The History of the Mormons: Their Persecutions and Travels

Salt Lake City: [George Q. Cannon & Sons], 1891. 19pp. Octavo [20 cm] Lacks gray paper covers, otherwise better than very good. This rare work recounts the trials and forced migrations of the Mormon Church from its inception to its settlement in the Great Basin. The first Manifesto appears on pages 17-19. This work closes woth Woddruff's Official Declaration. George Quayle Cannon (1827-1901) joined the LDS Church in 1840 and went to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1843. He was a "gold missionary" during the California Gold Rush, with his earnings going to the Church. He also did missionary work in the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) for four years and presided over the European Mission for four years. Called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1860, he served in the Church's highest councils for the next four decades, most of the time in the First Presidency as a counselor to Presidents Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow. His writing and publishing ventures include being the first editor of the Deseret News and founding Deseret Book Company. Cannon was also a territorial delegate from Utah in the United States Congress. As a teenage orphan, he was apprenticed in a print shop and was largely self-taught. Flake/Draper 1155.