In 1857, Latter-day Saints in Britain could buy the fourth volume of the Journal of Discourses and find a stirring declaration attributed to Brigham Young. The prophet-president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes nicknamed “Mormons” at the time) decried the United States Congress’ agitations against polygamy, saying, “True we have more wives than one, and what of that?” Young questioned if Congress could even enforce the law. He hyperbolically supposed a prison large enough to contain every polygamist lawbreaker in Utah would eventually have to encompass the entire Great Basin, “roofed… over from the summit of the Rocky Mountains to the summit of the Sierra Nevada.” When federal prosecution of polygamy cases escalated in the 1870s and 1880s, officials instead relied on western prisons like the Utah Territorial Penitentiary—sometimes nicknamed “the Pen.”
\nCompleted in 1854, the Territorial Penitentiary was southeast of Salt Lake City in Sugar House, Utah. Just two years previous, the territorial Legislative Assembly had requested federal money for building a prison in order “to prevent crime, but also to reform the offenders.” Decades later, federal officials were now trying to use the penitentiary to prevent polygamy and reform the Mormons.
\nThis included Mormons such as George Q. Cannon, who lived in hiding “underground” from 1885 to 1888. Cannon was the First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church—a high office held only by apostles—and with five wives and thirty-two children, he was an easy target for federal marshals. Despite the dangers, though, hiding grated on Cannon. In his journal, he wrote he was “not anxious to become a martyr,” yet also “always felt to urge our people to stand up courageously to their principles” and wanted to live up to the same standard. When a prosecutor and marshal tried to extort the Church—money in exchange for not prosecuting Cannon—Cannon resolved to turn himself in, deciding, “I had much rather go to the penitentiary and serve the full term” than have the Church pay blackmail money to do him a special favor other Latter-day Saint polygamists could not afford.
\nCannon entered the Territorial Penitentiary in Sugar House in September 1888, and he found himself in good company. Fifty other Mormon polygamists were also in the Pen “for living with their wives,” as Cannon wrote, and they even took a few photographs together when they had visitors. Perhaps with some irony, Cannon observed in his journal that he and “the brethren”—as he liked to call his fellow Latter-day Saint incarcerees—resided in the same prison as twenty-two men either accused or convicted of murder.
\nConditions in the Pen were scant. Winters were cold, but fires were prohibited for fear of arson. One inmate remembered waking up on winter mornings with his beard frozen solid. The prison provided spoons but no other utensils, so “the brethren have improvised knives out of spoon handles and other scraps of metal they have got hold of and made wooden forks,” Cannon wrote. Meals themselves were mostly coffee, bread, meat, gravy, and “mush.” Cannon did not drink coffee, and he often forewent meat. He substituted milk and butter when he could.
\nUnlike some other prisons in the Western territories, the Pen did not make labor part of the sentence, leaving inmates with copious free time. Cannon filled the extra time by researching and writing a history he called The Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet, a project he and his sons had been writing for the last six years.
\nOn Sundays, Cannon and the other imprisoned Latter-day Saints held Sunday School together, reading the Bible and singing hymns. In October 1888, they even procured an organ from the Church’s Sunday School Union for musical accompaniment. Other ministers came to the Pen to give sermons in the afternoon, and Cannon sometimes assessed them. One Episcopal preacher’s “discourse was a very weak effort,” Cannon thought, but a few months later a Methodist “preached the best Methodist sermon” Cannon had ever heard.
\nCannon’s prison sentence was short—only five months—and he left the Pen in February, 1889. In his journal, he was optimistic. He wrote, “The Lord manifested to me in a very plain manner, before I came in, that I ought to go, and that if I did, it would be easier for the brethren who should follow.” Now, five months later, Cannon noticed polygamists receiving shorter sentences, prison officials granting more privileges to inmates, and even the quality of the food improving. “Our lot was far from being a hard one,” Cannon thought. The Latter-day Saints would continue to endure, he was certain.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"This marks the site of the Sugar House prison, which was demolished in 1951. Today, Sugar House Park stands on the old prison site.","lede":"In the 1880s, Latter-day Saints convicted for polygamy filled Western prisons. One of these was “the Pen,” or Utah Territorial Penitentiary.","website":"","related_resources":["Arave, Lynn. “Prison Once Stood Where Park Now Is.” Deseret News, July 14, 2006. https://www.deseret.com/2006/7/14/19962380/prison-once-stood-where-park-now-is#old-sugar-house-prison-in-1950.","Bitton, Davis. “George Q. Cannon and the Faithful Narrative of Mormon History.” FARMS Review of Books 14, no. 1–2 (2002): 275–293.","Cannon, Joseph A. and Rick Fish. “George Q. Cannon.” Utah History Encyclopedia, edited by Allan Kent Powell. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994. Online repr., Utah Education Network. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/c/CANNON_GEORGE.shtml. ","Carruth, LaJean Purcell. “Preached vs. Published: Shorthand Record Discrepancies (Part 1 of 3).” The Historical Record (blog). Church History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, August 4, 2020. https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/blog/preached-versus-published-part-1-of-3?lang=eng.","Church Historian’s Press (Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The Journal of George Q. Cannon. https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon. ","Dirkmaat, Gerrit and LaJean Purcell Carruth. “The Prophets Have Spoken, but What Did They Say? Examining the Differences Between George D. Watťs Original Shorthand Notes and the Sermons Published in the Journal of Discourses.” BYU Studies Quarterly 54, no. 4 (2015): 24–118.","Hatch, Jeff, James B. Wightman, Larry Decker, Celestia Cragun, Amy McCormick, and Jeff Wood. History of Salt Lake County. Salt Lake City: Internal Audits Division of the Auditor's Office, 2005. https://slco.org/globalassets/1-site-files/archives/government_history/slcohistory.pdf. ","Hardy, B. Carmon. “That ‘Same Old Question of Polygamy and Polygamous Living’: Some Recent Findings Regarding Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-century Mormon Polygamy.” Utah Historical Quarterly 73, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 212–224.","Hardy, B. Carmon. “The Persistence of Mormon Plural Marriage.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 44, no. 4 (Winter 2011): 43–106.","“Imprisoned for Conscience’ Sake.” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, July 14, 1879. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/MStar/id/38891.","Poll, Richard D. “The Legislative Anti-Polygamy Campaign.” BYU Studies Quarterly 26, no. 4 (1986). https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-legislative-antipolygamy-campaign/.","Taylor, Anissa O. “State Prison: Agency History #790.” Agency Histories, Utah Division of Archives and Record Services, February 2003. http://www.archives.state.ut.us/research/agencyhistories/790.html. ","The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “George Q. Cannon.” Church History Topics. In Restoration and Church History. Accessed March 11, 2021. https://churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/george-q-cannon?lang=eng.","Van Orden, Bruce A. Prisoner for Conscience’ Sake: The Life of George Reynolds. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992.","Watts, George D., ed. Journal of Discourses. Vol. 4. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Journal_of_Discourses/Volume_4. ","Wells, Junius F. “A Living Martyr.” Contributor, February 1881. https://archive.org/details/contributor0205eng/page/154/mode/2up."],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/98499b6cc99aca4386a3f83d7a5c4484.jpg":{"id":2098,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Cannon and the Brethren","description":"George Q. Cannon sits in the doorway, surrounded by fellow Latter-day Saint polygamists incarcerated in the Utah Territorial Penitentiary. The man in street clothes is Elder Francis M. Lyman, another apostle in the Church, who was visiting. | “Utah State Penit.-Sugar House-Prisoners P.8.” November 15, 1888. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6vm4s7n. ","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/98499b6cc99aca4386a3f83d7a5c4484.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/150cf5178d933029d3615ebd9e8733b1.jpg":{"id":2094,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"The Pen","description":"This photograph is of artist F.M. Treseder’s 1887 oil painting depicting the Utah Territorial Penitentiary. The Kaysville Daughters of Utah Pioneers hold the original painting. | “Utah State Penitentiary-Sugar House P.18.” October 21, 1887. Painting by F.M. Treseder. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6s18gg3.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/150cf5178d933029d3615ebd9e8733b1.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/a7b5a82f716305a3f5801217525ee437.jpg":{"id":2095,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"George Q. Cannon in prison","description":"The inmates were not always required to wear striped uniforms. George Q. Cannon is the third figure from the left. The others are Charles H. Wilcken, Franklin S. Richards, two prison guards (Jenney and Hudson), and an unidentified boy. Behind them, the prison walls are visible. | “George Q. Cannon in Prison.” Johnson (studio), 1888. Courtesy of the Church History Library. https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets?id=0c2f9732-2764-48ca-a53a-468cda551400&crate=0&index=0. ","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/a7b5a82f716305a3f5801217525ee437.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/427cc2f69858c5c9232820d6a089191f.jpg":{"id":2096,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"“For We Must All Go Into Prison”","description":"Brigham Young gave this sermon in Salt Lake City. Though the sermon was published in this form in George D. Watts’s Journal of Discourses, LaJean Purcell Carruth’s research of Watts’s original shorthand notes has revealed he took significant editorial liberties with the text between transcription and publication. Young’s original can probably be trusted to still follow the same contours as the Discourses version, but not much more can be said for certain. | Young, Brigham. “Testimony of the Divinity of Joseph Smith’s Mission, Etc.” In Journal of Discourses, edited by George D. Watts. Vol. 4., 33–42. Courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/JournalOfDiscourses3/id/720.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/427cc2f69858c5c9232820d6a089191f.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/f670aee756a7b524f8ff20629ed0d8cd.jpg":{"id":2097,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"From Pen to Park","description":"In 1951, the state of Utah replaced the old Utah State Prison that had once been the Territorial Penitentiary with a new facility in Draper. The state destroyed the old prison, taking it apart stone by stone when dynamite failed to demolish it. Today, the site of the old prison is now occupied by Sugar House Park. | “Sugar House Park.” Pollardjosephd (pseud.), July 17, 2019. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sugarhouse_Park.jpg. CC BY-SA 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/f670aee756a7b524f8ff20629ed0d8cd.jpg"}}}![https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sugarhouse_Park.jpg](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sugarhouse_Park.jpg\"){kind=link}