This question of conspiracies and Mormons in regards to Twain prompted some additional reading for me. I doubt that the Mormons were of much significance to Twain as I suspect his Mormon Bible chapter was little more than fill - as he was known to do throughout his career. The Mormons were nothing more than another characteristic of Washoe for him. It appears he was aware of the so-called Mormon question before arriving there and that his primary awareness of them was their practice of polygamy. He knew of the Mountain Meadows Massacre but it wasn't until several years later that he accepted the idea that the Mormons were responsible. I'm sure he thought the Indians had done it. It's likely that Mrs. Waite’s book, “The Mormon Prophet,” convinced him otherwise. "I left Great Salt Lake a good deal confused as to what state of things existed there—and sometimes even questioning in my own mind whether a state of things existed there at all or not. But presently I remembered with a lightening sense of relief that we had learned two or three trivial things there which we could be certain of; and so the two days were not wholly lost. For instance, we had learned that we were at last in a pioneer land, in absolute and tangible reality."