Manuscripts of Mary E. Lightner [microform] : 1863-1914 | Collections | The Huntington

OPEN TODAY: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.

Manuscripts

Manuscripts of Mary E. Lightner [microform] : 1863-1914

1 of 67

Description: Microfilm of manuscripts related to Mary E. Lightner, including a journal, miscellaneous writings, and letters. The first item on the reel is a journal kept by Mary while she was traveling by steamer to Omaha and overland to Utah from May to September 1863. The journal opens with Mary boarding the steamer Canada for St. Louis. Mary writes of a soldier who had lost his leg in battle during the Civil War, of a coffin containing another soldier, and of the difficult conditions on board with leaks, livestock, and disreputable passengers. She also writes of Mormons coming on board and that she had "not seen the face of a brother Mormon for 17 years." After landing at Omaha, Mary joined a camp with Mormons from England, Denmark, and Africa. She subsequently records her overland journey to Utah, and the journal ends with her arrival in Minersville. The miscellaneous writings include a speech made by Mary in 1889 (regarding her travels to Utah for her faith and the history of the Church), a short sketch of her marriage to Joseph Smith (1902), a sketch of the organization of the Minersville Relief Society (1914), and typed remarks given by Mary at B.Y.U. regarding Joseph Smith and the persecution of the Mormons (1905). The microfilm also contains 13 letters written to Mary, including one from Presendia L. Kimball (1890), three from Eliza Roxcy Snow (1865-1870, including mention of the Relief Society in Minersville), five from Emmeline B. Wills, the editor of the Woman's Exponent (1880-1889), 3 from Zina D.H. Young (1886-1887), and one from Brigham Young regarding Brother Henry, bishop at Minersville (1867). There is also one letter from Mary to Brother Henry and family (1895).

You might also be interested in

Sketch of the life of Mary Minerva Dart [Judd] [microform]: c.1840-1881
Manuscripts
Microfilm of Mary Minerva Dart Judd's autobiography, covering the years from approximately 1840-1865 (some brief notes and genealogical accounts continue into the 1880s). The account opens with reminiscences of Mary's childhood in New York and Connecticut, and with an account of her family's wagon travels to Council Bluffs in 1849 and to Utah in 1850. It recalls the Dart family's settlement in Parowan, where they had an encounter with Indian Chief Walkera (c.1808-1855), and Mary's marriage to Zadok Knapp Judd in 1852. Mary subsequently describes moving to Santa Clara in 1856, traveling near St. George, living in Harmony in 1857, and settling in Eagle Valley in 1865 (a genealogical note includes reference to the family's life in Kanab in the 1880s). Mary also writes of her father's mission to San Bernardino, of her cotton manufacturing, of the 1862 Santa Clara River flood, and of the death of George A. Smith, Jr. (1842-1860), who was apparently shot to death by a Navajo Indian. The account also references Indian children purchased by the Judds, including a boy named Lamoni who died while in their service, an unnamed girl who was purchased in 1858 and died in 1861, and a second girl named Nellie who was purchased in 1862 and in 1867 married a "wild Indian" and left to live with his family (she returned to the Mormon settlement as a washer woman). Also included is some genealogy and hymn lyrics.
MSS MFilm 00106
History of Mary Brown Pulsipher [microform] : 1872-1880
Manuscripts
Microfilm of the autobiography of Mary Brown Pulsipher, dated 1872 and which gives a very brief account of her childhood and her family's conversion to Mormonism, spending the winter in Far West, the death of her mother near Nauvoo, the family's move to Salt Lake City, and her husband's death in 1872. In 1880 she added a more thorough account of her religious background and conversion. Following Mary's death in 1886, her son John added an account of the last years of his mother's life to the volume, focusing on her time with family in St. George and Hebron, Utah. He also transcribed some of his mother's earlier writings, including her account of an 1879 celebration of her 80th birthday and her "Farewell Address to Hebron" (1883). The last few frames include diary entries Mary's daughter Eliza Terry made during a 1907 trip to Idaho. The very brief entries focus on traveling by train to Salt Lake City and Idaho, and her return trip to Salt Lake through Brigham City, Willard, and Ogden.
MSS MFilm 00095 item 02
Journal no. 16 [microform]: 1857-1863
Manuscripts
Typescript of Amasa Lyman's journal, identified as Journal #16, with entries spanning the years from 1857-1863. The first part describes Lyman's travels from April 18, 1857, to July 2, 1857, along the California Road and Indian Trail from the Rio Virgin. It continues with his participation in an exploratory party that traveled south from Cedar City, Utah, to Las Vegas, the Vegas Fort, and the Mojave Desert from January-May 1858, and also charts its return to Salt Lake City. References are made to Hyatt's war with the Apaches and Lyman's encounters with an Indian chief he calls Oat-sen-a-wantz. The final section of the diary, kept from December 1862 to April 1863, describes Lyman's daily life near Farmington, Utah, including his attendance of the local theatre, a listing of the books he was reading, and his encounters with John Taylor. Includes a description of the original diary.
MSS MFilm 00030
The story of my life as affected by polygamy [microform], 1948
Manuscripts
Microfilm of two drafts of Mary Bennion Powell's The Story of My Life as Affected by Polygamy. The first, shorter draft describes the polygamous past of Mary's family, including the plural marriages of her grandfather John Bennion, which she writes led to much unhappiness in her father's childhood, and the story of her mother's widowed mother Mary Ann Frost and her plural marriage to Parley Pratt and the monogamous marriage of her grandparents Oscar Winters and Mary Ann Stearns (Mary describes that Mary Ann, pressured by the Church, convinced her husband to enter a plural marriage with her mother Mary Ann Frost, which was quickly annulled). Much of the document focuses on "the struggle with the horror of polygamy," and particularly of Mary's hatred of her father Heber Bennion's third wife Mayme Bringhurst, who he married after "an unfortunate experience" and "ensuing scandal" between her and his brother. Mary writes scathingly of "this creature" Mayme and the disaster she brought on the family (Mary ascribes the deaths of her sisters and mother to polygamy) and that when she found out her father had married Mayme he became "a monster hideous beyond description." The second draft was written for the Sociology Department of the University of Wisconsin in 1948, to be used as "case material in a study of Mormon sex mores." The content is similar to the first draft although includes more writings on Heber's childhood, his resignation as bishop of Taylorsville over polygamy issues, Mary's indictments of the Mormon Church's approach to polygamy, and more of Mayme's infamy, including her dressing "like a prostitute" and behaving as a "kept woman." Mary concludes the draft with the note "Please, sirs, will you tell me why I can't stop hating them, after all these years." Also included are various letters Mary wrote to the University of Wisconsin regarding the project, as well as a letter to T.C. McCormick in which she enquires about libel laws.
MSS MFilm 00170
Diary of Martha Spence Heywood [microform] : 1850-1856
Manuscripts
Microfilm of a typescript of Martha Spence Heywood's diary, kept from 1850-1856. It begins when Martha was living in Kanesville, Iowa, after joining the Mormon Church and while waiting to travel westward. She gives a brief account of her baptism in Canada and sojourns with various Mormon families in New York State. She also recounts her travels to St. Louis in 1849 and teaching school in Springville. Martha departed with the Joseph Heywood company for Utah in 1850 and gives a detailed account of the company's journey across the plains. The majority of the diary recounts in detail Martha's life in Nephi, Utah, from 1850-1856. She writes personal and insightful insights on polygamy (shortly after her marriage to Heywood she wrote "Tis rather trying to a woman's feelings not to be acknowledged by the man she has given herself to and desires to love with all her heart"), the birth and raising of her children, her illnesses from childbirth, the death of her daughter Serepta Maria from measles in 1856, her loneliness in Nephi (she wrote that she "could not bear" to be left alone by her husband and taught school in 1854 since it was "of much benefit to me as the activity ... and its responsibility prevented lonesomeness that otherwise would have been disagreeable"), and politics within the Mormon settlement at Nephi. She also writes of Indian troubles, including Mormons killed by Indians in 1853, and of the discovery of two bodies dressed in United States livery who were shot to death in November 1852. Martha also writes frequently of her acquaintances in Nephi, visits by Brigham Young, and a variety of other domestic concerns.
MSS MFilm 00161
Diary of Patty Bartlett Sessions [microform] : 1846-1866
Manuscripts
Microfilm of a typescript of Patty Bartlett Sessions' diaries, beginning while she was living in Nauvoo in 1846 and ending in Utah in 1866. It covers her overland travels from Illinois, her time in Winter Quarters, and her arrival in Utah. Most of the diary consists of entries on daily activities and events in Utah, and refers throughout to Sessions' work as a midwife.
MSS MFilm 00631 item 01