. . . murder, and another ETB relative having successfully kept Brigham Young out of jail despite Young's complicity in the Mountain Meadow Massacre--as well as having cheated poor mill workers out of their rightful pay, while killing Indians?
If true, that's True-Blooded-Blue Mormon Royalty Rubbish for ya.
Still, it's been solemnly asserted on this board that by virtue of being related to a Benson family member who has been sure-fired Called and Elected, I therefore get a free pass to the Celestial Kingdom as one who has been Second-Anointed stamped (as in signed-sealed-delivered-I'm Lord), regardless of me apostatizing, in full hedonistic abandon, from the Mormon Church.
Awesome.
Please pass me my inherited Guardian Keys to the Galaxy. :)
I mention the above criminal acts of Mormon history as not posing any hindrance to becoming a Kolobian King/Piest or Queen/Priestess because, in another thread, an RfM poster recently claimed that (supposedly based on official Mormon Church doctrine) Fallen-from-Grace-into-the-Darkness-of-Space Steve will ultimately gain access to the Second Anointing Power RIng that has already been bestowed on now-dead but divinely-destined Benson family progenitors.
Like, wow, dude.
First off, though, let's go through a "Second-Anointing-for-Dummies" review by briefly checking out the perks that the red-blooded connected are in line for:
"The 'First Anointing' refers to the washing and anointing part of the [Mormon temple] Endowment ceremony, in which a person is anointed to become a king and priest or a queen and priestess unto God.
"In the Second Anointing, on the other hand, participants are anointed as a king and priest, or queen and priestess. When the anointing is given, according to Brigham Young, the participant 'will then have received the fulness of the Priesthood, all that can be given on earth.'"
"According to 19th-century journal entries, the Second Anointing ceremony consisted of two parts. The first part consisted of a washing and anointing of the bodies of the participants by an officiator. The second part took place some time later, and was conducted without an officiator in a private ceremony between a married couple, in which the wife symbolically prepared her husband for his death and resurrection."
". . . [T]he Second Anointing differs from the 'First Anointing' (part of the Endowment ceremony) in that, the First Anointing promises blessings in the afterlife contingent on the patron's faithfulness, the Second Anointing actually bestows those blessings. According to prominent 20th-century Latter-day Saint Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, those who have their calling and election made sure 'receive the more sure word of prophecy, which means that the Lord seals their exaltation upon them while they are yet in this life. . . . [T]heir exaltation is assured.'
"The Second Anointing may have been intended to symbolize or to literally fulfill scriptural references to the fulness of the priesthood such as in the Doctrine and Covenants, Doctrine and Covenants 124:28, a revelation by Joseph Smith, Jr., commanding the building of a temple in Nauvoo, Illinois, in part, because 'there is not a place found on Earth that he may come to and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fulness of the priesthood.'. LDS Church leaders often connect this ordinance with a statement by Peter in his second Epistle. In 2 Peter 1:10, he talks about making one's 'calling and election sure,' and further remarks, 'We have also a more sure word of prophecy' (2 Peter 1:19). Joseph Smith, Jr.. referenced this process in saying, 'When the Lord has thoroughly proved [a person], and finds that the [person] is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the [person] will find his[/her] calling and election made sure.' . . .
"LDS Church leaders often connect this ordinance [the Seconding Anointing] with a statement by Peter in his second Epistle. In 2 Peter 1:10, he talks about making one's 'calling and election sure,' and further remarks, 'We have also a more sure word of prophecy' (2 Peter 1:19). Joseph Smith, Jr., referenced this process in saying, 'When the Lord has thoroughly proved [a person], and finds that the [person] is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the [person] will find his[/her] calling and election made sure.' . . .
("Second Anointing," under "Ceremony," "Meaning and Symbolism," at: Wikipedia)
Let's get another apostate on board here to make things even simpler if possible. Enter RfM poster Tom Phillips (aka "anointed one"), who explains the whole thing, based upon his own induction into the Second Anointing Hall of Fame:
"At the Temple
"Upon entering the temple we changed into our temple robes, met the other couples who were to receive the ordinance that day, and were led to an upper room that had been set apart for this purpose. . . .
"We were all seated in the room with Elder [M. Russell] Ballard [of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles] officiating [and] Elder Harold G. Hillam [of the First Quorum of Seventy] assisting . . . .
"Elder Ballard explained [that] . . . [w]e were to have our feet washed and be anointed by him. He was acting under the direction of the Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley. We would then be allocated a sealing room for each couple to be alone and perform the second part of the ordinance. We would then all meet again with Elder Ballard in the Celestial Room.
The following is my best recollection of what happened in performing this ordinance . . .
"I. THE ORDINANCE OF THE WASHING OF THE FEET
"I was beckoned to sit on a particular chair. Elder Ballard knelt and washed my feet, then dried them. This ordinance cleansed me from the blood and sins of this generation.
"II. THE ORDINANCE OF SECOND ANOINTINGS, PART ONE:
"Anointed and Ordained a King/Priest, Queen/Priestess
"I was anointed with oil, on the top of my head, and then hands were laid upon my head, and I was ordained a king and a priest unto the Most High God, to rule and reign in the House of Israel forever. My head, brow, eyes, ears nose, lips etc. were anointed with oil and specific blessings were given related to knowing, understanding and speaking the truth. This ordinance gave me the fullness of the priesthood and a blessing was given which included the following:
--"Sealing power to bind & loose, curse & bless
--"Blessings of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob
--"The Holy Spirit of Promise bestowed
--"Blessed to live as long as life is desirable
--"Blessed to attain unto the Godhood
--"Power to be a member of a Godhead bestowed
--"Sealed up to eternal life
--"Power to have the heavens opened
"We were charged not to reveal to other individuals that we had received this ordinance. My wife was also anointed and ordained a queen and priestess.
"THE ORDINANCE OF SECOND ANOINTINGS, PART TWO: 'The Washing of the Feet,' Wife to Husband
"The second part of the Second Anointing was explained to us. We (my wife and I) were to go to another sealing room where we would be alone as a couple. There would be a bowl of water and a towel. My wife was to wash my feet (as Mary did to Jesus) and dry them. She would then place her hands upon my head and pronounce a blessing upon me as the spirit dictated. . . .
"Following this, we met in the Celestial Eoom with Elder Ballard and the others. Elder Ballard summarized what had happened and asked if there were any questions, as they could only be answered at this time, in this place as we were charged to tell nobody that we had received this ordinance."
("My Second Anointing Experience: Now I Am a Son of Perdition," by Tom Phllips (aka "anointed one"), on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion baord, 21 January 2008, updated May 2012)
_____
Now that all that's out of the way, let's move along and see how the very idea that ex-Mormon apostates are owed their Second Anointings, gawddammit. RfM poster "sherlock" made the case as follows:
"[I have] [t]wo friends [who] will be exalted [i.e, get their Second Anointings]. One is [a] stake president; the other [is] less active. . . .
"While both [come] from separate families, each are children of parents who are Second-Anointing recipients and will themselves, therefore, be automatically assured exaltation along with their wives.
"The conundrum for TSCC [i.e, 'The So-Called Church'] is that one is a diligent stake president who attends all his countless meetings and is enduring to the end, while the other hasn't been active for many years and has no interest whatsoever in the Church.
"The latter recently married his non-member girlfriend thousands of miles away and his stake-president friend was able to attend the wedding.
"What a peculiar situation that, according to Mormon doctrine, both will end up in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom --somewhat regardless of how they've lived their lives."
"While both from separate families, each are children of parents who are Second Anointing recipients and will themselves therefore be automatically assured exaltation along with their wives.
"Now this would be an interesting discussion topic for a Gospel Doctrine class."
("Two Friends Will be Exalted. One is [a] Stake President; he Other [is] Less Active," by "sherlock," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 31 August 2014, at:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1367533,1367533#msg-1367533)
RfM poster "OTTOWO" explained that Second Anointings are guaranteed to exo-Mo Korihors of the world, as long as they have been blessed with someone in their family tree who has been Second-Anointed themselves:
"It's weird isn't it? Steve Benson is another who I assume is guaranteed heaven due to his grandfather."
("Re: Two friends will be exalted. One is Stake Pres/the other less active," by "OTTOWO," on "Recovery from Mormonism" dicussion board, 2\31 August 2014, at:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1367533,1367540#msg-1367540)
For the record, I don't know if my grandfather, Mormon Church president and before that Apostle/Secretary of Agrictulture Ezra Taft Benson, was ever Second-Anointed (although it is rumored that he personally Second-Anointed Mitt Romney). If he was, great, I'm in. If he wasn't, no big deal since there is another Ezra Taft Benson in my line that makes it all just fine for me becoming an Apostate King of the Universe.
I'm talking of Ezra T. Benson, apostle to Mormon Church president Brigham Young.
Whichever ET phones me home, the fact of the matter is that the Bensons believe they are worthy of this Wonderful Work and a Weirdness, based on what Grandapa ETB told us all at our family reunions. There, at our General Conference-synchronized clan calls, he would proudly repeat the story of how Alma Sonne of the First Quorum of the Seventy had emphatically proclaimed that the Benson family was "second to none in the Church." (In other words, no worse than tied for first). That kind of Royalty Spoilty certainly adds up to automatic Second Anointing.
ETB made Bensons feel fer-sure about their Calling and Election Being MAde Sure by stating in the preface of a genealogical history of the Bensoo brood (an account bought and paid for by the Benson family) that the book was a “noteworthy compilation" for which its authors deserved credit because they got the Benson birthright, well, right:
”I commend [the authors'] effort to all family members with the prayerful desire in my heart that this compilation will instill within us and our posterity a sense of our heritage, a loyalty to our name and a resoluteness to become imbued with the same virtues that have ennobled our ancestors.”
(Donald Benson Alder and Elsie L. Alder, "The Benson Family" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Woodruff Printing, Inc., 1979, p. 1]
I guess that includes certain "virtues" we were never told about at Benson family reunion time.
Like how a murder committed by a Benson family member in Logan, Utah, led to his vigilante lynching, which then prompted several Benson family members to abandon Mormonism and join the growing ranks of apostates seeking support at a local Episcopalian Church.
Never mind that omission. It will be added in, maybe later. As the book's assuredl the Benson clain in he introduction section of their production:
“We believe that many members of the Benson Family will appreciate the information we have found and will want to know about their progenitors and where the came from . . . . We realize if we extended our search we would find much more information to add to this book but we feel this is the year (1979) to print this, ‘THE BENSON FAMILY.’”
(Alder and Alder, p. 2), original emphasis)
In a letter attached to each Benson family member’s personal copy of this "history," my grandparents lauded the Benson Family Cover-Up as “a great book . . . .[that] we hope you will prize and make good use of . . . “
(Ezra Taft and Flora Benson, “TO OUR BELOVED MARRIED GRANDCHILDREN,” 24 June 1982, original emphasis)
Carrying on the same theme of the Bensons Reign Supreme, my grandpa and grandma wrote us the following letter:
"What a great family and what grateful grandparents and parents. The Lord bless you all--now and always--is our humble wish and prayer."
("Grandpa and Grandma Benson,"to Stephen and Mary Ann Benson, 20 February 1980)
It was followed by this congratulatory gloat note:
"We have a great family and the grandchildren are all marrying well and are performing beautifully as they face the responsibilities and problems of life. We are proud of all the children, grandchildren, their companions, and the great-grandchildren. Of course, Grandma says they're all 'great' and I know they are."
(Ezra Taft Benson, "Grandpa Benson," to Stephen Benson, 18 August 1982)
______
Now that the trail to Second-Anointed glory has been p[roperly white-washed and anointed, let's see exactly how the Benson get there through the blessed behavior of the forebearers:
--Second Anointing Pass #1: The Role of an Ezza Taft [T.] Benson in Helping Keep Brigham Young Out of Prison for his Role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Apostle to Brigham Young, Ezra Taft [T.] Benson, worked faithfully behind the scenes to keep Young out of behind bars for his complicity in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. (In that effort, he had the assistance, among others, of former Nauvoo Police Chief/avenging Danite Hosea Stout.
Will Bagley, in his book, "Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows" (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002, pp. 234-35), explains what Young was trying to avoid through the help of Ezra T. Benson and their band of brothers: a trial for being an accessory to murder.
How Young managed to skirt that process is explained by Bagley as follows:
"Young blamed his failure to take any action on the [Mountain Meadows] massacre on 'the disturbed state of affairs in this [the Utah] Territory during the fall and winter subsequent to the [murderous attack on the Fancher party wagon train];' thus no court was held in the district in which the murders allegedly took place. Young complained that [the judge overseeing the case] had charged him with 'interfering with the courts of justice and preventing the punishment of offenders, thereby charging him as being accessory after the fact' to the murders. Even worse, [the judge] had blamed him for 'instigating the committal of murder,' making Young an 'accessory before the fact of murder.'
"These claims had been published to the world and had acquired more or less credence. [The indignant Young] was not willing 'to rest under the stigma of such infamous charges and accusations.' Young claimed 'the privilege of a fair and impartial investigation and trial and the rendition of a just verdict on the judgment of his peers,' all of whom, of course, would be Mormons." Enter Ezra T. Benson and Company in a backstage plot to see to it that Young avoid being charged and ending up behind bars.
Bagley reports:
"That evening Young met with Daniel Wells, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Hosea Stout and Territorial Attorney Seth Blair in the Beehive House to discuss 'a question of accessory.' [The court] ordered [the] Salt Lake County sheriff . . . to arrest Young and hold him until an investigation could be mounted and the case could be 'dealt with according to laws.' [The sheriff] signed the warrant on May 13 [1859], after serving the writ 'by arresting Brigham Young, Sr., and having him now in [his] custody subject to the court.'" After that development, the legal trail became clear of further documentation:
Bagley writes:
"No further record of Young's case or its disposition survives. Perhaps it was simply dismissed for a lack of evidence. The surviving records of the probate court contain no mention of the incident. No known federal justice department or court records refer to the arrest and there is nothing to suggest that it ever came to the attention of the federal authorities."
Bagley calls these developments "mysterious" and explains why:
"The purpose of this exercise is mysterious, but the heated atmosphere of May 1859 and the time of [the judge's] warrant point to a likely explanation. [Young] and his advisers feared [the court] would order Young's arrest as an accessory to the Mountain Meadows murders. Young's attorneys probably hoped to secure his acquittal in the carefully controlled confines of a Mormon probate court where they could produce a 'just verdict on the judgment of his peers.' If federal officers later arrested him for the crime, a not-guilty verdict would provide the prophet protection under the constitutional ban on double jeopardy. Something apparently convinced Mormon authorities that this was a dangerous strategy, for the matter was dropped, leaving no trace of Young's arrest but the warrants and affidavits buried in the files of the LDS Church Historians's Office."
Way to keep Briggy free, Ezra T!
_____
--Second Anointing Pass #2: Cheating Poor Working Migrants Out of Their Money: Ezra T. and the Damned Milldam Rip-Off
Historian Bagley notes the following in his article, "Facts Often Get Lost in the Pageantry":
"We Utahns love our past and occasionally celebrate the colorful history in pageants. Unfortunately, we often are long on pageantry and short on history. Consider the 'Benson Gristmill Pageant,' . . . held in Tooele Valley at one of Utah's most historic buildings on its 150th birthday. Given Utah's wealth of talented performers, the singing, dancing and music were sure to be first rate. But the claim that the Brothers Lee, 'four strapping carpenters,' built the mill glosses over some interesting Western history.
"There was a shortage of skilled labor in August 1850. So, after Mormon Apostle Ezra Taft Benson advertised for men to build a milldam, he hired Lorenzo Custer, a non-Mormon bound for California, to do the job for $1,000. Benson later agreed to pay Custer and his partner, John Huntsman, an additional $200 each to raise the dam three feet higher. When Custer completed his work in the spring, Benson refused to pay him the final $500. Another emigrant named Treat charged that Benson had cheated him out of $400 in wages for his work on the mill.
"The matter was unresolved in April 1851 when Indians ran off a few cattle in Tooele. The authorities raised a volunteer company of 16 men (including Custer and five other 'Gentiles') to 'go against the Indians.' Under the command of the redoubtable Porter Rockwell, the posse tracked down 10 Utes and immediately charged. The Indians grabbed their arms 'and assumed a defensive attitude.' Rockwell parleyed with them and said he only wanted help tracking down the band that stole the cattle. The Indians 'desisted from war-like operations.' Rockwell took them prisoner and started back for the settlements. Oddly, he failed to disarm them. 'No, damn them,' he said, 'We will make them pack their own guns.'
"Rockwell divided the prisoners into two groups and left Custer and three Mormons to guard five Utes, while Rockwell rode ahead. What happened next is confusing but Rockwell said, 'One of the Indians fired upon Mr. Custer, who fell from his horse, instantly dead.' 'I shot the [Indian] that shot Custer [and] we then laid Custer on his horse,' wrote W. R. Dickinson. 'Brought him to town the [next] day buried him and quit.'
"In June, emigrant J.J. Galvin swore out an affidavit at Fort Hall that the 'brethren' owed the dead man $1,000. He charged that 'Custer was murdered for his money and property.' Rockwell and Lot Smith took the four remaining Ute prisoners to Skull Valley to track down the cattle thieves, who led the Mormons on a wild goose chase. Disgusted, Rockwell decided it was unwise to turn the four men loose 'to commit more depredations and perhaps shed the blood of some useful citizen,' so the prisoners were 'sacrificed to the natural instincts of self-defense.' Rockwell's posse murdered the Utes and buried them in the desert.
"This violent tale had an odd literary twist. Nelson Slater, another emigrant who had spent an unhappy winter in Utah, collected the complaints of dozens of his outraged companions and 115 signatures calling on Congress to replace Utah's new territorial government with military rule. Slater's opus, 'Fruits of Mormonism,' was the first book ever copyrighted in California. Slater cataloged a long list of charges and advised emigrants 'to avoid all business transactions hereafter' with Ezra Taft Benson. Benson was 'almost as certain to cheat, swindle and rob the California emigrants,' he claimed, 'as the sun is to rise.'
"Utah's real history may lack pageantry, but it is full of surprises."
("Facts Often Get Lost in The Pageantry," Will Bagley, "Salt Lake Tribune," 9 September 2001, at:
http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/history_matters/090201.html)
_________
--Second Anointing Pass #3: A Trip Down Hangman's Row, Guided by Benson "Royalty"
Not only was this same Ezra T. Benson a close confidant during Brigham Young's Mountain Meadows murderous messacre, he was also the father of a notorious drunkard and brawler who was hanged in downtown Logan, Utah, on a cold winter's day for murdering a relative of the local sheriff. It was a case of cold, covered-up blood, involving Charles Augustus Benson, child of ETB.
This Charles A. Benson was the target of an unceremonious necktie party at the hands of an enraged Logan, Utah, mob in February of 1873, RfM poster "Baura" set the stage by reproting that a “Mormon mob lynch[ed] Charles A. Benson for murder in Logan, Utah, under circumstances in which his LDS apostasy [was a] contributing factor. He [was the] son of former Cache Valley president, deceased apostle Ezra T. Benson, whose official biography states that ‘no further record of his life is available’ after Charles's endowment date. . . .”
("On This Day in Mormon History," posted by "Baura," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 18 February 2006)
Noted historian D. Michael Quinn identifies Charles A. Benson as, indeed, being the individual who was hanged in Logan, Utah, on 18 February 1873, in what Quinn describes as a “religiously -otivated killing" (although Quinn minimally identifies the lynched man in the main text as merely the “apostate son of a deceased apostle.” Quinn was close enough. The scent was now getting stronger.
(D. Michael Quinn, "The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1997], p. 258; see also, foonote 215 for Chapter 7, "Post-1844 Theocracy," p. 540).
Another RfM poster, "Stuck," speculated as to the relationship of said Charles A. Benson to, ahem, well, them other Bensons:
”I may be wrong, but the Charles A. Benson that was lynched in Logan in 1872 [sic] by a Mormon mob for being an apostate . . . is probably Steve Benson’s some-odd great uncle . . . . It stands to reason that Steve Benson would have been hanged by an angry Mormon mob for apostasy had he lived back in those days.”
("120 years Ago, Steve Benson Would Have Been Hanged by a Mormon Mob," posted by "stuck," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 18 February 2006)
No way would I have been hanged. I've been back-door Second Anointed.
Poster "Stuck's" suggestion prompted this reply from poster "Baura":
” . . . Steve would [first] have to murder the right person to qualify for his relative's treatment.”
("Re: 120 years ago, Steve Benson would have been hanged by a Mormon Mob," post by "Baura," n "RfM" board, 18 February 2006)
Actually, I could murder anybody and still be automatically Second Anointed because of royalty reasons. What pisses me off, though, is that my grandpa ETB never told me about what glories lay in store for me. He never informed the Mormon Church membership at large or his own family personally of this special track to Kingdom Kinghood.
It was best to leave that as a buried lead.
Enter the Benson family's hired-gun tag-team of genealogists, Alder and Alder, who insisted that “no further record” of Charles A. Benson was available after his endowment date.
That is B.S. (which does not stand for "Steve Benson," spelled backwards).
Here are the details of how the son of Ezra T. Benson(who died before the son did) was lynched for murder. But, first, some basic Benson bloodline background for the bloodhounds among us:
According to “The Ezra T. Benson Genealogical Society, Inc.,” Ezra T. Benson was “[m]ade [an] Apostle to the [Mormon] Church” on 16 July 1846. 23 years later, on 3 September 1869, he “unexpectedly died,” meaning that “each [of his] wives had to provide for herself.” (All told, Ezra T. Benson reportedly had at least eight wives and some 35 children).
("The Family of Ezra T. Benson [1811–1869], last update: 9 April 2005")
The death of Ezra T. Benson was dramatically described as being “like a flower cut down.” He gave up the ghost while treating a sick horse “[as] he walked toward Lorin Farr’s house” in Ogden, Utah. In fact, he expired on the spot, where he reportedly “fell to the ground without warning.” Another account also said he “dropped to the ground and to all appearances was dead, though they [meaning those with him at the time of his death] would continue their efforts to resuscitate him.”
(Note: I inherited Ezra T. Benson's walking stick, which he may have been holding when he died--and which, from the accounts above, apparently did little to keep him from falling to the ground).
Ezra T. Benson’s demise was blamed on “[o]verwork and the burden of worry . . . [which] had weakened his heart and brought on his death.“ To be precise, much of that anxiety had been precipitated by his inability to reach a settlement with the Central Pacific Railway over a grading contract.
In a supreme irony, Ezra T. Benson dropped dead while walking with Alvin Crockett, the brother of the man Ezra T.'s son would eventually end up murdering:
"Ezra T. Benson left Logan the afternoon of 2 Sept 1869 with Alvin Crockett for Ogden in connection with his business. Elder Benson felt well to all outward appearance, and he felt confident he could make a settlement with the railroad. On the way to Ogden, his horse got the colic, and when he arrived at the Farr home in Ogden, he bled the horse and then walked it up and down to exercise it, then put it in the barn. As he walked towards Lorin Farr’s house, he fell to the ground without warning. He was dead at the age of 58 years, on 3 Sept 1869."
(Donald Benson Alder and Elsie L. Alder, "The Benson Family" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Woodruff Printing, Inc., 1979], pp. 26-27, 24; John Henry Evans and Minnie Egan Anderson, "Ezra T. Benson: Pioneer, Statesman, Saint" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1947], pp. 355-56; and “The History of Ezra T. Benson")
Now fpr the direct connection between Charles A. and Ezra T:
Benson family records show that there were actually two sons fathered by Ezra T. Benson, each bearing the name of Charles Augustus Benson. As to which one ended up getting the noose:
The first Charles Augustus Benson was the first-born child of Ezra T. Benson and his first wife, Pamelia Andrus Benson. This Charles Augustus was born in Uxbridge, Worchester County, Massachusetts, on 26 September 1832, and died there on 13 October 1833. According to the Benson family genealogical history, “[y]ears later, in his autobiography, Ezra T. Benson refers to this child as being named ‘Ezra Taft Benson.’” The second Charles Augustus Benson--the one who ended up being strung up--was the third child of Ezra T. and Pamelia Andrus Benson and was born in Griggsville, Pike County, Illinois, on 3 July 1837. (Another account erroneously has this second Charles being born on 9 July 1838, at Griggsville, Illinois).
Since the first child of Ezra T. and Pamelia Andrus Benson had died years earlier and because the second child of their union was a girl named Chloe Jane Benson (who was born in April 1835, in Holland, Massachusetts, and died on 13 October of the same year “with the croup”), the Charles Augustus Benson of Logan lynching fame would have been the oldest, surviving son of Ezra T. Benson at the time of his death in 1873.
(Alder and Alder, pp. 30, 38; and Evans and Anderson, p. 355)
The official Benson family genealogical history reports that a Charles Augustus Benson, age 12, “arrived in Great Salt Lake 22 October 1849,” with Ezra T. Benson, as part of the 5th Company, indicating that this particular Charles would have been born in 1837. In fact, the same Benson family genealogical history notes that a Charles Augustus Benson was born on 3 July 1837 and that “this child came across the plans with them” (meaning the Bensons). The same account innocuously (and in very limited fashion) reports on certain major events in this latter Charles’ lif--while conspicuously failing to mention any of the circumstances surrounding his death:
”Charles Augustus Benson was the oldest son born to Ezra T. Benson who lived. He crossed the plains as boy of 12 with his father and mother, Pamelia. He was endowed 11 April 1856 at [the Salt Lake City] Endowment House when he was 19 years of age. This endowment took place before his father left for his European mission. In 1860, at the age of 22, he went to Logan, Utah, with his parents and became a trapper. He owned traps, knives and a gun, which were the tools he needed for his occupation. After his father’s death in 1869, he lived in the vicinity of Logan until his death, 18 February 1873.”
(Alder and Alder, pp. 30, 36)
The above account fails to note that the gun which Charles Augustus Benson used to kill animals was most likely also the one he used to kill a human being. (We'll get to that little detail in short order).
Below are still more details on the life and times of Charles Augustus Benson: the First and (at least thus far), the only Benson to die at the hands of a lynch mob (which caused an apostate revolt Among the faithful):
The death of the second Charles Augustus Benson “in Logan, Utah, 18 February 1873” (Alder and Alder, p. 38) occurred the same year that Quinn notes one “Charles A. Benson” was neck-stretched in Logan, Utah. As an intriguing aside, although the date of death of some (if not all) of the siblings of this second Charles are noted in Benson family genealogical records, the unique circumstances surrounding Charles’ death are also absent from at least one other account of Ezra T. Benson’s life.
The reason given by Benson family historians for the lack of death dates for some of Charles’ siblings is that of “record unavailable.” In the following evasive version of events, the date of Charles’ death is not provided and the cause of his death is left conveniently unexplained, supposedly because the records were, well, nowhere to be found. All that is offered about his severely under-reported life is this cryptic summation:
”Charles Augustus Benson according to temple record was baptized 9 July 1846 and endowed 11 April 1856 in the Endowment House at Salt Lake City. No further record of his life is available.”
(Evans and Anderson, p. 355)
Yet, Quinn, in a footnote on the death of “Charles A. Benson” ("Extensions of Power," p. 540), cites the following sources as the basis for the actual cause of his demise:
”A.J. Simmonds, ‘Cause of Death—LYNCHING,’ The West 17 (Jan. 1974), 26-27. 48; A.J. Simmonds, 'The Gentle Comes to Cache Valley: A Study of the Logan Apostasies of 1874 and the Establishment of Non-Mormon Churches in Cache Valley, 1873-1913' (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1976), 9-10”
Note that these sources were available before the Alder published their detailed-deficient Benson family "history" in 1979.
Simmonds himself confirmed that the Charles A. Benson who was lynched at the hands of Loganites was, in fact, the son of Mormon Apostle Ezra T. Benson. Simmonds (late curator of Special Collections at Utah State University in Logan and author of several historical accounts on Cache Valley) wrote an article entitled, “Aaron DeWitt: The Man, His Times and His Letter" (in which Simmonds described as DeWitt as "probably Logan's first 'permanent' apostate Mormon"). In his article, Simmonds provided the graphic details of Charles Augustus Benson’s death:
”On Valentine's Day, 1873, Charles Augustus Benson, 41-year-old son [sic] of the late Apostle E.T. Benson, shot and killed David W. Crockett after an argument in the snow-filled street near Logan Hall. Benson escaped and hid out in Hezekiah Thatcher's barn for three days. When, in the early morning of February 17, he tried to run from the city, he was captured and jailed at the county courthouse. At 10:30 a.m. the building was stormed by a lynch mob, the officers overcome, and Benson hanged from the sign board across the sidewalk in front of the building. That afternoon a coroner's jury agreed 'that the said Charles A. Benson came to his death from strangulation caused by a rope around his neck.' . . .
“There exists the possibility of--if not official connivance--at least official consent to Benson's lynching. In his old age, Nicholas W. Crookston, Cache County Sheriff (1881-1909), recorded the events of the lynching which he had witnessed as a boy [noted here with original punctuation and spelling]:
“'(Benson) lived with his mother driving a team of mules in the Canyon and done some farming always carrying two revolvers in his belt and bluffed everyone that come his way. He lived across the street from Bishop Preston and when their pet rabbits or chickens went out in the street they were shot by Benson off-hand with his revolvers, he being an excellent shot. The Bishop remarked that him and Benson could not live much longer in the same town.
“’Later in the day (of the lynching), while he was still hanging, I went back there and I heard this conversation: One C.C. Goodwin came up and said he was going to send for the US marshal and would investigate this affair to the bottom. He was told that old settlers was running this town and for him to go home and be a good boy, As there was room for three or four on that sign board, he went at once.'
“Possibly that same winter (the dates are uncertain and it could have been as late as the winter of 1876- 1877), C.C. Goodwin was waylaid on the streets of Logan, beaten unconscious and left in the snow. . . . No formal investigation was ever made of the lynching.
“But that year, many of the Benson family left the Mormon Church of which their father had been an Apostle and of which their grandnephew would become President in 1985, and joined St. John's Episcopal.’”
(“Blood Atonement or Just Plain Murder?: Aaron DeWitt, the Man, His times and His Letter,” by A.J. Simmonds; Note: Simmonds claimed that Charles Augustus Benson, son of Ezra T. Benson, was lynched at age 41. If, however, he was born in 1837, as has been reliably reported, he would have been 35, not 41, at the time of his death).
A more descriptive account of the murder of David W. Crockett at the hands of Charles ("Charlie") Augustus Benson--and the latter's subsequent lynching--was provided by historian Ray Somers:
"The snow lay several inches deep in the northern Utah city of Logan in early February 1873. The colored alcohol in a hundred cheap thermometers all over town hovered close to zero. Even with the intense cold, there was a great deal of activity in Logan. It was a Friday night, Valentine's Day. There was a dance at Logan Hall to celebrate the holiday.
"However, not everyone was occupied solely with the cold and the Valentine's Ball. Not far away from where Watchman Birdno was beginning his rounds, a group of young men were walking slowly along Third Street toward Logan Hall. They had been doing some heavy drinking. Some of them were laughing and a few were quarreling; a couple were armed. Utah was still a frontier in 1873 and while revolvers were hardly a necessity, many men--particularly the young men--wore them. If the frontier experience proved anything, it was that liquor, arguments, and six-guns don't mix. Words got warmer and tempers shorter. All of a sudden, Charlie Benson drew his gun and fired at David W. Crockett. The bullet struck Crockett in the chest. He crumpled to the ground, the blood from the wound staining the snow. The gunfire has a sobering effect. Charlie holstered the gun and, quickening his steps, started walking along the street. Dozens of people who had seen the shooting stepped back into the doorways along Third Street as Charlie passed, then hurried to the body lying in the snow. Crockett had died instantly.
"Benson enjoyed a reputation in Logan only small boys envied. He had a mercuric temper and a draw to match. In December 1868, he had shot and killed 18-year-old William Parry in Malad City, Idaho Territory, and then fled back across the Utah border. Utah officials had held him in custody but a certain frontier leniency about such cases--where even a vague excuse of self-defense could be advanced--had secured his release on a writ of habeas corpus. People thought of this earlier incident as they saw 25-year-old Crockett dead in a snowdrift stained with his own blood.
"Charlie passed Logan Hall, then doubled back to his home. Quite sober by now, he told his mother what he had done, took a loaf of bread, some cheese and a buffalo robe, and left. The horses were all disabled with the sickness that made its seasonal round every winter. If he were to escape, it would have to be on foot in the middle of a hard winter.
"By the time Charlie walked out into the bitter cold of St. Valentine's night, the city was alerted to the murder. The police and special police became mobilized for the search. County Sheriff Alvin Crockett, the victim's uncle, assumed co-command of the search with Marshal Fletcher. Armed volunteers doubled and then redoubled the size of the police force. Parties immediately covered the roads leading out of town. Sheriff Crockett wired Salt Lake City, Ogden, and his Cache County towns near Logan. The city resembled an armed camp. No one got much sleep that night. Behind bolted doors, armed citizens kept a vigil. Early the next morning, the police began a house to house search. At the home of David Crockett, Sr., young David's coffin lay open and hundreds of the family, the friends, and the merely curious filed by to view the remains. Across town a few faithful friends called on Charlie's mother to try to comfort her. Saturday closed with hundreds of searchers finding no trace of their quarry. Under a thick covering of hay in the big stone barn behind Moses Thatcher's house on Second Street, Charlie Benson ate the last of the bread and cheese and wrapped himself tighter in the robe. It had been a long day for him, too.
"Sunday brought a repeat of the house to house search. Church meetings were short. This morning there was more concern with worldly matters. Monday passed with parties still guarding the roads and patrolling the streets. Marshal Fletcher remained convinced that Charlie was still hiding in the city. The citizens were not sure where he was. Logan was scared. Rumors multiplied and Charlie's crimes grew with each retelling.
"Under the hay in Thatcher's barn, Charlie came to a decision. At daybreak he would try to get out of town. Vigilance must surely relax after 72 hours. Early the next morning, he crept out of the barn and through the pre-dawn darkness to Frederick Goodwin's home. Goodwin was a rancher who, like many in Utah, found it more comfortable to live in town and hire men to run his cattle on the prairies know as the Big Range, 20 miles northwest of Logan. Frederick Goodwin had been Charlie Benson's friend. Mr. Goodwin had also been young Crockett's friend. When Charlie tapped on the window, Goodwin told him to go home. Benson answered that he couldn't; the place was too well guarded. Goodwin then offered an alternative, 'Get away if you can; you've caused trouble enough to your friends.' Charlie turned south to First Street; then ran west along the road until it became a trail among the willows bordering Logan River.
"By the time he reached the outskirts of town, the first traces of morning were lighting the tops of the nine-thousand foot peaks east of the city. A patrolman thought he saw someone running along the street, a dark silhouette against the white snow. He told the Marshal. There were tracks in the crisp snow--tracks of a man running. Immediately they raised the hue and cry. A hundred armed men were soon following the trail along First Street, beyond the town, among the willows. About two miles west of Logan they spotted him. The leafless branches gave no screen to shield him. A hundred men raised rifles. Marshal Fletcher shouted at him to either surrender or be shot. Charlie gave up. With taunts and threats that grew louder at each step, the posse led him back to town. Since Logan City had no jail, they took him to the County Courthouse and locked him in a cell at the rear of the building.
"However, the crowd did not disperse. They had been living in fear for four days--close to panic much of the time. Now the object of their fear lay locked up in a cell inside a frail white-frame building. Slowly, quietly, they talked up their anger. They rehearsed their injuries, real and imagined, but vivid after four days of living with them. The scared men soon became brave and vengeful. At some point in their muttering, the crowd became a mob; the volunteers became vigilantes. Suddenly, a couple of them bolted from the group toward the courthouse, to the cell and dragged Charlie Benson back out the door. Someone had a rope with a noose already tied on one end. In front of the building was a high signpost carrying the words, 'Cache County Courthouse.' The men slipped the noose around Charlie's neck. The rope was thrown over the signpost and a dozen men on the other end lifted Charles A. Benson to his death.
"The next day, David W. Crockett was buried in the city cemetery atop the bluffs east of town. Mary Ann Weston Maughan wrote in her diary, 'It was a very large funeral.' At 3:30 p.m. on February 20, 1873, Charles A. Benson was buried in the same cemetery. Funeral services took place at the grave. The funeral-going Mrs. Maughan recorded that 'M. Thatcher, J. Hatch and Thomas X. Smith spoke and said what could be said to comfort the mourners.'"
(Simmonds, A. J. "Cause of Death--Lynching," In R. Somers, "History of Logan" [Logan, Utah: Somers Historic Press, 1993])
Moreover, according to the “Niels Hansen Timeline,” not only was a “Charles Benson” identified as “the oldest son of Ezra Taft Benson” who was, in fact, lynched in 1873, his hanging sparked (as alluded to above) an apostate revolt among the townspeople:
”Charles Benson, oldest son of Ezra Taft Benson, shot and killed a friend while drunk and was lynched and hung, leading to the families of several friends and sisters leaving the LDS Church.”
(“Niels Hansen Timeline, Relating to Niels Hansen, b. 1795, Odense, Denmark - d. 1902, Aetna, Alberta, Canada")
Personal background on David William Crockett, murder victim of Ezra T. Benson’s apostate son:
Charles Augustus Benson’s murder victim was a 25-year-old man named David William Crockett who, according to Crockett’s personal family records, was “shot on [the] streets of Logan by a drunken ruffian” on 14 February 1873. Crockett was born on 13 March 1848 in Davis County, Iowa, to David and Lydia Young Crockett, the tenth of 15 children. Crockett was a baptized and endowed member of the Mormon Church, the son of faithful Mormon converts. Two of his siblings were born in Nauvoo, Illinois. One of his brothers was named after, and blessed by, LDS Church leader Wilford Woodruff. The Crockett family fled Nauvoo in 1846, as part of the massive Mormon exodus westward. In 1849, they migrated with the Willard Richards Company from Iowa to the Salt Lake Valley. (Interestingly enough, the families of David Crockett and Ezra T. Benson arrived in the Salt Lake Valley the same year, only three days apart).
Brigham Young eventually dispatched the Crockett family to help settle Payson, Utah, where the younger David’s father was elected as that town's first mayor. Crockett’s mother, Lydia, served as a midwife in Payson and later in Cache Valley, helping to deliver over 1,000 babies. From Payson, Crockett’s father and mother moved their family to Logan, after Crockett’s older brother, Alvin, and his wife located there in 1860.
Crockett’s family played a prominent role in the history of Logan, Utah. Alvin was elected Logan's first mayor in 1866, where he served for four years. In 1872, he became a councilman to Mayor William B. Preston. During this time, Alvin was also Logan’s first marshal. He eventually was elected Logan’s sheriff, serving in that capacity from 1865 until 1882. The official history of the Cache County Sheriff’s Office notes what befell his brother David:
”On Valentine’s Day 1873, Sheriff Crockett’s younger brother, David, was shot to death by Charlie Benson. Benson was arrested and jailed. A few days later, a vigilante mob broke into the jail overcoming Sheriff Crockett and Logan Marshal Mark Fletcher and seized the alleged murderer Benson. Benson was taken to Main Street near the site of the Old White Courthouse where he was hanged by the neck and died.”
In a tragic and ironic twist, Alvin Crockett personally knew and worked with the father of the man whose sone ended up murdering a member of Alvin's family. In fact, Alvin Crockett was at Ezra T. Benson’s side the day the apostle died and tried in vain to save his life:
“ . . . Ezra T. Benson . . . left Logan the afternoon of September 2, 1869, with Brother Alvin Crockett, for Ogden in connection with his business (Brother Crockett was a settler in Logan in 1860 and later served as [its] mayor . . .) . . . As the two men leisurely traveled along he talked encouragingly of his future hopes with Brother Crockett. They stopped for the night with friends at Wellsville. Early the following morning they started on their way to Brigham City. . . . In a happy frame of mind he left for Ogden in the afternoon. Just before he arrived there one of his horses took sick with colic. . . . After doing everything possible to make it comfortable . . . he brought him back . . . and placed him in the barn. With Brother Crockett and Ephraim Turner, he started for the home of Lorin Farr. As they neared the house, without warning, Brother Benson suddenly slumped to the ground, striking Brother Turner’s leg as he fell, and to all appearances was dead, though they would continue their efforts to resuscitate him.”
Another of David’s brothers, Emer, subsequently served as Logan’s sheriff from 1899 until 1900. Emer stood over six feet in height, was known for his wrestling matches with the local Native Americans, farmed 600 acres in what is present-day North Logan and worked in logging, road building and construction of the Logan Temple.
(”Thomas Crockett,” which includes this notation: "David William CROCKETT was born on 13 Mar 1848 in Davis Co. Iowa. He died on 14 Feb 1873. Shot on streets of Logan by a drunken ruffian;" “Cache County Sheriff’s Office: History,” at
http://www.cachesheriff.com/Sheriffsmain/history.htm; and Evans and Anderson, pp. 319-21)
In a nutshell (or better yet, gun shell), Mormon Apostle Ezra T. Benson’s son, Charles Augustus Benson, murdered a member of a respected LDS family that had played an important role in the civic and religious life of a Mormon community. A member of that very Crockett family (who was sheriff of Logan at the time) bravely attempted to save the life of the man whose son was to eventually kill a member of the sheriff’s own family four years later.
None of this ever crossed the lips or entered the ears of Benson family members at their regular reunions.
This was all part of an ongoing effort to cover up the blighted parts of the Benson past. The much-heralded (at least in Benson family circles) Benson genealogical history project entitled, "The Benson Family," was compiled by Donald Benson Alder and Elsie L. Alder (the writers chosen by the “Ezra T. Benson Association” to undertake the assignment of putting the Benson family’s best foot forward, regardless of the facts. This carefully-created history was printed in 1979, three years after the sources noted by renowned LDS historian D. Michael Quinn on the death of Charles Augustus Benson at the hands of an enraged mob were published by the Utah State University Press (and five years after an earlier account of his death had already had become a matter of public record).
Yet, despite its glaring omissions surrounding the vigilante hanging of Ezra T. Benson’s oldest surviving child, my grandfather Ezra Taft Benson, in the preface of the Alders’ sanitized work, described his family history project as a “noteworthy compilation.” Noteworthy, indeed, for what it left out. Virtues such as drunkenly murdering the brother of the local sheriff.
(Alder and Alder, p. 1)
Generations of post-Charles Augustus Bensons have conveniently never been informed at Benson family reunions, gatherings testimony meetings, or other faith-promoting myth-manufacturing make-overs that the oldest surviving child of Apostle Ezra T. Benson was a rabble-rousing, loud-mouthed, gun-slinging apostate ne'er-do-well who murdered a man in a drunken fit and ended up swinging from the end of a rope in the heart of a Mormon-run town, thanks to an outraged mob bent on vigilante justice that had decided it wouldn't take kindly to murder.
Nor were we ever told that as a result of that murder and its abbreviated road-to-justice lynching, several members of the Benson family abandoned Mormonism and joined the growing ranks of apostates seeking support at the local Episcopalian Church.
**********
But not to worry, Benson descendants.
Why? Because no matter if your ancestors were:
1) co-conspirators in keeping Brigham Young out of federal prison in spite of his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre;
2) involved in swindling poor migrant workers out of their promised earnings for work done to build your profit-making businesses; or
3) sires of a drunken, brawling criminal of a child who killed in cold blood the relative of your local sheriff . . .
As long as anyone in your blessed bloodline has had their Second Anointing/Calling and Election Made Sure, it's your lucky day in eternity: No matter what your sins may be, have been, or will be, you, brother or sister, are a Forever-Guaranteed King, Priest, Queen and/or Priestess (or at least that's the teaching in certain believing circles and we all know how Mormonism is into changing its teachings as the moment requires).
In the meantime, it don't get better than that in the LDS world of "royal power-family" nepotism.
Or maybe it does, if the doctrine hasn't been changed yet. :)
Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2014 12:47PM by steve benson.