Romneys, Udalls have ties to Ariz. territorial polygamy trials
 
By ERIC KRAMER
Special to Tri-Valley Dispatch
Tri-Valley Dispatch - Casa Grande Valley Newspapers - Casa Grande, AZ
 
PRESCOTT — Two of America’s most prominent political families, the Republican Romneys and the Democratic Udalls, are tied to an unusual polygamy prosecution in Arizona’s territorial past that left the patriarch of one family in federal prison as the ancestor of a current presidential candidate jumped bail and fled to Mexico.

The story is detailed in "Story of the American West," a book celebrating Arizona’s centennial.

In the 1880s, D.K. Udall was living in St. Johns, serving as Mormon bishop for the community and running the church’s cooperative store. Miles P. Romney was the editor of the local Mormon newspaper, the Orion Era. Udall was the grandfather of the late Congressman Mo Udall and his brother, the late Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. Two current U.S. senators, Mark Udall of Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico, are their sons. Recently announced presidential aspirant Mitt Romney is the great-grandson of Miles Romney.

St. Johns was bitterly divided between pro-Mormon and anti-Mormon factions, and the issue of polygamy was a convenient way to prosecute the leaders of the Latter-day Saints, before the church abandoned the practice.

Though Udall had two wives, federal authorities were unsuccessful in prosecuting him for polygamy. So, they brought him back into court in Prescott on charges of filing a false affidavit in support of Romney’s homestead claim, and Romney also was charged in conjunction with that. "By dubious means they secured a conviction and on October 10, 1885, he was sentenced to serve a three-year term in the Detroit House of Correction," the St. Johns Mormon history says.

Earlier, Romney had appealed to William Flake, the founder of Snowflake, to bail him out. At the time, Flake was about to leave Prescott for the Territorial Prison in Yuma to serve his own sentence on a polygamy conviction.

Flake’s biography recounts the response: "I am a convict just starting for the penitentiary, I can’t go on a bond." Romney asked Flake to have his friends put up the bond. Several non-Mormons did so after Flake promised to make good on the bond if Romney did not appear in court.

The St. Johns Herald, an anti-Mormon newspaper in St. Johns, gave this account: "David K. Udall, high priest and counselor of this stake of Zion, and also the leading Mormon bishop of Arizona has been convicted in the United States Court at Prescott, of perjury and sentenced to imprisonment for three years in the House of Correction at Detroit, Michigan. The bishop was found guilty of falsely swearing to the land entry of Miles P. Romney, late editor of the Orion Era. Romney is also under indictment for the same offense, but has skipped to Mexico leaving his bondsmen in the lurch to the tune of several thousand dollars."

Udall was soon pardoned, but the matter of Romney’s bond continued to plague Flake even after he served his sentence and returned to Snowflake. "Less than a week had passed when he received a letter from his friend Stinson [a rancher who had signed the bond], saying that Romney had jumped his bonds, and that he had been given thirty days to pay the bonds of two thousand dollars," says the book "William J. Flake, Pioneer — Colonizer." Flake’s "name was not on the bonds, but his word was out, and must be redeemed. His friends had signed at his request AND THEY MUST NOT LOSE A PENNY. He went immediately to Prescott and asked the Court to let him deliver the man instead of the money. They told him his man was in Mexico and there was no law to bring him out. He said, ‘I will go to Mexico and bring him here, and deliver him to the Marshal, if it will settle the bill.’ The judge said, ‘We don’t want the man, we want the money.’ He asked for a little time to raise the money. It was granted. Then came the struggle to raise two thousand dollars hard cash at a time when it was harder to raise two thousand dollars, then it would be now to raise twenty thousand dollars. Money was very scarce and interest was high. However, he raised the money, and saved his friends’ trouble, but it took everything he had, but his home, and left him in debt, that took seven years to settle."

No matter how tough politics gets for Mitt Romney, he will be grateful that it is more genteel in the 21st century than the words of rival territorial editors. George A. McCarter, the editor of the Apache Chief, said Romney was "a mass of putrid pus and rotten goose pimples; a skunk, with the face of a baboon, the character of a louse, the breath of a buzzard and the record of a perjurer and common drunkard."

Udall, already married to Eliza Stewart, had developed an interest in his bookkeeper, Ida Hunt. Ms. Hunt wrote to the first wife in a letter quoted in Arizona’s Honeymoon Trail. "I feel that I cannot allow another day to pass by without writing you to ascertain if possible, your true feelings upon a subject which is, no doubt, one painful to us both, but one which, I realize, must be disposed of sooner or later — the possibility or probability of my becoming at some future day a member of your family. … I cannot allow the matter to go farther, without first having, received some assurance of your willingness to such a step being taken. … I promise you I shall not be offended, but on the contrary shall thank you for it all my life, and I believe you will not have written in fain, for, unless it meets with your approval, I shall never listen to another word on the subject."

The reply came: "The subject in question has caused me a great amount of pain and sorrow, more perhaps than you could imagine, yet I feel as I have from the beginning, that if it is the Lord’s will I am perfectly willing to try to endure it and trust it will be overruled for the best good of all."

"Ida took that answer for a ‘yes,’" says "Story of the American West."

Two of Bishop Udall’s sons, Levi Stewart Udall and Jesse Addison Udall, became chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. In addition to Mark and Tom, cousin Gordon Smith, son of Jessica Udall Smith, served in the U.S. Senate, representing Oregon.

Miles Romney’s grandson, the late George Romney, was governor of Michigan, U.S. secretary of housing and urban development and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964 and 1968. Mitt Romney is George’s son.

"Story of the American West," now in its second printing, is available at independent Arizona book stores, Amazon.com and selected Barnes and Noble locations.
 
TriValleyCentral.com
Originally published Wednesday, June 8, 2011
 
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