The Deepest Faith: Cornelia Leavitt's Life, A Pioneer and Plural Wife's Story
Here is all that is written about Cornelia Leavitt, as is true of almost all nineteenth-century women: she was born at this time to these parents, she married this man in this year, had these children, died on this date. Or, “Not much is known about her.”
Of course – as with all the other nineteenth-century women, there is so much more to her, and she led such an amazing, historic life, nearly all the details of which are lost today. One thing is clear: Cornelia was a person of deep faith who made tremendous sacrifices to follow her beliefs. But here’s what can be pieced together:
Childhood
She was born in 1825 in Warren, Ohio, a town settled by her father’s extended family, the daughter of Abigail Leonora “Leonora” Snow and Enoch Leavitt III. Both of her parents’ families lived in New England for generations before being among the first to settle in the Connecticut Western Reserve – Ohio.
Her parents’ marriage broke up when she was small, and she and her siblings moved in with her grandparents, Rosetta Pettibone and Oliver Snow in Mantua, Ohio. Oliver was a county commissioner and successful farmer. Oliver had a friend named Sidney Rigdon, who introduced him to a young man with some remarkable claims. The Snows were interested in a so-called 'primitive Christianity' – a church operating as it did when Jesus Christ was still alive.
Cornelia was six when this young man, Joseph Smith, visited her grandparents’ home. Her mother and grandmother were baptized in his fledgling church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – better-known to most Americans as the Mormons, although that is not correct terminology. This decision would alter the course of her life and cause a childhood of turmoil and upheaval.
By the time she was 11, her mother’s whole family had joined the Church. They would move to its headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio in 1836. Kirtland was a fast-growing community of some 2,000 souls, with a shining white three-story temple recently completed by the Saints at great sacrifice.
Soon the Snow family found themselves impacted, like everyone else, by a severe economic crash that was proceeded by wild land speculation. The Panic of 1837 caused a severe national depression. Banks failed, including the Kirtland bank. Many angrily blamed Joseph Smith. How could he be a prophet of God and have a bank fail, like an ordinary man? By 1838, wagonfuls of members streamed out of the city, many having lost everything they had. An estimated 10 to 15 percent of church members left, or “apostatized,” in their bitterness.
The Snows were not among them. As non-Mormons stepped up harassment of the faithful, setting fires in member’s basements, for example, they left to join Joseph Smith in the new promised land of Missouri. Most members left their homes losing everything, unable to sell them in the economic depression.
“Father” Snow, as he was referred to, led a group of 21 in wagons. For some, the journey took three months, especially if the men had to stop and work to buy provisions to keep going. They were not welcomed by people on their route. In Missouri, they found further persecution until they were driven out under an executive order from the governor that became known to church members as the extermination order. It read in part, "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace."
The family uprooted again, eventually following the other faithful to Commerce, Illinois, a town on the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois. Joseph renamed it Nauvoo, which he said meant “beautiful city,” and once again the Saints set about building a community – including another temple. Nauvoo grew to become the largest city in the state, with an estimated population of 20,000 – larger than Chicago.
Before they settled in Nauvoo, Cornelia and her family members moved restlessly -- her mother Leonora struggling to make a living sewing, moving between living with Eliza and living with the Snow parents. They lived for a time outside of Nauvoo in Morley Settlement, a sort of satellite colony led by a man named Isaac Morley.
In spite of – or because of – their success, persecution followed the Church. And then Joseph was introducing polygamy to his inner circle, while it was denied publicly.
In 1842 Father Snow had had enough. He moved his wife and two youngest sons to a farm in Walnut Grove, Illinois. He wrote in a letter to his brother Franklin back in Mantua, “Eliza cannot leave our Prophet. Mother did not like to. For my part I am very glad, at present, to be away. Turmoil and confusion, these stalk abroad at noon day.”
His daughters had each been introduced to the secret practice of plural marriage, and Eliza was “sealed” to Joseph Smith, and Leonora to Isaac Morley.
Cornelia’s entire upbringing had been one of “turmoil and confusion,” as her grandfather wrote, of constant moving, upheaval, religious faith, religious persecution – and this would continue for her entire life. Due to continued harassment, after working so hard once again to build a temple and build a shining city, the Saints would be driven out yet again.
Marriage
Just before Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered by a mob, in June 1844, he introduced a faithful follower and trusted member of his inner circle, Amasa Mason Lyman, to polygamy. Amasa, an apostle in the church, was already married, but he obediently married the Partridge sisters, Caroline and Eliza, in September. In November, he married Cornelia. She was 19 and he was 31. One wonders if these first plural wives had any idea what they were getting into or how hard their lives would be, and what they gave up in their desire to be faithful to church teachings. Interestingly, research has shown that those women who entered into plural marriage were more likely to be “fatherless and not economically well off,” while the men were high-status leaders.[1]
Then Joseph was murdered, throwing the church into more chaos. His death created a succession crisis, and members split into factions. Some left the church entirely; others would follow a group that was eventually led by Joseph’s son and supported by his only legal wife, Emma. Others joined schismatic groups. About half accepted Brigham Young as leader and stayed in the church.
Cornelia’s mother, aunt Eliza and uncle Lorenzo stayed true to the church and sustained Brigham Young as Joseph’s successor. They were in the Mormon elite, a trusted inner circle of leaders close to Brother Brigham.
On the Trail
Brigham decided that this time, the church had to leave the United States to find a place where they could live unmolested by outsiders. The exodus out of Nauvoo began in February 1846. By September, an estimated 14,000 people departed the city for Iowa and Nebraska, where camps were formed with log cabins and crops planted to assist in a gradual move to Utah.
Cornelia was in a wagon train with the Willard Richards Company, which left Winter Quarters, Nebraska July 1848 and arrived in Utah October 1848. There were two sections to this company: the Willard Richards section and the Amasa Mason Lyman section, with a total of about 526 people.
Willard Richards was an herbal doctor and a cousin of Brigham Young’s. He had served as Joseph Smith’s personal secretary. He was also appointed church historian by Joseph Smith, and later encouraged members to keep things like copies of the Deseret News, the church newspaper he established in Salt Lake. He kept a journal, and I wish he’d urged members like Cornelia to do so.
The trek across the plains with all its hardships has been covered in many a book and article though. Cornelia’s sister-wife Eliza Partridge wrote of her disappointment in seeing their new home in Utah, “The country barren and desolate. I do not think our enemies need envy us this locality or ever come here to disturb us.”
Life With Amasa
Amasa is described as a very likable person, a good missionary and administrator. In the introduction to his published journal, the editors wrote that he discovered by the 1830s that he was not good at manual labor, which was the way most men supported their families then. His talents lay elsewhere. In a modern context, he would be a great success in a paid leadership position in the church. But in his day, they did not receive a salary or “living allowance.” They served missions unpaid, and unless they had made some sort of special arrangements, their families were left to support themselves. Historian Reid Neilson said, "men took sabbaticals from their worldly responsibilities....relying on the financial generosity of others."
He simply wasn’t a good provider, and his wives struggled tremendously as a result. He seems, also, to have been delighted to be called away on mission after mission – he would serve 15 or 16, including extended trips to Europe, leaving his family behind. A sabbatical from the worldly responsibilities of making a living, especially for an outsized family, and free from the noise and chaos that could be found in such a family, was something Amasa evidently enjoyed.When he was home, on his own initiative he would leave to visit other settlements preaching and giving encouragement.
He frequently spoke and wrote about the distressing condition of poverty in general – not specific to his family. He was freed from even the pretense of being responsible for his large family while on a mission. Whether home or not, he frequently wrote in his journal, “Spent all day reading.”
Later – in 1860, the church created a Mission Fund to which members could contribute goods and money to help support missionaries’ families while the men were away.
Eliza Partridge wrote about her living conditions when they arrived in Salt Lake. She lived in a log cabin with seven people including her mother, her sisters Caroline and Lydia, children and a Brother Frederic and “Mr. Lyman a part of the time.” Eliza said the cabin was adequate except when it rained, when water would pour in from the roof and make the dirt floor muddy.
Who was Cornelia living with?
The wives had been in Salt Lake a month when Brigham called Amasa to go to California to collect tithing, especially from gold miners. He left in April 1849 and returned in September 1850. Eliza wrote, “Br. Lyman started for California in company with O.P. Rockwell and others…Br. L. has left us, that is Paulina, Caroline and I without anything to make bread, it not being in his power to get any.” (She doesn’t mention the other wives.)
In May 1849 she wrote, “Heard from home; learned that Sister Caroline had taken a school about ten miles north of us because she has nothing to eat at home and is under necessity of doing something, as there is nothing to be bought although we have the money to pay for flour if there was any.”
Daynes speculated that Amasa may have felt pressured to take on multiple wives, as it was an expectation for those in the highest leadership positions. Most who entered polygamy had two wives, whereas he had nine. An estimated 12 percent of plural wives provided all or the majority of their economic support on a regular basis. These were not companionate marriages as we expect today.
Historian Julie Dunfey details the way plural wives coped emotionally. Annie Clark Tanner described how she ate a dinner of bread and milk alone on her wedding night after her husband left with his first wife. When he failed to keep an appointment with her two weeks later, she wrote her family, "I learned to steel myself against disappointment." Jane Snyder Richards remembered another plural wife advising her to "make herself happy whether her husband was with her or not, not to think about it - where he was or who he was with." Sarah A. Cooke said she was advised to simply make herself indifferent to her husband if she was to be happy.
In short, to be a plural wife was to learn to find happiness elsewhere than with her husband. Woman formed strong bonds with sister-wives, for example. They also formed intense bonds with their children, and it was their sons and sons-in-law who often supported them once they reached adulthood.
Amasa was called back to California in 1851, but this was a special mission in which his family needed to be with him. Brigham wanted him to create a colony in San Bernardino; women and children are needed to establish colonies, after all. He had only been home six months when he was on the road again. In March that year, Cornelia left with him. She was about a month pregnant when they departed.
California Journey
This time she was in a wagon train of 150 wagons with about 437 people. There were 588 oxen, 336 cows, 21 young stock, 107 horses, and 52 mules. One interesting tidbit is that 11-year old Francis, Amasa’s oldest son, helped herd all those cattle over the long miles and stretches of desert. It must have been quite a sight.
The large turn-out was a concern to Brigham Young. Brigham was disappointed that so many wanted to go to California. He was afraid that the lure of gold would cause many to leave the church, even as tithings from gold findings helped the church significantly. In the wagon train was a group of Southern converts, the Mississippi Company, some of whom brought their slaves. There were also members of the Mormon Battalion, a group of Mormon recruits who served in the Mexican-American War, who had marched from Iowa to California.
Amasa’s previous trips to and from California had been on horseback, and they’d been challenging enough, including getting stuck in snow in the Sierra Madres. Now he had to get wagons through deserts and over mountains. The journey was grueling and encountered blizzards, mud and Indian attacks in Utah and thirst in the deserts of Nevada and California, including a 50-mile slog without water. Bear in mind that only 12 miles could be a full days’ journey. Leader Parley Pratt said, “It was certainly the hardest time I ever saw.” An article describes an especially challenging part of the trek:
Despite the difficulty of the desert crossing, the company’s greatest challenge was still before them—the Cajon Pass through the San Bernardino Mountains. Fortunately, freighter William T. Sanford had established a new trail in the West Cajon Canyon. But the slope at the top was still very steep, and they had to lower the wagons down the short ridge with ropes or use snubbing posts to slow the descent. For a distance of 60 feet the entire company, including wagons and animals, slid down to the trail.
The desert can be very beautiful, but there is also good reason it is described as “austere” and “bleak.” It was a far cry from where Cornelia spent her first 21 years.
On May 6th wife Eliza Partridge, who with one other wife was left in Utah, noted in her diary that she received a letter from Cornelia. It was the only time in her diary that she mentioned her. Unfortunately, she did not detail what Cornelia said.
In June, the last wagon arrived at a sycamore grove on the edge of the San Bernardino Valley – after nearly three months on the trail. Amasa had made a deal with a landowner to sell the church a large parcel of property, but after their grueling travel the landowner reneged on the deal. The wagon train was left to camp in the sycamore grove for three months while Amasa sought other land. The women hatched chicks and vegetable gardens were planted. A school was started. Local Hispanic women sold them prickly pear jelly, which the company enjoyed.
On October 1st, the group moved onto a 35,000 acre ranch a family sold to Amasa and his partner, and a building frenzy began, with some 100 dwellings quickly constructed. One account said Amasa’s family moved into an adobe house formerly lived in by Mexican laborers, while another account said that Amasa built the home. Both accounts agree that it was a two-story house with tile floors in two rooms and the rest with earthen floors. Amasa had five of his wives with him. Their arrangements were further described like so:
Each of the wives with her children had separate apartments, while a common kitchen and dining room was provided, but it is said, was never used by the women, each preferring her own establishment. The house is described as having no windows, but lighted from skylights above.
In November, Cornelia gave birth to her son Lorenzo Snow Lyman, said to be the first white child born in San Bernardino. She’d been married for seven years and was probably very happy to at last have a child of her own. He was named after her uncle Lorenzo Snow. During her pregnancy Lorenzo was away on a mission to Italy.
Three years later, her second son, Henry Elias Lyman was born. Meanwhile, back in Utah, wife Eliza Partridge confided her troubles to her diary. Two entries below are samples from other times when Amasa was away:
· “Friday, April 7, 1854. My brother E. Partridge called to go on a mission to the Sandwich Islands, which will leave us without man or boy to do anything, but it is all right.”
· “March 18th 1856. We eat our meals without bread for the very good reason that we have none, although we have a pound or two of flour for the children who are having the measles.”
While Eliza was left to provide for her household in Utah, things were going well in California. There was the far-more mild climate, and a spirit of unity among a very diverse group of people. In a letter Amasa wrote to Elder Franklin Richards, “As to the climate it is as pleasant as we could wish. At no time during the winter was the weather so cold that an overcoat was necessary.” In September 1852, Parley Pratt visited on his way back from a mission to Chili and described a special harvest feast, with dancing all evening. There were corn huskings, apple paring parties, May Day celebrations, spelling bees and candy pullings, just as there were in communities all over America.
There were three good years, followed by three years of increasing tension and dissension. There were a wide variety of reasons for this. Brigham Young announced the official doctrine of plural marriage, creating dissension even among members of the colony, and disapproval from outside. A court case was held involving two of the slaves taken to San Bernardino. As the craziness of the Gold Rush leveled off, the Saints could not get such high prices for their agricultural products. Paying the debt on the land became harder. A group of men challenged the theocracy that was the colony. There were still other reasons.
Most sources list only two children for Cornelia, but the 1860 census shows one more child, Jacintha F. Lyman, born in California in 1856.
Back in Utah
Their time in California came to a close in 1857 when Brigham recalled the colony to Utah. They left in April. Back in Utah, Cornelia lived with sister-wife Paulina Eliza Phelps. Paulina was a remarkable person who has a historical marker honoring her in Parowan, where Brigham sent her to be a midwife. In addition to delivering over 500 babies, she also became a doctor and surgeon. Cornelia suffered from ill health for the rest of her short life, and Paulina cared for her, as did another sister-wife, Priscilla Turley.
In 1860 Amasa was called back to Europe on yet another mission. He would be there for three years. It was a very happy time for him. He got to do what he did best, preaching and serving as an administrator, completely freed from family responsibilities, with plenty of time to read. Back home, Eliza Partridge’s diary once again recorded extreme hardship as she and her family were left to their own devices.
“Some time in the spring of 1860 Br. Lyman started on a mission to England, leaving us to do the best we could, which was not very well, as we were in our usual poor circumstances. We had poor health and no means to help ourselves with.” A few months later she wrote, “My daughter Lucy Zina born….my sister Caroline very sick…She had a babe who was also very sick…and not even flour in the house to eat, or soap to wash our clothes with. We were at last reduced to the necessity of calling on the missionary fund for help…This is always very trying to me.” This missionary fund, mentioned earlier, was newly-created that year. Members could donate to help support missionaries’ families in their absence. Obviously, it felt like embarrassing charity to a desperate Eliza.
When Amasa returned, he relocated to Fillmore and Eliza recorded “He left his family mostly to their fate, or to get along as best they could.”
Cornelia died in December 1864 at age 39. She probably had spent very little time with her husband after his return, with her in Parowan and him in Fillmore. Her two sons were cared for after her death by Paulina.
In 1870 Amasa was dis-fellowshipped, then excommunicated for preachings and writings that went against the teachings of the Latter-Day Saints. This caused great consternation amongst his wives and dissension among his children. Only his first wife, his legal wife Maria Louisa Tanner, stayed with him. The Partridge sisters, encouraged by Brigham (who was their brother-in-law) divorced Amasa. Cornelia’s two sons supported their father. Lorenzo, along with his sisters Agnes and Love, wrote to the bishop of Fillmore asking that their names be removed from membership records. (Agnes and Love's mother was Maria Louisa.)
A few years after the controversy over their father, Lorenzo and Henry moved back to San Bernardino County, where they would spend the rest of their lives.
Note: Here’s how Cornelia Eliza Leavitt fits in my family tree:
She is the great-niece of my fourth great-grandfather, Roswell Barber. Roswell's sister Rosetta was Cornelia's grandmother.
She is the granddaughter of my third great-grandfather's cousin. My third great-grandfather is Myron Fitch Barbour and his cousin is Rosetta Pettibone.
For more articles on members of the Church, read my blog post on Percy Amanda’s daughter, “Hannah Maria Goddard: Mormon Pioneer, Plural Wife.”
Sources:
http://www.amasamasonlyman.com/uploads/2/3/7/2/23729250/lyman_platt_-_the_thirteen_wives_of_amasa_mason_lyman.pdf
Collins, Harvey A. “At the End of the Trail the Mormon Outpost of San Bernardino Valley,” Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California,” Vol. 11, No. 2 (1919), pp. 68-81.
Davies, J. Kenneth. “Mormons and California Gold,” Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 7 (1980), pp.83-90.
Derr, Jill Mulvay. “The Significance of “O My Father” in the Personal Journey of Eliza R. Snow,” BYU Studies, https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-significance-of-o-my-father-in-the-personal-journey-of-eliza-r-snow/
Dunfey, Julie. "Living the Principle," of Plural Marriage: Mormon Women, Utopia, and Female Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century," Feminist Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Autumn 1984), pp. 523-536.
Godfrey, Matthew C. "You Had Better Let Mrs. Young Have Anything She Wants": What a Joseph Smith Pay Order Teaches about the Plight of Women in the Early Church," BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 2 (2019), pp. 56-68.
Heffner, Loretta. “The Personal Struggles of Amasa Lyman,” Dialogue, https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V16N01_92.pdf
Heffner, Loretta. “Amasa Mason Lyman, Spiritualist,” Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 6 (1970), pp. 75-87.
Lyman, Edward Leo. “The Demise of the San Bernardino Mormon Community,” Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 4, (Winter 1983), pp. 321-339.
Mills, Marilyn. “True Community: Latter-Day Saints in San Bernardino, 1851-1867,” Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, February 2003. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2003/02/true-community-latter-day-saints-in-san-bernardino-1851-1857?lang=eng
Richard O. Cowan and William E. Homer. “California Saints: A 150-Year Legacy in the Golden State (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1996), 167-84.
Searle, Howard C. “Willard Richards as Historian,” Brigham Young University Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 41-62.
Snow, Eliza R. Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Deseret News Company: Salt Lake City, 1884.
Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2023
[1] See Sherily Farnes paper or the work of Kathryn Daynes.
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