s published the novel “Inez, A Tale of The Alamo.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published the poem “Song of Hiawatha.” Walt Whitman anonymously published a collection of poems titled “Leaves of Grass.” John Phoenix (George Horatio Derby), one of the first Far Western humorists, published a collection of his sketches, “Phoenixiana.” Maria Ward published “Female Life Among the Mormons.” In 1857, Alonzo Delano presented his play, “A Live Woman in the Mines,” one of the earliest dramas written in the West. (Chronicle of America; American Eras; Encarta Encyclopedia) In the 1850’s, the Mormons of Utah had vast discrepancies with President James Buchanon about their liberty and his governing. In 1852, the first Plenary Council of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States was held. The record revealed 1.6 million Catholics but only 1,800 priests to serve its 1,600 churches and mission stations. Brigham Young publicly announced that plural marriage is a holy practice incumbent on Saints deemed worthy of the privilege. In 1857, fearing the invasion of a Federal Army, the Mormons and their allies attacked a wagon train and killed 120 California bound settlers. A year later, President James Buchanan ordered an expedition of 2,500 soldiers to Utah in order to assert Federal authority over the Mormons. The force camps outside Salt Lake City recalled at the outbreak of the Civil War. Meanwhile, Buchanan pardoned the Mormons. By 1850, the Protestant establishment became absorbed with California as the bellwether for the evangelical impulse; that preoccupation now displaced the earlier enthusiasm for the conversion of Native Americans. In the early 1850’s, Chinese laborers began making their way to California. In the 1850’s, the corporate life of American Jews in the West took shape with the gold rush immigrations. The community of “Tru...
