Mormon Thunder: A Documentary History of Jedediah Morgan Grant

by Gene A. Sessions

Jedediah Morgan Grant was a man who knew no compromise when it came to principles—and his principles were clearly representative, argues Gene A. Sessions, of Mormonism’s first generation. His life is a glimpse of a Mormon world whose disappearance coincided with the death of this “pious yet rambunctiously radical preacher, flogging away at his people, demanding otherworldliness and constant sacrifice.” It was “an eschatological, pre-millennial world in which every individual teetered between salvation and damnation and in which unsanitary privies and appropriating a stray cow held the same potential for eternal doom as blasphemy and adultery.”Updated and newly illustrated with more photographs, this second edition of the award-winning documentary history (first published in 1982) chronicles Grant’s ubiquitous role in the Mormon history of the 1840s and ’50s. In addition to serving as counselor to Brigham Young during two tumultuous and influential years at the end of his life, he also portentously befriended Thomas L. Kane, worked to temper his unruly brother-in-law William Smith, captained a company of emigrants into the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, and journeyed to the East on several missions to bolster the position of the Mormons during the crises surrounding the runaway judges affair and the public revelation of polygamy.Jedediah Morgan Grant’s voice rises powerfully in these pages, startling in its urgency in summoning his people to sacrifice and moving in its tenderness as he communicated to his family. From hastily scribbled letters to extemporaneous sermons exhorting obedience, and the notations of still stunned listeners, the sound of “Mormon Thunder” rolls again in “a boisterous amplification of what Mormonism really was, and would never be again.”About the Gene A. Sessions was born in Ogden, Utah, and received his Ph.D. degree from Florida State University in 1974. He is the author and editor of numerous other works, including Latter-day Nine Mormon Families and Their Revolutionary War Heritage (1975), Prophesying upon the J. Reuben Clark and the Foreign Debt Crisis, 1933–39 (1992), The Search for Essays on Science and Mormonism (co-edited with Craig J. Oberg, 1993), and Mormon The Religious and Political Memoirs of James Henry Moyle (1975, 1998), for which he received the Mormon History Association’s annual award for best edited work. Professor Sessions is Presidential Distinguished Professor of History at Weber State University in Ogden and is currently serving as chair of the History Department. He has also been a consultant on documentaries and committees exploring the Utah War and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He and his wife, Shantal Hiatt Sessions, have four children and seven grandchildren.

Genres: Biography

512 pages, Paperback

First published July 16, 2008

Reviews

[Trevor Wolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many LDS people are probably not familiar with Jedediah Morgan Grant. All they may know is that he was the father of the LDS Church’s prophet years later.

Grant lived a very evangelistic life preaching the LDS gospel and never really having a home before moving to Utah.

Grant rose to the ranks of 2nd Counselor in the first Presidency very quickly at a young age. Grant was known to terrify his followers in his speeches by demanding complete obedience and cleaniliness.

His role in the Mormon Reformation is one of his biggest contributions to the LDS church. Grant would rebaptize members into the LDS Faith that already belonged to the church.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember seeing the hardcover of this on my grandfather's shelf as a boy. Finding a Kindle book about one of my ancestors was very exciting and I enjoyed getting a glimpse of Jedidiah Grant's mind. What an incredible man! The only thing I didn't like was what felt like a bias against Joseph Smith and Brigham Young by the author. Otherwise very well-written and filled with quotes from primary sources. Very interesting to see such detail at a critical time in the history of the LDS church.