Of all the people to go down as villains in the history of the Latter-day Saints, perhaps none were as colorful as the infamous W. W. Drummond, Federal Judge of the Utah Territory in 1855. Arriving with a flamboyant woman whom he introduced as Mrs. Ada Drummond, the Judge immediately set out to cut away at the legal foundations of the Latter-day Saint settlements up and down the Utah territory - their probate courts, their water claims, timber claims, grazing claims, and their right to incorporate cities at all.
In this episode, we will explore how Judge Drummond earned the contempt of the Latter-day Saints in a number of ways, from his barely-veiled desperation to hang someone--anyone--to his flirting with and mutual teasing with Ada, who sat next to him on the bench (even during death penalty cases), to becoming the first judge to be himself arrested and thrown into jail for assault with intent to commit murder, and finally how--in his bumbling efforts to flex the power of the federal courts, he unintentionally sparked a war with the Native Tribes of Utah, resulting in 8 Latter-day Saints killed and the loss of 150 head of cattle.
To learn more about the stories in and material in this podcast, please see these (excellent!) sources:
Ronald W. Walker, "Proud as a Peacock and Ignorant as a Jackass: William W. Drummond's Unusual Career with the Mormons," 42 J. of Mormon Hist. 3, 1 (July 2016). The article can be found at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jmormhist.42.3.0001
At Sword's Point: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858, Vol I and II (ed. William MacKinnon), 2008.
* On a personal note, William ("Bill") MacKinnon was kind enough to correspond with me while I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2019. An Air Force Veteran himself, he very generously sent me copies of hitherto-unknown primary sources, topics of future interest, and thoughts on a wide array on early aspects and figures in Utah History. His enormous body of scholarly work on the Utah War is simply incredible.
Key Terms: William Drummond, Ada Carroll, "Skinny Ada," Brigham Young, John Taylor, John Burnhisel, Federal Judges, Utah Territory, Deseret, William "Wild Bill" Hickman, Levi Abrams, Cato, Posse, Native Tribes, Indian Wars, Jail, Writ, Habeas Corpus,