Today in Mormon History - Oct 19

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On this day in Mormon History
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-- 180 years ago today - Oct 19, 1841 --
[Wilford Woodruff]
I felt to rejoice to spend a night with my family under a roof of my own it being the first time that I have ever injoyed such a privilege since we were married. + (1)
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-- 165 years ago today - Oct 19, 1856 --

Blizzard strikes Willie Company near Seventh Crossing of the Sweetwater and the Martin Company at the Upper Crossing of the Platte. (2)
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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.
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[Wilford Woodruff]
In the afternoon President H. C Kimball J M. Grant F D. Richards & Z Pulsipher occupied the time. President Kimball & Grant flung the Arrows of God into the Hearts of the Transgressor. The spirit & power of God was upon them.

I attended the Council prayer Circle. ...

President B. Young said to J. C. Little I wish you would see Hosea Stout & see if their is any Law whareby I can Handle Judge Drummand for He has trampelled over all Law of this Territory walked over the Legislature of this Territory & all their Enactments & if their is any Law that I can get hold of I want to send for him & Judg him up. He has said there was no Marriage in this Territory that was Legal whether a man had one wife or more ...

President Young said I have got a Letter from Elder Hyde. He officiated as Clerk in [non-Mormon] Drummonds Court & wrote things there day after Day against God our religion & the people for a few dimes. He ought to be Cut off from the Quorum of the Twelve & 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 & it is much more in his eyes than God Heaven & Eternal Life. He is a stink in my norstrels. (1)
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-- 130 years ago today - 1891. October 19 --

(Wilford Woodruff) The Church had been disincorporated and all its property in excess of $50,000 confiscated by the federal government; more than a thousand men had been sentenced to prison for unlawful cohabitation. In February the Supreme Court had upheld the Idaho law which disfranchised anyone unwilling to take an oath denouncing plural marriage.

1891. October 19: Church leaders hoped that the Manifesto would unlock the door to statehood for Utah and provide relief from federal legislation. But testifying before the Master in Chancery for the return of escheated Church property, President Woodruff extended the Manifesto beyond its original intent. When asked if the Manifesto prohibited "living or associating in plural marriage by those already in the status," he replied, "I intended the proclamation to cover the whole ground—to obey the laws of the land entirely." (3)
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-- 130 years ago today - Oct 19, 1891 --

(19-20) The First Presidency and Lorenzo Snow, the Twelve's president, and Apostle Anthon H. Lund testify in court that the Manifesto prohibits new plural marriages anywhere in the world and prohibits cohabitation with wives married before the Manifesto and that the church will excommunicate violators. Although the testimony is published in various editions of the Deseret News, all polygamous general authorities violate this by continuing to cohabit with their plural wives after 1891. (4)
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-- 95 years ago today - Oct 19, 1926 --
[First Presidency to 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. (5)
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-- 50 years ago today - Oct 19, 1971 --

The Genesis Group is organized for the 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. (4)
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1 - Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies
2 - Handcart Timeline, Will Bagley
3 - Van Wagoner, Richard and Walker, Steven C., A Book of Mormons, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies
4 - The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database (http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase)]
5 - Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, and Charles W. Nibley to Joseph W. McMurrin, Oct. 19, 1926, in Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship