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Uintah Stake correspondence and records

 Collection — Box: 1
Identifier: MSS 90

Scope and Contents

Correspondence and financial records from 1906 to 1920. The bulk of the materials date from 1906-1909. The collection is arranged in three small series: general stake correspondence, missionary appointments and correspondence with the Presiding Bishopric and First Presidency of the Mormon Church, and business correspondence. Among the correspondents is Joseph F. Smith (1838-1918), president of the Mormon Church.

Uintah Stake correspondence documents the internal business of the stake. It contains information on scheduling meetings and conferences, organizing branches and wards, ordinations, church calls and releases (including mission calls), finances (appropriations, tithes and offerings, and accounts), colonizing and settlement of the Uintah Basin, construction of buildings, education at Brigham Young University in Provo, and plans to start a newspaper. Most letters were exchanged within the boundaries of the stake, but even those which exceeded those bounds were primarily concerned with internal stake matters.

Correspondence with the Presiding Bishopric and the First Presidency documents general church affairs, decisions, policy, and communications with the stakes of the church. Subjects covered include missionary work and calls, finances, reports and statistics, doctrinal issues, colonizing, land purchases, church property, and building programs. Missionary Appointments is a list of Home Missionaries called during the years 1908-1909 and their areas of service within the stake boundaries.

Business correspondence documents the interaction of the stake and some of its units with businessmen in the Uintah Basin, Utah, and other areas. Most of the businesses patronized appear to have been in Utah and a large percentage of the purchases made were for the construction and furnishing of the new stake tabernacle.

Dates

  • 1906-1920

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Open for public research.

Conditions Governing Use

It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances. Permission to publish material from Uintah Stake correspondence and records must be obtained from the Supervisor of Reference Services and/or the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Board of Curators.

Biographical History

Ecclesiastical division of the Mormon Church located in eastern Utah.

Extent

1 box (0.5 linear ft.) : handwritten

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

Correspondence discussing topics such as colonization of the Uintah Basin, Mormon Church administration, and the practice of polygamy.

Arrangement

This collection of selected records of the Uintah Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also called LDS Church) covers only the years 1906-1920, with the bulk of the material falling in the three-year period 1906-1909.

The collection fills twenty folders in a single document case and is comprised almost entirely of correspondence, financial records, and church forms. It is arranged in three small series: 1. Uintah Stake correspondence, 2. Correspondence with the presiding Bishopric and the First Presidency and missionary appointments, and 3. Business correspondence.

Other Finding Aids

File-level inventory available online. http://files.lib.byu.edu/ead/XML/MSS90.xml

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection was donated to the library by Irwin Haws in 1976. It was originally combined with the Uintah Stake Academy Records (see MSS 1555) but was made a separate collection in 1989.

Appraisal

19th Century Western and Mormon Manuscripts.

Overall, this collection's research value belie its limited physical extent. These records provide a revealing cross-sectional view of the administration and operation of an LDS Stake in an outlying, sparsely settled area of Utah shortly after 1900. Many routine communications that are conducted by telephone and somewhat taken for granted in the last decades of the twentieth century, were not nearly as routine in 1900, as this collection adequately documents. Significant letters include the following: To President Joseph F. Smith, 26 July 1907 and following. Invitation to dedicate the new Stake Tabernacle and tour the stake. Includes suggested itinerary. Carbon typescript.

From the First Presidency, 25 January 1907. Request to survey families living in polygamy. From Ashley Bartlett, editor, "The White and Blue", Provo, Utah, 26 December 1907. Response dated 14 January 1908. Outlines the cost and procedures for establishing a newspaper in the Uintah Basin and applies for the position of editor.

From Silas Smith, Provo, Utah, 28 December 1907. Inviting and encouraging attendance at Brigham Young University to study agriculture.

Processing Information

Processed; Dennis Rowley and Darrel L. Welburn; 2002.

Title
Register of Uintah Stake correspondence and records
Status
Completed
Author
Amy Perez
Date
2011 February 25
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English in Latin script.

Repository Details

Part of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Repository

Contact:
1130 HBLL
Brigham Young University
Provo Utah 84602 United States