No scandalous or spiritual or amusing tale of significant Mormon history has been exposed. The Billams are unlikely to have LDS descendants who care about their convert ancestors. But it is a piece of the overall picture of Mormon history. The Billams’ faith in coming to Deseret, and their subsequent disillusionment and departure, is a part of our story.

Amen and amen. Of course, there’s much more here, too. If you read against the grain of the obvious bias in his short autobiography, you gain intriguing glimpses into how Mormonism in the peripheries differed from Mormonism in Utah.