Today in Mormon History - May 27

[TodayInMormonHistory]

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

-- 180 years ago today - May 27, 1846 --
[Hosea Stout]
"Pleasant Green Taylor, my wifes brother came to the tent wet thoroughly. ... He said also that there was a war between the United States and Mexico [the saints were fleeing the U.S., headed to Mexican territory] and a great excitement in the state about raising troops to March to the relief of General Taylor in Texas who had already had two battles with the Mexicans. I confess that I was glad to learn of war against the United States and was in hopes that it might never end untill they were entirely destroyed for they had driven us into the wilderness & was now laughing at our calamities." (1)
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-- 180 years ago today - Wednesday, May 27, 1846. --
[Willard Richards]
"... The Saints have got to become so pure that their bodies will be changed in a moment as Jesus’ was, and not rest in the grave a 100 or a thousand years. Meeting adjourned 12. ..." (2)
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-- 160 years ago today - May 27, 1866 --

Louise Yates (Robison), later the seventh general president of the Relief Society, is born in Scipio, Utah.
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-- 125 years ago today - May 27, 1901 --

Apostle John Henry Smith, visiting in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, writes in his journal: "I had a talk with A. F. McDonald about Sealings and I told him if he was sealing Plural Wiles to men his standing in the church was in danger." (3)
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-- 115 years ago today - May 27, 1911 --

Mahonri M. Young's life-size statues of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, "The Prophet and The Patriarch," are placed on Temple Square.
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-- 80 years ago today - May 27, 1946 --

Fawn Brodie writes her parents: "Thank you for sending the Hugh Nibley pamphlet [No Ma'am, That's Not History]. I had expected better things in this 'scholarly reply to Mrs. Brodie.' It is a flippant and shallow piece. He really did me a service by demonstrating the difference between his scholarship and mine. If that is the best a young Mormon historian can offer, then I am all the more certain that the death of B.H. Roberts meant the end of all that was truly scholarly and honest in orthodox Mormon historiography." (3)
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-- 60 years ago today - May 27, 1966 --

Ezra Taft Benson to Robert H. Hinckley, 27 May 1966: "I cannot believe that a man with your background and experience would make the errors attributed to you in the attached item from the Deseret News of May 25th". [Hinckley had criticized the John Birch Society and noted that Ezra Taft Benson was a leading figure of the right-wing. See entry for May 24, 1966.] (4)
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-- 40 years ago today - May 27, 1986. --

LDS Historical Department officials announce that researchers must apply for admittance, be interviewed by an archives official, and sign a statement agreeing to abide by archival rules which include submitting a pre-publication copy of quotations and their context to the Copyrights and Permissions Office. A typical letter granting such permission uses the following language: "After reviewing your request, we have decided to raise no objections to your proposed use of the requested material." Physical remodeling of the facilities puts patrons using archival materials in a small glass-walled room. (5)
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1 - Diaries of Hosea Stout
2 - Apostle Willard Richards Journal
3 - On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com
4 - folder 2, box 124, Hinckley Papers. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.
5 - Anderson, Lavina Fielding, "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology," Dialogue, Vol.26, No.1