1819 UTAH ANTI-MORMON BIBLE. Bible Owned by Man who Started the Utah War

A very handsomely restored 1819 early edition "American Bible Society" imprint in very fine speckled calf with tooled spine, having a somewhat recent, exceedingly competent respine, retaining all original materials. 

The present is a choice little piece of Utah, Utah War, and Westward Expansion History.  The very first entrance to the "Family Record" is that of W. M. F. Magaw and Elizabeth Sides, married 1843. 

W. M. F. Magraw, originally from Maryland, was an aggressive and, as it turns out, vindictive businessman, whose interests and anti-mormon activism helped bring about the Utah War [May 1857 to July of 1858]. 

Looking for business ventures in the West, W. M. F. Magraw saw an opportunity in Utah. He won the bid for the Post Office mail contract at $14,400 per year. John M. Hockaday joined him as a silent partner, and together they immediately convinced Congress to raise their compensation to $30,000 annually. Magraw rode into Salt Lake City on 31 July 1854.

Tensions between Magraw-Hockaday and the Utahns were high almost immediately. The citizens accused Magraw of slow deliveries, of not handling the "Indian incursions" on the mail well, and of general bad practice. Whether the accusations were accurate or not isn't known. Regardless, the Salt Lake residents gathered at a June 1856 public assembly to issue a formal complaint about the mail service.

The US Senate and House of Representatives, not in the mood to take on any additional conflicts to the slavery expansion issue in the West, canceled his contract and paid him for his losses.

An indicator of the acidic relationship between Magraw and the Utahns was Deseret News editor, Albert Carrington, glib farewell. He wished Magraw “that the large amount of government funds, paid to him, for getting in the way of those who would have [the job] . . . may prove as little of a gratification and benefit to him as his mail-course has been to us.”

The angry and frustrated Magraw submitted another bid and anxiously awaited the outcome. But someone else was keen for the contract. Governor Brigham Young engaged Hiram S. Kimball, Governor Young’s undeclared agent, to submit a low bid of $23,000 - half of Magraw’s new proposal. The Post Office Department awarded the contract to the Church’s company in early October.

Magraw was not amused, and became obsessed with revenge against the Latter Day Saints. He wrote to President Franklin Pierce on 3 October 1856 about “the Mormon country,” arguing that Utah Territory had “no vestige of law and order” and that the “so-styled ecclesiastical organization” was “despotic, dangerous and damnable.” This letter was followed up three days later with one by John Hockaday’s brother Isaac, complaining to Pierce that “the entire Territory of Utah is under the complete control of a most lawless set of knaves and assassins who trample under foot the rights of those not belonging to their so called religious community.”

The letters built on and amplified antagonistic sentiments of the time. That same year the Republican Party had adopted a presidential platform plank calling for eradication in the territories of “those twin relics of barbarism—Polygamy, and Slavery.” 

War was becoming ever more likely and Magraw would make sure he wasa part of bringing it to Utah. James Buchanan, a friend of the Magraw family, was elected in 1856. He made his way to the White House on a train furnished by James' brother, Robert Magraw. 

On 6 January 1857, Utah legislators approved provocative  written memorials to be delivered to Washington D.C., arguing for rejection of federal officials who did not reflect local values. As historian Brent M. Rogers has argued, “The question of sovereignty—or determining who possessed and could exercise governing, legal, social, and even cultural power—is at the crux of Utah Territory’s history.”

The memorials arrived in Washington on 17 March, the same day the New York Herald called for “immediate and decisive action” on Utah and Kansas. Two days later, Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson called the memorials “a declaration of war.”

By April, John M. Bernhisel, Utah’s territorial delegate in the US House of Representatives, had written to Governor Young that “the clouds are dark and lowering, . . . that the Government intended to put [polygamy] down,” and that federal troops might be sent to overturn the perceived rebellion.

The Washington National Intelligencer reprinted a long letter on 21 April asking for a federal force of five thousand to deal with Brigham Young. It was signed by “Verastus” (likely Magraw), described as “a respectable citizen, who lately spent twelve months in the Salt Lake Valley, engaged in business connected with the transit of the mails throughout the territory.” Two days later, President Buchanan appointed Magraw superintendent of the newly approved Pacific Wagon Road from Fort Kearny to South Pass to Honey Lake; thus Magraw would triumphantly return to Utah Territory.

At the end of the month, Robert Tyler, one of Buchanan’s closest advisers and the son of President John Tyler, recommended a plan to help the nation “forget Kansas” and to replace “Negro-Mania” with “the almost universal excitements of an Anti-Mormon Crusade.”

In May, while Congress was adjourned, Buchanan ordered 2,500 US soldiers to escort and install a new territorial governor of Utah and the newly appointed Chief Justice of Utah’s territorial Supreme Court, Delana R. Eckels. To aid the army, but without authorization, the bitter and drunken Magraw loaned fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of wagons, mules, and employees to the new Utah Expedition. He gladly funded the military that would be set against "mormonism." The fires had been lit.

Just after the president sent Magraw-funded US troops to Utah Territory, the Post Office Department annulled the mail contract on 10 June. Senator Stephen A. Douglas argued on 12 June that “when the authentic evidence shall arrive,” Congress would see fit to “apply the knife and cut out this loathsome and disgusting ulcer.”

Thus began the Utah War [of Expedition]. 

As the final insult to Utah, after months of campaigning during the Utah War, Magraw’s former partner, John Hockaday, secured the lucrative mail contract—now worth $190,000.

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated Out of the Original Tongues, and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised. Stereotype Edition. New York. Stereotyped by E. and J. White, for "The American Bible Society." 1819. 

Extensive family genealogical material at the rear blank pages and on the "Family Record" section of the Bible itself. Fascinatingly, the rear material has been printed in ink to the "Family Record" page, a flourish only the relatively affluent would indulge, consistent with the fine speckled calf binding. 

Very attractive with some occasional foxing, minor tide marks, and noted restoration.