The Williamsburg Branch Spat with the New York Sun, 1870
When the reporter for the New York Sun showed up at the meetings of the Williamsburg branch on January 2nd, 1870, branch members were angry. The branch president, who the Sun identified as Mr. Potts, quickly switched his remarks to a public attack on the Sun and the reporter, pointing at the reporter and saying he was astonished at the reporter’s “scandalous impudence” in showing his face after writing such an abominable article about the saints.
While it might not have been best to say so in the meeting, his feelings were justified. Two weeks earlier the reporter had visited the LDS meetings when Elder Brigham Young Jr. of the Quorum of the Twelve was present and spoke to the branch. The reporter’s account the next day said that Elder Young was “slow in manner, and altogether bovine in appearance.” He went on to say that
Sometimes his eye is fixed on vacancy, his lips rapidly moving, and his nostrils quivering. This may be inspirational, but it may also be incipient epilepsy.
The reporter’s unkind characterization didn’t stop with Elder Young, but went on to criticize the service itself, saying that the hymns were sung to “funny tunes” and that the sacrament was “a daring travesty of the Lord’s Supper” conducted by “seedy individuals” whose “fingers may have been holy, but certainly were not clean.”
As reported in subsequent pages of the Sun, the spat slowly died down over the rest of the month of January, despite regular visits by the Sun’s reporter—presumably the same person. On the second week of January the reporter said that the branch was “not so belligerent as heretofore with our reporter, being already satisfied with the published reports of their opinions.” The reporter shifted in these accounts to reporting the branch’s frustrations with prejudice against LDS missionaries and the actions of the U.S. Government against plural marriage.
By the middle of the month the spat had attracted the attention of other newspapers, just in time for the arrival of Elder Richard T. Burton, sent to start missionary work on Long Island at the request of the Hempstead branch led by Ira Pettit. His efforts, while ultimately unsuccessful, then captured the attention of the newspapers for the next few months, allowing the spat to be forgotten.
“Polygamy in Brooklyn”, New York Sun, December 20, 1869, p. 1
“Mormonism in Brooklyn”, New York Sun, January 4, 1870, p. 2
“Sunday Life in New York”, New York Sun, January 10, 1870, p. 1
“Life in the Metropolis”, New York Sun, January 14, 1870, p. 1