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Isabelle Maria Harris and her son Horace Merrill were photographed at the Salt Lake City studio of Charles R. Savage around the time of their confinement in the Utah Territorial Penitentiary. Harris was imprisoned from 18 May to 31 August 1883 after being convicted of contempt of court; young Horace was allowed to stay with his mother in the penitentiary and spent his first birthday there. (PH 12035, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Belle Harris and Horace Merrill, circa Summer 1883

Belle Harris was twenty years old when she sat for this photo, according to her brother Silas Albert Harris. She gave birth to her first child shortly before her twentieth birthday and was pregnant again before she turned twenty-one. Image courtesy FamilySearch.org, submitted by user JRVance, accessed 24 Jan. 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/3478731.

Belle Harris, circa 1881

Undated photograph of Belle Harris. Image courtesy FamilySearch.org, submitted by user JRVance, accessed 24 Jan. 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/3478748.

Belle Harris

Undated photograph of Belle Harris. Image courtesy FamilySearch.org, submitted by user JRVance, accessed 24 Jan. 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/3478737.

Belle Harris

Clarence Merrill is shown in this photo dated 1874, about three years before meeting Belle Harris. She was sixteen years old when they met, while he was thirty-six and already married to two women. Harris and Merrill married in 1877 and had two sons together before divorcing in 1883. Photograph by James Fennemore. (PH 8004, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Clarence Merrill, 1874

Sample Entries

Excerpt from 18 May 1883 entry: “I arived here to day at 3 oclock faint and tired after traveling a distance of 220 myles without eating are sleeping the excitement under which I have been laboring began to tell upon my nevers.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-05">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

18 May 1883

Excerpt from 22 May 1883 entry: “I have had a long visit to day from my Father we were allowed to talk as long as we chose without interruption and when he took his leave he seemed to feel well and I felt thankfull that I was so well off.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-05?lang=eng#title6">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

22 May 1883

Excerpt from 24 May 1883 entry: “I wonder whom they think I am afraid of. I should think I have proved that I am not so great a coward for rather than assist in giving evidence which I knew was calculated to make mischief, I dared to brave the terrors of a felon’s den.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-05?lang=eng#title8">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

24 May 1883

Excerpt from 30 May 1883 entry: “A sickening sence of lonleyness seemed to come over me when the great iron bar was drawn and bolted that would confine me to my room though only for a few hours.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-05?lang=eng#title13">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

30 May 1883

Excerpt from 4 June 1883 entry: “I have learned to day that the Supreme Court will not meet untill the third monday in June that will be two weeks more.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-06?lang=eng#title3">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

4 June 1883

Excerpt from 11 June 1883 entry: “They go round with down cast eyes afraid to look right or left for fear of seeing me and if they do chance find me looking at them they look so confused and ashamed of the part they are made to play.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-06?lang=eng#title9">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

11 June 1883

Excerpt from 26 June 1883 entry: “Editor Deseret news. Thinking perhaps a few lines from me might prove interesting to your readers many of whom have taken a lively interest in my welfare. I have concluded to write.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-06?lang=eng#title19">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

26 June 1883

Excerpt from 1 July 1883 entry: “One of the gentlemen who came with Mr Kenner was a reporter for an eastern paper in talking with me he said that the courage I had manifested was somthing wonder full that it had created a great deal of interest in the east.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-07?lang=eng#title2">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

1 July 1883

Excerpt from 3 July 1883 entry: “To day I have been visited Zina D. Young and sister Freese their talk was very pleasant and enlivening Sister Zina also related some of her experience in the early rise of the Church at which I felt my suffering was comparatively nothing.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-07?lang=eng#title3">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

3 July 1883

Excerpt from 4 July 1883 entry: “This is a general day of rejoicing for all and I have not failed to rejoice though not so much for the freedom I enjoy as the knowledge that I am suffering in a worthy cause and one which will surely bring a reward.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-07?lang=eng#title4">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

4 July 1883

Excerpt from 24 July 1883 entry: “July 24 to day I have witnessed the baloon sailing in the air it passed directly over the Penitentiary so close that we could destinctly see the lady who was in the basket wave her handkerchief.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-07?lang=eng#title15">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

24 July 1883

Excerpt from 6 August 1883 entry: “I had visitors this afternoon: Mrs. Harriet Strickland and Miss Labisa Lears and Sister Jane Freeze. Sister Freeze brought me a paper with an article from a Gentile lady of New York on my case, in which she is kind in my praise and appeals to all ladies to wield their pens in my defense.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-08?lang=eng#title7">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

6 August 1883

Excerpt from 13 August 1883 entry: “I am feeling so lonely I am sick and baby is not well havent seen any one for a few days didnt get any letters to day but I think Pa is surely started by this time no one around here dares to speak to me now scarcely I shall be so glad to go home.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-08?lang=eng#title10">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

13 August 1883

Excerpt from 31 August 1883 entry: “I have heard nothing yet whether I am going to be liberated are not. Pa was out to day he says most of those who have expressed their opinion to him think that we will surely hear something this evening as the Grand Jury will in all probability be discharged to day.” A transcript of the complete journal entry is <a href="/belle-harris/1883/1883-08?lang=eng#title24">available here</a>. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

31 August 1883

Other

This photograph of the Utah Territorial Penitentiary is dated 31 October 1855, during the facility’s first year of operation. The penitentiary stood in what is now Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City. Isabelle Maria Harris spent the summer of 1883 there after being convicted of contempt of court; because she was the penitentiary’s first female inmate, a room was constructed for her adjacent to the warden’s home outside the penitentiary wall. (Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society.)

Utah Territorial Penitentiary

In May 1883, Belle Harris refused to testify against her polygamous former husband, Clarence Merrill, before a grand jury and was ruled in contempt. A Salt Lake City newspaper reported on the proceedings and on Harris’s subsequent commitment to the Utah Territorial Penitentiary. (“Contempt Case,” <em>Salt Lake Herald-Republican,</em> 18 May 1883, 8.)

Newspaper Article, 18 May 1883

A Salt Lake City newspaper reported on Belle Harris’s release from the Utah Territorial Penitentiary on 31 August 1883 after 106 days’ confinement on a contempt charge. After the grand jury that had convicted her disbanded, the report noted, “an order was issued for the release of the contumacious witness.” (“Belle Harris,” <em>Salt Lake Herald-Republican,</em> 1 Sept. 1883, 8.)

Newspaper Article, 1 September 1883

Belle Harris’s journal and other sources provide the names of quite a few Latter-day Saints who visited Harris when she was in prison, often bringing her food or other items. This 2023 photomontage identifies many of these visitors.

Belle Harris's Visitors