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This collection was donated to the Harold B. Lee Library by Julius Woolley Dalley of Ridgecrest, California, on August 2, 1977. He is a descendant of Edwin Woolley and Erastus Snow, and throughout his life has collected papers of both the Snow and Woolley families.
This collection is open to the public.
The Harold B. Lee Library is the legal owner of all materials in the Collection. Before any of the manuscripts may be published in their entirety permission must be obtained from the Library.
Permission to publish material from the Edwin Woolley Jr. and Erastus Snow Family Collection must be obtained from the Supervisor of Reference Services and/or the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Board of Curators.
The Woolley-Snow Collection pertains mainly to the lives of Edwin Dilworth Woolley Jr., Erastus Snow, and their families, which are interrelated through marriage. One of those marriages was between Edwin D. Woolley Jr. and Erastus Snow's daughter, Florence Snow. A family chart for the Edwin D. Woolley Jr. family follows below.
Edwin D. Woolley Jr. was born April 30, 1846, in the Mormon community of Nauvoo, Illinois. His parents, Edwin D. Woolley Sr. and Mary Wickersham, were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because of the extensive persecution waged against the Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo in the 1840's, the Woolleys were forced to leave their home, along with thousands of other Church members, and become part of the famous Mormon exodus to the Salt lake Valley. After a great deal of suffering and trial, they arrived in the Great Basin on September 27, 1848. During the trek westward, young Edwin was an infant.
During his youth, Edwin D. Woolley Jr., as well as many Mormon boys his age, was given many responsibilities and difficult assignments. When he was only 15 years old, he was sent as a teamster to the Missouri River to aid the Mormon emigrants in their trek westward. Later, because of problems with Indians, he was a participant in numerous expeditions against them, and saw service in the Black-Hawk War. At the age of 20 he was sent to Southern Utah to help colonize St. George.
On March 9, 1867, Woolley married Emma Bentley at the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. Following their wedding, the coupe returned to St. George. There, they established their first home and became active participants in community affairs. Soon, Edwin was given ample opportunities for service in many different civic functions, such as Alderman, Constable, Policeman, etc.
On April 12, 1877, ten years after his marriage to Emma Bentley, Woolley married his second wife, Florence Snow, daughter of Apostle Erastus Snow and Elizabeth Ashby. On the day following his wedding he left for a mission in England, which, because of business problems, only lasted six months.
In 1882 Woolley moved to Upper Kanab to manage a church-owned cattle ranch, and in 1884 he was called by Erastus Snow, who was representing the Church leaders, to be the President of the Kanab Stake. In addition to his Church assignments, he was involved in organizing a bank, a store, a coal company, encouraging tourism, and so on. Because of these many efforts, he is a key figure in Mormon and Southern Utah history.
After a very colorful and productive life, Edwin D. Woolley Jr. died
on July 20, 1920, following a two-year battle with cancer. Although five of his
children had preceded him in death, he left behind eight sons and ten daughters
in addition to his two wives, Emma and Florence. [Parkinson, Preston
W.
Erastus Snow, son of Levi and Lucina Snow, was born November 19, 1818, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. When he was fourteen years old, two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints visited his family and taught them the principles of salvation as outlined by the Prophet Joseph Smith and found in the Book of Mormon. After listening to their message, most of the family (excluding the father and two sons) eventually joined the Church. Erastus Snow was baptized on February 3, 1833, by his older brother William.
Erastus Snow developed a great love for the gospel and studied the scriptures diligently to become more conversant with Church doctrine. In addition to his studies, he eagerly served the Church by spending a great amount of time sharing his testimony with others. On June 28, 1834, when 16 years old, he was ordained to the office of a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood and less than five months later to the office of Priest. On August 16, 1835, he was ordained an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood and from that time forward became very active in missionary work, preaching the gospel in many part of the United State and Europe. Many people accepted Mormonism as a result of his labors.
In addition to his missionary work, Snow participated in several significant events in early Church history. In 1835 he met the Prophet Joseph Smith in Kirtland Ohio, and while there attended a special Elder's School with 300 other elders. When persecution increased in Kirtland, he helped relocate the Church to Far West, Missouri, where he later married his first wife, Artemesia Beman, on December 3, 1838. With the intensification of anti-Mormon persecution in Far West, the saints were forced to flee again, this time to Nauvoo. While residing in Nauvoo, Snow married a second wife, Minerve White, in January of 1846 in compliance with the doctrine of plural marriage as instituted by Joseph Smith. Later he married a third wife, Elizabeth R. Ashby, on December 19, 1847, and a fourth wife, Julia Josephine Spencer, on April 11, 1856.
Under the leadership of Brigham Young, Joseph Smith's successor,
Erastus Snow and his family left their home in Nauvoo to migrate to the Great
Basin where the Saints hoped to find rest from the continued persecution. In
his move he organized and led various parties of the saints. After their
arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, he was called to serve in a Stake Presidency,
and in 1849 he was ordained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. As
an apostle he served a mission to Denmark and was responsible for the
translation of the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and other Church
literature into the Danish language. After returning, he was appointed to
organize and supervise the settlement of Church members in Southern Utah. In
these and many other assignments he served efficiently and enthusiastically
until his death in Salt Lake City on May 27, 1888. [Jenson, Andrew.
Because the collection deals with two separate families, it has been divided into two parts. The first pertains to Edwin D. Woolley Jr. and his family. It contains several biographies about Woolley, a journal from his mission to England, personal correspondence, and assorted papers pertaining to his professional and recreational endeavors. The records either pertaining to or created by family members include biographies, essays, correspondence, and other assorted papers.
The second part of the collection pertains to Erastus Snow and his family. His papers consist mainly of correspondence (much of which is between him and his wife Emma) and notes and writings about his life. The other family papers include correspondence, articles and stories.
The remainder of the collection consists of historical source files concerned with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Utah history, collected by various members of each family.
Photographs and published materials have been removed from the collection. The photographs have been numbered sequentially, transferred to the Photo Archives and given the call number Mss P-60. Many of the photographs are unidentified. A preliminary inventory of the photographs is available from the Photoarchives on request but is not included in this register because of the ongoing work of identification which will take several years.
(The numbers before the colon are box numbers, numbers after the colon are folder numbers.)