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Creating the "Great Seal" of the state of California... Constitution of the state of Deseret...
Creating the "Great Seal" of the state of California... Constitution of the state of Deseret...
Item # 677165
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December 22, 1849
NEW YORK WEEKLY TRIBUNE, Dec. 22, 1849
* State of Deseret Constitution
* Mormons - Mormonism - Utah
* Great Seal of California adopted
The front page has an article which includes a very nice engraving captioned: "The Great Seal of the State of California" and a related article which begins: "The Convention yesterday adopted the above design of a Great Seal for the new state of California. The credit of its invention is mainly due to Major R. S. Garnett of the Army..." with more text.
Save for a very very minor alterations this is the same seal used by California today, and their website notes its various portions: "Under the gaze of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, a miner works near the Sacramento River. A grizzly bear rests at her feet and ships ply the river. The Sierra Nevada mountains rise in the background."
Great to find this engraving on the front page from the year of its creation.
Page 2 has two reports from Santa Fe of problems with the Apache Indians (see) & pg. 3 ha a lengthy article: "Politics in California".
As if this content was not enough, page 7 contains the complete printing of: "The Constitution Of The New State Of Deseret", taking over 1 1/2 columns. This is followed by a letter from the Mormons to Congress requesting their acceptance of the Constitution as their first step towards statehood with the name "Deseret".
Having moved to Utah to establish their own society outside the United States they settled in the arid climate near the Great Salt Lake, part of Mexico in the mid-1840's. Wtih the end of the Mexican War in 1848 & the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States gained what is now Utah & much of the surrounding land.
Mormon leaders at first sought territorial status in 1849 but then decided instead to seek statehood. A constitution for the "State of Deseret", as printed in this newspaper, was written by the Council of Fifty, a political arm of the Mormon church. It was a simple document of only eight articles and would be the first of seven constitutions written before statehood would be granted in 1896.
This is an extremely significant issue in Mormon history. It did not appear in any Utah newspaper as the very first in the state (then a territory) was not until 1850.
Eight pages, two small areas of damp staining, a tiny rubbing hole to the front leaf not close to mentioned content, generally good condition.
Category: The Old West
No Longer Available
