Sarah Bixby letter to Martha Hathaway

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  Sarah Siddons letter to Patty Wilkinson

  Manuscripts

  One-page fragment of a signed letter in which Siddons communicates that she will be staying with Lady Barrington, who was mourning the death of her son, until she is "wanted in Edinborough." The letter is addressed "To Miss Wilkinson."

  mssHM 11385

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  Sarah Studevant Leavitt autobiography

  Manuscripts

  This autobiography is the original handwritten manuscript of Sarah Studevant Leavitt, dated April 19, 1875. It describes her life including her childhood days in New Hampshire; the many visions and spiritual manifestations that she experienced; her conversion to Mormonism; and frontier and pioneer life as she and her family traveled from New Hampshire to Kirtland, Ohio, to Nauvoo, Illinois, to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and to Pine Canyon, Utah. Additional topics that Leavitt covers are the murder of Joseph Smith (1805-1844), her opinion of polygamy, and the persecution of Mormons.

  mssHM 66386

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  Diary of Martha Spence Heywood [microform] : 1850-1856

  Manuscripts

  Microfilm of a typescript of Martha Spence Heywood's diary, kept from 1850-1856. It begins when Martha was living in Kanesville, Iowa, after joining the Mormon Church and while waiting to travel westward. She gives a brief account of her baptism in Canada and sojourns with various Mormon families in New York State. She also recounts her travels to St. Louis in 1849 and teaching school in Springville. Martha departed with the Joseph Heywood company for Utah in 1850 and gives a detailed account of the company's journey across the plains. The majority of the diary recounts in detail Martha's life in Nephi, Utah, from 1850-1856. She writes personal and insightful insights on polygamy (shortly after her marriage to Heywood she wrote "Tis rather trying to a woman's feelings not to be acknowledged by the man she has given herself to and desires to love with all her heart"), the birth and raising of her children, her illnesses from childbirth, the death of her daughter Serepta Maria from measles in 1856, her loneliness in Nephi (she wrote that she "could not bear" to be left alone by her husband and taught school in 1854 since it was "of much benefit to me as the activity ... and its responsibility prevented lonesomeness that otherwise would have been disagreeable"), and politics within the Mormon settlement at Nephi. She also writes of Indian troubles, including Mormons killed by Indians in 1853, and of the discovery of two bodies dressed in United States livery who were shot to death in November 1852. Martha also writes frequently of her acquaintances in Nephi, visits by Brigham Young, and a variety of other domestic concerns.

  MSS MFilm 00161

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  Sarah Bloom letter to Margaret Truax Hunter

  Manuscripts

  Letter from Sarah Bloom to Margaret Hunter in which Bloom writes of a Mormon pageant held at Palmyra, New York. Includes references to the general atmosphere of Palmyra during the pageant as well as notes on specific activities. Also includes a variety of family news.

  mssHM 73097

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  Moore & Bixby wool book

  Manuscripts

  Book containing the annual sheep shearings of Moore & Bixby, from San Justo Rancho and Saca Ranch in San Benito County, California. With notes about amounts gathered, sold, prices, and contitions of the wool. The volume is mostly blank.

  mssHM 84343

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  Ella Middleton Shute letters to Louie Earle Williams

  Manuscripts

  Series of letters from Ella Shute to her friend Louie Earle Williams, written when Ella was living in Wheatfields, Arizona, "12 miles from the mines" (she asks Louie to direct her letters to Globe City). Ella writes of her family life, their many illnesses ("every one here seems like dead people," she wrote in 1876) since moving "to the mines," and the cost of goods. She also writes of her son Walter (whom she refers to as Charles Clifton until 1878), including an incident where he was run over by a wagon wheel in 1879, and the birth of her son Eugene in 1878. She notes that her father, brothers Frank and Henry, and husband George are "at work in the mines," but that "we are not making any thing only a living." Frank also briefly worked at the Miami Mill Company until it burned down in May 1879. Ella speculated that it might have been arson, and lamented that the incident had caused many families to move away and had detrimentally affected the Middletons' and Shutes' mining interests. She also writes of dry conditions in August 1879, and that "the Indians ha[ve] burned every thing out and it will take a great deal of rains to bring every thing out again." Ella writes that she is unsure of the population of Wheatfields but that there are "so many young men down here that wants to get married but there is...few girls and they won't get married unless they get a rich man." She also mentions that her brother Henry and sister Hattie have gone away to school at the Picket Poste, and urges Louie to have her father move their family to Arizona. Also included is a letter to Louie from her friend Jennie A. Huckaby in Alexander, Illinois. Jennie writes that she envies Louie's work in a milliner's shop ("let's both learn [the trade] then we can set up a shop together"),that she hopes to be well enough to return home to Iowa soon, and of her "cherished wish" to go to California. She concludes that there "is nothing going on here except a negro excursion to Chicago."

  mssHM 76737-76747