AMEN.

BHodges, you’re going to love the travel narrative section of the Bernhisel library when it goes up here — you would have found a lot of sympathetic souls in the 19th century.

Researcher, is your suspicion because it is too friendly, or because you spot some inconsistency, or — ?

Ray, that’s a reminder I need from time to time, because I do want to believe what fits my worldview. Giving just as much scrutiny to supportive materials is wise (although sometimes I think Mormon historians are too harsh on the positive and too willing to accept the negative, because they want to be sophisticated and not appear to accept the party line naively).

I had not considered the timing of the letter. I think you make a compelling defense of its plausibility. (That and your far greater familiarity with the writings from the period.)

All due respects to your olfactory sensors, mine aren’t twitching too badly. The writer sounds more educated than some of the men who whose similar letters I have collected, but the letter itself seems reasonable. Other writers comment on how “beautiful” any kind of civilization seemed after a thousand miles without the sight of streets and homes and gardens, and almost everybody who could did take the chance to be entertained at a church service. In 1849 we seemed rather noble (or pitiable) for our survival in the wilderness, and we hadn’t yet ticked off travelers who felt gouged by the high prices or annoyed because they couldn’t indulge in the vices the expected, and we hadn’t yet had any Utah-era run-ins with politicians of any kind. The letters I see from these early days almost seem as though the past was erased; it isn’t until after Brocchus, Brandebury & co. run back east that the Utah troubles start and memory of the earlier troubles is revived in American consciousness. In other words, in the summer of 1849 I can’t see any motivation for embroidery on anybody’s part, except in the exaggeration of Salt Lake’s beauties by men who were starved for fresh peas and hot bread and a glimpse at home life.

But, my olfacting murinometer is twitching. It seems a little too good—too laudatory and too polished. Perhaps there is a way to determine the putative author’s identity? Surely there weren’t very many people who commanded a “company of gold diggers” that arrived in Salt Lake City on 03 July 1849?

Google doesn’t provide me with an immediate answer. Thomas Evershed arrived on the right day but didn’t stay long enough to send a letter on the 8th and, judging by the letter he did send, “laudatory” was not his thing.