On 10/18 in New Mormon History...
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New Mormon History
Oct 18, 2025, 7:28:51 AMOct 18
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Historic events in New Mormon History on 10/18
1851: trial of confessed murderer (and newly returned LDS missionary) Howard Egan. His lawyer Apostle George A. Smith popularizes phrase “mountain common law” and argues: “The man who seduces his neighbor‘s wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill him!” Fifteen minutes later jury finds Egan not guilty of murder. Church authorities print Smith’s closing argument in Deseret News, in two pamphlets, and later in the Journal of Discourses 1:97. Egan is one of Brigham Young’s enforcers.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1857: William A. Hickman kills non-Mormon Richard Yates for trying to transport munitions to U.S. army. Hickman later implicates Brigham Young, second counselor Daniel H. Wells, and Joseph A. Young in decision, and judge Hosea Stout in actual murder. In 1858 Mormon woman says that Yates “disappeared-‘used up [killed] in the pocket of the Lord,’ we call it-and Bill Hickman-one of the ‘Destroyers’-passed through this very town, waving the overcoat of Yates, and riding his bay pony.” Hickman later writes that he gave to President Young money he took from Yates’s body. Despite arrest and pre-trial detention, all those indicted in 1871 for Yates murder are freed by U.S. Supreme Court in 1872 due to improper impaneling of juries.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1861: Brigham Young sends the first message on the newly completed telegraph line to the president of the Pacific Telegraph Company in Ohio: "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1890: Apostle Abraham H. Cannon writes concerning the bribery of federal officials: "Thus with a little money a channel of communication is kept open between the government offices and the suffering and persecuted Church members."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1914: Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Francis M. Lyman publicly state that undergarments worn by endowed persons outside the temple must "come high up on the neck and down to the wrists and ankles, for that was the pattern revealed from heaven."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1929: A First Presidency urges European Mormons not to emigrate to the United States.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1969: BYU's football team is beaten by the University of Wyoming despite its loss of 14 African-American players (half in the starting line-up) "for wearing black arm bands in protest to BYU's allegedly rescist policies." Less than 24 hours earlier, the 14 were expelled from the team for joining a Laramie "campus protest movement against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which controls BYU."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1980: A Church News article about the LDS institute of religion at university: "Kim R. Rogers was warmly received despite [his] long hair, liberal attitudes."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1988: At the request of Counselor Gordon B. Hinckley, President Ezra Taft Benson appoints a committee of three apostle-lawyers (Howard W. Hunter, James E. Faust, and Dallin H. Oaks) to formally investigate the publicly announced claims that as an apostle Hinckley allegedly had a long-term homosexual affair with a younger man. Circulated internationally by Protestant evangelicals through the anti-Mormon video and book 'Godmakers II,' these allegations are repudiated by the apostolic committee as "pure fabrication" after "an extensive probe." Hinckley puts a formal end to this investigation on 6 May 1993 when he reads a statement to the Presidency and Twelve. While he is counselor, the temple council decides against making any kind of public denial. As church president Hinckley's authorized biography devotes three pages to this matter in 1996 but does not state whether he asked the temple council to rescind its previous vote against the public statement.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
To see the whole database in chronological order, Click here. Note that I'm not done entering all the information. While most of these facts come from Quinn's book, I'm seeking the primary sources for each, but this will take a long time.
1851: trial of confessed murderer (and newly returned LDS missionary) Howard Egan. His lawyer Apostle George A. Smith popularizes phrase “mountain common law” and argues: “The man who seduces his neighbor‘s wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill him!” Fifteen minutes later jury finds Egan not guilty of murder. Church authorities print Smith’s closing argument in Deseret News, in two pamphlets, and later in the Journal of Discourses 1:97. Egan is one of Brigham Young’s enforcers.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1857: William A. Hickman kills non-Mormon Richard Yates for trying to transport munitions to U.S. army. Hickman later implicates Brigham Young, second counselor Daniel H. Wells, and Joseph A. Young in decision, and judge Hosea Stout in actual murder. In 1858 Mormon woman says that Yates “disappeared-‘used up [killed] in the pocket of the Lord,’ we call it-and Bill Hickman-one of the ‘Destroyers’-passed through this very town, waving the overcoat of Yates, and riding his bay pony.” Hickman later writes that he gave to President Young money he took from Yates’s body. Despite arrest and pre-trial detention, all those indicted in 1871 for Yates murder are freed by U.S. Supreme Court in 1872 due to improper impaneling of juries.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1861: Brigham Young sends the first message on the newly completed telegraph line to the president of the Pacific Telegraph Company in Ohio: "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1890: Apostle Abraham H. Cannon writes concerning the bribery of federal officials: "Thus with a little money a channel of communication is kept open between the government offices and the suffering and persecuted Church members."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1914: Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Francis M. Lyman publicly state that undergarments worn by endowed persons outside the temple must "come high up on the neck and down to the wrists and ankles, for that was the pattern revealed from heaven."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1929: A First Presidency urges European Mormons not to emigrate to the United States.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1969: BYU's football team is beaten by the University of Wyoming despite its loss of 14 African-American players (half in the starting line-up) "for wearing black arm bands in protest to BYU's allegedly rescist policies." Less than 24 hours earlier, the 14 were expelled from the team for joining a Laramie "campus protest movement against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which controls BYU."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1980: A Church News article about the LDS institute of religion at university: "Kim R. Rogers was warmly received despite [his] long hair, liberal attitudes."
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
1988: At the request of Counselor Gordon B. Hinckley, President Ezra Taft Benson appoints a committee of three apostle-lawyers (Howard W. Hunter, James E. Faust, and Dallin H. Oaks) to formally investigate the publicly announced claims that as an apostle Hinckley allegedly had a long-term homosexual affair with a younger man. Circulated internationally by Protestant evangelicals through the anti-Mormon video and book 'Godmakers II,' these allegations are repudiated by the apostolic committee as "pure fabrication" after "an extensive probe." Hinckley puts a formal end to this investigation on 6 May 1993 when he reads a statement to the Presidency and Twelve. While he is counselor, the temple council decides against making any kind of public denial. As church president Hinckley's authorized biography devotes three pages to this matter in 1996 but does not state whether he asked the temple council to rescind its previous vote against the public statement.
Source: See The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn
To see the whole database in chronological order, Click here. Note that I'm not done entering all the information. While most of these facts come from Quinn's book, I'm seeking the primary sources for each, but this will take a long time.
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