37. Thomas Leiper Kane, 1822-1883

The Mormons. A Discourse Delivered Before The Historical Society of Pennsylvania: March 26, 1850. Philadelphia: King &Baird, Printers, Sansom Street, 1850.

Following his 1846 stay among the Mormons, Thomas L. Kane wrote to Brigham Young that it was "next to impossible to do anything for you before public opinion was corrected." [Kane to Young, 2 December 1846]. Thus Kane tried to use every opportunity that presented itself to explain and defend the Mormon cause to his fellow citizens.

One such opportunity came on 26 March 1850 when he was asked to give a lecture before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In a letter of 24 September 1850 he recalled that he worked on the address for four weeks and was very ill when the time came to present it. He fainted on his way home after the presentation, and his doctors ordered him to travel to the West Indies to try to regain his health.

John M. Bernhisel, the Utah Territorial Representative in Congress, wanted the lecture published, and thus he assisted in preparing it for the printer. The first printing of 1000 copies was being distributed by July 1850, but a second printing of another 1000 copies was soon required. The second printing added an eight-page postscript by Kane. The Lecture was printed by King and Baird, Philadelphia Printers.

The work was an important defense and explanation of the Mormon faith and history. Kane saw that copies were distributed to various political leaders in Washington and the Mormons distributed additional copies. The Lecture was reprinted in several Mormon publications: the Frontier Guardian (7 August 1850), and in the Millennial Star (15 April-15 July 1851) where it reached an even larger audience. Most Mormons probably first heard of the seagull/cricket episode through this work. This defense surely endeared Kane even more to the Mormons.