The Morrills and Reminiscences - C. H. Morrill

sold on ten annual payments. We disposed of our entire holdings in six months. Shortly after we made this purchase, Major Clarkson, General J. C. McBride, S. F. Fleharty, and many others purchased large tracts near the town of Kimball, Nebraska. It was said that Major Clarkson's purchases totaled over eighty thousand acres. There was very little known at that time about the process of dry farming and as there was no water available for irrigation, dry years made it impossible for farmers to grow crops, and a large part of these lands reverted to the railroad companies.
When the Burlington constructed the short line to Cheyenne, Wyoming, towns were established in the southern part of Keith County, and as dry farming became better known, that section grew prosperous. About this time several friends of mine purchased thirty thousand acres in the vicinity where Grant is now located. After paying for the land in full, and the carrying charges for more than twelve years, they disposed of it for about one dollar per acre. The extended drought of the nineties drove nearly all the settlers from that part of the State.

In the year 1889 I decided to go to Salt Lake City for a year, with the thought of making that city my future home. Salt Lake City, at that time, had about thirty thousand inhabitants. Governor Nance and I decided to open a real estate and loan office. Shortly afterwards, Frank B. Stevens, formerly of the firm of

Dawes, Foss, and Stevens of Crete, Nebraska, located in Salt Lake City. We occupied the same offices. Mr. Stevens was a very bright young lawyer and a hustler. Being a stranger in a strange land, he set apart certain hours each day in which to go from office to office, from store to store, and, in fact, to every place of business, for the purpose of forming acquaintances. After he had once gone the rounds, he regularly made short calls on those he had met in order to keep up and cultivate these acquaintances. He was a good mixer, and very soon knew practically all the leading business men in Salt Lake City. In a comparatively short time he had a fine law practice and later became United States District Attorney for Utah.
Two young men from Stromsburg, Nebraska, Glen R. Bothwell and Robert E. McConaughy, came to Salt Lake City about the same time. These men are now rated as millionaires. They first went into mining in a small way, then into the lumber business, and later into the construction of ditches to be used for irrigating large tracts of land.
A few years prior to 1900 the United States Government had begun to enforce the legal penalty for polygamy, several leading Mormons had already been sent to the penitentiary. Those having plural wives separated, so far as outside appearances were concerned. The wealthy Mormons had separate establishments for their various wives. The United States Government had established a home in Salt Lake City for such of these wives as desired to leave their hus-

bands or who might become a public charge. It was the boast of all Mormons that no Mormon woman had ever asked for support, or for a home in this institution. During my residence in Utah I never saw a Mormon beggar on the streets, and never saw nor heard of a tramp who was a Mormon. Many of the Mormons were very poor; the Church looked carefully after the welfare of these people and provided for them. At every term of the United States Court, prominent Mormons were on trial for polygamy. Whenever there was a case of special interest I attended court. I remember a case where a Mormon from the southern part of Utah was charged with having twelve wives. When he appeared in court he was dressed in broadcloth, and had the appearance of a wealthy gentleman. The twelve women charged with being his wives were in court, none of them over thirty years of age. They were all dressed in homespun cloth or calico, most of them wore small shawls over their heads. They were a good-looking, healthy bunch, and it was charged that these women were all of them wives of this man, and that he used them as farm laborers. All of the women swore that they were not married and did not cohabit with this man. It was impossible to convict the slick fellow who was profiting by their labor.
I formed the acquaintance of a Mormon business man, who told me he had five wives who had lived in the same house with him prior to the time the Government began to persecute the Mormons. When I asked him if these wives did not fight, he invited me to

visit his home and talk with one of them, the wife with whom he was then living. I went down one evening, he brought up the subject of plural marriages and told me to ask any questions I saw fit. This woman said that the five wives, of which she was one, lived in the same house ten years, that there had never been a quarrel, that they all loved each other in accordance with the teachings of the Bible. She expressed herself as heart-broken because of the persecution of the Government which forced their present separation. I began to wonder if it was possible for a man to live more happily with five wives than with one.
As I was walking near the Mormon Tabernacle on Brigham Street one day, I met a very old man carrying a dozen eggs in a small basket. He was going toward the tithing house. I stopped him and asked if he was a Mormon. He answered, "Thank God, I am." He also said that he was on his way to the tithing house with his one-tenth offering to the Lord. I told him it was a shame that the Church would accept the contribution of a dozen eggs from an old man like himself. He answered, "May God bless you, would you deprive an old man, eighty years of age, of the greatest blessing of his life? May God bless you, sir." He then went on his way.
The Mormons were extremely clannish. They nearly all traded at the co-operative Mormon stores and did not usually mix with the Gentiles. In city politics there were always the Mormon and the anti-Mormon factions. There were many stories told of


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