"How the Mormons Dance" in 1866

The following observation on how Mormons danced in the mid-19th century was published in The Shasta Courier in June 1866:

HOW THE MORMONS DANCE.—A Salt Lake correspondent of the Cincinnatti Gazette describes a Mormon ball as follows;

The first entertainment of the kind which we witnessed, will serve as a specimen. It was held in the village church, the benches being ranged against the walls, and the men and women seated on opposite sides of the house, facing each other, while the fiddlers occupied a raised platform on the men’s side. The performance opened with prayer. The dancing began, and with the exception of an intermission at midnight, was kept up without interruption until the ‘wee sma’ hours.” Every one who paid for a ticket could dance unquestioned, and no introduction was required; but at the conclusion of each set you are expected, after seating your partner, to return to your own side of the house. To seat yourself by her side for a few moments’ conversation, would have made you at once the entre of all eyes. All, from childhood to gray-haired age, joined in the sport. Here might be seen a mother dancing with her son; there an elderly Saint with several grown children in the room leading out a young girl soon to be added to his harem.—What laces and jewelry the settlement afforded were fully displayed on the persons of the ladies, the toilet of the beaux being made up of mingled homespun and “store clothes,” while occasionally one whose wardrobe could not furnish a coat, pursued the sport, nothing daunted, in his short sleeves. At intervals, the younger brethren retired from the building singly or in squads, and drawing from their hiding-place divers pistols, heavily charged with “valley tan” whisky, refreshed themselves and returned with new vigor to the labors. Whisky drinking certainly prevails to a remarkable extent for a professedly religious community; and once on a subsequent occasion at a dance, the fiddler refused to play longer without a further supply of liquor, and one of the principal church officers took up a collection to precure it, the article being kept for sale in the village by another dignitary of the church.—Toward morning a plan as adopted for the benefit of the wall flowers, which consisted in allowing the ladies to choose their partners, which they did, and at the conclusion of each dance duly seated their beaux, and returned unattended to their own side of the house. Finally, about three o’clock in the morning, one of the church leaders came forward and dismissed the assembly with prayer.¹

1. The Shasta Courier, “How the Mormons Dance,” Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. Of Congress, June 2, 1866, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015099/1866-06-02/ed-1/seq-2/.