September 7th

Sept 7, 1857 - The Fancher wagon train from Arkansas, bound for California, is attacked at dawn at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah. The emmigrants form a defensive position and launch a counterattack quickly killing two Paiute Indians. John D. Lee watches the battle and later commented on the situation, "Now we knew the Indians could not do the work, and we were in a sad fix." Before the attack the Fancher party's cattle (which had earlier been promised to the Paiutes by Brigham Young) had been driven off. In the afternoon the battle becomes a standoff. Stake President Isaac Haight, former bodyguard of Joseph Smith, decides to send James Holt Haslam on horseback to Brigham Young for instructions.

Sept 7, 1859 - Salt Lake City clerk records sale of twenty six year old "negro boy" for $800 to William H. Hooper. Until federal law ends slavery in U.S. Territories in 1862, some African-American slaves are paid as tithing, bought, sold and otherwise treated as chattel in Utah.

Sept 7, 1874 - Brigham Young's son Joseph A. Young preaches to the Richfield United Order: "The feeling of 'mine' is the greatest feeling we have to combat."

Sept 7, 1916 - Corporation of the Presiding Bishop.

Sept 7, 1935 - First excommunication of many Mormon Fundamentalists who refuse to sign loyalty oath that, among other things, denies "any intimation that any one of the Presidency or Apostles of the church is living a double life." Later these excommunicants learn that Apostle Richard R. Lyman was living a polygamous "double life" at this time.

Sept 7, 1963 - DESERET NEWS insert titled PRESIDENT McKAY BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE, with headline on page 2: "Portrait of a Prophet at 90," and caption on page 7: "Hunstville is the Prophet's birthplace." This is not quite two years after the death of Counselor J. Reuben Clark who had opposed using "the Prophet" as reverential title for the living LDS president. However, CHURCH NEWS itself continues referring to McKay only as "President McKay" until 1965 after which there are increasing headline references to him as "the Prophet" or "the Beloved Prophet."

Sept 7, 1976 - At a BYU devotional address President Spencer W. Kimball preaches: "We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally . . . . and above all, the same religious background, without question." This is quoted in the June 17, 1978 issue of CHURCH NEWS in an article "Interracial Marriage Discouraged." This is the same issue which announces the lifting of the priesthood ban on Blacks.

Sept 7, 1982 - DENVER POST article "Fed Up, Mormon's Request Stuns Her Church" tells of 19-year-old Ann Wallace who in a surprise announcement that took even her family off guard, stood up in a Sunday public church meeting and read an 8-minute statement asking that she be excommunicated from the LDS church in which a woman cannot "experience 'the full power of God' without a man as intermediary." The 250 worshipers were reported to be "stunned" and "shocked." "A lot of people knew how I felt but no one expected me to ask for my excommunication," she added. "I wanted the women of the Church to know about it, too."

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