(MORMONS) Calligraphic marriage certificate drawn by Frank W

Sale 2633 - Lot 127

Price Realized: $ 2,750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

(MORMONS.) Calligraphic marriage certificate drawn by Frank Warner, the converted Shoshone missionary. Ink on textile (architectural drafting linen?), 11 1/2 x 9 3/4 inches; laid down on later board, minor foxing, inscribed on board in later hand "Hand lettered by Frank Warner, Lamanite artist." Parker, ID, 5 October 1904

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Frank Warner (1861-1919) was born as Pisappih Timbimboo, son of the Northwestern Shoshone chief Sagwitch. He was wounded and was one of the few survivors of the 1863 Bear River Massacre perpetrated by the United States Army, in which hundreds were killed. Many of the survivors joined the Latter-Day Saints, who in that period were also in conflict with the federal government. Raised in an adoptive family, Warner attended Brigham Young College, and first served as a missionary in 1880. He was one of the first prominent American Indians--then known as Lamanites--in the faith. According to Glen Harding's 1972 family history "Record of the Ancestry, Life, and Descendants of Amos Warner," Frank Warner "showed marked ability in writing and learned the Palmer method and the fancy scroll writing" (page 12).

This certificate is decorated with elaborate calligraphic scrollwork in green, red and black, as well as a dove below the text. It documents the marriage of Fred H. Mason to Yerda S. Matson, officiated by the groom's brother Frank H. Mason in Parker, Idaho. The 1900 census shows Warner living in nearby Spencer, Idaho; he was buried in Parker in 1919.