The Office Journal of President Brigham Young, 1858-1863 Book D. Ed. Fred C. Collier. Hannah, UT: Collier’s Publishing Co., 2006.

An expert on the Brigham Young collection once told me that Book D was one of the best journals in the collection. It is also restricted at the LDS Archives. I haven’t read any of the other volumes, but there is no question that Book D is a wonderful and special record. The journal is the work of scribes who made regular entries and described the doings of President Young, sometimes with great detail.

While Collier is a fundamentalist and most well known for his doctrinal treatise supporting the enterprise, I understand that he can be relied upon for faithful transcriptions. Collier is forthright in his editorial procedure and the book is readable while being representative of the manuscript. No doubt that this work is a great blessing to the researcher, but it would have been greatly serviced by appropriate notation. Collier interjects infrequently, but when he does it is most often a reference to his fundamentalist Doctrines of the Priesthood volumes or occasionally to the Journal of Discourses. The benefit of extensive scholarly footnotes can be readily observed in Signature Books’ Significant Mormon Diaries series.

The Diary includes scant entries during 1858 and 1859, but in 1860 clerk George Sims took over the recording duties and faithfully entered rich details of the Prophet’s doings until 1852. This window into the President’s life is fascinating and to read through his daily affairs (even those banal) imbues the reader with an intimacy that is hard to acquire from other forms.

The period covered by the diary includes events such as the lead-up to and prosecution of the Civil War, the erection of several important civic and religious edifices, and, perhaps the impetus of Colliers release of the volume, the tension between Orson Pratt and the governing bodies of the Church.

You see how something as quotidian as a nail factory could involve so much of the Presidents time. You see the First Presidency at a dance until 2:00 am. You see a man that is willing to dispense wisdom on such diverse topics as medicine and midwifery (he even gives his favorite enema recipe), building construction, paint formulation, seer stones, dramatic scripts and grave robbers. Some interesting excerpts:

February 24, 1860 (pg. 42)
President Young in the course of his remarks alluded to the zeal of Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet, in his views of the Word of Wisdom, who prophesied that every Saint who chewed tobacco would apostatize. President Young observed, he [i.e., Hyrum] prophesied by Hyrum Smith and not by the Spirit of the Lord, and the he (Hyrum) would eat about 3 lb of fat pork in a day; and yet be so sever upon a tobacco chewer;

June 15, 1860 (pg. 101)
Albert Carrington read a letter from Sydney Rigdon to the President. The President remarked, Sydney is crazy.

Dec. 4, 1860 (pg. 175)
In the evening the President had some conversation about Br. H. C. Kimball’s sons and remarked that himself and Br. Heber, would be able to draw their children to them again, even if they should turn away. All they had to do, was to do right themselves.

Dec. 26, 1860 (pg. 184)
Mr. Creighton called in and had Some Conversation with him upon the Government and remarked [that] the South had not learned to govern by whipping &c. riding Niggers. Slavery is the ruin of the South observed the President. The South has a beautiful climate and rich soil, but slavery ruins any soil. To these remarks Mr. Creighton acquiesced.

Collier included transcripts of several meetings of the Twelve pertaining to the conflict between Orson Pratt and Brigham Young as appendices (several of which had never before been published in their entirety). Collier states in the introduction of the Appendices:

A sloppy typescript of the April 4th meeting was circulated in historical circles in the late 1970s. Inaccurate Citations and Out of Context Statements were taken from this typescript, as well as from other relevant documents, and published in 1980 and 1982, with the obvious intent of casting President Young and the Priesthood Government of his administration in a negative light. In the case of the 1980 article, in some instances the author actually went so far as to deliberately alter documents in order to cast aspersion upon President Young. Hopefully the publication of these records will inspire a renewed interest in the teachings of the Second Prophet of the Restoration, and a new investigation into the Doctrinal Conflict between Orson Pratt and his brethren of the Twelve and First Presidency.

The 1980 article was likely Bergera’s “The Orson Pratt–Brigham Young Controversies: Conflict Within the Quorums, 1853-1868” in Dailogue and the 1982 article was likely Buerger’s “The Adam-God Doctrine,” also in Dialogue. An analysis of these claims is in a follow-up post.

As the transcription is based on a copy of the journal that was procured (or perhaps purloined) in the 1970’s, we are unable to verify the transcription. The volume is $35 and is bound in black faux-leather with gold text. The printing is obviously not premium and an occasional letter is not completely clear (though, in all such cases the actual letter is evident). Allow for several weeks to receive the volume and as the Collier servers are someone skittish, their email is off line.