Ep 9 🩺Dr. Priddy Meeks : 🥶 Frostbite, Polygamy & Cayenne Pepper🌶

Life in the valley of the Great Salt Lake was rough. From weed soup, cold winters, and the new life. 1857 was a year of turmoil and invasion in the territory of Utah. Thompsonian botanical Doctor Priddy Meeks recounts from his journal, how he treated one of the “invaders” for frostbite that had consumed both feet several inches above the ankles. He only lost 5 toenails in the ordeal. This unheard of treatment for frostbite is a miracle still today.

CHARACTERS
President James Knox Polk
Doctor Priddy Meeks
Sarah Mahurin
Jedediah M. Grant
Joseph B. Noble
General Winfield Scott (Old fuss & feathers)
Mormon Immigrants
Doctor William A Morse
Willard Richards
Phinehas Richards
Society of Health
Council of Health
Doctor Cannon
Deseret News
Arza Orson Adams
Thomas Bullock
Samual Hamilton
Edward Dalton
Governor Brigham Young
President Brigham Young
Territorial Governor of Utah
Reed Smoot
Senator Julius C. Burrows
Senator Boies Penrose
President Buchanan
Johnston’s Army
William P. MacKinnon
Mary Jane McCleve Meeks
Joseph Smith
Hyrum Smith
Joseph Meeks
Margaret Jane Meeks
James McCann
Africa
California
Samual Thompson

LOCATIONS
Texas
Oregon
Valley of the Great Salt Lake
Louisiana Purchase
Missouri
Centralist Republic of Mexico
Central America
Mexico City
Hall of Montezuma
Vera Cruz
Mexico
United States
Territory of Utah
Bountiful, Utah
Provo, Utah
Manti, Utah
San Bernadino, California
Ogden, Utah
Little Salt Lake Valley
Parowan Valley
Great Salt Lake City
Center Creek, Utah
Paragonah, Utah
Illinois
Red Creek, Utah


LINKS
Map https://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/7917165/maps-that-explain-americaMexican American War https://youtu.be/tkdF8pOFUfI
https://newrepublic.com/article/104239/the-network-mormons-potomac-dc

Transcript

Did you know that Texas shared a border with Oregon? Well in July of 1847 it most certainly did.…(presidential music) also in 1847 the former Governor of Tennessee James Knox Polk was serving as the president of the 29 United States…(wagons, cows, chickens, children, horses, people) in the latter part of July 1847 the first of many organized groups of Christian outcasts, fleeing from a country who wouldn’t protect them, began arriving in the valley of the Great Salt Lake (in latter part of July 1847).

Over 1,600 exiled pioneers from the Church of Jesus Christ traveled across the unorganized territories expanding the area known as the Louisiana Purchase. This wild country lay between Missouri and the northern part of what was then in the Centralist Republic of Mexico. 

51 year old Doctor Priddy Meeks & his wife Sarah Mahurin age 44, with 3 of their children, had been traveling with the Jedediah M. Grant/Joseph B. Noble Company and arrived in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake a day ahead of them on Friday October 1st of that same year 1847.

In that year, and just over 2000 miles southeast into the heart of Central America, an army of 10,000 soldiers under General Winfield Scott (Old Fuss & Feathers) were marching towards the inevitable capture of Mexico City, and would soon be raising the 29 star American flag over the Hall of Montezuma, concluding a devastating advance that began with an amphibious landing at Vera Cruz six months earlier. This invasion eventually resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848, this treaty surrendered approximately 1/3 of the land mass that Mexico claimed to the United States…this encompassed the Valley of the Great Salt Lake and soon became the territory of Utah….so Dr Meeks and his peculiar people were now back under the jurisdiction of the US Government.

https://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/7917165/maps-that-explain-america

YouTube https://youtu.be/tkdF8pOFUfI

By harvest time in the fall of 1850, the population in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake had been reinforced for three years by the arrival of Mormon immigration from abroad and the east. Also, three years of relatively good crops had insured food for everyone, the tales of weed soup and near starvation were finally behind them. The “gold diggers” coming through the valley had enriched the Saints with eastern products that previously had not been available to them. New settlements were established in and around the Valley. Bountiful, Provo, and Manti were some of the earliest ones. Exploration had pinpointed a corridor of sites suitable for farming communities. By the time they had been in the west for five years, and at the end of 1852, the Mormons had founded over 70 colonies ranging from San Bernardino in the south…to Ogden in the north. 

(William A Morse) Hello Orson, How is your family?

(Orson) Morning Doctor Morse, they are well I tell you. Thanks to them Society of Health courses you’ve been teaching us. 

(Morse) I like hearing that Orson. That was all Doctor Meeks’ idea. Moments of overwhelming need cause a man to concoct some inspiration I guess. (Pause) You know the naming of it was all from Willard Richards.

(Orson) Apostle Richards?

(Morse) Yeah

(Orson) My Doc, thats coming from pretty high up the food chain.

(Morse) It sure is Orson, I wished you coulda been there when Phinehas Richards, Meeks and I met with him. We had a good deal of chat on the subject. There was a spirit of union in our midst that caused the most precious atmosphere. So much so that Willard declared that “the principles we were about to publish to the world would never die out or cease until it revolutionized the earth.”

(Orson) Gosh Doc

(Morse) I know, we were all deeply impacted by that moment. Felt like it transcended all of us. 

About this Society, Doctor Priddy Meeks wrote in his journal: “They saw fit to appoint me president of the institution. The organization was later called the Council of Health. All things were conducted by majority. They chose Doctor Morse and I to scour the canyons every Wednesday in search of roots and herbs that we presented to the Council🌿. Meetings were held on Thursdays. It was a speedy way to become acquainted with the flora of the country and the virtues and properties of each plant for which Dr. Morse was the most famous. The masses of people then begin to profit by it because of the knowledge they had gained to know what to do. As the prejudice of some people always goes in advance of every good work, it was so in this case. A certain woman made light of the meeting to another woman, so the second woman would not go to the meeting because the first woman spoke light of it. One of her children took sick and died after that. She thought she would go to the Counsel of Health and see and hear for herself, and while there, the case of her child was so plainly illustrated and how to cure such cases, she remembered it, and sometime after that she had another child taken with the same complaint the first child died with, and she cured it by following the directions she heard in the Council of Health.

The institution was so beneficial and so successful that the public begin to be universally interested in it. Old Doctor Cannon, a poison doctor, and poison against the Mormons to, could get but little to do among the sick. Said that if we would give him all the surgery to do, he would quit doctoring, and so we did, And he joined the Council of Health and proved a great benefit to us, being a man of much experience and intelligence. I learned considerable by helping him to dissect the dead.”

In the first issue of the first volume of the Desert News dated June 15, 1850, there appeared an article that announced the organization: 

Mr. editor, we would inform our friends and fellow citizens that a Council of Health was formed in this city about 16 months ago, by and with the advice of the authorities of the church, which is attended one in two weeks, at the house of Dr. W Richards. The principles on which we shall act, we believe to be benevolent. We intend to allow our selfishness to govern us no further than we deem necessary to enable us to accomplish the greatest good. We greatly desire the means of using our time and talents to the best advantage: further than this, we are not anxious. That we may fail to convince some of the botanic practice, we feel confident that our exertions, under this head, will shake the faith of many in the propriety of swallowing, as they have long done, with implicit confidence, the most deleterious drugs, under the sole authority and responsibility of technicalities. We intend to lay before the council, from time to time, such medicinal plants, as shall come to our knowledge, for their approval or refusal, as we shall find in this vicinity; believing in the goodness of the Creator that he has placed, in most lands, medicinal plants for the cure of all diseases incident to that climate, and especially so in relation to that in which we live: and it is better to cultivate our own resources, then to send to distant lands for such as may be obtained in our vicinity by a little exertion and experience. Yours with esteem, William A. Morse, P.C. 

(John, Storekeeper) Good morning Brother Adams, What can I get for you today?

(Arza “Orson” Adams) Oh John, just call me Orson, I need a hammer, a grub hoe, a spiral auger and some nails

(Storekeeper) Gosh Orson, anything but metal tools. Those are sure hard to come by. Them folks in the east just wont ship em our way. 

(Orson) Well thats most unfortunate John. Guess I’ll just take a jar of sorghum sweet, some of them dried apricots and a newspaper. 

(Storekeeper) sure thing Orson, that’ll be 12 cents 

The residents of the territory of Utah sought to be a self reliant lot. They grew frustrated with relying on a nation who seemed so removed from them, and a government who they never could fully trust. 

Iron ore had been found in sufficient quantity 250 miles away in the area they called the Little Salt Lake Valley. This valley was located in the southern part of the territory and warranted consideration by the people to be getting a settlement there in anticipation of eventually establishing an iron foundry. Of all the products difficult to obtain from the east, metal tools and equipment were the hardest. It was decided that a colony would be established in the area now known as the Parowan valley. (Willard Richards, in the July 27, 1850, Deseret news, issued a call for volunteers for the new colony.) 

The initial plan was to send a company of at least 50 men of a variety of occupations in early September 1850. Once there, they were to speedily make on-site preparation‘s for the founding of a settlement the coming year, at which time their own families and others would immigrate to the area. Unfortunately This plan did not excite the imagination, for very few volunteered. The people of the Church of Jesus Christ had been driven from their homes a half dozen times by enemies bent on mayhem and murder. Finally, at great sacrifice, they had walked 1000 miles to safety, where they had even begun to prosper in that desert place. They were comfortable where they were. Their homes were comfortable, food was sufficient and all seemed well for them. However, greater things were in store for Priddy and his fellow Christians. Again and again they would be called upon to settle new communities. This was their heritage, this was their destiny. 

“Brethren of Great Salt Lake City and vicinity who are full of faith and good works, who have been blest with means, who want more means and are willing to labor and toil to obtain those means, or informed by the presidency of the Church, that a colony is wanted at Little Salt Lake this fall, that 100 or more good effective men, with teams and wagons, provisions and clothing for one year; seed grain in abundance and tools in all their variety for a new colony are wanted to start from this place immediately… after the fall parentheses Friday, 4 September parentheses conference; to repair to the valley of the little Salt Lake; without delay; there to so, build infants; erect a saw and Gristmill; establishing iron foundry as speedily as possible; and do all other ask and things necessary for the preservation and safety of an infant settlement among Indians; for the furnishing of provisions and labor for the coming year for a large number of immigrants with their own families and castings of all kinds for all the mountain settlements the coming spring. .…Farmers, blacksmith, carpenters, joiners, millwrights, bloomers, molders, smelters, stonecutters, bricklayers, stonemasons, one shoemaker, one tailor, in variety of occupations, who have the means…, and are willing to sacrifice the society of wives and children for one year; believing that he who for six his wife and children for the kingdom of heaven sake show us even hundredfold …are requested to give their names in writing together with their occupation, residence, strength of team, wagons, grain, tools, for an outfit, without delay, and without further notice to brother Thomas Bullock or leave the same at the post office directed to Willard Richards.”

On April 22, 1851, a large company of leaders and travelers Left the valley of the great Salt Lake heading south. Their mission was to observe the country, visit the various settlements, and transact business pertaining to the church. Traveling with them was the Meeks family and several others accompanying the group for the purpose of strengthening the iron mission. The group of families arrived at a location called Center Creek on May 8. The newcomers were delighted to observe the considerable progress the first settlers had made on the new community. They had located and laid out a fort, divided it into lots, fixed a road four rods wide between the fort and the public corral, laid the foundation for a 22‘ x 45‘ council house, moved from the old campground to the location of the fort, sown 400 acres into wheat, and surveyed an additional 1600 acres, erected a Bowery. Church meetings were being held regularly every Sunday, fences were being erected, and preparation‘s for bringing water to the land were progressing. All in all, everything had gone well. The health of the people was good, three babies have been born, and the settlers had suffered no harm from the Indians who in fact had been most friendly.

(Samual Hamilton) Ed…President Young is almost here, are you ready with that cannon?

(Edward Dalton) Sure thing Samual, I got it loaded double so your Hamilton cousins in Northern Ireland will hear it.

(Samual Hamilton) Edward Dalton what shenanigans have you concocted now? Are you a scuttered (drunk) salty devil? In the name of saint Patrick You are the craziest brother in law a lad could ever fear. If you spook Brigham’s horse we will never hear the end of it. They’ll blister us so bad we wont be able to sit on “the jacks”. 

(Edward Dalton) hehehe thats a risk I am willing for you to take. Hahahaha

(Samual Hamilton) I’ll have none of your wee lunacy Edward.

(Edward Dalton) Too late my brother from another mother, (match striking, fuse lit)….you might wanna cover your ears. 

There was an old legend telling how a young Indian princess was drawn into the salty water of the Little Salt Lake Valley and was never seen again. When Brigham Young heard that story he made the decision to change the name from Center Creek, to “Pa-a ruan” which is Paiute for “evil water”….which is honestly how the water in that Little Salt Lake tasted. The spelling of these new southernmost communities later became englishized to Paragonah & Parowan.

(From May of 1857 to July of 1858)

In 1857 the culmination of disagreements with the territorial governor of Utah, caused the US government to take issue with the citizens of Utah and surrounding states for practicing polygamy, or as the Mormons called it “Plural Marriage.” 

This ruckus over plural marriage has lasted for over 100 years. In (1903) Fact, When Utah sent Mormon Reed Smoot to the U.S. Senate, it prompted a series of hearings to decide whether a Mormon should be even permitted to serve in the chamber. The trial had nothing to do with Smoot’s qualifications and everything to do with his strange-seeming faith, in particular its association with polygamy. Although the practice had been dissolved decades earlier. “It is the Mormon Church that we intend to investigate,” thundered Senator Julius C. Burrows, “and we are going to see that these men obey the law.”

After three years, 100 witnesses, and 3,500 pages of testimony, Smoot finally prevailed. A pivotal point in the debate came from the comments of Pennsylvania Senator Boies Penrose, “I think the Senate should prefer a polygamist who doesn’t ‘polyg’”(Smoot had only one wife) “to a monogamist who doesn’t ‘monog,’”. That veiled threat of outing the non monogers pretty much ended the fight. For Penrose’s time in history, it was a statement of remarkable tolerance. https://newrepublic.com/article/104239/the-network-mormons-potomac-dc

Church leaders in Utah had counseled its citizens to use neighborly and ecclesiastical arbitration to resolve disputes among its citizens BEFORE resorting to the more explicit legal system. Both President Buchanan and the U.S. Congress saw these acts as obstructing, if not subverting, the operation of legitimate institutions of the United States.

Let me give you a modern day example of this:

Its similar to the advice from a police officer who was once called to the home in a “quiet” neighborhood, with the complaint that the neighbors are too loud, parking their cars from hell to breakfast, and just creating an uncomfortable atmosphere for the established neighbors. What did he suggest? “If I was you I would Bake them a plate of cookies, and go over and meet the new neighbors. If I have to go over there and confront them with your complaints, this issue will NOT go away, in fact it is most likely to get WORSE. And there will be a rift in this neighborhood that will sour the experience for all of you. Bake the cookies & meet your neighbors. Call me IF that doesnt work.”

In May of 1857 President Buchanan sent Johnston’s Army marching towards Utah. The residents of Utah, predominantly members of the Church of Jesus Christ, having the threat of another state sanctioned extermination order as had happened in Missouri or a mob expulsion as they’d lastly survived in Illinois, their righteous indignation was rightfully enflamed as they felt backed against a wall in their new wilderness territory home. Now fearful that the large U.S. military force had been sent to annihilate them and having faced persecution in other areas, they made preparations for defense. The Mormons manufactured or repaired firearms, turned scythes into bayonets, and burnished and sharpened long-unused sabres. They would not run again. And in the succeeding months they made that known.

The tensions were at an all time high from May 1857 to July of 1858. The residents of the Utah territory had no reason to trust the government who had abandoned them so many times before. Historian William P. MacKinnon concludes that even with no notable military battles, there were near 150 non military casualties as a direct result of the year-long Utah War. 

(MacKinnon, William P. (2007). "Loose in the Stacks: A Half-Century with the Utah War and Its Legacy"(PDF). Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 40 (1): 43–81. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-26.)

Meanwhile back in Parowan, Mary Jane had her first baby, a son, born on December 13, 1857, just a year and a month after she married Dr. Priddy Meeks.

(Priddy) Oh Mary, he’s a fine healthy boy….And just as I promised Joseph, after he and Hyrum laid hands on me in Nauvoo….we will name him Joseph….Joseph Meeks. The promises made to me about my continued posterity are certainly being fulfilled through you my dear Mary Jane. 

It was proving to be a busy and eventful winter of 1857, just a couple weeks later, on December 31, 1857, Margaret Jane Meeks, who was Priddy and Sarah’s surviving daughter, well she married Irish born Samuel Hamilton. In the end, this would not be the happiest of marriages, but there were wonderful children born to them. (Fiddle music, wedding party sounds)

(Priddy) Brrrr….That was quite a festive wedding party Mary Jane. Im glad you were comfortable and warm here. How is our baby Joseph? Is he feeding ok? Oh Mary you are doing a fine job with him? I hope Lucy has been some help to you after my little talk with her. Any of the rest of us can wash diapers and care for Joseph aside from feeding him. You need to stay off your feet for a while please dear.

 Its miserable weather. Colder than a well diggers belt buckle out there I suspect. I would sure hate to be stuck out in these blizzards and wind chills we’ve had recently. 

(Soldier) Doctor Meeks?

(Priddy) That’s right…. how can i be of service to you? 

(Soldier) Teamster McCann here….has some frozen feet. 

(Priddy) Please gentlemen, bring him in out of the cold…set him there….

Let me just have a look….You got a good amount of frostbite son. Unless your mother was from Africa, i do believe these black feet of yours is not exactly your natural color. 

(Soldier) We’ll cover the cost of the amputations Doctor Meeks. Here’s $10 to get you started. 

(Priddy) Amputation? Oh yes…amputation.

(Soldier) We gotta get back to our unit just outside of town. We’ll check back in a few days if thats ok with you?

(Priddy) Yes yes…that’d be fine……..just gotta decide how to……

(Walking on wood floor, door opens and shuts)

(Priddy) I wonder….not much of a life with 2 legs and no feet….Maybe we could…

(James McCann) James Doc, You can call me James…and yes, before I knew it…I just cant believe it happened to me….here….so far from home…..Im on my way to California doc, so’s i could take a ship back to my home in the eastern states. 

(Priddy) of course you are, and I totally understand that uprooted feeling. 

(James) I know it aint gonna be easy doc, but I guess amputation is the only way to keep me alive. 

(Priddy) Well all the confounded infernal misfortune, a young lad like you, having the feet cut right out from under you. Its just not right. Well you aint going anywheres for a bit, let me do some thinking while you let that fire warm up your outsides. If only I could get that fire into… Now hold on just a minute…Dont you go anywheres James…I mean…not like you could…Now where did I put that book….ahah here it is “New Guide To Health, by Samual Thompson”…Now what do I need, warm water, cayenne pepper, possibly a little honey to make it palatable. 

(Priddy) All right Mr. McCann, drink this.

(James) You made me some tea? Is it loaded so i wont feel the pain when you go to cutting?

(Priddy) Well yes and no, it is loaded, but I don’t think you’re gonna need any cutting done. I kinda like you at the height you currently are. Wouldn’t want to take a couple feet off of that. (Chuckles)

(James) Wow, warm & sweet with a KICK. Kinda burns all the way down doc. 

(Priddy) Good Good, thats the effect we want. Let me get you some food while that cayenne tea works its way into your blood.

(James) Just the one dose doc?

(Priddy) Oh no, we’ll give you some of that cayenne tea with every meal for a while….just see what happens. Cant be much worse than dying…I hope

James) Whatever you say Doc.

I commenced by giving him rather small doses at first, about three times a day. It increased the warmth and power of action in the blood to such a degree that it gave him such pain and misery in his legs that he could not bear it. 

(James) I cant handle the pain any more doc, maybe you just need to cut em off.

(Priddy) Oh no, not now, this is the good part. Just lay here next to the fire…on your back…. and put your feet against the wall…you know…elevate em a little…see if that helps a bit.

(James) aaaaah….thats much better, and less throbbing. 

James laid there on the floor with his feet up against the wall for three or four days and then he could sit up in a chair. The frozen flesh would rot and rope down from his foot when it would be on his knee, clear down to the floor, just like buck-wheat batter, and the new flesh would form as fast as the dead flesh would get out of the way. In fact the new flesh would seem to crowd the dead flesh out of the way to make room for the new flesh. 

(James) Its almost as if the new flesh was pushing the dead stuff out of the way. 

(Priddy) Exactly my thoughts as well James. Like it’s making room for the new flesh. 

That was all the medical treatment he had much to my astonishment and to every one else that knew of the circumstances.

(Priddy) Good morning James, how was the walk, you have been gone for a bit, i thought maybe you’d been scalped or attacked by a jackalope. 

(James) Well…it was a bit more than a walk Doctor Meeks. Its been 16 days since you gave me that first drink of that cayenne tea…so I decided to just walk as far as I could. I made it to Red Creek and back. 

(Priddy) Really? That’s near 9 miles son. 

(James) I woulda walked farther, but I didn’t want to miss your biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Other than the five toenails, I’m pert near good as new. 

(Priddy) You sure are James. Now get outta my territory and leave us polygamists alone. Bwahahaha

“Now the healing power of nature is in the blood and to accelerate the blood is to accelerate the healing power of nature, and I am convinced that there is nothing will do this like cayenne pepper; you will find it applicable in all cases of sickness.” Doctor Priddy Meeks