THE NORWEGIAN-DANISH METHODIST MISSION IN UTAH ~ by Arlow William Andersen

 

 Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 25, 1957, Nos. 1-4

THE NORWEGIAN-DANISH METHODIST MISSION IN UTAH

BY ARLOW WILLIAM ANDERSEN

FOLLOWING their removal to the Great Basin and stimulated by a desire for statehood, as well as by genuine missionary motives, the Mormons engaged in strenuous efforts to win proselytes in Europe and America. It is at this point that they became important as a factor in American Methodism. Similarly, they played an important role in Norwegian and Danish immigrant affairs, for many of their converts were won, at the expense of Scandinavian Lutheranism, through the Christiania (now Oslo) and Copenhagen missions.

The character and extent of Scandinavian Mormon immigration is the subject of a recent study. Mormon missionaries labored in Copenhagen and elsewhere after 1850. Their efforts in the Scandinavian lands proved fruitful. In the second half of the nineteenth century they made over forty-five thousand converts (members of record), of whom some thirty thousand (including children) emigrated in large parties under Mormon guidance to Utah. Of the total emigration, 57 per cent were Danish, 32 per cent Swedish, 10 per cent Norwegian, and a few Icelandic. Shepherded migration ceased in the 1890's, when social and economic conditions in the Scandinavian countries improved.

As early as 1879 Editor Christian Treider of Den ChristeligeTalsmand, the Norwegian-Danish Christian Advocate, took cognizance of the Mormon influence among Scandinavian immigrants. He deplored the defection of so many Danes and Norwegians and wished that they could have been an asset, as he put it, rather than a disgrace to their newly adopted country. He joined with the American press in its denunciation of "Mormon scandals" and regretted the attitude of Den Dance Pioneer of Omaha for condoning polygamy.

The Methodist Episcopal Church (now the Methodist Church) began missionary work among the Mormons of Utah in 1870. Not until 1882 was preparation made for work among the Scandinavians there, when Bishop John F. Hurst authorized one Peter A H. Franklin to make arrangements. Franklin, a native of Norway, had once been a Mormon. With the arrival of Martinus Nelson in the summer of 1883 the Utah Mission got under way. The son of a Methodist minister in Norway, Nelson had joined the Wisconsin Conference in 1876. In 1880 he joined the newly organized Norwegian- Danish Conference. He was to serve in Utah for twelve years. Bishop Isaac D. Wiley requested him to exchange his Chicago pulpit (Second Church, later known as Maplewood Avenue Church) for the opportunity then beckoning in the land of the honey bee. On July 29, 1883, Nelson organized a congregation of eighteen members under the name "First Norwegian Methodist Church of Salt Lake City."

In a letter to Andrew Haagensen of the Talsmand, Martinus Nelson explained that one charter member had been a Mormon for thirty-three years and a Mormon preacher for twenty years. Already a church lot had been bought at a price of $475.00. The church extension society promised to give $500.00 if the congregation would build a church costing at least $1,500.00, free of debt. Nelson went on to explain that a satisfactory church could not be built for $1,500.00, since labor and material were twice as expensive as in Chicago. He appealed for contributions. Meanwhile the faithful few continued to meet in the Methodist sanctuary on Sunday afternoons. The year came to an end with a brick structure completed, the total cost of building and lot together being $2,200.00. It was to be known as the Iliff Church, named after Doctor T. C. Iliff, the American superintendent.

Martinus Nelson related the first experiences of Norwegian Methodists in Brigham City in 1883. Located in northern Utah, the city had about eighteen hundred people, half of them Scandinavians. American Presbyterians had done some work there and in several neighboring Scandinavian settlements, but "they naturally could not reach the Scandinavian folk, although they are more willing to accept the Gospel than the English-speaking folk." Nelson's visit was in response to an invitation by the Presbyterian preacher, in whose church he proceeded to conduct a Sunday evening service of worship. He was surprised to find several Talsmand subscribers and even more impressed with the discovery of a Norwegian Bible and a dozen of Haagensen's translation of "Sankey's and Bliss's Songs." The helpful Presbyterian pastor had ordered the books and had attempted to conduct Norwegian services. He had played the organ while the congregation sang. He had prayed in English, then invited the congregation to read passages from the Norwegian Bible. Finally, he had preached briefly in English.

Nelson went on to report that Bishop Wiley had authorized Peter Franklin to travel back east to collect money for the Utah mission. He stated that the mission needed at least $5,000.00 now, a thousand of it to go to the church and school in Salt Lake City, another thousand for building a smaller church for serving the communities of Ephraim, Mount Pleasant, and Fountain Green, and a third thousand for Bear Lake in southern Idaho. The disposition of the remaining $2,000.00 was not stated. He announced that Lisa M. Saugstad, recently appointed by the Women's Home Missionary Society to the mission, would work in Mount Pleasant during Franklin's absence.

The Saints, themselves no strangers to religious persecution, showed little tolerance toward other religious work. Having returned from his fund-raising venture in the East, Peter Franklin revealed that many Mormons had informed him that they dared not listen to his sermons, for fear of disapproval of Mormon authorities. He alleged that Mormon control of every well and over other necessities impeded the progress of Christianity. "So many who might otherwise attend Presbyterian or Methodist services are afraid of losing their water and their wheat crop," said he. Crops depended more upon irrigation than upon rain, the water coming from the mountains.

Occasionally opposition to Norwegian-Danish Methodism came in more sensational form. Martin Andersen, a recent arrival, related how he was "baptized" by an unknown assailant. One Sunday evening after he had preached at Manti and was returning to his home in Ephraim, seven miles away, he was doused with a bucket of water as he rode over a creek. The offender found concealment in the darkness and in a snowstorm. Earlier in the day someone had shouted after him, "What dirty work you have to do!" Said Andersen, "It is often inferred that it is so quiet and peaceful here. It seems to me to be the opposite."

In 1884 Martinus Nelson took issue with A W. Winberg, publisher of Bikuben (The Beehive) of Salt Lake City. Once having served as a guide for Scandinavian immigrant groups, Winberg had challenged Nelson's article on "Thoughts about a Mormon Conference," published in the Talsmand. Nelson countered by calling Mormon freedom a farce. It savored of clerical tyranny rather than brotherhood, he charged. "I have never found a people who fear each other more or are more distrustful of each other. Hundreds of Mormons here have not dared to write home to Scandinavia to tell their own relatives what the conditions really are."

The Utah mission grew in numbers in the 1880's. In 1888 the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church provided for its organization into a district within the Colorado Conference. In the absence of public schools, the mission carried on educational work with success. Haagensen regretted that instruction was given in the English language, thus contributing eventually to the growth of American rather than Norwegian-Danish Methodism in the territory. At the annual meeting of the mission in July, 1885, the presiding bishop made appointments to the Salt Lake congregation and to four circuits. He likewise appointed three unmarried women as teachers.

Reporting on developments of the year 1886, Haagensen states that Salt Lake City had only nineteen members. But the school there served ninety-one pupils, fifty of whom came from Mormon homes. Peter Franklin travelled in the East and raised $7,000.00 by subscription for the erection of a church building in Salt Lake City. In the Brigham City circuit, where two-thirds of the population were Scandinavians, a hall was rented with funds provided by the church extension society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

From Logan, Utah, Martinus Nelson wrote to Christian Treider of the Talsmand early in 1887 concerning his recent travels about the mission. After Christmas he had attended the semi-annual meeting in Tooele, about thirty-five miles west of Salt Lake City. From there he journeyed southward to Spanish Fork, "a fairly large city of between 2,500 and 3,000 inhabitants, half of whom are Scandinavians, mostly Danish." Spanish Fork, a new mission opened in the previous summer, also had some Icelanders who had come to enjoy "the mysteries of Zion." The congregation was being served by one H. Johnsen, who had arrived as a Mormon from Norway and had forsaken his new-found faith. On New Year's Eve Nelson began a series of meetings in his own church in Salt Lake City, with assistance from Nielsen Staalberg of Brigham City. Twice the church was so crowded that children had to sit around the altar. Nelson reported that his week-day school had twenty-six pupils under the instruction of Bessie Helgesen, formerly of Big Canoe, Iowa. Upon his latest visit to Spanish Fork he found ninety children and young people in the Sunday school, a real achievement "especially in Utah, where young folk have no conception whatsoever of Christianity." He baptized nine children in Spanish Fork and was proud to add, "We were the first church to have a bell in Spanish Fork. One Swedish lady, who had arrived many years before and had never heard a church bell since departing from the old country, burst into tears when she first heard the bell." Concluded Nelson, "I believe that these church bells are a means of grace among our countrymen in Utah."

Despite constant growth, Methodist strength at the close of 1887 remained rather unimpressive. The entire mission could boast only 348 members, of whom only 78 belonged to the Scandinavian churches. Some 300 children attended the Scandinavian day schools. Small Scandinavian congregations existed in a number of places, including Salt Lake City, Spanish Fork, Brigham City, Santaquin, Mount Pleasant, Moroni, Richfield Circuit, and Elsinore. Three years later, in 1890, the mission had begun publication of the Utah Tidende (Utah News).

One development of special interest merits attention. Apparently, in 1889 the Latter-day Saints were prepared to renounce polygamy. "Be so kind," wrote Peter Franklin to the Talsmand, "as to let Talsmanden take along on its journey the good news that the bogeyman (Busemanden) in Utah is dead. Burial is expected to take place in the near future from Salt Lake City Tabernacle. No funeral march will be played, but the population of the entire territory will likely agree upon the singing of a hymn unknown for a long time here, 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty.' In the meantime it is already decided that the closing hymn will be 'Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun Doth his Successive Journeys Run.' It is regrettable that Franklin scon proved himself to be less stable than the Mormon constituency that he was satirizing. While Mormons generally turned deaf ears to the tempting calls of the silver mines of Colorado and Idaho, Franklin by 1890 had become involved in mining speculation and had withdrawn from the active ministry.

The first Scandinavian Methodist camp meetings in Utah were held in June, 1889, at Richfield. In the opinion of a participant, Christian Jorgen Heckner, later editor of Vidnesbyrdet (The Testimony), Norwegian-Danish organ on the Pacific Coast. "The tent was packed and hundreds stood outside. Only six years ago our first preacher at that place could not hold meetings in the evening because it was impossible to preserve order. Now even the leading Mormons extend their hands in token of respect."

Perhaps the peak of Norwegian-Danish activity in Utah came in 1889. In the previous year the mission had been reorganized, as mentioned, into the Norwegian-Danish District of the Englishspeaking Colorado Conference. Martinus Nelson served as presiding elder. Appointments for the year 1889-90 reveal a total of seven pastors serving three specific congregations (Ogden, Brigham City, and Salt Lake City) and five circuits (Richfield, Hyrum, Mount Pleasant, Ovid, and Provo-Spanish Fork). There were two women missionaries and thirteen schools, with only nine women teachers named.

In 1891 the Norwegian-Danish District numbered 114 members, plus 60 on trial. Fourteen churches and chapels lend support to the view that there were a considerable number of adherents who could not be counted as members. Attending the day schools were 405 pupils. Haagensen complained that pastors had requested transfers to the Colorado Conference (American), whereas he strongly favored continuing the mission until such time as it might be absorbed into a Norwegian-Danish conference on the Pacific Coast. Already Utah letters were being addressed to Vidnesbyrdet, the West Coast publication established in 1889.

The Methodist General Conference of 1892 authorized the Western Norwegian-Danish Mission Conference to include within its boundaries California, the states of the Northwest, and the territory of Utah. In 1895, when the Mission Conference became a full-fledged Conference within Methodism, a Utah District was recognized. By 1898 the few members of the district were absorbed by the American Mission Conference of Utah, a temporary arrangement it appears. One of the last reports from Utah to reach the Talsmand in Chicago came in 1900, when Emil E. Mork, presiding elder of the Richfield District, gave the appointments of that summer. He himself served Salt Lake City in addition to his administrative duties. Only four other pastors were named.

From the annual reports of the Western Norwegian-Danish Conference, it is learned that Mork and Emmanuel L. Nanthrup were appointed as missionaries to Utah in 1902. The following year Joseph Olsen, reporting for the Washington District, which included the Utah field, made known that Nanthrup had not served the full year in Utah but had taken an appointment in Ballard, Washington. Appointments for the Washington District in 1903 listed Mork and Christian J. Heckner as missionaries to Utah.

For various reasons the Norwegian-Danish mission in Utah declined. Bishop Wiley, who died in China while on a world missionary tour, was undoubtedly correct when he once declared, "Utah is a hard ground to plow, even harder than China." American immigrants who had only lately been attracted from Scandinavian Lutheranism to Mormonism were not easily persuaded to join a third denomination.

But there were more immediate causes for limited success. Scandal came to the Salt Lake City church in 1896 with the disclosure that the pastor had appropriated funds under false pretenses. Local newspapers and private citizens became so angry that some spoke of leveling the church building to the ground. It mattered litde that the guilty party, who had best remain anonymous, was excluded from the ministry by conference action. In 1897 the presiding elder, C. J. Lundegaard, made no attempt to conceal the damage to Norwegian-Danish Methodist activity. "The shadow of the tragedy of last year," said he, "hangs over the work in Salt Lake City and throughout the state of Utah."

In January of 1896 Utah was admitted to the Union, and, in the opinion of the presiding elder, the idea gained prevalence that Mormonism was now worthy of respect. Mormon leaders also removed the language bar so that the Scandinavian tongues might be used in Mormon meetings. Hard times incident to the defeat of William Jennings Bryan and the free-silverites in 1896 contributed to difficulty in meeting church expenses. The seven-day week in the mines prevented attendance at Sunday services in many instances.

And the restlessness of a transient and money-minded population threatened religious endeavors of any kind with failure from the outset. In view of many adverse circumstances, therefore, the Norwegian-Danish mission in Utah yielded to the larger American church. Not least of the adverse factors was the general opposition of Mormonism to Protestantism as a whole.

For full citations please view this article on a desktop.