Original Autograph Letter Signed by Lecture Manager James B. Pond About Ann Eliza Young, a Former Wife of Mormon Leader Brigham Young
signed
1875 · Boston
by POND, JAMES B. & ANN ELIZA YOUNG
Boston, 1875. Original Autograph Letter Signed by lecture manager and promoter James B. Pond to Frederic Lockley, a journalist, editor and co-owner of the Salt Lake City Tribune, referencing Ann Eliza Young, a former wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young and her legal issues with him. The letter is dated June 5, 1875 from Boston in reply to Lockley’s letter from Salt Lake City dated May 16, 1875 and reads in full: “Dear Mr. Lockley, Your very excellent letter is received. It was a great relief I assure you to hear from Salt Lake. I think you will like the book. Mrs. Young is working night & day on it. It is to be no rehash of old stories. Now I wish I could borrow a file of The Tribune during your administration. If you will loan it to me I will see that every one is returned. I want a copy of the Daily Tribune containing the answer of B.Y. [Brigham Young] to A.E’.s [Ann Eliza] complaint. I will have it recorded by photography & heliotyped a facsimile for the book. I want the Tribune office. Can’t you make up a page of items to be called ‘Tribune lies’? I want you to write up the [_______] affair & its election riots last fall & we will have it finely illustrated. There will be plenty of room for what you can write. Mrs. Young will get home in August. I shall remain East as I have taken an interest in one or two other establishments & shall be on hand to attend to Mrs. Young’s business for next season. She is now the most popular woman lecturer in existence. I hope you will not delay in this matter as all the manuscript must be in by Aug. 1st. Anything that you have to suggest will be very thankfully received both by Mrs. Young & myself. I think I shall miss the grand old mountains this summer. It is not my forte to fossilize in cities. I have got the agency of the Mendlessohn Quintette Club & the Redpath English Opera Co. & one or two others & shall have my hands full this year. I ought to make some money. Mrs. Y is better that any others. Yours truly, J.B. Pond.” With “J.B. Pond, June 5, 1875” written in an unknown hand at the center left edge of the verso between folds. 8 3/8” x 10 1/2”. Faint hint of age toning and creases from folding, else fine. James Burton Pond (June 11, 1838 – June 21, 1903) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. For his actions during the Battle of Baxter Springs, he received the Medal of Honor. Returning to civilian life, he became a successful lecture manager whose clients included Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, and Henry Morton Stanley. In Salt Lake City he was asked to manage a national lecture tour for Ann Eliza Young, the 52nd wife of Brigham Young, who had become disillusioned with her husband. She eventually divorced Young and spoke out against him, the LDS Church, and polygamy. Ann Eliza Young (September 13, 1844 – December 7, 1917) also known as Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning was one of Brigham Young's fifty-five wives and later a vocal and public critic of polygamy. On the advice of her family, Ann Eliza married Brigham Young, the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), when he was 67 years old and she was a 24-year-old divorcee. Although Ann Eliza later called herself Young's "wife no. 19," others have referred to her as his "27th wife". The discrepancies may be due, in part, to difficulties in defining what constitutes a "wife" in early Mormon polygamous practices. An official LDS Church book titled, Pictures and Biographies of Brigham Young and His Wives, provides brief descriptions of 26 wives. Ann Eliza was excommunicated from the LDS Church on 10 October 1874. The divorce was granted in January 1875 and Brigham Young was ordered to pay a $500 per month allowance and the substantial amount of $3,000 in court fees. When Young initially refused, he was found in contempt of court and sentenced to a day in jail and a $25 fine. The alimony award was later set aside on the grounds that the marriage was polygamous and therefore legally invalid; the polygamous nature of the marriage also exposed them to potential indictments for unlawful cohabitation. Eliza’s autobiography ‘Wife No. 19’ was the basis for Irving Wallace's 1961 biography, The Twenty-Seventh Wife, and for David Ebershoff's 2008 novel, The 19th Wife. In 1908, she published a revised version of Wife No. 19 entitled Life in Mormon Bondage, a revision which excluded any mention of her first marriage to Dee or her third marriage to Denning. All in all a fascinating story of complex social and legal issues and religious practices. (Inventory #: 21327E)