Today in Mormon History - Jun 02

[TodayInMormonHistory]

On this day in Mormon History
http://TodayInMormonHistory.com/

-- 180 years ago today - Jun 02, 1846 --

U.S. President James K. Polk's cabinet authorizes him to ask the Latter-day Saints to provide several hundred men in the war against Mexico.
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-- 165 years ago today - Jun 2, 1861 (Morning) --

Prest. B. Y. preached one of the most interesting and exalted discourses that I ever heard, to a large and interesting audience. Reproved Bishop Warren of this [place] for selling gentile goods on commission to the brethren for wheat at a reduced price. Showed that their policy impoverished the people and bring them to wretchedness and misery. -- Parowan, Utah (1)
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-- 145 years ago today - Jun 2, 1881 --

Patriarchal Blessing of Jesse N. Martineau given by Joel Hills Johnson ... many of the great men of the earth shall come to thee for counsel and for wisdom in the calamities that shall fall upon the earth. Thou shalt have power to escape the power of the Destroyer, and to cast Satan's yoke upon his own neck, and be free from the power of sin and death; and heavenly messengers shall visit thee and instruct thee in all thy duties of life and shall touch thee even as Jesus Christ touched the three Nephites, that thou mayest live long upon the earth and not taste death. ... I seal thee up unto eternal lives, for thy offspring shall become great and mighty upon the earth ... (2)
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Patriarchal Blessing of Susan E. Martineau given by Joel Hills Johnson ... Thy friends from behind the vail, some of them, shall visit thee in thy vision in the night time, and instruct thee in all things that appertain to thy exaltation and glory. ... Thine offspring shall become a great and a mighty people in the midst of the earth, clothed with the power of the holy priesthood, and mighty men of God with honor and renown shall spring from thee. ... I seal thee up unto eternal lives with thy companion and thy children, to come forth in the morning of the first ressurrection [resurrection] ... (2)
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-- 120 years ago today - Jun 2, 1906 --
[George F. Richards]
[In Afton, Wyoming:] After afternoon meeting we called together the Stake Presidency High Counselors & Alternates, Presidency of High Priests and President of Seventies and catechised them as to their support of Pres[iden]t [Joseph F.] Smith and his action in relation to the practice of plural marriage as against some other sin authority. All voted in the affirmative. (3)
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-- 115 years ago today - Jun 2, 1911 --
[First Presidency, Letter to Maud Heder]
[Regarding an earlier First Presidency] letter [which] was addressed to you for the purpose of satisfying you that your pretended marriage with exbishop Samuel J. Robinson of Colonia Dublan was illegal and unlawful for the reason that the party, whoever he was, that performed the marriage ceremony did so without authority, and therefore it was in fact as if no marriage ceremony had been performed at all. We stated this in substance in our former letter to you. ... Now, dear sister, we repeat for your own satisfaction that inasmuch as this pretended marriage ceremony, which was performed not behalf of yourself and ex-Bishop Robinson, was without authority, and besides, in direct opposition to the stand which the Church had taken in regard to plural marriages, it was as though no ceremony had been performed at all, and is therefore null and void, and you are entirely free to enter into legitimate marriage relations with whomever you may choose. (4)
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-- 100 years ago today - Jun 2, 1926 --
[Heber J. Grant]
I. A. Smoot called this morning before the Council meeting and begged me to call his uncle [Senator/Apostle] Reed Smoot on a mission to visit the stakes and get away from the grind in Washington. I told him I thought it was a waste of time to attempt to get Reed to quit working, that we have been trying to do that for years, without success. (5)
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-- 55 years ago today - Jun 2, 1971 --

BYU Board of Trustees adopts a policy of not hiring mothers with small children and of replacing "where possible working mothers that are presently employed." (6)
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-- 45 years ago today - Jun 2, 1981-Tuesday --
[Leonard Arrington]
I have been informed that President [Spencer W.] Kimball is not very alert and perceptive nowadays-not "with it" in all matters. That seems a little difficult to believe in view of his trip to Latin America to dedicate the grounds for the temples in Peru and Chile.49 Nevertheless, that is what I have been told. I have been told also that President [Ezra Taft] Benson is ailing. The most vigorous person in Church Administration-the real power in the administration-I am told is [eighty-year-old] Elder [Mark E.] Petersen whose health is remarkably good. He is vigorous mentally and physically. (7)
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-- 15 years ago today - 2011 June 2 --

Mitt Romney announces his candidacy for the 2012 Republican nomination for President of the United States. Having been the runner-up in 2008, his Mormon faith is again the subject of media attention and political discussion. (8)
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1 - A Mormon Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee. 1848-1876. Robert Glass Cleland and Juanita Brooks, eds. San Marino, California: Huntington Library Press, 2003 ed. 314, quoted in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses
2 - Patriarchal Blessings
3 - George F. Richards Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010
4 - First Presidency, Letter to Maud Heder, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015
5 - The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1945, Abridged, Digital Edition Salt Lake City, Utah, 2015
6 - On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com
7 - Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018
8 - Wikipedia, 21st Century (Mormonism), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century_(Mormonism)