History of the Word of Wisdom, May 18, 1891

-- May 18, 1891
[Apostle Marriner W. Merrill Diary] .... Took dinner with President Paxman, and in the afternoon he drove me over the city of Nephi and up the canyon to the gypsum, or plaster of parts, works, and to the roller flour mills and down to Sister Grover's (Wells) place, where Brother Paxman left me and I visited with her some two hours. Found her very poor and without flour or other necessaries. I came up to Co-op store and sent her 50 pounds of flour, $1.15, package-coffee, 35c, package tea, 25c, one pound butter, 25c, and sugar, $1.00, total $3.00. I then came on to President Paxman's at 7 p. m. and took supper with him. Nephi City has a population of 3,500 people, several stores, bank, courthouse, etc., and seems a prosperous place. It is raining again tonight. (1)

-- Jun 7, 1891
[Apostle Abraham H. Cannon Journal] I took the 7 a.m. train for Morgan City, and met at Ogden Bros. Lorenzo Snow and F[ranklin] D. Richards who went along. We were met at the station by R[onal]d Fry who took us to his house where we rested a few moments before going to meeting at 10 a.m. The forenoon services were occupied by L. Snow in a discourse as to our future rewards and blessings through our faithfulness, and then told the brethren how willing they should be to yield a little of what they might consider were their rights in order to maintain peace. To illustrate he related how he and some young men when in Kirtland [Ohio] were once taking home their sweethearts from a party, when they met a party of young men who boisterously shouted, "Turn out of the road, or we'll serve you like we did some others back there." Bro. Snow suggested that as these young fellows were probably drunk they had better turn out, and thus they did. As the noisy young fellows passed the inquiry
was made as to how they had treated those who were back on the road, when they replied, "We turned out ourselves." This is the spirit in which difficulties should be settled. ... (2)

-- Jul 7, 1891
[Apostle Heber J. Grant Diary] Lorenzo Snow . . . .... Said that when he called at the houses of the saints they asked him if he would take tea or coffee and he said neither, but told them he wanted milk. He was in the same position with politics he did not want to be a Republican or a Democrat, but he wanted to be for the building up of the Kingdom of God . . . . (3)

-- Sep 28, 1891
Apostle John Henry Smith, in Mesa, Arizona, writes in his diary: "There is some drunken tramp here who claims he has papers for my arest." (4)

-- Nov 10, 1891
[U.S. Religious History] The first Woman's Christian Temperance Union meeting was held in Boston. (5)

Footnotes:
1 - Notes from the Miscellaneous Record Book, 1886-1906: Selected diary notes from the journal books of Marriner Wood Merrill, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies
2 - Diary of Apostle Abraham H. Cannon, http://www.amazon.com/Apostles-Record-Journals-Abraham-1889-1896/dp/B000MFD1K4
3 - Diary Excerpts of Heber J. Grant, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies
4 - On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com
5 - Cline, Austin, History of American Religion: Timeline

LDS History Chronology: the Word of Wisdom

Mormon Timeline: the Word of Wisdom
http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/