Arrington on Edwin D. Woolley

from: Chapter 1---Holy and Unholy Experiments

Arrington kicks of the discussion by pointing out the parallelism between Georg Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, and Joseph Smith Jr (p.1). Arrington quotes from Edwin B. Bronner, William Penn's Holy Experiment: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1701, New York (Temple University), 1962:

[George Fox wrote, RCK] When all my hopes in them and in all men was gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, O then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition." and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.

from: Chapter 2---Nobody Built Better Than Quakers

Edwin was eight when his father bought a farm across the Brandywine in Newlin Township, Chester County (p.23). This was an economically mobile locale:

By 1815 the Brandywine was powering fourteen mills, annually exporting to other colonies and territories half of the total of half a million pounds of wheat ground here. ... In West Chester a town market had failed in 1802, because door-to-door selling was more effective, but the county seat was fast developing a business and artisan class that depended on others for food staples. (p.23) 

Arrington assumes that here Edwin would have learned how to perform the many tasks of the builder.

The stone had to be cut and hauled, limestone quarried and burned into lime, sand located, timber fitted and hewn and squared, shingles split, scantling carved for frame and door. (p.24)

The animals are given a quick sketch too.

Every farm had hogs and sheep. Pork was eaten but mutton ... gained a bad flavor during cooking .... All but the very poor raised chickens that sat, summer and winter, on trees near the houses. In later years John had eleven cattle, including oxen. Horse were plentiful, imported in abundance, so that every colony had wild herds on their western frontiers over which the Indians and English fought. (p.24)

Arrington goes to some lengths to show what the typical days of the parents of Edwin would have looked like.

The first spring on the farm John [Woolley, Edwin's father, RCK] borrowed his brother's oxen and plow. He raised wheat and hay and probably rye and clover and potatoes. After sowing there were fences to mend or put up, and wagons to repair, meat to be cured, ditches to dig, and building to be done. Later, harvesting was done by hand. The ripened grain was cut with sickles, bound into sheaves, cured and stacked or barnes. It took a day for two men with cradles to cut, bind, and shock two acres of wheat. Threshing was done all winter long, followed by winnowing by tossing the grain into the air in the wind or creating a wind with the winnowing fan. John may have used the new method of letting the horses trample the grain on a threshing floor. The boys were probably sent with the wheat to mills not far away. (p.24)

 Ditto for Rachel, Edwin's mother.

Rachel's day, when she was not ill or in confinement, began with starting the kitchen fire from the embers and cooking porridge. Cooking was done in a walk-in fireplace, either in pots suspended above or laid beside a wood || fire on the hearth, or in the oven, a small cave in the back wall. She had to draw water (not difficult on John's farm, as there was a spring and pump just outside the kitchen door), strain the fresh milk, perhaps bake an apple pie from the dried apples strung on kitchen rafters or from fresh apples just picked from the small orchard, scrub the pewter and kettles, help the little children card wool at odd moments, clean the fireplace, put the ashes in leach buried with grease for soap, air the rugs, spin wool, sponge the baby, churn butter, send the six-year old after more water, sew patchwork blocks together for a quilt, take buttermilk out to the boys in the fields, clean the woodwork of the living roam with soft soap and a stout cloth, wash the fireplace bricks inside and out, clean windows, sew clothes, darn socks and knit new ones, remind John to repair the children's shoes, find the hen's nest for eggs, wash clothes, clean the floor by sanding it, start up the dinner fire, make bread and custard, wind yarn on the swift, bring in potatoes or beans or vegetables from the garden, and cook dinner. During the early years on the farm Rachel's daughters would have been too young to help her, and she must have had help from her husbands and sons. (pp.24-25)

As for agricultural technique, Arrington has this to suggest:

On the Woolley farm John and his sons probably used clover and crop rotation for land conservation, as that practice was petty well standard by 1800, and may have been using "plaster of Paris" (lime sulphate or gypsum) or organic manures for replenishing his lands. Beyond that, it is hard to tell how John or any common Quaker farmer fared. (p.26) 

Just how skilled or successful a farmer John Woolley was may be an academic question anyhow. His surplus went into improvements on the farm and new implements to make his work slightly easier. His wealth was not in cash and leisure, but in buildings, livestock, acreage and sons. He worked in a simple economy where his biggest resource was his ability to work. (p.27)

from: Chapter 3---Journey to Ohio

After his mother died in 1826 (p.29), Edwin at age 19 followed some of the other Quaker neighbors to Ohio, where he wanted to buy his own farm (p.32). Edwin took the Lancaster Turnpike, which handled trade between Philadelphia and Lancaster, later extended to Pittsburgh.

The first surfaced road in the United States, carefully graded and ditched and beaded with broken stone covered by gravel, it was regarded as a "masterpiece of its kind", passable even in the worst weather. (p.32)

Just in case Edwin took a daily stage, Arrington has a description of that one too, which he quotes:

The body of the carriage is closed in, about breast high; from the sides of which are raised six or eight small perpendicular posts, which support a covering --- so small that it is in fact a kind of open coach. (p.32)

[Arrington seems to quote this from: Archer Butler Hulbert, Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers, (vol 1, vol 2),  vol.11 of Historic Highways of America, Cleveland 1904, esp. p.108.]

Arrington adds this description:

It had leather curtains that could be raised in good weather, four seats lined one behind the other like the benches in a Quaker meetinghouse, a driver's seat under the same cover (not out in the cold), and an entrance "in front". (p.32)

Arrington also tries to bring in some other lodging details, that other eternal topic of the travelers.

Like other travelers, he [i.e. Edwin, RCK] sometimes had to share a bed with a stranger --- sometimes there or more people would be together, perhaps a daughter and wife on || one half, the father for a buffer, and some stranger on the other side. (pp.33-35) [p.34 was photos only]

Edwin walked the majority of the way, including through the Appalachian (p.35). By day #9 he was at Laurel Hill on the back of the Allegheny Mountains (p.38). On the 11th day Edwin encountered his first open-field coal mines, a situation that would prepare him for his own mines in Ohio (p.38).

Arrington points out that the dry and matter-of-fact description of his travel reports indicates that they were intended as guides and for homestead selection for his brothers and father (p.39).

On Day #12, he reached Pittsburgh (p.39). Arrington praises Edwin's usual eye for vigorous business, spotting the steam-powered glass blowing as well as commenting on the well over 100 steam boats that plied the Ohio and their potential for bringing goods to the interior.

[Edwin writes in his journal, RCK :] There is every kind of manufactories driven by steam here [in Pittsburgh]. One manufactory that I visited was the glass which is singular and interesting, having a great number of hands employed therein. (p.39)

He [i.e. Edwin, RCK] saw "salesboats" (floating stores) loading supplies at Pittsburg to take down the river where farmers would be signaled with a conch shell horn, flying a red flag if carrying groceries, a yellow one for dry goods. From 1820 to 1850 the Ohio was a "storekeeping highway", and Pittsburgh was the gateway from the east. (p.40)

Arriving in Ohio in October, Edwin scouted around for several weeks with his old Quaker friends from Pennsylvania, also checking in with the neighbors, the Wickershams, whose oldest daughter Mary he would marry before end of the winter (pp.40f).

On his return trip, Edwin followed the Ohio-Erie Canal route via the towpath.

He [i.e. Edwin, RCK] made his way to the National Road, the southern throughfare to the east, which ran along Maryland and West Virginia twenty and thirty miles below the Pennsylvania Road. Many travelers still preferred the northerly highway for its more direct route to New England, but the southern was better used, with taverns every mile. (p.41)

He [i.e. Edwin, RCK] left Zanesville, Ohio, November 29, taking the stage each day for eight days and paying the two-cent passenger toll at booths every twenty miles or so. (p.41)

from: Chapter 4---Prosperity in Ohio

Edwin return to Ohio in March, and married Mary Wickersham on March 24th, 1831 (p.45). However, they returned to Pennsylvania, where Mary took on the other Woolley siblings. Their own first baby was born at year's end (p.45). The family was preparing to move, hoping to increase their acreage by selling their local farm and buying new cheaper lands in Ohio (p.47). However, John Woolley became ill and died (p.47); and so Edwin and Mary, and his brother Taylor, packed up the remaining children and moved to Ohio, close to Mary's parents (p.48).

Edwin had in his party eight souls: he and Mary and little John; Sarah, the eldest sister; the twins, John and Phebe Ann; Samuel; and the fourteen-year-old black boy, John. Taylor and his wife, Mariah, took with them Susan, the second daughter, probably to help with their two infants. (p.48)

Arrington takes their trip as an opportunity to show off the transportation advances under way in the US at that time.

Had they waited a year the Mainline Canal would have been open end to end, carrying fast packets -- a version of the modern piggy-back containers --- which were pulled by fast horses on wheeled trailers from Philadelphia to Columbia, put on the rivers Susquehannah and Juanita to a point only twenty-six miles overland from the Conemaugh, towed by steam to the top and coasted down an inclined railroad to the Conemaugh,  and finally floated down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh. It was only a six-day trip. (p.48)

Having explicated that awesome express version, Arrington has to conclude somewhat crestfallen:

... from the number of days they traveled, the most likely conclusion is that they went by wagon. (p.48)

Which at least gives Arrington a chance to tell us all about the wagon.

The Conestoga wagon, developed by the Pennsylvania Dutch, later became the prairie schooner and was the most common form of transportation even after the introduction of the railroad and the opening of the Philadelphia-to-Pittsburgh line in 1838. (p.48)

Edwin and family settled adjacent to Taylor, on almost 162 acres at $5.12, near East Rochester, in Columbiana County, and worked through two tough pioneer years (p.48). The pioneer living was such that East Rochester was only platted on Christmas 1834, two years after their arrival (p.51). Though the canal boom of the mid-1830s narrowly missed Columbiana County, Arrington wants to make sure we understand what the canal boom normally meant for a locale.

When a canal was proposed, towns sprang up along its would-be route. During construction, stores and taverns flourished and farmers found a constant demand for produce. Local laborers were solicited to help with construction, as were unskilled migrant workers. The cash wages shortly modernized the old barter economy of rural areas. Once the canal was completed, it allowed easy transport to larger markets and importation of eastern goods, which made pioneer life easier and subsidized a new class of merchants. (p.53)

The planned canal did buoy prices, and so Edwin rented out the farm and took over the village tavern in East Rochester (p.54). The new position allowed him to flex his economic skills and muscles:

[In 1836, RCK] ... Edwin formed a mercantile partnership with J. Emmons, .... Edwin bought another forty-eight acre farm, which he rented out, and bought a house and lot on which he resided in town. The farms rented well, with new settlers coming in on account of the canal. Both the old and new farms were underlaid with coal .... (p.54) In 1839 Edwin purchased a fourth lot on which in later years, at least, stood blacksmith's, wagoner's and undertaker's shops. (p.55)

Arrington closes his sketch of the economic chumps of Edwin with some comments about the religious climate in Ohio, with the church services and the revival meetings as a major source of mental stimulation (p.56), and the competition of the Methodists, the Baptists, the Campbellites, and after 1831, the Mormons, in missionary activities in Ohio (p.57).

from: Chapter 5---Converts and Converters

By 1837, the season of financial prosperity had passed for the Mormons in Ohio.

... the financial panic in March and April left the Mormons as well as undres of banks and other institutions in disaster. Members of the Church had indulged in speculation, the clerk of the Kirtland Safety Sciety Bank had misused $25,000 of Society funds, and land purchases and construction of a temple had created heavy debts. (p.59)

This lead to internal problems for the Mormon movement.

After the failure of the bank, many Church officials became disenchanted with the Prophet. An ugly mood of violence and apostasy blackened the summer and fall of 1837. (p.59)

Among those who converted to Mormonism were some of Edwin's tenants, John and Rebecca Sherry (p.60). Mary and Edwin, who had gotten a good impression of Mormon missionary Lorenzo Barnes (p.61), took another five to six months to mull it over (p.62). Arrington speculates on what made the Quakers, whose "Society of Friends" usually splattered on the frontier, especially attracted to or repelled by Mormonism, identifying both the United Firm as attractive and the office of the Prophet as repellant.

On November 26, 1837, Mary converted to Mormonism (p.64), and now Edwin needed to know for himself. Traveling to Kirtland, he did not find Joseph Smith Jr, for whom Kirtland was not safe at that time, but instead went to New Portage, where Joseph Smith Sr was hiding out, with the papyri and the mummy and the Book of Abraham. Persuading Smith Sr to stay with him to tell about the faith for two weeks (p.64), Edwin became baptized on Christmas Eve day in 1837 (p.65).

It was almost a year later, when Edwin and Lorenzo Barnes undertook Edwin's first missionary journey, on January 8, 1839, to Edwin's old family and friends in Pennsylvania (p.67). The journey to Pennsylvania was difficult, as the missionaries relied on the kindness of strangers, of which the Dutch showed little, and Edwin's travel diary chronicles the little that they got (p.68). In his home county of Chester, they were better received and given adequate forum, but no conversions took place (pp.69-70). In this context they made they acquaintance of Squire Edward Hunter (p.73), who began his conversion process when insisting on their ability to speak at the West Nantmeal Seminary located on his farm. It would take until 1842 for the Hunters to move to Nauvoo (p.74).

With his missionary work completed for the moment, Edwin returned to Ohio in 1839.

His trip included passage on the railroad, a sixteen hour stagecoach ride, a short trip on a steamboat to Wellesville, Ohio, and the final eight miles on foot before he arrived home March 16. (p.75)

from: Chapter 6---The Spirit of Gathering 

In the fall of 1839, Edwin leased out his possessions in Ohio and moved his family to Quincy (p.78). Edwin, who had already met the Prophet, from the beginning had his foot in the door with the upper echelon.

During the summer of 1839 more than six hundred ares had been purchased at Commerce as well as fifteen thousand acres across the river. In May the Prophet had moved his family to a cabin a mile south of Commerce City, and by June Theodore Turley had got a home built Some evidence suggests that Edwin went with the Prophet and other brethren on an inspection tour of Nauvoo during which they selected homesites for their families. (p.79)

To give an adequate impression, Arrington cites Joseph Smith Jr directly (History of the Church 3:375).

The Prophet, however, described it as he first saw it [i.e. Nauvoo]. Then only a few houses had stood on the higher parts of the poorly drained peninsula. 

... The place was literally a wilderness. The land was mostly covered with trees and bushes, and much of it so wet that it was with the utmost difficulty a footman could get through, and totally impossible for teams. Commerce was so unhealthful, very few could live there. (p.79)

 Arrington cites historian Flanders, who collaged pioneer journals to come to the following assessment:

[Fragments of Information, LA] suggest a scene of rigorous pioneering on the townsite with pitching of tents, planting of gardens, arduous clearing and cabin building, a prevalence of sickness and privation, and a rapid increase in population .... By the end of the first year Nauvoo was a big, raw, unfinished town. (p.81)

Edwin was able to use his financial stability to rent a block hut with a loft and add two additions (p.81). At least the family had food and shelter, unlike many of the Missourian refugees. In Spring of 1840, Edwin deeded his Ohio holdings to the First Presidency, who used the money to pay off the investors, in turn receiving an improved lot of roughly two-hundred and sixty rods. Then the Malaria season hit them (p.82).

In the fall, Joseph Smith Jr assigned the compilation of the Church's history to the young brother Howard Coray and to Edwin Woolley, though they both at first protested (p.83). The collaboration between Coray and Woolley failed, however, due to educational differences and style, and a journalist, Dr Miller, had to step in and take Edwin's spot (p.83). In October 1840 the Woolleys fled Nauvoo and its bad health for a few days to settle affairs in East Rochester (p.84). They took the steamboat Maid of Iowa to Welleville, Ohio. Delayed by a brief missionary stint in Pennsylvania, they would not return to Nauvoo until November 10, 1841 (p.85). Here they spent the year of 1842, Edwin busily setting up his mercantile business, while his brothers worked in a local quarry and contributed to the temple building effort.

In the spring [of 1842, RCK], Edwin constructed a larger, more comfortable house with a two-story brick store adjoining using his savings and merchandising profits to expand his new headquarters. (p.86)

Most of his mercantile goods and supplies were purchased in St. Louis and brought to Nauvoo by steamboat: then Edwin, with the help of Sammy and John, stocked the shelves of his new enterprise. Sometimes Edwin himself went to St. Louis on business. (p.86)

During this time of growing economic success, Edwin became good friends with the Prophet. Arrington condenses the situation as follows:

Edwin was never among the Prophet's frequently named business and religious associates nor was he ever in the hierarchy of the Church. But Joseph evidently "thought very much of mother and father" if, as the children say, their home often served as a hiding place for him and he frequently asked Edwin for business advice. Joseph's own diary substantiates this. (p.86)

Joseph tested Edwin, asking him to pack all his good ups and get them ready for the building up of the Kingdom of God. Edwin did and passed the test (pp.86-87). Nevertheless, when financially challenged, the Prophet would often turn to Edwin as one of those he could borrow money from, as his diary records show. Arrington cites this June 17th, 1842 entry [from: History of the Church, 5:45]:

Borrowed money from brothers Woolley, Spencer, etc. and paid Hiram Kimball for the mount. ... I proceeded to lecture at length on the importance of uniting the means of the brethren for the purpose of establishing manufacturers of all kinds, furnishing labor for the poor, etc. Brothers Hunter and Woolley offered their goods toward a general fund, and good feelings were generally manifest. 

June 28th, 1842. Paid Brothers Woolley and Spencer. Brother Hunter's  goods were received at the store, and Brother Robins consecrated his goods and money to the general fund. (p.87)

Another anecdote that Arrington relates tells how Joseph Smith Jr came to Woolley for $500 in cash on the spur of the moment, without justifying it, then brought it back two weeks later, no questions asked and no answers given (p.88). [Here the conceit that no one could possibly have that much in cash is a bit hard to take; though it certainly was a large sum of money.]

Edwin continued to expand his operations, planning a hardware store and a tool making shop. In August of 1842, he bought a thirty-acre farm about two miles outside Nauvoo on the plateau, from two converts of Chester County (p.89).

During the dark days of persecution of the Prophet by the sherifs in the Summer of 1842, Edwin Woolley and Mary were among his loyal friends and helpers (p.88).

In September 1842, it was missionary time again, and Edwin went with Erastus H. Derby, Hyrum Smith and William Law to Massachusetts and Connecticut; William's brother Wilson accompanying them to Quincy (p.89). Again the missionaries used the steamboat to have debates with often hostile audiences (p.93).

Arrington gives a brief missionary anecdote of money (p.95), where Edwin is let pass without toll since he will preach in Stoystown. Failing to find an opportunity, he leaves without preaching, is arrested and fined $15. First losing his horse as the collateral, and then regaining through various interventions, including raising sums by subscription, his freedom, his horse and a willing audience for his message, all ends well.

Through the ins and outs of the internal administration of the Church on the East coast (pp.96-103), of which Arrington give vignettes, Edwin wound his way to Massachusetts, where he initially did not like it, but observed a Millenarian fever (p.104). However, what Edwin returned to after nine months of missionary work in 1843 was the polygamy debate in full swing (p.106).

from: Chapter 7---Crisis in Nauvoo

Arrington sets the scene of Nauvoo with a summary of the economic accomplishments of Edwin and his friend Edward (p.109).

Edwin returned in late June of 1843 to one of the finest houses in Nauvoo. It had five rooms, including a sitting room downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. As Rachel wrote:

The yard was very large, but it was beautiful and green. In the street almost in front of our house, there was amount. I suppose it was a burial ground for some of the Indians spoken of in the Book of Mormon, for I distinctly remember watching the men while digging the mount away to make the street. They found many bones of humans. One in particular I heard them talking about as being very large --- a thigh bone.

Across the street was Edward Hunter's red brick home, built by the same Chester County craftsmen Edwin had hired. (p.109)

Joseph Smith Jr and his secretary, Willard Richards, had hid out at Hunter's and Woolley's for the winter, while the police forces were looking for Joseph (p.109). Edwin continued to move in the upper echelons of Nauvoo society (p.110): he participated in the Maid of Iowa steamboat outing in July of 1843. When Joseph Smith Jr and Emma came for horseback riding, Edwin and Mary would accompany them (p.110).

But as members of the trusted circle, they were being drawn into the new teachings of celestial marriage. In October 1843, on a Tuesday, Hyrum Smith read the revelation to a group of visitors in Edwin, who had closed his store early, and Mary's house (p.111). Arrington contextualizes the reactions by describing the struggles of Brigham Young (p.112) and Benjamin Johnson (p.113), whose sister Almira became one of the early plural wives. Edwin accepted the new doctrine before Mary could (p.113). Edwin's second wife was Louisa Chapin Rising Gordon, whom he had converted in Westfield (p.114); his third wife was Ellen Wilding of Preston, Lancashire, a convert of Heber C. Kimball (p.114).

At this point, Arrington backtracks a bit, without giving any proper dates, and discusses the two business districts that had developed in Nauvoo since before the summer of 1843.

Two business districts developed in the city. One was on the southern end along Main and Water streets, where the Nauvoo House and the Prophet's store were located [so this must be after January 1842, RCK]. The other was in the upper part of the city along Mulholland and connecting streets. Here Edwin's business neighbors included M. Adams' boot and shoe shop, Jasper Haven's drugstore, the tailors Davis and Williams, Power and Adams' books and shoes and matches, Joseph Hammer's comb manufactory, Joseph Horne's leather store, and P.S. Cahoon's auction room || at the Farmer's Exchange between Mulholland and Knight streets. (pp.115;117)

Arrington points out that already in 1842, Hunter and Woolley had attempted to form a Mormon business association to counter the strong pressure of the "gentile" businessmen of the Mulholland district (p.117)

Among the upper Mulholland Street businessmen were many gentiles, which helped to create competition between the districts that became a source of discord within the Church as well as among citizens; many later apostates came from the ranks of the Mulholland businessmen. In 1842 Edwin and Edward Hunter had asked Joseph about starting a mercantile association that would improve the Mormons' commercial standing, for they usually had less capital than the gentiles. Joseph had asked them to wait a bit, and took advantage of the meeting to solicit a donation from them. (p.117)

[The meeting information is taken from the journal history of June 27, 1842.]

In the fall of 1843, Joseph Smith Jr decided that his loyal clerk Willard Richards had suffered enough and deserved a second house for his young second bride, drawing up a subscription for the construction; Edwin subscribed for the lime (p.118).

[Joseph Smith Jr wrote, RCK:] I subscribe a city lot. The brethren subscribed $25 cash, 10 cords of stone, 30 bushels of lime, 105 days work, $59 in work, 15,900 bricks, glass, lumber, and other materials, together with a quantity of produce. I hope the day is not far distant when my clerk will have a comfortable house for his family. (p.118) [from History of the Church, 5:525]

On Sundays, the family joined the congregation at the grove close to the temple building site, where a speaker's platform existed (p.118).

During this time, Edwin became a "block" bishop in his ward, wherein he assisted his old friend Bishop Edward Hunter, who was in charge of the entire Nauvoo 5th ward. Newel K Whitney, who was the bishop of the Lower Nauvoo wards, while Vinson Knights was the bishop of the Middle Nauvoo wards, and Edward Partridge the bishop of the Upper Nauvoo wards. Whitney eventually became one of two presiding bishops of all Nauvoo wards (p.119), together with George Miller. Not only did they supervise the local bishops, they were also in charge of gathering donations for the temple.

In April 1844, Mary quit the house and went to Ohio for a time, to deal with her frustrations (p.120) over sharing the household with Louisa. From there she sent him emotional letters of her discomfort, with both the journey, the sickness she and her baby had contracted, and the general situation (pp.120-123). She was especially upset when a fire developed on board the steamboat at Pittsburg (p.122), but she had no husband to protect her and her baby, unlike all the other women. By late June she had returned to the fold of the family (p.123).

In Nauvoo, difficulties of the political type were brewing. John C. Bennett had been evicted and had raised his numerous exposes of Mormonism and of polygamy (p.123); Joseph Smith Jr had tried to improve the political lot of the Mormons by running for president, announcing his candidacy in January of 1844, and organizing a proper convention for May 17, 1844 (p.123). Edwin represented Columbiana County, Ohio, in this convention, but without any legitimacy. At the same time, the final split with William Law took place, who published his single issue Nauvoo Expositor on June 7th, 1844. In the aftermath of the council's actions (p.124), Joseph Smith Jr submitted to trial at Carthage, and took leave from Edwin and Mary Woolley for the last time, pointing out his clear conscience and his imminent destruction (p.124).

Edwin Woolley remained uninvolved in the sorting out of the leadership after Joseph's death, when the mantle finally passed to Brigham Young (pp.125-127) over Sidney Rigdon's and other claims.

Aftermath

Suffice it to say that Edwin Woolley transitioned well to assist Brigham Young as a key member of the poor committee (p.130) and as someone that Young trusted (p.131).

... Brigham was an astute pragmatist. It was not surprising that Edwin Woolley took his place among the circle of Brigham Young's doers. (p.131) 

Bibliographical Record

• Leonard J. ARRINGTON, From Quaker to Latter-Day Saint: Bishop Edwin D. Woolley, Salt Lake City (Desert Book Publishing Company), 1976.