethren of the Presidency and Twelve since, he became enraged about "Bullion Beck" business. His spite against Geo[rge] Q. Cannon--and unjustly too [as] far as I know--has soured his mind Pres[iden]t Woodruff says he has sought to rule over his brethren other apostles say Moses has sought to exercise unrighteous dominion over his brethren. How we have wept and prayed over this man. He has caused more tears to flow from my eyes than all my other griefs private & public since the death of Pres[ident] Jno. Taylor. I pray for Moses--for the Lord to soften his heart. Some say he has bad advisers. He is weak now in mind & body but his rebellion began when he was in health. [Diary of Apostle Brigham Young Jr., http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

100 years ago today - Apr 13, 1926

[Heber J. Grant] I know of no instance where the Lord has appeared to an individual since His appearance to the Prophet Joseph Smith. [Heber J. Grant, Letter to Mrs. Claud Peery, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015]

160 years ago today - 1866. April 13

Butch Cassidy: Born Robert LeRoy Parker in Beaver, Utah, the eldest of thirteen children. He was baptized at the age of eight. Temple work was performed in his behalf by his brother-in-law in 1945. [Van Wagoner, Richard and Walker, Steven C., A Book of Mormons, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

170 years ago today - Apr 13, 1856

[Orson Pratt] Our first parents through transgressing the law of God, brought death into the world, but through the death of Jesus Christ, life and immortality were introduced. The one brings into bondage; the other gives us hope of escape, of redemption, that we may come forth with the same kind of body that Adam had before the fall, a body of immortal flesh and bones. Adam and Eve were immortal, the same as resurrected beings, but previous to their transgression they had no knowledge of good and evil. After the redemption we will not only have the same kind of bodies that they possessed in the garden of Eden before the fall, but we will have a knowledge of good and evil through our experience. [J. D. 3:344; Discourse by Orson Pratt delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City; April 13, 1856, quoted in Quotations Dealing with the Relationship of Our First Earthly Parents to Our Heavenly Parents (1830-1978)]

165 years ago today - Apr 12, 1861

Officially, Governor Cumming was on a leave of absence, but the citizens of Utah knew that his hasty departure meant that he did not intend to return. General Albert Sidney Johnston, another leading figure in the territory, also left the area during the same period. Both men's actions were a result of events in South Carolina on 12 April 1861, when the Confederate Army attacked the federal garrison at Fort Sumter. [Utah History Encyclopedia: Civil War, http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/]

60 years ago today - Apr 12, 1966

[David O. McKay] Attention was called to the application of Sister I--- R------- P----- for permission to do the sealing work in the Temple for her father, Joseph E. Robinson, and his three wives. ... Attention was also called to a ruling made by me on March 3, 1964, [that] * "in the case of polygamous marriages performed in Mexico before the Manifesto, and there [is] no official record, the work should be done again." ... I stated that if the polygamous marriage took place prior to the state ment by President Joseph F. Smith in 1904 to the effect that polygamous marriages could not be solemnized anywhere in the world, * the work could be performed for the parties concerned or the President of the Church could ratify the marriages that had been performed. It was agreed that the simpler way would be to ratify the marriages * We reversed the decision made in our meeting of March 23, 1966, and ruled that it would be inadvisable to ratify purported sealings performed for Joseph E. Robinson and three women. In giving this matter further consideration, we had in mind that were the Church to adopt the policy of ratifying polygamous marriages that took place prior to the announcement by President Joseph F. Smith in 1904 * it would let down the flood gates and descendants of many polygamous marriages performed after the Manifesto would make application for permission to have the purported sealings of their parents or grandparents ratified, and perhaps in some cases where the individuals entering into these relationships have been excommunicated from the Church, there would be individuals such as cultists and others. The former action was therefore rescinded and it was decided to notify Sister I--- R------- P----- that the case of Joseph E. Robinson and the three women referred to would have to be left in the hands of the Lord for decision by Him in the Hereafter. [David O. McKay diary, Mar. 23, Apr. 12, 1966; hyphens added to conceal the individual's identity, in Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship]

60 years ago today - Apr 11, 1966

The son of a previous First Presidency counselor publicly called Ezra Taft Benson "the most divisive influence in the church today." [H. Grant Ivins, "Most Divisive Influence," Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Apr. 1966,18. His father was Anthony W. Ivins, First Presidency counselor from 1921 to 1934. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]

165 years ago today - Apr 11, 1861

The President [Brigham Young] had some conversation with Pres- [ident] D.H. Wells about the Signs of the times. They were speaking of the Spirit of Secession that prevails in California. The President remarked the Lord will first disunite them. He could not establish his Kingdom while they were united together, so he separates them. ... This Nation continued the President will become like the Toes of the Image, and the toes will be ground first, then the ankles and so on. -- Salt Lake City [Brigham Young Office Journals, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]

185 years ago today - Apr 11, 1841

Joseph Smith and Rigdon rebaptize each other for remission of sins and "renewal of covenants." Church leaders would promote rebaptism for all members during a religious reformation beginning May 1842. In the future, four temples would perform 7,788 baptisms for renewal of covenants from 1877 through 1893. This ordinance would be officially discontinued in 1922. [Quinn, D. Michael, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, Appendix 7: Selected Chronology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-47, http://amzn.to/origins-power]

125 years ago today - Apr 11, 1901

The Daughters of Utah Pioneers was organized April 11, 1901 under the leadership of Annie M. Taylor Hyde (daughter of John Taylor) in Salt Lake City. Forty-six women, all of pioneer decent, gathered at her home for the first meeting. At the meeting she stated that she ". . .felt deeply impressed with the importance and desirability of the children of pioneers becoming associated together, in some kind of organization which would have for its object the cementing together in the bonds of friendship and love the descendants" of the early pioneers. [Utah History Encyclopedia: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/]

170 years ago today - Apr 11, 1856

[Heber C. Kimball marriage] wife #42. Elizabeth Doty (Cravath Murray Brown), 1808-1889. Mother of Helen Mar's sister-wife, time only. [Hatch, Charles M. and Compton, Todd M. editors, 'A Widow's Tale: 1884-1896 Diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney' p. 37]