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Salt Lake City April 18, 1887
(This is a letter written by my great-great grandfather, William Knox, to his sister Eleanor Knox. She had written to him in Salt Lake City and before he starts his letter he writes a few words in the margins. I, JoAnne Thornock, have interpreted the letter to the best of my ability and put in correct spelling and punctuation to help with clarity. He must have been quite a learned man.)
“When your letter came, my wife, Catherine (William Knox’s second wife) brought it to my shop at the same time my daughter, Sarrah, had come to see me in the shop. When the letter was opened a surprise for Sarrah. They think a good deal of it. I have been sending the Saturday night regularly but not one at a time. The reason that you have not gotten the news regularly is I had been sending from 12 to 16 paper news every week to the Knox family both in America and to England. I commenced to write a book. My attention was taken up mostly with that, so I thought I would stop for a short time. My book is finished. The next thing is to get it printed. Besides all this I work every day. I never hear from Thomas Knox, Newcastle. I would like to hear from him.”
My Dear Brother and Sister,
Your welcome letter, dated March 28, 1887, received April 14, 1887. I am right side up with care so far and all is well with me and mine. So far it is a game on the checkerboard with the Latter-day Saints or God’s Kingdom with this great republic American Nation. This people from their beginning has exited the whole Christian world excepting a few that were honest to themselves, to their God and to man. This people were driven from civilization into a wilderness, a desert country inhabited by savage Indians that thirsted for the blood of their enemy the white, pale-face man that drove and killed their fathers from their lands: and their sons swore to their father eternal vengeance against the pale man wherever he found him. That may appear to be very cruel, but when we take into consideration the cruelty of the white man toward the poor, ignorant Indian, the Indian is hardly to be blamed.
In the spring of the year 1855, previous to the company that I was about to start with to cross that great desert, we (the whole male company), was drilled for a good while to know how to handle our guns and protect and fight our way if that was needed, but it was not. The Lord softened the hearts of the Indians, but we carried our guns sometimes while we were driving our teams, oxen and wagons. All was well with us better men. We expected by this time the Indians began to know the difference between a Mormon company and a pale-faced gentile company. The gentiles, when they drove the saints from them and understood the road that they had taken, rejoiced expecting that the savage Indians would kill everyone of them or if they did not, hunger and starvation would, and when this people landed in this valley of the great Salt Lake, it had been pronounced unfit for man or beast to exist here. When the crickets and grasshoppers ate up everything eatable, this great magnanimous American Nation rejoiced at our calamity.
The Lord works in a mysterious way and this game on this checkerboard of time (this is Jesus Christ that is playing against his brother, Lucifer, a son of the morning). That move that Jesus made that brought his people to this place. Lucifer laughed thinking that the game was his now and in another move he would sweep the board. Oh, how he was deceived, and he will be more deceived. Although to all outward appearances we are doomed, that same thing has appeared every raid that has been made upon this people. When the dark, foreboding clouds of obscurity rule up between this people and the glorious sunshine, oh how black thing have appeared to those on the outside, while this people know that behind those dark clouds the sun is still shining. At the same time the enemies of this people exulting (rejoicing) at our supposed downfall. But when those dark clouds clear away, the sun again shines upon this people, showing that this people have advanced a step higher. Oh, how aggravating it must be to this great, self-willed, proud, exalted Republican American Nation to think that every time that they try to put down this people, it has turned the other way. This is according to the word of God. God has set up this, His Kingdom, and woe be to the man or Nation that fight against it. They will go down to perdition and woe!
Now my Dear Brother and Sisters, don’t be alarmed about me. God has preserved me for a wise and glorious purpose. I am satisfied with the course that I have taken come bonds or prison or anything else. I have been with this people for over 44 years. The hand of the Lord has been over me and will be in the future if I will do my part which is my whole soul’s desire. Perhaps it is not wisdom for me to say all that I could tell you. Letters have been opened by our enemies. I am not in prison yet. If I was, I would not be the first Knox that was put into the worst of all prisons. A galley slave for two years in France for being true to God and man, that was John Knox, the Scottish Reformer. The Knox family has and are a great family, but they are not all known. Did you ever think that the pedigree of Queen Victoria is the Knox pedigree. “How is this?” you may say. A long way back in Scotland one of the Knox family was Lord High Steward of Scotland. Their children took the name of Steward: hence came Queen Victoria.
When I look back to my school days, my father, Peter Knox, was a jolly man. Sometimes the school boys, like myself, we would try to vex each other and to vex me they would say, “Willy Knox, good blood like his father.” When I would say in my father’s veins flowed as good a blood as there was in any of the Royal Family, I was then talking the truth but did not know it then. I know it now. You can read it in that which your daughter sent you from West Hartlepool, England.
I wonder why my brother, James Know, did not let you see that I sent to him. I sent, too, my sister Elizabeth one. They send me a paper every week, but no letter. I would like to hear about my sister, Mary Ann. Thomas Knox, Newcastle, did send me the Newcastle Chronicle, but he has dropped. I would like to hear from him. What is my sister, Dorothy’s family doing? Yes, and my brother Peter’s? Likewise, my sister, Sarrah’s family? We are passing fast away. One brother besides myself and July the 5th I will be 72 years old, but if you were to see me and did not know you would think that I was a pretty good man about 60. But how long may I continue if thus the young may die but the old must die, never troubles me. I think but little about it.
I would like to hear as much as you can get about my father’s family. Perhaps the next letter if all is well, I will tell you more about this country. It is the best that I know of, but it is infested with a hoard of greedy villains, the priests at the head. They want to drive us from this beautiful place, but we came here to stay and by the help of God we will. Notwithstanding these 60 millions of people that are against us. It is known that one man and God can get away with mere great accomplishments. God is with this people, and I know will be with us come what may.
Give my best respects to Mr. Wilson, mother, and to my brother, James and all our families. I must close. I have written this in a hurry. You must correct it yourself.
My family’s kind love to you all. Receive mine.
From you brother, William Knox |