Ann Eliza Young

Ann Eliza Young (September 13, 1844 – December 7, 1917) also known as Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning[1] was one of Brigham Young's fifty-five wives and later a critic of polygamy. Her autobiography, Wife No. 19,[2] was a recollection of her experiences in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). She grew up in a polygamous household which moved to Utah during the Mormon migration. Ann Eliza was married and divorced three times: first to James Dee, then Young, and finally Moses Denning. Her divorce from Young reached a national audience when Ann Eliza sued with allegations of neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion. She was born a member of the LDS Church, but was excommunicated shortly after her public divorce from Young.

Ann Eliza Young
A lithograph of Ann Eliza Young, sometime between 1869 and 1875.
Born
Ann Eliza Webb

September 13, 1844 (1844-09-13)
Nauvoo, Illinois, U.S.
DiedDecember 7, 1917 (1917-12-08) (aged 73)
Sparks, Nevada, U.S.
Resting placeMountain View Cemetery, Reno, Nevada
Other namesAnn Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning
Occupations
  • Social advocate
  • Author
Spouse(s)
James Dee
​
(m. 1863)​

Brigham Young (m. 1869–1875)
Moses Denning (div. c. 1907)
Children2
Parents
  • Chauncey G. Webb
  • Eliza Jane Churchill

Early life and first marriage

Ann Eliza Webb was born in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1844, to Chauncey Griswold Webb and his wife, Eliza Jane Churchill.[1][3] Chauncey G. Webb was a 32-year-old carriage-maker, and Eliza Jane a 29-year-old schoolteacher at the time of Ann Eliza's birth.[4]: 32  Ann Eliza was the youngest of five children, four of which survived to adulthood. Her three older brothers were Chauncey Gilbert, Edward Milo, and Lorenzo Dow.[4]: 32  Ann Eliza was about a year old when her father took a second wife, Elizabeth Taft, in accordance with the contemporary polygamous practices of the LDS Church.[5]: 102–3  In 1846, the Webb family moved to the Salt Lake Valley with the Mormon pioneers.[4]: 63 [5]: 110  As a teenager in Utah, Webb and other Latter-day Saint youth participated in local theatricals and dancing.[5]: 378–80 

First marriage and divorce
Ann Eliza Young, 1875

Ann Eliza married James Dee monogamously on April 10, 1863, in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory.[3][6]: 212  They had two sons together, Edward Wesley and Leonard "Louis" Lorenzo,[4]: 17, 149  but the couple later divorced.[7] According to her biographer, Irving Wallace, "for the rest of her days Ann Eliza would always refer to James Dee as the man who 'blighted' her life."[4]: 150 

Polygamous marriage to Brigham Young
Ann Young ca. 1887

On the advice of her family, Ann Eliza married Brigham Young, the second president of the LDS Church, when he was 67 years old and she was a 24-year-old divorcee.[7] They were married on April 7, 1869. The ceremony was presided over by LDS Church leader Heber C. Kimball.[4]: 175  At her request, Ann Eliza was set up in a separate home in Salt Lake City, on the condition that she visit the Lion House on occasion.[4]: 176 

Although Ann Eliza later called herself Young's "wife number 19",[2] others have referred to her as his "27th wife".[4] One researcher concluded that she was actually the 52nd woman to marry Young.[8] The discrepancies may be due, in part, to difficulties in defining what constitutes a "wife" in early Mormon polygamous practices. A book published in the 1890s and endorsed by church leaders entitled Pictures and Biographies of Brigham Young and His Wives provides brief descriptions of 26 wives, including Ann Eliza.[9]

Divorce from Young

In 1873, Brigham Young allowed Latter-day Saints to take on boarders who were not members of the faith. Methodist Reverend C. C. Stratton and his wife boarded with Ann Eliza. It is possible that the couple’s efforts may have aided in Ann Eliza’s decision to leave Young and the LDS Church.[10]: 4  On Ann Eliza's legal counsel was Judge Hagan who also believed that Stratton was primarily to blame for Ann Eliza's separation from Young. In a statement, Stratton denied having any influence on Ann Eliza's decision, claiming instead that he had encouraged her to stay in her situation with Young. He indicated, however, that Ann Eliza was "a person of womanly instincts" whose "present position [was] exceedingly distasteful to her".[11] Reverend Stratton was invited to be listed as Ann Eliza's "next friend" in the divorce case. Judge Hagan believed that Stratton's background as a Methodist minister would validate the indictments against Young and the LDS Church. Stratton refused, however, due to other high-profile legal circumstances, which had forced him to leave his previous ministry in Portland, Oregon. He did not want the additional publicity of Ann Eliza's court case.[11]

Ann Eliza filed for divorce from Young in January 1873, an act that attracted much attention. Her bill for divorce alleged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, and claimed that her husband had property worth $8 million and an income exceeding $40,000 a month.[12][4]: 343  Young countered that he owned less than $600,000 in property and that his income was less than $6,000 per month.[13][4]: 343 

Excommunication

Ann Eliza was excommunicated from the LDS Church on October 10, 1874.[8][14] The divorce was granted in January 1875, and Young was ordered to pay a $500 per month allowance as well as $3,000 in court fees.[8] When Young initially refused, he was found in contempt of court and sentenced to a day in jail with an additional $25 fine.[8] The alimony award was later set aside on the grounds that the marriage was polygamous and therefore legally invalid. The polygamous nature of the marriage also exposed them to potential indictments for unlawful cohabitation.[8]

After her excommunication, Ann Eliza converted to the Methodist Episcopal faith.[4]: 335 

Advocacy

Ann Eliza subsequently traveled the United States and spoke out against polygamy, Mormonism, and Brigham Young.[15][4]: 278–331  She testified before the U.S. Congress on April 14, 1874.[4]: 329  A couple months later, the Poland Act was signed into law,[4]: 330–331  which reorganized the judicial system of the Utah Territory and facilitated the federal prosecution of LDS Church polygamists.[16] In a biographical entry on Brigham Young in American National Biography, Leonard Arrington stated that Ann Eliza's lectures against Young were "influential in the federal antipolygamy legislation of 1882 and 1887".[17]

Wife No. 19

In 1876, Ann Eliza published an autobiography titled Wife No. 19. In it, she wrote that she had "a desire to impress upon the world what Mormonism really is; to show the pitiable condition of its women, held in a system of bondage that is more cruel than African slavery ever was, since it claims to hold body and soul alike".[16] Her account of the "horrors of polygamy and masonry" is in the public domain.[2][18] The autobiography was the basis for Irving Wallace's 1961 biography The Twenty-Seventh Wife and for David Ebershoff's 2008 novel The 19th Wife.[19]

Third marriage

After her divorce from Brigham Young in 1875, Ann Eliza married 53-year-old Moses R. Denning of Manistee, Michigan,[8] a non-Mormon and wealthy logger known to have only one arm.[20][21] Two years prior to her marriage to Denning, who was married with children at the time, Ann Eliza stayed at his home.[21] Ann Eliza scaled back her crusade against Mormonism and polygamy and stopped delivering lectures the week she married Denning.[20][22]

Divorce from Denning

A 1907 article on the 30th anniversary of Brigham Young's death updated the public on his then-surviving widows and stated that Ann Eliza was divorced for the third time and living in Lansing, Michigan. The 1900 U.S. census had reported her living in Breckenridge, Summit County, Colorado.[23] Ann Eliza eventually returned to Utah to claim a $2,000 legacy from her first husband, James Dee.[22]

Later years

In 1908, she published a revised version of Wife No. 19 entitled Life in Mormon Bondage, a revision that excluded any mention of her first marriage to Dee or her third marriage to Denning. By 1910, she had moved to Sparks, Nevada.[24] She eventually became estranged from her family, including her children. One of her grandsons told Wallace that neither of her sons maintained contact with her after they reached early adulthood. In 1930, her older grandson told Wallace, "I hope to hell I never see her again."[25] She died at her home in Sparks of pneumonia, related to old age,[26] and was buried on December 9, 1917, in Mountain View Cemetery, Reno, Nevada.[27]

Published works
  • Young, Ann Eliza (1876). "Wife No. 19, or The Story of a Life in Bondage ; Being a Complete Exposé of Mormonism, and Revealing the Sorrows, Sacrifices and Sufferings of Women in Polygamy". Hartford, Connecticut: Dustin, Gilman & Co. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

See also

References
  1. "Orson Pratt Brown - Life, Times, Family". Archived from the original on March 10, 2011. Retrieved 2010-07-10.
    Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning
    Born: September 13, 1844, at Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois
    Died: 1925 at Rochester, New York
    James Dee married Ann Eliza Webb on April 4, 1863, at Salt Lake City, Utah, ceremony was performed by President Brigham Young. She is the daughter of Chauncey Griswold Webb b. October 24, 1811, and Eliza Jane Churchill Webb b. May 4, 1817.
  2. Young, Ann Eliza (1876). "Wife no.19, or the story of a life in bondage. Being a complete exposé of Mormonism, and revealing the sorrows, sacrifices and sufferings of women in polygamy".
  3. Crockwell, James H. (1893). Pictures and biographies of Brigham Young and his wives. Salt Lake City.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. Wallace, Irving. The Twenty-Seventh Wife, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961).
  5. Webb, Ann Eliza (1876). Wife no. 19, or, The story of a life in bondage: being a complete exposé of Mormonism, and revealing the sorrows, sacrifices and sufferings of women in polygamy. Hartford, CT: Dustin, Gilman & Co.
  6. Hirshson, Stanley, P. (1969). The Lion of the Lord: A Biography of Brigham Young. New York: Alfred A. Knoff, Inc.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. "Brigham Young's Wives and His Divorce From Ann Eliza Webb Archived 2018-05-05 at the Wayback Machine". Utah Lighthouse Ministry. Accessed March 10, 2007.
  8. Johnson, Jeffrey Odgen. "Determining and Defining 'Wife'—The Brigham Young Households" Archived 2012-05-09 at the Wayback Machine, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 20, no. 3 (Fall 1987) pp. 57–70.
  9. Crockwell, James H. (1893). Pictures and biographies of Brigham Young and his wives. Salt Lake City.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. Cullen, Jack B. “Ann Eliza Young: A Nineteenth Century Champion of Women’s Rights.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Speech Communication Association. February, 1983.
  11. “The Ann Eliza Young Case,” The Daily Bulletin, Portland, Oregon, August 27, 1873, BYU Special Collections.
  12. "Chicago daily tribune". contentdm.lib.byu.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  13. Linn, William Alexander (1901). The Story of the Mormons : From the Date of their Origin to the Year 1901. New York: Macmillan. p. 572. OCLC 621583.
  14. Young, Ann Eliza Webb. Wife No. 19; Or, the Story of a Life of Bondage, Being a Complete Exposé of Mormonism, and Revealing the Sorrows, Sacrifices, and Sufferings of Women in Polygamy, (Hartford, Connecticut: Dustin, Gilman, 1875) p. 546.
  15. "Ann Eliza Young." St. Louis globe-democrat, vol. 1, no. 8, 14 August 1875, p. 4. BYU Special Collections.
  16. Cullen, Jack B. "Ann Eliza Young: A Nineteenth Century Champion of Women's Rights." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Speech Communication Association (Albuquerque, New Mexico, February, 1983).
  17. Arrington, Leonard (2000). "Young, Brigham (1801-1877), second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0801714. ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  18. Ebershoff, David. "Who Is Ann Eliza Young?" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 September 2010. Retrieved 11 September 2010.(Warning: PDF is quite large.)
  19. Eberschoff, David. "Author's Acknowledgements: The 19th Wife". www.ebershoff.com. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  20. Wallace, Irving. The Twenty-Seventh Wife, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961) p. 396.
  21. Woodward, Helen B. The Bold Women (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953) p. 330.
  22. Nibley, Hugh W. Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass: The Art of Telling Tales about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book Company, 1991) p. 441–42.
  23. NARA roll T623-129, ED 152, p. 4-A, line 16.
  24. NARA roll T624-859, ED 77, p. 13-B, line 82.
  25. Wallace, Irving. The Twenty Seventh Wife, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961) p. 427.
  26. Nevada death certificate no. 17-001104 (state index #1052). The certificate can be viewed online at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74547270.
  27. Nevada State Journal, 9 December 1917, p. 4.

Further reading
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