USA > Utah > Salt Lake County > Salt Lake > History of Salt Lake City > Part 139
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"A civilization has come on which has thrown off many superstitions. In some lands the mother sacrifices her child. The Hindoo mother casts it into the foaming tide of the Ganges, under a religiousbelief. Others let the car of Juggernaut roll over their bodies in pursuance of a religious belief. In other countries human beings, wives and daughters and friends are sacrificed at the graves of the departed. Under religious belief men have been broken upon the wheel, have been tortured upon the rack simply for their beliefs. Yet it will not do to say that all of these re- ligious beliefs could be tolerated in any civilized country. Men have mistaken very often the feel- ings which attend certain desires for religion. In some instances they have had the feeling which tends to sexual passion, and imagined that it was a communication of the will of the Almighty to the individual. They have mistaken animal passion for religion-lust, if you please, for religion- in some instances. I do not say it is so in your case, but that it is the case with many I am satis- fied. (Growing warmer still.) When any man or any sect attempts to set up what they conceive to be a revelation against the laws of the country they must be prepared to take the consequences. It is thought, it seems, by your church that there has been a communication with respect to polyg- amy and unlawful cohabitation from the Almighty. The civilized world have interpreted the will of that infinite Source that manifests all things-the Author of all wisdom and all power and all good- ness-they have interpreted that through their intellects and through their consciences, and have said that polygamy and unlawful cohabitation are wrong. That is the expression of that infinite Source of infinite wisdom and goodness, as expressed by the intelligence and by the wisdom and conscience of the whole civilized world. (Striking the desk with his hand.) And the American Con- gress have taken that as the expression of the truth on that question, and I have no doubt that they are right in it; not the slightest doubt about it. I have no doubt that this truth of a marriage of one man to one woman is right. The whole civilized world, with a few exceptions, have so inter- preted it.
" Being the truth it has survived all other contrary truths on that subject, and I have no doubt that it will stand-that it will stand forever. The stars may fade away, the sun himself grow dim with age and nature sink in years; but that truth will flourish, as I believe, in immortal youth; and it is idle for any sect, or for any man to set himself up against this expression of the will of that infi- nite Source of all wisdom and all power, and say that he will not submit to that truth. If you do not submit to it of course you must take the consequences ; but the will of the American people is expressed, (severely) and this law will go on and grind you and your institutions to powder.
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JAMES MOYLE.
"I believe I have nothing more to say. The sentence of the Court is, in view of your position. that you be confined in the penitentiary for the term of six months. and that you pay the costs of the prosecution and a fine of $300, and stand committed until the term of imprisonment expires and costs are paid."
Elder Nicholson entered the penitentiary the same day. He endured his imprisonment un- complainingly, although a portion of his experience there was most pathetic and bitter. His father, who had lived with him for ten years, was seized with a deathly sickness. He expressed a wish to see his son before passing away. Friends of Elder Nicholson made a request of Marshal Ireland to allow him to visit his father's deathbed. He not only peremptorily refused to grant this privilege, but, after the death of the veteran, declined to permit the grief-stricken son to be present at the funeral rites.
While in prison Elder Nicholson framed "A bill to lessen the terms of imprisonment of con- victs for good conduct," and placed it in the hands of a member of the I.egislature, to be intro- cluced during the session of 1886. The measure was passed by both Houses and signed by the Governor. It was intended to apply to all terms pending at the date of the passage of the act, as well as future ones. At the instance of District Attorney Dickson, a test case under it was insti- tuted, and Judge Zane decided that it could only operate upon future terms. Its provisions are liberal, being based on the idea that all punatory processes should be reformatory.
Elder Nicholson was released from prison, having undergone the penalty, March 12th, 1886.
JAMES MOYLE.
James Moyle, the foreman of the stone cutting and mason work of the Salt Lake City Temple, is one of the Mormon brethren now in the penitentiary serving out his term of imprisonment for the frank acknowledgement in court of his wives and families. He is one of our respected, but retiring citizens, whose natural disposition would shrink from notoriety; but the circumstance of his impris- onment with his compeers for the religious cause of his people-for such it is-brings him, with them, conspicuously into our local history of the present momentuous times.
James Moyle, son of John Rowe and Phillipa Beer Moyle, was born October 31st, 1835, at Rosemelin, in the county of Cornwall, England. His grandfather, James Moyle, was a commis sioned officer in the British navy. He was a man of education, as his books and some fragments of his handwriting, still in the possession of his grandson, sufficiently attest, as does also his rank as an officer in the British navy, which could only have been attained in his day by a scion of the Eng- lish gentry. He died, however, while young, leaving the father of the subject of this sketch but eight or nine years of age, which event explains the change in the social status of his immediate family.
The great-grandfather of James Moyle (on his mother's side), William Beer, was an officer in the British Army, and his son, William Beer, the grandfather of James Moyle, received a pension for his service as a master mason in building forts and fortifications for the British government. He was a man of wealth, an elector for Parliament and an active participant in the politics of his country, as was his father before him, which was a mark of social distinction in those days. Two of his sons also held commissions in the British army.
The occupation of father John R. Moyle was that of a mason and stonecutter and his son James was brought up to the same business.
The father and family joined the Church of Latter-day Saints, in the county of Devonshire at about the year 1852, and he emigrated to Utah in one of the first handcart companies in 1856. His son James, however, emigrated two years previous to that datc. He left England March 12th, 1854, and landed in New Orleans May 4th, of the same year. Thence he continued his journey to the Valleys of the Rocky Mountains and arrived at Salt Lake City, September 30th, 1854. In a few days after his arrival he was employed by President Brigham Young to work on the basement of the Lion House. After its completion he went to work on the Temple Block.
July 22d, 1856, James Moyle was married to Elizabeth Wood, daughter of Daniel and Mary
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Snyder Wood. In December, 1856, he bought property in the Fifteenth Ward, where his home has been ever since and there his children have been born.
In the fall of 1857, at the time of the Buchanan expedition Mr. Moyle went out with the Utah militia to repel invasion. He left the city with others for Echo Canyon in a severe snow storm, and stayed in that service until the militia troops were called in for the season to winter, after Johnston and his arny had gone into their winter quarters.
In the spring. when the people of the northern settlements made their temporary exodus into the southern settlements, Mr. Moyle moved his wife to Springville, while he himself was detailed as one of the guard to stay in Salt Lake City and burn it if necessary; which would certainly have been accomplished had the compact made between Buchanan's peace commissioneis and the Mor- mon leaders been broken by General Johnston and his army, before the people could return under the protection of Governor Cumming to defend the city by the efficient force of the Nauvoo Legion.
After this militia service James Moyle was elected captain of ten and subsequently he received a commission from Governor Cumming as captain of a company in the Nauvoo 1.egion.
In the spring of 1859, he became a contractor and builder, and erected a number of stores and public buildings in Salt Lake City. After finishing the city jail he erected the rock work of the principal bridges on the western division of the Union Pacific Railroad, and also constructed the large U. P. "roundhouse " at Evanston, Wyoming.
He continued to work for the U. P. R. R. Company until called by President Young to take charge of the mason work on the Temple. This position he still holds-namely, foreman of the l'emple.
During the September term, 1885, of the Third District Court three indictments were found against Mr. Moyle for unlawful cohabitat on with his wives and he was put under bonds. In the last Febru- ary term of that court his first case came up for trial. Being a man of sensitive honor and courage, to save his family the humiliation of an examination in court, he took the witness stand and testified against himself, that he had lived with, acknowledged and honored his wives and families. There- upon the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and on the first day of March. 1886, he was sentenced by Judge Zane to six months' imprisonment in the Utah penitentiary and the payment of $300 fine and costs. He is now serving his term of sentence.
Though Mr. Moyle received but a common English school education, he has always been of a studious disposition ; and, priding himself in the knowledge that his ancestors, on both sides, were of the educated classes, he has, since his maturity, diligently cultivated his inherent desire for learning. He is well read in geology, chemistry and mineralogy. The geological forma- tion of rocks has commanded his special attention. He is a man of intellectual type and in his habits has always been studious. Since his incarceration he has been greatly devoted to his studies, both from his native love of them, and to spend the term of his imprisonment profitably in mental culture and for future usefulness as a master worker in stone, with the formations of which his studies of geology and chemistry have made him very familiar.
In keeping with his own native desire for mental culture and acquirement of knowledge, Mr. Moyle had a great desire to educate his children. As an example of this, he kept his son, James II. Moyle, at the Deseret University for three years. He then sent him to the University of Michigan, where he also spent three years. This son entered the literary college where he took a general course of instruction, particularly devoting himself to the work in the school of political science, and he latterly graduated with honors in the law school of the university, and was admitted to prac- tice in the Supreme Court of Michigan. In July, 1885, the young lawyer returned home to Salt Lake City, and on the 3d day of September, 1885, he was admitted to the Supreme Court of Utah. During the same month he was appointed assistant city attorney for Salt Lake City, and deputy prosecuting attorney for Salt Lake County, which positions he still fills with honor to himself and satisfaction to his compeers and the public. He is a young man of intellect, with a liberal educa- tion, and of a legal turn of mind. He already gives promise of becoming one of our local lumi- naries of the law.
In returning to the father, James Moyle, with a closing remark it may properly be said that though at present in bonds for the "gospel's sake"-as the ancient Christians had deemed it-or as we might say, for maintaining the marriage relations of his church and family, when we visited Mr. Moyle in the Penitentiary it was apparent that he perfectly retained the moral tone of his li e and character. In fine, it may be said that James Moyle possesses the confidence and respect of his people, and the love and pride of his family, whose worthy head and representative he is.
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JOSEPH C. KINGSBURY
JOSEPH C. KINGSBURY.
Joseph Corrodon Kingsbury, whose name is historical in the eventful career of the Mormon people, was born in the town of Endfield, Hartford County, State of Connecticut, May 2d, 1812. His father's name was Solomon Kingsbury, and his mother's name Basheba Perse. They were both of Connecticut, as indeed were the family of the Kingsburys for generations.
Soon after the birth of the subject of this sketch his parents moved from Connecticut to Ohio, town of Painsville, Geauga County ; and when he was but two years of age his mother died leaving four children, himself being the youngest. After the death of his mother his father's sister came and kept house for the family until she got married, when the care of the household fell upon the shoul- ders of Joseph's sister Melvina, the eldest of the children. Thus the family coutinued until Joseph was nine years of age, when his father married again to a lady by the name of Caroline Fobes. The social standing of the Elder Kingsbury was that of judge of the county.
His son Joseph lived at home most of the time, till he reached the age of sixteen, when he went to work on his own account in an office to superintend the weighing of ore and coal for the Geauga Iron Company furnace. He next went to the town of Ashtabula and clerked in a merchant's store. This was in the fall of 1830.
At this time the neighborhood in which young Kingsbury lived, was greatly stirred with the news of the golden bible. It Was reported that a young man-Joseph Smith -- had found this strange book, purporting to be the sacred history of this continent, revealed by the visit of an angel to him who was himself one of the ancient prophets of the land. The testimony produced its effect upon Kingsbury's mind, and he was impressed with the belief that there was truth in these wonderful tidings, though he was not yet numberel with the disciples of the Church, which at that time was only a few months old.
He left Ashtabula in the fall of 1831, and returned to Painsville, but directly went to Chagrin to assist his brother in the mercantile business. In December of 1831, he went to Kirtland to assist a man by the name of Knight for a few weeks, and this indirectly was the means of leading him into the Church and associating him with the office of the presiding bishopric, which has continued almost uninterruptedly to the present day.
While he was yet a lad, Joseph C. Kingsbury became acquainted with Newcl K. Whitney, who was afterwards the presiding bishop of the Church. Mr. Whitney had boarded awhile with the elder Kingsbury at Painsville; and in 1829, Joseph C. Kingsbury went to Kirtland on a visit to Whitney, who was at that time a Kirtland merchant, and he stayed at his house three weeks; and when he went to Kirtland a second time, in December, 1831, he found his friend, the merchant Whitney, a leading elder in the Church, though not yet ordained to the bishopric.
After the labors of the day were donc, young Kingsbury usually spent his evenings at the house of Elder Whitney, from whose lips, and the inspired memory of "Mother Whitney," he heard re- lated more fully the wonderful narrative of Joseph the Prophet, who for awhile had with his wife Emma, lived at Whitney's house, and where he, the Prophet, received some of his earliest revela- tions to the Church.
In January, 1832, after the expiration of his engagement with Mr. Knight, Kingsbury went to help Whitney, who was then unwell, and thus began his business relationships with the presiding bishops of the Church ; for soon thereafter the temporal administration of the Church grew up, car- rying a certain class of the elders out of their private affairs into the temporal government of the Aaronic Priesthood ; and among these was Joseph C. Kingsbury at an early day. He was bap- tized into the Church on the 15th of January, 1832, by Elder Burr Riggs and confirmed by Elder Wm. E. McLellin, one of the first quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Kingsbury remained with Whitney until he took a mission to the Eastern States, in 1835. When Zion's Camp was organized, in 1834, he volunteered to go with it; but Bishop Whitney be- ing alone obtained the Prophet's consent for his assistant to stay with him at Kirtland. Kingsbury gave his little money to help the camp and the Prophet blessed him as one of the volunteers and said it should be accounted to him the same.
At the laying of the corner stone of the Kirtland Temple, Joseph C. Kingsbury was ordained an elder under the hands of the Prophet. The occasion and the ordination were specially marked
14
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HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.
in the history of the Church. Twenty-four elders were to lay the corner stone, he being one of the twenty-four. Don Carlos Smith was also one of the select number. In 1835, he receive.l his patriarchal b'essing under the hands of Father Joseph Smith. It is here preserved in his biography as one of the first blessings bestowed by the patriarch :
" Joseph C. Kingsbury, I lay my hands upon thy head and pronounce a father's blessing upon thee. The Lord loveth thee, and the heavens are full of blessings for thee, and thou art blessed be- ciuse of thy diligence in keeping the commandments of the Lord ; and thou shalt be blessed and thy posterity after thee ; and thou shalt go forth and thy tongue shall be loosed and thy mouth shall be opened and thou shalt be an instrument in bringing many to a knowelgde of the truth ; and thou shall have power with God and thy heart shall expand like Enoch's of old ; and thou shalt stand upon Mount Zion when the Lord comes. These blessings I pronounce and seal upon thy head in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."
On the 6th day of July, 1835, Joseph C. Kingsbury left Kirtland on his first mission to preach the Gospel. He went to the State of New York, starting in company with John and Lorenzo D. Young. He was absent about three months, during which time he baptized four. On his return he was again employed by Bishop Whitney ; and on the Sunday after his arrival he was called upon the stand by the Prophet to preach to the people of Zion. In November (13th), 1835, he was or- daained a high councilor in Kirtland and in the winter of 1836, he received his washings and anoint- ings with his quorum of high councilors, in the house of the Lord.
In noting Joseph C. Kingsbury's family links, it is to be named that on the 3d of Feb., 1836. he married Miss Caroline Whitney, a relative of Bishop Whitney. Their first child was born on the 13th of February, 1837. Ile was named Joseph W., but he died August 13th, on their journey into Missouri.
On the 23d of May, 1838, in company of Thomas Burdock, Kingsbury and family started for Missouri, and arrived at Far West on the 13th of September, being four months on the road. There he remained through all the wars and mobbings, until the Saints were expelled from the State. In the winter of 1838-9 he started for Illinois, to which State the refugees were bound, but in con- sequence of the sickness of his wife he stopped on the way, twenty-five miles from Quincy, with a man by the name of Gardner, with whom he remained nearly a year. In the fall of 1839 they had sufficiently recovered to pursue their journey to Quincy, where they were warmly welcomed by Bishop Whitney and the Saints at that place, with whom they remained two days and went on to Nauvoo in company of Lyman Whitney, brother of the bishop. Mr. Kingsbury did not remain, however, at Nauvoo, but crossed the river to Montrose, where they occupied some rooms of the fort remaining from the Black Hawk war For two seasons he was engaged working on the river; in 1841 he moved across to Nauvoo. Bishop Whitney was agent at this time for the Prophet Joseph. taking care of his store. and he called upon Kingsbury to assist him, which the latter did till the fall of 1842. On the 16th of October, his wife, Caroline, died in childbed
On the 25th of July, 1843, Elder Kingsbury left Nauvoo on a mission to the Eastern States He labored amongst some of his relatives and the peop'e generally in that region, and during this mission he baptized some into the Church. After being absent about a year he started for home in June, 1844. He was in company with Horace K. Whitney, eldest son of the bishop. On their way, in Ohio, they heard of the murder of the Prophet and his brother Hyrum. They arrived in Nauvoo on the 28th of July, and mourned with the Saints the loss of their beloved leaders.
On the 22d of November, 1844, Elder Kingsbury was employed by Bishop Whitney, who was then Trustee-in Trust of the Church; and who received the tithings and donations for the Temple.
On the 4th of March, 1845, Joseph C Kingsbury married Dorcas A. Moor. The ceremony was performed by President Heber C. Kimball.
Joseph C. Kingsbury had the historical honor of being with his people on their exodus from Nauvoo to the Rocky Mountains. On February 28th, 1846, he started on the journey with the leaders of the Church, and traveled up to Winter Quarters with Bishop Whitney and family in the company of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. In the spring the Pioneer band set out for the Rocky Mountain valleys, leaving general orders for larger companies, composed of fam- ilies of the colonists, to follow quickly on their track, under the organization of resolute and exper- ienced captains. They were organized into grand divisions of hundreds and fifties, that is to say, one hundred wagons laden with the families of the Saints ; each of the fifties under a captain, and a grand captain over the whole hundred. Kingsbury and his family was organized in A. O. Smoot's hundred and George B. Wallace's fifty. The company was organized on the rendezvous on Horn River, and though called by the regular organic name of " hundred " it consisted of one hundred
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JOSEPH BULL.
and twenty wagons. It started in June and arrived in the valley on the 26th of September, 1847. Is was the largest company on the road that season, and was the second company that arrived in the valley after the pioneers-Daniel Spencer's being the first ; though Joseph Kingsbury was not one of the one hundred and forty-three men of the Pioneer band, he is properly considered one of the pioneers of 1847 and one of the founders of Salt Lake City.
He was one of those who built the "Old Fort," and he remained in the fort for a year and a half and then with his family he moved on to his city lot in the Second Ward. John Lowry was Bishop of the Second Ward and Joseph Kingsbury was chosen one of his counsellors ; he also soon succeeded Lowry as bishop of the Ward. He was ordained to the office of a bishop July 13th, 1851. He occupied this position and remained in Salt Lake City until October 16th, 1852, when he moved to Ogden, and in the following summer he moved over to what was then called East Weber, on Weber River. There he remained till the people moved south in the Spring of 1858, when Johnston's army entered the valley. He located at Provo and there remained till September of that year when he moved to Salt Lake City to make it his permanent home.
From this period dates Joseph Kingsbury's long connection with the General Tithing Store of the Church in Utah. He went to work in this office in September, 1860. In 1867, he was appointed superintendent of the Tithing Office under the direction of the late presiding bishop, Edward Hun- ter. He holds the office of superintendent to present date. It is a position of great trust, requiring much patience, care and impartiality in dealing with the people and public hands that they might be satisfied. He has more direct contact with the people than any other officer in the presiding bishop's department.
Of his various ordinations and callings it may be recapitulated in the summary. In Kirtland Joseph Kingsbury was ordained one of the elders to lay the foundation stone of the temple. Next he was ordained one of the high council of the Kirtland Stake, which signifies that he was one of the first high council in the Church. In Nauvoo he was in the Tithing Office under Bishop Whit- ney, as his assistant. In Salt Lake City he was counsellor to Bishop Lowry and afterwards bishop of the Second Ward, which entitles him to the rank and name of bishop, and historically to the note as one of the original bishops of Salt Lake City. January 25th, 1883, he was ordained a patriarch under the hands of Apostles Wilford Woodruff and Franklin D. Richards. Joseph Kingsbury was a great favorite of Edward Hunter, as he is indeed with the authorities and people generally. He my properly be considered as one of the representative men of the Mormon Church.
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