One method to explore the history of Salt Lake City is to read the journals of some of the early Mormon residents. Some of these journals have become relatively widely available through publication or availability through online digital libraries.
One such rendition is the journal of Martha Spence Haywood and her telling of her life between 1850 and 1856. Her account includes her overland journey from New York City to the new settlement of Salt Lake City, her recounts of social status of women in early Salt Lake City, some of her memories of world travels prior to settlement in Salt Lake, her newfound love of the concept of home, and both her contentment and anguish of motherhood.
Martha Spence Heywood was born in Ireland in 1812 and against her parents (especially her mother) wishes traveled with her sister for New York City. She supported herself by sewing and making hats all the while traveling extensively in upstate New York and Canada as a part time Advent preacher. She made the journey across the Atlantic a total of three times before joining the Mormon Church in July 1848; she found the Mormon religion to be a good match with her believe in end of days.
In 1850 she began her journal and her journey to Salt Lake City with an immigrant party. At a relatively older age of 38, she became the third wife of Joseph Heywood who was a relatively wealthy merchant, associate of Brigham Young, and the first U.S marshal in the Utah Territory. She had two children (one of which died at the age of 18 months), helped to establish theater group in Salt Lake City, taught school, supported herself with her hat making trade, and helped to establish the settlement of Nephi.
Her journal is an account of life on the frontier and all the hardships it entails, including delivering her first child in the middle of winter in a wagon box, accounts of sickness and death of friends and relatives, as well as opinions about intellectualism and the need for such pursuits such as theater and schooling.
Many of her journal entries are about social visits with specific individuals, a primary concern of a higher class Mormon woman at the time. Such visits were highly regulated and only permitted on certain days of the week so as to not interfere with other household chores and religious gatherings.
She also wrote about the topics of sermons, the health status of various family members, and important happenings in the local community including notes about the Walker War, murders, skirmishes with the local Indian Tribes, and news from the rest of American.
Daily life can only be inferred through accounts of abnormal days, such as very stormy days that prevented working in the fields or accounts of disappointment of lack of grape vine growth.
Important events in individual life are mostly underplayed such as the birth of her children. She describes the events with little emotion and simply states the facts: the date of birth and who was present. In the case of her second child, this event was not event her first entry for the day.
There is very little personal reflection about these events but when she does reflect about her situating or her past it is incredibly insightful about the general state of women in the mid nineteenth century as well as personal feelings of the specific situation.. She writes of the death of her second child with both factual statements and heartfelt emotion.
Juanita Brooks does a marvelous job of editing the journal by adding footnotes to clarify events or to note discernments with other sources.
The Journal of Martha Spence Haywood was published in 1978 and is now out of print and can be fairly expensive to acquire but copies can be found in local Salt Lake City libraries, especially at the University of Utah and their associated digital collections.
The Details
Not by bread alone: the journal of Martha Spence Haywood, 1850-56
Edited by Juanita Brooks
1978
Utah State Historical Society
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