Mormons in New York City

It is wise to take many controversies that appear in the media with a grain of salt, for too often they are gone in a few days, and are regularly based on rumor and innuendo instead of fact.

I’m sure that rings true to most of us today. It was certainly true in August of 1866, when a group of Mormon immigrants touched off a minor controversy that appeared in the New York Tribune and then in the Brooklyn Eagle a few days later. The ship Cavour docked at Castle Garden in New York City on July 31, 1866 and almost all its passengers continued their journey by steamer towards Montreal on the following day. From their records, it appears they had no idea of how they would be portrayed in the Tribune a few weeks later.

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When I worked on a student newspaper at BYU, we were embarrassed one issue when the headline of our leading article read: “America’s Facination with Fame.” You’d be surprised how easy it is to make that kind of mistake.

Of course, the journalists of the 1840s made mistakes too, and one, in the New York Gazette in early November 1845 was at the expense of Mormon immigrants:

There were a large number of convicts to Mormonism on board the steamboat Rochester, at Albany, recently, on the way for Nauvoo, most of whom were from Lowell, Mass.

Horace Greeley, editor of the competing, New York Tribune, caught the error, and on the 5th of November, responded:

Rather a curious mistake, Mr. Gazette! Or did you mean it?

Of course, LDS Church members have been told to show the courage of their convictions, but somehow I don’t think that’s what the Gazette had in mind.

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune

I came across the 1859 interview of Brigham Young by New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley this week and was able to add it to our site. The interview is quite comprehensive, in terms of the issues of the day, covering slavery and polygamy as well as some of the unusual aspects of Mormonism at the time, such as tithing.

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