No Forgiveness: Murder in the Mormon Frontier

Thursday, March 12, 6p | Doors open 5:30p | free

History Jackson Hole invites the community to a talk by Dan Neal, author of “No Forgiveness – Family, Polygamy, Murder and Justice Among Idaho’s Pioneering Mormons.” Meticulously researched and written, the book portrays a faith in transition, a frontier society under pressure, and, as one reviewer said, “the deeply human costs of religious idealism and social isolation.” 

It also involves two major figures in the history of Jackson Hole: Elijah Nicholas “Uncle Nick” Wilson and his son Charles.  

On July 5, 1911, Ellington Smith shot and killed his Darby, Idaho neighbor David S. Neal. The action culminated a feud over a spring creek the two farmers used. Both men were Mormon pioneers in the Teton Basin. Neal served the community as the principal of the Darby school. Smith was the son-in-law of Uncle Nick Wilson, whose clan established the first Mormon homesteads and farms in Jackson Hole. 

In his 1985 memoir, Uncle Nick’s son Charles remembered the murder and recalled that he and his father, who had traveled over Teton Pass to peddle Nick’s new book, went to see Smith in an Idaho jail shortly after his arrest. Charley Wilson spun a true Wild West tale about their visit and the murder. Neal found Charley’s account to be wildly inaccurate. 

about daniel j neal 

Author Daniel J Neal is the grandson of David S. Neal, the former editor-in-chief of the Casper Star-Tribune, and has worked as a journalist in Washington state and Wyoming for more than 25 years and later directed the Equality State Policy Center. He lives in Casper. 

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. at the Jackson Hole History Museum, 175 East Broadway Ave. The program begins at 6 p.m., followed by a book signing. Books will be available for purchase, before and after the event, in the Museum Store.