The Only Money Owing

http://www.landinsalida.com/images/2_Salida_vacant_land_for_sale_Colorado.jpg

When the Saints first entered the Salt Lake Valley land wasn’t sold, but rather allocated to the members of the Church. What was the only money owing after a family received it’s land?

a.                  A donation to the Relief Society

b.                  A land tax

c.                   A surveyors fee

d.                  A land tithe

Yesterday’s answer:

A   The poor went before the rich

A revelation from Joseph Smith prophesied: “The righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with songs of everlasting joy.” Although Smith’s revelations counseled the Saints not to “gather in haste, lest there by confusion,” entire bodies of Mormon congregations moved to Jackson County. Shortly after Smith’s first visit to Missouri, he recorded the revelatory counsel that the gathering begin with the rich and the learned, the wise and the noble. . . [T]hen shall the poor, the lame and the blind, and the deaf, come in unto the marriage of the Lamb.” However, “this regulation was not attended to,” Mormon John Corrill wrote, “for the church got crazy to go up to Zion, as it was then called. The rich were afraid to send up their money to purchase lands, and the poor coursed up in numbers, without having any places provided, contrary to the advice of the bishop and others.” Trusting that they were the chosen people of God, the more destitute Mormons rushed to Zion expecting to receive the blessings of the Lord. The land of Zion was their “Inheritance” and according to one revelation, the Lord promised to “consecrate the riches of the Gentiles, unto my people which are of the house of Israel.” Within two years of settlement, Mormons numbered 1,200—a third of the county’s population.

Matthew B. Lund, A Society of Like-Minded Men: American Localism and The Mormon Expulsion From Jackson County, Journal of Mormon History, Summer 2014, 177-178.