Wacky polygamous stories, rubbing shoulders with Joe and Brigham, blood atonement, Adam-God, etc.

You know, the stuff that's been whitewashed by LDS inc but us still found in family's pioneer ancestor journals and handed down verbally through the generations.

I'm fascinated by what is out there!

Well I have crooked branches on both sides of my tree.

Gggrandpa Chas Shum was HJ's bodyguard in Nauvoo where gramps carried out a blood atonement while standing guard outside a bedroom window where HJ was ministering to one of his concubines.

Then on Mom's side there is my grandfather, Charles Edumund Richardson, born of a polyandry/polygamy civil divorce/temple remarriage arrangement, all conceived and expedited by Brigham Young. Standing in as surrogate inseminator was my real great grandpa Walter F Cox.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2014 10:05PM by Shummy.

Isn't studying your family history fun?

Charles Shumway was my 2nd great grandfather. Perhaps same as yours?. I'd like to read any evidence available that dispels family myth that this man was so great and compassionate, especially if he were one of Smith's assassins as was my other 2nd no-so-great Mormon, hillbilly grandfather.

Feijoada Wrote:
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> Charles Shumway was my 2nd great grandfather.
> Perhaps same as yours?. I'd like to read any
> evidence available that dispels family myth that
> this man was so great and compassionate,
> especially if he were one of Smith's assassins as
> was my other 2nd no-so-great Mormon, hillbilly
> grandfather.


There was only one Charles Shumway who is grandfather to any Mormon Shummy alive today.

4 wives and 200 grandkids doth a Mormon dynasty make.

http://www.abebooks.com/Look-Back-Conover-Eva-Treese-James/184499100/bd

No polygamy as far as I can tell according to our official family history book "A History of the Burr Pioneers", but my grandfather, Henry Sherman Burr was, according to my Dad, a somewhat lazy lout who left his my grandmother in Alberta and ran off back to Idaho to take up with a first cousin (how totally Mormon is that!) When he croaked in 1949 my Dad did not attend the funeral.

Ron Burr

I am the g-g-grandson of Sarah Franks who endured the Martin Handcart Company. She is certainly not a crazy ancestor, but that event was probably one of the greatest tragedies in American history. Sarah has now been sealed to her fiance George Padley who died at Martin's Cove, Wyoming. I've taken the name Tom Padley from him and my g-g-grandfather Thomas Mackay. For some reason I feel a strong emotional tie to Sarah and George. Not so much to Thomas or the rest of the Mackay clan that originated with him.

Fun ancestor stories I have...

One--Moroni Clawson--rode with Porter Rockwell at the bidding of both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Yes, I think you'd call him a Danite. Funny thing...he wasn't a believer.

Another ancestor went on a mission to England. There he met and fell in love with a sweet young thing. In a Rachel and Leah moment, he married her older sister--and then her, on the boat back to America. Because of the "Law of Sarah" the sister (the one he didn't love) ruled over the sister he did love. She had to hide out from the US government when polygamy was banned.

Another ancestor also went on a mission to England and met a sweet young thing on the boat ride back. They didn't marry on the boat, but when he returned to Utah Brigham said he could marry her--despite the first wife saying no. First wife became very ill. He decided to wait until she died to marry sweet young thing. She just wouldn't die, so he married the girl anyway. First wife died very soon after, as her children said, "of a broken heart." I was furious about this story. But guess what line I come through? Yep, sweet young thing.

Another ancestor was sent on a mission and came home to his wife and children belonging to the bishop who sent him out.

First ancestor who married the two sisters--another story about him. He wrote music with Eliza R. Snow. He wrote a song about his bishop stealing the cream off the tithing milk. He was exed for that song. When he was exed, his second wife was no longer legal according to the church. So she married another man and moved with him and her children to Arizona. So many stories there.

Anywho...I'm chalk full of stories. Thanks for letting me share!

Great Grandpa Emanuel Bagley was a Mormon nut job like his son and grandson, my father. Emanuel had three wives--biological sisters descended from Thomas McBride, who was murdered in the infamous Haun's Mill massacre. Emanuel and his sister sister wives had some thirty five impoverished children.

Emanuel attempted to take his fifty-year-old mother from the California coast to Utah by wagon. She died on the journey which must have upset the rest of the family, but these things are not spoken of among the Bagleys. The story is that Emanuel was a great patriarch, though he could not support his wives and children and died trying to start a farm when he was old.

Man,these stories need to be documented! The church tries to project this pure and innocent image of their polygamous past but it was anything but! Mormon history is more along the lines of Warren Jeffs and Big Love!!

Can I share a smart, non-Mo ancestor story? My convert mom, while doing genealogy, came upon a letter written by one of my dad's ancestors while watching a Mormon wagon train go by. He said "I hope they go out to Utah, sit on a cactus and prick some sense into themselves." My TBM mom has it framed and up on her wall for some reason. It's literally the only one of her possessions I've asked her to leave me, other than a whiskey bottle from the gold rush days with our family name on it because my ancestors ran a brewery instead of a harem. Oh, and I wouldn't mind the good silver either ... lol.

On my mother's side, one ancestor is Oliver Boardman Huntington. He is credited with naming Hobble Creek Canyon, near Springville, UT, with its name. He is the brother of ill-fated Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young, third President of the RS, polygamous wife of HJ and, later, BY. Oliver is maybe more noted for this:

http://www.utlm.org/images/changingworld/chwp24textimage.gif

Another ancestor, again, on my mother's side, is Isaac Laney. Iasaac survived the Haun's Mill massacre.

Last one, Archibald Patten. He was an early apostle and elder brother of the first Mormon "martyr" David Patten.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2014 12:45PM by moose.

Through my maternal grandmother, I am related to Lucy Walker.

You guessed it! 17 year old, who married good ol' Joseph.

All growing up, I was told she was one of Hyrum's wives. Why?
Found out a few years ago the nasty truth. When I asked my mother, crickets. Still haven't heard a response on that one.

It's a fun one to bring up with all the Mormon's around though. "Pioneer stock, eh? Who are you related to?"

All I get are big eyes and a quick change of subject. My mother-in-law a few months ago looked at her husband questioningly, you could tell-- she has no idea.

That's her own fault, according to TSCC.

Father's side:
ggggrandpa converted in England by Heber C. Kimball (probably while HJ was bedding Heber's wife!).
Immediately made plans to head to Zion.
Put the family on a boat (at Liverpool); arrived in New Orleans and promptly died, along with his wife and one child.
Surviving children went upriver to Iowa, then across the plains to Utah.
Upon arrival, oldest surviving son (my gggranddad) married in SLC, then went to Parowan, and from there was sent to Panguitch to settle (a previous settlement there had abandoned it because of "Indian troubles"). A couple years later, on a trip to SLC, he met a newly-arrived 18 year old Aussie immigrant convert, and took her for wife #2. I'm from the wife #2 line. Rumor has it he was party to the MMM, as he was part of the Nauvoo Legion, but I can't confirm that.

On mom's side, one ancestor is Chauncey Webb, father of Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning, one of BY's wives and later outspoken critic of polygamy :) The Webbs went to SLC, and my great-grandfather on my mother's side was their descendant.

Only real "notable" crazy mormon in our family was a one-time official church spokesman, the one spouting lies during the Hoffman debacle (my dad's cousin). :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2014 03:56PM by ificouldhietokolob.

You and I are distant cousins then. On my mother's side I descend from Chauncey's brother Edwin.

Book of Mordor Wrote:
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> You and I are distant cousins then. On my mother's
> side I descend from Chauncey's brother Edwin.

Howdy, Cousin! :)

My GGgrandfather was Phineas Wolcott Cook. He had four wives and my GGgrandmother was his first wife who had 16 children. I have read my GGgrandfather's journal and he mentions Brigham a number of times. In one part he mentions how Brigham was upset because of the brethren spitting out their tobacco while in church and leaving marks on the walls. In my GGgrandmother's journal she talks about going to suffrage meetings. Sadly, my GGgrandmother spent her later years alone and in poor health because Phineas left her for his youngest wife and moved to Wyoming. I am related to Quentin Cook, just the offspring from a different wife...Phineas was a busy man.

Although there's nothing "crazy" about his story, it was rather notable. Apostle Charles A. Callis wrote about him in the Improvement Era:

http://www.mocavo.ca/The-Improvement-Era-Number-11-Nov-1941-Volume-44/125389/20

Kossuth Dyal was my grandfather's uncle. His family joined the church in north Georgia, and he supposedly went on a mission and baptized 105 people. No telling how many Marmons exist today because of that sumbitch. My mother alone had over 200 descendants, about half of whom are still active Mormons. And my mother had six sisters, and they all had several children as well. So there are probably 2000-3000 of my relatives on church records today.

I'm kind of a rarity because I'm a third-generation Mormon from the Deep South, where Mormons were few and far between a century ago. My mother's family lived near Monroeville, Alabama---the hometown of authors Truman Capote and Harper Lee. There were no Mormon branches around when my mother was young in the 1920s and '30s. Missionaries would come through and spend the night every now and then. One of them was Ezra Taft Benson's brother, I think his name was George. My mother had one of his missionary calling cards, and he signed her copy of the D&C (the edition which still contained the Lectures on Faith.)

RfM has always been a huge family reunion for me. I've met so many kinfolk among you kindred spirits.

Another poster cousin I've met here is Stray Mutt. We're both descended from the above mentioned g-grandfather Cox whose
name was Fredrick Walter Cox, to be genealogically correct

I'm a nephew to Porter Rockwell, one of Brigham's dark angels, and one of the most famous gun fighters in the Mormon West. With the help of Edward Kimball and Lot Smith he defeated the U.S. Army in the Utah War. Legend has it he would shake his overcoat after killing an outlaw and the shells that were suppose to kill him would fall out from where they were lodged. Was an alcoholic who spent many a night stoned in the guttars of Salt Lake.

I'm supprised about just how much Mormons use to drink. All my ancestors on every side were always drunk.

Yup, Old Port loved port and was always leaning to port. How he dodged the bullets, ya see, before venereal disease finally found it's mark.

Methinks Mormon drunks are worthy of their own thread. A lotta jackmos in my tree I know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickman

Don't know the details.

Never done this before (lurked but not posted) and am hesitant, but I have a doozie of a Mormon ancestor story. Not crazy, just tragic. My great, great grandfather was a full blood Piaute Indian who was one of three children the Mormons spared in a massacre of his tribe by Mormon settlers in 1866. I am reluctant to use real names, and even the location of the massacre is more than I want to reveal, other than to say it happened in central Utah.

Basic story: Blackhawk War was going on. Mormon's became suspicious of all Indians, and even thought they had been trading with the Piutes previously, they began to suspect that they were up to something. Piutes were not like the Utes or other Plains Indians. They were peaceful hunter gatherers and did not even have horses.

The Mormons called for a meeting with the Piautes, who came into the town. Once they had them there, they disarmed and tied up the men. They put the women and children in the cellar of the LDS "meeting house".There was a flashpoint of some sort. The few surviving records of the event vary on this detail, but either there was an escape attempt or some other catalyst, and the Mormons killed all the Piaute men.

Here is the sickening part. They brought the women and children up from the cellar, one by one and then slit their throats.

My ancestory would have been 3 or 4, best guess. A man put him on the back of his horse, took him to the nearest town, and traded him for some food. He was adopted by a Danish couple of first generation Utah Mormons and they raised him. He married a Danish Woman and they had 8 kids.

You are correct about the massacre, as there were a number of similar incidents in other places. Nuf said! Except to say that this is another example of Mormon history as it was, not as the average Mormon wants it to be. They tend to glorify the noble pioneers, and look at everything through rose colored glasses.

Well you haven't outed yourself too far oldexmo but let us have a look:

http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/american_indians/circlevillemassacre.html

*footnote*:

Circleville along with Ordeville further south were originally established as singular-intentioned communities which would live and prove the truth of the "United Order" ( or "ardor" as Mom would say in utard parlance).

Her dad lived and struggled in Orderville as a youth but when it all collapsed he went south as a polygamy prospecting postulate.

In the late 1800's, one branch of my family in England converted to mormonism and shipped out to Utah, except they left one of their "sickly" children behind, I would say dumped, with elderly relatives. Of course, the elderly relatives soon succumbed to traditional Victorian diseases, leaving my great grandfather alonee in an orphanage.

But TSCC is all for families. Of course it is.

My Mormon ancestors (The Rhoades) were part of the rescue party that saved the Donner party.

Generations later, my dad became a Mormon after being born into the Catholic church. Mormonism went full circle.

I am a descendant of the Charles C Rich family. CC Rich had 6 wives. I told one of my cousins recently that I am ashamed of
my polygamist ancestors and it quite upset her.

Traveling through Colorado City (Short Creek) I can't help but think that this is the way my ancestors lived. There is a lot of inbreeding there. No wonder I don't have any smarts. I'm a product of inbreeding.

but Capt Alexander Fancher is a cousin.

puckpasser Wrote:
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> but Capt Alexander Fancher is a cousin.



oh my god

I just got a shiver when I realized that the descendants of the murdered are posting here among the progeny of the murderers.

But by far the craziest nut in my family tree had to be Asael Smith, grandfather of Horny Joe and also one of mine, who spawned a satrapy of sophistic soothsaying sex maniacs.

Any other Anson Call descendants out there? The family history is rather quiet other than to praise him, and mention all his wives and that he was one of Horny Joe's bodyguard...

My favorite pioneer story is this.

In the early days of Bountiful, therewas little or no firewood to be had. People had to up the canyons to harvest firewood.

One fellow decided it was easier to steal firewood that spending a few days each month chopping his own.

No one knew who the firewood thief was until one of my illustrious ancestors hollowed out a log and filled it with gunpowder and placed it on top of the wood pile.

Legend has it they figured out who was stealing that night based on the loud explosion from a particular house.