Praying with One Eye Open: Mormons and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Appalachian Georgia

Elder Joseph Standing was murdered by a group of twelve men in 1878 in the Appalachian mountains of North Georgia, seeking converts for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Historian Mary Ella Engel argues that the mob violence was a local event, best understood at the local level, and was a response to the challenges posed by the separation of converts from their loved ones, especially women and their dependents from heads of households.

Format: Hardback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2019
Publisher: University of Georgia Press

In 1878, Elder Joseph Standing embarked on a mission to convert individuals to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Appalachian mountains of North Georgia. However, his journey was tragically cut short when he was brutally murdered by a group of twelve men. The church, in a controversial decision, refused to bury the missionary in Georgia soil, instead choosing to lay him to rest in Salt Lake City, Utah, beneath a monument that boldly declared, "There is no law in Georgia for the Mormons."

Most accounts of this event have linked Standing's murder to the pervasive anti-Mormonism of the nineteenth century, which also claimed the life of the prophet Joseph Smith. Additionally, it has been attributed to the enduring tradition of extralegal violence in the Southern United States. In these narratives, the stories of the men who took Standing's life are often marginalized and reduced to mere vigilantes who evaded punishment.

Historian Mary Ella Engel takes a different approach, arguing that the mob violence against Standing was a local event best understood within the context of the community in which it occurred. Engel's examination of Standing's murder carefully situates it within the disquiet created by the missionaries' successes in the North Georgia community. As Georgia converts often abandoned the state for Mormon colonies in the West, Standings murder unfolded within a broader narrative of post-Reconstruction Mormon outmigration to Western territories.

In this rich context, Engel's study reveals the complex social relationships that interconnected North Georgians—families, kin, neighbors, and coreligionists—and sheds light on how mob violence attempted to address the psychological dissonance and gender anxieties generated by Mormon missionaries. By unearthing the bonds linking Georgia converts to the mob, Engel reveals Standings murder as more than mere mountain lawlessness or religious persecution. Instead, it becomes a poignant response to the challenges posed by the separation of church and state, as well as the cultural and social transformations underway in the late nineteenth century.

The murder of Elder Joseph Standing serves as a haunting reminder of the complexities and challenges faced by individuals and communities in the American West during a period of rapid change and expansion. It highlights the ongoing struggles between religious beliefs and state authority.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780820355252