H. B. Colton letter

The First Union Station, Indianapolis, Indiana, ca. 1853

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: H. B. Colton letter (MSS 4205). This includes an amusing letter written in 1857 from a bored and overworked railroad office worker describing Indianapolis society and longing for the company of old friends in Lockport. Reflecting, undoubtedly, on the Utah War, Colton muses on page 5: “By the by . . . I should have said, ‘Empassant,’ what have you poor weak-kneed, brokenbacked sham Republicans in N. Y. been doing this autumn. I am ashamed of you all, and out of pure disgust I have a good mind to turn Mormon. I would, too, If I could only choose the Queen of the Harem, who should sit up in state, do just as she chose, and never to be touched with any thing rougher than the tenderest of kisses, and for whom all the rest (mere wives in name, but servants in fact) should do all menial offices, wash, cook, mend, sew, run of errands, do up the scolding, which is needful in all households and whip the – Never mind. They wouldn’t need whipping. There’s a picture for you, drawn by the hand of an artist—a charcoal artist on a shingle!” He also refers to Buchanan’s Blunder of 1857-1858, also known as the Utah War or Utah Expedition, where the President sent the US Army to Utah to squash to “Mormon rebellion.”