UUM_Accn1507.xml Inventory of the William S. Godbe statement [photocopy] Godbe (William S.) statement [photocopy] Finding aid created by Dorothy Mortensen. J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections

2006 (last modified: 2019)
295 South 1500 East Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 special@library.utah.edu https://lib.utah.edu/collections/special-collections/index.php
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-15. Finding aid written in English. Finding aid based on DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard), 2nd Edition. J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections William S. Godbe statement [photocopy] Godbe, William S. (William Samuel), 1833-1902 ACCN 1507 0.25 linear feet 1 folder 1884 The William S. Godbe statement (1984) is a photocopy of the handwritten version in which Godbe describes his excommunication by the LDS Church, subsequent mining and smelting ventures in Utah Territory, his disagreements with Brigham Young, and his abandonment of polygamy. Godbe was a prominent Utah businessman. He was a member of a group of intellectual LDS dissenters that became known as the Godbeites and was excommunicated by the LDS Church in 1869. English .

The original is located in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA.

William Samuel Godbe (1833-1902) was born in Middlesex, England. He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1849. In 1851 he was settled in Great Salt Lake City, UT. By the 1860s he had become one of the Utah Territory's wealthiest businessmen. He was prominent in church and community affairs, married four women in polygamy, and fathered twenty children. In 1870, when Congress passed the Cullom Bill that subjected the territory to federal control, he went to Washington, D.C., to plead the LDS cause. In 1873, by mutual consent, he and his wives gave up polygamy and he then lived monogamously with his first wife, Annie Thompson. He was a member of a group of prominent intellectual LDS dissenters that became known as the Godbeites. Other members included businessman, Henry Lawrence; journalists, Edward W. Tullidge and T.B.H. Stenhouse; architect, E.L.T. Harrison; and Eli B. Kelsey.

The William S. Godbe statement (1984) is a photocopy of the handwritten document, probably prepared at the request of Hubert Howe Bancroft when he was collecting material for his History of Utah (1889). The original statement is in the Bancroft Library. In the statement, Godbe describes his 1869 excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that occurred after he advocated developing mining and economic resources in his editorial, "The True Development of the Territory," published in Utah Magazine. After discussing his excommunication and his consequent inability to collect debts owed him, Godbe's statement describes his many profitable ventures into mining and smelting throughout the territory. He explains his disagreement with Brigham Young's religious and economic authoritarianism. He also refers to his years in polygamy, his eventual disengagement with the practice, and his ultimate success and contentment with his life in Salt Lake City, UT.

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Collection Name, Collection Number, Box Number, Folder Number. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah.

Gift of the Bancroft Library in 1995.

Processed by Dorothy Mortensen in 1996.

 Godbe, William S. (William Samuel), 1833-1902 Utah--Biography Latter Day Saints--Utah--Biography Mines and Mineral Resources--Utah Polygamy--Utah Mines and Mineral Resources Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Autobiographies