Biography

Even though Mary Bowdidge Berry Smith was a white woman, she nonetheless ran afoul of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ racial policies. Latter-day Saint leaders barred Mary from receiving the crowning rituals of her faith because she had married a Black man and had children with him. After converting to the Church as a young girl, serving a term in a London workhouse, and giving birth to a daughter out of wedlock, she immigrated to Utah Territory where she married a man of mixed racial ancestry, James Preston Berry. Even though she later divorced Berry and sought to be sealed to a white man, the Church’s highest authorities ruled that she could not enter the temple and fulfill her request. Church leaders thereby extended the “curse of Cain” to a woman who had no Black African heritage.

Mary Bowdidge began life on the Channel Islands in the English Channel, off the coast of Normandy. She and her family were plagued with poverty throughout her early years. Her father, John Burridge, was born in Dorset, England.[1] Her mother, Alice Gardner Smith, was born in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands.[2] A family story says John worked for Alice’s parents. When John proposed marriage to Alice, her parents did not approve of the match and disinherited her.[3] The couple nonetheless married in Lyme-Regis, Dorset, England in 1832.[4] Their first child, Ann, was born in Lyme-Regis, but by the summer of 1834 when their second child, Richard, came into the family, the Bowdidges had moved to the Bailiwick of Guernsey. Mary, their third child, was born on March 3, 1836, in Saint Sampson, Guernsey. Within eighteen months, when their fourth child, Elizabeth, was born, the Bowdidge family had again relocated to another island in the Channel, the Isle of Jersey.[5] They continued to live in the town of Saint Helier, in the Bailiwick of Jersey where their last three children, Sarah, John, and Alice were born.

On March 30, 1844, Mary’s father, John, was convicted of theft and housebreaking. The court exiled him to a penal colony in Tasmania, Australia.[6] John’s seven-year sentence left Mary’s mother, Alice, with the burden of supporting their family alone. At the time John was sent away, the youngest of their seven children was a baby, only a few months old. The family fell into extreme poverty. Seeking a solution, Alice and her children entered the St. Helier General Hospital, which also served as a poorhouse. On October 1, 1845, the hospital treasurer questioned his obligation to support the Bowdidges with parish funds. Alice had already applied for financial assistance from John’s home parish, Wootton Fitzpaine in Dorset, hoping to receive help from the English authorities. They denied her request based on the fact that John was “transported being consider’d Dead in law.”[7] Alice Bowdidge eventually turned to tailoring to try to make a living. Young Mary also worked as a dressmaker, possibly contributing to the family income.[8]

Before 1847, the John and Alice Bowdidge family affiliated with the Church of England. Most of the Bowdidge children were christened as babies in the local parish, but Mary was belatedly christened when she was nine years old.[9] It was only two years later when Mormon missionaries began teaching and baptizing Jersey Islanders. Mary’s father was still serving his sentence in Tasmania and never joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Mary, along with her mother and elder brother, Richard, were among the first converts in the Channel Islands. Eleven-year-old Mary accepted baptism on November 19, 1847, and was confirmed as a member of the church two days later on November 21. E. Ballen performed both of the ordinances.[10]

After his prison term, Mary’s father, John, never returned to the Channel Islands. Instead of returning to his wife and family, John stayed in Tasmania where he was sentenced to eighteen months of hard labor after brawling and beating a woman.[11] Between incarcerations, he found time to remarry bigamously and father eleven more children with his second wife.[12]

Meanwhile, in Jersey, Mary’s mother, Alice, abandoned by her husband, managed to provide for her children, the older of whom, undoubtedly, carried a share of the burden. Richard, the eldest son, went to sea, but he was drowned in 1852, further reducing the family’s income. In March 1857, Mary and her older sister, Ann, now in their twenties, left Jersey for London.[13] This move may have been prompted by the need to find lucrative employment to help support their mother and younger siblings. Ann Bowdidge stayed in England where she married and raised a large family. Mary, however, returned to the Channel Islands in the spring of 1860.[14] It seems her sojourn in London was fraught with serious difficulties.

When Mary finally reunited with her extended family, she brought a two-year-old daughter, Alice, with her. Mary claimed to have married a man named Theofil Manuel Saugé and to have had a son by him, followed by this daughter, Alice, who was born in Paris, France. Family lore maintained that the marriage failed and Saugé kept the boy but allowed Mary to return to her family with her daughter.[15] There is no contemporaneous documentation of a marriage and Saugé’s name most often appears in later documents connected with Mary’s daughter, Alice.[16]

There was, in fact, a French lawyer named Theophile Saugé living in London in the mid-1850s. He married an English woman named Elizabeth Turpin in 1853 and two years later was convicted of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to one year of imprisonment in Newgate Prison.[17] While it is possible that this Theophile Saugé was Alice’s father, the assertion that he and Mary were married seems to be a fabrication that allowed Mary to save face and retain respectability.[18] However, Mary’s actual experiences in London make for a more compelling story. 

In 1852, Mary’s unmarried sister, Ann, had given birth to a daughter, Emily. Ann was “cut off” from the Church on the grounds of “immoral conduct” just days after Emily was born.[19] When Ann and Mary went to London in 1857, Ann evidently left Emily with her mother and sisters in Jersey. No records to date document Ann and Mary’s first year in London, but after the sisters had been there seventeen months, Mary gave birth to her daughter, Alice, on August 5, 1857. Alice was christened in the Westminster St. James Parish on August 24, 1858. Mary is listed under the surname “Bowdidge” in the Anglican register and her baby was given the Bowdidge surname. When an illegitimate child was christened in the Anglican Church, the usual practice was to give it the mother’s maiden surname. There is no father’s name given on the parish record.[20] It is thus highly unlikely that Mary was married at the time of Alice’s birth and Alice was definitely not born in Paris. After Mary’s sister, Ann, was disciplined by the LDS church and, undoubtedly, suffered humiliation for having a child out of wedlock, it is possible Mary wanted to avoid a similar fate.

The parish register reveals another important piece of information about Mary’s time in London. Her occupation is recorded as “Workhouse Servant” indicating that Mary, while in London, must have been in dire straits with no means of support. The record of admissions to the Westminster St. James Workhouse begins after Mary’s confinement there, so it is impossible to know exactly when she entered the institution or what circumstances drove her to seek refuge there. In addition to their primary purpose, Victorian workhouses in England offered a shelter in which destitute women could give birth. Conditions inside workhouses were often unsanitary, but it was a better place to give birth than on the street. Maternal and newborn mortality rates were high and even higher in workhouses. Some women sought admission only as labor began, but given that Mary was designated as a “Workhouse Servant,” it is more likely she had been confined there for some time prior to Alice’s birth. In addition, Alice’s christening took place approximately three weeks after she was born which coincides with the one month “lying-in period” granted to new mothers who were confined to the workhouse.[21]

There was a significant stigma attached to unwed motherhood in Victorian England, making it very difficult for young unmarried mothers to regain a place in society and find employment. If they were lucky enough to be hired, safe child care was not easy to find if they, like Mary, were far from family. Some women resorted to sending their babies to “baby farms'' where they were often mistreated and even starved to death.[22] Mary, against the odds, managed to keep her baby with her and was able to return, eventually, to Jersey with little Alice. Mary returned home in 1860, the year after her mother died, so she and her daughter moved in with her younger brother, John.[23]

Soon after returning to Jersey, Mary and other members of her family began preparing to immigrate to Utah Territory to join the main body of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By the end of the nineteenth century, most of the faithful Channel Islands Mormon converts had left their homes and gathered with the Saints in the western United States.[24] With the assistance of a loan from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, Mary and Alice, along with Mary’s sister, Sarah, and niece, Emily, were able to set sail from Liverpool on the ship Antarctic to begin their journey to “Zion.”[25] The family group arrived in New York on July 10, 1863, and traveled on to Utah Territory, arriving in the autumn of that year.[26]

Less than a year after Mary and her daughter’s arrival in Salt Lake City, on April 15, 1864, Bishop William H. Hickenlooper officiated at Mary’s marriage to James Preston Berry, a biracial barber from Virginia.[27] Berry was likely not a member of the LDS church. Within two years, the Berrys had two daughters, both of whom received naming blessings in the Salt Lake Fourteenth Ward. Bishop Abraham Hoagland blessed their first daughter, Lorah Jane Bowdidge Berry, born on January 15, 1865, on March 21 that same year.[28] Mary Elizabeth (Polly) Bowdidge Berry, the couple’s second daughter was born on October 21, 1866, and Bishop Hoagland blessed and named her on November 11, 1866.[29]

By the following spring, the Berry marriage was in trouble. In her divorce petition, filed in the autumn of 1871, Mary stated that James Preston Berry left Salt Lake for Austin, Nevada early in 1867.[30] His brother had a barbershop there and Berry likely intended to work with him. Berry did not return to Utah in the ensuing four years but wrote to Mary and asked her to join him in Nevada. Mary refused his offer, saying that she did not want to leave her friends in Utah and that she and Berry had not mutually decided to relocate to Nevada. The probate court judge granted Mary a divorce during the December term of 1871, leaving her free to marry her next husband, James Frank Smith.[31]

The exact date of Mary’s marriage to Smith is not known. Very few details about Smith have survived except that he hailed from Glasgow, Scotland, and came to Utah in 1869.[32] Smith may have been a wealthy Scottish miner living in the Thirteenth Ward in 1870.[33] Smith and Mary must have married very soon after her divorce was granted because their son, James Frank Smith, Jr. was born on July 10, 1872. This marriage also ended within a few years, but this time due to Smith Senior’s death. His death date is also unknown, but must have been before June 2, 1880, the day Mary described herself as a widow on the census.[34]

Mary retained the Smith surname for the 1880 census, but all of her children were listed with the surname of Saugé, the French surname purported to belong to the father of her eldest daughter, Alice. It might have been a clerical error by the census taker, since even her youngest child, James Smith, was listed as James Saugé.[35] This is in contrast to the 1870 census, when all the family members, including Alice, were counted under the Berry surname.[36]

James Preston and Mary Berry’s daughters were not baptized near their eighth birthdays. Instead, soon after Mary’s youngest child, James, turned twelve years old, he and his half-sisters were baptized and confirmed together. James, Mary Elizabeth, and Lorah were baptized in the Salt Lake Eighteenth Ward on August 5, 1884, and confirmed as members of the church on August 7, 1884.[37]

In 1885, Hyrum Byron Barton proposed marriage to Lorah, Mary, and James Preston Berry’s eldest daughter. Hyrum was already married, so Lorah would become a plural wife. In a visit with the acting president of the Salt Lake Stake, Joseph Taylor, Lorah expressed her wish to receive a temple endowment and be sealed to Barton. Because of what he believed Lorah’s racial background to be, Taylor felt he had to appeal to a higher authority. He, therefore, wrote a letter to church president, John Taylor, explaining that Lorah’s father, James Preston Berry, although very light in skin color, was alleged to have Black African ancestry. He wrote further that Lorah was very pretty and would not be suspected of having “tainted blood in her veins.”[38] We do not have access to John Taylor’s answer, but Lorah was denied permission both to be endowed and to be sealed to Barton in a plural marriage.

Hyrum Barton and Lorah Berry nonetheless went ahead with their marriage plans. Lorah gave birth to their first child in May 1886, and by the summer of 1887, federal officials summoned Barton to appear before a commission to see if there was enough evidence to try him for cohabitation. Under the provisions of the Edmunds-Tucker Act, wives could be called to testify against their husbands.[39] Lorah, her sister, and her mother, Mary, were obligated to appear before the commission. Mary, an unwilling witness, was forced to tell what she knew about her daughter’s marriage and the birth of her daughter’s baby girl. Mary claimed she did not know that Lorah was living in polygamy. She thought Hyrum and his first wife were divorced. Mary also maintained that she had no knowledge of the date when Lorah’s baby, her own granddaughter, was born.[40]Mary went on to say that her daughter’s conduct surprised her as much as it surprised anyone. After reviewing the case, Commissioner Norrell, who conducted the investigation, declared that he believed there was probable cause that Barton was guilty of polygamy. He set bail at $1500 and said he would await action of a grand jury.[41]

For Mary, however, the controversy did not end with her son-in-law’s trial. A decade later, in August 1895, Mary also encountered resistance from general church leaders based on the racial temple ban in place at the time. Mary wanted to be sealed to her deceased second husband, James Frank Smith, in a posthumous ceremony. She proposed that her son, James Frank Smith, Jr. would act as proxy for his father. Mary’s son had received a temple endowment and temple sealing two years before.[42] Her request for the sealing and the temple recommend was denied. Angus M. Cannon, the Salt Lake Stake president refused to sign a recommend for Mary based on her former marriage to James Preston Berry. Mary then petitioned the First Presidency to overrule Angus Cannon’s decision and, at the same time, denied that her first husband was biracial. On August 22, 1895, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles took up her appeal. George F. Gibbs, secretary to the Twelve, “reminded President Woodruff of a Sister Smith, whose first husband was a man named Berry, by whom she had two children—girls—who are now living and it is held by those who knew Berry that he had negro blood in him.” Gibbs went on to present Mary’s request for her son to stand proxy for his father, and then explained Angus Cannon’s reason for not signing her recommend: “she had married a man with negro blood in him and borne him children.”[43] 

Accepting that it was a foregone fact that James Preston Berry was biracial, President George Q. Cannon, first councilor to church president Wilford Woodruff, “raised the question: What would become of the girls? One at least of whom was in the Church, as they could not be admitted to the temple, and he thought it would be unfair to admit their mother and deny them this privilege.” He dismissed the issue entirely by reasoning that, “to let down the bars in the least on this question would only tend to complications, and that it is perhaps better to let all such cases alone, believing, of course, that the Lord would deal fairly with them all.” His argument won the day. The minutes dealing with Mary’s request end with the comment, “President Woodruff assented to this.”[44]

Apostle Franklin D. Richards noted the meeting in his personal journal that same day. He listed the members of the council who had, “a lengthy chat over ineligibility of any person having negro blood to receive the Priesthood or Temple Ordinances.” Besides himself, the members of the First Presidency, Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon, and Joseph F. Smith were present, along with Apostles Lorenzo Snow, John Henry Smith, and Heber J. Grant. The discussion was prompted by Jane Elizabeth Manning James’s entreaty for admittance to the temple. He wrote of Mary Bowdidge Berry Smith’s request as an addendum to James’s plea, “also a white Sister who m. a negro man entreats for permission to receive her ordinances, but is refused.”[45]

It is unclear whether Mary was informed of the Council and First Presidency’s ruling because a month later she questioned Franklin D. Richards about her stake president’s refusal to give her a temple recommend. In his journal entry of September 25, 1895, Richards noted, “Sister Mary Bowdige [sic] Berry Smith asks me what about & why Angus M. Cannon will not sign her recommend to the Temple to work in connection with her sonJames F. Smith by her 2nd husband that she may be sealed to his father & he to them because she married & had 2 dau: by a former husband James Preston Berry who had negro blood in him.”[46]

In their decision to deny Mary access to temple ordinances, general church leaders extended the racial ban to a white Latter-day Saint with no known Black African lineage. They ruled that because she had married a man “who had negro blood in him” and had children by him, she had, in essence, contracted tainted blood from the relationship and could not receive a temple endowment and sealing.[47]

Five years later, on December 7, 1900, Mary Bowdidge Berry Smith died of pleurisy at the age of sixty-one and was buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.[48] On November 19, 1914, the anniversary of her baptism, someone performed a vicarious temple endowment on behalf of Mary. In 1981, she was sealed, by proxy, to James Frank Smith and Theofil Manuel Saugé. She has also been sealed to James Preston Berry.[49]

By Tonya S. Reiter

[1] Church of England, Bishop’s transcripts for St. Mary’s Church, Bridport, [Dorset, England], 1731-1879, microfilm 1,279,486, item 2, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. John Burridge lived under the alias of “John Bowdidge” part of his adult life. He used this alias when he married Alice Smith and while he lived in the Channel Islands, but reverted to “Burridge” in Tasmania.

[2] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Channel Islands Conference (England), 1851-1876, microfilm no. 105,975, item 2, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Alice, herself, would have given this information about her birthplace to the LDS ward clerk. Other records list Dorset, England as Alice’s birthplace.

[3] Unknown Author, “Biography of John Bowdidge and Alice Smith Bowdidge and Their Children,” Alice Gardner Smith (KWJ6-KP5) Memories, FamilySearch.org.

[4] "England, Dorset, Parish Registers, 1538-2001,” Church of England, Record Office, Dorchester, John Bowdidge and Alice Smith, 24 June 1832.

[5] 1841 Channel Islands Census, Census Returns of England and Wales, 1841. Kew, Surrey, England, The National Archives of the UK (TNA), Public Record Office (PRO), 1841, Class HO107, Piece 1461, Book 5, Civil Parish, St Helier, County Jersey, Enumeration District 4, Folio 41, Page 31, Line 3, GSU roll 464353.

[6] UK, Criminal Records, 1780-1871, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England, HO 24 Home Office: Prison Registers and Statistical Returns, Reference: HO 24/1.

[7] John Sorel, Treasurer of the General Hospital to P. Le Sueur, Constable of St. Helier, 1 October 1845, St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, Jersey Archives, reference D/AP/Y/A/3.

[8] 1851 Channel Islands Census, Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851, Class HO107, Piece 2527, Folio 286, Page 27, GSU roll 105976-105977.

[9] Jersey, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915, Jersey Heritage, St Helier, Jersey, Jersey Parish Registers, Reference Number: G/C/03/A2/14.

[10] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, 1847-1849, Jersey Branch (Channel Islands), microfilm 105,975, item 6, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[11] “Hobart Town General Quarter Sessions,” Courier (Hobart, Tasmania), April 7, 1857, 3.

[12] “Australia, Tasmania, Civil Registration, 1803-1933,” entry for John Burridge and Elizabeth Geard, 1851, Archives Office of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. John and Elizabeth’s descendants have listed eleven children for the couple, all born in Tasmania between 1854 and 1878. John Bowdidge or Burridge (KWJ6-KPR) FamilySearch.org.

[13] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, 1847-1876, St. Helier Branch (Jersey), microfilm no. 105,975, items 7-9, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[14] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, 1847-1876, St. Helier Branch (Jersey), microfilm 105,975, items 7-9, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[15] Unknown, “Biography of Bowdidge.”

[16] Alice adopted the Saugé surname (see 1880 US Census) and gave her birthplace as France throughout her life. On her death certificate, her father’s name was listed as Manuel Soje: Utah, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificates of Death, File No. 24, Registered No. 340, Alice Soje Little, Utah Division of Archives and Records Services, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[17] Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935, Ancestry.com, Westminster, Anglican Parish Registers, City of Westminster Archives, Westminster, London, England; Westminster Church of England Parish Registers, Reference: STA/PR/4/19, 1849-1857; England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892, Home Office: Criminal Registers, Middlesex and Home Office: Criminal Registers, England and Wales, Class: HO 27, Piece: 111, Page 30, 1855.

[18] The Saugé surname is attached to Mary on the 1861 Jersey Census and her marital status is described as “widow,” but even on that document Alice’s surname was given as “Bowdidge.” See, Channel Islands, 1861 Census, Census Returns of England and Wales, Kew, Surrey, England, National Archives of the UK (TNA), Public Record Office (PRO), 1861, Class RG9, Piece 4390, Folio 76, Page 27, GSU roll 543276.

[19] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, 1847-1876, St. Helier Branch (Jersey), microfilm 105,975, items 7-9, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[20] England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975, Alice Bowdidge, 1858, FamilySearch.org; Alice Sauge (LLQW-8BR) FamilySearch.org.

[21] Jessica Cox, “Childbirth and the Victorian Workhouse,” (accessed 27 September 2023). For a more complete treatment of the subject see: Jessica Cox, Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London: The History Press, 2023).

[22] Dorothy L. Haller, “Bastardy and Baby Farming in Victorian England,” (accessed 27 September 2023).

[23] Channel Islands, 1861 Census, Census Returns of England and Wales, Kew, Surrey, England, National Archives of the UK (TNA), Public Record Office (PRO), 1861, Class RG9, Piece 4390, Folio 76, Page 27, GSU roll 543276.

[24] Yvonne Ashton, “Jersey Latter-day Saints Celebrate 50th Anniversary,” (accessed 9 June 2023).

[25] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company Financial Accounts (Worldwide), 1849-1886" (accessed 28 August 2023). Mary and Alice traveled under the Bowdidge surname.

[26] New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891, Mary Bowdedge, 1863, FamilySearch.org (accessed 28 August 2023).

[27] Mary Berry vs. James P. Berry, Divorce Petition Filed 30 November 1871, Series 373, Reel No. 19, Box No. 14, Folder No. 142, Utah Division of Archives and Record Services, Salt Lake County, Probate Court Civil and Criminal Case Files. Hickenlooper was the first bishop of the Sixth Ward and, for a time, also presided over the Fifth Ward.

[28] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Fourteenth Ward 1856-1909, microfilm 26,695, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[29] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Fourteenth Ward 1856-1909, microfilm 26,695, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[30] United States, 1870 Census, Nevada, Lander County, Austin.

[31] Mary Berry vs. James P. Berry, Divorce Petition Filed 30 November 1871, Series 373, Reel No. 19, Box No. 14, Folder No. 142, Salt Lake County, Probate Court Civil and Criminal Case Files, Utah Division of Archives and Records Services, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[32] Biographical Record of Salt Lake City and Vicinity (Chicago: National Historical Record Company, 1902), 220.

[33] United States, 1870 Census, Utah Territory, Salt Lake, Salt Lake City.

[34] United States, 1880 Census, Utah Territory, Salt Lake, Salt Lake City.

[35] United States, 1880 Census, Utah Territory, Salt Lake, Salt Lake City. The enumerator wrote the family name as Saugè with an accent grave instead of an accent aigu, but this was likely due to unfamiliarity with written French.

[36] United States, 1870 Census, Utah Territory, Salt Lake, Salt Lake City. “Berry” appears to be written as “Bersy.”

[37] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, 18^th Ward [1849]-1912, microfilm 26,740, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[38] Joseph E. Taylor to John Taylor, September 5, 1885, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[39] An Act to Amend an Act Entitled “An Act to Amend Section Fifty-three Hundred and Fifty-two of the Revised Statutes of the United States, in Reference to Bigamy, and for Other Purposes,” approved March Twenty-second, Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-two, Public Law 49-397, U.S. Statutes at Large 24 (1887): 635-641.

[40] “A Startling Case,” Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, Utah), 9 July 1887, 8.

[41] “Barton Held Over,” Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah), 13 July 1887, 8-9.

[42] Utah, County Marriages, 1871-1941, James F. Smith and Eliza A. Morgan, 9 August 1893. Their marriage took place in the Salt Lake Temple and James’s wife, Eliza Ann Morgan’s father was John Hamilton Morgan, an LDS General Authority.

[43] George A. Smith Family Papers, 1731-1969, MS 0038, box 78, folder 7, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

[44] George A. Smith Family Papers, 1731-1969, MS 0038, box 78, folder 7, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

[45] Richards family collection, 1837-1961, Franklin D. Richards journals, 1844-1899, Volume 45, 1895 January 1-December 31, Church History Library, (accessed: August 28, 2023).

[46] Richards family collection, 1837-1961, Franklin D. Richards journals, 1844-1899, Volume 45, 1895 January 1-December 31, Church History Library, (accessed: August 28, 2023).

[47] Richards family collection, 1837-1961, Franklin D. Richards journals, 1844-1899, Volume 45, 1895 January 1-December 31, Church History Library, (accessed: August 28, 2023). See also, Connell O’Donovan, “Tainted Blood-The Curious Cases of Mary J. Bowdidge and Her Daughter Lorah Jane Bowdidge Berry,” 13 February 2013, The Juvenile Instructor blog, (accessed 28 August 2023).

[48]Utah, Salt Lake County Death Records, 1849-1949, Mary G. Smith, 07 December 1900, microfilm 4,139,834, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[49] Mary Bowdidge (9SMF-HG2) FamilySearch.org. She has also been sealed, by proxy, to a White English pioneer named James Berry, who lived in Mona, Utah. Some of Mary’s descendants insist that he was really her husband and their progenitor. They continue to deny their racial heritage.

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