Correlating Population with Bank Solvency

In the previous post we discussed two assumptions about Hill et al's 1977 argument regarding the prudence of opening a savings society in Kirtland in 1836. Recall that they had used Coover's enumeration of Ohio banks to conclude that the population in Kirtland should have been sizeable enough to support a modest bank. The presupposition of this claim is, as I noted

• Population size is a good predictor for bank success.

In this post I want to break down the claim that is wrapped in this statement into its constituent parts. The current formulation, though not an inappropriate assumption based on the data that Hill et al had used to make their case, sounds too statistical in nature, while the argument that Hill et al had in mind was in all likelihood more qualitative.

The basic observation is that banks require specie to operate. Specifically, they have to have specie to have their bank notes accepted and to make loans to customers (where the interest charged is part of the income that the bank produces). The way banks obtain specie, other than by accepting deposits, is to take down payments for subscribed stock that they issue. In my dissertation I detail some of the rules of how subscriptions worked and how much of the stock value had to be paid in as specie by what point during the subscription period by the subscribers [RCK15, 230-238] and I replicate the information from Coovers' research in the appendix [RCK15, 425f]. 

Since there is no residency requirement for subscription, subscribers can come either from 

• within the community wishing to have a bank; 
• or can be American financiers, usually at that point in time from the East Coast, 
• or Europeans engaged in trade with the US who wish to park their profits from their trade within the Americas within the US of A. 

Europeans here means wealthy non-Americans and in the majority, British traders. Though the world economy was rapidly moving toward integration---Joseph Smith Sr had been exporting East Coast Ginseng root to China in the years before Joseph Smith Jr had been born [RCK15, 79]---the wealthy traders from Africa, India or the Far East were not involved in American frontier banking.

As Charles Clifford Huntington showed in his 1915 thesis, A History of Banking and Currency in Ohio before the Civil War (available at the Internet Archive), there was much concern about capital flight in Ohio in the 1830s, due to the large number of financiers from the East Coast and even from outside the country proper that were involved in buying Ohio banking stock (Hunt15, 137f). In fact they owned over 70%, US$3.35 million of the US$4.73 million in capital stock in the state, before March of 1834 [RCK15, 233], as researched by the Cincinnati Republican.

There were examples of banks completely supported by the community, such as the infamous Owl Creek bank; or the Bank of Wooster that failed in spite of $150,000 paid-in stock and a leverage of 1.29 [RCK15, 245]; but the more typical case was the Ohio Life Insurance & Trust Company, who had only three residents of Ohio among its twenty board members and was held, in the words of the Ohio Monitor of March 14, 1836, "by the Wall Street gentry of New York" [RCK15, 234]. The company had given loans totalling almost US$2 million in 67 counties of Ohio, which were secured with some US$4.34 million worth of real estate---a very different league from the banks of Wooster mentioned above or of West Union, which had $20,000 of species at 2.42 leverage when it failed.

With this information at our fingertips, we can now note two things:

• For the successful banks, the majority of the capital stock was held by out-of-state financiers.
• Banks that were predominantly funded from within the community failed during the banking crisis of 1837.

Again, the Bank of Wooster is the most interesting example. Its was chartered in February of 1834 with US$100,000 and immediately oversubscribed by its population by 25% [Hunt15, 141]. In 1837, with a leverage of 1.29, it was almost stellar, $150,221 paid in for a circulation of $194,289 notes. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is the lack of expertise? 

Population and Bank Support

In their 1977 paper, Hill et al. The Kirtland Economy Revisited (BYU Studies Vol 17, 4, Article 2) argued that the idea of founding a bank such as the Kirtland Safety Society was an appropriate idea based on the size of Kirtland and the number of other banks in existence in other communities.

Kirtland at this time was one of the larger communities in northern Ohio---a number of smaller communities already possessed banks. Judging from the successful experience of other banks in Ohio, one with as little as $20,000.-- in paid-up capital, Kirtland probably could have supported a modest bank. (433)

In a footnote they go on to enumerate some of the locales with banks that Hill et al had in mind.

... smaller banks in northern Ohio included Warren (3), Ravenna (2), Canton (2), Salem, Youngtown, Elysia, Ashtabula, and Cuyahoga Falls. Cleveland, which had perhaps twice as many people [as Kirtland, RCK] had eleven [sic RCK] banks. (433 Fn 61)

In my dissertation,  where I discuss this argument (246), I argued that this exposition was misleading on multiple grounds. But in order to fully counter the claim by Hill et al, one needs to first explicate the argument structure. And in order to explicate the argument structure, we need to make clear that this argument is trying to support the larger notion that the creation of a bank, as endeavored by the Church leadership in 1836 was a reasonable thing to undertake and had all of the appearances of success on its side. 

So the argument structure goes something like this:

• Warren had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Warren had three banks.
• Raven had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Warren had two banks.
• Canton had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Canton had two banks.
• Salem (Ohio) had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Salem had one bank.
• Elysia had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Elysia had one bank.
• Ashtabula had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Ashtabula had one bank.
• Cuyahoga Falls had a smaller population than Kirtland.
• Cuyahoga Falls had one bank.

The inductive leap of this assumption then is that towns with smaller populations than Kirtland had between one and three successful banks in 1836. We will call this argument Min1-3

(Note: The bank of West Union, which is the one of $20,000 capitalization, is not in this list. Perhaps it was not possible to arrive at population data for West Union?)

The argument in the case of Cleveland goes in the other direction.

• Cleveland had double the population of Kirtland.
• Cleveland had twelve banks.

The inductive leap here is that Kirtland should be able to support six successful banks. We will call this argument Max6.

Combining these two inductive leaps Min1-3 and Max6, we can now create another inductive leap, to wit:

• Kirtland's population sized should have supported at least one to three banks (Min1-3) and possible as many as six banks (Max6).

We will call this argument Kirtland-1-3-6. 

Hill et al are arguing that the Church leadership made this same sequence of inductive leaps. They have no documentary proof for this, but it is a reasonable imposition: the members of the Church leadership were well connected with political leaders and the legislature; furthermore, they had taken out loans before and engaged in real estate speculation, a task that required banking connections during the boom times of the federal land sales [RCK15, 248f]. Assuming Kirtland-1-3-6 and the absence of any banks in Kirtland in 1836, at all, it was a reasonable idea to found one and to expect it to succeed.

The first problem is that the argument is prefixed by the assumption that Hill et al interpreted the data given in Coover correctly. Unfortunately, as I argued in my dissertation [RCK15, 247], that is not the case. Coover's list gives all the banks known for Ohio between 1803 and 1866, not just the banks operating in 1836 time. In fact, since Coover was a collector of banknotes, all that can be said is that at some point someone issued a note with the name of a bank located in one of these cities (and some people made notes for non-existent banks, as Coover pointed out). 

As I pointed out in my dissertation [RCK15, 247], the following banks have to be removed from the list, because we know nothing about when and how successfully they operated:

• Two of the three banks in Warren.
• Both banks in Ravenna.
• One of the banks in Canton.
• The bank in Salem.
• The bank in Youngstown.
• The bank in Elysia.
• The bank in Ashtabula.
• The bank in Cuyahoga Falls.
• Ten of the twelve banks in Cleveland.

In terms of inductive evidence that is a slaughter. 

But there are further problems. There are two key unstated assumptions in this argument:

1. Population size is a good predictor for bank success.
2. Past success is a good predictor for future success.

The first is wrong on the observation, as spelled out in my dissertation, that a lot of the money in Ohio banking was from out-of-state, both financiers of the East Coast [RCK15, 244] as well as Europeans doing import/export business with the United States. In the 1830s, the United States was effectively a third-world country, running a huge trade deficit on its import of goods and export of raw and somewhat processed materials. Because these problems were common to all of the frontier states, the situation was the same in Michigan for example.

The second one seems like a reasonable slogan, but one could only have agreed to that assumption with respect to a bank if one was ignorant of the then-brewing storm regarding small bills in general (New Jersey and Maine in 1835 forbidding small bills, Virginia & Maryland & Pennsylvania purging small bills from their monetary system at the same time). Furthermore, the no-bank Democrats had just won dominance in the legislature of Ohio, they had been cool on charters for bank for a while now, and they had passed no charters in 1836 by the summer, pointing to the unused potential for capitalization in the existing charters [RCK15,234f]. Ohio was also pressuring its bank during the spring of 1836 with threats of taxation should they not strive to remove the small bills from circulation, with all $3 bills phased out by July 4, 1836. 

Perhaps even more importantly, President Andrew Jackson on July 11, 1836 had issued his famous specie circular via the Treasury, which eliminated local banknotes as method of payment for purchasing federal lands and insisted on hard specie. Professional cashiers left the frontier banks after this circular, unless their fianciers promised additional monetary support, as Henry Dwight of Massachusetts did to H.K. Sanger, who was cashier at the Bank of Michigan [RCK15,244].

Post Scriptum

It is not entirely clear when the Church leadership decided to go ahead with the plan for the Kirtland Safety Society. Oliver Cowdery was already traveling to New York to inquire into credit for printing plates in August of 1836. The revelation promising resolution to the financial plights (v5) that is now Doctrines & Covenants 111 was given in Salem, Massachusetts, August 6th, 1836. The letter that reports the decision was printed in the Messenger & Advocate in September 1836.  

Points that I did not make clear with reference to this argument in my dissertation include that the Kirtland Safety Society was anything but modest [RCK15, 250], and the number of Cleveland banks in the research by Coover on Ohio Banking Institutions from 1913, on which the observations were based, is twelve not eleven.

Argument Structures around the Kirtland Safety Society

While historians want to be both educated and corrected by their sources, it is often difficult to pin down that that exactly means. In the following, I want to look at a few examples of how this plays out in the case of the economic history of the Kirtland Safety Society (this is Chapter 10 in my dissertation).

The backbone of course is the chronology. Many narratives already fall apart due to not aligning with the basic chronology of the matter. Of course the selection of what elements to include in the chronology brings us back to the problem of enplotment.

It is important to realize that a chronology is not a sequence of dates, but a sequence of dated events. The distinction is crucial, because dates are just chronometric units, while events have actors and properties and are enmeshed in a event sequence, as well as a geometric positioning. The chronometric units have a canonical order, but it is independent of all semantic contents---which is precisely what makes them units.

Perhaps it is best to first to tease apart the pieces that can go into a historical argument. For an intentional action, we have to presuppose some kind of script, that is, a codification of the "usual" way to do this. This would be the usual way from the point of view of the contemporaries, of course, not from the point of view of the historian. 

The "usual way" is typically distilled in some form from another event that has a similar structure. As Eduard Meyer pointed out (1912) [cited in the dissertation], it is this compare-and-contrast operation that is at the root of the historical research effort for distinguishing the common from the unusual. In the Kirtland case, I used the Owl Creek Bank, which did occur in Ohio about two decades before the Mormon arrival, as well as the Old Bank of Michigan, in which Joseph Smith~Jr's uncle Stephen Mack had participated. In the end it was the cross-comparison between these three instances that provided the fodder for the historical reconstruction.

These three elements were underpinned on the one hand by a history of banking in Ohio, mainly a sequence of state legislature actions and bank foundations (which had to be chartered by the legislature), and a history of the more global economic settings both in Ohio proper and in the US. This was the place for wealthy East Coast magnates and European importers, mainly from England, that had a strong influence on the money supply. This was also the place for Jacksonian interventionism at the national level and the ins and outs of the federal land sale that had such an impact on the monetary supply. All of these lines had their own event sequence with its own "arc" so to speak, mostly expressed as supporting or blocking specific aspirations on the legislative side and injecting or removing money on the financiers' side. 

The final element was the chronology of the creation and dissolution of the Kirtland safety (anti-)banking society itself. The comparison with the other banking charters in Ohio as well as with the Owl Creek Bank highlighted the inversion of the order of steps (charter last) as well as the enormous leverage that had been prototypical of other bank failures in the past and would eventually be outlawed in 1839 by the legislature, requiring 1:3 at the most.

For all of these elements, the observation of the overdetermined asymmetry of causation was in effect. For example, only a small fraction of the notes issued by the Kirtland society survived, supporting reconstructive efforts such as simulations how many bills of which type might have been issued. Also, the stock subscription book survived, allowing to determine which families of the Mormon elite had taken out the most stock and subscribed how much of their money. Some newspaper editorials and similar statements survived, but many other actions and their direct and indirect effects remain inaccessible, lost to time.

William Heth Whitsitt's Sidney Rigdon MS, (Part 1)

William Heth Whitsitt's Sidney Rigdon MS, (Part 1) a long paper on how Rigdon must be the author of the Book of Mormon, based on the alignment with Disciple theology, by a Southern Baptist theologian.

I ended up not using this in my book.

May 1837 complaint against Frederick G. Williams

In the First Minute Book, p.226, there is an interesting complaint against Frederick G. Williams and several other members of the church leadership from May of 1837, when the banking crisis was hitting the US hard.

Trial for Lack of Benevolence

In the First Minute Book, p.212ff, there are several trials against church members for not paying their due. The trial seems to date from the Kirtland period, June 1836.

History of Transportation before 1860

Early Trails

The Appalachian mountains separated the Ohio-Mississippi hinterland from the Atlantic seaboard, and overcoming this separation was the task of early trails (p.3). The efficient sea communication on the Atlantic shore had the curious effect of providing "a stretch of ocean ... over which goods could be transported at less expense than they could be carried overland for distances which to-day seem inconsiderable." (p.3) 

... the colonies throughout the colonial period were commercially closer to Europe than they were to one another. (p.3)

Trade routes into the interior were still necessary, however, as the "seaboard communities could not themselves produce the commodities required by this traffic".

Prior to the Revolution intercontinental commerce was inconsiderable, and intercolonial trade-routes, where they existed, were entirely inadequate. (p.4)

The coastal plain was well opened up by rivers, whose branches led into the valleys and gaps of the mountains.

A study of the spread of settlement up to 1775 shows that the immigrant population ran up the river valleys as far as the fall-line, and there generally stopped. (p.4)

After the Revolution, the twin patterns of the westward migration and the eastward flow of products made the question of how to traverse the Appalachian system "a dominant issue in national politics, involving the economic welfare and growth of every section of the country" (p.4)

The parallel ranges of the Appalachian, a system 300 miles wide and 1300 miles long, reached from the Green Mountains in Vermont, to the pine-hills of Alabama. The rivers could not be navigated up to the mountains, but the headwaters revealed good passes, though in the South these paths ended up being somewhat roundabout.

In  Pennsylvania the chief route to the Ohio followed the West Branch of the Susquehanna. Farther south was another route by the Juniata to a tributary of the Allegheny. (p.4)

Bibliographical Record
Balthasar Henry Meyer, History of Transportation in the United States before 1860, Washington (Carnegie Institute of Washington) 1917.

Lavoisier and Sage on Potash Production

This is reading notes from the accessible potash document I described in this post.

Sage et al (p.1) note that potash smells acidic and like urine. It usually is dark brown in coloration (p.2), when it is in its coarse state. When fired in the reverberatory furnace, it turns slate blue or white and is now called potash (p.2). When potash is calcined well [i.e. turns into pearl ash, RCK], it becomes porous and light, like pumice (p.3).

The most common method for potash production is to burn wood (p.5) and put the ashes into a copper vessel, adding water and boiling the mixture. One lets the lye settle, decants it into a separate boiler, then lets the remaining water evaporate until the potash is dry.

In places of charcoal production, stovepipes can be used to gather up the humidity distilled out of the charring wood pile into basins, which are then evaporated using boilers (p.6). If the salts sticks too strongly to the pans, scissors and mallets are used to detach it (p.7).  All woods produce some salts, but some more than others. Older ashes produce more, provided they are kept wet, and the best come from hardwoods (p.7). In the summer, they use cold water; in the winter, they mix hot and cold water half-and-half. Water that is too hot spoils the process, as the grease cannot separate from the salts. Stagnant waters give twice the potassium than clear waters.

One places wooden troughs of oak or pine a finger and a half apart, with a false bottom, where one places a bed of straw, and masses the ashes on top of that, so that the water cannot drain too quickly (p.8). One replaces the straw every six weeks in winter, and in the summer only every two months. Once the liquid stops fuming, one has to stir it with a stick, let the fire go out and cut the salt out with sticks.

The best method is the Swedish method, where one cuts the wood into pieces and piles it up.

The industrial history of the United States by Comen

In The industrial history of the United States from 1905, Katharine Coman reconstructs the start to the war of 1812 in the lack of guaranteed neutrality of American shipping and the impressment of sailors into the British Navy (p.172). America had found itself pushed into the second best spot in international shipping after the French navy had been worsted at Trafalgar and the European continental countries found themselves confined to their harbors with the Union Jack reigning at sea.

In 1806 the British were blockading the European coast "from Brest to the Elbe", and relying on the articles from 1793 to confiscate any goods going to France. Napoleon and the British Empire had claimed the right to claim any ships, cargo and crews that were assisting the other side (p.173). The protesting ports of Salem, Boston, New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia received no assistance from Virginia planter and president Jefferson, who was above all else interested in avoiding war. The Embargo Act therefore required all American ships to trade along the coast exclusively, with bonds at twice the value of the cargo to ensure compliance.

Though some people complied with the rules by selling the ships or simply not returning to harbor in the US (p.174), the impact for the economy was disastrous.

Prices of foreign commodities doubled ; prices of domestic goods fell below the cost of production. The $50,000,000 of capital invested in shipping brought in no revenue. Thirty thousand out of forty thousand American sailors were suddenly thrown out of employment. Farmers unable to dispose of their produce offered their lands for sale. Lumbermen and fishermen were reduced to beggary. The mercantile classes suffered no less. In New York the Embargo caused one hundred and twenty bankruptcies and threw twelve hundred unfortunates into the debtors' prison. (p.174)

In 1809, the US Government reversed course (p.175) with the nonintercourse with Great Britain, and now the US could pick up the neutral shipping.

The war tariff of July 1, 1812, doubled and trebled the duties on imported commodities. Imports and exports rapidly declined. Their combined value in 1814 was but $20,000,000, one seventh of the foreign trade of 1810. Our shipowners faced ruin. (p.175)

Anyone who owned a ship took out a privateering contract and made for the seas to capture British ships, with the full approval of the government.

Sixty-five vessels were commissioned as privateers in the first three weeks of the war, one hundred and fifty in the first two months. During the summer of 1812 one hundred prizes were taken, and but fifty vessels were lost to the enemy, only thirteen of these being privateers. During the three years of war the five hundred and fifteen privateers commissioned by the United States captured over thirteen hundred British vessels, most of them 'merchantmen carrying valuable cargoes. Congress allowed a rebate of one third the import duty on captured goods and offered twenty-five dollars for each prisoner taken. (p.176)

Though in the immediate aftermath, trade blossomed, by 1821, it had collapsed again, and the key reason---beyond the panic of 1819 and the tariff of 1816---was the reciprocity of free trade offered by the US to the rival shipping nations (p.177).

The real gainers from the reciprocity policy were not the shipowners but the farmers and planters, whose surplus products were sent to foreign markets at declining freight rates. (p.178)

Then Comen turns to the development of manufacturing.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in spite of the encouragement, legislative and otherwise, that had been given to manufactures, the United States was still in the main an agricultural nation. We were producing more both of food products and raw materials than were consumed in the country, and we could not provide manufactured commodities sufficient to supply the home market. (p.180)

Shipping, farmers and consumers were happy to trade raw products for manufactured goods imported, only the manufacturers were unhappy (p.180). From the Embargo in 1808 to the end of the War in 1815, the manufacturing of cotton enjoyed a virtual monopoly within the US. This caused a boom in the cotton manufacturing that had previously only progressed gradually. The boom was amplified by the redirection of capital; shipping monies moved into manufacturing instead.

Slater's success at Pawtucket had demonstrated the possibilities of this new textile industry, and men trained under his eye went out to set up rival establishments. The mills at Slatersville, Rhode Island, Pomfret, Connecticut, and Union Village, New York, were direct offshoots from the "Old Mill." For the first ten years development was slow. (p.180)

[Slater had grown up in Belper, England, where he had apprenticed at a frame using the Arkwright spinning method for leveraging water power, invented in the 1760s. This knowledge he brought to Rhode Island, even though departure for weaving apprentices was supposed to be illegal, where he collaborated with American artisans like David Wilkinson to reconstruct an Arkwright like frame. RCK]

In 1807 there were fifteen cotton mills running 8000 spindles and producing 300,000 pounds of cotton yarn annually. In 1811 there were eighty-seven mills operating 80,000 spindles, producing 2,880,000 pounds of yarn per year and employing 4000 men, || women, and children. In 1815, 500,000 spindles gave employment to 76,000 persons, with a payroll of $15,000,000 per year. Rhode Island was the center of this flourishing industry. Within thirty miles of Providence were one hundred and thirty mills running 130,000 spindles and employing 26,000 operatives. (pp.180f)

However, the cotton was still weaved by hand on looms, until C. Lowell succeeded in 1814 in establishing the first power loom in the USA in Waltham, MA (p.181). The innovation spread, and the work had been simplified to the point that women and children could do it (70%-85% of the employees), which significantly lowered cost.

Establishing the woolen manufacturing required weaning oneself from the sheep imports from Spain, Portugal, Saxony, Russia, South America and Syria (p.182). Merino sheep seemed to be the solution and caught on first; they were able to handle the continental climate. Woll was fetching 75c in 1811 and $2-3 in 1813 (pp.182f). Rowland Hazard succeeded in putting together the first woolen factory, were carding, spinning and weaving was all accomplished by water power, in 1828 (p.183).

The US Iron manufacturing was favored because of the availability of anthracite or stone coal (p.183), which was brought to Philadelphia via the Delaware River as early as 1804 (p.183).

In 1805 there were five furnaces and six forges in Fayette County [in Pennsylvania, RCK]. Three rolling and slitting mills and a steel furnace were successfully established by 1811. The iron deposits of the river valleys to the north were being developed in the same period. Pittsburg was the natural center for this rising industry because of her unexcelled advantages in the way of water transportation. (p.183)

Getting a grip on Economic History on the Internet Archive

Ernest Ludlow Bogart did not only write a general Economic History of the United States (accessible here, here and here), but also a Financial History of the State of Ohio. Bogart also published readings in economic history (here and here).

Then there is Thurman William Van Metre, who also wrote an economic history (here, here, here and here). Or Edward Mead Earle, who wrote an Outline of Economic Development of the United States.

Sidney Reeve Armor also wrote a modern Economic History (scan 2).

Peter Termin worked on the Bank War of the 1830s. Katharine Comen wrote an economic history of the land beyond the Mississippi (Vol I, Vol 2) also here, here, here and here.

Then there are selections of readings on economic history for specific time periods.

• Benjamin Rand, Selections illustrating economic history since the Seven Year's War
• Guy Stevens Callender, Selections from an economic history of the United States 1765-1860 (scan 2, scan 3)
• Chauncey Mitchell Depew's Economic readings from 1795-1895 on commerce. (Volume I, Volume II)

An early theoretician of the economy in the US was Daniel Raymond, about whom  Charles Patrick Neill wrote a book.

A History of Domestic and Foreign Commerce by Emory Richard Johnson sounds good too, as does Hans Keiler's book on Shipping.

Then there is an Industrial History by Katharine Comen (as a school book). As well as a multi-volume Documentary History of American Industrial Society (vol 1, vol 2, vol 3, vol 4, vol 5, vol 6, vol 7, vol 8, vol 9, vol 10), edited by John Rogers Commons. Commons collaborated with Ulrich Bonnell Phillips on Plantation and Frontier Documents (1649-1863).
Lewis Austin wrote on the American Proletariat. Edith Abbott offers some insights on women's role in this story of industrialization. 

Marion Mills Miller wrote a multi volume history (over 14) that shows the connection between political and economic debate, entitled American debate; a history of political and economic controversy in the United States, with critical digests of leading debates (Volume 1: here and here; Volume 2: here and here), and who knows which volumes here and here. These it makes more sense to search for the one needed ....

Robert Marion La Follette also wrote a multi-volume history on the Making of the United States of America, only some volumes are available: vol 3 (industry and finance), vol 6 (mining and metallurgy), vol 7 (inventions), vol 10 (public welfare).

On a more political level is Charles Austin Beard's oeuvre, for example on the economic underpinnings of Jeffersonian Democracy. Gustavus Meyer has a multi-volume history on the Great American Fortunes (vol I (scan 2), vol 2 (scan 2), vol 3 (scan 2)).

Albert Bushnell Hart comments on the socio-economic forces in American History. Seymour Dunbar has his multi-volume history of the impact of Travel on all aspects of American History, including the socio-economic (Vol I, Vol II, Vol III, Vol IV). The US department of transportation issued a book on the history of American Highways.

Lydia Rebecca Blaich does a tri-nation comparative economic geography of the US (with Germany and England) (Scan 2, Scan 3, Scan 4).

Last but not least, the cool Graphic History of the United States by Louis Morton Hackrich.

Campbells Essays on the Ancient Order of Things (Part 1)

Alexander Campbell wrote a series of essays having to do with the Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things, by which he means the apostolic Church or the New Testament religion, in his The Christian Baptist.

The series of the A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things essays starts with (CB Vol II.7 1825-02-07 127:2). Here. in essay number one, Campbell argues against reformations, which are still human things, and for restorations, which bring back the divine.

Just in so far as the ancient order of things, or the religion of the New Testament, is restored, just so far has the Millennium commenced, and so far have its blessings been enjoyed. For to the end of time, we shall have no other revelation of the Spirit, no other New Testament, no other Saviour, and no other religion than we now have, when we understand, believe and practice the doctrine of Christ delivered to us by his apostles. (CB Vol II.7 1825-02-07 128:2)

The second essay starts at CB Vol II.8 1825-4-7 133:1 pointing to the impossibility of improving upon the religion inaugurated by Jesus Christ, given his maximal foresight and philanthropy (133:2). Campbell then begins to describe that creeds and "compilations of doctrine in abstract terms" did not exist back then, and thus need to be discarded (133:2).

1. If the creeds or doctrinal compilations would best the NT, then men would either be wiser than God or more benevolent. Campbell then underscores his point by sampling the Westminster Creed (134:1). 
2. The creeds cannot contribute to the unity, since the Church was united before them and has not been since (134:1). Inferences upon inspired words never become inspired words themselves (134:2). And Campbell believes that the Christian unity is the precondition to the conversion of the pagans in large numbers (135:2). 

How Campbell's Mother in Law had a run-in with the Indians

Richardson (1868), p.358 cites the kidnapping in 1789 of Mrs Brown by Indians from Doddbridges' Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the ... (pp.226ff) [in the 1912 edition]. Mrs Brown was the stepmother of Alexander Campbell's first wife, Margaret, whom Alexander first met in 1810. Thus, only some 20 years before Campbell lived in the Western part of Virginia, the place had still been wild frontier and a locale for bad interactions between the white newcomers and the indigenous population.

The Early Baptist Career of Sidney Rigdon in Warren, Ohio - BYU Studies

Just a reading note:

The Early Baptist Career of Sidney Rigdon in Warren, Ohio - BYU Studies

Joseph Welles White's 1947 thesis on Sidney Rigdon

As always, Uncle Dale sniffed out Joseph Welles White's 1947 thesis on The Influence of Sidney Rigdon upon the Theology of Mormonism for us. Dale had only transcripted some of the contents, mostly to respect the possibility of later publication by the heirs of White. Eventually, the digitization process at USC, where White wrote his thesis, overtook those good intentions and made the whole thesis available as scanned PDF pages.

White makes interesting points

• White wonders (p.26) to what extent Rigdon was influenced by a community of Shakers in Warren County by his interest in "communism, divine healings, speaking in tongues, visions, revelations, and sundry other items" (ibid).
• White observed that Rigdon "intimated that the doctrines popular with the Baptists were not altogether in harmony with the scriptures" (p.26), but mistakenly contextualizes that with the charismata, not with the general notion of the Campbellites that Baptists were as bad as Presbyterians, as Campbell put it at the McCalla debate evening discussion (Richardson 1870, 2:88).
• White's chronology suggests (pp.26f) that Rigdon took the job in 1822, was tried and withdrew in 1824, worked [as a tanner RCK] till 1826,  and then somehow found time to collaborate with Scott before going to Ohio to be a Campbellite preacher no later than 1827, when Scott was at Steubenville.
• White cites (Gates 1904, p.93) in support of the fact how strongly Scott and Rigdon had permeated the Western Reserve (see also the influence of Scott's phase plan on Whitney's wife). 
• The Pittsburg Baptist church to accept the "ancient order of things" was a fusion of the congregations presided over by Scott and Rigdon. (p.27)
• For his depiction of the Austintown show-down (p.30), White uses Fawn Brodie's assessment of Rigdon (p.94 of 1946 edition) as "most fanatical and literal-minded of the Disciples of Christ" and Hayden's version (Hayden 1875, p.299). 
• White (p.31) observes that "Rigdon did set up a small communistic colony in Kirtland", which supplied "the few converts that Rigdon drew from the Disciples to the Mormons" [which is an inaccurate depiction, RCK].
• White (p.31, Fn 27) simplifies the matters when he focuses on Hayden's first-hand knowledge; the chapter is subtly dependent on Eber D. Howe's writings, even if Howe is not explicitly quoted. Thus, the phrase "At this, Rigdon seemed much displeased." (Hayden 1875, p.211) is actually a verbatim quote of a sentence start in (Howe 1834, p.103), down to the italics.

(to be continued)

White also brings good literature.

• Catherine Cleveland, The Great Revival in the West: 1797-1805, Chicago (University of Chicago Press) 1916; (here), Private Edition (here) [seem to be page identical, RCK]
• Erret Gates, The Early Relation and Separation of Baptists and Disciples, Chicago 1904 (various scans: one, two, three and four).
• Eva L. Pancoast, Mormons in Kirtland, unpublished M.A. Thesis, Western Reserve University, 1929 (partial transcript at Uncle Dale's)
• William Warren Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier: 1783-1850: A Collection of Source Materials: New York (Cooper Square Publishers)

• Volume III: The Congregationalists 1964.
• --, Circuit-rider days along the Ohio:  being the journals of the Ohio Conference from its organization in 1812 to 1826, New York -- Cincinnati, 1923 (here). 

James Kennedy's Early days of Mormonism (1888)

James Kennedy's Early days of Mormonism : Palmyra, Kirtland from 1888 tries to be an unbiased history of the Mormons, focusing especially, in the face of the Utah question, on the beginnings. But already a few pages in Smith Jr has been declared a fraud and a planless one at that.

Nevertheless, Kennedy has, so far, some nice characterizations, including the following:

The early years of the nineteenth century were filled with doctrinal jousts, in which denomination set itself against denomination, and creed made war upon creed. The religious crusades of new and aggressive churches were || waged upon the older organizations with unusual fury, and with that relentless purpose that is possible only to ignorance well armed with zeal. There had been no period yet seen in America, and there has been none since, in which fanaticism and spiritual fervor took so close a hold upon the life and thought of the people. (pp.2f)

(to be continued)

John D Lee's Mormonism unveiled

John D. Lee's autobiography Mormonism unveiled; or, The life and confession... is a fascinating read of a boy grown up on the Ohio frontier that voluntarily joins the Mormons in Missouri, eventually gaining notoriety as a member of the Danites and finally as a convicted and executed participant in the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

I was brought to this post via a misleading footnote (Fn 102 on page 41) in Eva L. Pancoast 1929 thesis Mormons in Kirtland.

wagon shop and copper plates

Deming's Naked Truths, 2nd issue, mention that Oliver Cowdery would have been capable of making copper plates at the old wagon shop in Palmyra. Cf. Fool's Gold Bible.

Biographical Sources for Steven Mack

Worked on Steven Mack, Lucy's older brother and probably the most successful of her immediate generation, today.

There are some websites that offer overviews and cobbled together biographies, e.g. one on family search or one on gensearch.

But the majority of these are dependant on the 1853 memoirs of Lucy Smith Mack, printed by Orson Pratt in England,  and two histories of Oakland County, Michigan, one by Durant from 1877, and one by Seeley from 1912 (in two volumes). This is esp. true for the gensearch article, which is an excerpt from Durant.

Since Major or Colonel Stephen Mack was busy in Detroit as well, esp. during the War of 1812, he might be found in a history of Detroit also.

If it is important to distinguish what Lucy knew when about her brother: there are important differences between the rough draft manuscript history dictated 1844-1845, and the manuscript history in its clean copy given to Lucy by her "stenographers" in 1845. Specifically, Horace Stanly's letter was added, which contains details and dates that are not in the draft and may thus indicate information that Lucy was not aware of.

Concubines in the BoM

According to the online version of the Book of Mormon, there are eight passages in the book of Mormon, occurring in three books, that discuss concubines.

1. Jacob 
1. Chapter 1 (v15)
2. Chapter 2 (v24, v27)
3. Chapter 3 (v5)
2. Mosiah 11 (v2, v4, and v14)
3. Ether 10 (v5)

In Jacob 1:15, the context is the depravity of the Nephites after the death of their first ruler, Nephi I. Having or even desiring concubines in the way of David and his son Solomon is an example of their falling from grace, as they

began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat [sic!] in wicked practices

Jacob then (Chapter 2) speaks out about the evils caused by the lust for riches, which finds expression in the Nephites hunting after gold, silver, and other precious ores (v12), which makes them haughty in garment and bearing. But pride is not the only target of Jacob's remonstrations; the other is the chastity of women perverting practice of concubines (v27f), which is an abomination to the Lord, even back when David and Solomon were doing so (v23f). And in Jacob's words, the Lord is responding to the abject misery of the daughters of the Nephites, who are saddened by the practice of concubinage (vv.31-34). (The word tenderness, that Jacob uses here, occurs in the KJV only in Dtn 28, when describing the horrible cannibalisms of the besieged city; in the OT, tender is used for young animals and sons, or fresh vegetation, and the soft heart; the combination of "tender and delicate" applied to a female occurs only in Isa 47:1, when describing Babylon figuratively as the daughter of Chaldaeans. In the NT, mercy is tender, as is the fig tree in the Synoptics.)

Jacob uses the Lamanites (Chapter 3) as a positive example, because with all their filth and curses, they only know monogamy (v5), and thus put the Nephites to shame.

In Mosiah 11, it is the wicked King Noah, who takes over from his father Zeniff, who taxes his people heavily at 20%, especially the gold and the silver, and uses this money to build fabulous buildings, and to have concubines, just as his priests do, and to become a wine bibber and make his people into alcoholics.

In Ether 10, the situation is similar, where the wicked king Riplakish taxes his people, builds tall buildings, and has concubines (v5).

The evil of taxation occurs in the OT for King Jehoiakim (2 Kg 23:35), who raised taxes on gold and silver and give that to Pharaohnechoh (Pharaoh Necho II), who had killed Josiah at the battle of Megiddo and was requiring tribute (after the three-month intermezzo of King Jehoahaz). Jehoiakim did not do what was right before the Lord either.

Murray N. Rothbard on the Panic of 1819

The e-book The Panic of 1819 by Murray N. Rothbard is constructed from his 1962 publication of the similar title, which in turn is Rothbard's dissertation. It's topic is the economic (banking) Panic of 1819, for the understanding of which Rothbard's work was a milestone.

Bibliographic Record

Rothbard, Murray. 1962. The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies. Columbia University Press, New York. E-Book Version hosted at www.mises.org.