210

Hiram Clawson.

Letter arranging a 4th of July dinner for polygamist inmates.

Salt Lake City, UT, 26 June 1886
Autograph Letter Signed "to the Committee of Arrangements for the Dinner at the Penitentiary on the 4th of July." 2 pages, 10¼ x 7¾ inches; folds, minimal wear. 

  • Notes: Numerous religious and business leaders were imprisoned in the Utah Penitentiary for polygamy after the 1882 passage of the Edmunds Act, but they retained staunch support in the Salt Lake City community. This letter was written by Hiram Bradley Clawson (1826-1912), a Salt Lake City merchant and former business manager for Brigham Young. The matter was personal for him, as his son Rudger Clawson had been the first man imprisoned for polygamy under the Edmunds Act. 

    "The Marshal and Warden had given permission for a special dinner on the Fourth. . . . I immediately consulted with some leading gentlemen who expressed an earnest desire to subscribe. . . . Everything required for the dinner is already donated. In a letter to the brethren in the penitentiary . . . To Rudger Clawson I have given the names of the mercantile firms and gentlemen who have so liberally subscribed. Yesterday I consulted with Mssrs. Ball and Snell of your committee, and informed them that everything would be forwarded in ample time, the matter being placed in the hands of our energetic friend Mr. James Watson." 

    Provenance: Taylor & Woodruff 2012 retail catalogue, #212; to the consignor Larry Faria.

    With--a modern copy print of an 1889 photograph of polygamist prisoners at Utah Penitentiary.  
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