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Manuscripts

Autobiography and journal of James Holt

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Description
The first part of the manuscript is an autobiography recorded by James Holt which covers the years from approximately 1824 until the late 1840s. It recounts his childhood experiences in England, including his time as a printer's apprentice, his religious background, his introduction to Mormonism through one of his printing masters, his disappointment that his family did not share his zeal for the new faith, his receiving word of the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith ("massacred by a mob in Carthage Jail...although many false reports had...been circulated, this we felt to be true," he wrote), a copy of his patriarchal blessing, a blessing for Sarah Rostron, parody song lyrics (I am Brave Old Oak), some family genealogy, and an extract from a work on "Apostolical [sic] succession." The second, brief part of the manuscript is a diary kept by Holt while he was living in Salt Lake City in 1853. He writes of training with the Nauvoo Legion (although he was probably already in Utah at the time) and of "suspicious appearances among the Indians" leading a group of mounted men going south to arrest all "strolling Mexicans, Spaniards and other strangers" who may have been supplying the Indians with guns "in exchange for Indian children." The final paragraph of the diary was written in an unknown hand and recounts Holt's death in 1856. Included with the manuscript are notes on the Holt family, a sketch, and two maps.
Type
Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date
approximately 1840-approximately 1856.
Call number
mssHM 35255
Creator
Holt, James (1824-1856)(Opens in new tab)
Provenance
Gift of Evelyn Chambers, July 31, 1976.
Find out more
View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

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