|
grumbling from those who were partly in and partly out." Leonard Arrington EB: During my later administration as Bishop, President Brigham Young introduced the United Order in the Dixie Mission. The United Order traces its modern origins to Joseph Smith and an announcement he made in 1831, just one year after the Mormon Church was formed. It was known as "the Lord's Law", "Order of Enoch", "Order of Stewardship", or "United Order." Arrington, in his book Building the City of God, writes: "[It] was intended to be a major instrument in reorganizing the social and economic patterns of life. It was to provide the model upon which all human society would be organized when the Savior returned to the latter-day Zion. It would build unity among a people fragmented by their individualistic search for economic well-being. It would impose order upon the chaos of a society suffering from an excess of liberty. An ideal community of the Saints should be prepared to administer Christ's millennial reign--a people divested of selfishness and greed, living in square-surveyed towns and villages, surrounded by productive farmlands. Order, unity, and community were the supreme values of the Prophet's ideal society--values strikingly at odds with those characteristic of antebellum America." "Brigham Young, who succeeded Joseph Smith in 1844, was consistently faithful to the memory of his predecessor. His attempts to invoke the Law of Consecration in Utah in the 1850s, his launching of the cooperative movement in the late 1860s, and his final institution of what he called the United Order in 1874 can all be seen as deliberate progressive steps toward the realization of Joseph's dream." Brigham Young spent the winter of 1873-4 in St. George. It was here that he finally decided the saints were ready to enact the order. He sent a telegram from St. George to Salt Lake on February 28th, 1874 reported in I Was Called To Dixie as: "We have organized six companies after the order of Enoch. The brethren and sisters all seem ready to go into this order of oneness, heart and hand.... Thank the Lord the people are so prepared for it. With the fire of the Gospel burning thus brightly, we need not fear the efforts of our enemies." EB: This we all joined, I put in all I possessed, the labor of myself, two teams, and two boys. I had a nice crop of grain growing, said by the appraisers to be the best in the field. His journal written many years later does not suggest the emotion he may have felt at the inception of the order. Edward was committed to the church. He was a leader and supported his leaders with enthusiasm and diligence. We can only suppose that he entered into this endeavor with the same fervor than he had in the past. The United Order of St. George Stake, which included the Santa Clara ward, was one of the first such experiments in the Church. All who belonged to local branches of the church were subject to the program. When it was fully implemented, the controlling board of the United Order of St. George Stake had twenty-seven members. The stake organization was mostly administrative, supervising and coordinating the work of the local units. Specific guidelines were not offered from the leadership in Salt Lake, so the Stake authorities sent a list of questions delving into the more "thorny administrative problems threatening to stop the experiment at its inception". Church authorities did not respond with satisfaction to the various questions. They gave evasive answers, straddled the issue or referred the matter back to the local leaders. Arrington writes in Building the City of God: "Each settlement was to be free to conduct its own business independent of interference from the stake board, the general leaders decided, except in cases `where there is business of a general nature in which the stake is interested'. Accounts were not systematically kept, however, and a good deal of confusion resulted. Both leaders and people were at fault. "At Santa Clara there was grumbling from those who were partly in and partly out. There were in fact two classes of people among the adherents of the United Order; the idealists, who believed the system could be made to work, and the realists, who, if they hoped it might, were reluctant to risk the loss of any substantial portion of their possessions without setting up safeguards to protect them. The idealistic attitude is apparent in the articles of agreement adopted in March [of 1874], and the realistic in the October articles of incorporation. The former, in the words of Erastus Snow, set up the gospel plan; the latter, the legal plan. The first was communal and recognized the equity of individuals; the second was capitalistic and recognized wealth as the measure of importance." EB: I worked until the Order broke up, which it did just one year from the date of commencement, January 1, [1875]. At the division in our town, my teams and wagons were returned to me, but I wasn't given a pound of hay, grain, or cotton, with twenty in the family. Be assured this was a dark day for myself and family, but we said in our hearts, "The Lord knows we obeyed that principle with a pure motive and He will not let us suffer." No doubt Edward was one of the idealists in his efforts to make the order succeed. He probably lacked an understanding of accounting and sufficient detailed guidance from his leaders to make the system successful. Edward's own ability to lead was placed in a difficult situation. He had managed the poverty and diversity in his congregation, he had been aggressive in finding Clover Valley and solving the problem of a community too large for the available resources, he had travelled continually to bring goods from the north, he managed a growing family of three wives and numerous children, and he had supported local leaders with funds for the major buildings in St. George. The prophet had commanded the United Order and Edward willingly followed, but now the Order had failed. Edward may well have taken this failure very personally. Not only had he failed to administer the command from the Prophet, but the people of Santa Clara had not fully supported it and now his family was in a critical economic crisis. EB: I took my boys and teams and went into the mountains and cut and hauled wood to St. George for the temple and for individuals, and in this way obtained flour and factory pay to sustain my family until another harvest. I presided at the Santa Clara for about twelve years, then resigned on account of poor health, not having sufficient resources to keep my family together. Marius Ensign, my first councilor, was appointed my successor. Many suggest that Edward remained Bishop in Santa Clara until 1877 when he moved to Bunkerville, but if we are to take his own words literally then he was released in 1875. This would be about twelve years from the time of his arrival in 1862 and may have coincided with the breakup of the United Order and the desperate conditions of his family. The second son of Sarah, James Lang Bunker, along with his half-brother Stephen went to work hauling adobes to build the Brigham Young home. He states in Bunker Family History: "I had gone to Panguitch when about nine years old with my father. He let me drive one day, and he got back in the wagon to sleep. We met President Brigham Young and all his escort. We had a small team and a heavy load. President Young stopped and said, `Bud, are you loaded?' I said, `Yes, sir' and he said `Drive on.' This woke my father up and he said, `Jimmy, that was Brother Brigham; drive out.' I should have been more courteous, but his big fat horses looked to me as though they could do it, but I got out. All the older people loved Brother Brigham, as they called him. I helped my half-brother Stephen, haul adobes to build the home of Brigham Young." "My Father [Edward Bunker] and mother [Sarah] divided their property when I [James Lang Bunker] was 14, as my mother was sealed to her first husband, by whom she had two girls, Mary Clark and Eliza Jenkins." This last comment is very curious. It may suggest that some form of property distribution took place as a general result of the break-up of the order. Nevertheless, Sarah remained in Santa Clara. EB: The next year [1876] I raised enough to support my family and pay off a $150 cash debt. So you see the Lord abundantly blessed us for our integrity. The year 1876 was probably a very difficult one for Edward. There were those in St. George that continued with some form of a United Order. In was practiced throughout 1875 and 1876 as a corporation, but the number of people who continued to put their efforts into some form of a united economic effort continued to diminish. Edward, who had always followed a principle of unity and fellowship, must have continued with a hope in his heart to make the word of the prophet succeed. The next two years, 1875 and 1876, passed as Edward
contemplated a new experiment. He no doubt looked for a place
and way begin again. There may also have been some bitterness in
his heart at the lack of support by some of the faithful in Santa
Clara that began to separate Edward from the community. Amidst
this turmoil, Mary give birth to her fifth child.
|