Apr 11, 2016 Books of the week — T. B. H. and Fanny Stenhouse

“There is a power in combined enlightened sentiment and sympathy before which every form of injustice and cruelty must finally go down.” – Harriett Beecher Stowe, 1874

LES MORMONS (SAINTS DES DERNIERS-JOURS) ET LEUR…
Thomas Brown Holmes Stenhouse (1825-1882)
Lausanne: Imprimerie Larpin et Coendoz, 1854
First edition
BX8635 S74 1854

T. B. H. Stenhouse was a Scottish convert, one time missionary companion to Lorenzo Snow in Italy, and first Mission President over the Swiss Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While serving in this position he edited the Latter-day Saints periodical, Le Reflecteur and published Les Mormon et Leurs Ennemis, written for the purpose of defending the LDS faith against anti-Mormon arguments popular at the time. In 1855 Stenhouse and his wife, Fanny Warn, emigrated to Utah Territory and settled in Salt Lake City. Stenhouse became the editor of the Salt Lake Telegraph, a pro-Mormon newspaper. In 1862, Stenhouse took a polygamous wife. Fanny Stenhouse objected. In 1870, Thomas and Fanny Stenhouse acted on growing disaffection with the church, Thomas having become particularly uneasy with Brigham Young’s heavy hand in the daily lives of the of the Saints. Thomas and Fanny left the church and were then excommunicated. In 1873 Stenhouse wrote The Rocky Mountain Saints: A Full and Complete History of the Mormons, an expose against the church. This work became a standard for anti-Mormon attacks on Joseph Smith.

“It was worse than civil war, worse than a war of races; it was religious hate! It was fed by fanaticism on both sides.”

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAINTS…
T. B. H. Stenhouse 91825-1882)
New York: D. Appleton and company, 1873
First edition
BX8611 S76 1873

“I had had it all fully explained to me, and I thoroughly understood the beauties of the system in the sight of the Elders…but it is miserable work to try to convince others of a thing that you yourself detest.”

A LADY’S LIFE AMONG THE MORMONS
Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse (1829-1904)
New York: Russell Brothers, Publishers, 1872
First edition
BX8645 S74 1872

Fanny Stenhouse wrote her own story of disenfranchisement in A Lady’s Life Among the Mormons (1872). The book was reprinted as Tell It All: A Woman’s Life in Polygamy (1874), with a preface by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

“But darker days – days of severer trial were creeping slowly near me…Now the dark shadow of an accursed thing was looming in the distance, but approaching surely if slowly.”

TELL IT ALL: THE STORY OF A LIFE’S EXPERIENCE IN…
Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse (1829-1904)
Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington, 1874
First edition
BX8645 S74 1874

View the original article on the OpenBook Blog