Biography

Margaret Elizabeth Jones Beckley was one of a small number of people whose Black African heritage was known to Latter-day Saint leaders and yet she still received her temple endowment during the years that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prohibited priesthood ordination and access to full temple rituals to members of her race. [1] Margaret was an early convert to the church and remained committed to it throughout her life. Her life began under what must have been difficult circumstances as a biracial child living in the South during the era of slavery. After she married, her husband amassed a sizable fortune and Margaret must have enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle with domestic servants to help run her household. Even so, she met with difficulty in her later years as she suffered from mental illness and died under tragic circumstances.

Margaret was born on June 20, 1828, in Nashville, Tennessee. She and her siblings identified their father as Thomas J. Reid and their mother as Maria Maxwell. [2] Margaret’s mother, Maria, shows up on census records living with some of her children. Margaret’s mother was biracial, but the identity of her father and his race is more difficult to trace. It is possible that Margaret’s mother Maria was enslaved to her father and Margaret and her oldest siblings were born into slavery. A white resident of Nashville listed as Thomas Jones Read on the 1830 U.S. Census, held three enslaved workers. That year Read owned a female slave under the age of ten and two other female slaves between the ages of ten and twenty-three. If he was indeed Margaret’s father, one of the older enslaved women in 1830 could have been her mother, Maria, and the little girl could have been Margaret. [3]

Whatever the identity of her father, Margaret was her parents’ eldest child, possibly followed by four girls and two boys. [4] Margaret’s brothers and sisters were born in Tennessee and Mississippi, but Maria and her children eventually made their way to Ohio and freedom. Maria’s youngest child was born free in Cincinnati. Most of the time, Maria Maxwell’s children used the surname “Jones.” One daughter, Ellenor, often used “Reid,” but they all claimed the same parentage on civil and church records. Some gave their children the “Reid” surname as a middle name, but Margaret used “Jones” as her surname before her marriage. [5]

After Maria Maxwell and her children settled in Cincinnati, Margaret married biracial Jesse Beckley, Jr. Jesse was a freeborn man of color, originally from Alexandria, Virginia. Although no records survive to indicate how the couple first met, Jesse must have encountered Margaret after he moved to Ohio. Jesse and Margaret were married on May 7, 1846, in a court in Hamilton County, Ohio. [6]

Jesse belonged to abolitionist organizations and worked to claim legal rights for himself and other Black Americans. After their marriage, Margaret and Jesse lived in Cincinnati for the next two decades. Shortly after they married, the couple lived with Margaret’s mother and three of her younger sisters. On the 1850 census, the Jones women and Jesse Beckley were all listed as “mulatto.” [7]

Margaret gave birth to a baby girl around 1850. She and Jesse named their daughter, Cornelia, a name reminiscent of Jesse’s mother’s given name, “Cordelia.” [8]

Latter-day Saint church records kept in the 1850s reveal that Margaret and her sister, Ellenor received second baptisms and confirmations in 1858 in the Cincinnati Branch (a small ecclesiastical unit). Margaret was rebaptized and confirmed by Thomas Wasden on September 13, 1858. [9] On later Church records, Margaret claimed a first baptismal date of 1842, while Ellenor’s first baptism was in 1844.[10] Their mother, Maria, was evidently a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well, although contemporaneous documentation of all these early ordinances has not survived.[11]

By the time the 1860 census was taken, Margaret’s husband Jesse had become the head of their Cincinnati household where he, Margaret, and Cornelia lived, together with Maria, Margaret’s mother and eleven-year-old Isabella, Margaret’s youngest sister. Margaret’s sister, Ellenor, had married, and moved to California. Another of Margaret’s sisters, Francis, who was part of the household in 1850, no longer resided with the Beckleys. In 1860, the racial or “color” designation of the Jones women differed from what it was ten years earlier. While Jesse was still described as “mulatto,” the column for racial designation remained blank next to the names of the other members of the family. The enumerator who visited the Beckley neighborhood left the “color” category on the census blank for the residents he judged to be white, so it is likely that he assumed that Margaret, Cornelia, Maria, and Isabella were all white. [12]

The Beckley household was one of the wealthiest in the area due to Jesse’s success in the composite roofing business, which used a new waterproof and fireproof type of roofing shingles. The Beckleys were able to employ a live-in Black domestic servant to help with housekeeping by 1860. [13]

In 1860, the records of the Cincinnati Latter-day Saint Branch again documented ordinances performed for members of the Beckley and Jones families. On August 26, 1860, Robert Ellwood rebaptized Margaret. That same day he also performed first baptisms for her daughter, Cornelia, and her sister, Isabella. Margaret and Isabella were confirmed under the hands of Thomas Shore, while Cornelia was confirmed by Robert Ellwood. [14]

Around 1861, the US government awarded Jesse a contract to roof sheds at Camp Dennison, an army camp near Cincinnati used extensively during the Civil War. The contract was worth $39,000 or about $1.5 million in today’s dollars.[15] The substantial wealth Jesse accrued from his Ohio roofing business, including this contract, allowed him to buy the Fond du Lac, Wisconsin city gas works in 1867. [16] The family relocated to Wisconsin where Jesse adapted the gas works to begin providing gas light to the homes in the city.[17] So once again, in Wisconsin, Margaret would have enjoyed financial freedom and the many opportunities prosperity brings.

In the summer of 1869, Margaret and Jesse traveled to Salt Lake City where they rejoined Margaret’s sister, Ellenor. After living in California for nearly ten years, Ellenor visited Salt Lake with her children, possibly to allow them to receive Latter-day Saint ordinances. Margaret and Ellenor participated in Mormon rituals that summer. Margaret received yet another baptism (her fourth) on June 30, 1869, this time in the Salt Lake Eleventh Ward. [18] One month later, on July 27, 1869, Jesse also accepted baptism in the ward. Bishop Alexander McCrae performed the ritual. It was Jesse’s first baptism. [19] There is no notation regarding any of the family’s race in any of the Church records in Utah Territory. 

After their visit to Salt Lake, the Beckleys returned to Wisconsin. They appear as residents in Fond du Lac in the 1870 census. Besides Jesse and Margaret, the Beckley household included Cornelia, their daughter who by that year had married a man named William O. Coons, and the Coons’s two-year-old daughter, Jessie Belle Coons. Margaret’s youngest sister, Isabella, still lived with the Beckleys, but Margaret’s mother, Maria, was no longer a part of the household. The 1870 census also recorded that several of Jesse’s employees and a live-in servant resided at the same address. [20]

Upon returning to Wisconsin, one of the important tasks Jesse completed was the legal incorporation of the Gas Light Company of Fond du Lac. He named himself, Margaret, and William Coons as the first board of directors. [21] Choosing Margaret to sit on the board indicates his respect for her ability to act as a business associate, as well as his wife.

After relocating to Wisconsin, Margaret is consistently designated as “white” on all official documents. The U.S. Census of 1870 as well as the Wisconsin State Census enumerated in 1875 list Margaret, Jesse, and the rest of his family as “white.” The state census shows four white males and five white females living together in a household with Jesse Beckley at its head. [22] The 1875 census listed one fewer female than the 1870 census. It is likely Margaret who was absent from the Beckley home for an unknown period during the last half of the 1870s.

During the late winter and spring of 1870, Ariah Coates Brower, a Mormon missionary serving in Wisconsin, mentioned the Beckley family many times in his journal. On February 22, 1870, he noted that Margaret had written to him, “telling me that her husband did not want me to come and see them, but desired an interest in my prayers that she might obtain the desire of her heart in righteous[ness], leaving me to imagine the balance, which I understood to be that she wanted to be gathered with the Saints in Utah, either through her husband doing right and going to Utah, or that she might be delivered from him. She has my faith and prayers in her behalf.” [23] The Beckleys were out of town until March, but when they returned, Jesse must have had a change of heart because Elder Brower visited the Beckley home many times. Jesse actively supported his efforts to preach to Fond du Lac residents and paid for advertisements to be printed.[24]

After many discussions on gospel subjects, on March 24, Elder Brower rebaptized Jesse, Cornelia, and Eliza Fipps whose husband worked for Jesse. That same evening, he also performed first baptisms for Cornelia’s husband, William Coons, Thomas Fipps, Jesse’s employee, and Lucinda Clark, the Beckley’s domestic. All were baptized in “a bathing tub.” [25] Despite what the missionary’s initial belief had been about Jesse’s attitude toward the Church, Jesse and other members of the household contributed new clothing and substantial amounts of money to aid his missionary efforts. Even more notably, Brower mentions that he and Jesse stayed up late one night talking about, “the endowments to be given to all the faithful Saints. . . he was very anxious to be worthy to receive [them].” [26]

Salt Lake Eleventh Ward records show Margaret returned to Salt Lake in the autumn of 1877 when she received a reconfirmation on November 27, 1877. [27] Two days later, Margaret took part in the initiatory and endowment rituals in the Endowment House, then functioning as a temporary temple. [28] Margaret is one of a number of people of mixed racial ancestry who passed as white and received temple blessings in the nineteenth century. Surviving sources do not indicate what those who performed her temple rituals understood about her racial identity at the time, but local and general Church leaders do indicate later that they were aware of her mixed racial ancestry.[29]

Margaret might have spent an extended period in Utah Territory with her sister, Ellenor, who spent most of her time there during this period. It is also possible that she just visited Salt Lake in 1877 specifically to receive a temple endowment. Although the exact date of her return to Wisconsin is not known, by the fall of 1878, she was back home and her mental state had reached a crisis point. She was committed to the Northern Hospital for the Insane in Oshkosh. Margaret entered the facility in September 1878, where she was described as “temporarily insane.” [30] Tragically, only two months after her admittance, she died a “sudden and unexpected” death on November 21, 1878 at the age of fifty. [31]

Margaret must have been light-skinned enough to pass as white. She was consistently listed as “white” in all censuses beginning in 1870. It is doubtful, however, that she and Jesse would have attempted to purposely hide their racial identities. Jesse had been active in racial causes. In addition, early public records note his mixed race. Margaret, too, was classed as “mulatto” in 1850. However, there is no indication that the Beckleys’ race was an impediment to their business or social success or their acceptance in Latter-day Saint circles, which poses the question about whether or not it was known in Wisconsin, and initially in Utah. Margaret and Jesse continued to support the Church and its missionary efforts after their final visit to Salt Lake. An article published in the Deseret News in 1878 reported the kind hospitality Jesse extended to Mormon missionaries proselyting in the area. [32] Most importantly, Margaret’s participation in a temple ritual shortly before her death is a testament to her level of commitment.

At some point, and at least by 1885, Latter-day Saint leaders and some members of the Church in Salt Lake had learned that Margaret and her sister, Ellenor Jones, had Black African ancestry. In her request for a temple recommend, another Latter-day Saint of mixed racial ancestry, Lorah Bowdidge Berry, referred to a Mrs. Jones (Ellenor G. Jones) and her sister (Margaret) as women of mixed race who had been allowed to receive temple endowments. The acting president of the Salt Lake Stake, a regional ecclesiastical unit, acknowledged this fact in an 1885 letter to the president of the faith, John Taylor. In other words, local leaders and the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint were aware of Margaret’s racial ancestry and her participation in temple rituals and did not respond negatively. [33]

Although Margaret was endowed during her lifetime, Jesse was never ordained to the Mormon lay priesthood and did not receive a temple endowment, as was his stated wish in 1870. Because of this, it was impossible for him to be sealed in an eternal marriage to Margaret. In 1888 or 1889, about ten years after she died, Margaret was posthumously sealed to Daniel Hanmer Wells, a Latter-day Saint apostle. Wells was the president of the Manti Temple where the sealing took place and would necessarily have been a consenting party to the eternal plural union. [34] No record survives to explain how or why this sealing took place. It would not be until 2004 that Margaret and Jesse received a vicarious marriage sealing in the Salt Lake Temple. [35]

By Tonya S. Reiter

[1] There were literally thousands of people with Black African Ancestry who were ordained to the priesthood and attended the temple long before 1978 when the restrictions were lifted but who were understood to be white. Beckley’s mixed racial ancestry was known by her Church leaders at the time that she received temple rituals or relatively soon thereafter.

[2] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake City 11th Ward (Utah), microfilm 26,716, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[3] United States, 1830 Census, Tennessee, Davidson County, Nashville.

[4] Only three of Margaret’s sisters show up on census records, and the brothers are not listed on any censuses.

[5] Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016, Jesse Beckley and Margaret Jones, 07 May 1846.

[6] Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016, Jesse Beckley and Margaret Jones, 07 May 1846.

[7] United States, 1850 Census, Ohio, Hamilton County, Cincinnati, Ward 4.

[8] Although there is no documentary evidence to support the inclusion of another child, Margaret might have given birth to a son before she had Cornelia. See: Charles Reed Beckley (MWCS-WZ7), FamilySearch, Family Tree Details Page, https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/MWCS-WZ7 (accessed 2 November 2025). Someone did posthumous temple work for Charles Beckley. The record can be found on microfilm 170,493, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[9] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Cincinnati Branch (Ohio), microfilm 1968, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[10] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, Endowments of the living, 1851-1884, microfilm 183,407, Volume H, 10 November 1872 - 27 September 1878, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Her endowment record gives 1842 as Margaret’s baptismal year, but the 11th Ward clerk listed it as 1844. Based on where her brothers might have been born, Margaret would likely have been baptized in Tennessee.

[11] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Logan Temple, Endowments for the dead, 1884-1970; heir indexes, 1884-1961; baptisms for the dead 1943-1970, microfilm 177,955, Vol. A 21 May 1884, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[12] United States, 1860 Census, Ohio, Hamilton County, Cincinnati Ward 4.

[13] United States, 1860 Census, Ohio, Hamilton County, Cincinnati Ward 4.

[14] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Cincinnati Branch (Ohio), microfilm 1968, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[15] “To the Public,” The Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio), 25 October 1861, 2.

[16] “The Fon du Lac Commonwealth,” Semi-Weekly Wisconsin, (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), 17 Aug 1867.

[17] “Jettings Here and There at Fond du Lac,” Semi-Weekly Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), 20 June 1868, 2.

[18] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Eleventh Ward record of members, 1854-1892, LR 2569 7, folder 1, item 55, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[19] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake City 11th Ward (Utah), microfilm 26,716, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; An Englishwoman, Eliza Fipps, whose husband worked for Jesse at the gas light works accompanied the family on the visit to Salt Lake and was baptized and confirmed on the same day as Jesse. See also, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake City 11th Ward (Utah), LR 2569, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[20] United States, 1870 Census, Wisconsin, Fond du Lac County, Fond du Lac, Ward 2.

[21] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church History Department, Publications Division, Jenny Reeder, "At the Pulpit" files, 2013-2016, CR 100 810, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[22] Wisconsin, 1875 Wisconsin State Census, Fond du Lac County, Fond du Lac.

[23] Missionary Journal of Ariah Coats Brower, Entry for 22 February 1870, transcription by Oradell Brower Triplett, Ariah Coates Brower (LHVW-4Z9) FamilySearch, Family Tree Memories Page, (https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/LHVW-4Z9 (accessed 2 November 2025).

[24] Brower Journal, 23 March 1870.

[25] Brower Journal, 24 March 1870.

[26] Brower Journal, 21 March 1870.

[27] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Eleventh Ward record of members, 1854-1892, LR 2569 7, item 70, 1877, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; This record does not list a rebaptism preceding this reconfirmation. That could be a copy error; however, the record is detailed enough to list who spoke the confirmation prayer and who laid hands on the recipient, making it more likely to be accurate, although it would have been a very unusual event.

[28] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, Endowments of the living, 1851-1884, microfilm 183,407, Volume H, 10 November1872 - 27 September 1878, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Jesse evidently accompanied Margaret to Utah because the 11^th Ward record lists a rebaptism and reconfirmation for him on December 13, 1877; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake 11^th Ward (Utah), microfilm 26,716, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[29] Joseph E. Taylor to John Taylor, September 5, 1885, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[30] “Wisconsin,” Janesville Daily Gazette (Janesville, Wisconsin) 23 November 1879, 1.

[31] “Mrs. Beckley,” Green Bay Advocate (Green Bay, Wisconsin) 5 December 1879, 3.

[32] “Returned Missionary,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 31 July 1878, 9.

[33] Joseph E. Taylor to John Taylor, September 5, 1885, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; Joseph Taylor acknowledged the veracity of Lorah’s claim, but she was still denied a temple endowment and sealing.

[34] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Manti Temple, Sealings for the dead, couples, 1888-1944; heir indexes, 1888-1944, Volume A, 30 May 1888, microfilm 170,508, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[35] Margaret Elizabeth Jones (LHPX-3RN), FamilySearch, Family Tree Ordinance Page (accessed 28 October 2025).

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