Part Three: Marriage of a Montezuma

Nanzetta would have struck Salt Lake City like a lightning bolt.

We know very little about the young medicine peddler’s time in Utah, but we can guess much.

Firstly…

A Little Relevant Folklore

To understand Nanzetta’s impact in Zion we must first attempt to get inside the mind of a turn-of-the-century Utahn, beginning with a little background on, yup, you guessed it: Mormonism.

The Book of Mormon, of course, is the central book of scripture of the LDS faith and is considered by its followers to be a record of God’s dealings with the people of ancient America from about 600 B.C. to 400 A.D, the pinnacle of which being the appearance of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion to the people inhabiting the lands therein described. The main story arch of the book covers the history of two civilizations, the Nephites (the white-skinned good guys) and the Lamanites (the dark-skinned baddies who must be brought back into the fold of Christ).

The actual location of the events that take place within the book’s text has been a matter of debate since the foundation of the religion. For our purposes, we will assume they take place in Mesoamerica. Those who favor this model, like anthropologist John Sorenson, emeritus professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University, argue that the geography of southern Mexico and Guatemala, particularly the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, align with the descriptions of the landscape provided in the Book of Mormon text. (1)

The White God of the Aztecs

In an article in the Deseret News (Salt Lake City) in 1882, the then president or “prophet” of the Mormon church, John Taylor, wrote:

The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and teachings of the Savior’s life and ministry.

President Taylor is correct in saying that history has evolved to change the story considerably, only he’s accounting for its evolution in the wrong direction. The supposed advent of the bearded “white god” Quetzalcoatl, a concept handed down from the Olmecs who preceded the Aztec and Mayan civilizations and, in turn, from the Toltecs whom the Aztecs greatly revered, first appears in historical accounts sometime around 1200 B.C. long before Christ. Neither was he ever white nor bearded in the conventional sense but wore a costume of white feathers. In addition, he was one of four gods in the Aztec pantheon, each representing a color associated with an element, Quetzalcoatl being the white god in contrast to the black, blue, and red gods. (2)

Advent of an Aztec

But to Mormons in the early 1900s, the arrival of an Aztec, a real-life in-the-flesh Lamanite who might yet be rescued and saved of his sins (and his skin thereby turned white) was a living archeological relic and evidence of the Book of Mormon’s truthfulness. When the “dashing and handsome” Presha Posey found Nanzeta, she had found a prize indeed.

No doubt, old Nan played into this lore. The “romantic looking” Nanzeta, replete with his stories of duels fought over the hearts of young ladies, was less likely looking for love when he met Miss Posey than he was for a potential purse to secure the funds necessary to maintain his comfortable life (or at least the appearance thereof). Either way, I don’t think the fact that Miss Posey was the lonely and isolated daughter of a wealthy cattle rancher had nothing to do with Nanzeta’s desires to maker her his wife. And there was undoubtedly much for Presha to love in the “prince’s” appearance and manner, in his dress and intelligence, and in his stories of heroism, suffering, and sacrifice. He certainly presented himself convincingly as a wealthy and educated man of aristocratic and noble breeding, and he had the jewels to show in evidence of his own wealth.

Miss Posey

I’ll confess that, when I started this post, I thought I had everything I was likely to find in regards to Nanzeta’s first wife. I had very nearly completed the post when I had a breakthrough. And I really thought that, of all of the characters connected to Nanzeta, she would be the most reliable. It seems Presha was inclined to a few stretches of the truth herself. And I’m going to put a note here (3) as a reference point, because information on this woman is still incoming. At least I hope it is. And so if anything new comes in, I won’t rewrite this section, but I’ll add it as a note at the bottom of this post. That way we can all keep track more easily as to how this story evolves.

Most of what we know about Presha’s marriage to Nanzeta is told by Presha herself. Others by newspaper reporters who related to readers of the day the more riveting details of their divorce hearing.

In the Los Angeles Times of March 3, 1905 we learn:

Her father … sent her to the university at Salt Lake City to be educated. There [Nanzeta] appeared upon the scene and captivated the college girl. In 1903, she met him at Ogden and eloped with him to San Francisco, where they tarried for a few days while she visited friends in Oakland.

Nanzeta had been in Salt Lake in September of 1902, and it’s possible he met Presha at that time as she had just arrived at the start of the fall term. Or perhaps it was when he returned in May of 1903, his first stop upon leaving winter quarters in California. His arrival, like that of eight months previous, was described by papers, and it’s important to note the details.

According to The Salt Lake Herald, 7 May 1903: Prince Nanzeta Montezuma, exiled ruler of the Aztecs and last of the Montezumas, was a visitor in Zion yesterday. He arrived from San Francisco in the morning and leaves this morning for the east. The throne of the Aztecs, who inhabit the unexplored mountains in the southern part of Mexico, and which the young prince would hold now were he permitted to go among his people, is being occupied by his uncle, the only other living Montezuma.

The article goes on to tell his usual tale of woe, the simplified one about his involvement in the Mexican war against the Yaqui, and not the one intermixed with tortures in Tibet or confused with references to the Incas. It’s clean. It’s neat. It’s almost believable. The article also provides a description of the man himself, which is also important to note, for reasons that are soon to become clear.

The prince is 25 years of age, but to all apearrances is not more than a boy of 18. … He has the dark olive complexion characteristic of the people of Mexico. His hair he wears to his shoulders. It is coal black, curly, and fine as silk. He possesses a wealth of it. In matter of attire he is very plain. Were it not for his long hair, he might pass unnoticed.

His visit in Zion was picked up and published by at least eleven other papers.

Engaged

It’s not until the 16th of November that Nanzeta announces, albeit awkwardly, his engagement. It was on the train station platform as Nanzeta was preparing to embark, that a reporter from The Denver Post caught up with him. The “Prince” was returning to Los Angeles. “Yes, I’m the last of my race,” he said. “If I die without an heir the picturesque estate in Mexico handed down from the days of the Aztec will pass into profane hands … but my family name may not die for years to come,” he added, “for I’m engaged to be married, you know.”

He goes on to explain how he is engaged to marry Miss Ida Patton of San Francisco. He was on his way to meet her, he said, and explained that her father was one of the candidates for mayor in San Francisco some years ago, but he couldn’t remember his first name. “You see, Mr. Patton and myself do not get along very well,” he said. “I know too much about him, and he is opposed to me marrying his daughter. He says I am a fakir (a word used for patent medicine pitchmen who often pretended to be oriental). But that is not true. The blood of the Montezumas flows in my veins, and my uncle, the only other survivor of our race, died in Mexico about a year ago.”

The reporter described the “prince” as a “romantic looking young man. He is short in stature and has a low, musical voice and his hands and feet are almost as small as a woman’s. His skin is a deep olive, his eyes langorous, his lashes long and dark and his raven black hair falls in ripples to his shoulders. His dress is of the prevailing mode, except for a large soft white hat, and he wears a lot of curious looking jewelry. A large glass illuminates his shirt front.”

Accompanying the report, is a photograph:

The description matches what we know of “our” Nanzeta, and yet the characterization of his bride is bizarrely inaccurate. But the photo … What do I say about this photo? It’s so dark it’s difficult to see if his hair is long, but this matches no description of him I have seen. His shirt front is not exposed, it is a starched collar and not the negligee-type we have seen in photographs. And his hat is clearly dark. It’s a puzzling image. Maybe I’m in denial (it’s possible) but there may be another explanation, but I’m not convinced the “prince” is working alone here.

On the 19th of November, Prince Nanzeta Montezuma checks into the Metropole Hotel in Oakland, California with a companion, Miss P. Posey Montezuma, of Mexico.

The next day, the “prince” is questioned about the claims he made in Denver about marrying Mr. Patton’s daughter.

The statement was telegraphed from Denver, and met with a prompt and convincing denial from Patton the same day. Patton has no daughter.

Upon being informed that Patton was a man of six or seven feet tall and possessed of a large frame and great strength to match his temper, the “prince” who was “of short and slender stature, and weighs probably 130 pounds” promptly wrote an apology stating that the Denver dispatch had got it wrong. “The noble descendant of the great Aztec ruler was already married … and could not have made such a statement.”

Doppelgangers and Decoys

Not only do we have conflicting statements, but here another mystery presents itself: On the 19th of November, the same day that Nanzeta and his new wife registered at the Metripole,”Prince Nanzeta Montezuma and wife” is found written upon the register at the Lick Hotel. There are dozen reasons their names might appear on two San Francisco hotel registries at the same time. Perhaps there was merely a delay in reporting by the papers. Or possibly they changed hotels when Nanzeta realized a muscly San Francisco ex-politician was after him. Or, maybe … are there two Nanzetas?” Is there reason for a decoy? He might easily have written her name without her being there, as he seems to have done in Denver.

The article published by the Lick also offers a description of the “prince”: “The young man has a wealth of black hair that hangs in waves on his shoulders and his face is adorned with a dainty little mustache that is like unto the appearance of a burned match. He is a muchly bejewelled person. He wears a large collection of rings, and a colossal stone, somewhat resembling a diamond, decorates his neglige (their misspelling) shirt.” This is the first we hear of a moustache!

It’s here, at the Lick, that Nanzeta suddenly remembers the circumstances of his marriage and the identity of his bride. Here he claims to have been married in Kansas City three months ago. He gives a little background on Miss Ida Posey, the daughter of Colonel Edward Posey, “who is one of San Francisco’s most prominent citizens.” And then he remembers, off-handedly and seemingly belatedly, that Colonel Posey had relocated to Arizona where he operated one of the largest cattle ranches in the state. “There were reasons I did not want my marriage to become known, and for that reason my wife registered under her maiden name at the hotel where we stopped in Denver and we occupied separate rooms on different floors of the hotel.” Only in that Denver article, Nanzeta had said he was on his way to collect her, so he can’t have had her with him. Is he a liar with a terrible memory? Or are there two people playing this part? And what does Presha know?

Not much, I think, but she was beginning to figure out pretty quickly that her husband wasn’t who he had claimed to be. Neither does this timeline make much sense in comparison to what she later had to say to the papers.

“In 1903,” as we have already read, “she met him at Ogden and eloped with him to San Francisco,” where they arrived on the 19th of November, and where “they tarried for a few days while she visited friends in Oakland.” And yet, it wasn’t until the 25th of November that the marriage license was taken out. A day later, they were married in Los Angeles. “After her marriage she discovered for the first time that [he] was a traveling lecturer for the Oriental Remedy Company. About the same time she received a telegram from her home, telling her of her mother’s serious illness, and she at once started for Arizona.”

I had thought this might be a ruse to get her out of her new husband’s hands, but it seems she had not revealed her marriage yet when she returned home to her family.

In the course of the divorce proceedings, Presha, whose real name was apparently Preshie (the discovery of which unlocked a treasure trove of information about her) claimed that the date of her desertion was the 12th of January, which I supposed must have been the date she had returned to Los Angeles, except that I then found this:

The above article, published in the Graham Guardian (Safford, AZ) on Feb 12, 1904, seems astonishing, but, as we’ll soon see, it’s pretty on-brand. It also shows that Presha was on relatively friendly terms with her husband as late as mid-February, though that might simply be a lapse in memory. Whenever it was she returned to him, she claimed in her divorce proceedings, that “he would have nothing more to do with her.” It is true, however, that, before the days of no-fault divorce, even when a divorce was amicable, it could not appear to be so or the judge would not grant it, so it’s possible some of her contentions are invented.

A couple of things to note before we move on with the story, and that is to note the details of their marriage license. Presha (which is the name she signed the license under) said she was 22 (no exact date is asked nor given) and that she was born in Alabama, and Nanzeta, who signed the certificate as Nanzeta Von Santen, claimed he was 25 and born in San Francisco.

It seemed they both lied. I expected it of him, but not of her.

Again from her divorce proceedings: “Mrs. Van Santen could not throw any light upon the matter herself, (in regard to his not wanting her anymore) beyond saying that she believed that he fibbed when he persuaded her to elope with him. She believes now that he was under age when they got married, [and that] Van Santen is not his true name, but that his real name is Diaz.”

Indeed, they both lied on that marriage certificate, but Nanzeta gave a different date and place of birth on every form he signed. Though we know him already to be a career liar, I actually think it’s possible he was not entirely certain when he was born. An 18 year old, however, should know within a year or two, but his given ages span about 7 years. At the time of his marriage to Presha in 1903, he stated he was 25, making his date of birth 1878. Violet McNeal said he was 18 when she met him in 1904, which would place his date of birth closer to 1885, meaning he was about 17 or 18 when he married Presha. Contrary to what some like to attest, the marriage age in Utah was not significantly younger than elsewhere in the United States. For males it was 21, for women it was 18. But Presha, too, had stretched the truth on her marriage license. She had stated she was 22, when in fact she was closer to 26. It’s entirely possible that Presha, who was on her way to becoming a teacher when she met Nanzeta, had been sent to Utah to find a husband. And that she did!

And what of the timeline of their travels? When did he collect her? According to him, they had been traveling together for months. Indeed, I’ve often wondered if he had not been traveling with a woman. He’d been accused of being a woman often enough. Were they both in Denver or was it someone else who could not remember the name of her father? Was it a lie, a ruse? Or was it someone else who had forgotten his part in the story? Once they had arrived in California, what were they doing for the week between their arrival and their marriage? They weren’t entwined in desperate love, that’s for certain.

“My husband believed in platonic love only,” Presha declared from the witness stand during her divorce hearing. Later, outside the courthouse, she said she was “at work on a novel which is to be known as ‘A Mormon Sapho’.” Is the title in reference to her or to him? The papers also said, apparently based on divorce hearing testimony, that they had lived together for only a single day.

But was that the truth, or was it just another lie? And, more importantly, whom did she actually marry?

I intentionally glazed over the fact that the the signature on the marriage license was Nanzeta Von Santen and not Henry Nanzeta or John H. Nanzetta, a name that does not appear in any paper or upon any formal document before 1905.

A 1905 article in The Los Angeles Times announces the arrest of Henry Nanzeta. Remember that, in Danville, Henry was the “H” in J.H. Nanzetta. In the March 9 article which described their divorce proceedings, Presha’s husband, Von Santen, is identified as the same who was arrested the day before.

The same article also says: “Von Santen, who is also known as ‘Prince Nanzeta,’ ‘Dr. Diaz,’ and ‘Dr. Santing,’ is a humorous Hindoo looking chap of about 21. He is a member of the Oriental Remedy Company of South Main Street.”

Accompanying him in the courtroom was E.M. Davis, a name I want to note here, but which we’ll discuss at length in an upcoming article.

While I’d like to use the above information along with their complete sources as proof that Presha married the same Nanzeta who became John H. Nanzetta in Danville, VA and elsewhere after 1905, it’s necessary that we take a minute to examine who else it might be. Indeed, there was a Van Santen associated with the Oriental Remedy Company and the identity of Prince Nanzeta.

But that deserves its own chapter.

Before that, though … I have a little more to say regarding Nanzeta’s temporary foray into Mormonism.

Corianton

Latter Day Saint church historian B.H. Roberts spent much of his time in the Mormon religion as I did, steadfastly holding onto its precepts while, at the same time, trying to grapple with its paradoxes and shortcoming. Roberts, a British immigrant and a polygamist, was a controversial figure whether you stood inside the church or out of it. His life was fascinating and worth a deeper look, but we don’t have time to say much more about him here. Of his many contributions to Mormon culture, aside from his official church appointed work as the explainer of some of the religion’s more problematic doctrines (questions which remain unsatisfactorily answered today) he wrote a fictional work based on the Book of Mormon figure, Corianton and titled the same.

Corianton, who makes up no more than a handful of verses in the Book of Mormon becomes a major player in B.H. Roberts’ book. In the Book of Mormon, Corianton, the follower of an anti-Christ figure named Korihor. When Korihor’s mouth is sealed up by the power of God as a punishment for blasphemy, Corihor is converted to Christianity. Later, however, he rebels and reverts to his old ways. Part of that rebellion involves his pursual of the prostitute, Isabel. Roberts, in his book, has a bit of a different take on the Isabel sequence and poses the question of Corianton perhaps being set up, not to sin, but to suffer from the “appearance thereof”.

About the same time, another work was published by Julia A. MacDonald called “A Ship of Hagoth” which features another scene belonging to the minor character Corianton. In this Book of Mormon episode, Corianton is preparing to sail to the “land northward”. Where Roberts book stayed firmly within the perameters of its text of inspiration, MacDonald invents new characters and plot lines.

In MacDonald’s book, Corianton is involved in a love triangle between Isabel, Shiblon, and a fictionalized character named Relia. In the end Isabel and Shiblon die, Relia forgives Corianton of his emotional disloyalty, and the two live happily ever after.

From these two books, a Utah school teacher named Orestes Utah Bean combined both stories and developed them into a stage play he called, simply, “Corianton.”

Where Bean lacked talent, he made up for it in the way of unshakeable confidence in the show’s destiny for the grand stage. He found backers and somehow assembled a professional cast of New York stage actors for the leading roles. For the minor roles, he enlisted local actors from Utah, including a grandson of the late Brigham Young. The play opened in Salt Lake city in August of 1902 to mixed but not raving reviews. Still, the show must go on and this one did, playing for six weeks in Utah’s major cities before going on the road to play in Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, and Chicago. Finally the play landed in New York City.

As might be expected, audiences unfamiliar with Mormon lore were confused and bored. The show received terrible reviews and a lot of publicity.

All of that to explain this, from the Salt Lake Telegram, 5 June 1903:

And this from the Salt Lake Tribune, 31 August 1902, a year earlier:

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Notes:
(1) Dialogue Journal: Critique of a Limited Geography for Book of Mormon Events. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/critique-of-a-limited-geography-for-book-of-mormon-events/

(2) Brant Gardner, Quetzalcoatl, White Gods and the Book of Mormon. Rational Faiths Blog. https://rationalfaiths.com/quetzalcoatl-white-god-and-the-book-of-mormon-part-i/

(3) Preshie Idella Posie was born on the 26th of December 1877 in Alabama. Her parents converted to Mormonism shortly after their marriage and moved first to Colorado, but, not liking it there, they relocated to Arizona. Preshie’s father’s name was William, not Edward, as Nanzeta had said. Presha divorced Nanzeta in March of 1905, by December of that same year, she had remarried (so, too, had Nanzeta).

Her death may or may not bear significance on our story, so I’ll leave that, for now, to tell of later.

One other odd note, I use Familysearch.org for most of my research. The site has a neat feature that shows you how you may be related to someone. It’s not a feature I pay much attention to since most of what I use it for is to study the history of people who lived in Danville (and I’m not from here). Ironically, the notification popped up on this research thread. Preshie is my 9th cousin. Makes you wonder why this story is so important to me, doesn’t it? Nanzeta may not have wanted the secrets of his life revealed, but she would, I think.