October 19th

Oct 19, 1843 - Joseph Smith tells his secretary William Clayton not to worry about an upcoming birth from a secret polygamous union: "if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will baptise you and set you ahead as good as ever."

Oct 19, 1844 - William Clayton writes in his journal: "Last night I dreamed I was in a rich building in a very pleasant place. I thought I was married to Brother Cutlers Youngest daughter and she seemed as happy as an angel and I felt full of joy and peace. I thought I had received Miss Cutler in addition to those I had already got. When I awoke I felt disappointed and felt to pray in my heart O God if it be thy will to give me that woman for a companion and my soul shall praise thee but thy will be done and not mine." Emily Cutler was sixteen years old at this time; Clayton was 30 years old and had three wives. He went on to have ten wives and 47 children.

Oct 19, 1845 - William Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, Apostle and Presiding Patriarch, is excommunicated for his pamphlet denouncing apostolic succession. The October conference had already dropped him as an Apostle and Presiding Patriarch.

Oct 19, 1856 - Brigham Young reports to his personal prayer circle that he has received a letter from Apostle Orson Hyde in Carson Valley and accuses the Hyde of writing things "day after day against God, our religion, and the people, for a few dimes." Young asserts that Hyde "ought to be cut off from the Quorum of the Twelve and the Church. He is no more fit to stand at the head of the Quorum of the Twelve than a dog. His soul is entirely occupied with a few dimes and it is much more in his eyes than God, heaven and eternal life. He is a stink in my nostrils."

Also on this day U.S. postmaster general James Campbell awards a Utah mail contract to Hiram Kimball, representing Brigham Young's newly formed BYX Company, for $23,000. The company name had been reduced to initials to conceal Young's involvement. Kimball and Young does not learn of their good fortune for some time because of a delay in the mail. This delay postpones the first BYX mail departure from the valley until 8 February 1857. Young chose Bill Hickman and O. Porter Rockwell to be his main mailmen ("pony express" riders). Hickman did not want to go but Young told him it was his duty. When Hickman returned to the Valley 4 months later he lamented that he was $1000 poorer than when he started. Brigham Young did not pay him for his part in the project.

Oct 19, 1884 - President John Taylor, speaking in Ogden two days after testifying in an anti-polygamy case, says he doesn't want to know anything that he might be asked to divulge on the stand someday: "Therefore I tell them to keep their own secrets, and remember what is called the Mormon creed: 'Mind your own business.' . . . I have studiously avoided knowing any more than I could possibly help about such matters."

Oct 19, 1891 - Church President Wilford Woodruff testifies under oath that the manifesto also forbids men from living with their plural wives whom they married before the manifesto.

Oct 19, 1896 - President Wilford Woodruff preaches: "Joseph Smith visited me a great deal after his death, and taught me many important principles. . . . Brigham Young also visited me after his death. On one occasion he and Brother Heber C. Kimball came in a splendid chariot, with fine white horses, and accompanied me to a conference that I was going to attend."

Oct 19, 1899 - At a meeting of the First Presidency and apostles it is agreed to no longer charge fee for giving blessings to departing full-time missionaries.. Formerly 50 cents was charged. At the same meeting "Pres. J. F. Smith stated that brethren going on missions who were over sixty years of age were instructed that, as the church did not require elders beyond that age to take missions, if they were released on account of sickness or physical disability, they would be obliged to bear their expenses home." It is also suggested and approved that "that the brethren in visiting the conferences should call the bishopric[s] of the wards together and give them some special instructions—especially in regard to visiting members of their wards who were slack in the payment of tithes or were non-tithepayers, and seek in [a] private way to convert them to the principle."

Oct 19, 1894 - Apostle Abraham H. Cannon records that his father, First Counselor in the First Presidency George Q. Cannon: "spoke to me about taking some good girl and raising up seed by her for my brother David." Within days, he has the hearty approval of the two other members of the First Presidency. This polygamous marriage occurs two years later after a long courtship.

Oct 19, 1901 - Apostle Rudger Clawson records: "I had a long talk with President A. H. Lund [First Counselor to Joseph F. Smith] regarding the financial condition of the church. Among other things, I told him that the present church indebtedness in round numbers amounted to $1,237,000.00."

Oct 19, 1926 - The First Presidency writes to First Quorum of Seventies President Joseph W. McMurrin: "We find upon inquiry that it has been some years since ordinances bestowing second blessings have been performed in cases where both parties are dead. Where people are sealed in the temple for and on behalf of the dead, or in cases where people who are dead were themselves sealed while living, the feeling has always been that every privilege, power and blessing of every description will be given to them, if they have lived worthy of same, and that they could not have more even if they had additional blessings sealed upon them. We, therefore, feel that there is no necessity of performing the ordinances that Sister Smith requests."

Oct 19, 1965 - BYU DAILY UNIVERSE article "Men Prefer War, Women Marriage" reports that 84 percent of male BYU students express a willingness to fight in Vietnam.

Oct 19, 1971 - Genesis Group is organized for Salt Lake Valley's 200 LDS African-Americans to meet for auxiliary organizations, while attending sacrament meetings in their respective wards. Apostle Gordon B. Hinckley sets apart Ruffin Bridgeforth, Jr. as president, with Darius Gray and Eugene Orr as counselors.

Oct 19, 1984 - Second counselor Gordon B. Hinckley dedicates temple at Dallas, Texas.

Oct 19-20, 1891 - First Presidency and Lorenzo Snow, Twelve's president, and Apostle Anthon H. Lund testify in court that Manifesto prohibits new plural marriages anywhere in world and prohibits cohabitation with wives married before the Manifesto and that the church will excommunicate violators. Although testimony is pulished in various editions of DESERET NEWS, all polygamous general authorities violate this by continuing to cohabit with their plural wives after 1891. In 1904 President Joseph F. Smith testifies under oath that he is in violation of both the "law of the land" as well as the "law of the church" in continuing to cohabit with plural wives.

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