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John Varah Long
Forgotten Utah Writer and Pioneer

By Ken Sanders and Will Bagley

 

John Varah Long (September 28, 1826-April 14, 1869) was born at Wickersley, Yorkshire, England, and became a rising star in early Utah's history. Long was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormon) on November 5, 1843 at the age of seventeen. Five years later, he was ordained an Elder. After a successful stint as president of the British Sheffield Mission, John Varah Long and his first wife, Eleanor Oates, sailed for America in 1854 with their two sons and five-year-old daughter aboard the ship Windermere with the assistance of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund. One son died at sea; the second died at New Orleans.

 

In Utah, John V. Long rose quickly through the ranks of the both the territorial government and the LDS Church. Although he was unable to sign his name when he apprenticed as a rasp and file maker at age fourteen, Long became a skilled clerk, court reporter, and poet. In Utah he worked as a reporter and associate editor of the Deseret News, attorney, dentist, surveyor, agronomist, and lecturer. He was appointed a captain in the Nauvoo Legion and was promoted to major in the Legion's topographical engineers in 1857. He served as a regent of the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah) and as a member of the Territorial Assembly.

 

Beginning in February 1855, Long worked as one of Brigham Young's private secretaries and as one of his busiest clerks for more than a decade. He toured Utah Territory with President Young, Heber C. Kimball, and apostles of the church. He recorded their sermons and speeches in diaries kept in Pitman shorthand, a system developed by Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897) that became popular with the publication of Pitman's Stenographic Sound-hand in London in 1837. (Dr. Who fans may know that the Vogan language is represented in a variation of Pitman.)

 

John Varah Long's position made him a powerful and influential member of the Mormon Church. His polygamous wife Sarah Ann Burbage Long, the first woman artist in Utah Territory, painted a famous group portrait, "Brigham Young and His Circle of Friends," now displayed in the LDS Museum of Art & History. The image depicts the Mormon leader with Daniel H. Wells, Heber C. Kimball, future prophet Lorenzo Snow, George A. Smith, Edwin D, Woolley, the prophet's brother John Young, Welsh poet John Lyon--and John Varah Long.

 

Long was a frequent speaker at meetings in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and was listed as a contributing editor to many volumes of The Journal of Discourses. Much of John V. Long's original work appeared in the Deseret News, where he served as associate editor. In March 1859 the paper published Long's transcription of Judge John Cradlebaugh's controversial charge to a grand jury in Provo, in which the judge denounced the manipulation of justice in Utah.[1] Cradlebaugh's defenders, notably disaffected Mormon firebrand Thomas S. Williams, denounced "such a lying scribbler as J. V. Long" and the News:

Long "would shade the truth and furnish a falsehood, especially when he serves his personal ends," Williams charged. "A man that would boast in the presence of American officers, and he a foreigner by birth, that if he had been in Echo Kanyon bearing arms against the United States, he would consider it an honor and not be ashamed of it, which J. V. Long did, should be shown up and not accredited as a faithful reporter." Williams claimed Long "informed me that he intended to give me hell, through the columns of the 'Deseret News,'--that he intended to garble my action and speeches just sufficient to make me appear ridiculous." Williams roared that "so long as the people of the Territory are informed with such lying scribblers as the aforesaid reporter has shown himself to be, so long they will have trouble."[2]

 

Covering a much less controversial story, Long wrote an engaging account of Brigham Young's tour of southern Utah in September 1862. The road from Kannara to Toquerville, he reported, was "literally covered with some sort of kind of volcanic rocks, which must, at some remote period, have been belched forth from some by now extinct volcano."[3] His first sight of Toquerville, he wrote, was like that of "the traveler who suddenly comes to an oasis in an Arabian desert." That night, Brigham Young said since men in Utah insisted on smoking, "he wanted to see the brethren raise all the tobacco that is wanted in the Territory" and "cease paying to outsiders from sixty to eighty thousand dollars annually for that one product."[4]

 

Attorney James Ferguson, the former adjutant general of the Nauvoo Legion, stated that John V. Long was fit and eligible to practice "before the bar and the U.S. and territorial courts of Utah, and Long was admitted to practice before the federal district court on April 16, 1863. Long had prospered in Utah even before taking up the practice of law and built a substantial house at 135 Second East, between First and Second South. His daughter, Martha Jane Long Watson, recalled that after Colonel Patrick Edward Connor arrived in Utah late in 1862, he commandeered the family's home as his personal residence "and lived there with his officers through the first winter."[5]  Such an action would violate the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which directs that "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law," but the Bill of Rights did not fare well during the Civil War. It appears, however, that Connor arranged to rent Long's house, which may explain an accusation Brigham Young later leveled at him.

 

Family legend, Juanita Brooks wrote, said John Varah Long "fell out of favor with President Young when the president asked him who he thought was the best speaker in the church, and he answered, 'Orson Pratt.'" Brooks speculation that "Long had become too fond of liquor and wine and having attended so many private meetings and conferences, could not be trusted to be discreet in his talk."[6]

 

For whatever cause, Long's fall was hard and steep. In June 1865, John V. Long received a letter from Edward L. Sloan, clerk of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion High Council, stating President Daniel Spencer had noticed that Long's seat at the body's meetings had been vacant and the council would like to know why. Two weeks later, the Deseret News announced a "Change: His other labors precluding, Elder J. V. Long has been released from his additional labors upon the News and Elder E. L. Sloan has kindly consented to act as assistant editor."[7]

 

By this time, Long was in serious trouble with his fellow Mormon leaders. He had participated in séances with Apostle Amasa Lyman, who became involved with the Spiritualist movement in California: as early as November 1859, Charles Walker heard Long speak in the Old Tabernacle "on the higher Law. Made some interesting remarks on Spiritualism."[8] The basic conflict, however, appears to have been over control of Long's private business ventures. Brigham Young accused him of letting a man who had boasted of "shedding the blood of the saints" use his property. The exact nature of the controversy is not clear, but it has striking similarities to the clash that was then developing between prominent Utah businessmen such as William S. Godbe, E. L. T. Harrison, Edward W. Tullidge, Eli B. Kelsey, and William H. Shearman over the Mormon prophet's insistence that he should control all aspects of their lives, including their personal business affairs. Their dissent blossomed into the "New Movement," or, as they were popularly known, the Godbeites.

 

In early March 1866, John V. Long received a letter charging him "with an indebtedness of $14,812.45" to the trustee-in-trust of the LDS Church, Brigham Young. Later in the month, Young himself sent Long a threatening letter demanding payment of $13,024.75--some $165,629 in 2006 dollars. Remarkably, Long somehow managed to pay the alleged debt. Not long after this incident, Long was ordered to appear before the Stake High Council at the Council House where he was to answer charges of "being a member of what is sometimes known as the Young Men's Social Club, which exists in this City; and other conduct unworthy of a Saint of God."[9]

 

A notice appeared in the Deseret News dated June 7, 1866 announcing that "that JOHN V. LONG was this day excommunicated from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by the High Council of the Stake of Zion." Only a year earlier, Long himself was serving on that High Council. Sarah and her family were also summarily excommunicated. Subsequently, artist wife Sarah was shunned, despite being the first female artist in Utah to win top prizes at the Deseret Manufacturing & Agricultural Society annual fair. Like her husband, Sarah Ann Burbage Long's name and art disappeared from the record, only to reappear in her obituary in 1878.

 

The fallen Saint spent his last years working as an attorney. "My father, John V. Long, was last seen alive walking toward North Temple Street with Bill Hickman, one of the Church's Avenging Angels--about 9:00 p.m. on the night of April 13, 1869," Martha Jane Long Watson recalled on February 19, 1931.

"On the following morning he was found lying in an irrigation ditch, face down, dead, near the corner of North West Temple Street. There was no mark of violence on him."[10] At the time of his death, Long had been married to five women and fathered fourteen children.

 

About 6 o'clock this morning information was received at City Hall, that the body of a man was lying with his head "downstream" in the irrigation ditch in North Temple or Jordan Street very near the Northwest corner of the Temple Block. On the arrival of the police officers the body proved to be that of John V. Long, Esq., so many years a resident of the City, and well known as a reporter, and, latterly, as a lawyer. His face was somewhat swollen, and, and first sight, it was difficult for his most intimate acquaintances to recognize him. About an hour after he was first discovered, H. S. B. (?) , Esq., City Coroner, held an inquest on the spot. The Jury failed to find any mark of violence on the body, except a slight bruise near one of the eyes, and after hearing the evidence of Messrs S. C. Case and G. B. Wallace, who were amongst the first to see the body as it lay in the stream, they returned a verdict that deceased came to his death by drowning. His body was then conveyed to his home.[11]

 

Brigham Young's disaffected wife, Ann Eliza Webb Young, left the most colorful account of the death John Varah Long:

 

For six or seven years, the spirit of slaughter seemed to stalk about in the beautiful Utah valleys, and human blood was shed on the slightest provocation. Did one man bear a grudge against another, he died in some mysterious manner, a Mormon court of investigation could never discover how. Was a man obnoxious to any of the church officers, he disappeared, and was never heard of again; or, like John V. Long, a clerk in Brigham's office, who was the only person who heard the conversation between Brigham and the messenger sent from George A. Smith, just before the Mountain Meadow massacre, and who wrote out the instructions which the man was to carry back, was found dead in a ditch, "drowned in three inches of water," accidentally, of course, since that was the decision of the Mormon jury.[12]

 

On April 16, 1869, John Varah Long's funeral was held at his residence. William Godbe and Mormon stalwarts Samuel W. Richards and Edwin D. Woolley addressed the mourners and friends.

 

John Varah Long's Utah diaries from the middle 1850s to the middle 1860s cover some of the most tumultuous events in early Mormon and Utah history. They have been lost for almost 150 years. Despite John V. Long's lengthy and well-documented role in the early history of the LDS Church, his story, along with that of his artist wife, has disappeared from official Church histories. Almost no one today has ever heard of John Varah and Sarah Ann Long.

 

Although Long's papers disappeared from public knowledge, descendants carefully and quietly preserved the family's personal documents. Granddaughter Irma Watson Hance, author (with Irene Warr) of a respected history of frontier Utah, Johnston, Connor, and the Mormons: An Outline of Military History in Northern Utah, used some of Long's papers to compile "A Biographical Sketch of John Varah Long: His Diaries, Writings, Lectures and Notes," now in Special Collections at the University of Utah's Marriott Library. Hance does not appear to have mastered Pitman shorthand and apparently relied on the plain-text materials in Long's papers. The first 52 pages of Hance's 83-page sketch, moreover, focus on Long's life in England.[13]

 

After almost 150 years, the papers of John Varah Long and Sarah Burbage Long recently surfaced. The collection includes scrapbooks full of original Long family letters, documents, and photographs. The original source material from the 1850s and 1860s includes an 1862 letter of appointment as a home missionary signed by all three members of the LDS Church First Presidency and an original, signed, and very hostile 1866 Brigham Young letter to Long. The Long collection is a treasure trove of original source material and scarce and important printed items, including military commissions, LDS Church certificates, and documents from the Perpetual Emigration Fund. Notable items include scarce and significant printed materials, such as military commissions, LDS Church certificates, and documents from the Perpetual Emigration Fund.

 

The most significant items in the collection may be John V. Long's original diaries in Pitman shorthand. The diaries apparently span Long's entire career in Utah and include his on-the-site transcriptions of speeches and sermons by Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Daniel H. Wells, and most of the LDS hierarchy.

 

Sarah Ann Long's composition book is among the collections most remarkable features. It contains two previously unknown manuscript poems by famed Mormon poet Eliza R. Snow and an additional poem by Hannh Tapfield King, original artwork by Sarah Long, and much more.

 

The John Varah and Sarah Ann Long archive could well be the most important Mormon historical discovery in the past century. Selected artifacts from this collection will be on display at Ken Sanders Rare Books for a limited time only. Come view Mormon history in the making and join historian Will Bagley and antiquarian bookman Ken Sanders for a presentation on John & Sarah Long and the mystery behind their disappearance from history on Monday, November 5th beginning at 7:00 p.m. Original diaries, Brigham Young documents and letters, Sarah Ann's daybook and many other treasures from this incredible collection will be on display.

 

"How sad a finish to a life that might have been so useful," the Deseret News moralized when it announced John V. Long had been "Found Dead." The remarkable Mr. Long's life might yet prove more useful and significant to our understanding of Utah history than anyone in 1868 could anticipate.