Mary Bowdidge’s mixed-race daughter, Laura Jane Berry, came to President John Taylor’s attention when in July 1885, she was courting Hyrum B. Barton, the youngest son of a prominent LDS family in the Salt Lake 14th Ward.  Barton, already married once, wished to have Laura Berry be his polygamous wife.  But, as Joseph E. Taylor wrote to his father in 1885, “the question of his jeopardizing his future by such an alliance has caused a halt.”   Joseph Taylor added that Laura Berry “now desires to press her claim to privileges that others who are tainted with that blood have received.”  During an interview with Joseph Taylor, Laura Berry cited the example of the aforementioned Nathan Meads, with his mixed-race wife, and their children having all married into Mormon families and being endowed and receiving priesthood.  Laura Berry also cited another example of the elder sister of a Mrs. Jones of Logan, but I have been unable to discover who this was due to the scant clues and common name of Jones.  Apparently Mrs. Jones’ elder sister had married a black man but she still received her endowments.  Joseph Taylor, in describing the Nathan Meads case to his father wrote, “Brother Meads is a white man he married his wife many years ago; she was a quadroon and died some three years ago[;] their children (the oldest a girl, is married to a white man) are all very dark.”[34]

After citing these examples to his church president father, Joseph Taylor asked, “Can you give [Laura Berry] any privileges of a like character?  The girl is very pretty and quite white and would not be suspected as having tainted blood in her veins unless her parentage was known.”  I do not have a reply from President John Taylor, but that same month Laura Berry polygamously married Hyrum B. Barton and they had a large family together, who all apparently remained faithful Mormons, so John Taylor must have approved of the interracial marriage.

34. Joseph E. Taylor to President John Taylor September 5, 1885, LDS Archives, John Taylor Letter file, b1346, Box 20, file #3, typed copy in my possession.