History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

682 CHURCH AND STATE.
Says Mr Burton in 1861: "Austin Ward describes
John Taylor as 'an old man, deformed and crippled,'
and Mrs. Ferris as a 'heavy, dark colored, beetlebrowed
man.' Of course I could not recognize him
from these descriptions—a stout, good-looking, somewhat
elderly personage, with a kindly gray eye, pleasant
expression, and a forehead of the superior order." 12
When I was introduced to him in 1884, Mr Taylor
being then in his seventy-seventh year, there stepped
forward with a quick, decisive, nervous tread, greeting
me with a smile and a cordial shake of the hand, a
white-haired, benevolent-looking man of medium height
and well-knit figure, long, oval face, gray, deep-set,
penetrating eye, square, broad forehead, and firmly
clasped lips, displaying a fixed determination, slightly
tinged with melancholy, such as might be expected
from one who had passed through many trying scenes,
not the least among which was the escape, as by a
miracle, from the tragedy of Carthage jail, and who
knew that he had still many trials to undergo. 13
Days of tribulation were indeed at hand. The
saints, who for so many years had been buffeted,
afflicted, tormented for opinion's sake, were again,
after a brief respite, to be subjected to so-called christian
influence. The anti-polygamy law of 1862 was,
as we have seen, inoperative, although declared con-
through the destruction by fire of the Utah vinegar-works at Ogden, of which
he was proprietor. In 18S4 he was a member of the legislature and of the
S. L. City council. After being called to the apostolate, he travelled extensively,
iu the interest of the church, in Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, and New
Mexico. Though still but 30 years of age and in feeble health, his average
weight being only 145 lbs, while in stature he was considerably over six feet,
Mr Grant alfords a striking example of the energy displayed by the descendants
of the Mormon patriarchs. Autobiog. of Heber J. Grant, MS.
12 City of the Saints, 328.
13 Descriptions of President Taylor's appearance will be found in many of
the books written on Mormonism, some of them fair and accurate, as is Burton's,
and others varying in degrees of absurdity from that of Lady Duft'us-
Hardy, who speaks of him as a man 'with a rather large, loose mouth, and
cunning gray eyes, which look as though they would never let you see what
was going on behind them,' down to the one given by a correspondent of the
Nnv York Sun, who in 1879 stated that he was six feet high, and that his
appearance, manner, and speech were those of a member of the British parliament.
See Duffus- Hardy's Through Cities and Prairie Lands, 117; Deseret
News, Nov. 12, 1S79.