Letter signed Alex [Badger], Salt Lake City, U.T., to Sister [Alice E. Cayton], St. Louis. Reminisces about home. Did you ever think I would turn up amongst the “Latter Day Saints?” When I go to the theater and see a man in a seat with six or seven women around him, all his wives – it looks odd. Brigham [Young] says he don’t know how many wives he has got – that is, spiritual wives. He says that he has never refused yet to marry any respectable woman that wanted to marry him. Some that he marries he never sees again after the ceremony. These spiritual wives may become the temporal wives of other men, but in the next world they are Brigham’s. Describes the barter system by which the Mormons trade in lieu of specie. I went to one of their ward meetings and heard Orson Pratt speak. Orson said that the Saints would go back to Jackson County, Missouri, and build the city of Zion. The officers of the Camp gave a ball. I attended. Governor Harding of this Territory was present and all went merry as a marriage ball. Individuals mentioned: Ma [Mrs. Alexander Badger, Sr.], Cora [Sister, Mrs. Cora Badger Daniels], Frank [Cayton], Governor Doty, Frederick Cook, Mr. Livingston (merchant), Mr. Roomfield (bookkeeper of Overland Mail Company), Judge Drake of United States District Court, Mr. Stenhouse (postmaster), Brother Townsend (hotel keeper), The Desert News, and Chambers and Hawley., 1863 Jan 19-21

Item — Box: 1, Folder: 2

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

Collection contains material of the St. Louis-based Badger family, including letters of Capt. Alexander Badger, Sr. and Jr.; newsclippings; bonds; steamboat memoranda; a pilot certificate issued to William H. Cable in 1852; envelopes of Wells Fargo and Overland Mail; cards of steamboat Magnolia and a timetable of St. Louis railroads and steamships; material concerning the Badger, Cable and Cayton families; two Missouri defense bonds issued in 186-; and several letters of Alexander Badger, circa 1860, written from Fort Vancouver, Western Territory, and various places in the west, which describe everyday happenings.