Earlier than William F. “Buffalo Invoice” Cody took his Wild West present on the highway and have become a world well-known movie star, he gained notoriety and made appreciable income performing in anti-Mormon stage dramas.
One featured the heroic Cody rescuing a girl taken captive by a villainous, polygamous Latter-day Saint man. One other reenacted occasions of the Mountain Meadows Bloodbath. These and different stage productions portrayed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a unfavorable gentle.
“They provide this notion of him as any individual who was manfully defending America towards a Latter-day Saint menace,” mentioned Brent M. Rogers, writer and historian.
But just a few many years later, Cody was in Utah assembly with Church leaders, talking extremely of Latter-day Saints and actively recruiting them to settle the area surrounding his city of Cody, Wyoming.
It’s an fascinating relationship that Rogers has unraveled over years of analysis in a brand new tutorial e-book, “Buffalo Invoice and the Mormons,” revealed earlier this month.
“It’s a neat story of trajectory from foe to good friend,” Rogers mentioned. “There’s an enchanting and layered story, lots of fascinating issues which are taking place on this relationship that advanced over time. That’s why you dive into historical past, so you’ll be able to be taught these issues.”
Buffalo Invoice’s declare
Often known as “Buffalo Invoice,” Cody was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman, and some of the well-known and well-known figures of the American West.
As a College of Nebraska graduate scholar, Rogers labored on The Papers of William F. Cody earlier than he joined the Church Historical past Division and labored on the Joseph Smith Papers.
“You actually get to know historic figures and put money into their lives in some methods whenever you learn a few of their private paperwork,” he mentioned. “I gained that curiosity and even an affinity for Buffalo Invoice once I labored on these papers.”
One query that troubled Rogers is why Cody claimed to have gone to Utah as an 11-year-old boy through the 1857-58 Utah Battle. Different historians say Cody fabricated the declare and there’s no proof to counsel he was there.
“Why make that declare? Why would which were necessary in 1879 when he launched his autobiography if it was most likely not true?” Rogers mentioned.
Investigating that query led Rogers to be taught extra concerning the connections between Cody and early Latter-day Saints.
The 1892 expedition
In his analysis, Rogers recognized two key sources of knowledge that helped him piece collectively the puzzle.
The primary was the journal of Latter-day Saint Junius F. Wells, which he discovered on the Church Historical past Library. Wells organized the Younger Males’s Mutual Enchancment Affiliation and later served as assistant Church historian.
In 1892, Wells and others escorted Cody on a “notion and relationship-altering” expedition by Arizona, the Grand Canyon, southern Utah and as much as Salt Lake Metropolis, Rogers mentioned. Wells described a few of what occurred in his journal, together with a go to on the dwelling of Latter-day Saint Edwin Woolley in Kanab, Utah.
Earlier than sitting right down to a meal, Woolley requested Cody to supply grace. Though not significantly non secular, Cody smelled the meals, bowed his head and supplied this prayer: “God bless the palms that made them custard pies.”
After they reached Salt Lake Metropolis, Wells launched Cody and others to the First Presidency, which then included Presidents Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith. President Woodruff recorded in his journal that Cody and the corporate “had been very a lot happy with their go to to Salt Lake Metropolis.”
Prentiss Ingraham, who joined the group as a correspondent for the New York Press, mentioned “President Woodruff was an exquisite man at 86″ and instructed a newspaper reporter of President Woodruff’s “geniality after passing by almost a half-century of utter and nearly relentless agitation.” Following their conferences with the First Presidency, Cody and Ingraham expressed appreciation that “each courtesy was proven them.”
After almost 20 years of presenting Latter-day Saints in a unfavorable gentle, Cody spoke extremely of their religion and hospitality, saying amongst different issues that Church members “handled us with nice consideration.”
Cody met the First Presidency once more the next 12 months on the Chicago World’s Truthful and gave them tickets to his Wild West Present.
“That was an necessary second for the connection… and public notion concerning the Saints,” Rogers mentioned. “To have essentially the most well-known man in America provide you with constructive experiences after having simply been by a bunch of Latter-day Saint cities and interacting with Latter-day Saint folks did loads to assist folks perceive who the Saints actually had been.”
Saints within the Large Horn Basin
The second key supply was a letter written in March 1900 from Cody to Abraham Woodruff, a son of Wilford Woodruff, found in The Papers of William F. Cody.
Within the late Eighteen Nineties, Cody was struggling to determine his city of Cody within the Large Horn Basin of northwestern Wyoming. The well-known showman wanted numerous settlers, and he wanted to divert water from the Shoshone River.
The perfect mannequin was not distant.
“We’ve got solely to have a look at what the [Latter-day Saints] have accomplished within the nice Salt Lake Valley, which on the time of its settlement was essentially the most desolate of deserts; they’ve made it blossom because the rose, and as we speak there isn’t any extra affluent and rich state on the continent, making an allowance for all of the circumstances, than Utah,” Cody wrote to a land speculator in 1898.
Cody met with Abraham Woodruff and different Latter-day Saints in February 1900 and generously supplied them tens of hundreds of acres totally free. The Saints accepted the provide, and 100 households moved to Wyoming, the place they started constructing irrigation canals and infrastructure. In addition they helped to construct railroads within the space.
Rogers mentioned the connection between Cody and the Saints grew to become considerably strained later when Abraham Woodruff requested for hundreds of extra acres in a first-rate location. Cody mentioned no, and didn’t respect it when Abraham Woodruff tried to make use of political relationships to affect Cody’s choice. Cody finally gave the land to the Latter-day Saints when he discovered the federal authorities supposed to take it to construct a dam.
Regardless of these enterprise dealings, Cody continued to publicly reward and say uplifting issues about Latter-day Saints.
A temple in Cody, Wyoming
Greater than 120 years after Cody met Abraham Woodruff, President Russell M. Nelson introduced a temple for Cody, Wyoming, through the October 2021 common convention.
“The announcement and eventual development of the temple in Cody’s city brings the story of Buffalo Invoice and the Latter-day Saints full circle and endlessly unites the 2,” Rogers mentioned.
The story of Cody and the Saints demonstrates that it’s doable to maneuver past stereotypes and prejudice if persons are prepared to hearken to others and share experiences.
“I believe that may be a good instance of what might be discovered and noticed as we take into consideration Buffalo Invoice and his relationship with the Latter-day Saints,” Rogers mentioned.
