Microfilm of 29 letters sent to or by Hosea Stout and his brother Allen Stout between 1836 and 1859. Recipients of letters from Hosea Stout include his wife Louisa Stout, his sisters Surmantha and Anna Stout, and his brother Allen Stout. Letters to Hosea Stout were written by Brigham Young, Allen Stout, Willard Richards, and Stout's cousins Daniel B. Capps in Grainger County, Tennessee, and Thomas Smith. There is also correspondence between Allen Stout and Benjamin Jones, William Fowler, John and Lydia Larkey, and John and Sarah Capps. The letters, which are not in chronological or alphabetical order on the reel, were sent from Illinois, Utah, Arkansas, California, Missouri, Tennessee, and Iowa. Some notable items include a letter from Hosea to his sister Anna in which he writes that he had failed in getting a school and that "it appears that misfortune comes upon me at every attempt to make an honest living" (Apr.5, 1832). A letter to Hosea from his cousin Daniel B. Capps asks for a description of the Mormons, as Capps had heard some disconcerting stories about them, although he concludes that "I do not want you to think this is a reprimand against you for joining their society, for it is not" (June 6, 1839). A series of letters to Louisa Stout from 1852-1853 describe Hosea's mission to Iron County, include portions of a journal he kept while traveling to Los Angeles and sailing to Monterey Harbor and ultimately San Francisco to arrange for passage to Hong Kong, and his dissatisfaction with the Mormon mission work in San Francisco ("We can do nothing here among the Chinese" ). There is also a letter from Allen Stout informing Hosea of Louisa's death in childbirth while he was serving on a mission in Hong Kong (Apr.11, 1853), and a letter from Brigham Young to Stout while he was still in Hong Kong in which Young writes of troubles in Utah with "Walker and his band of Utes," who had murdered Brother Kill, John Dixon, John Quayle, and William W;All inquiries about this item should be directed to the H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator of Western Historical Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. ;Forms part of the Manuscripts Department's Mormon file, c.1805-1995. Hosea Stout, one of the most prolific Mormon diarists, was born on September 18, 1810, in Mercer County, Kentucky. He attended a Shaker school from 1814-1818 before his family moved to Ohio and later Indiana. While living in Illinois in 1832 Stout heard the preaching of Charles C. Rich and became interested in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1837 he moved to Caldwell County, Missouri, and was baptized into the Mormon Church in 1838. That same year he married Surmantha Pack, served with David Patten's company in the Battle of Crooked River, and escaped with the rest of the Mormon militia to Iowa. Following Surmantha's death in 1839, Stout married Louisa Taylor, Lucretia Fisher, and Marinda Bennett, although each of these wives had either left him or died by 1847. The Stouts joined the Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois, and Stout became a brigadier general in the Nauvoo Legion. In 1846 the Stouts left Nauvoo and spent 1846-1847 at Winter Quarters, Nebraska. Stout finally arrived in Salt Lake City in 1848, and was soon made a member of the House of Representatives and also served as attorney general and States Attorney, in addition to being one of the first practicing lawyers in Utah. In 1853 Stout served on a brief mission to China, and once back in Utah was made Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1856. He lived on the Cotton Mission from 1861 to 1865 and spent six months in prison at Camp Douglas for the murder of Richard Yates during the Utah War. In 1877 Stout moved to Holladay, Utah, with his wife Sarah Jones. He died in Holladay on March 2, 1889.
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