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The Deseret Telegraph—A Church-owned Public Utility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Leonard J. Arrington
Leonard J. Arrington
Affiliation:
Utah State Agricultural College
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Extract

The building of the Deseret Telegraph line by the Mormons in early Utah is one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the intermountain West. It is the only known instance in which a major regional telegraph line was constructed and operated by a church. It is also the only case in which a major line was, from the beginning, a completely public enterprise. It is a remarkable example of the agency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) in promoting the economic welfare and cultural unity of its membership in the last third of the nineteenth century.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Spring 1951 , pp. 117 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1951

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References

1 Thompson, Robert Luther, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1832–1866 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947), pp. 349 ft.Google Scholar

2 Neff, Andrew Love, History of Utah, 1847 to 1869, edited and annotated by Creer, Lcland Hargrave (Salt Lake City: The Desetet News Press, 1940), p. 730.Google Scholar

3 MS., Latter-day Saints “Journal History” (hereafter referred to as JH), December 15, 1861. This rich mine of historical information consists of several hundred large loose-leaf books of documents, arranged chronologically, from 1830 to the present. It is available in the Historian's Office of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 47 E. South Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah.

4 JH, October 17, 1861. Costs on the transcontinental line had averaged $135 per mile for the eastern division.—Thompson, Wiring a Continent, p. 370. It is interesting to note that $1,000,000 in stock was sold for construction of the eastern division of the transcontinental line, and this stock was sold to Western Union for $2,000,000 in Western Union stock, which was later tripled. Thus, “an original expenditure of $147,000 (and part of that not honestly spent) came to represent $6,000,000 of Western Union Telegraph stock”—Ibid., p. 370. This does not count the $460,000 received from government subsidies.

5 JH, February 9, 1862.

6 JH, September 22, 1862.

7 JH, January 2, 1863.

8 Ibid. The Council House was used primarily for religious and political meetings, but in this and other instances served as a “seat of learning.”

9 Deseret News, March 15, 1865.

10 Letter of Brigham Young to Daniel H. Wells and Brigham Young, Jr., JH, April 10, 1865.

11 JH, April 17, 1865.

12 Letter of Brigham Young to Wells, Daniel H. and Young, Brigham Jr., dated May 18, 1865, in Millennial Star, XXVII (1865), 414Google Scholar.

13 Quoted in Nibley, Preston, Brigham Young: The Man and His Work. (Independence, Missouri: Zion's Printing and Publishing Company, 1936), p. 406.Google Scholar

14 The First Presidency consists of the Church president, who is “Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,” and two “Counselors.” It is the highest administrative authority in the Mormon Church. See Durham, G. H., “Administrative Organization of the Mormon Church,” Political Science Quarterly, LVII (March 1942), 51–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Deseret News, November 9, 1865.

16 Deseret News Weekly, December 7, 1865.

17 Letter of Chauncey W. West to Elder John Donnellon, JH, November 21, 1865, italics supplied.

18 Daughters of Pioneers, Utah, Memories that Live: Utah County Centennial History (Provo, Utah: Utah County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1947), p. 354Google Scholar.

19 JH, October 14, 1866.

20 “Block teachers,” now called “ward teachers,” consisted of two men who were asked to visit each family in a “district” at least once a month.

21 MS., “Moroni Historical Record,” April 20, 1868, in the Latter-day Saints Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.

22 Tithing-office prices were the values, set by the bishop, at which produce and stock donations were credited on the tithing books of the Church. These values usually set the standard for private barter arrangements.

23 MS., “Moroni Historical Record,” June 16, 1867.

24 Longsdorf, Hilda Madsen, Mount Pleasant 1859–1939 (Mount Pleasant, Utah: Mount Pleasant Pioneer Historical Association, 1939), p. 115Google Scholar. Another student operator was John Henry Smith, who later became a member of the governing Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the Mormon Church. He was the father of George Albert Smith who until bis death, April 4, 1951, was the president of the Mormons.

25 JH, October 14, 1866.

26 E. W. Tultidge, Life of Brigham Young, supp. 67, quoted in Bancroft, H. H., History of Utah 1540–1886 (San Francisco: The History Company, Publishers, 1889), p. 771, n. 53Google Scholar.

27 Letter of Brigham Young to Brigham Young, Jr., and John W. Young, JH, August 11, 1866.

28 Jenson, W. C., “History of Logan” (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1927), p. 52Google Scholar.

29 Deseret News Extra, December 1, 1866.

30 The “tithing house” was usually a combination general store and warehouse. It was under the direction of the bishop of each local settlement. Tithe payers brought their donations “in kind” to this house.

31 JH, February 18, 1867.

32 Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Memories that Live, p. 354.

33 Sevier County Centennial Committee, Thru the Years: Sevier County Centennial History (Richfield, Utah, 1947), p. 40Google Scholar.

34 A striking parallel to the co-operative action and individual selflessness of Latter-day Saints in the construction and operation of such an enterprise as the telegraph line is furnished by medieval Christians in the building of Chartrcs Cathedral, as described by Adams, Henry in Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Washington, D.C., 1904)Google Scholar.

35 Daughters of Pioneers, Utah, Heart Throbs of the West, (11 vols., Salt Lake City, 1936–1950) I, 186Google Scholar.

36 City of Smithfield, The History of Smithfield (Smithfield, Utah, 1927), pp. 32–34.Google Scholar

37 MS., “Moroni Historical Record,” November 15, December 22, 1867.

38 For example, the line from Ogden to Logan went by way of canyon, Wellsville. “After the advent of the Utah Northern Railroad, the line was abandoned through Wellsville Canyon and was built along the railroad track into Logan.”—Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Communication of Early Utah, compiled by Kate B. Carter (Salt Lake City, 1936), p. 11.Google Scholar

39 Salt Lake Herald, June 28, 1871.

40 Jones, Marcus E., Utah (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1890), p. 849.Google Scholar

41 In the Deseret News, January 23, 1867, the line is referred to as the “Deseret State Telegraph.” The name “Deseret” came from the Book, of Mormon and was interpreted to mean “honeybee.” The provisional government set up by the Mormons in 1849 to govern their vast Western domain was called “State of Deseret” The beehive became a symbol of cooperative industry in Mormondom and the designation “Deseret” was attached to the title of a large number of Church economic enterprises.

42 Of the 5,000 shares originally issued, only 268 shares were in private hands in 1887.— Deseret News, October 5, 1889. The number of shares in the hands of the Church was probably even greater before 1887.

43 The initial meeting of the company was held February 20, 1867, after the completion of the line. Books were opened for the receipt of stock subscriptions on March 14, and the company was formally organized, March 21, 1867, with the following officers: Brigham Young, president; Daniel H. Wells, vice-president; William Clayton, secretary; George Q. Cannon, treasurer; Edward Hunter, George A. Smith, A. O. Smoot, A. H. Raleigh, John Sharp, Joseph A. Young, A. Milton Musser, Erastus Snow, and E. T. Benson, directors.—Deseret News, April 3, 1867.

44 JH, December 1, 1896.

45 Jenson, Andrew, Latter-Jay Saint Biographical Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City: The Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901), I, 382Google Scholar.

46 On Mormon co-operative enterprises see Larson, Gustive O., Prelude to the Kingdom—Mormon Desert Conquest: A Chapter in American Cooperative Experience (Francestown, New Hampshire: Marshall Jones Company, 1947)Google Scholar; and Gardner, Hamilton, “Cooperation Among the Mormons,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXXI (May 1917), 461–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Deseret News, October 20, 1891.

48 Whitney, Orson F., History of Utah (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1899), IV, 275.Google Scholar

49 Deseret News, June 15, 1889.

50 Brooks, Juanita, Dudley Leavitt: Pioneer to Southern Utah (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1945), p. 69.Google Scholar

51 Tithing scrip was a Church-printed currency which entitled the holder to the face value in stock or produce in the tithing house.

52 Anderson, Nels, Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), p. 387n.Google Scholar

53 Kenner, S. A., Utah As It Is Today (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1904), p. 216.Google Scholar

54 Whitney, History of Utah, IV, 275.

55 JH, March 28, 1900.

56 See “Book of Rules and Instructions” for 1896 on file in L.D.S. Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.

57 Anderson, Desert Saints, p. 365.

58 Deseret News, November 8, 1870.

59 That average Western Union rates were higher than average commercial rates on the Deseret line is evident from such sources as Hubbard, Gardiner G., “The Proposed Changes in the Telegraphic System,” The North American Review, CXVII (July 1873), 91, 97.Google Scholar

60 See Goldin, H. H., “Government Policy and the Domestic Telegraph Industry,” The Journal of Economic History, VII (May 1947), 57–58Google Scholar.

61 Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Communication of Early Utah, p. 9.

62 Young, Levi Edgar, The Founding of Utah (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923), p. 407Google Scholar.

63 Deseret News, October 20, 1891.

64 Letter of George A. Smith to J. S. Harris, Washington, D.C., JH, May 2, 1870.

65 Danielson, Marie, The Trail Blazer (Preston, Idaho: Daughters of Pioneers, 1930), p. 35Google Scholar.

66 “In the late 1870's [that is, early 1880's, L.J.A.] when Silver Reef was at its peak, Federal Officers began coming into town on their way to St. George to arrest polygamists. Silver Reef was a non-Mormon settlement, and the officers usually stopped there, but the telegraph operator was a Mormon. The St George telegraph office was in a furniture store, and the Silver Reef operator would warn the town by wiring for ‘two chairs’ when the officers appeared. St. George ‘polyg hunts’ were never very successful, and the officers usually left town to the tune of derisive songs.”—Utah Works Project Administration, Utah: A Guide to the State (New York: Hastings House, 1945), p. 301Google Scholar. Also see Anderson, Desert Saints, p. 365; and the diary of Operator Joseph Bentley, now in the possession of Dr. Harold Bentley, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

67 Deseret News, July n, 1888.

68 ibid., October 5, 1889.

69 For example, 1,081 shares were transferred to the Church Association of Salt Lake Stake, and 300 shares were distributed to the Church Association of Cache Stake. Deseret News, February 29, 1888; “Cache Association Record Book,” L.D.S. Church Historian's Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.

70 Deseret News, July 11, 1888.

71 Ibid. Dyer finally obtained possession of the disputed stock on October 6, 1888, according to a receipt on file in the Church Historian's Office. The delay was due to a special settlement which Church leaders had negotiated with Dyer.

72 Ibid., January 10, 1894.

73 JH, January 27, 1900.

74 JH, February 24, 1900.

75 JH, February 20, 1900.

76 JH, March 28, 1900.

77 Ibid.

78 JH, April 4, 1900.