Moving the Church

How many tons of Church material was William Clayton in charge of loading and moving to the Salt Lake Valley?

a.      1

b.      7

c.       2

d.      5

Yesterday’s answer:

a.      A stone wall surrounded the city

The following were the perceptions at the time of Nauvoo by those who did not belong to the Church, as related by Dan Jones.  Dan Jones was a Mississippi River Captain who later joined the Church and spent the last night with the Prophet Joseph Smith in Carthage Jail.

After this I went with him (Joseph Smith) about the city and I saw everyone about his separate task, looking like everyone else, but more comely and diligent than others. Having circled the place, I failed to observe a drunkard, or a place to get drunk, or an oath or even one useless act! “Could it be,” I said, “that everything I heard about this place and this people is false? If not, where is the huge wall which surrounds the city so that no one may come back from it alive?” (as I heard). There were not two rocks together there for that purpose! Where were all the “slaves” I had heard about, and the business of “all things in common” and many of the other strange things? Everyone here is as free and independent as anyone I ever saw, yes, and each one enjoying his possessions, fruit of  his diligence, his family, his money, and his thoughts and his own opinions unhindered. And there was even a state defense for all that freedom. Instead of “Joseph Smith taking others possessions or any of the other elders either being supported at the cost of others’ possessions” or any of the other elders either being supported at the cost of others, as did the “Reverends” and the writers who accused them, they support their families at their own expense.

In this way I got everything to the contrary of what I had heard about the place and its inhabitants, until by the time I arrived back at the boat I was rather ready to say that I would not believe anything from then on about them except what I saw. At least I determined to believe to the contrary of what the Mormons’ enemies said about them. And doubtless there were hosts like myself who went there with minds filled with prejudice, and who returned from there with a completely opposite opinion about the place and the people. I was hosts of such during the time that we were carrying several thousand immigrants there after that.

Dan Jones, History of the Latter-day Saints, From Their Establishment in 1823 Until the Time That 30,000 of Them Were Exiled From America Because of Their Religion in 1846. Translation of Welsh Title by Ronald D. Dennis. Merthyr Tydfil: Published and for sale by Capt. Jones, 1847.