Buffalo Mittens

The Nauvoo Temple

Only 15 months after founding Nauvoo, the First Presidency, obedient to revelation, announced that the time had now come "to erect a house of prayer, a house of order, a house for the worship of our God, where the ordinances can be attended to agreeable to His divine will." Though poor and struggling to provide for their own families, Latter-day Saints responded to their leaders’ call and began donating time and means toward constructing a temple. More than 1,000 men donated every tenth day in labor. Louisa Decker, a young girl, was impressed that her mother sold her china dishes and a fine bed quilt as her temple contribution. Other Latter-day Saints gave horses, wagons, cows, pork, and grain to aid in the temple’s construction. The women of Nauvoo were asked to contribute their dimes and pennies for the temple fund.
Caroline Butler had no pennies or dimes to contribute, but she wanted very much to give something. One day while going to the city in a wagon, she saw two dead buffalo. Suddenly she knew what her temple gift could be. She and her children pulled the long hair from the buffaloes’ manes and took it home with them. They washed and carded the hair and spun it into coarse yarn, then knitted eight pairs of heavy mittens that were given to the rock cutters working on the temple in the bitter winter cold.
"The Mormons and Indians," Heart Throbs of the West, 7:385.


A friend of mine, Sister Cheney from Gooding, Idaho (she passed away last year), was Caroline Butler's 2ggdau. She and her husband served a mission in New Zealand. While there she found someone who spun buffalo yarn for her (at a pretty steep price!). Since she didn't know how to knit, she asked me if I would knit some mittens for her, like the ones Caroline made so long ago. This was a special experience for me - it made me feel close to the early saints, who sacrificed so much.