Table Of ContentJoseph Morris
And The
asa O f The
C. LeRoy Anderson
1988
Utah State University Press
Copyright© 1981, 1988
Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah 84322-7800
All rights reserved.
Paperback edition: 1988
Much of the material contained in Part IV was originally published
in Montana, the Magazine of Western History 26 (October 1976).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, C. Leroy.
[For Christ will come tomorrow]
Joseph Morris and the saga of the Morrisites / C. Leroy Anderson,
p. cm.
Reprint. Previous published: For Christ will come tomorrow. Logan, Utah:
Utah State University Press, cl981.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-87421-133-6
1. Church of the First Born (Morrisites)—History. 2. Mormon Church—
History. 3. Morris, Joseph 1824-1862. 4. Church of the First Born (Morrisites)
—Biography. 5. Mormons—Biography. 6. Morrisite War, 1862. I. Title.
BX8680.M64A83 1988 88-1292
289.3’3—dcl9 CIP
to Jody, Elaine, and Cathy—
and to Margaret, who helped a great deal.
Contents
Preface xi
Introduction
In Prospect 1
Parti The Making of a Prophet
1. Letters from Obscurity 13
2. Prophets of Pentecost 19
3. The Seventh Angel Speaks 31
4. Threats in Desperation 45
5. The Millennial Hope 59
Part II Prelude to Battle
6. The Gathering Storm 81
7. The Storm Descends 101
Part III The Morrisite War
8. The Last Revelation 127
9. Aftermath 147
Part IV The Dispersion
10. Exodus 159
11. The Soda Springs Settlement 165
12. The Prophet Cainan 173
13. The Left Wing of the Great Eagle:
Nevada and California 187
14. The Walla Walla Jesus 197
15. Deer Lodge:
The Heavenly City 205
Conclusion
In Retrospect 233
Bibliography 253
Index 257
Preface
Preface
Nineteenth-century America witnessed a great revival of and at
times fervent interest in Christ’s Second Advent. Although the Christian
movement had been built on millennial eschatology, many Christian
sects developed a wide variety of specific expectations about the nature,
time, and place of the Second Advent. Dozens, if not hundreds of sects
announced their own particular version of that great event. The pre-
millennialists believed that Christ would appear prior to the time that a
perfect society existed, while the postmillennialists preached that a per
fect society must be established before the Second Coming. Thousands
tried to set their lives in order so that they might personally share in the
rapture. Some abandoned their professions, some gave all their posses
sions to the poor, and still others gave up friends and family to travel
great distances and join the millennial throng.
Among the most colorful and enduring of the nineteenth-century
millennial sects was the Mormons. They expected to build a great temple
in the City of Zion as a fitting abode for the resurrected Jesus, but their
abrupt expulsion from Missouri and Illinois removed them from the
designated Land of Zion and placed the seeming imminence of the
Second Advent into the indefinite future. Their expulsion and migration
to the Rocky Mountains disillusioned many adherents who refused to
take the long and problematic journey under the leadership of Brigham
Young. They either joined with other dissidents who stayed behind and
Xll
Preface
developed their own version of Mormonism, or simply dropped out of
the Mormon movement entirely.
In 1857, ten years after the first Mormons came into the Great Salt
Lake Valley, Joseph Morris began writing a series of letters to Brigham
Young announcing his own prophetic calling and proposing that Young
retain the presidency of the church, but relinquish the role of prophet,
seer, and revelator to God’s true prophet, Morris himself. The extensive
quotations from Morris’s letters to Brigham Young that are included in
this volume are essential in gaining greater insight into the mind of
Morris as well as in helping us understand the rather one-sided exchange.
This work chronicles the life and death of Joseph Morris and traces
the movement he initiated from its inception in 1857 to its ultimate
demise nearly one hundred years later. Although Joseph Morris was
originally a devout Mormon, his premillennialist views, fertile imagina
tion, and penchant for claiming to communicate frequently with super
natural beings soon placed him at odds with local and regional Mormon
leaders and eventually with Brigham Young himself.
Although the Morrisites were victimized on many occasions, they
often contributed to their own victimization. They not only fell victim to
the pervasive religious fanaticism in Utah Territory during the latter half
of the nineteenth century, but were victimized by both Mormon and
Morrisite leaders. One might conclude that they were also victimized
by the federal government, which appeared to be more interested in
protecting the interests of outsiders than those of either the Mormons or
Mormon dissidents.
Yet, in all fairness we must remember that the Mormon-Morrisite
conflict occurred while the Civil War was going badly for the Union,
and the federal government had few resources that could be spared.
Furthermore, the Mormons were still struggling to develop their own
unique place on the American religious scene and three decades of severe
persecution had rendered them intolerant of either outside interference
or internal dissent. Besides, religious extremism was not unusual at
that time, either in Utah territory or in most places throughout the
United States.
In that sense, the story of the Morrisites illustrates the profound
truth that a people may be the victims of the preoccupations of their
entire culture. Perhaps we may learn something from the nineteenth-
