Friday, June 21, 2013

Lucy Mack Smith and Magic Circles


Lucy Mack Smith with a few of her children
What could Lucy Mack Smith possibly be referring to in the history of her family’s involvement with “drawing magic circles, and soothsaying,”?

A)                  Since none of the family belonged to any organized religion at the time, they centered their religious beliefs heavily in astrology


B)                 They told futures as a way to earn additional income


C)                 The circles were drawn through the condensation on the windows at early morning to determine the weather for the remainder of the day


D)                 The family, like many early American families, relied heavily on Almanacs for agricultural information and recipes to medicines

           

Yesterday’s answer:
(C)   Monument to Mobocracy

However, the pace was not enough for the Anti-Mormons, and in the fall of 1846 the few Mormons remaining in Nauvoo, most of whom were poor, old, or sick, were driven from the city in what is called the Battle of Nauvoo. With the departure of these last Latter-day Saint refugees, the Anti-Mormon Party met on January 9, 1847, and discussed building a monument that would immortalize non-Mormon deeds and be a fitting tribute to the “six brave men who had lost their lives” in what historian Annette P. Hampshire called “The Triumph of Mobocracy.” The monument never became a reality. Perhaps the fact that, as a Burlington Hawk Eye reporter wrote of Nauvoo, “No fair hand was there and no breath was heard save the rustling zephyrs of heaven,” was monument enough.

 Plewe, Brandon S., et. at., Mapping Mormonism (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2012) 62.

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